saga/title/fandom: The Past Never Dies chapter 14 (Pitch Black/Riddick)

author: Shalimar

rating/genre: (NC-17) - het, angst, drama

warnings: het, sexual content, adult content, drug use, criminal activity, religious fusion

summary: What if Jack had stayed on New Mecca with Imam? What if Riddick had come back for her? (Riddick/Jack, Imam/OFC)

comments/disclaimers: General disclaimers apply.

“You didn’t!” Sahar exclaimed, a combination of horror and lurid fascination.

Jack felt her gorge threaten to rise again, just thinking about it. “Yes, I did. Heaved all over everything. I was so sick Fatima had to drive home.”

“I’m sure she was not amused.” Sahar whistled through her teeth; Fatima’s hatred of driving was renowned. “So that’s why you ran into the house and hid in the bathroom?”

“Who was hiding?” Jack objected. “I was having dry heaves. When they finally stopped, I had to bathe.”

“Yes,” her “mother” concurred as she toweled dry Jack’s long, thick hair, “I came in for the end of the bathing part. Please hand me that brush.”

Jack did as she was bidden. She had always found it soothing when Sahar combed out her clean tresses, and she was in desperate need of some soothing just now. She closed her eyes as Sahar scooted onto the bed behind her, and then attacked Jack’s head with skillful hands.

“So you will marry your Riddick?” Sahar marveled. “I see trouble in your future if your reaction to that idea is to puke up your guts.”

“Ohhh,” Jack moaned, “what he must think! It wasn’t consenting to marry him that did it. It was finally consenting to marry at all.”

Now Sahar was confused. “But I thought you wanted to get married.”

“I do want to get married. When you got married to Imam, you didn’t know what to expect in bed. Because of my father, I do know. Even though it’s different when you’re grown and the man is one you want, I don’t know how to forget what I know.”

Jack was glad Sahar was dealing with the back of her head when her “mother” asked, “But didn’t you used to fantasize about this man?”

“I did,” she admitted, feeling sheepish, “but actually having him will be different. In my head, I have total control.”

“You think he’d intentionally hurt you?”

“It’s not that. With two people, I can’t have total control. And he’s a whole lot bigger than I am.”

“Yeah,” sighed Sahar with dreamy envy, giving herself over to lascivious musings.

“Maybe you ought to sleep with him,” Jack suggested, crossly.

Sahar laughed, amused at her vexation. “Don’t tempt me, habibti. Besides, Abu would not stand for me sharing.” She squeezed Jack’s bare shoulders reassuringly. “You will be fine. He will want to please you. Make him go at a speed that suits you. When you are ready, he won’t hurt you.”

“Baba didn’t hurt you?”

Sahar hesitated. “A little. But virgin’s pains are only because it has never happened before. You would not have those. Soon, you will have a baby for me to help you with for a change.”

Babies, Jack echoed in her head. I hadn’t thought about that. Not seriously.

She tried to picture Riddick with a baby and found it impossible. Despite their recent reunion, her mind still conjured him up as he had been on T2: sleekly muscled and as dangerous as a sand cat. She could see him standing tall, with arrogant calm. He was ready to face down anything, his visage as unreadable as his silvered eyes. She saw his big hands, so frighteningly agile with a shiv. She knew him for what he was—a loner who needed no one. How could she possibly have agreed to marry this man?

“Akila, are you in there?” Sahar rapped gently on her skull, concerned by her prolonged silence.

“I never really told you what Riddick is, did I?”

Her “mother” burst out laughing, as if Jack was insane. “He was all you talked to me about when you got here. The hero who saved you and Abu from the monsters.”

“Did I ever tell you that the first time we ever saw him, he was blindfolded, chained and had a bit in his mouth? That he was in the custody of a merc?”

Sahar’s uncharacteristic quiet answered her questions.

“He’s an escaped convicted murderer, Sahar.”

“You told me he was a bad man who saved you in spite of himself. You never told me how bad. Abu has never told me about him at all.”

Jack shook her head in wonder. “When I told you he killed my father, didn’t you start to wonder a little?”

“In truth, Akila, I was so caught up in the romance of it. That a man would go to another planet to kill a man he has never met, to save a woman from further torment sounds like a fairy tale. It hardly seems real to me.”

“Baba claims he has committed no crimes as Richardson,” Jack said, “but I still can’t picture him settling down here with me, being a father to my children. He would have killed Jubair today in the market if I had given him leave to.”

Sahar, as always, viewed the world through a different lens. “Before you, Akila, would he have waited on anyone’s permission?"

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