1 - SHARED PAST

Not Furya / Some time after Riddick's escape from, Not Furya

"Three days." Johns shouted in from behind the opening med-bay door. Dahl stormed in wearing an angry expletive, suggesting their argument had gone on longer than she preferred. Riddick shook his head and sighed as the now open door gave way to further shouts of displeasure. "It's not natural!" Johns continued, as Dahl slammed her fist against the hatch activation switch, ending their heated conversation with a hydraulic thud that clearly meant keep it to yourself.

Riddick imagined John's stewing comments continuing outside, undeterred by the closed hatch. "He still doesn't believe me, does he? I can't blame him, really." Riddick said, watching Dahl place a tray of fresh bandages on a small metal table beside the cot they had confined him to 3 days earlier. He waved Dahl off as she perched on the edge of the cot beside him. "I don't need those." He pressed his wound sharply. "See. It doesn't hurt anymore. It's healed."

"Stomach injuries of that nature don't heal in three days." She replied, slapping his hand away before he split the stitches. "Don't touch it. You'll start it bleeding again."

"It won't bleed anymore." he said, gesturing to the hatch with a frown. "He sounds pissed."

She looked to the hatch, an expression of worry contorted her face. Nothing since Riddick's rescue made any sense. He knew things he shouldn't. He knew the layout of John's ship as if he'd been there before, knew their family history and private details no one would ever tell him. And the story he had told was… well… his story was impossible.

Riddick stared through her with his mirrored eyes. She couldn't look away. Didn't want to look away. Even in the dimmed light of the med bay, Dahl could see herself reflected in his eyes. They were both beautiful and terrifying, and yet, she felt safe around him. Safer than she had ever felt around anyone before. But that feeling of safety and familiarity only confused and frightened her. Everyone calls him a monster; a killer and a criminal. Even so, there was an underlying sense that they were all wrong.

"Can you blame him?" she replied, looking back at the closed door, knowing Johns was still bitching at her through the closed hatch. She knew he wasn't really mad. When Johns got mad, he grew silent. This was something else. She suspected he feared what came next. He feared for them all.

She moved to Riddick's side, leaned over to check his bandage and began unwrapping the cloth from around his waist. "I need to change this."

He touched her hand far too gently for her comfort. It seemed familiar, even caring, and a part of her liked it. A part of her remembered it. The sensations coursing through her mind did not fit the stories she had heard about him. There was more to him than violence and bloodshed. She thought this man can't be a monster. His touch turned to caress, and he said, "Dahl, I'm fine."

"I'll tell you when you're fine." she replied, waving off his touch. Although, it had stirred her in ways she hadn't expected.

"I'm not lying." he said, laying back with his hands clasped behind his head to let her go about the business of tending his wound. "It all happened just like I said it did."

"So you keep saying." she said, unwinding the gauze from around his lean, sculpted abdomen. "But you have to see it from Johns' perspective. We made it to the ship, took off a few minutes later and then came back around to get you. The whole thing couldn't have taken over 15 minutes tops."

Riddick shook his head, his skin went red, and he tapped the toe of his steel toe boat against the metal bed frame in a quickening rhythm suggesting he might blow his top at any second. He desperately fought to maintain his composure. He liked Dahl. No. That wasn't true. Riddick loved her for reasons he could not tell her. He knew she was not ready to believe him. None of them were. He didn't even know if he believed any of it himself, and it had happened to him.

"Wait." she said, touching his chest as if trying to calm his raging heartbeat. The softness of her touch gave him a start. He breathed deep and made as if to move away, but she caught him with a gentle touch. "Calm down. Take a deep breath and relax. It's OK." she said in a soft reassuring tone. He could see it in her eyes. She knew him. But he was afraid he was going to lose her.

"It doesn't feel that way from down here."

"Listen," she continued, trying to keep her tone soothing and calm. "Other than a piece of blue cloth you had wrapped around your waist and a scrap of paper with a phone number…" She stared at him crossly, adding, "You could have gotten from any skank in the Galaxy. You have no actual proof any of what you say happened the way you say it did."

"Skank." he blurted through a laugh, the grin spreading across his face suddenly setting Dahl's typically alabaster complexion on fire. "Are you jealous some other woman gave me her number?"

"I don't even know you, why would I care if some… if some…" Dahl paused, composing her unchecked, unexpected emotions to ponder her next words. "If some woman gave you her number."

Riddick reached out, desperate to make Dahl understand. He caressed her hand and said, "And you know this isn't just about proof; it's also about belief."

She studied the worry spreading across his face, "Why does it matter what I believe?" Dahl gestured to the closed door. "What anyone believes."

"It does." Riddick replied, holding Dahl's hand in his as if it was something they did every day. "Whatever's out there, is using our unwillingness to believe against us."

"That's not the problem." Dahl replied, peering down at her hand. "We only met three days ago and you're acting like we've known each other for years."

"For you it's been three days," Riddick said, taking her hand again. "But for me, it has been years."

"There," Dahl added, frowning at Riddick. "That's why Johns won't believe you. You say that as if it's normal, as if people just move through time all willy-nilly."

"It isn't normal." Riddick admitted in a tone giving credence to the worry in his words. He knew something bad was coming and wanted them to believe him. For the first time in his life, he knew he couldn't fight this battle alone, and he desperately needed their help. "But that doesn't mean it didn't happen." he added, squeezing her hand as if pleading for her to understand.

"But how?"

"I don't know," he snapped, gesturing from an unknown spot in space to the planet far below, "First I was there... and now I'm here."

"That kind of magic is not possible!"

"But it's true, nonetheless."

"I believe you think it did." she said, peeling back the bandage with an expression of shock and dismay. It had vanished. The wound on Riddick's abdomen had vanished without a trace. He wasn't lying.

"If I took this ship back in time 5,000 years, what would people of that time think when I got out?"

"That you were a god or maybe an angel."

"And the ship?"

"I suppose they'd think it was magic or some kind of divine power."

Riddick laughed to himself and said, "The only difference between magic and science is perception."

"I suppose so?"

"Just because we don't understand time travel, doesn't mean it can't happen."

"If that's true, then make me understand how you know me? I know you do. I see it in your eyes, feel it in your touch." she said, looking away. She could feel his eyes on her, willing her to remember him. "And make me understand why I know you? How do I know you're a good man? Why do I care?"

Riddick laughed and said, "There's the problem. You won't believe me."

"I will! Just tell me what you know!"

"Maybe when I came back it changed things here. Maybe when I came back, you forgot me. But I could never forget you. I would never forget you."

"Why?" she asked, hearing the pain and loss in his voice. It made her sick to her stomach, as if she suddenly woke up from a nightmare and realized it was real.

"Because I love you. Because you saved me." She looked to the planet far below and he added, "Not just from those things down there, but from myself. From the thing in here." He slapped his own chest. "I think you can still feel a part of what we had. What we may yet have again. Our story didn't end her Dahlia. It only begins here."

A look of open-mouthed shock crossed her face. She heard the sincerity in his words and desperately wanted them to be true. But she didn't know why. She felt as though a lifetime of memories had slipped away, but the feeling of those missing events remained, like the smell of a freshly baked pie wafting through a gentle summer breeze. "Are you saying in the future we're together," Dahl asked. She could see the furrowed brows, spreading grimace, and knew he thought he had said too much. Thought he may have ruined his chance to be with her.

He nodded, but didn't look at her.

Dahl didn't know how she felt about him. It was all coming too fast for her liking. But she didn't want him to stop wanting her. She knew that much. So she changed the subject, hoping he wouldn't notice. Or maybe he wouldn't mind the break. She gestured at the hatch. "He's only acting that way because he knows you're not lying. We both do."

"Both," Riddick repeated, offering her a playful grin and a gentle squeeze of her hand.

"Yes. Johns too."

"Not in a million years."

"There's a difference between not believing and not wanting to admit your story may be true. He's worried. He doesn't do well with the unknown."

"Do any of us?"

"No," she admitted. "I don't think we do."

The door opened, and Johns walked in Luna. They were talking about the tests the auto-doc had run on Riddick over the last 3 days. "It's not possible," Luna said, placing a hand over the bible in his upper left pocket. "I know where..."

"Science doesn't lie, kid." Johns interrupted. He gestured for Luna to go stand over by the monitor on the wall. "The facts are irrefutable."

"What facts?" Riddick asked, letting go of Dahls' hand when Johns scowled at them touching like school kids.

"Nice," Dahl said, removing the bandage from around Riddick's stomach with an angry glare. Why do men always hide their feelings? She thought, gesturing for Johns to come look at Riddick's miraculous recovery.

Johns looked between them, his obvious displeasure at their attraction bubbling to the surface, and then turned to inspect Riddick's conspicuously absent injury. "Healed my ass," Johns thought out loud. "It's gone all together; there isn't even a scar. That is impossible."

"Looks like we won't be needing these anymore." Dahl said, taking the tray of bandages away and placing them on a metal table in the corner.

"The auto-doc checked your DNA." Johns admitted matter-of-factly. "I wanted to corroborate the data you said Martin showed you. If there was a cellular change like you said, it should be obvious in the results."

"So am I a liar?" Riddick asked.

Johns studied Riddick sitting upright with his feet planted on the floor. Johns could tell he expected a fight. They took each other in for a quick moment and Johns said, "I would call you many things, but a liar is not one of them."

"That warms my heart, uncle Johns."

Johns turned to Dahl and asked, "Is there a specific reason you shared personal family information?"

"I didn't tell him anything." Dahl replied, shoving the tray against the wall. "Why do you always have to assume the worst?"

Before Johns could reply, Riddick said, "In her defense, Dahl didn't tell me anything."

"See," she blurted, casting a heated frown at Johns.

"At least, not yet."

"Not yet." Johns blurted, turning to her with a frown of his own. "So, you're implying she will tell you our family history in the future?"

"Johns, you should know she told me a great deal about you…" Riddick paused, the frown on his growing more intense. "And your new wife." he added.

"Did not!" she protested.

He turned to her with a smirk that made her want to slap him and said, "Perhaps, if you're finally willing to believe, I can finally fill in all the few blanks."

"There's more?" Johns replied, covering his face with a hand and letting out a long sigh. "What haven't you told us?"

"Kid," Riddick said, pointing at Luna. "There's a 5 drawer storage box in the next room. Roll it in here for me, will you? I can't leave this compartment."

Luna looked at Johns as if he didn't know what Riddick was talking about. "Red and black storage box right rear corner of the next compartment."

"It's beside the ammo locker on the port-side bulkhead." Riddick explained. "Don't worry, it's on wheels. You can roll it right in."

Johns nodded at the door and said, "Go get it. I want to see what this is about."

Luna left the room and after a few minutes came back pushing the waist high red metal box. "Is this it?" Luna asked, trying to open the locked drawers.

Riddick nodded and said, "Control panel, upper right-side. The access code is 437 B81-4. Don't forget the dash. It won't open without it."

"Really." Johns said, grimacing at Luna as if he'd told Riddick the code.

Luna shook his head at him and said, "It's not my fault, I had him under 24 hour surveillance since he came aboard. He never left this room."

"How did he know about the code; the missing dash?"

"Or the locker?" Dahl added.

"Or the layout of the next compartment?"

"That's not all." Riddick said, motioning for Luna to pull up the locker's inventory history.

Riddick recited the entire locker inventory. He went through it drawer by drawer, line by line, and item by item. "Listen up kids, unless someone can explain how I did that, having never left this room, then it's time to admit something strange is happening here and none of us understands it."

"All right," Johns said, looking at Luna and Dahl to see if they agreed. "Lets just say you're right. How about you help us make sense of whatever this is?"

"Sure," Riddick replied with a frown, that clearly meant you're an idiot. "Because I'm the guy with the answers to all those theoretical science questions."

"Look around," Johns countered, "You're all we have. And this shit happened to you. So, spill it all and don't leave out the smallest detail."

"Let's start with what the auto-doc learned, over the last 3 days." Riddick said, putting on his t-shirt.

Luna walked to a monitor on the wall, brought up an image of Riddick's blood work, gestured to the screen. "Every cell in your body has undergone a significant alteration at a subatomic level. And from what I can tell from the Auto-doc results. Your cells are still undergoing further changes. Whatever began down there…" he made eye contact with the others before adding, " it hasn't stopped yet. You're still changing."

"Shit." Riddick thought aloud. He stood up, stalked over to the monitor and stared at the cycling images on the monitor with a frown. He just wanted it all to go away. "I'd hoped it was bullshit."

"Me too," Johns replied, scoffing at the monitor.

"See," Riddick said, turning to Dahl. "Uncle John didn't want to believe me."

"I don't know what I wanted," Johns said, turning to him with an unexpected expression of sympathy. "But I know it wasn't this." Johns switched off the monitor, staring into his own reflection as darkness consumed the images of a changing man.

"What's wrong?" Dahl asked, sensing John's unrest.

"Dahl, Luna out." Johns ordered, gesturing between himself and Riddick. "We need to have a private conversation. And if you hear shit flying around the room. Stay out. This is personal."

"Why, Johns, are you going to attack me?"

"No. But after we talk, you may not be in such an agreeable mood."

"Do you think I don't already know what you took from me?"

Johns gestured for them to leave the compartment and said, "No. I don't think you do. If you did. I don't think you'd be here. Now. I think it's time I filled in a few blanks about what happened after Sigma 3."

Riddick's skin went red and. Dahl starred between the two men, cold blue eyes glaring. The last thing she wanted was an all out fight. "Like hell. We're all in this shit together."

Johns grabbed her left forearm and shouted, "As long as you're part of my crew, you'll follow my orders!"

"Oh, we're back to that same old shit again." Dahl said, ready to blow at any second,. She yanked her arm away, almost knocking him over and spat, "As long as you live in my house, you'll do what I say, right?"

Riddick coughed loudly, interrupting her tirade. "Trouble in paradise?"

Dahl kicked a chair across the room and Luna vaulted over the back of it as it bounced off the bulkhead and ricocheted back at them. Luna stumbled backwards, landing in the still upright chair in the middle of the room as everybody gawked in disbelief.

"Hey!" he shouted, glaring at her with an embarrassed expression.

Riddick laughed and said, "A thousand credits says you couldn't do that again even if you tried a hundred times."

"Why can't you be more like your sister?" Johns said, looking to Luna to see if he was all right.

"Seriously," Dahl replied as the blazing scarlet in her cheeks spoke volumes about past arguments. "How many times do I have to tell you, Tahlia has her perfect little fairytale life and I have mine?"

"This is not life!" Johns shouted. "You deserve better; you can have better."

"It was never a problem before this!"

"Things change!" he replied, frowning at Riddick. Riddick rolled his eyes at him.

"So, this is about him!" she said, turning to Riddick, who was enjoying the exchange a little too much for her taste. "You practically shit yourself when I said, I like women too, and now that I finally found a man, he's not the right one."

Johns gestured angrily at Riddick and said something that made everyone in the room look to him, "He is not a man."

Riddick feigned a look of shock, reached down and grabbed his crotch and said, "Wrong, that's the one thing that stayed the same."

Luna only partially stifled the laugh trying to escape his lips. Dahl glared at Riddick and said, "Thanks. Dick humor. That's helpful."

"A week ago I was almost out." Johns said, leaning against a counter "I was this close to done with this shit. And now this happens."

"Not my fault." Riddick replied with furrowed brows. "I'm the victim here."

"Who gives a rat's ass who's at fault. And for the record, you're not now, nor have you ever been, a victim. You are a fucking force of nature, and anyone who gets caught in your path is ground under your feet. So, fuck your victim card." Johns countered with an equally cross expression. He reeled on Dahl, scaring her enough to make her step back and said, "I've already lost one family to my own drunken stupidity. I'm not losing another one to this time travel bullshit. If I even have a home or wife to go back too."

"You know she's there." Dahl said, voice turning soft and reassuring. "She'll always be there."

"Please," Johns began, pointing to the door, "Just give us a few minutes."

As Luna and Dahl exited the room, Dahl turned back to them both and asked, "You wouldn't leave me out here by myself?"

"No," Johns answered as the door closed. "I wouldn't. That's why this has to change, now." Behind him, Riddick shook his head no. She smiled and left the compartment.

After the door closed, Riddick asked, "What's going on with you two, Johns?"

"I didn't come after you for the death of Will." Johns answered, as an expression of frustration gripped his features. "I mean, I did. Until we pulled up that rope and then, everything changed." Johns scowled as confusion and doubt contorted his face. For the last three days he had known something had changed. Little things were different all over the ship. Even some of his memories seemed odd, as if they had happened to someone else.

"You could've fooled me."

"Heat of the moment guilt." Johns admitted.

"Guilt?"

Johns removed a billfold from his pants pocket, took out a faded military I.D. card and slid it to Riddick.

Riddick read it aloud, "Colonel Nathanael Johns, Central Security Service, 1st Division, Company Rangers, Sigma 3."

"Beginning to understand?"

"You son of a bitch." Riddick said, shoving the I.D. back. "You always struck me as a little to gung-ho for a merc. You were on Sigma 3, when they framed me." He leaned forward, hand balling into fists and asked, "Were you part of it?"

He didn't answer right away. He just sat there deciding where to begin. "We'll get to that soon enough."

"You know what I did to them… and why." he said, face plastered with a seething hatred for his old comrades in arms. The images of those bloodthirsty events danced in his mind. The events on Sigma 3 had set him on the path he now walked. If not for that, he would still be a good man. An honorable man. A family man and an officer.

"I know."

"Then you know what I'll do to you, if you were part of it."

"I do."

"They were monsters."

"Then they created a monster."

"No." he replied, surprising Johns. People rarely surprised Johns. "I did this to myself. I've always been... different. It's always been inside me. They just let it out."

"Perhaps." Johns said, thinking of Riddick's story about the obelisk. "But what if your hidden benefactor gave you more than genetic upgrades? What if someone used the Rangers to set you on this path? A path of their choosing." Johns said, slipping the I.D. back in his billfold.

"How so?"

"Anyone capable of moving through time would have prior knowledge of certain events in your future. At that point, they could go back in time, make a few minor alterations to events in your life, and suddenly your destiny unfolds in a whole different direction."

"Martin was right. I can't trust anyone."

Johns removed a set of keys from his pocket, turned to a drawer beneath the monitor and unlocked it and said, "I thought you would have already broken into that drawer."

"I did," Riddick replied, giving him a grin."3 years ago. I already know what's in that drawer. It's just a few bandages and some cloth tape."

Martin slid the drawer open, reaching inside, and removed a grey data pad. Riddick's mouth dropped. He recognized it immediately. It was Martin's data pad. He showed it to Riddick. "What about Martin? You say your brother-in-arms gave his life to help you escape. Could you trust him?"

"Martin's datapad." Riddick said, taking the device from Johns and inspecting every inch. "How?"

"She gave it to me when I was 15. Lilith told me to keep it safe and not to open it until the right moment presented itself."

"Dear old mom gave this to you when you were a kid."

"37 years ago." He answered, nodding an affirmation when Riddicks mouth dropped open. "To tell you the truth, I haven't seen it since then. I thought I lost it. Funny thing is, I just remembered putting it there."

"You shouldn't have this." Riddick said, realizing the data pad was from the future. "It burned in the fire."

"That's funny, coming from a guy who swears he traveled through time."

Riddick didn't respond.

"I've been waiting for you this whole time." Johns said, gesturing for Riddick to join him at a nearby table. "Waiting for you too unlock the mystery of this data pad."

"Where did she get it?"

"I thought that would be obvious. She retrieved it from the future. Sometime shortly after you fled the maintenance bay, she took it and somehow brought it to me in the past."

"Strange thing to give a kid."

"You think." Johns said. "For the longest time I forgot I even had it. In fact, I didn't put it in there."

"Then who did?"

"I think it was the other me."

Riddick stared at him, raised brow twitching slightly and said as I'd he hadn't heard correctly. "Excuse me?"

"We have a lot in common, you and I."

"Like what?"

"We love the same women."

"Speak plain, Johns." Riddick said, in a tone that breathed life into the unspoken threat building in the room.

"You want the truth? You may not like it."

"The truth doesn't exist." Riddick said, laughing to himself.

"For weaker men, perhaps." Johns admitted. "But not for us, we need to set our records straight."

"Our record?" Riddick said, offering him a scowl. "There is no, our records."

Johns interlaced his hands and said, "We share much of the same history."

"Doubtful."

"Before I met her, I never heard your name." Johns replied, watching Riddick look around the room as if searching for a way out. "But now. You're everywhere."

"Her who?" Riddick asked.

"I need to tell you what happened on Sigma 3."

"I was there, remember."

"You wouldn't have liked me when I was in the Rangers." Johns said, sliding his I.D. out and looked at it for the second time in years.

"What gave you the idea liked you now?"

"You know, you can be a real dick."

"So I've heard."