#desecrated

Moons ago, Kahlan had granted mercy.

And still, she had not thought she would ever grant forgiveness. Let alone to find friendship and kinship and a bond Kahlan couldn't quite put into words.

And yet here they were -- stuck underground, running out of air, and it seemed as if Cara was trying to find those words herself.

There was something shy and fragile in Cara's eyes as they connected for barely the length of a heartbeat with Kahlan's. But something brave too.

"And I don't want to die without you knowing that I consider you to be..." Cara continued, seeming to lose her voice as she opened her mouth and looked at Kahlan again. And without meaning to, without thought or purpose Kahlan slipped past the wall that should have been impenetrable to a Confessor facing a Mord-Sith and saw it as Cara's intended words switched to a half-truth "...my friend."

Kahlan gasped, the sound of her own heartbeat beating against her eardrums.

No, not simply a friend.

Love. That's what Cara had just swallowed back down, uncertain, beautiful, and painful in ways Kahlan knew Cara had not been permitted to learn, despite every other lesson in agony the woman -- the stolen little girl -- had been taught to enjoy and inflict.

Kahlan stared, frozen in place as two sides of her being struggled for the surface. The side of her unable to commit this final act of betrayal against the memory of her sister, the one who had not quite abandoned the last traces of hope for a fairy-tale ending with Richard. Against the side of Kahlan which felt a rush of something warm, and elated, and alight with heat.

Almost as if she was trapped inside a dream instead of the tomb provided to them by an insane magician, Kahlan felt her arm rising to softly caress the side of Cara's face with very little input from Kahlan herself.

"Don't hide your heart, Cara," she spoke nearly without breath.

At once it was Cara who froze -- the guarded, icy wall of smooth stone sliding back into place behind her eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think of you as a friend too," Kahlan smiled at her and then admitted something she'd only confessed to herself during the very deepest moments of the night. When it was Kahlan's turn to be on watch for the banelings, and her eyes strayed to the furthest point in the camp where Cara would sleep. When she'd see a shiver run over the Mord-Sith and wonder if it was from the cold or if Cara was sensing Kahlan's eyes even in sleep. When she'd entertain brief, dangerous fantasies of waking Cara and pulling her deeper into the surrounding forest to play with fire in ways she would never -- could never -- risk in reality, "...but sometimes, I've thought a great deal more."

"If this is because we're about to die, don't-"

"We're going to get out of here," Kahlan interrupted Cara before she could let out the string of words that would undoubtedly have been designed to cut into Kahlan's flesh in a rage of self-defense. For a moment she considered reminding Cara that Richard was looking for them, but decided better of it at once.

Her vaguely defined relationship with Richard was not a topic Kahlan was up to wading through at the moment. She knew she would need to. Both he and Cara deserved better than that. But this was neither the place nor the time for it.

"They'll find us," she said, "they just need a little more time."

"Yeah," Cara replied and Kahlan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the sudden purpose that overcame Cara's voice, "and I'll make sure they get it."

It took precious seconds before Kahlan figured out what Cara was about to do; as she stood and marched quickly toward the sword lying in the middle of the room and something heavy landed in the bottom of her stomach.

"Cara, NO!" she screamed, rushing to her feet to stop her.

She slammed into Cara even as the sword was mid-downward thrust, making Cara stumble and the sword clatter back to the ground with a sharp clang. Relief was short-lived however, at once Kahlan needed to cut Cara off from retrieving it.

"Get out of my way," Cara ordered. The savage light of her decision cut into the way she stood with barely leashed violence.

"No," Kahlan snapped back, teeth bared. She would let Cara touch that blade over her dead body.

For the next several minutes it seemed like that was exactly what it would take. They exchanged countless vicious blows and kicks. She was pretty she'd be lucky if her ribs would be just bruised by the time they were done. Her jaw ached from Cara's punch, but then she was pretty sure the blood running down the corner of Cara's mouth spoke a great deal about the backhand from Kahlan that had preceded it.

"Stop pretending my life means as much as yours," Cara snapped at her before putting a halt to Kahlan's attempt to place her into a choke-hold by throwing her over her shoulder to slam into the ground.

"It does," Kahlan threw back between pained gasps "to me."

And then she choked, panic overtaking her as she realized breathing no longer carried the inherent relief of oxygen. Her eyes connected with Cara's and she saw the same fear echo back, as Cara stumbled on her feet and losing balance fell beside Kahlan, both now panting to swallow the last traces of the air burned up by the torchlight and their fight.

For an extended eternity, Kahlan thought this would be how it would end -- with the two of them dying just out of each other's reach, -- when she felt the touch of Cara's leather glove grasping Kahlan's fingers between her own.

It was that contact that kept Kahlan awake, kept her fighting just for that brief little bit longer.

It was that contact that kept her alive long enough for Richard and Zedd to find them.

It was that contact that Kahlan felt bringing her back even while a different set of hands encased her in a relieved embrace.

She couldn't force herself to let go of Cara's hand until she felt the reassuring press of fingers signaling that Cara was alive too. This was worth every bruised bone already singing its displeasure across Kahlan's body.

The desperate memory of Kahlan's own voice echoed inside the depths of her chest with every new inhale of fresh air.