Note: Well, this is a huge leap of faith. I never thought I'd be writing a sequel to a piece published a decade ago, almost to the day. Please read the first part, I'll Carry You With Me (Just Please Hold On), if you have not already. If you're reading, I appreciate you. Long live the Seeker.

Chapter 1: Dark Come Soon

"You really don't have to stare."

The words, cutting into another prolonged period of quiet, brought Cara's mind back to her body. Kahlan's own gaze was fixed on her in a way that made her blood run cold with something she couldn't identify. The Mother Confessor had paused with a spoonful of venison stew halfway to her mouth, returning it to her bowl as she spoke. Cara squinted, furrowing her brow.

"I wasn't staring," she responded gruffly, and it was a lie. One more to add to the list of lies she'd been telling lately - some small and quickly forgotten, some vague and said in futile comfort, some so vast and deep that they had threatened and redefined her duty and very self, all at once. Her own supper bowl was empty, so she set it aside, pointedly turning her eyes down to the embers of the small fire before them.

A truth, then, to brandish feebly at this mound of lies she had created. Cara had been staring at Kahlan as they dined that evening. In fact, staring at Kahlan had become a vexing pastime of Cara's lately, for more reasons than she would let herself fully consider. Staring watchfully (most of the time), guiltily (nearly all of the time), lustfully (more than she would like to admit), just constantly staring. She could no longer pretend Kahlan hadn't noticed, apparently. She was unreadable by Kahlan's Confessor magic, but not by the woman she had been with, desperately alone, for months now. Her jaw hardened.

This was a case of the first sort of staring. Watching Kahlan eat was cause for intense relief, and Cara hadn't been able to stop; if anything had ever reassured her, that was it. Kahlan was turning a corner. Kahlan wasn't going to wither away, as she had begun to fear. As long as the Mother Confessor's pure heart beats, the Keeper is doomed to fail. She could hear the prophecy as plainly as the crackling fire before her.

It had all been dangerously close to ruin.

It had been nearly a month since the night when most shameful of Cara's lies (Richard is dead, a quick recoil, that burning shame) was dragged into the open - since both of them were nearly lost, one of them to an indescribable, all-consuming sorrow, the other to the ancient rage this sorrow brought on its heels. A thought intruded Cara's defenses: the second, maybe, would not have been such a loss. After all, she had made promises that night that she was now unsure that she would be able to keep.

(Concealed envy of a dead man, much less a dead master, provided no fertile ground for epiphanies of softness and delicacy, apparently.)

In any case, every one of Kahlan's bites of every meal they shared was like deliverance. Only perhaps a week ago had she been able to stomach food, and she had certainly grown thinner; the angles of her face had changed enough for Cara to notice. Dark circles had appeared under those capturing eyes in which Cara had to strain to not lose herself.

For the first days after the Con Dar overcame her, Kahlan was understandably weak, almost completely absent from her body. She woke only long enough to remember, shudder wordlessly, and look at Cara (who, at this point, had taken on that staring habit) with different degrees of heartbreak, betrayal, and need for something Cara couldn't comprehend and therefore had absolutely no hope of giving. When Kahlan would nod off again, Cara took to passing time by wailing on a nearby tree with her deadened Agiels until her body ached more than her heart.

More days had passed during which Kahlan was awake, but still mostly cold and silent; so was Cara, purely in an absence of any single thing to say. These had been the longest days. Cara managed to stubbornly persuade Kahlan to drink some of the weak quench oak tea she had brewed, but that was the extent of her success.

A fortnight, and while both Kahlan's eyes and demeanor had softened towards Cara, she still spoke only when spoken to. Cara found herself blabbering asininely about their surroundings, narrating the wilderness around their wayward pine until she thought herself completely ridiculous. It was worth it to hear Kahlan's voice now and again, though never at length. Cara had offered Kahlan foraged root vegetables, which she had boiled and mashed. She was no cook. Kahlan usually ate a few bites.

The last few days had been the most encouraging, but difficult in their own way. Kahlan began to greet Cara in the morning and helped her carry water from the stream and gather herbs and vegetables. They shared short but inconsequential conversations while Cara split logs for firewood. Every so often, she might have smiled a tiny, sad smile, hints of expression that Cara might have missed had she not recently been so transfixed by the Confessor's disposition.

These smiles, ridiculous in their circumstance, were beautiful enough to wreck Cara at the knees.

And then Kahlan had woken one morning with a still-bleary murmur about being hungry. Without missing a single beat, Cara all but bolted away from their shelter, tracking and running down a healthy stag in record time, so frenzied that she nearly subdued it with her bare hands. Luckily, she had remembered to grab her bow and quiver in her hasty act of servility - it helped. The misfortunate beast was obviously heavy but felt so light as she slung its body over her shoulders and carried it back to be skinned. Kahlan would be fed. Kahlan would be happy. Suddenly all of her momentum halted as she stopped in her tracks, just stopping herself from tumbling forward and being crushed by the good few days of sustenance spread across her back.

Kahlan would be happy.

There was a surge of that stupid elation, disguised as innocuous hope, but Cara was painfully aware of the truth beneath. Here she was, running off like a trained dog at the snap of its master's fingers. (And she would do it again, she knew. Any number of times.) She huffed, shifted the stag's weight roughly, and carried onward.

This had brought them to this particular evening - Kahlan had even found the effort to cook this stew, apparently done dealing with the gruel and simple roasted skewers Cara had been preparing. The Confessor gathered another mouthful onto her spoon and continued with her dinner, taking two more bites before speaking again.

"I'm not really sure if I believe you, but if you say you weren't staring, I'll have to take you at your word." Her dinner was finished, then, having scraped the bowl clean; she set it beside her and placed her hands softly on her knees, leaning towards Cara and staring right back.

Cara stood, crossing her arms, responding in a way she hoped sounded like herself, despite the infernal hammering in her chest brought on by Kahlan's sharp look.

Quick, clipped words, a deadpan remark. Just like before - but this wasn't before.

"You should believe me. I wasn't staring. You're not that captivating."

Another lie.

Cara's lip flinched and she hoped this wouldn't be the one to topple the mound.

For all of the close observation, though, it was singularly maddening to Cara that she had no idea how Kahlan was wrestling with Richard's ghost.

It was largely her own fault, as most of this seemed to be. Kahlan had not chosen to reveal anything she was feeling - a stark contrast to Cara's distinct and haunting memory of her openly weeping over the Sword of Truth, even when Richard's absence was quite impermanent. And Cara, for her part, was utterly lost on how to attempt to draw anything out of the Confessor. Any attempts had left her tongue-tied and defeated even before she could say anything. She had already done irreparable damage. More words would only cause more harm. Words exchanged between them in that same memory, a day so long ago now, was a near-constant echo.

"It's not necessary to feel pain over his absence."

"Don't you feel anything?"

Kahlan's softly incredulous question was particularly biting now. She was right. What could Cara clutch within herself to offer out?

Cara saw all of her own losses reflected back at her in Kahlan's despair. A childhood, a family, a whole budding life lost to piece together the Mord-Sith she was. "Anger, loyalty, pride...these feelings make you powerful." This was what she became, transformed from the suffering. Dangerous steel pulled from a hostile forge. Never mournful, never remorseful like Kahlan. Apparently that part of her had been fractured somewhere along the way.

Cara soon stopped trying to be all of those things she was not at all.

Neither spoke of Richard, or of Zedd, or of what had transpired between the two of them that night weeks before. The cycle of silence begetting silence hung over them like a thick and stifling shroud. The schism between them was palpable and it made Cara restless; she would have begged for the touch of a thousand Agiels over this suffocating omission. But pulling these things out of Kahlan, or out of herself, felt about as simple as dragging a body from the Valley of Perdition.

So she bid the discomfort back, like she had always practiced, and forced herself to carry on as she normally would. She relied on what she could see. Kahlan's appetite had returned. Her cheeks began to fill out, her hair was regaining its luster, her movements looked less effortful. She was gradually looking more like the woman for whom Cara so irritatingly yearned.

But the deep, nearly-purple, circles under Kahlan's tired eyes only darkened each day after every restless night.

The nights were how Cara knew with certainty how very haunted Kahlan still was.

She was a close witness to Kahlan's horrible sleep, almost every night of it wracked with fits of shouting, thrashing, and tears. As far as Cara could tell, Kahlan was not awake or aware through any of it. At times she would jolt upright on her bedroll, gasping, eyes wide open but vacant, unseeing, before settling back down and falling back into agitated slumber. The first episode had frightened the wits out of Cara, taking it for a resurgence of the Con Dar. She took seconds to prepare to fight for her life once again before Kahlan simply slumped back over, still somehow tense in the motion of it.

Mord-Sith training had certainly involved rest deprivation, but never with a panicked, drowsy Confessor mere inches away. Not to mention the added mental torment of watching Kahlan in such obvious pain.

The fits had become somewhat more predictable as time passed, enough for Cara to mitigate (albeit clumsily). A firm hand on Confessor's back, passing along her shoulders, sometimes a gentle squeeze of her upper arm, accompanied by a breathy hush or whisper of her name into her ear, was enough to settle Kahlan when she started to groan and stir. Simple - but not easy. It took most of Cara's hard-earned discipline not to envelop Kahlan's body with her own, pulling her in tight, sparing her of whatever suffering she was enduring by absorbing it into herself, a much more favorable replacement for her Agiels.

This was the only way Cara could think to protect her from all this. And it was impossible. Laughable to even consider. Her guts roiled with a despicable sort of selfish guilt at the thought of embracing Kahlan like that, though every fragment of her body begged for it. She hadn't held Kahlan since that awful night the month before. Just once had she allowed her hand to linger, to sweep slowly from Kahlan's shoulder over her ribs toward the curve of her hip - chaste, for her, but too dangerously close - before she came to her senses and withdrew like she had been grasping hot coals.

Her master's ghost - Richard's ghost - was there, watching this dereliction of duty, this betrayal, all these things she's done. With his final words to her, he had given her the chance to live up to his expectations, and she had failed at every turn.

Greedily serving her own needs would only cause everyone pain. Better for the pain to be hers alone. It was a worthy penance for every promise she had broken.

The slippery feeling of soaked deer tendon in her ungloved fingers was enough to hold back the cloudy thoughts as Cara made quick work of re-fletching arrows. With a final nimble tie, she set the finished bolt aside and reached for another, placing a fresh sinew thread between her teeth. She allowed her eyes to dart to Kahlan, who had been watching. Her attention had lapsed; she was now peering blankly past the Mord-Sith's shoulder. Cara frowned thoughtfully as she buried herself back into her task, snatching a suitable arrow from the pile beside her, its quill also promptly tucked into the corner of her mouth. She cut a nock in the back of the shaft with a quick and deft strike of her knife.

When, just like that, the discordant silence between them broke with a hushed question.

"What do you think happened?"

Cara's eyes snapped back up to squint at Kahlan as she lightly spit out the sinew and feather.

"Happened with what?"

Immediate regret pummeled her. Idiotic. Richard was dead. What else was there to possibly question? She saw Kahlan's reaction flicker from surprise (at the response, at the unintentional sharpness in her voice, at her perceived utter incapability to connect, probably), to thinly-veiled woe, back to uncertain contemplation. The change was almost imperceptible, but gave away enough mixed emotions to make Cara balk. There was a whirlwind in her head, a hammering in her chest. This was already not going well. She felt far outside of her own body, powerlessly watching herself do these things she hated.

"To Richard, Cara," Kahlan sighed, voice barely above a whisper, "and to Zedd." She gathered the coarse blanket around her shoulders in her arms, rounding her shoulders, suddenly looking very small. Her blue eyes, still so brilliantly radiant in the evening twilight, were on Cara as she spoke - but Cara could see that her mind was somewhere else entirely. "I...I can't stop wondering what happened in the end. I have constant nightmares about it." A pause as she bit her lip, composing herself. "I can't stand thinking about how I wasn't even there. How we weren't there. And how we should have been."

And Kahlan was not wrong. The very same thought had buzzed in Cara's head without relent since the day she felt the Rahl bond dissipate. It was bitter, sickly. What defined a Mord-Sith without the charge of protecting and serving the Lord Rahl? Nothing. Except.

"I know this is...painful for you," Cara replied, careful to keep her voice even, measuring every word. Why was this so difficult? "But this is what Richard wanted. You, protected, and me, making sure of it. This was his last command to me. His last great act of care for you, and for the world of the living." She hadn't realized she was clutching the unfletched arrow in her hands so tightly that it could have snapped like a twig.

Kahlan sighed, raking her fingers through her long, dark tresses. "It would be simple to think of it like that. And maybe it's the better way to think of it." Her eyes began to glisten. "But Cara, I miss him." It came out as a choked whisper. "I've missed him since the moment he left. I never really believed his leave would be permanent. I mean, this is Richard we're talking about."

"I miss him too." Cara heard her own somber voice before she realized she was speaking. And it was the truth, a huge truth, and somehow she didn't want to keel over as the words hung in the space between them.

"These feelings make you weak."

"I'm not sure love makes a person weak, Cara."

And she wasn't sure what returned Kahlan's words or her incongruously tearful smile from the ether of the past - but she did feel weak, but it wasn't a weakness of turning inward, but of reaching out. Look. See me. I am a mess. I am here with you. Let me share in the carrying of this. Out of control, overexposed, bare and raw, all for Kahlan. Cara swallowed and set her jaw against the spiral swelling in her belly, against the brutal struggle of whatever was being excised from her body.

And Kahlan heard her - she did not turn away, or frown, or scoff. She simply locked eyes with her, gazing into them with an intensity that made Cara's fingers tingle. The same eyes that went black and blind with the Con Dar's rage, that wept for Richard until they were numb. Kahlan's eyes. She was beautiful.

In that flash of connection, neither of them was alone.

Maybe Kahlan didn't hate her. Maybe she could do this. Reach out.

What would Richard say?

"He would be glad, and proud, to see you surviving."

Was this enough? Was she enough? Spirits, did Kahlan see how she was trying? Her heart throbbed in a way that was impossible to push away. Could Kahlan see straight through all these awkward words and chaotic thoughts to how badly Cara wanted her?

(Upon a hazy second consideration, Cara was not sure she wanted that particular question to be answered.)

They held each other there, their bodies paces apart, for a few moments - seconds, minutes, hours, Cara wouldn't have been able to tell with a blade pressed to her throat. She was tethered to everything around her only by Kahlan's eyes and her cryptic facial expression; lamentation, guilt, gentleness, pining, compassion, all in one piercing look, and Cara marveled at how that was even possible.

Before Cara could be further wondered, as Kahlan's face softened. For just a fleeting second, Cara might have seen one of those tiny smiles cross her lips, but if one had, it was gone as quickly as it came. She wondered if she would see Kahlan's true smile again, the potent memory of it crashing into her like a warhammer.

Kahlan busied her hands, smoothing the sleeve of her traveler's dress and then tucking a wayward curl behind her ear. Cara caught herself unwittingly mirroring the motion. The air was cool, but her hair had been nearly plastered to the side of her forehead. She couldn't blame the concentration she spent on the arrows. Kahlan gave a shrug of her shoulders.

"I also have to wonder what's next."

Cara stood straight from her cross-legged position on the ground at Kahlan's quiet statement. This was another unexpected escalation. There was a next, Kahlan thought. Something beyond the tragedy that had happened. A sudden, nagging hope throttled through her.

"What do you mean?" she asked carefully, pursing her lips. She couldn't stand answering everything as a question, seeming so dull, but she knew she needed to navigate this cautiously, like stepping into a field of dragon's breath mines.

"Think about it, Cara." Kahlan was also seemingly choosing her words carefully. "We haven't encountered a single baneling in over a month." She was right. None of the Keeper's wretched servants had threatened them since that brutal fight during which Cara had allowed herself to be injured. But that was after her Agiels had stopped working. The timeline was convoluted, enough that it made her rub a single temple.

"I have thought about it, actually. And I think what you say is true. Though it's been safe, it doesn't seem to make much sense."

"Exactly. If Richard is…" Her words trailed off and she gave an uncertain sigh, as if hesitating to say the next words out loud for the first time. "If Richard failed to find the Stone of Tears, or to seal the rift in the veil, wouldn't you expect this world to be falling apart at the seams, even as we speak? There should be death and destruction running rampant everywhere, even here. Why isn't it?"

Cara's blood ran cold with the memory of the Underworld, of the endless sea of bodies writhing in indistinguishable yet all-consuming agony. This had been the threat. Kahlan was right, again - why hadn't it come to pass? Cara wondered how much of Kahlan's time in her own head had been spent ruminating through this.

"You think there's something we've missed," Cara concluded for the Mother Confessor.

Kahlan nodded, keeping her head down at the motion's end, the color draining from around her cheekbones. "I do." Her voice had taken on a slight shake. "I think there's something we have yet to do, or something we simply do not know." She lifted her chin to look fully at Cara, shapely dark eyebrows knitted together, betraying the heavy burden she bore as she spoke. "The idea of moving on to something more without Richard hurts more than I can describe to you. It might be the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Cara flexed a fist. She knew pain and its many kinds. Maybe Kahlan could do just that.

"But what kind of Confessor would I be if I allowed my Seeker's journey to fall incomplete?" Kahlan was standing, then, closing the distance between them and grasping Cara's straining wrist, holding her gaze helplessly captive again. "What kind of woman would I be if I let the death of the man I love be for nothing?"

Cara felt the world around her swim again, felt her pulse pounding all the way into her skull. Kahlan was so close to her; her grip on her arm felt like a hot coal. Kahlan's unexpectedly resolute words reverberated through her bones.

What kind of Mord-Sith would she be if she let the Lord Rahl's journey end in question?

Who would she be, if she did not follow Kahlan?

As long as the Mother Confessor's pure heart beats, the Keeper is doomed to fail. Her duty, her direction, her heart being wrenched from its cage.

The only path was absolutely clear.

"We've been here too long," she murmured with a tiny bow of agreement.

Kahlan's mourning, silence, and tears were nearly impossible for Cara to handle. But this - a way forward, action instead of inaction, the presage of perhaps some unknown danger - this, she could take onto her shoulders. She could prove herself. A lifetime of them.

Something almost bright ignited in Kahlan's eyes and she squeezed Cara's wrist, more strongly than Cara would have expected, before releasing it. The fingers of her other hand ghosted past the spot where Kahlan's just were.

"How should we even begin?" Kahlan asked breathlessly, pressing a hand to her own chest, over what Cara imagined was an exhilarated heartbeat.

"We need information. We need to scout," she proposed, relishing the occasion to be thinking clearly, tactically. "We need to see the state of what's around us. We should set out for that town. It's a tiny place, by most standards, and would probably be less dangerous than we could take if the situation is grim."

Kahlan shook her head in the affirmative, eyes narrowing and biting her lip in solemn determination, and this was so close to the Kahlan whom Cara had long known. It almost overwhelmed her.

"We can be ready to leave at first light."

The morning sun fought sheepishly through the canopy of leaves far above their heads.

Kahlan poured more water onto the fire. Plumes of smoke billowed up from the embers; they hissed a protesting death wail, incredibly loud in contrast to their size. Cara, watching her silently, finished balancing the weight of their packs, which were by then brimming with all of the belongings that had made this their isolated sanctuary.

Satisfied with the fire's wheezing carcass, Kahlan joined her, wordlessly shrugging her bag onto her back and setting off, without preamble, in the direction of the nearby town. Cara stood from her crouch and shouldered her own, not wanting to already be trailing behind.

But for a moment, she was compelled by something swirling in her gut to take pause and look discreetly over her shoulder at the drooping boughs of their secluded wayward pine, where she and Kahlan had been alone together. The swirling turned to hollowness that flowed through her bones. Swallowing it away, she turned to catch up with Kahlan.

And when she did, she could have sworn she saw Kahlan taking a look back as well.