Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville/Legend of the Seeker.

Somewhat spoiler for Legend of the Seeker, Season One, Episode 8 "Denna"...even if this is an AU.

She leaned over the broken figure lying on the cobbled ground, knowing what it was she risked by just being there when Denna had ordered the prisoner be kept in isolation after the intense torturing session he'd had to withstand, but she couldn't---couldn't just stand by and watch as the Midlands' best chance for salvation was turned into Denna's lap dog. The blonde knelt down by the man said to hold the Sword of Truth, to be the Seeker. He looked near dead, his body covered in bruises, cuts and welts, his skin so pale. He'd been withstanding so well, but she knew that not even the Seeker would be able to withstand Denna's torture sessions for long without succumbing. If his friends didn't do something and save him he'd break, and Lord Rahl would make him swear his allegiance to him and end the only hope they had.

And Chloe wouldn't allow it.

"Hey, hey, wake up." She whispered, kneeling on the ground and softly moving him so that he was resting with his head on her lap. "You need to wake up."

Those dark eyes fluttered open slowly, painfully.

"Are you really the Seeker?" She asked softly. "And don't try to lie, I might not be a Confessor but I will know it if you lie."

Which was due to the fact that while she wasn't a Confessor she had Confessor blood in her. It was a well-guarded secret, a Mord-Sith with blood of a Confessor, it was unheard of. One would think that it would be impossible to be a fully initiated Mord-Sith if blood of their greatest enemies ran through her veins. The powers were conflicting, one born of love--the other of hate.

The Seeker looked up at her and nodded slowly, obviously the action paining him.

Sensing the truth in his words, she lifted the flask to his lips. "Here, drink this. It has healing faculties." She helped raise him a little as he greedily guzzled the liquid so he wouldn't choke, "I can't heal you completely or they will grow suspicious, but this should keep you strong enough to resist tomorrow's session. You mustn't break, Seeker, you mustn't."

He drunk like one who hadn't ever tasted liquid before, looking up at her in confusion as the healing began to take place in his body, taking away most of his pain and repairing much of what had been damaged in the 'training' Denna had given him all day. "Why?" His voice was hoarse from having screamed all day. "Why---why are you helping me? You're one of them."

"It doesn't matter why I'm doing this." She replied, forcing the flask back to his mouth so he could down the rest of its contents. "What matters is that you resist, that you don't break...your friends should come for you, and when they do I'll do my best to help them rescue you. I don't promise much though. It will be near impossible for them to penetrate a Mord-Sith compound, especially if they're trying to use magic. So your wizard friend will not be of much help. But your Confessor friend...she will be useful."

He looked up at her in silence, relaxing as the liquid warmed inside of him.

Chloe looked up, hearing the sound of footsteps in the distance. "I have to go." She lowered him to the ground and placed the flask inside of the pocket of her cloak. "Be strong, Seeker. There are more people on your side than you realize." And with that she slipped out of the cell and was gone long before the new guard appeared at her post.

"Bury yourself in a memory, protect yourself." Chloe whispered as once more he was half-laying on her lap, greedily gulping down the healing elixir. "The only way you can go throughout the sessions and not go insane is to protect yourself, forget that you're there."

"I--tried. I thought of my family---before..." The Seeker gasped as he stopped drinking, taking in deep breaths. "She knows. She stops me."

"Because you're trying to be sheltered in a happy thought. When I was the one being trained I tried doing the same thing, but they will sense that and only make it worse." Chloe rubbed some healing salve she'd managed to steal from the medical wing into his forehead, into the blisters and bruises there. "In time I realized something. Mord-Sith are creatures of hate and pain. They sense love and happiness and it disgusts them. Hate and pain and sadness though, it is like breathing to us. Think of the thing that makes you the angriest, your worst memory, and shield your mind in that memory. We won't be able to sense it and you'll have some respite from what your body's going through."

"Why...were you...trained...with the Agiel?" His voice was, as always, raspy.

"Do you think we're born this way, Seeker?" She asked, a little amused, before softly brushing the hair out of his face, smile disappearing. "Not many people know this, but a Mord-Sith is selected from the gentlest and kindest girls in D'Hara and trained from a young age on three levels, the younger she starts the better." There was a pause. "I was taken when I was six. I--I only have vague recollections of my life before."

He was silent, resting with his head on her lap, looking up into her face. "What did...they do...to you?"

"They...trained me. Like they do all the girls." Chloe responded, green eyes meeting his dark ones. "We're trained on three levels, each intending to break us in different ways, to make us what we must become to hold the name Mord-Sith. The first thing the break is your mind, your personality, everything that makes you an individual. They torture you night and day with the Agiel, they kill you sometimes only to bring you back with the Breath of Life, and continue on until you're just a mindless slave who will obediently do whatever your mistress tells you, without question or hesitation."

The Seeker growled softly, the sound reverberating in his throat before escaping through his lips.

"Are you okay?" She asked, worried.

He nodded. "What...else...?"

The blonde looked up, looking up at the barred door, trying to hear if the new guard was coming to take her post at the door.

There was no sound.

She still had some time here.

"When they decide they've broken your character and hope and self-will, when they'd made you obey them mindlessly, they take you to the next level of training...and you're forced to watch as your teacher slowly and brutally tortures your mother to death." Her body began to tremble at the memory without her even realizing it. "If you try to help your mother...you...you make it worse for her...you just make it so much worse for her." She paused a second, taking in a deep breath, looking away. "So in the end you stand there, motionlessly, and you watch her suffer, you just stand and listen to her screaming. And they break you even more. You watch her die...and you're happy she's dead. And after that...its hard to feel anything anymore."

He was silent, but his gaze so intense.

"Then...then you have to pass the last level. You're given the Agiel used to train you, used to kill your mother, and you are led to a cell deep in the dungeons, a cell where you find your father strapped in chains. You're locked inside and told to torture him, then kill him once he's broken...and....and it doesn't even cross your mind to disobey. Not when you feel the pain of the Agiel as you hold it----not as you hear his screams....you just do as your mistress told you to because she told you to...and then he's not screaming any longer and you're being taken away so you can bathe and get his blood off of you and your clothes."

It's only when his hand reached up to cup her cheek, his calloused thumb tenderly brushing away the tear, that Chloe realizes she's crying.

The touch was intimate, softer than she remembered ever experiencing, and she jumped at it, wiping rapidly at her eyes. "I have to go."

She nearly flees the cell in terror that night.

The next time she saw him they are in the training hall and it is she who holds the Agiel. Throughout the years she's grown to push the constant pain to the back of her mind, to ignore it, and yet it seemed to burn like fire as she raised it against the Seeker, as she struck him with it or just pressed it against his skin and let the magic of the Agiel torture him. She was fortunate that she was a Senior Mord-Sith, able to torture a prisoner unsupervised, otherwise another would have picked up the visible winces, the guilt and the near apology in her eyes as she inflicted the agony and wounds on him herself. Even though she tried to go as easy on him as she could without attracting any suspicion, she knew that it was brutal nonetheless.

The only thing...the only thing that made her able to see this through was the fact that she could sense that he'd sheltered his mind in a happy fantasy. He knew that she'd allow him this, and instead of the sad or painful ones she'd told him to use while under the Agiel of another Mord-Sith, he trusted her enough to let him have his elusive, happy fantasy or memory.

It unnerved her, a little, how his gaze never left hers throughout the whole session.

"My magic was granted to me by Draken Rahl himself." Chloe admitted to the Seeker one night as she watched him eat the food she'd snuck in for him. "At seven years of age I passed the final test, and I was presented to him. He instilled in me the magical ability to take the magic of anyone using it against me. That's why I said that your wizard friend won't be any good in your rescue. If he attacked a Mord-Sith she will be able to inflict intense pain upon him with just a thought. It's also why your Sword of Truth didn't work against Denna. The Sword of Truth is magic, and she could control it, and made it hurt you instead." She looked down at her gloves. "I will try help you get it when it is time for you to escape, but it will be hard. Denna keeps the weapons of the ones she's training as a trophy of what she broke."

He was silent, the food, water, and healing elixir she brought him keeping him strong enough to fight the sessions.

Denna was starting to go insane with the thought that she was unable to break someone.

Even Lord Draken Rahl was beginning to question her abilities.

That was why others had taken over the Seeker's training.

Thankfully they were all having the same unsuccessful results.

Chloe played with her braid. "I need to leave. There's word that a group of people are heading this way. I think it might be your friends trying to save you."

He was silent. "Why do you all dress the same?"

She was confused for a moment at the change in subject, before looking down at her clothes. "It is our outfits."

"But some of you wear different colors." He pointed out.

"Because...the colors mean different things." She explained. "The Mord-Sith wear their hair in a single, long braid and skin-tight leather outfits. There's nothing to grab onto in battle---unlike the Confessors' dresses. Have you seen the sleeves? It's very impractical in battle. Anyone can just grab part of their dresses or sleeves and pull them around, or their knives sometimes get caught in the sleeves..." she shook her head. "And about the colors...we usually wear brown, like the one I'm wearing now, but when we're training a captive we wear red because it hides the blood better." She paused, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. "And when a Mord-Sith...if...if she decided she wanted to select a mate, and she does, she wears white leather. Its a symbol that shows that she doesn't need to use the Agiel since the man or woman is broken and is her mate."

"How...romantic."

An odd sound left her mouth.

It took her a while to recognize it as laughter.

He spasmed violently underneath her.

She leaned over him, more worried than she'd been for a long time. "You need to relax, Seeker!"

Denna had returned to training him, killing him and bringing him back to life, over and over again, forcing a connection to her in his brain with every time she took his life.

And if nothing was done, he'd be the mindless drone Chloe had been fighting to keep him from ever being.

"I need you to trust me, Seeker." She whispered, pleading. "Trust me."

He went still, fighting the dark magic inside of him.

Chloe grabbed his throat and looked deep into his eyes, feeling the shift as her power sought out his and connected with the bonding magic Denna had forced into him. She pulled it out of him, siphoning it into her own body, where it was null and void. As a Senior Mord-Sith no other Mord-Sith could force a bond from her. Not anymore.

She mightn't have been a Confessor, but it was in her blood, and sometimes she could do weird things like this...things she'd never let any of the other Mord-Sith know because if they found out, Draken Rahl would as well.

Chloe gasped in exhaustion, collapsing on top of the Seeker, body trembling.

His bruised and bleeding arms went around her.

"Your friends need to rescue you. Now." She whispered, body trembling as it subdued Denna's power inside of her.

He just held on tighter.

The Confessor's hand was around Chloe's throat, their eyes meeting, but just before her eyes could bleed black with the power of Confession, the Confessor was pushed away from her.

"No!" The Seeker, armed with the Sword of Truth, stood where the Confessor had been seconds ago.

"Richard?" The Confessor looked up at him in confusion. "What's wrong with you? Why would you--?"

"Not her." He shook his head. "You do not confess her."

Standing tall, the only Mord-Sith not dead or Confessed, Chloe looked around her before returning her gaze to Richard. "Don't stop her, Seeker."

The Confessor stood, confusion on her face. "I don't understand."

"She's good." The Seeker told his traveling and fighting companion.

"I'm not good." Chloe sneered at the word. "I know you think that because I helped you, but I'm not good. I've tortured and killed thousands of innocent people, I swore to serve Draken Rahl to the day I died---a part of him--his magic, is in me. I'm not good." She turned to the dark haired beauty. "Confess me, Confessor. Or kill me."

The Confessor looked torn, looking between the Seeker and Chloe. "I----."

"Confess or kill me." The Mord-Sith hissed. "As long as I'm alive I am bound to serve Draken Rahl, and he will not be as lenient as you would be in the death you'd give me."

The Seeker growled and reached for her arm, shaking Chloe nearly viciously. "She's not going to kill you and neither will he. You're coming with us."

Her eyes widened. "The torture's made you go insane."

He gave her a crooked smile.

"I can't believe he's keeping me prisoner." Chloe grumbled to herself as she sat by the fire, looking into the flames. The Seeker hadn't listened to reason and had, for all purposes and intents, kidnapped her.

"Richard is...an odd Seeker. But it is what makes him one of the greatest." Zed, Wizard of the First Order, announced as he sat down on the log next to her, looking into the flames as well. "He has told Kahlan and I what is it he went through in the Mord-Sith's keep...and how you were the reason why he didn't break."

"I only helped. The reason he didn't break was his own will." She refused to look at the wizard, refused to look at any of them, since her kidnapping.

"Why would a Mord-Sith help the Seeker?" The wizard wanted to know. "And another good question. How is it that you drew out the power from Richard's body? He said...it was almost as if you Confessed it out of him."

She winced, having hoped he'd be in too much agony to remember that. "I'm not a Confessor."

"That is quite obvious, my dear."

"I'm not your dear either." She snapped, hugging herself. "I don't want to be here, weaponless, unable to defend myself until someone attacks me---if they attack me with magic that is, having to depend on you strangers."

"Richard had to depend on you, a stranger, when in the Mord-Sith keep."

"He had no other choice."

"Neither do you."

She opened her mouth and closed it before hunching over in defeat. "I won't use the Agiel on him...he should realize it. So why won't he give it back to me?"

"He asked me to destroy that foul weapon and I was happy to oblige." The wizard admitted.

Chloe shot up to her feet, tears beginning to clog her vision. "He had no right!"

"It hurts you, does it not?" The wizard asked. "Richard says it hurts you to use it."

"It's none of his business!" Chloe snapped, furious. "I should be dead now! As punishment for all I've done! Instead I'm here, being dragged around in the heat while wearing leather by a boy who is supposed to be setting people free! Not imprisoning them!" And with that she stormed away to where she'd been informed she'd be sleeping for the night.

When the Seeker returned from his patrol and tried to talk to her, she ignored him.

"I had two cousins, Lois and Lucia." Chloe admitted to Kahlan, the only one she was talking to while on this journey, since the wizard was obviously on the Seeker's side. "I don't know whatever happened to them, but I think you might."

"Really, why?" Kahlan asked, giving the other female a friendly smile as they walked in the back of the group, Zed leading the way, and the Seeker (whom she still refused to speak to) continued pretending that he wasn't listening to the conversation between Confessor and Mord-Sith.

"They're Confessors."

The Seeker tripped over an upraised root and went down.

Hard.

"Richard?" Zed turned to him, surprised.

Kahlan hadn't even noticed, looking at Chloe in surprise. "Lois and Lucia Laneara are your cousins?"

"I don't---I don't remember their last name. I don't even remember mine." She admitted. "I know their mother was a Confessor as well though. She was my mother's sister, aunt Ellenne."

"Ellenne Laneara." Kahlan smiled. "I know her well. She and your cousins, they are well. They were with Mother Confessor last I saw them."

Chloe nodded, feeling a sense of relief though nothing too great. She hadn't seen her cousins since she was six, she only remembered them as faint images in a child's mind. She wondered if she would even recognize them if she saw them now. She doubted she would.

The blonde walked passed the Seeker and continued on in silence, lost in thought, not feeling his gaze on her as he walked on ahead.

"No, I refuse to." Chloe shook her head, adamant in this.

Kahlan was laughing at her from the other side of the door. "Come on Chloe. You've said so yourself, leather isn't the best thing in this heat...and people are afraid of you when you're dressed as if you're a Mord-Sith."

"I am a Mord-Sith." She argued.

"No, you're not. Deep down inside, you never really were." Kahlan whispered against the door. "Confessors know lies when they hear them, even when the person is lying to themselves, remember that."

Closing her eyes tightly, Chloe leaned her forehead against the door.

"Come on. The villagers gave that to you as a thank you. You wouldn't want to offend them, would you?"

"I don't know how to dance." She whispered, referring to the feast that was being held in there honor for driving out the D'Haran troops from the village. "It's not one of the things Mord-Sith were expected to learn."

"I've seen Richard dance before." The Confessor admitted. "You can't be worse than him."

"I---I'm not good at this." Chloe shook her head. "You need someone tortured, I'm your girl. But I quake in my boots at the thought of...a feast."

"Chloe."

"Maybe you could tell them that I am feeling ill."

"Confessors make horrible liars." Kahlan didn't seem to be in a helping mood today. "Come, Chloe. At least try."

Chloe opened her mouth to try and convince Kahlan to just leave.

"If you don't come on your own, I'll make one of the soldiers I Confessed in battle to come and escort you out."

Green eyes flew open. "Kahlan, you wouldn't!"

There was silent amusement on the other side of the door. "Are you sure about that? I'll make sure he makes a big scene."

Groaning, Chloe took in a deep breath and then squared her shoulders, unlocking the door and venturing out. She looked up at Kahlan, wincing when she saw the wide-eyed expression on the Confessor's face. "I knew it! I look stupid! Look at these sleeves!"

The Confessor grinned. "No, no. You look lovely, Chloe. Just----you look nothing like you always have. Come on, the feast in starting and they want us there."

Chloe allowed Kahlan to loop her arm around hers and lead her out of the hut they'd been given to stay in while in the village. The blonde hid her fear behind a mask of cold indifference, unable to keep from noticing how people stopped what they were doing to look at her in wide-eyed shock. "They're gawking at me."

"They're admiring you." Kahlan corrected.

Despite still being angry at him, and supposed to be ignoring him, Chloe's gaze searched for the Seeker amongst the multitude, her gaze finding him in time for him to stop in the middle of the conversation he'd been having with Zed and look curiously in her direction, wondering what everyone was looking at.

His eyes widened when he saw her, his goblet slipping through his fingers, clashing to the ground, unnoticed.

Chloe wanted to race away.

Never did anything or anyone make her feel more scared than the Seeker.

And yet it was a fear she really didn't understand.

The Seeker left Zed where he was, and began walking towards them.

"Milady." One of the local men stepped in front of him, blocking Chloe's view of the Seeker. "You---allow me to say how lovely you are tonight."

No man had ever told her that before.

She hated herself for the blush that climbed up her neck. "It's only a dress."

He didn't seem to mind her answer. "May I have the pleasure of this dance?"

The Seeker was getting closer.

Chloe's stomach felt queasy with nerves.

"Yes." She took the villager's hand if only to get away from the Seeker, but as she stumbled throughout the dance she could feel his gaze on her.

No matter how many times she averted him by accepting the offers to dance from other men right before he could reach her, Chloe never felt his gaze leave her.

Little by little that fear started to change...but she didn't know into what.

"Have you ever....been in love?"

Kahlan looked from from where she was scrubbing her arms. "In love?"

"Yes." Chloe nodded, submerged under the water to her chin. "I---I've heard of the emotion before, but I've never met anyone who has ever experienced it firsthand. Lust, yes. But love? No."

"I can imagine love wouldn't be the most popular of emotions amongst the Mord-Sith." Kahlan grinned, continuing to scrub herself clean. "And as for your question, no. I really haven't had the time. My sister and I...we only had our mission. Find the Seeker. Help the Seeker. After that...maybe." She frowned. "But, but even if I ever was to fall in love I couldn't be with him, because, I'd accidentally Confess him."

"If he loved you and knew it, and he didn't mind, then why should you abstain?" Chloe asked, curious. The Mord-Sith had taught her to take what she wanted, no apologies, so this sort of thinking was confusing to her. "And if he's Confessed, he won't care. He'll be devoted to you as you are to him."

"It wouldn't be right, he'd lose his soul." Kahlan shook her head. "We Confessors are a dying lot, and we know that we must procreate to further our race, but would I sacrifice my true love?" She paused. "I don't know. I've never been in love so I don't know how selfish the feeling might make me."

"I've never been in love because Mord-Sith can't experience it, we're programed not to." Chloe offered. "We find a person we want, we capture said person, we break him or her, and then we mate. That's as far as it goes for us."

"You Mord-Sith sure know how to woo a person." Kahlan chuckled.

"The Seeker said something like that once." The blonde remembered, tilting her head, frowning slightly at the memory. "It made me laugh...for the first time since I can remember. And yet I cannot understand why."

"Why do you do that?"

She looked up at the Confessor. "Do what?"

"You never call Richard by his name. You always call him Seeker."

The blonde frowned. "But he is the Seeker. He was named Seeker when he took up the Sword of Truth, is that not the case?"

"Yes, but, Richard is more than the Seeker, he's Richard. He's a good friend who's a bit bullheaded and sees the good in people when the rest of us see cheats and thieves. Sure he's the one of the prophecy, but he's the man as well." Kahlan gave a small, cunning smile. "A man who watches your every move."

"I've noticed. It's quite intense. I don't think he ever lifts his gaze from me when he thinks I am not paying attention to him." Chloe frowned. "He obviously thinks I'm going to make a run for it the moment he looks away. He doesn't trust me. It's insulting."

For a moment there was silence, and then Kahlan burst into laughter. "Oh my dear, dear friend. The Mord-Sith have blinded you to things that should be so obvious."

Chloe frowned. "What do you mean? I am missing something? But I was always commended for my eye for detail."

Kahlan just laughed and emerged from the water, shaking her head.

"What is it you see that I don't?" Chloe called after her.

The Confessor never answered, just continued until she'd reached her clothes.

Chloe stayed in the water, pouting slightly.

What did the Confessor mean by that?

"You idiot!" Chloe slammed her fists into his chest, unable to keep the tears from coming to her eyes despite her fight to stay in control. "You stupid, ignorant, foolish idiot!"

"I saved your life!" The Seeker grabbed her fists to keep them from pounding into his chest any more.

"You almost got yourself killed!" She struggled against his hold before realizing that she really wasn't putting up much of a fight, and instead slumped in defeat. "You almost died, Richard."

He went stiff. "You---you called me Richard."

"You nearly died, because of me." She ignored him, head bowed, tears falling. "You can't endanger the cause because of me. You have a prophecy---you are the Seeker. You will defeat Darken Rahl and save the Midlands. You can't die over a Mord----."

His hand let go of hers, and instead curled itself around her chin, raising her gaze so that it met his. "Say it again."

She looked up at him, confused, not understand why he wanted to hear her say that or why her heart was racing this way. "You have a pro---."

"No." He shook his head. "My name. Say my name."

Her eyes widened, and for a reason she couldn't understand, a blush began to heat her cheeks. "Richard."

He smiled down at her, and then he kissed her, arms going around her to hold her tightly to him.

That feeling in Chloe's stomach blossomed into a great heat, pleasure, and she finally embraced that feeling that was similar to fear and yet not.

She kissed him back. Tentatively, and then more sure when his response was to tighten his grip on her.

Later on she'd begin to contemplate that maybe she had unknowingly lied to the Confessor when she'd said she'd never been in love.

But for now she let lost herself in his touch.

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