It all started innocently.
A message here and there, just to check in.
Hugs and smiles whenever their slaying adventures brought them together.
Long nights they spent together, slaying the bad guys.
Short nights they spent together, kissing and touching, stealing moments because they didn't know how long their time together would last.
Buffy, the Slayer General, lived in Scotland, training her Slayer troops.
Faith, the Slayer Wanderer, lived all over the world. She had to move a lot on her quest of gathering the Rogue Slayers. The nomad lifestyle worked for her, she was the restless soul who couldn't be tied down to one place.
That's what she'd thought until she started sleeping with Buffy.
Now she lived in a cozy New York apartment and she owned a cat.
Faith didn't know if the cat was the domesticated one, or she herself was.
She just knew she liked it.
This wasn't just an apartment; it was different than all of the other places she'd lived in.
This was home.
Not just because of the cat, no. Even though the cat, named Jackie, after Jack Daniels, of course, was a big part of it.
Buffy had brought that cat, she'd found it when she was just a baby, wandering through the streets, alone, meowing because she was hungry and scared. She couldn't leave her, so she'd wrapped her in her jacket and brought her to Faith's apartment.
"We have a cat, Fai."
It was the first time they had something that was just theirs.
First it had been just their cat, then they started referring to Faith's apartment as 'their' apartment, and then Buffy moved in, because she had to admit she'd been spending most of her time there anyway. And when Buffy moved in, the apartment turned into HOME.
Home was something Faith had never had.
For the longest time, she was sure she'd never have it.
But now that Buffy lay beside her, watching TV and holding her hand, a sleeping cat sprawled over her belly, Faith had to admit that this was home. And she loved it.