Faith packed up her bag and looked around for the last time. She had spent the last ten years of her life in this cell.

Ten years in one place was a first for her. She'd been running most of her life, from one broken down apartment to another, from her mother's binges -- from the responsibility of being a slayer. Running from herself and her crimes, and the people that she'd hurt.

It was only here that she had finally stopped running. In this tiny grey room that had been hers and hers alone for the past ten years. There was nothing special about the cell, one of twenty just like it in cell block H -- or cell block Hopeless, so nicknamed because it was rumored that only "hopeless" cases were sent here.

She was the first member of cellblock Hopeless to leave it under her own steam in its twenty-year history. She wished she could say she was doing it though willpower alone, but she couldn't.

Willpower had played an essential part of it. She had wanted to live so she could get out and put right the things that had gone horribly wrong. That idea, that goal, had motivated her through the dark, lonely nights.

But it was her slayer healing that had pulled her through. The healing made sure she survived, no matter how badly she had been beaten up or how badly she had wanted to die. It had only failed her once in ten years, and then the quick actions of a hack had saved her.

Now was the moment of truth. Could she be on the outside and deal with all that entailed? Her time in prison had hardened her, but it had also made her take a good look at herself. At first she hadn't like what she found. But as time progressed, she began to see things that she would never have expected -- love, affection, a need to help others.

And the only way to really experience these new emotions was to leave this cell. Faith picked up her bag and walked out the door. She was ready to face her future. She didn't look back at the vacant cell.