A/N: I don't own the characters & make no profit.
Timeline: Set sometime post-S7.

"What was it like?" Faith asked softly, the leather on her jacket squeaking slightly as she moved her arm, likely to tuck some hair behind her ear.

"Heaven?"

"No, Hell."

Buffy exhaled ruefully through her nose, casting her eyes down to the ground between her legs. Stone, it felt like, with a thin covering of dirt. They'd been locked in this dark cell for hours. No light. No outside sound. No food or water. Buffy could faintly see the outline of her hand when she lifted it. A darker shadow in the darkness.

"Long time ago, I used to think this was Hell. Just," Buffy took a deep breath in, "living."

"Fuck B, life is a shitty poker hand for most people." Faith scoffed. Buffy could hear her crossing her arms defensively. Like she'd seen her do it so often before.

"What, you think being the Chosen One is such a fantastic life?" Buffy bit back, realizing immediately that Faith didn't think that. She knew better.

"That's not –" Faith stopped and sighed. "That's not what I meant."

"I know, I'm sorry." Buffy tilted her head back against the wall and closed her eyes as she thought back. It hadn't been more than a couple of months since she'd escaped from whatever Hell dimension she had been sucked into. This was the first time that she and Faith had even seen each other since she'd been to Hell (again, but let's not dwell on that right now), and the universe's sense of humor was in top-form. They'd been caught and locked up before either of them could even slay a demon in greeting.

"It was painful. To be there. Not physically. Not at first, anyway." Buffy kept her eyes closed, swallowing the lump in her throat as she continued.

"It started with images. Screwing with my memory. At first, I couldn't remember if someone was actually dead or they were fucking with my memory, but later on, I could no longer figure out which way everyone had died was true. Everyone. Dawn, Willow, you, Xander. You all died so many times. So many ways. I eventually believed everyone was dead. That's when they moved onto new tortures," Buffy took a deep breath. "It's terrifying. To think everyone you have ever known, ever loved, has been killed. It's really good at breaking the fighting spirit."

Buffy opened her eyes when she heard Faith shifting. A grunt escaped the other woman's mouth as she moved across the floor. Buffy smelled her before she felt the hand land on her knee. The shampoo was neutral, but clean-smelling, nearly hidden beneath her natural scent. God, she missed that taste.

"I'm sorry, B," Faith murmured, settling in beside the blonde.

Buffy shrugged, her arm rubbing along the supple leather, "It's not your fault, and you know it."

"I know that, just…"Faith sighed, and Buffy could feel the tension in her body as she wrestled with her words, "I wish I was there to fight, maybe I coulda helped stop you from getting taken."

"Faith, you were needed where you were. You weren't due for a rendezvous with our team for another month. How would you have known?"

Faith snorted, "Rendezvous. Is that what you call what we do?"

Buffy opened her mouth, only to click her teeth together when she shut it too hard as she turned her face away.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to take a poke." Faith sighed, "It's a bit of a sore spot."

Buffy turned her head back at the last comment, her eyes looking over where she could sense Faith's face. "I never meant to trivialize our time together. It means a lot to me too, you know."

"I didn't know," Faith replied quietly, without malice.

A silence settled in, not uncomfortable, not charged. Peaceful, Buffy thought. Maybe for the first time.

"We should have more conversations in the dark, Faith."

"Why?"

"I think it makes us more honest."

Faith chuckled softly before lifting her arm up over Buffy's shoulders. Buffy leaned into her, her ear coming to rest above Faith's chest. The strong heartbeat beneath her ear was comforting to listen to.

"So how did you escape? Andrew never told me," Faith murmured into her hair, lips brushing strands as she spoke.

Buffy swallowed thickly, shifting to pull her trapped arm out from underneath her body to rest it across Faith's thighs. The muscles tensed at the initial touch before relaxing as Buffy soothingly stroked her thumb back and forth the inside of a knee.

"I was tied to a post for a whipping," Buffy began, feeling Faith's hand tighten on her shoulder, "And I saw this girl in the distance. I wasn't thinking much of the place I was in anymore. I really hadn't noticed many other people until then, most were broken and unresponsive to their surroundings, but I saw her. She was fighting the demons. So hard. She was so brave, she couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve." Buffy let out a shuddering breath, "I watched one of the demons pick her up and snap her neck like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. He tossed her body into the corner like a piece of trash to be cleaned up later."

"It was then that I felt the first lash on my back. There had been others. Days, weeks, who knows how many whippings I'd had, but this was the first one that I felt. I bit my lip so hard it bled, and it was the first time I tasted something other than ash in my mouth." Buffy stopped, feeling her body shudder.

Faith planted a soft kiss to the crown of her head.

Buffy took in a deep breath, blinking away the tears which had formed in her eyes, "When they untied me, I killed all of them in that room with my bare hands. I killed every demon I found, sometimes using weapons, usually not. It was only after I snapped the neck of the demon I had seen kill that young girl that I stopped. Then I began helping get others free and look for a way out."

"After we escaped, I didn't know what to do. It was as if I had forgotten my purpose. Will found me. She had some kind of magical homing beacon out looking for me. The team brought me back home. A month or so later, one of the older women who I had helped escape found me; she told me about her young daughter. She was thirteen. They'd been taken at night after a mother-daughter movie date and were split up in Hell. She asked me if I remember seeing her and showed me a picture of her." Buffy swallowed thickly, her throat tightening, and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt them well with tears again at the memory.

"I told the woman that her daughter saved my life."

"How'd she take it?" Faith murmured, knowing the sad answer.

"About how you'd expect," Buffy cleared her throat and took a deep breath to calm herself, "She was so proud of her though. That her daughter never gave up. Fought to the end."

"Fightin' the good fight doesn't necessarily mean winning," Faith murmured softly, "But she got you out."

"Yeah, she did." Buffy echoed softly, letting the silence of the room seep back in for a few minutes.

She'd missed this closeness the two of them had found in recent years. It wasn't something they labelled, but it was strong. Their connection had always had a hum, even when they were fighting each other. It was only once they began sleeping together that the tone changed. It was sharper, but less disruptive to her senses. Soothing almost. When she was in Hell, the hum had been cut away and Buffy had felt an emptiness from its loss. It was then that she realized that maybe she loved Faith.

Faith breathed deeply in and out, sighing with frustration, "God, what does a chick need to do to get a can to piss in around here?"

It's a special kind of love.

"Always so eloquent," Buffy chuckled, sitting up and stretching her legs out before lifting her hand to use the wall for support as she stood up.

"I'm direct, what more could you ask for?" Faith shot back as she, too, began to make her way into a more vertical position.

"A door that isn't locked. Some light, maybe. C'mon, Faith, show a girl a good time."

"Why didn't you lead with that? We only need the wall," Faith replied, her voice lower, but tinged with humor.

Buffy felt her breath hitch and her pulse jump at the comment. A low, knowing chuckle from Faith near her ear was not helping in keeping her focused on actually trying to escape the room. Swallowing thickly, Buffy turned her head towards where she could feel Faith's breath on her skin.

"Faith," Buffy murmured, knowing her lips were ghosting along the taller woman's jawline, "You have permission to be as creative as you want when we get out of here." Crumbling slightly, Buffy pressed a kiss to the jaw and felt the reflexive swallow from the action, "But let's get out of here first."

"Point me towards the damn door, B."

Buffy grinned, "That's my girl."