"So it has been hard getting used to this place, and I've had my share of troubles (she had been in two fights since arriving here, but none in the last three months), but I'm adjusting. I don't have a cellmate anymore. Jane was released on parole just this morning. I'm happy for her, but I hope they let me enjoy this privacy for a while. Anyway, thanks for the chocolate bars and the books. I understand why you can't come to see me, but maybe if they allow evening visits someday you will be able to. Take care, Angel, and thanks again for everything." She put the letter aside to give to the guard, who would read it before it was sent on. Then she picked up one of the books he had sent her. Peeling the wrapper off a Hershey bar, she began to read: "Christmas just won't be Christmas without any presents." I know where you're coming from, honey, she thought, as she started into Little Women.

About an hour later, the door to her cell opened. She put the book down and went to get the letter to give to the guard. But the guard wasn't alone, so she was getting a new roomie after all. Oh, my God, no! I don't believe it!

Her new cellmate, of all the people in the world it could have been, was that damned lawyer from Wolfram & Hart, Lila Morgan, looking down her nose as if she were a princess visiting a leper colony. What was she doing here? Lila looked at her with equal shock. Before she could open her mouth, Faith shook her head. Lila was silent as she put the bundle containing her prison uniforms and the few personal items she was allowed to bring onto the unoccupied bunk. The guard took Faith's letter and left. Then Faith spoke, "So, Ms. Hotshot Lawyer from Hell, what are you doing here?"

"Faith. Lucky me. We get to spend eternity, or at least what seems like eternity, together. How ironic."

Faith wanted to slap her, but she didn't want to lose any of the privileges she had been accumulating since her last fight, so she just smiled. "I know why I'm here. I got 7 to 10 for manslaughter for killing the deputy mayor in Sunnydale. I deserve it. But why are you here? Did they finally catch up with you all?"

"No, just some of us. I gather you don't watch or read the news." Her condescending tone put Faith's teeth on edge, but she calmed herself.

"Just the sports scores. So tell me about it. We have all night, in case it's a long story. And don't bother making it ‘less long'," she answered, a vision of that night in Lindsey's office coming into her head. The three lawyers, Princess, Weasel, and Pretty Boy, paying her to kill Angel. "What happened to the Weasel? Did he recover from the pounding I gave him?" It had been so satisfying pounding his face into that table. And that Lindsey, cool as a cucumber, asking his assistant to change the dinner reservations from 4 people to 3! The guy had a real sense of humor.

"Lee Mercer? He's dead. Holland, our boss, discovered he was planning to leave the firm & take clients with him, so he had him shot right in front of the rest of the associates. Lindsey had his blood splashed all over him. I never could stand Lee. Actually, I wouldn't have minded pulling that trigger myself."

"And Pretty Boy? What about him?"  

Lila grimaced. "If I ever see him again, I'll make him eat his own liver, followed by his eyeballs. God, I hate him!"

"Funny, I thought you had a thing for him, but it wasn't mutual. Guess I was wrong."

Blushing, Lila answered, "He's the reason I'm here. He got married to this little goody-goody who had him wearing a cross and defying the firm. But instead of getting him killed, that got him a promotion! Of course Holland and I knew that we had to get rid of her, and him, too, because he was now tainted and no more use to the firm. So Holland tricked her into coming to the office, used an aphrodisiac gas to get her pregnant with Lindsey's child—it had to be his for the plan to work—and put a growth spell on the baby so that it would kill her by feeding on her more than she could handle. She would have to have an abortion, which was so much against her beliefs that she would have been convinced she had committed an unforgiveable sin, or have the baby and die, leaving him so full of guilt that he probably would have taken the easy way out, like his brother-in-law did when his sister died. To make a long story less long (she smiled at the memory of Lindsey saying this at their meeting. It had become a catch phrase at W&H!), she and the baby died, but, instead of killing himself, Lindsey sold the firm down the river with some discs he had helped Angel steal. Holland and the senior partners got away and left the rest of us to face the music." The thought of Holland running off & leaving her behind, after all she had done for him, and with him, and to him, made her seethe. She hated him even more than Lindsey! She'd make him eat more than his liver and eyeballs if she ever had a chance!

"So how long are you here for?"

"Three to five. And they also disbarred me. They disbarred Lindsey, too, but he took off and nobody knows where he has gone. So everything I've done has gone for nothing."

"One word of advice, Princess. You'd better drop that ‘holier than thou' attitude fast if you want to get through here without any problems. There are a lot of women here who'll take it badly. Including me." Lila suddenly dropped onto her bunk and sobbed. Faith went back to her book.

Lila did indeed have a hard time adjusting. She came back to the cell several times with evidence that she had been slapped or punched. The first time Faith had to warn her not to rat on the woman or women who had done it to her. After that she knew enough to keep silent. Eventually she learned to take care of herself. A transfer from the prison laundry to the library helped. Faith had suggested to the guard that they should make use of her education, and she had passed it on to the warden. Faith worked in the kitchen, which she had come to enjoy. Learning to prepare food was fun, especially baking. She had never done that before.

In the evenings they finally started opening up to one another. Lila told Faith that she had been an only child, disappointing her father badly, as he had really wanted a boy. All of her life she had tried and failed to please him, even though she had graduated at the top of her class in high school, college, and law school, and lettered in soccer, basketball, and softball as well. Her college boyfriend, Derek, had turned out to be a real jerk. She had thought they'd get married, but he dumped her. Then she joined Wolfram & Hart. When she found out about the evil things they did, she no longer cared. Holland made it clear that he'd make her his protégé if she became his mistress. Funny, she hadn't realized at the time, but he looked a lot like her father. So she just closed her eyes and pretended he was Derek! Then Lindsey joined the firm, looking so much like Derek that it was amazing. But for some reason she couldn't get to first base with him. Until good old Rosemary came along, she had begun to think he had to be gay! And Holland had actually seemed to prefer Lindsey's legal skills over hers! Everything turned sour.

Faith also poured out her soul to Lila, her feelings of inadequacy, especially when everybody compared her to the fabulous Buffy Summers! How she had killed the deputy mayor, thinking he was a vampire, and then discovering that she really didn't care. She had switched bodies with Buffy and left her to be sent off with the watchers while she had sex with Buffy's boyfriend Riley. Everyone had always expected the worst of her, Lila and her colleagues included, so she didn't disappoint them!   Except for the Mayor, who loved her as if she had been his own daughter. She loved him too. But his Transformation to a dragon demon had been foiled by Buffy and he had died. Then Angel came along and told her he knew that there was good in her—even after she had tried to kill him!

One night, after a soul-searching session, as Lila sat on her bunk crying, Faith came over and put her arm around her shoulders. Lila laid her head on Faith's shoulder and sobbed. Suddenly, not knowing why, Faith kissed her. The next thing she knew, Lila was kissing her back. They continued kissing, Lila's hand on Faith's thigh while Faith rubbed Lila's back slowly. They broke away, but both of them were thinking, why not? All of the men in my life have been rotten to me. Why not?

Why not, indeed. Slowly the two began an affair. Neither of them had ever felt the tenderness with a man that they felt with each other. It wasn't love, but it was a close companionship mingled with the sexual release that they longed for. Eventually they became quite comfortable with it. Although Faith had told Angel that Lila was her cellmate, she never told anyone about those nights they spent together in each other's arms. After all, it was nobody else's business.

Nobody ever came to visit either of them in prison, although Angel often expressed a desire to if he could figure out how to do it. Wes had forgiven her for kidnapping and torturing him and, although he had refused to press charges, he couldn't bring himself to come. Neither could Cordelia, nor anyone from Sunnydale. Lila's father had disowned her, and of course Holland stayed as far away from California as possible. However, one day the guard came to get Faith, as she had someone wanting to see her.

To her amazement, the person on the other side of the glass partition was Lindsey MacDonald! As she came into the room, he rose from his seat and waited until she was seated to sit down again. Amazing! He was treating her like a lady. He didn't look like Mr. Hotshot Lawyer any more. He wore a polo shirt and jeans and his right arm ended in a plastic hand! Also he had lost some weight and aged more than the couple of years it had been since she had seen him last. On his left hand was one of those Irish rings, like Buffy's, only gold with a ruby heart. She guessed it was his wedding ring.

"Hello, Faith, how are you?"

"Not too bad, all things considered. What brings you here? You are just about the last person I would have expected to see."

"I've come to ask your forgiveness, Faith, for everything I've done to you: hiring you to kill Angel, hiring that demon to kill you, and telling Kate Lockley where to find you. I'm truly sorry, and I wanted to face you and tell you so."

Faith was astounded. He really did look sincere. "Why are you apologizing to me? What brought this on, especially after two years?'

"I don't know if you had heard that I was married. My wife Rosemary was my whole life. After Wolfram & Hart had her and our baby killed, I had nothing. So, after I did my bit to bring them down, and, as you know, they deserved it, I searched for some kind of meaning in my life. And I finally found it. Tomorrow I'm entering the seminary to become a priest. So I wanted to clean the slate. I saw Angel a few weeks ago and forgave him for this (he raised his plastic hand a little). But I hadn't seen you, and I felt very responsible for your being here. So I decided I should come to see you. I also brought you a little gift. Angel told me you like chocolate bars, so I gave the guard a box of Hershey bars to give to you. I also gave her something else for you. It's Rosemary's crucifix. I took it off of her when she died, and it's been giving me strength and hope. Now I know she'd want you to have it." Lindsey rose to leave.

"Wait, Lindsey. I really want to thank you and, yes, I forgive you. I'm very sorry for what you went through. It'll take me a while, though, to picture you as a priest." Lindsey smiled at this. "I also want to tell you that Lila is my cellmate." That really raised his eyebrows. "I don't think she'll ever forgive you. She hates your guts and blames you for everything from her being in prison to the Chicago Fire and the Johnstown Flood!"

"I don't know if I can ever forgive her, either. Not for anything she did to me personally, but Rosemary went through so much pain and agony, and our son died just minutes after he was born, never having had a chance to live. I'll have to pray long and hard before I can forgive her."

"Try. She's been through a lot and been hurt by a lot of people. Maybe someday she'll find her way. After all, you did. And thank you for the cross. I won't take it off."

Lindsey smiled at her and left. Back in her cell, she told Lila about the visit.

"Lindsey a priest! That witch really cast a spell on him. Are you sure he wasn't just pulling your leg?"

"No, he was quite sincere." Faith fingered the gold crucifix on the thin gold chain around her neck. She could almost feel a presence (Rosemary?) telling her that someone would be watching over her and helping her to become the person she was meant to be.

"When I told him that you were my cellmate, he said he wasn't quite ready to forgive you yet for your part in his wife's and baby's deaths."

"I guess not. I think I have to be truly sorry for that in order for him to forgive me, and I'm not yet. But maybe I should think more about the things I've done and less about the things that have been done to me."

Two years after she entered prison, Lila was released on parole. The parole officer found her a job in a bookstore and a small apartment. At the end of three years, she was granted her total release. By that time, she had discovered where Holland had gone. She left her job and took off for Washington, DC, where Wolfram & Hart was now Raines & Lyle. She found Holland and his new protégé/mistress Laura McMillan as they were coming out of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where they had just been watching a performance of Don Giovanni. Holland still had a smile on his face, thinking of Don Giovanni being dragged down to Hell at the end of the opera. When he saw Lila, pointing a gun at him, he gave her a large smile. "Lila! What a nice surprise! I see you've come to get your old job back. I'd like you to meet Laura. I think the three of us will become very close friends." He took the gun from her hand, helped her into the limousine, and, closing the partition between the driver and the passengers, asked, "Now, why don't the three of us get better acquainted?"

Faith's new cellmate was a young girl who had been tricked by her lover into making a drug deal for him. Although the judge was sympathetic, the law was clear. Renee Allen was sentenced to two years in prison. Faith found that she was very sympathetic to Renee and became her friend, although the two were never lovers.

When she had been in prison five years, Faith was granted parole. As she left prison forever, she wondered where she would go and what she would do. It didn't take long to find out. A black car, its windows darkly tinted, was waiting for her; Angel had come to get her. He took her back to Angel Investigations, where she could stay until he helped her discover what she wanted to do.

"Do you have an ideas at all about your future, Faith? I know you worked in the kitchen in prison. Would that interest you?"

"Maybe, but I'd prefer something which would be more active. Do you think I could become a fitness trainer?"

"That's a great idea. I think you'll need to be certified, so maybe you should start out as a cook or a baker until you can fulfill all of the requirements. Let's look into both of these options."

Finding Faith a job in a small restaurant as a cook was not difficult, nor was it hard to start her on her way to becoming certified. Occasionally Angel, Wes, Cordelia, or even Father Lindsey would drop in on her at the restaurant. Lindsey especially came by for coffee, as it was quite near his church, St. Jerome's. One day, while she was on her break, she came to sit with him and chat.

"You know, it's ironic that somebody named Faith was raised without any. Have you ever given any thought to joining a church?" Lindsey asked.

She nodded. "Not until somebody, mentioning no names, gave me a cross to wear. Now I've thought about it a lot. Do you have any kind of instructions in the Catholic Church?"

"Yes, we have a session starting next Monday at 7:30 in the parish hall. Why don't you come?"

As the sessions progressed, Faith realized that she did indeed want to join the Church. When she finished her instructions, Father Lindsey baptized her and gave her her first Communion. "Don't forget, Faith, I have first dibs on performing your wedding."

"Who's going to want to marry a girl with a record like mine?"

"Don't count it out, Faith. You're beautiful and intelligent and the kind of woman any man would want, unless he happened to be a priest who was still in love with his dead wife." That made her smile.

Two weeks later, at her new job at the health club, she met a young man named Graham, who had lived in Sunnydale at one time. They often had coffee together and chatted. Eventually they went out to dinner, and then they moved in together. Finally they showed up at St. Jerome's for their prenuptial counseling.

On Saturday, September 13, 2008, Faith and Graham were married. As it was an outdoor evening wedding, Angel gave the bride away. A number of friends that the couple had made over the last couple of years were in attendance, along with Cordelia and Wesley. Father Lindsey performed the double-ring ceremony. As the couple kissed, Angel felt a deep satisfaction that he had been right about Faith after all. All she needed was someone to believe in her, to have faith in her. As it turned out, that was Father Lindsey's last wedding. Four days later he was stabbed to death rescuing a woman from a mugger. Faith and Graham attended his funeral, and Faith was one of the eulogizers who spoke about how he had helped to change her life.

Unfortunately, their happiness was short-lived. Not too long after Faith gave birth to their daughter Angela, Graham, now a member of the LAPD after the initiative had been dissolved, was shot and killed in a gunfight with bank robbers. But Faith and her daughter, aided by Angel, were able to make it on their own. Angela became a slayer like her mother, but, unlike Faith, never went over to the dark side.