The cellar was dim, and a lone candle lit it. I curled my fingers around the candle's flame, desperately searching for warmth, which I had not had for many months.

Footsteps echoed throughout the cellar, and I sighed. Food was coming. Moldy bread and stale water. 'Food'.

But, when the door opened, the shape of the figure in front of me was not the plump old lady with a tray who brought me food. It was a lean figure, with its hands on its hips.

The figure moved closer, and I saw who it was. It was Scarlett, an old friend of mine, with flaming red hair and bright green eyes. She sat next to me, her eyes trained on the candle, and said nothing for quite a long time.

Finally, she spoke. "Things are happening outside of smelly jails, you know."

I nodded. "Of course."

She glanced at me. "Bad things, Ash. Terrifying things."

More silence lingered for a while, and I watched shadows from the small candle's flame dance along the walls of the cellar.

"How did you get in?" I asked. "It must have been hard. Did you bribe the guards?"

Scarlett looked slightly amused. "You really think I bribed the guards? Of course not. I broke in. How is a long story which I am too exhausted to tell."

"Okay." I toke in a deep breath. "So. Why did you come?"

"To get you out." Scarlett raised her eyebrows. "Are you really so daft to have not realized that by now?"

I felt heat rush into my cheeks, and, for a moment, I was glad that the room was dim so Scarlett could not see. "How are you supposed to get me out of here?" My voice was impatient. Annoyed. I looked down at the chains that grasped my ankles and wrists. "I'm imprisoned, and you can't have a key."

"Of course I don't have a key!" Scarlett snapped. Her voice became softer. "I... I don't have a plan, either. I just wanted to be with you, and I thought that maybe... Maybe we could figure something out. Soon."

I rocked back and forth on my heels. It wasn't like Scarlett to come without a plan. The Scarlett I had known before, that is. But she seemed changed. Older. Tired. Even though it had been only six months since I was captured and brought here.

"You came to keep me company," I said. "Not to free me. Just to keep me company."

Scarlett flinched, and for a brief, ashamed moment I thought I had offended her. But her shoulders relaxed, and I relaxed, also.

"That's right." Scarlett's voice was tight and strained. "I just came to keep you company." She sighed. "But it would obviously be a good thing if we could get you out of here, also."

She rested her head on my shoulder, and I didn't brush her off like I had some other times. For months I had longed to feel the warmth of other compassionate human beings, and now I had my wish.

"I missed you," I whispered. "I dreamed of seeing you. I had prayed that you were still alive, that you were okay, that they hadn't caught you, also, and brought you here."

Scarlett seemed surprised by my words. "I missed you too," she murmured. She wrapped her arms around me. I let her.

I hugged her back, and felt tears run down my cheeks. They dripped onto her hair. They shone in the candlelight like tiny stars.

Suddenly, I was laughing, too. I was laughing and crying at the same time, and heard Scarlett do the same, our sounds weaving together as a harmony, our shoulders shaking together with sobs and laughter. Together.

Soon the crying and the laughter died away, but we were both still smiling, our cheeks shiny and our eyes red from crying.

I fingered a necklace Scarlett had around her neck. It was a plain necklace, made of cheap metal, but it had a charm on it. The charm was a a circle that was not perfectly round--in fact, it was more of an oval--and it was black. In the middle, written in white cursive letters, said 'Love'.

"Oh," I said. My voice was choked from tears, and I knew I was about to start crying again. "Oh. You still have it."

Scarlett smiled. "Of course. I wanted to have a little bit of you with me at all times."

I had made Scarlett the necklace two years ago, when she was crying herself to sleep and refusing to eat. Her mother and father had died in an accident, and she missed them dearly. I had noticed how she'd had been feeling and threw together some glue, metal, paper, pens and my poor cursive handwriting together to make the necklace. She had been extremely grateful, and started wearing it every day. She even wore it to bed, and when she had told me this a year ago, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside, like I had swallowed a caterpillar. It was in those past two years that we had became closer, and my heart was swelling with the fact that Scarlett still cared enough to wear the worn down necklace I had made years earlier.

"You don't have to wear it," I said. "It's--it's pretty beaten up, you know."

"I know." Scarlett met my gaze. "But I want to wear it."

The silence that passed between us after that was comfortable, and I realized then why I loved Scarlett. She was extremely stubborn and loyal, and she could make anything comfortable that would normally be uncomfortable. Like silence after a conversation about a necklace that she refused to take off.

Scarlett may have been reading my thoughts, because she placed her hand on my hand. "Ash, I need to tell you something." She sounded strong, but I could hear a slight shakiness in her voice.

"Okay," I said.

"Ash," Scarlett said, "I--I want to know if you trust me."

"What?"

"Do you trust me, Ash?"

"Goodness, Scarlett, of course I trust you!"

"So--so you'll believe me when I tell you this?"

"Yes."

"Ash." Scarlett started again, taking in an extremely large breath. "Ash, I love you."

"Oh," I said dumbly. "Oh." Emotions rushed through me, confusion and gratitude and--what was that, heart?--love.

"Oh," I said again. "Scarlett. Scarlett, I love you too."

Scarlett opened her mouth to say something, when the door to the cellar burst open, and a man stormed in.

"What are you doing here?!"