Chapter Six – The Chicken Picata

Olivia was actually enjoying dinner. It was obvious that Alex and Xander came here often. The staff greeted them warmly and the owner had even come out to offer his congratulations on the wedding. He gave them a small private room. And the chicken picata was excellent.

They spent the first part of the evening catching Alex up on the happenings in New York. Olivia was both surprised and pleased to find out Alex had kept track of a lot of the SVU cases.

"So how is my replacement working out?" Alex asked.

"Novak got off to a shaky start," Olivia said. "She wasn't ready for what we deal with."

"Nobody is ever ready for what you deal with," Alex responded. "I take it she's getting better."

"Yea," Olivia said. "She's finding her way through."

"Good," Alex said.

Olivia decided to shift the topic to Xander. She wanted to learn more about Alex's fiancé.

"So what exactly do you do here Xander?" Olivia asked.

Xander answered. "Officially I'm the Facilities Manager for the Jenny Calendar Foundation. In practical terms that means I specialize in the care and feeding of Slayers and Watchers."

"'The care and feeding of Slayers and Watchers,'" Olivia said. "An interesting take on the job."

"My job is too make they have what they need to do their job," Xander said. "A place to rest, a place to train, a place to eat, a place to store their weapons and dusty old books and anything else they need to get the job done."

"So you keep up the facilities here in Cleveland," Olivia said.

"Actually the Foundation has offices in six locations," Xander said. "I'm responsible for all of them. In addition to the main office here in Cleveland, we have a small LA office. That one is responsible for monitoring the remnants of the Sunnydale Hellmouth and dealing with anything that pops up on the west coast. We have a office in Brazil, one in Germany, one in Indonesia and our newest office in Taipei."

"Taipei?" Olivia said. "If I remember correctly the others all sound like they're located at active Hellmouths. Is there a Hellmouth in Taiwan?"

"No," Xander said. "We opened the office as a way to deal with some of the problems we have with Indonesia. That office is so isolated that it's almost impossible to move teams in and out quickly. Whenever anything supernatural went down elsewhere in Asia it was actually easier to dispatch a team from the LA office. So we decided to open an office in a more central location. It takes some of the pressure off the Slayers in Indonesia."

"Xander has some rather odd site requirements for locating new offices," Alex said.

"Like what?" Olivia asked.

"Well, one the primary criteria for the location of all our offices is easy walking distance to a donut shop or the local cuisine equivalent," Xander smiled.

"You're kidding."

"It's the little things that matter," Xander said. "You'd be surprised how critical a role donuts have played in saving the world. I rejected two possible sites for Guardian's New York office because of they were too far away from sugary goodness."

Olivia smiled. "When is your family coming in for the wedding?"

"My family's already here," Xander said. "Buffy, Willow and Giles have been my family since I was fifteen. Far more than the people who are related to me ever were."

"Not a happy home life," Olivia recognized the bitterness in Xander's voice.

"My parents have a better relationship with a bottle than they do with each other or me," Xander said. "Jesse and Willow are probably the only reason I stayed sane growing up."

"I've heard about Willow," Olivia said. "But who's Jesse."

"Jesse was my best friend," Xander explained. "He was killed by vampires when I was fifteen."

"And you've been fighting vampires ever since."

"Yep," Xander replied. "Well a lot of time lying on the floor watching Buffy fight vampires."

"So why stay?" Olivia asked.

Xander paused and thought. "Buffy, Willow, Giles, even Dawn. They don't have much of choice."

"But you have a choice," Olivia said.

"Walking away from my friends is not a choice," Xander said. "You haven't really seen the price the others have paid to be here. Like I said my job is to make it possible for them to do their job. Carry some of the burden so they can deal with the big stuff. Besides, you're job isn't wine and roses detective. You deal with humanity at its absolute worst. Why do you stay?"

Olivia was forced to pause this time. She'd spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how anyone could deal with the supernatural she had forgotten her job could be just as ugly. She looked at Xander.

"Somebody has to do it," Olivia replied. "Somebody has to speak for the victims. To find justice."

"It's the same thing for me Olivia," Xander said. "Somebody has to do it. I'm here, I know the score, so I do it."

Olivia nodded in understanding. She shifted her attention back to Alex.

"So aside from this DeCastro case, what other kind of things are you responsible for Alex?" Olivia asked.

"I usually get called in on any case that involves humans," Alex replied. "I also advise on how to deal with law enforcement agencies. Actually the strangest thing I've found myself doing was a couple of months ago. I spent a week helping a local attorney negotiate a deal with the DA so his client could plead not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. The DA was planning on prosecuting him on six counts of murder. We got him into a hospital instead of jail."

"You were helping murderer?" Olivia said. "With an insanity defense? I find that hard to believe."

"He was possessed for nearly three months," Alex explained. "The demon made him kill. He actually retained enough control to leave clues behind that led us to him. We figured out what happened to him and freed him from the possession. The police found him too. They had a solid case."

"But he wasn't responsible for his actions," Olivia said. "So you helped find a way to get him off."

"He summoned the demon and didn't understand the consequences of playing with that kind of power. I found a way to get him into a hospital," Alex sighed. "From what Andre found out, the possession did a lot of damage to his mind. He'll never be the same again. It's unlikely he'll ever be able to function in society. But he deserves to at least a chance to get better. In a hospital he has that chance. In a prison he wouldn't have. It's not a happy ending but it was the best we could do."

"Sounds like a lot of the SVU cases," Olivia observed.

"It can be just that frustrating at times," Alex said. "But Buffy has given me a lot of room to do my job. More than I had in New York. We also end up dealing with situations like the Cummings case."

"You mean, wannabes, I think Buffy called him?" Olivia said.

"We usually try to handle those types of things the same way Buffy and Dawn ended up handling the Cummings case," Alex explained. "Provide the local police with information and support to find and prosecute the bad guys."

"Like in Seattle?" Olivia recalling the case she and Elliot had talked about the previous week.

"Seattle was more public than any of us prefer," Alex said. "But Will made a far better expert witness then anybody the DA had available to him. His testimony helped put, what was he calling himself again?"

"Some unpronounceable name," Xander answered.

"Anyway, it helped put the cult leader away," Alex finished. "In those type of situations we usually just send a Watcher in to help. The Slayers already have enough to deal with."

"Just how many Slayers are there?" Olivia asked.

"Too many and not enough," Xander answered.

"Only the senior members of the Council know that information," Alex explained. "They haven't even told me."

"It's not personal Alex," Xander said.

"I know," Alex replied. "You've explained your reasons. I even agree with them. Besides there isn't really a reason for me to know."

"After the wedding, we'll see about making you a full Scooby," Xander said.

"Xander I'm not doing the...."

"No, no. We don't discuss our initiation rituals in front of outsiders," Xander smiled.

"Initiation rituals?" Olivia asked.

"Blackmail material," Alex said. "You really shouldn't have shown me Faith's tape."

"You have to admit it was funny," Xander said.

"Yes it was funny," Alex responded. "But there is no way you're making me do that."

"You underestimate my powers of persuasion," Xander smiled.

"Really," Alex replied.

"You did agree to marry me," Xander noted.

"That's because I love you," Alex said. She leaned in to give him a quick kiss, "Not because you're persuasive."

Olivia smiled at the exchanged and took a bite of her chicken picata.