Chapter Seventeen - Redemption
Olivia was still sorting through her feelings as Faith led her to the service elevator. The elevator deposited the two in an alley. The sun was out and Olivia could hear the regular bustle of a morning commute. As they walked out of alley onto the sidewalk Olivia saw one of the Foundation's vans parked on the other side of the street.
They crossed the street and approached the van. Faith stopped short as a blonde woman turned and approached them.
"Kate," Faith said. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Alex invited me in for the wedding," Kate replied. "I got in last night."
"I didn't see you come in," Faith said.
"I'm staying at a hotel," Kate explained. "This is supposed to be a vacation for me. I knew if I stayed on campus I'd get pulled into something. I was right too. Walked in this morning and Giles tapped me to come out here and collect Olivia," Kate turned her attention to Olivia. "And I assume that's you," she held out her hand. "Kate Lockley. You're NYPD right?"
Olivia took the offered hand. "Olivia Benson." Olivia studied the woman in front of her. Olivia recognized her bearing. "You were a cop."
"LAPD, homicide," Kate replied. "Been out for a while now."
"How did you end up here?"
"Long story," Kate replied. "I'll give you the short version on the ride back. Faith, I'll see you at the wedding."
"Sure thing Kate," Faith said. "I got to get back and help B with Janie. See you later Olivia."
Olivia watched as Faith turned and headed back towards the service entrance. "So how did you end up here?"
"Met a vampire with a soul," Kate answered. "Career went downhill after that."
"You're talking about Angel," Olivia said as she allowed Kate to lead her back too her car.
"Yes," Kate said. She motioned for Olivia to get into a car parked behind the van. "I was working a serial killer case. It was a demon doing the killing so Angel was tracking the same killer. For a while I thought he was bad guy. I was wrong. Angel killed the demon and saved my life."
"And that's when you learned about all of this?"
"Didn't have a clue," Kate said. She pulled the car out unto the street and began the drive back to the campus. "At the time I thought Angel was just some vigilante or something. It was a couple of months later that I learned he was a vampire."
"I bet that came as a shock."
"It did," Kate said. "The supernatural is a strange world. It has its own rules. Thing you need to remember Olivia, demons have been around since before history started. They'll probably be here when it's all comes to an end. A lot of them view us as little more than food."
"So how did you meet Alex?" Olivia asked.
"I met her a couple of times when I've come into to town for meetings," Kate replied. "She visits the LA office occasionally. She said I reminded her of a friend from a previous life. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was you."
"I guess so," Olivia acknowledged. "What do you know about Alex before she joined the Jenny Calendar foundation."
"Not much," Kate said. "I know her real name isn't Winters. Given what I've seen of her work and some of the comments she's dropped, I figured she was a DA before coming here. You're from New York so that probably means she was an ADA there. My guess is she was assigned to your unit."
"You don't know anything else?"
"I didn't ask, she didn't tell," Kate said. "In all honesty, I could figure it out if I wanted to. Don't have a reason. Alex Winters is my friend. If she wants to talk about what she did before, that's her choice. I don't talk much about what I did before joining the Foundation."
"Does anybody else know about her?"
"The Scoobies all know, along with senior people in the Council," Kate said. "William most likely knows. There's not much that gets by him. If you're worried someone will find her. Don't be. We don't rat people out here. In some ways the Council is a refugee spot for cast-offs and people who don't fit anywhere else in society. That makes us family. And we take care of family."
"By sending girls out to fight demons," Olivia said.
"They do the job," Kate said. "Better than I ever could as a cop. Police just don't have the resources or the knowledge. Hell, they can barely keep up with the human scum. Demons, whole different story. Slayers have the power to fight them."
"I saw that down in the tunnel," Olivia acknowledged. "I couldn't even follow what Buffy and Faith were doing. You've fought demons?"
"I'm in charge of the Watchers at the LA office. I back the Slayers up in the field," Kate said. "I've dusted my share of vamps. But I've also seen what happens to the regular people who play demon fighter, the ones who don't have supernatural powers to draw on and try to go it alone. Most of them don't last more than a couple of years, if that. The ones that do, do so by becoming worse than the things they kill."
"But…"
"But it still seems wrong," Kate finished. "I've been working out of the LA office for the past two years. I've gotten to know the Slayers I work with. You can't make them stop Olivia. Whatever force out there that runs the universe, God, Powers-That-Be, Wal-Mart, it hard wired demon hunting into the Slayers."
"They either use it and learn to control it or it destroys them," Olivia said. "That's what Buffy said."
"It's true," Kate said. "Faith's one example."
"You two seem like you're on friendly terms," Olivia noted. "You know her past."
"I know it. She was my perp," Kate replied. "I spent about a week tracking her through LA. She put about a dozen people in the hospital, one guy for over six months, busted up a nightclub and then she tried to kill Angel. Although according to him, she was actually trying to get him to kill her."
"She was that out of control?" Olivia asked as got in the car.
"Yea she was," Kate replied. "It's lucky she was looking to get herself killed. I don't even want to think about how much damage she could have done if she was just looking to kill for fun. Slayer strength and skill she could have just as easily killed anyone she came in contact with. An out of control Slayer is not a pretty sight."
"And you're okay with her being out of prison?"
"It took a while," Kate said. "I still have a hard time separating the girl I met in LA from the woman she's become. She was a shell when I first saw her. All anger and pain, hollow inside. She's different now. She has a purpose. She's great working with the younger Slayers. Even better than Buffy."
"In what way?"
"A lot of the girls tend to look at Buffy with a sort of hero worship. She's been doing this the longest and stopped more apocalypses than almost everyone else who works with Council combined, with the exception of the other Scoobies," Kate explained. "That makes her more distant, harder to get to know. There are also times when she seems kind of disconnected. Faith is more approachable. She's made mistakes and she's honest about them. The others can relate to her better."
"What do mean by Buffy being disconnected?" Olivia asked.
"I can't really explain," Kate said. "Buffy only pulled me in to help with the LA branch a couple of years ago. But the girl I met that first time in LA, back when I was still with the force, was alive. There was a real fire in her eyes. She's older now. The fire is still there. But it disappears sometimes."
"Like a permanent sadness that she hides really well," Olivia replied.
"I think most people miss it," Kate said. "It took a while before I saw it."
"Do you know what happened to her?"
"Thirteen years of being the Slayer," Kate said. "Seven of those as the Chosen One. Having the weight of the world on her shoulders alone. Watching friends die. Making life and death decisions every day. I'm amazed she doesn't look more burned out at times."
"Are all these girls going to end up like that?"
"It's different now," Kate said. "Its not 'the one girl in the all the world' anymore. There are lots of Slayers. They get real support from us Watchers. They have others like themselves to talk too. I'm not going to lie Olivia. It's a hard life. But some of my Slayers hold down full time jobs. A couple started families. They couldn't do anything like that before. Something really bad happened to Buffy. I don't know what. I think a lot of the Slayers know but they don't say anything to me. In all honesty, she does seem to be getting better in the time I've known her. She connects more. She devotes almost all of her time to the Council and the new Slayers. She comes alive when she's working with them."
"Faith said she dreamed about what happened to her once," Olivia said.
"Yea the dream thing is weird," Kate said.
Olivia shook her head. "And your ok with someone like Faith being an example to the other Slayers."
Kate shot Olivia a look. "In all honesty she's better than most people I could think of."
"She killed someone."
"I know," Kate replied. "And she paid for it. And she still is."
"Three years in prison is paying for it?" Olivia said.
"Another thing I've learned," Kate said. "Payment comes in a lot of different forms. The law doesn't recognize all of them. You've cut deals with perps in exchange for testimony or other assistance."
"Every cop does that."
"That's sort of what we have with Faith," Kate said. "We cut a deal with her. And she cut one with herself. She's going to spend the rest of her life trying to make certain what happened to her doesn't happen to any of the new Slayers."
"And that makes in right," Olivia replied. "How can you trust her?"
"There is one serious upside to this job that I never got as a cop," Kate said.
"That doesn't answer my question," Olivia said.
"I'm getting to that," Kate answered. "As cops we see all the bad things. We see people at their worst. We send them to jail. If we do deal with those people again, its when they break the law again."
"I know that," Olivia said. "People don't change."
"Once a perp, always a perp," Kate nodded. "I use to think that too. Then I entered this world. All the evil that's out there Olivia. All the crap we deal. There is a balance. We don't get to see it much as cops. I see it here."
"What are you talking about?"
"There is such a thing as redemption," Kate said. "People can change. It's not easy. It's never pretty. But it is real. I've seen it. I've seen a soulless vampire that became a champion. Heard about another one. I've watched Faith go from an empty girl filled with pain to a vital woman who is indispensable part of the team. I never saw that as a cop. I doubt you see very much out that either."
"No I don't," Olivia replied. Redemption? She shook her head. How many repeat offenders had she put away in her career? How many people had fallen back into old patterns?
"The cynical cop in you is shaking her head at that concept," Kate said. "I did too for a long time. That attitude doesn't work real well around here. They believe in second chances. And they've been rewarded because of it."
"I've seen too many rapists get out of jail and do it again," Olivia said.
"I did too," Kate replied. "And know you don't believe it now. But there is redemption. People have to work for it. And like I said, it's never pretty. But some the best champions out there, started out as the worst bad guys. I know it sounds like the plot of a bad movie or TV show."
"And when they don't change?"
"Then they end up dealing with us," Kate answered. "And that can get a lot uglier than redemption."
