The rain was hitting the roof of the bus-stop shelter hard enough to sound like hailstones, and the sodium glow of the overhanging streetlight didn't reach any farther than the middle of the deserted overpass. Kate could hear honking horns from the expressway below the bridge, but they were muted by distance and the overriding noise of the storm. She huddled into her jacket and shivered as another bus passed by the shelter without stopping.

"Where are you going?"

"Work," she responded without thinking, without looking at the man seated at the far end of the bench. If she wasn't at home, she was at work, and if she wasn't at work, she was going to work. What made no sense was why she was waiting for a bus --- her car wasn't in the shop, it was running fine, and there had to be at least three bus changes between her place and Metro Headquarters. What was she doing here?

"You work nights?"

"Sometimes." All the time, lately. The monsters managed to hide in the daylight, behind their lawyers, inside their penthouses and underground dives. Human monsters were still out there, but everyone knew about them, they were problems for normal cops, not for her. She couldn't ignore the other evils, even if no one else wanted to face facts.

"Must get lonely, going to work when everyone else is relaxing."

Kate didn't correct him. The only time she wasn't lonely was when she was alone, listening to the police band for Bad Things in the night. Being around people was worse, being reminded of what they thought of her; did they believe she was blind and deaf to the whispering? When had she gone from fellow cop, normal person, to someone no one wanted to know?

Maybe when they'd all sided with her father's judgement on her after he died, as some kind of memorial to him. Kate wasn't as good a cop as her dad, Kate could never be that good. Kate was crazy, seeing things in shadows that no one else saw. Kate was going to end up alone, if she didn't behave. Be quiet. Be good. If she didn't, she'd get what she deserved. It was impossible to argue with the dead, or with rumors she couldn't confront.

Funny how doing what everyone wanted was supposed to be more important than protecting people, or saving lives.

"What did you say you do?"

"I didn't."

"Right." She could smell the steam rising from his coffee cup, and she would've killed for some to warm her. It was so cold she could feel her fingertips go numb as she stuffed them in her pockets. Not for the first time she wished she was carrying her gun; being alone with a stranger in a bad part of town was never a good idea.

"Want some coffee? I have some extra in my thermos."

Kate finally looked at the guy, about to tell him to quit bothering her, but two things stopped her. One, he was holding out the thermos cup, and the smell was just too much. And two, he looked familiar.

"Uh, thanks. Do I know you?" she asked, cradling the metal cap for a moment before taking a sip, enjoying the heat seeping through it into her palms. "It seems like I've met you before."

"Not really. I probably remind you of someone." He poured out another cup for himself into another metal cup, and she frowned, wondering where he'd gotten it, then shrugged, dismissing the question.

He did remind her of someone, but she couldn't pin it down. He didn't look like a cop, or a criminal, or a lawyer, and those were the only kind of people she met these days. All of her friends were cops. Ex-friends. She'd gotten sick of so many of them telling her what to do (and what not to do) regarding her cases, and she'd stopped going out with them after work. The guy sitting on the bench reminded her of a rabbi, or a shrink; yeah, his attitude was a lot like the departmental shrink, calm and patient, even though he looked nothing like Dr. Walters. Walters was overweight, with thinning red hair, and sharp eyes behind glistening pince-nez; the guy on the bench was thin, with dark hair and a beard, sad eyes that had seen too much, and a pale trenchcoat.

"So, which bus are you taking?"

"Ummm...." She didn't even know which numbers ran by this stop. Or where they were--- near a freeway, sure, but which one? The rain was too thick to see fifty feet beyond the shelter. "I guess the first one going downtown." The storm picked up, pounding harder as a cold breeze blew through the shelter, rattling the plastic walls and spraying raindrops inside for a second, and she quickly took a swallow of the coffee, feeling it burn its way down her throat.

"None of the buses that stop here go downtown," her companion said gently.

"They don't?"

"No. And they don't transfer there, either."

Kate clenched her fingers around the cup, hit by a sudden sense of how wrong this was. She was out in the middle of the night in a storm, not dressed for it, no idea where she was, without her gun--- Oh.

The review board had taken her gun. And her badge. They'd kicked her off the force.

That hurt so much she couldn't breathe for a second. Lots of 'we're sorry to do this', lots of 'you brought this on yourself', lots of 'if only you hadn't (isolated yourself, screwed up, acted crazy)', a good portion of 'we're sure you know this is for the best'.... but they still did it. No arguing with them, either, not when they'd already found her guilty of being wrong, stubborn, and impossible to deal with.

Past the hurt was the fear, of what would happen now that she wasn't there to search for the monsters. And past that, the anger. At the department. At her father, for lying and dying and not letting her save him so he'd believe in her, and for not really *seeing* her for so long. Anger at Angel, for telling her too much, and using her, and leaving her to twist in the wind alone with the explanations no one would believe.

Back to the pain and betrayal again, from her father, from Angel, from the last thing she had left, her job, which was never supposed to let her down. Along with the pain that had been there so long, since right after her mother died, of always, always being alone.

"Do you remember where you're going now, Kate?"

She hadn't told him her name.

"How do you know me?"

"I know a lot of people." He smiled, and she finally placed him, figured out who he reminded her of. His eyes were like the bartender's at one of the cop bars, a place she hadn't been in months, maybe as long as a year; not long after her father died. She'd gotten drunk one night, really late, and spilled out her heartache about her father and Angel to the guy serving her watered scotch, and he'd listened. Hadn't commented, hadn't called her crazy, hadn't told her what to do: just listened and nodded, and let her talk until her voice was an alcohol-hoarsened rasp, then quietly called her a cab at closing time. She'd been too embarassed to ever go back, after that.

"Do you know where you're going?"

"No." Maybe she should go out in the rain, try to get her bearings... but it was so cold inside the shelter, and getting soaked would just make it worse.

"Do you know where you want to be?"

"I...." Back at work? No. Let them fight the good fight without her, if they didn't like the way she played. She was finally more sick of the department's cowardice--- yes, cowardice --- than she was angry at them, or afraid of having nothing to do without her job.

But that *did* leave her with nothing. No family, no friends, no job. No life. Well, nothing of her old life. She'd have to get a new one... but she had no clue where to start.

"I don't know." She realized that he'd been asking all the questions so far, and countered with one of her own. "What's your name? And do you always hang out at bus stops in the middle of the night?"

"Minos. And no. Sometimes I hang around bus stops in the middle of the day. Not so often, though." Somehow she didn't think he was lying. He smiled again, and it was a nice smile, as if he actually liked her, and it made her think of how long it had been since someone had really smiled at her for any reason at all.

"Oh." She took another sip of her coffee, feeling warmer, wishing that there was scotch to add to it to numb her against the cold, and against what she was feeling.

"Is there anyone you could call to come get you?"

Back to Twenty Questions. "No." No one she knew would come out and retrieve her from the middle of a storm. She wouldn't call the department; they'd talk, and wonder how she'd got out there, and it would confirm she was crazy all over again. And they might not show up anyway, figuring good riddance if she died of pneumonia, one less embarrassment to the force.

Okay, that wasn't completely fair. But it wasn't completely unfair, either.

"Think hard. Are you sure?"

She could probably call Angel. He might come, out of guilt as much as anything. More likely he had better things to do. Creeps to kill. Lawyers to harass. Still. Still. If he came, she could rip into him again, tell him what she thought of him. Ask him if he was happy she wasn't a cop any more, that he didn't have to worry about her blowing his secrets because no one would ever believe her. And if he didn't show, she'd have even more justification for hating him. She needed all she could get; it was harder and harder to blame everything on him when her father and her colleagues had disappointed her just as much.

"One guy. I guess. He probably won't show."

"Would you go with him if he did?"

"To get out of here? Yes."

"Good." He took a sip of the coffee, and pulled a cell phone out of his trenchcoat pocket. "What are you going to tell him?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's going to want to know how you got out here, and why you can't get back yourself. He'll want to know where you are. What are you going to say?"

"I got lost." Somehow, even though she couldn't remember how she'd ended up on the bypass, she knew this part was true. "And.... I was trying to forget what happened today. I was fired. Plus a lot of other stuff in my life is sucking." Kate paused for a moment, squinting out into the gloom. The rain was letting up, and she could hear the cars rushing by again. "I went for a walk and got turned around and...."

"And?"

"And I'm cold and wet and I need help, okay? I need help." It hurt to admit that, too. It sounded too much like the review board. They'd been wrong about so much, but maybe they'd been right about that. Otherwise she wouldn't have ended up so lost, or gotten stranded in a bus shelter God-knew-where in the coldest part of the L.A. night. "I don't want to stay here. I might not have a job anymore or anyone else to call but I don't feel like almost freezing to death in the rain because of it."

Minos pursed his lips, then nodded. "Glad to hear it." He smiled again, and hit a button on the phone, then lifted the receiver to his ear and spoke. "We got it. Yeah, I think so.... More confused than anything else. No, that shouldn't be a problem." He glanced at Kate, motioning to her to drink the coffee. "Uh-hunh... good. I'll be back as soon as she's clear." He clicked off without saying good-bye, then put the phone back in his coat.

"What was that about? Aren't you going to let me call my friend?"

"You already did. He's on his way."

"He is?" She had? She must really be messed up if she couldn't remember that. Had she been drinking earlier?

The taste of scotch in her mouth was suddenly sharp and bitter, and her head began to pound. Kate closed her eyes, willing the nausea away, but it just kept building, and her stomach abruptly lurched. The rain was getting louder again, but the chill seemed to be seeping away....

"Take it easy when you get home. And Kate?"

"Yes?" There were sparks in front of her eyes, and she was starting to shudder uncontrollably.

"You're not really alone. None of you are. Hang onto that....."

* * * * *

"....hang on, hang on, Kate, c'mon, wake up, please, talk to me, open your eyes...."

Angel's voice was close, louder than the rain, and the traffic sounds were gone completely.

Traffic?

It wasn't rain, it was water bouncing off the tiles of her shower stall. Kate coughed, blinked open her eyes, then gagged.

"That's it! C'mon, Kate, fight it, keep your eyes open, just breathe---"

She took another breath, choked, then turned sideways and spewed the scotch and painkillers onto the tile walls. Gasping, she heaved out the remaining contents of her stomach, coughing harshly as Angel rubbed her arms and shoulders. God, she felt like crap. What the hell just happened?

"You're going to be okay, Kate. Just rest a second, let the water warm you up... You really scared me."

If felt like she'd been hit by a truck. Her stomach hurt, her chest hurt, her head hurt, her face hurt, she was cold, nauseous, aching and exhausted.

And embarrassed. Stupid. She'd been drinking the scotch, then she'd got out the bottle of painkillers, hoping they'd make her numb, and dropped them on the floor when she'd tried to open the bottle. She'd knelt on the floor because it was easier and took a hit of scotch, then a pill, then waited a couple minutes for the drug to kick in. A swallow of scotch, then another pill, then wait. Scotch, pill, wait. Jesus. She must have taken half a dozen before she reached for the phone. Stupid. Stupid. Really, really stupid.

"You came."

"Yeah." Angel sounded hesitant, waiting for her to yell abuse at him.

"Why?"

"You called. You sounded like you needed help."

"Oh." And how long had it been since someone had helped her, that this felt so strange?

She couldn't look at him; it was all too humiliating. She got him out of her apartment as fast as she could, feeling brittle and shocked, like an accident victim waiting for the pain to surface. She put the rest of the pills down the disposal, then poured the scotch and whiskey after them, knowing she wouldn't reach for another drink but too scared by what had happened to want any around. Her dad had always had a scotch after work, to unwind. It never seemed to work the same way for her. Nothing in her life did.

It was only as Kate was cleaning up the mess that she saw her front door was still standing wide open. She stared at it, feeling like she was forgetting something.

Angel had come into her apartment without an invitation.

Had she been _dead_?

No, no way... if she'd been dead, really dead, then he wouldn't have been able to revive her. She'd just been out cold. If she hadn't thrown up the pills, she would've needed her stomach pumped (and wouldn't that have been fun, and a joy to explain in the Emergency Room), but since she'd done it on her own, she couldn't have been *that* far gone.

So how....

She shivered, and walked out to her balcony. The rain was beginning to stop. Maybe if she had some coffee, and sat down to think of what she wanted to do now--- maybe the other answers would come too. She had the time to do that. The rest of her life, in fact.

Kate closed her eyes, letting the tears of relief fall. Wondering why she was the exception to the rules, if it had been about her or about Angel, and not really caring either way. Someone had called a time out to save her. And that was enough.