Kate Birchfield

The first thing most people notice about Kate are her startlingly blue eyes, a sharp contrast to her very dark skin and straight black hair that falls just above her waist. Although fairly tall at 5'10'', Kate isn't ever an imposing presence: her kind, warm smile is always genuine, her mannerisms and voice always soothing.

Kate's fashion sense is mostly elegant and understated. Not very fond of over-exuberance, she wears mostly neutral colours, natural make-up and few accessories.

As she initially appears to be easy-going and with a sarcastic sense of humour, many students are surprised to discover how strict Kate Birchfield can be if they get on the wrong side of her. Her philosophy is and always has been a no-nonsense one: treat her well and she will do the same.

She has the advantage, however, of being apt at teaching: Kate will never look down on her students and has often become a confidant and friend to them. This has been criticised in the past, with some people claiming that Kate has become almost a second parent to some pupils. Her care and concern for them extends beyond what it would be for most teachers; if asked if she has any children, Kate will jokingly say she gets twenty-four new ones every year.

Not content with worrying about her students' problems, Kate will worry about everybody else's too, often blaming herself for what isn't even her fault. Whilst to an extent it is in her nature to worry, Kate's past has taken its toll on her conscience. The events of Kate's past occurred partly due to the fact that she is extremely protective over the people she loves, willing to risk anything for them. The best way she has found to deal with everything that has happened is to bury it - the problem being that her past never stays buried. She extends this philosophy to all her problems in life, preferring to forget them rather than face them.

Kate's personality is often said to be composed of contradictions. She is compassionate and caring, but has been capable of murder and torture in the past. Although she cherishes relationships with people, physical proximity intimidates her - she rarely lets anybody get close, and there are very few people in her life she'd be willing to embrace.

Apparently incapable of choosing the right boyfriend, Kate's love life has been composed of one disaster after another. Her first boyfriend eventually became one of her great enemies, whilst her latest boyfriend is needy, clingy and secretly hopes he can change Kate's opinion on marriage and having children. A realist to the extreme, Kate believes there is no difference between living with someone and marrying them. In addition to this, she also has absolutely no desire to have children of her own and resents completely the idea of being a housewife.

Extremely logical and rational, Kate has a brilliant skill with numbers and likes their simplicity. She can often find words frustrating due to the several meanings that can be attributed to them.

Perhaps Kate's oldest friend is her Persian cat, Wilbert, whom she has a habit of bringing into lessons. At Deveraux, she has been friends with Peter Hannibal for around four years and Viola Madison for one year. Kate cherishes her friends and thinks of them as her foundations - the one thing that prevents her from succumbing to all the events that haunt her from her past.

Kate was born in a rough neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, daughter of South African immigrant Abena Birchfield (née Agyekum) and American citizen Jamie Birchfield. Although it is often said that Kate looks most like her mother, her personality most strongly reflects her father. The Birchfield family often had financial problems, but Jamie Birchfield worked as hard as he could in order to ensure Kate never had to abandon her education. Although incapable of analysing Literature texts at school, Kate showed an aptitude for Math quite early on in her life.

When Kate was fourteen, one of the main criminal gangs in the area, the Gargoyles, started up a system of what they called "protection". It basically consisted of the Gargoyles demanding a fee from everyone who lived in the neighbourhood in order to ensure their well-being. Those who refused to pay were punished in some way, often by having their house destroyed or even by being murdered.

When Kate's parents would not pay and became a target of the Gargoyles, Kate knew she had no other choice. Having contacted the gang through back-channels, she agreed with them that she would work for them - as long as her parents remained safe. Thus began Kate's journey into the criminal underworld. Although initially tasked to work with Mickey Tannenbaum, who dealt mainly in drug and arms traffic, Mickey soon realised Kate had an ability to extract information from people and potential as a torturer. She eventually became the chief interrogator for the Gargoyles and Mickey's girlfriend. Kate coped the only way she knew how - by developing a different persona whenever she was around the Gargoyles, a new Kate who loved to party and had no qualms about what she did.

Having gradually risen up in the ranks of the organisation along with Mickey, he and Kate were called up one day to be introduced to James Mann, leader of the Gargoyles. The night before the meet Kate revealed to Mickey the truth: she wanted out of the organisation, and planned on assassinating James Mann in order to ensure her departure and prevent anyone from coming after her. Mickey agreed to help Kate but, unbeknownst to her, he actually secretly contacted James Mann that night and warned him. Mickey never arrived at the meet but Kate decided to go ahead - having never met Mann in person, she was set up to wrongly slit the throat of his second, Johnny Cunningham, believing him to be Mann. Kate was permanently let go from the Gargoyles with a promise her family wouldn't be hurt - in reality, this was only granted so she would believe Mann was dead.

Having miraculously kept at her studies even whilst working for the Gargoyles, Kate graduated from High School in New York and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in order to attend Harvard University. She left Harvard with a degree in Mathematics, and was a teacher in public schools in Boston for two years before being offered a job at Deveraux.