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Passion

She struggled against him with all her strength . "Let me go."

Angel tried his best to hold her still, bit his lip as her elbow connected painfully against is ribs. "You are exhausted, and you aren't thinking clearly. I'm not letting you go into the sewers like this."

"Damn it, Angel. I don't care. Let me go or I'll… I'll…."

"You'll make me. I know."

His voice sounded low against the back of her neck, and Buffy felt tears spring down her cheeks. Angel didn't loosen his grasp, though, and she didn't stop fighting him.

"I can't let her go."

She was sobbing openly now; Angel brought her back fully against his chest and only grumbled when she managed to hit him again. "Your mother needs you now."

"My mother is dead." She'd repeated those very words so many times in her head; but they still shocked her.

"She might not be."

"There was so much blood…" And her movements slowed as she ran through the scene that'd greeted her at her house earlier.

"Sunnydale is the best at emergency transfusions."

"There was so much blood…" she repeated. She hadn't really heard him.

Angel relaxed minimally as he felt her give up. "Spike won't let Dru endanger herself any further," he told her rationally. "But tomorrow he'll think he has the upper hand. He'll make mistakes, and that'll be our chance."

It was the 'our' that made her still and try to get a look at him, even if their positions didn't allow her any freedom. Our? But… So far, he'd always avoided taking direct action against Spike and Drusilla. Our? Really? "Tomorrow," she parroted. There was a headache chasing her, and it seemed to have waited until now to bloom awake. "I... I'll need clean clothes," she said, leaning a little against him. These smelled like fire and blood. She felt Angel nod behind her, and knew that he'd be leading her to Revello Drive. No, not to her house. She kept a change of clothes at Angel's. Yes, first his apartment, then the hospital.

And if her mother was dead...

If her mother was dead, Sunnydale's sewers would burn before dawn even if she had to fight Angel over it.