Written for the Rosebud Valentine Challenge at Blood Roses.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: I’ve checked. I don’t have the right parts to be Joss Whedon. Trust me.
A.N.: Lindsey. Angel. A confrontation that might’ve taken place season 1 of AtS, sometime after "Sanctuary."

"So, Angel, tell me about Buffy Summers." I smiled, showing all my teeth. " You know, the important things."

"She’s not a part of this, Lindsey." He showed teeth, too.

A direct hit. I mentally chalked that one up for myself in that blackboard in my head. "Come on, how can you say that?" I fanned his file at him. "Until you saw her, you were...well, let’s just say it. You were eating rats in alleys."

His jaw tightened. "What part of ‘she’s not a part of this’ are you not getting?"

I shrugged, tossing the file back on my desk. "Just trying to find out a little more information about your famous Slayer." I settled my hip against the desk, watching my inadvertent guest. Spreading my hands, I said thoughtfully, "She’s in trouble, you leave town. You’re in trouble, she comes to help." I give him another flash of pearly whites. "Somehow, Angel, that seems to make a mockery out of what you just said." I reach back, lifting the headset of my telephone. "Maybe I should call her. Find out if she thinks she isn’t a part of this."

The headset crashed into the wall almost at the same time as a hand clamped around my throat. A squeeze to my larynx emphasized his threat. Cool words brushed against my cheek as Angel said, not quite conversationally, "You don’t want to do this, Lindsey. Trust me. Whatever Wolfram and Hart are paying you isn’t worth you stepping on that line." His grip tightened. "Don’t even think of crossing it."

I choked on the sudden rush of air flooding my throat. The door whipped closed behind him, somehow not catching the hem of that jacket of his.

I made a note in his file, when breathing wasn’t the only thing I had to consider. Summers, Buffy. Important to Angel. There was a photo in the file, of a little blonde standing outside a police station, wiping her eyes. A line to be crossed only in dire circumstances. I thought it was a good thing to remember. My throat ached and I rubbed it, wincing.

Another thing to not forget, how god-damned fast Angel could be.

Especially when something he loved was threatened.

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