Author's note: i KNOW that its been a while but i've been swamped planning a PROM! god, how 'American Teenager' do I sound?

Okay! and the result is... BERLIN! hahahahaha, no don't worry people, Amsterdam-the city that won-is coming up soon. i decided on Amsterdam because, a) Prague has too much past for SPike. b) more people voted for this AND c)its the furthest i could get from Californian Culture... I would have gone with scandinavia... but its just WAAAY too cold there.

okay. I admit it, i'm right now, hyper-chocolate! i LOVE it!

Chapter XI – Berlin: The Big I Love You Thing

Many native Berlin residents take long vacations in July to avoid the annual Love Festival, however tourists flock the city just to wear kitschy clothing and dance the night away to various techno beats, and these two particular tourists were no different.

Buffy opened the door to their hotel room and managed to dance her way in. She twirled her feather boa over her head and let out a long 'whoooo' of joy tossing her tinsel wig and shaking her butt to the beat that had been playing for the last twenty four hours.

Spike walked though the door shirtless with a few kitschy necklaces looking like he had just been dunked into a vat of holy water and then had his skull drilled into.

"I have no clue how you talked me into this, pet." He said.

Buffy smiled at him.

Oh right, suddenly he remembered exactly how she talked him into this.

Bloody women and their smiles.

"Oh come on!" she chastised. "You were raving with the best of them, Spike, you just don't want to admit it."

"Yes because standing in the middle of a great stinking mess of people all dancing like the pavement has been bad and needs to be punished s exactly how I like to spend my days." He replied.

"I seem to recall you dancing."

"No, pet, I was being carried by the current."

She shook her head and shed the bright pink hot pants and the purple go go boots.

"Come on, Spike, you must have had some fun."

Spike smirked and glanced down at the boots.

"Well seeing you in spandex was fun."

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"You are such a pig."

Spike grinned, the insult had already been sensationalized and Buffy hadn't even been scathing. In all truth, he had had fun. For the last few weeks he had nothing but fun, their routine was comfortable, and he had absolutely no intentions of changing that. Buffy was even getting better. She slept through the nights now, she had been restored some of that fire she always had. She was living again.

He knew he was getting better. Dru had never really been his anyway, and he had long since come to terms with that. He knew it before, and he knew it now. All he needed was a little time to let go.

They were healing, They were shagging and everything was good. If they could keep this whole thing up and keep her mind off what happened before then maybe-

"What days is it?" she asked off handedly.

"The sixteenth." Spike said, barely even thinking of what he said.

Buffy froze.

"What?" he asked. The room's temperature seemed to drop a few degrees and Spike frantically searched his brain for whatever relevance the 16th of July held. "What is it pet?"

"Today is my mother's birthday."

And just like that he felt everything that they had been working towards, everything they had built come crumbling down around him.

Her face was numb. Emotionless. Again. He hadn't seen that face in over a month and yet with one off hand question it had all come back.

He knew that they had to deal with is sooner or later, and not just gloss over it like they had, but he still wasn't ready for that to happen yet.

She looked devastated and tired yet again. The memories of Sunnydale and her chosen status and Angel all came back to her. The carefree girl that spike had danced with-yes, danced with-earlier was gone.

He could almost see the walls come up around her.

He felt little bit devastated himself.

Silence.

Finally, Spike couldn't take it.

"Pet-"

Buffy looked at him sharply.

He reached out to touch her but she pulled away. He drew back looking so wounded that she relented a little bit.

"Spike," she said tiredly. "Listen, about us or what ever we have it doesn't mean that-"

Spike looked at her incredulously.

"What are you saying, luv?" he asked coldly.

Buffy looked down.

"It doesn't mean that-" she composed herself. "That you can just blow on it and make it all better."

Spike rolled his eyes.

"That's bollocks, pet." he said. "I'm not trying to make it better I'm-"

Her glare wasn't cold but it sure as hell tried to be.

"You can't fix me, Spike." She snapped. "I don't want to be fixed. I can't believe that I did this with you! I don't deserve to be content; I killed the love of my life!"

She knew as soon as she said the words that she had said the wrong thing because it set him of yet again.

"You aren't rattled because of what you did, you're rattled because you did it! Not because you sent Angel to hell but because you could."

"What?"

She met his eyes and nearly burst into tears at their intensity.

"You could do it, slayer, and you would do it again." He said. "You saw your own power and it scared you didn't it?"

"Spike, please, can we not do this right now?" she asked quietly.

"Do what?" demanded the vampire. "Do what, slayer?"

"Fight," she said. She looked so anguished that he very nearly relented. "It's just," she paused. "Can you just leave me alone?

Spike stared at her.

Did she honestly mean that? How on earth could she ask him that?

"No."

Buffy looked up at him incredulously, it was obviously she expected him to back off, as he had before but Spike was pissed now.

"No." he repeated heatedly. "I will not leave you alone because you need me right now, Slayer whether you admit to or not, as much as you detach yourself from everything in the world I will not let you detach yourself from me, I will not let you hurt yourself like that." she stared at him in surprise. This just added fuel to the flame. "I can't believe that now that you're reminded of Sunnyhell suddenly you've found that you've got that stake up your ass again."

"Well good, because I can see that I'm going to be needing one!" Buffy cried, she reached down to one of the chairs and broke off a leg. She then pressed it to his bare heaving chest. "You clingy, annoying as hell, stuck in the 80's pig!"

Spike arched an eyebrow, she seemed to have forgotten the gem of Amarra but he was not going to remind her. Not at this point.

"You are a closed book and a cock tease, summers," he snapped.

"If you think of me that lowly," Buffy cried. "Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"Because I love you!" Spike cried not realizing what he was saying. "And I will take care of you, if you just let me!"

He didn't realize what he had said until the words had sunken in, Buffy stared at him her eyes wide. As surprised as he was that those words managed to slip out, he was not nearly as surprised as when she dropped her stake and professed her love right back to him.