Author's note: hello everyone. its been a while, yeah? well then i promised that i would keep the baby out of this fic... i did want to write one and therefore i have decided this is no longer a baby fic, but a kid fic. hahahaha! right no 'the Choose their own adventure' this time.

Chapter XIV – Amsterdam: How They Got There (Prophesies Not Included)

Buffy turned the washing machine on and sat back for a while, leaning against the wall of their basement and just thinking to herself on how she had gotten to where she was.

After that night in Berlin, everything changed. Everything got better. For the very first time since she was chosen Buffy didn't feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. She wasn't going to be dumb and say that she was just being Buffy, because she realized that she was being Buffy, the slayer was just as much a part of her as anything else. So for once she didn't think about it. She didn't make stupid divisions; she just let it all go and had fun.

That night she had been in a major slump. She had though back on Sunnydale, got sucked down into the memories of what she'd done and how she had forgotten it. She was all ready to just stew in her depressed juices when Spike had gotten to her. She had looked at him and saw how anguished he was at her own sadness. Her guilt faded, it paled in comparison to what she felt when she saw how hurt he was. It was in that moment she realized just how much he meant to her, and when his impromptu 'I love you' tumbled from his lips, she was so stunned she barely remembered to say it back.

She realized that she would never be content with the white picket fence life, she knew that she would use every last one of those white pickets as a stake. And she was perfectly okay with that.

Hell, a normal life was pretty much boring; she had one of those for a while. Sometimes she forgot how utterly tedious those were.

She would never have gotten to that point if not for Spike.

They adjusted the deal. Spike patrolled with her and no longer fed of humans, drinking pig's blood instead and then feeding of her.

It made for great sex.

Of course, they couldn't just go gallivanting around Europe and not have anyone notice, soon enough Buffy was meeting demon hunters, and demons alike, some she did actually like some she thought were downright evil, and this went for both the demons and the people that hunted them.

Again, Spike was right, not everything was black and white.

They finally settled down in Amsterdam, they purchased a wonderful town house on one of the canals-Buffy was scared at first to ask where Spike had gotten the money. When she had gotten around to he had muttered something along the lines of 'you think I walked the earth for a hundred and fifty years and never made an investment portfolio? Made a mint on the bloody dot coms.'

It was there that they began building a new life, together and forgetting what had happened in the past.

At first Buffy was scared of the language barrier but Spike had seen to that. He didn't speak to her in anything but Dutch for three months and slowly she words soaked her brain and she learned how to form them. The same went for French and German-until she was fluent. They barely even spoke English anymore.

As soon as she was confident with her Dutch, she got a job in a fancy restaurant as a hostess and that was where she found her calling (other than the chosen one, of course.), one day a wedding party had come in and had an emergency-their photographer had gotten caught at some train station, so Buffy stepped in and found out that she had a natural knack for it. She set up a studio in their town house-some of her photos were even put in brochures for Amsterdam.

As for Spike, he bought a laptop and indulged in his hidden pleasure from his past life. He began to write, not only poetry but fiction, dark fantasies, historical stories, horror even some scathing satiric comedies. At first he kept this from Buffy but she found out eventually coming home to him typing away at a lap top. And instead of laughing at him like he feared, she had smiled and simply asked to be able to read it when he was done.

That simple action was all Spike needed and his ideas all translated themselves on paper faster than he had thought possible. He published two already under pen names so as not to rouse attention-and although they did not need the money, the royalties were enough to keep them very comfortable.

The critics thought his books so insightful and detailed they raved about them and they won numerous awards, all of which Spike responded to with a surprisingly humble 'they better be detailed, I bloody lived through all of it.'

He had shed his big bad persona almost completely. The Spike that Buffy slept with every night was the real Spike, the one who didn't have to prove anything to anyone, the one who did not live in Angel's shadow.

They had lived in Amsterdam a year when Buffy found out that she was Pregnant. There was no question that the father was Spike. They had not been a part for more that three hours in two years.

They didn't question it, they didn't research about it. They just accepted it as the miracle it was. Of course, Buffy didn't think it was so much of a miracle when she was huffing and puffing for five hours to bring their child into the world.

But she was worth it. She had tawny strawberry blonde whisps of hair and electric blue eyes that erased any doubt as to who her father was. Her father, who had finally revealed his last name after all the years of secrecy. The tiny child was named:

Katheryn Madeline Raleigh.

Spike's Sweet bit.

Buffy had never been more thankful to Doyle-now a friend of the little family and godfather to Kat-for the Gem of Amarra. It afforded Spike a chance to be in every aspect of his daughter's life. Walking in the park, all sorts of games etc.

Yes, Buffy had a normal enough life, she and Spike did get their rough and tumbles, though because they patrolled cemeteries leaving Kat in the care of friends. They had found their compromise.

And they were happy.