Author's Notes:

Joss Whedon is a god, he owns all this (except for K) yadda yadda, etc, etc. Sorry it took me so long to update, this chapter was a bit difficult to write (it's the 30k curse! I dunno, I'm weird.) Anyway, it's the next chapter, so I hope you enjoy!

Painting the Town Lavender and Periwinkle

"Are you sure you're okay, love?"

"Of course I'm sure," K said, pushing herself out of bed and standing up. "See?" She wobbled and almost fell again, but kept her balance and stayed up.

"And you're positive?"

"One hundred percent," she assured Spike. She took a few steps forward, turned around, and took her steps back. "Observe, my brilliant walking skills!"

Spike laughed. "I'm glad you're feeling better. How about this, you go ahead and freshen up, make sure you look your best, and we're going to have the best soddin' day ever today. In the meantime, I'll let everyone else know you're back to normal, and they can start asking for the backup Slayers. Sound good?"

K spun around on one food and laughed. It felt so good to be able to move and dance again. "That sounds bloody brilliant, Spike."

Spike laughed again. "Did you just say 'bloody brilliant'?"

"Yeah!" she said, now laughing as well. "Now go to the others before I start writing poetry or something."

He nodded, and went to the room next door.

Everyone was there, discussing battle tactics and planning to get the Slayers in.

"How is K?" Willow asked as soon as she realized Spike had entered the room.

"Just fine," he said with a dorky smile on his face. "Bloody brilliant. She's freshening up right now."

"That's great!" Dawn piped up. "Buffy, when are those Slayers coming in?"

"They should be here tomorrow night," Buffy answered. "So we can go to the last nest the morning after that."

"Excellent. And until then, K and I are going to have a fantastic time together until then because we need to make up for lost time."

"We were all planning to have a bit of fun today," Kennedy said. "Like, we've really got nothing to do until the new Slayers arrive. So might as well."

"Except for Satsu, who has volunteered to patrol around the area in case of vampires," Buffy added.

Satsu shrugged. "I haven't got a girlfriend, so might as well do something useful."

Spike sat down and listened to the rest of the group's discussion as he patiently waited for K to be ready.

After a while, K poked her head in the room and smiled. "Hey, everybody."

"Come in, K!" Dawn called.

"How are you feeling?" Willow asked.

"Just fine," she said, stepping in to the room. She was wearing a white t-shirt with a red skirt that came up to her waist. On top of that, a thin, black jacket. Her hair was tied up in an elegant ponytail as her bangs fell over a fourth of her face.

"You look really hot!" Satsu said. "Spike should take you out more often!"

Spike shot her a look, and K simply blushed.

"You do look really cute," Dawn assured her.

"You look beautiful, love," Spike added. "I'm ready when you are."

"Oh, I'm all ready," she said, "but we can't really go out right now."

"Why not?"

"It's noon!" she exclaimed. "And the sun is high in the sky, and I don't want to be painting the town lavender with a pile of dust."

Everyone gave her a strange look.

"What?" she asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Lavender?" Dawn asked. "Isn't it paining the town red?"

"It's a long story as to why I changed it," K explained.

"Anyway," Spike said, standing up. "I'd love to hear that story. And our night out starts now, even when the sun's up. We just won't be going out. But trust me, I've got a plan."

"Let's go, then!" K said. With an extra spring in her step, she left the room, Spike closely behind. "So what's the plan, Spike?"

"I was thinking we could have as much fun in the hotel as possible until the sun sets, and then we go and paint the down… I'm sorry, did you say we'd paint the town lavender?"

"Yeah," she laughed dumbly. "I think Red is just weird. Like, when I think painting the town red, I think of destroying everything and killing everyone in your path. Plus, whether it's day or night, I think if the town were red, it'd look really ugly with the sky."

"So lavender looks good with the sky?"

"If it's night," K said. "Which I think would look nice because of the dark and light contrasting. I haven't really heard of anyone painting the town any color in the day, so I haven't really thought about what color I'd paint it then."

"I think it'd be close to lavender," Spike thought, "but maybe more blue-ish?"

"What, y'mean like periwinkle?"

"Yeah. So in the day, we paint the town periwinkle."

"But we can't paint the town any color in the day."

Spike thought about it for a moment. "We'll paint the hotel periwinkle. And then the rest of the town lavender."

K laughed, and then nodded. "Sounds good. What first?"

"Well," Spike started, "I thought we could start off the day by going down and seeing Lorne's show for lunch, and then hanging around the hotel room, having fun."

K raised one eyebrow. "Fun, huh? Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what you have in mind."

Together, the two went downstairs into the lounge and decided to order a ton of food while listening to Lorne sing.

"He's really quite good," K said, pouring soup into her mouth. "Mm. I haven't had any good food in way too long. It's just been Gatorade."

"I'm glad you're hungry love," Spike said, taking a bite of his onion blossom. "Because I've got more than just this in mind."

"Hm?" K asked, shoving some of the onion blossom in her mouth as well.

"Don't eat too much here," Spike told her, "because back in the hotel room, we're going to have dessert."

"What kind of dessert?"

"Anything you wish, love."

"That's great, because as good as this onion blossom is, I could really go for some chocolate right now."

"Then let's not waste much more time, Pet."

Lorne's show had ended and K wanted to congratulate him on a wonderful performance, and the instant that was over, she and Spike ran back up to room 717 and collapsed onto one of the beds together.

"Let's watch something," K said, grabbing the remote from the table as Spike grabbed the phone.

"Yeah, room service? We'd like some chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Actually, send up every dessert-like thing you have down there in that kitchen… yeah, especially if it has chocolate. And anything else sweet and… all right, brilliant." He put the phone down.

"OH MY GOODNESS," K exclaimed, practically jumping off the bed.

"What?"

"On BBC! Doctor Who marathon!" K put the remote down and started watching. "Yes! David Tennant!" K looked up at Spike and laughed. "You're British, so you must have heard of Doctor Who."

Spike raised one eyebrow. "Do you know a bloke named Andrew Wells?"

"No. Who's that?"

Spike laughed. "Never mind."

As they watched a bit of Doctor Who, there was a knock on the door. Spike got up to get it, and there was a man who pushed a cart, holding several trays of food on them.

"Thanks," Spike said, slipping a bill into the man's pocket. "That's for you. Go paint the town periwinkle."

"Y-yes, sir," the hotel man stuttered, completely confused. "Thank you. Enjoy." He left, closing the door behind him.

"Haha!" Spike exclaimed, lifting a tray off the cart and sitting back down next to K. He put the tray on her left leg and his right leg.

"Oh my God, that looks so fucking amazing," K said, completely in awe by the sight of the ice cream, chocolate, cookies, brownies, cakes, whipped cream, syrup, and everything else in front of her in that one tray. Without hesitating, she began to devour it, savoring every last bite. "MM. My Gof!" she said with her mouth full. "Doftor Who, Chofolate, and you, Shpike!" She swallowed. "I can't even begin to say how much I love you right now."

She ate through the first tray of food all by herself.

"Blimey, love, take it easy or you'll explode before the second part of the day is over."

"Mmm," she said, her mouth full of chocolate. She held up a piece. "Have shome, Shpike," she spat. "I can't each dish all alone."

"I'm a vampire, love, I drink blood, not chocolate."

"Oh, chome on! Not even a vamp should reshisht chocolate. C'mon, Shpike."

He smirked, but gave in to request. So there they were, closely sitting next to each other, watching Doctor Who, and eating an assortment of chocolate and sweets.

"Have I mentioned how much I love you?" K said upon finishing the second tray of goodies. "I mean… I only sort of have these days in my dreams. Sitting around, watching an awesome TV show, gorging myself with amazing desserts, and sitting with the man I love so much."

"We're both hopeless romantics," Spike laughed.

"Y'know… we should have a balance."

"Hm?"

"Y'know that whole spiel I gave about a romantic couple not needing a physical relationship. Well, it's normally healthy to have a balance. Not completely physical and not completely emotional. Sometimes," she scooted herself over closer to Spike, "a little bit is okay."

Spike smiled and raised his arm as he gently put it around her. Her head fell naturally onto his chest. She sighed, and took another bite of chocolate.

"Hey, Pet," Spike started. "This is bloody perfect and all, but we're just getting started."

"What d'you mean?" K asked.

"I mean it's sunset, love. And we've got a town to paint lavender."

"Oh!" K exclaimed, jumping off the bed. "Oh, oh, oh, then why are we still hanging around here? Let's go run around New York city!"

Spike stood up, laughing. "The instant that sun is down, we're out of here."

"Spike!" K squealed again as she wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, I love you so much, Spike!"

"K," Spike said, pulling back so he could look into her warm, brown eyes. "You said… a little bit is okay… right?" He put his hand on her face.

K simply smiled.

He lightly placed his lips on hers, inhaling all the breath of the chocolate and her own essence.

All she could smell was chocolate and Spike.

It was truly the sweetest kiss either of them had ever experienced.

"Right, then," Spike said softly when he pulled away.

K smiled possibly the biggest smile in her whole life. "Can you even begin to imagine how much I love you right now?"

Spike smiled back. "Just wait and see how much you love me by the end of the night. Come on, then!"

They left the hotel together, hand in hand and K asked, "So what's the plan?"

"Plan? No plan. Just keep going and don't stop." Spike pointed to a bright red convertible car that stood by the hotel. "In that."

K laughed. "You're not serious."

"I rented it for the night," Spike explained. He hopped into it without opening the door and beckoned K to come sit next to him. She followed.

Spike revved up the car and took off, obviously speeding, but it perfectly matched with the high speed of the city. K found two pairs of sunglasses in the glove compartment, so she put one on and handed the other to Spike. He looked fucking sexy, but they were obviously too big for her face, but she didn't care. She had to keep the wind out of her eyes.

Suddenly, Spike stopped the car. "Well, this might be fun."

K took off her sunglasses and looked at the building Spike stopped by. "What is it?"

"A club, of course. Reminds me of the Bronze back in good ol' Sunny-D. We should check it out."

"Are there going to be crazy drunk people or creepers who want to rape me?" K asked.

Spike simply laughed. "You're a Slayer, and you're scared of drunks and rapists?"

K smiled. "Whatever. Let's go."

So together they swaggered in, as cool-looking as possible and witnessed the small group of maybe only around 30 to 40 people dancing, which was a lot smaller than most of the clubs Spike has seen. It was a retro-indie band playing, and K was loving it, already tapping her foot.

"Well, don't just stand there, love," Spike said, pulling her to the dance floor. "I've seen what you've got, and I love it."

K laughed over the music, and proceeded to dance with Spike.

God, he loved the way she moved. It wasn't smooth movements, but it wasn't erratic, either. Whatever it was, it was fucking sexy. She may have been young and short and cute, but she had a beautiful body, and when she danced around him, he couldn't help but move himself. Their bodies were connected by the beat of the music and they held hands and rocked and moved and were in complete harmony until the song ended.

They even stopped in unison, and when the music started up again, they would go at it. It almost looked like they were having hot, sweaty sex except for they were barely touching each other at all, and they actually looked classy and graceful.

Before long they were all worn out and burning hot, so they sat down by the bar and each got a drink. Spike got a scotch while K got a refreshing glass of Mountain Dew.

"I am having such a blast, Spike," K said, practically swallowing all of her drink at once.

"Really?" Spike asked. "I'm glad, because I have no idea what we're going to do after this. What d'you want to do, Pet? We've got all of New York ahead of us, and every inch of it is open to you."

K really had to think about this. So many options, only one night. "Let's just run around the city," she said. "Most of the time I just imagine running around the city alone, or in a taxi cab, but I imagine it'd be so much better with you."

"You wanted to travel and see the world and the best thing you can think of is to run around the city?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it."

So that's what they did. It couldn't be described too much, because to both Spike and K, all that was in their memories was constant joy and ecstasy. K vaguely remembers dancing around a lit fountain outside a hotel and Spike somewhat remembers picking her up and spinning her around like they did in those romantic movies. They soon found themselves in Central Park, lying on the grass and gazing up at the moon and the stars as the blue-gray clouds passed over them several times.

"Y'know, Spike, today has been perfect."

Spike turned his head. "You think so? I should've planned this better."

K shook her head and closed her eyes. "No, no at all. The whole fun part was that there was no plan, we just went with the flow, danced and sang, looked up at the stars. And it was all with you, so it could not have been any more perfect."

Spike smiled and looked back up at the moon. "I'm glad you thought so, love, because today was one of the best in my book, too."

K turned on her side and curled up into a ball next to Spike's body, and sighed.

"Are you falling asleep on me, love?"

"No, of course not," K said, her voice slightly groggy. "I can't fall asleep… the night isn't even over yet. I wish the sun would just not rise again, I want this night to go on forever."

"Could that I would, Pet," Spike laughed. "They'll be more nights like this."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

K smiled. "I still don't want this to end."

They continued to lie there in the grass, almost completely still, in each other's arms as the night sky above them no longer wanted to stay dark.

"Love, are you asleep?"

"No, of course not," K groaned.

Spike chuckled. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but unless you want to wake up in the loving arms of a pile of dust, we'll have to go back to the hotel soon."

K sighed, but forced herself to sit up. Spike followed. "Do we have to? Can't we just be like…" she looked at the sky. "Hey! Sun! Yeah, that's right, you big ball of fire, I'm talking to you! Stay down for now, and just… don't burn him up because I love him and I want to stay here with him, but because of you, we have to go so… you suck!"

Spike couldn't control his laugher. "You're so bloody adorable. Come on, love, I've already promised more nights like this. A pile of dust can't promise you that."

"All right. Let's go."

They got in the car, and Spike tried to drive as slowly as possible because he had covered the top of the convertible and blackened out the windows.

"Hey… could you stop for a moment?" K asked.

Spike came to a slow halt.

K opened the door quickly and closed it behind her, making sure not an ounce of sunlight got through into the car. "Is that building over there the vampire nest we're supposed to be going to tomorrow?"

Spike tried to peer through a tiny hole. "Yeah, I think so."

K got closer to it.

"Don't get too close, love, the sun's not fully out yet, and they could still come out," Spike warned her, but she didn't really pay attention to what he said.

She approached the building with caution, looked at it, and then turned back around and sat in the car.

"What was that for? We're coming back tomorrow with the other Slayers to kill them."

"Yeah, I just… I wish I could find out what their plan was, and why they needed so many vampires all over the country."

Spike shrugged. He continued driving, and the two of them thought nothing of it at the moment. The sun had fully risen by the time they had gotten back to the hotel, so they went back up to room 717.

They both collapsed on the bed at the same time, both extremely exhausted from the night they just had.

"Food, chocolate, dancing, running around the town, star gazing… how do we end this perfectly?" K said, curling up into a ball again.

Spike put his arm around her and used his other hand to stroke her hair. "We end it with dreaming, love."