Moments

Germany

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will land in Berlin, Germany in approximately 10 minutes. The local time is 11:30 am on the 3rd of October 2015, ground temperature is 18°C." Awesome. And then they repeated it in German. The good thing is that I understand most of it so my German hasn't disappeared and I managed to get to the hotel Niall told me about in Berlin.

I hefted my bag onto my shoulder and strode into the lobby. I couldn't find Niall. I walked up to the desk to ask her for keys to their room, but then I heard footsteps. I turned around. The figure slumped in disappointment. "Gotcha," I say quietly. "Not exactly the master of unseen movement, eh?" I point to his shadow on the polished floor. His other option was to run so fast into me that I wouldn't have time to respond.

"You know, I was thinking…" I say as I lay in bed with Niall.

"What were you thinking, princess?"

"I was thinking I wanted to go pay my German friend a surprise visit. You coming?"

"Yeah, why not? Unless they own rifles."

"That's America you're thinking of. The dad's a manager at a beer company, Gerlinde works in hotel admin. They're an awesome family. We'll play football or something. Germans love football as much as we do. And when I first tried to actually pay attention to football matches, I'd be bored after half an hour at best. And it went on for a couple years. I kept up with who won what, which teams played and stuff, but you wouldn't catch me alive watching a football match live. So one time I was emailing Theresa, and she told me to watch German football. I went to Jake at the time, and he said German football wasn't much fun to watch, it was too technical. And then when she comes, she has these really crazy ass discussions on Bayern Munich with dad."

"So when did you start to watch football regularly?"

"Probably in Germany. It was Oktoberfest at the time-"

"The beer festival?"

"Yeah. And Bayern Munich came and stuff. It was pretty hyped."

"Sounds cool."

"Oktoberfest ends tomorrow. So either you want to go down to die Wiesn tomorrow- wait- do you have any shows tomorrow?"

"Nup."

"So we can go tomorrow, or we can go after it ends and they're not as busy."

"We're going to Munich in a few days anyway."

"Could go then."

"In broad daylight with fans hounding us?"

"It's not that bad. If you really don't want to go then I'll just go alone. It's fine. I don't see why you're scared, I'm not scared."

"I don't think you understand it. The fans on Twitter have insiders and they know our location. We'll get mobbed, your friends won't know what's coming at them."

"We're talking about a giant German bloke here. He's not gonna be scared. Alright, the youngest won't know what the hell is going on until I say it explicitly, but she's not gonna be scared."

"But-"

"You don't trust me, do you? I'll go myself then. They aren't going to mob me and even if they do, they don't know how to hold a machete. If you're going for actually silly, I'll even wear a dirndl there. Try to blend in. There aren't many Asians around but I can probably buy myself a dirndl somewhere."

"A deer- what?"

"A dirndl. It's like what a girl might wear to an Irish dance comp but Bavarian. Alright, maybe not, but you get the point. That sort of thing."

"Good Lord. You in that…" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry… just… a bit strange."

"Or maybe Lederhosen then. And a thingy- hüte." Traditional Bavarian cross- dressing, more or less. That would be interesting. Though I can't exactly go into a shop and ask for a thingy- hüte.

"A thingy- hooter. You forgot the word for it?"

"It's a traditional Bavarian hat thing with a tuft of goat fur. Probably synthetic at that, these days. Well? You coming or not?"

"I still don't think going at all is a smart idea."

"They know your location anyway. We'll go when we're in Munich. Less chance of being seen than on the train for the few hours between here and Munich."

"I just don't want to run the risk of getting you hurt."

"Can't do this, can't do that, all in the name of 'don't want you getting hurt.' I'm not the defenceless one here. You have absolutely zero faith in me handling myself." I was getting angrier by the moment. Is this seriously what we're going to argue over?

"I do have faith in you handling yourself. It's just… I'd rather make sure you were safe."

"If I don't go now, I don't know when I might see them next. Theresa might move out and I'll have to go Stadlmayer hunting in a non-native tongue. And I'd rather not do that. You don't have to come. Don't come, in fact."

"I'll tell everyone on Twitter. You won't be able to go because you know you'll get mobbed. You visiting is you running the risk of being mobbed and I know you would prefer not to." I'd even avoid people if I could, some days.

"Don't even think about it. You do that, I take a flight straight back to Doncaster and you won't see me until we have some sort of Yorkshire kids' reunion. You can tell the other boys, but that I'm seeing my friends is not to get out there. I'll email Theresa now." It was the only way I could think of to shut him up on the topic in an almost guaranteed fashion.

"I give up. Do what you will, then." After all this time, he still doesn't understand that I'm a fighter more than most of the fandom. Not a mental or verbal fighter, but a physical one.