Prompt: That Day in Paris
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Buffy Summers, Spike
Pairing: Buffy Summers/ Spike
Summary: Sometimes she thinks she sees him. Sometimes he almost lets himself get caught.
Set after NFA (not complying to After the Fall)
Sometimes she swears she sees him in a crowd, or ducking into an alley. A flash of hair that was just a little too blonde to be natural, the swoosh of a leather duster, or that feeling she got in her gut whenever he was around. It always turned out to be some too blonde, too tan girl with too white teeth or someone in a trench coat, or absolutely nothing. It was always just her imagination, but it felt like the world stopped for a minute as she looked for him, but he was never there. He couldn't be there. He was dead. She had seen the amulet, and the Hellmouth swallow the entire town. If the amulet hadn't dusted him, there had to have been some wooden debris that staked him. Otherwise he would have come for her. He wouldn't have just abandoned them.
Sometimes he almost gets caught. She looks around wildly, and every time he swears she's about to spot him, but she never does. When he sees her it's like the world stops spinning, just for him. He looks in on the girl he'll love forever; he watches her live her live, but he's never a part of it. He never gets too close; always keeps his distance. He checks up on her; makes sure that she can handle the annual apocalypse; makes sure that she's doing alright, but he couldn't let her know he was alive. He just couldn't. He couldn't tell her that he'd abandoned her. He had to let her fight the good fight, laught with her friends, find another man to love, get old, and eventually die. He knew that that last one would break him, but it was what he had to.
Sometimes she thought she saw him. Sometimes he almost let himself get caught.