Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, all! And yeah, I'm late with these again. I'm sorry. This one is less canon-ish (although it could be canon if you squint) and the next one isn't canon at all, which means that there's a lot of happy fluff. What else is Valentine's Day for?

1

"Oh!" Sheila Rosenberg huffed indignantly before tapping on the other woman's shoulder. "Ma'am, you cut me in line."

The woman turned around, and Sheila had to roll her eyes. She was young, but the little girl in her arms looked to be Willow's age. No doubt one of those irresponsible girls running amok and getting knocked up. "I'm so sorry," she replied, voice shaking, "but you see, my husband, he needs me back in the car soon, and I just have a few—" She held up her shopping basket, shifting her baby to her hip.

Willow, seated in the shopping cart, babbled her version of hello and reached in the general direction of the other girl, who gave her a big smile in response.

"You're lucky it was me," Sheila muttered. "Most women wouldn't let you do this kind of thing."

The little girl reached out to Willow. Sheila was tempted to pick Willow up and pull her away, but Willow had actually somehow managed to clamber out of the little kiddie seat and into the basket of the shopping cart, reaching out to touch the little girl's hand.

"Wi-o!" she informed her peer in introduction. Sheila felt a surge of pride. Her little girl was smart.

"Tara," the other girl replied with perfect enunciation, and when Sheila glanced up at the mother, she was smiling without pride, but with adoration. Mothers like that weren't going to instill the kind of diligence that their daughters needed. It didn't matter how smart this Tara girl was, she wasn't going to be someone Willow would want to associate with.

2

"Shouldn't be out at night," Spike informed the little girl, kneeling in front of her and trying to make himself look sympathetic. She smelled appetizing. His mouth was practically watering.

"My mommy says I gotta go straight home so I won't be out too late," the girl explained, "but I wanted a snack." Then, cocking her head, "Why's your hair so yellow?"

This threw Spike off. He'd bleached his hair in a hotel ten minutes ago, and dyeing was a little hard without a reflection or Drusilla to help him out. They'd had a bit of a spat, and he didn't want to come in looking like a moron because he'd somehow managed to dye his hair instead of bleach it.

"Er," he said. "How yellow is it?" He reached up, trying to smooth it down.

"Like the sunshine!" the girl informed him cheerfully. "It's white and yellow. It looks pretty. I wish my hair looked like that."

"Buffy!" called a voice, and Spike saw a woman in her late thirties hurrying up to the pair. "Buffy Summers, I told you to come straight home after skating lessons! I drove all around town looking for you!" She turned her steely glare in Spike's direction, and he decided that it wasn't worth the trouble to eat this girl and her mother. He wasn't feeling like dinner; he'd just wanted a snack.

He turned around and skulked off, forgetting all about it when he got back and found Drusilla in tears. She'd been afraid he had left her for good, and he promised her that he would never. She started babbling on about the sunlight and the Slayer and how it was written in stone now, but he silenced her with his kisses. It was the best thing to do when she was talking nonsense.

3

"Hi," said the boy. He was eleven, with dark hair a tired look about him. Anyanka remembered his mother, vaguely, the one who had wished that her husband would never be happy. She would hate the boy when he grew to be a man (and most likely ended up hurting some poor woman), but he was a child right now, and even she wasn't that convinced of male stupidity to hate a child like him.

Anyanka inclined her head in response. She wasn't interested in conversation. All through the world, women were crying out for her attention.

"Do you have a dollar?" the boy asked.

"I'm sorry?" Anyanka turned to stare at him. This wasn't the usual inquiry towards her. Mostly, people were either asking her to eviscerate someone or begging her to stop eviscerating them.

"I wanna get my friend Jesse something special for Valentine's Day," the boy replied. "He likes candy, but I don't have a dollar to get him a Kit Kat or something. Do you have one?" He looked apologetic and shy.

"I suppose." Anyanka pretended to dig in her wallet while she created a dollar out of thin air. "Here you are, little boy," she said as cheerfully as she could. "I wish you luck in your Valentine's Day endeavors!"

The boy smiled at her, a little goofy. Anyanka uncertainly smiled back. It was the first time in a very long time that a male had smiled at her. He was sweet, for a little boy. Perhaps he wouldn't be a heartbreaker after all.

4

Jenny was scooping ice cream at the late shift of her job at Baskin-Robbins when she just kind of lost it and started to cry over the bubblegum-mint-fudge or whatever the hell it was. She was generally really against crying, because it was a waste of time, and time was more important than ever nowadays, but she'd just realized that senior prom was tonight. She'd been so busy trying to raise enough money for college tuition and keeping her grades up and working odd jobs that she'd forgotten about senior prom.

And it wasn't like she cared about senior prom—honestly, it was just a popularity contest, and she'd much rather be at home working on writing programs—but the fact that she hadn't even gotten the option to consider was what really made her miserable.

Jenny sobbed, trying in vain to pull herself together, and it was then that the little bell on the door jingled. She looked up, wiping her nose on her sleeve and feeling ridiculously like a little kid. Not even her parents had seen her cry over her job and her grades. Heck, she hadn't cried about her job and her grades since freshman year.

It was a guy with brownish hair, wearing a dorky button-down shirt and vest. His glasses made him look older than he was—Jenny would hazard a guess at mid-thirties. She was all prepared for him to ask (in that annoying way that strangers did) if she was all right and did she want to talk about it, but instead, he gave her a sympathetic smile, took out his wallet, and put a twenty in the tip jar before heading out.

It pissed Jenny off. Who was he to just give money to some loser seventeen-year-old in a Baskin-Robbins? She had to work for the money she earned, and she didn't like that he was paying her for looking pretty while she cried. "You know," she called, still sniffling a little, "you can't just fix everything with money."

The guy turned around, looking at her with a new sort of respect. His smile curved upwards and became one of admiration. "No," he replied in a British accent, "I don't suppose you can." He inclined his head to her. "I suspect you'll go far," he told her, and then he was gone.

"You don't know a thing!" Jenny called after him, and found herself too pissed off to cry about senior prom anymore.