When Harry Met Buffy

Notes: I don't know what direction this story is going to take for the chapters between beginning and end - all I know is that I got it stuck in my head and want it out of there, so I can actually get some work done for my classes.

This is set at the beginning of the summer after Season Six, when things have finally calmed down - and it also kind of cuts down the number of characters I can use, which is a good thing, if I decide on a massacre.

And a crossover with another blatantly obvious fandom. Take this word: Scarph. Take the two last letters. Work out who she's talking to. And its set post all his books.

Since I haven't written anything for YGTS lately, this is going to be in response to gloveslap 122, wherein as many Buffy titles as possible must feature at some point in the fic And possibly gloveslap 11, if I'm allowed, cos I honestly can't face writing two fics that are happy-Buff-centric. I'm suddenly grateful that this IS a series.

_________________________

It was a scorching summer Monday.

Brilliant Californian sunlight blazed through the towering windows of the public library, the air conditioning turned up to maximum to provide at least a little comfort from the heat outside.

Stepping in from the harsh light of day, it took the Slayer's vision several seconds to adjust to the less-than-bright entrance Hall.

Buffy studied the interior of the building, which reminded her vaguely of the library at UC Sunnydale, where she had spent the freshman year, before...everything. The only difference was that this place was on an epic-sized larger scale. White pillars ran down both sides of the buildings, shelves here, there and everywhere in between.

The scent, though, was almost the same as the old school library, albeit with a little less of the...mustiness of the High School's ancient collection of books. Still, it was the kind of smell that reminded you of learning and reading.

Glancing at the notice board pinned between the old-fashioned elevator and the curving wooden staircase that lead to the upper floors, the Slayer scanned her eyes down the choices of departments, wondering what she could distract herself with.

First floor was black: histories and periodicals, whatever they were. Second floor was blue: literature - American and International. Third floor, blue: Georgraphy and History. Fourth red. Fifth green. Sixth...aha!

There, in bold purple print, against the pale grey of the notice, the words 'Computer Centre' stood out.

Having been through the torment of four and a half unsuccessful interviews (staking the interviewer in the fifth one wasn't the best impression to make. She's been ejected by the hysterical staff who didn't seem aware that their illusive - and now kinda dusty - manager was a vampire.) in the past three hours, she was quite happy to look for something online, out of sheer desperation.

Even Doublemeat Palace were reluctant to give her more than the graveyard shifts, which she couldn't accept, because it would mean leaving Dawn home alone all night, while she worked and slayed.

Anything to improve the living conditions that she and Dawn had to cope with at the moment. One day the family-sized house was flooded by burst pipes, the next something was being smashed for slayage.

Still, there was no place like home, even with the now-broken television, re-broken coffee table and several not-so-easy to replace shelf units that a pack of demons had decided to take apart.

Hitting the scarlet triangle-shaped button beside the elevator, she checked her watch, then smiled slightly, remembering that Dawn was at a summer camp for a few weeks, leaving her free until it was time for Patrol.

Pangs of loneliness went through her and she sighed, leaning against the wall, restlessly waiting for the elevator.

Dawn was away for the summer, with people of her own age group, to try to be normal again. Willow had been taken to England by Giles, to bring her magic under control. Tara was gone, killed by a bullet from Warren.

Only Xander and Anya still remained in Sunnydale and Buffy barely saw either of them anymore. Xander was working hard to keep up payments on his apartment, and Anya returning to her full-time vengeance gig, meaning they were both distracted when she did see either of them.

It was kind of nice when they did have the chance to meet, though, despite the oddness of the situation: A Slayer, a building construction engineer and a vengeance demon.

It was still a surprise that Anya did stay with them, in Sunnydale.

Apparently, she was as lonely as they were.

The lift whirred to a stop, shaking her out of her mental meanderings, and she stepped in, the cage-like doors rattling shut behind her, then it started to rise, shuddering slightly all the way.

Buffy braced her hands on the smooth, wooden rails that decorated the dark interior at about waist-level. It wouldn't be a good way for a Slayer to go: Shaken to death by a rickety elevator in a library.

It bumped to a less than gentle stop on the correct floor, the doors squealing open, and Buffy gratefully stepped out onto the polished floor, her legs feeling like they had been substituted with jello.

Making her way a little unsteadily towards the checkpoint, she smiled awkwardly down at the bespectacled woman, who was sitting there, keeping her voice hushed over the tapping of keyboards.

Behind the desk, row upon row of computers stood on shining wooden tables, their users looking so familiar and confident with the machines that Buffy had an absurd urge to turn and walk straight back out.

However, that would involve the elevator again...

Shuddering, she forced herself to go to the desk.

"Uh...excuse me?" Grey eyes studied the girl over the rims of gold spectacles, deep purple lips pursing as if challenging Buffy to give her a good reason for breaking her concentration. "Uh...hi...could I use the computers?"

"How long would you want?"

Buffy shrugged, feeling helpless. "I-I don't know. It's my first time."

The woman gave her a measured look, then nodded. "Do you have your membership card?" The Slayer nodded, fishing the barely-used card out of her purse and handing it over. "Well, Miss Summers." Standing up, the woman motioned to one of the unused computers. "Would you like me to log you on and give you some lessons about how to access sites of interest?"

"Um...yeah. That would be good." Feeling incredibly stupid, Buffy hurried after the computer woman. "Thanks."

***

"Okay, Buffy, you can do this...you've been putting it off forever and now...it's time to face your greatest enemy..."

After a brief instruction period of about half an hour, the woman in charge of the department had flitted off, leaving the very bemused Slayer sitting in front of her new and very intimidating foe.

The cursor winked at her.

Placing a hand on the plastic mouse, mentally making sure not to crush it in a fit of nervousness, she dragged it to the bar at the top, yelping in surprise when a column slid down from the word 'favourites'.

"Huh?" Scrutinising the list, her eyes alighted on something she had only heard about from Willow. "Chatrooms for everyone?" Yeah, 'jobs' was further down the list, but hello! Chatrooms!

Immediately clicking on the link, the Slayer grinned as a new window popped up on the screen, revealing an epic list of names of chatrooms and places she could visit, all about different topics.

"No...no...no...no...no..." Scanning through the never-ending list, she spotted one that made her chuckle. "Mysticmarvels." Clicking on the description of the chat, she raised her eyebrows.

Surely no one really believed that magical people visited this chatroom?

Clicking the enter button, she was immediately offered a log-in page. A frown wrinkled her nose. What could she be called? Not 'TheSlayer'. No, that was a tiny bit too obvious.

Nightgirl? She tried it and was immediately asked for her password. Someone had apparently registered the name.

Several other names followed the same path and she cast her eyes around for some kind of inspiration. A young woman at the table next to her had a stack of videos and Buffy glanced at the titles, then grinned.

"Summersby." She typed in as she said it aloud. It had enough of her own name to make it her own, but also had enough of a movie-geek feel to it that people would assume she was a fan who couldn't spell.

Hitting the login button, she was immediately catapulted into a busy chat room, where screeds of text skimmed up the screen before she could even catch onto the fact that she was in the room.

There were at least sixty people in the room and she watched text hurtle up the screen helplessly, wondering if there was a knack to actually figuring out what was being said to who and by whom.

However, she did notice someone with the screen name Scarph waved and sent a hello in her general direction.

By the time she worked out how to make a response appear in the chat, the greeting had vanished off the top of the screen.

Apparently a lot of the people seemed to know each other well, which was more than a little intimidating, but she watched the conversations flying back and forth, a few more smatterings of greetings thrown to her between someone having their hair waxed with duct tape and someone else neutering themselves with a brick.

A window popped up with three letters typed in it: A/S/L?

A puzzled look crossed the Slayer's face and she typed back asking what that meant.

Age, Sex, Location, apparently.

Uncertain, she responded that she was old enough, female and somewhere.

Immediately, they demanded if she was single, had pictures and various other less-than-pleasant things.

"Ew!" Closing the window, Buffy pulled a face.

Almost immediately, another window popped up.

A/S/L...

She clicked the window shut immediately.

Only for another to pop up. And another. And another.

"God! What is with these people?" She muttered under her breath.

Closing all of the windows in rapid succession, she was on the verge of abandoning the chatroom, when a new window popped up with two different letters in it, instead of three.

[Scarph: Hi.]

[Summersby: You say A/S/L and be ready to face the consequences! I will hunt you down and hurt you.]

[Scarph: Well, I was just going to say hi on behalf of everyone, to be polite, but it looks like they got to you first...I suppose that means you haven't been in this chat room before?]

Buffy felt a blush rising in her cheeks.

[Summersby: Um...sorry. Just had a few weirdoes asking stuff of the not good kind.]

[Summersby: Oh, and yeah. First time in chatroom. Go me.]

[Scarph: //Laughs\ Don't worry about them. Most of them are harmless. They just like scaring newbies.]

[Summersby: Newbies? Kinda like Newsies?]

[Scarph: ...]

[Scarph: You've lost me.]

[Summersby: Oh...right. American thing.]

[Scarph: You're American? And guessing by your sn, female, and by your kind of language, youngish...]

[Scarph: (see - I didn't even have to A/S/L you!)]

[Summersby: I could still hunt you down and hit you! //waves fist\]

[Scarph: ;-) And I'd enjoy it! //wiggles eyebrows\]

The Slayer released a snort of laughter, earning some dirty looks from the people working in earshot of her. Waving around apologetically, she cleared her throat and turned her attention back to the screen.

[Summersby: So you're as kinky as the rest of the weirdoes in the chat?]

[Scarph: Of course! I just provide the calming influence - the one that lulls innocent newbies like yourself into a false sense of security.]

[Scarph: You didn't tell me if I was right, though.]

[Summersby: All right...don't spread it around too much, but yeah, I'm American.]

[Scarph: As if that would help someone find out who you are - America is a rather big country.]

[Summersby: Yeah, but still...]

[Scarph: //Makes plots with NATO to find out exactly where Summersby lives\]

[Summersby: Has anyone ever told you that you're crazy?]

[Scarph: Every day. Why? Aren't you? I prefer not to mix with normal people. They scare me.]

[Summersby: Yeah...I think its safe to say I'm as far from not-normal as possible.]

[Scarph: Oh good! I'd hate to have to kill you.]

[Summersby: ...]

[Summersby: I hope you were joking about that...]

There was no response for a while and Buffy frowned. What had she said to make the strange chat-person go quiet?

[Summersby: Uh...are you still there?]

[Scarph: Yes. Still here...just thinking...]

[Summersby: Of?]

[Scarph: What you said. Sounds like you're used to having people threaten you.]

[Summersby: Um...right...]

[Summersby: ...]

[Summersby: Okay - A/S/L?]

[Scarph: What?]

[Summersby: Well, you know where I am and you got my gender right, so I wanna know I'm not talking to a ten foot tall Hell beast of some kind.]

[Scarph: Oh! Right! I'm in Britain...England...you do know where that is, don't you?]

[Summersby: Of course I do! I have a good friend who is English!]

[Scarph: And then you have a strange person like me to counterpoint them...oh, and I'm male. And extravagantly good-looking, but don't spread it around!]

[Summersby: But you're not a Hell beast right? My ex was one of them and trust me - bad things come out of dating Hell beasts.]

[Scarph: And here I was thinking that I'd be the one doing the scaring...you were talking metaphorically, weren't you?]

Buffy paused, her hands hovering over the keyboard. She definitely wasn't about to say that she was speaking literally, in case she sent him running a mile, but she didn't want to tell him a lie...although she couldn't quite figure why.

[Scarph: Silence. Hmm. Something tells me that isn't entirely good. Bad split?]

[Summersby: Could say that. Situation of tough love and tough break-up...]

There was a long silence and Buffy fidgeted in her seat.

[Summersby: So...extravagantly good-looking?]

[Scarph: I timed you there. Seventy eight seconds to ask about the looks.]

[Summersby: If you could see me now, you would be afraid. I'm giving you the glare only my sister gets.]

[Scarph: And I'm sure you look cute doing it too.]

[Summersby: Doing...it?]

[Summersby: ;-)]

[Scarph: And you thought that lot were bad! //blushes\ I'm just an innocent little boy here and you're being rude!]

[Summersby: I wasn't rude at all! You can't prove a thing!]

[Summersby: And you're a little boy? I don't believe that. Something tells me you're probably a big boy.]

[Summersby: Oh God...]

[Scarph: ROTFLMAO!]

[Summersby: Let's just pretend I didn't say that.]

[Scarph: Let's not! I like this game!]

[Summersby: What's ROTFLMAO anyway?]

[Scarph: Trying to change the subject, are you? And it means rolling On The Floor Laughing My Arse Off. I only use it, because you can't actually see me falling off my chair in hysterics here.]

[Summerby: It wasn't that funny!]

[Scarph: Oh? ;-)]

[Summersby: All right, maybe it was...]

[Summersby: ANYWAY, how old are you? I don't wanna be accused of corrupting a minor.]

[Scarph: Don't worry about that - I think I'm as corrupted as one person can get.]

[Summersby: Don't make me ASL you again!]

[Scarph: Dear Lord! Not the ASL! I'm quivering with fear!]

[Summersby: Okay. How about this? I'll pout!]

[Summersby: //Pouts\]

[Scarph: Damn, you're good! I relent! I'm twenty-two in a few months.]

[Summersby: Young AND good-looking? Next, you'll be telling me you're rich as well...]

[Scarph: Well, I don't want to be one the brag...]

[Scarph: ;-)]

[Summersby: You remind me of my English friend. I don't get you.]

[Scarph: Get me what?]

[Summersby: You. I don't get you. I don't understand you.]

[Scarph: Funny. I was sure we were talking the same language...]

[Summersby: Haha. I mean the way you speak. Your sense of humor.]

[Scarph: What can I say? We're superior in every way.]

[Summersby: Do you want me to stop talking to you? I could do it...]

[Scarph: I'll behave!]

[Summersby: Good boy.]

[Scarph: You won't hunt me down if I ask you things?]

[Summersby: Depends on what it is.]

[Scarph: You have a sister?]

[Summersby: Yeah. Just a sister, thank God!]

[Scarph: That bad? I'm an only child, so I don't know what it's like.]

[Summersby: I guess she could always be worse, but its just kinda hard looking after her myself, especially when she keeps on sneaking off and doing normal teenage things and part of me wants to do them with her.]

[Summersby: Sorry - venting.]

[Scarph: Vent on. I don't mind, honestly. And you raise her yourself? What about your parents?]

Pausing, Buffy worried on her lower lip.

How much should she tell this faceless human or possibly subterranean creature on the other end of a computer connection? After all, there was that problem with the computers that had made High School hard to deal with.

The whole "I Robot, You Jane" romance thing that Willow had got sucked into had wigged her out big time.

[Scarph: If it helps, I don't have any. My mum and dad both died when I was a baby.]

[Summersby: Oh...I'm sorry.]

[Scarph: Like I said, I was a baby. I don't even remember them. All I know is that they were killed by death.]

[Summersby: Huh?]

[Scarph: Murdered by a man, whose nickname was all about Death. He was killed himself, last year.]

[Summersby: Again with the sorry :-(]

[Scarph: Hey, it's all right. I can talk about it. I'm not about to start crying on your... er...your message box...thing...]

[Summersby: I thought I had things bad. My dad just lives in another town. We don't see him much anymore, since my mom died.]

[Summersby: It was about a year and a half ago, now. She had a brain tumour. I found the body.]

[Scarph: ...]

[Scarph: God, I'm sorry! I feel like such an insensitive idiot now!]

[Summersby: Well, you did ask and since you told me about yours, so it's only fair I told you about mine.]

[Scarph: But I didn't want to bring up upsetting things!]

[Summersby: I'm not upset. Its just...different to talk to somebody who knows what its like.]

[Scarph: Well, not exactly...]

[Summersby: Looks at us. We're getting all broody and stuff. Can we try talking about something not of the grim and depressing kind? I'm really not in the mood for having nightmares.]

[Scarph: Agreed.]

[Scarph: So...what do we talk about?]

[Summersby: What do you do?]

[Scarph: Well, I don't know if you'd really call it a job...]

***

"Excuse me, Miss Summers."

Pulling her eyes away from the glowing screen, at the intervention of a voice on her consciousness, Buffy looked blearily up at the librarian, who had a slightly amused look on her face. "Um...yeah?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave the computer."

"Huh? But I haven't been on that long!"

"Actually, you have been. The library closes in five minutes." The librarian nodded towards the round clock on the wall, but Buffy's eyes went past the clock, to the window, a squeak of surprise escaping her.

"When did it get late?"

"About an hour ago."

"Oh crap!" Turning to her chatbox, Buffy hastily typed an apology to the man she called 'Scarph', explaining that the librarian wanted her to leave because the library was closing and she had to get home.

[Summersby: Can we talk again some time?]

[Scarph: Course! Same time, same place?]

[Scarph: Did I mention that it's five in the morning, here?]

[Summersby: You're going to be wrecked tomo...er...today. Go! Sleep! I order it!]

[Scarph: I hear and obey, Mistress. :-P See you tomorrow, if you make it!]

[Scarph has logged off]

Rubbing her aching eyes as she stood up from the computer desk, her legs stiff from sitting still for so long, Buffy had the overwhelming urge to pee in large quantities, her bladder suddenly reminding her of it's existence.

"Um...excuse me...do you have a bathroom I could use?"

"Towards the elevator, take a left at my desk and it's the second door on the right."

Thankful for Slayer stamina, Buffy started to run in that direction, but groaned and had to slow to a walk, which rapidly became a waddle, as she tried to hold on for as long as possible, making a mental note to take potty breaks next time.

Next time?

As she entered the bathroom, she found herself reluctantly admitting that she would - undoubtedly - be back tomorrow. If only to chat with Scarph, again, because he was just too nice to talk to.

Type to. Whatever.

Five minutes later, when she - jello-legged - walked out the front door of the library, she inhaled a long, deep breath of Sunnydale air, wondering briefly about what she would do to pay for her sister's upkeep, while also pondering when she could get online the next day.

All right, there was one interview at twelve noon and Xander had said he would look into getting her back on his crew, but other than that, she didn't have any vague hopes of employment.

Unless daddy decided to start coughing up the alimony payments.

A wicked grin crossed her face.

Well, that took care of the money side of things for a while, at least.

Now, for getting online and talking to Scarph again...

Loosening the stake she always had taped to her back, as a precaution, she gripped it securely in her hand. Perhaps now was the right time to consider getting internet access at home...

A vampire lurched out of the shadow and she dusted it, distracted.

Well, she did have that computer mom had used...

All she needed was a phone line...

Or maybe the cable connection they had for the TV...

Dodging another attack by a demon of a gooey and sticky variety, she snapped it's neck and started to drag to body into the woods nearby, to dispatch it, already contemplating arranging the connection and getting herself an e-mail address.

Time to bring the Slayer out of the Dark Ages.