Title: Identity
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dr. Horrible/Penny
Word Count: ~2000
Summary: Dr. Horrible loves Penny too much to let death be the end. Luckily for him, the Dollhouse have a solution...
A/N: Dollhouse crossover. Spoilers for the flashback sequences in Epitaph One (and therefore, presumably, Season 2??). It's also AU for Dollhouse as it's assuming the LA Dollhouse do offer the immortality thing. This is for fanfic100 using prompt 055. Spirit. Thank you thank you thank you to the lovely jamie55 for beta-ing for me and putting up with my comma abuse! *hugs* :)

 

Billy held his breath as he twisted the lock pick in the key hole, releasing it as the door opened with a soft click. Shoving the pick back into the large duffel bag, he padded into the dark apartment. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust from the bright lights of the hall as he pushed the door shut behind him, and then headed towards the bedroom. He’d never actually been inside before, but he knew exactly where he was going – blueprints for the building hadn’t exactly been hard to find and hack in to.

He peered cautiously around the bedroom door and smiled at the sight of the red-head fast asleep inside. He tip-toed over to the bed and shook her gently, smiling again when she didn’t stir. Penny was completely out of it, as he knew she would be. The slow-acting sleeping draught he’d slipped into her frozen yoghurt earlier had kicked in and, no matter what, she’d be dead to the world for the next eight hours.

Billy pressed a kiss to her forehead and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Love you,” he whispered, then turned and started rummaging in the duffel bag. First he removed his laptop, setting it up at the foot of her bed. Then he took an arc of metal and placed it over Penny’s head, and put two round pads containing a blue glowing gel – a compound of Wonderflonium – under her hands. He attached two electrodes to her head and another two to her chest, telling himself as he did so that the only reason his hands lingered there was because it was important to get this right. He pulled a tangled handful of wires out of his bag and carefully connected the electrodes, the gel pads and the metal arc together in an intricate web that linked to his computer.

He took a deep breath. This should work. He’d set up most of the programming at home, so the laptop should be sufficient to run the brain scan. In theory…

“No,” he muttered to himself. Doubts weren’t useful; doubts had never helped invent anything. He’d worked this out thoroughly; his calculations were exact. He just needed to be confident.

Billy took another deep breath and started tapping at the keyboard, starting the process. Immediately, light started glowing from the arc over Penny’s head as the brain scan began. She started to moan, her face twisting into a frown, and Billy glanced nervously at her. He tapped a few more keys and she calmed down a little, though she was still obviously uncomfortable. “It’s okay, Penny,” he whispered. “This won’t take too long.”

He kept up the reassuring dialogue throughout the process, for his own benefit more than anything else. He kept his eyes glued to the screen, however, constantly monitoring the development of the scan. Finally, after what felt like all night (but could have only been half an hour), the computer bleeped as the process completed. He sighed with relief and started to remove his equipment. Ten minutes later, there was no sign he’d ever been there.

***

He’d been worried about Penny ever since she started dating Captain Hammer. As Billy, he was too shy to tell her how he felt and Captain Hammer poisoned her mind against Dr. Horrible. The picture-perfect ending he’d imagined for the pair of them was slipping away from him, and every time he saw how happy she was, it was like a knife in his heart.

Besides, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she just wasn’t safe. Stuck in the crossfire between hero and villain wasn’t a secure place to be, and he was terrified that he’d lose her forever.

That’s when inspiration had struck. Like the rest of LA, he’d heard the rumours of the Dollhouse. Unlike the rest of LA, he was certain that not only was the technology possible, but it already existed. All it took were a few greased palms in the Henchman’s Union for his suspicions to be confirmed. A few more bags of cash later and he was rewarded with an approximate idea of how the Dollhouse recorded people’s personalities. It was enough for him to cobble together his own brain scanning device and to work out how to imprint a mind onto a hard disk.

Now she was safe. No matter what happened, he could never lose her. If she realised who he truly was and left him forever or if – god forbid – she got hurt or even killed, he still had her mind, locked away safely in his lab, waiting to be imprinted on a new body. He knew he wasn’t rich enough or connected enough for the Dollhouse’s services yet, but one day, when he was in the Evil League of Evil, he would be.

***

It happened sooner than he expected. One moment she was alive, the next her body was riddled with shards of metal. Billy watched her die and, to the sounds of Captain Hammer wailing like a baby and Penny assuring him that the hero would save them both, he felt his world slip away.

He didn’t cry, though. As he bent to lift her, to hold her in his arms for the first time, he whispered in her ear that he would save her. As he carried her body towards the gurney, feeling how light she was, he knew that it wasn’t the end.

And as he entered the Evil League of Evil headquarters for the first time, he thought to himself that finally he had both the connections and the funds to employ the Dollhouse.

***

“You want to use one of our Actives permanently?”

Dr. Horrible surveyed the woman in front of him through the darkened glass of his goggles. He’d come in full costume, feeling that it was best to seem imposing and not reveal any weakness. Weak people didn’t last long in the League, after all.

“I understand that this is a service the Dollhouse now offers.”

Adelle hesitated, just for a second. “Yes. However, we’ve never tried the process with an imprint that we didn’t ourselves create. The risk of brain damage, or of the imprint not being properly assimilated, is too high.”

“Ms. DeWitt,” he replied. “I’m a genius. I am more than capable of performing a simple brain scan without corrupting the data.”

Her mouth twisted slightly in disbelief, but she nodded. “As long as you accept that there will be no refund if this doesn’t work. Now, as to the price…” She scribbled a figure on a piece of paper and slid it across to Dr. Horrible. He casually glanced at it, and then signalled to his henchman to bring forward the briefcase of cash. The cool, controlled, effect he was aiming for was ruined somewhat by the case slipping out of Moist’s hands.

“Sorry, Doc,” he muttered as Dr. Horrible sighed and bent to pick up the briefcase himself. He placed it on the table and pushed it across to Adelle who flipped the catches, lifted the lid and nodded approvingly at the bundles of money inside.

Dr. Horrible glanced across to his henchman. “You can wait outside now, Moist.” He ignored the hurt look on the other man’s face as he turned back to Adelle. He waited until he’d heard the door shut behind him before continuing. “There’s one more thing. I need you to edit her memories.”

Adelle raised an eyebrow. “That will certainly cost more, doctor.”

“There is a ten figure sum in there, Ms. DeWitt,” he replied, indicating the briefcase between them.

“That should cover it.” She smiled coolly. “You’ll need to talk to Topher.” She walked over to her desk, picked up the phone and pressed a few keys. “Topher? Dr. Horrible would like to speak to you.” She listened for a few seconds then rolled her eyes. “No Topher, that’s not what he’s here to do. I think the ELE have better things to do than… You did what?” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she turned away. “Well, they don’t seem to know about you hacking their systems…”

“Actually, I do,” Dr. Horrible pointed out. “But that isn’t why I’m here.”

Adelle looked slightly exasperated. “Topher, just get up here. The doctor wants to use our services, that’s all.”

A few minutes later, a rather sheepish-looking blonde man entered the room. “So, Doc, what can we do you for? A few assassins?” he asked with forced brightness, trying to mask the nervous edge to his voice.

“No,” replied Dr. Horrible. “I have here,” he pulled the hard-disk out of his pocket, “a mind scan that I want you to imprint onto one of your actives. Permanently.”

“Err, hate to break it to you, but we don’t do that.”

“I’ve already told him we will,” Adelle interrupted. “He is fully aware of the risks involved and has agreed to pay upfront.”

“Well, it’s your money,” Topher shrugged. “Have you chosen your Doll yet?”

“I need you to edit the mind first. Can you do that?” Dr. Horrible asked.

“Hey, I’m a genius! What do you need doing?”

“I don’t want her to know what’s happened – she needs to think her new body is the body she’s always had. And when I scanned her mind, she was dating Captain Hammer,” he sneered the name of his nemesis, “I want her to have forgotten him.”

“Easily done. Anything else?”

“And…” Dr. Horrible swallowed, for the first time feeling nervous. “I – I need her to be in love with me.”

Topher snorted, but one look at the twin frosty glares of Adelle and Dr. Horrible told that laughing was a big mistake and he hastily tried to cover it with a coughing fit.

“You know,” he pointed out when he’d recovered. “It’d be cheaper if we just designed an imprint for you.”

“No. It has to be Penny,” Dr. Horrible replied forcefully.

“Fine, fine. Who are we using?” he asked, directing his question towards Adelle.

“He hasn’t decided yet.” She walked across to her desk, picked up a leather-bound book and gave it to Dr. Horrible. He opened it and found it was full of photos of the Actives, each page complete with heights, weights, and other physical details. He leafed through the pages slowly, looking intently at every beautiful woman. He stopped when he reached one brunette. She didn’t look much like Penny; her hair was the wrong colour, and she wasn’t as delicately pale as Penny had been, but there was something in her eyes, in her smile, that reminded him of her.

“This one,” he said finally.

Adelle smiled. “Topher, please go and tell Echo that it’s time for her treatment.”

***

Penny surveyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror, fingering her damp hair with one hand.

“You look beautiful,” Billy said, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her red hair.

“Careful, the dye hasn’t all washed out yet,” she said warningly.

“I don’t care. Do you like it?”

She looked uncertainly at her reflection again. “I do… it’s weird, but it just feels… right.”

“I told you it was a good idea,” he smiled.

The mirror had started to steam up from the shower, and Penny lent forward to wipe the condensation away. She froze as her hand brushed the mirror clear; she had suddenly had the strongest feeling of déjà vu…

Billy turned her round to face him, and she felt so full of love for him that she forgot all about the half-remembered memory.

“I love you, Penny,” he whispered.

“I love you too, Billy,” she whispered in return, and it was true. Sometimes she felt that she loved him so much that it was her only purpose in life.

He held her tightly in his arms as he gently kissed her.