Every second he stared into the rain, was another second that she was dead.

So far it had been 607320, not that he was counting. And with each one she drifted farther and farther away, and he sunk deeper into the normality he'd fought tooth and nail against. On Wednesday he'd gone to the Laundromat with a pot of frozen yoghurt – just the one. He'd sat on top of the drier as it whirred rhythmically, numerous black sweaters being tossed to and fro within. He hadn't felt anything, though.

He hadn't felt anything when he posted a memorial blog, or when he'd seen her picture on the front of the newspaper. In fact the only time he'd felt anything was on that ominous Thursday when he'd drawn up a mental plan.

It had been only too easy to put together the machine. The huge metal prongs he'd scavenged from the centre for scientific research, and the various wires and plugs used to belong to the generators under city hall. And you can bet that Captain Hammer wasn't there to foil any plans when Billy had strolled very casually into the hospital pushing a gurney, taken the elevator down four floors, and resurfaced a few minutes later with Penny's body on it.

Now she lay upon a cold steel bed, covered in a white sheet soaked with rain, as the thunder roared above her.

Billy checked his watch; two-thirty. In just over three minutes' time the sky would be aglow with the wrath of Mother Nature, and the love of his life would cease to be just a corpse. The machine hummed all around him; a monstrous setup on the roof of his building, consisting of two metal totem poles, a large boxy monitor, and a complicated rig which suspended Penny on her metal hammock. The heart monitor flat-lined, but Billy paid no attention to it. Instead, he snapped his goggles to his face, and flicked the big blue lever on the left.

Cogs began to turn as the prongs fizzled and buzzed. A cold, white hand slipped from beneath the sheet as the bed was lurched upward towards the infuriated heavens; in a little under a second the evil in Billy came bursting forth from the deep, dark crevices of his mind and he scowled at the sky. It didn't want him to do this; it didn't want him to toy with the inevitable. But he was Doctor Horrible. He had a PHD in horribleness. He was a professional.

A sudden cacophony of thunder sounded, and the rain fell thicker and heavier. Doctor Horrible wiped the droplets from his goggles as he raced to the monitor and wrenched out the keyboard, plugging in strings of complex data. It was almost time. Time for her to wake up.

Thunder again; louder, more terrifying. The city below was illuminated in the ghastly sliver of white issued from faraway forks of lightning. It struck once more; closer this time. A mile away. Horrible amped up the power. And he waited.

Then, it came. A hideous finger of Zeus came crashing down right upon his operation, and curled around his target. Volt after volt trickled down the prongs, making that delightful crackling sound you only hear in movies. Silvery electric vines circulated their way around the apparatus as lightning hit again, and again, and again. Penny was engulfed in it; but she did not stir.

Horrible's heart caught in his throat; it had been at least four minutes now. Yes, it was two-thirty-five. She was still flat-lining. No, it couldn't be, he'd been able to stimulate a pig just the other night. It all worked; there was no reason why it shouldn't. He'd planned it all so carefully, it was all right, he'd calculated –

Beep.

Beep.

Pulse. There was a pulse.

Hurriedly Billy dropped her down from above, keeping an eye on the heart monitor as he did so. There was something there, and he wasn't about to let her slip. Not now. Not when she was right in front of him under the sheet.

He drew it back, ever so slowly, so as not to startle her. She was white as his coat, her hair dull and rusty. There was no sign of movement upon her, not anywhere. Billy tore off his goggles, and one of his gloves, and lightly put two fingers to her cold, clammy neck.

Penny sat straight up on the gurney, her stagnant lungs bringing in her first, shrieking breath in a week. In startled dry gasps the crisp night air raced into her system, bringing life to her week-old corpse. She involuntarily was thrown back then and she began to convulse, still breathing but frantically so, and Billy tried his best to stabilize her flopping, jerking form.

Finally, Penny was subdued, and the heart monitor clamed with her. Her breaths were long and wheezing, her hands shaking. Billy grabbed at her hand and held it to his face, trying desperately to feel the warmth in it.

"Please…" he whispered. "Please… stay with me…"

It was then that she opened her eyes.

Foggy and with a white film over them, Penny's dry eyeballs rolled about her skull, flickering this way and that. They looked up at Billy, sad and wide and confused.
from between her blue cracked lips, Penny spoke her first rasping word.

"… Billy?"

He felt his eyes fill with tears as he threw himself upon her, gathering Penny's rigid torso in his arms and pressing it close to his. "Yeah…" he whispered in Penny's ear. "Yeah, it's me." He caressed her straw-like hair, not once letting go of her, revelling in that amazing feeling of her heaving chest against his. Her shaking arms had crept p his sides, so very slowly, and were now desperately grabbing at his coat for something solid and reassuring.

That was, until, he heard her squeaking breath catch in the back of her throat, and the monitor screeched its foreboding, everlasting note. Suddenly, Penny became dead weight in Billy's arms. In a second she had slipped from his grasp like water through lace, and she landed with a thud on the gurney. Billy grabbed her hand, and squeezed it tight.

Her eyes rolled back and her breathing slowed, and the tighter Billy held onto her the less force she exerted. Once, twice, thrice he pounded upon her ribcage, issuing short and sharp gasps of air into her mouth. But she was unresponsive. He held tight to her hand.

It was at two-thirty-eight on a Sunday morning that Penny slipped away for the final time. Billy had driven her corpse, bound in white satin, back to the morgue where he placed her in her freezing metal drawer. He left again without a word, ignoring the horrified stares of the medical personnel down on that floor. They had not tried to apprehend him; frankly, he wouldn't have cared if someone had administered the lethal injection right then and there. He dismantled the machine and dumped the parts in the ocean, and returned to his apartment on Monday afternoon with some groceries.

He'd gone to post a new blog that evening; he'd stopped himself when his wallpaper, a picture of the living, breathing, healthy Penny, beamed at him from his computer screen. He shut it down, unplugged it and went to bed.

Just like that, she slipped away forever.