Act 4

Everything you ever

Billy's fingers twist through the rough red fabric and squeeze it before shoving the lab coat on to the floor. He collapses in front of his computer, staring disconsolately at the dull eye of the web cam. All the frantic, furious energy that's powered him through this last, crazy week drains out of him, leaving him feeling limp and lifeless.

(Just like her. Like his Penny.)

Covering his face with his hands, very quietly he says, "I want to take it back." He doesn't sob. He doesn't break down and cry or beat his hands dramatically against the keyboard. He just asks, even though he knows it's hopeless. He prays, even though he's certain there's no one out there to listen.

"Just take it back."

Problem is, when you make a deal with the devil, there are always consequences. Side effects, like from an experiment. You can't control all the variables. He couldn't control the environment, or predict the breakdown of the freeze ray.

Okay, maybe he could have foreseen the sheer, crashing stupidity of Captain Hammer. But that's just another mistake he tries so hard to forget.

"Please," he whispers. "Please, just take it back."

"And why would you want to do that, Billy-boy?" A voice says, smooth and rich as chocolate, making him jump. He lifts his head and sits upright, turning around to face the sliding door of his laboratory. There's a woman standing there. A tall and beautiful woman with large, almond eyes, wise and sad.

"Hourglass?" Billy greets her, one hand across his chest, massaging his skittering heart. "W-what are you doing here?"

"Answer the question, boy," she says as she approaches him. "Why would you want to give this up?" Her long, slender fingers sweep casually across her body, taking in the lab, the cramped kitchen and the meagre bedroom of his tiny studio apartment. "You got everything you ever wanted," she elaborates, pointing out the irony that's dogged him for weeks. "You're in the Evil League of Evil. If you want it, you now have access to unimaginable power and wealth, recognition. You even destroyed your nemesis."

"But the price…" Billy mutters. Then he cowers back as she looms over him, seeming to grow in size, to swell into black shadow..

"When you made that deal with him, you knew about the price." Hourglass says.

Billy looks up at her, blinking rapidly. How does she know? How does she know what he did?

"Didn't you know?" She repeats, needing his answer.

"I knew."

Hourglass smiles, holding up a hand. "Yet still you want to take it back? All this?"

He nods, his shoulders sagging.

"We all have a choice, Billy boy. Even you. If I send you back, you'll have to make it again. You know that?"

Billy smiles bitterly and draws himself up, an edge of Dr Horrible's steel in his voice. "You can turn back time as well as see the future? Isn't that a bit unfair?"

She shrugs. "You mean this is meant to be fair?"

Billy closes his eyes, tight-shut, and just before the whooshing noise roars in his ears he hears her speak, soft and certain. "Captain Hammer would have destroyed himself. All you had to do was wait."

And then there is nothing but burning, searing agony.

*--*--*

Laundry Day

Billy thought that he'd be sent back to before it had all happened; to before Captain Hammer and Penny had ever met. Instead, he comes to his senses sitting opposite her in the laundry mat, the sunlight streaming through the store-front window, illuminating her face, her titian hair.

He'd forgotten how beautiful she is.

She smiles, and there's a grace about her. She touches his knee and he feels the warmth spread through him. He wants to throw himself down at her feet and kiss them.

Instead, he blushes and looks down. He killed her once. This was the very last time he saw her alive; At least, alive without huge pieces of his death ray protruding from her chest.

"Keep your head up, Billy Buddy," Penny says, and it's exactly the same as it was the first time. His heart leaps with the same hope, the same possibility, before she dashes it all with her next words.

Captain Hammer is coming here, to their place, his safe space. Captain Hammer is coming to the laundry mat.

But weirdly, this time Billy doesn't flinch at the news, doesn't try to run. He's seen Hammer without his power, he's seen Hammer stripped down to the basics - shame and cowardice and near-collapse - and the hero doesn't scare him any more.

When Penny makes her stumbling introductions, where Hammer makes his lame jokes and blusters and postures, Billy just stands tall and stares him out until even Penny feels the tension and finds an excuse to leave the two of them alone.

"Why did you never kill me?" Billy asks, as the question pops into his head. There's no time for niceties or pretence. Hammer knows who he really is.

There's no time for masks.

Hammer laughs uncertainly. "So, Doctor Horrible, this is what you look like when you're not hiding behind all the… science-y stuff."

Billy smirks at that. "Science-y stuff? Really?" He can see what Hammer's trying to do, see him trying to wrestle control of the situation. Thing is, the chump's to stupid to engage him in a war of words. "Just answer the question, bonehead! All the times that you beat me unconscious, you never followed through. You never killed me. Why?" He's nose to nose with the man now, the man who killed the woman he loves. "Don't you realize how dangerous I am?"

Billy realizes then that it's something that's been torturing him since Penny's death. If Hammer had stopped him, really stopped him, before the opening of the Caring Hands Homeless Shelter, then Penny wouldn't have died. If Hammer had done his job, Penny wouldn't have died.

But "You- you're the bonehead!" is all Hammer says. "Walking around in your pretty white dress with your little goggles, playing with ray guns like you're a little kid."

"It's not a dress, it's a lab coat!" Billy tries to interject.

"Besides, it's fun. There's people who need saving and they love it when they see me beat you up!"

Billy shakes his head, incredulous. "This is just to flatter your vanity? You idiot! You-"

Penny looks over from the dryer and smiles at them, causing Hammer to grab him in a mock-friendly hug, to almost throttle him while he pours words of poison into Billy ear.

Now. This is the point where Billy swears to kill his nemesis. Right now.

Right now is where he wishes, with all his heart and soul, that he can show Hammer what it's like to feel this way, what it's like to lose something he loves and to have his power taken away.

Right now is where he condemns Penny to death.

And when Hammer and Penny walk out of the laundry mat together, there's a change in air pressure behind him and Billy doesn't have to turn around to know who's standing there.

"D'Hoffryn," he says, shoulders sagging. "Hey."

And the demon frowns in confusion as Billy hauls himself casually on to a wash tub and looks up at him. "I was expecting you."