It seemed like there was nothing she could say that could be persuasive enough.

Nothing she could say…

But what if she sang?

Looking up at her friend, Penny took a deep breath and let the melody flow forth.

"If there's one thing that I know

It's that there's good inside you."

She paused, glancing up at Doctor Horrible. Anguish spread through his expression. It seemed as if he wanted to believe her- almost believed her- but was afraid to. Well, if she could stand up to the HLH, she could persevere with this. Turn 'almost' into 'mostly' and ignore her fear.

"I know Billy still remains

And that you'll choose the right thing to do…"

Beep. Beep. The glow at the end of the death ray pulsed steadily, its brightness increasing. Penny contemplated closing her eyes-

Billy dropped the death ray, and it clattered to the floor. They both ducked as a bolt of red energy zipped over their heads, blasting off the reflective surface of the washing machine before blasting a hole in the wall.

He curled up into a ball, his shoulders trembling with badly muffled sobs. He couldn't kill Penny, not again- he'd kill himself first- and the ELE would be seriously pissed…

Ohnonononono. Was he actually crying? Penny scooched towards him on her hands and knees, not trusting her legs to work if she stood up. "Hey, it's okay," she murmured, touching his cheek.

"Don't," he said, although without shying away from her. "Love you, Penn, but you need to stay away from me. I break things. I'm as bad for you as- skateboarding without a helmet-"

Finding no other way to express himself, he broke into song.

It was more than just her usual instincts to help people. She could feel the pain in his voice echoing all the way down to her fingertips, and it was kind of metaphorically killing her. She took one of his gloved hands, uncurling it from a fist to weave her fingers through his.

The feel of soft leather against her skin triggered a cascade of memories. That made sense, she thought, trying to sort out the images of concerned blue eyes. Her powers could deflect a fatal blow, but they couldn't stop her from bleeding to death from a nonfatal one.

He'd saved her life.

Softly, she joined in:

Billy looked up at her, an expression of haunted loss still lingering in his impossibly blue eyes. "Did you really-"

Leaning closer, she pressed a soft, tentative kiss to his jawline, eyelashes fluttering against his skin.

"Yeah."

"Penny," he said, half-laughter, half-sob. He squeezed her hand, as if needing to reassure himself that he was actually holding it. Then he shook his head. "I… you're incredible. I just… I can't believe this is happening."

"Like I said, everything happens."

This time, he returned her kiss.

They spent the night in the coin wash. Penny told him about how she'd stood up to the HLH; with her head resting on his chest, she could feel, as well as hear, his laugh. They compared their terrible love lives (she won, albeit only barely, with a pitch-perfect imitation of Captain Hammer's ham-fisted attempts to lure her into his bed.) Leaning against the same washing machine, their fingers entwined, they spun out daydreams: what if we had a giant robot? What if we could feed everyone in L.A.

Penny wrinkled her nose. "With what?"

He held up a finger in an I-am-making-a-very-good-point gesture. "With plankton."

Cuddling into his arms, she looked at him skeptically. "And would people know that they were eating plankton?"

"Why not? It's logical and economical. I ate plankton a lot when I was getting my PhD in Horribleness at U of G." He frowned. "Although when I tried to convince the people on my hall to join in… ever gotten punched through a door? Not fun. It introduced me to the wonderful world of getting punched through doors."

"I tried to introduce the girls in my dorm to soy crumbles. I didn't get punched through doors, but I was the only person not invited to the class's spring party. Which was on a yacht. On the bright side, I did find this lovely coffeehouse a few streets away from the school. They had these vanilla bean lattes with a foam topping that was three inches high, at least…" Suddenly she straightened up, her mouth quirked in a grin. "Oooh. Um-um-um-um-ummm. What if we don't tell people it's plankton? We could give it a catchy name, like 'Yum Chow' or something like that…"

It was as if a light had flicked on behind his intensely blue eyes. "Penny," he said slowly, "you are a genius."

They assigned the washing machines names and personalities.

("That one ate one of my socks once."

He furrowed his brow in mock analysis. "Left sock or right sock?"

"Right, I think."

"Hmm. I say we call him Josh Josherson, Stealer of Right Socks, Upholder of All that Has Left the Path of Rightness." He paused, then added, "Josh for short."

"Works for me. Oh! Maybe he's the illegitimate son of the dryer that always makes those weird noises." "Absolutely.")

Somewhere around three-ish- although the only estimate of time she could reliably retrieve was 'half past freckle'- Billy's eyelids seemed to want to droop closed, and he could barely get through a sentence without yawning.

"You should get some sleep," Penny said. Ruffling his hair, she stifled a yawn of her own.

He shook his head. "Don't wanna," he replied, sounding like a little kid. For a split second, he looked scared.

"Nightmares?"

Billy faked a laugh, his eyes flickering away from her. "Dreams about you bleeding to death right in front of me? Why would I have those?"

"…that was a suspiciously specific denial." she said, giving him a hug. "Go to sleep, okay? I won't go anywhere."

"Promise?" he murmured, clearly exhausted.

"Yeah. Not gonna die."

Nodding sleepily, he leaned against her. After a few minutes, his eyes closed, and Penny allowed herself to fall asleep as well.

When the coin wash opened, they had just woken up. Billy rested his head on Penny's shoulder, the hopelessness slowly dissolving from his expression under her compassionate gaze.