I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

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The girl with red hair cried and had no one to lean on. Her brother, Captain Hank "Hammer" Lesse, had shot the man they were burying today, and was dead to her. She supposed his masked friends, Nite Owl and Comedienne, were in the crowd somewhere, too, but she would never know who they were.

It had started off with smiles and light conversation over laundry. It had moved on to frozen yogurt in the afternoons. Then dinner in the evenings while they got to know everything about each other. Then they started to say that it was love. Then the sex. But never in her apartment. He never thought he was good enough for her and, besides, sometimes he got hurt when he was fighting criminals and his floor was easier to clean.

Oh yes, she'd known she was seeing Rorshach. He'd told her. On, like, their second real date. He'd told her the whole story on the third. She knew about the other universe he'd come from, about the ghost she had brought back to life for him, and about Ozymandias' monster, and why he'd never do anything about it. Oddly enough, she'd never once thought he was crazy.

She knew all about the murderers and child molesters he killed late at night, about the corrupt businessmen and politicians and military minds he poisoned or arranged to have poisoned. She knew how much he wanted to be one of the corpses he laid out every night. She knew that he called it "stemming the flow of disease" while they waited for "the cure" to kick in.

The night he never came home, he said the five words she'd never thought she'd hear him say: "I want to be alive." Alive, not dead. And it was because of her! Well, her and the baby they were going to have. It figured that the irony of the universe would choose that night, that last, perfect night, to kick in. The police had set a trap for Rorshach and, for once, he hadn't seen it. He didn't kill any cops like the last one, but he went down fighting. Her brother had fired the fatal shot - the only one that hit.

She tried to see through her tears. He had taught her to be alert. He had wanted her to be safe even before she'd gotten pregnant.

He had also told her he would retire or die at the end of August, because history had said Rorshach disappeared for twenty three years at the end of August. For one blessed evening she'd thought it would be the first option. Then she'd gone out to get some first-aid stuff, and then she'd heard the gunshot, and then she'd watched him die.

He'd been Rorshach and loved her for most of his life. For a little bit at the end, he was Billy again, when he saw Penny calling him home.

There were a lot of people here to remember the good Rorshach had done. The pimps and the pushers would come and spit on his grave tomorrow but today, the prostitutes and the junkies and all the other kinds of whores came to pay their last respects.

A woman with long brown hair walked up to her. "You were his lucky penny?" she said.

Sonia nodded and tried to smile. "More like a bad penny. H-he couldn't get rid of me." She looked closer at the dark-haired woman. "Comedienne?" she whispered.

The woman nodded.

"I knew you would be here. You and Nite Owl were his friends."

Comedienne looked at Rorshach's grave. "Did he buy that in advance?"

"No," said Sonia. "But I think he'd like it." The tombstone had no dates or names. She'd had one of his faces - the one he'd been wearing the night he died - set into the stone, so he would forever be open to interpretation. She also put two pennies in the coffin, so she and the ghost could be close to him forever, but that was a private matter. "You must be Nite Owl, then."

"That's right," said the bespecled man. "I have to admit, we didn't know if you'd want to talk to us."

"Were you away when he needed you? Or were you giving him the space he needed? It's open to interpretation, and the way you interpret things says a lot about the person you are."

"Definately Rorshach's girl," said Comedienne.

"No. Or yes. It's all in the interpretation, isn't it? He said you had somewhere safe I could be until I have the baby."

"Sonia," said the good-looking police captain, who'd made his way through the crowd to talk to her. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Sonia, it's time to go home."

"Get your hands off of me," she snapped. A homeless man who lived near Rorshach's apartment looked up, focusing on the confrontation and glaring at the police officer. "You're dead to me, do you hear me? I loved Rorshach! I told you he wasn't the same as the first one! You're just too self-centred and, and closed-minded to see it! You took away everything I ever-" She broke down crying and turned away.

"Leave her alone, cop," said the homeless man.

"But... I'm her brother," he said.

"Way I see it," said Comedienne. "You aren't much of a brother if you killed your sister's lover."

"You also aren't much of a cop if you couldn't see the difference between the Rorshach who used to be Walter Kovacks and this one," said Nite Owl.

"The first one, he was a lunatic," said the homeless man. "Couldn't see colours, couldn't see the bigger picture. Think he'd have had more than two, maybe three friends at his funeral, cop? This one, he was smart. We ain't gonna see another like him in my life. Leave the lady alone, cop."

After a moment, he left. Comedienne murmured condolences to the sobbing woman and the homeless man returned to his contemplation of the shifting face on the tombstone.

"Sonia," said Nite Owl gently. "We probably shouldn't stay here much longer. It's getting dark."

She nodded, and walked over to the grave. She pressed a last kiss to the blotted mask that was her lover's face. "Goodbye," she said. "Hope you're with Penny, and the world makes sense."