Spoilers up to the end of the series (based on promo pictures).

This is basically just a look from Paul's perspective about the events that follow his being imprinted with his own personality. I'm going to take it all the way up to the end in probably 4 or 5 chapters at the most.

Prologue - Did I Fall Asleep?

He's broken. It's hard to wrap his head around. And it's the little things that fix him, that make him whole again.

He has all his memories. (At least, he thinks they're his memories). His first kiss with Christy Lawrence, his first school dance with her sister. He remembers the time he broke his arm trying to show off to the bigger kids down the street. He remembers the way the blood felt trickling down his arm, and he remembers the way it felt to see his wife standing in front of him with divorce papers clutched in her hand. And then receiving that picture of Caroline for the first time, in that simple manila envelope with a scrawling black "Paul Ballard" on the front. He remembers looking at that picture and knowing that the Dollhouse was real, knowing that he had to save her. He remembers Mellie, and how soft her skin felt (how real, how unlike his fantasies of Caroline, of saving her and loving her). He remembers the way Mellie's eyes had looked so apologetic when she announced, unbeknownst to her (to her imprint), that she was a Doll, designed to be his perfect woman, the perfect foil to his best laid plans.

Most clear, though, are his memories of Echo. Not Caroline, not the grinning girl in the picture or on the computer screen with the big dreams and the spunky attitude, but Echo, the doll. The person, the people. Those are the memories that he treasured most dearly, back when he was still a person and not an imprint; not a computer program installed in his damaged, burnt-out husk of a brain. He has a vivid memory of catching the metal wedge that contained Caroline's personality when it fell from Echo's hands, and he remembers locking eyes with her as she whispered, "You saved her." He had never felt so strong, so worthy.

He remembers every perfect detail of living with her for three months, trying his hardest to pretend that he didn't love her just as much as she claimed to love him. He remembers most painfully the way she kissed him on their last day, and the disappointment and hurt that was in her eyes when he finally managed to push her lips from his. He remembers her snide, "I try to be my best", and the way Boyd walked in and looked at him, like he knew. Like he was trying to warn Paul to stay away from her. As if Paul hadn't been screwing that up just fine on his own.

His last memory is of Alpha's face grinning at him as the electricity fries his brain. He remembers the pain, and he remembers willing his body to fight it. Because Echo could survive on her own, he knew that. She was strong, and she was brave. But he didn't want her to. He loved her. Why would he want her to face anything alone?

After that, he woke up different. Topher has apologized what feels like thirty thousand times, but it's not enough. How could it ever be enough? He lost his job, his life to the Dollhouse, trying to fight them. And now he's not only working for them, but he's one of them, too. One step out of line, and they can wipe him. Just like that, he can be gone forever. Imprinted with someone who won't be quite so testy (he can tell that Adele wants to do it, judging from the way she looks at him when he first confronts her in her office).

And something else is different, too.

He can't figure it out, at first, but something about him has been drastically changed from how it was before. It's strange, and confusing, and he doesn't know what it is, but he knows it's bad. Topher keeps looking at him like he's convinced Paul's going to stab him, and Adele has been smirking whenever she thinks Paul isn't looking. Even that new girl who's helping Topher put Caroline's personality wedge back together after someone (Echo? Alpha?) destroyed it, Bennett, she keeps whispering to Topher when Paul's in the room, and acting like she can't see him. Topher keeps saying that she's just a little eccentric, but he can barely look Paul in the eye when he says it. And Boyd? Boyd seems to be hiding out somewhere until someone else can tell Paul exactly what's going on. Not the most admirable approach, but it's working.

Finally, finally, Echo asks him to sit down. They're in Dr. Saunders' office while the doctor in question is going to see Topher to finish stitching up his cut (as it turns out, she's heading up the stairs to shoot Bennett in the head, but that's not for another five minutes). Paul feels exposed, reclining in the comfortable chair. Sort of like how he felt when he was in the other chair, being tortured to brain death by the psychotic jackasses who made up Alpha.

"It's because I'm an imprint, right?" he says.

"No."

"I don't feel anything anymore, except angry. I remember feeling things, but I can't remember what they felt like."

"Imprints can feel. You can feel. You can even love, but you can't love me."

He feels a cold chill snake down his spine and asks, "What?"

"Topher had to reroute your brain. It was the only way to wake you up. And when that happened, he needed the paths that were, as he said, the brightest. The neural pathways through your brain that let you feel a connection to me, a passion, those are used now to control your motor functions. Something a little more essential, you have to admit."

"He took away my love for you? That's impossible."

"Is it? You already said that you don't know me anymore. You have all your memories. You even remember me, but in another very real sense, you don't know me at all. You don't remember what we had, what we shared. You can't remember what you felt. It's science."

"It's crap."

"Whatever you call it, it's irreversible. I'm sorry."

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"I'm furious, Paul. I'm hurt, and I'm furious. But Topher was right to do what he did. We need you. I need you. This war that's coming, it's going to be big, and a lot of people are going to get hurt. We need every soldier we can get on our side, and you're more than just some soldier. Would I prefer that we still shared something? Yes. Is it possible? No. I'll learn to live with it, and so will you."

"How am I supposed to deal with this?"

"We still have work to do, and I know you care about that. And you have Madeline, now. Focus on saving her, doing this for her. You love her."

"I loved Mellie, but she's not real. Just because she's Mellie now, it doesn't mean she's going to be Mellie forever. She's a person. Madeline. She deserves to be back in her body. Mellie is just Adele's sick way of getting between us. Mellie isn't real."

Echo looks at him and whispers, "Neither are you."