The force from the slamming metal door made their handcuffs rattle against the bars. Immediately, all nine pairs of eyes locked onto the digital clock on the wall. The Master had been right about that; the numbers began moving immediately, counting down without any introduction or pause. It was stressfully quiet until Jack spoke up, his voice feebler than it'd been all day.

"…so it's not some elaborate orgy thing, then."

"What? Why would it be—" the woman's voice was interrupted by another's, and soon, it was complete chaos.

"Is he serious?"

"There's no way he's serious. He's taking the piss."

"Taking the fucking piss? He's handcuffed us and injected us! No one goes to that much trouble—legal trouble, mind you, just to mess with someone!"

"Why would he kidnap nine random people?! People who want to murder random civilians don't go to all this trouble, they just put a bomb in the tube! This is too personal. It's an elaborate prank."

"But we're not all strangers."

It was the bowtie man's quiet, weaving words that quieted everyone else's rapid-fire arguing. Every head flew towards him, except for one. She was too busy breathing shallowly through her mouth, her right hand placed low on her abdomen. She had obviously heard the man's words. But she seemed intent on pretending she hadn't.

"What?"

It was the woman named Jenny who asked the question. Her mousy-brown hair was disheveled around her face and there was a long smudge of mud down her right cheek, like she'd been dragged over dirt. She turned and shot a look towards a woman with a green pixie cut, the same woman who'd asked about Jenny first and foremost the minute she woke up, mindless of her own imprisonment. Everyone glanced around the room and noticed the anomaly in no time at all.

"You," the woman beside Jack called. "What's your name?"

Clara did not respond.

"Clara."

Everyone turned and looked towards the bowtie man after he spoke. His face was scrunched up with agony, although he had no visible cuts or bruises on his being. He was staring at the short woman like she'd personally placed that gun between his eyes and pulled the trigger, sending his brains splattering all over the back wall. Clara, too, looked equally brainless for a moment as she looked up at him, her doe-eyes wide and panicked.

"You know each other?" the green-haired woman demanded firmly. She gave them around five seconds to respond, and when they did nothing but look towards each other, she rattled the handcuffs angrily against the pole to get their attention. "Well? We're already down to nine minutes! We've got to figure this out, and if you two know each other, that means we're closer to figuring out how the rest of us fit in!"

Clara's voice was scratchy. "It has nothing to do with any of you. Apparently, it had nothing to do with him, either."

The man's spine curved downward, like Clara's words were physically weighing down on him. He reached up and rubbed over his watery eyes and looked towards Clara desperately.

"Please, it's not like that," he whispered.

Her gaze was injured. "Fuck you."

He flinched back, more frightened of those words than the gun that'd just been pointed at him. Clara gained some sort of sick strength from his injury and leaned forward some, her chest rising high as she inhaled deeply.

"I waited for you. Do you want to know how long it took me to realize you'd fucked off?"

He couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at his hands.

"Three years." She bit out. Everyone exchanged looks, obviously debating whether or not this conversation was mutually beneficial for all of them with the ticking clock. Clara continued before they had the opportunity to decide. "Can you believe that, John? I tricked myself into believing that something terrible had happened, that you'd been forced to leave me, for an entire three years. And after all that waiting, here you are." She coughed out a small, bitter laugh, but her eyes were wet and dancing with moisture in the light. "I could have done with dying without seeing you again. This is just cruel punishment."

He looked physically sick. "No, Clara—"

The green-haired woman interrupted.

"We've got eight minutes. How the fuck do you know each other? Start talking now. We don't have much time. One of us will die in eight minutes unless you—"

"We don't know that!" The woman beside Jack interrupted. She pushed her light brown hair behind her ears. "We have no evidence of that!"

The man beside Clara spoke up. His voice was stronger than expected; he looked like it'd be soft, sweet. But he spoke powerfully and surely.

"The gun was evidence, I think. The green-haired woman was right before. He wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if he didn't mean it." He turned his gaze to Clara. "How do you know each other?"

She had to glance towards the clock before she could get herself to answer, but just as she parted her lips, the bowtie man's voice flittered up above the rest. It was tinged with giving up.

"It's probably best for me to tell this. Because there's quite a lot she doesn't know."

Clara's expression read fuck you more clearly than if she'd actually said it. He looked away from her hateful glare and looked towards the man he was addressing.

"We went to university together. We dated for a year. Or at least, that was the cover."

"The cover?" demanded Jenny.

The bowtie man was desperate to meet Clara's eyes; he stared at her until she finally looked up, but she could only hold his green eyes for a few moments. She looked away again.

"I'm…well. My real name is Detective Matthew Brown. Not…John Smith. But that was my name when I was undercover. I was trying to infiltrate the university, to put a stop to a really bad drug ring on campus, and it worked. But…when it was over—that is, once we'd brought all those responsible in—I couldn't stay there anymore. I wasn't allowed to contact any of the connections I'd made undercover while the trials were going on." He shifted forward, like if he just pulled hard enough he might be able to get free from his cuffs to comfort the woman, but all he managed to get was a red mark where the cuffs were tearing into his left wrist. He swallowed roughly and stilled. "Clara. I came back for you, once they were put away. But you were gone."

The truth must have been more terrible than anything she could have imagined. She must have spent so long weaving theories of where he'd gone, and nothing must have come close to the idea that everything had been a lie, even his own name. Her hands shook so hard the rattling of the cuffs filled the entire space, echoing around the hard walls. Her eyes swam in tears before they crested and spilled fast down her face. The sight of her tears made some spring up in the detective's eyes.

"You lied to me." She whispered wetly. "Everything you said. You made me fall in love with you, and the entire time you—" She stopped and swallowed thickly, finally looking up to meet his gaze. "You knew how difficult it was for me to love anyone after my mum died, how dare you—how dare you do that—"

"Clara, I came back for you! It wasn't all I lie, I loved you, that was real, I swear! You weren't at your flat and I waited for months, thinking you were on holiday, but then someone else moved in, and—"

Clara flinched and reached up, pressing her right hand over her right ear. She lifted her left shoulder to press over her other ear.

"Stop lying to me!" She shrieked. "Stop! I don't want to hear it! If you wanted me, you could have found me! He found me, that insane man, so a detective is more than capable!"

"I was able to find your new address in the systems when you started working at Coal Hill, but then I saw you walking in with this man and a child, and I thought-"

"Seven minutes." The woman beside Jack interrupted. The man formerly known as John Smith shot her an irritated look.

"That man was a coworker," Clara said shortly. But this time, her voice was steely and drawn. She looked towards the clock and then reached up with her right hand, wiping her tears back. "She's right. We've got seven minutes. This isn't helping anyone."

Everyone watched as she slid forward as far as she could go and carefully grabbed one of the pieces of chalk nearest to her. She clutched it and sniffed. Everyone exchanged glances as she stood and walked over to the wall behind her. Her handwriting quivered as she wrote out CLARA OSWALD.

"I'm Clara Oswald," she addressed the group. Her hand quickly traced out more, adding words as she spoke. "I'm an English teacher. Born in Blackpool, been living in London for eight years. I'm twenty-seven years old. I've got a son. I have no idea why I'm here. I've never so much as gotten a parking fine."

She closed her fingers around the chalk and turned, staring expectantly at everyone else. "And you all are?"

The woman next to Jack stepped up next. Her chalk squeaked as it ran over the smooth, concrete wall.

"I'm Sarah Jane Smith. Journalist. A lot of people want me dead, because I'm not afraid to write the truth. I'm forty-nine years old."

The green-haired woman spoke up.

"Sarah Jane, did he look familiar to you? Is he perhaps someone you've written an article about?" She asked.

Sarah Jane turned around and grimaced, her thumb nail tracing a nervous line into the chalk piece.

"I've written so many articles. I simply can't remember all their names and faces. It's possible, though."

"Have you lived in London for at least the past eight years?" the man on Clara's other side asked. "Maybe that's the connection."

"Lived here my entire life." Sarah Jane responded quickly. Her eyes moved around the room rapidly, filling prematurely with hope. They all looked around, waiting to see if anyone would say they didn't fit that pattern, and then—

The Doctor's Scottish accent was tinged with regret as he spoke up.

"I moved here two years ago. I was in Glasgow before."

He moved forward as far as he could, but the pieces of chalk were too far near the middle of the round room. Clara moved towards him and passed him her piece of chalk. While he turned to write, she grabbed another.

"I'm Dr. James Johnson. I'm a psychiatrist. When you do what I do, you make mistakes, and there's a lot to feel guilty for. Likewise, there are many people who probably would love to kidnap me and shoot me in the head. It would take all day to go through the list. I'm fifty-five years old. I've got an ex-wife in Glasgow who lives with my daughter and son-in-law."

The man on Clara's other side looked towards Clara quickly, and then to Sarah Jane.

"I've got a little girl." He shared. "I'm Rory. I'm a nurse."

Clara turned and met his eyes. She looked to Sarah Jane as well.

"Sarah Jane, do you have a child?" Clara asked quickly. "Maybe that's it. Maybe we've all got children and he's unhappy with our parenting or something."

"I haven't got a child," Jack spoke up. He paused after that. "Well, you know, it's actually entirely plausible that I've got a lot of children I don't know about. So I suppose we could run with that."

"No we can't." The bowtie man spoke up. "I haven't got a child."

Clara ran right over his words with her own, turning quickly towards Jenny. "Jenny?"

"No, I don't," Jenny answered. "And neither does Vastra. We're married."

Rory and Clara's shoulders sagged. Sarah Jane finally answered.

"Nor do I. I'm sorry."

"Damn." Rory whispered. He rubbed his face tiredly and glanced towards the clock, but the numbers he saw made him look away quickly, his face paling.

"We're not getting anywhere. Let's just do names, quickly. Perhaps it's not a connection so much as guilt." The green-haired woman said quickly. "I'm Vastra. My wife and I are cops, partners actually. The worst thing I've ever done was three years ago. I accidentally shot a young boy. He was only sixteen."

The detective looked up. "Has…has anyone else accidentally killed someone?"

It was quiet. Clara looked at him and then looked away, her expression an odd mixture between pain and nausea. The dark haired woman between Jenny and Sarah Jane cleared her throat.

"I have."

Everyone looked at her. She hadn't spoken since the initial arguments; she'd been listening quietly to everyone and thinking.

"I'm Martha Jones. I'm a doctor. There have been some deaths that I feel responsible for. But what I need to say is that I know you, Doctor. We talked a year ago. I called you for a consultation."

The Doctor moved forward as far as his chained arm would allow. He looked at her and then nodded slowly. "Yes, that's right. Dr. Jones. You've recommended quite a few patients to me since I've been in London." He recalled.

The detective's voice was rushed. His words moved almost as quickly as the seconds were flying by on that digital clock.

"There's a connection. At some point, every one of us has come across one of your patients. The question is which patient. Did either of you recognize that man, the Master?"

The Doctor glanced back towards the door. He shook his head after a moment's contemplation.

"No, I don't think so. That man had scars all over his face—I would have remembered that."

Martha shrugged. "He was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't tell you a name, much less a diagnosis."

Jack cursed underneath his breath. They all looked around at each other helplessly. The countdown had just reached four minutes.

"Perhaps he really is taking the piss." Vastra suggested weakly. She'd been the one so venomously against that theory in the beginning, but she was pale and shaking now.

"We'll know in four minutes." The Doctor responded. He looked around the room, at all the fearful people with their wide eyes either on the floor or each other. He stood straighter. "Okay. So let's look at this differently. In this room we have two police, a detective, a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, a nurse, a teacher, and a journalist…what do you do, Jack Harkness?"

The bowtie man looked up towards Jack suddenly, his light eyebrows furrowed. Jack didn't notice.

"I'm a private investigator." He responded. "And before either of you cops ask, l've done a shitload of illegal shit to a lot of people."

"Lovely," Sarah Jane sighed.

The Doctor brought his hands together and rubbed his palms as he thought. "Okay. So what do all of those occupations have in common?"

It was quiet for a good ten seconds. Clara broke the silence.

"Public services?" She guessed. "In a way. We all service the general public."

The Doctor looked towards her and smiled briefly. It was one of the first smiles the room had seen, and the younger woman was so surprised that she smiled back by instinct.

"Good," he praised. He looked at the rest of the group. "She's right. So at some point, we've all stumbled across and wronged the same man."

"But I don't treat children," Martha spoke up. She looked towards the Doctor. "And I certainly wouldn't have been able to recommend one to an adult psychiatrist, either."

"What do children have to do with this?" Sarah Jane asked.

Martha pointed towards Clara. "She's a teacher. She works with children."

"So perhaps it's an adult she's worked with?" Rory suggested quickly.

"Jack Harkness," the detective called. He walked forward slightly and peered around Vastra, looking towards the man. "Your name is familiar."

Jack squinted his eyes. "Yeah, man. Have we slept together before?" He snapped. "Were you that cute man who wore the rainbow—"

"No, it's not that." The detective interrupted quickly. "You're American. When did you move to London?"

"About nine years ago. I was an exchange student and I never went back home." Jack responded. He cocked his head to the side. "Now that you say that, you do look familiar in a non-sexual context."

The detective looked towards Clara, who studiously avoided his eyes.

"Does he look familiar to you, too, Clara?" He asked urgently. "Think. Maybe I met him while undercover."

She snapped. She went from avoiding his eyes to pinning him with a hot, biting gaze.

"I didn't even know you were undercover, how the hell would I know everyone you met while you were pretending to be someone else? I never knew you at all. I don't even know what to call you."

"John. You can still call me John, because I still am John, even if...I'm not. You know?" He pleaded.

Clara looked away. "No. I don't know."

"Two minutes," Rory called tightly. "Please, Clara, where might you have met that man before?"

She looked to Rory and then reluctantly turned her eyes to Jack. She examined him slowly. It was only the slight quivering of her shoulders that gave away her fear.

"Perhaps we had a class together," she finally guessed. "What university did you study at?"

Vastra's voice was frustrated. "I don't think this is relevant. We're looking for someone we all met much later, once we all had our jobs, yeah? That's what the Doctor said, anyway."

"It's just a theory," the Doctor said quickly. "Anything could be it. It's worth talking about. Jack, why didn't you go back to America?"

Jack fumbled with his words. He hadn't expected that question.

"Well…I…okay, as cheesy as it sounds…I met someone. Ianto. I stayed for him." He admitted.

"Almost one minute. Martha, have you ever talked to a patient over the phone and recommended him to the Doctor? Is there a possibility that you two never saw his face?" Rory suggested quickly.

Clara lifted her head. She met eyes with John for a brief moment. They both wore the same look of surprised recognition.

"Ianto?" She asked Jack quickly.

He was swept up in the other conversation going on.

"Yeah, that would make sense! If you both consulted with him over the phone," Jack said.

"And maybe he was an offender. Maybe John Smith, or Matthew—whatever, I'm calling you The Detective from now on—, and Jenny and I arrested him at some point." Vastra added.

"Jack, you said Ianto—" Clara tried to interrupt. Her words were smashed down by the force of everyone else's.

"And perhaps I wrote a column about it!" Sarah Jane added.

"Where do I fit in?" Rory asked. "I'm a nurse."

"John," Clara called quietly. It was only the detective who heard her voice. Perhaps he'd been listening out for it for six years. Perhaps his ears couldn't stand the sound of anyone else's. Perhaps he'd thought he'd never hear it again. "We knew a man named Ianto. Do you remember?"

He shifted closer to her, as close as the handcuffs would allow. His Adam's apple bobbed like his heart was lodged in his throat, all from Clara addressing him directly. She could have held the gun to his head and he probably wouldn't have cared, just to have her that close to him again.

"The bartender."

"Yes!" She said, her face painted with relief. She paused and looked at him. Her face said it clearly: the fact that he remembered anything of their time together after all those years made it all that much easier and that much worse. It was easy to write someone off and hate them if they were just selfishly using and lying to you, but if there was a chance any of it was true, it was complicated.

"Which pub was that? He worked at—"

"There were two," Clara recalled quickly, cutting John off. "Marlow's and Sunday West—what was Sunday West called before that?"

On the other side of the room, they were discussing the possibility of the Doctor and Martha both consulting with a patient over the phone, but they weren't getting very far. No one gave much mind to Clara and the detective.

"—I just don't think I would have talked to a patient without meeting them in person, it's just so unlike—"

The shrill beeping interrupted everything and everyone. Nine pairs of eyes turned towards the wall again, as they had in the beginning, but this time the clock read 0:00:00. The Master was everything but tardy; the door swung open the second the beeping stopped.

He took three long strides in. He stopped in the middle of the room. They all stared hard at the gleaming weapon in his hand. Clara clenched her fist around the chalk, like a child grasping tightly to the arm of a teddy bear. Martha swayed on her feet, left to right, left to right. And John was watching Clara with pleading eyes, his lips moving silently. He might have been praying, but whether for or to her one couldn't be certain.

"Please," the Doctor whispered. The man turned and looked at him, his eyes sharp and infuriated. "We just need more time. A bit more. We're getting there."

Rory grimaced and turned his head, like he fully expected the Master to lodge a bullet in the Doctor's head for even daring to ask him that. The Master might have been considering it, but after a moment's contemplation, he turned on his heel so he faced Jack Harkness instead. His face crumbled and Sarah Jane whimpered.

"No, come on, man," Jack whispered. His eyes were as wide and blue as the sky. But he would never have the freedom to see that sky again. Moisture gathered, like milky doves grouping together in a bright, cloudless sky. They took flight and became tears. They spilled from his eyes. "We're trying."

The Master cocked the gun. Jenny began to cry. It was odd, how quickly a life could end. After all those years and all that effort- gone with the flex of a finger. The Master pressed down on the trigger without any prior words. Jack's body flung back from the force of the shot as half his face exploded, bits of skin and brain matter splattering the wall behind him. There was an array of blood splatters behind him haloing his head. His body swayed for a moment, held in place by locked knees and his handcuffed arm, but jerkily he collapsed down onto the ground, face-up. His right eyelid was still open, his blue eye facing up towards the sky. His left eye was shredded. A tear was still sliding down his cheek.

The Master stared at the gaping entry wound. The bullet had entered just below Jack's left eyeball, ripping away at surrounding flesh from the close range shot. The Master leaned over and spoke into it, like it was his ear and they were sharing a private secret.

"I didn't ask you to try. I asked you to do it."

He rose to his feet and crossed over to the wall. He pressed a button on the timer and then left, and the countdown started all over again. They had no time to process the violence before the minutes began sinking away from them.

It was quiet and gasping and the air was thin. Everyone was choking.

Clara unclenched her fingers and a few flakes of crushed chalk fluttered down to the floor. The rest of the powder was caked to her sweaty palm. She watched the puddle of blood growing underneath Jack's body. It was dark, so dark it almost looked like a hole you could jump through, a portal to somewhere else. But his body remained.

"I don't want to die," Sarah Jane whispered. She had flecks of Jack's blood all over her face and neck. Her eyes were unmoving, still locked on Jack's blown-apart face.

"Neither did he," Vastra said. She squared her shoulders and reached up, wiping away the tears that'd clung stubbornly to her bottom eyelashes, refusing to fall. "We have nine minutes."

The puddle of blood crept slowly towards the center of the room. Clara turned away as the last few pieces of chalk began to drown.