"We made it! I mean...we actually made it, we won!" Linda stared in disbelief as her husband and her best friend, and the Doctor's two friends, stood at the end of their ramps. She looked up at the Doctor, put a hand to her forehead and smiled. It'd been so long since she had. She jumped towards him and hugged him around the neck, her eyes watery now. But he was stiff, non-responsive. She slowed unwrapped her arms and looked at his heartbroken eyes.

"What's wrong? Is this like some alien way of being happy?" She jested. But his face remained stern. "Your friends are safe now, they made it to the end, we won."

"No we haven't. In order to win, we have to get them to him. But they've stopped, and there's a gap between the end of the ramps and the centre. We haven't won anything yet."

"There's the old cynic I was looking for!" The Puppeteer called out.

"But...I don't understand, we've won right? We made it to the end. What else can we do?"

The Puppeteer smiled. Even he hadn't expected his plan to pay off this well. "Just one last thing. In order to get across to me you need to raise a bridge for your teammates."

"How? I've pressed all these things a hundred times; it's never triggered a bridge before."

"Oh, don't worry, the trigger isn't there yet. Silly, forgetful me, eh?" The Puppeteer clicked his fingers. Directly in the middle of where the Doctor and Linda's control rooms met, a part of the floor fell out, and a large lever, easily half the size of the Doctor, rose in its' place.

"Just pull that lever and your loved ones can reach me, and most importantly you win."

Linda looked across to the Doctor in slight confusion. He remained stoic. She looked back at the Puppeteer who was beckoning her on.
"Go on, give it a pull down."

Linda carefully looked around herself, before hesitantly moving behind the lever and putting both her hands on the top.

"Oh, just one more thing; pull that and the floor below the Doctor's friends falls out," Linda loosened her grip immediately and stared aghast at the Doctor. "Well, this flooring isn't cheap; it's good to recycle."

The Doctor was bent over the control panel now, anger burning through him.

"Don't be quite so concerned Doctor. Naturally you could pull the lever your way and save your friends. But, unfortunately, the floor would fall out below Linda's cohorts. What a pickle."

"Doctor." Linda said, almost under her breath. The Doctor didn't even have to look to know that she was trembling and full of tears.

"You can't do this." The Doctor said finally.

"Not this again. Bit of a God-complex going on there, I'd go get that seen to if I was you. By a real doctor though, eh?" The Puppeteer hissed, his words burning like acid.

"Doctor, do something." Linda whispered, her voice shaking terribly.

"And I guess this wouldn't be a game without a countdown," The Puppeteer called. "Five minutes. No decision by then and you all die. We can't all be winners here."

Across the other side of the room, behind the Puppeteer, a massive digital display appeared, covering the expanse of the whole wall. The Puppeteer looked behind him as the time began to sink away. He looked back and shrugged in the cruellest of manners.

The Doctor slowly turned to look at Linda who was by now a mess. Her hands remained clasped around the lever, but they were shaking and shivering violently. Her face was drowned in tears. She looked the Doctor in the eyes and shook her head.

"What now?" She managed.

The Doctor moved slowly towards her and clasped his hands around hers. She stopped shaking slightly, a rare air of calm descending upon her.

"You choose." The Doctor said quietly.

Linda viciously shook her head. "No, no Doctor you can't, you can't make me, I...I just can't do this."

The Doctor closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly.

"Doctor I love them. It's my husband, the only man I've ever loved, and Rachel, oh God, Rachel she's like...a sister." Linda put an unsteady hand to her hair and combed it through.

"You can't do this to me Doctor, you just can't' I refuse, I refuse to do anything, we can all die, we'll just all go together."

The Doctor looked up and looked her in the eyes.

"Why can't you just be a normal person some...unimportant human like the rest of us? Why do you have to be special, so important...it's not fair...it's not right. Why do you deserve this and not me?" Linda was sobbing uncontrollably by now. The Doctor glanced across to the clock; two minutes, ten seconds.

"How can I do this, Doctor? How can I live with myself? Knowing...knowing it's my fault, it was my choice. I have to save them Doctor, I just have to." The Doctor felt Linda's grip tighten and her hands tug slightly. She soon reverted back, however.

"Does death mean nothing to you, Doctor? Is it just a triviality, a mere every day event to you now? Have you even lost someone, Doctor?" Linda immediately caught the Doctor's eyes. Her questioning had triggered something. His eyes were teary too but there was something more, something so obvious. They spoke of heartache and loss and pain that had been suppressed for years upon decades upon centuries. Things that any normal person would've given up on life because of. He carried this around and lived with them day after day. Linda's own heart suddenly felt cold. And with that she pushed the lever towards the Doctor.

"No." The Doctor said quietly.

The timer stopped. The floor dropped. And Amy and Rory walked casually to safety.

"This time, just this once, you won." Linda said, a faint smile breaking through the rolling tears.