The door slammed behind us with a resounding bang that echoed throughout the dark room. In reality, the cage was just an alcove at the back of the warehouse, with two opposing benches and a window at the top of the door. The only light that filtered in was the impossible light from the work floor.

The square beam of light flickered, and was obstructed by Finch's sihloette. His shadowed, leathery face grimaced coldly. "Just in time, Doctor. Just in time to witness your genocide...reversed."

"Finch, you can't," The Doctor pleaded, his fingers trying the door handle. Finch smiled. "I would have thought you regretful of such a crime; it's not often you see them undone."

"You're taking innocent humans! What about their lives, eh?!"

Finch gave a lingering look from his stark-blue eyes, as though waiting for it to click. Then his footsteps clicked slowly, and he was gone. The only thing in the way of the light now was the brown spikey head of the Doctor, watching.

Silence fell as the footsteps died away, and in a flash the Doctor was rummaging in his pocket and tried the lock with the sonic screwdriver. The long drone of the now familiar buzz was a disappointing reminder that Finch was perhaps on step ahead.

"Wood! It's embarrassing, stupid thing!"

I smiled a little. "Shhh, it's sensitive," I echoed, and he turned and looked at me. His eyes were a battle between amusement and keeping up that determined, angry outburst. I beckoned for him to sit, and he managed to fit his long legs between me and the bench. There was no way he could stretch out in here.

"Now, we have time to think about what we're going to do."

He crossed his arms, and sent me a dark look. He shook his head curtly. I tightened my eyes in question.

"That code," he began, almost clicking the end of the word, "is a countdown. 1/1/1."

I nodded. "Yes? That could mean 1 year, 1 month, 1 day."

He shook his head again. "I reckon we got here at the right time. Just in time."

I looked away into a random stop and thought over his words. I tried different amounts of time in my head, and compared them to how much time we'd actually been in the building. From when we landed, from when we received the message in the first place. I checked my watch, and frowned.

"It's stopped."

He pulled out a watch I'd never seen him wear, and a similar expression painted itself on his face. "Someone doesn't want us to know the time."

I leaned my head back on the wall. It hadn't been an hour yet, half an hour at most. But i'd been feeling so disoriented since arriving, I wasn't so sure. I was banking on a Time Lord to be tuned in to all the clocks in the world at that moment.

"Do you think Finch sent that message?"

I looked back to the Doctor, who was watching me absently. He looked a bit dazed.

Suddenly he snapped out of it, and brushed his hair back with both hands, widening his eyes as though tired. "I doubt it, he didn't know what we were on about. I don't know who sent it."

I suddenly thought of my favourite time travel film, and remembered how Bill and Ted told themselves they were going to place an object somewhere, and it would appear there straight away, an action by their future selves.

"Maybe we sent it to ourselves."

He had no time to reply, and I had no time to laugh, or even comprehend another thought. The room was a bright white, and he flew over to hide me in his arms. "Don't look!"

The light was so bright it was loud, invading each sense with such intensity I couldn't escape. But I followed suit. I clenched my eyes shut and huddled in his chest, his back to the window and his cheek pressing against the side of my head.

The moment lasted longer than it felt, and it was gone in a literal flash.

Silence seemed to fall with a crash that made my ears ring. I almost missed his voice ask it I was alright.

Before I had chance to breathe he was at the door, trying the lock again. Nothing worked. I walked up to it, and looked at the pane of glass. It was segmented and smashed into hundreds of tiny suspended crystals. Slowly, I put a finger to the door, and it swung open.

"The light must have burned the lock to ash or something," I whispered. He packed the screwdriver away gently, as though feeling guilty for early comments. Together, we scanned the room, deathly silent.

Instead of people sat at the desks, statues replaced them, covered in a film that made them appear a washed out colour, thick and shiny and misty. The Doctor approached on, and stroked a finger across it's head.

"Some kind of...placenta? Whatever it is..."

He poked it, and he didn't give. He tried the screwdriver, and nothing happened. He grabbed a chair, and slammed it into the solid glass-like cocoon. It came out the other side with the legs bent.

"...it's indestructible," I finished. I looked up instinctively to the upper lone window, and he was there. Hands tied behind his back in pride, now doubt. Right then, I understood the hostility. I hated him, too.

"He can't do this," I breathed helplessly, keeping my eyes on the figure. Despite not being able to see his eyes, I felt them on me, staring me out, connecting with my unwavering ones. "Taking innocent lives and changing them...changing their humanity...literally."

"We need to get to the Shadow Proclemation. This is...against nature," he ranted, grimacing at the pods around him. His movements were fast and sharp and angered as he made his way around the check a couple more, and then as he ran to the door. I followed, half walking, half jogging. I was too weary to shout in the ironic graveyard type place.

"What is that? Space police?"

He tried the door, which was lacking a handle, and nothing sounded. He pushed it, just I did with the door to the alcove, to test if the lock had disintegrated, but it was a pull door anyway. I noticed how incredibly snug the door looked in the frame, and walked over to see if my thinner fingers would work into the gap. No such luck.

The Doctor took a large step back, and brushed his hands through his hair again, his eyes wide in frustration. "Brilliant," he forced out, and I began to scan the room. I didn't suppose anything thinner than a nail could squeeze in and be of any use, but I felt the need to keep myself busy. I was looking for a full 10 minutes.

Finally, I came to a stop, and attempted to calm myself, to supress the need to panic. I couldn't let him see me like that. Even if he did seem to occupied with...what ever he was doing. I looked around, and found him half way up the wall, a few meters across from the door.

"Hey! Spiderman!"

He turned his head, the screwdriver gripped between his teeth while his hands gripped the rungs of the near invisible ladder. "Yeah?!" he shouted passed the object.

I shook my head and let out a nervous laugh, slowing my pulse as the alien watched me. "Nothing, was going to say, I didn't know you could climb flat walls."

He didn't answer, and resumed climbing as I made my way over.

"What you found?"

"I think...I found Mr Finch's answer to life," he mused, reaching his long arm to grapple the small silver ball in the corner. It wouldn't reach. Then he did something that made my pulse jolt and freeze.

Wrapping a leg around one of the rungs, he let go of the ladder and reached with both hands.

I held my breath, but he caught it. It didn't seem to be attached by anything.

He placed a grip back on the ladder, and I let out a much needed exhalation. "Catch," he said, and threw the small object as he climbed back down.

"What is it?"

We were back in the alcove, sat opposite each other as he examined the silver ball in his hands from behind his glasses. The screwdriver was buzzing away, and I thought about how he understood the information feeding from the two devices. The smooth surface gave nothing away.

"I'm not quite sure. It's alien technology, but the materials used are from earth, so it's make shift. Brilliant, genius in fact. Capable of changing the DNA of any living thing...into any living thing...with just a bit of scrap metal and blood..."

"You sound like you admire it...he didn't strike me as so intelligent, really."

He peered up at me, his brown eyes sharp with question. "What makes you say that?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure...he doesn't...strike one...as having the ability...to be accredited with so much...imagination."

...

The Doctor's hearts quickened pace. He placed the object beside him with little care as to the force he used and placed both hands around Mia's face. "Mia, Mia listen to me. If you can hear me, tell me-"

"She can't hear you, Doctor," the distant voice sang slowly, lips barely moving as the ghost of Mia's voice haunted him with his name. "I daresay the poor child is tired, relieved for the break of her consciousness...The Doctor has placed one in rather a situation, hasn't one, Doctor?" The stretched eyes danced over his face, the only part of the body showing any signed of movement. The edges were turning red at the strain. "One could save her, Doctor...is that not what you most desire? Her safety? Ah, but you are so keen to keep her by your side...travelling the stars...Do you care so much, Doctor? For her safety? It can be done."

The Doctor felt his own hands shaking, sweating against the skin of his companion. He did want her to be safe. As safe as safe could be...if it meant not losing her. His eyes stung at the prospect.

"Please, just let her go."

The corners of her mouth twitched, the fastest movement the entity was probably capable of. "Begging, Doctor...so uncharacteristic. But one does not desire to let her go...she is too...extraordinary...a mind."

"Yes, yes she is, and you're killing her. You're burning that brain up with your energy, and a human cannot take so much."

The eyes widened, impossibly, marginally. "N...no. One cant. One refuses."

"That mind...the mind you have fallen to...it's not going to be around much longer...not with you there...let it go."

A tear escaped the unnaturally wide green eye, and the Doctor wiped it away with his thumb, pity swelling in his throat. "You have to."

"It hurts, Doctor," a weak voice whispered. The eyes blinked, as though in slow motion. When they opened, they were almost back to normal size. "My eyes..."

The Doctor ignored her last tears and took her in his arms, whispering in her ear that it would be ok. He knew he would do anything to save her, help her, and he told her that. She nodded, and he felt her eyelashes blink rapidly, a sure sign that she was back.

What he couldn't tell her was that the entity would be back. That it wouldn't give up on her. Neither it, or he, would.

Such an important human, it seemed.