Warning: there's more darker stuff in here.

Back in Hammelburg, Carter was thinking.

The way he saw it, there were a number of possible things he could do right now.

He could wait for Hochstetter to come back with whoever he took from camp, and torture both of them until they died (because he was sure that like him, they would rather die than betray their operation).

Inadvisable.

He could wait for Hochstetter to come back with whoever he took from camp, and feed him a pack of lies about the operation.

Colonel Hogan would definitely do that.

Maybe Carter could even claim that he was the only one in the Underground, and that nobody else in camp was involved; or he could even claim to be Papa Bear himself-

He could already hear the entire Gestapo laughing.

With a sigh, Carter discarded that idea.

He could stay here and wait for Colonel Hogan or someone else from their team to come rescue him.

That was somewhat more of a possibility...but even though he had every confidence in them, it didn't seem right to just do nothing.

Even if it might be more medically sensible.

Another, darker option crept into his mind.

He could...find a way to make sure Hochstetter wouldn't be able to question him ever again.

It wouldn't stop him from torturing everyone else in camp, if he could get away with it. And besides, Carter's body would still be there. It would still be evidence against the POW's.

There was nothing else for it, then.

Carter would have to escape, and make his way back to camp.

While he understood that there was no way he'd get there before Hochstetter, maybe when Hochstetter returned and found that his first prisoner was gone, he'd be forced to bring the other one back, and things could go back to normal.

Of course, there was also the chance that he'd just shoot the other person in a rage.

But at this point in time, Carter really didn't have any better ideas.

Step one: get free of these handcuffs.

He'd heard about people being somehow able to wiggle their hands free of them, by breaking or cutting off their thumbs.

Carter really hoped it wouldn't get that far, partly because he didn't have any cutting implements on him, and partly because maybe it was selfish, but he really liked having his thumbs. Besides, looking at how swollen his actual broken thumb was, it seemed unlikely that it would make the process any easier.

On the more practical side of that train of thought, it would be much easier to escape if he had as many working appendages as possible.

The other option was to somehow pick the locks.

That really made Carter wish he were Newkirk; the Brit had occasionally tried to teach him how, and several times given up in exasperation because apparently the tech sergeant was too inept.

Carter remembered, though, that all you really needed was a thin piece of metal, like a bobby pin or a paperclip-

A memory stirred, from before this had all started.

"Hold still!" Lebeau growled, working to sew the hem of Carter's Wehrmacht uniform shirt.

Carter sighed, and shifted impatiently on his chair, his hand toying with a paperclip he'd stolen from Klink's office. He'd been there for what seemed like hours, and he wanted to get back to work constructing his new bomb. It was like leaving your kid unsupervised; no telling what would happen while you were gone.

"I said hold still!" Lebeau tugged on the sleeve he'd been trying to sew impatiently, which happened to be the one with the hand holding the paperclip.

Carter shifted the paperclip to his other hand-at exactly the moment when Lebeau gave up on that sleeve and decided to try working on the other one.

There was an awkward moment before Lebeau exasperatedly wrestled the paperclip out of his hand altogether, and then shoved it into Carter's shirt pocket.

"You can play with that after I'm finished!" he barked. "Now if I catch you holding it again I'll knock your brains out!"

"Okay, Moe," Carter sighed.

The reference was kind of wasted on the Frenchman, who just glared at him and then went back to work.

After a while Carter had forgotten about the paperclip because he started woolgathering about something else; so as far as he knew, it was still in there. But was it his shirt pocket or his greatcoat pocket?

Leaning forward (and nearly blacking out from the way his ribs popped), Carter lifted his left hand as far as it could reach and groped his way into his pocket.

Please let it be there please let it be there please let it be there

And finally, Dame Fortune smiled on Andrew Carter.

His fingers closed around thin metal, and he leaned back with a sigh of relief.

It was difficult working with his left hand, but he managed to push part of the paperclip into an L shape by pressing it against the chair, and then push it into the lock of the cuff wrapped around the arm of his chair. Carter then twisted it back and forth, remembering something about needing to push a pin out of alignment or something.

To his astonishment, a few minutes later he actually heard a click, and found that he was able to lift his arm free.

With an excited smile, Carter used the same procedure and unlocked his other wrist. He thought about trying to pick the lock on his left wrist, which would probably require using his right hand. He decided to just leave things as they were.

If he twisted his head, he could see that there was a window in a far corner of the cellar; once he was completely free of the chair, he'd see if he could open it or break the glass or something, and try to climb out onto the street. From there...he supposed all he could do was run for the woods and hope he wouldn't get shot. At least it was still dark outside, giving him more of a chance.

Here goes nothing.

Carter leaned over, reaching for the cuffs around one of his ankles.

His ribs popped again, and what blood was left in his body seemed to flow straight to his head.

A few seconds later, a wave of blackness was flowing over his eyes, and he barely heard the sound of the cellar door opening.