He did it. He did what he had to do, even though he didn't want to do it. As a doctor, it was his job to save people, not kill them, but someone threatened to kill his wife and daughter. What other choice did he have?

In a last minute act of desperation, Lawrence Gordon made a tourniquet with his blue shirt and tied it above his ankle, biting down on one of the long sleeves before picking up the hacksaw to free himself from the chain holding him back. Adam Stanheight was shot, but he didn't die.

When Zepp came into the bathroom and tried to kill Lawrence, Adam woke up immediately and smashed the toilet tank lid over the would-be killer's head. His shoulder hurt where the bullet pierced through his skin, staining a portion of his white shirt with scarlet splotches. Lawrence dragged himself over to the other side of the bathroom, clutching onto a crying Adam, both of them emotionally drained, physically exhausted from the past two hours of unknown horror that awaited outside the four, filth-stained walls.

"I'm going to bleed out if I stay here", Lawrence had told him.

"No! No, don't leave me!" Adam begged, sobbing.

"Don't worry. I'll be back. I... promise."

Those were the last words the doctor said to the photographer before he left, unsure whether he believed himself or if he would make it out alive and see his family again.

While dragging himself down the hallway of an underground tunnel, Lawrence found a way to stop himself from bleeding to death by hitting his stump against a hot pipe, causing him to cry out in agonizing pain before he lost consciousness. Not too long after this, the doctor woke up to the feel of cold water splashing onto his face. He opened his eyes to look upon the face of the person who revived him, surprised to see that it was none other than the corpse from the bathroom, who also happened to be a former patient of his, the infamous Jigsaw Killer himself - John Kramer.

"Congratulations, Dr. Gordon. You're still alive."

Soon, John took him to a room with medical supplies to clean and sanitize his wound, replacing Lawrence's foot by giving him a new, prosthetic one. The doctor was grateful for his captor's kind, attentive nature, but his injury was the least of his concerns. For all he knew, Adam was still left behind in the bathroom, and Lawrence knew that he had to do something before the young man died of blood loss, but just as he started to speak, Lawrence fell into another state of unconsciousness. He couldn't remember if he had convinced the Jigsaw Killer to change his mind about sparing the life of the photographer or not, but by the next morning, Lawrence woke up and found he had been administrated to the very same hospital where he worked. His wife and daughter were there to greet him, and he happily embraced the two most important people in his life, giving each of them a loving kiss on the cheek. He never thought he would see his family again.

"I have a family, too. I don't see them. That's my mistake. It's a mistake I'd like to fix." Those were the words Adam spoke to Lawrence while the older man started having a mental breakdown, right before he proceeded to cut off his foot.

That was when Lawrence remembered his promise and started to panic, but Alison informed him that Adam was just down the hall. Hearing this, Lawrence sat up and got out of bed, his wife and daughter helping him to stand on his feet as they led him down to the room where Adam was sleeping. Last time he saw him, the young man was bleeding out from a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. Lawrence was originally aiming for his heart, but instead, he chose to shoot him in a non-lethal location where no major organs or arteries would be severely damaged. Placing a hand on top of the young man's head, brushing back his hair, Lawrence watched as Adam slowly opened his eyes and smiled at him. It was the first time in what seemed like forever, though it had only been a few hours, that Adam felt warm and safe again. It had been awfully cold in that damned bathroom, made even worse by the known fact that he woke up in a bathtub filled with water and didn't have any shoes on. Neither one of them did.

Wrapping his arms around the younger, dark-haired man, Lawrence embraced Adam as though he had been his friend since childhood. Before they were abducted and placed into a game set up by John Kramer, neither one knew of the other's existence. Adam had been following Lawrence, but he did not care who he was, other than an adulterer who was seeing another woman behind his wife's back. Lawrence should have been angry with Adam for invading his privacy, but after what they had been through together, the doctor decided to forgive the photographer, thinking he had been punished enough.

Those mere two hours they spent trapped in the bathroom made both men see the error of their ways and gain a new perspective on life, renewed them in a sense that reminded them not to take their respective lives for granted. They started out as strangers, but in the end, Lawrence and Adam became brothers. Better still, they became friends. In time, both men learned to respect and view each other as equals, working together by carrying out John's legacy years later after he died, teaching people not to do wrong onto others.

As time went on, Adam stopped by almost every week to check up on the Gordon family, even offering to babysit Diana when Lawrence and Alison went out for a nice evening. When the holidays came around, Lawrence encouraged Adam to go spend some time with his own family, reminding him he needed to see them more often. Adam agreed and made arrangements to go visit them at Christmas, promising to return before New Year's Eve. While they rebuilt and started to appreciate their lives more and more everyday, neither Lawrence nor Adam ever lost sight of what mattered.