At the edge of a frozen wasteland, Dr. John Smith stood alone. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, shivering. The wind stung his eyes and bit at him with its wolf's teeth.

He had been there before.

Over and over and over.

"But how could you let this happen?" she said from behind him. "How could you do this to me?"

He turned to see her, blonde hair in braids, mascara-blackened tears running down from her wide brown eyes. "Now we'll never see each other again," she said.

"I know." He could have mouthed the words along with her.

"Was that what you wanted?"

"Of course n—" Smith hesitated as the ground under his feet groaned. Feeling suddenly off-balance, he shifted his weight. "What is he doing?" he muttered. "I told him, an hour in."

"What are you talking about?" She threw up her hands. "Fine, you know what? I'm done. Obviously you care more about yourself and your own little games than anybody else." She turned and started to leave.

"Wait!" The ground tilted sharply, and Smith lost his footing and fell. He clawed at the frozen ground as he slid down the suddenly vertical surface, watching her walk away as if nothing was amiss, unaffected by the shift. He glanced over his shoulder to see an icy ocean churning beneath him, and when he looked back, she was gone.

"Rose," he whispered.

At that moment, Smith lost his grip and plummeted toward the bitter cold water and closed his eyes and—

He sat up with a start. "Took long enough to wake you," said Rory Williams as he let go of Smith's shoulders.

"I said an hour," Smith spat, yanking the PASIV needle from his arm. "I'm still your boss, you know, and last I checked you were supposed to listen to me."

Rory pushed his vintage glasses back on his long nose and shrugged. "There's a client here to see you."

Smith frowned. "We don't meet clients here." He gestured to the warehouse around them. "No one's even supposed to know where this place is."

"Yeah, well, this guy does." Rory headed toward the warehouse's massive blue door and slid it open. "Dr. Smith, this is Canton Delaware."

A middle-aged man with brown hair and a black business suit stepped inside. "It's bigger in here than you'd guess from the outside," he rasped in a broad American accent.

"So we've been told." Smith stood, rolling down his shirtsleeve. "But clients don't usually see it since we don't meet them here, and they certainly don't just drop in. So I'm curious to know your business, Mr. Delaware."

"Special Agent Delaware," he corrected, "and my business it the United States government's business."

"The U.S. government, eh? How delightful." He noticed Rory frown at his sarcastic tone, but Smith pressed on. "Perhaps it's escaped your notice, but we're in London. A bit out of your jurisdiction, I'd say."

"But I do have eyes and ears, and I know plenty about you and your little operation, Dr. Smith." Delaware glanced around. "You call yourselves the Trusted And Reliable Dream Infiltration Specialists. Seems kinda bold to put 'trusted and reliable' in your name. Makes you wonder whether you can back it up."

"If you didn't think I could," said Smith, "you wouldn't be here."

"Plus we know the American government has its own extractors that you could've gone to," Rory interjected. "And what we do is not exactly legal. So there must be some reason why you've come to us specifically."

Delaware smirked. "I came to you because you're the best, at least according to what I've dug up. And yes, Mr. Williams, we do have our own extractors. But this particular…action is not something my government would publicly condone, although nobody would disagree that it needs doing."

Smith raised an eyebrow. "Oh, but because we're criminals, naturally we'll do anything and have no morals or standards."

"I didn't say that, Dr. Smith. I don't believe that this task is wrong—quite the contrary. But politics is tricky business. You understand. Dirty work needs doing whether people like it or not."

Rory folded his arms, looking thoughtful as always. "What have you got in mind, then?"

"I need you to perform inception on someone."

"Okay, well, first of all, that's impossible," Rory said.

Delaware raised an eyebrow. "Well color me surprised. I'd have thought that you'd tell your top associate about your greatest success, Dr. Smith."

"You performed an inception?" Rory asked Smith, incredulous and slightly offended.

Smith shrugged. "It was a long time ago."

"On a Greek manufacturing mogul named Silas Davros," Delaware continued. "With your crew of Noble, Jones, and Harkness, correct? but evidently you don't work with that team anymore."

"No," said Smith. Talking about his old TARDIS team made him uneasy. Donna Noble had been the world's best architect, but illness and events of the Davros job had claimed her mind; his point woman, Martha Jones, had left to work for a rival organization; god only knew what the notorious forger Jack Harkness was doing.

"But it was successful?" Rory asked. "I mean, it actually worked?"

"The idea stuck, yes," Smith explained, "but it was about as simple as an idea can be."

Delaware frowned. "I didn't take you for a modest man. No inception is simple, no matter what the idea. Yours is the only known successful one in the world."

"I was lucky," Smith cautioned. "I don't know if I can do it again."

"You can," Delaware insisted.

"We'll see. It depends entirely on the idea, and the mark."

"The idea is, 'I am a good person, and need to act like one.'"

Smith stared at him. "It's certainly vague enough. People have very different ideas of what constitutes a 'good person,' and that's not even addressing the issue of what motivates people to be good or prosocial—it could be practically anything."

"Couldn't the subject's mind fill that in, though?" Rory suggested. "Most people have similar understandings of what a good person is, I think. If we get the idea to stick, the details should work themselves out."

"Maybe, maybe not, but how would we get it to stick without a why? Everything has a why; everything needs one." Smith rubbed his temple. "Look, Delaware, we can come up with something, but I can't promise that it'll work."

Rory glanced back at Delaware. "Who's the mark?"

Delaware's perpetual smirk faded. "The prime minister of Great Britain."

Smith inhaled sharply.

"Harold Saxon?" Rory's eyebrows shot up. "Harold Saxon. The former minister of defense and new prime minister."

Delaware nodded. "I take it you know about him?"

More than you realize. Smith turned away slightly, hand over his mouth and chin, and said nothing.

Rory noticed Smith's reaction and looked puzzled, but said, "Well, yeah, everybody knows about Harold Saxon. He won the election by a landslide."

"Yes, he did. We believe that he's a very dangerous man, a serious threat to the U.K. and the world."

"How's that then? The country loves him."

Delaware shook his head. "They love what they think he is, Mr. Williams. We still haven't been able to piece together his past, but we do know that what's publicly known is full of lies. Careful examination of his record in the Ministry of Defense, especially his pet project, the Archangel Network, reveals a troubling pattern. And if you followed politics more closely, you'd know that his foreign policy decisions have been alarming. Rest assured, Saxon is a problem. A ticking time-bomb, if you'll excuse the cliché."

"So the plan is to change him so he won't…go off?"

"Saxon must be neutralized, yes," Delaware said. "But assassinations are too easy to prove, and leave physical traces. And besides, having Britain's prime minister as an ally would be more useful to us than simply eliminating him."

Rory put up his hand. "Look, this is all well and good, but there's no way that we'll want to get involved in this. It's too complicated, too risky, no matter how much you offer to pay us. Isn't that right, Doc?"

Smith roused himself and turned back to Delaware, his face an expressionless mask. This is it, then. "We'll do it."

"We will?" Rory stared at him. "Did you hear anything he said? This is a horrible idea. It'll be a disaster."

"I said we'll do it."

The coldness in his voice seemed to surprise Rory. "So that's it, then. Decision made." Rory shook his head and looked back at Delaware. "No offense, but this is insane. For starters, how would we even get Saxon somewhere to dream-share with him? His security's a bit tight, you know."

Delaware shrugged. "It's no problem."

"Right, okay, kidnapping the prime minister is no problem. When did you want to do this whole thing, exactly?"

"In a week."

"Oh, naturally. A week to get the whole team together and make a plan."

"We'll find a way," Smith snapped, then turned to Delaware. "We'll meet you in a week, then."

"At the prime minister's cottage in Brighton," Delaware nodded. "And bring an extra device. I'm going in with you."

Rory frowned. "No you're not."

"This is a delicate mission," Smith agreed. "We're not taking a passenger."

"Dr. Smith," Delaware said, "not only am I going with you to ensure that everything goes according to plan, but I'm a highly trained and experienced federal agent. I may not be an extractor, but I can assist your team."

"Delaware—"

"This is not a request."

Smith waved his hand dismissively. "Fine. But I'm not responsible if anything happens to you."

"Fair enough," Delaware agreed. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then. I have a kidnapping to finalize." Without another word, he turned on his heel and left, the blue door clanging shut behind him.

Smith sighed and went to pack up the PASIV device he had been using before, but Rory just stood there glaring at him, hands on his hips.

"What's this about?" he asked.

Smith knew what he meant, but shrugged and snapped the device shut. "What is what about?"

"This, Doc." Rory sighed, exasperated. "Is it just because it seems impossible? You want to see if you can do it?"

"Something like that."

Rory's eyes narrowed. "You agreed to it after you heard who the mark was. Is it because it's a high-profile job? That was never a big concern for you before." He hesitated. "…Do you know Saxon or something?"

Or something. Smith could not suppress a bitter chuckle. "Of course not," he lied.

Rory started to say something, but then shook his head and stormed off.

Smith let him go, knowing that Rory was cautious and suspicious, but loyal above all else. Rory would go along with the mission, even though he was right about it. It would be very complicated and very dangerous—more than Rory or even Delaware knew.

Suddenly exhausted, Smith sank back into his chair and closed his eyes. His last thought before he drifted into a dreamless sleep was one that never left him.

I have to save him.