Author's Note: Hooray, after all this time, I have finally reached the last chapter. Thanks so much to everybody who has taken the time to review this over the last couple of years, sorry it took so long to finish.

Apparently, some folks liked the previous chapter, some did not, and most just didn't bother to let me know one way or the other. Special thanks to those who did review: KlinicallyInsaneKoschei (so great to have you back!), MountainLord-92, Theta'sWorstNightmare, DarkFlame5, gallifrey calls now, mericat (x 3 – also great to have you back!) and Guest.

To Guest: Since you ask, yes, you are wrong. If you knew anything about my writing, you would be aware that I'm one of the biggest John Simm fans on this earth, so I would hardly write a LoM story that under-rates Sam, now would I? If you had bothered to read the earlier chapters, you would have seen that Sam has had more than his share of figuring things out and saving people, including Gene. Also, if you think that the original series of LoM was all about Sam being the big hero and Gene standing around looking stupid while he did it, you must have been watching a different show to me. It was about two people with entirely different methods of working having to co-operate, with both of them eventually learning from each other and coming to respect each other. That was one of the main reasons Sam decided to stay in 1973 at the end. Saying that Gene is a Neandearthal is a very one-dimensional opinion of his character, since he was actually very intelligent and, in the show, quite often surprised Sam by getting results with his rough and ready methods, which is the premise I've carried through into this fic. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem whatsoever with receiving concrit – I just prefer to receive it from someone who has actually READ my story. So, with respect, perhaps next time you could read the whole thing before posting critical and unwarranted reviews, instead of just "skimming" one isolated chapter – maybe then you would know what you were talking about. Also, it would be a lot more polite if you could SIGN IN before leaving your opinion, so that I know who I'm talking to. Thank-you.

OK, after that lengthy preamble, here is the last chapter. Hopefully you all enjoy!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The last glowing embers of the enormous bonfire were crumbling away into grey ash. Overhead, free now of the Angel's influence, the yellow fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, bathing the RCS office in the usual dim, urine-coloured illumination, as if nothing had ever happened.

Gene had already left, marching out the door and heading back down the stairs to his own office, drawn by the enticing siren call of the whiskey bottle stashed in the top drawer of his filing cabinets. The huge sledgehammer lay on the floor, abandoned amongst the scattered remnants of the broken Angel, the evidence tag still dangling from the handle.

Sam couldn't help staring at it as he sank into a nearby chair, his previous elation sliding away into depression. How the hell were they going to explain all this when people started arriving in the morning? he wondered bleakly. Phyllis was dead, together with any number of uniformed officers. The RCS Office was practically destroyed – nearly all their files burnt, Litton's office rifled and desecrated, the main room covered in soot and smelling even more like an overflowing ashtray than usual. And the only thing they had to explain it all was the smashed up remains of an angel statue and a wild story about psychopathic killer aliens. Litton was going to have an absolute field day with this one. If any of them managed to avoid being committed to an insane asylum, it would be a miracle.

His eyes shifted to the red-haired girl standing nearby. She was carefully wiping the last sandy residue from her eyes with a pocket handkerchief.

"Better?" he asked.

Amy blinked at him and nodded, her eyes blood-shot and watery, but lucid enough. "Yeah, everything's slowly starting to come back into focus. There doesn't seem to be any permanent damage."

Phyllis mightn't agree, Sam reflected heavily, but he didn't voice the thought. Instead, he asked, "So...what will you do now?"

She shrugged despondently. "I have no idea. It looks like I'm stranded here, doesn't it? At least until the Doctor finds me, anyway."

"Well, you won't be alone," Sam promised. Amy wasn't really his problem, but after everything that had happened, he couldn't help feeling responsible for her. No-one knew better than him how crazy it felt to be dumped out of the blue into a timeline not your own. "I'll help you. After all, I've had quite a bit of experience settling into a new time."

"Thanks, future boy," she said, with a rueful smile. "Manchester, 1974...not exactly where I planned to spend my life, you know. I haven't even been born yet."

"It's not so bad, once you get used to it," he said, grinning back. "Maybe I can get you a job in the station canteen. All the free food you want...no-one else will eat it!"

Amy gave a muffled snort of ironic laughter. "Oh, the career possibilities!"

Before Sam could respond, a sudden breeze blew through the room, whipping loose file papers across the floor in a merry dance. The air was filled with a peculiar wheezing, groaning sound. Sam jerked reflexively to his feet, his entire body tensed in alarm at the unearthly noise. He had never heard anything like it before. But Amy clearly had, because her face lit up in utter joy.

"Doctor!" she cried.

In the corner of the room, just near the entrance to Litton's office, a strange blue shape began to coalesce, fading in and out at first, but steadily becoming more and more tangible, until Sam could recognise it as an old-fashioned police box. A light was flashing on and off on the top, synchronising perfectly with the grinding sound.

Sam's jaw dropped in astonishment and he rubbed at his eyes. Amy's words from hours ago, back in the cells, floated through his startled brain. The Doctor...he's not from Earth. I travel with him, through time and space, in a blue police box. It's called a TARDIS and it's bigger on the inside than on the outside...

He wanted to say that he didn't believe it, wanted to tell himself it was some kind of hallucination brought on by shock, but after the weird events of today, nothing seemed beyond the realms of possibility, even a police box magically materialising in the middle of the RCS office.

In a few moments, the wheezing noise stopped and the police box condensed into a solid shape. Almost immediately, one of the doors opened inward with a distinct creak, and a head poked out. It appeared to be a young man in his mid-twenties, with floppy, wind-blown, brown hair and a worried expression.

The newcomer's eyes latched on to Amy and a wild grin of relief streaked across his face. "Pond! There you are!"

"Doctor!" Amy cried again, running across to him and throwing her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Then she pulled back and looked at him sternly. "You took your time, didn't you? I was starting to wonder if you you were going to take another twelve years to turn up!"

"Sorry about that," the man said sheepishly. "Took me a while to recalibrate the briode nebuliser to track down your biometrical signature within the Time Vortex. Still...I'm here now! All's well that ends well!"

He stepped out of the police box and looked around. Sam was able to see that he was tall and thin, wearing a tweed jacket over a greyish shirt, complete with navy blue bow-tie and braces; black jeans, rolled up at the bottom; and black, lace-up boots. It was an odd, professor-like ensemble, but somehow it suited the man to an absolute 'T'.

"Blimey!" he commented. "This place is a mess. Is it the cleaner's day off or something?"

Amy made a stifled huffing noise. "It was a Weeping Angel, actually!" she said in an acid voice, her arms folded. She was obviously still more than a little miffed with her friend for taking so long to get back to her. After everything that had happened, Sam couldn't really say he blamed her.

"A Weeping Angel?" the Doctor spluttered, his head jerking back and forth, his eyes passing unseeingly over Sam, apparently dismissing him as irrelevant as he searched for the stone Angel. "Why didn't you say so, Pond? Those things are lethal, who knows how many people it'll kill if it gets loose? Where is it? Is it still in here?"

"Calm down, Raggedy Man, it's been dealt with," Amy said. "It's currently in pieces all over the floor." Grabbing Sam by the arm, she pulled him forward. "This is Detective Inspector Sam Tyler. He and his boss were the ones who destroyed it. With a sledgehammer!"

The Doctor grasped Sam's hand and shook it distractedly, with the air of someone who wasn't really paying attention, his mind on more important things. "Hello, well done, good to meet you. I'm the Doctor."

Then he turned back to Amy and cupped her face with his hands, looking closely into her eyes. "Are you sure you're all right, Pond? There aren't too many things in the Universe more dangerous than a Weeping Angel and...wait a minute..."

He stopped dead, right in the middle of his sentence, as if he had been hit on the head with a brick.

"Doctor?" Amy queried anxiously. "What's wrong?"

He didn't answer, but instead slowly pivoted back toward Sam, his blue-green eyes piercing and intent, as if he was properly seeing the Detective Inspector for the first time. The savage look of recognition on his face was so unsettling that Sam instinctively took a wary step backwards.

"Master!" The Doctor's tone of voice was a contradiction in terms – full of loathing and contempt, but under that, a strange, desperate sort of elation. It was almost as if he was undergoing some sort of internal, emotional tug-of-war. Whoever he thought Sam was, the Doctor didn't want to be glad to see him and yet, despite himself, he was. "You're alive! Oh, I should have known! What are you doing here? How did you escape the Time Lock? Why didn't I sense you?"

Sam put his palms up in a calming gesture, trying to halt the torrent of questions. "Look, I don't know who you think I am, but my name is Detective Inspector Sam Tyler!"

"Oh, don't give me that!" the Doctor spat, taking a threatening step forwards. "We've known each other far too long to play these moronic games. Sam Tyler, indeed! Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't realise that's an anagram of 'masterly'? You've always liked your little word games, haven't you, as far back as I can remember. Now, I'll ask you again – what are you doing here and why can't I sense you? What have you done this time?"

Sam looked pointedly at Amy, silently urging her to call her friend off.

"Doctor..." she intervened uncertainly.

But the Doctor wasn't listening. Instead, he pulled out a strange, bronze coloured rod with a glowing green diode at the tip and began to run it all over the detective's body, like the airport security Sam remembered from 2006. There was a loud buzzing sound like a horde of angry bees. With a deft flick of his wrist, the Doctor inspected the device.

"Faint aura of temporal energy, but otherwise human. Only one heart. No, that can't be right. It can't be!"

"Doctor!" Amy said again, more firmly this time. "It's not what you think. He's a time traveller, like us. He originally comes from 2006. He got sent back to this time through some kind of accident!"

"That's what he wants you to think!" the Doctor snapped, not removing his eyes from Sam's for one second. "Where is it, Master?"

Sam stared at him blankly, sure now he was dealing with a total nut-case. Were all aliens this insane? "Where's what?"

"The fob-watch. The gold watch. You have to have one somewhere. It's got strange designs engraved on the back and you've never been able to open it."

Sam shook his head. "I've never had anything like that."

"You have to!" the Doctor insisted, a note of desperation in his voice. "We're the only ones left! You have to!"

Surging forward, he began to reach into the pockets of Sam's leather jacket, obviously searching for something. "Where is it, Master? WHERE IS IT?"

Finally reaching the end of his patience, Sam shoved him violently away. "My name is Sam Tyler! And I've never met you before in my life!" he yelled.

Amy caught at the Doctor's arm, holding him back. "Doctor, what's the matter with you? You're acting crazy! Can't you see you've made a mistake? You've got him confused with someone else!"

For a moment, it looked as if the Doctor was going to angrily break free from her, and Sam tensed, preparing for another tussle. But then the other man seemed to regain command of himself. He stopped and took a deep breath, running his hands through his floppy hair, making it even more untidy. Then, raising his eyes, he locked his gaze on to Sam's in a long, penetrating stare, as if he was trying to see through Sam's eyes, right into his skull.

Sam met his gaze without flinching, determined not to back down, whatever this was all about.

After a short, tense interval, the Doctor's blue-green eyes seemed to cloud over in dull sorrow. "It's true," he said. "You're really not him, are you?"

"I told you," Sam replied, as gently as possible. "I'm Sam Tyler, nothing more, nothing less."

"My apologies." The Doctor's shoulders were hunched now, his posture now much more reminiscent of an old man than the young man he appeared to be. "I thought...well, as Amy says, I mistook you for someone else. Someone I used to know. Someone who's dead."

"I'm sorry," Sam murmured, unsure what to say.

The Doctor shook his head, a tight, painful smile plastered across his face. "Don't be. It's probably for the best." With that, he looked back over his shoulder at Amy, where she was still holding on to his arm. "Well, come along then, Pond. We've got places to go, people to see. Can't stay in Manchester forever, you know." His voice was brittle and cheerful, as if it was about to break in half any moment.

His eyes returned to Sam's face, an odd, wistful, almost hungry expression in them, as if he was committing his features to memory one last time. "Goodbye...Sam Tyler."

With that, he walked away and vanished back into the police box. Watching him go, Sam found himself hoping that Amy had been telling the truth about the time machine being bigger on the inside, otherwise it had to be a very uncomfortable, cramped way for the two of them to travel.

"I'm sorry about that," Amy said with an apologetic grimace. "He's not usually that weird... well, actually, he is, but not quite like that. I don't know what got into him."

"It's OK," Sam answered. "It's turning out to be that kind of day."

She slanted him a teasing glance. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? We could drop you back in 2006, if you wanted? I promise you the Doctor doesn't bite."

He smiled. "Thanks, but no thanks. Once upon a time, I would have jumped at the chance. But I've already made my choice. And I chose Annie."

To his surprise, Amy grabbed him and kissed him passionately on the lips. For just a few startled seconds, he found himself returning her embrace and then they pulled self-consciously apart. "Your Annie is a very lucky girl, I hope she realises that!" Amy said huskily, stroking his cheek.

"So is your Rory," he replied, without thinking.

Amy frowned in puzzlement. "Rory? Who's Rory?"

"Your fiancé, who else?"

"I don't even have a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé. Certainly no-one called Rory," she said suspiciously. "Why did you say that?"

Sam had no idea why he had said it. It had seemed right at the time, but now he couldn't remember where the thought had come from. "I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood."

Whatever the reason, his words seemed to have had a profound effect upon Amy. All at once, she had an absorbed expression on her face, as if she was struggling hard to remember something.

"I..." she stuttered. "I..."

But then it appeared the effort was too much and her features relaxed again into serenity, as if nothing had happened.

"Goodbye, Sam. Thanks for everything. Take care!" she told him, with one last hug. "And make sure you say goodbye to Gene for me."

"Yeah, I will. Goodbye, Amy."

Waving, she followed the Doctor into the TARDIS and closed the doors. Once again, the wheezing noise reverberated throughout the room and the police box began fading in and out, before disappearing completely, leaving Sam standing all alone.

Even before he could gather himself together, a familiar voice bellowed up the corridor, demanding his instant attention. "TYLER!"

A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He wondered if there was any whiskey left. The odds were, he would need some before he tried to tell Gene what had happened to their chief witness, the lovely Amelia Pond.

"Coming, Guv," he yelled back, turning for the door with a resigned sigh.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts as he left the room, he failed to notice as, behind his back, tiny fragments of stone began to slither across the floor, heading for the invisible pool of temporal energy left behind by the departing TARDIS.

- THE END -