A/N: Before I give you the final chapter, and before I give you the answers, I need to thank you all for reading, and for reviewing, and for being so lovely and complimentary, and for putting up with the crap along with the good.

I think I tied all the ends up; if I didn't, I'm sorry. Perhaps you missed the bit where I wrote the answers – they're sprinkled through the whole story. The again, perhaps not. Perhaps, I'm just an idiot, and I missed something out. Let me know if I did; I'll try to fill the gaps in.

This is definitely the end, though. I can now regain my actual, real life. That'll be odd.

So, big thanks, and big hugs to:

Immortal Spud Thief, Charlotte88, Langfieldl, Chocolate Scones, Hecate28, Shan14, Elynara, MayH, PearlSun, thisisnotreal123, greyswholost, Silver-Ashes and Natalie492.

You guys made this whole emotional rollercoaster worthwhile! :)

Love, Saffy (aka Amy) xxx

Dust

I'd never really given much thought to how I'd die, but I suppose I would have liked to have passed away of old age, in my sleep. In typical style, however, my wish wasn't granted.

I began this story by saying "my name is Doctor Nicola Alexander and this is the story of how I died." I suppose that it would be more accurate to say that my name was Nicola Alexander, though. I got a second chance at life, the way that so very, very few ever do, and I am eternally grateful.

In some ways, I suppose, I was lucky to have this chance at all; the war took me early on. I was out of the game, then; I was someone else. I was lucky enough not to have to clear up my own mess. The ones I loved, and the people I valued above it all… they were the ones who had to solve it all.

And I had to sit back and let them. That was the hardest part; sitting back and letting them.

I watched, of course, as they solved it. For days after Nicola's funeral, I watched as they slowly pieced together the clues. I watched as Harry went back to that bench in Trafalgar Square, and I watched as he sat there, thinking it all through, trying to work out how to trace Alana.

I watched as he had a random, bizarre, and utterly brilliant thought; I watched as he leant under the bench and found the message she had sellotaped there, telling him exactly whom he could trust, in the police force, and I watched as he took Nikki's memory stick, and all of the evidence he had accumulated, to the police.

And then I waited, with him, holding his hand, and praying.

It took weeks, of course; weeks before anyone got back to us, and weeks before the police called me in for interview. But they did, and here I am. You have my story. You have my side of it.

You know what happened, and you know how it happened, and you know, now, what really happened to Nicola Alexander.

You can charge me with murder, if you like. I don't deny that Nicola Alexander killed the man who caused it all; but, Nicola Alexander is dead. I am merely her ghost; the imprint she left for the world.

*

A churchyard, in March. The sunlight peaked through the clouds, and caught on the rain drops… and the tears. Two men, dressed in black, stood close together, holding their wives close against the bitter cold, as they watched a coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.

The older couple stared blankly down into the pit, their faces stoical. The younger man, too, was expressionless; the younger woman, though, cried bitter, painful tears into her husband's shoulder; mourning the loss of her own, old life; burying everything that was ever wrong with her life. He leant down and kissed her on the top of the head, carefully teasing a strand of tawny hair back into place, as the priest began his mantra;

"Ashes to ashes; dust to dust…"

"Are you alright?" Harry whispered, as he watched his wife sprinkle soil onto her own coffin. She nodded, letting him wipe a tear from her eye; much as she might look like she was finding this hard, it was surprisingly liberating. She was a new person. She was no longer troubled, single, lonely Nikki Alexander, with no family, and no connections: she was Rosanne Kennedy, headstrong, independent, married, and loved, with a family – a self-made family – who loved her more than she could ever know.

"I'm fine." She assured him. "Absolutely fine."

"Good." Harry nodded. "And by the way, the hair suits you."

She raised her eyebrows at him for that and shook her head in disbelief when all he could say was "what?"

"We're at a funeral." She told him. "The funeral for someone I once held very dear to me. Please, try to act appropriately…"

"Of course." Harry smiled, pulling her to him again, and holding her close, his arms around her as they both watched the coffin being covered, buried forever. He kissed the top of her head, and said "I still hold her very dear. I still love her with all my heart."

"Me too." Rosa confessed, "me too." She paused a moment, leaning closer into him, before concluding; "sometimes, I really do wonder what I'll do without her."

"Me too." Harry nodded, "but then I remember that I have you instead… and that you are everything she once was, and so much more."

"And, I'm yours." Rosa giggled, "on paper, as well as in our hearts."

"That's true." Harry smiled. "And I am yours."

"Until death us do part."

"Until death us do part…" he echoed, taking her hand, and following Leo and Janet out of the lonely churchyard, only glancing back to read the headstone:

Nicola Alexander

14 April 1975 - 12 March 2010

Her spirit lives on, forever more.