"Yeah, more than I expected," Blair answered. The bar was crowded with police officers who were quickly getting drunk as they huddled in groups telling stories that made Blair blush until he finally retreated to the corner where he'd spotted Simon. It seemed like everyone knew the story of him falling for a drug dealer or taking out a bank robber with a baseball. There was only so much embarrassment that Blair could take.

"Don't sell yourself short, Sandburg. A lot of people want to make sure to get in a few last cheap shots before you head off for Florida."

"No way. I'll leave Florida to you old guys," Blair insisted.

"Watch it Sandburg," Simon warned as he lifted his cane and threatened Blair with the curved end.

"Aren't you two a little old to still be threatening each other?" Jim asked with a chuckle as he came up behind Blair.

"Not so old that I can't take care of the kid."

"Simon, I’m on the far side of fifty, no one calls me a kid any more."

"Still, I'm surprised you're retiring."

"Oh man, I have two books I'm working on and a half dozen seminars planned. But I have my twenty in, and I'm ready to move on."

"More like the new captain is ready to move us along," Jim corrected him. "And I notice the good captain is missing tonight."

"After you made him look like a fool on the Kilmer case, I'm not surprised," Blair said laughing at the thought.

"The captain *is* a fool. I don't have to *make* him look like anything."

"So you two are still making captains miserable." Simon shook his head sadly, but Blair recognized the fond expression.

"This guy deserves it, though," Jim said with a weary sigh as he sat down next to Blair. Blair looked at his lover sharply. All too often Jim tried to hide the way the years had started to make his joints ache.

"What? You think Simon didn't?" Blair teased. Simon had a look of exaggerated shock on his wrinkled face, but his retort was interrupted by someone ringing a bell at the bar.

"People, come on now, people," Ricky Williams yelled from the bar. Jim ducked his head, well aware that the rookie had a case of Ellison worship and was probably about to say something horribly embarrassing. Blair would have offered sympathy, but he was too busy planting an elbow in his partner's ribs.

"Quiet!" Bets yelled, and the bar grew suddenly silent. Then a wave of laughter swept through the place as Ricky had one of his famous blushes at being out-shouted by an elderly black woman with grey hair.

"Thanks," he muttered. "So, I figure it's time we have something to say about the two guests of honor," Ricky started.

"Yeah, before we're too drunk to remember," one voice from the crowd shouted out.

"Or they drop dead of old age," another answered, and Blair recognized the second voice as Rafe. He leaned forward so that he could glare at the captain of the organized crime division. Rafe just smiled back.

"So, does anyone want to start?" Ricky asked the crowd. A dozen voices shouted, but one shouted them all down.

"Quiet up," Bets yelled over the crowd. A lot of people in the room knew her from her visits, but Blair thought the others had probably figured out who she was from the various stories he and Jim both loved to tell. The voices slowly subsided. "I worked with Frizz, that's Sandburg to you lot, back in the Phoenix PD. When I first saw him, he was this long-haired skinny white boy who looked like something the cat dragged in." Several voices yelled comments about Blair not haven't changed a bit, and Blair flipped off a number of people in the room. When he turned back to face front, he caught Jim biting the inside of his cheek in an attempt not to laugh along with the others.

"Laugh it up—your turn is coming," Blair hissed. Jim's smirk just grew wider.

"I wondered if my captain had taken to picking up detectives down at the bargain basement, but then I started working with him. First week we went out together, that boy lectured me on everything from how many vitamins I needed to the ways the Native culture had influenced modern Phoenix." The room broke into a chorus of agreement at that point. Bets held up her hand to quiet them again.

"But Frizz never backed down off a fight. We were questioning everyone in this neighborhood about a girl who got attacked, and we went up the driveway to where this guy was fixing his car. We identified ourselves as police, and before I knew what happened, I have a big-ass gun pointed at me." The room fell quiet as Bets shared the common fear of every person in the room.

"I figure, great, I'm on a call with the second-hand detective over there and I don't even have a chance to pull my own weapon. Thought that was the end 'cause Lord knows I'm not one to talk my way out of something like that. Next thing I know, Frizz has his weapon out and orders the man to the ground. I can tell this guy ain't goin' for it, and Frizz is sounding more desperate, and I'm standing there like a useless clod with that gun pointed straight at me." Blair ran his hand over his graying curls as he remembered that day. It wasn't something he had wanted to remember today, but he had to admit it was part of who he was. Even though he'd never had to face that horror again, every time he pulled his weapon, he remembered that day.

"I see the guy's finger start to twitch, and I brace for it, and then this sound roars, and I start feeling myself up looking for the entry wound before I realize Frizz took the guy down." Blair felt a warm hand close over his arm, and he leaned toward Jim for support in the suddenly quiet room.

"That tore him up, shooting a man. He used to go to the grave, but Frizz did what he had to do. He never backed down when standing up was the right thing. More amazingly, he never got his back up when he didn't need to. If you lot are anything like the testosterone driven morons down in Phoenix… and from the stories Frizz tells, you are," Bets accused the room. The solemn mood broken, several people in the crowd yelled their disagreement. "Well, it's amazing that Frizz never stood up and picked a fight that he didn't need to. When he stood up and took a stand, you knew he was doin' it for the right reasons.

"So, I know you're leaving the force for the right reasons, and now that you aren't stuck up here with more cases than the Lord himself could handle, I better see your scrawny white ass visiting Phoenix a little more often." Bets raised her glass toward their table, and Blair raised his own in return before drinking. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jim smiling at him.

"Oh," Bets suddenly added. "Jim's not bad either as far as testosterone driven morons go." Bets' words caught Blair so off guard that he snorted beer and sudden found himself choking, much to the amusement of the entire room. Jim snagged Blair's glass out of his hand to keep him from spilling it while raising his own glass to Bets in acknowledgement.

"And from an old pain in the ass like you, I take that as a compliment," Jim called over the crowd's voices. Bets laughed with the rest of the guests.

"I figure after spending a couple of years married to the great Ellison, I have a right to say a thing or two." Blair smiled as Jim started turning a gentle shade of pink. No one else might notice, but Blair knew that Jim was slowly dying of embarrassment. Considering how hard it was to embarrass Jim, those pink ears made it worth having his own past remembered

"To the man who managed to make male pattern baldness sexy," Carolyn began, and the room was suddenly filled with wolf whistles and shouts of approval. Looking at his partner, Blair had to admit the man aged well. Take out a little grey, add an inch or two of hair at the top, and take way a few laugh lines, and Jim was the same man he had fallen in love with. Jim's ears turned a darker shade of pink.

"You know, for years I tried to figure out why my marriage fell apart. I think I just may have figured it out," she said with a smile and a nod at Blair, which precipitated another round of wolf whistles, and this time Blair could feel the heat of his own blush.

"The first time I knew that Jim loved Blair was the day that I came over to yell at Ellison about doing some piece of paperwork wrong, and I stepped into the living room to find nests of papers and feathered masks all over the living room. I figured Jim wouldn't put up with that mess for just anyone. After all, mess is definitely against his house rules." A ripple of laughter traveled through their closest friends.

"And for those of you who wondered, he had those house rules when I lived there too. I once spend hours trying to sort the paperwork from four difference cases because Jim had been kind enough to 'clean up' after me."

"But really, Blair puts up with more than I would have ever put up: the house rules, the growling, the practical jokes, the horrible sense of humor, and enough bad luck for any ten people." That comment caused a number of hallelujahs from the crowd. "But considering Blair's luck, it's a good thing those two can't have kids because the combined bad luck genes would probably cause an Armageddon." Now the crowd shouted their agreement, and Carolyn had to wait for the noise to subside.

"Jimbo managed to be targeted by a serial bomber, poisoned by a designer drug, and shot at in a monastery." The noise had steadily increased as she gave her list, and Blair could hear people at the tables around him add their own Ellison stories. Carolyn held up her hand for the room to settle down again.

"But that's only fair since Blair managed to get trapped in an elevator with a bomb while trying to do some work for the university, got kidnapped by scientists raising deadly spiders, and was once kidnapped four times in one day." Blair ducked his head in embarrassment as the crowd roared. Put all together like that, it sounded... well, it sounded pretty damn bad.

"And the sad thing is, that's not even my favorite story," Carolyn said over the crowd. "I doubt these two ever told you about their vacation to Minnesota." Blair groaned, and he could practically feel Jim stiffen beside him. He turned and saw Jim shaking his head and mouthing the world 'no' to his ex-wife, but she just smiled back sweetly before taking a breath.

"It seems like Jim trusted Blair to read the map," and the roar of laughter and shouts made Blair blush even darker. Yeah, yeah, so he wasn't the best at navigation. "And Blair managed to get them onto some back logging road that no one had used in a hundred years, well no one except the counterfeiters who Jim stopped and asked directions from." The whole room erupted at that, Simon laughed so hard that he was gasping for breath until Blair worried about the man's heart.

"Oh yeah. Only them," Carolyn said cheerfully once the room finally settled. "Well, the bad guys got the drop on our fearless duo, but luckily these were small-town criminals who didn't want to kill two cops, so instead they made the boys strip naked and stole the truck." By this time Carolyn was having to shout over the cheering crowd. "Hey, quiet down... it gets better." Blair turned his back to Carolyn and put his head on the table so that he wouldn't have to face everyone after the next part. Simon's heavy hand patted his back once or twice.

"So there they are wandering buck naked and lost when they find a clothesline. By the time they get to town and go to the police station, the officer behind the desk arrests them both for indecent exposure since Blair was wearing a skirt and Jim there a red and white tablecloth." Blair flinched at the crowd roared uncontrollably. When he tilted his head up to look, Rafe and Brown were both laughing so hard that tears ran from the corner of their eyes. Blair looked at Jim who was slowly shaking his head in resignation.

"I thought we had an agreement, Carolyn. You don't tell anyone, I won't kill you..." Jim let his words trail off but he had a small smile on his face.

"The Black Duck police department called and asked me to vouch for them. And despite Jimbo's threats, it's time you guys know what kind of trouble magnets you've been sheltering all this time. Heck, as soon as they leave Cascade, I expect the crime rate to drop. The trouble will just follow those two wherever they go."

Blair looked at his partner, and Jim smiled back with a shrug. "Probably," Jim whispered just to Blair since the rest of the room was still in chaos.

"When I met Jim, he was a real piece of work: earrings hanging out his ear, unshaven, dressed straight out of a dumpster. Hell, I knew he could do good work, but he looked more like a suspect than an officer." Blair noticed that the people shouting now were the older officers, the ones who remembered a Jim whom he had never known.

"He had attitude with his attitude, and then he started changing. It seemed like overnight he went from an arrogant and obnoxious pain in the ass to an arrogant and silent pain in the ass." Blair smiled as Jim flipped off the move vocal supporters of that statement.

"And then Sandburg shows up talking about the thin blue line and looking like a prime suspect in a drug bust."

"Hey!" Blair protested, and Simon just waved dismissively to Blair in a clear gesture intended to communicate a quick 'shut up'.

"When they started working together, my first bet was that the kid would run off before the end of the first work day. Didn't think he could handle a normal day in the life of a Major Crimes cop. Well, he handled just about the worst day you could imagine, and managed to take out a suspect with a vending machine." Simon's words, and the warm smile he flashed made Blair blush, and the crowd erupted in another round of talking as older officers gave abbreviated versions of the story to their younger partners.

"You people have no idea how much paperwork is involved in explaining something like that," Simon complained in mock horror. "Despite my every expectation, the kid stuck it out and became an asset to the department."

"But I still figured his days were numbered because no way could Jim Ellison put up with the cloud of chaos that followed Sandburg everywhere he went. The kid left papers all over Jim's desk and I can't count the number of times I would listen to Jim chew the kid out." Blair glanced over, and Jim was now squirming uncomfortably. Blair laughed and when Jim looked up, Blair shrugged to show it hadn't bothered him.

"But the longer they were together, the less flaky Sandburg got and the less arrogant Ellison got. You two are better together than you would ever be apart." Simon tried to keep taking, but the roar in the room drowned even his voice so that he stood leaning on his cane and waiting for the noise level to drop. Finally he managed to shout over the crowd.

"So thank god you two found each other because individually you were both insufferable," Simon finished, and the crowd degenerated into shouts and cheers and the sounds of glasses clinking.

"Boy with friends like these," Jim shouted, but Blair suspected that he was the only one who could hear, and that was because Jim had shouted no more than six inches from his ear.

"No wonder we're retiring," Blair replied with a smile.

"I'm sorry we missed that window," she said, and Blair's memory suddenly snapped to the dark-haired beauty who had once threatened to steal his heart.

"Thanks, Sam. So, how's DC going?"

"It's good. But I'd better not keep you; you have a line of waiting fans," she said as she stepped away, and Blair opened his mouth to protest but another hand was in his.

"God, I can't believe we're losing you, Hairboy." Brown slapped Blair's arm as Rafe shook hands with him.

"It's not like disappearing forever. A little travel, a little consulting work on the road, a little sightseeing. Before you know it, Jim and I will be ready to kill each other from spending too much time together in the car, and then we'll come home.

"As long as you work in a nice long visit to Phoenix," Bets said as she worked her way through the crowd.

"You know we will," Blair said as the woman smiled and kept going toward the door. Blair was feeling a need to get out of the crowd himself, but he didn't think his friends would let him out the door.

Blair had shaken a thousand hands and been surprised by any number of faces from the past before he felt a large hand on his shoulder. He backed up a step and let himself lean against Jim's body as the young woman he was talking to got a dreamy look on her face. Blair wondered when exactly he and Jim's relationship had gone from the thing that no one talked about to the object of dreamy stares. Sometime during those decades when his hair had turned gray, no doubt.

"Getting late, Chief," Jim said, and Blair could have blessed his partner for the rescue.

"Yeah, and we have to be on the road in the morning," Blair apologized to the woman.

"So, I think I'm going to sneak my partner out of here, if you don't mind," Jim smiled, and the woman's expression turned from dreaminess to longing.

Blair let himself be pushed toward the door, away from the lingering group that kept trying to buy him more beers. He felt like a huge part of him was still in that room, was still a cop. However as he and Jim walked to the street where a yellow cab waited, Blair realized that the larger part of him was ready to move on. His Sentinel groaned a little as he got into the cab, his knees probably bothering him. Blair walked around, one hand trailing on the cab to keep his balance.

Blair got in and watched through the back window as another part of his life closed.

Blair woke up with a mouth lined in cotton and a head two sized too big. He groaned as he rolled to his side and searched the side table with is hand rather than open his eyes.

"You're getting old, Chief. I remember a time when you could hold your beer," a teasing voice put something thin and cold in his hand. Blair unfolded his glasses and slipped them on as he opened one eye half way.

"Fuck you man," he cursed mildly.

"I don't think you could manage that right now." Jim leaned against the railing, and Blair struggled to get his feet out of bed.

"I'm younger than you," Blair pointed out smugly as he grabbed his robe and wandered toward the stairs.

"Not by that much." Jim followed him downstairs. By the time Blair got out of the bathroom, bagels and orange juice waited at the counter. The room was clean… Jim Ellison clean, and Blair found it almost disturbing. A stack of white sheets waited to be flung over the furniture, and Blair had a strange sense of déjà vu.

"Oh man, I feel like I just started my life as a cop, and now I'm ending it. This is weird man. Freaky weird. Time defying the laws of physics and speeding up weird."

"Then think of it as a beginning. You get to finally concentrate on just your academic career the way you set out when you were sixteen."

"Man, I am so not sixteen anymore," Blair pointed out as he pulling on his graying hair. The course, thick hairs stuck out from his natural brown curls.

"Still not an end, Chief. The end was when you walked out that door and I thought I lost you forever. As long as we're together, we're just moving on to a new beginning."

"You're getting sappy in your old age, Ellison," Blair said before taking a bite of bagel.

"Watch it, Junior. I can still take you," he threatened with the spoon he was using for his Grape Nuts.

"Whatever," Blair said with his mouth full.

"Shrimp."

"Dork."

"Guppy."

"Sunshine," Blair said in his best imitation of Banks.

"Frizzy," Jim replied in a Bets voice.

"Ellie-boy," Blair said as he struggled to not laugh.

"Whatever," Jim said as he shoved another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. "You just better be ready to go in an hour because I'm ready to hit the road, Chief. We're supposed to be in Colorado for that job with the Denver PD in three days, and I don't feel like rushing on the road."

Blair smiled at his graying and cranky lover as he got up and threw away the paper plate his bagel had been on. "I'm always ready," he suggested salaciously.

"When are you going to grow up, Chief?"

"Hopefully never," Blair answered as he headed for their bedroom so he could pack his suitcase. "I like me the way I am."

"Me too," Jim added softly. Blair smiled as he climbed the steps up to their bedroom. He didn't know when they'd be back, but at least this time they were going together.