As Miles complained—quite animatedly mind you—about the work and stress, Phoenix began to stare at her as if he were some sort of lost puppy. And finally, when she was done-

“Retire, please,” Phoenix begged, “I beg of you. Please retire.”

She harrumphed.

“I’m too young to retire,” she scoffed.

She had said this many times, over the years. And Phoenix had sighed, a big sigh of concession, and dropped the issue.

But now, today, Phoenix raised one eyebrow at her.

“Not anymore,” he said, quietly.

Her chest clenched a little. Anxiety, not her heart. That cold spike of realizing that he was right. She was sixty-five, as her last irritating birthday had proven, and he would soon follow.

That day was a chaotic mess of noise. She had played the part of the birthday girl, and it was nice to see her far-flung family again. But when Trucy’s goddaughter and Dick’s granddaughter got to shrieking, and making obstacle courses in their living room, she probably gained another white hair. Or several. It was a haze of social interaction, in hindsight, to the point where she completely forgot to have an age-related crisis.

Well. Aside from Dick Gumshoe himself cackling from his new power chair, spinning around like a child in their living room, saying “Welcome to the big leagues, pal.”

She looked at her husband across the bed. They had been married for two decades. He was finally wearing glasses, after denying the problem for far too long. He was going grey, but she had gone white, to her surprise. It was as if there could only be one grey-haired person in their relationship at a time. She watched, transfixed, as he rubbed his temple with a veiny hand. His wrist sported a purple bruise, from catching the door handle wrong.

“I’m not calling you old,” he finally said, when she didn’t respond, “I’m just...I’m worried about you, Miles. You’ve been doing so much better lately. But I still…”

He sniffled.

“I still don’t want stress to send you to an early grave,” he admitted.

Early grave? She thought, There’s nothing early about this grave, why my father was dead thirty years prior to this age…

But she didn’t voice these thoughts, when a tear slipped down Phoenix’s cheek.

Oh. This was serious.

Dick had told her once, the longer you live, the more you lose. And that was certainly true, despite the medical advances of the past few decades. She forgot, sometimes, that as a child, she viewed sixty-five as old. As she aged, she viewed the number of her age as contemporary. Especially after she began transitioning, she felt younger than she had in years, simply because the change breathed a new zest for life within her. But the realities of life were still there, no matter how disconnected she felt from her perception of what she thought old age would bring in the past.

She reached her hand out to touch Phoenix’s face, perhaps the most familiar face in the entire world, stroking his cheek with her own, quite wrinkly hand.

She would do anything to see him smile.

Even make such an enormous, looming change.

“I’ll think about it,” she said gently, and she meant it.

The smile spread across his face even before he lowered his head to fall against the pillow. He seemed to believe her.

He looked at her through his lashes.

“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it.

He kissed her palm, right on top of her carpal tunnel surgery scar.

It was as if that was all he needed, to let his eyes flutter into sleep.

She leaned back and allowed herself to think thoughts of retirement, of spending her golden years with her family, of the things she could fill her time with, as she drifted off to sleep.