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Blake had considered the idea a few times over the years, in an idle and abstract way. But there was always another crisis, or Philip ran into trouble as he inevitably did overseas, and between the knowledge that his work was truly never-ending and the uncertainty that he would live long enough for it to be relevant, Francis Blake never seriously planned to retire.
Until he did.
There is a reason, of course. The details are classified, which is frankly stupid, because half of Liverpool knew what happened on the first day alone. Blake arrived on the second. On the third, he was rather prosaically shot - it was not too serious, but laid him up for two days more until he found himself on the Isle of Man, delirious on morphine, repeatedly explaining to Honeychurch what a submarine is.
"You're getting old, Captain," says Honeychurch, with a wry smile, and Blake denies it indignantly.
Philip tells him all of this later, in between excited rambles about sea tunnels and the Loch Ness Monster that make him want to do a drug test of his own.
He's being absurd - what are a few tunnels and a cryptid or two to the lost city of Atlantis? He's seen stranger things in his time, and then he asks himself what on earth he means, in his time, and responds sheepishly that it was when he could travel under the Atlantic in a rubber raft instead of getting shot in a Liverpool dockyard by a tiny woman between rants about genetic mutations.
But it ended up all right without him - Honeychurch and the new crop of lads have learned their business well - and Francis is suddenly tired.
Spies rarely retire, he knows this. There's no actual reason he can't, though, and it takes him another fourteen months to lay everything in place.
Philip does not retire, officially. As far as Blake can gather, physicists prefer to wither on the branch like crabapples. But Mortimer has never been a homebody, and while he's rather attached to the house in Park Lane they've shared for so many years, he's as tempted by the prospect of a cottage as Blake is. After all, he'll only be there about half the year, and less if he spends some time in London with his colleagues.
So the country it is. Blake's first thought is "Near home, but not too near," and then there's also convenience because Philip is going to travel, and working out the conundrum is what takes up the last two months of the fourteen.
Things are less risky for them than they were, on one front at least. Olrik has not reappeared since Japan, though Blake was almost certain he would. There are plenty of other enemies they've made, but most are either dead or occupied. And they've never let that bother them before. Their friends know, of course. Nasir, Sarah, Nastasia, Honeychurch.
On other fronts, the countryside is safer, because fewer people mean safety. Technically their relationship is no longer illegal, but it wouldn’t do for it to become widely known.
(Philip argued about that when the act passed, but Francis put his foot down. It would mean every file on every case he’d ever worked on being reviewed for traces of imaginary blackmail - if not officially, then by old rivals with pretexts - and that would be a nightmare.)
The first few months are a shock, but a blissful one. For all his ideals, Blake realizes that he’d never known what peace actually was. His bedroom grows increasingly more nominal. There are rambling walks, books, and far too much time where previously there had been too little.
He starts a garden, a deadly serious war with the local rabbit population, and some memoirs. The last one he gives up in frustration several times as classified, unbelievable, or unprintable.
He doesn't get bored immediately; that would be trite. No, and even when Honeychurch calls him apologetically for advice, he's gladder than ever to be out of the business.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Philip asks, one early morning, and Francis reflexively says something casual about walking down to the village later that day. In actual fact, he's trying to think of how on earth to convey in writing anything that happened in Egypt after he and Mortimer had set foot inside the Great Pyramid.
Philip's fingers trace his hipbone lightly. (Some things have become more difficult with age. Lovemaking, blessedly, is not one of them). "I'll join you. See as much of you as I can, since I'll be gone for three weeks."
And that's true, he'll be going to Oslo for some sort of conference on viruses - Philip has been a virus enthusiast for the last two years, though Blake doesn't quite understand what's so exciting about parasites that infect bacteria. And he has asked. He resolves to have a lovely day, and they do, but when Philip leaves the next day, he's slightly at a loss.
By now he has got a routine, so he valiantly sticks to it. The rabbits have allied themselves with a sapper corps of moles, and he has met a few old soldiers in the village who are quite pleasant, though when they exchange stories he must be careful to stick to the tamest.
When the call comes, he couldn't be happier.
"How do you always manage to get into these scrapes?"
"I suppose it's my curiosity," says Philip's tinny voice.
"Even I can't hold your curiosity responsible for old Vikings rising from their graves."
"Well, it can't be that," says Philip rationally. "It must be a cover for something. You know all about that sort of thing."
"You do understand, old chap, it will be just me now."
Philip chuckles. "What more could I possibly want?"
So Blake gets on a plane.
It probably isn't old Vikings rising from their graves, though something about old Solbjorg Aasen's eyes reminds him of Sheikh Abdel Razek's. At the very least, there's definitely no sea monster this time, and the smugglers are borderline amateurs.
They return home with two old heathen artefacts (Mortimer's), a cold (also Mortimer's, though he's generous with it), a new respect for the Norwegian police (Blake's), and a cat (shared). It’s also two weeks past Philip’s original return date.
“I’m damned glad I’m in time for New Mexico,” says Mortimer.
“In time for-”
“Next week,” confirms Mortimer. “Los Alamos. Nastasia’s going too - she’ll get to meet all our old friends. I believe she and Jesse will get on famously.”
“Oh,” is all Blake can say, and Mortimer gives him an odd look.
“You are coming, aren’t you?”
“If you’ll have me, dear.”
“I’ll have you anywhere,” says Philip, with a waggle of the eyebrows solely intended to make Francis turn crimson. It succeeds. “Unless you had other plans?”
“Oh, you know,” says Francis. “The rabbits.”
“The rabbits will live,” says Philip, and kisses him.