Sam felt like he'd lived a pretty good life. Oh sure, he hadn't done everything he'd wanted to - who had?
He'd never, for example, seen Egypt. He'd always thought it would be cool to see those pyramids up close. But he'd sailed around the world - how many people could say that?
He hadn't had children - or even gotten married after again his doomed first try with Deborah, though he'd come close a few times. But he didn't feel too deprived. For many years, his regulars had been his extended family.
He'd also become close to his brother Derek's two children, his niece and nephew. When Lily moved to Boston for college, he saw her quite a bit.
And then there were his neighbors. A nice young couple had moved in next door and basically adopted Sam as their honorary grandfather.
Once Norm and Cliff passed away, the couple became the ones who checked on him regularly, who drove him to errands and doctor appointments when his sight started to go, and who found him when he'd fallen down for the umpteenth time and couldn't get back up. How humiliating - just like that "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial!
For a while, the whole growing older thing had sent him reeling into what was, for the essentially upbeat Sam Malone, close to depression. He'd felt pretty good, spry, and sprightly, up until his late sixties. Then, no matter how much he tried to fight it, he felt the breaking down of his body winning.
Now 87, Sam had outlived pretty much everyone of his generation that he cared about - though he did hear that Carla was living with one of her kids - and that Alzheimer's had slowly claimed her mind. Apparently, this had made her a much nicer person - silver lining?
Rebecca and her kids had come to visit him pretty regularly, up until she couldn't move around much either. He still loved her like a sister - but it was strange to think he'd spent so much time plotting her seduction - even trying to have a child with her at one point. What on earth had that been about?
And, of course, there had been all of those women - out of the hundreds he'd bedded, he remembered the names of maybe five. None of them ever kept in touch. He didn't mind.
He looked back on some of his antics and it was like looking at a complete stranger – an alien.
Sam cast a rheumy eye around the tiny new room that he would call home until he breathed his last.
Sometimes he wished his neighbors hadn't found him on the floor that last time. He was so dehydrated the doctors had said that even 24 hours more like that would have cost him his life. He supposed it wouldn't have been a bad way to go - at least he'd be at home.
But Melanie had rushed in, grabbed him, and called 911. Two weeks later, she and her husband were helping Sam navigate the selling off of his home, the majority of his possessions, and his moving into an assisted living care center - or an old folk's home, as Sam stubbornly called it.
Despite the little oxygen tank strapped to his side so he could take quick puffs of it when he needed, Sam still got around fairly well for an old fogey. Miraculously, he had managed to avoid breaking a hip each time he'd fallen. He thanked his poor taste for that - he'd always been fond of shag rugs.
Sam decided to put some of the mementos he'd brought with him on his desk. There was a time when looking at old photos made him melancholy – but, what the hell, there was so little of this life left to him, he might as well be surrounded by some friendly faces.
He put up an old photo of the gang at Cheers after a softball tournament win over Gary's Old Towne Tavern.
There were several pictures of Derek's kids - none of Derek.
There was Coach. He angled that one towards the window – even after all these years, he could barely stand to look at him - it made him too sad.
There was Rebecca, her husband, and their two kids. Carla and her seven kids. Jeez, seven!
There was Norm and Vera. He never did get to meet her. Sam sometimes wondered if Norm had hired a woman to pose for the photo.
There was Woody, Kelly, and their three children. To everyone's shock, the golden couple had gotten divorced ten years after their wedding. But from what he'd heard, it had been amicable.
A couple of pictures from his days with the Red Sox - he put them up for himself, not to impress the couple of attractive nurses he saw working there. He could no longer fool himself that he was a man any of them wanted.
It sure took him a long time to realize he was no longer an object of female desire - he still cringed when he remembered using one of his pickup lines on a woman shortly after his 55th birthday. She had scrunched her face up and snapped, "Ew, grandpa, get away from me!"
She'd probably been 25. In his mind, he was still her age. It was a huge wake-up call for him. Too bad it came so late in life.
Then he took out his most precious picture - the tiny one of Diane that he kept in his wallet. It was one he'd stolen from her purse years ago when he'd entered her in the Boston Barmaid competition against her wishes.
The picture was exactly the way he liked to remember her - young, feisty, idealistic, and oh so damn beautiful.
Years after their second engagement imploded, he had tossed out most of their photos. A woman he'd fallen in love with in the late-'90s hadn't liked them at all, and Sam finally gave into her naggings to get rid of them. He should have gotten rid of her instead.
He gingerly placed the little photo next to his bedside.
He'd long ago forgiven himself for how the two of them had screwed things up so badly - not once, not twice, but at least three times. There's only so much you can eat yourself up about something before you have to let it go.
To this day, he didn't quite understand what had happened - how two people so deeply in love couldn't seem to get their crap together enough to share a life. But perhaps they'd shared as much as they were meant to.
He'd also come to accept that most of it had been his fault. He'd been so busy chasing chicks and refusing to acknowledge his feelings for her that by the time he did, it was too little too late.
He knew that even after they were engaged and on the precipice of marriage that Diane still harbored her doubts about him. He could never quite convince her that he wasn't going to be the old Sam Malone ever again – that he had fundamentally changed.
And then there had been their mutual freak-out on the plane. That time, he had begged her to marry him in her hotel room - and she had agreed. But something happened to them on the tarmac - and all of their long-buried skepticism about each other came bubbling back to the surface.
He used to admonish himself almost daily for what he'd let slip away - yet again. He knew it was absolutely too late when he'd found himself camping in Bennington, Vermont and decided to stop in to the library. He was on a mission.
He'd dug up copies of alumni newsletters from Diane's alma mater. There was a nice update on her - and her husband, a humanities college professor, and their daughter, Juliana, who was five.
He'd felt a little sick, but at the same time, he knew it was the life she'd always wanted for herself, and he was man enough to be happy for her.
He accepted it. Accepted it all. He was only human, and for most of his life, he'd been half-ruled by fears he didn't quite comprehend. But on the whole, he'd been a good friend, a good uncle, a good human being. And he'd owned a bar he loved with every inch of his soul for many, many years. What more could one ask for in a life?
Still… he knew if he could do it all over again, he would be a different person with Diane. Right from the beginning. Though he still would have teased the hell out of her – that had been too much fun for both of them to ever think about giving up.
What person didn't have regrets? In the grand scheme of things, his weren't any bigger than anyone else's. Who hadn't lost a great love? Well, maybe his love had been greater than most, but everyone had lost someone.
He wondered if somewhere, Diane had a little picture of him that she held on to. Knowing her, she had every picture, every letter, and every piece of Scotch tape from every wrapping of every gift he'd ever given her. He could never bring his mind around to the idea that Diane might not be on this planet anymore.
He smiled inwardly to think that someday whoever prepped his naked body for the morgue would see the "DC" tattoo etched on his left butt cheek. No one knew about it except for him – he'd gotten it 20 years ago, long after he knew Diane was lost to him forever. It was his little joke – how he'd once told her they should get their buns tattooed after she carved their initials into the bar.
Perhaps they'd meet up in the afterlife. Maybe she'd say something like, "Sam, you old dog, who let you in here?"
Sam chuckled to himself, and dozed off into mid-afternoon deep sleep.
He woke up to the wah wah wah sound of insistent buzzing. He wiped a little drool from the side of his mouth and reached over for the alarm.
He wondered what time it was, and when the nurse would bring in his meal. He liked to take it in his bed. Being around all of those semi-corpses staring dully at meals they could barely chew never did anything for his appetite.
Sam sat up and the first thing he noticed was that he came up easily. What had happened to the wrenching pain in his back that usually accompanied him sitting up in bed?
He turned to look at his alarm clock - 5:00. And then he saw his hand - still on the clock.
It wasn't ropey with veins and the skin wasn't thin as parchment paper. His hand looked… young. Well, maybe not twenties young, but certainly not eighties old either.
And then it all slammed him - hard.
He wasn't old. It had all been a dream. He was in his mid-forties. He was Sam Malone - owner of Cheers, babe hound.
A tsunami of relief engulfed him. He actually started laughing to himself. Good god - that had been the most intense dream of his life. So intense, he still felt he was half in it.
Sam got up and changed his shirt, which was drenched with perspiration.
In his Corvette, he started to finally come fully out of the hazy fog of the dream and re-orient himself to reality.
It had been a few days since Diane left for Los Angeles. Maybe that was what had plunged him into that bizarro twilight world.
He still didn't quite know what had happened - just that they both felt they were making a mistake. He was glad it had been a mutual feeling. So much time had passed between them that the whole thing had felt like a desperate grab for youth rather than a real desire to build a life together.
Sam parked his 'Vette at his regular spot in front of Cheers and went inside - Woody was already serving the after-work crowd. He knew Norm and Cliff would be there any moment now. Rebecca was off somewhere planning her wedding to Don.
Sam went to the register and took out some cash.
"Hey, Woody, I'll cover this later. I'm gonna take off for a few days, can you hold things down?"
"Sure, Sam. Something going on?"
"Nah, I just want to go out to the marina for a bit, stay on a boathouse. Feeling kind of out of it these days."
"Yeah, sure, that makes sense," Woody said.
Sam headed around the counter, but then leaned back and caught Woody's eye. "Woody, promise me you'll take care of Kelly. Always."
Woody looked bewildered. "Um, of course, Sam. Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know. Life is strange sometimes."
He grinned and then left.
He drove for an hour and a half on the highway. Rush hour traffic slowed him down.
He parked the 'Vette, slung a bag over his shoulder, and walked up to the first person behind a counter that he saw.
"One way ticket to Los Angeles," he said. "I don't care how much it costs."
The woman began typing into her terminal.
"We have something leaving at 10:50, sir, does that work for you?" she asked. She was very pretty. Sam didn't even notice.
"That works great."
Then he went to the lounge, picked up a magazine, and began to scan the pictures, too distracted to read.
Sam smiled to himself. He felt better than he'd felt for a long, long time.
Sam and Diane were married on New Year's Day, 1994.
They honeymooned in Egypt - then hit Disney World on the way back.
They have two children, Ernest (Ernie) Norman Clifford Woodrow Malone and Persephone Elizabeth Malone. You can probably guess who named whom.
Each morning, they have a little ritual.
When they wake up, Sam says, "I love you."
Diane says, "I love you more."
Sam says, "Bet me."
In all likelihood, is my last Cheers fic – as I believe Sam and Diane are now where they should be. Thanks for reading!
Thank you to Glen and Les Charles, James Burrows, Ted Danson and Shelley Long and all of the writers.