As the days roll by…

The hand on the bed twitched and the nurse paused in her work. The hand twitched once again causing the nurse to jump in surprise. "Mr. Maxwell," she said attentively stepping closer to the bed and reaching out a hand to shake him, "Mr. Maxwell can you hear me?" She had enough time to see the patient's eyes snap open before she went flying over the bed and into the wall, causing pain to radiate up her arm. The nurse's yell and the sound of crashing equipment brought the head nurse and two orderlies into the room. Taking it all in at a glance the head nurse said, "Boys help Shirley to x-ray to have that arm looked at." Watching them leave she turned to the patient and asked, "Mr. Maxwell do you know who I am?" The patient looked at her and blinked in confusion before answering, "Nurse." The head nurse smiled and carefully walked towards the patient, "That's right am Nurse Brown and your at County General." The patient, Maxwell, closed his eyes, trying to remember the last couple of days. "How long have I been here?" he asked coming up blank on the last few days. "About five days," she replied handing him a cup of water and helping him to sit up. Taking a drink he asked, "What's the damage?" Nurse Brown looked at him in silence for a few minutes before answering, "Perforation of the kidneys, three broken ribs, partial collapsed lung, two broken fingers on your right hand, sprained wrist, and a couple of torn ligaments. Frankly Mr. Maxwell am surprised your still alive." Maxwell grunted and closed his eyes, taking this as her queue to leave, Nurse Brown quickly walked to the nurses station and made the requested call, "The patient is awake" and quietly hung up the phone.

A few days later the patient, Maxwell, signed the last of the release forms and headed for the nearest door. Nurse Brown watched him leave and couldn't help but remember the dozen of other scars that coved his body. 'Nobody that young should have to be in that much pain' she thought as she turned to check on the other patients. Putting on his shades Max stepped outside the hospital doors and drew in a deep breath before looking around for the cab he had called. Somehow he wasn't really all that surprised to see the Preventer leaning against his car, waiting to give him a ride. As he slowly walked towards him he couldn't help but mutter a few choice words about noisy ex-friends and pain in the ass busy bodies. Stopping in front of the Agent he nodded his head in acknowledgement, "Barton."

Trowa Barton, at the age of 23, had though he had seen it all, a living dead man was new, however, and as he looked at the man he had though dead for the past five years he couldn't help but think that death agreed with his one time friend. Tiling his head to the side he looked at all the changes that had occurred to his friend and for some unknown reason couldn't help but feel that he had lost him all over again. "Your not Duo Maxwell are you?" he asked and the apparition smiled Duo's gamine smile and laughed, "Names Max, Agent Barton it's a pleasure to finally meet you." Trowa smiled sadly and shook his hand, excepting that the friend he once know no longer existed. Getting into the car Trowa drove them to the nearest Preventer headquarters where the man now know as Max could contact his own team and check in with his own people. As he parked the car Trowa asked the one question he had been curious about since he had first heard about Max, "Are you going to let the others know?" The almost cruel like smile that crossed Max's lips had the hair on the back of Trowa's neck standing up and a cold chill shot down his spine, "Others, Agent Barton? If by that you mean my team they already know where I am," Max turned to look out the window of the car, "in fact I do believe that's them now." It was at this point Trowa finally noticed the small dust cloud that was forming out in front of Preventer headquarters. Looking up he saw what looked like a piece of the sky falling, as the object drew nearer its seemed to resolve itself into what appeared to be a small ship. Sleek in design, black in color, and so quite only the dust cloud caused by its landing gave it away. As the ship landed Max and Trowa got out of the car and started walking towards it. Trowa stopped a few yards away while Max continued on. The side of the ship opened and a ramp extended towards the ground, Trowa saw the figure of a woman smile and welcome Max back as he boarded the ship and just before the door to the ship closed Trowa saw two more figures jump on top of him, hug him, and rub his head in greeting. Once again Trowa felt sadness as he watched the ship ascend into the sky. Once again his friend was taken from him but this time, Trowa decided, he wasn't going to let him go without a fight even if Duo "Max" Maxwell though otherwise. With his mind made up he turned and headed into the Preventer office, he had a few phone calls to make and one Foreign Vice Minister to talk to.

Max exhaled in relief at seeing his team once more. It had been hard these last couple of weeks between the fighting and the hiding it was almost like old times, only this time he was hiding from people who he used to fight with. Silently he watched the tiny figure of Trowa on the monitor of the ship, hoping against hope that Trowa would just let it go but already knowing he wouldn't. Before the image was lost Max saw Trowa turn and walk into the building behind him and grunted, half in annoyance and half in humor, already imaging what a certain little blonde would have to say about the news he was about to receive. As he turned to head back to his team a smile crossed his face at the thought of Dread being tied to a chair and interrogated by four former terrorist.