The shuttle landed and it's occupants filtered out. Most, those who had been rescued, were taking to the infirmary to be checked over. The crew, minus one, went to a standard debriefing. The remaining, the mission commander made his way to the office of one deputy director Barton. Outwardly, he was calm and collected, but walking at a brisk pace. Inwardly, he was ready to take Barton's head off.

As he walked down the hallways, he passed one room, a sort of entertain/vip room. He didn't have to see in to it to know what was happening. The armed guards outside were a pretty good indication of who was in it, if the female crying was not enough to give it away. His paced slowed as he walked by, he wanted to go in, just to hold her, promise her she would get through it, remind her she was strong enough. But he shook his head and continued walking, realizing he had forever lost his place in her life, she had bee crystal clear in telling him that. I hope you don't, but one day you will probably find out the truth of what happened to me, I just wish I meant enough to you for you to give me a chance first. Goodbye Relena.

Continuing his way down the hall, he thought over what he would say. This feeling was one he was unused to, betrayal. The advantage of not letting people get close was that they could never let you down, but he had let people get close. There was Duo who practically shoved his way in, was the braided man aware Heero was back? Most likely, it would be uncharacteristic of Trowa to withhold such information, when he felt someone was entitled to know, he told them, and Heero's return was information all of the pilots would be entitled to. According to the records Heero had found, Duo's business had been successful enough to expand it with an earth branch, that Duo now ran himself just a few miles out of town.

Wufei, he surely knew, according to his (classified under "top security") file, he was training preventers at the base Heero was currently in. That meant the Chinese man had passed on dozens of chances, on an almost daily biases to speak with his fellow former comrade.

Quatre, probably had more details then anyone, he would get more information out of Trowa. And it was Quatre's efforts that were keeping everything together behind the scenes. There had been pressure, heavy pressure, on the cabinet to invoke the 25th so the new president could be sworn in, but Quatre bought the preventers the time they needed to do their job. Almost every politician in the E.S.U.N. owed some amount of favors to Quatre, and he had to call in most to keep things settled. Quatre was on earth, he did most of his political meetings face-to-face, and he was staying at the preventers base. The blond, like the rest of them, was avoiding him.

Zechs had been killed in a shuttle accident, Noin and their son now lived on earth. Noin took over as director of the preventers upon Lady Une's retirement 10 years ago.

Then there was Trowa himself, from Heero's perspective, his attitude made no sense. He had kept Heero at an arms length, not trusted him with anything more then basic information, and even undermined his authority by giving his subordinates secondary orders to be sure Heero behaved himself, not that Heero was supposed to know that, but like always, he did. Barton was the one Heero had expected to understand, the others he could only hope, but Trowa's logic was probably the most similar to his own. Yet still, even he seemed to be untrusting of Heero, as if he had done something wrong.

But for the moment, Heero had to push emotions and expectations aside, he had a job to finish. But, there's no reason I can't do it on my terms, he more then owes me that.

Arriving at the secretary's desk for Trowa, Heero stood there while she finished a phone call.

After she hung up she started typing on her computer, then acknowledged Heero, "Your name sir?"

"Heero Yuy."

"And your business with the Deputy director?"

"Mission commander debriefing."

"I'll see if he's-"

"Tell him when he wants it he can meet me in the gym, and he should bring boxing gloves."

"I- I beg your pardon?"

Heero didn't reply, he just walked off, leaving the shocked secretary with nothing to do but pass on the message. The result was a shattered coffee mug and a few random curses, Trowa took it rather well really.

--

The gym at preventers headquarters would make any gym rat weep for joy, it had everything. There was a 25 meter pool, free wights of every reasonable level, every workout machine you could possibly need, a half track (200 meters) indoor, a basketball court, tennis court, general purpose rooms. And then there was the boxing ring where everyone in the room was gathered around, watching the 3rd agent in a row get dealt an embarrassing defeat in under three minutes. Yes Heero had found something to entertain himself while waiting for Trowa to show up.

About 10 agents were looking on, now a third agent was being helped out of the ring. As Trowa approached he could hear various bets and dares being made, but he couldn't care less. There was no one in the preventers that was going to undermine his authority. He had worked hard for years to get everything running smoothly, the agency was a finely tuned machine thanks in part to him. Heero Yuy was a threat to that order, he was fighting against all that hard work, and something had to be done.

One by one the crowd fell silent as they saw who walked in. Trowa was certainly no stranger to the gym, but there was one big difference, he was usually in before anyone else at about 5 am with Wufei. And should anyone else show up during that session, they had nightmares about the looks they received. It was understood, you didn't hang out in the gym when Trowa was there, he didn't want the crowd. Him walking in made everyone feel uneasy, and unsure what they were supposed to do, until he spoke. "Dismissed."

The agents had varying degrees of bewilderment displayed on their faces until one got the courage to speak up, "Sir?"

"I said 'dismissed.'" He was leaving no room for discussion, he just kept his eyes locked on Heero, who was holding his own to say the least in their staring contest.

Slowly the agents started to filter out until in just a couple minutes, the two men were alone in the room. "I belive I mentioned you would need boxing gloves."

"Yuy, I don't know what kind of game you think you are playing-"

"No games, you want a debriefing, come and get it."

"I am the deputy director of the preventers, you are-"

"Not in your chain of command. I never took a job with the preventers, all my missions were and are freelance. I don't owe you anything, but if you want to know my post mission report, there are some gloves on the bench over there."

"As the deputy director, I'm not going to result to something childish just to get a report."

"Then I just won't talk to the 'deputy director' loose the uniform and lets see what you've been doing with yourself for the past twenty years."

Maintaing his defiant/authoritarian gaze leveled against Heero, the form of a shirtless Trowa Barton was now displaying the years of dedication he had put in to it. His muscles were solid, sculpted from a life time of training. "I spar almost daily, when was the last time you were in a serious fight?" He asked climbing in to the ring.

"Long enough." Was the only reply as Heero moved his glove in a "come and get it" motion.

"About that report."

"You have to land a punch first."

"I'm not hear to play kids games."

"You have two choices beat it out of me, or give me something I want."

"You have five seconds to convince me this isn't a huge waste of my time."

"I got in to their files while on the mission, I know every mole they have."

"Holding back that information is obstruction of justice. Now what is this 'thing you want'?"

"An answer."

"To?" Trowa began circling around his opponent. A lifetime of experience, a rhythm, he knew he had an advantage here over Heero, but Yuy was young and strong, and probably faster as well. It would not be an easy match.

"Why?" Heero remained mostly still in the middle of the ring, holding up his gaurd

only turing to keep Trowa in front of him, but not moving his position.

"If you want a straightforward answer, I would advise you to ask the same type of question." Trowa stopped moving right and quickly doubled back to his left, bringing his right arm in for a shot to the head, Heero moved, causing the blow to be just a glancing one.

"They only have two moles left, Tim Burton, works as a steward in the presidential residence which gives him access to the president's schedule." Heero made a couple of half harted jabs directed at Trowa's face, but they were easily blocked.

"And?" Trowa was still moving about, looking for the misstep, the fault, the weak point he could exploit. More jabs were thrown, none having an impact, they were all designed to test his opponents limits.

"For the and, you have to give me something." Heero wasn't cracking, his defense remained solid, but he still wasn't showing much offense, a few retaliatory jabs now and then kept Trowa from trying something a bit riskier.

"Like what?" Trowa faked a jab and came in with a left uppercut, but Heero had moved to the side and dealt a quick jab that threw Trowa off his balance, and he was on the ground again.

"You've kept me at arms length the entire time, when I was picking my team, running training, mission planning, you were looking over everything I was doing and second guessing it. Why?"

Trowa got back up and returned to a fighting stance, but he had stopped circling Heero and was now locked in more of a staring contest then a boxing match. "I have a job to do, I oversee almost everything the preventers does. This mission was as important as they come, peace, our government, everything was on the line. I have a responsibility-"

"To confront me about your concerns, not look to undermine me by getting members of my team to report to you."

"Is that why you cut those two out?"

"Yes, I won't bring people with divided loyalties in to a combat situation. The moment you went to them, my authority became questionable to them."

"I told them they were to follow your orders as any other commander."

"But to report those orders back to you, you were giving yourself a veto power over my decisions, that undercut me with them, that damage is irreversible. Cutting them forced me to re shift personal on the mission, it dropped our success probability by 5."

"You didn't report that."

"That wasn't important, the mission was too import to set back. And my plan still had the highest probability of success."

"That's my ca-"

"No it wasn't, you gave me the responsibility for this, then kept trying to oversee everything, you owe me an explanation for that."

Trowa was silent and started moving around, putting in a few jabs, taking advantage of his longer arms to stay out of Heero's reach, but the blows just missed or had little effect because of the range.

"Or rather, let's cut to the heart of the matter, at what point did I loose your trust?"

Trowa paused for a moment when he heard those words, and just a moment was all Heero needed to land a left hook that made a solid connection, and promised Trowa a nasty black eye in the morning.

"I wouldn't have picked you for this mission if-"

"You would have picked me regardless because you knew I would go with or without your approval. But we aren't talking about your confidence in my abilities, I'm asking at what point you stopped trusting me."

Trowa picked himself up, outwardly he wasn't showing any emotion, but he was fuming that he hadn't landed a good hit yet, Heero was almost toying with him. And hitting a little to close to home on some of his commentary. Regardless of what Trowa felt, there were things that didn't need to be said to a man like Heero. "The other mole?"

"Kyle Johnson, the President Pro Temp or the senate's chief of staff. If he had been sworn in as president, Johnson would have become the president's chief of staff. Now you."

Trowa carefully studied his opponent. Looking for anything he could exploit to gain the upper hand. "When you up and left twenty years ago." That caught Heero off guard, Trowa took full advantage landing a right cross that sent Heero right to the mat.

Heero was in no hurry to get up, he just stared at Trowa. "I told you from the start J-"

"How could J force you in to anything? Why were you even there in the first place."

Trowa took off his gloves and headgear. "I'm done playing games. If you can follow orders, the preventers certainly could use you, but if you are looking to go rouge whenever you feel like it, don't waste my time." Trowa walked towards the ropes and was about to climb out of the wring, until a hand, rather forcefully pulled him back in, to the point he fell back on the mat again.

"We, are not done here."

Trowa stood back up and took a street fighting stance, "Unless you are prepared to get hurt over this, yes, we are." Trowa already knowing Heero's answer rushed to get the early advantage, but Heero knew it was coming and sidestepped it. Trowa ready for this had already turned in to launch his next attack. He lifted his left leg to hit Heero with a kick, only to find his right leg swept out from under him by Heero who had gone under the kick.

"I had no idea, or say, in what J was doing."

Trowa flipped over to put Heero on his back to start landing punches, but Heero grabbing his arms and flipped Trowa back to the ground. "I had-"

"Just spare me." Trowa thrusted out his legs to push Heero away. He was knocked back and Trowa charged forward to follow through, seeing Heero going low to knock his legs out again, Trowa flipped over top of him and landed behind, and landed a roundhouse kick to Heero's side.

"You seem as about as interested in what I have to say now as when I was an ice cube."

"It didn't exactly take you long to get back to that did it?"

Heero stopped, and blinked disbelievingly "are you- do you- you think I want to go back to that stasis? You think I wanted that in the first place?"

Trowa moved forward and grabbed Heero by the neck, bring him back down to the ground, where speed could no longer favor Heero. "There isn't anything J could to do get you to come to him if you were unwillingly."

"You actually think I would rather be that ice cube? Or it that just what you would rather have me be?" There was no answer, Heero's eyes widened momentarily, before all emotion, anger, surprise, all of it was erased. Now Heero was no longer holding back, He pulled the hands off his neck, and forcefully brought them together so he could grip both wrists with his right hand. Trowa looked on with disbelif and the sheer power Heero was displaying, he knew Heero was stronger then he let on, but this... He didn't get to finish that thought, A strong left handed punch interrupted all thought and sent him reeling to the mat once again. But he knew the pain of a hard hit, and rolled through and quickly got back up on his balance, charging again he tried to take Heero by surprise by launching a direct frontal assault, no trickery this time. But again Heero saw through it, and just landed a strong right uppercut in to Trowa's diaphragm, taking all the air out of his lungs.

The fight was over, and Trowa collapsed to the ground.

"So you don't trust me? You really think I intentionally left?" There was no answer, Trowa was out cold. Heero got out of the ring and started towards the doors.

Almost there he stopped, and only half turned his head back around, "You'd rather have me as an ice cube? All of you would?"

He continued walking. He stopped right at the door.

"Fine."

-----

Hello Dr Po, or I suppose I should say Chang now, but old habits are hard to break. You are probably wondering why you are receiving this message, the answer is two fold. First, I needed to say it to someone, and second, I know you'll respect patient-Dr privilege even if you have decided to hate me as well.

First, the others are going to think what they think, don't bother correcting them, it's probably easier for everyone this way. There was a reason I went to see say 20 years ago, it actually had something to do with a comment you made to me after I took a psychical, you told me I was in perfect health for someone a few years younger then me. It may sound strange, but that comment made me rethink a few things. I came to a strange conclusion, I wasn't aging.

More precisely, I was not aging at the normal rate, Based on the trends as I analyzed, When I was age 30, my body would have aged to 24. At 40, my body would be age 27. At 60, well I think you get the general idea. The point is, I would be middle aged while everyone else was dieing of old age around me. While in the perfect solider program, I was subject to many genetic experiments and modifications. The reason I went to see J was to find if there was any way to reverse what was done to me. Now he is gone, as are his notes, and I've already lost 20 years to everyone. If I stayed, if I made an effort to correct them and earn a place in their lives again, It would be torture for me, to watch the friends I knew fade away while I was still in the prime of my life. In some ways, I consider this an escape from that torture.

When I next come out of the cryo-freeze, no one will be left, and I will start a new life with no connections to the past, moving on every few years so that no one notices my slowed aging. The reason I tell you all this, is so that there are no attempts to either revive me, or recreate the cryo-freeze. J designed the process so that it would only work with a body that has the traits mine does, someone else entering that freeze would never come out of it.

I know I am asking a lot of you, first to believe me, then to keep it to yourself as I've asked. But this is for the best, and I think of all people you may be the best at seeing this.

I don't blame the others I suppose, they never really knew me well enough to trust me. Ever since I came out of the freeze for the other pilots, yourself and Noin, you never saw me, I was never real. I don't think it ever sank in for anyone what I happened, yet I can't help but feel the frustration of everyone I knew turning their backs on me. Relena is heartbroken, I wouldn't expect her to wait twenty years, two years, or two minutes for me. I was glad for what we had, but part of me always felt she could do better. I hope she was happy for the years she had with her husband, and I hope she will move on and find happiness again.

It's unfair of me to dump all this on you, but I had to get it out, and I thank you for listening. I hope you are paying careful attention because you only get one shot at the following. I have enclosed a formula, it was a vaccine I was given to drastically boost my immune system, and it should be enough to prevent Wufei's alzheimers, or at least severely cut back it's effects. It will be visible at the end of this message for exactly one minute, if you miss it, it will be lost forever. I destroyed all of J's work that went in to making me.

I ask that you keep messages from me if the subject is ever brought up to you: if the others ask, I didn't hate them. If Relena asks I could never be angry with her.

And I have one last thing to ask, keep a small record of me in the database, in another 50 years, I'll be released from the cryo-freeze. Let your successor know, and have them pass it on. When I come out of it, I will help the preventers, or whoever needs it. This is the final act I can give to you and the ones I would still call friends, I only wish they had been able to call me the same. Good luck Sally, I wish you the best.

She spent the next minute carefully writing and reviewing the formula that had appeared on the screen. After that minute it was gone, the formula, the message, everything. Even though he hadn't asked, she knew there was one more implied request, that the formula only be used once. The formula was too complex to remember, she would make it once, then destroy her copy. She owed that to him, and she would be forever grateful for his parting gift.

Later, there would be time to reflect, time to ponder over what had occurred, but for now, her duty called. And she supposed, so did his.

A/n Really, this isn't how I envisioned writing the final chapter, but somehow when I got here, this is the direction it went. I picked on poor Wufei on the end there for this reason, even at 40 he would be capable of performing field duty, the alzheimers, which Trowa is covering by putting Wufei on training duty, is the reason he was no longer in the field. It had not set in yet, just the very early stages.

I am really amazed at how a couple of the reviewers saw exactly where this story was going. (with Heero going back in to the freeze). I do have an idea for an epilogue that would be set when Heero comes out, but I'm not sure I'll get to that. This story did kind of loose me as it went on. I had it written in my mind in one day, and as I went along, I realized how inferior what I was writing was to what I had originally come up with, because I couldn't remember all the details. That saps my motivation to write, but I am so thankful to those of you who were following this that I was determined to see it through to the end.

Thank you for your support, and I hope you will check out my next story, Going for Broke. Currently it is on my LJ, friends only, posted in segments. Once chapter 1 is finished, it will be posted to