LEPHQ

Holly sighed. She always sighs these days. Despite being a major, which seems to have more downfalls than upcomings, life is becoming... well increasingly boring. Predictable. The excitement from her life had gone and faded quite a while back now, really. The last interesting thing she did? It was go up to the surface two months ago, the place where she was first kidnapped, and it was almost not a surprise to run into Arty there.

She frowned at herself. Arty. Artemis. His name was Artemis, not Arty. That simple Mud-Ma – Boy. Mud-Boy. She got into the nasty habit of saying such... embarrassing... things in front of the insufferable Foaly, and Trouble. He always tended to blow up, more and more recently, at the mention of the Mud-Ma – she paused and frowned more.

She immediately realized her thoughts were scattered, this was not where her train of thought was supposed to be! She ran her finger threw her hair. What was she supposed to be doing? Where was she?

It was fairly dim, two desks around her and two spinning chairs. She span around in a few circles, bored. The office. Go figure. And sitting in front of her was the large stack of paperwork that made her frustrated as it was. Then she did something she didn't even expect herself to do.

She yelled for a solid 5 seconds in pure frustration. Her 'sound proof' walls stood no chance against the barrage of noise. Suddenly her door kicked in by, surprise surprise, Commander Trouble himself.

The look on his face was desperation, fear, and... well that says it all. Her face said with all its glory 'Frond save me from this hell!'

"Holly! Are you alright?" he sprinted over and began to thoroughly check every inch of her body, and she continued to stare and the pile of paperwork that hasn't been touched in days due to... excessive thinking.

She remained unresponsive to his nit-picking, but was suddenly tempted to destroy everything around her. Or maybe... just sit there and cry. Something wasn't right, nothing was right at the moment. The world was going by too smoothly...

"HOLLY!" Kelp bellowed. The major jumped and cringed, unaware that he was trying to talk to her.

"What, what?" she asked, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her face beat red, eyes drooping and hair mussed raggedly from pulling at it so much.

Trouble softened up immediately. "Hey, are you doin' alright Hols?"

"It's Holly," she said pointedly, relaxing slightly, "Actually, its Major Short while at the LEP."

"Hey, hey," he said, standing back and shrugging, "Surely, friends as close as us can be considered... more. The least I can do is talk to you casually." She didn't like where this could be going already. Again. Great, her day –no– her week was already going terrible, and Trouble was living up to his name at the worst of times.

"With all due respect, sir," she practically spat, resisting punching in his face... or maybe falling to her knees in an uncharacteristic exhaustion, "We are at work. We're professionals. KEEP it that way, for Frond's sake."

"Don't you even like me Holly?" he moaned, sitting in the only other chair in the office. She rolled her eyes, and tossed all the paper on her desk off.

"There's no way in hell your doing this! You crash your way in here worried about me, now you wanna know my opinion on you? What about me? I feel like I'm about to explode! And you come in here – asking me – about my relationship... with YOU?" She was standing now, arms raised in exasperation, and temper ready to reach a new boiling point. Her face would make Root proud.

Trouble looked quite comical really. His mouth hung open and eyes wide with shock. He looked rather like he had been slapped. Holly would have laughed, but she couldn't right now.

"Yes, Trouble, I like you," her voice softened, "I do. Your a really great guy. In fact, now that I think about it, before I met the Mud-Man (Trouble didn't catch the whole 'Man' thing) we may have actually had... a bit of a future together. But so much has changed since then. The world has changed. I've changed. And I think... ever since you became Commander... you've changed too."

A look flew across Trouble's face. A spark of hope it seemed. It hadn't really been that long since the boy. He stood, and walked to her.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." she paused, "I did love you. I still do, in a way-" She would have continued to explain the way that she loves him like a brother, maybe like the best friend an elf could ever ask for.

But there was... a bit of a problem preventing her from doing so.

The lips of a desperate, antagonizing Trubs were crushing her own in a crazy attempt at rekindling said past love.

FOWL MANOR

Artemis sat staring at his computer screen. In front of him was something he had whipped up to read, and the only logical way he could describe it? Stupid. Utterly stupid. Never, in his few years, had he ever seen anything so painfully, ridiculously stupid. So for the 14th time that night, he slammed his long, slim finger on the delete button, completely erasing the stupid letter.

"Butler!" he yelled in frustration.

Obviously, within 3 seconds the door was opened and closed so quickly and silently that only Artemis could have known he was in there. Not to mention the two large Glocks sweeping across the rooms in the shadows whilst carried by a near 7 foot tall and bulging with muscles, barrel chested Butler.

"Relax, my old friend. There is no threat in this room," under his breath, the criminalistic prodigy muttered, "next to my own stupidity," with a frown.

The guns lowered.

"What would you like? More errands?" he mused sarcastically. Artemis would have rolled his eyes, but was still far too upset with himself and embarrassed at the same time.

"Not," he paused, "exactly." Butler responded with a raised brow and growing grin. The young charge, embarrassed? This had to be good. "I've been meaning to contact my, er, 'friends' recently, and I really can't seem to go about wording my invitation accordingly. 15 times the charm, it seems. I really do despise my luck in socializing, you know that Butler?"

"Does this 'friend' happen to be-"

"Does 'er' count as a word? That makes 40 words." Butler frowned, but continued his question.

"Does this 'friend' happen to be less than 5 feet tall, female, and one of your favourite obsessions?"

If Artemis was facing his ago old friend (thank Frond he wasn't) Butler would have the worlds hardest time resisting laughing till he dropped to the floor.

But alas, he was facing his computer screen with one eye wide, one squinting, mouth opening and closing rapidly while trying to come up with some witty remark no doubt, and his face beyond flush with red.

After a few moments of Butler staring intently at the back of his friends head with a humongous smirk-like grin that only a man his size could pull off, Artemis finally answered.

"P-possibly. Butler, must you know me so well?" he sighed. Butler definitely noticed the stutter though.

"Oh just call her Artemis!"

"Who now?"

"Artemis!" The young man groaned in frustration.

"It's just been a while now? Between my plotting and our escapades, we became good friends, clearly. Now that it seems the world's at ease... I'm just, for once in my short life... unsure as to what to do with myself." His shoulders slumped in defeat at last. "At least I can truly enjoy life when I have the young Major at my side."

Butler smiled. "And am I really that boring, Artemis?" His charge frowned, then finally looked at his life-friend with a small, genuine smile. He stood slowly and walked to his friend patting his arm as he went. "I'll think Butler. And you know what I meant for Frond's sake!" Butler just stood there and smiled widely.