A/N: So, I guess this is a new story. Which is stupid, since I have two other ongoing stories, but the plot bunnies bit. For two hours. At night. 'Till Twelve. Well, I hope you enjoy it. And please please PLEASE review.

They'd found him lying in the garden, curled in the fetal position. Butler was beside himself.

"I shouldn't have let him out of my sight!" Butler had said, head in his hands.

"You couldn't have known anything was going to happen," Holly had said quietly, hovering a few feet above the ground to put a hand on her friend's shoulder, watching Artemis laying under the covers on his bed.

At first they hadn't even really thought anything was very wrong. They'd thought that . . . well, Holly wasn't really sure what she'd thought. That he'd fallen? That exhaustion had crept up on him? But then his brow started burning up. Right now she sat next to the human boy, dabbing his brow with a cold cloth.

Butler sat in an armchair, exhausted from his two-day vigil. Artemis' parents had been away, and Butler had called them after contacting Holly. They were expected home today. What would they think when they saw her? Holly didn't have any magic left to shield. She'd used all of it trying to heal Artemis. And it hadn't worked. As if her thoughts had conjured them, the crunch of car wheels could be heard coming up the drive.

Butler shook himself out of his stupor, and stood. "I'll try to explain things to them," he said. "Do you want to hide?"

Holly shook her head. She wouldn't leave her friend. There wasn't much she could do for her friend, but something told her things would be a lot worse were she to leave. The smallest bit of magic left in her tank almost tingled.

"His mother already knows, no reason to keep it from his father too. Not when magic caused this."

Butler stopped, hand on the door knob. "You think a fairy did this?" he asked, voice low, almost threatening.

"I don't know. I think so, it would be why my magic isn't having any effect."

Butler nodded, and exited the room.

"Oh my friend," Holly sighed, brushing away the hair stuck to Artemis' sticky brow. "What happened to you?" Even Foaly seemed to have no answers. She'd asked him (via helmet, of course) to see if he could find anything. The problem, according to the centaur, was that they didn't have any odd symptoms to pinpoint. Just the fever and apparent magic-resistance. And the fact that Artemis hadn't moved since Butler found him in the garden. At all. It was almost as if his mind was gone.

She heard the patter of tiny feet, the herald of the twins and the whirlwind always sure to follow them. The Fowls had recently gotten a dog and two cats. The cats had taken to Artemis, which wasn't surprising. The dog, aptly named Turbo by an over-exited Beckett, followed the twins.

The door slammed open, and the two twins ran into the room, stopping short when the saw Holly. Turbo, however, did not. He trotted strait up to Holly where she sat by the bed, and jumped up onto her lap. Absently, she scratched the puppy on the top of his head.

"Who're you?" Myles asked, pointing at Holly. His blue eyes scrutinized her, so like Artemis. Or, what he might have been like at age five.

"I'm Artemis' friend," Holly said, smiling at the young boys. She looked up as Butler re-entered the room, Artemis' parents behind him. Angelina Fowl rushed to her son's side, heedless of Holly.

Artemis Fowl Senior, however, eyed the small girl who sat at his son's bedside with some suspicion. "What happened?" He asked.

"We're not sure," Holly said.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Artemis' friend," Holly said again. "I also happen to be an elf."

The tall man raised his eyebrows, but Angelia looked at Holly from where she had pulled Butler's vacated chair closer to the bed.

"Are you Holly Short?"

Holly looked at the woman, surprised. "Yes," she said. "Did Artemis tell you about me?" The woman nodded.

"Along with a great many other things," she murmured, laying a hand on the side of her son's face. The twins crept closer, Beckett seemed less cautious than Myles.

Turbo jumped up onto the bed, whining as he nudged Artemis' head with his wet nose. Holly had to stifle an exhausted laugh. Holly felt something brush up against her legs, and looked down into the green eyes of Hermes, the brown cat. He pawed at the blanket that folded over the side of the bed. Holly bent down to pick up the cat. She guessed he'd been drawn by the noise. Hermes was a lot more social than his sister, the black and white Calypso, whom Becket called Caly.

He squirmed out of her arms, onto the bed with Turbo, who had sat back and looked at Artemis with his head tilted to the side. The twins both hopped onto the edge of the bed, but they were uncharacteristically silent. Butler and Artemis Senior both stood beside Angelina, Artemis' father looking down at his son with a worried expression.

"Do you have magic?" Myles asked suddenly.

"I did," Holly said quietly, passing the cold cloth to Angelina. "I used it all to try to heal him. But that's difficult when I don't know what it is that's wrong."

Hermes let out a whine, nuzzling the human boy's face. Most would scoff at a cat whining, but they did. Sometimes quite insistently. Holly felt her brow wrinkle in thought. Myles crawled up so he was sitting next to his older brother's shoulder. He touched the closed eyes gently.

Holly remembered something then. Something said by Yaro Burh, a leader in the area of child psychology. "Children and Animals have better instincts than adults, because they have room for that kind of thing. Not as many memories, not as much math and quantum sciences."

That made sense, and the way the animals nosed at Artemis' face, the way Myles seemed interested in his brother's closed eyes.

Beckett scooted up too, and pulled at the skin above his brother's left eye, as if trying to open it. Gently, lifting the young boy's hand away, Holly pulled open the eye. And gasped.

"What is it?" asked Butler. He looked at Holly's face, as the elf attempted to take in what she was seeing.

"He's . . . oh gods. I didn't think it was possible." She looked up at Butler, trying to covey the fact that this wasn't good. "He's trying to fight the Mesmer."