I tried to keep the description pretty discreet, just in case. The SPOILER pertaining to The Opal Deception is, ahem, a big one. So don't say I didn't warn you. I hate spoilers, especially unexpected ones...thanks a lot Wikipedia, ha. So, I suppose the warning is as much for my sake as yours.

PROCEED AT WILL

"I don't own rights of any kind. The infectious characters belong to the sick mind of Mr. Eoin Colfer... thanks, man. As does the world, the plot, the creatures, and anything else I can't be bothered to mention."

It's nights like this I wish I had hair to pull...

Holly sighed tiredly and leaned back against the cold, slick tiles of the shower. She brought her hands up from the water and dribbled it down her forehead where it ran down her face to mingle with what she would not have admitted were tears. She ran her hands through the centimeter's worth of stubble on top of her scalp; her auburn hair had not yet had time to grow free of its strict military crew: just a week before, in a different lifetime, she'd trimmed it down to regulation, and it stood neatly on her head. Contrasting abruptly with the rest of her life, a remnant of the Captain Short who was dead, or sleeping, or in a coma. Holly wasn't sure exactly where to find herself anymore. The tiny bathroom was dark, walled away from even simulation sun or moonlight, but she kept her light hazel eyes squeezed shut anyway, pressed her treacherously quivering mouth into a thin, hard line. The only sound was the intermittent dripping of the arcane faucet: Holly was not breathing.

There was no reason why she shouldn't cry. No one below ground or above it could decry her for it. She was utterly alone, locked into her own bathroom in the dead, still hours between midnight and dawn, without even the glimmer of a power cell to betray her. But that was just it. With people watching, it was easier to go on bravado alone and push back the brokenness inside her. Alone, with no one to pretend for, the braces that held her up gave out, one by one.

It was the first real interlude, since—and there was a soft splash as Holly's hands shot out of the bath to grind in her eyes. With a steady drip of adrenaline in her system, caught in the soldier's trap of action/reaction, her mind had been able to process only those thoughts directly relevant to the immediate goal: survival. In the stoned silence afterward, during the (maybe permanent) interlude when no one was demanding snap decisions or relying on her to pilot their arses out of hell, the shattered thoughts of accusatory grief began creeping back. Few and small at first, like rats or spiders or plague victims, til at last in the dark of the bath when no one was watching—they overwhelmed her.

A shaky breath echoed on the silence, cut off by the slosh of water as she drew her legs up and rested her face on her knees. Holly had never had problems with post-traumatic stress disorder before, though she'd seen its aftereffects often enough. She'd seen the hollow-eyed elves who walked banging off door frames before someone had the sense to strap them down. She'd seen the battle-hardened officers fingering their scars; she had a number herself. Of course she'd been shell shocked before; for which she'd been sent home on a weekend's sick leave with a box of tea and a sprite romance novel. Holly had learned fast that the best way to heal herself was to work. That failing, she'd spend a few rounds at one of the shooting galleries in Police Plaza with a few of the other officers. But with both routes unavailable to her now, Holly didn't much know what to do with herself. She was too numb really to even mope properly. She just sat there in the blind dark, moving only to switch on the tap now and then to keep the water from growing cold: when it did, she could hardly tell the inside of her from the out, and felt she'd go mad.

A sardonic, if weak, chuckle rang out momentarily, sounding in the gloom like a bark of madness. Holly had always prided herself, secretly, on her stamina of character. As a LEP officer, she had to be strong where others fell, persevere where they had failed; as a female in the ranks, doubly so. She'd walked away with hardly an emotional scratch from experiences that might have left her putty. Recon, near-fatal field excursions, dirty jobs, being kidnapped and held hostage, more than her share of grunt work, losing fingers, healing humans, battling too many trolls on various occasions, getting in the crossfire of gang wars, and she was still standing. She rather thought the trolls should have done it. Odd.

For a while, Holly toyed with the idea of getting very, very drunk.

Holly wet her hair again and poured water down her open-mouthed face. She'd been shell-shocked before, but this was different. In the past, she'd always been able to brush the feeling off her shoulders like so much shuttle-dust, and go on with her life. This was different. This was bigger, bigger than she was, and heavier, a leaden yoke lashed to her shoulders, an ulcer inside her, eating her up. It wouldn't go away. It was like a never-ending tide of waves breaking over her, knocking her down as she exhausted herself trying to regain her feet. The sense of emptiness, of loss, clung to her like sweat-drenched clothing. It hung like a maudlin perfume in the air, and got into her lungs. If she stopped breathing, maybe then it would go away and let her alone. But Root wouldn't have liked that. Holly grabbed at that thought like the drowning to some bit of still-floating wreckage of their life, and thought that this was probably all at the moment that kept her from plunging her head between her knees there and then and sucking in a quick, merciful breath of bathwater. Root had taught her better than to think like that, though.

Holly felt her diaphragm heaving against her will, her knees sagging, and pressed her hands to her face as hard as they would go. She had no tears left to cry just then—although her eyes burned as if with time-stop burnout—and the sobs that raked her lungs and throat were dry ones, but she managed to choke back the involuntary noise before it could bounce around the empty room to fall back on her ears like a beating.

It was like losing her father all over again. Only, much, much worse this time. Julius had been more of a father to her during her career that the man who had been married to her mother ever was, for the measly time that he had been around. Holly had loved him, though, or had come to, perhaps because of his very absence from her life: perhaps subconsciously she had built him up a little better than he had actually been, glossing over small faults and playing down the worst. Surely other girls' fathers sometimes came into their rooms late at night, locking the door behind them. But Root had never even tried to do anything of the sort, never so much bought her dinner or given her a day off 'just because.' If he happened to be within earshot at the time, he had usually put a stop to the sexist and often lewd comments and jokes at her expense. Especially at first, when she'd been prime game to every fresh jock's need to scapegoat. No one had expected her to amount to much more than a cautionary tale and hard evidence as to 'why not.' Except Root. He'd gambled on her from the very start, when most officers looked down their noses at him for it and there was no possible way to know she could pay off. Holly knew now he had cared much more than he'd ever say. Root had pulled a deal more strings that were strictly wise to haul her out of the sticky, damning situations she'd made a habit of getting into. She'd had more second chances than she knew she had any right to, and no one to thank but him. Despite her gender and damnably unorthodox methods, Root had always accorded her as much respect as he was able, and Holly was grateful. Certainly he made a point of regarding her as more than a pair of breasts that answered back, as some of the sprites still did. Root was one of the first people in her life to take her seriously, and it was for this singular kindness that Holly was most indebted.

Fresh tears welled up in her exhausted eyes as Holly wished vainly that she could at least thank him, one last time.

Her brain was reeling, and she wanted more than anything just then to be able to think of anythingbut Julius Root. Grasping at straws, Holly thought dully how strange it would be not to go back. For years, her life had consisted of a routine that was never the same two days running, but with a basic scaffolding that was like breathing to her now. What would she possibly do without it? Holly envisioned herself in a time-lapse, wandering aimlessly around her westside efficiency apartment; rising with die-hard habit at an unholy hour, maybe brewing coffee, working out because she didn't know what else to do, watering plants, pottering blank-eyed from one spot to another, staring into space, falling into bed at night to lie awake waiting to do it all over again. Best case scenarios included going downstairs to Spudd's or out for curry by herself very occasionally, walking to a 24-hour theater for another kind of boredom. Holly could not picture herself in civilian's clothing; she felt naked without the familiar weight of a Neutrino holstered at her hip, the feel of a helmet fitted snugly over her head, the potential-heavy heft of a pair of wings on her back. Even now, naked in the bath, she felt inexplicably vulnerable knowing that an LEP standard jumpsuit was not draped over the toilet bowl, ready to slip into and be off in a heartbeat.

All in all, Holly summed up her existence to be a wraith-like one, and cowered from the prospect. But on the other hand, she wasn't at all sure that she would have been able to return to the Force anywise, without Julius Root there to bark out orders at her. Julius Root would never bark orders at anyone again.

They had not even permitted her to attend the Recycling. She'd had to watch it over broadcast like some hospital inmate with nothing better to do. Like a criminal, wardened off from decent society. Like she was unworthy, unfit to pay her respects to her own damned Commander. When they'd told her, without the merest grain of interest or sympathy, Holly had been dangerously close to losing it; throwing some sort of childish fit, or breaking down in tears, or going berserk and doing someone an injury, or all three. But Artemis had stood beside her without a word, gripped her shoulder, and somehow she'd borne it. She'd sat on the plush couch in the executive holding cell and watched from afar as the rest of the world gathered to bid last farewells to possibly the greatest man they would ever see. The bile of bitterness leaped repeatedly to her mouth as the camera pulled back wide to showcase the thousands in attendants of LEP Commander Root's Recycling. They didn't deserve to be clogging up Haven's streets, jostling to get closer, while she was held here like a petty criminal. Not a fraction of these people had ever met Julius in their lives; some of them probably weren't even sure who he was. None of the could have possibly cared about Julius the way she had. Holly watched the thousands of clueless fairies milling about like so many woodlice in the mud, and would have given her trigger finger to be any one of them

Holly wondered if she had simply snapped. If the strain and trauma of the last few days had caught up with her right then and caused random neurons to backfire across broken synapse paths. For all she'd been lucid enough and quick to cobble together a reasonable Plan B, Holly knew she had not been thinking straight. The sight of the patronizing smirk plastered onto Sool's pasty stinkworm face had proved simply too much for her. Holly had felt her pulse bubble and hiss under her skin, and thought it a wonder steam hadn't poured from her ears. The repugnant thought of this wrong, incompetent gnome taking Root's place coupled with his nasally drone was more than cause enough for her to plead temporary insanity. Her whole problem now was that the deed was done, and she would not take it back, even had she been able.

"D'Arvit," Holly moaned, hanging her head. She massaged the tips of her long, pointed ears as Artemis might his temples, keeping her eyes screwed closed against the horror of her life.

She jumped a considerable distance when a heavy, rhythm-less pounding sounded on the bathroom door. "Open up, elf, we gotta talk."

"Mulch?" Holly called out a bit rhetorically, her hand reaching automatically for a buzz baton that would not be there.

"Who else under the world would it be?" the dwarf wanted to know, continuing to hammer on the door with what sounded like both stumpy, thick, powerful fists. "Open. Up."

"How did you get in here?" Holly demanded hotly, not bothering to try and keep the outrage from her voice. "No, never mind." She knew perfectly well how Mulch had done it; the better question to be asking was why.

Mulch did not cease his fire. The door itself was not high quality to begin with and the result was inevitable if a dwarf of Mulch's strength and determination kept up such a rain of blows for much longer. But he didn't really need to; they both knew it was only to reinforce what a pain in the arse he could be. "Holly, open the blummin' door! Or am I gonna hafta pick this lock too?"

"I'm not dressed," was her lame excuse. None the less, the banging stopped while she stood and groped for a towel to wrap around herself. Moving slowly, Holly flipped the catch to let the water drain out of the bath and sought for the clothes she had let fall in a heap on the floor. After dragging on the rumpled shirt and baggy trousers by feel, Holly ran her fingers through her ultra-short hair a few times. Not that it even mattered how she looked, not that she even cared, because she was only stalling anyway.

Holly opened the door and looked down at the dwarf, not moving from the little half-hidden recess between door and lintel. "What do you want, Mulch?" Holly intoned dispassionately, her voice so low and flat and weary that even she had trouble hearing its hoarseness. She could feel the utter lack of expression in her face.

"I did call. You just didn't pick up," Mulch blithely clarified. "Whew," he whistled as he prodded her from her comfort zone and toward the kitchen. "You look a ruddy sight, Holly. I took the liberty of setting a pot on," he added, nodding at the cheap kettle humming on the two-burner stove. Holly allowed herself to be bundled into one of the rickety chairs on either side of the cracked linoleum table, but it was not until she had a steaming mug forced into her hand and Mulch had settled across from her with another that she mustered herself to half-whisper a single word:

"Why?"

Mulch grinned at her from across the table with his yellowed tombstone teeth, but she found the sight not at all eerie or disconcerting as she might once have. "Now what kinda partner would I be if I let you wallow in your misery all on your lonesome, eh?"