Chute #92, 6 months later

Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon had worked details that were more boring than the one she was on now, but she currently was at a loss to remember any. It's not that it was a day without action—in fact, even as she casually leaned up against the wall of the small maintenance tunnel that ran horizontally from the main vertical chute, there was a dramatic vehicle chase going on miles away. A runaway curry smuggler was eluding the authorities at a high speed. She would have given nearly anything to be in on the action.

But no, Holly had been assigned to work Chute #92. So boring, no one had even bothered to give it a nickname like they did most other chutes. And what was she doing in Chute #92? A speed trap. Chute #92 was a route people rarely travelled—and as a result, when people did travel it, they tended to 'put the pedal to the metal', to use a human phrase.

Holly would usually question the wisdom of assigning an officer of her experience to so menial a task; however, today she was riding with a rookie—a new recruit fresh from the Academy. A gnome named Gev Polter. He was okay—but seemed a bit jumpy. Tunnel traffic duty was probably the best thing for him until he stopped flinching at the sight of neutrino fire. Holly had heard about him getting some singed eyebrows in the Academy. She guessed whatever had happened was probably the source of his current fears.

Polter may have been a decent recruit, but he certainly wasn't much to talk to. If you're going to be spending long hours sitting in a maintenance tunnel off a seldom-travelled chute, you want to be with someone you can have a good conversation with. With Polter, conversation had been stilted and awkward at best. She had tried asking him about his Academy days, his childhood, even the last movie he watched—but try as she might he had given the shortest possible answers to her questions.

As she idly checked her neutrino—for what, she didn't know—she couldn't help but wish Artemis Fowl was stuck in the tunnel with her. He drove her crazy sometimes, but since they had become friends it was a fond kind of crazy. She had a deep respect for him—not just his intelligence, but the way he had changed. She knew he somehow attributed this change to her.

"I was a broken boy, and you fixed me. Thank you."

She still shuddered when she thought of that time, when he had sacrificed himself to stop Opal's insane plan. The six months after had been one of the darkest times in her life.

Now, seven-and-a-half years later, they were still best friends. He routinely did consulting work for the LEP, which brought him (and the faithful Butler) down to Haven at least once a month. On the other hand, it had seemed much longer than that since he was last down. Things have been too quiet, Holly thought. I guess we must be due for another shake-up down here in Haven soon.

Just as she was going to try the topic of crunchball with Polter, a loud popping noise sounded through the maintenance tunnel and Holly drew her neutrino as fast as lightning. Polter, conversely, almost jumped out of his skin.

Holly's neutrino was placed back in its holster when she saw that the popping sound had emanated from No1's sudden appearance in the tunnel. "Hey, No1—when did you learn how to do that?" Holly asked, smiling.

"A new trick," the demon said, cheerfully. "Teleportation is something even Qwan can't do. But don't tell him I told you that."

"Well, you are certainly a sight for sore eyes," Holly replied. "Polter and I are about to go nuts here. No action all shift so far." She glanced over at Polter—he still had his hand on his chest, catching his breath. "So, No1, what brings you to the bustling Chute #92?"

Suddenly, he looked shy. "It feels like forever since we last talked. And…and I was hoping I might be able to get some advice from you."

Holly was taken aback. "Advice on what?"

No1 hesitated, but then launched into a speech. "You see, there's this female demon I've seen around—well, okay, I actually crashed into her on the street a few evenings ago when I wasn't looking where I was going. But anyways, I apologized and everything, but then I saw how beautiful she was, and I could barely choke out another word, even though my vocabulary is unquestionably extensive. I saw her go into Club Hybras with the two other females she was with, so I think if I go there I might be able to see her again. But I want to actually be able to say something this time. So I suppose what I am asking is—well, how do you talk to girls? Or to be more specific, how would I talk to a female demon with whom I wish to become better acquainted…better acquainted in a certain type of way?"

Holly smiled. The young demon was so earnest in everything he did. "That's wonderful, No1! Though I can't say I am very qualified to give advice about dating and love."

No1 replied, "You're my friend, and you're a female. That makes you qualified enough."

She laughed. "Well, all right. Girls…like to be complimented." She had conveniently forgotten about the fact that nearly every time a male complimented her she either punched or shoved him. "So give her a nice compliment about her appearance or her personality. For instance..." she thought furiously for a demon compliment, "you could say—'My, your armour is looking very impenetrable today. Or something like that."

No1 was paying very close attention, and nodded repeatedly. "Okay, okay, that's good. Compliment her. Right."

"And, uh," Holly continued, searching her mind for something else, "try and find some common interests. Ask her what she likes and all that."

"I can't believe you said you weren't qualified. This is all excellent advice. I'll put it into practice next time I see her." A moment of silence passed. "So, Holly, is there any lucky elf who has caught your interest?"

In an instant she was almost as defensive as if a troll had suddenly appeared in the tunnel. "Why do you ask?"

No1 must have sensed her strong response. "I was only curious. I thought we were becoming confidantes."

Holly immediately felt a little guilty for her suspicion. She didn't know how to respond, but then settled on honesty. "No, there's no elf."

A normal bystander, like Gev Polter, whose heart had finally slowed to its normal rate after No1's appearance, wouldn't have noticed anything in Holly's answer. Perhaps a bit of wistfulness, but that would be a common emotion to accompany such a declaration. A normal bystander would simply think Holly lonely.

But the truth was, she was far from lonely. She had great friends— Artemis, Foaly and Caballine, No1, Butler, even Mulch. She never had to worry about having someone to talk to. The wistfulness came not from having no one, but from the fact that, while there was no elf, there was a somebody. And the very problem with that somebody was that he wasn't an elf. So, whenever she found herself thinking about him in a way that was anything other than strictly platonic, she would do anything she needed to do to get her mind onto something else, to stop the thought in its tracks. Though it would be hard to argue that Artemis truly belonged to the human world—so much of his life had been intertwined with the Fairy People—there was nothing he or anyone else could do about the fact that he was human.

And that made things complicated.

So, Holly had made the decision to simply not think about him in that way. It usually worked; however, it was hard to tell her heart to slow down when she saw him, or to tell her skin to stop that pleasant tingle if he accidentally grazed her arm with his hand. Unfortunately, it seemed only her mind was on board with her plan.

No1, knowing Holly as well as he did, could tell there was more in her short statement than a simple denial, but he never got the chance to probe further. That was because Polter coughed, startling a small bat which had become lost in the chutes and had ended up in the maintenance tunnel wherein Holly, No1, and Polter were standing. The bat flew from its hiding spot in a shadow past Holly and No1, and came only a couple of inches away from Polter's face before it flew into Chute #92 and up.

Polter had, as anyone would have expected, jumped when the bat had appeared and flown by. However, he was a tad too near the edge of the maintenance tunnel. An edge which had no guardrail, as it had to be a wide enough mouth to admit a small vehicle, such as the one Holly and Polter had arrived in. And when Polter jumped, he also staggered, losing one foot off of the edge.

Holly's quick reflexes were called into action. Only a few feet away from Polter, she leaped nearer and pulled him back into the safety of the tunnel. Unfortunately, this timely effort from Captain Short resulted in her losing her own balance, and stumbling off the edge. Polter had been thrown to his knees from the force of Holly switching places with him, so he was too far away to grab her; No1 was as well.

But while Holly's mind comprehended in a split second that she would have a very long time to fall before death would come, it did not have a chance to start thinking of the things one normally thinks about as impending death looms—such things as I wish I could have seen Arty one more time, I can't believe I forgot to write a will, and Arrrgghh!

Holly's mind didn't have the time for such thoughts because just before they would have started fighting each other for precedence in her brain, a neat rip in the fabric of time opened and swallowed Holly whole.

She instantly knew where she was. She realized she couldn't have died yet, as her fall had not even really begun, much less ended. Rather, she felt the now-familiar, disembodied sensation of travelling through time. It did not take Holly long to figure out why at such a moment she had passed into a time tunnel. No1 had opened it to catch her when it was clear neither he nor Polter would be able to pull her back onto firm ground. She would merely need to follow the pull of No1's magic to reappear in the present, where hopefully enough time would have elapsed to allow for either No1 or Polter or both to snatch her from her free fall.

But almost gradually, Holly felt a tug to another time as well. She had no idea what period in time it was that was calling to her with such…such happiness. It could have been the past or the future—all she knew was that she felt powerfully drawn to it. She still felt No1's magic tethering her to the present, but couldn't help following the warmth that seemed to envelope her as she approached it.

Wherever I'm headed, she thought, I hope this isn't some kind of a trap.

For once, it wasn't.

Author's Note: thank you for taking an interest in this story. You can expect regular and frequent updates if you decide you'd like to follow along. And of course, I would be very glad if you would take a moment to review.