Holly was at his house, because he'd asked her to come. She'd come through the front door, as she had been for years, ever since Artemis had come back to life. It was a resurrection which couldn't be mesmered out of his family's head – there was just too much evidence, what with the grave, the funeral, the obituaries, the will, and all – and so all of the Fowls were privy to the secret of the fairy underground. And they were all, always being watched. Watching the Fowl family, and working with Artemis the younger to save the world, was pretty much Holly's full-time job, now, along with several others on her team, one for each Fowl. Holly was the only one who ever went inside, because she'd been invited.

Juliette let her in, and Holly made her way upstairs to Artemis' office. The door was open, and he was at his computer, clicking away with his mouse. She felt a bit comforted by the surrounds, purely professional. Artemis was her friend – her best and closest friend, actually – but that moment in the cave the other day had left her flustered and confused for hours afterward.

"Ah, Holly," he greeted, when he realized she'd arrived. "Thank you for coming. I wanted to show you something that you'll find interesting." He beckoned her and she stepped into the room and walked up to his desk.

"What is it?" she asked, peering up at the multiple screens. "Looks like… medical information. DNA and stuff."

"Exactly right," Artemis agreed lightly. "Mine, to be specific." He stood and waved a hand at the chair, and Holly took the invitation to sit in it to view it better.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about genetics, Artemis," she told him. "You'll have to explain."

"Of course," he said. He clasped his hands behind his back and paced slowly back and forth behind her. "Ever since Foaly and you brought me back into this cloned body, I've been running certain tests, just to make sure everything is… in its proper place, so to speak."

Holly nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"Aside from a slight polydactyl mutation that caused the sixth toe, which has of course, been removed surgically," Artemis said, "Everything seems to be in good order. That is… except for one thing."

"What?" Holly asked, turning from the medical jargon to look up at his face.

Artemis came closer and placed a hand on the back of the chair. He leaned in, bringing him quite close to her – but he was pointing to the screens. "My telomeres," he told her. "Think of them as end-caps on my genes. Every time a cell replicates itself, the telomeres grow shorter. This is actually why humans and other creatures age, and eventually die. The longer your telomeres are, the longer your life is." Though he was speaking matter-of-factly, Holly had a hard time ignoring the fact that he was invading her private space. She stared resolutely at the screen. "Mine aren't shortening normally. Cell division and apoptosis seem to be fine, everything else is happening as it should."

Holly frowned at the screens and glanced up at him. He was looking down at her at just the same moment and for a moment she could smell the sweet mint of his breath, mingled with some kind of heady, earthy scent from his aftershave. Her head spun, and she had to clear her throat. "What does that mean for you?" she asked, suddenly concerned that he would grow old and die far sooner than he would have normally.

But Artemis smiled and knelt down so that his face was almost level with hers where she sat in the chair. He captured one of her hands in his and squeezed it gently. "What it means is that I am aging incredibly slowly. At best guess, I have another two thousand years left."

Holly froze and stared at him. "What?" she asked. "But how?"

Artemis shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think Foaly must've done it, somehow. He never kept electronic records of my cloning process, since it was illegal. If he has anything, it's written down, and even I can't hack a paper file from here." He smiled up at her. "Holly, don't you see what this means?"

She just stared at him for a moment. Artemis Fowl's smiles were rare, and the tenderness he was displaying was even more so. "You… you're not going to wither and die," she finally murmured. "You'll live maybe as long as I will. Maybe even longer."

He nodded. "That's right. You won't have to say goodbye to me. You won't have to bury me again in eighty or ninety years."

Holly shuddered, remembering all too vividly the sight of his corpse on the ground, limp and lifeless. And then she surged forward and flung her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. "The Council isn't going to like this," she said.

Artemis wrapped his arms around her, gentle and careful, and hugged back. "There's nothing they can do about it," he replied. He closed his eyes to savor the feel of her in his arms. They'd shared hugs dozens of times, but more and more he'd come to value them as more than simply an embrace between friends, at least on his part. He turned his nose into her short auburn hair and silently inhaled the scent of her.

She started to pull back, but Artemis kept his hold on her for just a second longer, and dared to kiss her cheek. Then he let her go.

Holly got up out of the chair and crossed her arms, and paced back and forth; mimicking the path he'd taken earlier. "Have you told your family?" she asked him.

He was standing where he'd been kneeling, and was watching her. He nodded. "Yes. Mother and Father don't know what to think. Butler is beside himself with worry over who'll protect me once he's gone." He sobered. "But I think I know how you felt. Now I'll have to watch my parents and even brothers grow old… eventually they'll look older than me. Eventually, they'll die. And I will keep going."

Holly stopped her pacing to look up at Artemis, and her expression softened. "I'm sorry," she said. After a moment she attempted to cheer him up. "You could become the family guardian. You can look after their children, and their grand-children, and so on."

Artemis nodded. "Already something I've considered. Since I'm legally dead, the twins will inherit everything, anyway. We've known that for years. All I have are my own accounts." Both of them knew that these accounts were under a false identity, as Artemis Fowl II was no longer entitled to open a bank account under his own name, except in Haven. Even that had been a tricky legal conundrum. They also both knew that Artemis, under an assumed name, actually did own several houses all over the world, in England, France, America, Japan, China, South Africa, and Italy.

He also owned one house in Haven, as a matter of fact. Holly didn't know that, yet, though. Renovations were under way to make it comfortable – with high enough ceilings that he could stand fully, and spacious rooms with plenty of furniture that would accommodate him. Bearing in mind his long-term plan to woo her, he'd also equipped it with a state-of-the art training dojo and plenty of elf-sized accommodations.

Artemis thought that his plan was going well. The age thing was now a non-issue. All that was left were Holly's reluctance to consider cross-species romances as feasible, and their size differences. Of the latter he could do nothing, but as for the former…

He'd better get to work.

"I think I should speak to Foaly about this discovery," Artemis finally said.

Holly nodded right away. "Agreed. Perhaps he'll have something in his records to explain how this happened. Maybe there are other things in there that you haven't figured out, yet." She turned toward the door and started toward it. "Come on, I'll bring you down there."