Title: A Christmas Incident
Author: Annie-morphs
Rating: K/PG
Genre(s): General/Romance
Summary: Holly, Root, Mulch, Foaly, and Trouble spend their Christmas week with Artemis Fowl and the Butler siblings. Who knows what will come from intertwining the People with Mud Men during the holiday?
Warning(s): There may be some OOC ahead, so please beware.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, Eoin Colfer does.
Notes: After two years, I've decided to continue my used-to-be one-shot due to the reviews I got! Thanks for all the support. Now, I hope you enjoy! And...apologies for the OOC here, I'm working on doing a better job so be free to give any feedback on how to improve. Then again...This fanfic was suppose to be fun, so maybe some OOC might be needed. Also, I have several chapters written ahead of time (in my notebook which I take to school). After every week I'll update, but I will sometimes update ahead of time if I get a good number of reviews. Well anyways, onto the story.

Chapter Summary: It's the next day and Holly isn't in a pleasant mood. In this chapter, an explanation will be provided for those of you who wondered how Holly managed to reach Artemis's height in the last chapter. And also how they managed to get permission to go to Fowl Manor for this Christmas.

A Christmas Incident
Chapter Two: Holly's Not So Perfect Start

The Lower Elements
Haven City, Police Plaza,
Front Desk

Holly sat at an office desk, leaning the weight of her head on her hand. Commander Root had assigned her this job for a very strange, unknown reason, but as soon as more and more officers began piling into the plaza, Holly had a slight suspicion that this was a sly way to torture her. After Foaly's cruel idea of broadcasting yesterday's incident to the entire Police Plaza, word got out and everyone made it a point to tease the captain. Holly fumed as she reviewed what had been said so far.

"Nice going, Captain! You scored a Mud Boy."

"Tsk, tsk. Such a disgrace…kissing a Mud Boy, for Frond's sake!"

"My, my, captain this can't be good for your reputation."

And it definitely wasn't good. Holly had lost count of the numerous times she had to defend herself. None of her attempts worked. This was too evil!

Holly groaned. After her desk shift was over, it would mean another trip above grounds to the manor. She almost regretted agreeing with this vacation since it now meant having to live under the same roof as the Mud Boy who she just recently kissed.

Vinyaya had managed to get an okay from the Council to allow Root, and four others that he chose, a reserved shuttle trip to the surface. They reasoned that it would be a wonderful way to create close personal connections with Artemis Fowl to prevent any treacherous plotting against the People.

The first visit had been a complete surprise to Artemis, Butler, and Juliet. Apparently, the People had made no move to alert them of the visits coming this following holiday week. They were surprisingly lucky, however. Angeline and her husband were on an early Christmas trip for three weeks. A week had passed since Artemis's parents left, leaving Artemis two more weeks to be alone.

Originally, he had been plotting to steal and forge a painting, but to Butler's surprise, Artemis had placed the plotting down for the moment and gave an okay to the visits. The scheme he was planning was nearly complete and could be put in action during the remaining week after the fairies left. Artemis found the idea of visits from the People rather interesting. Over the years of contact with the People, Artemis had somehow changed personality-wise. He had become slightly more interpersonal. Perhaps it was the fact that he now had his parents back or maybe because of the bonds he experienced with his underground friends. Despite his improved social relations, he was still lonely as ever.

And so, Foaly was given a convenient opportunity to test his new invention. It allowed fairies to become human for a good amount of time in exchange of 1/25 of their magic. Initially, the invention was supposed to be used to disguise the LEP among Mud People, but the occasion seemed just too perfect to test the invention.

Anyway, coming back to Captain Short's desk job. She found it very boring as the job only meant keeping everything organized. It came to the point where she almost wished for more officers to come and tease her! But that wasn't possible since the majority of them were out doing their duties. As a result, Holly caught herself dozing off or daydreaming.

She found it completely frustrating how all her thoughts revolved over one thing – Artemis's lips. The captain couldn't help but think about the incident. Holly only had contact with his lips for a split second but it was enough to feel the softness of his pink, moist lips.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Foaly clip-clopped towards her desk with a satisfied grin. The grin still set her off even after she had practically beaten Foaly to a pulp the second she found out about what he had done.

"You hairy donkey! How dare you come here! You know I still haven't forgiven you for recording that kiss!"

Foaly let out a horsey laugh. "But Holly, with the way you're shouting, I doubt I would have even needed to broadcast the event."

Holly growled and glanced away,"What do you want?"

The centaur pouted, "Can't a friend pay another friend a visit during his free time?"

Holly clearly wasn't in a good mood and Foaly wasn't helping at all."You need a reason to leave your precious computers. So just say what you want already!"

Foaly mumbled something about elves and their moods.

"Foaly!"

Pony-boy cringed,"Root said your shift is over. It's time to go to the surface."

The elf gratefully stood up from her desk and stretched,"About time."

The centaur's ears instantly perked up at the opportunity to tease,"Eh? What did you say? You're dying to see the Mud Boy?"

Holly closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in response. A low, scary growl emitted from her lips,"Donkey-boy, you better take that enormous, hairy behind of your's back to the Operations Booth as fast as you can."

Foaly let out an involuntary whimper and scampered away, with Holly closely behind.

Root happened to choose that moment to step out from the door. "SHORT! PONY-BOY! Stop causing a racket! Slow down!"

Their racket, surprisingly, drowned out the commander's roaring voice.

Root glared daggers. "I'll be putting you behind a desk for this, Short! And cutting your budget, Foaly!"

But they had already disappeared around the corner.

By the time the commander arrived at the Operations Booth, Foaly was found cowering from Holly's foot.

"SHORT!"

This finally snapped Holly from Foaly's trembling figure. The centaur took this chance to scramble away from her. Holly glared at him then glanced at the commander's increasingly reddening face.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Captain?"

Holly looked down. "Sorry, sir. I got carried away...But who can blame me after what Foaly did!"

The commander sent her a withering look,"That does not give you a good enough reason to disrupt the plaza, Short." Holly could see a visible vein pulsing at Root's temple.

She mumbled,"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." She sent another glare to Foaly to let him know that she was only letting the issue slide for now.

Shortly after, Mulch arrived with an officer escorting him. It was his luck that Holly managed to spot him trying to smuggle the officer's ID.

"Drop it, Mulch," she ordered.

Mulch frowned. "Can't I get a normal greeting? Such as 'hey, Mulch' or 'nice to see you, Mulch'."

Holly gave him a look."Not when you're trying to steal something. I said, drop it." Mulch guiltily passed the ID back to the officer who pocketed it with a flushed face. Root dismissed Mulch's escort.

Mulch decided to make a conversation,"So how's it going, Holly?"

"Eh…Foaly here is still trying to torture me about the mistletoe." Holly rolled her eyes.

Mulch laughed,"Same old Foaly."

Root butted in,"Captain Kelp is the only one remaining. Once he gets here, we can be on our way."

"Speak of the devil – Trouble's here." Foaly announced.

And surely, he was.

"Sorry, I'm late." Trouble grinned apologetically.

Foaly picked up three tablets from the equipment rack and handed one each to Holly, Root, and Trouble.

The commander held the tablet in his palm,"You've both completed the Ritual as instructed, am I right?"

"Yes, sir," they replied.

"Good. The last thing we need is for the two of you to have all your magic sapped away from these things." Root popped the tablet into his mouth and chewed. Holly and Trouble followed suit.

The effects took place immediately.

Foaly and Mulch watched as the three elves sprouted a good 2-3 feet. They grew taller and wider. We can't have extremely thin humans, now can we? The growing slowly stopped and one by one, they fell to their knees.

As the elves slowly regained their strength, Foaly murmured thoughtfully, "I should really try to fix the exhaustion."

Mulch nodded,"It worries me to think about what might happen if a non-magic filled fairy were to take it by accident."

Foaly agreed,"Indeed. So let's make sure we don't let that happen."

Trouble rose weakly to his knees first, then helped Holly and Root up. "Alright there?"

"I'm fine. Thank you, Captain Kelp." Root brushed off his knees.

"Alright then, lets go." Holly headed for the door, with exhaustion still weighing her humanized body down. She grabbed a bottle on the way out and tossed it to Mulch. He squirted the sunscreen onto his hands and applied it quickly before heading out.