A/N: Holly :) I don't own anything.

Temporal

Chapter Three:

The Target Isn't Tara

Holly was flying back home, strictly speaking, when Foaly finally made contact with her. "Whew. That was a close one there. I had to do some heavy editing with what I lifted from the combined memory traces, and I still don't really know what was true. I just thank Haven you are home, Holly."

"Me too, Foaly," Holly said, flipping down and doing a dive so that her toes would skim the waves off the shore of Ireland.

"Wait a minute. . ." she could hear the centaur's fingers clicking on his obsolete keyboard. "You're not home. What are you doing? You don't have clearance for a moonlit jaunt through the waves near the Cliffs of Moher!"

"Sure I do," Holly said lazily. "With Trouble in command, I basically have clearance for anything."

"I told you he still fancies you," Foaly snickered.

Holly colored despite her years and her recent streak of good luck. "He does not!" she said indignantly. "He never did in the first place. He just values me as the hard working officer that I am, and when I mailed him after I left the council chamber to ask if I could perform the ritual at Tara tonight, he said yes, of course. So I do have clearance, strictly speaking."

"There isn't another reason you want to be in Ireland tonight, is there?" Foaly asked slyly.

The slight pause before Holly responded gave her away. "No. Of course not."

"The reason doesn't happen to start with an 'A' and end in an 'L,' does it?"

"I told you Foaly, I don't want to talk about it," Holly groaned. "Make your own conclusions based on whatever convoluted story you extracted from the memory diodes and Opal Koiboi. I'm not contributing to your dependency on knowing everything that happens over the earth and under it, past, present, and future."

Now it was Foaly's turn to remain silent. So something had happened in the past. Something life-changing. Just as, if not more, life-changing as what had happened to her the last time she had slipped through the clutches of time and death into the past. Foaly had gathered what had happened last time: she and Artemis had become friends before the Hybras Incident, but after going through the time stream together, Artemis saving her life, and the two of them swapping eyeballs, their friendship had been closer than ever—closer than anything he had ever heard of between an Elf and a human, even during the time of Frond.

What else could have possibly have happened?

His genius pieced together with imperfect recordings of the incident had led him to the conclusion that whatever that had happened was not pretty. Not pretty, as in, somewhere along the line, Holly had had her heart broken, or something.

Though he wasn't sure how that was possible.

And he knew that Fowl Manor was a couple hundred miles inland, across the island. So maybe Holly wasn't searching for Artemis at all. Still—

He decided to say something to distract her as he did some digging. "I don't want to know everything, I do know everything," he protested as his fingers flew over the keyboard. Artemis Fowl, Artemis Fowl. . .

Holly rolled her eyes. "Then why do you still ask me annoying questions, genius?"

"So I don't frighten you, oh Captain. I make a habit of not frightening my friends."

"You mean me? And Cabilline, if you count her."

Foaly whinnied. "I'm hurt, Holly, I truly am." A light gently pulsed on his screen and he grinned. "So, how did you know Artemis was in Galway?" he asked conversationally.

Holly made a growling noise of frustration deep in her throat and zipped closer to the cliffs, scaring some puffins. "You are sticking your nose in my business, Foaly."

"That's my job. And hey, it's been barely a week. Why should you be meeting up with Fowl so soon?"

Holly would have massaged her temples if they weren't encased in a hi-tech helmet that could do it for her. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the gentle feeling. She didn't want to tell Foaly what had happened. She didn't want to tell him that she was, in fact, looking for Artemis. She didn't want to tell him that Artemis didn't even know she was coming. "I'm not," she said stubbornly.

Foaly sighed. "Look, Holly. I know you don't want to talk about this, but maybe you need someone to listen to you. And who else would be able to help but me? And Holly?"

"Yes," she muttered.

"You can trust me."

That did it. Before she knew it, she was crying and she had to alight on the outcrop of rock called the Stack next to the Cliffs. And before she knew it, she was telling Foaly everything.

Everything.