When Artemis saw who was standing on the stairs in front of the house, he smiled and raised his eyebrows. "Were you concerned you were interrupting something?" he asked, amused.
"What?" she replied, dazed.
"I only mention it because you are not typically in the habit of ringing the doorbell at your own home."
"Oh, right," she said, lamely.
Artemis seemed taken aback by Holly's stupor. And a stupor it was. Not many could have picked up an intelligible thought from Holly's brain at that moment.
"And you are home early from your shift as well. Is something the matter?" Artemis queried, his brow furrowed.
She still was having trouble formulating a response to what she was seeing.
Artemis's worried eyes wandered to the name badge on her jumpsuit, rested there for a moment, and then rapidly shot to the single acorn on her uniform. He then looked down at her left hand. Understanding flooded his face. Holly was glad it seemed someone understood what was going on here.
"Captain Short," he said, and she started when she realized the significance. He hadn't called her "Major", her apparent rank in the future. "Have you been playing with rifts in the fabric of time again?"
He knew. She saw no point in denying it. Holly nodded, and said "Yes."
He smirked down at Holly. "I see." He even shook his head and laughed shortly. "This explains a great deal," he said, almost to himself. "Why don't you come inside for a few minutes? I apparently have some explaining to do."
She hesitated a moment, thinking whether she should ask Artemis—future Artemis—whether it was really a good idea for her to not just hop back into the time stream and go back to the present. But then, she reasoned, he is Artemis Fowl, and would warn me if he thought their interactions would mess up the space-time continuum or whatever it was called. So, she followed him inside.
The interior of the house was much more spacious than was found in the typical fairy household. In particular, Holly noted the high ceilings. The furniture in the entryway and front room was a mix of human and fairy-sized items, but all was modern and expensive-looking. However, Holly was comforted to see that the house was not completely immaculate—it also had a distinct "lived-in" look, with a few open books on the dark brown coffee table, and a coat draped over one of the armchairs.
Artemis led Holly over to the sofa in the front room, and sat down, gesturing for her to do the same. She sat wordlessly.
"So," he started, "from what time have you come?"
"About six years ago," she replied.
He smirked again. "And what in particular caused you to enter the time stream?"
"I was on duty in Chute 92 and I stumbled and was about to fall out of the maintenance tunnel Polter and I were stationed in. No1 was there and opened up the time stream to catch me. And since I am apparently still alive six years in the future, his plan must have worked."
Artemis laughed briefly. "Yes, you are certainly still alive." He shook his head. "All this time I've wondered…" he said, again seeming to speak to himself.
All of this was nearly driving Holly crazy. What on earth did he mean? She wanted to ask him about all the laughing and the smirking, but instead she blurted out, "If I supposedly live here, why are you here right now?"
Another smile from Artemis Fowl. This time it was a bit more…soft? She struggled for an appropriate word to describe it. But then he raised his eyebrows as if anticipating something. "Brace yourself," he said, ominously.
He turned around where he sat on the sofa to take a picture frame off the end table abutting it. He looked at it for a moment, then his smile turned almost wicked as he handed it to Holly.
Of all that she had seen in her years as an LEP officer, this almost took the cake as the most astonishing—and she had seen some pretty crazy stuff.
She and Artemis Fowl in traditional elfin wedding clothes—as traditional as they could make them for a human. Artemis' arm around her. Both of them smiling. They looked…happy. Really happy.
Though it was difficult to tear her eyes away from the picture—a memory which had not yet occurred in her mind—she looked up at Artemis, who was watching her carefully. When their eyes met, he held up his left hand, which had a single band of white gold around his ring finger. "We're married," he said, simply.
"We're married," she repeated, almost in a whisper.
"Yes. For nearly five years now," he added.
"But I'm—and you're—" She couldn't even finish.
"Yes, it would seem to you like there are some…obstacles. Believe me, they seemed insurmountable to me as well back in your present time. But the passage of time has proven them all to be red herrings."
"Wait…we've been married five years? And this is six years in the future…so that means—"
"Yes. In your time you are a little over a year away. Don't worry—it was a small wedding. You didn't need much time to plan." That infuriating smile was still on his face—as if he found the turning of Holly's world completely upside down to be the most amusing thing in the world.
"Do I tell you about this trip?" Holly asked.
"Yes, but I certainly didn't know you came to the future and saw me. You mentioned briefly that No1 had sent you hurtling through time to stop you from hurtling to an untimely end, but you never told me where or when you went."
Holly shook her head, still having trouble taking everything in. "But the 'obstacles', as you called them—I'm having a hard time believing they turn out to be nothing," she said, skeptically.
Artemis rolled his eyes, and spoke in a patronizing tone, "You can believe it or not. There is some evidence, however, that may be a bit difficult to ignore."
So five years of so-called marriage hadn't changed Artemis Fowl too much then, Holly thought. "What evidence?"
"The photograph in your hands, for instance."
"That doesn't tell me everything. What about your life on the surface? Do you expect me to believe you just up and left it all behind?"
"Holly," he sighed, "it's not like I can never visit the surface. I don't even need a visa—you do, though, and the application process annoys you every single time we go up to visit my family. And I still put out patents and academic papers in the human world. I am simply thought by other humans to be incredibly reclusive—not an uncommon trait for a genius."
Holly actually laughed, despite the confusion she was still feeling.
"My family, by the way, is very fond of you. I believe they were amazed that I could be interested in anything other than computer programming and mechanical engineering."
She was hesitant to ask the biggest question on her mind—after all, what were the odds that such a major problem could ever be solved, much less in a six year span?—but decided she needed to know. "But…won't you age as a human would? Wouldn't we only have five or six decades together?" That may have been a good, long marriage by Mud People standards—but it wasn't long enough in Holly's mind.
He shook his head. "No. Foaly and I worked out a way to slow my aging to almost a fairy's pace. My projected lifespan is not quite as long as the average lifespan of an elf, but to the best of our knowledge, it should come within a few decades. It was not a solution we could use on many other humans—if on any at all. My dealings with the People have caused me to become considerably more…tolerant to certain variants of magic than a normal human being. And it requires regular infusions of No1's magic to keep it effective. It may take two or three more decades to truly judge the solution, but according to the data we have so far, it seems to be working very well."
Holly was surprised at the sudden emotion she felt in her chest as a result of Artemis's words. Underpinning all of her suppression of thoughts about him was the fact that, even if they did decide to get together, he would only be alive a few decades more and it wouldn't be worth the immense pain it would cost when he deteriorated and died. Better to save herself from such heartbreak.
But now he was telling her that they had much greater odds of living life together for the long haul. With the knowledge she now had that he could survive as long as or almost as long as she could, her resistance was crumbling fast.
It took a moment for the emotion to pass, but when it did she felt her face grow warm as another question entered her head. She very much wanted to ask it, but it would be…weird.
Artemis seemed again to sense her thoughts—I guess he's become good at reading me over five years of marriage—and had the decency to at least try not to smile as he said, "I don't want to overload you with too much information, nor offend propriety, but I should also assure you that you and I…er…"—he seemed to struggle for a moment for words—"…function as any other normal human or elfin couple would."
Holly sat there, blinking, for a moment, but then burst out laughing. Artemis laughed as well. One of the most amazing things she had seen since entering the house with Artemis was seeing how light-hearted he was in the future. He had never been one to laugh much. That seemed different now. She liked seeing him so happy.
"On a related note, I believe I need to show you one more thing," he said, after they had stopped laughing. "Follow me."
They left the front room and travelled up a beautiful spiral staircase to an upper floor, and down a hallway to a closed door on their right. Artemis put a finger to his lips to indicate they needed to be quiet. He opened the door to reveal a dark room, a shaft of light from the hallway casting a shard of light into the blackness. She stopped breathing when she saw a crib.
She looked at Artemis, hope, fear, and a million other emotions warring inside of her. He only nodded.
Stepping softly through the room towards the crib, she managed to take a deep breath before looking over the railing down onto the little mattress below.
There lay a sleeping little boy with pointed ears and black hair, tangled in blankets and clutching a stuffed rocket ship. The boy was lying on his back so that his face was turned up towards her. The face looked remarkably like the ten-year-old face she had seen of the man who was now standing beside her—a face she had also seen when travelling through time. The small boy in front of her now was not so pale, though. He looked to be two or three years old.
He was perfect. And though she didn't know how it was possible, her heart swelled in size to allow an influx of love for this little boy she had only just met, and to whom she would have to say goodbye just as suddenly.
Looking up at Artemis, she knew the answer to the question in her eyes already. He obliged, however, by saying, in a whisper, "Allow me to introduce Charlie Fowl, our son. He's three years old now."
She said the only thing she felt she could possibly utter at that moment. "He looks like you." Glancing at Artemis as she made the comment, she saw an expression of pride come across his face as he looked down at the sleeping boy.
They stood there for a few moments in silence, watching the child sleep, both lost in thought. Eventually, they turned around and left the room, though Holly felt as if she could have watched the little boy for hours more. Artemis quietly closed the door behind him.
They walked back down to the front room in silence, and sat again upon the sofa. Artemis cleared his throat and said, "Yes, we are parents to one of the few elf-human hybrids in history. Apparently elves have been hesitant to mix with humans throughout the past several thousand years," he said. Then a wicked grin spread over his face. "Though your future self doesn't seem too repulsed. In fact, just the other day you informed me that we are going to have another child."
She rolled her eyes, though she couldn't help but smile. He was just as arrogant as ever. But internally, possibilities were opening up—possibilities she had only once allowed herself to consider, when she had sat with Artemis Fowl on the hood of a stolen car during an impossible mission.
"Arty," she said, "we're happy, aren't we? I mean, in your time. It wasn't a mistake?"
His eyes and smile softened with the sincerity of her question. "Yes, we are very happy, and I don't think either of us has ever thought it was a mistake. That's not to say we don't drive each other to insanity sometimes…but we love each other very much."
The answered satisfied Holly. She decided to change the subject to something a bit lighter. "So, do you just sit around at home all day while I save Haven?"
"No—sometimes we save Haven together. I still do quite a bit of consulting work for the LEP. I also do quite a bit of work in my study or my laboratory, here at the house. I was just working on a paper for a physics journal when you decided to pay me a visit."
"Something ground-breaking?"
"Would you expect anything else from me?"
"Yeah, yeah. So in my time we're getting married a year from now," she said, still having trouble believing it. "Is there any use asking how it happened? How we got together?"
"If you would believe it, I actually was the first to admit my feelings, though only some subtle encouragement from you gave me enough courage to do so."
"What do you mean, 'subtle encouragement'?"
"Oh, I daresay you will figure it out. You already know the denouement of the story; I cannot give away the rising action and climax. I would be unspeakably cruel to deprive you of the enjoyment of living through it all."
"Typical Artemis Fowl—only telling people what he thinks they need to know." She gave him an affectionate punch in the arm.
A cry interrupted their conversation, and Artemis got up from the sofa. "It's a good thing we could hear him from down here. I left the monitor in my study when I came down to answer the door. I will be back momentarily." He left Holly sitting where she was and went back upstairs.
A minute or two later, he came back down with little Charlie, who was snuggled against his father, his little arms around Artemis's neck and his head on his shoulder. Though Holly knew Charlie was large for a three-year-old elf (no doubt due to his human heritage), he looked very small in Artemis's arms.
The first time Holly had seen Artemis with his younger brothers, she had been surprised at how good he was with them—she had always thought he might think little children frustrating in their simplicity; however, he had shown remarkable patience, endeavouring (with varying degrees of success) to teach them what they didn't know rather than throwing up his hands in exasperation. Even if what he was trying to teach them was a bit ridiculous.
She saw the same patience in him now as he held his—their—son in his arms. And that sight affected her profoundly.
At age three, elves, being slower to age than humans, were generally still more or less infants, still crawling rather than walking, and not really having the ability to speak in anything more than random syllables. Artemis turned Charlie so that he could see Holly. Perhaps it was the fact that Charlie's father was a genius, but Holly was taken aback when the boy smiled and said "Hi Mommy!"
Artemis smiled at the expression on Holly's face—a deer caught in headlights. "Do you want to hold your future son?" he asked, amusement in his eyes. She nodded.
He gently placed the child in her arms. The love that had taken hold of her earlier, when she had first seen him, swelled within her chest. It was a strange sensation, knowing as she did that this child would not really be hers for a few years yet. But she knew she would hold onto this memory until he was.
Without warning, they heard footsteps on the stairs outside leading up to the front door. Holly, knowing it would probably be herself arriving home, gave Charlie back to Artemis as hurriedly as she could while still being gentle. Artemis nodded at her. He knew as well as she that her future self might be a bit…disturbed to see another version of herself standing in her front room. She had already toyed enough with the vagaries of time travel for one day. So, she shielded and went to stand in the corner of the front room. As long as her future self didn't enter the house wearing her LEP helmet, she should be okay. She decided she would leave once opportunity permitted.
The front door opened, and in walked future Holly. Holly was surprised that, if anything, she appeared a bit younger than she currently was—not by much, but it was enough that she noticed it.
Future Holly broke out in a smile when she saw Artemis standing with Charlie in the front room. Charlie didn't seem too bothered by the fact that his mother had previously been sitting on the sofa but was now walking through the front door. Holly watched as her future self came over to where her husband (the thought still amazed her) stood holding their son. Future Holly gave Charlie a kiss on his forehead and said, "Hey buddy, I missed you today!" She took him into her arms and snuggled him for a moment, before saying, "I'm just going to put you down for a second so I can say hello to Daddy," and putting him in a baby swing in another corner of the room that the other Holly only now noticed.
Artemis had obligingly sat down on the arm of one of the chairs so he would be closer to Holly's height. Future Holly returned to where he was and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I've missed you, too," she said, in a low voice. He smiled back at her, and they kissed deeply. As they parted, future Holly kept her arms around Artemis's neck as she said, in that same low voice, "It was a very long day today. I think I'm going to need some help de-stressing after we put Charlie to bed."
Artemis, perhaps conscious that present Holly was somewhere in the vicinity witnessing her future self's ardour, blushed bright red, and he chuckled a bit nervously. "I'll see what I can do to help," he replied.
Future Holly extricated herself from Artemis and picked up Charlie again. Artemis stood and cleared his throat. "Holly, it is recycling day tomorrow, is it not?"
Future Holly thought for a moment. "Yep, I think it is. We'll need to remember to take it out tomorrow morning."
Artemis replied, looking significantly over at present Holly's general area. "I think I'll take it out right now. I believe I could benefit from a moment of fresh air before we start supper."
He disappeared to the kitchen and returned a few moments later with a bag clearly full of rubbish. He walked through the front room area and opened the front door. He then took two shoes from the closet beside the door and began slowly putting them on his feet. Present Holly took the opportunity to silently cross to the door and slip outside. Artemis finished with his shoes and followed her.
Artemis, true to his word, put the bag in a blue bin sitting on the curb in front of the house. Identical bins lined both sides of the residential street. Then he stepped into an area that Holly recognized would make him invisible to anyone in the house, even if they stood right at the large front window. She approached him, ensuring she would not be seen, and unshielded.
"So," he said to her, quietly, "you have been granted a rare glimpse into your future life. I hope you like what you have seen."
"It looks amazing," she replied, sincerely. "I would stay longer if I could, but No1's magic is weakening."
Smiling, he responded, "You will get here soon enough."
"But there's one thing I don't get. Why didn't you just tell me to go back to the past when you first saw me today? Wasn't it dangerous somehow for me to see so much of my future?"
He sighed, switching into lecture mode. "Holly, have I not told you before? The fact that you have seen anything here today will make no difference to your time, my time, or any time in between. In my time, your trip to the future happened six years ago. It has affected everything that has happened since already. In fact, when I realized you were from the past, I knew instantly that I needed to show you your future. I knew I needed to demonstrate to you that you and I could and did work out."
"How did you know?"
"We have been friends for years, Holly. Except for a brief period—also during time travel—there had been nothing more between us—at least, nothing either of us would admit—until six years ago. You came back from a short trip into time, and it seemed something had somehow changed between us. Then, when I finally told you how I felt about you, despite all of the problems I saw, you were completely confident that all of my worries would come to naught. Despite my typical need to project the future success of any venture, I cast all desire for certainty aside and depended upon the confidence you exuded when it came to the two of us. For the first time in my life I was willing to forget logic and lean upon your hope. We were not together long before I proposed marriage." He paused. "When I realized you were from six years ago, I knew that you had to know your future, because you had known it all along." He grinned. "Does that make sense?"
"It might if you give me a few minutes to think about it," she joked.
"Just please be patient with me when you arrive back in the past. That Artemis cares for you deeply, but has not yet allowed himself to see past the apparent impediments to a relationship with you. And to him, the greatest impediment of all is believing you care for him only as a friend. If you can give him a few reasons to hope otherwise, the rest of his resistance will crumble."
Holly simply nodded. He had given her a lot to think about.
He went on. "One more thing before you go. How do you feel about the Artemis of your time? I only ask out of curiosity. I don't trust the Holly of my time to remember the facts correctly."
She hesitated for a moment, then realized that she wasn't going to embarrass herself by telling the truth—her future self was married to this man, for Frond's sake. So she said, "I feel about him just about the same way he feels about me. Though that is starting to change thanks to you sharing all of your past self's secrets."
Artemis laughed—a wonderful sound that she heard too seldom in the present. "Well," he said, shaking his head and smiling, "I suppose I have a small, lost bat and a jumpy LEP rookie to thank for my current happiness. If you and I had been left to our own devices, we would have ended up alone. Trust the two of us to have time travel act as our matchmaker."
Holly couldn't help but laugh as well. It was true—she and Artemis were not a traditional couple in any sense of the phrase.
She reached out and hugged Artemis. "Thanks, Arty. This has been a very…enlightening trip." As she walked back to the spot on the sidewalk where she had appeared, she felt No1's magic grow stronger.
"Oh, and Holly?"
She turned back to face him. "What?"
"You are going to end up a little bit younger when you return to your time. Not as young as the last time, but a bit younger. But all of your body parts remain intact. I tell you this so you won't be concerned about something going wrong during your trip back."
"Thanks for the heads up. As long as I don't have to prove my age everywhere I go…"
As she let herself be pulled by No1's magic back into the time tunnel, she thought momentarily about how she had never really given much consideration to ever getting married and having a family. If someone had come up to her on the street and told her she would be getting married in a year, she would have either laughed at them or punched them. And if by some miracle she believed that person, she would have been terrified.
But seeing her life, how happy she was in the future…she now knew that that was the life for her.
Author's Note: as usual, please review! Thanks to those who have reviewed/favorited/followed this story!
