A long time from now, she might realize that it was always about her. Of course it was about her, who else could it have been? She saved me from myself when I was ready to risk interspecies war for a bit - alright, fine, not a bit, a ton - of gold. She told me to use my genius for good. Surely this counts?
Sixty-eight years after the death of Artemis Fowl.
It was at least two hours past dawn over the European continent, well past bedtime for most upstanding citizens of Haven City. The artificial sky of Haven was dark, and the harsh glow of the streetlights only lit up most of the street, but a broken light here or there left a few swaths of darkness present. The few fairies in Haven who were on foot at this hour walked mostly with their heads down, though they looked up and sped up as they approached the darkened areas and darted quickly to the next lit section.
Artemis Fowl was not only awake and in Haven City, but was headed to a place he never thought he'd ever find himself.
Artemis patted his right pocket and his left hip carefully as he prepared to enter the squat building with the faux-wood façade, and a spot-lit sign reading The Clover Patch above the door. Two small, hard boxes were there: the holoprojector on his hip, and the C Cube - his continuing side project - in his pocket. The holoprojector was currently making him look like pale off-white air sprite with thin cheeks, a button nose, and sandy brown hair that came down to his chin, held up by a headband. He did not enjoy this particular disguise.
It was only after a good bit of research, he found that it was probably the most practical if he needed to walk around unhindered in Haven City. As an air sprite, he appeared only slightly taller than average, though he still towered over most other residents of the city. The hologram made it look as if he was only wearing dark-blue pants and a faded grey vest, from which long translucent-white wings protruded out the back. In this case, it helped because people tended to give air sprites a wide berth due to their extremely sensitive wings and unfortunate tendencies to call down gusts of wind on people who bumped into them.
The sound of shouts drew his attention back to the bar. He heard the smash of breaking glass and further shouts, and hesitated. There was no way he was here for a bar fight, of all things. But then again, one never did know…
While he was still debating the wisdom of entering the establishment though, the door swung open, and an elf was ejected out into the street by an overly muscled, and quite irate pixie.
"That's enough of that!" said the pixie. "I don't care who you are, missy - you can't be causin' that kind of trouble in my bar! This here is a respectable establishment!"
The door slammed shut with a definitive sound.
Artemis stood, unmoving, as the ejected elf slowly picked herself up.
She had short hair - brownish in the low light - tan skin, and wore cargo pants, accompanied by a dark, form-fitting crop top under a light jacket that currently only had one arm threaded through it. When she looked up, Artemis could see smeared makeup across the elf's eyes, and a faint pink glow from her cheeks.
"D'Arvit…" she cursed to no one in particular, the bitter odor of alcohol accompanying her speech. "D'Arvitn' chauvinist idiots…"
Blue sparks flew across the knuckles on her right hand, knitting torn skin back together.
Artemis felt a shiver run down from his head to his toes.
Holly.
He'd expected to see her, of course. But probably not like this.
He carefully approached her, bending down a little in the process.
"Are you okay?" he asked, surprised at how quiet his voice came out to be.
Holly's eyes snapped up, noticing him for the first time.
"Fine," she snapped, "I'm fine."
She slipped her jacket fully on and turned quickly, stumbled, but caught herself and began to march her way down the sidewalk.
Artemis took a few steps in her direction, considering his options as he walked.
The elf spun around. "Why are you following me?"
Artemis made his decision.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay… Holly."
Her face displayed shock briefly, then her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Who are you?" she asked sharply, "How do you know who I am?"
"I recognize you from the Fowl Manor incident," he said quickly. "I was there figuring out the time stop for it. I could never… I could never forget your face."
These were, of course, all true statements.
Holly paused, seemingly confused by something, before she turned around again and started walking in wide, wavering, drink-induced curves.
It didn't take much for Artemis to catch up with her.
"Holly, you look quite unsteady," he noted, "where are you trying to go?"
With some hesitation, he moved to steady her by holding onto her elbow. She brushed him off with a strong shove, a movement that, unfortunately, didn't do much to him, but sent her tripping and falling in the other direction.
Artemis frowned, and stopped, crouching down, but not making a move to help her.
"Holly, I am a friend. I am here to help. You should let me, for your own good."
The elf twisted around so that she was sitting on the ground, her elbows supporting herself from behind her. She stared at him, and he could see her mind trying to piece together what was going on. His voice was likely giving her some pause, if she recognized it, which, in all likelihood, she did. But it was paired with completely contradictory stimuli. Even with the Fowl Manor cue, the fact that she was looking at an air sprite in the streets of Haven would probably throw her off. He hoped the unconscious familiarity was something that would work for him, rather than against him.
"You…" she said finally, "I know you… from… somewhere."
Drunk Holly was not something Artemis had ever expected to see. It was not something he knew what to do with, and it was hard to tell whether or not her inebriated state would help or hurt him. By the sound of what happened at the bar though, he at least hoped that she didn't turn violent on him. Violent Holly he'd seen before, and being on the receiving end of that was never, ever pleasant.
"Sprawled on the ground on the side of the road is not a good look for you, Holly," he said, smiling without mirth. "Let's go over there," he suggested, pointing down the deserted road to a bus stop bench that he had noted earlier. "We can have a seat, and it's a public place, well-lit and all."
Not that he had any doubt that Holly could defend herself against him. If anything, he had doubts about the reverse.
Holly looked defiant for a moment, but then seemed to deflate. Her big eyes blinked rapidly, and it almost looked like she was holding back tears. Artemis finally reached out a hand to help her up, but she stubbornly ignored it, pushing herself up slowly, and falling back once before succeeding. She refused his help walking as well, but slowly trudged alongside him to the bench.
They sat quietly on the steel bench, which was lit by the glow of a yellow-orange glo-bulb, ringed by red like a bulbous artificial planet.
"Who are you?" asked Holly, quiet now, her face scrunching up repeatedly in what looked like an attempt to gather her concentration.
Artemis had thought about the issue of how much to reveal about himself in these situations a lot. While he and Minerva had generally concluded that there was little danger of tearing the universe apart from a bit of extra information, it was still something he wasn't sure of.
He switched off the holoprojector.
Artemis Fowl now sat on a metal bench at a bus stop in Haven City, on a deserted street, in his usual Armani suit, and black loafers. His pale, very human face was on full display, along with a pair of mismatched blue and hazel eyes.
Holly looked over at him at the slight buzzing sound of the shutdown. For a moment, she didn't move.
Then she let out a short yelp of alarm, and jerked herself backwards, ending up on the ground again, this time in front of the bench.
Artemis reached out a hand to help her up.
"Hello, Holly," he said with a little smile. "It's good to see you again."
She stared at his hand as if he had been reaching out to her with a set of tentacles.
'Ah,' Artemis thought, 'this means I probably haven't appeared to her before… or at least identified myself. Good thing to note, I suppose. It's too bad it won't help.'
Holly accepted his hand hesitantly, and allowed him to pull her up and set her back on the bench.
He had barely sat back down himself before she moved to grab his shoulders, but stopped before she actually reached him, as if he was afraid to touch him again.
"Artemis Fowl…" she breathed. "Artemis… but how?"
"I'm dead, right?" Artemis smiled his vampire smile. It was probably appropriate for the situation. "Ah, it'll take more than that to stop me. You, of all people, should know, Holly."
It was a slight exaggeration, but almost true.
'Well, this means I didn't live past a hundred and fifteen,' he thought. He could've been wrong, but by the looks of things, he was reasonably sure he was supposed to be dead.
Holly stared straight at him.
"How much did I have to drink?" she asked, partly to him, partly to herself.
The Irishman shrugged.
"I wouldn't know. Enough to get violent and thrown out of a bar, it seems."
Holly looked down, ashamed, before turning back to him.
"So there's some possibility I'm imagining all this?" she asked.
"Of course," Artemis smiled. "There's some probability that we're all imagining all of this. But that doesn't necessarily make it any less important. And no, I don't think I'll tell you how I'm here. But if this is the first time you've seen me since I died, then I'll say that odds are you'll see me again."
Then the smile left his face.
"I'm here because something is wrong, Holly," he said carefully.
'I'm here because you were almost certainly going to die tonight, Holly' he thought, sending a shiver down his spine. He hoped that before his time was up, he would have disturbed the timeline enough to throw it off that course.
"What's going on?" he asked.
It took another three seconds, but that was when the tears started to flow down Holly's face, and her chest heaved in little wave-like motions.
"I… I messed up, Arty," she said between sobs. "Last week was my first mission leading Retrieval Three… it was just a stupid extraction mission for an idiot surface tourist."
Artemis waited patiently, silently.
"We flew too close to a Chinese flight-test range," she continued. "They somehow detected us… tracked us, and started shooting."
"Two members of my team are probably never going to walk again, much less fly."
Artemis tried to process what he had heard. Why hadn't he appeared at that incident then? Why did he appear here, and now? He had a guess, and it frightened him. She was probably trying to run away from it…
He carefully laid a hand on the elf's shoulder.
"Holly," he said quietly, "I can't claim to understand…"
The elf shook her head, the motion forcing a few tears down her cheeks.
"But you cannot give up," he said earnestly. "Live through it, learn from it, but please don't give up on yourself."
It sounded strange, even to Artemis. Holly was much, much older than him, and had far more experience with life. But he knew that she needed to get through this point in space-time. She needed to make it through this event.
Holly suddenly grabbed onto him, holding his torso tightly with both arms, and burying her face in his shirt, leaving a shocked Fowl looking down at her. She smelled of alcohol and raspberries - but mostly of alcohol. She mumbled something against his chest.
"What was that?" he asked.
She looked up at him, her makeup even more smeared now, and her eyes red in the dim light.
"I said I don't care how you're here," she said, "but… if I'm selfish for a little bit… I'm glad you are."
Artemis relaxed slightly at that, and carefully wrapped his arms around the elf's smaller frame, completely encircling her and wrapping up her tiny, shaking body.
'This suit is going to be ruined,' he thought idly. It was an expensive suit. He was okay with that though.
He held her silently for what felt like hours, until her shaking stilled, and his nose had completely tuned out the smell of alcohol. She didn't seem to want to say anything, but every time he thought she was about the let go, she just held on even tighter.
He gave a start when the watch on his wrist buzzed, and he nearly had a moment of panic. It couldn't actually have been that long, could it?
Artemis gingerly pulled back, with a soft groan of protest from Holly. He steadied her with both hands, but held her away.
"I need to go, Holly," he said firmly. "But please… you must get through this. I know you can."
He actually did have a very good quantification for how likely she was to make it through the night without his help, and the number was extremely low. Hopefully with the nudge on the timeline, the probabilities changed significantly in her favor.
With great reluctance, he stood, but his eyes didn't leave her matching mismatched ones. She looked so small tonight, smaller than he'd ever remembered.
"Where are you going?" asked Holly desperately.
"I'm sorry," Artemis breathed, ignoring the question. "I can't stay. But I promise I will try to come back."
He touched her shoulder gently with one hand.
"Stay strong, Holly Short. With me out of the picture, God knows the world needs you."
Artemis reactivated the holoprojector, his sprite disguise buzzing into existence around him, and translucent-white wings appearing with a flash behind him. He gave her a brief holographic smile. His watch buzzed again, and his smile disappeared. He turned, forcing himself not to look back, and disappeared down the dark road.
He hoped it was enough.
A/N: I'd love some feedback on this chapter. This was actually one of the most difficult chapters for me to write, and I had three other versions of it before settling on this one. On the bright side, the thought process for doing this chapter actually let me mostly finish writing two other chapters, but like I said, these aren't coming out in chronological order (though there is a reason for the order they're in).