Sool stood up straight, and looked into Holly's eyes. That gave Holly an idea. She had to get him to look away, so she looked over his shoulder, and looked at the open field as if there was something behind Sool that she feared more than even the crazy gnome that she was trying to distract. When he turned to look, as Holly knew that he would, she shielded. When he turned back towards where she was standing, Holly was nowhere to be seen! Sool panicked, he did not know what to do. All the fairies that were helping him drew their neutrinos and looked nervous; they knew that Sool would take his frustration out on them later.

Holly meanwhile, silently crept up behind the insane gnome, and eased his neutrino out of its holster. Sool immediately turned to face her, though he of course could not see his attacker. There was a loathing expression on his face, which had turned a color reminiscent of Commander Root. No, I don't have time to think about that now. Holly chastised herself. Sool was now directly in front of the X on the ground that Holly had to push him onto. She took a deep breath, and dropped the neutrino, then kicked it away. Sool reached out to his invisible attacker in some attempt at self-defense. Holly pushed him away, hard. Then she stepped back immediately. He hit the ground exactly as she had planned, on the X that marked the location of the 'net'. Everyone who was trying to help him ran over to, what else, try to help him. The 'net' quickly captured them all. Holly stuck her tongue out at them, until she remembered that she was still shielded. Then she unshielded, and stuck her tongue out at them.

Artemis smiled and stood up, keeping his face and is thoughts calm. He walked over to where Holly was standing she smiled at her. Artemis knelt down to meet her eyes and hugged her.

He spoke to her in gnomish, his voice was almost stern, "Holly Short, if you ever do something like that again-" But he stopped, he didn't even finish the sentence. Holly was laughing at him, he was almost threatening her, and she was laughing at him!

"What are you laughing at?" Artemis asked her, hurt.

"Artemis Fowl, is worried about me? A few years ago you would have said 'congratulations captain', and shook my hand. Now you are threatening me?"

"You do not understand," he told her "I thought that I was going to lose my best friend. It would be entirely my fault, and this time, you would not be there to talk to."

Holly did not know what to say. So they both sat there for a while Artemis sat cross-legged on the grass, Holly sat next to him. Minerva, who had been watching but could not understand gnomish, walked away to go watch the prisoners and wait for the others. She also had to call LEP retrieval.

Holly remembered just then what Artemis had said about telling Holly how he knew what she had been thinking. She turned to him and was about to ask when he began talking.

"I suppose I did say that didn't I?" He said as if she had actually asked him about it. "Ok then, I'll explain"

"Ok, I think I might understand it now." Holly said slowly, this was all a little bit confusing. "Basically…Our eyes…have a connection to our minds…even after we switched…and that means…that whenever we think or feel something strongly enough…and we are near each other…then the other can sense it…because our left eyes are connected to both of our minds?" Holly paused, confused, and thinking hard. She then looked up at Artemis questioningly. Artemis nodded, and Holly smiled. She had it right this time.

They stood up slowly, and Holly asked just one more question." Wait a second, how long have you known this without telling me?"

Artemis replied calmly "Ever since you arrived," he told her. "But you know that for me, everything is a secret until I have a reason to let others know."

"You know, that makes it very hard for most people to trust you." She reminded him.

"Though, for some reason, you have absolutely no problem trusting me." He said, and he gave his vampire smile, he had not done that in a while. Holly did not know what to say to that, luckily for her, Butler, Mulch, Doodah, Qwan, and N°1 chose this particular moment to arrive at the edge of the field, and the conversation was forgotten, or at least, they both pretended that it had been forgotten. Artemis and Holly walked over to where Minerva was standing next to an unconscious Ark Sool and his unconscious fairy friend-like-people. The others arrived after a minute or so. And they all sort of sat thinking or talking on the grass (waiting for retrieval to come and take Sool away) Holly sat alone. She was thinking hard, trying to come up with a reason for what she had done. At the time, taking Artemis' place had seemed so important that she did not once question herself as to why it was so important to her. But now, she could not delay it any longer there was a reason and she knew it, really she had known it for a while now. But she would not admit it, not even to herself. Now, she realized it is time to face the facts, you have fallen in love with the mud boy, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.

When retrieval finally came, after about two hours, Holly was still thinking hard. Artemis walked over to her and sat down next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you alright Holly?" he asked after a moment. There was a pause.

"Yes, I…I think so," she told him quietly. He hugged her and she smiled.

"Retrieval is here, we should probably leave now." Artemis told her. Holly nodded and they both stood, and walked over to the car at the edge of the field where the others waited for them patiently... They sat in the back seat, and drove away. There was a lot of excited conversation going on throughout the entire hour-long drive the airport, during which Holly said nothing or very little. But when they got to the airport she decided that she would try to stop thinking about it. There was nothing she could do. They all got into the jet and resumed talking about the successful world-saving mission. And after that, they moved on to ideal punishments for Ark Sool. Artemis was writing something on a notepad that he seemed to have acquired from out of nowhere, and was writing and erasing furiously. But he still managed to contribute that he thought 150 years of counseling would be a suitable punishment.