Well, if you don't like depressiveness you shouldn't be here. And you should have gotten the hint a loooooooooooong time ago.
0o0o0o0o0
It was an old pattern. She knew she was spiraling downward, but she didn't have the strength to care. The brief year-and-a-half interruption of the painful monotony was over. Maybe she had always known it would end. Some people were just too good to be true.
For the first month she was at the LEP, Jasper actually avoided contact, instead watching from doorways, wondering that she didn't flinch at his presence, trying to figure out the reason for this sudden regression.
So she waited for him to have the flash of understanding, when he realized that if Fowl was why she had healed, only he could break her.
She ate, slept, worked. She performed the definition of the word "live," but she didn't display signs of actually being a person, not a robot.
She knew this all too well - she had done it all before. The familiar feel of this depression made it no easier to bear.
Then Jasper came back, new and improved, ready to drive her and her human genes back into the ground.
If there was a tenth circle of hell, that was where Holly currently was. And that was where she stayed, functioning on the bare minimum, for twelve months.
0o0o0o0o0
"Arty? Arty, dear, your father and I need to speak to you."
Casting his eyes to heaven, the genius resisted the urge to groan. "Come in, Mother."
"Oh, I don't think - please, just come out here, Artemis."
Snarling through his teeth, he threw his protective gloves aside and took the liquid off the burner. His experiment would have to wait, yet again, because his mother assumed that he was simply playing in his lab, not actually conducting scientific research.
Exiting, but keeping his white coat on, he shut the door firmly behind him, then glanced up to see both his parents standing there. At the sight of his father, Artemis's shoulders automatically stiffened further, his head tilting back a fraction.
Angeline was holding a small box in her arms, but it was Artemis Senior who spoke first. "We've come to give you something, son," he said, a bit uncomfortably. His tone told Artemis that they had rehearsed this conversation, and that Timmy had not wanted to have it in the first place. Whatever was in that box, it was not going to be practical in any way.
Artemis inclined his head.
"Oh, don't be like that, Arty," his mother teased. "Here, open it."
As he took the box from his mother, Artemis briefly considered throwing it out a nearby window. But the childish urge passed, and with a mix of dread and curiosity he lifted the lid.
Inside... was a hamster.
He groaned. "Mother, honestly."
"You can use her in your experiments!" she cried, eager to please. "Your safe ones, anyway. And you need a pet, Arty, you really do."
He glanced at his father, who shrugged helplessly.
"Very well. Thank you."
"We have a cage for her, and everything you'll need. We haven't named her yet, you'll need to do that..."
Artemis looked down at the little animal in his hands, with its oddly reddish fur, and in a moment its pale gold eyes met his.
"Holly," he blurted without thinking.
"Holly?" Angeline asked, surprised. She had expected a name like "Lithium."
"Yes. It's short, doesn't have to be changed..." while his mind rattled off perfectly rational reasons why the name "Holly" was appropriate, he was completely perplexed by the affection he held for it. He couldn't recall ever meeting anyone with the name in his life.
And yet… when he said it, or even thought it, something shifted inside him. A tug at his heart, like there was someone he had let down, betrayed...
Artemis scoffed at the notion. Ridiculous. All these emotions were blurring the lines of his intelligence.
He had more important things to attend to.
0o0o0o0o0
Sorry that was short. I am planning book 4, so expect a slight delay.
At some point in the next book: a(nother) real A/H heart-to-heart, and what exactly Jasper did this time.