Okay, this should be the end now.
Anna-Maria had been sitting up, talking and listening to Trouble and Grub Kelp when the door was opened by Artemis.
Trouble smiled in his direction wanly. "Uh, come on, Grub, let's go. The commander...er, Anna-Maria needs to rest."
"But I haven't finished telling her about the time I faced a group of goblins on my own," Grub whined.
"She already knows the story, Grub," Trouble replied impatiently. "And you weren't on your own, Holly was with you. Now, come on." He grabbed his brother's pointed ear and dragged him out of the room.
"Ow, ow, ow, I'm telling Mommy!"
Artemis closed the door behind the two elves.
Anna-Maria tried to smile, but he wouldn't look at her. Well, that was what she deserved. "Artemis..." She moved to stand, lowering her legs to the floor. But a week in bed had left her legs jelly-like. She began to tip forward in spite of herself. Before she could cry out, Artemis had one arm underneath her, supporting her knees, and another at her back as he held her up. "Uh...hi. And thanks."
Artemis didn't say anything as he set her back down on her bed. He withdrew as if touching her burned him. That wasn't a good sign. He turned away from her and looked out the window instead. So a sign for Spud's Spud Emporium was more appealing for him to look at than she was.
"Artemis." Her voice came out in a whisper. "I -"
"'Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone'," he quoted, cutting her off. He didn't even so much as turn his head in her direction. "But you, Anna-Maria, you left me alone. You. Left Me." She could see that his hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles were whiter than bone.
"Artemis, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I -"
"I do not desire your apologies," he replied, interrupting her again. "Nor do I wish to hear them. All I wish to know is why. Why did you leave me alone? How could you have believed that leaving me was a better solution than any other?"
"'Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me'," Anna-Maria quoted this time. "You're too good for me, Artemis. You deserve better. You deserve Minerva, and she deserves you."
"I think that was for me to decide, Anna-Maria." His voice was rough and spoke her name like it was a curse. Gone was the gentle tone he had once used whenever he had spoken to her, the lilt that his voice gave to her name. "You left me twice. Why should I believe that you will not do so again? Why should I trust you again? Why should I let my heart be deceived?"
"You shouldn't," she admitted. "I'm sorry. I thought you would be better off with Minerva. Speaking of which..." her voice trailed off and she found that she couldn't finish.
"Minerva and Julio had their own plan," he replied. "They knew what we were doing, somehow. Minerva was never going to marry me. Julio's ring, the one he gave you, was one that he had always had for you, to show you that he would always be your best friend. But not more than that."
"Well, that figures. I always thought that Julio would go into acting like his dad and I knew I saw an actor who looked too much like him in a couple of recent Italian movies. Which means...Julio made me feel bad for him and guilty when he knew everything the whole time. Oh, next time I see him I'm going to..." Artemis turned to look at her. His expression was neither amused, nor disgusted. It was unreadable. "...Never mind. You were saying?"
"I left the chapel as soon as I heard that you were gone. I arrived in time to see your plane leaving, but Holly had a tracker on you, and she told me you were still in the airport. There was a sense of desperation in your eyes when you closed and locked the bathroom door. It took me longer than it should have to open the door, and I was only in time to catch you when you began to lose consciousness."
"I'm sorry you had to see that. That you had to see me that way. I'll do anything to make it up to you, Artemis, anything. Please, if there's anything I can do, please tell me."
"Only one thing will convince me of your faith, of your love."
"What is it?"
He turned his gaze on her, his chilling blue eyes burned her. "Marry me."
After all that, he still wanted her? Why? "Artemis, I can't! Anything but that, please!" Whoever had once said that love was crazy and unreasonable had not been joking around. "Artemis, if you marry me, it'll kill you. I can't do that, I can't do it. Please, anything else, just not that."
"There is nothing else that will convince me that you care for me, Anna-Maria."
"But the curse, Artemis, the curse..."
"The curse is no longer a problem."
Anna-Maria froze. A breeze played with her bangs. Wait...they were underground, there wasn't supposed to be a breeze. When she and Artemis had combined tears, there had been a minor earthquake, the power of the Earth. When they had combined blood, there was a rain storm, the power of water. What was the last power that Catalina had used to counteract the curse? The power of wind. "I...I didn't say that."
"Do you think I did?" Artemis shot back, the breeze tugging at his suit jacket. "The pitch is too high for me, and the voice pattern does not match yours."
Artemis turned, and Anna-Maria lifted her gaze from the bedsheets.
The elf brushed a lock of long, red hair behind one pointed ear. "I can assure you, the curse is no longer a problem."
"Catalina Root? What do you mean, no longer a problem?" Anna-Maria asked.
"The curse has been broken," Catalina replied.
"Yeah, I got that part, thanks a lot. I meant how was it broken?"
A dark-haired man appeared, as if he had walked out of the wall. Artemis instinctively moved to wrap his arms around Anna-Maria, forgetting his anger. Robert Fowl smiled at them. "Your love broke it." Catalina reached for his hand, and his fingers intertwined with hers. "We have yet to thank you for that."
"I don't get it," Anna-Maria said, her voice muffled because her head was pressed against Artemis's shoulder. It was selfish, but she didn't want to let go of him, or him to let go of her. "All of a sudden, just like that?"
"Remember," Catalina said. "The strength of the heart was the key."
"Why couldn't you have just said that in plain Gnommish?" Anna-Maria asked. "You had to leave a riddle, didn't you?"
Catalina smiled faintly. "I apologize. But that didn't stop you, did it?" She turned to face the raven-haired genius beside her descendant. "Artemis Fowl, your courage and your love are both very admirable. Despite all of Anna-Maria's shortcomings, and believe me there are many..."
"Hey! You're no angel yourself!" Anna-Maria replied, her face reddening. She was getting into Beetroot Junior mode.
Catalina laughed. "My point is, the two of you love each other more than anyone would have ever thought possible."
"So...Artemis isn't going to die if I marry him?"
"No," Robert Fowl told her. "I can see that the two of you will live to see your grandchildren's grandchildren."
"Am I going to be more wrinkled than a prune?"
Catalina blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Anna-Maria has a very unique sense of humor," Artemis told her. "I have always found that life is more interesting around her."
"Ah, I see...I think. Ahem." Catalina's hand hovered over Anna-Maria's collarbone. The dark, crescent-shaped scar glowed and began to fade.
"Wait." Anna-Maria grabbed the elf's hand. "Don't. Leave it. I want a reminder of all this, so that I don't make the same mistakes again."
"Are you sure?" Catalina asked. "If I take away the scar, your powers will be returned to you. I cannot do anything about your lost fairy magic, but I can return the powers you had when you were born, the ones that were taken away to lift you from this time."
"No. I want to fix my mistakes on my own merit, not with any magic or any powers. My life is better without them. I won't be missing anything."
Catalina took her hand away. "Very well, if you insist. I must say, you are the most stubborn of my descendants so far, and certainly the most...peculiar."
"Thank you?"
"Good luck with the rest of your lives. Take care of yourself, Anna-Maria. Don't give your new husband any more trouble."
"New husband?" Anna-Maria repeated, but Catalina Root and Robert Fowl had already vanished. She turned to Artemis. "What did she mean by that? Why didn't she say fiance? Why did she say husband? Artemis, what was she talking about?"
"I told Holly, Foaly, and Trouble they were not to tell you. I wanted to tell you myself."
"Tell me what?"
"The curse was broken. We are already married."
"We what?"
Artemis lifted her hand. "I take it you never really looked at your ring finger?" A silver-and-gold wedding band glinted from around her third finger. "Apparently, you speak in your slumber. While you were unconscious, you kept saying 'Artemis, Artemis, I love you. Don't leave me, I'll marry you'. You said your wedding vows of your own accord."
"I did? Aw, man! I was asleep throughout my own wedding! That'll make for some nice memories."
Artemis chuckled.
"And you tormented me for no reason. What was with the 'only one thing will convince me of your love' and 'you left me alone'? That was a horrible thing to do! Although...not any less horrible than what I did."
Artemis kissed the bandhages on her wrist. "Julio is not the only man around here who can act."
"No. Apparently I'm the only person who can't tell the difference between acting and real life, though."
"I assure you, my love is not an act."
"Neither is mine...unfortunately, my perpetual stupidity is not an act, either."
"You are not and never were stupid, Anna-Maria."
"I said I'm perpetually stupid. Why else would I have pushed a boy into a canal in Venice when I was twelve?"
"You pushed a boy into a canal?"
"He was flirting with me. I stayed to make sure he didn't drown...but then I pushed him back in when he climbed out the first time. He was okay, though. It wasn't like a ferry hit him or anything, he just got drenched."
"Hmm. Well, that's beside the point."
"What is the point?"
He picked her up in his arms, quite literally sweeping her off her feet. "The point is, we are married now, the curse has been broken, and I am waiting until I can take you to Fowl Manor."
"Can you take me now?"
His blue eyes twinkled. "I doubt that Holly and Foaly would agree that your condition is fit for that at the moment, Anna-Maria." Ah, there it was, that lilt in his voice, the beauty it added to her name.
"Oh, D'arvit my condition!"
"Anna-Maria, I am shocked," he said in mock surprise. "Your language has never been so horrendous."
"I don't care what anyone else says, I'm coming with you to Fowl Manor today, right now."
"Well...alright." She could tell that he had already considered it. "Come on, then, let us go home."
She kissed him. "I love you, Artemis, and I'm an idiot for thinking that I could ever distance myself from you."
"Yes, you are."
"You don't have to agree so readily."
"I love you, too."
I think that went well, considering the circumstances. Well, that's over and done with. I think I'm going to be too busy with my own original novels from now on for fanfictions (at least for a few months, odds are six to eight), so now I'm sure many of you will be very glad that you will not be hearing from me in a while (and I say that with complete seriousness, no joke). But in the off chance that any of you want to check out my original writing, send me a PM. I have completed three different novels that I need a few more sets of eyes to look at. Ciao for now!