Disclaimer: I'm not Eoin Colfer and I don't own any of these characters, because if I DID then I would have gotten Holly and Trouble together several books ago. *grin* If you haven't been frightened off by me yet, you're brave. Brave enough to read the next chapter. So here it is. *evil laughter* Trouble/Holly as a young married couple.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

            Holly looked around, trying to find her socks. She was going to be late for work. Half her clothes were missing. After not finding her socks anywhere on the floor, she opened her wardrobe and started throwing things out of it and onto the floor. Finally she found her socks.

            "Trouble!"

            "What, Holls?" he yawned sleepily from the bed, stretching his arms.

            "I'm going to be late for work. Why do you have to keep hiding my things?"

            "Huh? I haven't hidden anything. I'm not even really awake yet."

            "My socks! Do you know how long I was looking for these?" She brandished them under his nose.

            "Springtime fresh," he said. "I didn't hide them, I put them away. In the closet. Where they are supposed to live."

            "Well, where's my jacket?" she called from the kitchen, having walked out without listening to him. "It's not on the floor by the door where I left it!"

            "It's in your wardrobe, hanging up on a nice hanger," he said. Trouble was not a very neat elf, heck, he wouldn't have passed for a neat human; but Holly was an absolute pig.

            "You've completely ruining my organizing system," she grumbled. She looked through the closet for the jacket and couldn't find it. "Now it's missing too!" She spun around wildly, looking for her favorite jacket. Her eyes caught sight of Trouble, still lying on the bed. Handsome. Muscular. Adorable. Lazy. Hot. Gorgeous. Muscular. D'Arvit, the man was sexy. She snapped at him, "Quit distracting me."

            "What?"

            "Just, oh!" She threw her hands in the air helplessly and shook her head. "Put your shirt on."

            He shrugged and did as she asked while she managed to find her jacket (fortunately for her, the shirt he picked up and put on covered his muscular arms arms). When she had started throwing things out of the wardrobe on her quest to find the missing socks, she'd thrown the jacket off the hanger and behind the bed.

            "Holly, you remember that talk we were having last night?"

            "Uh-huh." She wasn't in the mood for a serious talk. Where did she leave her boots? Oh, here was one. "Where're my badge and my name tag?"

            "On top of the phone. Right where you left them. Well? Have you give anymore thought to it yet?"

            She paused in her mad dash for the boot's soul mate. "Trouble, I don't think I'm ready to. I don't want a child yet. I like work. I like my job. I want to stay at the LEP. If we have a kid, everything changes. I mean, look, we'll even have to move out of here. There's no space for a baby. Besides, we've only been married a few months. I think it'd be better to spend a while longer getting to know each other first." She snatched the pin off the desk that read "Captain Holly Short-Kelp" and came to sit down next to him on the bed.

            He pinned her nametag on for her and put an arm around her. He touched her cheek with his other hand. "I know, Holls. I know." He sighed and shifted against the pillows. "Ow, what's stabbing me?" He moved the pillows. "I found your missing boot. I think it bruised me."

            "Thanks, Trubs." She kissed him while he tried to put her boot on for her. She brushed her auburn hair out of her eyes with her fingers. The auburn hair went well with her chestnut skin. She really needed a haircut though. It hung down all around the top down to her eyes like a bowl. Some of it in the back nearly touched her shoulder. She'd have to get it cut after work. Trouble liked it long like this, but she said she was not going to put up with it. She wanted her crew cut but she just hadn't had time to make an appointment or keep an appointment she made since before they got married. She was working an early shift today and left after a Protein Bar and another kiss goodbye to her husband. Shouting over her shoulder not to clean up anything while she was gone.

            Trouble knew she was right. About the child thing, not about the cleaning thing. It was too early in their marriage to talk about kids. Really. He was just missing his little brother. That's all. Maybe he ought to pay the bumbling idiot a visit. But Grub was still mad about having to share being best man with Foaly. Besides, in a way, he was kind of relieved. Holly was not the most motherly of people. Heck, Root was probably more maternal, and that was certainly saying something.