Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, I kept starting it but could never finish it.

IwuvMyKenshyPoo, I don't exactly know if I'm glad you're right. As cloudlessnight said, it was a bit obvious.

Refloc! Yes, I already reviewed Hitting Hard (chapter 16, I am so behind) and I liked it. Yes, I got past the first sentence, hehehe. And I even got past the 11th paragraph.

To everyone else, thanks for your reviews!

Oh yes and according to my all knowing brother who just hacked into my account (brilliant and totally insane older brother, I adore him, here he is with that smirk on his face, how I long to wipe it off though) Same Ground is now T.

Warning: If you like Artemis's nose as it is, you might not want to read it. But it gets alright in the end.

Disclaimer: I own Chrysanthene and her house (believe me, they're worth owning). Unfortunately I don't own Artemis. See my bio for the full rant.

Chrysanthene

Chrysanthene smiled. That, in turn, made the object of her possession smile. Widely, for a change.

She was having fun. She hadn't had this much fun since 1993 when she had possessed Council chairman Cahartez. Unfortunately the fun had ended in a few minutes.

But this had been going on for quite a while already. How many nights? She forgot. And human brains were bigger than the usual. More leg room. This boy's brain was even bigger than most. Massive.

Plus, she had found something that would interest her for the rest of her life. Somewhere in that huge lump of nerves, there was a tiny gland. A pituitary gland. After a few minutes of eyebrow raising and frowns, she finally got it. She released a few hormones, and the results were hilarious. She had found it so funny, in fact, that she had gotten carried away. The poor boy had already grown an inch.

Then she decided to quit. After all, how many growth spurts can a human stand? Especially one who's walked miles.

She sighed and went to her room. She laid her new body into her bed and put him to sleep. Luckily for him she liked to take care of her toys. But she really shouldn't have. Now she was restless and hungry.

She surfaced from his brain, fluttering outside to look for food.

And that was quite possibly the biggest mistake of her life.

Artemis

Artemis woke up, as usual, tired. His eyes fluttered open, then quickly shut. He must be hallucinating. It must be from fatigue. After all, it wasn't often you slept in a sky blue room and woke up in a red one.

All he wanted to do now was roll over and go back to sleep. Which was uncharacteristic, when you thought about it. So he rolled over…

And fell to the floor with a loud smack. If the floor weren't thickly carpeted, it would have hurt him a lot more. For now, he only had a sore nose.

He thought as he rubbed his nose. My floor isn't carpeted, he thought with a start. And I always sleep in the middle. If I ever decided to roll over, there should have been a lot more bed left.

He hesitated, then opened his eyes. Yes, it was a red room. A rather nice and comfortable room. But it had a black ceiling and floor, and the furniture was also black. That made this room the room of either an evil mastermind or a drama queen.

Where am I? He wondered. What am I doing here? He had a million questions, and he wanted them all answered.

Then he heard the screaming. It sounded quite horrible. It definitely belonged to a female who took a deep breath. So obviously she wasn't being tortured, because it was going on for quite a while and it hadn't stopped. No one really had time for a deep breath before torture. No, it must be a frustrated scream.

He opened the door. Black, as usual, he thought.

He found himself in a corridor with rows of doors in varying colours. He stepped to the left. The screaming grew slightly louder. It seemed to be coming from the room next to his, if you could call it his.

Reaching for the door, he stopped. What if this is a trap? He thought. I could just waltz in there like an idiot, and something might happen. But his curiosity won out. He decided to just walk in there like an idiot and risk it.

Unfortunately something did happen. A large pillow was whacked into his face. It had just fallen off when it was replaced by a small brown fist.

"You prat! What is with you? Come back to gloat over my frustration? I have no idea WHY you still added strengths to everything here when the door was locked anyway!"

"Holly?" he asked. Despite all his efforts, he still sounded like he had a cold.

"Of course! Who else would give you a nosebleed?"

Ah. So that was the liquid trailing from his nose. He had feared something worse. "And you broke it."

"Well, considering what you've done, I think that was rather fitting."

What have I done anyway? He thought as he closed his eyes and lay down. He always knew a broken nose hurt, but he hadn't realized it was this bad.

"Oh, only paralyzed me, dragged me a few miles down here, locked me in, left me in there to rot…" she paused. "Well, you always left me food and water, and I don't know how you did that, since you only visited me every night…"

Had I said that out loud? Maybe I just don't realize it. "Odd. I do not recall doing that recently. Perhaps it was someone else."

"Someone else! How could I not recognize you? Black hair, blue eyes, pale skin… Of course it was you! Get me Foaly's Retimager and I'll show you."

"I highly doubt that it was me, unless of course the kidnapper had plastic surgery. Perhaps a DNA test would be appropriate."

"I'm sure it was you."

"Are you really that certain?"

"I just said so, didn't I?" Somehow that line seemed familiar to her. Oh right. Foaly. Just before the Commander died. She held back her tears and continued. "Let me say it again, slowly. I'm sure."

"How?"

"Well you just turned up a few minutes earlier! In exactly the same clothes! You seem to have grown an inch, though, can't explain that… But I'm sure it was you!"

He fell silent. Thinking was his forte. And that's what he proceeded to do, even if it was difficult to ignore the red liquid spilling over his chin, not to mention the pain in his nose. "How could I have grown an inch in a few minutes?"

"Don't know. Maybe I just imagined it. But anyway, I'm sure it was you."

Artemis wasn't used to pain of any kind. In fact, the last time he had really experienced pain was when the troll had slashed his ankle. That wasn't so bad. But this was almost as bad as the two broken ribs in Munich. He felt like he was going to pass out.

Holly must have sensed this. "You want me to heal you, don't you?"

He opened his eyes, and that was when he realized he had kept them closed. "Yes."

The elf bit her lip. He knew it was in her nature to heal him, but he wasn't sure if she would gather enough anger to leave him there. He decided not to push her.

"Oh, all right. Just don't make those idiotically bright blue eyes any bigger. They might pop out, and I don't want to heal someone that screwed up."

Oh. He hadn't realized he was making such an infantile manipulative move. That all disappeared when Holly put her hand on his nose (which was an unusual place to put it) and started to heal him. It was more painful than he had expected, and he winced slightly as the bone healed.

Holly

Quite a while later, they were walking down the seemingly endless corridor.

"So Fowl, I heard you've been in a summer house…. Somewhere. How is it?"

"It's quite nice, really. I have this room with a perfect view of this meadow. And, even if I find it very boring, there is something fascinating about the birds."

"And this must be pretty far below it."

"I should say so."

"So how did you get here?"

For once he seemed genuinely, thoroughly confused. "I really wouldn't like to say this, Holly, but I don't know."

They walked in silence.

"Plastic surgery?"

Holly was taken by surprise at this sudden question. "Of course not. He would have had exactly the same wardrobe at a strangely coincidental time."

"Illusions, perhaps?"

Again she struck that suggestion down. And the next. And the one after that. No matter how possible his suggestions seemed, there was always this way to ensure it wouldn't happen. Until…

"Are there any fairies who can possess people?"

"You know," Holly said thoughtfully. "This actually isn't a very idiotic suggestion, not that I'm insulting your intelligence. I think some might be able to. It's probably a very complex form of the mesmer, but I think it can be done."

"Then we've found it."

Chrysanthene

In the kitchen, Chrysanthene was sitting down. Of course, she was also listening to their every word, feeling more stupid every second. Why did I have to leave him like that? She thought angrily. I should have known. I wasn't at the top of the year for nothing.

Then something made her freeze halfway through a bite of spring roll.

"Are there any fairies who can possess people?"

"You know," the elf said thoughtfully. "This actually isn't a very idiotic suggestion, not that I'm insulting your intelligence. I think some might be able to. It's probably a very complex form of the mesmer, but I think it can be done."

"This is it," she moaned. "I'm ruined." Then she had an idea.

She walked out the door in her normal form, not a shadow anymore. It was drastic, but it should work. Anyway, she was going to benefit from it either way.

Unfortunately one of them would suffer terribly.