Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or anything else owned by Eoin Colfer, I don't own anything I didn't create, but I own everything that I made up/created/thought of.

(A/N: it seems I must spend my life apologising. Firstly sorry for the slightly heavy going 'Trouble's dad was on drugs' chapter last time. I promise there won't be too many more chapters like that. I just needed a bit of background info and felt I had to explain what would come in later chapters. Also the extremely bad pun on the title. I think I might just change that – but first I must come up with an idea. Please review. And now on with the story)

Replies to reviewers:

Goldie.dk – Thanks. True - I changed the bit that said how the pairing ended up. I decided I shouldn't put that in. I probably won't change it though. I hope you like this chapter.

refloc – Thanks. Sorry if it was a bit over the top with the 'Trouble's dad was on drugs' thing. It was kind of what came out and was necessary for some other part of the story I am thinking of putting in.

normal? – Thanks. I've always thought it was possible for Root to be related (even if not by blood) to Holly in some way. God-father seemed like it might be appropriate because god-fathers don't always see their god-children that often. Here's the next chapter – sorry it took so long.

cloudlessnight - Thanks. I think TH is possible, and AH too – but AH is just a little too common now for me, a few too many people write it. Sorry about the typo's, I always manage to miss some. I'm hoping the Root being Holly's godfather thing is possible. Thanks again.

Chapter Three: Into the bear's den

Holly's POV

Great. Now I'm paired with Trouble. Not that isn't great to see an old friend again. And not that I have a doubt that he can get through this course with an A+. No, it's nothing like that.

But for now – back to reality for me.

Why does everyone here have to act like proper gentlemen? Trouble is trying to pick up my bag for me, anger floods through me. I know he was only trying to be helpful. But now it's the last straw. I've had all the guys checking me out, half of them hitting on me, and now Trouble – trying to act like a gentleman. I just can't take it.

I screamed at him. 'You will not act like a gentleman here Trouble. I may be your friend but that does not give you the right to treat me like a lady. You will treat me like you would treat any recruit you were paired with. In case you hadn't noticed I intend to pass this year – first time. Just like my father did.' I didn't care if I sounded slightly hysterical anymore. I didn't care that Trouble was looking at me with a mixture of shock and concern in his eyes. I didn't notice (although no-one did) that Commander Root was surveying me and chuckling – I wouldn't have cared even if I had.

The anger flowed through me.

Trouble mumbled 'This way.' So I followed him, trying to stop flow of the anger. When we got to my divisions barracks Trouble stood aside and I entered.

The one thing I immediately noticed was the small bed in the corner with dull green curtains surrounding it. The sign above the bed said 'Cadet Short'. I looked around – none of the other beds had this. I stepped backwards through the door and knocked into something. The something turned out to be Cadet Brown – albeit a Cadet Brown with magic quickly repairing the broken nose.

'Sorry!' I apologised – trying not to slap him for getting in the way of my anger.

'Don't mention it,' he replied gruffly. I knew that if I wasn't a girl he would be punching my face in. But I would attack him for that later.

'WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THAT?' I shouted.

Trouble's POV

I saw the doubt in her eyes when she was put with me. But I said nothing. I would find out soon enough.

I saw Holly coming out of the room in a rage. I felt sorry for Cadet Brown when she bumped into him but amazingly she apologised when she broke his nose.

'WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THAT?' she shouted. There was not much that could make me cower – but this came pretty close to being one of those things.

'Its… its... I don't know. Sorry Short. But I advise you not to complain. The first ten cadets to complain about their barracks get kicked out – I've seen in all before,' I replied sullenly.

I honestly expected her to punch my face in or something. But all she did was take a deep breath, walk into the room, dump her stuff on the bed, pull of the sign and chuck it in the bin, then walk out. She couldn't resist slamming the door behind as she came out of the room.

I breathed a sigh of relief. 'Come on Holly, we need to be back outside.'

Third Person POV

A relieved Cadet Kelp and a trying-not-to-fume Cadet Short exited the building about thirty seconds later and were one of the first groups assembled outside on the forecourt.

Five minutes later when all the pairs were assembled in the forecourt (less ten of the original Cadets) Commander Root spoke.

'Blankets will be distributed to you shortly; you will then enter the vehicle. Any pairs that are seen exiting the forest before this horn (a very loud horn sounded behind Commander Root, causing every one of the Cadet's except Trouble and Holly to cover their ears and jump) sounds will be disqualified. Completing this exercise is worth 10 of your marks for the year – don't screw it up.'

It was at that exact moment a blanket decided to hit Holly in the face. Luckily the blanket smothered Holly's swearing and by the time Trouble managed to pull it off of her face she had managed to calm herself down enough to only shake her fist at the retreating elf who had thrown them the blanket.

'Shame we are not allowed magic for the first half of the year every year, isn't it?' muttered Trouble.

'We going to be out in the bush with nothing but this blanket?' replied Holly, not bothering to answer Trouble's question.

'Yeah. Don't worry – it's not difficult, we did this in my first year.'

'Bring it on.'

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The LEP vehicles came to a halt by what looked like a very real underground forest.

'This forest is made to have exactly the same weather variations as a forest above ground. It can and will drop in temperature during the mud man night. Your task is to make your way to the centre. There will be a flag in the centre of the forest that you must retrieve. Each flag can only be retrieved by the junior member of the pair – do not attempt to take another team's flag in order to disadvantage them. You will be under surveillance at all times. Do not attempt to help another team. You must leave the forest within a one kilometre radius of where you enter and no more than a hour after the sounding of the horn. Be warned: this forest is exactly like every forest above ground – complete with wild animals. Now go.'

Trouble's POV

I grabbed Holly's hand. No use in hanging around.

'Come on. If we hurry we can get to the centre in less than three hours. We should be able to get there before it gets too dark. Then we can camp near the centre and get back before dawn,' I said to Holly.

'They blow the horn at dawn?'

'No at about 10pm. On the surface that would be the equivalent of 10am – so a few hours after dawn, but we don't want to give any of the other groups a chance to follow us.'

'We go straight. Then we can come straight back out.'

'Exactly.'

I smiled. Holly hadn't been in the LEP academy 24 hours and she was already starting to think like a soldier, but with a dad like hers I couldn't expect anything else.

'What are you smiling for?' Her hand connected with my face, 'Let's get going.'

Definitely the Holly I remembered.

We walked through the forest in silence for about thirty minutes with nothing but the occasional insect and bird bothering us. Then we came to a river. I hesitated, but Holly just grabbed a trunk of a tree and climbed up till she was about eight metres off the ground. (Eight metres is a lot for a fairy, especially since their average height is only a centimetre above one metre).

'Holly - get down this instant – we will ford the river,' I shouted – I was worried about her well-being. I hadn't realised before how much I cared for her.

'Then we risk hypothermia,' she shouted down to me. 'My way is much better.' With that she grabbed the vine she had reached about halfway up the tree and swung across the river and grabbed onto the first tree she came to. Unfortunately this was a bad idea. She latched onto a branch only ten centimetres from a beehive. All I saw was a swarm of bees surround her, I heard nothing.

'HOLLY!' I shouted, then swung myself up onto the lower branch of the tree Holly had climbed. I then grabbed the still swinging vine and swung across to where Holly had landed. To my surprise there were no bees trying to sting me through my canary yellow jumpsuit. Then I saw the hive falling from the tree – all of the bees were following it. Holly must have managed to kick the hive from the branch. Then I saw her. I thought she was seriously injured, she wasn't, it was just one sting on her arm.

I quickly knelt down beside her and pulled out the sting, then gave her hand a squeeze. 'Look before you leap next time. Good work though.'

'Sorry.'

I looked into her eyes and something flashed between us, we both leant forwards slowly. Then Holly turned her cheek. 'We should have a drink. We don't know how long it will be 'till we see another water source.'

'True,' I muttered, hearing the disappointment in my voice. I didn't know why – Holly was just a mate.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

After that we were more careful where we went. Holly was right – an hour and a half later and we were both feeling parched. We were both glad when we saw the river up ahead of us.

'Vines?' queried Holly.

In answer I walked up to a tree and swung myself up. Holly did the same beside me. We continued swing up the branches until we were about ten metres off the ground.

I wasn't quite sure what happed next all I was aware of was a sharp pain around my neck and Holly yelling at me to get back up onto the branch. I scrambled up onto the branch and felt a shaking Holly gripping onto me. She let go within thirty seconds when she realised what she was doing.

'Sorry,' we both said at the same time.

'What happened?'

'You… you slipped…'

'And you caught me? Oh Holly, thank you so much.'

'What are mates and team-members for?' said Holly, rubbing her hands.

'Let's get going then – we still have a bit of ground to cover before we get to the centre.'

Holly's POV

It should be against the law for Trouble to scare me like that. I can't believe I was clinging onto him – why did that rotten piece of wood have to be there?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We made pretty good time after the slight incident on the tree – although we were a lot more careful about every aspect of our travel.

'Here we are,' announced Trouble a tad unnecessarily. There were flags flapping in the slight breeze.

Holly walked up to the flag marked "Short – Kelp" and plucked it from the tree.

'Let's get out of here and make a camp.'

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

It didn't take us long to cut a few branches off of a tree and build a shelter using the help of some over-hanging rocks. We even managed to get a fire going and were eating some leaves off a plant we both happened to know was edible. The leaves tasted like peas. As we only had one blanket we were curled up under that and talking quietly.

'So what happened to you after I left?' asked Trouble, 'Was Taylor still hitting on you.' (Taylor was an arrogant sprite almost as bad as Chix Verbal.)

'No, he left shortly after you did. But there was always at least one arrogant sprite. They provide good punching bags.'

I could have sworn I almost heard Trouble laugh. If he had it would have been one of the first times he had since I had arrived at the LEP camp, he had seemed so nervous. Not different in any way, just nervous.

Our little talk was cut short by a slight shifting in the trees. We were both instantly up and moving into the shelter of the trees so we had somewhere to escape to if need be.

What we were both dreading emerged from the shadows. A big, angry, Indian Bear.

'D'Arvit,' breathed Trouble, 'that's an Indian Bear. Probably angry because it's nocturnal and it's just been moved down from the surface so it's all a bit mucked up. This is not a good thing – there have been several cases of Indian Bear's causing harm to people, and that is in the natural habitat… and they were humans…'

This was a long speech considering the circumstances. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. We didn't have the choice of running. The bear was rearing up on its hind legs – ready for a fight. We both drew large breaths and broke branches off from the tree behind us.

(A/N: the end of that chapter. I Hope this is a bit longer than the last chapter. And sorry it took so long to update. I've been a little bit sidetracked with ANZAC day and the such. I will try to get the next chapter up soon. Please review.)