Disclaimer: I don't own anything that I don't own, because if I did own what I didn't own I wouldn't have to be sitting here typing that I didn't own anything that I don't own. What I do own is everything that isn't what I don't own.

A/N: Chapter two is now officially written and posted. Sorry it took so long, I kind of forgot I'd posted the first chapter. Not going to happen again. Hopefully updates will be regular, I have some of the story written and the whole thing mapped out. I will murder myself if I loose the plan, honestly. Anyway, no one needed to know that, so here is chapter two. And thanks to everyone who reviewed, replies are at the end of this chapter.

Chapter Two: Disbelief and Stalkers

'So… What are you going to do about it? Report it to the LEP?'

'Of course I'm not, you idiot,' Holly knew that would insult Artemis, considering he was a genius, after all, 'Sool wouldn't do anything about it; except steal more of my possessions.'

Artemis knew what she was talking about. She had told him about all of her photo's being taken.

'Well, you can't just do nothing about it Holly.Someone tried to murder you.'

'What do you expect me to do about it? I can look after myself thank you very much.'

'You could tell Trouble about it. He seems to care about you, and he must have some influence with the LEP.'

'I will look after myself Artemis. Trust me, OK?' Holly was now back to business, this call was costing her, after all. 'Now, I assume there was a reason you called?'

Artemis was worried about Holly, but he could tell when their conversation was over, so he decided not to push it, for now.

'Yes, I have a lead on the whereabouts of Mulch's former gold, formerly belonging to the LEP Holly Short Ransom Fund.'

Holly winced; she hated talking about the time she was kidnapped. The time Artemis kidnapped her.

Foaly himself had hired Holly to find the gold. He was trying to be nice and give her something to do. This was before word spread about how good Holly's PI service was, and she was inundated with cases. She didn't want to make Foaly feel unwanted, so she continued to follow the case.

'It appears to be in the hands of some people who don't want to be seen. And these people seem to be acting on the orders of some other people. It is all being moved to New Zealand, it's very odd.'

'Right, so do you suggest I go in there all guns blazing and get it back?'

'No, I suggest you wait a bit and see what is done with this gold.'

'I'll take your advice on that one, since I'm inundated with cases at the moment,' Holly decided it really was time to end the call, it was costing her money she probably didn't have, and it was costing her time she definitely didn't have. 'I have to go now Artemis, get cleaned up and work, thanks for the information. I promise I will get round to a social call one of these days.'

'First tell me how you got covered in that stuff, if it wasn't from the bomb, Mulch breaking his nose doesn't explain it.'

'Mulch sneezed after I broke his nose.'

'Oh, charming.'

'Isn't it just?'

'Talk to you soon Holly.'

'Bye Artemis.'

'Come up with a reward for me yet?'

'MULCH' screamed Holly and Artemis simultaneously.

'Sorry,' said Holly, and then hung up. A slightly confused Artemis was left staring at the now silent communicator.

Butler chose that moment to walk into Artemis' room. He saw his employer holding the communicator looking slightly flummoxed.

'Problems sir?'

'No Butler, just Mulch being his usual self, and someone is trying to murder Holly.'

'What?'

'Mulch is still asking for a reward.'

'I meant what did you say about Holly?'

'Oh, right, sorry, someone set off three bio bombs in her office.'

'Does she need me to go and teach whoever it was a lesson?'

'I'm sure she's quite capable of teaching them a lesson herself, and besides, she isn't planning on telling anyone else about it.'

'Shouldn't she tell the LEP?'

'One word: Sool.'

'Oh, right.'

'There is one good thing though.'

'Oh?'

'Trouble managed to get her to take a day off.'

'Trouble?'

'It would appear Trouble is a LEP Major and a friend of Holly's.'

'Shouldn't she tell him about the bombs?'

'She will if she wants to. It isn't really our business who she tells. I assume there was a reason you came up here?'

'Yes, sir, your father wishes to talk to you.'

'Great. I suppose I really should come and talk to him then.'

Artemis walked down the corridor to his father's study. It had been his at one stage while his father was missing in the Arctic, but his father was back now, so Artemis was stuck in his room. He wondered briefly why his father wanted to see him. Probably just another speech about morality, he seemed to be giving a lot of them lately.

He knocked on the door and entered. At one stage his father kept the door locked at all times, and Artemis was very rarely allowed in. Now he was summoned there almost every day.

His father looked up from the bank account he had open on his screen.

'Come in Arty.'

'You wanted to see me father?'

'Yes Artemis, I wanted to congratulate you.'

'Congratulate me father?'

'Yes, my law enforcement contacts tell me that you haven't been involved in any criminal activity recently.'

'I still think the Fowls would be better off conducting criminal activity, even if it is only to bankrupt the worlds larger companies.'

'No Artemis, the Fowls are on the straight and narrow from now on.'

'Fine father. Will that be all?'

'We really need to work on this formality issue you have son, I know we were never close in the past, but we need to work on that, we need to be like a father and son.'

'We are a father and son. I'm going back to my room now.'

'Why don't you go outside in the garden with your mother? I will come too.'

'No thank you father. I am afraid I have become rather addicted to a computer game.'

Artemis Senior knew his son was lying, but decided to leave it for now.

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Holly's Office

Haven

Holly had just hung up on Artemis. She turned to Mulch.

'How many times have I told you to stop asking him for a reward?'

'I still think I deserve one.'

'Shut up convict.'

'That's below the belt. I'm not a convict anymore.'

Holly decided she had had enough. 'Whatever Mulch. I've had enough for now. I'm going to get cleaned up, then clean this place up. That will take me all day,' she paused, and picked up a random case file off of her desk, 'Here, investigate that.'

Mulch muttered something unrepeatable and left the room. He decided it was in the best interests of his nose to not annoy the female elf. Which was a wise decision, as it happens.

Holly groaned in frustration as Mulch left the office. She had almost had it with him. It hadn't made her feel any better calling him a convict either. It had just caused her to have yet another painful reminder of Commander Root, another pang of guilt.

She headed towards the bathroom quickly; the blood and snot mixture was beginning to stink. She needed to get it off quickly; another property of dwarfs is that after prolonged periods of contact with living organisms other than dwarf noses dwarf snot becomes corrosive. It wouldn't corrode her office, but it would corrode her.

She washed it off as quickly as possible, but it still took an hour, and her cloths still stunk.

She resolved to go home and change as soon as she had cleaned her office up a little. The thing about dwarf sneezes is that they are like volcanic eruptions. Explosive volcanic eruptions. The walls of her office were covered with blood and snot. She sighed (again) as she got out her cleaning gear and cleaned up her room. I'm not going to bore you with the details of her cleaning up, let's just say it took four hours, and you couldn't get rid the stench no matter how hard you tried. Holly ended up spraying the entire room with about ten cans of air freshener, before leaving the office for the night.

She walked home quickly; amazingly people gave her a wide berth, and held their noses around her. She must smell pretty bad. Air freshener, sweat and dwarf snot aren't exactly like a bunch of lavender in smell.

She was extremely relieved to get home. The first thing she did was jump in the shower to clean off all of the smell. Amazingly it worked. She threw the clothes out; she hadn't really liked them anyway. Finally the smell was gone.

Holly had always gone for a run once a day for as long as she could remember, today was no different. She changed into her running kit, and left her house, locking the door behind her. She decided that today she would go for a run through the park.

She ran in silence, why wouldn't she, she had no one to talk to, after all. It was getting dark, but Holly wasn't duly concerned on that front. She always ran in the dark. About two kilometres after she left her house she began to hear someone running behind her. She wasn't really concerned about that, there were bound to be other people that decided to go out for a run, and she didn't own the park. Another couple of kilometres later this mystery person was still running behind her. Now she was beginning to find this suspicious. She sped up, and decided to do a bit of sprinting. Amazingly the person kept up with her; there weren't many people outside the LEP who could do that if they wanted to. There was no doubt about it; she was being followed. She stopped, and slowly turned around. She might as well be able to see what she was up against. As she suspected, her assailant was wearing a hood and a balaclava, along with black baggy clothing. It was impossible to tell who it was.

The shadowy figure shielded. This wasn't good. Whoever it was obviously had magic, and it was too dark to see the shimmering caused by shielding. Holly began to run. She was only a kilometre from her house; she could blend in to the darkness. If the fairy didn't have wings she might just make it. Just as Holly thought that she heard mechanical wings start up behind her. She could still make it, but it would be close. Holly tried to shield, but she didn't have any magic to shield; it took too long for civilians to get above ground so she hadn't completed the ritual; she had given the last of her magic to Mulch without realising. She might ask Trouble to bring her back an acorn or two in the sealed acorn units if she got a chance. Even if she could have shielded she wouldn't have; if her stalker had decided to shield, they probably had anti-shield filters. Although technically the filters were standard LEP issue only enough had made their way onto the black market for it to be likely this person would have some. She turned up her speed, now running at a full out sprint. She was the fastest LEP officer ever, or so the tests said, and she could only have got faster since the tests. It was then that her ankle managed to find an uneven piece of road, and she sprawled out on the pavement. A searing pain shot through her ankle, she had damaged it really bad, whatever she had done. She could hear the wings behind her, even if she couldn't see the fairy. She had to get out of here, and soon.

Holly picked herself up of the ground, ignoring the searing pain in her ankle and ducked into an alleyway, not what you generally do when you have an unknown fairy following you, but it was the only possible course of action for her, she had to loose the fairy, and soon.

Holly finally had her first piece of good luck all day, she could hear the sound of the wings fading; the fairy had not noticed her duck into the alley.

Holly counted to sixty and then emerged from the alley; barely able to walk on her injured ankle. She really missed running hot, but that was the price you paid for not being a LEP operative. She limped home and quickly as she could, collapsing onto her sofa as soon as she got the chance. She didn't forget to lock her door and all the windows before collapsing, of course. She fell asleep on her sofa in her running kit; she had no energy left.

Holly awoke the next morning to someone banging on her door. Her first thought was oh no, it's the stalker; her second was I'm still in my running kit, whoops; and her third was oh, wait, Trouble was meant to be coming today. It was at that moment the Trouble began to get frustrated with her.

'Holly Short, if you are in there open the door this instant!'

Holly got up and limped to the door. She had almost forgotten the pain in her ankle, but she couldn't now, it was so very bad.

Trouble was still hammering on her door while she undid the safety catch and opened it up.

He lifted his hand to hammer on it again, and opened his mouth to yell again, when he noticed that the door was open, and, standing in front of him, was a very dishevelled looking Holly, still in her running kit. He quickly grabbed her arm; she looked like she was going to fall over.

'I thought you went for your runs at night?' he asked.

'I do,' muttered Holly, now leaning on him, 'could you,' she gestured at her sofa.

Trouble realised what she wanted, 'Sure,' he replied leading her to her couch. He was very worried about her. She looked terrible, and she probably wouldn't ask for help, even if she needed it.

'Thanks,' Holly replied, and then asked, somewhat sheepishly, 'how long were you out there?'

'About ten minutes, but it doesn't matter.'

'It does, I'm sorry. I probably stink too, sorry.'

'What happened to you?'

'It doesn't matter. I'm going to take a shower, OK? There's some food and stuff in the kitchen, help yourself.'

'Holly, are you okay?'

'I'm fine I tell you, fine!' Holly was becoming hysterical. Trouble decided to leave it until after she had had her shower.

Trouble watched silently as Holly limped off to the shower. He wondered how she had done her ankle in so badly. It must be bad if she was actually limping on it. He'd almost forgotten that, being a civilian, she probably wouldn't have any magic. He resolved to offer to heal it for her, which would possibly earn him a broken nose, but he had to offer.

He decided to use Holly's invitation to her kitchen, not to see what he could eat, he'd probably just get a glass of water or something as an excuse, but to see if his suspicions were correct. His worst fears were confirmed as he looked into the fridge, only to see a lot of untouched food. Holly had looked extremely thin when he had seen her yesterday, and even thinner today. It looked like she had hardly eaten since she quit the LEP. He hoped that she wasn't going anorexic, but it looked like she might be.

He grabbed a glass of water and sat down on her couch, before she came out from her shower.

Holly came out of the shower in clean clothes and not stinking as much, so naturally she felt a little better. Her foot still hurt like hell though. She limped over to the couch, and plopped down next to Trouble, who was drinking a glass of water.

'So…' began Holly, not really sure what to talk about.

'What happened to you Holly? You didn't get that ankle that bad easily.'

'I tripped.'

'I don't believe that's all there is too it. You know you can tell me anything, don't you Holly?' Trouble was genuinely worried about her by this stage. She didn't just trip and she was being extremely evasive.

'It doesn't matter.'

'It does Holly. Please tell me. I want to help you if there's something wrong.' Holly's telephone chose that exact moment to ring.

'Can you answer that please Trouble?'

'Sure.'

Trouble walked over to the phone and picked it up.

'Hello,' he said. He was more than a little surprised to hear the voice that replied. Every fairy in Haven knew that voice. Trouble wasn't scared of it, he knew Artemis wasn't a danger to the people anymore, but that didn't mean he wasn't slightly shocked that Artemis was ringing Holly at her home.

'Hello,' replied Artemis Fowl.

'How do you know Holly's number?' asked Trouble.

'I hacked into Foaly's phone system, because it was important that I talk to you.'

'You mean Holly?'

'No. You. I assume you are Trouble? The person Mulch was talking about eavesdropping on yesterday?'

'Yes, Trouble Kelp. Why do you want to talk to me?'

'You're there with Holly right now, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'And you think something is wrong with her?'

'The state she's in? Of course I do.'

'Who is it?' interrupted Holly.

'Excuse me Fowl. It's Artemis Fowl, he said he knew I'd be here and he wanted to talk to me. Do you mind?'

'Don't believe anything he tells you,' warned Holly.

This flummoxed Trouble a lot; he had thought that the two were more on speaking terms after their last adventure. He lifted the phone back to his ear.

'Well?'

'I think she gave me permission to talk to you.'

'Good. She's in a bad state, isn't she?'

'How do you know? What did you do to her?'

'I didn't do anything to her. Calm down. If I didn't know better I'd say you were acting like her boyfriend.'

'I'm not her boyfriend. I just care about her.'

'Sure you do. Anyway, I was talking to her and Mulch yesterday. It's probably best you don't know how if you are a LEP operative. Anyway, she was covered in blood and dwarf snot, because Mulch had sneezed after she broke his nose because he came up behind her after and this is the important bit three bombs went off in her office. Three bio-bombs.'

'She told me not to believe what you say.'

'You can ask Mulch, this did actually happen. Believe me Kelp.'

'That doesn't explain her ankle.'

'What ankle?'

'You don't know about that?'

'No, it must have happened after I talked to her. Maybe she has a stalker. I'm serious.'

'I have to go Artemis.'

'Are you going to talk to her?'

'Yes. Goodbye.'

With that Trouble hung up the phone. He turned to Holly.

'You told the mud boy about the bombs and not me?'

'I'm not telling the LEP Trouble, I'm fine.'

'That's why you can hardly walk on your ankle.'

'You don't believe me?'

'Not that you are fine. What happened to you Holly? I want the truth. Please.'

A/N: I don't know what exactly the stalker is going to do to Holly next, any suggestions? I'll come up with something, of course.

Well, I did say replies were at the end of this chapter, so here they are. A great big thanks to everyone who reviewed and is planning on clicking on the little button and reviewing. I don't write just for the reviews, but I enjoy getting them.

Review Replies:

RaevanDawn: Thanks so much. My first review for this story, thanks. Someone noticed the humour! Thanks.

angelmayumi : Thanks. I am updating.

refloc: Thanks. I know everyone is setting their stories for six months later… it seems to be the time that pops into everyone's head, besides, any longer is too long for what I have planned… I can't tell you what though, that would ruin the story. Only nine chapters! I'm devastated. I'm looking forward to this story that poses so much trouble to you. Run on sentences, I like them, but for some reason teachers don't. Would you believe I lost two whole marks on my assignment because I had a sentence that was too long? Devastating, it really was. Thanks for reviewing.

Helltanz98: Thanks for reviewing.

Kates Master: Yes, Holly/Trouble forever. If I told you if Root was coming back it would ruin the story, but look carefully, there are clues, if you really want to know.

sergeantstan: No, not Grub. But I'm not telling you who. There are clues, look carefully if you really want to know. Then again, maybe only I can see them, since I know who the stalker is…

maddisonavenue: Thanks. Yes, it is Holly/Trouble, I'm making no secret of that. besides, AH makes me sick. And yes, there should be more Holly/Trouble.

Again, Big thank yous to everyone who reviewed. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.