Disclaimer: I do not own anything owned by Eoin Colfer or anything to do with the Artemis Fowl books or anything like that. I only own what I own/made up/created/ thought of. Got it?

WARNING: any part of this story from this point forwards (and probably some before it) may contain OOCness. I'm sorry, but I couldn't make it work any other way.

A/N: I'm sorry. First I can't post the chapter on time last week, then I post the wrong chapter. I replaced it as soon as I realised, so sorry to anyone who saw the wrong one, the right one is there now, and has been for a couple of days. I suppose I deserve the drop in reviews, but it would be nice to have some more this week, hint, hint. Anyway, thank you if you bothered to read this long, pointless authors note. On with the chapter.

Chapter Eleven

'Alright, you are all here; I hope you are competent enough to figure, because there is a crisis,' all present hastened to nod, 'we have an unknown fairy or group of fairies organising weddings above ground for large amounts of gold. You will, of course, understand what this means,' more furious nodding, 'Haven is under threat. The fairy or fairies are putting our civilisation at risk. We must act. We need to urgently put together a pair of officers to infiltrate this organisation. They will pretend to be a young couple looking for a surface wedding, tracked so that the LEP can get to them and bust the operation at an awkward moment for the perp. This mission is completely voluntary as it may involve what would normally be thought of as "inappropriate" behaviour,' Julius suddenly sounded gruff, thought Holly, as though he was uncomfortable talking about this, interesting she thought, by this time Julius had cleared his throat and was continuing, 'such as… um' he cleared his throat again. He really didn't want to say this, 'kissing.'

He clearly wanted to move off this subject so continued, 'all officers who consider themselves too old step to the side.' A good half of those present stepped aside, 'all remaining officers, you have thirty minutes to decide whether you wish to go or not, you must slip a note into my mail inbox by this time. Go.'

'Holly, I want you to wait in my office for this half hour.'

'Major Kelp,' he called, 'come here.'

Trouble was confused; he wondered what he could have done wrong this time. He was all too ready to volunteer for this mission. He was young enough to go, and never stopped to think about dangerous missions. He wouldn't have a problem with kissing another LEP officer (probably Frond, he thought) plus there would be a possibility of a fire fight. He had not stopped to think that Holly might be the girl; she was, after all, a mate and a sister to him, not just some random girl.

Trouble and Holly followed Julius to his office in silence. Trouble wondered if Holly knew what Root wanted to speak to her about; he thought she must, as she looked oddly apprehensive about something. Little did he know that in half an hour she was probably going to find out which random member of the LEP she would have to go on the mission with.

Once they were in his office Julius turned to Trouble, 'Trouble, you can't volunteer for this mission.'

'What? But sir I'm perfectly happy to.'

'You won't be once you find out who the girl is.'

'And who is the girl, sir?' Trouble was devastated, now he had been told he couldn't go on this mission he wanted to more than anything, he was like that.

'Me,' said Holly before Julius could answer.

'You're right, I don't want to go on the mission,' He now no longer did want to go, 'sorry Holly, I didn't know.'

'It's cool. How could you have?'

Trouble didn't know how to answer her so he turned to the Commander.

'You can't send her with anyone who'll take advantage of this. Please sir.'

'I wasn't planning to. Don't worry Trouble. Your sister will be fine.' Julius almost grinned. But Commander's don't grin. Definitely not. And they don't giggle either. He didn't know what had come over him the other day with Holly. It must have been the drugs. Strange things happen to elves a week after they've been on drugs in a hospital. Sure they do.

'Excuse me,' burst out Holly. She wondered why everyone was being so over-protective of her. 'Why am being discussed like I am not in the room? And you being over protective better not be because I am a girl.'

Both males looked like they didn't have an answer to this question thought Holly with grim triumph. But then Trouble managed to jump in with an answer.

'It's not because you're a girl Holly, it's because you are you and we don't want some jerk to take advantage of your orders.'

'Right,' said Holly. But both Julius and Trouble could tell she didn't believe it for a second. This was probably because it wasn't true. She was very special to both of them because she was the only girl either of them cared about or respected. Fortunately for the males of the room Holly decided to let it drop.

The rest of the half hour was very tense; they were now waiting to find out who Holly would have to go with, all for different reasons. Finally the Commander went to get the notes he had been slipped.

There were only thirty notes to look through as only thirty men fitted the Commander's original criteria. Amazingly they all contained reasons why the person who wrote them didn't want to go on the mission. The most common was, of course, "My girlfriend/wife/partner would kick my ass if I went". Some of the more open men had even put, 'I'd be running for cover already if my wife was Captain Short." This made Holly angry. She wasn't violent, she just demanded the respect she deserved.

'So it's back to the drawing board then,' said Julius, already in the process of grabbing the communications microphone thingy off of his desk. Having successfully managed this (his desk being messy it was not the easiest of tasks) he said loudly into it (like it wouldn't magnify his voice throughout the entire building) 'I want all officers that I told to give me notes in the situations room now.' He put down the microphone thingy, unfortunately his desk was messy, and he had forgotten to turn it off. All the ears in Police Plaza were treated to a nice loud grating screech; courtesy of the floor. No one would comment, of course. If the Commander wanted to make them all deaf, it was his business. After all, as he delights in telling everyone "Commander is always right".

Five minutes later when all officers involved were sitting in the situations room.

'None of you wished to go with Holly,' said Julius. The men suddenly understood why they had been called back. All had been sure Trouble Kelp would volunteer. He was always ready to go on a mission and had no attachments (i.e. girlfriends) to speak of as far as anyone knew. But everyone knew by now that he was Holly's brother, and he was not such a pervert as to kiss his own sister. This was how all the Captains and Majors eligible to go realised that the girl was Holly.

The one saving grace for Holly was that there was no way she would be paired with Verbil as he had been demoted to Private and Root had not asked anyone below Captain to go on the mission with her. She was very grateful to him for this.

'Would any of you like to reconsider your decision?'

The Captains and Majors turned to each other and began to whisper. At last one of the braver Captains emerged and said, 'I'm sorry sir, none of us feel that it would be in the mission's best interests for us to go. We have a suggestion though sir.'

'What is it?' asked Julius in a deceptively calm voice, ready to blow up if they suggested Verbil. He would not inflict that on Holly.

A/N: I know I got a drop in reviews last chapter, but I don't write this just for reviews, although I won't lie, I do like getting reviews. Thanks for reading.

Review Replies

-anon-anon-anon- : No, you're right, I didn't. I changed it though, I'm so sorry, I usually check all the chapters before I post them, so something like this doesn't happen, but then I was in such a rush to get this one up because it was so late… I'm sorry.

lalalalala - Now if I confirmed or denied that it wouldn't be a surprise… would it now?

hidden and forgotten - I am keeping up the updating, until the story is finished. Still a few more chapters to go. You don't have to do anything to persuade me to keep updating. Unless I die, in which case I probably won't finish updating this. Thanks, I glad you like it.