A/N: congratulations to SPG, the only reviewer who managed to guess what happens in this chapter:)
For those who didn't know what 'alea yachta est' means (and who didn't give me an email addy or a signed review): it means 'the dice are cast' – a famous quote from Julius Caesar.
This chapter contains a few references to my NC-17 A/H fic, 'Welcome in Heaven', but it will still be perfectly understandable even if you haven't read that one. (Btw, in case you haven't read that one and want to read it – the link in my profile doesn't work right now, as nowadays adultffnet is more often down than working, but the fic is up in my yahoo group, in Files/Agi's short fics.)
Review responses sent out as usual.
Also thanks to: Silver-head angel, Zodokai, riseofafallenangel, septempopuli, aperfectattitude, A Magic Fantasy, Aytheria, cokkii, J. Dawnwolf, JediWeasley, LettuceNPudding, The Flying Moose, artemisfowl12, Teya Yashitoda, AnnieThePipster, Fleury, the ark, Lady Emerald Black, Chixawitch, Rycr, an-angel-in-hell, hello, ebtwisty9, Koru-chan, Sara (no, there won't be a sequel, sorry), Chibi Binasu-chan, TheWatcherandReader, The OddBird, welovechocolate, Soccer101, refloc, CarnyG, the Thirteenth Councilor
Chapter 19
A Message From Beyond the Grave
20th April, 453
Artemis suddenly had a feeling similar to the one he had had when being transported through time.
A few seconds later he, Mulch, Fiona and Patrick landed in a meadow.
Gasping for breath, they looked around and saw that there were no Huns chasing them anymore.
"What have you done?" Mulch asked.
"Used my transporter," Patrick muttered, sitting up.
"But it's not even completed!" Artemis snapped. "It could have… splinched us!"
"It was worth a try, wasn't it?" The boy smiled. "It saved our lives. Now all we have to do is find out where we are…"
"Still in the Carpathian Basin," Artemis said matter-of-factly. "At least the vegetation refers to that."
"I thought you were not a genius anymore, Arty," Mulch commented.
"I'm not. But I remember quite a few things I learned as a child. At age seven, I was fascinated with studying the various vegetations and memorising a thousand types of plants. I recognise those wild-flowers over there – they are only indigenous to the Carpathian Basin."
"If you say so…" The dwarf shrugged.
Fiona stood up, rubbing her bum. She very likely must have fallen on it, because she had a pained expression on her face as she was rubbing it. "I fear… I still don't understand how we got to be here," she said.
"I built a machine that can transport people from one place to another, in the blink of an eye," Patrick explained. "This is it." He held out the gadget to show it to his great-grandmother.
"I see…" she said vaguely, not really knowing how she was supposed to react. Having a genius for an offspring was something she still hadn't got used to. "Well… are you going back to your time now?"
"Sure as hell we are," grunted Mulch. "And don't expect me to EVER return to this time again! Or to any time other than my own! No more time travel for me! I'm getting too old for things like this."
"So old that not even your digestion works properly?" Artemis asked challengingly, daring him to tell them what he'd 'eaten' that had clogged up his system.
"Nah." Diggums waved. "It happens sometimes."
There was some secretiveness in the dwarf's eyes, but Artemis decided not to question him any longer. If he wanted to tell them, he would.
"And what are you going to do now, Fiona?" The Irishman turned to the fairy.
"I'm going to join Alexius Short underground," she said. "I was giving thoughts to returning to the camp after night falls to collect my things, but…"
"Don't," Artemis said hastily. "If the Huns see you, they might want to kill you again." He didn't even know why, but he had a funny feeling – some sort of déjà vu. As if something deep down was telling him that he had to convince Fiona never to return to the camp, because… if she died, the Short line would die out too. As this thought ran across Artemis's mind, he felt some kind of a stab at his heart, like some huge pain he had never really experienced. A vast sense of emptiness… a meaningless life... Then, as quick as it had come, the feeling vanished, and left Artemis wondering what it had been. It had seemed so real… as if it had happened to him…
"Dad, are you all right?" Patrick spoke up.
"Yes. Just… post traumatic shock, I suppose." A small smile appeared on Artemis's face. "You will never again manage to talk your poor old father into attending a Hun funeral."
"I don't even intend to." The boy grinned back. "Shall we go, then?"
Artemis nodded, and turned to Fiona again. "Take care of yourself, will you?" he said gently.
"I will," the fairy replied, not understanding the worry in his eyes. And truth be told, not even Artemis understood why he got so nervous by only thinking of any harm happening to Fiona…
After Patrick and Mulch said their good-byes too, the trio set their time machines to 10:01 a.m., 16th July, 2016.
o o o O O O o o o
"I'm hungry," Patrick complained as they packed their suitcase in their hotel room.
"We can get you something on the train," Artemis replied, feeling an urge to be back in Ireland as soon as possible.
"I want to try goulash," the boy replied stubbornly.
"No time for that," his father said.
"Why not? There's another IC back to Budapest at one thirty," Patrick insisted. "We could go with that. And then we reach the six o'clock plane to Dublin. And I bet Mulch's hungry too."
"No, am not," said the dwarf, desperate to stifle the rumbling of his stomach.
Artemis arched an eyebrow at Mulch. It wasn't like the dwarf to say he wasn't hungry when he obviously was.
"Don't look at me like that," Mulch grunted. "Indigestion, as I've mentioned already. I don't dare eat anything for a while."
"Then just come with us into the hotel restaurant to entertain us." Patrick grinned.
"I haven't yet said we were staying for lunch," Artemis reminded his son.
"But we are, aren't we?" The boy gave him a puppy stare. "I'm still not perfectly healthy, Dad, and I need a warm lunch to strengthen me."
The Irishman heaved a sigh. He was agreeing to his son's ideas a little too often lately. "All right, all right. We're staying for lunch, but it'll be a quick one if we want to reach the train at half past one."
o o o O O O o o o
Half an hour later"Not bad," Artemis said as he and Patrick were ladling their goulash soups.
"Not bad? It's the second best thing I've ever eaten!" Patrick replied.
"What is the first?"
"Lichen cakes. Mum makes them wonderfully!"
"I never knew Holly was a good cook," Artemis admitted. Funny, there were so many things he didn't yet know about his wife… He just hoped that things would be settled soon and he'd have a lifetime to get to know her properly.
"Do you mind if I switch on the TV?" the woman – an employee of the hotel - at the nearby bar counter, asked. "It's the noon news, see…"
"As you wish," Artemis replied. He doubted that the woman switched on the TV every day, especially when the restaurant was full of guests; but today, being a wonderful day for sightseeing, all other guests spent lunchtime outside, the Fowls and Mulch being the only ones who decided to dine here.
The woman hurried to the television that stood on a high shelf, and turned it on.
"In today's news: the minister for finance about to resign; sensational discovery at an excavation; the heat-wave claims its first victims; final of the water-polo world championship: Hungary beat Serbia: 11-8."
Artemis and Patrick continued ladling their soup with gusto, not even paying attention to the news (after all, why would they be interested in the Hungarian minister for finance?). It was only when the short-haired, female news reader mentioned the word 'Szeged' that Patrick looked up with interest.
"A sensational discovery at an excavation at Szeged," announced the news reader. "Over to Mátyás Péter, who's at the excavations right now. Péter?"
"Good day to you, Antónia," replied a jovially grinning man holding a microphone.
"Is it true that a funny-looking skeleton has been found, Péter?" asked Antónia amicably.
"Absolutely right, Antónia," replied the man with the microphone. "I'm standing right here in the area where a new shopping mall is about to be built. The workers, while excavating the area, uncovered a rather unusual skeleton. Actually, it's not so much the skeleton that is unusual, as according to the specialists, it belonged to a young man in his twenties. The unusual things are the fine material he was covered with and the peculiar armlet around his left wrist."
"What kind of an armlet, Péter?"
"Well, you wouldn't believe it, but the archaeologist insist this skeleton has been lying here since the eight or the ninth century, yet the armlet he was wearing looks pretty much like a corroded wristwatch."
"A wristwatch?" the news reader pretended to be surprised.
"Exactly, Antónia," said the man. "A wristwatch, from the end of the twentieth or the beginning of the twenty-first century."
"And what kind of material was the skeleton covered with?"
"That is something the specialists still haven't managed to determine. It looks like some invisibility cloak from a fairy tale, to tell you the truth. It blends with the surroundings almost perfectly. No wonder that no one found this person after he died: he was covered with the cloak from head to toe."
"Is it possible that we are facing some kind of an alien, Péter?"
"Hardly, Antónia. The doctors are a hundred percent sure that the skeleton was that of a human. Some are joking about a man from the future, though." Péter gave his colleague and the TV viewers a rather stupid grin.
"Thank you for your report, Péter. And now, the heat-wave currently engulfing the country…"
But neither Artemis, nor Patrick, nor Mulch were listening to the news anymore. They were staring at each other, their soups completely forgotten.
"Do you reckon it was a time traveller, like us?" Patrick asked.
"I don't know… it could have been a fairy with a growth-spurt as well," his father replied.
"Hardly," said Mulch. "They said the skeleton-guy was a human, and all fairies have different skeletal structure than you Mud Men do."
"That's right." Patrick nodded. "We have different shoulder-blades, for instance. If those human doctors found a fairy skeleton, there would be no way they'd say it's a human's."
"But what if they did find a fairy skeleton, but are hushing it up?" Artemis wondered. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn't have explained why. He felt uneasy about the whole thing, but decided not to show it to his son and Diggums.
"Could be," replied the boy thoughtfully. "Well, our soups are getting cold if we don't finish them quickly."
Having lost his appetite for no obvious reason at all, Artemis ate another two spoonfuls, then decided he'd had enough.
o o o O O O o o o
Meanwhile, at the Annual Meeting of Irish Star Wars FansHolly had taken a seat in the huge conference room, between Doug and Nate. Jerry was away at the buffet, fetching them some crisps.
Holly was tiredly looking at the dais at the end of the room. A group of female dancers in all kinds of weird costumes were performing a dance that, according to Nate, came from 'Return of the Jedi' – the dancers in Jabba's Palace had performed a similar dance.
As Nate embarked on a tale on why his idol, Mara Jade, had been amongst the dancers in Jabba's Palace, Holly's mind was already far from the conference room. Her thoughts wandered to her husband who was surely worried about her disappearance. She seriously hoped that she could contact Foaly from an Internet Café in the evening and that Foaly would have good news for her – good news that Artemis and Patrick had finally returned to Ireland.
Her genius son and her one-time genius husband would surely find a way to get rid of Cavalieri and that Emese person without revealing the fact that she was a fairy to others. Until then, however, it would be too risky to do anything. After all, she couldn't just phone the police and tell them that those two had kidnapped her for information that only a fairy would know… and even if she managed to get Cavalieri and his female friend behind the bars without mentioning her real identity, there was no way that it wouldn't be mentioned sometime during the trials. Someone was bound to let it slip, and Holly couldn't risk it. She couldn't ask Root to send a squadron of LEP fairies to wipe the memories of every single person present at the trials, could she?
No. Artemis and Patrick had to work out something to 'neutralise' her kidnappers and keep the fairy People's existence a secret. They might even consult Foaly, and the three of them together would surely find a solution…
Jerry returned with snacks and with a bottle of what looked like a thick, bluish liquid.
"Ah, Tatooinian Bantha milk!" Doug said appreciatively and took the bottle from his friend. "Care to try, Holly? Er… Holly?"
The fairy-turned-woman looked at Doug to see that his eyes were wide open. He looked like someone who'd just seen a ghost. "Yes?"
"I think… I think my eyes must be playing tricks on me," the young man dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi replied.
"Why?" asked Holly.
"For a second… but no, that's impossible."
"What?" asked Jerry, taking off his Chewbacca-head.
"It seemed… that for a second… you vanished, Holly," replied Doug.
"So you too saw that?" gasped Nate.
"What?" Holly shook her head in disbelief. What were these two talking about? "I vanished?"
"It seemed so," said Nate. "I didn't dare mention it before Doug did, because I thought you'd all think I've gone mad… You really seemed to vanish for a second, Holly."
"Funny I didn't feel a thing," she lied. The truth was that she'd felt a few seconds of dizziness and disorientation, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. She looked around to see whether anyone else had noticed her alleged disappearance. Apparently no one did. Had she inadvertently shielded? She would have noticed if she'd done it! Nonsense! The dizziness must have been caused by the baby, it was a rather common thing for Holly nowadays.
"Hey, girl, are you sure you don't have special Force abilities?" Jerry grinned down at her.
"Oh, come on…" Holly rolled her eyes, grinning back. "It must be the lights that tricked your eyes, boys."
Nate and Doug exchanged puzzled glanced, then shrugged. Surely it was the lights… People didn't vanish just like that… or they did, in fairy tales and fantasy movies.
"Back to my original question, would you like some Bantha milk, Holly?" said Jerry, pointing at the bottle in Doug's hand.
Holly had no idea what was actually in the bottle: milk with a bit of food colorant? She definitely didn't want to find out. "No, thanks, Jerry. Perhaps another time."
o o o O O O o o o
Fowl Manor, late in the evening
"Arty! You're home already?" Angeline flung herself into her son's arms.
"Apparently, Mother," the young man said dryly. He wasn't in a particularly good mood; he hadn't been in a good mood ever since that funny newscast in Szeged. He had an uneasy feeling in his stomach and he couldn't even have explained why.
"But… but you just left yesterday!" the woman said. "Timmy and I thought it'd take at least a few days…"
"Are you aware that you're sounding like someone who isn't happy to have me back so soon?" Artemis replied, peeling Angeline's arms off himself. With a curt nod to his father, he went upstairs.
Feeling hurt by her son's coldness, Angeline turned to Patrick. "Welcome back, dear. Come, Granny has made some cookies, you surely will like them… and while you eat, you can tell me everything."
Giving Mulch a sour look, Patrick let himself be steered towards the kitchen. "Er… Granny… may my friend join us? He's surely hungry..."
"You mean…" Angeline glanced at the dwarf over her shoulder and anyone could see the utter contempt on her features. She still didn't know why 'Arty' had associated himself with riff-raff like that tiny man who had not only arrived uninvited for the wedding but had also made impolite comments throughout the feast.
"No, Pat, thanks, I'm not hungry." Mulch shook his head while his stomach gave an almighty rumble. "Tell you what, tell Arty that I'll be back in a few hours, okay?"
"Okay." Patrick shrugged and entered the kitchen with his grandmother who looked relieved that her son's ill-mannered 'friend' didn't want any of her excellent cookies.
o o o O O O o o o
On his way upstairs, Artemis bumped into the yawning Juliet.
"Hiya, Arty, back so soon?" she asked, looking much less sleepy all of a sudden. "How did it go? Did you go back in time? Did the time machine work properly?"
"Tomorrow, Juliet," Artemis grunted. "I'm tired and peevish at the moment, so believe me, I wouldn't be the best chat partner."
"Not that it surprises me," Juliet giggled.
"What do you mean?" The man sighed.
"You're rarely a pleasant chat partner, Arty. Well, good night, then."
Too tired to come up with a snappy comeback, Artemis watched the woman waltz out of sight, then continued down the corridor towards his room. Correction: their room. His and Holly's. But will Holly ever be back to share it with him?
A sudden wave of fear and sadness washed over him. And he still didn't understand it. Before he'd left for Hungary, he'd been full of optimism, and now he felt as though he were somebody else entirely. As though something had happened to him… something bad that he couldn't remember. From time to time, this funny feeling flared up in him, compressing his chest as though a particularly sizeable rhino had decided to sit on it. He wasn't sad, not all the time, that is, but again and again these emotion-snippets came, attacked him then vanished.
It felt as though he were reliving things his mind couldn't remember, only his heart could. It was a bit like reliving memories, but without flashes of pictures and sounds. He could only remember feelings, and couldn't even place them.
He punched in the code to the door of his room, and the door slid open, but Artemis didn't enter. For what seemed minutes, he just stared into the darkness, his mind replaying a conversation that had taken place between him and Holly on this very spot. It had been the first night they'd spent together… Holly had been standing before the tall, massive oak door, watching as he typed in the code.
"01122001," he said as he typed in the numbers and the door whooshed open at once.
"I've memorised it." Holly nodded, not understanding the furtive smile on his face. He looked as though he were expecting her to realise something. "What?"
"It's a datum," he replied. "Can you guess what?"
After a short silence, her eyes widened. "The day we met!"
"Yeah." He grinned sheepishly.
An indulgent smile spread on her face. "Artemis Fowl… who would have thought you could be this sentimental?"
Artemis shrugged, blushing.
"But… how can you have remembered the date we first met?" she wondered. "You were mind-wiped."
"Yes, but I had coded the seal on my door long before I was mind-wiped," he replied, as though the fact that he had liked her at the age of twelve was the most natural thing in the world. "You know, after the mind-wipe I only remembered the code, but not the reason why I had chosen this particular series of numbers. Sometimes I was wondering about these numbers, but couldn't figure them out. It was a devastating feeling."
Smiling at the memory, Artemis entered the room. At the same time a nasty, cold feeling crept into his chest. What if he lost Holly forever? He couldn't stand the thought, not again…
Again? He stopped in his tracks, savouring the word. Surely, he had lost Holly once before, when she was kidnapped from the wedding. But why did he have the feeling that he'd lost her once more, only in a different way?
No matter how hard he racked his mind, he didn't remember.
Turning on the lights, he closed the door and went for his desk where his favourite laptop lay.
His body was screaming 'bed!', but his mind told him 'just one more check on my emails before I drop off'.
He switched on the laptop, typed in his password and sank into the chair, propping his head in his palms. He was half hoping that there were no messages, because his huge and comfortable bed was beckoning to him, almost seductively. In the Hun camp he hadn't had a good night's sleep as the standard Hun cot was as comfortable as sleeping on bare ground, only a bit drier. The bed in the hotel room at Szeged had been quite okay, but Artemis belonged to the type of people who only could sleep well in their own bed.
A box with 'One incoming message' appeared on the screen, and Artemis clicked 'OK'. Another box popped up: 'Password:'
Password? Artemis blinked. What the heck? He had never received password-protected emails before…
In his old days, Artemis would have had no problem breaking any code and getting into any password-protected data base, but he was no genius anymore, and at the moment he felt too tired to think clearly, let alone break any codes.
Probably it's from Foaly, he thought between two yawns. And if so, then…
He typed in 'LEPrecon'.
'Access denied'.
Well, then… HollyShort?
In five minutes he tried all members of the LEP he knew about and even the names of a few of Foaly's inventions, but none seemed to be the right one.
Suddenly, a new message appeared on the screen: 'A little hint: try a series of numbers'.
"What the…?" Artemis muttered.
Somebody obviously wanted to share the message with him very badly, but wanted to make sure that it didn't get into wrong hands. And who knew about any series of numbers that only he knew?
"Holly…" he whispered. Could the email be from Holly? Had she managed to get online in her kidnapper's house or wherever she was being kept?
Well, if it were from Holly, then only two 'serial numbers' could be possible that both of them knew: the one she had been using for the backdoor in her Haven home, and the one he was using for his own room's door.
The latter, however, was one that even Juliet knew… That left…
'40023013' – Artemis typed. Patrick's birthday, read backwards.
He pressed Enter, and finally, instead of 'Access denied', the email appeared on the screen.
From: Artemis Fowl II
To: Artemis Fowl II
Subject: Time travel
Suddenly feeling completely awake, Artemis stared at the monitor. A message from himself to himself? Was this some kind of a joke?
Well, one way to find out…
Artemis began to read.
Dear Artemis,
You might find it most curious and undoubtedly highly suspicious that you should get an email from yourself, but I can assure you that it's completely possible and neither you nor I have gone crazy, especially because we are the same person, just in different dimensions.
To make sure that you believe me before I embark on any explanations, let me mention that you developed the computer virus named 'WormieDeluxe' at age five. It was a pathetic attempt at a virus, and you never mentioned it to anyone in fear that they would laugh at you. Not even Butler knows.
Convinced now?
No?
Well, when you first slept with Holly, her healing magic attacked you inside her. Remember? I do. And no one else but Holly and you know that, and Holly's very likely still kidnapped when you're reading this.
Now fight back your urge to blush at the memories and let me tell you one more thing: you LOVE lollipops but you would never admit to anyone. Not even to Holly.
Artemis realised he was indeed blushing, but he was confused and scared at the same time. This person – who claimed to be HIM – was talking about things that no one else but Artemis Fowl the Second would know… Could it be possible that he wasn't lying?
And now that you're convinced (or half-convinced, I know you're not an easy person to impress – you're me, after all), I can get down to the reason why I'm writing you this message.
If you're reading this and I'm not around (and I suppose I'm not around or you wouldn't even be reading this but I would be telling you things in person) it means that my plan worked out and I died. It was my plan to die.
"Huh?" Artemis blinked.
Remember the arrows the Huns were shooting at you, Fiona, Patrick and Mulch? Well, they managed to kill Fiona shortly after Patrick transported us to the meadow.
Kill Fiona? – Artemis frowned. But Fiona didn't die!
Now you're surely thinking 'but Fiona didn't die!'. Yes, I know. It's because I saved her.
But let me tell you the whole story.
One of the arrows hit Fiona, and a few seconds after the transporter dropped us onto the meadow, she passed away. At the same second Patrick vanished. You can't imagine what I felt at the moment, Artemis! My son had disappeared into thin air without having shielded (he couldn't have done that, he didn't have any magic left – he'd used all his magic on healing my/your wounds, remember?). And then, something happened in my head too. My brain felt different all of a sudden – I felt cleverer… I became a genius again.
I trust you understand why… but if not, then I'm going to explain it: Fiona died before she could have had an offspring, so Holly was never born and Patrick was never born. Without Holly and Patrick I never went to Mexico and never lost my genius to the Voice.
You have no idea what I went through at that moment, after having seen Patrick vanish and having realised why it had happened. It was pain beyond pain, Artemis. I was as desperate as I had never been before, I was empty, I was missing the only thing that truly mattered in my life: my wife and son. I even shouted at Mulch and blamed him for everything – very uncharacteristic of me.
Despair? Emptiness? – Artemis, in front of the screen, wondered. That's exactly what he'd felt in the past few hours!
However, I soon realised that shouting at Mulch wouldn't solve anything, and I had to work out something. I had to find a way to modify the time machine to enable me to go back and change things: to save Fiona. For that I needed to return to my own time, as I didn't have the necessary tools in the fifth century Pannonia.
Mulch and I returned to present time, wondering what kind of lives we had lived without Holly. It turned out that Mulch was more often in prison than in his original life, and that Haven is right now being ruled by the Koboi siblings: dear Opal and her idiot of a brother, Quartz (I didn't kill Quartz in this life, obviously). Julius is dead too, killed in the goblin rebellion. You should have seen Mulch's face when he reported this to me: I've never seen him so desperate. He was practically begging me to change things back.
And I decided to do just that, because not only Mulch's and all the fairies' lives are a hell in this life… mine is probably even worse.
I remember everything that happened to me in my original life, but from time to time I'm getting new bits of memories about this life. And every bit of them is horrible: Father died in the hands of the Russian mafia, Mother went completely mad and is living in a closed ward. I have a few memories of visiting her there, and they aren't happy memories, Artemis. Most of the time she's just staring at the wall, not even noticing I'm there. Sometimes she talks but doesn't recognise me. And sometimes she has hysterics, and tends to tear her hair and destroy the few possessions she has in her room. I've seen her in a straightjacket already. I never want to see her like that again.
Mum – mad? – Artemis frowned, trying to imagine his elegant mother looking haggard, her eyes expressionless… Certainly, he had seen her in a similar state before, but Holly had healed her. He remembered his twelve-year-old self trying not to think of his half-mad mother closed into the attic. He'd been concentrating on the fairy-kidnapping, to be able to forget about Angeline's misery… to forget his own misery. Because he had been miserable, whether he admitted it or not. The worst had been seeing his mother kissing a doll whom she believed to be his father…
And the Artemis whose letter he was reading had seen Angeline in an even worse condition. No one should be forced to see their mother like that…
After Father died, I lost my interest in the fairies. Yes, apparently I have broken the fairy code in this life as well, and I tried to kidnap a fairy for several months, but after Father's death, money-making lost its meaning. At that time I needed to give all my attention to Mother whose condition was quickly deteriorating. Once I realised she couldn't be kept at home anymore (after she nearly killed Juliet in the middle of one of her tantrums), I immediately had her transported into an asylum. At this time I was fifteen.
Once mother was in the asylum, I again had a chance to think of myself, and I again realised that I needed more money. Not for some charitable reason like saving my Father (or anyone), but for the mere sake of having it. Aurum est potestas, after all…
I wish I had decided to carry on with the fairy-kidnapping plan, but at age fifteen fairies seemed a bit more ridiculous than at age twelve, and I, considering myself a grown man, decided to do something more serious. I became a gunrunner.
"A gunrunner?" – Artemis gasped. Impossible! He would never have done such a thing!
I know what you're thinking now: that you would never have sunk so low. I agree: the Artemis who had been softened by the fairies' friendship wouldn't have done it. But I have never known the fairies – not in this life. My heart was hardened, and I had no one left who loved me, and no one left to love. I simply didn't care for anyone or anything but gathering wealth.
Heartless, you could call the Artemis that lived this life, and you'd be right. But the Artemis in this life paid tenfold for his sins.
On the plane ride back from Budapest, I was beginning to get memory snippets about this life, and there was one about someone called Delylah. I only remembered the name, though, not who she really was.
Upon returning to Fowl Manor, I found out. Unfortunately.
At age eighteen, I was smuggling weaponry to the Middle-East, and I even went there with Butler to make a favourable deal with the leader of a local military group (Butler tried to dissuade me in vain). However, there was another gunrunner who considered me as competition, and decided to get rid of me.
Butler died in a crossfire and the competition's gorillas captured me. For hours my life hung in the balance, and it was the competition's daughter who saved me. But at what price?
I had to marry her, take her to Ireland and pretend to love her.
Why, you may ask?
Because her father is a powerful man. He has connections all over the world, and in Ireland too. In the Irish Police and jurisdiction, for instance. He only needed to make a phone call and I would have been on my way to the nearest prison if I didn't make his daughter happy.
So I married Delylah, and pretended to love her. But I hated her with all my heart.
I served her in bed, fathered a son to her, but detested myself every time I touched her. It was repugnant. Not her, she's extremely pretty, but… I couldn't even explain it. For me, in this life, sex is a necessary thing I hate. I look at it like most wives in the ancient times and middle ages, who just let their husbands do it and prayed for it to end quickly. Ironic, isn't it?
Two days ago, when I returned to Fowl Manor, I met Delylah and suddenly remembered all the humiliation I had gone through at her side. And then I met our son, Artemis the Third. If I didn't think that using smilies is childish, I would insert a sarcastic face here. In one word: horrible. My son is more obnoxious than I have ever been, and to cap it all, he hates me. Just by looking at him and seeing his icy stare, my heart aches for Patrick. The two boys are as different as night and day. They both have the Fowl dignity, but while Patrick inherited his mother's kind-heartedness, Artemis the Third inherited Delylah's unbearable nature. Like mother like son.
The night after I returned from Hungary, Delylah paid me a visit in my room. Unfortunately, she had years before instructed me to remove the coded seal from my door, so that she could visit me anytime she felt like it. And to my great regret, she feels it like quite often.
You have no idea how hard it is to write this down – even merely recalling that night is hard, let alone tell someone about it (even if that someone is myself).
Could it be? – Artemis before the screen gulped. Could it be that after returning from Budapest, he was forced to…?
I didn't want to, I really didn't. But I had to. I knew I had to, or Delylah would possibly have phoned her father, and if I wanted to have a chance to put things right, I couldn't risk being wanted by the police, could I?
I slept with her that night. And I was thinking of Holly all along. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to stand it. I forced myself to picture Holly's face, her body, her kisses… By the end of the act I managed to delude myself so much that I even screamed her name. Not Delylah's – Holly's.
If I hadn't been a genius to come up with a reasonable-sounding explanation, I would have got into a serious trouble. I did not, and Delylah left my room in the belief that she had heard something wrong.
I don't know how long I was staring into the darkness, sobbing. Yes, Artemis, I was crying like a little boy, and I'm not ashamed to admit it; at least not to you. I felt raped, used, and absolutely Holly-less. I hated – and still hate – myself for having slept with my 'wife', but I had no other choice. If you really want to, you can tell Holly about it, but seriously consider it before you do so.
After that night, I decided I had to act and began working on the time machine. I met Mulch that day – that was when he told me about the upheaval in Haven – and I asked him to bring me a cam foil. He did, and he questioned me as to why I needed it, but I couldn't tell him. He would probably have wanted to save me from my 'stupid heroism'. I don't want to be saved. I only want to put things right, to save Fiona, and I want you to save Holly.
I'm going back in time in a few hours, to the time when the Huns began chasing Mulch. If you're reading this it means I succeeded in saving Fiona – and it cost me my life.
Artemis frowned at the screen. The uneasy feeling he had had all day was growing by leaps and bounds.
My plan is very simple: get the arrow shot at Fiona, instead of Fiona. She lives, I die. And you, Patrick and Mulch can return to your own time that is – hopefully – your normal life.
You may ask why I want to die. Simple: if I survived, there would very likely be two of us: one who went back in time to save you, and one who was saved. I'm guessing that Holly wouldn't be too happy about having two husbands at once…
This brings us to the question of Mulch. If I'm not mistaken, there are two of him at the moment: the one who came with me into this life, and the one whom I'm going to save in the past. It's possible that once you three return to our time one of the Mulches disappear, but it's not very likely.
I'm sorry to have messed up time so much, and I'm also sorry that I can only partly put it right, but even a genius has his limits. And I think that sacrificing my genius self to let my non-genius self live is more than one could expect of me.
I'm lucky to have this laptop in this life as well, because otherwise I'm not sure I could have left you a message. And I wanted to leave you one at all costs, because I wanted you to realise something. To realise that you've been a prat for months, Artemis. A stupid, pathetic idiot! Remember what Holly told you about your 'illness'? She said it would slowly, gently kill you. You can't let that happen. You can't continue sulking and grieving after your genius. Be happy, Artemis! Save Holly, and be happy with her. Realise at once that you have everything you need to be happy: a wonderful wife, an exceptionally bright son, a future son or daughter who will surely take after your charming Holly, and you have your parents, Butler and Juliet. True, you don't have your genius, but I do. And what good does it do me? Nothing at all.
My genius is nothing.
You have everything, and I envy you for that.
Don't let your happiness slip through your fingers! Grab it and hold tightly onto it! Don't let it go!
Artemis stared at the screen, some funny feeling spreading in his stomach. Was it… happiness? Hope? He didn't know. All he knew was that this feeling was beginning to counteract the desperate, sad feeling he had felt all day. And finally he understood what that nasty feeling had been: his heart was remembering the trials he had gone through in his other life. He had been feeling the despair of the Artemis writing this email. The sorrow of the Artemis who was ready to sacrifice himself.
Then he stiffened. Sacrifice? Artemis – himself, his other self – dead? Wearing a cam foil?
"Heavens," he muttered, sinking lower in his chair. "The newscast…"
A skeleton with modern wristwatch, under some funny-looking material. Funny looking material: cam foil. Wristwatch: his time machine.
The news reader had said that the young man under the funny cloak must have died in the eight or ninth century… but in fact he had died in the fifth. The archaeologists simply didn't know about the missing three centuries.
The skeleton belonged to Artemis Fowl II who had died in 453.
Artemis ran his fingers across his black locks, feeling horrified. It wasn't every day you heard that archaeologists were examining your skeleton… That was a bit too morbid...
Fighting down his urge to be sick, Artemis decided to finish reading the email – there wasn't much left of it, anyway.
I'm finishing this letter with a few more pieces of advice, I hope you don't mind, Artemis.
First: never ever think of becoming a gunrunner.
Second: value the chance to have your parents around you, no matter how annoying they can be (this especially concerns Mother – I know you haven't been on really good terms with her lately).
Third: if Butler's trying to give you a friendly piece of advice, listen to him. He's older and more experienced, never forget that.
Fourth and final: tell Patrick never to get involved with a nymphomaniac!
Be well, and make our beloved Holly happy,
Artemis Fowl the Second
o o o O O O o o o
A/N: this part made my mum cry… As far as I remember I too had tears in my eyes while writing but I didn't really cry. Currently I'm writing a fic in the Bartimaeus trilogy fandom, and have just written a part that made me bawl like a baby. Literally. My mum scolded me for having used too many tissues…:p Isn't that weird? Has such a thing ever happened to you while writing your fic? Just wondering whether I'm the only over-sensitive freak around… ;)
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