Disclaimer: I, very sadly, must accept that my delusions that I own Artemis Fowl were just that – delusions. Too bad.


If This Isn't Love

Chapter Fourteen: Confessions

Meanwhile, Holly was standing in the entrance of the Supply Room, wallowing in the worst mood she'd been in for almost two years. She was finding it a little difficult to gain entry into the room, due to the fact that someone was blocking the way. Two someones, actually.

That was when Holly decided that nothing was going to get Trouble out of the beating he deserved. He was going to get what he had coming to him. By Frond, was he going to get it. And she had no problem with giving it to him.

Trouble was startled to find himself on the floor, when just a moment ago he'd been living out his most frequent fantasy. Admittedly, in his dreams it hadn't involved the wings, but dreams weren't always in keeping with reality. As he realised when he saw Holly's red and angry face swam into focus.

Holly picked up Trouble by his lapels and dusted him off. 'Are you okay, Trubs?'

Trouble was confused. Holly's face was livid, but her voice was perfectly calm. If he'd been thinking straight he probably could have figured out the trap in her question, but he wasn't even sure what she'd just asked, let alone sure how he should answer if he wanted to maintain a conscious state. His mouth answered automatically.

'Sure. I'm…I'm great.'

'Oh, good. I'm sorry to interrupt your blissfully romantic moment, but I have something really important to tell you.'

'Wha? Holly…what happened? Why am I on the ground? Did you do that?' Trouble looked at her, bewildered.

Holly smiled. 'I turned off you wings. I have something for you, Trouble.'

'Something for me?'

'Yes,' Holly curled her hand into a fist, and drove it into Trouble's face as hard as she could.

Trouble felt the sharp pain in his head, saw stars, and opened him eyes to find himself staring at the ceiling for the second time in as many minutes.

Holly, meanwhile, watched Trouble fly across the floor, and smiled, feeling satisfied. That feeling lasted for about two seconds. Until she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. She turned around.

'Y- '

Holly never got to finish that particular sentence, because she herself was flying across the room. The back of her mind was making a note to ask Juliet to teach her to punch like that, but the rest of her mind was too busy feeling nauseous at the rushing colours to pay any attention.

'Ouch.' Said Holly, as she hit the wall a little distance away from Trouble and had the breath knocked from her body.

'Little fairy guy?' Juliet was kneeling over the dazed Captain Kelp, waving a hand in front of his face. 'Little fairy guy, are you awake?'

Trouble opened his eyes. His magic was already dealing with the bruise Holly had dealt him, but his pride would take a little longer to heal.

'Trouble,' he said, suddenly but perfectly clearly.

'Who is? Oh, you mean Holly? No, she'll be fine.'

'No, its my name,' Trouble explained. 'Trouble. You called me 'little fairy guy.''

'Oh.' Juliet looked slightly confused. 'All right. Trouble.' she smiled.

Trouble was leaning towards Juliet again – with obvious reasons – when he was brought back to reality by Holly's groan.

'Holly?' he asked. 'Are you okay?' He didn't move from his rather awkward position above Juliet, but at least he was wise enough to ask.

Holly sat up. 'Of course I'm not okay,' She rubbed her head. Like Trouble, her magic was taking care of the bruises quickly and efficiently.

'Good.' Trouble leaned down and started kissing Juliet again. Holly groaned.

'I'm not okay anymore,' she muttered. 'I'm gonna be sick.'

Trouble and Juliet ignored her. 'Okay Juliet, I'll forgive you for hitting me, but only because I know you're not completely yourself,' Holly said, standing up. She may as well have been speaking to an empty room, for all the acknowledgment the love struck couple gave her.

'Okay, I'm just going to go now. Trouble, I'm gonna go find Artemis and start kissing him. Is that all right with you?'

Trouble continued the kiss.

'Then I'm going to ask him to marry me and we'll run away to the surface, okay?'

Trouble didn't react.

'We'll invite you to the wedding. And maybe the baptism, too.'

When Trouble didn't react to this, Holly rolled her eyes. Leaving the room, she resisted the urge to kick Trouble in the ribs as she walked past him. What right did he have to interrupt her and Artemis, and then go and kiss Juliet? For Frond's sake, at least she knew Artemis' name!

Holly wasn't sure that she really wanted to talk to Artemis, but eying the couple on the floor, she wondered what else there was to do. It was the middle of the day above ground, which meant that even in normal circumstances LEP Headquarters would be practically deserted. In these circumstances – with everybody running off to profess their love in person, the place was positively isolated. It was likely that the only people left were she, Trouble and Juliet, Equette and Foaly, Artemis, and, of course, where there was Artemis, there was Butler.

Sighing, Holly walked off in the direction of the Operations Booth. If Artemis was here, that was where he would be.

'WHAT IN FROND'S NAME ARE YOU DOING!'

Equette jumped when she heard Foaly's voice behind her. She had been completely absorbed in checking Artemis, and hadn't realised the other centaur was awake.

'Oh…you're awake,' she said falteringly.

Foaly rolled his eyes. 'You don't say.'

'I was just…um…helping Artemis.'

'With what?' Foaly's eyes were narrowed dangerously.

Equette bit her lip uncomfortably. 'To become a fairy.'

'No, you're not.' Foaly shook his head forcefully. 'No way.'

Equette glared at Foaly so hard it wouldn't have been at all surprising if he had burst into flame. 'Try and stop me, Foaly.' She turned around and reached towards Artemis.

'STOP!'

Foaly and Equette turned towards the door simultaneously. Holly was standing there, looking positively horrified.

'what are you DOING!'

Equette seemed to shrink visibly under Holly's gaze. Foaly smirked.

'Shrinking Artemis,' he told her, with all too much glee.

Holly turned back to Equette. 'You weren't!'

Equette appeared to shrink even further. 'Erm…no…'

Holly looked confused. 'What were you doing then?'

'Well, first I was going to remove his pituitary gland…' Equette kept her eyes on the ground, trying not to look at Holly's face. Unfortunately, it was difficult not to look when Holly started to yell.

'You were WHAT?'

Equette was about to answer, but Foaly interrupted. 'He asked us to turn him into a fairy. That's what we were doing…we were turning him into a fairy.'

Holly looked confused. 'We? Both of you?'

'Yes. We were…uh…working together.' It almost seemed to cause Foaly actually pain to say the phrase 'working together,' but he forced it out.

Of course, Equette was confused to hear Foaly saying this, but not nearly as confused as Holly.

'Why were you asleep then?' she asked Foaly.

'I was letting her start the procedure.'

'Right. And you suddenly chucked a little tantrum because…?'

'She was doing it wrong.' Said Foaly

'I was doing it differently.' Said Equette.

'Right.' Holly didn't look convinced. 'Wait a second. You said he ASKED you to do this?'

Equette seemed to shrink again. She and Foaly nodded wordlessly.

'But – but – this is Artemis Fowl we're talking about! Foaly, you at least should have known better! You know what he's capable of! He'd use this to exploit us, you know he would! That's what Artemis does! Why did you agree? How could you agree?'

'Why Holly, I thought you'd know me better than that by now.'

Holly froze. That voice…

Equette was rather more vocal. 'What are you doing awake? There was enough sedative in that –'

Artemis waved the adhesive sedative patch Equette had strapped to his arm. 'In this?' he asked.

'Ah.' Equette shut up.

'What is that?' Foaly took the patch carefully and studied it.

'It's a sedative patch.' Equette explained. 'Its made by minute amounts of heavy metal elements. Most of the normal side affects of the poisoning are counteracted by a peanut oil derivative. The only thing I haven't been able to get rid of is an itching in the extremities -' she turned to Artemis, 'that should be kicking in any second now, by the way – ' she turned back to Foaly, who had a thoughtful look on his face.

'You could probably get rid of that with some sort of calamine, though…'

Equette thought about it. 'That's true! I didn't think of that!'

'You didn't? And I did!'

The female centaur looked confused and not a little exasperated. 'Um…yes. I know you did. You're brilliant, Foaly'

'I am! I mean, I wasn't, but now I am! I can think again!' he suddenly commenced a victory dance. It was a dance he had invented when he won the science prize over Opal back at university. It was really quite terrifying to behold, and it was the reason that most of the people attending the prize-giving ceremony were now in therapy. Picture obscene hip thrusting and Spice Girls-style high kicks.

Needless to say, Holly, Artemis and Equette were all staring at Foaly in morbid fascination. When Foaly noticed he stopped the dance quickly and coughed self-consciously.

'Well, erm…yes. So.'

Artemis stood up. 'All right. I think now is quite an appropriate time for me to leave. I shall go find Butler and let him know that…'

Unfortunately, the rest of the room's occupants couldn't hear what it was that Artemis was going to tell Butler. Possibly because Artemis was backing rather quickly out of the room, or possibly because Artemis hadn't actually said what he was going to tell the bodyguard.

Holly was glancing quickly from Foaly and Equette – who seemed to have remembered that they were supposed to be hating each other and were staring in opposite directions with their arms crossed – to the rapidly shrinking figure of Artemis outside the Ops Booth windows.

'Okay. I'm gonna go see what Artemis needs to tell Butler,' Holly said, making her own, rather un-subtle dash for the door. Foaly and Equette were too busy ignoring each other to even notice.

Outside, Holly raced towards the hallway Artemis had vanished down.

'Artemis! Where are you, you miserable Mud Boy?'

Artemis heard Holly calling and turned around, just in time to have Holly run straight into him.

'Oomph!'

'Hello Holly,' said Artemis, as though it was perfectly normal for Holly to be sprawling across the floor in front of him. 'Long time no see.'

Holly scowled. 'Oh, very funny Mud Boy. I didn't see you, that's all.'

'That's odd. I seem to recall that you are the one with the shielding ability, not me.'

Holly stood up and glared. 'You know, I wanted to ask you something, Artemis. Now I'm not sure I'll bother.'

Artemis raised an eyebrow. 'I see. By all means Holly, ask your question. I am sure I can't live without knowing what it was.'

Holly did realise that Artemis was being sarcastic – only an idiot could have missed it – but she decided to ask anyway. If Artemis really didn't care at all, he wouldn't have even bothered stopping.

'If you didn't want to be a fairy so that you could exploit Haven, then why did you want to be? A fairy, I mean?'

The slight smirk on Artemis' face was replaced by an inscrutable expression. 'Don't you know?'

Holly shook her head slightly. 'No. I can't figure it out at all. I can't figure you out.'

'Nobody ever can,' Artemis mused. 'It's because…I met this beautiful girl.'

Although her heart started racing with this comment, Holly limited the emotion on her face to a mocking grin. 'Not hormones, I hope, Artemis?'

Artemis ignored her. 'And I hurt this girl's feelings, Holly. I knew that she deserved better.'

'So you wanted to be fairy?'

'Yes.'

'Why? Why couldn't you just send her flowers?'

Artemis knelt on the floor, so that his eyes were almost level with Holly's. 'Because she's worth so much more than that. I needed to show her exactly what she meant to me.'

'And what is that?' Holly asked breathlessly. 'What does she mean?'

Artemis finally broke eye contact, and stared at the ground. 'She means…everything. Everything in the world.'

Holly beamed. 'You know, there's a very simple way to show that,' she told him.

Artemis looked up at her. 'There is?'

'Yes. I'll show you.' Holly leaned forward slowly and kissed Artemis. Artemis was surprised, but found himself enjoying this kiss even more than the last. He reached up and ran his fingers down Holly's back. She shivered, and broke the kiss.

'You see? It's easy. And so much more fun than an operation.'

Artemis smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. 'But…I'm still a human. You're still a fairy. We're from different worlds, Holly. It's impossible.'

Holly smiled back. 'I know. But we can still try.'

Artemis nodded. 'All right. We'll try.' He leaned forward and kissed Holly thoroughly, starting at her lips and ending at her neck, then returning to her lips again.

Equette smiled mistily. 'Isn't that sweet?' she said, turning to Foaly. 'A happy ending.'

'I don't know. It's not natural.'

Equette shook her head. 'No, I think it is. Holly told me before that she didn't think Cupid could affect her so much, because she's related to him. And Artemis wasn't shot. I think this is all them.'

Foaly shook his head. 'Even so, this isn't over. We still don't know what Cupid wants.'

Equette shrugged. 'I'm sure he'll tell us, soon enough.'

Then the pair realised that they were supposed to hate each other, and quickly turned their backs and crossed their arms.

Back at his house, Cupid tutted as he sipped a hot chocolate. They certainly would find out, and it was a sure thing that they wouldn't like it.


Okay, I know this took me ages to get up, but it's a lot longer than the others. Or it's a bit longer than the others, anyway. I think the next one will be the last chapter, possibly. I don't know. But please review!