[A/N]: Juliet-centric! Enjoy! =^v^=

When Juliet woke up that fateful day to the first rays of the sun, she knew something was wrong.

Firstly, the twins weren't with her.

Juliet immediately scoured the house, and found a curiously tired Myles sleeping alone in his shared room, tucked in as if someone had taken him to bed. Not wanting to awaken him and deal with a clingy Fowl, she followed her instincts and Bellico's partial knowledge of Opal's whereabouts to the outside of the Manor. Bellico knew Opal would have been near a gate.

Juliet soon found herself staring down at a dead megalomaniacal pixie.

She turned her head away.

A rustle of the grass behind her sent her soldier's instincts raring. The girl spun around.

There.

Her feet carried her as her brain automatically tried to figure out why exactly her brother and Holly were kneeling in the grass over a prone figure.

Juliet may not have been a genius, but she wasn't an idiot.

She knew subconsciously exactly what was going on, even if her conscious mind refused to acknowledge it.

"Dom! Holly!" she called, but her voice sounded very far away, even to her. Holly's tearstained face slowly lifted to emotionlessly watch Juliet approach. Butler flinched.

Juliet stumbled slightly as she ran to them faster than she'd ever run before, even in bodyguard training.

Juliet stopped next to her brother, looking down in horror at….

No.

Juliet averted her eyes as she dropped to her knees beside her brother.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice quivering slightly.

The next few months were some of the hardest of Juliet's life. She struggled to find a balance between doing her job for the Fowls at the Manor and pretending that the gaping hole Artemis had left behind was nonexistent. It was a very quiet time, full of many tears from all members of the Fowl family, tempered with the subtle confusion of the Fowl twins. The boys didn't understand why Artemis wasn't there, and definitely couldn't figure out why everyone was acting like he wasn't coming back.

It didn't take long for them to figure it out.

And when they did, it unleashed another tempest. Angeline and Artemis Senior - no, just Artemis, Juliet struggled to remind herself and simultaneously forget - doted on their children like never before, hardly letting the boys out of their sight and ensuring their complete safety. Security increased around the Manor.

And yet, there was one wing of the house that stood untouched. While the staff came and went to clean from time to time, there was a suffocating silence that surrounded that part of the house. Many avoided that corner of the house like the plague, and those that were required to enter escaped as quickly as they could. It seemed like a ghost haunted that area, without the ghost.

The Fowls definitely didn't go near it.

Juliet's brother didn't make matters easier. Butler steadfastly believed Artemis would return, and did not participate in the activities around the Fowl Manor.

Juliet ran her finger across a particularly large nick in the cutting board, pushing aside a pile of carrots she had already chopped and into the pile of waiting vegetables. The nick was Artemis's fault. He had startled her once as she cut onions, distracted as she was by attempting not to cry. Juliet had dropped it, narrowly missing her fingers, and spun around to jab, hiss at, and otherwise harm whoever had distracted her. Artemis had simply raised one eyebrow and looked at her, and she had to settle for jabbing one finger in his chest and growling at him not to startle her again.

She still remembered his retort.

"I thought you heard me," Artemis had said. "Isn't that what your sensei taught you?"

Juliet had sputtered indignantly, knowing that Artemis knew she hadn't finished training, and prepared to disregard all rules and flip the smug boy when her brother had come in, questioning what was going on. After explaining, Artemis was sent away (or perhaps he had simply become bored), and Butler turned to scold Juliet.

At the time, Juliet was pretty sure that Artemis had left so he could eavesdrop on her scolding. She confronted him about it later, and the boy had given her an insufferably smug smile and told her that her discipline was none of his business.

It definitely wasn't, but that didn't stop him from eavesdropping. She had never gotten a confession out of him, and had been bitter at him for it.

Now, staring down at evidence of his previous existence, she was forced to admit the truth that she had been avoiding for six months. Now, she was just glad for the memory of the smug little boy that had been the main focus of her early life. The little brother that she'd never had.

Juliet swept the rest of the vegetables into the soup.

Artemis may be gone, but life will move on.

It's not over.

Then, she sat down on a stool by the island, dropped her head in her hands, and finally allowed herself to cry for what was lost.