Space

Artemis sighed, slumping back in the pilot's seat of the Interstellar. Such casual and undignified body language was usually beneath him, but he simply had no other way to process the stress right now. Speaking of things that were usually beneath him, Artemis had forgotten once again that he was in space, so the attempted slump turned into an even more undignified bouncing up and down in his seat. His motion had triggered an equal and opposite reaction, his seat's restraint belt in front of his chest working together with the seat itself behind him to shake him to and fro, thanks to his sudden downward movement in zero-gravity. "Stupid," he muttered, gripping the sides of the seat to cease his jockeying. Hopefully he hadn't bruised himself.

"Surely you don't refer to yourself," came a low, slightly bemused voice from behind the pilot's seat.

Artemis about jumped out of his seat. He would have been able to, were it not for the safety belt holding him down. Unfortunately, his startled reaction started his bobbing up and down even worse than before. "Butler!" he sighed, halting his momentum with great effort once again. "Naturally, I wasn't referring to myself. But you mustn't do that to me. Cardiac arrest in outer space is an affliction that I do not wish to be the first victim of."

"Sorry. It's just too easy to sneak around when you don't have to make footfalls to get anywhere." Butler came forward through the cockpit, strapping himself down in the co-pilot seat. The term used to describe the secondary seat was merely traditional, for the enormous man had not been doing any co-piloting, nor did he intend to. The workings of the spacecraft were far beyond Butler's own technical skill.

"Your newfound and mildly unsettling ability to enter rooms even more stealthily than before is most interesting, but I seem to have a problem."

"That's troubling, coming from you. Are we in danger?"

"No physical danger, I'm afraid." Artemis waved his hand melodramatically. "I refer to problems of the soul."

Butler winced. "That's worse, all right."

"Yes, see?" Artemis sighed again.

"Not really. You haven't told me what the problem is." Butler studied the profile of Artemis' face, which was all that was available to him. Artemis preferred to not make eye contact when discussing something difficult.

"Surely you're smart enough to know, old friend."

"Oh, believe me, I have a good list of things that could be the problem you're referring to."

Artemis scowled, finally turning to face the mountain of a man in the seat next to him. "A good list? I presume, then, you simply need me to narrow it down a touch? Shall I sell you a vowel?"

"How about an H?"

Artemis, his face twitching at the implication, immediately turned back to stare out into space, literally. "That's not a vowel," he offered lamely.

Butler put his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I can't help but notice that it's the 6-month mark."

Artemis forgot his worries for a second, curious. "You're keeping track, too?"

"Oh, not at all. I simply couldn't help but overhear you bragging to everyone you know back home of the milestone." He allowed himself a chuckle, then went serious again. "Everyone except for her, that is."

Artemis tried to throw up his usual façade of blamelessness. "Well, she's a busy elf this past week. I got her voicemail. It's not my fault."

Butler snorted in a way that, if you didn't know any better, could be called judgmental. "Shall we test that logic?"

Artemis, offended, turned back once more, to face down his bodyguard in this battle of logic. "Yes, let's. It is one hundred per cent not my fault that my brothers did what they did. I'm millions of miles away, therefore unable to take part. QED, not my fault that Holly is too busy cleaning up my brothers' mess to take a call today." He crossed his arms in triumph.

Butler wagged a finger. "And who's the one that got them exposed to the fairy folk in the first place? If you hadn't had your misadventures with them over the years, your brothers would be completely oblivious to their existence, and unable to make the mess they did and almost get themselves permanently killed."

Artemis pinched his brow. "Butler, think. My brothers wouldn't even exist if I hadn't had my dealings with the People."

Butler pondered this. "Alright. Fair point. But not the point."

Artemis groaned. "And what, precisely, is the point, then?"

"You could've tried harder to reach her today."

A silence fell over them then. Artemis gathered his thoughts, and Butler knew when to let him. The young genius started slowly nodding after a few minutes, and said with great effort: "I concur." He looked into his father figure's eyes with a forlorn expression he hadn't worn since he had decided to undergo the space mission in the first place. "Butler, old friend. I believe my mission is a failure."

Butler understood exactly what he was talking about, but waited for further elaboration.

"Not only have I failed my mission, but I now believe my initial intent in departing the planet to be of utmost foolishness. Stupid." And this time, he was ready to admit he was referring to himself.

Haven City

Holly Short slouched in her office chair, and thought she was going to throw up if she had to lick any more envelopes. This week had been the worst of her time as commodore yet. And yet, in a way, it was also the best. Cleaning up after the 9th documented Fowl incident in 15 years (not counting the incident with the tiara) was strangely nostalgic. Unfortunately for her promoted self, this also meant a hell of a lot more paperwork and letters to the Council than she had had to deal with before. Now she really understood why Root had been so uptight about these kinds of things. And why he had been uptight in general.

Foaly suddenly buzzed her office, and started talking on loudspeaker before she could even accept the call. She supposed he wanted to make sure she didn't just ignore the call, which, to be fair, she would have been tempted to do. "Hey, did you remember to write the letter about my budget?" he whinnied.

"You wanted it to go down, right?" she ground out.

"What? No!"

"Then push the End Call button before I storm down the hall and push it with your face!"

The call disconnected abruptly, and she felt a little guilt for treating her friend so harshly. But then it rang again, and the guilt went away. She slammed the Accept button, and before the centaur could say anything, she shouted: "I guess it's going down, pony boy!"

"Uh, wrong number?" came the Irish-accented voice from the speaker.

"Oh! Artemis!" she panicked, sitting bolt upright for some reason. "Sorry, I thought you were Foaly! He's been driving me crazy today."

She could almost hear her human friend's eyebrow raising. "Well," he began, "If that's how you answer calls to your friends, I'd hate to be your enemy."

She relaxed back into her previous slouch, licking the envelope that contained Foaly's budget request. "As I recall, that never worked out so well."

"No," thought Artemis aloud. "It most certainly did not."

Holly winced at what she was about to say, but it had to be said. "Arty, I'm sorry, but I'm kind of in the middle of some things here."

Artemis sighed regretfully. The audio quality was fantastic. In most calls made with human equipment, a sigh would come across as a harsh crackling sound. His superluminal communication system he'd perfected during his voyage really was perfect. Foaly had already both subtly and not-so-subtly asked her a dozen times to get the schematics from Fowl. Out of pure curiosity, of course, and having nothing to do with patents. Anyways, Artemis had sighed. "Actually, Holly, it is rather imperative that I speak to you at some length now."

Holly perked up. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, not materialistically, no."

"You know you're going to have to elaborate on that, right?" she chuckled. Foaly and Fowl both had a way with words, that was for sure. She decided she could use a break from paperwork to listen to some of them, so she put her feet up and cracked her knuckles. "What's up?"

"Do you have video call capability at the moment?"

Alarm bells went off in her head. He hadn't asked for that in the entire time he's been off-world. "Yeah, yeah I do. Hang on." She put her feet back down and unconsciously straightened her lapel before flicking the switch. "Can you see me?"

Artemis' image appeared on her primary monitor in all its plasma-screen glory. His face was covered in stubble of decent length, and bags were well-formed under his eyes. It may have been the most color she'd ever seen on his face. His command of language was as vibrant as ever, too. "Your visage is indeed before mine eyes."

"Arty, you look terrible."

"I take it my image is also transmitting," he said with some disdain. "I can assure you, you look none the…" he trailed off. He had automatically come up with a usual retort, but his heart wasn't in it today. "You look beautiful, Holly. I think I'm coming back, by the way."

Holly about fell out of her chair. "Slow down there, mud man. There's a lot to unpack here."

Artemis affirmed with his head. That is to say, he nodded. "Last week, when you called to tell me about my brothers and their situation, it… brought back a lot of memories. Memories I'd been… trying to move on from. By exploring another planet. But my mission failed. I think I'm going to turn around."

Holly's face was lined with worry. She could see in his face that he was struggling to get through every word, and it wasn't an effect of screen tearing. "Artemis, what are you talking about, exactly?" She had a feeling in her stomach that she hadn't felt in years, albeit also in Artemis' presence. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I need to know something before I make the decision to turn around."

She shifted, suddenly and irrationally uncomfortable in her deluxe office chair.

"I need to know if it'll be worth it."

Her heart thought it knew where he was going with this, but her rational mind tried one last time to prove herself wrong. "Well, you've made a lot of scientific discoveries out there. How much fuel you have, how far out you are, how difficult it will be to re-enter the atmosphere… I can't say if it's worth it."

Artemis nodded thoughtfully, and appeared to go on a tangent. "This is one of the benefits of video call. As you may recall, I earned the title of Doctor in recent years. I'm sure our good friend Dr. Argon would also agree on this next point."

Holly's face dropped into one of her most dumbfounded expressions. "Huh?"

"Eyes are windows into the soul, my dearest Holly. I return in three weeks."