Author's Note: A big thank you to everyone who reviewed, and everyone who took on the challenge! The winner of the reviewer contest is claraowl, who requested something I found very tough.

Include the line, "Come early, and bring a banana," in my next Drabble.

I'm trying very hard to impress all of you! There's another surprise for the reviewers of this chapter, too—another contest! Except, I set the theme...you give me the most important sentence. Thanks claraowl!

I don't own Artemis Fowl.

Foaly's lids were already begging to drop.

Stay awake,he kept telling himself. Just a little while longer. A little.

The centaur, true enough, was used to staying awake way past his working hours that were until 12:30p.m anyway. This practice usually paid off—especially when he stayed awake to check up on a certain Mud Boy.

These were Fowl's communication lines. Foaly had been tracking it for hours now, and it seemed like he was finally getting at something.

Now I know why it was so hard to crack. He's still talking to someone!

Oh yes, live entertainment.

There was a rush of static from the speakers, before smoothening out into words.

"Of course," Artemis's voice was clear. "Come early, and bring a banana."

Foaly was confused. Really confused.

"Sure, Arty," replied a female voice on the other end. The centaur recognized it as Holly. What was she doing at two in the morning?! If those two were planning on pulling some sort of prank on him, they were going to be sorry. "And hey, keep things ready, okay?"

"I'll see to it. But make sure you don't tell Foaly exactly where you're going. I don't want surveillance on me."

"Gotcha, Arty."

She hung up. Hung up! Just when things were starting to make at least a bit of sense! Not that it did. Foaly did something he'd last done seven years ago, and scratched his head in immense confusion. Bring a banana? Why a banana, of all things?

Maybe...maybe he was being mislead. Maybe...A triumphant grin crossed his face.

Codes!

Oh yes, Mud Boy was using codes. And Foaly felt satisfied enough to fall asleep, peacefully, on his desk. He'd lied to Caballine he was working extra hours, anyway.

It was going to pleasant dreams.

•—••

It was six in the morning when Foaly woke up with a bright smile on his face. With the lack of usual early morning grogginess, it didn't take him long to remember why exactly he was smiling.

The centaur looked at his booth's doors expectantly. Holly wasn't going above ground without a permit, and she wasn't getting a permit without asking him. Sure enough, after a patient seven minutes and thirty seconds of waiting, the doors slid open to allow the pretty LEP Captain whom it recognized. It wasn't surprising that she was smiling as well. Ooooh, he could almost guess why...

"Hello Holly. Early to work on your day off?" he asked pleasantly. Too pleasantly.

Holly seemed to forget that her being in a good mood didn't put others in a good mood as well, and replied, "Yeah, I need my surface visa renewed."

"Hmm," mused Foaly. "Now I wonder why."

"Come on, centaur, can't I just fly over Stonehenge without you bugging me?" She scowled, but he knew she was faking it.

"Stonehenge..." Foaly smirked. "Okay. No plans at Fowl Manor. Absolutely none."

"What have you been up to, Pony?"

"Pssh, I'm not going to ruin your day. I'll give you the visa. But," he antagonizingly held the permit card above his head. He'd had it ready as soon as he woke up. "You're going to wear an iris cam, like it or not."

"Why?" Holly squinted at him. "Opal Koboi is not going to magically show up, Foaly. I don't need an iris cam."

"What, centaurs can't go to the surface, so why can't I get my best friend to give me a live feed from Stonehenge?"

The elf rolled her eyes. Foaly sounded too convincing. "Okay, fine. But it's not exactly Stonehenge, and I'll only keep the cam on during flights."

The centaur held in a snicker. "Sure, Holly." He gave her the card, along with the iris cam in its small glass box. "Come back by nightfall."

"Actually...tomorrow morning."

This was most certainly going to be fun. "Alright." Foaly managed to keep on an impassive face. "Now go, don't let the Commander catch you at work. He might forget it's your day off."

"Thanks, Foaly," Holly dashed out of the doors at an astounding speed, and the centaur enjoyed the luxury of a satisfactory grin. She was not going to remove her iris cam. In fact, she couldn't. It was going to ask for a blink pattern password which only Foaly could tell her.

He clopped over to his monitor.

Good thing it's my day off too. My first in five years.

Foaly grabbed a carrot. Sit back and enjoy.

—••—

Holly did not, in fact, intend to fly over Stonehenge. But she was going to do it, just for Foaly's sake, before taking the blasted iris cam off. Shielded, she passed hordes of Mud Men tourists in their skinnies and shorts, before kicking up speed a little and heading for a certain spot in Dublin, Ireland.

Fowl Manor's grounds were manicured, clean cut and outright gorgeous, surrounded on all sides by well managed trees of every kind. Best of all, the air was clean and fresh. And even better for Holly, it was where Artemis Fowl the Second currently stood.

Still shielded, she landed on one foot and proceeded to sneak up on him from behind.

She was barely three inches away when he turned around and said, "Holly, you cannot be serious."

The elf unshielded before pouting at him incredulously. "You are such a..." She suddenly remembered to take her iris cam off, and started blinking at it in the usual manner, except it didn't seem to be working.

Artemis chuckled. "Need help with that?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Mud Boy. Just get the stuff ready while I take it off."

He shrugged, turned around again and began laying out the contents of a box at his feet on a checkered red and white groundsheet. Holly forgot her own troubles for a while to appreciate the fact that she'd managed to convince the great and smug Artemis Fowl to take her on a picnic. It had started out in an argument on human-fairy cultural differences, eventually leading up to cuisine. The Mud Boy had been forced to take on the challenge of convincing Holly Short that human food tasted better.

"Mud Men just ruin everything with their disgusting chemicals," she'd said. "And when they end up sick, they blame it on medication."

"That's the People's version of it," argued Artemis. "While it is true that most companies rely on artificial methods to produce food, we do use organic methods too."

She had playfully elbowed him in the ribs. "Okay, you ready to prove that? I bet even a goblin can tell the difference between a Mud Men made fruit and one grown cleanly in a fairy lab."

"Oh, and how do you suggest I convince you that you're wrong?"

"Hmm. Take me out, maybe?"

"What?"

"Don't get ideas, Mud Boy, I meant we could meet up for breakfast or something. Or a picnic, if your great big brain can take it."

Artemis had frowned. "Are you joking?"

"Nope. I'll bring a clean sample from Haven. The bananas are the best."

"I suppose I don't have a say in it. Alright, Holly."

"So, I'm guessing you brought one of your hygienically grown bananas?" Artemis snickered. "Please, Captain, have we really sunk so low?"

"I can't get the iris cam out," snapped Holly. "Are you too busy to help?"

"Oh, alright, if you really can't do without me..."

She punched him on the shoulder. This made Artemis suddenly interested in the hazel iris cam over Holly's blue eye, leaning in closer to have a better look. Despite their hight differences, this position somehow felt correct, felt comfortable, although about five hundred awkward things were going through his mind at the moment. If he came in any closer...

"Blink six times. Leave an interval of two seconds after the first blink, eight after the second, one after the third, four after the fourth, eleven after the fifth and it'll loosen on the sixth blink."

Holly involuntarily blinked five times in surprise. "How did you guess that?"

"Your previous blue iris cam's batch code," replied Artemis, now distancing himself to avoid any embarrassment. "I suppose Foaly wanted to test your attention to detail. Very insignificant detail, I might add."

The elf was quiet for a while, then started unlocking the tiny camera.

Two...eight...one...four...eleven?

Sure enough, when she attempted plucking it off the next time, it came out easily.

"Thanks, Artemis, but I have a question for you." Holly crossed her arms at her chest. "Just how did you know the batch code? Please don't tell me you hacked Foaly."

Artemis made an attempt to avoid her gaze. "I...noticed. The iris cam your wore back then wasn't mission-standard, so it had the code imprinted on the pupil."

"So you...is your eyesight really that good?"

"Not particularly, no." He shrugged it off, kneeling down on the groundsheet. "Shall we forget this and proceed?"

Holly sat down next to him, but she was grinning slyly. "Okay, Artemis, when did you have the time to look so close into my eyes?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. I might tell Foaly to improve his tech."

Artemis massaged his forehead. "I suppose I simply looked."

"And I didn't notice because...?"

"You were occupied with other things and I was seated next to you, not across. Do you see how irrelevant this is, now that I've told you?"

Holly pretended to think about it. "Hmm, it is very touching."

"What is?"

"Say it, Mud Boy. If you think my eyes are that pretty, there's no need to hide it from me. I'm not like Lili Frond, but I do like compliments. If they're not about my figure."

Artemis couldn't suppress a blush at that, although he shook it off just as quickly with, "Why don't you stop interrogating and pass me that banana?"

The elf laughed. "Sure, Arty," she said, a little too sweetly, handing him the fruit. "You have pretty eyes too."

The Mud Boy started to wish he hadn't told her that blink pattern.

—••—

Foaly wasn't completely cut off from the action. Because, whatever said and done, Holly had forgotten one crucial thing. He'd given her a new model of his invention: one that came fully equipped with state of the art inbuilt speakers that let him hear everything being said, very interesting live entertainment to the centaur, and there was a completely different blink pattern to switch it off. He wasn't at all upset that Fowl knew what his code was—because if he didn't, Foaly wouldn't be laughing his head off and literally streaming with tears at the moment.

Best audio clip of the year.

And no doubt the best blackmail material he had never had before.

I know he never checks his messages, but I think I'll send this to Mulch.

Author's Note: YAAAYS! That was certainly one of the most tough challenges I've ever got—a big shoutout to claraowl! Thank you, that was so much fun to write!

Here's your next reviewer challenge— tell me what you thought of this chapter, and give me one main sentence to include in my next update. The theme will be "Truth, dare, torture and kiss". I'm sure you're aware of the game! So please, remember: A/H! And the best one wins. No adult themes.

Milk toffees!

-Shaadia.