DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ARTEMIS FOWL AND I'M NOT TRYING TO MAKE ANY MONEY OFF THIS !!!! (Author: Eoin Colfer)

(this story takes place after the 5th book and before the 6th - which I am still trying to forget exists)

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King Of Ice, Queen of Hearts

Chapter 2

It was raining by the time she got outside, and she wasn't all too sure whether or not she was happy about it. A part of her trilled in the back of her head, excited that the earth now smelt the wonderful dew, but most of her was busy being wet. Umbrella's only did any good when the rain was coming down completely vertically. It didn't work when the rain was almost coming at a ninety degree angle. With a cold shudder she huddled closer to the brick wall of the psychiatric office hoping the eaves would keep the majority of the rain off her.

She dug her right hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out the prescription – watching as it quickly turned transparent while the words bled black-blue like tears down the paper. Ah, yes, she thought bitterly, the solution to everyone's problems. Medication. Pills to make you happy, pills to level you to mellow; there was pills for pills and endless prescriptions for every problem. And every problem, there was the laughable concept, every problem was gauged by what the medical society deemed abnormal. At the moment being an extrovert was in. Introverts, well, they're just freaks and need help to fit into society. Fortunately there's pills for that.

But her problem wasn't introversion, though she was, undoubtably, an introvert. It was something that lurked deeper and darker, and she knew it. She knew it wasn't a matter of fickle lines drawn with pencil in sand, it was a real problem. She watched as the paper slowly crumpled down by its own weight, sadly disintegrating into nothingness. Oh yes, there was good reason she was in the psychiatrists office. Slowly she crunched the prescription in her fist, watching as it shredded to pieces and fell heavy to the grungy sidewalk. Though no amount of drugs was going to fix it.

Delilah watched the remaining paper float away on the steady stream of water, till it hit the gutter and disappeared beyond the underbelly of the city. She sucked air tightly into her cheeks through her clenched teeth and then let it out slowly. She should just go home and tell her parents they wasted their money. She shoved her hands into her jacket pocket. One of them hit something.

"Figures," she muttered under her breath, and pulled out the reason she was still waiting outside the office in the chilling rain from her coat pocket.

It was a nice cell phone, a specialized one from what she could tell, with only two numbers programmed in it. She had to check the phone – she didn't know who it belonged to.

Ok, that was a lie, and she knew it. She knew who it belonged to. He had been sitting in the corner chair glaring about the room when she'd come out from the doctor's office. He had been watching her, though the whole room was as well, but his intense stare caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up on end. She hadn't dared to get a good look at him, people unnerved her in general and men were worse. She had, though, in passing him, pulled a strand of hair out of her view so she could brave a glance. For a second it had seemed they'd made a connection.

He hadn't even looked back, as his name had been called. Delilah wished she'd been paying attention to the secretary, but her thoughts had been too busy scrambling around to have heard anything. She had turned to the now empty seat and noticed, sitting dejectedly under the chair, a cell phone. It must have been his, she had heard it clunk lightly to the floor as he'd passed, she knew it.

God, she hoped it was his.

Or else she'd been standing in the rain for about half an hour with some stranger's cellphone. For no good reason at all.

She flipped the phone around in her fingers before pocketing it again. She could wait inside, but she'd rather not. She imagined the people in there all judged her, knew why she was there. They would have sniggered to themselves, darted nasty looks in her direction if she'd stayed after she'd received her prescription. Beside, the small space was far too stuffy for her nerves.

The door beside her slammed open. She jumped nearly two feet off the ground, heart thundering madly in her chest. No one stomped out of a psychiatrist office! Who stomped out of a psychiatrists office?

Apparently the man she had been waiting for did.

And boy did he look pissed.