Disclaimer: Reece is mine but Artemis is not. Would I trade Reece for Artemis if I had the chance? Er… I'll get back to you.

Reece

"Will she be alright?" A disembodied voice asked. Male, Reece thought.

"It's only a few bruises and a concussion, Mud Boy!" Another disembodied voice asked. This one was undoubtably female. "From your reaction, you'd think she was dead already!"

It was as if the voices were coming from above her. Was she dead? The female thought so. Isn't that what she said? Something like that. It didn't really matter what she said or didn't say, if Reece was already dead.

"I blame you for what happened."

"What! Share the responsibility, you idiot! I didn't physically get her like this myself! You were the one who made her hide in that stupid place!"

"You were the one who suggested she come along, and then you were the one who was adamant of her leaving the shuttle. I cannot see how any of this is my fault." Reece was sure this was Artemis. No one else was that hard-headed. So the other had to be Holly Short.

"Stop picking a fight! Just admit you're worried as well! I was just as worried as you when Roderick grabbed her! If Mulch hadn't got him when he did, he could have easily snapped her neck like a twig!"

"Now this is fascinating. One of the People caring what happens to a human?"

"If I still had my buzz baton you'd be out cold!" Holly snarled.

"Thank God for small favors," Artemis quipped.

Reece couldn't stant this anymore. Their argument was making her already aching head hurt even more. She could definitley believe that she had a concussion. Her blood was pulsing painfully in the veins of her head.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and immediatley scrunched shut. A blinding white light was directly above her, shining into her face. Beneath her closed lids, her pupils contracted until they were only pinpoints in a sea of grey.

"Mud Boy! She moved! …Stop sulking and get over here." A shadow crossed Reece's vision, like an eclipse of the sun. She tentatively opened her eyes. "Her pupils are very small. It may be a worse concussion than I had thought." A cropped auburn head filled Reece's field of vision.

"Maybe they're small because of the light shining in them," Reece said. Her voice sounded odd. Whispery and far-away. She cleared her throat, trying to try again. It kept going into a full-blown coughing fit. Someone stuck a styrofoam cup of water under her nose. She drank, trying to stop the perpetual coughing. As she drank, she took in her surroundings. She was in the tiny infirmary the shuttle had.

She glared at Holly. "Why am I on a table?" No wonder she had been uncomfortable. A long, cold, metal plane that reminded her of an examination table. She wrinkled her nose.

"We didn't know where else to put you. We thought we'd have to heal you. Don't look at me like that, Mud Girl. I don't mean operate. You looked worse for wear earlier, though."

Oh, that's right. What happened...?Artemis came up with a plan, and we left the shuttle. I was told to stay put… But Holly! Holly got hurt. And the centaur did something to me. Did I break a bone?

She remembered, now. Artemis explained to her before they got off about someone named Roderick. Who turned out to be a centaur. That was a shocker. Artemis had gone on, saying that he and Holly had been searching for a jewel that was missing from one of Holly's clients, and the jewel had been traced to this person- centaur, Roderick, who was as attracted to shiny things as a magpie. He was hiding in a false attic of a warehouse in Ontario, Canada. They infiltrated the warehouse. Artemis told Reece to stay put behind some cargo. Holly and Artemis ambushed Roderick with some weapons Reece had never seen before, while Mulch was supposed to go in the back entrance and swipe the jewel.

There had been a slight hitch, though. Roderick knocked Holly out and sent her flying into a wall, not five feet from where Reece was told to hide. Reece didn't know what to do, Holly was hurt but Artemis told her not to move. She ran out to aid Holly, but was seen by Roderick. If only he had been looking the other way for a couple seconds! Roderick charged her. Reece remembered that part without any trouble. You wouldn't forget a 300 lb crazed centaur charging at you very easily. He grabbed her in a merciless grip, bruising her ribs and her arms. She remembered a bright blue light, then falling, then waking up to Holly and Artemis fighting.

"What happened after the centaur-guy grabbed me?" She asked. To Holly, it must have seemed out of the blue.

"Er. Mulch hit him with a Neutrino on a high setting, he dropped you, and you landed on your head and upper back, which is why you have a concussion. On top of a cold. Mulch called the LEP to take Roderick into custody, since we found that that attic was his hoard for thousands of other jewels he had stolen or had stolen for him. Artemis carried you back here, and here you are. Artemis get ov-"

"Here, Reece." Artemis had been rummaging in a container. He now handed her an ice pack. It crinkled oddly when Reece took it. She looked at it closely, and saw something like crystals in the gel. She raised her brows and put it on a large bruise dominating her left arm.

"I'm tired," she stated quietly. She flushed. She hated having a cold. It made her feel weaker than everyone else. She hated feeling weak, and therefore inferior.

"Oh, of course. It's obvious that you would. No one would be able to get any rest with a certain ex- LEP Captain yelling at innocents."

Holly snorted rather loudly. "'Innocents'? And I suppose you find yourself in this category? I've never seen you innocent, and I knew you before you were even a teenager. I actually wonder if you were ever innocent at all."

Artemis glared at her, about to voice a reply. Reece stepped in. "Ah, no fighting. At least wait a second." She half-hopped, half-fell off the metal table, trotting out of the room. She poked her head in, informing them that they could now continue their argument, and left to go keep Mulch company.

Artemis

Artemis and Holly gaped after her. They met each other's eyes, and glared at each other.

"Wonderful procedure, starting an argument in the company of an ill and injured being."

Holly threw up her hands. "Why are you continuing this! This was the reason she left, if you didn't notice!"

Artemis looked the other way, his nose in the air. Holly made gestures of wringing someone's neck. Artemis made a start at saying something, but then stopped. Holly seemed to know what he was about to say. She stopped choking the air and glared daggers at him, planting her feet and crossing her arms ominously.

"Say it."

Artemis's gaze seemed to say, 'make me'.

Holly was past the end of her patience. "Now," she demanded vehemently. Her eyes flashed, a warning that if he did not answer, she would slam his face into the table.

"Fine!" Artemis glared at her, then said it as if he was talking of the weather, "I was worried." His voice didn't say much, but his eyes told the real story.

He left a triumphant and gleeful elf in the infirmary and went to find where Reece had got to. He found her wrapped in her fleece, asleep in the passenger's area of the shuttle. She was falling out of her seat, her head almost touching the carpet. He lifted her easily and sat down, arranging her comfortably in his arms. He remembered to hold the ice pack to her bruise, frowning when he saw the full extent of the bruises that speckled her arms. He counted back from 100 in German to calm down.

Staring off into space, he began to put together a story to tell Kelvin. He would tell Butler the real story, but if he did the same to Kelvin he would never let Artemis get near his charge again. Artemis wouldn't stand for that. Looking at Reece's sleeping face, Artemis knew he definitley wouldn't stand for that.

Author's Hype:

Whoosh! Sorry I haven't updated in forever. I got so lazy this summer. When school starts, I'll post more. I know that sounds really odd. Usually it's the other way around. But I use posting on stories to procrastinate doing homework. XD

I found out how to work the 'reply' thing on the reviews! Arigato gozaimasu, Hana-chan… -bow- So, if you posted a review after ch5 came out, I'll reply to it on there. Hopefully it'll work.

By the way, if you review something like 'Really cool story, thanks for writing it, update soon!' then I'll rarely reply to it. It gets kinda old to keep typing 'Thanks, you're welcome, okay', or something, every time. That's not to say I disregard it. I really like hearing that people like the story. It's just hard to reply to. If you add something in like 'Hey, I'd like to see Artemis and Reece having an ice cream cone scene at some point' or 'I really liked this part' or something, it's much more fun to reply to it. Ja ne!