Disclaimer: title goes to John Donne, my love. And this chapter houses still more hating on Artemis Sr., though I know it's not his fault Colfer uses him as his soap box it rubs me the wrong way none the less. Of all the characters to use.

Also, I think the second Angeline part gets a bit wordy and the ending is a bit trite, but I couldn't make it all lie smooth so we're just going to have to roll with it. Haha, and watch me in my epic quest to use as many canon characters as possible in this story.

Chapter Ten: Endure not yet A breach but an expansion

Past:

Angeline comes upon her son in the hallway outside his bedroom. He is leaning one of the leaded windows, palms and forehead pressed to the frosted glass. The full moon gives his pale face an eerie, underwater glow, against the background of an endless blue night. She has seen him do this before, countless times, and has had enough of slipping past like nothing is wrong.

'What are you looking at?' she comes to stand beside him.

If she startled him, he gives no sign of it. 'Nothing I care to see,' he replies.

She speaks softly, like a child coaxing a bird into their hand, 'Should I have asked what are you looking for?'

He nods, forehead clearing a shiny circle on the misted glass. 'Yes. However, the response would have been just as unsatisfying. It isn't there.'

'It?'

'She.'

'Ah.'

'But she doesn't like the cold,' he reasons, mostly to himself. 'And a full moon isn't a guarantee, after all.'

'How long have you been waiting?'

He looks at her, an unconscious suspicion narrowing his eyes at her inferred doubt. 'Three years,' he replies slowly.

She nods, licking he lips contemplatively, 'Don't you think, maybe-'

'That's not that long for them,' he interrupts, defensive.

She sees in his face the same wild longing that had looked back at her from her mirror every morning, all those years ago. And she knows just how easy it is to slip from there to somewhere much worse. Is it a family curse, she wonders, to wait for our lovers until we are mad with want? Until our endless daydreams of their skin on ours send us screaming into insanity?

'I didn't realise you cared for her quite so much,' she whispers.

'Neither did I.' His smile is bitter.

Present:

'Alright,' Mulch uses a stripped grape stem as a pointer, tapping the blueprint before him, 'so, this sheep thingummy has its own room you say?'

'Yes, in the far wing, just there. The room also has its own guard, which is where you come into play,' Artemis steeples his fingers, relaxing into his chair. They are in his study at Fowl Manor and it's incredible how much more in control being home makes him feel. 'Luckily, his post is outside the door.'

'So what? A simple tunnel my way up, grab it, tunnel back out?' Mulch knocks superstitiously on the wooden table.

'Precisely. Butler and I will visit the museum earlier in the day, to attach optic twists. When you near the floor, we will begin feeding the cameras a loop. I suggest you go in somewhere on the adjoining botanical gardens, the surrounding neighbourhood being nearly all concrete. Here is a copy of the guard shifts for you.'

Mulch pops another grape into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, 'Are there any sensors? Scales, etc, etc?'

'No, this is a pseudo-Celtic sheep, not a Fabergé egg.' Artemis reaches into a bag at the foot of his chair, 'Nonetheless, an associate of Butler's made this up for us, it is done to the measurements presented in the original study notes,' he passes Mulch a golden sheep.

'Not solid obviously,' Mulch holds the sheep close to his nose, letting his hair roam over it, '24C leaf, but bronze underneath?'

Artemis nods, 'The weight and detailing are identical to the original, so it will keep everyone happy for the time being.'

Mulch raises an eyebrow, 'And just how did you get your hands on the original field notes?'

Butler sighs, 'Trust me, dwarf, you don't want to know.'

And when Butler says things like that, you take his word for it.

The Fowls, shadowed by as many Butlers, make their way through the Ulster Museum, a gawking, loud, and apparently nearly average family unit. Only they recognise the oddity of themselves in such a situation.

Angeline is watching her eldest son. She doesn't know where he disappeared to last week. She has seen so little of him in the last few years, however, that that doesn't seem strange. But it does seem sad.

He is as tall as she is now, and slender like his father. Truthfully, Angeline has always wished a little more of her had made it into his features. Though, recovering from her illness, it had been comforting to know her husband wasn't truly lost, but always there, looking out from her son's serious blue eyes. Back when he still had both his eyes. She wonders what her son's other eye is seeing right now.

Feeling her scrutiny running along his jacket collar, Artemis slows, falling into step with his mother.

'It was lovely of you to suggest this outing, Arty. I feel as though we haven't spent time all together in years.'

'Quite!' Artemis Senior has overheard and stops to comment. 'Honestly son, you're nearly a stranger these days. Come home and eat with the family for once. And when are you going to introduce us to those girls you keep bringing in at ungodly hours? Don't you think we want to know them? Though there're so many, I don't know how we'll remember them all.'

'Sorry,' replies Artemis mildly.

Angeline bites her lip, recognising the injustice here. And, unlike her husband, she recognises who her son is searching for in 'those girls'. She loops an arm through one of her son's and drags her feet, letting the others get ahead of them. 'I didn't mean to accuse you Arty... Goodness knows we haven't been the most attentive of parents. I haven't any right to demand your attention, however, I am you mother, so I will anyway,' she gives him a cheeky half-smile, before frowning. 'I miss you Artemis. And I'm worried; it isn't healthy to cling to ghosts. I should know. Let her go, she's an impossibility. Come back to us who are here and who love you and who won't leave you. Please.'

Artemis laughs humourlessly. 'I'm afraid, Mother, that that is the one thing which I will not do for you.'

She frowns, running her teeth along her lower lip, worrying it.

Seeing her fret, he leans over and kisses her forehead affectionately, 'Don't worry, things are changing. After all, I am my father's son, nothing is impossible for us. And she will always come back to me, though she goes away.'

He hadn't said it spitefully, truthfully, he hadn't even thought of it like that, but Angeline looks away, her own guilt giving sting to his words.

'Could you never be satisfied without her?'

'Never.'

She tries again, 'What about Minerva? She's a lovely girl. Oh Artemis, I just don't want you to be hurt more than you have been.'

'Minerva is lovely, but not to me.' He thinks back to her night as Eve, in white gauze and a fading morning glory, so sterile, nearly bloodless. He wonders how Adam could have ever given Lilith up for something like that. Hadn't he realised her passion was worth his pain? Or had he recognised himself as her inferior and been such a coward that instead of bettering himself, he left her for someone easier to please? Well, Artemis is not Adam, gone soft foraging in some garden paradise. What he needs he is willing to hunt for. He may come to her broken, but he will come to her nonetheless. And in coming to her, take her for his own. 'Everyone must be hurt at some point, Mother,' he continues at length. 'At least this time I am choosing my particular pain, and know it is only means to an end.'

Angeline sighs, watching Myles lecture Beckett about the museum's latest addition while Beckett eyes the golden sheep, unimpressed. She wonders if it is horrible of her to be glad that it was that Artemis who had been dealt the losing hand in childhood and not the twins. It's not that she loves them better, only that she believes his childhood would have broken them. She hopes it hasn't broken him.

'You know that I love you, don't you, my darling? And I will accept whatever you choose to do, if you think it's right. Just please, no more of those girls. That's not right. They are not her.'

'No, no more of those girls,' he agrees, 'I promise.'

She leans her head against his, 'I hope you find her, though I don't know how you'll make it work. But she did you good.'

'She made me good.'

'Like I did your father,' Angeline chuckles.

'Like father, like son,' he replies.

'What are you two lollygagging about back there for?' calls Artemis Senior, right on cue. 'Come along, the boys and I are going in hunt of lollies!'

'Perhaps not quite the same,' muses Angeline. 'Somehow, I can't imagine you ever saying 'lollygag'. Likewise 'lollies'. Or even 'lollipop' to be quite honest. '

'Well, actually...' says Artemis, watching Butler surreptitiously attach an optic twist to the far security camera.