Here it is! The not-so-long awaited Chapter 4! I hope you all enjoy it!

4

"Sorry," Artemis whispered, miserably. "I really am. But I lied to you. I . . . I don't remember anything."

Holly and Mulch stared at him in disbelief. Then they looked at each other, then at Foaly, as though he might have an answer, before turning back to Artemis, wide eyed.

"You . . . you don't remember?" Holly asked incredulously.

Artemis shook his head. He felt a strange burning sensation in his eyes.

"But you said you did!" protested Holly.

"I lied," said Artemis bitterly. "I just told you that. And it shouldn't be a shock, should it? If we were friends, you should have known how good I am at lying."

"But your Gnommish came back to you!" Holly didn't want to seem to face the facts. "You were using the computers as easily as if you'd programmed them yourself! And that plan you came up with? It was nothing short of genius. And – and –"

Artemis shook his head. "I'm a good fake. That's all."

"Wait, wait, wait." Foaly was looking at him like he had grown a second head. "You came up with a plan to defeat Opal Koboi without any of your memories?"

Artemis nodded.

"How?"

"Tactics, psychology, and manipulation," said Artemis with a sad little shrug. "They're universal."

For several moments, no one spoke.

Surprisingly, it was Butler who broke the silence. "Why did you lie, Artemis?" he asked, resting a hand on his charge's shoulder.

Artemis reached up and across his chest to lay his own hand on top of his bodyguard's hand, grateful for the support. "Because I had to," he told them. "Because no one would have believed I could beat Koboi if I hadn't."

"Well, I sure as heck wouldn't have," Foaly agreed.

"I can't say whether I would have or not." Mulch looked like he was trying to grin but his heart wasn't really in it. "When it comes to this kid, I keep thinking nothing will surprise me anymore. And then I turn around and you've shocked the socks off me all over again. I think I need to stop underestimating you, Mud Whelp."

Mulch wasn't holding any grudges, at least. That was good. Better than Artemis had hoped. Then he looked back at Holly and saw tears in her eyes, and started to hate himself all over again.

"Holly," he said, wondering how he could apologize in a way that would let her know that he really meant it. "I –" His stomach turned over then twisted itself into a painful knot, and Artemis knew that he had finally reached his limit. He quickly pressed one hand over his mouth, jerked out of Butler's grasp, and lurched out of the room.

The bathroom was too far away, and he knew it, so he veered off into the kitchen and managed to make it to the trashcan. The clinical, scientific part of his mind was amazed that there was anything in him to throw up at all. Aside from one of Opal Koboi's truffles, he hadn't eaten anything since before stealing The Fairy Thief, and he'd lost track of how long ago that had been. It had been a small miracle that Butler had been too distracted to notice his lack of appetite, back when he first started pretending he remembered.

He was surprised to feel slender fingered hands touch his head as he knelt, dry heaving over the trashcan.

"Are you ill?" Holly asked, smoothing his hair away from his face. "I can call for someone with magic to heal you."

"N-no," choked Artemis. "I'm okay."

"That's debatable." Holly stood when Artemis finally sat back away from the trashcan. He expected her to leave, but she surprised him by getting two wash clothes and wetting them with water from the sink. Then she knelt back down in front of him and wiped his mouth with one. Then she used the other to wash the rest of his face.

"I'm sorry," said Artemis huskily, bowing his head.

"Everyone gets sick," said Holly dismissively.

"Not about that. You know what about."

"You're sorry that you lied to me?"

He nodded. "For that. And for not being him."

Holly blinked. "For not being who?"

"The real Artemis Fowl," he said miserably, using her own words. "The person you were friends with. The person that you wanted to see."

"Artemis," whispered Holly, as she wiped away a few tears that escaped his eyes, "I didn't mean that like . . . well, like that. You're still you, whether you remember or not."

"That's incorrect," Artemis told her. "Our memories define who we are. Entire books have been written, arguing as much, not to mention several dozen movies."

"A lot of things define who we are," countered Holly, "and right now, by anyone's argument or definition, you are a hero, Artemis. Besides, didn't we decide that we were friends, bonded by trauma?"

She was giving him an out. One that he didn't deserve, and he knew it.

"Why would you want to be friends with me?" he asked. "I lied to you."

"To save my life," said Holly. "And to save my city."

"And you know I'll lie to you again," Artemis forced himself to be brutally honest. "The next time I think the situation requires it, whether my reasons are good or not. I'll lie to you, and I might feel bad about it, but it won't stop me."

"I know," Holly told him. "I know you fairly well, Mud Boy. Want to hear what I've learned about you since we met?" Artemis didn't answer, so she seemed to take that as an invitation to continue. "I've learned that you try to pretend that you're a worse person than you really are. You put up a cool exterior, shielding yourself with facts and logic, and you try to be greedy, but when it comes down to it, you're really not. You'll do anything for the people you love, including giving up half a metric ton of gold, crawling through radioactive plasma, trekking across an arctic wasteland, letting someone drain a pint of your blood through a needle in your arm, and using fish freezers as cryogenic pods. You were more scared of turning into a monster than you were of losing IQ points when you faced the mindwipe, but from the looks of it, you didn't need to worry on either front. You're a good person, but you can't see it for yourself unless someone else is using one hand to hold up a mirror for you, and the other to hold your chin and forcing you to look in it."

She reached out and gently caught his chin and turned his head, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Does that sound about right to you, Master Fowl? Or should I keep going?"

Artemis drew a shaky breath. "It really doesn't bother you?" he asked. "That I don't remember?"

"Of course it bothers me," said Holly, but she didn't break eye contact even though her voice trembled. "But I don't blame you for it. It's not your fault. It's our fault. We're the ones who did this to you."

"Then . . . you want to be my friend?" Artemis couldn't believe the tone that his voice took on. He sounded almost . . . well there was no almost about it. He sounded shy. And he never sounded shy. "You really want to be friends with me?"

"Yes," Holly told him. "I really want that."

Artemis considered this for a moment and tried to figure out how this made him feel. He wondered for a moment what the old him would have done, but quickly realized that it didn't much matter. Holly wanted to be friends with the current him, whether his memories ever returned or not. And he knew what he wanted to do now.

"I would like to hug you," he said tentatively. For some reason he was very afraid that this declaration would get him a punch in the face. Why he would think that, he had no idea. The only place Holly seemed inclined to punch him, in his current memories at least, was in the shoulder.

Holly didn't assault him for his presumption though. Instead she held out her arms to him, an invitation. He leaned into her embrace and wrapped his arms around her hesitantly, worried that she would change her mind. But of course, she didn't. Instead she returned the embrace, and squeezed him with enough strength to force the air out of his lungs. Not the smartest thing to do to someone who'd just lost his lunch, or rather yesterday's lunch, since that had been the last time he'd eaten, but despite the physical discomfort, for a moment, Artemis felt like everything was all right.

X

"I'm sorry, Holly."

Holly looked up from the sleeping Mud Boy whose head she had cradled in her lap, to see Foaly standing nervously in the doorway.

"Sorry for what?" she asked, taking care to keep her voice soft. Artemis had been through so much in the past twenty-four hours that he deserved a bit of rest. Until now, the only time he'd had a chance had been when he was knocked unconscious.

Foaly looked meaningfully at Artemis. His eyes were full of sorrow, and Holly knew what he meant immediately.

"I'm just as much to blame as you are," she said sadly.

"You weren't the one who pushed the buttons."

"No . . . but I would have if I'd been ordered to."

Foaly's smile was bitter. "No you wouldn't have. We both know it, too. You could have never deleted your friend, like I did."

"He wasn't deleted, Foaly," said Holly angrily. Tears filled her eyes and she clenched her fists. Artemis moaned, subconsciously reacting to her voice and her anger. She took a deep breath before continuing. "Just his memories. He backslid a little, but what it comes down to is that he's still the same person he was when we last parted. And I won't let him forget that."

It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than him, and they both knew it. Foaly knew her well enough to see what this was doing to her. She was trying to pretend that it didn't matter for Artemis's sake, because the boy was weakened by his ordeal, and his head was in a mess, and he really needed a friend right then. But when it came down to it, he wasn't the same person he used to be. He never would be again, thanks to what they had done, and Holly hated herself for it. They really had deleted their friend.

Foaly was silent for a moment. "I can't believe he was able to beat Koboi without his memories. That's like – like – like a child reading the rule book for chess, then proceeding to stomp the world champion into the ground in a casual match. Though come to think of it, I seem to remember reading something about little Arty here doing just that in his biography files."

"He's a marvel," Holly whispered. On her lap Artemis moaned again and stirred restlessly. Holly put a comforting hand on his forehead then recoiled. Her eyes widened. "He's hot!"

"Umm . . ." Foaly looked at her oddly, sure that he had heard wrong. "He's fourteen, remember Holly? I don't think –"

"I mean he's burning up!" snapped Holly. "He's got a fever. Foaly, get a healer, quick!"

Foaly blinked then turned and galloped back into the hallway, toward the door. Moments later, Holly heard the creak of the floorboards as Butler tried to crawl through the hall that probably felt like a ventilation shaft to him.

"Holly? Foaly said something was wrong with Artemis?" Butler's voice was thick with worry.

"He's got a fever," Holly said. She laid the boy down gently on the floor and quickly crossed the kitchen to get some ice from the freezer. She had no idea how her young friend had gotten so sick in such a short amount of time, but she knew that if something wasn't done fast, he'd be in really bad shape. His brain would start to cook inside his skull if they didn't get his fever down. The very last thing that she wanted was for anymore damage to come to her friend's mind.

Butler growled a curse as he finally made it to his charge's side. He put a hand on Artemis's chest, checking to make sure he was breathing and his heart was beating. Then he moved his hand to Artemis's forehead and winced at the temperature. "He was fine a few minutes ago," he protested. "How is this even possible?"

"He's been through the wringer," said Holly. She filled a bag with ice and motioned for Butler to move his hand so that she could put it on Artemis's forehead. "Since yesterday he's fallen from a third story window, broken two ribs, woke up, got knocked out again, woke up again, had to run for his life to escape from trolls, got saved by dwarf gas, outmaneuvered Opal Koboi in a battle of wits, and survived a shuttle chase involving heat seeking missiles. I guess the effects of all that are finally catching up to him."

"No, it's not possible," protested Butler. "Stress alone can't do this to a human. Not in such a short amount of time. There has to be something else . . ." he trailed off and moved toward Artemis' feet. "What is this?" he demanded, indicating the boy's sliced and bloody stocking.

Holly blanched. "That happened when we were running from trolls," she groaned. "I completely forgot. One of them managed to rake his ankle."

Butler rolled up Artemis's pant leg and pulled off his shoe and sock to reveal a rancid looking gash and angry red streaks radiating outward along his skin. "Infection," he muttered. "Can your fairy magic fix this?"

"I'm dry," Holly told him, "but Foaly's running to get someone who can heal him."

Artemis' eyelids fluttered, then opened, and he stared up at his friends with feverish eyes.

"Artemis? Can you hear me?" asked Butler gently.

"F-f-father?"

Butler closed his eyes and sighed sadly. "No, Artemis. It's me. Butler."

Artemis blinked at him and frowned. "Father?"

"It's alright, Artemis," Holly said, moving to his other side. "Just hang in there, Mud Boy. We're getting someone up here to fix you up."

Artemis regarded her with confusion then looked back at his oldest friend. "Sleeping pills," he muttered. "Imperative to the plan . . . all go to sleep immediately . . ."

A muscle twitched in Butler's face, but he said nothing. He just took one of Artemis' hands in his own and held it gently.

"He doesn't know what he's saying," Holly informed the bodyguard. "But he'll be all right soon."

"I know."

"Santa Clause . . . and the elves and the shoemaker . . ." Artemis continued to ramble. "Never woke up . . . imperative to the plan . . ." His eyes slid closed again, and the sound of his babbling was replaced by labored breathing.

Thankfully a healer arrived within minutes. The elf who Foaly had fetched wrinkled her nose at the sight of the Mud Boy, but dutifully knelt by his side and touched the festering wound on his ankle.

"Heal," she said, and blue sparks popped out of her finger to disappear into Artemis's skin. The irritated skin smoothed over and began to heal and within moments the cut was closed. The healer kept her hand in place until the red streaks around where the wound once was disappeared.

Holly touched Artemis' cheek again and frowned. "He still has a fever."

"Nothing I can do about that," sniffed the healer. "Not unless you want to filter out all of the tainted blood in your Mud Boy, and pump new blood into him. You should know better than to let a cut fester this long."

"I was completely dry," said Holly, defensively.

"Then you should have gotten him to someone who wasn't before the infection got into his blood stream. Nothing except for time can get his fever down now."

"We were a little bit busy saving the world," muttered Holly as she smoothed Artemis's sweat soaked hair away from his face.

"Too busy to make sure that he ate and drank?" the other elf asked. "Your Mud Boy's dehydrated and doesn't seem to have eaten in at least a day and he's too scrawny to begin with."

"Stop calling him my Mud Boy like he's some kind of pet!" snapped Holly. "And now that there's no one trying to kill both of us, we will take better care of him."

"Get some fluids in him then," advised the healer. She moved her hands to Artemis' face and peeled open his eyelids so that she could see the orb beneath it. "He should be fine in a few hours," she deduced.

Artemis's other eye opened on its own accord and he weakly batted at the healer's hand. "You pasty-faced weasel," he mumbled, causing the healer to start and recoil.

"Well I never!" she huffed, then stormed out of the complex.

Holly blinked at her Mud Boy friend. What he said sounded familiar somehow, but there would be time to dwell on it later.

They moved Artemis into one of the bed rooms. They being Holly and Foaly, because Butler had to crawl to get through the door frames, and because Mulch was a sanitation risk thus thought it best to keep a bit of distance between the sickly boy and himself. Holly replaced the ice bag on Artemis' head once they had him settled, but could tell that they wouldn't really need it soon. His skin was already cooler to the touch now that his blood was no longer being tainted by that festering cut. His antibodies went to work on the infection that was already in his bloodstream and were bolstered by the healing magic that had cured his wound.

They managed to get some water into him, then swabbed his face down with cool water. By the time they finished, his fever was almost completely gone.

Next chapter, Artemis wakes up, and his first word causes Holly and Butler to do a double take! Could it be that our favorite juvenile mastermind is getting his memories back?