Hello again everybody. I just went back and updated the previous chapters. Nothing major, but hopefully I fixed a few of the grammar mistakes. I want to thank you guys again for all of the help and the wonderful reviews. I'm excited because the story is almost to my favorite part, which I'm really looking forward to writing. I hope you enjoy this chapter and keep up the reviews : ).
Haven
Artemis woke to the pungent smell of sim-coffee wafting over from the kitchen. He yawned and stretched, rubbing his eyes – he felt awful. The strange dream had kept him up well into the night and he had only managed to get a few hours of restless sleep. Getting off of the couch, he made his way blearily over to the coffee pot. He heard the sound of a shower running from the bathroom and guessed that that was where Holly was. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat back down on the couch.
Sipping his coffee, he thought about the strange dream again. He didn't know which part of the dream he found more odd. On one hand, the dream about the tree had been very unsettling and disturbing. However, on the other hand his dream about Holly was, if anything, even more confusing. He had thought that he understood their relationship. There had been the time tunnel and, well, that was that. At the time he had thought that their friendship had been irreversibly changed for the worst, but now...
He took another sip of coffee, grimacing at the taste. It seemed that some part of him was still hanging on to the hope that, maybe, he and Holly could be more than just friends.
He shook his head, inadvertently spilling hot coffee down his front. Right now he had more pressing matters to think about, such as the second half of the dream. Was there a connection to his illness? The dream had been startlingly similar to the symptoms he used to endure when he had first obtained magic. The fairy voices, the oak tree by the river – it had all had a very strong magical presence.
Magic was something that he did not understand and could not control. It bothered him to think that his illness might be a magical one. Thoughts of his mothers supposed illness floated to the front of his mind.
No, he thought. Foaly will be able to find out what's wrong with me. I shouldn't spend my time worrying about this.
The sound of the shower stopped and a few minutes later Holly emerged fully clothed, running a comb through her hair. She went over to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup.
"How are you feeling?" She asked Artemis
"I've been better." He said. "I didn't sleep well last night."
"I thought you looked tired so I let you sleep in." She said. "I didn't put out any breakfast because Foaly says that food will just make you sick during the tests."
"Great." Said Artemis sarcastically.
Holly glanced at her watch. "Foaly's going to be here soon but you still have time to shower if you want."
Artemis nodded, his cheeks slightly flushed. He grabbed his bag and headed over to the bathroom leaving Holly to hide her grin and ponder silently about him in his wake.
She sighed putting down her cup. I just hope that Artemis gets through all of this ok, she thought.
* * *
Half an hour later, Artemis and Holly stood outside Holly's apartment watching as the luxury black car pulled up smoothly in front if them.
We wouldn't want to appear conspicuous would we, he thought with a smirk.
They got into the car, taking seats adjacent to the centaur, whereupon Foaly greeted them enthusiastically.
"Artemis! How are you feeling today?" he said jovially.
"A little worse for my wear I'm afraid to say." He said. "You seem happy today."
"I'm excited at the prospect of fine-tuning one of my latest devices." Said Foaly rubbing his hands together in glee. "Your condition has given me the perfect opportunity to try out my new advance in medical technology."
Artemis frowned. "I'm not a lab rat Foaly."
"Don't worry." Said Foaly dismissively. "It's already gone through the preliminary testing. I just want to see how it responds to a live subject."
"How reassuring." Said Artemis sarcastically. In truth he had no trepidations about the centaurs invention, but the mourning had left him tired and somewhat less composed than he would normally be. In any case, he did not pursue the conversation.
"Holly you don't have to come if you don't want to." Said Foaly, turning to Holly.
"I'm coming." Said Holly firmly. "Someone has to make sure that you keep Artemis in one piece."
"Ok, ok. It was just a suggestion." Said Foaly grinning. He knew that the real reason Holly wanted to come was that she was just as curious about Artemis's illness as he was. He motioned the driver and the black car began its course to Foaly's lab.
Yesterday it had taken them almost an hour to get from the shuttle port to Holly's apartment, but today the roads were clear and they made good time. The fifteen minutes passed uneventfully and soon the driver was pulling up to a large complex off the east side of police plaza.
Foaly instructed the driver to go around to the back entrance and quickly shooed Holly and Artemis out of the car. As it pulled away, Foaly entered a 27-digit code into the panel on the wall whilst humming a few bars from a People's nursery rhyme for the voice recognition program. The steel door slid up revealing a spacious storage area behind it. They quickly entered the building and Foaly led them to one of the outlying rooms that had been equipped with monitors, computers, and a large cylindrical unit of some type off to one side.
AS they entered the room a small figure detached itself from one of the monitors and walked over to meet them.
"Hello Qwan." Said Artemis recognizing the aged demon warlock.
"Hello mud boy, its nice to see you again. No.1 tells me that you have been keeping busy." Said Qwan.
"Yes, well, it turns out saving the world is a full time job."
"Qwan is here to help perform some magical tests on Artemis." Said Foaly in answer to Holly's raised eyebrow. He turned to the machine that was on the floor next to them, patting it fondly. "It's the only thing that this baby can't do. I've been working this project for the last few months. It's like a human MRI except its much more effective. This little marvel can tell me your temperature, body tone, chemical balances, brain activity, any other sort of physical anomaly, and even what you've eaten for the past couple of weeks."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Foaly, you're boring us to death with your tech lecture."
Artemis, however, was interested in spite of himself. He walked slowly over to the machine giving it the benefit of his technical eye.
"How have you managed to get it to perceive such subtle things as muscle tone?"
"Advanced imaging technology." Said Foaly eagerly. "It collects data on the cellular level and then reconstructs the body in its built in 3D environment. Took me weeks alone just to figure out how to calibrate that function."
"Interesting." Said Artemis peering closely at the machine.
"Just so long as its safe." Said Holly with her arms folded. "Artemis isn't a lab rat Foaly, he's our friend."
Foaly sighed. In years past Holly would not have made as much fuss about using the machine on Artemis. Something had changed between Holly and Artemis after their stint in the time tunnel. Holly could not be coaxed to spill the details, but there was definitely something going on between them.
"Don't worry. Like I said it already passed all of the safety trials, Artemis will be completely fine."
"Perhaps not if the tests never proceed." Pointed out Artemis.
"Yes. Well let's get to it then. Quan will be helping me with the computers while Artemis is in the testing chamber and Holly you can help me monitor his status."
As people moved off to various parts of the room, Foaly set up the machine for Artemis and instructed him about how it would work once he was inside.
"The machine will administer a sedative once we're ready to go." Said Foaly. "Standard medical procedure. The scans will be skewed if you're body is constantly shifting around."
Artemis nodded. "Naturally."
"Apart from that it will be just like sleeping. When you wake up you'll be back in Holly's apartment, safe and sound."
Artemis nodded again his face neutral. Foaly gave him a clap on the shoulder.
"We'll find out what's going on Artemis." He said encouragingly, opening the sliding panel of the machine revealing what looked like a small white hospital bed. Then as an after thought: "Besides, where else would I find a mud man that can understand my tech rants."
Artemis gave a weak smile as he climbed into the machine. "Thanks Foaly. Very cheering."
* * *
Foaly frowned in concentration as lines of specs scrolled past the screen in front of him. Holly had long since given up on trying to understand it all and now she wandered between Quan and Foaly, occasionally checking on the stats to reassure herself that Artemis was doing all right.
"Well, there's no problems with his body, or at least as far as I can see." Checking another couple of screens. "In fact, apart from symptoms of stress, he's in surprisingly good shape."
Holly grinned. "I suspect Butler might have something to do with that."
Foaly gave an appreciative snort of laughter. Still it irked him that, several hours into the tests, he had yet to find anything that explained Artemis's illness.
"I guess we'll have to see if Quan can find anything. I had suspected that it might have been magic related ever since his reaction to the healing. I had just hoped it would be something else."
"Do you have any idea what it might be?"
"It presents like a magical disease, but I have no idea what it might be."
"Impossible." Said Holly frowning. "You have to have magic to catch a magical disease and I've checked him myself, not a drop of magic in him."
"I believe we should leave that for me to decide." Said Quan who had abandoned the computer and was now getting ready to give Artemis the magical examination. "He'll need to be out of that contraption. I need physical contact to do this properly.
The next several minutes where occupied by retrieving Artemis from the testing chamber and transporting him to one of the smaller side rooms with a patients hospital bed.
Foaly and Holly stood by while Quan reached out and touched his middle finger and forefinger to Artemis's forehead. The symbol on Quan's own forehead sparked and transformed as he summoned up his magic. He frowned as he made connection with Artemis.
"You were right. Not a drop of magical power in him." Said Quan. "There is a weak echo of power but that could be from a number of things related to his recent healing or even his travel in the time stream."
"He spent all of his stolen magic attempting to heal his mother." Said Holly softly. "He told me about it when we went back in time together."
Foaly glanced sharply at his friend. This was quiet a different story than the one Artemis had told them when his mother had been ill. If what Holly said was true, Artemis had lied about Holly's involvement in the spelltropy and had actually been the supposed instigator himself. He could not imagine that Holly would even be able to speak to Artemis after something like that. He thought about questioning her now but decided against it. Someday though he would find out exactly what had happened during that particular venture.
Quan's frown deepened. "That would explain the echo of magic that I'm getting. But there's something else here too. Some deep force is pulling at the back of his mind. I would hazard a guess that it might be the cause of his discomfort."
Quan broke the connection with Artemis, stating that there was not much else he could do. Foaly sighed, running a hand over his head and Holly bit her lip.
"Well this complicated matters." Said Foaly matter-of-factly.
They all stood in silence for a few minutes, trying to consider a candidate for the cause of the mysterious illness.
"Well, it won't do Artemis any good to stay here." Said Foaly finally. "His condition is stable enough. Holly should take him home. Meanwhile I'll do some research on symptoms of magical diseases and see if I can't find something."
Holly nodded, her mind elsewhere, and they began the arduous task of getting Artemis back into the car. Quan said his goodbyes and departed quickly and soon the car was on its way back to Holly's apartment. In the back seat of the car Artemis was slumped against a corner, his eyes closed, looking peaceful. Holly watched his chest rise and fall with a slow steady rate. Somehow the whole situation seemed much more sinister now. True they had suffered a multitude of injuries before. But it had always been a simple matter of a quick healing and a lot of magic. Holly had been hopeful that they would discover what was wrong with Artemis today and now that Foaly could not even figure it out, she was worried.
Her thoughts turned back to all of the time they had been together and the many adventures they had had. He couldn't die. She wouldn't let him.
Several times during the trip Foaly asked Holly if she was ok, but she had not heard him. Her mind was focused on another time and place.
* * *
Artemis woke up, vaguely disorientated, in Holly's apartment. Holly was sitting beside him and smiled at him as he sat up.
"How are you feeling?" She said.
"Tired." He said truthfully. "Did Foaly figure out what's going on?"
Immediately he could tell by the way Holly shifted her gaze that something was wrong.
"He doesn't know what's wrong yet." She said, addressing a couch cushion. "His super machine didn't turn up anything new except that you had Crème brûlée for desert three nights ago and I expect you already knew that."
"Yes it was exquisite."
"Foaly and Quan think that you may have a magical illness. Foaly's doing research right now."
Artemis nodded slowly. A magical illness... His heart sank. Of course it made sense, but he couldn't help thinking back to his mother lying on her bed, in pain and dying. Maybe he should have confronted Foaly about the dream he had had.
"Don't worry Holly, I'm sure Foaly will figure it out." He said, trying to sound confident.
Holly shook her head vigorously, her eyes now watering. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
Artemis put his hand on her arm. "Holly I'll be fine. I promise. If it is a magical illness it just complicates the matter a little that's all."
Holly thought about what Artemis was saying and forced herself to accept the truth in what his words. There was no reason to believe that Foaly would not discover something by tomorrow.
She reached across and gave Artemis a tight hug. Artemis's stomach growled and she let out a laugh.
"That tends to happen when one hasn't eaten all day." Said Artemis with his cheeks slightly flushed.
Holly laughed again and walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a pear from a bowl of fruit that was sitting there and tossed it to him.
"You'll have to excuse me. It's not Crème brûlée but, hey, it's probably better for you right now anyways."
"I didn't know that the people were growing produce." He said thoughtfully, taking a bite out of the pear.
"All we have to do is provide the light. The soil under the ground is so rich that it provides an excellent level of nutrients. Plus it's all organic. I guarantee that that's the best pear you've ever eaten.
"I feel so hungry that right now that's probably not a difficult requirement to meet."
They both laughed. Artemis was surprised at how carefree he felt given the dire state of affairs. Perhaps it was an after effect of the various tests or the sedative he was still shaking off.
He and Holly passed the time talking and laughing. Eventually, however, Holly noticed that Artemis was rubbing his arms and stretching with increasing frequency.
"Sore?" She asked
"Slightly. Foaly's machine made my limbs ache quite a bit."
"That and sleeping on the couch."
"Conceivably, that too." Agreed Artemis.
"You should try the hot tub out on the patio. It does wonders to relieve the stress in your body. I'll come in with you.
Artemis flushed. "I don't have a swim suit."
"Just use a spare pair of boxers or a pair of shorts. I'll meet you out there."
With that she left Artemis with the look of a dear caught in a headlight on his face and went to go change into her own swimsuit in her room.
Ten minutes later she was outside pulling the cover off of the hot tub. The hot tub itself would probably be more aptly named a mud tub because rather than hot water the tub was filled with soft bubbling mud.
Artemis walked awkwardly out onto the patio in a pair of navy blue boxers, blushing fiercely as he went. Really, thought Holly as she looked up at him, its not like he has anything to be ashamed about.
Artemis blushed even deeper when he saw Holly in her swimsuit. He could not help but think how beautiful she looked.
"Holly I think that I might be more comfortable sitting inside." Said Artemis with a note of desperation in his voice.
Holly gave him a nudge toward the hot tub, grinning. "Just get in there."
Artemis stood at the lip of the tube and slowly lowered himself into the bubbling mud. An involuntary sigh of relief escaped him the warm mud soothed his aching muscles.
Holly got in on the other side of the tube. "Nice isn't it? Sadly I don't get to use it much when I'm working. I'm to tired when I get home."
"Its very soothing." Agreed Artemis. "Why mud though?"
"The mud is naturally heated by steam vents that we channeled into Haven when it was built. Plus the mud is just nice for your skin in general." She said, flashing him a smile
Artemis leaned his head back, enjoying the feeling of the mud on his skin.
Splat! Artemis leaned forward sputtering as a large ball of mud hit him in the face. Wiping the mud off with his hand he looked over at Holly, eyebrows raised. Holly glanced over giving him her best "what?" face which was slightly marred by a barely concealed smile.
Slowly Artemis gathered up a handful of mud.
"Oh no you..." which was about all Holly was able to say until the wad of mud splashed into her.
She wiped the mud from her face, trying and failing to look indignant. Artemis watched her, his eyes smiling.
"You know," said Holly, shaking mud from her hair. "I believe this means war."
What followed next was an all out battle between Artemis and Holly. Mud flew everywhere as they both skirted around the small tub. Soon they were both shouting with laughter and dripping with mud like children.
"Stop!" Said Artemis, panting lightly and raising his hands. "I give up. You win."
Holly stopped her arm mid throw and allowed the mud to fall from her fingers.
"You can't be feeling too terrible if you can pelt me with mud like that." Said Holly.
"On the contrary, I now have a blinding headache thanks to you." Said Artemis. They both laughed.
Suddenly, Holly felt bad. "Do you really have a headache?" She asked
"A little." Said Artemis truthfully. "It wasn't quite as relaxing as you said it would be."
She gave him a little shove. "Hey you were just as much a part of that as I was."
"True." Said Artemis, straining some mud from his hair.
The mud fight was something of an icebreaker for Artemis and he relaxed and enjoyed the rest of his time in the hot tub with Holly despite the headache. They passed the time making jokes and small talk about this and that and then got out to shower off and clean up the mud-splattered patio.
I could be happy just staying here with Holly forever, thought Artemis. Sadly there was no way that could happen. After he was all patched up he would go back up to the surface.
If only if only, he thought.
In the shower, Holly was entertaining similar thoughts. If only we could take this moment and live in it forever, she thought whimsically. She sighed because she knew it could never happen. Foaly would probably have found a cure for Artemis's illness tomorrow. Then Artemis would head back up to the surface and she would be stuck only seeing him when the world was in peril.
Dinner was somewhat subdued that night as thoughts of each other filled Artemis and Holly's minds. When it was time for bed, Holly got up and gave Artemis a kiss on the cheek.
He touched his cheek smiling. "What was that for?"
"I don't know." Said Holly. "Its just... I'll miss you when you're gone."
Artemis gave her a hug
"I'll miss you too Holly." He said softly. "We'll stay in touch ok."
"Ok." Said Holly, willing the hug to last.
Artemis released her and she headed slowly back to her room.
"Good night Holly."
"Good night Artemis."
Artemis lay down on the couch feeling inexplicably exhausted. Now that he was alone his headache seemed much more potent, pounding in his ears with his heartbeat. He pushed the pain off to the side, concentrating on Holly, and willed himself to sleep. He closed his eyes with the image of Holly and the field from his dreams floating through his mind. Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.