The Road Ahead Is Long

Title: The Road Ahead Is Long

Rating: T

Category: Books Artemis Fowl

Subjects: Adventure/ Crime/ Tragedy/ Hurt/ comfort/ Friendship. .

Summary: [Artemis Fowl the second is seventeen-years-old, he lives alone in Paris, and the last thing he remembers before his mind turns to blackness is one Holly Short. Artemis has given up on everything he once cared for. Stuck in a depression, the strangest things can pull you out again, and help you to believe in what you thought was too far gone to ever reach again.]

Inspiration: I suddenly had an idea for a name after reading a fic by someone else, and round that name the story popped into my head.

Author Note: If it proves popular I'll continue it...eventually. :)

One: Don't Be Sinful

Lay down your senseless pride - You travelled once too often. I tell you right now. All I want you to know; I love you. All I need is the time to show you how I feel.

It wasn't the rain spattering the pavements which annoyed him that morning that started the perpetual motion of the events to follow, but, it was one of the important things. He didn't hate the rain, he lived in Paris for God sake – there was plenty of it. It was something more that made him irritated as he listened to the small tip-toed rain drops, something he couldn't quite place. Staring down into the square courtyard, he watched as people crunched their way over the yellowed grit which covered the paths. Turning the perfect white snow of the day before to an ugly dirty slush which sloshed and made unpleasant noises beneath the souls of your best shoes, managing to saturate them and get into your socks.

His attention was suddenly drawn away by an exclamation of indignation from the from of the room. His mismatched gaze lifted to meet that of a young woman, she was frowning at him angrily.

"Artemis, would you stop gazing out of ze window as if you'd prefer not to be 'ere? I find it most irritating."

Artemis flushed, "Forgive me, Madam Fayne."

"I 'ave no time for your apologies, simply listen to my lesson, or leave. The choice is entirely your own." she instructed him, and the teenager groaned. Madame Fayne had to be the only teacher whom he didn't try to annoy on purpose, but she still hated him. Because he was always distracted in her lessons, and it wasn't as if he even wanted to be. It was simply something about the room, and Madam Fayne herself which baffled him.

Whenever Artemis walked into his Ancient languages class he felt sleepy and his mind wander, his mind unable to remember anything but the past. Something which he wished he didn't think about. It was almost like...but, that was impossible -of course. Logic told Artemis that his crazy idea, while sounding perfectly sane within the confines of his head, and while in Ancient Languages, did not once he took even a single step out of the room. Nor, did they sound so well formed when he played back his mental monologue. This made everything that much more suspicious to him, but, his ability to be so left him inside Madame Fayne's class all together.

**

Half and hour later, Artemis left his class and the fog in his mind lifted once more. He was peeved by this, but decided that it was just an anomaly of life. He'd seen enough to know that. Far too many.

"Artemis!" Screamed an Americanised voice, to which he turned in time to pounced upon. Luck for him, it was only Juliet. Juliet Butler, the younger sister of his bodyguard and life-long friend. "Good lesson?"

He shrugged noncommittally, he didn't know himself whether or not the lesson had been a good one. If Holly...no, because he'd never see her again. He couldn't, not after everything that had happened, and he knew this was the one thing she'd probably be able to help him with. But, you couldn't forgive something like that. How could you? It was...beyond the imagination, and he'd believed.

I thought she was my friend, he chided himself for the millionth time in the past two years. He couldn't give up now though...or could he? He already had as it was, but, one thing he didn't know himself weak enough to do was to ask Holly to do that for him. Because...it would be poetically just even. All that time and really, all the Lower Elements Police had wanted was that, and they'd gotten it. Four years, a life destroyed and several friendships down the pan later. There wasn't any going back to how things once were. There were reasons they never mentioned it at Artemis' house. You didn't bring up the Master and Mistress...or young Master Beckett. It was still a raw wound for them all, and one that didn't look likely to heal any time soon.

The one thing Artemis was always thankful for, was that Myles didn't remember it clearly. Barely even Beckett. He had to be reminded of his twin often...just a picture, they didn't talk about him. But, Myles was old enough to be able to read anyway.

Murder, how do you forget something like that and live? Artemis asked himself silently.

*_____*

" Damn Pixies!" Foaly the Centaur yelled angrily, flapping his hands around his face in an effort to swat the Pixie flies away.

"It's only because you can't be bothered to clean that damn thing once in a while." Holly replied sharply, watching him carefully, almost warily. He frowned, then peered down at the thick red pulsing symbol.

"It's hard to clean something like that." he replied irritatedly as he gingerly poked the raw skin and winced.

"Two years, Foaly. You've had that mark for two years!" Holly Short replied, gritting her teeth in annoyance. He shrugged, the pattern ingrained into his memory even without looking at it. Something to intricate, weaving it's way down the whole of his left leg, cutting the colour of his coat with great gashes of blood coloured flesh. "It doesn't look like it's going to go away!"

"I've had this for the same amount of time you've had that scar, Holly. There's nothing to be done about it."

Holly's fingers moved automatically to the thin white scar under her right eye and shuddered slightly. "You can barely use the leg now." she had observed this over time. How, less and less Foaly would move from his chair. Only when she was out of the room, and the times when she had caught him out of his seat, he'd been limping badly. It was getting worse with every passing day, where he was almost dragging his immobile limb the pain was so great. She could see it in his eyes, it plagued him, and it only worsened with time.

"Is it really two years, Foaly?" Holly asked him sadly, sitting down heavily on one of the chairs and running her fingers through her dark red hair. He nodded solemnly to her, his eyes drifting to the calendar on the wall above her head.

He counted the days carefully and sighed, "In three days. Yes, Holly."

"But, so much has changed. It...feels like so long, but so little at the same time." she shook her head. "How did we end up like this?"

"We played the wrong game, and we were called on our bluff."

"Meaning?" She muttered angrily.

"That we joined a dangerous cause, one which we believed in. One which we added to because we thought we'd been betrayed, or would be. What we did was to jump before we were shot. Except, that was never the case, we jumped to conclusions instead and we now have to pay that price. For the rest of our lives." He remembered in such vivid detail, the night it all happened. Two whole years ago.

"You know, I don't think anyone has smiled since that day. Not one person involved, at least."

"Haven's crumbling around us, and there's nothing we can do about it, Holly. It has been for the past two years, and we just have to wait for the end to come."

"Why are we waiting? Why aren't we fighting for what we believe in anymore?" Holly questioned desperately.

"Could you really - After pulling that trigger? Have you smiled since then? Do you not wake every night knowing that it will stay with you for the rest of your life? It's marked you, and all of us."

"We always knew it was dangerous though, to try something that powerful." She protested, though not disagreeing with anything he said.

"And, we knew there were risks, you're right. Yes. The fact is, it scared each and every one of us, linked into that one being...it isn't something which we can just forget. In fact, it's within all of us still, we share a piece in your guilt, that heartbreak you feel...I feel that too. We know what it is, that ache you want to heal, Holly. But, we can't do that for you."

"Then why not fight?" she queried.

"Because this is your battle, not ours. You have to do it alone." The Centaur told her wisely.

"I don't know what I'm fighting anymore." She explained, burying her face in her hands.

"It's not what."

"What do you mean?" Holy asked, looking up at him.

"Exactly as I say. It's not what. It's who. The person who can make this all go away. The one we always turn to though don't admit it."

"Artemis Fowl."

Foaly nodded, "Yes, Artemis."

She shook her head, moving back in her chair as far as possible, "I cant!"

"Why not?" The Technical consultant questioned her.

"Because it's all my fault..."

He nodded, half turning to her in his swivel chair, and meeting her gaze sternly. "Exactly."