A long time from now she may recall the young boy she once knew. I wonder if she will think back to the extent of my natural life and see the signs of what she meant to me.

Two years before the death of Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl groaned as the sunlight from the window hit his face. It took a few seconds for him to register the fact that his head was on his arms, and his arms were on his desk. He had fallen asleep at his desk. That much, he vaguely remembered.

His jacket was off, but his tie was still on. He groaned again, feeling stiff and sore from spending the night in such a position.

At some point, he realized that he was holding a piece of paper in his right hand. Curious, he opened the hand and lay the small scrap flat.

It was a note.

Go back to her.

Fowl blinked at the note a few times as his tired brain tried to catch up with what was going on. This was only the second time he had ever brought a note back. Everything after his first jump had just been random little trinkets. There was never a note again until now. It was his own handwriting this time.

Artemis rotated his neck slowly, feeling it pop a few times as his eyes settled on the wall-mounted display next to the desk. It was early Sunday morning. He remembered a conference call to the States was supposed to happen at some point on Monday.

'Oh well. Good a time as any to be making another jump.'

"Clio," he called out automatically.

One hundred fifty-seven years after the death of Artemis Fowl

He landed on his feet, at the end of what seemed like a hospital bed. He wasn't even sure when he had landed, but somehow, hospitals just always felt like hospitals, no matter human or fairy, and no matter the time. It was a minuscule room though, with barely enough space to walk around the bed and fit a pair of doors on either side of one end. The design of the room was all soft, flowing corners, and diffuse lighting, quite unlike any place he had been in before in the Lower Elements. At least he thought it was the Lower Elements.

On the bed, a small elfin head poked out from under a bundle of covers.

He moved to one side of the bed to study the face of Holly Short. Her hair was quite a bit longer than he was used to, splayed out onto her pillow like a burnt-copper halo. That, in combination with her naturally cherubic face, made her look like a tired little angel in training. Her breathing was slow, quiet, and rhythmic, and for just a moment, Artemis forgot himself and smiled at the scene.

"Welcome back, sir."

Fowl gave a start, as Clio's face appeared on the wall next to the bed.

'Ah,' he realized, 'if I told myself to come back, I must have left an instance of Clio here.'

Artemis gestured at the sleeping elf.

"Keep it down," he said quietly.

Clio looked at him for a moment, then smiled a small, wry smile that Artemis could have sworn was not in her programming. Then again, the AI learned quite a bit from being on the internet that surprised him.

"I'm sorry, sir," she continued in a volume that was barely quieter than what she was using before. "But if I woke Major Short up, that would be quite an improvement."

A pneumatic hiss signaled the opening of one of the doors to the room, and Artemis dropped a hand to the holoprojector, about the turn it on before he recognized a familiar tin-foil hat. He briefly wondered if Foaly still thought that actually offered any actual protection in… whatever year this was.

"Fowl," said the centaur as he entered the room, "Good, you're back."

"Yes, I'm back," said Artemis. "Would you mind telling me why I'm back in a time that I've apparently just left?"

"Magic-resistant viral infection," he said solemnly. "Got to Holly over here. And to nearly a third of the elves under the planet. It's bad. She's in an artificially-induced coma. You've already been here working on a cure for nearly four months before you hit some sort of time limit on your jump. You said you'd be back."

He looked meaningfully at Artemis.

"I'm glad you're here, Mud Boy. If there was ever a time you'd come in handy, this is definitely it."

Then he winced.

"Don't get a bloated head, Fowl, I'm only telling you that because you'll forget anyway."

Artemis allowed himself a small smile.

"Of course."

Foaly waved him over, opening the door again.

"Come on, Mud Boy. We needed this done months ago. Your little pet abacus," Artemis saw the C Cube AI fold her arms crossly, "can start reminding you of what you've already done so you can get back on track."

The sunlight that woke Artemis this time came from a slightly higher angle, just below the highest branch in the tree outside the window. It wasn't quite so early in the morning as the last time he woke up. He shifted around for a bit, noting that a suit was not a comfortable thing to fall asleep in, despite the number of times he had done it before.

There was still a note in his hand.

Go back to her.

Curious.

He landed on his feet, at the end of what seemed like a hospital bed in a tiny room with soft features.

On the bed, a small elfin head poked out from under a bundle of covers.

"Welcome back, sir."

The sunlight that woke Artemis Fowl up came from a little bit above the highest branch in the tree outside the window.

There was a note in his hand.

He landed on his feet, at the end of what seemed like a hospital bed in a tiny room with soft features.

On the bed, a small elfin head poked out from under a bundle of covers.

"Welcome back, sir."

And so it went.

The sun didn't wake Artemis Fowl up. It was already evening. The ringing of a telephone woke him this time.

Somehow, he was too tired to even answer the call. His brain felt muddled and hazy, as if trying to get up from a particularly thick vat of syrup.

The call went to voicemail.

"Hey Artemis," came the voice of Ramona Butler, his parents' current bodyguard, though these days, she was more of an assistant than a bodyguard. "Just a heads up, I'll be back at the manor with Mr. and Mrs. Fowl in about fifteen minutes. You did promise to have dinner with them tonight, in case you got wrapped up in your work and forgot. Grilled salmon's on the menu, if I remember right."

The phone clicked.

Artemis picked himself up, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was only then that he noticed he didn't have a note in his hand. Instead, there was one on the desk - something he must have dropped in his sleep.

A job well done, if I do say so myself.

Artemis Fowl smiled, and slipped the note into his drawer. It floated in like a snowflake into a snowbank composed of numerous other notes, all of which had been added to the drawer that day. This one, the one now resting face-up on the top of the pile, was the only one that said something different than any of the others.

One week before the death of Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl attempted a forward time jump, and landed three minutes and forty-two seconds into the future. It did not require a return trip.

He tried this three more times, and each time, he ended up no more than five minutes into the future.

There were no more points for him to jump to. He had made it to every single point of entanglement.

Artemis sat back in his chair, and stared up at the ceiling.

After a moment, he smiled, and then he laughed. It was a full-bodied, clear laugh that seemed to pull a tension he didn't know he was carrying up through his body, through his voice, and completely out of him.

He looked over to the wall, where a scheduled reminder blinked at him.

He had been invited to give a lecture at the MIT Kavli Institute in Cambridge in a week, the day after St. Patrick's Day. He was presenting his work on tachyon burst theory and the possibility of its use in disaster preparation, maybe in a decade or two, when the work was more mature.

It was all just theory for now. And somehow, that gave him no small measure of relief.