Final chapter! Happy reading, everyone! :D

January 09, 1998, Somewhere in Poland

It was so late at night that even many of the people-infested, light-pollutant human cities below had gone dark. All they had to guide them was the palest glow of the moon, and the even fainter flicker of charge along their visors.

When Holly dropped down through the thick treetops to stumble against the ground in a frantic collapse just one tumble away from a crash landing, all she'd had left was the moon: her visor lights had shut off.

Their wings had been running so desperately low on charge that if they'd gone for even one clearing more, she was pretty sure it would've been a crash landing anyway.

She stumbled along, her younger self right behind her, the ancient and heavy wings on her back sputtering so spastically that she was considering giving Foaly a punch for it, even eight years back into the present. There was no way around it: no matter the route, no matter how well she conserved power, no matter what she did, flying from Ireland, to Russia, and back could not be done on one trip. Not on the tech available in her own time, but certainly not on the wings available for scavenging in 1998.

There was simply no way for them to make it back to Ireland, no matter how direly it was needed, without a stopover.

As sick as Artemis was, Holly determined, he was just going to have to bear with it.

Her younger self had landed just as heavily behind her, thudding down while somehow still keeping her mouth shut to wait for orders. Considering the utter mess of the situation, Holly supposed it even made sense, that she'd given up trying to get answers to just follow instructions some time ago. It surely had to be easier than making sense of this chaos she'd just been dropped right into. Eight years ago, a greener officer, desperate to prove herself, with more faith in the LEP to do the right thing than she had now?

She could see it.

In... herself.

Yeah, that's never going to not be weird.

Clearing her throat with a hard, painful swallow, Holly unbelted her wings off and stepped away, trying to shake the uncertain confusion out like cobwebs to instead re-focus herself on the situation at hand. They were going to have to recharge, which she'd done on missions before, but... never quite like this.

Artemis, meanwhile, stayed, unmoving and insensate, on the hard ground.

"We've got another twelve hours until the deadline you gave me. Until the- ah. The time tunnel, closes," her younger self ventured at last, the words obviously unsure. "Are you sure you want to stop here? There's a base nearby; we could switch out our wings there..."

Holly nodded once, her gaze turned away from both Artemis and her companion. "Neither of us are supposed to be here. Artemis would probably be able to tell it better than me, but right now I just need to keep my hands off as many things as possible, and at this point I'm really not about to tempt fate anymore. If I get back to the present without blowing up the world in a paradox, I'm just gonna consider that a win." With a hard, stubborn tug, she cut the emergency power for her wings off, setting them up to begin recharging instead. At the speed they'd been traveling before, Ireland was just under six hours away. They wouldn't have time to recharge up fully, maybe, but...

Three hours, she thought determinedly, pushing her hair back from her eyes. That gave them enough time to get back to Fowl Manor, and enough of a window to deal with whatever was inevitably going to go disastrously wrong on the way.

Because after the past four days...

Yeah.

Yeah, something was going to go wrong.

"All right," Holly sighed, because this unbearable, expectant silence had really gone on for long enough. Rubbing exhausted eyes with the worn, aching fatigue of even more exhausted muscles, she climbed to her feet, brushing off the spare bits of grass and leaves and trying in vain to straighten herself out. Time to take charge. Again. "Can you keep watch for any other humans? I'm going to-... what in Frond's name are you doing?"

Her younger self, having recovered much faster than her on account of having slept sometime this past week, was already crouched back over next to Artemis' prone form, busy working enough to barely give her a careless shrug in answer. "Securing the prisoner," she said, and clicked the cuff shut to bind the human's wrist right to one of the roots of the tree.

"He's not a prisoner!"

"I walked in on you two with him ranting about he was about to kill you," the younger Holly said evenly, giving his wrist an experimental tug, then shifted to peer closer to his slack face. "How in the world underground did a Mud Boy get magic, anyway...?"

"That's-..." Holly closed her eyes, a momentary shudder spasming down against her shoulders that was hard and uncontrollable. He's not a criminal. Not anymore. "...it doesn't matter," she rasped, swallowing hard. And it really didn't, because magic was the very least of what Artemis Fowl had stolen over the years and this time, she wasn't even so sure he'd meant to take it at all. "Listen, he's not going to want to talk to you. I'll keep him settled, so right now I really need you to keep watch for other humans. We'll take off again in no more than three hours."

It was a dismissal in as many words, and not a very kind one, at that, but, by gods, she could not care. This had been one of the worst weeks of her entire life and after everything they'd all risked for her to be here, after everything that had happened and they'd nearly lost- she just did not have it in her to have to speak up and defend her best friend.

Even from herself.

The younger Holly frowned at her for a moment, silently appraising, but it seemed the sheer weirdness of staring at her own mirror image, time traveled in from the future, and glaring at her over a Mud Boy, got to her. With nothing more than a second careless shrug, the lieutenant raised her hands up in obedient surrender, then pushed to her feet without another word. She adjusted her holster, checking the settings, and glanced down to give the human one last look.

Then, she hesitated.

"Um, Captain?'

Was she really getting annoyed at her own self? "What n-"

"He's awake."

She drove to an immediate halt.

"He's-" Stuttering and breathless, Holly dropped to her knees to lunge forward with an almost-gasp, one hand reaching for her weapon, the other for her friend. He was awake? After all this time, she'd actually be able to talk to him, to settle everything once and for all- and his eyes were open! She could see it, now; he actually was awake! "Artemis-" she said again, reaching out.

Then stopped.

His bicolored eyes were open, yes.

And there was nothing in them.

Two slivered crescents, one dark blue, and the other a familiar hazel that was overrun with blood almost like tears. Each was very undeniably open- and each stared straight through her, and saw nothing. He looked almost as if he was asleep with his eyes open, but this was hardly her first time seeing him unconscious, and she knew very well that he did no such thing. Tentatively, almost hesitant, she waved a hand back and forth in front of them, but this made no difference.

He didn't even blink.

Her own eyes, a mirror image of Artemis', narrowed, and she fought back despair by every tooth and nail that she had.

I don't think so, Mud Boy.

I don't fucking think so.

With a harsh, clinical precision, she slid one hand up to his neck, the other resting flat on his chest. Heart, still beating. Lungs, still working. Good. "I've got it from here, Lieutenant, thank you," she ordered, a second dismissal, and this time didn't even turn to see her request unspoken request be followed as she backed off of her friend, just a little. Carefully, Holly cleared the area, dusting leaves and grass aside and locking her gun secure in her holster so no matter who it was in Artemis' body, they wouldn't be able to get their way.

Then, she focused back on her friend's pale, slack face, and thought.

Artemis was no longer just Artemis. Hecate had told her himself; there were pieces of him, now, all stuck inside his head, different fractures of who he was that had split all the way into semi-independent beings. Artemis was still in there, but some times- maybe most of the time, even- he was not the one in control of his own body. Sometimes it was Hecate. Sometimes it'd have to be the Orion that she'd only heard about so far, and never spoken to. Sometimes, maybe, it was another alter entirely that she had yet to meet.

And right now... none of them were in control at all.

Foaly had not told her anything about this, concerning Atlantis Complex. The existence of alters, yes, the existence of alters that might be unable to be reasoned with and dangerous in ways that Artemis was not, yes. And she wasn't worried, necessarily... if this was some sort of dissociative state, the right combination of magic and drugs by Argon would be able to bring him out of it. Everything after everything that had happened, she still had full faith in her best friend. She knew he was strong enough to beat this.

The only problem was, that was later, and this was now.

They didn't have time to wait for him to do it on his own, and no matter how much she wanted to help him, she didn't have a clue what she was meant to do.

Foaly had advised her to try electric shocks, courtesy of her Neutrino, but after everything he'd already been through, she really wasn't about to shoot him again unless there was no other option. Or any other kind of electric shock, period- his body really couldn't take much more. Magic, even if she'd known what to do, was just too risky to try at all... magic was the entire reason they were in this mess to begin with, and after the effect she'd seen it have on Hecate, there was a decent chance it could just kill him. No matter what, it would hurt him. Healing his slashed wrist was one thing, but messing around in his head for something that wasn't even life-threatening was another entirely.

Although...

Holly narrowed her eyes, searching closer into the clouded, glazed eyes. Her stomach squirmed at the sight but she still searched into them, refusing to give in, refusing to yield to the sick-hearted terror that he was gone. Because he wasn't gone, and while using magic to drag the real Artemis out was too dangerous- the mesmer wouldn't really be magic used on him, would it? The magic was all on her, and for Artemis, it should just be the power of suggestion. The power of really, really, really strong, unyielding, undeniable suggestion that was so strong that it'd kill him to say no, maybe, but the power of suggestion all the same. And if she phrased it right, if she allowed him the opportunity to fail without letting him say no...

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and focused.

If it didn't work, then no harm done.

And if it did work, then she was finally going to be able to talk to her best friend face to face, with no more room for lies or half-truths in between them, for the first time in months.

She had to try.

"Hello."

Magic vibrated in her throat, a warm, comforting beat of energy that was familiar and close, and she willed it even stronger, not daring to push it to its limits but knowing she was going to have go above the bare minimum if this was to work. She opened her eyes, staring right into her friend's glazed own, and said, "Can I speak to Artemis?"

His eyes flickered once. The slightest of gravely groans cracked out from his throat, and then, he fell back into dead silence.

No. Breathing deep and sure, Holly learned forward, cradling his face between her hands to give him nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. "I know you're awake," she said, staring right into his blank, unseeing eyes. He didn't look mesmerized, not yet, but she wasn't done yet, either. "I want to speak to Artemis." Pause. Nothing more than dead silence, and even deader eyes. "Artemis Fowl. If you can, come out and speak to me."

I know you're in there, Arty... and I'm done chasing after you.

We are going to talk, and you are going to listen.

Once again, for several harsh, unbearably cold, miserable moments, there was nothing.

The smartest face she'd ever known held as vacant and lifeless as a dead rat, and if there really was anything left of Artemis inside him, it was so far gone there was no sense in talking to him at all.

Then, with another aching groan that pulled out as agonizingly as broken glass scraped over skin, his eyes flickered a second time-

and she saw him.

He blinked once again, this time not the glazed instinct of a body barely half-conscious but an entirely aware and completely alive response. There was no slow, groggy transition to consciousness; his sharp eyes were instantly awake, hesitancy and something unsure darkening them as his chalk-pale face twisted in open, honest anguish.

For one long, agonizing moment, they locked eyes.

Then his stare jerked jumpily straight down to his feet, and he looked so uncomfortable it was all she could do not to just reach out and hug him.

Still, she did not.

She had been with him three times in the past, so far. The first two, she had approached him as if he was her friend, and both times, found something very different behind his eyes instead.

This was the third.

She was not going to make that mistake again.

"Artemis?" she asked evenly, or, at least, as evenly as she could force it. As calm as she could ever pretend to be, because her heart was lodged firmly in her throat and her mind was racing and her chest felt so tight it was as if she'd sprinted a mile; was still running, still panting, still falling. Artemis would not look at her, and her heart skipped yet another beat and shuddered like it'd been clenched in a fist so tight it was clawing a bleeding furrow straight through. Please... Artemis, please... "Is that you, Artemis?"

For one terrible moment, he did not respond at all.

Then, after several even more terrible, dead silent seconds, he gave a single, limp nod.

His pale, bruised face still turned away severely, eyes fixated away as if he couldn't bear to so much as look at her, and expression contorted all the way through to leave him sick at heart and mind, Holly wasn't even sure how he'd managed to respond at all.

And the worst part of it was, it didn't matter.

It still wasn't safe for her to treat him like a friend.

Not yet.

"Prove it."

Artemis flinched faintly, a little shudder that shook down through his torso and flickered again in his stricken eyes. He still would not even look at her, and was trying his best to disguise it, but she knew him and she could see twist of agony and guilt on his face, plain as day.

She still did not apologize.

If he was her friend, then he would understand. If he was not her friend-

Well, she didn't give a damn what anyone in Artemis' head not named Artemis thought.

"I'm... not sure how." The human coughed wetly, a thick, horrible sound, his sick body shuddering violently again but by the despairing look on his face, he didn't even care about the pain of it. "I have several theories, but at the present time, I'd advise not trusting anything that I say until you have confirmation on who's saying it." He closed his eyes again, another shadow of pain crossing across his face, and she could his throat jump as he desperately tried to swallow. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Holly."

No. I'm sorry. We're all sorry we didn't see this happening and stop it before it was too late. "Well, we're going to have to figure it out somehow, because we need to talk." She swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to wrench her own exhaustion back out of the way to sift through everything that Foaly had told her about Atlantis Complex. Any little detail at all, any little factoid that there was to make a distinction between the bits of personality locked in his own head.

No matter what, she was not going to leave her ailing best friend cuffed to a tree, and sit there with him in dead silence, because she just wasn't sure.

"The first time I heard you playing piano." Unable to help herself, she leaned forward, just a little, peering desperately into his shadowed eyes. Come on, give me something... gods, just LOOK at me, Arty... "What was it?"

He still would not look at her. Didn't even try to pull away free from the tree, his untethered hand curling anxiously in the fraying, scorched hem of his shirt, oblivious to the red burns and faded bruises bled across his pale skin. But his mouth twitched and his eyes flickered again and, if she looked very closely underneath the streaks of blood, she could just find the beginnings of a smile. "I wasn't aware you recognized it. You should have said so... Chopin Etude in c minor, Opus 10, Number 12, oft referred to as the Revolutionary Etude." He tilted his head back hopelessly against the very same tree he was bound to, that pale smile twisting into something that was all the way wrong and miserable, through and through. "It was calculated. I knew that you were coming, and I wanted to show off. I was still chafing slightly from the lollipop comment, and was convinced this would help you to view me as less of a child." He paused, face still clouded, then relaxed, degree by tiny degree, into a sad smile. "I truly was twelve years old."

Even while still smiling that miserable, defeated little smile up towards the moonlight above, he still would not look at her.

Wouldn't try to bring his eyes down to even get close.

Her own desperate, meager beginning of a smile died, and her heart clenched.

She actually had not recognized it, at the time. Foaly had been monitoring, babbling in her ear about how much he didn't trust a certain sneaky Mud Boy, and the instant the strains of piano had reached them, his suspicious babbling had turned into irritated rambling. Boy's butchering it, he'd said, can't believe it, Revolutionary- one of the only worthwhile contributions Mud People have got to the world and he's just D'Arviting butchering it...

At the time, Holly had found it hilarious, because even to her ears, it had been rather clear Artemis had not been butchering anything at all. Foaly had just been annoyed to no end to, once again, be confronted with something the tiny human had been impeccably good at, another piece of the puzzle that this little brat was just unequivocally better at than him, and hadn't been able to bear not complaining about it. She'd remembered the name just because Foaly had chosen to harp on it, too, whining that of course the brutal Mud Boy would choose something so violent.

Now, all she remembered was how young and boyish and small, Artemis had been back then. A child staring up at her from a piano much too big for him, and small enough that she could look down at his proud smirk, and not just see the smug, heartless little brat that had wrenched her life to shreds-

But also just a boy, who badly needed a second chance.

Looking at Artemis now, slumped back against a tree, bleeding, ill, and torn to emotional shreds, blinking dazedly at the dark sky and barely three years older, he appeared as if he had aged decades.

For once, Holly could really get the feeling.

She closed her eyes, breathing in shakily and worn down to all hell, and went on.

"What is Butler's first name?"

Artemis' eyes flickered again, numb and half-dead. He still, it seemed, could not bear to look at her. "You don't know it," he whispered. "I told you that he told me what it was... however, I did not actually say it to you."

Holly grinned.

Artemis: 2. Hecate: 0.

So... let's see if he can go three for three.

"Why did you come here?"

Whatever was left of Artemis' already meager smile fell.

Holly, too, did not smile.

"Why are you here, Artemis?" she asked again, voice even and quiet in the dead night air. "What did you come here to do?"

For several moments, her friend did not answer her.

That question was the very heart of the matter. The answer to why Holly had had to be fished out of an ice cold river in the middle of winter, stranded in 1998 and dunked into the water by someone wearing the face of her best friend, Why she had left Butler and Foaly (and half the LEP) out of their minds waiting back in the present, and why she had found Artemis bleeding out in the Russian mafia's headquarters set ablaze. So many unbearable, unanswerable whys, a question that all of them had only been able to miserably guess at themselves for days- because only Artemis had the true answer.

If it was Hecate, in his head, she could guess at what he would say. It was already horrifically obvious that Hecate had fallen for Opal's lies hook, line, and sinker. If it was any other new alter in his head- well, she didn't know what any of them would say, but she could at least hope that she would be able to tell it wasn't her friend.

And if it was Artemis, in there...

Then maybe she would finally hear the truth.

Once more, Artemis was quiet, at first, taking his time in finding the right words and deciding just how he would answer. There wasn't even the slightest trace of his earlier faint humor on his somber expression, still bone-white and thin underneath the dirtied streaks of ash. Everything about him now was just drained and limp, like he'd just been dunked into a pool of liquid defeat and taken a long soak.

And there, as she watched, his one free hand trailed limply off the ground to instead grasp loosely just at his heart. A gesture that she had seen him do many times before, so she knew exactly what it was: grasping for a charm that wasn't there, because Holly had seen it left behind in the present, just like he'd left behind them all.

A wave of cold loneliness came over her, so severe that she shivered down to her core.

"There was a voice in my head," he croaked, finally. His voice came out barely audible and no matter how hard she stared at him, he would not look back at her. "It's been following me for months. When... when I came back here to the past, that was the first time I'd even been able to think without its interruption since autumn. It told that me I had to. That you and all the fairies were conspiring against me, that even Butler had been turned onto your side, and that if I didn't act you were going to kill me." His eyes shuddered shut, anguish rolling across his face as a shadow, and, right there as she watched, another drop of blood rolled down from his fairy eye. "I... I was already having delusions, and I'd been having compulsions for even longer than that. After I started hearing this voice, I got even sicker. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat... I think Butler was about a week away from kidnapping me to take me to a poison specialist, when I instigated my plan. Nothing I had done helped in the slightest. I... knew there was something magical wrong with me, but I couldn't trust anyone... I thought about asking you for help so many times but I could never convince myself that you were still safe. I just kept getting sicker until I realized it was going to kill me if I did nothing, and... "

He trailed off again into silence, a failing croak in his throat to snuff out as dead and gone. The anguish contorted to a breath of agony, his throat jumping and his hand spasming convulsively against his chest to grasp the coin that they both knew wasn't there, because he'd taken it off.

Because he hadn't trusted her, to the point that he'd been dying, and had run away instead of picking up the phone.

"I was backed-" he coughed hard, heaving over to yank uselessly at his bound arm against the tree. One cough turned into a round of wet struggling as he fought for air, pitiful and desperate, so badly, painfully ill it took every last fiber of her being to stay back and still, hands clenching in her lap just to stop them from reaching out to him.

Her magic was poison to him, and her words, after all that had happened between them now, might well not mean anything to him any more.

"I was backed..." he started again finally, when the round of coughing had subsided into silence. Frail and pathetic, broken down into a bare whisper of weakness- and honesty. "...into a corner, with no way out. The only thing in the world I was sure I could trust was the person in my head. It told me what to do, and I did it."

He stopped for several moments again, hoarse voice failing him to drop back into a cold silence. Artemis worked his mouth a few times, eyes still shut, then just sank backwards to look towards the sky.

"No one was supposed to get hurt," he whispered, and his voice cracked.

That was all that Holly could take.

"Artemis," she sobbed, and flung her arms around him.

The human stiffened instantly underneath her, flinching not to get away from her but instead to get away from himself. He didn't hug back, didn't even try, but they had been through too much for that alone to forestall her and she squeezed him even tighter, her arms wrapped as closely around him as they could go and buried her head into the crook of his frozen shoulder. "It's okay," she gasped, and now she was crying and couldn't stop it. "No one did got hurt. There's nothing that happened that can't be fixed and everyone that you care about is okay."

You're the only one who's hurt, you idiot.

But Artemis held frozen, so stiff and shocked she knew that he didn't believe her. Of course he didn't, but instead of an interrogation he still only squirmed, trying to get away, but she couldn't let him go. "That- that can not possibly be true! Butler- my family-"

"Are fine," she promised. She couldn't bring herself to let go but did tilt her head back just enough to meet his panicked eyes, and when he tried to jerk away she pulled one hand out to keep his face still as the blood continued to drip down. "You parents don't have any idea what's happened, and Butler- he understands, Artemis. He knows what happened, and he's still with you. You..." A thought occurred to her then, a sinking realization that made her stomach churn. Does HE even know what happened?

"...Artemis," she started again, sobering with a wave of forced calm. "What, exactly, do you think happened?"

Hecate may've been the one to try and kill her directly, but both of them knew, he had not dragged Artemis back here against his will.

The boy genius shook his head for a moment, consternation crossing across his bruised features, and he at last lifted his free hand. Not to hug her back, but instead rubbing it across his face, as if trying to physically push the confusion away and find tiny missed detail to force it all make sense. "I heard what you told me. Or-" He shook his head again, features contorting again, this time through a hurdle of pain. "Hecate, but... I heard it. About Opal. And it- but of course, I'd considered the possibility before, I've already considered all of the possibilities. I tried to think through everything before, but something feels... different, now. I feel- I don't understand." Artemis rubbed his head with a wavering hand, then, finally, he actually looked back to her. Met her eyes for the first time with his own dazed and bloodshot, but there, piercing in a way that only her friend's could be. "I feel better and worse, at the same time. So many of the symptoms are worse, but the compulsions are gone, as is the... dementia? Delusions? I'm not..." With a shaky, almost nervous laugh, he lowered his hand to stare it, turning it over so they could both see the streaks of ash and smears of blood. "What did you do to me?"

At the softest stirrings of paranoia, there, behind those quaking words, Holly once again fell still.

There were too many answers that she didn't have, and too many that Artemis badly needed, and, more than that, deserved.

However, Artemis was done waiting.

Whether she knew how to explain or not, she was the only one here.

Shaking her head to herself, forcing tears and desperate emotion back to clutch onto her best friend for one last second, Holly took a deep breath, then pushed back. She'd said they'd needed to talk, and she'd meant it. With a lingering sniffle, she withdrew just enough to finally go to work on the cuff on his wrist, keeping her eyes down and her gaze focused. "We'll try and talk it through. I can't promise you'll like what you'll hear, but no matter what, we're still on the same side. ...I'm sorry, about this. Er, again," she said, an eerie parallel to a conversation she'd already tried to have with him already, only to realize it wasn't with the right him. "I'm really sorry, I know you're hurt, but my magic will make you feel worse, Arty. I'll trust your judgment, on this... if there's anything you think can't wait until we get back to our time, I'll do what I can. But otherwise, it'll have to wait."

Every unhealed injury, she silently promised, they were going to inflict on Opal. Ten times over.

If Butler hasn't already taken permanent care of her.

No one was going to get away with hurting one of her closest friends again.

As was to be expected, perhaps, Artemis remained as taciturn and withdrawn as ever. He still looked painfully shellshocked, almost vacant in a way that was downright disturbing to see in eyes so intelligent and quick. And at first Holly was almost relieved, because stunned or not, that was boundlessly better than physical agony or sickness, a pain that she would be able to do nothing for but sit there through him with and watch-

But there he sat. Blank as a stone, staring down at himself to look over all the injuries as if he'd never even seen any of them before. He looked like he'd been through with a round with a troll, and not very well, at that.

(But he's sill alive.)

"I think," he said at length, still blinking down at frayed sleeves, the lengths of his arms, "that I will survive at least through whatever explanation you still have not given me." There was another unsettled pause, and slowly, achingly, he moved his at last freed hand to push back one sleeve, turning his arm over so they could both see the scorched patchwork of red, blistering skin.

They both shuddered.

"That fire was supposed to wipe out any and all plans they'd ever had on the Fowl Star," he sighed, and it was with something that was almost a smile that he leaned his head back against the tree. "I'd threatened them with every scrap of fairy tech I could fake, and when they got back home they were meant to find it in flames and their servers wiped so severely that they'd realize I was generations ahead of anything they could do."

"...And then," Holly went on, when Artemis did not, "they wouldn't attack the Fowl Star. Your father never would have gone missing."

"No need for gold."

"No... us."

There was another chilling silence. Artemis' distant gaze remained glazed upwards to the sky, and his infuriatingly quick mouth stayed shut.

Holly closed her eyes for a breath, and kept herself as calm as she could.

She was going to have to go about this very, very carefully.

"I know what I've told you about Opal so far, but we believe that she was actually helped a little along by something else. We think that you have a... condition, Artemis. Atlantis Complex. Have you heard of it?" Tentatively, she shifted about to sit by his side instead of in front of him. When he did not flinch away, she reached out to touch his hand. It was tense and shaking, so stiff she could almost feel the hurt underneath, and her heart in her throat, Holly tried to guide it back down.

"I..." His brow furrowed. Another bad sign. "I can recall... yes. A dissociative, magical disorder. I considered it when I recognized the compulsions for what they were, but there were so many other unexplained- ah." At last, some of that confusion faded away into the faintest grin of understanding, his eyes, already overbright with fever, losing their sharp glint in favor of solution to the puzzle. "I see, now."

Relieved, Holly nodded back. "Yes. It's as I said before. It wasn't you, Artemis, it really wasn't." The rest of this was, once again, was going to need to be handled very carefully, and preferably by someone who knew more about Atlantis than she did. But there was still no one else here, and Artemis needed answers now. "I'm not sure what to tell you," she sighed, knees pulled up to her chest. "Foaly said if it was really bad, then I'd be able to help you with electric shocks. Temporary, but very immediate relief. You got one, when you got shot. That should've helped the symptoms for Atlantis, at least for a little bit. That's why you feel a little better, now. As for everything else..." She paused again, trying to gather her thoughts to make sense of it all as best she could. "I know you said some things feel worse, too. I'm guessing that's got something to do with Hecate about trying to fry himself with magic. You're already oversensitive to magic, right now, and he sat there using enough to blow us sky high, like an idiot. You saw that, right?"

She tried to smile. Tried to keep the words light and joking. Tried to ease him into a sense of security, to pretend everything's normal and so much more than that, everything's okay.

And, Artemis did smile back. Just a faint little expression, but it was there; a weak grin that was almost familiar and had desperately been all she really wanted.

And she could see in his eyes that it didn't even come close to touching the black despair, guilt, and helplessness that hovered between them like a storm cloud.

"I did see it," he said, a touch uncomfortably. "And if that's the case, I think I'm going to have to say that magic really does not agree with me."

"Or maybe it does, and you just shouldn't try and take on so much magic from a demon that it'd fry even an elf?" She nudged his side gently again, trying for a second teasing smile even though she already knew it was a doomed venture from the start. "Regardless, if you're alive now, it's certainly not going to come back to kill you later. You're going to be okay, Arty. Atlantis Complex is curable, and a good magical detox should really help everything else."

She didn't mention that, as was usual, for Artemis Fowl, this was all ground that had never before been tread. No one knew how much they were going to be able to help him. No one knew how sick he was still going to be, at the end of this, and there were fears that just because they'd stopped Opal's plan in its tracks, didn't mean she hadn't succeeded in ruining his life after all.

She didn't mention that just because Atlantis Complex was curable did not mean that it was a promise. That the treatment was pretty much electroshock therapy and that the suicide rate was terrifyingly high. That it had never even existed in a human before, so who the hell knew if just because they could snuff out Hecate and Orion in a fairy didn't mean they'd be able to get rid of them in him.

She didn't mention that none of this even mattered at all, and even if they cured his Atlantis, even if they wiped out the seizures and fever and illness from Opal's magical brainwash, even if he came out of this the healthiest that he'd ever been in his life-

It wouldn't matter at all.

The shared hurt between them all of the events of this past week could not just be wiped away. She'd nearly died, twice, each time because of someone wearing her best friend's face. Butler was not inconsolable, because Butler was not the type to become such a thing while his charge was in trouble, but he was as close to a wreck as she had ever seen him and was going to blame himself for this for the rest of his life. Possible relations between the People and humans had been set back an entire generation; now whenever any liberal wing pushed for giving a singe human a chance, they would all be reminded of the planetary near catastrophe that they had gotten for associating with Artemis Fowl.

They were all going to always remember the days they'd spent trapped in a time stop, picking through the refuge of madness in Artemis' destroyed room to find themselves placed, piece by piece, in a puzzle where their friend, who they'd all trusted with their lives, had meant to trap and abandon them because he hadn't trusted them.

She didn't mention any of those things, because her friend didn't need her to.

He wasn't stupid.

He already knew them all for himself.

The problem was, he blamed himself for it.

"...Holly?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head through a single ragged breath. No. She knew that tone of voice, she knew what he was about to say, and she just couldn't. "Don't-"

"I'm so sorry. What Hecate did- I couldn't stop him. I-"

"I said don't, Mud Boy. Not today." She glared at his side, just barely resisting the urge to put a hand on his face and make him look at her, to get over this skittish avoidance and actually look her in the eye and see the truth for himself. "What Hecate did. Not you."

"He's a part of me! He came from me, clearly, everything he did to you must have been buried in my head, I-"

"And I don't care. You get that, Artemis? I know it wasn't you, first and foremost because you can't throw a punch to save your life, and even if you learn how, I know you'd never do any of the things that he did. Not anymore."

He scoffed quietly, head jerked away and arms pulled in around himself as if trying to pull into a protective cocoon. It was clear he did not believe her, pale face ingrained in an almost childlike sulk, and worse than that, that he wasn't even going to try to argue. His mind was made up, and it wasn't an argument worth having because in his head, it didn't even matter what she thought.

Hot anger caught in her chest so severely that if he hadn't been sitting there beaten all to hell and already doubting everything there was to their friendship, she really would've hit him.

If she hadn't promised Butler to bring him back in one piece, she might have, anyway.

Somewhere not already hurt. And that wasn't sensitive. And... really gently. That, too.

Then, ah, hell. When did I get such a soft spot for a Mud Person?

"...All the same," Artemis murmured, then coughed heavily, the sound muffled into his knee but the violent shudder through his back evident all the same. "I am still truly very sorry, and will understand if you don't accept my apology. I understand the current circumstances might make that hard to believe, but I am. None of my plans ever accounted for me not being in complete and total control of my actions." He hesitated, an errant shiver trembling through his shoulders, then coughed again, this one wetter and harsher than before. "I think he's been... corralled, for now. But I can't promise that it's permanent."

"...corralled?'

"Yes," Artemis answered, nodding. This time, he did make an effort to look at her, but seemed just so intensely uncomfortably that she wasn't even surprised, when he could bear it for no more than a second and then, had already turned away again. "Orion and I knew we had to stop him, and- I'm not quite sure what it is we did. But it... fractured him. When we woke up again, he wasn't there." He paused again, not quite shivering, but still so unnaturally tense it was as if he he was made of glass. "Locking a part of yourself away does not tend to result in that part dying off, however. I'm sure he will be back."

She hated to admit it, but she agreed with him.

This was not going to be the last that she saw of the part of her best friend, that believed he'd be better off with her gone.

"What was it that happened when you woke up, anyway?" Shivering herself, she moved back over the rough, muddy ground, crawling so as to draw closer to his side. She was warmer than he was, for a multitude of reasons, but right now all that mattered was getting the fact through his stupidly big brain that she- that none of them- were going anywhere, and since he wasn't proving receptive to words, maybe physical contact would manage better. "You were awake, but you weren't- here. Like there are all those... yous, in your head, but... none of them was on the outside."

Artemis laughed a little, but it came out hollow, again; hollow just like the look in his eyes. "Hecate wasn't there, like I said. Just me and Orion, whom you have not met, and... whom I dearly hope you do not. He badly wanted to meet you, but I think he was worried about me, and moreover, was worried that if he came out, he'd upset you. He knew he wasn't the version of me you wanted to see." He paused for a moment longer, brow creasing as he fished for words. Artemis could be very particular about his words, yes, but by the look on his face, Holly knew that he wasn't trying to make what followed more exact or accurate.

He only wanted to soften them, instead. Make them more palatable, bearable, for her to hear.

She rolled her eyes, and pushed closer.

"I was choosing not to come out," he said at last. "The inside of my own head was much simpler, and much safer, than having to navigate the real world. After-" His voice wavered and he coughed again, but this time it was clearly not because of illness. "After all that Hecate's done- after all that I've done- I... I couldn't imagine you'd even want to speak to me. I'd thought you'd- ow!"

Not at all satisfied, but grinning all the same, Holly lowered her fist away from the side of his arm. She shook her fingers out and flexed her hands, an obvious warning that she was more than ready to hit him a second time, and met his shocked gaze with a grin that was all broken glass and a serrated edge. "You're not doing that again."

"Holly, I-"

"You don't get to apologize for hurting me- something you didn't even do- and then go on to say something stupid like that. You D'Arviting moron, do you have any idea what it felt like to look at you and see you staring like that, like you were dead? Artemis-" Glowering, Holly gripping at his hand as he tried to pull away, because he had spent too many weeks running away for it to be allowed any more- or ever again. "No, listen to me, this time! Okay? If you're actually sorry for what your actions have done to us, if you're actually wanting to make anything better instead of just empty words, then you won't do that ever again. If you only want to stew in guilt and self-loathing and torment yourself over how much you're convinced we all hate you, then sure. Hide back in your head, for all I care. Hole yourself up in there and leave us talking to Orion and Hecate for the rest of time. But if everything you said to me just now is the real truth, if you are actually sorry, and really want to help fix things, you're never going to leave any of us talking to an empty shell again."

And then, suddenly, she found herself upset without even knowing why. How dare he? Safer inside his own head? After all that they'd all gone through to chase him down, that they'd been scared out of their minds not understanding how or why, and his response to that was just to run away again? She'd had to drag him out with magic and now she found out it wasn't because there'd been something wrong with him, but he'd made the choice to stay locked up in his own head?!

After everything, that was what he'd decided to do?!

It felt like she couldn't breathe. Like something unbearably heavy was crushing down over her chest and all the shock and horror and fear since the instant Artemis had thrown himself into the past had caught up with her all at once, and now it was suddenly more than she could take. This stupid Mud Boy- how could he- and of course it wasn't his fault, of course it was Opal's, they just had to keep remembering that, that it was Opal who had forced his hand and nothing Artemis would've ever believed if he hadn't had a voice in his head screaming it... none of this was actually her best friend. It couldn't be, because Artemis wasn't this. He wasn't supposed to be this insecure, shivering, blood and bruised-stain thing by her side, vulnerable and without a trace of smugness or arrogance in sight no matter what Opal had done in his head. That wasn't Artemis; Artemis was- was-

Was sitting next to her, as shellshocked and quiet as a traumatized child, and staring with shadowed eyes down to his upturned, newly scarred wrist.

Realization washed over her like a bucket of ice, and in the same breath, nauseated anger catapulted downwards into a hard knot of guilt.

That was why she was angry.

That D'Arviting scar, and what he'd made her see upon walking into that room.

Finding her best friend curled limply up on his side, white and wheezing, and bleeding to death from a wound that was self-inflicted.

And, because Artemis really was so perceptive it wasn't even fair, he'd realized it before she had.

Seeming to sense her eyes on him again, the human glanced back to her direction with a weak and shallow smile. He rolled his scarred wrist up for a heartbeat, giving the scar to light, then just shook his head in abject disgust and let it fall. "It wasn't me," he promised. "I'm... very sorry. I wish you hadn't had to see that. But it wasn't me, Holly." He turned his hand over several times, examining it under the pale light, then moaned. "Butler is going to have a conniption, isn't he?"

She chuckled past the lump in her throat, and once again had to blink back almost-tears. As if he wasn't already... "You might need to be wearing some Kevlar for when he sees you," she mumbled, then coughed again, trying to clear her throat and failing rather miserably, at that. Magic worked wonderfully on wounds, but not so wonderfully to prevent any scarring, and in the state Artemis was in now, she'd used only the bare amount necessary to close the wound. Even now, there was no hiding it. They could both still see it all, plain as day.

The pale pink, rough mark, hewn across the delicate skin of the inside of his wrist. Over an inch long, and the unmistakable mark of a knife. Even once Artemis had healed enough for it to be safe to try, Holly just had to look at it now to see that no amount of magic was going to erase the scar. It would fade, with time, but that mark was there for life.

Butler was going to understand the instant he'd seen it.

Everyone was going to understand, whenever they saw it, for the rest of his life.

"It... was Hecate, then?" She ventured her hand closer but something about the sight of it made her stomach lurch. It was ridiculous, because not only was she an LEP officer, she had been the one to stick her hands wrist-deep into that mess of blood that very same day, frantic over her best friend's already cooling corpse, and scream HEAL She had been the one there to make it right. And now, she couldn't even touch the damn thing? Holly laughed again, the sound broken and caught in her throat; her eyes burned and she tore them away from the whole dammed horrible sight. It made her sick. "It wasn't you, you said. So, he's the one who did that?"

However, Artemis again shook his head, scar left upturned and shadowed features remained closed off. "No. Hecate, I believe, is my ambition, untethered by a conscience, moral compass, or anything else necessary to form a productive member of society. He was... quite terrified, by the prospect of death. I don't think it's possible for him to want to die, when his existence is ambition. It was Orion."

Orion. She committed that name to memory, swallowing hard around the bitter taste it left in her mouth. Orion and Opal: the two people responsible for nearly killing her best friend. Opal, psychotic megalomaniac malignant waste of space, and- Orion. A name she only knew as that alter she'd now heard both Artemis and Hecate mention, and still had yet to meet for herself. "I think," she muttered under her breath, "I've got a few words for this Orion after all."

"God, no. Please, Holly- by whatever shreds of pride I have left, whatever scraps of sanity- spare us both that indignity. Please." He buried his face in his hand and tugged through his matted hair, trembling fingers trying to soothe down the bloodied knots and upright tangles for a ragged breath- and there, just in that moment, she saw his fingers start to tap nervously in a pattern of five. "I won't defend what he did, but... Orion's entire existence is hyper-focused on you. And other, equally embarrassing delusions that he is a noble knight- but you are his entire world, and, he had just found out that you were dead. We had all just found out that you were... dead, Holly."

Once again, his eyes stayed shut, and his face peculiarity, almost frighteningly, calm.

She knew him too well, though.

She heard the lightest flicker of anguish in his voice, and heard, deeper than that, all that it meant.

It was the same anguish that had caught in his quavering words when he'd called her to beg for her help, saying that his mother was sick- and then, days later, when he'd started at her with broken eyes and told her I lied.

It was the same guilt and soul-deep terror that had stabbed straight through when he'd called her before that, his eyes red and tears underneath his voice because Butler was dead.

It was the same broken eyes that had looked to her when he had been her careless kidnapper, a schemer, and a smug piece of shit, and he'd offered her several tons of gold that he'd just risked everything to get, if only she would just heal his mother.

"You don't have to worry," he croaked into his hands. "I'm not suicidal. I wouldn't have been even if it... y-you weren't... if it was true." Five unsteady taps of his index finger against his cheek, nail scraping and the blood, congealing slowly like slick mud. "As I said, I am so sorry you had to see that- to deal with all of this, Holly. I'm so sorry... for what Hecate did, for what Orion did, for what I did- I... I never meant for any of this- but what does that matter? None of my plans ever succeed, not the way they're meant to, and you always get hurt for it. Everyone gets hurt for it, and it's my fault... you're sick of me for it, you're all sick of me, and I deserve-"

By this point, Holly had heard quite enough. He was shaking his head and shivering and rambling, now, a muffled rant against his hand that was all too eerily similar to what they'd seen on the v-diaries, and that was all that was needed. She had seen him do that too many times in a flickering hologram, alone in his office to pace and stumble, half-mad, rambling back to a voice in his head, to be able to bear it now when he was right there in person.

For the second time that horrible night, she pushed up to her knees, turned to her bigger friend, and hugged him as tightly as she could.

"-my fault- Holly," he whined, choking.

"Artemis," she whined straight back. Somehow, her fingers found his hair, and she buried them there for her other hand to curl into one shredded, mucked sleeve. "You're already forgiven."

"But-" He tried to push her back again but it was with hands that shook and a voice that trembled even worse than that. "But I've done-"

"As shocking as this might seem to you, none of us are actually unaware of what you've done, Arty. I didn't say we'd forgotten." She tightened her hold again, and it took ever fiber of her being to fight the instinct to try and calm the despairing panic with just a hint of magic. "I said you're forgiven."

He shook his head desperately again, silently working his mouth in abated attempt after attempt to fight back but never managed so much as a single word. He was as close to beside himself as she'd ever seen him, the fingers clutched into her uniform shuddering in those dammed patterns of five and once again she pushed back just enough to grab him by the shoulders instead, staring into his frantic eyes to make him listen. "Shh. Shh. Do you know what Foaly said to me, before I ended up in 1998 and chasing you across half of Europe? The very last thing he said to me?"

"I-" Teeth chattering, back heaving, almost-sobs gasped out to shatter his voice in two. "I don't bloody know, Holly-"

"He told me to stay safe, and bring you home."

He spluttered something stupid again, just wordless and nonsensical desperation choked out of as a suffocated gasp. He tried again, and this time, got out nothing.

"That's right," she said back, squeezing even tighter, as tight as she could get the human in her arms. "That's what Folay said. Butler- Butler didn't say anything, because he didn't even have to. I'd already had to promise that I'd get you back in one piece before he'd even let me go in his place at all. Why in Frond's name would either of them do any of that if they didn't care?" She shoved him lightly again, barely more than a gentle little push at his shoulders, but Artemis still managed to look so stunned she might as well have hit him across the face.

Still so guiltstricken, still so horrified with no one but himself, and she would've given anything to make that look go away.

She didn't have anything.

All they had was this.

So she wrapped her arms back around him, pressing her head again to his shoulder, and went on.

"I know you want to think that this has changed things, that all that's happened has erased all of that, but it hasn't. None of us are okay with it but none of us blame you, you moron." We just wish you'd asked for help before it was too late. "You said already that you knew what Atlantis Complex was. You know this is all Atlantis talking- you know it's not rational, Artemis, you-"

"I tried to kill you, Holly! Atlantis didn't make that up; you almost died!" Artemis shoved backwards, wild-eyed and panting like a cornered bull. He looked like he would've been up and pacing if his leg hadn't been torn to shreds in the time tunnel; as it was the enforced helplessness and vulnerability was only making it worse, the frenetic tapping in his hands speeding it up and his face twisting through stomach-churning horror. "Atlantis may have given Hecate and Orion individuality but it did not create them! They are both parts of me, shaved off and isolated, but from me, Holly! Orion is this- this bloody dammed fool, I do not care what he chatters about in my head, but everything that Hecate is is also in me, and don't try and lie to me to pretend that he's not!"

He shook her once, bloodied hands dragging, scraping against her, panting again, desperate and almost in tears for one of the first times in his life. He looked like he was well on his way to stressing himself into a stroke and worse than that, wouldn't even mind it, because it'd mean the end to all of this, but when Artemis Fowl got on a roll the only way to stop him was a brick wall so he panted and sobbed on through a rant intended only to incriminate himself.

"I've kidnapped you once, Holly. I've lied to you, and I've kidnapped you, and I've hurt you, all for the sake of just some- some nonsensical, disgusting plan!" One hand threw up in desperation to tug back at his hair while the other stayed clenched and trembling on her shoulder, grasping convulsively with each choke of a gasp, scrabbling for the contact even as he flinched away like she'd scalded him. "Do you think I wouldn't have done what he did, if it wasn't necessary for some demented scheme?! I've already proven I have no limit; I was no different than him back then, and I'm hardly different now- I could've killed you all and yet I'm still here, I'm still trying-"

"Artemis Fowl, shut up, or I will do it for you."

"-I'm s-still- Holly, I-"

"Shh," she snapped, and with nothing more than that, clapped a hand over his still stuttering mouth. He spluttered a second time, making an odd sort of urk sound into her hand that was almost funny, that would've been funny, if he wasn't so upset. He was, still, so upset. His bicolored eyes were huge and distraught, blood streaming down the fairy one and the other rimmed in red, his face pale and torn and she just wanted to smooth the misery away with her hands alone and make him understand. "If anyone has a right to talk about the kidnapping besides you, it's me. Can we at least agree on that?"

Silence. Two quick, shocked, fluttering blinks. An even more stunned, limp nod.

Nodding back, Holly lowered her hand, nudging the rough grip on her shoulders off to hold his face again, leaving him unable to squirm or back away. "You kidnapped me. I imagine Hecate would have, too. And what happened after that, Mud Boy? I can guess what Hecate would've done with all that gold, but what did you do?"

"What-" He blinked almost dumbly, obviously utterly lost as a child. "What are you even trying to... nothing defensible, Holly, my god!"

It took her a moment to realize he honestly didn't even know. Had just so firmly categorized everything about that day into bad- terrible person- never accept- never do again- that he'd not allowed himself to remember what about it that was good.

Her heart sank.

Stupid, ridiculous, infuriating Mud Boy.

"You regretted it so much," she forged on, gentler, now, and squeezed both her hands on his shoulders to keep his gaze focused on her, stuck, right there, "that you didn't use a single cent of that money, money that you earned, by the way, and you've apologized for it so much I'm sick of hearing it, Artemis. Even back then, you tried to be what Hecate is, and you couldn't do it. He might be a part of you, and Orion might be, too, but add them up and they I still don't get you. I told you, Mud Boy, you're forgiven. That doesn't include anything Hecate did and it doesn't have to, because you're not the same people... even if he does happen to live in your head."

He blinked several times again, wordless still and utterly empty with a vacant, dazed sort of shock. There was a cold sweat broken out over his forehead and his hand was doing that tapping again, five quick twitches over and over, but Artemis, for once, was silent. He just stared back at her in quiet speechlessness, kept his mouth shut, and thought.

A slow, dark line of blood trickled down past his hairline. It met her hand against his cheek, cold and slick, and with a faint shudder, Holly wiped it away, then pulled her hands back to her own lap.

For a few more seconds, there was nothing.

Then, he tilted his head back, and smiled. "Gestalt Principle," he murmured. "Very astute, Holly."

"...Ges-who?"

He smirked faintly, and that tiny little twist of his mouth there was perhaps the most lighthearted, Artemis expression that she'd seen from him in months. "Gestalt Principle. A principle of the perceptual system in neurology: the sum of the parts is not equal to the whole. Neither greater or less than, necessarily, but simply an other, wholly independent sum that is not the same as the whole."

This time, it was Holly's turn to blink, dumbly and absolutely blankly.

Miraculously, Artemis laughed, then, actually laughed. For a moment Holly thought he'd lost it after all, because he just sat there smiling and shaking his head as if there was something incredibly funny, about all of this- but as usual, he was the only one who got the joke. "It means that no matter how many pieces I'm split into," he explained weakly, voice thin but sure, "adding them all up does not equal me. Orion and Hecate are me, certainly. But their actions are not mine." He paused, rolling his hands together in his lap, burns and new scar and all. "I... still deeply apologize for their actions, Holly. And suspect that accepting them as parts of myself is something that I am going to have to do. But you said it yourself- the Gestalt Principle. They are not me."

Holly blinked blankly again.

That... actually had not really helped.

At all.

But, by the look on his face, it seemed to have helped him, and she was just gonna take that as a victory.

There he is, at last- there's finally an Artemis that I recognize...

Now, if only Artemis was a bit less lecture-happy.

"Hecate, the psycho," she said, smiling. "Orion, the weirdo. And Artemis, the nerd."

Once again, it was Artemis' turn to roll his eyes, even managing a half-hearted sort of grin before the lightheartedness was chased away for a shared but calm exhaustion. Holly would've been more concerned, if she couldn't sympathize quite so badly. He was surely just as tired as she was, and at the moment, just about anything beyond just curling up in the grass to close her eyes until a better day was more than she could handle. If, for once in his life, he wanted to take it easy and nap, she wouldn't hold it over his head.

Probably.

But, rather unsurprisingly, her friend did not keel over to curl up onto his side on the ground. Refined as always, simply leaned his face against a knuckle, kneading against his forehead, then unfurled his hand to hide behind it instead. No longer distraught, at least, but now tugging through his hair and rubbed at dirtied smears of blood, a crumbled mess and struggling, somehow, to anchor himself. "I need to get home," he murmured. "I badly must... return home, Holly, at the... first opportunity."

For a moment, Holly didn't quite understand. Not the words themselves, but the oddly stilted phrasing, strangely tense when even a moment ago, he'd at last been calming down. He wasn't upset, really, just... clearly unsettled, and she did not see any reason why for it.

A cold drop of sweat again rolled down the side of her friend's cheek. He fidgeted slightly again in the quiet, and his hand tapped nervously by his side.

Her eyes widened.

Ten words.

Oh.

Her own sense of unease and guilt tightened in her throat, and for a few moments, she wasn't even sure what to say.

"Well," she began, finally. In spite of herself, she counted her words, too. Maybe when they were home, maybe when he was being treated, maybe after, she wouldn't have the patience for it. But now still stuck in the past and Artemis looking just one wrong word away from falling apart- now, at least, she could manage. "You will be, soon." Five. "We had to stop, to... recharge our pairs of wings." Ten. "We will get you back, Artemis, I promise. In..." Come on, think, Holly... "...in no less than five hours."

Fifteen.

Artemis breathed in shakily again, clearly oblivious to the struggle she'd had counting her own words and only aware of his own desperate word count that he had no choice but to stick to. The inhale came long and shuddering as his hand still twitched, buried against his matted hair. At first that was the only reaction she got at all; just an unsteady, preparatory breath, face still hidden in his hand, shoulders still trembling all the way down and mismatched eyes squeezed shut in the same distress that she'd watched her best friend descend into for months straight.

Then, with a second deep, shaking inhale, he lifted his head, and crawled on trembling hands and knees to the set aside pairs of wings. His left hand was smudged with blood and bruises, and his right, his newly scarred one, was trembling badly, and the whole of him was still shredded almost to pieces, but he still just knelt down next to the first set of wings and neatly pried off the panel. "Yes..." he murmured, almost to himself, "an ingenious design, right... I remember studying this intensely- but after the advancements made in the potential energy of quantum- ah, just a moment, Holly..." He fiddled on for several seconds, brow furrowing as if it were nothing more than a very difficult chess game. He scowled. "Or, perhaps several more minutes..."

Holly rolled her eyes and smirked, but kept silent. Counting words really wasn't that easy and right now, with Artemis calm at last, she just did not want to risk it. And regardless, what was the point in risking anything, at this point, anyway?

Her best friend was still alive, she was still alive, and he trusted her enough to be willing to let her take him home.

She was pretty damn content with that.

It took several minutes into the newly comfortable, almost unbelievably calm silence, for him to speak again.

"I think Hecate was right about just one thing, though." He paused, hands still elbow deep into wires and sparking battery packs, head ducked so his dark hair shadowed his eyes and all she could see off his face was the bruises overlaid on skin as white as the stars overhead. 'I'd be so much more, had I never met you."

She stiffened.

Artemis gave a particularly hard tug, on whatever it was he was working on. There was another firework of sparks, these red-gold and brilliant like little tiny stars, and underneath their sudden glow, she could just barely glimpse a triumphant, proud smile. "And none of that is something that I want to be."