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The first time Artemis asked Holly to marry him was in a dream he'd had as a boy.
Looking back on those times, he wasn't sure whether that counted, but it made for a sweet opening to the story as he told it at his wedding reception to distract people from a dirty joke of Mulch's, so he included it on the list. He did not include the dozens of other times he'd had that same dream of a life with Holly, as he figured one spot on the list was adequately representative of that time in his life. There was only one other dream he ever had reoccur, after all: Going to space.
*
The second time was also one that Artemis hesitated to count on the list, as it wasn't really him who had done it.
As much as he cringed looking back on the entity of Orion Fowl, he was grateful that the fool had been brave (stupid) enough to bring the subject of his love out into the open. Heaven knew Artemis himself would never have broached the subject. Now he wouldn't have to. When the time was right, he could bring up his feelings by getting her to laugh about Orion instead of actually confessing his feelings.
To Holly's credit, she let him down easy. He was young, she explained. He wasn't ready. A noble knight such as Orion needed to have more adventures under his belt before he should be expected to settle down with someone. Orion accepted this only because he trusted her over himself. More adventures? You mean like going to Mars?
Sure, nodded Holly. That would definitely count.
*
The third time Artemis asked Holly to marry him, it was actually him, and he was actually conscious. But it still wasn't really an ask; it was more of a suggestion. Which was why she didn't immediately accept the proposal. It wasn't a proposal at all, really.
It was a joyful dinner party of friends, allies, comrades in arms. Mulch was swallowing mini bottles of alcohol. As in, the whole bottle. Juliet was a little tipsy that night, and made the mistake of asking Mulch how he could digest glass. It turned out he couldn't digest it at all, and instead brought new meaning to the words "bottle rocket."
Meanwhile at the dinner party, Beckett was asking Lazuli about her social life. She still didn't have one, so there was little to tell. But it came out that she had downloaded an online dating app called Elfinder, it's just she was nervous about creating a profile because of how different she was. Who would want a part-warlock freak like her? Beckett sympathized, as he knew what it was like to be different, and so he extended a pure-hearted offer. He was only a teenager, but he offered to marry her if no one else would. Give it 20 years, he said. If no one discovers and appreciates how truly awesome you are by then, I will be the one who does. Lazuli reminded him he had already married a ghost on Dalkey Island, but he assured her that it wouldn't be an issue if it came down to it.
Across the table, Artemis and Holly watched as Lazuli humored the young Fowl by accepting his offer. She then immediately set up a profile on Elfinder to try and find someone.
While Lazuli played with her phone, Artemis started discussing his plans for Mars with his other brother Myles. All the while, though, Artemis listened in to Holly as she helped Lazuli use the dating app. What were elves looking for in a prospective mate? What secrets did Mars hold? Both these burning questions kept Artemis up at night.
As the guests all left the Fowl residence that night, Holly lingered in the doorway, some strange force possessing her to bring up Lazuli and Beckett and how curious that whole situation was. It was an old trope for friends to agree to marry each other if they don't find anyone else within a given timeframe, but it had never been done between human and fairy. Artemis had not partaken in the alcohol, yet still he felt light-headed as the words came out of his mouth: Maybe you and I should set up an agreement like that. Then he second-guessed himself before Holly could even respond. I'm sorry, it must be the alcohol talking. Forgive me.
Holly smiled as she activated her wings and hovered up to his eye level. You didn't have any alcohol, Arty. Then she kissed his cheek and flew off into the night, leaving the stunned Artemis to do what he did best: overanalyze her words, and wonder.
*
The fourth time Artemis asked Holly to marry him, it was a legitimate, proper ask, and yet she said no.
They had started dating, and they were head over heels for each other. Holly readily acknowledged this.
Then what was the problem? Artemis was hesitant to hear the answer. Trying to discern a logical reason to say no, he couldn't think of many possibilities. "Do you not--"
"I do. I love you dearly, Artemis. Don't you dare ask me that after what we've been through."
"Then--"
"I once told you you weren't ready. Well, not you you, but Orion you."
"And you still think that?"
"It's not just you. We're both not ready."
Artemis frowned. "How can you say that? I love you, Holly. I've been ready to marry you for years."
Holly breathed deeply as she considered her angle. "I'm not ready to… Oh, to hell with it. You want the truth? Here it is: I'm not ready to lose my husband to Mars."
Artemis thought back to the hundred times he'd talked about Mars in her presence. "Oh… The mission… But…"
"Arty, I can see the fire in your eyes when you talk about going there. I would never dream of holding you back from your dream. But it's your dream, not mine. You have unfinished business in the cosmos, you're not ready to let it go, and nor should you have to."
"But it's just a fantasy, really, when all is said and done."
"Right now it is, but so are all your plans at first. I fully support your mission to Mars, and I'm not just saying that. If it's important to you, it's important to me. I just can't marry you until you're back."
"Well, you're right. You shouldn't have to lose your husband to Mars. Which is why I was going to tell you I've decided not to go. I'm dropping it."
"Don't say that. I mean it. I know it's excited you for years now."
"But you've excited me for far longer."
Holly sighed. "I know. And I believe you. But I also know that you can't let something rest, not truly. I can't be the one who caused you to give up your dream of spaceflight. You'd resent for the rest of your life the fact you stayed on Earth."
"No I wouldn't. Holly, if I had to pick one, I would pick you every time. No question."
"I know, but I can't live with that, knowing I'm the one who made Mars remain just a dream and not a reality. If I marry you, and then you go to Mars and something happens, I would just die. I'd die even now, if you went and something happened to you, even when we're not married. But it'd be a million times worse if we were."
Artemis could not endorse her reasoning. He heard her, but he did not agree with her. "Why are you unable to take me for my word when I tell you Mars means nothing to me in comparison to how I feel about you?"
"Okay, let's go about it like this," offered Holly in compromise. "We don't get married yet. You proceed with your Mars mission planning, and I mean really proceed with it, don't just fake it. Finalize a mission plan. Then, if you truly feel you can walk away from it and live with yourself, with no lie in your eye, then I'll admit I was wrong and we can build a life together. I'm not above admitting that I was wrong. Are you?"
Artemis trusted Holly more than he trusted himself. And so he agreed.
*
The fifth time Artemis asked Holly to marry him, she said no again. She thought she had to, for the act.
A crazed loyalist of Turnball Root had Holly at gunpoint, and they needed a way out. Artemis was bloodied on the floor of the shuttleport, unable to get up thanks to the four bullets in his legs. The lunatic had two guns, and was corralling Holly towards the edge of the port, where the fiery chasm of E1 loomed.
"One revolver for each lovebird," laughed the antagonist, who was a sprite by the name of Hydely Dane Jarus. "You can't spell revolver without lover!" This was a true statement, but no one really knew how how to follow up on that. Including Hydely.
He was brandishing two antique fairy slugthrowers modeled strategically after human six-shot revolvers, as he was rightly paranoid that Foaly would be able to remotely shut down any weaponry with electronic components if he'd been using such weapons. The guns would pass for human-made if a fairy operative lost his weapon back in the old west, as this was before fairy weaponry had self-destruct capabilities. And Foaly's environmental interests had spurred him to make the bullets reusable. No sense in leaving metal garbage all over the place, right?
Anyways, the gun in Hydely's left arm, his favored shooting arm, stayed focused on Holly as he herded her towards the edge, and the magma that resided far below. His other hand, and the gun in it, was aimed in Artemis' general direction. The gun in Hydely's left hand was still smoking from its being fired four times, moments earlier. The threat was clear. Back towards the chute, or I'll put bullets in more than just his legs.
Hydely didn't want to kill Artemis, as he had explained earlier. Only Artemis could do the calculations needed to bring another one of Foaly's probes back from Mars and crash it into the Atlantis dome like Hydely's idol had once attempted. Artemis himself had tightened security on the probes' flight computers after the Turnball incident, so only Artemis could un-tighten it. Nowadays, you had to physically be in contact with the probe to hack into it. And as luck would have it, Artemis was officially heading to Mars soon for a five-year mission. The human governments didn't know, but the fairies did. And while he was there, it would be oh so convenient for him to send a probe back to wreak havoc on Atlantis. But in spite of his value, he could still be made to suffer a little. Or a lot. The prospect of Holly being tossed into the fiery chasm was meant to coerce Artemis into cooperating. So far he had not relented.
It was a decent, if tired and convoluted, play by Hydely: threaten Artemis with Holly's death so he would agree to hack into the probe. Rumors had been flying in the fairy tabloids that the two were dating, so Hydely knew he had great leverage.
Over the murmur of the chasm, a flare just minutes away, Artemis croaked a plea. Not to the madman, but to Holly. "Marry me!"
The sprite did a double take. Holly, too, was perplexed. She knew Artemis would come up with something to get them out of this, but a proposal?
"I know you've hated me in the past," continued Artemis, spitting blood. "But I know in my heart you've forgiven me. Let us be engaged before our demise, I'm begging you. I don't want to die unassociated with the love of my life."
Holly studied Artemis' battered face from a distance. What was he playing at? He was putting on quite a dramatic performance.
Whatever it was, it was having the effect of making the sprite stop short of pushing Holly into the abyss. He furrowed his brow as he tried to figure out what was happening. "Are you serious, Fowl? You think now is the time to--?"
Holly felt the same way as Hydely, but was able to gain some understanding from Artemis' next words: "I know you've forgiven me, Holly. Tell me I'm wrong."
Ah, a command disguised as idle chatter. Holly took his words at face value. "You're wrong, Artemis. I still hate you. I will always hate you, and I will not marry you." It hurt Holly to say such things, even in an act, but they needed to live if they were to explain themselves, and apparently this was part of Artemis' plan to accomplish this.
"Ouch," winced Hydely. "She's spending her final moments rejecting you, Fowl. Must hurt."
Artemis winced too, not from rejection but from two other sources: the pain in his legs where the four bullets were lodged, and the fact Holly had misinterpreted his plan. I can still salvage this. "Then at least allow me one last kiss, Holly. Something for me to remember you by if you don't make it. Even though you haven't forgiven me."
"You killed my mother," spat Holly, playing along as best as she could manage. "Fat chance."
Artemis raised an eyebrow. Killed your mother?
"Kiss him," blurted Hydely. "Do it."
"What's it to you?" scoffed Holly.
"I had no idea you secretly hated him. But because you do, I think it fitting you be made to kiss him before you die. You made me suffer when you brought about Captain Root's demise. Now you'll suffer too. Go on." Hydely motioned with the gun in his left hand that was aimed at Holly.
Artemis shot Holly a quick, nearly imperceptible shake of his head while Hydely wasn't looking at him. Don't. Not yet.
Holly made no move towards Artemis. "I won't do it, Hydely."
Hydely pointed his left revolver towards Holly's feet and fired twice. "Do it!!!" The bullets kicked up ancient concrete mere inches from her feet, but she was unharmed. Even over the hum of the chute, though, the blasts had been loud, and startled Holly more than she'd like to admit.
Artemis now shot Holly a slight nod. Now is the time.
"Fine," hissed Holly, as she approached Artemis' bloody form, slowly as to not spook Hydely with sudden moves.
When she knelt down and kissed him, Hydely snickered. The sprite watched them for a few moments, then rolled his eyes when Artemis tightened his grip around her. What a hopeless human. The elf hated him and yet he still wanted her. Holly's back was to Hydely, obscuring his view of Artemis, so he couldn't see the gory details, but he imagined her wincing in disgust at having to kiss the human who'd killed her mother. And what a juicy tidbit that was! Hydely would definitely be selling that one to the tabloids.
When it seemed like it had gone on long enough, Hydely tossed his empty left revolver onto the ground so he could place the fully loaded one back into his left hand, and then he pointed it at Holly and Artemis. When dealing with these two, it was advisable for villains to use their best shooting arm. "Okay, that's enough. Time to die, Short. Unless Fowl here is ready to help me with my calculations?"
Holly parted from the human and stood back up, but kept her back to Hydely.
"Never," boomed the defiant Artemis' voice as he wiped his lips of blood. Hydely did not notice that no new blood was appearing in its place.
"Then let's get back to it, Short. Start marching towards the chute. We have one minute to the flare and I wouldn't want you to miss it."
Holly obediently started walking to the edge of the port, Hydely following but keeping his distance. With Holly marching away from him, Hydely also did not notice the blue sparks dancing on her lips. He allowed the helpless Artemis to slip out of his peripheral vision as they walked away from him.
With Hydely's back pretty much facing Artemis now while the sprite focused on ushering Holly to the edge, Artemis felt it would be a good time to get up, load 4 bullets into the discarded revolver, and point it at Hydely. And so he did.
"Put down the gun," shouted Artemis with more strength than a bleeding-out person normally would have.
Hydely pivoted to put Artemis back in his field of vision while still keeping his gun trained on Holly. "Or what? And how are you standing?"
"To answer your first question: Or else I'll shoot you."
"That gun's empty," laughed Hydely. "What are you going to shoot me with? I shot you four times and then I shot two warnings at her, remember?"
Artemis bent down to raise up his tattered pant legs. "To answer your second question, and your third."
Artemis' legs were pristine white, save for the blue sparks doing finishing touches on where the reusable bullets had entered, and exited, his legs.
While Hydely stared at where there were no longer bullets in Artemis' legs, Holly hit the deck. "Shoot!" she cried.
"Shoot," echoed Hydely.
Artemis was not a great shot with his left arm, which was why he held the revolver in his right. Artemis was also not a great shot with his right arm, but he could squeeze out a 25% hit rate when it came down to it. And he had four shots.
The fourth bullet went clean through Hydely's left shoulder, causing him to scream and drop his gun.
Holly dove for the newly available second gun, and Hydely ran past her towards the chute.
"Stop!" barked Holly.
Hydely's healing magic had begun its work, but he wasn't going to wait around for it. The sprite unfolded his wings from within his shirt, and leapt into the chasm. He needed to regroup. He felt he'd be able to reach the next shuttleport opening a few hundred feet above, with plenty of time to avoid the magma flare.
The very same magma flare that was starting to shake the terminal. "It's too late for him, Holly. Come on, the blast doors!" Artemis beckoned her away.
"But he'll escape up into the next terminal!"
"No he won't. Come on!"
Holly trusted Artemis over herself, and so she followed him past the closing blast doors to safety.
Through the thick observation window, Artemis and Holly observed Hydely's last moments.
Hydely figured that fairy wings could easily carry a fairy up to the next port opening in plenty of time, and he figured he had the best fairy wings in the underworld. He was right about the first part, but wrong about the second.
A prime specimen of a sprite he was, or so his mother had told him. That was before a bullet had gone clean through his shoulder and torn a hole in his left wing. A hole that his healing magic had not yet gotten to work on.
Hydely dropped into the chasm like a stone with wings. The lava rushed up to meet him like lava rushing up a chasm.
After the flare died down, Holly sighed, and hugged Artemis. "Surely you could've come up with something less convoluted?"
"I'm not the one who said I killed your mother."
"Still, you could've communicated your idea for the healing kiss a lot more directly."
Artemis shrugged. "I couldn't think on my feet."
*
The one time Holly asked Artemis to marry her was on her birthday, of all days.
He had been back from Mars for some time now, and he had come back a changed man. In ways that were all for the better. Everyone could sense it. He had a clear, unmuddled mind. He knew what he wanted now, but now he wanted it not with the distractible, ambitious and cocky mind of a teenager, but with the resolve and wisdom of a man who had gotten his mid-life crisis out of the way early.
Not that he'd been a teenager when they'd started dating and he'd asked her that fourth time, but he had still been operating with his youthful mindset. Artemis Fowl had had the brain of a teenager ever since he was five, and he'd kept it until he was twenty-five. Somewhere on Mars, everything clicked into place, and Holly knew there would be no more cosmic distractions. They'd been dating again, and she could tell that he was ready. And that meant she was ready too.
Late in the evening on the 14th of June…
[continued in Milestones, Chapter 12] https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914027/chapters/120687802
[...and I recommend checking out Milestones Chapter 1, from January 2021… wow that was three years ago...]