A/N: If you're looking for an action story I'd suggest you try Hunter Hunted as there won't be too much here. If you're looking for a story about how they got together, you might want to start with The Problem. This story follows on the heels of The Problem, but it isn't necessary to have read that story to understand this one. And now, with that out of the way, on with the show...

Prologue: After

Ear pressed against his chest, Holly listened as Artemis's heartbeat slowed from a rapid thrum to a steady pulse, like raindrops after a storm.

She glanced up the length of his body, that expanse of pale skin, towards his face. His eyes were closed and he looked blissfully relaxed, half dozing. One of his arms was stretched out to reach her, a hand cupping her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. This show of tenderness from him, barely conscious as he was, touched her deeply. Her chest constricted as, all at once, she was overwhelmed again by how much her Mud Boy meant to her.

She disentangled herself enough to crawl up closer to him and nestle into the crook of his arm. The links of the gold chain she wore around her neck clinked softly as she moved. As she cuddled closer to him, her copy of the Book slid against his bare skin. Smiling, she thought of how they'd undressed each other, of how his hand had shied away when it had brushed against her Book. An expert on the People's lore, Artemis knew that if he touched it without her permission it would combust. She had taken his hand and held it over the tiny book, his palm, resting between her breasts, over her heart.

His eyes flickered open and she found herself staring into those mismatched eyes. A sleepy smile formed on his lips before his eyelids drooped closed again.

Holly smiled and lay down to sleep. She had never wanted a normal, quiet life anyway.

ooo

It was still dark when he woke, and for some moments he lay still, absorbing every detail: the warmth of that small body curled next to him; the slow, even rhythm of her breaths; the scent of her hair. He turned and regarded her for a long while.

Artemis was by nature neither emotive nor demonstrative in his affections. That was not to say that he did not experience emotion: loss and joy affected him as powerfully as any other human being. Only they did not overrule his logic; they did not overpower his thought process, nor did he allow them to guide his decisions. Holly was another matter entirely. Elves were by nature highly emotional creatures. But perhaps that was for the best, for here they were.

She was so tiny. Now, watching her sleeping form in the half-light that slanted through the window, he was more aware of it than ever before. When she was awake, the forcefulness of her personality made her stand taller than her one hundred centimetres, but sleeping, she seemed fragile almost, a slight woman lying naked in his bed, her slender limbs as graceful as a gazelle's. A surge of protectiveness rose up in Artemis and his lips twitched at the absurdity of the instinct. It was she who had always protected him when Butler could not. And those limbs, while graceful, were wiry and muscular. Her whole body was muscle and sinew. And yet somehow her skin was soft to the touch, softer than he'd imagined it could be.

He felt a little foolish as a shudder ran down his spine. Sex was a powerful affect and for all his intellect, he was not immune. But it was more than simply the chemical soup in his brain that affected him thus. It was... Holly.

He smiled as he looked on her and the lines of a poem came to mind. "He woke and wondered more, for there she lay," Artemis whispered.

He'd never been a particular afficionado of Rosetti, but somehow the lines of "Nuptial Sleep" seemed fitting – even if no actual nuptials had been conducted. The wonder remained.

Sleep weighed on him, making his eyelids droop, but before he lay down again, he took one more long look at her. So much remained uncertain, and yet, as he watched Holly Short sleeping, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, he found himself smiling.

They had been partners is so many adventures; he was glad they would be partners in this one as well.