Important note that would help you make sense of the story: While it appears like an after-TLG fic at the start, this is also an alternate universe of sorts covering books 6 to 8. The story opens at the end of TLG and goes backwards. Remember, it is sort of AU, so the time I state before each part doesn't mean that the events happen during the book that took place during that time. Rather, it means that the events take place during the time the stated book is supposed to happen. So if the book I state and the years I state conflict each other, just go with it. You'll get it eventually.

Disclaimer: Some of the dialogue for the Homecoming part (the third part) are Eoin's, taken from TLC.

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Rebirth

Post-TLG, five earth years after coming home from Hybras

When Artemis woke up, he did not open his eyes immediately. He just lay there in the darkness of his shut eyes. He savored the feel of every thread of his one thousand thread count sheets, memorizing the lush sinking as his soft mattress cocooned him. Artemis inhaled slowly, holding the air for a second before finally exhaling the sweet oxygen. He did it one more time, for good measure.

What if he opens his eyes and everything disappears? Artemis breathed in the air of life, giving himself courage. He raised his eyelids millimeter by millimeter, letting the attack of color wash over him in a slow, sensuous massage. Before him lay the familiar browns and mahoganies of his bedroom ceiling, the same ceiling he had been waking up under for the last fifteen (or eighteen) years.

Artemis' now fully open sapphire blue eyes travelled around the room, ravenous. He drank in the yellow sunlight pouring from his balcony window, the red hum of his leather-bound encyclopedias and the kaleidoscope everything that the room had to offer.

He felt like a living miracle. God, he would never take anything for granted again.

"How was your first night alive?" Butler asked, appearing with a tray of breakfast.

Artemis breathed in, summoning the enticing waft of Earl Grey tea and homemade vanilla mint waffles. After the six months (Was it really six months? It felt like ten years.) of feeling, being nothing, the world came as a pleasant shock to the newly born Artemis. Everything he had dreamt and missed during his time as a disembodied wanderer was now unbelievably tangible to him. Slowly, the everlasting numbness limbo had impressed upon his spirit ebbed away, chased away by vibrant life.

"I would like to eat with my family." Artemis said, already rising from his bed. He ignored the seduction of the food and the anticipation of how it must taste like. He wanted to rekindle with his forgotten family. He knew, deep inside, that they were indeed who Holly and Butler had told him yesterday: his blood relatives. They felt like home to him.

"Good morning, Arty." Angeline entered the room, unable to restrain herself from fetching her resurrected son from his bedroom. "Just in time. Why don't we go down together?"

Having just been reborn, Artemis had no qualms about getting dressed. He immediately followed his mother, cataloguing the warm smile she had greeted him with. They went through a maze of halls, which Artemis found he recognized after traversing through each new one. Down there led to the east parlor, where he painted in oils as a five-year-old toddler. Behind that red velvet double doors Artemis knew hid a grand piano, his grand piano. They passed another shut room, giving Artemis a vision of his father teaching – showing - his eight-year-old eldest how to kill a man.

"Let's fetch your father, shall we?" Angeline told her son. "He's at the nursery."

Onwards they went, the mother never letting go of her son in fear that he will disappear again. Behind her euphoria was a slight unbelief. How did she know that she had not gone insane again? Was this really her son's flesh she clutched, or a mannequin's ragged arm?

Artemis entered the room after his mother. It was the same nursery that he had grown up in, only that the walls were repainted a sickeningly cheerful pastel yellow. The curtains, not anymore the heavy velvet drapes his childhood knew, were drawn back, allowing the morning sun to paint the entire room another notch brighter. The room was filled with toys; Artemis frowned as he absorbed the dolls and the stuffed animals, all of them pathetic mimics of life staring, staring, staring.

"Arty, my boy." His father approached him, breaking his near-delusions. "Myles, greet you brother good morning."

"Myles?" Artemis asked, looking at the direction his father reached out to. A rocking horse gave out a weak neigh, stuttering at its depleting battery.

In front of him, his mother knelt and outstretched her arms, as if waiting to engulf a three-foot person in an embrace. Artemis saw his mother smile that same honey smile she had given him earlier.

"Oh, Myles, come here." Angeline closed her arms in a circle, her right arm softly stroking up and down. "Please understand, Arty. He's been too much. He thought you were dead, too. He's a little afraid."

Artemis' brow frowned. Something was really, really wrong. A solar system mobile hanging above one of the two untouched beds began to spin and played a renaissance symphony. "Mother, what are you doing?"

Angeline raised her head from hugging Myles, looking up confusedly at her eldest. "I'm hugging your brother, darling. He's more attuned to hugs than you were as a child."

Artemis eyes widened as he watched Angeline stand up and shake her right hand at three feet, as if ruffling the hair of an invisible child…

"Shall we prank your brother, Myles?" Artemis looked at the source of the voice and found his father hovering above one of the two empty beds at the south wall. "He deserves it for sleeping in. Early to bed, early to rise makes a Fowl strong and wise."

Artemis Fowl Senior bent down, kissing the thin air above the empty bed. "Wake up, Beckett." He whispered tenderly.

Angeline gave out an affectionate giggle and ran to join her husband. She sat by the side of the bed and patted its nonexistent sleeper on the shoulder. "Beckett, baby, your old brother's here now!"

"There's no one on the bed." Artemis finally said. His usual confident speech slightly shook. He can't understand the bizarreness unfolding before him.

"Are you feeling alright, Artemis?" Angeline asked, her brown eyes searching her eldest, her hand still stroking, hovering above the bed.

Artemis marched forward towards his parents. "There's no one on the bed." He repeated more firmly.

"You've waken Beckett, Arty." His father said, slightly frowning.

"Who is Beckett? Who is Myles?" Artemis said as he saw Angeline's eyes drift to the playhouse, as if following an imaginary child rise from the bed and run towards the playhouse.

"The fairies said you'll be confused for a while, son." Artemis Senior said, putting a hand on his heir's shoulders. "The twins are your little brothers."

Artemis' frantically eyes searched the room, trying to find his said siblings. The nursery was a ghost town, with no other occupants aside from his parents and the plastic dolls. A small swing creaked slightly as it gently swung like a pendulum. The genius grasped at his memory from his past life, trying desperately to capture a moment shared with the said twins. One by one, he replayed them all but no matter how he tried, every Christmas Eve, every family dinner and every tropical vacation was spent with only his parents and the Butlers.

"Artemis?" He knew that voice. Holly Short, the little fairy that had stayed with him yesterday. She was real. She was family. He could feel her to his bones.

"Something's wrong, Holly." Artemis said, running to the little elf. "My brothers…"

"Myles and Beckett?" She said, to his mortification. She can see them too? "Hey, Beckett, climb off that roof. You might fall!" Holly laughed gleefully.

Artemis stared wildly at the playhouse, which remained peaceful and empty. He strained his eyes, trying to see the boy supposedly on its roof. Its maroon roof, devoid of a child, stared back at Artemis, mocking him. Why won't they believe him? Why can't he see them?

The Fowl heir picked up a telescope on his left. He marched to the improvised playhouse and bashed its walls with the telescope. The tarpaulin and sticks crumbled beneath his strikes.

"There's no one here! There's no one here!" Artemis insisted, unrelentingly hitting the crumpled playhouse. "I can't see my brothers! I don't have brothers!"

"Artemis, calm down!" They all called out. His father and Holly restrained him. After much struggle, they finally sat him down on the bed, under the solar system.

"Boys, run to the kitchen to Butler, will you?" Angeline instructed an unresponsive teddy bear.

"Try to remember, Artemis." Holly said.

"You have brothers." His father dug through his pocket, fishing out his wallet. "Look."

Artemis stared at the family picture. In it, he, mother and father beamed. Angeline, clad in an exquisite empire gown, sat on an opulent Victorian chair, his standing father's hand resting affectionately on her shoulder. Standing between the Fowl parents, slightly on his mother's left, was a fifteen-year-old Artemis sporting a tie that struggled to compete with the blue of his Fowl eyes. A blood-rust colored wall stood behind them as their backdrop. There were no twin toddlers in the picture.

Holly's lithe fingers crept on the photo in Artemis' hands and settled on the blank maroon space on his mother's right side. "These are Myles and Beckett."

Artemis grabbed the picture, ripping it apart. He stood up, surprising his loved ones. With an adrenaline surge, he tore through a primate stuff toy, threw beakers and clawed down the walls. "There's no one there!"

Holly rushed to her best friend. To her shock, he took her, gripping her on the shoulders with a deathlike vice. He shook her, again and again and again, trying to make her see what he can't.

"Stop, Artemis! You're hurting me!" She tried to pry his long, pale fingers from her shoulders. The genius only held her tighter, shook her faster.

Everything in his senses was chaos. The world was an angry tornado of colors, the evil pastel yellow morphing into unforgiving black. Screams and shouts bombarded his ears. A dry, bitter taste nestled deep into his tongue.

Suddenly, when Artemis felt like he was going to asphyxiate from the choking discord, his eyes flared wide open. He took a giant, greedy gulp of air, his arms trying to flail but failing. He found that medical straps restrained his wrists.

Artemis' eyes darted around his surroundings. He was in a metal room, lying constrained in an uncomfortable metal table. In his peripheral view, his parents lay on similar metal tables, bodies clad in matching hospital gowns and heads topped with matching helmet devices. Artemis surmised that a similar technology covered his cranium.

His eyes rested on the north wall, which was made entirely of glass. On the opposite side of the glass, Holly Short stood. She was older than he remembered: her face more battle worn and her hair a few inches longer. Her right hand was pressed against the glass. Her eyes were looking straight into his.

"Artemis," said her lips. Then, she began to cry.

XXX

A Perfect World

Post-TTP, four earth years after coming home from Hybras

The sky was in labor, rumbling as it yearned to release its heavy rains. It forbore, having mercy on the elf flying through its clouds. Holly Short preferred her flight warm and dry, thank you very much. The winds were making her cold enough.

She descended slowly, her feet daintily touching down on the rooftop. After she had folded her wings and free her head from her helmet, Holly took her usual route inside. Her feet had long ago memorized where it would go, having visited the place countless of times for the past four years. She passed under the same double-height ceiling, through the same bland walls. The monotonous, unending white was only interrupted by the slightly grayer doors, all similar, all evenly spaced apart. Just like the last time she was here, the matte steel doors stayed shut.

"Gods, I hate hospitals." Holly told her mouthpiece quietly. Although the thermal scan revealed that no one else was moving about on that floor, the eerie silence of the whitewashed halls made her feel that anything said above a whisper was impolite.

"This isn't really a hospital hospital," Foaly neighed in her ear.

"I hate all kinds of hospitals, Foaly. Even mental hospitals. Especially mental hospitals."

She travelled the rest of the way in silence, absorbed in nostalgia. Finally, she reached the elevator. The steel doors mimicked the rest of the doors along the hallway she had just passed. To the unfamiliar eye, it could be easily mistaken as just another one of the rooms.

"Level 638," Holly said to the voice box.

"Identification, please." A cheery, mechanical voice asked her.

"Holly Short, Clearance Level Alpha zero-zero-zero-zero-three."

"Welcome, Major Short." The metal box began to sink, with a tinkling classical symphony accompanying the descent.

Once the box came to a full stop, Holly turned around, knowing that the wall opposite the doors would be the one to open. True enough, the south wall hissed open, allowing the redhead stepped out into the hall before her. The whiteness before her reflected the halls upstairs and pressed Holly down with the same deafening silence. Only the soft contact of her combat boots to the tiles broke the quiet.

Holly entered the one and only room in level 638. The expansive room was divided into two. The division where she now stood housed all the different technology keeping the occupants of the other division alive. The room was parted by a large, two-way glass window, allowing Holly to watch the happenings on the other side. Not that there was much happening.

Holly approached the glass. She put a gloved hand against it, desperate to be as close as possible. As she looked at the suspended unconscious forms of Artemis Fowl and his parents, she no longer felt desolate; she just felt the inescapable gaping, throbbing loss. She could bear that pain. She was thankful for the pain. Holly was afraid that if she grew numb, she'll start forgetting and think the last three (or six) years, the best years of her life, were a dream.

After the second year of Artemis' comatose, she had taught herself to accept the reality and move on. This was the best she could do for him, for them.

"Major Short. You have the new disk?" The doctor, a man in his mid-forties, asked after he had noticed the elf's presence by the glass. The doctor was human, but Holly was unduly worried. Every staff inside the asylum had already been mesmerized to see fairies as normal humans. Holly sometimes wondered who the insane ones really were in this place.

Holly silently handed him the Foaly's disk she had come to deliver.

"Just in time." The doctor muttered as he slot the disk in its respective slot, feeding Foaly's creations into the Fowls' brains. "A day overdue. The last disk finished playing almost two days ago."

"Is that fine, Foaly?" Holly asked, feeling guilty that she had to sidetrack the delivery to tag some rogue dwarfs in Ibiza.

"There was a risk that Artemis might've woken up." Foaly said. "But he's still out so I guess it's fine. He'll just feel like a month or so has passed between the events of that disk and this new one."

"What did you put in there this time, Foaly?" Holly asked, suspicious. "I watched the last disk last night."

"Ehehehe…" Foaly muttered sheepishly. Below ground, he seriously considered cutting Holly's line so he could be spared from the oncoming accusations.

"You made me kiss him! In a gorilla cage!" Holly exclaimed. "This new disk better not contain kissing."

"No physical contact in this new one." Foaly promised. "Just the usual frustrated sexual tension between the two of you."

"Foaly!" Holly growled, watching the sleeping Artemis as he experienced the new disk.

"Making virtual realities for Arty isn't fun without any romance, Holly." Foaly whined. "Besides, when the Council approved this project, Trouble told me to, and I quote, 'go crazy'"

"What's in the disk, Foaly?"

"In it, Artemis gets infected with Atlantis Complex and develops an alternate personality who's smitten with valorous Holly Short. It's pure gold, really. Insane Artemis imagines that he goes insane."

"That's it, centaur. I'm helping to write the next one." Holly told the centaur.

"Yeah. Perhaps we should finally kill off Opal in the next one. Evil crickets and possessed porcupines…"

The elf tuned out Foaly's babbling. Eventually, the voice in her ear petered out and left Holly in silence. She stood there, watching her best friend go on another one of the adventures she achingly missed. She almost wished that she was insane, too. Was that so bad? She would go on all the crazy adventures Foaly whips up. She would live in a perfect world with Artemis.

"Happy fifteenth birthday, mud whelp." She told the glass. "Have a great adventure without me."

XXX

Homecoming

At the end of TLC, three earth years after Hybras

Butler stepped back as though struck. His black blue eyes widened and his mouth dried.

"Artemis? Is it… You're the wrong age! I always thought…" The man mountain stuttered. He blinked, still unbelieving.

"The time tunnel, old friend" Butler would know that voice anywhere. It was the voice that had haunted his dreams. It was the voice that he thought he would never hear again.

"Artemis, it is you. I had begun to think… No, no. I knew you would come back." Butler tried to convince himself. And then, with more conviction he said: "I knew it. I always knew it."

The bodyguard wrapped Artemis in his strong, sturdy arms. His principal was finally home, with him. It was an overwhelming, almost surreal sensation. After three years of the lie that was his hope, Butler couldn't tell if this was one of his imaginings.

"We can swap stories later," Butler said once they let go of each other. His usual stoic face was in place, not betraying the turmoil inside him. "There are calls to be made."

"Calls?" Artemis asked him. "More than one?"

"Juliet, and Minerva." Butler said, his eyes involuntarily drifting away from his charge's now dichromatic ones.

"My parents?"

Butler couldn't do it. He had been the bearer of knee-buckling news once too many. But he must tell Artemis. He will know, sooner or later, and it was far less painful if he learned it from a lifelong friend. Domovoi pushed himself, thrice, but he couldn't make his voice form the words.

"My parents, Butler?" Artemis demanded, after the short silence.

Butler looked at him, the boy he had raised. Artemis didn't deserve it. His boy didn't deserve this, as much as he didn't deserve that hell of a childhood. He led Artemis outside and ushered the boy into the parked Bentley. Wordlessly, Butler climbed in the driver's seat and started the engine.

"Maybe time stood still for you, Artemis, but it didn't for the rest of us."

Artemis frowned, trying to make sense of Butler's gloomy reactions. His brain conjured up all the possible outcomes of his three-year disappearance, eliminating each one for being too improbable or plainly unacceptable. As Butler refused to talk to him further, Artemis replayed his homecoming in search for clues. A sweaty, cold grip of apprehension slid down his spine as he realized that behind Foaly's characteristic banter and the expected happiness accompanying their long-awaited return, the centaur had not once looked at Artemis in the eye.

What had Foaly said about his parents? Nothing, Artemis realized with a chill. The centaur had dodged the topic totally.

The trip took five hours, consisting of a three-hour drive and two one-hour plane flights. They had only stopped once, in the Helsinkii airport, for Artemis to change into a time stream soot-free suit. Butler had stayed silent for the entire duration, and Artemis was not in the mood to start conversation.

Finally, Butler parked their rented Audi in front of an official-looking, chrome white building. Artemis' lips smirked ever so slightly, finding space in his worried brain to deplore the building's miserable attempt at modern architecture. Of course, the genius boy recognized the building. Hoogers-Burge Mental Institute was the most advance psychological hospital in the world. Despite its prestige, the institute was not widely known. The covertness of its operations protected its client list of crime lords and elite families and allowed the doctors to perform practices beyond legal morality. Five (or eight) years ago, it was where Artems had intended to institutionalize his mother when the need arose.

Upon entry, Butler ignored the receptionist's greeting. Artemis observed that his bodyguard moved with the banality of someone who had visited the institute regularly for the past three years. The manservant went straight to the elevators, Artemis following his steps.

"Level 638. D. Butler. Clearance Level Alpha zero-zero-zero-zero-one. Artemis Fowl the Second. Clearance Level Alpha zero-zero-zero-zero-two."

The elevator took the pair downwards and opened to a short, whitewashed hallway. Butler and Artemis walked down the hall, towards the only door in the entire floor. Once they stood one step away from the chrome door, Butler finally looked at Artemis.

After it was apparent to Artemis that it would take Butler probably an entire year to gather courage and form a coherent sentence, the boy spoke up. "I know, old friend. I still wasn't sure when we landed in Helsinki, but when you drove northwards through the country, there was no other explanation."

"They tried so hard to be strong and wait, Artemis." Butler's voice was a mere whisper. How could this boy remain stoic outside? He knew better though. The man knew that there was already a raging storm inside Artemis' heart. There is nothing in the world dearer to him than his parents, even if his parents failed him miserably.

The door hissed open. Inside was an expansive room filled with medical paraphernalia. The entire west wall was made of glass, letting Artemis see his parents for the first time since the time stream. The sight of his helpless, unresponsive parents felt like a physical punch in the gut, leaving the son unable to suppress a sharp gasp. He knew that he was the one who did this to them. The thought numbed him all over, leaving nothing. The diminishing logic in his brain told him that shutting emotions out was unhealthy, but he found that he didn't really care.

"Master Fowl, I presume." A doctor emerged, shaking Artemis' hand.

"Artemis, this is Doctor Dabrowskieg. He's been taking care of your parents." Butler said.

Artemis said nothing, regarding the doctor with sharp, unfeeling eyes. He knew Dabrowskieg as a psychologist and a neurologist, famous for his lack of qualms about the World Health Organization's dos and don'ts. Like everything else illegal, he offered the best money could buy.

"Your disappearance has caused quite a stir, Master Fowl." The doctor started, correctly taking Artemis' silence as a prompt. "Two years into your disappearance, your mother had a relapse of her dementia. You are familiar with her mental history?"

Artemis nodded, signaling the practitioner to continue. "My colleagues and I concluded that your assumed death echoed that of Mr. Fowl's eight years ago, triggering her breakdown. It was a defense mechanism for her. It was worse than her last case. This time, she grew violent; her delusions totally overtook her life."

"She saw me?" Artemis asked. For some reason, being Angeline's center of attention during her delusions satisfied him. He knew that feeling was sick and wrong, but it felt like payback after those two years that she ignored him and instead focused on an imaginary Artemis Senior.

At the back of his mind, Artemis could feel himself slipping farther and farther.

"No." The doctor said, crushing Artemis' mental consolation. "She dreamt up two sons, twins. From what the team could gather, the elder of the two was child prodigy Myles, who mimicked you in looks and in personality. The other twin, Beckett, was more of your polar opposite. He was an average, energetic boy who was into athletics and play. The theory was that in Angeline Fowl's mind, Myles was a parallel of you while Beckett was a representation of the childhood she wished she had given you."

The doctor paused, giving the young man time to absorb. He got carried away with his fascination that he forgot how it must feel for young Master Fowl. However, as the good doctor observed the teen, the boy seemed to be holding up well. In fact, he seemed totally unaffected at all. It was a very alarming sign. The doctor pitied the boy. He couldn't imagine what havoc this was doing to young Artemis' mind.

"Her delusions, these twins were so convincing, complex and well-thought. A mark of how far she is into her dementia. When Mrs. Fowl almost burned down Fowl Manor in an attempt to sterilize your imaginary brother's bottles, your father had no choice but to institutionalize her."

"What of father?" Artemis asked. "Why is he here as well?"

"You have to understand, Artemis. Mr. Fowl had no one left. He was alone in a big, haunting manor." The doctor explained, correctly guessing that Artemis was a boy who held his father figure in high esteem. "Your father contracted a specialist in Singapore. Dr. Ngo had developed a breakthrough technology allowing life to progress in the confines of the human mind, a sort of virtual reality."

"He followed mother in her perfect, make-believe world." Artemis concluded. He could accept that. He, of all people, could understand how deep his father's love ran. Artemis could think that his parents left him, but that would be unfair. There was no one to blame here but himself. His family was an already loose, fragile tapestry, battered by their haunting past and his sudden disappearance unraveled them all.

"Tell me, doctor." Artemis said, after a moment of silence. "How does Dr. Ngo's contraption work?"

The doctor didn't bother to simplify. He had heard of the infamous prodigious Fowl heir. "It's a marvelous integration of pharmaceutical chemistry and neuro technology. Over here," The doctor led Artemis deeper into the room, showing him a machine that took up most of the south wall. "is a processing unit that regulates the lucid simulations. The helmets translate the binary code to nerve impulses and transmit the impulses directly to the patients' diencephalons."

"I see." Artemis nodded. "I presume the induced comatose is to prevent sensory overload."

"Of sorts, Master Fowl." The doctor smiled, reveling in the scientific exchange in spite of the situation. "That is where this comes in."

The doctor and the boy walked through several rows of drawers and machines, stopping at a reinforced glass breakfront. After several security measures, the doctor liberated a bottle of purple liquid from the shelf. "Dr. Ngo synthesized this chemical. It reduces the brain to strictly controlled functions, maintaining basic functions for homeostasis and totally restricting motor output while convincing the brain that the body is still moving. The chemical numbs the spinal chord, blocking the real stimuli the body actually receives. There's also a small dosage of hallucinogen to make the brain more susceptible to the fake stimuli."

Artemis did not respond. Silently, he looked through the west wall, regarding his unconscious parents, wondering what they were doing in their world.

"Butler, I need to arrange some matters with Doctor Dabrowskieg." The heir replied, after a moment.

Ever loyal, Butler left the room immediately even if he didn't want to. Somehow, he knew Artemis was going to destroy himself. Butler knew there was nothing he could do. Deep inside, Butler knew that somewhere between those three years of hopeless waiting, he had simply given up. Like the rest of the Fowls, Artemis' downfall will be himself. How could he protect his charge from his charge?

"I will need a week to sort my affairs." Artemis said, once his bodyguard has left. "I trust everything will be ready by then."

"Your parents had already bought the entire floor and medical services for seventy years. The chemical, however…"

"Money is no object." Artemis snapped, irritated. Did this doctor not know who he was? "I will be back in seven days." The boy turned around to leave.

Gathering courage, the doctor spoke up. He was not one to speak out of his place; he also didn't make a habit of discouraging his clients, but the perceptiveness the young Fowl displays proved that he would be such a regrettable waste. "You're still a child, Master Fowl. You will still do many great things in your life."

"I had already done many great things, doctor." Artemis replied. He left the room with a final glance at his parents. Soon, he told them.

As you said, doctor, I am still a child. Artemis thought as he followed Butler out. And a child needs his family.

XXX

End

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A/N: Questions? Clarifications? Confused as hell? Feel free to ask me in a review. I spent SO much time on this so I appreciate if I hear from you. Basically what happened was Books 6-8 all happened in Artemis' mind and Beckett and Myles doesn't exist in the physical sense. This is vaguely inspired by the movie Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter.