Work Text:
I --
It didn't have to be said. They both knew that a human and a fairy could never be together.
II --
He had never told her he loved her. He had never told her he'd miss her. Even after everything, that would have been too much to ask of him. But she understood.
III --
He married Juliet. She married Trouble. They all did their best.
It was nearly enough.
IV --
The day Artemis the Third was born, his father planted an acorn by the stream in the manor grounds.
V --
He never made her promise to do so, but she kept a watch over all of the Fowl children.
Some of them were more like him, some less. But all of them shared at least that one heartbreaking thing with him.
VI --
Full, gibbous or new moon, he never came to the tree. The children did. Still, somehow, she always thought of it as their tree.
When his grandson turned twelve, she carved some Gnommish into the trunk.
VII --
The Fowl family grew and spread, and soon there were branches that didn't even carry the name any more.
VIII --
When it was time, she took her daughter – wholly fairy – to that oak, and let her choose her first acorn.
IX --
She heard they buried him with his favourite suit, his wedding ring, and a strange gold coin with a hole through the middle.
X --
As ordered, the lawyer distributed the goods to everyone who came below Artemis the Second on the family tree.
But he never managed to locate the woman to whom Mr Fowl's own painting Selene and Endymion had been left. It remained in the study at the manor.
XI --
When his great-granddaughter was christened Holly Branwen, she wondered. But she knew he'd kept his secret.
XII --
It was worse now, always seeing his descendants and never him. It hadn't hurt quite so much before.
XIII --
The Fowls gradually drifted back to being criminals. Without him, they needed to.
XIV --
She saw the great tree slowly wither and rot.
XV --
After all the time she had spent watching these people, she'd absorbed some of their traditions. But somehow Christmas always felt like Good Friday, especially when it fell on the full moon.
XVI --
One year she collected a handful of acorns, realising it may never produce another crop. None germinated.
She didn't get a chance to try again. She had been right.
XVII --
The last Fowl died childless, and the estate was left to one of the other branches of the family. But even they were failing.
Eventually it passed into the hands of the faithful Butlers, their cousins.
XVIII --
She was there, invisible, when they cut down the carcass and hauled it away. The largest piece she could salvage was only as big as her fist.
XIX --
Her granddaughter found the curious block of wood in the attic while she was helping Mum and Grandpa sort out Granny Holly's things. She showed it to Grandpa, but he said nothing.
If she had been older, his expression would have told her everything she wanted to know.