A/N: Random, spur of the moment thing I came up with. Hope you enjoy. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own "HEY ARNOLD!" Also, I did not write the definition of a puzzle myself. I got it from "Wikipedia," so credit to them! I just needed it to sound like an official definition, and all the ones I tried to write stunk, so I just got the actual definition. Enjoy!

Puzzles

One-Shot

Puzzles.

Define: A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to piece together objects (puzzle pieces) in a logical way in order to come up with the desired shape, picture or solution...

That... That was what Helga was, and had always been...

A puzzle.

But she wasn't just one of those cheap puzzles you'd buy at any old store, the ones with a hundred pieces or so that you could put together in an hour and maybe get a picture of a kitten... kite... waterfall...

No, Helga was one of those BIG puzzles you'd have to really search to find. The ones that are millions of pieces, scattered... and it's not just a flat puzzle you might do on the floor, oh no... She was one of those three-dimensional ones, one of the ones that could make a castle, pyramid, skyscraper... the ones you'd work on for months and months, or even years and years and never quite finish... not for a long time...

Some people were too impatient to try and solve them. They were just too hard, too difficult, took too long, weren't worth seeing the finished product... but Arnold wasn't like that. He was patient enough and curious enough that he would stick to doing these puzzles forever, if needed, so long as the assurance that it WOULD be done eventually was there... or heck, maybe even if it weren't, he'd probably still work on it... because he was just that curious, he needed to know...

He was a determined soul, and he had faith that the puzzle would be finished. It was scattered and crazy and mixed up, some pieces might get lost and some accidentally thrown out. Sometimes he might get frustrated and give up for a while, but it would still be there nagging at his mind, it would never leave him... so eventually, he would always come back to it, try to solve it, be too anxious to see what it would come out as once he was done. He needed to know... he wasn't sure why. Some puzzles he could abandon no problem, but no, this one... this one had to be solved. It would drive him crazy until it was finished, every single piece put into place.

But it took time, and he'd admit that he was running out of patience... but even that didn't seem like a good enough reason to quit...

He'd get a piece every once in a while, find a spot for it, and he'd feel accomplished and warm inside... but then all the remaining pieces that were once in his sight would suddenly disappear again, and he'd feel his frustration levels rise once more.

But he had to know what the whole picture was. It wasn't just a hobby, it was an obsession. He just HAD to know. Would it be a building, tall and proud? Or a tank, strong and hardcore? Or a... a flower, delicate and beautiful?

He wasn't sure just yet, but he'd found enough pieces that he knew that whatever it was... it was going to be good...

And that was why he was patient enough to continue working on putting the pieces together.

But what he hadn't expected, on one cold day on a tall, proud building... with strong, hardcore bulldozers on the way... and a deep-voiced man turning out to be a pretty pink flower... was for all the pieces, every last one of them, being thrown at his face all at once. Everything. Love, sacrifice, devotion, adoration, worship, years and years, it was all thrown at him at once, every last bit of it!

He'd managed to escape the ambush for the time being, and made it home safe and alive... and he'd immediately started putting all the pieces together. And to his both shocked intrigue and... terror, they all fit in perfectly...

But even then, the puzzle wasn't quite done.

No, there were stil quite a few pieces missing, but he could see enough of the picture now to know what it was basically... and that was a gentle, scared, and... insanely passionate... flower. A flower... maybe not even just a flower, no... more like a... a bouquet of flowers, of all different colors. He wasn't quite sure what exactly he was dealing with just yet, and he was definitely feeling a little... very overwhelmed, but amidst all that... he was actually very excited.

Time passed, things happened, and the puzzle pieces gradually began to flow again, steadily, and Arnold was careful to make sure they kept coming.

The picture became bigger and more bright, the flowers more vibrant, more colorful... and he began to fall in love with the picture that was being created before his eyes, though he wouldn't admit it...

But soon enough, all but one piece was left to put in... but the piece was a bit lost... It felt as if he had it, but it was nowhere in sight.

But soon enough, it became clear what the missing piece was... and that was him.

Helga wasn't just a puzzle to be solved, no... she was a puzzle piece. His puzzle piece...

Little did he know that while he was figuring out her puzzle, putting pieces together one by one, she was doing the exact same to him. She was solving his puzzle. Granted, she'd already had his basically finished, but there was always a couple pieces that were always a mystery to her. While they were figuring each other out, she'd happened to find them all... but one.

Both their puzzles were incomplete, and neither knew how to solve them...

That is until, they kissed again.

That was when the entire picture came into view, for both of them. The one piece of themselves that had always felt empty and aching had been found and put into place as soon as their lips met for the second, genuine time.

They weren't just two individual puzzles to be solved... in both puzzles, there was one piece that didn't quite fit for that individual puzzle... and that piece, was the one that fit into the other. They were puzzle pieces, and they had come together... they were the missing piece in each other.

And once Arnold realized this, everything struck him like a lightning bolt...

They fit together perfectly, and he'd never understand how he couldn't have realized that a long time ago. He could curse himself for wasting his time on other girls, other pieces that never quite fit, but he couldn't. Although they were unnecessary and never worked out, they had helped him realize that Helga was the right one for him... and for all the pain they'd caused him, it would never have been nearly as painful as it would have been to live a life without realizing that Helga was his missing puzzle piece... that melded into him, slid right into place perfectly. Just by looking at them and their lives you could see how they were the same, clearly meant to go together... but even that wasn't enough. Their edges were different, they were different people with different personalities, clearly two different puzzle pieces, but once they came together, they were whole. The puzzle was finished, and Arnold never wanted to break apart from her. Never. He'd never felt so whole before.

You could deny it all you want, try to force yourself to fit with another person all you want, date as many people as you like, settle down, start a family...

But you could never deny that there would always be something missing... that one piece of your life that just hadn't quite clicked right... and if you were patient enough with life, and with love...

Then you might just find your puzzle piece, too.

A/N: Random, and also late for Valentines Day. :( Sad. But at least it's up and here! Plus, I'd just written this in like an hour randomly today because I got inspired. :P So yay for random fics, lol! XD

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