Hey...so, it's been two years and...man, this is awkward. But if anyone is actually still reading this, I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and hey, did you guys hear about the new Hey Arnold movie? About time!

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN HEY ARNOLD.

It was the night of the dance.

Arnold and Gerald had spent hours in the department store trying out clothes and were all decked-out in collared shirts and sports jackets. Although the two looked snazzy (or at least, attempted to), they felt far from it. Their shirts itched, and the jackets suffocated them in the sweat-scented warmth of the gym. Arnold had planned to wear slacks, only to discover that Abner had used the butt of the pants as a doormat. All his pants were in the laundry, so he ended up wearing cargo shorts, which looked wonderful with his fancy coat. Not.

Gerald spent most of the night stumbling over his feet in the fancy dress shoes he was wearing belonged to Jamie-O. Calling it a 'bit' too big was an understatement. Apparently the Johanssens had clown blood or something in their veins, because he could have sworn that he can fit his whole arm in there.

"Some decorations." Gerald scornfully eyed the basketball wrapped in gold foil superglued to the ceiling. It was supposed to be the moon. Chairs piled into the corner with a gray sheet over it served as a poor facsimile of the Eiffel Tower.

"It's even worse than when they recreated Atlantis," Arnold chuckled. "The gym was so flooded, I heard Coach Green was actually petitioning for swimming as a PE."

"Well, in any case, we lookin' good, my man," Gerald said, gesturing at themselves. He reached over to give Arnold a high-five, tripped, and promptly landed on his face.

"Gerald!" Arnold rushed over to help him up. "You okay?"

A loud cackle drowned out Gerald's answer and nearly made Arnold's heart shoot out like a geyser. "Real smooth, Tall-Hair Boy," Helga Pataki sneered. "What's the floor taste like?"

"Cut it out, Helga," a soft voice said, and Gerald's face flamed when he realized that Phoebe had witnessed his circus act. "Good evening, Gerald," she said with a small grin.

"Uh, h-hey, Phoebe," the ultra-smooth lady's man stuttered.

"I hope you can dance better than you could walk," Phoebe said with an uncharacteristic wink. Arnold raised an eyebrow and Gerald choked.

"Heh…uh, yeah, Phoebs! Of course! You know what they say about people with big feet—" He broke off, realizing what his sentence implied. "Oh, wait, not that! I mean—"

"That they're really good dancers?" finished Phoebe innocently.

Gerald relaxed and smiled back at her. "Something like that."

"Yeah, yeah," Helga grumbled. Her icy blue eyes flickered to Arnold for a second, before quickly flitting away. "Can you morons not block the door? Oh, and nice shorts, by the way, Football Head."

Arnold shook himself, forcing his eyes away from Helga's dress and the way it clung to her lithe body. "Thank you, Helga. You look really…" Lovely? Ravishing? Exquisite? "…cool," Arnold finished lamely.

"Wish I could say the same for you," Helga shot back, not meeting his gaze. "Come on, Phoebe."

After that moment, Helga was a basket case. Well, she was always a basket case, but even more so tonight. She nearly knocked the bathroom door down, her flaming eyes shooting murderous looks at the girls in the bathroom.

They all wordlessly ran out, one girl trailing toilet paper under her dress. They knew all too well what could happen if they stayed in the path of an angry blonde lethally dressed in pink.

Helga shut the door and locked it after them. She leaned on the door with a sigh, putting her entire weight—and the weight of all her stupid, nasty feelings that really should have faded decades ago—against the door and staring at the ceiling.

Every time she'd see Arnold, weird things would happen to her. Back then, seeing him had just felt like a bunch of butterflies were dancing in her stomach. Now, it seemed like those butterflies that she had buried long ago, ever since the big lug had left her, were rising from the butterfly cemetery in her system and forcing themselves out of her body, to her darling Arnold—

And so she let the butterflies out, in the form of a string of curses. "ARGHHHHH!" Outside, a bunch of students scrambled, running away in terror from the monstrous sounds coming from the girls' bathroom.

She had remembered the agony of him being gone. How her world, which consisted of Arnold, had turned into a wasteland, a wasteland big enough to accommodate moronic people and, worst of all, her awful family. Without the stupid broom-haired weirdo, she had nothing left, and was forced to deal with reality. She should have wanted to kill him. Which she did. Except, he still made her girlhood tremble.

She remembered that line from one of her poems. It was embarrassing, to say the least. Chuckling, she shook her head. She slid down the door and sat on the mildewed floor. "What the fuck did I write?" she said aloud, laughing at her pathetic nine-year-old self. Then, remembering that her pathetic nine-year-old self wasn't all that different from her pathetic sixteen-year-old self, her smile diminished.

She yanked the locket from her purse. "He's…incandescent," she sighed. She cradled her locket tenderly between her hands, locking eyes with the smiling blond boy in the picture. The boy with cornflower hair…

"I STILL LOVE YOU, YOU NUMBSKULL!" she screamed, emptying herself in the bathroom. (Which was the purpose of a bathroom, anyway, although Helga wasn't really emptying herself the same way those girls in there earlier had been.) "Why, oh, why can't I stop feeling like this?" Helga screamed again, "YOU PATHETIC DOOFUS! YOU FUCKING NIMROD!"

"WHY ARE YOU SO HANDSOME, GODDAMMIT?" she yelled. "MAN! EVEN IF YOU LOOKED LIKE A HOBO I'D STILL FIND YOU HANDSOME! EVEN IF YOU LOOKED LIKE BRAINY! OR EUGENE! EVEN IF YOU LOOKED LIKE BRAINY AND EUGENE'S LOVE CHILD!"

She paused, gasping for breath. "Why are you so perfect?" she moaned.

Arnold had been peacefully taking a leak when someone screamed.

All the boys' heads had shot up, and they had exchanged questioning looks before they remembered that they were peeing and it was the second unspoken guy rule to not hold eye contact while peeing. (First guy rule of peeing: do not talk about peeing.) Everyone went back to their business real quickly.

A familiar voice poured out of the vents. When Arnold realized that it was the voice of his (sort of) beloved, he missed the target and almost sent a stream of pee ricocheting to the guy next to him.

The guy yelped and shot him a withering look. Arnold quickly apologized. He zipped himself up and headed to the sinks, which happened to be under the vents. He listened inquisitively as he washed his hands.

When she was done, all he could do was to stand, shell-shocked, before the sink, his frozen hands dripping soap on the floor.

Whoa. That was intense, even for Helga.

He felt like he just saw (or rather, heard) her soul. She had bared himself to him (and probably to the entire student body, albeit unknowingly), and he had heard her frustrations, the desire, the anger at herself, the anger at him…

It was so personal, that he felt like he had to share something back. So he said the first thing that popped into his head.

"I LIKE TAPIOCA PUDDING!" he shouted back to the vents, trying to convey to Helga that he trusted her enough with that completely vital information. Yeah…that was about as personal as he could get, which was probably a good thing, considering all the weird looks he was receiving at the moment.

Needless to say, the rest of his time in the bathroom was pretty damn awkward.

Helga was a scarecrow next to the tapioca pudding. Well, more like a scarepunk, really. She'd glare at anybody who tried to reach for the last pudding on the tray until the hand would wither away from the container like a weed burning under the penetrating rays of sun that were her eyeballs, and run away as fast as they could, grumbling about the "crazy pudding lady."

Arnold and Gerald hung back, watching as Helga casually flicked Curly's wrist and practically judo-flipped him to the shiny gym floor. "Man!" Gerald muttered, shaking his head. "What the hell do you see in that chick?"

"I know what he wants to sees in her," Sid called out lecherously as he passed them by. He snickered as Gerald's plastic cup sailed over his head.

Arnold glared at Gerald. "How does Sid know?"

"Dude," Gerald said, putting an arm over his best friend's shoulder, "apparently everyone knows. I guess I was just, you know, so blinded by our friendship that I didn't suspect you of brain damage."

"Huh." He began to panic. What if Helga knew? Well, damn, of course she knew, why else would she be guarding the tapioca pudding like this if she didn't? But if she did know, that why wouldn't she just talk? He stared at the unsmiling red lips, nearly as straight as the unibrow above her eyes. He began to relax. Maybe she just really liked tapioca pudding. He could definitely relate. Man, they had so much in common...

"But seriously, Arnold. I'm not even trying to be rude here or anything, but what the hell do you see in her?"

In the distance, Helga was wrestling with Harold over the pudding. He admired her keen strength. "Tapioca pudding," Arnold replied dreamily.

"Mm-hmm. Lucky her. Don't think you'd see that in anyone else tonight, the way she's guarding that tray."

Helga emerged as victor, stepping over Harold's knocked out body triumphantly. The encounter had messed up her hair and dress. She looked unrestrained, wild. And so damn beautiful. "Hey, Gerald," he said suddenly, "don't you think she looks nice in that dress?"

"Ugh! Sick, man!" After gagging, he did the unthinkable: he checked Helga G. Pataki out. He shuddered and rested his eyes on more pleasant sights. "Not as nice as Phoebe," Gerald declared, admiring the dark-haired girl keeping Helga company. "Plus, standing next to Helga G. Pataki makes her look even more beautiful. You know, by comparison."

Arnold glared at his tall-haired buddy. "Come on, Gerald, she isn't that bad! And anyway, if you want to talk to Phoebe so badly, why don't you just go over to her?"

Gerald was suddenly very interested in his freakishly large shoes. "Um…" He cleared his throat. "I don't know, I guess I just—"

"Well, I'm going over to them," Arnold declared, sounding braver than he felt. "I want some punch, anyway." Tugging at his itchy collar, he marched over to the girls without another word.

Gerald shook his head, amused. "You're a bold kid, Arnold," he said out loud. Taking baby steps, he followed his friend to the food table.

Just checking to see if anyone got the Fight Club reference. Anyway, as always, thank you for reading and please review! :D