A/N : So I get that a lot of you are probably pissed at how long this has taken me to get up here. You'd be even more pissed if you knew how long I've had this almost finished, sitting on my laptop for. I do apologize and am humbled by the steady reviews and favorites from all of you. Really, it's wonderful and it does make me feel guilty enough to sit down and work from time to time.
So here it is, I've read it enough times to be sick of it so you'll have to tell me if it's shite or not. One small note, I by no means advise underage drug use or drinking. I get that it can be offensive to some but I draw from personal experience in my writing so know that it's for realism's sake. As usual I don't own hey arnold or "I ain't the same" by Alabama Shakes. Okay, now without further chatter from me I give you Crystalized Moments. ENJOY!

Well, I've been going through the motions

Wonder if anyone can see

That I been looking for something

Have you been looking for me

I ain't the same no more

In fact I have changed from before

No, you ain't gonna find me

Oh no, cause I'm not who I used to be

- Alabama Shakes

'Stupid, idiot, fucking idiot'

Helga sits, knees drawn to her chest. A beer Arnold has given her rests on her knee, leaving a wet imprint on her pants.

'Why did I invite him in here? Now he's going to think…'

She takes another aggressive gulp and shimmies closer into the window ledge.

It is the same exact spot she'd admired earlier on Rhonda's self involved tour.

She sighs, drawing her stormy eyes away from the window and the pier beyond. She takes another sip all the while trying to ignore the backside of her childhood love as he rummages around Rhonda's desk.

She can see the rim of his powder blue boxers.

After descending from the soft blue and purple haven of the roof, the lofty mood changed. Helga immediately seized under the pressure of the second floor's chaos. Somehow in their absence the party had become more frantic and crowded. Drunken posturing teens ran from room to room. The throngs of people pulsed and moved pressing her closer to Arnold's side.

It was their first accidental touch and she could feel the heat of his chest and hip as a guy with a squirt gun came barreling up the stairs knocking Helga into the banister and him. Arnold's hand shot to her shoulder but she rolled it off, already arrowed in on killing the super soaking idiot.

She stopped short however, realizing her need for violence was futile, and instead tried again to get her bearings. It was his touch more than the idiot that had her feathers ruffled.

She casted a nervous glance over at Arnold who shrugged and said, "So should we find Gerald and Phoebe?"

It was an easy enough suggestion and she almost agreed. Almost, until she took a quick look downstairs and saw Sid on the first floor landing. Swiveling around she gave a glance past Arnold's shoulder into the rooms beyond, only to see Rhonda's scantily clad backside. She then realized with a horrific clarity that they were trapped.

Her heart thrummed in her ears almost as loud as the monotonous base coming from the speakers in the living room. The fast paced Rap/electro/house crap shook the old brick and Helga's sensitive psyche making her physically ill.

She could feel the eyes of people she'd just been forced to meet trailing over her and Arnold. Smug all knowing grins flashed in front of her in succession.

She turned to Arnold in, in what? Horror she supposed. Her claustrophobia from earlier spread within her chest and rose to a painful point in her aching throat.

Arnold was waiting for her to say something, make a decision, while he distractedly nodded hello to the mass that continued to push past them.

There were just too many people. They were buzzing at her, their eyes, their arrogant expectations, as if she were their personal 'pick your own ending' protagonist. It was enough to make her want to recall every copy of her book just to spite them.

Her jaw started to grind shut.

She didn't want to go find Gerald and Phoebe, she didn't want to be surrounded by semi drunken strangers and she certainly didn't want to be seen by Sid and Rhonda's nosey expectant eyes. She was getting angrier and frantic by the second.

"Fuck it. I can't stand this!"

Without a second thought to what his touch might do, she grabbed Arnold by the hand and dragged him down the small hallway to Rhonda's room, where she speedily removed the lock and shoved him through.

"Just roll up in here!"

' It's strange, so strange seeing him again.' That is her first calm thought.

Helga sits, arms on her drawn up knees in the little ledge before Rhonda's bay windows. In her hand is a beer Arnold has given her. The can sweats, leaving a wet ring on her pants. She removes it rubbing in the condensation deep into her kneecap.

Now that they're indoors away from prying eyes she's settled a little but only enough to become introspective, instead of violently reactionary.

On the roof things were unreal. Arnold was bathed in periwinkle purples and indigo blue. There was a soft separation reminding her of any wishful dreams she's had of him these past ten years.

No, no she hasn't been dreaming of him. She closes her eyes tightly trying to get a grasp of herself.

Maybe at first, every night sweet torturous dreams had her aching and expanding in her pre-teen bosom. Over time those dreams dwindled and became easy to ignore or at least bear. She couldn't lie and say she stopped dreaming of him all together.

Ever so often he would pop up in her subconscious. A multitude of derived visions of who he might've become or who he had been haunted her. There was a period at the beginning and end of her last relationship that had her revisiting old fantasies and night terrors.

That had been the most infuriating. To still dream of a romance that would never be, while actively involved with a boy who was not him.

It was a dream of him that ruined her relationship Coulee.

She'd said the stupid phantom of a boy's name in her sleep. Muttered Arnold like a love sick sap and woke up to the cool stare of her real, flesh and blood boyfriend.

She broke up with him then, right then, dumped the guy like a cold sack of potatoes, simply out of sheer agonizing bafflement at her own heart. She had never loved him, but why? Why didn't she love Coulee? He should have been worthy enough. He loved her, loves her still if the constant barrage of texts meant anything. But the sad fact, made clear that night, was she can't seem to rustle up the same feeling.

She didn't love him, not in the way she had loved so hatefully at the age of three, a boy who never noticed her. She didn't love Coulee but that didn't erase the fact that she had desperately wanted to.

She hates herself for that weakness, to not love the boy who truly wanted her, adored her to the point of obsessive madness. Who gave her strength and agency when she was nothing but a crumbling structure left bare by years of repurposing stone.

She met Coulee the first day of high school. He was already legendary to the incoming 10th graders. Coulee The Cool the kids called him. He was a year ahead and already tall and developed in ways most boys didn't get till college. Rumors of juvenile detention centers and a father in prison only added to his fame. His black hair and scruff across his scowling mouth made him even more attractive to the hormonal packs of girls Helga avoided like the plague.

She was an outcast, a nobody, but he had immediately set his sites on her. To add injury to all those who fawned over him, she hadn't been interested.

It took months, almost a year of Ace slowing prodding her into compliance to even consider dating him. She doesn't blame the girl for her pushiness, knowing that she probably thought it was in Helga's best interest to experience some form of adoration.

But the truth was she had only ever been fond of him. Dearly fond, as time passed and she learned of their shared neglect, and the true insecure child beneath all his posturing cool. She recognized the mask he wore as the one that had once been hers . The one that had been trampled to ruins the day she had been ripped away from the sole creator of it.

For those reasons she had loved him, but sadly had never been in love with him.

Because even if she had stopped taking stock in those dreams of Arnold, in the end, it always came back around to him.

But that was neither here nor there now. Right now she has to murder and bury those thoughts in order hide the fact that she's an irrational basket case. Because the fact of the matter was she's here, right now in Rhonda's hot room waiting for her old love to roll up some drug she hasn't indulged in since her break up. She can't let all that baggage color this reunion. She wants so desperately to seem normal to him. Normal and different from the girl she had been before.

Helga is both proud and ashamed of her outburst on the roof. Proud that she'd stopped herself from violently assaulting him, but ashamed that she'd reached out at all.

Now awkward and embarrassed, hoping he hasn't taken her need for seclusion for something else, she sits alternating her stare from his oblivious backside and the obnoxious pig logo on the front of her can.

Suddenly a thought strikes her.

"Hey that pig of yours still around?"

She's gotta fill the silence somehow.

"What?" He turns around, a surprised smile on his lips, still crouched rummaging through Rhonda's bottom drawer.

'Gah why is he so calm' She can feel herself beginning to scowl. Her brow furrows. Why they haven't gone looking for Gerald, who Arnold realized after being forced in here, has his pack of rolling papers, or Phoebe who's supposed to be acting as her social shield, she really doesn't know.

"You know, the fat pink slob you were so crazy about as a kid" she says, sounding more agitated than she meant to.

"Abner?" His eyes shoot up playfully surprised. "Yeah he's still around. He's getting old, so we can't feed him coffee grinds anymore. He's pretty pissed about that…" he trails off his eyes jumping from object to object inside another possible hiding place.

Helga scrapes her nail against the cheery cartoon face. She takes another sip, savoring the bitter fizz on her tongue.

With his back to her it's easier to catalogue his physical attributes. Not that she needs to, it's just something to do.

'He's annoyingly handsome' she thinks tapping at the can again. 'But in a way that's understated, like he doesn't realize it. The dimwit' She shakes her head.

' But I don't find him attractive,' she's sure, ' and if I did it's in an abstract kind of way. Criminy I'd have to be blind to think otherwise.'

Arnold stands up and scratches the back of his head in frustration only to move on to another

drawer.

A pang hits her in the chest. An old fear springing up from somewhere deep.

Seeing him now, grown but still in so many ways the same, she worries that she won't be able to help herself. That there's just something about Arnold Phillip Shortman that makes her a twitching pile of nerves.

It doesn't help that she finds herself attracted (albeit abstractly) to his broad shoulders or skinny backside. How she likes his still wild hair, now longer falling over his moss green eyes. She had been right, that night she first saw him in the alley way, his hair is darker now. It no longer reminds her of cornflower fields. Instead it recalls images of a sun bleached forest floor in late september. Dried yellow grass and browning red and yellow leaves.

'Oh that's good, I gotta remember that for later'

She looks back at him, storing away the description.

She is a writer after all.

So he's attractive, tall and handsome in a quiet classic kind of way. His white and black attire is simple but affective. The button up shirt lies open against his naturally wide chest and his cutoff black pants, obviously old, add a rough easy appearance as they simultaneously show of his well toned calves.

Yes, just a regular joe, if not a little skinny and with a wider jaw than most. But those things had no affect on her, she tells herself.

'Coulee was like that, all bones and edges' Her brow furrows annoyed that she's comparing them.

'But Arnold's got really nice shoulders' She thinks before she has time not too.

'Whatever, he does. I can think it without it meaning anything else, Criminy' she silently berates herself.

' I'm making this weirder than it has to be. He's handsome, so what, I may find him attractive, so what! I'm still not interested. I just got out of a long term relationship. Even if I considered the dweeb a viable option I'd wait it out.' She turns away from him as he bends lower, showcasing his boxers.

Apparently they have clouds on them.

"Jesus" She mutters.

"what?" Arnold straightens looking over at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is taking so long, I guess we could go find Gerald but I'm sure Rhon has some papers."

"No! No, that's ok" She says a little too fast.

She wants to postpone seeing anyone from their old crew. And though she knows its irrational, that included Gerald most of all. He just disliked her so much when they were kids and well, somehow she knows Phoebe hasn't kept her secret obsessive love of his best friend from him this whole time.

'Like I didn't go airing it to the world myself…' She muffles another sigh with her fist.

She's getting that old panicky feeling. As much as she's trying to deflect it with silent pep talks, seeing Arnold again, being alone in this room with nothing but silence and the sound of his grown body movements, it was making her hot and itchy.

'Why am I doing this to myself?' She silently ponders.

' What is this, like a test?'

The thought strikes a chord and she sits up straighter looking back over at the pier and the inky water beneath it.

Yes, this was a test. One in which she's determined to pass. She wouldn't fall into old patterns and obsessions just because she found him resembling an age old fantasy. She's been through enough now, she's changed too much, has had a half a life of experiences that didn't include him. She could be alone in his presence without imploding. She is capable.

And if there is one thing she knows about herself it's that she'll do the absolute opposite of what others expect. So there were no worries. She can find him attractive, and she can feel an old nostalgia in his presence, but there was a barrier within her that rendered him harmless to her.

'Arnold is harmless.' She assures herself as her empty right hand begins to nervously scratch at the old bite on her elbow.

So harmless she barely notices the edge of his boxers ride down farther as he digs deeper into Rhonda's draws.

Her nails bore into the flesh of her forearm. Angry red welts rise up against her pail flesh.

Her eyes steel back over to his boxers.

"… I'm surprised you remember him" He says , returning to their previous 'almost' conversation.

Her fingers dig deeper.

"Oh I remember him alright." Her eyes narrow. Comical but bitter memories of chasing the abominable pink creature lifts her lips into a curious smile.

Arnold whoops and she nearly jumps off the ledge in agitation.

"See, I knew she had some." He says grinning holding a pack of EZ wides.

He looks too pleased for her liking.

"Spend a lot a time in here do ya?" She raises an eyebrow, wanting him to be as uncomfortable as she is right now. She almost laughs at the idea of Arnold being naughty. Helga takes another sip, knowing full well his next reaction. 'He couldn't have changed that much,' she grins around the rim of the can.

Arnold's smile falters, his eyes darting from her eyes to her lips.

Helga feels the first buzz of alcohol hit her. It's that she's sure, and not how his eyes flash. A hot blush creeps up from her belly making her tingly. ' Come on girl watch yourself now. You don't want him getting the wrong impression.'

'But you also don't want him thinking you're incapable of kidding around.'

She licks her lips looking away from his stunned features. Her challenger smile returning.

'God I'm such a basket case' She doesn't know where to look.

Her drink is almost empty. She mentally shakes herself trying to dispel the sexual tension that has arisen unwanted into her bloodstream. She immerses herself in the task of scratching herself bloody.

"I uh,… No, I mean." His eyes narrow a little at her and he shakes his head, realizing her game. "There's always people smoking here." He finishes grabbing a Vogue magazine and Rhonda's computer chair.

He rolls it too her, a small perceptive smile on his lips.

"Bug bite?" He says with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah apparently I got attacked on the roof." Helga responds, engrossed in tearing her arm to shreds.

"Well, look at that, you are sweet. The mosquitos prove it." Her head shoots up surprised.

That was a pretty bold flirtation.

'I should say something discouraging…' she thinks trying not to admit to herself that she started it. Her fingers are still working into her flesh.

"Here" he says rolling closer.

Before she can come up with something snarky her forearm is lifted and held gently between his large dry hands.

She gives a reactionary tug. For obvious reasons she doesn't like to be held there.

In an attempt to pull her closer Arnold gives a tug of his own and for a moment Helga is thrown forward and into his face. Green eyes smile up at her, and she can quickly tell he is inebriated by the way his eyelids are drooped. Apparently he's too tipsy to tell she's uncomfortable.

"Hey, I'm just tryna help, I've got the ultimate cure for bug bites." He says with the slightest of slurs.

'Still soooo helpfull.' she blushes, rolling her eyes while trying to marry the image of an inebriated Arnold to the sweet innocent boy of her youth.

"Oh yeah " she says, leaning back and allowing her nerves to subside. He was only touching her arm after all. He hadn't even asked about the -

"What's this?" His thumb brushes against the stiff edge of the cream fabric.

Helga forces herself to remain still.

"Helps my carpal tunnel from messing with me."

It's a lie she's used for years now.

"Ha, you writers" The look he gives her is too familiar and she has to force herself not to sneer.

"What can I say? I like to beat typewriters into submission."

He's till looking at her wrist, spinning a golden bracelet around the circumference.

"alrighty then, you gonna get on with your cure or has my shiny jewelry distracted you?"

She says with an eyebrow raised.

"Impatient as always"

There's still that same sense of familiarity that throws her. As if it were him not Phoebe she has kept up a correspondence with. He smiles and she scowls as he scoots closer grasping her elbow.

Arnold notes the single twitch of her eyebrow but quickly bows his head to count the new red welts on her otherwise smooth skin.

He's being bold, he knows it, can hear Gerald's voice clearly, but he doesn't care. The booze and the leftover high are doing wonders on his earlier anxiety. After her outburst upstairs a familiar calm came over him. Seeing her like that reminded him of their old dynamic. Him being the calmer of the two, knowing just how to push her buttons and get away with it. Her a fantastic barrier he had to skillfully navigate. He forgot how much fun she was.

"Let's see, we got one, two, three" His fingers brush gently around each bite only agitating the itch further, but Helga remains quiet. An exhausting amount of feeling is bubbling up and it is taking all her energy to distance and analyze each and every one.

She knows these emotions, she knows exactly where they come from and how to deal with them. They would not be getting the best of her.

As Arnold rotates her arm to continue his count she stops a shiver that manifests at the feel of his fingers on the more sensitive flesh.

"…four, five, and six, wow Helga you weren't kidding mosquitos must love you"

"Yeah I'm just your average blood sucker's s'morgues board" she says rolling her eyes.

"See this proves it." He says tapping her wrist like a palm reader.

Her eyebrows raise in a silent question.

"You're a lovable miss sweetheart on the inside." He reiterates, a little jolt of excitement bursting in his gut at the frazzled look she gives.

Helga gives another tug her eyebrows pulled down in embarrassment.

Another bloom of emotion almost gets past her screen. She can feel her face grow hot but ignores it.

The beginning of a growl is forming but Arnold's already moved on derailing Helga's catty response.

"I on the other hand must have really bitter blood" He chuckles dryly to himself.

'Certainly got plenty to be bitter about.' His forehead creases. He brushes the little blond hairs of her arm to dispel the thought.

"Cause I never get bitten."

When he looks back up Helga's giving him a perplexed look, but all she says is, "Lucky-Fucky you." Her voice low and tense.

Arnold straightens up, realizing he's loosing her and quickly gets into his spiel.

"Ok so the best way to get rid of itchy bug bites is distraction tactics."

"Distraction tactics?"

Arnold's thumb moves to his mouth and Helga's eyes follow it there. He quickly gives it a suck and removes it, a small string of saliva following after.

Shocked by the bizarre action and the feeling it dredges up, Helga sits immobile fighting a stream of lurid images.

Arnold then plops his thumb down on the first bite near her covered wrist smearing the spit and then with two definitive jabs of his nail he marks the bite with an X.

"Ow! What the fuck Arnold! You spit on me then claw into my arm?"

He releases her reluctantly and she quickly takes her arm in her other hand as if wounded.

"Uh sorry, the spits kind of necessary but you can do the rest."

He shrugs, moving back over to his rolling station.

"How the hell would you know if this works anyway? You don't even get bug bites. "

He laughs, "Yeah I guess your right but come on, it doesn't itch anymore does it?"

She pauses gaging the possibility. She stares at her wrist moving it about, her eyes glued to the fading mark. She then concedes, giving a short mumble of 'Thanks' and marking the rest of her bites like he'd shown her.

Arnold begins to break up the bud to distract himself. Helga's mouth, the puffy top lip enveloping her thumb, is a little too much for his slightly tipsy male body to take.

Helga watches his large fingers delicately break apart the sticky crystalized leaves while marking herself with small X's.

'He's got nice hands. Manly hands.' She smiles a little to herself.

Coulee had such thin boney fingers. Sometimes they reminded her of talons, but Arnold's hands were nothing like that. They looked warm and rough from some kind of physical work. His nails were cut short and were wide and oval in size.

'Just like his ridiculous noggin' She takes another sip of beer, noting surprised to find it's her last.

She doesn't chastise herself this time for comparing him to her ex. The alcohol is making her less critical of her thoughts and actions. She likes comparisons anyway! They're a writers bread and butter. If Coulee was a prehistoric bird, she muses, in all his self ruination and colorful beauty, Arnold was a starved lion, golden and fading into his kingly mystique.

Her eyes nod down from her mental poetics only to widen at how quickly and efficiently the broken up nuggets of weed has been transferred and then wrapped into the joint paper.

A quick tuck and twist and Arnold is tearing off the extra paper at the end of his immaculately coned joint.

"Hey, you're really good at that" She says leaning forward to get a better look.

Arnold plucks the extra paper from his lip and smiles.

"Well, I've had some coaching, " He says handing the joint over and fishing in his pocket for a lighter.

Helga holds up a hand and produces a brass zippo from her pocket.

"And who was that pray tell" She says sparking a flame and bringing it up close to her face.

She inhales.

"My grandma."

"What!" Helga sputters holding in a cough. Her whole body shudders and Arnold leans forward hoping to help. She holds up her hand again and sucks in a little more air before letting out the sour smoke.

" Fuck," She says more to the joint than him, "I thought you were going to say your girlfriend or your dealer."

She clears her throat with a few healthy coughs and hands the joint back.

"Don't have a girlfriend, and my dealer's pretty awful at rolling." He grins, ecstatic that he's able to tell her.

'I'm unattached just like you, though you don't know that I know.'

He's smiling widely now at all the possibilities.

"Well shit, That's surprising" Her face colors and she looks past him to the door.

"Um… you know your grandma teaching you, not that you don't have a girlfriend…" She laughs nervously.

"What, you don't think I'm boyfriend material?" He quickly replies with mock offense. He's got his eye on those buttons. He's really playing with fire now but he can't help himself. He's a little drunk and he's feeling romantic. They're alone in this room. He knows it's not the right time but he wants to be flirtatious. He wants to flirt with her.

But all she does is snort and deflects his question and the rising color in her cheeks.

"So what's the story there? I can't imagine anyone's parental figure volunteering that kind of information. Even that wacky grandma of yours. "

He lets her deflect, only slightly deflated. Now wasn't the right time. They were just getting to know each other again. But he can't help this strange feeling of premonition that makes him want to wrap her up and carry her back home to love and adore for eternity.

His eyes widen.

' Shit I gotta slow down a little. Shouldn't have had that last beer…"

He smiles regardless though, feeling silly, buoyant and strangely relaxed.

He leans back in his chair taking a drag from the joint Helga has passed him and contemplating how to begin his story.

"Well" He begins through a ring of smoke, one leg jumping up to rest on his knee.

" I was thirteen, I think, or maybe I'd just turned fourteen, anyway I came home from school one day to find a tub of American spirit tobacco sitting on my kitchen counter."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Helga lean into his story, unaware of his decision to let her.

"My grandma was standing there in a smoking jacket and a cigar clenched between her teeth."

Helga begins to laugh at the image his words provoke. Arnold spurred on by her smiling face beings to get into the story.

"All of a sudden she says to me, 'My boy, you're growing into a man now, and there's three things every man needs to know.'"

He pauses for affect, his voice high and reed like in an imitation of his grandmother's.

" ' One!'" He holds up the hand not holding the joint and begins to count, " ' How to ride a horse. Two! How to crack a coconut and three, how to roll your own cigarette. Only real men roll their own." And with that Arnold struck the same pose his grandma had almost five years ago, the joint clasped between his teeth and a fist near his chin, his bicep flexed and pronounced beneath it.

Helga, beside herself slaps hard at her leg, shaking her head in disbelief. Loud cackles jump from her white throat. The sound is infectious and soon he is laughing with her, the weed smoke making his memory all the more silly.

" Oh my god Gertie's a friggen riot!" She manages through gasping breaths.

Arnold passes the joint back as his giggles slow enough for him to continue.

"So yeah, after that I spent every day after school being taught the perfect 'cowboy cone'" He finishes with a flourish of his hand towards the masterfully made joint.

"But ya know rolling weed is a little different then tobacco." He concedes resting his fuzzy temple on his now empty hand.

Helga takes a calculated pull and holds it, her eyes narrowing on him.

"Well, I've only got one question for ya buddy." She says letting out the coils of smoke that breaks over his face.

He smiles dopily.

"And that is…"

He can feel his heart rate jump to a healthy quickened pace. He know's it's the chronic but he also knows it's her.

"How are your coconut cracking skills?"

She let's out another loud cackle and he chuckles along enchanted.

"Excellent," He says, "but I only learned how to ride a donkey."

The look Helga gives him sparks a new bubble of joy deep in his chest. They dissolve, their eyes blurring with tears, the air punctuated by breathy chuckles (his) and loud guffaws (hers).

Helga sobers first passing the joint back to him and fixing him again with her piercing blue gaze.

"Wait, so in all this rollin, you never once smoked? I mean I know your like some kind of Mother Theresa Ghandi motherfucker but that's a bit over pious, doncha think? "

She leans back against the window and runs a hand through her hair trying to work out the numerous tangles.

The bud is making her feel incredibly at ease and she has to remind herself not to be overly friendly. She sneers at herself. There's no one to upset, her girlfriend duties were severed by a train and the words goodbye.

"Gotta get you off of this goody-goody image you've got of me."

The smile he gives her is a little wicked and a little frightening. She sits up straighter tossing the mass of her hair behind her.

"Never" She challenges back with her own row of pearly whites.

' Stop being so flirtations' She chastises half heartedly.

She was feeling good. Real good. The beer and the weed were doing wonders for her nerves, but she couldn't get too comfortable. That was dangerous. Even though he was harmless. Helga is a cautious creature now.

Arnold squints through the haze at her. He can tell she's struggling to put up a front that he's more familiar with. It's funny how he can spot it for what it is, a trick from when they were little. She's so much less convincing now though, and he can't help but enjoy her grown and amended nature no matter if its spurred by the effects of alcohol and weed.

He would win her over eventually.

" I tried it" he finally says fixing his gaze out the window. "Guess for a while I thought it made me look cool." He shakes his head letting his almost too long hair fall into his eyes.

"So you mean your grandparent's didn't hound you? Ya just sort of gave up on your own?" She asked incredulously. Memories of her father's open hand slapping cigarettes from her lips, an often enough experience in the beginning (before he gave up), run through her mind. That was how normal caring parents reacted, wasn't it?

Helga pulls up her legs again and rests her torso onto her knees. She had to admit she was finding this little history interesting.

Arnold made a click with his tongue and pushed his unruly hair off his forehead.

"I mean you gotta remember they came from a generation of smokers, but no, my Grandpa wasn't that pleased."

He stops for a moment to take another puff. His brow crinkles together at the eyebrows making him attractively serious among the smoke.

Helga's imagination sparks and suddenly she can see him, a gangly beautiful teenager, picking tobacco off of his wide bottom lip. It isn't what she's imagined all these years and she fights the urge to update the Arnold file that's buried in her subconscious.

"He was generally sort of disappointed you know? But he wasn't one to guilt me directly. He just said, when he was young boys picked up smoking as a way to distinguish themselves as men, like if you where a wuss you picked up smoking to look like a badass."

Arnold paused for a moment to let a small melancholy smile slip onto his generally amused features.

"And well, he said he was surprised because he thought I didn't need it."

Arnold closes his eyes and chuckles as if seeing the old man just beneath his eyelids.

"Of course he told me through a long winded story about his misspent youth but," He looks up at her and shrugs passing the joint back to her. "I don't know it kind of got to me, and I quit not long after that."

Helga takes the joint, her fingers keenly aware of Arnold's thumb brushing once, along the side of her palm.

Her eyes take in the brief flash of lingering bereavement for his grandfather. She can see a loneliness deep and immeasurable. It frightens her. She knows it all too well and yet has never dealt with the loss of a loved one.

The look is gone as soon as it came and all of a sudden he's grinning at her. Just like Rhonda, he slipped on a mask.

'When did we get so good at hiding?' She sits back taking the joint with her. She brings it to her lips, silent for a moment.

She looks at him unabashedly through the thick fan of her eyelashes and the white tendrils of smoke. His hair is partly falling into his eyes again, the thick shaggy curls frame his high cheek bones and fall down the collar of his open shirt. He looked somehow effortlessly at ease with his surroundings. Yet in his eyes had been a momentary black hole.

"Not like your hat huh?" She says abruptly.

"What?" He says instinctively reaching up to touch the invisible brim.

He laughs at himself. 'Can't believe I still do that.' He thinks.

"Yeah" He says nodding his head and following her train of thought, "not like my hat."

" I'm surprised you didn't say anything sooner." He chuckles motioning to the empty spot where the little blue cap used sit.

" I'm surprised you didn't find another identical blue hat." She quips back smirking at him.

Arnold pulls his face into a comical mask of disgust.

"And tarnish what we had together?"

Helga laughs, and he does as well. She likes it better when he laughs. The look in his eyes, just then, struck her too deeply, reminding her of her own torments she tried so hard to hide. She was good at hiding them, yes, but it was always hard. Masks made of iron usually are.

She chuckles at her own dramatics. At least she has a sense of humor. She'd received that after the botched suicide. Obviously she didn't have it before.

"So, come on then, what's the story bucko. The Arnold I knew would have risked life and limb for that dumb hat."

His hand still curled within his hair moves farther back to touch the spot the little blue cap used to occupy. She sees his expression change suddenly, a momentary look of regret, a wistful melancholy that is quickly replaced with a charming sideways grin.

'So it still hurts.' Helga's eyes drop to the ground as a wave of guilt attacks her.

"Lost it" He says easily, not noticing her change in demeanor. He just shrugs and lets his hand drop to the windowpane.

She knows how much that hat had meant to him. She knows because she had taken it from him once. The guilty blush threatens to climb but she takes a huff of air and fans herself.

God it was hot.

"Not long after you left actually." He says.

For some reason that stings; knowing that her imaginings of him had been false so soon.

Her sixth grade notebooks where filled with football headed boys with little blue hats. She had written a many an ode about the brim and soft blue fabric. Hell, it was as much his talisman as her locket was hers.

And even quieter, within her, there is a voice that laments not being there to console him. At least in her own secretive scheming way. She smiles, her eyebrows knitting together confused at the feeling and a little too high to snuff it out with logic.

"It was either october or november, you know windy, and I was down by the pier." He says pointing out the window toward the inky water.

"Harold had convinced me, Stinky and Gerald to go down to the bridge because, and get this, he said, 'a sea monster attacked him.'"

"Oh really." She says amused.

Arnold is momentarily distracted as she stretches her long legs out and tries to take one last puff of the diminished joint.

"shit" she mumbles. "It's gone out. You want it?"

He takes it form her wordlessly enjoying the small electric thrum that pulses through him as their fingers touch. He fishes out the baggie and places the roach there.

"Gerald will probably want it later." He says.

"You want another beer?" he suggests watching as she goes to take another sip, only to find it empty. He catches himself looking at her neck. How wonderfully long and smooth it is. He can't help but follow the line of it down into the hollow above her chest.

"Yeah why not?" She says crushing the can in her hand, laughing a bit at her own display. He hands her another, peering up into her slightly flushed face. He grins taking in her lose countenance and the slight dopey glisten of her eyes.

' I'm getting Helga wasted' He jokes to himself.

"Anyway, we got down there and Harold's pointing to under the bridge."

He stops and shakes his head before eyeing her with a curious expression,

" you'll never guess what it was…"

"Well, if I'll never guess you might just have to tell me." She shrugs.

He leans over laughing, she can feel the hot puffs of air through the thin linen of her pants.

"You're gonna love this." He says rocking back a little unsteady, his hand quickly jumping to push his hair off his forehead.

She's beginning to see it's a new tick of his. She finds herself logging it away along with his back of the head scratch. Her Arnold file is unearthed and updated.

He's already laughing to himself again when she gives the obligatory "What?"

"Thanksgiving, you remember when the mayflower crashed? It was the mast of the old boat stuck under the bridge!"

He dissolves into another fit of giggles.

A slow smile spreads over her lips and she submits to the hilarity of it.

"Shit really? That's pretty awesome actually. Ol' pink boy never disappoints. Criminey I wish I'd been there to see that."

"Me too."

She looks up to find him staring. A quick hot flash runs down her body buckling the arm she's leaning on.

"So, get on with it, that's not the end of the story obviously" She says, trying to cover her jolt of a reaction.

' Come on ol' gal get a hold of yourself, sip your beer… wait no, don't sip your beer. I need more of my faculties not less.'

" Come on! Get on with it already." She finally verbalizes placing her beer behind her.

"Oh yeah, right, anyway I was leaning over tryna show him when woosh" He soars a hand towards her to illustrate, "a gust of wind took my hat off and threw it in the river."

"And that was the demise of my dearly beloved hat." He says a sad smile creeping onto his face.

"Well that sucks." She says plainly.

"Tell me about it, I nearly jumped in after the damn thing. Probably would have drowned if Gerald hadn't pulled me back."

She closes her eyes momentarily. The distraught cry as he lunged, Gerald arms grabbing him round the waist, his arms outstretched to the little cap that only got farther and farther away. Shit, that must have been heartbreaking.

"You know" he says his voice startling her from the vision.

"I always sort of blamed you in a way."

"What?" She says taken aback.

Arnold quickly smiles up at her disarming any biting comeback.

"And how's that?" is all she manages a hurt pout on her adorable pink features.

Arnold chuckles leaning in, his elbows pushed up gently against her thigh as he looks up at her. The little beads of sweat on her upper lip are leading him to distraction.

"Because you weren't there to bring it back… Like the last time, remember?"

She deflates. The fact that he remembers that particular moment both embarrasses and charms her. She stares into his half lidded green eyes and shudders. She's not sure if he's flirting with her and it's unnerving.

'He can't be.' She thinks. 'He's just so fucking attentive and oh so fuckin' stoned. Of course he'd grow up to be the kind of guy who makes you feel like you're something ever so special, with his stupid green eyes and his stupid moony face looking ever so engaged.' She frowns momentarily annoyed.

'He's just a past thing that is pulling at my heartstrings.' She thinks, letting her zooted head do another poetic hurdle.

She can't figure out what to say in response so she looks away from him and recrosses her legs.

"That must have taken a while to get used to," She finally says, her head still turned away from him, "you wore that damn thing everywhere."

"Don't I know it? I used to shower with it on." He says, hoping to pull her back from whatever introspective moment she was having. He could read the slight crinkle of her brow and knew she was trying to rebuff herself against him.

His little fact brings her out of herself and he's rewarded with another one of her hearty laughs. It's such a warm and full bodied sound. Nothing like how Lila had laughed or even Maria. They seemed to always be holding something back. Helga's had all of her in her laugh and it was exhilarating.

" I mean it was bound to go sooner or later. My parent's got it for me when I was a baby, so I was already growing out of it. "

"Pshhh," she exclaims, turning back around. Her eyes are bright again as she leans forward a little too fluidly, flapping a hand at him. The action is so much like Miriam that it makes his smile grow even wider.

"I'd say you were pretty grown out of it by the time you turned six!"

He flushes as she teases him, and for some reason, probably because he simply wants to touch her, gives her foot a push.

The tingle works it's way up her leg and settles low in her stomach.

"Yeah well, you were no better. I don't think I ever saw you in anything other than that pink dress!"

"Hey hey hey! I did not wear the same thing every day. I'll have you know I had five identical dresses that I rotated." She says smugly crossing her arms.

"Oh okay." He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, mirroring her posture.

They're silent for a moment as they play at their standoff until Helga breaks first, shielding her smile with tangles of blond hair.

"So what about you?" He says finally, his head still propped on his fist, his forearm hot against her thigh.

Helga stiffens, unsure of how to respond.

"What about me?" This was not her favorite subject.

"Well, we've been talking about me this whole time and really, you're the big mystery here."

Helga winces, she wishes he'd used a different word. A mystery meant he thought she was a mystery to be solved. She didn't want anyone investigating her life, period.

"Nobody but Phoebe's heard from you, so come on, lemme hear it! What have I been missing out on in the world of Helga G. Patacki?"

'You don't want to know buddy' She almost blurts.

She crossing her arms and instead quips, "Hey, what's with the 20 questions?"

She tries to sound jovial but the words come out terse and guarded.

"That was only one Helga" He teases her raising a finger. " Come on now," he presses, "You can't leave a brother hanging?" He grins cheekily unaware of her building agitation.

"It's okay I guess." She shrugs not looking at him.

"Oh come on, you can do better than that!" He whines, looking so adorable and interested, which only makes her feel worse.

"I just mean," he begins again, this time more seriously, though she can't help notice he's too stoned to be.

"I'd really like to know." The arm resting against her thigh twitches.

"That September after you left I thought about you ya know? What Boston must have been like, if you were settling in all right."

Helga feels a little tickle move up her spine. She's not sure if it's from his omittance or the unnatural feeling of his appendage pressed against her. He just looks so genuinely interested she wants to puke. A childish urge to mime a gag comes over her.

'God why does his face have to look that sincere, jesus!' She feels frozen under all this attention.

All she can do is respond with a slight twitch of her shoulders.

'yeah right you thought of me, what a line' and yet she couldn't help the sudden thud in her chest.

Realizing she hasn't really responded she clears her throat. "Nothing mind blowing Arnaoldo" She finally manages.

"Oh come on, that's obviously not true" He says nudging her with the arm already pressed against her side.

"You're a world famous author Helga, I mean that's a story in itself, but I'm guessing by your face you don't want to talk about your book." He chuckles leaning back.

He was having fun poking at her. It was a necessary part of the process because, as he rightfully remembered Helga was not an open book.

Her beautifully pouty lips are screwed up in agitation. It almost looked like she was pursing for a kiss.

He laughs.

"Okay, okay, what about Boston then?" He says settling back into his comfortable position from before, his arm pressed against her thigh. He can't help but note that she's letting him touch her. But then, this Helga wasn't his old Helga, the blustery girl who noticed his every touch, accidental or otherwise, she had changed and grown into this new beautiful puzzle. He plays with the notion that she wants him to touch her, before shaking his bleary head. He was getting too wound up, maybe he had had a little too much inebriates this evening. But it felt good to be loose, maybe even overzealous for once. So he continues pressing into her, teasing her and poking fun, because it felt good.

"Is it very different from here? Are the RedSox fans as crazy as they say they are? Did it take you a while to get used to it, or did you make friends quickly?" He's begun to gently nudge her thigh, rocking her slightly into the window.

"Let's hear your Bostonian accent Helgaahhhh"

"No I-" She can feel herself begin to unravel.

"Come on Helga let's hear your JFK impression, say caaaaaar."

Helga begins to fidget and then shake. The combination of his touch and her thoughts addled by alcohol and weed make it near impossible to come with any witty stories. Paired with the all too real fact that her life in Boston had been far worse than the home she'd had here, with him… makes it all the more difficult to lie.

Arnold is oblivious to her change in demeanor. He's enjoying himself too much to notice her clenched fists or the bunching of muscles in her shoulders. His voice carries a singsong lilt as he rocks against her enjoying the feeling of her thigh pressed against his shoulder.

"Come on Helga, you gotta tell me something. Is your house nice? Did you miss everybody when you moved?"

'Did you miss me?' The question sits on the back of his tongue but he has enough damn sense to swallow it.

"GET OFFAH ME YOU DAMN CREEP!"

There's a brief pause where there's nothing but the sound of Arnold's chair rocking backwards.

He nearly tumbles right out of it.

" What is it with you huh?!" Her hands flail like serpents ready to strike him. He reels, too shocked by the sudden shift in her mood to do anything but gape.

" I fucking don't wanna talk about it OKAY?! Why do you care so much anyway? What's it to you huh?! What if it was a living HELL! Is that what you wanna hear? Or do you want me to tell you a bedtime story about how my life is just peaches n' cream. Not everyone likes to yammer on about themselves! GOD you haven't changed in fucking nine years you oblivious little shit? The fuck is wrong with you, can't you see I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!"

Her last words hang in the now eerily quite room. As usual her temper deflates quickly leaving her spent and queasy.

"Ahhh jeez Pataki" She whispers as her vision clears just in time to see his adorable affable expression drop.

A string of unintelligible curses are muttered before she gathers herself together again.

"Sorry" she finally says, feeling that all too familiar brand of guilt wash over her.

"No, no that's okay," but he has turned away from her.

'God Helga, why do you have to go and ruin everything.' She pushes the heel of her hand into her eye.

She doesn't have many outburst's these days. She'd learned yoga breathing techniques, pressure points and all kinds of rational methods to deal with stress. So why did she do that? She wasn't like this anymore, not really.

'Okay, how can I fix this?' She prays that all those sessions with her councilor have racked up enough to be able to handle this. She's rusty but the key, as she's been told, is to not run or close down after having a blowout. She just has to calmly explain what came over her. She can do this.

"Should I roll another?" He says before she can force the words from her throat. The look he gives her makes whatever apology she's strung together collapse.

There was that look again, of unfathomable loneliness, hopelessness, and anger. He steals his glance away from her. His hand comes up to finger the baggie in front of him. She can tell he's avoiding her gaze.

"Yeah sure, why not?" She mutters, ashamed.

He was accommodating her, she realizes. He used to do that a lot before she left.

Though they never spoke about her 'confession' he did change towards her. It was a subtle change but Helga more than noticed.

It was only little things, like defusing her rants with a brief touch on her arm. Deflecting her loony outbursts with a smile or just patiently listening while letting her blow off steam. He accommodated her willingly when before he'd only done so begrudgingly. These subtleties, that no one else seemed to notice but her, proved only to further embarrass and attract her to him further. Yet, she hid it as best she could, along with the gooey feelings that arose whenever he made that slightest bit of effort to understand her.

She frowns at the memory.

She feels dumb. Dumb for ruining the easiness they had captured by being her crazy ass self. It was disappointing. It makes her recall how dejected he'd get at times when it was impossible to deflect her rage. No matter how he tried, albeit covertly, to understand her, she had been a messed up kid. An awful maladjusted emotionally scarred brat…

Her eyes squeeze shut

…And apparently she hasn't changed that much.

Her stomach clenches upon opening her eyes to his beautiful hands-

'Beautiful?' She shuts them again, this time swallowing the frustrated growl in her throat.

She tries again, silently watching as he deftly brings the joint to his lips to lick. She takes another lungful of air and lets it out on a sigh.

'What's my councilor always telling me? Three H's right, honesty, humility, humor…'

"Listen Arnold I'm sorry, really."

He looks up but doesn't say anything, opting instead to finish closing his joint.

"I'm uh… I'm not so good at… uh…talking about myself… never have been, hehe, don't know if you remember that…" He subtly nods as she shifts awkwardly under his gaze.

" But I didn't mean to jump down yer throat or nothin… and say all those… things. I didn't mean it so can we just… forget that ever happened and go back to the fun bit? You know the bit right before that bit? Cause I was… you know… having fun… with you." She trails off, again picking at the material of her pants and avoiding his eyes.

She feels his hand come to rest on her ankle and seizes, but he leaves it there unperturbed. She looks up, immediately trapped in his heavy lidded gaze.

"It's no problem Helga, really, thanks for apologizing though."

He says softly and obviously still hurt, but smiling. She feels baptized by his concession though and a stream of tension flows down from her crinkled brow.

"Oh!" Her hand flies up in realization.

"Hey, you'll never guess who I saw on my way over here!" She says grinning, mostly because she'd found something to steer their conversation back into calmer waters.

Arnold tears off the joint end between his teeth picking off the little paper from his tongue.

"Um…"

She doesn't allow him to finish.

"It was that guy who lived with you! Or used to live with you, Uh, fuck what's his name, something like goulash, no that's a food, um its polish or Ukrainian sounding, kukosha, cooskasha …"

"kokoschka?

His pre-emptive smile drops at the name. He inwardly curses. It was as if he just had too many land mines in him these days to have a normal conversation.

He's upset she's brought it up, upset that she'd lashed out at him in the first place. It was odd how he'd forgotten how dismissive she could be; barking at him like that… or maybe he was being sensitive. He doesn't know. He hadn't meant to be so offended at Helga's outburst. Hell, he should have been expecting it. Yet, he'd forgotten how easily she could put him down. Make him feel small and stupid.

"Yeah, Kokoschka! That's it! Uh-"

She realizes a little too late that this might not be the best subject.

His face is closed off, a grim line in place of the halfhearted smile that had been there before. He fiddles momentarily with the joint, staring at it with a sad intensity.

"How is he?" He asks.

She shrugs, "I don't know. Dirty? He wanted some money and-"

"He shouldn't be begging, I just gave him money yesterday." He sounds testy. She bites her lip, wanting for some reason to reach out and give him a hug and distract whatever inner workings were making him frown.

'A minute ago you bite his head off and now you wanna cuddle him.' She's above annoyed with herself.

" Sooo, uh, Phoebe told me what happened. That you kicked him out and-"

"You know what, I don't really want to talk about that."

Helga stops abruptly, surprised, his voice sounded so… final, dark, so unlike him. Not that she knew what that was anymore, she suddenly realizes.

"Okay." She all but whispers, "Fair enough." She says turning back to the window and boring into her lip.

He sighs frustrated at himself. He doesn't know why he's acting so petulant. He's known Helga to be mean, cruel even. Her outburst shouldn't have upset him like this.

'Why did she have to bring up Kokoschka?' He mentally groans.

It had been nearly two years since he kicked the guy out and he still feels guilty about it.

He knows if he starts on that path of retelling he'll only sour himself and the mood further. To tell her would be opening up his soul for scrutiny and it was barely slapped together as it is. She'd know what an emotional fuckwit he was. How the mere sight of that man made his guts ache with black bile. The betrayal was still too fresh. Kokoschka had been his 'family' but the reality was he was nothing more than a parasite.

And why would she want to know all that? Why ask about the homeless man that used to live with him? Was it some strange tit for tat to talk about a topic that seemed obviously tied to bad times?

He glances at her face. The flush of her cheeks had paled and instead took on the inky blue reflections of the night outside the window. She seemed genuinely perturbed at herself, wearing into her lip and unconsciously wringing her hands.

'Whatever, It's her own fault' He thinks while digging in his back pocket for a lighter.

He knows he's being childish and sullen, but then, sullenness was a state he was quite familiar with now.

He shifts unwilling to say anything further.

"Right, yeah, sorry I brought it up." He watches her rub her left arm and grab for her beer, a sheepish cringe marring her pretty face.

He suddenly feels overwhelming embarrassed at his own behavior.

'Ah, shit I'm being an asshole. She was just trying to make conversation.' He lights the joint and pulls, letting the plant sooth his agitation.

' And she did apologize for her outburst.' Which, from his recollection was never an easy task for her.

He smiles finally and passes the joint to her.

"Don't sweat it Pataki. "

He's about to change topics, get them back where they had been only minutes prior to her outburst but she cuts in over him. Her voice is harsh and fast, betraying the nervousness that her confession holds.

"The kids called me Bullshit Pataki for my first week of middle school" She blurts looking away and taking a drag.

"What? Why?"

She doesn't have to turn around to know Arnold's sporting one of his incredulous look, like someone showed him a drowned kitty. She hopes that this'll be enough of a peace offering to get them back to where they had just been. Happy in each others company.

"Well, you know I was tryna make friends," She says passing the joint back. "being a new kid I thought I could change my act a little, so I was being a little friendlier you know, actually talking and given them snot nosed shits a try. The kids were all over me, I tell ya, asking me about my life back in Hillwood, and what was it like living in Brooklyn. So I told them about the neighborhood, the park, and how we saved that tree, you know Mighty Pete, that one time."

"Oh yeah from your father."

"Yeah right." Helga deadpans momentarily derailed by his gaze through the smoke. "And you know other times we had, like when we went to elk island and got those counterfeiters arrested. And that one Halloween you almost got me killed." She chuckles giving his arm a soft slap. "and well, they didn't believe me." She pauses plucking at the tab on her can of beer.

"They said I was full of shit… bull-shit to be exact." She says stilling her hand and placing the beer behind her.

Arnold watches her, a funny realization creeping up on him. While he had always guessed at it, and while Helga herself always denied anything to the contrary, she in fact had been faking it all those years. She was passionate yes, but not mean, bossy maybe but not a bully, and those Boston kids had stollen her one chance to grow out of her defense mechanisms. He can see clearly how it had hurt her because he can remember those rare times she had let herself be nice, only to be made fun of. He can see even now how parting with that information, letting him in on it, has put a strain on her.

He feels like even more of an ass for not accepting her apology more readily.

It's not what he wanted when he asked about her new home. He didn't realize it would make her this sad. What could he do to cheer her up?

"Well, fuck those guys then."

Helga guffaws and then giggles, surprised at Arnold's language.

He smiles back, encouraged that his use of profanity amuses her. He passes the joint, musing over her apparent impression that he's remained the same innocent from grade school. The thought to prove otherwise is thrilling. He shakes his head as that thought and her fingers collide over his.

"All that stuff happened. But you know…" He taps his chin taking the joint, "When I told people bout the whole Scheck debacle when I got to middle school some kids didn't believe me."

"Pshhh" Helga gives a dismissive wave of her hand. "You had witnesses, I know you and Gerald have been going to the same school for years. Besides all you had to do was show them that fancy spread y'all got in the NYTimes."

"You were there too Helga."

She sits up straighter and shoots him a warning glare through the smoke. She hopes he gets it.

"Well, there were no witnesses buddy, just a slightly deranged citizen in a trench coat. Anyway the point is moving to Boston sucked. Okay?"

"Okay" He says nodding his head and smiling. He's conscious of letting her skirt around that particular memory even though it's the one he's kept so jealously in his heart of hearts.

"So," he says moving on, "who else have you seen since you've been back"

Helga shrugs, taking a look at the diminishing joint before pulling on it.

"Well, I hadn't seen anyone since I got back till tonight really."

Arnold's brow furrows confused.

"You've been back for a while? Gerald told me you just got in today to do the morning show with Regis and Kelly."

Helga noticeably jumps her eyes widening and casting around for an anchor other than Arnold's.

"Right, yeah I came back today. I just mean in general, I haven't seen anyone till today." She says hurriedly.

"I met up with Phoebe before the show, and she told me about this shindig, we went to her house for some dinner and then I saw your guy Kokoschka on the way over here… um then downstairs I saw Rhonda of course. She introduced me to some randoms before dragging me through a crowd of thrashing idiots to see Sid and Stinky."

"Oh you saw them huh?"

"Yeah," She says slowing. Her eyes roll and she gives a short chuckle.

" My god has Stinky turned into a real smooth operator huh?" Helga laughs a little more, a small ting of pink rests on her cheeks.

Arnold stiffens taking the color for blush and not the alcohol and heat.

"Oh you think so?" He does his best to keep his tone light but an ugliness has risen up in his gut.

"Oh yeah" she says passing the joint back.

"He's got that handsome sleaze look down pat."

Arnold winces, but hides it behind his can of beer. He's got nothing against Stinky really. If anything the rising bile in his throat has more to do with his own insecurity at not being a little more like him. If he were maybe he'd be happier, and if not that then at least as a prototypical ladykiller, less horny.

"And that's what the girls are looking for these days huh?" He masks the question as a joke pulling on the joint.

"Well yeah, if you're an idiot floozy looking to get used for a night and then discarded." She says sarcastically.

Arnold almost lets out a sigh of relief but it gets lodged in his throat before he can expel it.

"Yeah, him and Sid sized me up like a piece o' meat, an' hell if I'm gonna fall for that old punk rocker gentleman thing they're pushing. It's sad really." Helga says giving a dismissive wave of her hand.

"They came on to you!"

"Oh calm yourself boyo, I bet you've been playing fast and furious with them skirts as well." She laughs flapping a hand at him.

"Hey my gentlemanly ways are sincere I promise" He admonishes shooting her a grin.

Helga laughs good naturally trying to ignore the sincerity in his words.

"Yeah whatever, who else have I seen, oh right I saw Curly, or should I say Thad, tripping his balls off, and then Nadine for that split second on the roof."

"And me" Arnold adds

"Well doi, I'm sitting here with ya ain't I? " She says averting her eyes to drag a lock of hair behind her ear.

He laughs, "Yes, yes you are."

There's another beat of silence that makes Helga's skin have been too many like it in their short conversation. It's starting to form a hypnotic rhythm she can't help but take notice of.

"I bet you can't guess who I saw today." Arnold says, finally ending the silence and playfully taking another puff.

She let's out a sigh, "Oh we're playing that game now are we?" She says, relieved he's stopped looking at her.

"That's right! And now on, 'Guess Who You've Been Missing', Helga Pataki! First question, what lively character from your childhood did Arnold Shortman see on the way over here!" He jokes in his best gameshow Regis impression.

Helga giggles, teetering a little too close to the edge. "Oh jeez, we're really doing this huh?" She says raising an eyebrow her laughter full again.

He can see she's pretty zooted now and smiles. He was feeling pretty lit himself.

"You betcha." He chuckles.

His soft laughter continues as he watches her face contort in drunken concentration. A slender finger taps her chin, while her teeth bore into the pink of her lip again. Arnold's eyes hone in on those lips, the fullness of them, how soft they look against her hard white teeth.

"Um, I dunno, uh, let's see Mr. Simmons?" She asks passing back the joint.

"Nope, you know he got married right?"

"Yeah!" Phoebe had gushed about the ceremony. The two grooms had cut quite a figure. Mr. Simmons had worn the virginal white tux, which Helga thought was perfect.

"It was a lovely service I must say" He flaps an effeminate hand at her and she snorts, grabbing the joint from his limp fingers.

"Alright come on now, you got three more guesses," He says clapping his hands at her.

"Three? Hey that's not fair, you didn' say nothing bout' numbers." She still hasn't gotten a hold of her laughter which only makes her slurring worse.

"Do I get clues or somethin'?"

Arnold in a decidedly similar state doesn't notice.

"Hmmmm"

Arnold makes a show of mulling over the request before Helga nudges him with her foot.

"Alright, alright, they own one of Hillwood's most beloved businesses"

Immediately her eyes light up and she snaps her fingers. "The guy who owns the meat shop, oh what's his name uh…" She hovers her fingers by her temples, her eyes closed, as if emulating a psychic. "Mr. Green!" She beams passing back the joint.

"Nope" Arnold says, his arms crossed and face smug. "Two more"

"Aww come on, I should get a half point for remember the meat guys name!"

"No half points" Arnold says shaking a finger at her.

"okay, okay, meanie." She sticks her tongue out at him and it's so adorable Arnold has to suppress another urge to hug her.

"And we're sure it's a dude right? Because for the life of me I can only think of two other people who owned businesses, and they're both of the fairer sex."

She shake her head a flash of wistful melancholy steeling over her features. Arnold almost panics, thinking he's said or done something to upset her.

"Hey what happened to old mrs. Vitello? I noticed her windows were all boarded up."

"Oh" he pauses, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, she died Helga." he says simply passing back the dwindling joint.

"Like, a couple a years ago now, but she wasn't really that active in the flower shop for like a while."

Helga frowns and looks back out to the bay.

"That's a shame… I always liked her."

"Really?" Arnold's surprise betrays him and Helga shoots him a glare.

"Sorry, yeah she was great an' all, I mean I worked as a manager for her when I was younger, so I know. I'm just surprised you remember her."

"Hey bucko, I remember plenty about this dump."

For some reasons it bothers her that he thinks she's so forgetful. Like all the characters of this place faded and dissolved as soon as she crossed the state line.

"Anyway, I liked her and am sad to hear she passed." She taps the glass with her fingernail distractedly before turning back to him.

"You know what they're gonna do with the shop now?"

"I heard Mr. Green say they're turning it into a bar." Helga snorts and reaches around for her beer.

"Well, cheers to another liqueur joint, I hope we're legal by the time it opens. Now who the hell did you see? I'm tired of guessing."

The last of the joint is pinched between Helga's nails, a move Arnold can never manage. She takes another puff and offers it back her gaze still steady on the wall behind him.

"Oh such a shame our contestant is forfeiting." He says to an imaginary audience taking the joint and stubbing it out on the magazine. She rolls her eyes in response twirling a finger so that he'll continue.

"The answer we were looking for was Willie, or better known as the Jolly Olly Man!"

"No way!" She crows. "He doesn't own a business, that was a false advertising or whatever. Bad clue man, bad clue." She says liberally swinging around for her beer. "I can't believe he's still allowed to torture kids? I would've thought some of these new uppity yuppy mothers would've called his ass in! I mean dude he must be like in his 40s now. That's so sad man, so sad." Helga shakes her head heavily.

"Well, actually he runs the whole operation since he inherited it from his dad, so a little less sad, and completely valid clue, but yeah he's still making kids chase after his ice-cream truck. But its better that way isn't it?" Arnold laughs looking wistful.

"Of course it is! Otherwise we would've missed out on all the times fat-boy ran into the back of that truck when he stopped short. Oh man was that a riot. His fat little legs running for his fudgey bars, then WHAM" She illustrates with her hands slamming them together hard and fast. She nearly rocks herself off the ledge again and Arnold jumps before settling, eyeing her just in case.

" You've got a cruel sense of humor Helga" He chuckles at her.

"pshh, you know it's hilarious, and also still invalid clue, cuz I didn't know about it." She points at him trying to emote a serious face but fails.

" Oh god," She says suddenly, her mouth opening in a wide surprised smile. Unable to finish her sentence she doubles over, almost falling off the ledge she's posted up in. Arnold jumps to her, his fingers encircling her, catching her behind her back. He can feel the cool damp sweat misting her shoulders.

"What? What is it!?" He asks trying to peer up past the curtain of her messy blond hair. He can't help his own chuckle. Watching her laugh makes him feel ridiculously happy.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh oh" Her howls of laughter keep her from responding. She holds her elbows tight to her ribs and rocks twice before sitting upright her eyes closed with mirth.

" I'm sorry, I'm sorry" she says breathlessly fanning her pink face, " but I just remembered that time you tried to get the Jolly Olly man to lower his prices…" She takes another gulp of air to stave off another round of giggles but fails. "Pffft, and then you, you got everyone so hopping mad we nearly tipped the truck over!" Her head rocks back and a howl of laughter irrupts from her throat.

Arnold remembers that day. It was one of the rare times Grandpa had yelled at him. He'd failed in getting the bag of ice back before it melted and the whole boarding house had turned on him. That summer had been brutal, just as this one was promised to be. All he had wanted was a little bit of ice-cream to take off the edge.

Arnold looks at Helga still giggling on the windowsill. He is still leaning in, his arm around her shoulder. He can't shake the fact that she's letting him touch her. Even as simple as the gesture was it stirred something in his chest. He felt giddy, drunk on the sweet and sour smell of her… or well maybe he was just drunk.

"Oh no, you're not gonna pin that on me!" He smiles shaking his head liberally, " I was a peaceful protestor. You're the one who incited the riot." He says poking her shoulder and finally sitting back.

"Oh whatever Mr. Wet Blanket, but you can't deny it wasn't awesome." Helga's eyes smile at him and he finds himself leaning in further again. His stomach is beginning to hurt from all the laughter.

Helga can't express her relief. He wasn't mad anymore, they were laughing and getting on fantastically, she hadn't said anything truly damning yet and she'd even managed an apology.

She sways a little in her seat realizing she's become decidedly inebriated but not overly so.

'All in all, you're doing pretty well ol' gal' she smiles, ' And you're feeling pretty well too.' She giggles to herself.

It felt cosy all of a sudden to be sitting in Rhonda's sweltering room reminiscing about the past with her old obsession. She felt good about passing her own test not counting the outburst from earlier.

She sat up wiping an errant tear still recovering and gulping for air.

"See this is what I mean, the kids in Boston didn't believe any of this stuff." She crows throwing her head back.

"Well, can you blame them. I mean we had quite a few adventures growing up." He rationalizes

"Yeah, we were a bunch o' crazy kids man… I really missed that when I left. I was out on the block at dusk today and it just hit me. All the rabble rousing we got up to on summer nights like this. We were free, the grownups looked after us but kept their distance, ya know, not like the helicopter parents ya got today. These kids playin' their video games, they don't know what they're missing… It was kind of sad standing out there all alone. Made me realize how great our childhood was." She says and Arnold perks up to the to the tone.

It was the same sweet note she'd used to say, 'he was worthy' on national television only mere hours before.

" Yeah we did." Helga comes back to herself just in time to miss his reaction. The simple praise that his eyes poured onto her.

He checks himself before the feeling overflows but it's there nonetheless, a soft nostalgic feeling. He sits up straighter his own memories colliding in his half baked brain. He then turns abruptly his face pinching up in concentration.

"What" Helga says, leaning unsteadily towards the door a look of horror flashing over her features.

The last, last, last thing she wants is to have to live down being found in here by Rhonda. The gossip she'd spread would ruin Helga's rep before it got started, and she'd just gotten back to this sentimental shit hole.

" Do you hear that?"

"Hear what!" She says throwing up her arms.

Arnold starts to laugh this time in full abandon. His hands go to his stomach as he bends over in his chair.

"Listen… the music" He manages to sputter out.

Helga stops, an eyebrow raised, casting a look to the floor as her ears pick up to the music blasting downstairs. She doesn't understand at first. The club mashup isn't to her taste and she's not sure why Arnold finds it so amusing until the chorus.

"Oh my god! Noooo way!"

" It's that PSA song from when we were kids" He exclaims.

Helga starts to snap her fingers laughing as she does so. The chorus comes around and both teens open their mouths to sing the familiar ditty.

"Let's all hold hands, here on the subway, cuz we've been stuck here in the dark for way too loooong!" Helga crows in her raspy voice. She spreads her arms for the vowel knocking her left elbow into the window.

"Oh its hot and it stinks and the trains on the brink. They've locked the doors, we've got no choice, let's get aloooong!" Arnold finishes just before dissolving into another bout of uproarious laughter.

" "rem- remember when gftpfft, we got - we got trapped on the subway?" He struggles to ask.

"Ha! Do I? We were trapped for over three hours with a bunch a lunatics underground surrounded by rats! You better believe I remember that! You friggen birthed puppies for christ sake! The conductor was some doomsday nut job and I think I nearly had a heart attack at the tender age of nine!" she says rubbing her elbow through fits of giggles. "I was obviously traumatized, look at me, to this day I suffer from a fear of cramped spaces."

" Wait, wait, wait, don't you remember the lady with the psychiatrist, all you gotta do is repeat your mantra Helga!" Arnold says, throwing his arms over her legs in an overdramatic show of concern.

She barely registers his touch, his long arms wrapped around her shins just bellow the knee. Her head bobs in merriment and her eyes meet his as they say in unison.

"BIG OPEN SPACES, BIG WIIIIIDE OPEN SPACES!"

Helga's laughing harder than he's ever seen. Her apparent glee affects him greatly and he adds to her rough guffaws with his own deep chuckle. His eyes wont stop tearing into her vivid expression and his stomach hurts from the physical exertion of laughing so hard.

'I haven't felt this good in ages' he thinks wiping at his eyes one more time.

As he leans back, still giggling, something comes over him. Through inebriation, or maybe because of it, he finds himself in a crystalized moment.

He sees Helga as she laughs, open and unguarded, a sight he's never seen but always imagined and all of a sudden his heart feels like it's going to bust open.

He struggles not to define the feeling but the spell she is casting over him feels real.

It feels like… happiness.

He grabs at her hands and begins on the chorus again, using the lyrics as an excuse to do so. She sways, her eyes squeezed shut, bumping into the window ever so often.

It's not that he's necessarily sullen all the time. He's had a few years to put plaster in all the cracks his grandfather's death has left him with. But he knows that it's been a while since he's felt so carefree.

She lets go to raise her hands with the synth crescendo swaying comically on the thin ledge she sits on. Arnold momentarily misses the contact but cant help the bellow of laughter that hurls from his mouth at the spectacle she's making.

He's kept up appearances, of course, doing his best to mask each disappointment but he knows he's failed a lot of the time. He can tell by how people treat him. He's "tragic" apparently. At least that's how Rhonda put it once, all the while assuring him it was a compliment. It gave him 'presence' or so she said. Girls thought it was sexy or something. Of course he'd scoffed as there was little evidence of that.

He didn't believe he was that obvious, but he could see, especially now, as he crumbles under the hilarity of watching her, what he had lost. He wasn't playful, he didn't tell jokes, sometimes it was like he just existed. He was present but only physically, and to try for anyone else other than his sister, was agony.

But he wasn't trying with Helga, he was being and that realization, even in his inebriated state, was powerful.

Just as that weighty effectuation settles Arnold is leaping forward, arms outstretched to catch Helga's rapidly descending body. In her sizable mirth she had finally stumbled of her precarious perch on the windowsill.

Helga blinks. One moment she's safely situated on Rhonda's windowsill the next she's on the floor staring at the ceiling.

'Oh my god' she thinks her breath coming in shallow rasps.

Arnold had managed to fall on his back catching Helga's body like a well worn baseball mitt.

The first thing he notices is the slight, but not unpleasant pressure that lies across his midsection and chest. He shifts his head downward and finds Helga's blond temple almost directly below his lips. Her head is tucked neatly beneath his adams apple and right collarbone. The rest of her lies diagonally across his body. Her right shoulder in the crook of his armpit, her torso across his belly and her left ankle hooked on his right. In a daze he thanks his lucky stars that she'd managed to fall slightly sideways, her butt landing squarely on the floor and not on top of him.

He draws in a breath and unconsciously flexes his free hand and immediately drops his head back a red hot blush threatening to blow his face off. His other hand trapped between him and the floor twinges painfully.

His pinky and ring finger lay just beneath the red silky material of her shirt. He can feel the soft damp plains of her ribcage where the material had ridden up to in the fall.

'Why hasn't she moved yet?' His mind starts a mental countdown.

Helga is horrified to the point of absolute petrifaction. Not only had she drunkenly fallen off the ledge, but now she was lying across the fully grown adult Arnold. It was like every time they'd crashed into each other but worse. She could feel the breadth of his chest, how his ribs press against the thin confines of his skin, the pads of his fingers as they flexed against her, under her shirt and waaay too close to her breast. Every singly muscle screams at her to jet across the room, or the universe for that matter, but instead she lies still.

Arnold lets out a groan as he drags his hand away slowly, shuddering from embarrassment. He sucks in a breath waiting for the wrath to descend upon him once more but Helga is still and the seconds feel like minutes as he gets caught up in the smell of her hair; lemons, cigarettes, and the faintest hint of raspberry.

" Did I just fall on the floor like some drunken loon?" Helga deadpans finally without moving.

" Um yeah?" He says, his voice way higher than he expected it to be.

He's doing his utmost best to keep his mind blank, but his right hand his still tingling and she still hasn't reached up to pull down her shirt.

He's about to start apologizing like a lunatic when Helga starts cackling.

High pitched laughter throws her off him and onto her stomach.

' I think I'm hyperventilating' Helga thinks, forcing out fake guffaws after another. She hides her face with her arms and tangled sheets of hair.

"I am fuckin' amazing." She really has to commend herself. When his fingers pulsed on her bare skin she'd almost flown across the room. It took everything in her power to stay put and play it off like a hilarious misstep, which it was, but Helga's laughter is anything but genuine. It sounds mendacious and nervous to her own ears.

Arnold sits up bewildered, cradling his damaged hand while watching her back as it moves up and down.

"Crimeny you get a couple of beers in me and I forget the laws of gravity. Am I a klutz or what?" She says, settling enough to rock back on her feet.

She turns slightly away from him as he stands, acutely aware of her facial expressions, 'seems he's none the wiser tho' she sighs, feeling the familiar buzz of her phone in her back pocket.

Arnold's still dazed by the momentary calamity and a little bit surprised that she isn't tearing him a new one. His touch used to send her into fits and now it seemed to have no affect on her at all.

The realization leaves him feeling curiously disappointed.

He watches as she fishes her phone out of her back pocket.

" ah fer chrissake"

"What wrong?" He asks, sitting like a dope on the floor until Helga offers him a raised eyebrow and her outstretched hand. He grabs it with the one that's not still tingling.

Helga doesn't look at him as she answers. " Aah nothing just someone tryn' to get under my skin." Her phone beeps again and she all but growls staring at the silver motorola without opening it.

"Who is it? Another admirer?" He throws her a flirtatious smirk. Helga, distractedly looks up at him eyes glazed before stuffing the phone back into her pocket.

"Sure, why not" She says her voice absent of any humor her mind obviously on other things.

Arnold messages the hand he fell on sheepishly.

'Okay something's up.' His flirtatious jab went completely unnoticed. He has to keep himself from asking anymore questions. But he can't help the curiosity that looms in his mind. The text had obviously upset her and he jealously wants to make her happy again.

' Maybe it was her dad… Or ex-boyfriend…' he muses.

"So uh, thanks by the way." Arnold blinks confused.

"For catching me you dimwit, you hit yer head or somethin?" She laughs punching his arm awkwardly and looking away.

"Yeah, right no problem. Anytime…" He says still caught up in the mystery of her text.

Helga sways on her feet. He pulls on the fingers of his bruised hand.

'Shit,' He can feel it getting awkward again.

' Was it the admirer comment?' He thinks, ' Maybe too flirty. Or maybe it's the text, I'm not gonna push it though, learned my lesson. I can tell she doesn't want to talk about it.' His mind stalls.

The booze and bud, 'Maybe I did hit my head' has left him a little slow.

"Sooo, I gotta hit the powder room. We done in here?" Helga says grabbing her stuff before he can answer.

"Yeah sure, we probably should see what Phoebe and Gerald up to." He says letting go of his hand with one last good shake.

"Other than sucking face?" She says, attempting a joke.

" Ha, right… We might as well go tho, we've run out of provisions." He says motioning to the empty beer cans.

Helga nods, still preoccupied with the text message she just received. It's ruffled her feathers and she just needs a minute to reacclimatize herself. Her phone buzzes again but she ignores it this time. With the embarrassing fall and the cryptic message she can feel her high turning sour.

"Doesn't she have a maid for that?" Helga says rolling her eyes as she watches Arnold gather up their empties.

"Force of habit." He says throwing their waste into a large bin beneath Rhonda's desk.

He straightens up, catching the look on Helga's face. She seems agitated, but seemingly not by him.

He's relieved. He still can't believe his eardrums aren't blown to bits by her shrieking verbal abuses. Or that he's not got a puncture wound in the hand that touched her waist. He can still feel the soft hairs of her belly on his fingertips.

He grins like a dope realizing he's prolonging this moment. He doesn't want his time alone with her to end. He wants to stay in Rhonda's room all night rehashing memories, singing along to old pop songs and falling into each others embrace. He laughs shaking his head at himself.

"What" Helga says her forehead wrinkled up confused. Arnold looks up his eyes speaking a sentence she chooses to ignore. He just shrugs, "Nothing" he says, grabbing the last of his bud still wrapped up in his thoughts.

That brief moment of her weight pressed against his… He's got a feel for her now. The shape of her shoulders and back pressed to his chest. Without her berating him, he feels bold, He wants more.

The beat of the music downstairs is vibrating up through the floorboards and he thinks, 'Maybe she'll dance with me' because his left hand still bruised is jealous of his right and wants to find her hip. They can't stay here any longer she's made that clear but he's determined now. He's not going to let her out of his sight this evening. He's going to weave himself back into the fabric of her life. Become a pearl in the knotted tendrils of her hair. sweep her off her…

"Yo, we outie or what?" She says arm outstretched towards the door.

"Yeah, yeah i'm ready." He says walking towards her.

He was ready. Ready to laugh again, live life fully again, he was ready to be the man he was meant to be if he could be that man for her.

And just like that Arnold Shortman found purpose.

A/N: And there it is, unadulterated Helga and Arnold alone time. Hope you guys like it. As usual I'm holding the next chapter hostage until ya'll review... Just kidding. Who knows when I'll get around to posting. Could be next month could be next year. I'm as fickle as my muse. Anyway, I also want to give a kind shoutout to Lachesism who has been inspiring me with her beautiful story Keeping Arnold: or how to get disowned. If you haven't checked out that story yet then I'm jealous because you'll be experiencing the awesomeness of it for the first time. Okay I'm done till next time kiddies over and out!