Chapter 1

…And Then the Liver Screamed "Help!"

A/N: The name of this chapter is from the song "...And Then the Liver Screamed 'Help!'" by Chiodos, because, you know, it relates...and I referenced it a bit.

Helga stumbled over the first few steps of Arnold's fire escape in her stupor, grasping frantically at the handrail to regain her footing. Before her eyes, the world shivered then stilled. The metal rungs clanged and echoed hollowly beneath her soles, blending with the distant honks, vrooms and shouts of the city.

Placing an unsteady foot onto the roof, she cheered silently to herself before groping her way to Arnold's darkened skylight, adjusting the bag hanging over her shoulder and reveling in the clinking of the bottles housed inside. She settled herself down beside the cool glass and took in the sight of foggy, distant stars, sitting nearly invisibly behind the sleeping city's reddened sky. The early August night was full and clear, the world warm, but a chill in the air whispered that Autumn was nearing the horizon. In a moment of wistfulness, Helga wondered if perhaps Arnold had a better view of the galaxy where he was, approximately two thousand, nine hundred twenty-five miles away.

With a forlorn sigh, Helga slipped a half-full bottle of Bacardi from her pack, fumbled the lid free and took a swig. The substance burned a trail down her esophagus and settled warmly inside of her stomach along with the first half of the bottle. Wincing, she choked down her nausea and took yet another swig before, finally, placing the glass bottle down firmly beside her.

She did, indeed, prefer drinking alone. The alcohol, bitter as it was, would numb the violent edge of a day full of Big Bob and Miriam and Olga, leaving her to float serenely through the night's final hours before eventually, just like every other time she'd ventured to drink on the boarding house roof, she would trip and vomit (and sometimes, nearly crawl) her way back to her own home. Miriam never noticed the missing alcohol, and no one ever heard the front door open in the wee hours of the night or Helga crashing her way to her room. Either that or they just didn't care. It was almost too easy, and thus it had become a peaceful tradition.

Pulling her knees up to her chest, she used them as a pillow as she again reached for the bottle. Only this time, as she brought the sour liquid to her lips, the bottle slipped from her fingers and shattered upon the roof with such unreasonable force that Helga couldn't help but stare at the wreckage and wonder if she were really that far from the ground. Damn bottle was just trying to cause trouble. However, this is why she brought backup.

As she twisted the top from her extra bottle, the sound of Arnold's skylight screeching open barely registered in the back of her mind. However, mere seconds later, her trance was broken by a deep voice calling out in disbelief, "Helga?"

The wind caressed her cheeks and scattered her hair about her shoulders as she dazedly turned her head towards the voice's source. She sat in absolute stupefaction as her gaze landed upon the impossible. Standing before her, no more than a foot away, was the sun-bronzed Greek God known lovingly as Arnold. Clad warmly in pastel blue pajamas, the street lights shone dimly through his golden mane and bathed him in a halo of radiance. And though he wasn't perfect by any means, the way that the wind whipped his shirt tails around his lean body, or the way his brow furrowed at the sight of her, debilitated and detached, made her heart race, her stomach squirm. She couldn't help but smile.

This wasn't anything new, she thought to herself, her surprise fading. Arnold would show up every now and again, if only to reprimand her, and she would resist his concerns with gusto and pride in the same way she would when she was younger, always knowing in the back of her mind that he was not truly there. He was just a figment of her imagination, a hallucination, a vision conjured from hope, love and alcohol. But a girl could dream.

"Hey there, Football Head, how you doing?" she laughed in greeting, watching as his shadowed emerald eyes danced around the mess at her side, and then jumped to the bottled in her grasp.

"Is-is that alcohol?" he gasped, eyes wide with concern, his lips pulled down in a frown, "You're drinking? On my roof?"

Helga rolled her eyes at him, all the while secretly beaming with joy over his worry for her, "Yeah, yeah, it's a free country, I can drink what I want wherever I please."

"Helga, you're underage."

"Oh, get over yourself, Arnoldo."

Arnold sighed and bent down to take hold of her arm. With a gentle tug, he pulled her to her feet and discreetly stole the bottle from her fingers, "Look, it's late, and I'm not sending you home like this, so just...come inside and sleep it off."

By "in" he couldn't possibly mean…his room? Arnold's bedroom? Despite the hundreds of times over the last seven years that Helga relaxed by herself on the boarding house roof, not once had she allowed herself inside that wonderland. To her, it was sacred territory, a place to retain Arnold's presence. And she would never defile it by setting foot inside.

This time however, lost in her stupor as she was, Helga found herself drowning in the unease drawn plainly across Arnold's face. She squirmed where she stood, her worn Chucks scraping against cement, tearing a minute hole through the sudden silence. Really, what could it hurt? More than likely, she was dreaming.

Helga allowed herself to be pulled along behind him, reveling in the feel of smooth warm skin on her frosty fingers. Greedily, she faked a stumble and nearly swooned as her body pressed heavily against his. He caught her with such grace and strength that Helga's poor heart ached for the reality of his touch. But sometimes you just have to accept what you're presented with, and so Helga held as tightly as she could to what was in front of her. To the man leading her with such care, down though the open window, down the familiar notched steps, and down, drowsily, safely into his bed.

His perfect, large hands raised the blanket to her chin.

Helga watched him walk across the room until her sleepy, drooping eyelids would no longer indulge her. And then she listened. She listened as he opened his closet door, knuckles scraping softly against the painted wood and he brought out a spare blanket and pillow. She absorbed the sound of his sigh as he settled softly, warmly in his new makeshift bed on the couch she'd hidden behind, lying in wait, so many times, so many years ago.

Her drunken heart, pumping blood laced with poison and love, had ripped itself from her chest, she was sure, just to walk with him, sigh with him and sleep, sweet Arnold dreams with him. Helga called to him, swimming in thoughts of harmony and forever-agos, his name dripping from her lips, landing softly and lovingly upon his ears. His answered with a soft acknowledgment.

She took in a breath, filled her lungs, her body, her soul, with the scent of him, of Arnold, all around her.

"I love you," she let the words steam from her mouth, practiced and yearning, and allowed them to hang softly in the air as sleep finally caught her up in its grasp.

If Helga had remained conscious only a moment longer, she might have witnessed Arnold's stunned silence fade into a gentle laugh, and the quiet words that he spoke from across the room.

"I know."