Way to go, Pataki.
Helga turned her keys over in her hand, the car brand embossed on the largest of the bunch. She twisted the key, considering…but not really. The decision had been made two drinks ago.
She wasn't driving herself anywhere.
She might have been proud and stubborn, but she wasn't stupid – and not quite drunk enough. Drunk if you were measuring against legal limit, sure, but she had enough sense to tuck her keys into her back pocket for the night. Helga Pataki got drunk off her ass, but she did not get drunk off her ass and drive.
Especially not with the shadow of Bob's temper looming overhead. She had already racked up minor park citations, and money was one of the few things Bob Pataki ever paid attention to. He would notice a DUI. To say nothing of having her age, two years shy of legal, slapped onto the charge. Helga wasn't ready to become a college student cliché, even with a few boxes already checked for the night.
Criminy. Only one thing left to do now.
Helga touched a hand to her head, her beer resting heavy and too-warm in the other. She took in a rallying breathe and pulled her phone out of her pocket like she was walking to the guillotine. As she began scrolling through her contacts, she poured the remainder of her stale beer onto the street.
There was no denying it: she was in need of a ride home.
Through the haze of her most recent Terrible Life Choice, Helga considered each contact as she passed them over. She hesitated over Phoebe's name, but moved on with a shake of her head. Pheebs was forty minutes away and asleep. She would come if Helga asked, which was why she didn't send the call. The disappointment of her closest friend was enough to send her scrolling over Heyerdahl, and onto I through P through T.
Phoebe was on the rather short list of people Helga cared about, and whose opinions mattered at all.
Helga passed into her W contacts, ignoring Wellington-Lloyd as it came and went. This was Rhonda's party. And hell if she would be caught dead bumming off Miss Sorority Princess. Helga had principles. Mostly bad principles, but she had to draw the line somewhere. And that somewhere was the charity of the Wellington-Lloyd's.
Helga sighed. She knew what came next and regretted it already.
But given her alphabet of options, her choice was clear. She had known it even before she opened up her phone and spilled her beer into the street like she was salting the earth that was her Friday night.
Helga drew in a long breath and let it out. Better to rip the bandage off.
She flicked her contacts back to S, sending the call before pride could come to the rescue. A moment later, a faint dial tone began beeping in and out like the peeling of funeral bells.
Ring, ring, ring, here lies Helga G. Pataki.
After the fifth ring, he answered. Off ripped the bandage, taking a thousand layers of skin and dignity with it.
"Mmmph," came the mumbled voice from the other end. It was followed by a long pause. "Who is this?"
Radio silence from her end.
"...Helga?" He asked after a moment.
She could just imagine him. He was probably half-asleep and confused, squinting against the bright light of his phone to see her name. Helga G. Pataki, at 1:04 in the morning.
"I-" Helga choked on her words, losing whatever it was she had been about to say.
What had she been thinking? Just because they both went to the same university and were kind of, sort of makeshift friends maybe, didn't give her the right to call him at 1:04 in the morning. Let alone to ask him to come haul her drunken ass back to campus.
Helga panicked. She had to hang up; maybe if she cut off the call now, she could pretend it was a mis-dial. Better yet, he might not even remember waking up to her early morning cry for help.
Helga paused, holding her phone away from her cheek like it burned.
"I'm going to hang up," Arnold said, voice full of tired warning.
"I need a ride."
After she settled into Arnold's car, hooking the seat belt across her chest per his annoying insistence, Helga rested her head against his window. Her temples ached and throbbed already, jackhammer-like echoes of the grim morning awaiting her. It was only going to get worse.
All in all, the night could not get more fantastic.
Drunk? Check. Awkwardly calling the object of her childhood obsession for a ride home at 1 AM? Check check.
Arnold, for his part, was silent as he clicked his own seat belt into place. She glanced over at him once, eyes here and there before he could catch her. He didn't look happy. In fact, he looked distinctly unhappy.
Not that she could blame him.
Helga guessed his night wasn't going much better than hers, now that she had invaded it. It was shit and they both knew it. She should be able to hold her drinks – it was a family tradition – and he should be sound asleep, dreaming about some nice girl who didn't touch anything stronger than ginger ale.
Yet here they were, stuffed into Arnold's old, practical sedan in the middle of the night. Resigned, Helga settled into the strained silence of the night and the car. Arnold turned his key, and they were off.
She focused on the hum of the drive for a few minutes, never looking again at Arnold. The orange lights of the streetlamps cut across Helga's vision as they drew father away from Rhonda's townhouse and closer to campus.
The silence between them felt almost tangible, but Helga wasn't the one to disturb it – Arnold was as he said, "What were you thinking, Helga?"
What had she been thinking? What a great question. She'd have to think on that if she lived to see the morning.
"It was just one of Rhonda's sorority things, you know." Helga waved her hand dismissively, because she had to give him something. He wasn't the kind of person to take silence as an answer.
"Helga. You never drink at Rhonda's parties."
Helga laughed bitterly, turning her face into the window. The alcohol was catching up with her. She hated to admit it, but Rhonda was right. She really couldn't hold her liquor.
That would probably be a disappointment to Miriam.
"Call in the 6 o'clock news. St. Arnoldo strikes again, ladies and gentlemen."
"Helga, what are you doing?" he asked, as if it weren't obvious. As if this wasn't who she was and destined to be – a Pataki, numb and selfish. If there was one thing Patakis did, it was looking out for number one.
Why ditch the family tradition now?
"I'm not your community service project, Arnold."
She wasn't being fair to him, but she didn't want to be. Bob wouldn't have been fair either.
"You know that isn't what I mean," he said, sighing. "It's just not like you."
"It's plenty like me."
"We both know that's a lie, Helga."
"How would you know anyway?" Helga scoffed. A Pataki classic.
"Did you go home last weekend?" he asked.
There it was. The truth bared between them, so simple. Helga Pataki's bottom line in six words. Did you go home this weekend?
Helga could cry he understood her so well. Past every defense he saw her truth - the ugly reality of the Pataki home life. The loneliness and inadequacy that had nipped at Helga's heels her entire life.
It was relief and dread all at once.
"Olga had this stupid thing and you know–" Helga stopped, hardly realizing she had started.
She said more than she had intended. With him, everything was always more than she ever intended. It was too easy to invite him in, to hand over the pieces of herself she never gave anyone else. He seemed to pick them out all on his own.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter. It was Rhonda's party, I had a little too much to drink. End of story."
It wasn't, of course. It never was with the Patakis. There was always some way Helga never measured up to Olga. There was always Bob's anger, Miriam's drinking, and the uncaring emptiness of the househould - brought to life only by the presence of the eldest of the Pataki daughters.
It didn't make sense, it wasn't fair, and Arnold has struck too close to home. They both knew the open secret of Helga's unhappiness; the inner workings of her anger; the Olga-shaped shadow she could never step out from.
Helga hated the pity she saw cross Arnold's face when she dragged her eyes up to meet his. Their glances touched briefly before their eyes fluttered away like startled moths. His hands tightened over the steering wheel, hers balled into fists on her lap. More unspoken things passed between them.
The silence grew thicker with Helga's hot annoyance.
She wanted him to care...but was so, so angry he did. With Arnold, somehow everything became easier and more complicated at the same time. He saw through every fortress she built between herself and the world, towering walls made of insults and indifference. But with him, she wanted to talk. She wanted to fight. She wanted to run. She wanted everything and nothing at all.
Beneath every other emotion was her longing. It pulsed and strung her feelings apart and together, gnawing and sorrowful and hopeful. Her feelings for him broke every rule, and terrified every pretense she had constructed.
She shivered as their eyes met one more. In his eyes was a questioning glance, and something a little like longing too. Like he was stretching his hand out to her, hoping she would take it and pull herself free.
Helga sighed and looked away. "Don't look at me like that, football head."
He opened his mouth, but closed it before saying a word.
Arnold turned away, and they were quiet all the way home.
As they approached Helga's dorm, she reached to unfasten her seatbelt. Looking up at the dated, concrete behemoth through her window, she could kiss every square foot of property in relief.
Sweet freedom.
As Arnold slowed, she was fully prepared to jump out without so much as a backward glance. She needed distance between herself and the strange, aching heaviness of her night.
Of course, all the best escape plans go astray.
"They're missing out, Helga," he said quietly.
Helga wrapped her hand around the car door handle. Stupid, so stupid. Her stupid family, her stupid drunk self, her stupid feelings, his stupid tenderness. Stupid tears, prickling and hot as she forced them down.
At least she was strong enough not to look back. God forbid he see her longing, the pure desire she was sure was written all over her face.
"They don't know what they're missing, Helga," he said again.
Helga opened the door and stepped out, looking up briefly past her dorm and into the night. Mostly cloudy, only a few stars visible. She couldn't even see the moon, only the fluorescent halos of campus lanterns.
They don't know what they're missing, Helga.
Helga pretended she didn't know what he meant, and he let her.
"Goodnight, Helga," he said as she turned to leave.
"Goodnight, Arnold."
A/N: So! This was six years in the making. I never could seem to find the gas to finish this one, but today is the day! Because I started this back in ye olde 2013, this is basically non-compliant with The Jungle Movie. Only in terms of any Arnold/Helga development, because I guess this could work otherwise.
This was originally inspired by a line in Limey404's comic, Don't Know What They're Missing. Check it out on DA, because it really struck me and Limey's work is phenomenal. Enjoy!