Hello everybody!
I was scrolling through tumblr when I saw a post by tumblr user Zeether with an amazing idea-
What if season 6 consisted of Arnold and Helga tried to hide their love for eachother from the whole school instead of Helga trying to hide it from Arnold?
And with that in mind, I continued to blog hop and it was thanks to that concept and the wonderful art and such by tumblr user the-real-aibouftw when all of a sudden- BAM! Concept.
Don't know how long this will be
don't know where we're going
don't care.
It's good to be back in the fandom!
Read, Review, Subscribe, Favorite, and ENJOY!
xox
Polkahotness
***HELGA***
I sat on the floor of Arnold's room; him seated on his bed just above and behind me.
A lot had changed since Sophmore year.
I had a car and a job at a music store downtown that was pretty cool.
Oh, and I kinda had a thing going with Hillwood's own resident footballhead.
"Are you gonna finish that page or what, bucko?" I asked tilting my head back to look up at him as he studied.
"And just where is your book?" He asked, his eyes still glued on the textbook.
"I may or may not have left it in my locker."
He looked over to me and I flashed him a sheepish smile.
"Helga..."
"What? Like I was supposed to know I had to lug that thing home. And besides- why do I need it if I know you'll let me use yours, hmm?"
He smiled and shook his head.
"Whatever you say, Helga." His gaze returned down to his book, his finger tracing a line he was reading and then tapping twice on a word before he reached over to jot something down on his worksheet.
Little 9 year old Helga would never have believed that telling Arnold about her feelings could actually end up... okay.
Awesome, actually.
After graduating elementary school, we went into middle school with high hopes and loads of hormones. Left and right people were dating on and off and sucking face anywhere they could manage.
Mostly at school dances- kids would sneak off to go to the bathroom or behind the stairway to share awkward first kisses and bumbling hands as they began to explore the wonderful world that hormones introduce you to.
But I hadn't been into that. And neither had Arnold. I was still under the impression that Arnold still had his heart set on Lila and her little miss perfect routine until our 7th grade dance approached.
And at that 7th grade dance, Arnold asked me to dance.
It wasn't anything special, but I remember my blood was boiling under his touch with his hands around my waist. It had been awkward, I didn't know what the heck I was supposed to say. But right as my girlish heart started to swoon at the thought of Arnold and I finally having a moment between just us of mutual (possible) adoration, I stumbled and fell right on my butt in front of all my class and the next two ahead of me.
That was when everyone noticed I had been dancing with the very boy they all knew I supposedly despised and suddenly, Harold's goonish laugh filled the auditorium.
"Helga and Awnold sittin' in a twee," He began to sing, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks; but my fists were clenching. "K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" he laughed again and pointed to us, Arnold reaching down to help me up, but I pushed him away.
"Harold, knock it off." He told him, but I was way ahead of Arnold.
The next thing I remember was yelling at Harold, punching him in the gut and running off to cry in the bathroom.
Of course, Pheebs found me and told me not to worry, that Harold was just being 'insensitive' and it was 'more important to remember that as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.'
But I felt so much more than inferior.
I felt laughed at. Humiliated. Ridiculed. I felt like a sissy. I felt like all the walls I had spent so long building up so nobody could touch me had, in one instant, been ripped apart and my very self had been invaded.
Needless to say, I avoided Arnold like the plague after that.
I began to treat him even worse than I ever had in the past.
And it drove Arnold crazy.
"Helga, why would you act like this? You... this isn't you. You aren't this horrible." He had told me one day in 8th grade as we sat in our History Class together.
"Like YOU know who I am. You don't know the FIRST THING about me, bucko. So how about you and your freakish head just BUZZ OFF."
I remember his face as he looked at me; so forlorn and hurt like I had continuously killed his puppy, brought it back to life only to kill it again.
And then in 9th grade, we played spin the bottle at Rhonda's house with a bunch of the gang, and of course, it landed on me and Arnold.
"I swear on your life Fat Boy, if you say ONE WORD, if you utter ONE THING about this... I will rip your arms off, put them in a shadow box, and hang them on your wall."
"What's a shadow box? You can't steal a shadow, dummy!"
I rolled my eyes.
"Well Arnoldo, let's do this thing." My heart was a jackrabbit dancing in my chest, but I tried to remain calm as his lips neared mine.
His lips had been so soft.
This, THIS was the kiss I remembered. More than the one at FTi, more than the one during Romeo and Juliet, even.
Because during THIS one... he kissed me back.
I lost myself in him in that moment. Our lips moved together completely in sync with the others and I found my hand reaching up to his cheek to pull him closer to me.
Annnnnnnd then I remembered we were in front of everyone.
"See?! I told you guys!" Harold shouted, our kiss being interrupted by his fat nonsense.
Once again, the blush rushed to fill my naturally pale cheeks.
"Tubby- what did I say?!" I hollered, and Arnold once again reached out to touch my shoulder to try and calm me down.
"Helga-"
"What?" I snapped back at him, his hand slowly drifting away from my shoulder as he watched me. He watched me intently and I swore he could see the tears welling in my eyes as I shook with anger and complete devastation. "It was... It was just a KISS!" I insisted and he stood up from the circle; his eyes locked on mine mirroring the same look of hurt as I gave him.
"Whatever you say, Helga." He mumbled, and left the party.
For the rest of 9th grade, I never spoke another word to Arnold.
And it killed me.
So when sophmore year rolled around, we were the new kids on the block again, but this time at Hillwood High.
Arnold spent most of the year watching me as I rebelled outwardly.
I was mad at my life.
I was mad at my friends.
I was mad at would could have been, but never could be.
We'd been in study hall when it all went down. It was February 12th and we were all anxious for the weekend as Sid's band was going to be playing and we all had planned to go and see them.
But I remember not being excited at all. It meant I had to face Arnold. And it was hard enough facing him every day at school with his judgmental looks and questioning eyes always following me.
The only class we had together, thankfully, had been study hall.
I was working on my Early US History paper when he came up to ask if I wanted any help with the assignment, as he had just gotten his back and aced it.
I couldn't understand why now, out of the blue, he would waltz up to me and just strike up conversation.
After a year and a half. After a wonderful kiss.
After one of my most humiliating moments... and most treasured.
Anyway, I kinda blew up at him and stormed out of the classroom. Naturally, good ole Hair Boy followed me into the hallway and I guess you could say the rest is history.
"Helga, wait up!" He shouted after me in the empty hallway as I tried to speed walk away from the situation.
"WHAT? Can't you just leave me alone?"
"But WHY? I don't understand WHY, Helga."
I turned around to face him, my arms crossed.
"Because...because we can't just...be friends. We aren't pals. We aren't chums. We aren't friends. We aren't ANYTHING. Get that through your weird looking skull."
"Who said I wanted to be friends? I just want some answers, Helga. I've been waiting for some answers." He asked coolly and I shook my head at him.
"Well you certainly act like you hate me and then out of the blue, here you are, wanting to be buddies."
"That's not what I was doing, Helga-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you were DOING. You were" I used quote fingers, "'trying to help me with my homework,'" I dropped my arms to my side and sighed.
"Maybe I had ulterior motives." He shrugged it off.
"Like?"
"Like trying to figure you out. Trying to get you to talk to me the way you used to back in middle school and sometimes even earlier than that. You're in there, Helga."
"That's a lot of bull. As if trying to dig me out of the shell I am is what your ulterior motives are."
"Fine. Maybe I was trying to get you to finally tell me you have feelings for me." There was a hint of something on his face. Smugness? Humor? Arrogance? What WAS that LOOK?!
"Look here, Hair Boy. I do not have FEELINGS for you. What kind of sap do you think I am?"
"The kind who confesses their undying love for someone at age 9 on top of a building."
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms trying to seem as uncaring as possible, but in reality, my heart was slamming against my chest harder than a hammer.
"The fact that you believed that...that...that wad of NONSENSE is continuously amusing, footballhead."
He was becoming irritated now and it was unlike Arnold to get all huffy about things.
He was usually so calm... Oh god, I thought, What am I doing to him?
"I just think I have a right to some answers, and you have never left me with very many." His eyes were searching mine now, and I couldn't help but to turn away with a sick sense of shame; blush rising to my cheeks. I tucked my chin into my shoulder to hide from his gaze.
"Answers," I started, my voice very small, "you aren't the only one without answers, Arnold."
I heard him take two small footsteps towards me and it wasn't long before I felt his soft touch radiating through my body from my shoulder where his hand lay.
"Maybe you could have some if you answered my question first."
I scoffed and shrugged his hand off of my shoulder, despite how comforting it had felt.
"The answer you're looking for isn't something you're gonna want to hear, Arnold."
"So."
"So what? You just... you just want me to stand here and spill my innermost secrets to you because...because you have QUESTIONS? Pfft." I shook my head and smirked; sweat beginning to form at the top of my hairline.
"You don't think I can keep a secret or something?" His eyebrow raised and I dropped my hands to my sides; my eyes now burning through him.
"As if this is the kind of secret YOU can just keep. You won't even underSTAND. How could you, a football-headed FREAK even begin to understand the workings of my mind or the things I feel?"
He let out a deep breath and shrugged slightly, his eyes watching me as I stood defensively before him.
"Because maybe you aren't the only person in the entire world who has feelings, Helga."
I rolled my eyes again and turned around to walk away from a conversation I feared was coming too close to revealing who I really was.
But I was too late.
"Maybe," he called out after me, "maybe those feelings you have for me are okay." although he didn't follow me, his words chased me down and had me pinned to reality.
He knew.
It was no use denying that the jig was up. All of the hard work I had spent my 16 years doing to cover up my undying devotion to the beautiful flaxen haired angel I turned around to look at just then, had been in vain.
Because he clearly wasn't about to keep believing my elaborate lies and phony insults anymore.
I looked at him, defeated.
His mouth opened to say something, but I held a hand up to stop him before he could start. "Fine. I lied. Maybe everything I told you on the roof was true. Maybe I do love you and I've spent my entire life trying to hide that from you. Trying to hide all those poem books and shrines and midnight vigils... the spells and inner monologues. All those nights of standing outside your-" my voice cut off when I realized maybe this wasn't the time to confess everything, and I swallowed hard to push myself to continue, "But I only hid it all because I-I-I didn't want you to...I wasn't sure if..." I took a breath, now feeling lost in my own thoughts. "I don't really know, I guess."
"I think you do know." He replied.
He hadn't run yet.
So I guessed that was a good thing.
"So after all these years, you still like me?" He asked, dragging me out of my thoughts.
Without a word, I pursed my lips and nodded my head minimally.
"Well," he started, a small smile building on his face. I braced myself for whatever was going to come out of his mouth next. "I guess all I can say is thanks for telling me and... and I'm sorry."
The look on my face really must have been something.
"Sorry? What could YOU be SORRY for?" I exclaimed in confusion.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to catch up."
"Wh-what?" my body felt numb at his words my very nerves seemingly paralyzed in shock.
"I told you Helga, you aren't the only one with feelings."
"Well of course... of course you have f-feelings-"
"For you, Helga."
Silence.
I heard the muffled footsteps of someone running down the hallway behind us followed by a door closing and booming laughter from a classroom.
But it was just us and the confession Arnold had left out between us in the 400 wing.
"For me."
"For you."
"You're lying."
"I'm not, Helga."
"But I'm a bitch, Arnold."
He shrugged.
"I would say more... misunderstood."
I smirked and crossed my arms again.
"You realize what you're saying is crazy, right?"
"YOU'VE been driving me crazy. For...years."
"But I've been horrible to you. I've called you yutz and football-head and Hair boy your whole life and-and-"
"And after considering everything you told me in the 'heat of the moment' and every weird thing that's happened to us since... you couldn't tell I liked you? Despite it all?"
"But...but why?" I found myself walking towards him as we talked.
"Because I've always known you weren't that... that person you keep trying to tell everyone you are."
"Yes, I am-"
He shook his head and took another step toward us to shorten the gap of space.
"When my Grandma died..." he started, his words coming out soft and thoughtful, "everyone was there for me... even you."
"Well I wasn't about to torture you when you're going through that-"
"But you came to my house. You... you helped us clean out her room. You brought food and left it at our doorstep-"
"I DID NOT,"
"Helga. I saw you. Stop trying to lie to me."
"Arnold... I-I-"
And then he kissed me. Right in that hallway.
Nobody was around.
Nobody laughed.
Nobody teased.
It was everything I had ever wanted... and it was just between us.
Which is how our relationship remained.
Between us.
The summer was... incredible.
We went to the beach most days and sat under the dock away from everybody so we could watch the water come in and coat the sand so we could build sandcastles and talk and laugh...
and kiss.
So much kissing.
Sometimes we would stay in and watch movies on his laptop. I'd sneak up his fire escape and meet him on the roof where we would look at the stars and watch movies.
And... kiss.
And then every once in a while we'd get on the bus and abandon Hillwood for surrounding neighborhoods where nobody knew us and we could be that couple nobody knew we were.
We could hold hands.
We could goof around.
And we could kiss.
God, I loved that boy's lips. What can I say.
Arnold had been completely understanding of my fears. After every attempt our hearts had made towards one another got squashed by laughter and teasing and Harold, he knew I was terrified of the reaction of our classmates.
Which meant when Junior year rolled around, everyone was still clueless.
EVERYONE.
That's right, not even Pheebs. Or Gerald.
It was our little secret.
And so far, we had done pretty well. I mean, it was only the first month of school, but we had been really discreet. We hardly ever talked at school.
But Gerald was getting suspicious. And Phoebe would be too if she wasn't so busy with all her post-secondary stuff she was working on.
"What are we gonna do about Tall Hair Boy?"
"Hmm?" He hummed before closing the textbook and handing it to me with his focus now on me. "What?"
"Geraldo. What are we gonna do?"
"Nothing, why?"
"Well," I started, shifting to scoot myself around to face Arnold on his bed as I opened the textbook and thumbed through the pages to find the right chapter. "You said he keeps asking about what you've been doing that makes you unable to hang out with his jealous ass."
He laughed and pushed himself off of the bed to sit cross-legged in front of me, our knees almost touching.
"Yeah but he doesn't think it's with you. Don't worry, I'll think of something."
"Why exactly are you doing all this anyway? Hiding everything from Gerald. YOU don't have a real reason." I looked down to the book, although I read none of the words my eyes danced over. A hand reached out to close the book and take it away from me. "Hey!"
"I DO have a reason, Helga." He said, book in his grip as I watched him with slight agitation. "I want you to be comfortable. If you don't want to tell anyone," he shrugged, "then that what we do. Until you're ready."
"Ahh, so curteous." I replied and he glared at me. "Thank you, Arnold." I said after a beat, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on his lips.
"Hey Arnold!" Mr. Pott's muffled voice called from downstairs beyond the shut door of Arnold's room. "Gerald's here!"
He huffed and stood up, reaching his hand down to pull me up with him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know he was coming."
With a breath I blurted out, "You should just tell him, Arnold."
He was surprised and his eyes widened momentarily at my statement.
"Really?"
I nodded my head and chewed on my lip.
"Yeah. What's the worst he's gonna do, huh?"
"Does that mean you trust him now?"
I laughed and wrapped my arms around him and rested my chin on his shoulder.
"Nah. But I know you do. And I doubt he'd go blabbing when he knows it would piss you off." I pulled back to look at him for a moment, "It would piss you off, right?"
His eyebrows raised and a small smile raised the corner of his mouth.
"Royally."
"Arnold..."
"I'm serious. But he won't tell, Helga. I swear."
"Willing to bet your LIFE on it?" I dared and he kissed me hard for a moment, my lips melting under his as the world around us drifted away.
"Absolutely." he said once our lips parted, and it took me a moment to calm my heart down enough to process his next words. "You'd better go though."
"But I said we could-"
"I wanna do it my way." He said flatly, and I eyed him curiously. "Just... Just trust me, okay? He's been my best friend since birth. I think I know how to handle him and his reaction a lot better than you."
"Yeah, alright." I heard the door close downstairs and Gerald greeting Mr. Potts, which was basically my cue to get going.
"So...tomorrow?" I asked and he nodded, pecking my lips before turning around to hand me my backpack and his textbook.
"Of course. I'm going to call you tonight to make sure you did that assignment..."
"What are you, my mom?"
He laughed and winked at me. "Nah. Just the concerned boyfriend."
"Even better." I kissed the air in his direction quickly, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and tucking the book under my armpit, then reached out to begin climbing up the ladder out to the roof and to the fire escape that I had become all too familiar with. "See ya later footballhead."
and just as I closed the window, I watched Gerald stroll in, his arms waving in the air wildly as he began what I guessed to be a ridiculous story told in only a way Gerald could tell.
6 months.
It was hard to believe it had really been that long.
As I walked down the street, my eyes buried in the textbook I had borrowed from Arnold, I found my thoughts wandering to all the memories I had made in the passed 6 months. How many wonderful things my beloved and I had done now that my dreams had somehow become reality.
I became so lost in my thoughts that it's no wonder I ran right into Rhonda who had had her nose buried in her phone.
"Watch where you're going!" I shouted as I stood up, only to lock eyes with none other but the Princess of Hillwood herself. And her eyes were locked on Arnold's textbook that was lying on the ground in front of us with his name in big, bold letters on the front cover.
Criminy...