I present to you The Difference it can Make! This is the sequel to All the Difference in the World, and will be much shorter. I'm shooting for between 40k to 50k words. I have the main idea of the story already worked out.
In order to understand this story, you will need to have read All the Difference in the World! The characters in this story, the setting, and the character background will make no sense to you if you just read this story!
I have yet to decide of this one will be M or not. If you think it should be, let me know.
Summary: With their engagement under way, and with Olga coming back home to live with them, Helga and Arnold deal with the obstacles that come along with planning a wedding.
Life couldn't be more perfect.
It was a thought Helga had been having a lot lately, and every time that thought would scamper its way into her mind, a dorky smile would appear on her face, and every time that dorky smile would appear on her face, she would reach over to her left hand and pinch the silver diamond ring and start to fiddle with it.
Today was the day. Today was the day that Olga got back from her trip to Los Angeles with her fiance to get the stuff she left back at her apartment. She was moving back to Hillwood, and would be living at the Boarding house, assuring both her and Arnold that it was just temporary till she finds a place of her own. After getting released from rehab, shortly after Phoebe's wedding, Olga had told them over lunch that she had decided to be a councilor to 'at risk' teens and young adults. With her teaching in Alaska that she gave up on, she already qualified for a job that had opened up at Dr. Bliss' old office.
This news got Arnold thinking about his own career choice. And, after a two weeks of mysteriously walking on egg shells around her, he finally sat down and told her what he wanted to do. 'Veteran suicide rates are higher than they've been in fifty years,' were his first words. He had told her that he wanted to be a psychiatrist for soldiers returning home, and she couldn't be more proud of him.
While Phoebe was still a blissful ignoramus, due to her still fresh matrimony, Helga was no better.
Three months ago, her fiance had stood in front of everyone in their class, along with numerous others they had never met, and declared that he was ready to commit himself to her completely, that she was the love of his life, and that he wanted her to marry him, in so many words. While she never expected them to break up, a proposal was not at all what she was expecting, especially not at their best friends wedding reception. She can still remember with vivid detail the way her body quaked when his eyes met hers while he was giving his speech, the way they were so full of hope, of love, of certainty.
She can still remember they way her breath lurched into her throat as he stopped in front of where she was sitting, and got down on one knee, pulling open the lid of the small box that held her engagement ring. What was more amazing was that somehow, the ring fit perfectly, and after grilling Phoebe, asking if she knew that he was going to propose, and if he asked for her ring size, she denied it profusely, saying that she had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Today, he got back from Los Angeles with Olga. She missed her big sister, but this was the longest time they had spent apart since she returned from Africa. He had gone with her to help make sure she didn't fall into old habits, and give into temptation. He had been gone three weeks now, and she was eagerly awaiting his arrival by laying across the couch, feet propped up on one arm, her head lying on the other.
It was quiet for a Saturday afternoon. Since Arnold had decided to pop the question at the wedding, one of the guests, named Rhonda, shoved through the people congratulating them on their engagement, offering to plan the whole thing, including designing both her dress, and the brides maids dresses. And since the boarding house was quiet, she had time to make good on their arrangement.
When she went with them to the air port, Arnold had taken her hands as they were boarding, and told her that he would think about a date while he was gone, and he asked her to do the same, and that when they got back, he would tell her his date, and she would tell him hers, and she had her's already picked out. She had given the bulk of planning the wedding to Rhonda, who, once Helga had agreed to it, had sent a barrage of ideas to her.
Luckily, she hadn't heard from her all week. It wasn't so exhausting having someone else plan your wedding for you, but Helga had twisted Rhonda's arm to make sure that all the major things would be ran by her before finalization. And luckily, Phoebe had agreed to over see Rhonda's planning when she was free, knowing she knew her best friends tastes.
Helga let out another long sigh and looked over to the clock, it read just a few minutes past one o'clock. Their flight didn't get in until one thirty, and the air port was a half an hour drive, which would officially make this the longest hour of her life so far.
There was one matter that she hadn't dealt with yet, and that was the one hundred twenty five thousands dollars that was sitting in a bank account that had her name on it. It was a topic of discussion that hadn't been ventured to between them. She hadn't heard from Bob at all, and she didn't feel any loss from this. Arnold had told her that he had given him his number, but she paid it no mind. Olga didn't know about the money, but she was going to bring it up tonight. She wanted to just sign over the account to her, and not have to think about it again. Olga could use the money more than she could, after all, she was living at the boarding house.
She did have the temptation to take that money and use it to pay for the wedding, going on the old rule that the brides parents pay for the wedding, but she never could go through with it, and that was the one time that the topic had been brought up between them. Arnold had told her that what ever she wanted to do with the money was up to her, and he would back her one hundred percent, like any good husband would. And that conversation had a very happy ending, it being the first time he referred to himself as her husband.
She shook her head of the troubling, and yet pleasant thoughts and clasped her hands on top of her stomach, and twiddled her thumbs. It had been a boring several weeks without anyone around. But, she took advantage of the time, and the solitude, to write. It wasn't a novel or anything, simply a few hundred thousand words put in an order that made it look like it was, and since you're your own worst critic, it was terrible.
But it was something just for her, it was just venting.
She closed her eyes after tracing patterns on the ceiling for too long, and let out a long breath through her nose. She didn't hear the cab pull up outside, or the two people get out of the cab.
Outside however, Arnold was very jittery with anticipation. Olga had been giggling herself crazy the whole cab ride, saying it was so cute how excited he was to see her baby sister again. He couldn't handle being apart for so long. Even though they called each other every night, it just wasn't the same as falling into bed with her, or coming up behind her and snaking his arms around her waist and sensually kissing her neck in the morning.
He quickly jumped out of the cab, as Olga paid the driver and got out the other side. Arnold looked up to the door, half expecting it to fly open and to have her tackle him to the ground like she said she would on the phone last night. He heard Olga set the large suit case down on the ground next to him, startling him out of his day dream. He reach over and picked it up, along with the next one that she was hoisting out. As she set a few small boxes down on the ground, and closed the cab's trunk, he let her go ahead of him and up the stairs of his stoop.
She pulled out the key that Arnold had given her, and stuck it in the lock. "I wonder if Helga heard us," She mused.
Back inside, she could have sworn she had just heard what sounded like a key being pushed into the dead bolt. Helga looked over to the clock again and saw that it was only fifteen past one, couldn't be them. She heard the fiddling with the knob again, and a wave of adrenaline shot through her. She quickly got to her feet and frantically looked around for something that looked hard enough to crack a human skull.
In a panic, she grabbed her shoe off the ground and held it behind her head by the toe, and crept into the entry way, ready to strike the intruder. The door knob turned, and the door squeaked open, and her grip on her shoe tightened, and she rocked it further back.
She was just about to strike the intruder when the door flew open, to reveal her sister, not looking at her, and instead looking down to pick up a piece of luggage. Helga stood frozen in the entry way, seeing that neither her nor the person behind her had seen her threatening them with a shoe. Olga took a step inside and stopped.
"Helga... what exactly are you doing?" Olga asked, looking at the grappling position her sister was in, with a shoe in the air.
"Uh..." She began, still clutching the shoe, "Hi." Helga looked back at the shoe she had in her hand, and then back to Olga's blank expression and wide side eyes. She quickly tossed the shoe aside and smiled. "Sorry about the um... it's just that I wasn't expecting you until two."
"Our flight went quicker than originally planned."
"Olga, do you mind moving over a bit, I have about three hundred pounds worth of your stuff in my hands." Helga's insides erupted with butterflies at the voice coming from outside on the stoop. She balled her fists up and felt a smile break out onto her face.
Olga noticed this and quickly stepped off to the side, just as Helga ran forward.
The instant he saw her charging towards him, he haphazardly dropped the suitcases he was carrying and opened his arms to her. She jumped into him, and shot her arms fully around his neck, while he squeezed her midsection and spun her in a circle. She giggled with joy into the crock of his neck and he set her back down on the ground, but she didn't let him go.
"I missed you so much," He whispered in her ear, pressing his lips to her skin.
"You have no idea." She murmured into him as she squeezed him a little tighter. She could never get over how safe she felt in his arms, how he was able to build them their own little world away from everything just by wrapping his arms her.
Her death grip in his neck slackened, and he leaned back, but didn't get a chance to see her face clearly again when she quickly leaned back up and pressed her lips to his as hard as she could. He inhaled a sharp breath through his nose at the sudden contact and returned her kiss eagerly by squeezing her into him again and lifting her up into the air, making her chuckle into his mouth.
Sure, they were both love sick fools, but they were happy love sick fools.
He set her back down to earth again, and let her lips go with a soft plunk. She leaned back with a twinkle in her eyes, "So, how was the trip?"
Arnold shrugged, "It was alright, I got to know your sister a lot better. She showed me around town, we went down to Santa Monica, and walked along the pier, she dragged me to the Chinese theater, and all those other touristy places."
She gave him a coy smirk and lowered her brow, "What, did you fall for her or something?" He could tell by her tone that she was joking, but he never could pass up an opportunity to be charming.
He reached down and lifted her left hand up to his lips, "I gave you this because I have already fallen beyond the point of redemption." He pulled her fingers up to his lips, and softly pressed them to her engagement ring.
She scoffed playfully and rolled her eyes, "You're such a sap."
"Yes, but I'm your sap." He replied with a grin.
She shook her head with a smile and kissed him again. She turned around to her sister, who was leaning against the wall of the entryway, her arms crossed, one leg casually tossed over the other, and a Cheshire grin on her face. "Hey, big sister."
"Hi baby sister!" They embraced each other a tight hug, and shook each other from side to side. Arnold watched with a smile on his face, as he grabbed Olga's bags and heaved them inside.
After settling in, which took a good three hours, Arnold and Helga finally found themselves on the couch, with her leaning back against the arm, with him leaning back into her, his head resting comfortably against her abdomen, along with her fingers slowly running themselves through the unruly mess he called a hair due. Olga had come down a half an hour before hand and offered up the idea to order pizza, which had just arrived with a knock on the door. They both groaned at the sound, knowing that it meant one of them would have to get up.
But before they could act on it, Olga was calling downstairs, "I'll get it!"
Both breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed back into each other. While Olga was answering the door, Arnold quickly thought of something. "Oh, I almost forgot about our deal."
"What deal?"
"The one we made right before I left."
There was a pause as her ministrations on his hair stopped for a moment, "Oh,"
"Listen," he brought his hand down and ran it soothingly along her ankle, "if this is moving too fast, then we can talk about it when your ready."
"No... no, it's not that. I picked a date, it's just the date I picked kind of has... meaning."
"Okay, what date did you pick?"
"May 17th."
The date did ring a bell, but he couldn't place where he heard it before, "Where have I heard that date before?"
"That was the day my mother died."
That sent a small shiver up his spine, and he played his next words in his head, making sure they were chosen carefully. "Why that day?"
"That day has meant a lot of things to me, but never has it meant something good. I want that day to be special, I want it to be significant in another way. I want it to symbolize that despite everything I went through, all the hardships, all of the bull shit, I still found my happy ending." There was another pause in her speech as he continued to run his hand along her ankle that lay in his side. "That's why I chose that day." He smiled to himself a warm smile, and reached up to entwine his fingers with the ones that lay limp against his chest.
"May 17th it is."
"No, wait, what day did you pick?"
"I picked September 17th." He answered with an obvious smirk.
"Arnold, that's today."
"I know."
She chuckled and pressed a kiss to his lips as Olga came in with two pizza boxes and set them down on the coffee table. "Helga, there is a little matter I want to discuss with you."
"What's that?"
Her older sister walked over and sat in the chair across the room and crossed her legs, oddly looking serious. "The one hundred twenty five thousand dollars that's you have sitting in a bank account."