Hey guys! This is my first fan fiction entitled "Songs of Hillwood". Basically it's a bunch of situations based on songs that appear on my I-Tunes!
As I said in the summary, most of them are Arnold and Helga related, since they are my favorite couple from Hey Arnold. But there are occasional Rhonda and Curly ones (hint: the next chapter is Rhonda and Curly based!) and one Gerald and Phoebe one that I have planned.

Disclaimer: All of these characters belong to the fabulous Craig Bartlett, Viacom and Nickelodeon. The song in this fiction is called "I'd Rather Be With You" by Joshua Radin. He owns it, not me. I'm not that talented. It's a very good song, I suggest you give it a listen!

I'm hope you all enjoy it! Any reviews are welcome!

I'd Rather Be With You

A Arnold/Helga song fiction

Sitting here on this lonely dock, watch the rain play on the ocean top

It had been too long since he had been back to the city he called home. After moving away from Hillwood to attend college in New York City, he wondered if he could even recognize the old gang. He had matured a lot since her days of high school, but a lot more than her days at P.S. 118 where a single girl with a terrible attitude tormented him constantly. Calling him names, tripping him, playing mean pranks on him. He laughed at the thought as he continued walking down the edge of the pier and sat down. It was raining, but he didn't seem to care. After a long day of dealing with his grandparents and the rest of the eclectic borders that he had grown to love at home, he decided that he just needed to take a walk.

He just didn't imagine he'd have so many things to think about. After all, it had been his freshman year at college; there had been a lot of parties, meeting new people, and of course, class-work. And Arnold was glad that he had decided to leave Hillwood and the state for the matter and travel up North. The experience he had was too great to miss. But he had wondered about the last words that his friends had said to him as he was leaving the state and his friends behind.

Rhonda had gushed about how he was going to love New York City because it was full of elegance and fashion.

Phoebe has told him about the exciting tourist opportunities for Arnold to visit and learn about. And from him to bring back a lot of pictures of his adventures.

Sid, Stinky and Harold told him to go play baseball and kick ass. He remembered laughing at that one.

Gerald told him to keep it real and to be himself. And also that no matter what they would still be the best of friends. They finished with their signature handshake.

All of these moments he had loved hearing and remembered thanking each one of them. But there was one person that he had needed to talk to that night. And she wasn't there to say goodbye.

All the things I feel I need to say I can't explain in any other way

After his friends had left, he remembered that he had decided to walk to her house. He couldn't leave with telling her everything that he needed to explain. There had been a lot of incidents that questioned their friendship in general, most of them deriving around the fact that at one point, this girl had been in love with him. Confessed it even, they had claimed that it was a heat of the moment things and that she really hated him. But after middle school started up and Phoebe and Gerald had started dating, Arnold and Helga were almost forced to be around each other a lot. He saw a lot in her that she was hiding from the world, but at least she was making an effort to be nicer to people. There was several occasions where her anger and frustration would get the best of her and she'd snap back into her ways, but she was truly nicer to people.

He hadn't realized at the time the woman that Helga was becoming.

She had managed to fix the relationships between her and her family. They seemed a lot closer during her high school years. She had made an effort to impress people and made new friends and dated some new people. She mingled and worked the crowd, something that Arnold had known she had been good at all this time. She was funny, charming, and beautiful.

Of course he had noticed the changes in her physically as well as socially and emotionally. While she hardly wore her pink ribbon anymore, she had her own sense of style that was usually completed by a black pair of high-top Converses. She was unique and damn proud of it. She was athletic, playing softball for the varsity softball team. He remembered her pitching her way to a National Championship around this time last year.

He had plenty of good memories with one Helga G. Pataki. They almost seemed like best friends at one point.

Why was it that she hadn't showed up to wish him good luck and say goodbye?

When Arnold approached the Pataki residence, Helga's big sister Olga had told him that her baby sister just left the house saying that she was heading to the Pier to think about things. He never realized all the things that she was going to say to him that night.

I need to be bold need to jump in the cold water

Need to grow older with a girl like you

Finally see you are naturally the one to make it so easy

When you show me the truth

Yeah, I'd rather be with you

Say you want the same thing too

He caught her sitting on the edge of one of the docks, throwing rocks into the river. He hesitated before approaching her.

"Helga?"

She had jumped and turned around to face him. He had noticed her eyes were glistening and not in a good way either. Had she been crying?

"Jesus, Football Head, you scared the crap out of me. How did you find me anyway?"

"Olga said you'd be here."

She turned back to the river, throwing another rock far into the river and watched it make a tiny splash. Before he had a chance to ask why she hadn't shown up at his going-away party, she spoke again.

"I bet you're wondering why I never showed up, huh?"

"Yea."

"Sorry I missed out on everyone being such cry babies about leaving." She threw another rock into the river.

He paused, attempting to choose his words carefully.

"Why didn't you come?"

"I had my reasons, Arnoldo."

"And they would be?"

"Can't you just leave it alone? I'm sorry I didn't show up, okay?"

"Can't you just tell me? You usually tell me when things are bugging you."

"I'm fine Arnold." She sniffled.

"Then why were you crying?"

She paused and turned around.

"I guess I'm gonna miss you, is all. I didn't want to be all mushy in front of everyone."

He looked at her.

"I'm gonna miss you too, Helga. But we can always write each other, right?"

She walked over to him and hugged him.

"Promise you won't forget about me in New York?" He smiled.

"As long as you promise to meet me here as soon as you get home from your first year." She grinned in response.

"I promise, Arnold."

She was coming home soon. Everyone was in the next few days. But there was only one person that he was looking forward to seeing. He had a lot to tell her.

He walked home as the rain continued to fall. As he approached the Sunset Arms, he noticed that it was quiet. A concept that seemed foreign when applied to his household. He opened the door and the animals that lived in his house rushed out behind him. It smelled like apple pie with a mix of paint.

"Grandma…Grandpa?"

"In here, Shortman!"

He walked into the kitchen where his Grandpa was covered head to toe in blue paint while his Grandpa pulled a pie out of the oven. It looked fairly normal, it almost stunned him how normal it was.

"How was your walk Arnold?" his Grandma asked him, cutting into the warm pie.

"It was fine."

"You're soaking wet Shortman. Were you just sitting in the rain?"

"It was just the walk back home, went to the movies." He lied.

"How bout some pie?"

"No thanks Grandma, I think I'm just gonna go to bed." They both frowned.

"Well alright Arnold, good night."

"Goodnight."

He trudged up the stairs and into his room, changing out of his wet clothes and laying on his bed. He closed his eyes.

He didn't expect the dream that he was going to have. It was a memory, a distant one. The top of the FTI building in the 4th grade when he and Gerald were trying to save the neighborhood, the mysterious Deep Voice that had been helping them the entire way, it had turned out to be Helga herself. He had questioned why after everything they had been through, everything that her dad had promised her once they got rich, why was she still helping him. She attempted to lie and he wanted the truth. And so she gave it to him.

She confessed that she was in love with him since the day they had met back in pre-school. Apparently he had liked her bow or something. He couldn't remember that memory very well, but obviously she had.

They had decided it was a heat of the moment thing and never spoke about it again.

Though there had been plenty of incidents after that where he thought that Helga still cared deeply about him. April Fool's Day in the 4th grade, the homecoming dance in 8th grade, senior prom.

Now here's the sun come to dry the rain, warm my shoulders and relieve my pain, you're the one thing that I'm missing here

Senior prom. He sat up and looked at the prom picture. He remembered he hadn't asked her to prom. She was dating an older guy named Mike Hester who was a sophomore at Hillwood College while he had taken Lila. Lila had dumped him the night of the dance and Helga had been stood up. She had looked beautiful that night. Dressed in the lightest of pink dresses. He never got the chance to tell her how beautiful she had looked that night.

They had decided to dance together, the last time they had done that was in the 4th grade where they tangoed each other into YMAA swimming pool.

She leaned her head onto his shoulder as the music played behind them. And to him, it seemed like they were the only ones in the room. Perfectly happy. He looked into her eyes and watched her smile. He realized how much he had liked seeing her smile.

Senior prom. One of the best nights of his life. It made him miss her even more. But in a different way that he was used to. He just wanted to be beside her.

With you beside me I no longer fear

He couldn't stop thinking about her. All the sudden thoughts that flooded into his mind.

The way she smiled, her laugh, the way she still had her nicknames for him, her pure drive to succeed despite the odds, the way she balanced his calm nature.

She frustrated him, drove him crazy to no end most of the time. She was also one of the best friends that he ever had.

She was so much more than his friend. She was everything.

I could have saved so much time for us had I seen the way to get where I am today

He leapt off to his bed to a bulletin board crammed with pictures. Underneath the board sat his yearbook and he opened it to the page where she had written to him. Purple ink, her signature style. They had decided that he wasn't going to read Helga's message until they graduated college. But he needed to read it now. He read it to himself.

Football Head…I mean Arnold

We've been through a lot together ever since we first met. The bow thing, remember? Probably not, but I do. It's one of my favorite memories and now we're graduating high school and leaving for college. Hard to imagine leaving Hillwood like this. Who will terrorize the town in my place?

He laughed at this, remembering the pink bowed terror who had terrorized him in the past.

But there is a lot that I have been holding back from you. It's probably not the best to write in this yearbook about it. I should have just said it to you. But I love you Arnold. I've loved you my entire life, nonstop. I've watched you being with all these different girls and wondered and hoped that one day you'd see that you and I have something that other people don't. It's more than just chemistry, Arnold. It's something that I'm just waiting for you to admit to yourself. But I realize that I can't hold you back. So I'll still be your biggest fan, your support system, your best friend. Because anything you do will make me happy. Because I love you more than anything else in this world.

Helga.

You waited on me for so long

He closed the book and leaned his head against the wall.

She had been in love with him before. He couldn't deny it. He had tried to avoid it and hoped that she would just get over him.

But she never did.

And now Arnold realized that she had waited for him. After all these years. She had waited for him to see that she was the right person for him. She had waited so long for him and he never responded to her feelings. It was why she was crying the night of his going away party. She had loved him and he was leaving her.

And he realized that he was in love with her and that he needed to tell her. He got dressed quickly and ran out the door towards the Pataki household.

Her father had answered the door and grumbled at him.

"What do you want?"

"Is Helga home?"

"She's upstairs."

He walked to the steps.

"Yo, Olga. There's someone here for you."

"I'm coming Bob. Criminy. And it's Helga Dad. Helga."

"Right, right Helga."

He stumbled back to the living room where wrestling was booming through the television. Helga walked down the stairs and stopped and stared at him. He smiled.

"Arnold? What are you doing here?"

"I hear you were home. Wanna go for a walk?"

"Yea, sure, why not?"

So now, listen to me say

They had walked to the pier and Arnold stopped in his tracks. Helga turned to him.

"Arnold?"

"I…" He stammered, attempting to find the words he wanted to say to her.

"You okay, Football Head?"

"I…I need to talk to you."

"Okay…about what?"

"I just need you to listen."

I need to be bold, need to jump in the cold water

"Helga, I read your message in my yearbook. I know that we promised that we wouldn't read them until we graduated college, but I need to read it."

She frowned and scuffed her shoe on the boards under her feet.

"And?" She looked at him with her big beautiful blue eyes.

He smiled.

"I need to tell you the truth."

Need to grow older with a girl like you

"Helga, I need you in my life, for the rest of my life. I don't know what I'd do without you. I wouldn't be me without someone like you to balance me out."

Finally see you are naturally the one to make it so easy when you showed me the truth

"You are the kind of girl that makes me happy. I can't stop thinking about you. I couldn't my entire freshman year. No matter what girl came into my view, no one could match up to the relationship that I had with you. I realized the truth about you and me Helga."

Yeah I'd rather be with you

"I love you Helga. There's no other person I'd rather be with than you."

Say you want the same thing too

"Just please, please say you still love me. Say that you aren't over me, that you'd want to be with me just as badly as I want to be with you. Please Helga, that's all I want."

She looked back down at the ground and then back up at him. She grinned. Her eyes filling up with tears. The last time she had seen her crying, she was upset about leaving him without admitting the truth to him. And now she didn't have to.

He loved her. It was plain and simple.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear that from you."

He grinned and hugged her tightly. As they pulled away, he couldn't help but kiss her. He didn't want it to be gentle, he wanted to be with her in every single aspect that he could think of.

"I love you Helga G. Pataki." He wiped the tears from her face.

Say you feel the way I do

"I love you too Arnold."