Hey, this is my first Hey Arnold fanfiction, so I'm a bit nervous, fair warning Arnold might seem a bit OC but before judging a beg you to read the whole chapter. The timeline is eight years after the show ended so it covers the first movie but the Jungle Movie never happened. I apologize in advance about any spelling or grammatical errors this fic might have.

Hey Arnold! Is the sole property of its creator Craig Bartlett and Nickelodeon I own nothing.

Disease

Chapter I: Fire and Ice

It was all her fault!

"Okay guys reel in! This guy can't bat to save his life!"

She gave him a mocking smirk and adjusted her cap, preparing to throw the ball. He felt the sickness inside him stir, making is stomach twist, his heart rate speed up and pure anger rush trough his veins. His blood boiled and he could hear his mind whisper, with a furious passion:

Show her! Beat her! Wipe that grin off her face! Win!

The ball flew pass him. And he heard her voice filled with mockery.

"Strike One!"

He was sick, he had to be. He knew he wasn't perfect, but he was nice guy… C'mon he helped people all the time just to see them happy; he didn't hate anyone, not even Rex Higgins The Third or Wolfgang despite all the harm they had done to him. But when he was with her, something awaken in him, something vicious, it demanded that he couldn't just turn the other check with her, he had to strike back, insult to insult, prank to prank, to show her who was the boss and finally put her in her place.

He knew when that disease had first appeared. That confession in the rooftop had been burned into his memory, never to disappear again. When she told him she loved him and kissed him, his first real kiss, something had snapped inside him. He felt shocked, frustrated and angry, incredibly angry. How could she say she loved him! She tormented him, insulted him, treated him bellow dirt all his life, that wasn't how someone treated the person they claimed to love! She couldn't do this to him! She couldn't just drop this bomb and then expect everything to go back to normal! Why? Why was she the only person that could bring him to the brink of inanity?

During the April Fools incident when he decided to beat her at her own game and took advantage of her feelings for him (the way she constantly took advantage of his kindness) and asked her to dance. During that tango that feeling of anger resurfaced but differently, he felt such thrill, his body tingling with excitement knowing what he was about to do to her, that he was finally going to win. And when he threw her in that pool and saw her finally defeated, he was surprised at the amount of joy he could feel in her humiliation at the power he had over her, he thought that she would have to treat him right now, he won, she had admitted her feelings for him and now he was victorious in their game, she had no more cards to play.

That was until his stupid conscious got in the way and he took her hand, so sure he was of her defeat that he forgot who exactly Helga G. Pataki was, and then he lost again and had to listen to her sneer.

After the dance and when he had been alone in his room he had been ashamed of his behavior, to take advantage of a girl's feelings for him, to use them against her like that, was crossing a line he had never even came near before dealing with her. He was even more ashamed at his complete lack of regret in his actions, at his frustration at another defeat. That was the first time he felt that fire in his stomach and heard the boiling of his blood screaming:

She beat us! Again! Aren't you tired of losing to her?! Of backing down before her? It isn't fair! She is the one in love with you! But she never acts like it, never admits it and you are the one who follows her around like a puppy! It's not fair; she should be following your lead, not the other way around.

He was shocked at his own thoughts but still remembering her shocked look as she realized what he had done, the taste of his fleeting victory, he could not stop them.

You had her! You finally had her! And you let her get way!

He suppressed the rage and the passion, calling himself stupid, after all he didn't lose, if anything there had been a tie, he tricked her, she tricked him. He even had the advantage of knowing how she felt about him, she could hide it in her pranks and insults but deep down inside she was aware that he knew her secret. They could deny all they wanted, agree that it was just in the heat of the moment but they knew what she said had been the truth, that it did happen, that it was forever in their memories. He had that now; the power to destroy her was in the tip of his tongue, a word from him and her precious secret would be out, why wasn't she more careful about the way she treated him?

But the deed was done. The gates were open and no matter how much he tried to fight it, every time he dealt with her, every time she insulted him, pushed him around, he felt that fire urging him to fight back to use the power he had over her, and the disease had spread through his body and soul. All because of her…

He looked at her, at seventeen she had grown into quite a woman. The baby fat had melted, the lines in her face had harmonized revealing a slender form and feminine traces that he never imagined she could have. Her body was athletic and fit, her hair long and golden, trapped in a ponytail and most of the time she wore a pink baseball cap as a replacement for her pink bow, small chest but long legs and curvy waist she managed turned many heads in their High School. Now in pink shorts and white T-shirt in the summer heat, preparing to throw and grinning like she was sure he was going to fail. She seemed to him like a snake, like a treacherous snake.

He had to win. He had to show her he could.

He swung with all his strength but was disappointed to find that the ball had flown past him.

"Strike Two."

He cursed inwardly, and saw the mischievous glow in her eyes, the fire in him grew hotter and he growled. She caught his look and her grin became even more wicked, and then her delicate pink lips moved very slowly, there was no sound but he could distinctly make out the words.

"Football Head."

He saw red, he was sure he was burning, his blood was boiling. How he hated her, how he passionately hated her. Screw the game, screw the score. He wanted to throw way this stupid bat, walk up to her, grab her and… he didn't know what to do with her! Shake her, ask her why she was doing this to him, what was she doing to him, demand answers. He didn't know what this fire was, he didn't know how to make it stop, how to cure the sickness inside him… But she knew she had to know! It was all her fault! She had done this to him!

He could show her though. He could mutter those words and see her crumble at his feet, play her game and win. The words were at the tip of his tongue, he didn't even have to say them out loud just mutter them like her, spare her the public humiliation, and it was more mercy that she had ever shown him anyway…

Say it! Say it! Say FTi, show her your power! The power she gave you! She never sees you, she never respects you but this… this will remind her of who you are!

But he couldn't. He couldn't do that to her. To use that, to break the illusion that that moment had never existed was to plunge himself into a dark cliff never knowing where he were going to land but certain he could never go back to where he had been before. There was something in that place that was restless and powerful, the heart of his disease, and he was scared… Scared of what he might become if he plunged that deep.

So he held his tongue and tried to convey his threat by his eyes alone.

Stop it Helga! Stop it or I will say it!

Her gaze sharpened as she prepared the killing blow. He felt his body tensing, his hands gripping the bat more tightly, his body burning, his blood singing. This time… this time he was going to win. He had to beat her this time, to ease the fire in him, to finally sleep without her tormenting his dreams.

She threw. He swung.

And the ball landed on the catcher's glove with a swing thump.

"Strike Three. You're out!"

The words took a while to sink in.

He lost… again.

He couldn't believe it. Why… oh why couldn't he ever win against her?

He walked away from the field, angry and miserable, lost in his thoughts and only snapped out of it when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to the face of his best friend, kind and full of sympathy but blind to the storm inside of him.

"That's alright man. You gave it your best shot and we have the advantage either way."

"Yeah, but I still would have liked to have scored some points."

Gerald didn't know, he couldn't tell him. It wasn't about the game, or the team it was about her. It was about showing her he could play and win and be the best. He had tried so hard to make her see and still he failed. He felt frustrated and empty as he saw Helga move on to her next victim.

Half an hour later the game ended, his team won but he lost.

"Ahem…"

Rhonda had rose to pitchers mould and had struck on her poses, chin high in the air, hand to her chest and looking at them with superiority, when she was sure she had everybody's attention she proceeded as thus:

"My fellow classmates, in honor of the start of summer vacation I am throwing my annual End of the School Year Bash next Saturday, party starts at 7 pm and ends at 2 am, I have reserved the ballroom at the Jasmine Country Club for the occasion, there will be food and a live DJ and of course you are all invited plus your dates."

There was a loud cheer and murmurs of excitement, Rhonda was famous for her extravagant and amazing parties and this would be no exception for sure. Rhonda, pleased with the reaction had taken a bow and gone her stately way with Nadine and Sheena in tow, planning the details of another fun filled evening.

He turned to Gerald whose attention was locked on a certain petite Asian girl, short and a bit mousy but cute and curvy but his eyes traveled to her companion whose eyes twinkled with amusement at Phoebe's babble and a teasing gentle smile, nothing like the ones she always showed him, flourished on her face as she graciously bended down in order to whisper something in Phoebe's ear that made the short girl blush terribly and give out a little squeal then take a short glance at the tall boy by his side. This action made Helga notice his gaze on her and she gave a pointed look that said clearly "what are you staring at" and turned her face away in contempt.

He felt the heat returning with a vengeance, if he had won she wouldn't treat him like that. If he could only win, just once…

He managed to smother the heat with difficulty it was getting harder and harder to take back control, to ignore the rushing of his blood and not to act upon his ravenous instincts.

He called Gerald's attention and the two said their goodbyes to their classmates and walked that well-known path from Gerald's Fields to his house.

"This is the year Arnold. This is the year I'm finally going to ask Phoebe to be my date to the party. You'll see my man, this year is going to be perfect."

"I still don't understand why you couldn't have asked her last year, or even to the Christmas Party a few months back."

Gerald shook his head in mock despair.

"Arnold, Arnold, Arnold… don't you see? It has to be perfect! Last year I didn't have a license, on Christmas Jamie-O didn't let me have the car or money for a decent gift. I'm serious about Phoebe; I want to sweep her off her feet, so it has to be perfect. This time I have it all, the car, money for flowers, and the new Pop Daddy cologne. It's perfect! Do you think she'll say yes?"

Arnold sighed, for two years Gerald and Phoebe had been dancing around each other, flirting, going on dates that they insisted weren't dates merely "friendly outings", sitting together at lunch gazing lovingly at each other's eyes until even he was ready to gag. Not to mention he and Helga were forced into closed proximity due to their best friend's closeness, something that often ended in arguments, passionate exchange of glares that went unnoticed in their love birds friends attention. It seemed that he and Helga could never agree about anything, even the most insignificant subject could turn into a fight about their entire way of living. Like a few weeks ago when during lunch Gerald had started the subject of the new English assignment for the a classic book, things had started out friendly enough until Helga expressed her utter antipathy for the main male character, for his stupidity in going after main female character and always complaining about her attitude towards him when she had given him a fair warning that she would never love him and had never showed any sort of preference for him over her other suitors. Inexplicably this caused his disease to start acting up and he lashed that if the main female character hadn't been so full of pride and vanity and had been honest with her true feelings she wouldn't have ended up in a loveless marriage, miserable and alone and could have been with a man that actually loved her. Helga had the argued that no means no, and that the hero should just have taken the hint and stopped his pathetic attempts to court the girl when they were obviously not wanted. This had escalated into a barely contained shouting match that ended with him growling at Helga that maybe if she really, really used her imagination maybe she could feel some empathy for the hero.

This had been the closest he had ever been to talk about the FTi incident ever. They booth stopped, too shocked to speak, Phoebe and Gerald were also looking at them curiously not understanding the veiled reference. He would never forget her reaction, her eyes locked with his, face pale, breathing raged, it had been a battle of wills. One of them would have to back down or to move forwards into the talk they had avoided like the bloody plague for eight years. But he couldn't say another word, he couldn't do that to them, he wasn't ready yet and she was obviously not ready to finally have that talk so, ignoring the voice telling him not to lose again, he backed down, sat and resumed eating his lunch and after a few seconds she followed his lead. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the lunch hour and when Gerald asked him what that had been about he couldn't answer.

"How about you? Are going to ask anyone?"

He looked into his best friend's face; he was trying hard to mask his interest. Gerald had taken an interest with his inexistent romantic life, and had proceeded to set him up with several girls, but his relationships never lasted long, the longest had been with Samantha, a sweet girl that worked as a volunteer in the Animal Shelter, she was beautiful, sweet, intelligent, had a great sense of humor and loved baseball, in short she had been perfect, absolutely perfect, so everybody had been shocked with the news of their breakup, especially shocked that he had broken up with her. He was known as the nice guy, honest, caring, the fact that he actually had broken a girl's heart had horrified everyone, when Gerald had confronted him he hadn't been able to explain the why, by all accounts Sam had been exactly his type and they had had loads of things in common, but he just couldn't feel any attraction towards her, something had been missing, What, he couldn't say.

He suspected it was somehow because of his disease.

Meaning his inability to have a real meaningful relationship was all Helga's fault.

"I don't know. Maybe I'll take Lila, you know as friends…"

Gerald sighed.

"Man you have to get out there! I mean there must be a girl in this town that will drive you crazy, you just have to try and find her…"

There already is…

"…and you'll never do that if you keep taking out Lila, unless you still like her like her?"

Arnold sent him a dry look at his mocking tone.

"You know that's not true Gerald. I'm just not interested in anyone at the moment."

Gerald sighed and turned silent as they opened the door of the Sunset Arms Boarding House to be greeted by the usual torrent of stray cats and Abner and by Pookie's maniac laugh.

"Kill the Empire!"

"Hey Grandma."

"Hello Coronel, have you triumphed over your enemy?"

Not really.

"Yes Grandma we won the game. Where's Grandpa?"

"He's in his office, don't interrupt him, he had raspberry cobbler for desert."

They climbed the steps, through the door of his Grandpa's "office" where they heard the lament of the poor old man who never learned to follow his own advice. Finally running to the door of his room in order to avoid the dishes being thrown by a furious Susie hopping to hit her deadbeat husband, Oscar, and locking the door behind them to avoid the chance that any of the members of his extended family could come in and "ask" them to perform chore after gulling chore.

"Well you better wise up man; soon you'll be the only one without a date."

"Lots of our classmates don't have girlfriends Gerald. Like Sid, Stinky or Eugene."

"Yeah but I doubt Eugene is looking for a girlfriend and Sid and Stinky still have burping contests in the cafeteria, compared to them you're a freaking Don Juan. You have to at least try Arnold, I mean even Helga…"

What?!

"What?!"

Everything stopped Gerald's talking, the noise of the boarding house, his heartbeat. It was like for a few seconds time had completely stopped, before the fire in his body rose so suddenly he almost doubled over in pain, his vision turned red. He had to have heard wrong, it was impossible Helga would never… had never… she wouldn't do that to him.

"Helga did what?"

He knew Gerald was looking at him weirdly, that his actions were strange and completely out of proportion but frankly right now he didn't care, he wasn't even taking the trouble of trying to hide his emotions. This was too important to bother with such things, if what he thought was true.

No… no it can't be…

Gerald seemed hesitant to continue but he realized that he wasn't just going to drop the subject.

"Well… Phoebe told that she's been feeling a bit lonely since Helga started seeing someone so she and I should spend more time together…"

The fire stopped, what was once a raging volcano was silent now an icy tundra taking its place. His whole body felt like it was trapped in ice, but he wasn't cold, the ice came from the inside, it wasn't painful like the fire it was calm and logic exactly like he should be acting all the time.

"Really Helga… a boyfriend? Who would have thought…? Did Phoebe tell you who he was?"

Gerald looked a bit scared right now, but everything was alright now he was just really, really cold and very, very curious at this mystery boyfriend Helga had all of the sudden.

"Nah. I don't think even she knew, I mean Helga's nuts and kind of a tomboy… who knows what type of guy she's into?"

You would be surprised.

"Maybe it's someone we know and they want to keep it a secret."

"Could be… wow I never thought to see the day Helga would go gaga over a guy and the guy actually would go gaga over her."

"Yeah… it really is something…"

"Arnold man, are you okay? You're acting weird. Don't tell me this bothers you?"

He laughed, but it was a sound foreigner to his own throat, so soulless and cold that Gerald felt goose bumps on his arms as the horrid sound travel through the air to fade away a few moments later.

"You're kidding right? Why should it bother me that Helga finally found someone crazy enough to date her?"

"I don't know man, but you're freaking me out."

Arnold shook his head trying to dispel the sickness in him.

"It's nothing Gerald; I'm just tired that's all."

The afternoon went by without any other incidents and soon enough Gerald had discussed his absolutely brilliant plan to win Phoebe over, completely unaware that Phoebe had been won over years before a thousand times, the only interruption being when the gong rang for dinner giving Arnold a temporary relief. Gerald was his best friend, practically his brother but there was only so much a guy could take before going completely mental, so he didn't really feel very sorry when Gerald went on his merry way home and we was finally alone with thoughts.

The ice was inside him still, the disease corrupting his body and mind with thought of her and that other guy she was apparently with. Imaginary images danced in his head of her and that shadowy figure, holding hands, sneaking out together, her confessing his love for him and forcefully kissing him on top of a roof…

He punched his pillow over and over again in furry, in cold furry so deeply buried underneath the ice that he didn't even recognized the reasons he was doing it, only that it had something to do with his sickness and that it was her fault, always, always her fault.

It's not fair! She's the one who started this, who confessed to you, who kissed you, she changed everything, she made me this way and yet she acts like nothing ever happen like it didn't matter. She moves forwards, going out with another guy doing god knows what with him and you can't because of her. She doesn't even care about what she's done to you. She's probably with that other guy right now, confessing her love for him, messing him up the same way she did to you.

It couldn't end this way, he wouldn't let it end this way, before she could run off with somebody else and leave him high and dry forever cursed with this fire and ice and emotional turmoil. He wasn't going to let her defeat him so fully, he had to win this game or else he would never have another moment of peace. This was the last straw, he wasn't going to let her do this to him, she was going to take responsibility for what she had done to him and cure him of this sickness. Even if he had to drag the answers out of her, he would finally end her sick little game.

This time he would be the winner.

And that's the end of the first chapter I hope you enjoyed my work and I would like to ask you to please comment on it, even if it's criticism as long as it constructive or even a single word saying if you liked it or not is welcome.

For those who think Arnold is a little off, first of all I love dark Arnold and second I think underneath all that nice boy routine Arnold is a really passionate guy, I also think that he and Helga compensate each other perfectly and that the same way Arnold brings out the good there is in Helga, Helga kind off brings out the darkness there is in Arnold, she is the only one he's kind off harsh with or that he actively search to get revenge on, so this story explores that theory. He feels very deeply for Helga but he doesn't want to feel that way for her and since he's a "nice guy" that is supposedly into "good, sweet girls" he does not understand that passion that he feels when he's with Helga.

I really hope you review or I don't know if I should continue this story or not.

Best wishes.