A/N: So, I have been writing Castle Fanfiction for about a year now (MjrMutation for those of you who watch Castle.), and have decided to take a stab at writing for Hey Arnold! Simply because it was and still is one of my favorite childhood cartoons, and as I watch the cartoon now that I'm grown up, and actually have a sense of whats going in the subtext and what not, I have a strong feeling that I can make this work.
I mean absolutely no offense to those writers who write for this small fandom, but most of the M rated stuff that I have read is written rather childeshly. There are how ever some great ones, but most of them follow the same plot line, with all of the same "twists and turns", that you have come to expect. And for those few of you who know my writing from Castle, you know that I hate to write things that people have written before. That being said, I have decided to take a write a story for Hey Arnold.
Summary: It's their senior year at Hillwood High, and the gangs time together is running short, but the love between Arnold and Helga is still unexplored, but when a new guy shows up to school one day, and seems to have his sights set on Helga, will Arnold finally go for it? Or is this new kid there for reasons completely different?
Disclaimer: Not mine, what am I doing wrong :(
"Hey Pheebs." Helga said, obviously still struggling to rid the sleep that she obviously had trouble getting the night before.
"Hey Helga. Rough night?" Phoebe asked, pulling her AP physics book from her locker and slipping it into her shoulder bag.
"Same as always." She replied. She slumped over to her locker next to her best friend's, and began to do the combination with her eyes half lidded, and her travel mug being hugged against her chest. Helga had traded (threatened) with a freshman to get a locker next to her best friend, and having it be on the top row was just an added bonus.
It was a week into their final year of high school, and they we're beginning to feel it. With some dreading going off to college and leaving the things that they had grown accustom to, while others were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement to finally be rid of it all. But Helga couldn't care less, really. It's just the way things went for her now. Her life had become rather dull as of late. Get up, take a shower, grab a power bar, steel Big Bob's coffee, go to school, suffer through the social ladder, come home, go to bed. She had little motivation, and change was hardly present in her life. Mariam still black out drunk most of the time, Bob always putting work ahead of everything else, she had accepted things as they were a long while ago.
"You look nice today, Helga." Phoebe quipped as she shut her locker. Helga's brow furrowed in confusion as she took in her appearance. She was in her usual denim jeans, converse sneakers, and pink polo T-shirt, with her blonde hair let down, mainly because she didn't feel like doing anything with it. She had long ago ditched her pink dress and matching bow, for something more comfortable, and more fitting with the 'modern woman', so to speak. She still had the bow, mostly for sentimental value, but still, she looked the same as always.
"Um, thanks Pheebs." She shut her locker after tossing her empty travel mug in, grabbing her composite notebook, and a pen.
"So, senior year!" Phoebe threw out as she swung around to lean against her locker.
"Yep, senior year..." Helga said while twirling a finger in the air. "Whoopdy freakin' doo."
"Aren't you excited? We are almost out of high school and onto college."
"Excited? I'm just glad that after June 12th, I'll never have to set foot in this dump again." Helga growled assuming the same position as Phoebe, with her back against her locker.
"What about..." Phoebe averted her worried gaze away from her friend and down the hall, where she could see her boyfriend and his best friend strolling in.
"Who? Football head?" Helga asked. Yes, Phoebe knew. The only reason she did was because in the seventh grade, she had come to Helga seeking advise about her own crush on Gerald. She wasn't surprised, to say the least. But it was still a shocker that Phoebe was asking for help on a relationship. And that's when Helga finally fessed up, all of it. Her massive crush, her total and undying love for Arnold, all of the books and notepads filled with heartfelt poems about him, and about them, some sad, some simply fantasizing a future together. Phoebe had sat down that night and read ever single one. She even showed her her locket, and about how she would sneak away during random times during each day to speak to it in a soft voice so no one would hear, she did however leave out the part about Brainy.
She had long since gotten rid of the shrine, reluctantly if she was being honest. She had decided to spare herself, and ditch her Fatal Attraction like obsession with the boy in the 8th grade. But, there was still a very special, and very big, part of her heart, that still belonged to him, and she still longed for the day when he would reach out and take it, and her along with it.
"Helga, this is our last year, and his. Don't you think you should tell him?" Phoebe said in a low tone, so no one would hear them.
"Tell him what? That I've been madly in love with him since I first saw him when I was three, and have been silently chasing after him for 14 years? Yeah, that should go over real well." She knew sneaking a glance at him would start a chain reaction that would be hard to snap herself out of, but she couldn't help it. She looked.
With a tender sigh that she kept to herself, she let her mind, imagination, and eyes wander. He had grown, and was now about six feet, give or take an inch or two depending on how unnoticeable she was trying to be. His hair had slumped down, and now breezed lightly in front of his forehead, but just above his eyes, and he still had that little hat of his. Today, he was wearing a pair of black denim jeans, black T-shirt, and a button-up plaid shirt that wasn't buttoned. He had stayed skinny over the years, but with his recent activities on the sports teams, she could still see the hidden layer of muscle that played under the thin fabric.
He was walking down the hall with Tall hair boy, clutching a text book in one hand, with the other buried in his pocket, his gaze averted to the ground. Gerald slapped him on the shoulder lightly, and began to jog their way. This, in turn, snapped her out of her daily day dream.
"How's it goin, ladies." He greeted while coming to a light stop in front of Phoebe. "Hey baby." He said to her, as he leaned down with a meek smile on his face to kiss her. Phoebe pushed up on her toes to return the gesture.
"Hey." Phoebe set back down and Helga could have been blinded by the gleam in her eyes, but instead, she simply rolled her eyes to herself, and looked down at her shoes.
"Oh, I got you something." Gerald swung his backpack around and unzipped it and pulled out a paper bag.
"Ooo, thank..." She peered into the bag and pulled out a half eaten chocolate muffin. "Gerald, this is half eaten."
"What? I didn't bite out of it, I used my hands." He replied with a smirk on his face. After being met with a hard glare, he continued. "You know, I could have eaten it all, but Arnold fed me an egg sandwich when I went to pick him up this morning."
"Well... I do like chocolate muffins." She said as she twirled from side to side and looking up at him over her thin glasses. "Thank you, baby." She kissed him again and he took the bag from her to throw away.
Gerald... well, he was Gerald. He was nice, funny, a great match for Pheebs since she was always working too hard on school work, and her extra activities, student council, tutoring, and taking a class at Hillwood University, she needed to be reminded to have fun, and Gerald, while maintaining a 3.7 GPA, was more about fun than anything else. And after being shoved against his locker one day after school, he admitted that if he ever hurt her, he would suffer for longer than he had left to live on this earth.
"How's it goin, Helga?" Gerald asked.
"Would have been better if you'd saved the other half of that muffin." Helga said, watching Phoebe pick at it with her fingers.
"You gotta start eating right, Pataki." That comment was enough to draw her attention, and not in the good way.
"You callin' me fat, Tall hair boy?!" She spat, lunging toward him.
"No! No, I'm just sick of you stealing me food when ever I come to see my girl at lunch, that's all." Gerald waved his hands in front of him in immediate surrender.
"Have you ever tasted stolen food? It's the best." Helga said leaning back against her locker.
He just shook his head. "Well, I gotta get goin. I'll see you at lunch, baby." He leaned back down to steal another kiss from Phoebe and then started down the hall as they watched him go.
"I don't know, Gerald. It's complicated." Arnold said as they rounded the corner of the hall.
"Complicated? What's so complicated about it? You like her, she likes you, why not let the bees buzz with the birds?"
"This is Helga we are talking about here. You know how she is."
"Arnold, you have been pining after Helga ever since little miss froo froo turned to the dark side. Now, this is our senior year, and our last. You need to take a shot while you still have the target in your sights, my man."
"But what if..."
"Ah!" Gerald yelped, interrupting him. "What did I tell you about 'what if's'?"
"Save them for chemistry class."
"Save them for chemistry class." They chanted in unison.
"Arnold, me and Pheebs have been goin strong for about two years now with no end in sight. And if it wasn't for her..." Gerald stopped them as they rounded the last corner, and pointed at the pair rummaging through their lockers, and indicating that he should look at Helga. "Then it wouldn't have happened. Now, Phoebe keeps beating me over the head with this whole 'get them together' thing. And honestly, I'm starting to see what she means."
"And what's that?" He said, not averting his gaze away from her. She was beautiful. She had grown, in all the perfect ways. Her hair hung low, but waved down in a soft tide that, even in the cheap lighting of this school, made it shimmer in a perfect way. Her unibrow had dissipated over a summer during middle school, and he was finally able to see the deep, baby blue that she had in her eyes. It wasn't often, but when she did laugh, really laugh, they would light up enough to eliminate the Mariana Trench. She had grown full breasts, but not enough to wear they were only thing you saw. And she would always wear pants that would hug against her shapely legs, whether she knew it or not. She was... perfect.
"That you guys fit. Don't ask me how, but it just seems like you guys work. Now, Homecoming is in a couple of weeks, and you," He shoved a finger into Arnold's chest. "Are going to ask her." He pointed the same finger to the girl now leaning against her locker with her slender arms crossed.
"Are you sure about this?" Arnold asked him.
"Have I ever steered you wrong?" After eyeing him intently, Gerald spoke up again. "Don't answer that. Look, I gotta give Phoebe this muffin before class, I'll see you later, bro."
"Yeah, later Gerald." Gerald smacked him lightly on the shoulder before jogging toward them.
With the coupling of Gerald and Phoebe at the beginning of sophomore year, Arnold knew that it was inevitable that him and Helga would grow closer, he just didn't know that it would go this slow.
Ever since Lila had entered high school, she had shed her 'ever so' sweet persona, and developed an evil, accusing way of only caring about how she was seen, and who she was seen with, and as a freshman, Arnold didn't make the cut. But once he reached his second year, and had grown used to the vastly different high school way, Lila had come back, batting her eye lashes, squeezing her boobs together, and puffing her shallow lips out to him. But by then, he wasn't interested.
Looking back on it now, he knew why.
Maybe Gerald was right. Maybe it isn't so complicated. Maybe he should just ask her, what's the big deal right? Just walk up to her, and say 'Hey Helga, will you go to Homecoming with me?'. Simply right? Just then, he saw her lung out toward Gerald in her tough, take no crap from anyone, persona. Oh yeah, that's why.
He looked down at his shoes, and went over to his locker.
If only, if only...
A/N: So, this is obviously my first fic for Hey Arnold. But I'm hoping that it will not be my last. I am mainly doing this because with Castle, I have to write the characters a certain way. And it bugs me. But with this. I am free to imagine how the characters grow up. And I have always loved Helga's character. It reminds me so much of Lois Lane from Smallville. So if you need a voice in your head for her, then use Erica Durance ;)
I would really appreciate REVIEWS!
~Major
