Notes: I'm going to preface this by saying that chaptered fic is new to me, I'm usually far too lazy to write anything, let alone something lengthy. However, I really intend on sticking with this one. This will be using a writing prompt list from Tumblr, though it certainly won't be happening in just 30 days. Each "chapter" will be able to work alone as its own mini fic, but they will flow together in the same universe, so it's a nice compromise for me. Each chapter will also be accompanied by my own artwork, since I need to get back into drawing as well.

This will focus heavily on Arnold/Helga, though other characters will certainly make appearances. I have only a rough idea of where I want it to go, so I'm not even sure what an appropriate summary will be. We'll find out together, I suppose. Anyway, enjoy!

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Craig Bartlett/Nickelodeon.

...

"Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love."
- Mother Teresa

...

Beginning.

A crisp, autumn breeze made its way through the streets of Hillwood as the city slowly awoke for a lazy Sunday. The streets were quiet, and Arnold hunched his shoulders as he walked, hoping he wasn't too early. He had a restless night and gave up on sleep hours earlier, thoughts that were pushing and shoving around his mind making it impossible to relax. The previous two weeks were a whirlwind, so much so that he could barely distinguish one day from the next - but, he figured that was to be expected of squishing nine years' worth of catching up into as little time as possible. Having his parents back... it was like living an entirely new life. He often felt like he was standing outside of himself, watching a dream of what could have been... only that wasn't what it was, not anymore. It was finally real.

So real that he hadn't done much else, or talked to any of his friends, since they all returned from San Lorenzo. It was this realization that kept him up all night, and the reason he was now walking down the street at seven in the morning, shivering as he tried to shove his hands further into his coat pockets.

I hope things aren't awkward, he thought to himself as he came upon his destination. He looked warily up at the blue brownstone, searching for movement in one of the upstairs windows. And I hope I don't get punched today.

After briefly considering turning around (after all, it was early and he could always come back... at some point), he took a deep breath and ascended the steps in front of him. As he raised his finger to the doorbell, though, a crash from inside caused him to pause.

"Criminy, Miriam! The shelf again?!"

Maybe this is a bad time.

"I'm sorry, B, it's just - I, oh, what was it I was looking for? Oh, that's right - I just don't know how the tabasco sauce keeps ending up all the way up there!"

"Do you think I give a rat's ass about your tabasco sauce, Miriam? You just broke a dozen plates that I'm going to have to pay to replace now!"

"Well." Arnold heard Mrs. Pataki make a distinct sound of annoyance and again wondered if he should come back later. "Maybe if you fixed the shelf better this wouldn't keep happening, B! Now just - I'll clean it up later - now where is... oh good! The tabasco didn't break..."

Big Bob's swearing was soon drowned out by the sound of a blender. Arnold took a step back, but then reminded himself that this was normal for them. There probably wouldn't be a better time, if he kept waiting for a moment of peace and quiet. So, with another deep breath, he rang the doorbell.

The grumbling and heavy footsteps of a large, angry man grew louder, but before Arnold could decide to make a run for it, Mr. Pataki yanked the front door open and glared out into the street. "Who the hell is coming here at this -" he looked down and noticed Arnold, who smiled sheepishly. "Oh it's you. Alfred. What do you want?"

"I, uh, I was wondering if I could talk to... Helga," Arnold said, wilting under Big Bob's glare. How was it that this man seemed infinitely scarier now, when he'd never found him at all intimidating before?

Well I did kiss his daughter.

Big Bob rolled his eyes and turned toward the stairs. "HEY OLGA, YOUR WEIRD FRIEND IS HERE!"

"It's Helga, Bob!" she responded, and though he couldn't see her, Arnold's stomach still flipped unceremoniously. He felt sick with nerves, but his heart was racing in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant. "For cripes sake, how many times do I have to-" As she rounded the corner and began to descend the staircase, she caught sight of Arnold and stopped dead. "Arnold?!"

Bob rolled his eyes. "Yeesh," he muttered before he walked away.

Arnold cleared his throat and gave an awkward wave, watching as Helga had some sort of internal battle over whether or not to run back to her room. He could see why - on top of their uncomfortable situation, she was still in her pajamas and looking disheveled. He figured she wasn't expecting her 'weird friend' to be him, but he thought she looked kind of cute like this.

Finally, she continued down the stairs, putting on a sufficiently grumpy expression as she went. "What are you doing here, football head? It's like not even breakfast time."

"I couldn't sleep, I guess. Uh..." he trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn't exactly want to jump right into his reason for being here while her parents were in the next room, even if they weren't likely to be listening in. "Could we maybe talk outside?"

Her eyes narrowed, and for a second he thought she'd say no. He wouldn't blame her, really, but he still exhaled in relief when she grabbed her coat off of the set of hooks by the door. "Fine," she mumbled, bending over to slip her shoes on.

Once outside, they looked everywhere but at each other and stood in silence for what, at least in Arnold's opinion, felt like forever.

"So..." Helga started, trailing off and letting the word sit there for a moment.

He looked over at her, smiling as he watched her scuff her shoe against the stoop, shoulders slouched in a coat that was too big for her. "Sorry I've been kind of... gone, since we got back from the trip," he began, deciding beating around the bush with small talk wasn't the best course of action.

"Don't apologize, Arnold, you've been hanging out with your parents," she replied, looking at him with seemingly genuine surprise. "Of course you'd want to spend every waking moment with them."

"Oh," he said, blinking stupidly. "Uh. Well, yeah, that's... what I've been doing, obviously. I thought you might be mad, though, since... well. I just didn't want you to think I'm ignoring you or anything."

She shrugged and looked out at the street. "Well, even if you were, I wouldn't blame you. You have a lot going on right now."

"Yeah..." Had she decided to pretend nothing happened without telling him? They never agreed to do that, at least not this time.

"So how is it?" she asked, gesturing to the air. "Having real parents, I mean."

"Amazing," he gushed, unable to stop himself from grinning. "This is the first time I've been anywhere without them since we got back... we've just been telling each other about our lives. We have a lot of catching up to do... it's been... really great. Really, really great."

"I'm happy for you, hair boy."

"Yeah and this is the first time I've been able to celebrate my birthday with them since I was one. Just having them there was the best present ever, you know? They're really great," he said sincerely, blushing. Kids his age weren't supposed to go on about how great their parents are, after all, but he figured he was an obvious exception, considering the circumstances.

"Oh right - happy birthday," Helga said, acting as though this was news to her (though Arnold had an inkling she knew when his birthday was). "The big eleven, huh? So how does it feel being the oldest kid in the fifth grade next to Harold? Maybe you'll even have a growth spurt one of these days, lord knows you need one-"

"Helga," he warned, though her teasing didn't bother him so much as the fact that she was trying to deflect the whole conversation with it. He wondered why he'd never noticed before that her teasing was often a simple, and effective, way of distracting people from whatever it was she was really thinking. It seemed so obvious now.

"Sorry. I meant... that's great. I really am happy for you, no sarcasm, I swear on my life."

"They really liked you, you know. They thought you were pretty amazing back in San Lorenzo," he added, his blush deepening in color. "Which, you were."

"Well, I'm a pretty amazing person, Arnoldo," she said, nonchalant like usual, and he wondered how she could act so cool when there was so much they weren't saying.

"I was thinking... maybe you'd want to spend the day with us today. They've been asking about you and we haven't really hung out since... and you know, if you want to."

"Do you want me to?"

"I-I... yeah, I do."

"You're not just talking to me because your parents wanted you to?"

"Of course not! Helga, I..." Beginning to feel frustrated, he took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. He wondered if she was doing this on purpose. But he had come here to talk to her about this exact issue, so he couldn't expect her to broach the subject first, not really. Though it would've helped him out if she did.

"I meant the things I said in the jungle," he spoke out firmly, standing up straight and dropping his arms to his side. "And I don't want to play it off like it was the heat of the moment, or it didn't matter. If you want to pretend... fine, but I... I don't. That's really what I came here to say."

She looked at him for a long moment, chewing her lip and looking like she was moments away from having a panic attack. He took a step forward, worried, but she backed away from him. "I don't really know what to say, Arnold," she said faintly.

"Say you don't want to pretend either," he suggested hopefully. "You believed me right?"

"I... figured it was a near death experience fluke or something."

"It wasn't."

"But why? Why me? Why now? After everything I've done..."

"That's just it, Helga. After everything you've done, this is how I feel. You've done a lot of stuff, but not all of it was bad. You bug me a lot. All the time, actually," he said, and grinned when she scowled at him. "But I guess that stuff just doesn't seem that important anymore, when I think about all the other stuff, and how you just pretend to be a jerk. You're really not, at all."

"I don't know about that."

"Maybe a little, fine. But mostly you're not. And I've done a lot of thinking since that day on the FTI building, even though we agreed to ignore it. I still thought about it, and it made me rethink a lot of what we've been through, and things just... my perspective changed, I guess. Everything made a lot more sense. And it made me realize that somewhere along the line we became friends, and then somewhere further on down the line we became... something else. And everything you did for me and my parents in San Lorenzo just... made it even clearer."

"...And?" she asked, looking almost shy. It reminded him of dreams he'd had of her, dreams that always seemed to stick with him, and it was the same look that mysterious Valentine's girl wore when... Oh.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and it did nothing to calm his racing heart. In fact, it made it worse. She was still looking at him, though, and he could tell she wanted more, but now his face felt so hot he was sure it was melting off.

"Well... I... I'm glad I kissed you. It was nice," he finally choked out, rubbing the back of his neck again. It was excessively hard to maintain eye contact with her. "And I guess I like you like you, I don't just like you. I don't even think you're just okay anymore. It sounded less crazy when we thought we were going to die in that hole, but I... maybe I do love you. Or at least, I really really like you, and wouldn't mind... holding your hand and... stuff. "

Bashfully, he looked at her, and was surprised to see that she looked like she was going to cry. When he thought about it, though, he supposed this must be an even bigger deal for her than it was for him. From how she'd made it sound, she felt this way for about a million times longer than he had.

Finally she seemed to snap out of her thoughts and before he knew what was happening she had him by the shoulders. "You have no idea how long I've been dreaming of hearing you say that," she said dramatically, her grin almost maniacal.

Suddenly Arnold realized he really had no idea what he was getting himself into - Helga's determination and passion were both admirable qualities, but they were also really scary sometimes. But when she yanked him forward and pressed their lips together, shamelessly on her front stoop, his fear was quickly replaced by a much more pleasant feeling that made his heart skip a beat.

It didn't last long, though - someone across the street hooted at them, and the moment was broken as soon as it began. She let go of him and they both laughed nervously, turning to see Harvey the mailman waving and chuckling.

"So... about hanging out today..." Arnold said after a moment, blushing furiously.

He was glad to see Helga's face was quite red too, but she managed to keep her cool as she lightly punched his shoulder. "Sure, it's a date, bucko."

"Alright, I'll just wait here then while you uh, get dressed."

She looked down at herself, apparently having completely forgotten she was in her pajamas, and her face reddened even more. "Right. I'll be right back."

"Should I tell your mom and dad where we're going?"

"Nah, screw it, they won't even notice I'm gone," she answered, in that way that made it sound unimportant but underneath there was a definite, but almost imperceptible, layer of hurt. Now that he knew what it was like to have his parents, his heart went out to her even more - she had them, sure, but she still didn't know what it was like to have a happy family.

He wanted to reach out and squeeze her hand, but instead he just nodded and walked down the steps. He turned to look back at her on the sidewalk, stomach churning pleasantly when she smiled at him just before flinging open the door and disappearing inside. As the door shut behind her, he could have sworn he heard a wistful sigh.

When she came back outside a few minutes later, wearing her standard pink dress and her too-big coat, Arnold threw caution to the wind and actually did take her hand as they began to walk down the sidewalk.

"You know..." he began, a smirk playing on his lips. Now he wanted to see how much he could get out of her, how many secrets she had beyond pretending to be Cecile. "Since we agreed to not talk about the FTI building thing before, I never got a chance to ask... all that stuff you said about poems and shrines-"

"Can it, football head," Helga shot back, glancing sideways at him and blushing. "Just because we're holding hands doesn't mean I can't still sock you. That was just... that was definitely just the heat of the moment, of course there aren't any shrines. That would be crazy!"

"Whatever you say, Helga."