Beta's notes: Mr. Crane would love to thank his readers, both reviewers and lurkers. It's people like you who give him inspiration to continue (and believe me, I know what he has in store for this, so we desperately want him to continue)!
Helga Pataki gazed sadly at the white, fluffy clouds beyond the airplane window and sighed. Her thoughts, as usual, were of Arnold and their previous encounter. After telling her that he hated her, Arnold had struck Helga across the face when she prevented him from running out into the jungle to save his parents. She was merely trying to prevent him from getting killed! Still...it wasn't her place to get in his way and Helga couldn't help but feel at least partially responsible for her beloved's loss.
"Are you sure you're all right, Helga?" Edward Nigma's voice brought Helga away from her thoughts.
She looked at him, her brilliant blue eyes threatening to tear up at any moment, and nodded slowly. "I'll be okay once we get to Gotham. I just…." She lowered her head. "I just can't stop thinking about him."
He placed a gentle hand on the young woman's shoulder. "After what he did, he doesn't deserve to have someone so special thinking about him."
She shook her head. "He wasn't always like that." She looked up and a bitter smile came to her face as she recalled the memories of her time spent with her football-headed hero when they were still in the fourth grade. "He was so sweet, so gentle, so caring. He often spent most of his time helping people with their petty problems and worries. I'd always tease him, call him names…."
She chuckled fondly as memories of a time long past filled her mind. Memories of their first date, the first time they held hands, the first time they kissed, the first time Arnold told her that he loved her…had it all been a lie? No. They truly loved each other. Truly loved each other. It was a love so pure, so gentle, so passionate! Helga thought it would last for eternity, and in one terrible day, it had all come crashing down, but Helga still held on to the memory of the football-headed angel she fell in love with.
She sighed. "I know that kind little boy I fell in love with is still inside him. I know it, but after everything that's happened…." She tried her hardest to hold back the tears.
Edward squeezed her shoulder, and she managed a smile. "Perhaps you can help him rediscover that little boy?" he suggested.
She shook her head. "No…I couldn't…I couldn't look him in the eyes anymore. The way he looked at me…."
He tried to find the right words to comfort the young woman next to him but could not. He was still trying to solve the puzzle behind his own feelings for Helga Pataki. Their time in the jungle had caused the former super-villain to realize how similar the blue-eyed blonde was to himself. "Well, if you need a place to stay…."
She smiled. "Thanks, Eddie, but I still got a few dollars on me. I'll be fine."
He wanted to insist, but decided that Helga needed to deal with her problem on her own. There was an awkward pause, and he coughed into his fist to break the ice. "So," he began, "how do you think you're parents are going to take your supposed 'death'?"
She scoffed. "They'll probably go out to eat somewhere nice to celebrate. Miriam'll probably get shit-faced. I mean more-so than usual."
He just shook his head sadly. "Are your parents really that uncaring?"
The young blonde thought for a moment. "Y'know," she shook her head, "it's funny. They weren't really all that bad until after the Scarecrow fiasco."
"Really?" Edward queried, greatly interested.
"Yeah. I mean, not long after, my dad got caught in a car explosion and was in a coma for nearly a year. They had to do skin grafts, surgery, all that stuff. It cost us a FORTUNE! We…we had to file for bankruptcy." Helga flinched at the memory of those horrible few years. "Bob became…violent after that."
He placed a hand on the young woman's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm so sorry, Helga."
"It's okay. I had Arnold. He always made me feel better. He wanted to protect me, but there was nothing he could do about Bob or his abuse."
"You couldn't go to the police?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head. "There wasn't enough evidence. He was so…subtle about everything. So careful. He always made sure to do it where nobody could see, and he always used something that wouldn't leave bruises. He never used to be so smart."
He pondered for a moment. "What about your mother and sister?"
"I never saw him hit Miriam, but I do remember coming home one night, and she was acting strangely. At first, I thought it was just her 'smoothies' kicking in, but then I saw the gash on her head. She had a concussion."
"You think your father did it?"
She shot him an angry glare. "Of course he did! That motherfucker only gives a shit about himself! He's a goddamn monster."
"Okay, okay," he conceded, motioning with his hands.
Her face softened as she directed her gaze forward, then her eyes narrowed, and she clenched her shaking fists. "But the worst thing that bastard did…was what he did to my sister."
Edward was silent for a moment. "What happened, Helga?" he whispered.
She paused for a moment to fight back tears, but a few small drops managed to escape the confines of her eyelids. "I saw her that night…she was trying to hide it with make-up. She-" Helga's voice cracked, and she hesitated, trying to fight back the tears. Again she was unsuccessful.
"It's okay, Helga," he whispered soothingly, giving her shoulder another squeeze.
The trembling blonde took a deep breathe and let it out. "She had these…marks."
"Marks?" he repeated curiously.
"Yeah." She nodded. "These marks…on the outside of her lips." Edward tilted his head in confusion, raising an eyebrow. "It…it was like somebody bit her."
He leaned back and brought the side of his index finger to his lips, pondering the information he had received.
"But do you know what the weirdest thing was?" Helga asked, turning to face the detective next to her.
Nigma leaned forward anxiously. "No. Tell me."
"The weirdest thing is…whenever Arnold came around, it was like he was scared of him."
"Scared of him?"
"Yeah. He would leave the room every time Arnold showed up. He never allowed me to do anything or go anywhere. I'd have to sneak out and get screamed at or hit when I got home, but if I ever wanted to do something with Arnold…any time Arnold showed up to take me out on a date or something…he wouldn't say a word."
Edward slowly leaned back into his seat once more, processing this bit of news. "Interesting."
Helga sighed deeply. "After we broke up…after things with my father cooled down, and he wasn't so abusive to me anymore, Arnold decided to head for San Lorenzo to be with his parents."
"Your father just stopped abusing you?"
She just shrugged. "Yeah. He just quit all of the sudden. He was even a little affectionate sometimes."
"Too affectionate?"
"No." She dismissed the notion entirely. "It was like he was making a half-assed attempt to be a better father or something."
The older man let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed his temples. "None of this makes any sense."
She shrugged again, also at a loss. "I don't know either, and I don't care. It's in the past now. I never have to deal with it again." She directed her gaze back towards the clouds beyond, thoughts of Arnold still weighing painfully on her mind.
The traitor, back to wearing the black ski mask after his little chat with Ra's Al Ghul, trudged through the jungles of San Lorenzo towards the stolen cargo plane that would take him to his next destination. All had gone well with the Demon's Head during their meeting. It had taken quite a bit of provoking from him for Ra's not to execute him right then and there, but thanks to a heaping helping of C4 cleverly planted throughout Ghul's fortress, the old man began to see things his way. "Even better than expected," he said smugly to no one.
He so busy mentally patting himself on the back, he nearly tripped over another log and stumbled forward, almost running face-first into a tree. He quickly stopped himself and looked around, trying to determine exactly where he was in the thick, dense jungle. Suddenly, something caught his eye. Something shining in the trees.
"Hmm…?" The traitor walked closer to the object of his curiosity.
It was some kind of gold locket hanging from a tree branch. The mysterious masked individual reached out and grasped the locket, yanking it from its resting place. He turned it over, and his eyes widened as he gazed at the picture on the front of the locket.
"Helga, Helga, Helga," he sighed, shaking his head. "Thanks for the parting gift, sweetheart." The masked man grinned. "We'll be seeing each other REAL soon."
"So she's just lying there, on her bed with her hair down and her legs crossed."
Arnold sat in the gunner seat of Robin's Red Bird Mk2, relaying to the Boy Wonder the time he had snuck into Helga's room one night in order to leave a surprise present for her. Not expecting her to be there, he was more than surprised to find her standing in front of her window with a baseball bat, ready to wail on what she believed to be a late-night burglar. Upon learning that the intruder was actually her beloved Arnold, she teased him for several minutes before inviting him in. Afterwards, things had developed rather quickly.
"In one hand," he continued, "she's got the rope I used to get through her window; with the other, she's twirling a lock of her hair on her finger. Then she says, 'Come and get it.'"
"So what'd you do?" asked a very curious Tim Drake from the cock-pit of his personal aircraft.
"Well," Arnold continued hesitantly, "I didn't really know what to do. I kinda just stood there at first. She started talking about lip gloss and what kind of flavor I wanted. It was getting to be too much, so I asked her to stop."
"What?" a very disappointed Robin sighed from the pilot's chair. "Man, if Helga did something like that to me, I'd have brought it! I'm sorry, I know she's your girl, but…geez." The boy wonder shook his head and let out a long whistle.
"I was trying to be a gentleman, Robin."
"Hey, I'm a gentleman too, man, but, damn dude, there's a LIMIT! Sometimes you just gotta give the ladies what they want. Even if you're not entirely up for it yourself."
Arnold rolled his eyes. "We were ten years old at the time, Robin."
The Boy Wonder shrugged. "Well, it's not like she was going to throw you on the bed and have her way with you."
Arnold blushed furiously at that. He was a teenager now, and needless to say, thoughts of Helga Pataki in more…compromising positions…had become frequent visitors to his mind's eye.
"Tell me, Arnold." Robin's voice brought the fantasizing young man back from his private thoughts. "What do you really know about Helga Pataki?"
Arnold tilted his oddly-shaped head and lifted an eye-brow. "What do you mean? I've been around her since as far back as I can remember. There isn't much I don't know about Helga."
Robin pondered to himself for a minute, taking in all the little details he had gathered about the remarkable young woman during their time in San Lorenzo. "I'm guessing her parents don't pay her much attention, do they?"
Arnold - that inquisitive look still plastered on his face - nodded. "No. Not really, no."
"I'm also willing to bet that she has an older sibling who garners more affection and attention from her parents. Is that right?"
Arnold cocked his head a little more. "That's right…a sister."
With a prideful grin spreading across his face, Robin leaned back in his chair a bit. "Now I'm just gonna throw this one out there...she has a parent who's an addict; I'm gonna say…alcoholism would be my guess." The football-headed teen just sat there, staring in awe at his heroic counterpart. Robin looked back at him, and his smile widened. "Thought so."
Arnold just stared in stunned silence for a few minutes. "How…how did you know that?"
Robin shrugged. "Hey man, what can I say? I'm a detective, and a DAMN good one. I can tell a lot from a person by just being around them for a little while."
"Yeah, but," Arnold scratched his head, "how did you know that? What gave Helga away?"
Robin turned and flicked a couple of switches, putting the ship on auto-pilot. He then spun the chair around so that he could face Arnold and cupped his chin in his hand, thinking. "Well," he began, "for starters, there was the way she fought. She was outright deadly in combat. I mean, hell, she took on Talia Al Ghul without breaking a sweat! Plus, the way she carried herself. So smart, sassy, and independent." He trailed off into a half-lidded gaze as he thought about the feisty girl.
"Yeah," Arnold sighed. "She's quite a woman." The football-headed teen drifted off into his own thoughts of the teenage pigtailed blonde.
"Uh, anyway." Robin shook himself out of his thoughts, and upon hearing the other boy's voice, Arnold did the same. "This tells me that she's had to protect herself over the years, probably because no one else has ever been protective of her. That led to my theory about neglectful parents."
"And the successful older sibling?"
Robin leaned back in his chair and stretched. "Usually when two parents are neglectful, it's either because the child in question was an accident or because they pile all their attention onto another source. Honestly, it could have been anything: drugs, friends, work…anything. I took a gamble on that one."
"What about the alcoholic mom?"
"Well, like I said, neglect is usually due to an outside source. I figured either the mother or the father was possibly a user of some kind of drug. Usually, it's alcohol. Plus, Helga's rough-and-tumble attitude suggests bitterness about something. I just naturally assumed it had something to do with her parents. She's smart, but she's…," Robin paused, trying to think of a word to fit his opinion on this particular area of Helga Pataki's personality, "'different,' I guess...?"
Arnold chuckled softly. "Yeah, she is different. Not like other girls I've known in the past."
"Yeah, but that's what makes her so appealing," Robin pointed out.
"I agree," Arnold nodded, "but what does this have to do with anything? I mean, I'll give it to you, you know a LOT about her, but I'm not really sure I see a point to any of this."
"My point is," Robin began with an indignant huff, "all that girl's life, she never received any affection whatsoever from the people who should have shown it to her. Oh sure, I'm sure her sister was nice to her, and that's good, but where was she when Helga was being treated like shit by her parents? Where was she when her little sister felt like she had nobody in the world to turn to? Where was she when Helga TRULY needed a big sister?"
Arnold started to say something, but realized that there was no use. Robin was right about Helga's family, and truth be told, Arnold knew all too well just how much of a monster Big Bob Pataki could actually be.
"The fact is," the young vigilante continued, "Helga NEEDED you to show her affection. Both emotionally and physically. Sure, she may not have had sex on her mind - or maybe she did; I wouldn't put it past her - but the fact is, she just needed someone to hold her and tell her that everything was gonna be all right."
Arnold sighed dejectedly, lowering his head. "I guess I see what you mean."
"May I ask what happened between the two of you?"
Arnold sighed again as his eyes fell to the floor. "I tried to make things work with Helga. I really did, but she was so forceful…so miserable. She would always push me away and talk about how she was 'a monster,' and that she 'didn't deserve me'. It's so hard to love someone who just absolutely HATES themselves,and that's what I told her. She broke up with me after that." Robin shook his head, and Arnold shot him a look of desperation. "Did I do the right thing, Robin? What should I have done? What COULD I have done?"
Robin merely shrugged. "Arnold, I gotta tell ya, as much as I seem to know about women, I really don't know. You're asking the wrong guy, buddy. Helga Pataki is a mystery not even this guy can solve."
The green-eyed blond chuckled helplessly. "I don't think anybody can."
"Well, I dunno…my adopted father might have something to say about that."