A/N: I don't own Hey Arnold! Craig Barlett and Nickolodeon do. If I did, it would be on the air until 'thy kingdom come'.

-Also don't own Kelly Clarkson's "Dark Side" (apparently I was targeted for the lyrics in my song by some group...ehhh the story seemed plain without them and here's my disclaimer)

-A random one-shot that came to me while the shuffle came on iTunes and this song came on.

There's a place that I know
It's not pretty there and few have ever gone

When he first sees her on that rainy sidewalk, it's her eyes that draw his attention. They look so haunted and so alone. In his young, innocent life, he's never seen anyone so sad. He wants to hold her, cherish her, comfort her. But he doesn't know how. So he starts by simply sheltering her and making her smile.

"I like your bow."

"Huh?"

"I like your bow cause its pink, like your pants."

If I show it to you now
Will it make you run away?

Arnold doesn't know what to say. The sad and pretty girl from outside, Helga, just changed! She started hurting Harold and stomping around the preschool, making all of their classmates cower in fear. Then she made fun of him. She called him FOOTBALL HEAD and made everyone laugh at him.

He thought she was so sweet. He wanted to be her friend.

Now he didn't know what to think about her at all.

Or will you stay
Even if it hurts
Even if I try to push you out
Will you return?

After he sees what Helga did for Phoebe when Sid, Stinky, and Harold tried to bully her, Arnold knows the truth. Helga has a good side. She takes care of her friends. She cares.

So for the next few years, he takes her assault, her verbal lashings and her cutting remarks. He takes it all because he knows that somewhere in Helga G. Pataki, there is a heart of gold.

"MOVE IT FOOTBALL HEAD!"

"Whatever you say, Helga, whatever you say."

And remind me who I really am
Please remind me who I really am

"Helga, why are you acting like this?"

"SHUT UP! You don't know me at all, Football Head!"

"I know you Helga! This isn't you! You're a good person."

Throughout the years, Arnold sees glimpses of sweet Helga. He sees the loneliness and sadness that she attempts to mask with fury. Yet, when she goes too far and can't handle herself, he's there. He reminds Helga of the sweet girl she is and could always be if she showed them.

Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?

On the FTI rooftop, everything changes. Gerald and Arnold are caught in the midst of a great battle to save the neighborhood. Arnold receives help from a mysterious Deep Voice, who was HELGA in disguise.

Arnold knew how much she stood to gain from the neighborhood's destruction. So he confronted her, wondering why she did so much for someone she claimed to hate. And then he learned the truth.

"You heard me, pal! I love you! Love you! Who else do you think has been stalking you night and day, building shrines to you in a closet, filling volumes of books with poems about you? I love you! Arnold, I've always loved you ever since I first laid eyes on your stupid football head. And from that moment- every moment since- I've lived and dreamed for you-Dreamed of the moment I could finally tell you of my secret feelings so I could grab you and kiss you and- oh, come here you big lug!"

Helga loved him, as in serious grown up love! Was that why she bullied him so much? Was she afraid of her feelings for him? But the most important question he didn't have the answer to just yet: Did he love her back?

Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it

Over the last few weeks, since Arnold's return to Hillwood, he witnessed the Helga he knew disappear. She'd become a shell of the former exuberant girl she was, avoiding him and the P.S 118 gang in the halls of Hillwood High. The only one she attached herself to was Phoebe, and that was merely due to the petite girl's persistence.

Arnold and Helga had been through so much together. She helped him save the neighborhood under the hands of Scheck. Even more, she got Arnold to San Lorenzo and she helped him realize his dreams of finding and saving his parents.

However, his density and inconsistency played a role in Helga's personality shift. He reduced Helga's confession of love and subsequent kiss to the "heat of the moment", saving them further embarrassment.

In the jungles of San Lorenzo, they shared a kiss, sparking mutual feelings in Arnold. They were together for a short time, but he took the coward's way out and ended it with her before remaining in San Lorenzo with his parents.

He didn't know what came of Helga during his absence as his letters to her went unanswered. He didn't know that she covered her body in layers to avoid discovery of the bruises caused by Big Bob's fists. He didn't know how many times she fainted because Miriam, in her drunken stupor, forgot to pack lunch or gave her something inedible. He didn't know how dark the dark side was for her and how broken she'd become.

One day, weeks after his return, he finally caught up with her near Mighty Pete. She looked beautiful, unibrow now shaped into two thin lines with her blonde hair tucked in a messy bun and dwarfed by her loose fitting jeans and t-shirt, but fragile, as if the slightest gust of wind could carry her away.

"Helga, why are you avoiding me?" he said, plopping down next to her.

She didn't answer, fearful that if she looked into those jade eyes one more time, she'd be enchanted by him again. And she couldn't afford to have him in her world.

Arnold grabbed her arms firmly to turn her attention to him. She flinched and cowered instinctively, as if waiting for an impending strike to come at any moment.

"Helga, what happend to you?" he whispered, seeing the purple, green and yellow markings marring the exposed skin of her stomach as she leans back.

She looks up into his eyes, tears glistening down her face. "I-I-I'm broken, Arnold. Sometimes, I wonder what shit I've done in my past lives to deserve this kind of torture. I'm un-fixable and unlovable! I wasn't born like an Olga, so apparently that means I was meant to be a punching bag and a PSA for malnourishment in America! They try and make I seem as if we have this picture perfect life, but they're fucking liars. Big Bob is a selfish, child abusing asshole and his wife is a miserable, shit-faced drunk. Welcome to my picture perfect life Arnold! We Patakis are a fucking KODAK moment, huh? Is this what you wanted to hear, Arnold? Is this what you wanted to fucking know?"

Arnold looks to her, shock marring his features. "What? I-I didn't...n-nobody said,.."

"That's because I don't want anybody to know. At least at home, I get to be around people I know. And there's only two years to college. I'd rather be where I'm comfortable with my friends...sorry friend. Who knows where I'd end up in foster care or whatever shit they put me through?"

Arnold looks to her, his eyes glistening. "We're friends too Helga! hell, the whole gang has your back! W-why didn't you tell me?"

"Because abusive fathers love giving their daughters money for international postage so they can rat them out to the ex-boyfriend who left them alone in her own personal hell! Yeah, that makes perfect fucking sense, Football Head! You know he'd burn your letters to me? At first, it was after I read them. At least I got the joy of seeing your name and reading what awesome adventures you got into with your folks. Then I'd write another letter that I'd never send. But then he caught on to the one thing that made me happy. So he'd get them before I could see, burn them, and spread the burning ashes over my cuts."

"Helga, I-"

"He never calls me Olga when he beats me though" she says in a small voice "He'll call me Olga every other second of the day but not when he hits. It's as if he knows he's in the presence of the useless one, the inferior one, the unlovable one."

Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?

Arnold turns her face to him gently and says "You're not useless, inferior or any of that crap you were saying. You're not broken, they are! Your parents are so fucked up that they forgot to realize how intelligent, creative and jaw-droppingly beautiful that you are. And they don't deserve to! You're not going back to that house! I swear, with everything I am, I will protect you Helga. I'll get my family and let them know because you're staying with me."

Helga looks at him and for the first time in a long time, she cracks a smile that brightens her entire face. "Arnold, thank you. You don't know what this means to me."

Arnold strokes her cheek carefully. "And one more thing? You're not unlovable. You have so much love inside you that I want to selfishly hold to to for myself. I love you Helga! I've loved you since we were kids and I came back for you." He stops to wipe fresh tears from Helga's face. "I love you even with this dark side, past the darkness of your life and the darkness that you're convinced is inside you."

"Why?"

"Because together, I make sure we make it through this darkness and into the light. Your dark side may be a part of you, but it isn't you. There is so much more to you, Helga."

Arnold brings his lips to hers and presses them together in a soft, tender kiss and places his forehead against hers.

"Don't run away from me anymore, Helga." he whispers against her lips.

"Just promise me you will stay."

"Always, Helga, always."