A Pink Bow and a Blue Hat

PennyBlue

Arnold/Helga Ficlets and Musings


Ficlet #1: No Hope for the Hopeless

Main Characters: Helga POV/Arnold

Genre: Tragedy/Slightest AU

Summary: This is just a tiny ficlet on what I thought might have happened had Arnold never found his father's journal. Arnold loses all hope and Helga loses her love.

Seventeen years. Two months. Nine days. Twelve hours. Fifteen minutes.

Until you die.

Helga couldn't help but ponder over that time she counted down to the exact second before Arnold would get "beat up" by Harold when they were kids. It seemed fitting to sit there in the hospital waiting room counting exactly how long it took before his death actually happened. If she ever got the chance to travel back in time, maybe she could scream it at Arnold's mother as she was giving birth.

If only it was possible.

It wasn't.

Deciding to look up from her mental musing, what she found didn't surprise her at all. Arnold's grandparents, Phil and Gertie, seemed to have lost it. They were both screaming and crying at the unfortunate messenger of bad news; it was obvious that they were going to take the news hardest. Helga couldn't begin to imagine what it was like to outlive a son and a grandson.

Turning her head from the screaming couple, she noticed Gerald's reaction to the news. Phoebe, Helga's best friend and confidant, was currently attempting to calm Gerald down but to no avail. He was shaking in the petite girl's arms; holding onto her for dear life. Again, Helga understood that losing your best friend, especially a friend who has stuck by you since preschool, had to be hard.

Everyone else, the boarders, classmates, old friends, and even a few people she failed to recognize were all crying and holding on to one another.

So many people were crying.

Why wasn't she?

One theory to explain her current state of unfeeling was that maybe she was in shock from the sudden news. It's not every day that you find out that your former crush and friend dies suddenly in a collision, but that explanation didn't feel right to her. However, if anyone asked that would be the explanation she would feed them.

No. Helga knew exactly why she wasn't in or on the verge of tears; she was angry. Not even thirty minutes ago, the doctor walked into the cramped waiting room and said that he was in critical condition, but had a chance to pull through if he was strong enough. If he had had the will to live, he wouldn't be dead.

There is no hope for the hopeless.