(I'm trying to pace myself through this fanfic. I have two small boys and often I rush to finish my fics, which leaves me feeling not so happy with the endings :( )
..
They were both exhausted the next morning, and slept in. They had spent the night talking, Helga filling Arnold in on what everyone from P.S 118 had gotten up to after he had left, to the best of her knowledge. He told her all about what he had gotten up to, and filled her in on what had happened between him and his parents in more detail. Helga shook her head at times. It almost made her glad that her parents were so hands off.
He also confessed that he had had no love life in years.
"None?" she asked. He shook his head. "Why not?"
"Because my mother would stick her nose in," he said. "The last time I slept with a girl, just a one nighter, my mother actually got in touch with her. It was humiliating."
If Helga hadn't known how much this hurt him, she would have laughed. But he was so serious.
"She will have your social security number and everything, you know, once she finds out your Phoebe's Maid of Honour. Work history, credit history, everything, then she'll pass it all on to me, so if you have any secrets, let me know now," he told her.
"Are you serious?" she asked. He just nodded. 'Okay, weird.'
She had fallen asleep before he had, and he had just laid awake and watched her sleep. It was so nice being able to talk to someone who didn't judge, or just shrug it off. Gerald would sometimes say "I told you so," when he brought it up. Or would try to offer some other "wisdom". Or he would get the whole, "It's hard on them too," speech. Okay, yeah, it would have been. But there was a thing called ears, and he had a voice. It wasn't hard to listen. He fell asleep staring at her.
She woke up to find him facing her asleep. She smiled. A sliver of sunlight filtered in, and touched his hair. She reached out and touched a strand. They were so close. Running her hands through it, she noticed it was soft. She ran her knuckles down his cheek. His skin was smooth, but a bit dry. 'He needs to moisturise, or wear sunscreen,' she though sighing. She rolled onto her back. She should get up, and maybe look at getting some breakfast. But it was much too nice, this moment right here, right now. She stretched and yawned, then just laid there staring at the ceiling. She wondered how she looked right now. She had taken what minuscule makeup she had on off, but there was always the risk that some mascara had stayed on then rubbed in the night. She looked over at him again, then decided to get up and go to the bathroom. She inched over and placed her feet on the floor. Her slippers were on his side. Walking around she found, them, bent over to pick them up and looked up to see Arnold staring down the top of her nightie. He looked up at her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Bathroom," she replied, straightening up. He would have seen her breasts! Hanging there.
"Okay," he said, rolling over and seemingly going back to sleep.
Helga turned around and went to the bathroom. She felt relief looking in the mirror. She looked pretty good, if a little puffy around the eyes. 'That's what happens when you cry at night,' she chastised herself. She grabbed a towel, took a shower, then made her way back to her room. She should have brought some clothes to the bathroom with her.
…..
Arnold was laying in bed, eyes closed, picturing Helga naked. She wore nothing under her nightie.
"Ugh, this is not a good thing to think about," he said, rolling onto his back. "You've only been reacquainted for three days."
It was a nice wake up call, to roll over and see straight down her top. Thinking about it, about her, how warm and soft she was to snuggle next to, was making him hard.
"Cold shower, call Gerald, breakfast," he said, getting up. His arousal obvious, Helga chose the moment he was uncovered to walk in wrapped in a towel. Even though he was wearing pyjama pants, it was pretty obvious. Helga's cheeks went pink, but she chose to follow his lead and just pretend like she hadn't noticed.
For Arnold it didn't help. He looked away.
"I'll just leave you to get dressed," he said, getting up, red-faced.
"Yeah," she said, not looking at him. "See you at the table."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
Awkward silence.
"So I'll go now," he said.
"Okay."
"Helga, I want to fuck you-"
"What?"
"Thankyou! I want to thank you!" he yelled out, then raced out the door, leaving Helga wide eyed and on the verge of laughter.
Arnold meanwhile, entered his room and leaned against the wall. He had never felt so embarrassed. Well, yeah, he probably had, but never in his life had he said that to a girl. Never. What the hell happened? He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Then he heard his phone ringing. He walked over and picked it up off the bedside table.
Gerald.
"Hello?" he answered.
"What the fuck, man?" Gerald yelled down the phone. "I had to hear through Rhonda, who heard from Lila that you were not only in town, but on a date with Helga and getting engaged!?"
"I said it to get rid of her," he said. "She came over to be nosey."
"But you were on a date with Helga?" Gerald demanded. "Man, you only met up again like two days ago!"
"Three," Arnold said.
"Not the point!"
"Gerald-"
"No, no, do you have any idea how Phoebe is reacting to this," Gerald snapped. "Not only that, man, you were in town yesterday and you didn't even call! After being a day later than you said you would be!"
"I'm sorry," Arnold said. "What do you want me to say?"
"Just tell me nothing is going on with you and Helga," he said.
"Nothing is going on with me and Helga," Arnold said. "Trust me."
"Okay, thank you, I will inform Phoebe," Gerald said. Then he lowered his voice. "Just make sure Helga knows to say the same, okay?"
"Why wouldn't she, Gerald?" Arnold asked. "There's nothing going on."
"Uh-huh, and let's leave it that way, at least til Phoebe and I are in Hawaii," Gerald said. "Please. Two weeks, that's all I'm asking for. Two weeks. No drama."
"Alright, two weeks, no drama, no sex, no nothing," Arnold said, not willing to argue with Gerald.
"Hey, I didn't say no sex, man, that's just cruel," Gerald said. "I just mean don't let Phoebe find out."
….
Helga again ignored Phoebe's call. She didn't cut the call off, just left it to ring and go to answer phone. She looked up when Arnold came in.
"House to ourselves," Helga said, leaning on the table. "What's for breakfast?"
"Toast I guess," he mumbled.
"Let's not let a small slip up make things awkward, Arnold," she said, coming up close behind him and putting an hand on his arm. "Everything was going so well."
She felt him tense up, and inwardly sighed. 'Damn it!' she thought. 'Why?' Then she felt him relax, and turn toward her. She looked up. His eyes, his beautiful eyes. She didn't look away.
"Your right," he said. "I'm just really embarrassed."
Helga laughed.
"Yeah, well, it happens," she told him smiling. "It's nice having company at night, you know. Last time I had company it was Jessamyn and the boys in the bed watching Disney movies while their parents were staying at the hospital."
"Was it hard?" he asked finally. "Giving up your child?"
"Not really, not for me," she said. "I can't speak for anyone else whose ever given up a baby. Like I said, they kept me in her life. Most don't have that luxury."
"Of course," he said.
"It helps that I know the family," she said. "But still, even though I know she's safe and happy, they grow so fast. I can be gone for a couple of months, come back and she's walking and saying twenty words. The next visit a broken sentence. It's hard to keep up when your not there."
Arnold nodded. Is that how his parents felt?
"Who knows where she'll be the next time I'm there?" Helga asked. "I'll be there for her ninth birthday. She's into Princess High dolls. Last year she was into arts and crafts and jewellery. But by her birthday, she may like something completely different."
"Do you sympathize with my parents?" he asked.
"To a degree, but not a very high one," Helga said. "I can kind of understand the lack of parenting skills, because they haven't had to be parents, and that wasn't top of their priority. They were focused on something else. Then to switch onto parent mode for a teenager, when they hadn't gone through the toddler and childhood phase would have been difficult. Sometimes even I find it hard to deal with Jessamyn, and I still see her regularly. And I know mothers who struggle with the kids they see everyday."
"Do you think I was too hard on them?" he asked.
"I think they were out of line in many areas, especially in meddling in your relationships," Helga said. "I can tell you right now, your mother ever pulls that stunt with me and I'll tell her where to go and what to do when she gets there. I wont put up with it."
"Fair enough," he said. Hearing knocking at the front door, Helga went to answer it. Opening the door she found Phoebe standing there, glaring sightly.
"You were supposed to be staying with me," she said. "What are you doing here?"
"Staying here?" she said casually. Phoebe grabbed her arm.
"Oh no, you don't," Phoebe hissed. She pulled Helga out the door. "What are you playing at, Helga? Staying with Arnold?"
"I didn't want to get in your way," Helga snapped. "Now let go of me. Geez, what the hell is your problem?"
"I don't like this Helga," she said, looking past her and at the boarding house door.
"What's the problem, Phoebe?" Helga asked, getting annoyed. Arnolds words came back to her in regards to what Phoebe had said to him. "And why were telling him to stay away from me?"
"I said to be careful," she said.
"Look, Phoebe, your three weeks from getting married," Helga said. "Nothing is happening. I'm staying here. That's all."
"Then what's this I hear about dates and engagements?" Phoebe asked.
"Okay, now your just insulting yourself, Phoebe," Helga said. "Look, Lila came to snoop, Arnold lied, and she walked away and blabbed misinformation to everyone. We just met up three days ago, Pheebs. How stressed out are you?"
Phoebe sighed, and sat down on the steps.
"Too stressed," she admitted. "It's like, just when I think everything is done, something else pops up."
"Are you deflecting?" Helga asked, sitting down next to her, delighted that she was so easily able to change the topic of conversation.
"Are you?" Phoebe countered.
"Maybe," she said, leaning back and tilting her face to the morning sun.
"You know, Olga is still living with your parents, right?" Phoebe said. "She asked if you were going to be coming. I told her I didn't know."
"Well then, me being here is a good thing then, isn't it?" Helga said. "You wont be lying when you say I'm not staying with you. And she wont look for me here, surely."
"Are you ever going to talk to them again?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Olga, maybe, my dad I already do, but Miriam? I'm not so sure."
"Fair enough," Phoebe said, looking at her hands. "We have dress fittings next week. Then again two days before the wedding."
"Colour?"
"Baby blue," Phoebe told her. "Are you alright with that?"
"Fine," Helga said. "Makeup? Are we doing our own or having someone do it for us?"
"Stylist," Phoebe told her.
"And who's going to be my fellow maids?"
"No one, just you," she said.
"Really?"
"Yeah," Phoebe said. "I didn't really want too many. It's very small and intimate, not big and elaborate."
"Sounds nice," Helga said, smiling.
….
"How bad was it?" Arnold asked, as Helga entered the kitchen alone.
"She's stressed," Helga said. "I think she's trying to find something else to worry about, so decided to settle on me."
"Okay," he said. He placed a cup of coffee in front of her. "If you had to do this place up for sale, what would you go for?"
"Me?" Helga asked.
"Yeah," he said. "What would you do?"
Helga thought about it but really couldn't come up with an answer. She only knew the layout of the bottom floor, and inside the walls and between the floors, the bathroom upstairs, and Arnold's old bedroom . . .
"Uh, not sure, where do you want to start?" she said.
"The beginning," he said. "The entrance."
…..
"What's under the wallpaper?" Helga asked, running her hands over it.
"Wood I think," Arnold said, looking up from his computer.
"Good wood? Bad wood?" Helga asked, itching to tear a piece off and look underneath.
"I don't know, Helga, have a look, I wan to take it off anyway," Arnold said, watching her. He saw her frown, then sigh, then use her fingernail to pick a piece off. He was feeling the butterflies again, but lower than his stomach, 'Stop it!' he yelled to himself. He looked back down at the computer, then back up. She was stretching a little high, and her shirt rod up a bit. He could see a few silvery lines on her stomach. 'Scars?' he wondered. 'Stretch marks, probably,' another voice said in his head. Did they hurt?
"Well, it's wood alright, looks like ," Helga said. "But don't quote me on that."
Arnold nodded. "May as well keep going."
He got up and together they started to remove what they could of the wallpaper.
"We need something to get the remnants off," Helga said.
"I'll see what's in the basement," Arnold said, taking off down the stairs. It smelt damp. It still had a lot of things stored down there. 'We should go through all this stuff, maybe have a yard sale or something,' Arnold thought, making his way through it all, to the wall that had a shelving unit his grandpa had always kept tools on. He searched til he found what he was looking for, then went to leave when a box caught his eye.
ARNOLD'S.
He frowned then walked over to it. It wasn't massive, but was still pretty big. He put the gear down and lifted the box. It wasn't too heavy either. Stacking his materials on top of the box, he lifted it all up and made his way back upstairs. He felt some of the weight lift, as Helga grabbed some things off the top.
"A box?" she asked.
"With my name on it," he said.
"Ooooh, what's in it?" she asked, sounding excited. "Baby pictures? Old paintings?"
Arnold placed the box on the floor, then the blade of a scraper, sliced through the tape holding the box closed.
"I hope whatever's in there isn't damaged," she said quietly.
"Same," Arnold said, opening it up. There was some old paintings Arnold had done in grade school, and some old books.
"Wow, your grandparents kept all this?" she asked, a wistful tone to her voice.
"I guess so," he said. It had some stuff from his old room that he must have left behind. Old class photo's.
"Oh, God!" Helga said, seeing that she was in each of them, glaring out at the camera. "Burn it, Arnold, burn it!" Arnold laughed and just set them aside.
Then he found a small velvety box, like the kind you put jewellery in. when he opened it he saw three rings sitting in it.
Arnold,
Here's mine and your grandmas wedding rings, and her engagement ring. Leaving them to you to share with your lovely lady friend. You know, the grumpy one with the one eyebrow hahaha, I'm a wiley old coot.
Grandpa.
Arnold looked up at Helga quickly, seeing she was still looking through some old photo's. he closed the box, and put it in his pocket.
'How did Grandpa know we'd see each other again?'
They got to work, stripping the wallpaper off the wall. Susie came home and asked what was happening.
"Redecorating," Arnold said. Helga gave her a smile.
"Okay," she said, closing the door behind her and making her way into the kitchen. "Do you guys want dinner?"
"It's cool," Arnold said, "We'll get something later."
"Well, alright then," Susie said, walking away and leaving them to it. When Oskar got home he moaned. Arnold and Helga ignored him.
A couple of hours later they stopped. Arnold sat down, while Helga admired their hard work.
"It's nice wood," Helga said, running her hand over it. "Glossy it up a bit and voila! I think wood is a much warmer colour than any paint could be, don't you?" She looked back at Arnold. He was sitting down, back against the wall, watching her intently.
"Stop looking at my butt," she said, laughing.
"Can't help it, it's a nice butt," he said, smiling.
"Yeah, it is," she said proudly, giving it a quick slap.
'Lucky hand,' he thought, watching he move over to him to sit down.
"Pizza?" she asked.
"Pizza," Arnold confirmed, getting up and going to the phone to order. Helga watched him go, butterflies in her stomach. She looked down at her hands. She needed a distraction.
"I'm gonna go wash up," she said, standing up and stretching. She made her way to her room and grabbed her clothes and a towel, then went to the bathroom. Turning on the shower she waited for it to heat up, thinking about how she had spent the day. The wall the length of the entrance staircase was clear. When it was hot enough she hopped in, closing the curtain behind her. She spent most of it thinking of Arnold. His small slip up this morning kept playing in her mind. She laughed again a little at it.
"Oh, Arnold," she said quietly. "So clumsy and clutzy, and yet, so charming and sweet." As she finished and opened the curtain she heard a knock on the door.
"Helga," she heard him call through the door. She wrapped herself in a towel and walked over to the door, opening it.
"Yeah?" she asked. She delighted in the way his cheeks turned pink, and his eyes a little wider.
"Uh, the pizza…" he said, licking his lips and looking away.
"The pizza . . ." she encouraged. Oh boy, was she having fun with this!
"Soon. It come," he said. Then he shook his head. "I mean it's coming soon."
"Okay, I'll get dressed and wait for it while you shower then, okay," she told him, deliberately brushing past him on her way out. "See you soon."
…..
'She did that on purpose' he thought, making his way to the shower. She had left it running for him. He stripped off and hopped in, enjoying the tingly sensation of the hot water running over his body. It felt delightful. As he grabbed the shampoo, he realised that it wasn't his. It was Helga's.
'Fructus' he read. 'What is it with girls a fruit in their hair?' he wondered, as he looked outside the bath for his shampoo. As he looked he settled on the clothes she had left on the floor. He shook his head, then hopped out, scooping them up to dump in the laundry basket, when her panties fell from the bunch. There wasn't much to them, and he couldn't imagine they covered much. He blushed again, thinking of her denim clad ass bare. He dropped her clothes in the basket, threw her panties in there, resisting some weird urge to smell them - 'What is wrong with me!' - then located his own shampoo and continued with his shower.
When he was done, he realised he hadn't grabbed a towel.
"Shit," he cursed. What was he going to do? He could hurry to his room nude, and hope no one saw him. But he could hear Oskar nearby moaning about something. Help. He could call Help. Going to the door he opened it and called out to Oskar.
"He's too busy complaining about not being able to find the remote," he heard Helga say, coming up the stirs, holding a towel out to him with a smirk. "Forget something?"
"Thanks Helga," he said, reaching for it. He didn't know how it happened, but the door suddenly came off the hinges and he fell down on top of it.
"Arrgh!" Helga shouted, jumping backwards. "Oh my God, Arnold, are you okay?"
Arnold heard her trying not to laugh and looked up to see her standing there, smiling and biting her lip. Again, Arnold felt embarrassed. There he was, wet and naked, lying on the bathroom door on the floor. Helga placed the towel over the lower half of his body, then helped him up, promising not to look.
But she totally snuck a peek.
"By the way, the pizza's here."