Welcome Home, Helga Pataki

Summary: At the end of the fifth grade, Helga moved to Italy with her family. Six years have passed and she is coming back to join her fellow PS 118 peers, but six years can really change a person.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold!

Chapter Four

This Afternoon After School…

Arnold's feelings hit an all-time low when the news of Helga's return only seemed to get worse. Sid reported to him that she had already been approached by Bud, the captain of the football team. The conversation between them ended with Helga punching him in the arm and walking off, but Bud liked it and is determined that by the first game of the year he was going to have Helga as his girlfriend. Gerald had similar news to report when they were beginning to skateboard home together.

"She has only been back one day and she's already been asked out by like fifteen guys," Gerald said, stopping at an intersection and Arnold rolled up to him. "Of course, she yelled at them to leave her alone and punched two of them in face when they kept following her around."

"Her looks completely changed but it seems like her personality is still in tact," Arnold replied, smiling a little, the first smile of the day.

"What about you man? You ditched me at lunch and I totally got the brush off from her. Practically every girl in my gym class asked me why you two weren't together already," Gerald said as they rolled through the intersection towards the boarding house.

"Every time I see her I totally freeze up. I don't really know what I was expecting, dude. I guess six years really does change a person," Arnold said, sighing a little as they reached the boarding house. Gerald and Arnold parted as Arnold climbed the stairs to the front door. Just as he was reaching up to grab the doorknob someone called his name.

"Hey, Arnold!"

The familiar sound of the way she said it brought back the memories he thought he had long forgotten. He turned around to see Helga Pataki sitting across the street in a red Mustang, waving at him. He descended the stairs, leaving his skateboard on the stoop.

"N-Nice car," he stuttered, looking at the car, "Really c-cool."

"Daddy bought it for me while we were in Paris," Helga replied, looking at the steering wheel. "After beepers were beginning to become extinct, Daddy decided to take up with the cell phone contracts and now were doing better than ever."

"I-I can see that," he managed and this time she looked annoyed. She was not getting very satisfying replies from him and four word answers were getting a little annoying.

"Come on, I'll give you a ride," she said, unlocking the passenger side door. He hesitated, but with another glare from Helga, meaning that she was serious, he nodded and hurried to the other side. Helga took off once he was strapped in and he looked sideways at her.

"So… what's going on?" he asked, not sure what else to really say.

"You lost your head," Helga said, getting on the highway.

"Huh?"

"Your head. Now I can't call you football head," she replied, stealing a glance before looking at the road.

"Yeah… I got a new one by the time eighth grade was over," Arnold replied, getting a little chuckle out of Helga. Even her laugh was different, it seemed. He looked out of his window to try and stop himself from staring at her. Her dress seemed to get shorter when she was sitting and her long legs were well within his per-view.

"You know, I was really surprised to see that this place hadn't changed too terribly much. I mean, there are some places that have closed up, and some new buildings I had never seen before, but not really anything too dramatic," Helga said, now making small talk as they pulled off into a nicer neighborhood, the place Helga now resided in. Her old building had been torn down three years before to make room for a high rise.

"Why did you come back?" Arnold asked suddenly and Helga pulled in front of a really nice house and parked.

"Dad's business is doing great and Olga's already married and living in Berlin, Mom was getting tired of Europe, so we all decided to just move back for the rest of my schooling," Helga said simply, opening the door and stepping out. Arnold followed in silence and looked at the huge new house. It was a part of a development that had started four years before and he had seen the house appearing after two of those four. The houses were nice and really big. Helga walked up to the front door and opened it.

"I'm home!" she called as she entered the front door and Arnold looked at a two story high ceiling and tons of boxes.

"Welcome home, sweetie!" came a call, Mrs. Pataki in the kitchen, cooking. The entire house seemed half unpacked, since there was furniture still covered, boxes in every room and half of them open and their contents everywhere else.

"Arnold's here!" Helga called, dropping her backpack and purse on a half covered table and walked towards the kitchen.

"Arnold?" her mother called back and her head appeared in a doorway. "Oh! Arnold! You've gotten so big!"

She hadn't really changed in six years, and Arnold noted it to her when she came and hugged him rather tightly.

"Oh, you are so handsome now! And a junior like our Helga too, I remember you so well," she replied, smiling at Arnold and offering him a drink, Helga started to head up the large spiraling staircase.

"Come on, no-longer-football head," she said, climbing the stairs and Arnold followed in stunned silence. The house was immaculate, even with the boxes everywhere. A large hallway leads to every bedroom, a den and other smaller rooms, a few computers in one room with a couch and more boxes. Helga's room was down the hall. The entire room was covered in boxes; a large bed, a few things unpacked and her clothes pretty much everywhere.

"Sorry it's a mess, we just moved back the day before yesterday. I had to go to register yesterday, and Dad has been working at his new office later so he can get started, so we've been slowly making progress," Helga said, sitting down on her bed and pulling out her cell phone to check messages. She was already being bombarded by texts, no thanks to Gerald who had slipped her number to anyone who asked for three bucks a person.

"No, the house looks great," Arnold replied, looking nervous suddenly and leaning against the only spare wall in the house. Helga looked up and smiled at him. It was the first smile she had really given him in a long time. He made sure to remember what it looked like for future reference.

"Saw that you're still living at the boarding house," Helga said, sending a reply to Phoebe about what she should wear for going shopping.

"Yeah, we're still there…" Arnold said awkwardly, and soon the entire conversation seemed to drop as Helga replied to a few more texts without talking. This gave Arnold another chance to really take a long look at her. The little girl he knew was somewhere in there still, and a small part of him still wanted to know if she had still felt the way she had those six long years before. But he just shook off the silly thoughts and decided to just be a good of a friend as he could.

"Sorry about that," she said, tossing her cell phone on her pillow and looking up at him.

"No problem," he said, feeling his own phone vibrate in his pocket at that moment.

"I brought you here because I really want to know what's happened since I've been gone. Phoebe is pretty vague about things, so I thought you might be able to tell me better," Helga said, though Arnold was certain that wasn't really the only reason, but he said nothing. He found a chair and sat down, looking at her for a moment.

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, everyone seemed to have changed a lot, so what happened after I left?"

"We had a pretty tough time. Harold was like the only bully again so he started having to straighten up. We all went to the same schools, and just grew up a little bit. Phoebe won a bunch of awards in middle and high school. Last year she got the Citizenship Award and I think she won the Decathalon twice in a row."

Helga listened, geniuenly interested in what she had missed out on. Being home schooled for so long, she missed being in a classroom and having friends who didn't have to be corrected on their English every once in a while.

"Gerald is the captain of the basketball team, so when basketball season comes up, he'll be playing a lot, and I am working on trying to become the captain of the tennis team. I got on Varsity at the end of freshman year, so I am going to try hard," Arnold said and she nodded.

"Awesome," she said, nodding a little, and looking at him with continued interest. He went into details about the dances they had attended, the football games, the tennis matches. Things that seemed pretty day-to-day were a blessing to hear. Helga had been to dozens of operas that she usually slept through, plays, cricket matches, a few other random sports, but nothing seemed to compare to being home. Arnold's insight to the school plays, the cheerleaders, the pep rallies were all so wonderful to hear. It was getting close to dinner when Arnold needed to start heading home.

Helga drove him home and both were silent the entire trip. Arnold had talked so much, he even surprised himself. He took a few glances over at Helga but said nothing at all. They stopped in front of his building and he stepped out of the car.

"See you at school tomorrow," he said, and she waved a little before taking off down the road again. He watched her Mustang disappear and turned to his front door. He walked into his loud house and found Grandpa Phil sitting in the dinning room with the other boarders. Six years had taken away a lot of the old tenants and brought in a whole new crowd.

Miss Emily, a southern belle who had moved to Hillwood three years before, was sitting at the table and chewing her food in silence while everyone else talked loudly. Arnold took the empty seat next to her and she gave him a little smile. Andy and Benji Walters were brothers who were always fighting about which movie star was the best and currently they were debating who had been the best John Connor in the Terminator movies. Abigail Hale was sitting with her husband, John Hale, at the other end of the table, feeding their baby, Kimberly, her dinner while she screamed and cried loudly. The other tenants, Mr. Burnhart, Miss Jamie, and Mr. Shaw were all talking loudly about how wonderful life was, or something of that general nature because they were talking over each other too much to really have much of a conversation going.

Arnold sat silently eating his dinner and Miss Emily looked at him.

"Sweetheart? Are you not feelin' well?" she asked, cutting up a slice of her ham delicately.

"Oh, I'm fine Miss Emily," he replied, smiling a little and fixing his hair under his hat. He smiled a little at her and she nodded her head, smiling back. She had always been really nice to him and often gave him advice when he needed it. Being a teenager with a crazy house like his, Arnold was glad to have at least one sane stable person to talk to.

He finished his food in silence and safely retreated to his room to think. His time with Helga had been so precious to him, and now he was regretting having to get home so quickly. They had been near each other all day but it didn't seem to be enough. Burying his head in his pillow, he fell asleep, the days events just too much to think about in one night.

- Long chapter. Really long. Oh wells. More random characters I created. Most are named after people I know, but I won't go through all of them. And I forgot to mention that the name for this fic is from the movie "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins." I had heard the name a while back, and it stuck in my mind. I had thought it was the title to an eighties movie, but turns out not-so-much. Oh wells... Thanks for reading!

Invader Hog