i lied a lot too, maybe to forget you
my heart still beats for you

- anna ternheim

three—

Helga at fifteen is a distant firestorm he cannot hope to survive.

Later he will understand that this had been just one of the steps of her growth, that she had also been working to survive pain he couldn't know about at the time, but now he is overwhelmed.

She's a well-known force in the neighborhood when he returns to town to bury his grandfather, and she's different and she's the same all at once, and it's all too confusing to deal with on top of the pain inside, that she could be more herself and so different at the same time. "She hasn't beat anybody up in a few years except for those jocks that went after Gerald," Sid shrugs once, and Arnold is watching her across the room as she talks to Phoebe over their lunch (Phoebe eating a healthy assortment of vegetables, and Helga devouring several items from the vending machine in the corner of the cafeteria). ("And she went after them with a baseball bat so her homicidal tendencies are still there," Arnold will always remember Eugene tacking on to Sid's response.)

He sees her a half-dozen times outside of school just in the first week he's back: baseball bat swinging easily in her fists as she plays a game in the old vacant lot (he will forever think of it as Gerald Field even if Gerald himself doesn't seem to care very much anymore) and walking home alone by herself in the middle of the night from wherever it is she goes three times a week. He spots her at the grocery store once, dropping the food she picks up into an insulated bag she's got tossed over a shoulder and setting off alone, and he catches sight of her twice on the bus with a pile of books from the library.

("Isn't that one of your friends?" he remembers his father asking at the grocery store as Helga had strode right past him, and he'd felt nervous and unhappy with how awkward his parents always looked in something as simple and normal as a grocery store.)

When Arnold finally works up enough courage to say, "Hey" to her two weeks after he's back in town—

Helga just says, "hey" and continues to tear apart her dollar store beef jerky between classes.

His parents are starting to call more often, are losing their ability to give him his space.

Arnold is only irritated by what feels like an outside intrusion as he rejects yet another phone call and wrestles the ball out of Betsy's mouth, cocks his arm to throw it out again. She takes off with a joy that he envies but cannot hate her for, and he watches her tear happily across the grass, exhilarated.

"You're pretty good with her."

Gerald's voice is odd, and his face is tight when Arnold glances over expectantly.

"She's great," he manages past the flutter of pain in his chest and praises her without words when she brings her toy back again, rubbing the spots on her neck that she loves until she's bouncing a little. She's so caught up in her enjoyment that her double-take is hysterical when she finally notices that the ball's gone again, that it's sailing easily through the air impossibly fast away from her.

Betsy trips over herself but doesn't seem to care as she launches out across the grass again.

"Jesus, man, you torture her as bad as Helga did…"

The hushed tone is muffled with something that's not quite pain and not quite irritation, and Arnold isn't completely sure what to make of it, is beginning to think that this Gerald isn't his old Gerald.

And he doesn't know when it happened, can't remember, and he thinks of the few of Helga's birthdays that he now has a little bit of film of, of Christmases and Thanksgivings and several "family" vacations that had happened in a world far away from the one he has only been surviving in so long.

"What happened?" It is just one of the questions that are burning inside of him, one that has begun to eat at him in the last day and a half, and one that he can no longer deny. He needs to fill in every hole, understand how he had lost her. Because it's not the terrible tangle between them that he needs to understand (because he already knows it and it's too big to work through now, he cannot even begin yet) it's this, the awfulness of it. "How did she—"

And he shuts up when Gerald seems to shudder all over, hunches his shoulders oddly and stares out at the park in the early morning light with frightened eyes.

"She died, man, I don't know what else—" The words break down into an awful heavy silence and Gerald rubs at his face, swings his head around to gaze at Arnold warily. "She started bleeding and they ran her off to surgery, and that's, that's all there is to it."

"But before that," and Arnold has forgotten what it feels to push like this, to be so desperate for answers that feel like they matter, that feel like they can reset something terrible if he can find them. "Before that, I need to know before that, I need to know what happened."

"I told you what happened."

A part of him thinks, quiet in the back of his mind and startlingly aware: his voice is wrong and Arnold does not care, he cannot, he can only push harder, fight through his self-preservation.

"The crash," he pushes without conscious thought, and scratches Betsy on her neck when she pushes into his hands for attention, and continues without a beat, "I don't even know how she went off the road in the first place, Gerald, I need to know—"

How it was I lost all of my chances (every last one I ever could have fought for) and how I lost every holiday I will never have and every family dinner I will never allow myself to enjoy, and how it is it's all gone and her house is empty and I will never see her happy again—

"She went off the road and flipped." The words are flat, recited without thought as Gerald stares at the grass under his boots, refuses to look him completely in the eye. "She must have been… driving too fast or something because she went off the road and flipped and only stopped because she hit a tree."

Arnold does not speak, can only focus on one breath after another, is oddly sure that if he does not make himself breathe his body will simply shut down, will give up and stop and never start up again.

The something in his back of his mind murmurs, unhappy and restless: that's not like her anymore but he is in too much pain to process the insistent little voice, has been struck mute by the flood of feeling. He stares down at the grass himself as he forces himself to keep breathing, sickly imagining what the crash must have felt like for her, the shock her body must have experienced in that last impact.

Before he can stop himself: "How much pain was she in?"

Something crosses Gerald's face, something quietly bitter and viciously angry, but it's gone, hastily hidden, before Arnold can do much more than tense in surprise, unsure how to even approach it. "She—" then Gerald stops, frown creasing his mouth, as he seems to consider. "You saw her."

A splintered image in the back of his mind, Helga under the sheets in the hospital bed, body bruised but heart beating strong under his palm, and he'd felt her, known she was there—

And there's a brighter memory, one burned indefinitely into his mind a few years before, Helga cool-eyed and impossibly still in that ridiculous blue bridesmaid gown and he'd stood like an idiot at his best friend's side for the entire ceremony just staring at her, openly, in front of their friends and family. His parents had been there, he remembers clearly, cared for Gerald and for Phoebe both, and he'd refused to say a word to her, refused because he knows she would have responded, and grown angry when his mother had asked, impossibly frustrated and impossibly sad: "Don't you want to talk to her at all?"

And he remembers the truth (the one he cannot admit to even himself many nights) that he'd felt the weight of her gaze once, twice, maybe a dozen times (and it is impossible now to miss the pain and pleasure that coils inside him when he feels the weight of her focus on him) and that their eyes had never met not just because of her but because he had never let her even begin to bridge the distance. Because she'd still been hurt, had not hidden her anger at his refusal to live, but he—

He understands now that he has always been terrified of the defiant drumbeat of her heart.

You saw her.

"Yeah," he mutters as Betsy pushes against his legs for his attention, "yeah, I saw her."

In the end the confession, months after he returns and so long after all of the years of theatrics, is brutally simple. (In hindsight, he will understand how important it is that it follows what he has been horribly sure is his continuing failure to engage her in an actual two-people-talking-like-people conversation but now he is damaged and too young and too tired to comprehend.)

He's trying to figure out which book he actually needs for the next class, struggling to pay attention to the time and still not used to needing to pay attention to the time after the last few years in San Lorenzo, when she walks over and stands by him, not quite in his personal space but… hovering.

He says "hey, Helga" (the only response she seems to be able to accept from him usually, always looking at him like he's an idiot when he tries anything else) and doesn't look at her (she seems to always be staring back at him like he's an idiot when he does) and tries to ignore that weird flipping feeling in his chest that he keeps having every time he sees her.

A minute passes and he finally realizes she's just standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans and shoulders tucked up a little, expression wary but tired as she stares at the wall of lockers.

He says, "uh" uselessly, and the flipping gets a little worse.

They're the same height now, and today there's a bruise at the corner of her mouth, and his nose wants to twitch because she smells like dirt and thrift store and some kind of flowery shampoo that she probably buys for herself at the dollar store ("she can take care of herself no problem," Gerald had answered the one time the question of how Helga was doing had come up).

"You know." He almost wants to say there's something defeated in her voice but that's not it, not really— it's something quieter, calmer, something sad and tired and steady in its simplicity. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, and his back hurts suddenly, and he kind of feels like the walls are closing in and then she plunges ahead fearlessly, "I know you know so… I just… wanted you to know."

He says, "I don't—" and she looks at him, and he can't manage anything else.

She is young and old in front of him, and he thinks dumbly, stupidly, that she is beautiful.

And not in any way that people would understand if Arnold would even try to explain it, but it's in the clearness of her gaze (no longer over bright with that frantic energy that had always confused him a little) and the way her shoulders have come up bravely, the way she stares at him and waits and doesn't seem afraid of anything that he could possibly say in response.

And it is a lie that he does not watch her now (and an even bigger one to say that he had never stared at her for long minutes just thinking when they had been younger) and that the other part of him, that part that feels dead and too weak to survive, likes the way she runs up and down the street in her tank tops and old denim shorts in the muggy heat, eyes skimming over the muscles of her arms and her legs.

The dirt that smudges the pale skin of her throat right now, and the bruise at her mouth—

And Arnold panics, is fifteen years old and unable (unwilling) to grieve and tongue-tied and unsure in this world where Helga feels like the only safety from the storm, and he feels young and old.

Arnold says without thinking, "I don't want—" before he can stop himself, and only feels more flustered when the only response is a flicker of some strong emotion in her gaze, her figure shifting awkwardly for a moment before she lets out a quiet breath and starts to nod.

Helga is patient, and sad but sure, and there is something soft and understanding on her face.

It is the last that breaks him, that causes him to bolt, terrified and suddenly in agony.

His body reacts before he can stop himself and the world tilts as he turns away and sets off down the hall away from her, and he realizes that he is almost about to run, and he cannot stop himself.

Arnold has a last glimpse of Helga as he practically careens around the corner, striding off alone without another look back, long legs carrying her easily away from him.

"How did she lose Olga?"

There is only an uncomfortable silence, this man who had once been his best friend looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here and not even trying to hide it from him. "You have all of Helga's stuff," he answers when he seems to be able to speak, but Arnold shakes his head.

"I'm not going through her journals, Gerald."

Hesitation, some terrible grief passing behind Gerald's eyes before— "She started having problems when Helga was, I don't know, fourteen, fifteen, I wanna say fourteen, it was a little while—" Before you got back, is not spoken but Arnold nods slowly, carefully, and waits silently. "She got real bad when we were like seventeen, and then there was the suicide attempt—" Gerald looks over when he feels the jolt of Arnold's shock beside him, seemingly confused for a moment. "You didn't—"

Arnold cannot keep his face expressionless, and knows that is answer enough.

"Nobody told me." He cannot keep the accusation out of his voice, and then is left stunned by the emotion coiling through him, the way white-hot anger sparks through him. "You didn't tell me."

The odd something passes behind Gerald's eyes again, the words sharp in the afternoon heat as he snaps without seeming to think twice: "You were there."

"Helga didn't tell me."

Gerald snorts, the noise so ridiculous that it almost kills Arnold's simmering anger (almost). "Uh, she didn't tell me either, okay? I found out from Phoebe and she only found out because she's the best friend. You remember how that whole best friend thing works, right?"

(he cannot only be imagining the bite to the last words, the tension in Gerald's shoulders)

"What happened to her?"

And what happened to Helga because of it and now he needs to know, feels the corner of some invisible puzzle piece under his fingers and feels that it is much more central than he'd thought and he cannot get a grip on it and the pain is debilitating.

"She got better, she got worse. Ran away from Helga a few times, came back home…" The other man takes a breath and then lets it out, refuses to look over at him. "She came back the last time a couple years ago and moved in with Helga and it was working well, she started seeing an actual doctor, stopped the rest of the stupid shit she'd been doing and got her own apartment—"

"Like what?"

"It really doesn't matter anymore."

He's lying, that increasingly awake little voice in his mind mutters unhappily, and Arnold knows that the voice is right as surely as he knows that Gerald will not answer this question.

"What happened to her?"

"You know what happened to her."

Arnold is aware of Betsy settled against his legs, tired from her activity and just happy to be with someone, and if there has ever been doubt in him that she missed Helga, there is none when he glances down, finds her head leaning on his knees and her eyes focused on Gerald.

Still happy from her play, she suddenly seems… terribly despondent as well.

He remembers Helga's sister in the old pictures, the growing sadness in her face, the weariness.

"Olga killed herself," he says slowly, softly, weighing the words carefully.

But Gerald says nothing beside him, and is staring out at the park when Arnold studies him mutely.

He manages, finally, "Gerald?"

"It was ruled a suicide," is all the man finally responds, the words a little too calm, and now Arnold realizes that Gerald's pushing his legs restlessly into the grass, is picking at his jeans impatiently. "I wasn't the first officer on the scene, man, and it wasn't the worst mess I ever saw but—"

And he stops, so suddenly and so completely that it's a little disturbing.

Before Arnold can think, before he can blink, Gerald is on his feet and shifting uncomfortably, and it's all wrong, his old friend looking like a puppet being strangled in his own strings as he stares down at Arnold with a flat gaze that promises he's feeling too much. "You don't get to ask me these things anymore, I'm done for today, I'm going back home to my wife and my kid, this is my day off, man."

"But—"

"You don't get to ask these things," and the anger slips out and then it can't be hidden and that something fills his face and Arnold doesn't think Gerald could hide it even if he were trying to. "You weren't here, okay, you don't… get to read the cliff notes and then give a shit—"

"I do—"

"Shut up!"

The childish tone is painful, and the words are as much an order as they are a plea, and Betsy makes a small noise and shifts restlessly and butts her head against his knees. Arnold cannot manage a response as Gerald glares at him, impossibly young and old at the same time— and then, before he realizes what he's doing, before he even understands what's happening, he asks impulsively, "How's James?"

Gerald's face doesn't change, the hostility and the pain frozen, but something in his eyes, deep—

There is a crack, and a hint of confusion, of the terrible fatigue known only by someone drowning.

Arnold thinks, this must be what Helga felt all the time while watching me struggle for air.

"I'm going home," is all Gerald says after a long awful moment, and then Gerald is walking away fast, angry stride carrying him easily beyond Arnold's reach as he stares after, frighteningly alert.

In his chest, he can hear the distant echo of someone's drumbeat.

Nausea.

Pain, a heavy horrible pain lurking under the haze.

"Wake up, Pataki," someone says, and she'd say something back, sure, but she can't even remember words.

Her eyelids feel heavy, her arms and her legs even heavier, and someone says, "come on, girl" and her body trembles just slightly in response, mind struggling to regain some ability to function.

She feels, vaguely, like the world is moving under her, and feels smothered, suffocated—

"Get up, ball-buster."

The world is a blur of gray when her eyes slip open, shifting as she tries to focus, tries to see— another moment of desperate struggle and she can make out a frantic face against the bright blur of the ceiling, Gerald staring down at her with a level of emotion she intends fully to flaunt later—

And something moves almost delicately inside her, mind seeming to click into its correct formation and it's buried under the haze, yeah, seems far away and hard to reach but not impossible, nothing's impossible.

Vague shapes moving around her but Gerald stays close, and now she can see the tension in his face, hear the tremble in his voice when he says simply, "Don't drop out on me again, Helga."

There's blood on the collar of his shirt, on his sleeve.

The ceiling is still moving above her and while she's never been afraid of nonexistence, of finally finding that kind of… peace (she will never admit that "my heart's pretty tired" had been uttered through her tears so many years before, to this day the most painful confession to ever leave her lips) that she is so sure will never fully be in her reach, she has plans, she has made plans, because after all this she is not afraid of living and she does not think there is anything that she cannot survive—

Her throat makes a noise, defiant and angry even though the mask, and his laugh is a rough and giddy response.

Her hand jerks, lifts off the gurney (and she doesn't even know what she's trying to do but whatever it is seems like a good idea), and Gerald is gripping it a moment later, meeting her strength with his own, the following squeeze as much a reassurance as it is a silent challenge.

"I'll take care of ya," he says as the other shapes pull him away, as they pull her hand from his or his from hers, she doesn't know which is which but it doesn't feel like it matters—

And Gerald is gone, and she is alone as she feels her heart pound strong and steady in her chest and the doctors (they are doctors, tight-faced and heavy-eyed as they rush her away) have her.

This will be (almost) the last thing she remembers of her life.

Lila still dresses like the offspring of a Scottish dude and a country princess.

After so many years, Rhonda still cannot admit that she finds it endearing.

But still, they have their own little system down, and through the years they have kept to it without problem.

Every morning Lila wakes up herself and then wakes Rhonda up in the process when the shower starts blasting down the hall (Lila seems eternally obsessed with the glory that is Rhonda's unending hot water). There's the clatter of dishes and the beeping of microwave as Lila eats her usual breakfast of oatmeal (at this point Rhonda is always laying stubbornly under her covers like she can force herself back to sleep), and the faint rambling as she checks her bag out loud for all of the supplies she can't let herself forget for work. Then there's the little noise of metal against metal as she pokes her head into Rhonda's room and asks, almost delicately, "What's for dinner?" and Rhonda stares at her blankly from the bed. A couple of seconds will pass, Rhonda trying and failing to murder her by heat vision alone, and then Rhonda will finally (with more thought to what she knows they both like to eat than she will ever admit to having) suggest something. It is accepted ("oh, wonderful!) or rejected (with that pleasant smile that only fools not-Rhonda people and little humming noise of dislike), and Lila says, "Have a good day, Rhonda" and leaves for work once Rhonda lifts one arm to flop it uselessly in goodbye.

But today her roommate heads out a little earlier than normal, something she's been doing every day since they'd gotten the news from Phoebe, and Rhonda knows laying in bed (wide awake even before she'd heard the shower start up suspiciously muted) that she will return from work late. That she will just… hide away in her kindergarteners' empty classroom until the janitor finally kicks her out. There is no clatter of dishes (Lila has taken to stealing her energy bars) or spoken checklist and there is no final visit before work, and she knows that Lila will eat her dinner later with her eyes focused on her uneaten food whenever she thinks Rhonda is too busy working at her laptop to notice her expression.

Rhonda lays there in the quiet until she hears the door close, until she hears Lila's little station wagon (and Rhonda has so many ways that she could kill the stupid thing and get her something better but Lila would cry) and then waits for another two minutes before slipping out of bed.

She heads to the bathroom to shower and dress, and is out of the shared home within a half an hour.

an: quick update because i had a hellish week and have come back to the next chapters. edited quickly so i'll continue poking at it for the next day but seriously too tired to worry too much. and, no, i can't completely answer a few of the other questions yet, sorry peeps.