Love's Slow in Coming

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Writer's Notes: Hey guys, sorry it's been a while since I wrote one of these little notes.

Just wanted to let you know I have been reading the comments and do appreciate them! Just a few things- this is a HelgaxArnold story. It's a bit slow but don't worry, we are getting there lol. Also this chapter is mostly just lots of little scenes.

Oh one more thing, sorry about inconsistencies in titles, I'm probably going to change them eventually, just haven't been able to come up with ones I have been satisfied with.

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Helga stood in the middle of her room and stared blankly at her desk. She had lied about going to Phoebe's, she doubted even Arnold, as dense as he was, believed her.

She felt odd. Strange… as if she should be doing something, feeling something besides this weird void in her head. Shouldn't she be crying? Bawling? Shouldn't she be devastated? Weird. She had again confessed to Arnold, albeit in a very casual way, and was again shot down. She should have been in pain; she should have been clutching her heart, hunched over in agony or at the very least, making fist size holes in the walls of her bedroom. But instead, she nonchalantly dropped her book bag and lay on her bed, staring up at her ceiling, wondering when that overwhelming sadness and embarrassment would hit her.

But strangely, it never came….

The following morning, Helga went to school early. She was still feeling odd and she didn't want to see Arnold. She wasn't sure what she would do the next time they came face to face and she felt like she'd rather not risk it.

She was sitting, waiting for her Creative Writing class to begin when Oak had walked in and immediately went to her after having spotted her. On the first day of classes, he had chosen the seat right next to her and had spent pretty much every free moment trying to engage her in conversation.

To Helga, he was still annoying but over the weeks she had found him to be less so, considering that they did share a few interests, which prevented their conversations from steering to those small talks and vapid conversations she dreaded.

"Hey Helga," said Oak, pulling up the seat next to her and plopping down.

"Hey."

"You look a little tired, everything okay?"

Helga rolled her eyes. "Yup."

That didn't faze him, Oak was already used to her dismissive responses. "Hey, so I saw 'Deadly Attraction' last night and I gotta say I didn't think the main actress delivered a believable performance of an obsessive and passionate antagonist."

"Then you are blind, treestub."

He faced her, grinning. "How so?"

She knew what he was doing. Sighing, she turned her chair to face him. "Her eyes, the wide frantic look, even the way she moves in that seductive, measured way depicts a being obviously hiding a tightly controlled behavior. It's not even so much what the actress says that portrays the dangerous infatuation but how she goes about showing it."

"What about you, Helga?" he asked, "Have you ever been that passionate about someone?"

Helga paused. She hadn't been that crazy about Arnold, right? Her obsessiveness was the result of a harmless nine year old's crush, whose understanding of love stemmed only from her short life's sad experience. She hadn't been dangerous but she had been mean. She grunted, she hated thinking about that time even more so now after what had happened in Arnold's room not even a day ago. He didn't love her bat-crazy self then; he didn't love her matured and true self now.

A soft 'hey' pulled her out of her thoughts. Helga looked up, Oak was looking at her with an uncharacteristically soft look.

She rolled her eyes and turned to face the class as the teacher had just walked in.

When class ended, Oak caught up with her before she could reach the classroom door.

"Hey, Helga."

She didn't turn to look at him but continued walking. "What's up, treestub?" Oak followed.

"You free today after school? I thought we could go grab a bite to eat or something." He smiled, not a hint of nervousness in sight.

Helga paused and looked at him for a long moment. It wasn't a date. She still didn't really want to see Arnold. But then again, they were friends and as much as she was… whatever the heck she was about the scene the other day, she still wanted to be friends. Was she ready to give up what they had made? She frowned then turned to Oak and said, "I'll let you know" and walked out of the classroom.

When school ended, Helga made her way to the front of the school as she always did to meet Arnold for their walk home. But upon reaching the front doors of the school, she stopped.

Arnold was waiting at the bottom of the stairs as he always did but this time, someone stood next to him.

Before Helga knew what she was doing, she hid herself behind one of the closed doors that led into the school and slowly peered out to look at the couple.

"She should be here in a little bit. She must be running late," said Arnold, peering out at his classmates who were heading away from the school. He frowned.

Lila's smile was understanding. "It's alright, Arnold. I don't mind waiting."

A few minutes passed as Helga peered at the two, who were silently standing by the steps. "Let's just give her 5 more minutes," said Arnold after a while. "I don't want her to think I just left her."

Lila smiled at him. "Oh, Arnold, I'm sure Helga would never think that of you."

Helga rolled her eyes but remained hidden. She felt only slightly guilty as she watched Arnold continue to wait for a few more minutes before finally turning to Lila and saying in a slight defeated voice, "She must be busy or she must have already left. I guess we should go otherwise we'll miss the movie."

Lila smiled back at him, sympathetically. "I'm sure whatever kept Helga wasn't because she didn't want to see you, Arnold. She may have simply forgotten or she had other plans she forgot to tell you."

"Yeah," said Arnold, "That's what must have happened."

And Helga watched as Arnold and Lila walked away from the school. She let out a sigh of relief and slumped against the wall of the empty hall way. She had been standing there for about 15 minutes and most of the students were either in their respective club rooms, the gym or had gone home.

She knew why Arnold had been disappointed. She had left for school early without him and had skipped out on lunch, had arrived at their English Lit classroom right after the teacher, having taken a seat a couple desks away from him and had left the classroom first, with the intention of rushing out without having to be confronted by the football headed boy. And now she had hid behind the school door, only a few feet away from him, having made him worry, having made him wait only because some of the delayed embarrassment had now started to reach her.

She banged the back of her head against the wall behind her. Why was she such an idiot? Why did she keep doing this? They were doing well; they were actually friends… after all these years. That's all she had wanted when she had first moved into the boarding house. But her stupid feelings had to get in the way again. She had already accepted the fact once before that she and Arnold would never be so then why had she said what she had said? Why did she have to change the status quo? Why did that stupid football head just have to be such a good, caring, dense, amazing guy? If only he hadn't been then perhaps Helga could have finally let her love die and she wouldn't have ruined one of the most precious relationships she had in her life.

"Hey," a hand propped itself by her head and a pair of green eyes looked back at her. His brow's furrowed in concern. "You alright?"

Helga looked at Oak; she wanted to glare at him, to get angry, to push him aside. Him or anyone else but through force of will, she stopped herself. She wasn't a kid anymore; she could control at least some part of herself.

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm fine. Ready go to?"

He cocked a brow. "So then you are free?"

She shrugged, "turns out."

Oak nodded. "Alright, cool. I figured we grab something to eat and maybe go see a movie."

She shook her head, "No movie." She turned toward the door and started making her way outside but then stopped and turned to him. "Just so you know this is not a date."

Oak grinned and she felt her ire rise. "I know."

Arnold sighed. He was sitting in the movie theatres with Lila, watching some bad romantic comedy that Arnold couldn't even remember the name to. He gazed at Lila; she was laughing and looked as though she was having fun.

But Arnold found himself frustrated. It was bad enough that the movie didn't interest him in the least but thoughts of Helga and the previous day kept playing in his head over and over again and to top it all off, it seemed as though she was avoiding him.

He had woken early in the morning, hoping that he could talk to her on the way to school to make sure that everything was okay between them but when he had gone down for breakfast, his grandma had told him that Helga had already left. He had rushed out then, barely having touched his food, hoping to catch her but she had been nowhere in sight. Then he had sat at their lunch table with Gerald, Phoebe, and a few of their other friends and had waited patiently for her to show, hoping her now customary offering of tapioca pudding would be in her hand, which to Arnold somehow signified that all was right in their relationship. But again, Helga was nowhere to be seen. In the one class they shared together, she had come in late and had barely given him a nod of acknowledgement before sitting in a seat far away from him and left before he even had a chance to pick up his books.

Finally, he had waited for her outside of school in the hopes of at least seeing her. At first, he had planned to walk home with her as they always had but Lila had told him that the school's beginning of the year dance recital had finished and that she now had some free time after school for their dates. She had asked him to a movie and dinner and while Arnold was happy that he was now able to see Lila more regularly outside of the weekend, he was also a bit disappointed.

He inwardly groaned; he wouldn't be fine until he spoke with Helga.

Arnold made it back to the boarding house around 9 that night, having dropped off Lila after dinner at Mickey's. He had gone straight to his bedroom to drop off his things and immediately went back down the stairs and headed to the room in the back of the house.

Upon reaching Helga's door however, he heard voices. The only other person beside himself who has ever been in Helga's room was Phoebe and the voice that was not Helga's was distinctively male. He frowned.

Arnold took a deep breath and knocked resolutely. He didn't want to bother Helga if she was busy but he needed to talk to her.

He heard Helga's voice from behind the door say "Pause the movie" and heard her footsteps heading toward the door.

When the door opened, Helga looked at him in surprise. "A-Arnold."

For some inexplicable reason, Arnold was a little annoyed that she hadn't immediately known that it was he who had knocked. No one else went to her room at night… at least from what he knew.

Arnold peered over Helga's head, having yet to say a greeting and saw Oak lying on his side of the bed, her laptop on his lap. What was happening?

He looked back at Helga, who was looking at him with surprise in her eyes. His annoyance immediately left him. "Hey Helga," he said, his brows scrunching together. "Do you have a second to talk?"

"Uh— sure football head." Helga turned back to where Oak lay, watching them curiously. "Hey, don't you push that play button until I get back, got it?"

Oak shot them a grin and nodded, after having waved at Arnold.

Arnold smiled back but it felt a bit halfhearted.

When Helga's door closed behind her, Arnold gazed at her face. "I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay between us," he started.

Helga's face was impassive. Then she raised a brow, "Of course, football head. Why wouldn't it be?"

At that, Arnold felt his irritation rise back up. He had spent the whole day anxiously worried that their relationship had come to an end, that that short talk the other day had somehow caused an irreparable rift between him and the girl he now realized was his best friend (just got to note - besides Gerald). And yet here she was, having been lying in bed with another guy, watching a movie and responding to his question as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing happened, as if his torment had all been in his own head.

With such thoughts running through his head, Arnold's words were harsher than he had anticipated, having not been able to hide his annoyance. "Helga, you avoided me all day. You didn't wait for me to go school, you didn't come to lunch, you sat away from me in class, and you never showed up afterward. I waited for you."

Helga's eyes slightly widened and Arnold noted with satisfaction that Helga was actually stunned.

"Sheesh, football head," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry; I just… had stuff I needed to do."

And then it him, hit him straight in the face; Helga had basically told it to him yesterday. "You were with Oak," he said, not having bothered to phrase it with a question.

Helga eyes widened but she didn't respond and Arnold took that as confirmation.

That means that she hadn't been avoiding me. "Does this mean that we're okay?" Arnold asked after another moment of, this time, awkward silence.

Helga laughed but it sounded odd to Arnold's ears. "Geez, Arnoldo, we were never not okay. I told you it wasn't a big deal." She punched him lightly on the arm and Arnold couldn't help but smile at the familiarity of the gesture. "Next time, just believe me when I say something."

Arnold grinned. "Helga, I'm really glad to hear that. I was… worried."

Helga gave him a small smile. Arnold thought it felt a little sad but then she rolled her eyes and he couldn't help but wonder if he had just imagined it. "You'll worry your gigantic head into space, Arnoldo. All is well and you and I are the same as we've always been."

Inwardly, Arnold frowned. That didn't feel right and yet, that was what he wanted, right?

"Anyways football head," said Helga, interrupting his thoughts. "I hope you don't mind but I gotta get back in there before treestub gobbles down all the popcorn. He eats almost as much as you."

Arnold smiled but it was forced. "Right. Uh okay then, I'll see you tomorrow? Walk you to school?"

Helga sighed. "Football head. Tomorrow is Saturday."

"Oh, right." He had plans with Lila like he did every Saturday but for some reason, he felt disappointed that he wouldn't see her. "Do you still want to meet up? Maybe grab breakfast?"

Helga shook her head, "No can do, Arnoldo. Treestub and I are headed to the aquarium early in the morning." She rolled her eyes. "He wants to see some new special fish exhibit or something."

Arnold felt a small but odd twist in his gut. "Yeah, okay, well I guess then I will see you hopefully another time."

Helga laughed. "We live in the same house, football head, I'm sure you'll see me around."

"Right." Arnold laughed awkwardly and then turned to leave. "Then, I'll just see you around, Helga."

Nearly two weeks had passed since Arnold had spoken to Helga in the hall way. Despite the fact that things seemed not to have changed when Helga and Arnold were together, the problem was that they rarely spent much time together at all.

In the mornings, they had walked to school like they usually did but the walk was short and the time just flew by. It felt to Arnold as if they had barely had time to say hi to each other before they arrived at the steps leading into the school. Their lunch table too was now filled with their friends. Rhonda, Herald, Eugene, Nadine and a few non-PS118 friends all shared the same lunch period with Arnold and Helga, along with Gerald and Phoebe, so they rarely had a chance to talk unless it was addressed to the whole group. A few notes or a few whispers were passed between them during English Lit but in general, talking had to be kept to a minimum since their teacher, Mr. Caswell, wasn't known to be fond of socializing during class.

And finally the walk home together, studies, and post dinner hang outs had completely stopped. With Lila being free for a while from afterschool dance practice, Arnold had found his evenings were filled with her and from the few times he had seen Helga walking home with Oak, he assumed that the situation was the same for Helga.

One Friday afternoon, they were at the arcade with Harold, Stinky, Nadine, and Sid. After dinner, Arnold had brought Lila to the back of the arcade to play some games. Lila preferred the simple ticket games, which were generally reserved for children. When she again rejected his suggestion to play something a bit more challenging, Arnold inwardly sighed.

At first, dating Lila had been great. They had spent lots of their time doing sweet, romantic things like going for walks or having a nice candle lit dinner at a local French restaurant. They had spent a lot of time talking about their youth, classes, their future plans, and Lila's dance practices and upcoming recitals. At first, dating her had been exciting. She was one of the prettiest girls in school and the nicest and Arnold had liked her for a long time but after a few weeks, it occurred to Arnold that all they were doing were things she wanted to do or things she thought couples should be doing, which was good and all for romantic dates but things were becoming a bit… dull for Arnold.

At least with Helga…

"Hey Lila, how about this one? I know you don't like shooting games but it's from the Cretaceous Park movie. No humans get hurt that is, if we save them all," he said, leading her to the familiar game.

"Oh, I don't know, Arnold. I've never seen Cretaceous Park, it seemed ever so violent and well the game uses guns."

"We were just playing the water pistols."

"Yes, but that's different, Arnold we weren't shooting at any living things." She smiled at him. "You understand, don't you, Arnold?"

He smiled back weakly. "Yeah, Lila, I understand."

"Oh how about this game?" she asked, leading him to a pink and orange game that Arnold recognized as dressed up tetris.

"Sure Lila." Arnold smiled at her but inwardly sighed.

Arnold went home early that night as Lila had made plans with other friends. He headed up the stairs surprisingly tired for such an early retirement and laid down on his bed. He had hoped to fall asleep but sleep seemed to evade him. Instead, he found himself staring up at his ceiling, wondering whether Gerald and Phoebe were enjoying their date at the new math museum exhibit. He was sure Gerald wouldn't be too interested in the multiple artistic depictions of Euler's Equation but Phoebe had a way of explaining and engaging Gerald in such activities to help whet his interests in topics that were generally not to his enjoyment.

Arnold sighed. He wished that he and Lila could be a bit more like that. He frowned. He shouldn't think like that, there wasn't anything wrong with his and Lila's relationship… except perhaps the fact that despite being far too similar in personality, their interests barely overlapped. Lila didn't particularly like going to sport meets, playing video games, or any of the other things Arnold generally liked to do. Their tastes in movies differed, their tastes in books differed, she had no interest in mysteries or horror classics and the slightly annoying part was that she didn't even try to. But they had just started dating and Arnold knew that some things just needed time.

Arnold looked up at the skylight and found himself wondering how Helga and Oak's relationship was going.

Oak was a topic Arnold generally stayed away from. He noted that he didn't really like talking about him with Helga. He hadn't once asked her how her dating life was going or anything even remotely related to that topic. It wasn't that he wasn't interested but rather that he genuinely didn't want to know. Though he had no idea why.

Sighing, Arnold sat up and heaved his body out of bed. Thinking about Helga made him want to see her. Hoping that she wasn't busy, Arnold made his way downstairs.

Upon reaching her door, Arnold knocked. A second later it opened to reveal Helga, who looked surprised to see him there.

"What's up, Arnoldo?" she said, moving aside to let him in.

"Hey Helga, I'm glad you're here. It's been a while."

"Pft that wasn't my fault. What with you and Little Miss Perfect glued to the hip."

"Yeah, haha. So uh, what are you up to tonight?" Arnold asked, feeling a bit awkward from her last statement.

"Why? What's it to—"

But just then, someone pushed the door open, interrupting Helga's words and Arnold watched with widening eyes as Oak walked in wearing only a towel around his waist. He was drying his hair with another towel.

Arnold blinked. Had they just been….

Arnold suddenly felt his throat close up and a fire burned at the bottom of his stomach. Was that… jealousy? No… it couldn't be but then that wouldn't explain why Arnold's left hand had clenched into a fist and he was physically trying to stop himself from pushing the intruder from Helga's room. For the first time in his life, he, Arnold Shortman, needed to stop himself from enacting violence. He gulped, something was wrong.

"Hey Arnold," said Oak, looking just as surprised as Arnold had felt.

Arnold didn't respond.

"Hold up, treestub," said Helga sharply. "Arnold and I were—"

Arnold shook his head, having finally found his voice. "Sorry, Helga, I didn't know you had company. I— I'll catch you at another time." And before Helga could even get a chance to edge in another word, Arnold walked out of the room and the door closed shut behind him.

"What's up with him?" asked Oak, as he continued to dry his hair.

Helga turned from having watched Arnold nearly run out the door. What had happened? "Geez I don't know, what am I his keeper? Get some pants on, will ya!" she said, annoyed.

Oak shot her an unrepentant grin, "Sorry, pants are still drying."

She rolled her eyes. "What idiot falls into a mud puddle when we haven't had rain in 3 days?"

After Oak's clothes had finally dried enough for him to make his way home, Helga went to find Arnold with a bag of burgers and milkshakes.

She was confused. Arnold had acted strangely when Oak had walked into her room. Of course, that stupid treestub had walked in just wearing a towel. He couldn't possibly have thought that they—? If so then had that been embarrassment in his face? But no, Helga knew what Arnold looked like when he was embarrassed, she had seen it countless of times in the years that she had known him. His expression had been something different, something foreign.

Helga found herself staring at the door leading into Arnold's room. She hadn't been here in a few weeks and she felt herself sadden at that thought. Will things ever return to normal between them? Taking a deep breath, she knocked.

"Hey sorry about that, football head," she said as she opened the door and walked in. "Stupid treestub there doesn't realize that you can't just walk into a girl's room wearing only a towel. Idiot had fallen into a mud puddle earlier and needed a place to get cleaned."

Arnold looked up from where he sat on his bed and his expression changed to that of… relief?

That was weird thought Helga and she felt herself getting even more confused.

She handed Arnold the bag of burgers and sat down next to him on the bed. She unwrapped a Mickey's double patty supreme.

Arnold smiled at her and reached in to grab his own burger. "Thanks Helga."

"Eh no problem, figured you'd be hungry even if you did eat." She took a bite and asked "So was there something you wanted to talk to me about, football head?"

Arnold shook his head, the faint outline of his smile finally dissolving. "Did Oak leave?"

"Yup, ran home once his clothes dried. So what are you doing home so early on a Friday night?"

"Lila had plans."

"Ah I see, Little Miss Perfect, ever the popular one."

Arnold laughed, "Yeah."

"So if you didn't need something from me, I'm guessing you just wanted to look at my pretty face?" Helga exaggeratingly fluttered her lashes at him.

Arnold laughed again but his eyes softened and suddenly he said, "I've missed you, Helga."

Helga felt her heart stop beating in her chest. She gulped down the food she was chewing, her mouth suddenly having gone dry. She coughed and reached for her shake but her hand touched something warm instead. Helga turned her head to look at Arnold staring back at her with his kind, caring, and concerned eyes.

Helga shook her head vigorously and removed her hand from Arnold's. He handed her the milkshake and she quickly took it from his grasp. She took a long sip, hoping the cold would wash away the sudden heat in her cheeks as well as the unsettling feelings that had stemmed from his words.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm *cough* fine, football head," she said setting the drink aside. "I must have got something stuck in my throat." Still avoiding his gaze, Helga turned toward the blank tv screen in his room. "Anything good on tonight?" she asked as calmly as she possibly could.

Arnold stood to grab his remote from his desk on the other side of his room. "Yeah, I think 'Cube' is on tonight."

Thank goodness. "Great, put it on then, football head."

He shot her a grin as he worked his remote to turn on the tv and Helga's 9 year old self's heart fluttered.

Arnold sat back down beside her. She cleared her throat. "I've never actually seen this movie."

Arnold's brows rose. "What? You haven't seen any of one of the most iconic cult classics?"

"Sheesh football head, it's not like I just sit around watching tv all the time."

He grinned. "It's pretty scary."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright Arnoldo."

The movie was already about 20 minutes in when Arnold had turned on the tv to the appropriate channel. For a while they watched in silence as they finished the food but when a particularly confusing scene came on the screen, Helga turned to Arnold and asked, "What the heck is happening?"

Arnold grinned, and pressed a finger to his lips "Shh."

Grumbling, Helga turned back to the tv but the next scene was even more confusing. She was utterly lost. She turned back to Arnold. "Hey!" She poked his leg, "I have no fricken idea what's going on."

Sighing, Arnold grabbed Helga gently by the arm and tugged her to where he sat with his back against the wall on the bed until she was tucked up neatly against his side, his arm around her waist. "Just watch," he whispered, "If I know you, you're going to love analyzing this."

Helga's body froze and her eyes were wide as she stared at the tv blankly. The math guy had just said something about a pattern in the rooms but all she was aware of was the warm body that was pressed against her and a definite heart beat that wasn't hers. She gulped. Geezus, what is he doing? He's going to kill me!

But Helga didn't move. Instead, she willed her body to calm down and gradually, very gradually she turned her attention back to the film, as her heart beat slowed down in time to match with his.