A/N: Okay, so… this chapter was really hard to write. A lot goes on and a lot of time passes and I always find it hard to do that in a fic, especially when the other chapters are slower paced. Anyway, I hope it makes sense. Also, there's a part towards the end that I kind of took from a one-shot I wrote and published on this website in a drabble/one-shot compilation piece called "Everything to Nothing". So, just a heads up. Thanks for waiting, guys.

A month passed.

The rare times that Helga left her house were only for certain situations: to get the mail or to get food. All other hours of the day were spent in her computer chair, typing away at the final chapters of her story, a runner who spots the finish line.

Everyone once in a while, her phone would light up from the other side of the room, buzzing with urgency. She almost always ignored it. She hoped the other person on the line was Arnold and she hoped that his chest would heave with dejection every time he got her voicemail.

It was early evening when Helga stopped. Just as she was reaching that breaking point, the point where everything was resolved in one single sentence, she stopped herself. Her fingers frozen over the keyboard, she simply stared with dull eyes into the computer, wondering for a second if maybe she had gone completely crazy. The last sentence of her novel… and not a word was coming to mind.

For a few moments, she blinked at her computer, knowing that something would come to her. Maybe if she went to the bathroom quickly; she had to pee for the past hour but couldn't bear to leave her chair without some sort of feeling of accomplishment. So she stood on a pair of wobbly legs and hobbled into the bathroom.

Helga suddenly felt pretty stupid. Brilliance takes time. Maybe she just needed to sleep on it.

And yet… as she stared at her computer with bewilderment, her head pounded fiercely. "Any minute now," she sighed to herself.

After about an hour of wondering, she sauntered over to her porthole-sized window and stared, hoping to get rid of her tip-of-the-tongue predicament.

A woman outside pulled down at the bottom of her too-short skirt as she hailed a cab. Her stupid neighbors walked to get their mail, grinning like they knew nothing else. A man clad in just a bathrobe inspected the newspaper carefully from his front yard.

Again, Helga sighed. Why was everything in the outside world so uninspiring?

Carefully, she shut the blinds and stuffed her feet into a spare pair of shoes on the floor. Maybe the world was brighter in a different location. She decided to take a walk for the first time since she moved in; maybe some fresh air would jog some ideas.

It was warm outside, warmer than she remembered it being this early in the springtime. Rolling up her jacket sleeves, she wandered along the sidewalk without purpose. Several cars zoomed past her, causing a rush of pleasant wind to envelop her as a familiar sight came into view.

Gerald field. Only, unlike the last time she had stopped by, there was someone there. Well, two people. One of them happened to be familiar to her.

"Good, now throw the ball back!" Thunk. "Ow…no, I'm okay, daddy's okay!"

It was Eugene. Taken slightly aback, Helga tried to turn around but he caught her before she could. With a red bump forming rather quickly on his forehead, he grinned sheepishly at her before it clicked in his mind who she was.

"Helga? Oh, wow, it's you!" he exclaimed. The small boy behind him, probably about three or four, looked at her with naïve curiosity as he swiveled a softball in his tiny hands. "I had no idea you still lived here, how are you?"

He took a step forward to her, and for a moment Helga was fearful that he would hug or something equally horrifying. Instead, he just shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for a response.

"Yeah, I moved back a little while ago," she said with no inflection, staring at him incredulously. He wasn't much different from what she could recall from high school… same hairdo (slicked back with heavy duty hair gel), khaki-and-sandal ensemble, and large, straight teeth with a hint of yellow. But his eyes were bright and from the way he stood, Helga could just tell he was content. And… he had a son?

"Wow!" he exclaimed, as if her flat statement was the most colorful of stories. Helga was going to say something else, but she was just so dumbfounded that she had run into yet another schoolyard friend. Had they all just stayed here, doomed to live life in this city forever? At least I got away, she thought. Well, sort of. "Any specific reason you came back?"

"Inheritance," Helga snorted, attempting at a joke. When Eugene's eyes didn't have a flicker of understanding, she coughed and said, "Uh, my grandpa kicked it so he gave me his house."

"Well, that's horrible!" said Eugene. Helga shrugged. "Have you seen anyone else since you came back? Any old classmates?"

"No," she lied, hoping to bore him out of conversation. She could feel her creative juices dwindling and dwindling with each passing second.

"Oh, I always see some of our old high school classmates around here. Did you know Sid owns that record store a few blocks down? Oh, and Harold is over at Green Meats! Isn't that just too funny?"

Hilarious, thought Helga. "And Arnold is the editor at…" Suddenly, Eugene gave a rather awkward cough, as if he just realized whom he was talking to. "Well, a creative writing magazine of some sorts."

The situation probably wouldn't have been strange at all if Eugene wasn't staring solemnly at his feet, clearly upset over his misstep.

"Well anyway, we should get going," he said, pulling gently at his son's arm. The kid scowled and stuck his tongue out at her. Eugene, mortified by his son's actions, quickly hurried away from the park. With a nervous laugh, he called, "It was nice seeing you, Helga. Maybe I'll see you around again!"

She simply nodded as he made his way past her, whispering something to his son about being nice to strangers. Aggravated, she stood in that spot for a few moments longer, staring at the field that she used to practically own. The grass had been green and freshly mowed, and the handmade the scoreboard hung from the brick wall with pride. Now, weeds were sprouting in every which way, engulfing the place, making sure the walls saw no daylight. If she squinted, she could still see the scoreboard behind a great morass of decaying greenery. But she stopped herself from taking a closer look. She was nauseous.

Helga felt very small. Here, in the place she used to call home… in the place where she was once free, once happy. Here, in Hilwood, she was still known for that summer. She was just baggage; Arnold's baggage, actually, which made it worse.

Everything was different yet Helga remained the same. She was still that girl who confessed her love and got beaten down, while Eugene got hit in the head with a baseball thrown by his own son… and while Phoebe shoved the remains of her angst and loss into a tiny closet, never to be looked at again. While her father refused to acknowledge her existence.

And there was Arnold. He was probably seeing someone by now, completely happy, aside from his one stray piece of baggage from high school. Maybe the only reason he contacted her was to clear his conscience once and for all. She could practically picture him telling his beautiful girlfriend or wife-to-be about Helga, the ugly hag who returned to Hilwood just to spite him.

She took another look at Gerald Field. Dry dirt covered the ground where they used to play. All things but the bugs wriggling in the earth, crawling over first base, were dead. Helga turned around and walked home.

"I think I might just give up," said Arnold as he sat on Gerald's couch one stormy afternoon. Gerald pursed his lips and gave him a strange look. "What? I haven't talked to her three months! She won't answer my calls. I don't want to become a stalker or something."

"I know, I know," said Gerald calmly. "Maybe she's just… you know, done. Maybe she doesn't want to clear things up."

"Why wouldn't she?" asked Arnold, startled by the volume of his own voice.

"I don't know, man. Some people just don't want to face the facts," he said, biting on a pesky hang nail. Arnold sighed noisily, confused about what Gerald was saying. His answers weren't usually this cryptic.

"I just don't know what I'll do if I never speak to her again," Arnold muttered quietly. When Gerald's eyes widened, he added, "You know, because I want to clear things up. Apologize, or something."

"Whatever you say," Gerald cajoled with a raised eyebrow. Arnold had stopped by earlier that afternoon to drop off a book he borrowed, but like most other visits, he ended up staying a while and talking with Gerald. Today, however, he seemed kind of distracted, and Arnold had just now noticed that Phoebe was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Phoebe?" asked Arnold, watching as Gerald visibly tensed. It took a while for a response to come.

"Uh, she's out," he told him, scratching at his stubbly chin. "Running errands."

"Oh. Things getting better?" he asked, hoping to pry something out of his friend. Gerald pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, unsure of how to answer this question.

"Yes and no," he said, again leaving Arnold with a puzzle of an answer. He rolled his eyes.

"I'm not dumb, Gerald," Arnold reminded his friend. Gerald was almost always calm, and when he wasn't, it was easy to pick out a lie from the truth. "Where is she really?"

"She's…" Gerald began, twiddling his thumbs nervously. "At the doctor."

"Oh," was all Arnold could think to say. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's just a check-up. You know, to see how things are… progressing," Gerald said with a frown, staring down at the blinding white carpet. Arnold shook his head.

"I don't get it."

"Never mind," Gerald said. "Don't worry about it."

Almost as if on cue, the faint sound of a key being pushed into the lock halted their conversation. Arnold suddenly felt like somewhat of a burden, sitting there with nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to. Phoebe and Gerald had their own lives, and he couldn't help but feel like he was always interfering.

His thoughts were interrupted by soft sniffling, which almost immediately turned into a total downpour. Phoebe had entered the room crying and was now completely sobbing when she saw Gerald. Arnold wasn't used to seeing her like this, and as much as he wanted to be there for her, for the both of them… he felt the need to sneak out while her eyes were still too muddled with tears to notice him go. But as he lifted off the seat, Gerald grasped his arm, silently telling him to stay.

"What, what is it?" he asked very quietly, reaching out for his wife and grabbing her small waist with his hands, bringing her close. Instead of speaking, she just cried more, letting slick tears fall down her porcelain face without hesitation. Gerald repeated, "What is it? Are you okay?"

"I…" she warbled. "I'm fine."

"You're fine?" asked Gerald, still holding onto her waist with his shaking hands. "You mean you're…"

"Yeah," she squeaked, snuffling endlessly. She wiped tears away with her sweater sleeve to make way for new ones. This was seemingly the first moment that Phoebe realized Arnold was there.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, flinging her hand to her mouth as if she had spewed a dozen cuss words. Fitfully wiping away the tears, she attempted to smile at Arnold but looked more embarrassed than anything. Arnold couldn't help but grin widely at her, already glowing from the news. "I'm sorry, Arnold, I didn't notice you. Oh, and look at me, just so embarrassing, I'm sorry, I'm just-"

"Say no more," said Arnold.

Gerald, not even paying attention to this exchange, pulled her closer, resting his head upon her stomach as his arms found their way behind her back. Arnold could have swore that he saw a tiny glisten seep out of Gerald's closed eyes.

"I love you so much," he mouthed softly, only loud enough for him and Phoebe to hear.

Arnold left soon after that, congratulating the two with big hugs before stepping out the door. He suddenly felt rejuvenated. He had hated watching his two best friends deteriorate before his eyes, especially Phoebe. He had never had as close of a friendship with her than he did with Gerald, but there was always a bond between them that he knew would never break. After everything that happened… Arnold didn't even have a word to say to them. They had been completely fooled, meant to believe that they were having a child when in reality, they had lost one. For weeks, it was apparent that nothing would be the same. Phoebe would never return to her alert self, and Gerald would never regain the confidence he had worked so hard on.

But now, things were good. No, they were great. Arnold was all smiles as he hopped into his car.

So he decided to do something bold.

Helga's house was just a few blocks away. The house with the black fence. He just had to do something about this situation, even if he made a fool out of himself. But he didn't care. Why would he care when the promise of new life surrounded him?

He didn't even pause before he rang the doorbell. This was the right thing to do.

"Coming!" called a voice. A few cluttered bangs and clinks sounded from behind the door, and then it opened. Helga looked disheveled, and upon seeing Arnold, frustrated.

"What?" she asked. Arnold opened his mouth to speak, to preach to her, asking how she could be so avoidant when life was so short anyway. You live and you make mistakes and you die and not one life is the same. He wanted to tell her so many things, about the happiness he endured just moments before, about the agony he suffered trying to get reach her. But he was done waiting.

Helga stared at him with anticipation, probably wondering why he stared at her blankly without saying a word. But then he looked behind her. Boxes scattered the living room. An open suitcase like a mouth, spitting shirts and socks was idle in the corner. He shook his head.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice was a whole octave above where he would have liked it to be, but it couldn't be helped. "Are you… leaving?"

It hit him like a bowling ball striking down the pins. He was scattered on the floor, rolling in every which direction, completely dumbfounded. A dull ache flared in his chest.

"Yeah," she replied briefly, looking Arnold up and down with a small scowl. "It's probably for the best," she added softer, as if trying to convince herself. He opened his mouth to speak, even when he knew he didn't have the power to change her mind. Did he ever?

"I… listen, I know things are kind of weird, and I'm sorry, but,"

"Don't apologize, Arnold," she muttered, completely stoic. He missed the scowl. "It's not your fault. It never was."

"But… what do you mean?" he asked, suddenly desperate to keep her in the palm of his hand. She shrugged; her usual burning eyes were snuffed out. "How could you be moving away, you just got here, and the house is really nice, and,"

"I don't know why you're trying to keep me here," she stated. A blush covered his cheeks when he realized that he was indeed executing a feeble attempt to change her mind. But could he be blamed? She was, as Mr. Simmons used to say, "special".

"So what if I am?"

Helga laughed without humor, looking away from Arnold to stop herself from showing some sort of emotion. From the side of her mouth, she said, "It's funny, that's all."

Her voice shook like the tremor of an earthquake. She looked back at him, the corners of her eyes sagging with fatigue. And part of her wanted him to beg her not to go; she wanted to hear his stupid excuses. She wanted him to stand in the way of her own ridiculous whims. Because despite the fact that everyone else around her had changed, she hadn't, and part of her could still feel that high school love. That kind of attraction that pulled her to him like a magnet even when she so desperately wanted to run away. And for a while, she had forgotten. But now it was so clear in front of her, and she couldn't help but feel weak when he stared imploringly.

"I need to leave," she uttered truthfully.

"But you have so much going for you here-"

"Like what, Arnold?" she spat suddenly, her pent-up anger turning its ugly head at him. "Like my good-for-nothing dad who hasn't said a word to me since I was 18? Or how about Miriam, whose only incentive to get out of bed is a glass of gin?"

Arnold stayed silent, staring down at his feet.

"Or what about you," she bellowed, pointing a finger at his chest. "I don't know why you keep trying to contact me. Don't you have anything better to do than to remind me of the reason I left this place to begin with? I mean, sheesh, what the hell do I have to do around here to get everyone to just forget about that stupid incident?"

Arnold gulped, suddenly feeling sheepish as he stood in front of her door.

"Everyone here is still living in the past. You just keep trying to preach your Mother Theresa bullshit at me, trying to make everything rightagain, when really, that's never going to happen. And then there's everyone else in this goddamn city that never got out, and they never will, and to them I'm still that naïve girl from high school who got shot down at a pool party. And don't get me startedon Phoebe -"

"Don't," he said through clenched teeth. "Don'tsay anything about Phoebe."

Suddenly dumbfounded, Helga stopped in mid-sentence with her mouth still open, shocked from his sudden reaction. After a few moments, she finally said, "Whatever, Arnold. There's just no point anymore."

"How do you know that?" he asked, taking his stinging hands out of his pockets and folding them.

"I just know," Helga replied mistily. The sneer in her lip had completely vanished now, and her dull, empty eyes had returned to their place. For once, Arnold could see that she had lost all the fire that used to burn inside her constantly. By now it was just black smoke rising and dissipating, coming out in small bursts until finally, it was gone. And this made him feel very sad.

"But –"

"I'll see you around, Arnold."

She shut the door without another word.

A/N: Like I said, this chapter was really hard to write. I hope it's not horrible because I wrote out of order and I just hope it flows correctly. Also, between Helga seeing Eugene and Arnold finding out that Phoebe is pregnant, a month or so has passed. I hope I made that kind of obvious but if I didn't, sorry! Let me know what you think!

Also, you guys should check out my new storyyyyy! It's called "When There's Nothing Left to Burn" and it's a Gerald/Phoebe centric fic. I don't think I've ever seen a Gerald/Phoebe multi-chapter fic in this website before, and they are one of my all-time favorite couples (besides Arnold and Helga, who are also in the story). So, anyway! Yeah. Go look for it. Sorry for the shameless advertising.