Chapter ten: Forgiveness
"I can't believe you!" Helga screeched, storming up toward Arnold. "You actually told her?!"
Arnold narrowed his eyes at the screaming brunette, clenching the armchairs of the seat. "As if that's a bad thing!" he shot back. "She deserved to know!"
"Not until she was ready!"
"Don't you mean until you were ready?" Arnold folded his arms and scoffed. "Which would have been never, knowing you."
"I-"
"And for the record," Arnold interrupted. "I didn't say anything about it, she figured it out by herself. Apparently our daughter isn't some idiot."
Alice, who was even more confused, let her mouth fall open as she looked in between the two arguing adults. "Wait a minute, did you say our," she shook her head. "You mean to tell me you're really my papa..." She turned to look at Helga. "And you're my..."
Helga opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't think of anything and began backing toward the stairs again. "I...I can't deal with this right now."
"Well you are going to deal with this right now!" Arnold grabbed her by the arm. "You have no choice but to deal with this right now! You've put it off long enough!"
"Let go of me, football head!"
"Not a chance, unless you plan on decking me!"
"Well if you're looking for it, I'll happily oblige!"
"Hey!" Alice interrupted the two of them. "Can you two stop screaming at each other for just one second and just listen to me?!"
Arnold turned to look at the confused girl and sighed. "Go to your room, Alice."
"I don't have a room here!"
"Then go to my room," Helga spoke. "It's the second door on the right."
"But-"
"This isn't up for debate," her father said sternly, he pointed toward the stairs. "We will speak with you after the two of us are finished."
Alice wanted to protest more, but she could already see how stubborn these two were, so she relented for now. Besides, it wasn't like she couldn't just eavesdrop from upstairs. As the little girl grumbled and made her way toward the room, Helga turned to look at Arnold with an angry glare in her eyes, which was equally matched by Arnold.
"Now what are we supposed to do?" she growled.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Alice!" Helga began pacing the room. "What are we supposed to do about this situation?"
Arnold shrugged, unfolding his arms. "Don't try to make it seem like this is my fault."
"It is, if you hadn't said anything-"
"I told you I didn't!" Arnold hollered. "Besides, how is this my fault? You're the one that made this all happen!"
"Last time I checked, it takes two to tango. And we tangoed a lot back in our glory days."
"It may take two to tango, but apparently it takes one to fuck up an entire situation for three people." He sighed and fell back into the chair. "I mean, do you realize how badly you screwed up here?"
"I..." Helga decided to take a seat as well. "I didn't think any of this would happen."
"Oh, well that just makes me feel all better."
"Look, what can I say? I'm sorry," Helga covered her face with her hands. "Is that what you wanted? Or would you rather have me on my knees begging for your forgiveness?"
Arnold sat up straight and looked at her. "No," he said. "I don't give two shits about your apology, it's worthless when you've already robbed me of eight years with my daughter."
"Then what do you want from me?"
Arnold just sat in his chair, motionless and looking as if he wanted to throw something at Helga. "I want you to tell me why," he told her, sounding almost like an order.
"Why what?"
"Why everything," Arnold spoke. "Why didn't you ever want kids? Why did you leave me? Why did you toss away your own damn child like she was nothing? As of matter of fact, why did we even get together in the first place? Because honestly, I can't seem to remember why I even thought it was a good idea to date someone that hated me for so long."
"I don't hate you," Helga assured him in a small voice. "I never did, you know that. Or did you forget what I told you all those years ago?"
"That you 'loved' me since preschool?" Arnold asked with an arched eyebrow. "That you'll always 'love' me no matter what happens? I don't know what the definition of love means to you, but it must be a fucked up version of one."
"Arnold please-"
"Enough, I've still got four other questions you haven't answered," Arnold folded his arms again.
"Fine," Helga sighed. "To answer your first question, about why I never wanted kids, well that's simple. It's because-"
"Don't give me that 'my parents' excuse," the CEO told her. "It's pretty old and played out."
"Well it's the best I got," she told him in a warning tone, not wanting to be interrupted again. "Screwed up parents plus screwed up life equals screwed up person. Isn't that how it works?"
"Hey, my life wasn't perfect either," Arnold reminded her. "At least you had parents."
"So did you, they just weren't around for a while," Helga told him. "Not to mention your grandparents that raised you didn't ignore you, or call you by different name, or drink and sleep all day, or scream at you for no damn reason. If I remember correctly, you got to preschool in a car all happy and dry with your little umbrella."
"Oh, and now we're back to the same old sob story."
"It's not a sob story," now Helga seemed as if she were getting angry. "At least, that's not how I see it. Sure, that day sucked and pretty much set me up for the rest of my neglected childhood, but it was also one of the best days of my life. Because I fell in love with you."
"Yeah, then you started treating me like shit for the next eighteen years," Arnold said. "How could I forget?"
"Well, maybe at first," the brunette told him. "But when we got together, I really tried to change. I did everything I could to be good to you, but I can't just all the sudden change who I am. And you knew who I was before you decided to get with me, football head."
Arnold scowled at her, but didn't refute her point, knowing full well that what she said was true. "Okay, I'll admit it, some of the blame falls on me for deciding to date you in the first place," he shrugged. "And stop calling me that nickname, after what you did you don't deserve to refer to me by that."
"I gave you the nickname," she reminded him. "And I'll say it whenever I damn well please, you don't have to answer," she then gave him a playful smirk. "Football head."
Arnold rolled his eyes, almost feeling his lips turn into a smirk of his own. But that would actually imply he was enjoying being around Helga...which he wasn't, at all. "So, if you claim to have loved me all this time, why-"
"Arnold, don't use past tense," Helga told him. "It's really not needed." Arnold arched another confused eyebrow and moved closer slightly.
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean...what I'm trying to say is," Helga nervously drummed her fingers on the couch. "I'm, like, really trying my best not to jump you right now."
That made the CEO flinch slightly. She couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying, was she? "Hang on, are you saying that you still have some sort feelings for me?"
Helga embarrassingly looked away from him, but nodded slightly. "Arnold, if I could love you since I was three years old and hold onto that unrequited love for more than ten years, did you really think I could stop loving you in a mere eight years of being apart?" She sighed. "Do you want to know what I've been doing since I left you? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. When I'm in public I'll just put up a front, and then I'll just go on sulking whenever I'm alone. I tried to move on from you, find some other guy, but I could never make it past a first date."
She hung her head and let out a small laugh. "I haven't even had sex since our last time together, nearly eight and a half years ago. I tried to satisfy those needs, but I can't even so much has hold another guy's hand, much less do anything like that. There's only one you, and I can't even imagine being with anyone else."
"Then why did you leave me?!" Arnold yelled. "You loved me...still love me for most of your life, but you just leave me without a single word? And what about Alice? Didn't you care about her at all?"
"Of course I did," Helga felt so small right now as Arnold stood from the chair. "Arnold I love her almost as much as I love you. I know I said I didn't want any kids, and I was actually planning on handing her off to a foster family right after she was born." Tears began falling from her eyes. "But when that little girl came into this world, and I held her in my arms...I just couldn't let her go. She was ours, something we made together."
"And what about me?" Arnold growled. "You were just going to raise her all alone? Pretend she didn't have a father?"
"No, I was going to tell you at first," Helga said. "Once Alice was born, Olga and Phoebe pretty much forced me to do it, but I could never find you. You had changed colleges, and your number, and I lost contact with everyone else from around the area, so I couldn't ask anyone about you. Then I heard that Phil had recently died, and I figured I would definitely be the last person you'd want to see, so I decided to put it off for a later date. And you know how much of a procrastinator I can be, especially when I'm terrified to do something. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and before you knew it I had officially chickened out."
Arnold watched the tears fall from her face and clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to comfort her. He was still unbelievable pissed off at her, but his damned goodhearted nature sometimes took over his better judgment. He sighed, pulling a handkerchief from his shirt pocket, handing it to the crying female across from him. Helga gave him a strange look, but took the cloth and began dabbing her eyes with it.
"Thanks," she told him. "Sorry about that." She gave him a half smile. "I guess you're still Arnold after all."
"It's like you said, you can't change who you are," Arnold shrugged. "That doesn't mean I'm not still seriously thinking about flipping over a table right now."
"I understand," Helga nodded at him. "I don't expect either of you to forgive me for what I did. I may be a horrible person, but I'm not that stupid."
Arnold immediately closed his mouth before he could say something stupid or sentimental. In his heart, he knew she wasn't really a bad person, she had plenty of good in her, he'd seen it firsthand. She was just incredibly stupid and stubborn sometimes, and she tended to make horrible decisions without thinking about the consequences.
He vigorously started shaking his head, trying to rid himself of his stupid naïve Arnold-like thoughts. He's supposed to be pissed off at her, yelling at her and giving her hell for what he did, not trying to talk himself into thinking it wasn't a big deal.
"Helga," he said. "I'll be honest, I don't think I'll be able to forgive you. Hell, I don't even know if I want to forgive you." He let out a small sigh. "But I can't speak for Alice, you'll have to have a talk with her."
"She'll feel the same way you do," Helga told him. "She hates me, she's always hated me since she was born. I tried to be a good mother for her, I worked two jobs, bought her everything she needed, held her as often as I could to form some sort of close bond. But she would always cry or give me dirty looks, like she was telling me just how much of a worthless mother I was."
"Well you kind of made yourself look like it by just giving her away."
"I had to, she wasn't happy here, just like you weren't happy with me," she brought her hands together. "Olga offered to take her in, she didn't want me to give her away to strangers and never see her again, even though I would have preferred it that way."
"So you can just wipe your hands clean with us."
"No! So the two people I love most in the world could be happy!"
Arnold slammed his hands on the sides of the couch Helga was sitting on, moving in close so that he was right in her face. "Jesus Christ, woman! Do you ever use that thing in your head called a brain?" he snarled. "Just once did you stop and think that maybe, just maybe, I...we were happy with you?"
"I-"
"Didn't you ever think that I shared your deep feelings for me? That Alice loved you as much as you did her?"
"Arnold-"
"I loved you damn it! I was happy with you! You may think you're some sort of devil, but you weren't to me."
Helga's eyes began darting around the room, refusing to look into the angry blonde's flaring ones. "T-That's only because you're Arnold, you see the good in everyone!"
"It doesn't mean I'm stupid, a little naïve maybe, but not stupid. If I thought of you the way you think of yourself, I would never have been with you in the first place." He moved out of her proximity and began storming his way toward the stairs.
"So..." Helga began quietly as Arnold made his way up the stairs. "I guess this means you really hate me now?"
Arnold was silent and continued walking until he reached the top. "I want to," he said. "I really want to hate you so much right now, it'd make this so much easier. I guess that's why I'm so pissed off at the moment. Because no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to really hate you."
He noticed out of the corner of his eye that a small figure had moved from the front of the stairs and scurried into one of the rooms. Without another word, Arnold continued up the stairs and into Helga's room, slamming the door shut. The moment he entered the room, he noticed two things. One was tons of awards, ribbons, and newspaper clippings with her persona on it.
"She's been keeping busy," Arnold arched an eyebrow. "I guess she was telling the truth about doing nothing but working."
The second, more obvious, thing he noticed was the large lump in under the covers of Helga's bed. Arnold grinned at and walked over to the bed, sitting right next to the lump. For a while he didn't say anything, he just sat there as if he were all alone in the bed.
"Whew," he sighed to himself. "After all that shouting I could use a nap." And with that, he let himself fall back in the bed, landing right on the lump.
"Hey!" a muffled voice came from under. "Get off me!"
"Oh, is someone there? I didn't notice."
"Yeah right," Alice pushed herself out from under the covers. "You're a lot heavier than you look." Arnold smirked at her and pushed himself back up in a sitting position, allowing Alice to swing her legs to the edge of the bed to sit upright.
"I caught you spying," Arnold told her. "Even though we specifically instructed you to go into the room."
"Yeah, well there's a little thing you need to know about me," the blonde folded her arms. "I don't follow orders very well."
"It doesn't take a genius to figure that out," Arnold let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "So how much of that did you hear?"
"Enough to know that my parents need to be in a soap opera," Alice shrugged. "And that I was obviously a mistake."
"Don't say that," Arnold sighed. "You were a surprise, not a mistake. There's a big difference."
"That's not how she sees it." "I don't think Helga thinks of you as a mistake either," he informed her. "She's just...I don't know. Sometimes I don't know what goes through that woman's head." He nearly slapped himself on the forehead, sometimes he just hated that good nature of his. He always found himself saying something to defend her, it was like a reflex or something.
"Obviously not, if you didn't know she liked you since she was three," Alice giggled. "Seriously, when I was three the only thing I liked about boys were the fact that they were more fun to play with."
"It's kinda hard to think someone likes you when all they did was bully you all throughout your childhood."
"She was your bully?"
"She was everyone's bully," Arnold smirked. "She would call everyone names, especially me, hit them, shove them into things, toss spitballs into their hair..." he trailed off when he noticed Alice looking away from him and trembling slightly.
"Alice?" he reached out and touched her shoulder. "Are you alright?" He could hear small sniffling sounds. "Are you cr-"
In a flash, Alice leaped from her side of the bed and into his arms, burying her face into his chest. Whoa, he thought to himself. Where did this come from? "Hey-"
"I'm not crying," she told him in a shaky voice. "And I'm not hugging you, I-I just lost my balance."
"While sitting down?"
"Shut up..."
Arnold nervously stared at her, but found holding onto the trembling child even tighter. "Um," he began. "You're not disappointed?"
"No," Alice told him. "Well...maybe a little. But that's only because I had crazy expectations. I thought you'd be some kind of prince or something with a big white horse." He felt her begin to relax in his grasp. "I'm just happy I really have parents, even if one is insane and the other has a weird shaped head."
"And I'm happy I really have a daughter," Arnold told her. "I thought I'd never find you."
"You're not disappointed?"
"Maybe a little," he joked.
Alice smirked at him slightly and found herself staring at the ground. "Um, so what now?"
"Well," Arnold set her back on the bed. "I'm not sure, I'll be staying in California for a few more days to do business. Then I'll be going back across the country."
"And I'll be going back to England with Aunt Olga..." she looked away from him. "Unless, you don't want me to."
"Do you not want to?"
"I wouldn't mind, but I was just kinda hoping...you know," now she was blushing and fiddling with her fingers. "Maybe you'd want me to live with you? I mean, I am your kid after all."
Arnold felt a warm smile tug on his lips as he reached out and touched her shoulder. "I'd like that," he told her. "When I get a chance I'll talk to Olga about it."
Alice nodded, trying to hide her smile, then looked toward the door. "What about...her?"
Arnold sighed, sitting next to Alice again. "I'm not sure what she's going to do," he said. "I don't even know what I want her do." He gave her a look. "You?"
"I dunno what I want her to do either," Alice shrugged, looking back at Arnold. "Why does she think I hate her?"
"She's really paranoid, always has been," Arnold folded his arms and shook his head. "I'd just wish she'd get over that already."
"Don't you hate her though?"
"I don't...can't." he shrugged. "I can't really hate her no matter how much I want to."
"So...does that mean you love her?"
He let out another sigh, this one sounding as if he were deflating. "For some reason, I don't know the answer to that question."
Phoebe collapsed on the side of the bed, feeling exhausted and completely satisfied as two strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist. "So," she turned to face Gerald, who had a big grin on his face. "How much of eight years do you think we made up?"
"Not nearly enough," Gerald told her. "We can try for more after getting some rest."
"Sounds good to me," Phoebe yawned, snuggling closer into his embrace.
As her eyes began to slowly close, Gerald's grin suddenly soured. He still felt a small feeling of guilt, no doubt from his earlier conversation with his soon to be ex-wife. Now that he actually had time to think and asses the entire situation, he began wondering if he did the right thing. At the very least, he maybe could have handled the situation better.
Screaming at her about sleeping with someone else didn't help, he thought to himself. Damn it Gerald, no wonder you have such a bad rep with women. He looked over to Phoebe, who looked as if she had completely fallen asleep, and gently brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes.
"At least I have you back," he told her, placing a small kiss on her cheek. "I-"
"Um, sir? Are you here?" Gerald arched an eyebrow at the sound of the voice from the other side of the door.
"It's Gerald, I'm here," he called. "Where in the world have you been?"
"Looking around for you and Mr. Shortman," she told him. "I had to reschedule your meeting with the senator, again."
"Sorry about that," he began to slowly get out of bed, not wanting to wake the sleeping female beside him. "Um, a few things came up."
"Whatever, at any rate you need to get out here right now, you visitors."
"Visitors?" Gerald walked toward the door. "Who's visiting me at this...hour..."
His jaw nearly dropped when he opened the door to see Sherry standing there with two other people beside her, who turned out to be G.J. and Mariah. "Hey there, baby," Mariah gave him a devilish smirk. "Miss me?"
"M-Mariah...what are you doing-"
"Mmm, Gerald, what's going on?"
The VP quickly whirled around to see Phoebe slowly rising from the bed, apparently having been woke prematurely from her nap. Gerald frantically looked between both Mariah and Phoebe and froze, with only one thought crossing his mind.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
A/N: More dramatic...er...drama. And wow, I did not expect Gerald to get so much hate from you guys, lol. And hopefully the wait for this chapter wasn't too long for you guys. Until next time.
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