A/N: One of my reviewers asked if I was writing this with them being in NY or WA. And honestly, I was writing it like they were in NY, but in this one, it doesn't really matter. I know that in the original mythology of the show, Hillwood is in Washington, but in this story, I wrote it with NY in mind. Because I wanted Helga to have moved clear across the country, and Portland is just the first city I came up with. But, either way, there aren't any details in this story that will be out of place if you have it set in WA.

With the sound of a soft, yet sultry female voice echoing over Vivian's very first audible bark hitting her ears, she slowly set the cookie sheet with the chicken down onto the counter very gently, trying to make absolutely no noise, so she would stay unnoticed. She looked out into the the living room where she could see Arnold's body was very rigid, with his dog's head low, her jowls quivering. His guest had obviously set her off for some reason.

As Helga was trying to stay very still, Arnold couldn't seem to move, staring at his ex-wife, who was standing opposite him, smiling back at him like she was as innocent as the day they met. He blinked, hoping she would be an apparition, but she was still there. Physically, she had changed, at least, her hair did. It was a lot shorter now. It was now cut to fall just short of her shoulders. Hearing Vivian growl beside him, he looked down to her threatening posture, and grabbed onto her collar and started to stroke her back. "I see you got a dog."

"Rachel, uh... what are you doing here?" He asked, pulling on Vivian's collar and moving her behind him.

"I'm back in town, and I wanted to catch up." She said with an innocent shrug, and what seemed to be sincere smile. Even his thoughts stuttered, but one finally formed fully, and he quickly shot a look over to the woman he left standing in the kitchen. His hopes for a peaceful, romantic evening with his girlfriend were already shattered, but that didn't mean that he had to put up with Rachel anymore than he needed to to get rid of her.

Seeing Helga's nervous and wide eyed look, standing like a deer in headlights in his kitchen, it was probably a good thing that Rachel didn't see her right away.

Helga suddenly felt like an intruder, if not an intruder, than very uncomfortable. Arnold's ex-wife had just asked him to catch up, and she still didn't know the deeper details revolving around her, or his divorce. She knew the story, but she didn't know exactly how he felt about it. And with that, she didn't know how her being here was affecting him. Taking off the oven mitt, she quickly made her way out of the kitchen, and over to where Arnold was still holding back his dog.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something right now." She heard him say as she came up behind him, and ran her hand over Vivian's head to try and calm her down.

"Actually," She said softly, getting a quick spin of his head, and a scared look. "I better get going. I still have some packing to do." She stopped when she saw the person still in the hall way lean over and peak her head inside. Phoebe wasn't kidding...

Despite the hair, she did look a lot like her, maybe a little shorter, and a little bustier, but still a lot like her. Deciding to try and put it out of her mind until later, she placed a hand on his shoulder as she moved around him, "I'll call you in the morning." She said softly, hoping that it would be unheard by the woman standing adjacent to them, probably listening intently. Resisting the urge to push up and press her lips to his stubble, she kept her hand on his shoulder for as long as she could until she absolutely had to let go.

As she shimmied around Rachel, who was looking at her with a raised brow, and feigned smile, Arnold wanted nothing more than to tell her to go away, pull Helga back in, and slam the door. But he stayed silent, and watched Helga walk down the hall. And he couldn't help but feel a little heartbroken. That was the first time that they had parted ways without saying 'I love you' to each other. Once she disappeared from sight, noticing Rachel still looking off in her direction, he ran a hand over his slicked back hair, and let out a breath.

"I didn't realize you had company." Vivian barked again at the sound of her voice.

"Go lay down." He ordered her, looking behind him and pointing his finger over to the pillow that was in the corner. Vivian let out a small whimper and turned around, walking over to her bed and laying down. He turned back around, and noticed the impatient look Rachel was giving off. She hated dogs, and as he remembered this, he had half a mind to call Vivian back over.

"I didn't realize you had company." She said, still looking down the hall.

"What do you want, Rachel?" He asked in a low, impatient tone.

"I see our place hasn't changed much since I left." She reflected, looking past him and into his apartment.

"What I do with my apartment isn't your business anymore." He said, crossing his arms.

"Can we at least be civil?" She asked with a pleading look.

"What are you doing here, Rachel?"

She let out a sigh, and let her head fall forward. "I'm back in town visiting my parents, and they asked about you. They were wondering how you were doing, and I was a little sad when I told them that I haven't spoken to you in four years. They told me that out of all the boys I ever brought home... you were the best." He wanted to tell her to get to the point, but he knew that she didn't really care what her parents thought, since she specifically asked him not to ask for her father's blessing. "And I agreed with them. What we had was special."

"What we had wasn't real, Rachel."

"How can you say that?" For a moment, she honestly looked hurt. "We were in love, weren't we? Remember how you proposed to me? With that little plastic ring from a vending machine, because you couldn't afford a real ring, and how you got down on one knee in the middle of the mall, how spontaneous and romantic you were?"

"Do you remember what you said to me when I had to move back to home to take care of my grandfather? How, even though you knew how much losing his wife of over sixty-five years destroyed him, you told me that he was going to die anyway, so why bother?"

"Can't we just... look past all of that and try again?"

"No." He stated bluntly, and without hesitation. "I finally managed to move on from how you left me."

"What, with her?!" She exclaimed, waving a hand in the direction that Helga had walked down. "You think I didn't notice that she just might bare a passing resemblance to you ex-wife? Yeah, real good job of moving on, Arnold. Is her name Rachel too?" At her mocking, and sarcastic tone, he was reminded of all the fights they used to have, and how angry they got with one another. And at first, during their marriage, he did do it just as an excuse for a hot bout in between the sheets, but it quickly turned into just fighting, and he would end up sleeping on the couch. Some night, he even slept on the couch when they weren't fighting.

"No, her name is Helga. I've known her since we were kids. We grew up together. And just so you understand, she came first."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

"You remember that day in the library, when we first met? How you always used to brag to all of your friends that I came to help you with your books?" He inwardly grimaced at the way she fawned all over him when they were dating, and at a bar with her friends.

"What, did you help her with her books too?"

"No, I held an umbrella over her head during a rainstorm on the first day of preschool and walked her to the door, and complimented her on her bow." He had remembered that day for a while now. Thinking about how that day in that office could have been her last, he started to think back to the first time they met, and after an hour of cycling through memories, finally came up with that cold, stormy morning outside of Urban Tots Preschool, holding his umbrella over an already soaked and mud covered little girl with pig tails and big blue eyes.

"Well, isn't that sweet? I guess you were a charmer even when you were in diapers." She spat, keeping her voice thick with infuriating sarcasm. "So, everything you ever said, all those times you said you loved me, all those times you said that I was the most beautiful creature god had ever put on this earth, it means nothing to you now? Arnold, you made me fall for you in a week!"

"You say that like I'm suppose to care. It took me a long time to learn to let go of the past, Rachel. You didn't just let me go, you threw me away. You threw away everything I said when you left that note on the fridge. We can't go back because there's nothing to go back to."

"But you have to admit that we had something special!"

"What we had were fights. That's all we ever did was fight. And what's worse is that it was always about nothing. We got into fights over which side of the bed you slept on! And you really want me to go back to that?"

"So... that's it, your just going to start sleeping with my doppelganger instead?"

"You're her doppelganger, Rachel. She came first. That day in the library, when I came up to you. I thought that you were her. I fell for her in grade school, but then she moved with her mother down to Portland, and I never saw her again. And because I fell for her so long ago, when I approached you in the library, I thought I was approaching her."

As he told her this, he felt guilty. That day had always meant so much to her. It was the one proud moment they had in their relationship, and it was the one moment that she always told to her friends proudly, always saying how sweet and caring he was. So he would be lying if he said that confessing to her that the only reason that that day even happened in the first place was because he was thinking of another woman didn't make him feel like he was a terrible person. And as he met her eyes again, he saw that she was very genuinely hurt.

"You mean... when you came up to me, when I dropped my books... you thought you were helping her."

"I'm sorry, Rachel. But-"

"No, you're not either! You're telling me that they only reason you came up to me in the first place was because you thought that I was her? Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?"

"Just like it felt when I called you the night you left, and begged you to come back. Just like it felt when your lawyer said that you asked to keep my own grandmother's engagement ring. Just like it felt when you said that falling in love with me was the worst mistake you ever made. I know exactly how it feels, Rachel. I have every right to move on with my life, and be with someone who really loves me, and who I love back just as much."

"So, you're telling me that everything you ever did for me, like taking care of me when I had the flu, or when you carried me over this threshold, it was all because of her... this, Helga?"

"You want her number to thank her?" He sarcastically asked.

She crossed her arms, and raised a brow. "Sure." He did a double take, thinking her heard wrong. "Give me her number."

"I was kidding, Rachel."

"What? If she loves you as much as you say she does, then what's the problem?"

"I'm not giving you her phone number, Rachel. And trust me when I say it's for your protection, not mine." He said with a confident smirk, very proud of who his girlfriend was.

"I can not believe I even came here!" She huffed as she spun on her heel, turning down the hallway.

"Believe me, I wish this was a bad dream!" He replied with a raised voice, receiving no reply from her, simply a very pointed look. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he finally slid his door shut, slouching against it heavily. He looked over to Vivian, who was wagging her tail, her ears perked up, looking very adorable. He patted his knees, and she came running over, falling at his feet on her back. He laughed and started to scratch her belly. "You hungry, Vivi? 'Cause no one else is going to eat this chicken."

"Hey..."

Her soft, angelic, and slightly apologetic voice made the bad taste his ex-wife left in his mouth vanish. He took a deep breath in through his nose, which was obviously audible through the phone line, since he heard her giggle on the other end. "Hey..." He said on a sigh, letting the breath out.

"So... how'd it go?"

"She's my ex-wife, how do you think it went?"

She chuckled dryly, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just glad she's gone. Speaking of which, you want to come back over?"

"I don't know," She said on a yawn, "I'm pretty tired."

"You can sleep here tonight."

"Oh, uh... I don't know, Arnold. I don't want to... rush things."

"I know, but I really want to see you. I love Vivian to death, but she isn't cutting it. And that whole shoulder thing left me... wanting."

There was a long moment of anxious pause, as he stopped his ministrations on Vivian's head, waiting for her answer. "Okay."

He smiled brightly into the receiver, now very eager to see her again. "You're awesome, you know that?"

"You know, the national institute of the blatantly obvious just called about that, actually?"

He laughed, very in love with her sense of self confidence, and sense of humor. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay."

"And Helga,"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

There was another short moment of pause before she answered him, "I love you more."