helga 9:14

happy thanksgiving

everybody

lila 9:14

!

Sid 9:15

SHE LIVES!

Mari 9:17

Hey, thanks baby!

I'm glad to hear from you!

Gerald was sitting on the floral couch, a small refuge from the absolute caucous of noise in the other room. The room was cramped, a lamp by the couch leaning over his hair, the coffee table with the cracked legs all but pushed into his legs. There were bags and kids toys spread out in the room, as if there was a hurricane recently, that got toddlers involved.

Sid 9:19

ALL HAIL TURKEYSUS

GOD OF THANKSGIVING

"You're grinning like a damn fool," he heard Mari in the entry way. She looked beautiful, crisp orange sweater dress and her curls falling into her face. She smiled at him as she crossed the room, then sank down, half into the couch, half on top of him.

"I'm," he picked his words carefully, "glad she's doing better."

Mari ran her hand lovingly over the side of his head and kissed his cheek. He tried to keep his smile from growing wider, but he thought he might be failing. "I'm glad you went over there."

A crash, and then some yelling in spanish from the kitchen.

"You sure you shouldn't be in there?" He asked carefully.

"What, you're the only one who's allowed to hide on the couch?"

Most everyone else was outside at Mari's house, the kids running around on the sparse backyard and the adults sharing a beer on the porch. It was unseasonably warm, and her family was making the most of it. It was their first holiday where they made it a point to visit each other's houses, which Gerald could only assume was some kind of step for them.

He looked at her, the soft glow of the lamp reflecting off her cheek and her smudged eyeliner. He thought about bringing it up, that he might switch colleges.

But she linked her hand with his and dropped her head on his shoulder with a contented sigh, and she smelled like spice and cinnamon and all together too good for him.

He kissed her forehead, and said nothing.

Arnold had no idea what had gotten into him, but when he got the text he was on his feet and walking towards the house he had only driven to once. He had to drive to his parent's soon, but it barely mattered to him. He didn't wear warm enough clothes, despite the warm weather and had his hands shoved into his pockets, balled into fists. He walked quickly, not pacing himself at all.

When he got to Helga's block, he didn't have the nerve to look up at the house until he was within feet of it. He didn't look up until he heard the sound of a screen door slamming shut.

On the porch there was a girl, who was definitely not Helga. She had her back to him, facing the door. As if she had just gotten shoved out of it.

He suddenly felt so stupid and so ridiculous and still hurt and he just turned on his heel so he could get the heck out of there.

"Hey, Arnold," the girl on the porch called out to him. Her voice rang in his frigid ears.

Arnold turned around, hands shoved into his pockets. He was trying his best to not have a defeated or derisive attitude. True neutral. Or he tried, anyway. He cocked his head to the side. "How'd you know my name?" She was leaning against the banister with her arms crossed. He knew, for a fact, by the easy smile on her face and the nonchalance, she could only be Cass.

She rolled her eyes, but with good nature. "Who else would you be?"

Arnold…didn't know, frankly. He looked at her. It appeared that, like Helga, she didn't put too much stake in appearances. Her hair was loosely wavy and fell just below her shoulders, most of the top was shoved back by a beanie. She was wearing a t-shirt for a band Arnold didn't know under a military-themed jacket. Arnold wasn't good with telling, but he was pretty sure she didn't have any make up on her warm, but pale, skin, and there especially didn't seem to be any on her brown, maybe hazel, eyes.

She reminded him of Helga, which honestly didn't surprise him, but in a different way than he was expecting. They were maybe both peas- but certainly not from the same pod. For example, Helga certainly would have called him out for staring that long without saying anything. When his eyes met Cassidy's again, she just smiled at him. He got the feeling she was looking him over, too.

"Wanna take a walk?" She asked kindly. Her voice was different than he thought it would be, lighter but crisper, all at the same time.

"Wanna...what?" He could have smacked himself for stammering, but it wasn't at all what he was expecting.

"Walk," she said slowly, another tease. He was surprised how quickly this girl came to be teasing, but she teased in a very different way than Helga did. Helga's always had the razor blade of truth lying under her words, so they stung even if it wasn't intentional. Cassidy, somehow, already made him feel like he was in on the joke. "It's a thing that humans do," she trotted quickly down the steps, on to the little path to stand beside him. "Where you put one foot," she demonstrated, "in front of the other. And then you just keep going."

And she did. She just started to walk away from him, trusting that he would follow. It made him smile, because it reminded him of someone. He glanced back up at the house, at the shut curtains and the locked front door. He let himself be sad, for just a moment, before turning around to follow Cassidy.

Sid was walking with a hop in his step. It was Thanksgiving, the last of the beautiful leaves were beginning to fall. Lila had texted him that her Grandparents were in town and driving her crazy, so he was on his way to meet her at the ShopRite, if only so she could escape for an hour.

She looked beautiful, as she never didn't. She had half her hair pulled back in a clip. She looked cold, even though Sid himself thought it was maybe unreasonably warm out, but she had her hands clasped in front of her. The tip of her nose was turning pink.

He thought as he walked up to her, hands shoved in his pockets, that if she were Helga he'd grab her by the shoulder and plant an obnoxious kiss on her cheek. Which Helga would ostentaciously wipe off and wiggle away from him. He wondered how Lila would react.

And he didn't have time to talk himself out of it, so he did it without thinking at all.

As he approached her, he grabbed her shoulder so they were walking side by side and he leaned down and kissed her cheek. She was shorter than Helga, so it was more of her temple, but all the same idea.

"Good morning," he said, rubbing his hand on her shivering shoulder. He wondered when his heart had picked up to such a traitorously quick pace.

When he had the nerve to look back down at her, her entire face was red. There were large, green eyes blinking at him.

"Hey," she exhaled as she spoke. She looked like she didn't know how he expected her to respond. She settled for grabbing his hand, the one thrown over her shoulder, with soft hands.

Sid figured he liked that better than when Helga shoved him.

"How's the fam?"

"I threw the potatoes out the window so I had an excuse to leave," she blinked innocently.

Sid snorted, and shoved his other hand back in his pocket as they strolled in the opposite direction of produce.

"They're just conservative…and judgemental. I love them, but…" she shook her head, "enough of that," they were headed towards freezer waffles. "Enough of that." There was not another place on earth Sid would have rather been in, instead of that waffle freezer aisle, "how is your Thanksgiving going?"

Sid didn't want to tell her so far his Thanksgiving required him to leave his warm comfort blanket of a college campus and return to where he never slept because of the noise and there was nothing but dust and disappointment in the kitchen cabinets.

"It's alright," he settled for that. "So, in our future mansion-"

"We have a future mansion?"

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Shouldn't we aim for the slightly more realistic," Lila grabbed a display of fake fruit without purpose, just running her hands over the plastic grapes. "Our future cottage?"

"How about a villa?"

"I can do villas."

"Okay, so our future villa: how many horses do we have?"

"We have horses?!"

"How are you, Arnold?" Cass asked as they walked. He was finally warming up in the sunshine.

"I," he licked his lips. He knew he should tell her he's okay. She was, after all, a complete stranger. But she wasn't, not really, and she didn't speak to him like she thought he was one, either. "I dunno."

"Valid answer," she nodded.

It was only a few more steps before Cass spoke again.

"She'll come out of it…" She hummed, kicking a pebble alongside her feet, "she always does."

"Helga," Bob's voice nearly made her jump six feet out of her skin. She shut the curtains in front of her tightly, who knew why. It wasn't as if anyone was looking in them. Any normal person would apologize for scaring the shit out of their conversational partner, but Bob just kept talking. "What'd ya' think of Cheryl?"

"Who?!" She put a hand on her heart, turning to face her dad.

"The therapist," her dad was shifting awkwardly in front of her. "Cheryl."

Helga didn't mind Cheryl, she didn't think so. Therapy had been good for her once…it could be again.

"I was just thinkin' it's good if we all go…" her dad scratched his neck, "go to the same one."

Helga blinked. Her mind wasn't set for this conversation at all. It wasn't on her mind in the slightest, she was having a hard time computing reactions for it.

"Keep it… in a small circle, I guess."

Helga didn't know what else to do but nod.

"She's been good for me, I mean, I think so…hopefully she can…"

"I hope so too, Dad." Helga interrupted for the sake of her nervous father. So he could stop saying things for the sake of saying words.

"Right, well…" He put his hands in his pockets, "I have work now." He was dressed for it, khakis and all. Retail did that to a man on Thanksgiving. "I can bring home food when I'm done setting up at 8."

"That uh," she wanted to tell him she was good, thanks. But something about the hopeful expression in his eyes made her say otherwise "sounds good, dad."

She tried her best not to revel in his approving smile.

"I'll see you then," he pat her shoulder awkwardly, and then headed down the stairs.

"We were freshman," Arnold was laughing and he didn't even know when it started. "Sid did the dance, but he was mortified. Glee was an atrocity to high schools everywhere." Arnold wondered how drunk Sid would have to be to do the Single Ladies dance at the next party they went to.

Arnold, even in laughter, tried not to give into the stabbing at his chest that he hadn't taken part in it at all. Gerald knew the dance too, if the entire football team had done it. He never regretted for a day leaving to be with his parents. He did, sometimes, wonder what it would have been like if he had been around.

If anyone had bothered sending him even the shortest letter that might include him in some way.

Anyone but Lila, of course.

Lila was not skipping on her way back from the ShopRite after two hours discussion on their horses names and what a horses favorite snack actually was, but she was close to it. She had a small bag full of red potatoes.

Her grandparents were still nitpicking everything in their affordable apartment apart by the time she got in the door. They yelled at her dad for the plaid blanket, the one that was her favorite, and the fact their window was drafty. It didn't matter to them their entire apartment was stitched together with their memories together and love.

She wanted to be angrier, as she set the bag down in the kitchen, but Sid had texted her a photo of an overweight mini pony…

She couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"So," Cass made an odd noise as they rounded another block. "What's surprised you most since your grand return? Besides froyo." She joked.

"Honestly?" Arnold barely needed to think about it. "Sid."

"Ah, yes," she snorted. "Your little protégé."

"…what?"

"I've just met you," she grinned at him, "and I can tell you right away that Sid tries his hardest to be like you."

"Yeah, right." He rolled his eyes a little, "Sid's just a good guy."

"Arnold," Cassidy stopped in her tracks, letting him get a few steps ahead of herself. "Sid has wanted to be you since, like, the fifth grade."

Arnold looked back with a disbelieving leer, "you're kidding."

Cass scoffed, hopping a bit to catch up. She flipped around to face him, walking backwards. "Gee, I'd like to meet the 11 year old who doesn't want to be the kid with a room with a glass ceiling, disappeared on a crazy jungle adventure and is the first, might I remind you, of his friends to have a real girlfriend."

"Really?" Arnold still had a flat look on his face.

Cass rolled her eyes, altering her step to walk beside him again. "When I first met Sid it was Arnold this, Arnold that. If I thought anyone was gay when I met them, it was Sid, for Christ's sake. Now I realize it was all probably this subconscious thing to be more like you to get Helga's attention, not that it ever worked…"
Cass' eyes were on him suddenly. He didn't know what face he was supposed to be making, how she wanted him to look. Her face seemed to apologize for the overload of information, but also analyzing his reaction. Which he didn't know what it was, he was too busy worrying about what face to make.

"Seriously," she snorted, "I just met you, but if this-" she did a little circle with her pointer finger, "experience is anything to go on, I think you know exactly where Sid picked up his habit of walking a few miles for his friends…"

Sid whistled in his own, unique way, as in, the worst whistle you can even conceieve, as he let himself back into his mom's house. They didn't have any turkeys left at the ShopRite, naturally, but they had small rotisserie chickens, and cans of green beans. He settled for that, and thought he would wake his mom up and they could have a bit of Thanksgiving, themselves.

Lila had maybe encouraged him, because as they strolled around, the only thing on her mind was really all of her fond stories of her father. Sid thought it couldn't be too late to start making some nice memories with his Mom. They had had Thanksgivings together before, but they mostly consisted of Chef Boyardee and her taking an early night's nap.

"Mom…" he called out as he pushed his door open. There wasn't a reply, but he shrugged. She probably went out for a cigarette. He set the chicken out on the counter, and sat on their one stool with one broken leg.

At five o'clock he called her, feigning casuality and clearing his throat as it rang…trying to keep his breath even when it hit a voicemail with a full in box.

He sat and he watched the small chicken clock they had on the wall that was a few hours behind tick away, not looking at the cracks that it was hung up to cover.

At eight o' clock he knocked on a neighbor's door. The sound of a bottle smashed and a cat made a distressing noise. He immeaditely regretted it, and ran back into his room.

By ten the chicken was cold. He tried turning on their oven, but he assumed they must have been out of gas after a few fruitless attempts. He thought maybe he didn't know how the oven worked. He wasn't sure of a way to know for sure…their wifi stopped working a couple months back.

He microwaved some chicken and green beans on a paper plate he found in one of the lower cupboards, and sat on the floor to eat it, alone.

"So," Cass said as they arrived back on the street that Helga lived on, a few blocks up. "What are you gonna do?"

"Honestly?" Arnold sighed. "I didn't have a plan."

"Nice, me either. Ever." She knocked her shoulder into his.

He gave her a weak smile.

"This won't fix it, you know…" she put her hands in her own pockets. "This whole…locking herself away, thing. It's kind of fairly common…where they think if they can just get a couple of weeks to fix themselves, it'll all be better…it won't be."

She sighed, scuffing her boots on the sidewalk to slow them down. "There isn't a quick fix for what Helga has…there isn't a juice cleanse or a spiritual awakening to be had." She shrugged. "Recovery isn't like that."

He looked at her, a small gesture for her to keep talking.

"Recovery is more like…this," She looked at her feet. "Where you put one foot in front of the other," she mimicked her joke from earlier. "And just keep going."

"I just," Arnold sighed, "I just wish I knew what I could do…what I should be doing."

She looked up at him with a sad smile. "I want to help, too." She had her hands in her pockets, but a slouch in her shoulders…that small sign of defeat and despair. "We just gotta keep being the people who…"

"Walk a couple miles…" Arnold added on as they walked up the path to Helga's doorstep, where they had looped around back to.

"Which you are." She told him, grabbing his arm lightly. "I don't even know you, but I know how kind you are."

She looked to the door, almost awkwardly, as if she had something else to say.

"Well I'm," Arnold shook his head. "I mean." He shivered a little, he didn't know when his words got so jumbled. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

There was a pause, as if Cass was waiting for something, like a queue in a play. Arnold didn't know what to say. She didn't either, apparently.

"I'm uh," he nodded backwards, "I'm gonna head home now."

"Are you sure you don't want to…" She looked at the door.

He shook his head. "She knows where to find me."

As soon as Cass put a foot in the Pataki household, she pressed her back up against the door and let out a giant breath. "Tac," she growled, "what the fuck was that?!"

Helga, holding a cardboard box and looking distraught, winced, "I panicked!"

"Oh my god," Cassidy put her face in her hands, "that was so awkward. And anticlimactic."

Helga set the box down at her feet with a huff. "I'm sorry." She spoke aggressively, pacing back and forth. "I just got too nervous!" She flung herself on to the couch. "I'm a failure." She wallowed in her failure on the ugly loveseat that took up most of the space in their living room.

"Yeah, that was a failure."

"Not helping, Cass."

"He wanted to hear what I said from you."

"I know he did."

"It's not too late, you know," Cass checked the time on her phone. "I just walked him in a square around the block for literally an hour for you…I'm sure he'd give you another 15 minutes." Helga groaned.

Helga saw him approaching from a distance and shoved Cass on her porch to let herself stall, earlier that day. She had a little speech prepared, about the box and her poems and her gratitude towards him and she had completely lost it when it was her turn, and let him awkwardly leave. It was a failure, through and through.

"I can't do it."

"You can."

"I can't."

"Do you want to come for dinner?" Cass said, interrupting their little chain, grabbing her bag from by Helga's couch.

"I actually think Bob is coming home."

"…nice," Cassidy hesitated, sitting down next to her. She pat her head affectionately, running her hand over her hair. "If you change your mind…about anything that just happened…well…he's now on his way to his parent's house."

Some say that all you have when you die is what's on your gravestone, your name. That was all Arnold could think about that Thanksgiving, as he sat at his parent's posh apartment with them and his Grandpa. He hadn't any idea that his name was worth quite so much to quite so many people.

"Excuse me," He offered, not that he was paying any attention to the discussion, "I'm going to go wash my face."

He couldn't help this stirring feeling that he had changed. That the Arnold of old, the one of the legends Cass heard about, would have never left that porch without talking to Helga. That Arnold that was stubborn and tenacious to the point of aching hands and tired feet.

He made a rash decision that day, rinsing his face in their clean white bathroom.

He wondered what excuse to make to his parents as he dried his hands…

Perhaps he could bring up that it wouldn't be he and Helga's first Thanksgiving together.

"Mom, Dad…" He ran back out into the other room, shifting awkwardly with his hands in front of him, "Grandpa…" he smiled fondly at the old man. Phil smiled back. Arnold wondered, even if in his old age, if he had any idea what Arnold was going to say next…

"I'm really sorry, but I think there's somewhere I need to be…"

His dad tossed him car keys before he finished his sentence. "Drive safe."

Arnold all but ran his way into the building's elevator, and unpatiently hopped back and forth as he rode the agonizingly slow ride down to the ground floor. He realized he didn't bring a coat as he rushed out past the door man, and basically slammed into another human being.

"Oh, god I'm sorr-"

"Can you WATCH where you're GOI-" a voice yelled back…a voice he recognized.

His heart stopped, he was sure of it, for a moment, and he looked around and down, into the eyes of Helga Pataki.

"This is," she stammered, shoving a box into his hands. It was overstuffed. "you. And are, I, the bus," she pointed behind her, but he had no idea at what. "Me." She looked right, and then left, and then ran in the other direction, back down the deserted city street. She stopped, right before the edge of the block, and looked back at him.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Arnold."

And then she was gone.

a/n happy thanksgiving in march, y'all!

love u all, pls leave me ur thoughts,quite literally: they make my whole day.

xx, k.