A/N: I know that this chapter is coming at you quickly, but I can't stand having it sit in my doc manager any longer! I'm posting it anyway! Hope you enjoy!

As Helga floated down the hallway to her dorm, her whole body feeling limp and light, she pushed open the door with hazy, half lidded eyes. She shut the door behind her, and slouched heavily against it, letting out a long sigh. Rhonda looked up at her from her place on her bed, reading her text book, and spoke. "How'd it go?" She asked. Paying her no mind, Helga breezed over to her bed, falling face first into her mattress, her muscles feeling light and tingly, but at the same time heavy. "Helga?" Rhonda prodded for an answer. Helga only giggled happily into her bed, soon being overtaken with giggles being muffled by her covers. She turned over, her back hitting her bed with a thud, letting out a long, light breath, staring up at the ceiling. "Helga, what happened?"

"Hmm?" She hummed, not hearing her over her dancing mind.

"What... happened?" Rhonda pressed again.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, her voice light and airy, along with the rest of her.

Hearing Rhonda slap her text book closed and tossed it onto her bed, she began, "You come floating in here with bubbly hearts shooting out your butt after you just had a date with Arnold that lasted," Rhonda paused and looked at the clock in the windowsill, "four hours, so don't give me that, sister."

Helga felt a giggle rising in her again as her chest tightened with laughter. Sucking in a long breath, she lifted her head off the mattress to look over to her, meeting her eyes, "I have a boyfriend." She said, biting down hard onto her bottom lip, biting back the face splitting smile that broke out across her face, her head falling back down to the mattress.

In a flash, Rhonda jumped off her bed and onto her's, pulling her up by the shoulders, "Details, woman!"

She could feel her heart stop, waiting for it to either be shattered, or to sprout wings and fly out of her chest by his answer to her question, which she tried to make sound off handed. She was afraid to look over to him, afraid to know what his facial reaction was. After too long of a pause, she looked anyway, seeing him looking back at her with an arched brow.

"Helga, I..." He trailed off, slightly shaking his head, but turning his front to face her a little more. He closed his mouth after chocking on his words that were already starting to hurt, and sighed, "You had a nice time today, right?"

She nodded quickly before voicing her answer, "Yeah, I had a great time."

He nodded slowly with her, averting his eyes back down to the ground, "So did I."

"So..." She began after he didn't continue. He looked up to her again and she made a whirlwind motion with her hand, accompanied by a shrug.

"Listen, I..." He let out a sharp breath, looking away again, "This is taking a lot to say this so... bear with me if I don't get it all in one complete... coherent sentence." She nodded, probably thinking he could see it out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to gather himself. With another sharp breath outward, he began. "I may come off as having all the answers, and know what I'm doing, but honestly... I have no clue what I'm doing here. And that..." He let out another breath that ended with a slight smirk, "And that's scary."

"I scare you?" She asked, craning her neck to try and meet his eyes.

He nodded, still not looking up, but seeing him raise his brow and widen his eyes, as if to silently say 'Duh'. "More than you might think." He said with a shake in his voice.

She felt the breath that he forced out of her stutter as it came out, feeling a smile curl onto her face. She pursed her lips despite the smile that she felt them give off, and reached over, grabbing his hand with both of hers. His eyes flew over to her hands, and she felt pleasantly taken aback when she felt that his hands were trembling inside her soft grasp. "I'm going to be honest with you." She told him in a soft voice, "We have both been dancing around whatever it is we have ever since we first kissed." Finally, he looked up to her, seeing a frightened look dilate his pupils. "I know I'm not the only one that feels it."

"Helga..." He drew it.

"Let me finish." She said, briefly taking her hand off the back of his to halt him, then wrapping it back around his. "Whatever this thing is between us, I want to know what it is. And isn't that what you said you do? Search for the hidden meaning in things?" His eyes narrowed over to her, and she nodded, grinning at him, "That's right, I'm using your words against you." Seeing his armor long gone in this moment, and the obvious intimacy of it all, she saw both corners of his lips lift into the first real smile he's ever smiled for her. And as it sat adorning his already boyishly handsome face for a few long, but not long enough seconds, it almost brought tears to her eyes. "So?"

He looked up to her again, the soft smile diminishing to a very soft smirk, but his eyes holding more tenderness than they ever have before, "You really want to go down this path? Because I can't promise you it will be well lit."

"Just so you know, I have about as much experience with all this stuff as you do. So it will be a seat-of-the-pants operation."

"I know you said that your relationship with that barbarian is nonexistent, but he was still your boyfriend."

She gave him a deadpan brow, "A real boyfriend wouldn't use me to please his parents."

he let out yet another sharp sigh, looking back up at her after he averted his eyes to try and hide his chuckle, "You really want to do this?"

She smiled softly over to him, deciding to respond by reaching up to place her hand against his jaw, drawing him in but gently tugging against his rough stubble, pulling him against his lips. As an intense tingle shot down her spine, a breath being sucked into her empty lungs, she felt him respond in kind. The thought that she was now kissing her boyfriend quickly shot into her mind, and she felt her throat flex with a suppressed giggle that was silenced a second later by a long, slow motion of his lips. She pressed her palm against his rough, sand paper-ish jaw, pulling him in a little more while she felt him run his hand past her side, and press against the small of her back.

As her hand went into his still messy hair, sliding her fingers up his scalp, her other hand going onto his shoulder, the motion of their lips slow, gaining force with every kiss, feeling his warm breath tangle with hers, her heart was still pounding erratically against her chest. But she felt her heart stop when she felt his hand that was once against the small of her back start to lightly tangle itself into her hair, making her first his hair in response. With one long kiss, being held for a few drawn out seconds, they leaned back with another quick peck. "You know," She began, her voice unable to go about a harsh, hoarse whisper, "I never got the chance to tell you before you slammed the door in my face."

He pulled back to look into her eyes.

"You're a good kisser too."

"Wow, that's so..."

"Storybook, I know." She said, her brow jumping in agreement.

"I'm so happy for you two, Helga." Rhonda said, pulling her into a hug.

After they had separated, and Rhonda had returned to her own side of the room, Helga began. "Yeah... now the real story begins."

Helga had gone to bed shortly thereafter, still smiling, and after taking a shower, mainly because she had remembered the comment he had made about the perfume, and needed to feel clean. She found it hard to silence her mind enough to get to sleep however, and ended up laying in bed, staring at the ceiling until Rhonda had gone to sleep. Eventually though, she managed to drift off into a peaceful slumber.

The next morning, Helga arose feeling rested, but still very sleepy. It was a few seconds before the memories of yesterday came shooting back in a wave, making a goofy smile break onto her face as she rose from her bed to go about her normal morning routine. After getting dressed, seeing Rhonda still asleep, she made her way outside and into the dining hall to get breakfast. She finished quickly and decided to go pay her boyfriend a visit. As she stood up to throw her trash away, another goofy broke out onto her face at the thought.

She quickly made her way across campus toward the frat house, jumping up the steps on the porch to ring the door bell. After a few moments, the door opened with Arnie on the other side, greeting her with a soft smirk as he usually does. "Hey, is Arnold around?"

Arnie shook his head, "No, he left just a little bit ago."

"Oh... Well, thanks anyway." She said, turning around with a wave. He waved back with a smile and shut the door. He probably went off into the woods again. A part of her had hoped that them being together meant that he wouldn't feel the need to run away every weekend, but most of her said that he liked it out there. After all, before she fell through that patch of ice, she honestly did find it to be very quiet and peaceful. Deciding to see if that's where he went, she turned to head toward the path that she had gone down before.

She kept having to remind herself why she started down the path in the first place once she got into the woods, with the branches of the trees next to her extending over and above her, creating a tunnel. While there were no leaves during this time of year, she still found it to be beautiful. Eventually, she could her the sound of trickling water, but she kept on the path a little ways before she looked up to see a bridge about six feet across, with the hand rails about four or five feet high, with a familiar mess of blonde hair leaning against it. As she took a few excited steps forward, she saw him shoot a side glance over to her, then lean down to place something by his side before coming to his original position, leaning his forearms against the rail.

She slowed her pace once she got with in a few feet, "Hey," She greeted, keeping her voice light.

"Hey," He parroted, his tone low and steady, not meeting her eyes.

As a pause enveloped them, she looked over to his eyes and saw something that she couldn't place. "Something wrong?"

Hearing him let out a sharp breath, he let his head fall before he spoke, "Since we decided to take a step forward in our relationship, I feel it necessary to tell you something. Something I've never told anyone else. Not Arnie, not his parents, and I even have trouble repeating it to myself sometimes. And I'm not telling you this because of what it is, I'm telling you that I've never told anyone else because I want you to understand that I'm telling you for a reason... because you need to know. And it's going to change the way you see me, no matter what, so... just keep in mind that I know that when I'm done talking."

She felt her pulse start to nervously pick up at the seriousness and conviction in his voice. "Okay."

He let out another breath, still not meeting her eyes as he continued. "I was in the eighth grade when I received a letter from a detective from the Hillwood Police Department. They had caught the man who shot my grandparents trying to hold up a liquor store. They tied him back to my grandparents murder through ballistics from the gun he used during the hold up. In the letter, they gave me his name, probably in some hope that I would finally have closure, but... I just got angry. The next day, I went on the internet and looked him up, and I saw that his trial was set, and that he was being charged with nothing more than public endangerment and attempted robbery."

She stayed silent as she watched a tear fall from his lashes.

"He shattered three innocent lives for a couple bucks, and he was getting off with seven years." He said, anger quickly replacing turmoil. "The weekend of his trial, I got the address of the court house and I..." She kept quiet, fighting the urge to reach out to him as another tear fell, knowing he had to get this out on his own, "I sneaked into my Uncle's nightstand and grabbed the revolver her kept for when coyotes would get too close to the house... and I hopped on a bus." She felt her system seize up at what he had just told her, but kept listening intently. "I got to the court house and waited on a bench across the street for him to be escorted out. I still remember feeling nothing but hatred in me as I held that gun in my hand in the pocket of my sweatshirt. This man destroyed my life and gets off with a slap on the wrist, and they just..."

He trailed off angrily, still not meeting her eyes as yet another tear fell from them.

"After two hours of waiting, I was ready. I was ready to end his life just like he did my grandparents. I saw him being walked out to the cop car, and I stood up. I was looking into the face of the man who looked at my grandparents and shot them in cold blood for what they had in their pockets, and got away with it, and I... My finger was in the trigger well, and I was ready to... to take his life from him, but..." She watched in anguish as he fought off the breakdown that she knew was coming. "But I could feel them. I just felt them looking at me like they were... ashamed of me." As a pair of tears fell from his lashes, he shook his head, and his emotionally soiled voice continued, "I was ready to take someones life over something as pointless as revenge. I gave into my hatred and the only reason I didn't pull that trigger that day was because I saw them looking at me, shaking their heads in shame as they looked at me like I was about to make the biggest mistake of my... pointless life!"

After letting out a stuttering breath, sucking in a long one, holding it for a bit, she gave into the temptation to reach out to him when she saw his shoulders jerk heavily with a sob, watching his eyes screw shut. She stepped forward, lifting his arm and wrapping it around her before she wrapped her own arms around his shivering shoulders, feeling his hands cling to the back of her sweatshirt, his face buried into her shoulder. "Shh..." She soothed him, running her palm flat against his quivering back. "It's okay... It's okay, I'm here." She whispered into his ear.

She would have to decide how she felt about all this later. Right now, she could only focus on one thing. He needed her.