A/N: So, to make Dave's speech and persona make a lot more sense, I had John Ratzenberger in mind when I was writing him. He has a very recognizable and specific voice that fits very well with how I am writing him.
The instant she felt herself gain just a fraction of her consciousness back, she called out to him, snapping her body upright, making every muscle she had convulse in a tight mixture of shock and terror, "Arnold!" She shouted, her arm reflexively reaching out in front of her.
Still in a haze, added onto it was the heavy swimming in her head, bringing about the dizziness, she felt a pair of hands strongly yet gently bracing her shoulders. The heavy thumping in her ears blocked her from hearing what the voice was saying, only registering in her brain as faraway and muffled distortion. Felling her lungs try to fill up with as much air as they could, as fast as they could, she started to hyperventilate, making her feel as if there wasn't any blood in her brain. The hands on her shoulders started to push her back and she instinctively fought them off, her out of place brain telling her whole body to move, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
Weakly flailing her arms, she screwed her eyes shut to try and focus herself, the blur that she once called her vision making her head ache. The hands that were still bracing her shoulders, despite her obvious protests, kept pushing her back until she had no choice but to lay back down against the hard surface she was being restrained against. Her lungs still grasping for air, she focused every thought into slowing her breath, thinking that it was the first step in gaining control of her own body back. She drew in a large breath, and held it for a long few seconds before slowly letting it out.
"That's it, just take deep breaths and try to relax." The voice said to her.
Repeating the process a couple more times, finally feeling as if her head regained some of its blood, she tried again to sit up. Once again, she felt hands go to her shoulders lightly enough to where she was able to shake them off with another incoherent wave of her arms. "Let go of me." She stated firmly to the unknown presence she had just shaken off, peeling open her eyes, feeling them ache at the bright wave of light she saw, forcing her to screw them shut at the feeling of her head ache making itself more evident. Lifting up a numb, and very weak arm up, she pressed her palm against her forehead and braced an arm behind her to keep herself up right.
"Miss, you need to try and-"
The voice stopped when she swung her weak legs out and pushed herself forward, feeling her body stumble forward. She opened her eyes again, still feeling her head swim, and saw a whirlwind of images, none of them exactly registering in her brain.
"Miss, you need to lay down." The voice said from behind her. Another hand came to lightly grasp her upper arm, and again, she instinctively shrugged it off, looking behind her to send a glare toward the person the hand she had just shaken off belonged to. She paused and stared at the person long enough for her brain to grasp what it was looking at, and saw that it was a woman with brunette hair back in a braid, a look of worry etched in her features. "You need to lay back down, you're hurt." The nurse said.
Far too annoyed to deal with taking orders from anyone, she rolled her eyes and started to step forward. "Miss, you need to-"
"I feel fine!" She spoke up, pushing past her weak her voice felt in her throat, taking a few clumsy steps forward, hearing a crunching sound every time.
"I swear, if you don't let me past, I'll bring a lawsuit down on you so fast your head will spin!" A voice yelled above the mess of other noises going on around her. Her head still swimming, the only sight registering in her brain being that of the scattered bits of glass littering the ground, the voice that had just yelled registered in her brain immediately.
"Phoebe?" She asked, the fuzz of her brain clearing just for a second as she recognized the voice. She continued to stumble around a bit, still trying to find her center of gravity, as she blindly tried to search for her. "Phoebe?" She asked more clearly.
"Helga!" The distant voice shouted. She turned in the direction the voice had come, and blinked a few times to focus her vision, where it fell upon the first familiar sight that she has seen since she woke up. Despite the confusion and fear of not completely knowing where she was, she felt a smile curl at the edges of her mouth. "Helga!" She shouted again, the cop holding her friend back behind the barricade looking back toward the person she was reaching for.
"Phoebe!" She shouted, seeing the cop step off to the side, then Phoebe violently push past him and burst into a sprint across the mess of scattered glass and twisted metal and over to her until she felt her arms around her torso, throwing her off balance, which was already shaky at best.
"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked, hugging her tight enough to not let her fall.
"I don't know, where's Arnold? I need to see Arnold." She said, putting her hands on Phoebe's shoulders and pushing her off. With her brain now fully focused on one simple goal, when she didn't hear his voice call out to her, she began to frantically search for him over the wreckage she was standing in the middle of. "Where's Arnold? Where is he?" She asked again, panic quickly rising in her system with each passing second that she didn't see him.
"Helga-" Phoebe began, but was stopped when she shook her off and spun around, frantically searching the faces looking for him.
"Where is he? Where is he, Phoebe!? Arnold! Arnold!" Panic now flooded her system, she took a few steps in the first direction her feet would take her, still crying out for him. "Arnold! Arnold!"
"Helga-" Phoebe started once more, jumping in front of her and bracing her hands against her upper arms strongly.
"No, I need to find him, I need to find Arnold. Where is he? Arnold!" She called again, not noticing that tears had started to stream down her face until she looked down to Phoebe and saw her vision had once again gone distorted. "Where is he, Phoebe?" After she didn't answer, and saw her head fall forward, her heart started to pound erratically, her brain already going toward the worst case scenario. Feeling more tears start to burn in her eyes, while she felt even more fall freely from her eyes, she clung to Phoebe's shoulders and began to shake them weakly. "Tell me where he is!" She shouted, her whole world shattering around her more and more with each passing second.
"We don't know." A gruff voice said from behind them.
Helga snapped her head around to see one of the agents she had met when she was leaving standing there, a calm expression on his face. And at the sight of him, the memory of her beloved hugging her into his side, his arm around his shoulders while she was clinging to him like the love stricken fool she was, it took her a moment for his words to register in her whirling mind. Coming out of the future that her mind had played out, she spoke. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"When we saw the crash, we came running, but by the time we got here, he was gone." The person next to him said.
"What do you mean gone?" She asked, pushing Phoebe's arms off her and taking a step toward the agents that were suppose to protect them.
"He's missing, at this point, that's all we know right now."
"You were supposed to protect us!" Helga shouted, lunging forward, throwing all her weight into her arms and shoving the man in front of her, whom she didn't care in the least was at least twice her size and was more than likely armed. Even though it was as if trying to shove a brick wall, she felt Phoebe's hands grip her arms from behind and start to pull her back. But Helga was shaking with misdirected anger at this point, and felt her voice come out louder than she's ever felt it before. "Bring him back! You bring him back to me right now!" She pulled onto Phoebe's unusually tight and demanding grip, holding her back.
"Miss Pataki, We are doing everything in our power to find him." One of the agents said.
"Don't spin me that bullshit! You tear this city apart brick by brick until you find him or I'll do it myself!" She screamed, watching through still tear filled eyes as the other agent let his head fall forward in shame. Still seething with anger and turmoil, she huffed out a few breaths and ceased her trying to shake Phoebe off, and forcefully shrugged her arms, snapping the hands on them off her.
"Helga..." Phoebe cooed as she turned around and ran her hands over her hair, letting out a shuttering breath as she paced her way past her. "Helga?" Phoebe tried again, but to no avail, watching helplessly as Helga slowly paced her way through the broken safety glass scattered across the pavement, keeping her hands entwined on the back of her neck.
She wanted nothing more than to go back to the morning that they took that picture. She wanted him back more than anything. And she was more angry than anything else at not knowing anything, but heartbroken that he wasn't here to hold her up as he always was. As she walked aimlessly through the wreckage, she looked up as saw his car, the driver side of the front end completely smashed in, the air bags deployed, sitting in the middle of the intersection that was barricaded off. She looked over and saw the other car with the damage mirrored, the passenger side of the front end pretty much gone with the air bags deployed. With a few more steps, she stopped a few feet away from where the his door was open and bent heavily.
Sniffling a breath in through her nose, she let her arms fall limply to her sides, as she looked down to the scattered pile of glass in front of her. Staring at it for a few long moments, she saw something garner her attention. Among the clear bits of glass, she saw something with a sparkle that she's only seen a few times before. Reaching out to pick it up, she paused and looked around to see if anyone was watching her, only seeing Phoebe talking to the two agents she had just scolded, along with the nurse pushing the gurney she had stumbled off of back into the ambulance. Feeling safe, she looked back down at the sparkle that stood out from the rest, bent down and picked it up between her two fingers.
As she stood back up, feeling herself start to cry again, she played back the time when she was giggling like a school girl when she secretly had this ring on her finger in her car. The feeling of pure, unbridled happiness that flooded her when she felt this ring on her finger didn't come when she looked at it now. All she felt now was anguish.
She closed her eyes and felt yet another pair of tears fall, and then felt a hand being laid down gently onto her shoulder, and she didn't need to open her eyes again to know who the hand belonged to. She sniffled in another breath and opened her eyes painfully to the sight of Gertie's engagement ring. "I want him back, Phoebe."
Her hand started to rub against her shoulder, and Helga knew that she was trying her best, but it just wasn't like what he would do when he was trying to comfort her. How he would pet her hair back, while his other ran up the dip of her spine, then he would press his lips to her forehead and simply hold her well past the point to where she was comforted. "I know you do, Helga."
She sucked in another breath and closed her hand around the ring and slipped it into her pocket. "Did they say anything?"
"The eye witnesses that they questioned said that just after the crash, an ambulance pulled up and loaded someone into the back and took off. They're assuming it was Douglas, since they discovered an ambulance stolen out of the motor pool at the hospital. The car he used to crash into you guys was reported stolen this morning, and they found a two by four jammed in between the steering wheel and the gas pedal. They're still working on tracking down the ambulance through traffic cameras, but it will take some time." Phoebe paused for a moment as Helga looked into the car, playing out the scenario Phoebe had just spun for her in her head. "He's a federal agent, Helga. They will turn this city upside down to get him back."
"I just want to feel his arms around me again. I feel cold without him here. But he's alive... I know he's alive."
"Helga..."
"He's alive, Phoebe." She stopped her, turning around to look into her eyes. "He has to be."
"Come on, I'll drive you home."
"No, I'm not going home until they find him."
"But, Helga-"
"Why would she want to go home? The man she loves was just kidnapped, and she hasn't even gotten her head back on straight. She's not going anywhere until she sees him again." A voice came from behind them. Helga looked back and saw Dave standing there, a friendly smile on his face. "I'm sure the captain will have no trouble with you waiting back at the bureau, I can give you a lift back."
Helga, very much tempted by Arnold's mentor's offer, looked back to Phoebe with an expectant look, and Phoebe smiled warmly and nodded. "Go ahead, Helga. Whatever you need."
"Thanks Pheebs." Helga smiled a feigned warm smile back at her as she fell into step with Dave and most past the barricade and then into his car.
"Anything I can get for ya? Coffee, maybe? Not the best cup of Joe in world, but it gets us by." Dave offered, stepping off of the elevator with her.
"No, I'm alright. I probably couldn't stomach it anyway." She muttered, following him as he walked over to his desk, and pulled off his grey suit jacket and tossed it onto his desk, while she stopped next to Arnold's.
"Well, just let me know if there's anything I can do. You can make yourself at home at Golden boy's desk." Dave said with another smile as he strutted off toward the other side of the bullpen, pushing open a door on the other side.
Helga let out a heavy breath as she slid down into his office chair, pushing her arms together and putting her hands between her knees, slouching forward. As she looked around, the bullpen was oddly empty, save for a few people sitting quietly at their desks filling out paper work. She knew it would bring more tears to her eyes, but she couldn't keep them off of it. Her eyes fell upon the picture frame that was still sitting on his desk, and just as she predicted, she felt her eyes start to burn. She pushed herself forward in his office chair, and reached up, taking the picture in her hand, bringing it down into her lap. Seeing his smile shining back at her in this photo only made the heart ache hurt that much more.
As she reached up to run her fingers down the glass over his image, she saw a coffee cup being set down onto the desk in front of her out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw a steaming cup of coffee sitting in the middle of his desk, then over to her side where she saw Dave sitting down behind his own. She sniffled then set her gaze back down to the picture. "I know nothing I say will make you feel any better than looking at that picture will, but I will say this. You are the love of his life."
"You're right, that doesn't make me feel better." She said, not taking her eyes off the picture, not really believing that Arnold had said that.
"Yeah, I thought so. But everyday for the past few months, Helga this, Helga that, Helga, Helga, Helga. He talked about you so much... to everyone. The only time he would ever shut up about ya is when he would stare at that picture. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that he was crazy about ya."
"This isn't helping me." She muttered, her voice still soiled with emotion.
"What I'm trying to say is if he's that crazy about you, he's not going to leave you alone that easily. He's the most dedicated and determined person I've ever met, and it will take a hell of a lot more than a psychopathic killer to keep him away from you."
She tried her hardest to take his words to heart, she felt something grow inside her that she hadn't felt in what felt like a life time. She looked over to Dave, who was leaning against his forearms, staring into his coffee cup, and spoke. "Can I get a pen and some paper?"
