Hey, football heads. This particular story has been stewing in my brain for a while now after HAFanForever suggested the initial idea to me months ago. It took me some time because there's two plot lines going on at once that I probably could/should have split into two different stories, but I think I managed to fit them together… thematically… ah, well. We'll see how it goes.

Chronologically this takes place somewhere after 'Couples Only' and before 'Miriam Under the Table.' Why does that matter? Well in the progression of this ongoing story, Helga is now fully okay with and even eager to show off Arnold as her boy toy, and it's before her big falling out with her family and subsequent move in at the boarding house.

The basic premise was that of Miles and Stella renewing their wedding vows, wanting to make up for lost time which is an idea I love but building an entire story around it took me some time as I like to explore themes and all that crap… thus over-inflating my stories with ideas until I make peoples' eyes roll so far back into their heads they can read their own minds by seeing their brains and… wow, that sentence ran away with itself. You see my dilemma? I tend to overcomplicate things.

Still, this one won't be NEARLY as complicated as I ended up making 'The Big Pataki,' which I'm excited about… just a chance to write a nice, simple, eloquent story in the HA! universe about love… love and massive corporate and government conspiracies that run deep into the very framework of the entire city, and threatening to tear the Shortman family apart as they face their past demons and the deep dark secrets they thought they had left behind them in the jungles of San Lorenzo that are at long last revealed!

…

Kidding. None of that. Enjoy!

Oh… I'm trying something I've not attempted before which is depicting a musical number in this opening scene… or rather an opera scene. Not sure how to do that in writing form so… uh… hope some of you have seen Le Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro). Anyway the tune they're singing to goes something like this www. youtube watch?v=t2yrDWEoCpc

This scene in the opera is of the Countess forgiving her husband for his many, many, many, many, many misdeeds… and by that point in the story the actual wedding of Figaro is over (an entire act ago, in fact), but it's not as if 'What's Opera, Arnold?' didn't stray a bit (a lot) from what was really going on in the operas it parodied.

Chapter 1: Le Nozze di Arnoldo

Adorned in an elegant eighteenth century wedding dress, Helga titled her head upwards and surveyed her setting. Despite the evening outdoor surroundings she still found herself looking into a blinding light. She squinted and realized she was standing on stage, with a spotlight shining down on her, and the garden surrounding her existed as a set piece. That hardly mattered to her, for standing before her was her one and only football-headed love god. Not long ago, Helga had been shuddering in embarrassment with the mere thought of people knowing about her deep, dark and disturbing affections for Arnold, but now she felt proud enough about their budding relationship that she could just sing about it from the stage with the whole world as her audience.

And so she did.

"Footballheeeeaaad, how I loathe you… how I loathe you, yet love you toooooo."

Arnold knelt before her and took her hand in his.

"My heart holds naught but love for yooooou." Arnold responded, also in song, "It loves you mooooore than you ever could… knew."

Helga raised her eyebrow.

"I had to make it rhyme…" Arnold shrugged, but before either of them could dwell on his artistic liberty taken, the opera chorus joined in.

"Their looooove iiiiiiis strong as their hate… they love and hate each ooooother… or was it just something thaaaat theeeey ate?"

The chorus consisted of their various friends, acquaintances and other people Helga just barely tolerated. Gerald, Stinky, Harold and Sid stood together as groomsmen, opposite the bridesmaids Phoebe, Rhonda, Olga and Lila… Olga and Lila!? Not what Helga had in mind, but oh well.

"Myyyyy looooove!" Helga sang out, just barely in tune.

"Glad you love me more than you hate me right now…" Arnold sang in response.

"Myyy hate!" Helga continued.

"Well, now I'm just plain confused- owwww…" Arnold sang as Helga gripped him forcibly by his shoulders.

The massive audience that seemed to stretch out forever over the horizon all let loose a big group, "Aww…"

Helga turned to the audience and grinned smugly.

"That's right." she said, "We're adorable and you love it, you bunch of loser Arnold/Helga shippers with nothing better to do with your pathetic little lives than-"

"My love?" Arnold asked.

"Don't insult the audience." he said.

"Of course." she sighed, "I never dreamt our wedding would have been so beautifully meta. Meta and so infinitely… infinite."

"From now unto infinity, let the bells herald our wedding… thingy." Arnold again tried in vain to rhyme as he began singing again.

"Their wedding thingy! Sing sing sing singy!" the chorus sang.

"Hey, this is a wedding!" Helga shouted, "Don't we need some kinda officiant or-"

Breathing heavily, none other than Brainy appeared before them dressed in a priest costume. Or maybe he'd actually gotten himself ordained on one of those online churches. Whichever.

"Do you, Helga Geraldine Pataki take Arnold Philip Shortman to be your lawfully wedded-" he tried to begin.

"Uh, doi! I mean... I do." Helga answered, before she could read into whatever deeper meaning her quasi-mystical stalker's appearance could mean.

Arnold attempted to tenderly kiss his bride, but Helga beat him to the punch and pulled him into a crushing embrace, and she didn't so much kiss him as try to swallow his entire face. After nearly suffocating her beloved, she released him with a loud smack of her lips. The audience roared with applause,, the sound and scale matching that of a vast roaring ocean.

"Oh…" she swooned, "Could this be any more perfect…?"

"Wedding thingy! Sing sing singy!" the singing chorus repeated.

"I guess I'd settle for better lyrics…" she sighed, "Seriously, who wrote this thing? Mozart's lame-o cousin?"

The flamboyantly dressed maestro (who looked oddly like Arnold's own cousin Arnie) conducting the pit orchestra down below looked upward at her and scowled.

"Ja… and even ze musicology vorld von't acknowledge I eva existed…" he sighed ruefully, but then after he gave a loud phlegmy snort he returned to conducting the players.

"I hoped this would be perfect enough." Arnold said, "Our wedding taking place in the form of an opera, and all…"

Helga stroked her chin as she pondered.

"Could be better, still…" she said.

"Your parents are finally happy together, and they showed up." Arnold gestured to the chorus where Bob and Miriam stood, both waving at their daughter.

"We made it to your recital, honey!" Miriam said.

"Hey, Olga? Are you winning?" Bob asked, "What's the score? I can't follow all this opera noise…"

"They forgot it's our wedding… but they're here. I'll take it." Helga shrugged, then her eyes wandered over to another wedded couple.

"And your folks are still the picture of happily married perfection." she smirked, "Hi Stella! Hi Miles! Or can I call you mom and dad, now?"

Arnold's parents held one another lovingly and smiled adoringly at their now daughter-in-law.

"Mom and dad?" Big Bob shouted, "Then what are you gonna call us!?"

"Bob and Miriam. Doi." Helga smirked.

"Oh, right." Bob said with a smile.

"Still, how to end an opera end more perfectly than by marrying you… I guess you could… stab Lila?" Helga suggested.

Still smiling guilelessly, Lila waved at Arnold.

"Wrong opera…" Arnold said flatly.

"Ah, well. Can't have everything." Helga shrugged.

"It matters not, my love." Arnold said, "Wish not for everything. You have something better than everything…" He gestured to himself.

"Yep. You're all mine now…" Helga grinned with a loving malevolence and threw herself at her love, and now husband, once more to kiss and do to him whatever else newlyweds did.

"Helga?" Arnold asked.

"Yes, darling?"

"There's something I've been meaning to sing to you-"

"Oh, just say it instead." Helga said. "All this singing is getting annoying."

"All right then," Arnold took a deep breath, "I… lo… I lo… I lo…"

As Arnold struggled to spit it out, meanwhile, outside of her illustrious and expensive looking dreams, Helga sat at her desk with her head resting in her hands. Her mind and soul remained off in la la land, while her body had the misfortune to be in the distinctly non-operatic setting of math class. All the while Mr. Simmons had been so caught up in a particularly complicated equation and wasn't noticing the girl muttering in her sleep.

"Helga?" the concerned mousy voice of her best friend Phoebe asked, to no response.

"Mmm… muh…" Helga mumbled, still asleep. "Nyu… say it… fubawl head…"

"Let's try this again…" Mr. Simmons said, scratching letters and numbers on the board, "If X equals plus or minus the square root of- aw, fudge. Students? I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time making learning fun here… this one might jut be plain old work…"

"Helga…" Phoebe pleaded, "I realize you're probably not getting an adequate amount of sleep at the beeper store, but-"

"Muh… Arnoldo… weddin… thingy… singy singy…"

"SIMMONS!" the explosive voice of Harold violently shook Helga out of her fantasy.

"Thingy!" Helga gasped as she snapped back to reality.

"Helga won't stop talking about her thingy and it's infringing on my right to learn!" Harold shouted.

The class erupted into laughter.

"Yeah, like that's a right you're ever gonna exercise…" Helga yawned, still not entirely aware of what was happening. "Can we dim the lights so I can get back to sleep? Things were just getting good…"

"Helga." Mr. Simmons said warningly, "If you don't learn the quadratic formula now, you might not be able to properly apply it to real life."

"Mr. Simmons?" Phoebe asked, "What kind of real life scenarios could we apply this equation to?"

"Well… um… I mean, apart from trying to teach it to a class of students…" Mr. Simmons stumbled, "It could be used to… I guess it..."

"Right, right." Helga yawned, "Guess we need to know how to cook quadraticals, out in the real world."

Helga then snapped her head in Arnold's direction and grinned mischievously.

Arnold watched her in half embarrassment and half amusement. Everyone nearby had heard her muttering his name in her sleep, and somehow he only felt mildly embarrassed. The looks he got from his classmates said it all; any time Helga did anything weird nowadays everyone assumed it had something to do with him. Once private, his relationship with Helga had become public knowledge and now the girl was ready, willing and eager to let anyone and everyone know that they were in a committed relationship. Helga had conquered her embarrassment, and now she showed next to no shame. Her affection could be overbearing at times, but even at its worst Arnold found it all flattering, even if every glimpse he got into her feelings for him just seemed to be an ever expanding bottomless abyss.

Of course, Arnold had wanted to be open about his feelings for her, though now compared to the extremes she was taking things he felt relatively secretive. This confused him far more than the math lesson unfolding in front of them now. Yet despite his limited experience with girls, even Arnold knew that the level of commitment Helga and he shared was rare, if not unnaturally strange for a pair of twelve year olds. Regardless, now that it was Friday he and Helga had plans for the evening and he hoped she was just as ready for a fun time as he felt.

Later, at the end of the school day, Arnold and Helga strode down the hallway hand in hand, both off in their own little world and oblivious to the looks they were getting from their fellow students.

"… and then I heard they got caught in the janitor closet, just sucking face like there was no tomorrow…" the voice of Rhonda at last snapped them back to reality. "I mean, I'd expect her to stoop so low, but I'd have thought he'd have more class and dignity than that…"

Indeed, the school gossip queen was standing before a group of girls, doing exactly what anyone would expect a gossip queen to do.

"Rhonda?" Arnold asked, slightly perturbed.

"Oh, Arnold! Helga!" Rhonda waved at them, "What a coincidence, I was just gossiping about you. Did you hear what's going around about you lovebirds?"

Arnold narrowed his eyes at Rhonda. The girl was incredibly straightforward and unapologetic about her ways, he had to give her that. It still didn't make her any less annoying.

"Don't you think we would already know what happens in our own lives?" Arnold asked.

"Oh, so the janitor closet story is true?" Rhonda asked, "Thanks for confirming… and here I couldn't even remember if I'd made that one up or not. Thanks Arnold. The school depends on me for accurate gossip, I wouldn't want to be spreading anything unfounded. So tell me, is it true you two have some big fancy date planned for tonight-"

The sudden tight clench of Helga's hand on the scruff of Rhonda's shirt stopped her chattering cold. The two girls just stared at one another for a moment as everyone else present watched in silent terror. Helga glanced over at Arnold, and then her mouth curled into a half smile and she released Rhonda.

"Yep." Helga affirmed, "Jealous?"

"Jealous? Me? As if I have a single jealous bone in my body." Rhonda turned her nose upward, sounding disgusted by the mere notion. Then she turned to Arnold and asked, "Chez Pierre ? Chez Paris? Or something even fancier?"

"Um…" Arnold scratched the back of his neck, "Slaussen's…"

"Yes…" Helga sighed, beginning to talk in her flowery way, "And though the setting of our rendezvous may be cheap, we are both rich in love for one another… so rich in love I daresay we make you look impoverished in love, Rhondaloid…"

"Ugh…" Rhonda retched, "Still, better than actual impoverishment…"

"Agree to disagree," Helga shook her head and grabbed Arnold's hand, "C'mon Football Head."

With Helga leading Arnold away, the couple walked off and out of sight as Rhonda watched them disappear.

"Ugh, they really are the most obnoxiously adorable pair…" she sighed. "Still, Helga could stand to be just a little more modest about it…"

As Arnold and Helga walked down the front steps of the school together, Helga's mind again wandered back to yet another wedding fantasy. Hand in hand with her beloved, she descended the stairs, heading for the limo that would carry them off to a new life together. Then the honking of the school rudely rocked her out of her rapture and back to Hillwood.

As the bus doors opened, off stepped two familiar adults.

"Mom? Dad?" Arnold asked.

"Hey, Arnold!" Miles and Stella greeted their son warmly, yet with that eerie glassy eyed look they hadn't quite shaken since their return from the jungle.

"What were you doing on the school bus?" Arnold asked, "I didn't know adults were allowed…"

"They're adults?" the bus driver asked, "I thought they were just really tall fifth graders…"

Helga laughed.

"Easy mistake to make…"

"It's a nice day." Stella noted, "Why don't we all just walk home? Helga? You're always welcome, too."

"Um, alright." Arnold said, as he and Helga released each others' hands.

"Come on, Arnold!" Miles goaded, "I'll race you!"

Miles took off running down the sidewalk ahead of them, giggling boyishly all the while, and he never noticed that none of the others were running after him. When he disappeared from sight Arnold sighed.

"He's over stimulated again." Helga said, "Better put him straight to bed when you get home, Stella."

"Nonsense, we've got the whole evening ahead of us. It's a Friday night at the boarding house! There's too much fun to be had for an early bedtime." Stella grinned.

"Well, Helga and I were gonna go out to Slaussen's tonight and-"

"Great! We'll come with you!" Stella said.

"Um… you know…" Arnold stumbled, "On a-"

"A date, I know." Stella nodded, "I went on one of those once… I think… yeah, Miles and I fell off a cliff into a river and-"

"We… don't really need to be… you know? Chaperoned?" Arnold said.

"No, no, it'll be more like a double date!" Stella said.

Helga's eyes went wide.

"Oh no…" she said softly, "No way is our date turning into a 'double date' with your parents…"

And you all know how that joke ends at the beginning of the next chapter…

I was gonna do an entire story of 'The Marriage of Arnoldo,' but decided to just condense it into the opening of this story. Some things work on screen and not so much on the page… musical parodies being at the top of that list.