The walk home was nonetheless...intense and nerve-racking. Helga wished Arnold could catch on to how she was feeling. The blonde headed boy cluelessly looked straight ahead while walking at the same pace beside her. Unknown to her, Arnold's mind was all over the place. He looked over to her once more to see that she was now limping and not too happy.

"Helga...stop."

She stopped in her tracks, back turned to him. Her head was still down and her heart was beating quickly.

"What?" She muttered.

He blinked and walked next to her.

"Are you sure that you're alright? You can trust me."

Helga sighed and decided to give him the best answer she could think of.

"No Arnold. I'm not okay actually. However I'm not going to say what is bothering me because it's not the right time. I do appreciate your concern and I will feel better eventually."

"Oh...well thank you for being honest with me. I completely understand and respect your privacy." Arnold smiled at her and she blushed.

Soon they reached Helga's house and he watched her slowly make her way up the steps. Helga's hand barely touched the knob when he suddenly stopped in front of her.

"W-Wait! Hang on a sec!"

She blushed and raised her eyebrow in confusion. The next thing he said made the entire world vanish out of existence.

"Would you maybe...f-feel up to h-hanging out with me sometime? That is...if you aren't busy or anything. You can say no if you wanna."

Helga tried to hide her inner excitement as much as she could while outwardly putting a finger up to her chin to think about it. 'Okay...so the football-head boy of my dreams just asked if I wanted to hangout with him. Of course I'm not going to straight up agree because that would make him aware of how I feel. What's an excuse I could use? Hmm...Oh I know!'

"Alright...I'll hang out with ya. I...I mean why not use this time to talk about how we could get back at Rhonda for that picture. Also, it couldn't hurt to catch up with you. It's been a while anyway."

Arnold grinned and nodded. "Alright! Sounds like a plan! How about we meet up at my house this weekend and we will find somewhere to go together."

Helga shrugged nonchalantly. "Okay. See you Saturday morning Arnoldo."

He moved out of the way and she opened the door.

"Okay. Bye Helga."

She gave him a slight smile and closed the door behind her. Arnold smiled and made his way home with his hands now in his pockets.

I'm glad she agreed to hang out with me. Whatever is going on, I just want to make her feel better at the end of the day. I haven't seen her smile genuinely in years. Certainly what Rhonda is doing isn't helping anyone. Though Helga and I are seen arguing most of the time, there are the moments where she has really came around. The breakup with my ex girlfriend Lila, the tree, my design for the float, saving me when I almost drowned while saving the ants for our project, finding my special blue hat, etc. But mainly...I cannot get that night on the FTI building. She turned out to be deep voice and risked everything to help me save the neighborhood. If I know one thing...Helga G. Pataki is full of surprises.

Arnold came to the boarding house and layed down on his bed while staring at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and heard Gerald speaking to him in his mind.

"Hey Arnold. You're a bold kid."

His eyes opened and he smiled while rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, I've heard."

A few moments later, Arnold's grandpa opened his bedroom door, not looking too happy. His grandma Gertie came in right after looking disappointed.

"Arnold Shortman...you better have an explanation for this."

"What do you mean-" He watched as his Grandpa whipped out the photo that was going around the school of him and Helga.

"Give me just a sec." Arnold said and dashed over to the telephone to dial Helga's number.

"My grandparents got the photo."

"My dad too!" Helga shouted into the phone. On the other end, Bob sounded very angry.

"Helga, whatever you do bring your father and mother here so we can fix this."

"You don't need to tell me twice!"

Arnold hung up the phone and looked back to his grandparents who were growing more impatient.

"So...you have a good explanation for photo?" Phil asked.

"Heheheh I-"

To be continued beautiful humans...remember to leave a review if you'd like! :)

I don't own hey arnold!