Well, for some reason my account got all destroyed, so, I have to repost this story..eh, this sucks a long hard throbbing...eh never mind...okay...uh...there go my thirty five reviews for this one and 121 for CIM down the drain. Oh well, I better get them all back or else!!! PLEASE????





Well, since so many people actually liked Champagne in the Morning, I decided to write something else similar, and what better than a sequel? I don't really believe in sequels, but, whatever. I'll just try this out and see if it goes anywhere. If I don't get any response I'll just stop writing. I hate writing something for nobody to read. It makes me feel really worthless (I've got an underrated value system,lol)

I do not own the show "Hey Arnold" or any of its characters. Occasionally, there will be one or two derived from the midst of my highly unoriginal imagination, but, trust me, I'm not rushing to copyright. Okay, here goes:



Chapter 1



Life couldn't be more perfect for Helga G Pataki. She knew she had it all. A great boyfriend who cared, a beautiful villa just outside of London, a promising, exciting career, and a closet of shoes to fit her every need. When she thought back to her old self, her self of three years ago, a chill would run down her spine. The very idea, that she, Helga G Pataki, was unhappy, that she, Helga G Pataki, needed therapy. She envisioned herself, on this very plane, on this very airline, heading back, heading where she used to be. She remembered it all, and she had to close her eyes in embarrassment. Helga was much younger a year ago, less mature, less certain about life. She had too much pressure put on her, BBB, her father's phone company with its numerous indiscretions, her loneliness, her poor social skills, and her burning passion for him.

She rarely remembered him lately, the way he'd changed over the years, the way he had become a man. He was the only man then who'd ever showed true interest in her, and, perhaps, that was why she was so foolish as to fall into his arms when she was at her weakest. Could one really blame a woman for trusting a man with her heart? Could one really call her a fool, disprove of her, scold her, spurn her, just for loving? It was not her fault that his reasons were never pristine, that he never cared that she was human, that a heart was beating in her breast. It did not concern him, in his heart were only fancies of regret, of hate, of revenge. That was no way to live, that was a way to die. Maybe he was already dead when he encountered her a year ago, which would explain his coldness, his heartlessness. To think that Helga ever loved him! No, she did not love him; she loved a derived phantasm of perfection that she perceived as being him. She did not love the Arnold of the present; she loved the Arnold of the past. How easily time could deceive a soul.

He was alive somewhere, breathing, living, somewhere out there Arnold still existed. But Helga was living a separate life, and it was foreign to her, that feeling. She was happy, and he was probably alone. He would have to have been alone, for, he could never keep someone by him. He could never put trust into intimacy. What woman would go for a man who wasn't fit to be a man? He was still a boy, and she almost felt bad for him. But, eventually, Helga would remember the hurt that he'd bestowed upon her, and her mind would become blank and irretrievable yet again. She'd moved on, and she almost wished that he did not. She wanted him to dwell on the past, to be hurt at the sight of her successful, while he carried on in his old fashion.

"What are you thinking about?" Noah Armato asked, leaning his head closer to her face and looking at the stars of the nighttime sky. They had boarded the plain over seven hours ago, and he was beginning to worry, that, during the duration of the flight, Helga had uttered but three phrases. Two had to do with food, and one with the pretty landscape below.

"Oh," She smiled, and turned his way, their noses touching, "I'm just thinking about the town. It must have changed since I was there."

"I'm sure it has," Noah smiled, Helga adored his easygoing tone, his posh English accent, "Phoebe told you so."

"That's right," Helga smiled, placing her head on Noah's shoulder, his dirty blonde, burnt out, naturally highlighted hair brushed against her cheek. She smiled at the sensation.

"We'll be there soon, and you will see what's happened."

"I've told you a lot about my past, Noah," Helga said.

She had, and he had understood. Perhaps that was why she loved him so much. Helga met Noah in a cliché situation. After a business meeting, they began to talk over a cup of coffee. It was not a lengthy conversation, however, it was promising. They arranged to met for a drink in the evening, and things took off since then. He was an amazing listener, and when time came for advice, no one could do better than him. She loved the sweet, soothing vibrations of his voice, as they tickled her earlobe in a pleasant way. They were direct opposites, Helga liked to talk, Noah liked to listen, Helga liked to lead, and Noah liked to follow. For everything he did not have, she filled in the blank. For anything she was deplete of, he completed the mold perfectly. It was a match made in heaven, the perfect relationship that had long, powerful roots. She kept, in this time, but one thing from him. She kept Arnold out of her stories. Helga felt it would be better that way.

"I know there is something troubling you about the place, you've never quite specified what, but I'm sure it must have been a lot for you to hate that place so much."

"Yes," Helga sighed, and looked out of the window, "It was a lot." Arnold's face appeared in her mind and she tried her best to blot it out. Who cared that he was still there? Helga was not going to run into him, not again. She would avoid him at all costs. Besides, she was no longer alone, she had Noah to protect her.

"I'm glad you decided to go to Phoebe's wedding. It was kind of you," Noah smiled, "I could tell she wanted you to."

"Yes," Helga said, "That was the only reason I decided to go, she was my best friend always, and she constantly supported me even through the worst."

"You're lucky," Noah smiled, "Growing up, I always had many friends, but never any that stuck into adulthood."

Helga had only one, and felt proud of the preservation. It was strange how good Noah made her feel about herself. With his clear, blue eyes, he could penetrate her inner soul, and heal her of even the worst disappointments.

"Thank you for being so understanding," Helga said after a pause, "I'm glad you're here with me."

"Yes," Noah smiled, "But I'm sure Jenkins wasn't."

Jenkins was the vice president of the company in which Helga had invested a large sum of her money. It was a PR firm, quite successful, of which the latter was also the CEO. Noah was a close associate, a PR specialist for a popular television station in Britain, and he had plenty to do with Helga's line of work. Hers was always his choice when it came to public relations. They made a dynamic duo, both, in love and in business. Frankly said the two needed one another.

When Helga and Noah decided to leave for the week, the very week that a new TV show was launching on the station, both sides began to worry. It was not impossibly to produce good publicity without the main minds, however, it was quite unlikely too. But Helga did not care. Her best friend was getting married, and she would be at the ceremony no matter what. When her boyfriend decided to accompany her, Helga felt amazingly good about herself.

"I know," she smiled, "but he'll pull through it. Besides, we will keep constant contact over the phone."

"That's not the same thing as being there in person," Noah said, almost worried, "we have some utter fuckwits running things there, not everyone in England is an intelligent chap."

"Put some trust into people," Helga smiled, bringing her face closer to him, "the way you did in me."

"Some investments I just had to take," he whispered and his lips touched hers.

After they separated, Helga smiled. She loved his lips, they were soft and inviting, innocent and pleasant. She could spend the rest of her life kissing those sweet lips. With a warm feeling in her heart, Helga pressed her head against Noah's chest and closed her eyes. Before long, she was in deep slumber.



"She's marrying," Gerald said, looking over the pond in the park, as he and Arnold drank coffee during the early Saturday afternoon, "she's marrying him, how can she possibly do that to me?"

Arnold looked at him in amazement, "Gerald, I can't believe you're still not over that."

"What can I say? It's been a lousy week."

"What about Lila?" Arnold asked, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. It was no secret that he'd felt intense jealousy at the very thought of Gerald with the woman he had always loved. True, Helga had changed something in him. Helga had lessened, for some unfathomed reason, the intensity of the way he felt about the pretty brunette that eternally haunted him with her beauty. To say more, for a month or so, Helga had actually made him forget about Lila. But, soon enough, his true emotions began to show once more, and he could not stand the pressure he had felt whenever he saw Gerald and her holding hands. Arnold refused to end his friendship with Gerald over a woman, even if it was Lila. After all, to Arnold, as years past, women would come into your life and leave. Friends, however, true friends, stayed forever. No woman, not even Lila, could understand Arnold the way Gerald did, in a quiet, unspoken murmur, he gave advice and took it.

The soft rays of the morning sun enveloped the two frames and they sat along one another on a bench, both longing for a long lost love.

"Lila," Gerald sighed, "It was obvious from the beginning that that would not work out. She was too tied up to Jonathan, Jonathan and his damn perfection."

"Perfection, eh?" Arnold laughed, "Nah, I don't think it was perfection she was after. I think it was just familiarity, just habit."

"Neither of us ever stood a chance, eh?" Gerald sighed, "A marrying woman never divorces."

"I thought they said that about marrying men."

Gerald gazed into the depth of the leafless shrubbery, "what's the damn difference?"

"The damn difference is," Arnold sighed, "that despite whatever goes on, the woman is always going to be victimized, and that will always make the man wrong."

"I thought it was not good to be victimized."

"It's not good to be wrong either."

Gerald took a sip of the dark consistency from the paper cup, "Which is worse?"

"Well," Arnold mused, "Would you rather have people pity you or scorn you?"

"Don't make me answer that."

Arnold sighed, "And now you're tripping over your dick thinking about Phoebe, but she's not thinking about you. She was right and you were wrong, and that's just it."

Gerald laughed, "That's a funny thing of putting it, almost as if you know the feeling."

"I did a shitty thing to Helga once, and I felt bad afterward, I really did." Arnold looked at his leather shoes, "Suppose you're wrong. And I guess that if you're wrong you've got to make things right. But---"

"But" Gerald supplied, "you'd be damned before you admit that you are wrong."

"You're juggling two women at once, and I'm just living the way I did before. How has life changed for me, really?" Arnold sighed.

"Maybe" his friend paused, "before Helga you never thought that there was anything wrong with your life."

"What makes you say that?" Arnold questioned.

Gerald smiled, "you ever think of that ugly four letter word women like to flaunt around like diamond earrings?"

"Sometimes."

"You ever curse that word?"

"Every once in a while."

"You curse at it while thinking of Lila?"

"Nah."

Arnold looked down and Gerald smiled in triumph.

"She'll probably be at Phoebe's wedding," Gerald said, "Helga, not Lila."

"Yeah," Arnold replied, "I kind of figured that."

"Do you care?"

"Not really."

"You're a bad liar," Gerald smiled.

"I lead my own life now, and she has nothing to do with it."

"She affected your own life, she's been affecting it since you were seventeen."

Arnold looked at Gerald harshly, "I was wrong, and she was right. The usual."

"You were wrong for victimizing her."

"Yeah," Arnold mumbled under his breath, "bitch."