DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CRAIG BARTLETT AND NICKELODEON!

OBVIOUSLY if a character appears in this story that is not from the show it's my own filler character or whatever.

Chapter 10:

Phoebe and the others sat around the table after filling in Patty and Harold on what happened in such a short span. "Are you saying Helga got slapped by Arnold and I missed it?" Harold complained. Patty stared him down long and hard before he got that the people on this table were on Helga's side. "Oh, right. Sorry." He smiled sheepishly.

Rolling her eyes Patty looked to the other girls, "What about that mess about Arnie and Lila?" She said, "Do you think it's true?"

"Of course it had to be true! Helga might be a mean and nasty, but she's not a liar." Phoebe stopped a moment. "Okay, she's a liar too, but only when it comes to things that need to be kept quiet. When she confronted Lila, she was about to cry, I've never seen her look so upset. It was literally hurting her that Lila was playing Arnold, so I am going to have to go with that it is definitely true."

Rhonda nodded, "I've seen that girl riled up many times but today it was indeed personal, I believe it to be true as well." She shook her, as her arm stayed linked with the arm of her date. The man beside her rubbed her arm in an attempt to comfort her.

He finally spoke. "Arnold over did it, that's for sure." The group nodded, well except for Harold.

Phoebe suddenly shook her head and looked at Rhonda's date. "Wait, what was your name again?" The male visibly began to sweat.

"Ahh…" He started.

"Chad. His name is, Chad." Rhonda butted in. The man only nodded quick and nervously, which made his mask fall. He and Rhonda paled as the others looked at his face.

"Oh, well nice to me you Chad." Patty smiled, "Glad to see you weren't hiding a hideous scar or something."

"Wow, what a catch Rhonda." Phoebe laughed. Rhonda and Chad only stared on in disbelief.

"Are you saying you don't know who he is?" Rhonda asked suddenly.

"Uh, he's Chad. Why? Should we know him…?" Harold questioned.

"You guys seriously don't know who I am?" Chad complained.

"He doesn't look the least bit familiar?" Rhonda insisted. Obviously their disbelief was strong. "You guys are telling me you don't know this is, Thaddeus?" She finally asked.

Patty and Phoebe almost spit out their drinks and Harold only blinked. "Thaddeus?" Chad-er-Thaddeus slapped his own forehead.

"Curly?!" Phoebe and Patty both exclaimed in unison, which then had Harold almost spit out his drink.

"Rhonda… I think you should have just left them blissfully ignorant." Curly, very briefly known as Chad sighed. Rubbing his head he looked over at the girl. She seemed to finally let her mistake sink in and was looking sheepish. "Well this story can wait guys, the problem at hand is, Arnold and Helga."

X-X-X-X-X

After dropping Lila off at home safely, Arnold had made his way to the boarding house. His legs felt heavy, his heart felt heavier. Even though he had gradually relaxed after the whole ordeal with … He shook his head, even the thought of her name gave a slight pain in his chest. How could he ever face her? He couldn't, he couldn't dream of it. What would he do, apologize? He slapped her in the face. Sure most people would assume that was the least she deserved from him, but that wasn't the case at all. He knew it wasn't.

In all the years they had been in one another's lives, through all the bad and good... there was just something he could see in her that no one else seemed to notice. Well.. at least most didn't see it. Gradually more people had seemed to accept H-...Helga into their lives, there was always Phoebe of course, but soon there was Rhonda, Patty, Nadine, hell even Stinky had found himself smitten with her at a time when they were younger, pointing out all the things in Helga that Arnold himself had purposely overlooked, just so things didn't feel awkward around her.

His thoughts subsided as he made his way up the stairs to the front door, everything felt so surreal and silent. Even when he opened the door, the assortment of animals didn't seem to grab their chances of freedom. As if he repelled them with his sheer angst.

"Oh, heya Short-Man, how was your big day?" Grampa Phil called from the living room as Arnold walked by toward the stairs.

"Not now Grampa, I don't feel too good." Arnold replied solemnly.

"Finally regretting not asking your little blond friend, eh?" The old man laughed making Arnold's brows furrow in confusion.

"You mean, Helga?"

"Oooh yea, that was her name, was it? Yea, me and Pookie were sure she was going to be who you'd take. Caught us by surprise for sure when you started hanging around that freckled one."

"Lila." Arnold added.

"Yea, that one." Phil yawned. Standing up slowly he stretched and looked over at his downed grandson. "Whoa there Short-Man, you look horrible? Get a bad case of the Cooties, did we? Eh-heh-heeeh." He laughed.

"Hardly, more like a stomach bug, of stress." At Phil's confused look he added. "I'll talk about it in the morning I really don't feel up to it... Oh, is Arnie in? I kinda don't want to have to deal with his... well... His 'Arnie'ness..." Arnold finished.

"Nope, he left an hour or so ago, didn't even say where he was off to. That kid is so gosh-darn weird." Phil shuddered making Arnold chuckle.

Making his way up to his bedroom finally, he shed himself of all tonight's get-up. Once he was just in his boxers he sat on the side of his bed, glaring at his hand, it didn't sting from the force he had put into when he slapped Helga.. but he could see her face when he looked at it, clear as day. Reliving the moment over and over. When he closed his eyes, the image of her hurt expression was even more clear, etched into his mind like a bad repetitive commercial. He took his hands and scrubbed them across his face, rubbing at his eyes, desperately trying to rid himself of the memory of just a few short hours ago.

He thought of Helga, and how she had just left... just like that, no argument, no anything. She was just led off to God knows where... with Wolfgang. Of all the people to be there to comfort her, it was that jerk. Recalling how High and Mighty he acted, trying to stand up to Arnold for Helga made Arnold laugh. To think he even knew how to have someone's back. It took a moment of eye rubbing and teeth gritting to realize he was irritated that someone like him would have to help Helga in the first place. What made it worse was that Arnold was the cause of her tears this time.

How many times had he been there for her over the years? She might not have cried, but she was definitely in need of consoling. Now he was the reason she needed it and for the damnedest reason it was tearing him up inside.

Laying his arm over his eyes he tried to shut out the light that spilled into his window above. Maybe he could apologize to her tomorrow. If she even wanted to speak to him that is. He paused for a moment in confusion, why was he even feeling this damn guilty? What sane man thinks about consoling the woman who attacked their girlfriend? Was he mad? He had to be, because as lucid as that thought was, it still felt like he owed Helga at least a sorry. Groaning he turned so his face was mashed against his pillow, maybe he'd snuff himself out in his sleep and therefore avoid the eventual confrontation between himself and Helga G. Pataki that was inevitable.

X-X-X-X-X

"Helga?" A familiar voice made the blonde open her eyes. It was Olga, apparently Rhonda and the gang had filled her in on the events of yesterday and now the woman came to check on her. "Oh Baby Sister, I am so sorry I wasn't there for you." She hugged Helga tightly and sniffled softly.

"It's no biggie, I think it all was handled better than it could have gone." Which was … sort of the truth. She got to see just who had her back and just who didn't. It hurt to know Arnold chose to think her a liar, but what proof had she given him over the years? She bit her lip. She thought she had given him lots of proof over the years actually, that thought sank in and she felt her eyes brimming with tears.

"I, I wanted to wait until after you graduated to offer this to you, Helga, but... would you like to move in with me?" Olga cupped her sister's cheeks so the blonde couldn't look away.

"M-move in with you? You mean in Europe?" Helga's eyes were wild, she used to think about visiting Paris and Venice when she was little. However those were usually her fanciful, deluded dreams of her and Arnold's adventures. The ache that those dreams used to fill her with resurfaced once again. "I don't know, I'm not sure I could leave Pheebs and the others."

Just then the door to the room creaked and a familiar trio of girls spilled in. Patty, Phoebe and Rhonda sheepishly looked at the sisters and stood up quickly.

"I for one think it's a wonderful idea, and a breath of fresh air for you Helga..." Phoebe admitted. "When I went abroad briefly it was lovely, I just missed you all too much."

"You mean you missed Gerald." Rhonda teased.

"I couldn't possibly go..." Helga muttered under her breath.

"If you don't like it, I can always bring you back." Olga added, rubbing her sister's back. "You don't have to decide now, it was originally going to be brought up after graduation. I just figured, with all the stuff going on with you, you might want to escape for awhile, enjoy the world. I do a lot more traveling, you know. After Europe we can head out to anywhere you'd like."

The idea and benefits were surely tempting, and her friends seemed to be so excited for her to get a breath of fresh air, rather than the stank of Hilwood. "I'll think about it." She finally agreed, getting happy smiles from the room. Looking at the clock she groaned. She had over slept and it was already Five in the afternoon. "Alright, Ladies. Helga needs to get up and about for today."

"We'll see you downstairs, wait till we tell you who Rhonda's date was!" Phoebe squealed before rushing out the room, dodging the rage of Rhonda as she did so.

"I'm sure that will be a blast." Helga chuckled and rolled her eyes.

X-X-X-X-X

"...Curly?!" Helga yelled in utter disbelief. "I can't believe you and him hooked up! You used to treat him like shit!" Leaning back against the sofa, Helga was soon overwhelmed with laughter.

"Hey! He cleaned up rather nicely... Oddly enough he and I ran into one another when I went to intern last summer at that fashion studio. Apparently, laundry isn't the only thing that boy is good at. He might just become a famous fashion designer."

"Is that what changed your mind?" Helga nudged her.

"No, it was actually how handsome he became. That, and he has the most ideal tastes in fashion now, I could hardly believe it was him. He didn't want to tell me he was Curly either, was scared his rambunctious childhood would ruin my outlook on him." Rhonda laughed.

"Did it?" Patty asked.

"Of course it did. I locked myself in a storage closet for two hours." Rhonda answered, leaving the room of women cackling wildly.

Helga sighed wistfully, it was good someone got their happy ending, even if it was as far-fetched as Curly scoring Rhonda as his girl after all these years. It almost made her rethink her current situation with Arnold, could it be magically fixed with time? Her mood grew sour as she thought about it, there was no way in all the universe was Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes going to forgive her for punching the innocent little Lila in the face.

"Helga, HELGA." Rhonda barked sternly, grabbing the blond out of her mental turmoil. "I was just suggesting we should go get some ice cream. What do you say? You in?"

It was a long pause but eventually she agreed. How could she refuse with the puppy eyes she was getting from around the room? "Oh criminy, fine, let's go." The rest of the women cheered. Not only for the comforting dairy product they would soon be immersed in but because they were going to be getting Helga out of the house, and far sooner than they thought they would.

They had made quick work with getting ready - for once - but there was a hesitance in Helga, even after agreeing, leaving the safety of Rhonda's house meant to subject herself to the outside. Within the outside was a couple of faces she really didn't like the thought of running into. As her friends and sister gallivanted out the door, a feeling of dread and foreboding washed over Helga so strong she thought she would vomit.

The Fates wouldn't possibly be that cruel to me, could they? Helga thought as they all stuffed themselves into Olga's van.

X-X-X-X-X

The trip to the Sundae Salon was a bit lengthy, but anything but quiet. Helga had to put in her ear buds just to think, don't get her wrong, she loved the squabble of excited women about to stuff themselves silly with frozen dairy, but there was a limit to squabble she could handle. She enjoyed the last few moments of the ride entertained with the music stored on her phone.

When the carload of women emptied in front of the establishment, chipper and merry Helga could only laugh and shake her head as she made her way up the stairs to the entrance. The other girls had taken their time, still babbling on. That is until Phoebe bumped into Helga's back as the girl stood frozen at the door. Peeking over her friend's shoulder Phoebe couldn't believe the unbelievable coincidence and looked at Helga's pale face.

Seated at the table across from the door was Arnold, Sid and Stinky. Green eyes met blue and before anyone could register anything, two things happened. Helga turned on her heel and hauled ass out of there, and Arnold shot to his feet moving to go after her.