A/N: Next chapter up. Hopefully this chapter will give you a glimpse into the overall tone shift I'm talking about. A little more back story revealed and more foundation as to the overall plot. There are some things that I wanted to add into this version, and one thing I wanted to add was something specific to the army branch of the military. Let's see if you can name it!

Grabbing some napkins out of the dispenser, he starts wiping up the hot coffee that Helga had just spit up on the floor. Knelt down, he hears her coughing lightly. If he had to guess, she would have never had that reaction. May be a bit surprised, but never as shocked as to spit coffee on the floor.

"I'm sorry." She says in a hoarse voice, still having coffee caught in the wrong part of her throat. He stands up with the hot, dirty napkins in his hand and puts them in the small trash can next to him. "Did you just say you've been in Iraq?"

"That's where the army sent me." He says and picks up his coffee cup, taking a small sip.

"You joined the army?" He hears fear trickle into her voice. Maybe it's just the surprise. He decides to simply take his finger and tap it against his tag on his jacket. "Wow." She says slowly. Not happy for him. He doesn't know why he expected anything more. He's not happy for the experience.

He just lets out a breath and starts making his way over to a small table next to a window. She sits down across from him, leaning forward on her elbows with a deep concern etched into her brow. "I singed up a month and a half after you left." He was going to say after graduation, but part of him wants her to know that there's some of it that's her fault. After she doesn't respond, he decides to just let it all out. "Two weeks after you left, Grandpa died. A week after that, Grandma died after going off the deep end. Took the car and sped down the street thinking she was a cop after Al Capone." He laughs bitterly and shakes his head.

He hears her start to speak, but she chokes it down, letting him continue.

"I tried to hold the boarding house together on my own, tried to pay the bills and everything. But I found out that we were facing foreclosure before they even died. With everything going on, I just..." He lifts his cup and stares into the cup, "needed to get away."

There's a long moment of silence between them, and he doesn't want to share any war stories with her. None of them have a happy ending. "Where'd they send you?"

"Did two tours in Iraq, then after I did my three years, I did some contracting work." Best way to put it.

"What brings you back home?"

"Same thing as you. I was homesick." He lies.

"Well, Arnold, I'm proud of you." His eyes shoots up to hers, and shes smiling softly. "You went out, you fought for our country-"

"I didn't fight for anything!" He snaps, seeing her jump in fear but is unable to stop the spew of his anger. "I fought because I was told to, because I wasn't given a choice! No one ever tells you that when they put a gun in your hands, they also put one to your head." He lifts his cup and takes a long sip to shut himself up, opening his throat to burn himself, probably on purpose. He glances up and it's the first time since they've been reunited that she hasn't had a smile on her face. Now she has a slight fear in her eyes.

"I'm sorry." She says with an evident shake in her voice.

"It's not your fault I've seen a part of this 'war'," he says with air quotes, "that nobody likes to talk about." After another long pause and another long sip from his cup, he refocuses himself on the beautiful girl in front of him. After all, she's the one thing that's helped. "I'm sorry, Helga." He says and looks back up to her. "I'm still trying to... reintegrate myself back into civilian life." He says, looking out the window they're sitting next to, unable to bare looking her in the eye anymore. She probably feels like she doesn't even know him anymore. Funny since he's felt the same way for a long time now.

He hates himself now. The one thing, the one person that he's focused on to reel himself back in over the years from the anger, the fear, the anxiety, the hopelessness, and he finally has her back, yet here he is, giving her a reason to leave all over again. Probably better that way. His head sinks and a cold, heavy, dark, and an all too familiar depression hits him. Maybe he just isn't fit for civilian life anymore.

It's just then that he feels a warmth on top of his hand. He looks up, surprised that once he feels the touch, before even realizing what it is that is happening, he feels the weight lift off of him somehow. A simple gesture if there ever was one, a simple thing as her putting her soft hand on top of the one that is on the handle of his half empty coffee cup has, even for a moment, made the past five years vanish. He even starts to feel a smile crawl onto his face when her thump starts to run itself across his knuckles.

He wants to return her gesture. Look up to her and smile to let her know it's working, putting his hand on top of hers, grab onto her hand, pull her forward and kiss her like he used to back in high school? But no, she's paralyzed him. He sucks in a slow breath in through his nose and lets it out just as slowly, telling himself to focus on the here and now. "I am sorry, Helga." He says softly, looking back up to her to find her wearing a beautiful, soft, and genuine smile.

"It's okay, Arnold." She says and removes her hand, placing it back on her own cup, making him shiver when she pulls it away. "We've all got our scars." She says with more of an edge as her eyes go straight down into her coffee cup. He doesn't want her asking, not yet, so the least he can do is offer her the same respect.

"Well, listen," He starts and stands up. "I've got to get to another class, but..." He says and pauses as she stands up, offering him a soft, half lidded smile. God she's so beautiful. "If you want to pick up where we left off, I think I can stand to share a war story or two with you here, tonight at twenty hundred hours."

Her smile widens and her eyes sparkle just as he remembers. "I think I can be here at eight."

He smiles and they start out the door, with him pushing it open for her and her walking in front of him and his conscience chastising him for thinking that she smells the same way as she did in high school, with that faint hint of apple, cinnamon, and flowers. Standing in front of each other, outside in a warm breeze of early September, he wants nothing more than to snake his hands around her, pull her into him and kiss her and not stop. And there's a part of him that thinks that that's exactly what she wants him to do with the way she's smiling at him. But another part of him is whispering to him that she's smiling because she grew up and matured without him, and was able to achieve happiness without him. At the same time being angry with himself that he's angry that it wasn't with him.

He can't keep thinking like this if he wants her back. Just focus on here and now. On her.

After what seems like a very long moment, she reaches up and slowly wraps her arms around his neck, hugging him softer than before, but at the same time tighter than before also. He wastes no time in enveloping her in his arms, his arms snaking fully around her, his hands softly grasping her sides opposite and his face having to strongly fight back the urge to turn into her the crock of her neck. "It was really good to see you again, Arnold." She says into his ear, making his whole body shiver at her breath hitting him in that place, a flash of a memory whispering sultry words in his ear, straddling him on his old couch in his bedroom.

"It was worth the five year wait to see you again, Beautiful." Shit! His whole body freezes, his pulse starting to race but he quickly corrects himself and keeps it under control. Just take a deep breath and step back before it gets worse.

He slowly runs his hands back from around her and takes a small step backward, his hands still on her sides, and hers still on his shoulders. She has a happy, but somewhat generic smile on her face, almost as if it's fake. Great, he's fucked everything up now. Usual. One second, and he calls her the pet name that drove her wild in high school. "Well, uh..." She says with a slight tremble in her voice, "Oh, here." She says and pulls out a pen and her notebook from her backpack. "Let me give you my phone number." She writes for a few seconds then hands him a scrap of paper with her phone number written on it. Cute, she still puts lines through her sevens.

He looks back up to her and smiles. "I'd give you mine, but I don't have one."

Her brow perks up on one side, "How do I know you'll be here then?" She asks, almost playfully if he hears it right.

He just smirks and shrugs his shoulders, burying his hands in his field jacket. "You'll just have to trust me, I guess." She's looking him in the eye and it's only a few seconds of what he feels is an intense moment between them due to her biting her lower lip. She used to do that when she wanted to argue with him, but didn't have a good enough comeback. "Think you can do that?" He asks for her with a cocked brow.

Her lower lip returns and her smile softens. "You be here at eight and you'll find out."

He decides to let her have the final word and smirks a little wider to one side. He makes his way past her, brushing against her bare arm as he does. Making his way down the path through the quad of Hillwood U, he draws in a long breath and lets it out to try and cleanse himself of the interaction he just had. He feels her eyes on him, but doesn't look back to make one last goodbye before he sees her tonight. Trying to be mysterious, maybe. Or maybe it's just that if he does, he might run back over and do something drastic.

A part of him wonders if that fiery rebel he fell for in high school is still there. Then again, the naive orphan she fell for isn't. He died in Iraq.

Looking at his watch, he should be there just a few minutes past eight. He had enough time to go back to his place, work out, and shower. Had time to think, lay out a strategy, so to speak. Could invite her to dinner by the end of the night if everything goes right. He smiles at the thought of seeing her dressed up again and reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out the small two by four picture she let him take of her. It's faded and worn, the top right corner torn. She has her hair down, rare for her at the time, a soft but radiant smile, a light pink t-shirt as usual, and a look in her eyes that has said to him every time he's stared at it 'I love you.'

He sighs silently and carefully slips the picture back into his pocket. He's within sight of the coffee shop that they agreed to meet at, and looking at his watch, it's just five past eight. Looking in the window, she's already sitting at the table they were this morning and has a zip up hoodie on with the zipper left open, a book closed in front of her and her cell phone to her ear. He smiles at the sight of her in the soft lighting of the coffee shop and picks his pace up, whipping the door open.

"Hey, I have to go, he's here." She says into her phone and stands up. "Love you too."

He feels himself freeze, his smile vanishing, his heart sinking, and his veins run cold. He is paralyzed as she smiles bright just as she did this morning and is forced to watch her as she extends her arms out to him and hugs him in greeting. With his breath shaking more than it has in a long time, he just pulls his hands up and puts them on her back. She steps back just after a few seconds and is still smiling, but it just feels patronizing now. "Hey." She says happily and sits back down.

He lets out a short, forceful breath and demands himself to at least smirk. He grabs onto the back of the chair with a sweaty hand and pulls it out, sitting down uncomfortably. "Hey." He repeats, unable to think of anything else.

All his fantasies, his dreams he had for them, his plans, his vision he's had of her. It's all gone. He hasn't ever felt this betrayed. His legs are telling him to jump out of his seat and just run, his fists telling him to punch somebody. She's talking to him but all he hears is a muffled voice. There's someone else. There's never been anyone else with him. No one serious anyway. Just a one night stand when he really let himself go on leave. Dammit Eddy. "Arnold?"

He shakes his head and refocuses. "Huh?"

"I asked what you thought of Hillwood U so far."

She has the nerve to talk small talk with him? Just... cam down.

He settles for just giving her off handed answers, and it continues for about ten minutes. He's closed up and he knows it. She's asking all the questions and there's only one he wants to ask, but won't. After a while, she asks what it was like in Iraq, and if he was scared. "Don't remember being scared." He says emotionlessly. That part he's being honest about.

"Wow, really? I was pretty scared in-" She cuts herself off and he looks up sharply. First time he's looked at her since he walked in. She's probably noticed that he hasn't looked at her all night.

"There it is again." He says. She looks up with dilated pupils and evident fear. He doesn't want to ask, but from what he can gather, she hasn't told anybody, and she probably needs to let it out. He doesn't want to ask, but it being to help her, he can't stop. "What happened in Ethiopia, Helga?"

She averts her eyes down to her cup and takes a deep, shaky breath. He can even see her hand shake. "After I did four years in Tanzania, I was sent up to a small village in Ethiopia to teach." She starts in a small, scared voice. Barely there. "Three months after I started, a group of rebels came through. They didn't even give us any warning. Just drove in and starting shooting people. I uh... I was teaching the kids grammar in an old church when I heard the shots and the villagers screaming, and had the children hide in between the pews. We were there for twenty minutes, listening to them killing some people, capturing others. When they..." She breaks and he watches as a tear falls from her cheek.

She hasn't told this to anybody. He can tell.

She takes another breath to try and regain her composure, but he can clearly see that it's not working. "When they found us, they grabbed me and drug me outside by the arm. After they lined up all the men in front of us and executed them, they loaded us in the back of a truck and drove us to a their base." She sniffles and part of him wants to tell her to stop, but another part of him, the soldier, is listening and wants to hear. "They held me there for four months. They tried to ransom me off to the government, planning to sell me out to slavery after they had gotten their payment."

It couldn't be.

"It was on the night that they were going to sell me and that they were planning to... use me..." She says, her voice shaking so bad he can barely understand her, "that I heard an explosion and gunfire, and everybody start yelling. A few minutes after that, I heard a man shouting orders in English. I can still remember as one of the guards came in to kill me, his pistol was aimed at me and I thought for sure that I was going to die. I closed my eyes and heard a shot, then another two shots. I opened my eyes and see him on the floor. Just seconds later I see an American soldier come through the door. H-He wasn't dressed like a regular soldier though. He didn't have on a jacket, just a vest, helmet and mask."

No.

"He called on his radio and said that I was secure. He pulled my gag off and asked me if I was hurt and a few minutes after, I was on a van to the American embassy. They sent me home and I enrolled here at Hillwood U as a teaching major."

It's impossible.

He watches as she reaches up and roughly swipes her cheek with her palm, and hears her sniffle again. Her eyes are still red and puffy and there's still the track of a tear on the cheek that she didn't wipe off. He was trained to handle situations like the one she was in. Hell, he's been in situations like that. But she wasn't. She was teaching kids how to read and write. He takes a deep breath, the thought of her possibly having someone else not even crossing his mind, and reaches up with his hand and puts it over hers. He looks back up to her and see's that a smile has worked it's way back onto her face.

It worked for him, and it looks like it worked for her.

"Alright boys, you know the sitrep. Recon puts ten on patrol, assume more, two high facing south in towers. Snowman, that's you. Three entrances, go in two each. Me and Red will take south once Snowman is done. South park and Benny, take west. Brightside, you and Eddy take east. Once you two are inside, look for survivors. We'll take care of remaining resistance and clear a path. Quick hit and grab, boys. Let's do it, hoo-ya?"

"Hoo-Ya!" He and everyone in the truck shouts. "Look at the bright side, Eddy." He says to Eddy next to him, checking his magazine. "At least we're here together."

"Shut the fuck up, Brightside." Eddy says on a laugh.

Arnold chuckles and pulls on his mask.

He snaps awake in a sweat, panting.

It couldn't have been her that night.

It just couldn't.