A/N: Wow, if I knew all I needed to do to get more reviews was to piss you guys off, I would have done it a long time ago.

I guess I didn't make my reasons clear enough. I do not ship Arnold and Rhonda. I just mean that I always saw them dating, but it not really meaning anything. As just a means to mature Arnold in the world of relationships. And I read a lot of people say that Rhonda was nothing but a selfish spoiled brat, and mostly, I would agree with you. However, my main point of reference is Rhonda goes broke. Sure, she was moping around for most of the episode, but by the end of it, she made the best of a bad situation. I never said that Arnold and Rhonda made a good couple, or had a healthy relationship, which I explain in this next chapter.

This ones a bit shorter, but this is basically the chapter that opens the curtain. Hope you guys like it, and for those of you who don't know my writing, SPOILER: Arnold and Helga always end up together in my stories. Call me closed minded.

He feels his head swim heavily and has no choice but to stop from trying to open his eyes and relax back into his bed. He groans and lifts his weak arm and clumsily slaps it against his forehead, still throbbing and pounding with every pulse of blood that runs through his brain. He doesn't even remember what happened last night. He groans again and slowly opens his eyes. Once he scans the room he's in, he realizes he's not at his own apartment.

With this realization, he shoots up right. He's been here before, he can't remember who lives here though. He must have really let himself go last night. He's still in the clothes he remembers wearing yesterday, he even still has his shoes on. "Holy shit..." He groans heavily and puts his hands back on his head. If he went out and... god, this time he might actually kill himself.

"Well, look whose up." A shrill voice says.

He looks off to his side and see's a girl clad in dark red, silk pajamas stroll out of the other room. "Rhonda?"

"Here, drink this." She says and hands him a clear, fizzing glass.

He doesn't waste time arguing and downs it. He takes a breath and lets the glass go limp in his hand. "What happened last night?" He asks, cradling his head again.

"Wow, you must have really been out of it." She says and grabs her laptop off the table behind her and sits in the chair adjacent to the sofa he just woke up on. "You stumbled up to my door at midnight last night and kissed me like you were in a cheap romantic comedy."

"I what?" He kissed her? How the hell did he end up here last night? He looks over to Rhonda and she's just grinning as she looks down to her laptop screen. "Rhonda, please don't tell me we..."

"What, slept together?" She says. She always was shameless. "Honey, if we did, you wouldn't be waking up on my couch."

"Uhhh..." He groans again, this time in relief. "I'm sorry, Rhonda. I guess I uh... kind of let myself go last night."

"Don't get me wrong, it took me a minute or two to work up to will power to push you off of me." He looks over to her again and she as a sly grin on her face. "I almost forgot what an amazing kisser you are."

"Rhonda, please stop." He warns her and sets the glass down on the table in front of him simply so he can have the support of both of his hands for his still swimming head. It isn't until now that he remembers that their relationship was mainly physical. He was never really emotionally invested in being with her. That's probably why he didn't really go through a phase of depression when he broke up with her. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Well, considering that you pissed of the girl you're in love with so much that she slapped you, I'd guess that your drunken self tried to prove a point to itself. Trying to move of with someone else, you know. I'm flattered, Arnold, I really am, but I'm not that selfish."

"You know, the Rhonda I broke up with would have gone through with it." He says and sits back.

"Well, maybe I grew up!" She defends herself. "We're not teenagers anymore, Arnold. And I know how much you mean to Helga, and how much she means to you. Stepping into the middle of that anymore than I already am is drama I don't need right now. And coming from me, you should know how much that says."

She's right. She always did want the scope of everything that was happening with everyone. She always wanted drama. Or maybe she's just reasoning away the fact that she didn't want to take advantage of him. He always knew that she was a good person, but didn't want to admit to it. She may be selfish, but she has had her moments of pure heart over the years. "Well... thanks, then."

"Speaking of stepping in the middle of things that aren't my business, I did some digging on Helga's new beau." She says and moves over to sit next to him on the sofa, setting her laptop down on the coffee table. "Turns out you were right to be suspicious."

"What do you mean?"

She clicks her laptop and pulls up Roy's photo. "Roy Connell, son of Robert Connell. You might know him as the former president to Sunset Bank, here in Hillwood."

"What do you mean former?"

"Robert Connell died in a car accident involving a drunk driver about six years ago. But here's the thing; I talked to a few people, turns out that the driver's blood alcohol content was only point oh two."

"That's not even buzzed."

"Exactly. So I dug a bit deeper, finding out that the driver was sentenced to ten years for man slaughter in the third degree, with bale set at half a million dollars. And guess who paid the bill."

"Roy..." The more Rhonda told him, the more pictures he sees flashing in his mind of her, sitting in the corner of that dark, dank room in Ethiopia.

"Mhm, and now that daddy dearest was out of the way, Roy became acting president of Sunset Bank, and started specializing in business loans for small and independent businesses. But here's the thing, the banks been under investigation by both the IRS and the FBI for the past two years."

"Why's that?"

"From what I can find out, the businesses that he started loaning to didn't trace back to anyone. Almost none of them existed."

"He was laundering money?" How the hell did Helga get involved with a money launderer?

"That's what I think. He probably offers to take in their money through personal shell accounts and move it back to them through business loans to clean it."

"How did he end up in Tanzania with Helga, then?"

"Roy may have had daddies business, but didn't have his expertise. About two years ago, it starting hitting the fan when Roy started accepting rival clients. His main clients got the word, and put his picture on a dart board. So Roy probably decided to disappear."

"Why is he back then?"

"Probably because the business that had Sunset's largest loan was shut down by the FBI and everyone on the client list rounded up. With the coast clear, he came back, with your girl on his arm."

"Why hasn't this guy been investigated by the FBI because of all of this?"

"Oh, he's been investigated, just not by the FBI. By HPD, and this is the part that concerns you, for this." She says and taps a few keys on her laptop, and a picture pops up that starts making his blood boil. "This is Barbara. She was Roy's girlfriend whenever he was attending business school. She had to have twelve stitches above her right eye, her jaw wired back into place, and nursed two broken ribs from 'falling down the stairs'. HPD suspected Roy, but could never pin it on him because one, Barbra had a history of alcohol abuse, and two, he was able to provide two witnesses who say that they were with him at the time it happened."

He's afraid. Afraid mostly of what he might do when he sees him, afraid that he won't be able to stop himself, and mostly he doesn't want himself to. This guy is going to suffer for what he's doing to Helga. From not only stealing her away from him, but tricking her into something that she didn't want. He knows Helga, she doesn't want him. He's going to make him sorry he ever touched her.

Stop, just stop. His main concern needs to be with protecting Helga, not beating the shit of Roy. It's one of his codes, seek justice, not vengeance. "You have to show this to Helga." Rhonda says after a minute of silence, waiting for him to contemplate what he's just learned.

"She hates me right now, Rhonda."

"Hey!" Rhonda exclaims, grabbing his attention away from the laptop. "This is not about your relationship with Helga anymore. This is about her safety!" She says seriously. "You want that to be Helga?" She says and points at the laptop. "Because give it enough time, and it's going to be if you don't do something."

"I know." He says, finally deciding to act, and how he should go about it. "I have to show her all this."

"Everything you need," She starts and pulls out a thumb drive from the side of the laptop, "is right here."

He takes it from her and stands up. "Thanks, Rhonda. This uh... this means a lot."

"Well, considering what happened to you last night, I don't think that that tattoo of yours is entirely accurate." He chuckles and looks down at his left forearm. "No emotion isn't exactly what I'd say to describe what happened to you last night, because you after I had pushed you off, you started blabbing on about how sorry you where."

"I was drunk, Rhonda. And besides, it's just a military tattoo." He's had that tattoo since his first leave right before Ranger school. Long enough he sometimes forgets it's even there. He stands up and stretches and gets his mind back into the set that it needs to be. "I screwed up, Rhonda."

"Just... remember something, Arnold." Rhonda says and stands up next to him. "If you kissed her anything like you kissed me last night, it must have been hard as hell for her to leave the way she did."

There are certain moments when a new perspective is needed. It's been awhile since he's read her good-bye note. Because that's basically what she said.

He decides to head back to his apartment before heading back to campus to find Helga at her dorm room. Saturday is the day that she spends the day catching up on assignments that she's neglected. After taking a shower and getting something solid into his system, he gets dressed, coming across the folded up, crumpled piece of notebook paper that he knows so well.

He has time, and maybe reading it now will make him understand what was going through her mind. So, he swallows and gently picks up the paper, unfolding it just as gently.

Dear Arnold,

You stole my heart when we first met, but I couldn't bare to ask for it back in person. These past months, being with you, they've been amazing. Never before have I been able to be so free and open with anyone before. And never before did I ever think I could love you anymore than I already did. Over the past couple years, I had decided that what I had was just a crush, a fantasy to live forever in my dreams, but that all ended when you came up to my locker and asked me out.

I've tried to come up with what was going through your head at the time, but when a dream comes true, you don't usually ask too many questions. I can only guess that you somehow felt sorry for me, maybe. But I dream that you maybe thought I was interesting to talk to in English class, or maybe even kind of pretty, and if any of it were to be true, it would make leaving you even harder than it already is.

You gave me a chance I've never had before, Arnold. A chance to feel loved. To feel wanted, adored, cherished, to feel... human. Tonight was amazing, and I wouldn't want my first time to be any different, or with anyone else. I know that you'll probably look back on it and say that it wasn't the best you've had, but there's a part of me that says you can't deny the chemistry we shared. I don't know why I'm trying to defend myself, now of all times.

I don't know why I'm leaving yet, or entirely where I'm going, or how I'll get there, or how long I'll be there, or even if I'll come back at all. But looking back on these past few months being in a relationship with you, it made me realize I don't know who I am without you. And I need to find out. I need to find out who I am on my own. I need to find out if I'm anything but a little girl with a crush. But I know that no matter how much time passes, there's one thing I'm not strong enough to let go.

I will always love you, Arnold

He rereads the last line a few more times. It one of the few things that can make him smile. Mainly because he can hear her say it.

He takes a deep breath, gently folds the note back up and puts it back in the drawer of his dresser. He grabs the flash drive on his way out and knows know what he needs to do, and what his main concern is; Helga.

He needs to keep her safe.