He eases to a stop outside her dorm, turning off the ignition, then steps out. He snaps down his lapels and rolls his neck. He takes a deep breath past the nervous lump in his throat and starts toward the door. He notices a pair of girls walking out and grinning at him. He sees them, but doesn't make a notion that he appreciates, or even notices their attention. He whips open the front door and makes his way up.
It's been a hectic week. That Monday, he came onto campus, walking toward his first class of the day, when he spotted a pair of cops talking to her. He quickly jogged up to them and stopped just a few feet away from them when she met his eyes. There was a hint of fright, but most of all, he got the sense of her just wanting it all to be over with. He could hear them reassure her that Roy was behind bars awaiting trial. And with the banks assets frozen, pending further IRS investigation, he couldn't make bale.
He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but before he got the chance, she simply smiled dismissively and went on her way to class. He forced himself to stop her after class and talk to her. She told him she was just glad it was all over with and that she can move on. Things went about normally from there. Yesterday, she found him in the cafeteria and asked him if they were still on for tonight. He honestly wasn't sure before she asked, with everything going on, if she even remembered.
But he's here. He made the call to Eddy's Uncle Nemo. Arnold's met him. New York Italian, came out west to Washington after his wife died of cancer. Arnold stayed with him during his leave right before he was shipped out on his second tour.
He takes one last deep breath and lifts his hand to knock on her dorm room door. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his black slacks and waits. The door opens to her room mate. Never met her before. "Hi, I was looking for Helga." He states like it's a question.
"She just came out of the bathroom, I'll let her know you're here." She says and turns around.
Once her room mate is across the dorm to Helga's room, he lets out a shaky breath, rocking himself back on the balls of his feet. He never did like wearing an ankle piece. He puts that brief thought out of his mind when he hears the two of them conversing inside. He looks to the ground, waiting and collecting his thoughts.
When he hears a set of heels softly click out into the small main area of the dorm, he looks up, feeling his whole world fall away.
She's perfect.
Her dress is a soft pink, going down just past her knees, hugging her hips, showing just the right amount of cleavage, with a small sweater thing over her arms. He dated a girl who did nothing but talk about clothes in high school, he should know what the hell those things are called. But she's beautiful. "You ready to go?" She breaks him out of his trance.
He shakes his head and flashes her a smile, mumbling the first unintelligible words that spill out of his fumbling mouth. And after a few seconds of that, he steps aside and lifts his arm to usher her out of the door ahead of him, feeling like a complete dip.
"You look nice, Arnold." She compliments him as she passes. Her green apple scene is so powerful tonight. He can practically feel himself falling into her.
She starts down the hall way when he feels his conscience punch him in the face. Say something, dick. "I feel like Quasi Moto standing next to you." He grimaces as it leaves his mouth. Sounded better in his head. She looks over her shoulder with a raised brow. "It sounded better before I actually said it." He tells her as he steps up next to her. He feels the clench in his gut untwist when he sees her smile.
He leads her down to his car and moves to the passenger side door to open it for her. But stops when his hand is on the handle, then turns to her. He pauses, looking her in the eye. "You look really beautiful, Helga." Simple, keep it simple.
Her lips shrink as she tries to hide her smile by tilting her head forward and replacing a strand of hair over her ear, along with the rest of it, falling in a long wave down her shoulders. He opens the her door and she slides in.
They start through the city, heading toward the water front. "So, you know the owner of this place?" She asks after a few minutes of silence.
"He's Eddy's uncle. I stayed with him when I was on leave before my second tour. I couldn't get the place to ourselves," He says, looking over to her briefly, "but I managed to get us a table by the window. It's usually pretty hard to get a window table on a Friday."
He sees her smile again and look down to her lap. He chances a few glances as he drives. She's just looking down to her small purse, fidgeting with the strap. She used to do that when she was thinking about something serious. She would always pick at the fraying of the stitches on her old bag she had in high school when he had to pry whatever family problems she was having with Mariam out of her when she was hiding out up in his old attic room.
He doesn't want to pry whatever it is she's thinking out of her now. To him, tonight is about relieving stress. Show her a good time. She deserves it.
After another ten minutes of silence, he parks on the street just across from Nemo's. He quickly gets out and jogs over to her side of the car in time to close the door behind her and escort her across the street. She pulls her sweater thing tighter around her against the brisk breeze coming through the streets and goes ahead of him as he holds the door open for her, just as he always did for his girlfriends back in high school. Rhonda may have been more spoiled than milk on a hot day, but he still did it for her.
He goes up to the host's podium, leaving Helga just a few feet away by the door, with people waiting along the wall for a table. It's pretty crowded, and he has a slight fear than it doesn't ruin their... outing. "Hi, I'm looking for Nemo."
"What is this con-"
"Arnaldo!" A voice booms.
He smiles and looks up to the large, portly man lumbering out of the kitchen.
"Come te la passi?" Nemo says, lumbering through the tables to meet Arnold, who started toward him with open arms. They hug each other, patting each other heavily on the back, laughing.
"Mai migliore. E tu?" Arnold rattles off.
"E'una bella notte con la societa alimentare." Nemo says and slaps Arnold's shoulder.
He laughs, "Grazie, Nemo, Grazie."
Nemo laughs and leans back with his hands folded on his hips. "So, where's my nephew, ah?" A thick Italian New York accent asks.
"Eddy won't let me keep tabs on him anymore, Nemo."
"Ah." Nemo waves a hand. "Haven't seen the kid in weeks. Favorite uncle, can't even get a visit from him." He says, shrugging his shoulders.
Arnold laughs, then turns around, extending his hand to Helga. "Nemo, this is Helga." He says as she steps up next to him. "I told her that this was the best Italian in Hillwood."
"Best Italian outside of Italy." He boasts. "Lovely to meet you, Helga." Nemo gently shaking her hand with both of his and offering her a bright smile. "I got a table for you two right over here." He says, lifting his hand up. "Scotty! Table three."
"Right this way." The waiter says, grabbing two menus.
"Ey, tell my nephew to call his favorite Uncle, will ya?" Nemo says to him as he slowly lumbers back toward the back.
"Can't make any promises, Nemo." Arnold calls through the restaurant.
Arnold and Helga follow the waiter past a few tables before coming to a small table next to the window, with a single red candle in the center. The waiter sets down the menus as Arnold pulls out Helga's chair, then pushing it back in when she's seated. He thanks the host quietly when he moves to the other side of the table, noticing her raised brow and surprised, agape smile. "What?" He asks with a chuckle.
"You speak Italian?"
He lets out another small chuckle as he scoots his chair closer to the table. "I had some time on my hands when I wasn't on duty."
She holds her mouth open for a few seconds before shaking her head and leaning back. "Didn't you flunk Spanish in high school?"
"A D's passing." He defended with a shrug. She chuckles as the waiter comes by and takes their drink order. He turns down the offer of a choice from their wine selection, opting for sparkling water. He would have picked something from their wine selection, Nemo has always boasted about it, but he's carrying tonight. They fall into a light conversation about classes, telling jokes, old stories and memories from their time at PS 120. He doesn't even notice her burdens have melted off her shoulders. He's too wrapped up in how well the night is going.
He hasn't felt this way in years. The lift in his chest, the twinge in his lips that make him unable to stop smiling, the feeling that he could lean across the table right now and kiss her, and she'd do nothing but respond in kind. Right now, there's no Roy, no old pulling scars, no nightmares, no PTSD, it's just them. Some time passes before their food comes and when it does and their plates are sitting in front of them, Arnold leans back with a raised brow and a smile, waiting for her to take the first taste of her stuffed beef.
When she takes the first small bite, her eyes widen. "O m- gaw!" She says, finally breaking the graceful streak she's been on all night so far. He laughs as she swallows and points down to her plate with her fork. "This is the best meal I've had in years."
"So, no regrets coming out with me tonight?" He asks her, stabbing a few pieces of pasta.
"Are you kidding?" She says, beginning her attack on her own meal.
They continue their telling of stories over dinner until their plates have cleared. They don't even seem to notice that they've both finished and their plates have been taken. "So, you got to use like... night vision goggles and stuff?"
"They gave them to us, but I never used them. They totally screw up your depth perception."
"What was being a Ranger like? Whenever I hear about them, I always think of like... Rambo."
He laughs at that. "I spent most of Ranger school either face down in mud or in the woods. I mean, they shoved me out of a plane, put a seventy pound backpack on me and made me march twelve miles in the dark, but... nothing prepared me for the real thing." He said, the tone between them sinking in a flash.
There's a pause, he's staring down into his empty glass, the image of that first seventeen year old kid lying face down in the dirt flashing in his mind. "How'd you get through it?" She asks quietly.
He looks up to her, her arched brow, cautious eyes, he just smiles and reaches into his inside coat pocket, pulling out that well worn picture. He holds it in front of him, looking down at that soft smile, those bright blue eyes, that long golden hair flowing down her shoulders, feeling now exactly what he felt in the middle of Iraq, or where ever else he was sent on Op Huntsman. Love. "With this."
He reaches over and hands her the picture, and watches as her expression blanks. She looks up to him after a few seconds of pause, arching her brow again. "You-"
"I carried that picture with me during two tours of Iraq. I'd look at it and think how pissed off you'd be if I didn't come back. How much you'd yell at me for not coming back to you."
She lets out a shaky breath, looking away. "Arnold... you're saying... that-"
"You're the only thing that got me through it all, Helga." He says, as much conviction behind his voice as he can put there.
He can hear her shudder out another breath, still not meeting his eyes, instead looking off to the side. He hates himself now for admitting this now that he can see her eyes start to glisten against the flame flickering from the candle. He feels his guilt sink into his system and leans back in his chair. This wasn't how it was suppose to go. How the hell was it supposed to go? Fulfilling some wild fantasy that one night out together would bring it all back and they'd end up back in bed?
He lets out a long, silent breath and takes the photo back from where she let it fall on the table and puts it back in his coat pocket. "Arnold." She calls as he's running a hand through his hair. He looks up, seeing her eyes still averted. "When I was... being held..." She struggles to say.
"Helga, what is it?" He asks after she doesn't continue. He has a feeling that she needs to get whatever this is out.
She lets out a short breath, seeming to steel herself. "When I was being held hostage in the Congo... all I could do was dream. I'd sit there and just... think." She reaches up and quickly swipes at her cheek. "I'd close my eyes and picture you, and us. I'd picture we'd have this... little house just outside the city, you'd be waiting at the door for me with that bright smile on your face." She says with a soiled laugh. "I'd lose myself in that fantasy."
"During my second tour in Iraq, I was captured." He stops her out of no where. She's silenced as the memories flood his consciousness. "We were running this mission through this little... tiny village. IED went off next to me, knocked me out. When I came to, I was chained to a chair in the middle of a small room. I was chained to that chair for two days. And for that two days, they tortured me. They cut me, shocked me, beat me. On the third day, I woke up to an explosion outside, and I knew what was happening, and knew that they would be coming to kill me any minute. I could hear them shouting outside the door. So, when the door opened, I broke free, took cover, and when he came in to kill me, I snapped his neck." He says, emotionless.
"How'd you break free?"
"Broke my own thumb." He says, moving his left thumb around in a circle. "Grabbed his gun and downed two guys before my company found me. They said I was barely alive when they found me. Next thing I'm aware of, I'm being shipped off to Walter Reed to recover and being given a medal of valor for 'bravery.'" He says with air quotes. "I don't remember much from when they were holding me. But I remember hearing you. I'd hear your voice, right in my ear. You'd say... you're gonna be fine, Football Head. You're gonna be just fine."
There's another long pause between them and Arnold leans forward on his elbows. After a long few minutes, he feels himself laugh. "I bought us out here tonight to get away from our problems."
She chuckles. "No, you did, Arnold." He looks back up to her, surprised to see her smiling softly. "I'm having a great time."
He smiles back at her, "Well, it's uh... getting pretty late. You're probably tired." He says, getting ready to stand up.
"No." She says firmly. "I mean... we don't have to stop now, Arnold." She stands up, clutching her purse in front of her. "Why don't we just go for a walk. We can just talk." She suggests with a shrug. He stands up, smirking over at her. "We haven't gotten a chance to really... talk... since I got back."
He feels whatever weight he feels weighing on him evaporate. "I think I'd like that."
"I'm glad." She says, following him out after he puts down a fifty on the table. And as they pass the hosts podium, heading for the door, she bumps his side. "Football Head."