A/N: Thank you Internet, you have proven how foul and terrible the human race is.
You know what I'm talking about.
"Come on, Helga. Weren't you on the track team back in high school?" He says amidst his even breathing.
She smiles, her pony tail flopping from side to side gracefully. "Cross Country, Football Head."
He smiles at her use of his old nickname. "Then why are you falling behind?" He teases, pushing his stride to lengthen just a little more.
"I thought we were just jogging, but if it's a race you want..." She says over her own even breathing.
"Just so you know, Helga, I had to run a two miles in under fifteen minutes to pass Ranger school."
All she does is crack a lopsided grin, narrow her blue eyes, and take off ahead of him in a sprint. He laughs and lets her get a few strides ahead of him before he takes off, quickly gaining on her. He passes her and then feels her hand clench his sleeve in an attempt to slow him down. It falls flat and all he can hear now is her cursing at him as she falls behind. He slows to a stop just past the park bench they had started from.
He places his hands on his hips and takes a few breaths to get his pulse under control. He's two breaths in before she comes slowly running up, her feet slamming down onto the path as she slows to a stop, panting heavily. She doubles over, bracing herself against her legs. "You... you cheated!"
"My five mile time on my PFT was thirty two minutes, Helga. You think some girly girl is gonna beat me?" He says smugly.
She's sending a barrage of balled up fists toward his mid section, while he lets out belts of laughter and crosses his arms over his chest. "I'll show you girly girl!"
He catches her wrist as her right fist half playfully flies toward his torso. It's then that their eyes lock. It may be just the adrenaline from the run, but his heart leaps inside his still rising chest. "I like girly girls."
Her mouth closes from hanging open, her eyes still staring widely up at his. "Then you're out of luck, bucko."
"I don't know." He says, reaching down to take her other hand, fanning his fingers out so he laces his fingers together. "I consider it lucky that I get to do this." He leans forward and presses his lips to hers. It only takes a second for the kiss to make her weight start falling toward him. He kisses her deeper then leans back. She leans back and he looks up to see her brow raised up, eyes closed and lips still puckered out. He chuckles to himself, she did that the first time he kissed her after their second date.
Her eyes flutter open and her mouth closes. "You still cheated."
"So, did you keep in touch with anybody after graduation?" She asks him, walking casually next to him in her work out clothes, consisting of a pair of pink yoga pants and a Hillwood University t-shirt.
"Not really. The military kind of kept me busy, you know what I mean? I'm sure you had trouble keeping in touch with your friends while you were in Africa."
She lets out a hollow chuckle. "You have to have friends first."
"Oh, come on." He says and taps her arm with his elbow. "You had friends. What about Phoebe?"
She scoffs and widens her eyes. "You mean before or after she skipped middle school and went on straight to high school?"
"I thought you two kept in touch through e-mail."
"Right, cause I had access to my e-mail account in Tanzania." She cracks.
"You didn't try to get back in touch when you got back?"
"Nope." She says dismissively.
He wants to dig deeper. Especially about this. Phoebe was the only real close friend she had. But after they all finished elementary, she went straight on to high school, then only spent two years there before getting invited to Yale, then MIT. After that, she went onto to work for the Defense Department. Well, occasionally. Most of the time, she teaches mathematics at Stanford. But from the few conversations that he managed to work his way into with her when they were dating, he knows that Phoebe was one of the very few people to earn Helga's full trust. Sometimes, it seems he doesn't even have it.
"What about you, you didn't keep in touch with Gerald?" She asks.
With that seemingly off handed question she's using to direct the conversation back onto him, he feels his gut clench. "Uh-no. Haven't talked to him."
He keeps walking but feels her tug on his shoulder. He turns around and she's stopped with a half lidded glare. "Alright, what was that?"
"Well, you did it." He defends himself and steps up to her.
"Yes, but you accepted that I don't really like to talk about that sort of thing unless you want to go through an argument first."
He sighs and looks away. He really doesn't want to talk about what happened with Gerald, because he knows that she won't accept why Gerald won't talk to him without having to tell her something that he swore him to secrecy. But when she leans to the side to put herself in his line of sight, he decides to just tell her. He already knows that Gerald won't ever find out because he won't ever speak to him.
He nods to the side, motioning that they should keep walking, not before his eye sight goes past her to a man fiddling with a parking meter about a hundred feet away. They keep walking and he starts. "In seventh grade, Gerald's brother joined the Marines. Did it in the post 9/11 patriotic duty craze. Gerald was proud of him at first. Worried, but proud. But one day in the eight grade, he didn't show up to school. I stopped by that afternoon to drop off his homework, but when his dad answered the door, it looked like he had been crying. I could hear Timberly in the living room sobbing and her mother trying to sooth her. It all just clicked, what had happened."
He can almost hear the questions she wants to ask. He waits to hear them, but they never come. So he continues.
"I went up to Gerald's room, and he was just lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't crying, but I could tell that he had been. He still had streaks going down his cheeks. I remember never being so clueless as to what to say as I did then." He has to stop. That feeling just washed all back. The lump in his throat, as if a clump of words is just sitting in there trying to figure out what order they go in.
"Jamie-o died overseas." She says, having figured it out by now.
"IED in Afghanistan. After that, Gerald always had a lot of resentment toward the military, toward the government in general, really. He blamed them for letting his older brother die for a cause he never really believed in."
"I don't remember hearing about his brother dying in Afghanistan."
"That's because he didn't tell anyone. As far as everyone else knew, Jamie-o was still off at college. He made me swear that I'd never tell anyone. He didn't want anyone to look at him differently."
"So... when you joined the military..."
"He took it as a betrayal. He knew that I knew he thought the military had taken his real brother. But when I joined the military, he took it as another brother leaving him for a government that would just use him and discard him when they were done. His words." He says, looking over to her briefly.
"You didn't even go to see him when you got home from your first tour?"
"No. I only had a few months, and I had a few things that I needed to take care of."
"So, you haven't talked to him since you left?"
"No."
"Hmm." She hums and looks back toward the ground.
He knows what she's thinking. Maybe he should give him a call, go over to his house, see if he still lives there. Maybe try to salvage some sort of friendship. After all, Gerald was always a brother to him. He helped him through his break up with Lila, then with Rhonda, started to when he told him that Helga had left him. He even said when they started dating that he'd never seen him fall for anyone as quickly as he did for Helga. And when he falls, he falls hard. But with Helga, he was really falling. Gerald didn't even try to stop him either.
They walk for a few more minutes in silence, back toward his apartment. It's after something in the window of a passing shop catches his eye that he notices that the same guy had been following them for the last four blocks. It's then that a crawling feeling creeps up his spine. He pulls out his wallet from his pocket, but drops it to the ground, then turns around to pick it up, casting a quick glance toward the man following them. He isn't trying very hard to keep from being noticed, he has a camera bag with him. He's short, portly, balding, and looks like he smells of cheese.
He breaths a heavy sigh and puts his wallet back in the pocket of his gym shorts. He turns back around and takes Helga's hand. "Hey, how 'bout I treat you to breakfast? There's a diner not too far from here."
"Sure." She says with a smile.
He flashes her a smile and they quickly head towards the small diner just a few blocks from his apartment. He swings open the door, letting her go ahead of him, and puts a hand on her back as she passes him, looking at the man who's been following him, whose across the street, trying to act like he doesn't notice he's been made. The waitress smiles, an older black lady, and tells them to seat themselves, and that she'd be with them in a few minutes. Arnold points them toward a booth against a window toward the back. He sits facing the front, looking out the window briefly to see how long it would take this guy to follow them in.
"How are you two this morning?" The waitress says, putting two sets of silverware down in front of them before pulling out her pad of paper. "What can I get you to drink this morning?"
"Coffee is fine." He says with a small smile.
"Same." Helga says, unawares that the man following him just walked through the door and casually sat down at the counter, setting his camera bag down on the stool next to him. The waitress brings the coffee pot, pouring them both a cup of what is sure to be watered down Maxwell House, which is bad enough when it's made right. While she does, he gets an idea.
After a few minutes, they order and wait, talking about unimportant topics, classes, grades, weather. Which is oddly relaxing. They eat, continuing the conversation, to the point where he's forgotten about the guy whose been following him all morning. "Alright, if you're so smart, what was my favorite song in high school?"
"What's Next, by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy." He answers quickly.
She bites back a smile and crosses her arms, shaking her head.
"You ready to go?" He asks after a minute taking in her defeat.
"Yeah, just let me go to the bathroom first."
She gets up and goes to the bathroom on the other side of the diner. When the waitress comes by with the check, he stops her. "Hey, uh... don't look, but that guy at the counter?"
"Mhm." The waitress nods, leaning in to keep it between them.
"That's my sisters ex husband."
"Really? Gorgeous girl like that got together with him?"
"She was young. I tried to tell her it was a mistake, but if you knew my sister... well..."
"So, what's the problem, honey?"
"He's a real bad guy, she's called me to come and get her on more than one occasion. He's been following us all morning."
"Really? She didn't seen too stressed about it."
"I told her to ignore him. Act normal. But I don't want to take her out of her with him sitting there. I'm afraid he might try something. Do you think you could uh..." He taps his fingers against his coffee cup, and she looks down, "get rid of him for us?"
She cracks a grin and nods. "You got it, Honey." He smiles a thankful smile and watches her go around the counter with the coffee pot. "Let me refill that for you, sir." She starts to pour the coffee into his cup then it's only a second after that that the pot slips from her hand and the hot coffee goes into his lap. He yelps, and falls off his stool. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Me and my clumsy hands!" She grabs a few napkins and hands them to him. He audibly groans and throws his arms down. "You can wash yourself off in the bathroom, honey. I'm so sorry!" The waitress cast a glance in Arnold's direction, cracking a smile and winks.
He mouths the words 'thank you'.
He quickly gets up, grabs the paper off the table next to them, them grabs the camera bag, quickly going outside and dropping it into the metal trash can outside the door, dropping the news paper on top of it. It's then that Helga comes out of the bathroom to find Arnold standing at the door, holding it open for her with a smile.
He knocks on the door, bag in hand and waits.
The door opens and he's greeted with a contempt stare and a sigh. "You know, there's this thing that people use when they want to come over, it's called a phone."
"I need you to look at something for me." He says, holding up the bag on his way inside.
Making his way over to her couch, he sets the bag down on the table. "Come on in." Rhonda says, closing the door.
"Someone was following me this morning." He says.
Rhonda makes her way over to the couch and sits down in front of the grey square bag. "I'm fine, thanks. So nice of you to ask. I forgot what a gentleman you are."
"Not now, Rhonda." He says, pacing in front of her. She unzips the bag and pulls out the camera. "Well, whoever it was, they were a pro." She says, looking over the camera.
"How can you tell?"
"Well, I'm no expert, but I have been to my fair share of high society parties. And with those comes paparazzi. This camera goes for a grand, easy."
"Something like that has to be registered with someone."
"I'll have my friends out in HPD run the serial number. But now to see what's on here." She flips open the side and pulls out the memory card, then grabs her laptop and pops the card in. Arnold goes over next to her but doesn't sit down. After a few moments of waiting with his arms crossed, Rhonda has the first picture pulled up. "Well, that's a picture of you alright."
"That was this morning. What else is on there?"
"Well, you and Helga. Wow... she looks great for being a hostage for seven months."
"Rhonda, focus." He commands.
She clicks to the next picture. "You and Helga, you and Helga, you and Helga, you and Helga running, you and Helga kissing, you, you and Helga, a picture of some random building-"
"Wait..." He leans in and feels his heart compress. "That's Helga's dorm."
"If he was following you, why would he take a picture of Helga's dorm?"
He hardens himself, "Keep going."
"You and Helga, dressed very nicely." That was last night. "You and Helga at Nemo's. You took her to Nemo's?! How'd you get a window table on a Friday?"
"He's a friend of mine, stay focused, Rhonda."
"You and Helga... Hmm... just Helga. Just Helga, just Helga, Helga walking alone, Helga coming out of a building, Helga sitting on a bench, Helga talking on the phone. Helga, Helga, Helga, Helga." She keeps clicking but stops reading them off. They're all of Helga. "Arnold, I don't think this guy was following you."
"No," He says with his phone already to his ear. "He was following Helga."