"Hello?" Her questioning voice asks, filling him briefly with relief that she answered and sounds unaware.

"Hey Beautiful." He says in a happy voice that almost makes him sick to his stomach when combined with the nerves.

"Hey!" Her responds in the tone of voice that says a smile just broke her face in two. "I thought you didn't have a cell phone."

"Well, I never really had a reason to get one before I felt a need to talk to you as much as I can." He lies. He catches Rhonda's eyes as he turns around in his pacing in front of her picture windows. Her brow is knotted and throbbing with disapproval.

"Awww, I don't remember you being so needy." She kids.

He stops and looks down to the sidewalk, taking a quick scan of the driver seats of the cars parked on the curb. "Hey, listen, you still working on homework?"

"Yeah, I have a paper due in education history tomorrow that I've neglected."

"I was just wondering if you wanted me to bring you dinner, keep you company." He's stopped by Rhonda mouthing the words 'tell her' very broadly. He responds by looking away and continues to pace back and forth in front of the window.

"I would love that, but I actually need to focus on this, and having you here won't let me do that."

"You saying I'm distracting?" He asks, momentarily caught up in the conversation.

"Very." She says pointedly.

He forces out a chuckle. "Well, I'll let you get back to it then."

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright Beautiful, call me of you need anything."

"Will do, Football Head, Bye."

"Bye." With that, he snaps his phone closed and is already on his way toward the door in a rush, mainly to avoid Rhonda's blazing gaze.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Rhonda exclaims right as his hand hits the knob. "You're not going to tell her what's going on?"

"Not until I know what is going on." He says quickly and opens the door.

"Arnold, you have to tell her. Some one is out there stalking her, she needs to know that!"

"Not before I do." He says coldly and closes the door. He's at the elevator and can hear her groan loudly.

He takes in a long breath and hardens himself, putting on another version of himself, a different mindset, the soldier, the Ranger, stepping out of his civilian mannerisms. The doors slide open and a different person steps out.

He sits in the cafe on campus at a table by the window with a book open and held up and a small note pad on the table.

He wasn't worried about her being watched once he knew she was doing homework. She prefers to do homework in her dorm room, and her window faces the alley in the back of the building. He snaps his eyes up for a split second to the grey sedan parked on the opposite side of the street of her dorm building. He made him right as he pulled in the parking lot. He blindly takes down a note reading 'rental car/ local?' while pretending to read. He looks back toward the car and sees his target readjust himself in his seat, putting his arm out the window.

He's obviously not going to leave on his own. Arnold flips his notebook closed, snaps his book shut, then makes his way out of the cafe and toward his car. He opens his trunk and tosses the notepad and book into the backseat, then grabs an old flannel shirt he threw back here on a hot summer day. He closes the hatch to his trunk and then walks over to the walk way median and over to the small tree planter. He puts the shirt down and rolls it around, then throws it on. He then gently digs his hands into the dirt and runs them over his face.

He jogs across the street, on the same side his target is parked. He moves into an alley, going to a dumpster and picking up a newspaper lying on the ground next to it. He then opens up the dumpster and, to his luck, finds exactly what he's looking for. He takes another breath and walks back out onto the street, at a much slower, slumped over pace. He shuffles his way up to his car, over to the driver side then squeezes the trigger on the spray bottle. "Aw, aw man, come on!" The man in the car exclaims.

He just swabs the wad of dirty newspapers across his windshield in a slow, lethargic motion. He then puts the spray bottle in one hand and holds it out to his target. "Man... gotta be kiddin' me." He groans and thumbs out two singles from a wad of crumpled bills.

He puts the money in Arnold's hand, but in one swift motion, Arnold grabs his wrist and sends a quick but strong punch across his jaw, knocking him out.

"Aww man..." He groans and moves his jaw around with his hand, "what the hell did I put in that flask?"

"You really shouldn't carry around this much cash." Arnold says.

He blinks hard after shaking his head and looks up to him from his place on the ground in the alley. "The hell are you?" He asks in a thick north east accent.

Arnold sifts through his wallet a bit more. He pulls out a card and holds it up. "Don Dontella, Private Investigating Services."

"Man, I think you knocked out a crown." Don says with his finger digging into his mouth.

"You expect me to believe that's your real name?" Arnold asks, looking through more of the cards.

"It's good for business."

"You were following a friend of mine." Arnold says and puts the wallet in his back pocket.

Don awkwardly stumbles up off the ground, his crack violently flashing Arnold in the face as he does. He lets out a breath after he's standing up straight and tugs on his wind breaker. "I follow a lot of people, guy."

"You have three seconds before I get violent." He threatens and crosses his arms.

"Alright, Alright." Don says and holds up his hands. "Some guy called me up, bout a month ago."

"Who?"

"Man, I dunno." He says with a shrug of his shoulders. "He didn't give me his name, I didn't ask."

"Someone asks you to find someone and you don't ask any questions?"

"Thanks to the internet, the market for my profession has gone down the toilet. I gotta take what I can get." He defends.

"Who was it you were hired to find?"

"I don't know, some girl."

"Who?" He asks, firmer.

"Client privilege, guy." Don answers, rolling his shoulders forward. Arnold uncrosses his arms, balls his fists, and steps off the wall a single step menacingly. Don holds up his hands in surrender immediately. "Pataki! Name was Helga Pataki."

The muscles in his back tense along his spine and go down his arms.

"Guy offered me half up front, and half when I found her."

"You've been following her for weeks."

"I charge by the day. I figured the longer it takes me, the more I get." Arnold narrows his eyes and cocks his head to the side. "I haven't had a payin' gig in months, I got a divorce settlement to pay off." He defends himself.

"The guy who hired you, how'd he pay?"

Don leans back and gives him a quizzical look. "What's in it for me?"

Arnold, sick of this game, grabs his shirt and pulls him forward. "Your ability to walk." He says through clenched teeth.

Don gulps, "Cash, dead drop in the mailbox of some old empty house out in the burbs. I was supposed to pick up the rest of my payment when I called him with her location."

Arnold shoves him away. "This house, where is it?"

Don goes into his pockets, pulling out a crumpled up wad of recites and food wrappers, then pulling out a slip of paper from the middle, handing it to him. "Was empty, wasn't nobody there when I picked up my first payment."

Arnold's lungs lock up when he reads the address. He recognized it immediately. "You're sure this was the address you were given?"

"Yeah, sure." Don says with a defensive shrug.

Arnold takes a long breath and forces himself to relax. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to call this guy who hired you and tell him that she went back overseas with the Peace Corps."

"This girl was kidnapped by bandits and you expect this guy to believe she went back?" Arnold narrows his eyes, silently asking him how he knew what she went through. "I'm a private investigator, man. I investigated."

He lets out a hard, annoyed breath. "Tell him that she wasn't going to let what happened to her stop her from helping people. You get paid the rest of your fee, I get you out of my girlfriend's life, and my girlfriend stays safe from whoever it is who hired you to find her. We all get what we want."

Don looks away, considering it, and after a moment looks back up to him and nods with a crocked smirk and sticks out his hand. Arnold looks down to it and turns, walking out of the alley way. "Hey, what about my camera? That thing wasn't cheap, ya know?"

Arnold doesn't answer and turns out onto the street.

Back at his apartment for the night, leaving Helga to her homework like she requested, he's out on the balcony, leaning on his forearms, listening to the traffic.

Why couldn't things be simple? He's sick of everything having to have some plot or conspiracy behind it, always someone out to get him, someone he cares about, loves. This is why he didn't want to go back to Iraq, why he made sure he was never promoted, like they wanted him to be. After that first firefight in that shit hole village, they wanted to put more strips on him. A part of him wanted them. Have a military career. Make more than the twenty three grand a year he made getting blown up and shot at.

But then Huntsman came along. An opportunity he wasn't given the option to pass up. No official record or involvement does have it's perks when breaking up slaving rings.

He chuckles at the thought and takes the last swig of flat beer then swirling the bottle around even though he knows it's empty. He grabs the one sitting on the table by the door and goes back inside. Coming out of the kitchenette, he meanders back into the main room, eyes going to the small, wrinkled, faded and torn photo of her. He picks it up and turns around, sitting down on the coffee table, getting squeezed by the same feeling he got when he'd look at it right before every sweep, every drill, every mission.

The clench in his stomach knowing that a girl like this actually exists somewhere out there in this fucked up place we call a world. And that somewhere, maybe she's thinking of him. Next thing he's aware of, he has this stupid phone flipped open, thumb ready to call her. Tell her everything he knows. About everything. All the things he could be black bagged for ever uttering out loud to a civilian. Just spew it all out, lay it all on someone who might, just by some miracle, understand. Or know that even if they didn't, that he just needs to say... something.

He lets out a depressing breath and closes the phone, throwing it down to the coffee table next to him with a loud clatter, then lifts up her picture again. He knows he has to tell her. At some point. And he's not stupid, like Rhonda is sure to be thinking right now if she managed to wax the hair off her brain since they dated in high school. He knows that the longer he drags this out, the more pissed she's going to be. But if anyone is aware of how she feels about him, it's Arnold.

Every day after school, when they had unofficially became official, she'd follow him up to his room, throw herself down onto his couch, let out a long sigh while pinching the bridge of her nose while knowing that she would have to go home eventually to peel her mother up off the floor. Everyday, and it only seemed to get worse. Like a linchpin was pulled out of a taught chain when he left. That's all it took. He left with their money and savings so quick someone should have wrote a country song about it. Then Olga didn't have anyone around to impress, so she took off because she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do now that she wasn't Daddy's little girl anymore.

While Helga, the girl whom he fell for so fast it blindsided him, was stuck with Miriam, who was drinking herself into denial every morning and then into a coma every night. But Helga remained strong, stoic, and silent about it all until one day after school when they were leaving and saying their goodbyes for the day. They hugged in the friendly manner that they did before they actually started calling themselves a couple.

It started with her just moving her arms just a little tighter around his neck than normal, then with her turning her face into his neck, then letting out a shaky break through her nose. And before he knew what was wrong, she was sobbing into his shoulder in the parking lot of school. She never talked and he never asked, somehow he just knew that she just needed to cry. That she let her armor fracture just for a second, then let it shatter once she felt she could trust him with her being so bare like that.

He shakes his head clear of the memories and stands up, whipping off his shirt while going into his bedroom.

Any father who would do that to a girl like her doesn't deserve to see her again.

The camera shutter flicks, the only sound heard in the car besides his boss letting out the smoke from his cigarette. "You sure it's him?"

He looks at the screen on his camera at the man leaning over the railing of the third story apartment, comparing it to the photo of the man in a black t-shirt and a flak vest and an M4A1 hanging across his chest, helmet in his hand that's not on his rifle grip. "That's him."

"You really think he'll take the offer? He's a civilian now."

"He'll take it." His boss assures him, putting out his cigarette on the side of the car. "Soldier like that can never get enough war."

"If you say so, Sarge, but I don't think-"

"He'll take the offer." His boss stops him, lobbing his head toward him. "The only thing you gotta do is make it seems like he has a choice."

A/N: Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.