Arnold pushes a blank piece of notebook paper back and forth across his desk with his pen, absentmindedly tuning out the discussion going on in class about foreign policy in Modern History class. He doesn't want to pay attention. He's surprised the professor hasn't asked him about his views on the subject, but he isn't wearing his field jacket, just an old button up flannel with the sleeves haphazardly tugged up his arms.

It's the Monday after confronting the PI who was following Helga, and he hasn't heard anything. It was easy to keep his resolve about telling her everything about this the first few hours. But now he feels a pull in his chest, telling him to hold onto it. She just seems so happy. She met him as he pulled up on campus, a smile lighting up her face. She waltzed up, snaked her arms around his neck, placed a kiss on his cheek and hugged him. She said she would meet him after his class and they could hang around until her first class of the day.

"I just think that these people are poor and despar..." He tunes out. Bimbo in the front of class doesn't know what she's talking about. None of them do.

He sneers and lets out a breath, as if releasing a pressure valve on his nerves.

"Of course, these people have nothing!" Some scraggly haired teenager on the opposite side of class exclaims. Kid's been going off ever since they got on this topic. "We're going into their country, going into their homes, blowing up their families, their children, and our government doesn't care. They just want power. And our soldiers kick in their doors, terrorize these people who did nothing to us, and they don't question it! They jus-"

He feels his last nerve snap. "You think we didn't question it?" He says loudly on a light chuckle, his voice catching the eyes of everyone in the classroom.

All eyes turn to him, while he's leaned back in his desk, arms crossed and looking with piercing attention at this stringy haired trendy teenager, whose glaring right back at him. "Arnold," the professor chimes in, "you have a different opinion?" She calmly asks.

He looks back up to the professor, "I was an Army Ranger for five years, I did two tours in Iraq, and was a POW," He looks back at the kid whose now sat up in his chair, "and saying that we didn't question it is about the biggest insult I've ever heard."

The room is deftly silent, and he has center stage. The kid looks forward angrily, but he keeps his eyes trained on him.

"Of course we questioned it. We all did. Every minute of every day. When I had bullets flying at me and RPG's screaming past my head, you really think any of us were thinking about fighting for our country, or fighting to further the cause? You want to know why I fought? I fought for 1st Stg. Nick Coleman who took a snipers bullet to his neck a foot and a half away from me. He left behind a five year old son. I fought for CPL Jake Roland who got his leg and half of his arm blown off by an RPG when he threw himself in front of me so I could get STG Coleman out of the line of fire. You wanna know what we questioned? Why kids as young as four threw rocks at us every chance they got. Why I come home and have to listen to people like you demonize the men I fought along side and who fought along side me. We were sent there to help protect these people, and you want to know how they repaid us? They spat on us. So I get why you're this big liberal thinker that thinks all soldiers are evil trigger happy sociopaths..."

The kids eyes turned back to Arnold, whose still glaring at him, and him alone. But the room is still dead still, looking at him.

"But don't sit there and tell me I didn't question my orders, because the man who saved my life that day, Cpl. Jake Roland, put his gun to his mouth last year doing exactly that."

He can hear the kid let out a huff through his nose and look down to his desk again. "Uhmm..." The professor starts, "well, we're out of time. I'll see everybody on Wednesday."

Everyone starts to get up, silently, a few people looking at him as he lifts his bag over his shoulder, one girl smiling at him as she does. He pays it no mind but grins slightly back. He makes his way out the door, anger on a low simmer in the pit of his stomach. It's not even that he was insulting him. Of course he hated the mission, hated being in Iraq, in the desert, away from his home. But demonizing his brothers who had his back every mission they ran. It's not even out of pride for his service. Or even loyalty to the Army. There's a bond soldiers form in war that can't be broken. Eventually, even being in the military, his squad became the only family he knew, because they grew to be the only family he had. That's why he fought. That's who he ended up fighting for.

He turns out into the hall with his head down, mind lost on a reality when he could swap war stories with Grandpa. "Hey." A voice calls.

He looks up and feels his face break in a grin. He saunters up to her, just pushing off the wall opposite of the class room door and kisses him on the cheek before hugging him as a greeting. He lets himself revel in the feeling of his hands snaking themselves across her sides and enveloping her, pulling her in, the firm, tender daintiness of her body in his arms.

"I heard you in there." She says in his ear, the vibration of her voice making him shiver.

"None of them know what the hell they're talking about." He thinks out loud. She doesn't move to lean back, instead starts running her hand up and down his back, taking it as an urge for him to continue. "They either love us out of some patronizing patriotic responsibility or hate us out of some holier than thou, sycophantic human rights issue."

Her hands move to his shoulders and she steps back, looking up at him with her usual big blue glimmer. "Come on, you can talk to me about it for a while."

"Don't you have to get to class? You had that paper to turn in, don't you?"

"Class got canceled. Professor's wife went into labor last night." She says, reaching down to grab his hand and entwine their fingers. She looks back over to him with a smile after flicking her bangs out of her eyes with a small smile. "So I'm all yours."

He chuckles to himself as he pushes open the door for them. "That's always been the dream." He says, leaning closer to her as she passes in front of him. She casts an almost lustful sneer his way before he pushes against her, starting to slowly make their way through campus, mid morning.

"So..." She starts a question. He looks over and she's looking to the ground passing slowly beneath their feet, words caught on the tip of her tongue. "Why did you really join the military?" She asks quickly, words pouring out probably before she decided against it.

"What do you mean?" He told her what happened with Grandma.

"I mean, I remember everything about what you told me happened after I left, but... I always got the sense there was more to it than that." His throat closes up and he's forced to break eye contact, at the same time knowing it will cause her to prod further. She gives his hand a firm squeeze by the fingers and urges him to tell her with a lift of her brow when he looks over to her.

He lets out a long sigh as he looks back down. "After Grandma got in that car accident, I was left with everything. The bank was going after the boarding house, which I didn't know about until I got the foreclosure notice in the mail a few days after she died. They gave me a week to get everything out of the boarding house before it went back to the bank. I was in a daze for a few days, just wandering around the boarding house, constantly being taken back by how quiet it was. All the boarders had moved out, and we hadn't had a paying tenant in a while. But one day, I found myself in Grandpa's bedroom, packing up his dresser to give to Goodwill, when I came across a small wooden box. It had the emblem of the 82nd Airborne on it."

"Haven't I heard of them?" She chimes in.

He looks over to her, "They were basically the division that led the allied invasion of Normandy in World War two." He says, a proud smirk appearing on his face, even though it's not of his own volition.

Her brow lifts and seems surprised. "Wow. I never knew that."

"Neither did I. I remember opening the box and seeing all of his medals, and hearing him sing an old song he used to sing all the time. Blood Upon The Risers." He says, mind drifting away into the memory of Grandpa's voice going through the halls singing the old song sang by paratroopers. "When I went looking in his closet and saw his dress uniform hiding in the back, I was at the recruiting office that afternoon and was on a bus to basic the next week."

"So... you joined because of your Grandpa?"

"I started to remember all those times he tried to sit me and Gerald down and tell us old war stories. And the more those memories started to fester, the emptier the boarding house felt, and the more I felt I had to leave. Honestly, Helga, I don't even remember signing on that line." He slows to a stop, his hand being tugged when she takes a few steps ahead of him. He's staring off into space, remembering what is mind felt like. "I was in a haze. No thoughts actually being processed. They just seemed to stop before I knew what they were. Not feeling anything, I felt like a walking husk of a person. I was like that for years. It's like my mind shut itself off... and stayed shut off ever since."

In the blur of his focus, he can see her take a step into his space. "What brought you back?"

He feels himself brought back to reality, back to focus, feels himself regain clarity in a flash. He looks up and looks her in the eye. "You did."

She smiles a bashful smile and lets her head fall. Giving into the desire, he leans forward and presses his lips to her scalp, briefly taking in a whiff of her hair. She leans back and looks in his eyes. "You know, we really are messed up."

He laughs brightly, brighter than he remembers laughing in a long time. "That's just a mean way of saying we're interesting."

She laughs as brightly as he did, her eyes lighting up and an unbridled smile breaking apart her face. Making a thought shoot across his mind. That smile is why he can't tell her. Starting his mind racing as her laughter winds down, he decides. She has the rest of the day off, Rhonda works from home most of the time. "So," He starts, taking hold of her hands that are touching his stomach, "I've been meaning to tell you something."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I've been talking to someone, an old friend, and she's been... helping me get my head straight. I want you to meet her, if you're feeling up to it."

She smiles a smile that's rife with trepidation. "Sure."

He nods his head off to the side and they make their way, hand in hand, toward his car. After opening her door, he takes off toward her apartment. She asks who they're going to see after they turn out of the campus parking lot. He brushes her off as best he can without sounding like an ass hole. He doesn't want to tell her who it is out of fear she might demand he stop and let her out. She sighs and looks out the window the rest of the short drive through downtown Hillwood. He parallel parks right in front of her apartment building and he starts toward the door. He looks over to Helga, who's looking up at the apartment building in reverence. "You know someone who lives here?" She asks, pointing upward. "These are supposed to be some of the nicest apartments in Hillwood."

"Well... they're big." He replies, putting a hand on the small of her back as they move forward.

He flashes a smile to the doorman. "Is she in?"

"Yes, she is, go on up."

After taking the elevator up, during which he has to look over and reassure Helga with a small smirk, they step into the hallway and up to her door. He knocks twice and waits, his breath caught in the middle of his chest. He hears her footsteps approach the door, then a small shriek come through the door, followed by a quick click of the deadbolt and a turn of the knob. He takes a small step back so Helga's in front of him, and sees the door open. "Helga!" She cries with open arms.

Rhonda vices Helga in a tight hug. "Hi Rhonda." She strains. She looks over to him with a blank, very displeased look.

He narrows his eyes, lifts his brow, and nods, gesturing for her to give Rhonda a chance. Rhonda steps back, hands still gripping Helga's stiff shoulders, "Oh, it's so good to see you! Arnold just won't shut up about you."

"I'll bet." She says in a low tone, eyes glancing in his direction.

"Well, come on in, come on in." Rhonda says, stepping aside, but pulling Helga inside her apartment by the arm. "I just finished making some smoothies. You want one?" Rhonda asks as she bounces backward toward the kitchen.

"Um... sure." Helga replies awkwardly. Rhonda smiles gleefully, a little too gleefully, and goes into the kitchen. Helga grabs his forearm in a death grip once she's gone, and turns to him. "You brought me to your ex girlfriends house?" She hisses through her teeth.

"She helped me out with something, Helga." He calmly replies.

"What, your pants?"

With that, he honestly feels hurt. "Okay, I know you don't mean that."

"Arnold, Rhonda's-"

"I know, Helga. I know all the things she was. But she still helped me out with something important to me, and I want you to know about it."

She sighs, eyes going toward the kitchen when she hears the sound of glasses being clinked together. "You really have to get better at telling me things."

"What do you want from me, I'm a work in progress." He says with a shrug. She chuckles despite herself just as Rhonda comes back in, awkwardly clutching three glasses in her hands, filled with dark pink slush.

"There ya go." Rhonda says as they each take a glass. "I've been on a smoothie kick lately, hope you like 'em." Arnold narrows his eyes as Rhonda looks at him. She's obviously faking. He sees Helga take a sip as she looks in the other direction across her apartment.

"Hey Rhonda, can I use the bathroom?"

"Sure, it's just past the kitchen, can't miss it." Rhonda says with a fake as ever smile. Helga awkwardly smiles back and steps past her. As she goes, Arnold caught up in taking in her looks as she goes and glass going to his mouth, hiding a grin, he feels yet another pointy nailed hand grip his arm. He's pulled forcefully to the side.

"Ow!" Rhonda lets go after stomping a few steps, "god, why does everyone keep doing that?" He says, shaking out his arm.

"You haven't told her yet, have you?"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

"I swear, if it was possible, I'd smack some sense into you." She seethes through clenched teeth.

He nods her off and takes a sip of his smoothie. Once it hits hit tongue, his nerves kick into high gear. "Rhonda, what's in this?" He asks quickly.

"Nothing, just some low fat ice cream, ice, bananas, strawberries..."

He looks toward the kitchen, "Helga." He says, just as he hears a glass shatter as it hits the floor.

He runs into the kitchen, seeing her clenching her throat and convulsing. He falls to his knees, pulling her up into his lap, gripping her body to stop her convulsing. "Try to breath, Helga. Try to breath." Her pupils are dilated, she's struggling to breath, her hands are trembling. "Rhonda!" He yells. She's already standing there, watching in horror, frozen in place. "Rhonda, get me your first aid kit." He demands quickly. He looks back up, not wanting to take his eyes off Helga. Rhonda's just standing there. "Rhonda! Now!"

Her head shakes and she quickly moves into her bathroom. Her mouth moves over her struggling to breath, trying her hardest to speak.

"It's gonna be okay, Helga." He reassures her, cupping her cheek and running his thumb across her cheekbone. "Rhonda!" He yells for her again.

Just then, Rhonda comes in with the first aid kit. Before she can set it down, he grabs it out of her hands and opens it. He takes the large plastic shot out of the slot from the side, ripping the cap off with his teeth. Without hesitation, he jabs it into her leg, pressing the plunger in with his thumb. After a few long seconds, he pulls it out and tosses it to the side. "Breath slowly, Helga." He starts visibly breathing in and out through his mouth, setting the appropriate tempo for her. "Rhonda, get her a glass of water."

"Arnold..." She struggles to say.

He shakes his head. "It's okay, Helga. I'm right here." He says her eyes well up. She reaches for his face and puts her hand on his jawline. He pulls her into him, petting her hair as her breathing evens out. "I'm right here."

Feeling it best to take her back to her dorm, they left shortly after Helga had calmed down and regained her composure. Leaving side by side, just about to get to his car outside Rhonda's building, Arnold feels his hand being grasped. He looks back and she's stopped on the sidewalk. "What is it?" He asks.

She just looks at him, mouth hanging slightly agape, eyes darting from his down to his mouth and back. "I'm ready." She says after a few moments.

He turns to face her, "Ready for what, Helga?"

Without a word, she slowly grasps his neck and kisses him, hard and without reservation. As her lips move and kiss him even deeper, her arm goes across his back and her hand pulls his mouth harder against hers, breaking loose a moan from him. With a small pop, she lets his lips go, but keeping his senses with her. "Uhh..."

"I'm ready Arnold." She says firmly.

Clearing his throat, he tries his hardest to be rational. "Helga, if this is because of what happened up there, then-"

"It is."

"Helga..." He tries, trying to explain why it would be exploiting the situation.

"Arnold, when I felt my throat close, my mind went back to that church where I was raped." It's then that he feels his throat close. She said that with such confidence. She trusts him with this. "I fell to floor, tried to scream but I couldn't. I tried to run but couldn't move, I tried to fight back but couldn't do anything but shake and wait for it to be over. It wasn't a second more before I felt you by my side, telling me that it was all going to be okay. And the instant I saw you, I just knew it was. I knew that I was safe with you and that I could trust you more than anybody."

Feeling his heart race and a sweat break out across his skin, "So..."

"I want us to be together. I'm ready to be with you, Arnold."