Everyone changes with time. A day, a week, a month, a year... they all count. So how much can a group of rag tag 4th graders from P.S. 118 change with junior high, high school, and a whole bunch of history between those seven years? A whole lot.
Years Later
And the Return of the Prodigal One
Helga's life had, had it periodic ups and downs just like everyone else's lives, except her ups and downs tended to be a bit more drastic than others.
For now, her life was climbing from one of those low downs, recovering from the past few months—her death, the fight, the burning down of her childhood home, the court case, and just the general stress that McNielson brought along with him.
She had fully made up with Sid and Phoebe and as a result they usually found themselves hanging around Helga's new residence in Arty's home in Upper Hillwood. It was their usually stuff—movies, music, and madness.
They just tip toed around the topic of Princess Powder Puff and Helga's guitars, all three of which were slowly collecting dust on the top shelf of the bare walk-in closet connected to her room. Helga was fairly sure that they were already beginning to get out of tune. She hadn't played them for months and had no real desire to. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that she loved them so much, she would have trashed them.
Phoebe also helped Helga study for the midterms that Helga had missed and were taking late.
While her grades for them weren't exactly spectacular, Helga managed to pull a b-minus average from all of her test—it was a regular miracle on forty second street.
Helga's grades in generally were slowly, ever so slowly beginning to pick up, which meant she was going to pass her junior year, not with flying colors, but she would at least be on the right track to graduating with her actual class.
Her job at Abby's Daycare was very interesting—she later found out, after two full weeks of working there that Abigail was Stella's middle name.
The daycare opened at six-thirty a.m. sharp every Monday to Friday and closed at seven-thirty at night, even though the kids were basically all gone by seven o'clock the latest. The last half an hour was spent cleaning up the individual rooms—mopping, sweeping, and vacuuming—taking out the garbage, cleaning the bathrooms, and cleaning the kitchen.
With everyone working together, everyone generally left by seven-forty, and by seven thirty-five Helga could spot the black Bentley town car sitting outside waiting for her from the windows of the front room.
The daycare housed cute as buttons six month old infants to snotty, bratty sixth graders who were obsessed with the latest anime that came straight from Japan.
Helga had to admit even though the kids were bratty at times, no make that most of the times, they were fun to be around and they could definitely make her laugh after being put through a ringer at school—some people, like one Thaddeus "Curly" Gammelthorpe, Sheena Smithe and countless others begging Helga to take back the reigns as Sparta's chief editor, including the acting chief editor, Phoebe G. Heyerdahl.
The others that were around her age working at the daycare were generally older versions of the snotty, bratty kids that they were supposed to be taking care of. The older women who were the teachers were a lot less bratty, in fact, she got along with them better than the younger teachers and teacher assistants.
Generally, Helga hung out around Stella whenever she had a break and the older woman talked to her about everything and nothing.
There was just something about Stella that was comforting.
As a result of Helga skulking around Stella, she found out that the older woman was expecting a new addition to the Linshaw household in seven and a half months.
She worked, or rather, volunteered on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
Helga's Wednesdays had her weekly appointment with Bliss and her boxing lessons with Christopher B. Blake while her Friday consisted of her weekly meeting with Garrison and hanging out with Phoebe and Sid, of course.
She rarely saw Arty, even at dinner time. The older blonde was still involved in the divorce case—even though divorce wasn't Arty's specialty per se.
For the most part if the older blonde wasn't around Helga found herself eating at the island table in the kitchen with Patrice as her company.
For the first few days, Patrice had not been around for Helga's settling into Arty's home, she was on vacation, but when she got back the older woman immediately took a liking to Helga, very much so unlike her father.
Patrice had a very quirky personality and always had something amusing to say, at least in Helga's mind.
Needless to say, most of the time Helga found herself eating Alfred's elaborately prepared dinners in the kitchen, if she was not hanging out in Phoebe's or Sid's house, eating their food or fast food.
And as a rule Arty said that there was no smoking allowed inside of the house, so Helga generally walked out of the kitchen's sliding backdoor to the backyard to enjoy her cigarette or opened the window and screen in her room, and leaned outside to smoke.
Alfred continued to dislike Helga, but kept on picking her up, dropping her off, cooking for her, and cleaning up after her and in return Helga tried to stay out of his way as much as possible, trying to be as little as a burden as she could manage.
Helga weekends were jammed with what ever homework she did not manage to do during the week, more bonding time with her best friends, boxing lessons with Christopher Blake, and lots and lots of sleep.
She hadn't heard from Ian who was still traipsing across the globe being the herbology geek that he really was underneath his leather pants and leather jacket, but she blamed that on the fact that 1422 L Street technically didn't exist anymore.
Stella often tried to convince her to come over to 4040 Vineland Street on the excuses of baking cookies, baking a cake, or even start putting together one of the spare rooms in the house together for the baby that she hadn't actually told her husband or son about, although Stella knew her husband had already had an inkling.
Helga continued to decline politely, finding nearly every plausible excuse in the unwritten book of excuses to use—homework, sleep, prior engagements, dealing with parole officers, etc.
At any rate, Stella kept on trying.
And Helga kept on declining.
A few weeks into March, Helga found herself ordering her usual large cup of French Vanilla coffee at Cocoa Café while Alfred waited outside in the town car to take her back to Upper Hillwood after her long day at work on a Thursday afternoon when she had her first sighting.
While walking towards the exit Helga could have swore she saw his chiseled face, with his dizzying gray eyes, and ink black locks, all of which were common traits that could be found on anyone. But what really got Helga alarmed were the tattooed black ring around the guy's middle finger on his left hand and the gold ring with the telltale Nikolai insignia—a gold Phoenix on top of obsidian wrapped around elaborate 'N'—on the ring finger of his right hand.
Helga quickened her pace, calmly leaving the café before she slipped into the awaiting town car, once safely inside the town car, Helga proceeded to freak out.
There was no way in hell he was back.
He was supposed to be looking over one of his father's companies all the way in California, all the way on the other side of the continent, where he could easily mess around with the scantily clad women on the sunny beaches, not back in Hillwood where he could easily mess around with her mind.
Helga tried to voice these concerns to Bliss during her next therapy session.
"Do you think he still has that same effect on you like he did back in junior high?" Bliss asked in her comfy looking leather chair.
"No." Helga said, not believing what she said.
She knew she was lying.
Bliss knew she was lying, all of Hillwood knew she was lying, in fact, all of the United States of America knew she was lying —probably even parts of Eurasia knew she was lying too— and he was probably laughing up a storm at the outright, bull-faced lie. But maybe if Helga lied to herself enough she would believe it to be true and it would come true…
But Helga really wasn't that much of an optimist.
Bliss said nothing for a moment, but wrote something down in her damnable notebook that she was always scribbling in during their sessions. In Helga's mind, Bliss was actually playing a solitary game of tic-tac-toe and she only brought out her notebook to look more professional and intimidating.
"Really?" Bliss finally said after she finished writing what ever it was that seemed to interest her moments ago, or beat herself once again in a game of solo tic-tac-toe, what ever the case was.
Evidently, just as Helga thought, it would seem that Bliss didn't believe her either.
They both knew she was lying and there inlaid the problem.
Helga then voiced her concerns to Phoebe during lunch when Sid had been called away to 'The Golden Ones' table to discuss some football tournament related things.
All Phoebe did was give Helga the look and told her to stay away from him, reminding her how unhealthy he was for her,before Sid returned and their conversation floated into what they were going do that weekend.
Yet even with all of their plans, that weekend Helga found herself in one of the empty rooms of 4040 Vineland Drive—the former site of Sunset Arms—priming the walls with white. Somehow after weeks of asking, Stella had finally broken Helga down into agreeing to come over and helping her paint.
The woman nothing short of persistent.
Evidently Stella had broken the news to her husband and son, who told her husband's parents, all of whom were very excited to hear about the new addition to the family.
Stella had just left to take a bathroom break and go scrounge up a few snacks when her son walked into the room wearing a ratty pair of jeans, a slightly ripped white t-shirt, and pair of old sneakers—he looked nothing like he typically did in the hallways of Crinshaw High School.
Helga said nothing as she dipped her roller brush into the white paint and rolled more white onto the wall to cover the hunter green colored walls.
Arnold took up the roller brush and paint tin that his mother abandoned and began to work on his own wall on the opposite side of the room of Helga's.
And then there was quiet, with the clinking of the brushes hitting the tin being the only real sound in the room.
"You're looking healthier." Arnold said as he continued to paint his wall, not even turning a green eye from his job.
Helga didn't bother to look up from her job either. "Thanks."
It would seem that Helga's 'thanks', even though it was rather caustic and insincere sounding, was the signal for Arnold to start talking to Helga.
"How do you like the daycare?"
"It's alright. It has its moments."
Arnold smirked and for what ever reason, Helga could actually hear the smirk coming through in his voice. "So I'm guessing you've already had a few run ins with Jess, hm? She's interesting to be around…"
Jessica Robson was on the assistant teachers at Stella's daycare and to say she was an understatement, to say she was a flat out bitch, was just as much as an understatement. She caused enough drama in a regular day at the daycare to last a soap opera for a month. Jess was the leader of the teacher assistant clique, so needless to say, if she didn't like a person the rest of the clique didn't them either.
The reason Stella hadn't fired Jess after all the drama she caused was because one, all the kids adored her, which was quite an enigma in Helga's mind, and two, after working at the daycare for the last four years all the parents knew her and adored her.
Plus Stella really didn't have the heart to fire the twenty-one year old.
Helga smiled at Arnold's understatement of sorts but kept working on her paint. "Yea, it seems that she doesn't like me much."
"She doesn't like people in general."
Then there was another bout of silence as Helga and Arnold let the conversation drift away as they continued working, at least there was silence until there was a 'splot' noise as Arnold's brush slipped from his hand and splattered into the paint tin.
"Shit."
Helga was a curious person by nature and after hearing Arnold's mini exclamation she could help but turn around to see what had happened and found a rather amusing scene.
Somehow by dropping the brush Arnold managed to get large blotches of white paint on his jeans and on his arms. There were smaller blotches littered across his face and neck as well as in his light blonde hair.
The blonde had this look that was a cross between bewilderment and annoyance.
He reminded Helga of the little kids at the daycare after they massacred the sandbox and wound up with sand tucked into every nook and cranny on their persons, not understanding exactly how that happened and Helga could not help but smirk at the picture he made. She held back her laughter as best as she could, but a few snickers did escape her lips and soon enough she found a pair of brilliant green eyes narrowed, glaring at her.
Now Arnold definitely looked like one of the kids at the daycare with that glare and his face splattered with white paint, and that led to a full out laugh escaping Helga's mouth, but she tried to smother it with her hand.
That really didn't work out very well and Helga's laugh could clearly be heard, even from behind her hand.
Arnold gave up on glaring at Helga and rolled his eyes, turning his attention to wiping the paint off of his face with the little dry, paint free areas that he could find on his ratty t-shirt, but all it was helping to do was smudge the white paint across his face.
Helga laughed even harder and gave up on trying to hide her amusement. She let her brush land on the floor, clear out of the way of her own paint tin, clutched onto her stomach, and leaned against the newly painted walls for support without realizing it.
It was that moment that Stella walked into the room in her long sleeved t-shirt with her ratty pair of overalls over it with a plate of brownies in one hand, and napkins in the other.
She paused in the doorway and looked at the scene before her eyes, not sure what to address first, Helga obviously messing up her black shirt with the fresh paint on the walls, albeit it was an old looking shirt that was nearly gray, or her son that was making a mess of himself.
Stella sat the brownies and most of the napkins down of the blanket covered floor before walking over to her son with a quick 'Arnie!', which caused Helga to laugh even harder.
In face the blonde was bound to stop breathing at any moment if she kept laughing as hard as she was.
Stella took the napkins and helped her much taller son clean up his face as much she could before leaving to get a wet dish cloth to further clean Arnold up. As she passed to leave she pulled Helga off of the wall, bewildering the blonde, but not stopping her laughter at all.
Arnold caught a glimpse at the back of Helga's shirt and smirked at the other blonde.
And that's what stopped Helga's laughing, she really didn't like the way Arnold was smirking at her.
"What are you smirking at Football Head?" Helga asked throwing in the old beloved nickname for an extra boost, even though Arnold's head was no longer the same football headed shape.
Arnold smirk remained.
"What?"
Arnold walked over to Helga, smirk still on his face, and pulled on Helga's shirt and even though she smacked at his hands he still pulled at it until Helga could see the state of the back of her shirt and at which time there was only one thing for her to say.
"Shit."
And then it was Arnold's turn to laugh.
An hour later, Helga left the Linshaw household in her newly decorated shirt and headed to the Cocoa Café to get a cup of coffee before calling Alfred to pick her up.
She had been on the long line at the café for a few minutes for she had her second spotting of him, he was at the register paying for his own coffee, and was turning around to leave and Helga panicked.
She didn't want to see him and she definitely didn't want to see him in the messy state that she was in. There were a few specks of dried up white paint in her hair, clumping the blonde locks together—she would really have to deeply wash her hair later—and then there were the few speck of paint littered across her face and hands.
She quickly got out of line and moved to leave the café before he noticed, maybe she could duck into a store until the coast was clear before going back to get her coffee.
It was too bad that by leaving the line she made herself even more noticeable.
Just as she moved to open the door she heard his familiar smooth voice call out her name and she froze.
Soon enough she saw his left hand cover her own, the one that was supposed to open the door and help her escape.
She looked at the familiar tattoo of a simple braided 'ring' on the middle finger of his pale, deceptively delicate looking left hand that she knew was very strong.
"Helga." He said again, but she knew from the undertones in his voice that he was ordering her to turn around and she really didn't want to.
That was just the way he was, he liked to be in control of everything in his life.
He called Helga's name again using that silky smooth voice of his that always seemed to convince Helga to do almost anything he said.
He was a rather manipulative bastard.
Helga took a deep breath and turned around to face him.
He smiled, knowing that he won the first battle and Helga immediately knew she should have kept herself in line or walked out of the café door a while ago without even bothering to respond to him calling her name.
"…Hi… Tristan."
"Hello, Helga." Tristan V. Nikolais said again in his very silky voice with his damnable devil-may-care smile placed on his all too perfect face as he looked at her.
Helga immediately knew that she was beyond screwed.
(Y/L)
Sorry, but I still don't own Hey Arnold! I do own YL. But I do own the idea and concepts of YL, oh, and anything you recognize and think is not mine, is probably more often than not, not mine. Thank you Justin T. Melanson, Drucilla Black, Luvya, Laurel, Demille, Shadow Goddess Akhet, DKB, Twilight Sazuka, OyoaOverson, Crystal949, Bea, and Tormented Urban Girl for reviewing YL, reviews really do help motivate a writer to produce another chapter for their audience. Now, you guys know I don't ask for much, but right now I'm going to ask for a little itsy-bitsy favor. At I have an original story up called So Much Space ( formerly Cut and Paste, it's under the same name, S.L. Cipher. I just want ya'll to check it out and tell me what you think. If you like YL, you'll like SMS, its starting off at a normal pace, but its going to have its dramatic turn in a few chapters, so please stay tuned for that… so to wrap this up… PLEASE check it out for me, pretty please!
PS:
Crystal949, There are quite a few chapters left, this is going to go through the rest of their junior year and their senior year… and a sequel is a strong possibility, I already have the plot in my head.
Twilight Sazuka, Thank you, but YL is littered with so many mistakes that no many how many times I edit each chapter, I will always find something wrong.
Next Chapter The Sun King
S.L. Cipher– The Queen of Eville (No this not a spelling mistake but a higher echelon of evil, look it up in The New Cipher Dictionary of Cipherous Lexiconography) who will gladly accept all criticisms, advice, reviews, praises, and flames with a large Cheshire Cat Smile. Why the Cheshire Cat Smile? Why, because Cheshire Cat Smiles will always piss people off and Cipher loves pissing people off because it is exceptional fun... Especially when they try and attack you. Which is exactly why when one wields the Cheshire Cat Smile it is important that they must also wield a mace and a sword.
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«·´¨·The Cipher ·´¨·»
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