Back! And very inspired to write, seeing as I'm sick. Don't worry, I'm not "Helga-sick", just a sinus-head-stomach-throat-headache- type thing. I'll be okay. And this is going to be a short chapter. Sorry. Everyone seemed to be anticipating this chapter, so here you have it. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: Make it Count

"And I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this
The reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did,
It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live,
Cause what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is."

Bright Eyes- "Lua"

There's a difference between being afraid and being scared. Being afraid usually has more to do with the imagination than actual fear. We're afraid of being dragged under the bed by some monster or creature. We're afraid of being alone at night in the woods. We're afraid of whatever our mind allows us to be afraid of.

Being scared, however, centers on more valid fears. When a person is scared, they usually have a good reason for being so, either because of a past experience of ours or someone else's. We're scared of drunk drivers swerving and hitting us on the freeway. We're scared of walking through an empty parking lot to our car in the middle of the night. We're scared of anything that can and very well may happen.

We're scared of dying.

And I have never been so scared.

Sure, I've been here too many times to count. I volunteered here half of my sophomore year. When I had a project for my Advanced Photography class, I spent five hours or so going up and down these pastel halls snapping away. The sight of this place, unlike so many others is not the least bit daunting.

My reason for being here, however, is.

I know my way to the Oncology Wing with my eyes closed: Entrance, receptionist's desk to the right, go left, long hallway, another left, elevator, press the up button, close door button, floor six. Boom, you're there. But for some reason, I felt lost. Like I'd never seen this place before. The hospital I remember had annoying florescent lights, and bland paintings everywhere, and maroon waiting room chairs. This place was different. This place was…foreign.

By far, the drive over was the worst. It was totally silent, except for the sound of the wind blowing past us outside the car. Neither of us dared to make a sound. Even when a bright yellow Pontiac Sunfire with "Sexy-One" on the license plate cut me off, I didn't bother to beep the horn. The noise would have been too much of a shock now. Despite the quiet, a silent message was being exchanged between the two of us:

Don't be scared.

And frankly, I wasn't sure which one of us it was intended for.

Everything after that happened entirely too quickly. In what seemed like a matter of minutes, we were ready to go. Looking at the doctor and two nurses who were standing (more like huddling) in the corner of the room closest to the door, I saw a mixture of sympathy and something I couldn't quite identify painted on their faces. Like they were fresh out Med School. Like this was their first "procedure" of this kind. Like they hadn't done this hundreds of times before. But we all knew why. We all knew what each other was thinking even though nobody said two words about it:

She's too young for this.

Sleep was not an option. Food was not an option. Going to the bathroom wouldn't have been an option had I not had two cups of coffee this morning to calm me down. Most of my time was spent in my chair (maroon like the ones in the waiting rooms), next to her bed, trying to keep myself as pleasantly distracted as possible.

A few hours later, one of the nurses silently brought in a pitcher of water and a few saltine crackers and turned on the television. The volume on the T.V. was on low and was turned at angle so that there was a glare on the screen, but I knew what was on. Maybe they sensed that I wanted (and very well needed) to be kept awake and turned on the T.V. to help. So, as Alex Trebek sounded off question after question and gave out money by the hundreds and thousands, I answered what questions I knew out loud, my voice making its presence known for the first time that day.

In the category of "Comics to Television", I was stumped. All the obvious answers had been given and al that was left was the impossible answers that nobody knew.

"The creator of MAD magazine that later became a hit sketch-comedy show…"

As a child, I was a comic book fiend. MAD magazine wasn't my favorite, but I knew of it. And the fact that I could name every cast member of the show for the past 5 years was of no help. When the brainiac from Missouri buzzed in with the answer (not to mention an air of confidence that said "duhhhh" to the other two contestants) "Harvey Kurtzman" the voice that accompanied him was raspy and tired.

"Hey you." it said again, and for some reason I didn't consider that it was Helga who was indeed awake and answering questions.

"Hey yourself" he replied, taking a moment to take in her current condition. Despite the tired look in her eyes and the jagged, raspy breaths she took, she was still Helga. Still a fighter. Still making herself look as strong as she needed to be. "You okay?" he asked halfway afraid of the answer.

"I'm alright…no complaints here." She replied, smiling as best she could. It was clear to anyone that looked at her that she was tired. It was clear that she needed to get out of this hospital and back home. What wasn't so clear, so obvious, so visible to anyone except those who knew her well enough to not take "I'm okay" as an answer, was that the entire time she sat on that uncomfortable hospital bed she was fighting. And it was true. She never complained. About anything. Sure, you could tell she was bummed about quitting the team, and maybe even her job, but you'd never hear anything more somber come out of her mouth than "That's how life is, I guess…" right before shrugging her shoulders and smiling that smile that almost made you stop worrying about her.

"Since when are you into comic books?" I asked, laughing a little.

"You call it comic books, I call it common sense. I can't believe you didn't know that was Harvey Kurtzman…" She sounded tired; like she'd fall asleep right then and there but something was keeping her awake.

After that episode and the repeat (to which we "coincidentally" knew all the answers to) we were done. I mean, I wasn't done doing anything except sitting, but she was done. Within 20 minutes, she was ready to go. Because she was so weak, we were provided one of the hospital's wheelchairs so I could wheel her outside to the car.

The trip down the elevator was overall quiet, save for my occasional apologies when I rolled her over a bump in the hallway or a crack in the sidewalk. She didn't seem to mind; her head hung to the side, as if she were asleep instead of just exhausted.

It was easy to lift her into the front seat, except she tried to fight me off, which was the equivalent of asking me to stop twice and hitting me on the back that can only be compared to burping a newborn.

While I pushed the wheelchair back into the hospital and folded it up by the door (where at least fifteen other wheelchairs were stored) I wondered about the people who had inhabited even for a short time, those now empty wheelchairs and why they used them. Was one of them a mother wheeling her teenage daughter and new grandchild to their minivan? Or a husband being taken to his car after suffering a minor heart attack? There were a million other people who had reason to use wheelchairs. But how many of them were in my position?

Upon arriving at home (hers, not mine) I found it more of a struggle getting her out of the car than in. I could have swung her arm around the back of my head and lifted her out that way, but from what I've been told the pressure on her stomach from my shoulder would have been rather uncomfortable in her position. The most effective (yet far from easiest) solution was to prop both of her knees on mine, lift her out of the car by her back, then sliding the one hand under her knees and gripping the back with the other hand. A simpler term for this is "Bridal Style" but I never really understood that myself. I'd been to several weddings and no brides were ever carried like that. I could have very well let her walk, as she insisted I do, but she began shivering as soon as I opened the door, and her slow pace would probably only make her colder.

Once inside the house (difficult as it was), I decided against carrying Helga up the stairs to her room. For both of our sakes. I knew she'd probably wake up hungry, and heaven forbid she lose her footing and fall down the stairs because I put her up there. Not to mention, I hear that a girl's room is supposed to be "sacred" and entering it without prior permission could land one a slap on the face and the silent treatment for up to two weeks. Thank you, but no thank you.

So, the couch it was. Her parents seemed to know this ahead of time, because when I (as gently as I could) there was already a blanket and pillow at the far end. Don't go thinking they just left for no reason, or anything. His morning when I came and picked her up, they both looked seriously upset. Like she was gong away and was never coming back. It took me by surprise for a minute, especially when she told me that (between the two of them) they'd missed four seemingly important business meetings to go to chemotherapy with her.

With her father gone, I sat for the first time in his huge recliner (which ended up being a little too large and soft for my taste) and waited for her to uncurl herself and fall asleep comfortably. The way she laid on that couch reminded me of those caterpillar/worm things. You'd see them on the ground or on a tree branch and if you poke them, they sorta curl up into these tiny brown spirals. And after a while, if they don't sense a threat nearby, they slowly uncurl and keep going.

About two minutes after I finished my analogy, I realized it had far more significance than just her sleeping patterns. This was how she reacted to me since the very beginning. Every time I posed any sort of threat to her, her secret, her vulnerability; she curled up, an impenetrable ball of protection. And when the coast was clear, she resumed her normal activities, living her life as she thought she should. And while I contemplated this (and whether or not this creature was indeed a caterpillar and a worm) I fell asleep almost as soundlessly as she did.

Waking up in a strange place may be one of the most horrifying things a person can ever experience. Because for a millisecond, you're completely alone. You're not sure of where you are or how you got there, and your short term memory is almost nonexistent. And then, as quickly as it disappeared, everything comes back. You suddenly remember where you are and how you got there and you really have to laugh at yourself for being scared, even if for a split second.

Averting my eyes over to the couch that once held my best friend however was not so much of a laughing matter.

From what she told me, her chemo kept her in bed for most of the following day. She found it hard to move around a lot and going up and down the stairs was an obstacle without assistance. And judging by the crumpled blanket draped over the farthest corner of the couch, Helga had gotten somewhere, with or without assistance.

I immediately headed upstairs and checked the bathroom, thinking that she had come down with some nausea upon waking up, and felt sick. As soon as I began bounding the stairs, I heard sounds coming from the kitchen and smells that my nose had ignored.

The first question that came to mind was: Is Helga cooking?

Now, don't get me wrong. I was genuinely concerned that she very well may have been up and around cooking and whatnot. But a portion of this concern was left over for me, as well. As I remember from tenth grade Home Economics, we were broken up into groups of six to prepare a small meal for the class. Helga's assignment: Taco Salad. Add two parts ground beef, one part salsa, one part lettuce and one part assorted spices. Boom. Simple and delicious. Well, maybe. In a nutshell, I was happy about my absence that day, but not so much for the janitors who had to come in to clean up the…results of Helga's slightly toxic ground beef. Since then, I (and most of the high school) was wary of her "cooking".

Sliding into the kitchen ready to snatch whatever cooking utensil she was holding and order her to the nearest fluffy piece of furniture for the rest of the day, I shouted my demands before actually entering the kitchen.

"Why are you cooking? Why are you even up? You need to be in bed! What are you think-"

"Well, I'm up because it's 8:47 in the morning, and I'm cooking because my best friend is going to wake up in about…four hours and there is not a lick of food in this house. How are you, Arnold?" Phoebe asked calmly.

"Where is…What were…Why was I not informed of this?" I was fine with Phoebe coming over, seeing as the most I could cook was cereal. I wasn't a bad cook; I just never bothered to learn how do it so that other people could eat it. Not to mention the fact that this isn't my house and I have no say in who comes in or out of it.

"Trust me; I tried to wake you up. You sleep like a…"

"Log? Baby?" I asked. If I knew anything Phoebe was thinking of some animal that I'd never heard of, and probably never would. The least I could do was try, I guess.

"Myotis lucifugus…the brown bat." She replied, dumping the yellow fried eggs onto a plate already crowded with French toast, two pieces of bacon and one of those little green leaves that you're really not supposed to eat. She set the plate down in front of me with a simple command: "Eat."

I was about to protest when she explained herself. "Helga usually wakes sup around two or three in the afternoon, so I made her food and put it in the fridge."

I guess she noticed that I wasn't really eating so much as picking at my food, when she broke the conversation.

"Are you okay? I mean, after yesterday and everything?" She asked, forming a concerned line across her forehead.

"What do you mean? I didn't do anything…"

"What do mean you didn't do anything? I mean, that's really hard, not just to go through that, but to watch someone else go through it. "I guess she heard what she was saying and decided to rephrase it. "What I meant was…it's just that….her family and everything; they were really…frazzled after they went. The first time was really hard. You just seem really…calm compared to everybody else."

"Even you?" I've never seen Phoebe lose her composure. She was always an emotional person, but never outwardly.

"Even me. Not in front of her…I don't think anyone's broken down in front of her, sans Olga. But, yeah. It was really hard for me." Phoebe sat her chin on her upturned fists, covering most of her mouth, and I knew she was telling the truth. Everyone around me was revealing themselves, putting on their brave faces and took on the world with their own problems to handle.

"I was scared. From the moment she told me, I was scared. I'm still scared."

Phoebe looked up at me and, to my surprise, nodded. A strange sort of understanding, I think.

A second or so later, her cell phone went off. A light, airy, Waltz of the Flowers made her jump and then squirm to retrieve it from her pocket. She flipped it open and answered with a polite hello only to rush into a flurry of Japanese as soon as the person responded. I, again, stared at my plate, convinced that I wouldn't have been able to follow the conversation even if she had taught me more than "Hello", "Good Morning" and "Thank You" a year ago.

After closing the phone, and replacing it, Phoebe stood and brushed the front of her jeans off. "Well, I'm gonna go say bye to Helga, and then I have to leave. My dad, y'know?"

I'm not sure what exactly I said at that point. Or why exactly I stood up. But that short conversation with Phoebe made me come to grips with something that everyone else had seemed to have a long time ago.

While Phoebe said her goodbyes, I sat in the living room and pondered the last few months. Everyone who I'd spoken to had already warned against me blaming myself for not seeing it. Which would have been easy and not entirely beyond me. But I didn't. I know that it wasn't of my fault or anyone else's that I didn't notice it beforehand. Most of what I thought about was what had happened just over a week ago. Was I supposed to be the strong one? And if I was, did I act like it? In this situation, I wasn't entirely sure what being strong meant.

And I wasn't sure if I could be strong.

Phoebe descended the stairs about ten minutes later, and like the gentlemen that I am (I think) I walked her to the door. Before exiting, she turned and gave me that "comforting friend hug", complete with a grandmotherly pat on the back. The final touch was what she said upon our separation:

"Take care of her."

And that was something I had every intention of doing.

After Phoebe drove off, I climbed the stairs I hadn't been up in years. Of course, I'd been to Helga's house several times, but I rarely if ever went upstairs. I think her father bought the house because of the downstairs bathroom, knowing that one day, boys would come to visit his two daughters and may use "going to the bathroom" as a ploy to get the much closer to their bedroom. But for some reason, Helga's father never seemed to distrust me, save for our first encounter, where Helga had somehow gotten her parents to come to an art exhibit the school was holding. When they walked over to my booth (comprised mainly of photos) I debated whether or not to run, and after he shook my hand and gave me "The Look" that probably sent shivers down the spine of every male under the age of 23 who had ever saw Helga as anything more than a surrogate little sister, I knew that I definitely should have run. But after a while that seemed to melt away, and even though I was never given a formal invitation upstairs, I was welcome in their home.

Even though the door was cracked and she was apparently awake, I still knocked and waited for her to let me in. The weak response I got from the other side of the door I blamed on the vent directly over my head, but upon coming into the room, I found that her voice was considerable quieter than normal, something I can't say that I expected. She sat on her bed, under a thick comforter, and propped somewhat upright by two pillows. She smiled her smile as I entered, looking a little more weathered than yesterday.

"Hey you." I said, more the first thing that came to mind than the smartest thing to say.

"Hey." She replied, trying to prop herself up more, but eventually settling with the position she was in.

"Hungry? Phoebe made breakfast…"

She sighed heavily before answering. "Maybe later."

I sat myself in a chair that was next to her desk, and wheeled myself over to her bed. Her eyes became slits as she smiled as hard as she could, even though she was clearly exhausted.

"Tired?", I asked. Where was I getting these amazing questions?

Another long sigh. Were my questions annoying her? Tiring her out? I wasn't sure.'

"Tired of being tired." She said, as sincerely as possible. She looked towards the opposing wall contemplatively, and somewhat out of nowhere, grabbed my hand that was resting on the side of the bed. "I'm sorry…I'm not talking much. I'm just really, kind of tired…right now." She tried not to fragment her words, but found it difficult with the frequent breaths she found herself taking.

"Hey, it's nothing. You don't have to apologize for anything, okay?" I caught myself squeezing her hand for emphasis.

"Okay." she said, still turned away from me. I was scared she was crying, or she was about to start crying, neither of which I could do anything about. "Can you just sit with me for a minute?" She looked over at me then. Phoebe mentioned how alarming it was that I was so calm. And I was blown away at how reasonable she was being. She turned the corners of her lips upwards in an attempt to comfort me.

I just smiled back, and squeezed her tiny fingers a little harder.

Whoa. This was the hardest thing I've ever written in my life. Not just because I was changing POV"s and had to take on a different persona and everything, but when something as big as what was revealed in the last chapter is said, it's har to go anywhere from that. Don't expect a quick update. I've got mad senior work to do (cherish your high school career, because being a senior is not all Cap and Gown, skip third period, "sign my yearbook" crap...it's hard work!) My next update is…oh! Hurricane! Yay! I changed the name of Nothing Like a Song to Hurricane. It'll be explained in the chapter update.

Oh and just so everyone knows, I was nominated for Most Original Story in Jarel Kortan's Hey Arnold Fanfiction Awards 2005, but that might fall through because it was published in 2004. Oh well, it was an honor being nominated (especially alongside Skyhiatrist, who is in my opinion an amazing writer. So everyone should go vote. Not for me, unless you want to, but that's how I get interested in stories; checking out Favorites lists and Awards boards. Okay, I'm done! Peace!

-Antoinette a.k.a Pointy Objects