Disclaimer: I do not own Hey Arnold!
Helga's POV
The hotel room was small and outdated but it had the basic amenities she needed and it was clean so she couldn't complain too much. Her flight had arrived pretty early in the morning so most of the first day was spent sleeping and then she had ventured out that night to wander the old neighborhood.
Passing Phoebe's old house which looked dark but still lived in, although that doesn't mean that is where her family still is, passing by her old house she saw a couple of lights flashing in the windows which made her think someone had a flashlight out which made her remember staying up late with a flashlight of her own writing in her pink notebook until the early hours of the morning. Helga passed by the tree that all of them had once defended from her father who wanted to knock down for his business and walked through the park that she used to go to write in her book. Her feet took her to the pier where she threw a rock in the water remembering old times with Phoebe and that awful thanksgiving when Arnold and her had met at that pier and went off to drop in on Mr. Simmons' joke of a Thanksgiving.
Helga felt like she was on autopilot just walking around reliving her past memories as if she were caught in a strange, distant dream. When awareness came back she stood in the middle of Gerald Field looking at the brick wall that used to keep the score of all of their baseball games. It was this spot that she had been standing on with Phoebe by her side laughing about something that long since forgotten when her father Big Bob had walked up to her and told her in front of everyone that his beeper emporium had become very popular in California and that she had to come home and pack her bags and that he would give her a few minutes to say goodbye to her little friends. She had been confused and had hardly managed the words good bye before her father was pulling her away from everyone. Helga remembered Phoebe following and helping her pack her things and then Phoebe was hugging her and telling her how much she would be missed. The next morning the Pataki's were on a plane and trying to make a life in California.
Standing in this spot, a year or so short of a decade later, Helga looked around feeling somewhat nostalgic and very out of place. With the street lights as her guide, she made her way slowly back to the hotel only pausing for a moment as she looked up the street which would take her to the Sunset Arms before turning her head and trudging on.
Arnold's POV
Gerald was full of stories from college; being on a basketball scholarship, it hadn't taken him long to fall in with the cheerleaders and other jocks. However he was still Arnold's best friend so they were able to talk about a lot of things. It took hours before they finally got to the subject that Arnold wanted to talk about although it came from a lewd comment that Gerald made out of nowhere (which just so happened to be a question Gerald had asked him almost every time they talked on the phone) "So did you hook up with anyone yet at that college of yours?"
Arnold didn't like the idea of reminding his friend of their childhood bully by admitting that he slept with her but with the way the conversation was going, he doubted that there would be another opening any time soon to bring her up so he answered, "Uh, yeah I did. You know her actually." The way Gerald's eyes went wide made him kind of want to laugh. Arnold had been in a few relationships that never seemed to last always with blonde haired and blue eyed women that nobody really questioned, but he did.
His standards were too high, he had been told on multiple occasions by multiple people. He would consider one girl's hair too dark or too light and he had broken up with a girl and tried to explain to Gerald how her eyes just didn't have color that was perfect or the first girl he had broken up with because the words she used were too basic. Nobody had ever really made the connection that his mind had made after eleventh grade and his sixth failed relationship with a girl that half of the school had wanted and she had given her time to him. Everything about that girl had been practically perfect and at first he was happy as could be, however she was so nice. When they were together she always agreed with him no matter what it was, there was no fight in her and Arnold had gotten bored quickly.
After that relationship his grandfather had made an offhand comment about how he seemed to want an argument and with all of these blonde girls in the house he keeps remembering Arnold's mean little friend with the blonde hair and the one eyebrow. That comment had been a slap in the face to him as he remembered the girl that had always been yelling at him over nothing, the girl who was so mean and yet so nice when she went out of her way to do something for him. It had taken him years to realize that he was looking for Helga Pataki in a girlfriend, and how nobody seemed to fit his standards. When he had went off to college after breaking up with his latest girl friend who sneered every time she saw something pink which irritated him to no end, he had sworn off dating because it wasn't going to happen, he would never find her and he knew that.
Then he had woken up and there was the girl in the pink shirt with that perfect blond hair and when he called her name she had looked at him with those perfect blue eyes and he felt alive, almost wired as she spoke and even in the barest of words she had that fire that he needed, that he had been searching for. He wasn't sure when he had fallen for her but he didn't regret one second that they had spent together or would ever spend together.
Gerald looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "Who do I know that you would fall into bed with?" Gerald knew his type and all of the girls that Arnold had slept with, he knew that Arnold wasn't really one for one night stands either.
"Do you, uh remember Helga Pataki? It was her, I guess she goes to my college and I never ran into her since we are studying different subjects and with NYU being such a big school…" He let his sentence trail off as he watched his friends eyes widen and stare at him with his mouth slightly open. Arnold watched as Gerald processed the information that he was being told, he could practically hear the gears winding in his head from the news that he had just received.
Finally he was able to speak, "Y- you slept with Helga Pataki? The Helga G Pataki?! The one who moved away when we were kids?" Arnold only nodded mutely, he could see the light bulb going off in his friends head, "So that's why….. Wait, are you sure Arnold? Are you positive that it wasn't someone else?" Arnold gave him a small smile as he shook his head and watched the hope fall from his friends face. "I think that I have to think about this more." Arnold watched his friend walk away not really surprised about his reaction. He turned his feet toward the boarding house and made his way home.
