Disclaimer: I do not own nor did I create Hey Arnold! or any of it's characters. They are the property of Nickelodeon and it's parent company, and it was created by Craig Bartlett and the rest of the wonderful people behind one of the best cartoons of the '90s.

Author's Note: This is the first thing I've ever uploaded to FanFiction. I've been wanting to write for several years now, but haven't put in the time...until now. I also recently started to watch Hey Arnold! (I'd never seen the whole series before now), and while I watching, the idea for this story came to me, so I decided to bring it to life.

It's a bit of an AU set between the end of the series and the Jungle Movie, with various little (and some big) changes that I won't detail here, but should become clear as the story progresses. I will say that one of the mission statements of this fic was to give depth to the rest of Helga's family that was only hinted at in the series.

Also, there will be a good amount of swearing in this, mostly from members of the Pataki family (ones not named Olga.) There shouldn't be anything too strong, but let me know if I'm getting too close to an M rating. I want to keep the story at the T rating.

Finally, in each chapter I'm trying to work in a reference to one of my favorite sitcoms from the '80s/'90s, Married... with Children. Keep an eye out, although I'm sure a lot of them will be mind-meltingly obscure unless you're a turbo nerd about the show like I am.

I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter One: Moving Out

Monday, August 18, 1997

One Week Before the Start of Fifth Grade

Ten-year-old Helga G. Pataki had just finished boxing up the last of her possessions in preparation for leaving the only home she had ever known. She and her parents had to leave, since her father had sold said house to have money to funnel into his quickly dying Beeper Empire.

It was true! Big Bob's Beepers glory days were in the past. While beepers were slowly but surely on their way out due to recent jumps forward in phone manufacturing (making text-capable cell phones more affordable than ever), that would not have sunk a normal beeper business so quickly. What had sunk, though, was Bob Pataki's reputation.

Bob's partnership with the corrupt developer Alphonse Perrier du von Scheck, CEO of Future Tech Industries, had become public knowledge after Scheck's arrest. Despite Bob turning on Scheck, he was not easily forgiven by a lot of Hillwood's residents, and even his out-of-town buyers had stopped placing orders. Plus, no other company was willing to hire him into a position requiring any business acumen.

Because of all this and a lot of expensive bills left over from Bob's failed partnership with the now-jailed CEO, the Patakis needed a lot of money going out at a time when none was coming in. Since among the local businesses Bob's name was mud and he refused to either move away (to Helga's relief), or get a job that didn't make use of his "savvy business skills" (to both Helga and Miriam's annoyance).

So rather than sell his Beeper emporium and keep the house, like any sane person would do, Bob did the opposite, and now Helga and her parents had to move into his shrine of failure. Hence all her earthly possessions were now boxed up. Well, almost all. Bob had decided that they would sell the furniture with the house, so he could add ten thousand more to the price, most to be funneled into ads for his store. While she might no longer have her comfy bed to sleep in, she would have a nice cot set up in one of the store's backrooms, and some cardboard boxes were totally just as good for storing her clothes as her dresser ever was! Criminy, her father was a jackass. Thank God for her mom.

Just like Helga hadn't thought her opinion of Big Bob could be lower even before his fall from the Beeper throne, she hadn't thought she would ever be as proud of her mother as she had been since she had gotten sober earlier in the year. When Bob had thrown his back out, Miriam had stopped drinking and stepped into his shoes, running the Beeper business until he recovered. While she had at the time started to neglect Helga as she did when she was a drunk, things had since improved.

After stepping down as the Beeper Queen, she had been going to AA to help manage her addictive tendencies. Over the last half year, she had balanced her time between taking various classes at the local college and spending quality time ("not quantity time, Bob") with her daughter. Combining those classes with the three and a half years she had completed before Olga was born had meant she finally was able to get her bachelor's degree.

Just last month she finally got a job with the Hillwood branch of an international manufacturer where she works out deals to sell equipment to various local construction companies. Sadly, it wasn't soon enough to save the house, especially with the bills Bob continued to rack up.

Helga looked around her now desolate room, wishing she could talk to her best friend Phoebe Heyerdahl. Phoebe and her parents had gone on vacation and wouldn't be back until the weekend. Helga couldn't even contact her, due to the fact that when her dad started selling their belongings to keep the store afloat, her cell phone had been one of the first things to go. Plus, she didn't have the number of the place Phoebe was staying.

A thought came to her, and she walked over to the closet. Going inside, past the now empty hangers, she looked at where, until just a few months ago, she had kept her the shrine to her love, her anchor, her guiding light - Arnold. While her volumes of poetry and her locket were safely packed away, the shrine was gone now – for good. It had been thrown out at the end of the school year, a result of her therapy sessions with Dr. Bliss.

The child psychologist had helped her temper the creepier parts of her obsession at Helga's own request. Words about her football headed beloved still flowed almost nightly from her pen, but her days of stalking and scavenging his garbage were over and done with, mainly due to how many close calls that brought about.

Likewise, Dr. Bliss had helped her with her aggression towards Arnold and the rest of her classmates, and her abrasive behavior had lessened considerably, though she wouldn't be winning any awards for niceness anytime soon (she'd leave that to Lila). She even hoped to actually confess her love to Arnold one day. Not soon, by any means, but sometime between now and when they received their high school diplomas.

As she crouched in her closet, she took a moment to remember all the hours she had spent in here, letting the oh so carefully hidden feelings of her heart free. Saying goodbye to this small little hideaway of hers was almost as tough as saying goodbye to all the rest of the house combined, but it had to be done. I can only plead to whatever God has given me this burning passion that the light of my love for Arnold can shine even in the darkness of my father's failure.

After about ten minutes, she finally exited the closet for the last time. Going out of her room and starting down the stairs, she heard her parents arguing (a common occurrence nowadays). Pausing halfway down, she listened in.

"Olga doesn't need to be bothered by this, Miriam. She's got her own life to live as it is. She doesn't need the girl around distracting her from what's important."

"Her name's Helga, Bob, and you know Olga views her as being more important than her job. Plus, while Olga's teaching, Helga will be in school; she won't distract her from her job. And I don't want Helga to have to stay in the store. She needs a better environment than living in your failure."

"Hey! That 'failure' has provided a lot for this family over the years. It will serve perfectly well until this whole FTi thing blows over and we're back on our feet."

"It's not going to blow over Bob, and until you pull your head out of your ass Helga is going to be staying with Olga. THAT'S FINAL!"

Helga was stunned. She was going to be living with Olga? Sure, it wasn't as bad as living in the Beeper dungeon, but still… living with Olga? Really?

C'mon Helga old girl. Being kind of unfair to your sister, aren't you?. Things between them had improved quite a bit since her sister broke down last year and revealed how much she hated being a perfect little wind-up doll for her parents (mostly Bob). She had been making a better effort to actually listen and spend time with Helga when she came home, instead of just giving her a list of chores to do like she had during prior visits.

Helga even managed to tolerate her being a student teacher to her class for most of last semester. Sure, Olga almost let slip one of her most embarrassing non-Arnold related secrets, namely her bedwetting problems, but Olga had invented a cousin on the spot to take the blame instead after she had inadvertently told the story.

It helped that she turned out to be a pretty good teacher. Graduating from Bennington in May, she had landed a job at James K. Polk High School here in Hillwood. The position had only opened up late last month, so Olga hadn't yet rented her own place in town until she was sure she had a position. Helga would call it a lucky break, but there was nothing lucky about the (now-former) English teacher, Mr. Cohen, having a mental breakdown while teaching summer school and going to California to become a gold prospector.

Walking the rest of the way down the stairs, Helga went into the family room where her parents were sitting in silence, with only the banal sound of one of the insipid soap operas Bob loved filling the air. Noticing Helga in the room, Miriam broke the silence. "Oh, hi dear. Finished packing?"

Nodding, Helga said "I, uh, overheard you saying that I was going to be staying with Olga?"

"That's right honey. You need a place to call home, and a Beeper store hardly suits that purpose." Bob grumbled from his seat. "Quiet B. Anyway, I have already sorted out the details with your sister. She's ecstatic to have you coming to stay with her. We'll be taking your things over to her new place right now, although we'll probably have to make two trips. Let's go get the boxes."

As the three of them got up to start carrying her things out of her room, Bob started to speak. "Hey, Olga, when you and –"

Just as Helga was about to correct him for the millionth time ("It's Helga, dad"), something unexpected happened: Miriam exploded at him.

"HER NAME IS HELGA, BOB! You insisted on naming her that, despite Olga wanting to name her! Despite me wanting to let Olga name her! 'I'm gonna be raising her, so I get to name her!' So get her name correct for once, dammit! Now what do you want, Bob?!"

Looking like a whipped dog, Bob just barely managed to mumble out his words. "I, uh, I was just going to ask her if she would take a quick look in the attic after you two got back... See if there was anything important up there..."

Glaring at Bob, Miriam rolled her eyes. "I guess she can spare ten minutes to do so." Turning to Helga "That alright with you, Helga?"

Helga dumbly nodded her head, in awe of her mom coming to her defense. For as loud and argumentative as Helga's dad had been all her life, Miriam had been bringing out a meeker side of Bob as of late. He knew he was on thin ice.

Brightening up, her mom replied "Alright, let's get those boxes down here and load up."

As they drove to Olga's new place in Bob's Lincoln Continental (his Hummer had been sold shortly after the FTi fiasco), Helga became aware of Miriam shooting her glances and smiling at her. "What, mom?"

"Oh, I just think you'll be pleasantly surprised at Olga's, and soon your, new place of residence."

"Excited about sharing a dinky little apartment with Ol-ga? Yeah right, mom. Where is she living anyway?"

Olga had only been at her current residence for a couple of weeks. She had no reason to find her own place in Hillwood before she was certain that she would have a position at one of the local schools, and she had spent a good chunk of the summer vacationing with her college friends.

After learning she got the position at Polk High, she had stayed with Helga and their parents for a week before announcing she had found a place to live. Bob, Miriam, and Helga were much too busy finalizing the sale of the house, restraining herself from strangling her husband, and trying to enjoy the last few weeks of summer, respectively, to pay a visit to her new place until now.

"Come on Helga, you've been getting along so much better with her." A few seconds passed and Miriam brought the car to a stop at the curb. "Look out the window and you'll see your new home, honey. We're here."

Helga looked out the window and her jaw dropped. They were parked at 4040 Vine Street, in front of the Sunset Arms boarding house. She would be living in the same building as the boy she had loved almost all her life.

And that's it for the first chapter. I already have the second written, but it won't be posted until I'm done with the third. I'm going to go with this so that if I find a chapter taking a particularly long time to write I will still have something to post in the meantime. Hopefully I'll be posting again early next week.