Why hello there! It's Chapter 3 time! :D

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Craig Bartlett, Nickelodeon and Viacom. As per usual. *shakes fists into sky* The song is owned by the band Red.

So this song fic is called Pieces. Based on the song Pieces by Red. It's an excellent song by an excellent band. If you have the chance, go look it up on YouTube.

But I thought I'd give people an update of when I'm planning to publish my chapters:

Chapter 4 of Songs of Hillwood will be up (hopefully) by next Tuesday. Every Tuesday I hope to have a new chapter up.

I Will Not Blow the Cold Away will be updated hopefully by the weekend. I'm almost halfway through it so I'm hoping Saturday at the earliest and Monday at the latest. Another note with that...this short story is only three chapters long! So it will end probably next week sometime. :\

As for this chapter, it is Arnold and Helga based. I promise I will write more Rhonda and Curly stuff soon since everyone seemed to like last chapter so much. Can you believe that that one is not my favorite one that I have written? It's actually the one that will be up next week. So look forward to next week! :D But it was my second favorite one. So...

This one. It's not as deep as the other one has or as long. Considering that I kinda rushed this one. I couldn't get all the ideas that I wanted with this one. So hopefully next week's will make up for it. But I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Ps: If you have any ideas of what you want my next short story or song fic to be about, send me a message or tell me in the review and I'll definitely look it over.

-Love Always, Kate-

Pieces

I'm here again, a thousand miles away from you

Sitting on a plane back to Hillwood was one of the last things that Helga. G Pataki wanted to do right now. Sure, San Lorenzo had been nothing but chaos and danger as they had taken a class trip to the beautiful country; it had turned into a search and rescue mission to find Arnold's parents. She leaned back in the seat and turned to see Phoebe curled into Gerald's shoulder. Gerald looked just about as lonely as she had. From a completely different reason, but when you lose your best friend, it's something that hits you hard; she couldn't imagine losing Phoebe like that.

As the plane flew closer and closer to the United States, she realized how far away he would actually be. He had decided to stay; it was his parents after all. He needed them back in his life and wanted to spend as much time with them as he could now that he had them. She remembered the look on his face when he had seen them again for the first time in nine years. The way he had been holding her hand and gripped it tightly in anticipation. He had turned to her and grinned like an idiot while she watched tears of joy slowly flooding into his eyes. She had remembered smiling then too.

She pulled the locket out of her dress and stared at the picture. Her heart instantly started to sink deeper into her stomach. None of her classmates would ever realize the moment that she had with Arnold before they had left, maybe Gerald a little, but not the whole thing. She wasn't even planning to tell Phoebe about it, at least not yet.

A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who I am

She was beginning to realize that most of her being was built on Arnold being there to spin her negativity into something positive. She was broken. Her reputation, her ability to bully people…she had done it all to hide her problems. Her home life, her feelings for Arnold, her emotions, everything was gone. And she didn't know whether or not to wallow in sadness for the rest of her life or to move on. It wasn't a decision that she was looking forward to making.

I tried so hard

Forgetting about Arnold and everything that she felt for him would easily be one of the most difficult moments in her life.

Thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way

There was no way she would ever be able to get over him on her own. She knew that for sure. She could go through hours upon hours of therapy with Dr. Bliss until she finally got the sense to leave Hillwood when she turned 21, but it would never go away.

Especially after their talk in the jungle. She closed her eyes quickly and tried to replay their last words over and over again in her head.

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole

The rest of the kids in her class were crowded around Gerald, attempting to learn about the dangers that he and Arnold had faced in the jungle in the search for Arnold's parents. Every eye had been on Gerald as he stepped onto a fallen tree and acted out the story. Phoebe sat beside him and stared up at him in wonder as well as the rest of the class.

Arnold and his parents sat off to the side. His father's arm around his mother's shoulder. His mother having his arms curled around Arnold. He had the biggest smile on his face and they all sat to listen to Gerald's story. His parents had stared at each other, spoke in whispers and kissed her each other as Arnold sat in between them.

As for her, she sat on the edge of a cliff. She was mesmerized by the view, the sunset on the trees, birds flying into the sun. It certainly was beautiful. She sighed happily as she felt something brush against her shoulder. She gasped and turned, thinking it had been some kind of animal, but it had been Arnold.

"Hi Helga…." He stammered.

"Hi."

"Can I…" He made a motion towards sitting beside her, she nodded.

"Arnold…I… about earlier…"

He kissed her cheek as she felt her cheeks getting a dark shade of red.

"I meant what I said. About having feelings for you. You know that right?"

"I…I guess I'm still in shock."

He laughed.

"This whole trip has kind of been a whole shock to me."

"How are your parents?"

"Good. Really good actually," She smiled. "I…I think I'm gonna stay here with them."

She froze. He must have seen the tears starting to form in her eyes because he raised his hand up to her face and brushed her cheek.

"You're not…not…" She barely managed to get the words out before she felt tears down her face.

"I'm not. At least not with you guys. Maybe soon. The Green Eyes still need my parents."

She put her head on his shoulder.

"I understand. It's just…I'm going to miss you so much, Foot…I mean, Arnold." He smiled again.

"Old habits die hard, huh?"

"Yea, I guess."

"I'm gonna miss you too Helga. But we can write each other, right?"

"Right."

He hugged her and kept hugging her as they had stared back into the sunset.

I've come undone

When she opened her eyes, she noticed that she had been crying. She furiously rubbed her eyes to get rid of any evidence as Mr. Simmons calmly addressed her classmates about safely getting off the plane. They had landed back in the U.S and there was no way of going back to San Lorenzo. No way of going back to get him and bringing him back home. The reality was finally sinking in. There was no more Arnold, only through the letters that they would be writing back and forth to each other. She grabbed her bag and followed the rest of her class out of the plane.

She remembered the car ride with Phoebe and her parents being quiet on her end. She managed to say a few words to keep up appearances with Phoebe's parents. Phoebe had stared sadly at her friend as she attempted to answer questions about their trip without managing to tear up again. As the car pulled up to her house, she didn't want to go in. She already knew that it would be the same as when she left it. Broken and lonely. Miriam would be making smoothies in the kitchen, Big Bob would be in front of the television watching sports, neither one of them would ask how her trip went or even remember that Helga had been on one. She sighed and opened the front door and trudged up the stairs into her bedroom.

But you make sense of who I am

Like puzzle pieces in your hand

She opened her closet to see the shrine still present, starting to rot actually. She threw all the stuff out the window and into the garbage dumpster below her window. The only thing she kept was the locket with his picture and a book of poems that she had written about him. She locked the book away in a cabinet by her bed and stared into the face in the locket. She openly cried and leapt onto her bed, attempting to cry into her pillows.

I tried so hard! So hard!

It hadn't even been a whole day since she left him and she was a mess. No matter what she tried to do, she was going to cry. She had never cried this much before in her life. She had no idea what to do. She thought of calling Dr. Bliss and venting everything to her in therapy. She thought about asking Phoebe for advice. She had even thought about writing a letter to Olga and asking her what to do. At this point, she desperately needed some help, for anyone to get her out of this.

She heard the doorbell ring and loud footsteps approaching the door. It was probably somebody complaining about their beeper and had managed to get a hold of their house address to talk to them. Or a neighbor asking them again to turn down the volume on their TV and that they could hear it from their house.

"Olga! There's someone here for you."

Phoebe must have been here to check up on her. She didn't feel like talking to anybody, even her best friend.

"OLGA!" her father bellowed.

"Criminy Bob. I hear you!" She screamed in response.

She walked over to the mirror, rubbing the tears away and attempting to fix herself before she walked down the stairs.

"Look Pheebs, I'll be fine. I just need something to get him out…of…"

It wasn't Phoebe sitting at the bottom of the steps looking up at her, but a pair of familiar emerald green eyes. The eyes that she had been in love with since the first day she looked into them.

Then I see your face

"Arnold."

I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before

He smiled at her.

"I thought you were in…" He shook his head.

"My parents realized that I never got on the plane. I was supposed to go back with you guys according to them. But I never got on. They realized that I wouldn't leave unless they came with me. So they packed up their stuff and we came home. We were only a few hours behind you guys."

She didn't care how he got there. It only mattered that he was there. In her house. Looking for her. Because he wanted to be with her.

"Also, I missed you too much." He smiled again.

She felt her knees slip from underneath her. She ran down the rest of the steps and into his arms.

You call my name
I come to you in pieces

"Helga?"

She didn't want to let go. She was finally in the arms of the boy that she loved. And he was staying. For good. She felt herself start to cry again as she rubbed her eyes, annoyed with her emotions. He brushed the tears away as he looked into her eyes.

"I'm right here. Shh. I'm not leaving you. I promise."

She smiled.

"Thank you…"

"For what?"

"…For never losing hope in me, for always seeing the good in me, for you just being you, for you coming home and being with me."

"Thank you for being the thing that brought me back home, Helga."

She sat in his arms in the middle of the hallway, not caring who saw her or what kind of state she was in. She was just glad that he was there.

So you can make me whole