Guess who's baaaaaack. I am baby, with a vengeance! That's right, I haven't written anything in...god help me... 8 months. And now that I am a newly graduated college girl, (woo!) I can hopefully write a little more starting with this multiple parter that I managed to write in ONE DAY.It's impressive for me right now, okay? This is also a CONTINUATION, meaning that yes, one of my previous story is getting multiple parts added on to it. But once you realize which one is actually is, you will either kick me in the face or be my best friend. I will accept both. We shall see in your lovely reviews! Hopefully. (Please review, I'd appreciate it, a lot.) For the people who have managed to follow me and stick with my writing for this long, this multiple parter is for you!

It is called Without You...by guess who...Breaking Benjamin. There's your hint. Also thar be cursing, lots of it in this here tale. (Sorry, felt like being a pirate)

Enjoy!

"Promise me! Promise me that you will be happy without me. Promise me Arnold!"

"I…I promise."

She pulled him back towards her with another kiss.

"I love you Arnold."

"Helga, please don't."

"I'm…sorry…"

She laid back down on the bed and closed her eyes.

"I love…"

Arnold watched her eyes close. Slowly, tears welling up in his own.

"Helga, please…"

But she wouldn't move. She wouldn't breathe. The monitor behind him stopped beeping continuous and instead gave the worst sound that he could have ever heard his life. And it continued behind him, taunting him, making himself angry.

And that's when he screamed. As loud as he could until he couldn't breathe. Hoping desperately that all the sudden she would open her eyes, tell him to shut his mouth and quit being so loud. That she was trying to sleep. It had all been for dramatic effect. It had to have been a test right? She was testing him. She wasn't…

The monitor continued the sound as he lost his voice and breathed heavily. His hand still resting on hers. Her hand, cold, lifeless. And suddenly he pulled away. He turned his head as her family came rushing in the doorway. Tears streaming down their faces, sobs from her sister and mother. Her father cursing up a storm but with the same big fact tears in his eyes. He had only stopped his cursing to look once more at his daughter. Her pale face drained from the color it had. Her bright blue eyes shut forever. He had only managed to whisper.

"My baby girl."

And that's when Arnold lost it.

"Your baby girl? You didn't care about her! You haven't been here in three days!"

Her sister and mother looked at him shocked while the sullen expression on Big Bob Pataki went into instant aggression.

"You watch your mouth boy…"

"No! I won't! You did this to her! All the bruises you left on her for years! Countless amount of years! And she took it, everything, cause you were her family. She had no where else to go, no where else to turn because she was embarrassed about telling people the things that you have done!"

"I did…"

"Don't even try to deny it from me! I. Saw. EVERYTHING. You beat her almost senseless and she ran. It was the only thing that she could do. And you!"

Miriam reacted painfully.

"You've been too drunk to notice that your daughter has been taking all of this for 7 years! Maybe if you hadn't have had that bottle of vodka constantly down your throat, she wouldn't be dead!"

Miriam's sobs grew louder as Olga attempted to comfort her. Bob moved from around the bed in front of her.

"You don't get to say those kind of things to my family!"

"Your family? Since when have you given a flying fuck about anything besides Olga?"

Olga glared at him.

"Don't give me that look, Princess. You know you are spoiled so god damn rotten by those two that if you took a shit, they would be right there to wipe!"

"You shut you stupid fucking orphan mouth…"

"Orphan. Ha. Is that really the best you got? You've referred to me as the orphan boy for all these years that that insult is nothing. Nothing to me. You killed her. They saw those bruises at the party and she ran. The car crash may have been the thing that killed her, but YOU are the reason it happened! YOU…"

Before Arnold could finish, a large fist swung at the side of his face. Nurses rushed in to try and contain the rather large man from taking another swing. Arnold laid on the ground, rubbing his cheek and the terrible amount of pain that he was in. Two security officers ran into the room and attempted to pull him up from the ground but he shrugged them off and lunged before being restrained himself. They grabbed a hold of him and pulled him out of the hospital room.

As he kept struggling to pull them off of him, he managed to scream.

"Helga!"

And the doors out of the emergency room closed behind him.

A week later, Arnold found himself sitting alone at the pier, throwing rocks into the river. Today had been Helga's funeral. He was banned from attending. Not a surprise to him really, after the scene that he threw in the hospital room. The words he had said to her family. All the truth, but the truth hurt. Literally. He remembered the bruises he had for a long period of time. He didn't know why they had waited so long to bury her. They just didn't want to admit to themselves that they were guilty. He sighed before throwing another rock into the water below him.

"Arnold?"

He turned to see the two people he did not want to see right now, dressed in all black. Of course they had gone to the funeral, probably their entire group of friends did. But he didn't want to see them. In fact, he really didn't want to see anyone right now. He just wanted to sit, on this pier, for the rest of his life. He would never have to move on, he'd never have to deal with anyone or anything. Because…he didn't want to anymore.

Gerald put his hand on Arnold's shoulder as his petite girlfriend stood behind him.

"Hey man, where have you been? Your grandma and grandpa have been worried sick."

"Here"

"You weren't at the funeral."

"Banned."

"They banned you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I basically told them that they were the ones that killed their daughter, Gerald. I'm pretty sure that gives them a good reason to make sure that I don't go to the funeral for the one person that loved me… the one person that I have ever loved…"

Phoebe's eyes started to water again. They were bright red when she had first gotten here, and considering he hadn't seen her in days, he could only assume that they had been bright red and puffy like that since that day. She managed to squeak a response.

"She told you."

"What, she told me that she loved me… that she always had and always will on her dying bed... Is that the answer you are looking for?" He snapped.

"Dude. Don't get snappy at her. She just asked a question." Gerald snapped back.

He paused.

"You're right. I'm sorry, Phoebe."

"It's okay." He could barely hear her answer.

"Hey man, I'm here if you need me."

"I know."

"Do you want to talk about it? About her?"

"No."

"Why not? It'll be better if…"

"I just wanna be left alone, okay?" He snapped again.

This time Gerald removed his hand from his shoulder.

"Fine. Whatever you say Arnold."

Gerald turned to Phoebe and tried to pull her away, but she continued to stare him.

"Gerald, we can't just leave him here."

"It's what he wants, Babe. There's nothing that we can do."

"There has to be something."

"Trust me, right now, he needs to think everything out. He'll come to us on his own."

He grabbed her hand and she stared at the motionless Arnold staring out towards the horizon.

"Okay." She sighed sadly.

The two of them walked away as Arnold picked up another rock and threw it into the river. It landed with a small plop in the murky green water below. As the ripples formed and faded away, he looked into his own reflection in the water. How swollen his eyes were, how ragged his clothes were, he was a mess. But he continued to look at himself in the water and thought he saw an image of Helga next to him. He instantly looked up, but saw nothing. He grumbled and rested his head against the wooden pier, now staring up into the sky. But that wasn't helping either, as he saw Helga shaped clouds rolling by. He tried to close his eyes. And it worked, for a couple minutes until the images of Helga flooded his mind.

"Here you go, Football Head."

"Thanks."

Water sprayed his face as he attempted to drink from the fountain.

"Hey!"

She grinned and laughed at him as he fell to the floor, soaking wet.

"Sucker."

She stomped off as Gerald pulled him up from the floor.

"Man, it seems like Helga is always picking on you in particular Arnold."

"I don't know why, I just try to avoid her."

"Don't even think about asking me to dance, Arnoldo."

Arnold looked at her confused.

"Uh, I wasn't."

"Because I would rather stick my head in that bowl of dip than dance with a football head like you."

"That's okay, I was just getting some punch."

Helga stood leaning against the edge of the building.

"Maybe I don't hate you as much as I thought okay? I guess I kind of like you a little. Heck, I guess you can say that I like you a lot."

Arnold stared at her, clearly confused by her sudden change of emotions. Plus he was still confused of the fact that the girl who had clearly hated him for so long was helping him.

"You did this for me?"

She turned to face him.

"That's right Hair Boy! I mean, criminy, what else are you supposed to do when someone you love is in trouble!"

Now he was even more confused.

"Love?"

She walked towards him and poked him. He tried not to fall over as he walked backwards but she kept walking towards him.

"You heard me pal, I love you! Love you! Who else do you think has been stalking you night and day, building shrines to you in a closet, filling volumes of books with poems about you, I love you Arnold, I've always loved you ever since I laid eyes on your stupid football head…

She touched his hair.

"And from that moment and every moment since, I have lived and breathed for you, dreamed for the moment that I could finally tell you my secret feelings, to grab you and kiss you and oh…come here you big lug."

And she had kissed him. Granted he had kissed a countless amount of times, for what seemed like exceedingly long periods of time, for the sake of "acting", but this was different, a little weird, but probably not the best thing to be doing right now. But she kissed him with all her might and would not let go. He had realized he lost his hat in the process. When she finally pulled away from him, he instantly spoke, still shocked and a bit dazed after that kiss.

"I'm confused. Did you just say you love me?"

She shook him.

"What, are you deaf?"

He had realized that Helga had been messing with him all this time, so he was aiming for a little revenge. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, laughing and talking with Phoebe before he walked up to her and noticed her scrambling for her glasses.

"Oh, there you are Helga. Just in time for the tango."

She reached her arm out in front of her to grab.

"Bring it on, Football Head. Let's cut a rug."

And they danced. He tried to make it convincing as to lead her on, but it was turning out to be a little more aggressive than he imagined. People were staring at the two of them, with a mix of shock and confusion on their faces. And she had no idea that he knew.

"Must be strange not being able to see anything. Anything at all."

"It is…it's very…"

He dipped her as she scrambled for her words.

"Arnold, you're being kinda rough."

"Don't worry my poor blind friend, you're in good hands."

"You really sure this is a good idea, the last time this happened I ended up in a pool."

"At least I know this time you aren't pretending to be blind."

"Hey, I was kind of a bitch back then!"

"Kind of?"

She shoved him playfully.

"God damn it Arnold. This is the first time we hang out together in years and you are making me feel like a jerk."

"Sorry. Wait, you called me Arnold."

"That's your name, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah. You usually call me Football Head, or Hair Boy, or Arnoldo, or Football Face."

"Hey that last one was Wolfgang!"

"I'm just so used to the nicknames. It's a change of pace."

"Don't get used to it. I can go back to Football Head in a matter of seconds."

He smiled.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? You haven't done anything yet."

"I just haven't been around as much. We used to be friends."

"Are you saying we aren't friends?"

"We used to be closer."

"We've got our own lives in high school now, Arnold. You have baseball and being a star student. And I have…well…I have sitting in the back of the class doodling or writing poetry and pretending I don't exist."

"Why do you do that?"

"Because it's easy."

"You went from being a bully, who gets noticed by everyone to being quiet and not noticed at all."

"People change."

"…Yeah… I guess they do."

"Look, we should probably find Phoebe and Gerald. It's almost Phoebe's curfew and I'm staying at her place tonight."

"I guess so."

She started to walk away before she looked at him.

"I'm glad we got to talk."

"Me too."

"I'll see you around, Football Head."

Another smile.

"Yeah. See you."

He opened his eyes and noticed the wet tears freely flowing down his cheeks. He brushed them off with the side of his sleeve and sat up, staring once again at his reflection in the water below. He stood up; still keeping his eyes locked on the water below. He paused for a moment, silently watching himself in the water. And that's when he decided to jump.

Let the hate commence! ARE YOU KIDDING ME KATE.

Hey! I said this was a multiple parter, didn't I? So it could really mean anything. Heh.

Part 3 will be up tomorrow!