A/N: I have to say this now and get it off of my chest. I made no references to the novel Pride and Prejudice in the last drabble. I only used the word 'Prejudice' because the thought of young Helga saying 'pwejudice' just seemed so undeniably cute absent the meaning of the word. It was a random word said innocently by a young kid reading a romance novel. Nothing more. However now I have this urge to read Pride and Prejudice. Darn.

Single Stitches – Drabble 2: Yes

a Hey Arnold drabble fic anthology by Pyrex Shards

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Physically strong and mentally sharp. Creative and sarcastic. A High School senior and honors society student with a sense of humor. A tough lipped poetess the likes of which the world had never seen before. A modern day Henry Chinaski turned attractive female and minus the booze. Arnold's bully, yet his friend. A complex girl in a complex world. For Arnold, that described Helga.

Their graduating class had followed Helga's dating career in amusement. In their fifth grade year she started seeing Brainy of all people. Then once the shock wore off she ended it with Brainy and gravitated towards some seventh grader named Michael. She was in the sixth grade at the time. It progressed through the years, and along with it the rumors of nasty fights that Helga always won, loss of virginity, strange triangles, and even a trapezoid. The dirtiest of the rumors said she was loose. Arnold couldn't put Helga and 'easy' in the same sentence. He ignored those rumors.

Helga was still the same Helga that Arnold had always known. That was the main reason he accepted his ideal view of her as opposed to what the rumors painted. He knew that they did hold truths from time to time, but he had no faith in the rumor mongers that spread them viciously. Helga was not easy, she wasn't a tramp, she wasn't any of those other derogatory words that were true about a select few women, yet unfairly leveled upon many more out of cruelty. Something had indeed changed about Helga, though. As the world aged before them, Helga had softened up on Arnold. She still referred to him as Football Head. Her jabs at him were all friendly.

Arnold managed to get the same honors biology class with her. He didn't plan it. He also didn't plan on the seating arrangement that their teacher had decided upon. So Helga ended up one desk in front of him.

Each day he'd get bored in the class and his eyes would wander. Somehow they would always end up in the same place, that very spot where Helga's figure narrowed slightly and then disappeared behind the back of the ugly blue plastic chair that she sat in. Sometimes he'd count the long light-blonde hairs that lay loose upon her shoulders. She had long ago ditched her ponytails and wore her hair out. Helga had become Arnold's means of getting himself through the biology class, for he hated biology.

That was only the first week... After studying Helga closely week after week, he started to notice things...

He'd notice when after her breakups, she would turn around in her chair and admit it to Arnold with the happiest most candy-eating grin he had ever seen. He'd note how on the day after, that same smile wouldn't be so pronounced. She'd turn around in her chair and make a comment about his choice of dress. Sometimes it was sarcastic and occasionally a compliment.

For days after, the smile would fade until they were only civil with each other and nothing more... There was something about her fading smile that tugged at his heart somewhere deep, where he could sense it was there but not really feel its weight upon him. That weight would always go away whenever Helga, after finding another guy, would offer Arnold a smile so fake he mused that if she were an actress, she'd even have a hard time getting roles in B movies. He would feel jealousy welling up, shake his head slightly to quell it, and then resume writing in his notes as Helga turned around in her chair and did the same.

The months went by, and on this day, Helga had just broken up with another guy, at lunch. This time it was Anthony... Somethingrather... Arnold didn't care really what the guy's last name was. Helga's love life wasn't really something that interested him. All the same, something in his mind, buried deep within his primal self, nagged at him that the creature before him was just that much more attractive when she wasn't taken. Even though every single day there was nothing different other than her clothing.

After Helga had turned around and made her statement. "So I broke up with Anthony." Beamed at Arnold, then turned around in her chair. Something inside Arnold's mind snapped, and a desire washed through him. Heck! Why not! You only live once! And oh god, her smile was so cute, he couldn't get it out of his head sometimes. He reasoned all this to himself as he scribbled words on a piece of blank paper:

Will you go out with me?

He folded it up into fourths, and tapped Helga on the shoulder. His stomach suddenly flipped as Helga made eye contact with him. She turned around with a puzzled look, and looked at his hand as he held out the note to her. She silently took it and turned around in her desk, then unfolded the paper.

He watched her shoulders for any sign of emotion from her. He noticed for the briefest of moments that she seemed to be stiff all of the sudden. Even her hair seemed frozen in place, as if she was completely shocked.

That's it. Our friendship will be weird from here on out.

Arnold noticed Helga's right arm twitching, was she writing on the note or her notebook? He couldn't tell. Then both arms moved and he reasoned she was folding the paper. A quiet breath of relief that he'd find the answer, and Helga turned around. She was smiling at him. Was that a good sign? It was a warm smile. He took the note and Helga turned back around.

Arnold looked around and slowly, ever so quietly, unfolded the college ruled piece of notebook paper. There, below his own chicken scratch handwriting that had been ruined by several years of writing mathematical formulas in his AP math classes (who knew?), was her signature cursive handwriting. In purple pen. It read:

Yes!

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Author's Corner

This was a pretty simple drabble. Most of it I had already written and had it stashed away on my hard drive for another day. However I looked at it again and realized that I just didn't want to try fitting it in another story, and it would possibly work as a drabble.

Let me know what you think!

In other news, I'm halfway done with chapter two of Bluebird. I'm gunning for posting it Monday morning (04/20/09).