A/N: Sorry guys! I'm very bad at updating! But I'm trying…..Just this chapter required a lot of writing (I didn't have it planned all out as thoroughly as my other chapters…) But here it is, enjoy!

Goodbye is only hard if you are not planning on saying hello again.

Helga sighed heavily. Why was it that she kept getting these weird inspirational quotes emailed to her everyday? She suspected the culprit was none other than her friend Phoebe, but who knows? It might be her psychiatrist trying to force her into another mental breakdown just so she can get some 'real help' at the local looney bin….again.

She promptly sent the email to internet hell.

"Deleted!" The computer beeped as explosions swirled out from the trash bin on Helga's monitor. That was one of the good things about having a smart friend. Customized computer applications.

Helga got off the computer and continued getting ready for school. She had made up her mind about talking to Arnold today.

It wasn't like she had purposely been avoiding him. It just that encounters with the football headed goody-two-shoes was minimal and he didn't seem to notice the change.

How could he not realize that she stopped picking on him as much? Or that she wasn't going out of her way to stand near him to listen in on his plots to change people's lives or right a wrong? It was odd, but the mind sees what it wants to see.

Helga finished dressing, not putting much thought into whatever outfit her mother had absentminded bought or that her older sister Olga had passed down to her. In the end, she was dressed very plainly, with a pink blouse and jeans, no make up, and the only jewelry she had on was hidden under her shirt collar. She didn't think she'd ever own up to the locket she held of Arnold, but she'd hoped she wouldn't become one of those old ladies with those sad stories about why she never married or had children.

Helga paused inside her closet. Thinking about talking to Arnold reminded her just how obsessed she was when she was young. She could still quite vividly remember how she displayed her love all over her room, in secret ways- diaries, shrines, statues made out of real human hair and used gum. If she wasn't so blindly in love with the guy, she would have realized just how embarrassingly abnormal her behavior was. And for all the romance she felt she wanted, it was a strange wonder that she decided instead to act in direct opposition to those feelings, by being tomboyish and crude rather than the usual romantic flirt. Maybe that would have changed things…

Ah whatever…doesn't change anything now. In any case, all of that stuff's been thrown out.

"Well, most of it…" she thought as she eyed the partially hidden shelf full of journals and poetry. Those were something less conspicuous at least, and were something to cherish in her later years.

Helga walked out her front door without bothering with breakfast. Her mom was often too hung over in the mornings to prepare anything this early in the mornings and she didn't have the time or the patience to cook something for herself.

She was the first to arrive at the bus stop. It was still pretty early in the morning, the sun was barely high enough to tint the clouds in the east with his orange and pink hues. She sat on a nearby bench, wondering whether she should've stayed home long enough to eat cereal, or some stupidly easy to make breakfast like toast.

While she waited at the bus stop, her stomach growled. "Gah, where's Phoebe? She probably has food…." She tapped her foot impatiently, leaning forward slightly to scan up and down the streets for the bus. Prickles of irritation were setting in and ruining her good mood, or was that the hunger talking?

"Hey, Helga. What's up?"

Helga turned to the unexpected visitor ready to con him out of his lunch money, but instead she stumbled over her words to say, "Eh, What are you talking? Nothing's up! It's none of your damn business what's up with me, Ronaldo. Don't assume that you need to know everything about me." At this she turned away from Arnold's confused face, and felt herself blush at acting so completely standoffish and defensive.

"…O-kay, whatever you say Helga." Arnold said, sitting down next to her with his books next to hers.

This is not how this was supposed to happen! Why am I acting so stupid! Just talk to him like a normal sane person would! Don't freak out, just stay calm, calm!

She was gonna try saying something sarcastic, something not totally strange sounding after her suspicious and over-the-top reaction to the blue-capped boy when her stomach beat her to the punch.

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWL!" Helga face turned slightly red as she tried suppressing the obvious noises coming from her.

She tried holding her breath, but it didn't work. The rumbling continued and she snuck a peek at Arnold to see if he noticed. He was sitting calmly next to her, head leaned back, looking up at the clouds. Maybe he was deliberately trying to act as if he didn't notice? The notion just made Helga feel worse. Not only was she hungry, but now she was being humiliated in front of a guy she kind of still liked by her own body. Talk about sabotage!

She whispered to her stomach to shut up. It growled louder.

"God, shut up you stupid stomach! I'll feed you later!"

"Erm, Helga…?"

"What!" She looked up from her attempted strangulation of her midriff to a pink and blue speckled toaster pastry offered up to her by none other than the guy sitting next to her.

"Want a pop tart?"

Helga was speechless, she didn't exactly have the skills necessary to accept a kindness from someone else with grace, especially not from a guy who she had such difficulty expressing her true feelings too.

She took one wordlessly, and bit into one mumbling 'thank you' under her breath. She might as well show some manners, there was no one else there to see her embarrassment. She looked at Arnold, feeling a bit woozy. At some point, years in the past, if such an event had happened she might have just brazenly stolen all of Arnold's pop tarts, told the kid off, and then would have swooned once he was out of sight at the prospect of sharing something of Arnold's, eating his favorite flavored pop tarts, and possibly the only food he had in his bag.

But for now, all she felt was embarrassment and she was just about to smooth over the situation, which in all actuality was probably not that big of a deal to him, when she spotted more people heading their way.

Helga was relieved to see that among the newcomers was Phoebe, and in that instant from being completely alone with a guy she had an intense crush on since Pre-school to the moment that her best friend and people she didn't give a rat's ass for arrived her demeanor changed.

"Sayonara football head, the peeps have come to meet their queen and I can't disappoint them. Oh, and thanks for the pastry." Helga hastily took her leave, happy that she could get out of a potentially awkward situation. Well, at least she got something to eat out of the situation.

Helga joined her friend Phoebe, slightly more confident yet still shaken by her not totally eventful encounter with Arnold.

"Good morning, Helga. How are you today?" The Asian girl observed her friend's dazed eyes and looked behind her at the boy she had just recently shared a bench with. "Did something happen?"

Helga snapped out of her stupor and hastily replied that nothing happened and that she was fine, just maybe a little hungry.

Phoebe listened to Helga's lie long enough to hand her friend one of her super nutritious breakfast bars and asked again, "What happened? Does it have to do with Arnold?"

Helga nearly choked on her breakfast bar. Damn these things are dry, she thought. A few seconds after that when she stopped hacking up five kinds of whole grain, she said "Wow, you sure know me well Pheebs. What gave it away? My complete lack of focus, the fact that I'm feeling totally lightheaded and stupid over something so significantly small and minute that the only other witness to this event probably didn't even realize the shame the other person was experiencing? Or was it a flying piggy that told you, because he knows all of my vast secrets because he alone has the ability to read minds?"

Phoebe laughed at her friend's sarcastic rant. She was so predictable sometimes. "Well," She said going along with her friend's joke, "that and the fact that Arnold's walking over here right now with your books in tow."

"What!" Helga turned around to see a smiling Arnold, books indeed in tow.

"Helga, I think you forgot these…" he said holding up her binder and math textbook as proof of that.

"I… meant to do that…" she said lamely. She reached a hand out to grab her books, but Arnold pulled back a little and her hand missed and landed on his arm instead.

"Let me carry your books, Helga. I kinda feel bad for not mentioning it earlier that you forgot 'em."

"Don't worry about it, Arnold. If anything, it would have just given me an excuse to come hunting you down and beating you up."

Arnold laughed. "Well, anyway, how about it? I'll hold them for you until we get to school, kay? In the meantime, sit with me on the bus?"

What the hell was happening! This was like a dream come true, but it's not, because she was over him and didn't care what happened either way…Right?

"Whatever floats your boat." She responded more calmly than she felt. She glanced over at Phoebe who smiled encouragingly. "I'll talk to you later then, Pheebs."

The bus arrived and Helga nervously made her way to an empty seat next to the window with Arnold following. The two blonds sat side by side in silence for a little while after that.

Helga remembered that she had promised herself that she would talk like a normal person to Arnold, just to prove to herself that she was really over him, but it seemed that she was doing a horrible job of convincing herself. She blamed that on the fact that it wasn't what she had expected, with him making the first move and certainly not on the terms that she would have wanted.

"So, Helga. There's the homecoming dance coming up…" There he goes again! Making the first move! Wasn't it always her putting the moves on him?

Helga's looked at him in confusion. She dared not think it….

"Yeah, what of it?'

"Well, I was just thinking…."

Get to the point, the anticipation was killing her!

He nudged her, and she didn't get what he was doing it for until he tilted his head in the direction another couple. She followed his line of vision till she got it.

"You want my help convincing Phoebe to go to the dance with Tall Hair boy?" Her heart sank, but she reminded herself that she wasn't really expecting anything out of this in the first place.

"Yeah, I mean, Gerald's been talking about it nonstop! I think he really has a crush on Phoebe…"

Oh, Arnold, why are you always such a do-gooder? Helga thought to herself as Arnold yammered on about how they should plan on convincing both parties to go to the dance and if they had anyone to go with, and blah blah blah…Helga didn't feel very good about the whole prospect, especially if it meant hanging out with a guy who was so oblivious to her suffering.

But then again, who's fault was that?

At the end of the ride to school, Helga had said enough to simply agree that she would help in whatever way she could and assured Arnold that her friend's feelings for his friend were mutual.

Once her feet touched pavement, she felt slightly sick from the close proximity of being with someone so unattainable and from letting herself fall into another one of those death traps the mind plays when you're not quite over someone. She felt miserable.

When she got her books back, standing in front of P.S. 120 waiting for her friend in the rush and push of hundreds of kids arriving to just another boring, regular day of school, she accepted them with a smile on her face, a word of gratitude, a promise to do her best, and the ever present feeling of rejection, even though such an emotion had not actually been provoked by the one unwittingly doling it out to her.

Phoebe was therefore greeted with a very different-looking scowl on Helga's face. It looked like a poor imitation of the usual one she gave, it looked more like a tough front, a façade, one that fooled many into thinking that this was just a mean spirited girl, not one who was deeply hurting inside.

"Helga, goodbye is only hard if you are not planning on saying hello again."

The blond looked at her. I knew it! She is sending me those weird emails. The quote sounded both ridiculous and understandably cheesy (she already heard it so many times before), but in a way it brought her out of her dark thoughts enough for her to respond to her friend. " That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"But it's true Helga! Sometimes, you feel as though leaving someone is the end of the world, but it isn't. Not when there's a chance that you can be with them again. I think you shouldn't give up on seeing that person again."

"Phoebe, maybe you just don't get it. I don't feel like leaving is the problem, I think it's arriving, making my presence known. Saying hello to someone as myself and being acknowledged for what I am."

She sighed, her friend putting a hand on her shoulder telling her it was time to get to class and that she shouldn't let it bother her now. Her legs moved her mechanically across the courtyard to the double doors leading into the school. As she entered the school, she shivered as she left the warmth of the morning sun and stepped into the artificially cooled indoors. She looked over her shoulder to catch one last glimpse of the sky, only to see to her dismay clouds forming over the once cheery sun.

All this drama was only leading her to remember another one of Phoebe's stupid quote:

When people get hurt by love many times their heart slowly turns into stone.

Her heart wasn't turning into stone, it's just the same as it always was. It's just, for the longest time she had just let herself believe it would be different.

Brainy threw a fist in the guy's direction, grimacing as it connected, the cartilage in the brute's nose crunching beneath the force of the blow. It's been tough living a double life, and the only good thing that he could think was that he able to stay close to someone he admired very much.

He wiped a hand across his face, wiping the sweat dripping from the exertion. He had learned from a reliable source (aka Iggy) that some kind of trouble was brewing in the criminal underworld. Of course, this involved some further investigation on his part.

He stood over the guy groaning on the floor. Now would be a good time to ask.

"Who do you work for?"

The guy cussed underneath his breath, both hands holding his nose as blood continued to drip down his arms. Brainy watched without empathy. He'd seen what guys like him do to people and he didn't feel like showing any mercy to them anytime soon.

Strange, it was guys like this who used to bully me. Now things are in reverse.

Brainy looked coolly down at the delinquent as he tried to get his bearings. Brainy asked again, who he worked for, then quickly moved out of the way as the gangster made a lunge for him. Brainy's arm shot out as the attacker stumbled past, his hand gripping the guy the by collar. Brainy charged forward, slamming the guy into the alley walls, before dropping him to the floor once again.

The thug was obviously in pain, but it didn't seem like was gonna talk anytime soon. Brainy thought over his options. He had to be careful what he said, because unless he was prepared to kill, others might try to expose his own plans to keep Helga safe. Not only that, but he'd have people on his trail, trying to exact their own revenge on him. No…it was probably best to let this guy go.

With that thought, he left, kicking the guy on his way out, making it clear to his victim that he was done with him and was leaving.

At the turn of a corner and out of view of the hunted hoodlum, Brainy jumped onto a dumpster before ascending a fire escape. Climbing all the way onto the roof, Brainy observed as the guy he had just interrogated slowly got up, looked cautiously around him to see if he was safe, before taking off down the alleyway. From Brainy's bird's eye view of the streets, it was obvious where he was headed. He'd just have to wait and all would be revealed, he was sure of it.

He waited in an abandoned building overlooking the gang's usual meeting spot. From his spot at one of it's many boarded up and dark windows, he waited until he got a good look at their faces. He didn't need to be close enough to hear what they were saying. For now, he'd take it one at a time. He had let his little fish off for now so that he could follow him back to the big fish. And what big fish, he wondered. It looked as though they were all still discussing something, and that their leader hadn't shown up yet.

The hours passed slowly and not much had happened yet.

Brainy stretched. His back still vague ached from all his childhood years of having to sleep on the streets. Back then, for some reason and for lack of a better home, he had slept in the doorways of unused buildings. Maybe it was idea that one day a door would open to him, and he'd be able to call it his own, but that never happened and he learned to find better, more safer places to rest.

Suddenly, he caught sight of his target.

As soon as the man, well, teen really, showed up the whole group's attention refocused on him. He didn't look at all like you'd expect someone who commanded such fear and respect was. He didn't look particularly strong or good looking, and that's what worried Brainy. He'd known that looks could be deceiving, and that if it was brawn or charm that won over this crowd, it was something even more deadly.

Most likely manipulation.

Brainy watched as several other members approach the newcomer, but from his vantage poin the couldn't really see too much into the expressions on their faces or the words with which they were saying them with.

He waited till most of the others left before he got closer to listen to the select few left. The more important people. He specialized in listening in on other people's conversation. He'd known how since he was little…

As Brainy approached the door closest to the group, cautiously listening in from the other side.

"But, sir, she's no longer top dog. We've been observing her but she's nothing! A shadow of her former self, she's no threat now. Why even bother with her?"

"The simple answer to that….is revenge."

Writing Helga a note was one of the hardest things that Brainy had ever done. How could he write so nonchalantly to her when he had so many things he wanted to tell her? He wanted his pen to flow freely across the blank canvas as if his emotions was a fast flowing river of love, that no amount of obstacles could dam him from reaching the truest ocean of inspiration that was his Helga. Writing brought back memories of perhaps the one true time that he had a conversation with that didn't result in him getting knocked out cold. It had occurred through the clear vacuum of cyberspace, through the electronic bridge of E-mail… that he was able to express his true feelings to her….and that eventually led up to "the event" that forced him back out of her life once again.

A/N: Oooh, wonder who this guy is and why he's out to get Helga? All I know is that Helga's pretty damn lucky to have a guy so committed to watching out for her. More to come about this guy's plot (without giving anything away, I'll just tell you that I had no clue what to name 'the guy' but by the next chapter he should have a name)

I hope you guys don't mind this, but the whole of the next chapter is DIRECT excerpts from the novel, Arnold's E-Files (I bought the book). Some parts of it are altered, but for the most part, it's a copied almost word for word from the book. I don't intend on claiming any of this as my own work, but more as a supplement to my own story and good background material for developing Brainy's character in the story. If you noticed, I did hint at it in this chapter and the previous one, and it does play a minor role further in the story.