Author's Note: Thank you so much for your reviews (and for reading this story at all). Hope your Monday doesn't suck too much. All the love to you.

19: Our Day Will Come

How did you become capable of loving someone so much you would die for them, even after so much time?

It was the only thought in Stella's mind as she sat in the plastic chair in the darkened room. She kept the curtain drawn, even though the hospital wing was devoid of other guests by now.

The appropriate anti-clotting medication would be prescribed first thing in the morning, she had been told. He was alive. She had been right there; had done the right things. But Miles tossed and turned, getting lost in time and space while the oxygen tubes pumped diligently.

"I'm worried about Arnold," he mumbled softly. His eyes were closed.

"Why, honey?"

"His evening bottle. He might not drink it. My parents never remember to warm it up for him."

She inched closer to the bed, tracing the dark purple bags under his eyes.

"Don't think we should leave him, Stella. Don't know if it's worth it."

Stella smoothed the sweat-drenched hair on his forehead. "I don't know, either," she said helplessly.

"And the forsythia. It'll bloom without us."

Careful not to shift the positioning of the translucent tubes, she crawled into the hospital bed beside him, still wearing the overalls she'd had on when she was gardening with Gertie, hours earlier. It felt like years ago now.

"I never told you, Stella. But Arnold. We tucked him in, but he fell out of his crib. Won't stop crying. He's afraid we might to forget to come back to him."

"But we won't forget, Miles."

"We won't."

"You can tell him we're already on our way."

"On our way."

"Yes, sweetheart. We are. It's just going to take longer than we thought."

"Okay," he mumbled. She wrapped her arms around him while the medical receptionist outside shut down visiting hours, overlooking the fact that she was still there.

How did you become capable of loving someone so much you would die for them, even after so much time?

It was the only thought in Helga's mind as she climbed up the fire escape in the freezing rain. It was pitch black - almost one A.M. by the time she actually gathered the guts to leave her bedroom, despite having run out of the movie theater with Curly after getting Phoebe's call. She'd fretted for so many hours now that she had drained herself of the ability to think. No longer did she possess the power to conjure up nightmares or worst-case scenarios. All she could do was climb, her heart thudding dully in her chest, its natural feverish rhythm somehow slowed in the dark and the rushing downpour.

She'd known, all the while she had journeyed to the boarding house, that Arnold would still be awake. So she wasn't surprised, when she inched across the skylight and looked down to see him sitting up on his bed, his knees to his chest.

"My love," Helga muttered. And for a moment, she just sat there, oblivious to the deluge of rain as she watched him. Then, swallowing the rust in her throat, she reached out with one clammy hand and rapped on the window underneath her.

Arnold looked up; it was impossible to make out the expression on his face through the rain-splattered glass. She watched as he moved across the length of his bed and inched his way towards the wall, climbing up to unlatch the window.

If he was surprised to see her, his tired face didn't show it. He reached out his hand and, when she shoved it away, began to crawl back down the wall while she trailed after him.

As his eyes wandered the length of her body, Helga suddenly became aware that she was thoroughly soaked. Her shirt was clinging to her chest, jeans so wet she could barely move her legs without wincing. When she shivered, every inch of skin and fabric dripped water onto the rug.

"Quit staring already and get me something dry to wear," she heard herself snap.

Arnold nodded slightly as he rummaged through his drawers, extracting a T-shirt and pair of boxers. Tossing them to her, he covered his eyes with his hands and turned to face the calendar next to his desk.

"Done," she said breathlessly a moment later. The soaked clothes lay in a heap, bleeding out puddles beside the couch. From under the bed, a tiny orange cat she'd never seen before came bounding out, mewing softly and rubbing against her legs.

"Oh, for crying out loud. Like there weren't enough animals already festering in this house?"

"His name's Cadence," Arnold told her, still looking away from her. "He must like you."

"Hm."

"He usually goes into hiding when people come over."

"Yeah, well," Helga muttered, bending over discretely to massage Cadence's head. The little cat sniffed thoughtfully at her before curling up in a ball next to her sopping jeans.

"Helga," Arnold said slowly, voice muffled.

"What?"

"I..."

He turned around to face her. His eyes - his perfect green eyes, the subject of so many hundreds of her poems since preschool - were bloodshot, lined with dark swollen bags.

She wrung her hands anxiously. "Look, Arnoldo, don't you go getting any ideas about me coming here or anything, seeing as how you already made it clear you didn't ever wanna talk to me again, and let me assure you, seriously, I couldn't care less about that, seriously, hardly, I mean, it's not like I miss you, but I just, well, you know, this is a shitty thing, a real, real shitty thing, and well, I know you must be sad, and afraid, and stuff like that. And I... well... see... I..."

Arnold opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"I just needed to make sure everything was… well... you know," she finished.

"I can't lose him," he said, and his voice cracked on the last syllable. "Not again."

She could see his lower lip trembling, trace the movements of his blinking eyelashes as he struggled against the tears filling underneath them. The whimper that he let out was barely audible, even in the silent room. As if in a dream, or a nightmare, she felt herself moving closer to him. His arms found their way around her waist, hers at the pads of his shoulders. Without warning, Arnold leaned forward and buried his face in her neck. She could feel the skin there growing damper and stickier as the leftover rainwater mixed with his tears.

"It hurts so much, Helga."

She trembled, reaching out with one hand to pat him awkwardly on the head.

"It's not fair," he choked out.

"You got that right. It's like the most not fair thing on the planet."

"Y-yeah."

"You're gonna be okay, though. You know that, right? You're gonna get through this, I swear."

"M-maybe."

"I know, I know, it doesn't feel like that, but the thing is, the panic is messing with your head right now."

"Lerm - mm - I - "

"What?"

"Mmprh."

"You're gonna have to do a better job of talking than that, Arnold."

He just hung limply in her arms.

"Come on, you're not even trying!" she snapped. She felt his back quivering under her hands as he drew in a long gulp of air.

"Okay, well, you're breathing, so that's good," she said. "That's a start."

"I - can't…"

"Yes you can. Come on, try again."

He took another deep intake of air, this time following with an audible exhale.

"Again!" she commanded.

"What am I g-gonna do, Helga?"

"You're gonna keep breathing, that's what."

"What am I gonna do if he d-dies?"

He was crying audibly now, shaking so hard that his body was starting to slide out of her grasp. She hugged him more tightly, kneading her knuckles into his flesh in an attempt to steady him.

"You've gotta stop talking like that. Do that thing you're so good at. Be optimistic, remember that?"

"How can I be optimistic if he dies?"

"Arnold," she muttered softly, barely aware of the words coming out of her own mouth. "Where's that complete lack of grounding in reality? That blind faith you used to have in everything?"

"I'm older now."

"So what?" she said, almost frantically. She wished there were some asshole involved in this mess, somebody she could sucker punch until their rotting corpse lay in front of her in shambles. But there wasn't. And no matter how tightly she held the boy in her arms, she couldn't do anything to make it better.

"I c-can't always be that way anymore. Just like you're not completely how you used to be, either."

Well, I still love you, she wanted to scream. More than anything on this earth.

Miles mumbled incoherently into the pitch black. She shifted under his arm, her back aching on top of the uncomfortable metal bedsprings. The room hummed with the quiet chatter of the machines it was filled with.

"Don't leave me," Stella said. She spoke into the thin fabric of his gown. "Please. I'm not going to make it without you."

There was no response from the man beside her.

"Please, Miles. You're not even trying. I need you to keep breathing."

Miles rolled over to face her, the tubes tugging at his nose. His eyelashes fluttered for a moment. He lifted his hand, held it out for her to squeeze.

"I love you," he said softly. His chest moved up and down in time with hers. And at three A.M., they were both finally asleep.

"I knew," he heaved. "I knew h-he was struggling. I knew something was wrong, and I d-didn't do anything at all to try to fix it."

"Arnold, he had a heart attack. That's not something you could've prevented."

"He was in so much p-pain. He was s-so stressed out. He needed me to b-be there for him, I just know it, and I wasn't. Why wasn't I?"

"Because you're not a mind reader, that's why, and you're not a God damn therapist. You're just doing your best."

"Well, it d-doesn't seem like my best is good enough anymore."

"It is, okay? It's always been enough. You just set expectations for yourself that are so high you can't reach them."

"And now you're h-having to come out here, s-soaking wet in the middle of the night."

"Well, that's okay. It's just fine, Football Head, because I got no place else to be."

"H-how about sleeping?"

"Nah," she told him softly. "Not important."

"Helga, I'm really, really sorry."

"No need to be sorry. I mean, there're worse things you could do than get your snot and tears all over me."

"No, I mean that I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry I accused you of all that stuff you didn't do. I should've believed you."

She squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment. "Oh. I mean - how'd you find out?"

"Big Gino," Arnold explained. "It h-happened today. Well, yesterday now. He was in love with Lila, I guess."

"Yeah, I already know."

"Oh," he sniffled. "Well, I should have -" he began, but she cut him off.

"Don't. Just don't. You don't have to apologize, and you shouldn't. I would've thought it was me too. I'm the one who should be sorry, alright? Not just for the geckos. For everything."

"What's everything?"

"Maybe one day, I'll stop torturing the people I care most in this world about." She paused. "I'm trying, Arnold. I know it doesn't always seem like it. But I am. And I can try harder, I know I can."

"I know you can, too," he said softly. He wiped his face with his sleeve. "And so can I. Look, it's really late. I think we both need to get to sleep. Why don't I walk you home?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Helga told him. "I got here myself, didn't I? I'll get home fine."

But she suddenly felt utterly exhausted, like her legs were close to collapsing under the weight of her body. She sat down on his couch, only intending on sitting down for a moment.

She would wake up a half hour later to feel Arnold gently lifting her head enough to slip a pillow underneath it. He pulled the sheets and the blanket from his own bed and wrapped them around her. Then he laid down on his bare mattress, and he turned out the lights. And at three A.M., they were both finally asleep.