A/N: IT. IS. DONE.

DO YOU HEAR ME, WORLD? I FINISHED THIS.

IT SUCKS RAW DONKEY LIVER AND IT NEARLY FREAKING KILLED ME, BUT I DID IT.

I HAVE SUCCEEDED. AT A THING. THAT IS THIS THING. AND OMG.

Literally, I spazzed out so hard on Tumblr when I realized I was finished (I think I made at least one person feel awkward, so mission accomplished there also). xD It is 30,000 words, yes, almost precisely, thanks for asking... I'm very sorry for that. xD It was a beast to write, but I feel... I feel... I don't know how to feel. I felt pretty dang giddy yesterday, but now I think I'm just so overwrought with emotion that I'm kind of numb. xD I really love writing for this. It's like a passion. xD

Oh, Lord thou art in Heaven, my God, I just, I can't, gahhhh... LET ME HUG ALL OF YOU.

~Flawless Human Beings~

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Panfla

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Anonymous Guests, too!

I love all of you so much, I just... *Blows nose in Mom's shirt* Any and all support has been greatly, ridiculously appreciated. You have no idea, every review I got spurred me on for at least another thousand words. Oh, and I'm sorry, but I just have to comment—HufflePufflin... That's like the best username ever. xD Thank you for existing. All of you!

Okay, okay, I'll shut up now. xD ...I always tell myself I'll be all brief and aloof in my A/Ns and yet somehow that never happens... Oh well. :'D

Disclaimer: Okay, "HEY ARNOLD!" belongs to Craig Bartlett (FOREVER), can't find who the hell wrote the first poem anymore but it's not mine (obviously, although it was slightly altered to fit my purposes), the second poem is titled "The Fighter" and is by S.E. Kiser (again, not me). I... think that's it. xD OH, and I own the Shortman kids, Jaron, Reuben, Riley, Kassidy, Sophie, and all of them. Steal and prepare to be obliterated. I do not however own Taro Joawesome (he belongs to metalheadrailfan, thank you for letting me use him), and the lovely Kori Johotson belongs to xxP00h67chu on dA. Pamella Idleberry will forever be the creation of Panfla and I. That is all. *Passes out*

Special Thanks to: Everyone who's shived a git for my silly story. XD But mainly, of course, to Peter Panfla, who I have dedicated this to. x) As well to all who have supported me in this and reassured me when I was being a little bleep. xD You know who you are, and I love you. :) Thank you!

Looking Up

Part 6

Zack stared at her for a long time, his eyes wide and calculating, before finally, the smallest of smirks spread across his face, something akin to respect entering his eyes. Pam went a little rigid. He didn't say anything for a while, but soon enough, his voice came almost velvety in the empty halls of the high school, "It would appear we've gotten off on the wrong foot." Seeing her blink at him, he crossed his arms over his chest and just smiled. "I'll humor you. Why is this poem so important to you?"

For a moment, all Pam could do was blink in surprise. She'd expected him to put up more of a fight or to at least be begrudging or angry or something. She wasn't sure if this was a good sign or a really, really bad one. Knowing her track record, though, it was probably bad. "Uh…" She raised an eyebrow at him, her face guarded. "Has that creature on your forehead finally burrowed in and eaten your brain, Brow?"

Zack smiled at that, used to hearing comments like this from his brother. It was almost amusing hearing it from her. Almost. "You have two minutes before I lose interest and lock you in the supply closet for the day while I think up someway to dispose of you in a way that's at least… somewhat humane." His smile turned a bit lethal.

Her mouth twitched, finding it hard not to lash out at a threat like that. Even if it was empty, the desire to smack him was great. She took a deep breath instead, grabbing her ponytail for support, as if to ground herself to her sanity. "Fine, I'll get to the point…" Her eyes twitched a little with the need to roll, but she managed to keep them still. "You see, there's an annual poetry competition that's held every year at the Cheese Festival and—"

"Oh, criminy, that thing," Zack interrupted with an eye roll, his interest immediately shot, "you've already lost me."

"No, hear me out!" she commanded, her countenance demanding his attention. "This year the prize isn't just a year supply of cheese." They both rolled their eyes. She looked at him a bit more seriously then, her green eyes wide and open. "They're also offering a scholarship. A big one."

Zack stared at her blankly for a second, before he smirked. "Thinking about college already? A tad ambitious don't you think, Turtle?"

Pam gave him a severe look. "It's not for me. It's for my stupid brother. He caught me reading your poem and demanded I ask you to enter for him. Half the reason we moved to No Man's land is because it's close to a college he wants to go to, but it's really expensive."

"And you wanted me to enter so your brother can get a free ticket to Nerdville." Zack chuckled with wide eyes, looking down at her coolly with an amused smirk. "Ah, I see. It all comes full circle."

Pam held back a glower at his relaxed demeanor, irritated by how he seemed to be taking everything she said with a grain of salt. This was sort of a big deal, not just for her brother but also for herself. Which was exactly why she swallowed down her frustration and clasped her hands in front of herself, her eyes beseeching as she compromised herself. "So you'll do it then?"

Rather than answering her question, he clicked his tongue a little with smug eyes and mused, "You know, I never would have taken you for the dutiful little sister type."

"Oh, God." She scoffed, her eyes immediately losing their desperation as she rolled them up. "I'm not. Nobody tells me what to do, especially not my brother. He's paying me to do this."

"Well, nobody tells me what to do either, Ginger." She shot a fierce glare at him for that and he returned it with vigor, a struggle for power being communicated silently in the air between them, like bullet after bullet deflecting each other in perfect unison. Sparks shot out of the air and Zack was careful to speak slowly, his gaze never wavering, "Explain this to me… Why would I enter myself in a competition everyone in town is going to know about on the threat that you tell everyone? Either way I lose, so I don't see why I shouldn't just—"

"I said," Pam ground out, impatient, "that it could be anonymous. You could write it and my brother would sign his name at the top. Nobody would ever know it was you. Weren't you listening at all?"

Zack blinked, his glare unwavering, though his voice came plainly, "Not really, no."

Pam groaned and threw her head into her hands.

While she was busy wondering where she went wrong in life, Zack was considering her words, his face thoughtful. The truth of the matter was, it would be kind of nice to see one of his works win something for once, and without the threat of getting his head chopped off. Nobody had to know about it, and really, this little red headache had blackmail on him. Nobody had blackmail on him. Ever. He was the one who had blackmail on everybody else. He knew everybody's dirty little secrets, not the other way around. It was strange but he almost had to respect her for that. Even if it was clearly a fluke.

For years he'd been trying to stomp down on his artistic ability, to obliterate it all together so he'd be truly safe from threats. But every time he wrote it was like he was possessed, like something stronger than him refused to allow him failure. It was a part of him, just as much as his arm or his leg or his eyebrow was. Even in his most mindless states, he'd find himself muttering verses, and it would pester him incessantly until he couldn't take it anymore and had to write it down on paper. He didn't even have to think about it. The hard fact of the matter was, he was simply incapable of writing a bad poem. Even his worst work got praise, and it had been driving him crazy ever since he was nine.

That damnable part of himself was starting to take over now. The idea of being able to see firsthand what people thought, real people and not just a bunch of starstruck, effortlessly impressed teachers, was… intriguing, to say the least. It would be an interesting experiment. Maybe he could win in this sick game after all, at least on some small level. He didn't like this girl but he had nothing against her brother—whoever he was he sounded like his kind of guy—and he had to admire her energy. She had a goal and she went after it. So really, in the end, what would be the harm in making everyone happy?

Nothing. Exactly.

"Give me a pen," he snapped his fingers at her hurriedly, "quick."

Pam shot her head up to glare at him. "Don't tell me to—"

He matched her look firmly. "Do you want your poem or not?"

Pam's eyes widened and for a moment she was frozen, before she grabbed her backpack and pulled out a pen, just in time to meet up with him ripping out a piece of paper awkwardly from a notebook half poking out of his backpack. She offered him the pen wordlessly and he snatched it out of her hand, instantly falling to the floor.

Pam was taken aback enough that she had to take a couple steps backwards, and she balked down at him scribbling in a rush with the paper held tight with one hand to the floor, his other one in a frenzy of words and inspiration.

"What the hell are you—" she began, but he interrupted her with a quick, rushed, "Shhhh," not taking his eyes off the paper.

For a full three minutes then he didn't say a word, and she was too shocked to say anything else as she watched in rapt confusion, before finally, he stopped. He didn't even look at what he'd just written. He stood up from the floor, paper in hand, and folded it neatly up into a little paper football before flicking it over to her. It hit her in the face and she scrambled to catch it out of the air, before she shot a glare at him.

He just shrugged, twirling the pen around his fingers. "Just have your brother copy it down in his handwriting and you've got yourself a bona fide acceptance letter from Dork Central." He raised his eyebrow high on his forehead and grinned. "Mind if I keep the pen?"

Pam blinked at him, her eyes widening. "Wait…" she eyed the paper football incredulously, "that's it?"

Zack stopped twirling the pen a moment to raise half of his brow at her. "What? Were you expecting fireworks?"

"No, but I was expecting it to take, I don't know…" her mouth twitched, her face unreadable, "time."

Zack looked at her solemnly, a joke twinkling in his eyes as he tucked the pen away in his pocket. "Ohhh, I don't have a lot of that. Very busy schedule, I have to make unpleasantries like this fast." He tucked his notebook back into his backpack and zipped it up, before throwing it over his shoulder. He held his hand up to her when she opened her mouth, "No need to thank me, citizen, it's all in a day's work."

"Oh, get over yourself, I wasn't going to say thanks." She rolled her eyes, the hand still holding onto the paper football suddenly turning into a fist. "This," she waved the fist containing the poem at him, "wasn't a part of the deal. You need to spend time on something that will actually win, not just throw some five-minute piece of crud in my face and call it done."

Zack was unperturbed. "I never spend more than a few minutes on poems."

"That's ridiculous," Pam insisted, flipping the football in her hand up to hold between her forefingers. "You can't tell me that this is contest material. You wrote it on the floor." Amidst her complaints she began unwrapping the paper in her hands. "You know, you think I don't know you but I've been spending a lot of time around you in the past couple days and I'm starting to get really sick of your antics. You're completely self-obsessed, it's like you're not even of this world. One of these days you're going to have to face reality and get your bulbous head out of the sky."

"You'd be surprised at the view, though," Zack played along, deflecting her insults with a cool grin as he made a point of looking down at her, hands resting on his sides. "Maybe you're just so used to staring at the ground to make sure you don't lose sight of it that you've forgotten to ever look up."

Pam looked up into his smug, beaming face and instantly went sarcastic, "Whatever keeps you sane, Brow, but the fact of the matter remains—don't play jokes with me, I'm not willing to play your mind games. I just want you to pay attention and—" She was so busy talking that she didn't realize she had the paper football completely open now, and Zack rolled his eyes with a smirk before grabbing her by a tendril of dark red hair and pulling her head down to look at the paper. Her breath caught.

In the strength and the glory of power,
In the pride and the pleasure of wealth
(For who dares dispute me so dour
Of my talents and youth-time and health?),
I can laugh at the world and its sages
I am greater than my peers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow,
And is lost in the light of its rays.
Are you troubled and sad? I beseech you
Come out of the shadows of strife
Come out in the sun while I teach you
The secret of life.

Come out of the world – come above it
Up over its crosses and graves,
Though the green earth is fair and I love it,
We must love it as masters, not slaves.
Come up where the dust never rises
But only the perfume of flowers
And your life shall be glad with surprises
Of beautiful hours.
Come up where the rare golden wine is
Apollo distills in my sight,
And your life shall be happy as mine is,
And as full of delight.

Pam gawked.

Zack continued to smirk.

And she had to read it over again to make sure she hadn't misread. And, irritatingly, she enjoyed every second of it. It was… even better than the first poem she'd read from him. And he'd written it on the floor. In a few minutes time. And it didn't make sense. And holy shit.

After a few she-didn't-know-what's longer, she finally mustered up the stamina to look up at him, but the only thing she could think to say was, "You know about Apollo?"

Zack blinked, this no doubt not being quite what he'd expected her reaction to be, before he shrugged and said a bit sarcastically, "No, who is this Apollo you speak of?"

Pam sighed and resisted an eye roll. Of course he'd say that. "Seriously. He's the son of Zues and Leto, god of light, sun, music, poetry, healing—he's one of my favorites. Along with Adonis of course." She couldn't help grinning, reading that part of the poem over.

Zack's eyes widened and he gave her a strange look, before he suddenly burst out in laughter. "Holy crap, you're a Greek geek?"

Pam shot her eyes up to give him a look, though for once it was more playful than annoyed. "No, what is this Greek you speak of?"

Zack snorted his near-thunderous snort, his lips twisted easily. "Touche."

Pam read the poem over one last time, before she began folding it back up and gave him a softer look, something different in her face. "Okay…maybe we did get off on the wrong foot after all, Zack."

Zack put a hand to his chest dramatically, his mouth and eyes wide. "Agh, you called me Zack. Someone call 911, I think I'm going into shock."

Pam punched him in the shoulder, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, you may be an ass, but this poem…" she looked down at it, "makes me think that maybe you're not… so bad. No one who could write something like this could be." She shrugged, smiling at him in what he thought might be kindness.

Zack grimaced and took a small step back from her. "Look, just make sure you brother copies it down in his handwriting. And don't ever tell anyone we had this conversation, or else I'll tell everyone your secret, Idleberry."

The mood instantly changed and Pam's face hardened, leaning over into his space to glare. His cautious look instantly turned dangerous as he leaned in as well, his eyes sharpening at her response, "Well don't tell anyone my last name and I won't tell anyone your fluffy, little secret, Shortman."

They both looked at each other squarely, an understanding passing between them. Both their eyes were sharp and wide, and it took only a few moments more of this connection between them for them both to feel very uncomfortable.

Zack swallowed, slowly pulling away from the thickness in the air between them. Pam regarded him carefully. "Out of curiosity…" he said, raising half of his eyebrow, "who is your brother?" He folded his hands behind his back in an attempt to hide the slight twitching of his left arm.

Pam blinked at him, still cautious, before she shrugged and relented, "His name's Mike. Blue streaked hair, hazel eyes, girly ear piercing—really kooky looking. With us being neighbors now, I'm sure you'll be meeting him sooner or later."

Zack released a breath, but quickly covered up the show of relief with a smirk. "Yeah, I figured. Be sure to tell him I take cash exclusively. No checks or credit cards." He waved his arm in the air flippantly, as if that were the end of the conversation.

Pam's eyes narrowed. "After all this, you have the nerve to try to charge me?"

Zack tilted his head at her, still smirking. "Oh no, not you. This Mike person. When he wins, I want some compensation. I just laid my soul on the line for the guy and I don't even know him." He leaned over and batted his eyes at her, making an exaggerated pout. "The least he could do is buy me dinner."

Pam scoffed and pushed him away. He tone was a bit distasteful, "You're seriously that confident your poem's going to win? The entire city is entering."

Zack flicked his eyes up a second and replied, tonelessly, "This is Hillwood. Nobody writes poetry around here, and anyone who admits they do is a social pariah who bangs bongos and asks for money they never get. I have no reason to believe I won't come out on top. I always have in the past." He observed his nails in a show of distracted confidence.

Pam grabbed the hand he was pretending to look at and crushed it in her hands, surprisingly strong. She glared up at him indignantly. "I have blackmail on you remember? That was the deal. You do this, I don't tell—"

"I believe," he went on to correct, smiling sarcastically as he snatched his hand out of hers, "the deal was that if you don't tell, I don't broadcast your real name on the radio for the entire city to hear. Face it, Red—we're on even ground. Again. Just because you say you're willing to take a risk, doesn't mean it couldn't still cost you dearly, and is it really worth the chance over a little pay? I know you don't want to have everyone look at you like the teacher's pet freak you really are." He smirked, satisfied with his assessment by the drooping look on her face. He went on, "There's no reason I can't ask to be paid for my services. You weren't expecting me to ever have blackmail on me in the first place anyway. I thought you'd be prepared with some kind of payment."

"Actually I was just counting on you being a good guy," Pam said emotionlessly, her expression dryer than the Sahara.

Zack smirked at that. "Sucks to be you then."

Pam sighed. "You have no idea." She looked at him miserably. "How much?"

Zack blinked at her, surprised to have won in an argument that easily with her.

He was used to winning, accustomed to it really, but he'd grown to expect having to struggle over every little detail with her with no real satisfying end. He guessed they really were on even ground now, once and for all. His shoulders slouched slightly at the realization, arms slack at his sides. That ended quickly. The challenge had been terrifying, but he couldn't help but feel like there had never been any true threat. She seemed reasonable. Not a ruthless monster like… like he was. It had almost been refreshing having someone around to challenge him. Irritating as hell, but surprisingly refreshing.

Looking curiously down at the redheaded girl before him, he acknowledged it to himself. This wasn't his bully. This was Pamella Idleberry: obstinate, irritating, bad-tempered, stubborn, violence-prone, despicable—he shook himself to get his thoughts back on point—but not actually out to ruin his life. Just to get what she needed for her brother and get out. She had never had any intention of harming him, didn't even know she had any real power to do so. He'd just gone crazy over having a redhead running after him wanting to uncover his darkest secret, and she'd been offended by his disgust and lashed out. Taken the whole "You're a ginger and therefore inferior to me" thing personally, ridiculous as that sounded. She had just been defensive, that was all. Like him.

Maybe Jaron had been right all along. He pursed his lips for a second before quickly replacing it with a look of showy innocence, and he took a swooping step forward to bring an arm around her shoulders and start walking her down the hall. "I'll tell you what, Pam Cake—if I may call you that—this one time, I'll let it slide. But I'd like to ask for a small favor in return. Microscopic, really."

Pam looked at him warily. "What?"

Zack grinned at her. "Your friendship."

Pam stopped walking immediately. He tried to move forward but she wouldn't budge, so he stopped as well. After a few moments, she finally said, "What?"

"I want to be friends," he repeated smoothly, grinning as charmingly as he could muster.

Pam looked at him blankly. "What?"

He huffed out a harsh breath, amused. "Is that an echo I hear?" He knocked on her head and said loudly in her ear, "Houston! Houston, do you read? We didn't account for gingers in space!"

Pam made a noise of disgust and ducked out of his arm. She grabbed her kitten backpack off of the floor where she'd dropped it after he'd started trying to drag her off in a headlock and proceeded to throw the shoulder strap over her head. She spoke simply, "Why would you want to be friends with me?"

Zack shrugged, sauntering over to where she was standing, her back to him. "You're evil."

She turned her head to give him a sarcastic look. "Gee, thanks."

"Really," Zack said meaningfully, placing a hand over his heart as if he'd just given her the most sought after of compliments. "You're like the purest form of destruction I've ever come in contact with." Second purest. "No one's ever been able to best me before. You've managed to tie with me a few times now in a period of… not even two days. I could use you."

Pam snapped around sharply, startling him, and marched up to point a furious finger in his face. She looked livid. "Nobody's going to use me for anything! I do my own thing!"

Zack took a step back, putting his hands up in surrender. He smiled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like anything bad. I just meant… maybe we could be…" he took his time coming up with the right way to put it, still cautious of the tense look on her face, "partners."

Pam blinked at him, still looking distrustful of him. "Partners?"

Zack smiled carefully. "Yeah. Or, a sort of alliance? A truce? Playing for the same team? Like I said, you're evil. And this was too close a call for me. I can't afford for you to be my enemy." He licked his lips. "Or at least not legitimately."

Pam raised an eyebrow, drawing back slowly. "I don't understand…"

Zack smiled, a tad too smally to be his regular one, and said, "I didn't expect you to." Composing himself swiftly, he began walking down the hall again, needing to make at least some progress towards his locker. He was thankful to hear her footsteps trailing after him. He explained, "This may come as a shock to you, but I hate fighting. I didn't exactly find yesterday pleasant. And I'll admit I may have judged you too quickly."

"May have…" he heard her mutter.

He stopped then and swiveled on his foot, startling her as she very nearly slammed into him. He grinned. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to start over." He offered his hand to her, smirking his best and friendliest. She stared down at it oddly. "Hey there, my name's Zack. I know I may come off like a jackass sometimes, but if you give me a chance, I promise I'm not such a bad guy." Her green eyes flicked up to meet his in surprise, and he smiled. "And your name is…?"

Pam stared at him for a long time, her eyes calculating.

Zack cleared his throat, trying once more, in a deeper tone, "And your name is…?"

After a couple more tentative seconds, Pam reached out to grasp his hand and shook it, smiling up at him conspiratorially. "Pamella Idleberry, it's… nice to make your acquaintance. I see you've noticed I have red hair, but don't worry. I promise if you get to know me I'm not soulless."

Zack pouted. "I wish I could promise I'm not dumb."

Pam gave a short laugh, before she recovered with a quick, "Dumb blond."

He smirked, squeezing her hand. "Soulless ginger." Letting go of her hand, he jokingly wiped it off on his shirt and said, almost to himself, "I'll have to get used to it."

Pam shrugged, her face blank. "This is your idea. Whether you do or you don't doesn't matter to me." She remembered the poem in her hand that moment, and she stuffed it in the pocket of her hoodie, causing a lollypop to be forced out the other end. She grabbed it quick before it could fall and held it to her chest dearly, pursing her lips. "I got what I wanted. I don't need anything else from you."

Zack eyed her. "But we are friends now, right? No more chasing after me, trying to make my life a living hell?"

Pam shot her eyes up to his, a vague sort of temperament in her eyes. "As long as you don't act like Count Doucheula to me and run away like a frightened jackrabbit every time I try to talk to you."

Zack took a step forward into her space and held his arms out, grinning. "Hey, I'm not scared of anything. See?"

Pam gave him a partially amused look, clearly not believing him. Someone walked past them then and they both started, Pam taking a quick step away from him and Zack looking around in surprise. Students had started flooding in, wandering through the halls with an unenthusiastic, specter-like purpose. Zack wondered how they could have not noticed the bell ringing.

"Hey, Zack," a random brunette said to him as he passed, a friendly smile lighting up his robust face. Zack shot a grin at him in response, a sharp, lengthy, "Hey!" bursting from his lips almost involuntarily. A moment later after he'd gone, Zack wondered who the hell he was.

"I…" Pam started, bringing his attention back to her as she shifted her backpack uncomfortably, "I should probably—"

"Oh—Oh no!" A girl suddenly came flying out of nowhere, twirling on her feet like a Raggedy Anne being spun like a top. She slammed into Zack with impressive force and he stumbled backward, nearly falling over himself before managing to right them. Pam was astounded by the incident but Zack appeared nonplussed, calm even as he stared down at the girl who was suddenly grinning sheepishly up at him, her legs bent and mangled beneath her. The girl's hair was insane; bushy carrot orange curls framing her narrow face with some pulled back into a ponytail by a green scrunchie that didn't seem at all like it should be strong enough to hold back such defiant hair, and eyes that shone with nervousness and unwavering fright, even as her smile was sweet.

Zack just blinked at her before righting her on her feet, and it became clear to Pam that this girl, on top of having mad hatter hair and the most worried face she had ever beheld, was also a giant. She was just nearly as tall as Zack, with gangly yet somehow willowy arms and legs; it was no wonder she had been so clumsy, Pam wouldn't know what to do with herself with limbs that noodle-like. Yet even as the girl was a tower beside her, Pam guessed she couldn't have been older than fourteen, fifteen at most, judging by her pudgy, unblemished face, which was currently flushed bright pink as she rushed to explain, stumbling and stuttering over her words, "I'm so, so sorry, Zack, it was an accident—"

Pam was shocked when Zack smirked at her, as if her obnoxiously red hair wasn't screaming for his attention. His voice was almost warm, understanding, "Hey, are you okay?"

The girl flushed even brighter, and Pam looked at her in disbelief as her eyes zeroed in on the floor, hands restless behind her back. "Yes. Thanks to you. Thank you for catching me."

Zack shrugged it off, as if it weren't abundantly clear this girl was smitten with him. "By this point, I consider it my job. I'm not even sure I want to know what you tripped over this time."

If her face got any pinker, it would explode. "Someone dropped an eraser."

Zack looked unsurprised. "Ah."

Her fingers twitched erratically over each other. "No, but—not like that, I didn't just trip over it, that'd be—No, it was a really cute, sparkly one and I bent down to pick it up because I thought I should put it in lost and found, because who would want to lose such a—"

"Hey, Kassidy," Zack interrupted her quite suddenly, his eyes and voice suddenly bright as he sidled over to throw his arm around Pam and crush her into his side. She didn't bother hiding her disgust as she pushed against him. He just held onto her tighter, his pale hand digging into the sleeve of her arm. "Have you met Pam?"

The girl, Kassidy apparently, looked between the two uncertainly. Her worried eyes rather reminded Pam of a frightened doe, along with the way her hands were held in front of herself gawkily, as if even she wasn't sure what to do with such impractical arms. She said rather quietly, "No."

Zack patted her shoulder firmly, further irritating her as he said, quite spiritedly, "That's because she's new here, but I already know you two will get along great, like long-lost friends. Pam," he gestured to her, then to the crazy haired one, "this is Kassidy. Kassidy, this is Pam."

Pam gave him a dry look, and elbowed him in the gut. He reeled away from her in pain and she dusted off her arm, rolling her eyes. Turning her attention to the girl then, Pam smiled, giving her a mildly amused look. "Nice to meet you."

"Same," she replied meekly, smiling tentatively.

There was an awkward pause then, and Pam was desperately trying to think of something to say, when Kassidy surprised her with a quick, "I'm sorry I interrupted you two, I'll just go back for the eraser." She then turned around and cautiously made her way back down the hall at a brisk pace. Pam gaped after her.

She realized after a few seconds that Zack was still there and looked over to see him looking at her very strangely; eyebrow slightly furrowed, eyes wide, mouth slightly downturned. She narrowed her eyes. "What the hell was that about?"

Zack opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off with, "You hate me for having red hair but have no problem practically groping a female version of Carrot Top?"

Aghast, Zack choked on air. "What?"

Pam couldn't help smirking as something occurred to her, and she laughed, "Who's the pedophile now, huh?"

"She fell into me," Zack informed her, his eyes slightly scrunched. "I've known her my entire life, my parents are friends with hers. We're practically related."

"Well, she certainly doesn't think so," she teased, tongue in cheek.

His eyes narrowed, and he reached over to put one hand on the lockers by her head, causing her to back away as he came closer towards her. He stopped, though, leaving her wide-eyed and wary plastered against the lockers. He leaned in ever so slightly then, and told her very seriously, in a rather douche-like fashion, "First of all, I have a girlfriend. Second of all, the day I fall for a ginger, friend or otherwise, is the day Tim Burton produces a Care Bears movie."

"Hey," Pam pushed against him, her hand on his chest and teeth slightly clenched behind her frown at the disgusted look in his eye, "What's with the sass? I thought we had an agreement to—"

"You hit me," he cut her off, trying to hold something back behind his stoney face. "You can't hit me."

Pam stared at him, before a heartbeat later she had to laugh, quick and incredulous before it tapered off into a scoff. She looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You've got to be joking. What's the problem? Do you have some kind of condition or are you just a wimp?"

"Not a wimp," he calmly told her, as if the word being thrown at him didn't affect him at all, though his eyes bespoke anything but, "I just don't like violence. It's not very friendly." His eyebrow rose high, eyes hinting.

Pam stared at him rather blankly a moment. Then, with a smile, she said, "Sorry, Poe."

Zack winced, stepping back from her like she'd slapped him. "Do you have to make comments like that?"

Pam blinked, genuinely startled a moment, before she shrugged. "Sorry, it's just easy to get under your skin. It's kind of fun." She grinned cheekily.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been dumbstruck, but he knew it must've been a while, because he felt another pang of dumbness hit him at being dumbstruck in the first place. Staring at her proud, red-framed face, he wondered if he'd manage to maintain any brain cells in this relationship. The thought made a large dose of resentment well up inside him.

A bomb-black haired teen dressed in a green vest and shimmering ascot chose to breeze by them at that moment, coldly observing him over his thousand-dollar glasses. "Zachary," he acknowledged, not bothering to pause in his cool stride down the hall.

Zack snapped around animatedly after he'd passed, pointing his finger at Reuben's back with a loud exclamation of, "Not today, Gammeldork! Not today!" He slammed his foot down then, glaring halfheartedly at the back of his old rival's head as he continued walking.

The outburst had apparently shocked his redheaded fiend—friend, as she was still openly gawking at him when he turned back around. He couldn't very well blame her. He had just lost it a little bit, for just a second. He was just glad Reuben had showed up when he did so he didn't end up snapping at her instead. That wouldn't have been very beneficial to their new "friendship" pact.

She burst out earnestly, eyes huge, "Geez, sassy sasquatch, aren't you?"

The look he gave her for that was hopefully dry enough to leave her parched. He tried to take a breath, though, and center himself. He couldn't be on bad terms with this girl, but the hair was still bothering him, and he was starting to doubt it ever wouldn't.

Not that he hadn't seen redheads before. Hell, his own cousins had red hair, but he didn't ever have to associate with them. He didn't have redheads running after him with insults and demands and pushing him around. He had them muttering his curses in the locker rooms, sure, but not ever to his face. He was glad it had finally winded down, and he could breathe now, but it was still such a glaring issue. It would take a ridiculous amount of getting used to. After all, how did you ignore hair like that? How did you keep yourself calm when your every nightmare was staring you in the face?

A spark ignited in his eyes then, and he leaned over towards her, curiosity raising his brow. "Have you ever considered hair dye? Wigs, perhaps?"

Pam looked very confused, the poor turtle. He opened his mouth to elaborate, bring up that if her brother could do blue, she probably could too, when a voice was suddenly shouting his name from down the hall, echoing off the hallways, "You!"

Zack and Pam turned their eyes to see Jaron marching purposely towards them, his brown eyes a volcano and face turning red. Zack's face burst into a grin and he went on to say, "Jaron, where've you—" only to be interrupted as his best friend stopped in front of him and waved his finger in his face.

"You," Jaron repeated heatedly, grinding out the word like the devil's name. "Wipe that grin off your face right now! We are not cool, dude! Do you have any idea how long it took my dad to find me in my freaking closet? He nearly had a heart attack when he couldn't find me in my room after you guys left."

Zack opened his mouth to respond, but Pam interrupted him with an offended-sounding, "You locked him in a closet? Why the hell would you do that?"

Zack raised half his brow at her and started again, "I—" only to be interrupted again by Jaron, looking at Pam with wide eyes. "I know right?"

Again, Zack tried, but Pam had sprung into conversation with Jaron about the situation, so he eventually shut up and flicked his eyes to ceiling, keeping them there with his mouth flat and quirked.

"He had me tangled in a mass of sweater vests in there, how humiliating. And you wanna know what my dad did when he found me? He laughed. My dad, the cop, laughed at his son being tied up and locked in a closet. What kind of a parent—"

"That's insane," Pam agreed with vigor, her green eyes wide. Zack batted his eyes at her. She didn't notice, too caught up in her little rant, "But what's even more insane is what kind of psycho would lock his so-called best friend in a closet." She turned her eyes to give him a scathing look. He gave her a friendly grin, mocking her.

"Oh, it's just fine," Jaron said emotionlessly, and Zack snapped his eyes to his friend's dead set eyes. "I mean, I probably deserved it. After all, I invited a hot girl to a party. I deserved the condemnation. I really shouldn't have pushed things so far. I should apologize."

Zack felt a pang and opened his mouth to correct him on why he'd done it, but was, once again, interrupted.

"You cannot be serious—" Pam started, offended that he would even joke, but then realized exactly what he'd said and blanked. "Wait, what?" Jaron snapped his eyes hers, just as shocked as her that he'd let that slip. Zack rolled his eyes and caught a flash of black hair across the hall amongst a herd of teenagers.

Zack had finally lost his patience with this scenario, so he spread his arms out to part the two and walked through them with a teasing, "Oh, you two are too adorable. I'd tell you to get a room, but," he gave Jaron a meaningful look, smirking, "access denied." Friends with the girl or not, the possibility of them hitting it off and getting into a long-lasting relationship was most assuredly a "Oh hell no" concept. High school? He could deal with her for that time. Anything beyond that? Oh hell no.

Not even bothering with the almost-fight anymore, he walked away from them, in the direction of where he'd spotted his girlfriend.

Pam and Jaron watched, affronted, as he moved through the crowd and plucked Sophie out, quickly starting a pointless chat with her only to pull her into a sudden kiss, surprising her. Pam had to twist her face at the scene, watching Mr. Ass-Hat locking lips with Ms. Disney-Princess. Pam had run into her a few times since she'd transferred, and the girl was kind and sincere to the point it almost hurt to look at her. She'd handed her a books-worth of charity papers and invited her to a concert after only five minutes of knowing her. Pam had instantly loved her. When she'd heard she was dating Zachary Shortman, though, she'd started making a point of keeping her distance.

She wasn't even directly involved, but the idea offended her. There was clearly something wrong with her if she could be attracted to someone that egomaniacal. Perhaps if they'd been closer, better friends, she might have talked her into breaking up with him, since she clearly deserved better. But as it were, she just ran the fudge away. Sophie had taken the hint. She was even kind and understanding about being ditched, which only made it all the more maddening to Pam, someone who was quite experienced in the way of bad boyfriends. She deserved Prince Charming, not Prince Ass-Hat.

But now she was friends with the hat o' ass too, astonishingly. He just managed to drag everyone into his circle, didn't he? Like an airborn disease, he was impossible not to catch sooner or later, and the forced, insincerity of it all was annoying. But she'd made the deal in the interest of not making any enemies so soon in her whole "new school adventure," and he'd proven to at least be a somewhat decent guy when he wasn't being a pompous idiot. So ass hat or not, she'd give him a chance.

Looking over at Jaron now, where he stood beside her with the fading wrinkles of annoyance on his face, she had to ask, bringing a surprised look to his face, "How did that happen anyway?" She gestured to the two.

Without Zack around, Jaron looked less sure of himself beside her. But he shrugged, averted his gaze, and answered all the same, "Just like anything else, I guess. A couple years back, Sophie was a new student here and Zack got assigned to show her around. They hit it off."

Pam's jaw dropped. "They've been together two years?"

Jaron gave her a crooked smile. "I still can't believe it sometimes either."

Pam blinked, baffled, and wondered if Sophie knew about his talent for poetry. It was the only explanation Pam could come up with for why she'd still be with him. Lost, she asked a bit desperately, "What does she see in him?"

Jaron looked surprised at the question, and seemed at a loss for what to say. He turned his eyes back to watch for when his best friend would inevitably come back instead, and Pam followed suit, just turning her eyes in time to see Sophie push Zack away with a laugh and go walking down the hall, leaving him staring after her with his shoulders hunched. It was the exact same thing that happened yesterday, and she almost felt a pang of sympathy for him, however small. The moment only lasted a second more, though, before he was swiveling on his foot and walking back towards them with a big grin, as if nothing had happened, and Pam wondered if she'd imagined the entire thing.

"Okay, bros," Zack said as he threw his arms around both their shoulders and started walking them down the hall, as if he hadn't just been getting chewed out a few minutes prior, "class is going to be starting soon so we're going to have to hurry through pleasantries. Any unfinished business?"

"I don't know, dude," Jaron said, looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Since when is Pam a bro?"

Zack gave her a smug look but she was too preoccupied with trying to figure out how to get his arm off of her. This guy just couldn't take a hint—he downright demanded friendliness out of people, and she felt a rush of indignation race through her. She caught the question a second after it had been voiced, though, and shot her eyes over to Jaron in disbelief. The fight from before couldn't have seriously ended before it had even begun. She knew guys were resilient in their friendships but to let go being locked in a closet? It made her wonder just how often things like that happened between the two, but just as quickly as the question popped into her head, she dismissed it. She didn't want to know. Zack spoke then, much too pleased with himself, "Since we became BFFs, of course."

"You two hit it off?" Jaron continued, clearly surprised. She wasn't sure if it was pleasant or not.

She caught his smug look this time, devilish and migraine-inducing. "Let's just say we've decided to put aside our differences in the interest of mental stability."

"That's one way to put it," Pam said, a tad flat. Zack just continued to smirk. Arrogant bastard had gotten what he'd wanted; peace between them, supposedly. She had to remind herself of the poem safely tucked away in her pocket to keep from pushing him away again. He may like to twist things and make it seem like he'd won, but in the end, she'd been the one to come out on top, quite literally holding his greatest and possibly only weakness in her grip. He wasn't going to win over her, no matter how deluded he proved to be.

Jaron seemed to approve of the treaty, but Zack just continued to hold her eyes, yet another battle for power silent in the air. He just wouldn't give it up. Was all this some kind of game to him? Pam glared harder, and he promptly beamed, the bright blue of his eyes and golden hair all the more prominent in his zeal.

Zeal. Zealous. Zealous Zack, the Ass-Hat Zackass of Lake Drive. She cracked a smile at that, hiding it from view.

This was undoubtedly the beginning of a very weird friendship.

Arnold shifted anxiously as he sat at the island, staring at the phone with a hard look. With sheer force of will, he fancied he could make it ring. Helga and him had always joked that there was some kind of cosmic force linking them together. Even after they got married, they still slammed into each other from time to time, when they were in a fight especially, and Arnold swore he could hear when she was screaming for him no matter how far away she was.

This little joke between them had resulted in a rather interesting day when they were twenty-three. Helga had been pregnant with Zack at the time and hanging out with Phoebe at the grocery to quell a particularly odd craving for peach oatmeal and mustard when her water broke and she'd instantly started screaming bloody murder. Arnold had been having a job interview across town when it happened and had fallen out of his chair from the sudden ringing that had exploded in his ears.

He'd been deaf for a good part of the rest of the day. Which was apparently a blessing in disguise, because according to Gerald and Phoebe, they could hear the screaming from outside the hospital. It hadn't been until the sweaty, miserable fog in the room had cleared that his hearing came back, just in time to hear the first cry. From the doctor, who was so relieved to have it finally over with that he burst into tears. Even in her weak state, Helga had managed to conger just enough strength to chuck a bobby pin at him and get it lodged up his nostril. Arnold hadn't been sure why he was surprised but when the little blue blanket finally came around, he found he couldn't have cared less about anything except the big blue eyes and scraggly blond hair in his wife's arms.

Ever since then, the jokes never stopped rolling. Secretly, Arnold sort of believed it, though. He'd never really thought about things like soul mates before, but he couldn't deny there was something about Helga and him that felt inevitable. He knew it was silly, but a part of him sincerely believed that maybe he could send some kind of mental wave to Helga from miles away to make her call him.

After several minutes of staring, though, Arnold sighed and stood up from his seat. He was being ridiculous. Gerald had told him a thousand times, he was too much of a romantic. He'd just get started on dinner and call her himself, like a normal person.

He walked over to the fridge, and just as his fingertips brushed the handle his cell phone started buzzing in the other room.

Arnold didn't even feel himself move. The next thing he knew he was in the living room staring down at Phil opening up his cell phone and pushing it hard against his ear. "Mommy?" Phil asked with bright eyes.

Arnold chuckled a bit desperately and grabbed Phil up, phone and all, off the floor to sit him in his lap as he took a seat on the couch. Phil flailed a little but Arnold grabbed his arms and kissed him quick on the cheek, distracting him just long enough to slip the phone out of his hand unscathed. Arnold chuckled at his dumbstruck face as he spoke into the phone, "Hey, Helga? I almost thought you wouldn't call."

Phil pouted up at him, wiping off his cheek as he watched the football headed man smile contently into the phone for a few seconds before speaking again, "Oh, Zack's fine. He's been up in his room." Phil broke into a whine in his lap, throwing himself up at his father's face to grab for the phone. "I wanna talk to Mommy! Lemme talk!"

Arnold deflected his tiny arms as gently as he could, holding his head back with amused eyes. "Hold on, Sweetie, I think Phil wants to talk to you."

Phil grinned as Arnold handed the phone over to him, giggling into the phone, "Hi, Mommy…"

Arnold laid back against the couch with a warm smile as he watched his youngest giggle into the phone. "Yeah, I did…" The brunette paused, before he burst out, "Because I miss you! When are you coming home?"

Arnold burst into deep laughter and pulled Phil in closer so he could listen in. Phil just wrapped one arm around his father's neck, apparently willing to share as he held the phone up to his ear too.

Helga's voice came faintly into his ear, "Soon, my love. I just have to wrap a few things up before I go. Can you put Daddy back on the phone?"

Arnold smiled and replied, holding Phil closer, "I'm right here, Helga."

"Wha—Do you have me on speaker?"

Arnold chuckled. "No, Phil and I are pretty much ear-to-ear right now to hear you."

"Ah, criminy. How come all the cute stuff happens when I'm out of the house?"

Phil laughed, "Criminy!"

Arnold gave a long-suffering sigh, glaring jokingly at the phone. "Look what you've done, Helga."

"Ah, you know me, Football Head. Corrupting youth is my specialty. But—Hey! Put that down! No, no, put that down right now—No no don't drop it you idiot! I—" she sighed, the sound crackling and harsh, "Look, you guys, I'm gonna have to go in a minute here. Can I hear Zack's all right? That's really why I called."

Arnold took the phone from Phil's hand and held it up to his ear so he could speak properly, "Yeah, he's in his room—"

"Yeah, I heard you the first time, Honey. But I want to talk to him, that's why I called cellular. Zack's phone's still in the safe. I just…" she sighed, "I need to hear that he's okay."

Arnold smiled, warmed by her protectiveness. "Say no more." He picked Phil up off of his lap and sat him back down on the floor with his toys, and began speaking again as he walked out of the room, "Like I said, you have nothing to worry about. He's been safe in his room ever since we got back from school." He deliberately left out the part where he got lost hours before.

Helga made a soft noise that he couldn't quite identify the emotion behind. "Well, that's good to hear, but…"

"I know, you want to talk to him." Arnold nodded, understanding completely. A lot had happened in the last few days, and it had only amplified their already high paranoia. He still remembered when she was pregnant and spent nearly all of her time surfing the internet about child care and parenting techniques. What she'd found the most of, though, were warnings. Warnings about predators and diseases and all sorts of things that could go wrong. Cases where parents would just randomly walk in to check on their baby in the night and find them not breathing or already dead. Helga had always been a naturally paranoid person at heart, always fearing the worst and caring too much for her own sanity, but some of the things she cried over at the breakfast table had terrified him too, though at the time he'd tried to hide it and be strong for her.

Those fears had never really left them, not just for their kids but for themselves as well. Arnold had a serious psychological fear that they'd both die one day and end up orphaning their kids, and Helga all but smothered them with the fear that they'd ever feel neglected. Both Josh and Phil responded very well to this more often than not, but the older Zack got the harder it was to get him to accept it. He tended to just skirt away from affection lately, which was why getting a hug from him yesterday had been so incredible. But that was just because he had been in a good mood, he assessed. With how quiet he'd been on the drive home today, Arnold doubted he would be as receptive.

So Arnold didn't question when Helga wanted to talk to him as he walked up the stairs, he wasn't surprised to find Zack's door locked, and he even expected to hear the hard rock music blasting out of his speakers.

What did surprise him, though, was when the music shut off immediately at the first rap of his fist and his son threw the door open, beaming up at him like he was the moon and stars. "Dad-o, what a surprise…" the young boy cocked half of his eyebrow at his father's dumbfounded face, and smirked slightly, "Hey, what's wrong with you?"

For a while, Arnold didn't respond. Just stared down at his son standing there in his shirt and observed how it hung over him like a black and blue plaid trench coat over a black shirt and blue jeans. He had the arms rolled up to his elbows and the collars popped up, his hair all swept to the side to showcase his eyebrow with a few sunshiny pieces hanging shaggily over his forehead. Arnold could do nothing but blink, struck a bit speechless. "Uh…" he smiled a little crookedly, unsure of how to react, "new look, Zack?"

Zack blinked and looked down at himself, before tilting his head up to his father and grinning a little sheepishly. "Not bad, right? I know you don't like the shirt, but it's kinda growing on me."

Arnold laughed, and reached down to tug at the end of it. "Looks more like you need to grow into it. It looks good on you, though. I always said blue suited you."

Zack grinned, sliding a finger across his eyebrow. "Matches my eyes." Those blue eyes zeroed in on the phone in his hand then and he pointed to it. "Someone on there?"

Arnold's eyelids flew open from their half-mast state and an, "Oh," burst from his lips as he recalled his reason for coming up here. Chuckling in a sudden fit of nerves, he quickly handed the phone to Zack. "Your mother wants to talk to you."

Zack brought the phone to his ear and asked, "Mom?" only to have his eardrum assaulted a second later as her voice came screeching, "No, no, you morons, can you not follow a single order? What, does the pregnant chick have to do all the work around here? Honestly!" Zack held the cell far away from himself, still cringing.

Arnold grabbed the phone back quick and put it to his face, running a hand through his hair as he did so, "Um, Helga?"

"What?" the phone practically shook in his hand.

Arnold growled suddenly and ground out dryly, "Helga…" He didn't have to speak anymore than that to get his point across.

There was a pause on the other side of the phone, before she said a bit meekly, an apologetic edge to her words, "Right. Deep breaths, deep breaths. I remember." Her breathing came harshly over the phone, before she finally said, normally, "Is Zack still there?"

Arnold smiled, satisfied. "Yes, he's right here." He raised an eyebrow down at Zack with a bit of a smirk as he added, "And looking quite handsome this evening." Zack grinned, standing taller.

Helga murmured over the other end, before she said, "Just put him on, Arnold."

Zack took the phone from his father and put it cautiously back up to his ear for a second time, a bit amused. "Uh, Mom? You're not going to try to make me go deaf again are you?"

Arnold watched as Zack paused to listen with a smile, before he grinned and nodded his head. "Yeah, I'm fine, Mom. You really don't have to worry about me so much…" He paused as his mother responded, his face even before he smiled again. "All right. I love you too." And instantly he had to hold the phone far away from his head again as his mother burst into loud, wailing tears.

Arnold grabbed the phone out of Zack's hand quick, distressed. "Helga? Are you okay?"

She kept crying for a couple minutes, before she somehow managed to force out through sobs, "Oh, God, Arnold, I sound like Olga. I can't even—hey, hey, hey! Don't you snicker at me! You son of a b—" There was a sudden crash over the other end before the line clicked off.

Arnold's brow stressed. "Helga?" He listened to the dead beep for a short while, before he scowled. "Damn it," he cursed as he slammed the phone shut in his fist.

Zack laughed and grabbed his dad's hand with the phone, and jokingly yelled at it, "Yeah, damn, baby, come back! Don't you know your wife needs you?"

Arnold's eyes went impossibly large and he grabbed his hand back. "Never say that word again!"

Zack blinked up at him. "What? You don't want me calling you a girl?" Zack frowned, kicking his foot as he realized what he'd said was a little hurtful. "I was only joking."

"No, no, not that," Arnold shook his head, "I'm used to those. I meant never say…" his mouth twitched, "say… the 'd' word."

"Don't?" Zack raised half of his brow. "This isn't like that 'never say never' crap is it? I need to be able to tell Josh to stay away from my stuff. Be reasonable."

Arnold stared at him, almost sure now he was doing this on purpose just to spite him. His tone went a bit dry, "No. The other word."

Zack stared at him blankly a second, before his eyes lit up with realization and he laughed. "Ohhhh! Okay, I get it. You don't want me to say damn."

Arnold grabbed Zack's arm and began calmly dragging him down the hall. Zack grabbed his doorknob in surprise at the action, but all he managed to do was swing his door shut, which was just the force needed to knock his hand off and put him at the mercy of his father. Zack wasn't new to this, he'd gotten in trouble plenty of times before, but there was no way he was going down without a fight. "Dad…" he said uncomfortably, before he coughed and laughed a little, trying to lighten the mood, "you can't seriously punish me for saying a word that you just said. Besides, I'm still grounded from phone, computer, and… whatever else there is." He rolled his eyes. He'd never had a use for communication devices before. He still thought it was funny that his dad grounded him from a bunch of stuff he didn't use. "There's nothing left."

Arnold stopped, and turned his head around just enough to give his son the stink-eye. "I'll have to discuss a punishment with your mother then. In the meantime, I'll just never curse again. Or your mother. You're way too young to use that kind of language and we shouldn't be teaching it to you."

Zack blinked, before a grin split his face. "So I can when I'm older then?"

Arnold cut his eyes. "Thirty-five. If you still want to."

Zack burst into a quick laugh. "Criminy, I really annoyed you, didn't I?"

Arnold began pulling him down the hall once more, before they reached the stairs and he pulled Zack to stand beside him so he could place a hand on his back. He couldn't help smiling a bit tiredly at him as they started down the steps. "Maybe a little. You do seem to have a knack for it." He smirked slightly, rueful.

Zack skipped the last two stairs to the bottom and swiveled on his foot to face his dad, rocking on his heels. "But you can't deny that you love me anyway."

Arnold stopped at the bottom and looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well of course, Zack. There should never be any doubt of that."

Zack quirked his mouth, his eyes a bit scrutinizing. "Then why are you still trying to drag me to my doom?"

Arnold blinked at him, his face blank, before he started walking down the hall towards the kitchen. His tone was perfectly casual, "Well if you don't want to help me make lasagna and blueberry muffins, you can feel free to—"

The tail of his plaid shirt flew up from the sudden gust of air from Zack racing past him. "I get to lick everything!"

Arnold laughed, happy that Zack was in such a good mood again. He'd always had to catch the kids when they were in a generous mood if he wanted to bond with them, they were so independent and caught up in their own little lives. If he ever tried when they were upset over something or busy, all it did was drive them away. He had to catch them when their defenses were down. All the years of dating and marriage to Helga had shown him that, and it had proven to be a very good system with Zack.

But in the last few months or so, not so much. He seemed rarely in the mood for any sort of father/son bonding, or anything that involved any serious activity other than sitting around or sleeping in his room.

Which was why that night as he watched his son stir, pour, and throw his head into the bowl, he found himself very happy for this new change, and wondering how long it would last. His son seemed happy, more at ease than he'd been in he-didn't-know-how-long. Josh came wandering in at one point, beginning a blueberry battle with Zack that eventually had the seven-year-old pinning his older brother to the floor and laughing in his face.

Phil came in to find them in this state and began yelling that "those had better be blueberries and not what I think they are." He'd had a couple thrown at him for that, and Arnold had to try to calm them down. He'd ended up plastered on the floor on his back by Zack and Josh instead, with Phil yelling at them to get off and getting a few more blueberries chucked at his head for it.

Arnold couldn't remember the last time the house had been so bright. Or chaotic, really—but it felt like home.

Maybe things were looking up after all.

Zack shut the door to the bathroom with a soft click, before turning around to face his reflection in the mirror. He grinned at himself, taking one long step forward to make it to the sink. With attentive eyes, he surveyed the damage before sweeping his hair back and running his fingers through it a few seconds to hopefully tame it a bit of is unruliness. High school was everything people complained that it was—nothing less than jungle full of savages, and he always found himself at least a little disheveled when he got home, if not from having to weave through thick shrouds of people then from PE alone. But nothing that wasn't easily corrected.

He searched the drawers for a comb, thinking on his previous success with the ginger. He smirked at his thoughts. She'd gotten the poem she wanted, which originally would have been horror story material in his book, but as far as anyone but them would ever know it'd be by her brother, and by the sounds of it, her brother was a pretty crafty guy. A crafty guy who would now know for the rest of his life that the entire reason he'd gotten into his big fancy college was because of his next-door neighbor. He could use some more crafty people as his friends. And not only did he have her brother, he had Pam too, of course. Two new allies and a free show to see how the world reacted to his apparent genius. Even when the foundation of his entire world was shaking, he'd managed to turn it over into the good. The biggest crisis in his life since puberty was now over and through, and he couldn't be more proud.

Pam wasn't an easy person for him to get along with, but they'd manage well enough. He'd taken on the tedious task of showing her around the school, and had taken the liberty of dragging her along to lunch with him to ensure their arrangement. The horror at her hair color had begun to steadily fade, and any arduous conversations they'd attempted had tapered off into jokes. It seemed like a safe point for both of them. At the very least, if they couldn't have a meaningful, real friendship, they could gain enjoyment out of each other's cleverness. Anything was better than fighting. It had all worked out rather well.

His search for a comb was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Occupato!" he yelled, hand still rattling around in the drawer, before he finally found what he was looking for and held it up in triumph.

"Zack?" his mom's voice carried through the door, causing him to still. "This is your mother, I wanna talk to you."

Zack blinked at that, unnerved by anything important enough that his mom would try to pull him out of the bathroom. Clearing his throat, he replied, bracing himself on the sides of the counter, "I'm kind of busy right now, Mom, this isn't the greatest—"

"Don't think I couldn't hear you rustling around in there. The only thing you're busy with is admiring your reflection. Open the damn door."

He flushed, obediently taking a step back from the sink to unlock the door. Almost as soon as the telltale click sounded, his mom launched into the room, grabbing him into a sudden hug that pulled all the air from his lungs.

Astounded, Zack tried to push out of the embrace long enough to question, "Mom—"

Helga quickly grabbed him back into the hug, overwrought with emotion as her fingers raked through his hair. "Oh, my beautiful baby boy, what has happened to you?"

Zack didn't have a response to that. He choked, "Mom, what are you—"

"Your father told me everything," she said urgently, pulling away just long enough to look deeply into his eyes. Her expression was pained, blue eyes stinging with tears. Zack was petrified. "Over lunch time, he gave me a call. He told me all about your episode this morning." Her long fingers pulled through his hair once more, no doubt leaving it a blond wreck as she pulled him back to her chest, causing him to all but fall to his knees. "Oh, Zack, you've always been such a gentle, caring soul. Don't ever lose that, please. It's one of your only redeeming qualities." His jaw dropped a little at that, and if he could feel anything but shock at the moment, he would have resented that.

She pulled him back, her hands on either side of his face as she pleaded, "Don't be like me, Zack. Please don't be like I was. You're already too much like me with all the pranks and sarcasm, don't finish yourself off by becoming a bully on top of it."

"What?" He pushed himself away with one firm shove, the shock becoming too great for him as he slumped against the back of the sink, trying to get his thoughts back in order.

Helga stood with her back against the wall, still with that pale, pained expression on her face as she watched him. He thought he may just be sick with how disoriented he felt all of a sudden. He didn't even know where to start with all that his mom had just shoved in his face. Putting a palm over one side of his face, he closed his eyes and took a calming breath, before he let it drop and asked, simply, "Mom, please tell me there's a method to your madness. I've had kind of a rough day."

Helga tried to smile at him, but it was a poor effort. "Arnold told me you were in some poor girl's face this morning. That he's never seen you so angry. He said you were seething." She closed her eyes against the image she'd just painted, looking physically ill. "Zack, I literally cannot think of a single moment in my life where I've seen you seethe. I thought my bad temper had passed over you." She snapped forward suddenly and grabbed him by his collar, smashing their noses together as she all but begged him, "Please don't tell me it's just been dormant all this time! Or, worse," she choked, "you've been hiding it."

Zack blinked a couple times rapidly, before he smiled hesitantly and brought two careful hands up to put on his mother's arms. The only thing he could find in all that to be glad about was that it sounded like his dad had spared the details of why said girl had paid a visit in the first place. "Um, Mom, this morning was a special case—"

"Well I should hope so," she nearly whimpered, half-hysterical. "I don't want to ever hear you've been storming through the halls cutting people down."

Just the idea of that made Zack's face turn green. "Mom, how could you ever think I'd do that?"

"Because you're my son," she said bluntly, her face grave as she let go of him and took a seat on the edge of the bathtub. Her hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail, her bangs disheveled and pushed to one side of her face as she knuckled one of her eyes. She looked up at him sheepishly, leaning back a little with her hands gripped tight to the edge of the tub. "This may shock you to know, but I haven't always been such a sweet, kind motherly figure."

Zack pokerfaced it. "You don't say?"

Helga shook her head loosely, as if ashamed of having shared this information. "No, I was a very mean, very sad kid. All the way through elementary and well into high school, people were afraid of me."

Zack smiled, trying desperately to lighten the mood. "People are still afraid of you, Mom."

Helga smirked at him for that, darkly amused. "Not nearly as much as before, Zack. Trust me."

Zack felt a small shiver at the way she'd said that, in such a low, almost warning tone. He'd heard it before from her, many times when he'd done something to anger her, but never to this degree, and not underlining words like that. "Mom…" he began, uncertain, "you… were a bully?"

Helga kept her slight smirk, and flexed her fingers a little. "Why so surprised? Your dad's always making jokes about how terrifying I was as a kid."

"I always just figured you were a badass."

Her nervousness got the best of her and she barked out a laugh, startling Zack enough that he took a fast seat on the toilet. Helga looked at him with tired amusement, her fingers tapping on the tub, warily. "Well, I was that too. But it kind of came with the territory." She blinked a second, before shrugging, helplessly.

The way Zack was staring at her was unnerving her, with blue eyes so wide and ears so open. She'd never thought she'd be sharing this information with him, never thought she'd have a reason to, but this was a heart-to-heart they had to have if she wanted him to understand the gravity of her upset. It was rare for him to want to understand, though, rare that he'd be so anxious to listen to what she had to say. His question startled her out of her thoughts, with eyes still so wide, "So you beat up little kids in your spare time for fun?"

Helga blinked widely, her jaw falling for a split-second before she shook her head. "Ohhh no, very seldom. I may have been a bully, but I wasn't a lowlife. I picked on kids my own age. Or… actually, sometimes a little older than me." She smirked slightly, remembering all the times she'd smacked Harold around or had him pinned up to a wall. She looked at him again then, seriously. "And it wasn't for fun. It was a defense mechanism. If I could make people afraid of me, then they would never know how much I was actually afraid of them." She brought her hands together, twisting them around in her lap. "It was rare I'd actually hit anyone, though. I just threatened a lot. Your dad always said that my bark was worse than my bite."

Zack looked down at that.

Helga's look softened, her head bowing slightly in an attempt to catch his eyes. "The point I'm trying to make with telling you all this, Zack, is that I wasn't a nice kid and I paid for it. I had a lot of problems and was too stubborn to ever go to anyone for help. I don't ever want you to end up like I was, so afraid of the world that you end up trying to destroy it. If there's anything you ever want to talk about…"

"I'm fine, Mom. I'm always fine," he assured her quietly, keeping his eyes on the ground. He stretched his legs out before himself, the tips of his sneakers meeting the wall. He raised his voice a little, keeping his voice light, "We have new neighbors. The girl and I got into a fight yesterday and it carried over into this morning, but we've made amends. I," he licked his lips, "wouldn't ever have yelled at someone without a good reason."

Helga's eyebrows shot up. "You got into a fight with a girl?"

His eyes flew to hers, and with a rushed breath he hastened to correct her, "Not like an actual fight or anything, we were just arguing. I didn't—"

Helga gave a relieved laugh, reaching over to give him a pat on the arm. "No, Zack, I know you'd never hit a girl. But I mean…" her smile was incredulous, "that's it? That's why you were so angry? You got into a debate with some girl?"

Zack blinked, before he smirked ever so faintly, only just managing to meet her eyes. "Sure, a debate. Let's call it that."

Helga smirked back playfully, unable and unwilling to mask her happiness. "Oh? And if not that, what would you call it?"

Zack paused at this, his arms crossed over his chest shifting as he readjusted his hands on his arms. After a moment, he smirked again, a bit more sincerely, and said ruefully, "Karma."

"Ohhh," Helga replied jokingly, her smirk broadening as she braced herself against the tub again, leaning back, "of course. Always have that following you, don't you? It's only natural."

Zack scoffed, sending a funny look over to her. "Maybe for you."

Helga raised an eyebrow, clearly taken aback by the small outburst. Zack opened his mouth like he wanted to elaborate, but thought better of it at the last second and shut his mouth, considering. He was so thoughtful, Helga thought warmly, feeling a hint of pride. She immediately wanted to hug him, but she held back, instead clearing her throat to properly ask, "Maybe for me?"

Zack turned his eyes to smile at her, saying simply, "Karma doesn't really apply to me normally." He seemed at a loss for what else to add, and Helga squinted her eyes ever so slightly, scrutinizing him with a carefully blank face. He was a brave one, bold as his father, and he held her gaze for as long as he could before he had to look away. They always looked away. "It was a new and, frankly, harrowing experience."

"I see," she replied just as simply, working her jaw a bit. "And this… girl you were debating with… She was your karma?" She raised an eyebrow.

Zack's eyes met hers for a brief second before flicking away again, nonchalantly. "I have a sort of aversion to redheads. She was one, and I had the pleasure of her practically stalking me for the past forty-eight hours." He sighed and reached a hand up to run through the hair he had been so concerned with combing a few minutes ago, further turning the unruly locks into a veritable bird's nest, and Helga's eyes widened as she realized he was telling the truth. "She was mad or something, kept wanting to talk to me and wouldn't stop insulting and trying to injure me all day. Turns out she was angry because when we first met, I'd been rude," he used air quotes, sarcastically, "and judged her too quickly for having red hair."

"I see…" Helga said once more, her eyes wide and with a hint of surprise. She bit the inside of her cheek, working her jaw a bit more with eyes wandering off in thought before she suddenly cleared her throat, bringing her attention back to the topic at hand. "I didn't know you didn't like redheads."

Zack shrugged, apparently unwilling to elaborate on this fact. Instead he said, "We made amends today. So it doesn't really matter anymore, but she was definitely some form of karma." He observed his nails for lack of anything else to do at the moment, and commented as a sort of afterthought, "It was probably long over-due." Quieter then, he said almost solemnly, "Seven years was a good run."

"Oh, Darling," the sheer amusement in her voice brought his eyes immediately to hers, her face tight from the effort not to laugh, "you've never been immune to karma."

Zack raised half of his eyebrow at her. "I—"

She unleashed a chuckle at that moment from the utter bafflement on his face, and smilingly shook her head as she stood from the tub. She took the short step over to stand in front of him where he still sat upon his throne, and lovingly took the comb from his hand to start running it gently through his sunshiny hair, her free hand placed lightly on the side of his face as she gazed down at him. "You're a good boy, much better than you like to pretend," she told him softly, her smile growing at his continued lack of comprehension. "You're kind and gentle and always so understanding, but you also love to prank and lie and cheat and manipulate and defy every rule you're told and not ever listen and go into your dad and I's bedroom when we specifically tell you not to and sneak out in the middle of the night where there are bears and muggers and hobos and God knows what else—" In her increasing frenzy of fret her combing had gotten a little less gentle and more jerky and fast, her hand all but smushing the side of his face now.

"Mom," Zack managed to grunt out pitifully, his eyes synched tightly shut.

Helga immediately stopped. She blinked out of it, before she sighed, her hand running the comb extra gently through his hair this time and lightening her hold on his face to a mere presence. "Right, sorry. But the point I'm trying to make is that, there has never not been a time when you've been punished for those things." She smirked slightly, setting the comb down on the counter to run her fingers affectionately through his now much neater mass of cowlicks. "You've been thrown into that lake out back so many times I'm surprised you haven't shrunk." She sighed, lovingly sweeping his hair back from his face and tilting his head up to hers, smiling. "Short man."

He instantly deflated in her hands, as he always did, and murmured, "I really wish you'd stop calling me that."

Helga kept her smile, tactfully ignoring his silly confession as she bent down to kiss his forehead. "You're too idealistic, Zack. That's where you're going wrong."

Zack blinked at that, with eyes so delightfully blue she had to grin as he asked, "What do you mean?"

Helga finally let go of him, taking a step back so she could lean against the wall, smirking with a sort of fondness to her eyes as she looked upon his befuddled face. He looked and acted so much like her that sometimes she forgot just how much he could look like his dad when he wanted to. But there was nothing Arnold-like about being surprised at being wrong about anything. Or… now that she thought about it, that was a lot like him sometimes. She held back a snort. She quirked her mouth pitiably at her son instead, and shook her head. "Oh, Zack, Zack, Zack. You have a bad habit of looking on the bright side."

Zack looked at her dully, blinked twice, and said quite plainly, "That's not a bad habit."

She smirked. His dad, indeed. "No, it's not. You're right. On the contrary, it's a very good habit. But," she raised her eyebrows high, stretching out the word to show she was about to make a point, "only in moderation—if your head gets too light, it will float up through the clouds and you'll never get it back." She knocked on the wall behind her twice, the nearest wood before she crossed her arms across her chest. "You'll completely lose sight of planet Earth."

Zack tilted his head at her, his brow creased in what looked like a very disturbing thought. After a moment, he shook his head and his face cleared to neutral mode, his eyes half-lidded and devoid of reaction. "What are you trying to say?"

"You're living on Jupiter." She chuckled a bit, lowly. "Every time karma comes your way, you twist it around into something that seems good, so you don't recognize it as the well-deserved punishment you got." At his look of confusion, she said, "In other words, you focus so much on the good that you're completely blind to the bad."

Zack blinked, once again looking disturbed and befuddled, but in the most precious way, Helga thought. So refreshingly Arnold-like. "How…" he asked finally, blinking his eyes hard before looking up at her imploringly, "how do you know that for sure?"

She sighed, "Because your father always used to do it when we were kids. Hell, he still does it. Drives me up the wall." She smirked toothily at him, a rueful note entering her warm eyes. "I guess you're a lot more like the old football head than we thought."

Zack was just opening his mouth to reply when an annoyingly familiar voice started singing from the doorway, and they both looked over to see Phil marching past the door with his head held high and a careless smile on his face, "You're always looking on the bright side of life…" His smile turned into a smirk just before he disappeared from sight, his scratchy little voice still going, "The blind side of life…" before his bedroom door was heard slamming shut.

Zack cut his eyes in the direction he'd gone. "That sneaky little deuce."

Helga chuckled, pushing her bangs out of her face as she kept her head turned to the doorway. "Well, no matter what doubts I may be having over you being my son now, at least I'll always have Phil."

Zack looked at her rather strangely for the comment, before he just sighed and put his head in his hands. He asked jokingly, rubbing his eyes, "Why couldn't you have just stopped at one? Does the word 'condom' hold no meaning to you?"

"Well, actually," Helga went on to say lightly, her gait composed as she stood up from against the wall and began towards the door, "we make sure to have at least ten on hand at all times."

The comment had the intended effect. Zack immediately gagged violently, spluttering out in pure horror, "I did not need to know that!"

Helga let out one of her old, maniacal laughs, the sound having lost a bit of it's menace in her years as Mrs. Football Head, but it expressed all her amusement and all the sardonic mirth that went with it. She stood in the doorway, her hand on the wall by her exit as she smirked deviously over her shoulder. "See, my darling? Karma at it's finest." She winked.

As she began out of the room, Zack's voice stopped her, a bit rushed, "Mom, you…" She turned to look at him, and he frowned at her, looking slightly desperate but clearly trying to hide it, poorly—she could see through him like a window. He took a breath. "That story… Were you really a bully? That wasn't just a story to get me to behave?"

Helga blinked at him, before she shifted her eyes to the doorway, running her finger mindlessly over a bit of chipped paint and pushing it back into place, willing it to stick. "No, it was true." She smiled softly then, meeting his eyes. "Your father saved me from that, though. A little kindness can go a long way for someone hurting. Always keep that in mind, Zack."

Phil sat in his usual chair, coffee mug in hand as he stared down into the seemingly bottomless depths of his drink, hot mists dancing in the thin air in front of his nose. Unthinking, he dropped a chocolate turtle into it and smiled dimly, rocking the mug back and forth. His smile increased as he watched the little brown waves, the smile verging on a small, cruel smirk.

It was definitely one of those days, one of those days so rare and precious they could be referred to as 'those.' This was a time for gloating and victory dances on top of tables.

They'd all been home a couple hours now, and Zack had been in the dining room reading for half of that, blessedly distracted enough not to drive him crazy. Amanda Faith meanwhile was off somewhere, doing whatever annoying little girls did left to their own devices, and Ham was upstairs locked in his room, as usual. It had been another uneventful day at school, with his teachers droning on about meaningless topics he already knew from hearing Ham go on, students that liked to think they were too good for education and, of course, his so-called "best friend" breathing rather unpleasantly down the back of his neck, never failing to make him cringe and shudder and vainly wonder where the heck her inhaler was. But he didn't care about that. Today was possibly the best day of his entire life, and he finally had the privacy to enjoy this little fact.

His smile finally gave way to a smirk, delighted and wondering when the right time would be to drop his bomb.

"Hey, Philly!" a voice came out of freaking nowhere.

Phil screamed, on the verge of a full-on, hysterical spaz-attack when he felt his cup plucked out of his hand. He snapped his eyes up then to see his brother's beaming, joyous face, holding his mug for safe keeping while his chest convulsed up and down. Phil immediately snatched his mug back and glared at him. "What the heck, Zack? Stop doing that!"

Zack just laughed at his searing gaze. "Sorry, I really didn't think you would freak out that bad."

"Hi," another voice interrupted Phil's myriad of violent thoughts on sixteenth century torture devices, and he snapped his head over to see the redhead from before standing in the doorway.

Phil sat up, a bit more alert now as he looked between the two. "What's she doing here again?" She hadn't ridden home with them like he might have suspected, and he had to admit, he'd been slightly disappointed. She bugged Zack, which was reason enough to like her, female or not, but that didn't mean he wanted her in his house. He didn't appreciate trespassers.

Zack was unfazed, though. He replied normally, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, "She's our neighbor now, remember?"

"No," Phil said dully, giving him a snippy look, "within eight hours your little temper tantrum completely slipped my mind."

The girl's sudden laugh caught him off guard and he looked over to see her walking towards them, an odd look on her face as she gazed at him. "You heard all that this morning?"

Phil looked at her dryly, eyes lazily lidded halfway. "Surely you jest. Mexico heard you."

The girl continued to smile at him a moment, before she looked back up to Zack and said, "Seems I've been judging everyone wrong today. He's cute."

"What did I tell you?" Zack gushed, clasping his hands together in front of his chest. "The fluffy brown hair, big green eyes, the way he likes to pretend he doesn't give a crap and bounces all around. They don't come any cuter than that. He's like a chihuahua."

"Excuse me?" Phil jaw dropped for a split second before he quickly composed himself, sitting back in his seat with a pout. "No, no, forget it. You want to get a rise out of me." He took a long, calming gulp of his hot cocoa, the sugary scent overwhelming him until he realized his nose had dipped in and he pulled the drink away sharply, wiping his nose off.

He heard a giggle, a short snort. Then, "A chihuahua? I'd say he's more like a poodle. Look how well-groomed he is. Not a hair out of place."

The remnants of chocolate in his mouth that he had yet to swallow proceeded to spew out his mouth and dribble down his sweater. He coughed, sending a fierce glare in the redheaded one's direction. He worked his jaw then with twitching eyes, clearly unimpressed with her comparison.

To anyone else, Phil may have just looked like any disheveled, annoyed little boy there, perfectly normal and harmless. But Zack knew better than to think his brother anything even remotely stable, and even if he was small and he didn't believe him actually capable of harming anybody, he didn't want anymore personal vendettas today. So smoothly, he looked over to Pam and raised his brow high, smiling. "Uh, Paminsula, why are you here again?"

She shot a look at him, apparently displeased with his lack of coherency when she'd been speaking to him before. Nonetheless, she stuck her hand in her pocket. "Right." Pam pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and promptly pushed it into his hand like it had radioactive sludge on it. "I talked to my brother, and he didn't want to feel like he owed you. I told him I'd already paid the price, but he…" She sighed. "He just doesn't like favors."

Zack smirked broadly at the sight of the money in his hand. Normally he might have said something snappy about how the hell her brother thought a measly twenty dollars was sufficient for getting him into a high-end, expensive freaking college, but feeling Phil's sharp, attentive eyes on them gave him pause. "Right, right." Simply, he propped his foot up on the coffee table and pulled back his sock, depositing the twenty neatly inside before rolling down his pants leg and dropping the limb to the floor like dead weight. He looked at her through lidded eyes, clapping his hands together. "Pleasure doing business with you, Berry. Feel free to show yourself out. Careful getting your fingers chopped off, that door's sneaky."

Pam's eyes twitched, as if she wanted to roll them but thought better of it, before she turned to leave. She muttered under her breath as she exited the room, just loud enough to hear but not make out, "And they said chivalry was dead..."

Zack hesitated very thoroughly, before calling out to her, "Thank you!"

He could picture the confused look on her face before he actually saw it, peeking around the doorway at him in the most baffled—almost cartoonish—of fashions. "What?"

"Thanks," he repeated, quite simply, with a genuine look to him that made Phil roll his eyes dramatically.

She blinked at him, before shifting her eyes uncertainly between him and the younger. "For… the money? Because that was all Mike—"

"No," he said, an odd look on his face that hinted at his true meaning as he finished, "for being a friend."

She stared at him, looking very much like she didn't know how to respond to that, before she finally settled on a hot puff of air through her lips and a smile back, catching onto his game quicker than he thought she would as she tipped her head to him, red tendrils of hair swinging in front of her face. "Of course, Zack, it was… completely of my own free will." Her head disappeared at that, and Zack blinked, unsure of how to feel about such a statement.

As soon as the door could be heard clicking shut from the hallway, Zack turned his eyes back to his sibling's. His eyes had lost some of their intensity, but they were still observing him closely. He reminded him of a hawk sometimes with the way he looked at him on the brink of a tirade. Only a much smaller, cuter version of one. A pigeon, perhaps, eying a worm too deep in the dirt to ever be within reach. The thought brought another smirk to Zack's face.

Phil spoke first, his voice close to a listless croak, "What was that?"

Zack's eyes flew to the doorway again, as if Pam was still there watching their every move. "Just a friendly transaction. I did her brother a good deed."

"And he paid you?" Phil asked flatly, the question sounding much more like a statement in the open. "Last I checked people didn't pay for charity. Unless the soup kitchen's doing it all wrong."

"They probably are. Nobody should ever do anything for free. You lose money that way." Zack waved off his concern with a snicker. That was the end of that discussion.

He began off in the direction of the kitchen then, his voice bright, "You want anything to eat, Phil? Dad said he bought some fruit—"

"Yeah, I know, I was there—and no, I don't want fruit. Look," Phil jumped up quickly from his chair, sitting his cup on the table by the chocolate turtle box before turning fast to stalk after his brother as he began searching through the cupboards, "it's bad enough you have to parade around with that Sophie woman morning, noon and night, but now there's this?" There was something more in his voice than the usual taunting disdain, something that bespoke something darker; disapproval, disappointment? It was definitely a dis-word, and entirely annoying—"If you're going to start another foolish tryst, at least end things with Sophie first."

"Oh-ho, hold up," Zack stopped in his searching, his blue eyes going out of focus for a split second before he looked to Phil, blinking his eyes wide, "I'm not ending things with Sophie. Ever."

"You sick—" Phil nearly raged, looking on the verge of an eight-hour lecture.

Zack huffed out a harsh breath, rolling his eyes up in a sudden burst of exasperation before he held up his hand. "I'm not starting anything with the ginger, Phil. Trust me. It's possible to be friends with a girl and not develop feelings for her. Remember Josh's relationship with Kori? It could be like that." He turned his eyes back to the cupboards, murmuring under his breath at the memory of Kori and Josh's freakishly close friendship, "Although I doubt it."

"Maybe Ham can," Phil acknowledged, with a darkness in his tone that let Zack knew he meant ill harm, "but you can't. Every like-aged woman you know you've ended up dating at some point or another."

"Now, that's not true," Zack denied, turning his head to look at him directly. "What about Riley?"

Phil threw his head back and groaned. "Like anyone could ever forget that catastrophe. I doubt Poland will ever be the same again after that horror."

"Oh, come on, don't be so dramatic. We had two dates when we were eleven. It hardly counts—"

"Hardly, you say," Phil mocked in a high voice, before dropping down to state seriously, "but still accountable."

Zack rolled his eyes, observing a peach with an interest that wasn't really there. "Kiddy relationships are never a big deal, Phil. Our entire relationship can be summed up with the question, 'Did you eat all the green gummy bears again, butt-face?'"

Phil grimaced. "Be that as it may, the fact remains. You are a weak-minded, easily manipulated puppet. You're a slave to your own inferior emotions, and dear, sweet Sophie shouldn't have to have a front row seat to you proving, once again, that you are an imbecile." He practically hissed as he glared intensely at Zack's relaxed features, forever blind to what was clear as day in Phil's eyes. "Do what Mom said and come the heck down to Earth, huh?"

"Phil," Zack said calmly, "I don't know what it is you're exactly asking me to do, but whatever it is, it's silly. I've been with Sophie a long time, we're comfortable, and us having new neighbors isn't going to magically change that. So just relax." He smiled lopsidedly at him, eyes lit. "If you're not careful, at the rate you're going, you'll have an ulcer by the time you're thirteen." He chuckled.

Phil kept his eyes clipped and his lips tightly pursed while Zack proceeded to subtly ignore his glare, picking through the cabinets until he found what he'd been searching for. Zack shut the cabinet door before taking a greedy bite out of the pear, his jaw slowly rolling as he stared at Phil, a timer automatically starting up in his mind.

Phil continued to stare at him. Three, two, one, his internal beeper went off. A zen smile spread across his thin lips as he turned towards the door. "See you at dinner, Philliam. Have fun with your little chocolate turtle friends."

His steps halted at Phil's sudden declaration, "You may think you're holding all the cards, Zack, but know this: there are a million other decks out there, with a bajillion other cards—" A voice called out from somewhere in the other room suddenly, cutting him off, "Bajillion's not a word!" He heard Phil growl and bark, "Silence, you little wretch!"

Zack turned his head to look at him with easy amusement, even more entertainment sparking in his eyes at the sight of the short boy's enraged, wild face and clenched teeth. Was that stuttery excuse for a comeback supposed to frighten him? "And your point, baby bro?"

Phil's eyes snapped back to his, as if reminded of his existence, before he all but snarled. He wondered what could have brought such a reaction on. His timer had gone off. After ten seconds, it usually meant he was safe from any impending rants. Phil wasn't a patient sort, and if he had something to say, he would say it. The fact he'd suddenly changed his mind, and with such fervor, was curious. He tried to think back to what he could have said to provoke this—"I am saying," Phil's snarky voice crashed his train of thought, "that just because you know things doesn't mean other people don't know things as well. You're not the only one with influence, gnat."

Zack had to try really hard not to break into laughter at his wording of all that. Despite the amusement bubbling up, though, he had to raise half his eyebrow, intrigued at his meaning. What was the poodle up to now?

Boldly, much too boldly and with entirely too much sadistic satisfaction, Phil stated, "I know all about your little talent."

Zack stilled.

There was no way humanly possible to know how long it stayed silent in that room then, before Zack had finally managed to respond, trying desperately to grasp for his composure, "What... What are you talking about?"

A disgusting smirk spread across Phil's face, in too close resemblance to his own, as he was all too happy to elaborate. "Oh, you know..." he played coyly, as if he could hear Zack's lack of heartbeat, "the poetry, how great you are at it... Pretty girly thing to be good at, but who am I to judge? After all, you are the one always saying—"

The pear in Zack's hand came apart like an egg suddenly, the juice drizzling down the length of his arm, halting Phil's words for but a moment as he stared. He didn't have much time to be taken aback before he was grabbed by the shoulder and dragged forcibly out of the room. Phil made a disgusted noise purely out of instinct and tried to violently shrug off the offending appendage, but Zack only grabbed him up and flung him over his shoulder in retaliation. Phil screeched as Zack took purposeful steps up the staircase towards his room, nearly ramming into Ham on the way up. Ham swerved out the way in surprise, gaping. "Zack, what's—"

"Help me, call 911, the FBI, CIA, Sherlock, anyone! I think I'm about to be murdered," Phil yelped, the request coming too late before Zack had kicked the door shut to his room. Zack clicked the door locked and then walked over to sit Phil firmly on his couch, before he crouched down by the low piece of furniture and stared hard at him. The boy was busy looking around in awe of his room, shocked, the only light coming from the white Christmas lights nailed along the walls and the fading daylight from the window. There were no posters on the walls, save for the one framed painting that Phil could remember being one of Zack's art projects; a picture of a sunrise, specifically, as Zack had corrected many when he'd been working on it. Other than the one picture, the room was surprisingly bare, save for a few scattered objects on his desk and a pile of laundry in the corner. It almost resembled a bomb shelter rather than someone's lifelong bedroom. Yet still, it fascinated Phil. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in here—if he'd ever been in here.

Zack cleared his throat, scaring the wits out of Phil as he snapped his eyes back to his brother's hard ones. And then he clammed up, squaring his shoulders and staring down his elder. He wasn't going to let Zack win so easily. It was clear his intent with all this was to invoke fear. And heavily pounding heart or not, Phil wasn't about to run from his only chance at triumph. He was the one with the upper hand here, not him.

Slowly then, Zack rose, before wandering over to the pile of dirty clothes that Phil had been eying before. He picked up the first plaid shirt on the top, reaching his hand in to dig through the pocket of the garment. His hand came out empty, save for a few crumbs. There was no doubting now. The poem was gone. They both knew it.

The shirt fell deftly from his fingertips, before he leaned over to grab tight to the edge of his desk, his knuckles going nearly translucent from the steel grip.

Phil observed him, quietly taking all this into account. He didn't know what was going through his brother's mind at that moment, but he knew it wasn't good things. He'd never seen him so tense. He'd expected something akin to this at his proclamation—embarrassment, shock, even rage—but somehow complete and utter ear-shattering silence hadn't been one of them. He must have really hit the jackpot with this. Like, million-dollar jackpot, sports car and all.

He took a bit more of this time to observe his room, to take it all in. The curtains were tye-dyed, yet were far too thick to be any regular curtains. He could remember one day when he'd been six that his brother came out with a massive white mass much like it and dragged it into the backyard. A day or two later he'd dragged it back in, a rainbow of colors compared to it's former bland self. He'd often wondered what had become of that thing. Now he knew.

The bed was rather plain looking, a kind of off-black bedding with gray, blue, orange, white and green stripes running down the middle of the blanket. The pillows were gray, save for one black, and what he guessed was a spare blue pillow tossed over the side by the bed. He could see his old keyboard poking out from under the bed from when their grandma was teaching him piano. It was easily spotted for it's stark contrast to the white carpet laid out on the dark maple floorboards, just one black and white end poking out, along with a couple other cords to things he didn't know. Zack probably had a lot of useless junk thrown under there, considering all the crap he'd seen him drag home from the electronics stores and pawn shops and sometimes even the dump. He didn't even want to think about what the inside of his closet must look like.

The walls were blue, the ceilings no different than his own in their white color, save for the faintly glowing star stickers stuck all over the place. He stared up at the ceiling for the longest time, wondering at the purpose of such pointless decorations.

Any further exploration his eyes might have taken were stopped when Zack finally spoke, his back still to him, "How did you get it?"

Phil blinked, before folding his hands in his lap, an anchor to steady himself. He could do this. He had the power, finally, for once. Not Zack. He took a breath and leaned back on the couch, mockingly getting comfortable as he said breezily, "Nice room you've got here—"

Zack interrupted him, "How did you get it?" His tone left no room for games. He was serious.

That alone unnerved Phil. Again with that serious tone. Zack was never serious—he spoke carelessly, with an ease and playfulness to his words that some part of Phil would always be jealous of. He made a joke out of everything—everything. He wasn't serious. It was practically a law.

Phil gulped, gripping his hands harder in his lap as he focused his eyes pointedly on a star on the ceiling. "When you were knocked out last night on the floor, I wanted to get my harmonica back. So I slipped it out of your pocket. The poem came with."

Zack's back hunched over at that. Phil couldn't help a smirk at the sight, delighting in his brother's knowledge of his failure. Yeah, that was right. He'd lost. Phil won. Zack: 0. Phil: 1… Or, really, if he was being honest it was more like Zack: 85,000. Phil: 1… but that wasn't important. Phil stretched back on the sad excuse for a couch, putting his hands behind his head as he smiled predatorily at his brother's back. "You know what this means, right? Mr. Macho? Zachary Shortman, the impenetrable wall?" He grinned.

Zack hung his head for a moment, before finally, he looked over his shoulder at him, expressionless.

Phil grinned larger, and burst up from the seat suddenly to point a finger at him, victoriously declaring, "I have blackmail on you! I own you! Consider yourself done for, short man!" He grinned tauntingly, the words feeling like butter falling off his lips.

Zack blinked at him, still with that faceless look, before he brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He didn't look very concerned for himself, and Phil frowned, his finger drooping. This strange reaction wasn't what he'd expected at all—and it was starting to seriously irritate him. He wanted him begging on his knees for him not to tell anyone. He scowled. "Well, react already, criminy! Don't you get it? You've lost!"

Zack sighed very quietly, the only thing alerting Phil he'd sighed at all being his chest heaving a moment, before he let his hand drop and turned around to face him. His height wasn't making it any better for Phil's expectations of this exchange. He liked it better when he was hunched over with his back to him. Phil didn't like the reminder of just how much Zack towered over him. He wasn't the most intimidating looking guy with his lanky limbs and slender body, but he was an imposing figure all the same as Phil had to crane his head back to look at his face. In the end, he clenched his teeth slightly and took a step back.

Zack surprised him when he dropped down and picked him up under his arms. He sat him down on the couch once more, and Phil didn't get a chance to complain at him touching him again before he met Zack's eyes and his eyes widened. Zack was smiling at him, down on one knee to maintain eye level as one end of his lips twitched slightly with the startings of an outright smirk. Phil immediately had to resist punching him.

"Phil," Zack said good-humoredly, like he'd done something adorable, and Phil had to grip the fabric of the couch to keep his rage from destroying him, "you don't know what you're talking about. It's just a silly little poem. I had to do it for school. I'm sure you've had to write poems before. It's no big deal."

What a character switch, Phil thought incredulously, green eyes huge and lips in a thin, translucent line. "Not a big deal?" he questioned slowly in transparent disbelief, face twisted. He looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Zack…" he started again after a moment, sardonic and flat-faced, "I don't think you quite understand the ramifications of your oafishness." He snapped forward and grabbed him by his plaid collar, sneering into his face, nose-to-nose, "You got an A+ on it, on a poetry assignment. Poetry isn't a boy thing. It's a girl thing. You've said so yourself. You, you who struts around pompously declaring yourself a superior male specimen, and laughs at me constantly for supposedly being 'feminine,' and says you don't have a girly bone in your body, writes poetry." He growled, an almost feral sound, as he pushed him back in disgust and wiped his hands off on his sweater. "You're nothing but a stinking hypocrite. A hypocrite and a liar." He blinked a moment, as if realizing something, before his eyes went halfway again and he looked distastefully at his older brother sitting on the floor before him. "But then again, we all already knew that, didn't we?"

"Who?" Zack asked lightly, with a weak, toothy smile. "Who's we? You and all the voices in your head?"

Phil was stricken for but a moment, before he scowled down at him again, sitting on the edge of the couch with his feet firmly planted on the carpet. "Cheap shots won't change reality, Zack."

Zack stared at him for a long moment, and for just a split-second his face broke and he looked almost afraid, before his face turned to stone. Determination took over, and Zack sat up a moment, before standing up completely. His height gave Phil pause, and Zack seized that moment to warn, "This is bigger than both of us, Phil. You don't know what you're talking about."

Phil blinked, before snorting with a quick flick up of his eyes. "Who's being overdramatic now?"

Zack fell into the seat beside him, scaring the crap out of Phil as he jolted back away from him. Zack grabbed him quick with an arm around the shoulders, though, and pulled him back, patting him gently on the back. "Now, now, don't spaz out just yet, little man."

Phil frowned at him, eying the arm on him with a distressed eye. He squirmed, but Zack just tightened his hold, and eventually he gave up with a scowl. Snapping a look over to him, he was about to yell at him to let him go, when Zack started up talking again, annoyingly, "Phil, whether you like it or not, the poem isn't as big a deal as you're trying to make it out to be—"

"Or you," Phil interjected dryly.

Zack just chuckled and continued, "It's just a harmless, little school project, and there wasn't anything embarrassing in the poem. Now, I'll admit, it would be a little embarrassing to have anyone know that I'm not exactly bad at writing poetry—"

"And by 'not exactly bad,' you mean really, really, girlishly good," Phil added again, a sadistic little smirk growing on his face.

Zack took a moment longer than before to speak again, as if waiting to see if he was going to say anything more, "It… It wouldn't be the end of the world for me." Zack looked over at him with half his eyebrow extended up, a smile whispering at the edge of his mouth. "And you seem to forget—I have loads of blackmail on you, baby bro." He poked him playfully in the stomach, as if he were just teasing rather than threatening him.

Phil slapped his hand and, with a violent jerk, got out of his firm grip. He scooted farther away on the couch, to the point if he went any farther he'd fall off, and looked distrustfully at Zack. "Don't go there…"

Zack just smirked, perfectly at ease with his arm still draped across the back of the couch. Casually, he said, "The bed wetting…"

Phil sucked in a sharp breath, and in a thoughtless move, jolted a little until he fell off of the couch with a painful, "Oof!" In the end, it wasn't that far a drop, but it was unexpected, and Phil shot furious daggers at Zack.

Zack just smiled, his teeth parting just slightly to expose some teeth. "Hey, come on with that look. I helped hide the evidence, didn't I? I'm a good big brother." He smirked again, eyes sparkling unforgivingly, and Phil winced at his next words, "No, that wasn't so bad. Not compared to your little obsession with Casablanca…"

Phil screamed a little behind closed lips, before he put his hands up on his ears and shut his eyes tight. "Shut up, shut up! It's not an obsession!"

Zack snickered, not bothering to raise his voice, knowing perfectly well he could still hear him, "How many times have you watched that little DVD you've got? Fifty times? Sixty? More even?" His grin increased at Phil's groan, and he folded his hands in his lap, crossing his leg to get more comfortable. "Oh, and we can't forget when you tore out all the pages in Grandpa Miles' journal—"

"That's enough!" Phil burst, flying up off of the floor to his feet. His chest heaved with his violent breaths, and with wild eyes he pointed his finger at Zack and took two stomping steps over to him so his finger was directly in front of his face. Zack looked cross-eyed at it, still smiling. Phil growled defensively, "We all swore never to speak of that again!"

"I never promised," Zack said slyly, reaching up with a steady hand to gently push his finger out of his face. "Josh did. Not me." He put the same hand to his chin then, eyes wandering off in mock-thought. "Hmm, Dad's still looking for that, isn't he? I wonder what he'd think if he found out you decided to go snooping through his prized possessions and shredded Grandpa's book with your bare hands—"

"We all wanted to look at it! It wasn't just me!" Phil shouted, his fists clenched at his sides and shoulders rigid. "And I didn't shred them! They just… They just… came apart." His face broke, and he looked down with wide eyes, his breath hitching. That had to be one of his worst memories, how the pages just fell and tore like tissue paper from the book being old and damp from the leak in the attic. They weren't even supposed to be looking at it. If Dad ever found out…

Zack blinked at him with a surprised look that Phil knew he was faking, before smiling softly and patting the seat beside him. "Hey, no need to yell, Philly-Willy. I never said I was gonna tell. I was just reminding you of all my cards." He smirked, too confident for Phil's liking. "You can't ever use your blackmail on me without me revealing all your dirty little secrets."

Phil didn't sit down. He stared at him with dinner-plate eyes for a few seconds, before he said simply, "Then you can't ever use any of your blackmail on me without me using my blackmail on you."

"Yea—Wha'da-huh?" Zack blinked a couple times in fast succession, his face going blank. "What?"

"I'm standing two feet in front of you—you heard me," he said plainly, his face going flatly sarcastic. "No more using your influence over me to make me do stuff for you. No more threats. Or else I'll go on the radio and announce to the entire city that Zack Shortman writes poetry. You screw with me ever again, or reveal any of my secrets, and I," he leaned in, cutting his eyes to slits, and hissed out his last words, "ruin you."

"Then I ruin you," Zack countered, unfazed. He smiled then at the sense deja-vu, marveling at how this had happened twice in a row today. Not ever being able to use his blackmail on him could be a bit of a stepback for him, but a minor one, and he could always worry about that later. "It appears we've come to an impasse."

"Oh, no," Phil said gravely, his eyes intense. "No impasse. I've waited too long to find something to hold over your head for this to be over just like that. For us to just be neutral." He took a heavy step forward, obliterating what space was between them and eliminating a good bit of the air, and Zack raised half of his eyebrow, pretending to be detachedly interested. Phil lowered his tone, dramatic to the bitter end, "Do you think I'm stupid? I told you I knew and you squashed a pair and dragged me into your room. You don't let anyone into your room. You were clearly desperate. A blind person could see it." He leaned back then, thankfully, and eyed him with contempt.

Zack blinked, and tilted his head ever so slightly, struggling to keep his face disengaged. He smiled slightly, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "And what are you trying to say exactly, Phil?"

"I'm saying," Phil began anxiously, frowning as he shifted his hands onto his hips importantly, "that I think my dirt outweighs all that you have on me."

There was a silence.

"And what the hell does that mean?"

Phil sighed, rolling his eyes in a show of impatience, though that was all it was—a show. On the inside, he was terrified. He kept his eyes focused on Zack's forehead, trying desperately not to break into a nervous tap dance. "Well, the bed—" he clenched his eyes shut, grimacing, "you know, is embarrassing, but it was a long time ago… and maybe it's not… so bad." Fat lie. He wasn't good with fat lies, they weighed down on him like a thirty ton weight. He trudged through nonetheless, "And Casablanca is just… a movie. Everyone knows I like movies, so who would care anyway…?" He opened his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek as he stared hard at Zack's long, bulbous nose angrily. "And Dad's journal, whether you like it or not, wasn't my fault. In the end, it was your idea, and Dad knows what a liar you are—if you told on me for that, you'd be selling yourself out just as much as you'd be selling me out." That was, at the very least, the honest truth.

Zack stared at him emotionlessly, his poker face flawless, and Phil wondered for the millionth time how the heck he did that—"You know I know more than just those three little things—"

"But it's just a lot more of the same stuff, all little, miniscule, infinitesimal—"

"Infinitesimal?" Zack squinted his eyes at him. "Criminy of all criminies, Dad really needs to stop buying you dictionaries."

"As I was saying," Phil pressed with a sharp edge to his words, and Zack thankfully shut his mouth, "everything you have on me is crap." Zack barked out a quick laugh at the unexpectedly blunt statement, but Phil ignored him. "You writing poetry is huge. It would completely ruin your reputation if people found out, and you know that. If anyone found out about all the stuff you have on me, it would stink, but it wouldn't kill me." Again, the truth. It made things easier for him, and he managed to meet Zack's eyes, taking note that there seemed to be something there he'd never seen before. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He decided it was probably bad, but he didn't care. "Besides, since when have I ever cared what people thought of me?" His face was flat. "I hate people. They're buffoons. I'll get over it and so will they. But you…" he smirked cleverly, "you won't."

Zack stared at him, eyes a bit more alert than they were before. "Phil…" he said, again with that serious tone that made Phil question himself, "are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"No," he said without hesitation, nonplussed, "but there's no time to learn like the present. You've underestimated me at every turn, and it's about time you paid for it. You'll try to get me back for all this, I know, but lucky for you," he smirked evilly, a note of utter, sadistic satisfaction in his brother's loss that was never in Zack's, "I have nothing left to hide."

"Okay, so the stove was off before we left? Nobody left it on? Or the lights—please tell me everyone turned their lights off."

"Football Head," Helga began dryly, throwing her head back against the car seat as she looked at him, "could you just relax? I made sure everything was off, all the doors are locked—and really, I don't know why you get so anxious. What do you think's going to happen? We're going to get robbed by a raccoon?"

"It wouldn't be hard," a voice commented from behind them, "He already has a mask."

Arnold brought one hand up off of the steering wheel for a moment to card through his hair, a sigh tumbling past his lips. "I just don't want a repeat of last month's bills, that's all. We really need to learn to be more conservative."

Helga's eyes softened and she reached over to grab his hand away from his hair, giving it a small squeeze. "Hey, no talk of real life today, remember? Today we all agreed to shut everything off and enjoy a nice visit with our friends. You've been too stressed lately."

"You have been too," Arnold reminded her, smiling tiredly.

"We all have," the voice in the back said again, and Helga turned her head to look fishily at her eldest, ten-year-old son, soon to be eleven, who's finger was currently being sucked on by a pink bundle strapped into a car seat by his side. Josh sat on the other side of the one-year-old, with small Phil snug against the window. Despite his spit-covered hand, Zack was smirking in his seat, eyes lidded halfway as they gazed knowingly at his mom.

Helga continued giving him the fish-eye treatment before she finally had to break out into a smile, knowing full well he was right. Since Amanda Faith had been born, none of them had gotten much sleep. Zack especially was very attentive to the baby, to the point sometimes when their baby monitor would go off and she'd have to wander into her room in the dead of night, she'd find him already in there making ridiculous faces at her, coaxing giggles and smiles out of the infant. It was very cute how quickly he'd bonded with her, along with Josh who was always anxious to hold her whenever he could, nuzzling against the little patch of blond hair on her head. Phil hadn't taken to her so easily. In fact, he outright seemed to hate her on some days, but sometimes when everyone was out of the room and he was left along with her, she'd peek around the doorway to catch him staring at her with a look that was anything but dislike.

Amanda was a breath of fresh air in the household, with the sweetest little smile and hugest green eyes, but she was also the world's biggest pain in the ass. She was very persistent with what she wanted, and would whine and scream the most ear-piercing scream for hours 'til she got it. She'd grown very attached to Zack in her short year of life, and Helga had woken up a few times to find Zack asleep by the crib with the little girl gripping tight to his fingers, apparently unwilling to let him leave without bursting into tears. Zack waved off any comments on it, though, and liked to joke she was just in love with his hand. Helga hadn't believed it at first, but upon further inspection, she found there was some merit to his words—the first thing she did when she called him over was grab his hand and stick it in her mouth. She treasured it over all her colorful binkies and toys, held it higher than everything but cookies. Zack was astoundingly patient about it, which Helga marveled over to no end. She'd have chopped her hand off, replaced it with a hook and handed the bloody thing over to Amanda a long time ago.

Staring at that hand now, with Faith happily chomping on it, Helga wondered how he could stand it now that Amanda had developed teeth. Small as they were, it had to be painful. Concerned and with a slight grimace on her face, she asked, "Zack, don't you think it's about time you weaned her off of your hand?"

Zack blinked with widened eyes, as if she'd asked him why grass wasn't purple anymore, before he shrugged. "I don't mind it. Really—"

"We can't have her chewing on your hand forever, Zack," Helga admonished, giving him a look that didn't allow for further argument. "It'll fall off. Besides, once we get to Gerald and Phoebe's you don't want to have to sit there the entire time with her trying to eat your hand. Do you?"

Zack frowned, looking down. He seemed very conflicted on the matter, and Helga realized with some surprise he'd grown accustomed to his baby sister's relationship with his hand. She'd admit it was hard to ever say no to her pudgy, innocent little face, but by this point, his hand had to be numb for him to even be considering… Slowly bringing a hand up to rest on her face, she sighed. "Zachary… I don't know what's going on in your head right now, but stop. Humor me."

"Well, okay," Zack began, suddenly bright-eyed and happy. "So two chickens walk into a bar, and they're like, 'Hey, we were just crossing the road and—'"

"Zachary," Arnold groaned.

Zack frowned, just in time for Amanda to burst into a peal of giggles, letting go of his hand for just a second in her delight. Zack smirked at her, gesturing smugly as he looked to his mom. "See? She thinks I'm funny."

"She's too young to understand what you're saying," Helga deadpanned, dipping her head down to look at him from beneath her bangs.

Josh gasped at his mother's words, reeling forward in shock. "That's racist!" His brow creased then and he looked down in befuddlement. "Wait, no…"

"That's babyist!" Phil declared, and Zack snorted, breaking out in laughter along with Amanda.

"Mom's a babyist?" Josh asked with his features twisting, disturbed at this news.

Phil nodded his head animatedly, and Zack shifted his torso around Amanda's car seat to grin toothily at them, his hands meanwhile pushing up the sleeves of his plaid shirt that was still way too big for him. "We should start a petition," he hooted, before raising his fists as far as the restrictive space of the car would allow. "End the hate! End the hate!"

The other two boys joined in with his chant, banging their fists on their knees, the seats, anything they could as Helga gaped at them, appalled. "It's not babyist, it's fact! She's one!"

She heard a snicker beside her and whipped her head around to stare at her husband as he tried in vain to conceal a few laughs in his hand, refusing to meet her eyes. Her jaw further dislocated itself from her skull, and she screeched incredulously, "Arnold!"

"What?" he stuttered amidst his amusement, grinning that irritatingly lopsided grin of his as he looked over at her.

"Don't encourage them!" she scolded, her eyebrows dropping as she gave him a hard look. "Back me up here, will ya?"

Arnold rolled his eyes good-naturedly at her shrill tone and gave her a small, lazy salute. "Of course, ma'am. Right away, ma'am." Skillfully ignoring her pointed look, he drove the car up to park along the sidewalk by a particularly tall brick building. As soon as the car had come to a stop and the break was in place, Arnold shut the car off and leaned back in his seat, sighing as the band of monkeys in the back seat finally quieted down. "Zack, quit avoiding the question and listen your mother."

"What question?" Zack asked innocently. As if on cue, Amanda let out a small squeal, her tiny fingers stretching out towards his hand.

Helga saw him considering giving it to her, and immediately growled, "Short man…"

As it always did, Zack's entire face went blank and his movements stilled. He blinked, and even that action seemed stilted. Helga smirked proudly, knowing she had him—if there was one thing her son hated, it was being called something he was not, and it made for a great tool in situations where he refused to listen.

Rather than answering, he unbuckled himself and, without sparing Amanda or anyone a look, opened his door and gently shut it. Helga sighed at the typical response, waving her husband away to exit along with the rest of them as she struggled in the awkward position, her torso twisted around the car seat, to undo the clips on Amanda's seat. As soon as she was free, she took a breath and hefted her up into her arms, impatiently trying to both simultaneously unlock and open the car door. Amanda gripping at her hair wasn't helping matters, either.

Before she could properly lose her temper and let loose a string of words inappropriate for Faith's ears, the door came open and Helga looked up to see her husband holding the door open for her with a small, half smile. She returned that smile gratefully, heaving herself up out of the car to grab a hold on his arm to balance herself and Amanda. As he threw the door shut, she leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. "My knight in shining armor," she jested, smiling fondly before making her way up the sidewalk to the front door of the brownstone.

Arnold smirked, following after her as Josh and Phil fell into step by his sides, Phil eagerly grabbing hold of his hand and gripping tight.

Zack, being as far ahead of them as he was, jumped high onto the stoop, skipping steps as he stumbled gracelessly to the top. Not waiting for anyone to reach him, he jammed his finger into the doorbell, and was shocked backward when the door opened immediately. He stumbled back, his panic stricken mind barely able to register Gerald's shocked face before he fell—right into his mother's waiting arm, her other carefully holding Amanda as she giggled at Zack's klutziness.

Arnold hurried over to help and grabbed Zack up from against Helga, carefully setting him back on his feet. Gerald just chuckled, opening the door wider as he gave them a welcoming smile. He wore an old, loose baseball jersey and casual jeans, his tall hair drooping ever so slightly to the left. "Well…" His eyes darted between them all amusedly, unsure of what to say.

"Hi," Zack exclaimed, apparently unconcerned with his near concussion.

Gerald chuckled again. "Hi, Zack." He regarded them all with a smirk. "Guys," he greeted, "I was just telling Phoebe you should have been here thirty minutes ago."

Arnold expression immediately turned sheepish, and he opened his mouth to respond.

His lovely wife interrupted him with a grunt and a, "We get here when we get here, Pheebs knows that," before pushing Gerald out of the way and striding into the house. Gerald sent a dry look to her back that went ignored, and Arnold ambled inside with the slightest of smirks.

As everyone came inside and the front door was closed and locked, Arnold smiled to his best friend when he turned back around from the door and said, "Sorry for the lateness. It's been a stressful day so far."

Gerald tsked him, putting the backs of his hands on his sides as he gave him a reproachful look that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Really, Arnold, I'd have thought fourth times the charm, but you're still just as much of a basket case as you were with the rest of 'em. You need to learn to chill." Smirking then, he crossed his arms over his chest and quipped, "Mmm, mmm, mmm, never thought I'd have to say those words to you, man. You're killing me here."

Arnold laughed warmly and stepped forward to grab him into a hug, patting him firmly on the back as he did so. "It's good to see you too, Gerald."

Josh was standing by watching this exchange with little interest, when he startled at the exclamation, "Ham!"

He whirled around to see a short, Asian girl standing at the other side of the room, her eyes as wide as they could go behind her red glasses and grin large and contagious. Her black hair was half up in a bun, some down and falling just above her shoulders with long, neat tendrils on both sides of her face, the sheer blackness of it glinting in the light as she began approaching him quickly.

Josh grinned back, albeit with an exasperation as he closed the space between them. "Do you have to call me that?" he asked, shoulders drooping slightly. "It sounds ridiculous."

She laughed outright at him, challenging him with her posture. "You know you like it, so stop pretending. You're always complaining about your first name. Unless you prefer Abby—"

"Meat's fine," Josh hastened to say, wincing.

She smirked and grabbed him by the hand then, dragging him excitedly towards the kitchen. "Okay! Then come on, Ham, Mom and I made cookies."

The exasperation in his eyes disappeared as soon as her hand met his, and he smiled, following after her willingly. "Coming," he chirped, eliciting another laugh out of her before they vanished into the kitchen.

Phil watched all this take place awkwardly, and looked around a bit desperately before following after them earnestly. "Wait up for me!" he called, running after them for lack of anything better to do.

Gerald shared a look with Arnold, something secret passing between them just a moment before their hands joined together and they did their signature handshake, grinning at the nostalgic effect it always had over them before they began off in the direction of the living room, moments after Helga had disappeared into the kitchen to speak to Phoebe. Zack followed after them dutifully, eyes wandering to take in the homey qualities of the house. Warm wallpaper and dark flooring, with the lights somehow dimmed throughout the house in favor of the natural lighting coming in through the windows. The house had a very Japanese, earthy tone to it, and Zack found himself appreciating it for the hundredth time of his life.

The sleeves of his shirt unrolled themselves and fell down the length of his arms, and he pushed them back up, rolling them up thoughtfully as he now stood in the living room, observing the bonsai sitting on the coffee table. His father had offered many times to buy him a shirt that actually properly fit him, with a strange, somewhat pained look in his eye that Zack didn't understand, but he always refused. There was a deep sentimentality embedded inside of him for the shirt, not unlike his parents' attachment to some of their old childhood things. His father still clung to a little blue hat somedays, and his mother held onto a jewelry box full of her old ribbons from when she was a girl.

There was one bow in particular she looked very fondly on, old and falling apart at the ends in soft, pink strings. She never let anyone near that bow, but could be just as sentimental about her others when she would tie Amanda's hair up with them. The bows never quite fit on her, though—they would droop and fall over into her face, amusing Amanda to no end. Zack found himself wondering sometimes if they would ever fit her with her head as small as it was, and realized that he couldn't really picture her big. She would always be small in his eyes, with a bow too big for her head and green eyes just as unbefitting for such a small face.

He was startled out of his reverie by Gerald, who had been lost in conversation with his father. The man addressed him from across the room on the abnormally plush and comfortable-looking couch, looking over at him with a warm expression, "So how does it feel, Zack? Next year you'll be in middle school. You're growing up so fast."

Zack blinked at him a moment, processing his words, before he shrugged and looked back down at the bonsai. "All right, I guess." He simpered then, looking up to meet his eyes. "Though I'm a lot more excited for summer vacation."

Gerald laughed, glancing over to look at Arnold a moment before looking back at him with a smile. "I'm sure you are. Just one more month 'til freedom. I remember those days." He leaned back luxuriously into the couch, sinking back into the cushions. "Ice cream, swimming pools, arcade, and non-stop fun. Good times, good times."

"Don't let him fool you," Arnold said with a short eye roll, smiling as he looked his son in the eye with his forever half-lidded eyes. "He's thinking about his birthday more than anything else. He just can't wait to wreck the house."

Zack grinned at the smirking adults, not even attempting to hide his motivations as he walked over to plop himself down onto the couch beside his dad, bouncing lightly before he pulled his legs up onto the couch. "Maybe, maybe not," he said mysteriously, smirking as they both tittered.

"You know, you oughta be more excited," Gerald told him, sitting up slightly to lean forward, his legs spread and arms supporting his upper body on his knees. "You and Jaron will be going to the same school next year."

Zack's eyebrow raised high. "Who?"

Gerald faltered for a moment at his reaction, before he seemed to come to some conclusion and sighed, his smile returning somewhat ruefully. "My other son? The one with the glasses?"

Zack's eyes lit up in recognition. "Oh, the one with the sweater vests?" Silently, he labeled the boy in question as 'nerd,' but he would never voice that thought. Of course he knew the boy, the Johanssen household was practically his second home, ranking closely beside the boarding house, and he knew the house and it's residents inside and out. Except for the sweater vest boy. He was very quiet and very seldom seen when he was over for visits. The only reason he knew he existed was because he was always at the table during dinner, picking at his fish and looking longingly at a magazine by his plate with a big plate of French fries on the cover. Zack never knew what to say to him, so he just avoided him, and vice-versa.

So the burst of apprehensiveness was expected when Gerald replied, "Yep, that's him. You two should really be more close. You're both the same age, and he could use some more friends." There was something careful in the way he said that, like he was giving close consideration to his words, and Zack wondered just how unpopular the kid had to be for them to be having this conversation. "He's always cooped up in his room with books and video games—you still like books, don't you?"

Zack merely raised half of his unibrow at the man, both incredulous and inquisitive at the same time. Luckily he was saved from having to come up with a response when the oldest Johanssen son waltzed into the room in a t-shirt and basketball shorts, but a year older than him and with a grin unburdened by the world and it's pains. That grin widened at the sight of him and he greeted, "Hey! Zack! Just the man I wanted to talk to."

"Yeah, you and a million other people," Zack said matter-of-factly, an arrogant smirk on his face as he sat on the couch like he was the owner and the other the guest.

The tall, eleven-year-old paused at this response, a slight smirk splintering at the edges of his mouth as he took him in. "Well, no ego problems in here—"

"None that aren't justified," Zack retorted smugly, before he was pushed suddenly and looked over to see his dad giving him a humorous look, though he seemed to be trying to disapprove of his behavior. Zack just grinned.

Gerald cracked a genuine smile at the sight of his son. "Taro, we were just talking about how Jaron and Zack will be in the same grade next year."

Taro hummed, acknowledging the topic without really joining into it. He'd been well aware for some time now that his dad was going to be transferring Jaron to Zack's school at the beginning of middle school, at the request of Jaron who didn't much like the high standards of their current school, but he didn't see anything truly noteworthy in the situation. After all, Zack and Jaron weren't friends, and he had trouble even picturing the two of them in the same room together let alone having a conversation. They were too different, and Taro gave his father a mildly disapproving look for his less than subtle implications.

Phil came wandering into the room then with a large cookie, nibbling on the edges and stealing the adults' attention. Taro took advantage of the momentary distraction to address Zack, "Can I talk to you?"

"You are now," Zack replied noncommittally, but hopped down from the couch all the same and followed Taro out of the room.

Taro began speaking while they were still walking, making their ways into the den, "So you remember that kid you wanted me to watch? That big, red-headed kid?"

Zack immediately stopped walking, curiosity lighting his eyes. He smiled. "Yeah, what about him?"

Taro wasted no time, saying the words just as he'd turned around to face him, "He's gone."

Zack stared at him, his smile still in place.

Taro blinked. When Zack still didn't respond, he shrugged and added, thinking he needed more information, "He hasn't been in school since last Wednesday. I asked the principal about it, and he said he moved, so…" He smiled, reaching over to pat Zack on the shoulder. "I supposed that's the end of that, huh?"

Zack still didn't move, and barely reacted to his touch, before he finally nodded his head slowly, absorbing this information. "That's a little weird," he said quietly, giving a little laugh that Taro thought for a split-second didn't sound very like his normal one. That thought vanished as Zack said funnily, "Who moves just before summer break? Seems kind of impractical."

"I was thinking the same thing," Taro said mirthfully, his smile widening at Zack's continued ability to find the humor in any situation, no matter how difficult. And he knew how concerning Zack could find this topic.

Zack had warned him of the boy a year before, telling him of what a bully he had been at his school and asked him to keep an eye on him. Taro had readily agreed and thanked him for the warning, making sure to always keep a close watch on him to make sure nothing fishy was ever afoot.

The boy he'd soon learned was named August Bailey had a smug air to him that Taro didn't find very welcoming, with a frustrated defiance that presented itself whenever they crossed paths. Taro was unafraid, though, feeling no need for the emotion, and was happy to see that he mainly kept to himself, always twitchingly adjusting things in his locker so they were straight and staring too hard at his lunch. Clearly not a good boy, but at least not as much of a menace as Zack had seemed convinced he was.

Taro gave updates to Zack on his behavior every once in a while, always making sure to note his quietness, save for a few times he'd scowled just a little too threateningly at a third grader or two. But then Taro might have done the same had anyone tried to take the last chocolate milk away from him—before breaking out laughing at the ridiculousness of that scenario. He was just happy it was all over. Now they didn't have to worry about him anymore. He opened his mouth to voice so, but was interrupted.

"I wonder where he moved," Zack commented in a strange tone that Taro didn't recognize, before he laughed again and smiled wanly. "First he switches schools and then he moves. Will he ever be content?"

"It doesn't matter," Taro said, eying him a moment before he smiled again. "Let's just be happy he's gone. He can't pose a threat anymore. Now we can relax."

"Yeah, relax," Zack said, sounding strangely far off.

Taro gasped suddenly, scaring them both. "Zack, your arm!"

Zack looked down, and was startled to find that his arm had started shaking almost violently. Sucking in a breath, he grabbed his arm in a moment of panic, before he tremulously crossed his arms over his chest, looking shaken in more ways than one. He somehow managed to maintain his smile during all this, though, and he laughed, sounding much more genuine this time. "Sorry," he said smally, still smiling, "ever since that baseball accident last year it's been weird. I guess I'm just surprised."

Taro hummed, nodding his head solemnly in understanding. "I know what you mean. Ever since I broke my leg three years ago, it just hasn't been the same." He kicked that leg up, wincing a little at the telltale crack that resounded in the room before he slowly lowered it, laughing. "But then I was impatient and got the cast off when it probably wasn't ready."

"I know," Zack responded in kind, nodding. "I was anxious to get my cast off too." He cleared his throat then, a shockingly raspy sound, before he smiled once more and nodded his head in the direction of the stairs. "I've gotta go use the bathroom. Thanks for letting me know about things."

"Of course," Taro said simply, before exiting back into the living room, apparently unsuspicious of anything less than normal. He never was observant, Zack thought as he stumbled his way up the stairs, gasping.

"Gone," he murmured, letting out another bitter laugh. "Disappeared. Again. Gone. Gone where?" Gripping his left arm tight, he walked down the short hallway to the bathroom, a weight that had been just above him for quite some time now weighing impossibly on his shoulders.

"Darn it," he cursed, kicking the door open and falling into the room. He gagged, one hand on the toilet holding himself up as his head hung beside the toilet, between it and the sink. Absently, he kicked the door shut and gagged again, wincing. He took in a shaky breath, anger stinging at his eyes as he stared at the tile floor. He wasn't ever supposed to be gone. He was supposed to stay where he could keep him under his thumb. Where could he have gone?

"Oh, criminy," he moaned, breathing heavily. He hadn't had an episode like this in what felt like decades.

"Why are you hyperventilating next to a toilet?"

Zack's head snapped up in stunned shock, his jaw dropping as he realized he wasn't alone. He whipped his head over to see sweater vest boy sitting fully clothed in the bathtub, looking at him like he was mad. He wore his usual ghastly sweater and thick, golden glasses, with baggy jeans and his curling, black hair piled on top of his head.

The spooked look on his face alerted Zack that he'd been gawking too long, and he coughed a couple times, trying to save face. "Uh, I wasn't hyperventilating. Just too much breakfast." To go along with the lie, he twisted his face into a pained look, hoping the weak grimace would fool him.

The boy, identified as Jaron, looked at him incredulously. He reached up to adjust his glasses, as if that would help him make sense of him, and said matter-of-factly, "You should know that I can tell quite easily when falsehoods are being fabricated, Zack."

Zack's eyebrow shot up high past his hair. "You know my name?"

Jaron observed him, his expression unreadable. "Everyone knows your name." He licked his lips then, a nervous look suddenly overtaking his face. "You come over enough. Plus we used to play together in the vacant lot sometimes."

"You mean Gerald Field?" Zack asked.

"The vacant lot," Jaron repeated, shifting in the bathtub. Zack noticed the book in his hand then, and found his traitorous eyes seeking out the title. Jaron speaking again thankfully stopped him, "Now why are you really in here?"

"Why are you in here?" Zack shot back, finding himself resentful of being called a liar, even if it was true. Nobody ever called him out on that. Ever. Especially not some boy in a bathtub.

The boy looked startled at the question, before he shifted again, looking very uncomfortable. Zack smirked at that, satisfied that they were on even ground now.

He rose up from the floor and stretched his limbs, suppressing any lingering thoughts on him as he did so, before falling down onto the toilet lid. Feeling a bit cocky with himself, he leaned forward to see what he was reading, curiosity masked by him just wanting to be a twit. The words "Where the Red…" caught his eye just before Jaron hid the book from sight, the rest of the title lost to him. But he didn't need to see anymore.

"Avoiding people, huh?" Zack said with somber understanding, supporting himself by his arms on his knees.

Jaron looked down at the book hidden in his legs, his lips pursed tight.

"Your dad says we're going to be going to the same middle school," Zack said, tilting his head at a ridiculous angle in an attempt to catch his eyes. "So I guess we'll be seeing each other more often."

In the end, the glint of the florescent light on his glasses destroyed any chance at knowing where his eyes even were, and he couldn't get a good enough angle to correct the fact. Hopelessly, Zack stood from the toilet and began towards the door.

"Are," Jaron's reluctant voice stilled the hand reaching for the doorknob, his voice cracking for just a second before he continued, unsurely, "Are you really the Zack Shortman, as in, the guy with a superfluous amount of friends? I mean, I've known you for some time, but I haven't really seen you in public since the vacant lot some years back and…" He took a breath. "There could be another Zack I'm not aware of."

Zack found himself staring a second too long and immediately puffed up his chest, pride swelling inside him. He'd known he was popular, but not enough to warrant a question like that. Nonetheless—"No, I am that Zack—Zachary Shortman, the one and only, in the flesh. Hold your applause, thanks." He smirked wickedly, just before the sleeves of his shirt fell down his arms again. His smirk dropped and he let out a silent sigh, beginning work on the tiresome sleeves once more.

Jaron apparently chose not to respond to this information, as he sat stilly in the bathtub and merely looked back down at his book again.

There was a silence after that, one that Zack was beginning to find increasingly uncomfortable.

"Well then," Zack said, looking almost longingly at the door, "it was nice to finally meet you." Under his breath, he muttered, "Sorta." He fumbled for the doorknob, before gripping it tight and preparing to swing it open and make for the nearest closet to recuperate.

He stopped himself, though, for just a second, and he lingered. Glancing back over at sweater vest boy, he tilted his head slightly before saying, as an afterthought that seemed to nearly give Jaron a heart attack, "Not to ruin the ending for you, but that book has a really sad ending. I don't know if that's your thing, but I didn't much like it. Not the best escape." Jaron blinked at him, surprised.

With that, Zack opened the door and left, resolving himself to find his own hiding place for a little while.

At least until he could go home.

"Gone," he whispered.

Light streamed in through the window, nature's magic brightening every crevice of the room in a way a lightbulb never could.

Said lightbulb was currently spying under the door, just underneath in that little slit that kept the door just above the floor, as if it were envious of the sun's rays. Like a jealous lover. A clingy friend.

Glass ever so breakable, door easily caved in—it was a veritable time bomb of disaster.

Duct tape whizzed through the air, cutting the silence with knife-life precision. Zack let out a breath.

In neat, vertical rows, he placed the strips of tape on his window, from up to down, and then from left to right horizontally. With each piece, the dimmer the room grew, until it was completely shrouded in blackness, save for the jealous florescence under his door.

A thick sheet was then taped above the window, before he was content enough in his work to take a step back. The duct tape fell deftly from his hand, the otherwise loud thump of it's fall broken by the carpet.

Dragging his desk chair to the center of the room, he stepped up and clicked on the light, giving sight to what he already knew was there. Shadows stalked in corners and cracks despite the light, though. He should really invest in some other source of lighting—something he could control from ground level and would keep everything alit and naked to his eyes. The words Short Man breathed in his ear following the thought, and his eyes narrowed. He was ten. Young. Not short.

Jumping down, he replaced his chair and looked around uncertainly, his arms crossed tight. His eyes lingered on the sheet over his window. Like thin strips of sticky elastic and a bed sheet was going to keep him out. With the sun directly over it, he bet one could even see his outline traipsing about inside. He could just as easily get sniped.

He clenched his eyes shut at the thought, an ugly grimace passing over his face. What a thought. How old was he now anyway? Fifteen? Sixteen? Could you even own a gun at that age? Certainly not.

Although one could be registered all the same, provided an adult held onto it for him. Right? He'd seen kids shooting before. It wouldn't be hard for someone to get a hold of a gun. It had happened enough, what with all those school shootings and whatnot. He wouldn't put it past him. Zack's eyes opened at the thought, and he bit his lip.

The next second he groaned, stumbling back to fall back onto his bed with a bounce and skip of a heartbeat. He was being paranoid, surely. Taro had said he'd been gone since last week. If he wanted him dead, he'd have done it already. Left him choking on his own blood and skipped town a long time ago. There was nothing to worry about. The sheet and tape would do. He probably didn't even need it. Sunshine meant him no harm. Except perhaps skin cancer, but that was hardly concerning at the moment.

No, it had been almost two years since the events that had taken place… before. He wasn't supposed to be afraid anymore. Like Taro said, he was gone. It was over. No more reason to fret.

He hadn't wanted him to ever be gone, though. He wanted him in his line of sight at all times. Like keeping an eye on a snake to make sure it wasn't rearing to strike. He hadn't been happy with their arrangement, and more than once when he'd been out on the town with his friends he'd caught his eye from across a street or in a dark alley, watching him. Not hatefully, but not good either. Even months after the fact, the searing heat in his hazel eyes sent a shot of terror down Zack's spine, and he'd have to look away and fake a grin for his friends. Nobody liked a crybaby, and he would never prove himself to be anything less than likeable. Who knew what would happen if he ever ended up alone in the middle of the street again with him on the prowl? Nothing good, or clean.

But he had blackmail, he reminded himself, somewhat frantically. He was untouchable. Untouchable and with him under his control. The entire thing was foolproof. He'd made sure of that. He still had all his old evidence in a shoebox in his closet, taped up tight and hidden stealthily beneath a pile of shirts he never wore.

But all that didn't matter anymore. Because he was gone. Gone to a place he didn't know and couldn't watch him, and probably still angry at the only person who had the means to put him away in juvie. Oh, he should have just gone to the police in the first place, screwed all that 'mercy' crap. What was he thinking? Foolish, young and foolish, he cursed, slamming his fists down on the bed.

Untouchable, he repeated in his mind, again and again, creating a chain of it in his head. He'd just have to be more cautious. That was all. Bulletproof glass existed didn't it? He could make himself a safe bubble. Oh, but then people might find it a little strange that he was walking around in a ball. Well, except Riley anyway.

Well, for the window, at least. That'd be a perfect solution to his duct tape/sheet problem. He'd get stronger locks, a sturdier door. One that hopefully kept out that annoying little sliver of light at the bottom. Curtains as well, perhaps. The thick, heavy type that he could swish shut and feel all foreboding, like a modern day Dracula or something. Speaking of which, garlic—dairy was his weakness. He was lactose intolerant. If worse came to worse, he could always assign a herd of cows guard duty outside his window. He smirked at the thought.

Out of everything, though, he could at least be sure of one thing, no matter the fact it was a less than comforting thought—he would be back. There was no way this was over. He had never been the type to let things go. It was a well-known fact. It was why he'd been cowered of in the hallway, and everyone ran in the other direction. Even when they were just looking at Zack, they fled. Nobody wanted to mess with him or anything related to him, because they knew as soon as they became involved, it was all over. It was what he was known for. He hadn't tamed a pussycat for two years, he'd stuck a hot poker into a bear's anus, held it there for as long as he could while the bear was shackled down, and expected him to be okay with it. This wasn't over. He'd be back.

Neat and tidy. Bailey liked having all his ducks in a row. Zack just wished he knew when.

Hopefully, he thought as his eyes began to drift shut, he would return soon. Zack would much rather be dead than have to spend his life constantly looking over his shoulder. That was no way to live. Hadn't he already decided that? It was practically his philosophy, take it easy and smile for the camera—and always be within a large group of people.

He fell asleep to the sounds of Josh arguing with Phil, and his mom and dad blaring the television to some flamboyantly giddy cartoon to try to calm them down. Phil began screaming instead.

As the years passed, August never did show up on his doorstep. The only person to try to get through his window was Josh (or Ham, as the years would decree him). No one ever pulled him into an alley except to laugh at him and offer a soda. And no one ever, ever called him worthless again.

Still, Zack continued to look over his shoulder. The plain glass of his window was replaced, the sheet thrown out in favor of a comforter, his door "magically" broken so his parents had to invest in a new one, and a block of wood with rubber coating wedged beneath the door. He cursed himself and gagged and smiled and pretended everything was okay. Eventually survival was pushed to the back of his mind. Entire months could go by that he wouldn't feel the need to run. And soon enough, he'd suppressed the memory all together.

He never truly forgot, though. Every redhead within Hillwood knew to keep their distance. No one stayed around long enough to invoke any real thought or concern, and Zack was happy.

Until Pamella Idleberry.

Ham walked down the hall, a constant sense of "what the hell" painted mildly across his features. His usual red-white baseball shirt was slung over his shoulder, leaving nothing but his gray undershirt, and a white iPod held securely in his left hand. One earbud was in his ear, while the other was slung over his shoulder by his shirt.

The walk to his parents' bedroom was a short one from the stairs, the first and only door to the left, but he always made sure to take his time getting there, letting his footsteps fall as heavily as would bid them without sounding like he was purposely trying to make a spectacle of himself. Even if no one was around to see, he could see himself—and that was just as bad.

Making it to the door, he stood a moment, clicking his iPod off before rapping his knuckles on the door with controlled force.

His mother's voice came a few seconds later, "Come in!"

Not needing to be told twice, he swung the door open, his face neutral. "Mom, I—" His eyes went huge and he quickly looked away, closing the door halfway to shield himself. "Mom, what—"

"What?" his mother asked, just as his father pulled on the strings of her girdle again, eliciting an undignified whoosh of air out of her lips.

She was gripping the edge of their bedpost, in nothing but loose-fitting jeans and a cotton white shirt—and a pink girdle tied tightly about her ribs. His father stood behind her, gripping the laces in his fists and observing her like one might a Mona Lisa painting.

Ham looked away again, eyes still wide. He didn't know why he was surprised. "Uh, if this isn't a good time…"

"Nonsense," Helga wheezed, smiling at him in her usual loving fashion. "Arnold's just been helping me get ready for your aunt's visit next month. You know Olga with her flashy clothes and updos—there's no way I'm getting upstaged in my own home."

"Yeah, either that or this is just another form of birth control," Arnold commented in a mutter, fiddling with a few laces that had twisted.

Helga's smile remained on her face, even as she muttered back, "Keep up comments like that and we won't even need birth control."

"Uh," Ham uttered, brows knitted as he stared awkwardly.

Before Arnold could respond, Helga gasped and scowled, gesturing towards him as she looked frustrated at her husband over her shoulder. "Have you even had the talk with him? And here you're making comments like that?"

"He's fourteen, dear," Arnold said patiently, still focused on the strings of her back. "I don't think a talk is really necessary now."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot he was your son," Helga snorted, gripping the bedpost with whitening knuckles. She smirked. "Mr. Grasp-and-Gasp—"

She faltered as he gave a forceful tug of the strings on her back, leaving her breathing shallow. Arnold leaned into her, smiling by her ear with half-lidded eyes. "You were saying, Helga?"

"I think you broke a rib," she ground out huskily through clenched teeth, face frozen in a grimace.

"You guys," Ham said a little desperately, fortunately or unfortunately gaining their attention, "I think Zack's trying to kill Phil."

Both his parents' eyebrows flew high at the news, before Helga scoffed and tore away from her husband, screwing blindly at the strings on her back. Arnold came forward instantly and released her from the restrictive torture device, allowing her to sigh out in relief. As soon as she'd gained her composure, she looked to Ham and said, "That's impossible, I only just talked to Zack a couple hours ago." She shared a look with Arnold. They both knew what talk she was speaking of.

"I just had Phil scream at me to call 911," Ham said, frowning.

Helga rolled her eyes, a hand on her abdomen as she took a step back to fall into the long, black lounge chair by the wall, looking much like a therapy patient in that moment, with Arnold still standing by the bed with a girdle in his hand. "Phil screams for someone to call 911 when he finds a spider in his room," she said dryly. "This is hardly cause for concern."

"Yeah," Ham acknowledged with a similar look, "but Zack had him slung over his shoulder when he said it. Last I saw, Zack was slamming his room locked behind them."

Both Arnold and Helga's eyes widened, and their eyes met again in a worried glance. Zack never let anyone in his room.

"Well, criminy," Helga groused, standing up from the chair. "I guess we all know what this means."

She strode over to her husband and grabbed the girdle from his hand, throwing it carelessly to the bed before grabbing his shoulders and leading him to the door. "Time for the football head of the house to go be a man and discipline his children."

"What?" Arnold asked incredulously, tossing a look over his shoulder at her.

"You heard me, Bruce Lee, go kick your kids into shape!" She slapped him on the butt, pushing him all the more determinedly to the door. Ham took the remaining step into the room and stepped out of the doorway.

Rather than letting himself get pushed out the door, Arnold made a quick grab for the bedpost, gripping tight as his alarmingly strong wife continued to push on his shoulders. She cursed as her grip slipped, and Arnold grabbed for the other post, letting out a huff. "Helga, be reasonable. Zack would never hurt Phil. I'm sure the two of them are just having a talk."

"Oh, please," Helga sniffed, grabbing him by his collar so she could continue to pull. "You just don't want to have to face down your son 'cause you know he'll make you want to rip your hair out."

"Hey, I love Zack—" Arnold argued.

"I didn't say you didn't love him," Helga grunted, walking around the bed to jump up and lay back, trying to push him with her sock-clad feet to let go of the bed. He winced at her efforts. "I'm saying he's the only person besides me capable of getting under your skin."

Arnold didn't respond to that. Instead he let out a sharp noise when Helga all but kicked him in the back, her fingers all the while trying to pry his fingers off the bedpost. "Helga, we are almost forty years old," he said tiredly, as if she needed reminding. "Don't you think we're a little old for this game?"

"I will never be too old to whip your ass into shape," she told him in a voice that shouldn't have sounded so sweet to him, just as she succeeded in prying his fingers off and proceeded to kick him towards the door. He stumbled forward, just as she jumped off the bed and advanced on him, pushing his ever-loving plaid self towards the door once more. "Now go be the man I married and keep your young from eating each other!"

"Helga, stop," he said, though he didn't resist her efforts this time, "why can't you—"

"Stop it! Stop it!" a voice screamed suddenly in raw anguish, snapping all eyes to the short, brunette boy in the doorway. "You're tearing this family apart!"

Just as soon as he'd started, Phil stopped, letting his hands from his head as he looked indifferently between his parents and brother, like nothing had happened. "Sorry, I've just always really wanted to say that."

"Phil," Helga breathed, surprised, "you're not dead."

Phil turned his eyes on her a moment, frowning. "Of course not."

"Ham said you were screaming earlier," Arnold explained, and Ham gave a vague nod.

Phil didn't move his head; simply shifted his eyes towards him, eyebrows just barely furrowing. "Great timing, Ham," he praised without feeling, "I'd have been stiff and at the bottom of the lake by now." When the raised eyebrows failed to turn from him, he flicked his eyes up. "Nothing happened, don't worry about it."

Everyone opened their mouths to speak, but he'd already left, not caring enough to ask about the girdle on the floor, or his parents disheveled appearance.

Helga huffed, giving her husband a dirty look. "He gets that stupid listless look from you."

Arnold gave her a listless look for the comment, not bothering to respond. Helga flicked him in the ear for it. He cursed.

"Well," Ham said awkwardly, beginning slowly towards the door, "I guess that settles that. I'll just leave."

"Oh, you don't have to go," Helga said tenderly, taking a step towards him as he continued to back away. In the background, his father picked the girdle back up.

Ham smiled benignly, already in the doorway with his hand on the knob. "Yeah, I really do. Bye, Mom."

Just as he closed the door, he heard his dad ask, his voice deep and gravelly, "Now where were we?"

He broke into a run.

As soon as Phil was out of the room, Zack dead bolted his door shut and turned off the lights, before falling back on his bed, his long legs sprawled across the carpet. The stars on his ceiling glowed almost cheerfully, a reminder of a more carefree time in his life. He didn't know how he felt about that. He didn't know how he felt about anything.

He hadn't gotten but a few hours sleep last night. He'd already had an emotionally trying day with Pam. He thought it was over. He thought he was in the clear.

Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he was oversimplifying things with his optimism. Maybe he'd never truly been in the clear. He was just ignoring the fact.

What a disturbing thought. Leave it to his mom to make him question his entire life.

A few moments passed of silence—blissful silence, his brain giving in to numbness. And the world was calm.

And then he gave a shout and flailed violently, kicking his legs and pounding his arms on his bed, wrecking the sheets and causing his pillows to propel off the bed. He bolted up for a split second, stunned, before he let his eyes roll back with a groan and fell back onto the bed.

God, he'd never wanted to die so much before in his life. Or to just scream. If all this time he'd been able to twist and manipulate the truth over into his happy, ignorant favor, how bad did today have to be for him to feel this horrible? He didn't want to think about it.

Hilarious, really, that the redhead should prove merciful and his little brother should be the one to pose the real threat. There was no way he would have ever seen that coming. It was just like life to throw a curve-knife straight into his back. Though he supposed he should have seen it coming to some extent. Of course Phil would be brutal, he wouldn't let things go—he was too stubborn. Hadn't he always been? And yet he'd never worried about him. He was his baby bro, small and fluffy-headed with his spastic, adorable ways. He couldn't hate him. He wanted to—mother of God, did he want to after that—but he couldn't.

But then again, this wasn't as big a deal to Phil as it was to him. This was all a game as far as he was concerned. But—hell—that sadistic glint in his eye, like he enjoyed his suffering—that hurt. Phil wasn't evil. Was he?

No, he was just a smug little bastard. His little brother. His own flesh and blood—of course he'd be the only one to ever truly get the best of him. He was the only one who shared his diabolicalness. Or, Amanda did too, but she used it to get cookies from the top shelf.

He sighed. He couldn't fault him for wanting to beat him at his own game. How long had he teased that it was impossible? He hadn't meant to make it seem like a challenge—he just enjoyed teasing. He liked poking his family and cackling in their ears, because—in a sick sort of way—he liked knowing that no matter how much he got on their nerves, they would never hurt him. They loved him no matter what and always would. And yet he still poked the sleeping bull over and over again, like a test to see if it would ever wake, and then delighted in knowing it never would.

Except Phil. Phil had always been awake, and screaming. He'd just been too blind to see it.

He shook his head a little gently, before sitting up. He looked back up at the stars, and muttered ironically, "You gotta look up…" He sighed.

Maybe his mom was right. Yeah. But then, maybe she wasn't. Maybe it didn't matter. After all, his optimism had gotten him this far. It had kept him happy for years now, and kept him smiling even as life slapped him repeatedly in the face. If he could twist things around to keep the grin on his face for this long, well… how could that ever be bad?

What was one more lie, in an ocean of deceit?

Standing up, he walked to his window and leaned against the wall, gazing across the way at the window of his every nightmare. Then he closed the makeshift curtain and walked to his desk. There was only one thing he knew to do at a time like this. Only one thing that would set things to rights.

Sitting down slowly, the chair squeaking like a shaky welcome to his presence, he reached over and plucked a pen from a cup at the corner of his desk. A notepad was already in the center, tilted to the right, and he licked the tip of his pen a couple times without thought. And wrote.

I fight a battle every day
Against discouragement and fear;
Some foe stands always in my way,
The path ahead is never clear!
I must forever be on guard
Against the doubts that skulk along;
I get ahead by fighting hard,
But fighting keeps my spirit strong.

I hear the croakings of Despair,
The dark predictions of the weak;
I find myself pursued by Care,
No matter what the end I seek;
My victories are small and few,
It matters not how hard I strive;
Each day the fight begins anew,
But fighting keeps my hopes alive.

My dreams are spoiled by circumstance,
My plans are wrecked by Fate or Luck;
Some hour, perhaps, will bring my chance,
But that great hour has never struck;
My progress has been slow and hard,
I've had to climb and crawl and swim,
Fighting for every stubborn yard,
But I have kept in fighting trim.

I have to fight my doubts away,
And be on guard against my fears;
The feeble croaking of Dismay
Has been familiar through the years;
My dearest plans keep going wrong,
Events combine to thwart my will,
But fighting keeps my spirit strong,
And I am undefeated still!

Zack smiled quietly at his latest creation, feeling much more in tune with the madness that was his world. He closed his eyes against the now blank page of his emotions and sighed, giving it a moment to sink in. The blackness danced to a silent melody in the air that was all his own, a guilty pleasure that he always gave into in the end. Not paradise, but rightness, a feeling of complete peace. That was no longer a secret to just him.

His eyes opened then, clearer than before, and he plucked up a lighter from a small bowl on his desk. Clicking the flame to life, he ripped the page off and held it over a metal trashcan just beside his desk, and waved it over the corner of the paper.

As the rushed script was slowly eaten away to ashes by the flame, Zack let it fall away to the trash, atop a clump of blackened ash and crinkled tar.

Now, it was time to set Operation Kill Phil into motion.

After all, Phil didn't lie, it wasn't within his capability—he honestly thought he had nothing to hide. But if there was one thing Zack knew, it was that sometimes, honesty was the largest form of deceit it was possible to concoct. He was overlooking something. Everyone had a secret, something so huge and insurmountably horrible that even the secret holder had to make themselves oblivious to it just to function.

And Phil was hardly functional as is.

He smirked.

A/N: Oh, Zack, how you've inspired me... FOR ALMOST 100,000 WORDS. F U. MISS YOU I SHALL NOT. GET ALONG WITH ALL YOUR DANG ANGST. SO LONG, SUCKER. HALLE-FRICKIN-LUJAH.

Phil's chapter will take a while, 'kayz? I want to savor it. Savor it, and also, relax and take my time so it's right. I already have the plot lined out, his past is in place, characters fleshed, ending scene concepts done (they always seem to be the first I come up with XD), so... all that's left is outline and writing it. xD It's going to be AWWWESUM. *Squeaks and hugs keyboard* It will also be dedicated to writergirl97 for all the fics she's written for Phil. :) I hope you guys like it! 'Cause it's already killing my soul. xD

Also, a bit of a heads up, I've got a lot of pics up of these guys on my dA page (which you can access from my profile), so if you ever wanna know what they legit look like, pop in over there. On top of that, Panflawless made a group for my story that's on there as well called "The Shortman Universe," which has other such fanart from peeps. X3 So if you like these guys and aren't on dA, you're missing out on a lot of stuff. XD

Thank you guys for taking the time to read Zack's story! :) "Shortman Secrets" is all about presenting the kids problems and inner-innerness, not fixing them, so I hope you weren't expecting August to show up out of the blue all, "Yo, bro, sup?" xDDD No, no... that's for the future. o_o OR IS IT—Okay, I'm done. xD

On another note, get used to Pam. She's gonna be around from henceforth. xD *Draws sword* TALLY HO!

On another other note—"ONCE UPON A TIME" TONIGHT. IT'S ON, IT'S GAME, IT'S HAPPENING, IT'S TONIGHT. SO MY REWARD FOR MY WRITER PAINS. *Thanks God for perfect timing*

Later, comrades! I really hope you enjoyed my crap (even if just looking it over makes me want to hail a taxi to Hong Kong and never return). I'm really trying to keep positive here, I'm happy with at least a third of this. I WILL improve. *Determined face* Bye for now, loves!

Takes a minute, means a lot, you've no idea the joy you've brought...

REVIEW!

If you actually do send one... thank you. :)