A/N: My first of hopefully more shortaki fics. I've been meaning to write for them for a while but never got around to it because I've been so busy. Hope you enjoy! Do leave a review if you can :) This fic is also on ao3

edit: ppl pointed out helga is allergic to strawberries so i fixed it haha thanks for that!

a day in time

There was someone on the other side of the bed when she woke up.

At first, she chalked it up to Olga sneaking into her room at night because having sleepovers would 'improve their sisterly bond' or whatever it is that Olga was talking about last night.

Irritated, Helga shut her eyes tight, determined not to let this become a sleepover lest she end up spilling any incriminating information. She didn't trust Olga, but lately - especially since Olga told her she felt pressured by the expectations - she found she'd been much more susceptible to blabbing.

If this became a sleepover, Olga would definitely ask about boys, and Helga did not want to get started on that subject if she could help it.

A horrifying thought struck her. She hadn't left the closet door open, had she?

She usually made it a point to keep it shut at all times. Her family was not the most considerate when it came to privacy, even though they did leave her alone most of the time.

But Olga would not leave it alone. Olga would definitely go in there, if only to see what kind of clothes Helga had, and then she'd see–

Panic settled instantly, and Helga jolted up, eyes darting across the room to make sure the closet door was–

Gone?

Huh?

Helga looked around in confusion. This wasn't her room. This wasn't Olga's or her parent's room either. It was too big, for one thing, and the furniture was nothing like the tacky things Bob had lying around their house.

The panic she'd felt for her closet door shifted lanes. Where the hell was she? Had she been kidnapped? How the fuck was she going to get home? Did anyone even notice she was missing?

The person on the other side of the bed grunted, still hidden under the covers and Helga noticed three things at once: the person was a man, he was bigger than her, she still had all her clothes on. Or well, she had her nightgown on.

For now, said that fearful little voice in her brain. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the blood rushing through her head.

Maybe if she could sneak out before he woke up–

"Helga?"

Fuck. Maybe not, then.

But his voice had been oddly familiar.

Slowly, she turned around. Arnold's green eyes blinked back at her.

Or well, she thought it was Arnold. It was definitely Arnold's head, and Arnold's eyes, and Arnold's face but he looked significantly older than eleven, and last Helga knew, Arnold didn't have any secret older brothers who looked exactly like him. Definitely not any older brothers who knew her name.

But this Arnold lookalike seemed to be just as confused as she was feeling. He was looking her over in surprise, as if shocked to find her in his bed. Which was fair! How did she even end up here?

Maybe they'd kept Arnold's secret brother a secret because he was a criminal, because this was some pretty damning evidence for a horrible crime.

"Helga," he started again, and okay - that wasn't exactly Arnold's voice. It was much deeper and smoother for one. But it was also pretty much Arnold's voice. If anyone could tell the difference between what was Arnold and what wasn't, it was her. "What happened to you?"

What happened to her? She didn't feel any different. She wasn't hurt anywhere. What did that even mean?

"Okay," she started, pushing herself off the huge bed and turning around. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm the one who asks questions here, got it?"

Not-Arnold nodded.

"Who the hell are you, why am I here in your bed, and what do you mean what happened to me?"

"Well," Not-Arnold said, sitting upright and frowning. "I'm Arnold, you're here because we're living together and this is actually your bed, and I'm worried because you seem to have…" He looked her over. "Shrunk."

Great, she was stuck with a madman.

"You don't seriously expect me to believe any of that?"

"Hey, I'm just as confused as you are!"

"I'm calling the police."

Self-proclaimed Arnold blinked at her in confusion. She watched as the implications seemed to hit him because his face turned bright red - the same kind as her Arnold's actually, which was a bit fascinating to watch. He stood up, the covers dropping on the bed. Helga's eyes fell to his bare chest, and he seemed to realize it because he instantly pulled the covers back up to hide himself.

"No, look I'm sorry, but you're misunderstanding this. I really have no idea how you ended up here. Until last night you were 26 and we were…hanging out, and now you're…ten."

"Eleven."

"Eleven, then." Arnold waved her off. "I have no idea how this happened, really, I'm not trying to hurt you. I promise. I'm just trying to understand what's going on. But if you want me to leave, I'll go."

Helga frowned. None of this was making any sense, but she couldn't deny that this Arnold did seem exactly like her Arnold. Not just the shape of his head, though that was a dead giveaway, but he spoke in the same polite, frustrated way he always did with her. Even his expressions were the same. And his eyes - those deep greens she could get lost in - those were definitely Arnold's.

He was taller, though. Tall enough to be 26, she assumed. He was also less scrawny, and more…filled out. His shoulders were wider, and she had definitely glimpsed a hint of defined muscle there before he had covered himself with the blankets.

As much as it pained her to admit it, this Arnold was much more handsome than her Arnold.

Not that this made any difference to her, of course.

"Look," Other-Arnold was saying. Thankfully, he seemed to be oblivious to her ogling. "I'll go get dressed and make us some breakfast. Your clothes are in your closet, so you can find something that fits you. Then we can talk about what's going on here."

"Fine," Helga said, narrowing her eyes at him in what she hoped looked like a threat. "But if you take this as an opportunity to run, I'll find you and you'll find yourself acquainted with–"

"Ol' Betsy and the Five Avengers, yes, I got it." Arnold smiled at her. "I'm not running away, Helga. Just trying to figure out what's happening."

With that, Arnold left, closing the door behind him and Helga was left alone in the large room, wondering how he knew what she was going to say.

Maybe he hadn't been lying after all. Nothing made sense, because there was no way she would have shrunk. If she really was 26, then why did she feel eleven? Why did she remember things about being eleven so clearly, and have no memories about anything beyond that?

She pulled at the neckline of her nightgown to peer inside. This wasn't a 26 year old's body, either. Her chest was still pretty flat.

It was starting to make her head spin, so Helga decided to focus on other things for now. Like finding some clothes, and the room she was in.

It was a very nice room, actually. Nothing at all like the room she was used to, but maybe something she might have put together in her head if she was going through an interior decor magazine. The furniture was white and fancy, the walls were a soft beige color and there was a fluffy pink rug in the center of the room.

The vanity in the corner was covered with all the makeup she didn't know how to use - yet, she thought - and–

There was a picture on the nightstand.

In her confusion over the situation, she hadn't noticed it when she'd gotten out of bed, but there it was. A framed photo of the Arnold she'd just been talking to, at what looked like the beach. He was wearing a black tank top, putting arms on display that were clearly the result of some working out.

Normally, she'd have spent a good while shamelessly ogling any bit of Arnold, but what caught her eye was the person behind him. Slightly taller than him, long blonde hair, a pink sundress. It was obviously her - she could tell from any angle. She still had the one eyebrow, but wore it with confidence and owned it. She looked pretty.

Her eyes moved to Arnold. He was laughing, looking happy, one arm thrown around the 26-year-old Helga's shoulders, holding her close to him.

Something in Helga's chest lurched.

That made sense. This was all just an elaborate dream. Another fantasy her subconscious had cooked up to feed her longing. Why hadn't she realized it before?

She should've known from the minute she realized she'd woken up with Arnold.

Sure, it was the first time she'd actually dreamt up an adult Arnold, but she didn't have all that much control over her subconscious fantasies, anyway.

But if this was a fantasy, she could indulge herself a bit, couldn't she?

Helga entered the kitchen wearing the only thing in the closet that fit her. It was probably meant to be a mini-dress, but reached past her knees at her height. Arnold had pulled on a T-shirt over the sweatpants he'd been wearing earlier and was now setting the table. Helga caught a whiff of fried eggs and toast and realized she was hungry.

She took her seat at the table, plastering an arrogant look on her face. "You call this breakfast, Football Head?"

Arnold looked over at her and laughed. "No, it's what you call breakfast. You get sick if you eat too much in the morning."

Helga scowled. This was true, but she'd been trying to throw him off. If only to remind him who's boss. Which was her, of course.

"How do you know that?"

"I know everything about you, Helga."

Right, fantasies and all that. Of course, he knew she didn't eat much for breakfast. He was a figment of her imagination.

He was a bit too snarky for her imagination, though. The Arnold in her fantasies was usually gentle and loving, willing to kiss the ground she walked on. This Arnold looked at her like she had something stuck on her face and he was trying not to laugh.

Maybe I've started getting bored and need to branch out to spicier stuff.

In all honesty though, it didn't feel like a dream. For one thing, she'd never use crockery as hideous as the ones in front of her. And for another, the faint smell of raspberries and sweat as Arnold took a seat opposite her felt too real to be her imagination.

She didn't think she'd have been able to just imagine the way his hair was sticking up at the back of his head either. Or the black band around his right wrist. Arnold had never been the kind of guy to wear accessories.

"So," she said, picking up a slice of bread. "Do you have any ideas on what's happening here, or should I just assume you've kidnapped me?"

Arnold snorted. "You're definitely yourself."

"Of course, I'm me, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Arnold said, and set the slice of toast he was holding back on his plate. "You're still you, but 15 years younger."

"Oh right, your claim that I woke up and I was eleven."

"Yes." He nodded. "You did tell me about it, now that I remember."

"I told you about it?"

"Yeah," he carried on, as if there was nothing weird about the situation. "You told me one day I'd wake up and you'd be a kid again, but you didn't tell me when it was going to happen."

Okay, this was definitely a dream.

"Something about how you'd pissed Madam Blanche off by calling her a fake and she took revenge on you by making you swap places with yourself from the future. I thought it was a joke, but…" he trailed off.

"And you believe this?"

"I wouldn't have, normally," he told her. "I didn't even believe you when you said it, but this situation is weird."

Either this is a weirdly realistic dream or I've finally lost my mind.

"It's not a dream," Arnold said, as if reading her mind. "You're just gonna be stuck here with me for a few hours."

"Madam Blanche is a fake," Helga started. Why was dream-Arnold trying to convince her to believe something like this? "She—"

She once gave me grape soda and pretended it was a potion was at the tip of her tongue but she swallowed it down. Arnold didn't need to know about that.

He was still a fantasy dream Arnold spouting ridiculous things, so it needn't have mattered, but some part of her still felt weird talking about it. After all, what if this wasn't a dream? She had once believed in magic, until Madam Blanche had ruined all of that. Even she had believed she'd fallen out of love until Madam Blanche had told her it was a placebo.

There was no proof. And there were some parts of this dream that didn't feel dream-like enough to be fully convincing.

"I know you're going to bring up the grape soda thing," Arnold said and Helga's head shot up. "But I mean, you were eleven - or I guess you are eleven - and maybe she didn't want to give you something potentially harmful, it's not necessarily–"

"How do you know about the grape soda thing?" Helga cut him off, narrowing her eyes.

Arnold laughed. "I told you, I know everything about you."

This Arnold was way too snarky for her imagination.

"You told me," He continued. "A while back."

This was a joke, right? She wouldn't have told Arnold something like that, no matter what. If this whole thing was real, they were clearly at least friends now, going off the photo on her nightstand. And Arnold was here, in what was supposed to be her apartment. She wouldn't have told him something like her being head over heels in love with him just because they were friends.

Come to think of it–

"Why were you in my bed?"

Arnold choked on his toast, and Helga pretended she wasn't the least bit concerned as he hacked out a lung. She watched as he swallowed down a glass of water and slowly regained his composure.

"You okay there, Football Head?"

"Swell," he croaked out, and something about his voice like that - deeper than she was used to, and huskier now after that coughing fit - sent a tingle down her spine to her toes.

"So, are you going to answer my question?"

"Um, haha well, you see–" he started, but his face turned that familiar shade of red again, and he was avoiding looking at her now. "We were uh, hanging out and it had been really hot and your futon wasn't clean and–"

He hadn't been wearing a shirt, she remembered. A shirtless Arnold, in her bed at night.

Oh.

Helga knew about sex, obviously. She was eleven years old, not a child. She'd read enough of Olga's novels to know what it was. Even if she didn't know the semantics.

This Arnold clearly knew them. And apparently, 26-year-old Helga did too.

Her own face was starting to feel very warm.

Be still, my bruised and aching heart.

"You know you're saying that out loud, right?" Arnold said, cutting through her rapidly degenerating thoughts. His own embarrassment aside, he was starting to look amused now.

There was no way this was a dream, because as much as she prided herself on knowing all about the things adults did at bedtime (something her peers definitely hadn't figured out yet), she had never thought about it in terms of Arnold.

It felt like it was crossing a boundary, even for her. But here he was - in her house, in her bed, without boundaries. When did Arnold Shortman start thinking of her that way?

"Are we dating?" She asked, incredulously.

Arnold looked confused. "Yes? Wasn't it obvious?"

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"We're dating? You and me? You like me?"

"I love you, Helga." He paused. "The 26-year-old version of you. You're too young for me."

Heart thudding, Helga stood up and crossed the table to hold his face in her hands. He felt real. His skin was warm under her fingers, and she couldn't have imagined the slight scratch of morning stubble, considering she had had absolutely no experience with it before.

"My pining isn't for nothing?!"

Arnold laughed. His hands came up to wrap around her wrists - they were so much larger, she noticed - and pull her hands away from his face. "No, Helga. It's not."

Oh, my football-headed love god, how I've held my soul back from touching yours!

"You're speaking out loud again."

"Who cares, Football Head, you love me!"

Her heart was thudding so loud now, he could probably hear it. He loved her! He loved her!

Even if it was a 26-year-old version of her. But that didn't matter, because she'd be 26 too, some day, and Arnold - the love of her life - would love her.

"We really should go talk to Madam Blanche about this, though," he was saying. "You should apologize for whatever you did and–"

"When did we start dating?"

Arnold sighed and shook his head with a smile. "Can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Don't wanna mess with the rules of space and time, and all that. Don't you watch sci-fi movies?"

"No, I—"

"Only watch romances, I know." He smiled at her. "But I can't give you any details. You'll have to live it out yourself."

That was fine, Helga thought. She could live with it. It was enough that Arnold would love her back one day, she didn't need to know when it was going to happen. The journey made the destination better, after all.

"Okay, but…did I confess first or did you?"

"Details again, Helga," he sighed, but he gave her a fond smile and ruffled her hair a bit. "Look, why don't you finish eating?"

"Oh, my angel, can I stay here with you forever?"

"No," Arnold said, laughing. "You have to go back and remind the eleven-year-old me that I love you, so that you can grow up to be 26 and we can laugh about this crazy day together."

Arnold gave her a tour of her house. She'd apparently designed her bedroom herself – of course – and the ugly cutlery were a gift from the boarding house residents as a housewarming present. That explained why she used them.

He had his own room, and even though he didn't say it out loud - probably in consideration of her being eleven - it was obvious he rarely slept there. The bed looked like it was accumulating dust, but there was a picture on the nightstand from the same day as the one in her own room.

It was from an anniversary, though he refused to tell her which one.

"You'll have to live it out yourself to find out."

"But what if I never find out because I never change my horrible personality and you never end up loving me back?"

Arnold laughed. "Trust me, you'll find out."

This was everything she'd ever wanted throughout her life, Helga thought, as Arnold led her out to the balcony to show her the view. She had her own apartment. She was dating Arnold. Arnold loved her back.

If this was just a dream she never wanted to wake up. She wanted to live in this house forever - a house without Bob and Miriam and only the barest hint of Olga (a picture on the mantelpiece from her wedding, but Arnold had apparently been Helga's plus one, and that made the picture worth it). And most importantly, a house with her life and Arnold's, mixed together, scattered all over the place.

It was his birthday. She noticed it after the house tour, as she sat on her bed waiting for him to bring back some icecream from the store. He'd insisted it wasn't the best idea to go outside like this, and even though she wanted to see the rest of the neighborhood, she'd agreed that walking around as an eleven year old would probably get some unwanted stares and questions.

The calendar on the nightstand was still marked on yesterday's date so she hadn't noticed it earlier, but her phone (that she didn't know how to use yet) had beeped with a reminder: Arnold

When she looked at it closely, she'd noticed the date.

There had to be a present around here somewhere. There was no way she didn't have a present for him. Opening the drawers didn't prove fruitful, and some of her cabinets were locked with no keys in sight. The closet was just full of clothes and some lacy things towards the back that made her face burn and her toes tingle.

Did she wear those? Did Arnold think she was sexy? She was definitely too young to be thinking about this, but it wasn't her fault they were right there. If this wasn't a dream - no, even if it was a dream, now that the idea had already set into her brain, she was going to end up thinking about it even when she woke up back in her own time.

It made her feel like a pervert - infinitely more so than the time she'd accidentally spied on Arnold while he was changing - so she slammed the closet door shut and went back to the bed.

Then, realizing this was the same bed her 26 year old self had been frolicking on with 26 year old Arnold, bounded out of the room and settled on the living room couch. Her face was probably pink enough to match her dress, but if Arnold noticed it when he came back, he didn't say a word.

The icecream was good - a new raspberry orange flavor she decided couldn't enter her life soon enough - and Arnold suggested they head back out to the balcony where they could get some fresh air. There was a small swing that would've been too small for two people (though this was probably the point) but big enough at her size.

It was still small enough that her arm was pressed against his as they sat there. Helga had never shied away from Arnold - her mask was too set in, her anger and aggression almost second nature at this point. But that point of contact where her skin brushed his was making her feel lightheaded, especially given all the nasty thoughts she'd been having earlier.

Arnold, on the other hand, didn't seem fazed at all. He sat there calmly, talking about how seeing her the way she was right now was sending him down the memory lane and that he'd forgotten what she'd been like.

Helga wondered what that meant. Did he not like this version of her? Was he having second thoughts about dating her older self, now that he'd been reminded of how loud and angry and mean she'd been? Was that way he was so unbothered?

No, it couldn't be that. Of course he wouldn't be bothered - she was eleven. If he had been bothered, she would've been concerned. But even though she logically knew that, some part of her wished he'd pay more attention to her the way she wanted him to.

He was just used to being around her. This was a man she lived with - who saw her at her worst, at her naked, and probably kissed her with morning breath.

Her thoughts were straying again - how was she ever going to face Arnold again after everything she had running through her head?

She pushed herself off the swing and went to stand at the railing. The apartment was on the fifth floor, so they were pretty high up.

Her thoughts were all over the place, and her head was starting to hurt.

"It's probably about time," Arnold told her as she stood there in the breeze. He checked his watch. "You told me it'd take around six hours or so, and it's been a while."

Wait - back? She didn't want to go back. She'd wasted all her time being embarrassed and hadn't spent enough of it appreciating him for what he'd grown up to be.

"Why can't I just stay here with you?"

"Because, Helga," he said with a smile. "You have to live it out yourself."

"You promise this isn't a dream?"

"Cross my heart."

"If you lied to me, I'll kill you."

Arnold laughed again and pulled her into a hug. "You got it, Helga."

Helga let herself lean into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and grabbing fistfuls of his T-shirt. If she held him tight enough, maybe she'd stay. Maybe she won't wake up from the best dream she'd ever had.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying in her own bed, blinking up at the familiar ceiling. She could hear Bob yelling at the TV.

The closet door was shut.

Tomorrow, she'd throw spitballs at Arnold again.

Some dream, she thought as she turned over on her side and closed her eyes again, reaching for a familiar fantasy.

"You called me a football headed love god, Helga."

"I'm going to kill myself."

"It was cute. You were cute."

"I'm going to kill you too."