Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold, or anything else that I've mentioned.
Summary: Helga, never imagined that one rash decision at a party, would turn her life
completely on its head six years later, and leave her in a twisted web of secrets, lies and skeletons are coming out. For Hillwood, it's the crime of the century. A love/crime/triangle drama! R!
A/N: Hello everybody. First of all, deepest apologies for the years long gap, and my dearest thank yous to those who kept coming back to comment on how they loved this story. It was not my intention to take that kind of sabbatical. After my last chapter...my life kind of went sideways. My family's business nearly went under, my marriage nearly imploded because of my spouse having a mental health crises. Between all of that I fell into a deep bout of depression and...my hobbies disappeared for awhile. Anyway, I've returned with plans to wrap this up soon because I've been doing a hell of a lot of writing again.
This chapter is mostly Helga/Arnold concentric. For me this story has always felt like an exercise in tearing things apart. With the added complexity of involving two people that...really aren't that great of individuals when you boil it down, but also victims. Such is life. People are rarely black and white. We'll see how it goes for them. Cheers.
I'd Love it if we made it.
"None of this was your fault, Arnold. There is no way you could have known somebody would do this to you."
"I feel like I could have…paid more attention or something." In the midst of his insomnia rattled anxiety about this specter returning to get him, there had been quite a bit of self-loathing over the fact that he'd never noticed a thing in his daily life leading up to it. And though he knew that it wasn't his fault, he still couldn't brush away the guttural guilt over what happened to her.
"You couldn't have," Monica assured. "And I don't blame you for any of this."
"I appreciate hearing that so much." It didn't make him feel that much better though.
"How are you doing? How's your family?"
Arnold quietly sighed, reluctant to go down that path, especially with it being his first night alone and away. He should have been used to it by now, but it still felt weird purposefully being apart from Helga, "Helga's…coping. As much as she can. We have a daughter now," He said, feeling the one spot of joy and happiness he had light up.
"Oh, of course, I remember. That's wonderful Arnold."
He nodded, still grinning, "Yeah, Hunter Eleanor."
"Beautiful."
"I'm taking it…day by day though," He sighed, somewhat candidly, not really knowing what else to say. It was an awkward situation, "It's tough. It's…"
"Feels like you wont ever be the same again?"
"Yeah."
"I'm living that battle every day," Monica sympathized, and Arnold could hear the guttural sadness dragging her voice lower. A sadness that only he and a select few others could probably ever truly understand. "I started seeing a therapist to work through the ptsd at least."
At that, Arnold's brow perked, "Is that helping?"
"I think it is," She sighed, "I tell myself that I'm not going to allow him to steal anymore of my life than he has. It makes the bad days more manageable if anything," Monica explained, "Might be worth considering if you aren't already thinking about it."
No, truthfully he hadn't considered going and talking to a professional about things. He didn't know why either. Male pride? He didn't know if he'd quite call it that, but he hadn't even tried to get on any medication for anything either. Honestly, he didn't really know what his issue was, other than believing that he could deal with everything on his own and in his own time. But if anything at all had told him he couldn't, it was that he was once again alone—but by choice—living in his friend's mother-in-law suite because he couldn't handle the assault of emotions.
Monday
His tired dry eyes cracked open for the dozenth time before day break. The burning anxiety he was being chronically consumed with was especially aflame that night. Perhaps it was his brief phone call with Monica that had churned up a lot more of the heavy worry than usual. Perhaps it was just his mind deciding to sift through too many what-if scenarios for the millionth time. Or the silence. The deafening silence of his new living arrangement. Typically he would get up and wander around, walking as much of it out as he could, or tend to Hunter, who was his biggest depression blocker.
He couldn't wander there as he had at home, being that Gerald and Phoebe lived in a neighborhood.
So instead, he chose to try to sleep through it, with little to show for his efforts other than a charred out mind and an even worse feeling of dread than was typical those days. Jesus, the lack of sleep was beginning to wear on him too. No wonder Helga couldn't deal with him. No wonder he couldn't deal with him. Yes, he knew by then he might need something more than the will and the want to get a grip on his ever deteriorating emotional and mental state.
He just didn't understand how he'd gone so backwards from his rock bottom at the overlook. He did but he didn't. Regardless he was growing ever more frustrated in how to manage his emotions.
With an exhausted sigh, Arnold reached out and slid his phone from the bedside, flipping through his contacts until he found a fellow physician that had helped him out with a few things in the past. He had no idea if the guy would even respond to him, given everything that had gone on. He'd long prepared himself for the fact that some people were just never going to speak to him again, even in his innocents because it was too embarrassing for them to admit a mistake.
While he waited for a reply that might not ever come, he dragged himself upright in his bed, flinging his legs over the edge, stretching, feeling sore, wanting to wake up, trying to wake up. He had no reason to be sore, other than perhaps the more tense his natural stance had become. The bed wasn't the most comfortable either. The stone silence felt foreign to him. Prison had been chronically noisy, but between Helga, the boys and Hunter there was always some little sounds around the house too.
Now nothing.
Nothing but his own antagonizing, tired thoughts. The sense of relief and escape he'd felt moving out had already evaporated by the next morning. He missed his family. That hollow ache he was feeling had him wondering if he'd made the right decision. Should he had just tried to push through instead? He couldn't go back, he knew Helga wouldn't have him. Not that he could blame her. He had said a lot of hateful things to her, in many ways a slave to his erratic and ever changing emotional state. But truth be told he had mostly left to spare her the unstable resentment and anger that he was struggling with. He didn't want to be, but they were on a collision course that would have been the nail in the coffin for any hope of recovery much less a reconciliation.
He ran his has hand tiredly through is wayward hair, pawing the top of it down.
Coffee sounded good, but at the same time, he was so tired of coffee. It almost felt like the caffeine aggravated his anxiety more than it helped anything. Masterbating had always been his go-to way of dealing with high levels of stress, and there was nothing different about that day. Though as usual, it was only a very temporary dopamine hit that's effect faded all too quickly back into the pit of his smoldering discontent.
As he was walking back from the bathroom from cleaning himself up, he heard his phone ping with a text. To his surprise, and thankfully, a bit of positivity, the guy responded with, 'Come see me at lunch.'
Precinct.
Hillwood wasn't a big city. It wasn't a New York City, or a Los Angeles. Hell it wasn't even a Seattle. But it wasn't any small town anymore either. It was a bustling metropolis that had nearly tripled in population just in the last decade. It was not a city where everybody knew everybody anymore. Far from it. And that made the small thread between Mike Harding—or he should say his wife—and Jeremy all the more fantastical. Sid wasn't a math guy, but he knew the statistical chance of that was improbably small. Or at least it had to be.
Right?
This was the puzzle he'd been trying to solve since the prior night. Trying to find something that would explain the connection away. Or maybe Don and his infinite career wisdom was right. Somethings were nothings. It made Sid's head ache. "You okay man?"
Sid snapped out of it, suddenly realizing he'd probably been staring off into space for an uncomfortable amount of time, lost in his void of never ending questions. He blinked, seeing Jeremy eyeballing him from his desk with a smirk. "Yeah," He nodded, "Just thinking."
"You look upset. Rhonda finally leaving you?" Jeremy, as usual, couldn't resist a chance to jest.
To which Sid sighed, casting his friend bemused smirk, "Yep. Finally came to her senses."
"I knew it," Jeremy played along, leaning back in his office chair, lacing his fingers together and pretending to crack his knuckles out above his head, "I expect she'll be waiting for me—in bed—when I get home." And Sid could only roll his eyes at his partners usual antics, having heard it a million times before, "On a serious note though...you look like you're contemplating something. Do share."
"How do we get from from Mike to Arnold? As in...how do we get from a 43 year old man, to a 20 year old college student living on campus?"
Jeremy seemed to muse over the question for a moment before suggesting, "Maybe it was to appear random."
"Maybe," Sid considered, finding that pretty obvious. Everything about his ghost had been...random. Frustratingly so.
"Look how he changed his killing style in Snohomish. And we still don't know why," Speculated as to why, yes. Knew why exactly. No.
"True," Sid conceded, agreeing that while obvious, his partners point was valid. He sat back in his desk chair, beginning to loath how this new question appeared to be going nowhere either. "He's shooting girls in Snohomish, strangling them in Kitsap, and Hillwood, holding them hostage as sex slaves in Tacoma. I mean, what the fuck."
Noon
Arnold had done just that. Finding himself walking the white halls of his old stomping grounds, trying his best to go as unnoticed as possible by the hospital staff. Which was pointless, he knew that. About half of everybody that he passed he knew in some capacity. Some said nothing. Some did subtle double takes. Some offered a tepid "Hey." Again, he understood. He did. He one hundred percent got it. It was an awkward situation. For everybody. Not that he cared to stop and chit-chat anyway. He didn't.
He just kept focused on where he needed to go, and when he got to Dr. Tepper's office, he wrapped his knuckles on the ajar door, peeking through to see if it was occupied. The fellow doctor glanced up from where he was seated at his desk, midway through his burrito bowl while looking at his phone. "Hey man, come in."
Arnold nodded and slipped in, gently closing the door behind himself to fend off any would be eavesdroppers…or ambushes. It was stupid, but he was paranoid. "Hey," He greeted as he sat very rigidly in the available chair, knowing he looked very much on edge, hoping that his general demeanor didn't freak the guy out.
"I would ask how you are doing but I think it would be an inconsiderate question all things considering," Tepper said, sitting his phone and fork down while giving Arnold a closer look, really taking in just how tightly wound he was appeared. Not that he could blame him. "I uh…I wanted to reach out to you when the news broke but, I figured your family probably wanted privacy at this point."
Arnold nodded. "I appreciate it, man." The ever growing cynical side of him was already internally sneering about what a cop out of an excuse that was. He kept it at bay, choosing to try to be somewhat positive. Negativity would get him nowhere anyway.
Tepper nodded, looking a little apprehensive, and being a guy that could read the room, moved on with, "So…you need something for anxiety?"
"I think so," Arnold replied, relieved the personal questions seemed to be over with and not necessarily desiring to pursue any small talk about why or offer any sort of explanation for his request, he kept it at that. The why should have been fairly obvious.
His acquaintance nodded, turning to pull up a new screen on his desk computer, "Do you think you need something long term or just as needed?"
Arnold inhaled, thinking about it for a moment before finally shrugging, "Both maybe," He then crossed his arms, and leaned back in his chair, "I can't sleep most nights, but I'm also having these…" He untucked one hand from his folded arms and gestured in a circling motion, "Panic attacks periodically. Night terrors at times."
Tepper started typing on his keyboard, "I can start you off on Sertraline and give you Alprazolam to fill in the gaps?" He looked back up at him, looking for some sort of sign of agreement or consent, "Low doses to see if it helps," He clarified.
"That'll work. I appreciate it," Arnold nodded, genuinely meaning it.
The doctor typed a few more things, "Same pharmacy?" and when his worn ex-colleague nodded, he clicked the submit button thereafter.
"Thank you."
Tepper nodded as he refixed his eyes on the shell of a man he'd once casually knew. He hoped that the medication would help, but he had his concerns about what else Arnold might have been dealing with. Enough concern that, professionally he felt he needed to ask, "Have you…thought about going to talk to somebody…about all of this?"
Arnold stared at him for a second with his hollowed out dull green eyes before looking away and shaking his head. "No, but you're the second person in two days to ask me that." Maybe it was a sign.
"You should. From one professional to another," Tepper quipped, and Arnold's eyes darted back to his, "I see one a few times a year to cope with ER things. It might would help you."
Running his tongue along the bottom of his lip he nodded, "Anybody that you recommend?"
"I'll shoot you his contact."
Arnold nodded, he too reading the room and deciding that any conversation left to be had would be meaningless small talk, and he didn't have the energy or desire to engage in such, "Well, again, I appreciate you seeing me so quickly," He thanked him, standing from the chair and preparing to exit.
"No problem. Take care."
He was about halfway through the building when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He found his heart flopping a bit at the idea that it might be Helga, which left him feeling stupid. After the way he'd left things Saturday night, why would it be? Though she'd agreed to a date so, there was that. It hadn't mattered anyway because it was just Tepper keeping to his word on that therapist. He re-pocketed his phone and hurried out into the parking lot to his SUV, glad to finally be out of that place and the scrutinizing eye of everybody. He'd barely managed to get the door shut and the ignition turned over before he felt the phone vibrate yet again. As if he'd willed it into existence, he saw Helga's name and a text, 'Hey. How are you?'
He sat there, staring at the words, thumbs hovered over the screen while feeling that hot, quick sweat feeling wash up his neck, heart starting to thump more loudly in his ears from nerves and...anticipation. For such a simple question, he didn't even know how to reply to it. Just be honest. He heard his inner voice say. With a sigh he typed, 'I've been better. You?' he hit send button and waited.
It was the truth, and it deeply highlighted the fact that he desperately did want to get a handle on things. He wanted to be better again. He couldn't in good conscious tell her that he didn't want to throw in the towel on their relationship but continue to harbor such anger towards her and well...everybody else.
Not terribly far away from the hospital, Helga sat at a local sandwich shop that she'd occasionally frequent at lunch if she had a job site in the area. That day was no different, as she had a soil compaction test nearby in an hours time. She'd been busy. Tiresomely so, but in the slow down of lunch, as she munched on her turkey club, she realized she'd not heard a peep from Arnold since Sunday mid morning. When he'd left specifically. Did it concern her? A little. If anything she thought he would have asked how Hunter was that morning. But he hadn't. Which struck her as odd considering just how involved he'd been with her since the moment he'd gotten home. She wouldn't call it flat out worry at that point though. Had something happened to him she would have heard from Phoebe already. He'd made it loud and clear that he was going through some things and wanted space.
As had she.
Still, she couldn't evade the frustrating pangs of concern she did have for him. Enough that she found herself clicking into her text messages, pulling up their long abandoned thread and thumbing a quick, 'Hey. How are you?' All the while telling herself that it was solely to satisfy her agreement to have a good working relationship with him. Though, agreeing to a date with him that Saturday night may have been a page too far. Something she was already stressing about while steadfastly trying not to think about it. And she deserved every bit of it seeing as she was the one that opened her mouth and told him to pick her up at 8:00pm.
If anything she hated what it implied about her core feelings around him. That she wasn't necessarily done with them either, in spite of her insistence that she was.
To her surprise, and admittedly relief, he responded with, 'I've been better. You?' She could hear the mono-toned deadness of his voice in her head. Oh, how she hated how he had to tack on a reciprocal question with it too. This was just a courtesy welfare check on her part. He was alive, maybe not living but seemingly functioning. The end. Follow up questions left room for...conversation, or even communication...a precarious road to travel as of late. Which was some of the reason their impending date was leaving her in mental knots already. Just be honest. She heard her inner voice say, continuing to stare at his icy blue bubble.
Sighing, she replied with a super simple, 'Same.' Weirdly, for such a brief conversation, it perfectly summed up everything right then.
Tuesday.
"So we're back to the white board huh?" Jeremy chuckled, walking into one of the precincts spare rooms, observing his partner standing crossed armed in front of said board with scribbles and pictures taped to it. Out of nowhere, and at 2:25am that morning, much to Rhonda's chagrin, he'd gotten the bug to reconsider the victim disappearance chronology, and to make everything neat. His mind needed order, that in which this case was scarce at supplying.
Frustratingly so.
Sid didn't bother to look away, "Nobody else is using it, and its better than our cramped desks."
"Yeah, about that. Can't you just donate some money or something and get us our own office already?" Jeremy chuckled, throwing his jacket over the back of one of the spare swivel chairs, taking note of his partners worn demeanor.
"I might," Sid tiredly chuckled.
"What you got going on here?" Jeremy asked, his brown eyes darting all around the white board, noting that he had all the victims organized.
"I started putting all the girls in order by disappearance."
Jeremy scowled, "Didn't we do this already?"
Sid nodded, "We did with the ones on Shortman's property. Never with them all together. It started bugging me early this morning."
"Clearly."
"We're backwards," Sid pointed to a certain row of photos, "There's been so much going on that I completely missed it. Snohomish girls were happening at the same time Harding was being hunted."
"Hm. Maybe he had thought Harding was a gun guy. Lack of due diligence."
"No, this guy wasn't making mistakes." Sid shook his head.
"They all make mistakes," Jeremy countered back, "That's how we have DNA and a survivor. That's still not to say they weren't cold storage for some other future target."
"No, you're right," Sid admitted with a sigh, "I don't know though man. I think the devil might still be in the details. Somehow. It feels…I mean…it feels like these girls were suppose to be first."
"Speaking of devil in the details…" Jeremy began, giving his partner a careful look, truly not intending take over his working theory with his own, "I've been thinking about the leap from Harding to Shortman."
"Yeah?"
"What if he was an employee in the building Arnold lived in?" Jeremy speculated.
At which Sid's eyes shifted away from the board onto his partner, willing to admit that he was intrigued by that line of thought, "Why do you think that?"
Jeremy cast his friend a flat look, if not exacerbated look, "Well, for starters...dude wasn't just raw dogging my girlfriend there. He was running through half the female Hillwood U population in that dorm. I can't think of a better person to pin sexually driven crimes on."
It was Sid's turn to scowl in thought before giving his partner a quick nod, "That's a good point. But why did Taylor disappear when she did?" He followed up with, "Why take somebody close like that right out the gate?"
"Maybe we have to consider that Taylor was meant to be the start of the domino? Maybe he'd been watching Shortman long before?"
"But that doesn't make sense either," Sid sighed, running his hand through his short brown hair, "If he'd wanted Shortman picked up, there would have been a second body to sell it."
Jeremy's brows lifted in agreement, "With Harding it was his secretary plus. With Shortman it was Davenport plus. You're right."
"So where in the hell does Taylor play into this? This entire case against Shortman grew legs quickly, initially because of her and yet...when you look at everything, she feels...coincidental."
"What about...accidental?"
It was a big step for him, coming to a place like this. As a medical professional, he respected all avenues of healthcare, including mental health. And he was well aware how common it was amongst trauma staff at the hospital. He had just never seen himself as one that needed—much less could benefit—from seeing a therapist. Yet, there he was, at the advice and recommendation of two ex-colleagues. But perhaps Tepper saw something in his demeanor that raised concern. The agitation maybe? It apparently concerned him enough that Tepper had been willing to reach out to this guy and get him an appointment pronto. It left Arnold feeling embarrassed of himself. As if he needed more emotional strife on his already overflowing plate. It wasn't anything to be embarrassed over, he knew that, but...still he was.
The waiting area was cozy, with light music playing. The stereotypical general physician lobby with pointless unread magazines laid over a generic wood top coffee table. There were a few other patients. More than he'd expected at 6:00pm on a Tuesday. Then again, after work he supposed. He could tell that at least one of them recognized him, even in spite of his best efforts to keep a low profile with a worn baseball hat on and his head down. Still, he felt the hot burn of their gaze. He cringed, but decided to remind himself that if Monica and all she had gone through was finding benefit in it, surely he would too.
He felt a wave of relief wash over him when he heard the waiting room door squeak open and an forty something looking guy beckon, "Arnold?"
Arnold quickly stood up, giving the guy the most curt of nods, with a tight, joyless grin as he was ushered through the open door and led down a short hallway before being motioned into another smaller room. "You can take a seat in either the chair or the couch. Whichever you prefer," The therapist gestured between the two options before sitting down in his own chair. Arnold opted for the couch, sitting square in the middle of it.
"Thank you for seeing me so quickly," Arnold told him before nervously clasping his hands in his lap.
"Of course. Rick and I go way back," He explained before leaning forward in his chair and extending his hand, "Mason"
The blonde reached forward and shook his hand, "Arnold."
"Nice to meet you," Mason leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, "So, tell me a little about what's going on."
Arnold rolled his shoulders a bit, wondering slightly if the guy was just being nice or actually truly clueless as to why he was there. "Surely you know who I am." It probably came off more jerky than he intended, and he immediately felt kind of bad.
Mason half smirked and nodded, "I do. And even if I didn't, it's why we have you fill out intake forms. But I want to hear from you what's going on with Arnold."
"Well…" Arnold began, already feeling the high tide of anxiety at the possibility of having to relieve he last year of his life. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees to place his face in his hands to gather his thoughts for a moment. Sometimes injuries felt worse before they felt better, and that's what he had to continuously remind himself. Feeling a small sense of empowerment and resolve, he sat back up, "Obviously, I was in prison, for something I didn't do, and it has been...the most traumatic experience of my life. I am living with constant fear that whoever did this...is still watching me. There are things that, I just replay over and over in my mind," He exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment, "This whole situation has destroyed my relationship with my wife. I have…a lot of resentment towards her for abandoning me in prison. Crippling resentment at times. I didn't even know I had this until I came home. At the same time, I dragged all of my skeletons out of my closet, things I have been keeping from her...and destroyed all trust, and I regret it so much because she's the best thing that has ever happened to me." Arnold's voice clipped, as he felt his throat clinch in a surge of emotion. "I hate so much that I regret being honest with her. I don't know why I'm like this."
"Is the relationship something you want to work on here as well?" Mason asked. Arnold nodded, sniffing, "Tell me a little about that."
The blonde felt intense shame wash over. Old shame. Shame that led him to crossing this arms and dropping his head to his chest in defeat and pure embarrassment, "I got addicted to porn in my late teens and then addicted to sex in my early twenties. I was with…a lot of women before I met her." He picked his head up, feeling his eyes sting with sadness, "It still makes me feel so disgusting and self-conscious because I don't know what made me act that way."
"So, you've had some periods of acting out behavior that we need to process."
Nodding he went on, "When I met her, I was so desperate to be with her that I sabotaged the relationship she was in so that she'd pick me. I've manipulated and lied to her in other ways that...I don't want to get into at the moment. All because I didn't want her to leave me," He trailed off.
"Sounds like this acting out has led to some low self-esteem and insecurity in the relationship. Does that feel right?"
He'd never really thought of it that way but, when laying it all out and examining the pieces as much as he had, it did make sense. He sniffed back the fluid puddling in his face before the dam finally broke and the tears sprung over his exhausted eyelids, "She knows everything now..and...and then I turned around and blamed her for me being the giant piece of shit that I am," He choked, dropping his head into one of his palms, feeling the raw sorrow rack his body for a few moments. At that, Mason leaned back to his desk, plucking a box of tissues from it, having them at the ready for his client. Arnold finally withdrew his face, blotched with wet streaks and a pair of red, glassy eyes. "As much as she says she doesn't want to be with me anymore, she's still doing things that say differently," He reached forward and snagged a tissue, wiping his eyes, "I keep telling her I want us to be together too but I'm doing everything under the sun to push her away now."
Mason nodded, returning the tissue box to his desktop, and not appearing as if he'd heard anything terribly unusual, which both frightened Arnold and made him hopeful, "So, we've got a lot to unpack here, but we need to work on what's current first. Which is the recent trauma you've been through. Until we go through the therapeutic process, and establish some healthy coping mechanisms for that, there's no point in us trying to process anything else. We've got to create some stability. Sound like a plan?"
It did. It sounded like a light at the end of the tunnel truthfully. Licking his lips while wicking the remaining moisture from his eyelids with his sleeve, Arnold nodded, "Yeah. Let's do it. I want to get better."
Friday.
Sid trudged through his front door after a long and seemingly unproductive week of work. It made him subtly miss the early parts of the investigation when things were coming together quickly, by design of course. Don't get him wrong, he was thrilled that Arnold was out, and he'd been fully prepared to blow up his career on the grand jury stand to help it happen, but man did he miss having some direction. Now everything just seemed...stalled and...up for interpretation. He wondered if Don had shared in the same frustrations.
Rhonda had made plans for them to go out to a nice dinner that night, and he was actually looking forward to it. Not that he ever didn't, but he figured it might be a welcome distraction to decompress from work with. He found her in their bathroom, winding her long black locks around a curler. "Hey darling," Her brown eyes brightened when she saw her husband step into bathroom while loosening his tie.
"Evening my princess," He kissed the side of her head on his way to flip the shower on, intending to grab a one before they headed out for the evening. "How was your day?"
"Uh, it was tiresome honestly. I'm having second thoughts about agreeing to help plan the women's spring social at the country club," She sighed, agitation very much present in her voice and across her face.
Her husband smirked though, "Aw. But you love doing that kind of stuff," He pointed out as he pulled his shirt and pants off.
"No, I do," She agreed, "But Tera Romanov is becoming an increasingly difficult personality to deal with," She huffed, winding her last strand of uncurled hair around the iron, "Her and her twat of a husband."
Sid chuckled as he stepped into the cascade of water. Rhonda rarely slung 'layman' insults, considering them to be 'low brow', but when she did, he always found it hilarious if not endearing. He had definitely rubbed off on her in their ten years together, "What does her husband have to do with it? It's the women's social?"
His wife turned and gave him a look through the shower glass, "Exactly. Inquiring minds would love to know." Turning back to the large vanity mirror, she began shaking the tight curl out of her hair with her slender finger tips, "So, that was my day. How was yours?"
"Nothing crazy," He replied, running a soapy sponge over his chest and arms, "Just the never ending dead end." Which was the worlds biggest contradiction and the irony wasn't lost on him at all.
"I'm sorry," Rhonda looked back at him, knowing just how deeply frustrated his work was making him, and had been making him for a long while by that point. He didn't say anything else, choosing to make quick work of bathing. His mind tended to like to think the most in the shower at times. Fortunately and unfortunately. Although he knew he should have been putting a cap in it for the night and focusing on having a good time with his wife.
Instead, he found himself asking, "Do you believe in coincidences?" As he stepped out of the shower, wiping a towel across his body and limbs.
Rhonda gave him a strange look, her brown eyes being squeezed into thin slits out of curiosity. It was a left field question as far as she was concerned, however she was sure it had something to do with work, "Probably not," She answered with a shrug, "Then again, I think life can be truly random at times. Why?" They as a couple were a truly random occurrence and the irony was not lost of them either.
Sid shook his head, "Eh, nothing. Just a debate that Jeremy and I were having earlier," He elusively said, not wanting to drag the evening down discussing work. Rhonda was always a good sport about it, intrigue and fascinated even at times, but he knew that it weighed on her at times, and it made it him feel bad.
"And what do you believe, dear?"
"That they're rare at best."
"It wasn't terrible while I was housed by myself. I could at least manage that," Arnold explained, already feeling nausea trying to grab a fist full of his stomach. Mason had wanted to see him again before the week was up, and his client had been more than eager, desperate for some stability in his emotions, "I don't know why...I don't know what changed...I started getting bounced around with other inmates."
"Naturally, that would be more stressful." Mason agreed.
The green-eyed man shifted on the couch, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute as he took to leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, "Some of the guys I was with were just...petty criminals. I didn't have to worry too much about them. But...some of these guys were just...evil." He finished in a whisper, feeling his throat starting to constrict in that unbearable way he was becoming too acquainted with those days, "There was one...I woke up in the middle of the night...several times...to him groping me. He..." Arnold paused, attempting to steady his breath, "He...tried to get me in some compromising positions several times. Thankfully I was bigger than him so I could...fight him off. And it didn't matter what I said, they wouldn't move me." He again paused to gather himself, "There was this other one though...he bragged about killing children," However it did no good. He barely got the words outs before the tears rushed from his eyes with unbridled force, "Children. For a month I had to listen to this. I still think about it," Mason reached for his box of tissues and handed them off to his client, giving him plenty of time. Arnold coughed a sob, "I couldn't take it anymore," Fist clinching at the memory, "I laid him out...and I didn't stop until they removed me to solitary."
"What emotions are you feeling right now?"
"Rage..." Arnold sniffed, wiping his nose and eyes with a tissue as he sat back, glassy eyes wandering off to focus on some random object in the room. "Disgust...bitterness."
"Where in your body are you feeling these?"
"My...chest...back," He gestured around his body, "Up in my neck."
"Good. Tell me about the bitter feeling. That ones a little different from the other."
Arnold sat quietly for a minute, chewing his words carefully, letting his eyes fall to his lap as he rolled and unrolled his soiled tissue. Finally he inhaled, "I guess I...just felt like...if Helga hadn't cut off my lawyer, I wouldn't have ended up with those guys."
Mason's face briefly scowled as he tilted his head from side to side, as if he were considering that line of thought, "Do you know that for sure though? That that's why you got housed with them?"
His client went to open his mouth, but snapped it shut, and he could tell the pieces of his constructed emotional belief were rearranging. "No. I don't."
"So, then is it fair to blame Helga?"
"No."
His head throbbed. A dull pounding brought on by the amount of unabashed crying that had racked his already brutally fatigued psyche that day. Emotionally he was in a lot of pain from dragging out his trauma from the box he'd been steadfastly trying to keep a lid on for...well awhile. Things not even Gerald was privy to. Oddly though, even after just two visits, airing everything out to somebody who had zero bias or skin in the game did feel really good. Better than he imagined it would. He figured then was as good of time as ever to pop one of those as-needed anxiety meds, seeing as he were home. It was nearer to bedtime and mentally, he were burnt to a crisp. Retrieving a water bottle from his fridge, he knocked one back before grabbing his sub sandwich out of the brown to-go bag he'd brought in, going and flopping in his bed. Noise was needed. He loathed the quiet. He rummaged around in his sheets and finally found the remote, flipping on the television for background noise.
Then he just sat there, quietly eating his Italian on wheat, waiting for the throbbing behind his eyes to subside as he continued to digest his first session. Somewhere in all of that he felt his phone vibrate in his pants, pushing up to worm it out of his jean pocket with his free hand. It was Helga, or more specifically a pic of Hunter in the most ridiculously cute flannel pajamas he'd ever seen. She looked like a tiny Kevin McCalister. It brought the biggest, happiest smile to his face, which he desperately needed right then.
He heart emoji-ed the image, 'Nobody should be that stinkin' cute. Lol.' He typed.
'Lol. Ridiculous right?'
He didn't follow up with a reply, not necessarily feeling like it needed one. And he knew her well enough to know that seemingly playful 'lols' didn't mean she wanted a drawn out text exchange. Nothing new. Just how she was. Instead he chose to finish his sandwich while marveling at the ridiculously cute infant that had managed to take over the entire photo album in his phone. He had many candids of Helga too. Most, if not all, she were unaware of. Her on the couch with Hunter and the boys, her stretched out across their living room floor, on her side, propped elbow and head resting in her palm, watching Hunter bat her her toys on her play mat.
When he hadn't been skulking around, absorbed in his own hellish mental prison and aiding in making life miserable for the both of them, he'd spent the rest of his time quietly enamored with her as the mother of their child. He finally flipped back to the newest pajama photo, reading Helga's lighthearted reply to his once again. He and Helga had texted throughout the week. Small things. A picture of Hunter here and there, or a check in. Other than that, he stayed away, feeling it was the best for the both of them, though the separation from his family cut deeper each day. But they were getting along. If only in something as trivial as texting. However, it was something. Hopefully it was the start of something better. He didn't want to push it though. And their supposed Saturday date was ever looming in his mind, and not in the best way. Just be honest with her. He yet again reminded himself.
'Hey, I know we were suppose to go out tomorrow. To be honest though, I'm not sure I'm ready for us to do that yet. Would it be okay if we just chilled at the house instead?' He sent. Nervously might he add. A nervousness that intensified the longer it took for her to reply.
Helga had finally just gotten Hunter down in her bassinet for her first sleep of the night, sternly eyeing her two boys lounging happily on her bed, as if to say, 'not a peep.' Which is exactly what her stare said. But as usual, they were all tail wags and doughy brown eyes, never believing they did any wrong around there. She gave each of them a few head scratches as pre-payment for their silence before making off to her bathroom. She'd been chomping at the bits to grab a hot relaxing shower to pull out the deep bone chill of a brutally cold day since the moment she'd arrived home. Having just flipped the shower head on, she pulled her phone from her pocket, making to set it on the vanity but instead seeing she had an unread text from Arnold.
'Hey, I know we were suppose to go out tomorrow. To be honest though, I'm not sure I'm ready for us to do that yet. Would it be okay if we just chilled at the house instead?' She quickly read, feeling the deepest sense of relief wash over her. Thank God. Thank God they were on the same page about that. A house date she could totally manage. If it went badly, she could just boot him out and they could go back to amicably texting and figure something else out later.
'Yeah. That's fine.' She typed back.
'6:00pm?'
'I'll be here.' With that, she sat her phone on the vanity and continued extracting herself from her clothes for that shower.
Saturday.
"You can do this. You're going to have a nice evening. You're going to be cool," Arnold stood in front of the mirror in his tiny bathroom, attempting to give himself some sort of half-ass pep talk before heading off to his and Helga's hang-out. He'd never in his life been more nervous before a date than he was at that moment. Though he supposed that that wasn't saying much considering...well, his shitty past as a fuck boy. Just thinking about it made his stomach knot up. He was afraid of blowing it. Getting over there and feeling that same resentment he'd allowed to build the whole disastrous stint he was there and being hapless at preventing it from rearing its ugly head. He'd popped himself an as-needed anxiety med and dearly hoped that would tamp down on his nerves.
The nervousness he'd pepped talked away at his apartment crept back in when he pulled into their long dark winding driveway, and the closer he got to the house, the more he felt that hot flush rise through his core and escape up through his neck, and his heart begin to drum louder. He was a little early. Like twenty minutes early. Hardly a big deal. It was a hang out at home date anyway. How many times had they done that? The winding driveway opened up into the grassy knoll in front of their lit house and into the concrete of their formal driveway and parking area. He pulled in front of what had been his normal garage bay door, and put it in park, hopping out and heading to the front door before he had too long to overthink things. Of course once on the porch he wasn't sure if he should knock, or just go right in. Such an awkward small thing too, which led him to doing about three reach and pull back grasps of the door handle before finally opting to just go right in. He was over complicating things already and he knew it.
Once inside he pulled his jacket off, "I'm here," He called out, but not too loudly as he hung the black garment on one of the foyer robe hooks. He could hear the TV murmuring. It sounded like a college basketball pre-game show. He knew she would periodically watch basketball that time of year, just to change things up. Baseball was her jam though. Before he made it down the foyer, he heard the clicking of claws on hardwood, seeing their boys battling each other to be first to greet him. "Hey guys," He squatted down to pet them both.
By then Helga had emerged from the living room, holding Hunter who looked to be mid bottle, "Hey," She greeted back, casting him a small, abet tired smirk.
"Hey," He replied, standing, "How uh...how's it going?" He followed up, striding down the foyer and into the living room, eyes darting around the room and then back to her standing on the other side of the space.
Helga casually shrugged, "Not bad," She replied, catching his eyes resting on her, or more specifically the child in her arms, "You...want to take over?" She figured, gesturing the infant at him, assuming he had to be dying to see her, seeing as he had been away all week. Or at least he should have.
"Oh, yes," His eyes lit up as he closed the gap, them doing the delicate infant hand off and he successfully took over feeding time, "Hello my sweet princess," He cooed down at his baby, feeling the most amount of warmth and happiness he'd felt in days flood his core, "Have you missed me? I've missed you."
"She's definitely been missing those midnight strolls you two would go on," Helga remarked as she walked away, Arnold taking note at how flat she sounded, and hoping she wasn't already having second thoughts about the night, or worse, in one of her incorrigible moods.
But he chose not to dwell on it, knowing it would do nothing for the fragile grip of control he had over his jitters. Instead, he feigned a shocked expression to his dozy eyed daughter, "Are you giving mommy a hard time?" He stood in the living room for a few minutes. Alternating his attention from Hunter to the sports talk on TV. Once she finished her bottle, he shifted her to his chest for a burp, eventually mustering up the courage to walk to the kitchen to discard the bottle and see what Helga had gotten up to. As he walked to the sink, he glimpsed her standing with the fridge door open, staring into it' lit abyss with a pondering, if not weary look on her face.
For the first time since arriving, he finally noticed how tired she looked. Not that he'd had time to really stare in their brief interaction in the living room. The circles under her eyes deep, and not fresh from a single tiresome night. No, he'd seen that look on her on many occasions over the years. Her tell-tale sign of a long stressful week.
"Looking for something?" He asked as he dropped the bottle in the basin, turning to lean against it.
She made that sort of shifty, side to side motion with her mouth before sighing, "Trying to decide what to make for dinner." Standing there, watching her absently scratch the back of her head he felt that uncomfortable prickle of remorse and shame spread its spiny thorns up through his chest. He knew that him leaving was mutually agreed upon, however in that moment, wondering if the reason she was so exhausted was because she'd worked her ass off all week and then came home to solo parent the rest of the night while he laid in his apartment trying to get his self together, suddenly made him feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. This girl that was still paying for everything for him too.
Nausea taunted his stomach. He felt like a led weight. He felt...
"You okay?"
He blinked a few times, pulling his train of though from his newest inadequacy to refocus his attention on her, using all his might to cast away the sudden bout of self-consciousness. By then she had shut the fridge and was giving him a concerned if not inspecting gaze, and he couldn't entirely blame her, "Yeah, I was just...lost in thought," He shook his head, trying to make nothing of it while shifting Hunter back into the crook of his arm in an effort to busy himself.
"You sure?"
"Yeah," He nodded, too assuredly to be believed, for sure, and he knew it, choosing to re-direct with, "I'll...tell you later," He promised, secretly hoping she'd forget, and maybe he would too. For good measure he lifted his eyebrows high and took a deep breath, "So...dinner...what have we got?"
Helga seemed to buy his redirect. And if she didn't, she didn't appear to possess the spirit to chase the truth out of him at point. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the kitchen island. "Uh...I've got some ground beef I picked up yesterday, thinking I would want a southwestern bowl tonight. But now I don't."
She watched as her date scowled in thought, he too wondering what could be alternatively made with a pound of ground chuck. He could eat southwestern anything every day of the week and never get tired of it.
She could not.
"Spaghetti and meatballs?" It wasn't creative by any means, the first thing to pop into his brain, but he was a simple man in that regard.
"Oh," Her eyes widened in agreement, and she pushed off the island, "I do have spaghetti noodles and marinara sauce," She said, doing that snapping index point she'd do when she'd had an epiphany. Arnold's eyes followed her to the pantry and watched her dig out those exact two items, looking very pleased with herself as she sat them on counter by the stove top.
With a gesture to Hunter, he asked, "Has she had a bath yet?" He didn't think she had, seeing as she was not in any of her pajamas, and it was bath hour...and also dinner hour and he could tell Helga was also contemplating that dilemma as well with the shake of her head 'no'. But before she could manage a reply, "How about I go take care of her, and you work on the meatballs," He suggested very diplomatically. Divide and conquer.
She seemed relieved by his proposal, "Whichever you prefer," Though she tried to remain indifferent in tone.
Casting her a timid lopsided grin, he gave her an accompanying shrug and said, "You're better at rolling meatballs than me." And it was true. In the past when they'd made them for dinner, they'd always come out better when she rolled them while his always seemed to fall apart.
"Ah, right," Helga's brows rose high, but she smirked at him none-the-less, honestly appreciating the small spat of humor, "I'm better at handling balls."
Arnold thinned is eyes in a show of fake consideration before nodding in agreement, "Yeah, pretty much."
"Ha...ha," Was her reply as she watched him walk off towards the living area. For has part, he had not meant for that to cascade into a semi-dirty joke, but it had and he was so relieved that she had just rolled with it.
It hadn't taken her very long to get all the herbs, cheese, breadcrumbs, egg and beef into a bowl, mixed and rolled out into a dozen, less than golf ball sized rounds. Onto a sheet pan and into the fridge to chill for a bit before cooking. After washing up, she decided to trot upstairs to check in on Arnold, part of her brain convinced that it was going to be total chaos, but the other part knowing that that wouldn't be the case. Rounding the threshold into her room, she saw everything neatly laid out on the bed. Hunter's pajamas, fresh diaper, her hooded pink bath towel, night time baby lotion, all neatly organized and ready. She could see his knelt form, hunched over the garden tub as he done many times before but with her soaking in it. Stealing conversation, stealing kisses, stealing caresses. He never could seem to keep his hands to himself. Neither could she.
Now he was innocently chatting away to their two month old who was reclined back in her baby-tub, splashing away with her little legs judging by the sound.
Helga said nothing, choosing to merely observe, letting her mind find peace in the moment but also allowing it to wander away to boxes of old thoughts and feelings. There had been many occasions over the last year where she'd experienced self-loathing over not having picked a better father for her daughter. Easy to do when he was a killer. Still fairly easy to do in the entanglement of their own personal problems with each other. Was he a shit partner? Yeah. But parenthood? For all of his personal flaws and relationship mismanagement, she couldn't have picked a better father for Hunter. Something she'd found downright irritating during his stay with her, much to her chagrin. It defied logic to have wanted to hate on him for that, she knew. They may have been at each others throats, but he'd fallen right into fatherhood, eager to help, eager to learn, eager to participate, and seemingly immune to the dreaded weaponized incompetence that she had such a pleasure of dealing with in many of the men on the job sites she frequented. She felt sorry for their wives...and kids, but it did make her ever more thankful that she had managed to at least pick a good one to co-parent with.
If nothing else.
She was so embroiled in her own thought reconciliations that she almost didn't hear Arnold's startled, "Oh, hey, didn't hear you come in," As he hurriedly walked past her with their dripping wet infant, the pleasant, warm aroma of baby soap wafting past as he bundled her up in her little pink towel on the bed.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I just walked in," She gestured to the door, altering the truth so it wouldn't seem weird that she'd been observing him while reminiscing her life choices, "All clean?" She rhetorically asked Hunter in her more delicate mom voice, stepping behind Arnold as he held their baby up in the towel. Her little blonde head hair was sticking up in every direction, not that she had a pile of it to begin with.
"Relaxing I'd say. Looks like all that splashing wore somebody out," Arnold smiled.
"Oh good," Helga brightened, "We actually want to sleep tonight." She actually wanted to sleep too if she were being honest. As if the deep circles beneath her eyes didn't scream it. His absence hadn't gone unnoticed, even if only as the extra set of hands at night. Arnold finished getting Hunter all dry, getting her lavender lotion on, a diaper and then her pajamas.
"You want to swaddle her?" He asked Helga, stepping back intending to let her handle that. He couldn't get it right. Probably because she was just so small and delicate and he was scared to death of wrapping her too tightly, and as a result she always managed to get her arms free and woke herself up. Helga knew how to do it just perfect. And every time he'd watched her, he thought for sure he could figure it out. Helga side-eyed him with a smirk, but got Hunter wrapped more snugly than fragile glass and whisked away to her bassinet beside her bed.
"Hopefully she'll stay down for five hours," Helga tiredly prayed, watching her daughter's heavy eye lids droop lower and lower over her deep blue pools. Arnold watched too, feeling that familiar pang of shame and remorse blooming and constricting his chest once again. But before it could swell into anything more she turned to him and asked, "Dinner?"
"Yeah," He blinked and nodded, making to grab for the pink towel to hang on the back of the door to dry. "I'm starving." He followed her out of the bedroom and back down to the kitchen, where she pulled the meatball tray out of the fridge and sat it on the counter top, flipping the burner on the pot of water she already had sitting on the iron grate.
"So..." Arnold trailed off, his turn to lean back against the island, arms crossing as he observed her work, "What are we watching tonight?" He considered it sort of a lame start to conversation, but the very last time they'd done small talk was while playing beer pong at Gerald's frat party. He didn't really even know how to do that with her. At least not in the friendly way. She'd on more than one occasional used her professional voice with him as of recent and it speared him. Muscle memory found him having to fight the very real urge to go wrap his arms around her from behind, and pepper the side of her face and neck with playful kisses as he'd done a thousand times before. His emotions may have been everywhere, but his body still yearned for hers.
"Uh, I was probably going to watch the Oregon UCLA game," She shrugged as she turned back to look at him. She wasn't super into basketball, but enjoyed the change of pace as of lately. Lord knew she couldn't bare the thought of starting another TV series at that point.
This brought a chuckle from Arnold, who, against his better judgment, felt like flirting with her a bit to try to set a friendly tone, and well...maybe not get bogged down in fatal small talk that they were both woefully unskilled at with each other. It was technically a date after all. Plus they were child free at that moment, and if one of them didn't set the tone of how they wanted the rest of the night to be, it would cascade into awkward anxiety with no baby to hide behind. She'd seemed receptive earlier, and that gave him courage, "Oh. So no Netflix and chill tonight then, huh?" He cracked his second small lopsided smile of the night, making sure she knew he meant absolutely no harm.
Thankfully she merely rolled her eyes, a small smile gracing her own lips, "Definitely not, hair boy."
"Thanks," He smoothly ran a hand over his hair, not sure where the boldness came from other than nerves and some positive attention from her, "I think my guy did a good job on it too," He bragged about his barber.
God, she'd forgotten how goofy he could be when he wanted to be. To be fair, humor had been a rarity for awhile and she would have been in no mindset to tolerate any jokes from him in quite sometime anyway. Briefly deadpanning him, she threw on a playful smirk and copped him the finger. It made him snort, because it was classic Helga.
"Ouch," He feigned disappointment, "Don't hate." He continued, choosing to just roll with it.
Chuckling quietly, she turned around and begin dumping a decent amount of olive oil into a pan, "I'm going to hate," She teased and began sliding the meatballs into the hot pan, "It's what I do."
Her date pushed off the kitchen island taking the few steps to come stand beside her, watching her work on their food, "How come yours never fall apart?"
The blue-eyed blonde side-eyed him with a knowing smirk, "Because I know how to handle balls?"
To which he rolled his eyes, smirk still ever present on his amused face, "Okay..."
"Hey, you're the one who started this," She shrugged before deciding to answers his legitimate question, "You mess with them too much. You have to just leave them to cook."
"So..." He cocked his head, appearing as if he were in deep thought over this life changing bit of information while re-crossing his arms as he leaned his hip into the ledge of the counter, "I touch my balls too much. Makes sense."
"Crimeny," Helga cocked her hip and looked over and up at him, "You came guns blazing tonight didn't you?"
"I'll stop," Arnold held his hands out, suddenly feeling very aware of the fact he probably shouldn't have taken—what would have been very normal flirting for them once upon a time—that far on a 'first date.' They were suppose to be starting all over.
But it was hard. As he was finding out. To 'start over' with someone he already knew.
Helga shook her head, waving it and the sudden complex his facial tone had clouded with away, "No, its...better than the alternative," She alluded to, far more willing to participate in some mindless banter and harmless flirting than...whatever had happened before he left. She watched as his expression soften, that worried crease between his eyes smoothing out a bit.
"Yeah," He agreed, but he still sounded suddenly self-conscious about his words, "Definitely."
It was enough to make Helga roll her eyes one good time before very pointedly telling him, "Not in the mood to be awkward tonight either," As she reached for the marinara and ratcheted open the jar.
A small smile ghosted across Arnold's lips as he stared at her, "No, you're right. I'm not either," He agreed, his eye catching site of the water boiling, and taking that as an opportunity to be helpful, grabbing the spaghetti noodles and splaying them into the rupturing water. From there, they both worked in unison to finish up dinner, exchanging light a few hearted comments back and forth.
Once done, Arnold grabbed a pair of bowls from the cabinet, portioning them each out noodles and then sauce and meatballs over top. Helga was waiting with a block of Parmesan and the hand grater, "Say when," She joked, knowing that no amount of Parmesan was enough for him and she always just had to make a judgement call.
"As if you need to ask," He chuckled, sliding over and grabbing two forks from the utensil drawer and jabbing them into each bowl.
"Shit...I forgot the garlic bread," Helga cursed as she hopped up on the stool at the island bar, the two of them wordlessly agreeing it would be their dinning spot that night. Something they had done on many occasions after a busy day and throw together dinner, and always with the habit of semi-facing one another to chat. Her being a lefty, and him a righty it always worked out perfectly.
Arnold could only shrug, "It's fine," He assured, stirring up his pasta bowl and making a mental reminder to eat normally and not like he was still in prison, "I wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't said anything."
"Go figure," Helga sighed, wishing she'd said nothing at all as she began twirling a bit of pasta onto her fork before taking a bite.
"You look like you had a long week," He observed, finally vocalizing what he'd been noticing about her all night.
It had definitely been a week. The first week she'd gone through while fully back to work and without the night time help from either Arnold or her parents. It bristled her to no end that she had struggled with the abrupt adjustment, her old insecurities feeling the need to rear it's ugly head to hiss about how weak she was being. Still, as much as she didn't want to talk about it, much less admit to it, she found herself nodding, "Having a baby and running a business isn't for the faint of heart," She reluctantly admitted, thumbing her fork down to reach for her glass of water.
Her curious eyes glanced over to his face, seeing it had become weighed down in sadness and maybe even a touch of guilt if she were reading him right. He held her eyes briefly, before adverting them down to his bowl, "I'm sorry this has made everything more difficult," Came his quiet apology. Which made Helga feel...agitated. Something that he seemed to sense immediately. Glancing up quickly he too note of her subtly rotating her lower jaw, "I just meant...I could of planned me moving out a little better than I did."
"No..." She shook her head, disagreeing with that sentiment entirely. He left at the right time. Any longer and things would have become much worse, "I mean...yes, it was super helpful when you were here to help. I could focus a little more on doing my thing again. This week has been a learning curve," She reached again for her fork, "And a humbling lesson on how I've got to start setting boundaries with work again." But shit, nobody could blame her for slowly descending into a work-a-holic. It was in her blood for one, but even if not, for months its all she had had as an escape. Not to mention many months prior she'd sobered herself with the reality that she was going to be a single parent. She had a kid to provide for, alone. That was a lot of pressure. But..they weren't going to starve. She had them financially situated in a good place, and she knew she needed to do a better job at reminding herself of that instead of feeling guilty about taking time away.
Not to mention, she wasn't alone in this endeavor anymore.
"You've needed to set boundaries for awhile," He pointed out, forking off half a meatball. She'd always put in some crazy hours, especially if he were on nights and she had the free time to do so, "You'll figure it out though, I have no doubt," He finished, casting her a warm smile before forking his meatball into his mouth.
"Thanks," Helga replied with her own tiny grin, "How was your week?" Her first genuinely curious question for him of the night.
Ah, the reciprocal quest for information. He supposed it was his turn to sprawl around in the inconvenience of his own week. "Well..." He began, suddenly realizing he was starting to push his pasta around in nervousness, "I went and got on some anxiety meds Monday," He said, still feeling embarrassed about it, yet knowing he had no reason to be.
"Is that...helping any?"
He nodded, "The as-needed ones seem to be. Hopefully the long term one takes is place." Helga momentarily wondered is she wouldn't benefit from something like that as well. Even she was starting to wonder if she was wound too tightly for her own good. "I uh...I started therapy on Tuesday too."
Both eyebrows rose up her forehead in genuine surprise, though given what he'd gone through, it made complete sense that it might be a good avenue for him in addition to the medication, "I imagine that's probably a helpful thing too, given...everything." If she were being honest, she didn't quite know how to respond to that. Not in a bad way, she just didn't know how he viewed it. With gusto? Begrudgingly? He didn't appear one way or another to her. But she intently watched him as he sat his fork down and took on a slightly more stiffened posture on his stool, thinking that he perhaps was indeed uncomfortable with it. Or maybe just with whatever he was about to say.
"Yeah that," He reached up and ran his hand over the back of his neck, letting it linger, "Definitely that," His eyes briefly widened in agreement, "But we're also going to be working on...the other things I've done. Getting to the bottom of that." He didn't know why he was so nervous to tell her that, other than he was afraid it might sour an otherwise decent and civil evening they were having.
Helga's mouth down turned into a soft scowl and she began running her finger round the rim of her glass, something she had a habit of doing when her interest was peaked, "You mean the lying?" She said the implied part out loud.
"Yeah," Arnold nodded, "We haven't gotten too far into it yet, but...he thinks it stemmed from low self esteem on my part," He then sheepishly shrugged, looking off in an effort to thwart the shame that was steadfastly flooding back in by just eluding to his misdeeds.
At that, her brows furrowed together, thoroughly confused by that one but choosing to hear him out, "Low self-esteem?" She questioned that she'd heard that correctly.
"Yeah..." He reluctantly confirmed, "It's...it's all my past bad behavior. Its...been a source of intense shame for me...for a long time which made me feel...subconsciously at least, very self-conscious in our relationship."
He watched as her facial features softened, the cogs beginning to turn as she bit her lip in considerate thought for a moment, "I...had no idea you were struggling with that." She really didn't. When he had mouthed off to her on the phone about how he thought she were too good for him, she had thought it was an attempt to gain some cheap sympathy from her. After all, he was handsome. Doctor to-be. Nothing about that screamed struggling. But maybe he'd hid that like he'd hid so much else.
"I guess I lived with this fear that one day you'd wake up, having figured things out and said, 'This dudes gross.' and find somebody that had some self respect." He sighed before finishing with the quietest, "I think I'm gross."
"I never thought you were gross," She softly replied before dropping her hand to the granite. She hadn't been lying when she told him that she knew he wasn't a saint. She'd always suspected he'd gotten around before they hooked up. After all, what guy carried condoms at the ready like that? Fucking absurd. That aside, he was a very intoxicating man, and she was sure he'd charmed the pants off of many before her. But she'd chosen not to dwell on unsubstantiated speculations, and the principal remained the same even then. And to a large extent, she didn't want to know either.
"How?" The question plopped out of his mouth before he could stop it.
"Why dwell?" She brought said hand up and ran it through her hair, straightening on her stool, "You made me immeasurably happy. Because of that, I never focused much on what...you before me could have been," She then quietly laughed a laugh of knowing, of deep reflection, of feeling so entirely, frustratingly star crossed, "Still..." She finally solemnly sighed, "Because of our affair, I never completely trusted you. Subconsciously anyway. It's why I immediately asked if you were sleeping with Monica at the station..." She trailed off, "As a whole though, I think that kernel of doubt manifested itself in other ways. It's why I bought the house. It's why I always had bank accounts you didn't know about. I used my independent nature as a scapegoat, but...deep down I think I just didn't want you to be able to ever leave me in a bad spot."
Arnold's lips pursed as he tossed that bit of information around. He couldn't say it was totally caught off guard by it. In fact it probably made the most sense out of anything else she'd ever tried to convince him of to date. They'd cheated. With each other. Sadly it wasn't all that uncommon to hear about residency guys leaving their first wives for something 'better' once they were full fledged physicians either. She'd taken a huge chance on him. He knew that. So had he, he supposed, though he'd never truly worried about her, oddly enough, "Why did you want to marry me and have a baby then?" He quietly inquired. While what she said had made sense to him, other things seemed...contradictory.
However, if there were one thing that he was becoming more painfully aware of each day, it was that nothing was as simple as black and white anymore. Not life. Not love. Not anything. He himself was a giant walking contradiction.
"Because I do love you," Her eyes fluttered up to meet his, her tone suggesting it was the most obvious thing in the world. Or should have been. Arnold wondered if her use of present tense was meaningful, "Because again, you made me so incredibly happy. I did genuinely want those things with you. But...I can't lie and say I didn't want to put my insecurities about you away too by taking those leaps," She inhaled and looked away, shaking her head in exhausted defeat. It felt like a stupid thing to say, "You were right though. We really had no business doing either."
As she looked back she saw him shaking his head before he gave her a tender but saddened look, "I didn't really mean that," He insisted, his voice very quiet but very even, "I was just...angry. At everything..." He trailed off, running his hand through his hair rather nervously, "We had every business in the world doing what we wanted to do together."
"We can't change it. I wouldn't anyway."
"I wouldn't either," Arnold cast her a careful look, licking his lips, "Listen, I know I've been on a war path lately, and I've...blamed you for...a lot of things. Everything honestly. Now that I'm stepping away and processing things I can...see how unfair of me it has been to do that."
Helga sighed, "No, I deserved some of—"
"—No...you didn't," He insisted, cutting her off, "In the midst of my own struggle I failed to...think about your perspective as things were happening in real time last year. Frankly you probably deserve more credit for the fact that you...took Hunter and proverbially ran for the hills away from me when everything hit the fan, and if anything that makes you a—"
"—Terrible partner?"
"A good mom." Gerald's speculation that her being a mother-to-be might have played a part in her reaction had really started to resonate with him the more he had time to synthesize it down, and even more so now that he was starting to digest things in therapy, "There's...there's a lot of evil out there..." He quietly breathed, "Regardless, I can't blame you for my actions."
Helga wondered as well. Would her decisions and assessments of things involving that whole unique and stressful situation been any different had she not gone through it in the midst of carrying a child? Hormones could be fickle. Maternal instinct, the ficklest of them all. Persuading loyalties, and altering affections at the snap of the fingers. Though she supposed it was all good and normal, natures way of promoting the survival of the species and all. Still, would she have been more inclined to have stood by him? To have believed him? It wasn't a question she'd ever have an answer to. Nor was she a dweller. Her eyes grazed his inspecting face for a fleeting moment before they fell to her mostly abandoned bowl of spaghetti, "I made the best decision I thought that I could at the time, based on the information I had. It was never not a painful decision for me. Do I regret it?" Her eyes cut back up to his inspecting gaze, "Yeah. Because I now know how it ends. Where I fucked up, is when I kept trying to 'run to the hills' with her over my personal issues with your disclosed behavior. That was shitty of me," She sighed, bringing her hand up and running it down her face, "Though...had I stood by you, you never would have confessed everything and...I'm not sure at this point whether that makes us better or worse off."
Probably a little of both, if they were both being honest with one another.
"I know that...its going to be hard for you to get past the things I've done to you." Arnold mused in a quiet, reflective tone, "You trusted me, and I didn't deserve it," He then reached his hand across the granite, taking her fingers and gently running his thumb across her knuckles, thankful that she didn't recoil from his touch, "All we can do is move forward. I just want you to know that I am trying to get better. I want to be a better man. Not just for you but, for myself as well." Helga cast him a small, but genuine smile and nodded. She didn't have to say anything back, he didn't even want her to, "So...I think that game is starting and...I'm pretty full." He sat back on the stool and rubbed his belly, choosing to move on from such a heavy dinner topic. He said what needed to be said.
The ball was in her court.
"Same," She chuckled, eyeballing her half empty bowl, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."
"I feel like I always over estimate on pasta," Arnold said as he stood from his seat and went to take both their bowls, intending to put them away. Helga let him, choosing to wander to the living room to slink down onto the couch with her comfy throw blanket pulled over her legs. Her blonde date joined her a few minutes later, taking a seat beside her, but leaving space.
And that's where the rest of the night was spent, chatting about the game or nothing in particular. Until Arnold glanced over and saw that Helga had nodded off, elbow on the couch arm with her face resting on her loose fist. He took that as his cue. Standing up he touched arm, "Helga..." Her tired blue eyes popped open rapidly as she inhaled and sat up, "I'm going to head out."
She nodded, "Alright," stretching out her arms before pulling her tired body from the couch to see him out. Arnold headed to the foyer, slipping on his coat with her trailing along behind him. "Sorry I fell asleep." She wasn't really all that sorry, but it felt appropriate to say. She was ready for bed.
Arnold wasn't phased though, "Nah, I'm kind of tired too," He replied, zipping up his jacket. "I uh...I had a good time tonight."
"Yeah," Helga nodded, perching a hand on her hip while gesturing randomly with the other, "This was...this was nice." He could tell that she hadn't been expecting as pleasant of an evening as they had actually had. And fair enough. He hadn't exactly set a high bar before he left. He really hadn't totally trusted himself not to go over there and make an ass of himself either.
"Do you...maybe want to...grab lunch this week?" He asked in a much more timid voice than before. While not all that ready for a real date, after that night, he thought they could manage a lunch date without things going too awry. He was hopeful, but his heart began to sink when she didn't immediately give an answer, which led him to fumbling over himself to say, "If you're busy I get—"
"—No," She gestured him to stop, "I'm just having to think where all I'm going to be next week." She explained, looking off in thought for a fleeting moment, "Wednesday?" She finally suggested, looking back up at him, "I'll be over at the new campus village dorms. Want to meet at Dutch's?"
Arnold's eyes visibly brightened as he steadfastly nodded, face lighting up in with an almost ear-to-ear smile, something Helga hadn't seen him do in over a year. "Absolutely. It's a date."
A small coy smile broke out across her tired face, "It's a date," She agreed.
He turned to leave, about halfway out the front door when he turned back to her and said, "I love you. Forever. Not maybe."
Monday.
By Monday, Sid had resolved to just follow the only hunch that they had. That his ghost could have been an employee of the dorm that Arnold had lived in. It was a long shot, and in many ways seemed way too obvious, but who could say at that point. They were living in strange times and he had nothing else except the most frustrating gut feeling he'd ever experienced simply because it wasn't about anything specific. Just that...there was a key, somewhere in the layers upon layers of details right in front of him, and that key would unlock everything.
Oddly, the thought sent a disturbed chill up his spine. It felt close too home, nagging one of his more outlandish thoughts he'd had about this case. He shuddered and shook it away, not having the bandwidth to deal with either at the moment, much less them merging together. Boy howdy.
He had phone calls to make, and that's what he got busy doing, yanking the phone of the cradle on his desk he punched in the university number for that particular housing, "Good morning Ericka, this is detective Morretti over at Hillwood PD, how are you? I'm good, thanks for asking. Well I'm following up on some leads for an open investiga—" He smiled at the interruption, "Yeah, that's the one. No, no...just looking to get a hold of employee records for 2009-2014 or so. Maybe...would I...okay so I'd need to talk to her then? Could I just come down to your office? Oh, I could probably head over in the next 15min. Alright. Well I appreciate your help. Take care." He dropped the phone back in the cradle.
He wasn't one hundred percent sure where his partner was. He thought maybe off working a domestic shooting just to take a breather, which was a darkly comical things to even say. Sid pushed back from his desk, and shrugged on his leather jacket before heading off to pull yet another thread in a case that was slowly driving him more mad by the day.
Twenty-nine employees. That's how many had been employed, either the entire time or some of the time at the dormitory during that five year span of time. Sid was just relieved that it was only twenty-nine. Of that twenty-nine, sixteen of them were women. Of the remaining thirteen, seven of them were fifty plus in age—at that time—and they knew they were probably dealing with a guy who was late twenties to late thirties in age so...that left a grand total of six men that fit the age range only.
Not a single one had a criminal record, but hey, what the hell did that mean anyway.
When he got back to the precinct he slapped the folder onto Jeremy's cluttered desk, earning him a surprised look, "You've got six guys to go check up on," Sid told him as he flopped down in his own chair.
"These are from...?" Jeremy looked back at the folder, lifting the corner with his finger
"The dorm."
"Oh," His brown eyes seemed to brighten and he flipped the folder completely open, "I thought there would have been more," He said, looking mildly bummed at such a small number, though he knew he shouldn't have been. More work.
"There were. They just didn't fit the criteria. Women, old and such."
"Ah."
Tuesday.
He'd been contemplating it since the moment he moved in. And he knew Gerald wouldn't care, judging by the fact that it looked like it had been years since he last used any of it. His buddy had fallen prey to the classic 'home gym' fad, buying a bench press and a treadmill at some point to keep in his man garage. Arnold was restless, and he couldn't wander to alleviate his anxiety at night like he used to. But maybe he could after all. He jogged down the stairs and over to the treadmill, fiddling around with the controls in an attempt to figure out how to work it, or if it worked at all. It could be junk, and it wouldn't be beyond his friend to have been putting off throwing something broken away either. "I'm getting to it, man." He could already hear Gerald's voice reciting in his mind. If it didn't work he supposed he could lift weights. Though he supposed he could do that too anyway.
It did work though, to his surprise and joy. So at 1:15am in the morning, he went first for a brisk walk, then a jog, then a full out sprint, thoroughly kicking his own ass to the point that by the time he stepped off, and climbed back up stairs, he collapsed into his bed and did not move the rest of the night. And he slept the best sleep he'd had in months.
Wednesday.
Mid-morning found him again downstairs, deciding to take advantage of the weight lifting set and Gerald's stereo system in the man cave to blast some early 00's rage rock. He'd never been a huge gym guy, but he did like like to stay fit. He'd jog, occasionally lift some weights. He did utilize the employee gym at the hospital a few times a week, purely as maintenance. The point being, he'd forgotten just how good of a stress easing tool it could be. He could rage lift, rage run, and take his unbridled anger out on that.
And that's what he did, up until about an hour before he was suppose to meet Helga, finally dragging his disgusting ass upstairs for a shower.
Helga was the first to arrive at Dutch's, though Arnold had let her know he was stuck at the red light and would be there shortly. Fair enough, lunch traffic could be a nightmare around there once school started back. She figured she'd grab them a table before there were none, and if she waited, that would be her luck. She barely slid into the booth and ordered them waters when she saw him push through the pub door and start looking every which a way. He smiled when he saw her wave at him, striding over to slide in opposite of her. "You can tell school is back in full swing," He observed, referencing all the traffic he'd encountered.
"It's 'effing ridiculous," Helga rolled her eyes in agreement, watching him shrug off his jacket.
"So, how's everything been this week?" Arnold figured he'd break the ice with a sterile question. He hoped she was still in the spirit of participation and not for short canned answers. He truly was seeking to hear about her humdrum.
His date shrugged, reaching out and peeling the paper from her straw, slipping it into her glass, "Eh, another day in paradise," She bemused, leaning forward and taking a sip of water. "Today sucked. I sat around for two freaking hours waiting to do a slump test, only for the GC to call and say, 'Oh, sorry, we had our days mixed up. No concrete today.'," She rolled her eyes, "Felt bad for the pump guys though. They'd set up that entire boom for nothing."
Arnold chuckled at her ramblings, very amused, but also grateful for her willingness to participate in some normalcy, "So, business as usual it sounds like." And truly it was, because it was nothing new that she hadn't complained about to him a thousand times before. Half the time he had no idea what she was talking about, but he loved it though.
"Yeah, yeah," She cracked a rare smile and an even rarer chuckle those days. "It's just the sheer incompetence that's maddening sometimes. Really," She rolled her eyes again, "Sometimes I question why I decided this as career for myself."
"Because you're good at it," Arnold quipped, "And it makes good money. And, oh what was it you said once?" He brought his index finger to his chin, appearing to think for a moment, "Oh yeah...'Construction is a grouchy business and I'm a grouchy person'." He said, doing a poor job mimicking her voice.
But it succeeded in making her laugh, and tip her head towards him in defeat, "Fair enough. They are usually more terrified if I show up in a good mood," She mused with a lopsided smirk. "So...what about you?"
"Me? No I wouldn't say anybody is ever terrified if I show up in a good mood," He teased, watching her lean back in the booth and look off, shaking her head, smirk still in place. He proceeded to shrug, "It's been a better week so far."
Helga re-fixed her blue orbs on his person, casting him a small but genuine smile, "I'm happy to hear that." And he could tell that she truly meant it. He looked better than he did last week, she'd noticed that much. She couldn't quite put her finger on why. Perhaps not as stormy looking. "How's therapy going?"
"Uh, I've got it tonight actually," He replied, a little surprised that she'd asked about that, though he didn't know why. He'd brought her into the know Saturday night, and she'd cared enough talk at length with him about things. "And Friday."
"Is that...pretty normal to go twice a week like that?"
He shrugged, "It just kind of depends on you need."
Helga nodded, truly having no idea how any of that worked, "Gotcha."
"So, how's Miss Priss been this week?" Arnold then asked, taking note that she didn't look quite so worn for wear as she did last week. He'd wanted to reach out several times asking if she wanted him to help, but had decided against it.
"She sleeps fine for a night or two and then suddenly wants to be a night owl randomly," She sighed, propping her elbow onto the table and gesturing her hand around, "I have no idea why. And neither do the thirty baby sleep books I've consorted. Apparently," She ended with an air of absurdity and a light chuckle. She would end up with a kid after her own rebellious heart.
Arnold chuckled, "There's a lot to see. She hasn't got time for sleep."
"There is nothing to see at 2:00am on a Tuesday, Football head, so zip it," She teased, while thinning her eyes at him.
Her date full out laughed at that, sitting back and the booth, cross armed and having a good belly roll. God, he'd forgotten how funny she could be, when she wanted to be. "Fair enough," He conceded, his bottle green eyes resting happily on her before he leaned back forward onto the table, "You could always give her to me a few nights a week, you know. Unfortunately I'm not always staring at the back of my eyelids at 2:00am right now."
Helga smirked, "Why, so you can give her ideas?"
Arnold snorted, "You got me. But seriously though," He fixed her with a more sincere look, "Think about it."
She didn't say anything right away, choosing stare back with her own considering look, "Alright. I will."
A/N: The devil is in the details.