Welcome Home, Helga Pataki

Summary: At the end of the fifth grade, Helga moved to Italy with her family. Six years have passed and she is coming back to join her fellow PS 118 peers, but six years can really change a person.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Hey Arnold!

Chapter Five

Tomorrow Morning During Breakfast…

Miss Emily was sitting in the dinning room, the only one eating her breakfast when Arnold walked downstairs, his hair a mess and half awake. He had been tossing and turning, waking up randomly during the night and he looked terrible. Miss Emily smiled at him when he walked in, but nearly dropped her spoon when she saw him.

“Oh, dear sweet Arnold, what on earth happened to you?” she asked, standing up and quickly setting a place for him next to her so he could explain everything. The night before had been a bad time, but it seemed that no one was around now to hear the story and so with little hesitation, he told Miss Emily about Helga. She had remembered him mentioning her before, but since Helga had been in Europe, he didn’t really go into details about it. She listened intently as he finished his waffles she had made for him and nodded when he was done.

“My, my, darlin’ you must be havin’ a hard time with her bein’ back, huh?”

“I mean, I thought that everything that had happened between us was just kid stuff. Now I don’t know what to do. She’s probably had tons of boyfriends and is already the most popular girl in school,” he said, sighing and slamming his forehead on the table. Miss Emily smiled and giggled a little, thinking to herself that he looked so cute when he was frustrated.

“Arnold, darlin’, you need to take initiative. I think it would be better for you if you just went up to Miss Helga and asked her if she will go on a date with you. If she accepts and you go on a harmless little date and everything goes well, then you can ask for another one. You arm making things far too complicated. If she wanted nothin’ to do with you, she wouldn’t have even bothered talking to you so much,” she replied, patting his back as he sat up again.

“Take initiative?”

“Maybe that’s what she wants you to do. Maybe she wants you to get your act together and just ask her out already,” she replied, patting his back and standing up to put away her dishes. Arnold looked back at his empty plate and decided that Miss Emily’s advice was probably the best.

“Take initiative…”

Helga was sitting in front of her bathroom mirror, brushing her hair lightly and thinking about everything that had happened. She had come back to Hillwood, expecting to see everyone and catch up. Instead she was completely bombarded by boys asking her out and girls asking her what happened to her while she was in Europe. Nothing had happened, really, just that she lived there. When she asked her mother about it, she just replied that everyone was jealous at how pretty she had become. Helga began to think about it and went back to her room, looking through her dozens of boxes and found an old photo album. She looked between the mirror and her old picture and realized the big difference. She had never really thought about it before but now she saw what everyone else did.

Helga continued to brush her hair when her mother called her down for breakfast. She finished getting ready and wandered down the stairs to see her parents sitting around the table, even more boxes opened and their contents spilled everywhere.

“Morning Helga,” Bud said, kissing his daughter’s forehead when she sat down.

“Morning Daddy,” she replied, her mother placing a plate in front of her.

“Helga, sweetie, can you pick up some milk on the way home today? I am going to be unpacking the living room and then all of upstairs,” her mother said, and she nodded.

“Just don’t do my room, I’ll do it myself,” Helga replied, eating quickly so she could head off to school. She went back up to her room and grabbed her backpack and said goodbye to her parents before she hurried down to her car. Opening the door, she climbed in, throwing her bag behind her and then noticed something on the floor. A small notebook was lying on the floor, one she didn’t recognize. She grabbed it but before she could look through it her phone rang.

“Hello?” she asked, starting up the car quickly and pulling out of her driveway.

“Helga?”

“Phoebe? What’s going on?”

“Hurry up and get here! I’m having a crisis!” she exclaimed, looking at her watch.

“Okay, I’m leaving my house right now,” Helga said, looking around and turning onto the highway to head for the high school. “What’s the matter?”

“I started thinking about what you said yesterday and without meaning to, I kind of wrote a note.”

“Wrote a note? What kind of note?” she asked, turning off onto the road leading to the school.

“A really stupid note asking Gerald out!” Phoebe cried, looking around the crowding halls as the first bell of the morning went off overhead.

“You wrote a note?!” Helga asked, parking her car and getting out quickly, forgetting the notebook. She grabbed her own bag and started walking towards the front doors. Phoebe was standing there, looking upset.

“I wrote a stupid note and accidentally put it in Harold’s locker!”

“H-Harold?”

“Y-Yeah, I totally panicked and stuffed it in a locker when I saw him coming and realized it was Harold’s!” Phoebe said, grabbing Helga’s hand and leading her to the locker. Harold was busy talking to Sid and Stinky, heading for his locker and Helga looked at Phoebe.

“If I get it back, will you give it to Gerald?” she whispered.

“I’ll do anything I just don’t want him to read it!”

Helga left Phoebe cowering around the corner and walked up to the boys. Harold opened his locker just as Helga walked up.

“Good morning boys,” she said, smiling at all three. Stinky pulled out his cell to take another picture of her as she leaned against the lockers.

“What’s going on Helga?” Harold asked, Helga seeing the little pink note that Phoebe had been talking about on top of his Astronomy book.

“Nothing, just wanted to catch up,” she said, as Harold grabbed his jacket, not noticing the note.

“Hey, are you going out with that guy, Jeremy?” Sid asked suddenly, trying to get into the conversation. Harold was about to close the locker when Helga moved in front of it, trying to look interested in what Sid was saying.

“Who is Jeremy?” she asked, smiling and grabbing the note before Harold could push her out of his way to close the locker.

“Don’t think that just because you got hot means I am going to fall for it,” Harold said, and Helga smiled at him. At least some people hadn’t changed at all. She punched him in the arm.

“Oh, Harold, I thought we were friends,” she said, “I was just trying to make conversation before our first class.”

Helga showed Phoebe the note behind her back and she sighed in relief as the warning bell rang and Helga quickly waved and headed back down the hall, the boys whispering as she went.

“How did you do that?” Phoebe asked, taking the note and stuffing it into her pocket as they walked quickly to Chemistry together.

“A whole lot of practice. Summer in Rome would get a little boring so I would just take random things for the fun of it,” Helga replied, sitting down at her desk when they reached their classroom.

“You stole?”

“Well, I’d give it back after I took it… Oh! Here comes your boy,” she whispered, pointing at Gerald who just walked into the classroom, yawning loudly. He walked by the girls without noticing them, and Phoebe shook her head.

“N-No, it was a bad idea, I don’t want to do it anymore!” she said, blushing brightly and fixing her glasses.

“Come on, you promised me!” Helga said, crossing her arms and looking at Gerald, sitting at his desk falling back asleep. Phoebe sighed miserably and buried her head in her arms as the last bell rang. Arnold had just come in when he spotted Helga and Phoebe. Helga was pulling out her book when the notebook she had found in her car fell on the floor. Phoebe looked up at the sound and saw the notebook.

“What is that?”

“Don’t know, I found it in my car this morning,” Helga said, and Arnold recognized it immediately. He must have dropped it when he was getting out of her car the night before. He froze, not knowing what to do.

“Is there a name?”

“No, doesn’t look like it,” Helga replied, looking through it. The notebook had no name but was filled with Arnold’s innermost thoughts. He had been so tired the night before, he didn’t realize that it had been missing. The teacher took her spot in the front and Arnold scrambled to get to his seat and every once in a while he would look in Helga’s direction, seeing that she had tucked the notebook back under her book throughout the class. Arnold was beginning to panic because more than once Arnold had jotted down things the day before about how upsetting it was to see Helga again and if she read anything like that he was probably going to blow any chance of ever asking her out.

“Don’t forget to read Chapter 1 by next class,” Miss Anderson said as the bell rang for the next period and Arnold saw Helga gathering her things.

“Gerald! Come on,” Arnold said, grabbing his arm and leading his friend out into the hall after Helga and Phoebe. Gerald, yawning and not sure what was happening, followed Arnold. He turned into Arnold’s excuse as Arnold quickly tripped him, knocking him into Helga and Phoebe.

“Watch it!” Helga barked, dropping her bag and the notebook. Arnold quickly scooped it up into his own books and grabbed Helga’s bag to give her.

“Sorry about that, it was an accident,” Gerald said, having knocked down Phoebe as well. He grabbed her bag and handed it to her quickly. She blushed and thanked him, and Arnold helped Helga to her own feet and she smirked as a thought came to her.

“Hey, Phoebe, remember that note you wanted to give to Gerald?” she asked, crossing her arms as the next warning bell went off and Phoebe snapped her head at her.

“W-What?”

“The little pink one,” Helga said, taking the bag Arnold offered her, “The one that you wanted me to remind you to give to Gerald?” Phoebe looked like she wanted to scream at her but time was short and Phoebe had never been late once to class and she didn’t have time to debate. She quickly grabbed the note from her pocket and shoved it into Gerald’s hand before grabbing Helga by the arm and hurrying down the hall. Gerald watched her go and Arnold walked up to him.

“What is it?”

Gerald shoved it in his pocket and pushed Arnold forward.

“Why’d you trip me man?” he asked, the two heading down the hall.

“Wanted to give you two an excuse to talk to each other,” Arnold lied, and Gerald grinned at him.

“Whatever…”

- Quick chapter with a little Gerald/Phoebe for everyone. Look how smooth Helga got over the years? Thanks for reading!

Invader Hog