"Hi," it was more awkward than Helga would have thought it would be, "I'm Cassidy."

"I'm Olga," Olga greeted warmly. Their hands met in a handshake. Olga had seriously calmed down since Helga had seen her last. She almost always had her hair braided. Today it was a clean french braid, down the back of her scalp. She had the just bare beginnings of fine lines at the corner of her eyes, sparkling blue. Her son, Caleb, was laying down for a nap. He seemed seriously overwhelmed. Helga felt the same way.

"Welcome home," Cass gently covered Olga's hand with her other, fingers rubbing back and forth soothingly, "I'm excited to get to know you." she sounded authentic. Olga's mouth pressed together in a sincere smile, and nodded.

Olga looked exhausted as she let Cassidy's words sink in. Helga's suspicions, she had learned, were basically right. Olga had left her ex-husband, Ned, taken their son, and hid. Helga couldn't find her because she hadn't wanted to be found, but not by them. She was hiding from Ned.

"You too," Olga leaned in, grabbing her other hand, eyes already weepy. Helga had no idea how Cass, who couldn't write an essay to save her damn life, always knew the right thing to say. "Ah, ah-" I'm sorry," she dropped Cass's hands to wipe at her cheeks. "It's been a long few days."

"I'm sure," Cass stood back up to her full height, and glanced at Helga.

"You girls run along," Olga rolled her shoulders back, brushing some baby hairs out of her face. She had on an olive green turtleneck and deep, dark circles under her eyes. "Do you need me to tell Mom and Dad anything, Helga?" That was a round-about way of asking Helga where the fuck she was going.

Helga raised her eyebrows, "uh, no. But thank you." Trust me, she thought to herself, if they need me, they will call.

Cass grabbed Helga's shoulder, offering a polite wave to Olga as a parting gesture. She turned them towards the living room, headed straight for the door of the Pataki home. Helga passed by the couch, made up as a bed, where she had slept the last two nights. She was going to sleep at Arnold's that night, she knew that much.

"Oh, hey-" Cass stopped before the door, looking at the arm-chair with a green plaid coat thrown over it. "Isn't that Lila's coat?" She made to grab it.

Helga stopped her, "it's not anymore." Lila had given it to Olga on Christmas Eve. Learning of it sort of made her want to vomit, scream and cry all at the same time. Which ever came first. She had done it. The little bitch had totally done it. At some point in time, and Helga would never, for the rest of her life, be able to pin-point when, Lila Sawyer had managed to worm her way into being Helga Pataki's sister. Goddamnit.

Arnold was sitting on his parent's couch. He was exhausted. He knew he should have already been driving back into Hillwood, because city traffic was going to be insane on the Saturday the day after Christmas, but he was still fighting to keep his eyes away. He got a text from a Hillwood area code, but a number he didn't recognize.

New Number 1:34 p.m.
Eta?

Arnold 1:34 p.m.
I'm sorry, who's this?

New Number 1:35 p.m.
The ghost of christmas past

He squinted at his phone, and took a bold guess.

Arnold 1:36 p.m.
Is this cassidy?

Cass 1:38 p.m.
By george, he's got it.
now - eta?
Helgas pretending not to pout & its getting annoying.

Arnold was already putting his shoes on.

Arnold 1:45 p.m.
Leaving the house now.
Be there by 2:30 at the latest.

"Alright, y'all." Gerald seemingly just appeared in the attic. "Are we gonna look nice for this fucking thing?" Helga was half hanging off the bed, wearing sweatpants she had bought in sophomore year. Sid was propped up on the bed next to her, and his shirt had holes in the sleeves. They looked at each other "uh…"

"We probably should," Lila piped up from her spot on the couch. She dropped her phone nonchalantly into the cushion. "I have a feeling other people will be."

"It is a Lloyd extraordinaire event." Helga nodded, not really intending at all at changing out of her sweatpants.

"How nice is nice?" Gerald fiddled with the hem of his shirt. He looked at Lila and Sid, and then realized they were the last people to ask that question to, and so he turned to Lila "should I wear a tie?"

"You should probably wear three ties just to be safe." Sid recommended from the floor. He was lucky Gerald had nothing in reach to throw at him.

"Are you okay, Gerald?" Lila asked bluntly, tipping her head to the side. Cool red hair fell down her shoulders. She was sitting on the couch by herself, a bottle of sparkling green nail polish in her hands as she painted her toes.

"I'm fine," Gerald lied. He rubbed a tired hand over his face and crossed to the bed. "Move," he batted at Sid's arm. Sid blinked at him as if that were a request to go to the moon on Saturday. "Move or I'll lay on you."

"'But I'm fine, though,'" Helga mocked from her side of the bed. She sat up and scooched back against the headboard, watching Gerald with curious eyes. Sid rolled over and Gerald flopped down with exhaustion. "I don't get what the big deal is, you saw me when I hadn't showered in weeks."

Sid wrinkled his nose. Helga frowned at him, "it's true."

"Who hasn't showered in weeks?" Cass appeared at the top of the steps. She was wearing a crop top with a photo-realistic image of a cat ironed to the front, and her soft tummy showed until her sweatpants were rolled up. She yawned and stretched, noticing the bottle of polish in Lila's hands. She crossed to her and held out her hands expectantly. Lila grinned, tugging Cass down to sit on the couch with her.

"Me," Gerald moaned into the sheets. And quickly followed it with a sigh. "Nah," he rolled over in his spot. "I'm just being dramatic." Sid nearly looked like he sniffed him to be sure. Gerald let his first smile crack on his face.

"When aren't you?" Helga joked, laughing when Gerald shot her a warning look.

"Why won't you tell us what's wrong?" Lila asked, as bluntly as she ever was, running her nail along Cass' to swipe up the extra paint. "I want to play Dr. Phil."

"Mari's mad at me," he replied, laying with his back pressed to the bed and his hands crossed on his stomach. "And like, she's been mad before. But this is like. Real mad, like multiple days mad." Gerald frowned up at the sky light.

Helga hummed, sharing a look with Sid. Sid winced sympathetically, and Helga felt the same way. She was rooting for the two of them, it was hard not to.

"What'd you do?" Cass asked after a moment.

Gerald turned his head to look at her, looking like he wanted to be offended at the insinuation it was he that did something, but the tension melted quickly. "I didn't tell her about wanting to switch school until super late into the game. I get it, like, sucks, because I've cut our couple time into a quarter of what it was, and I'm living with my parents again, I guess, which is every girl's dream…"

"That doesn't matter." Lila shook her head, biting her lip with concentration as she squinted at Cass's nails. Cass looked at Gerald and nodded her agreement. "Mariella is upset that you weren't honest with her. She's worried that you don't look at your relationship as as much of a partnership as she does." She dissected succinctly.

Gerald blinked with surprise. He turned and looked to Sid, looking for his thoughts. "Don't fucking look at me," Sid blinked, "you know I don't speak girl."

He looked to Helga. "Same here," she shrugged.

"Ay, loverboy," Cass snapped her fingers, and Gerald looked back to her. "We do," she flicked a hand in between herself and Lila, who nodded. "She's right." Cass licked her lips, blinking down at her buzzing cellphone. "Speaking of loverboys," her eyebrows quirked up, "your should be here in t-minus five minutes."

"Mine?" Sid asked, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

Cassidy sent him a flat look "for fuck's sake, no, Sid." She squinted at him. "Who would yours even be?"

"I don't know! That's why I was so confused!"

Gerald turned to Helga as the bickering continued and Lila made light suggestions as to exactly who Sid's apparently loverboy might be. He glanced significantly at the door, telling her nonverbally, "get out and get down there while you have the free shot." She blinked, and stood, and wondered exactly when she and Gerald started having nonverbal conversations. As she pondered it, she tenderly touched his forehead as she passed, slight brushing of fingers, in a way that she hoped told him how sorry she truly was about the entire Mari thing, and that she was rooting for him.

When she looked back, he was smiling at her, crookedly, one side of his mouth lifted up.

Helga was waiting on the stairs for Arnold to get there. She did want a moment with him before they got swept into the evening and their friends as they inevitably would. She sat and fiddled with her phone even though there was nothing to do on it. Her heart crackled a little bit with the opening of the door to the house.

He opened it, wind whipping cruelly behind him. His hair was all over the place under his black hat, his nose was bright pink and running and his eyes were squinted up from the cold. He shut the door behind himself hastily, taking off his hat to make his hair even more of a shit show.

Helga's heart swelled with affection.

"Hey," his eyes landed on her and his mouth quirked into a smile. "I've missed y-" the rest of his sentence was muffled by her throwing herself into his arms. They collided into the back of the door, Arnold laughing as he thudded against the door. His arms enveloped her, feeling safe and warm and she thought, that maybe, they could be something like home. "Hey," he greeted softly again, pressing a kiss into her hair, right above her ear.

She simply tightened her arms. "That sucked way more than it should have, fucker," she told him angrily, referencing his absence. He inhaled, like he was smelling her, in the least creepy way possible. It still sounded creepy, but she would swear it wasn't. She thought of how they spoke every day that time, a stark contrast to his other absence, and it only made her crave him, his touch more. She shoved that thought where it belonged, deep down a well, possibly in a sewer.

"I missed you, too," he replied gently, breath hot on her neck. She exhaled, melting further into his touch, only to be swiftly ripped out of it by Sid screaming "DAD!" And promptly falling down the stairs.

Arnold didn't want to seem as if he were procrastinating, but he had so much he wanted to talk to Helga about. They had only a few short minutes together downstairs before Sid was practically falling down them to come see Arnold. Arnold almost suggested to Helga that the two of them not go to the party at all, but it was Rhonda's infamous holiday party, and they had promised they'd go. He kept trying to slip in little pieces of what happened at the conference, but they always got pulled back into the group discussion of goats or plot holes in the movie they watched last night. Helga grabbed his arm, signaling with her eyes they'd talk later. Which they would.

And he was happy to talk to their friends, Lila and her loud laugh and Sid and the way he thought he was only subtly watching her every move. Gerald seemed a little wound up, but he was laughing, too, when Cassidy told a really funny story about her lab partner from that semester.

Something about their friends created these weird loops of time. The group said they'd leave by 4 to get dinner. Then it was 6 and they hadn't. Then it was 9 p.m. and Mari finally called Gerald and said she'd come to the party, so they actually left for the party. After getting take out and picking her up, they went over. The party was genuinely packed by the time they got there. Lila watched Arnold and Helga gravitate towards each other like two magnets on opposite ends of a table. She smiled, rubbing at her eyebrow, and wishing for the best.

"Kitchen, drinks?" Cassidy suggested from the back of the pack. Helga nodded, grabbing on to Arnold's forearm. They, as a collective unit, pushed through the crowd to get to Rhonda's kitchen.

"NO, NO-" They heard a familiar, shrill voice as they approached the grand double doors. Rhonda was practically fending people out of her kitchen with an enormous bottle of wine and her own determination as weapons. She seemed frazzled already. Lila wondered for a moment why she even had these parties even more, it seemed so stressful for her. She looked beautiful though, sparkling top and hair pinned out of her face.

"Need a hand?" Mari offered, grabbing the wine that was jabbed at them. Rhonda's guard dropped as she scanned their faces, setting down the wine entirely and opening her arms. She squealed as Mari dashed into them, followed by Lila, and then, after a moment, when Lila grabbed her wrist and tugged her in, Helga.

"I've missed you guys," Rhonda told them through Mari's hair, which she bent painfully over to put her face in.

Lila tightened her grip, and told Rhonda "we've missed you, too." They were shuffling back. Rhonda looked good. Her makeup was pristine, but overall, she looked less tired. She had put on a little bit of weight in the last month, and in the best way possible, filling out her arms and legs a bit. "How was the last bit of the semester?"

Rhonda let out a deep breath. She had her hair pinned out of her eyes with sparkling clips and a red mini dress on. "3.25, ladies!" She announced, looking pleased with it. Lila could have heaved a sigh of relief. Rhonda had been texting their groupchat about their grades since Thanksgiving with concern. She was so happy Rhonda could accept that you didn't need straight A's to be doing well in school.

Mari pinched her cheek, "I told you, you could do it."

"We never doubted you could." Helga agreed with a grin, leaning up against the doorway. She also looked healthier, Lila noticed in the warm yellow glow leaking in from the kitchen. Her skin looked plump, pink and rounded around her chin the way it hadn't in a long time. Arnold grabbed her forearm. She looped an arm around his waist.

"Did I miss the group hug?" Thad practically swaggered out of the kitchen, breaking through their little group. He had one arm dragging along Eugene behind him. Eugene looked a little miffed, but more involved with his cup of spiked something or other than anything else. He gasped, "is that my girl?" He met eyes with Cass, holding his free arm open. His hand was holding a beer bottle, but it looked nearly empty.

"I hate you, asshole," she rolled her eyes as she fell into his arm, grabbing Eugene with her other hand. Eugene's face lit up, seeming genuinely glad to see Cassidy.

"C'mere," Thad was gesturing at Arnold blatantly to join their hug, but he covered himself with a laugh and extending his hand outwards to all of them. "Group hug, attendance is mandatory."

Lila laughed as she stepped forward into it, grabbing Sid and tugging him along with her.

It was gross, this hug was.

There was no real way to tell who was who, and it was getting sweaty and the music thumping in the background was distinctly some sort of rap by someone who loved the word pussy. But, Sid had his hand curled around Lila's waist and she had her face shoved into Helga's shoulder and she barely even minded that she could pretty surely smell literally every other participant in this hug.

"LET'S GET DRUNK!" Thad shouted, and he promptly threw his empty beer bottle at the wall.

The hug ended there, because Rhonda screamed, and tackled him.

Sid couldn't dance. Sid knew very clearly he couldn't dance. Sid, to be fair, had never made an effort to learn to dance, and dancing wasn't something someone could merely learn via osmosis. He was in what could only be called a huddle of his friends, with a cup of something in his hand, and he was dancing. Other people might have called it terrifying flailing, but he could call it dancing. He didn't know the last time he had danced. He didn't know if there was ever a time where he was with people he felt comfortable enough with to try. People floated in and out of their group, but he grabbed Helga's wrist and spun her around and tugged her close and she laughed. She laughed so hard. It had been a while since he had out-rightedly flirted with her the way he used to. They were both very distracted that fall. Cassidy wormed her way under his arm, adding herself into their dance. It would have been a moment, probably. A moment where Sid realized exactly how much had changed in the last year. But he could feel the beat in his spine and he was laughing about exactly nothing and he could see Gerald and Arnold holding hands and doing some malformed version of the twist, and it was hard to focus on anything but exactly how happy he was in that exact moment.

It was hours into the party and Lila had gone upstairs to unlock and drop her shoes in Rhonda's room. When she went back downstairs, her friends werescattered. Gerald had Mari on his lap on the couch. They were holding tentative hands, but having some sort of hushed conversation. She saw Helga, Cassidy, Sid and Thad in another corner. Arnold and Eugene seemed to be having a conversation with a guy Lila didn't recognize. They were closest to her, so she crossed to them first. At some point in time, she had been handed another drink, and the guys she knew had left. She hadn't even realized it happened, until she realized that this boy in front of her was attempting to hit on her. He was tall, with big shoulders and messy brown hair that looked like he put a little bit of work into making it messy.

"So, do you have a boyfriend," he drawled, leaning over Lila, hand pressed into the wall. I have a Sid, she thought to herself hastily. It was perplexing to her, how much of her type the boy was in front of her. Or maybe, how much he was like the other boys she had dated.

"Uh," she spared a glance for the boy on the other side of the room. He had a glass bottle in his hand, laughing so hard at whatever Helga was saying that it looked like it might shatter in his grip. His face was flushed his nose stood out, and his dark eyelashes were visible even from the distance. Cass sat next to him, hair still partially braided back the way Lila had styled it before they left. She had her chin in the palm, a red cup in her other hand, somewhat slumped on the counter. She was amused by Helga, but not to the extent Sid was. She caught Lila watching, waving a little hand in her direction, cool orange sleeve falling over her hand. Lila spared another look for Sid, who looked mildly in pain because he just snorted whatever he was drinking by accident. He spluttered. He, the boy, who had had months to make a move, who she saw every other day at least, who sat close and used his fingers to comb her hair and counted freckles and asked dumb questions and told dumber jokes and she laughed anyway. He, the boy who wasn't her anything. "I," she looked back to the boy in front of her, the boy who wanted to be her something, "guess not."

"It's too cold to be out here," Arnold warned her as Helga tugged him out to the Lloyd porch. It was as decked out as the house, ornate little paper lanterns covering the rails of the porch, lights delicately swirled into the trees in the small backyard. Arnold blinked at a few of the chairs that were still sitting out in the middle of the lawn, thinking back to a time that seemed like years ago, when he sat there with Sid.

"I don't disagree…" she smirked, "but it's really loud in there." Arnold would have followed her directly into hell, so it didn't particularly matter. "How was California, really?"

"It was good," he nodded. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He wanted so badly to ask about Olga. But he wasn't trying to act like that was anything to do with him, because it wasn't. He didn't do it for the credit. He did it because it would make her happy. "I have a lot to tell you. How was your Christmas?"

She exhaled, and little puffs of white fluttered through the air in front of her. Her hair was falling into her face. "How did you find her?"

"Wha-"

"Olga told me everything, Arnold." Her hands reached out of her pockets towards him.

They weren't gloved. He was immediately was concerned about it. He reached out, grabbing them quickly. He pulled her closer to himself, tucking both of their hands into his pockets as he curled his fingers around hers. "Thank you." She said, and he didn't know if it was the hands thing or the Olga thing but it was probably both. "Now," she squeezed his hand tightly through his gloves, "where the fuck was my sister?

He took a deep breath. It was a long winded story, and she deserved the entire thing. It started with an email, found in Lila's email when he and Sid were sitting in her dorm weeks ago. It was a dead-end, of course, if Olga hadn't replied to dozens of emails from Lila and several from Helga and her father, there was no shot she'd respond to one from Arnold. But Arnold, with the dutiful help of his parents, was able to hire someone, a private investigator of sorts, to track every activity with that email address. It's last active use was registering and paying for a domain. He was able to drag up an old cache of the homepage of the website, and figured out it was an advertisement for piano lessons. That's where his day in California started, at an old strip mall that now housed a small tanning salon, not a piano tutor. From there, it was logistical tag, calling the lease-er of the strip mall to beg for an address, calling a landlord to beg for a phone number, one step forward, and a huge kick in the stomach back. Six hours later, and he was on the phone with Olga Pataki, just offering her the ticket home to Hillwood. The Patakis had moved since she'd left Ned, and left the land line in the past, choosing to only pay for Bob and Helga's cell-phones. Arnold hadn't anticipated buying a ticket for Caleb, but it wasn't a problem.

Helga licked her lips, and listened uncharacteristically quietly, eyes darting back and forth as if she could see the entire thing play out in front of her. He dropped one of her hands in his pocket, letting it curl up into a small fist, and grabbed her cheek with his hand, "how are you?" He asked her earnestly.

"It's been a real riot," she snorted, sounding off, and guarded.

He swiped his thumb along her cheek bone, "Helga…"

"I'm tired of being tired, Arnold," she omitted honestly, leaning into his touch. Her eyes, looking large and almost grey in the lowlight, peaked up at him through clumped lashes, "a lot to tell me about California, huh?" She sounded almost amused already. "Like a job offer?" Her eyes sparkled, even though her little crinkle under them was undeniably sad. Her mouth was still smiling, but it was soft as if she were just looking forward into the inevitable.

Like I love you. He thought to himself, almost kicked in the chest with it. "Like...a lot to tell you about," he finished with a soft exhale. She smiled, it reaching the corners of her eyes that time.

"Yeah well, I've gotta story about a goa-"

Her eyes looked beyond him and softened with concern. He turned back. Through the sliding glass doors, they could see that Gerald and Mari had entered the kitchen, looking less than thrilled with each other. More than that, they looked down right angry. Mari was attempting to make herself busy, wandering around and making a drink, clearly evading Gerald. Gerald looked more frustrated than Arnold had seen him be as an adult.

"Oh, no…" Helga sighed softly, watching. Arnold looked back to her. Her eyebrows nearly met in the middle, scrunched up with concern and more overgrown than they had been in a while. But her eyes were empathetic, interested. She was clearly now involved in the lives of their friends, and it made Arnold's chest ache a little more. He grabbed her hand tighter in his own pocket.

"They've been having problems this week," Arnold had heard about it over the phone for hours on Christmas day. "She's upset with him about the college thing, and he doesn't get that he can't do anything about it but let her be upset."

"Gee," Helga snorted, "I wonder what learning about that's like."

Arnold looked at her. She had chapped lips quirked up in a little smirk. "Yeah," he agreed jokingly with a soft smile, "I can't imagine."

Mari was responding, then. He could hear them through the glass. "Do you want to break it up?" He asked Helga, nodding back towards the kitchen.

"Not at all," she shook her head.

"Are you going to?"

"Well, yeah."

a/n... not dead! not abandoned! we're gonna finish this, ladies and germs!

i highly doubt anyone reading this hasn't heard of mony, or mikosarthouse on tumblr. but if u haven't, here is her shoutout. you have to follow her, she's not only a fantastic artist but a wonderful person with this big ol' heart that's really helping me reach the finish line on this fic here. don't know if i would have got this far without her. she's also written a few really ! fantastic fics for shortaki week, found on her fanfiction account monyletra, read them!

thanks for reading all, here's to finishing this baby out, all my love, k.