A/N: This one is Helga & Phoebe, with some Arnold/Helga undertones.
Phoebe couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that Helga had begun to slip away from her.
Perhaps, she thought, it was when Arnold left, and Helga's hope along with it. Not that Helga had ever come across as a hopeful person, really, but at least she'd cared about things back then. Now she just sort of stared vacantly at everything, as if she were watching her life from the outside.
"Here, Helga," Phoebe said, placing the only butterscotch pudding she'd been able to snag onto Helga's tray as she sat down at their usual table. "You can have my pudding."
Helga smiled faintly in response. So faintly, in fact, that most people probably wouldn't have known that she was smiling at all. But Phoebe knew. And she liked to think that the smile was a grateful one.
Phoebe couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that Helga had begun to slip away from her, but she was sure that she would never let her go.