Title: The Sensation of Falling

Warnings: PG-13, post-series, high school era, angsty fluff, drama, romance-centric, canon-typical bullying, dysfunctional family dynamics, mild language, semi-mature themes, etc.

Summary: Helga G. Pataki has a secret admirer. Hell must have frozen over.

Disclaimer: This is non-profitable fan work. No copyright infringement intended.

Author's Note: Okay, so this pairing? Totally owns my heart. Welcome to my newest HA fic, everyone. The Sensation of Falling is the first part of a bipartite series and will consist of five chapters. That's about it, really. Happy reading!

CHAPTER 01

Though it's never aimed my way, I think you have a pretty smile.

That is the note Helga G. Pataki finds when she opens her locker on Monday morning; the neat, cursive script bold against the sticky note someone had obviously pushed between the slit.

She stares at it for a long moment, fingers tracing the delicate curlicues, before scoffing and stuffing it into her pocket. Either someone slipped it into the wrong locker or it was a prank.

Helga doesn't doubt that it isn't intended for her, which is why she trashes it at the earliest opportunity.

And if she feels a pang of disappointment when she opens her locker the next morning to find it empty, well. No one has to know but her.

x-x-x

There is another cream-colored square of paper lying on her books when Helga opens her locker on Wednesday. She doesn't know how long she stands there, eyeing the note like it's a snake poised to strike. A slam of metal startles her to attention and she glares balefully at the guy two lockers down. He sees her, yelps an apology, and all but runs away without a backwards glance, the locker he hadn't bothered to properly close swinging behind him.

Helga snorts derisively and returns her attention to the post-it.

Pursing her lips, she reaches forward and unfolds it. In a familiar handwriting are the words:

Yesterday I was watching the sun set. The color of the sky as it darkened reminded me of your eyes, except for when you're smiling, and then they become as blue as the ocean at midday. I'm not sure which I like more—your smile or your eyes. I feel like I can get lost in both.

Note impossibly heavy in her hand, Helga swivels her head side to side. The hallway is bustling with people but no one is looking in her direction. She frowns and drags her gaze to the message, re-reads it twice more, then carefully tucks it into a dog-eared copy of The Woman in White that she's reading for leisure.

As she pulls out her Economics textbook and shuts the door, she tells herself that it's likely a stupid prank and the only reason she's keeping the note is because it's evidence. When she finds the person who's yanking her chain, she's going to make them pay.

She spends the rest of the day forcing her thoughts away from the sticky in her locker.

She isn't very successful.

x-x-x

Helga doesn't find another note waiting for her the next day, or the next, and is relieved that she never told Phoebe about them. She figures that it was a prank and the culprit got bored by her refusal to react. That, or they really were slipping the note into the wrong locker and finally figured it out.

It's fine. She isn't disappointed or anything. She's known from the beginning that they weren't meant for her.

She tries not to think about how bothered she feels when she arrives at Phoebe's apartment on Saturday night for their bi-monthly sleepover. And when Phoebe asks her what's put her in such a prissy mood when they're curled up together on the couch watching re-runs of Grey's Anatomy, she shrugs and doesn't answer.

It's not like she has any concrete ones to give.

x-x-x

She will refuse to admit 'til the day she dies that her heart quickens when she opens her locker on Monday morning to find a familiar note. Her hands tremble a little when she reaches for it, and she glances around her to make sure no one's hovering over her shoulder before unfolding it.

I saw you at the mall on Sunday. You didn't see me, which is probably a good thing because you were wearing your hair down and I must have looked like an idiot, staring. I'd love to see you wear it like that more often, but I think I'd miss the curls at your nape when you pull it up into a ponytail. Sometimes it's all I can do not to twirl it around my finger and see if it feels as soft as it looks.

Unconsciously, Helga brings her hand up to touch the nape of her neck. She feels a loose curl resting against her skin and shivers at the thought of warm hands trailing up her neck to play with her hair. And then she catches herself and scowls.

It's a prank, she tells herself, even as she reads the words again, the pads of her fingertips tracing the grooves of the ink. She looks around and is unsurprised to find no one staring ostentatiously at her; it's a prank, so of course they won't want to get caught.

But what if—

No. Helga shakes her heads and exhales sharply. It's a prank. A joke. It has to be. There's no way anyone would think such things about her—not Helga G. Pataki, whose resting face, according to Phoebe, is that of a serial killer; whose sister bemoans her fashion sense (or lack thereof) and often complains that she's so plain and never does anything about it; who gets called "ice bitch" behind her back because no one's brave enough to say it to her face, and doesn't even care because that's who she is and she's fine with that.

She's never done anything to warrant the kind of affection the writer apparently feels towards her. Never. She can count on one hand the number of people she's actually nice to and still have fingers left over.

There's no way she has a—a secret admirer. No freaking way. Not her.

x-x-x

"You've been awfully…disgruntled lately," Phoebe says as she sits across from her at their usual lunch table. Wednesday's mystery meat ripples suspiciously as she sets her tray down, and Helga eyes it before glancing up at her best friend. She will never understand how Phoebe can actually like the cafeteria food. Helga would rather go hungry than brave their heavily processed glop. She heard someone refer to it as human feed once. They aren't wrong. "What's wrong, Helga?"

"Nothing's wrong," Helga mutters, returning her attention to her sandwich. She takes a huge bite, ignoring Phoebe's disbelieving stare.

"You slammed Trevor into the locker for bumping into you this morning," Phoebe says pointedly. "Three times."

Helga flushes a little at the memory. She opened her locker that morning to find it empty and…well. Of course, that's when Trevor had come along and bumped into her so hard she hit her head against the locker frame. It had hurt, dammit, and that's the only reason she reacted as she had. It had nothing to do with the fact that her locker was bereft of a note even though it's Wednesday, oh no.

Sometime in between the second and third slam she had caught sight of a familiar cream color at the corner of her eye and had unceremoniously dropped Trevor to the floor. There, wedged between her gym bag and calculus textbook, was the note. Whoever slipped it inside must have done so at the corner of the door slit, she'd reasoned as she carefully retrieved it, paying little heed to Trevor who was trying to make an escape.

The note, terribly crinkled from being folded and unfolded so many times, now sits in her pocket, impossibly warm against her thigh. All day she's been slipping her hand inside to touch it, then snatching it away when she realizes what she's doing. Even now her fingers twitch with the urge to pull it out, smooth out the creases, and go over the words she's read so many times they've been branded to memory.

Whatever room I'm in seems to get so much brighter the moment you walk into it. When I see you, no matter how awful my day has been, I feel a little bit better. You're like the first ray of sunshine after a week of stormy skies.

Helga is trying very, very hard not to be affected by the sickeningly sweet messages she's been receiving every Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Friday, for the past three weeks now. The voice in her head that insists it's one terrible joke is losing volume by the day, growing quieter. It's stupid, so stupid, but Helga's becoming unconvinced that it's just a prank. Would someone really go to all this trouble just to wind her up? And for what purpose? In the hopes that she'll fall in love with someone whose only real interaction with her is through a few pretty words, and then what? Embarrass her? Break her heart? As if.

She won't deny that she's flattered—who wouldn't be?—but she's certainly not becoming infatuated with some stranger who probably ripped everything off from some trashy harlequin novel with a semi-pornographic front cover.

Helga grew up. She's no longer that starry-eyed little girl who used to write shitty poetry and dream of being swept off her feet and saved from her negligent family. She has more common sense than to believe someone will fall in love with her the way they do in romance novels. She's smartened up to the reality that true love is an idealistic concept only believed in by people who spend more time in the clouds than on earth.

If Helga is lucky she might eventually find some guy who won't be too intimidated by her abrasive personality, get married for the tax benefits, and have the obligated kid she can toss off to a nanny while she furthers her career and pretends she and her husband aren't having affairs on the side.

If she's unlucky…she'll end up like her mother, trying to forget about all her poor life choices and the fact that she's trapped in a borderline-abusive marriage with an unending supply of "smoothies."

Or her sister, who goes through men like she goes through shoes, always seeking something that likely doesn't exist outside of fairytales.

Romance isn't in Helga's cards. Considering all the stellar examples of relationships she's witnessed over the years, she's not even sure she wants it to be.

Without thinking she rests her palm against the pocket concealing the note and pats it like it has some miraculous heartening power. When she realizes what she's doing, again, she clenches her hand into a fist and bites the inside of her cheek.

"—lga? Helga?" Phoebe's voice pulls her from her reverie and she looks up, realizing that her friend must have been calling her for a while.

Shaking her head to clear it, she says, "Huh? Oh, sorry, Phoebs. I got sidetracked. What were you saying?"

Helga resists the urge to shift under the narrowed look the other girl gives her.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" she insists, eyebrows furrowed in worry.

Helga feels awful for lying to her about this. Phoebe is more of a sister to her than her own sister is (not that that's saying much) and she's always had Helga's back. It feels wrong to withhold details of her life from her, especially since the secret she's currently keeping is nothing compared to others Helga has shared. But every time Helga even thinks about telling her, about showing her the letters, a heavy lump forms in her throat which the words eventually get caught in.

It's too…private, somehow, and the thought of anyone else reading them makes her feel like she's letting them read her own journal. Only worse.

There's also the fact that Phoebe knows her too well, sometimes better than she knows herself. She'll see something in Helga's expression, read something in her words, that Helga isn't ready to acknowledge. More, she'll know just how not indifferent she is towards the notes and then Helga will have to deal with Phoebe's pity when it turns out to be a prank after all—that no one in their right mind would ever think these things about Helga, let alone risk social suicide to send her written evidence of it.

"I know," Helga tells her after a moment, shoving down her guilt when Phoebe only sighs and gives her a patient half-smile.

"As long as you do. Now, can I see what you wrote for our history assignment? I don't think I connected everything the way I should have and you know how Mr. Santiago gets…"

x-x-x

Watching Doctor Who series two re-runs, Helga thinks the cybermen have got it right. Human emotions are impediments. They're destructive and illogical and Helga is feeling no small amount of envy for the bots who don't have to deal with the fickle whims of their hearts or the chaotic, messy nature of humanity anymore.

Even though the volume of the television is at its highest setting she can still hear the angry voices from the living room as clearly as if they are coming from the next room. The sudden sound of her mother's hoarse voice rising to a shout, followed by her father's thunderous bellow, makes her flinch, and her eyes fall without her consent onto the scrap of paper in her hand.

You make my heart flutter.

This is the note that awaited her when she opened her locker on Friday, two minutes before the late bell was scheduled to ring. She was written up for a tardy by some brown-nosing hall monitor, but she would be lying if she claimed to care.

Because apparently she makes someone's heart flutter.

"—I can't believe you! God, just when I think you can't be any more worthless—"

"—Don't talk to me about worthless, Bob! Should I remind you who's been taking care of this fucking household while you're out there screwing—"

Helga scoots closer to the television, so close her eyes blur and the sound is a deafening pounding in her ears. But it does the job of drowning out her parent's arguing so she remains there, knees tucked beneath her chin, arms hugging her legs.

One would think that after so many years of having to listen this she would be used to it by now. But she isn't, and doubts she ever will be.

Helga examines the creased note for the umpteenth time, eyes roaming over the five little words like, if she stares at them long enough, they'll sink into her and chase away the present coldness inside her; fill her with warmth.

It doesn't, but it helps somewhat, knowing that somewhere out there, maybe, just maybe, someone is thinking about her. Unlike her parents who are always too busy working, indulging in their vices, or arguing with each other to realize she exists. Unlike her sister who'd rather spend time with the children she's paid to teach instead of her very own flesh and blood, only calling every other month when she remembers she isn't an only child, and dropping by even less.

The sound of the front door slamming startles her and she wrenches her head up. Waits. After a moment of deliberation she lowers the volume, only to raise it again when the sound of her mother's heavy sobbing fill her ears. Her empty stomach rumbles insistently but she ignores it. She doesn't want to be anywhere near Miriam right now, who has a tendency to lash out at the nearest individual when she's feeling vulnerable. No, she'll give it an hour or so in hopes that her mother will be passed out drunk when she finally comes out.

Sighing explosively, Helga flops to the floor, her back hitting the thick rug with a heavy thud. She stares up at the million tiny pebbles that erupt from the ceiling for a long time before her eyes start to ache and she closes them.

You make my heart flutter, the words echo in her head.

She tries not to take too much comfort from the sentiment.

She doesn't succeed.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Note: So that's the first chapter. I hope I managed to pique your interest!

I'm experimenting with present-tense for this fic, something that I'm definitely not used to. It's been...interesting, haha.

Also, if anyone is interested in beta-reading this story please let me know. I'd love you forever.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Comments are super appreciated, as always!