Disclaimer: I do not own Hey Arnold! or any of these amazing characters. I just get to play with them for a little bit.

A/N: Here it is: my first official fanfic-ever! This is going to be a two-parter and takes place during the episode "Beaned" where Helga gets amnesia from being hit in the head by a baseball. The chronology doesn't exactly line up with the show (I reference a few episodes that may not have happened at that point in the show) but for my first attempt at this, I'm focusing more on creating an interesting story that holds true to the characters as we know them. I have this about 90% finished and hope to have the second half up soon! Please R&R so I can get better!

Anything underlined is directly quoted from the show-those are not my words! Everything else you can completely blame me for.

Well, here we go!

"Arnold, what in the heck are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what are you doing spending a whole entire afternoon with Helga Pataki? And then walking her to school the next day!"

"Well, what else am I supposed to do, Gerald? This whole amnesia thing is my fault. I'm responsible. I can't just ignore her."

"Of course you can!"

"Gerald…"

"Alright, but I'm warning you, this is not gonna be fun."

Oh if you only knew, Gerald. There is no way this can't be fun. Today is the start of a brand new game…

Arnold lets his thoughts continue down this path as he grabs Helga's elbow to keep her from wandering off again and directs her up the stairs into P.S. 118. Who knew that hitting Helga in the head with a baseball yesterday would get me here? He finds himself reliving the events of the last twelve hours as they walk toward her locker.

He had walked her home after the accident. He knew it was the right thing to take responsibility for her and the position he put her in…

He hears a soft snoring and looks up from the homework assignment he was reading to her. With a small smile, he gets up and closes the book. Arnold spots a doll nearby and lays it next to her before covering her. He turns off the lamp and turns to leave her room; he's decided to wait for her mother to get home so he can explain what happened.

But something catches his eye—a light in her closet.

He goes to turn it off—he'd hate for something to wake her up, especially something he could so easily fix. It is his fault that she has amnesia after all.

He reaches in toward the light switch and stops. The switch is off. He looks up at the ceiling and sees a darkened light fixture. Huh, that's weird, where's the light coming from then? His eyes sweep the small space and fixate on a glow coming from behind her hanging clothes.

He hesitates. Should I see what it is? No, it's something she clearly put back there for a reason. I can't invade her privacy like that. It would be wrong.

He lingers though, curious as to what she could possibly have hidden in the back of her closet. Helga G. Pataki, his nemesis. His schoolyard bully and sometimes friend. The one puzzle he's yet to solve. What if this is the clue that helps him crack the code?

He finds himself reaching toward the clothing and pulls back when he makes contact, as if he'd been stung. What am I doing? Confusing or not, I shouldn't be going through her closet. I gave her amnesia for crying out loud! The last thing she deserves is to have me take advantage of her by snooping through her private things. But… chances like this don't come up every day. And what about her amnesia? If it lasts, whatever I find might be the thing she needs to remind her of who she really is. I might actually be helping her out by looking…

Before he can talk himself out of it, he pushes forward through the wall of clothing and into a small glowing space hidden behind them.

How much time has passed? A minute? An hour? He can't be sure. All he knows is that he doesn't know anything at all. He wonders if maybe he was the one hit on the head and this is all just a crazy dream. Finally, he takes a step closer and kneels down, really looking at what's before him.

There's a statue of sorts, a pile of random things that resemble…himself? A block of cheese carved in a distinctively oblong shape with olives on toothpicks poking out, sits on top of a cracked garden gnome missing its head. There are several plastic fork heads poking out of the cheese block in a line along the top with a miniature baseball helmet sitting in the middle of them. Must've been her ice cream dish from the ball game our class went to last week, he muses. Why he focuses on that detail, he doesn't know, maybe he's trying to hold his grasp on clear, untainted reality, rather than the potential reality where everything he's ever known is wrong.

He takes a deep breath, I have to be dreaming, he decides. So he might as well explore a little so Gerald can explain to him what he's subconsciously thinking. Gerald, ha, like I could really tell him about a dream I had where I think Helga loves me, he took it so well when I told him the dream I had about us getting married…

His uncertainty about telling Gerald aside, he proceeds to explore this apparent temple dedicated to him. Maybe I fell sleep reading my dad's journal again. It would make some sort of sense…to mix up the semi-worship the green eyes have for me and the chaos of Helga's amnesia. Yea, that must be what happened.

He looks to the left and sees a tape player and a pile of recorded cassettes. Not wanting to risk waking Helga, even in his dream, he decides not to hit the play button and turns instead to his right. He sees a library of sorts. There is a full row of books, but there is one missing, he notices. A slightly dusty spot is open in the middle of the shelf, the exact size of the other books, the same books…huh. There must be at least twenty books here, and they're all the exact same size and shade of pink. What book series has every single book looking exactly the same? And what story could Helga love so much that she has every book from the series and keeps it hidden in the back of her closet?

He reaches for one and can't place why it feels so familiar in his hands. He opens it and he stops breathing. His eyes go wide.

"Oh orzo-shaped Prometheus; wandering dim hallways of my…"

The words confuse him a bit. Prometheus? What does that even mean? He focuses on the meaning of this word over anything else; he's trying his best not to admit to himself that he knows this handwriting, studied it, in fact. And as that thought seeps into his mind, passed the wall he was trying to erect to keep the truth out, he admits that knows exactly why this little pink book is so familiar to him. He flips the page, unable to keep himself from reading more. Page after page. Book after book. He's so absorbed in the words about himself that he forgets where he is. Forgets that he needs to be getting home. Forgets that the author of all these words is Helga.

He jumps, broken out of his reverie by a booming thud. What was that noise? A door! Panic sets in immediately. What if Helga catches him in here? What if Big Bob finds him in his daughter's closet? As quietly as he possibly can, he creeps out of the closet, through Helga's darkened room, and out to the hallway as fast as he can. He doesn't look back and he doesn't have to. The image of what he found back there will be engrained into is memory forever, he has no doubt. He walks down the stairs as casually as one can with a racing heart and a cold sweat forming.

"Oh, hi there, um…"

"Arnold," he supplies, breathing a sigh of relief. Helga's mom.

"Right…Arnold."

He tells her quickly about Helga's accident at school that day and tells her he'll be back to check on her in the morning. Rushing out the door, his mind falters. Tomorrow? Why did I say that? How can I look her in the face knowing I've gone through her closet? He feels like a terrible person as he walks home, hoping that Helga's amnesia lasts for more than one day. Suddenly, he perks up. I forgot! I'm only dreaming! Breathing a sigh of relief, he relaxes and keeps heading home. There's a skip in his step, satisfied that even though it's only a dream, he survived the Patakis without a scratch and won't have to face Helga after a "discovery" like that one.

"That you, Short Man?"

"Yeah Grandpa, it's me" Arnold says, humming a little tune as he enters the boarding house.

"What's got you so cheery? Weren't you at your little friend's house? The one who skips rope outside with the one eyebrow?" Phil asks with a suggestive smile.

"Yea I was," he explains, oblivious to the twinkle in his grandfather's eye, "and I found this crazy thing in her closet, and I was really scared she would pound me for seeing it. But then I realized that I was actually dreaming! So it's all ok! Isn't that great, Grandpa?" he asks, still humming his little ditty.

"Dreaming, huh?" He scratches his chin with a pensive look on his face. "What exactly did you see in her closet, Short Man?"

"Well, there was this sort of shrine in the back of her closet, behind all of her clothes…" Phil looks at him thoughtfully, wondering how exactly his grandson ended up that deep in the girl's closet, let alone why that feisty hellion let him waltz right in there. "…and then I realized it was the same as the pink book Gerald and I found a few months back, isn't that crazy? Well, not too crazy I guess, since this is all a dream, but still funny how my brain made all that up as an explanation…" Funny how your brain made up the explanation that you're dreaming you mean…sheesh, he's worse than I was! "So then I said bye to her mom and here I am!" Arnold finished with a smile.

Phil continued to stare at his grandson. "Eh, I don't know how to break this to you there, Short Man…" Arnold's smile faltered at the hesitancy of his grandpa's words. "…but you're not dreaming. Crazy as it all sounds, and as much as I can't imagine why that girl would let you anywhere near her closet if what you say you saw is really in there," and I wouldn't doubt it for a second if I know that girl like I think I do "but this is all really happening. You're not asleep, Arnold."

He looks disbelievingly at his grandfather for a minute before a smile slips on his lips. Then a wide grin. And then he's laughing, so hard that he has to wipe tears from his eyes.

That poor boy. He's totally lost it.

Arnold keeps laughing for several minutes before he finally wears himself out and lets his smile fall. He glances up to see a very serious face on his grandfather. Was that, pity? His heart somehow stops and begins racing at the same time. "Grandpa…" he starts. "Please tell me you're joking. This cannot be real. There is no way that tonight actually happened. That I saw… In Helga's closet I saw…" he drops off, seeing the truth in the older man's face.

"Grandpa what am I going to do?" he shrieks, now in full-blown panic. "Helga is going to kill me when she finds out!"

"Well, I always did tell you that I thought she liked ya, Short Man."

"Helga does not—" he started out of habit, then cut himself short. His eyes went wide. "Grandpa! I… she… This cannot be happening!" He looks up with pleading eyes, begging his grandfather to reassure him that it was all a big trick. To tell him that he was actually dreaming and he'd wake up tomorrow with Helga scowling at him, shooting spit balls at him, and knowing full well who he is, having never experienced amnesia in her life.

No such luck.

"Remember when I told you about the girl who was always picking on me when I was a lad, Short Man?"

A/N: Part two is coming! Until then, please let me know how I'm doing!