Fanfiction - Hey Arnold! - Trying - Chapter 9
Title: Trying
Fandom/Universe: Hey Arnold!
Character(s): Helga, Arnold, Phoebe, Gerald
Rating: Teen
Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12
“You okay, Pheebs? Do you need anything? Water? A pillow?” Arnold hangs back as Helga flits about her best friend. It’s been ten years since he’s seen Phoebe and he’d never really been all that close to her anyway. So it doesn't really seem like his place to interrupt.
“I’m fine, Helga! Really, you can stop worrying now.” Phoebe says with a wave of her hand. “I’m just a little… surprised.”
“I know I didn’t warn you that I was coming over and I’m sorry for dropping this ‘Arnold’s alive!’ thing on you without warning. It’s all my fault, I didn’t think.” Helga walks over to the sink and pours her friend a glass of water, despite Phoebe’s protests. “I’m sorry, Pheebs.” She hands her best friend the glass and kneels down next to her. “I was just looking for a level head to talk to.”
“Oh, it’s okay. It’s just… I’ve only just got off the phone with your sister and-“
“Olga?” Helga cuts in. “Why is Olga calling you?”
Instead of answering Phoebe looks down at her hands resting on her protruding stomach. There’s a few seconds pause as Arnold and Helga watch her slowly breathe in and out.
“Phoebe, are you - “ Helga starts, beginning to worry. Phoebe cuts her off.
“There is something that I need.” Phoebe says.
Helga stares at her friend, trying to read the meaning behind Phoebe’s actions, but Phoebe’s face gives nothing away.
“Sure, Pheebs.” Helga says softly. “Name it.”
“I need you to hand me the phone so that I can call Gerald. I-I’m not sure how to handle all of this and I just…” Phoebe’s voice cracks, “Please.”
Helga nods. Arnold’s propped himself up in some dark corner by this point and watches half-heartedly as Phoebe points Helga in the direction of the wall-phone.
Something is stirring inside of him, something brought on by the mere mention of his old best friends name. It has been years since he’s seen or heard from any of the old gang. He’s always felt somewhat guilty about not keeping in touch with everyone, but he feels the worst about growing out of touch with Gerald. They were best friends after all and that should count for something.
And now here he is, in Gerald’s brand new house, watching Helga chat up Gerald’s wife who is pregnant with Gerald’s baby and Arnold can’t help but feel that everything has become somewhat surreal. It’s as if he’s stepped into some other universe in which he’d never left Hillwood. A universe in which he grew up and stayed connected and was able to leave San Lorenzo and his parents and all the pain behind.
He tries not to dwell on the could-have-beens. Instead he turns his attention back to Helga and Phoebe.
The phone in Phoebe’s hand is shaking and Helga has to help her hold it steady.
“Phoebe, if there’s something really wrong you need to tell me so that we can help and-“ Helga whispers, but Phoebe silences her by placing a hand over the blonde’s mouth. Helga rolls her eyes as her friend speaks up.
“H-hi honey!” A pause. “Well, I know I told you I didn’t need you to come home, b-but -“ She glances towards Helga and then Arnold before speaking. “The situation has changed. So could you-?” She lets out a small sigh. “I’ll explain more when you get here, but I just… I can’t do this alone right now and I think.” She looks at Arnold again. “I don’t think you’re going to want to miss this anyway.”
Arnold turns away.
“Thank you so much, Gerald.” Another slight pause and Phoebe’s voice grows softer still. “I love you too.”
And that’s it.
“I guess Geraldo is going to be joining us then, huh?” Helga sighs as she takes the phone out of Phoebe’s grasp and goes to hang it up. “Just wonderful.” She says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Phoebe shoots her a stern look, which Helga simply ignores. “Anyway, do you think you could explain what the ‘situation’ is and possibly shed some insight on why you’ve been in touch with my sister?”
“You really don’t know?” Phoebe asks, looking back and forth between Arnold and Helga. “Neither of you?”
“C’mon Pheebs, just tell us already.” Helga crosses her arms over her chest.
“Helga,” Phoebe says gently, sinking even deeper into the couch cushions. “You’ve been kidnapped.”
---
“You know, you didn’t have to let him shower. He’s probably going to contaminate your brand new bathroom with all the layers of grime he must have accumulated.” Helga fidgets on the end of Phoebe’s bed, while Phoebe herself rummages through a large closet. Helga eyes her friend, “You sure you don’t need any help, Pheebs?”
“Oh, stop fawning over me. I’m only six months along. Perfectly capable of digging through a closet on my own.” Phoebe replies.
“You almost fainted earlier.” Helga frets.
“Oh, hardly. I was just surprised is all. I was already a wreck, worrying about what on earth had happened to you. Your sister calling every five minutes to panic and ask if I’d heard from you since she’d last called didn’t help matters. And then, I finally managed to figure out a way to block her calls and get a moment’s peace when I get a knock on my door. I go to open it only to find a very not-kidnapped you next to someone I thought died years ago. I think I deserved to have a moment’s weakness.” Phoebe says. With a great tug she manages to unearth what appears to be an old duffel bag. “Here it is.”
“You can’t be serious?” Helga raises an eyebrow at the bag. “You kept that?”
“It’s all a little out of date, but at least everything will be clean.” Phoebe tosses the bag towards her and she catches it in one sweep of her arms. “You can shower after Arnold is done.”
“I can’t believe you kept my duffel bag of clothes all these years. We haven’t had an impromptu sleepover sparked by my family being annoying in… forever. Not since high school I don’t think.” She unzips the top of the bag and reaches in a hand to pull up a faded pair of jeans. “Why didn’t you throw it out?”
Phoebe sits down beside her and helps tug various articles of clothing out of the bag.
“I couldn’t do that. I mean, what would happen if you ever showed up at my door out of the blue one day accompanied by a suppose-to-be-dead man and were in need of a change clothes and some help? You’d be stuck wearing Gerald’s clothes, because we both know you’d never be able to fit in mine.”
“Hey!” Helga says, “You calling me fat, Phoebe?”
“Huge.”
“God, you are the worst best friend. I should have fought harder to win Nadine from Rhonda when you bumped up two grades back in grade school. Nadine would never be so mean to me.”
Phoebe shrugs. “Too bad for you.”
“Haha, jerk.” Helga leans back on the bed, smiling up at the roof. A moment passes and her expression twists into one of worry. “Phoebe?”
“Hmm? What Helga?” Phoebe is busy preoccupying herself with neatly folding the contents of the now empty duffel bag.
“Arnold’s alive.”
Phoebe stops and turns to her best friend, concern etched across her face.
“I know.”
“He’s in trouble.” Helga whispers.
“You told me.” Phoebe moves closer and wraps her fingers around Helga’s.
Helga turns her face away.
“I don’t know how to help. I’m no good at…” She trails off. “I’m no good.”
Things are silent for a moment as Phoebe thinks about what to say next.
Then - slowly - she speaks up.
“You don’t have to help him.”
With that Helga snaps back up and snatches her hand away. She quickly lifts herself off the bed and makes a beeline for the door.
“Helga!” Phoebe calls. “Stop, you shouldn’t - “
“The place is great Phoebe. I’m going to get Arnold and go now.” Helga monotones.
Phoebe lets out a great sigh and pushes herself up off the bed. She pads towards Helga and puts her hands on her hips. Helga refuses to meet her gaze.
“Oh, cut it out, Helga. It was just a suggestion. Go ahead and ignore my advice! Run away when I try to hold a serious conversation with you. Do whatever you want.” Phoebe pushes past her and into the hallway. Helga follows.
“Phoebe.” She says quietly, “He saved me when I was three years old. I love him.”
Phoebe stops and turns back.
“When are you going to realize that you don’t owe him anything, Helga?” Her eyes seem to bore holes into Helga’s very soul, but she tries as hard as she can to ignore the message.
“Phoebe.”
“Okay! We’re done talking about it. You’re going to help Arnold and that’s that.” She turns a corner and enters a small room filled with sunlight. Helga follows her inside. It becomes immediately obvious that this is going to be the baby’s room. Helga smiles as she runs her fingers along the side of the crib. “Shall we change the subject?” Phoebe asks.
“Please.” Helga replies. “Also, Phoebe this conversation-?”
“Y’know Helga.” Phoebe interrupts as she fusses with an already perfectly folded blanket draped over the edge of a rocking chair. “I find that the older I become the harder it is to just forget certain conversations.”
Helga scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. She watches Phoebe move about the room in a brooding silence for a while, but soon enough Phoebe’s constant movement begins to tug on her nerves.
“Phoebe, why are you cleaning? Everything is already perfect. You’re just organizing the organized.”
Phoebe laughs and the mood lightens considerably.
“Oh, I suppose I know that. It’s just…” She flops - as well as a pregnant woman can flop - down onto the rocking chair and rests her head on her hand. “My team at the lab just finished up this big project, which was amazing by the way - we had to set out to find a way to neutralize this weird new chemical weapon. These two oddball agents brought it in - called it Hot Air. It was the strangest thing, Helga. It was like… a bomb without the bomb - almost completely harmless unless you knew how to activate it. My team and I worked day and night to figure out how to negate it’s effects and then one day I had this big break through and -“
“And the point of all this is?” Helga interrupts.
“Oh! Sorry, I was just really into the project and the process behind it still amazes me. Anyway, now that it’s all over they don’t really want me to start something new and have to leave partway through because of the baby. So I’m on early paid maternity leave.”
“Oh well, that sounds like a pretty cool deal. Getting paid to sit around the house and watch TV.” Helga sits down on the floor across from her friend and leans back on her arms. “Lucky jerk. You’re living my dream job.”
“Ha! Hardly. I thought your dream job was touring the world in between writing a couple of best selling novels?” Phoebe teases.
“Okay then, you are living my not-quite dream job.”
“Yes, well. It isn’t exactly as fun as it sounds. I’m cooped up in this perfectly kept house all day with nothing to do. And the worst of it is that the next project they’re bringing in is an even greater mystery. I managed to convince a colleague down at the lab to fax me the details of the case, but even I haven’t really been able to make much headway on it. There’s something about a sleeping sickness spreading around South America. The problem is that we need a living sample of the disease, but haven’t had much luck in obtaining one.”
“Fascinating.” Helga says, stifling a yawn.
“Oh, forget you.” Phoebe huffs and throws a stuffed bear towards her best friend, who catches it easily.
They both jump a little when they notice the water down from where Arnold is showering down the hall turn off. Phoebe bites at her lip and rocks back and forth in the chair, lost in thought. Helga closes her eyes and listens as something rumbles nearby.
“Gerald’s home.” Phoebe says. She pushes herself to her feet and is followed into the hall by Helga. “Let me go intercept him. I-I’m not sure how he’ll react to surprise Arnold. You should go let Arnold know too.”
“Right.” Helga nods.
However, before either woman can really get anywhere, the side doorknob turns and Gerald steps inside the house. Behind Helga and Phoebe, the bathroom door opens and Arnold walks into the hall attempting to tug a too-big shirt over his head, using only one arm - the other is still wrapped tight around his bundled La Corazon. Gerald freezes, his eyes looking directly past both Helga and Phoebe to stare straight at his former best friend. The shirt slips down over Arnold’s shoulders and Arnold pauses, suddenly aware of Gerald standing before him.
“Arnold?” Gerald’s forehead wrinkles. “Shit.”
Gerald doesn’t collapse. He just tightens his grip on his suitcase and smoothes a hand over his tie.
Phoebe rushes to his side and wraps her fingers gently around his arm. He takes his eyes off of Arnold to smile at his wife. He then looks back up to where Arnold and Helga still stand, frozen in place.
“It seems like I’m going to need to hear an explanation or two, huh?”
“Sorry,” Arnold says quietly, his hands fumbling with the fabric of La Corazon, “Gerald.”
Helga watches the two men stare each other down and sighs inwardly.
It’s been a long day.
a/n: Was planning on this being a little longer, but I'm kind of debating about how long they're going to stick around Gerald/Phoebe's. I was originally going to have them stay this night and then leave sometime the next day, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should rush the timeline more? But I also think Arnold deserves a good night's sleep. A-and if I change up the timeline than other things will go awry that are counting on certain events happening on certain days. :\
Okay, so Phoebe's tangent about Hot Air was an OH SO OBVIOUS reference to Pyrus Japonica's Hot Air. Also, I promise to explain the 'Helga is kidnapped' thing better next chapter. I know I sort of glossed over the logic for it in this chapter. Hopefully when they sit down to explain shit to Gerald they will also explain things to you, dear readers.
ETA: Also, I am sorry that things have gotten much less action-y as of late. This is because I am SETTING SHIT UP. Also, because I am not good at being mean to my leads.
Fandom/Universe: Hey Arnold!
Character(s): Helga, Arnold, Phoebe, Gerald
Rating: Teen
Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12
“You okay, Pheebs? Do you need anything? Water? A pillow?” Arnold hangs back as Helga flits about her best friend. It’s been ten years since he’s seen Phoebe and he’d never really been all that close to her anyway. So it doesn't really seem like his place to interrupt.
“I’m fine, Helga! Really, you can stop worrying now.” Phoebe says with a wave of her hand. “I’m just a little… surprised.”
“I know I didn’t warn you that I was coming over and I’m sorry for dropping this ‘Arnold’s alive!’ thing on you without warning. It’s all my fault, I didn’t think.” Helga walks over to the sink and pours her friend a glass of water, despite Phoebe’s protests. “I’m sorry, Pheebs.” She hands her best friend the glass and kneels down next to her. “I was just looking for a level head to talk to.”
“Oh, it’s okay. It’s just… I’ve only just got off the phone with your sister and-“
“Olga?” Helga cuts in. “Why is Olga calling you?”
Instead of answering Phoebe looks down at her hands resting on her protruding stomach. There’s a few seconds pause as Arnold and Helga watch her slowly breathe in and out.
“Phoebe, are you - “ Helga starts, beginning to worry. Phoebe cuts her off.
“There is something that I need.” Phoebe says.
Helga stares at her friend, trying to read the meaning behind Phoebe’s actions, but Phoebe’s face gives nothing away.
“Sure, Pheebs.” Helga says softly. “Name it.”
“I need you to hand me the phone so that I can call Gerald. I-I’m not sure how to handle all of this and I just…” Phoebe’s voice cracks, “Please.”
Helga nods. Arnold’s propped himself up in some dark corner by this point and watches half-heartedly as Phoebe points Helga in the direction of the wall-phone.
Something is stirring inside of him, something brought on by the mere mention of his old best friends name. It has been years since he’s seen or heard from any of the old gang. He’s always felt somewhat guilty about not keeping in touch with everyone, but he feels the worst about growing out of touch with Gerald. They were best friends after all and that should count for something.
And now here he is, in Gerald’s brand new house, watching Helga chat up Gerald’s wife who is pregnant with Gerald’s baby and Arnold can’t help but feel that everything has become somewhat surreal. It’s as if he’s stepped into some other universe in which he’d never left Hillwood. A universe in which he grew up and stayed connected and was able to leave San Lorenzo and his parents and all the pain behind.
He tries not to dwell on the could-have-beens. Instead he turns his attention back to Helga and Phoebe.
The phone in Phoebe’s hand is shaking and Helga has to help her hold it steady.
“Phoebe, if there’s something really wrong you need to tell me so that we can help and-“ Helga whispers, but Phoebe silences her by placing a hand over the blonde’s mouth. Helga rolls her eyes as her friend speaks up.
“H-hi honey!” A pause. “Well, I know I told you I didn’t need you to come home, b-but -“ She glances towards Helga and then Arnold before speaking. “The situation has changed. So could you-?” She lets out a small sigh. “I’ll explain more when you get here, but I just… I can’t do this alone right now and I think.” She looks at Arnold again. “I don’t think you’re going to want to miss this anyway.”
Arnold turns away.
“Thank you so much, Gerald.” Another slight pause and Phoebe’s voice grows softer still. “I love you too.”
And that’s it.
“I guess Geraldo is going to be joining us then, huh?” Helga sighs as she takes the phone out of Phoebe’s grasp and goes to hang it up. “Just wonderful.” She says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Phoebe shoots her a stern look, which Helga simply ignores. “Anyway, do you think you could explain what the ‘situation’ is and possibly shed some insight on why you’ve been in touch with my sister?”
“You really don’t know?” Phoebe asks, looking back and forth between Arnold and Helga. “Neither of you?”
“C’mon Pheebs, just tell us already.” Helga crosses her arms over her chest.
“Helga,” Phoebe says gently, sinking even deeper into the couch cushions. “You’ve been kidnapped.”
---
“You know, you didn’t have to let him shower. He’s probably going to contaminate your brand new bathroom with all the layers of grime he must have accumulated.” Helga fidgets on the end of Phoebe’s bed, while Phoebe herself rummages through a large closet. Helga eyes her friend, “You sure you don’t need any help, Pheebs?”
“Oh, stop fawning over me. I’m only six months along. Perfectly capable of digging through a closet on my own.” Phoebe replies.
“You almost fainted earlier.” Helga frets.
“Oh, hardly. I was just surprised is all. I was already a wreck, worrying about what on earth had happened to you. Your sister calling every five minutes to panic and ask if I’d heard from you since she’d last called didn’t help matters. And then, I finally managed to figure out a way to block her calls and get a moment’s peace when I get a knock on my door. I go to open it only to find a very not-kidnapped you next to someone I thought died years ago. I think I deserved to have a moment’s weakness.” Phoebe says. With a great tug she manages to unearth what appears to be an old duffel bag. “Here it is.”
“You can’t be serious?” Helga raises an eyebrow at the bag. “You kept that?”
“It’s all a little out of date, but at least everything will be clean.” Phoebe tosses the bag towards her and she catches it in one sweep of her arms. “You can shower after Arnold is done.”
“I can’t believe you kept my duffel bag of clothes all these years. We haven’t had an impromptu sleepover sparked by my family being annoying in… forever. Not since high school I don’t think.” She unzips the top of the bag and reaches in a hand to pull up a faded pair of jeans. “Why didn’t you throw it out?”
Phoebe sits down beside her and helps tug various articles of clothing out of the bag.
“I couldn’t do that. I mean, what would happen if you ever showed up at my door out of the blue one day accompanied by a suppose-to-be-dead man and were in need of a change clothes and some help? You’d be stuck wearing Gerald’s clothes, because we both know you’d never be able to fit in mine.”
“Hey!” Helga says, “You calling me fat, Phoebe?”
“Huge.”
“God, you are the worst best friend. I should have fought harder to win Nadine from Rhonda when you bumped up two grades back in grade school. Nadine would never be so mean to me.”
Phoebe shrugs. “Too bad for you.”
“Haha, jerk.” Helga leans back on the bed, smiling up at the roof. A moment passes and her expression twists into one of worry. “Phoebe?”
“Hmm? What Helga?” Phoebe is busy preoccupying herself with neatly folding the contents of the now empty duffel bag.
“Arnold’s alive.”
Phoebe stops and turns to her best friend, concern etched across her face.
“I know.”
“He’s in trouble.” Helga whispers.
“You told me.” Phoebe moves closer and wraps her fingers around Helga’s.
Helga turns her face away.
“I don’t know how to help. I’m no good at…” She trails off. “I’m no good.”
Things are silent for a moment as Phoebe thinks about what to say next.
Then - slowly - she speaks up.
“You don’t have to help him.”
With that Helga snaps back up and snatches her hand away. She quickly lifts herself off the bed and makes a beeline for the door.
“Helga!” Phoebe calls. “Stop, you shouldn’t - “
“The place is great Phoebe. I’m going to get Arnold and go now.” Helga monotones.
Phoebe lets out a great sigh and pushes herself up off the bed. She pads towards Helga and puts her hands on her hips. Helga refuses to meet her gaze.
“Oh, cut it out, Helga. It was just a suggestion. Go ahead and ignore my advice! Run away when I try to hold a serious conversation with you. Do whatever you want.” Phoebe pushes past her and into the hallway. Helga follows.
“Phoebe.” She says quietly, “He saved me when I was three years old. I love him.”
Phoebe stops and turns back.
“When are you going to realize that you don’t owe him anything, Helga?” Her eyes seem to bore holes into Helga’s very soul, but she tries as hard as she can to ignore the message.
“Phoebe.”
“Okay! We’re done talking about it. You’re going to help Arnold and that’s that.” She turns a corner and enters a small room filled with sunlight. Helga follows her inside. It becomes immediately obvious that this is going to be the baby’s room. Helga smiles as she runs her fingers along the side of the crib. “Shall we change the subject?” Phoebe asks.
“Please.” Helga replies. “Also, Phoebe this conversation-?”
“Y’know Helga.” Phoebe interrupts as she fusses with an already perfectly folded blanket draped over the edge of a rocking chair. “I find that the older I become the harder it is to just forget certain conversations.”
Helga scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. She watches Phoebe move about the room in a brooding silence for a while, but soon enough Phoebe’s constant movement begins to tug on her nerves.
“Phoebe, why are you cleaning? Everything is already perfect. You’re just organizing the organized.”
Phoebe laughs and the mood lightens considerably.
“Oh, I suppose I know that. It’s just…” She flops - as well as a pregnant woman can flop - down onto the rocking chair and rests her head on her hand. “My team at the lab just finished up this big project, which was amazing by the way - we had to set out to find a way to neutralize this weird new chemical weapon. These two oddball agents brought it in - called it Hot Air. It was the strangest thing, Helga. It was like… a bomb without the bomb - almost completely harmless unless you knew how to activate it. My team and I worked day and night to figure out how to negate it’s effects and then one day I had this big break through and -“
“And the point of all this is?” Helga interrupts.
“Oh! Sorry, I was just really into the project and the process behind it still amazes me. Anyway, now that it’s all over they don’t really want me to start something new and have to leave partway through because of the baby. So I’m on early paid maternity leave.”
“Oh well, that sounds like a pretty cool deal. Getting paid to sit around the house and watch TV.” Helga sits down on the floor across from her friend and leans back on her arms. “Lucky jerk. You’re living my dream job.”
“Ha! Hardly. I thought your dream job was touring the world in between writing a couple of best selling novels?” Phoebe teases.
“Okay then, you are living my not-quite dream job.”
“Yes, well. It isn’t exactly as fun as it sounds. I’m cooped up in this perfectly kept house all day with nothing to do. And the worst of it is that the next project they’re bringing in is an even greater mystery. I managed to convince a colleague down at the lab to fax me the details of the case, but even I haven’t really been able to make much headway on it. There’s something about a sleeping sickness spreading around South America. The problem is that we need a living sample of the disease, but haven’t had much luck in obtaining one.”
“Fascinating.” Helga says, stifling a yawn.
“Oh, forget you.” Phoebe huffs and throws a stuffed bear towards her best friend, who catches it easily.
They both jump a little when they notice the water down from where Arnold is showering down the hall turn off. Phoebe bites at her lip and rocks back and forth in the chair, lost in thought. Helga closes her eyes and listens as something rumbles nearby.
“Gerald’s home.” Phoebe says. She pushes herself to her feet and is followed into the hall by Helga. “Let me go intercept him. I-I’m not sure how he’ll react to surprise Arnold. You should go let Arnold know too.”
“Right.” Helga nods.
However, before either woman can really get anywhere, the side doorknob turns and Gerald steps inside the house. Behind Helga and Phoebe, the bathroom door opens and Arnold walks into the hall attempting to tug a too-big shirt over his head, using only one arm - the other is still wrapped tight around his bundled La Corazon. Gerald freezes, his eyes looking directly past both Helga and Phoebe to stare straight at his former best friend. The shirt slips down over Arnold’s shoulders and Arnold pauses, suddenly aware of Gerald standing before him.
“Arnold?” Gerald’s forehead wrinkles. “Shit.”
Gerald doesn’t collapse. He just tightens his grip on his suitcase and smoothes a hand over his tie.
Phoebe rushes to his side and wraps her fingers gently around his arm. He takes his eyes off of Arnold to smile at his wife. He then looks back up to where Arnold and Helga still stand, frozen in place.
“It seems like I’m going to need to hear an explanation or two, huh?”
“Sorry,” Arnold says quietly, his hands fumbling with the fabric of La Corazon, “Gerald.”
Helga watches the two men stare each other down and sighs inwardly.
It’s been a long day.
a/n: Was planning on this being a little longer, but I'm kind of debating about how long they're going to stick around Gerald/Phoebe's. I was originally going to have them stay this night and then leave sometime the next day, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should rush the timeline more? But I also think Arnold deserves a good night's sleep. A-and if I change up the timeline than other things will go awry that are counting on certain events happening on certain days. :\
Okay, so Phoebe's tangent about Hot Air was an OH SO OBVIOUS reference to Pyrus Japonica's Hot Air. Also, I promise to explain the 'Helga is kidnapped' thing better next chapter. I know I sort of glossed over the logic for it in this chapter. Hopefully when they sit down to explain shit to Gerald they will also explain things to you, dear readers.
ETA: Also, I am sorry that things have gotten much less action-y as of late. This is because I am SETTING SHIT UP. Also, because I am not good at being mean to my leads.