A/N: First iCarly fic, and of course it has to be sad and kind of angsty. So if you don't like that, feel free to move on; no hard feelings. We never get to actually see Sam's mother. This intrigues me, hence my skewed vision of Sam's home life.
Summary: One-shot, Sam-centric. AU. Sam looks at her life, sitting on a park bench. Waiting for the sun to come up.
Sunrise
You're sitting on a park bench at 3:30AM, just waiting for the sun to come up. You're not even entirely sure what park you're in, or what time you got here. What is stuck firmly in your mind is 12:13. The exact time you walked out the front door.
So much of your life has revolved around clocks, time; waiting for the next shoe to drop. But you always hated that phrase, because it never made any sense to you. Where, exactly, was the stupid shoe dropping from? And why not both at the same time? It was the reason why you went to the top of Carly's building that one time when she wasn't home, and dropped Freddie's stolen shoes into the back lot. And even though that part of it was kind of fun, you still didn't understand it at all. There's so much you don't understand, and you think you never will.
You shift uncomfortably, because thinking like this will only make you think more about her, about the things that happen in her head that seem so foreign to you. Your mother, that is. Scrubbing the floor at 2AM, because if you don't Nelson will start screaming. You almost laugh, because there is no Nelson to start screaming about unclean floors, like unclean children.
You can still feel the rawness of your skin from four years ago, the blood and pain. How awkward you felt standing alone in the hospital waiting room, sweating in your blue hoodie in the middle of June. And two blissful, medication-filled years after that, when she broke her promise. But it didn't hurt as much as it did the first time, this fresh betrayal. You never closed those old wounds, never trusted fully, just in case.
And it paid off, you think. Sure, there's the occasional bout of all-consuming fear of trust, rationality, any type of normal behavior. And, yeah, sometimes you scream at the top of your lungs just to be certain that people can still hear you, and that your voice isn't completely gone from the world. But you decided the second time around that it was worth it, if she never got the chance to hurt you again.
'Cause you're all about low expectations. The less you expect, the more you get; that had been the mantra that had gotten you through it all. The late night driving from pretend FBI agents that had somehow bugged your house, the days spent with your mother locked up inside her room, talking to voices that never talked back. At least, you couldn't hear them. And you never expected things to end well; never expected anything to be better than it was. You were never disappointed, until now.
It is now officially 4:06AM, and you pull your sweater tighter around you. It's more out of instinct than actually feeling the cold; at this point you're too far gone, like her. Sirens blare behind you, and you have the jarring, irrational urge to laugh. So you do.
It's gut-wrenching, and you can't seem to stop. Another minute later, and you're crying. You're sobbing because you know. People end up like their parents all the time, and genetics is not on your side. You are fighting an uphill battle. You're sobbing because you know that you will lose.
When it gets so bad that you can hardly breathe, when it feels like your intestines are twisting up in complicated knots, that's when you see the first signs of blue in the sky. It's more gray than blue, actually, but you don't really mind. The sun isn't up yet. You pull your hood up over your head as you hear the sirens again. This heavy, broken feeling is gone now, replaced by an emptiness that you can't quite define. You can hear more sirens in the distance, and you think maybe you're closer to home than you realized. So you sit there, and wait, and wonder when the paramedics or police or social services will think to call your cell phone once they realize you're not at home.
You debate whether or not you'll care enough to answer.