A/N – Just a little one-shot. It's a bit angsty and all that chiz. Please, please, please, read the author's note at the end.
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly.
Sam was crying—like actual tears were coming from her eyes.
I couldn't believe it. As Sam put it all those years ago, "Pucketts don't know how to cry". At the time, I just thought that was really sad that she had so much pressure to be strong, be brave, be self-reliant.
Now, here she was, throwing that all away—not that I thought it was a bad thing exactly.
"Sam?" I asked tentatively. She hadn't heard me enter the studio. Sam was sitting on one of the bean bag chairs, just crying.
Sam practically jumped out of her skin at the sound of my voice. Her head whipped around, her blond hair fanning out behind her. Seeing me standing there, she started pawing at her eyes. It was a futile attempt to hide her tears. "What?" She growled.
"Why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying," She barked, rubbing her eyes on her shirtsleeve. It just made her eyes red.
"Okay...why wereyou crying?" I asked, going to stand closer. She shot me a violent look.
"You wouldn't understand so just get out of here, Nub-rag."
"Nub-rag?" I sat down on the floor next to her. "That's a new one."
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear: GET OUT!" Sam yelled, pointing to the door as a few new tears slid down her face. They fell onto the floor next to me. I shook my head at her. I wasn't going anywhere.
Sam dissolved into tears again, and grumbled faintly about how she never cried. She was mad at herself for expressing an emotion. Something about that seemed wrong. Then again, Sam wasn't given good examples of emotion growing up. All she had seen was anger, and hate, and heartbreak.
"Want to talk about it?" I asked, scooting closer and reaching up to take Sam's hand. Carly loved it when I comforted her like that, but Sam wasn't Carly. As soon as my fingers brushed her overly-warm, calloused hands, I was swatted away like an annoying gnat. Raising her head, she shot me a warning look. "Did something happen to your mother?"
"Freddie..." Sam snarled through clenched teeth. She grabbed a fistful of her hair and groaned as if in pain. The whole display was as equally painful to watch. I felt my chest ache just watching. "Just go. What part of that don't you understand?"
Her words were like acid, and I knew that staying was a death sentence, but something told me to stay. No one was ever there for her—that was why she was so angry now—and if I left too, that'd make me as bad as every person who ever failed her. And that list was long.
"I'm not leaving." I told her, standing up and looking at her.
That's when she hit me.
It wasn't one of her usual, playful punches. I mean, those are pretty painful, but I've never actually experienced a punch from Sam that was backed by her full power. She was stronger than I thought, and I realized that all these years, she had been holding back.
My head cracked back, and I was sprawled across the floor, cupping my face. A broken piece of a tooth came away with my hand. Blood dribbled down my lip and pooled on the floor. I felt pain stab through my skull, and with each beat of my heart, the pain flared. I needed to do something about the injury, but Sam wouldn't have that.
She was standing over me, chest heaving, eyes blazing, teeth bared. Her fingers curled into a fist in the front of my shirt, and next thing I knew, she was hauling me to my feet. Once I was steady, the fists started up again. She steered clear of my face, but she battered my chest. She started hiccupping, and she punctuated each hiccup with a sharp blow to my chest.
And I just took it.
Finally, her punches died down until she stood against me, trembling. Her sobs were louder now despite being muffled by my shirt. I didn't know what to do at first, but eventually I wrapped my arms around her. She fit into the hug easily, still crying.
"It's stupid." She mumbled.
"What is?"
"That I care so much...about someone who...hurt me so much." She whimpered, curling her hands into fists in the front of my shirt. I grimaced as her nails dug into the flesh on my chest, but said nothing.
"Who?"
"My father." Sam told me, her tone full of hatred. "He...died last night."
I felt like a lead weight fell into my lower gut. I was no stranger to dead fathers. In fact, my own father was gone. He was a drug addict who eventually died by stumbling into traffic, no less, while on a bad trip. I saw the whole thing.
"It's okay to be sad. He might not have been much of a dad, but he was still your father." I told her while caressing her hair.
Then Sam was pushing away from me, looking tremulous. "It's not okay." She practically screamed. Suddenly I was grateful that Carly wasn't in the apartment. She had gone to get us some drinks from the Groovy Smoothie. "He HURT me. He hurt my mother. He deserved to die."
I wanted to say that she didn't mean that or something like that but her next action threw me off. She pulled up her shirt. I could see the bottom of her black bra, but that wasn't what I was looking at. Instead I was looking at the gnarled scar that ran from just below her left breast, down across her stomach to her right hip.
"What...?" I murmured, staring in horror.
Sam seemed to deflate, all her anger gone. I moved forward to envelope her in a hug. She explained into my shoulder. "My dad, he drank all the time, no matter how many times mom asked him not too. He never listened because he never cared for anyone but himself." She paused to take in a shuddering breath. "Well, he came home real drunk on night –I was already in bed—and got in an argument with mom. He hit her, then came after me. I was, like, six. Pulling me by my hair, he took this old hunting knife he had...and cut me. Said something like, 'No Puckett should ever be allowed to have children'. That was what sent him to jail finally."
"God..." Freddie whistled softly.
"Yeah. So you see what's wrong me?" She shook her head. "I should feel no remorse."
"He might have hurt you, Sam, but weren't there times when he treated you right? Like a father should?" I asked into her hair.
That gave Sam pause. "Once when I was four. I remember falling on my face while running through the kitchen. I was crying and snotting everywhere. My dad picked me up and kissed me on the nose."
"That's sweet."
"Then he slapped me and told me that crying was weak and to suck it up." Sam finished, her voice flat. I think she'd reached the point where the feelings seemed so surreal that she ceased caring.
We stood there for about ten minutes, I think. My legs cramped and I really had to pee, but I said nothing. Sam had stopped sniffling finally, and if it weren't for her hands kneading the front of my shirt, I might think that she was asleep.
"Can we sit?" Sam asked, her voice dead and raspy. I nodded against the top of head and eased us onto the beanbag chair. She ended up laying on me, her head pressed into my chest. The rest of her body was flush against my own, and her legs ended up between mine. I hoped that this wasn't the moment that Carly decided to return. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For being weak."
That hit me harder than the punch. As if a reminder, my head started throbbing again. "Don't you ever say that, Sam. You are the strongest person I know, and not just physically. The things you've been through would have broken someone like Carly, but you? You've come out on the other side with what...a scar? It's only a flesh wound, and it doesn't take away from your overall beauty."
"Really?" She asked, some of her old attitude back and her tone skeptical.
I nodded. Words seemed redundant at this point. And apparently Sam thought the same.
She kissed me.
It was a short, simple peck, but it left me on fire. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved that blond-haired demon. Yet, looking down at her, I knew I couldn't tell her. Instead, I said quietly, "I don't hate you."
I heard her mumble something into my shoulder, but it was lost. Instead, I heard snoring, loud and rancorous. She had fallen asleep. I leaned down, kiss her head, and fell asleep myself.
That was how Carly found and left us when she returned just a few minutes later.
And it wasn't until Sam and I started dating a month later did I finally learn what she mumbled:
"I never hated you."
A/N – I didn't want to say this at the beginning because it would have given it all away, but I am aware there have been episodes where we have seen Sam in either a bikini or otherwise, where we have seen her stomach. There is no scar whatsoever. Let's just pretend for the sake of this story, we have no knowledge as to whether or not Sam has flawless skin.
Review please!