Sam and Freddie: Worlds Without End

Dedicated, with much love, to my friend, Charliemeatsix.

Eternity

Sam's POV:

I now know what it means to be "transfixed."

I feel as if a spear has been shoved through my chest, downward into the ground behind me. There's no pain, no physical pain, that is, but the spear is the only thing holding me up. Otherwise, I'd flop bonelessly down to the floor.

I remember: we'd just been wrapping up another episode of "iCarly," and Freddie and I were bickering, as usual. No big, we do it all the time. But this time, the goo was there.

What was/is the goo? We found it on a camping trip in the mountains. It just seemed to seep up out of the ground. We thought it was tar or something at first, but tar doesn't raise up and speak to you. "Hello," it said.

We were speechless. Literally. I mean, what do you say in a case like that? "Hello, Mr., uh, whatever you are?" It was only sheer amazement that kept us from turning tail and running.

Right now, at this very moment, I'm not so sure that wouldn't have been a good idea.

But the goo, as we called it, seemed friendly. We spoke, and talked with it. It was something from….somewhere else. Not exactly outer space; more like outside all that.

We ended up taking it—or some of it—back with us to Seattle. It didn't need anything but just a bowl or something to sit(?) in.

And it sat there, in its bowl, occasionally rising up (when nobody was around, of course), to talk and ask questions. It seemed to know things; but it also seemed to be kinda stupid about some things, too. But knowing what I know now, it all sorta makes sense.

Freddie's POV:

I can't move.

I know where I am, physically. I'm in Carly's apartment, just after a shoot. But I'm also physically present on countless worlds beyond number.

Infinity isn't a really big number; it's a condition of endlessness. No number is possible; one isn't small enough, and one hundred billion isn't big enough.

Eternity is like that. It's a condition of timelessness. It's not that there's more time than you can measure; it's that there's no time. None. Not at all.

The goo was/is/will be from somewhere like that. A place that's beyond place, that's too big for the word "place," a time that's somewhere between the tickings of the clock...

Sam and I are there.

There are worlds where we never meet, and just drift through life in a kind of melancholy haze, each of us missing someone we could never describe. There are worlds where we've met, but for whatever reason can't be with each other. In some, I'm married, and Sam works for me. I look at her as I go home for the day, and think, if only. And I'm ashamed of myself for thinking that, because Carly is my wife.

In one, I work for a major corporation, and Sam is someone I pass on the street. She's ringing the bell for the Salvation Army; I put in seventy five dollars—all the money I have on me at the time—and I don't know why.

Or I don't let myself know why. One or the other.

Sam's POV:

I look out across the battlefield, across the stench and blood of the day. The centurion on the enemy's side turns to look at me. It's Freddie, resplendent in his armor and helmet, carrying his shield and sword. He meets my glance; I raise my spear, not as a threat, but in salute to a valiant foe. He nods, and that simple gesture sends something like an electric current through me. I turn away. It isn't right to think what I'm thinking; it isn't patriotic. I serve my Liege and country; any thought that goes contrary to that is wrong.

I work for Freddie at IBM, as his personal secretary. We're friends; I know his wife, and she's a good person. I don't want to do anything to come between them. But at the end of the day, I go home to an empty apartment, to an empty bed. And I cry. But only in private. Always in private.

My scoutship malfunctions, and I crash on a strange, unexplored world. I barely escape, but I've hurt my ankle and all the med supplies are in the burning ship. But there's this native there, and he takes me in, completely against the wishes of his tribe, who view me as some sort of demon from the skies, at least, from their actions. He tends to my ankle, using some sort of natural poultice made from roots or herbs or something. We don't share so much as one common word between us; we communicate by sign language. I'm sad when I have to leave him, but if I stay, his people will disown him. From the looks of things, he's sad, too. And he looks just like Freddie.

No. He is Freddie. A Freddie. One of an infinite multitude.

Freddie's POV:

So many worlds. So many Sams, and Freddies, and yet, on none of them are we together. Why?

We were bickering, as usual. I forget what was said, it was so routine. But the goo didn't think so. It seemed to get more and more agitated until it rose up—chocolate pudding given life and a voice-and roared, "Enough!"

That's when Eternity hit us, a tidal wave crashing over a kid's sand castle on the beach.

Sam's POV:

What were we talking about? I don't even remember. Seeing….all this has driven it completely from my mind. Are we doomed, never to find true happiness? Are there other worlds, where I'm brunette, or redheaded, and maybe I look different, but inside I'm still me? And Freddie….

Are there Freddies who aren't quite the Freddie I know out there? Do we still seek each other in vain?

Is our love never to be?

The thought jolts me like a physical blow. Love? Me? Freddie? LOVE? What am I thinking? I don't love Freddie….

….yes. Yes, I do. I always have and always will, throughout all time and eternity. Is this then, all there is to it? Nothing? We, the two of us, doomed never to be? How cruel could the goo be, to show us….this?

And yet….the goo isn't doing this to us. We're doing it to ourselves, aren't we? In no world are our choices made for us; it's always that way. We choose to do what we do.

So why do we always choose so wrong?

Freddie's POV:

Me and Sam? Together? In love? Actual love? What could I have been thinking? She makes my life miserable…..

…..especially when she's not around.

Then we both wake up.

Carly watched her two best friends with concern. Whatever had happened had taken only a moment of time to transpire, just the briefest second, but it looked almost like a petit mal seizure of some sort, but with both of them at the same time. She was on the verge of going over and shaking them slightly, asking them what was wrong, when whatever it was passed, and they seemed to come back into reality. But what had happened? "You guys," she said, "what was that? You scared me there for a minute. I thought you'd both stepped on a live power cord or something."

Sam looked at Freddie as though seeing him for the first time. "It was…"but finds she can't say, "nothing." It had definitely been something. "It was the goo, Carls. It showed us…." What? What had it actually shown them?

"The goo? What are you talking about? What goo?"

Freddie jolted out of his own reverie. "The goo. You know, right there in the …." He stared. The bowl the goo had been in was gone; there was a floral arrangement there in its place. A floral arrangement with a card propped up against it. A card with one word on it: "Remember."

And we turn and look at each other….and we remember.