I wrote this awhile back but decided to wait to post it until we were closer to the holiday season. It was inspired by both iLove You and iQ. Hope you all like it.
Disclaimer: iDon't Own iCarly
iGive You A Gift
Sam pushed her way through the crowd of people crammed into Carly's living room. She didn't understand why her best friend had been so determined to throw a Christmas party. Didn't most people throw parties for New Years? Still a surprising amount of people had shown up despite being only a few days before Christmas. Normally Sam was all for a good party but right now she had her mind set on another task and her green and red clad peers were just getting in her way. She held tight to the gift bag in her hand; after deciding her target wasn't on the apartment's main level she forced her way to the stairs.
The hallways were scattered with people too. Quite a few were couples making out others looked like they were desperate to be made out with. She just rolled her eyes and continued on up the next set of stairs to the studio. Music was blaring in there too but after spotting her mark she no longer noticed. She managed to slip her way to the corner of the room where he was sitting at his tech cart occasionally tapping a button on his laptop.
"Hey!" Sam shouted about the music. Freddie looked up and smiled.
"Hey, where you been?"
"Snack table," she replied. "Until Carly shooed me away and told me to save some food for the rest of the guests." She had actually been stalling at the snack table. She had a gift but she was hesitant to give it to him. When Carly had gone around explaining each guest would be another guest's Secret Santa she was struck with an idea. She had a gift for Freddie but having never given him a Christmas present before decided this would be a good way to do it without drawing to much attention to the fact. She had to talk Carly into letting her just be Freddie's Secret Santa but Carly wanted to go through all the reasons why it was so important to her and how much trouble it would be if someone else had already pulled his name.
"That doesn't surprise me." He shook his head and clicked around on his computer a bit more.
"So what are you doing?"
"All the music and lights in the house are rigged to my laptop I can control it all from here," he turned the computer towards her.
"Do you have to constantly watch it?" she asked. She wanted to give him her gift but not in a room full of people.
"No, I'm just using this as an excuse to avoid the party and uh some other people." He gestured toward the crowd and Sam spotted a group of girls glancing in their direction. Her stomach summersaulted and she couldn't decide if it was because other girls were trying to get Freddie's attention or because Freddie didn't want that attention. It had been like that since they broke up. Neither of them had been in a relationship, neither of them had taken interest in anyone. She had been on one date since because Carly forced her to go and it was a disaster and a half. On a positive note she took this as good signs that he was still into her.
"Let's get out of here." Freddie gave the room another once over before nodding his head in agreement. Sam turned to lead the way out of the room, in the corner of her eye she saw Freddie take something from the lower shelf of his cart. The two forced their way back to the door; being Sam most people knew to get out of way. In the hallway they kept their eyes to the floor trying to block out the awkwardness of the still kissing couples.
Once downstairs they headed for the door with their heads down so Carly wouldn't catch them leaving. Out in the hall they could still hear the pounding music from the party and guests were still coming in and out.
"Do you want to go to my apartment?" Freddie asked. Sam saw that what Freddie had taken from the tech cart was actually a prettily wrapped present. It was a long and flat box wrapped in light blue snowflake paper. Sam realized the red gift bag swinging from her wrist was much more noticeable in the bland hallway than it was in the colorful apartment and moved it behind her back.
"Is your mom home?"
"Yes."
"Then no." She stepped closer to Freddie when a few more people came running down the hall. "You wanna go down to the lobby?"
"Okay," he started walking towards the main staircase. "Lewbert's probably down there you know." He added.
"With all the teenagers that trampled through his lobby, he's probably held up in his office in fear."
"Good point."
Once in the lobby, Lewbert was nowhere to be seen but when Sam pressed her ear against the office door she could have sworn she heard whimpering; the two plopped down on the couch in the corner of the room. They didn't say anything for a while just looked around.
"This is for you," he said suddenly and held the gift out to her.
Sam's eyes lit up at the idea of opening a gift. She took it excitedly and started to tear the paper off. "So you pulled my name for Secret Santa."
She thought she heard him mumble 'something like that' but was too focused on her gift to care. "Did you use a whole role of scotch tape Benson, I can't get this thing open." Freddie started to offer his help but Sam brought the package to her mouth and simple used her teeth to tear it open. The paper fell away and Sam pulled the lid off the box and tossed it aside. She pushed the tissue paper away and her smile softened. Inside the box was a very large spoon and beneath that a very large knife.
"I thought they'd go nicely with your fork." She laughed at his comment and inspected the giant silverware. It was pretty cool. "I considered not giving you the knife but knowing you, you could cause just as much damage with the spoon so,"
"They're awesome." Sam said sincerely and dropped them back into the box. "Thanks."
She reached over to the little coffee table in front of her and picked up the gift she had gotten Freddie. "This is for you." She held it out to him but her eyes were angled towards the floor." Freddie took the bag trying not to appear surprised. "What were the chances that you would pull my name too?"
"I'm thinking pretty high," she said to herself and subtly watched as he opened his gift. She saw his eyes light up when he removed a model train from the bag and felt her own smile growing wider. She'd never completely understand why this boy made her emotions so wacky.
"Sam this is awesome, it's like the one you exploded in train club." He was turning the train in his hands examining each detail.
"The certificate of authenticity or something like that is in there too," Sam explained. "I just wanted to sorta makeup for the one I broke." She admitted.
He smiled at her. "Well to be honest I like this one better, where did you even find one from this year it's nearly impossible."
"You found one, so can I," she answered indignantly and crossed her arms.
"I never found one, this is a different year than the one I had."
"What?"
"Yeah see I had a 1951 Trudge Master this is a 1952 Trudge Master, you can tell because this one has six rivets and a 1951 only has four."
As he talked Sam jumped up from the seat, she started to pace the lobby back and forth. "No, no, no!"
"Hey, what's wrong?" Freddie stood too. He tried to stop the girl's pacing but she nearly plowed him over.
"It's supposed to be the same one," she stopped mid stride and dropped down to sit on the coffee table. "It was supposed to be the same one that I destroyed, I spent three hours trying to decide if that was the right one and I was so sure that it was."
"Sam, it's okay that it's not the same one," he started to sit next to her but she popped up and moved to the couch. She sat down and dropped her head to her hands.
"No its not." Sam pulled on the roots of her hair. Three hours she sat staring at those trains and she still screwed it up.
"Why is it so important that it's the same one?" Sam looked up at Freddie who was sitting on the coffee table in front of her. Sam knew why it was so important and while she wanted him to figure it out she had hoped she wouldn't have to say it out loud.
"You really want to know?"
"Uh yeah because it's stressing you out for reasons I cannot understand."
"Because a normal person would remember the name of the train you raved about for three weeks," she picked up the model of the train and started mumbling, "four rivets theirs only supposed to be four."
"Sam that was so long ago, anyone would forget a little detail like that, and you didn't even know it then so really I wouldn't expect you to remember it now."
"A normal person would have known it then, especially if she was dating you." Repeating the word normal seemed to trigger the reaction she wanted out of Freddie. At least he knew what she was talking about now.
"Well," Freddie started, thinking quickly, "it's pretty normal to try and give a thoughtful gift and its normal to get a little upset if you think you messed it up-which you didn't by the way, I told you I like this one," he took the train from her hands, "way better, I love it actually."
She lifted her eyes to his and knew he could see the insecurity all over her features. She hoped the meaning behind his words were the same as the meaning behind her gift; but she also didn't want to be let down.
"When I went looking for your gift it was, first of all really difficult to find those," he gestured at the spoon and knife, "and the guy at the checkout asked me why I didn't get the fork too."
"What did you tell him?"
"I said something like 'she already has a fork,' and he said that normally guys get a girl jewelry." Freddie laughed a little bit, "I told him it was that was the best thing a cashier ever said to me and he just looked at me like I was insane."
Sam was grinning now. She'd have to smack herself later for showing off such a goofy smile but at the moment she just couldn't help it. "And are you insane?" She asked.
"Definitely."
Freddie leaned in towards Sam, he placed the train down on the couch beside her, rested his hand next to it and his other hand on her waist. Her hands immediately went to his shoulders and suddenly it was like they never broke up. They kissed and it wasn't awkward, it sent tingles all the way to Sam's toes like their very first kiss had done. And Freddie's stomach flipped like it used when Sam came at him with her fists clenched only now it was just the feeling he associated with being near her.
After they broke apart Sam kept her eyes closed a moment longer than necessary; just long enough to quickly wish that he wasn't going to disappear. When her eyes opened he was definitely still there with that ridiculously cute crooked smile.
"So where did you even get this train, I looked everywhere for it and it was really expensive," Freddie moved to sit next to her on the couch. He picked up the train and began to examine it more closely as he leaned back against the couch. Sam laughed at his complete dorkyness. But that dorkishness didn't stop her from snuggling into his side.
"I tracked down this weird lady who I think must have had every model train ever, except this one that she really wanted and she agreed that if I could convince this guy who had it to sell it to her I could have my pick of her trains."
"You just had to convince some guy to sell her a train and she gave you one free of charge?" He asked skeptically.
"Yeah apparently it was really important to her, she met like her late husband of a million year on the train, I think the collection may have originally been his."
"So how'd you convince the guy to sell it, wait you didn't hurt him did you?"
"No, when I was trying to make a deal with the women about getting a train from her on my non-existent budget she liked how persuasive I could be and just asked me to talk to him." She had been thrilled too, because it was way after she had her mind set on getting him the model train that she remembered she had no money. "I promise there was no violence involved in the obtaining of your Christmas present."
He looked down at her. "You know, I think you may be too normal for me now."
Sam gasped and pitched his arm, "Take that back Benson."
"Ow," he leaned down and kissed her again. Sam stopped pinching him and instead wrapped her fingers around his arm.
"There you guys-oh," again the two of them broke apart, this time turning towards the stairs. Carly was leaning against the wall smiling. "I guess I didn't need to put up all that mistletoe in the apartment."
They both grinned back at her. Sam who would like to get back to kissing her-well she guessed they were dating again-boyfriend but didn't want to be rude to her best friend asked if she needed anything.
"No, no just wonder where you two had disappeared to, I'm gonna go now, I've got to restock the snack table."
"Bye," Sam and Freddie said together as their friend ran back up the stairs. Freddie looked back at Sam, they had been kissing again for nearly a minute when Sam pulled back quickly. She looked as though she just had the most amazing realization.
"What?"
"Did Carly say she was putting out more food?" Freddie rolled his eyes and he nodded. Sam stood snatching up her big spoon and knife, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the elevator. Freddie smiled again when they were inside and the door slid shut. It had been the first time either of them had taken the elevator since their breakup.
He watched her as she examined her upside down reflection in the spoon. She made an assortment of silly faces and he was fascinated. "I still love you, you know," he blurted out.
For a moment he was horrified for saying it out loud. Sam's face had turned thoughtful again and she eventually turned to face him. "That's good."
"Huh,"
"Well I still love you too, and it would kinda suck if we weren't on the same page."
I hope you all liked this. I felt it was a little out of character but decided it was in an almost believable way. Anyways I blame it on the lack of new iCarly episodes. That's also my reason for not working on my multi-chapter iCarly fic. I've got something like seventeen chapters but won't post it till its completely done. I think its pretty good so hopefully i'll get some motivation soon and finish it.
Alright thanks for reading and leave a review
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