A/N: a fic that has a whole lot of Gibby being weirdly cool and the trio being the trio, with hints of Seddie and Cibby
Disclaimer: We're not stealing Dan's Gibbies. We're borrowing them.
Firelight filled the room, casting shadows over the tablecloth covering Gibby's coffee table. The strawberries were plump and red and the non-alcoholic beverages sparkled and bubbled in their glasses. Gibby's silk house robe was tied closed over a pair of dress pants. His bare feet were stretched toward the fire. Across from him, his date wore a strapless black gown and sat tracing the rim of her glass with one slender finger, watching him with a sultry stare.
"So now that you have your own Magic Show, does that mean you don't do magic tricks for free anymore, Malika?" he asked.
She took a long, slow breath, looking at the fire and lifting her pale slim shoulders to the earrings that pulled on her earlobes. "Well, I guess that depends on who wants to see it. I could…show you something, if you'd like."
"Oh yeah," he said.
She made a strawberry lift into the air and drop into the whipped cream. Gibby plucked it out and ate it. "Impressive. Dingo knows what makes a good show. The Amazing Magical Malika."
She giggled. "My life's dream… I still can't believe I'm actually going to have a show and the whole world is going to see it and be amazed!" She spoke softly, drawing out the words just to see Gibby hang from every one. He smiled.
"I think you knew this day was coming. I can see it in your eyes. You didn't let anything stop you. You made it happen no matter what. That's what it takes for show business."
She smiled and crawled around the table to him. He let her invade his space for a few kisses that lasted until her hands slid up to the golden chain sparkling at the neck of his robe. Her slender fingers lifted it up, and closed around the key at the end.
He caught her wrist.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes."
"So can I. Don't worry about it. Let's just have some fun."
She giggled.
…
The next morning, across town, Carly woke from a dead sleep. The pictures. "Oh my God!"
She jumped out of bed, leapt off the dais, and sprinted to her computer in the dark. Once booted up, she sent Gibby a video-chat request. It was 2:30 in the morning, but he answered it. He was a night owl.
"'Sup Carly?" his face was lit by his monitor with the colors of her room. He sat in an arm chair, the laptop in his lap. "Bad dreams?"
"Yes!" she cried. "Where's Malika?"
"I don't have her here," he said with a laugh. "What's this about?"
Carly inhaled deeply to calm herself and sat down in the spinning chair. "I just worked it all out, why I hate her so much."
"And?" it was a small, hopeful word. Carly was too distressed to properly notice.
"And," she cried loudly, "it's all because of the pictures!"
"What?"
"The head; Dingo's head! They just signed on Malika for her magic show! I bet they hired her to get back at us for blackmailing them!"
Gibby put his head in his hand. "I see…" he said. The atmosphere changed on his side of the screen. He leaned forward urgently, a beefy hand looming in the frame as he adjusted the camera. He glanced around. "Listen Carly, you gotta get outta there."
"What?"
"You're right," he said. "About everything; I've been onto her and—there's something you don't know."
"What is it?"
"No time. Just... run."
The computer screen went black.
…
Freddie woke to the sounds of a home invasion. Someone was climbing through his bedroom window with great difficulty and noise. He sat up and turned on his lamp in time to see Carly drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
"Carly?"
She stood, spitting hair out of her mouth. "Shut up!" she hissed. "It's Code Gibby, we gotta go!"
"Code Gibby? Are you sure?"
"Yes, that's why I said it! Get your pants on!"
"I'm wearin' pants!" he said defensively. He was indeed, but they were pajama pants with Galaxy Wars printed all over them, just like his sheets.
"Shoes then! We gotta get outta here!"
"Are you sure you aren't over-reacting? I mean, Gibby initiated the code?"
"Freddie?" Mrs. Benson's voice called through the wall. "Freddie who are you talking to?"
Carly jumped, Freddie paled a little bit. "What? No one, Mom! It's the TV!"
"Fredward Benson! What are you doing watching TV at this time of night?"
"Sorry Mom—no, don't come in here!"
Too late. His bedroom door opened.
"MOM!"
"Freddie," she said, disappointed, finding her son up out of bed, half-way back from turning off his TV like she wasn't going to notice. She saw no one else. Carly had dropped like a sack of potatoes again and was now under the bed.
"I was just checking the news."
"What for?"
"…News?"
"Get back into bed. You are a growing boy you need your rest."
"Yes, Mother."
Carly waited while Mrs. Benson tucked Freddie in and left. Only after he got out of the bed did she feel safe to crawl from the dark tight place, back into the open lamplit air. Her heart was pounding. One more minute under there and she would have screamed.
"I mean we aren't actually going to do this are we?" Freddie asked, somewhat distraught.
"Of course we are!"
"But I thought Code Gibby was just a joke!"
She slapped Freddie on the bare bicep, more worked up and annoyed now than she'd originally been. "Stop arguing with me and just get your bag!"
He flinched away from her and went to the closet. "All right… crazy!"
He pulled a prepacked carry-on from the back of the closet and a hoodie from a hanger. Twenty minutes later, Carly was keeping look-out while Freddie scaled a drainpipe to the second story window and latched onto the bars covering it. "Sam!" he hissed through them. "Sam!"
A light came on. The window opened. Carly heard the expected exclamations, whispering, and the expected shout of pain from Freddie. Then Sam's bag dropped to the filthy pavement below, followed a moment later by the pair of friends. Carly looked at the girl and then back up at the bars still covering the window. Her forehead was creased with confusion.
"How did you—?"
"It's a new record," Freddie said, impressed.
"So's this really a Code Gibby?" Sam asked, excitement making her voice high-pitched like Melanie's. She was in day-clothes that had BBQ stains on them. She'd fallen asleep eating ribs again.
"Yes!" Carly cried. "This is not a drill!"
"What happened?"
"Me 'n Gib figured it out," Carly said. "Malika is a Dingo assassin or something. She's trying to get the pictures."
"Why?" Sam asked the same time Freddie asked a little incredulously, "Dingo assassin?"
"Malika is an aspiring magician. I bet Dingo Studios offered to give her her very own show if she could bring back the pictures of the head. That way they get to rip off iCarly again and we can't do anything about it."
"How'd'ya figure this out?" Sam asked as they powerwalked down the street.
"Think about it! She turns up after two years and hangs all over Freddie and flirts with my brother and then falls in love with Gibby! Don't you see?"
"No," they said together.
Carly stopped and rounded on Sam. "What do Freddie and Spencer have in common?"
"They're losers?" she guessed. Freddie rolled his eyes.
"They like to impress girls with the Dingo story! She asked you about it didn't you? And you bragged about getting us in the building." Carly said to Freddie.
"Maybe," he admitted, uncomfortably.
"You sad little man," Sam said, shaking her head.
"And Spencer is a conspiracy nut. If Malika pretended to be one too, he would have shared all of his evidence about Beavcoon and Dingo's Head-"
"And told her we gave the pictures to Gibby for safe keeping!" Sam finished. Carly nodded.
"So if she knows Gib's got the pictures then why ain't he running for his life in PJs too?" Freddie asked. "And what did you say about a Dingo assassin? That's a little paranoid isn't it? She's our age."
"CIA hires 18 year olds all the time—element of surprise. She probably went rogue and gets millions under the table from Dingo studios," Sam said, thrilled.
"They do not," he said, but he didn't sound very convinced with himself.
Carly showed doubt for the first time. "I don't know if she's an actual assassin, but Gibby said there was something about her we don't know and that we had to run."
Freddie visibly shivered.
"Where's Spence?"
Carly bit her lip. "He didn't come home last night."
They traded looks, and started to run.
….
Spencer threw himself against the cage wall. He just bounced off it again and now his face hurt. He screamed and stumbled around. "Why are you doing this to me?" he shouted.
Laughter bounced off stone walls and he received no answer.
….
"I'm scared," Carly admitted. The three of them were on a dark street. Most of the street lights were out.
"I'm sure he's fine." Freddie said.
"We'll be okay too," Sam said. "Gibby's got it all worked out…apparently."
A hobo came barking out of an alley way, scattering cans. Carly screamed and Freddie nearly jumped out of his skin. They both hurried away. Sam stood her ground and forced the hobo to retreat with loud threats and her butter sock.
Freddie gave Carly's trembling shoulder a rub as he looked around. "Look, there's one."
Sitting dead center in the yellow light of a lamppost was a squat, blue US Mailbox.
Carly hurried forward and pulled an old manila envelope from her bag. Sam looked at the address, didn't recognize it or the name. "What's that?"
"Gibby gave it to me a while ago. He said to mail it in the case of Code Gibby."
"What's in it?"
"I don't know."
They looked at the envelope. It was thin and light. They looked at one another and she shoved the letter inside. There. Her part was over.
Freddie checked his watch.
"Time to go," he said.
"What? Where?"
"I've got a special Code Gibby job too. Trust me."
He led them across town at a jog. When Carly asked if they could slow down he shook his head. "No time! Pick it up Shay!" he barked like the gym coach.
"Well!" she said. Sam laughed and lagged behind to pull Carly along. "Just listen to 'im," she said, shaking her head with a smile. It was probably the nicest thing she'd ever said regarding Freddie, and Carly wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that he was currently Mr. In Charge of this Dangerous Operative, and jogging in front of them in nothing but a hoodie and pants that showed off his ham-shaped butt.
She-lost-count-of-the-blocks-later, Freddie came to an abrupt stop at another US Mailbox. This one was on a well-lit street outside the park. Spencer had warned Carly many times about being anywhere near this park at nighttime.
"Freddie—" she started nervously.
"Got another letter?" Sam asked eagerly. Freddie smiled and shook his head. He looked at his watch and pointed up the street. Just then, a loud rumbling bus turned the corner and slowed to a stop in front of them. This was a bus stop.
The tailpipe hissed and the doors creaked open. At the top of the stairs, the bus driver's, face was in shadow. "Fredverd Beensun?" a strangely accented voice asked.
Carly and Sam tensed and moved closer to him instinctively. His Adam's apple moved up and down as he swallowed. "Futor?" Freddie asked him.
The faceless man nodded.
Sam's breath left her body and she smiled, deeply impressed. "We goin' somewhere, Benson?"
Freddie nodded, trying to look brave and kind of pulling it off.
"Where?"
Carly shook her head and took out her phone. "I should try gettin' ahold of Spencer again."
"Carly," Freddie started, without taking his eyes off the mysterious bus driver.
"I really shouldn't go anywhere without telling him—"
"Carly!" Freddie fairly barked. She yelped and hurried aboard with her phone pressed to her ear. His voicemail picked up and she left her hundredth message. The bus was empty, and the Uzbekistan driver asked where they needed to go.
Freddie said a few halting words; a foreign language that wasn't Spanish, nor as fluid as he was capable in that language.
"Where're we goin'?" Sam asked.
"Safe house," Freddie whispered. It just felt wrong to talk too loudly on the bus. There was a moment in which both he and Carly expected Sam to demand answers, but she seemed content with not knowing.
Carly felt a little sick. Oh sure, it was easy for Sam to be thrilled about all of this, but Carly just had a stomach ache and she couldn't stop looking at her phone every five seconds, waiting for it to ring and be Spencer.
The bus jolted and whirred and went into motion. Carly's throat closed and her fingers started shaking.
"Wait! We don't have any money!" she cried. "This is ridiculous!"
She really needed to pee all of the sudden.
Sam suddenly smiled, jerked up her bag and slapped the bottom. "Plenty."
Freddie smiled so much his nose wrinkled. "Nice!"
Sam sighed happily. "Pick a seat girls, it's prolly gonna be a long trip."
….
The water from the hose came out hard enough to pound bruises into his pudginess and it was so cold it took his breath away. "I told you!" Spencer cried when he could get a breath. "I don't know anything! Please!"
His desperate pleas went unheard and Spencer screamed and got more water up his nose.
….
Carly stayed awake long enough to learn the bus was headed out-of-state, but then, despite her anxiety and fear, she succumbed to sleep as the sun rose. She woke up on Sam's shoulder. In the seat in front of her, Freddie was on the phone with someone. Outside the windows was nothing but sunshine, flat earth. A big sign flashed past. Carly didn't get all of it, but one word she managed to read in time.
"Idaho?" she asked. Freddie whirled, saw that she was awake and freaking out, and gave her a reassuring look that didn't work.
Carly shook Sam awake. She woke up swinging. Carly dodged the blows expertly after a lifetime of sleepovers. "We're here…I think."
Sam sat up, blinking bleary eyes. "Where's here?"
"Idaho," Carly said darkly. She was upset. How could she leave the state without telling Spencer first? Without knowing where Spencer was? She was going to be in major trouble—if she wasn't already. What was Gibby thinking? Were they really in so much danger? She tended to doubt it. She just wanted to go home.
Sam's forehead wrinkled. "Idaho?" she repeated loudly. She slapped Freddie on the back of the head. He flinched, turned, glared, and said into the phone, "Thanks, Luke, we're nearly there. Owe you big time."
He hung up and looked at Sam. "What was that for?"
"You woke me up in the middle of the night to drag me back to Idaho? I don't wanna be here!"
"I didn't pick this place, Gib did!" he shouted. With daylight filling the empty bus, and the Uzbekistanian singing loudly and proudly in his home tongue, it felt way less mysterious and thrilling and a lot more like a stupid school field trip.
"Why would he send us to Idaho?" Sam asked angrily. "We don't know anybody here."
"Of course we do," Freddie said. "We'll be at his tree house in half an hour."
"Tree-house?" Sam asked. She looked at Freddie. "Wait, was that FRED's Luke on the phone?"
"Yeah, Gib gave me a number to call. It turned out to be him."
Sam was impressed again. "Gib's really laid this thing out."
"Yeah, but why?" Carly asked. "He's acting like we're holding military secrets or something. They're just pictures of a dead guy's head and we don't even have them, Gib does!"
"Yeah, and where is he? And Spencer?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," Carly said, looking at her phone. She cleaned the screen with her thumb, like maybe it was just too dirty to see that a message was waiting for her. Unable to stop herself, she sent another text message to her brother.
"Okay, go over exactly what Gibby said again," Freddie said.
Carly took a deep breath. "I told him why I think Malika is after the pictures, and he said I was right and that he'd been onto for a while now, and that there was something else we didn't know and that we had to run."
They fell silent, unable to deduce any more secrets from the information.
Freddie shrugged helplessly, "Maybe Luke knows something."
….
Luke sipped his lemon tea, more to keep himself from talking than out of thirst. His eyes were glued on the street outside the little window of his editing house and his phone was pressed a little too hard into his ear, as if the pressure would help him hear more on the other end of the line.
It wasn't actually his phone. It had arrived in the mail ages ago with instructions to answer it if it should ring. It'd rang only once before, that morning and Freddie—a guy Luke had met only once and liked even less—had sounded surprised and confused as he asked for a place for him and the girls to stay.
Luke had no idea what was going on, but now he had a little more to go on. Five minutes ago, the phone had rung a second time. He'd answered it, expecting Freddie again, or maybe Carly.
"Hello."
"Has the package arrived yet?" an unfamiliar man's voice asked.
At that moment, a bus pulled up to the house and the iCarly team poured out of it with bags over the shoulder's they kept glancing back over. They looked kind of freaked out. Chills went through Luke's body and made the ice in his glass chink together.
"What's this about, sir?" he didn't know why he called the stranger sir. It was just a voice that provoked it, he guessed.
"Don't ask questions. Has it arrived?"
"Listen, the only thing that's come here is this phone and a group of kids I barely know. What's going on?"
No response. The line was dead; he'd hung up, whoever he was.
They knocked on the door. Luke pulled it up, looking down at the three travel-weary teenagers. One was even in pajamas.
"You better have answers," he said.
Their response was complete disappointment and despair. Sam swore. Carly slumped against the tree. "You mean you don't know what's going on either?"
"No!" Luke cried. "And to tell you the truth I'm a little wazed-off. I mean, if this is some sort of iCarly thing, it's not that funny!"
They all started shaking their heads and hands.
"No, no, this isn't an iCarly thing. It's real, whatever it is," Carly said.
They each shared what they knew. Carly was trying to make it sound as less thriller-movie-like as possible, but it was hard with Sam mentioning CIA every chance she got.
"Sam," Carly said. "CIA isn't involved here."
"How do you know?" she snapped.
"Because," Carly said. She didn't have an answer. She crossed her arms. "…because the real world doesn't actually work that way!"
"Sure it does!" Sam said with a laugh. "Every major company has spies and agents to protect their interests! They were never gonna let a coupla kids blackmail them for long!"
"She's right. CIA is involved," Luke said.
"What?" Freddie asked, swinging his head around.
Luke smiled a little sheepishly. He'd been at his computer for over an hour now, typing away as they traded stories. He pointed at his monitor. "Look at this."
They came forward to better read the screen.
"I tried tracing the phone call from Mr. Stranger." Luke said.
"You can do that?" Sam cried. Freddie said something in Spanish that was clearly reverence as he looked at the screen.
Luke shrugged humbly. "Hacking's my day job—anyway. Look at this. The phone used to make that call was government issued, government protected. I can't pin point its location—not today anyway. I mean, give me a week and I could maybe find a backdoor, but—" he shrugged. "Sound like CIA operatives to you?"
Carly shook her head, not ready to believe. "Okay, wait, tell me again exactly what Mr. Stranger said. What did he sound like?"
Luke shrugged. "…Professional?"
"Sounds like CIA," Freddie said.
"Sounds like anybody," Carly said, but like Freddie last night in Seattle, she didn't sound very convinced with herself.
The phone rang again.
Luke put it on speaker phone and no one breathed.
"Hello?"
"Hi… I don't think we've met. I'm Gibby."
"GIBBY!" All three of his friends shouted, moving closer to the phone.
"Carly?" he asked. It sounded like Gibby was running. "Thank God you're safe. Freddie and Sam with you?"
"Yeah, man, we're here," Freddie said.
"Good. Look, I don't have a lot of time to explain. Did you send the letter?"
"Yes. What was it?"
"For Mom, in case something happens."
"What?"
"What's going to happen?" Sam asked.
"I'm in trouble. Your dad knows all about it, tell 'im Big Dingo—"
He was cut off. A moment later they heard the unmistakable sound of a punch and Gibby's guffaw of pain.
"GIBBY!" Carly cried.
The line went dead.
The webshow stars stared at one another, white faced.
An explosion seemed to be building in Carly. "H-he's in real trouble!" she cried hysterically.
"Big Dingo," Sam said.
"Your dad?" Freddie asked. Luke was confused. "Whose dad? Yours?"
"I don't have a dad," Freddie said. Sam likewise shook her head. All eyes turned to Carly.
Without much of a choice in the matter, she pulled out her phone and scrolled to the super-emergency number at the bottom of her speed dial. She pressed it and waited nervously. She'd never dialed this number before, because it was for life and death situations.
Well, this was one. Kinda.
A prim, military voice answered, gave name and rank of the submarine. Carly cleared her throat. "Um, Colonel Shay please—it's an emergency. I'm his daughter."
She was put on hold, a moment later, redirected, and the phone rang three times before it was answered.
"Shay here."
"Dad?"
"Carly? What on earth—"
"Um, Gibby's in trouble," Carly said. At Sam's prompt she quickly added, "With Big Dingo."
"He told you to call me?"
"Yes."
"Is he with you?"
"No." Carly felt it was best not to mention that she wasn't in Seattle. He had that too-calm tone of voice that meant he was restraining himself. He wasn't Dad calling for a chat. He was on duty.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Um, n-no. I mean I think he's—still in the city. But I don't know. And I can't find Spencer!" she added, suddenly sick. This was real. But Dad wasn't confused about any of this. He knew what was going on. That thought alone made her feel better.
The colonel sucked in a sharp breath at his son's name. "Don't worry, baby girl. I'll fix this. Johnson!" he barked and the line went dead again.
Sam and Freddie could do nothing but hug their distraught friend.
….
The colonel was putting a plan in action that was never supposed to have been necessary. Johnson was making the calls. Steve made sure his face remained stoic, but on the inside he was worried.
What had he allowed to happen?
He remembered the day he had been forced to accept a persistent phone call from a civilian. He'd ended up taking it, impressed by the determination it would have taken for anyone to get through the red tape to speak to him on this line.
"Colonel Shay?"
"Who is this?"
"My name's Gibby. I go to school with your daughter, Carly?"
"Gibby?" Steve had repeated. He knew that name. How did he know that name? iCarly, oh yes. This was the fat boy who did weird things for free. He'd listened to the boy as he spilled his guts about some trip the kids had taken to Hollywood, obtained certain pictures that would ruin Dingo Studios Inc, and were now holding them as blackmail to prevent another Totally Terri incident (of which Steve had gotten an ear full from Carly. She'd asked him to make the Air Force stop people from stealing her ideas.) Carly hadn't mentioned any details in her following email, which had said that said the problem was solved.
Well, with the blackmailing stuff he was hearing about from Gibby it certainly didn't sound solved. And it got worse.
Carly had entrusted the pictures to Gibby—officially dubbing him the iCarly secret holder—a title that Steve could tell the boy was proud of. Gibby went on to say that a Dingo Studios 'representative' had approached him and hired him to hand over the pictures.
Steve was impressed but horrified.
The boy had been smart enough to winkle a healthy fee out of the big wigs for such a service. But he was not planning on delivering the pictures. The colonel had informed the kid that it wasn't a game to double cross such powerful people. He could literally be killed. He needed to go to the police.
But the boy said he wouldn't. The family could use the money or something.
At that point, Steve had gotten angry. What had his bull-headed son allowed Carly and her friends to get into?
"Why in the name of heaven did you accept the job if you never meant to give them the pictures? Son, do you realize you have endangered my daughter's life with this bone-headed move of yours?"
And this had been the part that had won Steve's respect.
"No sir," Gibby had said. "She put her own life in danger. I'm just trying to keep her alive. And on the air."
Smiling despite himself, Steve had shaken his head. "You better have a plan."
"That's why I called you, sir."
"Thought that might have been the reason…"
Gibby had continued to impress the colonel then with the thoroughness and detail of the plan he had to protect his family and Carly's when Big Dingo learned of the double-crossing. The only thing he needed out of the colonel was a favor, and a phone call.
Now, as Johnson made that call to FBI headquarters, Steve made his own call to some of his pals back at the base. They informed him that why yes, the helicopter did need a practice run, and sure, they would hone in on the GPS of this phone number…
….
Gibby woke up in the back seat of a moving car. His hands were tied behind his back. Big Dingo was in the front passenger's seat; Gibby could see nothing but the sharp shoulders of his blue suit and the back of his greased greying black hair. He could smell the cigar smoke in the air. A tiny man in chauffer's uniform drove, starring dead ahead. Beside Gibby was a man bigger than Jackson Colt and more dangerous looking in a black suit.
"Did you really think you could double cross me kid?" Big Dingo asked without turning around.
Gibby's head hurt, but he was able to push it aside. He focused on Carly—the image of Carly calling her father. He would get out of this. He said nothing. Big Dingo shook his head and looked out of the tinted windows. They were outside the city. Gibby wasn't sure where, he didn't recognize the apple orchards through which they were driving.
"Think you're brave? Think I wouldn't get the pictures? You fool. I get what I ask for, one way or another. I am the head of Dingo Studios."
"Thought that was what's in the freezer."
With a glance from Big Dingo into the rear view mirror, the sack of beef to Gibby's left turned with a squeak of leather car seat and punched him.
Gibby felt cartridge snap and warm blood trickled out of his right nostril. He let his pain out with a shout, sniffed.
Big Dingo looked into the mirror. "Are we going to be difficult, Mr. Gibson?"
Gibby looked around as if confused. "What? Oh, sorry, my dad's not here."
Another punch, but no blood. In some ways those were the worst.
"Any more clever remarks?"
"No, we're done. Let's get to business."
"Oh, Mr. Gibson, you don't want us to get to business. You see the only business we have today is for Mr. Jones there—oh, have you met Mr. Jones?"
Gibby glanced at the shadow. "Sup."
Mr. Jones cracked his knuckles. Gibby shrugged at Dingo's head. "Guess we have."
Dingo laughed. Good, so long as it was still a game to the man. Gibby laughed too in hopes of making it last. Mr. Jones joined in—maybe it was working—then Gibby was laughing alone. Dingo turned around with a slow creak of leather seat again. His face was long, lined, and not amused. "Where are the pictures?"
"I hid 'em under the ocean," Gibby said with a laugh and braced for the punch to his kidney.
"I don't think you understand. Mr. Jones has instructions, and if you don't hand over those pictures, then he will be forced to follow them out, and let me assure you they lead to a deep dark place for you, little boy."
"Six feet under," Mr. Jones said.
"Unless of course you hand over the pictures now!" it was the first instance of Dingo raising his voice. It filled the car with stern warning.
"Well, I don't have them on me!" Gibby couldn't keep the smirk out of his voice.
Mr. Jones punched him again, this time on the face, and Gibby saw some stars. Okay if he was going to stay conscious it was maybe time to pull the jokes.
"Tell us where to find them."
Gibby took a deep breath. "No."
"Sorry, we forgot to ask nicely." Dingo looked at the associate and jerked his head. Mr. Jones pulled out a knife.
Gibby sat up and leaned away into the door. Jokes were definitely over.
"Take us to the pictures and when we have them, you can go home to—what's their names?" Dingo looked down at something in the front seat. "Charlotte and Gup-pee," he pronounced Gibby's little brother's name with some distain.
Gibby's heart tightened. He'd of course foreseen danger falling on those around him. That was why he'd laid out such an elaborate plan to get them all out of town quickly with as little information as possible. He assured himself that Mom and Gup were safe. He'd called them personally. Mom had promised to go to Dad's. They were okay. Carly and the others were in a tree house in Idaho. They were okay. He just had to get out of this alive, and then everyone would be okay. He kept his eye on that knife.
"If I tell you where they are then you'll just start ripping off iCarly again."
"Do you really want to die for some little girl on the internet? Where are they?"
Gibby took a few deep breaths through his bleeding nose. "I'm not telling you."
The chauffer suddenly shouted and hit the car's breaks. Everyone in the car jolted forward and a world of noise descend on them—a low thromp-thromp-thromping that rattled the car windows and stirred the apple trees.
It was a helicopter.
Gibby used his forward motion to turn himself and get ahold of the door handle. It open and out he fell, away from the knife that Mr. Jones was pushing toward him.
He met the ground hard on his head and shoulders and saw stars again as his lower body flipped over his head, landing him face first on the edge of the road. Military guys-GI Joes or something-wait were some of them shouting FBI? It really didn't matter.
Gibby found that he was laughing as they swarmed the car. Carly had sent the army to save him. He thought he might love that girl.
…
Carly's phone rang. It was Dad.
"DAD?"
"Gibby's okay," the Colonel announced.
Carly sighed with relief, relayed the message to her friends, who all visibly relaxed.
"What about Spencer?" Carly asked.
"I sent a guy to hone in on his cell phone GPS. He's still in Seattle. We'll find him."
…
"Listen to me, you little monster!" Spencer said in his most serious voice as he pressed his face to the cage. Water was dripping into his eyes and he was shivering in his sodden clothes. "I don't know where your stupid scooter went and when I get out of here, I will make you pay for this."
Chuck smiled. "I'd like to see you try."
Spencer raised his eye brows, hatred boiling in his gut, then suddenly, the basement door smashed open and in poured a SWAT team. Like, an actual SWAT team. Spencer was so relieved to be found by anyone, he didn't even care. He pointed at his five-foot-tall enemy.
"That's the man, officers!" He bellowed. Chuck paled.
…
Bumps and bruises but otherwise fine. Gibby was discharged from the hospital surrounded by family and friends.
"I can't believe you were the Dingo spy!" Carly said.
"Sorry. It was the only way I could make sure no one else got the job."
"It was brave but stupid," Spencer said. He was walking with one hand in his pocket and the other on Carly's shoulder, as if he was going to physically make sure they didn't get separated like that again.
"That's what your dad said."
"He's right. They were going to kill you," Charlotte said.
Gibby shrugged, tried to pretend like that kind of thing didn't scare him.
"We thought it was Malika!" Sam said.
"Nope."
"But she's getting that deal from Dingo Studios!"
"Yeah, they used that to make her their unwitting spy. I fed her a false trail to see if she'd bite and she did."
"What was the bait?"
Gibby showed them a key on a chain around his neck. "She told them that I was the secret keeper, which blew my cover story. I'd been telling them that it was taking me a little longer than expected to figure out which one of you had the pictures. That's when I told you it was time for you guys to get outta dodge."
"That skunkbag," Sam said.
"She didn't know what she was doing. She thought Big D was a friend."
"Big D," Carly scoffed. She shook her head and rested a warm hand on Gibby's shoulder. "We're just glad you're okay."
"Thanks," he said.
"You're so much cooler than we thought you were, Gib." Sam said.
Gibby laughed, quite pleased with himself. Carly giggled, kissed him on the cheek. "I always knew he was cool."
FIN.
A/N: so yeah, not the usual twowritehands fic. But it makes us smile. How about you? Leave an if you like or an if you don't like. It could be that easy.
check out the authors on ~The Cabal~
.net/s/7043903/1/An_invitation_from_The_Cabal