So I don't really know where this idea came from. I just sort of woke up with it in my head and BLAM! Just a warning, it starts off with a Creddie scene in the first chapter, but it's NOT really a Creddie story. Duh!

Oh, and there are references to sexual situations, but no actual sex (lemons) and some bad language sprikled about for dramatic effect.

Chapter 1

Carly was pacing back an forth in her bedroom. Since moving to Italy to be with her father, Carly's life had certainly turned upside down. But that was nothing compared to how upside down it was about to get.

The brunette had something that she had to tell her father, and she had been up all night trying to figure out how to do just that. Well, she knew how to tell him, just not how to keep him from either killing her on the spot or flying back to Seattle and killing a certain young man. If someone had told her two months ago that she would ever have to be contemplating this conversation with her father, she would have told them they were crazy or high. Or maybe even both.

Her weekly internet chat sessions with Sam, Spencer and Freddie were the only contact with her life back home. Unfortunately, the last of these, five days earlier, had to be cut short because of her feeling sick to her stomach. Due to the time difference between Seattle and Italy, she would always talk to her friends when it was late in the evening on the west coast of the US, but bright and early in the morning for her. Unlike her best friend, who was more of a night person, Carly never had a big problem getting up early and it just made sense to talk to them before she left for school. Actually she hadn't been doing that much sleeping recently.

On the bathroom counter, laid the perpetrator of the crime. Actually the perpetrator was back in Seattle, the object in question was just the messenger of her fate. She was brought out of her thoughts by another round of nausea and made a mad dash to pray to the porcelain god in the corner of the room beside hers. As she wiped her face and tried not to look as bad as she felt, she heard the front door close and her father's voice.

"Carly. Are you up yet, sweetie? Carly? I brought cinnamon rolls. Hurry up, now. I can drop you off for school on my way into the base." Her father called back the hallway.

She sighed and flushed the toilet, dropped the offensive plastic stick into the trash can wiped at her face with a towel. The last thing she wanted was food at the moment, but she had to leave for school and lunch time was many hours away. She had a couple of months left in her senior year and had already been accepted into one of the best colleges in Europe. Thanks to her father's influence, no doubt.

Carly was far less of a celebrity in Italy than she was in Seattle. Sure, a few of the other teens recognized her, but she was more of a curiosity than a celebrity. She certainly wasn't a teacher's pet or favorite of the principal at her new school either. In fact, she went from a straight-A student, on the short list to be valedictorian to getting consistent B's and even a C once in a while.

"Carly!" Colonel Shay called again. "We need to go if you're riding with me."

"Coming, Daddy!" She plastered on a fake smile as she came out the hallway, hoping her breath didn't smell too much of bile after a quick swish of mouthwash.

"Grab a cinnamon roll to go, princess. You'll have to eat in the car. I have a very important meeting at zero eight hundred and we need to leave two minutes ago." Her father loved her and having her with him, but he was strict military through and through with every aspect of his life, including punctuality. More than anything, he wanted to convey to his fellow officers that he and his daughter had the perfect life and the perfect relationship, something he missed out on for many, many years.

"Thanks, Daddy." She replied and kissed his cheek. The important conversation would have to wait until that evening.

Flashback to the day Carly left for Italy.

"So, um, does this mean we're a couple, now.?" Freddie asked her from the bed next to her. The two were lying, slightly sweaty, snuggled up under the covers, and despite what they had just done neither wanted to get up first and display to the other their naked body.

"Oh, Freddie." Carly replied with the same condescending tone she always used when he would ask her out. The tone that said, 'I pity you for being so naive as to think that we could ever be a couple.' The last thing she wanted was to make this a heavy, angst filled conversation. She suspected that Freddie still had feelings for her best friend deep down inside and on top of that there was no way she was going to be involved in a long-distance relationship.

She just wanted to enjoy the afterglow of the first time she and the brown haired boy next to her had just shared. "I don't think either of us are ready for that but maybe some day when I come back we can talk about it." It was the same way he had let her down after the taco truck accident, when they actually tried to date and he broke up with her, citing her affection for him as 'hero worship'. The difference between this time and then, was that Carly could see actually herself dating him back then. Now, she knew it would never be.

Truthfully, she didn't know if she would even return to Seattle - or him for that matter. After all, she was about to embark on the adventure of her seventeen-year old life, she didn't want to be tied down to a boyfriend 'back home'. This was simply meant to be a goodbye to someone she shared her youth with and to share her first time with a special boy that she knew she could trust not to take advantage of her heart. The only trouble was: she was taking advantage of his and she knew it - big time.

Even though he just fulfilled his biggest teenage fantasy, to lose his innocence to Carly Shay, Freddie began to feel cheap and used. He knew from her tone that he meant no more to her romantically then he had an hour ago and the fact that he had been intimate without even being her boyfriend made him almost sick to his stomach. He wasn't that kind of guy and he knew Carly wasn't that kind of girl, either.

The two were brought out of their snuggle session by the sound of her brother's voice and their best friend's excitement as they talked loudly in the living room below. The had just returned, and it sounded like they were all worked up. Maybe Sam was able to help him find that part he was looking for after all. Hopefully, that would mean the motorcycle was soon to be leaving the living room.

"C'mon, Freddie. We'd better get dressed before Sam comes up here and finds us, you know . . . "

End of flashback