To say Freddie Benson's universe had suddenly gone totally sideways would be something of an understatement. There were few certainties in life, but one thing that always held constant for him was that no matter what, Sam Puckett hated him and would always go out of her way to fill his life with random moments of stunningly creative misery. Sure, they were strangely somehow very good friends despite that fact; it was as though their friendship flourished in the medium of mutual mockery and torment the way fish live in water. It was what they did; it was the game they played, and it was comfortable for them. It takes a lot of effort to constantly find new and increasingly convoluted ways to show someone you don't care about them, so demonstrations of how little they cared about each other showed each of them, in some twisted way, how much they cared about each other. But only as friends.
Or so Freddie thought. The notion that the person who always went out of her way to tell him, "I hate you," and who even went so far as to recently sign his birthday card with, "Happy birthday. I hate you. Hate, Sam," would actually be falling for him at the same time was just unthinkable.
The formerly unthinkable suddenly became real a few nights ago at Ridgeway High School's semester project lock-in, when Freddie and Brad's Mood-Face app project revealed that Sam was in love. Freddie and Carly assumed that this must have meant that Sam had a crush on the new guy at school and the new iCarly intern, Brad. Sam had been acting strangely for a while before that night, as she not only insisted on helping Freddie and Brad with developing their computer application project, but she also kept tagging along with them whenever and wherever they hung out together. Plus, she was generally pleasant to be around, which for her was incredibly strange, especially from Freddie's experience.
It was around three in the morning during the lock-in when Freddie found Sam alone and decided to give her a bit of a pep talk to convince her to drum up the courage to ask out Brad. Sam was someone who was usually never lacking for courage, but Freddie and Carly always knew that some of her bravado was a false front for a lack of confidence – especially when it came to relationships.
Their conversation quickly took a weird turn when Sam insisted she never told Freddie she hated him. Freddie figured she was just trying to change the subject and go back to hiding her feelings about Brad. So, after mentioning several times when she said she hated him, Freddie tried to turn the subject back to Brad and how, while he knew that she was scared to let her feelings show, she had to take a risk on letting someone she liked know how she felt because she'd never know whether that person felt the same way if she didn't. Freddie never got the chance to finish, as Sam suddenly grabbed him in mid-sentence and kissed him passionately.
It turned out she didn't have a crush on Brad after all; it was Freddie who was the object of her affection all along. She had fallen – hard – for "the doof," "Fredlumps," "Fredwad," "Fredwiener," and a whole host of other insults by which she called him. To say it was a shock to him was the understatement of the century. As Sam pulled him close, put her lips to his, and held him tightly, Freddie's mind simply seized up. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't process. None of this made sense to him.
After what seemed like a surprisingly pleasant eternity, Sam pulled away. What Freddie saw then stunned him even more, but caused things to slowly begin to make sense. Sam the demon, Sam the cavalier, Sam the unflappable, Sam the poker-faced, was in fact Sam the absolutely terrified. It was as though every time he'd seen her through the years up until this instant he was actually looking at a series of masks. This time the masks had all fallen away, and he saw her for the first time.
He always knew that Sam had feelings other than "I'm hungry," but she always went out of her way to make sure that didn't seem to be the case. Nothing had prepared Freddie for this. She looked horrified – horrified that she'd slipped and let her feelings show, horrified that he might not reciprocate, horrified that she might have just ruined their friendship forever, horrified that she'd left her comfort zone and couldn't get back to it, horrified that she was showing that she was horrified and therefore vulnerable and, well, human. What he still couldn't fathom was how long she must have been covering up her feelings; judging by the intensity of her kiss and her immediate reaction afterward, he sensed that it must have been a very long and agonizing time.
He would never see her the same way again. Before a couple of nights ago, the notion of going on a date with Sam Puckett would have been the stuff of nightmares for Freddie if he hadn't found it so ludicrous and impossible to begin with. And yet, here he was, about to cross the hall to Carly and Spencer's apartment, where he'd meet Sam for their first date together. He had no idea how this would turn out. Heck, he didn't even know what they'd be doing or where they'd be going. All he knew was that Sam was planning it as a surprise, and that she swore it would be a "fun time. No pressure, no chiz," she insisted. "It'll be somewhere we'll both like, so we can both just hang out and see how it goes."
All Freddie did know is that he was willing to give this shot in the dark a shot. Sam was, after all, his friend, and a very good one at that. Maybe his best friend, in her own uniquely bizarre manner. And once the notion of impossibility surrounding romantic involvement was torn away, it didn't seem like a terrible idea. Trusting Sam to come up with the night's itinerary and not reveal it to him until they were on their way, however, didn't seem like one of the greatest of ideas in history now that he thought about it. Still, if they were going to take a stab at evolving their friendship into a relationship, he'd have to trust her more. He then chuckled to himself as he realized he forgot whether taking a stab required a shank or a shiv. Reminding himself to ask Sam about that again, Freddie Benson took a deep breath, stepped out into the hallway, and into apartment 8-C.