Seven Years, Two Days, & A Moment

I. Six Years

Six years.

That's how long Sam and Freddie had been together when he finally mustered up the courage to propose to her. She accepted, of course, and it made Freddie happy. Yet he couldn't help but admit to himself that he had his doubts about their relationship.

Sure, they were happy. And sure, they had their fights. But some days were worse than others… Some days, Freddie asked himself why he stayed in the relationship when he knew it wasn't what he honestly wanted.

And on these days that he asked himself that question, he always gave himself the same answer:

Because Carly didn't want him.

He knew it, Sam knew it, Carly knew it. Everyone knew it. Everyone knew that Carly Shay felt nothing but friendliness towards Freddie Benson. He was her "best bud," her "pal."

He had waited all through high school for her. He watched her date this guy and that guy and another guy, he had prevented himself from getting close to whatever girl he dated to pass the time, and he had denied the growing relationship between him and Sam – just to save himself for Carly. He waited and waited for that day that she would finally open up and admit to him that she did love him like he loved her and that she did want to be with him.

But that day never came.

He started dating Sam during college. Somehow, they had ended up attending the same college. Well, it wasn't exactly "somehow" – it was like this: Freddie had only applied there and nowhere else because he was positive that Carly was going there. But at the last minute, Carly had gotten an acceptance letter to her first-choice school and had apologized to her two best friends and then she had left them behind. Sam didn't have the energy to try to apply to any other school, so she attended nevertheless. And when Freddie realized he couldn't get into Carly's college, he had given up and decided that attending a college with Sam was better than attending a college with a bunch of strangers. And so, the three friends spent a few years apart, but somehow stayed relatively close.

Freddie and Sam listened to Carly gush about her frat guy boyfriend, who she actually stayed with for all but the last year of college, and they all got to be together again during summer vacation and the holiday breaks in between. But while Carly was at her own college partying with her own boyfriend, Freddie and Sam were spending awkward nights alone in their dorms, too scared to meet new people but too proud to admit the fact; they wanted to stay close to each other because they already didn't like the distance with Carly.

And as if all of the moments in high school didn't prove it enough, college only assured the fact… Freddie and Sam were inevitable. After a drunken night together and a lot of denial, they gave in and dated each other.

Secretly, Freddie kept his tiny pockets of hope close to his heart: the hope that Carly would finally admit her feelings for Freddie and ask him to be with her.

But years went on, and hope dwindled. He never actually fell in love with Sam, but he did love her nonetheless. He couldn't deny the fact that he was still head-over-heels, madly in love with his best friend, Carly Shay. After college, she got a great job in Seattle. She was a photographer, among other things, and was busy all the time with photoshoots and whatever else got dished out on her plate. She didn't have time for love or boyfriends anymore; she barely had time to have dinner with Sam and Freddie a few times a week. She was traveling every month for work as well. Sam and Freddie stayed in Seattle – Freddie got a job at a computer company and was slowly working his way up the ladder, and Sam was working on opening her own restaurant.

Freddie did find it somewhat amazing, though, that the trio had stayed such good friends for so long. He thought for sure that college would tear them apart, but surprisingly, it never did. Along with his tiny pockets of hope that Carly would fall in love with him, he also had even tinier pockets of hope that the time apart would somehow force him to move on from her and in the meantime actually fall in love with Sam.

But it never happened.

He waited six years for Carly.

He spent exactly forty-two days debating whether to propose to Sam or not. In the end, he obviously decided to. But the only reason that brought him to that final decision was the fact that Carly had never loved him, didn't love him now, and probably never would love him.

And he couldn't spend the rest of his life waiting for her.

He did tell himself that this was it, though – he made the promise, not only to himself but also to Sam, that if he did this and he took this leap, it would be final. No divorces, no separations, nothing. It was "till death do us part." He would marry Sam, they would have children, they would grow old together, and then they'd die.

And somewhere in there, he would have to stop wishing that Carly had given him a chance.

to be continued…

A/N: This story will be 5 parts. I am still on hiatus, but I got the idea for this and ended up actually writing the whole thing out, so I did. It's to help contribute to Croctober =] (If you don't know what that is, you should really join Creddie Fans! creddiefans dot 2ya dot com.)
I wanna give a HUGE thanks to sockstar (sockstar1 on LJ & Creddie Fans) for reading this over and giving suggestions for changes, as well as helping on the last part. He's amazing!