Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly nor do I profit from this story.

This was originally posted as a response to a prompt at the Bechdel Test Comment Fic-a-thon on Livejournal. I actually wrote two versions of this and never figured out which one I liked best so I'll post both.

Prompt: iCarly, Carly and Sam, family dinner

Nine times out of ten, if someone was looking for Sam Puckett, then they merely had to look within 10 feet of Carly Shay. The one exception was school as Sam would happily skip all of her classes unless Carly was there to rein her in.

The Pucketts' kitchen tended to be empty more times than full. So it was never a surprise to either Spencer or Carly when Sam would come over and have dinner.

Friday night had always been family night for the Shays. When Carly's mother was alive, that meant homemade meals and board games. When Carly lived with her father, it meant pizza and a movie. So it's only natural that when Carly moves in with Spencer, they reserve Friday nights to catch each other up on the latest in their lives whether it's a new sculpture or episode of iCarly over spaghetti tacos and then a round of video games.

Then Carly makes a friend out of Sam Puckett, a girl she met at school who is fierce and wild in a way that Carly wishes she could be sometimes. At first, Carly was hesitant to introduce Spencer to Sam, afraid that her big brother would think being friends with an almost juvenile delinquent was a bad idea. Which is why she decided that the best time to introduce them would be at a family dinner. After getting Spencer's permission to have a friend join them on Friday night, then came the hard task of asking Sam.

"Sam?"

"What's up cupcake?"

"?" Carly asked in a rush.

Sam blinked at the verbal explosion that came from her new friend. "What?"

Carly took a deep breath and tried again. "Do you want to come to my house for dinner on Friday?"

Sam blinked again. And then there was silence as she continued to stare at Carly. Finally, Carly had enough of the blank stare. "Sam? Are you ok?" she asked while waving her hand in front of her friend's face.

That snapped Sam out of her musings. "Are you sure Carly? I mean, I know that Fridays are special for you and your brother."

"Well. Of course I'm sure otherwise I wouldn't be asking silly."