Author's Note: I seriously don't know where I get my ideas from. Really.

Read and review anyway.

iTurn Twenty-Five

Part 1 of 2: SAM

Fuck. They fucking forgot my birthday. It was like she was living her own rendition of Sixteen Candles. Except she was turning twenty-five. And she was no Molly Ringwald. (Coincidentally enough, Molly's character was named Sam too). She could probably bet that there was no Jake Ryan to woo her by the time the night was over, either.

Sam Puckett bitterly finished the rest of her beer at the bar counter, her third for the evening. She was sitting in front of the bartender, warily glancing around at the leery men surrounding her. Thankfully, she brought pepper spray, in case anyone was going to try anything. That, or she could kick them in the balls. Either way would do.

Her head was starting to feel a bit woozy after she finished that last beer. Which was weird, because she could usually hold her liquor a lot better than this. She was the one who claimed she could drink at least five beers and still walk in a straight line. Or perhaps that was just talk. Besides, she hadn't been so overly doing it drunk since her twenty-first birthday, four years earlier. Her best friend Carly had taken her to Vegas then (cliche, she knew), but that didn't make it any less fun. It was definitely top of her list for favorite birthday. Ever.

Alright, so maybe tuning twenty-five was a bigger deal to her than it should to anyone, and maybe it wasn't exactly a milestone, per se, but it was still her birthday. She was still turning one year older and she still demanded attention for it. It only came once a year, after all.

What she really needed more, though, was fresh air. The stuffiness of the bar was getting a bit too much.

She gingerly placed two dollar bills on the counter as a tip (she wasn't going to pay very much for extremely shitty beer, which it had been), grabbed her purse, and headed for the exit.

Once she was outside in the crisp spring air, she instantly felt much better. Calmed. Looking around, Sam vaguely recognized where she was. Before she had left her apartment a few hours earlier, still in her "woe-is-me" rage, she was intent on finding a bar, any bar, to take away her misery. She didn't realize she had ended up in this section of the city until now. And now it dawned on her that nobody she knew lived around here. Well, except maybe one person: Carly's good friend, Freddie Benson.

Sam had met Freddie a few times, in passing. His mother and Carly's mother were good friends and neighbors before the Bensons had moved out of Carly's apartment complex, Bushwell Plaza, when Carly and Freddie were just starting fifth grade. Carly later introduced Sam and Freddie when they were in high school, around sophomore year. They only saw each other a few times after that, before graduating, and Carly had moved out to Los Angeles to start her acting career. To Sam, Freddie seemed like a decent enough guy, albeit too nerdy for Sam's taste (her automatic disapproval when it came to him), but she was sure he'd be there for her while her chips were down. The idea of going to Freddie's seemed a whole hell of a lot better than winding up on the pavement in front of a...courthouse, or something.

It was settled. He would just have to let her crash at his place. It was her birthday, and she was alone. She didn't deserve to be alone.

~ x ~

Sam knew that Freddie's place was only a few blocks down from the bar, so she wandered towards the direction of his apartment, her pepper spray tucked away safely in her pocket. It was dark and there weren't too many streetlights lit, and she didn't want to take any chances.

She reached the apartment building shortly, which was small and crumbly looking. There were three floors and box outside the main door to buzz up the tenants. Sam quickly scanned the list, and found "F. Benson, 3A." Holding her breath, she pressed the button next to his name.

A chime rang, allowing Sam to climb the three flights of stairs up to Freddie's. She reached 3A, and knocked on the door twice. She waited. What would she do once she saw him, she didn't know.

The door opened a moment later, and Freddie stood in the doorway. Whoa. Double take.

His dark hair was rumpled (probably from him attempting to rip his hair out after staring at the computer for countless hours, frustrated by the programs he'd been working on all night), his tie was loosely hung around the collar of his untucked shirt, and he was looking at her with the most intense gaze anyone had ever given her, his dark brown eyes boring into her bright blue ones.

"Shit," she heard him mutter. Well. He clearly wasn't expecting her to show up at his tonight.

Sam realized it had probably been about a year or two since she last saw Freddie, probably the last time when Carly had been home. Her eyes raked over his body again; since when did he look so damn good? If she wasn't feeling so damn lousy, she probably would have jumped him right then and there. It had been so long since she had slept with a man. (Which she may or may not remember in the morning, but it would probably be the best experience of this otherwise fucked up birthday.)

"Sam?" Freddie said at last. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least he remembered who she was.

"It's my birthday," she explained lamely.

"I'm...sorry?" he asked, not sure what she was getting at.

It occurred to Sam just then that even though they had met a few times, she had never told him such details like that. It was Carly and Freddie who were close, not her and Freddie. And here she was, expecting him to apologize for missing her birthday.

"No one was there," she tried. "I went to a bar, and my friends never showed." She sighed. "It's my birthday, and I'm alone."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, more genuinely. "What a shitty thing to do." That seemed to be his choice of curse word tonight.

And before she had the chance to even thank him or smile or do anything, her stomach gave a violent lurch, and she ended up spewing all over Freddie's wooden floor.

That was attractive.