This is not a songfic, but it's based on If This Was A Movie by Taylor Swift and it contains a few verses. Also, there probably a lot of mistakes in here. English is not my first language and I realize I am a mess with past tenses, so if you find mistakes, just report them. I hope you like it. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly, the characters and this song.
.:::.
Six months going and I'm still reaching, even though I know you're not there.
Back and forth. Walking to the window, taking a tentative look outside, being disappointed and turning back to pace around the room. Back and forth.
It seemed all she could do nowadays. It was all she could do for the latest six months, when she was alone. She put on her usual smirk when she was with her friends, she put up her usual façade of ignorance, carelessness and toughness she was stuck with, and she hid behind the massive brick wall that was her only safety. In retrospective, maybe she should've learned to let the others take care of her sometimes; she should've known it was impossible to save herself.
If you looked at her face or stuck around enough to really know her, you'd think she was the wittiest, physically and emotionally strongest troublemaker Seattle had ever seen; half of them would say she was even mean, while the other half would think of her as funny, and maybe a little bit crazy. No matter how many times you looked at her or how long you'd known her for, it was the impression she left on everyone.
You'd never catch her being sad or crying. She wouldn't allow it. She herself never dared to penetrate in the intricate meanders of her mind, and therefore didn't expect anyone to ever reach it nor understand her fully. She'd locked herself in the very maze she built, a maze oh-so-complicated she couldn't find her way back either.
But when she was alone, when she had no one to impress and no reason to fake, that was when she came out in the open. Ever since that night, she'd spend her time alone remembering, thinking and hoping. Could she have avoided it if she wanted to? Did she really do the right thing, as she believed, or did she just ruin the best thing that had ever happened to her because she was scared?
She was suffocating. All the silence was suffocating her. Their footsteps as they climbed up the stairs were too loud, and were just enhancing the awkwardness.
She was having too many thoughts at the same time. What they had just heard couldn't be ignored. They had been so stupid, thinking they could keep on pretending. Thinking they could have a normal relationship.
They were never going to be normal, and she had to accept that. She had to accept they were only fooling themselves. That this relationship couldn't go anywhere. That they were highly dysfunctional, and it didn't do either of them any good. Over the course of their three weeks together, they only encountered problems.
All the fighting. Carly angry at them. Everyone trying to sabotage their relationship. Them not being able to fit in each other's lives. What if this, them, was really just one big mistake? How could she let herself take chances on their relationship, thinking everything would go perfectly, when they'd hated each other for years, fought each other for years, tried to destroy everything that was good in each other's present and future? Especially her, because he had always been so perfect. Never complained or tried to get revenge on her, despite everything she did daily to him, even when he had the chance. He was way too good to humiliate her back.
They were a destructive force. They collided, clashed and never melted enough at the middle, causing them to bounce over everything around them, to break their pieces.
She couldn't take it anymore. None of them was talking, but she could hear all the unspoken thoughts in the suddenly too small elevator, and the tension was killing her.
Suddenly, she stopped the elevator. For a while, no one talked, and the tension only increased.
She breathed. "So..."
He looked at her, with concern in his eyes. "She wasn't talking about us."
She nodded slightly. "I know." A heavy feeling settled in her chest, not letting her breathe properly. "But...you think, maybe, you and I...are taking some connection we have and..."
"Trying to...force it into a boyfriend-girlfriend thing?" he completed for her.
The pain in her chest tightened. Hearing him say it only made the situation more real. "Yeah."
"Well, I mean...I don't know..." She did her best to look down at her shoes. "It's like...after all the years, of us being like...at each other's throats...when you...kissed me...that night at school, it was pretty...intense."
She recalled that night. The lock-in, Brad and his fudge, the MoodFace App that blew her cover, Carly and Freddie trying to hook her up with Brad, the courtyard...the kiss. The moment she'd completely lost her common sense and gave up everything she was so desperately fighting against. They had never really talked about it, but if she had to describe that kiss with one word, it would just be "intense". Maybe it was the moment, the fact that she wanted so much to shut him up. Maybe it was his eyes, or his voice, or that she was so tired she couldn't think straight, but that was the first time he, or any person, really saw her.
Then she recalled the other kiss. The one he gave her, in the mental institution she'd checked herself in because she was scared of what she was feeling, scared she'd just shown him a part of her no one ever reached and scared she had lost her mind. But of course, he'd made it all better. He always did.
"Hey, it put me in a mental hospital." I mentioned, and we laughed slightly.
And after that kiss, there had been many more. She never let herself think one day, she'd have the courage to kiss Freddie, he'd kiss her back and they'd start dating. She never asked him what he thought about the kiss, when did he start feeling that way about her and why, if the kiss had something to do with it. It's not like she had planned it…she'd just caved, tried to put all of her pent up, tormented feelings in one kiss, tried to pour on him all the love she felt.
"So…that kiss was…just intense?"
Freddie turned to look at her, and he smiled sweetly. "And fun."
She smiled too. It felt so weird, it was like they were recalling their moments from the past because now everything was coming to an end, like a flashback show. She could feel it. It was for the best. And since nothing could stop her now, she had a little, tiny glint of hope that he'd do something to stop her. That he'd try to make her reason and make her understand they could work out. She hoped he wouldn't give up so easily.
"Yeah, I guess you and I don't really click…that way."
But he did give up so easily. Not because he wanted to. He didn't care if they were wrong for each other; he knew they could've worked everything out, if they tried. He didn't care that everyone else thought they shouldn't be together, that they were too different, that she was a troublemaker whose mission was making his life difficult. She was impulsive, and aggressive, and lazy, and would probably get to nothing. And he loved her more than anything.
Yes, he was sick, he was insane, he belonged in the mental ward. Nothing in their life had ever been normal. They couldn't be normal.
He thought he knew Sam Puckett. He thought he knew her better than anyone else, that he could get under her skin and figure her out. But when she kissed him, that night, he learnt you could never figure her out enough. Just when he thought he knew how she worked, that's when she surprised him. He was perfectly content with just being friends with her: after four years, they were finally civil around each other. But no, she had to mess up with his mind and his feelings.
His life had two simple basis: he loved Carly and Sam hated him. In one night, she had been able to throw both of them off balance, to the point he found himself hanging on to nothing. Everything he had ever felt in his life, he realized, had been a lie.
He couldn't explain why he felt so attached to this girl who tried everything to make his life miserable. He didn't know why he cared so much about her, while she never seemed to care as much about him. He only knew she was his friend, and she needed him, even if she would have never admitted it. He only ever wanted to make her happy, because the girl was always so full of life, had that fire in her eyes and that smirk on her face, the same smirk that had always let him know she was about to do something to him and warned him to run, but that recently he learned to love, because he had stopped running away from her. He wasn't scared of her anymore, because he was sure her mask didn't work anymore on him.
But that night, he watched a Sam he'd never known before. She was little. Scared. Sad. In all the years he'd known her, no boy had reduced her like that. Not even Jonah. It never would have crossed his mind that he would be the one who'd eventually make her walls crumble.
So he'd kissed her live, on iCarly, when she expected him to take revenge on her for everything she had done to him. If she had really known him, she'd have also known he would have never embarrassed or taken revenge on her. He was more mature, and smarter than that. That girl liked him, and he was so sure he liked her too. He had liked her for so much time and he didn't even know. That's why he felt so attached to her. That's why he cared about her despite her insults and beatings. The kiss made everything rise to surface. The pieces fit, and the image was clear.
I know people change and these things happen, but I remember how it was back then. Wrapped up in your arms and our friends were laughing, 'cause nothing like this ever happened to them.
When they were dating, he'd discovered a whole new Sam. Of course he didn't expect her to be all nice and sweet; he hated Nice Sam. Nice Sam was not his Sam, and he loved his Sam, despite and because of all her flaws. He didn't want to go back to the week before the lock-in, when Sam had been sickeningly kind to him in hopes of catching his attention. Looking back to it, his heart ached. He should have seen it coming. He should have noticed. He spent all those years trying to get Carly to notice him, and he imagined how Sam must have felt. He hated that Sam felt obligated to change herself because he didn't like her. He hated that Sam had wanted to change to impress someone, just because that someone was too stupid to see what was in front of him.
Now that she knew he liked her a well, she was Normal Sam again, or at least as normal as Sam could be. She hit him, she embarrassed him, she messed with him. But he'd been able to see the real her. He'd seen for the first time how beautiful she was, and scolded himself for never noticing. He'd seen her smile when she was really happy, and it made him proud knowing it was because of him. He'd seen her eyes light up when she was near bacon or fatcakes, and sometimes he'd bring her some food just to see that spark in her eyes. He'd seen her fill his teacher's car with bees because he'd given him a B, and not an A as he expected.
But dating Sam was also messy. They weren't exactly the perfect, happy couple. No matter how much they'd tried, they were wearing their friends down and hurting the others around them.
Maybe they really should have broken up. At the time, he hadn't had time to think about it: he just went with what she wanted, because he didn't want to force her to stay with him.
After all, she had never come back to him again.
Nothing's gonna change, not for me and you….not before I knew how much I had to lose.
"Yeah, I guess you and I don't really click…that way."
He knew they could. Maybe with time. Maybe when they were both mature enough for a relationship. Maybe they should have taken a pause. He found himself nodding. "Yeah. But, you know, maybe one day, if you get a little more normal…"
"Or, if you get a little more abnormal…" she shot back.
He nodded and pressed my head against the elevator wall, contemplating what had just happened. Silence. Horrible silence. Silence too loud. He couldn't believe it had happened for real.
"So did we just break up?" she voiced. Her voice was unsure, weak, like she was dreading this moment. But she was the one who decided to bring it up. He didn't want to break up. He wanted to keep holding on to her and never let go, but he couldn't force her to stay with him. If she wanted to break up, then there was nothing he could do.
"Feels like it." he murmured, keeping his eyes high to stop tears and avoid her eyes. She looked stiff for a moment, and sad. Even sadder than he had seen her at the lock-in. And he had to ask her, just to be sure she wanted this. "But it was..mutual, right?"
He wanted her to say no. He wanted her to laugh and make him realize how stupid they had been, about to break up, and kiss him. But she didn't. "Yeah…" she grinned, but he could tell it was a nervous grin. Her voice slightly wavered too. "But I'm still gonna tell people I dumped your butt and broke your nerdy little heart."
He looked at her, and smiled slightly. That was his Sam. And he was about to lose her for good. But she wanted things to go this way, and who was he to stop her? He didn't want to make her feel bad for breaking up with him, so he had to pretend. But she did break his heart. The pieces he had finally collected were splattered around, on the elevator floor. "Fair enough."
She looked away from him, looking at the floor, and shrugged. "Oh, well."
She restarted the elevator. She was standing beside him, still, and with an expression he couldn't decipher. He didn't dare to look at her, because he knew if he did, he could've started crying. He kept his head on the wall, biting his lip and thinking about what had just happened. He was losing her. He was losing the girl he loved, and could do anything about it.
Yes, loved. He loved her. He was realizing it just now, now that he was about to lose her. But he couldn't let her get away from him before she knew.
The elevator doors opened. He glanced at her, bracing himself for what was coming. She never looked back, just stared at the floor. In that moment, he realized he knew Sam enough to say she loved him too.
She walked out of the elevator and away from him, her heels clattering on the floor and her eyes still on the ground. He walked out too, following her.
"I love you."
She had lost him. She had let him slip away from her, and now she felt more alone than ever. They never showed that in movies. In movies, the girl and the boy were always in love at first sight and it lasted forever, and even if they ever broke up, they were still so in love and the audience was sure they'd get back together, at the end. Sure, sometimes they showed the girl crying on her bed like a sap after the break up, or the boy punching the wall of his room, but it only made her want to shout "HEY! Wake up! You two still love each other and OF COURSE you'll be together in the end, so don't cry, jeez!". That's why she hated chick flicks.
Come back, come back, come back to me like you would if this was a movie.
She wasn't one to throw herself on a bed and cry on a pillow, or eat ice cream and rift through pictures (though she never turned down ice cream). She looked outside the window. She waited for something to happen, waited to see something familiar in the rain that constantly poured on Seattle. She couldn't say why she kept doing that, even if she knew it was pointless. She just wished he were there with her. She was so tired of always making the first moves. She wanted him to go after her. She wanted to stop pretending nothing was wrong and restart where they left off. Just for a moment…just for a night. Maybe, if he'd reassured her and told her he still loved her, she would have felt better.
But after their last night, he'd never given her clues he still wanted to be with her. He'd never gave her a reason to believe he still loved her. It was like their feelings for each other had never existed, and had disappeared as fast as they came, like in a dream. They had gone back to just being Sam and Freddie, the bickering sidekicks. She couldn't believe he had forgotten about them so fast. Did he even love her? Or did he tell her just because he didn't want to hurt her? Did he feel obligated to say it because they were breaking up? Was he actually happy she had gotten out of his way?
She needed him to reassure her and to tell her they'd be together again, one day, and he'd wait for her. But how could she be sure? She hadn't been able to move on, but what about him? He never told her anything anymore. For all she knew, he could be on a date with a girl in that very moment, and the only thought of another girl holding him on a couch and laughing with him over a plate of lasagna shattered her heart. How could he move on so fast, while she was still stuck on him?
It was selfish of her to think this way. He deserved a nice girlfriend. Someone who would've treated him kindly, and better than her. He could have that. But you couldn't blame her if she still wished he'd stick with her and come back to her. Come back.
"I love you."
Her head suddenly lifted from the ground, and she stopped in her tracks as she registered the voice and what it was saying.
The voice was Freddie's, and he was saying he loved her.
Never, not even in her craziest fantasies, Freddie Benson had ever told her that.
No one had ever told her in that way, with those eyes and that voice.
And even if her first priority always had been protecting herself and never putting her feelings out there, that boy had already changed the rules. She didn't care they were breaking up. He loved her, and it was the best thing anyone, him especially, could ever say to her.
He already knew she loved him. MoodFace had told him so. Carly had told him so. And she figured there was nothing bad in telling him herself. He'd made her feel safe. He'd made her understand if she ever showed her weakness to him, everything would've been okay. There was nothing to fear.
Her walls crumbled down again, like they did at the lock-in. She finally felt free. She could trust him.
She turned towards him, watching his expression. He was waiting, and he was looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.
She took a breath, smiling slightly. "I love you too." She felt tears prickling in her eyes, and masked the crack of her voice with a chuckle. He chuckled too. She knew she hadn't fooled him.
That was the second time he really saw her, but strangely, this time he wasn't surprised.
It was like nothing had ever happened. She kept being Sam, humiliating him, messing with him and pretending not to care about him. And sometimes, he wondered if she really meant what she'd said. If she'd really loved him like he had suspected, or if she felt obliged to say it back. After all, he had been wrong about knowing her before.
Yet, he had been so sure. He couldn't explain, but he just knew she loved him, but now it seemed as if he was just convincing himself one day she'd come to him and ask to try again. He didn't want to be rejected. After all, she had wanted to break up. She was the one who had to make an effort, forget her pride and take back what she'd said. She could talk to him in any moment. But she didn't, and as days passed, he felt himself losing hope. It was no use waiting for her.
He wondered if she had been able to move on. If she liked some other guy. If she had gone on some dates recently, if she'd had fun and if she'd decided to go out with them again. Maybe she really didn't care about him, and she had just played with his feelings all along, or maybe it was just a crush.
But he wasn't sure a crush could hurt so much.
She got closer and kissed him for the last time. She put her hands on his shoulders and he wrapped his around her waist, holding her closer. He could feel her slipping away, and just tightened his grip. "Please, don't leave me." He wanted to say. "I won't let you get away from me that easily."
It was short. Maybe the shortest of their kisses, but it gave him shivers all over his spine. He loved her. She loved him. They were breaking up, but it was just temporary. They were just taking a break, and after that pause they'd be right there, waiting for each other.
She pulled away and looked at him. No, he thought. This wasn't over. They couldn't break up now that they knew had finally confessed their feelings. He wanted to enjoy being with her just one more night, and then they could break up.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. "It's only 10.30." he announced, hoping Sam got the hint.
"Wanna break up at midnight?" she suggested.
He smirked and looked around, as if to make sure no one was watching them or no one was entering the building to use the elevator. It'd be blocked for quite a while. "That works."
"Okay." She laughed, and they went back in the elevator together. She pressed the close button seven times, eager for the doors to finally close, as they started kissing.
It was gonna be just a matter of time.
The clock in her room marked 11:59. She sighed, thinking six months before they were about to say goodbye. She'd always wait until midnight to stop looking outside the window, maybe for a symbolic meaning. It all started when she kissed him at midnight, it ended at midnight, and would restart at midnight.
Come back, come back, come back to me like you would if you just said you're sorry, I know that we could work it out somehow…but if this was a movie, you'd be here by now.
The clock rang midnight.
He wasn't coming.
I thought that you'd be here by now…
She wasn't coming.
Come back, come back, come back to me…