Notes: This story will likely be 4 chapters, and perhaps an epilogue.
Thanks to reviewers, fbnk-luv, Princess7Strawberry, PerennialKillJoy, teasers, Drag0nL0rd and j.
Addie: That's the million dollar question. You wouldn't want to be spoiled now would you? I'd welcome everyone's thoughts on this (Creddie or just Carly/Freddie friendship). Regardless of what happens, it's not going to be fluffy rainbows and sunshine.
Freddie never hit back. No matter how bad she got, no matter how much pain she inflicted. Freddie would just wait. Until her rage subsided. They didn't start that way. They were happy. For months. Or maybe it was happening already, but Freddie was able to hide it. Maybe I wasn't as good a friend as I thought I was.
Wendy was the first clear, unmistakable sign to me that something was wrong.
All Freddie was doing was talking to her about a English assignment that was due the following week. Sam stormed over, grabbed Freddie by the collar and threw him to the ground. Sam towered over him, warned him not to flirt with other girls, before lifting him up and slamming him against the locker. The anger in her eyes quickly subsided as Freddie looked back at her. With love. Sam said a few words of apology to Freddie, and they started making out in front of me.
The next day I asked him what it was about. "Oh, just a misunderstanding. It's cool." And I didn't think much of it. They looked like a regular, normal couple. They fought sometimes, but they fought as badly before they got together. Sometimes worse. I thought it was just the same old Freddie and Sam at the time, but that ignorance didn't last.
What could I do? Would the police care? Would they even believe me?
Freddie had become practiced at lying, he could avoid gym classes, he could bluff his way through the doctors appointments. I caught him hacking into the Doctor's office through a school computer once. I didn't know he was that good. He also convinced his mother to give him more space. It involved being naked with Sam, handcuffs, a blueberry pie and a large wooden spoon.
What if they did believe me? Sam would go to jail. Freddie would hate me. I didn't want Sam to go to jail, or Freddie to hate me. I asked Spencer for some advice, the entire wording shuffled, hidden, obscured, until only the very core problem remained.
"Freddie and Sam aren't doing drugs are they?" Even Spencer had noticed how things had changed. He'd even had a quick word to Freddie once, man to man, asking if he was really doing all those things Sam would randomly accuse him of.
Even though I'd changed the names, it was blatantly obvious.
"No, it's not that."
"It's not you right? I know sometimes it can be hard growing up, but no matter what happens, I'll always support you sis." Spencer looked at me with love, affection. I sometimes thought about my mother and father, how I'd lost her, and then I'd lost him.
"Thanks, I know you will, but it's not me. I just don't know what to do." I pleaded, needing something, anything, to help me get Freddie back from Sam.
"People can't be helped unless they want to. You can't force someone to change, or even to ask for help. They have to admit there is a problem. Just pray that they realize before it hurts them or the people around them."
Spencer had taken up his responsibilities at such a young age. Even though sometimes it was like I was taking care of him, I know in my heart it's really the other way around.
Spencer wants to shield me from the hate and anger and pain in the world. Spencer knows it's out there, helps me through it when it comes into our lives, but prefers to focus on the good.
Spencer acts the way he does because to act otherwise would let the crushing hurt take over our lives.
Losing our mother.
Losing our father.
Spencer losing the woman he loved.
I thought she loved Spencer for who he was. Her hair was long, straight, and jet black. She was tall, or at least I remember her towering over me whenever she came over to visit Spencer. And she was so smart. Smarter than even Freddie. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. Then one day she was gone.
Our grandfather wasn't the only one who disapproved of his leaving law school. But at least he accepted it the end.
Spencer wasn't always able to hold it in. 'Going to see Socko', most of the time was code for 'going out to get smashed', or 'getting high' as often as it really meant hanging out, and the succession of one-night stands and 2 week long failed relationships made me wonder if he even wanted to fall in love again. But he was always there for me, no matter what.
Spencer was rarely conventional. The conversation that followed the joint falling out of his pants when we were doing the washing went along the lines of 'you don't have to do anything like this if you don't want to, but if you ever want to try, tell me, and I'll make sure you are safe about it'.
That talk was over dinner (he wanted Sam and Freddie to be there, because it involved them as well) a few days after. The more conventional part was the warning that weed was the only drug he would do this with, because everything else could be so dangerous and potentially deadly. We had to promise not to take pills, watch our drinks if we went to parties, and if we got drunk or in trouble, to call Spencer and he would pick us up without hesitation. I know he pulled Freddie away for a guy talk later, and it was why Freddie always stayed with me right until I wanted to leave.
I resented it for a while, knowing that Freddie was always hovering, that restriction had pissed me off for a while. It was the cause of our biggest fight, long before Freddie had given up on me, before I'd fallen in love with him, and before Sam seduced him.
I wanted Freddie to leave me alone for a while so I could go to some parties on my own, Freddie said he just wanted to keep me safe. I yelled at him, accusing him of being jealous and that his goal was to stop guys from talking, touching or making out with me, and that it was none of his business if I did any of those things if I wanted to. Freddie told Spencer when I lied to him and went to a party without telling anyone.
Spencer grounded me for a month to show just how seriously he took it. The fight went on for the length of the grounding, and long into the next month.
The wake-up call I needed was hearing the rumors about a freshman girl getting raped at a party hosted by a senior. I really hoped they weren't true, but in my heart I knew that it happened to someone, even if it wasn't the girl everyone was talking about. Rhona, of all people, told us about it.
We both looked at Rhona, weakly nodded our heads, then we turned to face each other.
The looks we gave each other ended the fight right then and there. No resentment, no jealousy, just an unspoken apology from me, a relieved acceptance from Freddie, and a hug to go back to normal.
After finishing the talk with Spencer, I went across the hall, to spend some time with Freddie, to talk about anything but his relationship with Sam. Galaxy Wars, being almost half-way through our 2nd last year of school, his nerdy tech stuff I didn't understand half the time but I still loved to hear him talking about because he lit up when I took an interest in his techy stuff, and some ideas for the show.
Freddie asked me how I was doing, if I liked any new guys (I did), if I was going to ask the lucky guy out (He had a girlfriend), and that he was sorry to hear that (so was I). It hurt so badly. My sight shimmered with a watery haze, and I wept a little.
"Come on Carly, he can't be that great, not if he's with this girlfriend of his, and not you." He reached over and the few tears that rolled down my cheeks were padded away by his thumb.
He was so wrong I laughed out loud.
"Right as always Freddie."
"That's the spirit. I hate it when you cry." I choked up again from his words. I wanted to blame it on fate, or karma, but that was just making excuses for my own behavior. It wasn't fate that kept rejecting Freddie, it wasn't karma that brought him and Sam together.
"I know how it feels. You aren't alone." Then he smiled, that warm compassionate smile.
"It's okay. I never feel alone when I'm with you."
We kept on conversing, sitting on his bed, my back against his bedroom wall. Talking, laughing, he could always make me laugh, whilst his keyboard clicked and clacked, writing up a book report.
It was just like it had been before. Before I went to Yakima, before that dance, and before Sam slept with him. Hours passed in a daze, after he finished the book report, we watched the blazing orange sunset from the fire escape.
"Should I try to break them up? Or try and get with the guy behind her back?"
Now it was Freddie's turn to laugh, "You're way too nice to do that."
I took a sip of my Preppy Cola before continuing, "What? I can't be bad sometimes?"
Freddie gave me that trademark, Carly melting (I'm glad I'm sitting already, because it makes my knees weak) smirk of his, "Are you serious? I know for a fact you would hate yourself for every moment you were with him behind her back. Plus you know how Sam felt after Jonah tried to cheat on her, and you wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. It's just too 'icky'."
"Right. It was silly idea."
"I'm paraphrasing a little, but a teacher once told me there are no silly ideas, just silly actions. As long as you keep the silly ideas from becoming silly actions, you don't have a problem. And I know you Carly, you wouldn't ever do anything like that, so don't worry about it."
"Have I ever told you how smart you are?"
And suddenly shy old Freddie was back, head dipped, a small blush creeping over his smiling face. Nothing more needed to be said. Time stood still under the glowing sunset, seemingly refusing to fall. Whilst I was here with Freddie it felt like nothing would change. Everything was right and good and pure.
It was majestic. Freddie taught me that word (or more accurately, I had to look it up in a dictionary), so long ago. During the love-poem stage of his crush on me. I've never told anyone, even Freddie, but I keep them all in the hope chest my mother left in my room, that was given to my mother by her mother.
Sam called. The sun blinked down in an instant, covering the world in sharp, harrowing darkness. I sat there with only the chair Freddie was sitting in before he left, watching the twinkling stars, until Ms Benson came home, saw me and asked if I was going to stay for dinner. I made my excuses and went back to the apartment.
The next day at school, Freddie tramped around, hiding a limp that he wasn't suffering from the night before.