The Emancipation of Fred Benson

On our own, Together

Thursday was a very bad day. Sam had four classes with Fred and it hurt to be in the same room with him and not be able to speak to him. Of course everything hurt worse because of the massive hangover she had. She and Carly had downed the better part of the bottle of whiskey they had been drinking last night, and now her whole body was letting her know that it didn't like that at all.

For his part Fred looked great, maybe a little too great for her taste. He seemed to fill every part of her mind.

Sam had never really been out of "like" with Fred, she had just done what she always did with him, well what She and Carly both did about him, stunk a pin in him and put him to the side. He had become both their "back-up plan" for a rainy day. Till he brought it up, she had never noticed how much of her life he had touched. Every major event but the loss of her virginity, which she wished she had shared with him also, he was a part of. He was right about the comparing other men to him when she dated.

For his part, Fred found a measure of peace in his little blow up. The death of his mother had hit him hard, but the fact that the two people he counted on most had been so wrapped up in their lives to notice the pain he was in just caused the little fuse in his brain to fry. He shot glances at Sam when she wasn't looking, and marveled at how even when he was angry at her he could still find her so damned attractive. Especially when he knew that he had no place in her heart.

Brad had been the nail that forever cut him off from Sam, he had spent so much time with her after Will, that he thought maybe this would be the time when she saw him for who and what he was. Instead she had latched on to Brad and Fred felt his heart shatter. He had spent the rest of the summer at the hospital with his mom. The women had moved into the beach house that they, Gibby, and Brad had rented for the summer and left him alone. He had tried to call them, but they never answered and messages went unanswered. He sat in his mom's room everyday and held her hand. She never woke up and just slipped away. His mother was such an extreme person that no one but Fred showed up for it.

That was when he finally took stock of his life. He had let women run and dictate his whole life. His mom, Carly, and Sam, they all drove his life for him and he let them. That was when he had applied for the summer abroad program. He would go some place where he could be his own man for a change, and not have to cater to the women in his life.

Lunch rolled around and Carly and Sam met at the meal hall and got food. Fred walked in and sat a table by himself. Very quickly a very diverse group of people come up to join him. Jocks, geeks, tech nerds, preppies, and even some of the cool crowd and it makes Sam smile. Fred always did have a way of bring people together. Some of the people sitting and laughing at his table would normally be picking on each other, but around Fred, the geek and the jock are laughing together and sharing fries. Nerds who shouldn't stand a chance are sitting with their arms around cheerleader and they look happy. Fred looks happy, he seems at peace with himself. Sam is struck by just how handsome Fred really is, how full of life he is. His eyes have a glow about them and all she can think of is how wonderful it would be to look into those eyes and see the heat and passion in them that she felt being returned to her. Julia walked up to the group and Fred got up to let her sit down and once again Sam noticed that Julia wasn't plain at all, she was beautiful. She was beautiful because Fred made her that way. She was beautiful because he had made her see it in herself and now everyone could see it.

When had Fred become a man she wondered? He was everything most of these boys a college weren't. 'Christ, I fucked up bad,' Sam thought. The question that polled around in her brain was, 'can I fix this?'

.

.

Sam threw her pillow at the alarm clock, but missed it, and the old fashioned wind-up clock continued to ring. Sam was just raising up to fire another pillow at it when she saw that it was almost six-thirty in the morning.

"Shit I'm going to miss saying goodbye to Freddie," she yelled out loud to no one. She had tried, but she just couldn't call him Fred anymore. He was always going to be Freddie to her and that was that. She ran to the bathroom and splashed water on her face and yelled to Carly about getting up to see Freddie off. They rushed out the door and got into Sam's car and raced to the airport.

Fred was standing just inside the waiting area of the flight to New York when he heard Sam and Carly yelling his name. He smiled to himself and waved at the pair as they came up to him.

"Thank God," Carly said out of breath, "We were afraid that we had missed you. You take care of yourself Fred," she leaned in and gave him a very passionate kiss. She ran her tongue along his bottom lip and ran her tongue in his mouth when he opened his lips. Fred pulled away and stared at her with a look of amazement.

"Carly, what the hell was that," he asked her as he wiped his mouth.

"Sorry," she said red faced, "I um kind of lost my head.

Fred smiled and just told her, "it's ok."

Sam stepped up and held her arms open and pulled Fred into a big hug, "You be real careful Freddie," she smiled up at him, "I know, but no way in hell will you ever be a "Fred" to me, she smiled at him.

He grinned back at her and said, "Fair enough, Samantha."

Sam looked up at him again and just grinned. As she looked at him, she leaned her head to the side and began to stand on her toes, Fred tilted his head and began to lean down. Somewhere in the middle they met and their eyes closed and the world exploded.

Sam felt the kiss reach to the bottom of her feet. It had been years since she had really kissed Freddie, and she was amazed at the way it still lit up her insides. She wanted to just melt into the kiss and become part of his body. This is where she was meant to be in his arms, how could she have ever thought that she belonged anywhere else.

"Oceanic Flight 815 to London with a stop at New York is now boarding," the loud speaker announced.

Sam and Freddie broke apart and leaned their heads against each other. Sam found that she couldn't form words at all and just looked into Freddie's eyes.

He smiled at her and ran his thumb down her cheek, "Stay blonde Puckett and watch out for the boys at the beach. I know you'll find yourself a good one day if you look hard enough."

He let her go and grabbed his bag and began to walk toward the gate.

"I think I already found the one," she whispered as she waved at him as he walked through the gate to the plane.

Fred's plane sat down on the tarmac at JFK airport at about twelve-thirty and he had a forty minute layover before the flight continued on to London. Fred walked to the little sandwich shop and ordered a hamburger and fries. His mom would freak at his diet, and he felt a slight tug at his heart as the idea hit him. She would never have stood for this trip if she was alive and he thought maybe that was part of the reason why he had applied for the program anyway. The summer abroad program was just what he needed, a chance to get away from everyone and everything, and finally find out just who the hell Fred was for the first time in his life. He had been the iCarly tech producer, the boy who had a crush on Carly, the boy Sam liked to beat up and make fun of, the boy that Sam had a crush on, the boy who everyone went to when they needed to talk, and during it all somewhere along the way he stopped being a real person in anyone's eyes. He had hoped college would change some of that, but once again he found himself wrapped up in his friend's life to the exclusion of his own.

The third week of school, while sitting at the bar for the weeks boyfriend's are jerks talk, he had gone to the bar for the round of drinks and Sandra had filled them and asked him if he dated either of the girls. He told her no and she asked why he spent so much time with them then. He had told her the whole story and she had smiled at him and told him he was a very good friend and that the two girls were "fucking idiots" for not seeing that the best guy in the place was sitting right across from them. He had smiled at her and thanked her. When the bar closed, Fred had taken Carly back to the apartment first, she was so lit that she thought she was doing an iCarly skit and started playing the dumb farm girl who thinks her best friend is a horse. Any other time it might have been funny and maybe even a little arousing, he could have totally banged her and she would have never known. Alas, Fred wasn't that kind of guy, so he put her to bed and came back for Sam. Sam was in a much more lucid state, still drunk off her ass, but she could walk and was horny as hell. Sandra asked him to swing back by after he got her home and he had said ok.

After getting the very aroused Sam into the bed, Fred walked back to the bar and met Sandra. She asked him why he wasn't out with some girl on a Friday night give her the high hard one instead of taking care of to whining drunk chicks that couldn't see a hot piece of ass that was sitting right in front of them. He had laughed and thanked her, but had said he wasn't a "hot piece" and that he was their friend and he had to make sure they were ok. Sandra smiled at him and called him a "knight in white armor" and touched his face. She then told him her story of a husband who liked the ladies and the ponies and had had bad luck with both. He had left her high and dry when he went "fishing" with the local loan shark, but she had pulled herself together and managed to get a job at the bar. After a few years she bought half of the bar and took over the day to day running of it from the old man who wanted to spend more time with his wife. She told him how after two years she had bought the bar out right and now lived upstairs. They had talked for two hours before either one of them knew it. He wasn't sure which one of them leaned in first, but suddenly they were playing tonsil hunt with each other. He had lifted her onto the bar when she pulled his shirt off and had removed her panties. He had heard about the alphabet theory of oral sex and tried it out. He composed a letter to his dead father and was rewarded with an ear splitting orgasm from Sandra. She then began to return the favor. She removed his pants and underwear and had gasped and looked up at him. She asked him if he'd ever use this "weapon" on a woman and he had told her no. She had grinned and told him that they need to go upstairs because she needed to see if he knew what to do with "it".

Three hours and six orgasms later she had her answer. Twice a week, every week, except when his mother was sick, they had gotten together and "cleaned the pipes" for each other. Somewhere in that time Cindy Bates had seen Fred one night and struck up a conversion with him and they found that they had a lot in common. One thing lead to another and for two weeks Cindy got the other two nights that Sandra didn't. He was amazed that his friends never noticed a thing.

He finished his burger and went back to the gate to sit and wait for the flight to board. He noticed a blonde girl surrounded by several men in dark cloths talking to a tall thin man with gray hair. He had to be her father, because they looked somewhat alike. They spoke French, which intrigued Fred, because it was one of four languages that he spoke fluently. German, Spanish, and Japanese were the others. He chuckled to himself at the fact that none of his friends knew that he spoke those languages.

"Oceanic Flight 815 to London is now boarding at gate 239," the loud speaker announced.

Freddie got up and let the woman and her female friend go in front of him. She smiled at him and he couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. They walked onto the plane and he was pleasantly surprised that they were sitting in the same row. He had seat one and she moved quickly into seat two as her friend smiled and took seat three. They said nothing to each other at the time, they just smiled at each other.

After the flight leveled out the airhostess came by and offered drinks. Both women ordered a coke and Fred asked for a Dr. Pepper. The airhostess gave them honey peanuts and then began to pore the drinks. She passed Fred his drink and then tried to hand the woman hers. The woman couldn't seem to grab the drink and hold the three packs of peanuts and turned to Fred and asked in light French accent English, "Could you please hold these nuts for me?"

Fred grinned at her and in French said, "I normally don't handle other people's nuts, but ok," as he took them from her.

She burst out laughing as she took the drink and Fred thought it sounded like an angel laughing. She blushed at him and then in French said, "I can take them back now, I'll even hold yours if you like, I rather enjoy holding handsome men's nuts."

It was Fred's turn to almost choke on his drink as he laughed. The two of them laughed so hard that people started to look at them.

"Fred, Fred Benson," he said to her in English, as he extended his hand to her.

"Noel, Noel Channel," she smiled at him and extended her own hand.

They touched hands and a current passed between them.

"So, Mr. Benson, what brings you to England?" Noel asked.

"Summer abroad program at Oxford, and you?" he grinned his million dollar best.

Noel found herself blushing at his grin, and found herself wanting to drown in his eyes, "The same, I was in New York visiting my father, he works for the U.N."

"Well I guess we're going to be seeing a lot of each other then," he smiled at her and thought he was very glad for this trip.

The two of them talked for the next hour and a half, till Fred had to go to the bathroom. After he got up to go, Noel turned to her Friend Marie and said, "Marie, I'm in so much trouble."

"How's that?" Marie asked her.

"I'm falling in love with that man," she smiled at her friend.

.

.

Sam had been in a funk ever since Freddie had left. It had been two weeks and she had found that his absence was indeed making her heart grow fonder for him. She had let Carly drag her to this shitty party, and she was miserable. The guys here only reminded her that Freddie was such a catch and that the rest of these guys were just pale imitations of him. She sat in the corner and drank the foul concoction that the guys who were having the party called "punch." About all it was really good for was getting "fucked up", which she was well on her way to doing. She looked over at Carly, who was dancing with some jerk who was trying to shove his tongue down her throat, and Sam wondered just what the hell she was doing here.

"Yo, pretty momma," some drunk jackass said to her as he felt her ass, "how's about we find an empty room and I rock your world!"

"How about you take your hand off my ass and I don't rip your dick off and force feed it to you, sound good," Sam gritted her teeth at him.

"Oh my," he grinned at her, "I love it rough baby!"

Sam grabbed his "package" and swung him around till he was flying out the door of the room and down the steps.

"Come on Carly," Sam grabbed her friend and shoved "tongue boy" out of the way and began to walk toward the door, "This place blows, and if we don't leave, we may end up blowing ourselves."

Sam wondered what Freddie was doing right now.

.

.

Well I hope you liked this chapter. I got tired of reading stories of Sam dating someone else and Freddie always being the one who has to sit and pine away for her as she has a romance with some guy. Well it's Freddie's turn. If you have read my stuff you may recognize the name of Noel from "The Courtship Of Nathan's Father". This is indeed the same Noel who was Freddie's wife in that story. I think Sam needs a run for her money.

As always, please let me know what you think!