Thanks for being so intrigued with this story that you clicked for the next chapter!
Hey guys, sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. School is starting soon and I've been pretty absorbed in real life. Shocking, right? Well, I don't know when the next chapter will be done, but I've got it pretty well outlined…in my brain. So, let's shoot for next week sometime, yes? Awesome! Enjoy chapter two!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own iCarly or any of its characters.
Freddie could barely feel anything. He knew his face was frozen with his mouth hanging open like a fish, but he couldn't bring himself to shut it. He was too shocked by what had just happened.
Melanie seemed to sense that something was wrong when she noticed that Freddie wasn't hugging her back, and rather just standing there while she had her arms around him. She pulled away and looked confused. "Um…Freddie?" she questioned. "Are you…are you alright?" When Freddie still didn't respond, she looked over to Carly and Sam. "Did I do something?"
"He might be a little bit…flabbergasted?" Carly guessed. "It's kind of a long story…"
Sam looked very annoyed with the whole situation. "C'mon Freddork, snap out of it." She reached out and grabbed Freddie's arm in a very hard pinch.
Freddie sprang back to the world of the living. "Ow!" he exclaimed, as Sam pulled him away from Melanie. "Ow, ow, ow!" He finally escaped Sam's grip and grabbed his arm where her nails had left a bright red mark. He through a look of indignation towards Sam. "OW!" he complained at her.
"Ah, grow up, you big baby," Sam muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets with a smirk. "What do you want, Melanie?" she asked the girl still standing in the doorway, sounding more irritated than usual.
"You ran out of the house so fast, I was worried something was wrong," Melanie explained, still glancing towards Freddie with her slightly confused look.
"Yeah, well-," Sam began, but was cut off by a sudden exclamation from Freddie.
"You're real?" he shouted, gripping his hair in both hands. The three girls looked back at him. Carly seemed sympathetic.
With slight hesitation, Melanie nodded her head. "Yeah…wait…you really still thought I was Sam?" Melanie looked at Sam accusingly. "You told me that you told him I was real!"
"I did," Sam said with a shrug. "Is it my fault he still didn't believe us?"
Carly shrugged as well. "We just thought it might be best to…you know, leave him clueless. Save him the confusion."
"And save us the headache," Sam grumbled under her breath as she walked back to the kitchen. Melanie rolled her eyes and walked into the apartment, shutting the front door.
Freddie was slowly getting a grip on himself. "Okay…" he said slowly. "Okay…so there's…two…of you?"
"No, there's not!" Sam yelled at him from the kitchen. "There's one of me, and one of it!"
Melanie looked highly insulted. "Excuse me? Sam, did you just call me it?"
"Yeah, I did, Mels. What are you gonna do about it?" Sam challenged, looking smug as she drank her root beer. Melanie sighed and smiled slightly at her sister.
"That's okay," she proclaimed. "I know that somewhere, deep down, you love me, Sam, and you can't get rid of that part."
"I can keep trying, though," Sam muttered, sitting down at the table and taking a handful of grapes from the bowl on the table.
Freddie took a deep breath and shook his head, feeling a little bit woozy. "I think I need to sit down," he said quietly, taking a place on the couch and staring straight ahead. Behind him, Carly and Melanie exchanged a slightly concerned look.
"I think he's gone into shock," he heard Carly explaining.
"Should we leave him like that…?" Melanie asked uncertainly.
"He should be fine," Carly told her, basically shrugging off the whole situation. Freddie heard her walk back to the kitchen and join Sam at the table, where a hushed conversation started taking place.
Melanie, however, came and sat next to Freddie. "Um…Freddie?" she called softly, and meekly. She reached out a small hand to touch his shoulder, and Freddie slightly recoiled, but was seemingly brought back to the human world. He glanced at her and attempted a smile.
"Yeah!" he responded, too enthusiastically to appear genuine. Melanie raised an eyebrow at him and he felt the fake smile slide off his face.
"Are you alright?" she asked him, looking concerned. "You seem…kind of freaked out."
"That might be because I'm a little freaked out," Freddie confirmed, his voice cracking a bit.
Melanie couldn't help but giggle the tiniest bit. "Well," she began, stopping her laughter. "Why? I mean, you had to think there was a slight possibility that I was real. Sam said that you were convinced. Although, now," she added, throwing a look over at Sam, who was still talking with Carly in the kitchen. "I guess I know that was a lie."
It was Freddie's turn to laugh. "Yeah, that's a shock," he mumbled, leaning back into the couch and letting his head rest on the back.
There was a short pause where neither said anything to each other. "Well…I hope there's no more confusion," Melanie said awkwardly, getting up. "Sorry, I guess." Freddie looked up as she smiled at him and walked over to join her sister and Carly in the kitchen. While she joined in on their conversation, however, things quickly got a bit…enflamed.
"Come on!" Sam groaned, slamming her empty root beer bottle down and getting up from the table. "See, this is exactly what I'm trying to tell you, Carly! She has to be in on everything I do!"
Carly sighed and got up too. "Sam, try to cool it! You usually deal with this way better than you are right now. Doesn't Melanie come to visit every summer?"
"Yeah, but she's usually not this freaking annoying!" Sam exclaimed.
Melanie was standing near Sam, leaning against the counter with her arms folded across her chest, looking as though this was something she's used to. Freddie examined both girls, trying to find a difference between them.
All he could see, however, were the personal things about them. Like the fact that Sam's hair was loose around her shoulders, while Melanie's was pulled up in a high ponytail. And how Melanie was wearing a white, flowery skirt and pink top with sandals on her feet, as opposed to Sam's dark jean shorts and black tank top paired with black converse. Add in the differences in voice and behavior and it was completely obvious that these two girls were completely different.
Then why hadn't he realized that before?
Freddie was so focused on wondering how he had ever believed that Melanie could have been Sam, that he barely heard Carly saying his name.
"Freddie!" she shouted, very close to his ear, and he snapped back to attention. Carly was standing directly next to him, an amused smile on her face. "Daydream much?"
"Sorry," he apologized. "You guys did kind of drop a lot on me this morning. Give me a break."
"Ah, grow up, Benson," Sam shouted at him from the kitchen, still looking very cheesed off about the morning's proceedings.
Carly laughed. "Anyway, so do you guys want to go over our iCarly stuff now?" Freddie shrugged and nodded, getting up from the couch. "Okay, cool." Carly glanced over at Sam. "Sam? Studio?"
"Fine," Sam grumbled, grabbing an entire bunch of grapes from the bowl and taking them with her as she walked to the stairs.
"Can I join you?" Melanie asked, almost timidly. Freddie winced as he saw Sam's eyes go wide. She whirled around.
"No, you may not!" Sam hissed. "God, Melanie, these are my friends, not yours! Yours are at that snooty boarding school!"
"I'm her friend," Carly objected. "And yes, Melanie, you can join us."
"But…" Sam began to argue. "Carls…"
"She's joining us," Carly said, with finality etched in her voice. "You've got to be nicer to each other. Or, actually, you've got to be nicer to her."
Sam only gave a wordless groan and stomped up the stairs, Carly close behind her. Freddie and Melanie reached the stairs at the same time as Melanie. They both stopped and smiled slightly at each other. She gestured. "You first."
"Oh no," Freddie refused, shaking his head and gesturing as well. "Um, ladies first."
Melanie grinned vaguely. "Well, thanks," she replied, going in front of him up the stairs. "We're going to be really awkward with each other, aren't we?" she asked without even turning to face him.
"Yeah, probably," Freddie agreed, following her up to the iCarly studio.
