Thanks to reviewers: RemDiamond, Poywhere, LanternFan, StoryTeller125, Cobalt45, Fanfic-Reader-88, anzgirl123, iHeartCreddie, SorrisoD'Amore, Lionheart316, Darsnider, DontxLetxGo, Carl Rahl and themarchgirl.

Beta read by themarchgirl.

AN: I changed the name of the story. I hated the original one lol. It just came from a couple words you'll see repeated a couple times in this chapter.


"That's the whole story." Carly was in tears as she recalled the entire story to Don. It was mid-morning on the day after Freddie had quit their friendship, and it didn't seem to her like the tears would ever end.

Don, took it well, outwardly at least. He was internally furious, yet the broken, shattered young girl sitting on her couch in front of him killed any kind of desire to scream or yell.

He stood up, and talked in a neutral tone calculated to not make a bad situation worse, "Carly... I could accept Freddie kissing you. I could maybe chalk up you kissing him back to the a heat of the moment thing. What I can't accept is the lies. He's your best friend."

"No, Sam is my best friend, Freddie said so himself." Carly sobbed her head in her hands.

"You're his best friend though. You should have just told me about how good a friend he was. But you lied. You pulled Freddie and Sam into your lies, you lied to me and you did it with a smile."

"I know I did and I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter. We haven't been together long enough for it to matter. I'm done. Goodbye Carly. I hope you work everything out with you and Freddie." With that, Don turned and started walking towards the apartment door.

Carly jumped up, running over to grab him by the arm, "Wait, Don, please, stop, please don't leave me. I'm sorry about everything. I can change."

"I hope you do. But I'm not the one you should be changing for. He lives in the apartment across the hallway." Don stepped out into the hallway, and out of Carly's life for good.

Carly stared at the door opposite, wishing she could take back everything. Unfortunately, there was no pint-sized angel named Mitch to rescue her this time.


"Come on Gibby!" Sam shouted, they were already 3 minutes late on their scheduled air time. It didn't matter as much since it was a web show, but Carly was a stickler for keeping on time, no matter what.

What she hadn't figured on was just how much Freddie helped keep their show running. The ideas for the show were weak, and took longer to think up. Somehow, despite Sam vetoing nearly every single idea Freddie had ever had, his ideas rumbled around inside the girls brains, the ideas bouncing off their existing ideas, combining, heading off on tangents, and then finally coming out of their mouths. And they needed Freddie to figure out what they needed to do to make it happen on the show itself.

They had nothing new. No new sketches, new ideas, new parodies. Just rehashed versions of stuff they'd stopped doing, in some cases years ago. Yet every idea they came up with reminded Carly of Freddie.

The Englishman Who Was A Terrible Father To His Two Children Named Fuffley And Peeta.

With no Peeta.

They didn't have to reject Freddie's idea for another Tech Time With Freddie. Because there was no Freddie to make the suggestion.

In the end, they'd settled for a Wake Up Spencer clip. Again. Without Freddie. A Random Dancing at the end. Sam pressing the remote that Freddie hooked up to their system. They roped in Spencer for a Hey, What Am I Sitting On?, and a pre-recorded Messin' with Lewbert in the middle. The rehearsal didn't go smoothly either. Gibby was unfamiliar with most of the equipment. Sam kept turning up late as usual and Carly became frustrated at both of them, and it caused barely tolerably friction.

And it showed during the show. Their timing was off, on several occasions they stood around doing nothing, waiting for Gibby to start the next segment. The usual bounce in their steps was lacking, leading to flat delivery and a wave of messages along the lines of 'man the show sucks tonight' in the chat rooms of the live stream. It came to a head when Gibby accidentally hit the random dancing button, when Carly was bringing in the chair for the What Am I Sitting On segment, after Sam had announced they were going to show the Wake Up Spencer clip.

When "RANDOM DANCING" blasted across the room, Carly snapped..

"God Fre.. I mean, Gibby, is it that hard to play one clip?" Carly yelled over the music.

Sam and Gibby were shocked at her outburst, and neither missed that she'd started to say Freddie before quickly correcting herself. Gibby stood there waiting for Carly to stop so he could point out that they were still rolling, which he tried to point out, only to shy away once Sam started talking.

"Carls, he's just trying his best."

"Well his best isn't good enough. And you, you couldn't have picked a worse week to show up late to everything!"

"Hey, I didn't have to do this you know." Gibby called out, as he fiddled with the laptop, mercifully shutting down the music, lights.

The end of the blaring music put an end to whatever anger she was feeling. Carly apologized, only for her demeanour to become self-deprecating and bitter. "I'm sorry Gibby. I'm saying that a lot lately. Some friend I am huh? Maybe you should stop seeing me too." Carly's eyes glistened, the camera catching sparkles reflected from the studio lights.

Gibby glanced at Sam, who decided to try and comfort her best friend with a hug, "Hey cupcake, it's alright, really, don't worry about it. We'll all do better next time."

"I just.. I can't do this without Freddie. It's not the same." Carly pulled out of Sam's hug, and fled across to the hallway, holding back her tears. "Don't follow me."

Sam stopped in her tracks, unsure if she should ignore the command, and now it was her turn to glance at Gibby. He was fiddling with the computer, having only had a series of written instructions to go on, none of which talked about shutting down the show early.

To the viewers, it was as if she was looking straight down the camera attached to Freddie's tech cart.

All he could do was shrug his shoulders, punch a couple buttons and say "We're out."

"I'm not sure I can keep doing this."

Sam walked over and kissed him on the cheek, "I know Gib, I know."

"Yeah, well, Freddie's avoiding you. But he'd still my friend, and it sucks that I can't talk about my girlfriend, or Carly, around him, without it being awkward. Now I've just reminded Carly of Freddie, and it's hurting her."

"I'll talk to Carly. Maybe we should just end it, figure out some way to prerecord a final show or something."

Gibby nodded solemnly, "Are you going to go after her?"

"Let's just pack up. She'll just be in her room anyway."


Carly and Sam were sitting at a cafeteria table, looking across the room. They were watching Freddie, sitting with a group of guys, Duke, some of his wrestling buddies, and a few of their girlfriends. "See. He's happy." As if to hammer home the point, Freddie cracked a joke and cracked the table up, their laughter echoing across the room.

"Sure, on the outside maybe." Sam added, trying not to be sarcastic but still coming off like that in her own mind.

"Come on, he's got like a whole table of friends. He doesn't need us anymore."

"Don't say that. He'll come back."

"Sam, he's not gonna come back. If he was, he'd have done it by now. It's been 2 weeks. He hasn't said a word to me. He just walks past me with this vacant stare."

"He's still angry. What you.. we-"

"It wasn't we Sam. It was me. I've been using him, taking advantage of him ever since I first met him. And it got worse and worse until he snapped." Carly stabbed her fork into a particularly gristly lump of pork, before blanching at the sight of it. She wasn't hungry anyway.

"You can't blame yourself for that."

"Of course I can. The only time he ever had the chance to take advantage of me, he refused, because of you and that stupid bacon theory. Years later, he has the chance again because I fucking wanted to sleep with him! I was whoring myself out to keep his friendship! I'm sick Sam."

"At least he's still a good guy after all that.. not many guys here would've turned you down. He's not a creep."

"No shit."

"I'm sorry hon."

"You know I'm sorry for dragging you into this as well. I didn't want to lose Don and-"

"You made a bad choice. Welcome to the club. You just made a really bad one. Like, monumentally bad. Bigger than the time I.." Sam trailed off, hearing the first signs of impending waterworks.

"And we've lost Freddie. He's going to off to some fancy tech college, fall in love, stay with one girl the whole time and marry her the year he gets out. She'll be smart, funny, cute, and won't try to manipulate him like I did. He'll fall head over heels the first time she giggles at one of his techy jokes, and he'll forget about me forever." Sam tried talking to Freddie a few times, only to get mumbled, barely interested responses. Sam didn't want to cause him any grief, plus she needed to be with her best friend. There was no need to push the issue again.

"Forever is a long time, Carly."


Carly took a glance back as she left the Cafeteria, seeing Freddie canoodling with one of the unattached female friends, and the sight would've been nauseating if she eaten the entire lunch.

Sam waited though, until he'd finished his lunch, said goodbye to his new friends and made his way to whatever his next class would be. Sam knew the route he'd be taking, and she ran ahead.

Freddie was swinging along happily, wonder about his next class, when a door opened with a flash to his left, and he was being dragged inside the room. The door shut, completely dark, and he fumbled around waiting for his eyes to adjust. In the end, a single red globe flickered on, barely enough light to see more than a foot in front of his face.

He was in a disused photography darkroom. Empty bottles of ink and developing fluid covered the dust filled shelves, and stacks of ancient equipment filled every part of the room that wasn't in the corner by the door.

"What the- Sam. What are you doing?" Sam quickly shoved him forward into a waiting chair, as she took up position in front of the door, locking it just to make sure.

"You saw the last iCarly right dork?" She turned to the side, and flicked a switch. A bright white lamp had been aimed right at his face. He simultaneously yelled out Sam's name and a curse, and shielded his eyes from the intense light.

Sam pointed the light away from his face, the pain in his eyes faded, and he answered the question.

"Yeah." His shoulders slumped, his previous jovial disposition turned into guilt at abandoning his friends.

"So you saw what happened?"

"Yes. I.. I'm sorry. It's just so hard being in the same room with her."

"So you still love her?"

"I never stopped." Freddie looked down at his shoes. Sam sighed, saddened that he was still so devoted to Carly, and still hurting so badly from having to leave her for his own good.

"You have to come back. I can't make Gibby do that again. It's not fair on him."

"I know he's your boyfriend and all, but it's not my problem." Freddie tried to prod his way past Sam

"Carly wants to end the show." Sam turned the lamp right back into his face, causing his arms to shoot up in front of his head again.

"What? Why?"

"Why do you think dope?"

"Carly doesn't want to do it if it's not perfect?"

Sam walked over and slapped him across the head, "No stupid, it's because YOU aren't there. It's not iCarly, the webshow we created. Without you. You named it Freddie. You're the guy who kept it running."

"Why are you laying the guilt on me?"

"I'm not. I'm just asking you to think about coming back for one last time. I don't think Carly would even want to do a final show without you. Just think about it 'kay?"

Freddie rubbed his chin, thinking about her proposal, and decided to do more than think about it, "I'll do it. One last time. For Carly."

"You really are crazy about her aren't you."

"I really hope it didn't take you this long to figure it out." Freddie sassed back.

Sam didn't laugh, instead looking at him with genuine affection "Nope. It just amazes me how often you prove it to me."

"Sam.. I'm sorry I had to leave you-"

"Pfft. I hate you anyway." Sam laughed, and Freddie cracked a smile.

"Hate you too." Sam nodded her head, unlocked the door, and walked out. Freddie followed shortly after, but by the time he had, Sam was gone.


For the 2 weeks they spent arranging and planning it was almost like old times. Sam made jibes at Freddie, who complained to Carly, who admonished Sam and the wicked glint in her eyes. Carly and Freddie would lock eyes, and then look down and away from each other, both aware of what they'd put the other through.

The final iCarly ever was three times longer than it had ever been. As usual, it included Sam, Spencer, Carly, Gibby and Freddie, and as many guests as they could fit in. Even Mrs. Benson let her hair down and stopped acting crazily neurotic. The final segment was a crazy mass RANDOM DANCING, and with the B cam in operation, with Carly, Sam and Freddie standing together, the emotion and elation at having so many friends holding back the sad feelings from ending the show, Freddie cut the feed.

Sam had rigged her remote to start slow dance once the feed was cut, and everyone thought it was part of the post-show party that had been arranged. All the guests paired up together, Spencer with Sam, Gibby with Shelby, and they all left Carly and Freddie standing in the middle of the room together. Funnily enough, the Sam and Carly look-alikes they once used to sneak into an MMA fight ended up dancing together, whilst the look-alike Freddie danced with Wendy.

"So um.. uh Carly, would you care to dance?" Freddie asked.

"Absolutely." Carly smiled, and they placed their hands into positions required for the slow dance.

As they swayed to the music, Freddie made the mistake of looking straight into Carly's eyes, and his resistance crumbled, "Carly.. I'm really sorry for these last few weeks. I've over-reacted. Can we go b-"

Carly pulled herself closer to Freddie, to let her whisper into his ear, "Stop it Freddie. Don't. Just don't. You've come too far for us to go back to the way it was before. You were right about everything." Carly then placed her head on his shoulders, trying to hide the handful of tears that had escaped her eyes.

Freddie shut his eyes as well, gathering his composure to help himself get through the night, "Sorry."

"Don't be." Regret flashed in her mind, that she'd ignored his warning signs, became complacent of his friendship, and his love. Freddie regretted putting Carly first in every facet of his life, not telling her his true feelings, even if they might have hurt her at the time, completely without regard for his own emotional well being. They both thought if they'd acted quicker, they could have avoided this completely, and with the benefit of hindsight they would probably be right.

Instead, they were resigned to the idea that the future wouldn't include each other.

"It's hard not to when I miss you so much."

"We'll have fun tonight, remember the good times, then you have to go back to your new friends, your new life. You need to forget about me, forever." They continued to sway to the soft music in silence, until the song started to fade out.

"Forever is a long time, Carly."


AN: So, chapter 3 of what will probably end up being 5.