You are Freddie Benson, honor roll student in his element running a project on lock-in night at school and something is very, very wrong. Sam is plotting some major offensive. That is the only plausible explanation. The pleasant, attractive girl who shared popcorn has not gone away. Today she has been helpful, nice, as close to sweet as Sam Puckett can probably get without outright bursting into flames.

She ran an errand for you and Brad. She brought your tech to you. Cables, drives, things you need to set-up the Moodface app environment. But the guacamole and chips is too much, the guacamole forces your hand, literally. You slap a chip out of Brad's unsuspecting grip. The thing disguised as Sam looks surprised, even hurt and asks why you did that.

Between this and the movie the other night you cannot take any more. You pull her aside and demand she explain her sudden "Sam Version 2.0" improved performance approach. "What's your game?" you ask.

"No game," she says. No! Sam would not answer like that. Where's the fire, the rage? Your grabbing her alone was worth some kind of blow. Suddenly you focus on the red and white stripes of her blouse. She's wearing stripes? Sam hates stripes! Your geek kicks-in and for a moment you envision a pod in some basement that this alien burst out of in a slimy special effects sequence. Whatever her scheme is, it runs deeper and more cleverly than anything prior. This could be a scheme of Biblical proportions, the invasion of Normandy for destroying you. This feels like the whole Melanie mess.

The Melanie mix-up. You honestly thought you were being played until the kiss. You knew Melanie was real the instant she kissed you. Why on earth did you run from a hot girl who was kissing you? You wouldn't run if a hot girl kissed you today, that's for sure. Still, you never admitted the clarity you came to on this point. You maintained your insistence that you had outwitted Sam because how would you ever explain that Melanie's kiss was not like Sam's? Sam's was… different, better somehow. Some conversations aren't worth starting.

Inside you smile because you love this. She challenges you with these little puzzles. You will miss it when things change, because nothing lasts forever. You move up to defcon three until this latest attempt to abuse you is past or at least revealed. Sam suggests that you get on with the project and you agree. She takes a seat in front of the cameras as you initiate a scan.

You turn your substantial intellect to the Moodface app. It takes several processors to make this work. A processor to run the grid map of the face, a processor to run the SQL database, and another to crunch the numbers and sort the billions of possibilities down to the most likely disposition for the facial characteristics that are captured. You aren't fond of the object oriented code the Pear App people mandate for the applications.

You focus on the output panel of the app. What will her mood be? Bored? Homicidal? Smart money would bet on hungry if hungry was a mood. With her recent, anti-Sam like behavior maybe the whole processor array would short out with the smell of ozone. What finally screen prints paralyzes you. The readout on Sam is less expected than a second season of Firefly.

Mood: in love. Love? Was someone holding up a bucket of fried chicken during the scan? Still, the biochemical alterations that love induces would explain her recent behavior modification. Love makes people do strange things, adjust who they are in order to please. But who? Who was Sam in love with? Sam's choice in men read like a high school version of the Ten Most Wanted list. Your mind quickly compiles the available evidence and distills the equation. There was only one logical result: Brad. The compliment, the interest in hanging out with him, the willingness to see Galaxy Wars. Sam's right, you are a doof. You should have seen it. And you thought Cort was stupid.

You are now out of your element. You need Carly's insight. Carly will have the right response. You have to find her. You state that the test was inconclusive and hurtle out of the room declaring that you need a tissue. That is why you will never be more than scripted on-screen talent on iCarly. You hear Sam say, "That's why you're behind the camera." You can't ad-lib for chiz.

The amazement of your discovery transmutes into giddy anticipation. You've got her! After years of punishment, the invulnerable, unfeeling Sam is now exposed. You can use this information to finally get payback, to put the smack down on her, you can…, and you slow your pace, you can what? Hurt her? Bring her down as she surely has done to you every time she had the chance? Is that the man you want to be? Sam once texted you from Carly's phone professing Carly's love. When you expressed your very real outrage she was blasé, telling you, "Nobody loved you before, nobody loves you now." You remember how hard that was; to have your feelings toyed with. One more lesson Sam taught you. Trading punches in the arm was one thing, you would NOT hit someone in the heart. Not even Sam.

You reveal the results of the Moodface App scan and your deduction to Carly who has the right reaction. She is excited as a friend should be. It sets your head into a better place. You are still jazzed about the fact that your app is working, though. This is a major score. But as you leave Carly to do whatever is it she is going to do, your excitement has cooled quickly and your brain has taken charge once again. You understand that Brad is a great guy, but he seems kind of like you. Why does Sam hate you and find him desirable?

You are not quite at peace with the idea that Sam hates you. Why exactly does she hate you? She mocks your tech, your hobbies, your mother (well, you understand that), your past infatuation with Carly. She calls you ugly, routinely questions your manhood and pities any female you become involved with. Why? You have only fired back when fired upon. You have defended yourself and gotten some good shots in, but Sam seems deeply passionate in her dislike of you. She enjoys seeing you in pain. It is a mystery to you that someone should delight in tormenting another person. You can only believe there is something about you that annoys her at a very fundamental level.

Regardless of the grief she has rained down, you have such a good time with Sam, you laugh together, work together-you would not trade the time spent with her. You enjoy the rounds of meatball golf; it is the joy you have playing with her. It goes like that, with the two of you laughing, exchanging knowing glances at something funny in class or when watching TV. She builds your trust, then when your guard is lowered you turn your back and Boomba! You get oranges in the back. Still the fun outweighs the pain. You have shared so much over the brief years of your young life, the fact that this person does not actually care about you in the same way is more than sad. But doesn't everyone feel that way? Doesn't everyone want to be liked by the people they like? You wonder briefly if you will ever really connect with a girl in a way that duplexes, where the packet traffic goes both ways. *sigh* you are such a geek.

It is later in the evening. When you ask, Carly has confronted Sam and she has denied any attraction to Brad. For you, for your mind, that is sufficient. You have presented the data, but this isn't really your business. Once you committed to not leveraging the information for revenge, it really stopped being anything you needed to ponder. Carly, as you suspected, maybe even feared, is not satisfied. She wants the world shaped a certain way. She wants to play matchmaker, she uses the analogy of horses in a barn to describe getting Sam and Brad together. It is the closest you and Carly have come to talking about sex since you watched two squirrels "wrestling" while you both hunted Bigfoot. You have fun with the barn talk. Not as Freddie Benson, the nubby little boy tech nerd you once were, but as someone else, someone you may be becoming.

You agree to help isolate the potential couple. You don't have a plan and you do very poorly without a plan. In the project room you burst in and get everyone to come out and look at a two-headed frog. Even as you say it, you hear Bruce Campbell in the first Spider Man movie, "That's the best you got?"

As you separate from your classmates you think about Brad and Sam back in the "barn." Something cold turns in your chest.