Well...this came quick. Not a lot of reviews, but I hope some of you like this. Trust me...it will grow into CAM.

Carly was kicking her feet behind her as she laid on her bed with school books spread out around her. The biology text was propped up on a pillow and held open by her iPhone and the edge of a binder. She was busy doing the assignment in her notebook, referring to the stapled pages flipped open to her left. Her feet moved back and forth to the Black Eyed Peas that rocked in her ears from the earbuds running from her iPhone.

She paused and looked up at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was after nine o'clock at night. She gave a heavy sigh and stared back at her assignment sheet. Three hours was absolutely way too long to have spent on homework.

Carly folded her arms under her head and laid the side of her face on her forearms, staring at the clock and the picture next to it. The silver framed photograph was of Sam grinning like a lioness in a room full of meat and hugging Carly's shoulders from behind, her chin resting on Carly's left shoulder, cheek pressed to hers, Sam's arms wrapped around Carly's neck, and Carly caught in an open mouthed laugh with her hands gripping Sam's arms at her neck. It was last summer in Vancouver and Sam and Carly had just come out of the Meat Festival and Carly was laughing because Sam had become so hyper and telling every butcher that she was going to marry them.

Good times. Better times. Carefree times.

High school had been tougher than either of them had expected. The courses were harder and the pressure to succeed more intense. The teachers pounded into their young minds every day the importance of doing well with their grades, pushing the competition for university placements and demanding that each student consider their future plans. The course load was grueling and so was the crushing weight of homework they had to complete every night.

She had been seeing less and less of Sam over the past few months. Other than the iCarly rehearsals and doing the webshow, they only really saw each other at school or the occasional time spent hanging out at the Groovie Smoothie. Sam didn't come by the loft as often as she used to. Where Sam once was a fixture in her home, someone that practically lived there, she was finding that her blond friend had become strangely absent from her home and life and Carly had discovered that there was a void in her life. An empty feeling that she couldn't explain.

Most of the time, Sam had taken to visiting the man down the hall. The man named after a letter. So, she was nearby, just not hanging with Carly. He was nice, but Carly was a bit jealous that he got to have more of Sam's time. Sam had been her best friend since forever and Carly had discovered that she did not like to share.

Sure, she missed her best friend. But, it wasn't as if she was lonely. Freddy came over every other day to work on the webshow equipment or just hang out doing homework. The two of them shared almost every other class. Mostly heavy on the English and Social courses.

Carly had always expected Freddy to pursue math and sciences. She was mildly surprised that he had abandoned a career in technology for a film career. Then again, maybe she should have seen that coming. Freddy came alive when he was shooting iCarly and the prerecorded segments. He really loved all that behind the scenes stuff.

Journalism was her direction. She was pretty sure that she wanted to become a journalist.

Sam. Well, Sam had shocked both Freddy and Carly. Something had lit a fire under the blond and caused her to take school seriously. She was heavy on athletics and, this is what really blew her mind, sciences. She was on the cross country team, basketball team, wrestling team and winter hockey team. And she was in the college prep mathematics, chemistry and physics classes. The three of them shared the mandatory Biology course.

And the kicker was that Sam had decided to pursue a career in the military after high school.

Somehow, the thought of her friend living in such a controlled and regulated world like the military just seemed so contrary to how she had lived her life. Sam always seemed to Carly to be a free spirit, wild and unfettered, impulsive. Carly's fear was that the military would crush that spirit, the one that she felt truly defined her best friend.

And, she would have to cut her beautiful hair. Those long golden locks that flew around her beautiful face when her eyes flashed in hyper excitement and she jumped and bounced and smelled like fruit when they were in Carly's face as they pressed against each other when they shot iCarly and Carly felt so electric and so complete.

Carly frowned at herself. Where did that stream of consciousness come from? When did she start to think of her best friend in those terms? Why did the thought of Sam's hair bring such warm feelings in her chest and make her smile? Or the memory of the two of them touching?

She missed her friend.