A/N Chapter 2 was pretty heavy, so I've tried to lighten the tone while steady getting to Seddie.

Chapter 3: The Girl in His Head

Unquestionably, the worst time in Fred's life was a period he jokingly called (when his sense of humor came back) the Apuckettlypse. When Sam Puckett dumped him for an older man Fred entered a shadowy stretch of sad songs and sleepless nights. This black period stripped him down to his very core and left him unsure of everything he once believed in.

While nothing could truly equal the Apuckettlypse for sheer, despair the current week was trying for honorable mention in Fred's roster of times-I-wish-I'd-skipped. It was as if every person with two X chromosomes had gotten a memo from the gods: "Get Fred Benson! Use all available means, find him, hurt him."

The bad week started with a blow that blackened his eye and continued on with his mother, although the argument could be made that it really started with her (doesn't it always come back to who raised us?) didn't she set the stage for how he would relate to women for the rest of his life?

Monday morning he sat in his office cube, pressing a cold pack on the purple, swollen flesh that enclosed his left eye. It throbbed despite the Advil he was popping like mints. Marissa Benson called to chastise him for cancelling his subscription to the Hygiene Inquisition, a service that sent inspectors on surprise visits to homes to perform spot checks on people's lives.

"Fredbear, you cancelled them because they gave you a B- on bathroom cleanliness."

"Mom, I cancelled them because I came home and they were taking water samples from my toilet."

"I just renewed—they have a no-money-back policy—all that money…"

"I don't know how they stay in business—what they do has got to be criminal," and how many people are there like you, mom, that would pay for this?

She spoke in a subdued, shameful tone, "Freddie, the report said there were hairs on the rim."

"Aw, for the luva…So what, I don't shave my throne!"

"Freddie! I meant your sink! Are there hairs on your toilet too? What has happened to you? Where is my Freddie? Ever since you dated that, that, Sam!" I do not like her, that Sam she am. Fred tried to imagine his mother spitting when she said, "Sam," and he couldn't. Can mom spit?

"Mom," he put a stop now sound in his voice.

Which his mother rolled over like a eighteen wheeler on I-80, "She did something to you, made you into some kind of thrill seeker, taking wild chances with cleanliness, you've turned into some kind of no soap daredevil!"

'No soap daredevil? "Mom! Put a sock in it!"

"Freddie! Who do you think you are talking to young man?"

Full tilt crazy, is what he wanted to say, but he took a deep breath, remembered all she had done for him and why. "Mom…" and he went into the thousandth iteration of his, "I'm a man, mom," speech.

His mom meant well, she loved him, but the subject of Sam Puckett was almost as rough a ride for Marissa Benson as for Fred.

His week continued a steady tumble down a hill landmarked with pain and disappointment. The trip was picking up speed toward a terrifying drop off.

Tuesday morning, the director of his division invited him into her palatial office with its sweeping view of the city. She offered him a selection of drinks and some very expensive looking snacks nested in iced silver bowls and heated pans. She made it exceedingly clear that she thought he was special, that they should get together soon, away from the office to discuss his future. Her contact and actions contradicted every HR training film he'd ever sat through.

She was striking in an unusual, constructed sort of way, as if some crew labored over blue prints at night, putting her together for each day. Her make-up was flawless, masking her age, but her lips seemed a few PSI over specs. She was toned, tanned, laundered and pressed. Her behavior was borderline inappropriate, but what exactly was his problem here? An attractive, older woman was making some pretty obvious overtures, so what? He wasn't scarred, but he wasn't comfortable either. Maybe it was the extensive gold bands and gems on her ring finger. They made him think of some long dead Egyptian queen. He envisioned her coming toward him with a dorsal fin on her head, hungry, circling, with row after row of teeth. He shivered involuntarily. She didn't think he was special; she was conquering some new frontier, planting a flag with her initials right in his backside. He was not a person; he was an object, something to collect.

She sat on the sofa with him and touched his knee briefly, like a breeze, casual, innocent, yet crawling with suggestion, "What happened to your eye?" she asked with a voice accustomed to giving orders.

"I had a fight with my mother yesterday," he explained.

It fazed her not at all, "Your mother packs quite a punch."

"It was a joke," he responded with a grin.

She smiled back, "I figured that out. You're not in Fight Club are you?" she asked.

"First rule of Fight Club…" he said.

"That was my joke," she stated, as if they were comparing senses of humor and she had to win.

"Funny," he replied, the room was incredibly warm and sweat beads like tiny bugs ran down the skin under his shirt.

She smiled and nodded. He was prepared for her next words to be: "You amuse me Mr. Bond, but you have interfered with my plans for the last time."

He shifted his weight and brushed a button on his Pear phone that set off an alarm he'd built to bail him out of useless meetings, "Hey, I've got another meeting downstairs," he explained, bolting to his feet.

"Think about where we should go for dinner," she said, her eyes walking over his body, lingering, imagining.

Holy smoke, did she just undress me? He thought, it's like I'm a picture of me, she doesn't even mind if I notice. She wet her overlarge lips and ate one of the expensive snacks. He was pretty sure that he would be right at home next to the canapés.

He left, feeling like he needed a shower.

That afternoon he had lunch with Gibby. As they finished Gib was updating his Splashpage, "I love social networking, I'm now the emperor of this cafeteria on FiveCube," he said.

Gibby had one eye on his screen and another on Fred's plate, more specifically the outsize cookie that inexplicably came with Fred's healthy options meal. Focused firmly on his PearPad display he asked, "So what happened to your eye? You looked fine when I picked you up at the bar the other night."

"Software architecture is a rough game," Fred said.

Gibby knew that was Fred for I'm not talking about this.

The waitress, her nameplate read "Misti" in big black letters, came by, "How is everything?" she asked. She was blond, thin and had piercings on her nose, lip and ears. She was lingering, drawn to Fred's gravity and talking to Gibby as a means to stay around. She asked, "Have you played that new game on your Pear Pad? Oh, what's it called?"

"Happy Dolphins?" Gibby said, watching as the waitress snuck glances at Fred. It was something he was used to, and he had developed a strategy. He called it, "Come for the Fred, stay for the Gibby" (CFFSFG)

"Yeah! It's like, addictive!" she announced.

Gibby motioned to Fred, "That guy there, he wrote it."

Her eyes went wide, "Rad! That is like the coolest thing ever."

Fred looked up from his PearPhone display, "huh?"

"I was telling Misti about Happy Dolphins," Gibby explained.

Fred's inner lights went on. He had played CFFSFG enough now to recognize the signs. "To be accurate, my team wrote a component."

Gibby smiled and continued to chat with Misti. She went to one of her other tables but both men were confident she would return multiple times before they left.

"I think Alice Hedlund is coming on to me," Fred stated.

Gibby looked up, "The divisional director for North America?"

"Yeah."

"She as hot in person as in the company orientation video?"

Fred nodded reluctantly, yeah, in a weird CGI way."

"YES!" and Gibby did a little touchdown dance in his seat. Strangely, even Fred thought it was cute.

"Give me every nasty detail," Gibby instructed, and Fred sighed, relaying what he imagined were the high points of the meeting in Gibby's view.

"You gonna move on it?"

"Gib, I'm glad you're in my corner and all, but I'm in a relationship, remember Ashley?"

Gibby gave him a skeptical squint, "Have you learned nothing from me? Besides, is it really a 'relationship'?" he made air quotes with his fingers.

"What?"

"Seems kind of fast, to me-just sayin'," Gibby shrugged and returned to his Splashpage.

Ashley, a lovely, brilliant young woman was a friend from the Seattle time. Freddie had leveraged her beauty to trick Carly and Sam when they had hired an idiot as an intern in the next to last season of the web show. He reconnected with her at the Pear World Convention a few months back.

"Oh, that's rich," Fred said, "Mr. 'Stay for the Gibby,' who has longer lines than Dingo World waiting for the front seat of my car is questioning the quality of my romantic life."

Gibby shrugged again, "Just sayin'. You gonna eat that?" he asked indicating Fred's cookie.

Fred slid the plate toward him.

Any gypsy reading his Tarot would have told Fred to hide, but Fred didn't know any gypsies, so he walked blindly into the next body slam from Fate.

Ashley and Fred had been dating for weeks, and while it wasn't magical, it was very comfortable, like a favorite sweat shirt, and even as he thought it, he made a note never to tell any women she was like a favorite sweat shirt. The night after he and Gibby did lunch, Fred and Ashley went to dinner.

Seated in a very posh restaurant, Ashley, lovely and intoxicatingly feminine looked him in the face and asked, "So, what happened to your eye?"

"Software architecture is a rough game," he said. What the heck, it was a good line and it was new to her. He looked at her and thought about all of the beautiful women he had been lucky enough to meet. He especially liked brunettes, Carly Shay, Shelby Marx, Tori Vega, he felt his mind going blonde when he heard Ashley say:

"You are so funny," she smiled, sipping white wine from a fluted glass.

"Thanks, Carly and Sam never thought I was." The words had barely left his mouth when he felt the temperature drop in the room.

Sitting there Ashley seemed to gather herself up, marshaling her resolve, "Fred, you know I care about you."

It was like he swallowed an ice cube. The last time he heard those words it kicked-off the Apuckettlypse. "Yeaaah?" he asked, there was an anxious tension on his neck, like he was sticking his hand into a dark pool in some primeval rain forest—what lurked under the surface?

"I think you have issues," she said tenderly.

Swell. Of course he had issues. His mother was neurotic, gathering satellite intelligence on his housekeeping, his boss wanted him in a trophy case, and even he didn't want to consider how his eye got plastered shut; find someone with no issues, he wanted to say. Instead, he asked, "This isn't about the bathroom in my apartment is it?"

She raised her eyebrow, "No. This is, well, how can I say this? There are too many of us in this relationship."

"Well I… what?" What did that mean? "Hey, if this is about Gibby and the car, that's a quick fix." She was ahead of Gibby-she agreed that it was a relationship.

She shook her head, "No, Gibby's a huggy bear. I love it when he's around," That was something about the Gibster that Freddy had come to terms with—his mystical and mystifying charm with some women—a lot of women when Fred did the math.

"No, it's Sam," Ashley said.

"Sam?" He knew exactly where this was going, but playing dumb felt really good at the moment, being smart hadn't done much for him this week. He was looking at headlights coming straight at him.

She smiled, "The Sam you mentioned not two seconds ago, the girl that 'cut her shape in my heart' that was how you described her when you talked about her on our second date."

Oh butter. Had he really done that? Those words? On their second date? His left eye throbbed, "Yeah, I probably have some things to work out on that topic."

"Fred, she goes everywhere with us, well, you bring her along."

He remembered telling Ashley about Sam early on, but he did not recall it being a recurring theme. He actually thought he had done a good job of portraying the whole thing as part of a closed room in a big house.

She sipped her white wine and he noted her hand was shaking as she said, "Fred, I'm aware when we go to the movies, when we eat at a restaurant, when we watch television, when we wake up, you aren't always with me. You are somewhere else having conversations in your head with someone who isn't me."

He didn't doubt it. Every date he'd had eventually got the Sam Slam. No woman was as feisty, as funny, as irritating or engaging. Sam pushed him, made him be…better? He remembered once looking for a parking place with Ashley. There was a dirt lot being prepped for construction. He heard Sam telling him to park there, they were going to be late if he kept circling for a legal slot ("man-up Fredly, I'm not missing the opening act because your skirt is wrinkled"). He parked on the dirt and Ashley kept telling him that they were going to be towed. He didn't cave, but he worried about it until they got back to the car. He wouldn't have stressed if he had been with Sam. Ashley fed his need to follow the rules. Sam was freedom. Sam wasn't a comfortable sweat shirt; she was an amusement park that was open all night—if you could afford the price of the tickets.

He, on the other hand, appeared to be the worst date on the west coast.

Ashley continued, "Last week you and I were on the balcony of your apartment looking up at the stars, it was so romantic but I looked over at you, and the look on your face, it broke my heart."

Little worms made of sharp glass wiggled inside his stomach. Had the demon so possessed him that he couldn't be with this smart, sexy lady?

"I don't know what you need to do, but we can't be a real couple, I can't compete with the girl in your head."

The girl in his head? He understood, but was lost at the same time. Was she real or just a creation, some crazy mutant evolved from memory and wishful thinking? If he spent the afternoon today with Sam would they have anything in common? Would they still play, and fight? And make-up? Which did he like more? The battle or, man, the making up with Sam was so sweet. Everything with Sam was sweet. Did he just remember some distorted looking glass thing? What about the weekend they celebrated Sam getting into college? That little bed and breakfast in a house that claimed to have ghosts. It was unseasonably cold and they got into some argument about it because Sam never packed with any sense of preparation. Then they made up, huddled under the covers drinking hot coffee and laughing at some late night infomercial for male enhancement.

He suddenly focused on Ashley sitting across from him, "Welcome back," she said, her eyes looking resigned to some proven, but unpleasant theory. "I'm going to go, now" she added, finishing her chardonnay, wetly licking her red, perfect lips. He wasn't scared watching her do that, just very sad.

He stood with her and said, "Ash, I, I'm so sorry—you deserve somebody who…. He didn't finish, concluding with, "I'll see you home."

She replied, "No, I could use some alone time," she stepped into him and kissed him softly. "You are a great guy, I hope I'm still around when you get this straightened out," she squeezed his hand and walked away. He watched her get smaller and finally be gone.

It was several minutes later when he realized Ashley had driven. He had watched his ride walk away. He smiled, that was sorta Samish of her. He checked his watch. It was too early to call Gibby, he'd just be warming up the passenger seat.

Well, it was a nice night and he had a lot to think about. As he walked, absently fingering the Pear phone in his pocket, it dawned on him.

So what do you do when you have a run of chizzy events and you don't have a chemical dependency problem? If you are Fred, you reach out to your best friend, your oldest, longest lasting relationship. You call Carly Shay.

He opened the Pear phone and said to it: "Carly Shay" and the phone dialed. In 5,4,3,2,1, she was picking up. Fred almost leapt into the phone, he related his travails, he poured out his aching, bloody insides to the person who knew him best and accepted him without question. It came out in a foamy rush, and he had to catch his breath when finished. Then he sat at a bus stop bench and waited for her words, warm and buttered to wash over him, the friendly comfort that he missed.

"What a pair you have, Freddie," were the first words out of her mouth.

Fred looked at the phone dubiously, terrified for an instant he'd screwed up and called Ashley. "Carly?" he said.

"I cannot believe you are moaning to me after the mess you have allowed to metastasize in our lives."

Metastasize? "Uhm, what?"

"Poor Sam is here, working every day to put her life together, needing our support and you have done nothing NO THING, to help her. She delayed her graduation, but she's finishing, Freddie, do you even care? Do you care about what she has accomplished? Do you even know? Instead you are there, making like Don Juan Demarco with everything in a skirt. You are a little, little man."

Is this what hell feels like?

"Carly, what are you talking about?"

"I told you months ago that Sam had broken up with the Geezer, then I waited for you to do the right thing, but you just stayed out there growing your contact list of party girls."

Yeah, this has got to be hell. For a logical guy, being where nothing makes sense is pretty much damnation.

"Carly, I don't understand…"

"That's your problem, it has always been your problem, Freddie has to understand. For such a smart guy you are so dumb sometimes. Well, I'm telling you your rough week is just starting, Freddie, you need to come home and settle some things."

"Uh…"

"Stop! Don't give me any of your calculated rationales Mr. Hotsy Pockets."

Hotsy Pockets? Fred Benson: microwave snack.

"Tell me why, Freddie, you have always gone after her, when she thought she was crazy you went after her at the hospital, but this time, when she needed you most, you stayed away, you never reached out, no calls, no e-mails—nothing. Why?"

What was bubbling up in his gut felt a lot like shame. Was she really hurting? He had deliberately avoided knowing anything about her. When Carly told him that Sam was no longer dating Fossil Poppa he did that Gibby dance in his head, and he thought about calling her, e-mailing her, texting her, but he never did.

Why not?

He had no answer, but he listened as Carly went on, and on and on some more. He heard some words, "faith" "loyalty," "forgiveness," "love" was in there several times, but it was kind of like what dogs might hear when people talk to them: just a lot of sounds. Finally she seemed to stop or maybe she passed out, maybe the battery died in his phone.

"Carly?"

"Yes?"

"I'm on my way."

"About time."

That was how Fred and Gibby found themselves on a plane to Seattle. Gibby was working Splashpage on his Pear Pad. Across the aisle a cute girl was looking at both of them. Gibby was aware of her watching but Fred was deep in his planning mind, thinking about seeing Carly and Spencer but mainly Sam. He was imagining scenarios and how he would respond to each.

"Hey Fred."

Fred turned kind of haltingly toward him, "huh?"

Sorry about the Ashley stuff, dude. She's right, you are a great guy—I'd date you."

"Thanks, but I think you and I are as close as we're ever going to get."

"Even if I promise to never break your heart?" Gibby reached over and touched Fred's knee, "We should talk about your future with the company," Fred couldn't even describe what Gibby did with his tongue and lips but if wasn't pretty.

"Sorry no Broke Back iCarly for me thanks."

"You said, 'iCarly'," came a female voice. The cute girl was standing in the aisle looking at them. Her hair was very short and she had pendulous earrings flaring into silver fans.

"Yep," Gibby said and both of them prepared for what might be coming.

"You're the Statue of Giberty, and you are Freddie," she said pointing at each of them.

"Fan of the show?" Freddie asked.

She nodded, "Oh yeah, totally. My name's Yvonne-Why did you guys stop making it?"

"We all went away to college."

"You should totally do it again—I'd watch."

"Thanks Yvonne, glad you liked it," Fred said.

"So, how did you ship?" Gibby asked. Internally, Fred winced, man, Gib was going right for CFFSFG. Usually he worked the autograph angle first.

"Honestly?"

"Sure, we're long past any fan war stuff," Gibby assured her.

"Cam all the way," she said cheerfully.

Fred could not hide an enormous smile as he pictured this flight of CFFSFG going down in huge, plumy flames.

After Yvonne took her seat with autographed napkins from each of them, Gibby turned to Fred and said,

"You know, it's probably a good thing that we're making this trip."

"Yeah, I think Carly made a good point about me needing to set some things right," Fred said, but in his heart he had no idea what he was going to say when he saw Sam. It was hard to plan with bottle rockets erupting in your stomach.

"Actually, I was thinkin' it was time to get out of town for a while. Things were getting' kinda hot,"

Fred stretched back in his seat, "I'm a little afraid to ask. What are you talking about?"

"Remember Patrice?"

"Werewolf Patrice or the new one, Tourette's Syndrome Patrice?"

"Werewolf."

"Yep, I remember."

"Well I dug her up on SplashPage and one thing led to another, and…"

"And you glued on the hair again?"

"Pretty much."

"So?"

"So, turns out she's kinda married."

"'Kinda married'? Dude!" Fred's mouth dropped open. "I thought you screened for that kind of thing. What's the husband's deal?"

"Not as hairy as she likes it."

"Yeah, I sorta guessed that part, what I meant was, does he know?"

Gibby nodded, "I don't think he'd threaten a stranger."

"Threaten?"

"Yeah, crazy stuff about body bags and stuff. But it's like they say, when the five roll, there's always the backstreets."

Fred nodded but Gibby lost him after the body bag reference. Gibby still said things that made sense only to Gibby. You hang with him, you hear your share.

Fred couldn't get the conversation with Carly out of his head. "This is the second worst week of my life; you should have heard Carly on the phone. She wasn't making any sense. She kept going on about how I was with all these women. It was the closest to nuts I've seen her since Space Camp. I mean, she knows me, where would she get the crazy idea I was hookin' up like that?"

Gibby seemed to get smaller in the seat next to him.

Fred looked at him sideways, Gibby looked like a little kid that had broken some forbidden object, "Gib?"

"Yeaaaah, uh, I might have said something that might have, well, maybe, y'know, oh boy."

Fred turned and stared at Gibby, "what did you say to Carly?"

"Nothing, I haven't talked to Carly since I went home for Christmas."

Fred's brain was assembling the puzzle, but key pieces were missing, "Gib, what aren't you telling me?"

Gibby twitched in his seat, and seemed to spend a lot of time adjusting the magazines in the seat pouch in front of him, not wanting to look at Fred. "Well, Sam called me one night, she was fishing around, I mean, Sam, calling me, what is that about? I knew something smelled bad. We got to talking, I dunno, she said some stuff, kinda made me mad. I mean, y'know, you did so much for her, for me, for, well, y'know, I just…"

"Dude, just the facts," the purple mass that cradled his left eye pulsed with pain.

"I mighta made you sound like you were getting' busier than you really were.. Are…, maybe."

"Oh man, you told Sam I was, - you?"

"Kinda, I mean I dialed it back a bit to keep it real."

Fred rolled his eyes. "When was this?"

"A while back, before Ashley, or I probably woulda used that instead. Y'know, made it a real relationship—no offense."

Fred blinked as that settled in, then he said, "Sam called, and you didn't tell me?"

Gibby raised and lowered his tray table for no apparent reason, "Dude, I've watched you for a long time now, working out, working crazy hours at the office, throwing cave men truck drivers out of bars, but, I haven't seen you, y'know, happy, for, well, I just thought, she might make things worse. You don't need worse. Maybe I made a bad call." He put the tray table back up, then he continued. "She broke my thumbs, painted that stuff on my head, but I couldn't let her do anything more to you. Do you remember how you were when she swung the axe of freedom?"

Fred nodded. He hated that time. So full of pain and loss, and doubt and every bad thing you could name. And like a light coming on in a dark basement he knew why he never called Sam.

Fear.

Running from her was part of their early relationship when she used to brutalize him. He was still vaguely ashamed of the time she thought he had spoken of their first, secret kiss. She charged him and he shrieked like a girl fleeing in stark terror. But that fear was nothing compared to the thought that she could do to him what happened the night of the Apuckettlypse. He never wanted to look into that shadow again. His lip curled into his trademark smirk. He told himself that he worked out, toughened himself up, threw big, rough, dangerous men out of rough, dangerous places because he liked to look his fear in the face, he liked to get his hands around it and wrestle it down.

What a load of chiz.

After all these years he was still afraid of Sam Puckett. He'd gotten around the fear of wedgies, hurled fruit, random and orchestrated acts of cruelty, but that beautiful blond demon could still hurt him like no one else on the planet.

Sam called Gibby, what did that mean?

Fred watched the clouds like cotton wads creep under the wings. Finally he said. "Thanks Gib. I asked you to come out and get my back. I can't be mad at you for doing that."

Gibby just nodded and they did a fist bump, "I just can't quit you man," Gibby said.

Fred slept on the plane—sort of. It was that half sleep where he was plugged-in to the world around him dimly but he also thought about meeting Sam again, he was trying to plan it, he needed a plan. He was going to put away any fear, he was going hug her like a friend, but he also reflected on the black eye that still pulsed with a curious life of its own and the memory had an electric, biting quality.

At the grocery store late, rain pouring down, buying some items to clean his bathroom—he'd gotten a low grade from Hygiene Inquisition-when he noticed the couple in the parking lot.

At first Fred wasn't sure what he was seeing, he was in a hurry to get to his car with a minimum of wetness, but as he paused it was clear. The man was choking the woman on the side of the building. It was slow and insistent, not violent or loud, but her head was slowly banging back against the brick. Big, tan hands squeezing her throat.

"Hey," Fred called out, "Miss, are you all right?"

The man turned toward him in what Fred remembered as slow motion, he had the enflamed features of someone chemically altered. The woman's face was glassy eyed and her skin seemed kind of blue, both were drenched with rain, the pounding water creating a kind of halo around them.

Fred felt that heat in his ears, and he picked up his pace moving toward them, "Hey!" he said again, he dropped his plastic bags and began to run toward the couple.

Fred grabbed the man in a karate choke, thumb knuckle into the pit of the man's throat, spinning him around, he was slick with rain water and hard to hold.

"Don't hurt him!" the woman shouted, "Please, don't hurt him—I love him!" she coughed as she spoke, her voice raw from being choked.

Fred smelled alcohol as the man took a leisurely, drunken swing. Fred blocked it with movement so slow they might have been demonstrating proper technique. Fred stepped in rolling the man over his hip onto the tar stained pavement where he landed with a splash.

And the woman hit Fred in the left eye—was it just her hand? It took Fred totally by surprise and forced him back.

"I love him, love him! Get away!" She seemed very sober, angry, yes, but she knew what she was doing.

And the woman bent over the drunken man who continued to slap at her as he struggled to his feet and stumbled away in the rain. She followed, pleading with him clinging to him. "Honey?" Fred heard her say, "baby are you okay? I'm sorry, I love you babe, I love you."

And the vast world of men and women, couples, lovers, relationships seemed to expand and contract for Fred as the depth of his own cluelessness was starkly exposed. He had done the right thing. He always did the right thing. And it wasn't enough. Not now, not with back then with Sam.

Anger.

It wasn't just fear of Sam that kept him away. He was mad. He had done everything right and she walked away from him.

And the captain was announcing their descent, describing the weather in Seattle—it was raining.

Break***********************************

At Bushwell Plaza Fred and Gibby knocked on the door of the Shay apartment. Marisa Benson was working a late shift at the hospital so getting a tick inspection by mother could wait.

Fred felt jittery, blasted with adrenaline, like he was about to give a big presentation. He drew in a breath, hearing familiar voices behind the door, Carly and Spencer. And? Did he hear Sam too? He controlled his oxygen flow, felt his heart surging against his ribs. He was going to stick with his plan, hug everybody and put away any hurt he had. These people meant too much to him. He planned some of his words, he was going to say, "It's good to be back, gosh I've missed you guys."

What happened next was not clear to him, he did not remember the door opening, only that something hit him in the left eye, he knew the feel of that freakish strength all too well. Most people have to have some kind of radiation accident to obtain that kind of power, but Sam Puckett was born with it.

He was aware of the ceiling of the Bushwell hallway. He hadn't seen that in many years—new smoke alarms? He heard Sam's voice:

"Welcome home Freddie!"

And just before he blacked out, he heard himself say, "Good to be back, gosh, I've missed you guys."

A/N Chapter four is underway, but expect some delay as real life is crowding my writing time. Please feel free to comment on the trip so far. Thanks for flying with us.