A/N: Hey, everyone! Here's a brand new chapter. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: All properties of iCarly go to Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon.

Chapter 2: Welcome Home

Carly's POV

If I ate one more bag of roasted peanuts, I was going to explode.

We only had one hour before we landed in Seattle. I'd already ate four bags of peanuts (I skipped breakfast). Bruno was asleep, which I already knew because well, it was quiet and he likes to talk...a lot, but that's one of the things I loved about him. He always had an opinion and always found a way to express it, no matter how bold it was.

Bruno and I met a year and a half after I came to Italy. He was actually a cousin of one of the guys servicing in the military with my dad. My dad actually liked Bruno, and he was only six months older than me.

We'd been dating five and a half years and he finally got down on one knee. He asked me if it would be alright if we spent the rest of our lives together. I smiled and of course, I said yes. My dad said that he'd be able to come home for good in six months and that I should go visit Spencer.

So, now we were headed back to Seattle and I had no idea what to expect...okay, that's not entirely true.

Sam and I had kept in touch. Not twenty-four/seven, but every once in a while. She'd told me about her and Freddie's falling out. From how she described it, it was bad. I just wanted my friends to be as happy as I was at my wedding and I was determined to make that happen.

I'd actually talked to Sam before we left Italy...

"Hello?" Sam answered. Somehow she seemed surprised to get a call.

"Sam, it's Carly," I missed her a lot. I'd made friends in Italy, but I still considered Sam to be my best friend.

"Hey, what's up?" It was really important to me to tell everybody about the engagement in person, but it took everything I had to keep myself from telling her.

"I'm coming back to Seattle!" I didn't really know how she'd react, but I hope she'd be happy.

"Really? Not that I'm not happy for you, it's just...why are you coming back now?" Sam was shocked, that much was clear. It didn't make sense to them why it was such random timing. It really wasn't random, but they didn't know that, so how could I blame her?

"Well, I've got some news and well, I miss Spencer, so it seemed like a good time for a visit," The line was fuzzy for a moment.

Sam was at her laptop, working on her advice column. I had read a few, but I hadn't read them all. From what I had read, I knew Sam was good at giving advice, "Well, what's the news?"

"I really want to tell you," Carly swallowed, "in person."

"No!" Sam shot back, rejecting the idea immediately. I expected that reaction.

Coming back to Seattle meant that Sam had to face the past and, more importantly, Freddie.

"C'mon, Sam, don't you want to see me? It's been seven years since we've seen each other," Part of me said that to make her feel guilty, but I just wanted to see her. Talking on the phone only goes so far...

"Carly, I have to work on my column," That was a bad excuse, and I knew it.

"You know what?" Sam waited for me to continue, "I know you're scared to see Freddie and having to deal with what happened, but he's my friend too! I want to have you both there! Now, you can either be the Sam I know and love and put the past behind you and come to Seattle, or you can stay in L.A. and disappoint your best friend! Now, what's it gonna be?"

I felt bad about being so harsh, but I couldn't let her just do this to herself. She hadn't dated anyone since she left Seattle and she'd kind of closed herself off. This was her chance to come out of her shell.

Sam sighed deeply, "I'll be there tomorrow."

"Good," I smiled, satisfied, "Besides, you're column's online. Just bring your laptop and you can work on it whenever."

Sam knew that it was a bad excuse, but she had to find a way out of it. Who knows what would happen when she saw Freddie?

After a moment, I spoke again, "If you never face the past, you can't conquer it."

The blonde knew her brunette best friend was right. She didn't have to say that because her sigh said it for her.

"For you," Sam told me, "not for him."

I swallowed. If I was going to clean up this mess, I was going to have my work cut out for me, "See you soon."

"See ya, Shay," The line went dead and I sat down on the sidewalk that she'd been walking in. My eyes closed and I listen to the sound of the Italy streets. At the moment, there weren't many cars coming down the road. For about ten seconds, it was dead quiet. I let it soak in because I knew...that was the last bit of quiet I would be hearing for a while.

I hadn't told Freddie that Sam was coming. He was more negotiable than Sam, but I figured I'd just take the hit for it later. They needed to work this out.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on mine. It was Bruno, now awake, "We're almost there."

"Yeah," Bruno was eager, but I wasn't. If Sam and Freddie were going to still be fighting by the time of the wedding, everything would be a disaster. I wanted everything to be perfect and everyone to be happy. Seeing my two best friends going at it would ruin it all.

So much had changed since we were just three idiots in an attic making a web show. Things had gotten more difficult.

I realized that no matter what I did, I couldn't change the past or control it, but I could control the future.

The pilot came over the intercom, as the plane lowered. We were landing. I saw the Seattle Space Needle and smiled, "Welcome home."

I expected for this to be an interesting year leading up to the wedding...

...and I was right.

A/N: Well, well, well, what's going to happen next? I guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out! Review please, it decreases the time between updates! :)