A/N: Eep. This took me a long time to post. Oh well. Enjoy. Please.
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It was midmorning now. We were all packed into Spencer's blue iCrushing truck, cruising down Highway 5. Spencer was driving, Mrs. Benson was fussing, I was wheedling, Freddie was making less-than-witty comebacks, and Carly, crammed in the middle of us, was rolling her eyes and trying to break up our bickering.
"Fredward, did you remember your nightlight?"
"I don't use a nightlight anymore, Sam!"
"Since when?"
"Since... a long time ago!"
"But what if a monster attacks, or a clown or something?"
"I do hate clowns. They freak me out."
"Me too. You're a clown."
"Shut up."
"Awww," I leaned over Carly to pinch his nose. "And see, look at your big red clown nose!"
"Get your hands off me, woman!"
"Oh, am I invading your dork bubble?"
He rolled his eyes.
"You didn't seem to have such a sensitive bubble last ni-"
He made a jerkish hiss, and then launched into, "You're so immature, Sam!" While giving me a subtle sort of That never happened, remember? look. Right.
"Could you guys just cut it out?" Carly whined.
"No..." "Not really."
Carly unbuckled herself and climbed over me, shoving me roughly into the middle seat. "If you guys want to pass the time by bickering, like always, be my guest, but I'm sick of being in the middle of it!" She turned huffily to stare out the window.
Fredward and I stared concernedly at her for a moment, then let her pout in peace.
Heh, I'm back in the dork's personal space, I thought bemusedly. As I sat slouchily in Carly's former seat, what happened this morning replayed in my mind:
I woke up with a jolt, an unfamiliar beeping ringing in my ears. What the heck...where am I? I heard a groan from above my head and my pillow shifted under me. It took me a few seconds to see the problem with that. I looked up to the source of the noise, and it was... oh, Fredward, holy ham. The night's events reshaped themselves in my mind. Though I now realized how I got there, our extremely close proximity still startled me a little.
I sat up, but he didn't let go of me. He merely loosened his grip as he turned off the alarm on his watch behind my back. The obnoxious noise silenced, he looked down at me.
"Hey, sleepy," He whispered with a grin, giving one of my blonde curls a gentle tug. "Mrrgh..." I groaned, and I leaned forward onto his chest again. Screw wrong messages or any other crap that might keep me upright. It was comfy here, and I was not ready to get up.
I felt him laugh and squeeze me closer, then he whispered apologetically, "Unless you feel like doing a lot of explaining, we should probably get up now."
"What time is it?" I mumbled, my face in his shoulder.
"Five-thirty. We're leaving at six-thirty, remember?"
"Ugh, yeah." I willed myself to sit up, though my eyes didn't want to open and my limbs were heavy. Freddie still held me loosely around the waist. I took a deep breath. Damn, I've been out here cuddling a dork all night, I thought vaguely, looking at the light creeping up in the east.
Freddie, meanwhile, tidied up the fire escape and opened the window. I climbed inside and he followed me down the hall to apartments 8C and 8D. Without a backward glance, I picked Carly's lock and let myself into her dark apartment.
Struck by a random impulse, I turned around to look back through the peephole. Freddie was still there. He raised his hand as if to open the door of 8C, then lowered it again and slipped into his own house.
Carly was still asleep when I got back, thank goodness. I was in a sleepy fog all morning, though, while we ate breakfast, packed the truck, and dropped by my house so I could pack some clothes and inform my mother that I was leaving town. She wasn't home, so we left her a note.
"Spencer, stop at this rest area so the children can go to the bathroom," said Mrs. Benson imperiously, interrupting my train of thought.
"But we're only 20 minutes out of Seattle-"
"But what if someone has to go later, when it's not convenient?"
"It's all good," I offered. "There's an empty Peppy Cola can back here." I flatter myself I'm pretty good at bugging the crap out of Freddie's mom.
We'd been driving about two hours now, when suddenly I remembered something, "Carly!"
"What?"
"I forgot to pack my underwear!"
She stared at me for a minute (and I can only imagine the look on the dork's face) then raised her eyebrows and began to giggle.
"I'm serious!"
"Chill, Sam, we'll go shopping in San Francisco."
"I dunno how I forgot them, they were right next to-" I felt the blood drain from my face and my hands get clammy.
"What?"
"I forgot my fatcake stash!"
"Oh, the horror," said the smart-ass dork next to me.
"This is serious chiz! You know how I get when I don't have enough calories!"
"Indeed I do. But you're wrong. This is not serious chiz. Or any kind of chiz."
"I thought we just agreed that I-"
"I brought some fatcakes for you." He pulled a plastic grocery bag out from underneath his seat. It was full pink fatcake packages.
I gaped. Then I lunged. Once I was contendedly chewing on a pink preservative-flavored pastry, I wondered out-loud, "What's this for?"
"Um, eating, Sam. You put it in your mouth, then chew it up and swallow, kinda like what you're doing now."
"I mean why do you have it? Why did you bring them?"
"You know, in case I needed a bribe, or a peace offering or something. I figure this is as good a Sam-ergency as any."
I thought about it for a moment, then acting on impulse, I turned and gave him a quick nose-kiss, before digging back into the fatcake. I could feel eyes on me from my left, so I turned to face a wide-eyed Carly.
"Did you just...?" She whispered as quietly as possible.
"Strictly nasal." I assured her.
We sang karaoke and car-danced, we sat upside down in our seats, we had rapping contests, we ate tons of trail mix and doughnuts, we made faces at passing cars, we annoyed Mrs. Benson to the verge of tears with the mess we made, and at long last, Spencer stopped in Portland for gas.
"Go to that pump there, Spencer."
"You're not the boss of me!"
We climbed out and stretched our legs. Spencer, looking exasperated, sent us into the store with ten bucks each. Booyah.
Up at the cashier's table, treats in hand, the three of us waited in line behind a large, smelly man in dirty overalls. You know, the obligatory gas station hobo. Anyways, we were looking half-interestedly at the counter displays while we waited.
"There's nothing like a Mentos kiss," I read out loud off one display. "That's quite a claim."
"You're right," agreed Freddie. "Wanna help me test it, Carly?" He raised one eyebrow se-dork-tively. Carly slapped him across his infuriatingly cute baby face. Good for you, Carls.
Freddie recovered fast, though. "Well, okay. Sam'll do it. Won't you, Sam?"
What?!? "Erm...uh...hell no, jerkface! I mean, well, unless there's something really good in it for me." Okay, maybe I was a tiny bit not totally puking at the idea.
"You'd be assisting the progress of Science! What more could you want?"
"Not good enough."
"I bet you won't do it." (Carly groaned)
"Stakes?"
"Loser has to give the winner a foot massage?"
"Lame."
"Okay...how about loser has to hit on the first person they see at the next gas station?"
"Oh, you are so on!"
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A/N: So there. My longest yet, and my favorite, so far, I think. The thing I'm least happy with, though, is how cranky and unimportant Carly's been so far. But Sam totally has Freddie on the brain, so she's not thinking about Carly that much, and Carly's feeling ignored. But I promise there will be more about Carly soon. Please review!
~ August