Ok, been a little busy I guess. :D Well here's the fourth chapter for ya! And thank you all for the reviews!

Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly.

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Chapter 4

And Another Stage, 4: That One Life-Changing Question

Carly stared at her best friend, befuddled.

"Th-the potion. You know. The one your cousin gave you to try?!" Carly stammered.

"…What the heck are you…"

"Ah, Sam, would you quit saying that?!" Carly was frantic now. Quite. This was no longer funny. (It really wasn't in the first place but she realized how serious Sam was.)

"This…this isn't funny anymore. You do remember that whole love potion incident don't you? You have to!"

By this time, Carly was standing, a look of worry and terror crossed in her eyes. This puzzled Sam. Carly could tell by looking at her face that she was sure making Sam nervous. But she didn't care. This was kind of bad. She looked frantically around for something to remind her with when she saw a kid walking past her.

"Uh…here," Carly said and grabbed the kid's arm and pulled him toward Sam. "Remember?"

Sam stared blankly back at her.

"Remember, you said that you wanted to use that potion stuff so you could…" she looked at the boy and went closer to Sam and whispered, "fall in love with him?"

Sam nodded and Carly smiled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied, shaking her head.

"…neither do I…" said the kid, totally alienated to the whole conversation.

Carly sighed. "Hold on! Sam, this is Rupert. The kid you had a crush on? He's in my Biology class. Don't you remember any of that?"

"No…"

"Wait. What? You had a crush on me? Wha…I thought you said that you had a best friend that thought that I was..."

"…Maybe I was talking about someone else…or maybe you're the wrong new…oh, yeah! Now I remember! Yeah, but, you see, well Sam, here…"

"Ok!" Sam shouted. "Let's stay on task here."

Carly nodded for the confused (very confused) kid to go. He shook his head and headed off in the other direction.

"Ok, Sam. I don't know what's going on, but if I could guess, and if I was into science or whatever, I'd say it's overtaking your mind so now you're completely oblivious to anything that happened before this that dealt with that stuff. But I know nothing about that so I'm not 100% sure."

Sam just stared, trying to take in every aspect of what Carly just said. It wasn't getting to her very well.

"Oh…nevermind. Just…come on!" Carly said, dragging her friend to class as the bell rang.

Carly and Sam were sitting watching TV and eating dinner when they heard a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Carly shouted.

After a couple seconds, Carly noticed that it had been very quiet since the door opened and closed. Thinking that it could be an intruder, she shot her head back faster than you could whip a horse. When she noticed it was Freddie, she eased up a little, her breathing coming back to normal.

"Oh hi, Freddie," she sighed in relief.

She turned back around to the television set, when something hit her. She flung her head around again. Sam had been staring in surprise too.

"Freddie! What did you do to your hair?!" Carly asked.

Instead of having his normal hairdo, Freddie's hair was in something of a Mohawk. Ok so it wasn't exactly a Mohawk, but it was sort of.

"Uh…" Freddie stammered on what to say, trying to choose his words carefully.

The other two were pretty much speechless. When no response came from him, Sam decided it was her turn to talk.

"How'd your berserk mom let you out of the house like that anyway...come to think of it, how'd she even let you do that in the first place?"

Freddie glared. "Let's just say it took a lot of secrecy and a LOT of scheming on how to threaten her if she didn't let me do this and…you know what? I wouldn't have had to do this if you hadn't made a comment on my hair yesterday! So you try figuring out how to do this behind my mom's back!"

Sam said nothing back. Carly looked at her and cut Freddie off.

"I don't think Sam was trying to be rude Freddie. I think she was just asking a random question."

Freddie looked at her and then back at Sam. She looked a little taken aback but she seemed fine.

He sat down on the couch next to them and attempted to steal something off of Sam's plate before she could stop him, just to make her mad. He grabbed a piece of a biscuit she had and ate it. He closed his eyes waiting for some kind of blow but nothing came. He opened one eye and then glared when he noticed she was giggling.

"Why are you laughing?" he asked. She stopped and just smiled. But it wasn't a smirk.

"Ok. What is wrong with you?" he asked.

"Nothing's wrong with me," she frowned. She had no idea. She quickly changed the subject to stop her from tearing up because apparently he found something wrong with her.

"Uh…so why did you change your hairstyle?"

"I already told you! Yesterday…"

"No, I got that I mean…why'd you do that for…what I said?"

Freddie looked at Carly for a bit of help. Carly just shrugged.

"I'll, um, be back," she said and left the two alone.

Freddie turned back to Sam.

"…Because…well…why'd…what was it that you said anyway? Was it meant to be a compliment or an insult?! That's driving me mad!"

He looked at Sam's face and then calmed down, noticing that she wasn't at all mad or anything. Just a little hurt.

"I'm sorry. I just…" she started; Freddie interrupted.

"Wait, wait a minute…did you just say you're sorry?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Whoa. Sam Puckett? Saying sorry?"

Sam waited.

"Wow…ok, you were saying?" he finished.

"All I said yesterday was that I liked your hair. You didn't have to change it. Are you, are you doing this because you don't want a compliment?"

"What? No, I totally want a compliment! You don't even know…" started a very confused Freddie.

"Then why'd you change your hair because I said that I liked your other style?" Sam started tearing up. The way Freddie was acting was like he was saying that he didn't like her; she complimented him and said that she had liked his hair, then, he goes and changes it. Almost like he was trying to change her mind. Which is kind of what Freddie had had in mind…only in a different perspective.

Freddie had thought she insulted him but wasn't sure. So, he changed his hair into something different. The whole point was to figure out whether she was being sarcastic the night before or not. It was driving him crazy and he just had to find out.

"I don't understand," Sam choked out as a single tear ran down her cheek; she couldn't hold it back any longer. "Why do you hate me so much?"

She knew she was being overdramatic (A/N: Or maybe not *shrugs*! After all I am writing the story and I do believe that that was a bit overdramatic but you know…lol), but she didn't care.

'Neither do I,' he thought.

By this time, Sam was crying, more so than before. Freddie was a little unsure of what to do. In his eyes, he knew that girls were a bit more sensitive than guys. Therefore, he was sure they cried a bit more. But he'd been around girls crying only a few times. Once, when he went to ask Carly something about the webshow…but when he asked, she wanted to be left alone. So he just talked to her. His mom had cried before, but it was over over concern and he was scared to know what might happen if he did try and calm her down. The only other couple of girls he'd ever seen cry were Baby Stephanie, a few of his other girly cousins, and some of the girls Sam got in catfights and, well, regular fist fights with. Which also meant that he had in fact seen a few guys cry. A few. Very few. Just the ones Sam beat to a pulp.

A sniffle stopped him from his thoughts and reality came back to him. Not thinking, he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Sam…Sam," he got her attention. Once she looked up at him, he wrapped his arm around her. He was a little apprehensive, thinking that she might take his arm off for doing this.

"I don't hate you. I didn't know that that was a compliment. I'm sorry. I thought you were insulting me because that's what you do on a daily basis. You're a pretty cool friend."

He rubbed her arm. She smiled. That was a compliment to her. She calmed down a little as she leaned into him.

He waited, expecting her to start using his shirt as her tissue. But she didn't. She just stayed there. He didn't really know what to do now.

"Um…here," he slowly moved his arm back and got up from the couch. "How about I go and change my hair back to normal?"

She just nodded.

"Are you ok?" Carly asked her blonde friend.

Sam had gone upstairs out of boredom. She had been wiping the tears on her shirt, but her eyes were still red and puffy.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she smiled. But Carly was still concerned. What did he do?

"What did he do?" she finally asked.

Just then, the elevator door opened and Freddie walked in the studio. Plain, ol' Freddie. Plain, ol', messy, fluffy-haired Freddie.

"Told ya!" he smiled.

Carly looked from one friend to the other.

"Ok, what's going on?"

Freddie smirked and looked up. Carly finally got the idea.

"By the way, what were you doing up here anyway?" he asked.

"Uh, nothing. Hey, I'm going to be right back. This time, I'll come back," she promised. She turned to Sam.

"…With snacks!" she sang. Sam beamed.

There was an awkward silence after Carly left. Sam broke the silence. And they talked for awhile.

Carly came back up with a Fat Cake for Sam that she found and more spaghetti tacos than she could handle. Very much so that she had to put them in something just to carry them upstairs.

"Hey, guys, guess what? I got the punch this time! 'Cause last time it was such a hit!" she punned as she entered. The two just stared at her and she stopped. That was when she noticed something. Sam and Freddie were awfully close to each other.

"Um…" Carly started as her friends raced to get the tacos before she did.

"Wow. Your brother should really start making more than just this," Sam stated as she started digging in.

"Why do you care? You'll eat practically anything anyway," Freddie said.

She just laughed. "True that!"

"Hey, Sam, can I see you for a moment?" Carly asked politely.

"Oh, yeah, sure."

When they were out the door, Carly pinned Sam to the wall. Normally, this would be a little threatening but Carly was smiling.

"How?" she asked, clearly amused. The same "amused" look that she played on her face earlier that day.

"How what?"

"How'd you and Freddie get to be so close?" she asked in a quiet tone.

Sam smiled dreamily and then looked up, thoughtfully.

"Ok, when you went downstairs, we talked and…"

"Wait. You mean "talked" talked? No arguing, or bickering, or anything?"

"Pfft. No…wait, what?"

"Oh, just nevermind. You were saying?"

"Ok. We were getting along just fine. And I think he was also trying to cheer me up from a little bit ago, but he did it!"

"He did what?"

"He asked me out. That's like, every girls dream, right?"

"Nah, not really,"

"Yeah, I know. Just playin' with ya. But still."

Carly was awestruck. She didn't really know what to say. But she really liked to see her friend happy.

"Wow, Sam," she smiled and gave her best friend a hug.

"Well, I'm hungry. Still haven't eaten all of that taco, remember?" Sam reminded and left Carly in the hall.

Carly rolled her eyes. Then, a smile spread across her face.

Freddie, you really are caring. Even if Sam is spellbound, it was you who cheered her up and you that asked her out. You really do care.

Sam poked her head out the door and shouted, "Hurry up, Carls, or I'll eat yours!"

When Sam disappeared, Carly simply chuckled to herself.

"Wow, Sam. Maybe I'll just postpone figuring out how to get rid of that potion from your body for a little while. Just…a little while."

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Longer chapter. I hope you liked it :)! Please review!

Note: In a lot of places, I didn't really quite know what to say. All-in-all, I don't think this chapter was that great. I hope I do better next time. I think it was writing this after iKiss that this all came about and I was like, well what now really? They kissed. And now the mood disappears because it's kind of upsetting that they go back to hating each other. But I'm over that now because who cares? Otherwise, iCarly wouldn't really be iCarly now would it? Lol. Anyway….Sorry about the horse thing, all you animal lovers. I'm an animal-lover too and would never hurt one but I just needed an analogy hehe. Oh and, by the way, the ending sentence 'Just…a little while.'" was actually made because if you've noticed, I used a little bit, or a little while, or a bit, or a lot, or whatever, well, a lot! It was bugging me so I ended the chapter with it.

More important note: I thank singingzombies for the idea of Freddie with his hair fetish. It was a good idea ;)! And I'm pretty sure that was what it was. I dwelled on that for days trying to morph that and a lot into one chapter. Well maybe not dwell but you know…I'm gonna stop talking now.

Most important note (lol jk):

Happy iKiss-mas!

Lol that's what I called today all day long. Did everyone enjoy iKiss? I thought it was awesome and cute. I even remember thinking about how well they actually could get along. Idk it was totally so cute :)! So I say to you all, Happy iKissmas to all and to all a good night! (Although, I do have to say I like this more: *:iKissmas:*. I used that on myspace and aol and everything today because it resembled the kissy lips smiley. I was so excited for that epi u don't even know!)

~*MAC*