The Coin's Other Side

Disclaimer: Do I own iCarly? No, no I do not. Will I attempt to own it? No, no I will not. Will I write a fan-fiction on it? Yes, yes I will.

A/N:


Chapter 7 (Responsibility of a Webshow)

Freddie slowly trudged towards his apartment, it was nine thirty at night and he was exhausted. He had fun at the church event, though, once he started really getting involved. He paid a visit to each station where the Williams family were located, helped them out a bit and relieved them of their duty so they could take a break before returning. He didn't think he could have so much fun with them again, but it surprised him just how wrong he'd been to assume they wouldn't want him around. Valerie had even told him towards the end that she was so glad that he'd been there. Even Veronica and Vanessa came around towards the end of the evening, talked to him, and started joking around about various things that happened over the years.

As he made his way around the corner, he paused and stared at Carly's door, it was wide open for some reason. Could they be waiting for him? He was hoping to avoid them until the following day. Maybe they wouldn't notice him walking by. He carefully stepped towards his door, grabbed the doorknob, and opened it. As he turned his gaze back to Carly's apartment, he noticed their living room was empty. He hiked his shoulders up and stepped into his apartment, then was filled with a sense that something was amiss.

"Hey Freddie, welcome home," Sam's voice erupted in his ears and he winced visibly as he turned his gaze to the couch. Sam was standing tall, her arms crossed, and her expression angry. "Your mom let me in, said you were going to be home soon. Now you can't avoid us anymore." She rushed forward and grabbed his shirt collar, then dragged him from the room and pushed him forward into the hallway. Why was it she still did this? No amount of telling her to cut it out would appear to keep her from shoving him around.

"What are you doing!" He bolted for the apartment opposite his and stalled when he saw Gibby and Carly standing behind the kitchen counter. As he rose to his feet, he dusted off his shirt and flinched as the door slammed shut. Carly had a look of disapproval and Gibby was simply eating an orange with his trademark Gibyy nonchalance. "What part of 'I want to be alone' did you miss? Not to sound rude or anything, and thanks for the assault there, Sam."

"Oh shut up." Sam walked over to the counter and Gibby lifted his eyes to Freddie, his lips fell and his fingers began tapping the counter with frustration.

"You know who they called over to that damn bra section of the mall?" Gibby asked with narrow eyes. "They dragged me out of my own house just so they'd have someone accompany them to the store. Why? I don't know." Freddie was dumbfounded, he knew Sam and Carly weren't that bad when it came to being without one of the guys. What was the problem? Were they stressed out over having to go to a trial later in the week? Was that it? "We got a phone call this afternoon," Carly started. She walked around the kitchen island, pulling her fingers along the surface of the counter. She pressed her lips together and stared into his eyes. "Nora. She called us from prison." He raised an eyebrow and ran his hand nervously through his hair.

"What did she want?"

"I don't know, she called us, said hello, and then…just sat there…breathing oddly. She might want us to testify and say her parents weren't involved. What do you think?"

"I think it's bullshit, why claim her parents weren't involved when they clearly were?"

"Right. That's also not all the 'fun' we've had with fans today. Someone posted a comment saying you were out with some girl. Do you know you're being stalked by fans? They seem to think you're cheating on one of us, because of course, we absolutely must be dating one another." He lifted his eyes skyward and exhaled sharply. He should have known better than to go to Panera Bread with Valerie immediately after a sudden outburst from his fans the day prior, but seriously, how was he to know they'd go nuts because he was out with 'some girl'.

"Wait. Some girl? No, I wasn't on a date with anyone, but I was helping a friend of mine with a project of theirs." Carly nodded and Sam moved over to the couch. He had to wonder, did the fans really not recognize Valerie? Sure, she changed after five years, but she didn't look all that different. Of course, he might have to take into consideration that most of the crazy fans that wanted him to date the girls didn't really think about what someone else looked like.

"We know you weren't on a date. But someone posted they saw you with two girls, sitting a couple tables away. After that post, it seems a bunch of fans wanted your head for being seen with any other girl besides us."

"Yeah, we just wanted to give you a heads up," Sam commented while throwing her heels onto the coffee table. He stared at her with a vague expression, did she have to force him out of the apartment like that? Jesus, her angry demeanor may just get someone hurt one day! He folded his arms over and gently tapped his foot on the ground. She looked at him with a curious expression. "What?"

"You realize the way you act and talk could get someone seriously hurt some day? Right?"

"I guess, but it's just me being me, right?" She sat up straight and pushed her hands along her legs. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to scare you or anything, it was just frustrating how we couldn't catch you after all the random crap. Then we went to the Panera Bread, you weren't there. Now we don't care who you were with or what you were doing, it's just…it would be nice to be able to get in contact with you when we need you."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you guys." He pushed his hands into his pockets and closed his eyes, exhaling gently as he felt his shoulder muscles starting to tighten. He wanted to jerk them forward, to let the twitch work its way through him, but pushed it down. "I'm usually spending every day with you, so I figured it'd be fine if I went one day without worrying about you guys, or vice versa." He slowly opened his eyes and saw the girls exchanging unsure glances. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and continued. "So, are you guys concerned about the trial? Should be over after this, I mean you know those parents are probably going to get the maximum."

"Yeah, it is still a bit hard to think about what happened then, but you know it's over now. I mean, it gets easier to think about…" Sam rubbed her forehead and Carly slowly moved behind the couch. "Anyway, we didn't tell you about this one strange message we got from some woman." Sam stretched her hand up into the air and leaned her head back on the top of the couch, looking to Carly. "You want to do this one, Carly?" Carly nodded and leaned forward, gripping the edges of the sofa.

"Some woman emailed us, said she was released from prison about two years ago. She wouldn't say why she was in prison, just that some people she was with are up for parole…" Carly leaned forward against the couch as Freddie raised an eyebrow. What was the point here? What did an ex-prisoner have to do with anything? "She said the the last webshow and the parole hearning reminded her of not only why they were put in, she met another inmate and, Jonah's dead Freddie!" Freddie's jaw fell and Carly's once mildly calm expression was now gone.

"The inmate knew Jonah," Sam replied. She shifted her weight to the far end of the couch and leaned back, putting her hand to her head. She was freaking out on the inside, just as Carly was freaking out on the outside. "His girlfriend." Carly frowned and turned around, leaning her back against the couch and hiding her face. Freddie arched his eyebrow and pushed off the counter, now he was interested.

"What happened? How did he…" Freddie asked while taking a step towards them.

"Suicide..." The words threw him off guard, it was as though he'd been struck with a battering ram. Suicide? Why? Sam looked off to the side and Carly continued, trying to speak rationally and quietly. It was hard for them not to just scream in that moment. He wished he'd been here for them earlier when they'd found out.

Carly spoke softly and lowered her eyes. "His girlfriend told our…. fan that she was in for shoplifting, her own 'personal downward spiral'. She dated Jonah, said he was faithful, knew better to cheat, but also said he had severe problems thanks to that bounce thing we put him on, or more to the point, the taunts and bullying he had to endure afterwards."

Freddie's heart fell and he slowly moved forward. He couldn't believe his ears, but it did make some sense,

"You've got to be kidding…"

"I'm not. Jonah left our apartment pretty messed up, remember? We left him on that machine for two hours. The woman writing that email said his… last girlfriend claimed Jonah was very depressed because our fans that constantly taunted him, calling him a womanizer and trying to convince whatever girlfriend he had that he would simply cheat again."

"Did that message say anything else ? How did he die?"

"Getting to that." Carly took a deep breath and looked down at Sam, who had just called for Gibby to throw her a banana. She peeled it and took a slow bite. "So apparently Jonah's home life was wreck." Sam nodded in agreement, and of course, she would know. She often said how Jonah's dad was pretty much an absentee father who never paid him any mind, and the mother was no better. Carly's eyes glazed over and her hands clenched into fists. "You know River Legacy Park?"

"Yeah, I know the park" It was ways off, in a pretty bad part of town. "What about it?"

"Well, Jonah was there with his girlfriend two years ago. Apparently they were making some kind of video, she went off to the park restroom, came back and a bunch of fans were calling him names, pushing him around, saying he was 'worthless' and how he was incapable of ever amounting to anything, you get the drift."

Freddie's heart sank and the air around him started to become very tense. He was starting to hope nothing major would happen here.

"You think they killed him…"

"No. And yes…Apparently he'd been acting strangely that day, more so than before, he started convulsing or something while one of the fans started giving him a wedgie. Jonah's girlfriend ran to get help and when she came back, he was dead…I think she found a large bottle of pills, all empty. He killed himself Freddie." Carly choked up and Sam flinched, nearly dropping her banana.

"He killed himself because our fans took it to heart when we punished him and made fun of him when he tried to kiss me. We let him go after two hours, the fans did not."

A heaviness descended upon Freddie as he started wondering if they could have done anything for Jonah's depression. He'd seen the guy around school after the whole experience with Sam, but he never knew Jonah was being picked on. If he knew what was going through that guy's mind, he could have probably stopped and said something! Anything!

Sam's eyes started to water as Carly pushed away from the couch and started walking towards Freddie. A tear ran down her cheek as she met his eyes. "How could our fans be…so terrible?" She asked with a visible grimace.

"I don't know, maybe not all of our fans are good hearted people, but…" Yes, he was quoting something that Valerie and Veronica had told him earlier, the whole thing was throwing his mind in every direction. "What the woman said in that email, about what Jonah's ex said, was it was our fault, because we decided to put on iCarly our personal lives and the lives of others."

"Jesus, it's not like we told anyone to attack him!" Sam exclaimed angrily. Freddie started rubbing his forehead, then froze as he recalled Vanessa's words from earlier. Something she'd said about Sam's statement after breaking up with Valerie. His heart stopped beating for a minute and his breathing stilled.

"No…" Could any of their fans have tried to beat Valerie after the breakup? Sam said that in the heat of passion, she never meant for anyone to go out to beat Valerie. Maybe that wasn't what happened, maybe he was thinking too much. Yeah, that was a constant problem of his, he always thought too much on everything. But knowing that his fans pushed someone to commit suicide, the guilt was almost overwhelming. Though Carly and Sam were probably experiencing it even worse than he was.

"How are we supposed to respond to this?" Carly put her hands to Freddie's shoulder and continued to gaze at him, studying his eyes for answers. He wasn't even sure he had the answers to his own problems, much less this. "I can't stand thinking iCarly is responsible for something like this, Freddie. I don't want to pull the plug, I really don't, but I don't need stuff like this! The fans who were angry that you were out with some girl. Some comments were really negative. Good thing the people who saw you didn't take a picture or she could be hounded by our fans as well…" He sighed and lifted his eyebrows, there was no surprise there, as he actually believed now they were likely to do something like that.

"Relax Carly, nothing needs to happen to iCarly, we just…" He stopped to think about his answer, what really should happen? There was no reason to end iCarly, but maybe it was going too far. He didn't know, but the girls didn't seem to want it to end, they had to have some kind of limit. "Maybe we should be careful with personal details of our lives and not air them live on the internet. There's got to be a limit, right? Like with Jonah, we went too far…" The girls looked away, both visibly cringing. Even Gibby was keeping quiet, seemingly tuning himself out of this conversation. "It was a bit much. Leaving him on that machine for two hours, for the entire world to see. We probably didn't have to say that he attempted to cheat on Sam by trying to kiss you, his only real crime that entire time…Maybe we should have controlled that heat of passion moment of ours." Carly threw her hands up in the air and cried out in anguish. She usually took things way too seriously, but this time, she had a good reason to.

"We may as well have been the ones telling him to swallow those pills! Do you know how it feels?" Carly threw her hands into the air, evidently freaking out more with each word that flew from her mouth. She had every reason to, though. Sam stared ahead and closed her eyes, slowly chewing another bite of her banana. Gibby munched on yet another piece of his orange. Carly stared at the two of them astonishingly, as if she were wondering why they weren't reacting as much as she was. Sam lifted her eyes and breathed out. Freddie's heart was racing in his chest, his mind was not on Jonah, but Valerie. He just couldn't shake the feeling that whatever happened to her was related to iCarly in some way. Sam lowered the banana to her lap and swallowed the bite she had, "I think. Tomorrow, maybe after school, we should try to see Jonah's family." Not a bad idea, actually. They could go and try to offer whatever they could to the family, though nothing could ever bring him back. "His mom and dad may or may not have cared, though I think they did…but his little sister, Olivia…they were close as ever. I remember that. Olivia was always hanging around Jonah, always so happy." Her eyes started to release the tears she'd been holding back, finally her guilt was showing more than before. "I…don't know what I could say to her, but I know, I'd want to say something. I don't know what I'd expect from her."

"Rage," Freddie replied simply. "Anger, sadness, a mixture of tense emotions?" Sam looked at him as he bowed his head and raised his shoulders. He was thinking of everything he saw in Vanessa's eyes earlier that day, everything that he heard in Veronica's voice. He now knew they were angry over something that happened to Valerie, they weren't angry at him, but it didn't matter. They let him see that anger. "You'd have to prepare for what she'd say to you, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be friendly. We didn't cause Jonah's depression, we left him alone after that bounce session, but, I'm pretty sure Olivia would still blame iCarly."

Even though he said it, within his heart he wasn't so sure he didn't believe it was iCarly's fault. There was nothing the girls could have done, they couldn't have known what would happen. It would be difficult, but Sam's suggestion was true. They had to take responsibility for what happened. Carly was staring at Sam as though she were daft, but she wasn't saying anything. Perhaps a part of her felt the same way. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a minute, waiting for someone to speak. Then Gibby spoke up, for the first time, his voice was quiet, but his words wise.

"Life is a cause and effect deal. Because Jonah made that one mistake, you put him on that machine. You weren't thinking about the effect, it just seemed funny and right at the moment" The others looked at him and saw him staring at the half orange in his hand. He turned the orange over and narrowed his eyes slightly. "Yet because you did that, he came out mentally worse for wear…now I actually had talked to him occasionally after that, and I'm just as guilty as anyone in this room."

"Why?" Sam raised an eyebrow and rose to her feet, staring suspiciously at him. Gibby closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

"I saw some kids cornering him, insulting him, and I walked on by. I didn't think they'd listen to me, I mean hell, I was afraid they'd start in on me. Whether or not you know, Sam is not the only one that ever picked on me…" Sam bowed her head as Gibby's eyes flicked to her, then back to his orange. " Maybe if I stopped what was happening, things could have been different, maybe things would have been different, but I didn't know. No one could know. Nobody could ever know. I think it was a couple days before he just vanished altogether, I thought he'd been pulled out of school."

"Gibby."

"No. If I try to rack my brain over the what-ifs, I'd probably go insane. Every one of us could have seen the warning signs, could have stopped it, could have done something, but you know what? No one did. Because of that, because of our actions, because Jonah probably never sought out help and the fans hated him so much, he's gone. Forever." Gibby slowly peeled a slice of the orange off and dropped it on the paper plate below his hands. "Now we can choose to blame ourselves, blame others, cry until we drop and become absolutely nothing and cancel iCarly for good, or…we can try and become stronger, try to better ourselves and iCarly. Maybe tell our fans not to take so much heart into things, maybe tell our fans to chill out before anything else extreme happens…I can't say before something extreme happens, because evidently, something already has. We can stop spilling our guts out onto the show and telling people every fucking detail of our lives."

Freddie chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck as that and the girls turned their eyes down, their cheeks started to burn from embarrassment and shame. Gibby stared out at all of them, his body tense. "We can also move on, tone down iCarly as I just said, and make sure nothing like this happens again. When iCarly started, it seemed an innocent show where we could say anything, do anything, get away with anything, and nothing would happen, but you ever wonder why I don't talk about my personal life on iCarly? Because having a webshow is a tremendous responsibility! You're broadcasting live to the entire world, even prisoners in prisons can see you. The things you say, the things you do, the influence you pose, it's more serious than you think. You can't just go out thinking things won't happen. Even Ryan Higa doesn't divulge as much personal stuff as you guys do. Actions have ramifications, both positive and negative…a webshow is a bigger responsibility than you think. It's time to start noticing that."

Carly swallowed and looked from Gibby to Freddie. Her eyes quivered and her hands closed into tight fists. "Freddie, I agree with Sam then…would you be there for us tomorrow? I know you're getting tired of spending every single day, apparently, with us, but…I also want to stop by Jonah's house, if his family still live there, and to them." She frowned and bowed her head. She took a deep breath and slowly turned her eyes to Sam, who looked ready to scream. Carly sucked in her gut and lifted her gaze bravely to Freddie. "I know I need to be prepared for what we hear, and it's probably not going to be pleasant, but…I'd appreciate you being there. I feel like we should say something to them, and maybe deal with whatever they have for us. I mean, I don't know, I just feel horrible if we don't say something."

"Yeah…" He agreed with her, even he felt pretty rotten about this. Olivia, Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown, they probably hated them right now. Maybe not, but there was no telling. They needed someone to blame, and if there was anything to blame at all, it was iCarly. If his friends were going to suffer any kind of wrath from the Browns, then he'd have to be there too. He was the one programmed the damn machine, he could have seen it ending badly when they were hooking Jonah up to it, but he didn't even bother to speak up. "Don't worry, I'll be there. You guys are my friends, after all."

"Thank you." Carly hugged him and closed her eyes as the tears continued to run down her cheeks. He couldn't understand if it was just the guilt, but all of them seemed so deeply affected by this. None had been that close to Jonah, at least no one besides Sam, who actually did appear to be taking it worse than Carly, judging by her facial expressions and eyes devoid of emotion. Even Gibby's stony expression was wet, and he wasn't even with iCarly that day! "I'm scared. I really am."

"It'll be all right guys. It'll probably feel better after talking to them, maybe." When they first started iCarly, they had been so naïve to assume all their fans would be kids who wouldn't take anything so seriously and just laugh at everything. They never suspected the show would have such an impact on anyone. How could it have gotten so far? They needed to do this, they had to face Jonah's family. No question about it. "You realize that the minute any of us show up at their door, they're not going to let us in the house. I mean, chances are, we'll be lucky to get a word in edgewise."

"Oh god…"

"Just speculation, I could be totally wrong about that."

Sam scoffed and looked to the side. She knew better than anyone that Jonah's family wasn't exactly the nicest family in the world. The only one that would be nice enough to talk to them was Olivia, who had been the sweetest girl ever at the time. Of course, eight years old, it was a nice age to be. Now, she would be thirteen, and losing a brother as close to her as Jonah was, can't have done wonders for her personality.


Okay this chapter was very intense. Now that chapter 7 has been uploaded, I await chapter 8 to be proofread by my good friend jhuikmn08. While we wait, why don't you check out her stories! They are awesome! "Shameless promotion for the win!"