Chapter 7: Then I Died

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly. Do you? Then, shut up.

Sam woke up to find an envelope next to her head. She saw her name on the front of it and recognized the writing as Freddie's. The boy really must have been fearless if he had snuck into her house. He knew she had a baseball bat next to her bed, plus her mother had a gun. And Frothy didn't take kindly to other people. She picked up the envelope and looked at it. Whatever was in it was thick. She opened it. Sam saw several pages of typewritten word.

Sammy,

Don't worry, I'm not trying to apply pressure to you. I just want to explain to you better what happened and why I'm, as you say, "fearless". Of course, truly fearless would have been saying this to you rather than writing it, but I wanted to be able to organize my thoughts properly.

That night when we were on the shore, I'm not really sure what happened. Spencer asked me if I saw a white light when I died. I told him no. I didn't, but I did see something, and I don't know if it was something I saw when I was technically dead or a dream or whatever. But dreams usually fade, you know, and this didn't fade. Even now I remember every moment of it.

I saw my funeral, Sam. That was the first thing. I remember when we read Tom Sawyer..well, maybe when Carly and I read Tom Sawyer and you drooled on your desk...there was a scene in which Tom pretended to be dead, and then he showed up at his own funeral. It was kind of like that, except my body was there. In the casket. I walked up to it and saw. You came and stood next to me, Sam. So did my mom and Carly and Spencer. And people from school, some of who I didn't know they even knew me. Maybe they didn't. None of you saw me. I mean the standing me, not the one in the casket. I guess you all saw that one. Ha ha.

I was standing there and I heard you tell my body that you loved me, and that it was your fault that I was dead. I tried to tell you that it wasn't, but, just like in all those movies, people can't hear a ghost. Or whatever I was. Then my mom bent over and kissed my body on the forehead and she cried and asked why did I have to be so much like my father. I guess maybe you know what I mean about that.

And then all of a sudden I wasn't at the funeral anymore. I was in a hospital room. And you were there, Sam, in the hospital bed. I thought maybe we had gotten there somehow after the accident, but then I looked closer and realized you were older. And you held a baby in your arms, and you looked up at me, like you saw me, and you said, "you think you are gonna be able to handle being a daddy, Benson?"

I tried to say something, but suddenly I was on the fire escape. Our fire escape. And we were there. You and me. But it was you and me on that night, when we kissed. And I saw us kiss. You got up to leave and then things were different, because I didn't tell you that I hated you in that joking way, because I was so freaked out by what happened. Instead I said I had heard second kisses are even better than first kisses, and you smirked at me in that way that only Sam Puckett can. And this time you leaned.

Then things just started to come at me so quickly. You remember how you and I used to groan whenever we had to watch one of Carly's movies, when the music came on, and we turned to each other and said, "Montage!" It was like that, or maybe it was like what we hear happens to people right before they die, when they see their entire life flash before their eyes. Except it wasn't my life. Not the life I led, but the life I could have led and the life I could lead.

I must have seen my death twenty different ways, Sam. A few times it was an accident, getting hit by a car crossing the street or being crushed by a tree struck by lightning. Sometimes I died of a disease in my forties or fifties. Sometimes I died of old age. I saw my mom die. I saw Carly die. I saw Spencer and Gibby die. I saw you die.

Sam, I saw times when we were together at college, and I saw us at our high school twentieth year reunion, and you, me, and Carly hadn't talked to each other since graduation. I saw you and me on our wedding day. And I saw times when we had different spouses.

Sam, I don't know if it was God or just the lack of oxygen to my brain, but I understood. You remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that used to be around, where, dependent on what choice you make, you had to turn to a certain section of the book, and sometimes what you chose got you killed and sometimes it led you on to greater adventures. This dream was kind of like that. Or, in my nerdiness, I saw it as a computer program flowchart, where you have these IF-THEN statements or CASE statements, where you have to answer yes or no or one of many choices, and the answer leads you onto different paths.

Sammy, my mom asked me, after the accident and after what she called some of my bizarre behavior, if I wasn't afraid of dying. I am, Sam. I am afraid of dying, but I think even more important is that I'm not afraid of living. And I have been for so long. I don't mean like one of those people who can't handle life so badly that they hole themselves up inside their houses, afraid to even set foot on their own front yards. I just mean little things, like being afraid to go bungee jumping or stand up to a bully. Or tell the girl I love that I love her.

Sam, I probably almost crapped my pants when I got in that fight with Mitch. But the thing is, I looked at that Daxter kid, and I thought about all those times when I had been picked on, and I wished somebody had stepped in. Or those times when it was you who stepped in. At the very least, I was going to stop Mitch from hurting the kid. I figured Mitch would beat me up. But that's happened before, and I recovered. It was the fear that used to hold me back.

The thing is that the dream showed me is that sometimes it doesn't matter what you do-sometimes things are just going to happen, even if you prepare for them or try to resist them. I'm not going to be stupid; for example, I would never try to stand up on a roller coaster. Ha. But I'm not going to let fear control me anymore.

So that's why I told you I love you, Sam. I've loved you for a while. And I've been pretty sure you felt the same way. Except both of us are so scared to put that out there. So I love you, and I told you, and maybe you'll return it. And maybe you won't. Maybe you'll mock me and say you could never love a nub like me. And if you do that, it will hurt. I won't lie. But I'l survive. And I'll never regret telling you that I love you.

Sam, you are the bravest, strongest person I know, and it hurts me badly to think that I had a part in changing that. It wasn't your fault. Things just happen. Things will continue to happen. Things will happen that will hurt us and make us cry and anger us. Sometimes things will happen that will make us laugh or smile. The best thing I can see in any of those circumstances is you being with me.

The last image I saw in this dream or vision or whatever was you and me. We were old. Like really old, mall-walking old, maybe nursing-home old. And we were on a couch, holding hands, and there were pictures all around the house of you and me through the years, of children and grandchildren, of friends and family. And I just stared at the two of us holding hands; that could be us, holding hands after so many years. And I thought that was such a great thing. And then I died.

And then I came back, Sam. I'm trying to take my death as a reason to live my life the way it should be. Don't take it as a reason to retreat from being you.

Love,

Freddie

At the end of the letter, Freddie had written something in pencil.

P.S. Frothy seems to like me.

Sam read Freddie's letter a second time, and then she put it back in the envelope. She started to put it in her box of items she wanted to keep away from her mother, but then decided to keep the letter with her. She put it in her backpack.

She got ready for school.

A/N: That may not be the type of "Freddie" chapter people were expecting, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you for reviews from: Kressxblack, TheRockAngel, Purple550, Charlie Merrit, Icarlya, popcorn1001, Geekquality, iCarlyfan101, S. Benson, iSam101, and ShooshYeah35.

Charlie Merrit: "Author looks at his iTunes, where two different versions of 'Bust a Move' are. Silently thinks to himself that Charlie Merrit can kiss off, not that he would ever say that out loud." And I agree that opposites don't necessarily attract. I think that "just-opposite-enough"s attract, and I think Sam and Freddie are like that. People just seem to concentrate more on their differences than on the ways they are alike. And, no, the story doesn't end on the bridge, but it might end somewhere else familiar.

Icarlya: I guess we will just have to have different opinions on how Sam and Freddie would act. Thank you for continuing to read, though.

ShooshYeah35: My feeling about Freddie taking Sam back there is that he knows Sam well enough to know that, despite the recent changes in her, she is still Sam, and she could handle it. He would not have done the same if it was, for example, Carly with him, because she would not have had that type of strength to handle it (not dissing Carly-just saying that she and Sam have different strengths and weaknesses). Anyone who dislikes Dawson Leery is familia to me. I think you insult Carly to even remotely compare her to Dawson Leery. I truly believe there was no more horrible character on TV than Dawson Leery. Sure, there were other characters who acted worse, but Dawson was the worst because everybody acted like he was such a great guy, and he was just a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible person. And an even worse friend.