Dangerous Journey

Disclaimer: Don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 10 (Reasons to Continue)

Sam set up her luggage in the guest room of Sasha's home. She had no idea how long she would be staying, nor did she expect that the move would be permanent, but she felt it was would be safest here for everyone involved.

If David uncovered the truth about her, she didn't want him tying her to Cat. Furthermore, Sam wanted to look after Cammy whenever Sasha was gone rather than let Sasha take the child to a daycare facility.

She found it ironic how far she was willing to go to help the Shay family. Her best friend being Carly, working to avenge their mother while saving their sister, and now she was officially babysitting Spencer's daughter. One person, helping three generations.

Sam positioned herself on the guest bed and pulled her laptop onto her folded legs. She looked around the room with a smile and lifted the lid of her computer. The first thing she saw was her message to Cat over skype, promising to try and help her find a new roommate.

Cat was still understanding of her moving, and without giving names, Sam had been able to explain that she was helping the police with something and she didn't want to put the girl in any danger.

Just as she was about to open the browser to work on some of her online homework, she got a notification from skype. It was an incoming call from Carly.

Her eyebrows rose and she answered quickly. "Good morning," Sam chimed.

"Good afternoon," Carly replied with a furrowed brow, "It's three o'clock over here." She noticed Carly wasn't in her bedroom, but the location the girl was in was suspicious.

Carly was seated in a blue chair, the entire area was lit with sunlight, and someone's elbow was in view of the camera.

Sam parted her lips and took a quick breath before raising an eyebrow at her friend. "Carly. Where are you right now?" More intriguing was Carly's appearance. Her expression was calm and serene, her lips relaxed and her eyes were half-lidded as though she'd been asleep much of the day and woke recently.

"Take a guess." Carly nudged the elbow out of view and then turned the camera to the side. When Sam saw a row of windows closing in to the window Carly was focusing on, she let out a startled gasp. "Hey, isn't it beautiful out there?"

The girl was on a plane, and outside the window was nothing but clear blue sky above a sea of white fluff. "Carly, what are you doing on a plane?" She asked hesitatingly. It wasn't as though she didn't suspect where Carly may be headed, given recent events.

Her fingers curled on the front of her laptop. Her thumb slid across the corner of it and her breath locked into her throat. If her suspicion was accurate, Carly would be heading for Los Angeles. "Sam." Carly returned to view and her lips formed a tiny smile. "Can you put Cammy on? Spencer called us up and told us about her."

"Oh." She looked at her door and started to hum. It was eight, so she was fairly certain the child was asleep still. "He told you already? That was fast."

Spencer was shocked when they called him last night and told him about his daughter. While he didn't say much, there was no denying the excitement in his voice-an excitement that Sam hadn't seen in a while.

"Of course he told me. Dad and I want to see her, but Dad's not going to be able to get away from his post for another week or two."

"Which means, you're headed here." Her tone dropped and her heart began to pound. "Here, where your sister is living with a dangerous man that-" She shook her head and pulled her hand up to her chest. "Carly, if he sees you-"

"You think I'm worried?" The girl slanted her eyes and pushed her hands through her hair with a husky sigh. "I'll let you lead, but I'm flying to Los Angeles to see my niece, and maybe at some point of time, my sister." Carly dropped her hands and raised her shoulders. "Besides, you can't be dealing with that situation on your own."

"God, really? First Freddie, now you?"

"Freddie?" Carly's eyes opened a bit and her lips shut as the shock lit up her glare. "You didn't tell me he was in LA too. Are you okay?"

"Oh I'm perfectly fine." Sam's eyelids fell partway and a halfhearted chuckle left her lips. "I'm thrilled. Everything's going just great, according to plan, without any unexpected visits or hiccups."

"You're being sarcastic?"

"Trying to help save your family, not put you in more danger. Now Freddie being in town puts him at risk, and I'm still trying to figure out where he and I stand."

Carly smacked her lips and started to smile. "He's still pursuing you?" Sam could see the hope light up in her friend's eyes, but she also knew once Carly hit town, she was likely to have a stern talk with Freddie over his actions. "Why not give him a chance, Sam? You clearly still like him."

"You know what he did. He says he's gotten over you, but I don't even know if that's true." She remembered David's advice during their chess game and laughed to herself at the irony of the moment. "Although, some people have given me a lot of advice suggesting I watch how he acts and responds to me. So, I'll at least do that."

"I think you should." Carly's eyes dropped to the corner of her screen for a split second, then she looked back to Sam. "It's going to be several hours before I'm in town. I haven't told Dad about my sister yet, but…what do you know?"

"I know exactly who she is, what she's been doing, and so on." She didn't want to go so far as to say to Carly that Trina looked to be at the end of her rope, because she didn't want her worrying about whether or not Trina might take her life. That was exactly what Sam saw in Trina's eyes the day they met, so she was trying to give that girl some hope that things might get better. "She needs hope, she needs a friend, and that's what I'm doing for her."

"Good." Carly's eyes grew somber and lines formed around the corners of her mouth. "I really want to see her, you know. You're probably right, it might be best for me to hang back, but that doesn't change the fact that this is my sister…and I feel like I only know so much."

It was true, Spencer hadn't told Carly about the affair yet, and he probably wouldn't. Carly didn't even realize there was a chance that she could have been potentially kidnapped too.

Where Spencer and Sasha felt guilty for slipping off and not being present when the abduction and murder took place, Sam had a hell of a time reminding them to look at the good side of the argument: Carly was with them.

Simply because Carly was with them when they ran off together, they inevitably saved Carly from being taken as well.

Her doorknob rattled and she looked up in time to see Sasha enter the room. Cammy was in her arms, looking with energetic eyes at Sam. Sam smiled affectionately and waved the mother over to the computer.

"We were coming to check on you," Sasha said while walking over, "I wanted to see how you were settling in."

"Pretty good." Sam put her right hand on top of the laptop and smirked as Carly began talking sporadically in attempt to get Sam to show her what was going on. Sasha's eyes dipped down to the laptop and her eyebrow rose. "Carly's on Skype, and oh yeah, she's on a plane coming our way."

Sasha opened her mouth and then moved to the bed. The woman sat upright against the headboard, folded her legs, and let Cammy sit in the center of them.

When Sam pulled her hand from the camera, she saw Carly's eyes light up with excitement. Her hands flew over her mouth, catching a gasp, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Sam put one arm around Sasha's shoulders and pointed with her right hand to the young child now staring at the computer with a profound interest. "Carly, meet your niece."

She leaned towards Cammy and pointed at the screen. The child looked up at her with an astonished gasp. "Cammy, this is your Aunt Carly." Cammy started to laugh and she reached her right hand towards the computer, compressing her tiny fingers into her palm. "Can you say 'auntie'?"

"Auntie?" The toddler cooed and then clapped her hands onto her mother's legs. Carly dropped her hands to her chest and let her tears frame her wide grin.

"Oh hello there," Carly responded. "I can't believe I'm an aunt."

As Sam watched the child's eager eyes dance about the computer, she thought back to the first conversation she had with Trina. Her heart sank when she remembered how Trina described having symptoms related to morning sickness.

After all, it had been a couple months ago that the girl stayed the night with her last boyfriend-one of Sasha's other students named Jason.

She'd put this conversation in the back of her mind, not wanting to think of the possibility that Trina could be pregnant. If that were the case, then she would have to work faster than she was planning, nor did she know how to bring it up with anyone. It was likely that Trina didn't run a test yet, and Sam didn't know for sure, but no stomach virus lasted for as long as Trina suggested.

Whatever the case may be, she hoped the Shay family understood now why she was so hard pressed to keep going despite how dangerous this was. As she watched Cammy, enchanted by the toddler's playful laugh and Carly's banter with the toddler, that determination within her returned to her.

"Because this family deserves to be whole." She'd come from a broken family herself, and she knew what it was like to grow up in the midst of familial dysfunction, and she didn't want that for the current of future Shays.

The way she saw it, Cammy had two aunts, not one. Trina had two siblings and deserved to see them, and even Mr. Shay deserved to see his daughter and his grandchild.

Plural, if her suspicion regarding Trina was true.

In her peripheral she saw her cell phone light up from the end table. She picked it up and frowned at the caller ID; it was Freddie. With a sigh, she hit the answer button and moved the laptop directly in front of Sasha.

"Give me a minute," she said. Sam hopped off the bed and put the phone to her ear as she left the room. "What's up, Benson? I'm fine, if that's what you wanted to hear."

"Well yeah, I wanted to see how you were doing, but I wanted to talk."

She looked over her shoulder and shut the door behind her. "Carly's coming into town, by the way. Thought you might like to know." She narrowed her eyes, anticipating a response.

"Oh?" His voice jumped up only slightly, as one might expect a friend's voice to do when hearing about an old friend's arrival. "That's nice. Maybe we can all get together and chat like old times."

"Possibly. I'm not sure how she feels about that."

"Sam, what's going on with you? I haven't heard from you since we talked." She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Dad says he saw you at the park with Mr. Vega the other day."

"You're worried?" She walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch. She leaned against the corner between the arm and back, then flung her legs up and across the cushions. "I'm fine."

"I don't believe you." Her frown deepened and she rolled her eyes. "Look, you stress out and keep that stress inside. I know that about you. You need to talk it out with someone and not leave it bottled up."

"I've got people to talk it out with."

"Oh really? Is there anything about Trina that you know but are keeping it from Carly and Spencer to protect them or something?"

"Maybe…"

"Sam?" He hiked his voice a bit, and she caught the serious note in his tone. She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh.

"Trina was talking about morning sickness. She had a boyfriend a couple months ago that disappeared after David found out they spent the night together." Her eyelids opened partially and she looked over the edge of the couch. "I think, I'm not sure yet and I don't want to worry them, but I think she might be pregnant."

He fell silent and she let out another impatient sigh. While it did feel good to get this off her chest, she still wasn't sure how she felt about telling Freddie this information.

"And yes, I was playing chess with Mr. Vega. I'm going to be doing that each week so I can get intel about him and his family through casual conversation. Please do not tell me it's dangerous, I know it is dangerous, but you're not going to stop me."

"I wasn't going to." Her breath stopped in her throat and her heart skipped a beat. "I know this is important to you, Sam. I agree with what you're doing because I think Spencer and Carly deserve justice also. I just want you to be careful, and please, talk to me okay? I'm here for you. No matter how angry you are with me, no matter how upset you are, I'm here and I'm still going to be here…"

A hint of moisture developed in her eyes and she quickly wiped it away with an annoyed groan. Her entire body was pulsing from her heartbeat, and the blood rushing through her veins was beginning to rise to the surface of her cheeks.

"I appreciate that, Freddie. I do. It's just…it's hard for me."

"Would you like for me to stay away from Carly?"

Her eyes widened and a started gasp rushed from her lips. "What? No! She's your friend too. It's only-no, I wouldn't ask you to cut off a friendship." She took a deep breath, thinking back to Carly. Right now, Carly wasn't too keen on Freddie, but Sam wasn't selfish. Just as Freddie felt she needed support, she knew during this process she was going through, Carly needed support also.

Not wanting to pursue this subject any longer, she decided to shift her focus back on the matter at hand. "Freddie, can you have your dad do something for me?" He replied positively, which was good news for her.

She sat upright, dropping her feet to the ground. "A man named Jason Tyler, he was one of Sasha's students and Trina mentioned him as the last boyfriend of hers. He went missing…Have your dad search for him."

"Are you reporting this guy missing?" There was another pause where she heard John in the background, discussing something with Freddie. "Okay, he's already been reported missing. His Uncle called it in a couple months ago, evidently."

She furrowed her brow and leaned forward. "Is there no lead?" At that point, Freddie's dad took over the conversation.

"Not until you just gave us one," John stated with a deep, urgent voice. She jerked her head back and raised her eyebrows. "His Uncle mentioned in the initial report he thought his son might have been in a relationship, but no one knew with whom. Now that you say it's Trina…"

"She might be connected to other disappearances, or her father is actually. She told me there were three other guys she dated, two of them left town and one of them was murdered."

"Can you get some more information about those three from her?"

"I'll try."

"By the way, my son wants to have lunch with you." She blushed and heard Freddie shout at his father in the background. The image she got of the scene suggested John to be smirking at the boy. "Please sit down with him and take some time to rest, if it's not too much. He's concerned that the constant stress will be detrimental, and that is actually true. Consistent stress with no rest in between has negative effects on the health and human body…"

"I can't really take a break, Mr. Benson. I mean-"

"You can, you should, and you will." She let out a sigh of defeat and dropped her head. "You will be in the best shape to help the Shay family if you are calm and relaxed-and you need to be especially if it is your intention to sit down and play chess with Mr. Vega once a week."

"Okay fine, I will." She straightened her posture and spoke sternly into the phone. "But tell your son to be a man and not use his father to ask a girl out." John started to chuckle and Freddie protested her statement.

"We're going to a blood donation clinic with Trina later-Jade's mother works at a DNA testing place. I think it's their intention to give you a sample of her DNA."

"I doubt it's going to be that simple."

"Same here, I don't think Mr. Vega would let Trina do anything that might reveal his crime. The only way we're going to get anywhere with that is if Holly doesn't tell David about it."

"I see."

"Yeah, so that's the afternoon. Tell Freddie that I'll see him at noon. The local café sounds like a good place-9th Street Coffeehouse." It was neutral ground as well, so that was an added bonus.

"I've been there many times, the best coffee in town. They've also got fantastic sandwiches, I recommend their patty melt."

"I'll try it. Thanks, Mr. Benson."

What are your feelings as you read though this chapter? Do tell. It seems a lot has happened, and I do value your input