Hello, all. Another chapter for you beautiful people :)

I have an opportunity for a Sam POV in a couple of chapters (would be 14, I think) so I would like to know what you guys thought about the last chapter and if you'd like to see Sam's POV again. I know it's a little heavier and darker than Freddie's so I'm leaving it up to you, the readers. Your input is invaluable so please share.

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. I'm getting to the point where things aren't preset anymore so any suggestions/ things you'd like to see are more than welcome.

And finally, special thanks to Samantha Nicole Trewyn for nominating this story in her iMust Read list - I'm very honored!

They didn't see Sam the rest of the morning. Word around school was that she'd spent it in Principal Franklin's office before being sent home, and at lunch Freddie went to the parking lot to find her car gone. He debated skipping the afternoon to go check on her but decided she was upset with him enough already. He did skip archery, though, taking the bus to her house as soon as school let out. Carly had a meeting of the yearbook committee so they were getting together only later for rehearsal; that gave him two hours to get Sam to talk to him. Or kill him, depending on how it went. He wasn't really liking his odds…

Walking up to the small two-story house he was relieved to see the Gremlin in the driveway. When knocking and ringing the bell produced no result (Sam was undoubtedly still ignoring him) he tried the front door only to find it locked. Lacking her talent for B&E he walked around to the back to see if hopefully she'd left that one open, and he was surprised when he turned the corner to find her curled up on the trampoline, sleeping peacefully. Suddenly Frothy appeared to glare with creepy feline eyes and Freddie stopped abruptly to direct a frantic 'Ssh!' at the cat he hadn't even seen beside her. Frothy didn't stop glaring but he didn't alert Sam either, so Freddie was able to watch her for a few minutes while he decided what to do.

"You gonna say something or you just gonna stare at me all day?" Sam whispered hoarsely, opening eyes still cloudy with sleep.

Freddie jumped at the sound of her voice then closed the distance between them. "How'd you do that?" He hadn't made a single noise since he'd stopped walking. Of course now that he was closer Frothy was up on his haunches hissing at him… That cat had never liked him – Freddie suspected Sam had trained him not to – and he was grateful when she shushed the overprotective feline and pushed him gently to the grass.

Sitting up she yawned, "Ninja skills. What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to make sure you're okay," Freddie admitted as she stretched. She probably wouldn't like it but too bad; too much had happened in the last week for him to just let it be.

"Why wouldn't I be?" She was fine. She was always fine. F.I.N.E. fine.

"Can't you just answer the question?" Freddie sighed, running a hand through his hair.

Sam looked at him blankly. "Let's go to instant replay, shall we?" Pressing a button on her imaginary remote she imitated him, "'I wanted to make sure you're okay.'" She pressed the same imaginary button to end the recording. "Judges?" Making a buzzer sound she pointed at Freddie. "I'm sorry but the judges have determined there was no question. Thank you for playing; we have some lovely parting gifts for you." Like a kick in the church pants.

"Sam…"

"Freddie…" she mimicked in a sneer.

Freddie sighed again. "You know what I meant – can we not argue semantics?" She was going to make this as difficult as she possibly could, he knew, and he couldn't let her distract him or intimidate him into giving in. He moved to sit on the edge of the trampoline next to her.

"I'm fine," Sam growled, putting out a hand to stop him. "And I didn't say you could sit." She didn't want him anywhere near her.

He sat anyway. "Considering you bought this with my and Carly's money you don't really get a say," he joked lightly. She didn't look impressed. "You look tired…"

"Well someone just interrupted my nap. Three guesses on who that someone is and the first two don't count." Her tongue was acid. It had taken her hours just to fall asleep; big surprise that he came around and ruined it.

Ignoring her tone he waited until he was sure she wouldn't literally kick him off. "What happened with Franklin?"

Sam fixed her gaze on the faded paneling of the back of the house. "Nothing."

Nothing? "He sent you home, Sam… I thought you said you couldn't get in trouble?" He swore she thought she was invincible. It worried him that one of these days she'd get herself into a situation she couldn't talk or fight her way out of.

"Unclench your buttocks, Fredward," she advised with a roll of the eyes, "It's just for the day to let things cool down. Not even a suspension." He didn't need to know she'd practically begged Ted to suspend her. Sometimes being Principal's Pet really sucked…

"Did he hurt you?" Freddie asked softly. He wanted to check her himself – certain she would just lie – but he didn't think she'd appreciate it.

Sam turned to look at him in confusion. "Franklin?"

He couldn't tell if she was being intentionally obtuse. "Trevor."

"Oh." That made more sense; her brain was still a little fuzzy. "A bit, but it was worth it." The physical pain was a nice distraction from the emotional. Ted really did know her too well…

Freddie tried not to show his concern, or his surprise at her honesty. He was starting to realize if he wanted a straight answer the best time to get it was when she was half-asleep. "Did you tell your mom?"

"Nope."

"Sam…"

Sam glared at him. "She's not back yet, okay?" Not that she'd tell her if she were. Sam wouldn't care to share and her mother wouldn't care to know.

He'd been wondering why Sam still had the car… "I thought she was supposed to be back yesterday?"

Shrugging, Sam turned back to the house. Her mom was supposed to do a lot of things.

"Well, when is she going to be back?" Freddie prodded. He didn't like Sam being by herself, especially with the Trevor thing going on.

"What's with the twenty questions?" When he didn't flinch at her glare she sighed. "She'll come home when she's not having fun anymore or the guy runs out of money. They usually happen at the same time, by the way."

Freddie hated that she couldn't (or wouldn't) see the seriousness of the situation. "It's not a joke, Sam."

"I'm not laughing, Freddie." God. When had he turned into his mother?

"Sam…"

"Freddie, I swear if you say my name in that tone one more time…" She laid on her back to look at the sky. "If you're done with the inquisition you can go."

He moved to sit Indian-style beside her. "We need to talk, Sam."

She didn't need to ask what it was he thought they needed to talk about. She kept her face impassive, knowing he was trying to read her. "There's nothing to talk about; it didn't happen." She realized that by saying it didn't happen she was admitting it had happened but she didn't care: Freddie needed to know it hadn't happened. Even if it had.

"If you're just going to pretend I didn't say anything then why avoid me for two days?" He didn't know if he was more hurt that she was pretending it hadn't happened or that her solution was to ignore him. He wasn't surprised, just hurt.

"The whole thing, Freddie, not just Saturday." Sam stared at the shapes in the clouds as they moved by. "It was a bad idea to begin with; Saturday just proved it." And how. She'd barely slept or eaten in the last two days trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. With a little time set aside to plot petty revenge, of course.

Going back to before last week was exactly what Freddie had wanted to avoid. "Why? Because I have feelings for you?"

Bunny. Five-legged turtle. If she squinted and tilted her head that one looked like a pirate. Aargh! "You don't have feelings for me, Freddie; you're just displacing." That fluffy one looked like cotton candy. Her stomach rumbled in agreement.

"Can you at least look at me while you tell me how I feel?" Freddie snapped, tired of having half her attention. When she finally turned to him (albeit disdainfully) he parroted, "Displacing?" He had no idea she even knew the concept.

"I learned about it from Franklin; it's when you transfer your feelings for one thing onto another. As in…" Putting on her best Ted voice she repeated, "'Samantha, you are displacing your anger at your mother onto others. It is not logical, nor is it fair.'" 'Cause being logical and fair were right up there on her list of priorities…

"You talk to Franklin about your mom?" They still had their appointments (down to once or twice a month now) but Freddie assumed they just went over her various misdeeds. Fewer misdeeds meant fewer appointments…

"He was my court-appointed 'therapist.'" Though she hadn't really started talking to him until after the thing with her dad. With things the way they were now she almost wished she hadn't.

She hadn't been lying when she'd said he didn't know everything; Freddie felt like he learned a new secret every time he talked to her. "How'd that happen?"

"The second time I got arrested they couldn't find my mom so they called Principal Franklin." Two days later; she'd told them she'd been visiting a cousin in Spokane, hard-pressed to find a relative they didn't know was in jail. "I was released into his custody with certain conditions, one of them being the weekly meetings." She gave him a look that said that was all he was getting.

Well that explained why she'd always been strangely chummy with their principal. Maybe Freddie should've gone to him for advice after all… "And just what is it that you think I'm displacing?"

Sam rolled her eyes and turned her gaze skyward again. The pirate had caught up to the bunny and was stabbing it with his pointy hook. "Your feelings for Carly. Duh." Forcing a smile she continued. "For once you're not being rejected; it's throwing you for a loop and making you think you have feelings for me."

"Uh…I don't think that's how displacement works," he disputed.

"Whatever. You know what I mean," Sam waved her hand disinterestedly. She didn't even have the energy to come up with a scathing nickname; all of it was going into the effort to keep emotion out of her voice. "Carly's not a viable option so you're projecting your feelings for her onto me. And that was not part of the plan." So not part of the plan. She could accept the sharing and she could deal with spending time together; what she couldn't handle was him acting like he loved her when she knew it wasn't true.

Freddie processed what she was saying. "Sam, you don't know how I feel…"

"Do you know how you feel?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I'm not Carly, Freddie. I'll never be Carly." Been there, done that. All she'd gotten were cramped hands from spending an hour straightening her hair every morning and migraines from gritting her teeth so hard all the time.

"I don't want you to be Carly," he promised. Those two weeks she'd been Samantha for Pete's sake he'd hated every minute of it, so much so that he'd almost screamed at her in frustration every time he'd seen her all 'daffodilian.' Outwardly he'd been supportive because Pete seemed to make her happy but he couldn't say he wasn't thrilled when she finally broke up with the guy and became Sam again.

Sam believed him; it didn't mean he didn't still prefer Carly, though. "Okay, let's put it this way: If this Trevor thing made Carly realize what a catch you are and she called you right now to get back together, what would you do?" It was killing her to have to walk him through this but she needed to make him realize what she already knew it was (and what it wasn't). The sooner he did that the better off they'd be.

For the first time Freddie broke his gaze from her face to focus on a random point in the distance. "I don't know." It would be easy to say he wouldn't go running to Carly but unless it actually happened he couldn't be sure. And a relationship with Carly would sure as hell be easier than one with Sam. Not better, just easier.

She'd known it was coming but hadn't been prepared for how much it would hurt. She sat up to discreetly wipe an errant tear away behind a curtain of hair, then pointed an accusing finger at him. "Exactly. You ruined everything because you're confusing physical with emotional." Someone was getting a big fat 'I told you so' with his breakfast…

"Just because I'm confused about Carly doesn't mean I don't have feelings for you." Freddie put a hand on her arm but she shrugged it off and hopped off the trampoline. "Sam…"

"You do not have feelings for me," she growled, losing control and spinning on him with hate in her eyes. "I know they say you are what you eat but I will not be bacon, do you understand me?"

Bacon? "Why would you think you're bacon?" Was she implying he only loved her because she was going to sleep with him? Did she really think he was that shallow? He got off the trampoline and approached her cautiously.

Sam barked a laugh. "It's been a week, Freddie. All it took was one week for you to go from zero to in love with me? The only thing that's changed is the agreement…"

Shaking his head Freddie argued, "No! We changed because of the agreement." He waved a hand between them, trying to get her to understand. "Sam, this week has been incredible. And not just because of the physical." If he said the physical had nothing to do with it he'd be lying and she'd know it. "You let me in; I've seen a side of you this week you've never let me see before…"

"You're gonna be seeing my fist in your face soon if you don't drop it." It had taken her all of Sunday to calm down enough just to be in his presence; it seemed he was determined to shatter what little hold she had left.

Freddie grabbed her hands so she couldn't make good on her threat. "I'm serious, Sam. Things have been changing between us for years and I think maybe we would've gotten here eventually anyway…"

"There is no 'us,' Freddie!" This wasn't some chick flick where the boy fell in love with the misunderstood delinquent from the wrong side of the tracks; this was real life, hell, this was Sam's life, where the only part she got to play was just trying to make it through the day because there was a perfectly sweet innocent deserving girl right next door. "Stop making this into something it isn't!" Yanking her hands from his she started to walk towards the house.

"Sam, stop. Please." When she didn't Freddie spun her around and gripped her shoulders so she'd have to look at him. He put everything he was feeling into his eyes. "Tell me you don't feel anything for me."

"I feel a lot of things for you," Sam hissed, "Irritation, anger, pity, derision…" She would have gone on but suddenly his arms were around her and his lips were on hers and she gasped unwittingly into his mouth.

After a minute Freddie broke the kiss without releasing her, opening his eyes to find her staring at him in a daze. "Tell me you didn't feel anything," he whispered gruffly.

Not moving out of his arms Sam took a second to gather her wits. "Lust is not the same thing as love, Freddie."

He held onto the fact that she hadn't responded in the negative. Resting his forehead against hers he dared her, voice desperate, "Tell me you don't have feelings for me." It didn't even have to be love, just something he could work with.

More than anything Sam wanted to just give in and enjoy it while it lasted, fool herself into believing it was really her he wanted, that she would be enough. Except as good as she was at deceiving others she'd never been very good at deluding herself, and she knew she wouldn't survive finally having him just to lose him. Pulling away she met his stare unwaveringly. "I don't have feelings for you." The trick to lying effectively was saying it like you really meant it; she almost believed it herself she was so convincing.

Freddie flinched as though she'd physically hit him. He supposed he should be grateful she'd let him down easy. Well, easy if you didn't count all the hoops she'd made him jump through to get there. Still, he was angry. Mostly with himself. For falling for someone else that didn't return his feelings. For completely misreading the situation. For ruining what they'd had this past week because he was an idiot and had gotten attached. "So that's it, then?" Done. Just like that…

"I'm sorry, Freddie." And she was. His feelings may not have been real but at the moment they were real to him. If she were a better person she would go along with it and let him figure it out for himself. She wasn't a better person, though; she wasn't strong enough to be.

He didn't need, or want, her pity. What he wanted was for her to tell him she was joking, that it was just another one of her pranks. She didn't. "I have to go."

Sam just nodded. She wouldn't stop him – as soon as he was gone she had an appointment with her pillow. First she'd have to call Carly and cancel rehearsal, though. On second thought she'd just text her; there was no way she trusted her voice.

With one last lingering look Freddie turned and jogged all the way home.