Against All Odds

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly

A/N:


Chapter 29 (Acting Like Family)

Spencer sat at the table in the den, Sasha was on the couch reading a book, and Blake was walking around on the floor, playing with a model Blue Angels airplane. Spencer was currently going through his laptop, trying to remove unimportant files and save the important ones on his flash drive. He was fully intending on getting rid of the computer, as his dad still had some sort of access to the computer. "What I don't understand, Sasha, isn't hacking illegal?" Sasha lifted her eyes from the book and crossed her right leg over her left.

"It's your dad, since when does he care?" Considering he threw his own son and daughter out after their mistakes, abused his wife so much that she needed to get a divorce, then dug the knife a little deeper by bribing that judge to give him custody of the kids, and a number of other maneuvers that he took to insure he still had control. God knew the man probably knew his way around keyloggers and cell phones. Maybe even kicking Spencer and Carly out, he still wanted some form of control over them.

"Point taken." He logged into his email and frowned when he spotted one from his dear old father. "Speak of the devil." Sasha lifted her eyebrows and set the book in her lap. He trailed the words and felt a jab of bitterness strike him. The email was basically talking about his proposal over iCarly and saying how it figured he would try to raise up a family with absolutely nothing to his name. How on earth could he hope to support a wife if he couldn't even hold up a decent paying job? "You know, while we're on the subject of deadbeat, stick in the mud, asshole fathers. Have you ever made an attempt to contact your dad? I mean, after Blake was born, of course." She pulled her lips back and brought the book back up, turning her eyes to the pages.

"You mean the sperm donor that couldn't care less about raising a family and leaving my mom to be a stripper, right? Yeah, he never paid child support, and he wasn't about to fork any money over when I hunted him down after Blake was born. Said I was turning out to be the 'whore' that my mother was. So no, I don't expect he'd be of any use in the near future, if he even wanted anything to do with me or his grandson."

"Lovely…" Bile rose up his throat and he quickly clicked the delete button on his father's email. There was no point in responding, though his dad would probably know he read the message if he was able to get into the email. "I should just delete this email. Even if I change the password, Dad's got a keylogger or something, he can hack right in. Any anti-keylogger crap I have to buy and install for about a hundred bucks." It was a wonder if it was worth buying one of those things, or just simply trashing the computer.

"Has your dad always been a control freak?"

"Pretty much. Must be that military training of his, and how he was brought up by his own father. Granddad isn't much better." At some point of time, he figured Sasha had to be wondering what he was pondering, how the hell did someone as compassionate as his mother wind up with someone like his father? "Nearly thirteen years between my birth and Carly's, then three more years until mom finally got away from him. How the hell did he manage to keep her so long?"

"Abusers aren't typically abusive for the first couple of years. Verbal, perhaps, then it starts building to emotional and mental, then physical abuse erupts. By that time, the woman's in such a state of shock that the man she thought she knew would actually hit her that she becomes afraid to leave. With a family like your mom has, I think it was really good for her to have them…"

"They are good people." He would never hurt Sasha, he'd never control her like his father controlled his family. He wanted to make Sasha feel like the lady she was, every single day, and he would be damn certain to do that. "Mom may have only been around for a few years, but she didn't raise a fool." He watched Sasha for a minute, her eyes were glued to that book, but her lips did curl into a smile at his words.

The front door flew open and Carly came rushing in, the expression on her face was somewhere in between excited and panicked. Sasha closed her book and set it down and Spencer moved his gaze to his sister. "Spencer, Sasha, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?" Bad news? He didn't need any more bad news. "Since I think the bad news is going to make everyone feel on edge, I'm going to say the good news first…"

"Carly…" His voice was stern, he wanted no games, just straight out truth. "What happened?" She chuckled nervously and started to reach into her pockets. He could see her knuckles moving around inside the pockets, closing around something. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"First off, T-Bo offered me a job at the Groovy Smoothie. So, I get to work there for eight bucks an hour!" Sasha grinned and his concerned expression quickly turned to pride. His sister's first job? How could he be anything but proud of her? She cheered and hopped once while Sasha moved over to her and hugged her.

"I'm proud of you, Carly!"

"I guess you really have to know someone to get hired." Spencer chuckled at that and leaned back in his chair, moving his hands behind his head. Maybe he ought to take into consideration the fact that he was a politician's son. Though, with her being in Florida, it probably meant nothing to business people in Seattle.

"When do you start?"

"Tomorrow." He nodded at her and slowly made his way from the chair. Carly took a moment and slicked her tongue, considering her next words. "Now, assuming you guys take this as well as Sam and Freddie did…which wasn't all that well, but they're okay…" A single crease formed along his brow as his lips pulled back into a frown.

"What?"

"Well, Freddie's mom banned him from doing iCarly anymore, so iCarly's over. It's done." He closed his eyes and felt his heart sink. It was difficult, but he saw it coming. Sasha hugged Carly again, hoping to console her. "That's not the worst part, though. It gets better." She chuckled, her voice full of sarcasm. "I was going on and on to Gibby about how I wished we had enough money for you to buy a ring for Sasha, and when he left, Nevel arrived."

Nevel? That kid in the same sentence hardly ever came with anything good following it. Sasha rose up and frowned while Spencer remained almost perfectly stunned. "Papperman? What the hell did he want? Also, money for a ring? Carly, what did you do…" Even Sasha was starting to fidget, clearly recalling vivid memories of dealing with that Mr. Clayton.

"Carly, you didn't borrow any money, did you? Please tell me you didn't…" Then, to their worst fear, Carly pulled out the money. Sasha's face turned sheet white and Spencer felt a rush of panic and anger.

"You borrowed money from Nevel? Carly, you have to take that money back to him!" Carly winced and lowered her hand, clutching the bills tightly. "How much did you get?"

"Well, I had to separate it because it wouldn't all fit in one pocket. There's a total of five thousand…" Sasha's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she quickly sat back on the couch. Spencer rubbed his forehead and groaned. They just got done with one loan shark, and Nevel had the signs of a loan shark in the making! "I didn't borrow it, though. He…bought…iCarly."

"You sold your webshow…to the worst…possible person?"

"It was a dying show, and I knew we needed money!" Blood money, that's what it amounted to. It couldn't have been her fault, though. Everyone had been going through loads of stress lately, so it was easy to make a mistake. "I can't return it, you know he won't give the url back, and he probably won't take the money either." Great, this was not good. He didn't want to touch that money, even if they needed it, that was blood money.

Sasha rubbed her neck and tapped her other hand on her leg. Her eyebrows moved inwards and she eyed the money. "Carly, this screams set up. Assuming we don't even spend that money, what if Nevel screws up iCarly so bad and demands that money back, but with interest? From what I hear about the underage prick, he's got a nose for mischief." Spencer moved next to her and took a seat. He turned his gaze to Blake, who was still playing with his plane as though nothing was happening.

"That's basically it," he remarked. "Making a deal with Nevel is like making a deal with the devil. Though, there's probably no reason to be afraid of him, he's just a kid, not as powerful as Mr. Clayton was." Carly grimaced once more and bit down on the corner of her lip. He shot her a look of suspicion and concern, how worse could this get? "Is there something else, Carly?"

"Yeah, he had Raul and Alfonso there with him. I wasn't thinking clear enough to realize it, but whenever those two are with him, there's always something up." Sasha was confused. Spencer smacked his forehead and slowly shook his head.

"Nevel's two thugs, they do everything for him…they paid us a visit not long after Carly tricked Nevel before." Sasha moaned and leaned her head back on the couch.

Back when they'd lost iCarly to Nevel once before, he demanded a kiss in return for the URL. Carly decided to trick him by telling him she'd give in to that, got him to sign the return slip, and just before they were supposed to kiss, Spencer and the others fished her out of the way. That night, Nevel's thugs broke into the house and started to ransack the place, giving the clear message that Nevel didn't like being tampered with. Back then, Spencer had thought of calling the police, but because Nevel was just a kid, practically, he decided not to press any charges.

"Sis, we just got out of trouble." He put his hands to his knees and pushed himself up. "I want nothing to do with that money you got from him. Split it with Sam and Freddie, I'm sure they can use it."

"Yeah…" She bowed her head and pushed the money back into her pockets. Spencer didn't mean to make her feel bad, and hoped she wasn't hurt by his decision. He moved over to her and set his hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes with compassion.

"I know it's hard, and we're all going through a lot of stress right now. I'd say Blake's the calmest one of us all." They looked to Blake and smiled as he made engine sound effects and laughed while waving the plane through the air. Such innocence, so little fear. How joyous it must be to be a child with no concept of the sins of man. "Anyway, I'm not mad at you Carly, I don't want you to think I am."

"I know…" She moved her eyes down to the ground. Sasha walked over to them and rubbed Carly's back while Spencer continued on.

"We all make mistakes, and once they happen, there's nothing to do to erase it. We just have to keep moving forward. Let's hope Nevel doesn't end up wanting that money back, let's hope I can actually find a job, and we'll go from there. We're still a family, no matter what happens. We're going to stick together. Maybe it's time we start acting like a real family."

"Huh?" She lifted her head and Sasha smiled at him. What could he possibly be thinking? Well, he did have his ideas. There were plenty of things they could do as a family, plenty of things that didn't require money.

"You know, maybe we'll take that car out on a road trip one day. Hell, there's a number of things to do, for instance…how about I make some dinner and we'll sit down at the table together and eat like a family. No more of this constant worrying, let's just focus on the here and now, being together."

"I think that sounds great," Sasha replied. Carly's lips curved up and she quickly agreed. Sasha stepped close to him and smirked subtly. "One thing though, you are not cooking without me watching." He laughed and folded his arms across his chest.

"You don't think I can cook?" She smirked playfully and leaned upwards, kissing his lips with a chaste peck. She lowered her voice to a whisper and wagged her eyebrows.

"I know about the fires and the burnt meals. So…I know you can't." He smirked in response and eyed her lush lips with longing. Why was it whenever she started talking like that, or used that phrase, it turned him on so damned much? He raised an eyebrow and curled his lip into a smirk.

"I love a good challenge. What do you say we bet on that?"

Carly rolled her eyes and shook her head, there was no sense in interrupting them now. With that, she moved over to the couch and watched as Blake hurried over to her. With a smile, she helped him onto the couch and watched as he curled up beside her. He showed off his toy plane by holding it up for her to see. "Look, it's a Blue Angel, from plane shows."

"It is! I'm jealous, I'd love to have one of those." Blake grinned widely and hugged his aunt's waist, closing his eyes and breathing gently.

"Wuv you, Auntie Carly."

"I love you too." She wrapped an arm around him and smiled with pride as she watched Spencer and Sasha race into the kitchen, both prepared to out cook the other. Maybe Spencer was right, maybe now was the time to start acting like a real family.


Next chapter up soon