Spencer Shay tucked the blanket in a little closer around Carly and Sam. They'd finally fallen asleep or more likely crashed from the adrenaline surge they'd experienced the night before. They were sharing Carly's bed, cuddled up like they used to when they were eight and first started having sleepovers. As they'd gotten older, Sam had become less of a hugger but almost losing their friendship, not to mention their lives, had made them both a little more touchy-feely with each other. Of course, Carly was more inclined that way anyway but Sam had clearly been feeling it too. There'd been declarations and re - declarations of best - friendship and love between the two, frequent; tight hugs, and crying.
Gently, carefully so as not to wake her, Spencer gave Carly a big - brotherly kiss on the top of her head. Then, after a moment of thinking, he did the same to Sam. Then he crept out of Carly's bedroom and slowly closed the door. Walking down to the first floor, he was surprised when he turned the corner and saw Freddie sitting on the stairs.
"I thought you went home to bed," Spencer said quietly.
Freddie looked up at him. "Couldn't," he said. "Are they really okay?"
Spencer smiled. "They're gonna be fine," he said.
Freddie took a deep, ragged breath and let it out. "Thank god."
"Let's get a drink," Spencer said, and Freddie got up and followed him over to the dining area. The boy truly wasn't expecting anything stronger than a Mountain View, so he was a bit taken back when his older friend mixed two shots of whiskey on the rocks and put one in front of him.
"Really?" He questioned.
"I think you deserve a drink. You helped save my sister's life. Just don't tell your mother...or for that matter, my sister."
"I won't," Freddie said, with a short laugh. They raised their glasses in an awkward toast and drank. And then, because they watched the same television shows, they looked at each other and said in unison,
"Smooooooth."
Spencer's face split into a grin briefly, and for an even more brief moment he seemed fully to relax for the first time since he'd looked up and seen Carly dangling from the window washer's rig some 14 floors above the Seattle street. It passed, though, and a tired look returned to his eyes as they moved to sit, Freddie on the chair and Spencer on the couch.
"Oh, God, Freddo," Spence said with an exhalation.
"I know." Freddie said. He was still having trouble breathing evenly. "Spence?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Were you scared?"
"Terrified," Spence said, closing his eyes for a second and then opening them again because he kept seeing..."You'll never know, Fred. At least I hope you'll never know."
After taking a deep breath and letting it out with a distressed moan, Spencer suddenly got back up again from the couch. He gave Freddie a quick, affectionate squeeze on the shoulder before returning to the kitchen area and picking up the shot glasses.
"You really did a job tonight, saving Sam and Carl-" Freddie started to say.
"If I'd been doing my job, they wouldn't have needed saving!" Though Spencer was still trying to keep his voice moderate, the pain and fear in his voice was as acutely audible as if he'd been screaming. He raised a hand to fling one of the glasses to the floor but for once he used his head, turning and aiming it towards the couch where it landed silently.
"Spence..." Freddie said.
"I'm sorry, kid." For a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of Spencer's breathing and then he said, "See...when I was looking down and saw Carly I kept seeing her not as she is now, her when she was just a little baby. He paused. Freddie silently willed him to go on. "One day our mom was holding her in bed and I was laying there watching them, with my chin in my hands, you know?" He demonstrated and Freddie nodded. "She told me to sit up, and I did, and she showed me the right way to hold her, supporting her head and everything." He sat in one of the dining room chairs, his arms unconsciously folding into place to hold an invisible baby Carly. "And all the while mom kept talking to her. Of course I realized later - too much later," he added ruefully, "that since Carly couldn't understand her, everything she said was meant doubly for me."
"Was this when she'd found out..." Freddie trailed off, unsure how to raise the disease that had taken Spencer and Carly's mother. They NEVER talked about it.
"I don't know. I think...probably. Anyway," he hurried on, "that was when I heard her telling Carly that anywhere she went in life, she shouldn't worry because she had a big brother to look after her. That's what I'm supposed to do, Fred." Almost without realizing it, Spencer had begun to weep. "I'm supposed to take care of her. I'm supposed to be her rock, always there for her, never letting her - her fall." That last word had a choked - back sob inside of it. "Our mom...my dad...they trusted me to take care of her."
Again there was silence, and then Freddie began to speak.
"You did. You do. Carly would be lost without you. I think we all would be." He glanced up towards the room where the two girls were sleeping. "I know a lot of the times it seems like Carly's "guardian-ing" you instead of the other way around, and sometimes we pretend it's like that even when it isn't, because we think that's funny."
Spencer smiled.
"But she needs you. And Sam needs you too. And I need you. You realize you're the closest thing to a father figure any of us have in our day - to - day lives?"
He rose and gave Spencer a light, playful punch in the arm. Spencer made a show of rubbing the spot. "Carly's right, you have gotten stronger. That was a hard hit."
"Hard as one of Sam's?"
"Let's not get carried away. Still...a father figure? That's scary," Spencer said. Then after a moment of thinking he emphasized the point: "Good god."
"Finally starting to sink in after all these years?"
"Yeah...so what about you, Freddo?"
"What about me?"
"Well, I feel bad, we've been talking about me and I haven't even asked you how you're doing. How are you doing? With everything that happened tonight?"
Freddie grimaced slightly and his jaw ground as he tried to assess his feelings over the last several hours.
"You know how I've always been...in love with Carly." He actually used air quotes.
"Yeah..." Actually it used to concern Spencer. But as long as Carly seemed to see it as a sympathetic quirk and not an annoyance petty or otherwise, he had "allowed" it.
"But...when I looked down...and I saw how close I could come to losing her forever..."
Both men involuntarily shuddered.
"I think...I think it really hit me just how much I really do care about them."
Internally Spencer raised an eyebrow at the way Freddie had moved from talking about Carly to talking about her and Sam without even noticing it.
"You've all become...this is just a huge part of my life." He gestured to Spencer, then up towards Carly's bedroom and then the iCarly studio to indicate what he meant by "this."
"You're a big part of ours too, kiddo."
"Even Sam?"
Spencer made with a toothy grin. "Even Sam…"
Anyone out there to read this? Anyone out there to review it?