Welfare

"Ew, how did you get your hand stuck in that?" Carly cringed.

"I didn't know it was alive," Gibby defended.

"Great story, Gib," Sam said from Carly's ice cream love seat. "Do you have any thing to eat, Carls?"

"How can you eat after hearing that?" Carly asked.

"Dude, I could eat after watching a guy get a growth sawed off his neck," Sam said.

"She's not lying," Freddie said.

"I'm sure she's not…there's some leftover chicken fettuccini in the fridge downstairs."

"Excellent," Sam said, getting up. "Be back in a flash."

"I'm gonna go with her," Freddie said, getting up from his chair.

"Why, so you guys can make out?" Carly smiled knowingly.

"…Probably."

Freddie ran downstairs into the kitchen, where Sam was already halfway through the bowl of pasta.

"Wow, you're really devouring that pasta," Freddie commented.

"You got a problem with it?" she demanded.

"No, no," Freddie said. "I just don't want you to choke."

"I would never choke on something as amazing as this pasta," Sam said, stuffing another forkful into her mouth.

"Jeeze, your mom must've had to get three jobs to feed you as a child," Freddie said, grinning as he got a bottle of water from the fridge.

Sam didn't say anything.

"What? No snappy comeback? Wait…did your mom really have to get three jobs to keep up with your appetite?"

"No," Sam mumbled. "It's just…never mind."

"No, tell me," Freddie insisted.

"It's stupid, I don't know why I was even going to bring it up."

"You can tell me, babe," Freddie said.

"Well, when I was little before I knew you or even Carly, my mom had to go on welfare to get food and everything."

"Oh," Freddie stammered, slightly surprised.

"It wasn't like we were starving or out on the street or anything," Sam said quickly. "We always had something to eat, nothing good like this pasta or ham of fried chicken, of course; it was mostly a bunch of canned foods. But it was just after my dad left us, and my mom was only working as a cashier at some store."

"I-I didn't know," Freddie said.

"It was only for like six months," Sam shrugged. "Then my mom got a new job."

"Still, it must've been rough," Freddie said.

"Eh, it wasn't bad," Sam said. "It made me appreciate the deliciousness of real food, like ham. Man…now I want some ham."

"Come on then," Freddie said, grabbing his jacket.

"You're gonna buy me ham?"

"Why not?" he shrugged.

"We have to do iCarly in fifteen minutes," she pointed out. "Are we going to be back in time?"

"I'll make sure we are," he told her. "Come on; let's get Sam her ham."