AN-Hey everyone, sorry that I haven't updated in forever. It's been crazy hectic up at school. But now I'm home for a few days for Thanksgiving so hopefully I'll be able to catch up a little. Anyway, this chapter is a sequel for chapter 374, where, like in Zoey 101, Sam winds up accidently confessing her love for Freddie over a webcam and Freddie overhears her. Hope you enjoy!
…..
Rumor
"Well," Spencer said indignantly as he stormed back into his apartment, slamming the door behind him. "I can never go back to Bed Bath and Bewilderment!"
"Huh?" Carly frowned, looking up from the sofa where she was sitting.
"Yeah, I spent three hours trying to find you that orange beanbag chair you wanted for your dorm room in the fall, and I kept going back to this display stand for a slushie maker to get free samples they were handing out," Spencer explained. "So obviously I had to pee really badly soon."
"Of course," Carly nodded. "And the problem is…?"
"I went to the bathroom, and just as I was about to unzip," Spencer told her. "This clown comes out of one of the stalls and terrified me!"
"A clown?" Carly repeated.
"Yes!"
"Why was a clown in the men's bathroom at Bed Bath and Bewilderment?" Carly asked, confused.
"I didn't stop to ask!"
"Right," Carly sighed, getting to her feet.
"So, anything more exciting than a ferocious clown happen here while I was out?" Spencer asked, tossing aside his car keys and plopping down on the nearby chair.
"Well, sort of," Carly started.
"Wait, there aren't any clowns here?" Spencer asked, his eyes widening.
"Oh will you cool it with the clowns?" Carly snapped.
"We'll see if you see that if you go to empty your bladder and have your biggest childhood fear come to life," Spencer mumbled indignantly.
"I was actually web chatting with Freddie a few hours ago," Carly explained, ignoring her older brother's comment.
"Oh yeah, how's he doing up at MIT?" Spencer asked.
"Um, good," Carly said. "Gibby and I asked him about his classes and his roommate and being away from home and all that stuff…"
"Gibby and you?" Spencer repeated. "You mean Sam didn't come? Wow, I thought she'd be at least a little upset that Freddie left, but I guess she really-"
"Sam's still in love with Freddie!" Carly blurted out, covering her mouth with her hands the second the words left her.
"What?" Spencer exclaimed, jumping up. "No way! Give me the deets!"
"No, no I can't, I promised Sam I wouldn't tell anyone about this," Carly said quickly.
"Please?" Spencer begged. "I live for this teen drama!"
"Well…okay, I guess," Carly conceded. "Besides, it's not like you have anyone to tell this to anyway."
"Exactly!" Spencer agreed. "Wait…what?"
"Well, see, she came by today after Gib and I finished talking with Freddie," Carly told him. "And I started talking to her about how she's been acting since Freddie left, and how she barely said goodbye to him, and she-she said that she didn't want to say goodbye because she knew it would make it harder because she's still in love with him!"
"Oh man, so what are you going to do?" Spencer asked.
"Me? What do you mean?" Carly replied. "I told you, I promised Sam I wouldn't repeat any of this. I can't go back on my word to my best friend! I'm pushing it talking to you about all of this."
"Come on, Carly," Spencer said knowingly. "How long do you think you can hold out knowing your best friend is still in love with your other best friend without doing anything to try and manipulate the situation?"
"Are you implying that I'm meddlesome?" Carly asked, offended.
"Pfft, yes," Spencer nodded.
"Well you're wrong," Carly said, crossing her arms. "Because I'm not going to do anything about it…Even though it's totally ridiculous that Sam won't just tell Freddie she has feelings for him. I mean, she'd feel so much better and Freddie wouldn't think Sam's just ignoring him because she doesn't care and everyone would be happier…Oh man, this is gonna be hard."
Just then there was a knock at the door and Gibby let himself in.
"Hey," he said, walking into the living room. "You guys know that there's a family of squirrels outside your apartment that are very aggressive with their acorns?"
"What's up, Gib?" Carly asked.
"Oh, I left my phone up in your room from when we were talking to Freddie earlier," Gibby explained. "You care if I go grab it?"
"Sure, go ahead," Carly sighed.
"Hold on," Spencer said as Gibby disappeared upstairs. "I'm still confused. Why didn't Sam just tell Freddie how she felt before he left?"
"Because she's difficult, that's why!" Carly snapped. "She's so convinced that Freddie wouldn't have felt the same way and she would've just embarrassed herself. But I've been telling Sam for years that she just needs to learn how to deal with her emotions better and she'd be in such a better place! But no! No one ever wants to listen to Carly!"
"But do you think Freddie would've felt the same way?" Spencer asked.
"I-I don't know," Carly answered truthfully. "I mean, they were a pretty cute couple when they were together last year. You know, when they weren't waking me up at two in the morning to referee fights. And there have been a few times after they've broken up when I thought they had a moment or something, but then they'd find some reason to fight and ruin it."
"Man, I leave my phone for a few hours and I get over fifty texts from my masseuse telling me about his ferret," Gibby said, returning downstairs.
"Your masseuse has a ferret?" Spencer inquired.
"Yes…I thought I made that clear," Gibby said. He turned to Carly. "Hey, you know you left your webcam on, by the way."
"Huh? No I didn't," Carly said. "I turned it off after we finished talking to Freddie, remember."
"But the little light's on," Gibby told her.
"Oh, really?" Carly frowned. "Huh. Well I guess maybe I could've just minimized the chat window instead of closing it down. Oh well, it's no big deal. It's not like anything exciting has happened in-Oh no!"
"What?" Spencer asked, concerned.
"Um, Spence…do-do you think that if I left my webcam on…Freddie would've been able to see and hear everything going on in there?" Carly asked.
"Yeah, sure," Spencer shrugged. "If he never turned his webcam off either. Why?"
"Um, well, do you remember that thing I just told you a certain someone told me in confidentiality?" Carly continued
"Hey guys, when you talk all secretive like that, it makes it sort of hard for me to follow what's going on," Gibby said.
"That's the point!" Carly hissed. She turned back to her brother. "Well, do you?"
"Yeah," Spencer nodded slowly. "So?"
"Well if my webcam was on and Freddie's webcam was on, then it is possible that he…you know,"
"Still not following here, Carls," Spencer said.
Carly let out a frustrated groan. "Spencer! If my webcam was on and Freddie happened to have left his webcam on too, then he could've heard the entire conversation me and Sam had!"
"Ohhhh, now I get it," Spencer nodded. "Wow, that's really not good."
"You think?" Carly moaned. "Oh man, Sam is going to be so mad at me!"
"Well, come on," Spencer reasoned, putting a hand on his younger sister's shoulder. "What are the odds that you and Freddie were stupid enough to leave your webcams on? I'm sure Freddie turned his off right after you talked to him and he didn't hear anything you and Sam talked about."
"Well…Freddie is really good about making sure he shuts everything off on his computer," Carly said slowly. "He doesn't like to waste battery life…Yeah, you know, you're probably right, Spence."
"Exactly," Spencer said. "Nothing to worry about."
"So are we just really going to sit here and not fill me in on any of this?" Gibby asked, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, pretty much," Carly replied. She started towards the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Spencer asked.
"To turn my webcam off for good this time," Carly replied.
She headed back up to her bedroom and sat down at her laptop and saw that Gibby was in fact correct; she had only minimized her chat window. She was just about to quit out of it when suddenly an unfamiliar boy's face popped up.
"Whoa!" the stranger said. "You're hot!"
"Um…thanks, weird computer boy who I don't know," Carly frowned. "Um, who are you and why can I see you on my computer screen?"
"Because clearly we are destined to be together, my sweet, beautiful angel," the boy replied.
"Alright, too creepy!" Carly said firmly. "You have three seconds to tell me what's up before I, um, call the computer cops!"
"My roommate left his web camera on," the boy explained, still looking at Carly like a lovesick puppy.
Carly's eyes widened. "What? Wait, oh no…You-You're roommate's Freddie, isn't it?"
"Correct, and he is quite lucky to know an individual as lovely as-"
"Can it, will you?" Carly yelled. "Um, okay, look. Has Freddie been in the room recently?"
He said he had to study right before we stopped talking earlier, Carly thought to herself. So maybe he went to the library or something and didn't hear anything!
"He was until a few hours ago," the boy shrugged. "When I came back in. He was throwing some stuff into a suitcase and told me he had to make an emergency trip back home to Seattle. Something about taking to someone."
"No!" Carly exclaimed, jumping up. "No! No! No! He did hear!"
"You seem stressed," the boy said. "Perhaps you'd like to fly out here and I can soothe you with some calming music and a back rub-"
"Oh man!" Carly muttered, quickly shutting out of the chat window. "What am I going to do? Freddie heard Sam confess her love for him! Sam's going to flip out! "
…
Sam was laying on her couch in her living room, tossing popcorn into the air and catching it with ease in her mouth.
She didn't feel like doing much of anything else. She still didn't know if telling Carly her feelings about Freddie earlier that day was a good idea. Yes, Carly was her best friend, but Carly also had a history of letting things slip in an effort to try and manipulate situations.
Carly wouldn't tell Freddie anything, Sam reassured herself. She'd know better.
She sighed. She thought it would be easier by now not to have that pain inside of her when she thought about Freddie for even a second. He had been gone for a week now, and she still felt as though someone had ripped a piece of her away.
Just then there was a short knock on her door and a second later, Carly appeared, letting herself inside.
"Hey," Carly said, not meeting Sam's gaze for some reason.
"Hey," Sam replied, sitting up.
"Um, so, how are you doing?" Carly asked.
Sam frowned. "Fine?"
"Oh, well…good," Carly smiled. "Anyway, listen…about what we talked about earlier-"
"Carls, no, I don't want to bring it up again," Sam said at once. "I get that you're trying to help me out here and all, but I really don't want you to. I still have some feelings for Freddie, sure, but soon I'll forget all about that nub and everything can get back to normal, and he'll never have to know anything about this."
"Yeah, um, about that," Carly said sheepishly, looking down at her feet.
"What?"
"Well, um, how-how mad would you be if say, hypothetically, Freddie did find out about this?" Carly asked.
Sam narrowed her eyes. "You remember that time Gibby dropped my bacon wrapped corn dog in the mud and I poured a bottle of hot sauce down his pants?"
"Vaguely, yes."
"I'd be ten times madder if that happened," Sam replied.
"Oh."
"Why?" Sam asked. "I mean, he's not going to find out, right?"
"Well…" Carly said slowly. "There-There may be a small chance-"
"Oh my God!" Sam yelled. "You told Freddie? He knows? Carly! How could you? Why do you always have to do this? You always go and try and meddle in other people's lives and you wind up messing everything up! I told you that I just wanted to forget about this and you still went and told Freddie everything anyway?"
"I didn't tell Freddie!" Carly said quickly.
"Oh," Sam said, lowering her voice. "So he doesn't know then?"
"Well, no, Sam, he-he still does know what you said."
"Carly! You just said-"
"I didn't tell him," Carly explained. "Look, when we were in my room and you and I were talking…I-I sort of left my webcam on by accident."
"What?" Sam said, looking confused.
"I left my webcam on from when I was talking to Freddie earlier," Carly sighed. "I thought I closed it, by I really just minimized it. And it turns out Freddie didn't turn off his webcam either and he heard us talking."
"No," Sam moaned, sliding down in her seat. "No, no, no. He actually knows now? What the heck am I supposed to do? Okay, maybe-maybe you can talk to him and tell him…tell him I was rehearsing for a play or something! Or tell him I just ate some bad ketchup again and I was delusional! Or tell him I-"
"Sam," Carly said gently. "Freddie….Freddie's coming back to Seattle. He already left MIT."
Sam felt her stomach clench. "He's coming back home?" she whispered.
Carly nodded. "Sam, I'm so sorry. I-I didn't mean for any of this to happen, you've got to believe me. But-But if Freddie dropped everything to come back home and see you because of what you said, don't you think that there's a chance that maybe he, you know, feels the same way about you? Maybe this was actually a good thing."
Sam shook her head. "Or maybe the nub couldn't pass up a chance to turn me down in person."
"Sam, Freddie wouldn't do that," Carly said.
"What am I supposed to do?" Sam asked softly.
Carly put an arm around her. "Well, you're going to have to talk to him."
"No! Not that!" Sam groaned. "I hate talking!"
"Well what else is there for you to do?" Carly pointed out. "You can't just say 'Hey Freddie, I know you just flew across the country and everything, but let's not have any sort of discussion about this and we'll just pretend it never happened'?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Sam said.
"No! No plan!" Carly exclaimed. "I wasn't being serious!"
"Well I'm not going to-"
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
"It's probably that weird guy my mom's dating from the animal shelter," Sam said, rolling her eyes as she approached the front door. "He always leaves his dog's medication here."
"Well give the creep his pooch pills and then let's calmly and rationally decide what we're going to do," Carly said. "Now, I still say."
"Carly, no!" Sam said firmly, opening the door. "This isn't a 'we' situation. I'll figure out how to fix all of this on my own. I don't need you trying to-"
Sam's words suddenly halted as she saw who was standing in her doorway. It wasn't her mom's boyfriend.
It was Freddie Benson.
"Um, hi," Freddie said.
"What-What are you-When did you?-Why-Um, I mean…shouldn't you be at MIT...nub?" Sam said lamely.
"Can I talk to you?" Freddie asked, not waiting to be invited inside as he stepped into the house.
"Freddie?" Carly frowned as she caught sight of her friend. "You're back already? Your roommate told me you were coming here, but I didn't think it would be so quick."
"I paid a few people ahead of me at the ticket line to let me cut them so I managed to get an earlier flight," Freddie explained. He turned back to Sam. "Can we talk?"
"Yeah…no," Sam said, not making eye contact. "I have to see my parole officer in twenty minutes and he hates it when I'm late, and well, he's not the guy I should be pissing off, so I need to run-"
"Sam," Carly said, giving her a look. "You meet with your parole officer on Thursdays. It's Monday."
"My meeting date got changed!" Sam hissed.
"It did not!"
"Carly, I appreciate the help, but I really want to talk to Sam alone," Freddie said.
Carly nodded. "Okay." She picked up her bag. "Sam, um, you know where to find me. If-If you wanna talk about anything. Okay?"
"We'll see," Sam mumbled, less than pleased with her best friend at the moment.
Sam and Freddie were silent until Carly closed the door behind her. Then Freddie took a deep breath.
"So about what I heard-"
He really doesn't beat around the bush, Sam thought to herself, somewhat impressed. MIT must've been good for him so far…
"You shouldn't have come back because of that," Sam said. "You-You didn't hear right."
"So you didn't say you were still in love with me then?" Freddie asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, that-that's completely stupid, of course I didn't," Sam said quickly. "I-I said…um…I still loved…"
What had happened to her normally perfect lying skills? Sam Puckett was infamous for being able to pull out a grade A lie in under ten seconds for any high pressure situation you could think of. But somehow, staring in Freddie's dark, chocolate eyes, her talents seemed to flee her.
And Freddie saw right through her.
"Sam," he began. "Why didn't you tell me while I was still in Seattle? You know, to my face and not over a webcam?"
Sam merely gave him a shrug in response.
Freddie looked down at his feet. "So, um, how long?"
Sam looked up at him. "How long what?"
"How long have you-have you felt this way?"
Sam pursed her lips. "None of your business."
"What do you mean none of my business?" Freddie said, exasperated. "It is my business. I'm sort of a big part in this whole situation."
If Sam had ever needed more argument to back up her philosophy of stuffing down any feelings besides 'hungry' and 'tired' and 'mad' until you forgot all about them, this was it. She went against everything she believed in and spoke about her own feelings, and look where it landed her. She needed to kick this in the butt.
"Alright," Sam said heavily. "You really want to know?"
"I do."
I'll just get it all out, and then we'll forget about it and pretend it never happened, Sam decided. It seemed like her only option at this point. Freddie clearly wasn't going to let her rest until she did so.
"I-I never stopped," Sam said so softly that Freddie could barely hear her. "Ever since we broke up…until, well, when you heard it."
Freddie blinked. "Really?"
Sam glanced at him. "You shocked?"
"S-Sort of," Freddie said, looking quite confused. "Only because, um, well…okay, if you were so in love with me, why did you totally ignore me before I left? Huh? You barely even said goodbye, Sam!"
The confusion in his voice was replaced by anger, and Sam was a little taken aback. But she held her ground.
"Because what difference would it have made, huh?" Sam snapped. "It's just like I told Carly. If I would've told you, you would've still gone to MIT and left me here in Seattle and everything would be weird and-and it was just better to ignore it. I know how to deal with this chiz. I don't have to do that 'feelings' junk. I know how-"
"How do you know that?" Freddie asked suddenly, interrupting her rant.
Sam glared at him. "How do I know what?"
"How do you know I still would've gone to MIT if you told me?"
Sam scoffed. "Please. I've seen pictures of you from elementary school dressed as a geeky MIT graduate for Halloween. You wouldn't give up going there for anything."
"Maybe I would've…for you," Freddie said.
"Ha."
"I'm serious," Freddie said. "Do you know-Do you know how much I secretly hoped after I got my acceptance letter that you would do something, say something."
"Why?" Sam asked. "Would you have honestly stayed?"
Freddie didn't reply.
"Exactly," Sam nodded. "So why would I have-"
"I think I would've," Freddie said slowly.
Sam shut her mouth, flabbergasted at what Freddie had just said.
"If I knew before I left," Freddie continued. "Even one day before…Sam, I would've stayed."
"To mock me and make up for all the chiz I've done to you?"
"No," Freddie said simply. "Because I feel the same way."
Sam took a step back. "No you don't."
"Yes, I do," Freddie said, his voice a bit stronger. "And do you know what? I've never stopped either. I told you I loved you that night in the elevator…and I never stopped. So it looks like the two of us have just been dancing around each other for the past year when really, we could've…"
Sam crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah," she said quietly.
The two were silent for several moments, both letting what the other just revealed fully sink in.
"Well," Sam finally said, breaking the silence. "You-You do sort of need to go back, don't you?"
Freddie sighed. "Yeah, I mean, I-I've already started there and I have exams-"
"Right, so, there you go, my point's proven," Sam said. She was surprised to feel that she almost felt worse now, after learning about Freddie's feelings. Maybe knowing that if she hadn't been so dang stupid, things could've worked out. Now she was stuck with that knowledge, and would be forced to wonder what could've been.
"No," Freddie said gently. "Your point's not proven. Come on, Sam, this is stupid. We both just admitted that we still have feelings for each other-"
"But you're about to fly back across the country," Sam reminded him.
"I am," Freddie agreed. "But why does that have to play such a big factor here?"
Sam gave him a look. "What are you saying?"
"I know you and I are both pretty stubborn," Freddie said. "But…But are we really let us stop something that we know could be great? So I have to go back to MIT and you're staying here. So what? We can make this work."
"Are you saying…you want to like, you know, get back together?" Sam asked cautiously, hardly daring to believe what was happening.
"We can do long distance," Freddie suggested. "With cell phones and the Internet, it's actually not too hard anymore if you think about it. And we can see each other during school breaks and the holidays and maybe some weekends I can fly back home and if you get that car you've been saving up for we can-"
Sam cut him off by pressing her lips against his forcefully, capturing Freddie in one of the best kisses he had ever experienced.
When they finally pulled apart, Sam gave him a small grin. "You talk too much."
"Sorry," Freddie chuckled. "So what do you say?"
Sam pretended to consider the proposal for a moment, though inside she was practically screaming 'yes!'.
"I guess we can try it out," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. "But you'd better be ready to overnight me my ham. Just because you're across the country doesn't mean you're off the hook with that, nub."
"Of course," Freddie laughed.
Sam laughed to as Freddie wrapped his arms around her.
"So," Sam said, looking up at him. "What time do you need to be back at MIT?"
"I need to catch a plane back in a few hours; I have an early class tomorrow," Freddie said sadly.
"Hmm, a couple hours," Sam said, lacing her arms around his neck. "I think we can work with that."
