Popping

"Carly! Carly, get down here!"

"What?" Carly asked, coming downstairs to where he brother was standing in the middle of the living room. "I was cleaning out my closet."

"Sam's broken!" Spencer hissed. "Look!"

He pointed over to the kitchen table, where Sam was working away on her laptop, scribbling every now and then into a notebook.

"She's not broken," Carly said, rolling her eyes. "She's doing homework."

"Exactly!" Spencer exclaimed. "Sam doesn't do homework!"

"Yes she does," Carly chuckled walking into the kitchen and looking over her best friend's shoulder. "When her boyfriend guilts her into doing it, right Sam?"

"Freddie's a nub," Sam said, rolling her eyes.

"How'd he guilt you into doing your homework?" Spencer asked.

"He started giving me a lecture about my 'future' and my 'work-ethic" and blah, blah, blah," Sam mumbled. "This was the only way to shut him up."

"You know, I've been giving you the same lectures for years," Carly pointed out. "And you never once listened to me."

"Yeah, well I'm not dating you," Sam said. "Freddie also said if I finish all my homework for the week he'd take me out La Palace de Amor."

"You want to go to the cheesiest romantic restaurant in Seattle?" Carly frowned.

"Pfft, have you had their steaks? It's like eating a little piece of heaven," Sam said.

Just then the Shay's door opened up and Freddie walked in. "Hello good people," he said brightly. "What goes on?"

"We're just discussing how you got Sam to do homework for once," Carly replied. "You must have a real gift."

"Yeah, of being annoying," Sam mumbled.

"Thanks baby," Freddie said, leaning down to give her a kiss.

"Ugh! No swapping of teenage spit in my kitchen!" Spencer cringed. "It's where I come to think sometimes!"

"How goes the homework?" Freddie asked, ignoring Spencer's comment.

"Stupid," Sam said. "You better be prepared to buy me six steaks when I finish."

"What assignment are you on now?" Freddie asked.

"I'm writing my dumb paper on the signing of the Declaration of Independence," Sam replied. "I'm almost done, thank God, because I can't stand reading about this boring history chiz."

"Hmm, it looks good," Freddie said, looking at the screen. "But, um, Sam? The Declaration was signed in Philadelphia, not Boston."

"What? Yes it was," Sam said. "They signed it and then they all had a tea party."

"The Boston Tea Party wasn't an actual tea party, and it happened before the Declaration was even written," Freddie explained. "It was one of the many events that really fueled the Declaration's creation, but-"

"Here, I'll show you," Sam said, pulling up a search engine and typing in the question quickly. "You'll see that the-oh."

"See, it says it was signed on July 4th, 1776 in Philadelphia," Freddie said.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Sam said, fixing her paper.

"You're also going to need to change the margins," Freddie said. "Mr. Howard prefers .95 inch margins, not one inch. And your font size really should be smaller. And-"

"Would you like to write this for me Mr. Perfect?" Sam snapped.

"No," Freddie said quickly. "I just want to make sure that you get everything done right so you can get a good grade."

"Well I can do it on my own, you know," Sam said. "Keep your brain to yourself."

She yanked the flash drive that had been plugged into her computer out.

"Um, you know you're not supposed to just yank those things out," Freddie said. "You need to properly eject them or you can risk losing data."
Sam glared at him.

"Or I could keep my mouth shut," Freddie added.

"I'm gonna go run to the copy store to print this," Sam said. "My mom broke our printer."

"How?" Spencer asked.

"She hit it with a hammer."

"Ah."

"Well, I'm gonna go upstairs and work on some updates for the iCarly page," Freddie said. "If you need anything-"

"Goodbye, nub," Sam said.

Freddie shook his head as he headed upstairs.

"You see what I'm dealing with?" Sam said as her boyfriend disappeared. "It's always 'Sam, you're doing it wrong', 'Sam, Canada's a real country', 'Sam, don't yank your flash drive out'."
"Hey, what just popped up on your computer?" Carly asked.

"Huh? What are you-Uh-oh."

"What is it?" Spencer asked.

"Due to improper removal, any unsaved data on your flash drive may have been lost," Sam read.

"Your report!" Carly exclaimed. "Did it get lost?"

"I don't know," Sam said, quickly plugging her flash drive back in. "Come on, be there, history report…Don't do this to-No! It's gone!"

"Oh no!" Carly gasped.

"Are you sure?" Spencer asked.

"Yes, it's gone!" Sam snapped. "Ugh! Now what do I do?"
"When's the paper due?" Carly asked.

"Tomorrow!" Sam moaned.

"Oh."

"I can't believe this! I finally do my homework and it disappears!" Sam said. "This is clearly the universe's way of telling me I shouldn't have done it. That paper's due in…fifteen hours and I have nothing to show for it!"

"Well maybe you can-"

"I got it!" Sam suddenly said, her face lighting up. "You can recover documents from your computer!"

"That's right!" Spencer said. "Wait…how?"

"It's some trick Freddie showed me awhile ago," Sam said, pushing a few buttons on her keyboard. "I just…ugh! I can't remember how to do it!"

"I'll go get Freddie and ask him," Carly said, starting for the stairs.

"Don't you dare, Shay!" Sam snapped, causing Carly to stop in her tracks. "I am not crawling to Freddie just so he can be right about something else. He doesn't get the satisfaction."

"But Sam, you need your paper," Carly reasoned.

"I'll remember," Sam said. "Maybe it's on this menu…no."

"There's like, a thousand different button combinations it could be," Spencer pointed out. "You're never going to get it."

"Then-Then-I'll rewrite the dang paper!" Sam said firmly.

"It's six pages!" Carly frowned. "Doing it the first time took you three full days."

"Well I'll type faster!" Sam said.

"At least ask Freddie to help you rewrite it then; history is one of his best subjects," Carly said.

"They're all his best subjects!" Sam exclaimed. "And there's no way I'm doing this with his help."

Six hours later, was sitting slumped down at her kitchen table, her eyes barely staying open as she stared at the two pages she had done of her report.

"Okay…just four more pages," Sam sighed, downing her last sip of espresso. "You can do this, Puckett. You can-Ugh, no I can't!"

Suddenly there was a knock at her door.

"It's open!" Sam called, figuring her mother had forgotten her keys yet again.

Instead, though, came the pleasant voice of her boyfriend.

"Hey," he smiled at her. He set a large smoothie down in front of her. "I thought you could use a pick-me-up after finally finishing up your big paper. You know, I'm really proud of you, Sam. I know you'll get a good grade on it because you worked harder on it than you have with anything in your whole life."
Sam narrowed her eyes. "Rub it in, will you?"

"Um…what?" Freddie frowned, confused.

"Okay, Benson, this is how this is gonna work," Sam said firmly. "You're not going to make any snide remarks, you're not gonna gloat, you're not even gonna crack a smile. Got it?"

"Got what?" Freddie asked.

Sam took a deep breath. "When I 'improperly removed my flash drive', I, um, sort of lost my entire paper! And I know you showed me how to recover lost documents but you know I wasn't paying attention and now I can't figure it out and I've been sitting here for the past six hours trying to rewrite my paper but my brain is fried! So sit your nerdy butt down and pull up my paper and keep your dang mouth shut!"

Freddie's face broke into a grin. "Well sure I'll help you out, baby."

"Yeah, you won't be thinking this is so funny when I'm popping a few of your teeth out," Sam mumbled as Freddie sat down at her computer. She watched as Freddie pressed a few keys.

"There you go," Freddie said almost instantly. "Now would you like me to show you again how to recover documents?"

"No, but I would like to dump this smoothie down your shirt."

"Wait, why did you spend six hours trying to rewrite your paper instead of just calling me over in the first place?" Freddie asked.

"Because I don't need Mr. Perfect coming to my rescue," Sam said.

"I'm not Mr. Perfect," Freddie said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, you kind of are," Sam said.

"Come on, we both know I'm a total nerd, I'm awkward in social situations and I have a crazy mother who likes to ruin any joy I might find," Freddie said.

"You also get straight A's, are in a million clubs, all the teachers love you…" Sam added.

"And you're funny, outgoing, tough and don't let anybody stand in your way of doing anything," Freddie said. "You know, to me, Sam, you're Ms. Perfect."

"I'm nowhere near perfect," Sam scoffed.

"You are to me," Freddie said simply.

Sam stared at him. "I-I am?"

"Of course," Freddie said.

"But I'm messy and loud and mean," Sam said. "And I have to be bribed with steak to do my homework and I have a permanent seat in detention and I-"

"Sam," Freddie said. "There's nothing you can ever say to make me think you're anything less than perfect."

Sam smiled, her cheeks blushing furiously. "No one's ever told me I was perfect before."

"You are," Freddie said, stepping closer to her. "And don't you ever, even for a second, think you're not."