Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly. : )

Author's Note: Thank you so much for all your reviews and for reading this far. It means a lot to me that you all even care enough and would take the time to keep reading. :D

And sorry guys, another hard chapter ahead of us.

Chapter Five: iChanged The List

It wasn't until a few days later that Carly knew for sure that she would have to step in and deal with whatever was going on between Sam and Freddie, and she would have to do it soon.

"I'm too sick." Sam groaned, she was lying, sprawled out on her bed, her face covered by a pillow, and was apparently unwilling to move. (She'd decided to return home when Jack and Freddie kept showing up at Carly's to visit her.)

"What do you mean you're too sick?" Carly asked incredulously. "The last time you were sick on an iCarly night, I had to force you to rest! And you're way better now than you were then!"

"I feel like I'm dying." Sam mumbled.

Carly had had enough. "No, you don't!"

Sam's head snapped up. "What?"

"You aren't sick! You're upset. And I know it has to do with Freddie—And don't try to deny it!" Carly added quickly, when Sam opened her mouth to object. "Every time he came to visit you when you were at my house, you pretended to be asleep! I've been with you all day, and you have yet to throw up, sneeze, or complain about a headache even once. You always complain!"

"I do not!"

"You're not sick, Sam!"

"I can't do iCarly tonight! Next week I will, okay? I promise!"

"No. You have to! What am I supposed to do if you aren't there?"

"Call Jack. He's funny, he can take my place."

Carly shook her head quickly. "No- Sam!"

"I don't want to go, alright? I don't want to talk to him! I don't want to be near him! I don't want to look at him!" Sam burst out, hoping if she just said it Carly would let it go. But this was Carly she was talking about.

"I knew it!"

"Congratulations!" Sam's voice dripped with sarcasm and she pulled her pillow back over her head.

Carly sighed, she sat down next to Sam and said, more gently then before. "Please tell me what happened, Sam."

There was a long silence, but Carly knew better than to break it.

Finally, Sam spoke. "Me and Freddie aren't friends anymore."

Carly sighed, but was not ultimately surprised. The two fought all the time. But, then, this did feel different. Sam had never been so upset before that she would hide out for days. The fight must have been bad. Whatever had been said or done must have really hurt her.

"Sam…"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Sam! You two need to work this out!"

"That's enough."

"Sam!"

"Let's go do iCarly." Sam scrambled to her feet, before Carly could stop her, and flew out the door.

00000

Carly had a list. This list was made up of the top ten most awkward, boring, or just plain bad iCarly episodes of all time. It included things like the time when Spencer somehow caused the camera to burst into flames, or when she had visited her granddad in Yakima and Freddie had tried to co-host with the weird robot short. This list, in all its terrible awkwardness, existed so that the iCarly trio could learn from their mistakes and, hopefully, not repeat them.

And a new episode had just been added to that list.

Things had started out fine. If you ignored the icy silence between Sam and Freddie before the show began, and the stiff, fake smile plastered on Sam's face for the first five minutes on air.

Then, they were doing this skit about two girls discussing an elephant they had hidden in the basement. After the sketch was over, Carly had faced the camera with a grin and stated, "Now, we don't really have an elephant hidden in the basement! That would be hard, seeing as we don't even have a basement! Right, Freddie?"

"It's true. As much as we wish we did have one—" He paused, grinning at the camera which he had turned to face himself. "-We don't have an elephant."

"And now-" Sam said, her voice casual and cheerful, as if just continuing her usual banter. "Get that camera off your nubby face so the fans can see us, Freddork!" Despite the laughter in her tone, the look on her face was hardly cheerful.

"Sam!" Carly scolded, halfheartedly. This wasn't unusual for the two, of course, and normally Carly wouldn't have even bothered to stop it. But she knew how furious the blond was at Freddie, and that this was not just cheerful teasing.

"Some of the fans happen to like my face, Sam!" Snapped Freddie, and that was it.

"Yeah, the blind ones." Sam retorted.

"You know what I think?" Freddie asked, pushing the camera into Carly's hands so he could stand in front of Sam.

Carly was too busy watching anxiously to think to turn off the camera or go to an emergency pre-recorded video.

"Woah! Wait! Notify the press! You think things?" Sam asked, feigning shock.

Freddie stepped closer to Sam, pointing at her as he spoke again, ignoring her comment, "You know what I think?"

If Carly had been watching a movie she would have expected the two of them to drop the argument and kiss each other. But she quickly shook the thought from her mind.

"What do you think?" Sam asked, folding her arms and giving him an incredulous look.

"I think you love my face and you just make fun of me because you can't have me." Freddie smirked at her.

Carly almost dropped the camera.

Sam let out a bitter laugh, "Oh please! That's wishful thinking if I ever heard it." She raised her voice into a mocking tone, "'You just make fun of me because you can't have me!' Who do you think you are, anyway? Batman? Please." Sam gave another mirthless laugh.

Freddie's unusual confidence faded away as quickly as it had come and he took a step away from her. "What is even wrong with you? You're such a jerk! Why do we even put up with her? Why?" He exclaimed, turning to Carly.

Carly's eyes widened. She did not want to be dragged into this. "What? I—Freddie, don't—"

"Ha! You talk big, Benson. Great job. Well done." Sam's voice was low and vicious as she glared daggers at Freddie.

Carly finally came to her senses and turned the camera to herself. "Obviously we're, uh, having some issues with the show tonight. I'm really sorry guys. Uh. Sam and Freddie will be fine—"

This statement was accompanied by a snort from Sam, who tore open the studio door and stormed out before Carly could finish speaking.

Carly gave her voice a tone of fake cheer, saying, as brightly as she could, "And this has been iCarly!"

She turned off the camera quickly and she and Freddie stared at each other. Awkwardness hung heavily in the air around them.

That was definitely going on the top of the list.

00000

Not long after the disaster that was that week's show, Sam was walking back home in the darkness. The street lamps in her neighborhood flickered ominously, but she was used to the creepiness by now. Besides, she could take anyone in a fight who might challenge her, so usually the place didn't bother her much. The walk home wasn't that bad, really, and she was used to it.

But that night, Sam was especially jumpy. She kept wiping determinedly at tears that somehow kept falling from her eyes, and every time they did it made her more and more angry.

Suddenly, her phone rang. She jumped, startled. She didn't look at the caller ID, she was sure it was Carly calling to try to talk to her about what had happened.

She answered it, "Listen, Carls, I don't want to talk about Freddie, alright?"

"Oh good. Me either."

"Jack?"

"Hey, Puckett, what's up with you and Benson, then?"

"Nothing," Sam said, irritably, "What do you want, Jack?"

"Someone's grumpy." He sounded amused. "This have anything to do with how much you don't want to talk about Fredward, then?"

"Shut up, Hutchins. What do you want?"

"Nice attitude, as usual, Sam." Jack said, and Sam could practically hear him smirking through the phone. "Heard you've been sick, tried to drop by, but Carly said you didn't want visitors."

"I didn't."

"But I'm an exception, right?"

"In your dreams." She snorted, fighting a slight smile now.

"So, anyway, you're not sick anymore, right?"

"Uh, right." Sam said, she supposed she couldn't really fake it anymore. Not when people had seen her on iCarly.

"That's cool." Jack said, and paused for half a second before continuing on in a way that made Sam think he wasn't really all that concerned about her health. "So, Puckett, I've got a proposition for you."

"Yeah?" She asked, a little suspiciously. But she was curious.

"You. Me. Senior Prom."

Sam was too surprised to even laugh, "Wait, what?"

"Well," He corrected himself, chuckling, "I'm an old Junior since I've failed so many times… But, your senior prom. Whatdyah say, Sam?"

Now she gave a small laugh, "I didn't think prom was really your style, Hutchins."

"Nah, it's not. But you and me? We're a dream team. We could cause so much trouble. C'mon, Sam, it's not like I'm asking you on a date."

"You're not?" She smirked, giving her tone just enough skepticism so he would be able to tell she was amused.

"Not unless you want it to be." He said, and she could hear him grinning.

"Oh, get over yourself. Anyway, prom isn't really mama's thing."

"You sure you just don't want to go because you're too hung up on Benson?"

Sam froze. She stopped walking and clenched her free fist, holding the phone more tightly in her other hand. "I am not!"

"Then go to prom with me!"

"Prom sounds boring. I don't want to go."

"We'd have fun, Sam! Just think about it."

"Fine." She agreed, rolling her eyes. "I'll think about it, but don't get your hopes up." She said, hanging up, and smiling slightly.

00000

"…And that's what happened." Freddie finished, with a long sigh as Carly paced back and forth in front of him.

He sat in a beanbag chair with a hand over his eyes, as he finished explaining his entire fight with Sam to Carly. He'd tried to summarize it, but Carly wouldn't take half-answers. She wanted the whole story.

Carly was at a loss for words when he finished speaking. Something that didn't happen to her a lot. "I just—" She stopped, "How can—" She frowned, "What were-"

Freddie watched her apprehensively, knowing that in a moment her powers of speech would return to her with full force.

"How did this all happen because of Jack Hutchins? I just—I—I! No. This isn't about him, though. Freddie!" Carly groaned, "Why? You know this is why she's been playing sick all week and not coming to school and why the only reason she came to do the show tonight was because I wouldn't stop interrogating her until she did! Freddie!"

He sighed. "I know, it's bad, but—"

"But, what? I thought you cared about Sam!"

Freddie stared at Carly, insulted, "Of course, I do! Of course, I care about Sam! How could you even say that? This wasn't all my fault, you know!"

Carly took a deep breath, sitting down in the bean bag chair next to his. "I know…I'm sorry…"

"I mean, I was trying to be nice to her! She was the one who got all mad in the first place!"

"Freddie… I know… but… You have to apologize to her. You have to make things right." Carly said, her eyes wide and pleading.

"No. I won't. Why should it always be me? Why can't Sam ever apologize first?" He demanded. He was tired of dancing around Sam, trying to keep her happy when he just couldn't. It was impossible.

"Because you know she never will! If you want to work things out with her, it has to be you! She's stubborn! She'll never speak to you again!"

Freddie was silent for a long moment. He almost gave in. He wanted to be friends with Sam again, of course, he did! And the idea of not speaking to her ever again terrified him on levels he couldn't exactly understand. For some reason, he felt like he really needed Sam in his life. But that realization, rather than encouraging him to go ahead and apologize, made him want to wait for her to apologize more than ever.

If these…These odd feelings that he was starting to feel toward her were anything real, anything important, then Sam needed to work things out too. Sam needed to start putting some effort into their friendship. There had to be something more to her than the way her eyes sparkled, and the way even the sound of her voice made him smile. That wouldn't be enough. She needed to be willing to communicate with him if there was ever a chance of them being anything more than friends.

Wait, more than friends? What are you thinking? He scolded himself. A relationship with Sam? The thought had just appeared, seemingly, out of nowhere, and yet, it didn't feel as foreign to him as he would have expected.

"Sam can apologize to me when she wants to. And I'll even say I'm sorry when she does. But I'm done making the first move. I'm done being her punching bag while I sit and give her thing after thing to make her happy, when she doesn't even have the decency to apologize!"

"But you really hurt her, Freddie!"

He blinked, feeling stung. He knew that. He didn't need to be told. To be reminded of the pained look he'd seen on her face during their first fight, before she had pushed the hurt aside.

"And what about me? Does it not matter that she hurt me, too?"

"I didn't say that! But—But—it's different!"

"How?" Freddie demanded.

"Because Sam's in love with you!"

Author's Note: So…Was it okay? I'm not sure.