iCarly: iMeet the Relatives, Chapter 8: Collateral Damage

I don't own iCarly, natch. Oh, but if only….

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Chapter 8: Collateral Damage

The weekend ended, and Carly and company returned to Seattle. Carly still seemed shaken; Sam looked at her with concern. What had happened back there?

She'd seen the news reports about the eruption of Mt. Adams, but it had seemed to affect Carly on a personal level. "Carls? What did you mean, when you said 'he was about to get into a fight'? Did you mean Grif?"

Carly nodded. Freddie had returned back to his apartment, the one he shared with his mother, and Spencer had, of course, charged upstairs, inspired, he said, by the cataclysm on the news.

But Sam was more worried about her friend. Carly was visibly shaken. "C'mon, Carls. You can't possibly think Grif had something to do with…that." She gestured to the TV, referring to the news report.

"I..I, I don't know. All I know is, he said Aunt Maggie had been hurt, and then…he said he was about to get into a fight." She sat on the couch, her arms wrapped around her, hugging herself.

"Carls, that's ridiculous. I mean, come on. I can see, if Maggie's been hurt…but how do you connect that with that explosion?"

"I think Grif did it. He, he sounded pretty upset."

"Now, Carls. You can't possibly think Griffin did that."

Carly looked at her. "You don't believe he's an angel, do you?"

"No, not really. But you seem to. I don't know what he's done to you, but he's sure got you convinced. But Carly, he's not an angel. All that's just in your head." At that exact moment, the doorbell rang.

"That's him," breathed Carly, jumping up, to answer the door, before Sam could stop her.

Griffin was indeed on the other side of the door. "Hey, Carly." He looked closely at her. "Are you alright?" He moved into the apartment, taking her in his arms. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?! What's wrong?!" Sam was livid. "What's wrong is, you've brainwashed Carly into thinking you're an, an angel! And now she's coming apart at the seams! What kind of monster are you?"

Griffin picked Carly up, and took her over to the couch. Sat down beside her and held her tightly. Why was she acting this way? He didn't know. "I'm not a monster, Sam. I told Carly I'm an angel, and I'm telling you. Why is that so hard for you to believe?" He held Carly close, as though to warm her up. She was shivering, slightly.

"Because there's no such-* I mean, that's nonsense!"

"You started to say, 'there's no such thing as angels.' Do you really believe that?"

"Whether I do or whether I don't, you're not one! And look what you've done to Carly!" Carly was just then coming to any degree of control.

"Carly," Grif asked softly, "What's wrong?"

"I—I thought….I thought…what happened to Maggie?"

Grif sighed, ignoring an ever-increasingly angry Sam for the moment. "She went to investigate a…strangeness. Something….I don't know what it was, but it lashed out at her unexpectedly. She got hit with something way more than physical. Uncle Jemiah said this was exactly what I'd promised to do, so I summoned the other of the Host of the Dominion and, and blew it sky high. It's gone." He paused. "But I guess it was pretty spectacular."

"Will you stop lying to her!" Sam shouted. She looked like she was about to physically attack Grif.

Griffin again spoke to Carly. "Are you okay now? Problem's gone, everything's okay. No one else hurt. Aunt Maggie may have to go back home for renewal, however, but she'll be fine. You okay, now?" Carly smiled weakly. Why is this affecting her so strongly? Grif wondered. Well, perhaps he'd figure it out.

He turned to Sam. "I'm getting a little tired of this. You don't believe I'm an angel. You want proof?"

"Yeah. Do something. Have you got wings? Let's see 'em."

"That wouldn't be wise in this small a space. But I can show you one never-fails test for angel-hood." He got up, went over to the printer, took a piece of copy paper. "The paper test."

Sam had followed him into the corner of the room by the breakfast bar. "The paper test?" Carly looked on, curious herself. She'd being going with Grif for some time now, but she'd never heard of the "paper test."

"Here." He handed the sheet of paper to Sam, moving over to the flat tiling of the kitchenette. "Slide this sheet of paper under my feet."

Sam looked at him as if he were crazy. "Slide this piece of paper? What's that gonna prove?"

"Just do it. You'll see."

She bent down, all the while keeping her guard up. This guy could be dangerous. If he'd somehow hypnotized her best friend into thinking he was an angel, who knew what else he might be capable of?

She slid the paper across the faux wooden tiling, right up to the toes of his boots. "Now what?"

"Like I said, slide it under my feet."

"It won't go, you're standing on the floor."

"Just try. What have you got to lose?" He waited exactly one beat. "Or are you afraid of being convinced?"

Angered further, Sam slid the paper right up to Grif's work boots—and stared as the paper slid effortlessly underneath his boots. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. The paper was still there, still under Grif's feet. She moved it. It slid back and forth, out and in. It was like Grif wasn't even standing there. But he clearly was. "Okay, that's a neat trick. How do you do it? Magnets?"

"Nope. No magnets. Here." He took some paperclips from the desk. "Magnets attract metal, don't they?" And he dropped the paperclips onto the floor around his boots.

Nothing. They just sat there, littering the floor.

"Okay…" Carly was the first to break silence, "w-what…I mean, how…?"

Griffin bent down and picked up the paperclips. "It's a part of my essential nature, and the nature of all angels, that we cannot touch the Earth. That extends into apartment floorings. I can eat fruits and vegetables that come from the Earth, but I cannot touch the Earth itself."

"Well, Sam?" Carly turned to her friend. "How, exactly, would you explain that?"

Sam had to admit to herself, that was…pretty…convincing? "O-okay. So, so maybe you're…."

"And please don't get started with 'alien,' or 'mutant,' or, 'time traveler,' or, or 'time traveling mutant alien,' or whatever else you may be thinking of. I'm an angel, Sam. And we're nothing at all like you were taught, or led to believe."

Carly took over, with Sam still trying to figure out an alternative explanation. "But what about Maggie? You said she'd…have to go home? For, for what?"

"She took a pretty hard hit. She may need renewal. But she'll be alright. It takes a great deal to harm one of us. Unfortunately, she encountered that, up there on Mr. Adams."

"What was it?"

"I don't know." He moved back into the main living area, sat on the couch by her. "I've a theory that it might have been an actual piece of the Darkness itself. You know, while none of us are really sure, one line of conjecture among us is that the Darkness is a live thing. A thing that absorbs energy, life, matter, hopes and dreams. I hope I'm wrong, but if that's what it was, things…could get pretty bad here."

"'Pretty bad'? Like how 'pretty bad'?"

He looked grim. "Armageddon bad."

….

Sam went home shortly thereafter. Carly seemed to be okay. Just being around Griffin had seemed to have some relaxing effect on her.

And what about herself? Did she believe he was an angel? Her first impulse was to say, "no," but she was having an increasingly hard time doing that.

How had he worked that "paper test" thing? Try as she might, she couldn't come up with any halfway reasonable explanation for it.

Well, there was nothing to be gained by sitting around here trying to think it through. Her mom wasn't home—of course-, so Sam thought she'd run down to the corner store and buy something. She didn't need anything, she just actually needed an excuse to get out of the apartment for a little while.

The rain outside was reaching its usual Seattle torrential mode, so she dressed the part, with poncho and rubber boots. She made her way to bus terminal, and checked her phone for the time. Shouldn't be long now.

"Sam?" A familiar voice from behind her caught her attention. "Hey. Fancy meeting you here." It was Devlin, standing behind her, in a raincoat and business suit. He was carrying an umbrella, which he moved to cover as much as her as he could.

"Oh, hey, Dev. Yeah, weather's bad, but I had to get outta the apartment. Just down to the store." She looked him over. "Somehow I never figured you for the 'bus' type."

He laughed, not a mocking laugh, but just an expression of amusement. "Yes, well, it is a bit of a walk. Better to ride. Use up somebody else's gas." He paused a moment. They were the only ones waiting at the bus stop. "It's good to see you out of that place, Sam," referring to the reform school she'd been in.

It was? Why? Why should he care? "Yeah, well, now's the hard part. Staying out."

The bus pulled up, and they both got on. "Surely that won't be too difficult."

"I dunno. Lately, I've hadda restrain myself from really letting a certain guy have it."

This brought about a raised eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. This guy Carly's goin' with. Claims he's—get this—an angel. Yeah, that was my reaction, too."

Devlin looked speculatively. "I see. And you believe he's…what? Got your friend in a psychological mind lock or something?"

"I know he's got her in a mind lock. She's absolutely taken with the guy." Why was she spilling her guts to Dev? But he always seemed to have that effect on her. "She'll believe anything he says. And apparently, he's even got her convinced that he was somehow responsible for that humongoid blowup the other day, Mt. Adams."

He was sitting on the seat right beside her. Normally, Sam didn't sit by anyone on the bus—a holdover from a bad experience she'd had many years ago—but this was different. Somehow. "So…he's telling her he blew the mountain up?" He looked off, a peculiar expression in his eyes. "I suppose I can see how that might be a little hard to swallow."

"'Hard to swallow'? Try impossible! But he's got her head turned completely around! If it were anyone else, I'd wonder if he could be drugging her or something. All I know is, she was a basket case 'till he came over tonight. Then, she seemed to get…alright, a little, at least." The bus stopped.

"Sam," he said, "Come with me."

"Huh? Where're we-*"

"There's a coffee shop right around the corner. Coffee's on me."

"Thanks but I-*"

"…would rather get back to my apartment and continue stewing over this, going around and around in circles? Come on. Never turn down free coffee. What the heck, I'll even throw in some Danish pastries."

Shortly, the two found themselves seated at the coffee shop, by the window, watching the rain come down outside. Sam reflected that this was the first time in a while that she'd actually gone somewhere with a guy. It wasn't that she was opposed to dating, it was just…it never seemed like the right time. Or the right guy.

"So," he said, sipping his espresso, "your friend's friend has told her he's an angel?"

"Yeah. And…" She found she had a hard time going on. "It's just too much to believe! Even the paper test-*"

"Paper test?"

"Yeah, I slid a piece of paper under his feet without him picking them up. Says he can't touch the Earth. Anyway, yeah, that's a neat trick, but that's all it is." Sam found her temper rising….

He reached over and laid a hand on her wrist. For some reason, she didn't object. And it seemed…oddly calming, somehow. "Sam. Do you want my honest opinion?"

She sighed. He didn't understand at all. "You think we're all crazy."

"Of course not. But do you want me to tell you what I'm seeing? I won't, if you'd rather not."

After a fierce internal struggle, she said, "Okay. Lay it on me, I guess."

"You told me how Carly's father is being mustered out of the service, how he's supposed to come home. This will be a big change for you and your friends. Right?"

"Yeah." Once again, that fear…what would happen, where would they all go?

Would they ever see each other again?

"You fear change. There's no shame in this; almost everyone fears change. But you really have no—I suppose the best word for it is 'focal point.' You can't really object to Carly's dad coming home, despite the changes it will inevitably produce. After all, that's supposed to be a good thing, a positive thing, a thing she's looked forward to for a long time. You feel you should be happy for her…but you're not.

"On the other hand, here comes—what did you say his name is? Griffin? It's easy to focus your feelings of fear and the anger that results from it on him. He's a more legitimate target, to use a term."

She stared at him, almost open-mouthed. How was it, that he'd managed to so perfectly capture her own feelings, her own insecurities? "Am I that obvious?"

"I'm only telling you what I see. I'm not saying one way or the other about whether or not Griffin is telling the truth or not, or anything about his relationship with Carly. That's not a call I can make." Pause. "Do you feel he's abusing your friend in some way?"

"Who, Carly? No way. She's not the sort to let that happen."

He studied her over his coffee. "Sam. You are afraid. Admit it, if only to yourself. That's what's fueling your anger towards Griffin—and this whole situation."

All at once, Sam seemed to sag in her chair. "I, I know. I, I just…" And for the first time in many years, a tear coursed its way down Sam Puckett's cheek.

To be continued…