Hey, thanks everyone for the reviews! Thanks for the helpful comment about paragraph length as well, I'll try to keep them shorter! Sorry I couldn't upload sooner than now, I was working for the last couple of days and was just feeling too tired and uninspired to write. Hope you enjoy!

Freddie rolled off of Sam and turned to face her. "What?"

"Yep."

"When was this?"

"Around the time Gibby opened a restaurant in the school basement. You asked Carly if it was too late for her to love you. I overheard but I didn't say anything until now," She pulled herself up, leaning back on her elbows. "I didn't think you were gonna be interested in me anymore, so there was no point. Until now." She looked down at her bra, feeling a little self conscious.

Freddie sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Sam felt a wave of annoyance wash over her, and she too swung her legs over, getting up and retrieving her abandoned cuttlefish tee off of the floor and pulling it back on angrily. "I knew this was a mistake."

"Listen, Sam-" Freddie started, standing up and catching her arm. She pulled away, giving him such a pointed 'don't touch me' look that he immediately dropped it. "I'm sorry that you had to hear that, but God, I'm more sorry that I even said it in the first place."

"Why, because you got caught?" She snorted.

"No, because it was stupid. I didn't love Carly, I just... missed liking Carly. Sam, we'd just broken up and I was still really hung up over you-"

"So you mean to tell me that you tried to use Carly, our best friend in the world, as some sort of rebound?" Sam demanded, eyebrow raised.

"No... I knew it was stupid as soon as it came out of my mouth. I would never use Carly. I just missed thinking I was in love with her for a little while. Having a crush on Carly was so easy, she'd knock me down, I'd brush myself off, I'd have this ideal of what it was like to be with her that I didn't really ever have to confront the realities of... But being with you..." He trailed off, running a hand through his hair. Sam felt the anger flare up inside her, knowing what he was about to say. Being with her was difficult, wasn't conventional, wasn't easy... Not like it would be with Carly.

"Being with me was what?" She asked, the question sounding more like a statement.

"Being with you was amazing Sam." He assured her, holding out his hand to try and hold her arm. She stayed just out of arm's reach though, deciding that her being difficult was justified in this situation. "You made me feel things that I never felt about Carly, things that kinda scared me. We were so full on, so fast. We told each other we loved one another but we were also always fighting. One minute we were at each other's throats and the next we were making out - it's like I didn't know what was going on..."

"So why did you come back here?" Sam demanded, throwing her arms in the air. "If I was so confusing and hard to be with, why bother coming back here and making out like you still want me? Like you still want us?"

"BECAUSE-" Freddie bellowed, before he could stop himself. His voice faltered, and he shook his head. "Because it's so worth it Sam. Like I said, you made - make, me feel things that I've never felt about Carly, or any other girl for that matter, before. I know we fought. We always fought. I just expected it to end when we got together but I know now that was immature of me."

Sam snorted again, dropping down into her desk chair heavily, and swiveling to face the window. She watched students in the distance playing a game of Frisbee and let the quiet settle in the room.

Freddie crossed the room to the back of her chair and spoke softly. "Sam, whenever we're together, it's like there's this passion that we don't know what to do with. It used to end in arguing all the time, fighting, screaming... But now it's like we've found another way that it works for us. Samantha." He twirled the desk chair around, kneeling down and holding the sides of the chair so she couldn't swivel away from his gaze. "Samantha, listen to me. I'm in love with you. Whenever we're together we're either fighting, or we can't keep our hands off of each other. And I can put up with the fighting just like I always have. I realize now, relationships, love, isn't supposed to be easy. Especially with us," he smiled, bringing his hands up to cup her face.

She cracked a small smile, looking down into her lap instead of into his intense gaze. She knew he was right. But she still didn't wanna give in too easily, forgive him just like that. She was worried he would hurt her, and go running back to Carly or whoever else whenever things got hard. She wondered if his words were sincere.

He sensed that she wasn't entirely convinced, and so he used a finger to tip her chin up so that she would look him in the eyes. "I understand if you don't wanna be in a relationship with me Sammy. We can still hang out, just like we used to. We did use to have some pretty good times, even when we used to think we hated each other. Like remember that time when we shared Locker 239? That was funny, you tormented me pretty hard-"

Sam was filled with such happiness and warmth at the memory that she instantly broke into a wide grin, nodding vigorously. She suddenly missed being at Ridgeway really badly, she missed seeing Carls, Freddie and Spence everyday and she missed when things were simpler. She missed it so much that the butterflies that were in her stomach earlier now seemed to rise into her chest and she launched forward, hugging Freddie and burying her face in his neck.

When she finally pulled away she admitted, "I still have a lot of feelings for you, Benson. But I think for right now, we need to just stay friends for a while. I miss hanging out with you, without all the relationship drama."

Disappointment, yet acceptance, clouded Freddie's features. He nodded. "That's probably a good idea. We should build some trust back up."

Sam felt so torn inside, like she knew that her turning Freddie down might be something that she regretted sooner than later, but she also knew that time to build up confidence and trust in their relationship would be the best idea in the long run. She didn't want to be foolish and make the same mistake of rushing into things with him when there were so many underlying problems she'd been mulling over for months - his coming back, his apology, those things couldn't make everything magically alright again in a day. There was definitely things that they needed to work on.

"Okay," she smiled conclusively, standing up from the computer chair and pulling her coat back on.

"Where are you going?" Freddie asked, brow furrowed.

"I'm going to hang out with one of my best friends, I haven't seen him in a while," Sam teased, catching him by the crook of his elbow and pulling him out of the room, laughing.

I know this isn't very long, I'm sorry! Originally I was going to get them to get back together in this chapter but I thought it seemed rushed and unrealistic, so I feel like they need to go on a few little adventures first ;) Any ideas about where they should go? I'd love to hear any suggestions :)