This is it, everyone. Let's tie some loose ends and make some happy memories.

It's been a pleasure. Please enjoy!

Time goes really fast, sometimes. By the Monday after the funeral, Carly was insisting that I go back to school. I didn't want to, but of course I never wanted to. I hated school without Carly, but I would also pretty much do anything she asked. So I told her I would go if she let me bring her to the therapist.

Carly didn't like the idea of the therapist. She kept saying that she wasn't psycho and that she was dealing perfectly well. Spencer said that he would go with her, but she still made a fuss. I would have let it go, but that Sunday when I tried to sleep at home, she had come all the way over to my house again at two in the morning in the rain. She crashed past my bedroom door and woke me up which was good because I was able to sit up before she fell on me. The rain on her clothes quickly soaked into my shirt and she started stripping us both. I pushed her back, probably a little too forcefully, and she immediately started sobbing.

I ran, actually ran, to the bathroom to get some towels and took off her wet clothes as gently as I could while she cried. I dried her, tossed a big t-shirt on her, and lead her to my bed. I put her under the covers and got in myself and she dragged herself against my chest by clawing her hands into my top. I let her cry and fall asleep and I told her the next morning that I'd sleep with her for a while at her house.

I went to her first therapy appointment with her and Spencer. The therapist was a very nice younger girl named Becky and I could tell that Carly was gonna like her. I liked her because she talked to Carly and Spencer like she was their friend. I didn't say much and Becky talked a lot to them. Carly was opening up and I was feeling satisfied. When the hour was over, I could feel the air in the room lighter than it was at the start.

I went back to school that Wednesday. Carly and Spencer went to therapy every other day in the week and were going to do so for a month or two. Carly had a pile of homework in her room that she had already finished every time I brought her more. By the next weekend, stuff was getting regular again. We were planning a new iCarly for the weekend after and it was gonna be good. Late Saturday night, I flopped onto Carly's bed and knocked the textbook from her hands to the floor.

"Rude!" She called out to me and slapped my leg. I didn't bother answering her, I just kissed her. Just a little kiss, but when I tried to stop, she clamped her teeth on my lip. It became a reflex that whenever she got frisky, I got nervous. But, I got over it. She was getting better. She was okay here. All of a sudden, I was on my back and she was half-sitting on my legs and leaning over me. I think I was stunned; I hardly moved, but my fingers were tingling, itching. So, I put them in her hair. I pulled her a little closer and I felt her smile against my lips. She moved back enough to break off the kiss, but barely more than a few inches. She tickled my forehead where my hair started and looked at me with a smile like syrup. It practically dripped onto me and made me warm and happy.

"Sam, will you let me do this, finally?" I knew what she meant, but I wished that I didn't. I nodded without actually thinking and she put her hands under my shirt, staring at me the whole time with these heavy, needy eyes. She moved slowly. She rubbed circles over my stomach and touched all of the skin that she could. She moved up and up super slowly, but she was going to touch some very special skin very soon. I knew she was sane. I knew she was okay. I was nervous for a whole different kind of reason.

"Sam?" She stopped and pulled her hand out of my shirt all of a sudden so that she could touch my cheek. Only after she touched my cheek did I notice how fast I was breathing and how crazy my heart was beating. Carly got really concerned and all of the lust in her eyes went away while she put both her hands on my face.

"Sam! Sam calm down!" She stroked my cheeks kinda hard and I tried to catch my breath. Eventually, I got it back and she had relaxed too. She had gotten off of me and was running her hands over my hair from the side of me.

"Better now?" She asked me with the most pleasant, pretty smile and singy voice. I rolled towards her and nodded. She kept petting my hair.

"What happened?" I looked down. I felt a little bit stupid, but I told her anyway.

"I...got nervous?" I looked at her over the top of my eyes like a shy little kid or something. I think she was stunned for a second, but then she started giggling. She pulled me to her and held on to the tight hug.

"Oh, Sam." She used that voice that she uses when I do something stupid or silly or something that should disappoint her, but doesn't.

"Oh Sam? Oh Carly! Being all frisky like that and whatever all of a sudden." I wasn't sure if I was laughing or shouting or angry or what I was. She squeezed me tight.

"I didn't mean to scare you, Sam. We can take it slow. You just gotta tell me when it's too much, alright?"

"Hmm." I nodded yes but I still felt really stupid. Carly still didn't let go of me. We stayed connected for a while, not doing much except hugging and breathing. Resting, I guess.

"Sam, I have a proposal for you." She let go of me and sat up on her knees. I rolled on to my back and looked up at her. I didn't know if I was gonna want to hear her proposal.

"What?"

"I'll show off my pretty bra and you show off yours and we can just see where we go from there, okay?" Now, I might have said no to her if she hadn't decided to bat her eyelashes at me. I was being manipulated, and I knew it because I am very good at manipulating. But, I ended up nodding yes to her again anyway. She smirked, all full of smugness and she started to pull her top off. Looking up from the bed below her, I had a hell of a view as her plain red shirt came up and I could see her skin, then her black and white polka dot bra, then her shoulders. And then, she very gently put her shirt next to her and sat, totally comfortable, and just sort of waited.

"You okay?" She asked me softly. I felt stupid again and I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I'm stubborn, though. So, I wormed my way up to sitting and looked right in her eyes while I pulled my shirt off very quickly. But, my head got stuck. Of course.

"Do you want some help?" Carly giggled and I groaned. Not the good kind of groan either. I was making an idiot of myself. When she and I managed to get the stupid tangle off of my head, it looked like she was trying to hide the fact that she was still giggling. I am stubborn and I don't like to not have the last word. So I threw myself at her and knocked her down to the mattress with my whole body. When we hit the bed, I immediately started biting small bits all over her jaw and shoulders. She giggled and squirmed. I knew how to make her ticklish and I felt like exploiting that particular weakness. I hit a particularly soft part of her neck and she actually moaned and I think I actually died for a second.

"Sam." She breathed my name and I shuttered. One of her hands took a bunch of my hair and pulled. I took my time on that spot. I was working out days and weeks and months and maybe even years of confusion and mixed messages and sadness and happiness and every other thing that Carly and I had been through, trying to get her to breathe out the truth; trying to get her to breathe out better. I put my hand on her stomach, not intending to move it down yet. Carly started to scoot herself up and make my hand slide down. I thought I was persistent, in charge. It was always Carly, though. It had always been Carly and it probably always would be. I did not put my hand in her pants. I actually stopped all together. I blinked a few times and tried to get my head on straight and I ended up with my head in the space between her neck and shoulder, kind of just laying on her and playing with the edges and straps on her bra.

"Sam?" I love the way she says my name.

"I love you, Carly Shay." I don't know if she'd ever taken it seriously when I'd said it before then, but I wanted to make sure that she knew I was serious. So serious.

"Oh, Sam." She turned her head and I think she kissed my hair. It sounded like she wasn't understanding. So, I sat up.

"I don't think you get it, Carly-girl. I really, really mean it. I love you more than pretty much anything ever. I love you more than Cuddlefish, I love you more than my mom, I love you more than I love any pork product, Carly! I don't really think I could be right if you weren't with me. And, seeing you cry so much lately, watching all of that really bad stuff go on, watching you be so...different from usual Carly...it made me hurt. Because I think that's what happens when you love somebody in the right way, right? You feel with them? Because they're such a big reason that you feel anything, right? And I don't wanna see you cry anymore. I want to be able to make it better when you have to go through bad things." I got a little brave for a minute. "I want to be the one that makes you feel good; good in all the ways that you need, Carly." I touched her boob over her bra. She doesn't have a whole lot but what she does have is amazing. And I remembered that when I almost couldn't breathe with my hand on her bra.

"But Carly." I took my hand off of her bra, but I didn't know what to do right away. I felt like holding her. So, I held her tight. "I want you to have good feelings and good stuff and be happy and not cry anymore, and I want you to do that knowing how much I really, really love you. So, so much. Forever." She could have said that I was just her best friend then. I would have walked away and I think I would have broken into ten million little pieces, but it would have been said. She could have said that every time that she had come to me had been because she was psycho, and maybe I would have believed her. She could have refused to answer me and get angry or something.

But I knew she wouldn't do that.

She put her hands under my arms and pulled me up so that I could hug her the right way and she could kiss me the right way.

"You're so beautiful." She whispered around her voice that crackled like a bad station on an old radio. She was absolutely sobbing, but I wasn't afraid of her tears anymore. I don't think that she was either.

The whole room looked bright, even with just the tiny bedside light, and I swear we were floating off of her bed. I knew that we were good. She knew what I needed her to know. I was pretty certain with her answer, even though she didn't say the exact words then. And I felt right.

When she stopped crying so much, I took some initiative; the sort of thing they always told me to take in school. I didn't really care about school, though. I did care about Carly. And, I needed to give her something to share between us. So, I took off the rest of my clothes and I worked slowly, softly, getting hers off. The sounds out of her weren't so needy and desperate now, and I really kind of liked that.

She sighed like the wind through the windows in the studio, all the way at the top of this Seattle building. Soft, simple, easy, pretty. She giggled when I tickled her. She whispered how beautiful I was whenever I looked up at her. Sometimes, she breathed quick and then stopped. Sometimes, she took deep, deep breaths that made her body come off the mattress. I touched her all over with my hands and fingers. I tasted so much of her with my mouth and felt her through my teeth. I looked and gawked and couldn't tear my eyes away from so much of her perfect body. The scent that was hers and only hers was the only thing that I could smell and the only think I wanted to. I could feel her presence, her existence, her life, all around me and all through me.

I explored Carly for hours. All that I could find was magnificence and curiosity about how much more of it there could be. I didn't find an end.

For all of the times that I had touched Carly, for all of the times that she had used me and my body to comfort her, for all of the times that her relief was what came of our time under the sheets, I had never felt what happened that Saturday. I had never been so happy or so in touch with her or myself. I had never seen her in so much real, honest bliss. I wanted to make her feel that way until the end of time.

At some point, she rose up and pushed me down with a great, magical kiss that turned my body into soup. Her eyes sparkled and her body shimmered. It was like she was covered in little spots of silver and it was hypnotizing. She made my head spin. She made me feel like I'd never felt before. She took everything that I had felt earlier and returned it to share with me.

And, near the point where pure exhaustion finally knocked us out, she came to lay next to me and to kiss me deeply as the rest of her body still mixed with mine.

We woke up in the afternoon that Sunday. When we decided that we needed to shower, she took me in with her and we didn't really save any water with her distracting us both. When we went downstairs, Spencer had the giddiest grin on his face. I couldn't tell why he was like that, but I really hoped that he hadn't wandered upstairs and found us. Spencer is the sort of guy who would find that and not say anything. I decided not to think about it.

On Monday morning, I was getting ready to go to school. Carly wasn't supposed to go back for a few days, but I found her in the kitchen with her backpack.

"I want to try." She said, knowing that I knew what she meant.

"You don't have to go yet if you're not sure, Cupcake." I hugged her. I was really not sure if she was ready. I was really not sure if I was sure about myself being ready.

"I go to the therapist with Spencer later. If it's too much, I can always leave." It sounded like she was talking herself off of a ledge, like she was talking herself out of being terrified. I took her hand and my toast and I walked with her to the door.

"I'll be there right next to you whenever you want." She squeezed my hand.

She didn't make it to the school that day. I was late to first period because I walked her back home when she started shaking after walking past a funeral home. She made it to the school on Tuesday, but didn't make it through homeroom. Spencer picked her up. Wednesday, she made it to lunch, but I found her sobbing in the bathroom and called Spencer. It was the next Tuesday when she was able to finally make it through a whole day. I kissed her behind her locker door as we were about to leave and said how great it was that she made it. She looked really, honestly happy.

It'll never be the same as it was before, but I guess nothing is ever the same as it was before. Everybody changes and things happen. But, in a weird way, bad things and changes gave Carly to me. It's why she lets me hold her hand when we walk down the street and why sometimes, she kisses me at lunch. In a weird way, Mr. Shay helped this whole thing happen the way it did. If he had kept the Shay kids moving around, I wouldn't have her. If he had been a different kind of dad, I wouldn't know her like I do. And, as awful as it is, if he hadn't died, I don't know if she'd be mine.

But, no matter which version of the world we end up in, I think Carly and me are meant to be together. And we're supposed to help each other. And we're supposed to be Carly and Sam. And, no matter how we get there, it's meant to be.