BLARG. Sorry I've taken forty forevers to update. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Hopefully when I get my college apps done things will slow down a bit and I'll be able to update more regularly.

And yes, I did steal a scene from a previous story of mine for this story. I liked the way I had Sam and Freddie meet in iPsychic too much to let it go to waste by creating a new way for them to meet every time.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Nickelodeon doesn't really want high school students going around owning their hit television shows. No iCarly for me. :( Oh well. There's always next year.

"I met Sam in the third grade. She stole my lunch; I was the only person crazy enough to stand up to her. We were friends from then on. I moved away at the end of the year, but Sam and I kept in touch by phone. By the time we started the sixth grade, we were inseparable. Which was an especially good thing, because the summer before sixth grade was when I moved back to Seattle to live with my older brother, Spencer. Before that I'd moved around a lot with my dad, going between military bases all the time.

"I was pretty happy to move in with Spencer and finally get to stay in one place, but there was one little problem: Freddie Benson's apartment was right across the hall, and he had somehow come to the conclusion that he was absolutely and irreversibly in love with me…"

June 24, 2005

"I'm telling you Carls, now that you're back in town, I'm going to make sure you have the time of your life. Just stick with me, kid. We're going to go places."

"Just promise me nothing illegal," I said into the mouthpiece of the small, purple phone Dad had bought me as a combination 'happy birthday' and 'sorry you won't see me again for a few years' present. "I'd rather not have a criminal record before I turn twelve, and I'm in no mood to bail you out of juvie…again."

"Hey, that waiter had it coming," she replied. I could practically see her bored shrug through the cell phone.

"He accidentally took your plate away before you were done so you bit him until he bled!"

"Oh, it wasn't that bad."

"He had to get eleven stitches! And a rabies shot!"

"Ha, yeah, I almost forgot I convinced them I had rabies. Oh the wonders of low-fat whipped cream. I was such a clever third grader."

I laughed. "So I'll see you at Spencer's apartment in a few?"

"Um…about that…"

"Sam, what did you do?"

"I…might have gotten detention."

"Detention? But school hasn't even started yet!"

"Did I mention I failed English and had to go to summer school?"

"And so you thought it would be a good idea to do something bad when you're already having to spend your summer at school, get detention, and then, during that detention, talk on your cell phone?"

"Pretty much."

I rolled my eyes. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Feed me and love me unconditionally?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Always."

"Alright, Carly. We're here." I looked over at my dad, whose face looked stone-cold and mouth was set in a thin line; the same look he got every time he was worried. "Say goodbye to Sam."

Nodding, I told Sam that I'd talk to her later, got out of the car, and looked up at the tall building that was to be my new home. The Bushwell Plaza. Apartment 8C. It had a nice ring to it.

Spencer was ecstatic to see me. His big, goofy grin and multiple bear hugs were a big change from my father's usual stern silence. I had almost forgotten how much I missed my big brother. Still, I knew I'd miss my dad terribly. It was such a mix of emotions that I soon decided to occupy myself by watching Girly Cow on TV while Dad and Spencer caught up.

"So how's law school going?" I heard my dad ask Spencer during a commercial break.

"Oh…um…great! It's going great, Dad. Really loving it. It's…it's all just great."

"Well that's…really great," Dad responded. "But Spencer, try not to have too much fun at law school. I know there are a lot of smart, pretty girls there, but remember, you have your education to worry about. And now you have Carly to take care of on top of that."

"Don't worry, Dad. There is definitely no danger of me becoming romantically distracted by any of my classmates."

"Glad to hear it son," he said, patting Spencer roughly on the back. He didn't seem to notice that Spencer almost fell out of his chair from the force of his strong hand. "Well, I'd better go." He stood up from his chair and extended his hand to Spencer. "I'll see you later, son."

Spencer looked down at his hand for awhile before quietly standing up and wrapping his arms around the colonel's broad shoulders. The larger man blinked in surprise at the sudden gesture; he and Spencer had been on a handshake only basis since Spencer was in middle school. But now, when he knew that our father was getting ready to live on a submarine full time and that we might not see him again for years, Spencer apparently grew bold.

"Bye, Dad," he said, and backed away from the colonel, who hadn't actually hugged him back. I took that as my cue to get up and say goodbye as well.

Dad shifted his eyes towards me as I approached and I noticed a small smile on his lips. "You will take care of Spencer, now won't you Carly?" he whispered, leaning down towards me. "Make sure he doesn't get himself into too much trouble?"

"Hey!" Spencer protested.

I laughed. "I'll try my best," I promised, giving him a quick hug around the waist. He hugged me back for just a second, then let go and stood up straight. With a final salute, he exited the apartment and disappeared behind the door.

Spencer and I stared at the closed door in silence for a moment before I remembered something. "So," I said casually. "You're sure the girls at law school aren't the least bit distracting?"

He averted his eyes towards the ceiling and crossed his arms. "Uh, nope. Not in the least."

I smirked. "You dropped out, didn't you?"

He looked back at me suddenly, eyes wide in surprise. "How'd you know that?"

"Please. I'm your sister. You think I don't know when you're lying?"

His eyes narrowed. "Ten bucks if you don't tell Dad."

"Twenty," I said. "And you have to take me out for ice cream."

"Fifteen, and there's a really good smoothie place across the street."

"Hm…I do like smoothies," I said. "Okay. Let my friend Sam sleep over tonight and we have a deal."

"Fine," he sighed, shaking my hand. "It's a deal." He took out his wallet and handed me fifteen dollars. "Um, actually, can I have that money back and pay you later?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't think forty-eight cents and a bus token is enough for smoothies," he said, showing me the inside of his nearly empty wallet.

I rolled my eyes and handed the money back to him. "Okay. But you owe me." Spencer chuckled and started out the door, where I followed close behind.

I had barely stepped into the hallway when the door to the apartment across the hall suddenly flew open. A tall woman with fluffy brown hair and the ugliest blouse I'd ever seen marched out of the apartment, dragging behind her a short boy with hair that was equally fluffy and brown.

"But Mom!" the boy protested. "I don't need to go to the doctor!"

"Don't be ridiculous," the woman replied. "Of course you do. You know that you should always go to the doctor when you're sick."

"But I'm not sick!"

"Then why did you cough?"

"Because you put horseradish in my mashed fruit!"

"It clears the sinuses!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop it from tasting like-" The boy suddenly stopped yelling and struggling as he caught sight of Spencer and me staring at the two of them from just a few feet away. The boy stared back at us, or, to be more precise, stared at me. His eyes seemed to be glued to my face as though if he looked away for even a second I might spontaneously combust.

"Come along, Freddie," the woman said, not seeming to notice anything unusual except that her son had finally stopped struggling. The boy let himself be led down the hallway, stumbling with every step but never taking his eyes off of me. I waved, but he just kept staring until he and his mother disappeared around the corner of the hallway.

"Well," said Spencer when they were out of earshot. "That was weird."

"Yep," I agreed, and we continued towards the elevator and to the Groovy Smoothie.

I saw the boy many times after that. At first he would always just stand still and stare at me like he did when we first met, but after awhile he worked up the courage to talk to me, and I got to know him fairly well. His name was Freddie Benson. He liked computers and Galaxy Wars. His mother was completely insane. And, as he said more times than I could count, he thought I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

Freddie was devastated when he finally asked me out and I turned him down, but the boy was persistent. Every time I saw him, he'd ask me again, even though he knew exactly what my answer would be. I felt a little bad about it, especially since he seemed like a nice boy, but as I told him again and again, I didn't like him like that. Finally one day he asked me a question that took me by surprise.

"If you don't like me like that, how do you like me?" He asked me in the hallway one day, after I had turned him down for about the twelfth time.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean, you say you don't like me 'that way' – you know, the good way – but that implies that you do like me in some way, right?" Suddenly I saw all the hope drain from his face. "Unless…unless you were just saying that."

"No! Freddie, of course I like you. But as a friend, okay?"

"Friend?" he said, lifting his head in surprise. A broad smile slowly spread across his face. "I'm your friend?"

"Um, sure," I said. "Why not?"

His smile grew wider and he threw his arms around me in a tight hug. "Thank you, Carly!" he said. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Freddie! Freddie, you have to let go of me now!"

"Oh. Right." He let go, but the smile stayed plastered on his face. "Wow. I have a friend." He shook his head in awe. "Wait until my mom hears!" And with that, he ran back into apartment 8D. "Mom! Mom! Guess what?"

I shook my head and went back into my own apartment to find a thin blonde girl sitting upside down on the couch, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "How'm I s'posed to get my beauty sleep with all of this racket?" she complained grouchily. "What's with all the yelling?"

"You can sleep upside down but you wake up from a little noise across the hall?" I said, ignoring her question.

"Just answer the question, Shay," she said, flipping herself over and sitting on the couch right-side up.

I sighed. "I told Freddie he could be my friend and he kind of spazzed out."

"Freddie? Who's that?"

"You know, Freddie Benson. Short, our age, brown hair, kinda nerdy…you haven't met him yet?"

She shook her head.

That surprised me, but at the same time I figured it was probably for the best. Sam wasn't exactly the nicest person on Earth, and Freddie wasn't exactly the coolest. If they ever did meet, she would torture him for sure.

Present

"I take it they did eventually meet?" Ana asked, sipping her coffee.

"Not for awhile," I said. "Somehow they managed to avoid meeting each other all summer, even though Sam was a frequent visitor to my house and Freddie constantly roamed the halls of the Bushwell, waiting for me to come out of my apartment so he could 'accidently' bump into me. It wasn't until the day before school started back that they finally couldn't avoid each other any longer…"

August 21, 2005

"So-o wake up the members of my nation. It's your time to be. There's no chance unless you – SPENCER!" I stopped singing mid-song as I noticed the large bucket sitting in the shower right where I was about to step, a questionable purple goo bubbling inside it.

"YEAH?" Spencer's voice answered from downstairs.

"THERE'S SOME SORT OF PURPLE GOO IN A BUCKET IN THE SHOWER!" I told him, pulling my fluffy pink bathrobe off of the hook on the bathroom door and wrapping it around me tightly.

"GREAT! THE GOO'S FINISHED! I CAN PUT IT ON MY SCULPTURE NOW!" I heard him start up the stairs, but then his footsteps stopped. I wondered what could have stopped him, but at the time I was more concerned with the goo. I told myself that it was nothing to worry about. Spencer would be there soon to take care of it. Besides, it seemed perfectly harmless. It was actually kind of pretty; a slightly luminescent plum color. Wait, wasn't there less of it a minute ago? I thought, but then shook my head. The goo couldn't be growing. That was ridiculous.

I put my ear to the bathroom door and thought I heard Spencer talking to someone. Something about Fat Cakes. Sam must be here, I thought. I glanced back at the shower just in time to see the goo start to spill over the sides of the container.

"No no no," I said aloud, rushing over to the bucket but at a loss as to what I should do. There was no way I was touching that stuff. "No no no no no. Don't grow. Bad goo! Stop that!" Another purple glob spilled over the side of the bucket.

"SPENCER!" I called. "THE GOO IS GROWING!"

"WELL TELL IT TO STOP GROWING!" Spencer called back.

"I DID, BUT IT DIDN'T LISTEN!"

His groan of exasperation was so loud I heard it all the way upstairs. "HANG ON! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" I heard the sound of running up the stairs, and then Spencer was walking into the bathroom.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Carls. I mean it's just a little HOLY MOTHER OF GOO!" Spencer's eyes grew wider as he saw the purple goo that was now threatening to run over the border between the shower and the bathroom floor.

"Told'ya!" I said.

"Carly," he whispered, leaning down towards me slightly but keeping his eyes fixed on the shower. "I'm scared. Do you think it's alive?"

I rolled my eyes, but just then the goo made a noise that sounded strangely similar to moaning, and we both backed up.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Well what's the goo made of?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You made it!"

"From a make-your-own luminescent goo kit!"

"Where in the world did you get a kit for that?"

"The junkyard."

"Do you still have the instructions?"

"Yeah."

"Well go get them!"

"Right!" He dashed out of the bathroom and reentered a moment later with a folded piece of paper. "Here you go," he said, handing me the instructions.

"Great." I took the instructions from his hand and quickly skimmed over them. "Spencer," I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Yeah?"

"Are these instructions in Portuguese?"

"Yeah…" He must have noticed how furious I was because his eyes suddenly went wide again and he started for the door.

"Oh no you don't!" I said, grabbing his shirt sleeve and pulling him away from the door.

"Jeez, when did you get so strong?"

"Here's a better question: WHY ARE THESE INSTRUCTIONS IN PORTUGUESE?"

"I don't know!"

"Well how did you know how to make the goo if you couldn't read the instructions?"

"Um, I guessed?"

I facepalmed. "And there's the problem."

"Look, I know I screwed up, but it's not like OH MY GOO THE GOO IS ON FIRE!"

"WHAT?" I looked towards the shower just in time to see it become engulfed in gooey purple flames.

I ran to the shower and turned the water on high pressure. Cold water rained down on the fizzling purple flames and the fire was out within seconds, no thanks to my supposed guardian. I looked back to where he was standing in the corner, eyes shut tight and hands clutching a roll of toilet paper in front of his chest like a shield.

"You can open your eyes now," I said. "The fire's out."

He cautiously peeked one eye open and then the other. "Whew," he sighed. "That was a close one. And hey, look, the goo stopped growing!"

I looked towards the shower again and, sure enough, the goo was no longer expanding, but softly bubbling in its container. A good bit of it was gone too, apparently disintegrated by the water from the shower. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

Spencer nodded. "Welp," he said, heading for the door again. "Glad I could help."

"Hold up!" I said, grabbing his sleeve again.

"Seriously!" he whined as I pulled him away from the door again. "Have you been eating mutant super-spinach for breakfast or am I really just that weak?"

"Spencer, it's been a rough morning. I need to take a shower. Now I'm going to count to ten, and when I'm done, I want this goo out of the shower. One-"

I heard him gulp audibly. "Yes ma'am." He grabbed hold of the bucket and picked it up just as a loud thud sounded from downstairs.

"Spencer?" I asked. "What was Sam doing when you left her to come up here?"

"Sam?" he said. "Oh, that wasn't Sam. That was the kid from across the hall. You know, the short one with the crazy mom?"

"Freddie? What was he doing here?"

"His mom saw me coming home yesterday with groceries and decided that just because I bought taco shells and a few dozen sticks of butter that I wasn't feeding you food that was 'healthy' enough," he raised his hands and made air quotes with his fingers, "and so she sent her son to bring us some green sludge. So I left the green stuff on the counter and told the kid to help himself to some junk food."

"Oh," I said. "Um, Spencer…you did make sure to tell him not to touch the ham, right?"

"Uh…"

"Help!" a voice called from downstairs. We looked at each other for a moment before simultaneously sprinting out of the bathroom.

"Spencer!" the small brunette boy called weakly from underneath an angry-looking blonde as we arrived at the bottom of the steps. "Help!" Spencer and I rushed towards the scene and lifted Sam off of Freddie's back. She continued to kick and struggle, nostrils flared and eyes full of hatred.

"Sam!" I scolded. "Can't Spencer and I leave our living room unattended for five minutes without having to worry that you're going to try and kill our house guests?"

"He tried to eat my ham!" she shouted, gaze still fixed on a whimpering Freddie.

"That's no reason to pounce on the poor boy!"

"Where did you even come from?" Freddie choked out, staring worriedly at Sam.

With one final struggle, Sam managed to break free of mine and Spencer's grasp. We tried to get a hold of her again, but before we could, she was already grasping the collar of the frightened boy, who looked like he might wet his pants at any moment.

"I'm everywhere, boy," she growled. "Just remember that next time you think about eating Sam Puckett's ham."

"I-I thought it was the Shay's ham," he stuttered.

"Sam…" I warned, noticing that she looked like she might pounce on him again. She let out a breath and tried to calm herself.

"Since we just met," she said, "I'll let you off easy this time. But next time, remember," she used his collar to pull him closer, "ALL. HAM. BELONGS. TO. ME. And Momma doesn't like it when people touch her ham."

"Ye-yes ma'am."

With a smirk, Sam let go of his collar and walked over to the open fridge, grabbing the ham from its shelf and then making her way back towards us. She reached the hand that wasn't holding the ham into the bucket next to Spencer's feet, and before we could stop her, threw the purple goo at Freddie. It landed on his neat striped shirt with a sickening splat.

Sam smirked in satisfaction and took a bite of ham before heading for the front door of the apartment. "Later Carls," she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the boy covered in purple goo and smirked again. "Later…dork." And with that she sauntered out of the apartment, ham and all.

It was then that I knew that this was no ordinary event, but one that would change my life forever. My best friend and my next door neighbor didn't just dislike each other; in the few minutes that Spencer and I were upstairs taking care of the goo situation, Sam and Freddie had become sworn enemies.

I didn't know, however, how much their hatred towards each other would affect me. I thought that since they avoided one another so well all summer without even meaning to, surely they could keep it up now that they actually wanted to stay away from each other.

Wrong.

Present

"Little did I know, but my life was about to get very interesting."