CHAPTER 2

EMILY INVADES

Present Day…

Spencer is going out with a new girl? Must be Saturday.

That's what Carly had thought about Emily at first. But many Saturdays had passed, and the two of them were still together.

"Did you try this? It's amazing. Did you have some?" Sam shoved a piece of pie at Carly's mouth. "Bubble gum pie. Who'd have thought? And it's almost as good as Gallini's."

Carly had already tried the pie. She pulled the crumbling piece from Sam's hand and set it back down. "Let's not get crazy," she responded inexuberantly. But she had to admit: Emily could make a good pie.

A loud peal of laughter made Carly turn her head: Spencer and Emily were playing a rambunctious game of Who Am I.

Spencer glanced over at the clock. "Oh, we should go. We'll miss our reservation."

Emily shrugged. "I'm OK with that. Let's finish the game."

Spencer beamed and put his arm around her. "Is this girl perfect or what?"

Carly turned her head back to Sam. "Let's go up to my room."

"I'm still eating the pie."

Carly grabbed her arm and began dragging her towards the stairs. Sam reached out for the pie tin just in time and brought it with her.

Throwing herself down on her bed, Carly groaned inwardly. She let out a sigh and turned her eyes to the ceiling.

"What's awry, sweetie pie?" Sam asked, rather more intuitive than usual. Flecks of pie crust snowed down around her.

Restless, Carly jumped back off the bed and began pacing around the room. "I don't know. I just feel…I don't know. I've got to get out of here. Let's go out."

Sam frowned. "OK…Where? The Groovy Smoothie?"

"No! Out out. Not downstairs. Dancing, or something."

Carly plunked down at her vanity and began applying a layer of thick, dark make-up.

Her friend creeped up slowly behind her and laid the back of her hand against
Carly's forehead. "You feelin' OK, Carly Shay?"

"Why does everything you say rhyme? I'm feeling fine. Oh God, now I'm doing it."

She vigorously brushed on some mascara.

There was a tap at their door. Carly whirled around instantly, but was disappointed to see Freddie, and turned back to her screen.

"Hello to you too," he responded.

"Don't mind her," Sam said. "She's just freaking out, or something."

"Emily just gave me this external hard drive that she doesn't need. It holds three terabytes. Three! Terabytes! She's Spencer's best girlfriend ever."

Sam made a noise of wordless agreement.

"…Yeah…" Carly replied ambiguously.

"Carly doesn't like her," Sam divulged.

Carly swiveled sharply to face her friend. "I never said that." She glanced at the door to make sure it was shut.

Sam didn't seem to care what Carly had or hadn't said. She stuffed another piece of pie into her mouth – silverware was irrelevant – and shrugged. "It's pretty obvious."

"How can you not like her?" Freddie demanded, after gawking for a second at Carly's make-up. "She's perfect."

"No one's perfect," Carly retorted. She stood and stepped towards her closet. Spinning the rod around, she debated what to wear.

"Emily comes pretty close," Freddie debated. "She makes pie, she-"

"Flippin' fantastic pie," Sam corrected.

"She works for that recycling company, so she gets tons of free stuff that Spencer can use in his sculptures, or that she can give to me, as may be the case." He brandished his new hard drive giddily for the second time. "And Spencer's crazy about her. I've never seen him so happy with one of his girls."

"That's not true! Spencer's always happy," Carly protested petulantly from inside of her closet."

Sam and Freddie could hear her sliding around hangers.

"And you gotta admit, she's pretty hot," Freddie finished.

Carly emerged in a jean skirt and tight black tanktop.

"Then again, so are you," he amended.

Sam glanced at him sideways, sorely tempted to fling the rest of the pie in his face.

Carly smiled at the compliment and checked herself out in the mirror.

/

A few minutes later they set out.

"Bye, Kiddo," Spencer said, without ever looking away from the kitchen.

Carly slammed the door. "He didn't tell me get a jacket. He always tells me to get a jacket. Look at me: I'm in a tanktop. I'm going to get cold. I'm going to need a jacket."

"So go get one," Sam ordered impatiently.

"That's not the point," Carly whimpered.

Sam groaned, dashed back inside, and quickly grabbed a zip-up for her. "Now let's go."

/

"He's checking you out," Sam yelled in Carly's ear over the loud music, poking her in the ribs and then pointing at a guy leaning against a column. "He's hot. Bat your girly eyelashes at him, and I bet he'll come ask you to dance."

He was almost criminally good-looking, dressed slick as hell, and definitely looking at her.

But Carly didn't feel anything inside of her flutter. She barely even felt flattered.

It was sort of liberating, not being even a little bit nervous, because she wasn't even a little bit interested. He did come over, and he did ask her to dance. Carly was going to turn him down, but Sam said "Yes" for her, and then shoved her out onto the dance floor.

Carly danced all night. With him, with others whose faces she didn't even see. She wasn't thinking about them. She was just distracting herself.

It made for a nice release, but she knew she would have had just as good a time dancing alone in her room, or she would have, in the past. But home wasn't home lately.

"We should leave," Freddie complained as the hour got later.

"I'm not your girlfriend anymore, I don't have to do what you say," Sam snapped back at him.

"When did you ever do what I said?" Freddie demanded back.

Sometimes they fought worse now than they ever had when their relationship was just beginning. Or before it.

It was uglier now.

"Go home, Freddie," Carly told him. "Sam and I will be fine."

/

It felt like it was almost dawn when Carly stumbled home. She was tired, and her feet hurt. She smelled like sweat, and somehow like smoke even though smoking had not been allowed in the establishment.

She wasn't quiet when she unlocked the door.

She wanted to wake him.

But she didn't have to: he was sitting on the couch in his pajamas, perfectly awake, and furious.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Spencer demanded. "Obviously you don't, or else you would have been home hours ago."

He sounded angry, but he was so taken-aback by her appearance that it was enfeebled.

"Do you know what you're wearing?" he then demanded.

"I didn't think it would be a problem," Carly responded calmly.

"Oh it is very much a problem." He marched over to her, grabbed her face, and smelled her breath.

"I didn't drink," she informed him quietly. "I wouldn't do that." Sam had a fake ID – though it was mostly for buying booze for her mother – and had tried to get Carly to have just one cocktail, but Carly's stomach had been in knots at the thought of doing something that betrayed Spencer's trust in that way. She'd said no, and firmly kept to that.

"You didn't even tell me where you went. You didn't text me back. I've been worried sick."

"Have you?" Carly cried dubiously.

"What do you mean? Of course."

"Really?" She crossed her arms. "Because you barely even noticed that I left. You didn't even ask where I was going."

"Well I assumed you were going for smoothies. What else would you have been doing?" Spencer furrowed his eyebrows. "What's this all about, Carly?"

She shook her head. "No-nothing. I'm going to bed."

He caught her arm as she walked away, and she shook it off.

He was hurt, and looked it.

Carly felt a stab of remorse. "You should punish me. I deserve it. I'm acting out like a spoiled little brat."

He scratched his chin. "Uh, yes, you're right. You're…grounded. For the rest of the week."

Carly's eyes bulged: "The whole week?"

"Yes. Well, until Friday. Er, uh, Thursday. You come straight home after school, and no friends over, except for one iCarly rehearsal."

Carly didn't think that was so bad, but she tried to look put-out so he wouldn't up the sentence.

She began trudging again towards her room.

"Wait," Spencer called out.

She didn't like his tone. She turned around slowly, and sat down on the couch after he gestured her there.

"There's something else I want to talk to you about," he began.

Carly swallowed.

"I'm going to ask Emily to marry me."

"What?" she earnestly asked, staring at him. Sometimes a thought is so hateful the mind literally rejects it.

"I'm going to propose to Emily. Probably next weekend. Of course I had to talk to you about it first."

Somehow deep down Carly had known this was coming, even so soon, but that didn't help her to handle it any better. Spencer was still speaking, something about having respect for her feelings and something about changes, but Carly wasn't listening.

She popped up, ran to the bathroom, and vomited.

Spencer came up quickly behind her. "Carly?"

She flushed the toilet, and rinsed her mouth out at the sink.

"Remember that talk we didn't have…?" he began. "Should we have had it?"

Carly still felt queasy, and wasn't in the mood for levity, but she rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not pregnant."

"And you didn't drink anything?" he interrogated skeptically.

"You know I didn't: you smelled my breath."

"Are you sick?"

"I just want to go to bed," she moaned, staggering towards her bedroom. She froze, and turned back to him. "You want to marryher?" she suddenly demanded in a shrill, incredulous shriek. "After only four months!"

Spencer ran up to her and put his hand over her mouth. "Shhh."

"She's here?" Carly shouted, only slightly muffled by his hand. "So you were worried sick, just not enough to send your girlfriend home?" She broke away from him and began sobbing into her doorframe.

"Carly?" Spencer was baffled completely. He reached out for half-heartedly because he knew he would only be pushed away. He wanted to comfort her, but her tears were more angry than sad. She slammed the door on him, and after she told him to "Go away", he did, trudging down the stairs to the mezzanine.

"What was that?" Emily whispered, appearing in the door to his bedroom.

"Carly."

"Yeah, I figured. I'm glad she's OK. Did you two fight?"

"I don't…I don't know what we did. I think it must be, you know, her…'time of the month'."

He'd never seen her so hormonal.

Emily rolled her eyes at him, and then yanked him into the bedroom.

/

The only good thing Carly was able to acknowledge was the fact that it was Sunday, and she could spend the day in bed. She crept out surreptitiously for cereal and snack foods, avoiding Spencer as best she could. She could hear Emily's voice from time to time, so she put on headphones.

She knew Spencer wasn't as clueless as he pretended. As Sam had pointed out, Carly hadn't done a very good job of hiding her uncharitable feelings towards Emily, and after her reaction to the bombshell he had dropped about the proposal, he had to know that Carly's unhappy little spiral was related to his girlfriend.

Fiancee.

She was afraid he would try to talk to her about it and she just couldn't do it.

The way she was feeling…It wasn't supposed to be like this. Spencer had found someone he loved, someone he could be happy with. She should be glad. She should be relieved that he'd found "the one". As many girls as Spencer had been interested in, and as great of a guy as he was, he couldn't be happily married to just anyone. But…

She didn't feel relieved.

Sam burst in a little after two o'clock. "You're still in bed? Even I'm not still in bed."

Carly covered her face with her pillow and rolled away from her friend. "What are you doing here? I'm grounded, you can't be here."

"Actually Spencer was the one who called me." Sam shut the door behind her, and plopped down on the bed beside her. "He sounded kinda worried."

Carly threw the pillow back behind her head and rotated to face Sam. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you. You're Carly. You're perfect."

"No one's perfect," Carly said with a sad smile. She shook her head. "I think I might need to check myself into Troubled Waters. Maybe I can learn more about my future vice presidency from Caleb."

"Don't be ridiculous. Mental hospitals don't help sane people. And after the time I spent there, I'm not sure how much they do for the crazies. Now come on, get up."

Sam pulled on Carly's arms, and forced her to sit up. She leaned back against her headboard with a sigh. "Spencer is going to propose to Emily. He told me this morning."

Sam smiled. "That's great." Then she looked more closely at Carly's face: "That's…not great?"

"No, it is," Carly responded, sighing again.

"Really? Cause it doesn't sound like it to hear it from you."

"No, Freddie's right. She's almost perfect. She likes watching Underwater Celebrities, and eating spaghetti tacos, and she likes Spencer's sculptures. His socks." Carly felt a stinging in her eyes, and stopped listing before Sam could hear the tears in her voice.

"Carls, Carls, relax." Sam put her hands on Carly's shoulders. "I know what's going on here. You're afraid you're going to lose Spencer. But you're not! He loves you more than anything."

"He did love me more than anything. But he's going to have a wife soon. A wife! And probably kids. And I'll be 18 and he'll want to move out into a house with his new family."

Sam pulled Carly into a hug. "I know, I know. You lost your mother, and you never see your Dad. You don't want to say goodbye to Spencer too. But he's not going to let that happen."

Carly clung to her friend, wetting Sam's shoulder with her tears. "My whole life is going to change, and I don't want it to." She thought about Mitch the Christmas angel, and the vision he had given her of a life with a different Spencer. How would Spencer change once he married? And how would that affect her future?

"You'll always have me and Freddie. And, hell, Gibby too, not that he really counts. We're not going anywhere."

Carly smiled at that. But it wasn't enough.

/

She took a long shower, moving aside an empty milk cartoon and a bottle of olive oil that Spencer had left in there. It felt good to let the caked make-up and club smells rinse away.

She tried to sing a song like she normally did, but there was no song in her heart.

There was only one thing to do: like Emily. That was the only option. If she could begin to like Emily, then she could make friends with Emily, and then it would be like gaining a sister instead of losing a brother. That's what needed to happen.

But the very thought of the woman made Carly's skin crawl.

And Carly couldn't help but think about each and every Emily-related thing that made her want to beat her brother's soon-to-be-fiancee with a baseball bat.

She thought about Spencer and Emily watching TV together on Saturday nights, and eating cheese. And she thought about him not being available for iCarly because he was out at dinner with Emily. And she thought about Spencer always showing his new sculptures and creations to Emily first. Being excited to show her what he had made or found. And Spencer making his spaghetti tacos for her. And being embarrassed about his book club because of her. And accidentally trying to put on herjeans.

These were eventualities she could not stand. She felt deep inside of her something reviling the very idea that she wouldn't come first with him anymore. It suffocated her.

She had best friends. She had her father. She was about to finish high school. It wasn't as if Spencer was the only thing she had in her life, as if he were meant to be the ending rather than the beginning of her life. Other sisters were happy for their brothers when their brothers got married. Why couldn't Carly be happy for Spencer and Emily? Wasn't gaining a sister, and nieces and nephews, the best possible thing?

Well, it was pretty obvious, wasn't it? She wanted him all to herself. She was just a selfish greedy person, a jealous sister, and she didn't want to share. She wanted him to always be there when she needed him. She wanted him to continue to worship her.

But Carly didn't feel satisfied. These things were true, but there was something else nagging at her. There was some tapping in the back of her mind. Some distant, unidentified distress.

Carly let her thoughts flow. She thought about Emily, and what she didn't like about her.

She thought again about Spencer and Emily together. Watching TV together. Spencer's arm around Emily. Dark and late. Spencer kissing her cheek when she made him smile. And his lips kissing hers. Only hers, for the rest of time. And the two of them holding hands whenever they were next to each other, and him leaning into her space when they were in the kitchen together, and the two of them in bed together, his hands on her while they took off each others clothes, and their skin pressed flush together, and him waking up with her naked beside him, and the kiss they'd share every morning, and the smile on his face when she'd call him during her lunch break, and the way he'd look at her across the dinner table while he waited impatiently to get her back into the bedroom.

These things bothered her.

These things bothered her more than anything else.

And then Carly realized it. It was so simple, but so unthinkable: she wasn't a jealous sister, she was a jealous lover. And she wasn't just losing a brother, she was losing her guy, the one she wanted to be with forever. The one she had always somehow subconsciously planned to be with forever.

For always.

The water grew cold before Carly realized she hadn't moved in 30 minutes.

A part of her wished she could go back to ignorance. To not knowing why she was so scared and angry.

But there was no going back.

/

Carly was almost out her bedroom door when she realized what she had done.

She had dressed in a low-cut v-neck dress that ended so high above her knees it barely qualified as one. And she'd put on a pair of light-up stockings from Socko.

Obviously she was trying to impress someone.

She didn't change into a different outfit.

If her life was now trying to seduce Spencer, she was going to embrace that.

"That was a long shower," Spencer commented awkwardly.

"You're one to talk," Carly replied, snippily. She couldn't control her tone. She wasn't angry with him. She was the opposite of angry with him.

And yet…

How could he leave her?

How could he love someone else when she loved him? How could he want someone else when she only wanted him?

She had always felt like there was this transcendent bond between them, but she felt further apart from him right now than ever before, even though she realized what she wanted more than anything was to be closer to him than ever before. How could they have this connection she'd always felt they had, and yet be diverging like this?

How could he leave her?

Spencer was putting dinner out on the table. Pizza.

Emily was getting out drinks. The woman already thought she lived here.

Carly silently reprimanded herself. Emily had done nothing wrong but love and appreciate Spencer. She and Carly now had more in common than almost anyone in the world.

Still, it felt good to hate her.

Carly took over the task officiously, and told Emily to sit down.

"Are you, uh, feeling better?" Spencer posed cautiously.

"I'm feeling fine," she answered without looking at him.

She wasfar from fine.

Dinner was uncomfortable. And silent. Carly spent the entire time staring at Spencer, and she knew she shouldn't but she couldn't stop. Every line of his face was so familiar to her, and she loved him no more than she had before, because she had always loved him to the limit of human ability, but now the way he chewed fascinated her, and the way he set the pizza back down on the plate with the crust hanging off so that it was easier to pick up, and the way he took a drink of his Wahoo Punch before he had swallowed his last bite of pizza and seemed to enjoy the curious mix in his mouth.

His shoulders seemed broad as he rested his elbows on the table. She'd touched them before. Touched his arms. Touched his chest. But now the thought excited her.

How had this happened? Spencer? Spencer?

Carly didn't eat much. Butterflies had moved permanently into her stomach, and they were agitated.

She glanced over at Emily. She was smiling kindly, eagerly. Carly tried to smile back, but she was glad she didn't have to see the grotesque product.

Carly returned to her room after she was done eating. She drove the boat around her coffee table, but it got stuck in a corner and she didn't even notice. The motor whizzed and whirled, but she didn't hear it.

Spencer came in about twenty minutes later and sat down next to her on her couch.

She subtly scooted away.

"Emily went home," he informed her.

Carly nodded, trying not to show glee.

"We should talk."

"We talked this morning when I got home."

"We should talk more."

Carly wasn't sure she could handle this. She'd only had her epiphany a few hours earlier. It was all still so new and horrible and wonderful and new.

"You're not grounded," he commuted. "You were obviously very…upset this morning, and I'm not going to punish you for that."

It was supposed to be a good thing not to be grounded, but all Carly heard was that he didn't want her around.

She nodded.

There was something on the edge of his tongue. For a petrifying moment she thought he somehow knew, but that wasn't it, exactly.

"Do you…do you…not want me to marry Emily?"

Carly looked at him, and didn't know how to respond.

There was nothing she could say to him. She couldn't lie, and she definitelycouldn't tell the truth.

"You don't, do you?" he surmised after a long silence, frowning.

"I just want you to be happy, Spencer. You know that," she replied quickly.

"And I just wantyou to be happy. You're clearly not."

"I am." She didn't sound convincing. If she didn't sound convincing to herself, there was no way her brother was going to believe her.

He ran his hand through his hair, though it was so short it did not make much difference.

"Remember when Grandad came to take me away to Yakima?" she asked.

"How could I forget?" His pensive eyes turned back to her.

"This…this feels like that did."

She expected to see relieved understanding splashed across his face, but his frown was even more severe now. "I know," he said quietly.

/

Carly was cooking dinner – enough for her, Sam (who was staying the night), Spencer, and Emily – when Spencer called her and told her he was spending the night at Emily's. He never had before. He'd gone over there, but he'd always come back before it got too late.

Carly was too disheartened to finish dinner, but Sam was expecting a meal, and had promised she could eat enough to make up for the absence of the other two.

"It feels weird without Spencer here," Sam commented, rubbing her full stomach while they watched TV. "Empty."

"Yeah," Carly answered her, before biting her lips to keep herself from crying. She was glad it was dark, and the TV was loud, because she already sniffling.

The apartment felt dead. Foreign. Vacant. Her voice seemed to echo. Her heart knew he wasn't there, somehow. She could just feel it.

"But I guess he and Emily needed some time to…" She made an obscene gesture. "They wouldn't want to do that with you around."

"Hasn't bothered them in the past," Carly spat bitterly.

Sam's eyes went a little wide. "Really?"

Carly rolled her eyes and changed the channel.

"Maybe we should invite Freddie over," Sam suggested timidly, a few moments later.

Carly jumped to her feet. "What? Am I not enough for you? Why am I not enough? I haven't changed. I'm not doing anything any differently. I'm still me. Why is it not enough? WHY?"

"Geez, Carls. Calm down." Sam frowned at her.

Carly's jaw dropped. "I'm sorry. That wasn't about you."

"Clearly."

Carly began to pace, moving her hands about nervously. "I'm not OK with this whole Emily thing. I've tried. But I'm just not…OK." She began to pace a little faster. "I want Spencer to be happy. I don't think I want anything as much as I want that. But…"

Sam stood, and put her hands on Carly's shoulders, holding her in place. "You have just as much right to be happy as anyone else. Say no more: I will call my uncle Carmine in the morning. He might be in jail, but he still knows plenty of guys who know how to make accidents happen. This Emily chick is history." Sam paused, and then added sadly: "Her and her bubble gum pie."

Carly was tempted. But she couldn't. "No, Sam. I can't do that."

"We could tell her that Spencer got hit by a bus. It worked when I wanted to get rid of that boyfriend of my mom's. Worked like a charm."

"She'll probably want to see for herself," Carly lamented. But she filed it away as a last resort, along with asking Spencer to act out a romantic play with her that she wrote herself.

Sam pushed down on her shoulders, forcing her to sit. "Leave it to Mama. I'll figure something out." She leaned back against once side, and pulled Carly's foot into her lap, beginning to massage it. "My poor Carly."

Carly sighed and changed the channel again. "Animal Planet or that vampire thing?"

"Oh, is Elephant Love on?"

Carly put it onto the show Sam had requested, although it had always made her a little uncomfortable.

"So, about Freddie?" Sam posed again, cautiously.

"Fine," Carly gave in. Then she laughed. "Go ahead."

Sam texted Freddie to join them, but he was with Spencer when he walked through the door a few minutes later.

Freddie looked at them, and then pinched himself.

"What was that for?" Carly asked.

"Nothing. I just have a fantasy that starts out exactly like this," he joked.

Sam swallowed, and then glowered.

Spencer cleared his throat loudly. "Do I need to send you away, Fredward?"

"No, Sir,"

"What are you doing here?" Carly asked her brother quietly.

Spencer closed the door behind him, and then sat down on the couch in between her and Sam, crushing the leg Carly had extended onto Sam for her massage. "It just felt too weird," he explained with a casual shrug. "Ooh, Elephant Love."