Chapter 3: Leaving on a Jet Plane...

When Freddie stepped foot out of the airplane, he felt so jetlagged. Every bone in his body was on the point of becoming thinner, almost brittle as thin glass, as if he was being descended down toward Earth from a long absence. He was finally done with school. It was so surreal. He graduated with honors like he wanted, and was even offered for a master's degree if he was interested. And as tempting as it was, he respectfully declined. He promised Sam four years, and that's all he was planning on doing. His degree in computer engineering stashed neatly away in his bag. Finally, one thing in his life was complete, and he was eager to begin what he already started with his blonde bacon loving princess.

As soon as he inhaled the crisp summer air of Seattle Freddie was looking forward to seeing one of his best friends, and one who he was crazy for. If pining for her while he was in another state was bad, it was torture when she was just within his reach. All he had to do was continue walking in the direction he was going, reach those steel doors and pull it off its hinges. He didn't know what happened between the two of them these past couple of months but what he did know was that there was something there still. At least he thought so. It felt like ages since he talked to Sam, or even heard from her. He figured she got herself in trouble and was unable to go to a computer to talk to him. The last time they talked was when she called him during spring break. Let's just say that it wasn't the best of conversations. But it was all over. Their wait was finally done with. As he approached the opening of the gate, he walked quickly up to Carly and gave her the strongest one arm hug he could muster and to his mother another one. He had a feeling that his mother was going to be waiting with Carly and Sam, and was happy to see her being more laid back by going to go recollect the car to let him reconnect with Carly.

"Finally!" Carly happily exclaimed. She went to give him another hug, a complete one, to which he returned with gusto.

"I know! I can't believe it!" He reached inside his bag and pulled out his graduation cap in one hand and his diploma in another. "Computer Engineering, hardest major in the world!" he was beaming, it was as if he had died for four years and finally came back to life. He saw Carly too reach inside her purse and pull out her diploma as well, English and Education. A double major. "Where's Griffin?" he asked Carly, who shook her head. That could have only meant one thing. He was still in New York.

"He loved it there. So we got an apartment, and I'm moving over there by the end of the summer. Just have to let Spencer know. Plus, I was asked to go and teach at a small school. And his job at the Pee Wee Babies exhibit is getting ready to display this Christmas."

"Wow right out of college and New York is already begging for you to come back." Freddie smiled. New York was treating Carly well. Her hair was so stylish that only compared to how she was dressed. But anything looked good on her. But if he was bold enough to say, Sam would always pull of a style that was all her own, and make it look better than current trend that so many tried replicating. Speaking of Sam…

"Where's Sam?" He never got tired of asking that question. He was dying to see her and give her an equal embrace as he did to Carly. And something more. He wanted to grab her right in front of all these people and show her how much he missed her. Carly looked around and saw that Sam indeed was missing, but since when?

"She's around here somewhere, probably gone to go search for some ribs." Carly said. And as soon as she said that Freddie saw her. He could see her wavy curls from a mile away. They seemed to shine brighter than any of the other blondes he saw in the airport. Her face had a smile plastered from ear to ear as if she heard the funniest joke of the year, which was interesting to say the least. Her jeans hugging her hips very nicely as her shirt hung loosely, only three buttoned down with a purple tank top inside. Freddie couldn't help but gulp and lick his lips. Since when did she wear clothes that hugged her body? It was as if she was showing herself off. From the way she was dressed he noticed that she was more slender, and more muscular, he could tell, which meant more bruises, but he didn't mind. Her eyes were bright and highly animated, like they were strung on coffee or something. And her smile. He started thinking of a time when she was that happy, to which he couldn't come up with a single event that gave her that much happiness. But then he thought about it. It was probably because he was back home. They could finally get everything in order. They would begin their relationship that should have started over four years ago. He left all of his bags with Carly and started walking toward her, ready to bring her close to his chest and breathe in her scent that he had gone so long without.

Before he began approaching her with so many thoughts inside his mind, he stopped abruptly. It was then that he noticed why she was smiling so wide. Why she looked so feverishly sexy and stunning at the same time. She was holding someone's hand, a hand that wasn't his. Someone that he didn't even recognize. Until now. His hair was rudely messy and seriously black. A wannabe rocker by the looks of it. His clothes were loosely fitted and tattered. And he too had a smile and eyes that matched hers. As if they shared a secret. So many theories plagued his mind about who this guy beside her was. He could be a relative of hers. That's what Freddie was telling himself. A relative out of jail, or even on parole. She couldn't be here with someone else. Not on the day he returned back into her life. With someone that he never saw before. He walked back to have Carly back to his side and asked who the guy with Sam was.

"That's her boyfriend Jesse." She answered simply. But to him, he felt as though he didn't even hear that guy's name, because it felt as though he died all over again. She had a boyfriend? Is that why she hardly sent him messages those past few months?

"How?" He whispered ardently in her ear. Carly jumped at his urgency, but tried playing it cool. They were almost in front of her and Freddie.

"She met him at a library, like five months ago. And they clicked fast because they related to each other-" She whispered back to him. By then all whispers had to cease as Sam was fast approaching.

"Fredward!" Sam squealed and gave him a light hug. She pushed into him and before he could wrap his arms around her she pulled away and went back to Jesse's side, her head resting on his shoulder. He was as tall as Freddie was, because Sam would do that to him as well, out of habit. "Oh! Jesse this is Freddie. Meatbag, Jesse." She introduced the two young men and Freddie, whatever spell of paralysis he was under, quickly snapped out of it and stretched out his hand to cordially shake Sam's significant other's.

"So this is Freddie. Samantha told me too much about you." Jesse grabbed it with strength to make his presence known and let his hand go. Freddie looked at his eyes and noticed a tint of green, surrounded by hazel, just as happy and animated as Sam's was at the moment. Freddie turned away from him, looking in Sam's direction that was flapping her hands up and down, as if she was a child asking for attention. She wasn't hurting the guy, even though she was called by a name which she loathes.

"I found a restaurant that serves ribs! Lets go eat!" Sam happily exclaimed, leading the way with Jesse, as he grabbed her by the waist. Freddie was utterly dumfounded at what just happened. No seriously what just happened? Who was this asshole that had his arms around her waist? Why was she here with him? How did everything go from blissful interactions to gloomy misunderstandings from his end? Carly too began heading out to the direction that Sam was going, only to be pulled back by Freddie and his crazed look in his eyes.

"That's not what was supposed to happen!" He angrily said.

"What?" Said Carly.

"She's not supposed to have a boyfriend!"

"What does it matter to you whether or not she's dating someone? Freddie?" Carly looked at him, noticing that they have yet again kept secrets from her. Suddenly everything made sense. All those times during the summer when they said they were going to fine without her whenever she would be away on vacation. How they would fight but share smiles when they thought she wasn't looking. She knew that Sam held certain feelings for Freddie, but she never thought he was reciprocating the feelings as well. "You…and Sam?" she let the secret out in the open, as if she was awaiting approval from him. The look of sullenness expressed in Freddie's face told her everything. That they tried a relationship, and more, but how far it went was Freddie's explanation. "For how long has this been going on?" It took him a while to bring himself to say what Carly needed to know. But how could he tell her how what they had was something that was indescribable? Because what they themselves had was too unique and too inventive for words?

"Since I first left to Boston. And every summer in between. The first time she came over and we…" He wanted to stop; he didn't want to remember how Sam came to him. "It was just to get it out of the way Fredward. Nothing more and nothing less. You didn't want to go to college a virgin did you?" Her voice reminding him that all they were were secrets behind closed doors. "Nothing more and nothing less." To him, they were more than just nothing. He just never thought she didn't see it like he did. He always thought that her antics, her looking for him, her being playfully causing him pain...

"This wasn't how it was supposed to happen." He repeated himself. Instead of following Sam and the direction that she went, he turned around, walking toward the car that his mother brought with her. Carly didn't know what to tell him, for nothing was coming to her mind to convince him to still stay and be reunited with his two best friends, to have a normal conversation like they used to before. But she too had to come to terms that this was something new. She had a friend that was in love while the other was coping with the fact that nothing was going to be what he hoped it would be.

"Hey, where's Freddie going? The restaurant is that way." Sam interceded with Carly's thoughts, standing beside her as they both saw their former technical producer walk towards the airport's exit.

"He's leaving, he said he's not hungry." Carly quickly lied for him. She didn't want Sam to know what was plaguing Freddie's mind right now. Confrontations at the moment would be the end of everything, she could feel it. It would be the end of it all; how would that be for a welcoming present to kick off the summer?

"I'll convince him." She smiled and went after Freddie. Carly called her to come back but with little luck, for Sam already reached him and spun him around to have him face her. At first he thought it was Carly, trying to convince him to stay for her, but when he saw Sam's blue eyes he wanted to pull away from her as fast as possible. "What's this I hear that you don't wanna eat Freduccini?" She smiled at him, but had it faded away quickly as she saw the look in Freddie's eyes. A look of hate and pain and anguish all exposed in his dark brown irises, a look that she had never seen come from Freddie. "Whoa, what's wrong?" she placed her small hands on his shoulders, to which Freddie shoved them off, leaving Sam a little more dumbfounded than she already was. "What's wrong Freddie?" She asked, this time with a little more urgency.

"Nothing Sam, just leave me alone." He picked up his bags beside him, to which Sam pulled back, jerking him backwards so hard that he almost fell. Glad to see that her strength was still with her.

"This is all I get? The least you can do is come eat with me and Carly." She said, assuming that the less she mentioned Jesse's name, the better this whole transition would be.

"And Jesse, or did you forget your boyfriend?" He lashed out at her. Sam sighed; she knew something along the lines of this was bound to happen. She just didn't know any other way than to let everything out in the open immediately. Even if it meant hurting him, in more ways than one.

"I wanted you to meet him. He sort of reminds me of you. I mean he doesn't look like you but he pretty much acts like you; a hundred percent of a dork." She tells him, a smile forming on her lips again. Freddie caught a sight of her happiness and turned away again, a little repulsed by her cheerful face. It didn't really suit her; she had a different smile, that was all for him. Not this cheesy one, that she was showing the world. He took his bag from her hands, not looking directly at her eyes. Sam let him take it from her hands with ease.

"Yeah, well no thanks. I'll just leave you alone with him and Carly, I'm sure you all have a lot of catching up to do-"

"And we do too Freddie." She interrupted him. "Just because some things have changed, doesn't mean that we can't still be friends and be just like we were before." 'We can pretend like nothing ever happened.' Sam told herself in her mind, but even that sounded false to her. Because in the end, everything happened. They happened, and for him to just pretend like nothing happened, she knew that he wasn't going to simply take it that way.

"We have nothing to catch up on. But fine if you feel as though you have missed something, I'll bring you up to speed. You have a boyfriend and I'm back from Boston, expecting to see you. Now that I did, I'm going home. I have to unpack-"

"You know you can do that all later. Just stay Fredbag." She patted his shoulder. He couldn't bring himself to look at her. He couldn't believe her right now. There was no way she could ever think that this whole thing would be okay with him. So much time they spent apart and coming back to her was all he thought about in his spare time in school. He never would have dreamed of gaining one dream only to have the other sacrificed in the process. But he had to admit, he was happy to see that her apathetic mood towards him was still in her character. So, not everything about her has changed in so little time.

"Nicknames won't change my decision to leave Sam. No matter how many you use. Go and catch up with Carly. I'll see you when I see you." He said, walking into the scorching sun.

Sam looked at the direction he was going, a bit at a loss for words, which was strange for her. She knew it was going to be hard for Freddie to find out this way. But surely he would not hold her against being happy. Which she was. For the moment. She turned around and looked at Carly, her arms folded against her chest. Sam couldn't help but feel guilty. But for what, she couldn't put her finger on it.

"It couldn't wait, Sam? You couldn't wait?"

"Wait for what, Carly?" Sam said, raising her hands just like a victim.

"You know what. Must I explain it?" Carly couldn't handle Sam when she would act indifferent like this. She could always keep count of her good deeds, and lost track of all her bad ones.

"Please tell me what I have done wrong? Because apparently I can't understand chizz." She told her brunette best friend.

"Where should I start? The fact that Freddie just returned from Boston, saw you with another guy-"

"There's nothing wrong with me having a boyfriend, I mean, we weren't even dating." Sam tried defending herself, having him look like he was in the wrong instead of her. 'I couldn't help that I met him and actually hit it off with him. Its like that one guy I dated when we were in high school.'

"You can stop your lying Sam. Freddie told me." Carly cut her off. "How dumb do you think I can honestly be? You can lie to the whole world, but not to the girl that isn't afraid of you. Because she knows you inside out, just like Freddie does. Which is more than we can say for you." Sam kept her composure at the mention of Freddie's name, opening her mouth to defend herself, but ultimately closing it. She didn't know where to begin. She wanted to tell Carly after all of these years that she and Freddie made their friendship something more. But the problem was when to tell her. She was never one to find the appropriate time, for anything really. Before she could confess, as if on cue, Jesse intervened the two young women's conversation, breaking the silence and the staring contest that they were competing.

"Hey, I have been waiting for ever guys. Where did Fred go?" He asked.

"His name is Freddie." Carly corrected him, seeing as how Sam didn't even bother. "And he left. Just like I am," she looked in Sam's direction again, trying to see if she would lose her bawdyness that was oozing from her pores. When she didn't she sighed, "we'll reschedule this lunch for another time. I'll see you later Sam." And with that farewell, Carly too drifted out of Sam's company. And even though Jesse was there pulling her toward the restaurant so they could eat, she felt as though she was just as isolated as when Carly and Freddie were both gone in college their first year, and she was trying her hardest to cope with that desperate sense of isolation.

What's worse than that udder sense of seclusion? A loss of appetite that she was also feeling.

A/N: Thanks for Reading. Review?