A/N: Sorry this took so long, this was a bit difficult to write but I've been wanting to write the end scene for weeks now so hopefully it's worth the wait. :) I can't thank you guys enough for the favorites, alerts, and reviews. Hope you enjoy this one!

Chapter 9

Freddie looked across the table where Sam was fussing with Charlie, studiously ignoring her food and him. He might be going crazy but he could swear that Sam had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since she walked out of her office. Had he done something to make her angry? That was ridiculous though, what could he have done in under an hour to make Sam mad? And anyways, Sam was never one for the passive aggressive silent treatment. She was aggressive all the way, yelling and beating out her frustration. Maybe he was just imagining that she was acting different.

"So, how did the investors meeting go?" He asked.

Sam didn't even look at him, keeping her eyes on Charlie. "Don't worry, Benson. Your mommy is all for the website. Nepotism will win the day."

He wasn't imagining it. Freddie put down his burger.

"What's wrong, Sam?"

"Nothing's wrong with me. Something's always wrong with you," she said, glancing up at him briefly. "Right, Charlie? Right? Something's always wrong with Freddie," she cooed to the baby.

He knew that if he kept pushing, Sam would get hostile, possibly even violent. The last thing he wanted was to make a scene in the middle of the restaurant so he dropped the issue.

"Aren't you going to eat that?" He gestured to her untouched burger sitting in front of her.

Sam sighed heavily, like he had just asked her to negotiate peace in the Middle East. "I'm going to my office, let me know when you're ready to go," she said, scooting out of the booth with Charlie in her arms.

Freddie stared after her, wondering what it was that he could have possibly done.

Sam knew that she had to get a grip on herself, but she couldn't help it, she could barely bring herself to even look at Freddie. She thought that he wanted to be with her, that he was waiting for her like he'd said. What part of "waiting" included keeping girls' phone numbers in his pocket?

She should have known better than to think that she would ever be enough for Freddie Benson. She wasn't enough in high school and she wasn't now. Sam lifted Charlie up from her crib and sat down in the rocking chair, holding her to her chest and inhaling her sweet, powdery baby smell. Holding the baby grounded her when she thought she might wash away in a wave of pain.

It was hard to avoid someone that you lived with but somehow Sam had managed it for the past two days. She left for work as soon as he walked in the door in the mornings and then secluded herself in Charlie's room when she came home at night. It was the one place that Sam knew that Freddie wouldn't come in and start arguing with her. It also cleared her mind to be with the baby; Charlie was like a balm to her aching heart. Sam knew that a confrontation was coming, that sooner or later the tension between her and Freddie would boil over and all hell would break loose. Old Sam would have gone charging right into it, teeth bared and ready to tear Freddie limb from limb. New Sam was very much aware that this could be it; this would be what sends Freddie out the door. And she wasn't quite ready for that yet.

She pressed a kiss to the top of Charlie's head and laid her down in her crib, carefully tucking her blanket around her and positioning her bear beside her. Tonight was her date with Garrett and she had to get ready.

Sam had almost cancelled eight times since calling Garrett two days ago. But every time she picked up the phone, she imagined Freddie with that girl named Janine. It didn't take much imagination to picture what she would look like: skinny, tall, brunette, beautiful. She could either confront Freddie about it, maybe slap him to make herself feel better. Or she could think about her date with a really smart, really cute guy. As she put her make up on, she started to feel better about her choice. Until Freddie barged into her room.

He looked at her all dressed up in a form fitting black dress and putting mascara on. "Where are you going?"

"I've got a date," Sam said.

"A date?" Freddie repeated incredulously. "With who?"

"His name is Garrett."

"So what, you were just going to go out without telling me? Just leave me here with Charlie while you go off with some guy?"

Sam dropped her mascara wand and turned to face him. "It's not like I need your permission!"

"No, but you could at least show some courtesy to your roommate and the person watching your baby!"

She shoved past him to walk to her closet and get her coat. "He's going to be here any minute so can we just save this argument for later?"

"No," Freddie said. "You've been giving me the cold shoulder for days and I want to know why."

"Why?" Sam said. "Why? You're unbelievable." She turned away and began rifling through her closet.

"What did I do?" Freddie said in frustration.

Sam whirled around. "You lied to me! What was that whole spiel on waiting, Freddie? Just something convenient for you to try to get into my pants?"

His face reddened in anger. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"That girl's number in your pocket? Janine? How many are there, Freddie? So many you can't even keep track?"

Freddie's brow furrowed in confusion and then a dawning realization came over his face and Sam had to turn away and swallow down the disgust she felt.

He laughed hollowly. "So, that's it? You find a girl's number in my pocket and you just assume the worst? You don't even ask me about it? No, you just go off and get a date with some random guy!"

"Garrett's not some random guy," Sam said defensively, not knowing how this turned around on her all of a sudden. "We've been meeting up for awhile. I might go into business with him, actually."

She grabbed her jacket and put it on, carefully avoiding looking at Freddie.

"What do you mean go into business with him?" He asked.

"I'm thinking about franchising Gibby's," she said.

"What?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "I know you're not deaf, Fredward."

She grabbed her purse and walked out of her bedroom, Freddie following behind her.

"Franchising?" He grabbed her arm to make her stop walking and turned her to face him. "When were you going to tell me about this?"

"It's none of your business."

"None of my-? Sam, we live together!"

"Don't do this, Freddie. Don't pretend we're dating when you're using my baby to pick up girls in the park!"

Freddie backed away from her, the anger draining from his face and leaving a sad, empty hollow look in his eyes. Sam realized that she much preferred the anger.

"You know, since we started taking care of Charlie, I thought that this was it, that we'd finally found the equilibrium that we weren't ready for in high school. I thought we were partners and all I had to do was stick around and win your trust. But now…now I find out that you're making big business decisions without even telling me about it. And if you think that's what I was doing in the park, then you don't know me at all. Have fun on your date, Sam."

He sat down on the couch tiredly and Sam stood near the door, her own anger leaving her and feeling more uncertain and confused than she had ever felt. The intercom buzzed and she answered it.

"Hi Sam," Garrett said, his voice coming through sounding crackly and tiny.

"Hey, I'll be right down," she answered.

Sam opened the door, turning around briefly to see Freddie with his head in his hands. She wanted to say something but she couldn't find the words. He looked up and their eyes met.

"For the record," Freddie said. "The girl's name was Janine and she started talking to me in the park. I worked with her brother a few months ago and she wanted to give me his new phone number, I had no idea it was her own number that she stuck in my pocket. And it's not like I would have called her anyway. I said I would wait and I meant it. But I can't wait around for nothing."

He got up and walked towards Charlie's room. Sam's heart sank as she watched him go, in the same way that it did years ago when Carly chewed her out for telling the world that Freddie had never kissed anyone and therefore ruining his life. Her gut was telling her that she had made a big mistake, that she should follow him and apologize. But she couldn't make her feet move and when they did, they carried her out the door and to the elevator, towards a date she didn't really want to go on in the first place. But she wouldn't be a Puckett if she didn't know how to dig her own grave.

Garrett took her to an expensive French restaurant with a name she couldn't pronounce and therefore didn't bother to remember. Sam had heard her classmates talk about this place, it was rated as one of the best restaurants in Seattle and apparently you had to make reservations weeks in advance. Garrett knew the manager and got them in right away, he even ordered for them because Sam could barely make sense of the menu, which was in both French and English but contained food she wasn't very familiar with. When the food arrived, it was in such tiny portions that would ordinarily have sent Sam into a raging rant. All she could think was that Freddie would never take her to a place like this.

"You're not enjoying yourself, are you?" Garrett asked as they ate their main course.

Sam looked up, startled. Her mind was miles away, across town and in an apartment she had just left. "No, it's…" She tried to lie but decided she couldn't do it. "I don't eat in places like this," she said.

"Oh. Well, you're a chef, I just assumed that you'd enjoy eating the best…"

"The best according to who?" She scoffed. "Some upper crust rating system that's based on nepotism and money than actual merit?"

"As I recall, Gibby's was rated highly by The Seattle Times. Are you saying that you don't deserve that?" He countered.

"That's just a local newspaper, not a restaurant guide that people buy when they care more about what's cool than the actual taste of the food they eat."

"I'm so glad you're enjoying the food," a voice said dryly from behind Sam. She turned to see David, Garrett's manager friend, standing beside a cart.

"Just speaking my mind," said Sam, smiling tightly at him. If it was in her nature to want to please other people, she might have been embarrassed at getting caught bad mouthing the restaurant she was eating at, but that's not who she was.

A busboy cleared their plates and David placed two small but absolutely decadent looking cakes in front of them.

"Our finest dessert," he said, bowing to them and leaving. Sam had to resist the urge to laugh.

She picked up her fork and dug in, as Garrett did the same across from her.

"Pretty good," she said after a few bites. "I think Julie could do better though."

Garrett leaned across the table. "You want to know a secret?"

Sam shrugged noncommittally, her cake already practically gone.

"I didn't bring you here to impress you," he said.

"Good, because then you would have failed spectacularly."

He chuckled. "I brought you here because this is supposedly 'the best' according to, what you pointed out, is a skewed and biased system. And I think you can do far better."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "If you think I'm going to turn Gibby's into something like this, you're dreaming."

"No. But Sam, you've got to be thinking beyond Gibby's, right? Don't you ever dream of expanding? Maybe setting up a different kind of restaurant in the future?"

"Why? I have a perfectly good one now."

"Do you know how hard it is to set up a small business in a city like Seattle and break even in the first year? And then start turning a profit not too long after that? It's nearly impossible, Sam. And to do it at your age…you've got a gift," Garrett said passionately.

"I was also pseudo-famous from iCarly," Sam said. "I got lucky."

"Exactly. You're an underground celebrity. If you act now, you could use your name to expand your business ventures. People will follow you no matter what you do."

"I'm happy with Gibby's as it is," she said firmly. "And if you're done with the business pitch, I think dinner is over."

Garrett looked shamed. "Right. I'm sorry, this is a date and I've turned it into business," he gestured at a waiter for their check. "How about a movie?"

Sam looked at Garrett as he took care of the bill, really looked at him. She tried to decide if she was attracted to him. He was cute, she couldn't deny that. But her heart didn't skip a beat when he looked at her, she didn't feel tingles in her skin when he touched her, he didn't make her want to simultaneously run away and grab him and kiss him.

There's only one person that has ever made her feel that way, only one person that still makes her feel that way despite the fact that they haven't dated in three years. She sipped her water and tried to swallow down the guilt of being somewhere she knows she's not supposed to be, with the wrong person. But what else can she do when being with the right person will give him the power to break her completely?

Garrett hands over the check to their waiter and asks her again if she'd like to see a movie, Sam says yes.

"We're not going to do this again, are we?"

Sam looked up at Garrett, his eyes a deep green under the streetlight as they stand outside of her building. She wished she could feel something for those eyes other than a heavy, painful longing for a set of brown ones.

"You don't want to?" She asked.

He laughed but there was no humor in it. "I think the issue here is that you don't want to. I know we haven't known each other for very long, Sam, but I know you haven't really been with me tonight. I've had a girlfriend of five years cheat on me, I've caught on to the physically present, mentally absent thing. You're into someone else, right?"

Sam looked away, not willing to answer that though her silence was more than enough of an answer for Garrett.

"It's okay, no hard feelings."

"I didn't mean to lead you on or anything," she said. "I'm just really confused…and scared," she admitted quietly.

"Well, in my experience, when I've been scared of something, the best payoff I ever got was when I chose to dive right in. It always turned out to be not as scary as I built it up to be in my mind. You can take that as relationship advice or business advice," he added. "Either way."

Sam smiled. "You never stop do you?"

"I figure the date thing was a bust, might as well stick to business," he shrugged, smiling back at her.

"About that…I think we should stop the meetings for now. You've given me more than enough information already and I just need time to think it over."

"You're not saying no, though?"

"I need to think," she repeated.

"I'll take it," he said. "Well, you know how to reach me."

"Tonight was fun, Garrett. It was," she insisted when he waved her away. "You're not so bad."

He lifted his shoulders and tilted his head in an innocent gesture. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"I still think you're too cocky for your own good," Sam said.

"It's part of my charm," he winked. "So I'll see you?"

"Yeah," she grinned.

Sam watched him walk away and he suddenly turned around. "Hey, Sam!" He called.

"What?"

"Freddie's a lucky guy."

Sam opened her mouth to say something but couldn't think of anything and Garrett reached his car. She stood there as he drove away, knowing that she should go home and face the music but feeling reluctant to do so. She had a feeling that she had really screwed up this time and that if she went home Freddie might leave and never come back.

Instead of going into her building, Sam kept walking in the direction of Bushwell Plaza. She remembered much simpler days when she would always go to this place for refuge; her second home that was so much more of a real home to her than her first one. Carly wouldn't be there and Spencer was probably asleep by now but that suited Sam just fine. She needed somewhere to be alone and think and she knew just the place. She got into the Shay's elevator and pressed the button for the studio.

It wasn't until the doors had closed that Sam realized that getting into this elevator was a mistake. She thought of that night three years ago when she and Freddie had ended their relationship. How he had pressed her up against the wall and kissed her until she couldn't breathe. How at midnight she had watched him walk out of the elevator and had to bite her tongue to keep from begging him to stay with her. Three years and the pieces of her heart still felt jagged and raw, glued together in a haphazard way after that break up. She didn't think she could survive losing him again. But now she was realizing that by keeping him at a distance, she was just pushing him away faster.

The elevator dinged and Sam pushed herself off the wall and walked into the studio. It was so dark that she couldn't see anything and she walked right into Freddie's tech cart. It was light now that it was empty of his equipment and it rolled away, crashing right into the wall. Sam rushed to turn on the light and flopped down onto a bean bag, taking off her painful heels.

The studio still looked pretty much the same as it did when they filmed iCarly there and Sam tried not to think about the fact that up until a few weeks ago Freddie was living here. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts kept circling back to him.

She heard footsteps thundering up the steps and a second later Spencer charged in, carrying a large ceramic frog.

"Aaahhh…Sam," he stopped when he saw her. "I heard a crash and I thought it was an intruder!"

"And you were going to bash his head in with a frog?"

Spencer looked down at the frog. "Yes," he said.

Sam chuckled.

"What are you doing here?"

"I just needed to think. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

Spencer dropped down onto the bean bag next to her, carefully setting the frog down on the floor.

"Did you and Freddie have a fight?"

Sam sighed heavily. "A big one."

"Ha! That's less than a month which means I won the bet…that I did not make with Gibby," he finished lamely off of Sam's glare. "Come on, it's you and Freddie. You guys fight all the time."

"Not like this. I went on a date with someone tonight."

"Not Freddie?"

"No, not Freddie!" She snapped.

He raised his hands up. "Just making sure. Why did you go on a date?"

"I don't know. Because I thought…I don't know! I'm messing everything up and now he's mad at me and he's going to leave," Sam said miserably.

Spencer laughed. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Freddie's not going to leave you."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because he loves you," he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "You're Sam and Freddie. Nothing has torn you apart so far, nothing ever will."

"We're not together," she said. "You're forgetting that little fact."

"You're raising a baby together," he pointed out.

Sam leaned back further on the bean bag, almost lying horizontally. She studied the roof above.

"Maybe he should leave," she said quietly.

"Do you want him to?" Spencer asked.

"No. But I'm holding him back. Spencer, do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't had to take care of Carly?"

"No, not really. Being her guardian and getting to watch her grow up was pretty amazing. I mean, if she had lived with our grandpa in Yakima I would have barely seen her."

"But you would have lived your own life," Sam argued. "Maybe you could have traveled and tried to get your art into galleries in cities like San Francisco or New York."

"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe I would have finished law school."

Sam looked up at him and their eyes met.

"Nah," they both said.

"Would never have happened, dude," she smirked.

"No, not at all. But the point is, having Carly in my life and even you and Freddie and Gibby, is way better than anything I could have done on my own. If I had to go back to that day when my dad asked me if I would let my sister live with me, I'd say yes all over again."

Sam nodded and went back to studying the roof beam.

"Is this about Charlie? It's okay if you're having second thoughts, you know. Carly was twelve when I took her in, Charlie's a tiny baby. It's totally different…"

"I'm not having second thoughts about Charlie! I'd give up all the ham in the world before I give her up."

"Whoa," Spencer said, genuinely impressed.

"It's just…I feel like I'm forcing Freddie into this baby thing and you know how smart he is. He has his whole future ahead of him, he's going to head up some big tech company and invent geeky toys."

"He can still do that. I think even geeks crawl out of their gadget caves long enough to get married and have kids. It's not one or the other, Sam."

"What if he gets offered some fancy job and he has to move somewhere far away? I have the restaurant, I can't leave Seattle!"

Spencer looked confused. "You're worried about a job offer that Freddie hasn't gotten yet in a future that's at least four years away from now?"

"Don't make it sound ridiculous," she snapped. "Did you know that Freddie was accepted to MIT and he didn't go? Did you know that he lived at home with his crazy mother for his first year of college so that she would invest money in Gibby's?"

"I know the first one but not the second one," Spencer said slowly, still not sure if he was following her.

"He's already making sacrifices for me. Sacrifices that I can't pay back."

"Well, he wouldn't want you to. That's not how it works anyway."

"Okay, oh wise one," Sam said sarcastically. "How does it work?"

"Think of it this way, when Charlie grows up will you expect her to pay back the sacrifices that you've made for her? The money spent, the opportunities you had to give up, the worry and fear, the lack of sleep? Do you think that you'll even be thinking of how to hold that over Charlie's head?"

"No, of course not. That's not the same thing!"

Spencer looked at her. "Yes, it is, Sam. Love is love. Freddie loves you. If he's choosing to be with you and Charlie, he won't regret a thing."

"Mrs. Benson said that if he gives up opportunities now, he'll regret it later."

"With all due respect to Mrs. Benson, I know she means well for her son, but she's not in a position to say that. Only Freddie can make his choices. Reject him if you don't want to be with him, Sam. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're doing the right thing by denying yourself something you both want. You can't make his choices for him, you'll just end up making both him and yourself miserable."

Sam sat up and looked at him. She's known Spencer for half her life and she didn't think she's ever heard him say so many words together that make that much sense.

Spencer seemed to read the disbelief on her face. "I'm not just the comedic relief!" He said defensively. "I can be the deep and wise love guru."

"Then why can't the love guru make a move on the girl he likes?" Sam teased.

"Wha-I..I don't…I don't know what it is you speak of," he spluttered.

"Uh-huh," she punched his arm lightly and stood up. "Thanks Spencer. You really helped me out tonight."

"Anytime," he said. "You know I'm always here to talk. But if you can make it before midnight next time, I would appreciate it."

"I make no promises," Sam said as she punched the elevator button.

She was nervous as she walked up to her door. It was nearly two a.m. and she didn't know what she'd find inside. Was Freddie waiting up for her? Was she too late and he'd already left? The past two months flashed through her mind. Her sister had left her with a baby and Sam hadn't known at the time how she'd be able to get through it. And then Freddie had stepped in, like a godsend, even when he didn't have to. He got up in the middle of the night for feedings and diaper changes, he sat up all night with her when Charlie had colic and took turns rocking and singing to her, he sacrificed any kind of a social life to stay at home with the baby. She really didn't know what she would have done without him.

Sam had to face what everyone around her already knew; if she was Charlie's mother now then Freddie was her father. And she was realizing that that was exactly how it was supposed to be. Maybe it was happening a little sooner than she would have liked but deep inside Sam always knew that if she was ever going to go the family route, with kids and a house and a dog, she'd only do it with Freddie. Now she just needed to stop screwing this up. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

The apartment was dark and quiet but the curtains weren't drawn and the light from the streetlamps outside outlined Freddie's body on the sofa bed, his blanket pulled up over his shoulders. Sam knew he wasn't asleep, he was far too still and she saw his shoulders tense up when the door closed. She supposed he was faking sleep to avoid round two of their fight.

She slipped off her coat and shoes and climbed onto the bed, slipping underneath the blanket and scooting until she was pressed up against Freddie and wrapping her arms around him.

"Sam?" He said, sounding surprised.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions about that number and I shouldn't have gone on that date. Nothing happened."

He turned over to face her. "I love you, Sam. You can try to push me away but I'm not going anywhere."

She kissed him, pouring her heart and all of herself into the kiss. Freddie's arms wrapped around her, bringing her impossibly close, until she felt like she might crawl into his skin and their bodies would join as one.

"I love you," she said against his lips.

"Slap me," he whispered.

She pulled away. "What? Why?"

He put his thumb to her swollen lips, caressing it gently. "I think I'm dreaming."

"You're not dreaming, Freddie."

His fingers caressed her neck now, his touch so light and gentle, like she was something precious he was afraid to break but he couldn't get enough of her anyway.

"We're not going to pretend this didn't happen in the morning, are we? I don't think I can-"

She put his fingers to his lips. "You're stuck with me now, Benson. And the baby too," she added. "Think you can handle it?"

Freddie smiled, his eyes lighting up in that way she loved. "Definitely," he said.

She burrowed into his arms, her head finding that perfect spot beneath his chin that she fit right into, her right leg intertwining between the two of his. Sam felt safe and loved and she let herself relax, sleep overtaking her and carrying her to the land of good dreams. Her last conscious thought was that she couldn't wait until she woke up, because what was waiting for her in the real world was far better than anything her dreams could give her.

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