Author's Note: Hello, fellow iCarly fans!I hope you're all having a great week. Mine's been alright, certainly not boring as far as my 'online exploits' go ;) I've been watching a few season 1 iCarly episodes lately like 'iWin A Date' (a favourite of mine) and reminiscing about the good old days before that treacherous shipping war began, alas. I hope you all enjoy this new update, cheerio :)
Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly or its characters. Just my own special ideas and methods of conveying them.
"Watch where you're going! Ny-aangth! Now I gotta mop the fl-oor again!" Lewbert complained in a loud and pointed drawl.
Carly ignored him completely and jogged past him towards the elevators that would take her up to her home. After ditching Sam outside school, she had sprinted away for another few feet before hailing a cab and coming back to Kennedy Square. Then she had walked for the remaining 5 blocks before reaching the lobby of Bushwell Plaza and the familiarity of Lewbert's crass behaviour.
Not that she cared in the least.
There were far more pressing things on her mind at this particular moment. And all of it involved the fight she'd just had with Sam, her escape from a sordid situation involving Rory Blake, captain of the football team; said football captain getting thrown headlong into a pile of lockers and Freddie running off with Michael, which was at the forefront of her chaotic thoughts.
For the hundredth time, Carly wondered where the two of them had gone. She hadn't even bothered to knock on the Benson's apartment next door, knowing full well that Freddie wouldn't be there. Seattle was a big city; there were a million places where Freddie could be right now.
Why had Michael shown up at the school? Had it been his plan all along to get Freddie alone to talk to him? Did he just want to talk to Freddie or did he have something more sinister planned for him?
With a guilty squirm in the pit of her stomach, Carly thought back to Rory Blake's still body lying on the cold floor next to the lockers. She wondered if he was going to be ok, or whether Freddie had actually killed him. Carly didn't want to believe that Freddie was capable of harming anyone, much less the captain of the football team. But amidst the confusing disarray of her mind's eye, Carly had caught a glimpse of Freddie's hands on Rory's throat, holding him up in the air like he was made out of paper before tossing him into the lockers. She hoped that someone had called 911 after she'd left and tended to Rory before any more disastrous things could ensue.
She would've scarcely believed it had happened had she not done something similar to both Freddie and Sam on the stairwell of her home the previous week. It already seemed like a lifetime ago. Even though it had happened so quickly, Carly had seen enough to know that Freddie was responsible for causing Rory's accident. But she wondered grimly if anyone else had noticed too.
How had things changed so drastically?
The pulsing anger she had felt towards Sam had faded by now, only to be replaced with guilty weariness. She hadn't meant to go off on her like that, but maybe it was better for Sam to finally know the truth, or at least part of it now. She could feel a migraine forming on her forehead from information overload and she wanted to scream from frustration. Everything was spinning out of control in her life and she needed it to stop for one moment so that she could catch her breath.
"Carly?"
Carly whipped around on the balls of her feet, not realising that she wasn't alone in her apartment, her heart in her throat. Her breathing finally returned to normal when she realised that it was just Spencer coming out of his bedroom carrying an easel with a puzzled expression on his face.
"How did you get back here?" Spencer questioned in surprise.
"I uh…took a cab." Carly offered weakly with a gesture of her hand.
"What are you doing home? Don't you have class?" he asked, bewildered by her sudden appearance.
"Are you sick?" Spencer queried in alarm, noticing for the first time just how pale his kid sister's face looked.
He rested the easel haphazardly against the kitchen counter and came to Carly's side. Before Carly could stop him, he had placed one of his big hands on her forehead before touching her cheek.
"You don't seem to be running a fever or anything," he murmured more to himself.
"Spencer, I'm fine. I just had to get away from school for a little while…" Carly explained in a shockingly calm voice.
Spencer wasn't slow in noticing how sluggishly Carly moved towards the sofa in the living room and plonked herself down onto it with a fatigued countenance.
"What do you mean? What happened?" he demanded anxiously, coming to sit down next to her.
"Freddie got into a fight at school because of me," Carly responded tiredly.
The words were tumbling out of her mouth like a ravine before she had time to censor them appropriately. But it was too late to take it back now. And Carly was so tired of keeping everything to herself.
"With who?" Spencer asked in bewilderment.
"Rory Blake," Carly replied softly.
"Rory Blake? Wait, isn't he the captain of the football team? Really handsome kid with muscles everywhere?" Spencer questioned in confusion.
"The very same," Carly offered sardonically.
"Why did Freddie get into a fight with him over you? Is Rory your new boyfriend?" Spencer asked somewhat lightly in an attempt to get Carly laughing and talking more.
Carly looked to her left and stared at Spencer in astonishment.
"N-o! Rory is so not my boyfriend. He tried to make a pass at me and Freddie intervened." Carly retorted heatedly.
Spencer's goofy grin vanished while he looked more closely at his sister.
"This Rory guy made a pass at you? You mean he…touched you inappropriately?" he asked in muted horror.
"Kind of. He didn't grab my chest area or anything. But he freaked me out by blocking my way, grabbing my arm and touching my face and stuff." Carly mumbled uncomfortably.
Spencer's jaw began to stiffen with suppressed rage and Carly suddenly wished that she hadn't told her older brother about any of this. She'd never seen him so angry before, like he might do some serious damage to anyone who crossed his path in the next few minutes. Carly became even more alarmed when Spencer got to his feet and grabbed his favourite leather jacket from the coat stand near the front door.
"Spencer, what are you doing?" Carly demanded in astonishment.
"I'm gonna go down to the school and give that punk a taste of his own medicine. Principal Franklin's gonna hear about this," Spencer fumed indignantly.
"Rory's not at school, Spencer. He's probably at the hospital right now. That's if somebody called 911 right after it happened," Carly responded rapidly.
Spencer stopped in his tracks and came to stand next to the sofa again, his eyes wide with surprise.
"What do you mean the hospital? Carly, what exactly happened when he and Freddie got into an argument over you?" Spencer demanded impatiently, his dark eyes boring into Carly's.
"Not an argument, Spencer, a fight. They got into a physical fight over me. Freddie told him to back off, but Rory wouldn't listen. And then Freddie…" Carly trailed off unexpectedly, unable to say the words.
"What did Freddie do, Carly?" Spencer asked in a hushed voice.
"Freddie grabbed him and…pushed him into a pile of lockers. Rory was either knocked unconscious or…worse. The point is, he wasn't moving when I left the school." Carly concluded morosely, several tears leaking from her eyes, which she wiped at hastily.
Spencer sat back down his spot on the sofa once more, feeling like the wind had been knocked right out of his sails.
"Is Freddie ok?" he asked quietly.
Carly nodded vigorously before answering.
"I think so," she answered rapidly.
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know, Spencer. After Rory fell on the floor, Freddie took off and left the school. I tried to follow him, but…" Carly replied miserably, a fresh batch of tears ensuing.
Spencer nodded soberly as if in silent confirmation of something he'd known all along before turning to face Carly again.
"Maybe you should start from the beginning…" he suggested soberly.
"Why are we here?" Freddie asked dumbly.
He was standing in the middle of the Japanese Garden in the Washington Park Arboretum. After the bout of rain showers that the city had experienced in recent weeks, the trees and the alien plants surrounding the park benches were a delightful shade of emerald green, making all the remaining colours seem dull in comparison.
"I thought you could use the opportunity to channel your Zen and inner chi, Rambo," Michael replied comically.
Freddie whipped around and faced the stranger who'd given him a ride here. The man in question was seated comfortably on a wooden park bench, one boot-clad foot crossed over his lap, his arm resting leisurely on the arm-rest beside him, looking for all the world like he didn't have a single care. And he was grinning pointedly at Freddie, like he expected the former to share in an inside joke.
"Ok, seriously. Who are you?" Freddie demanded impatiently.
"You didn't seem that concerned about my identity when I gave you a ride here," Michael replied in a nonplussed tone.
"Well, I care about it now," Freddie responded, a growing sense of irritation creeping over him.
Freddie couldn't understand why he suddenly felt so uneasy. Was it simply because he had just hitched a ride with a complete stranger, something his mother had always warned him against?
But it was more than that. There was nothing in this stranger's outward appearance that made him look threatening in the least. And yet, Freddie could sense the enigmatic waves of possible danger literally wafting off of the man, like he was radioactive.
"How come? Is it getting too hot in the kitchen for ya?" Michael asked with positive relish evident in his voice.
"What are you talking about?" Freddie questioned heatedly.
"You know, back at school. I can understand why you'd wanna get out of there as fast as you can. You just killed somebody – that doesn't look so hot on your transcript." Michael retorted snidely.
A chill went down Freddie's spine while he imagined what was going on at Ridgeway. He envisioned the paramedics entering the school, carrying Rory's lifeless body on a stretcher, covered by a black body bag, crowds of students and faculty members crowded together, weeping and shaking their heads apprehensively.
He suddenly wished that he hadn't been so rash in leaving Carly by herself to deal with the inevitable questions that would follow. After all, she had been standing right next to him when he grabbed hold of Rory and sent him into a row of lockers. Even if the slowed-down action had been invisible to the untrained eye, there was a good chance that Carly might've seen what had really happened in the space of about 5 seconds. But he couldn't explain how he instinctively knew this was true.
Freddie turned to face the stranger who'd given him a ride, who in turn was regarding him with an unfathomable expression on his handsome face.
"How could you possibly know what happened? You were outside the entire time!" Freddie spluttered haphazardly.
"Guess again, Freddy-o. I have a little more insight into what's going on than you, trust me on that." Michael responded evenly, getting to his feet.
"I didn't kill Rory – I…I couldn't have," Freddie mumbled incoherently while clutching at his hair, trying to wrap his head around the entire affair.
"You never know, Freddie. I guess you just don't know your own strength sometimes," Michael put in helpfully with a sly grin on his face.
Freddie stopped clutching his hair and gazed at the stranger with new eyes. Something disturbing had just occurred at Ridgeway and this nameless man was enjoying every ounce of it. A white fire boiled deep within Freddie and he regarded the stranger with a cold and calculating look.
"Who are you?" he asked in a low voice.
"Just a curious observer and apparently, the guy who just stopped you from facing a lot of awkward questions back at school. Gratitude's not really your strong point by the way," Michael offered facetiously.
"I didn't mean to hurt Rory! It was an accident! I just got so angry when he had his hands all over Carly that I-"
"You what? Succumbed to a fit of jealous rage when 'The Terminator' made a pass at your girl? Isn't that what it boils down to, Freddie? You can't have Carly, so no one else can?" Michael prodded mercilessly.
"Shut up," Freddie implored in a shaky voice.
"It must be hard to see Carly move on time and time again to the next good-looking guy with no brains. Like Jake, Shane, Griffin, Adam...Cort. It must really burn you up when she won't even give you the time of the day. You're the total package…" Michael trailed off callously, beginning to circle around Freddie while he spoke.
"I said shut up," Freddie hissed through gritted teeth.
He was swallowing down bile, feeling the vestiges of his self-restraint slowly ebbing away. What was happening to him? Why did he feel like he was seconds away from turning into the Incredible Hulk? He could feel that familiar tingle swirling through his fingers right through his hands. The last time he'd felt it with such intensity before his altercation with Rory was when he had kissed Carly the night before. But that had been a pleasurable surge which had shot through his entire body when he had held her in his arms. This felt innately different, like the difference between a sneeze and coughing up your internal organs.
"Don't feel bad about it, Freddie. Rory was being an ass to the one girl you've ever loved in your entire life; you were just defending her honour. But can you really blame Carly? She's always been the kind of girl that attracts attention, both positive and negative. She really is something to look at though, isn't she? Long brown hair, beautiful eyes, pouty lips you could kiss all day. Perfect body-"
Freddie didn't remember how he had got into position. But a split second later, he had Michael around the scruff of his neck, his hands cutting off his circulation while he held him several inches off of the ground.
"I told you to shut up!" Freddie bellowed furiously, his eyes bulging with unrepressed rage.
Michael had made no move to stop Freddie or shrug him off, even though he could've done either one in a heartbeat. Freddie's eyes, which had been bulging with rage, finally contracted to their normal size, his pupils now passively malignant and contained. With a gasp of shock, Freddie remembered where he was and gingerly put Michael back down on the ground, his hands feeling like tons of steel at his sides. He thanked his lucky stars that no one in the park had just seen what he did. Freddie gazed guiltily at Michael, who to his intense surprise, was grinning widely back at him, as if Freddie hadn't just tried to strangle him.
"Not too shabby, Fredward," Michael noted with unmistakable pleasure evident in his tone.
Freddie sank down onto the wooden bench in an exhausted heap, staring in awe at his hands.
"I can't believe I just did that…again." He marvelled in alarm.
"I can. And it all has to do with that wonderful connection that you and Carly have developed over time. The two of you have really…bonded." Michael offered in an eerily calm voice.
Freddie stopped looking at his hands and stared at Michael in amazement, remembering Carly's own words on the subject:
"You and I, we've always been close, the best of friends. But then we bonded and now everything's changed…"
Everything had changed and nothing would be ever be ok again. Those had been Carly's words too while they had been talking on the fire escape the night before. Something had irrevocably changed between the two of them and Carly couldn't even look Freddie in the eyes properly these days. Something which she felt guilty about, something she felt responsible about causing…
"Something else happened on the stairwell that day, something that neither Carly nor I can explain…" Freddie murmured without thinking twice about it.
"Nicely done, Freddie. You came to that conclusion a lot quicker than Carly did when I first spoke to her." Michael praised lightly.
"You spoke to Carly?" Freddie asked in awe, rounding on Michael once more as he got to his feet again.
Michael said nothing in response, but continued watching Freddie with idle curiosity reflecting in his pale blue eyes.
"Who are you?" Freddie asked a second time, a note of warning evident in his tone.
"My name is Michael and I'm what you might call a guardian of sorts." Michael offered succinctly.
The name registered somewhere deep inside of Freddie's mind. Why was it so familiar and where had he heard it recently. Then his mind's eye took him to the waiting area of a bland hospital where a nurse sat at her station with a bouquet in her hand.
"These came for you a few hours ago, Freddie. Aren't they just beautiful? They're from your friend, Michael. He said to tell you to get well soon and hopes that everything will return to 'almost' normal for you…." Nurse Cooper explained with jocular laughter.
"You sent me flowers while I was in the hospital," Freddie surmised while staring pensively at Michael's face.
"Just wanted you to know I was thinking of you," Michael replied, feigning a genial tone.
"It's because of you, isn't it? The reason why Carly hasn't been herself lately? You did something to her, didn't you?" Freddie demanded in an accusing tone, his emotions at the fringes once more.
"I didn't do anything to Carly. But I did try to explain to her exactly what's happened to the two of you since the accident. You'd think that Carly would've passed the message onto you by now," Michael responded facetiously while shaking his head comically.
"And just what message might that be? What exactly happened to the two of us on the Shay's stairwell that day…Michael?" Freddie questioned seriously, getting sick of the charade.
Michael studied Freddie's face momentarily, a long finger tapping abstractly at his chin before answering.
"It's difficult to say. But what I can surmise is this: Sam pushed you down the stairs and Carly tried to intervene." Michael began solemnly.
"I already know that. She tried to tell me and Sam to stop bickering-"
"I'm not talking about that intervention, Freddie. I mean that she literally tried to stop you from falling down the stairs."
"But that's impossible. All three of us fell down the stairs, hit the floor and were rendered unconscious. That's what Spencer told us afterwards"
"That's why Carly's intervention failed ultimately. But she did tweak certain things about how the three of you fell. Can you guess what she might've done?"
"I'm not gonna play guessing games with you, Michael. I want the truth about what happened that day and I want it right now."
"Always so pushy, you must get that from Mommy Dearest. Alright, I'll bite: did you hear anything about what the paramedics said about the incident in passing? Something specifically to do with the position of your bodies after Spencer found all three of you sprawled out on the floor?" Michael prodded seriously.
"There was something. When Spencer came to see me at the hospital, he told me that…the paramedic who checked Sam said the position of her body on the floor was all wrong in conjunction with her original position on the stairwell, according to Carly's original statement to the police when they questioned her at the hospital before…Dr. Bernstein saw to her." Freddie explained rapidly.
"Very good. And do you know why that is? Because if both you and Sam had fallen without any interruption, she would've hit the sofa and you would've hit Spencer's sculpture. But instead, Sam hit the sculpture and you hit the sofa. Carly was in the middle of both of you the entire time, Freddie." Michael stated in an irritatingly matter-of-fact way.
"What are you getting at? Are you saying that Carly somehowswitched mine and Sam's bodies in mid-air and magically made Sam hit the sculpture and me hit the couch instead?" Freddie spluttered disbelievingly with wild gestures of his hands.
"That's exactly what I'm saying, Freddie." Michael replied soberly.
"And why would Carly do something like that? How could she possibly do something like that?" Freddie demanded incredulously.
"I think you already know the 'why', Freddie. As for the 'how', that's the easy part. While you seem to go all 'Incredible Hulk' on jerks like Rory Blake, Carly's powers seem to be a little more subtle and a little less precise," Michael responded seriously.
"But why is this happening now?"
"It's been a long time in the making, Freddie. All because you and Carly have 'bonded'."
Freddie stared at Michael for a good long minute, trying to decipher what the latter had just said to him.
"You keep saying that. What do you mean we…'bonded'?" Freddie questioned dumbly with air-quotes.
Michael rolled his eyes pointedly at the sky before facing Freddie once more.
"Even Carly took a shorter time figuring out what that means, Freddie." He retorted callously.
"You mean Carly and I have some kind of mutual 'mind-meld'?" Freddie persisted rapidly.
"Not really. You can't bond through your minds, like being able to access each other's thoughts. It's more of a sense of what the other's thinking and feeling, like when you sensed Carly's discomfort as Rory tried to grab her. That mode of wanting to protect each other goes both ways; you used it on Rory and Carly used it on both you and Sam when she pushed Sam out of the way, causing her to hit Spencer's sculpture instead of it being you." Michael explained casually.
"But wait…Carly tried to push me out of the way after we fell? If that's what she tried to do, why didn't it work? No offence, but I still ended up hitting my head against the back of a sofa." Freddie pointed out sardonically.
"Not everyone can channel their powers as well as you. Just ask Rory," Michael quipped cleverly with a sly wink.
"Carly and I have powers now? All because she tried to stop me from falling down a flight of stairs?" Freddie questioned in awe.
"Not quite, it's a little more complicated than that, Freddie." Michael responded seriously.
"How complicated?" Freddie asked, matching his tone.
"You're in love with Carly, aren't you, Freddie?"
Freddie coloured instantly at the question, blushing profusely while he tried to chase away the warmth from his face.
"Yeah, I am. But what does that have to do with anything?" he asked softly.
Michael moved closer and towered over Freddie, till the latter began to feel really uncomfortable.
"It's got everything to do with the 'bond' between you and Carly, Freddie. It's set certain things in motion from day one when the two of you met, especially the day that you jumped in front of a taco truck to save her life. Carly could've died that day, but she didn't. Because of you – because you're in love with her. That kind of act leaves a mark. And Carly's beginning to figure that out too since she tried to do the same thing on the stairwell last week." Michael replied evenly.
It took Freddie more than a moment before the last part of Michael's statement sunk in.
"Wait…are you saying that…Carly's in love with me?" Freddie asked, completely flabbergasted by the thought.
"Well…I think that Carly will probably be able to answer that question for you better than I can," Michael responded mysteriously.
"And where do you fit into all of this?" Freddie demanded pointedly, fixing the enigmatic stranger with a penetrating gaze.
"I told you. I'm a guardian, a messenger if you will. I'm here to give you certain information to help you and Carly better understand what comes next."
"And what exactly does come next?" Freddie asked in a weary tone.
Michael smiled briefly before he began pacing methodically around Freddie in a perfect circle, his boots making soft indentations in the freshly-mown grass beneath his feet.
"We can't always know what the future holds. But sometimes, I find that it's best to retrace your own steps…take a walk down Memory Lane, if you will. In instances like these, you'll find that history often repeats itself, especially with a bond like yours and Carly's." Michael replied in a cryptic tone.
"I don't understand," Freddie answered feebly, feeling like his head was going to explode from information overload.
"Of course you don't. But you will very soon, especially after I show you something belonging to someone in your family. Take my arm, Freddie. The sensation will be a little jarring at first." Michael commanded seriously, standing in front of Freddie again.
"Jarring? What do you mean-"
But Freddie didn't have time to complete his sentence when Michael did the honours and placed his hand on his leather-clad arm. Freddie only had another moment to tighten his grip till his fingernails dugs into the soft fabric of Michael's jacket when he felt his entire body reverberating like crazy. Everything became blurry around the two of them, including the colours of their clothes till they matched that of their verdant surroundings, making Freddie want to puke on the spot. And then he and Michael disappeared in a flash, shooting forward in a haze of swirling black.
Author's Note: I hope this was eventful for all of you, especially Freddie and Michael's conversation. I tried to make it differ from Michael's initial conversation with Carly in chapters 3 and 4. Carly and Spencer's conversation at the start will open up into further discussion next chapter as a small aside (I think, hee hee). Thanks to a few extra reviews during the week, I'm just a few votes away from hitting the 100th mark! Thanks for making it happen to all of you out there, you've all been far too kind :D Now I'm off to grab some dinner and catch my favourite local soap opera, I hope you all have a great weekend. Cheers!