Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly or any of the other characters on it. I do, however, own Jacob.
"Samantha! You pull this car over right this instant!" Mrs. Benson's frantic voice came from the back seat. I had thought for sure she was asleep by now. I adjusted my rear view mirror to exchange a look with Carly, who had moved to the backseat for more comfort. She just rolled her eyes, glaring over at Mrs. Benson.
We had pulled over at least thirty times so far, on this second day- to get food, to go to the restroom, to pick up snacks, to rest, to get gas, to pump air into the tires, when Mrs. Benson thought that she saw a bug in the car, when she thought she saw a tick crawling on Jacob's foot...it was constant. I wasn't sure why she wanted me to pull over right now, but I knew if I didn't it would only get worse- and so I obediently pulled into the rest stop we were fast approaching.
"The next rest stop won't be for thirty miles- you need to go to the restroom right now!" she commanded, and I leaped out eagerly. Jacob dived out of the passenger's seat and ran as well. Carly curled up and pretended she was still asleep- lucky. Mrs. Benson was frantically running around trying to make sure she had all the brochures possible to get, and Jacob was probably out to hide in the boy's restroom for a few minutes until he was sure she wouldn't come after him to make sure he had extra toilet paper like she had the last time. It was then, by myself, that I saw him.
He was sneezing away, unsurprisingly, and all I saw at first were legs dangling from a trash can as it shook violently. I nervously approached, and then kicked the trash can over. Should it be a surprise that I still recognized the groan of pain he gave when he fell from the can and made contact with the gravel?
"What are you doing here, Germy?" I made a face, jumping away from him when he almost sneezed on my shoes. He climbed up to his feet using a nearby pole, and the whole time I kept close to him, but still kept distance. He was just as disgusting as he had been the last time I saw him.
"I live in the town only a half hour away," he said as if I should've known, making a confused face. When he realized I had no idea, he groaned and sneezed a few times before shouting, "You came to my going away party last year!"
Whoa, I really had been out of it since Freddie had moved.
"Huh. Well, you shouldn't be that surprised I don't remember your party," I snickered a bit, and Jeremy sighed and backed away from me. I wonder if I had been making fun of him after Freddie moved away. I wondered if that one time I had made fun of Gibby as he tried to flirt was the first time since his move that I had made fun of someone.
"We went out on a date once! Remember, you said you had to go to the bathroom and never came back?"
"Germy!" Sam's scream echoed through the restaurant. "Carly set me up on a date with you! That's..." she drifted off as Jeremy smiled at her patiently. It seemed like it would take too much effort for her to insult him in her eyes. For a moment, she thought that maybe it was mean to insult 'Germy.'
That thought scared her.
"I've got to use the bathroom, okay?" she said, practically running to the restroom as Jeremy called, "Okay!" after her.
Two minutes later she was walking towards Carly's apartment yelling on the phone, "How could you do that to me?"
Oh yeah. I try to block out that painful memory.
"Oh yeah. I try to block out that painful memory." It was getting so much easier to tell someone what I really thought about them. I missed the good old days where I did that constantly. Those were really 'the days.'
Germy made a face and sneezed. "You know, Carly told me you knew! It's not my fault!" he complained/sneezed away, and I glared at the spot where Carly was 'sleeping' about a quarter mile away. I hadn't realized I had gotten this far- I must've run pretty fast at the thought of Mrs. Benson chasing me with panty liners again.
"Well, why were you in the trash?" I asked, changing the subject. I did feel a tad guilty about not even remembering that the sap moved away last year. Of course, that thought disturbed me. The old Sam wouldn't have cared at all. The old Sam spoke her mind, and if she hurt people, that was okay- because the old Sam didn't want anybody around her who would be that upset. And strangely enough, people always seemed to come back to the old Sam.
Except for one person.
"When I-," he was suddenly sneezing so bad he broke off here and doubled over. "When I got to the town-," Sneeze. Sneeze. Sneeze again. A few more sneezes passed before he straightened up and tried to speak again. "There was this group of sneeze kids who sneeze thought sneeze that I sneeze sneeze sneeze sneeze was annoying and sneeze they constantly drive me sneeze here sneeze sneeze sneeze and dump me in the sneeze trash and sneeze then-,"
"Whoops, guess I don't really care," I rolled my eyes at him and held out a hand to shut him up. I didn't want to listen to him sneeze the whole time. Who did?
Jeremy made a face, and was preparing to walk away before I stopped him by shouting, "WAIT!" Obediently, he spun around to face me with a nervous look on his face. I felt like I should dump him in the trash can for that look on his face, but I needed information much more.
"Have you talked to Fred...die lately?" I asked, shocked when I almost called him Fredloser. It had been a long time since I had thought up any insults for Freddie. I guess making fun of Germy brought back the good old memories.
Jeremy nodded eagerly, saying, "Yeah, of course! He sneeze asked about sneeze sneeze you when I told him you were at my sneeze party," he added, and I smiled a tiny bit despite the situation. He had asked about me? If it wasn't Jeremy in front of me, and I didn't want him to think I was a lovesick loser, I would demand what he had asked about, what he had said, how he had said it...I would be like Carly's clone. I shuddered.
"I haven't sneeze sneeze talked to him sneeze since sneeze then, though. He sneeze told me he was sneeze sneeze moving away from sneeze his dad to see sneeze sneeze sneeze some sneeze girl. He said he told his sneeze dad about it, but that sneeze was it. He didn't want sneeze his mom to find sneeze out," he made a face again, sighing. "I wonder when we'll sneeze meet up again."
I wasn't breathing. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to lie down so I could catch my breath. I wanted to cry. I wanted to die. No, no, I didn't. I just really wanted to cry. Because Freddie wanted to be with some girl. Okay, so that's not what Germy said, but why else would Freddie go looking for a random girl? And he wasn't with his father. We were heading to his father, but he wasn't there. He wasn't there. He wasn't there.
"Bye," I said and turned and walked away. Mrs. Benson was already in the car, and Jacob was too.
"Who were you talking to?" he asked me curiously, and I just shrugged and mumbled, "Some kid I thought I recognized." He didn't pry, somehow sensing how upset I was. I wondered why nobody ever did pry into my life.
"Are you okay?" Freddie asked as he walked into the Shay's apartment to find Sam curled up in a ball on the couch, staring blankly at the television screen. She smiled up at him a tiny bit- this was a few months before the move would come. This was when she daydreamed about him coming to her, telling her he loved her and not Carly...this was the time when it was hardest to stay Sam. This was the time where her dreams were dashed daily.
"Yeah." She mumbled, but her face had tear tracks and her voice cracked. Today her mother had invited him to live with them again. Freddie sat down on the arm of the couch next to the pillow her head rested on, and pushed her hair gently from her face nervously. It seemed like he was half expecting her to hit him, but she kept her hands tightly gripped on the edge of the pillow near his thigh, catching her breath when his leg brushed her knuckles.
"Are you sure?" he asked quietly, getting down on his knees to stare into her eyes like he doubted her. It seemed like the daydreams might just come true for once, the way he was looking at her- as if he did like her and not Carly.
And then Carly opened the door, and he turned and grinned at her and sat next to Sam. "Hey Carly," he told her, and Sam closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow.
Mrs. Benson fell asleep in an hour. She had claimed that her allergies were working up, and asked me to pass her the Benadryl- and I pulled over (per orders) and hid the bottle of sleeping pills from her sight as I passed the small pink pills to her and Jacob and Carly grinned, each having had a view somehow. Now, thankfully, she was passed out for a while. I sped down the highway, getting closer and closer to Belleview every moment- it was just past the Arizona border, and we had just broken into Arizona, so, as usual, my excitement was bubbling. I wanted to know where Freddie was, even if he was with 'some girl.'
I choked up a bit and Jacob shot me a look.
Carly was asleep too, and Jacob sat in the seat next to me staring blankly out the window. I let my thoughts drift until Jacob turned to me suddenly, and I struggled to get back in my lane after veering to the left as if I could rip the car apart, me and Carly away from those two. He grabbed the wheel expertly and dragged it towards himself, and I breathed a small sigh of relief when I was driving back along my original lane.
"Sorry," he grinned, his eyes twinkling with mischief- I knew the mischief well. It had been like I was wearing contacts all those years with the sparkle of it in them, and when Freddie moved I had taken them out. Or maybe I'm just being melodramatic.
"I just wanted to say...we'll be in Belleview in a half hour," he said, and I nodded, trying to keep my breathing normal so I didn't hyperventilate. Half hour! This was exciting. This was bliss. This was more Freddie news only a half hour away! This was nervousness, pulsing up in the pit of my stomach as Jacob advised me to pull over so he could drive the rest of the way.
We both walked around the hood, but he stopped so I couldn't get past. "Sam, if we find Freddie there..." he drifted off, and I made a face. We wouldn't find Freddie there- but I didn't want them to know that. I didn't want to explain to Carly how it had felt talking to Germy, and if I began to explain talking to Germy I would spill everything. Our relationship had taken a much more personal turn- it was like things back then now, when we told each other everything. It was like when we snapped the head off of Mr. Duck together, we had snapped back into our old friendship, before everything had happened.
"What are you expecting when you see him?" I was glad he wasn't saying if anymore. I was glad he was saying when, since I couldn't answer what I was expecting when we saw him in a 'half hour.' I didn't want to tell Jacob we wouldn't be seeing him, either.
"Well, all I know is that I'm going to tell him exactly how I feel about him, and I'm going to tell him everything I should've told him the day I watched him walk out of the Shay's apartment," I said this all very mechanically. It was something I had been repeating to myself a lot the past few days on the road.
Jacob sighed a tiny bit. "What if Freddie doesn't feel the same way, Sam? What if?" he demanded. Back to the ifs of course. Jacob worried like an old woman. No- Jacob worried like Mrs. Benson!
It was my turn to sound sickly masochistic. "Then I'll be happy. Because I can move on, knowing that I did whatever I could to salvage that relationship. I can get on with my life, finally." I sighed wistfully, and Jacob's face took on a suddenly twisted expression.
"You can't be serious!" he gaped at me, and I cocked an eyebrow. "You've let him hurt you all this time, and you're willing to let him just hurt you again? Don't you realize that there are other alternatives?"
Jacob took another step closer to me, and I rolled my eyes. It was almost annoying- every time we were alone he changed the conversation awkwardly intimate. He demanded to sit in the front with me instead of Carly. It was like he was attached to my hip, lately. It was like...something I hadn't ever really experienced before. I couldn't compare it to much.
"Like what?" I demanded, almost laughing as I stared up at him. His eyes locked with mine, and I could see my steely gaze in his hardened eyes. We seemed to be sizing each other up for a long moment, and then he tilted his frame slightly...
And then his lips pressed against mine.
Author's Note: Whoa, sorry for the cliffhanger, but this chapter has seemed to stretch on forever. So, Freddie isn't at Belleview, but Sam wants information from his father of where he is now. And Jacob and Sam...who knows? And Mrs. Benson...crazy as ever. :D Thanks for reading, and thanks to those who reviewed my last chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed this so far- the next chapter should be up soon.