Life, for Sam, seemed great.
It had been a little over a month since she had surprised Freddie with Nug-Nug, and they had been dating steadily since then.
Carly joked that she would soon have to start sending out invitations to their wedding, a joke that Sam and Freddie both fervently ignored. Although neither of them would admit it aloud, they both secretly dreamt of what it would be like to live out their lives together.
But they were only fifteen, their sophomore year at Ridgeway wasn't even done yet. It was way too early in their relationship, let alone their lives, to be thinking about marriage and children and things like that.
It hadn't all been smooth sailing, though. Although their relationship had been close to perfect for the first three or so weeks, a few days previously Sam and Freddie had gotten into a huge argument about Freddie's mom, where Sam had admittedly gone one step too far in insulting her:
They had been sitting on Carly's couch watching Girly Cow when Marissa Benson stormed in, demanding that Freddie return home for their Mother/Son synchronized swimming class.
"But Mom, I hate synchronized swimming! I hate the tiny Speedo I have to wear-" Freddie and his mother didn't notice when Sam eyed Freddie's body appreciatively, but Carly did. "-I hate the stupid show tunes they play, and I hate that I'm the only boy there over the age of six!"
Marissa gaped like a fish, astounded at the display of blatant disobedience from her beloved only child. She was obviously expecting Freddie to put up a small fight, because after all he was getting older and a smidge more rebellious.
What she hadn't been expecting was this much of a reaction from her boy.
What she really hadn't been expecting was Sam to subtly grasp Freddie's hands, gently intertwining their fingers in a show of support.
Marissa internally decided that confronting Freddie about Sam holding his hand at that current moment was more likely than not a bad idea. If her baby boy was indeed romantically involved with the wild blonde hellion, calling him out on it directly in front of her would result in raised voices and Freddie already had one foot out the proverbial door. This is why she didn't want to raise his allowance above 8 dollars a month...he actually might buy a bus ticket and leave her behind.
Her decision to not say anything about the Puckett demon holding any appendage of her son was solidified when she saw Carly do the same thing, grab her son's hand. The only difference between the brunette priss and blonde snob was that Shay didn't intertwine her fingers with Freddie's, which made Marissa feel slightly better. Freddie always complained about Sam and the terrible things she did to him, so she knew Freddie wasn't secretly harboring any feelings for her.
But Carly, on the other hand...
It seemed like Freddie had gotten over his slightly obsessive crush on the Shay girl, but Marisse couldn't be sure.
"Fine, Fredward. But you aren't skipping out on Mother/Child pottery class, and that's not negotiable!" Marissa quickly excused herself from the apartment before Freddie could have the opportunity to argue any further with her.
The trio plopped back down on the couch again. Carly detached her hand from Freddie's, and scooted over a little further from him on the couch so that the dating duo could have their privacy.
After about a minute, Carly got up to go obtain snackage for her friends, and while she was walking she remarked on how possessive Mrs. Benson had become lately.
"You're right, Carls. That woman is a boat of crazy. No, scratch that. She's the whole fleet!" Sam cackled.
Carly wished with all her heart that Sam would either stop talking right then or at least turn to her boyfriend and apologize.
She should have known that Sam wouldn't do either, but instead continued to verbally berate Freddie's mother.
In all of Sam's glorious heckling, she didn't notice Freddie's face darken considerably. He went from honestly laughing at the first few jokes, to just chuckling goodnaturedly to Sam's progressively meaner quips, to just outright sitting there with a deepening scowl on his face.
Once Sam started in on his mother's food, that was when Freddie'd had enough.
"Sam, please stop."
Carly was surprised to hear how well Freddie was masking the obvious fury in his voice. Even though his face was set in a deep frown, he still sounded casual. Carly knew that Freddie would never physically hurt Sam, he would have to die first. A bit melodramatic, but still true. They both knew about Sam's crappy home life and refrained themselves on a regular basis from lashing out at her more risky endeavors. Carly often yelled at Sam, but she knew that Freddie never would if he could help it.
Thank goodness Sam finally took a hint. "Baby I'm sorry, but it's true. Your mom is flipping insane!" Carly winced, all hopes of Sam realizing how much she was hurting Freddie out the window.
In a heroic effort on Freddie's part, he stopped himself from screaming himself hoarse at Sam and instead chose to run up the stairs to the iCarly studio.
"Sam...go."
The blonde didn't need to be told twice, and dashed off after the boy she loved.
When she got to the door of the studio, Sam mentally and physically braced herself. She knew she had been stupid, and should have picked up the hints from Freddie earlier. But she had suffered from an unfortunate case of word vomit, and it had just kept coming up.
Through the glass, she could see Freddie's tense form sitting on the comfortable red seats of the prop car, shoulders hunched and hands tangled in his hair in frustration.
Guilt rocked Sam's body like a hurricane.
She gently pushed the door open, thankful when Freddie didn't immediately move to go leave the room. Sam crossed the room, sliding in next to Freddie and placing her hand on his shoulder.
The gradual relaxation of Freddie's various muscles started instantly, even though he was still furious with Sam's over-the-top insults. He allowed Sam to lean him back into a normal sitting position and move his arm around her shoulders.
"Freddie, I'm sorry. It's a hard habit to break, ragging on your mom. But I promise that I'll try my best to lay off her and her antics."
Freddie believed her. She was using the softer, more gentle voice that she reserved solely for being alone with him, lest anyone accuse her of daffodility.
He pulled her sidesaddle-style on to his lap and kissed her softly, assuring her that while he himself was still mad, he had forgiven her.
But beyond that one argument, Sam's life in general had been going swimmingly. Now that she had real motivation to study and graduate on time, she found out that she could do pretty okay in school. Not as smart academically as Carly or Freddie because her laziness still held her back considerably, but smart enough to hold up a high-C average.
Life, for Sam, seemed great.
So...let me start off by doing just a smidgen of talking about myself, because I am having a little bit of an issue here. People, I am sleepy ALL OF THE TIME. No joke. At first I thought it was just my poor sleeping habits, because I was getting less than 5 hours a night. But then I started going to bed earlier, getting around 9 hours of sleep per night like we're supposed to, but that hasn't helped. It's beginning to get quite irritating. I'm falling asleep in almost all of my classes, which in my senior year is a pretty dangerous move. Does anyone have a legit explanation for me? My mom thinks I have an iron problem, and gave me some iron pills. It's too soon to know if that's it though.
Secondly: I am beginning to seriously consider writing another story, in addition to this one. It won't be Seddie, because writing a new Seddie fanfic while I still haven't completed this one is just silly. I'm thinking a Harry Potter one, maybe two? have a great idea for a Tom/Hermione fic and one for a Harry/Hermione fic, but I have a nasty feeling that if I start to write those, then I will forget all about iCan't Hide This Anymore, and I don't want that to happen AT ALL. Let me know if this is something I should pursue, okay?
Thirdly: EVERYBODY GO READ THE HUNGER GAMES BY SUZANNE COLLINS. I'm not kidding here. I wasn't expecting to like it, I was just adding to the enormous pile I was checking out from my school library to get me through the weekend because I am abnormally fast reader. But I fell in love, and then I found out that they are making a movie out of it, which makes me even happier because I read the book before even knowing about the movie so I cannot technically be classified as a bandwagon fan. Also read The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni.
To LyshaLuvsSeddie: Hmmmm...what were you doing that you had only two minutes? Curious...a mystery! :) And second, a Ron/Hermione fan? Noooooo! I thought you seemed like an okay person! LOL, jk, I love all my reviewers despite their unfortunate shipping preferences.
To MissB. Graceful: I have heard from an interview straight from the mouth of Nathan Kress himself that in real life, he is not a nerd, especially not a Freddie-type nerd. He is a Lord of the Rings type nerd, which is awesome because I love me some Lord of the Rings. But really, if you were confronted face-to-face with your favorite character from your favorite movie, what would you do? Mine is Daniel Radcliffe and let me tell you...I would do some illegal things to, with and on that man. TRULY illegal. Well, everything I would do to him is illegal because I'm only 17.
To Geekquality, DannySamLover20, hpfreak1213, KiyokoMcCurdy: Thank you sooooo much! :)
To Arocksprpl2: Do not EVER think that when you send long reviews, you're being annoying. You aren't. I adore them. :D
To ccQTccQT: Awwwww, thank you! That made my...well, morning, because I read this right after waking up.
To gaga4seddie and xXxStompingOnRosesxXx: No, it is most definitely NOT over. There will definitely be some Cibby action, because I love the idea of Carly and Gibby as a couple. Plus, I want to see what happens during the duration of Freddie and Sam's relationship over their high school years. I just hate it when people end fanfics right after two people resolve their issues. So yeah. there will be a TON more chapters :)
In case for some reason you guys haven't noticed this yet, I group people whose reviews were very similar together and then I respond. I also wait to update a new chapter until I believe that everyone who is going to review has reviewed, because I want to have a chance to publicly respond to everyone.
So please review! And don't forget my questions and such from earlier!
-Amy