So my internet connection is being a jerk...guess I'll start writing now instead of drowning myself in Harry Potter fanfiction :) Here's Chapter 22, everyone!

The rest of the summer flew by in a haze of iCarly episodes and activities for Sam. After the death of her mother and her initial mourning period, her friends had tried to keep her occupied so that she wouldn't sink into the terrifying funk she had gone into right after Pam had died. They had gone to amusement parks, the beach, the Washington State Fair, you name it. The gang had even forayed into Canada so Sam could visit the Fat Cake factory.

But September was rapidly approaching, so Carly took initiative the week before school started and took Freddie and Sam with her to purchase school supplies. When they got to the store, Carly and Freddie automatically whipped out their organized, color-coded lists of supplies.

What they weren't expecting was for Sam to pull out a list of her own.

"Sam, is that your hit list again? I told you, we aren't going to buy a mega-powerful Assassin paintball gun so you can say it was a paintball game gone horribly wrong." Carly said, taking the paper from Sam's grip. Her eyes scanned the list, and her jaw dropped:

7 binders
7 notebooks
Pens
Pencils (mechanical)
Colored pencils
Highlighters
Graph paper
7-pocket accordion folder
New backpack
Loose-leaf paper
Dividers

"Carly, what is it? Who's at the top this time? Is it still Nevel?" Freddie said, laughing at Carly's shocked expression.

"This isn't Sam's annual hit list, Freddie. It's a list of...school supplies."

Freddie's face soon matched Carly's for shock and awe. Sam felt their twin gazes of amazement on her and dragged them down an emtpy aisle.

She could understand why they were so befuddled by the fact that she had actually prepared for school this year. In the years previous, Sam's method of school shopping usually meant borrowing materials from Carly, Freddie or Gibby for the first few months of school and then only getting for herself what was absolutely necessary. It was the Sam Puckett way.

But this year, this year was going to be different. At her mother's funeral, Sam had heard whispers from a lot of people saying about how Sam was inevitably going to turn into even more of an angry delinquent than she already was, and wasn't it a shame that only one of Pam's two gorgeous daughters was ever going to make something of herself? Sam had hated that. Just because she'd had some trouble with the law before didn't mean that she would be that way her whole life. Sam hadn't even had the slightest bit of legal trouble since she had started dating Freddie. That look of disappointment he and Carly gave her whenever they had to pick her up from the police station had gotten unbearable.

Sam was determined to prove those good-for-nothing gossipers at her mother's funeral wrong. She would make something of herself, whether they liked it or not. And unfortunately, reshaping her whole outlook on life started with school.

"Look, guys. I'm sick and tired of everyone expecting me to become this leech for the rest of my life. I want to do something good, like what you two are going to grow up and do. I don't want to spend my life known as "That chick from iCarly who never did anything decent". You two helped me pull decent grades last year with that tutoring chiz, so I thought I could do what reformed criminals and celebrities with scandals do. You know, start fresh. Plus, I want to see the look on Mrs. Briggs' face when I answer a question right in her class." Sam declared, holding onto Freddie's hand for support while she made her speech.

"Oh, Sam! I knew this day would come! Gibby and Spencer owe me twenty bucks." Carly said, pulling Sam into a bone-crushing hug.

"Wait, what? You made a bet with Gibson and Spence about my educational future?"

"Kind of, yeah. But I had faith in you! I knew you would wisen up and get your act together before it was too late!" Carly knew well enough to look properly ashamed at being busted for wagering on her best friend's academic career.

Sam turned her gaze onto her boyfriend. "Were you in on this too? How much does everyone owe you?"

"For that bet? Nothing. Carly, however, does owe me twenty bucks. I always believed in you, even before we got together and this bet has been going on for three years. But I told Carly you wouldn't be happy when you found out about it, and I was right. So pay up, Shay." Freddie said, grinning from ear to ear. Carly grumbled something unintelligibly about 'stupid, loving couples always knowing what the other person is going to do' and handed Freddie a twenty dollar bill.

"Here. Take your stupid money. I'm getting it all back from Gibby and Spence anyway." Carly said, still glaring at the couple whose hands were intertwined. "Can we just get our stuff and go?"

Getting their stuff and going wound up taking around three hours. By the time they got back to Bushwell, the three teens were exhausted. Lewbert pitched a fit when he saw the gang with their many bags in his lobby.

"No school materials in my lobby!" He screamed fruitlessly at them.

Spencer's eyes widened when he say the three ladened down with school supplies. "Whoa. Even Sam got stuff? Sam never gets stuff. It's not November yet." Spencer crossed the room and lifted his hand to Sam's forehead. "Are you sick? Did you lick another swingset? Did you drink any happy juice from a hobo?"

Sam swatted her non-biological big brother's hand away. "No, you goof. I'm fine. But you know me; I have to keep you nubs on your toes and what better way to do that then to turn over a new leaf?"

The eldest Shay sibling squinted at the blonde. "Crap." He rummaged into his wallet and handed his baby sister twenty dollars. "You win this time, Carlotta."

Freddie said his goodbyes to the Shay siblings and kissed Sam briefly, retreating to his own apartment so his mother could do the yearly round of disinfectant on his newly purchased school things. He always tried to insist that it wasn't necessary, but Mrs. Benson believed that anything that other people had routinely touched would bring dangerous germs into her household. The fact that she had seen Contagion a few days previous hadn't made anything better. Freddie still cursed Gunsmoke for letting his mother watch that. Did the man have a death wish?

Back at the Shays', Carly had taken it upon herself to sort all of the supplies out and get them prepared for school. Sam had taken one look at Carly spreading everything around on the living room floor and retreated to the kitchen, getting all the materials needed for a bacon, turkey and swiss sandwich.

"You want one, Carls?"

"Depends on what you're offering. This might take a while, and I don't want to have to stop for food."

"A BTS. That sound good to you?"

"Sure. Can you bring me a glass of lemonade while you're at it?"

"Now do you mean actual delicious lemonade or your toxic wasteland in a pitcher?"

Carly laughed. "You guys really need to stop hating on my lemonade. Just because it has hot sauce in it, that doesn't make it any less tasty."

"Um, can you direct me to the planet you were grown on? Because I'm pretty sure that anything that combines lemons, water, sugar, hot sauce, pancake syrup and whatever other infernal things you mix together absolutely make it less tasty. Even I won't eat it, and that's saying something." Sam walked back into the living room, sandwiches in one hand and glasses of lemonade-the good stuff, not the horror in a glass that Carly made-in the other. Carly had already made headway organizing the binders and folders and such according to which were Sam's and which were Carly's, and had commenced with putting it all together. She took a break from putting some loose-leaf paper into one of Sam's binders to take a huge bite of her sandwich; one of those bites that took half the sandwich, one that was perfectly acceptable around people you'd known your whole life but that was unthought of around company.

"So I didn't want to bring this up around Freddie because I don't want to torture him like we did last summer, but when do you want to go clothes shopping? If we don't get there before icky Tasha and her cronies do, all the good stuff will be cleared out and we'll have to spend yet another year watching them wear the clothes that were rightfully ours." Carly said, still rifling through the various items on the living room floor inbetween bites of food.

"Whenever you want to. It doesn't really matter to me. But I need food, and I want Carlos there." Sam was referring to their friend Carlos Reyes, the wonderfully gay man who lived exactly two floors beneath them. Carlos was the person they went to whenever they were having fashion problems or boy problems that they couldn't talk to anybody else about without feeling foolish.

"Already done. I called Carlos yesterday and he said he'd be free Wednesday. That cuts it a little close, but usually Tasha and her clone drones don't hit the mall until Friday morning."

"Awesome." Sam smiled.

The days came and went, and Wednesday morning found Sam, Carly and Carlos at the mall.

"Alright, girls. We need a battle plan. Sam, Carly says you've turned over the proverbial new leaf. Does that apply to your clothes too? Because girl, let me tell you something. I know girls who would kill for your body and guys who would kill to touch your body and I have just been itching to show it off." Carlos said, smiling at Sam's shocked face. "Oh, please. Don't act so modest. You may eat like a trucker, but you have the body of a model and it's a shame that you hide it under all those layered shirts and Bermuda shorts. I know that Freddie loves you as you are, Gaga bless his soul, but I don't think he'd mind too much if you embraced your womanliness."

At Carlos' words, Carly burst out laughing. "Womanliness? I don't think that's a word."

"I'm making it up. It's a word now. Get over it, Shay."

"Yessir! Or ma'am. Which do you prefer?" Carly's salute toward Carlos in combination of her words caused Sam to snicker.

"Neither. You must refer to me only as 'Your Almighy Fabulousness' and nothing else."

"Aye-aye, Your Almighty Fabulousness!" The girls chorused.

"Good! Off we go, on a quest for the finest clothes to robe the two fairest maidens in the land!" Carlous put on an obviously fake but still very impressive British accent, and the girls laughed.

Two hours and just under twenty stores later, Sam was exhausted and demanded a nourishment break. As she was sipping her Fat Shake, she marveled at the efficiency Carlos and Carly shopped when they put their brains together. They had outfitted Sam in an almost entirely new wardrobe. The shocking part was that she hadn't completely hated it. The only part that Sam truly disliked was constantly being shoved into this dressing room or that dressing room to try something on, only to have Carlos or Carly deem it an ill fit and repeat the process all over again. They had even convinced her to buy a few dresses, although Sam had drawn the line when she had seen Carly approach her with heels. If she was going to wear a dress in front of people, she needed to be able to maintain her badassery somehow. So Sam enforced a new rule: If she couldn't wear her Chucks with it, she wouldn't wear it. The other two had conceded, but only if Sam would trade in her ratty old shoes for a newer pair.

Carly had gotten herself things too, whilst shopping for her blonde friend. While Sam was starting completely new, Carly didn't feel she was that brave yet. But she was admittedly sick of all that she put into her appearance. Despite what people might have thought, Carly was actually pretty underneath her shiny brown hair and eyes. Plus, waking up at four in the morning every day just to start an unnecessary beauty routine was tiring, and only added to the amount of makeup she needed to apply to cover the under-eye circles. So this year, she would take a page out of Sam's book and let her natural beauty shine through. No more dealing with the hassles of excessive primpery.

000

The morning of the first day of junior year came faster than Sam wanted it to. It seemed like her 6:30 alarm was blaring simply to annoy her. She had half a mind to throw it at the wall and put herself out of her misery, but she remembered her internal promise to herself to be something better than what people expected her to be.

Plus, she was pretty sure that someone was cooking bacon and sleep be damned if anyone downstairs thought that they were getting the first piece before her.

"Do you think it'll work?" Sam heard Carly ask from the kitchen as she descended the stairs, still in her pajamas.

"Carly, it's Sam and bacon. I bet she's already on her way down." Freddie's voice floated up to Sam.

"You're right. What do you win?" Sam said, entering the kitchen and grabbing a piece of bacon from the plate next to the stove.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the glory of knowing that you're up before eight on a school day, the first day of school no less?" Freddie said. He waited patiently for Sam to finish her first piece of bacon before bending over to kiss her. Sam ignored her morning/bacon breath and leaned into the kiss, wrapping her arms around Freddie's waist.

Freddie's hands linked together and rested on the small of Sam's back, pulling her closer into him.

"Hey! None of that!" Carly shouted. Seeing that the happy couple was ignoring her, Carly whipped out her spray bottle conveniently kept in the fridge and sprayed the two teens with the ice-cold water.

It was effective. Freddie and Sam jumped apart like they'd been electrocuted.

"No sucking face in the kitchen! People have to eat in here. I haven't even had any coffee yet!"

"Sorry." Sam and Freddie mumbled their apologies. Freddie went back to finishing cooking breakfast and Sam grabbed another piece of bacon.

"Sam, you can have the shower first. I need coffee time." Carly said, holding her cup of coffee to her face like she was Rose and it was the only door left in the sea. Sam nodded, her mouth full of bacon. She grabbed another piece, pressed her lips (through much straining and tiptoe standing, eventually just grabbing his face and pulling it down to her height level) to Freddie's forehead and bounded upstairs to Carly's shower. Sure, she could have used another one but she liked Carly's the best. It felt homier.

An hour and a half later, Sam, Carly and Freddie were sitting in first period Chemistry. Sam was actually managing to stay awake, although that might have been due to the fact that both Freddie and Carly were supplying her with a constant stream of bacon.

When the teacher called her name for roll, he seemed flabbergasted when Sam said "Here." instead of Carly just telling him that Sam was there, just asleep. That pattern would be repeated throughout the day, along with the looks of shock her teachers gave Sam when she took notes or wrote down that nights' homework. Mrs. Briggs had actually had the nerve to check to see if it was really Sam, and not just Melanie impersonating Sam. She got her answer when, after insinuating that Sam was a good-for-nothing delinquent, Sam called her a fizzy-wazz skunkbag.

No, it wasn't her best insult. But cut her some slack, she was trying to change a little bit. Sam didn't think getting suspended on her first day back by rudely insulting a teacher would bode well for her non-delinquency.

There you go! I tried to make it nice and long for you, set you up for some MAJOR plot bunnies coming your way. Oh, and for my younger readers? It won't happen just yet, because at this point in my story everyone is around 16, but the rating will go up eventually as Sam and Freddie reach the hormonal teenager, we-can't-keep-our-hands-off-each-other stage. I do want this to be realistic, after all. Eventually, Sam and Freddie will get it on.

To .epic.73, Mike2101, AllyJackson, LyshaLuvsSeddie, Arocksprpl2, DannySamLover20, Mish, Geekquality, Ryfthhrtyvhrtgv: Aww, thank you so much! I'm glad you like the way I wrote out Pam's death and Sam's transition from that. Sam just doesn't seem like the type to go crazy with grief, she seems more like the typr to grieve properly and then try to keep going with her life.

To AlmostAuthor: I'm pretty sure that your review made my YEAR. It was so sweet and kind while also adding constructive criticism, which I dearly appreciate. There are some things that I have took and will take into appreciation, but others that I won't, just because I like how they fit in with the plot line and I can see what's going to occur down the road. I've never heard of Tick's Journal of Curious Letters, I will have to look that up. I understand what you mean about loving to read; my mom taught me my letters and such when I was a baby and I was reading small words when I was 18 months old. Yes, I'm freakily smart. No, I don't usually advertise it. I've actually never read a Hunger Games fic, which is odd considering how much I LOVE the series and cannot wait for the movie to come out March 23rd despite all of the irritating bandwagon fans that will no doubt accompany it, just like with Harry Potter and Twilight (even though I detest Twilight with ever fiber of my being). If you ever do post that fic, I will DEFINITELY read it. And I tried to PM you with all of this, but my internet connection wouldn't let me so I did it on here. But could you explain to me what that long thing on your profile is from, what it's based on?