Enjoy!

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Better Friends?

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"Okay, before anyone tries to go off subject. Where did we leave off with the story?" I say. Carly hands me a glass of iced tea. We are back in the iCarly studio. Spencer drove us thru Inside-Out Burger on the way home, so now I'm full, relaxed and ready to know more. Carly and Freddie crash on beanbags. Urgghhh that looks so comfortable. I'm sitting on a regular, boring, not even designed to be comfortable wooden chair.

"I was asking you guys how you got to the motel. I remember you said you snuck away from the cops and got on a train…..?" Carly says, recalling what she last remembers me saying.

"Well, I can't tell you much about the train ride. I fell asleep the second we got on." Freddie says. Carly turns to me, expecting me to pick up the story.

"So…. Yea…. Train ride was super boring just watching the scenery." I say.

"You mean you didn't even sleep? You must have been exhausted." Carly says. I was, but I couldn't sleep knowing that Carly was out there. If I say that Carly will probably feel guilty, like she deprived me of sleep or something. Sometimes she just jumps to conclusions and usually blames herself.

"Nah-- I wasn't tired." I say looking at Freddie, who just smiles at the fact that I still don't want to make Carly feel bad and the fact that he knew I hadn't slept for over 40 hours.

"It gets good now" Freddie says with a smile.

"Why? What happened?" Carly asks.

"There were these morons on the train and I hit one of them." I say quickly. Freddie don't you dare go into detail. He looks over and has a "evil", well as evil as the dork can be, grin on his face.

"Sam defended me." Freddie says.

"Did not! I hit him because he thought we were together! I already told you that, what were you not able to comprehend it?" I say yelling and mocking at the same time. It has always been a talent of mine.

"Uh-huh, sure Sam." He says.

"Don't you 'Uh-Huh, sure Sam' me!" I yell. I thought we were not going to tell Carly about some of the "moments" we had. If you can even call them moments, but you know what I mean.

"What?! It is true!" He says.

"Is not!" I yell.

"Is too!" Freddie banters.

"IS NOT!"

"Is TOO!" I'm getting ready to shout back, when I hear Carly start laughing uncontrollably. Freddie and I stop to look over at her.

"Are you okay?" Freddie asks.

*Through laughter* "Yea-- it just you guys are so --- funny." She while trying to relax from her laugh attack.

"What?" I ask not understanding were that came from.

"Nothing. I just missed you guys bantering, never thought I would ever say that, but I think it is cool that you defended Freddie." Carly says to me.

"Ah! See!" Freddie says with his usual satisfied grin.

"And Freddie you don't need to rub it in Sam's face. I think it is awesome that you guys worked together to find me." She says, "I never thought you guys could be in the same room for more than an hour without something going wrong, but it really seems like you two have become better friends through all of this." Freddie stays silent. Better friends or maybe more? No, Sam! C'mon Freddie could never like you like that, but Carly's right we did grow closer, closer than she will know.

"You wish Carls, but Benson and I will always be enemies, that's not gonna change." I say, trying to sound nonchalant and Sam like, but a part of me knows that this is a lie or at least hoping.

"Yea." Freddie mutters. Silence. I switch my gaze from Carly to Freddie to Carly.

"Okayyyy…." Carly says, "Then you found the motel?" Yay, a point for Carly for turning the attention back to the story. Urggghhh maybe this was a bad idea.

"Yea and then we had to search through security video tapes for 3 hours!" Freddie says without adding detail, thank goodness.

"Whoa! I can't believe you guys never gave up. I would have been so broken at that point. I really do have the best friends in the world." Carly says with a smile. Would have been broken, if only she knew. I was beyond broken at that point. Looking back I can't believe how much I cried or how much I held it in. I was afraid that if I showed how scared I was that Freddie would judge me or start to lose hope as well. Instead, he just held me, comforting me. I glance at Freddie and somehow I can tell in his eyes that he is thinking about that moment too. Carly was about to ask something else when I cut her off, not wanting to further elaborate.

"Well, enough about us. What about you, Carls?" I ask.

"It sure seems like your guys' story is a lot more interesting than mine. I mean I was trapped in a car trunk for most of it." She let's out a hollow laugh, "but I guess now I would be just about at the abandoned building." Freddie and I don't say anything, so Carly continues, "When I was in the car trunk believe it or not I felt safer than when I was out of it. Though the fact of running out of air was a concern. I just remember lying there trying to stay calm and think of someway to get away, it was that moment that I wished I accepted your offer to teach me how to fight, Sam" She says looking over at me. I just shrug with a smile as she goes on.

"Finally the car stops and the trunk opens. The guy drags me out, when I first look around, I have no idea where I am or why they would go to a fishing dock. Anyway, we go inside the building and the guy that has me, I think I heard him being called Leo, throws me off to the other guy and told him to tie me up upstairs. Right now only my hands were tied, I'm not gagged, but I'm too scared to speak anyway, especially in front of all three of them. I kept wondering what they were going to do to me, if I would ever get away, also where the heck I was. I just remember my heart racing and trying to stop myself from imagining what might happen. So… the other guy grabs my arm and brings me upstairs. I tried to run once the other two guys were out of sight. I stomped on the guy's foot and turned to run, but I realized that I can not run as fast as I thought because he grabbed me again within like a second, he swung me around and his other hand was in the air, so when he swung me, I ended up getting cut by his ring. Hence why I have the cut above my eyebrow." Carly is looking off, like remembering and replaying it in her mind.

"Gosh, just thinking about it again, I wish I could have ran faster or done something, you know?" She says.

"Don't feel too bad Carly, I did not run as fast as I thought either." I say with a joking tone, trying to lighten the mood. Carly and Freddie are not laughing.

"Not funny." Freddie says. Yup, well it is kinda funny to me.

"Says you." I say back to him.

"It wasn't funny, end of discussion. Now this is where my story gets weird." Carly says. Sweet, now this is going to get interesting, not that it wasn't interesting before, just ummmmmm….. Yea.

"The second after I get cut by the guy's ring, he apologizes." Carly says. He apologizes?

"Wait, what?" Freddie says.

"He apologized. He was like 'I am so sorry' and asked if I was alright." Carly says, her voice filled with surprise, that's probably how she felt in that moment.

"Why would he ask if you were alright? Like he would have cared." Freddie says.

"You know it really seemed like he did." Carly says. She gets up and goes to the table to refill her iced tea glass.

"It was probably Jason." I whisper. I was mostly thinking out loud.

"Huh?" Freddie and Carly say. I look up at them, both heard what I said, they probably just don't know what I was talking about.

"The guy that apologized to Carly, it was probably Jason." I say.

"How do you know?" Freddie asks. Well Jason was the one that did not want to leave Carly in the middle of nowhere. I can't tell then that. I mean Carly does not even know that I heard them talking about leaving her to die. I might upset her and Freddie and right now the last thing they need is more bad news.

"I don't, just never mind." I say.

"Sam…" Carly says, in her quiet, almost mothering voice, "you were the one that wanted to talk about this. We need to share everything, no secrets." No secrets. I glance at Freddie he looks guilty because we have kept some things from Carly.

"Carly, I really don't think…" I begin to say.

"Why are you so afraid to tell me?" She asks. Freddie just nods in agreement.

"I'm not afraid to tell you, it is just not that important." I say to Carly.

"When you know which guy is which by the fact that he apologized to Carly, I'm pretty sure it is important." Freddie says. Can't you stay out of this Freddie, you're not helping, and you don't have to defend Carly every second. She can speak for herself, geeeezzzz. I sigh knowing that there is no way out of this. I am going to have to tell them.

"After I called Freddie to tell him where you were, he told me to wait for the police and I hated the fact of just leaving you there Carly, but I realized that it would be safer for both of us if I waited for the police. So, I walk down the stairs about to go back to the gate to led the police to you, when the men walked out of the building." I say. Freddie and Carly's eyes are both wide with shock and anticipation.

"How come you never told me this?" Carly says.

"We have told anyone anything until now." I say back, "I sort of overheard them talking about what they were going to do with you and Travis, the guy that beat me, said that they don't need you anymore and they were going to…… they were thinking about….. Ummmmmm…. They were sort of going to dump you in the middle of nowhere to--- to die." I say. Carly and Freddie are both entirely speechless. I knew it, I knew I should not have told them. Way to go Sam.

"Wow….… I guess I knew that they were going to have to do something, but….. Wow." Carly says, not even being able to fathom it.

"And anyway Jason was the one guy that said it was wrong and he does not feel right about doing that." I add. They are both still not moving or talking. Carly looks petrified.

"Carls, you okay?" I ask. She looks up.

"Yea. I'm good…… So I think that is enough for today. Besides we have school tomorrow so we all should be ready and well rested." She says. Freddie gets up.

"Yea it is almost dinner time and my mom wants me home." He says, "Later Carls, Bye Sam." He looks over to me, I just smile as my goodbye, as he turns around and walks out the door. I stand up slowly, Carly just looks at me.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing." She says all giddy, we walk into the elevator. Okayyyyy…… Great, just what need tomorrow is to go to school. Everyone knows what happened. They better not be looking at any of us differently, just because I'm injured does not mean I can't beat them. The elevator opens and I plop down on the couch again, with another day gone and more to go.

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Okay we are almost done with the whole flashback part of this story and going to move forward to school issues. I'm already planning a big fight/confrontation between Sam and Freddie, which might happen in the next chapter but I'm not sure. Also Carly, Sam, and Freddie's friendship is going to get back to normal, well kind of and I am also thinking about adding a scene with Roy's trial because I mentioned in an earlier chapter that he needs to go on trial because there is no real evidence against him.

Tell what you think and I hope you enjoyed and I'm sorry if you are sick of flashbacks, I kind of am, but no worries the story is going to start moving along.

~J