Chapter 1: Words Only Get Us in Trouble

Disclaimer: Yeah, it ain't mine, folks. I just play with the toys.

Note: For the purpose of this story "iOMG" never happened. All episodes before it did. This story also has no connection to my other fanfiction, although I beg you in the manliest fashion to read them. Also, in the world of this story duck-billed platypuses are rabid and have taken over the Canary Islands, but that plays no part in this story.

Day One - Morning

1

Freddie had told Sam and Carly he needed to go to the library to finish up some school work. Which was true. Somewhat. The school work he needed to finish took him about fifteen minutes. The rest of the time he took to work on his...project. He had read somewhere that writing about things helped you deal with them. Some people wrote in a journal. He tried to imagine himself writing in a journal. He could, but then he imagined Sam finding that journal. That would be bad. Indeed, Sam seeing anything he wrote right now would be particularly bad.

Doing this at the library wasn't a particularly stealthy pursuit, either, but it was better than trying to write at home. His mother was keeping a close eye on him since Sam had got him involved in her little prank on Lewbert with the hamsters. Freddie sighed. He didn't know why he kept allowing Sam to talk him into this stuff. Well, he knew, but he knew he really shouldn't let her.

He printed his project, and then he made sure he erased any history of it on the computer. Normally he would just put it on a flash card, but his mother was going through one of her extreme snooping phases. He did have some hiding places at home, but he didn't trust them quite enough. His mom had found some in the past, so he didn't put it past her to find the new ones.

He folded the piece of paper and slipped it in his Calculus book. Sam had a different math class, so she wouldn't have any reason to borrow this book or any of his notes.

Okay, that's done. I guess I'll go see what Sam wanted. Probably something I shouldn't have anything to do with.

He didn't see the impromptu match between members of the wrestling team until he was already caught in the middle of it. Although he ended up sliding about ten feet down the hall, he wasn't hurt badly. He had been caught between wrestlers before and, although he was never going to join the team, he had learned how to protect his head. The wrestlers paused briefly to mumble an apology (which wouldn't have happened years before) and continued their match down the hall.

He picked up his books. He never noticed the folded piece of paper that had fallen out of his book and flitted under the closed classroom door. He didn't notice it was missing until everything was already set in motion.

2

Sam was impatient.

This was not a new emotion for Sam, but right now she really felt on edge. Freddie should have been there by now. Usually, she would be able to handle something like what she was planning by herself, but doing so would take longer. And time was not something of which she had a lot.

Plus, she didn't mind spending time with the nub.

Sometimes, maybe she even enjoyed it.

Maybe.

For the moment she wasn't concentrating on her conflicted feelings for Freddie Benson. Conflicted, because she should not be having those feelings for him. At all.

No, she was concentrating on the prank she planned to pull. This was her senior year. Every high school had a big prank at the end of the school year, and she was going to be the one to put it together. The problem was there were quite a few other students who felt the same way. Along with Sam, they were commonly known in the teachers' lounge as the "Detention Posse". Two weeks ago, on the first day school, when they were all in detention (Sam took pride in getting detention the first day of school each year in high school), the subject had come up. Even when Sam threatened to beat people up, nobody wanted to back off on being the one to orchestrate the senior prank. So the twelve of them made an agreement that for the first month of school they all would pull various pranks. Sam worked out a point system during detention, constructing a flowchart that would have flummoxed the computer science teacher and which, when she showed him a copy, made Freddie angry.

"Sam, if you can do this, you should be able to ace your courses easily," he said. She shrugged it off. She didn't know why it bothered him so much.

"Whatever. Are you gonna help me or what?" Freddie wouldn't have a few years ago, but the two of them had become closer since then. When Sam thought about it (not that she thought about Freddie a lot, and don't be getting any ideas, folks) she thought there were two events that led them to this situation.

The first was the kiss they shared. Her first kiss. His first kiss. The one that happened because she had told the iCarly audience Freddie had never kissed anyone. She had to exact revenge because he had handcuffed her to Gibby. It was pretty good revenge, too. He had been harassed so badly he didn't go to school for a week.

She hadn't expected to feel bad about it, though. So, after Carly added to her guilt, she had told the truth on iCarly, that she had never kissed anyone, either. And then she had gone to apologize to Freddie. And the same idea seemed to appear to both of them-to get past that first kiss by kissing each other.

Which was stupid. Why would she want her first kiss to be with Freddie Benson? He annoyed her with his nerdiness and his polo shirts and his obsessive love for Carly. He was her favorite person to torment. Except, at some point, he had become one of her favorite people. Period.

The second event that had changed their relationship was when he broke up with Carly. He had broken up with her because of something Sam had said. She still couldn't believe he had done it, even though she had told him the truth, that Carly only loved him because he had saved Carly's life.

And something had changed. Freddie never talked about his love for Carly anymore. He didn't act jealous when she dated other guys. And when you added up the time the three of them spent in different pairs (not that Sam ever did), it strangely appeared that Sam and Freddie were together more often than Freddie and Carly were, or even Sam and Carly.

So when Sam decided she was going to win the prank competition she didn't think twice about including Freddie. Sure, he protested when she first brought it up to him, as she knew he was going to do. But he gave in, as she also knew was going to happen. Somewhere, deep inside the nerdtastic technogeek heart of Mama Boy Benson was a rebel screaming to get out. And Sam was the person to make that happen.

She hadn't told him the plan for today, just for him to meet her near the teacher's parking lot. The more clues she gave, the harder he might resist. If she told him when he was already there, she knew she could get him to participate. It was the game they played.

Except he wasn't here. If there was one thing you could count on with Freddie, it was him being on time. It wasn't a trait Sam shared, but she appreciated it in him, especially in time-sensitive situations like this.

But he wasn't there.

Finally, she broke down and called him. She tried to ensure he contacted her more than she contacted him, in case he started to think she cared about him or something. But she was not going to lose the competition.

"Hello." Benson didn't sound like himself. In fact, he sounded a little panicked.

"Where are you at, Nub? You were supposed to be here to help me with this." She looked out into the lot. Everything was clear so far.

"Oh...sorry, Sam. I lost...something, and I really have to find it."

"What did you lose that's so important you can't be here?"

"Uh...my Calculus homework?"

"Freddie, I swear..."

"Sorry, Sam, gotta go." And there was silence. He had hung up on her. He was going to pay for that.

She almost decided to skip the prank. She could make it up another time. But then she thought about others in the Detention Posse who probably already had pranks under their belt, just ready to report them and smirk in her face. No, it would take longer without Freddie, but she could still do it.

Breaking into Ms. Briggs' car was the easy part. She lined the shaving cream cans all around the car. When the car was turned on, they would all go off at once, filling the car with the cream. Sam had to check the string, though, just to make sure it would work. She didn't need it to go off when the car was halfway down the highway. She wanted to prank Ms. Briggs, but she didn't really want to kill her. Well, not in any literal way.

With Freddie there, she would have already been done. With Freddie there, she also would have had somebody to keep watch for her. With Freddie there, she definitely would have known Principal Franklin was there long before he said something.

"Hello, Sam." She looked up. Caught.

"Oh, hey, Ted, what's shaking?"

"Principal Franklin," he corrected automatically. "As for what's shaking, perhaps that is something you and I should discuss in my office."

"I don't suppose I could finish here?" Sam asked. He shook his head. Sam shrugged dramatically. "Ah, well...after you."

"Ladies first," he said, and gestured to the door. Sam gave another shrug, while inside she was fidgety. This was not going to turn out good for her. And as she headed to Ted's office, she could only think of one thing.

This is all Freddie's fault.

A/N: Every time I think I have written my last thing for Sam and Freddie, another idea pops up in my head. I will touch more about how this idea came up in another chapter, because to do so now would give away just what Freddie's "project" is. It will probably come up next chapter.

For those of you concerned after my last story, "Maybe It's Just Me", there are no time jumps in this one. This story, at least for how it is supposed to go, will take place over a two-week period. There will probably be at least a chapter a day, although there may be more than one per day (the first day has at least two chapters).

Also, although I've said this every time, updates for this story will not occur as quickly as in stories before. Usually when I post a chapter I already have another three or four written. Except for a first draft of Freddie's project, I have nothing else written yet for this one, although I have a good idea what I am going to be writing. But, since I wrote that, I might have the rest of the story posted within a week. Or I might finish it before September. Who knows?

I appreciate any reviews.