Disclaimer: iDon't own iCarly. (Have I made that joke yet?)

Four months later…

It was an overcast Thursday morning in April and the alarm clock struck seven, soon interrupted by a pale hand. Then it found itself adjusting to the light of the overzealous lamp just above it.

Carly sighed and laid back down on her bed. If she were the skipping type, she'd never go to school. She'd had no sleep since about 5:18 am. Why she'd remembered that specific time didn't cross her mind. Why she'd been so sick with inability to cool down did. Seems like lately her legs would start kicking or moving or shaking and she wouldn't even notice. Other than that, she felt fine, but just a little… uncentered.

Her nosebleeds had stopped two months ago, around the time things slowed down over at the apartment across from hers. Ms. Benson had recovered pretty much completely and was back to her old OCD self, and Freddie seemed like he'd been okay. Seemed like, in all other places other than the brief flashes she'd get sometimes.

Flashes that spoke silently of a distance between her and Freddie that wasn't completely gone yet. And she couldn't be sure, but Sam was probably in the same place. He still carried on like the haunting memories of their viewer request night were faded, but not gone. There was a chance they'd never be.

She realized after that incident in the basement something changed about Freddie, and it was related to viewer choice night. While Sam and herself were heavily grossed out and depressed for a few days afterwards, they were somewhat over it. It wasn't something they particularly wanted to look back on, but the memories seemed manageable. At least, Carly felt that they were becoming that. She couldn't speak for Sam.

Freddie's brain, on the other hand, was permanently warped by what he saw. Those gruesome images combined with latent minor psychological defects he could thank his mother for to create a small insanity. One that may not ever go away. She feared.

Ring… ring…

"Hey, Sam," Carly greeted, little hint of weariness in her sleep-deprived speech. Why in the holy hell was Sam calling this early…?

"Carly, they're playing Claw 3D at the Cinema-Enema this weekend! We're going to go see it tomorrow after school."

Unsure what she cringed at harder between Claw 3D and Sam's loud voice, Carly thought for a handful of seconds. "What are you doing up this early in the morning?"

"I didn't get any sleep," a quiet, new voice said over the phone. "I'll probably take a nap second period. Whaddaya say, Carly?"

"You could have just waited until school before-"

"Come on, what's the big deal?" Sam whined. "I can tell you didn't get any sleep either, I thought, 'why not?''

Carly gave a rather pointless half-smile. A shade of normalcy was starting to bleed into the black bedroom. "Sure, I'll go. I'll just tell Spence we're going to see Toy Tale 4 or something."

"You know, you are 18 years old, Carly, you don't really have to tell Spencer anything."

Carly thought about that for a second and ignored Sam's scoffing tone. Had that even occurred to her lately? Was she really an adult now? "He gets worried. You know how he got when we tried to see that wrestling show that one time. If I tell him the truth, he'll just spaz out."

"I can't believe someone who invents hammer-wheels and sets things on fire so much could be over-protective."

"Yeah…" Sam and Carly drifted off the conversation at the same time, neither of them being aware about the other one. The brunette's fingertips nibbled at her head, as if digging to the brain to excavate something to say.

"I'll ask Freddie if he wants to go with us to see the movie-"

"I already have," Sam said quickly. "I called him just before I called you. He said 'yeah,' then hung up. What an asshole. Can you believe that?"

Carly chuckled softly. Truthfully, she could. "Well, you DID call him just before his alarm probably went off," reminded Carly. "I may have done that too if I had actually been sleeping."

"That's not really the problem, though," began her friend, before once again falling quiet. "He's different."

"I know." She said almost immediately, and much to her own shock, involuntarily. It sounded so much worse when it was said aloud. But she knew it to be true. Absolutely, he'd changed. "I've noticed it too."

Were they now friends with someone they didn't know anymore? Did they even need to ask, when it was so clear they were?

"So what should we do about it?"

"I don't know if there's anything we can 'do' about it, Sam. If he's changed, it's not like we can 'unchange' him…"

"Sure we can… I mean, there's got to be something we can do."

The girl stood up and began to pace the room, thinking and speaking all at once in a disheveled web of active fear. Fear that Sam was wrong. "I… uh… You mean like talk to him…?"

"Well, yeah." Sam said with a smug "duh" tone no one in the world wanted to hear at seven-thirty in the morning. "Maybe he really wants to tell one of us something, but he can't say it."

"I guess," conceded Carly. "You're right. It's worth a try. But, Sam…" Carly's voice dipped lower, becoming strangely secretive. "I don't want to ruin the whole weekend over it."

"…This isn't something we should put off-"

"Why not?" blurted Carly. Staring at the alarm clock, feeling like she was pushed into a corner, she couldn't stop herself from emptying out. "It's not just him, it's all three of us! We all have a problem with this! Why should we single him out and make this all about him? I can't sleep, I worry every day about having another nosebleed, it feels like I'm talking to a stranger when I talk to you or Freddie, and I don't know anymore if it's my problem or you guys! Stop! Just… just…" Click. Sam hung up before Carly could. Back to hiding, back to the sanctuary.

Carly felt bad the second she put the phone down. For the first time in a while, Sam tried to reach out and Carly puked her own problems out instead. But what did she expect? If everyone's being affected by this thing… shouldn't she take that as carte-blanche to air her own issues? The room seemed to be tipping over, but she realized it wasn't the room. She was falling, feverish, bashing her head against the wooden bedframe, blood running down past her mouth and her shirt.

()()()

For the next thirty minutes, Sam's hands were shaking. They begged to rush back to Sam's cellphone. Slam the numbers in, they said, call her back and dare her to ever speak to you like that again!

But she knew better. It wasn't anything to do with how she said all that- it was only what she'd said. Sam knew damn well how all of this was affecting her friend. But when she heard it in that tarnished voice, it felt new. It felt like she was just now realizing the impact of it. Sam hoped Carly would understand. She couldn't stand to be on that phone another minute.

This was around the time Sam usually went to sleep. But today, she didn't feel it.

()()()

"I hate Seattle."

Carly fiddled absently with her jacket pocket's zipper. It was 3 minutes past 4, freezing, and Freddie was a statue gazing drearily at the theater's "now showing" posters. Carly knew too well Sam's tendency to be late, and it was only 3 minutes, so it was no surprise. That fact didn't make standing around stupidly in the cold any more damned bearable.

Her head hurt. Her head really hurt. It was one of those three-aspirin headaches, throbbing like a fist was gripping her brain. Squeezing it like a stress ball. When she closed her eyes to try soothing it, that exact picture was projected onto her eyelids. It pissed her off. That caused it to hurt worse. Which pissed her off even more. Then it hurt worse…

"Let's just go in and buy our tickets," whined Carly. "This is stupid."

Freddie drifted from one poster to another in a daze. "Sam hasn't gotten here yet."

Carly let loose a mighty (for her) growl of frustration, beginning to pace back and forth for warmth. She started to ponder excuses to get out of seeing the movie, figuring a headache would make her seem whiny. "She'll know we're in here, she knows what movie we're seeing! The movie starts in like ten minutes! All you're doing is staring at those posters, anyway." She paused, adding a joke to try and lighten Freddie's mood. "If you love those posters so much, why don't you marry them?"

"Maybe I will," Freddie deadpanned back.

God… he didn't sound anything except obligated when he said that. Like he felt he had to.

Like talking to her… like being her friend… was a job. As if it were just as much a part of life as smelling sewage.

Before Carly could think, she once again displayed a brashness that she found she could not stop. She grabbed Freddie's shoulder and spun him to face her. Freddie flinched away fiercely, diverting his eyes for a split second. He backed up against the movie poster behind him, staring at Carly with a look unfamiliar to both of them.

"Be honest, Freddie. Is something wrong?" Carly asked determinedly. This was her chance. It was him and her alone. She was going to get him to crack, to admit defeat.

"No."

"I don't believe that, Freddie. Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong, Carly," Freddie assured, as best he could with no conviction. "I feel fine."

So many anguished, pointed, or self-conciliatory words knocked at the door of her mouth in her brain. All she had to do was let go. Uncertain, beside herself with desolate want, hoping all these deeply wrong things to warp into a miracle, Carly backed off. A tin can rattled down the road in the distance, being rolled into a gutter by a fragile wind.

Both of them were getting used to sounds that pockmarked the city's silence. Seattle was a din of quiet noises neither one had noticed. Trees leaned and bowed to the pressure of wind. Their leaves, defeated, drifted to the ground to die. They never got any dignity- the gutters, sewers and rakes hungered for them, swallowing them. Carly never felt so lonely.

Before Carly could plot her next course of attack, Freddie unglued himself from the wall and stepped toward her.

"Uh… I-I think we should just go in and get our tickets now," Carly rushed to say. Her personal space related to Freddie was becoming very quickly compromised. With little hesitation, he reached towards her face, bringing it closer to his. But at a certain distance, he made no more sudden movements. Trembling under his overly-focused gaze, Carly dug some words out to fill the dead air between them. "Freddie… I've told you so many times I don't-"

"Your nose been bleeding?" Freddie asked suddenly. The sudden change in his voice was enough to give one pause. Carly didn't know whether to feel relieved or even more freaked out.

"Not today, that I know of," she finally answered. "It did yesterday, but it stopped really quickly and I didn't… even tell Spencer." Realizing that, in her daze, she had forgotten to keep that a secret, she pulled away from Freddie. "Don't let Spencer know I went with you and Sam when I had another nosebleed yesterday."

"What did it feel like?" Freddie pursued.

Carly was so dumbfounded, it didn't occur to her they were nearly too late to get into the movie. He wanted to know what it FELT like? Even if she really wanted to, she didn't know any way to answer him.

"What made you ask me that question?"

Freddie shrugged and looked to his left, indicating his own self-awareness at the audacity of the question. "Uh… we need to buy our tickets. Forget the question."

He slinked ahead into the theater against Carly's protest. The young lady at the ticket booth was very attractive, Freddie thought to himself. Like Carly used to look. Long, black hair. Pouty, pink lips. Cute nose. Smart eyes. Carly still had all that. But it was faded with years of staring blankly at it every day. It was a photograph, frayed at the edges, turning sepia toned.

()()()

She stared into space. This thinking stuff was sort of new to her, and she didn't know how to do it well. Not that she was stupid; it was just that she had gotten into the habit of letting things go. But lately she didn't feel right standing by that anymore. Flicking open the butane lighter, she lit another cigarette. Shit. She was becoming just like her mother.

A vague guilt buzzed around her head. The fumes couldn't take care of it. They couldn't even take care of her, but fuck, why not keep going?

Their conversation revealed that she was much like Carly, who was disorganized and very self-doubting when she withdrew. Her confidence in how she felt about things she HAD decided on was the one difference. She was deeply unsettled by Freddie, and how Carly seemed to be on the sidelines over the past few weeks. That's why she decided to leave them alone together at the movies. Perhaps Carly would take the opportunity to talk things through.

Pausing, she glanced at her watch. 6:00. The moment of truth was fastly arriving, and Sam wasn't ready to fastly arrive. She felt way too tired to get in a hurry. It was darkening; the sky was turning the hue of a dark blue comforter. It wouldn't have surprised her a goddamn bit to feel rain drip down on her head. Some days she just wanted to stitch an umbrella to the palm of her left hand. In a place like this, one might as well.

()()()

It hurt to even crane her head back and look at him slowly catching up to her. He was mouthing words to her that she couldn't hear, grasping at the air for her attention. She was only faintly aware that the way they were going was the opposite of where they needed to go. The only thing she was concerned with was putting sizable distance between her and the man behind her.

Never in all of her most vivid dreams would she have given Freddie even HALF the audacity…

"Carly, wait up!"

Turning on a heel, boiling over, she screeched, "WHAT WERE YOU FUCKING THINKING?"

Freddie looked into her eyes, piercing so deep she felt two inches tall. He didn't offer her an answer.

()()()

Rushing for what seemed like the first time in her life, Sam rounded the corner towards the movie theater. She was just in time to see the first of the patrons starting to leave. Amidst all the unfamiliar voices, Sam listened. Amidst all the strange faces, Sam watched carefully for two people that weren't there. Lots of people that kinda looked like them… but no them.

Had they both lied to each other somehow?

()()()

"I don't even want to hear what you have to say, you creep! Just stop following me!"

"I don't want to."

WOOSH! She did a spin reminiscent of a ballerina and brought a severe hand to Freddie's face. His reaction was remarkably visceral, stumbling backwards before dropping hind-first to the sidewalk. Instead of rising, he sat up indian-style, arms draped on his thighs, and glared at Carly with an odd look. Maybe it was her anger. Maybe it was his lack of it. But she could swear she was seeing someone she didn't recognize where Freddie's face used to be.

Anything Carly had to say to Freddie Benson had died between his cheek and her hand. She left the boy there alone. He sat there, teasing the red mark with his fingertips. The flesh of his cheek was soft and hairless. Massaging it gently, he made no attempt to stop the tears approaching his mouth.

()()()

Sam Puckett was someone with the fear of hundreds of high school boys and girls held inside a cheerleader's body. But not tonight; she had a hesitant hand placed on Freddie's back as he wept. Comfort was never Sam's strong point- if Freddie's misery were personified, it'd be much easier just to beat it up.

She hadn't been this scared since she was a very little girl. When she overheard a vicious argument between a dazed, hung-over bear-man and the mother who entertained him the prior evening. The mother who swore vainly, never again. The mother who took Sam's respect and, little by little, dashed it into pieces.

He wouldn't tell her what was wrong, and it didn't take her very long to stop asking. There were two factions at war in her head; fear and relief. Fear that Freddie was broken beyond repair, gone forever from the person he was back when. Back a few months ago… maybe just weeks… the time hasn't been moving normal since then. Fast, sure. Slow, definitely. But normalcy might be a cause lost to them forever.

Yet relief washed back ashore when his sobs became less intense, only to come back as hard as ever. Is this the thing he should have done all along? Release? All it takes for release is some pressure. Could Carly have tapped into the deep, painful reservoir in Freddie? The best thing that ever happened to him could have been going with Carly tonight. She had to talk to her.

()()()

Carly had never felt so violated in her life, even though he hadn't even touched her. She didn't entertain a connection between the movie's violence and Freddie's reaction until she lay in her bed.

The reason it had taken so long, of course, is that it didn't make a shit. Freddie had demeaned her in front of a crowded theater, and the Freddie she once knew wouldn't have done it. At least, she thought. The thought made her sick, but what if Freddie was always that way? What if he had been hiding his real nature? She'd known him for what felt like a decade, and it creeped her out imagining he was always a freak.

Whatever the case, she was done with worrying for him. He's pretty much a grown man. He could handle himself. There was no sense in giving up her life to dedicate her mind at being concerned all the time. She had enough to worry about with her nosebleeds, which amazingly hadn't started after getting so furious at the theater.

After what he had done, there was no way she could see him the same way again. Even if she'd wanted to see him at all. It would be hard, but her sympathy for him would have to go the way of the dinosaurs. The kind of help was far, far beyond what she could offer.

()()()

"It's time to let go."

"It's time to let go."

"It's time to let go."

Like a dripping sink.

"It's time to let go."

Like a ticking clock.

"It's time to let go."

Like a steady rain.

"It's time to let go."

Like a bored backbeat rhythm, Freddie muttered the same five words to his shoes. The crying had stopped. The miserable time Sam was having of trying to comfort him had only begun. His one hand stayed glued over his forehead and the other one dangled uselessly at his side.

"Freddie…" Sam started, until she realized she had nothing to say. She felt like she had to say something, but she didn't know what. She could ask what happened, but she didn't know if Freddie wanted to talk about it. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to talk about it. She didn't know. She didn't know anything. This must be what Carly's been feeling like this whole time.

"Sam, I did something… bad at the theater."

She stopped in her tracks to glare down at Freddie. He was hunched over slightly, his head laying limply down into his hands. It felt like there was no more strength in his neck to lift up his head. Sam's sudden rush of anger had started to boil over.

"Freddie," came her hard voice, "what happened? Did you do something wrong to Carly?"

Freddie opened his mouth to speak, but slowly. Sam wasn't about to get a slow answer.

"Well? What's going on?"

"THAT MOVIE!" Freddie screeched, gripping his head with both hands. "She never, ever should have taken me to see that movie!"

()()()

"I hate Hollywood movies. They always show breaking in the most hyped-up glorified hen-pecked tasteful fashion, even though it never looks like that. Rock bottom isn't losing a job and cute girlfriend. Rock bottom is draining the water out of your own vomit just so you can carry on for one more worthless day, even though you know deep down it's just going to be a rerun of the same terrible things you experienced for the past month. When your days become reruns, suicide is painless. When your days become attempts to survive, you have no reason to stay alive."