Chapter 20

Shay Apartment
Saturday, September 2011

It was early that evening when Freddie stepped out of the elevator into the iCarly studio. He smiled as he caught sight of Carly playing on her violin. He suddenly felt a strange sense of déjà vu in watching her play her game. Without realizing it, he was clenching and relaxing his right hand and tapping his left foot. It must have been loud enough, because the next moment she turned and smiled at him for a moment before her smile falter.

It was apparent to him that she seemed to have had a similar feeling to what he just had.

"What's wrong?" he whispered his question.

Carly sat her violin down and paused the game, before shaking her head and answering, "I'm just thinking about something."

"That we've been here before?"

Carly swallowed nervously. "I don't want a repeat of that."

Freddie gave her a reassuring smile. "That's not going to happen this time."

"Because we don't have to worry about Sam's foreign bacon?" she asked with a hint of fear and indecision on her part.

Freddie blinked in surprise. The tech producer took in a slow breath and let it out. "She told you about that?" he asked more out of the need to express the question verbally, not for an actual answer.

She rung her hands and looked to the floor for a moment. "Yes, she was concern about how … intimate we were last night."

In a distant and reserved tone, he replied, "I'm not sure what business of that was hers how 'intimate' we are together."

"She was just concern… as she was last time."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure how much of her concern I could take or want from her."

Carly dropped her hands to the side and shook her head. "Why does it have to be like this?"

Freddie blinked and looked to her in shock. "Because she's hated me for the last four years and has taken every opportunity that she can to take it out on me. That's not just going to be wiped way in two weeks. I'm not a saint."

"She doesn't hate you," Carly replied desperately with a shake of her head.

"I thought that once too after her and I shared our first kiss. I thought it was just our way of saying we cared about each other until two weeks later she broke a tennis racket over my head and threw me out of a treehouse, remember? And until early last week, she continually reminded me of how much she's hated me. I tried talking to her that night on the balcony to cut me some slack, but she blew me off and the only reason why she stopped now was because I had to punch her in the face and told her the next time I would fight her."

"I'm sorry about that… I should have said something," she whispered regretfully.

"You're damn right you should have said something! I wasn't allowed to have my own opinion! The damn show came before me in your eyes."

Carly looked down in shame and Freddie closed his eyes as he shook his head. He took a calming breath and opened his eyes. "Okay… I've realized how bitter I am about it now. I don't want to be mad at you or be bitter about it, but I just can't pretend it never happened or everything else she has done to me didn't happen. But I do want you to know that just because we may get upset with one another, doesn't mean we don't care about one another."

"I know and I will never let anything like that happen again," she replied in a soft whisper and met his eyes.

"Neither will I," Freddie replied in cold determination. She nodded knowing they had established something else in their relationship.

"Sam and I will come to a point we can be real friends or we won't. It's all up to her."

"Do you think you two can really be friends?"

"If she continues to treat me like a human being? Yes I do, it's just going to take time. We really are starting from scratch in how to be friends with out the abuse."

The brunette nodded her head. One step at a time is better than nothing.

She shrugged a shoulder and a half hearted smile. "If you want to, the next show we do you can tell the world you don't think Fred's funny for the entire show."

Freddie let out a therapeutic laugh and shook his head. "We don't have to; plenty of people already know he's not funny. Why do you think he needed Jennette McCurdy to help promote his last movie? He couldn't do it on his own."

She shared in his laugh for a moment before asking, "Do you really think Sam did it to hurt you? About the bacon?"

Freddie calmed down for the moment and replied in a serious, but not bitter tone, "She said the idea of you and I being together made her want to puke up blood; even if she was joking, what a thing to say about your friends. I'd be a fool not to at least consider the possibility that she did it to hurt me thinking back on it, but…"

"What?"

"She wouldn't hurt me if it meant hurting you, so no. I don't think she suggested foreign bacon out of malice." Freddie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I broke up with you because I love you. You have my heart Carly Shay and if I had to do it all again, I would because I want us both to be happy. I would hate to be a person that could ever hurt you intentionally. It would have hurt more if you would have suddenly realized that you didn't love me that way and then where would we have been?"

Carly took a few steps enter his personal space. "I let you walk away once, maybe twice since I couldn't catch you in time, but never again. I got my second chance and I'm not going to let slip it through my fingers."

She started blinking in confusion when he smiled at her. "Why are you smiling?"

"Because we just had our first official fight as a couple and we're still here," he replied with a grin.

Carly blinked at him, but his grin was infectious and soon a grin formed on her face. "I don't think our conversation was necessarily a fight."

Freddie raised an eyebrow. "I think it's close enough to one so we have to make up. Don't you think?"

Her smile tuned into a mischievous grin. She wrapped her arms around the back of his head and captured his lips. He grinned into his kiss with her realizing that this was her answer. His hands slipped around to the small of her back. He broke their kiss to start leaving small kisses across her jaw and then down her neck, stopping at her pulse point.

Her breath hitched from the tenderness of his kiss on her neck as if her neck was something delicate and needed to be treated with kid gloves. If she wasn't enjoying the sensation so much, she would probably start crying at the warm and caring that Freddie was trying to communicate to her through his lips. However it wasn't tears, but a smile that formed on her face and she closed her eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair just above his neck. He kissed back up to her chin then her lips once again. She started walking forward until the back of Freddie's feet bumped into one of the beanbag chairs sitting on the floor.

Freddie gently sat down back into one of the beanbag chair and she followed suit, immediately capturing his lips again. It was quickly becoming an awkward lying position for Carly as she and Freddie traded kisses, so she reluctantly pulled away and stood up for a moment so she could then straddled him. She immediately went back to his lips and poured everything she had into the kiss. His fingers grazed the side of her exposed skin at the sides of her abdomen caused by the gap of her ridden up shirt and her jeans.

She felt the familiar pressure against her lower abdomen. Pulled away from the kiss regretfully and pushed up with her hands on his shoulders. She swallowed nervously, but made eye contact. "Freddie, I hate to… interrupt what we're… doing, but we need to talk about—"

He lifted up so his chin rested on her right shoulder and her arms instinctively wrapped around the back of his neck. He whispered in her ear tenderly, "We only have to worry about that if we ever become Mister and Mrs. Benson or I could change my name to Shay if you wanted. Please never feel that you're obligated to do anything. I hope you have the same expectations of me about that."

She pulled back and looked at him in shock. His face displayed his own fear and apprehension. "Okay?"

She gently pulled her right hand from the back of his neck and caressed the side of his face. She felt she was falling again and she prayed that she would fall completely this time and that it would be Freddie to catch her. She nodded and blinked as she felt moister forming in her eyes. The brunette caught his lips again focused on his top lip before moving to his bottom lip. Her tongue grazed his lips and Freddie took that as a symbol to do the same.

They continued to exchange kisses for the next fifteen minutes until Carly pulled away to rest her head on Freddie's left shoulder. She snuggled into his shoulder as he cradled her. She let out a tired breath and her cheeks were flushed from their small expression of their feelings for one another. Freddie noticed that Carly's eyes were becoming heavier and started staying closed longer between blinks. Freddie smiled as he watched her drift off to sleep. Carly started mumbling as sleep finally overcame her, "Row, row, row, your boat…"

Dorfman Residence
Monday, May 1980

Mister Dorfman was reading his newspaper with Barry working on homework in the parlor when Taylor and Steven entered through the front door. Dorfman turned his head at the sound of the teenagers entering. He sat his paper down and got up from his seat to approach the pair as they entered.

"Mister Shay," he greeted with a knowing smile.

"Mister Dorfman," Steven replied with a slight nod of his head.

"You messed up another guy?" the salt and pepper haired man questioned with a smirk.

Steven glanced to Taylor for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and replying, "He had it coming." He looked past Mister Dorfman and to Barry, "Isn't that right Barry?"

"Right!" the lighter brunette shouted happily from his seat. "Thanks Steven."

"No problem bro," Steven waved at him. "Nobody is going to give you any more trouble."

Taylor smirked the laced her fingers with Steven's left hand. "If you'll excuse us daddy, I'd like to spend some time with my boyfriend."

Dorfman raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't comment.

"See you daddy," she shouted as she pulled Steven along towards the stairs. Steven had a surprised look on his face from her forwardness as they climbed the stairs together.

"Don't have too much fun," he called back as they disappeared up the stairs.

Taylor pulled Steven with her into her sanctuary giggling the entire time. She let go of his hand and turned to face him. "Thank you."

Steven bashfully smiled back as he replied, "I told you I would make sure people would stop bothering Barry."

She tenderly took his right hand and gently glided the pads of her fingertips across his hand. The knuckles looked a little bruised, but the old scabs from last week had fallen off. She did however notice that a few nicks might become scars later. "How's your hand?"

He shrugged his left shoulder and replied with a dismissive tone, "A little sore; it just finally healed up properly."

"I'm sorry about that though," she answered regretfully.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Don't be. It needed to be done."

Taylor smiled up at him before leading him to the sleeping bag then pulled him down by the hand to sit beside her to her right. She took his right hand and started gently massaging it. A few moments later she began, "I talked to Ruby today. She's really very nice. She's a little scary on the outside, but very beautiful inside…."

Steven brief smile played on his lips. "Most people don't know that or understand that under that tough exterior she has, but you are right, she's really a beautiful person under it all. People don't usually take the time to look."

"She loves you," she spoke calmly without any hint of accusation.

Steven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "She's my best friend. I know it's odd that a guy's best friend is a girl who's not his girlfriend or sleeping with her, but that's how it is. Is this going to cause a problem?"

Taylor shook her head slightly and smiled. "No, your friend is your friend."

Steven between chuckles, he asked, "How do you do that? Be so sure and trusting?"

She smiled warmly at him and tapped on his chest right over his heart with a finger. "It is a gift and with that gift I know for certain you are a good and honorable man."

He stopped laughing and just looked at her. He lifted up his left hand combed through the back of her hair. "I am certain about a few things in life: there is right and there is wrong; there is truth and there is falsehood; love is hard, but worth holding on to. I know that I love you even if I don't have it all figured out. This is me Taylor. This is all I have to give you right now."

"I'll take it," she whispered quickly before she leaned over and gently kissed him as her arms slipped around his waist and his arms around to the small of her back. He kissed back in an instant, savoring her taste of a girl that accepted all that he was with open arms. They took their time trading kisses and enjoying the warmth and contact from one another.

A few minutes later, she pulled back and reached over to turn her music box on and the tune of 'Row, Row, Row, Your Boat' started playing. Taylor laid back on the sleeping bag and pulled Steven down lie beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her. Her breathing became softer and peaceful as she closed her eyes. Steven reached up with his free hand and just brushed her hair with his fingers whispering, "Row, row, row, your boat…"

Author's Note: I hope you have enjoyed this installment. The final installment should be on Friday and after that… another sequel, but no spoilers for that.