Against All Odds

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 31 (Explosion)

Two months went by and still luck had not yet shined down upon the family. Carly was happier, though, considering she was enjoying her job. It was almost Christmastime, so that was actually something that did depress her. The fact of the matter was, she wanted to see her family so badly. Yet, the family was down to $2000. They should have had around $2600 after the second month's payments had come in, but just like Spencer had told them once, there were unexpected expenses that came around.

Someone had slashed all four tires on their car while Spencer was at a job interview in the neighborhood. Not only did he get turned down for the job, he had to pay a tow truck and then pay for brand new tires. All of this took them down quite a bit. When December ended, they would be down nearly another grand. All of this was forming quite a headache.

"You seem distracted." T-Bo's voice rang in her head and she quickly snapped herself from her thoughts. She was standing beside T-Bo at the cash register, it was a slow day and no employees were around. She looked at him with a nervous smile and breathed in. Should she ask him for a raise? No, she couldn't do that to him. She owed him quite a bit. "What are you doing for Christmas? You've worked hard the last couple of months, you should take some time off."

"No, I need the job and I need the money." She couldn't just take time off, not when it meant she might not be getting paid. T-Bo folded his arms across his chest and hummed slightly as she moved over to the smoothie maker and started wiping it down with a cloth. "I appreciate the offer, but you know, Spencer still hasn't managed to find work and we're down out of our luck. It doesn't help that Sasha's not been feeling well lately, either."

"Trouble in paradise?" She lifted her shoulders and knelt down, gazing up at the opening of the nozzle that the blender had. She wrapped the cloth around her index finger and pushed it into the hole, sweeping it of the contents. "You work too hard Carly." She pulled her hand back and rose to her feet, forcing down an exasperated sigh.

"I can't help it. I owe you, you gave me this job, so I want to be sure I take care of things. As for Sasha, she's just been a bit nauseous lately. It's probably just the flu, there seems to be a lot of that going on these days."

"I hope she starts feeling better. Say, how are your friends holding up? I've not seen them around in some time." Sam and Freddie were caught up with their own thing these days. Sam was working at the hospital with her mom and Freddie took a job at Wal-Mart. Their jobs, and schoolwork, along with Sam's pregnancy, took up a lot of their time.

"They're all right. Just really busy…" Their friendship didn't wane at all when she sold iCarly to Nevel, but they had been a bit irritable. They were still the best of friends. "I see them at school and talk to them whenever I get the chance. Spencer's thinking it may be time for me to transfer to a school closer to where we live, though…save more on gas that way." She didn't want that to happen, but if it couldn't be avoided, she may be finishing up her last half of school in a bad community. She'd have to get used to this. "Winter break starts in two weeks, so if you need any extra help, I'm your girl." He chuckled and started walking towards the drive through window.

"You're gold, you know that right?" What was there to say? She took pride in her job. She watched as he started messing around on the computer. Someone was going through the drive through. He put on his headset and pressed the 'talk' button. "Groovy Smoothie, how can I help you?" The person spoke and he nodded his head. "Take your time." He released the button and looked over to Carly. She was already at the cups and ready for an order.

"You know T-Bo, I regret selling iCarly to Nevel. I hope the webshow's still doing well under his control." It seemed to be doing well for the first month, but she stopped checking in after a while. Things got busy, one thing led to another, and she just kept being too busy to check. "Still bothers me what he said after the deal went through. Something about the deal lasting as long as the show was successful."

"Ah, I actually checked in to his site about a week ago." She lifted her eyebrows, intrigued. He leaned back against the wall next to the drive by window and crossed his arms. "It doesn't look like it's doing well at all really. His whole site's down and the iCarly show's got some bad ratings now. I think the actors Nevel hired quit on him, can't say for sure."

"Really?" That was truly disheartening, and it left a scary taste in her mouth. What might Nevel do now? Demand his money back? "That's terrible…"

"Yeah, just one second, I think the customer's decided." T-Bo turned back to the computer and pressed the talk button. "Okay, you wanted a medium vanilla shake and what was that last part?" She raised an eyebrow and quickly grabbed a medium sized cup. T-Bo motioned at her and she stopped before moving to the shake machine. It was a different machine than the smoothie one, the whole back area was complex, but easy to learn once you got the gist of it. "Okay sir, if you'll move around the front window, I'll try to accommodate you."

"What's going on?" She walked over to him, gripping the cup lightly in her hand. She was a bit concerned, it wasn't often that he had to ask a customer to come up to the front window. Maybe they were making some kind of erroneous demand that they couldn't fill.

"I think it's a joke, the customer just asked for money."

"Really? How much?" She looked to the window just as a black car drove up. The driver window bypassed them and the back window started rolling down. Much to her shock, she saw Nevel eyeing her with a subtle smirk. T-Bo's face fell and she quickly opened the window, he couldn't possibly be here for a smoothie. "Nevel! What do you want?"

"Why, I just want a vanilla shake," he responded with a certain chill in his voice. She frowned and waited as he met her eyes. "Oh, and I want my money back. Your dumb website failed, my actors left about two weeks ago. I've also upped the ante here, you know how much of my time and effort went into that site? So, I want six thousand dollars given back to me for that waste of time." The color seeped from her face. His words floored her, how could he expect her to pay that amount of money? "I learned you were working now, so maybe you could start paying off your debt to me."

"Debt? You bought the site, it's your own fault it failed!" She knew this would come back to haunt her, she just knew it. "You expect me to pay for your own problem?"'

"No Carly Shay, I expect you to pay for selling me a faulty URL. I'm out of ideas for computer programs to create and sell to important clients, so I'm not making any extra money now. If you aren't going to pay me back, expect things to get a little rough until you do." What the hell could he do? He was hardly even eighteen yet, much less seventeen. He was just some punk kid who made a bunch of money off of creating computer programs.

"And what can a sixteen year old twerp do to me?"

"Oh me? Nothing. Maybe you forget the 'insurance' that I have?" Her eyes widened and her breathing stilled. Alfonso and Raul, they could do plenty. His words were like a knife, stabbing her chest and cutting deep. Her eyes moved past him into the empty back seat. Where were they? Were they in the front seat? "I believe your brother's out looking for a job, correct?"

"An interview…yeah…"

"Correct, and he's dropped his pretty fiancé and son off at the clinic for her appointment?" She flinched and glared at him. How did he know all this? Was he spying on them? He narrowed his eyes and smiled at her. "I'm sure you're freaked right now, aren't you?" She looked over at T-Bo, he was reaching for the phone, possibly ready to call the police.

"Yeah, Juanita and Sasha are at the clinic. How do you-"

"Spencer's interview is at Cleveland High School on 15th avenue, correct? Security guard position, fourteen bucks an hour?"

"Yes…" She studied his slow growing smirk and felt her heart strike down in fear. That high school wasn't hiring any new security guards, they'd had the same one for the past twelve years. She knew this because the high school was one of Ridgeway's rivals. With a soft gasp, she took a step back, feeling a heightened sense of fear. "That letter he got in the mail, the school didn't send it to him did they…"

"Nope. I'd say he's about to get a visit from Alfonso and Raul right about…now…Oh and in other news, have you given any thought to who slashed Spencer's tires a couple weeks ago?" With a sudden burst of rage, she flew towards the window, practically leaping out and grabbing for Nevel. T-Bo shouted out and grabbed her around the waist, trying to pull her back.

"You stay away from my family, Nevel! Stay away from us!" She screamed out her anger as Nevel quickly rolled up the window and started driving off. Once T-Bo pulled her inside, he fell back as she let her body become dead weight. She stared up at the ceiling, letting the tears run down the sides of her face. T-Bo groaned and slowly rolled away from her, rubbing his back. "What have I done, T-Bo? What have I done?"

"Relax…" He slowly stood up and helped her to her feet. She could barely move on her own, frozen with fear and guilt. "Let's take my car and head towards that school, if we can catch up to your brother, we'll let him know what's going on."

"I'm going to call our neighbor up, ask him to start going over there too…"

"Good idea. Come on."

It didn't take long to get there, though James had already beaten them by a few minutes. When they arrived, Spencer was sitting on the curb while James, another officer, and the actual school security guard were taking down a statement. She whined as she studied his face, he had a massive bruise on the left side of his face and was holding his stomach, but fortunately, he wasn't bleeding anywhere.

She ran out of the car and hurried to Spencer, hugging him. He flinched and slowly hugged her back. "Well Carly, I had a feeling that letter was too good to be true…"

"I'm sorry Spencer. It was Nevel-"

"Yeah the guys that tackled me from behind pretty much told me all that. So he wants his money back?"

"I shouldn't have even made that deal with him. I'm so sorry." James lifted his eyebrows and crossed his arms over. He clicked his pen and shook his head.

"You guys got mixed up with another loan shark?" Well, with all respect, it was probably legit this way. He didn't loan the money to them, they just didn't have the money to pay him back.

"I wasn't thinking when I sold him the site…and to his credit, I don't know that he can be called a loan shark. He's like a miniature little…I don't know!" She was trying hard to breathe and to calm down, but in all honesty, she did feel like that was a bit on the impossible side. "Spencer, are you okay? They didn't hurt you any worse, did they?"

"No, they managed to take all the money I had on hand though." He had about one hundred dollars on cash for any possible expenses he'd have to pay throughout the month. Usually he managed to make the cash last the entire month. "Sasha isn't going to be happy about this beating…" It was hard to care about the money in a moment like this, all she was truly concerned about was that her brother was okay. T-Bo helped Spencer to his feet and put his arm around his shoulders.

"Are you able to drive, Spencer?"

"I'll be fine, but why are you guys here?" T-Bo breathed in and helped him towards the sedan. Carly followed close behind, listening to their conversation and trying to swallow the guilt of her stupidity.

"Nevel paid us a visit at the shop. Can he legally demand a refund on the webshow?"

"I don't know, I mean…I'm in no mood to even think about that right now. I have to pick up Sasha from the clinic." Carly put her hand to Spencer's back and closed her eyes. Maybe she was going to worry way too much about this whole ordeal, but didn't she have a right to worry? Why did Nevel hate her so much? It was as if it wasn't enough that he wanted to ruin their webshow, it was like he wanted to ruin her. James was writing down some notes and lifted his eyes from the notepad.

"Sasha and Juanita are on her way over here already." Spencer stopped and glanced over, stunned. James pointed his pen over his shoulder and cleared his throat. "Juanita called me up, saying the appointment was over, and I told her she might want to get Sasha over here."

"Oh great, just what I need, now Sasha's going to be stressed out."

"I would think she'd already be stressed either way. Anyhow, I'm going to need a full description of the men that tackled you. Do you have anything?"

"No, they jumped me from behind and kept me from looking at them…one of them had their knee lodged right into my back." James shook his head and scribbled down Spencer's words. "They told me they were working for Nevel and wanted his money back…" Carly slowly closed her hands and turned her eyes towards the side, she could very easily identify both men. After all, she'd seen them before.

"I can identify them. Raul and Alfonso, I've seen them both. We've had a prior encounter with them too…" James lifted his eyebrows and smirked as he brought his pen to the notepad.

"Great, any description will help."

"They're both Hispanic with short dark hair, shady brown eyes…" It took her nearly five minutes to recall every bit of detail that she could. By the time she was finished Juanita was driving up in her car, with Sasha in the passenger seat and Blake sitting in a car seat in the back. While Juanita worked to get Blake from the back, Sasha ran up to Spencer.

"What happened!" She exclaimed while reaching up to the bruise on his face. He winced at the touch. She pulled her hand away and frowned. "Sorry…" He smiled softly and put his hand to hers.

"It's all right. I don't want to worry you, but it looks like Nevel wants his money back for the site…and we're down one hundred bucks." Sasha's eyes widened and for the moment, she looked positively terrified. "What about you? Did the doctor figure out why you've been feeling so sick lately?" Carly and the others glanced over as Sasha lowered her arms and sucked in a bunch of air.

"Y-Yeah, they did…"

"Is it the flu? Cold? Some other sickness?"

"No, no, and…no…" He pressed his lips together, trying to figure out what the hell the problem was. Carly looked over to Blake, who was squirming in Juanita's arms. She slowly reached for him and took him from the kind neighbor. She looked over to Sasha and saw her fingering her belt. She looked worried about something, but what? Why was she being vague? Why did the nervous expression on her face make it seem like she was about to drop some sort of bomb on everyone? "Are you sure you want to know right now? I mean, with what just happened…don't you want your rest first?" He played at a smirk and put his hand to her waist, smiling into her eyes.

"I'll rest better knowing you're not dying."

"Oh I'm not dying." She closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. Carly wanted to speak up and ask her to just spit it out, but it was probably best that she let Sasha take her time.

"So what is it? What did you find out?" Honestly, what could the problem be? Carly furrowed her brow and looked down at Blake, who was grinning from ear to ear. Then it hit her. A baby, a sweet adorable baby, the one thing that could fill a woman with both pure joy and worry when she went to the doctor. Was Sasha pregnant? No, she couldn't be, right? She moved her eyes over to the couple and swallowed lightly. No, she could be pregnant, very likely. The two had sex plenty of times since being back together, especially on the night of Spencer's proposal. They'd made it very clear what they were going to do when they asked Carly to take Blake out for a drive. No, it wouldn't surprise Carly at all if Sasha were pregnant, but at the same time, it filled her with so more fear than she ever had. If Sasha were pregnant and Nevel's little thugs were going after them, then that stress coupled with the stress of losing money could cause a lot of trauma to the mother's body and potentially lead to a miscarriage.

"Sasha!" Carly started, rushing her voice in hopes to catch her attention. Sasha looked back at her with a sad smile. "Just say it, if it's what I think…we need to know, because…there's a lot of stress right now, everything's kind of exploding, so if you have a bomb to drop, drop it now." Interesting analogy, but she couldn't help it, it slipped out. Sasha closed her eyes and turned back to Spencer, taking his hands in hers and carefully studying his gaze.

His breathing grew shallow and his face serious, as though he were preparing for some heavy news. "Spencer, I'm…" She took a deep breath and thinned her lips. "I'm pregnant, two months, and you're the father." His eyes grew large and everything froze. This wasn't bad news at all, this was joyous news, but the problem was, it was being given in a bad time. It did appear to have the effect of an explosion going off before him. One baby was difficult enough, now all of this, and the risk of that baby being born on the streets? It was almost too much to handle!

"I…you…" He blinked slowly and ran his hand along his hair. His body trembled as he tried to come back to earth. He was merely stammering out his words, rambling on about nothing, but at the same time, everything. Even James and the other officers were silent, not even the birds in the air were making a sound. "Money, and Nevel…dad's an ass…everything…so much stress…nonsense…pregnant? No job…It's all…" He smacked his face and slowly stepped backwards, stumbling a bit. "I-I'm happy about this, Sasha, please don't think I'm not. I really am." She smiled at him as her eyes welled up with tears. "I just…I have got to think."

"Yeah, I understand."

"Give me a moment. Stay with Carly, Carly talk to James and the officers about what happened, I…James, I'll give you my statement later…" He took a deep breath and put his hand to his pasty skin. James slowly nodded and pat his shoulder.

"You need to catch yourself man."

"Yeah, I'm going to go for a drive. I need…this has to sink in…everything's just happening too damn…" He was starting to ramble again, so he stopped himself and looked to Sasha. After a minute of silence, he hugged her close and tenderly kissed her lips. Then, without a further word, he made his way into his car. Carly and the others watched as he drove off, she was a bit concerned about him driving in the state he was in, but she likely couldn't have done anything to stop him. He needed to recover, because whatever happened next, was in his hands.

Holy...shi...that's about all that can be thought of here. Let us hope Spencer will finally do the right thing, get some sense kicked into him. Come on Spence! She's pregnant! Kick it into high gear, man!