The Greatest Secret
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own iCarly
A/N:
Chapter 156 (Auditions: D6, Rebecca Berkowitz)
Thursday came around and the auditions were starting to come to a close with just that evening and then Friday coming up. Still there had been no sign from Gibby, but by now the group was starting to give up on him even auditioning. Sam was allowed to return to the auditions and it was the first time Freddie got to see her since they fell asleep at school. It was something that he was not quite accustomed to, being unable to see her by way of punishment.
Jonah was there tonight as well, he was going to be staying at home to take care of Aaron, but Olivia had insisted she see her nephew and he go deal with the auditions. He was going to argue that, but in the end, Olivia won the battle. Carly was going to be showing up, but she was to be a bit late, this gave Sam and Freddie some ample time to see each other before people started piling into the auditorium. First in had been Jonah, then Freddie showed up. Now they were waiting on Sam, then they were going to start comparing notes from the past few days and see who all was doing well.
"Freddie!" He lifted his head up and saw Sam waving at him as she walked towards the booth. Grinning, he got up and hurried over to her, embracing her and grinning in her eyes. His heart lifted up when he saw her, it felt too long without her, but he was doing well enough. "I missed you so much. You wouldn't believe the lecture I got from Aunt Maggie and Uncle Morris when I got home."
"Heh, yeah I can imagine you got into a fair amount of trouble too. And yes, I missed you." He pecked her on the lips and she let out a joyful squeal. It felt good to hold her after a couple days. It wasn't that they couldn't stand to be away from each other, they could survive with the other away if they had to, but that didn't mean they wouldn't miss the other person. "Well yesterday Carly told me something interesting."
"What was that?"
"Well I think she's starting to mature and learn a few things. She told me she thought it might be for the best that she didn't know my fiancé yet…"
"Oh?"
"Yeah, apparently Tyrone still has some control over her." He thought for sure if they all banded up with one another that they could stand up to the man, but they weren't really entirely sure. "I guess when she's not afraid she might slip up, as she said, then she'll want to know…" He hoped she wouldn't be too mad when she discovered that Sam was his fiancé, there was a chance she might get a bit pissed off that something like that was kept from her. "Some bad news, I think…not sure if we need to worry…"
"What?"
"Tyrone knows you and I were locked up in the school all night together." Sam started to pale and glanced back at the door. Freddie chuckled nervously and rubbed her arm. "Relax, Tyrone isn't here anyway."
"Carly told him?"
"Yeah, but he pretty much milked it out of her. She needs to learn to stand firm and say no to him without being afraid." Sam slowly nodded her head and sighed in desperation. They really couldn't deal with this right now, they had so much going on. Freddie thought he ought to put her mind on something else. "So has your family decided what to do for Christmas?"
"Yes, actually. We're all having a get together at Grandma's! You know she lives around the mountains about an hour or two from here, right?" He nodded happily, he would encourage it. Sam didn't look too happy that it meant she'd be a couple hours away from him and unable to see him on Christmas, but Freddie knew this was something that not only she, but her family needed. "Am I going to be able to see you this Christmas, Freddie?"
"We'll have a lot of opportunities to have Christmas together, and so will you have with your family. Only remember, they haven't ever spent any Christmases with you, we've nearly a dozen together. It's only fair that you be with them. I'll manage, you'll manage, it'll be just fine." She smiled lightly as he kissed her forehead.
"I hope you're right Freddie. I know I'm going to miss you this year, but you are right about one thing. I do feel the need to be with them this year. They deserve it after all this time."
"Exactly." He lifted his hand and brushed her hair from her face as she hugged him around the waist. "I think this year, Mom's going all out. It's her first Christmas with Spencer and Robert, so she's excited. Spencer's happy, Carly's getting in the spirit, and Sasha says she's got some important news for the family." Sam's eyebrows rose and her lips curled into a grin.
"Damn, you'll have to fill me in after that, cause I want to know what she says!"
"I will." Freddie looked over to Jonah, who was going over some of the papers. He chuckled and placed his hand on the small of Sam's back and walked over to the booth with her. "Hey Jonah." Jonah lifted his head up as Sam made her way to her seat. "What did you say you were doing for Christmas?"
"Whole damn family's getting together," Jonah chuckled. He rubbed the back of his head as Freddie let out a sharp whistle. With as many members of the family as there were, it definitely was a houseful. "Yeah, it's going to be interesting. Viola's got some news for us, then Valerie was scheduled some time to talk with us on webcam. It's going to be an interesting holiday season."
"I'm thinking of putting our performance at the groovy smoothie online. I just think it would be something spectacular that everyone would want to see."
"Yeah, Valerie's glad to hear we're bringing back the band. You should have heard her cheer." Freddie laughed as Sam flashed a toothy grin. "Anyway, I think she's going to have an interesting Christmas there with the Food Network stars."
"Oh yeah, didn't think about that. It sounds promising." Jonah nodded and glanced over to see students already beginning to pile in. Much to Freddie's surprise, they were all earlier than anticipated. "Well, I guess they're eager to get this out of the way. Let's go over who we have so far. The best drummer at yesterday's audition was Nate."
"The one before that was Griffin, but he's unavailable so the best of that day was a kid named Jack Thompson. A couple others, there's Ophelia L., Nadine D., Randal J., Noah M., and I'm thinking Duke will be good, but we've not gotten to him just yet. We have a lot more auditions before we get to him." Since they'd decided to start going by alphabetical order, it would be a while before they got to Duke since his last name started with a W. "So far only Nadine, Nate, and Noah have attempted Wax Simulacra. Nadine got about half of all the notes right, Nate did just a little better. Noah got about 70% of them."'
"So since they did better than the others and we've gotten along with them a bit better, I guess we mark off Ophelia, Randal, and Jack?" Freddie nodded his head and Jonah marked off their names. "I guess come Friday, we'll call back the ones who managed to do Wax Simulacra and have them perform it again?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of an endurance test for them." Jonah raised his eyebrow and Sam paused to think of what he would have in mind. He smirked deviously and rolled his neck. "Sometimes a band may have to play all day, or repeat songs over and over again, but that's not the kicker here. There are bands who will have to play a single song that goes on and on almost forever. I'm talking about the longest of the long. Maybe three consecutively long songs for them to play. The one that lasts the longest will be our drummer."
"Oh my god, that's just evil, but it's brilliant! Have you got any songs in mind?"
"Yep. Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin is the first." The song was well over ten minutes long and included quite a bit of drumming. Some repetitive, some not so repetitive, but all awesome notes. "The third song they'll do will be Mountain Jam by the Allman Brothers."
"Holy shit man, seriously?"
"Yep." That song was thirty minutes long, no vocals whatsoever, and lot of guitar and drum beating. "Second one is only fifteen minutes, you may recognize it. It's Jimi Hendrix's VoodooChile." Sam whistled sharply as Freddie took his seat in between the two and grinned. "Oh, and yes, we will be performing as well."
"I thought you'd say that…back to back?"
"To back." Freddie grinned brightly and Jonah's head fell to the booth. Sam chuckled nervously as Freddie grinned deviously. He looked over to see Carly walking in, eyeing them with concern and question.
"Do I want to know why Jonah looks tortured and you look evil?"
"Because I found a surefire way of selecting our drummer."
"Be afraid Carly," Sam said with a quick tone. "Be very afraid."
"Uh oh…" Freddie laughed maliciously and Jonah groaned out his displeasure. He was afraid of being rusty, so he'd at least been practicing every day, but this was just punishment. It was right though, the drummer had to have endurance. "Should I be concerned?"
"Not really, just be happy you aren't going to be on the list of final drummers."
Within an hour, many people auditioned, but a majority of them fell a bit short of what the band was looking for. There were a couple good people, but only one of them out of the entire set of auditions actually started off with the two harder songs without doing the two easier ones, and that was Rebecca Berkowitz. She managed to get about 70% of the notes right. As she stood from her drums, she grinned brightly and held her drumsticks up, the audience cheered her on, happily so.
"Damn, she did better than I thought she'd end up doing," Freddie said with a slight chuckle. He rubbed his chin and turned to Jonah. "What do you think? Write her down?" Jonah nodded and put Rebecca's name down, they really wanted to consider her after hearing that. Rebecca put her hand over her eyes like a visor in order to see past the lights. She smiled at the band and wagged her eyebrows once.
"I think that went well," she stated. "Want me to perform another for you?"
"No actually, that was just fine. Come back after school tomorrow if you can. Bring Nate along too. You're both on the final list. There's one more test for the potential drummers." Rebecca gasped and jumped in the air.
"Okay, I'll be there! Thanks!"
"No prob." He watched as she bounded off the stage and out the doors. There was one last group to go through, but they would have to be dealt with Friday. Along with Friday would come the final test. He wanted to see just how long they would last if they were at an actual performance. He pat Jonah and Sam on the shoulder and grinned as they slowly glanced at each other. "Well guys. Tomorrow, we should have our drummer." The group cheered and high fived one another. Jonah grabbed his list and stared at it.
"Out of all the people to attempt Wax Simulacra, these people were the only ones that did any good. Nadine, Nate, Noah, and Rebecca…all others that tried to attempt pretty much butchered the whole song. Let's see what tomorrow brings."
Well that brings us to 156, or fanfiction posted-wise, 157. The next chapter is perfectly crafted for you all and it's going to be AWESOME. Actually, I'm going to post it early just for you, because it's also the last of the Audition arc. It's "Flawless Victory", where a drummer (and another bandmate) is finally chosen!