The Greatest Secret

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 183 (Carly Versus Tyrone)

The next day, Carly slipped out of the house and made her way to her granddad's home. Her eyes were narrow and her lips were flat and muscles tense. She had been thinking about how both her dad and brother had stepped up against him and how her mom and Freddie had clearly done the same. She would never have done it before, but today, she was out for blood. All the feelings and emotions she felt had been stewing for days and now were about to boil over.

Once she made it to his home, she stood in front of his door, breathing heavily for about a minute. When she told Griffin what she was doing, he offered to be with him, but she turned down his offer. She hadn't told Sam or Freddie, because she didn't want them to think she was going to fall under Tyrone's manipulative thumb again. She wanted zero assistance, she wanted answers. Her stomach clenched and her hands trembled. Her throat clenched up and she slowly rose her confident, yet nervous, hand.

After she mustered the strength to knock, she waited. When he didn't answer, she leaned back and looked to the driveway. The garage door was open and his car was inside, so he had to be home. When she tried the doorknob, the door cracked open. With an instant, fear pulsed into her veins. Was he okay? Bana hadn't found him, had he? Why would he go after Tyrone, though? She immediately shook away the fear and moved inside the home. She eyed her surroundings and instantly spotted the single, small Christmas Tree in the corner of the room. For some reason, she was not surprised to see that he'd spent the holidays alone.

"Granddad?" There was an ominous silence in the air, tension as thick as a brick. As she walked through the living room, calling out his name, she questioned why he wasn't answering. Her body began quivering and her heart started to race as a drop of sweat slid down her neck. When she entered the kitchen, she could hear the washer and dryer going, finally a sign of life. On the kitchen counter was a fresh pot of coffee and on the kitchen table, a mug of that same steaming fluid rested at the far end of the table. "Okay, maybe it's just me being paranoid, then…" She inhaled and took her seat at the table, waiting patiently as the washer and dryer in the laundry room continued to run.

"Carly?" She lifted her head and turned her eyes back to see her grandfather walking into the room. He looked surprised to see her. "What are you doing here? I would have thought Marissa and Robert might have forced you to stay away…" She rolled her eyes and scoffed, quickly turning her head away from him.

"Did you always have a habit of saying he wrong stuff, Grandpa?" She folded her arms and watched from the corner of her eyes as he made his way to his seat in front of the coffee. "Inquiring minds want to know…"

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't always make a habit of it."

"It just happens?" She glared into his eyes as he slowly put his hands around his coffee cup. She didn't mean to sound cranky or harsh, but was it her fault that he opened up with the statement that he did? "I'm starting to see how you try to manipulate people, Granddad. So, how can you come right out and accuse mom and dad of doing the same?" He raised an eyebrow and exhaled his exhaustions. "I heard what you did, going over to Sam's and trying to tell her family not to go through with the marriage. Since when has it become your business?" His jaw fell and his hands slipped down the cup.

"When did you find out about the two? Why did you not come to me? I wouldn't have had to do some of the stuff that I wound up doing…"

"No, you're not turning this onto me, Granddad. Besides, I didn't find out until you hired Shane to feel up Sam!" Tyrone gasped as she rose from her seat and slammed her palms on the table. She lifted her dominant hand up and pointed her index finger at him with a rising, accusing tone. "I'm on to you, granddad. You can't control me any longer! For the record, no, Mom and Dad aren't making me do anything. Oh, and yes, I'm calling her my mother. Unlike my real mom, who was a stuck up bitch, but I should thank you for putting her and dad together. If you hadn't done that, I would never have been born!" He winced and his expression showed the hurt in that statement. "Tell me what right you have to try and separate my two best friends from each other! What right do you have to force away people who are in love? Did something bad happen to you, to the point that you can't stand to see other people happy?"

"Carly, please sit down." He didn't want to try and control her anymore, he knew it only ended badly if he tried. "I'm not forcing anything. Not anymore. After the past few days, I'm just…I guess I'm lost. I don't know. You're not the only one dealing with stuff going in your life, Carly." She scoffed and threw her hair over her shoulder.

"That's kind of hypocritical of you to say, considering everyone else had problems while you just whittled away and became one of them." He lifted his eyes skyward and brought his coffee cup to his lips. "Is there anything you have to say to me, Grandpa? Do you want me to turn against my family? Do you want me to not participate in the culture? Well? What is it?"

"I'm your family too…for the record."

"I don't know. They're your family too, but you're too stuck up to realize it."

"I am not! I know damn well that they're my family! At least, I know now. What do you think I've been mulling over?"

"All these years, all you wanted was to tear Freddie and Sam apart. Now that you know, you're still at it!" Tyrone started to respond, but it came out in a stammer. What was he to say to counter that? For the most part, it seemed true. "You took three hours of your time to go to Sam's family and bug them on Christmas Eve about everything…"

"I just wanted to talk to them. It's not like I was trying to take her from them."

"Oh, cause you wouldn't be that stupid, right?"

He growled and smacked his hand on the table, rising up in a fit of anger. "Damn it Carly, I do care!" She recoiled briefly as his tone of voice hit her hard. "I'm not a heartless fool, Carly! I'm still, have always been, a family man!"

"Yeah, and you've done a great job of showing it." He frowned. She shook her head and smacked the back of her hand down onto her palm. "If you were such a family man, then maybe you should prove it. Until then, I don't think controlling what your family does and trying to tear a family apart counts for anything." She lowered her arms and clenched her fists tightly. "I know more about family than you would ever know, Grandpa."

"You're only sixteen…"

"So what!" She was losing control of her temper. Emotions were burning her and gripping her, pain was stabbing at her. Tears stung her eyes and her muscles tensed. "I know the difference between love and fake. Fake was my boyfriend who went to LA and left me pregnant!" Tyrone froze and turned his head sharply to her, paling immensely. She breathed heavily and let a tear run to her chin.

"Carly…You were…"

"Yes! Okay? I was pregnant, but I miscarried. I had a goddamn miscarriage and the man who left me pregnant left me to be with his girlfriend in L.A." Carly pointed her finger at the door as her voice continued to rise up. "So I know what mom went through when you took Spencer away from her! I know what it feels like to lose your baby, but I'll never know what it feels like to get it back. It's also the same thing your mother went through! Grandpa Arian's aunt, Drita, she lost you…and look at what you've done! You've tried to tear her family apart! Do you think you're better than that Lionel or Bana? Do you? Well you're not much better! Not that I've seen, not that any of us have seen! You're just an ignorant old man who doesn't know a damn thing about emotions. I can't believe I didn't see that before…"

Tyrone looked at her red, angry face and swallowed hard. He would normally respond, react, but her words had already battered him like a ton of bricks. He bowed his head. Carly's chest rose and fell rapidly, her heart raced and her muscles felt as though they were being scorched with fire.

"Granddad, you don't control me anymore. Do you understand? Sure, I was the last person you had, but now it's over." He gasped and looked back up at her, his eyes were wide and quivering. "When Sam told me you'd gone over there, when I learned about everything you'd done, that was it…the only good thing I can see about you is you're not as bad off as your two cousins are. However, I see what Grandma saw in you, a bunch of resentment and anger that you'd take out on other people. You wouldn't dare solve anything on your own! Now you have control of some small gang against arranged marriage, that same group of people have murdered in your name, they've terrorized mom's family, and you've done nothing to stop them. I thought you were a good person, I believed in you, but now…now I don't even know if I know who you are."

He turned his head down as she stared at him for a minute, contemplating her next move. She hadn't come to yell at him, she really didn't. She just wanted to talk, she wanted to know why things were the way they were, but she'd lost control. "I understand…I can understand if you don't want anything to do with me. I'm really sorry about that miscarriage you had. Are you doing well after all that?" She softened herself a bit and lowered her arms, sighing quietly.

"I'm dating someone now, and we are in love. Mom and Dad are going to consider him as my groom." Tyrone smiled slightly as he spotted the gleam in her eyes when she spoke of her boyfriend. "Love, Granddad, it is something that's always there. You always feel it, even if there are times where you hate the other person, you still love them. You're willing to do anything for them, it's a mutual thing. True love also knows no end, Granddad, it knows no bounds…That's why Mom and Dad, after thirty years, are getting married. They never stopped caring, never stopped loving each other. Sure, in the last few years, they fought, but they loved each other."

"And you? Freddie, Sam?" She moved her eyes down and breathed in.

"Spencer risked everything, went back to law school because of Sasha. She's made him a better person, and her him. Freddie brought Sam's family back together, she went through years of secrecy for him, they've protected each other. Then finally…" She closed her eyes and allowed a tear to flee her left eye. "Griffin didn't leave me when he found out I had been pregnant and miscarried…Even through all that I've gone through and all I'm going to go through, he's still with me. He knows what being in a relationship with me means…and he's not leaving me…"

"So then…you're all in love…"

"Yes. Even Jonah and Valerie, they're sacrificing so much. Your gang member could have completely destroyed Valerie if he actually did encounter Jonah, not Jake. You'd have to live with that. You'd have to live with killing someone who means so much to Freddie and Sam. I don't think you quite understand..."

"No, I think I do, it's just…"

"Whatever…" She shook her head and turned away from him. Her chest was aching and her body felt like someone was stabbing a million tiny needles into her. "I'm leaving now. I didn't even want to fight with you. I'm sorry, Granddad…Just know that I do love you, but…I guess until you get some sense knocked into you, I'm not dealing with you…"

"Carly…" A flashback of Angeline leaving him nearly floored him. She'd said those exact words to him before he left, but he never really understood them. A soft whimper left his lips as Carly walked to the door and glanced over her shoulder at him.

"By the way, Granddad…Sasha's pregnant." His eyes widened and her eyes moved to the floor. "She announced it yesterday. Her due date is in June." Once she left the home, he let a single tear fall from his eye. It was all over now. He may have just lost the last connection he had. Then, he was also a great grandfather, something he always wanted. He ran Carly's words through his head and made his way to his couch, dragging his feet. With a heavy, disheartened sigh, he fell back onto his couch. As he looked back on his golden years, he had to wonder what it was he was doing. These were times he should be embracing family, and here he was, tearing family apart because of something that happened ages ago.

Well, that was rather intense of a chapter, it finally happened, Carly went head to head against Tyrone. Well, lets see if he'll ever come around or not.