Dangerous Journey

Disclaimer: Don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 11 (The Date)

Sam swallowed down the sandwich, mumbling delightedly while holding her hand over her mouth to cover up the long piece of lettuce that tore away from the patty melt. "How is it?" Freddie asked. Her eyes flew to him.

He was smirking and watching with amusement as she scarfed down the bite. The patty melt tasted great, but it was difficult to tear it apart without pulling half the food off. "Delicious." She set the sandwich on her plate and reached for her salted caramel mocha.

Her eyes lit up when she took a sip. Freddie smiled at her and his gaze softened for a moment. "You know, I'm surprised. I didn't know you were a fan of that flavor. As long as we've known each other, you've never mentioned it." She pulled the rim from her lips and shrugged.

"I guess I never thought to bring it up. I don't talk about stuff that much."

"Yeah that's true." Even when she was a kid, she didn't talk about herself. She was never the extrovert her sister had been, not until she met Carly-and even then it had taken some time for her to open up to people. "Sometimes I forget you've always been that way. I think that's what drew me to you, if I remember."

"Can you remember that far back?" She flashed a smirk and slanted her eyes at him. Freddie laughed and nodded his response.

Though they weren't as close or friendly before meeting Carly, they knew each other and had spent time together. It was kindergarten that they first met, and they had classes together through the first few years of school.

Elementary school was also where she got the interest in chess; there was a chessboard that the second grade teacher had. She didn't like to go outside to play with the other kids during recess, so she stayed inside to draw or nap.

One day Freddie stayed inside and asked her why she never played with the other kids and why she never talked much. Her response to him was to shrug and get back to what she was doing.

"Okay," he told her on that fateful day, "I'm not going outside either." It was then Freddie grabbed the first thing off the teacher's shelf of games and set it down on her desk. Chess.

She begrudgingly joined him in the game. It was fun, so the rest of the school year that was what they did during recess. It continued on until they met Carly, then Freddie's boyish crush on Carly began and the two started to grow distant.

Sam was jealous at first that she was losing Freddie, and she actually started to pick on the girl. The first time she tried, she tried stealing Carly's sandwich during lunch one day-but Carly stood up, shoved her to the ground and yanked the sandwich away from her.

It was the start of a long and beautiful friendship.

"You know what I'm thinking about, Freddie?" He raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his Columbian coffee. "The day we met, and the moment I became friends with Carly."

"You were pissed at me for the longest time, if I remember."

"You were my friend first, and then you started obsessing about some new girl." It was the reason she stopped playing chess altogether; she'd lost her game partner. "I think I had a right to be upset."

"You did. I agree." Her eyebrows pushed up beneath her bangs and the right side of her mouth dug into her cheek.

"That is literally the first time I ever heard you say that." It was the base of every fight they had for the first year or two of meeting Carly; she thought she had a right to be upset with him and he thought she was being jealous.

The trend continued into their early teens until she grew tired of fighting about Carly and just started to avoid him altogether. Not once had he ever said anything about her being upset as more than selfishness.

"I don't know Sam. Maybe I've grown up a little since then." He crossed his arms and scoffed. "I mean hell, I know what a stalker looks like nowadays. Enough to know that watching her through the peephole in my door was borderline creepy, and I know enough to recognize that I just dropped you when we met her-and I'm sorry for it. We were kids then."

"Yes." Sam closed her eyes and picked up her sandwich gently. "But that's not why I was angry at first. You knew what it was like. I felt like you were abandoning our friendship, abandoning me. I felt like you didn't even care, like-"

"Like your father." Freddie's head fell backwards against the booth and his eyes closed down.

"Back then, I was too young to understand." As a child, she felt like her father abandoned them through a crime he'd committed. Even though she was the one that told Freddie about it; in turn he told his father and had the man arrested, she still felt like he abandoned his family.

He had beforehand of course. When she and Melanie were three years old, he took off. He came back into their lives when she was seven. One evening he had her over at his apartment and she saw a girl she assumed back then to be his girlfriend.

But as she aged, she learned what a prostitute was.

She heard fighting and watched her father kill the woman in his bedroom. He had her swear never to tell anyone what she saw.

Children share secrets with one another, and the following day she divulged what her father had done to her chess partner. Her dad was now serving a life sentence for murder; the police found proof of premeditation through letters exchanged between the man and the prostitute.

He was a regular 'customer' of hers and was going to call it off. She threatened to tell his family, and he threatened to kill her if she did. Two weeks later, the prostitute was dead.

"It's kind of funny." She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed it slowly and looked up and to the side. "I feel like I've spent my life knowing criminals. Hell, even Spencer was born through a crime."

Freddie tilted his head and Sam quickly cleared her throat.

"I think so anyway. Camille knew she was pregnant with another man's child and let the man she was with believe it was his for up to a year after the birth."

"I don't think that actually is a crime, Sam. Ethically, sure, but legally no." She set down her food and looked up to Freddie, taking her first real look at him in a long time.

He truly had bulked up quite a bit, and was nowhere near as pale as he used to be. Of course he'd become taller than both girls where he used to be the shortest kid in class.

"He's still handsome too. I can only hope it isn't too good to be true."

Freddie's gaze rolled into hers and his mouth curled into a subtle smile. "So, have you figured out what you want to major in yet, Sam?"

"I don't know. The college says students need to declare a major when they become a junior. So, I figure I have until I get an associate's degree to decide." Part of her wanted to go into law enforcement; possibly a probation officer.

Another part of her wanted to go into counseling. She had a passion for psychology, but didn't want to major in it since it was said to be the hardest field to get a job in.

"What about you? Have you declared a major?"

"No." He picked up his spoon and dipped it into the bowl of soup before him. His eyes dropped down to the bowl and his lips sank into a frown. "I have no desire to go into technical work."

"No?"

"The thing is, I took a few computer classes-hated it. I've taken a few film classes, and it bored me." His eyes widened and he chuckled astonishingly. She was stunned as well, but people didn't always enjoy the same things they did when they were children. "I've also taken way too many different courses, that by the time I select my major, I'm going to have so many credits that don't even matter."

"Do you have any idea at all what you want to be?"

He lifted his spoon and blew onto it before pushing it into his mouth. His eyes closed and he swallowed. "No. I don't know what interests me either-my mother hasn't exactly let me expand my horizons."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that despite the stuff I've done with you and Carly, I've never done anything else." He narrowed his eyes and let out a frustrated growl. Her facial features started to relax and her eyebrows curled together and shifted up in the center.

"I'm sorry." She started to reach forward and paused to look down at his left hand. With a sigh, followed by a gentle smile, she gently placed her hand over his. He held his breath and turned his eyes to her hand. "You know, we still had a lot of fun with iCarly. Going to Japan, watching the MMA-"

"Right." His smile returned and his eyebrows rose. "God, Carly pissed Spencer off so much that time."

"Wasn't that one of the first times he grounded her?"

"I think it was. He didn't seem to like being a disciplinarian, but he'd be the tough parent if needed."

"Yeah…" She curled her fingers around his hand and breathed in as he closed his hand around her fingers. She felt the blood pulsating rhythmically through his veins, it was swift and hard. "Hey Freddie, I know you haven't had a good time with your mother over the years, but at least she's been there for you, right?"

"If only she ever let me live." His hand relaxed and his shoulders sloped down. "You know that surgery I had a couple months back?"

"Yeah." She remembered it, but she didn't know the specifics of it. For whatever reason, Freddie refused to talk about why he was having surgery, or why his father was the one demanding it done when his mother wanted nothing to do with it.

"Those headaches I've been having all my life? The ones I learned to ignore that mom always said were just small migraines?" She nodded and Freddie motioned his head to the side. "Well I visited my dad and told him about them, since evidently mom never brought it up, and he had his doctor give me an MRI. You know what they found?"

"What?"

His lips pressed together and rage lit up his eyes as a burning fire. "A fucking satellite chip that tracks your location. It was embedded into my skull." Her jaw fell open and her left hand flew up over her mouth.

"Apparently mom had some shit doctor from another country put it in when I was a baby. It's really not enough to say I don't like my mother very much these days."

"Maybe some time away from her is for the best." She closed her left hand over his. He breathed in slowly and clamped his mouth shut, shaking his head from side to side. "I won't say anything bad about her, but I'll be honest-"

"I wish you would, to tell the truth. All my life I've tolerated her crazy rants, her overbearing personality and all the obscene things she had me do, but this? Sam, this nonsense?"

Microchip implants, also known as a radio-frequency identifier, had been a controversial thing since the 90s Although that was in America, and no doctor here would perform the operation unless it were both legal and binding.

"What's going to happen to your mom?"

"Nothing. That's the problem." He leaned to the left and bent his right arm up and positioned his hand over his mouth. "I was a minor, she can't even be sued for having the chipping process done-according to Spencer." Sam frowned and slowly shook her head. "He said she can be sued on the basis of having a shit doctor from another country do it, and not even confirming it with my father, who had joint custody of me."

"At least it's out. Have you been having anymore issues since you got it out?"

He looked into her eyes and smiled back at her. "No. I can think a lot more clearly now, that's something." She felt his thumb sweeping across the back of her hand and tiny shivers shot through her arm.

"I don't know if it's okay to say this…" His voice became soft and drew her in. She could feel herself leaning forward, but didn't stop herself. "You look really beautiful in this light."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back a bit. Her shoulders moved forward and she quickly swept her hair over her ear. "Freddie…" As she continued to lean towards him, her phone's ringtone blasted into the air, tearing them apart.

Freddie cleared his throat and Sam checked her phone to see who was calling. "It's Trina. I've got to take this."

He smiled at her and motioned his hand to the phone. "Go ahead."

"Sorry, Freddie." He waved dismissively and she pulled the phone up to her ear. "Hey Trina, what's happening?"

"I can't go with you to get my blood drawn." Her eyes opened and she sat upright in a sudden motion.

"What happened?"

"Dad doesn't think it's a good idea…He says he's all for it, but he doesn't trust Tori's friends. He won't actually let Tori go either." That sounded like a legitimate reason, but it was still shocking.

She folded her left arm over the table and shook her head. "Why doesn't he trust them?" Trina exhaled sharply.

"Because they've done some pretty bad stuff to us in the past and never got in trouble for it. One of them actually stole some blood when Tori was at the hospital one time, she was sick for a while-and another one actually put me in the hospital. So he tends to monitor what they end up doing with us nowadays…"

"I guess that makes sense." She winced and brought her hand up to her forehead. Her eyes moved to Freddie, who was eyeing her with concern. "How did he even find out?"

"Tori mentioned it to him. She trusts the guy." Her head started to pound and her mouth twisted into a frustrated scowl. She used to have a problem with acting on impulse, and while she knew it would be unacceptable here, she wanted to march up to Tori and tell her the truth about her stepfather.

"Maybe another time then." She rolled her head to the right. Her fingers tapped the table and her cheeks indented around the corners of her mouth. "Will you be in Sasha's class on Monday?"

"Yes."

"Good. So will I." It was the most direct way she was going to get Trina to herself, and the classes were really going to help her with some self-defense techniques as well. "I hope to see you there."

"You will. Are you going to join the others when they go down and get their blood drawn?"

"Not anymore." Since that plan had been nixed, she had other thoughts on her mind. "I don't mean to cut this short, Trina. I'm with somebody right now, so can I call you back?"

"Oh of course. I'll see you in class Monday."

"Good. Talk to you then." They said their goodbyes and she hung up the phone. Her lips curled into a smile as she looked to Freddie. "My afternoon schedule just cleared up, if you want to do something." While she was pissed that the evening plans weren't going to pan out, she'd already expected it would happen, so she wasn't going to make a big deal about it.

This did mean she had more time to spend with Freddie, and part of her did want that. "For once you can mess around without worrying about your mother freaking out."

He laughed. "Thank god." She stood up and placed her hand in his, pulling him up from the table. "What's our next stop in our afternoon date?"

"I was thinking you could surprise me."

"When was the last time you went ballroom dancing?" Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open.

She wasn't much of a dancer; she enjoyed watching people do the various ballroom dances but hadn't done any of the sort since Melanie tried to get her into it. "Last person I danced with was Jonah. Remember him?"

"Oh?" He smirked and swept his free arm outwards. "Then would you care to dance? Not here, of course, but-"

"Just lead the way, dork." A grin spread across her face and she happily walked out of the café with him.

Well what are your thoughts during the date? It looks like a lot was discussed, with some stuff we never knew about the both of them. Now of course, we see that David has indeed shot down the plan of donating blood, it was a good plan while it lasted. What should Sam's next step entail?