*A/N: Forgot to mention, this takes place sometime after iOMG assuming iLMM never happened (so excited for it! eeee!)*

*Chapter Two*

I'll Cry Instead

~*Freddie*~

Sam and I spent most of the day lounging on the couch, alternating between playing video games and watching horror flicks. She still refused to talk about whatever went down, and I didn't press her. The last thing I wanted was to scare the girl off, there's no telling where she would go.

It was nearly eight o'clock when I heard a loud knocking at my door. Sam nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Who is that?" she asked fearfully, completely out of character for her. I stood up.

"Go in the bathroom or something, I'll find out."

Sam scurried off and I heard the bathroom door shut.

The knocking came again, and I got up and walked to the door, looking through the peephole. Looks like Carly was back. I cracked the door open a little and stuck my head out.

"Hey," I said. "You're back."

Carly pushed the door open and wandered inside. 'Sanctuary!', I wanted to yell at her. How very Quasimodo. I wondered if Sam would ever hit on that nickname. Freddimodo.

"Come on in," I said, irritated.

"Have you talked to Sam?" Carly asked. "Her phone's off. And her mom just slammed the door in my face when I went over there. And...there were expletives. Lots and lots of expletives." And wounds.

"Uh...really?" I asked lamely. Carly narrowed her eyes at me.

"You know something, don't you?"

I sighed. There wasn't any use keeping things from Carly, inquisitive as she was.

"She's in the bathroom."

"Why is she in your bathroom?" Carly asked. I didn't answer, or meet her eyes. Her eyes widened in a way that told me she had a pretty good idea what was going on, and panicked look crossed her face. My eyebrow went up. She knew something I didn't. Her voice went up an octave higher than before. "Sam? Sam!" She made a beeline for the bathroom door, with me not far behind.

Carly knocked on the door hesitantly. "Sam, it's me. I'm back from Yakima. What's going on?"

No answer. Carly pounded louder.

"Sam open the door! NOW!"

Nothing. Carly pounded again. "Sam!"

"Hold on," I said, reaching over Carly's head to the top of the doorframe and produced a key, swiftly unlocking the bathroom door. Carly pushed it open to find Sam standing there in only her bra and jeans studying her injuries in my full-length mirror. Carly and I both gasped. She hadn't told me about her back.

Close to a dozen cigarette burns were dotted all over Sam's back. Some were newer than others, none of them looked older than two weeks. So that was why Sam had nearly missed finals, why she hadn't wanted to take off to the lake that day. She had been keeping a horrible secret.

"Oh Sam." Carly said dejectedly. "It happened again, didn't it?"

Again? Was this a regular occurrence? How long had this been going on? How many people had hurt the poor girl?

Sam looked at the floor quietly, pushing her hair off her face allowing Carly to observe the stitches on her temple.

"Oh my god." Carly breathed, and moved to hug her.

"I can't take it anymore, Carly," Sam said pitifully. "I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"Can we please report it this time?" Carly asked. "Sam, please."

I cleared my throat. "How many times has this happened?"

Sam shrugged. "You mean Bill, or all my mother's other boyfriends too?"

"I'm getting Spencer." Carly headed for the door, but Sam grabbed her arm desperately.

"Carly, please! You promised!" Sam begged.

"I'm gonna have to break this promise, Sam." Carly responded. "You're gonna wind up dead."

"The hell she is," I growled. Carly and Sam looked at me, surprised.

"Put your shirt back on, Sam," I said. "We'll be in the living room." I led Carly out and shut the door behind me, leading her to the couch.

"You knew about this," I said angrily. "And NOW you want to get help?"

"Freddie, I promised! I didn't know what to do, I..."

"Listen, there's not enough counseling in the world to fix her!" I barked. "I thought this was the first time, and now I find out it's been going on for how long?"

"Since I've known her," Carly said. "But I just...god. I'm a horrible friend."

The door creaked open and Sam walked out. She'd been crying again.

"Sit," I said. Sam sat down on the couch next to Carly and I perched on the edge of the coffee table, my legs inches away from Sam's.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do." I said. "You're gonna stay with Carly until we can figure out your next move. Carly, will Spencer..."

"After he sees this mess he will," she commented. "Who stitched you up?" Sam's eyes shifted to me. Carly's mouth turned down slightly and she nodded, impressed. "Good job. The stitches are perfectly straight."

"He barely hurt me at all," Sam commented. "Of course, I was drunk, so..."

"Yeah, speaking of, Spencer needs to take a trip to the ABC store for me. Gotta replace Mom's stash." I remarked. "Look, I know you don't wanna go to the police, Sam, but..."

Sam stood up abruptly. "You're right, I don't."

I stood up too, placing my hands squarely on her shoulders to prevent her from leaving. "Stop trying to walk away from this."

Sam's arms rose up between mine, knocking my hands off her shoulders with her forearms. "Don't tell me what to do Freddork."

"Will you stop being such a hardass and let people help you?" I yelled. "This is bad Sam! This is really, really bad."

Sam slumped down onto the couch, wincing as her back came into contact with the couch cushions.

"I'm gonna need to take a look at your back." I said.

Carly and Sam both shot me looks, easily readable looks. Carly thought I was being a pervert and Sam thought I was needlessly fussing over her.

"You have CIGARETTE BURNS on your BACK! They will get infected! They can't amputate your torso if you get gangrene, Sam."

Sam sighed in defeat. "Fine. I'll be in the bathroom."

I looked at Carly. "There's 40 in my wallet in my room. We need replacement liquor, and some more for Sam."

"Oh, can we get peach schnapps?" Carly asked sounding slightly giddy. I rolled my eyes.

"Okay fine. Small bottle of peach schnapps, two bottles of Maker's Mark." I responded. "Should be another 20 in there."

"Okay," Carly responded. She headed to my room and came back moments later "You know, you're really handling this situation...well. I'm glad you're involved now."

"Me too." I said truthfully. "Alright, go get Spencer."

Carly mock-saluted me and bounded out of the apartment, shutting the door behind her. Sighing, I hung my head for a second, still trying to comprehend everything, then stood up and headed to the bathroom.

Sam was silent as she clutched a towel to her chest and sat on the edge of the bathtub. I sat behind her, putting ointment on her back and studying the various marks. She'd had a few scars on her back before that I had been aware of, but she'd just written off from getting into fights. Those looked like the product of getting shoved into things, like furniture. None of the cigarette burns looked older than a week, tops. Her mom's new boyfriend was a sick bastard.

"Are you gonna go to medical school?" She asked suddenly.

"I mean, I always figured I'd go to film school." I replied.

"You'd be a good doctor." she remarked softly. "Nobody's ever..." she trailed off, and I squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

"I know." I squeezed more ointment on my fingers and applied it to a particularly nasty burn on the small of her back. "It's gonna be okay Sam."

She nodded, jerking in pain from the sudden contact. "I hope so."

"When are you gonna talk about what happened?" I asked her, placing the cap on the ointment and handing her my bathrobe. She pulled it on, tying the belt loosely around her waist.

"I...I can't." she replied.

"Why not?" I questioned.

"Because," she whispered, lip trembling. "I'm Sam Puckett. I can whoop anyone's ass, and I'm...well...I'm Sam Puckett. I can't let this get out. I'll be a target."

"Sam!" I scolded her. "You think I'm gonna sell you out? I'm not gonna tell anyone. Not even Carly if you don't want me to. You can't be strong 100% of the time."

"Says who?"

I stood behind her, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look in the mirror. "Says whoever did this to you."

Her lower lip trembled, but she didn't speak. Finally she just turned around and buried her face in my chest. My arms went around her instinctively. I don't know why I did it or what made me decide to do it, but I gently kissed the top of her head. I was prepared for her to hit me, but she just accepted it, not moving a bit.

"Want me to order some Chinese?" I asked. I felt her nod. "Whaddya want?"

"The right side of the menu," she responded, completely serious. I chuckled.

"Okay, let me go see how much cash I have." I let her go and walked to my room to go get more money.

~* Sam *~

I had never felt more at home than I had in Freddie's arms. Things were so different now. He had been a skinny little nerd boy forever, and now here he was, taking care of ME! He had also filled out a lot, ever since he started working out. He was all muscle now, and nothing made me feel safer than having those muscles wrapped around me, holding me against him.

It was getting harder and harder to hold back. I'd kissed him on the fire escape, and the lock-in, but that was tame compared with what I wanted to do. I wanted him to tangle his hands through my hair and hold my head steady as he explored my mouth with his. I wanted our bare skin pressing against each others'. I wanted to be in his bed for more than sleeping.

I couldn't vocalize any of this of course. With everything that had happened, I knew Freddie would just write it off as me being vulnerable. I couldn't deal with HIM rejecting me. I was determined not to cave.

I was instantly pulled out of my thoughts by a loud knock at the door.

"Freddie!" I hollered. "Somebody's here!"

Freddie walked out of his room and pressed his face to the peephole.

"Carly and Spencer," he said to me, before opening the door. Spencer practically rushed in.

"Okay, first of all, for the record, I do not support underage drinking, but Carly told me what happened and...oh my god holy shit!" Spencer exclaimed as his eyes fixed on my face. "Carly, you weren't kidding."

I calmly walked across the room and jerked the bottle of Maker's Mark out of Spencer's hands, twisting the cap off and lifting the bottle to my lips, chugging away, only to have Freddie jerking the bottle out of MY hands. The nerve!

"What the hell Fredward?" I barked.

"Eat something first so you don't puke your brains out later, Puckett." Freddie responded. "Besides we need you sober just for a few more minutes."

"Why?" I snapped, reaching for the bottle. Freddie calmly held it above my head, out of my grasp.

"So we can figure out a plan, Sam," Spencer spoke up, sitting down in an armchair. He paused. "You've gotta go to the police."

I shook my head fervently.

"Why not?" Carly asked.

"Because, they're not gonna believe me anyway." I responded dejectedly, looking at the floor.

"Why wouldn't they believe you? Look at how banged up you are!" Freddie exclaimed.

I took a deep breath. "Because Bill's a cop. He's not just a cop, he's a detective." As soon as I said that, I heard the others moan in exasperation. They all knew what that meant. It was his word against mine. Who would believe me, a teenage miscreant?

"Spencer what do we do?" Carly asked, panicked. "We have to do something!"

"The best we can do is let her stay with us, Carls, and hope her mom doesn't come looking for her."

I snorted inelegantly. "She won't."

~* Freddie *~

Last night I barely had a buzz. Tonight I was having trouble standing upright.

With the replacement booze safely locked away, Sam, Spencer and I had plowed through nearly all of the remaining one and a half bottles of Maker's Mark.

Carly was content to sip her peach schnapps out of a glass with orange juice, demure little thing she was. Still, even though her liquor lacked the kicked of Maker's Mark, she was just as buzzed as the rest of us.

In our defense, this behavior was really out of character for us. Especially Spencer, who normally would never condone his baby sister and her two underage best friends drinking, but news of Sam's situation hit everyone hard. Spencer had simply started pouring shots for himself. Nobody liked to think about someone as tough as Sam getting knocked down to the bottom.

At least we were in good spirits now. Alcohol tends to do that I suppose.

Sam was still being quiet, I noticed, and knowing she'd downed about 6 glasses of whiskey, made it all the more worrying. Carly and Spencer were in the kitchen, making sculptures out of plastic utensils and condiment packets and laughing hysterically. I stumbled over to the couch and plopped down next to Sam.

"So, meeting fancy you here," I slurred. "Wait, I mean, you fancy meeting here. No..."

Sam looked at me and started to laugh. "You're funny when you're drunk."

"First of all," I said, tilting the bottle of liquor to my lips. "I am always funny. Secondly, I...am not drunk." I took another swig.

"Coulda fooled me Fredwina." Sam shot back, taking the bottle out of my hands and lifting it to her own lips. She suddenly looked at me, eyes serious. "Can I talk to you for a minute? In the other room?"

My head lolled back on the couch. "If you can help me get there, sure thing Puckett."

"Alright, come on tough guy." Sam stood up and pulled me to my feet. I wobbled a bit, but she grabbed my arms and held me steady. "Let's go."

She led me back to my room and we collapsed on my bed in a crumpled heap, my full body weight resting on top of her. We stared at each other for a few seconds, silent.

"So what did you want to talk abou-" I was cut off by Sam grabbing me by the back of the head and fervently pressing her lips against mine. My eyebrows arched in surprise but I couldn't stop myself from kissing her back. Her tongue ran across my bottom lip in a tantalizing fashion, and soon our tongues were rubbing against one another's. I moaned as I felt her hips grind against mine as she kissed me deeper.

I loved kissing Sam. But this didn't feel right. She had gotten the shit beat out of her last night, she was drunk, and she was vulnerable. I couldn't do this. God, she was so soft though.

Finally, with every bit of strength I could muster, I pulled my mouth away from hers and sat up, leaving her confused...and pissed off.

"What..." she trailed off.

"Sam, this isn't right. You're drunk."

"So are you," she pointed out.

"That's my point," I replied. "I don't want to take advantage of you!"

"But you're not!" Sam replied, lifting her body up to kiss me again. I turned my head and she simply fell back onto the bed in shock. Taking stock of the situation, she rolled off the bed.

"Screw you, Freddork." She stormed out. Seconds later, I heard the door slam and Spencer and Carly yelling.

Shit.

I high-tailed it out of my bedroom to find the door standing wide open. Carly was gone, but Spencer was standing in the doorway looking down the hall. He turned to look at me.

"What the hell did you do, man?" Spencer asked.

"Nothing! I...she was drunk, and..." I stammered. "She kissed me, and I told her no, I was just trying to-"

"Ah. I see. So it's not what you did, it's what you didn't do," Spencer surmised.

"Wait, what?"

"Are you really that slow, Fred?" Spencer asked giving me a look. "Sam's in love with you."

"Bullshit," I responded, but it came out very weak, catching in my throat.

"She gives you shit all the time, goes out of her way to touch you..."

"...out of her way to hit me," I corrected.

"You never pulled a girl's pigtails on the playground?" Spencer asked with a grin. I gaped at him, and he continued. "The girl let you stick a needle in her head!"

"Her head was nearly split open." I countered.

"I wouldn't let you near my head with a needle if my brains were spilled out all over the Groovie Smoothie!" Spencer replied. "Will you just go after her already?"

I sighed. "She's just gonna punch me in the head."

Spencer shrugged. "Maybe. But her knuckles are all split open so I'm sure she won't hit you as hard."

"Fine! I'm going," With that, I stumbled down the hall, heading for the fire escape.

Carly was leaning her body out the window yelling up the fire escape.

"Sam! Get your butt in here! You're drunk!"

"Leave me alone!" I heard Sam's voice float through the window. I placed a hand on Carly's shoulder, and she turned to look at me. A look that could kill.

"Whatever you did, you really screwed up," she said accusingly.

I rolled my eyes. "Carly, I got this. Go back to your fuzzy navels."

I heard her mutter under her breath something about fuzzy navels being delicious as I squeezed through the window and ascended up the staircase.

I found Sam sitting two flights up, smoking a cigarette.

"When'd you start smoking?" I asked. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Why do you care?" she slurred. "I'm just drunk and vulnerable, right?"

"Yeah, you are." I replied. "So talk to me."

She raised the bottle of liquor she snagged to her lips and took a swig. "About what?"

"About what's going on in your head."

"Nothing," she responded indignantly.

"You're lying," I replied.

"What? Screw you, Fredward," she snapped. I calmly reached out and pried the liquor bottle out of her hands.

"The alcohol has really dulled your wit tonight, hasn't it?" I asked, amused.

"Shut up, you nub!"

I moved closer to her, she shifted uncomfortably.

"So now you don't want to be near me?" I asked.

"I never want to be near you. I hate you! I -" Sam's words are cut off as my lips come crashing down on hers. Stunned for a second, she moans a little bit and kisses me back. I break the kiss after a few moments and kiss her on the forehead.

"There," I say.

"There what?" Sam exclaimed. "Can I get a little dialogue with this mystery kiss here?"

"Well, Sam. I know what you want," I said bravely, prepared to have her hit me at any second. But she doesn't. She just bites her lips and stares at me, silent.

"But with everything that you're dealing with right now..." I trailed off when I caught the miserable expression on her face. She was expecting me to reject her. I tried a different approach, wrapping my arm around her shoulder, pulling her to me. I kissed her on the top of her head.

"Let's talk about this when we're both sober."

"Maybe I don't wanna be sober," Sam grumbled.

"You really want to spend the entire summer before our senior year in a drunken stupor?" I asked her. She huffed.

"Look, you're gonna stay with Carly and Spence, we're gonna get all this worked out. I swear we're gonna protect you Sam."

"I don't want protection!" Sam snarked. I nodded.

"I know you don't. You may not want it, but you do need it."

Sam didn't speak, just rested her head on my shoulder and stared off over the railing at the city spread out before us. Right now, nothing else mattered. She was here with me and I was here with her, and for one brief moment we were both at peace.