Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly.

Observation

Carly doesn't pride herself on having known early on. Because, in fact, she didn't know early on.

And once the seed was actually planted in her mind, she still thought it was totally and completely far fetched.

But after a good deal of thinking, she did decide it made a perfect, albeit kind of crazy, sense.

She likes to think that if it hadn't been for the old woman, she probably would've figured it out on her own anyway. Since the signs were getting more and more blatant as the years passed. Or at least, that's what she tells herself.

The three of them were walking home from school one day, discussing ideas for the next iCarly. Freddie suggested something, Sam snapped at him that nobody cared, and it all went downhill from there.

She always wondered why, when the two of them fought, it was like there was some sort of bubble wrapped around them, some sort of protective zone, that kept everything else out. Most of the time she had to resort to physical means (aka her trusty spray bottle) to draw them out of it, and they always seemed to have these dazed sort of looks afterwards, like they were returning to reality.

She'd never understood any of it. But that day she received her first glimpse into their complicated relationship.

She hadn't been carrying her spray bottle to school (a mistake she fixed later) and she was left without any means of stopping their arguments. So she was just walking alongside them, resigned and exasperated and embarrassed.

But then they passed the bus stop. There were only two people standing there. One was an old women, with a withered face and deep soulful eyes. The other was a boy not too much older than they were, wearing earphones and tapping his feet repeatedly against the bench.

As Carly leveled with her, the old women caught her eye, and then turned to scrutinize Sam and Freddie. The woman's bored expression suddenly vanished, and a wide grin split across her features, her entire face lighting up. Without even realizing it, Carly had stopped and was staring at her curiously.

Sam and Freddie hadn't even realized she was no longer with them, and continued down the street, arguing loudly.

The old woman's twinkling eyes met Carly's again, and Carly noticed that when she smiled, the woman looked much younger.

Unsure how to start a conversation with the woman, and realizing belatedly that she probably shouldn't be talking to a strange old woman at all, she apologized for the loud ruckus her two best friends always caused. They fought all the time because they hated each other so much, she felt the need to add.

The woman merely laughed. "Oh, dear, can't you see it?"

"See what?"

The woman laughed again. "Hasn't anyone ever pointed out to you that they argue like an old married couple?"

The truth was, Carly had heard it before, but she'd always brushed it off after acknowledging the truth in the statement as well as the underlying falsity. The arguments between any old married couple wouldn't have been nearly venomous as Sam's and Freddie's were or else the marriage wouldn't have stayed intact.

But right then, standing in front of the old woman with the knowing sparkle in her eye, Carly wondered if she had been looking at their relationship all wrong. If she had been interpreting their arguments all wrong.

Carly stared at the woman, feeling a sudden urge to plague her with questions, this strange woman who seemed to know so much about two people she had never met before.

"Carly!"

She jumped and turned around. Sam and Freddie were coming back up the street, their expressions confused. For a brief moment, Carly felt a sort of triumph. That her absence had somehow managed to penetrate their private bubble was a very rare occurrence indeed.

"Carly? What are you doing?" Sam looked back and forth between Carly and the old woman suspiciously.

"We got nervous when we realized you weren't with us anymore!" Freddie's voice had a slightly hysterical edge to it.

"We?" Sam snapped. "You mean you. I know Carly can take care of herself. I'm not obsessively in love with her. I don't have to know where she is every second of my life or else I'll go into cardiac arrest!"

Carly could see Freddie's eyes narrowing in anger, but she decided to intervene before he could react and they retreated back into their private bubble.

"Guys!" she yelled quickly. "I'm sorry I made you worry. I'm coming."

She was already walking towards them when she heard the old woman's laughter again. Turning back towards the woman confusedly, Carly asked, "What's so funny?"

In a low voice, just loud enough for Carly to hear, the woman said, "They remind me so much of my husband and myself at their age."

This revelation left Carly reeling. "Huh?"

But the woman just smiled and didn't say anything else, and when Sam and Freddie called her name again impatiently, she hurried to join them. But it didn't stop her from looking back towards the bus stop several times until they were too far away to see it anymore.

Even though later that day, Sam and Freddie had gotten into another full-fledged fight in her living room and ended up breaking both a priceless vase her father had sent from a Yakima, as well as a piece of Spencer's newest sculpture, the conversation with the old lady is the first thing that pops into Carly's head whenever she thinks back to that day.

The other part of the day Carly remembers the most came after Sam and Freddie had gone. She remembers laying on the couch, starting at nothing, barely noticing Spencer humming to himself as he fixed his sculpture in the kitchen.

She remembers the words going around and around in her head.

Sam and Freddie? Together, as a couple? Sam and Freddie?

But what she remembers clearest about that day are the revelations that followed, such strange revelations about her two best friends that made such perfect sense and yet no sense at all.

Sometimes, she'll sit quietly and just watch Sam and Freddie argue, smiling to herself. She doesn't interrupt anymore, unless it's something important. Because now she knows that this is how they interact, the way they always will interact.

They are complete and total opposites, and that's where it all stems from. They just don't understand each other, and they both desperately want to.

Like yin and yang.

She marvels over how it really is so simple and how silly she was not to realize it before. So many great love stories were first relationships based on "hatred".

And now that she's realized that their arguments are based less on hate and more on a deep fascination with one another, she can actually find the arguments amusing in their ridiculousness.

She can smile to herself instead of staring and breaking her head in confusion whenever they have one of their moments. Not sweet, fluffy moments, because that's not how they are. Moments that make her pause and catch her breath, and sigh delightedly, hoping they are one step closer to one another. The moments when both are extremely agitated and they catch each other's eyes and communicate wordlessly. The utter emotion that passes between them is so strong and passionate that sometimes she just can't understand why they are stagnated at the point they are, why they can't just be together and get it over with already.

But she knows it doesn't work like that. And she knows that it will just make it all the more sweet in the end when it finally happens.

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A/N: My first story. Consturctive criticism appreciated.