A/N: I don't own iCarly or 'I Feel Home'. Those honors go to Dan and OAR. This started out as a chapter of another story I was writing, but I realized I liked writing about it enough that it had to be more than a chapter or a one shot.

Chapter 1

A Trip to the Beach

"FREDWARD!!!!!!!!"

Hearing the sound of my name, at such a loud volume jolted me awake. To make matters worse, I fell out of bed. I was laying on the floor of my room, which was hardwood by the way, and not very comfortable, when I saw a blur of yellow above me. I closed my eyes, knowing what it was, and rubbed my hands over my face.

"Sam! What do you want? It's the first day of summer vacation, and I know it's not that late. Why are you even in my room? You know how my mom feels about you picking the locks..." I opened my eyes, and sure enough, there she was, the blonde headed demon who made my life hell on a daily basis. Her signature smirk was plastered across her face, and she rolled her eyes at me.

"First of all nub, I didn't pick your lock. Your psycho mother let me in." I almost didn't believe her, knowing how my mom felt about Sam. Then I remembered the new guy my mother had started dating. He was bald, and old, but he had somehow managed to break my mother of some of her maniacal tendencies. The tick baths were still enforced, much to my dismay. I rolled my eyes, cursing my mom for letting her in. I propped myself up on my elbows at the same time as Sam crouched down.

"Get ready, Freddork. We're going to the beach to celebrate school being over! Get yourself together and come over to Carly's. NOW!" She started to walk away and I couldn't believe my luck; she hadn't assaulted me at all during our brief conversation, aside from making me fall out of the bed. This was almost unheard of. But then of course, she seemed to remember, and turned around, walking back towards me. She thumped me, right in the middle of my forehead, and I just closed my eyes, knowing that there were worse things she could have done to me.

"Nice Galaxy Wars pajama pants, by the way..." I opened my eyes and looked down. Of course she had to comment on them. Now she would have something else to torture me about. There was just no way I was ever going to get her to treat me like a normal human being. I was, and would always be, Fredward Benson, Nub Extraordinaire. I guess I was just going to have to learn to live with it. I knew that I should get ready, because if I didn't obey Sam's orders, she would most likely be back within minutes, this time to beat me up for real. I picked myself up off the floor, and dragged myself to the bathroom, grumbling the whole way. After I had changed from my 'nerd pajamas' into board shorts, a white t-shirt and my worn out, dependable Converse, I packed my backpack with stuff I would need for a day at the beach with Sam, Carly and Spencer. As I walked out of my room into the main part of my apartment, I couldn't help but give my mom a dirty look. Luckily she was facing away from me, because if she had seen it, it would've meant tick baths every night, and that was just something I couldn't live with.

"Mom, I'm going to the beach. I'll be back later." I heard the sharp intake of her breath as she spun around, her eyes wide.

"Freddie, you can't go to the beach! There could be jellyfish! You could get cut on a bottle!" I knew this was going to happen, but I wasn't in the mood to hear her millions of reasons for me not to go.

"Mom..." I was trying to be patient with her, but she just ignored me and kept on rambling. "MOM!" Finally, she snapped out of her state of panic and just stared at me. "Please, just listen to me. I'll be extra careful, and watch out for jellyfish, broken glass, and all other hazardous materials. I'll make sure to wait an hour after eating before I swim. I'll reapply my sunscreen every hour, and I'll text you when we're on the way home. Can I please go now? If I don't get to Carly's soon, Sam's gonna come after me." I regretted saying the last part, because I knew how much my mother despised Sam, and how abrasive she thought she was. After a little more negotiating with her, I managed to get out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me to prevent her from shoving her 'travel size' first aid kid out with me. Keep in mind, her travel sized kit is bigger than my backpack.

I walked into Carly and Spencer's apartment, and I found myself staring at the back half of Sam sticking out of the refrigerator, the other half of her body digging through whatever food was in there.

"Careful, Sam. I don't want a repeat of last night." She had gotten her arm stuck in the meat drawer, convinced there was a rogue slice of ham hiding from her. I know how much she loves her meat, but even I had to admit that what she had done was crazy, even for her.

"It's a good thing I found the ham, Freddison, or else you'd be knocked out right now." Her muffled voice came from the refrigerator, and she emerged with a victorious look on her face, holding a plastic bag full of ham. I sat down at the counter across from her. "Breakfast?"

"You know it dork. Mama's gotta have her meat." I couldn't help but laugh. It was so typical of Sam. "So where are the people that actually live here? And why were you rushing me so much if they aren't even ready?" Sam opened her mouth to talk, but was cut off by Carly, who had come down the stairs. She was wearing a white sundress and I could see the straps of her purple bathing suit peeking out. She had her huge bug eye sunglasses perched in her hair. Normally, that would be enough to get my blood boiling, but instead, I just had a single, fleeting thought about how she looked nice, and looked away. Weird.

"Excuse me, Freddie, but I don't want to hear your comments. I'm ready right now. As long as Spencer doesn't light anything on fire in the next five minutes, we should be ready to go soon. Sam, I hope that's the ham from the refrigerator, and not the cooler. You know how hard I worked to stock that before." Sam stared at Carly with a piece of ham hanging out of her mouth, and put her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, yeah, I didn't take the ham out of the stupid cooler. I listen sometimes when you talk, Shay."

We managed to leave a few minutes later, after Spencer had come running out of his room, ready for the beach. For Spencer, being ready for the beach included a hat that looked like it was made for an episode of 'Gilligan's Island,' and a large purple blow up tube, complete with a dinosaur head, and tail. The three of us just stared at him when he came out, and Carly started to tell him how embarrassing he was, but he cut her off, saying that if we wanted a ride to the beach, we would just have to deal with his dinotube. As we left the apartment, and made our way down the stairs, I made sure that I was the last one out. I knew better than to let Sam walk behind me. I would either end up falling down the stairs, or having her throw things at me the whole way down.

We walked into the garage, and loaded our bags into Spencer's trunk. Carly sat in the passenger seat, leaving me alone in the backseat with the she-devil herself. Thankfully I had my PearPod with me, to drown out some of her nagging, but as soon as we were seated, with an empty seat in between us, she had kicked her sandals off and swung her legs out, forcefully putting them on my lap. I turned to look at her and she just stared straight back at me, daring me to say something. I looked down at her feet, wishing that she had at least kept her shoes on, and she wiggled her toes at me. I wrinkled my nose and it was all I could do not to smack her feet off my lap, but I knew that if I did that, the next thing to get smacked would be me. I sighed, knowing it was going to be a long day, and turned up my PearPod. I turned to look out the window, knowing that if I looked at Sam she would find something to tease me about, or just start hitting me to waste time.

After a few songs, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around slowly, not wanting to fall victim to the famous 'Sam Puckett Slap'. When I finally met her eyes, she motioned for me to take my headphones off, which I did, against my better judgement.

"What do you want Sam?" I was a little scared to hear her answer.

"Can I listen to your PearPod with you? I had a little incident with mine the other day, involving pickle juice." Knowing Sam, it was the truth, even though it sounded ridiculously made up.

"Uh, I guess. I don't know if the headphones are going to reach over there though." Sam moved over from the side seat to the middle seat. She was sitting Indian-style, and it was the first time I had ever seen someone sit like that in a car, but knowing Sam as long as I had, nothing surprised me anymore. I handed her one of the headphones and she took it.

"Any requests, Puckett?" She shrugged, and held her hand out. I must have looked hesitant, because she rolled her eyes at me.

"Come on, Benson, do you see any pickle juice around? I'm not going to ruin your PearPod. I just wanna see what kind of music a nerd like you listens to." I handed it to her, and she began scrolling through my songs. I have to admit that I do have quite a selection of music, about 5,000 songs. I watched her as she went through them, laughing at some. Some I could tell she was surprised at, because her eyebrow would raise slightly, and settle back down again. Finally she decided on a song, 'I Feel Home' by OAR. I was a little surprised, because she didn't seem like the type of person who would listen to something like that, but I happened to like OAR, so I wasn't about to fight her.

As the song played, she closed her eyes and started dancing. Well, whatever kind of dance you could do sitting in a car. It was more of a bopping motion. I could feel her foot tap against the side of my leg, but it was such a change from smacking and punching that I didn't even say anything about it. As the song started to wind down, she held the PearPod out to me.

"Your turn. And don't pick anything stupid, or I'll punch you." Of course she would threaten me. I must have done an okay job choosing though, because I recieved no physical harm. We went back and forth like that, Sam choosing, and then me, until we got to the beach an hour later. It was one of the few times that we had managed to be near each other without her hurting me, or me making her angry. I had to admit it was a nice change from our constant arguing, but knowing Sam, it wasn't going to last long.

A/N: I hope the last bit wasn't too out of character for anyone. Let me know what you think! : )