Summary: Carly realizes what she's never regarded when she humiliates the boy she's looked down on for so long. It's true that you only realize what you had when you come close to losing it… or when it's lost. Creddie story, happy ending? CreddieFans Fic Challenge: Stay My Baby

Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly. If I did, I'd get to work making Creddie happen already!!

Annoying A/N: Hello everyone, this is my first fic in the iCarly category! Please welcome a new Creddie fan into this category! ^^
Oh and just a side note, I cannot guarantee that you will like either Carly or Freddie in the beginning. I don't know what kind of person I wanted Freddie to be here, but I guess I was suffering from the influence of another amazing Creddie oneshot as well as falling in love with annoying nerdy dorks. I was also watching Venetian Princess' parody of Womanizer (but with nerds :])

Note: This story is a possible AU, where some episodes in the show might have never occurred.

In the Beginning: Closing Doors

When they were younger, Carly never really took him seriously.

She was too soft to harshly reject him, and sometimes even found his crush humorous, or so small that it was not something to even be regarded.

He was just the nerdy, white-bellied kid next door who also happened to be iCarly's technical producer.

But as they started to grow older, his puppy face, the usual spark of energy when he was eager to please her, and his boyish antics at courting and getting her affection started to get gross and annoying. It began to get on her nerves. She even noticed that it occasionally reached the point of stalking and invasion of privacy.

She began to treat him with less patience. Because they were growing up she endured lived her life differently; she couldn't put up with him and iCarly anymore. Their relationship began to change and they drifted further and further apart from being the best friends they formerly were.

And then there was the day, over a month ago, that drastically changed the situation that was already so very different from before.

Carly knew it was going to be a bad day as soon as she woke up to the clap of thunder that woke her up, accompanied by her alarm, which she had unconsciously put on snooze at least five times.

She slid into first period, stressed and with a frazzled hairdo. She almost had a heart attack running down the halls as the warning bells sounded.

And she almost broke down seeing the huge F slashed across her test paper, which was being passed around by a cute boy in her class who gave her a sympathetic smile.

As soon as the recess bell rang, she quickly squeezed out of the rough crowd to make her way over to her best friend Sam, who was leaning against the lockers.

"Yo, Carls," she went thickly, as she was chewing on a large ham and jelly sandwich. "Didn't see you earlier this morning."

The brunette groaned. "Please don't remind me of earlier this morning," she began, which was ironical as she proceeded to narrate the horrible chain of events that occurred upon making her way to school.

Finishing off, fighting the tears that stung in her eyes, she lifted her test paper to show Sam. "And as I was desperately trying to fix my stubborn hair, I totally humiliated myself in front of the guy who was passing around the test papers."

She doesn't admit it, but missed sharing things with Freddie, though she rarely got around to having a proper conversation with him these days. She mostly avoided him. It was depressing to show it to someone like Sam, who would most likely say, 'Hey, I got that grade too. No biggie.'

But instead Sam blinked at the F; obviously surprised Carly would get a grade worse than hers which was a D, something that she did not mention. Giving her a lopsided smile, she said, "The kid who passed this paper around almost wet his pants trying to give it to me. I gave him a glare so fierce that—"

She cut herself off, narrowing her eyes with irritation at the sight behind Carly. "Here comes Benson," she said in a low, gravelly voice.

Carly inwardly sighed as Freddie approached them with apparent eagerness. "Hey, Carls," he said, grinning broadly. "I couldn't help overhearing—"

"Bet you could," Sam cut in.

Freddie shot her a glare. "Don't you have anywhere else to go?" And all of a sudden, his eyes lit up and he went, "Mr. Howard, at 12 o' clock!"

"Oh shit, gotta go guys," Sam said, and darted round the corner from whence Freddie came, leaving the pair of brunettes alone. Carly twiddled her toes, unhappy with Sam's absence. "Well—"

"Hey, you know I can help you anytime." He threw his head back slightly and gave her a cocky smile, a signature Freddie smile that he used whenever he was flirting with Carly, or attempting to, anyway.

But she had already turned around and was just walking in the other direction. "Right, I gotta go—"

"I mean it!" he was walking close behind her, jogging to keep up with her pace. "Come on, gimme a chance—"

"Please, Freddie," she said. "You know that I—"

He stopped her, gripping the hand that she used to hold on to her books. "Wait—come with me—we can talk outside—"

So here she was, sighing her head off, being dragged away by the nerd Freddie Benson. She never really insulted people like that—not even in her head, but nowadays that was almost all she thought about him. Outside in the school's premises he practically forced her onto a secluded corner. She leaned lazily on the brick wall, and Freddie twiddled his fingers in front of her.

"Actually, I called you out here to tell you something," he said, making Carly's shoulder's quirk. Ohmigawd, she thought as his shy words trailed away unhead, a headache coming. Was this really happening?

She has got to get out of here. Fast.

His speech went through one ear and out the other, Freddie mumbling rehearsed words of dedication and loyalty and promises. Head low, brows creased, eyes shut, four fingers to her moist brow, Carly straightened, getting ready to end this once and for all.

"Freddie—"

"And I pledge to—yes?"

"I can't do this." Her concise words sounded like echoes bouncing off the icy walls of a cave.

There was a two second pause as she awaited his reaction, which she was not anticipating. But when it came, it did not surprise and instead raised her exasperation.

"Oh—it's okay," he said, his grin spreading over his face again. "You don't have to answer me right away; I can wait, as long as you don't cheat on—"

"STOP this, Freddie, I'm—"

"No, sh-sh-sh-shhh." He placed both hands over her mouth to silence her. "Not now." He gave her a toothy smile, and finally, Carly Shay cracked.

Wrenching his arms away from her jaws, she gave him a menacing glare, her temper finally reaching its breaking point, which was the result that her horrible morning helped procure. "Look!" she yelled. "I don't like you, at all. The reason why we ended iCarly over a year ago wasn't just because we needed to focus more on our studies—it was because I didn't want to be around you anymore! Freddie, I think you are annoying. We used to be friends, all right, nothing more, but now you're just that nerdy kid next door who won't leave me alone! That's all you are to me now. How am I going to get it through to you that I am not interested in you? We're different, with different lives. 'Us' won't ever be considered, isn't going to happen, and never will!"

She panted, giving him a brief, shadowy look from underneath her lashes. He was just standing there, one step backward, looking at her like he's never done. When she finally pulled herself together, she only just realized the crowd that looked straight at them, all witnesses of her harsh outburst. Shocked and guilty, Carly's mouth opened with no words to come out, thinking that she would immediately receive the mob's reproaches.

Instead, the silence was quickly broken by a roll of laughs and mockery thrown at Freddie.

"Damn, he actually thought he had a chance with Carly?"

"This is what happens when losers get too cocky."

"Heh! Carly'd never go out with a dweeb like you!"

"Anybody got a camera?"

These, among many others, were said in their midst. Carly didn't know what to think—partly she was slightly taken aback at how brutal their comments were, but mostly she was relieved that she wasn't the target.

Not a shred of guilt ran through her at this moment, but a chilling feeling hit her low in the abdomen as Freddie looked up at her, a dark look in his eyes she has never seen before.

"Thanks a lot, Carly," he said in a strangely venomous voice in a tone she's never heard directed to her in her entire life.

And with a shove to her shoulder, he left her standing there in perplexity, ridicule and empty coke cans thrown at him as he went.

Carly was unable to recall how she finally made her way out of the crowd and in the hall, catching up with Sam again, but she did. What had happened spread like wildfire, and Sam had already heard, but that did not stop her from squeezing the details from Carly.

"Oh," was what she said when Carly had tiredly finished her story. "Hm."

"What's up with that reaction?" Carly asked her.

"I dunno." She shrugged evasively. "I guess it was expected; you were practically a celebrity before. Hey, do you think Fredweird will leave you alone from now on?"

"I'm not sure." Carly chewed on a fingernail. "Not that I really care but—okay maybe I do: I wonder where he went."

"I saw him limping to the nurse's office." Sam shrugged. "A bit hard to miss, with all the people staring at him."

"Limping?" Carly raised a brow.

"Yeah. But they weren't teasing him or anything then; I guess 'cause they saw that he was injured." She shrugged, leaning lazily against the locker and gazing boredly at her colorful sneakers.

The bells rang and the two girls returned to their respective classrooms.

Carly did not spot Freddie for the entire day, nor did she and Sam speak of him, either.