Hey, Long time, no see! Here's a new chapter for this story! Also, I will TRY to update more during the summer. But this chapter is kind of long to make up for my extended absence and mostly focuses on the relationship between Sam and Freddie (I'm not sorry). I hope you enjoy it and please PM me if you see any errors I missed. I typed this kind of fast because I really wanted to get it up for you all. I try to grammar and spell check it tomorrow though. But I'm gonna stop babbling now and let you all read the story. Enjoy! -Ariel

"Awkward..." Mercedes commented. The whole room had gone quiet. Sam and Freddie's jaws had both dropped and both were trying their hardest not to look at each other, instead gaping at the screen. Carly was confused and wondering if she should be yelling and screaming because Sam had kissed her 'boyfriend'. And Mercedes and Quinn were both waiting for the three's reactions.

"Very." Freddie agreed, blushing and glancing at Carly.

"Carly..." Sam spoke, "I swear it isn't what it looks like." She turned around and looked at Carly with wide eyes, "I mean, I would never willingly kiss that\. I might get Mad Nerd Disease." She wrinkled her nose in Freddie's direction.

"Excuse me?" Freddie spat, "I'm surprised I didn't turn to stone,"

"What a shame you didn't!"

"You're so-" Freddie started, but Carly interrupted their bickering.

"Stop it you two!" She said, laughing, "Sam, I'm not mad that you kissed Freddie. It was just a dare anyway. I know you wouldn't willing kiss my boyfriend."

"Yeah," Quinn piped in, "It was just a game. I mean, everyone was kissing everyone's boyfriends and girlfriends."

"See," Carly smiled at her friends. "Now, why don't we go get something to eat?"

"Good!" Sam instantly cheered up, she jumped up from her seat, "I'm starving!"

Over a week passed in Glee Club. After their horror performance at the Alcohol Awareness Week Assembly, where both Santana and Brittany threw up on stage (And Figgins' surprisingly oblivious response to it), they signed a contract with Mr. Schue promising not to drink until after Regionals. An agreement that, after what happened at Rachel's party, was easy to comply to.

A week and a half after the disaster performance, Freddie approaches Sam in the hall before Glee rehearsal. Carly is off somewhere with Quinn and Mercedes before rehearsal starts and everyone else is already in the room.

"Sam!" Freddie whisper shouts after her as he sees her back walking down the hall.

She rolls her eyes and groans, "What do you want Fredlumps?"

He runs to catch up with her and then tugs on her arm to pull her over to a secluded area of the hall, "It's about... our conversation last week."

flashback

The previous week, after acting weird and texting her to meet him after Cheerios rehearsal, Sam entered the choir room to see Freddie pacing nervously and rubbing his hands together.

"Why have you got your panties in a bunch, Fredrilla?" Sam asked, entering the room and throwing her bag down.

"Sam!" Freddie exclaimed, running over to her, "Sam I have a problem."

"And you came to me because...?"

He gave her an unreadable look, "Because despite your demonlyways, you're the only one I trust enough to tell this to. Either that or" he gave her a small smile, "I'm not as smart as I seem."

Sam smirks, "Well," She pushes, "What is it?"

His expression changed again to one of worry and anxiety, "Um, well. I... Look, I don't have feelings for Carly anymore." He blurted out, and then widened his eyes as he realized what he'd said.

To his surprise, Sam laughed, "Yeah, like I believe that!"

He knit his eyebrows together in frustration, "It's true!"

Sam chuckled once again before crossing her arms, "Freddie, she's your girlfriend. You been 'in love' with her for years now. You've been chasing after her like the nubbish freak you are, since before iCarly even started. "

Freddie sighed, "That's what I wanted to tell you." He glanced around nervously, making sure no one had stayed after school late and passed by, He pulled her closer, and whispered something barely audible.

"What did you say?" She asked, loudly.

He huffed, exasperated and said it a little bit louder. She still couldn't hear him.

"What? Will you stop being a nub and just say what you have to say?" Sam demanded.

"I said," He hissed, "CARLY ISN'T REALLY MY GIRLFRIEND!" He shouted.

Sam glared at him and covered her ears, "Geez, you dork, could you be any louder? I'm pretty sure all of Ohio heard you."

His eyes widened, "Really?" He started looking around frantically for any witnesses.

Sam rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, "No, not really, you doof." She lowered her voice a bit, "Now, what do you mean Carly isn't really your girlfriend?"

Freddie ducked his head shyly, "You know Carly. She loves bad boys. She asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend so that she could make that Puck guy with the mohawk jealous."

Sam got an impressed look on her face, "Wow, I didn't know she had it in her," She nodded to herself.

Freddie looked at her, incredulous, "Are you saying you approve of this?"

Sam shook her head, "No, but I mean, you've got to admit. This is probably the most scandalous thing Carly has ever done in her life!" Sam laughed a bit.

Freddie smiled when he understood her point, and then started laughing with her. In a matter of moments, they both had been laughing so hard, they had to hold onto each other in order to not topple over.

Freddie stopped laughing to catch his breath after a moment, he watched Sam as she continued to laugh and he smiled to himself. As Sam had caught her breath she saw Freddie looking at her and smiling and she stopped laughing. She waited for him to say something but he just kept looking at her with that smile on his face.

"What?" She finally asked, still too tickled to be annoyed.

He shook his head, "Nothing. But look," He gets serious again, "You can't tell anyone, you can't even tell Carly that you know."

"Carly's my best friend!" Sam argued.

"Sam, I told you this because I trust you- despite your evil ways, I know you. And I know that you honor things like that. I need you to keep this secret for me, please. At least until that Puck kid shows an interest in Carly and she and I can break up." He pleads.

She rolled her eyes and looks away, suddenly irritated again despite having been laughing just moments before. She didn't look at him as she replied, "Fine, whatever. I'll keep your nubby little secret."

He thanked her, but she ignored him, a sign that he knew meant she wanted to be left alone. He stopped his apologies and got quiet. He picked his bag up off the floor and touched her shoulder, he looked at her sincerely as he spoke, "Sam, thank you for this, really. You aren't nearly as bad as people think." She turned to look at him, she was so shocked and put off that she couldn't even muster up a sarcastic remark to that. He smiled before turning to leave.

She called after him and he turned around, "Why did you tell me? Why not Spencer or Gibby or something?"

"Like I said, I trust you. That, and I didn't want you to kick my butt when you found out I'd kept a secret from you." He smirked at her and she fought the urge to smile back, instead choosing to deflect his affection with a rude remark.

"You're such a dork, Benson.", But she was smiling as she said it.

end of flashback

"Sam?" Freddie asked, waving his hand in front of her face.

She shook her head, coming out of the memory and scowled at him, "Yeah, Fredgeek? What about it?"

He lowered his voice, "I just wanted to thank you for not telling Carly and for going along after that party and everything. I know that if you wanted to you would have gave me up, but you didn't and that was really cool of you."

She rolls her eyes and continues to give him a disinterested look, "Yeah, well, I said I wouldn't say anything, and I didn't."

"Well, thanks, Sam, it means a lot to me. And I was thinking, maybe I could make it up to you and buy you dinner after rehearsal today?"

At the mention of free food, Sam perked up a bit and looked at him hopefully.

He continued, "Carly told me you don't have Cheerios today and she's hanging out with Quinn and Mercedes, so I figured we could check out this place I heard about... um, Breadsticks? Apparently, they legally cannot stop serving you breadsticks."

"They CAN'T stop feeding me? Are you serious? Why haven't we been there yet!?" Sam exclaimed.

Freddie laughed, glad to have gotten her excited, "Well, I got my mom's car so after rehearsal we can go to Breadsticks and then ride home together." Freddie told her. After moving to such a small town like Lima, Freddie had finally talked his mother into occasionally letting him borrow her car, given he keep a 'travel' first aid kit and always inform her of where he was going and several other 'rules and conditions'.

"Great! And remember," She put her finger in his face and gave him a stern look, "I'm going for the free food, not you."

He laughed again and replied, "Wouldn't have it any other way,". She smiled, before turning around and heading to the choir room.

"Okay guys!" Mr. Schue greets the club. Carly, Sam, and Freddie are still a little freaked out by his endless enthusiasm. "What do you need when you give a presentation?"

"A microphone!"

"An audience"

"A smile"

"A bucket!"

Everyone gives Brittany a questioning look after she yells that out, so she continues, "For when you throw up."

Mr. Schue shakes his head, "Um, no." He walks over to the dry erase board and writes the word Passion "You need passion! The best way to own a song, is to feel it. We are all human beings and as human beings, we sing what we know and what we feel. The assignment for this week, is to dig deep inside of yourselves and sing songs full of passion. Songs that express all types of strong emotions: love, fear, sadness, anger... anything. Just show me that you really feel what you're singing." Mr. Schue explains and there is a brief silence throughout the room as everyone takes in what he had said and starts to think of the song they want to sing.

"No problem, Mr. Schue!" Rachel exclaims excitedly, jumping up and facing the class, "I already know what I'm singing" She smiles.

Mr. Schue shakes his head, "No Barbara, Rachel." Rachel's mouth twists into a frown as she looks at him in confusion.

"Why not?" She whines, "Barbara has plenty of emotion and I've been singing her since I was-"

Mr. Schue interrupts her, "Yes, Rachel, we all know that you feel you have a deep and personal connection to Barbara and you have sang plenty of songs in here before about her. But this time I really need you to dig deeper than that. Focus less on the person singing the song and more on the song itself. Find a song that makes you feel more emotion and more passion than any other." Mr. Schue turns to the class, "That goes for all of you. Really come out of your comfort zone on this one, guys."

There are various nods and shrugs throughout the room and other signs of agreement. Mr. Schue smiles and wishes them all luck in their search and then promptly dismisses rehearsal.

"So, do you know what you're going to sing for Glee club yet?" Freddie asks Sam as they sit in Breadsticks, waiting for their food as Sam devours the basket of breadsticks put on their table only moments ago.

Sam shakes her head, "Not really. I was thinking about singing a song about bacon, but I haven't decided yet."

Freddie looks at her incredulously, "Bacon? Sam, you can't sing a song about bacon for our passion assignment!"

"Of course I can!" She disagrees, looking at him as though he has three heads, "I love bacon. There is plenty of passion in Bacon and I's relationship."

Freddie rolls his eyes, "Sam, you heard Mr. Schue, you really have to dig deep on this one. You should sing about something important to you. Something that makes you feel things other than hunger. Sadness, confusion, love. Stop pretending you don't feel anything, Sam. Let someone in for once. The people in Glee club care about you. Carly cares about you. I care about you." He says, ending his speech with a nervous, but sincere smile.

She looks at him for a moment and an unrecognizable look crosses her face as she begins to chomp on the last bread stick in the basket. The look quickly disappears as she reverts her eyes and concentrates once again on the bread stick, which she polishes off in no time before wiping her hands on her napkin and looking up at Freddie with the same bored look she wears so well.

"Stop being such a girl about it, Fredmotion. I'll think about it. But until then, call that waiter over here and get me some more breadsticks!"

The night is going well. Sam and Freddie are currently laughing at the memory of the time Sam pushed Gibby into the deep end of the water to see if his tail appeared and he really was a mermaid.

"Gibby can't swim! He could have died, Sam!" Freddie lectures, but he's laughing so hard there isn't much of an affect.

She laughs along with him, "Hey! He was okay!"

"Yeah, after three boy scouts dragged him out of the pool!"

"But the point here, Fredamame, is that Gibby was okay. And also that he's better with his disguises than we thought."

"Sam, Gibby is not a mermaid!"

"Prove it!" Freddie shakes his head and Sam sticks her tongue out, "That's what I thought, now shut your face Fredmunch! Before I shut it for you!" She threatens and he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

"Okay, okay, You win, Princess Puckett" He chuckles as he throws out his nickname for her.

"That's a lame nickname, Benson. It's not even insulting." She informed him.

He smiled and blurted out, "It's not supposed to be."

They're both quiet for a moment as they look at each other. Freddie gives Sam a small smile and she starts to return it, when his phone rings. She assumes it's his crazy mother checking up on him for the twentieth time.

"Oh... Hey, Carly." Freddie says awkwardly into the phone. He gives Sam a sympathetic look and lowers his voice as Carly chatters away on the other side of the line. Sam picks at her empty tray as Freddie speaks to Carly. She tries not to listen to his side of the conversation, but he's so close and he didn't even get up and excuse himself or anything, which gives her the right to listen (in her mind at least.)

"Are you still with Mercedes and Quinn?" He asks and Carly must have agreed because he goes on to say, "Are you all having a good time?" He asks and after hearing Carly's reply Freddie looks up at Sam nervously. Seeing her picking at her plate, distracted, He assumes she isn't listening. "Yes, I miss you too." He says lowly, but Sam still hears and her eyes snap up to look at him but he's too absorbed in whatever Carly is telling him now.

Sam stops listening and instead watches him out of the corner of her eye while he is turned around in the booth talking to Carly. She notices how loose his muscles are while talking to her, the small smile he has on his face despite the fact that whatever Carly's talking about is probably unimportant. He notices the way he seems to give her his complete attention and the way his smiles grows as she speaks.

Sam is surprised to feel her heart drop and she ignores the hurt she shouldn't be feeling. She ignores the ugly feelings growing in her tummy as she watches Freddie adore Carly even over the phone.

While Freddie had insisted to her that he was over Carly and this was merely a favor he was doing for her, Sam was almost positive in that moment that Freddie wasn't really over Carly. The look on his face as they talked nearly broke her heart. She wondered why he- or anyone really- never looked at her like that. And as she began thinking about it she remembered who Carly was, and who she was. Carly was perfect. And Sam, Sam was quite the opposite. While boys who talked to Carly looked on at her with admiration, boys who talked to Sam looked at her with fear in their eyes. Well, boys except for Freddie. Sure, Freddie had looked at her with fear for quite a long time, but as they got older and closer he began to look at her with kindness in his eyes and a smile on his face, unless she really was angry with him and his life really was in danger. He looked at her in a special way, like he cared about her. But he looked at Carly... like he loved her.

Sam kicked herself again, wondering why she even cared. And as Freddie and Carly's phone conversation drew on longer and longer, Sam flagged a waiter and asked for another basket of breadsticks. She told him to keep them coming. As Freddie smiled and flirted, Sam convinced herself that whatever she thought she felt for the nub, was most likely caused by loneliness and her lack of hot dates to keep her company. She convinced herself that this was true and pushed down any feelings for the nerdy tech producer that might complicate this truth. And as she tried to ignore these feelings, she suddenly knew exactly what song she would sing for Glee club.

"Okay guys! Does anyone have a song that they're ready to share for today? One that really shows passion!" Mr. Schue asks the group the next morning. As the rest of the room is silent, Sam slowly raises her hand.

"Sam!?" Mr. Schue exclaims, smiling broadly at her, "You've got something prepared?" To which she nods quietly (something strange for Sam to do), "That's great! You're the only one who hasn't made her 'debut solo' yet!" He enthuses, smiling warmly at her. Sam smiled weakly and Carly, who is sitting next to her notices her unusual behavior and give her a sincere look, to which Sam just shakes her head, gets up, and heads over to the band to give them her sheet music.

She looks down for a moment as she waits for this music to begin. As the beginning chords to a song very familiar to her begin to play, she looks up at the class and opens her mouth and begins to sing:

The sun is filling up the room
And I can hear you dreaming
Do you feel the way I do right now?
I wish we would just give up
Cause the best part is falling
Call it anything but love

And I will make sure to keep my distance
Say, "I love you," when you're not listening
And how long can we keep this up, up, up?

Please don't stand so close to me
I'm having trouble breathing
I'm afraid of what you'll see right now
I give you everything I am
All my broken heart beats
Until I know you'll understand

And I will make sure to keep my distance
Say, "I love you," when you're not listening
And how long can we keep this up, up, up?

And I keep waiting
For you to take me
You keep waiting
To save what we have

So I'll make sure to keep my distance
Say, "I love you," when you're not listening
And how long can we keep this up, up, up?

Make sure to keep my distance
Say, "I love you," when you're not listening
How long 'til we call this love, love, love?