Okay, I've never been able to do those lovely compilation videos on YouTube, but they did give me an idea. In the spirit of those videos, listen to the song 'She Is Love' by Parachute while you read this. And please review.

She Is Love

I smacked myself for the eighth time. I never should have procrastinated on this. Carly and Sam probably thought I'd finished this project weeks ago, but here I was, sifting through half-a-decade's worth of video, trying to compile the brightest and best of iCarly, at three in the morning on a school night.

In my heart I still couldn't believe it was happening. The show had run its course, and we'd been a hit. There could be no regrets about what we'd done.

But the fact was that a week from now, I'd be in Massachusetts, Carly would be in California, and Sam would be in New York. We'd never spoken about our college decisions until they were made, and you could tell by the variety. We may as well have been on different planets.

I cut a few clips of Random Dancing, knowing that those clips would blend together first. Every shot of Carly spinning and Sam shaking was the same as the last. The only thing that changed was the girls as they grew older, more beautiful. Carly, I corrected. Carly got more beautiful.

Who was I kidding? I asked myself as I paused on a shot of Sam's glittering eyes. I'd never really noticed how…blue they were before.

I shook my head, realizing that I had mere hours to compile week's worth of video, and it was not going to get done while I was…fantasizing.

I clicked on a random clip and found that it was the meatball fight episode. The episode we did after…the kiss.

I don't know how Carly missed the smiles passed between us as Sam threw meatballs straight at the camera, barely missing my head. For the first time, I'd noticed the way she giggled. For someone who almost broke my arm on a daily basis, she had the sweetest laugh.

I paused the video again, realizing that I'd been fantasizing again, and threatened to hit my head on the wall. This was ridiculous.

I begrudgingly cropped the clip to a few seconds of Sam's laughter and put it on the track. I considered it a good start and moved to the next clip.

This one was more recent. It was an episode where we had a "special guest." Oh I wished it would have been Shelby Marx or the Plain White T's. Instead, it was Melanie. Sam's twin. Standing next to her.

See, that was the first time I'd even considered Sam had a twin. Even after the date with Melanie, who I'd thought was Sam, I totally believed that Sam had been messing with me. Secretly, I know how gullible I am, and I also know how much Sam likes to make my life hell.

She'd actually fooled me twice. The first time was when I went on the date with Melanie. The second was when Carly and Sam decided that Mel should be on the show, and I was faced with the shock of seeing them standing next to each other, realizing that at one point, I'd kissed both of them.

It was even worse that one of the sketches on this show, one which I'd been left in the dark about, was that I was supposed to tell the difference between them. While we showed a previously recorded clip, I was sent out into the hall for Sam and Melanie to change into matching clothes. When I came back, Carly pressed record, and I was supposed to be able to tell which twin was which.

Now, I know as well as anyone else that if you get to know identical twins long enough, you can tell the difference between them. There is always the slightest difference in the way they wear their hair or in the way they smile. My problem was, I'd only seen Melanie for about two hours in my life. I had to rely completely on how well I knew Sam.

To my own credit, it took me less than a minute. After I stared into her glittery blue eyes, Sam let a smirk escape on one side of her lips. Melanie shook her head, knowing that Sam had given them away.

When I poked fun at Sam for my victory, her only response was, "It's not my fault. You looked odd staring at me like that. Well, odder than your usual freakish look."

I cut the clip of her smirk slipping and put it into the compilation, trying to forget the night after that segment. I'd spent hours trying to decide who I enjoyed kissing more.

You'd like to know the answer wouldn't you?

Sam. It was Sam. Sam and her shy nervousness was better than Melanie and her in-your-face abruptness. Sam, who waited for me to kiss her rather than steal it from me. Sam, who tries to pretend she doesn't have a gentle side, and would rather I didn't know she did.

I shook my head again and hit another random clip. I couldn't help but smile when I saw what it was.

Spencer had stayed up for about three days straight finishing one of the largest sculptures of a squirrel ever made. He'd been exhausted, and Carly was exhausted from helping him. Carly was safe, but almost immediately after his head hit the pillow, Spencer's peaceful slumber was in jeopardy.

The list Sam and I came up with was dangerous, which was more Sam's fault than mine. Most of my ideas involved shaving cream and an air horn, as opposed to her fire ants and starved weasels.

Sam's early morning hunger decided for us. Liquid Jello. I'm smirking just thinking about it. 3:49 in the morning, Spencer woke up covered in it. His reaction was priceless. After the instant sputtering, he jumped up and came after us. My reaction was slower than Sam's and she ran straight into my arms. We both stood there for a second before Spencer was on top of us and we were pushed out into the hall, breaking us apart.

I clipped the last few seconds of us laughing in the hallway and put it on the compilation.

It took me almost two hours to realize what I was doing. I had three and a half minutes of…Sam. When I realized it, I stopped and watched it. Sam. Laughing, smiling, smirking, dancing…being Sam.

But it was missing something. I pulled up my music library and my eyes landed on one song. I smiled and added it to the compilation. I hit play again, and this time, it was perfect.

I've been beaten down, I've been kicked around,
But she takes it all for me.
And I lost my faith, in my darkest days,
But she makes me want to believe.

They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
She is love, and she is all I need.

She's all I need.

I smiled as the last image, of her and I laughing, faded to black. The whole video was perfect. Sam was…perfect.

I shook my head one more time and spent my last hour before school shoving together other videos to make the real compilation. The one that would play after we filmed the last iCarly.

When I finished, I watched the Sam video one more time before packing up my laptop and heading to school. I spent the whole day with the same three and a half minute video running on loop in my head. Every time I saw her in real life, I choked up, hoping my reaction would be judged as nervousness for tonight's show.

I went straight to Carly's after school, which probably wasn't my best option for avoiding Sam, but it would work for a few hours at least. I caught myself watching the video while Carly was out of the room.

"I love that song! Parachute, right?" she asked as she came out of nowhere, dropping next to me on the couch. I quickly maximized the iCarly page, noting that the countdown to the last iCarly was coming close to two hours.

"Yeah, I, uh, I think so," I added quickly, unable to look at her.

"Freddie, what were you doing?" she asked, trying to move my hand to control the laptop, but I closed it.

"Don't worry about it," I responded, trying to control my paranoia. How much had she seen?

She waited for a second before continuing hesitantly, "Did you get the stuff?"

"Crap, I left it at my place. I'll be right back," I got up and went across the hall to grab a few grocery bags I'd left on the kitchen counter. It occurred to me that I should've brought the laptop with me, but it would have looked even more suspicious than my previous effort to humiliate myself. Carly wouldn't…

But as soon as I walked in, I knew that my faith in Carly was for naught. Her mouth was wide open, and I could hear the song playing. She was watching the video.

I walked over to the fridge and got myself a can of Peppi cola before dropping on the couch next to her, waiting for her to finish. I drank quietly, trying to put a sane explanation together and failing horribly.

"Freddie, you have some major explaining to do…" she said without taking her eyes off the screen.

"I don't know how. I've tried, but I don't get it. I was just, going through the old shows last night and I realized…" I motioned toward the screen, hoping she would get the message.

She shook her head and started laughing, "Finally!"

"Excuse me?" I asked, as she wiped away tears.

"Freddie, there's a reason I never went out with you. Okay well, other than the fact I've never really liked you that way. You and Sam have been leading up to this since, oh, since the first episode of iCarly."

"So you've known this for how long an you're just telling me now?" I said indignantly, putting my laptop on mute before playing the video again.

"Freddie, love is one of those things you have to figure out on your own. And come on, if I'd told you this three years ago, you wouldn't have believed me."

I shrugged, knowing she was right, "Well, what good does it do now? We're all leaving in a week."

"God Freddie, stop making excuses! Fordham and MIT are closer than your big head seems to realize. You have to tell her," she said, dropping off at the end.

"I'll think about it," I said quietly before adding. "Don't tell her about this, okay?"

"You know I wouldn't do that. But you should. This," she said, motioning to the screen. "Is really sweet."

"What's really sweet?" I heard, as we both looked up. Sam was walking in the door.

"Uhh, hey Sam," Carly said, which was good, because my vocal cords were failing me. "We were just talking about…Peppi cola. They must have changed the recipe or something. It's…sweeter."

"Or maybe Fredward has whacked out taste buds," she said, dropping on the couch between us and taking the can out of my hands. She took a sip and handed it back to me, "Tastes the same to me."

I swallowed before looking over at Carly, who was smiling secretly. Since when was Sam comfortable sharing drinks with me? Like I mean, it wasn't like she was licking my toes or anything, but you do have to have a connection with somebody to share their spit right?

My thoughts were interrupted by the cute spit-swapper herself.

"So, this is our last show huh? It feels so weird. Like, we'll never be doing this again. It's so…final."

She sounded disappointed, but I think we all were. Some of us for different reasons that others.

"We should probably head up," I said, afraid of staying this close to Sam for a long period of time. We all nodded, and then got up, dragging ourselves toward the elevator. Once we went up to the studio, it would all be real.

By the time I started the countdown, we'd all pasted fake smiles on our faces. The show went off without a hitch, except for the few points where one of us would stop, pausing to realizing that this was the last time we'd be doing this. Both of the girls looked like they were about to cry, and I switched to the compilation at the last second.

As I watched the old clips, I realized how half-assed it was compared to the other one. Toward the end, Carly came toward me and hugged me. I wondered what was going on, until I felt her snap something around my wrist. I looked down to see that she'd handcuffed me to a pole.

"Carly, what are you doing?" I hissed quietly, trying to keep Sam from noticing.

"Something I should have done years ago," she said, walking over to Sam and hugging her. By the time my mouth opened to warn her, the dirty deed had been done. Well sort of. Carly was dragging Sam over to my pole and hooking her to it. I didn't realize she had that kind of power.

I felt powerless as she walked over to my camera and turned it back on, facing it towards me and Sam, trying to escape our bondage. I was the first to stop resisting, but I could feel a wave of dread coming over me and I tried to look away.

"Okay iCarly fans, we have one last message before we sign off. Well, you know our tech producer Freddie right. Well he isn't willing to admit something we've all known for years. But I'm not going to tell you what that is. I promised Freddie I wouldn't," I rested easy for a second before she finished. "Instead, I'm going to show you."

Sam looked at me for a second, trying to read my face, but I wouldn't look at her. I tried to find a wall decoration to focus on, but instead my eyes were pulled to the screen, where my video was playing. Every few seconds, I looked at Sam to judge her reaction, but she wasn't giving me anything. She was just watching.

When the video was over, Carly quietly escaped, adding, "I'll come check on you in a few hours, and I swear to God, you better be making out."

We both blushed and stood quietly for a few minutes, before I broke the silence.

"I'm sorry. Nobody was meant to see that. It was just…I'm sorry," I said quietly, still refusing to look at her.

"No, it's fine. I just…I've got to think about it for a second," she said even quieter, staring at the floor.

"Oh okay," I added, turning away to give her some 'space'.

After a few minutes she turned toward me, "Okay, just so I'm not misreading signals, you like me?

I nodded and she continued, "Well this is…strange, isn't it? I feel like I should smack you or something, but at the same time…it feels…good. Strange…but good."

Well, it's better than the 'yuck!' I was expecting. I tried to find a way to break the tension.

"You know, New York and Massachusetts are really close to each other," I said, leaning forward a few inches.

"Not the only things," she said, looking up at me and smiling. "Fredward, you made the video, you admitted how you felt, be a man and finish the job."

"Okay," I breathed as I leaned forward, closing the distance between our lips. I brought my free hand up to her face and hers went to her hair. I didn't even realize how into it we were getting until we heard a cough behind us.

"Uh, I know I said to get to it, but it's been like five minutes. I literally forgot something, got halfway down the stairs and came back up to get it, at you're already at it."

I caught Sam's eyes as we both laughed nervously, "Well Carly, you've had your way. Can you please unlatch us so we can go out on the fire escape or something?"

"Uh, yeah. If that's how far you get in five minutes, I'd rather you weren't up here for much longer…" she said hazily as she undid the handcuffs.

"Thank you," I added, catching her eyes to give her my meaning. She'd done so much for me tonight.

"I'll see you guys later alright," she said. I watched as she waved before the elevator door closed.

I took Sam's hand, which was softer than I thought, and pulled her out the door and out onto the fire escape. Only a few floors down was the landing where we'd shared our first kiss. I caught her looking down for a second, remembering.

"You really like getting jiggy with it on the fire escape, don't you Fredward?" she said, a smirk playing on her lips as she took my hands.

"No, just with you," I said, matching her smirk with my own.

We both looked out at the lights of the city from the fire escape. It was probably the last time we'd see it for a while. But this moment, this moment was perfect.

"Thank you Freddie," she said quietly. "That video was…the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me."

I pulled her closer to me and leaned in close to her ear. I knew she could feel my smile when I whispered, "You are love, love, love, love, love…"

She pulled back and smiled, whispering "You too Fredward."

I pulled her face to mine and kissed her softly, the song playing in my head:

They call her love, love, love, love, love.
She is love, and she is all I need.

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