Summary: He never knew how quickly a person could change. Eventual Sam/Freddie

Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly, unfortunately.

The Wander-Year

By Rain Falls Down

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late," I muttered to myself, tapping my knuckles against the steering wheel. I honked the horn again. "Let's go, Sam!" I yelled. She'd asked me for a ride on the first day of school since her car had broken down for the third time since June. I had agreed, but I had clearly expressed that we needed to be on our way by 7:40.

Looking at my watch, I groaned as I saw that it was 7:46. "Jesus," I grumbled under my breath. Why did Sam always have to be so perpetually late, all the time? Did she not know the meaning of timeliness?

As the clock on my car changed to 7:47, Sam's blonde head appeared outside of her house. "Stay away from my ham, Frothy!" she yelled as she slammed the rickety front door. Her curly hair was disheveled and she was wearing one blue flip flop and one orange sneaker. Clomping down the cracked sidewalk, her sneaker splashed in a puddle, dirty water flying everywhere. She opened the passenger car door and slid in, dumping her plaid backpack on the floor.

I laughed. "Get dressed in the dark today?"

"Shut it, Benson," she snapped. "Rough morning."

"Every morning's rough for you," I said, still grinning.

She glared at me, but didn't say anything, sending me a silent warning.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I kept my eyes focused on the road, remembering to breathe in, breathe out. Late, late, late, late, the windshield wipers seemed to mock me. As I slowed to a stop in front of a red light, I heard a faint crinkling beside me.

"Sa-am," I whined as the greasy smell of potato chips filled my nose. "No eating in my car. I just had the interior cleaned and I really don't want to have to do it again."

She snickered. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Fredward. It's just breakfast."

"Who has potato chips for breakfast?"

Sam eyed the yellow bag doubtfully. "Hmm. Me, I guess," she shrugged, and continued stuffing them in her mouth.

We sat in silence, except for Sam's obnoxious crunching noises. "So," I said, attempting to break the uncomfortable stillness. "Are you going to join a sport or something this year?"

Sam snorted. "No," she said, crumpling up the bag of Lays and tossing it on the floor. I opened my mouth to say something about the repercussions of littering, but Sam spoke first. "Why? You think I'd make a good cheerleader?"

I laughed out loud. "Yeah," I told her, trying to get the image of Sam tossing pom pons out of my mind. "Wearing those little skirts and waving sparkly poms… totally like you."

"Maybe I should start sleeping with every guy I see, too."

"Cake a bunch of makeup on your face."

"Get a fake tan."

"Start, like, talking, like, like this." We were both laughing by then, as I pulled into the high school parking lot.

"Shit," Sam muttered under her breath, looking out her window, "it's the Wicked Bitch of the West."

It had to be Courtney Kelly. Now, I had been forced to watch all sorts of cheesy high school chick flicks with Carly and Sam, and I hated the way they made everything seem so cliché, with the evil queen bee and her jock boyfriend who somehow falls in love with the nerdy, shy girl. It's all so unrealistic. But Courtney Kelly was like something out of a teen movie. She was the cheerleading captain, filthy rich, and a complete bitch. And of course, Sam hated her. It had something to do with an incident involving macaroni and a pair of shoes. I'd known Sam for long enough that I knew better than to ask for the details.

"Come on," I murmured to Sam as I parked. Sam grumbled something unintelligible as we stepped out of the car, blinking in the sunlight.

"Did they run out of matching shoes at the Salvation Army today, Sam?" Courtney called. Her surrounding clones tittered, and Courtney smiled, showing her white teeth.

"Did you borrow that skirt from your four year old sister?" Sam hissed as we stalked past Courtney and her very mini miniskirt.

"Actually, Sam, it's from your mother's closet," Courtney shot back. "Since everyone knows she's a hooker."

While I marveled at the fact that Courtney Kelly had essentially admitted that she dressed like a hooker, I watched as Sam's jaw tightened, and her fingers curled. "You better watch out, you little slut," she snarled. "I'll beat you within every inch of your fu –" Her last words were muffled as I clamped my hand over her mouth.

"Don't do anything you'd regret," I hissed. Sam struggled for a second before ripping my arm off her face. She shot a look of pure loathing at Courtney before striding away, with me hot at her heels.

"She's such a little skank," Sam scowled as we entered the school. "I'd like to take her pretty brown head and shove it right up her –"

"Okay!" I interrupted. "Visual not needed!" She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, leaning against a locker. A young looking boy – probably a freshman – paused in front of Sam and said something about needing to get into his locker. She glared at him, and he gave her a terrified look and scurried away.

"Stupid freshman," she muttered.

I ignored this. "Don't let Courtney ruin your day, Sam. It's junior year! We're upperclassmen now!"

She snorted and trudged in the other direction, muttering something about being hungry and when was lunch.

I arrived at my first hour class a few minutes later, after wading through a pool of freshmen with their maps in one hand and their overstuffed bags in their other. Carly was sitting in a desk in the front row and I plopped down next to her. "Hi!" she exclaimed, beaming brightly.

"Hey," I replied.

"Don't you just love the first day of school? I do. I love wearing my new clothes, and seeing all my friends and opening fresh notebooks. It's just a good, good day," she chirped.

I looked at her. "Why are you all peppy?"

Carly smiled. "I've decided to try out for cheerleading! I'm practicing my pep!"

"What?" I exclaimed, nearly jumping out of my seat. "Cheerleading? Are you nuts? Why would you do a stupid thing like that?"

She shrugged. "I just think it might be fun."

Before I could rag on her more, the spicy and incredibly overpowering scent of Abercrombie and Fitch cologne filled my nose. Carly must've smelled too; she looked around before her jaw dropped slightly and her eyes widened.

Jake Krandle strolled past our desks, grinning lazily in his pretty-boy way. "Hey, Carly," he greeted, flipping his blonde hair out of his eyes.

"Hi," Carly squeaked. Then she turned to me once he had sat down in the back of the room. "Omigod, Jake Krandle just said my name!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I scowled. Stupid Jake, who every girl was in love with, with his stupid perfect hair and his stupid body and his stupid friends and his stupid spot on the football team… and then it clicked. "You're only trying out for cheerleading because Jake Krandle is on the football team," I accused.

Carly blushed and picked at her thumbnail. "Am not," she said, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Carly. You suck at lying."

The corners of her mouth twitched. "Okay. Maybe you're right."

I groaned. "I thought you got over him in eighth grade."

Sighing, Carly said, "Well, I did, but come on, Freddie, just look at him! He's so gorgeous. Why, are you jealous?"

"Carly, I got over you about the same time. But anyway, since when did you get so shallow?"

"I'm not shallow, I'm just saying…"

I opened my mouth to answer when I heard someone clear their throat. "Excuse me," a female voice said as I looked up. It was a girl I didn't recognize with curly brown hair and a pretty face. "Is that seat open?" She gestured to the desk next to me.

"Um, yeah," I said. She had a splatter of little freckles on her nose, I noticed. The girl sat down, crossing her legs and piling her books in a neat stack.

"I'm Carly Shay," Carly said suddenly, leaning over me and elbowing my side. "This is Freddie Benson.

"Hi," the girl said with a smile. "I'm Kathryn Brile. You can call me Katy, though. Kathryn is my stuffy old grandma who lives with her thirteen cats."

I laughed, and she flushed, clearly pleased with herself.

"Did you just move here?" Carly asked.

"Yeah, from Chicago. My dad's company shipped him out here. He works for the Pear Company."

"Oh, that's so neat!" Carly exclaimed. "Do you get a lot of free stuff?"

Katy laughed. "Uh-huh," she said. "I have one of the first PearPads. It's almost bigger than me!"

Carly giggled. "My brother got one a while ago –"

"Well, it's nice to meet you," I interrupted, and then, impulsively, I reached out to shake her hand. Her palms were soft.

"You too." Katy grinned.

"Get out of my way, you stupid kids!" An enormously fat woman half ran, half waddled into the classroom, her frazzled grey hair flying in all directions. Several students who were still milling around the classroom door looked alarmed. "If I'm late again, I get fired! But it's not like it's my fault this time. My idiot of an ex-husband decided it would be a funny joke to egg my car. Stupid bastard. I might've just as well married a five year old," she said loudly. Katy's eyes met mine and she giggled. I bit back a smile. In the words of Carly, this was going to be a good, good year.

"This is going to be the shittiest year of my life," Sam announced bitterly, biting angrily into her third hotdog as we sat in the corner of the lunchroom. Carly was watching her with a half amused, half revolted expression on her face.

"And you've based this on the…" I checked my watch. "Four hours we've been here?"

Sam glared at me. "Shut up, Benson," she said, spraying bits of hotdog on the table. "I'm not in the mood."

I shook my head. "So what happened?"

Sam shrugged, tearing off another bite of hotdog. "God. Just the fact that we're back in this dump. If you ask me," she chewed furiously, and then swallowed. "Summer should be switched with the school year. I could deal with only three months of school."

"But Sam, summer wouldn't be called summer if it took place over different seasons…"

Carly interrupted me with a squeal. "I'm super excited for this year. I mean, we get to go to the prom!"

"Not until May," I reminded her. "And we have a year of filling out college aps to look forward to."

"College?" Sam scoffed. "Who's worried about college now? It's not for a bazillion years."

"Only two, Sam," I said. "And I've heard that junior year is the most important year of high school with all the preparation and standardized tests we have to take."

Sam rolled her eyes. "I have better things to spend my time on then worrying about the SATs."

"Like what? How to forge your mother's signature?" I snapped back. "Oh wait – you learned how to do that in third grade." Sam glowered at me, her face turning red.

"Listen, Benson, I've already told you to quit messing –" her voice broke off as she suddenly reached into her pocket and pulled out a furiously buzzing phone.

Carly shook her head. "Sam, why does your phone vibrate so much?" she asked. "It's louder than your actual ring tone!"

Sam didn't answer. She was looking at the caller I.D., her face confused. Then she got up and answered it, quickly walking away and plugging her ear with her finger. "Hello?" I heard her say before she left the cafeteria and disappeared entirely. Carly and I exchanged confused looks before shrugging and returning to our lunches.

A/N: And there you have it! Chapter 1 of The Wander-Year. Please do review. Tell me what you liked, what you hated… Chapter 2 will be up soon, and the plot starts to pick up there.

-Allie