Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly. And even the guy that does doesn't control it. Some things have a life of their own.

A/N Update note: This is mainly just to fix typos, errors and sloppy writing. If you've read this before it won't change your opinion. If you haven't read it before, take a shot. Note from first upload: I had such a good time with my other fanfic, iWTF (and my thanks for all the kind reviews and comments from so many of you), that I wanted to revisit the Freddie character a few years down the road. I've tried extrapolating one possible future for the characters Schneider's Bakery and the actors have created that is sort of its own animal. The themes here are more adult than the show is allowed to investigate but the narrative I've concocted seems plausible. I'll probably keep developing this, but thought I'd see how folks react. I write because I have to, but it's nice to know how people respond to something.

iApuckettlypse Chapter 1: Freddie Benson AS (After Sam)

Gibby's POV

The gym Freddie goes to is kind of a chizhole, in a chiz neighborhood with abandoned cars and periodic gunfire in the distance. But it works for him. It's early in the morning so most of the bad people are in bed. Most of the smart people too, but I park and give the lot a look over before getting out of the car. There are all kinds of empty beer cans and fast food wrappers in the doorway and a gallon iced tea jug half full of something that is NOT iced tea. Nobody is watching the front desk when I walk in. Most gyms smell like chlorine and have cool air. Not here, this place is like a cinderblock version of my summer armpit. All that was missing was a zombie shuffling down the dark hallway.

On mornings when time is tight I pick Fred up. I give him lots of rides in his own car. My driving allows him to put in more screen time, preparing, and it allows me to rock a sweet ride. Fred is always thinking, planning, preparing. He's been real tense lately, working on something big. Maybe the biggest of his career so far, he says. Today is the meeting at Pear where it all comes together. He's pretty intense. The guy I used to do iCarly skits with is… gone. He isn't like he was in high school. Heck, who is? You get older, you better adapt.

He brought me here two years ago. He said he needed someone who had his back. He hates this town. Says it's full of thieves and liars. He told me he could get me a job at Pear, even though I didn't know much more about technology than the time we tried to convince a cute girl named Shannon that I taught Freddie all he knew about computers. Fred and I had stayed in touch over the net, playing games and chatting. He came here, recruited straight out of college by Pear. I knew after what happened with him and Sam that he wasn't going back to Seattle.

I'll never forget when he picked me up at the airport. He had lost a lot of nerd. His body was shaped like a V. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, with veins on his neck and forearms where his skin was exposed. He keeps a really close shaved mustache and goatee and a silver earring shaped like a ham punched into his left lobe. He dresses like he stepped out of a magazine and smells like the cologne samples. Wherever we go I watch the women checking him out. Hey, some women like that hot, muscled, handsome, kind, smart, successful approach; others prefer the way I roll, so I do okay in case you were worried.

He runs here at 5 AM, five miles every weekday rain or stars usually in a weighted vest. He puts in 90 minutes on a routine that makes me sweat just watching. He explained it to me once. It's all about pushing and pulling. Watching him do sit ups or pull ups he goes really, really slow. There is also punching and kicking. A LOT of punching and kicking. Those are really, really fast. I take a bite out of my whole grain Fat Cake. We all do healthy in our own way.

I find him working out on a mat in a room that isn't real well lit but still no zombies. There are a few dumbbells and metal disks around him. He notices me and comes out of his position on the floor. I can't tell if he was stretching or what. Like I said, it was real slow until he just sort of flexes and comes to a standing position. It looks easy but I'm pretty sure it's not. He steps into the light so I see he's soaked, shiny with sweat .He drags a towel across his shoulders. "Hey Gib," he says to me, "time flies doesn't matter if you're having fun or not. I'll hit the shower and be with you." He looks at the Fat Cake in my hand.

"What is that?"

"Fat Cake."

"Why is it brown?"

"Whole grain."

"That's like stabbing yourself with a fur covered knife so the metal isn't cold going in."

"You know what you and I have in common?" I ask.

"A deep, almost spiritual appreciation of liquid soap?"

"Besides that."

Fred shook his head.

"No matter what we do, we're both gonna die someday."

"Thank you Dr. Sunshine."

"Who tells it like it is?"

We both say, "GIBAAAAAY!"

We stop for breakfast on the way to the office. He has reasonable portions of something healthy and I don't.

Freddie's POV

Maurice Lesard, the guy running the presentation is a creep; he's been a creep so long he doesn't even know it anymore. He reminds me of Neville, except Neville really was (is? I wonder what happened to him) smart. We call Maurice the Lizard. He has built his very successful career on the bones of programmers that only know code, but not business. Maurice rips off code from innocent, naïve nerds who've spent their lives mushrooming in mom and dad's basement. Sometime in his life he decided it was better to steal other people's ideas to save time on developing his own.

I've decided it ends today.

We're on the net with this presentation. His pitch is polished like a new dime. The suite he's pushing will live in the cloud. It has the potential to be a killer app. Despite the cloud hosting, it will run only on the Pear OS and will force everyone to go out and buy the hardware to run the software. This is the kind of thing that will get him cover time on nerd magazines. At Pear it will catapult him up the ladder and he will be a millionaire for sure if he isn't already. He's been stealing code for longer than I've been alive and that is part of the problem. Looking around the room, I'm the youngest guy here. I'm in the room because my boss, thinks I have potential. If I do this, I'm going to embarrass him.

The Lizard looks at me where I'm seated, and I know he's going to use me as an example of how the software functions. He loves to bring up iCarly.

"My girls grew up watching iCarly" he tells his audience. "Now imagine our own Fred Benson here needs to relive some of his glory days. As many of you know, young Fred was the creator of iCarly." People in the room give a smattering of polite applause. Everybody's kids grew up on either Dingo shows or iCarly. The way he said "young Fred" made me think I should be sucking my thumb.

I correct him, "I was just the tech producer, the ladies on the screen made it work." I smile at him; we are just one big happy family here at Pear.

Marcus, my boss watches me, he senses something.

Maurice continued, "As I was saying, now he needs to search for a particular episode of iCarly," he taps the keypad and up on all four walls around us come episodes of the show minus any sound. I feel my pulse quicken, and my stomach knot, because there she is, a young version wiggling her toes in front of my camera, random dancing on another screen. On the third screen is Sam in the fifth, final season, putting the zing in amazing. She is magnetic, drawing my eyes out of my head and the breath out of my chest.

This must be what Superman feels like when the green rock shows up. Focus Fredward, I think to myself, because who else am I going to think to?

Maurice demonstrates how the new app gives him total media control over the content. He can edit, even create new content from the existing digital source. With a camera he captures me in the room and inserts me into one of the episodes where Spencer is supposed to be a baby, I think it's the time he had the sophisticated date waiting downstairs. Lizard continues to use the iCarly material out on the web literally creating a new, albeit not very funny bit. He shows how he can save, manipulate and collaborate, it's a great demonstration and the Lizard is a showman. The room is very impressed and applause slaps to life multiple times.

"Maurice, that is very impressive," comes the voice of the BIG Boss from his hospital bed somewhere in the world.

"Couldn't do it without you, chief," Maurice says and he practically puckers his lips doing it.

"Wow, this is incredible Maurice." I say, then I add, "The code for this, who wrote it?"

Maurice pauses, "Well, the development team. MY development team." And he puts on a sort-of aw-shucks-its-nothing, face.

I pause, watching Sam, so beautiful on the screen behind him. I have to concentrate on my mission, my heart is slamming into my ribs, is it her or what I'm about to do? "Last chance, Maurice, who wrote the code?" I have a deliberate edge in my voice. I'm looking him right in the face, calling him out. The room is stirring. Behind Maurice, Sam and Carly's silent, chattering faces are huge, funny, and gorgeous. I don't dare look too long at her, her face, her shape are like a narcotic, diluting my concentration, throwing my attention into a blender.

"Benson… Fred, what is this about?" he asks with a smile. He is stone cold in control, he is a boardroom veteran and very slick. Am I out of my mind? I'm just a kid, how long ago did I get my degree? I can't do this. You nub, Fredelupe. I look at her on the screen, and she says to me, Only a dishrag like you would set a trap and then turn to soap suds on go live. Remember, "You never know what could happen…" I nod and say to myself, In 5,4,3, 2, 1…

"It's a simple question, Lizard-o," my mouth is dry as I put a knife to the throat of my future at the company. Sam seems to be smiling at my name calling, her lips impossibly large on the screen, haunting me like my three-in-the-morning dreams.

"Gentlemen, let's be professional here," Marcus, my boss says with a cautionary tone.

"What are you saying, Benson?" Maurice asks me. He's trying to be menacing, he thinks he owns me. "I don't mean to be rude, but you are a beginner, here as a courtesy to your superior, you should be quiet while trying to absorb the experience in the room."

I pull my high card, "Press, Pear, control, shift, F7." And I see something in his eyes. I hit something, like I sank his battleship.

"Look, Fred, let's finish this on our own time," he taps my shoulder like my wise old grandfather, he is good at this stuff, he's trying to exit, to spin this back by being a swell guy.

I cut off his maneuver, "Press that key combination and you'll see the names of all the people who wrote the original code, including my name, and last time I looked I wasn't on your development team, in fact no on the list is." I stare straight at him and let my smirk, the one Sam said drove her crazy, speak for me. I stay silent, aware that my heart feels like it's being dribbled down a basketball court. The tension in the room is thick enough to grab a handful and take some home for later.

He pulls his lower lip in with his upper teeth. "Let's get back to the presentation, shall we?" And, in direct response, like the voice of God, the Big Boss asks, "Who owns this code, Maurice?" With those words I watched Maurice's plan to profit share, bonus and bail during the law suit turn to ashes. He knew it too. For the next few minutes he fumbles, tries to recover his momentum, but it was all gone. Everyone in the room could smell the smoke. The Lizard lasered a death stare at me, but I preferred the ocean blue eyes on the screen. I hadn't floated in that sea in so long. It was a better place to be.

The room clears out in a text book version of awkward. Marcus, my boss, passes by saying to me, "In my office, please." One guy who the Lizard has skunked before nods at me and gives me a thumbs up. Yep, Fred Benson, Force for Good. This was a big win for Truth, Justice and the American way. I had done the right thing the way my mom told me to. Looking at Sam frozen on the screen I had to do the right thing one more time: "Thanks Princess Puckett," I said. You still push my buttons,"

I needed to go to the bar.

While Gibby drove me home I checked my messages. Marcus, my boss wanted a call back, and so did my mom. There was one from a guy named Catania who wanted talk about iCarly. The one that made me pause was Carly. We still talked, but bless her she asked tough questions, on tough subjects that I couldn't answer. Still, I could put her off for a while. Wow. There was a time if Carly called I'd run a four-minute mile in the rain to get to her. That was my first experience in how people fall out of love.

I was changing, getting out of the suit, putting on jeans and a t-shirt. In the mirror I saw this guy who looked healthy and strong, but I didn't recognize him. There were bruises over his torso and hips going yellow from his last sparring match. My mother would have an aneurism if she saw those. "Who are you?" I asked. I watched his lips move, but he did not answer me. He just stared back with brown, empty eyes, pieces of some hollow candy.

Gibby's POV:

"It was a bluff?" I said to Fred as I turned off the highway.

He was checking voicemail on his Pear phone. "Kind of, I planted the code in places where he was sure to be tempted, I had an Easter egg program buried in the sub routines, but I don't know if I could get it to engage. Glad it didn't come to that."

"Can they fire you for that?" I asked.

"They can fire me for anything. I'm not going to spend my life writing programs anyway, I've got to be more than this," he said, shaking the Pear phone. "Besides, wherever I go next, you're coming with me."

"I'm not going where you go next," I told him.

He looked over at me with concern.

"It's Friday and you're headed to the bar," I said. "No way am I going there."

Fred relaxed, "suit yourself; there are some crazy ladies there."

"I've done crazy; remember Patrice and the werewolf thing?"

Fred let out a laugh and for a minute he was Freddie again. I've missed that guy. It didn't last long. I could feel the giant brain pulse again, "You know, I could modify the dashboard to mount the Pear phone to allow me to make this into a mobile office," he said.

"Uh, you realize I use that side of the car when I'm with the ladies," I reminded him.

"So, I'd be messing with your werewolf hair mojo, so to speak?"

"Kinda."

He smiled, and like a light coming on, I thought, when was the last time I saw him smile?

The bar was a road house a little off the highway called Cato's Cage. The windows were filled with neon logos of various beers. The gravel parking lot had a few pick-up trucks and motorcycles but in an hour or so it would be full. "I'll be here to pick you up at closing. Call me from the hospital if you need to," I said.

"Thanks mom," Fred replied and I watched him walk into another chizhole. I shook my head. Whatever demons he's fighting… and I remembered that one was blond.

Freddie's POV

Kenny and I stood on the door. We took turns running the metal detector. Most people had stopped bringing hardware in, but we still catch a few items. Cato's is not where the elite go for after dinner drinks and dancing.

Kenny is older than me. He's been doing this a long time. He has massive forearms, like Popeye the sailor, but instead of anchor tattoos he has drawings of dogs. I asked him once why he didn't have tigers or dragons and he said, "I like dogs." Pure Kenny, not deep and very honest.

The band hadn't started yet, or conversation would be impossible. The crowd was the usual mess of working class tattoos, ankle bracelets from the county and bad hair.

"So Benson, you see the Three Stooges back by the stage?" Kenny asks me.

"Yep, Big, Stupid and Dangerous."

He nodded. "Here's my prediction, if they mess with the band, I'm gonna head back and make it right. They mess with some chick, you'll head back there."

"Huh?"

"You really haven't figured it out yet have you?"

I gave him my famous no-clue raised eyebrow.

"Every time we throw someone out of here, anytime they mess with a woman, you are there. You can't stand to see someone give women a hard time."

"And you can?"

"I been married."

I chuckled. I didn't want to get into any conversations about how I relate to women. "You want a refill?" I pointed at his coffee cup.

He shakes his head and I get Manda's attention. Manda is a waitress and typical of the people who come to Cato's Cage: Divorced, overweight, no high school diploma, with a couple of kids who are going down the same road. I'm not sure how people end up here. But I'm starting to figure it out.

"Hey Frederick," she says, "I got something you need?" She gives me a big wink and I smile back. Years ago and before some rough miles and accumulated bad decisions, she was probably really pretty; I can see it under the make-up and lines that hard times put on faces. "I just need some water. If you can get some lemon in it, I'll walk you to your car at close." I put a dollar on her tray.

She snorts, "You'd walk me to my car if both your legs were broke. Your mama raised you right."

I wondered if there was a blinking sign on my chest that said, Knight-errant.

"By the way, my name is Fredward, not Frederick."

"No chiz? What kinda name is Fredward?"

"Mine," I said and winked at her. She smiled and squeezed my bicep. "Ooh, wish I had one of those in my house." She winked back and went to get my water.

My preoccupation with physical fitness started in high school. Honestly I did it because I wanted girls to look at me and I was tired of getting beat up. I got interested in fighting and sparring because Sam and I enjoyed watching MMA and it seemed a logical extension of getting fit. The other thing was that, well, Sam actually had to bail me out of some rough spots with some guys. It would be hard enough to be saved by a guy, but the talk that starts when your girlfriend pulls a football player off no one should have to endure. Actually, it was probably worse for the football player now that I consider it. Regardless, I needed to bring up my game. It turned out to be like fencing-I was sort of good at it. I had some natural instincts in physical situations.

I started bouncing bars a few years back A.S. (After Sam). I've worked at over a dozen so far, but I like the ones where I have to do something. The clubs where I stand on a line and check IDs don't challenge anything but my ability to stay awake. I like a place where I can feel the situation reach inside me and stir up my fear. Then I can put hands on the fear and wrestle it down. It might sound crazy but it helped me get over Sam dumping me, I mean, I never thought about killing myself, but living wasn't that shiny a prospect anymore. Bouncing as second job became a kind of therapy. Bouncing is different than sparring in the gym. No gloves and padding. It's a real fight but I'm on the side of the good guys. I have to keep or restore the peace.

Bouncing isn't about beating people up. The real secret is getting the situation controlled and order restored with a minimum of drama, this is business. I rotated off the door and was watching the whole room, especially the three in back. One was big, with a shaved head. He looked like Gibby if Gib were 6 foot 7 with tats crawling down his neck and under his collar. The stupid one was clearly rotting out from a life of bad choices. He was greasy like he hadn't bathed since the Clinton administration. The one I called Dangerous had most of my attention. He wasn't acting the fool like his friends. He sat quietly, wearing sunglasses in a dark bar, sipping his drink and looking around the room same as me. I was planning how I would take out each one; maybe he was doing the same, because when he saw me looking he mimed shooting me with his right hand.

It was hours before close while the band was on break when it finally happened. The big one had done something-how would Carly put it?-"Inappropriate" with Tammy his waitress. There was a scream and crash where the Three Amigos were sitting and their table was on its side. Tammy was scrambling away from the three who were laughing. As she looked at me her eyes were filled with embarrassment and violation. I felt my ears getting hot. I saw the other bouncers, Dave and Sean headed over, slowed by a bar crowd that was well over fire code in terms of occupancy. It was just me approaching the trio.

"Well fellas, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," I need to work on my tough guy talk. No wonder I never got to work without a script on iCarly.

The big one who looked like Gibby in a fun house mirror was red-faced and unsteady on his feet with knees locked and no center of gravity. "What are you gonna do stubby? You think yer tough?"

"Stubby? You must have been a riot in the second grade—how many years were you there?" Okay, that was better. "Toughest person I ever knew was a petite blond girl. Her signature move was to break thumbs."

The alcohol was fogging my words before they could reach his brain. He gave me that tilted head look dog's do sometimes that might have meant he didn't understand or maybe he just had water in his ear.

He put out his right hand to shove me. I planted my fingers into pressure points above his knuckles and bent his thumb and wrist in a basic control hold. He was big but his hands weren't strong. He had coasted on sheer size. I stepped into him using his wrist to control him. My right forearm hammered his elbow bending his arm to bring me in closer then I slammed my fist into his collarbone, out again and into the side of his head. Between the blows and the booze he was just about done. I spun out almost turning my back to him and kicked with my left leg into his solar plexus. The force was sufficient to launch his 300 plus pounds off his feet ending with a crash landing on his back. For me the best part was I didn't think at all, it was automatic, memory muscle. You don't plan reflex.

The one I called Stupid came at me with a bottle held over his head swinging it down like he was the Mighty Thor. I blocked his descending forearm with mine, stepped forward so my right leg was behind him, wove my left arm behind his elbow and rode him down to the floor.

That was my mistake. I was on the liquor slick tile with him when the one I called Dangerous appeared to my left and drove his boot into my ribs. It hurt but pain is just something you learn to live with. He had aimed at my head but downward motion made my head unavailable. He was winding up for another blow. I rose up, letting Stupid go, allowing Dangerous to continue his kick. I caught him at the calf, using his momentum to increase my own force. I turned into him from my hips, putting my weight into it. My right hand went into a fist and I uncoiled my forearm into the space just below his sternum. I flowed forward imagining my hand going through him to some place behind his back. All his breath came out in a stinking rush of spit and beer. His whole body undulated like Jell-O in a bowl as he went down, a parade balloon deflating on its way back to storage.

So much for the minimum of drama, I thought.

I turned to see that Dave and Sean were dragging the other two out. Kenny yanked Dangerous to his feet and gave me my second thumbs-up of the day. Fred Benson, Force for Justice. I helped the waitresses get the table righted and the band started into their next set.

At closing I walked Manda to her car. The stars were very visible, like fragments of broken bottle on a blacktop.

"Hey Fredward," she said, "What are you doing here?"

"Walking you to your car?"

She stopped and I could see how tired she was. Working two jobs isn't just therapy for some people.

"I don't know much about you, but yer smart, you look like a million dollars, and you don't belong here. This is where people stop to burn down the clock. You gotta lotta miles left on you."

I shrugged, but didn't say anything. At some point I learned that silence has great value.

"Somebody messed you up good," she added.

I don't know why, but I said this: "I think I caused it. I had to talk her into it, into going to school, I fought her and the system to get her into college, to break the cycle her family was in. It worked. She found a course of study, a professor that opened her eyes and showed her things, options she never thought she had. The next thing I knew…" I stopped. "Fact is, from what I can piece together, she made the right call. He is a great guy. I tell myself I should be happy that she's happy, but I can't seem to be man enough."

That might be the first time I said it out loud. It made my chest hurt, or maybe it was the kick I took. It also hurt to breath. I noticed I was rubbing the silver ham stud in my ear.

"Man enough? Lemme tell you something Fredward, if that girl is any kind of smart, she wakes up some nights and she thinks of you. I'd bet a week's tips on it."

I had no idea what to say.

"Guys like you? I met one, and it's you. And I'm too old to move on it. So, I know this. You ain't someone a girl gets over. Yer someone that sticks around and makes every guy she'll ever be with have to reach real high."

For the first time in the three years since the apuckettlypse I felt a little lighter. "Thanks."

I pressed the button on her keychain and opened her door.

"Hey, you ever need to talk, or wanna catch something on TV, you come by, okay?" she said.

I thanked her, gave her a hug and she hung on a little too long, just like when I was a boy clinging to Carly. I ran my fingers on her face with its creases and imperfections; I noticed some lipstick on her teeth and the black roots of her blond hair. Then I stepped back and closed her in the car. She drove out of the gravel lot and it was just me and a few empty cars. I stared up watching the white crescent moon. Once, Sam and I sat on the fire escape where we shared our first kiss and I told her the crescent reminded me of a boomerang weapon that some superheroes carried in their belts. She laughed and said she couldn't believe she loved someone who thought like that. I couldn't believe it either. I felt so lucky to have that, someone who saw me for what I was, and loved it, regardless of how dumb it might be. That's what hurts so much about losing her, the fear that I'll never find that place again.

I wondered if Sam was somewhere, miles away looking at the same white slash in the black night sky. Sam, I'm so sorry I couldn't be the guy you needed. I want to be man enough to let you go and wish you well. You deserve the best Sam. If I really love you, I have to mean that. I heard nothing back but the sound of traffic on the distant highway. Then it was just me, alone. Something I'm still not used to.

Two white lights came onto the lot, and I heard gravel crunching. Gibby was rolling up in my car.

"How'd it go?" he asked as I got in.

"No troubles," I said sitting down in my "office." I noted that the seat was warm. I wondered who might have been sitting there earlier.

"Hey, you got any of those whole grain Fat Cakes?" I ask.

He reached into the back seat and handed me a plastic wrapped tube of fat sheathed in whole grain. I wondered if Sam had ever tried one. And for the first time in too long, I smiled as she strolled uninvited again into my thoughts.

"I thought you said those were suicide," Gibby said.

"Fred Benson walks on the wild side, podnah," I said taking a bite of Fat Cake as we rolled toward that traffic sound in the distance.

A/N Chapter two is underway. Sam has her side of Seddie.