THE AFTERMATH OF iCARLY

Freddie: the trouble with dating other girls

Freddie Benson pulled at his collar and reached down for his tie. Tonight he was off on a date with a girl he'd met at the mall a week ago. He stared at how handsome he actually looked in the mirror, and gulped nervously. He could do with some girly advice about how to impress this girl.

If only Carly Shay, his best friend and girl-crush, was in the country. Alas, she was yet to return from Italy. He had forgotten the name of the little two she was living with her father, in some type of military base. He shook the image of a hot version of Carly dressed up in a skimpy camouflage outfit, winking at him and saluting. They had only gone as far as kissing. In fact, before she left of this "once in a lifetime opportunity", you know, to spend quality time with her dad, she did kiss him.

It was his dream come true. Or so he thought at the time. That was until later that night, when Carly had well and truly taken off and was flying the friendly skies. Or something like that. He was sad. Samantha Puckett, Carly's BFF, was also sad. In fact, he had never seen the girl so down.

Maybe because he had thoughtlessly suggested the unthinkable, via phone conversation. Real classy, Freddie Karl Benson, real classy. He had been helping their unusual friend, Gibby, with a head problem. He wanted a clone of his head... or something like that. Freddie wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, Gibby got his actual head stuck in the machine... Freddie wanted to call someone for help... that person happened to be Sam - whom supposedly hated him, dated him and was back to hating him, supposedly.

"Do you wanna get back together?" It got blurted out, without thinking. He bit his tongue and sucked in his breath, waiting for laughter.

"What?" Not exactly a 'no', was it? Her voice was once of almost disbelief but maybe with a hint of relief? Or perhaps sheer disappointment.

"Nothing." And so it was swept under the proverbial carpet. Never to be mentioned again.

Sam was off-limits, he kept saying to himself. Sam was completely off-limits, especially since Carly decided to leave the city... err... country. Who knew when she'd be back. He hadn't heard her mention anything as to the day of her return. Besides, Spencer had already converted her room into a private room for stuff. Freddie shuddered every time he thought about it. Once, he and Sam accidentally opened the door and saw... unmentionable items. They looked at one another and closed the door slowly, pretending that they hadn't seen anything. He doubted that the room and its stuff was going anywhere, as far as Spencer Shay was concerned.

There was a knock on his bedroom door, interrupting his train of thought and flashback moments before his big date. At least it wasn't his first one.

"Benson," says a familiar voice. "Your mom's out. And... whoa, hot-nerd alert!"

"What are you doing here, Puckett?" Using her last name just didn't have the same spite as it used to. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Don't care," she replies and automatically lays herself on his nicely made up bed. "So... whatchya getting all fancied-up for?"

Freddie smiled softly. The blonde stared at him like he'd gone mental for half a second and then shrugged. He turned and looked at her finally. Sam looked him up and down, checking him out like she'd done previous times, but then pretended to throw up because he was "too dorky" or whatever she used to say.

"A date," he finally says to her.

"I keep telling you dude," Sam replies, with a sigh. "It's illegal to date your relatives."

"Wha-" his mouth hangs open is disgust whilst she laughs at her own crude joke. "Sam! This is an actual girl from another family tree."

Sam's laughter fades out and her face falls a little before lighting back up again with another joke, something about aliens and robots making babies. Freddie shakes his head and recognises the symptoms immediately. He goes to sit down on his bed ready to have a serious conversation.

"I actually wanted to ask you something," he finally says.

"It's not a girly, dating kind of question is it? Carly's much better at that than I am." Sam says, looking at her hands.

"Carly's not here. But you should give yourself more credit."

Sam looked at him and he looked straight back at her. Freddie noticed a change in her behaviour ever since Carly had left Seattle for the big wide world of spaghetti and pizza. Little by little she had changed her clothes to be more girly, started wearing perfume - a scent he recognised from when they were dating, and to be a bit more pleasant in general to be around. He narrowed his eyes. She narrowed hers.

"And you have to go," she says, quickly. "Or you'll be late. No girl likes a loser that's late."

"But they like losers?" Freddie chuckles.

"Get outta here."

The moment had passed and he was kind of glad. Moments like that should always be spared when having a choice about it. Especially when it included a feisty girl whom he dated and... well pretty much went all the way with. This date would be the toughest one yet, since he knew that Sam was still very much in love with him.

"You know what, I'm not going," announces the boy, finally. "I don't even have anything in common with this girl."

"So you're just going to leave her hanging? Isn't that what any other jerk would do?"

Sam had a point there. Freddie Benson would never be a jerk, his mother raised him a lot better than that. They both knew that he wasn't the type to stand up a girl, perhaps the type to be stood-up but that's a different story. And hey, Sam Puckett completely agrees.

There was only one thing that he could do. And that was just go on the date anyway and see how it turned out. He doesn't tell Sam this. The girl watches as he takes out his phone and texts something quickly, but then stands up and grabs his jacket. She raises an eyebrow and looks at him race around for a last minute breath and pit check. he gives her a thumbs up and goes out the door, leaving a dismayed blonde laying on his bed.

Freddie decided there was no point in having a bad time, just because of Sam's little crush... or big crush on him. She had a lot of chances to ask him out.

"Hey Freddie," she says. "Thanks for your message."

"No problem, Angela," he replies.

Angela Peppington has short red hair, big brown eyes and is, actually, a world-famous internet star much like Carly, Sam and Freddie were or still are, however you look at it now.

They both met at the mall whilst grabbing coffee. Well Freddie was buying coffee for Sam but Angela was buying coffee for herself. She instantly recognised the camera-man and tech wizard of iCarly, and he swore he'd met her at Webicon at some stage. Whilst in-line, they chatted and laughed about different random things and finally she gave him her phone number and told him to call her sometime.

It turned out that Angela's family owned the franchise of Peppi Cola drinks and merchandise and plus she had her own show online to do with singing. She loved singing, or so she told Freddie. He had heard her songs, self-written and composed, and was needless to say, rather impressed.

"Shall we go?" Freddie asks, offering her his arm, like it was a 1930's romantic movie or something.

Angela giggles and takes his arm and he walked with her to a restaurant not far from the Bushwell Plaza. The place, 'Petrosini's', was famous around the world for their great lasagne.

"It's called, when I die please put me naked in a bathtub and fill it with Petrosini's lasagne!" Carly found that funny, and Freddie did too.

Whoa! Where'd that come from, thought Freddie. He shook his head and asked for a table for two in a booth. They both ordered, not surprisingly, lasagne. Angela sat across from him, smiling politely with her hands folded on the table. She looked too lady-like for this scenario. But Freddie smiled back and reached out to hold her hands.

The last time he was here, Sam was using far too much parmesan cheese on her lasagne, as he kept pointing out.

"Why don't you grab each other's forks, and stab each other in the eyes!" He thought he saw a glimmer of amusement in Sam's eyes whilst Carly went on, in a state of anger and perhaps lack of sleep. "If you can't get along without my help, maybe you shouldn't be dating at all."

The particular memory haunted him still. He let go of Angela's hands and kept them to himself. She looked at him strangely before retreating herself. His phone suddenly buzzed, and he looked at the picture on the screen. A crazy Sam Puckett face popped up with a message attached. 'is ur date fun?' and there was an emoticon with a tongue poking out. Freddie puts it away and doesn't reply. Angela talks about her newest show and how many views it has been getting.

When the lasagne arrives, she digs in straight away, not using too much parmesan. And also... doesn't talk with her mouth full.