Author's Notes: I wrote this for a fic exchange at LiveJournal using the prompts "crumpled notes," "swingsets/playgrounds," and "childhood photographs."

If anyone is confused, you can find info regarding 'your face' (the insult, not your actual face) on UrbanDictionary[dot]com.

Disclaimer: I have no claims to iCarly.

P.S. I Love You

"Your face?"

"Your face," Carly confirmed in a tone teetering on a sharp edge between indignation and wonder.

There was a moment when she and Freddie just stared at each other before directing their attention back to the battered-looking note in Carly's grasp, beanbags crinkling inquiringly as they leaned in.

"Ya know," she dragged out smoothly. "Like, the highly-offensive insult?"

Freddie's face went angular in incredulity, and Carly sighed when he asked: "How is that gonna make anyone feel bad?"

"Because," she prodded, and then actually considered it for a moment. "It's on the same level as, but shouldn't be confused with 'your mom.' Actually, some even say 'your face' trumps 'your mom.'"

"Hey!"

Carly leaned away at his outburst, the letter clutched like a shield at her chest. "Not your mom!"

"Sorry," Freddie grumble, deflating. "It's Sam and her stupid word bombs."

Carly snickered at 'word bombs,' smoothing her face out into the pinnacle of innocence before Freddie, eyes shrunken in indignation, turned to her. She looked away to examine the overhead lights, a scarcely-veiled grin lying full across her lips.

"Go ahead and laugh," he grumbled. "It's not like you'd understand. Sam's actually nice to you. And after that thing she did to me over Spring break—"

"You mean the thing with the ballet-dancing moose figurines and pudding—"

"The thing we swore to never speak of again!" he interjected loudly. Then, softer: "I think I have Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. I'm like those Pavlovian dogs that drool at the ring of a bell, only I freak at the sound of an insult now."

"Aw," she said, patting him on the head.

Freddie crossed his arms. "Yeah," he confirmed. A contemplative silence rung through the room, and by the way he shivered, Carly figured he was contemplating pirouetting moose and orange pudding. "So," he finally prodded. "Your face, huh?"

Carly groaned, throwing her head back onto the beanbag. "I thought we agreed to not talk about the face thing," she pouted.

"Since when?"

"Well, we were going to agree," she said shrewdly, raising her head to give him a look. "But we got sidetracked with the drooly dogs, and I think it should still count!"

"Alright," Freddie agreed, leaning back in his beanbag. "But you don't bring up that other thing."

"Fine," Carly agreed, groaning again and pressing the crinkling paper to her face in frustration as the entire stretch of her back sunk into the beanbag. She brought the paper down in exasperation, exposing her eyes, and Freddie grinned sheepishly down at her.

She sighed, and a few seconds later, Carly couldn't not talk about it: "Just who ends what, as far as I can tell is a love note with something like 'your face'?"

"What up, what up!" Sam said loudly as she entered the room. The beanbags rustled near Carly's ear as Freddie shifted backwards, the tiny noise synchronizing itself with the too-loud slam of the door on the other end of the room. "Anyone here seen a bag of rancid egg salad and some rubber bullets lying around?"

Instead of waiting for an answer, she made a beeline for a bowl of strawberries on the steps by the window, scooping one up and shoving it in her mouth.

"Do I got something on my face, pea brain?" she asked around a mouthful of red goo, and when Carly turned to Freddie, who had apparently been staring, he twitched violently before glaring down at the ground.

"Nope, nothing," Carly countered for him, pushing herself off the beanbag. Some of the mush dribbled down Sam's chin, and she wiped it off with her sleeve. "But I just got this thing." She tucked the letter, which she had folded neatly, against herself like a blanket and walked toward Sam, who took a step forward to meet her half way. It became apparent in the rushing words that fell from her a moment later that she wouldn't be able to hold onto her excitement: "A perfectly ordinary thing that might come from anyone, and—"

"Give it," Sam deadpanned, holding out her hand.

"—is no big deal 'cause—"

"Give it."

"I mean, it could even be someone like Stu Gimble, and ew," she shivered dramatically.

"I said give it here, Shay," Sam said, taking hold of Carly's wrist.

"Okay, it's from a secret admirer!" Carly relented, her voice all high-volume quickness. Unable to keep a smile from seeping into her face, she let go of the folded note.

Sam took the paper in her hands and unfolded it before her like a soft sheet of snow. Her eyes scanned the words impassively before she crumpled it in a fist and chucked it at Freddie's forehead.

"Where'd you find this mess of a thing?" she asked, smoothing her pants down with both hands as Freddie yelled, 'Foul!'

"Freddie found it," Carly said, making a gesture toward him, and Sam glared at him accusingly. "He said it was out in the lobby, by the mailboxes. We think someone was trying to put it in ours, only they couldn't, because they didn't have the key."

"It's official," Sam deadpanned. "You do attract nutjobs."

"Hey!" Freddie hissed as he reached Carly's side. He pointed at Sam accusingly. "Don't say the word 'nutjob.' She might still be traumatized because of—"

"You?" Sam shot at the same time Carly asked "Squirrel Man?" and then shivered a bit like a very tall leaf in a strong wing. "Nah—"

"Face it. Squirrel Man ain't scary as you, Fredware," Sam cut in.

"Fredware?"

"Eh!" Carly scolded, throwing a hand over Sam's mouth.

"Squirrel Man used to burry nuts in the planter outside Carly's apartment and then make a nest out of strands of her hair," Freddie said, clearly upset. "He scaled the building once and tried to gnaw a hole in her room! There were teeth embedded in the wall right outside her window!"

Sam, who had been attempting to paw Carly's arm away from her face, licked the hand over her mouth and ducked away from Carly's grasp.

As Carly cried out in disgust at the strawberry-flavored saliva in her palm, Sam smiled over at her unapologetically. Then, wiping a hand frantically on her jeans, she went for the anti-bacterial hand gel Freddie's mom set up at every sharp point of the room, grumbling about fruit residue the entire time.

"I'm sure Carly's mostly traumatized by you," Freddie continued, crossing his arms and meeting Sam in the center or the room.

"Oh yeah, waits-at-his-peephole-just-to-see-when-Carly-comes-home? Hey Carls, you'd better not wear a skirt, he might have installed a camera under your doormat."

"I would never," Freddie cried, vehemently, pointing at Sam accusingly, and Carly accidentally tipped the hand gel onto her blouse at the thought. "And I grew out of the other thing!" he added.

"Can't we just stop arguing and never bring up things of welcome and skirt peeping in the same conversation again?" Carly cried as she wiped hand gel from her blouse.

"Gladly," Freddie glared. Sam shrugged as she picked up the bowl on the steps and tipped the last strawberry into her mouth.

"Fine by me." The bowl hit the stairs with a low clatter as she set it back down, and when Carly reached her side, Sam tapped her arm with the back of her hand. "Now, for what I came up here for," she said. "Brand new Girly Cow in five. You comin'?"

"Course," Carly smiled, and with that affirmation still in the air, Sam left the room. Carly shrugged at Freddie, who, since she had last looked in his direction, made great progress in his pursuit to look surly.

"You'd probably get along," Freddie said suddenly, uncrossing his arms and walking toward the door. He would never admit it, but Freddie was a closet Girly Cow fan.

Carly gave him a short, confused laugh in response. "Me and Girly Cow?"

"No," he said, holding the door open for her. She walked through, raising an eyebrow at him as she passed. "The guy who wrote the letter," he specified. "I mean, if you get along with Sam. Just think. That's exactly the kind of thing Sam would say to sum up some big, declaration of love."

Carly couldn't help but smile. "Ya think?"

Freddie nodded; Carly considered.

"Nah," she said dismissively, lowering her voice. Carly slowed until she was absolutely sure that Sam was out of earshot before she spoke again: "Remember the picture of Jonah and the giant heart? Somewhere deep down, Sam's kind of a romantic."

-

Too many of Sam's fondest memories took place when she and Carly were still kids: they were the rainy afternoons she spent with her hair tucked under one of the baseball caps that once sat atop her deadbeat dad's head, bragging about how she would get Carly to marry her when they were older as they scarfed down Hot Enchiladas in the backseat of her mom's car. Sometimes Sam would eat something carpet-coated off the car floor then, though Carly would still blush and boldly make a grab Sam's hand while staring past the rain-washed window to the gray, Seattle scenery.

It always felt like it was just the two of them then, and the too-fluffy gestures that couldn't be duplicated outside of childhood with the same barefaced type of sincerity (or while being taken seriously) were the ones Sam wished she had more of.

Sam didn't think that Carly remembered any of it now, but she was unable to forget.

And Sam remembered a lot, mostly during those times when she let her glances spread themselves out too long from over a bowl of pineapple, Carly eventually looking up to grin across at her. There was also silently wishing she had crashed on the floor during sleepovers, because Carly was flushed and rumpled with sleep in the bed next to her, and all Sam wanted to do was put her fingers through her hair, or curl her arms around her, or kiss the hollow space at the base of her throat, too much summer air slipping into the room or not.

Because sometime after Freddie had wedged his way into the Puckett-Shay coalition, she and Carly had both started noticing other people, and instead of anything between them evolving, any glimpse of even an innocent attraction was somehow muted.

The difference between her and Carly, though, was that Sam never stopped noticing Carly.

Sam didn't know what that noticing meant, though, and she didn't think she could say she was gay, but she understood that she couldn't bring it up with Carly yet. That was enough to keep her mouth shut, because probably being in love with your best friend before she was ready to hear it was a pretty good way to end up without one. And anyway, there was no way she was going to be like Freddie, desperately chasing after something he couldn't have.

Instead, there were distractions, and they worked, so Sam could wait. She was happy with the way things were, and mucking everything up was not part of her agenda.

There was a glaring flaw in that plan to keep it on the downlow, though: it took the form of a note--crumpled, completely confessional, and accidentally left a derelict on Lewbert's immaculately-clean floor.

Sam was sure she hadn't meant to give it to Carly when she wrote it, but Principal Franklin had suggested journaling as a way for dealing with what he called her 'worryingly-intense anger,' and since journaling was something Freddie would do, she had brilliantly decide to go the lamer route of writing a lazy, halfhearted letter she knew she would never send.

All of Principal Franklin's advice was useless, Sam thought, and she scowled intensely at him as he walked boldly past in the crowded hallway, having the nerve to salute her. She really should have just stuck to her morals: anything besides breaking things and ham-flavored fat cakes couldn't be remotely therapeutic.

Now there was the problem of Carly intently studying and reflecting on the Suburban Dictionary like there was some way to decode 'your face,' when 'your face' had actually been directed at something more intangible than just one person.

Sam would just lay low until it was all over, because Carly would lose interest soon enough.

Carly would totally lose interest. Freddie had broadcasted his crush on her for years, and she seemed to forget about that all the time. There was absolutely no reason for Carly to go up to Sam at break, twist her fingers around Sam's wrist and tug her to the blue stretch of lockers like she was taking a toy boat out to a tiny body of water and say: "I think I'm gonna find out who wrote it."

She released Sam's wrist, and Sam stared at the heap of school things cradled under Carly's right arm.

"Whad'ya mean?" Sam asked. She could still feel the pads of Carly's fingertips pressed into her wrist and she swallowed hard, because one thing Sam could never control well was that fluttering type of hunger. "Are those corn chips?"

Food was always a good distraction.

After a tiny noise of indignation was issued, Carly crushed the bag close to her side in an act of unbearable cruelty. "Focus!"

"While you're withholding snacks? You might as well be asking me to get a hobo under the full moon to declare his love for blue-collar labor!" Behind Carly, Rodney beckoned Sam over to him with a lazy gesture; Sam nodded his way, Carly momentarily glancing over her shoulder in curiosity.

"Hobos don't enjoy full moons?" Carly asked as she turned back toward Sam, clearly uninterested in Rodney's summon.

"Or love!" Sam confirmed, taking Carly's momentary confusion as an unspoken go-ahead and grabbing the bag of chips.

"Hey, don't snatch my snacks, you snack snatcher!" Carly cried as Sam waved the now-open bag before her.

"…Did'ja want some?"

Carly looked stern for a moment before deflating into an acquiescent pile crossed arms and frowning. "Keep 'em. I hope that it satisfies your unnatural corn addiction."

"It is not a corn addiction," Sam said in poorly-feigned offense, sticking a handful of chips in her mouth. "It's a corn-compounded-and-baked-into-a-crunchy-snack-of-milled-goodness addiction!"

"Great," Carly laughed, attempting to cloak it under mock anger. "Are you feeling focused yet?"

Sam nodded, her eyes closed in near-euphoria as she tasted salt. "Shoot."

Carly rolled her eyes amiably and reached out to brush the hair from Sam's neck, and Sam's breath caught when Carly's fingers brushed against her pulse point. "Can I aim for the jugular vein?"

She loved it when Carly did something that seemed too teasingly sensual to be innocent. It was almost like flirting, and if Sam didn't know any better, she would have thought that was exactly what it was.

Sam was all about snap judgments. She understood that she liked Carly the moment her nine-year-old body had hit the pavement after trying to eat Carly's tuna sandwich, and everything that came after that moment had just heightened her feelings and felt like it was a confirmation that Sam had chosen correctly.

This was one of those moments of indubitable affirmation.

"That hurts, Shay" Sam said, taking a step forward and smiling around her corn chips. With the hand that was still clutching the bag, she put her hand over her heart and said, "Right here."

"Other side," Carly corrected flatly, repositioning Sam's arm, though Sam thought Carly might damage some facial muscles due to how hard she was smiling.

"That's a relief," Sam deadpanned, dropping her hand. "I was beginning to think that what Freddie said about me not having a heart was true."

"Okay, be serious now," Carly continued, and Sam watched her fruitlessly attempt carrying out her own command, the farthest she got being the way she crafted her back into a stiff line. "I've been giving things a lot of thought, and I think I'm gonna find out who wrote that letter!"

Sam wondered why she always made the unfortunate decision of eating while people spoke as soon as a mouthful of saliva-soaked corn chips tragically met their dooms over the tiles at her feet.

From the corner of her eye Sam saw Gibby, who was probably somehow threatened by ground corn, break into a run as Carly cried out, "Okay, did that really call for a shower of saliva and used corn?"

"Maybe the saliva, but not the corn," Sam deadpanned, giving a cough as she wiped her face. Carly looked up at her, and Sam said, now incredulous: "You wanna find some nub who didn't even have enough brains to get a letter into a mailbox?"

She said it slowly, and the blood was rushing to Sam's head fast, and she leaned a shoulder against the cold lockers; Carly looked determined, her mouth set in a way that usually meant there would be schemes and things would get accomplished so that afterwards they could have smoothies and high fives. Sam usually loved it when Carly took control and invoked what Miss Ackerman had dubbed The Sass Master, though she never thought Carly would use that against her, even unknowingly.

Rodney beckoned Sam over once more, more urgently, and Sam was thankful for the reprieve. She walked past Carly and backed vaguely toward Rodney, the forced edge tainting her voice phonier than Astroturf: "I mean, this guy thinks vague insults regarding your face are romantic."

"Well." Carly said, shifting her books to her other arm. She reached halfheartedly toward Sam with the hand she had freed, and Sam took another step backwards.

"Look, I gotta bolt," Sam said, motioning to Rodney with her chin and increasing her pace. "Sale on broken glass! Only lasts until 12:27!"

"But," Carly started, looking down at her watch. Her face seemed to crumple under the confusion running through her. "It's almost 2 o'clock."

"Then there's no time!" Sam shouted purposefully, turning her back to Carly. Though before she got very far, she whirled around again. Carly was looking to the chewed-up corn for answers, and Sam yelled to her seriously. "Let it go, Shay." Carly looked up as Sam flicked the empty corn chip bag into the trashcan in the corner. It bounced off the rim and made a soft sound as it hit the bottom. "This thing can only end in disaster."

-

Carly had completely disregarded Sam's advice, a fact that made itself painfully apparent the next day when Carly started discussing what she called her 'system.'

"See, I go around systematically insulting every guy in school," Carly said, pink notebook in a hard grip in her right hand and a tweed hat tipped stylishly over her head. "The boys who gives satisfactory responses get on The List."

"The list?" Sam asked, her mouth wide open. A part of her noted that she was possibly drooling.

"The List," Carly confirmed severely, momentarily speaking in a silly British accent. "See, there was a certain face-like quality to the content of that note, and I can use that that identify who wrote it."

"Ooh!" Sam said with sarcastic excitement. "Maybe the dude meant for you to do this, and when he calls you a gimpy-eyed skunkbag, it'll really mean, 'I've waited for you my entire life, Carly Shay. Let me love you like I've never loved another!"

Carly seemed to consider this. "Ya think?"

Sam had always thought of Carly as sensible. She may have been superstitious and even slightly jittery and explosive at times, but she was always the first one to dive into any debacle with a logical plan. Somewhere, though, that had gone out the window to die a cruel death, and a mutated Frankenstein of a plan had been raised from the carnage.

"Carly, I need you to tell me this straight-out," Sam said seriously, and Carly looked back with an even expression. "Is that a detectives hat?" Sam asked, surveying Carly's hat critically and reaching to pluck it off her head.

"After the list of possible suspects is compiled," Carly said dismissively, glowing bright as a candy apple and touching the tip of her hat self-consciously, "I collect writing samples. That way I don't have to get a sample from every guy in school."

"Yeah, that'd be weird," Sam replied sarcastically.

Carly just gave a fond eye-roll and said, "C'mon, wouldn't you wanna take this seriously if you got this really awesome but really mysterious note?"

"—from someone who really didn't know how to not offend me while confessing their undying love? Carls," Sam said seriously. "You know how some people turn into their mothers?"

Carly's face went all out of shape in confusion. She marked something off in The Pink Notebook Of Lists And Doom before glancing up at Sam between pen strokes. "Yeah?"

In one abrupt motion, Sam moved forward to grab Carly by the arms, looking honestly into her face before shaking her lightly. "Well, stop the madness before you turn into your brother!" Sam said in desperate tones.

Carly gaped at her like a limp doll, the flush bleeding up into her neck suddenly became profoundly distracting, and Sam noted that never embarrassing Carly was one way of avoiding distinctly un-best-friend-like thoughts seeping into her mind like water under a shut door.

That was when Freddie came sauntering over.

"Hey hey," he said good-naturedly.

"Fredward, tell Carly she's lost her marbles," Sam said, stepping away from Carly and crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

Freddie looked at Carly steadily, his face going soft before he said, "Your eyes light up the darkness like two Czechoslovakian marbles on a dangerously out-of-control hotplate," and Sam could have sworn for a moment that he was going to growl in conclusion.

Carly's eyes narrowed in scrutiny before she issued a slow 'hmmm' and jotted something down in her notebook. "Now what would you say if I told you your mom was a diseased baboon with the IQ of roast beef?" Freddie started violently as his mouth dropped open, and Carly burst out with: "For research purposes!"

Something inexplicably sharp and rife with hot, churning frustration uncoiled in Sam's stomach at Freddie being considered in the investigation, and with no food present, Sam threw her hands up in the air.

Gibby was walking by with Rueben, and when the two of them stopped amicably before them, Sam grabbed Gibby by the collar and slammed him up against a locker. "Just when did I become the sane one here?" she screamed in his face, and with that, she shoved away from him as he shook his head in terror.

There was a cacophony of squeaking sneakers as a large crowd of students parted to scramble out of Sam's way before she had the chance to knock them over in her mission to find some ham.

-

As soon as school let out the next day, Sam found Carly surreptitiously peeking around a corner.

"Holy surreptitious-peeking-around-the-corner, Batman," Sam spoke into Carly's ear when she walked up behind her, a few crumbs fleeing her mouth for the more habitable environment of Carly's right shoulder.

Carly started, calming when she turned to see Sam behind her. That was, before she realized her shoulder was now moist.

"Aw," Carly pouted, wiping the soggy crumbs with her hand. She clamped her tiny, pink notebook in front of her like a shield and turned to face Sam. "You know I don't like when your face drips moist food particles."

Carly was very close, and Sam's stomach swam a bit, because Carly smelled ridiculously good, and she did that pouty thing that made her lips look like sour cherry candy, and so Sam stuffed another handful of emergency honey roasted peanuts in her mouth to calm it, because then she couldn't think of things like what it would be like to lean forward and kiss her.

Carly was allergic to peanuts, so any action involving her mouth getting in contact with Carly's would probably cause an allergic reaction and kill her, and the last thing Sam wanted to do was kill Carly or make her puffy.

So Sam just shrugged, trying to look unconcerned as she fiddled with the strap of her backpack.

"Yeah, but the thing is, school's been out for like four minutes," Sam said. Someone opened the heavy door that led outside, chilling Sam's back, and Carly pressed her shoulder to the lockers they were standing beside. "The longer I needlessly look at this dump, the longer I think I might have to jab someone in the throat with something long and pointy."

Carly chewed her lip nervously. "Well…"

"What?"

In response, Carly made a small noise of excitement and a grab for Sam that was more like a twitch before guiding Sam up to the corner and encouraging her to peek around it with a light nudge.

That was when Sam realized Carly had a specific target in mind; she peered around the corner to be greeted by an eyeful of Tim Warner, Hot Guy # 4 according to the list posted in the handicapped stall of the upstairs faculty bathroom.

Sam thought she should just be thankful this wasn't as extreme as when she had found Carly in the janitor's closet that morning, waiting to yell something about long noses and legless construction workers to Adam Hoover.

"What're you doing?" Sam had deadpanned when Carly beckoned her over from inside a partially-open closet.

Carly had poked her face out from the crack, tip-toeing to survey the area over Sam's head and speaking low: "Throwing insults. I tried to hire Rip-Off Rodney, but after Ron Farber got violent with him, there was an understandable markup."

"And so…Rodney banished you to live in a closet?"

"No, oddly enough, Rodney's a real gentleman. He didn't reply once when I called him a skeevy thief with bad hair." Carly reached out then and physically repositioned Sam with both hands, presumably for a better view, before ducking back inside. "Actually, I've decided to go through with it all myself. See, it was me the face thing was directed at anyway. I thought I'd hide in this closet and surprise him so I didn't look like a goof just standing around by myself."

"Um." Sam fidgeted, rolling her sleeve as Carly poked her head further into the darkness when a group of seniors walked by. "How do you know that part of the letter was directed at you that way?" Sam asked. "Maybe he was going to say 'your face looks magnificent in low lamplight' and didn't get to finish because Lewbert hit him in the face with a mop."

Carly's face was cloaked under thin, smoky shadow, and Sam suddenly wondered about pushing Carly the rest of the way inside the closet, what it would be like to be pinned with her back up against a shelf, and Sam had to step backwards to break the image, pressing both hands into the small of her back as if pushing something tangible back inside of herself.

It was actually Carly who pulled Sam into the closet then, but that was because she said Sam probably looked suspicious talking to a door, but all Sam got while inside was the sharp smell of bleach, newly-awakened dust, and a long explanation of why 'your mom' was a system-approved response but 'yo mama' wasn't.

Despite the lack of kissing and being pinned to shelves, it was far more entertaining than watching Tim Warner put books into his locker, which was less interesting than watching mold form.

Unfortunately, Warner watching was their current activity.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Carly, because every other action was suddenly struck down by the thundering reality of Tim Warner's lameness.

"Oh, don't give me that look with the superior eyebrow placement. Here," Carly said, pushing Sam against the lockers. They were cold, and Carly was warm in front of her, and everything about thoughts involving Carly and the closet came rushing to her like a film clouding over her vision. "I need something to say to him," Carly continued. "Something like how he looks like he was whacked repeatedly by a stick with ugly powers when he was a child. And hurry, he usually doesn't take more than a minute at his locker after Trina goes by."

Somewhere Sam thought Carly was possibly going insane, but that didn't matter as much as her hands wound tight in the material of Sam's bomber jacket. Sam could almost feel her breathing, and for a moment Sam considered actually telling Carly the truth, because she'd never been so afraid of what her hands might do than at that moment, and frankly, she wanted to see what would happen.

"Carls--"

That was when Carly turned to receive a quick greeting from Shareen, who was speeding by on a neon pink set of crutches, and Sam remembered that they were in school when Carly turned back and raised both eyebrows in inquiry.

"Go over there and tell 'im who's boss," Sam said inspirationally, lightly punching Carly in the shoulder, only her voice came out low and breathy instead.

Carly opened her mouth to speak when someone pushed though the front door again and the chill broke between them like a hammer. Sam stepped quickly out of Carly's grasp then and crossed her arms over her chest, pursing her lips tightly together in case.

When Trina walked by a second later, Sam took it and abruptly stepped out from the corner to stand behind Warner, tapping him roughly on the shoulder.

"Warner," Sam said. He turned around halfway between closing his locker door, pasting an irritatedly expectant look on his face.

Sam wanted to sock him.

"Your face looks like a dumpster full of lizard guts exploded near your head right before the family cat went to sleep on your chin, died, decayed, and then grew life before God decided to visit you in your sleep to sprinkle that abomination with ugly powder."

There was a moment when Warner stood there, dumbstruck, and all Sam wanted to do was punch him in the mouth just because Carly could think he had any potential.

"Your mom," Sam offered flatly, leaning forward presumptuously and rolling her eyes.

Warner slowly reddened as if he had just fallen into a lit oven, and looking as if his face was about to implode, he let out a string of unoriginal expletives and what might have been a recipe for blueberry muffins.

"Thanks for proving you've got a spot on the short bus," Sam snorted.

She gestured to Carly, a quick jerk of the head and a "Let's go, kid," before Carly scrambled out from the corner, looking oddly impressed. A moment later, she gave a satisfied smirk and a quick nod of appreciation before she began writing furiously in her notebook while quickly trailing after Sam.

-

A week later Carly wasn't any closer to figuring out who wrote the note, and Sam was seriously considering a way of telling her.

A part of her thought that maybe Carly wouldn't be all that freaked, that she might have even already known. Either way, Sam didn't want it to come out in a manner that was slapdash or dull, even though she had briefly flirted with the idea of blurting it out as they made frozen, pudding-stuffed hamsickles after Spencer had left the apartment to collect discarded plastic flamingos from the state dump.

"How would you want someone to ask you out?" Carly abruptly asked one afternoon. They sat on the swings at a park not too far from Carly's loft, and the sun was a ball of gold on the horizon, throwing scarlet trails of light over the ground like a forgotten scarf.

Sam shrugged, boring the toe of her shoe into the tanbark. "They should probably bring a big mess of food and say something along the lines of, 'You, me, and a bucket of chicken wings, baby.'"

Stretching her legs before her, Carly let out a contemplative 'hmm.'

"So...what about you?" Sam asked, attempting to sound nonchalant.

Carly also shrugged. "I don't think I like waiting. I kinda like being the asker more than I like being the askee," she said, completely bruising all of Sam's nonexistent plans.

"Oh," Sam said flatly, then instantly perked up when Carly fixed her with a inquiring gaze. "Look out world, Carly Shay's up with them modern times," Sam said in an unenthusiastic hillbilly accent, releasing the swing's chains to wave her hands teasingly.

Carly dipped her head, sunset-lit hair falling around her face as she laughed softly, and god, Sam was absolutely crazy about her.

"So," Sam started, pushing herself with the tips of her sneakers. "What's with all the fuss involving this letter?"

Carly looked toward the sky contemplatively, a ghost of a smile painted across her face. "I think it was actually something Freddie said."

"Congratulations!" Sam exclaimed with sarcastic enthusiasm. She jumped off the swing and walked over to Carly, taking the chains of Carly's swing in her hands and walking backwards so she pulled a seated Carly with her. Carly let out a little squeak and grabbed onto the chains tighter, hands brushing Sam's, and Sam leaned in close. "You've just given up any chance of having real romance in your future!"

Carly smiled in mock offense for Fredward and pulled Sam's hood over her eyes. "Oh, shush."

Sam shrugged innocently, stepping back and releasing the chains of Carly's swing so Carly swung backwards.

"So what'd the dweeb tell you?" she asked as she pulled her hood back, not even able to keep how curious she actually was out of her voice. "That he was gonna trick you into a forced marriage agreement? Plant a chip in your brain so you'd submit to his geeky will, and so by default and strategically evil chip-placement, that'd be the greatest love of your life?"

"You know, those are the types of words some people find hurtful," Carly said matter-of-factly, using the momentum Sam had given her to keep swinging.

"Not anyone I wanna know," Sam replied as she positioned herself behind Carly. She caught Carly as she swung backwards, pushing her lightly so she gained more height the next time she swung forward.

Carly turned her head, her hair whipping in her face as she reproached Sam with her eyes.

"Actually," Carly said as if she had never stopped speaking, "he didn't say anything of the sort."

"Hm," Sam offered, supremely uninterested, and Carly turned back around.

Instead, Sam focused on the way Carly laughed and said in strained excitement that she thought she was going to end up in a tree, how her back felt beneath Sam's fingertips (no matter how briefly), and most of all, the way she couldn't see Sam looking.

"Actually, though," Carly broke through her own laughter, her tone taking an odd hitch as the toe of her shoe hit a falling leaf. "He said he thought the face part in the letter reminded him of you." She tipped her head back when she said this, her hair spreading out behind her like a veil as she fixed Sam with a look of upside-down curiosity.

"Dweeb's lost it," Sam said with a sharper edge than she meant. Stepping around Carly, Sam sat herself back down onto her swing, hands between her knees. "Have you seen the way he goes around your apartment now?"

Freddie had taken to wearing some type of thick, techy-looking collar around his neck that he probably thought made him look hardcore but only made him smell like Carly's perfume when she insulted him, as if Sam wouldn't rip on him if he smelled like Carly.

"That's because of you," Carly frowned. "He was trying to re-condition himself to not freak when you insulted him, and he used my perfume as a calming agent since, well—" She blushed and then switched tracks. "He said he got his idea from Spencer when he tried to learn Japanese, but…it kinda backfired, because he says now every time he smells my perfume he gets all spasmy."

Sam rolled her eyes at a can of soda nestled by the thick metal supporting the swing set.

The creaking of the swings rung loudly in Sam's ears as Carly's sped up. "I think he just meant that since I get along with you maybe I would get along with whoever wrote the letter," she said, sounding too cool and breathless.

Sam reached down grabbed the abandoned soda, chugging it too heartily. It was flat, and it slithered down her throat with a dry, ugly sweetness before Sam wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Yep, you and I, we're closer than peanut butter and ham."

"Gross!" Carly said, looking highly affronted more than ever by a ham's dalliances.

"It's good!" Sam cried in defense.

"Not that," she said, dragging her feet in the tanbark as she slowed herself. "Do you even know where that Peppy Cola came from?"

Sam looked down at the soda in her hand, peering into the dark aluminum. She shrugged. "Peppy Cola factory?"

Carly shuddered, making an accompanying icky noise, but she was smiling. She swung higher, her scarves flowing around her like ribbons.

Sam watched the way she exposed her throat when she tipped her head back to laugh, thoughts of making scarlet marks in the pale dips and hollows of her neck filling her head like sunlight.

When they walked home an hour later, Sam gave Carly her jacket, which Carly refused, before finally wrapping both of them in the oversized material. Sam let herself take it all in and carelessly threw an arm around Carly as they walked through the chill, happy and still warm all but for a hollow space that hungered behind her ribs, somehow deeper than she had felt before.

There was an ache in her bones, like growing, but really Sam thought maybe it was only withering. It was November, and somehow that afternoon, it was almost like purgatory.

-

Nearly another three days of list making, and Sam decided there was only so much she could take. She didn't know if it was because Carly was still looking in the wrong places or if it was because she had wussed out of telling her several times, but she knew she was irrationally angry, so Sam did the only natural, logical thing: she shot someone.

The sun behind Sam burned a gaping, red hole in the sky, and a few people standing on the street below her building had their tiny, pale faces tipped up toward her, going bright and incandescent in the sunlight.

The wind that swirled around the roof plaited tangles and dust into her curled hair as she pulled an arrow back in her bow and tilted it down toward a guy with brown hair like Tim Warner's standing on the sidewalk.

Or at least, she thought he had brown hair. She might have been too far up to tell. She wasn't too absorbed in her task, however, to miss the footsteps behind her.

"Hey, I came over here because you wouldn't pick up your phone."

The dude who was possibly Tim Warner stopped at a crosswalk, and without looking back or breaking concentration, Sam kicked the dead cell phone set at her feet so it went sliding toward Carly with a gravely whisper.

"Stay back, kid," Sam said. "You wouldn't wanna lose a gallbladder."

She released the arrow, and it whooshed down fast toward the pavement, the stuffy shriek of a man down drifting up into their tiny orbit to take its place.

"No," Carly laughed, sounding nervous, and when Sam turned around, Carly's face was pale against the scarlet sky, a saltlick in a pool of blood. "Then who'd cover my gallbladdery needs?"

Sam turned back to the street where passersby were now scurrying hastily past, some vaguely pointing toward the roof. She hooked another arrow in the string and pulled it back steadily, aiming for the tallest person standing on the pavement below.

"What d'ya want?" Sam asked, more unwelcoming than she had meant it.

"I was thinking," Carly said. "There's an away game at Evergreen, and if we can sit up front we can listen to the insults the Ridgeway players throw at the other team."

Sam whipped around quickly, the arrow dislodging itself as she swung around so it whizzed right by Carly's ear.

Carly flinched and went stiff.

"I'm done," Sam said flatly, leaning back against the ledge, bow hanging loosely by her side.

"But—you like Evergreen games," Carly said good-naturedly and clearly confused. "You said you liked it when the players got hurt because the grass is all dry and yellow and the blood looks like ketchup on scrambled eggs."

"It's not the game," Sam said forcefully, and before she knew it, she couldn't stop herself. "It's you and this stupid obsession with the letter thing. I'm sick of it, okay? You're almost lamer than Freddie now."

Carly stared at her, and when Sam saw the bemused hurt in her face, she instantly regretted saying anything.

"Look, Carls—"

"You didn't mind before," Carly said softly. As she spoke her voice gained more force. "What about when we followed Sam Leyva to the museum? You said you were having fun when he almost got hit by that bus, and then there was the thing that happened with the pink pompoms, the cat hair, and the lasagna…"

All Sam remembered was Carly going on about his cute nose. "Just…can't you leave me out of it until you've come back to earth?" Sam asked, turning back toward the street and picking up another arrow.

"Well…yeah?" Carly shouted brilliantly, and Sam flinched at her tone. "Well, what about when it was Statewide Pork Week, and you couldn't shut up about ham, huh? I had to listen to you talk about the circumference of ham for a month! There was ham on all of our measuring devices, and Spencer was sick with an infection for a week after that unfortunate accident with that ham-coated measuring tape!"

"Ham isn't boring!" Sam yelled, turning back around to see Carly looking scandalized. "This," she said, motioning to the stupid notebook in Carly's hand, "freakish stalking thing you're doing is. Get it? Boring. Playing detective? When're we gonna grow up, Carly? When're you gonna grow up?"

Carly gasped and narrowed her eyes. "Fine!" she yelled. "Just…oh, just go be all old and shrivelly by yourself then!"

With that, Carly stalked off, stomping hard over the rooftop. Sam watched her go, and when something caught the corner of Sam's eye, she called out to her:

"Wait." Carly turned around, her mouth and shoulders stiff, parallel lines. "Can you hand me that arrow?" Sam growled out in the manner of one saying, 'And don't ever speak to me again!'

Carly let out a noise of frustration and swooped down to pick up the arrow, chucking it over the building, she glared over her shoulder before stalking off again, slamming the door to the stairwell behind her.

Before Sam had time to think, Carly burst back onto the roof, the upper half of her body peeking out from behind the partially-open door, her eyes narrowed like knives.

"And don't think I'm helping you with your mother's crow's feet regimen this weekend when the woman's all weepy, and the fainting sofa she financed for the occasion arrives!"

When Carly slammed the door again, the moment hit her hard. Sam ran her fingers over the suction cup at the end of the last arrow, the wind swirling by, echoing in the hollow places.

-

The desperate sound of emergency sirens rushed past somewhere in the distance as Sam tore the last loosened screw from the playground equipment before her, letting what used to be the swing set crash into the bulky pile of metal and hard plastic at her feet.

Carly didn't talk to Sam for two very long days, the last time Sam had been near enough to almost speak with her being when she overheard Rueben tell Carly she had lifted the anchovy possum from the ointment spoon. Sam didn't know what that meant, but she made it her duty to steal his wallet and punch him in the throat as soon as he emerged from his history class.

After that, it was only natural that Sam would occupy herself with shoving anything that wasn't nailed down into her mouth and some good, old-fashioned demolition. Somehow, though, the most cutthroat activities felt trivial and almost empty, and if there was ever anything Sam thought she would never tire of, it was ham.

The metallic clatter of the last piece of metal was followed closely by someone's footsteps trying to tread lightly among the noise, and when Sam's muddled brain brought up the very real possibility of law enforcement, she turned fast on her heel.

It wasn't the cops.

Carly was dressed up a little more than usual and had a few strands of her hair tucked back in red clips; she ambled toward Sam, appearing too beaten to look as determined as she did, only halting to take in the wreckage that loomed behind Sam like a gnarled hill. For a moment, she looking almost as if she were about to turn back, and as Sam raised a hand and waved sheepishly, Carly forced a smile that didn't stick.

"Hey," Carly said softly, kicking the nothing before her. She had what was probably one of Spencer's old shoeboxes tucked beneath her arm and was still all except where her hands fluttered over the dark surface, worrying the frayed edges. "You look busy," she said, gesturing to the screwdriver in Sam's hand. "I'll come back later."

With that she turned on her heel.

"Hold up," Sam called to her.

"Okay!" Carly replied quickly, whirling around fast and wringing her hands as best she could with a box under her arm.

"You want me to hold that for you so you can…better make nervous gestures?" Sam asked, laughing shortly past air which seemed to have thickened. Carly smiled, though the way Carly held the shoebox tightly to her chest and the way no-one had yet blurted an abrupt 'I'm sorry' gave Sam the horrible thought that Carly had figured it out. She knew, and Sam would have to finally face everything she had attempted to deny for years. "I would ask if you wanted to sit down," Sam said, gesturing behind her, "but I kinda..."

"It's okay," Carly said, looking almost amused. For the first time, she saw Carly relax, as if the destruction poking out from behind Sam was somehow soothing to her. "I'll just—well."

Carly looked around the large pile of metal and plastic before navigating through the mess with wide steps, stopping where the swings used to be and flattening the rubbery seat out on top of a few thick, overlapping metal bars. From there, she sat atop it and spread the other seat out beside her before beaming at Sam.

Sam quirked an eyebrow.

"Aren't you gonna sit down?" Carly pouted.

Maybe Sam had everything to lose, but for the first time, she realized she was hurting them both with the one part of herself she had withheld.

Drinking in large gulps of air, Sam walked toward Carly. Her mouth was painted the color of cherry ice cream, and the sun spread through her hair like fingers. She was beautiful; maybe even too beautiful for Sam, but Sam didn't think she could stand not knowing for sure anymore.

Sam locked her hands between her knees, heart fluttering uselessly in her chest like some stupid, thrashing bird, and Carly swallow audibly when Sam sat down beside her.

"Save Mart's burning," Carly said as if commenting on the weather. Sam looked up past her to see little plumes of smoke in the not-too-far distance. "One of the employees tried cooking a chicken on the roof."

"Barbeque?"

Carly shrugged. "Rotisserie."

"Oh. Well, guess my mom can't get her ointment there anymore," Sam commented flatly. Carly smiled halfheartedly, and finally, Sam forced words that would actually be productive past her lips: "Did ya find out—ya know, about the letter? Who wrote it and all."

"No," Carly said quickly, and Sam, who was studying the curve of a metal bar before her could feel her watching. The sounds of more emergency vehicles speeding by came closer, their sirens singing a horrible, mourning song as Carly spoke again:

"But I—do you remember when you used to write me letters?" she asked, smiling down at the ground and flushing scarlet. "The ones with little hearts and purple hams in the margins?"

"The kooky things we do as kids," Sam said, her heart beating too close to her throat. "Guess Freddie just never grew up." She squeezed her eyes shut to stop herself from speaking, as if her mouth would follow the example. "Hold up—that might have not been what I meant," she amended. "Look--"

"Wait," Carly said, and still looking straight ahead, she abruptly reached out to Sam. Sam thought Carly probably was aiming for her hand, only she missed most of it and ended up wrapping her hand around Sam's pinky and ring finger. "I never forgot. All that stuff when we were kids, ya know? Spencer still shows me pictures sometimes," she laughed softly, holding onto Sam too tight. When Carly turned to her, her cheeks were pink, her eyes very bright. "I still have them."

Over her head there were now tiny flames visible just above the buildings in the distance, rising like unruly demons. Sam had a million responses, all bottlenecked somewhere in her throat, so she ended up saying nothing.

Apparently, though, Carly was prepared; it was cold in the spot where Carly let go of Sam's fingers so she could reach down and bring the shoebox that was resting at her feet to her lap. From there, Carly peeled off the lid as if it were gold.

All that was inside, though, was a stack of yellowing pieces of folded paper, a few feathers, a wrench, a battered jump rope, a utility knife, and some plastic jewelry.

There was also a curled-up baseball cap, smaller and more battered than Sam had remembered.

"You brought a box of trash?" Sam asked in awe.

"No," Carly breathed, her knuckles going white around the edges of the box as if Sam had just suggested she were a one-legged Irish man.

Sam took the wrench between her fingers and plucked it from under a few pieces of paper. "Well then, I can't believe you saved all this junk."

She was beyond touched.

Carly moved her hands nervously around Sam's loose grip on the silver tool before snatching it back and speaking too quickly: "That was from when we were eleven and Spencer left us alone for the first time. Remember, the vent in my room wouldn't open, and I was cold, so you tried to get the warm air into the room by tearing a hole in the ceiling where the ventilation shaft ran…"

"That was one top-notch idea," Sam said reminiscently. "Too bad kooky ol' Ms. B heard it from across the hall and called the cops."

"And it took another year for Spencer to leave us alone again," Carly laughed.

"Six months for Ms. Benson to allow Freddie to come over," Sam continued wistfully. She ran her hands along the soft stacks of folded paper, lingering over the lines like she could soak up the words through the tips of her fingers. Her knuckles brushed a soft patch of white feathers, clearly what had been left behind from their chick children before they had gotten too big and delicious-looking to keep in Carly's apartment. Sam let out a low, long whistle of disbelief.

"I still can't believe you kept all this, kiddo."

"Why wouldn't I?" Carly asked, and she said it so ardently that Sam actually felt herself become ruffled around the edges, her stomach taking odd hitches in an attempt to mimic ocean waves. "Sam?" Carly asked, uncertainty creeping into her voice. "All that stuff we used to do—the letters and everything—is that what you meant when you said 'grow up' the other day?"

"How could that have been what I meant?" Sam asked in wonder. "We haven't done that in—"

She felt herself choke on her own words when Carly reached into her pocket, bringing out a crumpled piece of paper and spreading it carefully out before her. She smiled knowingly at the words, pressing out creases under her fingers before she dropped Sam's last letter into the box.

Sam tried to laugh or make some rude remark about the letter contaminating their childhood memories, but all that came out was an astonished, strangled noise.

"Hey, Sam?" Carly said, her voice suddenly becoming playful as she turned to face Sam. There were muffled shouts coming from the direction of Save Mart, and when Sam looked to Carly, there was a gray cloud of smoke billowing out in the distance like a hot air balloon.

Carly leaned in close, her eyes very bright, and when Sam looked nervously down at the curve of her mouth, Carly smirked.

"Carls?" Sam answered lamely, because Carly looked like she was waiting for a response.

"Your face," Carly quipped, and she leaned in the rest of the way, kissing Sam full on the mouth. Sam could do nothing but inhale deeply, taking in smoke with her taste and everything about her before Carly pulled back, though when she did, it was way too soon.

Still bent toward Sam, Carly looked up and grinned almost sheepishly at her, curiously touching her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.

Sam's heart was pounding, and as everything that wasn't Carly whirlwinded into an unimportant, giddy mass, she thought she might pass out from exhilaration or the smoke.

All she could think to say then was: "You said you didn't figure it out!"

Carly let out a low, short chuckle, as if she might have been as giddy as Sam was, and Sam really thought some of it must have been all the smoke working them like a drug. Only then Carly looked up at her, she was too sincere to be any less than sober.

"Well, I didn't figure out who you forced to re-write it," she said matter-of-factly.

"Tommy Jenkins owed me," Sam cut in quickly.

Carly grinned. "But I kinda figured out it was you who actually composed it the day after we got into that fight. I had to tell you that because I didn't want you to run off before I had a chance to—well, do that."

Carly concluded by grinned like she was the spawn of the devil, and Sam's stomach felt like a hundred moths were restlessly flittering against her stomach. "So," Carly said, slow and like she was being sly, though Sam knew she couldn't keep the grin off her face if she had tried. "How 'bout I take you to get those chicken wings?"

Sam couldn't help but grin back dizzily, and soon they were both smiling at each other like ten-year-olds. "I've gotta hand it to you, kid," Sam said. "You sure know the way to a girl's stomach."

"Heart."

"That too," Sam agreed.

Carly stood then, wiping her hands on her pant legs and tucking the shoebox beneath her arm.

"C'mon," she smiled, and biting down on her lip, she stretched out a hand to Sam.

Sam took it.

They walked away from the smoke and the deconstructed metal slowly, and Sam marveled at the small things: their fingers wound tightly together as if cross-stitched, palms pressed against each other.

"You never woulda said anything, would you?" Carly asked.

"Would too," Sam said defensively. "Maybe...if you were in a coma or somethin'."

"Sam!" Carly laughed.

"Hey, don't blame me," Sam said too loudly, swinging their arms like a pendulum. She pulled Carly to a stop then and motioned toward the flaming building. "This thing went down just like I said it would. 'Member?"

Carly looked back at her blankly, and Sam rolled her eyes.

"'This can only end in disaster, Shay!'" Sam cried in mock rage, screwing up her face and letting her voice mimic someone sixty years older than she was as she waved her fist in the air.

Carly laughed. "You think it's over, Puckett?" she asked slyly. She stepped in closer to Sam, ash in her eyelashes, chin dipped downward. She was blushing. "Come on: you, me, a bucket of chicken wings?" Carly asked, taking the edges of Sam's jacket in her hands and pulling Sam close.

Sam reached back, grabbing onto the material of Carly's coat just above her elbows and letting it gather in her fists.

"Nah," Sam smiled, and leaning in until there was almost nothing left between them, she whispered against Carly's mouth. "I think it's kinda the beginning."