Told you I'd keep writing it. Further A/N below.

Four hours happened in the stretch of years and the blink of seconds. A part of Freddie's brain, the part that was still resolutely terrified of adventure and busy rehashing plots of Deep Space Five, reflected that this must be what pan-dimensional beings must feel like all the time. As he sped down the road, Freddie felt nearly feverish. He'd be frozen in the same pattern of thought, trapped on an eyelash or a sigh, and then flicked on to the next, only to realize that half an hour had passed. He recalled the experience of breaking for sharp turns a good five minutes after doing so.

The windows were all rolled down, letting the wood-spiced air flood the cabin, filling it with a rush of noise and whipping Sam's hair into a frenzy. She was sitting in silence, letting her last instruction linger. He was taking her to San Francisco.

They didn't turn on the radio. They didn't need it, Freddie thought with smug twitch to his lips. But it occurred to him, somewhere when the trees began to thin out, that Sam might be pretty bored. Unlike him, she might not have been replaying their kisses, her teeth on his neck, his hands on her skin, over and over in her head.

Freddie pulled over onto the side of the road, civilization in view just on the edge of the horizon. Sam reached up to pull the now-still hair from her face, but he caught her hand in his, tugging it towards him with a pluck of thumb and forefinger.

He buried his other hand in her hair, sweeping it back for her. She looked at him quizzically and leaned into his hand. Freddie flushed, but hummed pleasantly, having finally done another thing he'd been wanting to do for the last two years.

Sam smiled impishly, inches away from his mouth, his hand a shell around her ear. Freddie waited for her to lean in, and when she didn't, he rolled his eyes. Still no kiss, just a blinking smile and the pulse in the hollow of her throat beating away, warm and steady.

After a moment that felt like a week, she pulled her hand out of his grip and lifted it up to his face, tracing an eyebrow that curved and straightened under her fingertip. She pushed them into a quizzical expression, bent like he had suddenly become dreadfully worried and aroused, somehow at the same time. She hummed, echoing his own buzz of long-reserved satisfaction, and finally leaned in to give him a laughing kiss.

The rest of the drive went quite well, if a bit dangerously; the dam seemed to have broke as they took every chance to touch each other. The towns north of the city provided ample opportunity for stop signs, red lights, and the occasional sixty miles-per-hour thigh-grope.

Ahead of them lay the Golden Gate Bridge. It was early afternoon, the sky was a clear, fogless blue, and the sight of the water again, after their foray into the deep woods, filled Freddie up with a wrenching sensation that started somewhere around his knees and compelled him to pull into the tourist's parking lot.

It was new and strange and altogether far more fantastic than Freddie had ever imagined it would be, walking along the bridge, holding Sam's hand. He was a little shocked with himself, being so damn turned on by it all, considering that he'd been engaging in activities far more risqué than hand holding for the last two hours or so in the car. He caught her looking at him, instead of the view, and he rearranged their fingers, just because he could.

"You thought I would kill you?" Sam asked, once he'd turned back to stare at the sunlight glinting off the water. He took a minute to figure out what, exactly, she was asking.

Freddie tugged her forward, and they leaned on the vermillion barrier, looking down at the ripples of the bay. "Well if you're going to, this is a pretty good place. You could just say it was a suicide."

Sam scowled. "I'm more creative than that, cut me some slack."

"True. You're a crime boss in the making." He bumped her hip with his. "Look! Alcatraz. You can see it when it's clear like this."

The sun was just beginning to be at their backs. The island was small and sharp and brown, stuck in the blue of the bay. Sam stared at it with dark eyes.

Freddie laughed. "Thinking about all your time in the slammer?" He snaked an arm around her hip, thrilling at the contact.

"I haven't be arrested in years," Sam objected.

He leaned in and kissed her on the earlobe, because he could. Then he finished her sentence for her. "Thanks to me and Carly keeping you out of trouble."

Sam grumbled. "I'm not evil, you know. You could have kissed me ages ago and survived." She pulled his arm away from her waist and turned around, leaning back on the barrier, squinting towards the Pacific Ocean. Her face lit up with the afternoon sun as she crossed her arms over her chest. "And I'm not going to end up wasting away in a cell."

Reminded of their innumerable arguments over years past, Freddie shot her a mocking glare, barely able to contain a grin. "If not for us, you wouldn't have graduated middle school, let alone kept out of juvie. Do you even have any life plans, other than 'stay incarcerated as little as possible'?" That one was good, he thought, it had some bite to it. He figured Sam would be proud.

But her face scrunched up with offense. "Of course I do! Plans are important. Goals are important. I know that; jeez, give me some credit! I let you jam your tongue down my throat all day and this is what I get back?" Sam winced when she saw Freddie's face fall. "That came out wrong," she finished, the words sour in her mouth.

There was a pause, and then Freddie replied quietly. "I guess that's it then. We can turn around today and take the fast way home, if you want."

Cars rushed by, heading in, towards the knot of the city, while Sam and Freddie looked very carefully at everything except each other's faces. Freddie hooked his thumbs in his pockets and stared dutifully at his own feet.

So he was knocked off balance a little bit by Sam grabbing his shoulders and kissing him square on the mouth. It was a different sort of kiss than what they'd been doing before. She didn't try to take or push or bite or explore, she didn't move her hands, cupped around the curve of his shoulders in a solid grip. It didn't have the greedy intensity they'd enjoyed all morning; it was empty of physical desire, and full of a sort of promise.

Sam pulled away after a little while, but didn't let go of his shoulders. Freddie's hands were still hooked in his pockets. "I'm in charge of those types of decisions. Let's get back in the car. We've got a plan to keep, and I'm hungry." She turned him around, and marched them back towards the scarlet shape in the parking lot.

Other than instructing him to take the bridge into the city, Sam was quiet. They encountered real traffic for the first time during the trip; the lurching movement made Freddie uncomfortable. He was feeling stuck, mired again, guilty.

"Listen, Sam, I'm sorry." Simpler was probably better, he figured.

She poked him in the arm. "Nah, it's cool. I think I've got it figured out."

He looked sideways at her; she was jabbing at his Pearphone. Freddie tried for humor. "I'm an incredibly complex man, Sam. You can't possibly have it figured out."

She paused in her texting. "You did kinda throw me off this morning," she conceded, "but it makes sense to me now."

Freddie frowned, disliking the idea that he was so easily read. "What makes sense?" he asked.

"Keep driving till I tell you to take an exit," she said by way of response.

An hour later they pulled off the highway into a suburban neighborhood. Sam directed him past pastel houses with fruit trees hanging over backyard fences. It was late afternoon and Freddie was amazed that Sam hadn't passed out from hunger. There wasn't a restaurant to be seen. She pointed out a blue house with a yellow door; it reminded him of a reversal of her mom's house in Seattle. They pulled into the driveway.

"Sam, you know we can't walk into a stranger's house and eat their food." Freddie paused between stretches. "You do know that, right?"

"Take it easy, I got connections." They walked along a small path made up of stones shaped like footprints and rang the doorbell.

A short man with curly white hair opened the door. He had a pair of wire cutters in one hand, and a ham sandwich in the other. Freddie started to frown as the man stared with blinking eyes at Sam. Then recognition dawned on his face.

"Sam! Look at you! You've grown!" He opened his arms wide, and stepped barefoot out onto the little front porch.

"Uncle Vic!" Sam smiled, hugged him back. "You smell like ham. Got any more?"

"What a surprise! Why didn't I know you were coming?" Sam's uncle gave her his sandwich, much to her delight, and turned to notice Freddie for the first time. "And who might you be, young man?"

Freddie reached out his hand to shake Uncle Victor's and began to answer, but Sam interrupted him, speaking with her mouth full. "This is Freddie, y'know, the boy who Mom likes?" Freddie blushed at that.

"Ah, come in, come in, we all don't fit out here." Victor gestured them inside.

Sam sauntered in and Freddie followed, but almost rammed into her backside as she stopped dead, turning her head left and right. "You moved stuff!" she exclaimed, ham sandwich threatening to fling out of her hand.

"After Annie's mom left we had a lot more room. The kitchen's where the den used to be." Victor closed the door behind himself, and gestured for Freddie to follow Sam's path around the corner.

She immediately started opening the fridge and pantry, assembling a snack. "Nice digs, Vic. Marble countertops. Super classy."

"The Pucketts have to keep up with the times, Sam. Only the finest for the family." He winked outrageously towards Freddie and reached between Sam's flying hands to snatch his old sandwich back. "So I take it you're hungry."

Freddie piped up, "We had some peanut butter and toast this morning. It's been a long day." Felt like a few years, maybe twenty minutes, but still a long day. "Sam and I had some time off this summer so we've been going on a road trip, seeing the sights. I didn't know she had family in San Francisco."

"Pish posh, Benson, you didn't know I had family in a house without bars on the windows, is what you're trying to say." Sam had paused between mouthfuls of what was maybe a pasta salad pineapple pesto pizza burrito. Freddie had the grace to look embarrassed at this reply.

Victor started to chuckle. "Don't worry, Freddie. I'm the white sheep of the family." He pointed towards the fridge where, among foot-shaped magnets, were photos of himself in a white lab coat, standing proudly in front of a building labeled Puckett Podiatry in big, orange letters. "Just got my sign redone, the private practice is going spankingly good. Everybody's got foot problems in this town!"

Freddie nodded, not really clear on protocol, and was about to respond with a perfunctory social grunt when Sam was at his side, flush with his hip against the counter.

"Oh my god, Freddie, eat this. Eat it!" She had placed something at his lips; he looked resolutely away from Sam's uncle as he opened his mouth and took a bite. The terrifying conglomeration of leftovers was actually quite yummy, and he nodded with relief.

"Uncle Vic, you don't mind me emptying your kitchen, right?" Sam smiled sweetly, much to Freddie's bemusement. She was even fluttering her eyelashes a little.

Victor rolled his eyes. "I can't expect you to do otherwise. You are your mother's daughter."

Saved from awkward small talk about feet, Freddie made to slink back to his car, when Sam grabbed his shoulder. He turned around, and the side of his face met her lips. "Getting my stuff? Good." Sam turned to Victor while Freddie froze in the moment, terror and elation swimming around behind his eyes. "We can crash here tonight, right? I haven't seen you in years!"

Victor clacked closed the wire cutters he'd been holding in his hands the whole time. He glanced briefly at Freddie, but replied to Sam in gushing tones. "Niece of mine, if you think I'm letting you leave without making you eat all of my food and stealing all my pillows I don't think we can be friends any more."

Freddie escaped to the Loveboat amid laughter. After dragging most of what he thought Sam might deem necessary up through the front door, they spent the majority of the afternoon getting sorted. Blankets on couches, much-needed showers, and ample gossip about the never really shocking, but always fairly scandalous, behavior of the Puckett women filled the rest of the day.

Stepping out of the blessedly steamy shower, Freddie toweled his hair off and counted his blessings. The verve from this morning's natural adrenalin rush was finally dying down – despite a good pile of Sam's miraculous leftover burrito concoction, he found his stomach was grumbling. She had kissed him in front of her uncle, on the cheek, like it was a thing that she did all the time. Like he was her boyfriend.

He almost lost his balance, his knees buckling slightly, and he was briefly filled with horror at the idea of having a stroke and being found naked, head cracked open on the new marble counter, on the bathroom floor in a pool of fire-red blood, by a shocked, laughing Sam. Served him right for thinking he's her boyfriend, she'd point and giggle, and eventually get around to calling the ambulance. Freddie shook the rest of the water out of his hair, and didn't bother to style it.

When he stepped out of the bathroom fully-dressed, and loped down the stairs, he was treated to the sight of Sam tucked up into the corner of the couch, half asleep in a pair of blue kitty cat pajamas, with a teddy bear in her arms. So You Think Fifth Graders Can Dance? was on the television. "Mmm?" she tried to lift her head when Freddie sat down next to her. "All clean" she mumbled, and burrowed her head somewhere around his armpit.

Freddie chuckled at his own madness. Sam was a touch insane, true, but how could he think such terrifying thoughts when she was so incredibly, well, cute? He adjusted her so she was resting in the crook of his arm and pulled what was probably a leftover fladoodle out of her hair. Where did she get the teddy bear from, anyway?

Victor came into the room just as Sam let out a truly epic snore. He sat down on the coffee table and grabbed the remote. "Are you watching this?" At the shake of Freddie's head, he turned the television off. "Come on, let's put her in Annie's room. Upstairs," he gestured, and went up a few steps, looking back at Freddie expectantly.

He was supposed to carry Sam to bed, it seemed. Before he could start worrying about how dense she was, Freddie reached around and scooped her up. She obligingly flung her arms around his neck. Victor nodded and Freddie followed him upstairs into a room with posters plastering the walls.

Once Sam was on the bed, under a quilt, Victor picked up the teddy bear and placed it back in a conspicuous hole among a pile of stuffed animals on an out of place pink dresser. "She'd always steal that from Annie when she was little," Victor explained.

Back downstairs, Freddie surreptitiously stretched his shoulders. Victor pretended not to notice. He had finished with his bonsai trees for the moment – the reason for the wire cutters – and had started to chop vegetables for dinner. Freddie suspected he had passed some kind of test, because Victor was tossing him pieces of radish to snack on while the chicken roasted. Maybe he had carried Sam with sufficient aplomb?

"So, going on a road trip, eh?" The small talk began again.

"I got a car this February, so we've been planning this for a while, yeah."

"Planning since winter and yet Sam didn't tell you I was here? What were you going to do for room and board before me?" He had progressed through radishes, on to carrots. The knife tock tock tocked against the cutting board.

Freddie turned up the corner of his mouth. "Sam sort of, well, you know, she said she'd take care of things and I kind of let it be. We have this agreement, maybe, it's working out okay. I think." He flashed briefly to Sam's tongue in his mouth that morning. Working out okay. He leaned lazily against the countertop where Sam had pressed herself against him that afternoon, feeding him food in an out of character display of generosity.

Victor pulled out a cucumber and looked at it critically. He put down his chef's knife and took out a cleaver.

"I guess originally we were going to get a hotel room," Freddie explained, about to tell him about the extremely short man in Newport.

The cleaver whacked through the tip of the cucumber. "Freddie?"

"Yes?"

"What exactly are your intentions with my niece?" Victor was staring hard into his eyes, the cleaver smacking through the cucumber methodically.

Freddie stared at the vegetable as it was sliced down its girthy length in perfect rounds. He swallowed. "Um, Victor. Please don't misunderstand me, I - "

"Doctor Puckett." Thwack thwack thwack.

"Doctor Puckett," Freddie corrected, "we're best friends, really, have been for years." He straightened up, hands on the counter, unsure of how and where he'd gone wrong.

Victor grumbled under his breath. "The Puckett women," he began after a pause, "are not to be trifled with."

At this, Freddie couldn't help but laugh. He stopped at the flash of Victor's eyes. "You think I don't know that? Sam could have me flayed alive in twenty seconds flat if she thought it'd be funny enough."

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

Freddie attempted a different tack. "I'd never do anything to hurt Sam, Doctor Puckett." Victor raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, I practically owe her my life twice over by now. Even if I didn't like her so much I wouldn't ever screw around with her like that."

"You're sleeping on the couch and she's in Annie's room tonight." Victor pointed at the living room with a long fork, and then plunged it into the chicken.

With a relieved laugh, Freddie replied, "I wouldn't dream of anything else, sir."

Sam traipsed down the stairs as Victor finished carving up the chicken, still in her kitty cat pajamas. "Excellent nap!" she proclaimed.

Victor gave Freddie the side-eye as they carried platters into the dining room.

Soon enough, Sam was picking at a chicken carcass, sitting cross-legged in her chair. Freddie had politely listened to Victor talk about his beloved bonsais, the ins and outs of wire-wrapping tiny branches, for a good half and hour.

"I started them for Annie. She's down in LA now, but when she was little her favorite movie was the Karate Kid."

"I met Annie, right, Sam?"

Sam looked up from her drumstick. "She put my face on your arm. Laughed for days. Good times!"

"That was the last time we visited Pam." Victor's eyes crinkled up at the corners. "If I had known what Annie was up to when she was visiting your friend, well. I wouldn't have been able to stop her, I suppose."

Freddie grumbled, rubbing his shoulder from the memory.

"Anyway, I couldn't be a karate master, but I figured I could make bonsai like Mister Miyagi. Turns out I loved it, so now when I'm not fixing feet I'm fixing trees."

With a start, Freddie nearly dropped the fork he was using to finish off bits of salad on his plate. There was something on his calf. He looked across the table at Sam. She was still gnawing on a bone, but she wasn't cross-legged any more. It was her foot. She was playing footsie with him. Freddie shivered involuntarily as her bare foot rubbed up and down the shaft of his leg.

"It's the shoes!" continued Victor. "We shouldn't be wearing shoes if we don't have to. They mess up your feet – makes the balance out of whack, trains the toes wrong." He was oblivious to Freddie's predicament. Sam smirked, not making eye contact, but trailing around his own socked feet with her bare toes. The sensations shot straight up his legs, following an inevitable path to his crotch, where he began vibrating and buzzing.

"Is that your phone ringing?" Victor paused in his rant about footwear proclivities of the rich and able.

"Oh thank god," Freddie breathed, and excused himself from the table.

"Fredward Benson, I was expecting you to call me! Have you been eating food on our pre-approved list of healthy options?" His mothers' voice scythed through Freddie's foggy brain.

"Chicken's good, right? We had a salad, too. Cucumbers, radishes, carrots. How's your retreat going?" He tried to change the subject, but to no avail.

"We? Who's we? Are you having strangers in our house?"

"No, Mom, I ate with friends. I'm sorry I didn't call before dinner. It's been a busy day! You know how summers get. Lots of projects."

Seemingly placated, Marissa's tone of voice changed abruptly. "Well, okay. But don't eat too much gluten. And don't overexert yourself! Seattle can get quite hot and the last thing we need is for you to get heat stroke."

"The mountains are nice, then?" Freddie fidgeted with the tassel on a couch pillow, trying to keep the fact that he wasn't in Seattle out of his voice. Maybe she could hear the ambient noise through the phone. Could his mom tell the difference between suburban San Francisco traffic and suburban Seattle traffic?

He let his mind run its course as she went on about cleansing breaths and the toothbrushing habits of her roommate. It felt like ages since he'd heard her voice, even though he knew it was only yesterday. Sam walked past, carrying some bowls to the sink. She mouthed "Mom?" to him. Freddie nodded, lifted a hand to his head, and shot his brains out, collapsing against the arm of the couch. She continued on into the kitchen.

Marissa was winding down. "I'll call you tomorrow, Mom, promise. Before dinner. I swear. Don't worry too much." It was futile, he knew, to ask her not to worry at all, but moderation was key. Sam came back from the kitchen and sat down onto the couch next to him. She grabbed the remote and turned the tv back on, flipping to something with a grizzly crime scene.

"And how's the folks?" Sam inquired after Freddie hung up.

"The folks is fine. Paranoid that I'm going to eat too much gluten."

Sam's shoulders shuddered in a silent chuckle. "We'll go to Chinatown tomorrow, and make her fears a reality."

"Is that the plan?" Freddie decided that leaning into her was an acceptable move. She responded by covering them both with the blanket Victor had provided.

"Part of the plan, at least. Uncle Vic said he'd drive us into town so we wouldn't have to worry about parking." Sam smoothed the blanket and patted her stomach, pleasantly full of home-cooked meal.

"You gonna tell me the rest of the plan any time soon?"

"No." She burped. Cutely. Freddie was definitely still a little off-kilter from the days' events.

Mid-autopsy, Victor leaned around the corner from the kitchen, and looked pointedly at Sam. "If we're going into the city tomorrow I have to leave early."

Freddie smacked Sam lightly on the arm. "Time for bed."

After a brief argument about it being too early, Sam started to yawn uncontrollably. This started Freddie yawning and then Victor yawned and then it was inarguably bed time for everyone involved. Sam extricated herself from the blanket and flung a pillow into Freddie's face.

Victor showed Freddie how the couch pulled out into a perfectly acceptable bed, and took his leave. Stretching out for the first time in a while, Freddie's knees popped with relief. He'd been awake since the crack of dawn, pushed into a river, thought he was going to die, spent most of the day driving, been emotionally garroted and delighted multiple times, and had crossed the gauntlet of Puckett familial approval all in one day.

Snores filled the living room in less than two minutes.

Hours later, the moon had risen and flooded the room with a pale light. The stairs creaked, but Freddie slept on. Sam picked her way through the semi-darkness and climbed under the blanket.

"Can't sleep in there. Shouldn't have had that nap." Sam curled up along Freddie's side.

He startled awake. "Bzuh?" He rolled over and looked at her through sleepy eyes.

"Don't worry. I'll leave before dawn. I couldn't sleep. Doesn't matter." She put a hand on his hot forehead and pressed him back down into his pillow.

"Mmkay. Bananas." Freddie declared, his eyes closed. He felt Sam's feet rub up against his own, and she grabbed his arm like the teddy bear she had had earlier that day. Freddie leaned over and kissed blindly in her general direction. He met what was probably her forehead. Good enough, he supposed, and passed back out again.

A/N: Hrmm, something's up, don't you think?

Thanks for continuing to read and review this story! I know I've been MIA in fandom and I don't intend to get back on that horse any time soon, but I said I'd finish this story and that's still the plan. I was recently inspired to wrap up this chapter (which I had two thousand words of floating around for a year or something) due to Sam's mom being named Pam. The littlest things! Anyway, I still do read and truly appreciate all of your reviews, and I intend to continue this fic until I've told the story I wanted to tell in the first place. By now, of course, it's so AU I might as well call it original fiction, but, whatchagonnado? I haven't got any further chapters written so far, but I'm trying my best to ride out this inspiration bug as far as I can. Keep your eyes peeled for more within the month.

Let me know what you think! Thanks for slogging through the LONGEST CHAPTER EVER, by the way. Dialogue and introducing new characters - harder than it seems!