Epilogue

Disclaimer: I may not own iCarly, but it sure is fun to play with every once in a while. Thanks, Dan.

1

As far as pranks went, it was possibly the most un-Puckett one any of her classmates could have envisioned. They had been expecting one that was cruel or dangerous, perhaps something that electrocuted Mr. Howard, a possibility they all agreed was bad but that they would find a way to deal with.

Of course, they had all noticed the changes in Sam Puckett. It was hard to not notice that the time she spent touching Freddie Benson involved more hand-holding, hugging, and kissing than punches and wedgies. Not that Sam had completely softened, as many people discovered.

The gossips were the first to feel her wrath. Sam took the news that her relationship with Freddie was public fairly well, but snapped when one of the gossip crew, apparently not versed in the way of Puckett, sang that tree-sitting song near Sam. You know the one. Several people expressed surprise that anybody could fit in a locker so small. From then on, the gossip girls and Sam had an unspoken agreement: reporting was allowed, but commentary would be punished.

Some football players also wandered into the path of destruction. A few of them had felt that since she would stoop to dating a geek they could get away with attempting to show her more viable options. Some of the things she did cannot be be expressed without this author becoming squeamish, so let it suffice that many of those would have preferred to be stuffed into a locker much too small for their bodies.

The third group to suffer Sam's ire actually suffered the least, if only because Freddie protected them from her vengeance. In his quest to get Sam through high school without being expelled, he could justify to Principal Franklin Sam's encounters with the gossips and football players, not that he often had to, because they didn't want to shine a spotlight on their own activities. He wouldn't have been able to with the third group, so whenever he saw that Sam was about to snap, he would have to pick her up and move her away quickly. That was dangerous to his own body's health, but he had to.

The third group was his fault.

Well, not entirely his fault. Nobody would have known that Freddie was the streaker, except Billy Miller was still upset about the pranks, still believing it was unfair for Sam to have assistance even though Rodney had a whole crew, so he whispered the information to Wendy Smitson, the head gossip, and everybody at school knew within two hours.

"Thank you, Lord," Dwayne Grangen had been heard to exclaim. Since the day of the pranks he had been hounded by girls every day, and it was wrecking his life. Not to mention making his girlfriend very upset. When he found out who the actual streaker was, he wanted to beat Freddie up. Then he thought he should thank him, since everybody now knew it wasn't Dwayne. In the end, he decided to do nothing. He had heard what Sam had done to some of his teammates.

The girls who followed Freddie dwindled after a while, a wise decision when Sam Puckett was his girlfriend, but there were still a few dedicated ones. Freddie Benson, to his credit, never broke. As much as he was afraid his girlfriend would destroy him if he did, he was even more in love with her, so after more than a few bruises on his arm and attempts at trying to explain to Principal Franklin how a freshman girl had magically skidded down Hall A, they entered a comfort zone with the situation. Some girls would still check Freddie out, but they would quickly stop as soon as Sam's eyes fell upon them. Beware the Gorgon became a oft-repeated phrase in the hallways when Sam walked by. She was secretly pleased by the nickname.

2

The prank, though, that was different. Not at all what they expected. They did expect when she came around to students and insisted that they kindly volunteer to help with the costs of the prank. Sam would not tell them what it involved, though.

"You'll like it, okay. Now go away!"

The week before school ended, they discovered what it was. Students, teachers, and administrators came into the school to discover the hallways were filled with sand. No, not just sand...water, also. Somehow the halls (and the classes, as they soon discovered) had been turned into beach fronts, with little pools of water on one side of the hall. There were beach chairs and umbrellas scattered throughout the school. A small grass hut had been erected at the end of each hallway, where students could get fruit juices and tropical drinks (all without alcohol, some of the students complained). The drinks came with a cost, though Rodney was glad to give a discount if a student also bought a T-shirt.

Many of the students that first day turned to see Principal Franklin coming in the hallway, stopping at what he saw. There was a collective pause, as they waited to see what he would do. He bent down, untied his shoes, and took them off. He walked barefoot into his office. He would have likely been more upset and more set on finding the perpetrators to punish if he had not received an anonymous e-mail that there were already volunteers willing to clean up everything the next Saturday.

For a week, the school was a beach side. Students came to class with Hawaiian shirts and sandals. A volleyball game was set up in Hall E. Mr. Howard, it turned out, was surprisingly good at the sport.

Everybody agreed that the prank, while nothing like what they expected, was the best one they'd ever seen. Freddie wasn't surprised.

3

"Are you kids ready for graduation?"

"Doesn't matter," Sam said. "I checked out about two months back."

"Sam," Freddie said, with a chastising tone. But he was smiling.

Marissa Benson watched the two of them. After she had discovered that the two of them were dating, she had hoped for a while that it would end quickly, despite how Freddie might be hurt. She insisted to herself that it would be better that Freddie suffer some pain now rather than more pain later. It never happened. The Puckett girl insulted him and hit him, and yet he would not break up with her.

Marissa began to pay more attention to them. The insults never seemed to bother Freddie. He sometimes insulted Sam back. Marissa began to understand that they weren't insulting each other; they were teasing. The hits that Sam gave Freddie were soft. When they did not know she was looking, she would sometimes see Sam go behind a sitting Freddie and wrap her arms around his neck and rest her head on his shoulder.

Marissa was not stupid. If she continued to resist the relationship, she knew that, at least in the short run, Sam would win. The thought of her son turning his back on her broke Marissa's heart, so she did what she never thought she would. She tried to befriend the enemy.

"You want me over for dinner?" Sam asked.

"Of course, dear. You're Freddie's girlfriend. You're over here often enough. At least we can get you something nutritious to eat."

Both Sam and Marissa looked at Freddie, who was visibly nervous.

"Okay," Sam said. Marissa smiled. "But if I have to come over and eat your food, then I get to pick the food on another night."

They agreed. Sam suffered through something with Brussel sprouts in it, while Marissa found herself feeling ill after something called the GutBuster.

It became a tradition for them. One night a week they would have something Marissa cooked, and another night they would eat something Sam picked. Marissa found herself, against her will, craving Bolivian bacon and installed a mini-fridge in her room, so that Sam didn't know Marissa was hoarding some for herself.

One night, while they were eating a vegetable lasagna, Sam looked up and said, "this is pretty good, Marissa." She went back to eating. Marissa was shocked. Sam didn't lie, she had discovered. Sometimes she was far too truthful, really. So when she said she liked something, it had to be true. Marissa looked at Freddie. He smiled at her and went back to his lasagna.

One day, as she was returning from the store, she stopped on the way to the apartment, hearing voices on the fire escape. Her son's voice. His girlfriend's voice.

"Sam, come on, tell me. What's wrong?"

"I...I just...I..." Marissa head never heard such hesitancy in Sam's voice. She sounded like she might be crying.

"Sam, it's okay. Is it the grades?" Marissa heard a whisper from Sam, but could not understand what the girl was saying.

"Show me, Sam." There was a pause. "Sam...Sam, these are great. You have all A's, except for two B's. You did great."

"It wasn't me. It was you, Freddie."

"Sam, don't be stupid. I don't take the tests. I don't do the homework. I just point you along the way."

"Don't call me stupid, nub," Sam said, her voice breaking. "I never thought I could really do this. Nobody thought I could do this."

"I always thought you could, Sammy," Freddie said, and Marissa heard the sound of him moving toward Sam.

"I love you, Freddie," Sam said.

"I love you, too, Sammy."

Marissa went into the apartment, leaving the two of them alone. She looked at the groceries she had bought for dinner that night. A cabbage sat on the top of the bag. She smiled. She went to her room and grabbed some of the Bolivian bacon. Bacon lasagna wasn't something she would ever have thought to try, but Sam did get a good report card. She deserved a reward.

4

"Could you guys not do that here?" Spencer asked.

The two teenagers looked at him. "What?" they asked simultaneously. She sat on her boyfriend's lap, and he had his arms wrapped around her. They had been sharing eskimo kisses and calling each saccharine-tinged cute nicknames.

"That!" he said, gesturing at them. "Why can't you be more like Sam and Freddie?"

"Spencer!" Carly shrieked, her voice raising an octave. Gibby thought that was the cutest sound ever and gave her a squeeze.

"Ugh. I'll work on this later," Spencer said and went to his room. They watched him go.

"That is really fun to do. I thought steam was going to come out of his ears this time," Carly said. She snuggled closer to her boyfriend.

"You really are the prettiest girl in the universe," Gibby said. "I wasn't just saying that to drive Spencer crazy."

"I know. Only because you tell me ten times a day." She smiled. Gibby really did make her feel like a princess sometimes. "I guess we should get ready. Big day and all."

"I don't know. Not that big. What's going to change? Come fall, we'll all still be together."

"Yeah, except at college. You and Freddie rooming together, and me and Sam. I can't believe I'm rooming with Sam. I'll probably have to sleep on slabs of pork."

"Yeah, I guess we should get our robes on." He looked at them, slung over a chair. "I can't believe Spencer threw that party for us."

"Well, you know the King. 'I got the moolah,'" she said, imitating Spencer's deeper voice. He actually did have the money. The prank site Freddie had set up for him was doing very well, so much so that Carly had to warn Freddie not to tell Spencer that he did indeed actually have a job. Spencer was enjoying himself, and she didn't want to ruin it by letting him know he was doing something he was not supposed to enjoy. And actually the web site inspired him to sculpt more, although many of the sculptures seemed to Carly to be reenactments of pranks Spencer had visualized.

Sam and Freddie came in.

"Ew, get off him, Carly. You don't know what diseases he might have."

"I told you, Sam. I've been inoculated."

"Whatever." She grinned. "You guys ready for this?"

"Fire extinguisher," Spencer said, running out of his bedroom and grabbing it.

"What happened, Spencer?" Carly yelled.

"Shower head caught on fire."

"Oh, come on!"

5

There was to be no talking during Freddie's valedictorian speech. Sam made sure of that. Carly looked at her friend, sitting two rows in front of her. Sam had this adoring look on her face that was so un-Sam. Carly giggled. Maybe it was un-Sam, but it fit in with Freddie's Sam.

"There's a cliche that goes: this isn't the end. It's just another beginning. What people don't often tell you about cliches is that they contain truth. And they don't. Although we all are stepping into another chapter in our lives, we are still the people we are, regardless of beginnings or ends, despite what others think of us. And the people we are are the people we choose to be. Never let anybody tell you who you are. You decide that."

Although the speech was for the entire graduating class, all the parents, and all the teachers, Freddie really only did the speech for one person, looking at her the entire time.

After all the talking was done, it came time for the handing out certificates. When it was Freddie's turn, Principal Franklin clapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand.

"You did very good, son," he whispered to Freddie.

Gibby came up about ten minutes later. He had removed his robe and was shirtless. None of the students or teachers seemed to mark this, although a few parents were shocked.

"Hey, Ted," Sam said when it was her turn. He grinned at her. She seemed almost shy. "Never thought you see this day, did you?"

"I always expected to, Samantha." He handed her the certificate. When he held his hand for her to shake, she instead wrapped him in a hug.

"I'll miss you," she said, then hurried off the stage. Ted laughed to himself. Six years that he thought he would never survive with that young lady, and now he was sad to see her go.

Two people before Carly was to go up to receive her certificate, a young man wearing nothing but a paper bag ran across the stage.

There was a moment of silence, and then a voice broke through it: "I'm here. It wasn't me." Freddie waved his arms on stage.

"I bet that was Dwayne Grangen," the sophomore sister of one of the graduates said to a friend. Dwayne Grangen, who was sitting at home watching TV, glad that Freddie Benson would graduate and he would no longer have to hear about the streaking, had no idea what was going to be waiting for him when he went back to school in the fall.

"Shay, Carly."

6

The four friends sat on bean bags in the studio. They had recently finished with their broadcast of iCarly. It was their last show, at least for three months. They told the fans that they would decide over the summer whether to continue. At that point they would either relaunch or have one final broadcast.

Sam, Carly, and Freddie didn't know what they wanted to do. It felt right to stop the show after graduating high school. And yet they didn't really want to let go of it. It's what really brought us together, they all thought at separate times. Yes, they had been friends before (well, at least Sam and Carly and Carly and Freddie had been), but without iCarly would they have been as close? Sam looked at Freddie and knew that in one important way the answer was no.

"So what are you guys doing tonight?" Freddie asked Carly and Gibby.

"We're going to Le Pierre's," Carly said, happily.

Sam and Freddie made snoring sounds.

"It's wonderful," Carly protested.

"Whatever," Sam said. "You guys go there once a month. You're like an old married couple, stuck in your routines."

"Oh, whatever, Sam. Like you guys are any different with your dinners with your mother-in-law twice a week." Carly stuck out her tongue.

"Ha ha. She's not my mother-in-law. She just makes good bacon lasagna."

7

"So Carly and Gibby are the ones stuck in a routine, huh?" Freddie asked.

"What? I like it out here," she said, looking at the city over the fire escape. He came behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled into him.

"I'm proud of you," he said.

"Thank you, Freddie. I couldn't have done it without you." She knew he expected her to insult him, to play the game, but at the moment she just felt so happy being with him she didn't feel like it. And if he had a problem with it, he could just suck it up.

"Of course you could have. I'm just happy you took me along for the ride."

She turned around and put her arms around his neck. He dropped his hands to her waist. They stood there, slightly swaying, a stepless dance.

"I really do love you. You know that, right?" she asked.

"I do. But I have no issue with you proving it to me," he said, smiling.

She returned his smile and brought her lips to his.

After a moment, she pulled back. "Oh, boy, are you in so much trouble," she said. She pushed him back against the fire escape stairs, so that he had to sit down, as she pressed kiss after kiss upon him.

"Well," he said, in between kisses, "I've always liked trouble. I'm with you, aren't I?"

Sam raised her head and laughed, then gasped as he pressed his lips against her neck.

A/N: Okay, that really was it. No more chapters, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. Waah. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

I don't know when I will be writing another story. It might not be for a while. I might be posting something tomorrow. Who knows with me? All I know is that as of this moment I have no ideas. Much appreciation for you who have stuck through this with me.

Thank you for reviews from: rangergirl123, Penny Tee13, clarksonfan, Divina Rose, kiyokoseddie, UnderxGravity, SeddierFTW, Julefor, and PurpleJerk.

PurpleJerk: I'm sure a lot of people probably expected violence from Sam, but I had my mind really set on Spencer setting her straight. I like the idea of the goofy guy spouting wisdom.

rangergirl123: Just four Cokes. I have that many Diet Cokes before I even wake up.

Julefor: Yep, didn't lie. I went back through my author's notes before I posted the last chapter, just to check. I never once said Freddie wasn't the one doing the pranks; I just indicated that based on his history it was unlikely, plus I pointed out he's been bad at pulling pranks. Ain't I a stinker? It was tough when everybody was going "it has to be Freddie". If I had another viable option, I might have made somebody else being the one to do it, but I couldn't, not while maintaining it within the purposes of the story. I think that Freddie is sometimes misperceived because he never does anything directly, in the manner of Sam, but he tackles it from the side, so that you never really know it.