Author's note: This chapter begins exactly where the last one left off, with Carly having mistakenly worried that Freddie was badly sick.

Cat suddenly said, "Oh, hurray!"

"Hurray?" Carly said. "Me almost having a panic attack is a hurray?"

"Well, yeah. I was just standing here thinking even if we visit and text and everything," Cat said, "Little by little, Sam's gonna stop caring about me. But look at you! You haven't all been in the same room in years, and you still love each other just as much."

Sam turned to Jade. "She's doing it again."

"Getting those brain cells to fire when you least expect it," Jade replied.

Cat smiled at them.

Gibby seemed to be texting now, Carly noticed. She thought that was pretty rude but let it go 'cause it didn't seem to bother her friends.

"So wait," Carly said, "Why was Sam crying? Was it because you knew she'd get emotional?" and she motioned towards Sam's sweetly daffy ex-roommate.

"Oh that," Sam said quietly, with a smile. "No, I knew how to handle that. I cried because of the rest of it."

"What rest of it?

"Tell them the rest of it, Fredchops."

"Well," and now he did sound a little freaked out, "all of you know, all of you here, know how much Sam and I love each other."

"Yay," Cat said, and raised a glass of punch.

"Gib, Carly," he looked towards his friends, "you guys know how long it took us to figure that out. And you all know," he let his eyes roam over the rest of them, "how long it took us to get it right." There were nods all around.

"So – not right now – but, sooner or later, I hope sooner than later, but I'm sure we'll know – I mean, Sam and I have always kinda done things by our own clock-y'know, and we"ll need to be sure all of you can... but I think, maybe, on-"

Sam still loved to watch Freddie squirm, though it wasn't as much fun when she wasn't the direct cause of it. She decided to show him compassion. Walking up on his left she put one hand around his. it seemed to calm him down; he stopped talking and looked gratefully at her.

"What he's trying to say is," and she held up her other hand, "the dork landed me."

Her hand had a small, black ring with a purple stone on it.

Carly burst into happy tears; Cat shrieked with excitement. Then they practically raced each other to get to their friend's hand for a closer look, all but pushing Freddie out of the way. Jade, being Jade, had to be a bit cooler about it all, but she caught Sam's eye and mimed cocktail party applause, which Sam acknowledged with a bob of her head and a smile.

Freddie and Beck gave each other a firm embrace, then stood back to watch the girls, who were emitting bubbles of soprano chirping. "Whoa," said Beck, "I'm glad we don't make that kind of -"

WUMPF.

Freddie had just been run into by Robbie, who said between tears, "Oh my god, Fredward! It's gonna be so beautiful!" He clutched at Freddie's collar and sobbed on his shoulder. Freddie gave him a comforting pat on the back while looking over it at Beck and making a What? face and gesture.

"Oh," Carly suddenly said, "I forgot to ask, where are you going to live?

"Well actually," Sam replied, "In the old Puckett homestead, believe it or not."

"What?"

"My mom's house."

Carly couldn't help a chuckle coming out as she said "You're going to live with YOUR MOTHER?"

"Nope," Sam said. "That guy she conned into marrying her is taking her on a trip 'round the world." She paused to savor the notion of her Mother being out of reach for months (dare she hope years?). "She was going to have to sell it or something, so I asked if we could rent it instead."

"Well that was nice of her."

"Eh, I think she was just glad she didn't have to go to the trouble of finding a buyer."

"But...are you sure, Sam? I mean that place has never really been -"

"I know," Sam said. "That's why. I want to see if we can turn it into what it never quite was for Melanie and me: A home. I think maybe," she said this part quieter, more just for Carly, "We've got a good shot at it." She looked at Freddie.

"Aww...but Sammy," Cat was saying, "I thought you said your mom's house was pretty big."

"Well, yeah – relatively. Three bedrooms. It's not like one of the soundstages some of your friends live in."

"Just for the two of you?"

"Yeah," Freddie said.

Jade detected Freddie had a note of longing in his voice. Her eyes widened; she ran to Sam and whispered in her ear.

"No," Sam said, shaking her head quickly and giving Freddie a long glance.

"Oh, I wish Spencer and Melanie were here," Carly called.

"Well actually Spencer already knows." From the look on Sam's face when Freddie said that, it was news to her, too.

"I told him a few weeks ago when I was up there," he told her.

"Why?"

"Oh my God, boy, you did not." Jade said.

"Did not what?" Sam asked, looking at her strangely.

"You told me this Spencer guy was a father figure to you guys sometimes, right?"

"Right," Sam and Freddie said together. She turned and raised her hand to slap him lightly but he caught it mid-swipe, brought it down, and continued holding it.

"Puckett, your fiancee's a traditionalist after all: He asked permission."

Sam and Carly turned towards him, Carly agape, Sam with amused (thank God) irritation in her eyes.

"You didn't."

"No! Well I mean not formally. We just talked about...whether or not it was an insane idea."

"Spencer is your barometer for sanity?"

"And as for Melanie-"

Gibby tapped at his phone and turned it around, revealing the face of Sam's twin sister, who'd been following along as he surreptitiously live – cast everything to her.

"Congratulations, you guys!"

"Thanks, Mels!"

"Hey Melanie."

Gibby panned over the L.A. contingent. "Say hi, everybody!"

"Hi!" Cat and Robbie chorused. Jade and Beck didn't say hi, but Beck at least waved.

"Now, I'm not saying you have to make your wedding party plans now, or name a maid of honor or anything-"

"Sorry, Mels. I love you - " For two or three of the people there, just Sam saying that, loudly, was another sign of how far she'd come from the roughest chick at Ridgeway High.

" - and you better believe you're a bridesmaid." Her eyes turned to Cat; then Jade, including them in the comment. "But I only have one maid of honor." She turned towards Carly, who was smiling, most of her tears dried.

"One Best Maid of honor," said Freddie.

"I'm confused," Melanie said from the phone.

"Well, we both have the same best friend who we love and who knows us better than anybody else," Sam said, "I wanted her, when the time comes, to be my maid of honor. Freddie was gonna ask her to be a "best maid." So we decided, why can't she be both? It's out of the ordinary but, hey, it's us."

Cat squeaked and everyone turned towards her. "Sorry," she said, "I was just thinking about an adorable Best Maid dress I can make Carly for the ceremony. If that's okay with you?"

"Sure," Carly said. "Sam says you're pretty good whipping up cute outfits."

"Just one question. Do you prefer tights or bare legs under a tutu?"

Carly's eyes widened and she looked at Sam, who gave her a hand gesture that meant, just let her go.

"Wow," Carly said. "You guys are...so special to me."

"You are to us too, but I'm not sure you realize the whole reason," Freddie said. He and Sam were now smiling knowingly at her.

"You mean...besides that we've all been friends for years and have been through so much together?"

"Well, think about it," he went on. "That's true of Gibby, too – yes Gibb, you'll be in the wedding," he said quickly to ward off any comment.

"But, Carls," Sam said, walking forward to take her friends hand, "if we hadn't done iCarly, Freddie and I would've never gotten to really know each other. He'd still be talking about me like he didn't even know I was a girl."

"I did figure it out eventually," he interjected.

"Shut up. And I'd never have thought of him as anything more than a nubby dork, if I thought of him at all. Carls, we owe you everything. This," and she waved back and forth showing the space between herself and Freddie, "is because of you." Freddie walked up and took Sam's other hand; they stood before their friend.

"I'm overwhelmed," Carly said, and Sam smiled. "You're wrong, though."

"What?" Sam really sounded taken aback.

"We never would've created iCarly if it wasn't all three of us. What made it possible for you guys to consciously realize how you felt about each other, that was because of you, just as much as me. And I owe you guys too, for all the things we got to do and places we got to go because of our weird little web show."

There were few dry eyes in the room by this point. Even Jade made a quiet noise that only those really close to her knew, was her equivalent of Carly's happy burst of tears.

...

It was later that evening; Cat and Robbie had gone home. Carly was sitting in a chair, talking to Jade and Beck on the couch who were eating cake from plates. The cake was particularly good, something Carly understood when she learned Sam had stolen an index card with the recipe from the counter in Nora's family's house. That lamprey eel certainly owed them.

Jade was trying to remind herself that her jealousy was cooled down, as Carly talked to Beck.

Sam and Freddie sat on opposite sides of the island, frequently reaching across to take each other's hands.

Gibby had returned to his role as DJ, the music mostly quieter now.

"So what got you so rattled before our second big announcement?" Sam asked Freddie. "Have a sudden urge to tour the beauty contests, see if you can take advantage of some innocent young wench?"

Her face said she was kidding. But her voice, and Freddie having known her since they were 13; much of that time very well, said she needed, if not a literal hug, some reassuring mental strokes.

"No," he said very plainly and firmly. "I think I just freaked out because it suddenly hit me what an important moment this was. We were announcing our engagement." He was almost hushed with wonder. "And I wondered: Was I doing it right? Was I saying all the things you would've wanted me to say? I wanted them to be as perfect as I could for you."

Sam looked away and then back, her eyes filled with tears. "Still an idiot dork."

"Probably. Why this time?"

Regaining control, she said, "Do you remember telling me why you still liked me in spite of all the mean things I used to do to you?"

"I think so...I said it was because it was still you doing it, and I liked you."

"Right. Well, anything you said tonight was what I wanted you to say. What made them perfect was that I was watching you say them. I love you, nerd."

"I love you too, demon."

They smiled goofily at each other across the counter, five or ten seconds or so, before her smile got even bigger and she said,

"Well, lean."

They kissed each other over the island.

"Hey! Come back to the rest of the party," Carly said. "You guys have your whole lives to stare dreamily at each other."

Slightly shame-faced, they got up, Sam came around the counter and they walked over to their friends. Before they joined them, though, Freddie turned to Sam, "Besides, if I wanted to fool around with a pageant winner I've got you, babe."

"You remembered," Sam started to say, but was drowned out because Gibby had apparently decided what the evening was lacking was one of his trademark vocal performances. Bursting into and over the song he was playing, he sang,

And when I'm sad

You're a clown

And when I get scared

You're always around

...continuing to barrel into the song. Carly and Freddie's eyes met, they shrugged and smiled indulgently.

But Sam looked to the third woman in the room. "Jade," she said, would you do something about that, please?"

Nodding her understanding, Jade handed Beck her plate with a look that told him not to eat her cake if he knew what was good for him. She got up, smoothed her dress, and walked over to Gibby who was still singing, his back to her. She tapped him on the shoulder. Tap, tap. Tap – tap – tap – tap - tap.

He turned and was met by a full – face blast of, "NO!"

He blanched, the singing stopped.

"Thank you, Jade" Sam said.

Soft – hearted Carly went over to comfort Gibb while Jade came back to her place at Beck's side. "Consider it an early wedding present," she told Sam.

End

I usually end chapters with thanks for reading, and I always mean it, but this time I mean it even more than usual. This has been my most popular fic yet. Most of mine got under 75 views last month. This one? 1,423. I'm not sure why...but I hope I can figure it out in the likely event I want to do it again sometime.