For all the Roschel shippers out there!
Another one shot that might turn into something more, but for the moment it will be a two chapter. I had the idea while thinking about what could happen if Rachel actually saw her.
Ross and Rachel are celebrating their three month anniversary after being together again and they have a rather startling meeting with someone from their past.
This brings up bad memories but also the occasion to talk about their infamous "break" and work things out once and for all.
Remember, I'm not an English native speaker and I usually make a lot of mistakes, so please forgive my typos and failures in the language.
I hope you enjoy this!
RT

Ross and Rachel were preparing to celebrate their third month since they were back together.

After Rachel had moved to Ross' apartment, many things had changed.

Chandler and Monica were no longer living in the apartment 20, which strangely was still vacant. Joey had recently moved to Los Angeles. Phoebe, however, still lived with Mike in the city and was the only one of the original group of six friends that they saw almost daily over a cup of coffee at Central Perk.

Despite the distance, Ross and Rachel were trying to see Chandler and Monica at least during the weekend, and they had noticed that Ross's sister and her husband were turning out to be two wonderful parents.

The evening started in the best way.

After leaving Emma at Sandra Green's home as agreed, the couple went to the Javu, where Monica had asked her sous-chefs to prepare them a special themed dinner.

As a good organizer, she also had made specially printed menus of the evening: Lobsters Three Months Anniversary.

What Rachel was completely unaware of was Ross's desire to finally ask her to marry him that night. He had wanted to wait some time before doing so, to make sure everything was going more than well for them. But now he could not wait any longer, after all he and Rachel had known each other for almost twenty years and in their weird relationship they had been on and off for ten years. Emma was almost two years old and Ross couldn't wait for seeing her grow up with the knowledge that her mother was married to her father.

Of course, it made no difference to him. He loved Rachel like no other woman before.

He had loved Carol, they had been married for many years and sure, he had loved her. Perhaps he had felt something very deep for Emily, but that had never been love, more like a vague attempt to replace Rachel with another woman.

The truth was that the only person with whom he'd wanted to spend the rest of his life for the past ten years had always been her. Rachel.

"Honey, you're rather quiet tonight. Which is definitely not like you. No stories about dinosaurs or about your students to tell me?" Rachel asked. She wore a tight red strapless dress for the occasion. When he had seen her come out of their room dressed like that, Ross had remained breathless for a few seconds and had tried to capture forever in his memory the detail of that moment.

"No, no... it's just that... you're so beautiful tonight that you really left me speechless."

Rachel smiled tenderly, "Thank you, honey. Trying to earn points to score later, aren't you?"

"Can you blame me?" He asked, laughing.

"No, seriously. Is there something that worries you?" She asked him, taking his hand.

"Uhm...er... There's one thing I'd like to talk to you about..."

"You can tell me anything, Ross... It's all going very well between us, isn't it?" She whispered softly.

Ross took her hand and kissed it, "Everything is amazing. The truth is that it's going so well that it seems like a dream. In fact there is one thing I would like to ask you..."

Rachel smiled as Ross put their hands together on the table.

As he looked at their joined hands, he did not immediately realize the change in Rachel's expression. When Ross looked up, however, he noticed that from sweet and serene, suddenly Rachel had become cold and horrified. Her eyes were watching something or someone behind Ross.

Concerned, he too turned and knew immediately what had disturbed Rachel and especially what was going to ruin their evening irremediably.

The woman who had just entered the hall was in company of a man they had never seen before. But neither Ross nor Rachel could forget her.

It was Chloe.

She had changed her hair color and she was blonde, no longer reddish, but knowing her personality it didn't seem quite strange.

Ross felt his heart stop for a moment and let out a moan wondering what he had done wrong in his past lives to deserve a similar coincidence to happen to him that night.

Please, do not let her see us, do not let her be so stupid as to come here...

But Chloe had never been a particularly smart girl, or at least she had always been very naive.

"Hey, Dinosaur Guy!"

Ross turned desolate to Rachel in time to see her take her hand off the table and pick up the napkin, pretending to wipe her mouth.

"Chloe!"

"It's been a lifetime, it must have been... how much, seven years?"

"Couldn't have been another thirty or forty?" Ross asked, pretending it was a joke when he was actually confessing a hope.

The man who accompanied Chloe, meanwhile, approached their table, smiling at what he thought was a meeting of old friends.

"But I see you're in good company...Rachel, isn't it?"

Not knowing if she was still able to utter a word, Rachel nodded ruefully, trying to hold back her breath and her instinct to get up and leave the room immediately.

"Well, it's no mystery that Ross was so in love with you, damn you're still gorgeous!"

Rachel was a little surprised by the unexpected compliment. It was absurd to think that Chloe did not realize how dramatic such an unexpected and provocative interruption was for Ross and her. What for Chloe had been a simple night of passion, for the two of them had meant the end of their relationship and their seven-year separation and emotional hell.

"This is Thomas, we've been married for almost two years now."

Ross looked at her a little surprised, unaware that Chloe had it in her to become a wife.

"Yes, I know, many people react like this when I introduce him."

Rachel tried to guess what Ross was feeling at the moment, but she could not do it easily, seeing that since he stood up to talk to Chloe she could only saw him from behind.

"I leave you to your dinner. It was so nice to see you again!" Chloe said sincerely.

"Never as nice as for us, Chloe!" Rachel said, finding her voice just in time for a sarcastic comment.

As the two moved away to go to their table, Ross sat down and tried to lighten the mood in his own way.

"Who would have thought, uh?"

Rachel glared at him, making it clear that it was not a good time to joke.

"Ok, ok...Tomorrow I'm gonna tell Monica to hang a a picture of her and a CHLOE NOT ALLOWED sign outside the door."

Rachel tried to hide that she was smiling at this joke, so she looked away. Ross tried not to think about what had just happened, but he couldn't.

"Rachel...please don't let this spoil our evening...everything was so perfect..." Ross whispered, looking for her hand again.

"Yeah. But I didn't think the ghosts of the past would come knocking on our door tonight", she replied.

Ross nodded silently, thinking of the engagement ring that lay in his trouser pocket.

TBC - Ch. 2...