Friends

Welcome to the Future

Riley Urban

Chapter One

"Emma" Rachel Geller called to her five year old daughter, the only accident in her life that had actually come to something worth having "come here please, darling"

Emma did exactly as she was told, as always, she was such a good girl "yes mommy" Emma's innocent grin stared up at her mother's beautiful blue eyes

"Yes darling" Rachel gently stroked Emma's pale cheek, let her fingers run through her white blonde hair and felt an even stronger sense of love than ever before for her, which happened almost every time they saw each other "can you get Charlotte's teddy please?"

"Of course mommy"

Rachel looked down at Charlotte, her nine month old baby girl, this one wasn't an accident, she had been conceived in love once Rachel and her now husband Ross had realized that about eight years had been wasted and they were in fact deeply in love. Charlotte smiled up at her mommy and put her small thumb into her gummy mouth and sucked on it sweetly. Emma returned to the room with Charlotte's pink teddy and almost immediately started jumping up and down in the same way any five year old little girl who was highly excited would do

"Can I go and ask Erica if she wants to come and play please?"

"Sure darling" Rachel smiled, "why don't you ask Auntie Monica if she would like to come round for a chat?"

"Okay mommy, so does that mean that Erica and Jack can come here to play?"

"Of course!"

Emma skipped sweetly towards the beautiful antique wooden gate in the fence with the beautiful detailed carving that separated the Geller family from the Bing family, the four of them had paid a very large amount to have it specially made and Ross and Chandler had traveled all the way to Texas to pick it up. Emma had done this on many occasions and therefore was able to undo the very large latch herself. She then decided to skip up to the oak front door that Monica had brought from an expensive one off shop even though she could have got something very similar from Pottery Barn. Emma took a big step up onto the white painted wooden stool that allowed her to reach the doorbell and pressed it. The doorbell played a little tune and Emma waited for either Monica or Chandler to answer. Emma always played a little game with herself as to who would answer the door. On a week day this game would be very easy as it was normally Monica because Chandler was at work, at weekends it was a little more difficult. As it was a Friday Emma guessed it would be Monica, and she was right.

"Hello Emma" Monica Bing smiled sweetly at her niece, not surprised that on this sunny Friday after school Emma would come and ask to play with her best friends, Monica's twins "would you like to play with Jack and Erica?"

"Yes please!" Emma smiled the sweet smile that always melted Monica's heart, Emma loved her auntie Monica and uncle Chandler almost as much as she loved her mommy and daddy, and knew exactly how to play them just like she knew how to play her parents "Mommy would like to talk to you"

"Okay, shall we go back to your house?"

"Mommy would like that"

"Okay" Monica turned to call Erica and Jack, but they had heard Emma and come to the door to see her "okay kids, let's go see Charlotte and Auntie Rachel.

"Hey man" Chandler Bing laughed down the phone, really excited to be talking to Joey after the week he had had at work, as advertising hadn't worked out for him, he had managed to get his old job back in Manhattan and now he was continuously worried about the WENUS (Weekly Estimated Net Usage System, it was a processing term) "when are you coming to see us?"

"Soon" Joey Tribbianni answered from the other end of the phone, equally excited that the time was coming for his secret to be revealed "my flight leaves at 9am tomorrow morning, so, I'll see you tomorrow afternoon,

"Excellent" Chandler thought for a minute, hoping that the answer to the next question would be a positive one "are you bringing Alex too?"

"Hell yeah" Joey smiled, he wasn't even a little bit worried about Chandler and the rest of the group meeting Alex, he knew she would love them, after all they had accepted Janice when Chandler was with him "we've got a surprise for you all" he immediately regretted telling Chandler about the surprise, he knew Chandler would be itching to find out what it was there and then

"Oh, tell me" Chandler couldn't resist bouncing up and down on his office chair making it squeak, he suddenly realized that it was attracting the wrong kind of attention from his assistant and stopped immediately

"No, then it wouldn't be a surprise"

"Is Alex pregnant?" the squeaking started again

"No" Joey answered, obviously lying, Joey knew that he would eventually tell Chandler and so decided that if Chandler pushed more he would just tell him and swear him to secrecy

"She is isn't she?" Chandler's excitement was so apparent and the squeaking got louder until Chandler's assistant was actually looking at him in a weird way "congratulations"

"Pretend to be surprised when we tell you" Joey insisted "and don't say anything to anyone, even Monica, Alex doesn't want anyone to know yet"

"sure thing man" Chandler promised, he started to ponder the information that he had just received from one of his best friends and felt a lump rise in his throat, knowing that Joey was the last one of the six original group to become a parent "this is so amazing, now we'll all have at least one"

"I know, there's so many of them now, how's Phoebe and Mike getting on with Daisy?" Joey was genuinely interested in the tiny baby that Phoebe had given birth to just weeks before

"Fine, as far as I know" Chandler was less interested

"Good. I can't believe they have three children now!"

"Yeah, look man, I gotta go, lunch time is over!"

"Okay, I'll see you Saturday" Joey brightened up even more than before

"Yeah, see you then!" Chandler thought about Joey and Alex and the new baby that would be arriving at some point over the next nine months. He then thought about Monica his beautiful wife and his twins Erica and Jack, they would be at home now, or at Rachel and Ross's house. Chandler looked down at his watch 4:30pm. Wow he had taken a late lunch today. He so wanted to be at home with his family but for the next 90 minutes he was stuck here worrying about the WENUS. He would then have the 45min commute home to his house in the suburbs. Man he was working too hard!