A/N: This is my first fanfic posted of FanFic.net, so please review nice! This story takes place as if the series ended before the end of Season Four, meaning Chandler and Monica never got together. This is a reunion fic but will please everyone!

Disclaimer: The Friends do not belong to me, but are the wordks of the most brilliant writers in the history of everything, Kauffman and Bright.

EPILOGUE

Monica stared at the picture in her hands. There they were. Her best friends. Rachel, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, and Ross. Well, the people that used to be her best friends. They hadn't all been in the same room together for almost seven years; they hadn't been constant pals, living across the hall from one another, meeting every morning at the coffeehouse, for eight.

So much had changed since that picture had been taken. They'd all been sitting on the couch in their favorite coffee shop, Central Perk, in their neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan. In those days, the six had spent evenings and weekends and holidays together constantly. You couldn't find six closer people - until everything almost fell apart.

Monica knew she had been the one to start the changes. It saddened her that her own mistake had almost torn the group apart. Although there hadn't been a falling out or a big break-up that had been the end, the group had practically given up on their friendship when they had all moved around the country.

It all started when Monica got pregnant. She and her boyfriend at the time, Daniel Ferguson, had only been dating for three months. Somehow, inexplicably, one of those little guys slipped by - and Monica had been thrilled. She had always wanted a baby, and now she was getting her wish!

Danny proposed three months later, just weeks before he was to be stationed in Germany. Danny was in the army and moved around every two or three years. At first, Monica was hesitant to marry him, to leave her hometown, her friends, her family - but there was no way her baby could grow up fatherless either. So Monica married Daniel and moved with him to Germany. Their daughter, Cassandra May, was born a few months later.

After that, the group almost seemed to fall apart. First, her brother Ross met a British woman named Emily and married her, then moved to London. Soon after that, Joey Tribbiani got a big acting job in Los Angeles and went to live there. He stayed after landing a part on a drama series.

Next was Phoebe Buffay. Phoebe had never been educated and yearned to go to college. Surprisingly, she was accepted to Penn State at the age of twenty-nine. She graduated and became an accountant. Last but not least, Monica's high school best friend Rachel Greene married her long-time boyfriend Joshua Clark and moved to upstate New York. The final friend, Chandler Bing, remained in NYC.

They all swore to stay in touch, but after a while it became too difficult. The formerly tight group was suddenly too involved with other things - children, spouses, jobs - too spread apart. They all talked every now and then, and Ross and Monica got together on a few holidays, but that was it.

Now it was seven years later. Monica had divorced Daniel and was living near his base in Tallahassee, Florida, so her daughter, Cassie, could be near her father. Ross and Emily had just separated and were still in London. Rachel and Joshua were still together in upstate New York, and Rachel had just had their second child. Joey was in L.A., shooting his third big-budget movie and starring as the lead in his drama series, Phoebe was an accountant in Indiana, and Chandler, after being trapped on the 12th floor at a job for his whole life was currently VP of his company.

Now, almost seven years later, Monica had received a letter from Rachel. In it, Rachel had expressed her sadness and regret that the friends had drifted apart. She said she was writing them all to ask them to join her at her beach house in New Jersey. For the first weekend in years, there would be no children, no spouses, just the six of them talking and getting reacquainted.

Monica and the other four friends loved the idea. Monica jumped at the chance to remove herself from the role of mother she had assumed for years, thrilled to be considered a person again, a friend to someone. A month and a half later, on the date Rachel had said, they all met once again in front of the house. For a minute, everybody just looked at each other. Then Rachel let out a cry, and everybody was hugging and kissing and chatting, and Joey kept yelling, "Oh my god, you've grown!" because that's what relatives always said at family reunions.

No one had any idea of the life-changing secrets that would be revealed, the deep, dark feelings uncovered, the chaos that would ensue. Of how many lives would be changed.

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel Green

There they are, Rachel thought. My best friends. Have they changed? Have I changed?

It was amazing that they were all together again. All those times, eight, nine, ten years ago when they would sit in the coffeehouse and talk and laugh for hours on end seemed lifetimes ago. Why had they drifted apart? It had been terrible. Rachel had lost her family.

But now they were together again, and things were the same - well, almost the same. Rachel nodded and smiled as Monica finished a story about her perfect seven-year-old daughter Cassie. Apparently, the child was beautiful and smart and witty all put together. Normally, if a parent carried on about their child, Rachel would be annoyed, but this - this was Monica. And Monica's life wasn't perfect anyway. None of them knew quite why, but Monica and Cassie's father, Daniel, had divorced three years before.

Now Phoebe was speaking about her new job. Pheebs, an accountant! Rachel thought with a smile. Phoebe had always been ditzy, unable to get a real job. Now, she was extremely successful.

Rachel noticed a few people holding back in the discussions about family. Ross and Chandler, for instance, seemed quiet. That was understandable for Ross - he and his wife had separated just a few months ago, according to Monica. And Chandler, poor Chandler probably wasn't seeing anyone. Joey had clued her in on the fact that Chandler had thrown himself heart and soul into work after everyone else moved away. Poor guy, Rachel thought as Chandler smiled at Phoebe's story about her secretary.

Were we all he had?

"Well, James is at the top of his kindergarten class," Rachel continued, speaking of her six year old son. "He's already reading and writing. It was so cute, we had a little girl named Laura over yesterday, and they were outside, holding hands and running around. He's already a little lady-killer, just like his Daddy."

"How old is Callista now?" Joey asked.

"Nine months," Rachel said, smiling at the thought of her adorable baby daughter. "The first months go by so fast!"

"I know, I remember when Cassie was a baby, she just seemed to shoot up before my eyes," Monica said, also smiling wistfully. "I sort of wish I had another one." There was an uncomfortable silence. Why hadn't Monica had another baby? What had happened between her and Danny?

There were so many mysteries. Joey and Phoebe, if their lives and careers had changed, at least seemed to have the same personalities. Phoebe's comments were still oft random and crazy, and it still took Joey longer than the rest of them to get something.

But, Rachel knew, they had changed in some way. She knew what her problem was, but she couldn't put her finger of the rest of them...