Author's Note: Okay, I mentioned this a while back, and now that I feel happy with first chapter and have much of a second, I think I will launch it. This is dedicated to Imagine What If, whose thoughtful reviews of The One With Ross Without Rachel I have greatly valued. She is passionate about the Ross-Rachel relationship, and so this is a peace offering to her and all you lobster-lovers out there, to make up for the hard time I've given Ross and Rachel in recent stories, especially the one just mentioned (you can find short Ross and Rachel get-togethers that I wrote a long time ago in Suppose Things Had Gone a Different Way chs 3, 4 and 6). It won't be straightforward – very little that I write is – but let's see if I can get them together again more plausibly (and earlier!) than in the show, and maybe deal with the problems I have raised previously about whether a relationship between them could actually work long-term.
The title is taken from a haunting Willie Nelson song (you can find him singing it onYouTube; Elvis also gives it a fair shot). Some of the song, at least, seems appropriate to what Ross might feel, though the Johnny Cash song I Still Miss Someone, which I also considered for the title of this story, is maybe even more so.
The story starts just after the action of 6,14, The One Where Chandler Can't Cry. I do not know if anyone has chosen this before for the start of a Ross and Rachel story (if a reader knows, I'd be happy to be told in a review or message),. This piece of dialogue from the next to final scene in 6,14 will remind readers of the immediate background.
Ross: Let me finish, okay? She started kissing me and, and I didn't stop it. I guess I, I just wasn't thinking …
Rachel: Yeah, that's right, you weren't thinking! Y'know what? Let me give you something to think about! (She pulls up her sleeves and steps towards him)
Ross: Oh wait – hold it! But then I started thinking and I stopped the kissing.
Rachel: Oh, well, thank you for taking your tongue out of my sister's mouth long enough to tell me that.
Ross: Look, I, I realised, if anything were to happen with me and Jill, then nothing could ever happen with us!
Rachel: (in quite a different tone) What?
Ross: No, I mean, look, I don't know if anything is going to happen with us ... again ... ever. But I don't want to know that it, it never could ... So I stopped it ... and she got mad and broke my projector.
Rachel: (very emotional, almost tearful) Wow. I, I don't even know what to say. Thank you. (Gently taps him with raised foot)
Ross: You're welcome. (Gently taps back)
(Chandler starts crying)
Monica: Oh my god! Are, are you crying?
Chandler: (crying hysterically) I just don't see why those two can't work things out!
[On which one can only comment, "Don't we all?"]
Some words of Ross's from 5,23 are also quoted below.
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Chapter 1
Rachel tossed and turned, unable to relax into sleep. Her mind was in turmoil, continually replaying the scene with Ross. After all these years, for Ross to have made it so plain that he still had strong feelings for her, strong enough to hope that something could happen between them again, some day. Even after the Vegas fiasco and all the trouble it caused between them, even after her final admission that it was her drunken idea to get married in the first place, he still wanted this. Was that his real reason for not wanting to get a divorce, annulment, whatever, not just an unwillingness to be the man with three divorces? She now regretted that she had treated him so roughly, if that was so. She wished she could talk it over with Monica, but of course that was not possible that night, and Phoebe would not be pleased to be woken up.
And still Rachel was not at all sure what she felt about all this. The whole Vegas business had shown up one of Ross's worst characteristics, his inability to be honest when it was most needed. If he did not want a divorce because he was still in love with her, why couldn't he say so? She had to admit, though, that any such statement would have fallen on stony ground with her, after his total failure to acknowledge that staying married to him would not be a mere bureaucratic formality, it would mean that she could never marry anyone else ... She paused in her thoughts. Was that the product of a subconscious drive towards her, that he could not even contemplate the possibility that she might marry someone else? But he himself was certainly capable of contemplating marrying someone else; in fact, he had done it.
She sighed. What they really needed to do was to sit down and talk completely openly about their feelings for each other, but they had never been good at that. However, she decided that she would make a determined effort to get Ross alone and have a heart to heart talk. Having made up her mind to this, she was finally able to go to sleep.
When they next met in Central Perk, Rachel said, "Ross, I've been thinking. Can your slide projector be repaired?"
Looking a little surprised, he said, "I've been making enquiries. It looks like it'd be a lot less hassle just to buy a new one."
"Oh, that's too bad," she said sympathetically. "How much do they cost? Maybe I should go halves with you, since it's partly my fault it got broken."
Ross looked even more surprised, then gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles. "That's very generous of you, Rachel, but you don't have to do that. I can get a pretty good deal through the U."
"Well, um, look," she said, thinking fast, "why don't we go out to dinner somewhere and I'll pay, as kind of an apology? Because I did give you a hard time over the whole Jill thing, and I'm ... sort of sorry for that now."
Ross looked pleased. "Well, thank you, I'm not gonna say no to that."
The others exchanged significant glances while Ross and Rachel arranged that she would go to his apartment after 6, and she went back to work feeling quite pleased with herself. But she had hardly reached her desk when the phone rang. It was Monica.
"Inviting Ross to dinner?" she said. "Sweetie, what's up?"
Rachel was prepared for something like this. "Well, you know, I was really touched by what he said last night, it was kind of sweet. So I wanted to see how I felt about him, and whether I could actually think about us getting back together. Because it was, well, I thought it was clear, he wants that. So I'm gonna try to get him to talk about it over dinner."
"M'm," Monica went reflectively. "Well, no one would be more pleased than me if you got back together, sweetie, but … I'd be careful. I'm not sure he's really ready for that right now, whatever he said. I think it's just kind of a dream he has. My feeling is, after all you've been through with each other, you guys need a period of just getting along better and drawing closer again before you can start thinking about dating."
"Okay, I'll bear that in mind," said Rachel a little irritably. She never liked it when Monica said things about her and Ross that made good sense.
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Phoebe looked up in surprise as Rachel stormed into their apartment when the evening was not far advanced.
"What's up, hun?" she said. "Didn't the dinner date go well?"
"No, it did not go well," Rachel snarled. "Because, guess what? Ross thought I was coming on to him for a night of sex!"
"Well, um, wasn't that, like, at the back of your mind?" Phoebe asked.
"No, it was not!" Rachel said emphatically. "I wanted to talk, about our feelings for each other. But evidently he can only see me as an easy lay who is hot for him! I should have known, after that time he came over, the night before we went to Vegas."
"Tell me about that," said Phoebe sympathetically. "I didn't hear that anything happened that night."
Rachel looked rather embarrassed, and her tone changed. "Oh, well, well, it wasn't something either of us wanted to talk about, in fact we agreed to forget it. What it was, I was trying out that thing of yours, you know, going naked in the apartment, and he saw me from his window and thought I was doing it to attract him, and so he came over. But he said, it would be 'just about tonight', which meant, what was it, oh yeah, 'the physical act of love', and he didn't wanna go through with it if it was 'going to raise the question of us'." She glared into the distance.
Ignoring this, Phoebe said excitedly, "Ooh, ooh, you tried going naked? Doesn't it feel great? You wanna try it again? Ross can't see us here." She giggled, her eyes bright as she looked at Rachel hopefully.
"Er, no thanks, Pheebs, I'll pass," said Rachel, feeling definitely uneasy. Was Phoebe actually coming on to her?
But Phoebe simply shrugged and said "Suit yourself", not seeming at all put out.
Rachel was relieved. Maybe Phoebe just didn't see being naked in the presence of another woman, also naked, as anything to get worried or excited about. It would be just like her.
The following morning she asked Phoebe not to reveal what she had told her.
"No point in spreading more embarrassment around," she said. "I just wanna forget about the whole thing."
"Okay, hun," said Phoebe cheerfully.
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As he walked to Central Perk the next day, Ross felt confused and unhappy. He had thought that he and Rachel were getting along really well, and then she chose to get mad because he suggested that they take things to what was obviously the next stage. He couldn't understand it. They'd been lovers for a year, and when they got together again after the beach house they went to bed together as soon as they could. Okay, that ended badly, but ... what was her problem? To him, it seemed a natural way to start reviving the love that had never really gone away, that was probably what drove them, drunk as they were, to get married in Vegas. He rather suspected that they had made love then, too, or done something anyway, although he didn't remember it.
He sighed heavily. Oh, there was Central Perk. He tried to assume a nonchalant expression, to suggest to Rachel that he was not going to make a big deal out of it all. But as it turned out, that was unnecessary; she was not in yet.
"So, how did the Big Date go?" said Joey insinuatingly, waggling his eyebrows.
"Oh ... okay," said Ross, still striving for nonchalance.
Phoebe gave a little bark of a laugh, but she didn't say anything.
"You know something Ross isn't telling us?" said Chandler, turning towards her.
"Oh, no, no," Phoebe said dismissively.
"Come on, Rachel must have told you something," Joey pressed.
"Look, can you leave it, guys, okay?" said Ross, irritated. "It's a, a private thing."
Joey looked at Chandler. "Doesn't sound like it went well," he said rather despondently.
Chandler nodded, grinning a little. "That could be five bucks you owe me, on top of everything else."
Just at that point Rachel appeared. She took in who was present, said "Hi, Pheebs, Chandler, Joey," brightly, then, after a distinct pause and with notably less enthusiasm, "Hi to you too, Ross – or should I call you Joey the second?"
Ross was not the only one who looked puzzled by this remark.
"Why would you do that, Rachel?" Chandler asked after a moment.
"Well, doesn't Joey more or less assume that any girl he dates is gonna go to bed with him like right away?" said Rachel, with a satirical glance at Ross.
Joey simply grinned, apparently not at all fazed by this reflection on his character, but Ross flushed.
"Five bucks, please," said Chandler, holding out a hand to Joey.
Joey reached into his pocket. "Er, I don't have it – " he began, but was interrupted by Rachel.
"What's this, you had some kind of bet about my date with Ross?" she asked, sounding amused rather than anything else.
"He was optimistic about it. I bet him it wouldn't go well," Chandler explained.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't put much money on it, Joey," said Rachel, "but after all this time, you should have known better." She seemed about to say more, but then stopped herself, and said, "Okay, subject closed. Let's talk about something else."
Ross felt grateful for that small mercy, but the whole scene made him think. If he and Rachel could still be at such cross-purposes, was there any future for them? Might it not be better to make a really determined effort to get her out of his mind and find someone else? Of course, his previous attempt to do just that, with Emily, had failed. But he thought he had learned from that, at least to date someone who could always be around. He nodded to himself; yes, that's what he ought to do, get her out of his mind.