Obligatory Disclaimer: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series is originally by Douglas Adams. Bright, Crane, and Kauffman are the creators of "Friends." Characters and settings used without permission, but I'm absolutely not profiting at all from this, so please don't sue me. I have no money and I'm knee-deep in debt from college.
Prefatory Comments: This fanfic, for me, has basically been an exercise in causality. I simply began with the premise of something very different in Monica's secret closet and started writing out the resulting altered reality. However, I didn't simply intend to derail the chain of events: I also wanted to find out what effect my changes would have on some of the focuses of Season Eight, like Rachel's baby and Joey's feelings for Rachel. As a result, the plotline isn't just a brand-new linear sequence of events, where a new element takes "Friends" in a bizarre and alien direction; it's also a way of viewing familiar elements through a new lens, seeing (for instance) how Ross' relationship with Mona looks when it's viewed without Rachel around. This is a humorous fic, in keeping with the humorous tone of the two series it crosses over, so my task is first of all to make the new spin on things a funny one, but I'd like to think that the humor is the kind that resonates—that stems from the characters as human beings with unique personalities, hopes for the future, anxieties, all the things that make for good fiction in general. We tune in to "Friends" not just because it's funny, but because something in it resonates with our lives as human beings, and my goal is to make this a "Friends" fanfic in that sense.
Special Thanks to all my prereaders as they've come and gone, most notably Elaine, known as Scribonia on FFNet. Your helpful criticisms and encouragement to keep writing have been invaluable. Another Special Thanks goes out to Wikipedia, and to the guy who put up the online copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy that I would look at when necessary, for helping me with my fact-checking. Don't worry, I already own physical copies of the books, copies that I paid for and all that, but you can't use ctrl+F to search the text of a physical book for the things you want to fact-check. Incidentally, did you know that among mammals, the male duck-billed platypus is unique in having a poisonous sting?
Jackson Ferrell presents
A Jackson Ferrell production:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to "Friends"
Chapter 1: The Course of Time Itself
The key didn't even fit in the lock.
Chandler set it in the growing pile by his knees and quickly took another from the box. He tried to press it into the keyhole, and when that failed, he flipped it over and tried the other side. He was pressing so hard that when he heard the door to the apartment open and someone enter, the key jumped out of his hand.
"I wasn't trying to open your closet!" he called out, rushing into the kitchen. "I wasn't trying to open your closet! I swear!"
There in the kitchen was Rachel. Internally, Chandler breathed a sigh of relief—never mind the fact that he'd made a fool of himself, the important thing was that he wasn't in trouble.
"Wow," she remarked, "Monica really keeps you under her thumb, huh? Does she schedule when you can use the bathroom?"
"Well, I'm not allowed to use it from 0900 hours to 1000, and again from 1800 to 1830 for routine maintenance…" Chandler quipped. "Seriously, what brings you over?"
"Just thought I'd see what you and Monica are up to. She's not around, is she?" Chandler shook his head. "So, whatcha doin'?"
"Monica has a secret closet and she won't let me see what's in it."
"Why not?"
"I don't know! What could she possibly be hiding in here that I can't see?" Chandler jerked his thumb toward the green door.
"Must be something she'd be embarrassed about, right? Maybe…I don't know…incriminating photos, blackmail material? Must be juicy." Rachel grinned deviously and gave a slight bounce.
"But why would she keep it around at all then?" Chandler knelt back down by the door and returned to the box of keys. "But there was the time I was over at Richard's and I found that tape of her and Richard, um…you know. God, you don't think she's got a whole closet of Richard sex tapes?"
"No, that's just creepy. Monica's not creepy…except when it comes to tidiness, I mean…"
"Any other ideas?"
Rachel gave it some thought as Chandler continued his fruitless efforts with the lock. "Well, I saw a movie once where there a couple moved into a house with a locked door in the attic that was sealing off evil spirits. And then, when they found the key to the door and opened it, it released the ghosts and they wreaked havoc all through the house!" She shivered and patted her stomach instinctively. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather leave Monica's closet alone?"
"Truthfully, that's a lot less creepy than a closet full of old-boyfriend videotapes. I say bring on the haunting." Chandler tried another key in the lock, which failed. He addressed the closet: "But clearly you're not listening, are you?"
"Mona," Ross whispered, in the movie theater. "Do you ever feel like you ought to be at the hospital?"
"What? Ross, do you feel all right?"
"No—I feel fine, I feel perfectly healthy. I just suddenly got this feeling like I ought to be at the hospital."
"What could possibly be happening at the hospital that you'd need to be there? I mean, if you're feeling healthy…"
"Yeah, I know." Ross laughed nervously. "It makes no sense. Why would I want to be at some random hospital?"
But just for a moment, it had felt almost as if the course of time itself were suddenly altered.
"Are you under the sheet?" Phoebe called from her room. She put on some relaxing music and took a bottle of massage oil.
In Phoebe's living room, Monica lay on the massage table. "Yep, ready to go!" she confirmed, as Phoebe entered.
"Great." And the masseuse began to work her magic. "How does that feel?"
"Nice! Wow, Phoebe, you are good!"
"Well, not as if it needed saying, but thanks. It's not weird or anything?"
"No." Monica rested her face in the pillow. "Oooh…mmm, yeah…"
An odd look crossed Phoebe's face, unknown to her massage's recipient.
"Oh," Monica sighed. "Ohhh…oh, yeah! That's it! Oh!"
"Oh!" Phoebe suddenly echoed, quite loudly, flinching. Her palms shoved involuntarily into Monica's shoulder blade.
"Oww," Monica complained. "What was that all about?"
"I'm sorry. My hand slipped. Oh, that was a strange feeling."
"You're not mad at me for some reason and trying to give me a bad massage, are you?" Monica asked, sounding a bit annoyed that her friend wouldn't just address the issue to her face.
"No, no. It's nothing. Just that for a second there, it felt as if the course of time itself were suddenly altered. No big deal."
Of course, with Phoebe, this was a perfectly legitimate explanation, so the massage continued.
Back in his apartment, Joey was sitting around watching TV, when an odd expression suddenly came across his face. He furrowed his brow and concentrated, as if listening for something. He knew it made no sense, but it had just felt like he was supposed to be somewhere else, except that he couldn't remember any appointments or errands he had to run.
"Whoa," he said out loud. "What was that feeling? Almost like…like…the course of time itself was suddenly altered."
He paused. "Huh. Must have been something I ate."
After a moment's deliberation, he decided that the best solution would be to fix himself a sandwich; after all, even if it didn't fix the course of time, at least he'd have a sandwich. Turning his attention from the TV, he went to look inside the refrigerator.
The anchorpeople continued talking about investigations into some corporation's sketchy business practices—and in all honesty, it didn't really matter which corporation—when there were faint exclamations from off-camera: "Hey, who is that guy?" "We're filming right now, sir, you can't be on-set." "What's that he's wearing? How did he get past security?"
The female anchorperson glanced to the right, but proceeded hesitantly with the story. "A representative of Serious Electronics stated publicly that the company's policy—"
An old man dressed in the love child of a priestly robe and a bedsheet suddenly emerged on camera, standing in front of the news desk. "Excuse me. Are we filming?" He looked into the camera with anxious perplexity. "Arthur Dent, you haven't yet met me in this eventuality, but if you're listening, this is very pertinent to you. Or will be, at least. I think."
"Sir," said the male anchorperson, "we're currently on the air. You can't be here right now."
The man turned around, and the cameras recorded his back. "This is very important, though. My name is Slartibartfast, and I'm fairly certain there's been a high-level normality breach…"
"Unless you have clearance or authority to disrupt the broadcast, which I seriously doubt," the male anchorperson told him, "you'll have to leave the set now."
"But the fate of the known universe is at stake! Maybe!" protested Slartibartfast. "Arthur! Arthur Dent, listen to me!" A pair of security guards appeared and efficiently removed him from the camera. Joey peered up from the fridge door just in time to catch the end of it.
"Must have been some sort of student prank," remarked the female anchorperson with a smile.
"Those crazy kids. You never know what they'll come up with next. At any rate, a representative of Serious Electronics stated…"
