Suppose Things Had Gone A Different Way

This introduction needs rewriting. This series began as a way of exploring unorthodox couplings, starting from points in the Friends series at which there is considerable potential for things to have developed quite differently, if one character had said or done something different at the crucial moment (the relevant episode is indicated in the heading). Some writers have explored these for the usual couples, but I was beginning to feel that there was nothing new to be said about them; however, I realise I have got Ross and Rachel together again, by often complicated means, in chapters 3, 4 and 6 - which shows where my basic sympathies lie :).

I should emphasise that the stories are intended to be mutually exclusive. They're just called chapters and parts because it's easiest to arrange them that way.

Chapter 1: Ross and Janice

(5,12: TOW Chandler's Work Laugh)

[Author's Note: Despite what is indicated in the script, a little of which I have used at the beginning, I can think of nothing in the Friends series that shows that Janice actually is very whiney; she is given no lines showing this, that I can remember. It seems to be simply assumed by the writers, on the basis of her tone of voice. Well, we'll have no voiceism here. Janice may have a lot of irritating mannerisms, but she also has many good points, as features of her successive relationships with Chandler show, as well as her initial patience with Ross]

Ross could hardly believe his ears. Had Janice really indicated that they were through, when they had only just started?

'What?' he said slowly.

Her voice beginning to shake, as if she were trying not to cry, Janice said, 'You're a very sweet person, Ross,' she turned away and began fanning herself, 'um … unfortunately …' – her voice rose – 'I don't think I can take another second of you whining!'

Ross opened his mouth, then closed it again. Him, whining? He thought for a moment. He had to admit, it had been so great to have such a sympathetic listener that he had been rather letting himself go about all the awful things that had happened to him. Now that he thought about it, Janice had shown considerably more forbearance than his friends or even his sister would have done. They would have made some rather caustic comments about his last words, still echoing in his ears, 'Can't anything go right in my life?' Yes, that was a whine, all right.

'Oh my God,' he said quietly. He turned to meet Janice's gaze, to be struck once again by how beautiful her eyes were in that long face, how full and kissable her lips looked – in fact, how lovable she had the potential for being.

'Okay,' he said slowly, feeling his way, 'how about if I stop whining?'

She looked surprised. 'You accept that you have been whining?'

He nodded. 'Yup, guilty as charged. It's just that … well, my friends and my sister don't listen half the time. I remember telling Joey and Phoebe how great it had been to open up to you, and they claimed they were there for me, but they were only interested in some silly game. You actually listened to me. I really appreciated that, but I see that it led me to … abuse your patience.' He reached for her hand, and held onto it firmly despite what seemed a rather half-hearted attempt on her part to pull away. 'Janice, hear me out. I'm sorry, really sorry, and I'll never do it again.'

She appeared not unmoved by this, and her lips even twitched as if she were trying not to smile, but her voice was doubtful. 'I don't know, Ross. You think you can keep a promise like that?'

He grinned ruefully. 'Okay, never is pushing it. Maybe I should say, I'll try never to do it again. Because you're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time, Janice.' He looked deep into her eyes and squeezed her hand slightly in emphasis. 'Only say we aren't over.'

She blinked, now really affected, and her lips trembled a little. 'But, but, Ross … I, I didn't think … and there's Chandler …'

'Forget Chandler!' he said decisively. 'It's time you were told the truth. He's no more in Yemen than I am. He just couldn't face telling you straight out that it was over. I don't like being the one to break this to you, but that's how it is.' He squeezed her hand again, hoping to convey sympathy.

Janice gave a great gulp, pulled out a handkerchief, and buried her face in it. At that moment, Joey came into Central Perk. He caught Ross's eye and raised his eyebrows interrogatively. Ross jerked his head to indicate that he should keep away. Joey gave a smile and raised a thumb, in a way that suggested he had misread the situation and thought Ross was breaking up with Janice. At least, when he'd got his coffee, he took a seat well out of their line of sight.

'Thanks, Ross,' said Janice rather haltingly as she emerged from the handkerchief. She blew her nose loudly. 'I … I suppose I should have guessed. He seemed … different from the time when we were together last.'

'Yeah, he's changed,' said Ross. 'There's something going on, I think, but he's being very secretive.'

'Ross,' said Janice, now looking at him with almost painful intentness, 'can you tell me why Chandler should have changed towards me? I mean, it's not as if I changed from when we broke up last, or so it seems to me.'

'You really want to know?' said Ross.

She nodded. 'Even if it hurts. I need to know what I'm doing wrong.' She gave him a little smile. 'I told you some home truths; maybe it's my turn to hear some.'

She gave one of her machinegun laughs. Before he could stop himself, Ross winced visibly. She looked startled, then realisation began to dawn on her face.

'Oh – my – God!' she said, in her usual exaggerated manner, but softly. 'It's because I laugh like that, isn't it?'

Ross sighed. 'Yes, partly, but … not just that.' He squeezed her hand again. 'I hope this doesn't hurt too much, but I'm going to be honest. It's your whole overdramatic style, like the way you said 'Oh – my – God!' just now. It used to drive him crazy, except during that one time when you had met again over the Net, and he was really in love with you.'

A tear trickled down her cheek. 'I should have stayed with him – but I had to think of my child, and I wasn't over Gary, the way I am now.'

'You and Gary must be as complicated as me and Rachel, not to mention Emily,' said Ross sympathetically. An idea occurred to him. 'Say, you mentioned some things when we first started talking, but I never heard it all. Why don't you tell me now, anything you want to unburden yourself of?'

'You'd listen?' she said incredulously.

Ross relaxed against the couch. 'Try me.'

Janice needed no further encouragement. It all poured out, about Chandler, Gary, and all the other stuff in her life. Ross nodded, made sympathetic noises, and interjected the occasional question. He recognised how unusual this was for him, but he was determined now in his own mind that his relationship with Janice was something worth trying to save. He also found the experience salutary, because it showed him just how irritating he must have seemed to Janice, not to mention his friends. After about fifteen minutes without a break, however, he must have given some sign that it was beginning to weary him, for she stopped abruptly.

'I'm boring you,' she said firmly.

He patted her hand. 'Just a little, but it's good that you stopped as soon as you noticed. You're much more observant than me. I can see now just why I was driving you wild – but it does feel good to let it out, doesn't it?'

She nodded. 'Yeah. So … where do we go from here?' She spoke seriously, without any unusual emphasis.

Ross thought for a moment. 'Why don't we agree to go on listening to each other, as long as we don't overdo it? And I'll try not to sound off about every little thing …'

'And I'll try not to be overly dramatic, and rein in that laugh,' broke in Janice enthusiastically. Having said which, she started to laugh, but stopped almost at once. 'Jeez, this is going to be hard,' she said ruefully.

'No, Janice,' he said, 'you recognised what you were doing and controlled it right away. That augurs well for the future.'

'Oh, it augurs, does it?' she said, her eyes glinting with fun. 'If I stick around you, I'll certainly expand my vocabulary.' Her expression turned serious. 'Do you think there could be a future for us?'

'Why don't we see?' he said. 'I'd like to think so.' He leaned forward to kiss her, and she met him halfway.

At his table, Joey groaned and struck his forehead with the heel of his hand.

'It looked so promising!' said Joey disgustedly to the girls when they were gathered in Central Perk the following evening. 'There she was, crying into a handkerchief … But next thing you know, he's kissing her, like they'd made up completely!'

The girls sighed.

'About the only good thing is, he can't bring her in here while there's a chance Chandler might be here,' said Rachel. 'We'll have to make sure Chandler doesn't know, and that Ross knows he doesn't know.'

Joey looked perplexed, but Monica and Phoebe nodded.

'Not a word to Chandler,' said Phoebe emphatically.

But all their plotting was in vain. When Ross arrived, he greeted them with a fairly cheerful 'Hi!', but then he had little to say, and seemed rather pensive. However, when Chandler arrived, he suddenly sat up straight and looked more cheerful. As soon as Chandler had got a coffee and joined them, Ross said, 'I've got something to say, guys, and it's quite important. It concerns you especially, Chandler.'

The others all drew a breath. Was Ross really going to tell Chandler?

'I'm seeing Janice,' he said. 'We ran into one another three nights ago and, well, we clicked. Joey may have thought we were breaking up yesterday, but although we had a problem, we've resolved it. What I'd like is to be able to bring her in here with me, but I'll understand if you have objections.'

Chandler looked surprised. 'You're actually dating Janice?'

'Yes,' said Ross, looking round defiantly at the others. 'They already know, but I don't suppose they've told you.'

'Well,' said Chandler, looking very cheerful, 'then I can tell you something, and the others who don't know as well.' Monica immediately sensed what he was going to say, and tried to make gestures to warn him off, but he either didn't notice or ignored them. 'Monica and I have been in a relationship since London. Joey has been covering for us.'

Phoebe gasped, Rachel smiled, and Chandler and Monica looked apprehensively at Ross's gathering frown.

'What happened to the rule about dating your friend's relatives?' he said to Chandler.

'You can't fall in love according to rules,' said Chandler.

'Love?' gasped Phoebe. 'You're in love? Oh wow, that is huge.'

'Yes,' said Chandler, turning to Monica and putting an arm around her. 'I love Monica. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.' Monica snuggled against him, beaming.

'Oh, that is so sweet, you guys!' cried Phoebe excitedly. Rachel and Joey also looked approving. Then all turned to Ross, whose frown had not entirely departed.

'Well,' he said a little grumpily. 'If it's been going on this long, it must be serious. Okay, I'm not going to make a fuss, as you all seem to expect, but in the circumstances, I hope you won't object to my bringing Janice in here.'

Indeed, Chandler could see no way to object, although the others looked at him pleadingly. He nodded resignedly, and the others grudgingly nodded or made assenting noises when Ross looked at them.

'Great!' he said when he had secured agreement. 'And don't worry. I'm taking her in hand. She isn't going to do all those things that irritated us so much. It's part of the deal.'

Naturally, this sounded rather intriguing, and the others pressed him for details, but he refused to say more, instead grinning at them smugly. When Janice appeared the next day, it did not take the friends long to realise that Ross had indeed had a marked impact on her behaviour. She was rather quiet at first, but eventually joined in the conversation. At once it became evident that her  tendency to be overdramatic was well under control, and whenever it seemed that she would break into the dreaded laugh, Ross coughed or gave her a glance, and at once she became quiet or simply giggled in a far less irritating manner. They then slowly began to realise that, if you ignored the tone of Janice's voice, which was less grating because she was not speaking so loudly, you heard her saying things that were interesting.

Monica was the first to notice something else, that Janice seemed to be controlling Ross's tendency to feel sorry for himself and bemoan every setback in his life. When he began in this vein, she would catch his eye, grin, and say, 'Now, Ross!' or something similar, or cough, and he would stop and look a little sheepish. Such interventions, like Ross's with Janice, happened less frequently as the days went by. Ross actually seemed to be getting happier, and his angry outbursts seemed a thing of the past. Within a month, he was invited back to his old job at the Museum. In fact, as Monica pointed out to the others, Janice was actually good for Ross, and the relationship seemed as steady as that with Carol had been.

After six months had passed, Ross's friends accepted the inevitable: Janice was here to stay. This was no longer particularly disturbing to them. Janice had proved herself to be a much more interesting person than they had imagined, and there was no doubting the sincerity of her love for Ross, or his for her. Any fights between them – and there were some, for both had strong characters – were always made up, and only seemed to make the relationship stronger. No one was very surprised when, finally, he proposed to her. The marriage took place about a year after their first getting together, and was the last occasion for a real gathering of the friends, for already they had begun to grow apart. Rachel, who had put a brave face on it but had been depressed by becoming finally and irrevocably part of Ross's past, had accepted a promotion that required her to move to Chicago, where she had made new friends and found many men eager to date her. She kept in touch by letters and visits, but it was not the same. Joey had also moved away to LA, having finally managed to break into movies. His career continued to be somewhat checkered, but he got enough work to make a reasonable living. Phoebe continued in the same old way, but there was no denying that things had changed.

A year after the marriage, Ross and Janice's first child, a daughter whom they named Sarah, was born. If anything was needed to cement the marriage it was this, for both adored her from the start. As Phoebe had predicted of their children, she developed a very fine head of hair, but she also had good looks and a sweet nature, which was proof against all the spoiling that she received, not only from her parents and Janice's daughter by Gary, but her Geller grandparents and her aunt Monica and uncle Chandler, who had themselves married by this time. Two years later, a son followed, named Jack for his Geller grandfather, and Ross finally had the family that he had always wanted. When he proposed moving to Scarsdale, Janice enthusiastically agreed.