A/N: Okay, since it's taking forever to post "Back to You" I'm starting to post this one which I had planned to post after "Back to You". This one's is mostly written, I only have to do some last minute editing to have the chapters out, so it shouldn't take any time away from the other. I've just learned that there is a dangerous shortage of living JR WIPs and we can't have that now, can we? ;)

A/N2: The idea to this story is based on Phoebe's prophecy in 'TO after Vegas'. The prophecy is quoted in the text (Italics). It will be pretty rough going for a while for all characters, but keep in mind that I'm a sucker for happy endings, so please hang in there.

Genre: Angst, Romance, AU

Pairing: JR (duh!), MC (quite a lot of it)

Disclaimer: Well, yeah, I own those guys and make loads of money by writing fanfic about them. Except not.

Second Chances Chapter 1: Dinner with Prophecy

New York, 2009

When he walked into the elegant restaurant, the polite smile of the receptionist greeted him, as always.

"Good evening Mr. Adams, your table is ready and Mrs. Philangi is already waiting for you."

Joey smiled to himself and unobtrusively slipped a generous tip into Mr. Silverman's hand. This man made sure that he could spend at least one evening a month in privacy, not bothered by fans or the press.

It was his monthly ritual. Having dinner with Phoebe, talking about their lives. It was the only thing that felt normal in his screwed up life. Which was the reason he was clinging to it, despite the fact that he probably should be at home right now.

Resolutely he pushed the thought of what he would find when was back home out of his mind and made his way to the private room where they had prepared the table for him and Phoebe.

Lately, it wasn't always easy to talk to her. Since her divorce from David, she had become bitter, cynical even. That cynicism, much like Chandler's, was surely the reason that between both of them, they relentlessly tried to convince him that he should leave his wife, to end it for his own sake and for the sake of their two children. For that reason alone, he didn't spend much time with Chandler anymore. His divorce hadn't done him any good either, although Joey had the impression that Chandler tried to pull himself together lately.

The only person who supported him in his refusal to end his marriage was Monica. He saw her almost every week, every time he brought his children to her place. And although Monica was the one who more than anyone else knew what he was going through, she told him he shouldn't give up just yet.

"Joey, you two are so in love with one another. If you guys get divorced too… I don't know, then there is no love left in the world."

She was always so sad when she said that, so sincere, for her alone he would try to salvage what was left of the love between him and his wife.

Sighing he opened the door and stepped to Phoebe, embracing her for a while. When he stepped back to look at her, he had to resist the urge to check if his face was not smeared with black mascara, deep red blusher and lipstick, or the wildly colored eye shadow she wore. Formerly known for her decent makeup and imaginative hairstyles, now Phoebe's choices for makeup and hair were mostly completely over the top, loud and shrill. Much like she herself behaved. Still, he hadn't given up hope that the woman he adored and loved was still somewhere under all those layers of color and hairspray.

"So good to see you Pheebs, how you doin'?" he asked with forced lightheartedness.

"I'm great. I mean, why wouldn't I be?" she asked sarcastically. "What about you? You look awfully tired."

One thing, though, had not changed; she was still awfully perceptive.

"Had a rough night," he mumbled, half hidden behind the menu.

Phoebe sighed dramatically. "What, did she fall asleep in the back yard again and was half frozen by the time you found her and took her to the hospital?"

Joey bit back a sharp reprimand for her derisive tone, aware that it would fall on deaf ears anyway, and instead explained in a detached monotone, neither wanting nor asking for pity or compassion. "No. She fell down the stairs. Hit her head. Blood everywhere. I took her to the hospital."

His voice cracked a little at the last word. Too many of his marital episodes had that ending. Of course, that hadn't escaped Phoebe either.

"They probably have a room reserved for her by now, don't they?" she said with a snort.

This time, he couldn't stop himself from saying, "That's not funny, Pheebs."

With enough force to upset the two glasses of water standing on the table, Phoebe slammed both her hands palm down on the table and leaned in, staring at him intently.

"That's my point, it's not. It stopped being funny a long time ago. You can't do this to yourself any more."

With another sigh, he hid even further behind his menu that by now he could have recited from memory.

"Phoebe, we're not having this discussion again."

As usual, Phoebe didn't budge easily. This discussion, unfortunately, was also part of the ritual.

"Joey, I know you don't want to hear this, but maybe it's better for you and your kids to leave her. She obviously doesn't want your help, you've done enough."

Tears shot to his eyes when the fleeting memory of how he had found her yesterday suddenly invaded his brain. His exhaustion sure wanted to agree with Phoebe. But there was something he clung to even in the bad times, and usual he used it as a rebuff.

"Phoebe, I can't just leave her, she's Ally and Tyler's mother, and she's my wife."

Phoebe leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. As far as that discussion went, that was usually the end of it. But Phoebe had a nasty smirk on her face that didn't bode well for what she was going to throw at him next.

"Are you sure that she even wants to be that any more?"

Joey gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut at the painful stab that hit him right where it hurt the most. He knew exactly what Phoebe meant, and even if it was shockingly cruel of her to bring it up like that, she was probably right. He had married a woman who had been in love with someone else. Not that she had ever told him so or anything. On the contrary, before they had started to go out, before anything had really happened between them, she had made it clear that no other man had a place in her heart.

For years it had looked like that had been the truth. They had been happy. So happy, it sometimes scared him because he felt like that much happiness was supposed to come with a price. But nothing bad happened. They married, they had their kids, his career kicked into high gear, everything was picture perfect.

But then the one thing happened that marked the beginning of a downward spiral that seemed to have no end.

Ross's death.

After a heated argument with Phoebe about evolution, Ross had had a heart attack that killed him on the spot, just like that. And regardless of what anyone else said, Phoebe believed that she had killed him. The memory of the funeral was a blur because everyone including himself had been bawling the whole time. He had almost fallen down a few times while carrying Ross's casket, because his tears blurred his sight so much, he couldn't see the way.

A month after Ross's death he had to take Rachel to the hospital because something that had started as a normal menstrual flow had developed into a life-threatening bleeding.

She came back a different woman.

Everything seemed to make her cry; she could barely look at him any more without starting to tear up. They stopped having sex because she always found another excuse to turn him down.

He didn't need to be a psychic to see the connection. It was Ross. For as long as he was around, she had probably always thought they had another chance. Now that he was dead, this chance had been gone for good and she realized she had married the wrong man.

It broke his heart but he still tried to convince himself that maybe she could get over this, that things could be like they were before. He couldn't bring himself to believe that his time of happiness was over.

But then the drinking started. Over the course of two years, his wife had turned into a raging alcoholic. She'd lost her job because she couldn't even make it through a whole workday any more without a drink. Now she was just hanging around at home, more or less constantly wasted. And there seemed to be nothing he could do about that, as much as he wanted to.

When the lump in his throat gave way to speech again, he tried to make it clear that this part of the conversation was truly and indisputably over. "Look, Pheebs, I don't want to talk about this any more, all right?"

Surprisingly enough, Phoebe relented. "Okay, let's talk about someone else. You know, I met Chandler last week."

His eyes went wide with surprise. It was more than strange for Chandler to just walk around in broad daylight where he could bump into people. Having had his brush with fame just like Joey had, he was just as tired of fans and photographers as he was. The astonishing news finally loosened his tongue and gave him leverage to throw Phoebe's theories about the healing faculties of divorce out of the window.

"Really? See, I know I didn't want to talk about this, but Chandler and Monica are the very reason I think leaving Rachel isn't going to be what you think it might be. Because those two had nothing in common any more, they were so over, everyone thought them getting a divorce was the clear break they needed, but look at them now. They're so hung up on each other, it would be funny if it weren't so sad."

Phoebe shook her head decisively.
"You can't compare them to you, Joey. Their problem was money, yours is alcohol."

Joe felt on high ground. "That doesn't matter. It's a problem, it's solvable. Somehow. I just haven't figured out how."

A smirk appeared on Phoebe's face again. "Do you think Monica and Chandler just didn't try hard enough?"

It was an unfair question, but he had an answer to that one.
"It all happened so fast. I mean first Chandler is unemployed and barely able to pay his rent, then out of sheer boredom he starts writing and suddenly he is this big famous best selling author who doesn't know what to do with all his money."

"Rachel and you adjusted to being rich, too."

"Well, you know Rachel, she never had a problem with spending money."

"Yeah, now she just liquefies it," Phoebe said with a humorless chuckle.

"Phoebe!"

Suddenly Phoebe seemed the one interested in giving the conversation another direction.
"Anyway, I visited Chandler and we started to talk and one thing led to another and… now we have a date next Saturday."

Joey couldn't believe he had heard her right. "You what?"

"I'm dating Chandler."

"You can't date Chandler! He's in love with Monica."

Phoebe inspected her two inch long, blood red nails with meticulous interest. "He's divorced from Monica," she said as if the fact needed further clarification. Then she looked up at him and said with a malicious smile, "And who are you to talk, you married Rachel."

Another sharp pain uncoiled in his heart and rendered him unable to speak for a while. This time, there was no way to hide his pained grimace from Phoebe. A quick flash of compassion crossed her face only to be replaced by bored disinterest a second later.

It was a breaking point. Joey just knew he couldn't play that game anymore, couldn't pretend she was his old friend, when she was someone he hardly knew anymore. Who twisted the knife under the pretence of caring for his well-being. He decided that he was going to make or break them right now, he had no strength left for anything else.

"Phoebe, what is up with you lately? This is not you."

Her mask of indifference shattered in an instant and she glowered at him furiously.

"Oh yeah? Let me tell you something. You're rich, so your wife is too. Chandler is filthy rich and Monica had a really good divorce. I was married to a penniless scientist and my divorce left me with less than I had before. So what if I'm dating Chandler, what if I marry him? I want to be rich too."

He was stunned for a moment, but at least, the question of money was something he felt he could deal with.

"Pheebs you know if you ever need any money…"

Her voice became unnaturally shrill when she screamed the next words at him. "I don't want charity!"

"But you want to marry Chandler for the money?" he yelled back, equally furious.

In this moment a very cold feeling crept up his spine. He'd heard that already. This whole scenario suddenly seemed eerily familiar. Like an echo, like some sort of déjà vu Phoebe's words from almost ten years ago came back to him.

First Chandler and Monica will get married and be filthy rich by the way. But it won't work out. Then, I'm gonna marry Chandler for the money and you'll marry Rachel and have the beautiful kids. But then we ditch those two and that's when we get married. We'll have Chandler's money and Rachel's kids and getting custody will be easy because of Rachel's drinking problem. I have words with Ross and I kill him.

"Oh my God," he whispered, too afraid to move or speak out loud.

"Oh my God," his whisper was echoed by Phoebe, who was white as a wall, visibly even under all her makeup.

Joey buried his face in his hands and felt like throwing up. "You've known all that?" he mumbled into his hands, "You knew this would happen?"

"You knew it too, I told you."

It was a ridiculous defense and if he wasn't so shocked, he would've laughed.
"I forgot about it ten minutes after you said it. I thought it was a joke."

Phoebe was trembling violently and he had to look twice to believe that tears were actually filling her eyes.
"Joey, please. It was a joke. Do you think I would've let that happen if I had had the slightest feeling this was how things were gonna turn out to be?"

She looked at him pleadingly. Tears were now running down her cheeks, leaving black trails of mascara on her face. Nausea swamped his gut. Pressing his napkin to his mouth, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled towards the bathroom.

By the time he reached the restroom, his stomach, probably because it was empty, had stopped turning and so he just leaned over the sink, breathing heavily. When he looked up into the mirror, he saw a man who looked as if he had seen a ghost.

He found the table empty when he came back, but his fear that Phoebe had just left proved to be unfounded, when she came back a few moments later. She had cleaned her face and taken a few of the atrocious decorations out of her hair. She almost looked like the old Phoebe again, a sight so comforting all of a sudden, that he gave her a little, shaking smile.

She spoke before he could ask her any questions.
"Joey, what I told you back then, I made that up the very minute it came out of my mouth. I had no idea it had any meaning. But now I think that I have cursed us."

Just when he had thought it couldn't get any weirder. "What?"

Obviously, being her old self again, Phoebe had also found back to explaining the most ludicrous things as if anyone should understand them.

"See, I was telling you how stuff would happen. It was a joke, but now God was like 'What Phoebe Buffay, you think that's how it's gonna be? Well then, this is how it's gonna be and when everything is totally screwed up I will make you remember your careless words and then you'll be very… very sorry."

He chuckled with the sudden wish to ridicule every word she said. There was no way he could deal with something monstrous like that if there was any truth to it. "You mean you don't want to marry Chandler any more? Or me? Now I'm hurt."

If she had understood his sarcasm, she didn't react to it at all.
"God Joey, no. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know myself any more. This has changed me so much. It has changed all of us. I mean, you're on the verge of giving up on the woman you love more than anything. Rachel is giving up on herself. Monica is giving up on her dreams of having a family. Chandler is giving up on being happy. And Ross… Ross is dead. This so isn't how it's supposed to be and it's entirely my fault."

It sounded logical enough, but he just had to refuse to believe it.
"Phoebe I… don't think it is. Bad things happen sometimes."

"And it doesn't seem weird to you that I predicted this ten years ago?"

He rubbed his temples, wishing he'd be anywhere else but here. Home would be nice.
"You've always done pretty weird stuff."

"Ah ya? Stuff like ruining all my friends' lives?"

"Pheebs…" he said, shaking his head.

In contrast to his tiredness, Phoebe was brimming with an immediate energy that was exhausting just to look at.

"I've gotta go Joey. I have to find out how I can turn that around somehow, how I can make things better."

She had already jumped up at the last words and carelessly shrugged into her leopard-skin coat.

"Pheebs wait!" he called after her without much conviction.

Turning again, she gave him a purposeful smile, almost a happy one.

"Joey, you have to let me do this, please. It's for the best of all of us."

tbc

I hope you liked it. Review if you did and let me know if you think I should continue to post this. Also, this chapter is partially unbeta'ed, if someone finds any mistakes, drop me a PM and let me know, I'll correct it at once.