The phone rang interrupting their slow dance. Longing for his fiancée filling his every vein he managed to pull himself away, ignoring her protests and answer the phone. He almost hung up, having no answer given to his greeting, but he didn't, not when the broken voice finally said something.
"He was here." The words resounded through his head, the distant, scared and yet familiar voice. The full on sobs reaching down the phone line.
"It'll be ok. I'll be there in 5 minutes, don't worry." He hung up and turned to face Monica. She looked less than pleased.
"5 Minutes?"
"It's an emergency, I wouldn't go otherwise you know that."
"Chandler it's our anniversary and we haven't seen each other properly in months." He took the angry form into his arms.
"Monica I am so sorry. But I have to go." He kissed her on the tip of her nose before fleeing their apartment. Monica flopped onto the sofa, she was not happy. She felt as though she was losing him. She shook her head to clear the insane thoughts away. Ever since the counselling sessions with that Phoebe girl had begun 4 months ago he felt less hers and more like he belonged to someone else, someone who gave her the crumbs of his time.
Chandler jumped from the cab, throwing enough money for the fare and a tip, the driver deserved one for putting up with his frantic shouts of faster. He ran into the building and up the stairs, knowing the lift would be broken. He was about to bang on the door when he realised how frightened she'd be by it. He tried the door, it was still open. He poked his head round the door and scoped the room out. He opened the door wider and stepped in.
"Rach, it's me Chandler." He looked round the place, he found her in a corner, sobbing her heart out and curled in on herself. He placed a gentle hand on her arm. She looked up at him with huge soulful eyes. He held out a hand to her and she placed hers softly into his. He didn't bothered questioning her. Just led her into the bedroom. He sat her on her bed and she watched his movements. He opened the closet and grabbed an overnight bag from it. He stuffed some clothes into it and didn't even bat an eyelid while sorting through her underwear drawer and taking what he knew she'd need. He grabbed the bag in one hand and wrapped his free arm round her shoulders. His hand gripping her arm and keeping her up. He slammed the apartment door behind them and led her through the apartment block to the street below. All this was done wordlessly, all the while she cried. He ignored the stares of people as he hailed a cab. They sat in the cab, he held her to him. The cab stopped and he led her inside. She didn't protest against Monica seeing her like she was. He opened the door to the apartment. Monica's voice greeted him before she did.
"Chandler what the hell is goi…Rachel?" Chandler led her into the spare room and sat her on the bed. He flung the bag down. Monica had followed them and he turned to her.
"Can you get her a glass of water please?" She stared at him for a second before disappearing. He unzipped the small compartment of the bag and took out the small box. He popped two of the small pills from it and placed them in her hand just as Monica returned with the water. She handed it to him and he held it while Rachel placed the pills in her mouth. He gave her the glass and she took it, taking a sip and swallowing the sleeping tablets. "It's gonna be okay Rach. I swear I won't let anything happen to you." She lay back on the bed and he sat beside her. He softly stroked her hair for a few minutes before the extra strong prescription pills took hold and brought her to a disturbed sleep. He left her then and joined Monica in the lounge. She was sat in the middle of the sofa, he took a seat in his barcalounger.
"Phoebe and Rachel are friends, we lied to you. Phoebe isn't the one I'm in counselling with, Rachel is. She's not happy like you were led to believe, I can't tell you what's happened to her because it's not my story to tell. But she has to stay here, she can't go back to that place, not yet. Not until…" he let the sentence fade off, not knowing how to finish it. When Rachel would be ready to go back there. When that man was gone from her life for good? Or ever?
"Why can't she go to her parents?"
"They haven't spoken in years, but that's all I can tell you."
"Chandler she's staying in our spare room I deserve to know."
"Maybe you do but I can't tell you. I wouldn't want her to tell anyone about why I'm there I'll give her the same respect." He stood and walked back into the room to watch over her, wanting to be there for her when she woke. Monica watched him go her head reeling with the new information. She had hated a perfectly innocent person for taking her fiancé. She should have been hating her old best friend, but then could she when whatever had put her in counselling had her needing Chandler more than she herself did right now. But did she? And why her fiancé why not some single guy, like Joey?
She was laid in the bed staring up at the ceiling, he wasn't here. She kept telling herself that but it just didn't seem right, even after all this time of it being like this. He was only in the next room but to her it seemed like a world away. She looked at the digital display, 2am. She heard noises in the kitchen and got up. She stood in the doorway watching as he drank the glass of water he'd poured himself. She watched the movements of his tired body and she ached to be in his arms.
"Thinking of me?"
"Of Rachel." She swallowed and paused for a second.
"Do you think that's strange, it's still kinda our anniversary and you're thinking of another woman?"
"I'm thinking of my friend, who needs me." She sighed and moved further into the room.
"When do we get to be us Chandler?"
"Monica I don't have time for this right now." He started to walk back to the room.
"I know Chandler you don't have time for this, you don't have time for me." He paused. "and because of it, our marriage is gonna be over before it even has time to start." He turned to her then. She hadn't said it in anger, her voice had barely been above a whisper. He saw the tears in her eyes. He walked to her and sat beside her.
"I can't turn away from her Monica, she needs me."
"Chandler…"
"No Monica, we were brought together for a reason, Kath wanted me to help her, because through all my crap I had you to love me and I had my friends to support me and be there and help me. She has no one Monica."
"Yes but she does doesn't she Chandler, she has her friend Phoebe to support her and help her and she has you to love her." He looked at her.
"Chandler I feel like you're moving a million miles away. Even when you distanced yourself from me, it wasn't as far as this."
"Monica how can you resent me giving this to her?"
"Because it's ruining us."
"No it's not, you are! She is my friend and she needs me."
"So you choose her?"
"I didn't know I had to choose."
"And if you did?" The tears were slowly cascading down her face and though he hated himself for making her cry he knew he couldn't leave Rachel now, the little progress they had made had obviously been undone by whatever had happened to her that night.
"If you had to choose between Ross and I what would you do? In essence it's the same. If Ross needed you, you'd be out that door faster than my eyes could move. That is what I'm doing for her."
"You're sacrificing us to go on soul saving mission."
"Monica why can't you see how unreasonable you're being? You used to be friends."
"Yeah and even then she always had what I wanted. Now I've had what I want and she's taking it away."
"The only one pushing me away is you. Monica I proposed to you because I love and I want to marry you, right now we might not be spending all that much time together, but that hasn't changed. We're still gonna get married and we're still gonna have kids and we're still gonna grow old together." She sighed, she had never seen him so committed to something before, never known him to stand his ground for so long against her, she resigned herself to the fact that Rachel Greene was going to be in her life for the foreseeable future.
"You better get back, in case she wakes." He pressed a light kiss to her cheek and disappeared. She wanted to be understanding, she hated hating that poor girl who had suffered such obvious trauma, but then she reasoned hadn't Rachel Greene always dramatised everything!
Rachel slowly cracked open her eyes, confused by her surroundings, sensing something wrong but she didn't know what. She turned slightly and felt the sun on her face, she felt almost peaceful. She saw him then, asleep in the chair, exhausted for some reason, she knew she should know what, but she didn't. seconds later she did, she wished she could return to that happy place she had been in, where she didn't understand what was happening. Her movement woke the sleeping figure who rubbed at blurry sleep filled eyes as he sat up.
"Are you okay?" she swallowed and nodded. "You wanna tell me what happened?" She looked down at her covered legs and wondered not for the first time why Kath had thought she'd be of use to him, she felt like she was draining him of his energy, his healing power and strength, and what was worse was she didn't think it was even helping her.
"I got home from work and he was waiting in there for me. Kinda pissed, after all I shopped him, he's spent 2 years in prison. He didn't touch me, not really. I thought he was gonna kill me. He just ranted and raved and threw stuff and broke stuff. He went through my things. He just scared me."
