Thanks to those who have reviewed so far! Please keep them coming!! The story is about to switch into 4th gear and pick up the pace. Also the chapters will be less and less wordy and more to the point, at least for a while. Just telling you so you don't think I'm getting lazy and cheating you out of quality chapters LOL.

Also, I understand the characters might not be 100 consistent with what they were on the show. However, in order to have quality fanfiction I think you need to go much deeper than the writers of a half-hour situation comedy were willing (or able) to go. Not to mention this is self-proclaimed FICTION, so I think us writers are given a relative freedom by default :) :)

One last thing: Perhaps this is a shot in the dark, but I'm really curious to know if writers such as Tina Chaves and Imagine What If are still out there reading fics? They seem to have stopped writing consistently in recent months/years and I wonder if that is due to a lack of interest, motivation, etc. Whatever the case, I would love you hear from you. And I'm sure I speak for everyone at this community when I say you are greatly missed.

Anyway, enough rambling and on with the show. Cheers.

4 Years Later

Ross heaved a weary sigh, slamming another box down on his bedroom floor. He was moving back home. Back to his Long Island birth home that is, after four years of living in various college shit-holes he barely settled into before moving elsewhere again and again. He had just finished his last grueling semester as an undergraduate student, and was looking forward to a long summer of relaxation before he started grad school in the fall. His room was still the same shrine to dinosaurs and youthful model airplanes and such. Oh well. For the most part he still felt like a boy, especially under this roof.

"Sweetie, was that the last box?"

He turned and saw his girlfriend Carol standing in the doorway. "Nope, there's still a couple more in the car. Why don't you just chill out up here while I go get them?"

"I won't argue with that!" she said, flopping down on Ross' bed. "Love the dinosaur sheets," she said, somewhat sarcastically.

"Hehe, I figured you would," he called over his shoulder. Carol had come to help him move in and to visit his parents for the weekend. Then she would be going home to Rochester for the summer where her mother had a job lined up. Ross wished she was staying in Long Island so she could help ward off Sandy Bergman who'd been stalking his poor soul since he'd broken up with her two years ago. Then again, he was looking forward to the breathing room a long-distance relationship would bring. They had shared an apartment for the past year, and this had both strained and strengthened their bond. But like any young couple, they needed to put some distance between them, and appreciate each other from afar. At least for now.

He grabbed the last two boxes out of the trunk with as much manpower as he could muster in the impossible heat. His eyes fell on the empty space in the driveway where Monica's car was normally parked. She was staying at college for the summer to do an internship in a restaurant. There would be no brother-sister warfare at the dinner table that summer. It would just be him living alone with his parents like an only child, for the first time since...well, since his own infancy. It was going to be interesting. Yes, a very interesting summer indeed.

The following Monday he drove Carol home to Rochester. They said their goodbyes, wishing each other well and promising to visit often and call daily. He spent the next two weeks lounging around the house, falling asleep in front of the TV, and basically living like the burned-out ambitionless zombie he'd been dying to be during the school year. It didn't last long though, and soon he began his summer job as a lifeguard at the local pool. He and his high school friend Connor spent their days broiling in the sun and checking out girls. They couldn't believe they got paid for it.

Ross and Carol each did their part to keep their courtship rolling. And in fact their relationship was oddly mature, even in its youth. One weekend Ross drove up to visit her, and they spent a lovely two days taking romantic walks, lounging in the hammock together, and spending time with her parents, among other things.

"Ross," she said softly. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

He heard this and smiled, gazing at the breathtaking sunset they were both enjoying. "I'm falling in love with you too, Carol. And I don't just think it. I know it."

She breathed a delighted sigh and let her head rest on his shoulder. "Does that scare you?" she asked with caution.

"Not at all. I've never been afraid of love."

"Never? Do you mean to say you've been in love before?"

"No...no, that's not what I meant. I just mean that the concept of love has never alarmed me. I've always been ready for it. I guess I was born ready for it, you could say."

Carol smiled. "That's good to hear. I was afraid that kooky Sandy Bergman had stolen your heart before I got the chance to."

Ross shook his head and chuckled. "No, not her. That wasn't love, not even close. There has only been you. You are my first love."

"Good...I want it that way."

Ross kissed her wispy blond hair. "So do I."

The young lovers leaned on each other and savored the last diminishing breaths of day, captured in the orange soda skies. It was so wonderful to be in love.

Dude. Red bikini. Ten o'clock. There is a God. Check out that body.

Ross vaguely heard these giddy utterances among Connor and the other male lifeguards. They had foregathered around the pool deck to watch a bronzed body of perfection walk as though on a runway, towel and tanning oil in hand. Ross recognized those naturally swiveling hips, and the sight of them had him frozen in his own ice age, unable to move or speak.

"Dude, Ross, it's your girl," said Connor.

It's your girl, Ross, it's your girl...

"Everybody knows who that is," said a lifeguard named Todd. "It's Rachel Green. She's back."

Back from where? Did she leave? How long was she gone?

And now she's back.

He hoped to God there was no one drowning underneath his nose. None of the lifeguards' eyes were on the water that day. Especially not Ross'.

Later that evening he was talking to Monica on the phone.

"To be honest, Rachel and I have sort of drifted apart over the past year. After she dropped out of college I saw her less and less. I do know she ran off to the city with that bimbo Mindy to try and get jobs there. So if you say she's back in Long Island then I guess that must not have worked out very well."

"No I guess not."

"Anyways, that's pretty much the extent of what I know. Now what I've heard is that she and Chip Matthews are getting back together.

"What, really?"

"Yeah. I don't know why she would go back with him though. It always sounded like he treated her pretty badly. But that's just the word on the street."

But Ross tended to stay off the streets and remained deaf to most of the words spoken among the mindless unknowing fools in this town.

"Well, what do you mean? How badly did he treat her? Did he ever hurt her?"

She sighed. "I don't know, Ross. I just...don't know."

Monica didn't find it odd that her brother was asking questions about Rachel, his boyhood obsession. She was however aware of the fact that he had a girlfriend, the one he adamantly pledged his love for when they last spoke. But she decided not to question the underlying substance of this conversation. They were brother and sister, after all. They could talk about anything without needing every rhyme and reason justified.

His end of the line had been silent for several moments. "Are you ok Ross?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. It's just...sad."

She understood what he meant. Her tone of voice softened and matched his. "Yes, I know. It saddens me too...and I miss her. She was...well, she's the best friend I've ever had. But what becomes of us when we go our separate ways? Our paths lead us to different places and we lose touch."

"Your paths can always lead you back together though."

"Yes, that's true...but right now I'm in Brooklyn and Rachel is somewhere else, doing God knows what with her life."

"But couldn't you just call her? Maybe she's at home right now. I mean, couldn't you just--"

"No, Ross. I can't. And I just won't. I'm not going to interject myself into her life. I don't have the energy...and I don't really know how to do it, to be honest. Can you understand that?"

"...Yeah...I understand." Where was this coming from? He was supposed to be riding a blissful cloud to heaven with his new love Carol. He'd been slowly phasing Rachel out of his head over the past few years since high school. He hadn't really noticed until he was so bluntly confronted by her presence today, that yes, it was possible to forget her, to seek beauty in new roses, to find love in other venues.

And it was possible because he'd taken for granted that Rachel would always be there, as Monica's oldest friend. But now what was happening? He didn't want his sister to bid Rachel goodbye and count her out as a constant figure her life. God, that broke his heart. And it downright scared him to death.

He said goodbye to Monica and turned off the lights. He wanted to put this strange and disarming day to bed. His phone rang, and he knew it was Carol calling to say goodnight. He jumped out of bed and ran away from it, into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. Water, water, rinse me clean, make me a new and better man.

A man. That's what he was now. There was no use regressing to boyhood, that was done. He had to move forward. He couldn't go back, not even to the sweet stuff, not to the memories of careless youth, not to the same old faces and the same old places. He returned to his bed and shifted and sweated for hours.

Long Island doesn't love me tonight.

God he shouldn't have come home for the summer. At least that's what he thought then.