Sorry it's been so long since I've updated but this story is pretty close to being finished.

A/N: Five months has passed between the last chapter and this.

Monica's heart felt heavy as she knocked on the door in front of her. After months of trying to reconcile with Chandler she had realised something very important. If you had to fight this hard for something it usually meant it wasn't working. She loved Chandler, at the beginning it had been a romantic love. She didn't know if it would have changed naturally or if their problems had eaten away at them until all that was left was this different love. The only kind she could liken it to was the love she felt for her brother. Which probably wasn't going to be a comfort to Chandler. Truth be told it had been her frequent meetings with Richard that had shown her that it was time to give up the ghost. She and Chandler were not going to make it. Whenever she was with Richard things were easy. They just seemed to connect. And as she had spent ever more time musing on the situation she knew without a doubt that had he realised she was never going to have children before she and Richard had ended – well they wouldn't have ended if she'd known. She wasn't stupid, she knew she could have made the situation easier. If she had accepted from the start that the help Chandler needed could not be provided by her then maybe she would have accepted his friendship with Rachel. Maybe it had taken her appearance in their lives to show them that they were not meant to be together. At first the thought that Chandler had fallen in love with her had provoked jealousy, but now it did not. She felt somehow sad that this realisation had not come sooner. Before Joey had fallen in love with her – and though she didn't know Rachel's feelings towards Joey she did feel sure that had Chandler approached her first then they would have made a beautiful couple. Well maybe not beautiful. Not at first, they were too troubled and Monica wasn't naïve enough to believe they would ever be anything close to normal. Maybe that's why they fit together so well. Their tragedies uniting them and so it seemed making them perfect for one another.

"Monica, I didn't think we were meeting until later." She smiled at him and it warmed her heart to see how much better he was beginning to look. If she tried hard and looked deeply she could even see small improvements day by day. He'd told her that as how he was living now, day by day. It seemed to be a tactic that was working for him and she hoped that what she was about to do didn't send him back in any way.

"Can I come in?" He nodded and stepped back to let her into the apartment. She moved inside and flung her coat on the foosball table. "Chandler we need to talk." She instantly regretted those words – they were the universal signal that a break up was about to occur. Either he didn't know the real meaning of them or he didn't care for it provoked no reaction from him. He sat in the barcalounger and she sat on the sofa. He didn't say a word but sat patiently waiting for her to start. "Chandler I love you, but it's not the same anymore. I think marriage would be the wrong step."

"Ok. I don't know what to say. When you came to me and begged for us to make it work – I knew that if you were willing to try so hard then I needed to do the same."

"That was your motivation?" He nodded and she felt slightly wounded – but she shook it off.

"I guess you're not willing to try anymore." She couldn't distinguish what his tone held though she tried.

"It's not that Chandler but we've been trying for almost 5 months now and I see improvements in you – but we are still failing almost as badly as we were then. And this thing has shown me that…that we just seemed to be closer as friends than we have ever been as lovers. I don't think that's right." She paused for a minute wanting him to react, to say something. And yet she didn't want that something to be to disagree. Maybe there was once a time she would have wanted reassuring that she was wrong – that they had made huge improvements, but not anymore. "I always thought a relationship built on friendship would last. Maybe most do, maybe we just both feel in love with the idea of being in love with your best friend. But for us our friendship doesn't translate. I don't know when it happened but at some point I stopped loving as a woman loves a man and it became more of a woman and a friend…or even a girl and her brother." She was thankful when she said those words that it had been so long since they had been together in the biblical sense – it would have seemed somewhat repulsive to say something like that had it been only recently.

"Monica I love you," in the moment's pause he took she felt coldness seep through her body at the idea of what she had just said and what it would do to someone who truly loved you. "But you're right. Our love is better left platonic. You were always Ross' little sister – until London. Somehow over the course of time you've become my little sister too. And I think our relationships chance of survival are about a million times increased if we go back to what we were. Sometimes we choose relationships because they right for us. But we evolve so much that often the evolutionary process – god I sound like Ross," both smiled at the thought and felt bonded by their memories of times like this before becoming lovers and ruining things. "well it just, it evolves so much, we evolve so much that a relationship that was once right for us suddenly isn't what we need anymore. I guess the only relationships that last through everything, through time are the ones who are lucky enough to find a soulmate." Unbidden thoughts of Richard entered her mid and he fond it bizarre that although coming here to break up with Chandler because of realisations from having Richard in her life she had not contemplated being with him again. But Chandler's words brought the thoughts to her mind. Perhaps Richard was her soulmate. Because like Chandler said a relationship with a soulmate will last forever. And she still felt the same pull, the same love and the same spark when she was with him. They still understood each other. "I think it was right for us then – but now we need other things, from other places." She wondered if he was thinking about Rachel, before she knew she was doing it she blurted out her question.

"Is Rachel what you need now?" there would have once been a time when Chandler would have heard those words coming from her lips tinged with jealousy, anger and probably a little sarcasm. But no longer. Those words that had once been so loaded were now just a question – like any other.

"That doesn't really matter does it. She and Joey are happy." She didn't miss the wistful air in his tone.

"Of course it does. Like you said some relationships are what we need at the time and sometimes they are just forever with our soulmates. I don't want to sound harsh or unfair but I don't believe that they are soulmates. I think eventually it will end. When both have gotten what they needed from the relationship and then both will move on, hopefully Joey will find his soulmate – and you will get to be with yours."

"You think she's my soulmate." Monica smiled reassuringly at him. His tone had reminded her of a hopeful little boy.

"Yes I do – I'm sorry I stood in the way of that." He shook his head.

"If it was meant to be, if we are soulmates then it will happen eventually."

"God Chandler, I love you so much." Both stood and embraced, he stroked her hair so softly as she clung to him.

"I love you too Mon."

Monica swung the door of the coffee house open and went inside. The cold air dissipated and she was enveloped in the warm aromatic atmosphere of Central Perk. The conversation with Chandler had actually served to buoy her spirit much more than she had thought it would, in fact much more than anything had in months. In a way she supposed she felt free – though the thought was not alone, it did come accompanied by guilt that she should think that. She joined the queue at the counter and when the final person holding her back from coffee turned to face her she stepped back. She shouldn't find it strange to be face to face with her and yet at this second it appeared to be that she was, even more worrying was how quickly her carefree mood evaporated.

"Hello Monica." There was no coldness in the voice and Monica accepted that she would have deserved it if there had been.

"Hi Rachel, are you busy? If not would you like to join me?" The question seemed a little bizarre in that Rachel was actually there first but she nodded anyway. Rachel disappeared from the line and sat waiting for Monica to come over after purchasing her coffee. Monica sipped at the latte in her hands and gladly sighed in content, she gently pushed the steaming mug round her hands taking the chill from them. As she did so she surveyed the woman opposite her. She remembered back to the girl she had known in high school. Though she admitted an improvement in her, like in Chandler over the months it was obvious to anyone that Rachel Green would never be anything like she had been in high school – on the surface that remark would probably please many of the people they'd been at high school with. However that was not the way it played in Monica's mind. The girl she remembered however shallow or cruel she may have been had oozed confidence. And never again would Rachel ooze confidence. If Monica blocked the prom from her mind and allowed herself to remember the happier times with her once best friend she became immensely sorry for what had become of her. So many things had happened in the years that had passed them by and on some level Monica admitted that she did miss her. She missed having a best friend – a female best friend. Sure she had friends, but the three closest were males and though she had bonded with Ross' wife it just wasn't the same. But she would never regain the friendship she had had with Rachel, not because of any animosity between them but just because it would not be possible. Somehow she could not envisage this new Rachel Green gossiping with her about men. However she accepted that Rachel was once again a part of her life, a part that was looking to becoming a pretty permanent feature. So the same as she had redefined her relationship with Chandler she decided she must with Rachel – though she hadn't imagined it would be all in a days work. "Do you remember when you tried out for head cheerleader against Amy Welsh? I loved the look on her face when you beat her." A small smile graced the lips of the woman opposite her. "As horrible as what happened in high school – at the prom was – it wasn't really much compared with the year of friendship. I never understood why you were friends with me. I mean when we were real young I did kinda – it didn't matter. But in high school you could be cruel to people – and yet you never dropped your fat friend, even though you were the most popular girl in school."

"Monica they weren't my friends. The girls wanted to be me, which I doubt they do anymore and the guys wanted to have me. But we were real friends. Even if in the end I treated you like one of my fake friends." Monica sighed.

"I missed you, at first I was just so angry. But then I missed you. But I've always too proud for my own good and I held out too long, so then you stopped calling. And I never got up the nerve to call you. Rachel you should probably know – I spoke to Chandler earlier. We agreed that it would be better if we were just friends."

"Is he ok?" Monica nodded. She half expected for Rachel to go rushing to him, but she stayed exactly where she was. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok, eventually we both realised that we've been better as friends. I'm glad we realised it now, if we hadn't then there would be the chance that I would lose him from my life which I don't want. I do love him – but more as a friend than anything else."

"Still it must be hard, you were both so important to one another for so long." Monica smiled.

"To him you're far more important than I am and you have been for a long time now. Please don't object. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty or anything. I don't mean it in a negative way. I also don't wish to put any obstacles in your relationship with Joey – I'm just stating a fact."

"Chandler and I are friends – that's all. We're close because we're both overcoming something huge. When he gets better things will be different."

"I would put money on him always feeling the way he feels about you right now."