AN: This story's going to be wrapping up pretty soon.
Honestly, I never expected it to ever be this long.
Forgive me if I dragged this out.
Enjoy!
He remembered the way he used to play, whether it be with his toy dinosaurs or with coloring books of dinosaurs. He never played with the other children, since they were boring and didn't like the same things that he did, even his sister. But when Rachel would come over and say hi, he'd stutter and blush. She was way too pretty, why would she even talk to him?
It gave him a funny feeling.
And when he watched Monica do girly stuff with Rachel, like barbies, Ross still wished that he could be there too, even though in the dozens of times they invited him to play, he was too afraid to say yes. He wanted to be alone with Rachel, but he didn't at the same time. What would he even say to her? What would she think of him? These questions popped up like acne, and would crush all of his imaginary advances. Instead, from elementary school to high school, he watched her grow, his interest becoming infatuation, and his infatuation becoming an obsession.
However, when Ross met Will, things began to change. He also liked science, and they would often talk about many things related to science all day, every day. As they became friends, Rachel became all but lost to him, becoming a crush that he would glance at only a couple times a day. She became more attached to other people, the popular people, the people of which Ross hated because they were shallow and mean. But his new-found distraction in Will proved to be just that: A distraction. Ross still loved Rachel, more than ever. No matter how much he tried to deny his feelings, he could not. Perhaps the only thing he was good at doing was not letting his love for her influence anything else in his life. This turned out to be quite successful, as he managed to get his doctorate and obtain a well paying job, along with a beautiful wife, of whom he loved more than anything.
But there, in his heart, stood a little fragment that would always be reserved for Rachel.
It would not begin it's comeback until Carol left him. But when it did, it was swift and painful, reminding him of what could have been, if he had asked Rachel out the hundreds of times he could have, but was too scared of what she would do or think. It lingered inside of him, since that was really the only woman he could say that he loved. When Chandler or Monica tried to set him up, he would never feel the same way with any woman like he did with Rachel.
Then came that fateful day in September of 1994.
She was so beautiful. As beautiful as he could remember. It had been years since he had seen that creamy angelic face, where not even the purest drops of water dare touch; they were busy soaking her hair and wedding dress. Seeing her was quite a shock, but it was more than welcome in the darkness of his life. Every word they said to each other, and every time their eyes met, Ross felt like he was home again.
Two-and-a-half years ago.
That was two-and-a-half years ago.
And now, he here was, with the very object of his dreams, the one thing he placed on a marble pedestal in the highest peak of Mount Olympia. He had her, and yet it didn't feel like he had her, as if none of this was real, somehow. It was as if he didn't cherish their moments enough. Is that really true? Did he take her for granted?
No, that was impossible.
He loved her, more than anything.
So, he sat in this room of his own design, reflecting on his life, as if he had all the time in the world. In reality, he did. He couldn't tell if he was dreaming, or just thinking; after being on so many painkillers, the difference becomes obscure enough so that one would just accept the fact that nothing may be real, and everything may be an illusion. Ross, being an academic, questioned many things. Mostly about science, but about other things as well. It didn't occur to him until that night that there will always be always be problems that will never be solved.
What is love?
It took another two weeks of hell for Ross to figure out that head-scratcher.
There was no definition. It is the one who sees it in its true form who can truly define it; it is up to the individual to decide what their meaning of love is. To each his own, and Ross had, without a doubt, known what it was for years.
He needed her.
He needed Rachel, to come and sweep him away.
Tightly, he shut his eyes, waiting for her. She appeared in his dreams a million times over, safeguarding him from the darkest place of all: His own mind. Images began to appear, of them, holding, kissing, and loving. Each second would bring him warmth, and when she got closer, she spoke with the voice of a child.
Daddy?
Daddy...
Ross had awoken, shooting up in his bed, to the voice of his son, calling him. The darkened ceiling tiles above him shook and twisted violently as his eyes regained focus, awakening from his incubus. Why did this have to happen? Since that night, every time something or someone was starting to look better, it took a turn for the worse, without so much as looking back to the damage it had previously caused.
A never-ending nightmare, wandering through the thin fabric of reality.
Why, when something like this happened, his lover, his angel, would be so far away?
When he recovered from the shock, he pictured Rachel, hoping to fall back to sleep in peace. She would have been sleeping on her side, her left arm drooping over the side of the bed, and her right comfortably tucked under her pillow. Her skin would be so soft, having just been moisturized before she crawled into her bed. The teddy bear that she kept at her side (whose name was now forgotten to Ross) would always keep her warm when he couldn't. She'd be breathing, loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to be snoring.
So beautiful.
It hadn't occurred to him that she was not sleeping; she was wide awake, having cereal in Joey's apartment. Phoebe had insisted that they go over the plan right before sleeping, so that it would be freshly ingrained in their minds when they woke up.
After Rachel and Phoebe had left the hospital, they came back home, in order to revise their strategy and to make any last-minute changes, before going over it one last time. In order to do this, they had to wake up Joey, who was apparently having a terrible nightmare. Out of fear of his safety, they shook him awake, just in time to see him grin so widely he could resist the jaws of life.
Quietly, as to not disturb Chandler and/or Monica, they went over the plan. Rachel tried her best to pay attention, but, like usual, there was only one thing on her mind: Ross. Ross, her knight in shining armor, her soldier in plain sight, her Popeye.
She sat, a bowl of cereal in front of her, with Phoebe's voice becoming higher and higher, crunching her thoughts between her words.
Lazily, she put another spoon of Trix in her mouth, chomping to the rhythm of the Brady Bunch theme song. As Phoebe rambled on and on about her blueprint for love, Rachel simply stared off into space, thinking about their discovery earlier today. How desperately she wanted to see Ben right now, just to make sure he was safe and secure. To look into his eyes, and see Ross. His legacy. His successor. The boy who would make a woman the luckiest woman in the world.
After her, of course.
Again, memories of her and Ross galloped through her mind.
She was so stupid. The first time she had rejected him - the list - bit her the hardest. Even though Rachel had said that she never would have made a list of her own if she were in his shoes, she didn't understand until almost a year later on why he made it.
He cared.
He cared about Julie, and he didn't want to hurt her.
Regardless of his ever-returning feelings, Ross still wanted to do the right thing, and that included staying with his girlfriend at the time. She didn't deserve to be left in the dust like that, after coming all the way back from China to be with Ross. Even if she lived in New York, it was like leaving her and yet knowing that she was behind him the entire time. It must've hurt. Then, like an exclamation point on a bad day, Rachel abandoned him too, leaving him alone, again, despite the sacrifices he made for her.
And she still had feelings for him.
But, like Monica and Chandler at this point in time, she was too damn stubborn to swallow her pride.
So, they lost several months of what could have been the start of their relationship. No matter what Ross did to try and get her back, Rachel would not budge. Why? She asked herself that every morning, when she woke up in his guarding embrace. She suffered through weeks of loneliness for absolutely no good reason, since the best thing she could have wanted was right in front of her.
However, when she began to regret the unchangeable past, Rachel simply remembered that they were together now; that was what truly mattered. In the end, they realized that there were more important things in a relationship than petty problems.
That was why Rachel decided not to bring up Chloe.
Her mind began assaulting her heart, and while the siege seemed to take a turn for the worse, love prevailed, sword held high upon it's shining white steed. No good would come from talking to him about it. Eventually, it sunk in, letting the doubt wholly consume her. It went away, and she finally accepted that the past was the past, and you can't change the past. You also can't let the past influence the future.
That's all she needed to keep telling herself.
As Phoebe clapped her hands together to signify the climax of her scheme, Rachel snapped from her reverie, almost spilling what was left of her cereal on the counter. This time, however, it wasn't Monica's apartment; it was Joey's, so spills and stains were commonplace. Looking next to her, she witnessed him fighting to stay awake, while Phoebe chastised him at the same time, somehow ignoring the fact that Rachel had stared at the ceiling for half an hour.
"Got it?" She pointed at the both of them, her eyes widened at Joey, hoping that every step of the plan would be branded into their brains, so that they'd remember it if they dug it inside a time capsule and opened it two-hundred years later, even though they would be long dead by then.
The both of them nodded, and Joey groaned, immediately dropping his head onto the counter, falling asleep in seconds. Rachel, on the other hand, staggered getting up, before stumbling across the hall with tunnel-vision to crash onto her couch, thoroughly exhausted. No matter how much she insisted, Phoebe bossed her into not sleeping with Ross tonight; they absolutely, without question, had to go over the plan. They had to be there, half-awake, being told something they already knew.
But those were the breaks.
It had to be done if they wanted their friends to be happy. It had to be done if they wanted the blossoms of passion to bloom between Monica and Chandler, giving them the everlasting connection that Ross and Rachel held so dearly to their hearts.
It had to be done.
It will be done.
So, the following morning, Rachel popped her head into her roommates bedroom. The fresh aroma of new sheets filled her senses, which immediately brightened up her day. On the bed, Monica was busy painting her toenails, something she rarely did until Rachel came along.
"Mon?"
"Hm?"
"We're going to visit Ross. Let's go." Rachel slowly walked over to her friend, placing her hand on her shoulder nudging her to get up. This was the most vital step of the plan, as it required careful precision, unlike the next, more brutish step.
"Wait. I don't wanna go." Monica pulled away.
"But honey," She went over to sit on the edge of the bed, placing her hand on Monica's arm, lovingly, in order to gently coerce her. "He asked for you to come. He misses you." He didn't outright ask for her, but, again, it was all part of the plan. Besides, Rachel knew in her heart that Ross really did want to see his sister.
"Really?"
"Yes. Really."
"...Alright. Just let me dress up." In defeat, Monica stood up, her toes dry, and began dressing up as Rachel left the room. She grinned a wicked grin, having completed her part. Now, it was up to Joey and Phoebe, across the hall, to fulfill their end of the bargain.
"I got nothin'." He walked out of the dark bedroom, slapping his hips, having gotten absolutely nowhere. Joey tried his best to convince Chandler that Ross wanted to see him, much like Rachel had done with Monica. However, he was much too bull-headed to comply, and simply laid in bed, face buried into his flat and dirty pillow.
Phoebe, disgruntled, barged into the room, and flipped Chandler over to his back with her near-superhuman strength, and, while noticing the dark bags under his weary and bloodshot eyes, shoved the sweet-smelling rag into his face. Before he could realize it, he blacked out, and felt his body being tossed up over someone's shoulder.
"Sorry, buddy, but this is for your own good."
Although Ross barely paid attention to anything but Rachel yesterday, he knew that what he was about to do could compromise the entire plan. Nonetheless, he needed to do it if he wanted his increasingly growing paranoia to subside. As he picked up the phone on his bedside table, he dialed the numbers, almost forgetting a couple digits until he remembered that beepers were officially becoming out-of-style. Nervously, he placed the phone to his ears, as the dialing tone taunted him with images of the two things that were most important to him.
"Hello?" The sweet-sounding voice on the other end calmed him for a second, as he was glad that it wasn't someone else, someone whom he often butted heads with over the most trivial matters. As his lungs filled with the air of relief, his heart shook as he uttered in a hushed tone.
"I-I need to see my son."
