I don't think we get a choice in who we fall for. I think we just do.


I cock my head toward the bedroom. "Will you come with me, please?"

"Ooo, I want to come, too," Phoebe exclaims, so I just shrug and stand in the doorway, waiting.

Rachel stands slowly, dragging her feet toward the bedroom like a little kid about to be dressed down by her mother. Phoebe, on the other hand, damn near skips over, looking giddy to be a part of this. Rachel gives her a strange look as I close the door behind us.

"Why are you here?" Rachel asks, though I can tell by the way she keeps glancing at me that she's just stalling.

"I thought it'd be a fun way for us to bond," Phoebe answers, sitting on the bed. She runs her hands over the quilt and gives me a nod of approval.

I lean against the door, crossing my arms over my chest. "All right. Tell me. What's your problem with Chandler?"

"I don't have a problem with Chandler," she answers defensively, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. "You just talk about him incessantly, and it's old."

I gape at her, shocked. "No, I don't."

"God, Monica, every time I see you, it's 'Chandler this' and 'Chandler that.' He's all you ever want to talk about."

"That is absolutely not true! We hardly see each other anymore—"

"And when we do, he's all you talk about," she retorts, putting her hands on her hips.

"And when we do see each other, and when the topic of boyfriends comes up in conversation, you cut me off every time I try to tell you about him."

"Oh, I do not." She waves her hand at me dismissively and I clench my fists as I mentally count to ten.

"Oh, you do, too. I'm in this amazing relationship, but my best friend doesn't want to hear anything about it! It's been this way for months. First, you gave me shit about spending time with him—"

"Well, it was like we never saw each other anymore."

"Oh, I see. So, I'm not supposed to spend time with my boyfriend, but it's okay for you to completely abandon me every time you date a guy for a couple of weeks? I'm supposed to be fine with you blowing me off at the last minute any time your latest guy wants to go on a date, but it's not okay for me spend time with Chandler?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, that's sure as hell what it sounds like! And I've always been there for you with all of your relationships—every first date, every romantic gesture, the breakups, all of it, even when it included my own brother. But I try to tell you about something amazing that my boyfriend has done and you roll your eyes, you scoff, you mumble under your breath, you walk away—" She shakes her head and turns, heading over to the mirror over the dresser. "See! You're doing it now!"

She pauses for a few moments before she turns back to me, her face carefully blank. "Well, then by all means, talk about your boyfriend."

I sigh in frustration, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. "That's not what I meant, Rachel. You're my best friend, and I haven't been able to talk to you about any of the incredible things that have been happening to me."

"You know where I live."

I glance over at Phoebe, whose eyes are wide as she watches us like a tennis match, but she says nothing. "Why are you being like this? What did Chandler ever do to you? What did I ever do to you? I've always been there for you; I've always been happy for you when you're in a relationship. I've always listened to you every time you fell in and out of love with some guy but now…it's like you're a completely different person. I didn't even get to tell you about the first time we—" I pause, trying to be mindful of the crowd of guys in the other room. "The first time Chandler and I were together. We have always told each other about it, but every time I tried to corner you so we could spend some time together, you were too busy."

"Geez, Mon, I think you're exaggerating just a little—"

"Did you know that I'm in love with him?" I blurt out. "I mean really in love with him. The forever kind. I love him so much that it actually hurts." She opens her mouth to respond but I cut her off. "For the first time in my life, I'm happy. And, you know, I didn't realize that I wasn't happy before. I thought I was fine, and I suppose if I'd never met Chandler, I would be fine, but…he makes me come alive. I've never felt anything like this before."

Rachel looks stunned for close to a full minute before finally speaking. "I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't know that! That's my whole point! If you'd bothered to listen to me once in a while, you would know that. This has been killing me. You're my best friend and you won't listen to me talk about my boyfriend and it's killing me. I thought you would be happy for me. I thought you'd be happy that I'm happy because that's what best friends do."

She takes a few steps closer, putting her hand lightly on my arm. "I am happy that you're happy."

"Don't give me that crap," I answer, jerking my arm away from her. "If this is you happy, then I'd hate to see you pissed off." I sit down on the bed and bury my face in my hands for a few moments; Phoebe rubs my back consolingly while I try to compose myself. "Chandler is amazing," I finally say. I look up, surprised to see Rachel standing so close. She doesn't say a word, so I keep going. "He's absolutely incredible. He's the sweetest guy you'll ever meet. He's patient and caring and such a wonderful father. God, Rachel, you've never seen another person love his kid as much as Chandler loves Katie. And he loves me. Sometimes, I have no idea why he does, but he loves me. He puts up with all of my crazy, he likes to be around me even when I don't even want to be around myself. Rachel, for months I've wanted to tell my best friend that I've found the guy that I can see myself marrying, but you haven't been around. I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him—" My voice catches in my throat and I feel tears fill my eyes. "—And that's scary and huge and so important and I couldn't tell you any of it because you didn't want to listen to me. I've always listened to you talk for hours about Ross, and even recently, too. I listened to you tell me about how you got back together and the things he was doing to annoy you, the things that made you happy, all of it. For hours, Rachel, and not for the first time. But I never once interrupted you to add in a story about Chandler. Remember that day?"

Rachel nods slowly—of course she remembers that day. I forced myself out of my little cocoon and got together with her, cell phones off, one Saturday. I had thought it was going to be great, that we could talk to each other about our lives and relationships. It wasn't long after the first time Chandler and I made love and I was nearly bursting at the seams to tell her everything. "I do," she whispers, looking anywhere but at me.

"Then you remember how, after something like two hours of you talking uninterrupted about my brother—which is always weird for me, mind you, but I listen anyway—I got to talk about Chandler for about five minutes before you started flipping through magazines." Rachel's face turns red, her expression ashamed. "Then you turned on your phone and you called Ross while I was in the middle of talking to you. Do you have any idea of how much that hurt me? Is it any wonder that I haven't put forth much effort to spend time with you since then? This whole thing with Chandler and Katie…it's the most exciting thing to ever happen to me, and I needed to be able to tell my best friend about it. But I couldn't." I look over at Phoebe and give her a small, watery smile. "I've been lucky, though, because I met Phoebe, who is a really great friend."

She reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. "So are you," she answers. This isn't the first time she's heard most of this. Phoebe and I started spending time together not long after we met at her wedding, and it turns out that she was right when she said she thought we were going to be good friends. It didn't take long, either. She's very easy to talk to, and we have no problem chattering on for hours as if we've known each other for years instead of a couple of months. But talking about our relationships eventually bled into talking about Rachel, which led to me crying on Phoebe's shoulder one day about how much I miss my friend.

"Monica," Rachel says, sitting down on the bed next to me and taking my other hand. "Do you want to know why I haven't been able to listen to you talk about Chandler?"

"Yes, please! I would love to hear this." Actually, the fact that she's finally admitting to her behavior is surprising.

"Because I knew I'd lost you."

I stare at her, puzzled. "What?"

"The first time you came home and told me you'd met someone, I knew you were gone. No one stares at their jacket for five minutes after meeting someone they only sort of like." I chuckle a little, remembering Rachel pulling me out of my trance all those months ago. "But I knew it then that Chandler was going to be it for you. I think I let myself deny it for a couple of months, but the first time he came looking for you—and he had Katie with him—the way you looked at the two of them and the way he stared at you, and how it felt like everything disappeared around you, I knew that it was just going to be a matter of time before I lost you for good."

"You're not going to lose me, Rache."

"But it's not going to be the same, either, is it? I wanted to get over myself, too, and I really thought I could but…remember your parents anniversary party?" I nod, dumbfounded. "I thought that you'd given me the perfect segue to be your best friend again, you know? I thought we'd get together and all that stuff, but…then I saw you two dance."

"Huh?" I manage to squeak. "What does the two of us dancing have to do with anything?"

She laughs a little, shaking her head. "There's no way to describe it. Not really. It was you two were in your own little bubble, like the world around you completely faded away. It was like watching something out of a movie. The way you stared at each other, the way you moved in perfect sync…I was so happy for you, but so sad for myself at the same time. I know everyone has to grow up at some point, but I hated the thought of losing my best friend."

"So your answer was to make me feel like I didn't matter to you?"

"I never said it was rational," she answers defensively. "It's not like I was trying to break the two of you up or something. I just distanced myself, and hearing about how happy you are with Chandler just made me sadder so…I stopped listening."

"Why would you do that?" I ask in a whisper. "Don't you want me to be happy?"

"Of course I do! You deserve to be happy. I—I—I'm a horrible person, okay? Part of me kept hoping that you'd break up and we could go back to the way things have always been." I actually feel myself recoil from her before she grabs at my hand again. "I know it's terrible, but part of me just hoped we'd always be in the same boat, you know? It's not like Ross and I are the most stable couple in the world. I don't know if we'll ever get married. Hell, I don't know if we'll last through the week half the time. I jump in and out of relationships all the time, and you did, too, and it was nice that we had that together. We had our crappy first dates and early relationship excitement and post-breakup blues and we always, always had each other. We had our place we'd go back to and we knew we could always count on that, and I wanted to know that we'd always have that.

"I know that makes me an awful person, and I feel terrible for letting the thought ever cross my mind. I feel like the worst friend in the world. I just didn't know you were going to find the one and be in this super-grown up relationship and move in with him and his daughter—"

"I haven't moved in with him," I interrupt, and both Rachel and Phoebe give me looks of disbelief.

"Well, you certainly don't live in our apartment. When was the last time you were even there?"

I realize that I have no idea. Aside from being aware that autumn is coming and I'm going to need my warmer clothes soon, I can't give Rachel an answer, so I just shrug.

"There are actual cobwebs in your room, Mon." I cringe at that thought. "I've put all of my shoes in your closet and you had no idea because it's not really your closet anymore. This is your home now." She sweeps her arm around, gesturing to the room around us. "This is where you live. Your stuff is here. Your boyfriend is here. No—your family is here. And I'm really, really happy for you because no one deserves this more than you. You're the best person I've ever known and you're so lucky that you've found this amazing guy that loves you as much as he does." Her eyes fill with tears and she sniffles, trying not to let the dam break. "I just really miss my best friend," she whispers.

I reach out and grab her, pulling her into a hug. Her arms snake around my waist and squeeze, both of us crying into each other's shoulders. "You haven't lost me," I whisper. "You'll never lose me. We just have to work on figuring out a new dynamic, that's all. I may not be home as much—" She snorts in disbelief and I correct myself. "Fine—I may not live there anymore, but that doesn't mean we can't still be there for each other. You can come over here if you want. We can meet up places and do things like we've always done. Those things just might include a one year old from time to time. Is that okay?"

"Of course it is," she whispers. "I love you, Mon. I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," I answer.

"Don't apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for."

I nod and we sniffle for a few moments, and it's so nice to have Rachel back.

"Guys," Phoebe says; I'd almost forgotten she was there. "I know this doesn't involve me, but can I get in on this hug?"

I hold one of my arms out behind me and she wraps her arms around the both of us, squeezing. I smile a little, and I'm sure that Phoebe and Rachel will wind up being friends, too, before it's all over.

"It's really nice to meet you, Phoebe," Rachel mumbles into my shoulder and the three of us laugh.

"Nice to meet you, too, Rachel," she answers, squeezing all of us for a moment before we let go.

"So," Rachel says, dabbing at her face, "you can see yourself marrying Chandler?"

I laugh a little, grabbing a few tissues off the nightstand and distributing them. "I might have thought about it once or twice."

"Once or twice a day?" she asks, giving my hand another squeeze.

"Oh, at least," I sniffle.

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"Oh, God, no," I exclaim. "There's nothing worse than someone desperate. I don't want to bring it up if it's not something he's thinking about."

"He's thinking about it," Phoebe answers, and my head whips to her.

"He is?" I ask in a whisper. "Did…did he say something to you?"

"What? When would he—oh! Oh, of course not, no." Phoebe waves her hand, dismissing the question.

Rachel and I look at each other in confusion. "Then how could you possibly know that he's thinking about it?"

"His aura has wedding bells all over the place."

I bite the inside of my cheek to hold in my laughter. "I didn't know auras could have things like wedding bells."

"Well, not literally," she answers with a roll of her eyes. "Auras have colors, obviously, but he has all kinds of marriage colors. It's all sparkly and shiny."

I expect Rachel to find it more unbelievable than I do, but she slaps my leg. "See? You should totally talk to him about it! It's not desperate to talk about it at all, but if he's thinking about it, too, then why not?"

I shake my head and stand up, walking over to the mirror to see how red my eyes are. "It's not as easy as all that, Rache. If we were just a couple of people, maybe I could talk myself into it, but with Katie...everything's different. He has to consider all the possibilities. If we got married, I wouldn't just be marrying him, I'd be marrying both of them, and that's a big step."

"But…you're living together," she says, sounding confused. "I mean—"

"Okay, I know that's what it looks like, but we're not actually living together. I haven't moved in here, I don't get my mail here, we don't split the bills, none of that boring stuff that comes along with it. Yes, I realize that a lot of my clothes are here, as well as a few personal items, and I know that I haven't spent a night away from him in months, but we're not officially living together. It's not something he's asked me to do, and I would think that part would come long before a marriage proposal."

"Well, what's the difference?" Phoebe asks, coming over to the mirror, too.

"The difference is," I say, turning to lean against the bureau while Phoebe inspects herself, "that we technically have an escape route right now. Technically, if we get in a fight or something, I can always go back to my apartment. It's not something that I've ever done, but I suppose we both know, at least in the back of our minds, that we have that safety net. If we go right to marriage without at least testing the waters for a little while first, if we don't have the option of taking a break from each other for a night if we need to, I think it could be terrible for us. I've had enough panic moments as it is, and those have been over things significantly smaller than marriage. I know that I'd wildly overreact to something stupid and probably ruin everything for us." I sigh, running my fingers through my hair absently. "Besides, I don't want him to feel like I'm angling for a marriage proposal, because I'm not. Yes—I would love to marry him. He's the love of my life, of course I want to marry him someday. The keyword, though, is someday. I don't want to rush things, I don't want him to feel pressured into something he's not ready for, and I don't want him to think that I'm putting up some sort of ultimatum. I just want to be with him. I suppose knowing that marriage is something he wants with me at some point would be nice, but I'm okay with waiting to find out. I can handle it."

"I couldn't," Rachel answers. "I know I couldn't. If I were in the same place as you are right now, I'd need to know. But you've always been stronger than me, Mon."

"I don't know that I'm stronger," I answer with a shrug. "I just think I can deal with the possibility of it happening one day better than knowing definitively that it's off the table."

"Do you really think that Chandler would say that he doesn't want to marry you one day?" Phoebe asks incredulously, and I just shrug again.

"I don't know. I'd like to hope that's not the case, but like I said…I could very easily ruin everything with another freak out. Even if he didn't take marriage off the table, I'd probably do a nice job of removing it on my own." I feel my pocket vibrate and I jump, having forgotten that I even had my phone on me. I pull it out, seeing a text notification lighting up the screen. Chandler.

Did you guys leave?

I grin at the phone and Rachel says, "Oh, God. That's him." I look up, but this time her expression is teasing. "You've only ever looked at your phone like that because of one person, and that's Chandler."

Before I can answer, my phone vibrates again.

I'm absolutely dying out here.

It buzzes again and I chuckle to myself.

Seriously, I can't host a party on my own. PLEASE get out here.

"Chandler needs help," I tell them, tapping out Be right there as I talk. "I think I left him out there on his own for too long."

Before I can move to the door, Rachel has her arms around me again, squeezing. "I'm sorry I let it get as bad as I did," she whispers. "I really am happy for you—you know that, right?"

I hug her back, nodding. "Thanks, Rache." We pull apart and I open the bedroom door, ushering everyone out. I almost expect pandemonium, but everything looks calm. The poker game from earlier has wound down, leaving the guys just hanging around the kitchen table, chatting. Social situations tend to freak out Chandler, though, so I'm not surprised he was feeling overwhelmed. The only reason he agreed to getting everyone together here was because I promised that I would do the bulk of the actual hosting. Sequestering myself in our bedroom with Phoebe and Rachel would definitely be considered shirking my responsibilities.

Chandler grins at me as we make our way back to the living room. Joey has Katie on his lap, keeping her entertained. Phoebe heads over to Mike, ruffling his hair playfully. I lean against the wall and sigh happily. Rachel nudges me with her shoulder. "The love of your life, huh?"

"Definitely," I answer, watching everyone laugh at something Chandler says. "The two of them."

"Dada," Katie says, holding out her arms. As one, everyone around her says, "Awwwwww."

"That's so cute," Phoebe exclaims. "Do it again, Katie."

"She's not a party trick, Pheebs," Chandler answers, rolling his eyes. "She talks when she's good and ready, and not a moment before."

"Does she say anything else?" Mike asks, putting his arm around Phoebe's waist as she stands next to him.

"Not really." Chandler pulls Katie into his arms, bopping her around a bit. "We know she understands a lot, and she does her fair share of communicating with us, in her own way. She has a couple of noises that could almost be words, but she's only thirteen months. According to her doctor and all the literature, she's right where she needs to be."

"It's not easy when there's only one of them," Ross adds, smiling at the baby. "My son's an only child and it was really easy to cater to him. We got him into a couple of play groups, though, and that helped."

Phoebe holds her hands out for Katie and Chandler passes her off. "The daycare at work doesn't take anyone under a year old, so we just got her in there. She seems to like it okay, but she's probably going to be bringing home all those gross little kid viruses any day now."

"Ma says she misses her," Joey pipes up, bowl of potato chips parked directly in front of him. "Anytime you want her to watch her majesty, she said she'd be happy to."

"Thanks, Joe," Chandler answers. "We'll keep that in mind. I like knowing she's downstairs from me during the day, though, you know? So if something were to happen, I wouldn't have to try to get out to Queens in a panic."

Katie whines a little, and Phoebe swings her back and forth gently.

"Chandler says 'we' an awful lot," Rachel says to me quietly.

"What?" I ask, watching as Katie holds one arm out to Chandler.

"When he's talking about things to do with his daughter. You know; like we got her into daycare."

"Does he?" I answer distractedly as Chandler takes a step back, trying to force himself not to grab for Katie. "I hadn't noticed."

Katie whines a little louder, her face crumpling a bit, and I feel my heart break. "Why won't he hold her?" Rachel asks, probably able to feel the tension coming off of me in waves.

"We're trying not to give into her demands all the time. She gets her way most of the time, like it's her fault, right? She's a baby. If she cries, someone holds her, if she points, we fetch. We're just trying to give it some time in between the start of the complaining before we comfort her. It's mostly so she can begin to learn that she can't get everything that she wants the moment she wants it, but it's also to help us try to learn when something is urgent, or when she's just cranky."

"How's it going?"

Chandler looks at me and cringes, and I know this is killing him. "It's torture. It's hard not to respond to every noise she makes, and it's even worse when she's looking right at you, crying." I look back to Katie, whose face is still scrunched up as Phoebe takes her a few paces out of the kitchen, hoping to distract her. "Of course, there are times like right now where she looks like she's crying, but really she's faking it. It can turn into tears sometimes, but other times we can distract her and she'll be fine." I check my phone, giving us another minute at best before one of us swoops in. "It's getting late for her, plus there's been a lot going on all day. She's probably just tired."

Katie sees me, her arms reaching out as her face turns red, big tears spilling down her cheeks. Before I can make a move, her little voice rings out.

"Mama!"

I freeze. Aside from the baby's sobbing, the entire apartment is silent.

My heart starts to jackhammer. She couldn't possibly have said what it sounds like she said…could she?

"Mama!" No—that is indeed what she said. Katie's second word, in front of all these people, is "Mama." She stretches out to me, her tears and distress genuine, and I feel all eyes on me as I walk over to Phoebe, Katie nearly throwing herself out of her aunt's arms and into mine. She buries her face in my neck and grabs my hair, her breath hitching as she cries.

I look up at Chandler; his eyes are as wide as saucers, but other than that his face reveals nothing.

I have no idea what to say—how does one even begin to respond to something like this? Rubbing Katie's back as I try to soothe her, I turn away from the rest of the room and, as quickly as possible, disappear into Katie's nursery.


*A/N…that last part, with Katie calling Monica "Mama?" Yeah, that was part of the original story idea, too. More than one of you have mentioned that you wanted this to happen, and all I could do was bite my tongue because I knew it was already happening. And don't worry—I won't leave this dangling out there. There'll be a resolution to this moment in their lives.

I should have written this last night, when I had thoughts, instead of waiting until the morning. Instead, I'm up early after having been on vacation for more than a week (vacation in my living room—I know how to have an exciting life, right?) and I'm pouting because I have to go to work in the dark. All I really want to say is don't be a dick. I mean that as a life philosophy for myself, too. But don't treat people or talk to people in a way that you wouldn't want to be treated yourself. You know how sometimes some creepy guy hits on you, then gets mad and calls you a bitch when you turn him down? Kind of like that. Like in my previous A/N, if you were in my place, would you be into someone mean-spiritedly telling you the things they don't like about your work? Probably not. So, essentially, think before you speak, but in all aspects of life. I'm sure that's still offensive to some, but I kind of feel like I have the right to stand up for myself.

Anyway, I'm hoping I can get this story finished before January. I haven't written in probably two weeks, which is weird. I'm sure inspiration will strike at work, just when it shouldn't.