A/N: Thanks to WendyCR72 for proofreading. Thanks to Ricardian Scholar Clark-Weasley for the stealth-help ;)

If It's Love

Chapter 12

Chandler sat across from Joey at their kitchen counter as they both ate their cereal in silence. The silence just filled the room. His thoughts, though, were so loud that they seemed to drag and drown each other out. These past two weeks, he hadn't been able to find a minute's respite. His temples just throbbed constantly, endlessly.

He glanced at Joey when his friend's spoon clinked against the side of his bowl, but Joey kept his head down and continued eating, looking deep in thought.

Joey had also become silent and reserved these days, as if the anguish that he was undergoing were Joey's own.

His friend gave him the space that he needed but also the companionship in these bleak days that he had come to be grateful for. But he knew that whatever had transpired between him and Monica was now forcing Joey to take sides, which had never been his intention at any point. He knew he was now involuntarily forcing Joey to avoid the other two too.

Well, that would all end very soon. In two more weeks, to be precise. And yet, he still had no idea how to break the news of his moving to Joey.

He shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead as his headache ramped up.

The thought of never seeing her again was just... unimaginable. Whenever he tried to picture what his life would be like in London, his brain just came up with a blank void, as if it were akin to picturing life after death. But he knew that that's what he had to do - he had to get away from anything and everything that reminded him of her. That was the only way he would ever be able to get over her.

Maybe life after death was what this really was, for he certainly didn't feel alive anymore.

"I ran into Ross a couple of days back," Joey said quietly, metal clinking against porcelain again as he dropped his spoon into the bowl, suddenly looking disinterested with his breakfast.

"You did?" His stomach clenched. What would he tell Ross? What would he tell Phoebe? For all his misfortunes in life, he had been fortunate enough to find truly wonderful friends in his adult years. And they didn't deserve any of this. Nobody did. Everything was, after all, his own damned fault.

He had done the one thing that he wasn't supposed to do.

"Yeah," Joey nodded. "He's worried about you."

"Ah..." He breathed at a loss for words. He had been avoiding Ross's calls at work and leaving the apartment door unanswered whenever Phoebe knocked, and every time, the voice in his head never failed to cruelly point out that it was never Monica who called or knocked. "I know, I just..."

"I don't know how long I can keep this up, Chandler," Joey interrupted. "I don't know how long you can keep this up. What are you going to do, never see them again?" He shook his head, frustrated. "Never see her again?"

He couldn't help the wan smile that spread across his lips. That was essentially what he was planning on doing.

"How is that even going to work?"

This was the moment, he knew then. This was when he had to tell Joey the truth. It was too late already, but he wouldn't delay this further. He owed Joey at least that much.

"Joe, there's something I need to tell you."

Joey immediately sensed the tone and looked more alert. "What?"

"A few months ago, my boss called me in and told me there was a new position open that would pay a lot more money."

"Okay..." Joey looked at him uncertainly.

"Back then, I told him I'd think about it." He paused, exhaling slowly. "I uh... I took the job, Joe. A couple of weeks back."

Joey may not be a master of many modalities of intelligence, but he undoubtedly excelled at the emotional kind, and Chandler knew that. This was why it didn't surprise him when Joey just continued to stare at him, his feeling of foreboding evident on his features.

"It's in London." He held his spoon tightly in his fist, waiting for Joey to react. "I leave in two weeks."

After several seconds of discomfiting silence, Joey murmured, "What...? London?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I've earmarked some money for the next three months. It should cover you for rent and utilities," he continued, trying to ignore the look of utter disbelief and hurt on Joey's face. "I think you should put in an ad for a roommate soon. It wouldn't be very hard to find someone good. Until then, you can use the money that I-"

"You think this is about money?" Joey spat out finally, livid. He swiftly stood up from his stool and came over to Chandler's side. "This is not about money, Chandler! This is about- About..." He shrugged, helpless, before looking at him again, his expression desperate and earnest. "Chandler, you are the closest thing I've ever had to a brother, and it's killing me to see you this way." He placed a pleading hand on his best friend's arm. "But I'm begging you, please don't leave. Not like this."

Fate had unrelentingly thrust this man into his life a year ago, and now his friendship with him was his only pillar of strength. The pillar was a mighty one, though. To say that Chandler was profoundly moved by Joey's words would have been an understatement.

"You are like a brother to me, too, Joe," he nodded back without hesitation, feeling momentarily happy. But the despondence came back with vengeance. Don't leave, not like this. He didn't know how else he was supposed to. "But I don't know what else to do. I'm so..." He pressed his fingers against his forehead again, hard. "So lost. I feel..." Tears sprang, and he swallowed painfully. "Hopeless."

"Don't leave," Joey repeated with more conviction. "Look, I don't know why she did... that, because even I can see that she is in love with you-"

"Joey, please." He shook his head, resisting the urge to cover his ears like a child. He cannot hear this, not now. This was hard enough as it was, the last thing he needed was hollow hope.

But Joey persisted. "She is. I never told you this because I know you wouldn't wanna hear it, but the last time I saw her, she was a complete mess, Chandler. She looked even worse than you." He paused for a moment and softly said, "You don't look like that when you've broken up with someone you don't love."

The thought of Monica in pain made his heart ache. But he shook his head again resolutely, refusing to hear what Joey was saying. He had been her closest friend for more than half a decade. Of course, she was a mess. That meant nothing at all in this regard.

"Maybe she is confused," Joey continued, ignoring his friend's protest. "Maybe she is just... scared. I don't know. But Don't. Leave." He looked around the apartment, as if for inspiration, and then turned to Chandler again. "Fight for her, Chandler," he nodded slowly. "Fight for her."

He didn't know what that meant. How was he supposed to fight for her when he didn't have any fight left in himself?

He refused to get sucked back into this vacuum of self-destruction. "I don't think there is any 'fight' left to do here," he shrugged. "She either loves me or she doesn't. I can't force her to love me back."

"What about you?" Joey countered.

"What about me?"

"Can you force yourself to stop loving her? Do you think moving to another country is what's gonna help you with that?"

He didn't know what to say to that. He sure as hell didn't know the answer to that question.

"I don't know," he admitted, defeated, feeling the last ounce of his energy drain from his body. "I hope so."

The only way he could describe the look on Joey's face now was 'sad'. He was doing it already, putting his friends through undeserved pain.

What would she do when she heard? How would she feel? That thought made his heart stop cold.

"Promise me something, Joe," his voice shook as he spoke.

"What?" Joey asked resignedly.

"Promise me you won't tell her about this."

From the way Joey's shoulders dropped, Chandler knew that Joey had expected this particular request from him.

Joey nodded, slow and reluctant, his head hanging low. He looked up at him again after a few seconds. "Chandler, I'm going to say this one last time." He moved forward and held his friend's shoulders. "Don't leave." He tightened his grip. "Don't run."

~.~

Given that this was where he'd ran into Ross the other day, Joey knew he was literally treading dangerous ground as he entered the coffeehouse that evening. He glanced around furtively, screening the place for his friends' presence. To his relief, none of them seemed to be there.

He was not a stress-eater – he was just an eater – but this whole thing between Chandler and Monica had turned him into one. He just felt restless and perpetually hungry. Today was the worst of all.

He didn't know what to make of Chandler's plans to move. He felt like he had the right to feel betrayed, but he just felt sorry and helpless.

God, what a mess, he shook his head. What had these two done to each other? What he wouldn't give to see them both happy again?

When Gunther told him that they had just run out of blueberry muffins – the one thing he had been craving – it felt like a fitting end to this abysmal day.

He turned around, disappointed and ready to leave. "Freaking London, of all places," he muttered to himself bitterly, thinking back to the conversation from the morning. Just as he opened the coffeehouse's door to let himself out, he stopped in his tracks, noticing her.

She was sitting next to the glass at the front of the coffeehouse, alone and facing away from him. "Mon?" he said, letting go of the half-open door and heading to his right.

She startled a little as she turned around to face him. "Joey."

"Hey..." He moved toward her slowly. "How are ya?" He cringed as he asked it since her face made it quite obvious that she'd been in the same hell Chandler had been for the past couple of weeks.

She nodded without words, standing up and coming closer to him. She shuffled from one foot to the other, watching them, and then looked up at him hesitantly. "How is he?"

Joey went through a number of words in his mind for how Chandler was – hurt, broken, crushed, leaving. He eventually just gave a helpless lift of his shoulders. "He is not..." he trailed off, leaving the rest for her to fill in.

Her lower lip trembled, and her nostrils flared with effort. But she nodded again understandingly. She, of all people, understood. She looked away for a long moment before turning back to him, her eyes moist. "I miss him, Joe," she said, her voice too quiet in the too-loud café.

This was his opening, and Joey instantly latched on to it. "Then talk to him, Mon," he stepped forward. "He should be home right now," he pointed in the direction of their building. "Please. Just go talk to him."

She flinched. "He doesn't want to see me. You know that."

"No! I don't! All I know is that you two are being..." his hands flailed as he tried to find the right word, but he gave up after a moment. He just sighed. The Tribbianis were a proud clan. They never pleaded or begged. But Joey did it for the second time that day, setting his pride aside. "I'm begging you. Will you just please talk to him?" When she just stood still without answering him, Joey's frustration snapped. "Can I just ask you one thing? Why, Monica? Why?"

His terse question was quite explicit to her. Why had she broken her own best friend's heart? Why was she still doing it?

Why?

It was a question she asked herself repeatedly these days. Sometimes the answer didn't make sense even to her, she wasn't surprised that it didn't make any sense at all to Chandler.

"He doesn't get it, and I don't expect you to, either, Joey."

Joey heard the distinct note of resignation in her voice but still stood his ground, unwavering. "Try me."

~.~

Once Joey had left the apartment that morning, Chandler had decided to take the day off work, claiming to himself that he needed to plan the logistics of packing and moving all his stuff. But as he'd very well known, he didn't have much by way of material possessions, and the 'planning' barely took thirty minutes. The truth was, he had just felt too listless – a common theme of his life these days – to go to work.

It had been an egregious miscalculation on his part, though. As he laid on his bed, trying to trick his brain into falling asleep, it in turn relentlessly tortured him with hypnagogic hallucinations of waking in her arms. Every time he woke up with a start, he felt as if his bedroom walls were closing in on him, suffocating him.

He had somehow managed to while all the day away in this excruciating limbo when dusk started settling in, which just made his apartment seem even more stifling. He knew he needed to get out.

From the moment he had moved across the hall from Monica, he'd had the luxury of using her balcony whenever he needed some air. Among the many things that he'd lost that night at the beach house, that luxury was one. Now, he had to seek fresh air from other places.

As he stepped out of the apartment building, his cheeks immediately chilled in the cold March evening. He buried his hands into his coat pocket and tugged the coat closer to his body.

He walked until he was standing across the street from Central Perk. He hadn't stepped inside the coffeehouse in two weeks. As he stood there, debating with himself whether heading in there now would be a prudent decision, he saw Joey through the glass window at the front. He appeared to be in conversation with someone, and he flicked his eyes to see who it was.

And that's when he saw her.

A street and a glass between them, she stood there with her back to him. Her dark hair swayed slightly as she shook her head at Joey. Joey moved forward, his hands clasped together imploringly, his face lined with the same vexation he'd had on this morning. He saw her fingers clutch onto the back of her arms as she hugged herself and shook her head again, looking down.

Oh, God.

The very ground beneath his feet felt unsteady. He blindly reached back for the wall behind him, and his back fell against it with a thump. He stood still, watching her, his legs now frozen in place.

Joey stood unmoving for several seconds and then said something to her. He didn't know what it was, but her head snapped up at that. She slowly sank onto the sofa behind her. Joey tentatively moved toward her, both of them remaining still for what felt like hours. He said something to her again, but she sat unmoving like she had been petrified. Joey continued to look at her with a mix of pity and kindness and then just sighed before he bent down to place a gentle, fraternal kiss atop her head. He squeezed her arm and said one last thing before leaving the coffeehouse and heading toward their building.

He didn't know what Joey had told her, he didn't know if Joey had seen him. He didn't care. How could he? How could he care about any of that when he was standing here, looking at her?

She remained seated and still for several seconds before turning her face to look out the window. He stood there, seeing her face for the first time in days. Her eyes unseeing, she gazed ahead at the street before she rested her forehead against the glass, closing her eyes.

He wanted to rush in there and pull her to him and just hold her for eternity. But his feet remained stuck to the ground.

She was as beautiful as ever, but she didn't look full of life, like the Monica that he was accustomed to seeing – not by any sense of that phrase. Joey's words from the morning made sense now – She is a complete mess. He could see that. She was frail and forlorn; a lost child.

Just like him, she wasn't alive.

He could not see her tears from where he was standing, but he knew they were there, for she kept wiping them away with her fingers. She just gave up after a few moments and continued to cry, heedless of her surroundings.

Oh, God.

Not seeing her for one day used to be a rare occurrence in his life. He had gone on to do just that for thirteen days. And with bitter, unthinking naïveté, he was now planning on doing it for the rest of his life.

His knees felt like they were about to buckle and give out. He clutched desperately at the flat wall behind his back, stopping himself from falling to the ground.

What was he doing? What was he doing?

He didn't know anymore. He was fumbling around like a man who had been blinded by his own hurt and anger. He realized now that he had indeed lost sight – of what was important, of what mattered. Of her.

He had been so hell-bent on overcoming his love for her, he hadn't paused for a moment to think about if he ever could, or if he even wanted to.

He had always loved her, one way or the other. It was as natural as breathing, an instinct. And he had foolishly thought that time and distance were going to help him overcome that instinct.

She brought her forearm to the back of the sofa and laid her head on it, obscuring her face to him again.

He knew she loved him, too. Maybe not in the way that he wanted, he didn't know. But he would never question what she felt for him – the tears that she was shedding now were a testament to that.

What would I do without you, Chandler? She used to ask. The question was no longer rhetorical. What would she do with him? What would he do without her?

Why was he running across the globe to a job that he hated to get away from the woman that he loved? The absurdity of his plan made him want to laugh, because he knew he could move eons of time and distance away from her but will still remain entwined with her through aether.

You will always have me - a statement he'd repeated to her several times over the past year, it now stood at the brink of meaninglessness.

He had meant those words each and every time he had uttered them, though. Even when she had been breaking his heart.

He finally realized and understood one simple truth at that moment - There were infinite iterations of love on Earth.

If he couldn't love her the way he wanted to, he would love her any way she would let him, because love didn't need to be reciprocated, it just needed to be unconditional.

Before everything else, he had been her friend. And he will always be that.

Always.

~.~.~

A/N: This used to be my 'Whoa!' fic for reader response. I'm amazed that it still continues to be. Thank you for the extremely kind reviews and for all the author/story favs and follows. They all reminded me of the good ol' days :) I'm humbled and flattered, and honestly, a teeny-tiny bit rattled because there is just SO much pressure on me to deliver now - but that's a good thing :) Well, I hope this chapter did deliver.

We are so close to the end, you guys. Thank you so much for staying with me so far.