Slip
He touches her all the time now. Offering a hand to help her out of her chair, touching her back to check she's okay, standing close beside her. Plus there's all the times he puts a hand to her belly to feel the baby kick. Rachel knows that it's partly "father of the child" stuff to make sure that she and the baby are fine, the sort of thing any decent dad would do. But she likes to think that part of the constant contact is Ross as Ross, wanting to touch her and be near to her. The thrill she gets out of it is definitely because she's Rachel, not because she's the baby's mom.
Finding out about Monica and Chandler three years ago was one heck of a shock, but when Rachel unpicked it, she remembered how often those two had sat squashed beside each other, patted each other on the shoulder, or brushed hands. All the little ways they established contact. They must have known, on some level, that their bodies were supposed to be close ("I know," Monica had told her once, smiling coyly, "I know it seems weird and whatever, but you've got no idea how right it feels,"). Perhaps it was kind of territorial too; Monica marking her property without realising it, even when Janice or Kathy were on the scene.
The thing with Monica and Chandler, though, was that they were friends who grew closer. It was a line from A to B. Rachel reckons that she and Ross have gone from A to J to P to H to W to T to E to M and back again. The line of their relationship has bent and blurred and spiralled. And if Ross is being territorial of her, well, his possessiveness was one of the main reasons they split up. It was ugly on him, but it was also five years ago. They've both changed. Possessiveness is different now they're expecting a child. And if Rachel's truly honest, she'll admit that the baby makes her feel proprietorial over Ross, too. No matter what happens, he'll always be her baby's daddy, her co-parent. Her family. The six of them count as family anyway, but now they've made a baby with each other and will be parents together for the rest of their lives, Rachel will always be more to him. Something Rachel prefers not to dwell on is that Ross Geller is the only man she's ever been in love with. Like Phoebe, Rachel loves crushes and dating and the first intoxicating buzz of allure but her heart's guarded when it comes to seriously falling for somebody. Ross is different. He'll declare himself in love with a glass of water if he's alone with it for long enough. He fell so hard so fast for Emily that he was going to marry her barely three months after they met, and he was gratingly, maddeningly smitten with Julie after only a week in China. He might be falling in love with Mona right now. Rachel knows that it's Ross being Ross- his typical intense, overboard, hopeless romantic self, but she can't help but feel hurt and overlooked. He's the only man whose had ownership of her heart, yet she's one of many who has a hold on his.
Ross is constantly ahead of her too, always able to move on from her before she can move on from him. He wanted her for all of the first year when she was in the City, then got over his feelings lickety-split when Julie appeared. He was dating Bonnie weeks after their break-up and engaged less than a year later. Elizabeth wasn't anything serious, but it was a relationship after their divorce before Rachel had a relationship after their divorce. And he started dating Mona only a few weeks after they made a baby together on that sudden, unexpected, satisfying, cosy, brilliant night which has changed both of their lives forever. The child, at least, will solidify their relationship in some way and firmly put Rachel in a different class of ex-girlfriend. Their relationship won't be Exes Who Are Friends, it'll be Co-Parents. She and Ross be defined by the fact that they were together, even just for that one night. Rachel's satisfied at the thought that now they'll always be more than friends. Even then, though, she won't be the only mother of Ross' child because Carol got there first. Another woman he loved who wasn't Rachel, and Ross' heart broke over Carol in a way which Rachel's never did over Barry.
Rachel doesn't appreciate being in the same category as Carol, but she likes the idea of being on her level, especially as Ross is still physically affectionate with his first ex-wife. They kiss each other hello and goodbye on the cheek, and they wrap Ben in hugs together, a Geller-Willick bundle. The whole gang went to watch Ben play the donkey in his school nativity play last year, and Rachel had spotted Ross and Carol holding hands as their boy lisped his way through Away In A Manger. She'd found the gesture sickly at the time (though perhaps that was more to do with the syrupiness of the nativity play, and at having to pretend that Ben, or any of the class of scruffy seven-year-olds, possessed any kind of musical talent) but now Rachel's glad to know that the touching will continue when their future child is living in the word, not inside her. Will she be less dismissive to school plays and gappy grins once it's her own kid? Oh, whose she kidding, of course she will. Rachel used to roll her eyes at women who droned on like pregnancy made them into a different species, even when it was Pheebs carrying triplets. But now she gets it, and she wants to talk about sore boobs and swollen ankles and when you should switch from breast milk to formula. Which means that it's handy being friends with Phoebe, whose been through it before, and Monica, who was twelve when she decided when her hypothetical babies would switch from breast to formula. Rachel's made a handful friends at pregnancy yoga class, but really all she needs is her girls, the two best friends a person could ask for. Mon's got the happy ending she'd always meticulously planned, and Phoebe's settled in her own strange version of settled.
Actually, before the pregnancy Rachel was settled living with Joey. It was different to living with Monica, and the transition definitely made it feel like Your Twenties Are Over...but living with Joey is like living as a ten-year-old, so Rachel didn't have to feel too much like a grown-up. Perhaps that's why she wanted to keep the baby- did part of her want to finally be an adult? Were Monica's wedding and the relationship with Tag wake-up-calls that she should was ready for the next stage in her personal life? No more drunken Vegas weddings or relationships with 24-year-olds. Though if the baby wasn't Ross', Rachel's sure that the choice to keep it would have seemed different. The fact that the identity of the father is such a factor not her own life and development isn't very feminist or very twenty-first century but, well...it's Ross. The only man Rachel's ever been in love with, and her exception to everything (and come on, they're only a year into the 21st-century...). The guy who can make her knees weak just by laying a hand on her shoulder, and who can cause swoops in her stomach by brushing her finger when he hands her something he's fetched for her. Rachel doesn't want to get back together with him. Not now, not yet. There's too much at stake and far too many complications to even suggest it.
So the least she can do is relish the touching.