Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.

"Hey," Monica called softly as she walked into Chandler's apartment. They'd just come back from another morning at Joey's new apartment, and they wanted to let Chandler know he was doing okay. Monica knew he had been worried about Joey.

Chandler was sitting on his couch, wrapped in his chequered robe. He'd moved the lounge seat back into the centre of the beige apartment to take up some room, but it still felt empty and cold. It didn't suit Chandler at all.

"How is he?" his voice was small, subdued, and he didn't turn to face them as they entered.

Monica touched the back of the couch just by his head. Ross moved to sit in front of his college roommate, and the other girls stood in the space of the kitchen, waiting for instructions.

"Better than he was yesterday, I think," Ross commented sincerely.

Chandler nodded. Monica watched him pull the sleeves of his robe down and over his wrists. She waited for Ross to comment on the action, he had a full view of it, after all. But he didn't. Maybe it was nothing, but Monica had never seen Chandler actively pull his sleeves down. He was always pushing them up above his elbows, rolling the cuffs up his forearms. Whether it was so he could gesture more emphatically or help with grunt work, cold or hot, those sleeves of his were always coming up.

Except today.

"We talked on the phone last night."

Was that really Chandler speaking? He sounded so lost, so vulnerable.

"He was kind of sad this morning when we told him you had started interviewing for a new roommate."

Monica glared at Phoebe. They had agreed to broach the subject lightly, to maybe not mention Joey's mood at all depending on Chandler's.

Chandler tilted his head back to look at Monica, looking for all the world like a little boy with wide blue eyes. She tried not to puff her chest proudly that he looked to her not Ross, but it happened automatically. She deflated a little, but not much, when she saw the dejected twist of his lips. There was none of his usual mischief shining in the coloured rings around his pupils nor a smirk on his lips. He actually appeared quite pale in the colourless light of the apartment, as though he and the walls had grown numb from the loneliness Chandler was feeling.

"If he's sad, you guys should go be with him."

Monica wanted to slap him and bundle him up in her arms at the same time. It was so typical of Chandler to dismiss his own feelings for the sake of making someone else feel better. It was unhealthy but he did it so consistently, Monica had learnt not to question it. Sometimes, she was ashamed to admit, she barely even noticed he was doing it.

"Mon," his gaze was pleading, and her heart broke a little at how he cleared his throat, trying to hide that his voice had cracked. "You go. You always know what to say. And take Phoebe. She gives good hugs."

Monica couldn't fight her smile at the compliment. She dropped her hand from the leather of the lounge and squeezed his shoulder, nodding. She cast a look to her brother and he nodded, understanding her silent message. Monica squeezed Chandler's shoulder again and then walked towards the door. When she got to the kitchen area, she sent a hopeful glance Rachel's way and her friend nodded in confirmation as she passed, "Take care of him, Rach."

"You should have seen him, Monica," Rachel announced when Monica walked back into their apartment after working the dinner shift. "I don't think I've ever seen a man so upset. Not in real life."

Monica hung her coat up on the rack and paused there, not turning to look at Rachel just yet. She rifled through her coat pockets to make sure there was nothing left in them, she knew there wasn't but she needed a second. Monica took a breath and turned, sitting at the dining table opposite Rachel.

"How was he?" she asked redundantly.

Rachel nodded, "Upset. Lonely." And then she said something that made Monica pause. It was insightful and so unlike Rachel who had been, justifiably, more busy with her burgeoning relationship with Ross and her new job as of late to really pay attention to anything else. "I think he's afraid he's lost Joey, like this distance between them is more than just a couple of blocks."

"What did he say exactly?" Monica wanted to know. She linked her fingers together and leant forward onto her elbows, laying her forearms across the table.

Part of her really hated that she had been comforting Joey instead of her best friend, especially knowing that she had left Chandler with Ross and Rachel, who weren't the most tactful people. Plus, Ross had a way of bullet listing important details and not elaborating on what he observed and Rachel, even after knowing him for a year, tended to focus on the words Chandler said instead of the secret meanings behind them. Monica wasn't looking forward to trying to make sense of what those two recounted of their conversation, preparing herself for trying to analyse what Chandler had actually been trying to say from their second-hand accounts.

But comforting Joey had been something Chandler had entrusted her with so she had done it without question. She always did whatever he asked.

"He didn't say much," Rachel started. Monica clenched her teeth. She knew it. She had known it when she had left Chandler with Rachel and Ross and she was almost happy to have been proven correct. Except it meant she had no idea how Chandler was really feeling and how she could make him feel better.

"I sat next to him, and we told him that it didn't look like Joey was coming back, that he looks happy."

Monica lifted her hands from the table and covered her mouth, closing her eyes. "Please tell me you didn't actually say that to him."

Rachel was silent.

Monica shook her head at her clueless friend. "Rachel! How could you say that to him?"

Rachel shrugged. "We told him the truth. It doesn't look like Joey's coming back any time soon."

"He might be," Monica admitted. She had told Joey that Chandler had been fine without him. She'd done it mostly to protect Chandler. If Joey felt sorry for him and started talking to Chandler as though he was moving back in, Chandler would get his hope up and put off finding a new roommate. Not that Chandler needed a roommate, but their building was quite expensive, and he didn't have the benefit of living in a rent-controlled apartment. And, quite selfishly, Monica didn't want him moving. They'd stay in touch even if he did move out of the building; she was almost certain of that. She'd known Chandler for a long time and he'd lived with Ross for a lot of that time. They'd celebrated holidays together and lamented relationships, he was family. They wouldn't lose touch, they couldn't.

But Monica didn't want to risk it by getting his hopes up about Joey coming back. Equally, she didn't want to hurt him by letting him know Joey wasn't moving back.

"What did he say to that?" Please don't let him want to move in with Joey to save their friendship. It was a silly fear, there had been no talk of Joey wanting Chandler to live with him, nor of Chandler wanting to move. But Monica knew how close the boys had become and how Chandler took care of Joey like a brother. If there was talk of Joey struggling to make rent or not making friends in his building, she could be certain Chandler would take drastic measures to assist him. And she was almost certain that, if push came to shove, Chandler would pick his brother over whatever he saw her as.

"He didn't say much."

Monica rolled her eyes and looked at her oldest friend. She had grown up with Rachel, had learnt to trust Rachel against over the past year but her observation skills left something to be desired.

"Rachel," Monica groaned. She wasn't proud of it, but Monica made her voice rise, almost angrily. "What did Chandler say when you told him Joey wasn't coming back? What words did he use exactly?"

Rachel's voice matched the pitch of Monica's, her eyes imploring and her words patronisingly slow. "He didn't say anything, Mon."

Monica made her tone condescending to match Rachel's. "Then how could you know he was upset?"

"His eyes," Rachel explained. "I've never seen anyone's eyes look so sad."

Monica was struck dumb. She knew those eyes. The blue was light and the lashes were long, and they drooped down at the sides. She'd seen him make that expression once or twice when he was trying to get her to do things like not exercise with him. There was something about the way he'd keep his lips tight and not say anything when he looked at her with those eyes that could make her heart clench. Of course, he also pulled the same expression when he knew she was annoyed with him and was trying to apologise without admitting he'd been frustrating on purpose. She always managed to hold out for a little while but ultimately always fell for those beautiful sad eyes.

"He's beautiful when he's sad," Rachel commented.

Monica nodded without registering what her friend had said and then looked up at Rachel abruptly. She swallowed.

"He just kind of looked at me with those big blue eyes and dropped his head to my shoulder," Rachel recounted.

Monica pressed her lips together.

"I don't think he cried. But I just held him against me like that until he felt better. He has really nice hair, did you know? It's so soft."

Monica pressed her eyelids together tightly too. No, she did not know. She knew his hair looked soft and luscious, a rich brown unless he'd spent a couple of days in the summer sun, and then it would turn a golden, almost blonde hue. She knew it looked soft to touch, like it wouldn't tangle even if she threaded her fingers through it roughly. She'd seen him wake up with a rat's nest and simply rake a hand through it to fix it and she'd seen him comb it back for a date. Monica had witnessed his hair, short and long, wet from a recent shower and smelling magnificently of that shampoo he always bought although she'd never been able to pinpoint the exact scent. She'd also sat close enough to him sometimes to smell her own conditioner in his hair when they'd been at the movies or at dinner. Once, when he had been trying to guilt her into making him dinner after she'd accidentally let a plate slip from her hand during a Pictionary game, a plate that had clipped him in the brow, he had rested his head on her shoulder and a delicate curl had fallen onto her cheek. That had been the closest Monica had ever come to touching Chandler Bing's hair.

Monica clenched her teeth together at the idea that he had been resting his head on Rachel's shoulder for comfort and Rachel had been stroking that soft hair at the back of his head trying to cure his hurting heart.

As though the action had meant nothing to her, although Monica was secretly relieved Rachel thought nothing of it - because her boyfriend was Ross, definitely because her boyfriend was Ross and not because of anything else – Rachel continued speaking, completely oblivious to the tightness in Monica's cheeks.

"We're having lunch tomorrow."

"Who?"

"Just me and Chandler," Rachel confirmed. "Our offices aren't too far from each other, and we can meet up for lunch. I figured he shouldn't be alone right now. Not when it's so easy for him not to be."

"That's nice," Monica bit out. It was nice, she had no idea why she was being so hostile. It was a lovely, unselfish thing for Rachel to do for her friend. Rachel, who had a boyfriend and had for a while now, and Chandler, who knew of the boyfriend and also knew considered him to be one of his brothers. And yet Monica's blood sizzled at the idea of the two of them together. Alone.