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

Monica moved to sit next to Chandler. They had a tendency to sit close together whenever they were comforting each other but she decided he needed some space this evening. He'd just tried to commit himself to Janice and she'd rejected him.

Monica couldn't quite fathom the snippets of information she was getting from Chandler as Rachel ripped the lid off a pint of ice cream, stuck a spoon in the carton and handed it to him.

Monica sat on the arm of the chair he planted himself down in, close but giving him some space. She lay a hand on his shoulder and tried to rub some comfort into him. She'd learnt that move from him. Whenever she was upset and they had company, Chandler could avoid hugging her, although she wasn't sure why, Monica assumed it had something to do with him knowing she didn't like to be vulnerable in front of her brother or even Phoebe, who tended to dismiss her pain as a petty problem and then launch into a diatribe about growing up on the streets. Chandler would touch a hand to the ball of her shoulder, maybe even dropping his fingers to the muscle of her bicep and he'd massage some optimism into her skin. Monica wasn't quite across the way he did it, always managing to make her feel infinitely better with the simple touch, but she figured she'd try the same technique he used.

Monica smoothed his thin t-shirt back and forth and let her fingers trace patterns across his clothed collarbone.

Chandler dropped the back of his head to the highest point of her thigh and Monica tried not to shudder at his warmth. He looked so young and guiltless, like he wasn't sure what he'd done wrong. Monica bit her lip. She didn't have the words to make it better like he would have or the words to get his mind off the problem like Chandler would have, or even a joke to make him smile. So Monica just kept picking at his shirt.

He shuffled his legs under himself.

The back of her hand brushed against his soft earlobe.

Monica watched as the tip of his ears tinged pink and Chandler lifted his head from against her leg. She missed his warmth almost immediately but didn't pull him back to her like she wanted to, didn't slip down from the arm of the chair into his lap to wrap her arms around his waist and let him lay his head against her chest like she wanted to.

Chandler lifted the spoon and dunked it back into the tub of ice cream. He swirled it around dejectedly, repeatedly stabbing the spoon into the frozen food as he explained what had happened between Janice and himself.

He'd put so much effort into planning their date and Monica's blood had run cold when he'd walked into her apartment that night wearing a pair of sweatpants. She hadn't expected him to visit her apartment at all that night, let alone wearing that heartbreaking little frown. Chandler had asked her for her pasta carbonara recipe. He hadn't asked her to make it for him. He had begged her for the recipe card and spent the afternoon making it himself. Monica had been so proud of him around her clenched teeth as she had watched him not set the ingredients out in order of use on his kitchen bench. He'd asked her to taste the meal every so often, but really hadn't needed her help at all.

He had done everything right and Monica couldn't fathom Janice not appreciating his effort. It actually made her quite angry to see the way he had completely deflated after an hour with his girlfriend when he'd been so anxiously jumpy and excited earlier.

"Oh, honey." Monica couldn't help herself from squeezing his shoulder.

"So, I'm not going to lose her?"

Monica's heart dropped into her stomach at the demoralised lilt in his voice. Her cynical neighbour had been coming out of his shell, optimistic for the future he was imagining, even if that was with Janice of all people. He wanted to let the woman know that he wanted her, warts and all, in his life. He had been telling Monica about it all afternoon as he'd prepared their meal. He wasn't quite sure he wanted marriage or a forever with Janice, but he'd wanted to make an effort for her, to let the woman know he was open to a more serious relationship with her and her baby. Chandler was finally certain that committing to his girlfriend wouldn't end in immediate heartbreak and Janice had played into his fears. Sure, he'd been trying too hard with the secret agenda of proving a point to himself as well as her, but Janice had thrown it in his face like she didn't want him, like she didn't know how huge of a gesture he was really making.

Rachel rushed over to them. "Oh, no. You're not a loser."

Monica worked her jaw.

She watched Rachel stroke her hand over Chandler's fluffy hair and work her fingers into the tight column of his neck. Her eyes were drawn to the tan skin that Rachel was turning red with how deeply she was massaging the tissue. Rachel's fingers ran over the back of Chandler's neck, just under his hairline, using her palm to squeeze the muscle on either side of his spine. She crept her fingers along the collar of his white tee, brushing the fabric aside as her fingernails dipped against the nob of his spine. Rachel repeated the movement a couple of times and then rested her hand on the back of his neck, her thumb brushing up into his hair.

Sometimes, Monica hated being Chandler's friend. She could touch him all she wanted to comfort him but she couldn't touch him the way she wanted to. It was a cruel joke of the universe that Monica wanted to stroke her fingers down his hair but she had known him too long and had never done it before. Besides he had a girlfriend and Monica was not her. Not that she wanted to be his girlfriend. It was just that she had been so close to Chandler so so long now, and while they touched all the time, there was something more pointedly intimate about raking his scalp with her fingernails. She hadn't crossed that boundary yet and wasn't about to start when he was vulnerable and coming out of a relationship.

But Rachel, who had Ross and barely ever touched Chandler, never sat with him, never linked her arm with his as they walked through the park together, could touch Chandler's hair all she wanted because she didn't know him all that well. Rachel's touch came from her desire to comfort her brother. But Monica had been his friend for her entire adult life, her touching him when he was vulnerable was charged. It didn't make much sense when Monica thought about it, but she definitely felt it in her chest.

If she were to brush his hair down the back of his head, her fingers would tingle the way they always did when she touched him and he would look at her with those glinting eyes and that little smile. He always did. The lightest touch sent shivers up her spine whenever Monica touched him and it was far stronger whenever Chandler brushed his fingers over her bare skin. Monica made a point of not letting their naked skin touch all that often so that she didn't have to deal with the way her skin would prickle or address what she feared that meant (It happened mostly when she wasn't dating anybody and she attributed whatever it was she felt to loneliness and not anything more). Monica could touch him through his clothes as much as she liked and her heart wouldn't flutter quite as dramatically. Clearly, Rachel and he didn't have the same problem and she figured it was because Rachel didn't see spending time with him as a proper way to spend her Friday nights, didn't shiver whenever he pulled her into his side when they were watching a movie together. Monica was a little jealous of that.

When Rachel's hand touched his bare skin, Chandler didn't look up at her. There was none of that familiarity or flushing read or gazing intensely at each other and Monica thought that maybe he didn't feel the goosebumps when the other woman touched him.

Rachel's hand was still touching the back of Chandler's head but he looked up at Monica, his lips pressed together.

Monica shook her head at him and dropped her hand lower than his shoulder, running her palm up his clothed chest once, twice. He pressed his ear against her thigh again, touching it against her for a beat and then sitting up straight again, not quite shaking Rachel's hand off him but definitely shuffling away from her friend in favour of her.

Chandler picked up the ice cream spoon and looked, lamenting, at the lactose.

It was mean, but Monica liked that Rachel hadn't been able to comfort her friend. In fact, Rachel had made Chandler shove that horrible low-fat soy ice cream into his mouth. Rachel was so incapable of saying the right thing to him and made him look up at Monica for proper comfort.

Rachel tried to backtrack and supply a solution to his problem involving a big gesture and a lie. Monica disagreed with the plan but couldn't offer a better idea herself.

"Janice will come to her senses," Monica added uselessly. perhaps she wasn't as comforting as she thought she was. At least Rachel could give him advice that would spur him into action.

"I don't know," Chandler glanced at Monica again, soft blue eyes imploring, in pain.

"Yes, Chandler," Rachel insisted, her hand caressing across his neck restlessly. "You chase after her, you find her and you let her know you're not running away from her anymore."

Monica watched as Chandler's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. His voice was small and choked when he spoke. "She left because I scared her off. I was too intense. You think I should keep going after her?"

"YES!"

Rachel slapped his shoulder. Chandler jolted in surprise at the action.

Except Monica couldn't help but think Chandler was right. Going after Janice when she'd specifically told him she needed time to think was probably a bad idea. If he specifically went against her wishes, Chandler might lose Janice forever.

Monica didn't particularly like Jance, but Chandler did, and he deserved to be happy. Monica wasn't certain how Janice could make Chandler happy, but she did. They had been on and off for a few years now, mostly off. They'd have a few intense weeks together and then they'd realise they had almost nothing except their separation in common. Janice was separated from her husband and had a baby to look after and Monica half suspected Chandler threw himself headlong into the relationship because it was both a chance to experience what a real family was like and because there wasn't actually a chance it could go anywhere. She hated Janice for not being completely divorced from her husband yet, barely a week separated before she'd bumped into Chandler online, barely a month out of her relationship with Chandler when she'd met and married her husband.

Janice was all big gestures and heartbreak and moving on as if relationships were easy to get over and Chandler deserved better than that, she thought. He deserved someone who would see him for all he was worth, look past his sarcastic facade and the protective distance he put between himself and others, some woman who would listen to his fears and love him anyway, even if he never could recover from the shock and betrayal of the horror show that was his parent's divorce.

Rachel was touching Chandler's cheek now, making him look at her and Monica had lost her chance to dissuade him from doing something stupid. Her eyes followed the way Rachel's finger barely pressed against the man's jaw, she wished she could do it herself, fell that cheek under her fingers and those blue eyes boring into hers without feeling like she was taking advantage of him.

She kept a steady hand on his shoulder, just letting him know she was still there, that she would still be there when Rachel's plan went to hell, that she would comfort him better than anybody else when he needed a shoulder after enacting Rachel's idea of a big romantic gesture that would undoubtedly go wrong.

Maybe not that day, but one day, Monica would dare stroke her hand down his cheek, across his stubble, through his hair and she would comfort Chandler the way she wanted to, rules of friendship be damned.