Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.
"Rach? Are you ready yet?" Chandler barged into the apartment wearing a pair of khaki slacks and a soft-looking black sweater, shouting.
Monica looked up from her cereal bowl in surprise. "Morning."
"Morning," Chandler nodded at her. "Is Rachel ready yet?"
"She's changing in Joey's room," Monica told him.
Chandler leant his elbows across the kitchen island, taking the paper from in front of her and sliding it across the bench to where she couldn't read it comfortably anymore. "You know, this apartment is yours now, those rooms are yours. Not mine and Joe's."
Monica glowered at him. It had been a little over a week since she had ripped up the carpets and cleaned apartment 19 into something habitable. But the walls were not the purple ones of her home no matter how inviting she had made the rooms.
"What are you and Rachel doing today?" She asked him, snatching the paper back and smoothing it out in front of her.
"Retail therapy," he explained with a smile, tapping his fingers along the headline she was looking down at. "She wants to make sure I'm over Kathy. Want to come with us?"
"You are feeling better about things being over with Kathy, though?" Monica asked.
Chandler hummed. He was smiling more this morning than he had the last couple of days and he was dressing well again, even though it was the weekend and he could wear a pair of sweatpants if he wanted to.
"Oh yeah," he grinned wolfishly at her. "Girls are much better at working through the stages than men."
He pulled the paper back towards himself, twisting it and flipping through the pages to read a few lines from the business section. Monica finished the last few bites of her cereal, watching him closely. He definitely did seem happier than he had since the relationship had burnt out. She squinted at him. Actually, his lips were tilting upwards and his hair was back to being soft and shiny, dark again after all the time he'd spent in the sun over the summer. Chandler had also put some weight on his bones since the spring, his sweater fitting him nicely instead of swallowing him like his clothes had done when he'd dropped all that weight after the funk he'd fallen into after Janice had cheated on him and Ross and Rachel had broken up a few scant weeks later. It was as though his whole body was professing to the world how healthy he was.
"I mean," Chandler's blue eyes flicked up at her. "You lot should never go back to a strip club, that wasn't nearly as fun to experience as it should have been. But you got me through the stages quicker than Ross and Joey ever have. Thanks for that, by the way."
Monica pressed her lips together and nodded at him. He was welcome. Of course he was welcome. Of anyone she knew, Chandler deserved better than the mistreatment he received from the women he dated. He somehow managed to consistently find the most emotionally unavailable women in New York City and throw himself into intense relationships with them. Except Chandler was never the one to end it with those women, possibly because he hated confrontation although it was more likely that he didn't see, or didn't care, about the mistreatment he received from them. He was all in until whoever she was decided he wasn't enough anymore.
It was ridiculous, the way he settled for women who didn't understand what he wanted or what he deserved. Monica had observed it happen time and time again. Chandler liked strong women because he figured they'd be tolerant of his intensity too. He liked women who could fill in his silences and be serious with him, who wouldn't want or make big gestures and instead bask in quieter domestic moments they could keep private between them. Monica knew it because he'd told her how both of his parents had been huge fans of romantic gestures, the bigger the emptier, he had explained sardonically. His mother constantly wrote books about the parallels between erotic relationships and jealousy, drama and brief relationships. If she got him in the right mood, two glasses of red wine in his system, alone, Chandler could talk for hours about how relationships were meant to be quiet and hard work and sometimes she'd even get to hear about his dreams of the future. One where he quit his job and found a woman who would appreciate him when he wasn't cracking jokes and try to make him smile when he was upset and, if she was really lucky, Chandler might even tell her about the two-storey house in the suburbs he wanted to live in.
Only he hadn't found a single relationship that got him close to those dreams as of yet.
Chandler would be too intense for Janice, bare his warts and his scars to Ginger, and ask for the kind of commitment Kathy wasn't ready for, freaking out that she denied him when she told him it was too soon for them to be so serious about being exclusive. Janice and Joanna were the only women he'd gathered his shreds of self-respect and self-care with and dared to end things in search of something more meaningful. With Janice, Chandler had wanted to find something more real and less of the fantastical kind of relationship with big gestures and years of being on and off that she had valued. And with Joanna, Chandler had wanted to be treated like an equal and told her as much despite the promise of kinky sex.
Not only was he looking physically fit and healthy, but Chandler was growing into a socially, emotionally, mentally healthy man who was tan and tall to boot. Now, if only he would stop sounding out a drumroll whenever there was a silence after he'd made a joke, then he'd be quite an attractive man.
"So retail therapy, huh?" Monica watched him read the paper, dropping her spoon into her empty bowl with a clang. he dropped the paper to the countertop at the sound and his blue eyes met hers.
"Honestly, I think it's more for her than it is for me," Chandler admitted, swaying back and forth on his forearms. He shifted his feet, Monica hear his shoes squeak against the linoleum and then rocked forward again.
"You and her have been spending a lot of time together lately," Monica stood from her stool and lifted her bowl fr the counter. It had been some time ago that she had fought with Rachel about how much time she was spending with their neighbour but the thought still made her itch underneath the skin of her wrists.
Monica gave him a wide berth as she rounded the counter to place her bowl in the sink. His shoes made another noise against the floor, rubber against plastic sounding out as Chandler turned his body to face her. "We have a lot in common."
Monica stayed still at the sink. She nodded. She had always thought as much, even more so now that the Green's had divorced and made a mess of their attempt to be civil as they split their assets.
"I know she thinks she's taking me out to make me feel better," Chandler didn't sound as though he was offended she wasn't making eye contact with him as he spoke, although Monica knew from experience how he liked to gauge people's reactions and subtle facial expressions as he spoke. "Somehow taking me window shopping for a new wardrobe being her way of making sure I prove to the world Kathy and I are over. But I think I'm going to be the one doing the comforting today."
Monica turned around at that, leaning her lower back against the lip of the granite benchtop. "What do you mean?"
Chandler's shoulders lifted Inna shrug. "We'll probably end up getting hair cuts or manicures or something."
Monica furrowed her brows.
"Mindy's pregnant," Chandler's voice was low, whispered.
Monica's stomach dropped. Mindy the best friend that Rachel's ex-fiance had married instead of her. Mindy the airhead who had the doctor husband and the skyrise apartment and was basically living Rachel's dream, or the life she used to dream about. Meanwhile, Rachel hadn't had a stable relationship except for the months she had shared with Ross. But even that hadn't lasted long enough for them to hit any of those milestones.
"I figure we'd do whatever she wants today, just get her mind off it all for a little while."
"How did I not know this?" Monica asked, squinting up at Chandler. That was twice now Monica hadn't been on the inside track of the information concerning the group. Was she oblivious because she was busy with her new job or were they leaving her out on purpose?
"Well, you know how depressed you get when people you know have a baby," his voice was gentle and he took a step toward her so their whispered voices wouldn't carry. He ducked his head slightly so the two of them could see eye to eye. "Rachel probably didn't want you to feel bad too. You're welcome to come with us."
Monica shook her head, "No. It's Saturday, I have to work early this afternoon."
"All the more reason for you to come," Chandler pressed on, stepping forward with a wide, sweeping gesture. "You'd get a bit of a break and, more importantly, I'd have a buffer."
Monica looked up at him. She was still wearing her pyjamas, only a pair of socks on her feet and she had to crane her neck quite a ways to meet his eyes. Sometimes, especially standing next to Ross and Phoebe, Monica forgot how tall Chandler actually was. He dwarfed her when they stood side by side, barefoot, and, with the exception of that period last year when he'd been so thin she hadn't even known how to broach the subject of his weight, feeling presumptuous and pushy when she considered serving him Joey sized helpings of pasta and lasagna instead of those salad sandwiches he seemed to prefer, he always appeared so broad and solid.
"What do you need a buffer for?" She asked him with a giggle. "You're normally the buffer."
Chandler gasped comically but nodded, "That's fair. It's just, I tend to always say the wrong thing when you girls need comfort. I can try on clothes and carry bags with the best of them but I always flounder over the right words to say. You don't."
Monica felt her face flush and she looked down at where her socked toes were almost touching his shoe covered ones. When had they moved so close to each other? And where on earth did Chandler get the idea that he wasn't any good at giving soothing, comforting words when he needed to?
"And if we have a time limit like needing to get you back for work," Chandler continued. "Then we might finish up quicker. You know?"
Monica snorted. "I'd finish quicker. Rachel would pull you in for another three hours of blisters."
Chandler chuckled, nodding, his eyes remaining clothes for an extra moment. "I'll make sure she knows you're here if she needs you."
"Thanks," she nodded at him. "And if you do end up getting a manicure, get french tips, not a colour."
"Of course," Chandler laughed bodily at that. Rachel exited the bedroom and waves in their direction, letting them know she'd be another minute as she moved to the bathroom to apply her make-up for the day.
"Hey," Monica tapped his arm to get his attention. "When did you find out about Mindy?"
"A week ago, two," he shrugged and then proceeded to let her know he had found out at one of those lunches he and Rachel would go on.
And then that piercing feeling in her throat, the twisting in her belly, was back. And it only intensified as Chandler sent her a wave as he held the door open for Rachel as they left to spend the day together, leaving Monica alone in the apartment she hated with nothing left to stress clean.