My Heart Won't Let Me

Description :

Against her better judgment, Rachel decided to give her relationship with Joey a chance, leaving Ross a broken man. Eventually Ross and Rachel. Please R&R.

Disclaimer :The TV Show 'Friends' and all the characters inside it don't belong to me. This goes for the entire chapters.

Chapter I

'Two Lost Souls'

Rachel knew this was wrong.

She knew it was wrong because she felt a huge wave of guilt crashing into her as soon as she laid her eyes on the man laying beside her, naked, and sleeping peacefully under the thin layers of sheets. A small smile plastered on his face – he was happy, the complete opposite of what she felt right now. Her heart clenched and she began to panic, realizing what just happened in this room.

She just had sex with Joey.

She, Rachel Green just had sex with Joey Tribianni - her roommate, her best friend, her ex's best friend.

That realization hit her like a truck, and now she was struggling to keep herself together, refusing to acknowledge what she had just done, what they had just done.

No. This must be wrong. This must be some sort of mistake. This must be a dream or something, because Rachel could've sworn this wasn't supposed to happen. She knew this wasn't supposed to happen, but yet it had happened. She let this happen.

What have I done? What have you done, Rachel?

Having sex with Joey was a huge mistake, she realized that now. It was a mistake because he was Joey. Because he was supposed to be strictly her best friend, a best friend she often considered as her own big brother, a big brother that would do anything to protect her, definitely not the one she was supposed to screw with.

It all seemed like a great idea at first, considering they've been dating for two whole weeks now. The sex hadn't been an easy decision for both of them, they had trouble at crossing this bridge. Kissing came fairly easy for them - they had done that a few times before - but sex, sex was different a thing, it was on another level.

It was very awkward at first, like really awkward. They had asked Monica and Chandler for advice - no matter how embarrassing that was - but it wasn't helpful either. The idea of having Joey's hands roaming around her body, touching her in the most intimate ways, didn't go well with the subconscious part of herself. Her body tensed immediately under his touch, it sent blaring signals all over her head, alerting herself that this was wrong. Joey wasn't supposed to touch her this way. It was wrong, her mind and body tried to alert her.

But of course, she ignored it.

She should've listened to the warnings though. She should've listened to Monica. She shouldn't have encouraged Joey. She should've given up. But, no, she didn't. She power-through. And look what mess she got herself into.

Stupid stupid brain! Stupid stupid hormones! Stupid stupid wine!

She snorted, and couldn't believe herself that she let this happen again. By this point, she should've learned that no great decision was made after finishing the whole bottle of the damn wine. She should've learned from the past.

But again, she couldn't help it, she was in drought for years now. She was still a woman after all, not a stone. It had been a while since she let a man touch her this way and as a woman, she had needs. And her needs were what had gotten the best of her tonight, making a rash decision without even weighing on the consequences. That was why she was here with him right now, laying naked on his bed, regretting every decision she made tonight.

A horny Rachel Green and a bottle of wine was a recipe for disaster, she decided.

It was only now, when her head was cleared and her needs were satisfied, that she realized that this was a mistake. They had just crossed that bridge and all she could think about was how to uncross that bridge. How to undo everything? How to spin back the time to where they were no more than roommates?

She didn't have the answers to all her questions. She didn't even know if she wanted to continue this relationship with him, because only now she had been able to step back, look at everything clearly, and realized how wrong and inappropriate this was.

And then of course, she thought about him. Not the man laying down next to her, but instead, the man who was living in the apartment across the street. The one man that had shared so much history with her - they could write a trilogy if they wanted to. The father of her daughter. The man who was more than capable to bring the best and the worst side of her. The only man she ever loved. The man who somehow she managed to drag into this whole mess, the man she had hurt in the process.

Ross.

She knew he wasn't fine with her relationship with Joey - in spite of everything he had said during the dinner. She knew he was anything but fine. Joey was his best friend after all and she was, well, she was technically her ex-wife and the mother of their daughter. Her relationship with Ross, the bond between them was special. It was complicated. Of course he wasn't fine. She knew all that, yet she had chosen to ignore it.

She might have mistaken her feelings for Joey for love, but at that time she didn't know that, so she ignored Ross' feelings. For once, she allowed herself to think about nothing but her own happiness, she deserved to be happy and she certainly deserved to love again.

She was lonely and Joey was there. Joey was there, saying all the right things, being nothing but thoughtful to her, and giving home to her and Emma. Joey was nothing but caring, kind, and funny. True, he had his own flaws, but Joey was a kind man - a man with a really good heart.

Joey fell in love with her when she was pregnant, what did it tell her?

All her life, Rachel believed that she was beautiful, she knew she was beautiful. Her parents told her so, the boys in her school worshiped the ground she walked, whilst the girls would kill to have a body and a beautiful face like Rachel. Rachel was more than aware of that, she embraced that.

She used to be the center of attention. She was well aware of the stares men gave her every time she passed by. She was used to all that, the staring and all. Her body was what caught men's first attention; she knew that, a lot of men bluntly told her that.

But Joey fell in love with her when she felt like she was too huge to even fit on normal clothes. She felt like she was losing her charm when she was pregnant and she certainly believed that no man in his right mind would agree to go out with a pregnant woman. But she had been wrong, Joey proved that to her.

Joey fell in love with her when she felt nothing but beautiful.

So when Joey told her all the truth about how madly in love with her, when he told her how she loved to watch her sleep, how beautiful he thought she was, that was the last straw.

Joey was a good man, a man who clearly head over heels for her. A man who didn't see her as some sort of a trophy. Joey Tribianni's love for her was pure, and as overwhelming as it seemed, it was also heartwarming.

Giving Joey another chance, pursuing a real relationship with Joey suddenly didn't seem scary anymore. That was why Rachel was very adamant to tell Joey her true feelings, even when the truth was, she was still trying to figure it out by herself.

That moment, it looked like it was that simple, actually. It looked like it was the right decision.

Joey was there and Ross wasn't.

She was done waiting for Ross, she was done being clobbered. She was over thirty now and she couldn't wait for him forever. He made it pretty clear that he wouldn't fight for them anymore when he did nothing to stop her from moving out from his place. So why bother waiting for someone who didn't want to fight hard enough? Why wait for someone who just got himself an attractive and intelligent woman as his new girlfriend?

Ross had apparently moved on, so why couldn't she? Just like him, she too deserved to be happy, right? Just like him, she also deserved to find love, right?

Joey had been constantly on her mind for months now. It all started with a dream, but whenever she saw him in real life, she had these weird fuzzy feelings inside her that made her want him. When her eyes found his lips, all she could think about was to kiss him. When Joey was still with Charlie, she was jealous - she saw red, it actually surprised herself.

The problem was, was that love or was it just a fling? Was she really in love with Joey or was she in love with the idea of him? Was she, by any chance, love the mere idea of Joey as a one attractive guy, who was in love with her when she felt like she was unworthy of a man's love?

She wasn't sure it was love anymore, certainly not after tonight.

Because she was sure when she was in love with someone - when she was in love with Ross - she didn't feel this way. Back when she was in love with Ross, she was happy. She was so freaking happy, even her crappiest day was better because she had him waiting for her by the end of the day. Gunther might gave her a hard time at work, she might be got an earful from her boss for breaking another mug, hell, a customer might as well yelled at her in public, none of that seemed to bother her that much the moment she landed her eyes on him, waiting for her shift to be done - smiling goofily as his chocolate found her blue. He had this look on his eyes every time he saw her, he made her feel like the prettiest woman on earth.

She never felt that happy in her life before.

Their first night together had been such a wonderful and magical experience, something she still remembered down to the details up until now. It had been a rather spontaneous occasion, but somehow ended in a very romantic way, like something you'd only seen in sappy romcom movies. Ross had been called to work that night and he was working so late that they missed their reservation. So as a way to make it up, Ross had brought her into the planetarium. She was a little bit upset at the change of plans, until he placed the rug on the ground, fiddled with the computer, and somehow managed to turn the whole planetarium into a room full of stars.

It was very romantic, and probably way better than the original date they had planned earlier that day. They laid down together, looking across the stars, and when their eyes met at some point, her heart started to beat out of control and just like that, the rest was history.

Ross had it in him, the effect to make her knees go weak, to make her so special just by looking straight into her eyes. To make her feel so wanted, and so loved by the sincerity in his words. He made her feel special.

She remembered waking up next to him for the first time in that museum and all she could think about was him. How she got so lucky and how she was so blind before, when all along he was there the whole time. She looked at his face and all she wanted was a future with him. All she wanted was to wake up by his side for the rest of her life. She touched his face and she wanted to remember every single detail of his features, wondering if he always looked this peaceful in his sleep.

And when he opened his eyes and greeted her that morning, she never felt her stomach flutter this way. Her cheeks warmed, overwhelmed by the love he had showered her through his smile and kisses. His smile was contagious, it triggered a huge smile out of her. For the few seconds as their eyes met for the first time that morning, the whole world just stopped. That was when she was sure, no men would've ever made her feel this way other than Ross Geller. She was falling in love with him, hard and dangerously fast.

Ross brought a tremendous amount of happiness in her life. He made her smile like she hadn't been able to do before. He was like coming up into the fresh air. Waking up next to him had been so right. She always thought that this was it. All the boys she dated before didn't matter anymore because she was done looking. Back then, she was convinced that she had found the one, that he was the one.

Those kinds of feelings were what she had expected to feel after the night she had spent with Joey. She waited and she waited, and those feelings never came. Waking up next to Joey didn't make her think about a future with him. Waking up next to Joey didn't make her so happy. Waking up next to Joey didn't feel like coming up into the fresh air, instead she felt suffocated. Like she couldn't breathe and she had to keep reminding herself to do so.

Waking up to Joey was a mistake.

Instead of feeling warm and fuzzy inside, she felt nauseous. She felt regrets and guilt creeping into her heart. She felt a lot of guilt, she didn't know where to begin.

She had hurt Joey. She led him to believe that they could have a chance. She had given him false hope and she knew Joey's feelings toward her were sincere, and hers wasn't. She felt sick when she thought about how heartbroken he would be if she told him the truth about her true feelings. What would Joey do when she let him know that she didn't want this anymore, that this was a mistake?

Rachel was frustrated with herself.

Hurting Joey clearly wasn't on her mind when she decided to give this relationship a chance. Who was she trying to kid? What was she trying to prove?

This relationship was doomed from the start.

No relationship would last with only one person truly committed to it.

She didn't love Joey, she realized it now, she never could.

Rachel Green only loved one man so far, and deep down she knew who it was. Ross Geller was the only man she was still in love with, and probably forever would be. No matter how hard she tried to forget him, no matter how hard she denied it, she would still love him the same.

She hadn't asked for it. She even hated herself for it. But at the end of the day, she knew she was still in love with Ross, and nothing could've changed that.

Never in her life, Rachel felt so lost before. She had no clue what to do. All she knew was that she just made a mistake. A mistake that was going to hurt the people she cared and loved the most and she wasn't ready to face the consequences yet.

With a heavy sigh, she pulled the thin sheets around her body, crossing the room to stand in front of the man that she was soon going to break his heart, and placed a soft kiss on his temples.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered as tears managed to escape from her teary eyes.

Yes, she made a mistake, but she was determined to fix this. Or at least tried her best to salvage every bit that was left, because she swore she couldn't lose them. She couldn't lose any of her friends.

But for now, the two of them deserved some sleep, he deserved one more day, one more night to be happy just like he was now when his lips curved into a small smile as soon as she placed that kiss on his temple.

With one last look, she left his room and finally broke down.

This whole thing was a huge mess and she didn't know how to fix it.

She didn't know where to begin.

Ross Geller was miserable.

That morning, he woke up with a throbbing headache, so painful - he wished he'd just die. His throat was dry, his whole body ached, and he winced in pain as he tried to drag himself out from his couch. As he saw empty bottles of alcohol laying on the floor, for the umpteenth time that day, he cursed himself. Since when did he let himself become an alcoholic?

He barely recognized himself anymore.

For the past few days following the disastrous dinner he hosted, he locked himself in his own apartment after work, refusing to be with anyone but himself, wanting to wallow in his sorrow and pain, sometimes wishing the pain would eat him alive. He'd refused all the help and concerns directed to him by his sister, friends, and even his girlfriend. He didn't want any of them to see him this way, they'd seen enough, she had seen enough.

His stomach turned as the thought of her entered his mind. He stumbled to the bathroom, cursing on his way as he stubbed his toe on a door frame as he did so, before emptying whatever he had left in his stomach to the toilet. He flushed the toilet down before he slumped against the cold bathroom floor, defeated.

He hated himself for acting the way he did right now, but he couldn't help it. This was the only way he knew how to cope, because since the morning after his dinner fiasco when he saw her with him in the coffee house, cuddling and kissing on the same spot he used to share with her – their spot – his heart couldn't take it anymore.

He didn't know what hurt more. The fact that she moved on, the fact that she was with Joey, his best friend – out of all men out there, or the realization that finally hit him, punching his gut hard in the stomach. The realization that the door that held whatever remaining possibilities of getting back with her was finally closing.

He was convinced that he had lost his battle. He had lost her for good.

He had lost every chances he got for getting back together with her and only then it dawned to him that all these time, he couldn't believe how stupid he was. He couldn't believe he wasted so many chances, so many opportunities to tell her how much he actually loved her. How he still in love with her.

If only he wasn't such a coward, he probably wasn't going to be here, being all sad and miserable. Instead he'd be with her, spending this beautiful sunny day with her and their daughter, going to a park maybe, taking Emma to feed some ducks. He knew Emma would be so happy, knowing how much the little girl loved it there, and if Emma was happy, she'd be happy, and then he'd be happy too. He'd be there, holding her as they watched their daughter together, and maybe then they could plan their future together. Maybe he'd propose, maybe they'd get married and buy a house, maybe they'd plan to have another child, maybe they'd be together until they were old and wrinkly – until death did them apart.

They all could be one happy little family with the white picket fence and everything.

He blamed himself more and more as the thought of it entered his mind.

He should've told her sooner, how much she meant to him. How she was the only woman on this earth that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. How he was sure that she was the love of his life even before they dated.

How he loved everything about her.

How he loved being lost in her beautiful blue eyes, how cute she was whenever she scrunched her nose, how he loved her beautiful smile and that he was glad Emma had the similar smile as she did, how he adored her ability as a mother to their daughter, how brave he thought she was for leaving her old life behind and proved everyone how a wonderful woman she had become. He could go on and on about all those things he loved about her, it'd probably take him days to finish it all.

He loved her so much, even though he knew he should've let her go and let her be happy, even though he knew he should've become the bigger person and walked out, he couldn't.

He couldn't because if he let her go, if he admitted to himself and everyone that this was it for them, he wouldn't know how to breathe anymore. He wouldn't know how to live a life knowing she would never be his again. He wouldn't know how he could move on from her when all these years he had tried his best to, but clearly failed miserably to do so. He wouldn't know how to be himself anymore and it scared him.

It scared him how much influence she had in his life.

He used to be able to function in a life without Rachel Green in it, he had done that in college until he finally divorced Carol. But ever since she came back into his life, ever since they fell in love with each other, ever since Emma was born, he didn't know how to anymore.

She literally took a piece of him and left him empty.

All this time, he tried to pretend to anyone – to her, tried to fool them that he was moving on. At some point, he even fooled himself. He had a girlfriend after all; his beautiful, smart, and intelligent girlfriend, Charlie Wheeler.

The old Ross Geller – the pre-Rachel Ross, would kill to have a girlfriend like Charlie. She was definitely his type, a very attractive woman who shared the same interests in paleontology as he did - which was really hard to find. The smart woman who understood his work and what he did for a living without being lost in translation every time he came up with a conversation regarding his passion in paleontology. She never made fun of his love for dinosaurs, in fact, she was amazed by it. By book, Charlie was the perfect woman for Ross. He was supposed to be happy with her, he was supposed to be in love with her, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't.

He wished he could, but it didn't work that way.

Every time he was with Charlie, all he did was compare her to Rachel. Rachel might not share the same interests with him - hell, in theory they were the exact opposite of each other, but Rachel somehow got him. Rachel found 'the woolly mammoth' thing hilarious whilst Charlie looked at him in a weird way when he showed him his trick with a pair of chopsticks. Rachel always laughed the loudest at his jokes, he'd tried to come up with something new just to hear her laugh.

It felt like every time he was with Rachel, he could let his guard down. He could be who he truly was and she'd never judged him. She was probably the only person on this planet that he trusted the most, if one day he decided to kill someone – not that he intended to – but if he did, she'd be the first person he'd revealed his secret to, because that was how much he knew he could trust her.

Rachel understood him in a way nobody else did, not even his own parents, sister, or even his best friends. Even after their break up, she remained as one of the most important people in her life, next to his children. For that same reason, he couldn't help but to compare every single woman he dated to her, and he found out that every time he did so, no one could've compared to her. No one, Charlie included.

Rachel wasn't perfect, she had her share of flaws, she was only human after all. She could be very stubborn sometimes, which often annoyed Ross. She could be selfish, but who else didn't? She could be hard to read most of the time, but he wasn't the best at communicating either. She wasn't perfect, but for Ross, she was everything.

She was his Rachel.

Rachel might tease him a lot, laughing as their friends made fun of him, but he knew she didn't mean it. She sometimes pretended not to pay attention to what he did, but sometimes he caught her staring at him from the corner of his eyes. She might look nonchalant, but Ross could've sworn every time he was with another woman, there was something in her eyes that always bugged him.

Anger? Longing? Sadness? Jealousy? Or perhaps, love?

Every time he recognized those looks in her eyes, he never let his hope up, afraid of giving himself a false hope only to find out that it was untrue. So, instead of confronting her, he did his best to ignore that look in her eyes and did what they both were best at. Avoiding.

And now he regretted it when it was too late.

Am I too late?

Just when Ross was about to get up to get a glass of water, his phone rang. He groaned before trying his best to get up on his feet and made his way toward the living room. He almost stumbled and fell when another wave of headache hit him and once again he cursed himself for the amount of alcohol he drank last night. He really should get himself back together before Monica sent him to a rehab facility or something.

He checked the caller ID before answering the phone and he sighed when he saw it was no other than his girlfriend who probably already called him more than a dozen times since yesterday's morning. Figuring that he couldn't avoid her any longer, he took a deep breath before he answered the phone.

"Hello?" He answered groggily as he brought his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Thank God, you're not dead!" He winced at the greeting. Definitely not what he had expected, but again, he went MIA for more than twenty four hours, his girlfriend probably thought he was lying dead somewhere in one of the dirty aisles in New York. "I've been trying to reach you since yesterday." She sighed. "Where have you been, Ross?"

"Yeah, I kind of fell asleep last night." He lied. Well, not entirely since he blacked out after a few rounds of alcohol.

She sighed again, frustrated. "You were drinking again, weren't you." It was more like a statement rather than a question and he knew he couldn't lie to her even if he wanted to. She wouldn't believe him anymore at this point, that was how messed up he became.

"Yes." He admitted shamefully.

"Ross." Her voice was small, like she was tired of everything. "I don't know what happened to you, but you have to get yourself together. It feels like I'm losing you. You're avoiding me and-"

"I'm not." He cut her off, feeling defensive all of sudden.

He wasn't really avoiding her, he was avoiding everyone.

"You are." She insisted. "What is this about, Ross? You've been acting weird since that night. Is this about Rachel and Joey?"

He flinched at the mention of their names. Since when did their names bring these effects to him?

He ran his fingers through his dark locks in annoyance, he didn't want to talk about them. Not yet. He wasn't ready.

"Can we please not talk about it?" He asked in annoyance, harsher than he intended to but he couldn't care less at this point.

"Okay." She muttered softly. "Well, are we still up for tonight?"

"What's tonight?"

She let out another sigh. "Our date, Ross. If I may add, you're the one who initiated it." She sounded so mad, it actually made Ross feel guiltier. She didn't deserve to be treated this way. He was becoming the asshole he used to hate. "You know what? Never mind. We don't have to go out tonight."

"No!" He said, perhaps a little too loud. "No, I promised to take you and I will." His voice softened. "I'll pick you up at seven?"

"Okay."

"Okay." He echoed. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah." She murmured. "Just make sure you won't be late, okay?"

"Okay." He smiled a little, silently promising himself to at least treat her better. She was his girlfriend after all, he needed to stop being a jackass before he drove her away. "I promise."

He placed the phone down before he glanced at the clock.

11 a.m.

He was grateful it was Saturday so he didn't have to work. He forgot when was the last time he woke up this late. He let his eyes travel through his living room and for the first time today he realized how messy his apartment was.

If Monica was here, she'd killed me for letting the apartment to look like a scene from a murder case. He thought.

He sighed as he picked up a trash bag and started to gather the empty liquor bottles lying on the floor.

He really needed to get himself back together, he realized. He couldn't raise his children this way. He got to suck it up like a man and stop wallowing over her.

She's happy. She's happy with him, don't you see?

You have to let her go, Ross. You have to, for her.

She deserves to be happy.

He repeated those words like a mantra, hoping if he repeated it enough somehow he'd finally believed in it. He continued to do just that as he cleaned the apartment, swallowing all his feelings and the pain it caused him.

Let her go.

She's happy.

Let her go.

A/N

Hello everyone and welcome to my new story, 'My Heart Won't Let Me'!

The concept of this story was delivered by one of the readers and I've been thinking about it for a while now. I read a lot of Ross and Rachel's story, but rarely found the one that included Joey in their love triangle, so I decided to go on with the concept and tried to come up with something. As mentioned above, the story is set up in early season 10.

I'm in a mood to write something angst, so here it is. I hope you're enjoying it and see you guys soon!