Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here. Nor do I own the film You've Got Mail.

Diminished Returns: The theory that as investment in a particular area increases, the rate of profit from that investment, after a certain point, cannot continue to increase if other variables remain at a constant.

"Spill," Rachel demanded once Joey had done his share of the cleaning up and headed over to his own apartment.

Monica put the final dish back on the shelf and folded the tea towel she dried it with in half lengthways before she hung it over the oven handle.

Monica froze. She had hoped that Rachel wouldn't pry. Monica could feel Rachel's eyes boring into the back of her head. She straightened her posture and played dumb. "What?"

"Whatever's going on. Spill it."

Monica could see Rachel's reflection in the window behind the sink. She was standing right behind her at the dining table. One hand propped her up, gripping the back of one of those thrifted chairs Phoebe had helped her find all those years ago. Monica suspected the pose indicated Rachel was prepared to pull the chair out and listen to whatever Monica had to say, sitting for however long it took for her to understand. The other hand was fisted against her hip impatiently.

Monica could feel her teeth clenching and she could hear her mother's voice in her head telling her not to frown or her face would wrinkle with those deep, callous lines. She tried to catch her own reflection in the glass, the dark city in the distance polluted by the light of her kitchen but her face unclear. She had to turn around, or Rachel would know for certain that something was amiss. But she needed to school her expression first.

Monica steeled herself and turned around. "S'nothin'."

Rachel was squinting at her, disbelief clouding her expression and turning it into a frown.

"S'something," she mimicked, pointedly matching Monica's guilty contraction. "What happened today? You were humming while you made breakfast."

"I was not," Monica denied, leaning her lower back against the sink. Although, come to think of it, she had been swaying her hips a little more than usual as she stirred the eggs to scramble them. "We watched Grease last night. Those songs get in your head."

"Hopelesslhy Devoted is a good one," Rachel agreed. "But not the one that gets stuck in your head."

This was good, Monica thought. Rachel and her could debate the involuntary musical imagery of the musical and deviate into conversation about the earworms on the radio. She could drag it out until she could claim tiredness and never tell Rachel about her online friend and how he stood her up. As much as Monica knew she should discuss that rejected feeling that sat like a lump of quick-dry cement in the pit of her stomach, she wasn't ready to share her online friend with the world. He was hers and hers alone, not a luxury you typically got in a tight group of friends, or apartments shared with roommates and energetic neighbours, or brothers who loved to pop-un. She wasn't keeping him a secret on purpose, or from shame, or any of those reasons her father used to tell her secret-keeping was bad, but she was keeping NY1990 to herself because their friendship was precious.

Or it had been.

She wasn't sure where they stood after the fiasco that had been their failed meeting.

Monica was trying to remain positive about it, at least somewhat. For all she knew, he had a reason, a good one, for standing her up.

Her mind just had to convince her heart of that.

Maybe he had replied to her email with a charming explanation and a hint of personal information, never enough for her to know who he was but just a speck for her insides to flutter at like she'd found a nugget of gold in all the dirt of small talk. Just enough for her to tick off another thing she liked about him, another thing that matched the list of things she'd always wanted in a man. Maybe even a witty joke that would make her smile for days and forget this feeling of failure that shadowed her.

Or maybe...

Maybe he'd been offended by her angry message.

Monica bit the inside of her bottom lip and tried to fight down the welling of tears by keeping her eyes wide, gazing up at the roof for a minute. Anything so that her blinking or gravity wouldn't push those tears out from the corners of her eyes.

Something changed in Rachel's demeanour. She completely relaxed, taking the situation far more serious than trying to figure out whatever Monica wasn't telling her. Her hand dropped from her hip with a whispered, "Oh my god, Mon."

There was something about the way Rachel spoke, sympathetic and unsure, and Monica swallowed thickly. Monica shook her head, really needing to steel herself against that lump in her throat and the water in the corner of her eyes at the concern her best friend showed. It was amazing, the dichotomy of how people treated her. One couldn't be bothered to tell her he wasn't showing up to a meeting she was excited for. Another didn't even have confirmation that anything was wrong but she was able to read Monica's body language and try to protect her from her own emotions by giving her space to share them.

"What happened?"

Monica shook her head again. As much as she would have loved to share her tribulations with Rachel, she didn't want to backtrack so far as to explain that she was looking up places to take the group, it was her turn to organise an activity. Well, it was Chandler's and he'd asked her for help. He claimed it was because he was busy with it being end of month and coming up to tax season too, and that he needed help organising things. But that had never been true. Chandler was pretty good at making things fun and spontaneous, but he liked to have a plan. Or an outline, at the least. And while his job was busy, he normally was pretty happy to procrastinate. So Monica expected his request was more to distract her that she'd just lost her job for taking kickbacks, even though it had been an accident.

She'd been looking up museums and someone had asked about the minimum number of participants for tours on the bottom of the website. Monica wasn't all that well versed in how websites worked, but she added a comment to the man's post directing him to the page that had helped her figure out an answer to his same question. They'd gotten to talking, carving out the space at the bottom of the webpage for questions and comments specifically for themselves. Monica was so glad no one had asked them to stop, or interrupted their discussion.

It took about a week of having to log on to the web specifically to see if he had posted anything, sometimes hitting refresh four times a day just so she could see if he had said something funny or smart. She liked talking to him, but she wished she could get a notification of some sort whenever he had said something. Which was why she suggested they email each other.

He'd been the one to suggest they create anonymous email accounts so that she wouldn't know who he was if she was a crazy stalker type. He'd cited a previous bad experience with a woman like that and not wishing to repeat it. It had made her laugh and Monica had agreed. It had taken her a day and a half to settle on a username. She wasn't proud. It had given her horrible high school flashbacks, as though she'd been asked to pick three things to tell him about herself, or asked to create a title page that expressed the subject. She hated doing that but had managed it nonetheless.

She'd taken a similar day and a half to try and suss out what his NY1990 meant.

Monica hadn't figured it out. But she also didn't feel the need to anymore. He was fun to talk to and she got an email whenever he said something to her, normally once every two days.

Monica didn't think Rachel would understand her accidentally running into this man online. Or the need to create a free email account that wasn't her normal, an account she'd only gotten recently anyway, but was more for receiving pamphlets and business and the occasional check-in from her father.

She didn't think Rachel would understand Monica's need to have a voice that was different from her five friends. An outside perspective on things.

Rachel found it so easy meeting people, talking to men, meeting men she liked and who liked her. She was confident and poised and beautiful. She may have been there for her when Monica was growing up as an outcast at school, but she had no idea the sort of hits Monica's self-esteem took when she stood next to the head cheerleader. Monica could feign confidence fairly well but actually feeling it was a whole other department that she wasn't familiar with. The anonymity of the internet, the facelessness of sending emails, worked brilliantly for Monica. She didn't have to be on her best behaviour when it came to cleaning the apartment or trying not to cringe when he folded his jacket over the chair instead of over the coat rack. She didn't have to worry about being bloated or puffy or if she was being too ladylike or not flirty enough, if her dress showed too much or wasn't tight enough.

On top of all that, Monica didn't have to worry about being witty. She didn't get to fumble her words or stutter or lose her train of thought. She could take her time picking the perfect phrases. She could articulate herself exactly the way she always wanted to be able to because she had time to formulate her ideas and type them out.

Despite which, she and NY1990 had devolved from formal friends to casual ones, using phrases like "do you know what I mean?" and "I'm not sure if that makes sense. Does it?" She could write half a sentence and be seventy-five per cent certain that he'd be able to finish it.

Rachel definitely wouldn't understand that.

Monica didn't expect anyone would unless they'd experienced it themselves.

"I'll tell Ross and Chandler you've been crying," Rachel threatened.

"Dear God," Monica stumbled, kicking one of the chairs at the kitchen table in her haste to stop Rachel. The woman hadn't even moved, simply threatened to, and yet she had pushed Monica into action, Monica running around the table with her hands outstretched and frantic. "You cannot tell Chandler I've been crying."

Rachel nodded solemnly. "That'd be like telling Joey one of us was pregnant. He'd go into full protective mode."

"Worse."

"Probably."

"No." Monica shook her head. "He was with me today. He can't know I've been crying."

"You were actually crying?" Rachel's shocked voice indicated that she'd only been half certain of Monica's distress and was otherwise fishing.

Now came the humiliation. That's what possibly hurt the most. Monica had been so invested in this man, this relationship that was only virtual. Only new. And he had so easily broken her heart. She wasn't going to admit to the online half or the part where she admitted she didn't know what he looked like, let alone his name. That was beside the point, anyway. Monica felt like she knew NY1990 personally.

"I had a date."

Rachel blinked at her. "Oh. I didn't know you were with someone."

Monica interrupted her before her friend could continue, exhaling the words. "He stood me up."