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.

Il Ne Reviendra Pas, Allez!: Depend upon it, he will not return!

Chandler sighed. His friend got a bad rap as being unintelligent, but his emotional quotient was almost as high as Monica's. At least, it was when it came to his friends. It's what made him such a good actor in a drama. He wasn't about to grow up and mature into the sort of adult who wanted marriage and children of his own any time soon, much preferring short trysts to something serious, but he was more caring than almost anyone Chandler knew. That wasn't going away any time soon.

What Chandler couldn't figure out was how Joey got to Monica so quickly. Sure, he'd been frantic on the phone yesterday, begging Joey not to even hint that Chandler hadn't been at work. But he definitely hadn't told him any names. He'd never even divulged a private anecdote with Joey except that he was crazy about the woman he'd never met, she ticked all his boxes.

How had he resolved to believe, rightly so, that Chandler's online mystery woman was his best friend?

Chandler didn't ask. He wasn't ready to deal with the how and who of finding out about his mystery woman just yet. He didn't want to think about Monica knowing it was him and politely rejecting him because he wasn't the mature, stoic man she'd always dreamt of, but just the average bloke trying to figure out his place in the world, struggling with money and relationships just like everyone else.

He didn't want to know Monica hadn't even considered it was him she was looking for when he walked in. That she still hadn't put two and two together. That he was great as her best friend but not enough.

Never enough.

So he started at the beginning.

"We met in a chatroom. Completely anonymously," he provided with a wave of his hand before Joey could ask how he'd missed that her name was available for him to ascertain. "She was funny and smart and responsive. So I made one of those new free email accounts with an anonymous username, that way if she ended up being like Janice-"

"A stalker," Joey nodded.

Chandler shook his head. Janice was a lot of things. She was a lot. Period. But she wasn't a stalker or malicious in any way. Annoying, loud, and bossy in the worst way because she never compromised. The kind of nasal narcissism that was easy to make fun of behind her back, easy to complain about. But she was smart and kind and generous. Her real flaw was that she was obsessed with "movie love," kind of like Monica but with a far higher detachment from reality. She wanted to fall in love so badly but had no experience in it. None of them did, that wasn't a crime. It was how hard she pushed for it, pushed in the wrong places, that was her problem.

"Overly eager," Chandler corrected with a dark lilt to his voice. Janice was annoying and deserved most of the minor teasing, but they hadn't seen her in a while and Chandler had felt something for her once. Not quite amorous romance, but affectionately nonetheless. "It was safer that way. For the both of us. She wouldn't be afraid I was a serial killer or something if I never asked for her details or real email. You know the rest."

"What was her email?" Joey asked.

Chandler flinched. He wasn't going to give Joey that. Not that he would, but Chandler didn't want Joey emailing that account. He had a horrible flash of Joey impersonating him to arrange another meeting, or emailing Monica from his own fake-named account to give her a piece of his mind in defence of Chandler. Chandler couldn't think of anything worse.

His friend must had sensed Chandler's hesitation. "I won't email her or anything."

Chandler needed him to swear it.

Joey laughed at his seriousness. At least he had the decency to try to bite down his smile. "If I wanted to talk to Monica, I'd talk to Monica."

"I didn't know it was her, Joe." Chandler found himself cracking a smile. It was a crazy coincidence that even with the whole wide world at his disposal online he'd connected with the woman next door. Not made a new friend, but fallen for an existing one.

"What did you think her name was?" Joey insisted.

Chandler pushed around the crumbled pancake around his plate, pushing the crumbs through the silver tines as he flattened the fork against the food. "Just to clarify," he started. "I didn't think it was her actual name. But it's what I referred to her as."

"And that was?"

"ChefGirl20."

"I'm sorry," Joey interrupted him. There was a smirk in his voice and it made Chandler look up, finally meeting his friend's eyes. "ChefGirl? Her name was ChefGirl?"

Joey was breathless with disbelief and Chandler glowered at him.

"She's a chef," Joey gestured wildly in the direction of the door and Chandler's laptop which sat on the lid of the Foosball table. For a brief moment, Chandler was distracted by the movement. Is that how he looked when he spoke with his hands? What was everyone talking about? It didn't look that ridiculous. "She's a girl. She lives in apartment 20. How did you not get that it was Monica?"

Chandler shrugged. "I just didn't."

"Oh god. What's your handle?" Joey asked, still cackling but controlling it a little.

Chandler closed his eyes. He didn't open them.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Joey laughed knowingly.

He dropped his head, resigned to Joey's contagious chuckle. It was a bad email. "NY1990."

Joey was silent for a moment, which was more alarming than his uproarious laughter earlier. "Your address?!"

"Yeah," Chandler nodded, relinquishing himself to the teasing.

"It's just your address!" Chandler recognised Joey's disbelieving laugh as the one that wasn't going away any time soon. In fact, this was exactly the sort of joke Joey would bring up long into the future as something to humble Chandler, an embarrassing story that cropped up constantly. "And Monica's is just a description of herself. God, you two are dumb."

Chandler couldn't help himself. Joey was pretty good at distracting him with laughter, whether he did it accidentally or on purpose, Chandler was feeling a little lighter about the whole thing. In hindsight, both of their usernames were blatantly obvious and it was pretty funny that neither of them had picked up on it, especially when they purported to know everything about each other.

"Maybe non-fiction might be the way to go if I end up quitting my job and taking up writing," Chandler laughed a little. "I might not be as creative as I think I am."

"Or stick to cartoons like you wanted to," Joey offered. "In the New Yorker. Or sit-coms." Then Joey snickered, shaking his head. "But maybe not dramas or crime procedurals. NY1990."

Chandler laughed softly, considering what Joey had said. His friend was right, situational comedies were very popular a couple of years ago. They weren't as ubiquitous as they had been last year, just a couple of sequential series still going strong, procedurals were all the rage now. But in a few years, when Chandler had finally scrounged up the courage to leave his job, maybe they'd be back in popularity. "Sit-coms aren't a bad idea, Joey."

"I could talk to the writers on Days," Joey pursed his lips. "I haven't before but I'm sure I could talk to them. Get them to give you a job in the room maybe."

That might have been the best thing Chandler had heard all week, that he had options. He found himself sitting straighter, smiling at Joey. He had no idea what writing for television entailed, and writing a book had always been Chandler's dream, but he was good in a team. He had been part of a few different workplace units over the years and had even run a couple of different groups too. Being on a writing team wasn't the dream but it might actually be the job he was working towards.

He shook his head. That was wishful thinking. He had a stable job, a salary that meant he could save part of his paycheck for a future date. He couldn't give that up. Writing was a pipedream for a reason, it was a silly, frivolous idea that would never come to fruition. The only way it would, would be if he took a handout from his mother, something Chandler swore he would never do. He swore that if he ever did it, he'd make his name of his own volition, from his own skill.

"Thank you. But no thank you," Chandler would have pat Joey on the shoulder if he could reach him. His friend always went above and beyond the call of friendship. He didn't have money, not reliably, not that Chandler would take it. But he was generous in other ways, constantly trying to be a good wingman, always encouraging everyone.

Thankfully, Joey didn't question his pride or accuse him of self-sabotage like his mother did when she decided to act like a mother and not like a sorority girl.

"So how'd you end up figuring it out?" Joey asked.

"I met her for lunch," Chandler explained simply. "I thought I was meeting ChefGirl but Monica was there."

"Rose on the table as promised?"

"Yup," Chandler muttered.

"That's a good thing," Joey encouraged with a flick of his hand towards Chandler's forearm. "I gave you crap about the rose thing. But she liked it. That's good."

"Yeah." It didn't feel good. It felt like a slap in the face that the one woman he thought might actually like him, did. But only when she didn't know who he was. "How'd you figure it out."

"Monica said she saw you yesterday," Joey explained. "But the only place you went was on your date. It wasn't hard to put it together."

"Well," Chandler pressed his lips together and made a face, arching his brows in resignation. "There you go."

Chandler pushed his palms against the counter and almost stood up when Joey's excited shout stopped him.

"Oh my God! This is perfect. You and Monica!"

Chandler's eyes darted round the apartment worriedly and he shushed Joey.

"I mean," his tirade paused, but only so Joey could inhale deeply. "Obviously the two of you need to take a minute to decide where you want to go with this, its a lot to risk. But you're going to do it. You are right? You've always had a crush on her and you were totally smitten with her online."

Joey was right. It was a lot to lose. He just had the direction wrong. Chandler was going to lose the woman he loved and his best friend in one fell swoop. Of course, Joey was overestimating and oversimplifying things, Chandler's crush on Monica had been mild at best, and it came and went like a cloud. But, if Joey could see it, the others in their tight-knit group probably could too. Or suspect it, at least.

"Shush," he ushered. He insisted a little harsher the next time he said it, gritting his teeth. "Shut up, Joey.

But his best friend couldn't hear him. "Aw. You and Monica. You might even be able to get her to calm down about the order of the mugs."

"No, the mug ordering calms her," Chandler defended. "There's nothing wrong with it.

"See," Joey gestured openly, beaming at him. "You'd be so cute together."

"No." Chandler felt his shoulders slump. "I walked in and she asked me to leave. Said she was waiting for Prince Charming. Apparently I don't fit the bill."

Joey's expression fell, as though a shadow had passed over his face. It was nice to know that despite the gut-wrenching failure, he could talk to Joey about it. His voice was an agonised whisper. "She asked you to leave?"

Chandler nodded dejectedly.

"What are you going to do?" he asked from across the kitchen counter.

Candler knew exactly how to deal with it.

Pretend it never happened.

"You can't do that," Joey baulked, outraged. "You were so excited. You can't just ignore that."

"You will find that I can just bite my tongue and pretend I wasn't feeling whatever I thought I was feeling," Chandler shook his head. "It was all just a big joke to her, me walking in. I actually watched her smile fall. I've never made her frown like that before. Nothing could ever work between us if I make her pull that face."

"But you were in love with her," Joey argued. "You're just going to forget that?"

"Yup," Chandler undid his robe and pulled it tighter around him, knotting the robe angrily around his waist.

Joey frowned, his lips turning downward dramatically. "Love isn't a switch, Chandler. You can't just turn it off. You can't see Monica every day and not feel anything."

That's what Chandler was afraid of.

Especially given how strong his feelings for ChefGirl20 were.

But Joey was wrong. Love was a switch and Chandler could turn it off. He could distance himself so much that his feelings didn't matter anymore. He'd done it all throughout his childhood to protect himself from the tug-of-war of his parents when he knew the neglect was coming.

"Oh God, Joey, you can't say anything."

Joey sighed. "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"Like what?" Chandler hadn't been imagining doing anything. He couldn't see himself telling Monica. Or talking to her at all.

Another shrug. "I don't know. What are you planning on doing about it?"

To put it simply: Ignore it.

"Ignore it?" Joey asked for elaboration. "Or ignore her. Because you can't ignore Monica."

He grumbled out the sour words. "Watch me."

"No," Joey stopped him. "I mean you can't."

Chandler furrowed his eyebrows as he waited for Joey to finish his thought.

"Chandler Bing cannot for the life of him ignore Monica Geller. It's never happened. I can't be done. You physically cannot do it."

Chandler shot up from the counter, the stool wobbling with his angry momentum. There was no precedent for anything remotely similar, Joey was right. But there was a first time for everything.

His words were growled this time, and once he'd said them he stormed off to get ready for work, like he was punctuating his opinion by leaving the room and suggesting the matter was closed.

"Watch me."