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.

In Patriam Redire: To return from or to exile.

To Return to Exile: To expel and bar someone from their natural state, typically for punitive reasons.

It was a crisp evening and Ross and Rachel wanted to talk a leisurely stroll through the park on their way home instead of catching a cab, insisting that they needed a buffer because they were still in that odd phase between Julie and something new and their relationship was still germinating and shifting and tentative.

Initially, the girls took the lead of the party, directing them through the winding streets of New York on their walk home but Rachel split away from them and Ross raced a little to catch up with her. Chandler slowed down further, enjoying the chill of the brisk wind as it prickled his skin. It was dark and he was alone but not, isolated despite the nearness of his friends which meant he didn't have to hide from anyone or put on the mask he was expected to wear.

Joey elongated his stride so that his pace matched Chandler's, hanging back a little from the rest of the group. That meant he had words for Chandler, who tried to stifle his eye roll when Joey finally sidled up to him.

"How's it going?" was his first question, but Chandler knew Joey well enough to know that was merely his opener, an appetiser. Not at all what Joey wanted to say to him.

"You have to stop punishing her," Joey stage whispered, not at all hushed enough for Chandler's liking.

Chandler hated monosyllabic conversations, he'd spent a lot of his teen years feeling like that was the only way he could communicate. He childhood was filled with moments that verified what Chandler had always known; that nobody really cared about what he had to say so Chandler didn't bother revealing his thoughts. He lived surrounded by people who valued his opinion and teased him in good-humour now, but still he fell into old habits learnt from years of keeping quiet so as not to get picked on.

"Fine."

He hated it, but Chandler was very good at pulling away from relationships and at silencing himself. He'd done it with his mother and father, only contacting them sporadically during the school year. His mother was easier to stay in contact with emotionally, even though she was often out of the country. But when the time came that he was old enough to make his own decisions about custody arrangements, Chandler decided that he was happy staying at the boarding school his mother sent him to. When he turned eighteen, a legal adult in the eyes of the state, it had been far to easy to retaliate his father abandoning him and reciprocated the gesture, disappearing from his father's life without a word.

He could feel himself slipping away again, sliding out of his obligations to their group with ease. Without objection.

"Are you just going to phase Monica out?" That wasn't what Chandler was doing. Not at all. He was distancing himself from her until he had more control of his feelings. Unfortunately, a break from Monica meant he had to put a little distance between himself and the other members of the group; her brother, her best friend, or they'd all notice something was off. "Or are you planning on ditching all of us?"

So maybe he wasn't totally disappearing without a trace from their lives.

"I'm not phasing Monica out," Chandler promised adamantly. "I don't want to phase her out either."

He didn't want anything remotely close to that, not really. Monica was his best friend. Ross was his oldest friend, but he was also Chandler's friend by necessity. They were college roommates and didn't have much choice other than to get along. Those four years together forged their friendship in fire, and the cold hard truth of reality set their brotherhood like steel.

Not many people stayed as close as Ross and Chandler did, leaving their college buddies behind after graduation, but not the two of them. Ross had been the first person to insist Chandler needed family, the one to suggest that if Chandler didn't like the one he had then he could become an honorary Geller for Thanksgiving, making a new family for himself. But a lot of the reasoning behind their continued friendship was to do with Monica.

She was their mutual friend.

Chandler couldn't remember if it was Ross or Monica who had alerted him to the vacancy across the hall from their grandmother's apartment, but Chandler was forever grateful for it. Chandler knew how easy it was for roommates to lose touch, but Ross was always visiting Monica to escape marital strain. And when he wasn't meeting up with Monica and then running into Chandler by extension because he hadn't realised they'd gotten so close, he was catching up with Chandler at lunch. They'd quickly abandoned the lunches and reinstated them about a year ago during his divorce when Central Perk finished being renovated and finally opened.

On the other hand, Monica was his friend by choice. The first person who ever decided she liked him, and that she liked him enough to stick around. Chandler wasn't about to throw that choice in her face or make her question her judgement. But it wasn't obligation that indebted him to her. Monica was sarcastic, and smart and beautiful. She listened and she tolerated and her laugh was the best sound he had ever heard, even when she snorted, which was easy to tease but a sign that she found him so funny she couldn't contain her laughter.

"Then how come you didn't look at her at all during dinner?" Joey asked. Chandler rubbed his lips together. He had hoped that by sitting next to Monica, it would be explicable that he didn't turn his head to view her when she was talking. Apparently not. According to Joey, it didn't matter what the situation was, Chandler always turned his head towards Monica when she spoke. It seemed that a lack of eye contact and elbow nudging and hidden smiles passed between them had alerted Rachel to some sort of issue between them too. "I know you said you wanted to try to ignore her for a bit, but realistically, how do you think that's going to work?"

"I don't know, Joey," Chandler sighed. He didn't. He hadn't really thought any further than needing to put a little space between himself and ChefGirl20 so that he could clear his head and shift through his feelings. He needed to take the time to try and decipher if what he felt was for Monica or for ChefGirl, where the line between the woman's two personas was and if that mattered at all.

"Because if you ignore her long enough you're going to lose her," Joey warned. "This group's a packaged deal and if you and Monica fight it's going to make the rest of us feel like we should pick a side. I hate to break it to you, but I don't know how many of us would pick you."

"Thanks." It was one thing that Chandler had been thinking it, he was always cursed by his self-deprecating mind. But to hear Joey think that none of his friends loved him enough to stand by him, and that Joey thought it was an obvious conclusion to come by, stole the breath from his lungs.

"It happened to Kip, didn't it?" Joey reminded him.

Chandler scrunched his nose in distain. That situation was totally different. Kip was a jerk. Chandler had told him not to go for Monica but he'd done it anyway. Then they'd broken up when Monica pushed for more even though they were only a few months in, which was still something she did in her relationships, having never realised that it was far too early to assume permanence. Kip had run off and the reason why, for a long time, had been the only secret he'd ever kept from Monica. The only one that concerned her anyway. Kip had been a great friend before he'd started eyeing Monica, when HChandler's opinion of him soured, only turning more bitter when he continuously mistreated Monica, rocking up late to dates and crowing about the sex they had despite Chandler's protestations. About a month after their break up, Chandler had found a wedding invitation in the place of Kip's half of the bill. Monica thought Chandler and Ross kicked him out, which Chandler had let her believe, never quite having figured out if there was an overlap between Monica and the woman Kip ended up marrying. He never asked Kip when they caught up; him and Ross and a hockey game.

It was about a year later, when they saw Kip for the last time. Monica had been there and Chandler realised he'd been giving himself agita for nothing, she already knew Kip was married and that was why she had been so sullen, not because or Ross' divorce making her have to face the fact that love wasn't perfect or picturesque or necessarily ended in a happily ever after, like they'd thought.

"I don't think we can phase you out," Joey admitted, but the words were out there. Joey thought it was possible enough to achieve that he was worried about it. "But I need you to know what's at stake."

"Jeez, Joey," Chandler snapped, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "I know what's at stake and I don't intend to lose any of you."

His Italian friend sighed exasperatedly. "That's the way your headed, mate."

"I'm not planning to phase Monica out," Chandler explained hotly. He wasn't sure what he was going but he knew for certain that he wasn't doing that. "I just need to figure out what I'm feeling."

Chandler could feel Joey squinting at him, trying to solve Chandler's thought process. It wouldn't work. He barely knew what was going on himself.

"Any idea how long that's gonna take?" Joey's impatience was on full display and would have been amusing if he hadn't just articulated that the stakes were so high.

Chandler shook his head, answering honestly. "Not a clue."

"Well," Chandler could hear Joey's frown in the way his 'l's drooped a the end of the word, drawn out as though his mouth was reluctant to finish his sentence and hoping that the one word would be enough if he made it take long enough. "Then can you stop punishing Monica?"

"I'm not punishing her," Chandler objected.

"You are." His words were simple. His tone knowing. Chandler resented that.

Chandler turned toward his friend and made his voice low and serious, lacing his tone with offence. "Joey, I swear I'm not."

Joey stopped completely. Standing stock still in the middle of New York, facing Chandler, while vehicular and foot traffic zoomed around them.

Chandler blinked in the darkness. He knew Joey well enough to know he didn't want to face him, that he'd be wearing an expression Chandler wouldn't be able to stomach.

It didn't matter. His words were bad enough.

"Let me put it in words you'll understand." Joey sounded tempestuous, like he was on the verge of gripping Chandler by the collar and shaking him. "Monica is hurting. You are the one that's hurting her."

"I am not!"

"Chandler," Joey chided. Joey never chided, he didn't normally have a leg to stand on when it came to that sort of thing.

"She has no idea what she did wrong. At least give her that much. Talk to her, Chandler."

"I can't," Chandler grit his teeth.

Chandler wasn't an idiot, he knew he and Monica were close enough that she would be able to tell something was off in two seconds flat. They had developed a short hand over the years and didn't really need to talk to communicate, it was all done through gestures and expressions.

He'd sit beside her and she knew it was his quiet way of asking if she was okay. She'd get him coffee without him having to ask for it and it would be the exact frothy concoction he didn't know he wanted and he'd know she could see the tiredness underscoring his eyes darkly. They'd nudge and poke when they were sharing a chair and quirk their eyebrows up at each other when they weren't, sharing opinions on the others right the way through their conversation.

But a huge part of all of that was eye contact, something they'd gotten very good at. Starving Monica of that would naturally have alerted her to some drastic shifts pulling the rug from under her feet.

"What? Are you just going to lie to her for the rest of your life? Never admit that you're the one?"

"She doesn't think I'm the one," Chandler spat back. "Has never even considered it."

Chandler heard his friend suck in a sharp breath and worried he'd said something he shouldn't have. Then Chandler shook his head. It might as well all be out in the open now, anyway. There was no use hiding. Joey's voice turned soft. "Have you?"

Chandler could have played dumb. He probably should have. Instead, he was unable to stop the words from trickling out of his mouth. They might have spilt out if the circumstances were different, but Chandler said them carefully, slowly so he'd never have to repeat them and relive the humiliation.

"Yes," he whispered, his eyes on his shoes. "On and off to varying degrees, yes."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"She dated Kip and that blew the group up," Chandler hoped that explained his trepidation. Although it clearly wasn't the beginning of it.

"That was only a couple of years ago," Joey said.

Dammit. Joey may not have been the brightest pencil in the tin, but he was pretty good. Chandler wasn't sure where to start. The burgundy dress that clung to her body like a dream, the night he spent on the Geller's couch wishing he knew his father's number so he could hear someone tell him that flaws didn't make him flawed or a failure, so many painkillers pumping through him that he was almost open to forgiving him and Nora for teaching him that love was a competition where nobody won. He might have thrilled a little about the long-distance charges being a small revenge on Monica for cutting off his toe. Or did it start in a college dorm waiting for Ross and giggling at that crystal duck. It was definitely there when Monica helped him move in, but was a lump under a throw rug when she came home gushing about Paul the wine guy. And Alan.

Did he bother recounting the story of Monica in a little Santa hat the first Christmas they spent together and how his palms were sweating so much he'd taken down the mistletoe she had hung just to take away the option that something might happen and calm his racing heart?

"You've liked her that long?"

Chandler grinned to himself. Trust Joey to take a theory and run with it, not realising that a coin had two sides, that his conclusions weren't necessarily correct.

"Why haven't you said anything?" Joey sounded indignant now.

Chandler shrugged. Because it was nobody's business. Because he was dealing with it. Because he could manage on his own, thank you very much. He didn't want to, but he could.

"That's a long time to be hung up on one woman."

Chandler shook his head vehemently. "I'm not hung up on her. It comes and goes."

"I still think you should tell her," Joey said placatingly, as though Chandler's outburst had surprised him. "She was your friend long before this ever happened, she'll be there long after it's over."

Chandler started walking towards their building, hoping to cut across the street and up the stairs as quickly as possible, shoving the blankets over his head and shutting the world out as quickly as possible. Joey had made his opinion known but it was still Chandler's decision to make. And the only thing he'd concluded was that he was being obvious and that he was hurting Monica, both of which he hated the idea of.

He could hear Joey catch up to him, matching his determined pace, if a little winded, beside him.

"She might be," Chandler lowered his voice again, shoving his hands in his pockets. Even he wasn't certain of how he was going to finish that sentence, but she might not, was an option. Except his mouth said something else.

"But I might not."