At exactly five pm sharp on a warm late Friday on the last day of May, Ross and Rachel step into Dr. Phalange's office to what looks to be an attempt at a friendly smile, but turns out to be more of a grimace, and are greeted with a new decoration set up by her side of the room, next to the side table separating the two opposing couches. The strange part of Rachel that is wired to inwardly shrivel at the sight of a chalkboard (whiteboard perched on an easel, in this case) does just that. Meanwhile the other part of her grey matter that is apparently attached to Ross's notices how he perks up, like he never left lecture hall. He takes a closer look, as if there's a hidden message behind their names written in sharpie - him on left, her on right.
"Whose apartment are we playing for this time?" Ross quips as they settle on their now familiar spots on the couch.
"Hopefully our upstairs neighbour's," Rachel volleys back with ease, voice almost groggy from how long it took for them to get Emma to sleep last night. "Now I know how Mr. Hankin felt about us."
"It was Heckles, Rach."
"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, tit-tat, brick brack - "
"Brack's not a word -"
"But break is," interrupts Dr. Phalange, tone veering on stern. "Sorry for cutting through your wavelength there. I understand that we're still chipping away at definition, which is completely understandable and a topic we can table for today. Because for this session, I would actually like to take a little crack at the infamous 'break'. Or rather, what seems to be your shared penchant for equivalent retaliation, which I want to talk to you about before we dive into some of your darker times to deal with evident trust issues."
Next to Rachel, Ross grunts out a raspy guffaw which then splutters over to his lips and he gives her a wry smile. "Oh, you're about to heckle the life out of me," he tells her and she tilts her head at him because she doesn't follow. "Deservedly so," he adds, and he makes a face that looks like whenever he's been sedated by sweets, and she's just as sleepy. "It's been so long since I said we were on a b - "
Rachel rolls her eyes on alert at those five cursed words and smacks him one, two, three times in the shoulder with the thick Louis Vuitton fall catalogue that couldn't fit in her purse. There's a playfulness in his voice that borders the line between sarcasm and coping mechanism, and she wracks her head if the way he said that has to do with his hidden epiphany last session, or if maybe their latest episode of push-and-pull has broken him already (not to say that she isn't cracking at the seams herself).
Her mind catches on immediate self-reflection, remembering the past two weeks of office visits, over the top PDA, and overall teasing in between blissful routine. Rachel watches Dr. Phalange's hands flail as Ross nods to himself, a lot more serious as he even pulls out a pocket moleskin from inside his coat to start scribbling. She, on the other hand, hears the words chicken and prisoner's dilemma and ends up drifting off in her own mind, diligently working back through the last couple of days by memory, trying to determine if Ross is about to go red and if so, if he has any right to do so.
Okay, yeah, there was that simple comment at the club that sent them careening into a record scratch. Which by now has evolved into a spinning record of who will sing first. A duet composed of Rachel leaving Ross crumbs to get inappropriately close to her until those brown eyes of his turn to steel and her skin's set on fire. The first time it sparked in an ordinary Saturday night out over two weeks ago, coupled with him pressed against her ass, she had nearly tripped on the dance floor and it had been a thrill she sought out since, again and again. She knows it's reckless and childish and counterproductive to the professional advice they committed to. They wanted to sort themselves out, but instead she's waiting to pounce on their doorway or in the park or at lunch, trying to come up with new ways to make him bring it up without it looking like she wants to have it out in the open instead of questions circling in her head.
They wanted no complications, which right now turns out to mean all touch and no talk, so as to not give them a chance to put their foot in their mouths and say something that'll burst their Parisian bubble, yet here they were, kind of pissing on each other like old times and they were both equally as fervent in participating day after day to get their a point across without a single word. And Rachel, who's been in a perpetual state of blush, her body practically attuned upon contact, has bought a drawers' worth of new panties, while Ross is a rocket on blast, squeezing his fists in frustration in public at her fluttering gaze and when he gets his hands on her in their moonlit bedroom he takes her along for the thrill, whispering hotly into her neck and riding it out, fingers digging crescents into her skin, smirking at the way her teeth has sunk into swollen lips to keep quiet for the toddler next door - before dissipating back into the dopey smile that draws her in so much. So yeah, as much as she knows she'll never have to ask for animal sex ever again, all that fun is completely against the idea of sitting down and setting things straight.
Dr. Phalange really does wonders for them with daily communication, by constant texting and reminding of errands, keeping their cool and being mindful of their downtime. But if Dr. Phalange knew how comfortable they were being unspeakably horny for each other in lieu of tackling the big homework because they (or their Ross-and-Rachel brains) had silently decided they wouldn't...Rachel isn't sure if she would be appalled or strangely proud. She'd definitely ask them to deal with it. And that's precisely what Rachel does not want to do.
Because if they deal with it, they would need to pause the intimate back-and-forth and she doesn't want to. Being close to Ross, in that way particularly, hasn't felt as easy and as refreshing since their one year of being official all those years ago, and she is honestly just so glad to have that back. She doesn't want it to change. After their first break up, being physically close to him without being able to call him hers continued to lodge a splinter, not to mention actual unspeakable situations like awkward non-proposals from brotherly friends and stuffy British ex-wives in between. Now it is...electric again and Rachel wants it, needs it that way, like air. And so no, she decides that Ross has no right to go red, because he could just be a tattletale about their unspoken game, about how they're fornicating like bunnies while swearing up and down the road they're putting in work, but he doesn't. The second week of pulling each other's cards and she's close to drawing a no pair.
"Rach?" Ross taps her shoulder then and she's out of her reverie, blinking like she barely got any sleep last night (she hasn't - and not their kind). His hand then wanders to the nape of her neck and it takes all of her to not close her eyes right then and there. "Are you okay?"
I'm going crazy. "Fine!" she exclaims, nodding at him first, then their therapist next. "Do you mind summing up, doc?"
"I was just dissecting the textbook meaning of equivalent retaliation," Dr. Phalange says with a sigh, dismantling her whiteboard setup. "When a game of prisoner's dilemma becomes iterated, ergo repeated over and over again with the same players, it becomes this interesting method of seeing how trusting people are, and how long it takes for them to do so. So unlike in the one-chance-no-pardon game of chicken, which is about inevitability of conflict, prisoner's dilemma is about the possibility of cooperation. Equivalent retaliation isn't quite about striking back, it's more about mirroring the other's action. So what I want to try with you later is use that concept on your biggest conflicts over the years and see where you retaliated and how forgiveness, or at least acceptance, to grow into trust can come into play."
"Sounds smart," Rachel mutters. "So right up Ross's alley."
"Rachel," Ross sighs, his humorous smirk thinning into sincere exasperation. He turns to Dr. Phalange. "She makes it sound like I'm the smart one in this relationship when that cannot be further from the truth."
"I didn't say in this relationship, I meant the science-y stuff," she teases and slaps his arm, but the look on his face doesn't go away, and it gnaws on her heart how she can read him like a book sometimes. "Oh, you really believe that don't you, sweetie? You think you made all the mistakes between us?"
"Everyone knows how much I screwed up that night," Ross says with a shrug. "You most of all." And she can't really correct him, but he doesn't let her either. "And you are smart, Rach. You're emotionally intelligent, socially adept, you have a gift of connecting with people, you know how to stand out, you can visualize art in rolls of fabric, you always land on your two feet." He stares at her with fervour, trying to make her understand how great he knows she is, still wanting to atone for a piece of paper that has long burnt into flames.
For a beat, Rachel's face is unreadable but then her eyes flutter as she leans forward slightly towards him and whispers: "You already know how I feel, you're not gonna fish a bunch of pros from me mister."
But the soft, shy chuckle that slips from his lips would definitely top her list.
"Pardon," Dr. Phalange coughs out from her end of the room. "Perhaps let's circle back around to the topic at hand."
"Absolutely, sorry," says Ross with a curt nod and removes his hand from Rachel's neck to her chagrin. "So biggest conflicts huh...I guess there's no way around it, you really want us to open the break today?"
"If you want to," offers their therapist as if they had a choice, and Ross nods again, wincing visibly then poises himself to talk.
"Well, you know the basics. I slept with a woman on the night of our anniversary after getting hammered and dejected in a seedy bar," Ross says, rehashing the facts, each word scratching at the scar in Rachel's heart. "The weeks leading up to it, there'd already been an underlying tension between her having little time and me asking for a fraction of it and all of our frustrations had detonated into the bomb called the break, or as I heard, we were broken up. Um. I wanted to tell her upfront immediately, but I got easily swayed otherwise, and clearly I still wasn't thinking properly. But she finds out eventually, and - um - admittedly I was trying to get out on a technicality, trying to justify the 'break from us' as our relationship dying - then - what did you say, Rach? I had fun at the wake? Hell, it felt like I'd entered inferno, hearing that man's voice on the phone put me six feet under. Maybe I should've been - I couldn't stand being the one who inflicted the woman I love with an insurmountable hurt." He pauses, breathing out, and it's obvious to her that his glibness was feeble defense. "But it's my coffin and I had to lay in it, and ultimately, nothing was resolved. When I left her apartment that night, early morning, there were so many thoughts and impulses that I, personally, couldn't deal with and I kind of...wasn't really myself for a while. We didn't speak to each other, not civilly at least. For pretty much two months until I've fully convinced myself that she's no longer in love with me."
He halts and looks at her and she's blinking back searing tears, signaling that it's okay to go on. She'd tell him later, amidst a blue moon and crashing waves, that love was never the issue. But the marks that were formed on that night are, and she can't help but twinge at the memory she's done so much to erase from her mind. "When she started talking to me again, I realized I'd rather be in her life in any capacity than not at all. And because she gave me grace, I wanted to show her that I can accept that and move on."
"That bald girl sure showed me," Rachel spits out, almost blubbery, which back then, in combination with wanting him back and wanting him dead, had been the hill of ants that stepped on her parade of trying to move on, herself.
"Rach," Ross sighs, staring at her guiltily before turning back to Dr. Phalange. "The thing was that I was really scared and I know that's not an excuse but fear grew in me for every day she was gone. About her not ever coming back and my hopes and dreams for the future being dashed with the most fatal mistake possible - because I'd been so idealistic, thinking I've got everything sorted out with a stable job and this ridiculous vision of the suburbs, without taking her own plans in consideration - and also about her finding someone she has in common with like Mark, or who'll be able to give her the world like Barry, or someone who will never make the same mistake I did. Amidst all those factors, that somehow meant to me that I should seek someone out. And that relationship, if I could even call it that, had zero talking at all - which on one hand, was what my brain needed since I wanted all the terrors in there to shut down. But now that we're here, it felt like I was on autopilot and I couldn't even make sense of it all at the time."
"That's partly your frontal cortex rejecting the synapse you were using to cover your true emotions," Dr. Phalange points out and Ross gulps, looking down at his outstretched hand, stark white and shaky. "Do you still feel like there are things you have not said to each other about that time?"
Ross speaks, after a beat: "There aren't enough sorrys to make up for what I did."
"Don't do that to yourself," says Rachel, because she will not let him carry that chip on his shoulder. She believes him, even on the night itself, and she's forgiven him, after a lot more time and space. They were young and stupid and she did prove him right - by going out with his one tangible insecurity for the sole purpose of hitting him back when they were both already knocked down on the ground. "Not for my sake."
"But I need to, for me, Rach," he replies, and strokes his thumb across her drying cheek. "I screwed up."
She holds on to his hand, biting her lip to stop a full blown sob and tasting the salt between her teeth. She knows she's gonna have to absorb some of his humility in to face her own hang-ups in regards to their history.
"Now, is there a conflict in your lives that you feel you haven't quite talked through, yet?" Dr. Phalange asks and Rachel goes rigid. Which means one hundred percent and also wait it's too soon. Ross stares at her, his face ashen but shoulders no longer slumped, and she too, seeks to lighten her burden.
"Well, yeah," she begins. "I think a lot of our biggest conflicts remain unspoken for, because as much as we didn't know how to address them, the resolution has always been staying in each other's lives, no matter what." She sounds tentative, almost scared, Ross sits up, curious as to where she's going with this. When neither him nor Dr. Phalange reply, she soldiers on. "Um, well, so like it's been brought up, I've been slowly but surely working my way up the corporate fashion ladder. It's the first time in my life I'm doing something I actually care about, the first time in my life I'm doing something that I'm actually good at. And it's a career step that's partially inspired by Ross, who's in an industry that he's passionate about as well. I guess aside from it being for me, it also plays into wanting to measure up and have something to show for before we pursue our relationship further. I wasn't stupid, I knew Mark was coming on to me - but I thought Ross would've known me better by then and believed in my love for him enough to see us through those rough patches. To be honest, as someone who's had her whole life planned out for her, I saw the long hours as an active contribution in our future. I confess that I could've been less dismissive of his concerns but I can only say the same thing so many times...so I asked that we break before we fall apart completely - which I wanted to take back as soon as it left my mouth, but he'd already slammed the door."
"For the record, I wasn't the one who thought about a break in the first place," Ross cuts in. "I suggested we cool down, you went straight for the cool off."
"And I slept on it like a normal person while you slept with someone else!" Rachel flares up.
"And I pleaded 'Are you gonna fight for us or are you gonna bail' and you threw me out," Ross says, instantly agitated and turns his whole body towards her, looking way taller all of a sudden.
"I let you stay until four in the morning, I did the exact opposite," she protests.
"But that's what it seemed like," he replies pointedly. "I was on my knees begging for my life to not be over, and you just said then how come it is and that was that."
"You sure got over it quickly enough," Rachel says and doesn't mean to sound as judgmental as she does but all bets are off. "When did you decide you wanted to date Emily? The night I asked you for a favour or did you wait a good eight hours this time? And then you rubbed her in my face for months. Months, Ross. Including the demands she put you through."
"You asked for that favour so you could cavort with Josh-ua, remember him? And got the other four people in our lives involved just so I'd see," Ross huffs (and he's got her there).
"You proposed to Emily in six weeks!" Rachel throws back, the tremor in her voice reflecting the shakes of a kept secret rumbling back to life. Because it hadn't been like Ross left her much of a choice, being all loved up very loudly and quite hurriedly with someone who wasn't her.
"I would've proposed to you, I was already thinking about Scarsdale and taxes," he says exasperatedly. "But you didn't want that."
"I wanted time," she tells him.
"I wanted you," he says. "Before Emily, Bonnie, the worst night of my life, I just wanted to be with you."
"You wanted Emily for six whole weeks and she gets a ring, you've wanted me your whole life and until now I get nothing!" she retaliates, a dagger with every syllable to his heart (and her own, she realizes the second she snap her mouth shut and his drops open...because she's never said it out loud before).
"You...you wanted...," he mumbles dimly and she feels his eyes on her as her head darts down to study the pleats on her grey skirt. "Rach." No avail. "Hey you."
And because "Hey you" has been their heart's calling that her body follows by itself, she does look up, finding his eyes searching and puzzled. He studies her like a newly discovered fossil, like she's a dinosaur with two heads. But he says nothing and so she doesn't either. She can't breathe, really. This is exactly why she didn't want to talk about this stuff. She'd need about another ten years to have enough distance to not blow up over it.
"Uh, so, um, would you two like to be alone for a moment?" Dr. Phalange asks from somewhere far away and Rachel suddenly remembers that at a certain point there had been a third person involved in this conversation.
"Absolutely not," Rachel says hoarsely.
Ross on the end of his couch, must've gone catatonic because he doesn't say anything at all anymore. He just stares at her, then at his thumb and forefinger pressed together, holding on to thin air. Rachel can't deal with that right now, so instead she nods at Dr. Phalange to steer them someplace else.
"Then I would like to identify what happened in regards to your personal relationship after the initial breakup is exactly what equivalent retaliation is," Dr. Phalange says. "But that's insightful since now I can warn you to avoid that in the future."
Rachel shifts fully to their therapist. Even if she's still a teensy bit curious if Ross is ever gonna move again from the corner of her eye, she's also eager to skid past this.
"Starting with Ross supposedly trotting out a new relationship in your face, to you then doing the same with this other man, Joshua? That's plain competition and there's no place for that in a trusting relationship."
"But I do trust Ross," Rachel says adamantly. "I'd trust him with my life."
"But do you trust him with the truth?" Dr. Phalange replies, matter-of-factly. "Do you trust him enough to expound what you mean and how you feel about this inner conflict?"
And this shuts her up well and good. Because duh, no she doesn't. Because it's a question she's no longer sure she needs an answer to, and she doesn't know that if she tells Ross exactly what she's feeling he'll know what to do, anyway.
"I don't think we need to tell each other every detail," she stammers.
"So how do we keep building on that trust that is there between you two?" Dr. Phalange posits. "The prisoner's dilemma, especially when iterated, is meant for that. You need to channel your equivalent retaliation from competition into compassion. Instead of eye for an eye, treat the other how you want to be treated. You need to be sure that whenever you screw up, the other person will be willing to forgive, otherwise trust wouldn't grow."
Their therapist then turns to a CD player placed in the back wall and plugs it in. "In the initial form you've filled out for these sessions, I had a question there asking about what song describes your life at the moment, and the purpose of that was to have it on hand in case you need a reminder of why you're here."
And just like that a song starts and Rachel can't help but laugh at the first two bars because the eighties synth is such an obvious choice. "Is this from the Way No Way collection?" she jokes and Ross finally breaks into a grin again but Dr. Phalange holds up her hand, gesturing at them to focus. And that's instantly uncomfortable because wow, the lyrics are easily a blatant explanation of his recent behaviour.
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me around
I feel numb, born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing
Oh! I got plenty of time
Oh! You got light in your eyes
Ross just watches her, seeing said light in her eyes and slowly grounded back to earth. The strategy seems to work as he starts bopping to the beat - their past, present, and future dancing in a circle in his mind.
And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money, always for love
Cover up and say goodnight, say goodnight
Home, is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from the other
I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this is where I'll be, where I'll be oh!
We drift in and out
Oh! Sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
"Rach," Ross starts as the song fades out, and she wants to shriek. "You are the good place."
"Nous ne discuterons pas des paroles ou de la mélodie," Dr. Phalange says and French has never sounded sexier. "We are going to let the songs speak for you. So, let's hear what Rachel thinks."
And she's not about to admit it but Rachel kind of forgot about her choice but what trills through the speaker wrenches her back to leather upholstery and blurry city lights, heart racing through her chest.
"I heard this on the radio, when I got off the plane and the cab sped back to your apartment," supplies Rachel, knowing that the upcoming lyrics whittle down her thoughts to a tee. "It's new."
Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us
With their lies
And I wanna walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
So won't you try to come
Well. And now it's her turn to look at Ross, expecting him to look away from impact, but instead he gazes back at her with glazed eyes, the crease between his eyebrows smoothing out as he takes in her sonic message.
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountain top
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you
And I wanna wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me
When the song ends, there's a loaded silence for a moment and Ross keeps watching her, saying a lot with his eyes, and she hadn't known what she has signed up for with these sessions until this precise moment. Because if she feels like this and he feels like that, then it's clear that being direct is the only option.
"Alright," Dr. Phalange is bug-eyed at this point. "Good progress for today. I'd say absolutely - process this for a while then - "
"We have to pick up Emma in half an hour," Ross stands up, patting his pockets and raring to go.
"Of course," Dr. Phalange nods curtly. (And Rachel does get the sense that their therapist hasn't know what she'd signed up for with the two of them either until now.) "I'll see you next week."
"Oui, merci," she replies, sounding equal parts awake and exhausted.
They both swiftly exit out of the office, but Rachel doesn't realize she's near sprinting until Ross calls her name and she turns back to him catching up, meeting her in the middle.
"Come here," he almost whispers and she treads back to him, part-dread, part-reflex. She stares up at him when she's at arms length and he just pulls her against his frame into one of their firm hugs, and it steadies her immediately. She presses her face against his heart like she always does and feels him inhale the shampoo from her hair. She doesn't know how long they stand there, doesn't even notice Dr. Phalange peeking out of her door, palming her face and then closing it quietly again. She only knows Ross is with her and his arms are strong and safe and somehow, they will sort this out. Paris wasn't built in a day.
After all, they're not in their twenties anymore and they have a whole shared life to look forward to. Surely, they're gonna be fine and all of her questions will be answered. Eventually.
She stares at her bare hand clutching his shoulder and holds him closer.
songs used: this must be the place by the talking heads, come away with me by norah jones