Both stayed silent, looking at her like deers caught in the headlights. What did Phoebe just say?, she thought. She must have heard them wrong, right? Ross would have told her if he ever intended on asking her to stay, right?
From the agonized look on his face she could tell that in fact she had heard them right. A feel of betrayal ran through her, for being kept in the dark about something so important. Then, she felt a rush from head to toe at the realization that he tried to stop her from going. She stood there with mixed feelings and a whole lot of questions that needed to be answered.
"Phoebe, what did you just say?"
"Oh, no", came out of her friend's mouth. "Does anyone want to jump off a cliff?" She asked, rhetorically, to no one in particular. "No? Just me? OK."
She left the kitchen as fast as she could, leaving the both of them to deal with the consequences. She then turned to look back at her companion, he was turning off the tap, getting ready for whatever he thought was going to happen.
She approached the sink, complying with the urgent need to be face to face with him. He tried to stop her, that was all her mind could focus on. She had butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. He wanted her to stay.
"Ross"
He sighed, as if gearing up for a tough battle. "Ok, the thing is–"
He took a deep breath but as soon as he opened his mouth to reveal what was going on they both heard a loud cry that sounded a lot like Emma. For a couple of seconds she was torned between wanting answers or checking on her daughter. In the end, her protective instincts won and she turned to see what was going on, not before saying, "this is not finished. We will talk when we get home."
She reached the living room to find Chandler holding Emma. Her baby had red-rimmed eyes and reached out to her as soon as she saw her mom.
"Hi, baby girl! Why are you crying?", she asked, cuddling the infant. "Mommy is here." She noticed her daughter rubbing her eyes and realized it was nap time. She then looked up and noticed that all of her friends had their eyes on her, almost hesitant, as if waiting for her to react to the information she had just found out.
Rachel shifted her eyes to Phoebe, who rapidly looked away, pretending to be distracted by the painting on the wall. Great. Her friend told the others and now everyone would be meddling in their business. Not that she was not used to it, on the contrary, but she wanted to talk to Ross before discussing this with anyone else, even her best friends.
"Mon, is there anywhere I can put Emma down for a nap?" She was running away from the prying questions she knew were about to come her way. For now it was just between her and Ross.
As she thought of him, he made his way out of the kitchen, stopping in his tracks when he noticed all eyes on him. She could see the engines working in his head as he came to the same conclusion: they all knew. He looked down and sighed heavily, ready to give them an explanation. She then quickly turned to her best friend, "Mon?"
"Oh, sure. You can put her in Joey's room. I'll go with you." On her way to the bedroom she tried to signal to him that he shouldn't open his mouth. Thankfully he could still read her like a book and get the meaning behind her squinting eyes.
The room was on the first floor, to the left of the living room and opposite the kitchen door. It was almost the same size as Joey's old room in the apartment they shared and that's where the comparisons ended. Monica had definitely decorated and she was sure this was used as a guest bedroom more often than not.
"Can you hand me that pillow over there?" She asked, pointing to the head of the bed as she was placing a sleeping Emma, sideways, in the center of the comfy mattress. She was placing both pillows, one on each of her daughter's side as her friend finally succumbed to curiosity.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. First, I need to sort my head out, honey. And then I need to talk to Ross, this is just not the place or the time. I'm glad we were interrupted, otherwise we could have caused a scene or something."
She saw her friend opening her eyes even wider, "A scene? Why, you feel like screaming at him?"
"I don't know what I'm feeling right now, but you know how our conversations go. You guys were witnesses many times before. I just… I just don't want to put you in that position again and I feel like this should be between us."
"I understand."
As her friend was leaving the bedroom she decided to stay with her sleeping daughter for a while. As much as she needed answers, she also knew that this was not the time and place for the conversation. It was going to be heavy, she could feel that. Life changing, even.
While she stroked her daughter's hair, she allowed her mind to wonder what her life would be like right now if he had succeeded. Would she have stayed for him? Yes, yes she would have. She held that hope within her all the way to the airport, until the very last second, just waiting, expecting something that never came. She spent all the way, from one airport to the other, with a nagging feeling that something was wrong. She finally knew why.
Now she felt so overwhelmed by that piece of information that the feeling of knowing that he somehow tried to stop her was almost suffocating her and the only available way to channel it was to let it all out through the flood of tears she felt sliding down her face.
She had been right, it was never off the table for them. There had been so many wasted opportunities over the years that it felt almost surreal to realize that both of them still felt as strongly as they did back in the day. Even thousands of miles away haven't stopped her from having feelings for him. There was just too much history, too many intense moments, too many emotional turnarounds, for them to toss it all aside.
She should've realized that when she failed at her gazillion attempts at having a relationship after they broke up. The signs were always there, you can't give your heart away when it already belongs to someone else. The weight of loving each other for almost 10 years was too much to carry around other people that were not the both of them.
They had always been within easy reach from each other and it was only when they lost that that they figured the distance would be too much to bear.
She looked at her daughter once again, unaware that she could have been with her daddy this whole time. It hurt too much to think about it, to contemplate the life they could have had all this time. It would be a struggle to accept that she could not change the past. Would she be able to change her future, their future?
Rachel stopped stroking her baby's hair for a second and suddenly had the feeling of being observed. She looked over her shoulder at the door and realized he was there, standing by the door, cautiously waiting to see her reaction to calculate his next move. She recognized that his emotions were all over the place just like her own.
"Hey you", she said. Out of habit or desperately trying to grasp onto their connection, she didn't know. She saw relief take over his body, displaying his vulnerability after realizing that she wouldn't be throwing stuff at him. Ross squeezed his eyes shut and she understood he was dreading the conversation they had to have.
"I just came to check on you, you were taking so long to put her down that I was worried".
"I know, I was just trying to sort my head out. Do you think it'll be ok if we head back once Emma is up? I don't feel like having an audience when we talk."
"Yeah, sure." He offered his hand to her, a piece offering she thought, a gesture to tell her everything was going to be ok. But was it? She hoped so, but being kept in the dark for so long had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Over the last year they had reached a level of honesty and openness with each other like they never did before and to learn that that was not the case right now… it hurt.
She accepted his extended hand, her eyes never leaving his, a mixture of dread and anticipation unfolding before her eyes. She held onto him while they headed back to the living room.
The sun was setting on the horizon as they made their way back to the city. They were the first ones to leave their friend's house as she realized she couldn't wait any longer. The minute Emma woke up from her nap they were out of the door, ready to head home and set things straight.
She's not ready to ready to have the conversation in the car though so she focuses her eyes on his hands on the wheel and it flashed her back to greeting him at the coffee house all those years ago, as she held her hand out to shake his and his clumsy self ended up opening the umbrella he was holding instead. You remember my brother Ross?
She then remembered how those same fingers would always brush a wayward strand of hair from her face, trace a thumb across her cheek or curl around her waist. I see great passion in your future! Little did she know that he was referring to their passion, how clueless of her.
As the sun dropped down below the horizon, she moved her gaze up his arms, those firm, warm and protective arms. There was something about seeing those strong arms that took her back to their last attempt at getting back together and that stupid fight about that damn letter. He had his arms around her after an amazing time together, both content and reveling in the feeling of being back together until all hell broke loose with the infamous we were on a break shit. Her head tilted back, chuckling at their immaturity back in the day.
All of a sudden they are parked, ready to gather their stuff and their sleeping daughter. The silence in the car and the soothing movement must have put her right back to sleep, she thought.
They made their way up the stairs in silence as well, both distracted by their own thoughts. She reached over her daughter to adjust the blanket she had wrapped around her, careful not to disturb her, sleeping soundly on her mother's shoulder as Ross carried their bags.
Rachel wasn't entirely sure if she should initiate the conversation or how to initiate it once she put Emma down in her bed. She took a few more minutes but decided to put her big girl pants and face whatever it was she had to face.
As she entered the living room he was already waiting for her by the kitchen's door. They said nothing for a few moments, lost in each other's eyes.
"Ok, let's do this"
Hey, everyone! Sorry it took me this log to update, I've had half of this chapter written since god knows when but i just couldn't find the inspo to finish it. That and also life getting in the way as usual with work and postgrad. This was a small chapter but i just felt like their convo should have it's own chapter, so I'll be updating that soon.
