Long Time No See (part 2)
Thanks for reading this far, thanks to Exintaris for the review. Still told from Rachel's point of view, and I still don't own the characters. I apologise if I have the dates wrong, I'm always bad with stuff like that. This part is dedicated to DMG, for her amazing beta-ing skills.
I lay in bed for a long time the next morning, terrified things might feel weird between us in the cold, sober light of day. I guess, more than anything, I was afraid that look at her and smiled, and instead of smiling warmly back, she would give me a nervous look that told me she was trying to think of a way to let me down easy. To stop myself from going crazy with thoughts of what might possibly happen, I forced my mind to remember what had happened, once upon a time.
I don't think there is one day that I can say 'that's when it happened' about our relationship. I can tell you when our first kiss was and when we first made love. But I can't think of an exact date when our feelings changed from friendship into love. All I know is that when I was devastated about breaking up with Ross, it was Monica who was always there, day and night. From what she told me later, I think that was when her feelings began to change, although at the time, I had no idea. Even when she was going out with Pete, she managed to find the time to talk sense into me when I came up with stupid plans to make Ross jealous, and to go out and get drunk with me when I was really depressed. And then of course, she and Pete split up and I was surprised by how unaffected she was by it. Until she confessed she was actually a little relieved, because there was someone else she liked more than she had ever liked Pete. I have never been so shocked in my life as I was when she admitted that person was me. For a while, we avoided each other, she was embarrassed, I was just freaked out, I guess. We both got drunk at the Beach House, especially me, and I spent most of the evening clinging to her. Somehow though, I lost her, and when I stumbled out onto the deck to look for her, she was sitting on Chandler's lap, kissing him. The surge of jealousy that I felt made me question my feelings towards her, and was probably a big reason for me going to her room later to talk to her. And to share our first kiss.
We were together for a year, until a stupid fight in London sent her running drunkenly into Chandler's waiting arms. Once we were all back in New York, I tried my best to make up with her, but she didn't want to. I remained confused until a few months later when I found out that she hadn't just had a one night stand with Chandler in London, she was in a relationship with him. I was hurt that she'd gotten over me so quickly, and it was hard to watch her and Chandler together, but Joey telling me that Monica had suggested involving me in a threesome with her and Chandler, and Chandler had turned her down because he was afraid she still loved me, made me feel slightly better.
Sighing, I told myself I should just think about how much fun we had when we were together, and not torture myself with the memories and possibilities of being apart. However, when I finally ventured out of my bedroom, and saw her sitting on the couch watching TV with the volume turned down, still wearing pjs, her bedding tossed onto the chair, uncharacteristically messy, I thought maybe I needed to focus on the bad stuff after all, if I was to stand any chance of making it through the next few days with her right there without pushing her further than she was ready to go.
I had a quiet day. Monica had decided she'd better go see Ross and the rest of the group. I wanted to hold her back, to keep her all to myself a little longer, but I restrained myself from grabbing her arm or even just asking her to stay. She came back at about 4pm, walked straight past me (I was washing up, I was so bored without her) and flopped down on the couch.
"How was it?" I asked, drying my hands and walking over to her.
"Ugh."
"That good?"
"Ross was fine, happy to see me even, until I mentioned I was staying over here. He didn't shout or anything, he just gave me this whole speech about how bloods thicker than water and I should be with my family."
"How is everyone?"
"Ross is still mad at Joey, but they managed to be in the same room for several hours while I was there without any bitchy comments. Emma's really grown! She's so cute! Phoebe was, well, Phoebe! Joey was really quiet, I think he misses you a lot," Monica said, ticking each of them off on her fingers. "Do you miss him?" she asked abruptly.
I was thrown by the question. "I…dunno, I mean, I guess so, but I have you here to take my mind off it," I said slowly. She seemed satisfied with my answer.
"I left Ross's a couple of hours ago, I went to Central Park, I needed to think," Monica said. I joined her on the couch, close, but not actually touching her. "I was thinking about you and me. I was thinking how complicated everything is." She met my eyes for a second, then shied away from my gaze, then her eyes slowly returned to mine. "You know how jealous Chandler was of Richard?" she said. I nodded slowly. "That was only when everyone else was around. When it was just us, it was always you he was worried about competing with. Once he even asked me if I preferred men or women."
"What did you say?" I asked, because I couldn't help myself. She grinned at me.
"I told him it didn't matter, it depended on the person."
"Did you tell him the truth?" I asked quietly. She smiled and nodded.
"You're the only woman I've ever been with, and after you, I could never say I'd never be with another woman, if Chandler and I didn't work out. But I wouldn't say I was a lesbian," she said.
"Mon, why are things so complicated?" I asked, changing the subject. I hated to admit it, but a tiny part of me wanted her to say she preferred women; that she preferred me.
"Because, I love Chandler. And I don't know what happens to people when they die, but I'd like to believe he's somewhere happy, and that somehow he's watching over me. If he is, I know he'd hate the thought of you and me together, he'd think that all his worst fears and insecurities were right. You think I'm stupid," she added bluntly. "You think I should be more concerned about you and me than about my dead husband who may or may not be watching over us."
"No Mon, I'd never think that," I promised.
"Who knows, maybe it IS stupid of me, but I can't help it! I can't help what I feel for him anymore than I can help what I feel for you."
"What do you feel for me?" I asked with curious trepidation.
She sighed and ran her hands through her hair in either frustration or anxiety. "I… I love you. But I'm so confused, Rach. I'm not ready to feel this strongly about anyone, it feels like I'm betraying Chandler."
"I'm sure he'd want you to be happy," I ventured timidly.
"I guess so. But you know, if I died, I wouldn't be thrilled if less than a year later he was rushing into a relationship with Joey or something!"
"You know how much is wrong with that sentence?" I tried to joke. Monica just rolled her eyes at me.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do, I'm sorry."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"Did you have feelings for me the entire time I was with Chandler or did they go away and have now resurfaced?" she asked.
"What do you want me to say?" I asked cautiously. I was beginning to get the feeling this conversation, that started so casually, had the potential to make or break us.
"The truth."
How could she treat it so simply? I sighed and decided now was as good a time as any to spill my guts. "I was hurt when you and Chandler were first together, before I found out about you, and then for a while afterwards. I loved you so much and it felt like you through it all away over a dumb drunken fight."
"God, Rach…"
I didn't let her finish. "But then I saw how happy you and Chandler were. He made you happy. I wished," I looked at her nervously, "I wish," I corrected myself, "I could have made you happy. But then, I dunno, you guys got serious, I kinda figured I had to move on. Don't get me wrong, my feelings never went away, I just learned to hide them away I guess."
Monica was giving me a look I couldn't decipher. "And now?" she asked quietly.
"And now you're here, and the first thing you did was kiss me, and I haven't seen you in so long, so all I could think about when I first saw you here was how beautiful you are. But you're so sad too, and that just makes me wanna love you and take the pain away and I can't and I hate that. I'm sorry if I haven't said whatever it was you wanted me to say, but I love you too much to lie to you."
I looked at her, desperate to see some sign of how she felt written on her face, but there was none. She was staring at a spot just behind me, obviously trying to appear as though she was looking at me, but unable to quite do so. I would have given anything in the world to know what she was thinking.
"Like I said, I didn't want you to lie to me," she said eventually, sounding shaken.
"Are we ok?"
"Of course we are. Why wouldn't we be?" I gave her a look. "Look Rach, I have to admit, I'm a little shocked by what you said, but in a good way. I expected you to have gotten over me when you found out I was with Chandler and to have forgotten about it until the other day."
"How could I forget YOU?"
She smiled slightly and blushed. "I mean, forget that part of me, of us."
"Did you forget?" I asked, bracing myself for an answer I didn't want to hear.
"I didn't forget. I could never forget. But I was with Chandler, it didn't seem so important, so…" she struggled for the word. I thought about suggesting 'brilliant', 'amazing', 'wonderful', 'special' or any number of adjectives that I might have used, but I kept quiet. "So real," she settled on, looking uncomfortable with her choice of word after all. "I mean, when I was with a guy again, it seemed weird to think I'd been with a woman the same way and felt the same things."
"You think it was weird?"
"No! I didn't mean 'weird', I meant… it seemed kinda surreal, looking back on it. And you were mad at me, so I went from being with you all the time to hardly seeing you, until I wasn't sure what I felt or had felt anymore."
I shrugged. "You're the one who started the whole thing, with us, back then. Its weird," I mocked her slightly, subconsciously, on the word 'weird'. "That it seemed to matter least to you when it was over."
"I'm sorry. You said you couldn't lie to me, well I can't lie to you either Rach. I can't sit here and say that the whole time I was with Chandler, I was thinking of you, I can't say I had feelings for you while I was with him, ok? I'm sorry!" she said, half angrily, then got up from the couch and stormed into the bathroom, throwing the door open as if to slam it, but then shutting it quietly. I stared after her for a while, then realised she was crying, I could hear her muffled sobs through the thin walls.
"Mon?" I called, getting up and knocking on the door gently. She ignored me. "Monica?" I tried again, louder. Still no answer. "Ok fine, I'm gonna go out for a while, so you can come out safely as soon as I'm gone."
I briefly thought about tricking her and waiting here til she came out, but I wasn't in the mood to talk to her, and I doubted she was any keener to talk to me either. So I went out. As I left the building, I glanced into Central Perk, but it was bright and lively and I just wanted somewhere I could sit quietly, by myself. I ended up in Central Park, which wasn't exactly empty, but sitting on bench staring into the distance, I was almost able to convince myself I was completely alone. I'm not entirely sure why it was so important to me that I was alone. I've never been someone who enjoys spending a lot of time on my own, I've always preferred the company of others. Not like Monica, who can sit and brood on things for hours on end, or Phoebe who can amuse herself for ages with the voices in her head or writing new songs, or Chandler who can work on new joke material, or Ross who would spend hours on his computer happily researching dinosaurs or fossils or whatever. I was like Joey, I needed other people. And right then, I needed Monica. But she was mad at me, and I guess I was mad at her too. If I couldn't have Monica, a part of me wanted to go find Joey, tell him everything and cry on his shoulder. But seeing Joey would only remind me of my own complications.
Eventually though, I realised I couldn't sit out there all night. When the kids and their parents started to filter out of the park, and be replaced by teenagers with illegal alcohol and God knows what else, I decided I'd better head home. When I got there, Monica was sitting in the living room, reading a magazine. She looked up at me when I came in.
"If you want me to leave, I'm sure Ross'll let me stay there," she offered quietly.
"Do you want to leave?"
"If I did, I would have done it already," she said with a small smile, which I returned.
"Feel free to stay then."
"Are you mad at me?" Monica asked, biting her lip. I sighed.
"No sweetie, all you did was tell me how you feel. Are you mad at me?"
"No, I just… I just wish this was easier."
"Look, if you don't wanna be with me, that's fine."
"No, I… I do want to Rach. I'm just… I still feel like I'm married to Chandler. If he was alive there's no way I'd be considering this."
"But he's not," I said gently.
"I know that Rachel! I know that better than anyone!" she snapped.
"Sorry."
"You just need to give me time, ok?"
"Time?" I asked, suddenly confused.
"Time!" she repeated, and then sighed. "I'm scared of what I'm feeling right now, Rach. If you and I are to have any chance at all, you have to give me time to get used to everything. Not the being with you part," she smiled, "that's the part I'm excited about. But everything else is so much more complicated than when we were together before."
I sighed too. "I just wish things were still that easy."
"Me too," she said sadly.
"Mon," I started nervously. "Do you think if we hadn't broken up in London or you hadn't fallen in love with Chandler, we'd still be together? And things would still be as easy as they used to be."
"I think there's no point wondering about what ifs," Monica said after hesitating for a few seconds. "You want something to eat?" Clearly, she didn't want to continue the conversation.
"Sure," I said, mostly so I could just sit and chat to her while she cooked, then we could eat together. I almost wished everything hadn't come out, that we could still sit together like any other best friends and not have it hanging over our heads like some unattainable dream. But then, I wouldn't have been able to spend a wonderful year of my life loving her.
Throughout dinner, we didn't mention anything that we'd talked about. She told me more about how the gang had seemed, and I told her about some of the new projects I was working on at Ralph Lauren. Nice, safe subjects. After dinner, we watched TV together, sitting a nice, safe distance away from each other, sitting at either end of the couch. Monica got up to the kitchen to get herself a drink of water, when she came back to the couch, I noticed she sat in the middle of the couch, instead of at her end. She was close enough to me so that when she moved slightly I could feel her arm brush delicately against mine.
For ten minutes I was acutely aware of her being so close. I no longer had any idea what we were pretending to watch on the TV, and it was taking all the willpower I possessed to maintain the exact distance she had placed between us, and not to close the miniscule gap. My eyes fell closed and I couldn't stop myself imagining what would happen if I put my arms around her right now and kissed her. My eyes jerked open when I felt her lean forward and set her glass on the coffee table in front of her. When she had set it down she reached for the remote and switched the TV off. I looked at her curiously.
"I didn't think either of us was really watching it," she whispered. "But I can put it back on if you like?"
"No, I wasn't. You know, I think I should get an early night, my concentration is gone to hell," I said quickly, standing up. It was half true; how could I concentrate on TV when Monica Geller-Bing sat next so tantalisingly close to me?
"Oh ok," she said, with what I hoped was a whisper of disappointment in her voice, "Night."
"Night," I mumbled, heading for my room.
"Rach?" she said suddenly, when I was halfway there. I turned round, my eyebrows raised questioningly. She slowly walked the short distance between us, so she was standing in front of me. I searched her face for some kind of explanation.
Then she kissed me.
She kissed me softly, her hands gently on my waist. My eyes closed in sheer pleasure at the feel of her lips on mine. But it was over all too soon, and she left me feeling exposed when she stepped shyly away again.
"Sweet dreams," she said sweetly, smiling at me lovingly. Before I could respond, she turned away and busied herself arranging her bed on the couch again. I watched her for a few moments, but before she could turn back to face me, I retreated into my bedroom.
Once the door was closed, I sank onto the bed on my stomach. I needed her so badly it was like a physical pain. Her light kiss had turned me into a trembling wreck. I quickly changed for bed, but as soon as I was under the covers, I realised I wasn't at all tired. In fact, if she had come in right then and wanted to make love all night long, I wouldn't have had any problem with it whatsoever. With hardly any direction from me, my mind was soon fantasising about what that would be like; after all, it wasn't a total fantasy, it had happened before, years ago. Unfortunately, doing that didn't make me sleepy at all, it just made me even hornier than I already was. Giving in to myself, I slipped my fingers between my legs and gently started to rub. It didn't take long at all. Afterwards I felt a mild sense of guilt that I was fantasising about my best friend, who was just in the next room, but it soon passed. Masturbating worked better as a sedative than fantasy alone, so I was asleep before I could give much thought to whether or not I should feel guilty.
I dreamt about her. I dreamt about lying in bed with her, in our underwear, not doing anything sexual, just kissing and gently stroking one another. When I woke up, I felt a sharp sense of loss when I realised that she wasn't really lying next to me. I had almost expected to see her there, dark hair mussed up, her face relaxed and serene, eyes closed, lips forming half a smile, her breath warm and soft against my arm.
My disappointment was so strong that I got up, and went into the living room, half hoping Monica was awake so I could talk to her and maybe casually put a friendly arm around her to feel her warmth for myself. I didn't realise how early it was until I saw she was still asleep. But I wasn't disappointed. She looked just how I had pictured her, just how I remembered her. Only she wasn't smiling in her sleep, like she always had when I slept next to her. I moved quietly towards her and sat on the coffee table, watching her. She was so beautiful. Even though I knew her face as well as my own, the reality of it always amazed me. In my head, she was beautiful, but I always forgot whatever it was that made me ache at the sight of her.
I don't know how long I sat there, watching her, before she woke up. But when she did, I was suddenly nervous at being caught staring at her. But Monica didn't look like she thought there was anything wrong with me staring at her. She smiled to see me, and I instinctively returned her smile. She reached for my hand, and when she took it, I squeezed hers. The only thing I could think about was how much I loved her.
To be continued…