Author's Note: The setting of this is mid to late season 3, after Janice, before Pete, and during the whole Ross and Rachel break-up saga. There are adult situations alluded to, so if you're a kid… well, you've been warned.

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In the stillness of early morning, the room was in an unusual state of disarray.

The throw rug near the doorway was caught under it and twisted, as though the door had been slammed blindly shut. A trail of clothing led from the rug to the queen-sized bed: a blouse, a t-shirt, boxer shorts, a black skirt against the dresser, and a lacy red bra dangling from the bedpost.

On the nightstand was an overturned bottle of vodka and an empty box of condoms, dug from the top drawer frantically hours earlier - magazines, a case of batteries, and other miscellaneous junk littered the floor, and the drawer itself was half hanging from its hinges.

The bedclothes, expect for a thin sheet, were rumpled and pushed down to the foot of the bed, and two forms lay prone on the pile of pillows near the headboard. The woman shivered - stirred in her sleep and tugged more of the sheet around her - but slept soundly.

The man awoke slowly as grey light filtered through the blinds.

He groaned softly and lifted one shaky hand to cover his eyes. Pain jackhammered his skull with every heartbeat, and he breathed shallowly through dry lips, fighting an uneasy wave of nausea. His tongue was like cotton.

He felt like crap.

Gradually, he grew conscious enough to realize he was not in his own bed - he was somewhere else. He caught the faint scent of perfume in the air, and the light against his eyelids was coming from the wrong direction.

"Oh, god… what did you do," he mumbled to himself, attempting to open his eyes and then thinking better of it. He knew there was someone in the bed with him - he could feel her presence, and just barely distinguish her soft breathing - but he was too afraid to turn his head and see who it was.

He waited it out, counting steadily in his head. He was up to two hundred fifty-nine before he gathered the courage - and the stamina - to lift his hand away from his eyes, and open them.

Squinting, he grimaced as his head throbbed against the sudden light. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stared at the ceiling.

He knew this ceiling.

He'd lay awake staring at it only a week ago, in fact, the night when Ross and Rachel's world had shattered just outside the bedroom door.

Monica… oh, not Monica…

Biting his lip, he turned his head to the right, and saw a lock of dark hair sticking out from underneath a pillow. Her slender form was visible underneath the nearly transparent sheet, and as he stared at her with his heart somewhere around his stomach, she sighed softly and mumbled something in her sleep.

"No, no, no, no, no," he moaned, rolling his head back and squeezing his eyes shut. This had to be a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

Why Monica? God, of all people, why did it have to be her?

Despite the hangover, his instincts were finally starting to kick in, as he slipped into 'fight or flight' mode. And since he was Chandler… basically just flight mode.

He had to get out of here.

Against his better judgment, he sat up, gritting his teeth against the jackhammer in his skull. He fought another wave of nausea and slung his legs over the side of the bed, blinking and realizing he had no idea where his clothes were.

He'd wear her robe out of here if he had to.

The room swam in and out of focus as he got to his feet, stumbling slowly around the bed until he spotted his boxers half-buried underneath a woman's white silk blouse.

She'd been wearing that yesterday…

"Stop it," he mumbled, putting on the boxers and then finding his t-shirt beside her nightstand. As he yanked it over his head, his eyes fell on the open box of condoms on the bedside table. He froze for a moment, then shook his head slowly and began to back away… just as his foot slipped on the crumpled rug beneath him. He skidded and fell back, managing to catch himself on the door with a loud THUMP.

The pain in his head intensified a hundredfold. Briefly, he didn't care where he was or what had happened. He just needed to sit down, or… pass out. Or die, maybe.

He sank down to the floor, back up against the door as he buried his head in his hands and silently pleaded with himself not to throw up.

When he finally had himself under control again and managed to lift his head, she was awake and staring straight at him. Her blue eyes were wide in the pale light of dawn.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she spoke in a raspy voice. "Chandler?" she said dully. Either she was so out of it she didn't even believe he was there, or she all too clearly remembered what had happened the night before.

He stared back at her uncertainly.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. "I feel sick," she finally managed.

He hoped she meant the hangover, and not him, although it was probably a toss-up.

"I think our drinking game got a little out of hand last night, if the bottle on the nightstand… and the one on the dresser… and the beer cans which I'm sure are still out on the balcony… are any indication."

To bad that was about all he remembered. He and Monica, sitting out on the balcony and getting drunk, and then deciding to come in here and get completely wasted… and apparently a little too friendly...

He didn't even remember kissing her. Life was full of little ironies, but that one just about took the cake. He'd dreamed about her like this, once in awhile, since he was twenty years old. And now that it had finally happened…

It had happened like this.

Monica struggled slowly to a sitting position, her dark hair falling like a curtain around her face as she clutched the sheet to her chest.

She made a whimpering noise and leaned forward slowly. "Yeah… I'll say it got out of hand…" she muttered as she leaned her face against her hands. "We slept together, didn't we."

"Uh…it's looking more and more like we did, yeah."

"I don't really remember."

He grimaced. "Neither do I."

She took several deep breaths, then lifted her head to look at him again. "Are you okay?" she said finally. "You fell…"

"I'm fine. I tripped." For some reason he was embarrassed about this - as if what he'd done last night wasn't bad enough.

"You were leaving," she stated.

"Uh…" He found himself avoiding his eyes. "Yeah… I, I was. Mon…"

"No… no. It's fine." She sighed. A strange, awkward silence fell over the room.

"I should - I should go," he finally said. "Before Rachel gets up, you know…"

"Yeah. Okay." She wasn't looking at him anymore; her gaze was directed down at her lap, and she nodded her head up and down. "Listen, we should just… keep this to ourselves, you know?"

"Yeah, of course," he said quickly, getting to his feet again and putting his hand around the doorknob, jiggling it nervously. "I… it was just…"

"A mistake," she said, nodding quicker now, as though it had all been decided. "A stupid, drunken mistake."

He smiled weakly, but inside his heart thudded dully in his chest, and a strange sense of longing passed over him. "Right," he said. "Okay. I'm gonna go… take a shower, take some pills… sleep for about ten more hours."

She smiled tightly. "Me too. Maybe throw up a little, too."

"Do you want me to bring you anything, or…?"

"No. Just go." She sounded short with him now, her words clipped and edgy, and she still didn't look at him.

Everything's ruined, he realized dismally. How can it all be ruined?

He nodded numbly, mumbled something inaudible, and then turned and let himself out of the bedroom.

Two minutes later he slipped quietly into his own room, lay down on the bed, and buried his face in his hands. And across the hall, Monica curled up under the sheet and impatiently wiped away the hot tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes.

A drunken mistake...

Little did either of them know, it was already far too late for it to be just that.

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