~Looks like threatening worked! Yay, and thanks for reviewing. Do it again. I've had an incredibly busy week and a half, you'd think with no school I'd have tons of free time, well, you would be mistaken, and it's okay because fanfiction.net was down anyway. So I finally finished this (actually ten minutes before I'm supposed to go out, and I was supposed to be getting ready, oops.) and you can read it. Anyhoo, here's the next part and the rest of the song.~

Disclaimer: I'll return them as soon as I am finished I promise, but as of now, I don't own them.

Joey shifted his weight (AN: you all thought it was Chandler, didn't you?).

"Not that I'm not happy to see you," Monica quickly covered up and let him inside the house.

"I just wanted to talk to you about Chandler," he said quietly. "Can we talk alone?"

"Yes, hold on," Monica told him and walked back into the room where Phoebe was sitting waiting patiently for an answer to who was at the door.

"Whose there?"

"Joey."

"What's he doing here?" She asked jumping to her feet and running out into the hallway and threw her arms around him.

"Hi Pheebs," he said laughing.

"Joey! What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to Monica," he said looking at Monica.

"Oh, well, let me leave then," Phoebe gathered her things and gave Monica a kiss on the cheek. "Call me later." And with that she was gone. Monica and Joey went into the living room and sat down on the couches and she looked at him and waited for him to start.

"Mon," he said. "I have to get this off my chest. I've been talking to Chandler since he left. I knew where he was. I've known all along." She was taken back and took a minute to regain her posture.

"You knew and you didn't tell me?"

"I'm so sorry, Monica, he made me promise, but Monica, he's sorry. He wants to come back, he wants you back."

"Joey...I...when did he say this?"

"Two weeks ago...."

"You were here last week and you didn't tell me that you had spoken to my husband and he wanted to come back?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated. Monica was shaking her head. "He wants to see you. Here." Joey handed her a crumpled piece of paper with Chandler's address on it.

"Joey...how do I go? How do I look him in the eyes and decide whether or not to forgive him? A year! He's been gone a year!"

"I know. And I'm not going to tell you what to do, that's not my job. That's up to you to decide. Do you want to go to him or not? Do you want to forgive him and let him back into your life and let him be a father to your children or not?"

"You make me sound like the villain. I'm not the cruel one. This is cruel. Making me do this. I stayed. I stayed in my marriage with my children. I followed the rules. This isn't fair! How do I go to him and tell him goodbye? How do I tell him that I can't forgive him for what he's done? Why should I forgive him for what he's done?"

"Because you love him," Joey's answer was so simple and so correct. She did. She loved him with everything that she had.

"This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. Everything went according to plan. We fell in love, dated, got married, had a few kids, and we were happy. I was happy, and I thought he was too."

"He was."

"No. He wasn't, because he left. Happy people don't leave their wife and three kids."

"Monica," Joey was debating whether or not to tell her.

"What?"

"He was clinically depressed." (AN: I totally agreed with all of you that said there had to be a good reason for him to leave and I didn't want him dying of a fatal disease, so this will have to do)

"What?"

"He's been on medication now for a year. He wanted to tell you, he wanted to make you know....it wasn't you, sweetie. It really wasn't." Her head was spinning.

"No...because I would have known that. I would have known that if it were true."

"Didn't he become more and more despondent? He would have his good days and his bad days?"

"But...he was under so much stress at work, I just figured...." her voice trailed off trying to figure it out. She couldn't, it just wasn't working.

"Monica," Joey held out his arms and she fell into them and sobbed. Her body heaved with the sobs that she was finally letting out.

"I have to go to him," she decided and wiped the tears from her eyes and gave Joey a kiss on the cheek. "Watch the kids for me." She picked up the piece of paper and disappeared out the door.

Don't you call me cruel

cruel is what you're making me do

I stick to my rules

I'm at odds with me now

Do I look my love in the eyes and say goodbye?

Monica got to the door and reached up her hand to knock. The achingly familiar voice called out that he would be right there. She shifted her weight and when she heard him approach the door she panicked and began to walk away. The door swung open and Chandler stepped out.

"Monica?" He asked in surprise. She spun back around and came face to face with him.

"Chandler...I..."

"Joey came to see you." It wasn't a question. It was a comment. "I knew that he would."

"Did you mean it?"

"What?"

"That you wanted to come back?"

"Monica, there wasn't a damn day that I didn't want to come back."

"But you told me, when I saw you, that some nights you regretted it."

"I regretted it every day. I just thought, I was so stupid. I thought it would be easier on all of us if you were angry with me."

"I was angry with you," she admitted. "You succeeded."

"I didn't want to."

"I didn't want you to."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I." She turned to leave and he ran after her.

"Do you want to come in?"

"Not really."

"We can talk," he offered. "About everything." She glanced at her watch. There were a thousand things that she wanted to know. She slowly nodded her head.

"I guess, but I can't stay very long."

"The kids?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," he said and moved aside so that she could enter the apartment. She noticed that it was clean and that surprised her. A table was covered with papers and a laptop was opened and when she looked at Chandler again she saw a pen stuck behind his ear and his glasses were on and he was wearing a t-shirt that wasn't tucked in. He looked the part of a writer. She wrung her hands together. This was his life. The life without her. Monica didn't know if she could handle this. But she sat down anyway on the couch and he sat down on a chair and they both stared at each other groping for something to say.

Before I'm on my way

I've one more thing to ask

Was it worth the price you paid

for my never coming back?

Why did you mess with forever?

What a long time to be unkind

Why did you mess with forever?

As they were sitting there, the door swung open and a woman came hurling in.

"Uh, hi," she said. Monica looked at the woman. She had red, curly hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and glasses were perched on the top of her head. She was wearing jeans and a gray pull-over sweatshirt. Monica looked down at her own clothes. As she had gotten older and her kids had been born, Monica had gone conservative. She was wearing black pants and a beige turtleneck under a black jacket. She felt completely out of place with the two of them in their casual, comfortable clothing. Chandler looked from his wife to the woman that came in.

"Uh, Monica...this is Kristi," he said and he stood up and walked over to the red-headed Kristi. "Kristi, this is my wife, Monica." Monica saw the woman's stares and shifted in her seat.

"Oh, so you're Monica?" Kristi asked with a hint of sarcasm. "So very nice to meet you." Monica stood up and looked from her husband to the woman standing next to him.

"Chandler, maybe I should go," she said.

"Monica, wait, we need to talk still."

"I don't think that there is anything to talk about anymore," Monica said pulling on her coat and picking up her purse. Kristi finally sighed.

"I just came to pick up the copy of the article, I'll be going now," she said and grabbed the folder from Chandler's desk and hurried out of the apartment.

"Are you sleeping with her?" Monica was never one for subtlety and she came right out and asked what she wanted to know.

"Monica, we've been separated for a year," Chandler said and didn't want to fight with her about this. The truth was that he had slept with her once. And only once. It had never had happened again. "No."

"Are you lying?"

"No." He looked her in the eyes and told her this. He wasn't sleeping with her. He had slept with her. Once. Singular.

"Chandler," she said. "I don't know what to believe anymore. Did Joey tell the truth? Are you.." she didn't finish. She didn't have to.

"Would that make things better?" He asked.

"Chandler, you could have told me. You should have told me. I would have helped you!"

"I tried to, but you didn't want to..." he started, but she interrupted him in mid-sentence.

"Don't blame me," she said. "You were still wrong. Regardless of whatever else happened. You were still wrong. You still left."

"I know," he said once more. He sighed. "I lost you didn't I?"

"You didn't lose me," she said and headed towards the door. "You gave me up. There's a difference." She opened the door and closed it leaving him standing in the apartment wishing things had gone differently. Wishing that he had been smarter and known then what he knew now. But all the if only's in the world weren't going to bring her back.

You ask to kiss me once goodbye

but you already did that with somebody else's lips

Tell the tiny chemicals

the ones you hold responsible

they lost me

you lost me

Monica got into her car and leaned her head back against the seat and let the tears fall down her face in rapid succession. She hastily wiped them away and pulled out and headed towards home. When she got there she reached for her compact and wiped any remaining traces of the tears and stepped out into the fresh air. She opened the door and was bombarded by Gracie.

"Hey sweetie," she said leaning down and picking her up and holding her close.

"Hi Mommy," she said. "Everyone is here. Uncle Ross and Aunt Rachel and Uncle Joey and Aunt Phoebe and Uncle David. They're all in the kitchen waiting for you. Where did you go?"

"No where baby," she said and set her back on the ground and went into the kitchen to find all her friends sitting at the table looking at her for an explanation. She tried to smile, but the tears began falling again and Phoebe took Grace off her and Rachel enveloped her in a hug.

"It's going to be okay," she told Monica as she rocked her back and forth like she would with her daughter.

"How?" Monica sobbed. "How is it going to be okay?" She sat down and Rachel got her a glass of water. "I should have known. I should have seen it coming. He was always sleeping, he was always tired. He never wanted to go out or do anything. I should have figured it out. I was too wrapped up in everything else to notice that there was something seriously wrong."

"Honey, listen to me, you didn't know. You didn't do anything wrong. Remember you asked him to go to the doctor's. You knew something was wrong. He told you it was a virus." Monica felt like it was all her fault. Her fault he was depressed, her fault that he left her and the kids. Her fault. The doorbell rang and she slowly rose to answer it.

"Monica?" Chandler stood on the other side and she could see that he had been crying. "I still need to talk to you." She looked back at her friends and grabbed her coat.

"Come on," she said and they climbed into her car and she drove to a park. After awhile they began to talk. Both had tears coming down their cheeks and it took everything she had not to throw her arms around him and tell him what her friends had been telling her. That it would be okay. They would be okay. He was better now. He was on medication. He was happy. But she couldn't. She just couldn't do that.

Now everything inside me tells me I should run to you

and throw my arms around you

hold your streaming crying cheeks against my own

and tell you nothing's wrong

"You should have told me," she said softly.

"I wanted to."

"We would have been okay Chandler. We would have gotten help and we would have been okay." He wasn't looking at her. He was staring out the window at the woods.

"I know."

"You know? That's all you're going to say? You know that you were wrong?"

"I'm sorry."

"You said that already." She calmed herself down and rubbed her hands on her arms in an effort to warm herself. She turned back on the car and put on the heat.

"I don't know what else to say Monica. All I can tell you is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left. I shouldn't of. I've been taking pills and they help, and I just wanted to see if there was something left to save."

"A year ago Chandler, there was something to save. We were going on strong. You just should of told me."

"What difference would it have made?"

"A huge one!" She screamed.

"Monica, I needed this year to myself. Even if I would have told you that I was sick, I probably would have left still. I felt so inadequate."

"Inadequate?"

"Yes, Monica, I never thought that I deserved you. Never. Even after the kids were born I still had this fear that I didn't deserve you. And when I found out that I was sick, well, I...I thought that it would be better for you if I left. If you didn't have to deal with a depressed husband."

"Oh Chandler," she whispered. "I would have taken you anyway that I could." She put her hand on his cheek and let his tears slip over her fingers and he put his hand over top hers and they just sat there for awhile very quietly.

But wrong is what you were when you forgot

that we were going on

that we were going on

that we were going strong

"So what now?" Chandler was the first to speak up. Monica let her hand fall from his face and shivered.

"I don't know."

"Can you forgive me?"

"I think so...but Chandler, a year. You've been gone a whole year."

"I know," he said softly.

"I....I...I just don't know."

"I can deal with that." She nodded.

"I need some time to think," she added.

"Okay," he said. "Why don't you take me home? And then you can call me when you know?" There was no sarcasm in his voice. It was honesty. He honestly was okay with her taking as much time as she needed to figure it out. After all, he had taken a year.

"Okay," Monica told him and pulled out and onto the street. "Okay." She dropped him off and then headed back home and sighed as she recounted what had happened in the car to her friends.

"So what are you going to choose?" Ross asked gently. Monica closed her eyes.

"I need to go lay down," she said and went up to her room and laid on the bed and cried. When she finally stopped crying, she felt cleansed and she knew what she wanted to do. She picked up the phone and dialed the number.

"Chandler?" She said into the phone. "I've made my decision."

Tell me why did you mess with forever?

what a long time to be unkind

tell me why did you mess with forever?

*~ I love cliffhangers, don't you? Please review, it would make me happy. And of course you want to do that! So review!~*