A/N: I'm so sad that this story is ending! I decided to end it with a very long epilogue. Read the ending author's note afterwards.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Friends... blah blah.

EPILOGUE - Back Home

Phoebe sat nervously in the kitchen of Joey's mansion, clutching the small, wrapped box in her hands, fiddling with the paper and retying the bow. Joey would soon be home from the after-party of the shooting of the final ever episode of Seeing Blue, which Phoebe felt too sick to attend. Joey had announced he was leaving the show two months earlier when he and Phoebe had got engaged. In a month, they were moving back to New York. They both had an extraordinary amount of money saved, they realized, and with Joey's residual checks, they could not work for years and be fine. Anyway, Joey looked forward to being a guest star on other TV shows and landing cameos in movies.

Phoebe jumped up as she heard Joey's Porsche pull into the driveway. "It's Porsche-uh," she imagined him saying. Joey waltzed in to the house through the garage.

"Honey, I'm home!" he called, grinning.

"In here," Phoebe said.

After he found and kissed her, he asked, "So what was the big deal about coming home early?"

"I have a present for you," Phoebe said, thrusting the box into his hands. Joey cocked his head and smiled.

"Babes, you know I love presents, but - "

"Just open it, Joseph," Phoebe said, using his full name seriously. Joey looked at her to see her earnestly watching him. He tugged at the ribbon and ripped the paper. Inside, he found a box, and out of it he pulled a white stick, half of which was blue. He stared at it, his insides jolting in excitement and terror.

"Pheebs, is this a pregnancy test? Are you - " he stopped as she grinned widely. "You're pregnant?"

"Yes!" she cried.

"Omigod - I'm gonna be a daddy!" Joey cried, dropping the box and pulling Phoebe into his arms, spinning her around and kissing her face. "I love you, Phoebe. I love you."

"I love you too - Daddy," she whispered.

Chandler

Monica and Chandler used their new-found love to comfort each other through work, the daughter they'd had together, things going on around them. And gradually yet all of a sudden, they fell in love.

They had been living with each other for six months when the sexual tension in the apartment was so intense they could barely keep their hands off each, even when their daughter was around. Chandler would pinch Monica's butt as she walked by, and she would slide her hand up and down his thigh under the dinner table. Monica felt aroused just looking at him, and he felt the same way. But it wasn't until Cassie walked in on them making out in Chandler's bedroom that they sat her down to talk. She was almost nine now, and very intelligent and mature, but she was grossed out to see her mother and "Uncle Chandler" sucking face.

"So I guess you guys are more than friends," she said when they didn't see her immediately. They jerked away, and Chandler fell off the bed.

"Cassie!" Monica said, smoothing back her hair and straightening her shirt. "What's up, sweetie?"

"Mon," Chandler said, raising his eyebrows. Tell her, he mouthed.

"Okay. Cassie. I guess you figured out Mommy and Uncle Chandler are... more than friends, as you put it. We love each other, and we are boyfriend and girlfriend. Are you okay with that?"

"Are you gonna get married?" she asked. In her young, innocent world, being boyfriend and girlfriend meant getting married. "I'm married, you know."

Chandler suppressed a snort. "You're married?" Monica asked, grateful for a change of subject. "Who are you married to?"

"Well, obviously it's pretend married," Cassie scoffed.

"Obviously," Chandler said, smiling as motherly concern fell over Monica's face. My God, he thought, motherhood fits her so well.

"His name is Devin, and we got married on the playground. Lanie was my bridesmaid. That's the day I wore my Easter dress," Cassie explained.

"Oh, I see," Monica said knowingly.

"But he had to ask me. Are you going to ask Mommy to marry you, Uncle Chandler?"

Chandler was caught off guard. His mouth opening and closing like a fish's, he looked at Monica, who was simply watching him, and he realized she was holding her breath. He climbed back onto the bed and rubbed Monica's shoulder. "I think I might," he said, smiling. "I think I just might.''

"Cool!" Cassie said. "Then you'll be like my Daddy!" She grinned her big, lopsided grin, and left. Monica and Chandler laughed nervously at the irony of the untainted comment.

"Thanks for saying that," Monica said softly. "I wasn't sure - she doesn't understand that you can be with someone but not get married. I'm really grateful to you - you didn't have to - "

"I wasn't just saying that, Mon," Chandler interrupted her. He lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. "Really."

Because he really wasn't scared of commitment anymore. He'd found the woman he loved. But seven months wasn't long enough... he'd have to wait. But he would be patient. He would love Monica and Cassie and be the best boyfriend and father-figure he could, and then when the time came, it would be right.

Joey, Phoebe, some of Joey's California friends, and a couple of Phoebe's friends flew out to New York for their wedding. Despite Phoebe's slightly swelled stomach, they didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy just yet.

Their wedding was a beautiful, magical, celebrity wedding. When Joey promised to never love another woman and to care for Phoebe until the day they died, everyone cried. When Phoebe pledged to help Joey through the rest of his life and obey him unless he asked her to eat meat, they laughed. Ross and Rachel and Chandler and Monica couldn't help but think there were no two people better for each other in the world than the new Mr. and Mrs. Tribbiani - except, perhaps, Ross and Rachel and Chandler and Monica respectively.

Seven months ("Just seven," they joked with the happy couple, "where's the other two?") after the wedding, Phoebe delivered Aarron Joseph Tribbiani, whom they nicknamed AJ, in Cedars Sinai Medical Center in NYC, NY. Everybody, with the exception of Rachel who held steadfast to her son, pronounced he was the handsomest baby they had ever seen.

Before any of them knew it, it had been a year since their beach excursion that had changed all of their lives so dramatically. Chandler went to Ross and Rachel's one day to talk to Ross alone.

"I have something to ask you," Chandler said. "It's about Monica."

"Listen, man, do you guys need money? Because it's - "

"No, we don't need money," Chandler cut him off. He smiled to himself. "I'm going to ask Monica to marry me."

"Oh my God!" Ross asked. "Oh my God, Chandler, really?"

"Yeah," Chandler said, pulling out a ring box and opening it. Inside was a gorgeously cut one and a half karat diamond, the only clue Ross would get to Chandler's paycheck.

"Holy shit, man," Ross exclaimed, looking closer at the ring.

"Yeah," Chandler replied, embarrassed. "So um, I just wanted to make sure your okay... with this."

"Why wouldn't I be okay with it?" Ross asked.

"Just - I mean, I don't know your guys' dad, and with you being Monica's brother and my best friend, I just thought you would want to know." Chandler fidgeted. It had seemed like such a gentlemanly thing to do, although it was a bit ridiculous - Monica was thirty eight years old, not a child.

"Thank you for asking, Chandler. But of course I'm okay with it. I'm thrilled, in fact!''

So that night, after the 1995 champagne was poured, Chandler proposed to Monica. She started tearing up halfway through the speech, and when he opened the ring box, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Having anticipated this, Chandler paused, then asked, "Monica, will you marry me?"

"I will," Monica said, her eyes moving from the ring to Chandler's eyes. "I love you, Chandler."

"I love you too."

Later, as they lay in bed together, Monica held up her hand to look at the dazzling ring. "It's so beautiful, Chandler. However did you pay for it?"

Although Chandler was constantly offering her money, Monica refused to take it, and therefore never knew the extent of Chandler's money. But now they would be together forever - and that was all that mattered.

Now, four friends were happily married, and none of them could help wondering - would Rachel and Ross ever tie the knot? Soon after Rachel split from Joshua, she, Jamie, and Callista moved in with Ross. Needless to say, it was a strange situation. The fatherless children were confused. "Where's Daddy?" Jamie would ask. "Is Daddy coming home soon?" And whenever he asked, Rachel or Ross would calmly and simply say, "Daddy did a bad thing. You're going to see him sometime. Remember that he loves you." However, Joshua had disappeared after he and Rachel divorced and Rachel filed a restraining order against him, and he never called or wrote the children. All for the better, Rachel and Ross thought.

Callista, on the other hand, took to calling Ross "Dada" as soon as she started talking. Rachel and Ross were surprised, but soon decided to let Callista believe, for now, that the wonderful, loving man that lived with them was her dad. The sweet little girl had never known Joshua, and now probably never would, so Ross was the best substitute she'd have.

Ross and Rachel agreed, at first, that it would be better to let their attraction stay unnoticed by all. But soon the tension in the apartment became too intense. Ross would get a whiff of Rachel's hair and stiffen up. Rachel would get shivers up and down her spine when Ross touched her arm. It led to them making out in the back of a taxi on the way home from Jamie's first parent-teacher conference, which led to making out on the couch whenever they could for several weeks, which led to falling asleep in each other's arms and being discovered by Monica, bringing the kids home from her place. The news quickly spread, and before long Rachel's parents were calling to ask when the wedding was.

With 11 years of baggage weighing down their hearts, Ross and Rachel were taking the marriage thing slowly. They lived together for nearly three years, raising Jamie and Callista as if they were their own.

But still Ross didn't propose. It was his 15 year old son Ben who finally pushed him to pop the question by giving him an ultimatum.

"Rachel is a beautiful woman, Dad," he said. "Even at 40. She's not going to wait around for you to recover for the rest of her life. She wants to give her children a real, stable family. Ask her to marry you. You won't regret it."

And so he did. Rachel was thrilled and surprised, and they married two months later in a simple ceremony.

Six friends. Three couples. They were happier then they had ever been. It was amazing, Monica thought as she watched Chandler and Cassie play in the waves and rested her hands gently on her growing stomach, how one weekend at the beach - had brought them together. Brought them back home again.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing the first fanfic I've posted! Please leave a review so I can get your opinion on how I ended this. I have another fic, and I'm going to post two new ones as soon as possibe, so watch for them!

Thanks, luv ya,

Jen