~* Okay, so here's my next one. This is just the start. The song is by Coldplay. So please review and I'll write the next chapter.~*

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, or at least some I do. Okay, here let's put it this way: if you've heard their name on the show, I don't own them.

She was sick of crying. That's all she ever did anymore. She cried over the fact that her marriage was over, or maybe it had never began. They had married out of convenience, so that her daughter could be born in wedlock. Now, five years later, she was a mess and had no one to turn to. No one at all. All her friends, including her ex-boyfriend were in New York city moving on with their lives and living. Living. What was that like? She didn't think she could qualify as living. Breathing, yes, that she was doing. But living? No. She didn't think she was. Her friends were becoming successes, they had children now and were married. They had mourned the loss of a friend from their group when she had first moved, but then they just sort of got it together and moved on. And where did that leave her? In Chicago, with a five-year-old daughter and a cheating husband. Why was she doing this to herself? Why had she made the choices that she had? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. She needed to leave there. Go back to New York? No, what had Thomas Wolfe said?

You can never go home again.

That was so true, she couldn't go back. She couldn't crawl back and ask them to help her out. Not after the way she left it. Not after she had listened to her husband when he had said that he didn't like her friends, didn't think that they were a good influence on her. Not after she followed him to Chicago. She had begged them to understand. And they had...to an extent. She knew that she had asked too much towards the end. She knew that even her best friend had been right when she had told her that she needed to choose. And she had. It wasn't their fault that she didn't like what she had chosen.

If you ever feel neglected

if you ever think all is lost

I'll be counting up my demons, yeah,

hoping everything's not lost

everything's not lost

"Is this what you want?" Her best friend had yelled. "Is this really and truly what you want?" Then her best friend's baby daughter had begun to scream from the other room and she had sighed and hissed the final words at her. "Then go. And I hope that you're happy with what you've chosen. But don't come back if you find that you're not and expect things to be here just like you've left them." It was asking too much, she knew. And as she watched her best friend walk out of the room, and essentially out of her life, she knew that there was no going back. If it didn't work then she couldn't run back to them and beg them, she would have no right. Not because she moved, or got married, or was going to have a baby, they would protect her and love her through all of that. It was because she gave them up without much a fight.

"Is that what all of you think?" She had asked the rest of her friends. She knew that most of them would agree with their friend. Especially him. He always chose her side, but the others. Well, she wasn't so sure about them.

"I think that maybe you should leave," who had said that? One of them, she couldn't remember now. You should leave. You should leave. Leave. Leave.

Leave.

Get out.

Go.

Don't come back.

Don't expect things to stay the same. These were the words the they flung at her that night. That night that she had left. Those were the same words that she had flung at her husband in a vain attempt to be strong. To make him see that she was resilient and could do this on her own. Now her own daughter cried as she sat in the dark and drank away her pains.

when I'm counting up my demons

There's always one for everyday

With the good ones on my shoulder

I drove the other ones away

"I'm coming," her own voice even seemed different to her. Oh, God, what had happened to her? She stood on shaky legs and walked back to her daughter's bedroom.

"Mommy," the little girl sniffled. She looked exactly like her.

"Hi sweetheart," she said and picked her up and kissed her cheek.

"My tummy hurts."

"Come on, and stay with me." She had named her Eva. Eva meant life. Her Eva meant life too. Without Eva she had nothing. She had no one. She could not exist without her. She pushed the curls from off Eva's face and carried her into her bedroom. Evie climbed into the bed and crawled under the covers.

"Aren't you coming silly?" Eva asked. That was her latest word, silly.

"Absolutely darling," she assured her. And she made her way over to the bed and sat down next to her daughter.

If you ever feel neglected

if you think all is lost

I'll be counting up my demons

hoping everything's not lost

"Mommy?" Evie looked up at her sleepily.

"Yes sweetheart?"

"Where's Daddy?" Her daughter's face so innocent. How to tell her what her father had done? How to tell her that she had kicked him out of the apartment and told him to go sleep with his little whore and not come back? She couldn't tell her the truth, and she couldn't lie either.

"He's moved out baby," she went with a half truth.

"Why?"

"Grown-up stuff. Go back to sleep," she leaned and kissed her forehead.

"When's he coming back then?" Evie didn't want to let this go.

"I don't think he is." Her daughter's bottom lip quivered and that was just another reason to curse him.

"Why not? Doesn't he love me?"

"Oh sweetie, of course he does. How could anyone not love you?"

"Then why?" Why? Hadn't she asked herself that very same question? What had she done wrong that he would sleep with another woman and leave his wife and daughter? Why? Why had she left New York in the first place? Why had she fallen in love with him? Why hadn't she listened to her friends when they told her not to date him? She could write a book on all the why's.

"I don't know baby. I don't know." She could feel the hot tears begin their unrelenting descent down her cheek.

"Mommy, please don't cry." She was a horrible mother now too. Crying in front of her child. She should be strong and keep her head up. Little fingers tried to brush the tears away. She took hold of the little hand and pressed it to her cheek and then to her lips.

"Go to sleep honey." Finally Eva nodded and closed her eyes. Once her breathing had steadied, the tears came at more alarming rate as she sat and cried over all the things that had gone wrong.

When you thought it was over

you could feel it all around

everybody's out to get you

don't you let it drag you down

She packed a bag with all of her stuff in it. Then she moved down to Eva's room and packed her stuff as well. Then she placed both bags out by the front door and went around and looked for anymore of the sentimental items that she would want with her. Eva's baby book, her baby pictures, and pictures of her and her friends. Those were the days. Sitting around drinking coffee and complaining about lost loves and lost jobs. Maybe they still did. Even with their children, she couldn't imagine their lives had changed all that much. She knew that two of them had moved out into the suburbs to raise their kids. She shivered and turned up the heat, although she knew that the cold was only one reason that she had shivered. What was she doing? She couldn't go back. But she couldn't stay.

"Mommy?" Eva was awake. She went back to the bedroom.

"Hi sweetie, come on, breakfast is ready and then you and I are going to go on a little trip."

"Really?" This excited Eva. How she wished that it would excite her as well.

"Yes, really, come on." Evie hopped out of bed and ran to the kitchen were she climbed onto the chair and began eating the cereal.

"I'm done, can we go now?" She called a few minutes later.

"Are you really done?"

"Yes."

"Did you drink your milk?"

"Yes."

"Okay, come go to the bathroom and we'll go." She heard the chair against the linoleum and she heard Evie run past her to the bathroom. She took a deep breath.

"Where are we going?" Evie asked as they made their way down to the bus station.

"New York," she said trying to smile at her daughter. "We're going to New York."

cause if you ever feel neglected

If you think that all is lost

I'll be counting all the demons

singing out oh yeah

everything's not lost

come on yeah, oh yeah, come on yeah

She stood outside the large suburban house. She had made it this far, she couldn't turn back now. Eva glanced up at the house.

"That's a big house," she said knowingly nodding her head.

"Yes."

"Who lives there?"

"My old best friend."

"Are we going to see her?"

"If she'll see me."

"Why wouldn't she?"

"I wasn't very nice when I left."

"Why did you leave?" She looked down at her daughter.

"My, my, aren't you the inquisitive one?"

"I don't know what that means." She laughed. "Is she going to yell at you?" Her tactic of getting Evie to think of something else hadn't worked very well.

"She might."

"Will you cry?"

"I might."

"I don't want to see you cry." She leaned down and gave Evie a kiss.

"Thank you." She took a deep breath and began to walk up the front walk to the door. This was it. Now or never. She could do this. She could do this. Her hand rose unsteadily to knock on the door. She heard laughter and movement to the door. It opened and she got ready for the reaction of her friend.

"Oh my God."

"Hi."

"Chandler? Come here," her friend's hand rose to her mouth. "Rachel?"

everything's not lost

oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah

everything's not lost

come on yeah, yeah, yeah

everything's not lost

sing out yeah

~* You thought that because you all know me, it was going to be Monica, right? Well, ha! Oh, but fear not, because I will still find a way to make it a Mondler fic. Anyway, review and tell me how you thought of the beginning. ~*