It was a beautifully sunny day in Long Island, almost fourteen years after Monica and Chandler had had their night together. In that time, a lot had changed for Monica Geller.

"Mom, hey, Mom!" a thirteen-year-old girl in a wheelchair whizzed into Monica's large three-storey house, a younger boy behind her. Despite the age difference, they were great friends.

"Not so fast, Kendra," Monica replied, calmly.

"Yeah, Kendra!" the boy mocked.

"Stop it, Ben!" Kendra moaned.

"Stop it, Ben!" he mimicked.

"Ben, do you think your mom and dad would like to know that you were teasing Kendra?" Monica asked.

Ben shook his head. "I was just trying to have a bit of fun, Aunt Monica," he explained. "And I'd sure as hell wallop anyone else I saw doing it," he added.

"You shouldn't say 'hell'," Monica rebuked him.

"Sorry," Ben said.

"You say 'hell' an awful lot," Kendra pointed out.

"But I'm an adult, and I—"

"Can do a lot of things that children shouldn't," Ben and Kendra joined in. This was a speech that Monica made at least twice a week.

"Well, anyways, Mom, guess what?" Kendra asked.

"What, sweetie-pie?" Monica replied. She never bothered guessing.

"Uncle Ross 'n' Auntie Rachel are coming for dinner tonight," Kendra said, smiling.

"And me and Emily and Julia," Ben piped up. "Mom and Dad say they've got big news, whatever that is. I don't know. So we're all coming for dinner – if you don't mind," he added.

"That's wonderful!" Monica said, sincerely.

"Oh, and they said that Ben could stay 'til they come," Kendra added. "So you don't hafta worry about taking him home."

"She wouldn't hafta do that anyways," Ben protested. "I am eleven."

Monica let them bicker until Phoebe came home. She and Monica shared the house, which they had bought when it had become obvious that Monica's pregnancy meant they could no longer keep their apartment.

"Hi you guys!" Phoebe called.

"Hi Aunt Phoebe!" Ben and Kendra chorused.

"Hey Pheebs," Monica said, smiling. "Ross and Rachel are coming round this evening, so I'm gonna go cook. D'you wanna be in charge of these guys?"

"We don't need anyone to be in charge of us!" Kendra retorted. "I'm thirteen, and Ben's eleven. Why would we need anyone to look after us?"

"Maybe because the last time no one was looking after you, Ben fell in the pool?" Phoebe suggested.

"That was just a, a minor error in calculating where the pool was," Kendra said. Monica looked at her, wondering. She certainly seemed to have a lot of the characteristics of the father whom she had never known. Hadn't he once said that he made jokes when uneasy?

"Look, I'll just sit a little way away," Phoebe tried to compromise. "That way, I can't hear your conversation, and you can't hear mine, right?"

"You're gonna be having a conversation with yourself?" Kendra asked.

"Ken, how long have we known Phoebe?" Ben asked, sarcastically. "We know what she's like."

"Good point," Kendra laughed. "So, who're you gonna be talking to today? Your mom?"

Phoebe shook her head. "John Lennon," she said. "Or maybe Elvis – I'm not sure yet."

Monica smiled. She was still the same old Pheebs that she had always been. "Okay, Pheebs, you go chat with your dead singers, and let the kids get on with what they're doing." She shooed them out of her kitchen, and settled to cooking.

Outside, Ben and Kendra were talking by the poolside. The pool had been built for Kendra, when it was discovered that she could actually move her legs slightly in the water.

"We've got to do this project at school," Kendra said, glumly. She attended a special school, for children with disabilities. Ben just went to a normal Manhattan private school.

"Ugh, I hate projects," Ben sympathised.

"Wait 'til you hear what it's about," Kendra said. "I've gotta do a family tree. Like, my mom, my mom's parents and brothers and sisters and stuff, and my dad. I don't even know my dad!"

Ben thought for a moment. "Maybe, uh, maybe you should try and find him."

"What's to say he'd even want me?" Kendra countered. "I mean, what if he knew about my, y'know, my problem? And what if that was why he left?"

"Who wouldn't want you?" Ben asked. "I mean, you're funny, and you're a great friend."

"But maybe not a great daughter," Kendra sighed. "Chances are, he wouldn't want a girl springing up out of nowhere claiming to be his daughter. And if he wouldn't want a regular girl—"

"You're a regular girl!" Ben interrupted hurriedly.

"I'm not, though, am I?" Kendra said. "I've got cerebral palsy. It doesn't matter to me, or to Mom, or you or Phoebe, or anyone I know, but it might matter to a prospective dad. If you had the choice of a healthy daughter who could walk, or a daughter who had spastic diplegia, who would you choose?"

"I'd choose—" Ben began.

"You'd choose the one that could walk, not the one that needed a wheelchair," Kendra finished for him. "I mean, I bet that he wouldn't be wild about finding that he even had a teenage daughter, so—"

"Monica's coming!" Ben hissed suddenly. Kendra shut up quickly, and they both looked up to see Monica walking over to them, smiling.

"Want a drink, guys?" she queried. Monica was a successful chef, and she loved making food and drinks for her friends and the two children. She only worked whilst Kendra was at school, and her employers were very sympathetic to her.

"Can I have a lemonade, please?" Kendra asked.

"Orange juice, please, Aunt Monica," Ben requested.

"Coming right up," Monica laughed, and went off to the kitchen.

She got the drinks quickly, and handed them to the children. Then, she sat down at the kitchen table, and thought. Kendra wanted a father, she missed a father, she thought a father wouldn't want her because of her disability. For most of her life, Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, and, to a lesser extent, Ben, had all made Kendra feel comfortable with the cerebral palsy, and Monica had never known that she felt this way.

Since Monica had slept with Chandler, a lot had happened. She and Phoebe had moved to a house just out of the city as soon as Monica's pregnancy with Kendra was discovered. Ross and Rachel had followed almost a year later, moving about ten minutes' walk away from Monica and Phoebe's house, their reason being that they wanted to start a family, and were uncomfortable doing that in the middle of the city. Ben had arrived, followed by his sisters, Emily, who was now six, and Julia, who was four.

Phoebe and Monica hadn't had serious relationships – Phoebe said she didn't have the time for anyone apart from Ryan, her 'submarine guy', a man whom she loved, but who was in the Navy, and only resurfaced once every two years. Monica had no time for anyone apart from Kendra, although she had dated one of her parents' friends for a few months. Kendra had had cerebral palsy from the time she was four months old, after she had meningitis. Because of that, she was pretty much paralysed from the waist downwards. Because of this, Phoebe and Monica had turned their sitting room into a bedroom for her, and they had had their house renovated so that it was suitable for Kendra's wheelchair. In all of that time, they had not let Kendra resent her paralysis in any way. Sometimes she had been annoyed when Ben had arrived home from school with tales of playing football, or ice hockey, or when she saw people on the Olympics on television – she'd automatically put herself down. But everyone had made it clear that they loved Kendra despite the wheelchair, and anyone who mattered would do the same.

"Mon?" Phoebe said, coming into the kitchen. "What's wrong, Mon?"

Monica shook her head, startled to find that there were traces of tears on her cheeks. "I, I was just thinking…" she said, softly, looking out of the window.

Phoebe followed her glance. "Kendra? Yeah, it's unfair, Mon, but there's nothing we can do about it. We've just got to keep on loving her, despite anything. She's still Kendra, with or without cerebral palsy, Monica."

Monica shook her head. "I wasn't thinking about that," she said. "I just heard her talking to Ben. She thinks that her father left because of her disability."

"Ohh…" Phoebe moaned. "That poor girl."

"And she thinks that even if he came back, he wouldn't want her. Because of, well, because she's got cerebral palsy." Monica sighed.

"If he did that, then he'd be a right b—" Phoebe began.

"I know," Monica murmured. "But, well, I'll never see him again, will I? It was one night, fourteen years ago."

"You could find him," Phoebe suggested.

"No." Monica blew her fringe off her face. "No, I've tried. It's impossible. Where could I start?"

"What was his name?" Phoebe asked.

"I only knew his first name," Monica reminded her. "Chandler. It's an odd name, but I can't find anything. I tried, years ago, when I found out I was pregnant, I tried going to that club, and waiting to see if he came, and I asked at that motel, but they wouldn't tell me anything – legal stuff, I guess."

"Hire a detective," was Phoebe's next idea.

"Pheebs, where would I find the money? I'm a single mom, remember? 'Sides, I know his name. I don't even really remember what he looked like, and I can hardly go to a detective and give a list of his sexual habits, can I?" Monica demanded.

"Yeah, no—" Phoebe was cut off by the doorbell.

"Ross and Rachel!" Monica gasped. "They're early!" She bolted to the door, followed by Phoebe, and found her brother and sister-in-law standing there, with their daughters, six-year-old Emily and four-year-old Julia.

"Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom!" Emily muttered, running past Monica and Phoebe.

"She's been needing the bathroom all the way since home," Rachel confessed. "Sorry."

"Ah, no worries," Monica smiled. "Ben and Kendra are out the back," she added. "Let's go tell them we're here, shall we?"

"It can wait a moment," Ross said, putting out a hand to stop her. "We've got a favour to ask of you," he explained.

"Julia, sweetie, could you go find Ben and Kendra?" Rachel asked. Julia nodded and ran off.

"Let's, let's sit down," Monica proposed. They all wandered into the sitting room, and Ross looked at Monica and Phoebe.

"Mon, Pheebs, uh, we need to ask you something," he began.

"Do you want us to look after the kids?" Phoebe asked. "'Cause I love babysitting!" she added, happily.

"No, that's not it," Ross said. "Uh, well, I've got this friend, from college, he was my roommate. Anyway, his wife's just died, and he's devastated."

"Get to the point," Rachel told him, smiling.

"'Kay. Um, well, he doesn't want to stay in London, that, that's where he lived, well, 'cause of the memories of his wife. So, uh, he asked me if I could let him stay for a few weeks, just while he got settled over here. But, well, we've got the kids, and the house is pretty small anyway, I mean, Emily and Julia hafta share a room. So I said I couldn't, but I knew some people who would love to let him stay."

"You, you've got a guest room," Monica pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's got two kids coming with him," Rachel explained.

"Wait, you want us to have a stranger to stay with us for a few weeks, with two children?" Phoebe asked.

"In a nutshell, yeah," Ross agreed. "And he's not a stranger. I've known him for years. He, he moved to London about thirteen years ago with his wife, and, well, the kids need to get away from the memories of their mom. I mean, uh, the boy, he's only, like, five. And the girl, I think she's twelve."

"What about Kendra?" Monica said.

"She'll love having a girl to share stuff with!" Rachel enthused. "She doesn't have enough friends of her own age."

"She's got Ben," Monica defended her daughter.

"Precisely," Ben's mother said. "He's an eleven-year-old boy, Monica. It'll do Kendra worlds of good to have Alice with her for a few weeks."

"Do you think we should?" Phoebe asked Monica.

"I don't know. I mean, I hate to think of two poor kids by themselves on the streets – and this guy, if his wife's just died, he should be okay," Monica mused.

"So we'll do it?" Phoebe checked.

Monica sighed. "Why not?"

"Great!" Ross cried. "I'll go phone Chandler and tell him!"

Monica and Phoebe looked at one another. Chandler? It couldn't be.