Chapter 5: Ross and Julie

[Author's Note: This has to happen after 4, 6 (TOW The Dirty Girl), but nothing that follows in Series 4 need have happened. This is quite short, but I have not decided how it's going to come out! Any suggestions welcome :)]

Part 1

Ross felt bad. He could not remember feeling like this since the big break-up with Rachel. The second time they had hardly been together before they broke again, though it had still been painful, the more so because it had been preceded by breaking up with Bonnie, with whom he had had a lot of fun. And since then none of his dates had come close to Bonnie, let alone Rachel. He seemed to be permanently jinxed, and as a result he felt permanently bad. He tried

not to show it too much, to avoid depressing his friends, but it was hard. How could he move on from Rachel if there was no one to move on to?

A tap on his office door interrupted his gloomy meditations. It was Donald Ledbetter. At first it was not clear what he had come about, but after meandering around for a while he came to the point.

'Ross, some of our colleagues have remarked that you seem rather depressed these days. Is there anything troubling you that we can help with?'

'Thank you, Donald,' said Ross a bit stiffly, 'but it's personal stuff – you know, girlfriend trouble, or rather, lack of girlfriend trouble.'

'You, um, didn't, er, click with Cheryl then?' said Donald, sounding embarrassed.

'No,' said Ross. 'I'm afraid our, er, lifestyle are just too different.' She is the antithesis of my sister, he thought: Miss Dirty New York 1997, and probably all-America material.

'Really?' said Donald. 'A pity. She seems such a nice girl. But one cannot force these things. Do you think a break might do you good? They've announced a snap conference in LA a week from now, to discuss the new Chinese finds. Would you like to represent the museum?'

'Donald, I'd love to,' said Ross gratefully. 'A trip away from New York might be just what I need right now.'

The next time they were in Central Perk together he told his friends.

'No trips to the zoo to look at your monkey this time,' said Phoebe.

'He doesn't need to go to the zoo to do that,' said Chandler, smirking.

'You already made a joke like that, and it wasn't funny then,' Monica observed tartly. Chandler winced.

'It's not fair, how Ross gets to go to LA when he doesn't need to, and I don't when I do need to, for my career,' said Joey discontentedly.

'Well, I think I do need to,' said Ross. 'I really need a break.'

A wicked look came into Rachel's eye, but evidently she thought better of whatever she had been about to say. She gave her little cough, and, looking not unsympathetically at Ross, said, 'Don't go falling for any of those Hollywood wannabes, Ross. By what I hear, some of them will eat you up and spit you out.'

'They won't be interested in a geek like Ross,' said Joey tactlessly.

'Don't you be so sure,' said Rachel. 'Some of them will go for anything in pants.'

'Thank you for the warning,' said Ross with ironical politeness. 'But I'm not likely to have time to go looking for dates anyway. The conference program is pretty intensive.'

'So you had better look for hot dinosaur geeks instead,' Chandler commented.

'You can't be hot and a geek,' Joey protested.

'Well, Ross gives it a pretty good shot,' said Rachel, with a glint in her eye. Ross smiled at her, happy to be back at the level of friendly joshing for a moment. He knew better than to suppose it was anything more; this time, Rachel really did seem to want it to be over. The thought made him slightly depressed again. I do need to get away, he told himself.

-----

A week later, Ross was standing in line to register and chatting happily with people he knew, when he caught sight of a familiar face.

'Oh my God!' he said unconsciously.

'What's the matter, Ross?' said Jim Macnamara, a paleontologist from Boston, then, following Ross's gaze, 'Why, it's Julie Wong. Hadn't heard she was back in the country. You know her, then?'

'We … dated for a while,' said Ross. 'The parting wasn't friendly. Do you know if she has a guy?'

'Not that I've heard,' said Jim. 'Unless she has someone tucked away in China. She's over there digging most of the time these days, I hear.'

Ross gazed at Julie, remembering all the good things about her. He wondered what his life with her would have been like, if he had not gone after Rachel. Suddenly she turned, as if feeling his gaze. Her expression changed, but, before he could work out what it was now, she looked away again abruptly. Not very promising, he thought, though it was over a year since they had broken up – she should have been over hating him by now.

Much later, he and Jim and one or two others were relaxing over drinks in the hotel bar after the first lecture session, when Julie walked past.

'Hi Julie!' called Jim. 'What's new?'

'Oh hi Jim!' she said, turning, then as her eye fell on Ross, 'Who's your over-gelled friend?'

'Aw, come on, Julie, you know Ross Geller,' said Jim.

'Only too well,' she commented. 'How's the beautiful Rachel, Ross?' Her eyes looked hostile.

'We broke up,' said Ross lugubriously.

'Oh, now I wonder why that was,' she said in ironical tones. 'Had you fallen in love with someone else, maybe?'

Ross winced, as the others looked embarrassed. 'It's not funny, Julie,' he said slowly. 'Look, I'm sorry about the way things turned out, and I guess you have a right to be mad at me, but don't tease me about Rachel. It hurts too much.'

She nodded. 'Well, now you know how it feels.' She walked off, her back very straight.

'Boy, is she mad at you,' said Jim. 'You want to tell us about it? Sounds like you need a bit of sympathy.'

'Well, I don't want to bore you,' Ross began.

'Go on,' said Jim. 'If we get bored, we can always throw things.'

Ross needed no further encouragement. Out it all poured – Carol, Julie, Rachel, Chloe, Bonnie, the whole bit. The others listened in apparent fascination.

'Man, you have had a rough time,' Jim commented. 'Well, I think we should go eat, before you start in on a crying jag. Things always look better after a good meal, is how I feel.'

For the rest of the conference Ross kept an eye open for Julie and moved hastily in the opposite direction whenever he saw her heading his way. He had no wish for more of her sarcastic comments; he could get those from Rachel any time. But when he was waiting for a taxi to go to the airport for his plane back to New York, suddenly she popped up beside him.

'Share a taxi with me, Ross?' she said. 'I promise I won't bite.'

Hoping that she had worked through her hostility, he agreed. 'That was a great talk you gave,' he said.

She smiled. 'Why, thank you, Ross. Are you going straight back to New York?'

He nodded. 'Eleven o'clock plane.'

'Why, so am I,' she said. 'Maybe we can sit together.'

'So you want to be friends now?' he said a little warily.

She nodded. 'Jim told me a bit about what you've been through. I'm sorry about what I said.'

'Well, it was my own stupid fault, mostly,' said Ross, 'but let's not talk about it. What are your plans now this dig's over?'

By the time they were called for the plane, they were getting on as well as they had done when their relationship was beginning. Ross learned that the thing with Russ hadn't worked out. 'He just wasn't you,' she said simply. The plane was in fact full and they could not sit together, which disappointed Ross. He had decided that he wasn't going to pass up this heaven-sent chance to re-open a relationship that he often wished he had never broken, for all the great year that he'd had with Rachel. He looked for Julie at baggage collection, and caught her before she disappeared.

'Julie, this is going to seem kind of weird, maybe,' he said, 'but would you like to have dinner tomorrow night?'

She looked up at him, smiling. 'Ross Geller, are you actually asking me for a date?'

He nodded. 'I'll understand if you say no, but I hope you won't. I … have never forgotten you, Julie.'

She looked at him with a serious expression for a long moment, while he mentally crossed his fingers. Then her smile appeared again. 'Okay.'

'Great!' he said enthusiastically. 'Shall we meet at Central Perk?'

She frowned. 'Won't that upset Rachel?'

'I don't see why it should,' said Ross. 'We're completely over now. And frankly,' his face darkened as he looked away, 'I don't care if it does.' At this, unnoticed by him, Julie frowned slightly. 'The others will certainly be pleased to see you, especially Monica.'

'Okay,' she said, 'see you there around seven tomorrow.'

When Ross dropped in to Central Perk late that evening, his friends noticed at once that he had come back from LA a changed man. Characteristically, Joey asked if he'd got laid. More tactfully, Monica asked if he'd met someone new.

'Well, I met someone,' he said, 'but she's not new,' he added teasingly.

Monica looked puzzled, but Phoebe caught on. 'Julie!' she cried. 'You met Julie again.'

Ross nodded. 'She's meeting me here about seven tomorrow. She'll be happy to see you guys.'

'Well, well, well,' said Chandler. 'Off with the new love and on with the old, eh?'

Rachel had been in the rest room when Ross arrived; now she returned. 'Hi Ross!' she said in a  fairly friendly way. 'Have a good time in LA?'

'It got better,' he said, grinning, wondering if he should tell her about Julie. The others were looking at him as if they expected him to, especially Monica, but he was feeling obstinate. Rachel had put him through it with that letter business, expecting him to take all the blame for their breakup, and he hadn't really forgiven her for that.

Rachel was looking around. 'What's going on? You all seem to know something I don't.'

The looks Monica and Phoebe in particular were directing at Ross seemed to intensify. Oh hell, he thought.

'I met Julie at the conference,' he said, trying to sound casual.

'And?' Rachel prompted.

'We're going on a date tomorrow.'

Rachel seemed to go a little pale. 'Oh,' she said, and then did her cough. 'Wasn't she, um, mad at you?'

'She was, at first,' said Ross. 'But at the end she got more friendly.'

Rachel frowned but did not say anything more. Later, when she and Monica were back in their apartment, she began pacing up and down with a thoughtful look.

'What's up, sweetie?' said Monica.

'I don't like this business of Ross and Julie,' said Rachel. 'If it were me, I'd have been really mad at being dumped that way. I wonder if she's setting him up.'

Monica looked at her sympathetically. 'You're still not over him, are you?'

'It's not that,' Rachel snapped. 'I just don't want to see a friend get hurt.'

'I don't think Julie's like that,' Monica protested.

'Anyone can be like that,' said Rachel darkly, 'if they have enough of a motive.'

She went to bed still worrying about it, and finally decided to be there with the others when Julie showed up the next evening.