Past & Present
Chapter 12: Do What You Have To Do
DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Friends" or any of the characters. Who thinks I should? Who's with me?
THE PREMISE: Rachel must choose between her past and her future. Will tragedy be the result?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A little more hot writing, a little fighting, a few drinks too many…
See the author's note of the previous chapter for further explanations. For the male reader in Hawaii who enjoyed catty Rachel, you should especially like this chapter.
The title of this chapter is taken from the Sarah McLaughlin song of the same name.
~*~*~
Rachel looked around as she stepped out of the cab in front of Delmonico's, searching the human traffic for some sign of Joey. He was nowhere to be seen.
Chandler and Monica had taken the Porsche. David and Phoebe had ridden over with them while Ross and Rachel took a cab. Joey was supposed to take a cab to Lydia's apartment and pick her up before joining them.
They planned to arrive together. Rachel knew that Joey viewed this as nothing more than a friendly escort. Lydia, on the other hand, had to see it as another phase of her game plan to infiltrate every aspect of his life. A pang of resentment momentarily overshadowed her anticipation of the night to come. It seemed that Lydia's name was becoming permanently linked in Rachel's mind with unpleasant emotions.
"Let's go get our table, Joey will be here any minute." Chandler held open the door to the restaurant, letting Monica in first as David, Phoebe, Ross, and Rachel followed.
The sound of a car pulling up to the curb caught Rachel's attention just before she stepped inside the restaurant. She turned her head to see Joey getting out of a cab, looking sexier than the law should allow. He was wearing black from head to foot, more formal than his usual casual style. Her pulse raced responsively as all rational thought fled her mind. How could anyone be so attractive? She would challenge any woman to deny it. No one would turn him down, looking the way he did tonight.
She stood still, allowing her eyes to linger over every last inch of him. A hot blush colored her face as her fevered memory wandered first to things they'd done, then to other things they'd almost done but never finished. Things she still wanted to do, more now than ever. Things she had every intention of doing tonight.
Joey watched her cheeks burst into scorching pink. He read her face and could see exactly what she was thinking. Taming his impulse to throw her over his shoulder, find the first available flat surface and get another look at that lacy bra she had on under it, he turned reluctantly to offer Lydia his hand as she stepped out of the cab.
Lydia emerged from the cab, a slinky black dress clinging to her tanned skin, spiked heel shoes adding just enough height for her to gaze up at Joey in an adorably helpless manner. She laced her fingers over his arm possessively. She had claimed him for her own.
Before Lydia could accost her with insincere smiles and chatter, Rachel turned and let herself into the restaurant, almost choking on the bile of jealousy.
The maitre de was leading the group to a long, narrow table with four chairs on each side. Chandler and Monica took the first seats beside each other at one end with Phoebe and David across from them. That left Ross and Lydia to occupy the middle seats on each side with Joey and Rachel sitting at the end of the table across from each other. Joey was squirming in his chair beside Lydia from the overt awkwardness of it all. Rachel flopped down carelessly in her seat beside Ross, happy to sit across from Joey but filled with the urge to stuff Lydia down a manhole.
Wonderful, Rachel practically snarled as the maitre de unfolded her napkin, a front row seat.
"Everyone wants wine but Monica and Phoebe, I assume?" Chandler was paging through the wine list.
"Yes!" Joey and Rachel answered in resounding unison.
"I'm thinking a nice red, maybe a Merlot…" Chandler continued.
"Sweetie, you're not a wine expert," Monica told him. "Let Ross order it."
"That's ok, he can handle it." Ross was unsuccessfully trying to catch Phoebe's eye without drawing the attention of the others.
"We'll have the house Merlot for six," Chandler said to the waiter, "and sparkling water for two."
Rachel instantly recognized the waiter as the one from the night when Joey had told her…
The waiter ran the specials but Rachel never heard a word of it. Joey was tapping his fingers absently on the table, distracting her already flustered attention. She couldn't take her eyes off his hands as she relived every sensation they'd evoked when he'd expertly smoothed them over her body just hours before. Her toes curled inside her Jimmy Choo "Perfect" sandals as she flashed back on Barbados, on his weight pressing against her as they fell back on the bed in a tangle. Unquenchable hammering need was building up inside her, begging for immediate release.
"Rach?" Ross' voice cut into her fantasy. She turned her dilated eyes to him. "Salad?" he asked, repeating the waiter's inquiry.
"Oh." Everyone at the table must have known what she was thinking. "Yes, thank you."
"And for you, handsome?" the waiter asked Joey with a flirty grin.
"You got anything less…salad-y? I mean, for an appetizer?"
"We have a fabulous mushroom risotto…"
Joey shook his head. "You got any hot wings? Something like that?"
Everyone except Lydia and Rachel shared their standard "see how dumb and unsophisticated Joey is" smirk with each other. Lydia was oblivious to it, but Rachel realized what they were doing and looked around at all of them contemptuously.
"We have crab cakes," the waiter continued patiently, too smitten with Joey himself to care if this very desirable customer wanted less than cosmopolitan fare.
"Yeah, bring me some of those instead of salad, and put a rush on the wine, all right?" Joey leaned forward, close enough to Rachel that she could almost feel the warmth of his leg across from hers under the table.
This could be fun after all, she thought, knowing that Joey was looking at her and not Lydia. He was right across from her…anything could happen.
As the waiter made his rounds with the wine, Lydia was badgering Phoebe into telling the story of how she and David met.
"And then he went back to Minsk, and we didn't see each other for years," Phoebe was repeating tonelessly, as if it were a story she'd told so many times that the words had lost all meaning.
Rachel downed her first glass of wine and reached for the open bottle on the table.
"Then he came back to the city for one night, and I had plans with Joey…"
The second glass of wine was draining itself as if by magic.
"Slow down with the wine," Ross chided in her ear. "It's going to go straight to your head."
She threw him a glare of pure annoyance before turning up her glass defiantly and finishing it off. She slammed it down on the table with a flourish, daring him to say anything as she poured a third round.
Ross slumped in his chair and focused his attention on Phoebe's story.
"After all this time, fate brought you back together," Lydia was saying, enraptured. "And you're going to have a baby!"
"Yes, yes we are, and…and…uh, ergo…" David stammered, "ergo, to that end, we're joining our lives in this formal commitment." He held up Phoebe's left hand, showing the tiny diamond ring that adorned it.
Rachel's sought out Joey's gaze over the rim of her glass. He was watching her every movement with the same craving reflected his eyes. And it wasn't for food.
She bit her bottom lip and stared at his, recalling the warm pressure of his mouth on hers. The memory of the taste and feel of his kisses ignited her already insatiable appetite for him. Her awareness was heightened by his presence, her every sense stirred to peak performance. She let out a ragged breath as she dragged her fingertips slowly up and down the stem of her glass. Blood was pounding in her temples. Her temperature was rising like steam from the pavement in August as Joey returned her heated stare with one of his own.
"I'm going to the ladies room," Monica announced abruptly. She grabbed her beaded clutch purse and stood up. "And Rachel is going with me." She strode over to Rachel's chair and waited.
"Thanks, honey, but I don't need to." Rachel licked a drop of wine from her bottom lip. A path burned from her to Joey as her narrowed eyes alluded unspeakable things that they would enjoy together at the end of the night.
"Yes, you are." Monica's voice was sharp as she pulled Rachel up from her chair. Rachel threw her napkin down and followed Monica to the ladies room impatiently, her gold heels tapping out a rhythm on the floor.
Once they were inside the ladies room Monica's temper flared. "What are you doing out there?" Monica tossed her purse onto the vanity and put her hands on her hips in her typical take-no-prisoners stance.
"Having dinner? What does it look like I'm doing out there?" Rachel feigned ignorance and turned to the mirror. She checked her reflection, admiring her dress and imagining the moment when it would finally land on Joey's floor.
"You're having something, alright, but it's not dinner."
"Oh, really? Care to let me in on it?" Rachel leaned against the vanity and crossed her arms in defensively.
"You and Joey are sitting there having sex with each other's eyes, like the rest of us aren't even there!"
"Please," Rachel waved a dismissive hand. "Your imagination is running wild. Pregnancy hormones can do that, you know."
"Pregnancy hormones, my ass. It wasn't enough that I had to hear it in my own bathroom earlier. Now I have to see it. You're having eye sex!" Monica turned on the water and washed her hands as if to cleanse herself of the thought. "Meanwhile, all of us are stuck at the table watching eye porn while you stimulate the stemware."
Rachel gave in. "Ok. I admit, I'm a little…erotically charged. But Mon, seriously…did you look at him tonight? Who wouldn't want to sleep with him?"
Monica shrugged, wrinkled her brow. "Yes, I looked at him. He looked like…like Joey." She shook her head, baffled.
Rachel's jaw hit the floor.
"Is that it? The most gorgeous, sexy man on earth is sitting at the table with us and all you can say is, 'he looked like Joey'?" She mocked Monica's voice.
"Honey, I just don't see what you're seeing." Monica was compassionate but unyielding.
Rachel leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, a sigh escaping her lips. "God, Monica, you should feel the way he kisses…the things he does with his hands…the words he whispers in your ear while he's…" Monica cleared her throat, cautioning Rachel to stop.
Rachel opened her eyes. "I guess you'd rather not know about the stuff he does."
"I still can't believe you know about the stuff he does," Monica said, pushing open the door and heading back to the dining room.
Monica and Rachel rejoined the group as Lydia was yammering away at Phoebe.
"For you two to be reunited after all this time, it must be destiny." Lydia clutched Joey's arm in excitement. "Soul mates!"
Chandler groaned. "God, no. Not the soul mate debate."
A snicker went around the table. Lydia widened her eyes, confused. "What? Did I stumble into something here?"
"It's just that Chandler and I don't believe in soul mates, exactly," Monica explained.
Lydia was surprised. "But you two seem like you're perfect for each other!"
"I don't know that anyone is perfect for someone else," Monica mused. "We've never believed that fate or destiny brought us together. We met, we became friends, and we fell in love." She smiled softly at Chandler, who put his arm around her. "We make it work, despite our differences. I think we formed a type of soul mate bond."
"Maybe soul mates are made, not born," Chandler chimed in.
"That's what I was trying to say. That we have an unbreakable bond because of what we've shared, not because it was written in the stars that we'd be together." Monica leaned against her husband's arm and put her hand over the place where her unborn baby rested. "It grows with time."
"But Phoebe's the real expert on this." Chandler raised his glass in salute to Phoebe. "Tell us the real deal on this soul mate thing, Pheebs."
Phoebe's eyes looked out into the distance at something visible only to her. "I do believe in soul mates. In being made for someone who was made for you."
A hush fell across the table as she spoke.
"It might appear as love at first sight. Or you might not recognize them the first time you meet. It could take years for you to finally see who they truly are - for the blinders to fall away and reveal that what you've been searching for was right before your eyes."
As Phoebe continued, it was as if something – someone - was speaking through her. She had the air of an oracle, a wise priestess. "But when you've found your soul mate, you can never forget them. You can communicate without words. You can speak to each other throughout time and space. Your soul mate can hear your call from across the room or across the world. It defies logic and it refuses to leave us, no matter how we might wish it away." She held back for a brief moment, listening to her inner voice. "Even when it's messy and confusing and complicated…it's real and it lasts forever."
Rachel took another drink from her wine. Phoebe's soothsaying held too much meaning for her at the moment, too much indication of a certain conclusion that would never come to pass.
"That's what you guys have," Lydia said, gesturing to Phoebe and David.
"Indeed, yes, I think so." David beamed at Phoebe. "I'm a man of science, like Ross, but I think my lovely here may be onto something."
Lydia shifted her eyes to Ross. "What about you, Ross? Do you believe in soul mates?"
Ross averted his eyes, studying his bread plate as if it were an ancient artifact. "I don't know. I'm not sure what I believe in anymore."
"How about you, Rachel?" Lydia continued her relentless questioning.
Rachel pushed her empty glass forward on the table with a sour face. "No. I don't believe in any of that stuff." Her tone was flatter than a tire with a nail in it.
"But – the day I brought that Don guy to the coffee house to meet Monica – you said –" Phoebe sputtered.
"I know what I said," Rachel snapped. "Things change. I don't believe in soul mates anymore." She and Joey were carefully avoiding each other's eyes, each unwilling to look at the other and see the hopeless truth of their connection.
An uncomfortable silence wrapped around the group. Thankfully, the waiter arrived with their salads and Joey's crab cakes in the nick of time.
And another bottle of Merlot, Rachel thought as she refilled her glass with unrepressed glee.
"How many glasses of wine have you had tonight?" Chandler was watching the bottle empty itself into Rachel's glass repeatedly.
"I lost count at five." Chandler heard the hostility in her answer and dropped that line of questioning.
"We should all chip in and buy Rachel a vineyard for her next birthday," Phoebe observed. "That's one gift she wouldn't return the next day."
Everyone but Joey laughed.
The conversation returned to less serious channels as Monica and Phoebe compared notes on early pregnancy. They both looked hopefully at Rachel, expecting her to contribute to the discussion, but she was too intent on imbibing to participate. Lydia, the expert on everything, was glad to fill in the gaps for her.
Joey was plunging into his crab cakes with his usual enthusiasm for any form of physical enjoyment. A sound of gratification sounded in the back of his throat, turning up the flame that was simmering away under her desire for him. An image slammed into her mind, one of her making him moan like that in the dim privacy of his bedroom, their bodies meshed together in a sweaty coil. Her eyes drifted up, observing his expression of unabashed pleasure and wishing she could be both the cause and the recipient of it.
He felt her eyes on him, her gaze warming him like the steamy shower he'd stepped out of just before she'd wrapped herself around him and drove him to the brink in Monica's bathroom. It was almost as if he was reading her mind. He glanced up, a decidedly aroused glint lurking behind his steady face. He was sending her a mute dare to keep playing the game. She took it gladly, ready to raise the stakes - and a few other things, while she was at it.
She speared a tiny mouthful of salad and bit into it, slowly and suggestively drawing the tines of her fork between her closed lips. The expression on her face left no doubt that the fork wasn't what she had in mind.
"Your table manners have gone totally to hell," Ross observed in disgust, clueless about the reason behind her behavior.
The others continued to chatter in the background. Joey repositioned himself in his chair several times, the crab cakes forgotten. Lydia stopped dispensing pregnancy advice long enough to look at her companion. "Are you ok? Stop fidgeting."
"Joey likes to play with his food." Monica spoke up, shooting Rachel a warning look that went unheeded.
Before Joey could collect his thoughts, Rachel slid forward on her chair just enough to give herself additional leg extension. She raised her foot under the table and stretched it out, letting her bare ankle graze Joey's. She rubbed it back and forth at a leisurely pace, savoring the torturous friction and his unmistakable reaction. She moved her foot several inches higher and continued, varying her movements just enough to keep him guessing.
Suddenly she felt his fingers trailing their way up the back of her leg, starting at her ankle. He was retaliating, his hand making a promise to continue traveling until they were much, much further along. They were definitely stepping outside the bounds of normal dinner behavior.
A sexual moan forced itself from her lips as her eyelids fluttered involuntarily. The discussion at the table came to an unexpected halt with six sets of eyes on Rachel. Joey snapped back into place, his interest in crab cakes conspicuously renewed.
They were all staring at her. Demanding an explanation for her outburst. She thought fast. Her inebriated mind seized on the first thing that came to her.
"Ooooh, ohhh…" She repeated her former eruption with surprising accuracy. "This salad is sooooo good." She took a bite and made a face of deep appreciation for the existence of such vegetable treats.
The all-knowing Monica glowered at Rachel with irritation and continued talking. The others, assuming that Rachel was merely drunk and bored, resumed the conversation with no notice of Joey's smothered amusement.
Rachel's eyes darted around the table from face to face. Everyone was too absorbed with their boring discussion to pay attention to what was happening under the table. That in mind, she ran her ankle all the way up his leg and propped her foot beside him in the chair.
He raised his eyebrows at her. She gave him a look that told him the next move was his to make.
She stifled a gasp when he unbuckled the ankle strap on her shoe with one hand and slipped it off her foot in a single motion, letting it drop to the floor. It was the second time he'd begun undressing her that day. They were hovering dangerously close to the edge in front of all their friends, adding an extra thrill to the already provocative situation.
She scanned the group to make sure no one was watching. The coast was clear. Without looking up from her plate, she slid her bare foot across his lap and planted it front and center with a wayward smile.
He looked up, shocked, eyes as round as saucers. He was completely at her mercy, a prisoner of pounding, unremitting temptation. His hand shot to the side and knocked over his glass of wine. Garnet-colored liquid gushed across the table.
Monica rushed over with her glass of sparkling water and began dabbing at the stain, looking at Rachel like she was the guilty party in a police line-up. Rachel ignored her and raised an eyebrow at Joey, inaudibly asking him if he was ready for more.
"What's with you? Why are you sweating?" Lydia demanded of him.
Rachel didn't try to suppress a snort of derision. Why don't you ask him if he needs to be burped or changed? Her dislike of Lydia was reaching epic proportions in record time, threatening to spill over like a toxic potion boiling out of a beaker.
"I'm just a little – edgy. That's all." He shrugged, trying to put an end to the topic.
Lydia pressed against him and wrapped her fingers around his forearm, lowering her eyelids to half-mast. "I can take the edge off," she said huskily, her voice dropping to a sultry register.
That did it. Rachel pulled her foot back to the floor and banged her fork down on her salad plate. "Good going, Lydia! Subtle."
Lydia fixed her doe eyes on Rachel. "Do you have a problem, Rachel?"
"No, not at all." Rachel let out a sardonic chuckle. "I just find it really, really funny that you think we're too stupid to know what you're talking about." She refilled her glass with wine and chugged it back.
"Are you drunk or something?" Lydia exploded. "Besides, that was a private conversation."
"Oh, come on, Lydia." Rachel leaned back in her chair, settling in for a good argument. "If it was so private, why'd you say it in front of us? We all knew what you meant." She flung her arm out in Phoebe's direction. "Even Phoebe's fetus knew what you were talking about!"
"Her name is Roxanne," Phoebe blasted.
"And, hello? Not the only fetus in the room," Monica reminded her.
"Why stop there? Why don't you two go at it right here, right now?" Rachel made a sweeping gesture across the table. "Come on! Show us what you've got!"
"You're making a scene," Ross said through clenched teeth.
Rachel raised her salad plate from the table. "Hey, you guys? Pick up your plates! Give these kids some room! Tonight we're getting dinner and a show!"
"You're crazy," Lydia, looking genuinely afraid, backed away. "Does she always act like this when she's plastered?" She looked around the table for an answer.
"Do you always act like a horny bitch at the dinner table?" Rachel retorted.
"Oooh, girlfight." Chandler was nearly panting with anticipation.
"You've been gunning for me since day one. Tell us, Rachel – why is that? Is someone a little unhappy that she ditched Joey for Dinotopia over there?" Lydia pointed at Ross.
"Hey," Ross protested, "Dinotopia was a very informative film!"
Rachel tapped her knife on the side of her glass, making a clinking sound. "Announcement, everyone – Lydia is Joey's new owner!"
"You know that's not true," Joey said quietly from across the table.
"I've been in his bathroom." Rachel slurred as the other patrons turned to look at her. "I've seen the evidence under the sink. Let's just say Joey's the fire hydrant and Lydia's got her leg hiked way up." She threw her knife down on the table like a gauntlet.
"Baby, you're gonna have to dial it down a little," Joey muttered to Rachel.
"Baby? Baby?" Lydia was accusing. "She's baby now?" She rolled her eyes at the ceiling.
"And you need to let it go." He frowned as he addressed Lydia and reached across the table for Rachel's hand.
"Hey!" Lydia slapped his hand away from Rachel's. "Who the hell are you with tonight, anyway?"
"If we leave now, we might not get arrested," Monica whispered to Chandler, who got up and made a beeline for the door with Monica in hot pursuit. Phoebe and David merely sat back, watching in horror. Ross stared at Rachel with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. He was amazed at seeing this side of her. He'd only glimpsed it once, years ago when he got an intoxicated message on his answering machine about "closure".
"I'm with you, ok? As a friend. But she's very special to me." Joey explained himself to Lydia with more patience than she deserved. Rachel's heart melted for him, but she gave no quarter to Lydia.
He reached again for Rachel's hand and once more was met with a slap on the wrist from Lydia. "Stop with that."
Rachel snagged the half-empty bottle of Merlot and turned it up for a long drink.
"Good lord, look at yourself!" Ross was appalled. "You're brawling like a drunk in a biker bar, you're drinking directly from the bottle…"
"Looks like Princess Rachel isn't so high-class after all," Lydia smirked.
Rachel picked up her salad fork and flung the contents at Lydia, hitting her smack on the bodice of her black dress. Throwing all those wet paper towels had perfected her aim.
"You bitch!" Lydia stood up, shrieking like a chained monkey when she saw the stain on her dress.
Rachel allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. "Did that take the edge off, Lydia?" She shook her head in mock regret. "Too bad…it was such a nice dress, for an off the rack copy." Rachel finished off the bottle of wine and exhaled like a man who'd just guzzled down a cold beer.
The manager was walking briskly toward their table, scowling.
"Oh no, look." Phoebe pointed to him. David shrunk into his chair, the picture of timidity.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you people to leave immediately." The maitre de appeared at his side. "Francois will show you to the exit."
Joey pulled Lydia toward the door. "We're getting in a cab and taking you home." Their waiter waved a wistful goodbye to Joey.
Rachel scrambled beneath the table to get her missing shoe and hit her head in the process. Ross threw some cash on the table and helped Rachel to her feet. She hobbled unsteadily to the door, one shoe on and one shoe off. An older man was staring at her as if she were an extra terrestrial in very fashionable clothing. Rachel stopped to give him a drunken high-five and narrowly escaped falling into his table.
"Woah, sorry about that!" She took the gold sandal in her hand and plunked it into the ice bucket on the man's table. "There ya go!" She turned to the woman sitting across the table from him. "It's Jimmy Choo, you'll love it."
Ross dragged her away by the hand.
"I'm contacting the mayor and asking him to revoke your drinking privileges." He had never been more embarrassed. All eyes were on them as they made their way out of the restaurant amidst the shocked whispers of the other customers.
When they stepped outside the cool night air jolted Rachel back to her senses to a small degree.
Phoebe was furious.
"I can't believe you guys got us thrown out!" Her face crumpled. David tried to put a comforting arm around her, which she threw off just as quickly. "It was Roxanne's first trip to Delmonico's and she was really excited about it!"
Ross stammered his apologies to Phoebe, who put her arms around him as if he was the one source of sanity in a world gone mad. He held her close and whispered comforting words that had the desired effect of soothing her ruffled feelings while David looked on, confused.
Chandler and Monica roared up in the Porsche to pick up David and Phoebe. Rachel wanted to apologize for ruining Phoebe's engagement party but the words wouldn't form in her mouth, the excess wine having made normal speech impossible.
Phoebe reluctantly said goodnight to Ross. David helped her into the car and Chandler sped away, fleeing the scene of the crime.
"Are you happy now? This was her special night and you ruined it." Ross looked at Rachel as if she were a stranger. "You have less than zero self-control. When did you turn into this – this person that I don't even know anymore?" He glanced down at her feet. "And why did you put your shoe in that guy's ice bucket?"
Rachel leaned against a light post to steady herself as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was able to tune out Ross' ranting – years of practice had perfected that ability. Several yards away Joey was unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab.
Take me home tonight, she wished, watching his every movement. Let me wake up beside you. The churning lust of earlier had been reduced to the rubble of loneliness. She clung to the post for support, wine spinning in her head and longing tossing in her heart.
Phoebe's words replayed in her mind. "Your soul mate can hear your call from across the room or across the world."
She watched Joey trying to placate Lydia, who was screaming and smacking him on the arm with her tiny clutch purse. He was so obviously out of his league with her. She was shrewd and manipulative and scheming – everything he was not.
Look at me, Rachel silently called to him. Remind me of what we have together.
Joey raised his head suddenly as if he'd heard a shot. His eyes found Rachel and he raised his eyebrows in a wordless question. She answered with a feeble smile, feeling as if every bone in her body had turned to water.
He'd heard her calling him. They'd proved Phoebe's theory.
Ross flagged down a cab and opened the door for Rachel. Lydia piped up when she saw it.
"That should be our cab! It's the least she could do after trashing my dress and getting us thrown out!" She turned to Joey for backup. He shrugged, exhausted by the tumultuous evening and saddened by the realization that Rachel was far too intoxicated to come to his apartment for their much-anticipated rendezvous.
Rachel walked to the cab in wobbly steps like a baby bird learning the use of its legs as Lydia's caustic insults echoed through the air. Rachel stopped short of getting in the cab and turned to the source of all the noise, unable to resist one last dig.
"Hey Lydia!" Rachel banged her fists together in Joey's favorite semi-obscene gesture. "Vafa' Napoli!"
Lydia pointed at Rachel as her face contorted with rage. "I know what that means! I'm Sicilian! Don't you even try that with me!" Joey was dragging Lydia to the cab he'd just secured.
"Go take the edge off yourself, computer bitch!" Rachel screamed as Ross put his hand on her head and lowered her into the back seat of the cab, police style.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Her words were almost too slurred to be intelligible.
"Gary, on the ride-along." He slammed the cab door behind him and gave the driver Monica's address.
Rachel leaned against the window, watching the scenery speed by as the headed back to the Village. She was beginning to regret the wine intake and her reckless actions in equal measure.
"Do you have any idea what a fool you made of yourself?" Ross hissed, unable to look at her. "The Rachel I loved never acted like that. What the hell has happened to you?"
"I'm not the Rachel you loved anymore." Her voice was thick and her eyes wouldn't focus. She was desperately trying to ignore the sick feeling welling up in her stomach, a feeling that was sure to kill any hope of spending the night at Joey's if it didn't stop soon.
"Yeah, I think that's obvious. So who are you? Some boozy guttersnipe who fights over a man in restaurant?"
She didn't answer him. What would it accomplish to tell him that she was dying inside because she couldn't have the one thing she wanted more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life?
Her resolve to mend fences with Ross went unremembered. The only thing on her mind was getting away from him and the prying eyes of the others.
There was one other pressing matter. When the driver stopped at an intersection, Rachel flung the cab door open and proceeded to be sick all over the street.
~*~*~
Light filtering in from beneath the door stabbed through Rachel's head like a dagger. She pulled the pillow over her eyes, trying to escape back into the numbing refuge of sleep.
It didn't work. Her mind was wide-awake, even if the rest of her wanted to sleep in.
Why had she drunk so much the night before? What had possessed her?
Then it hit her. She remembered.
The melting hot encounter with Joey in the bathroom had rattled her. She'd gone to dinner, her decision to work through things with Ross firmly in place and a plan to spend one night with Joey before going to Florida cemented in her mind. Then the mere sight of Joey with Lydia had thrown her into such turmoil that she'd medicated herself with an impressive quantity of Merlot and unleashed the monster that was her jealousy.
A slide show of scenes from the previous night played in her head in a continuous loop. The frenzied kisses in the bathroom. Her rabid dislike of Lydia. A sexy secret game with Joey run amuck. Her drunken outburst. Phoebe's disappointment and Ross' disgust. Ross lugging her up to Monica's and putting her in bed with a pan beside her, ruling out any chance of meeting with Joey to fulfill their plan.
Her head throbbed with pain as she reviewed her actions.
She had made a terrible scene and embarrassed everyone she loved. She'd done an injustice to Joey by lashing out at Lydia, who, despite her flaws, obviously cared about him and was willing to make some sort of life with him. An instant mental replay of Lydia's homemaker habits and singular devotion to Joey's career confirmed it.
But that's not what he really wants, a small voice insisted. He wants you and you want him.
She threw the pillow off and covered her eyes with a shaky hand. What was she going to do?
Ross had become the person he was today because of his supposed mistake with Chloe. That night had been the turning point in his life. Rachel knew she was at least as responsible for this misinterpretation as he was. The only way to mitigate the damage was to stop fighting each other, to let him have his daughter and what remained of the life they'd lost, the life they would have had together but for this one error.
The only thing standing in the way was Joey.
Lying in her inflated bed in a room that was no longer her own, Rachel made the hardest decision of her life. There would be no looking back this time, no more close calls and near misses. She would do whatever it took to put the required distance between Joey and herself. She had to make this work. Somehow, some way, she and Ross had to forge a new understanding. If they couldn't be in love again – and she was certain that they couldn't - they had to become co-parents who could live together in peace. She hadn't given him forgiveness, but she would give him this – something that cost her so much more.
Her choice was made. She would give up the man she loved for the sake of her daughter's father. She owed it to Ross to let him finally have what he'd always wanted…a family. She had to end it with Joey forever.
She had to do it today. Before another crazy episode happened, before they got in so far that neither of them could find their way out again. She felt, rather than knew, that once certain lines were crossed between them, there would be no going back. It had to end before they reached that point.
She had to give him up while she still could.
Rachel rolled over and hid her face under Monica's lavender scented sheets. She had to find sleep again. It was the only way to forestall the inevitable end.
But it will never really be over, will it? The voice was back, louder this time, placing itself between her and sleep. You know you'll never stop loving him. Goodbye doesn't mean letting go.
It meant living without each other for the good of everyone involved.
Phoebe had spoken the truth. It was real and it would last forever, even though they couldn't be together. Somehow the thought was less comforting than it should have been. She didn't want some mystical connection with him to sustain her for the rest of her life. She wanted him right beside her every day in all his messy reality.
But the deck was stacked against them from day one. The baggage she brought to any relationship was bad enough. With Joey it was doubled. It would always be too complicated. There would always be too many other people involved who would get hurt.
They'd never actually stood a chance.
Rachel pulled herself out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. The apartment was quiet. Monica and Chandler were both still asleep and Emma had spent the night with Jack and Judy Geller.
She fumbled for some asprin and water, wishing that they contained some elusive substance to shut off her impossible feelings. But it was just asprin. She'd be lucky if it could shut off her hangover headache, much less anything else.
She faced the mirror over the sink and stared at herself. She looked like she felt – washed out, hung over, and facing a terrible task.
My good looks certainly won't tempt him today. She attempted to find the gallows humor of the situation while she washed her face and brushed her teeth.
She ran a comb through her hair, which was starting to revert to its natural wave instead of the sleek straight style that she forced it into with a dryer and iron.
Back in her room she took off the burgundy Prada dress she'd worn to the engagement party from hell and tugged on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before shoving her feet into her boots. The shopping bags piled in the corner reminded her of the upcoming trip to Florida. Better to end it now, she told herself, when they have the rare chance to be away from each other. It had to make this easier – didn't it?
She let herself out quietly and walked across the hall. For a moment she paused at the door, remembering everything that had happened in his apartment. Everything they'd shared.
A rush of emotion threatened to stop her from knocking. She couldn't bring herself to do this, to cut him out of her life and put any possibility of being together behind her. She had the terrifying epiphany that at this stage of things she probably loved Joey more than he loved her.
Cold reason broke through followed by guilt. Ross' voice telling her that he couldn't imagine his life without her before she'd sent him away to lose everything.
Joey would understand. He always understood her. They'd known from the start that it had to end sometime…but sometime had come too soon.
She raised her hand and knocked on Joey's door.
~*~*~
A/N: Two down, three to go! The next chapter will contain a cliffhanger of such immense proportions that I refuse to post it without the follow-up chapter. So an update may be weeks coming. It's going to take a very, very dark and sad tone, but it's necessary for the story and I'm going ahead with it despite the fact that you're all going to want to kill me over it. If y'all don't already want to kill me over the sexual tension, that is. Do we keep that element in the story or let it go? Let me hear from you guys. And be patient while I write the next two chapters – they will resolve everything and lead you into an ending that, hopefully, will be worth the wait.
