The One Where Mercury Continues
Original story by: Ezika
Continued with permission. Thanks, Ezika!
Continuation by: Jana~
Chapter Five
*****
--When writing down all she was feeling, Monica did so with the knowledge that she would be gone before he saw it, and would therefore not have to watch as he read the words. She knew she wouldn't be able to handle it, seeing Chandler's face, watching as tears streamed down his cheeks, knowing her words were the cause, so she asked him to leave before reading it.
She knew she would have to deal with it, with him, eventually, but this would buy her time. So she could prepare herself for his response. Good or bad.
***
--Reluctant to leave her side at first, it was Phoebe's promise that she would stay with Monica that finally convinced him it would be ok to pull himself away from her bedside. Joey asked him if he wanted company, but Chandler declined the offer. He wanted to be alone as he read the letter.
--The sanctuary was near-empty, just a few scattered people, silently sitting or praying; one woman was crying, and he instantly felt bad for her, even though he knew nothing about her or her situation.
Taking a seat in the very back, off to the side, he took a deep breath before opening the envelope, pulling the note into view.
***
--"Your mother told me what happened," Jack said as he entered his daughter's room, gently demanding attention.
Phoebe immediately took her leave, knowing the two had a lot to talk about. She knew Chandler wouldn't mind that she broke her promise, since she left Monica in capable hands.
--"You know she doesn't mean the things she says," Jack continued once Phoebe had left the room, taking a seat by Monica's bedside to explain the actions of a woman few understood. "She was just so worried, when we got the call. We both were."
"She cried the whole way over here," he told her as he wiped a tear from her cheek. "She just doesn't handle stress well."
"So, she's stressed every time she sees me?" she asked her father. "Or talks to me on the phone? She's always demeaning me, Dad. She's never happy about any of my accomplishments, yet Ross can do no wrong!"
"It was how she was raised, sweetie. In our day, boys were treated differently. Raised differently. Girls were held to higher standards. She saw so much potential in you- sees so much potential in you, and she thinks the only way she can encourage you is with tough love. It's how her mom treated her. It's all she knows."
"I just wish, just once, that she could be in the same room with me without criticizing me."
"Sweetie, if she didn't care, she wouldn't waste her time."
"If she did care, she could try having at least one kind word for me on occasion!"
"Like, Monica is such a wonderful chef, any restaurant would be lucky to have her, and, if Richard let Monica slip away, he's a fool?"
Monica just stared back at her father, unsure of what to say, unsure of what he was saying, exactly.
Jack nodded. "She has said all those things and more," he informed her.
"But not to my face," she squeaked out, new tears falling.
"No, you're right, she rarely compliments you to your face, but she does feel it," he said, touching his finger to his chest, pointing at his heart, "In here."
"Well," she muttered sadly, "Sometimes, that's just not enough."
Jack sighed, torn between a daughter hurting, and a wife who loves her, but can't seem to show it. "Sweetie, she blames herself for this. This, jumping off the balcony."
"Attempted suicide, Dad. You can say the words," she told him. "I know what I tried to do. And why does everyone think this was their fault?" she added, flustered.
"We're just trying to understand why you did this."
"Me too," she admitted.
***
--Tears spilling had rapidly become the standard reaction from Chandler. He had cried more in the past two days, than he ever had in his entire life, and now even more tears fell, and he wasn't even able to get past the first sentence.
The note clutched in his hand, he ignored the warm drops that wet his face and the looks from the people around him as he repeated the sentence over and over again, silently in his head.
'Chandler, Soon, my pain will be over, but I fear my death will cause you pain that you do not deserve.'
He couldn't force himself to continue, his eyes refusing to leave that sentence, in a way protecting him from the heartache contained in the words to come.
"Can I be of help to you, my son?"
Chandler moved in slow motion, eventually lifting his gaze to the man who stood beside the pew. Wearing typical priest clothing, he determined instantly that the man was the hospital chaplain.
"I'm not Catholic," Chandler whispered as he looked away.
"That's not what I asked you," the priest returned, then gestured to the pew before sliding in next to him. "You seem to be troubled," he said in a soft consoling tone of voice. "Sometimes it helps to talk about things," he added, offering to lend his ear. "I'm Father Daniel."
"Chandler."
"What's troubling you, Chandler?"
The rhythmic sound he created by tapping the letter against his leg was, in a way, comforting. It gave him something to focus on, if even for a few moments.
Father Daniel sat, incredibly patient, waiting for the young man to find the words to confide in him. After several minutes, he finally did.
"My best friend," Chandler choked out, "Tried to kill herself. This," he waved the letter in his hand, "Was the suicide note she wrote to me, before she… jumped."
"I can imagine how hard it was for you to read that," Father Daniel comforted, but Chandler shook his head.
"I couldn't get past the first sentence," he admitted. "I can't seem to make myself read it."
"You're afraid of her words?"
"Terrified."
"Why?"
"I think I might be part of the reason," Chandler muttered. "Part of the reason she wanted to die."
"Why do you think that?"
"Cause, we…" He trailed off, remembering whom he was talking to. "We did, something, right before she jumped, that I should have put a stop to."
Father Daniel smiled just slightly. "Was this something mutual?"
"At the time," Chandler nodded, "But she obviously wasn't in her right frame of mind."
"Did you know that before you made love to her?"
Chandler startled, looking to the priest abruptly. "How did you-?"
"You're not the first person to beat around the bush when talking about sex."
"I thought you frowned on the whole, sex before marriage thing."
"We do," he admitted, "But it doesn't mean we're in the dark to the fact that it happens."
Chandler conceded the point with a nod. "I knew she was sad," he answered the previous question, "But I didn't know she was suicidally depressed."
"Do you think she is angry with you? Do you think she feels that you took advantage of her?"
With a noticeable wince, Chandler mumbled, "I don't know."
"Do you think you took advantage of her?"
"I don't know. I knew at the time- felt at the time, that maybe she was too vulnerable, and not thinking clearly, and I told her I didn't think it was a good idea, but, she convinced me."
"How?" Father Daniel asked. "In what way did she convince you?"
"She begged me to, be, with her. She started undressing me."
"So, you responded to her advances?"
"Yeah."
"It doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong," the priest told him. "Except for the whole, sex before marriage thing," he added with a tiny smile, but the look faded into something more serious within seconds. "Chandler, why do you think you are the reason she wanted to die?"
Sighing, he admitted, "She said we shouldn't have done it."
"When?"
"When she was standing on the ledge, ready to jump."
"You saw her jump?"
Chandler nodded.
"I know you are not Catholic, but may I pray with you?"
Chandler shrugged. "Ok."
***
--"Do you think we should go find Chandler?" Joey asked as he and Phoebe once again suffered with the horrible cafeteria coffee. "I'm worried about him, reading that letter from Monica all alone. Especially after that breakdown he had," he added.
"It'll be ok, Joey," Phoebe soothed, knowing how hard her friend was taking all that was happening. "He'll have some serious decisions to make, and so will she, but it'll be ok."
"How can you be so calm?" Joey suddenly asked. "I haven't seen you cry yet, really. I woulda thought, with your mom and all," he carefully worded his sentence, "That you would've been more upset."
"I am upset, and I have cried," she told him, "It's just sometimes, you can't see the tears I shed. I learned how to control my outward emotions at a very young age. That, and I know it'll all work out," she added, avoiding the subject of her mother's suicide.
"How? How do you know that?"
"Psychic thing," she muttered casually, tipping the Styrofoam cup to her lips.
"How can you know it's gonna be ok, but not see it coming in the first place?"
"I can't see everything," she explained. "I wish I had seen it coming. I could've saved them so much pain. Everyone so much pain." Her sad tone didn't go unnoticed.
"Oh, no!" Joey exclaimed, "Don't you go blaming yourself now, too!"
In an effort to reassure him, she offered a slight smile. "I'm not blaming myself. I know it's not my fault. Or Chandler's. Or even Monica's, really. Severe depression isn't anyone's fault, it just happens, sometimes for reasons unknown."
"Wow," he muttered reverently, "That's deep."
"I heard that many times, after my mom killed herself."
He placed his hand gently on her back, comforting her. "If you want a shoulder to cry on," he offered, "You can use mine. If you want."
Joey quickly gathered her into his arms when the tears started to flow, as she allowed emotions that had been locked away in the little box in her mind to finally be released.
***
--Unable to fall asleep, Rachel just stared at the ceiling, her mind so full of thoughts, she was only partially aware of Ross' presence beside her in bed. It wasn't till he spoke up that she came out of her reverie.
"Can't sleep?" he asked, to which she shook her head. "Me either," he admitted.
"I just can't get it out of my head, you know?" He nodded in response. "I can't stop thinking about- about how it might be our fault," she admitted hesitantly. "Cause we were so wrapped up with moving in together, we didn't see the signs."
"I know," he muttered softly, "But, Chandler was with her quite a bit, and even he didn't see it coming."
"But at least he was with her! Where were we?" she asked rhetorically. "Off playing house!"
"This isn't our fault, Rachel," he stated firmly, trying to convince himself as much as his live-in girlfriend.
"He didn't see the signs," she continued, "But maybe we would have."
"Or, maybe she would've done the same thing to us that she did with Chandler! Push us away! Lie and say everything was fine! The fact of the matter is, she didn't want help, and she didn't make it known how bad it was, until she was on that ledge, her mind made up."
She sighed deeply as she snuggled closer against Ross' side. "How lost do you have to be, to want to die like that, ya'know? Would that ever happen to me?" she asked, not really expecting an answer. "If I lost someone I loved, if you and I broke up, would it be so painful, that I would leap to my death?"
"You'll never have to find that out," he promised her. "And besides," he added, "It wasn't just the break-up," he reminded her. "It was the loss of the baby, and the hormonal imbalance…"
"And the feeling utterly alone," she picked up where his sentence trailed off. "Cause all her friends were off being happy, oblivious to her pain." He placed a gentle kiss in her hair, holding her tighter, wanting so badly to take away her anguish. "If I hadn't moved out," she whispered, "I would have seen the signs."
"Don't do this, Rach," he asked of her. "Don't blame yourself for this. You are not the reason she jumped."
"No," she admitted meekly, "Maybe not. But I could have prevented it. I could've intervened, when I saw how bad she was getting, but I didn't live there, so I didn't see how bad she was getting."
"But where do you draw the line?" he questioned her. "Will you never get married? Never have kids? Never move away, cause maybe, just maybe, your usually-strong friend just might have an emotional breakdown?"
"I don't know," she cried softly.
"You can't live life like that, Rach. You can't just, stop living, just because someone you love is having a hard time."
"No, but you can be there for them!"
"We tried to be!" he shot back. "Remember? Every time we went over there, she would yell at us! Usually for no reason! She seemed more angry than depressed. If she had been acting depressed, and we ignored her, then, yeah, maybe you would have a point. She gave us no signs, Rach!"
"I just want to go back in time, and fix this. Go back and be there for her. Even if she yelled or told us to get out, I would stay."
"I know," he muttered consolingly, kissing her before moving to leave the bed. "There's no way we're gonna be able to sleep," he announced, "So, why don't we just go back to the hospital."
She nodded, wiping at her tears before swinging her legs over the side, slipping into her shoes that sat exactly where she had kicked them off.
"Hey, you're smart," she said out of nowhere, calling his attention. "Why don't you build a time machine?"
"Cause, as smart as I am," he returned with a touch of sarcasm to his tone, "I can't do the impossible."
***
--"It's not that I don't want to read it," Chandler explained to Father Daniel, in reference to the letter he still held, "I want to know what it says, I just- I can't seem to make myself read it. I keep hearing her voice in my head… See the image of her jumping…"
"Chandler," Father Daniel asked softly, "Would you like me to read it to you?" The look on Chandler's face told him he was considering it. "Anything said to me, or that I read in this way, is held in strictest confidence."
Slowly, Chandler nodded, handing the now-crumpled paper over to the priest.
"Let's go to the confessional," he suggested to Chandler. "It will give us privacy."
--The room was small, with no windows, and only one door; in the center sat two chairs, one for the priest, one for the confessor, Chandler assumed.
Taking a deep breath to try and settle his nerves, Chandler took a seat in the second chair, waiting for Father Daniel to begin reading the words he needed, but was also dreading to hear.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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