A.N.  Hey!!! Chapter 4, finally, FINALLY, I know I'm such a slacker, I'm sorry, I promise to try and keep the updates a little more frequent.  Things are nuts over here.  I hope you are still interested and that you like this part!!!  Thanks for the reviews, keep them coming please!!! 

Xoxo, MADDY.

Chandler was still lying exactly where Monica had left him nearly three hours earlier.  It was almost nine, and he could see through the slender gap between his curtains that it was gray and raining.  He closed his eyes and listened for the rhythmic sound of the drops hitting the windowpane, a habit he had learned from her.  She used to squeeze her eyes shut, and her nose would scrunch a little at the end, and she'd be concentrating so intently; it had become contagious.  He still listened whenever it was raining; he wondered if she did, too.

          The door creaked open slowly and Rachel stuck her head in.  He turned his head and nodded in acknowledgement.

          "Hey, did I wake you up?" she asked.

          "No, just lying here.  What's up?"

          "I have to go grocery shopping and I was wondering if you needed anything- wait, what's my bra doing on your floor?" she asked, confused, reaching down and producing what indeed was a black bra.

          Chandler froze, trying to find the correct response.  If he told her it wasn't her bra, she'd ask who's it was.  If he pretended it was hers, then why would it be in his room?  However, it didn't matter which he chose, because a flash of realization came over Rachel's face and she slammed the door shut and pointed at him accusingly.

          "Monica was wearing this!"

          "No, she wasn't!" he said, too quickly.

          "Yes she was, it's mine, and I lent it to her last night for the party, because she hates strapless bras and this one has clear straps, see?" Rachel said excitedly. 

          "Rachel, it isn't the same one, okay, maybe the company made two, in hopes to maybe turn a profit, ever think of that?" he covered desperately.

          "Yeah, you're right.  Clearly this is a different bra.  Even though it's my exact color, my exact size, and oh wait, yeah, definitely has my name written on the tag!" she said, thrusting the garment in his face.

          "Who writes their name in their bra?" Chandler said incredulously, defeated.

          "Someone really anal and obsessive who borrowed it from their best friend so they won't forget to return it!  Sound like someone you know?  Sound like someone you slept with last night?" Rachel cried, hopping from one foot to the other.

          "Rachel, Rachel, please… please don't say anything, okay?  I don't know what happened.  It was a huge mistake."

          Rachel sat on the corner of his bed.  "I know you don't really think that."

          "Actually, I do.  She's married."

          "To the world's biggest asshole," Rachel declared uncharacteristically.  Rachel was usually the most tolerant of Monica's marriage, mainly because she wanted it to work out because she thought no one deserved that happiness more than her best friend.

          "She's still his wife," he said sadly.

          "How'd this happen?" she asked, not in the gossipy way he'd expected from her, but in the truly caring way only a friend could possess.

          "I don't know," he admitted.  "We were at the party, and she wanted to leave.  She was upset.  He was being a jerk, was nowhere around, and she didn't want to talk about it, so we went for a walk.  And then, I guess I kissed her."

          "You guess?"

          "I definitely kissed her."

          "Wow."

          "Yeah.  I told her the biggest mistake of my life was letting her go," he said, staring at his hands.

          "I'm sure she already knew that," Rachel said gently.  He looked at her.  "What, the rest of us know it."

          "She's amazing.  The whole thing… it was amazing."

          "So what happens now?"

          "If I knew that, I wouldn't be lying here," Chandler told her honestly.

          Rachel stood.  "It's not fair to her."

          "It's not fair to anyone."

          "You're still in love with her," she said.  He nodded.  "Be careful.  She doesn't need to be hurt by you," Rachel said, purposefully not saying the word they both thought:  She doesn't need to be hurt by you, again.

          "You're throwing all of this away because you're afraid?" Monica practically screamed at him. 

          "Monica, no!  I'm ending this before it gets thrown away because I do something stupid!  I'm not ready for this, okay?  I love you too much to lose you."

          "You're doing a bang up job, then," she said icily.  He reached for her arm, and she recoiled.

          "Please.  I love you.  I've always loved you.  I'll always love you.  That's why I need you in my life.  Don't you ever… don't you ever get scared, that someday we won't even be able to be friends?"

          She held back the tears in her eyes and thought about it.  "Yes, I do.  I couldn't live without you," she admitted.  He reached for her again, and she let him hold her.

          "You're my best friend," he whispered.  "Ross and Rachel took the risk, look what happened to them.  And we're such better friends than they ever were."

          "We wouldn't be like them," she said quietly, still a plea for him to reconsider even though she knew it was hopeless.

          "I don't want to be like them.  I want us to be best friends, Mon.  You're everything that's good about my life.  I can't risk losing you."

          She pulled away and walked towards the kitchen, busying her hands with tidying the table.

          "What are you thinking?" he said after several moments.  She looked at him sadly.

          "I'm thinking that if this is what you want, I can't do anything to change it.  I'm thinking that I love you.  I'm thinking that I want you in my life, in whatever way you want to be in it."

          His heart broke looking into her eyes, knowing how much pain he was causing her because he felt the exact same way.  A small sob escaped her, and she apologized, turned and composed herself.  A tear slid down his cheek.

          "So… how are we going to do this?" she asked.  "You walk out that door, and we pretend 'us' never happened?"

          "No.  I'll never forget what we've shared.  I think… what if we just didn't see eachother, at all, for a week.  Avoided all contact.  And then, in a week, we go back to being just friends.  Sort of like… a grace period."

          She took a shaky breath.  "Okay."

          "I wish-" he began.

          "Please don't," she stopped him.  They stared at eachother across the room for a long time.

          "I'm not going to hug you.  If I hug you, I'll kiss you," he said.

          "Okay," she answered simply.

          "I'm leaving now."

          She gathered all her strength she had left, and willed herself not to cry until he left.  "See you in a week," she said.

          He looked at her one last time, tenderly.  "See you in a week," he echoed, letting the door close behind him.  The minute it clicked, Monica collapsed on the floor and started crying uncontrollably.  The sobs felt foreign to her; she couldn't remember the last time she cried so hard.

          Monica locked herself in the bathroom after the argument with Richard.  She ran a bath, but didn't get in.  She sat on the toilet seat and held her head in her hands, her mind reeling from the events of the night before, and all of the memories and feelings and needs it had unleashed. 

          She couldn't get his face out of her mind.  His beautiful, beautiful face… saying all the right things.  He was everything Richard wasn't, and he loved her more than she'd ever been loved.  Even when he was breaking her heart, he was still loving her.  She could feel it.

          And she didn't know what to do.  There really were only two options; divorce Richard, admit defeat, essentially "lose".  Or stay married, and push any of the hopes and desires that were stirring inside of her back down, back to where they had lived for the past three years.  Neither seemed particularly attractive at the moment.

          Richard knocked softly at the door.  "Mon?" he asked.  She stuck her hand in the water and moved it around, creating a hopefully realistic splashing sound.

          "I'm in the bath," she called, unsuccessfully trying to disguise the shakiness in her voice.

          "Rachel's on the phone," he said.  "Are you all right?"

          "Fine.  I'll call her back."

          "Okay.  She says it's important."

          "I'll call her back in five minutes," she called back desperately.  She barely recognized her own voice.

          "You sure you're all right?" he asked, still feeling guilty from before.  It wasn't like his wife not to take a phone call from Rachel.

          "Fine," she snapped.  He finally went away.

          "Okay Mon," she said under her breath.  "Now what?"

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