Writings on the Wall – Chapter 2
A/N: Wow, thanks for the nice reviews! I was happy people like this fic cuz I kinda do. Yeah, look out for my update buddy, JenniGellerBing with The Valentine. It's an awesome fic, and I'm sure you've all read it already. If you've been living under or something and haven't read it, then…what are you waiting for?! :p Heh, okay, please read and review, thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in this fanfic, but I do co-own this conversation…
Me: i jinxed it
Yen: knock on wood!
Yen: *knocks on bec's head*
Me: ouch, its not wood:-(
Yen: hahahaha
Me: it might be hallow though
Yen: hahah exaaaaaaaaactly
Yeah, she's mean. Nevermind reading her fic afterall. :p j/k
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Ross, John, and Monica walked into the chapel silently. John's arm immediately wrapped instinctively around Monica. The room was large, but simple. She was suddenly reminded of her great-grandmother's funeral. She looked around nervously. Death made her feel uneasy. It was crowded. The death of a teenage girl didn't often happen in their community. Monica recognized classmates, teammates, parents, siblings of friends… she tried to remember another time when she had seen so many of these faces together in one room. She could not. Why were people only brought together by death?
She noticed her former biology lab partner, Daniel Stein. He gave her a mournful look. After a painful moment, she broke his gaze. Her eyes danced around the room once again. They fell upon yet another sorrowful look. She bore her eyes into the ground instead. All who gathered mourned, yet everyone also felt relief. They mourned Phoebe's death, yet felt relived that it was not anyone special to them. It wasn't their girlfriends, their best friends, their daughters, and most of all, it wasn't themselves… it was just the weird girl with blond hair. Merely another underachiever overlooked.
But aren't those the reasons I'm here, too? she mumbled under her breath, Didn't I just come here out of pity? She didn't know Phoebe well. In fact, she had never even said a single word to the girl. Yet, there she was; searching for a place to sit… how could she really care about someone she didn't even know?
Suddenly, a wave of coldness engulfed her body. She could almost feel her blood freeze in their veins. She shuddered violently, fighting off the bitter cold. John tightened his grip around Monica and turned to face her.
"You okay, babe?"
Monica stood stone-like in her spot for a moment. The chill was gone. The heat returned to her body, and she felt it rise to her cheeks and spread across her limbs, her fingers tingling.
She licked her lips. "Yeah," she answered unsteadily, "I'm okay."
"You cold?"
Monica nodded and, a moment later, so did John. Yet, he knew just as well as she did that it was abnormally hot inside the chapel. He pressed no further, but his watchful eye on her proved all that was left unsaid.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Phoebe was a fine, young woman," came a booming voice from the pulpit, "She cared unconditionally for, not only people, but animals as well. She volunteered every Saturday at the animal shelter. She was an asset to this community," the man paused to emphasize his point, "She will truly be missed…"
Monica shut her eyes and balled her fists up tightly. This man – the school's principal – was talking about Phoebe, as if he knew her. But he didn't! Monica didn't know how she knew this, but she could tell her had never spent more than two minutes with the girl. So, how could he possibly know all of this? Two days before – three at the most – he probably sent his secretary out to interview friends and family, to check her records, to speak with teachers. How artificial.
How utterly artificial it all felt. This was death. It was real. You can fake life, but you can't fake death. It all made her so angry that she could feel her head throb in frustration. "Why are you all here?!" she wanted to scream. "Go back to your lives! Do all your stupid little chores because staying here won't bring her back!" she felt tears sting her eyes, "It won't bring her back and you don't care, anyway. So why bother?" But she kept her mouth shut and left words unsaid. She breathed in deeply instead.
Monica had to get out. The walls were closing in her. Every way she looked, each direction that caught her eye, brought the falsehood closer and closer in towards her. It would swallow her up – she was sure of this – if she didn't move. She craned her neck around. All the people, all the shapes, all the colors were swirling together. Everything was turning black. It was dark and she was lost in a world where nothing mattered, anymore. She wanted to prick herself, to make sure that she was merely dreaming, but couldn't move her hands.
Suddenly, she felt herself rip out of the darkness. She fell back against the wooden bench's backrest behind her. Her head hung down loosely by her neck. She opened her eyes. John and Ross were apprehensively studying her. Slowly, she brought her hands over forehead, over her eyes, and then over her face before dropping them on her lap. She couldn't feel anything.
"Monica?" she heard her brother whisper. She looked in his direction. The voice sounded like it was distant. "Monica, are you okay?"
"I – I – I…need some fresh air," she answered in a foreign, raspy voice, "I'll be right back."
Before anyone could escort her, she stood up and ran out of the room. There would be no looking back, for the fear of the blackness of the surrounding people's hearts was all too prominent in her mind.
Quickly, she jogged down the side of the building. Her eyes looked upward, towards the sky. She found that the clouds, like pillows to her thoughts, comforted her. Her mind was racing faster than her heart. The memory of the colors and shapes swirling together into one darkened paste played in her mind. She was convinced the world was ending.
Her feet hit the pavement in an unsteady rhythm; they moved too fast for her body. She was running on an incline, but she couldn't tell the difference. Her feet didn't even feel like part of her body. The beating heart and racing mind inside her were all that remained true.
She ran past the buildings, into a sea of trees at the end of the residential strip. There was a rock. She stumbled. The right side of her body crashed into something. Something soft. She fell backwards. Suddenly, she could feel the wet ground against her back, the dirt caked on her hands, the warm rays of sun against her face. She closed her eyes, allowing herself time to feel these familiar sensations. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes. She screeched and slid her body backwards, crashing into a tree. She stopped and looked up vulnerably.
"Are you okay?" the owner of the eyes wondered, slowly backing up from her.
"I…yeah," she mouthed the words before she spoke again, "Chandler!"
The man furrowed his brow. "Yeah... Who are you?"
"I – I don't –"
"Geller..."
She just nodded.
"Wow. You look really, really…different."
Chandler held out his hand to help her up. After some hesitation, she grasped it. For a moment, they held each other's hands and locked eyes. Monica allowed the oddly familiar heat of his hands to pass through hers, into her heart. Suddenly, he paled and let go of her hand, causing himself, as well as Monica, to fall against the ground. He scampered a few feet away. Chandler pointed a finger at her, gaping.
"Your eyes…your…they were blue! They were blue and they turned brown and now they're blue again!" He breathed in and out loudly. "This is insane. I must have imagined it." He looked anywhere but at Monica and muttered, "It must have been the sun…behind the clouds or…or something."
Monica merely stared at him, dumbfounded. Where was she? She began to look around apprehensively. She couldn't even remember leaving the church, let alone how she ended up in her position on the ground. He stood up and started towards her again. He held his hand out and this time it was Monica who scattered out of his grasp. "Who are you?!"
"What?"
He moved closer to her, but she squirmed away from his reach again.
"You know who I am! You just told me a minute ago!"
"I did?"
"Are you okay? Did you – oh my God -- did you hit your head?!"
She placed a hand against the back of her head. "I…don't know."
"We should get inside. You could be really hurt."
However, she continued to stare at him, head cocked to the side. He looked familiar…
Chandler looked up the hill, where the church stood in the distance. "Did your brother come with you?"
Suddenly, she gasped. "Chandler! You're Chandler!"
"Yeah…"
"Ross' friend!"
"Uh-huh."
"You dated Phoebe!"
He bit his lip and nodded.
"Oh, I'm…I didn't mean –"
"Nah, it's all right. I mean I'm okay."
She brought herself to a sitting position against a tree and looked up at him. "I'm so sorry."
"Yeah..."
"Death is only part of life, though."
He laughed sardonically. "You're right. Death is a part of life. It's the last part." She stared at him, at a loss for words. He took off his gray overcoat and draped it around Monica's muddy body. "We should really get you inside."
"Did you love her?"
He stared down at her, taken aback by her question. She was surprised at the bluntness of her question, but she didn't back down. She felt an unexplainable need to know this. After a moment's hesitation, he looked down at his shoes, "Yeah, I think so."
"I think she loved you, too. I don't think she wanted to let go."
Chandler looked up at Monica, unable to question her words. He was aware that Monica and Phoebe had never spoken. Still, he wanted to believe Monica. He needed to believe her. His heart was searching for closure – even in the smallest, unreliable forms.
"Thanks…but we should really get back."
Monica nodded and allowed Chandler to help her to her feet. He wrapped the coat around Monica's small frame more carefully, before taking her hand and guiding her back to the chapel.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Chandler was the first to notice Ross, followed by John, run over to them as they headed towards the front of the building. A puzzled Ross looked from his dirt-covered sister, towards his friend, and back at his sister again. However, it was John who was the first to speak.
"What happened to her?!"
Monica turned towards Chandler and watched as he formulated an answer in his mind. If she didn't even know the answer, how could he?
"She was walking down the hill," he pointed to the side of the church, "And she slipped. I walked by and I saw her on the ground. I gave her my coat because she was wet."
"Thanks so much, Chandler." Ross replied, as he grabbed his sister's hand and whispered words of encouragement in her ear.
John, however, studied Chandler skeptically. The story wasn't enough.
"Why were you out here in the first place?"
"I needed somewhere to think," he pointed to the church, "Can't get much thinking done in there – with all those speeches and…stuff."
"You could've gotten me."
"I wasn't gonna leave the girl lying on the ground!"
John and Chandler locked eyes angrily. John was about to retaliate, when Ross stepped in.
"Look, it's not a big deal! Monica's fine now, aren't you, Mon?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," she turned towards John, "Don't be mad. He helped me and that's it."
John gave Chandler one more suspicious look before he returned his gaze to Monica. "As long as you're okay…"
Monica smiled slightly, "I am, sweetie."
"Okay," he replied, and kissed her softly on her lips.
She smiled into his eyes and then looked up, wanting to say something more to Chandler. However, by that time, he had disappeared.
"Ready, babe?"
Monica turned her attention back towards John and nodded. She allowed him to lead her to Ross' car, with Ross following uncomfortably behind them. She laced her fingers with John's, too weary from the day's occurrences to analyze most of it. She was even completely oblivious to Chandler, watching her from the other side of the church building.
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A/N: I wanna take this time to shout-out to David (the board pimp), Ariel (the crazy one), Renata (the official smilie wedding singer), and all the other crazy posters at Courteney-fan.net 's Courvid Boards. It's an awesome place where you can discuss Courteney and David Arquette, and, when you're not doing that, you can marry smilies! :D (www.courteney-fan.net/forum if you're interested.)
Heh, sorry about the plug. Please leave me a review, thanks! :)