A/N: Hello.
That was the extent of Becca's brilliant comments. Ah well, I'll write the rest of this a/n. I am back from Cancun and tanner than ever! :) Ok, show of hands, who's ready to go back to school and get away from their overbearing, aggravating parents??? *raises hand enthusiastically* Wish me luck in high school! And wish Becca luck in 11th grade, you big ole' upperclassman!
Joolz - lol! We're so glad about the monkey obsession!!!! Monnie Geller - Thank you for saying the impotent thing made your night/morning. Your reviews made MY day! The thing about Janice... you misread it... he meant that being ALONE was better than being with Janice, which makes a helluva lot more sense. I said your name!
And yes, it's DEFINITELY too racy to be PG-13, but we wanted it on the main page. Sue us, will you? Then you'll get everything we have - two buttons and a pin that says "Your Mom." We're quite the Spartans. (Yeah, history class.)
Oh, thanks for reviewing, yall. Makes our day. Or night, whenever we read it.
Bec, was the a/n crazy enough? No? What if I yelled SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICESPYALIDOSHIS right here? Still no? Oh well. You might not even be reading this. *Whispers* Bec's busy dreaming about Jack Geller. Apparently he's quite the stud. Or something. I can't see past the sun-dried tomatoes obsession.
Disclaimer: I'm not sure what Becca owns, but I own five very large school books, a sucky locker, and a class schedule that makes me cross the school five trillion times. You'd think I'd be less excited. I'm not.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chandler stepped into the sparkling clean yet tiny diner, looking around fervently. He was hoping to see Monica before she saw him. He chuckled as a man dressed poorly but unmistakably as Elvis Presley stepped out from behind the counter.
"One?" he asked Chandler, grabbing a menu.
"Yeah," Chandler said. Elvis led him to a small booth in the back.
"Frenchie will be with you in a moment," Elvis said as Chandler sat down.
"Frenchie?" Chandler said bemusedly. Elvis only smiled and walked away. Chandler looked around the diner. Posters featuring old movies, black-and-white Coca-cola advertisements, and cheap, broken-looking records lined the walls just above the strip of shiny chrome that made the place look like the outside of a trailer home. A small jukebox sat on every table next to a straw dispenser. People dressed as notable fifties characters walked around carrying trays of greasy fries and cheeseburgers.
"What can I get for you today?"
Chandler looked up and blinked. A woman with auburn-red hair, wearing black pedal-pushers, a pink suede jacket, and dark sunglasses was staring down at him with a pad of paper in hand. Chandler smiled.
"Perhaps a time portal back to the 90's?" he said. Frenchie gave him a grim smile that plainly told him, One more crack and I'll be spitting in your burger. "Or, my most favorite Pink Lady, just a Coke."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, actually, I have a question," Chandler blurted out. "Does a woman named Monica work here? Dark hair, violet eyes, great body?"
"I don't know about the body, but yeah, that'd be Monica Geller."
"Is she here right now?"
"I think she's on break in the back," Frenchie said.
"Okay, thanks," Chandler said. Frenchie left, and he looked down at his menu unseeingly.
What to do, what to do, he thought. He'd been so fixated on just getting himself to the diner that he hadn't even thought of what he was going to do once he got there.
Again, Hi, I'm the guy you slept with under false pretenses a few weeks ago didn't seem quite appropriate. Could he just go in and introduce himself to her? Would she even recognize him? Maybe she wouldn't even know him from the dozen other men she'd fucked since that night. And their night of passion definitely - definitely - meant much less to her than it had to him. She'd slapped him as she'd left in a furor - surely she hated him for tricking her, even if he had been drunk and stupid.
Chandler suddenly cringed, realizing how stupid he'd been to come here, to her place of work, in an effort to... what, try and woo her? A prostitute? Shaking his head at his idiocy, he put a few dollars down on the table for the Coke and hurried out of the diner. He was halfway around the corner when he noticed someone standing against the wall in the back. He stopped and looked.
It was her. She was wearing a poodle skirt and a pink shirt, which was stuffed with undoubtedly fake breasts - he would know. She was holding a blond wig in her hand, and her dark hair was twisted into a bun. She was just leaning against the wall, looking at the sky, her perfect pouty mouth twisted into a mournful frown.
Chandler watched Monica for a minute in complete shock. He realized he was off-balance and stoop a step forward, crunching on some fallen leaves. Monica jumped and turned to look at him, her jaw dropping in disbelief as she recognized him.
"Monica," he murmured. "Hi."
She didn't reply her bright eyes widening in recognition and then narrowing.
"Look, I just wanted to - to come and - "
"I have to go," she mumbled, turned and running through the open back door, into the restaurant.
"Monica! Wait! Wait, please!" he called desperately, but she was gone, the door closing behind her. Chandler kicked a small rock. "Dammit. Dammit, dammit."
He'd lost her again.
Monica put her hand out to steady herself against the wall of the diner. She was breathing heavily, receiving strange looks from the cook getting hamburger buns from the closet next to her. She didn't care - she was much too shook up.
How could he have been there? Standing there, 10 feet away, right in front of her... watching her, just as she thought of him. The nerve he had to show up here, looking all cute and brooding, while she was dressed like some kind of fifty's Barbie doll and close to tears over her miserable life! Why did she have to be stuck on him? She'd slept with God knows how many men since that first night - but somehow, he was special.
Jesus, Monica, get him out of your head! she thought. You'll never make it if your hung up on some random roommate. Remember what Rachel told you - there's no feelings involved. It's just physical...
Then why do I feel like my heart's broken?
Sighing, Monica entered her apartment, a stack of mail clutched in her hand. Putting her purse down, she thumbed through the envelopes.
Junk, junk... and the bills, she thought resignedly. Utilities - final warning. Credit card maxed out. Reposession next step. She rubbed her fist into her eyeballs.
And here were the doctor's bills. Hundreds, thousands of dollars not covered by their crappy HMO had piled up since the inheritance had trickled down to nothing and Ross had become sicker and sicker.
But as Monica looked at these bills, she felt slightly triumphant. She reached into her coat pocked and pulled out another envelope. This one did not contain a bill, but $3000 in cash, her earnings from the past three weeks. Monica sat at the used kitchen table, paying off the most urgent bills and leaving the rest in a stack in the cabinet, out of sight if Ross were to come home.
She yawned and fell down onto the bed in Ross's room. She really wanted to go see Ross tonight - God, she did - but she'd feel so much better if she just lie down for just moment, just rested her eyes, she'd just take a quick nap....
Monica's eyes snapped open. She sat up, looking around, feeling disoriented. Something loud had woken her up. What the -
"Monica! Monica!"
Monica squinted in the darkness.
"Ross?"
"Get up, Monica, hurry!"
"Ross, what's going on?"
Monica jumped out of bed and opened the door and was hit with a wave of stifling heat. Her brother, dressed in boxer shorts and a tee-shirt, was standing there, looking terrified.
"Monica, the house is on fire, we've got to get out - " Ross said, grabbing Monica's arm.
"Ross, wait, where are Mom and Dad? Where are Mom and Dad?"
"They're probably outside, come on, come on!" Ross shouted, pulling her through the smoke filled hallway.
As they started to go down the stairs, the smoke thickened. Monica doubled over, coughing, unable to breathe. The smoke filled her eyes, making them water, and the heat was now so intense that she felt like it was suffocating her.
"Monica, come on!" Ross yelled. Fighting against the pain in her chest, Monica stumbled down the stairs, clutching Ross's arm. As they passed the kitchen, Monica felt as though she was on fire. Flames leapt from the floor, the ceiling, everywhere, filling her eyes and her ears - she couldn't breathe or see or speak - she began to scream as the fire crept closer to her. She fell to her knees, coughing again, realizing she was going to die here on the floor in the hallway as her house burnt down around her.
A pair of strong arms grabbed her under her shoulders and began to drag her away. The door swung open and then - they were out. The cool air hit Monica's face like ice.
"Gotta move away from the house," Ross said between coughs. Monica stood up and together they ran, away from the house. Ross stood her on her feet, leaning over and hacking himself. Her legs felt like Jell-O as she fell to all fours, gagging.
She turned back to the house, the heat on her face again, the extreme, deadly heat, the fire devouring the house. "Where are Mom and Dad?" she asked Ross.
Ross's eye's widened. "Where are Mom and Dad?" she repeated hysterically.
"Oh - oh God, Monica, oh God, oh God," Ross said, covering his face with his hands.
"Mom!" Monica screamed. She stood up and ran at the house. "Daddy!"
But this time several hands caught her - horrified-looking neighbors wrapped in housecoats with slippers on their feet, holding her and hushing her, telling her everything would be all right. Monica screamed and kicked and sobbed like a child as the house she'd grown up in fell in upon itself, burning up into nothing. And as she was dragged away, she swore she could hear a terrible scream coming from within the house, screaming and screaming and screaming...
Monica screamed. She sat up in bed, twisted in her sheets, sweating profusely and sobbing. It took her several moments in which she looked around the room, sure it was going to go up in flames at any moment, before she realized it had been a nightmare.
Just a nightmare, she reassured herself. It's over. It's just a nightmare. She sat in the silence, shaking and crying, until her tears dried up.
Three years. It had been close to three years since the fire, and still she woke up screaming about it almost every night. She could feel the flames on her face, taste the smoke, hear the screams. Could see her parent's faces. The Geller's had been found underneath the rubble of the second floor, just feet from the door, their hands intertwined. They had been so close to getting out.
Bad electrical wiring. That's was the fire department blamed it on. Bad electrical wiring in the kitchen had started the fire that had ended Monica's life as she'd known it. She had been only seventeen - she was young and fresh out of high school, about to go off to college just two weeks later.
She never did. She stayed behind with Ross, who was only in the early stages of the leukemia then. They lived off the inheritance for a while, with various relatives and neighbors. But both hated this life and yearned to be out on their own. Once Monica turned 18, she moved them out into the city, where they had struggled to lead a life for the past year and a half.
That was why she did the things she did. That was why Monica sold herself to men, something she detested so much she couldn't even stand to think about it. And that was why she couldn't have a relationship with a man, no matter how much she wanted it. She had to take care of her brother, to keep them alive.
You don't always get everything you want, Monica, she heard her mother say in her head.
"Believe me, Mom," Monica whispered. "I know."