Title: How To Deal

Author: Kaitlyn

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Burning lungs, dirty dancing, nightswimming and second chances...Loud music, tainted smoke, fiery kisses and racing hearts. Everyone remembers what it was like to be 18. Established R/R and eventual C/M.

IN RE TO A REVIEW: Someone asked if Rachel's rape could perhaps "not count" or if she could be a "born again virgin". No. Since when does sex "not count", ESPECIALLY when it's a rape? You can never take back the physical act. Sure, you can repress the memory. In your mind, you can negate it's existence. It can never be taken back, though. For the purpose of this story, what's done is done. To "take it back" afterwards wouldn't be holding true to the original intent of the story. The purpose of that was to strengthen her (and Ross') character. This is not a happy-go-lucky story. I cannot even promise you a happy ending. You will have to continue reading to find out.

That same person suggested Ross finding the perpetrator and beating him up. There was a reason Ross got in that bar fight in the beginning, and it wasn't just to keep him out of character :-) I wanted to give him a place to work from- a physical indicator of his growth. There will be a confrontation in a chapter to come where Ross is given the opportunity to possibly even kill this man. We will get to see a changed Ross.

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"So you're going to be okay?" Monica asked worriedly. She had just taken the drive home from the hospital with Rachel and Amy and was now having to leave her alone, since Amy had gone back to work. Rachel nodded and smiled feebly, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't be silly," she answered, slapping her hand in the air towards Monica in a casual brush-off gesture. She nodded and looked around the room that seemed so foreign and cold to her now. She had barely had adequate time to adjust to it before all of this had happened, and upon returning to it, she couldn't help but feel that even the hospital had been more comforting.

"There's, uh...something else, Rach," Monica revealed, biting her lip and hoping for the best. Rachel looked confused and a bit frightened.

"What is it?" she enquired, her eyes searching for an answer. Nothing could possibly surprise or scare me after what I've been through, Rachel thought to herself.

"There's someone who wants to talk to you," Monica whispered, looking back at the door. As if on cue, the white bedroom door opened slowly and Ross stepped inside. Monica looked back at her friend, feeling the tension mounting in the room. She wanted to get out of there quickly- if not just to allot them some free time, then to remove herself from the increasingly tense situation.

The two had not seen each other in almost 2 and a half months. Even when he had come to visit her in the hospital, she had been asleep. Their eyes had not made contact...their skin had not grazed the other's for over 2 months.

"I'm going to go," Monica announced quietly. "I'll call you later, Rach." With that, she turned and exited the room. When she pass by Ross on the way, she gave his hand a covert squeeze of comfort and whispered an encouraging "good luck" before she slipped out.

The door dragged shut and they were left alone together.

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"Can you believe all of this?" Monica asked, leaning her head against the back of the porch swing. Chandler had come over after she'd arrived home from Rachel's that afternoon. They were sitting together on the whitewashed wooden swing on her front porch. The afternoon had given way to evening, the sun beginning to fall down behind the treetops. The wind was blowing just enough to cause chills to run occasionally up their skin.

"No, I really can't," Chandler replied. He had never known anything like this to happen before- at least not to anyone he knew. He thought he had it bad- with his alcoholic, sexually aggressive mother and his pool-boy-screwing, cross-dressing father. Even those hang-ups seemed equivalent to a paper cut in comparison.

"How's Ross been?" Monica questioned. Her brother had been sleeping at Chandler's for the past few weeks. She had talked to him periodically, but he had always seemed so wound up and enveloped in his own little far-off world.

"He's dealing with it," he answered, perhaps spinning it a bit optimistically. He shook her head and pursed his lips. "I've got to say, though...I don't know that he's ever going to be able to see past this."

"Ross is more of a man than that," Monica insisted, shaking her head. "He would NEVER blame her for this."

"No," Chandler agreed. "You're right, he wouldn't. He DOESN'T. It's just that..." He paused, searching for the right words. Ross had only spoken to him briefly about his feelings, and he was afraid he's misconstrue what his friend had really meant. "I think he feels like something was stolen from him, not just from her."

"Maybe that's understandable," Monica admitted. She leaned her head into Chandler's shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. It was getting cooler, even through the earlier heat of the summer night. Chandler nodded, feeling his cheek brush against hers.

"I don't know what I would do," he admitted, shaking his head again. "I mean, the guy's got to feel helpless. He's got to feel like he could have maybe protected her from this."

"He couldn't have," she attested. "There's nothing he could have done."

"I know that. HE probably knows that, on some level. You know he's got to feel that way, though."

"Well...I'm just wondering how they're getting along by themselves," Monica submitted. "I left them alone together almost 3 hours ago."

"God, talk about a dramatic reunion."

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TWO DAYS PREVIOUSLY...

"You want some water or something, man?" Chandler asked. He watched his friend drop his suitcase like dead weight in the center of his bedroom. Ross shook his head.

"No, I'm good. Thanks," he whispered, his mouth obviously dry. He sat down on the beanbag chair in the corner of Chandler's bed, and taking this as an invitation, Chandler sat down at his bed. The two were completely silent for a few minutes.

"What are you thinking?" Chandler asked. It felt strange. He had never asked anyone besides Monica that before. With all previously girls, he hadn't really cared, and it would have seemed awkward for him to ask another guy. This situation was awkward long before, though, so he figured he had nothing to lose. Ross just stared blankly, showing no signs of answering at first. Then, surprisingly, he let out a little chuckle.

"I don't even know, man. I've been trying to figure out just how I feel about this for days, and I'm still at a loss. I have no idea what I'm thinking. I'm just sort of...existing from one stage to the next."

"Well," Chandler replied, trying to figure out how to respond to that. "Try to explain it to me."

"Alright," Ross began, his voice low and steady. "Well, at first, I was completely numb. I got Monica's phone call and I just reacted immediately. I'm not even sure that I really understood what was going on. I just got to the hospital as fast as possible because I knew I had to see her. I didn't really know why I thought seeing her would make things better, but I just knew I had to before I could stop panicking."

"Then you saw her," Chandler prompted. Ross nodded.

"Then I saw her."

"How'd you feel then?"

"I vomited," Ross replied, looking up at Chandler and even smiling a little. Chandler smiled in return, easing the discomfort of the conversation.

"Right, well, I mean after that." Ross shook his head, his face becoming stern again.

"I don't know," Ross confided. It was quiet for a few seconds. "but I remembered in that one second how beautiful she was, and I think maybe that was the hardest part."

"What about while you were sitting in the waiting room? What were you thinking about for all that time?"

"I went through stages," Ross admitted. "At first, all I could picture was her. I wasn't really THINKING about anything. I wasn't really feeling any recognizable emotion. I would just close my eyes for hours at a time and think about her and wonder how I was ever going to get that back. I wasn't strategizing or anything...just wanting her. I know it sounds dumb, but...I think I actually felt my heart break a little."

"Weren't you ever mad?" Chandler asked, a little surprised that Ross hadn't mentioned this already.

"Sure- furious," he admitted. "I sat in that waiting room for at least an hour one night plotting ways to kill that guy. I mean, I was really plotting his death. I was serious about it at the time. I was almost fantasizing about it. It felt sick and twisted until I thought about him actually...doing it to her. Then it didn't feel so terrible." Chandler nodded, trying to understand how his friend was feeling. He really wanted to understand. "Let me tell you, though, Chandler. Being furious takes a lot out of you."

"So you're not as furious anymore?"

"No. Like I said before, it's a combination of everything now. It's like feeling every possible emotion at once, so it feels like you're feeling nothing. It's hard to explain."

"That makes sense to me."

"I almost gave up once," Ross admitted, looking down and obvious ashamed.

"What do you mean 'gave up'?"

"I mean there was a time when I was sitting in that same wooden chair for about the 40th consecutive hour with tears streaming down my face and bloody knuckles from where I'd punched a wall and a pounding headache from absolutely driving myself insane with anger and fear and self-hate...and I almost just said 'fuck it'. I was ready to walk out of that hospital and never see her again. I was so convinced that nothing was worth the amount of pain that I felt when I closed my eyes and saw her face and was SURE that I would never be with her again. I was ready to move on and just learn to cope with the consequences later. I didn't think anything was worth all this."

"So what brought you back?" Chandler asked. He was learning slowly that just being there to ask questions was enough for now.

"The same thing that ALWAYS brings me back, man," Ross answered, actually smiling again now. "Her. I remembered that it was her. That was all it took."

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PRESENT TIME...

"Do you want to sit down?" she asked, her voice small and her words dying almost simultaneously as they left her mouth. They were the first words that had been spoken between them since he'd arrived that evening. The first 10 minutes or so was filled with an uncomfortable, taxing silence. Upon her asking, though, he suddenly became very finicky and uneasy, searching quickly for her desk chair and sitting down immediately.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. He wasn't sure why. She didn't particularly look like she needed anything. It WAS Amy's house, anyway, so he probably wouldn't have been the one to get it for her. She just shook her head and looked down at her hands in her lap, her hair falling in front of her face. He thought he even saw her smile. God, he missed that smile.

"I'm kind of tired of people asking me that, actually," she answered. Oh, he thought. Right. That made sense. He cursed himself for being so insensitive and unoriginal. For all the hours he'd spent thinking about this moment- waiting for it- he was still at a loss for words. She looked up at him, then, and caught him off guard with the stunning way her eyes seemed to pierce through him. They caught hold of him, and as desperately as he wanted to look away, he could not. She reached up and fiddled with the beaded and hemp necklaces around her throat. She had never taken them off, even after they'd broken up. He smiled automatically at the thought, but as soon as he remembered that must mean she was wearing them when...it happened, the smile vanished.

"Ross..." she implored, her words coming out small and pleadingly. They broke his heart, but he could not think of any way to reply other than to nod. So he did. He had to stop himself from say 'I know', because, truthfully, he was not sure he did know.

He wanted so badly- possibly more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life- to go sit beside her on the bed. Even if he didn't touch her, just to be near her would be enough. He didn't budge, though. Instead, he just leaned forward in the chair and rested his arms on his thighs. He folded his hands together, nervously fidgeting with them but never taking his eyes away from hers. He felt as if he'd be serving some great injustice to her if he had.

"You wanted to talk to me?" she finally asked. The silence had been too much for her, even if it HAD been in his presence. In the past, they could have gone for hours on end without speaking. The air seemed to get colder now, though, when they went without speech, like just their words and breaths alone were warming the space between them. A huge, uncontrollable smile wiped it's way across his face unexpectedly, surprising both her and himself. He just chuckled.

"Yeah, uh...heh...I guess I did say that, huh?" He had looked briefly down at his shoes, but regained his eye contact with her when he was done. She was still looking pleadingly at him, and he found it hard to retain his composure while submerged those big, wet pools of cerulean.

"What do you want to know?"

"How do you know I want to know anything?" he asked. He was not questioning her, but rather inquiring. She knew him too well. She just smiled plainly, but he could tell it was in spite of herself.

"Tell me what it was like...please," he whispered. That was a big leap he had just taken and he knew it fully well. He had dived in, just like he had so many weeks ago into the reservoir to prove his love and dedication to her. Maybe with these words he was testing hers for him.

"Ross..." she trailed off, saying his name now with skepticism and weariness. His first thought was of how tired she sounded. Not annoyed or angry...just tired.

"Please," he said again, this time more firmly and beseechingly. He reached across the space between them to take hold of her hand, but just as his fingertips grazed hers, she yanked her arm back with a fierce jerk. It was almost impulsive- like she had just been waiting for him to do it so she could be prepared for it. The force was so much that it threw her weight off balance, causing her to fall back onto one arm on the bed. This seemed to embarrass her, though, so she quickly sat back up.

It had happened so fast. Afterwards, they were both breathing heavily and staring blankly at once another. He realized with horror just what he had done. He had touched her. He was a man, at least two times her size and alone in a dim room with her, and he had rashly reached out to touch her. It did not matter who he was- he did not matter that he was Ross- he had still touched her, all the same, and it had shaken her so badly that her eyes were not glazed over and her face was flushed. She looked terrified. Of him.

"God, Rach, I'm so sorry," he apologized, rocking back in the chair to distance himself from her a little. "I didn't think...I mean, I didn't realize..." She cut him off.

"It's okay, Ross," she assured him. Her body language and breathing told him that it was not, however. He murmured a soft "fuck" to himself underneath his breath. Just when he thought they were making progress, he had gone and screwed it up. He swallowed deeply.

"Will you, um...can you tell me? I mean...I want to know."

"You want to know what, Ross?" she answered immediately, almost as if by reflex.

"I want to know what it was like...for you. I need to know. Now knowing is the worst part," he admitted.

"Yes...it is," she answered. She was speaking in riddles but he could not become frustrated or short with her.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...I don't remember. I don't remember much of it at all. It was just one big blur of dizziness and pain and then it was over." She was opening up to him now, her words coming faster and louder. "I see his face sometimes in a flash, kneeling over me or- or carrying me." He listened intently, not even realizing that he was scooting towards the edge of his seat and closer to her. He saw that tears were beginning to form and she was shaking, along with her voice, but he couldn't stop her. He wanted to know. He had to. "His, um...his breath smelled like alcohol. I remember that. I remember his breath." He wanted to touch her. God, he wanted to touch her. He wanted to make it better for her, somehow. "He took me someplace cold and dark, but laid me someplace soft. Maybe it was a bed...I don't know. From then on, I can't remember anything but the pain. This hard...rubbing, stretching pain..." She stopped.

"And?" he encouraged, having to stop himself from reaching out to her. She shook her head.

"I can't, Ross," she whispered, her voice jagged and shaking. She was crying openly- sobbing, even. "I can't." They remained silent for a moment, until Ross broke it with an uproar.

"FUCK!" he screamed, jumping from his chair and smacking his hand hard against the wall. His bones crushed together and his skin stung, bringing tears to his eyes, but he had a feeling they had been there long before. This scared Rachel, causing her to jump back, but she was somehow comforted by the intuitive knowledge that he would not hurt her.

"Ross, it's okay," she whispered, trying to calm him down. She knew it would take more than that.

"LIKE HELL IT IS!" he yelled, whirling around to look at her. "If there's one thing that all of this ISN'T, Rachel, it's okay! I mean, NOTHING about ANY of this is okay!" He was pacing around her room now in front of her, his thoughts and words racing. Perhaps this was what he had been feeling all this time, and it wasn't until he was standing in front of her that he could verbalize it. "It's not okay that I wasn't enough to keep you back home! It's not okay that a bunch of idiot assholes made you feel like you had no self worth! It's not okay that that fucking PERVERT had sex with you while you were UNCONSCIOUS!" He was yelling now. The entire neighborhood could probably hear him. He didn't care. Rachel was crying- sobbing. They both were.

"Please, Ross," she begged. "Please...stop it." Tears burned his cheeks and stung his eyes, but he couldn't stop. If he could have, he would have done it for her. His heart was racing, though, and he knew it wouldn't be silenced or even calmed until he had said everything he felt.

"I can't!" he yelled, his voice shaking now. "No, I've got to say this. I've got to say it just as much as you have to hear it." He paused, captured in an abbreviated reverie. He was pondering his next move. He decided upon sitting back down in the chair, only this time he scooted it closer to the bed and leaned forward. He was careful not to touch her, but he was just close enough to hear the pounding over her heart. It was racing, matching the rate at which her tears were falling.

"Listen to me, Rachel," he demanded, his voice leveling out a bit, though the shaking of his hands still gave away his trepidation. She shook her head profusely, but that didn't stop him from continuing. "I did a lot of thinking while I was sitting in that hospital- more thinking than I've ever done at one time in my life. While I was sitting in that chair, I think I questioned just about everything I've ever known or believed in or loved in my entire life. I gave every single one of them up and then found them again, all within about 48 hours. Do you understand?" he asked. It was evident from the look on her face that she did not- she had no idea what he was getting at. She did not feign some divine understanding. She did not even nod passively. She just stared blankly, still shaking her head and begging him to stop his speech. She knew it would unravel her. He knew it, too. Maybe that's why he was doing it. He continued.

"I even gave up on you, Rach. I said 'forget it, it's too hard'. I wanted to kill that guy and you and myself all at once. I just wanted to stop EVERYTHING that was doing this to you- to US. But do you know what I did not ONCE think, Rachel?"

"Please don't do this, Ross," she pleaded through her tears and sobbing. She was still shaking her head. "Please don't do this to me."

"NO!" he demanded, taking her hand again and not particularly caring if she jerked it away this time. To his surprise, she did not. "Listen, dammit! If this doesn't mean something, NOTHING does! Do you know what didn't ONCE cross my mind?"

"Ross, I...I can't," she sobbed, and for a moment in looked like she wanted to collapse into his arms. He was still staring intently at her. He tugged on her arm for affect but softened his tone.

"I never thought about myself. For two entire days, Rachel...I only thought about you. I only thought about us. I never ONCE considered myself as being affected by this. THAT'S how much I love you, Rachel. Never before in my life have I been able to detach myself so completely from such a personal situation and ONLY focus on the other person. It's not human nature. Humans are selfish, and I ALWAYS have been when dealing with personal experiences. Not this time, though, Rach. Not with you. I only thought about you."

"Ross, this is TOO HARD!" she yelled, surprising him with her tone. This was the first time she'd raised her voice. He help steadfast to her hands, though, and didn't let her pull them away.

"No it ISN'T! It's NOT too hard if you'd just let me in! Let me help you, Rachel! I've never cared about someone else before myself. I've never wanted to take the time to heal someone else- to fix THEIR problems before my own." She continued sniffling, but said nothing in protest. She was staring back at him now with an equal passion and fervor in her eyes. He had her full attention and she was not fighting it.

"Hey," he whispered, even managing a small smile. "It took me all of this- your insecurities...the break-up...all of this- to realize that ALL I want is to see you happy. All I want is to MAKE you happy. All I want is to make this better for you."

A smile. It was weak and it was painstaking. But it was there.

"Tell me what I can do to make this better for you," he pleaded, his voice breaking in the middle. He rubbed the insides of her wrists with the pads of his thumbs, reveling in their warmth and softness. The first time he had touched her in 2 months. It would have been enough to make him cry if he hadn't been already. "Tell me what you need. Anything- it doesn't even have to be me- and I will do it."

"But it is you," she whispered, shaking her head once last time and finally collapsing into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder and letting all of her weight be supported my him. She was like dead weight in his arms and he loved it. He drank it in. He closed his eyes and felt it like it was the last thing he'd ever feel. And he'd be happy if it were.

"It's been you for so long..." she hiccuped into his shirt, her tears soaking through the material and her words broken and jagged through her sobs. He pressed his face into her hair, smelling the coconut scent there and smiling for the first time in 2 months.

"Jesus, Rachel," he whispered, his chest convulsing now as he sobbed right along with her. He dug his finger into her back and then moved them to slide around her waist, completely enveloping her. He got down off the chair, slipping to the floor. They sat there like that for some time, him with his back against the bed and her a ball of sorrow and surrender in his arms.

"Make it stop, Ross," she begged several times so faintly that he barely heard her. She clawed at his arms and back and shoulders, her head still pressed firmly against his chest. "Make it go away."

And he did. At least for right then- for that isolated moment in time- him being there was enough. Him holding her was enough. Him forgiving her- and maybe himself- was enough. Him crying with her stopped her thoughts from strangling her insides. Him rubbing her back and kissing her forehead and whispering that he loved her- that nothing could make him stop loving her, even the magnitude and disgustingness of this- eased the pounding in her head. The words that he had spoken- the hushed promise that he had made to always put her before himself- stirred something within her that she had thought dead from the moment The Stranger had touched her with his cold, hostile fingers. In that moment, all the gossamer insecurities and hang-ups that had presented themselves over the past few months vanished, and she was left with a consoling clarity that quieted her sobs and stopped the dizziness. Everything was clear and she suddenly rediscovered that one thing that had ALWAYS made it okay- the one thing that it had always come down to, in the end.

He was Ross. And she was Rachel. And that was enough.

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End Chapter 13. Continued in Chapter 14.