Title: All Who Wander

Author: Kaitlyn

Rating: R

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.

The reasoning behind the title of this chapter is two-fold. First of all, it alludes to the big revelation made in this chapter about Mr. and Mrs. Green's former relationship. You could interpret the "wandering" in two different lights there, I suppose- physically and emotionally. Secondly, it's an allusion to the song, having to do with Rachel having "wandered" away from Ross but having never actually been lost and in fact needed that time to come full circle and find herself back with him.

Dealing with something more mechanical, someone e-mailed me and asked what the difference between the implications of "..." and "-" were when it came to someone's vernacular. The "..." tend to denote a suspended pause, usually allotting time for thinking or trailing off. Meanwhile, the "-" (dash) illustrates a hesitance or stuttering over the word, usually in moments of seriousness or intensity. Hope that clears things up, if it wasn't already obvious.

Please note the R rating.

"Rachel!" Amy called out at an earsplitting decibel. "Pick up! It's mom!"

Rachel wrapped a towel around herself, quickly shook out her damp hair and raced barefoot across the carpeted hallway into her bedroom. She eagerly picked up the receiver, her heart pounding. She hadn't talked to her mother in months.

"Mom?" she whispered, her loud breath reverberating through the headset. She played nervously with the frayed pieces of cloth that hung down from the edge of her towel.

"Yes, sweety, it's me! How have you been?" The first thing she noticed about her mother's tone was how upbeat and chipper, even, it was. She sounded healthy and motivated and...happy. Rachel's jaw hung open and she was unable to form an intelligible sentence or even one coherent thought. It was like a cold, stinging slap across her face. The first time she could remember her mother ever sounding REALLY happy- really enthusiastic- and she wasn't even in the same time zone with her. It hurt. A lot.

"Uh, they've been...things have been..." She struggled with the words. Her mind was flipping through a catalogue of other emotions and obscure memories. How could she ask that question? Had she not heard about anything that had happened over the past few months? Rachel forgot what she was even trying to say momentarily, but quickly snapped herself back to reality and answered her mother's questions as honestly but vaguely as possible. "Things have been eventful."

"Look, dear," she said, her voice coming down and getting significantly more serious. "I want to talk about what happened." Convenient, Rachel thought. NOW she wants to talk about it. Funny that she didn't want to talk about it when Rachel was laying up in the hospital, or when she was estranged from Ross, or when she was having to deal with all of those things with two fairly indifferent sisters in an unfamiliar apartment in the middle of an apathetic city that did not know her by name. Now, when her life was finally starting to show some semblance of what it had once been, Sandra Green wanted to do a little digging up of ghosts she'd already buried once. She was not up for doing it again. She closed her eyes tightly, squeezing off a single tear that slid down her cheek and landed to rest on the hem of her towel.

"Mom..." she pleaded, shaking her head as if her mother could actually see her.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry I didn't come out. You'll never know just how sorry I am for that. I'll even understand if you can never forgive me. I don't know if I'll ever really forgive myself." She continued to ramble, but Rachel was immune to this type of empty chatter from her mother and began to tune it out after a while. She did not blame her mother for not coming out. She already blamed her for most of the other fucked up aspects of her life. She had no reason to add something as silly and miniscule as a plane ticket to the pile.

"Don't worry about it, Mom," she placated. "I'm getting along fine here with Amy. Everything...everything's fine." She cringed at the phrase. How many times would she have to say those words until they would finally become true?

"I talked to Monica, dear. She's been keeping me up to date. What's this I hear about you and Ross?" UNBELIEVABLE, Rachel screamed inside her head. Her mother couldn't possibly care less about Ross (or any of her boyfriends, for that matter) until the day comes when the relationship is sabotaged and must be rebuilt on a rocky foundation. Her mother- the scavenger and excavator off all things painful and depressing.

"Mom, please," she begged. "Can we talk about something else? That's...well, I don't really know what that is right now, besides a touchy subject, so can we just...not go there?"

"Rachel, this is important," her mother persisted, and the determination caught Rachel's attention, as well as the use of her first name. "I think I never made some things clear. What I mean is...I think there are some things you don't know about your father and me- some things you don't fully understand."

"What are you talking about?" Rachel asked, shifting the phone from one ear to the other.

"At first, when Monica told me that you and Ross had split up, I thought maybe it had been his doing. I thought he had, oh, I don't know, gotten the 'college bug' or something and his head had maybe just blown up and he'd decided to move on. When she told me it had actually been your doing, thought, I was more than a little shocked. I know you think I don't see you or take interest, Rachel, but I do. I know how much he meant to you."

"Means, Mom," she quickly corrected. "He'd not dead."

"Yes, well, that's not the point. The point is...You see, Monica told me...Rachel, did you end things with Ross because you thought you'd just end up like your father and me? Divorced?"

"It's much more complicated than that, Mom," she spat, surprised at her own bitter tone. She knew she was lying, though. It really wasn't complicated at all. In fact, it had been exactly as her mother said.

"Oh, sweety," she empathized, "you can't do that. You can't compare every relationship you have to your father's and mine. You'll just make yourself miserable if you do that. We are far from the prototype."

"Great," Rachel mumbled. "Just what every teenager wants to hear about their parents- that they were screwed from the beginning."

"Rachel, let me tell you the story of your father and me- not the story you THINK you know, or the ones you might half make up and piece together from those old picture albums I know you look through- but what really happened. It's very important to me that you know. I think, from the sound of things, it's very important to you, too." Rachel didn't say anything. She remained quiet on her end of the line. She had to feign disinterest in her mother's story, because she was a teenager and all teenagers must feign interest in anything their parents ever say or do. Truth be told, though, she was physically trembling in anticipating of her mother's revelation.

"The week after your father and I graduated from high school, he was drafted and left immediately for Saigon. He only had a week's notice. We were going to travel that summer, before leaving for college. We were going to take a road trip and sleep on the side of the road and backpack through forests and mountains and oceans. We had big plans, Rachel, big plans."

"I know dad was drafted, Mom. None of this is new to me."

"Just wait," is all she replied with, with more confidence than Rachel had ever heard from her mother. "We obviously never got to have our road trip, and one rainy Saturday morning, I drove with your father and grandmother and grandfather to the pick-up and waved goodbye to him and made him promise to write."

"Did he?" Rachel asked, surprised at her sudden interest in the story but simultaneously feeling ashamed and disappointed for having let onto that interest.

"Yes, he did," she replied, and Rachel could hear the momentary smile and uplifting giddiness in her mother's tone upon recalling the memory. "He wrote. He wrote at least once a week- sometimes more. He wrote until I almost got tired of reading all the letters. Then, I regretted ever feeling that way, because one day...the letters just stopped."

"What happened?" Rachel asked, having given up now on faking any sort of detachment.

"Well, we thought he'd died. Or, perhaps that he'd gone AWOL or missing somewhere in the jungle. We feared the worst and waited for some sort of letter or conciliatory officer visitation. One never came, though." There was a silence for a few minutes.

"Then, one day, just as easily and surreally as he'd walked out of our lives, he walked back in. He showed up at the door without so much as a warning."

"Is that when he started being...well, Daddy?" Rachel asked. She could tell her mother was shaking her head and smiling. She just sensed it. She didn't know how.

"No, not at first. At first, he was just as loving and warm and fun as the day he left. We picked back up just where we'd left off, and before I knew it, he'd proposed to me."

"And you said 'yes'?" Rachel asked. She even, oddly enough, found HERSELF smiling.

"Of course I said 'yes'," Sandra replied. "But then...then something happened that has forever changed your father's and my relationship. He told me...he told me about..."

"What, Mom?" she asked, obviously quite confused and even a little worried. She was rapidly becoming quite the opposite of disinterested in what her mother was saying.

"Honey, your father had met someone."

"WHAT!?" Rachel asked, jumping up from her seat on the bed. Her towel almost fell completely to the floor, and though she was the only one around, she dropped the phone amongst the commotion in order to keep her it from dropping.

"Yes, honey. He'd met someone. Apparently, one of his nights off, he'd gone out with two of his buddies and woken up the next morning with more than he'd signed on for."

"Was he...Did he...Was he in love with her?" Rachel asked, her voice cracking.

"Oh, sweety, are you ever asking the wrong person THAT question. He was very vague about the entire ordeal and would never answer anything directly. I suppose that means he was, but I stopped asking after a while. Don't think there hasn't been a day that's gone by since, though, that I haven't wondered. He never even told me her name."

"But Mom!" Rachel shouted, "How COULD he? And you still MARRIED him after that?"

"Oh, dear," Sandra sighed deeply. "See, this is the part you never knew about. This is the part you'd never understand."

"So you just forgave him? Just like that?"

"This is the essence of your father and me, Rachel. I don't know if there ever was any forgiveness. I don't know if there's even any today. There comes a point, though, when things mean more than that. You get to a certain age, and a certain stage in your life, and you start to see things and feel things stronger than forgiveness- things like acceptance and surrender. I accepted your father after that day, but I don't know if I ever really forgave him or loved him again. He did break my heart. Let there be no question of that. We had a life to live, though, and it was a different time. I married him because that was the thing to do."

"So why did you divorce him, then?" Rachel whispered, her voice small again.

"Because that was the thing to do," Sandra answered simply. "When the new generation came along and divorce was more accepted, I knew I had no reason to stay anymore. I waited a little while, secretly hoping that maybe he would give me a reason, but knowing that he never would. And he didn't."

"Oh, Mom," Rachel whispered, shaking her head and crying openly now. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"No, silly girl," Mrs. Green scolded playfully. "Don't say that. Don't be sorry. I got my three girls out of it, didn't I?"

"But, Mom, you lost so much of your life. There were so many things you never did- you never GOT to do. Doesn't that make you sad at all?"

"That's what I'm doing here. That's also why I couldn't come back when I got that phone call from the hospital. I had just settled in here and started my new life, and I know it's terribly selfish of me, but I just couldn't make myself go back there and see you that way. You- the daughter I'm the most proud of, and the one who got his eyes- in a hospital bed. It was just too much, sweety. I hope someday you'll understand."

"I understand, Mom." And she did. For once, she was not lying when she uttered those words.

"So, then," Sandra continued, raising her voice a bit in both volume and tone, "I guess that brings us to the present. What are you doing about this boy, Rachel?"

"I don't know, Mom. Things got so complicated so quickly."

"Things often do with love," Sandra offered.

"But, Mom, I said and did some stupid, STUPID things. I just...I ruined it. I think we're on our way, but it just seems impossible to get it back to where it was."

"Well, I'm no expert at all this love business, but one thing I DO know is that you are NOTHING like me, sweety. You are much more grounded than I was at your age. What you have with Ross...well, don't let your father and I sway you, Rachel. We were much, much different. Don't let this boy slip away from you because of the sins of your father, so to speak. If he's still hanging around after all of this, he's got to be something special."

"He is," she affirmed, feeling a smile tug at her lips. "He is...something else."

"Does he know that? Does he know you still feel that way?"

"I don't know. He used to. We've talked and I think things are on their way back to normal, but...I just don't know."

"Well go let him know, dear. Let him know how special he is to you."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"I got my acceptance letter today," Chandler said, throwing the thick white envelop onto Ross' bed for his friend to see. "Since I didn't apply for early decision, I just found out."

"Wow, that's great, man! Way to go!" Ross congratulated, picking up the envelop and examining it's contents.

"So you still haven't decided?" Chandler asked, sitting down at his usual spot opposite his friend on the desk chair. Ross shook his head, carefully handing the envelop back to Chandler.

"No," he answered softly. He rubbed both hands over his face and back through his hair. He left his eyes closed for a moment and exhaled deeply. "It's just such a headache, ya know?" Chandler nodded.

"No, trust me, I can imagine. I was just lucky to know where I wanted to go all this time." At this, Ross sat down on the bed facing Chandler. He leaned towards his friend, hunched over in an anticipatory position and obviously very invested now in the conversation.

"So you're telling me that you never even CONSIDERED anywhere else? You never wanted to...I don't know, get out of New York?" Ross asked. Chandler just shook his head, staring into his eyes.

"I guess I'm just not that kind of guy. I like it here. I'm not particularly crazy about seeing my parents all that much, but you've got to love the city. Plus, you know...there's Monica." Chandler looked down sheepishly, uncertain of the way Ross would react.

"Chandler, you don't have to be ashamed. I know how you feel about my sister," he assured. "I think you guys have got...you know...something really special."

The two friends shared a silent, knowing moment. The silent implication of Ross' statement was weighing heavily in the air, though. Truth be told, both boys knew just what Ross was thinking when he said that. In affirming and condoning his best friend's now serious relationship with his younger sister, he was only drawing attention to the increasingly ambiguous and entropic nature of his own with Rachel. His sister had given Chandler good reason to stay in New York. The two were inseparable and on the verge of giving new meaning to Webster's definition of "functional". They meshed. They melded. They seemed joined at the hip and welded together by the most conventional, efficient, "normal" forces Ross had ever seen. They fit. They worked.

Then, he would come home some nights after playing his habitual role of third wheel on one of Chandler and Monica's patented Friday night dates, that he had only really been invited to out of pity, and he would collapse onto his bed and drown in a pool of introspection that would only ever lead to a sleepless night filled with worriment and questioning. His relationship with Rachel became exponentially more confusing and vague by the day, and now he could almost see in his mind the bare marionette threads that were still clinging together and holding up their future. They had a future He knew that much. Some days he thought he only knew it because it was simply unfathomable in his mind to conceive of a future without her. Other days- more optimistic days, when she would stumble up into his room and their eyes would meet or she would allow him to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear or even graze her fingers with his- he thought there might be a more substantial reasoning for his assurance. Maybe there was something so profound, idiosyncratic and serendipitous about them- such a fine, unfathomable air- that it would be years from now before he could actually look back and pinpoint exactly the moment their lives started to make sense again. He doubted, but hoped, that years would be adequate.

"Hey, man, it isn't so bad, you know," Chandler condoled, reaching out and lightly punching Ross on the shoulder. "I mean, what've you got here? Acceptance letters from..." He reached behind him on the desk and picked up the stack of mail wedged in beside an upright notebook. "...Cornell, Stanford, George Washington, Boston and Yale?" Chandler threw the pile on the bed in front of Ross and smirked. "Yeah, boy, things are just bad all over."

"I know, I know, I should quit being such a pansy about it," Ross admitted, nodding his head. He shrugged. "It's just a big step, ya know? I mean, it's- it's the future."

"I know," Chandler agreed, nodding along with his friend sympathetically. Suddenly, he sat up erect in his chair upon realizing something and furrowed his brow at his friend. "Haven't you heard about NYU, yet?" Ross laid back on his bed and extended his arm back over his head, reaching for a stray envelop on his nightstand. He sat back up and handed it to his friend, hunching his shoulders over and nodding.

"Yup. I got it about a month ago, actually- right in the middle of all this shit. I didn't open it."

"What?" Chandler asked, his voice cracking with the sudden change in tone and decibel. "You aren't going to?"

"No, no, I am," Ross assured, taking it back from his friend and setting it beside him on the bed. He looked down at it for a moment with an intense gaze and then snapped himself out of it to look back up at Chandler. "I just, uh...This one's different." He stated the last part so simply that Chandler almost forgot that it required more explanation. After a beat, though, he got it.

"Ah, I see. Well, I'd hate to ruin a good suspense thriller by giving away the ending, but I don't think there much of a point in holding out until the end on this one. You KNOW you got in, Ross." Ross smiled plainly and chuckled once.

"Yeah...maybe." After another beat, he picked up the envelop and stood, circling around to the head of his bed and placing the letter in the bedside drawer this time. He turned around to see Chandler standing also.

"Well, I can't wait, so I'm just going to be one of those assholes who walks out in the middle. I hope that's okay with you," he joked, smiling and shoving his hands into his pockets. Ross smiled back and nodded.

"Yeah, I'll catch you later, man" he promised. He turned and descended the stairs, his hands still pushed inside his pockets and the collar on his Polo shirt popped up. Ross free-fell backwards, the cushiony mattress giving away beneath his frame and breaking his fall. He stared up unalterably through the celebrated skylight. Rain. Again.

For so much of his life, he had love the rained. He had welcomed it when others shuttered and rolled their eyes, pulling their sweatshirt hoods up over their heads and reaching for their umbrellas. Now, though, he shuttered along with the world. It seemed to him that every inalienable controversy and evil in his life accompanied each rain. Even those times that he'd been lying there with Rachel at his side, carefree as the day he'd been born and as content as a jaybird, the legendary Morning After had always followed. Be it a fight or a break-up or just some unshakable feeling of impending doom, the morning after a rain was anything but cleansing.

Something occurred to him in that moment, though, and it made him hate the rain just a bit less. Some rather profound revelation flew unexplainably into his mind with such a threatening brevity that he had to be certain that he understood it immediately and thoroughly before it flew back out again. It was difficult to grasp it, though, because it was like a picture. It was not a concept or a word or even a string of words. It was like a serene calmness that was too powerful and soul-clenching to dismiss as an emotion. It was like a premature epiphany that didn't have time to develop into an actual conception. It washed over him and relaxed every muscles in his body, sending a tingly loftiness through his veins. He even found himself smiling after a few moments. It was an absolution. He had no idea where it'd come from, but it was there, filling him up like an empty gas tank. He had the sudden sense that, sometime in the near future, he would be doing something so weighty and important that it would lift his entire reason for existence up one level.

Then that reason for existence appeared at the top of his stairs and the epiphany brushed her shoulder on its way out.

He shot up instinctively from the bed, landing with his feet planted firmly against the wood of the floor. She was not wet this time, nor were her clothes unkempt or her lungs searching for breath. She was as carefully perfect as usual. He let her name escape his lips in a whisper, but she could hear it from across the room. She blinked once and tilted her head slightly to the side.

"Uh...hey," he finally said, crossing his arms across his chest nervously. She smiled. She smiled a smile so sweet and naive and fragile that it just made him want to stroke her hair. He had no idea why THAT was the first impulse that the smile provoked. It just was.

"Hi," she whispered. It seemed that lately all of her words came in whispers. She was like that, though. That was a Rachel thing. Only she could speak in whispers 24 hours a day and drive him crazy with the velvety sensuality of it. It was a goddamn WHISPER, but it made his knees buckle. He gulped.

"So, um...when are you moving back?" Small talk. After all this, they were back to square one- struggling for small talk. She just smiled again and shook her head. She stepped the few feet towards him and softly grasped his wrists with her hands. The touch was painfully faint but it was there. He could see it with his own two eyes. He looked up at her and sensed that same calm knowingness to her that he had experienced just a few moments before her arrival. Perhaps it had not brushed her shoulder on the way out, but had absorbed itself into her. Transference. That's all he ever really wanted with her. She put one finger to her lips and made a soft "shh" sound.

"Let's not talk about that, okay? It doesn't matter. Let's only talk about what matters." He furrowed his brow, obviously very confused. He just nodded, though. It was all he could do. He could only give her what she wanted. It was a gift and a curse.

"Aright...What matters, then?" He only hoped he wasn't being incredibly obtuse in asking that. Was this a rhetorical statement. Was he supposed to know what the important things were? Was this one of those trick questions that girls used to trap guys? Rachel was good at those.

Before he had time to consider it for any longer, though, her hands were on either side of his face and her lips were warm and soft on his. He was stunned for a moment and unable to close his eyes to take in the sensation of it, like he always had in the past. Instead, he froze, gripping his hands into fists at his side and trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. He had been deprived of her touch for so long- of her kiss- that he had blocked it off inside his minds. It only took him a few precious seconds to sink back into it, though, and when he did, it slid over him like melted honey. And her hands played along.

"Wait, wait," he whispered, reaching up and taking her wrists in his hands. This caused her to pull away from him just far enough to look him in the eyes, but just kept her hands pressed firmly into his cheeks with his hands still around her wrists. He gulped deeply, their hearts being rapidly in unison and their breaths coming harshly into the space between them.

"What?" she whispered back, daring him to question this but also terrified that he would. "Is this okay?"

"What?" he questioned in the form of a low, breathy chuckle. His eyes lit up and dimples formed at the edges of his mouth. "Of course- of course this is okay. Just...I don't understand. What happened? Why now?" His hands were still on her wrists, but they were subconsciously making slow circled on the soft underside of them now.

"Does it matter?" she asked, biting her lip.

"Yes," he whispered, nodding slightly. "It matters a lot."

"Why?" she asked, obviously a bit embarrassed. "Here I am. I'm back. We're back."

"I know," he smiled and nodded. "I know, and it's great. It'-it's more than great. It's the only thing I want...but it can't be for the wrong reasons, Rach. It can't be." She swallowed deeply and nodded, too.

"Okay," she said slowly, letting him know that she was on board with what he was saying. "Then how about it's because I talked to my mom? I know why my parents didn't work out, now, and it's not us, Ross. They're not us. That man in the club wasn't you. The man who...well, he wasn't you, either. I figured that out. The dreams, the divorce...none of it has anything to do with us. Is that a good enough reason?"

"You got all that from one conversation with your mom and I couldn't convince you in a matter of months?" She smiled and shrugged.

"Hey, I came around, didn't ? You want to finish this kiss or not?"

"Yes, ma'am" he answered, deciding that his questions had been sufficiently answered for now. All that mattered was that he was holding Rachel and kissing her for the first time in months without the presence of guilt or confusion or depression. It was just them. They were the way they used to be for the first time in forever. They were the way they were SUPPOSED to be.

She pushed them backwards as she advanced on him and he let his hands fall from her on his face down to her waist. He pushed them up under his shirt to press them against her back, crushing her to his chest. By the time the backs of his knees hit the mattress, their tongues were fighting for control of the kiss and they fell backwards together onto the bed.

He moaned up into her mouth when she slid her thighs down his sides. He ran both hands down her back and over her ass, then back up again and into her hair, finally letting them come to rest on her thighs. She shifted her weight forwards and backwards as she kissed him, rubbing herself over his crotch. He stopped.

"Hey," he whispered. "Let's take it easy, okay? I don't want this to end like last time." He had to remind her- as well as himself- that things weren't going to just stop being difficult because they were back in each other's arms.

"I don't want things to end at all," she replied, looking into his eyes and hoping that he'd understand. He ran his hands lightly over her thighs in a motion similar to the way you'd run your hands together over a fire in the winter to keep them warm. It was a comforting motion, rather than a sexual one.

"Are you sure? I mean, are you really, really sure?" he asked, obviously trying to maintain his cool demeanor and conceal his excitement. She couldn't help but smile at his stereotypical boyishness. She leaned down and took his face between her hands again, coming in close and placing a small kiss on his nose.

"Ross? Sweety? This is real. Everything else is over. I want to do this. I want to do this with you...right now." She extenuated this point by kissing him once softly on this lips. He kept his eyes closed when she pulled away, capable of doing nothing but nod in agreement. She sat back up erectly and he ran his hands over her arms as she pulled up. Her hair fell down over her shoulders and a piece or two hung in front of her down-turned face.

He took a deep breath in preparation. Nervously shaking a bit, he used his upper body strength to lift his torso from the bed and pull his shirt up over his head. By the time he'd flung it onto the floor and came to rest his back against the mattress again, his breathing had already quickened and the muscles in his stomach were contracting and spasming. She repeated his motion, but more slowly. She lifted the garment up and off and let it fall haphazardly onto the bed.

His eyes locked with her bottomless pools of bluish green , then moved down to survey the rest. Her chest was heaving heavily above the lavender bra and her stomach was tensing and relaxing in rhythm below it. He couldn't stop himself from sliding his hands up her thighs, over her stomach, up her sides, onto her shoulders and finally into her hair; that long, flowing, velvety, golden hair. She leaned down and put her mouth to his ear.

"You're going to have to help me, okay?" she whispered. He could feel her shaking. He moaned.

"Help you with what?"

"I want to do this, Ross, but it's going to be hard. The last time...the last time wasn't ideal," she reminded him. Oh. He finally understood. Of course it would be difficult for her. He'd have to take his time. He'd have to be careful of what he did and what he touched and when. It would be almost painful for him, he could tell, but he had to do it for her.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Rachel. I'll be careful," he promised, turning her head and kissing her lips once. She surprised him when she voluntarily deepened it.

"I know." She patted him on the chest once and let him turn her over so that he was lying on top of her. Slowly, holding eye contact with her all the while, he slid his hand down her stomach and unzipped her pants. He waited patiently for her to wiggle out of them, but his pulse was racing and his palms were sweaty and he was struggling to hold himself up on his forearms.

Before long, she was laying underneath him in only her underwear, as he'd unhooked her bra and flung it aside shortly after her pants. He was mortified at out scared and small she looked. She looked nervous and anxious, and those were the last things he wanted her to be. He bent his neck and moved down her body to place a firm kiss on her stomach. He looked up at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked concernedly. She nodded and smiled weakly, obviously out of breath.

"Yeah...I'm okay," she assured. He smiled back at her and let his weight fall down, resting his chin on her stomach so that he could still see her.

"We could just stay like this for a while if you want," he suggested, still wanting to take things as slowly as possible. She smiled, touched by his sensitivity and care. She ruffled his hair and then slid her hands over his shoulders, which were the only part of his back she could reach.

"No, sweety, it's okay." She knew this excited him, though he'd never show it.

She motioned for him to scoot back up her body and he obeyed willingly. When he was positioned over her again, she reached up with two shaky hands and began unfastening his belt. His eyes never left hers. He wanted to make sure she was okay the entire time. If there were ever a moment when she faltered- when she panicked- he was going to know. He would stop.

He gulped deeply and closed his eyes to regain composure when she unzipped his pants and began pulling them off his hips. He through them to the side after they were removed and was, for some nameless reason, almost embarrassed at how obvious his arousal was through only his boxers. She had seen him like this hundreds of times before, but this was supposed to be about her and he somehow felt that he was taking from that. When she pressed her palm against him through his boxers, though, he moaned and every thought flew from his head.

"It's okay," she giggled, loving the power she had over him. He almost shivered at the combination of her smooth, throaty voice and her touch.

He dipped his head and paced a kiss on her mouth, inviting her tongue in and deepening it when she bent her knees and cradled his body with hers. She wrapped both her arms and legs around him, molding and pulling him to her. Their tiny moans and whimpers meshed together around them and got captured in the sheets.

"Hey," he finally whispered, pulling away a bit before they got carried away too quickly. He kissed her one more time quickly and then rolled off of her. "I need to go get a condom." She nodded and let him leave. He crossed the room to the bathroom on the other side and she wondered why he hadn't had any in the bedside drawer. No time for questioning that now, though. Before she knew it, he was back with the package in his hand.

He slid back into the bed and she welcomed him into her arms. They went sans sheets because it was rather hot and muggy in his room, and on her back, Rachel looked at the overhead skylight to see fog collecting on the windows. He began kissing down her body, stopping every few inches to take care and pay special attention to that designated area. His tongue moved over her skin as she arched her back and clenched her muscles.

Finally, he reached her underwear.

He stopped and looked up at her with eagerness and anticipation, but her eyes were sealed tightly shut and she was biting down on her tongue. He smiled and took that as sanction. Gradually, he pulled the small slit of fabric from her body until she was completely naked beneath him. He had never seen her looking so small.

She seemed awkward and uncomfortable. She never had before, but then again, they had never had just intimate contact with such high standards and expectations proceeding them. He lowered himself on her and nuzzled her neck and shoulders, kissing her there and blowing lightly into her ear.

"It's okay," he assured, running the hand that wasn't holding him up down her shoulder and over her hand. "You're beautiful. Everything's okay."

"Finally," he thought he heard her say. He couldn't be sure, though. Either way, he nodded in agreement. Finally. Everything was okay. Finally.

He felt her hands slid down to his hips and stop at the waistband of his boxers. Just the implications of this made his heart jump and sent chills over his body. His groin tightened and he had to stifle a moan. Timidly, she tugged at them until they slid down his thighs and he had to get up and raise to a kneeling position to remove them completely. Nothing about any of this had been smooth so far. It had all been very mechanical and discomfited, but at least it had been together and at least it felt good. It felt right.

She took the time that he was kneeling beside her on the bed to admire him in the moonlight- the muscles in his upper thighs, the definition in his stomach, the broad expanse of skin stretched across his chest, the contracting and shifting of his biceps. He was so beautiful to her. She would never understand how he could be so jealous and insecure about other guys hitting on her.

Now, with both of them entirely naked, he lowered himself back down over her and waited for her to bend her knees to fit around him. She did...and it felt perfect. He couldn't believe that they hadn't been doing this all alone. Even without the actual act of sex, he basked in how incredible it felt to be this close to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly, brushing a piece of hair away from her eyes. She nodded and smiled weakly, but tears were building in the corners of her eyes. He only prayed they weren't from fear or regret. "Why are you crying?" He'd had to ask. She shook her head.

"No, it's um...it's nothing," she reassured. She let out a puff of laughter and reached up to wipe away the tears. He stopped her, though, and pushed her hand away. Instead, he reached used the pad of his own thumb and brushed the salty liquid from her cheeks. Then, to dispose of any traces, he kissed her there.

"Ross..." she whispered, looking him straight in the eyes. "Please..."

Without any further delay, he shifted his weight onto his left arm and used his right hand to reached between them and guide himself to her. After a moment or two of nervous fumbling and hesitation, he slid into her with an even but tense stroke. Her legs clenched around him and they both groaned in unison, squeezing their eyes shut and neither daring to move.

"Are you still okay?" he somehow manages to whisper through clenched teeth, only hoping that he could even understand her answer when she gave it. She said nothing, though, and instead simply nodded. "Is it okay if I move?" he asked, nuzzling her cheek again and content with being conscious of nothing but how it felt to be inside her and have her legs pressed against him and her hands running over his back. She groaned and shifted a bit but conceded, hugging him a bit more tightly to her and squeezing her legs more firmly against him.

He raised his hips and then sank them back down again, pushing himself in and out of her. The feeling was indescribable, so he chose not even to think about it. Then, with the flicker and switching on of a light bulb inside his brain, he realized that this was what the earlier epiphany had been about. This was that extraordinary thing he would soon be doing- being with her the way she needed and helping her overcome her fear. He was comforting her- and himself- and that was all he ever really needed to do. The rest had always been up to her.

He proceeded to talk to her- to let her know that this was him and he would never hurt her. All she needed was the familiar sound of his voice to reassure her that this was real- this was him and her together and it was OH so different than the last time. This was the only first time she needed or wanted.

He increased his pace and she raised herself up to meet him. He could feel the sweat beginning to accumulate on her skin and he bent his mouth down to her neck to taste the saltiness of it. Then, he closed his mouth over hers. The kiss was deep but tender to match their movements, mirroring the way their bodies were sliding together. It had only been a few minutes, but he could already feel the familiar tightening that always began in his stomach. He cursed himself, begging and pleading and praying to hold out longer- for an eternity- but first times were hardly ever perfect and this was to be expected.

It was over quickly after it began and they fell together in a mass of tangled limbs and skin, heaving and panting and sweating. He stayed cradled in the cocoon of her bent knees, cuddled tightly against her warm skin. From where he was lying with his ear to her chest, he could feel and hear her heart pounding. She ran her hands over the icy-hot skin of his back and allowed him to run his fingers through her hair. They didn't speak again that night and they fell asleep together only minutes after.

It was the prototype for every first time- awkward, clumpy, nervous and quick. It wasn't mind-blowing or record-breaking. It didn't bring tears to their eyes. Instead, it was a quiet absolution. It was a reckoning of two people- two souls- that lost their way for a bit, but were able to find each other in the end. It was a relinquishing of all hang-ups and insecurities- all secrets and skeletons. It did not have to be their best time. It only had to be the first. It was perfect for what it was, not what it could have been. It had already been forgotten, the world having already moved on to a thousand other first times just waiting to begin or end. To them, though- within the quiet wooden confines of that room- it would be forever remembered. It would live in the annals of THEIR relationship- of THEIR lives- and that was enough. That was all it ever had to be.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

End Chapter 16. Continued in Chapter 17.