by Tina
Rachel lied in bed next to Ella with her back glued to the matress, staring at the ceiling. Though she was physically exausted, she couldn't sleep. The past 24 hours kept coming back to haunt her. Funny how things could change in a day, huh?
Actually, anything but funny...
Ella was breathing loud and Rachel turned to look at her with concern. It didn't take long before the two-years-old started coughing in her sleep. Her mother felt her forehead with the palm of her hand and sat up. Had she remembered to pack a thermometer?
After finding one somewhere in her bag, Rachel gently stuck it under Ella's left arm. After waiting a few minutes, Rachel looked at it and calmed down. Not too bad, it should go down. Either way, it was a good excuse to get them out of there first thing in the morning.
She looked back up at the ceiling and sighed. Why couldn't he just... understand?
They left Petrópolis right after breakfast. Ella's fever had gone up and she couldn't stop coughing. All the way back, she lazily leaned against her car seat and tried to get some sleep. Rachel kept turning around to check on her, while Mike looked out the window and Ross drove silently.
When they got home, Rachel got Ella quickly in bed. She spent her whole day nursing and smothering her child, while Ross took a very bored Mike out to do something. It wasn't untill six o'clock they arrived, with dinner and medicine for Ella.
"No, this is not what she takes back home!"
Rachel let her anger from the previous night still show in her voice. Ross noticed and seemed just as impatient at her.
He didn't want anything with Clara, anymore. But Rachel couldn't think she could mistreat people like that just because she felt like it. She couldn't hurt people just to be spiteful. If she'd left him, then she should realise he had his life now. If she didn't want to be a part of it, fine. It hurt, but he'd manage. She could not, however, demand that he'd keep himself solely devoted to her and not go after anyone else. It didn't work that way, he deserved a decent life.
So he'd played along with Clara. It didn't mean he liked her, but he equally wanted to hurt Rachel.
He did not, however, want to make a scene in front of his kids. Standing there on the kitchen with Rachel, Mike and Ella, he could only swallow those words he had to say to her and sighed.
"I still have some of the medicine you kept for the kids, we can look through that after dinner. For now, that's all they had at the drug store. It's the same thing though, it'll get her fever down just the same"
Rachel noticed the way he kept looking at the kids, as if making sure they could not feel the tension. She decided that playing along would be the better solution.
"Okay, after dinner we can look for those"
'God, why won't she just settle for these?' he exasperatedly thought, looking at the medicine. Spiteful, yes... Rachel was very spiteful.
After dinner, Mike was feeling rather worn off from his afternoon with his dad and had no trouble falling asleep. Ella almost didn't make it through dinner either, having just had some cough syrup which made her very sleepy. After both of them had been tucked in, Rachel still insisted on looking for that medicine he said she'd left there.
They opened the cabinets on his bathroom and searched around. Ross pulled a very large box out of one drawer.
"Here, I think these are all theirs"
She took it and looked through them.
"Most of these are expired"
"Well, everything must come to an end, huh?" he said in a very sarcastic tone, which Rachel did not apreciate.
She sat down and kept on looking through the box, though, trying hard not to argue back. What good could come from it?
"The syrup isn't here"
"I guess we ran out of that, then. Or I must've thrown it out."
Rachel quickly stood up from the stool she was sitting on and shot him a look.
"What is the matter with you?"
Ross watched her with confusion. Confusion and frustration. And anger.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You just threw it out?"
"Yes, it must've expired, Rachel. Now calm down, I should be the one asking what the hell's the matter with you!"
"Ah, excuse me? With me? You're the one who got her sick in the first place!"
"Right, I'd forgotten I had the ability of doing that, I'm sorry your Highness!"
Rachel shot him a disgusted look.
"Since you claim yourself to be a Doctor so much, Ross, you should've known better before you put her feet into that freezing water!"
"Do you really think blaming me for this is gonna make you feel better about this whole thing?"
Rachel just kept looking at him, not knowing what to say. Her expression was still steady, however. Furious and frustrated.
"For once you should stop being so spiteful and see that your dumb actions are actually affecting people that surround you, Rachel! For once, that's all I'm asking!"
"Oh, so now this is about your little girlfriend?"
"You and I both know it's never been about Ella getting sick! Stop using our daughter like this, like an excuse for every little one of your imature feelings!"
Rachel approached him and raised her index finger towards the tip of his nose. The look in her eyes scared him.
"Don't you ever say that I'm using Ella again"
Ross looked down for a few seconds, untill she raised her finger and sighed.
"But you're right, maybe this is about something else" he looked up at her "About the fact that one night we're talking and having fun, smiling... And the next you barely even look at my face!"
Ross turned around and paced, exasperated.
"What do you want me to do, Rachel, what?? I mean, seriously. Do you want to be my little friend as if nothing happened, as if you never broke my heart? Well, it's too hard, I can't do it. I can't bear to look at your face these days anymore and remember everything that's happened! All the things that you would say and then just take back! Even here, now, one minute you're acting all weird about being back and using the kids as an excuse not to be alone with me... and then you change your mind, you come back, we have a great time and I just could so clearily see what you would do next! You were going to blow me off again, and I can't bear this anymore!"
"So you just went ahead and did it before me?" he could see disgust in her eyes. "You knew what I was going to do and you just beat me at it? Wow, that is so mature, Dr. Geller" her eyes were glistening with angry tears. "Well, since you're Mr. Know-It-All, you must understand exactly how I felt then, huh? And then you just go and flirt with this woman in front of me and your kids, how sensitive of you!"
"I was not flirting with her!"
"She gave her your phone number!"
"'Cause she was mad at you, you were humiliating her!"
"You slept with her!" Rachel pointed her finger back at him and he fell silent. She looked at him and her tears finally dropped. She couldn't speak for a few seconds. Ross looked down one more time and sighed. "You slept with her" Rachel repeated with a softer voice.
Ross looked up at her. Her final words to him as a real couple kept ringing in his ear, piercing his mind almost unbearably.
"Why would you care, Rachel? You don't love me anymore, you said so yourself. We're divorced, I can do whatever I want."
"Yeah, go bang any girl you want, Ross, see if I care."
"Judging from this conversation, I'd say very much."
Rachel's fury level rised again.
"How would you even know? You don't even know me, anymore!"
"That's right, I don't! You've changed, Rachel, way before we split up! And this has all happened because of you, so don't go around and try to place the blame on me, okay?"
"I'm sorry, my fault?!" Rachel disregarded the fact she really considered this all to be her fault indeed. But she wouldn't admit it to him.
"Yes! I told you we didn't have to come, but you insisted. Then I said I'd come back with you but you said no! You said you didn't love me anymore, what was I to do??"
"Not believe me!"
He looked at her, confused.
"What?"
Her tears were running free now. It didn't matter what she'd say... She had run out of explanations, out of lies. Things couldn't get worse than that and now her chest was about to explode. She was tired and she couldn't control her actions anymore. God, she was so tired...
She collapsed back onto the stool and cried. Ross knelt down next to her and didn't know what to say.
"Rach, what?"
She removed her hands from her face and looked at him.
"Did you really believe I'd stopped loving you?"
His heart was thorn. Should it feel warm or break into pieces? Her words were more than he could ever expect, but the knoledge of what had happened hurt him too much.
"Why did you tell me you had?"
"I don't know, Ross, I wanted to hurt you, okay? I didn't want to say no to you, but I also didn't want to stay here!"
And his frustration began to rise again.
"We had to make a choice, Rachel!"
"No matter what happened, things would end badly, Ross!"
"I'd told you I would go back, Rachel!"
"You would be mad at me!"
"Oh, so now you're Ms. Know-It-All??"
Rachel shot him a look and stood up again.
"Like you'd want to leave this! I wouln't want to be traded for this! You love it, Ross, I know it. You love the money and the cars, and the girls-"
He cut her sentence.
"No, Rachel! Do you really think this is a way of living? Do you really think I've been happy these past few years??"
"Then why didn't you come back??"
"Because you said you didn't want me to, Rachel!! God, how many times will I have to tell you this?"
"Why, why, why did you believe me?"
Rachel was drying her tears, not minding her hysterical ways.
"Can't you recall those last few months, Rachel? The hell we went through? It was pretty hard to believe you still loved me after all of that!"
Rachel just stood there, unable to speak. She'd never felt so guilty before.
"What did you expect me to do? Go after you and beg for you to take me back?" he continued.
She sighed and couldn't quite figure out how to explain the way she felt back then. It was all so irrational.
"I don't know, Ross." her voice was shaky. "I guess I just figured I needed some time to figure things out."
While she was shaking in regret, his mind was racing frenetically, now knowing that things could had been so different for them.
"And was I supposed to read your mind??" he shouted.
Her temperature rose. Wasn't he going to give her a break? There was nothing she could do now!
"You know what, Ross, fuck you! Forget it, it's over, everything's changed, you've got your little girlfriends now, you don't need us!" she threw the one box of medicine she was holding on the floor. The noise wasn't too great because it landed on a t-shirt that had fallen from the sink. She turned to leave, but before she could, Ross grabbed her and made her turn around.
"No, Rachel" his voice was firm. "Nothing's changed!"
They kept looking at each other's eyes for a second. A second Rachel never knew that could be filled with so many feelings.
Guilt, rage, regret, frustration, love, lust... and a raw sexual disire.
Ross leaned in and finally kissed her.
Hm, yes, I'm a mean little girl. I'm exausted from writing this, it's too intense. I don't like it very much, but I guess it says almost everything I wanted them to say. Writing dialogues can be so tricky!! Anyway... leave me a review and I might write the next chapter soon! haha! :) Who am I kidding, eh? Thanks for reading! :)