Part 2 Monica sees for herself

Monica was the one who was upset. The whole of the next day she worried about what this would mean if Phoebe and Chandler were right. Phoebe had phoned the next day to say she couldn't be really sure it was Emily, and not to worry, but Monica wasn't reassured. Why would Chandler have had the same idea? And why would either of them suddenly imagine seeing Emily if she wasn't really there? She must be really there, walking around where anyone could bump into her

That Emily might ever come back had never occurred to Monica. After the whole business with Emily wanting to exclude Rachel and then, when Ross finally told her that she couldn't, Emily deciding she couldn't trust Ross, she had stopped thinking of Emily as having any connection with New York at all. When she thought about it, she realised just how little time Emily had actually been there. The phone call Emily had made just before her wedding (and what about that?) was unreal to Monica, one reason why she had been against the idea of Ross being told about it. Emily had nothing to do with him any more.

What did Emily have to do with Ross or any of them? She belonged in England. It was all a mistake that she'd ever come into their lives at all. If Rachel had been able to take Emily out to the Opera when she was supposed to, she'd never have met Ross, or at least he wouldn't have felt sorry for her and taken her off to Vermont and gotten involved. It had just been an unfortunate accident.

Monica had been worried that with Emily's call everything would start up again, out of Ross's misguided sense of failure. Fortunately he had decided that he didn't want to call Emily back, and hadn't, and that had been the end of it.

It should have been the end of it but what if it wasn't?

Monica tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous to think that Emily wanted anything. She could have been back at any time in the last six years – why would she come now? She must know that the relationship was over, really over, with no chance of resurrection. She should have known that years ago, when she'd gotten engaged to someone else. That was a pretty final way to reject someone. But if so, why would she phone the day before her wedding?

Maybe that was it. That marriage, if it had gone ahead, must have been doomed to fail. You couldn't go into a new marriage with such unresolved feelings about an ex, and expect that marriage to last. So it must have failed. She had heard that English divorces could take as long as five years sometimes. So maybe the marriage had lasted a little while, broken up and now she was here because she was free

She was still puzzling over this the next day while she was out shopping. She had had a number of household things to take care of as well as some things for the business. She didn't have much time and she was quickly walking along the street when suddenly she pulled up short. Someone had just passed her. Someone whose walk and shape seemed familiar. Monica spun around to look at the retreating back. It was her, she was sure of it. And while Monica was standing staring, she was getting away.

Forgetting what she was supposed to be doing, she went in pursuit, thinking all the time, it couldn't really be her could it? Was she just been neurotic? Monica saw the woman turn her head to look at something at her side. It really was Emily. Monica took a sharp breath in. She had been secretly hoping that, despite the odds, both Chandler and Phoebe had been mistaken.

Monica continued to follow. She didn't know what she was going to say but she didn't want to run the risk of losing Emily. By all accounts she could move pretty fast when she wanted.

Monica's head was full of a tangle of questions which could be summarised as What-are-you-here-for-what-do-you-think-you're-doing-you're-not-going-to-spoil-things!' More than one exclamation mark certainly. She'd catch Emily and she'd make her confess to whatever she planned and then she'd make her abandon whatever plan she had, because she must have a plan. She wasn't in New York for no reason. Nothing was going to ruin it for Ross and Rachel, nothing.

But Emily was going faster and after several people got in the way, Monica realised she'd lost her.