Input is welcome. I can only see a few more chapters in this, the way it's going. Maybe that's all there needs to be.

13. Rachel listens

'Oh no,' she breathed, 'I mean they're pretty little girls but they should be ours, not hers,' Rachel said, her anger forgotten. Emma was perfect but Rachel would have loved it if she looked more like Ross. Emily didn't love Ross so why should she have children who looked so much like him? It just seemed so wrong. 'So that's what you went to talk to her about.'

'Yes,' Ross said, 'And she was late – nearly an hour late , so I wasn't with her for over an hour. It may have been ten, fifteen minutes. A horrible ten or fifteen minutes I swear. I never want to see her again, although I might have to.' Rachel brushed aside that explanation. It didn't matter any more.

'And you never knew?' Rachel asked.

'No, she never told me. If I'd known about them before I would have told you. I found out by accident, through Monica.'

'Monica?'

'If you'd stayed to listen to her she'd have told you.' Rachel paused. 'I bet you just took off without letting her finish what she was saying, just as soon as you heard Emily's name,' Ross said. Rachel nodded.

'How did Monica know?' she asked.

'She saw Emily in the street and she talked to her and found out that she had children, my children. So Monica told me. I've been trying to work out what to do for ages. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before but I wanted to know what was going on first before I told you the news. It kind of affects our lives, me having two more children. It's taken me all this time to track Emily down. I've been worried about her going back to London without me seeing her.'

'Did you see them?'

'No, her husband's taken them away.'

'Why didn't Emily tell you about them?' Rachel asked. She left the question of why Monica hadn't told her aside for later. 'She must have known about them when you got divorced, or when she agreed to marry another man, so why didn't she tell you? I mean, if she wanted to get back with you, like in that phone call, why didn't she say? We would never have hidden that from you and I know you would have been over there like a shot. You wouldn't have ignored that.' But where would that have left Rachel, she wondered. Should she be happy or sorry that Emily took that approach?

'She didn't want me to go back to her just because of the children,' Ross said. 'She said if we had got back together it would have had to have been because I wanted her, not because I felt I had some kind of obligation. Then after the phone call she – ' he didn't want to repeat what she'd said: I see no advantage for them to have you in their lives. She'd written him out of her life. Because he'd failed to call her back? 'She just wanted to keep me out. She got married to someone who wanted kids and didn't mind that someone else started them. She gave them to him. Like a wedding present.'

'You can't give someone a child, or children,' Rachel asserted. But that's what Emily had done, whether they liked it or not. Two children called someone else their father, for all they knew, those girls loved him as a father, and would find it strange to be told that their father was really someone else.

They walked along for a block in silence.

'So now you've got four children,' Rachel smiled. He enjoyed being a father and she knew he wished he could have a more active role in Ben's life. Emma was his little jewel and one day, although they hadn't made definite plans, Rachel thought they'd have another. But Ross was looking miserable.

'Rach, it's not going to be easy to see them,' he said.

'Why not? You're their father, you've got rights.' Rachel bit her lip. That didn't seem to give him any comfort. 'It would be hard, with them living in England and everything, but you could have them over for holidays. They look so cute I wouldn't mind looking after them while they're here.' Not since they looked so like him and so little like Emily. Getting fond of them should present no difficulties at all.

'She's called one of them Emma.' Rachel was taken aback.

'Well I'll just use a fake British accent when I'm talking to that child and a normal voice when I'm talking to my own,' Rachel said. 'We can handle it.'

'I don't know if I'm going to see them,' Ross said despondently. 'She wouldn't agree to anything without talking to her husband. He's taken them back to England so I can't ever see them.' If only he'd had the chance like Phoebe to hang around the park and look at them – although if he had he was not sure what he'd have done. He might have run out to hug them and who knew what trouble would have been caused by that? Emily and her cousin were so ready to call the police, probably her husband would have been the same.

'I can't believe her husband would care that much, they're not his children,' Rachel said, 'She's doing it all herself. If she won't co-operate, we'll sue. She can't stop you seeing your children.' That had to be right. The legal system had a solution for everything. They'd see a lawyer and then Emily would have to start co-operating.

'That's going to cost us a lot of money. It's not the money I care about, I don't need stuff, but I don't want Emma to miss out,' Ross said. 'I want her to have the best of everything.' Emily's goad of him being a part time father to Ben still stung. It hurt. He would be the best father ever to Emma even if he couldn't do the best for Ben.

'She'll miss out if she doesn't know her sisters,' Rachel pointed out. 'Doesn't Emily think that they will miss out if they don't see Emma and Ben? No, she's not thinking of that, she just wants revenge.'

'Yeah, well it's hurting me, so I guess she's getting revenge all right,' Ross said. Revenge for not returning the call, for not doing what she wanted, for not loving her enough, for things he couldn't take back any more. He had thought that he'd reached a point in life where everything was starting to settle down, and now he had this problem. Rachel hugged him but it would take more than that to make him feel better.