AN: Thanks so much for all the reviews! They are very encouraging. So, before I go on, I have to explain that I did some searching. One of you commented that Chandler didn't know Monica was the one to cut off his toe until "TOW All the Thanksgivings", so I went and re-watched that episode. It seems to me that Chandler knew it was Monica - he was there, how could he not?, just not that it was a result of his calling her fat.

But the other thing I noticed was that there seems to be a discrepancy of the "life before the show" info. I have a timeline built on what I know, so I can stay in canon. I was already a little confused about when Joey moved in. In the early episodes, it always seems to me that Joey barely knows Ross, so I thought he may have just moved in, but now notice that there are two different possibilities. The first is from the episode when Janice asked if any of them had gotten together before (I think). In the flashback for that episode, Chandler is looking for a new roommate (who ends up being Joey), and early on when Chandler and Monica see Rachel at the bar, one of her friends says something about her being married to Barry in a year. So, since the show starts on Rachel's wedding day, this implies Joey moved in with Chandler in fall of 1993 - one year before the show started. But in TOW All the Thanksgivings, the flashback where Joey puts the turkey on his head is timed as Thanksgiving 1992 which of course implies he moved in before November of 1992.

Clearly, I can't match both of these timelines -- only one can be "right". So, I've decided to go with the later moving in date (1993) simply as it seems to me that Chandler and Ross must have graduated college in 1991. (Assuming Ross and Monica are a year apart, in the first Thanksgiving flashback (1987) Ross must be in his freshmen year as Monica is still in high school, we can assume Ross and Chandler graduated three years later -- which would be the 1990/1991 school year). If Joey moved in during 1992, this gives only a year for Chandler to move in across the hall from Monica and them all to become friends with Kip, Kip and Monica to date and breakup, and then for Chandler to look for a new roommate. This seems like not enough time for all of that to happen.

Also, I realized that based on what we know, Monica should have graduated college in 1992, but again, that makes things fairly rushed. I'm not sure we are ever told that she went to college, so I wrote the one reference to that out of the first chapter, and had her go to culinary school instead, which makes sense and takes less time. Also, I checked and there's a really good culinary school in NYC not too far from her apartment on the show, so I've decided that's where she went to school. It's unclear how long the program is, so I've just randomly decided it takes three years. This means she would finish around the same time as Ross and Chandler graduate college.

One more thing, I'm pretty sure that Ross is supposed to be "Dr. Gellar" which means he has a PhD. I know a lot of people with PhDs and they generally take somewhere around 5-6 years to get. If Ross graduated college in 1991, that would mean he would finish his PhD in 1996 or 1997 -- several years after the show started. And frankly, as anyone who has a PhD can tell you, he would not have all that time to hang out with his friends while he was finishing his dissertation. I don't think it's clear where Ross works before the museum, though, so I have decided that Ross is in graduate school through 1995 -- thus finishes his PhD in about as little time as can be expected and still be reasonable and is incredibly relaxed during his last year (when he was also busy going through a divorce and having a baby -- normal people probably would not have finished their dissertation in this same year, but since this is after the show started, I don't have to deal with that). This means that for most of this story, Ross will be working on his PhD.

Sorry for the long note, but I wanted to explain what I am doing. If any of this goes against canon, or you have an explanation for the apparent discrepancy I mentioned above, please let me know. Before the last few days, I didn't really spend much time trying to figure this out, so I'm sure I'm missing lots of other information I should know about what the writers told us about the "pre-show" days.

One more thing, the Ritz Carlton Battery Park is fairly new, but I think there was a Ritz there before the new one was built as well. Not sure if it was there in 1992, but I'm just guessing there was.

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Chapter 2: TOW They Meet Again

November 20, 1991 -- The bar that became Central Perk

"I'll have a Bud," Chandler called to the man behind the counter, glancing around. He hadn't seen Ross since graduation and wondered why he had decided to meet here. It wasn't too far away from campus, but far enough that they had never come here when in school.

Ross walked in and smiled as he saw Chandler. Pete, the blue haired bartender, called out, "Hey, Ross. The usual?" Ross nodded in response.

"Great to see you, man," he said to Chandler and the two gave each other an awkward hug - the kind where they stood as far away as possible from each other and still get their arms around each other, and then slapped each other on the back. "Thanks for meeting me here," he continued. "I know it's no where near campus, but since we graduated, I find myself spending a lot more time at Monica's and she lives right above here."

Chandler just nodded, "Yeah, I think you mentioned that. It's your grandmother's place right? And right near Monica's school?"

"Yup, although Grandma moved to Florida a few months back, so now it's just Monica's. And she's finished her culinary school thing, so now she's working. She's a su chef at that great Italian bistro near campus. You remember, the place we…" Ross let his words wander off as he recalled just what Chandler and he had done with Carol and Julia (Chandler's girlfriend at the time) behind Monica's new place of employment.

Chandler laughed, "Oh yeah, one does not forget things like that too quickly."

"Anyway," Ross shook off the memory, "you know how Carol feels about 'womenly' things - she hates to cook, so we spend most nights here with Monica who is only too happy to use us as her guinea pigs. Her roommate, Phoebe, is a vegetarian, so Monica can't try out her meat recipes on her. But anyway, how are you, man? What are you doing now?"

Chandler thought of a nice way to phrase his job, then realized there wasn't one, and besides this was Ross. "I have a temp job as data processor. If I stay long enough and do a decent job, I may move to the statistical analysis group and basically be a data manipulator, but I don't know if I want to stay that long. How's school going for you?"

"Oh, same old, same old. Classes are harder, of course, but not really all that much different yet. I don't get to do my own thing and start work on my dissertation until next year. But anyway, I do have news. Carol and I are getting married!" Ross' whole face lit up at this, as it always did when he talked about Carol. It was like he was so surprised that any girl wanted to spend time with him that whenever he mentioned anything about Carol that implied she actually liked him, he couldn't contain his glee.

"Wow! That's awesome! When?" Chandler exclaimed, trying to match Ross' enthusiasm. Just cause he thought marriage was about the worst idea ever, didn't mean everyone else had to.

"January 11. We didn't want to wait too long, but didn't want to get in the way of all the holidays. So, can you come?"

"Of course."

"Great! Well, then…" Ross trailed off again, looking at his shoe. "Any chance you'd be my best man?" he asked quietly - almost too quietly to be heard over the din of the bar.

"Oh…" Chandler replied, caught off guard. "Um, yeah, sure. Of course. Thanks for asking me, buddy!"

Ross smiled, "Oh, good. Um,…, just one small thing. You know as I've said, we've been spending lots of time with Monica and they've gotten really close and so… well, Carol asked Monica to be her maid of honor, so you'll have to walk my sister down the aisle."

Chandler stopped and almost backed out. He really didn't want several minutes alone with Monica. But then he remembered - you don't really talk when you walk down the aisle. So a few minutes of silence with her and then he could go back to pretending that the psycho didn't exist. Perfect. He smiled, "Not a problem."

"Oh, great!" Ross sighed. I was a little worried you'd back down. So, what are you doing next week for Thanksgiving?"

Chandler made a face. "Nothing," he said as if it should be obvious.

"Oh, well you could join us if you want," Ross said.

Chandler thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to have a real excuse to get out of pity invites from people at work.

"My folks are going to visit Grandma in Florida, so Monica is having it at her place. It'll just be her and Phoebe, Carol and me," Ross continued.

"Oh, right, um…, you know I … um… someone from work already invited me," Chandler lied. No way was he spending the evening with Monica again. Two Thanksgivings were enough. The worst day of the year for him and you mix Monica in and suddenly they are disasters waiting to happen.

January 11, 1992 -- Ritz Carlton Battery Park

Ross came running in to the room, all smiles. "Okay, we are ready to go!" he exclaimed.

"Ross, man, calm down," Chandler said, placing a hand on Ross' shoulder. "You're bouncing off the walls here," he laughed.

Ross looked at him for a minute and then exclaimed, "I'm getting married today!! In like, five minutes!"

At this moment, Jack Gellar entered the room, a look of fatherly pride clear in his eyes.

"Time to get ready, son," he said and Ross, as excited as he was, ran out of the room, Chandler and Jack following behind.

The wedding planner walked right over and began lining everyone up. As she placed Chandler and Monica side by side, Chandler turned studiously away.

In a quiet voice, Monica whispered, "Hi, Chandler. You look nice."

"Yeah, you, too," he mumbled, not bothering to actually look at her.

Judy walked by and taking one look at Monica, snapped, "Monica stand up. Try to look presentable. It's your brother's wedding day, you don't need to embarrass him!" before taking her place of honor by Ross' side.

Without even looking at her, Chandler could feel her slump a bit, and without really meaning to, he turned toward her. "Don't listen to her, you look great," he whispered.

Monica turned to him, her eyes full of hope, "Really?" she whispered.

Chandler stepped back to really look at her and shook his head. "Yes, really," he said and meant it.

To Be Continued…