Wow, thanks for the reviews, guys! I guess that you all want to know who's pregnant, huh? ;) You may find out; you may not. ;) I will give you some hints. Some big hints. :)
Sorry for being evil...and if you don't think that I'm evil now, you will think that after you read this! LOL sorry, but you do what you have to do...
And, if you can't tell from the beginning part, Emily and Colin are talking on the phone. It's a tape recording, and Rachel is listening. When it goes even further back into the past, it's Emily's thoughts.
This chapter deals a bit more with her and her emotions. The writers made her such a cold hearted person that everyone loved to hate...I'm trying to make things a little different and show that she was only human. She's sort of a different Emily in my fic than she was on the show. :)
But don't think this chapter is just about her...Oh, no. Lots of stuff happens. And the next chapter is a big one...:)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything...(This gets old...but someone's gotta do it, lol!)
"Emily?" The unfamiliar caller's voice rang through Rachel's ears on the tape.
Emily's voice was surprised and dropped to an immediate hush. "Colin? My God, is that you?"
"Yes. Oh, I'm so glad I rang. I was terribly nervous, of course...are you alone?"
"Yes, yes. I think so," she whispered furtively, twisting her head.
"I just had to talk to you again. That one night seems like forever ago."
'What one night?' Rachel wondered.
Silence cast over Emily. "Yes...about that-"
"I got your message. I understand if you can't call me. You're married!"
"Yes, I know," she bit nervously at her nails. "I hope it's alright I rang. Why are you in the States?"
"I'm visiting my brother, Andrew. You must remember him. He moved here around five years ago. I'd not been to visit since. And then I remembered what you said about staying with that bloody man's- what's his name again- sister."
"It's Ross, Colin," she sighed. She knew he remembered Ross's name, but hated admitting to himself that he had let her go.
Hated admitting he had lost the chance with the woman he'd fallen for in the third grade.
They made a hasty decision to take a break...and that's all it took. Emily had visited her American uncle, met the supposed "man of her dreams"- and of Colin's nightmares- while she was gone.
It had all happened so fast...so very fast. Sometimes, no one could believe it.
Almost a year had passed since Colin had seen Emily last, except for that one night.
The night that would rekindle their love. The night that would change their lives.
The night that would teach them to remember...to remember what they had...and how much they lost...
----
6 Weeks Prior...
Emily paced impatiently around the small flat that she shared with her husband of less than a year, Ross Geller.
It was a brilliant day...a day that just begged to be walked in.
Obeying the day, Emily marched outside and sighed as beams of sunlight stressed her pale skin.
It was a winter sun. A glorious sun that hung high above the single cloud and let off just enough warmth to make everything in its radius simply glow.
"Ahhh," she breathed as she waltzed down the sidewalk, not even minding her obvious lack of a jacket.
So many thoughts raced through her mind, mainly her marriage. They hadn't been married for long at all, and well, she was starting to have her doubts.
'It's not that I don't love him,' she mentally debated as she continued her stroll, not taking her eyes off the clear blue sky above. 'I do love him. I just...just...his mind always seems to be elsewhere.'
Her eyes met the single cloud hovering like a bleach stain among silky blue satin sheets.
Something told her she knew where his mind was lurking. And it wasn't on her.
It was on Rachel.
For God's sake, she was all he could ever talk about some days! Emily, angry now, started walking faster.
So many things he would say...'Did I tell you about the time Rach and I...Once, Rachel said this...I think Rach had a dress like that...'
He might as well have been married to Rachel...and he made Emily despise her.
Despise her for bringing them together...despise her for tearing them apart.
Ross was a man she couldn't resist. She was in the middle of a severe relationship crisis, and suddenly, he had appeared.
It was far too perfect; far too cliche.
She could see it in flashing lights now: "Distraught woman seeks refuge in equally pained man!"
He was stable; he was strangely vulnerable. He was sweet, and unusually charming.
But he wasn't Colin.
Emily had pushed that thought farther away as her relationship with Ross had progressed- and fast.
Suddenly, he was proposing...and she was accepting.
Everything and nothing was going right.
Cries of children playing in the streets cut through the chilly street air like a rigid knife. They reminded Emily of the days when she had been happy. Not that she wasn't perfectly content with her life now.
Content and happy couldn't be as different as night and day...
Shuffling down the road, Emily saw something that made her heart stop.
Walking straight towards her, head upturned, was the man she had tried so hard to let go.
Condensed air sliced through her lungs as she tried to breathe, tried to think, tried to tell herself to just turn and walk the other way.
But she couldn't. And there he was...barely five yards away now.
'I can't do it. If I see him again...he knows I'm married...I can't do it...I let him go a long time ago...'
But still, she walked. Her heart beat quickened, matching her footsteps which she had unintentionally sped up.
Then it happened. He looked straight at her, stopping them both dead in their tracks.
Barely five feet away, he whispered, "Em?"
She sighed. His voice was like warm bread slathered in honey on a cold winter's day. It was so terribly familiar...and so terribly foreign. "Yes." Tears stung her eyes.
And the rest was history: They found themselves sitting on the edge of the bed Emily and Ross shared, furiously tearing clothing off of one another.
After, Emily was eaten by feelings of immense guilt. She was a liar...a cheater...an adulteress.
So she scheduled a trip to visit his sister in New York. Ross could see his friends- even Rachel- and Emily could rest at peace with herself and her hasty decisions.
She loved Ross, and wanted desperately to make things work between them.
But then why did that night with Colin feel so right?
----
Present Time
"Emily? Are you still there?"
"Yes, sorry. What was I saying?"
"I don't know and I don't care," Colin sighed. "I need to see you again."
Emily was nearing tears. "Colin, I'm married! There's no way...no how..."
"I don't care! We'll find a way. Can't you tell him you're going to visit your uncle or something? Just for a few days? Please, Em...I can't eat, can't sleep...and it's all because I'm not with you. I just want to see you, talk to you. As friends?"
Emily took a deep breath. What could it hurt? Ross could spend a few days alone with his friends...and she, she could see Colin again. But just to tie up loose ends; make the process of letting go complete.
"Okay," she breathed, terrified of what might happen if she didn't see him...and what would happen if she did. "When?"
As he continued talking, waxing poetic on how he'd missed her, she felt something tug on her heart.
She needed to tell him; he deserved to know.
But who would it hurt?
----
In awe, Rachel slowly peeled the headphones off her ears and sat, curled up on the closed toilet seat.
Emily would be leaving tomorrow...to see her "uncle", Rachel thought with disgust.
Should she tell Ross? She knew it would hurt him. He had hurt her before, but she still loved him.
But...if it were her husband who was cheating, then she knew Ross would tell her.
If Ross knew Emily was planning to visit her old boyfriend to share some "news", Rachel was sure that he'd be upset. So upset, that maybe he would forget all about his marriage and consider straying back to the one he really loved.
But, if she didn't tell him, he would be happy.
As she unlocked the stall door and gazed at her listless reflection playing upon the cruel, tell-all mirror, she wondered.
What meant more: Telling Ross a secret that would shatter his perfect world and make him come running back to her? Or to just let him be happy...to just let him go...
----
"...so I told my uncle that I'd come visit him. I'll leave tomorrow, and probably be back in a few days. Is that all right?"
The ceiling was interesting, Ross noticed. How could he never have noticed it before? It was rugged looking, with millions of tiny bumps layered across its surface. If he squinted hard and long enough, the bumps began to take on new realities...and all the shapes were the same.
At one point, he began to wonder, '...am I imagining what I want to be there or am I seeing what exists already?'
"Ross?" Emily sighed. He was gone again; she may as well just leave without telling him anything at all. "I'm leaving tomorrow?"
"Oh...okay. To go where?"
"To visit my uncle," she replied. Again.
"Okay, have fun," he waved her off.
"Ross," her voice cracked (he wasn't listening!), "I'm not leaving until tomorrow."
"Yeah....sorry." He was still indecisive about the ceiling. Was he imagining what he wanted to see, or what was really there!?
"So, I guess you'll have to find someone else to take to the opera," remarked Emily casually, as if they hadn't just had a small spat.
"Yeah, I guess so," Ross replied unenthusiastically. The opera had been her idea, and now they were stuck with tickets.
"Maybe Rachel," she suggested, wanting to see his reaction.
"Yeah," he smiled for the first time that day. "Maybe." His smile disappeared. "Or maybe I just won't go at all."
"Whatever."
Silence chilled the air for several more minutes.
"Ross," she sat down on the bed beside him, "what is this?"
"What's what?"
"This. What's happening to us? We used to be so...I don't even know," she threw her hands up in the air and flopped back on the bed. "Different."
Ross sat, stunned. How was he supposed to respond to that? "Well...uh...I haven't been feeling that well lately. You know, I think I'm coming down with something. I probably won't go to the opera."
She sighed, suddenly enraptured by the mystical bumps playing upon the ceiling. Why did they even bother sometimes? "Oh, alright. That makes perfect sense. Did I tell you I may be staying a few extra days?"
----
She was gone, Rachel grinned. Five-o-clock on a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon, and Emily had been whisked away by a taxi cab to go and visit her "uncle."
Rachel had left early from work just to witness the blessed event, even if she promised only to be gone for a week.
Witnessing Ross and Emily kiss goodbye was painful for Rachel to watch, and seemingly painful for Ross and Emily to take part in.
Tension rose in the air; tension so thick that a knife could barely cut through it without straining its blade. Obvious as it was that something was astray in Paradise, no one commented.
As Rachel watched the taxi become indifferent between the sea of yellow taxis populating the ocean of pavement, she felt a small, ever so slight tap on her shoulder.
It was Ross.
"Hey," he grinned. She motioned for him to sit down beside her on the window seat.
"What's up?" She initiated their first real conversation in ages. 'What's up? Surely you could have come up with something better than that!'
"Oh, nothing, really," he turned scarlet.
"C'mon, I can always tell," she smiled playfully.
All this time, and suddenly they were...talking. And not like there was something wrong, or something to hide. It didn't take either of them long to realize the ease of their conversation came from the obvious lack of one person.
"Well, it's just that...since Emily went to visit her uncle...uh, we were going to go to the opera tonight...she loves opera...it doesn't matter to me, though. But since I had two tickets, I just thought..."
She smiled broadly, blushing a deep crimson. "I'd love to."
"Good," Ross laughed. "Be ready in an hour. The limo is coming."
"The limo!?"
"Yeah. This kind of big for us, but not anymore. I wanted to show her New York, and she loves stuff like that. But now we're not going...and well, it would be a shame to put it to waste."
"Sure, I understand," she straightened up, brushing invisible lint off her immaculate attire and smiling. "I'll go get ready."
Several thoughts tugged at the back of her mind. 'Should I tell him about Emily, or should I let it go?' But she shrugged away the thoughts for a moment, feeling happier than she had in months.
As she turned and walked away, Ross felt her take a piece of his heart with her. She could always do that. 'This is not good,' he reminded himself. 'You're married.'
Still, a part of him wondered...were these sudden feelings he had for Rachel just because they were seeing each other for the first time in forever?
Or had they been there all along?
----
She briskly walked down the street, wrapping her coat tighter around her.
All the noises made her nervous, jumpy. Now she was responsible for someone else.
Amid the crowds and the faint aroma of sizzling hot dogs for sale at the corner, she found herself wondering.
'How could this happen to me? We were so careful...so careful...It was all in the moment, it wasn't supposed to turn into anything...especially not this.'
A tear slid down her delicate cheek as she fought her way through the crowds, already keeping a self conscious hand pressed against her stomach.
The harsh winds ripped through her silken hair as she thought of the father.
Subconsciously, she knew she loved him...but would he back away and falter at the news?
Inside, her stomach churned. She felt guilty about drinking wine last night...it could harm the baby. But she was under so much pressure- nothing was going right with her life- and it had seemed like the right thing to do.
Just like sleeping with him had. She hailed a taxi and lost herself within the familiar yellow confines. The driver didn't even take note of the pretty woman's tear-stained face.
Shrinking back into the old, weathered seat, she asked herself...
Did she just start feeling this way about him because she was pregnant?
Or were the feelings there all along?
----
Teehee! LOL...so NOW how do you guys think it is? :) Some of you were right...and some of you were wrong.
And that's all I can say. ;)
That, and don't ever assume you know what's going to happen...because I have several twists up my sleve...lol...
Also, I'll be at camp next week, so if I don't update for awhile, you guys will know why. I'm doing three fics right now (which would seem like too much, but I do nothing all day lol) so it's hard...but I'm trying. I also have a life...despite what some may say. ;) J/K..
Please let me know what you thought of this chapter; your reviews help me so much! :) I appreciate all the feedback I've been getting from this and all other fics. :)
Have a great night, guys!
Mel