Thanks for all your reviews – especially the recently given. They got me to work harder on breaking my writers block. Big thanks to Vikki, who somehow inspired me yesterday so I wrote more than half of this part. And a thanks to all of you for still reading this story even though I'm a very, very slow updater. Oh, and it could help to cross-read the last chapters again. I had to do it too. ;-)

I know you all want to read the chapter now, so without further ado, enjoy this extra-long part.

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"Oh doctor, do you know…" Ross trailed of as he recognized the face in front of him. He heard Phoebe gasp loudly beside him.

"I didn't know you were a doctor? And what are you doing here in New York?" Phoebe asked.

Chandler had to smile. These where the things he missed most about them; Ross who was now stuttering some incoherent words, Phoebe with her weird unfitting questions, and the unawareness of Joey who still hadn't looked up at Chandler's face and therefore didn't know what the others were fussing about.

"Rachel is alright." Chandler said first to relieve some of Ross' worries. "It looked bad for some time but she pulled through."

"And…and what about our baby?" Ross asked, stopping Joey's outburst of sudden identification.

"They took her to the baby ward. But she was alright." Chandler replied before turning to Joey. "And yes, it's me."

"But…how…why?" Joey exclaimed loudly with the breath he had been holding while Chandler and Ross exchanged the more important information.

"What are you doing here? And what do you know about Rachel?" Ross queried.

"That's a long story…" Chandler started.

"Ohh, I love long stories." Phoebe threw in and looked to her side at an eagerly nodding Joey.

"It's not a nice story." Chandler scolded with a stern look. Phoebe and Joey realized where they were and why they were there. Phoebe signaled for Chandler to go on.

"Well, the car in front of my cab nearly ran her over."

Ross gasped. "Oh my god. But she is ok, right?" he wanted to know.

"Yes, Ross, she should be alright now." Chandler assured him. "Anyway, she fell backwards onto the sidewalk and something happened because shortly after that she first went into labor and then started bleeding." Chandler ignored the others horrified reactions and carried on. "It turned out that the fall caused her placenta to partly rip of the wall. They had to make a cesarean section to get the child out fast so they could treat the internal bleeding. They managed to stop the hemorrhaging before Rachel lost too much blood. But it was really close there for a moment."

"And you where with her the whole time? How did you not faint with all the blood?" Phoebe tried to lighten the mood. Joey and Ross where still speechless after hearing Chandler's summary. They all realized how close they had come to loosing Rachel forever.

Chandler smiled, appreciating Phoebe's try, when the nurse came back and demanded their attention.

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A nurse led the others to Rachel's room so Chandler made his way over to the vending machines in search of a much needed coffee. With a cup full of the, for hospitals typical, stale tasting brew in his still slightly trembling hands he went to sit on a bench in front of the building to wait for Viktor.

He hadn't been sitting there for more than five minutes when he noticed a petit dark haired woman exiting a cab. After a moment of watching the woman's frantic movements of paying her fare with exhaustion-caused idleness he realized that it was Monica. He sat up straight with shock written on his face. But when he saw Monica walking towards the hospital he cowered down and hoped that she wouldn't recognize him. He closed his eyes in apprehension awaiting Monica's reaction to seeing him. But when nothing happened after a minute he opened his eyes again and turned his head slowly in direction of the hospital entrance. Monica was nowhere in sight.

She was probably too stressed and nervous to be aware of anything around her. Chandler felt relieved that Monica hadn't seen him. But at the same time a little part of him was disappointed. It was the same part that made him realize before that he wasn't really mad at Rachel any longer.

He shook his head in confusion before he closed his eyes again and leant against the backrest. He just entered the zone between sleep and awake when a hand on his shoulder startled him into consciousness again.

He didn't know how much adrenalin was left in his body after that weird exciting day but his heart thumped in his ears when he jumped up and looked at the person wakening him.

"Whoa, easy there, Chandler. You look like you're on the verge of a heart attack." Viktor joked after jerking his hand back.

"Well, it's not nice to sneak up on someone like that." Chandler countered.

"Sneak up? I called your name at least five times but you were so out of it that you didn't hear me." Viktor defended himself.

"Whatever." Chandler sighed driving his hands through his hair. "Now that you're here we can go back to the hotel."

Viktor looked surprised by that. "Don't you want to stay here for a while and talk to your friends?"

"I already spoke to all of them but Monica some time ago telling them the details about Rachel. And I saw Monica rushing by a couple of minutes before you came. And I know that I'm not ready to talk to her yet." Chandler said. "So why should I stay here any longer?"

"I…I don't really know. If you don't want to stay we can go to the hotel." Viktor relented. "But before we go I have to tell you who I met at the book store."

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Monica rushed through the hospital floors nearly running by the time she caught sight of Ross and the others in a little waiting area.

"Oh god, what happened?" Monica asked when she saw the glum faces of Ross and Phoebe. Joey had fallen asleep with his head resting on Phoebe's shoulder.

"Oh, Mon, we don't know for sure but… someone told us that Rachel's alright." Ross said, not mentioning Chandler. The other three had agreed not to say anything to Monica about him till they knew if he was still going to be around. They didn't want to get Monica's hope up in case that Chandler was going back to Vegas without speaking to any of them again. "But they won't let us into her room right now because they are still settling her in. The nurse said Rachel would probably be asleep for the next hour anyway."

"We were waiting for you because we want to go see Christina." Phoebe said while shaking Joey softly to wake him up.

"Where is Chandler?" Joey mumbled wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

"He must've had a very vivid dream." Ross said to a shocked looking Monica. Phoebe poked Joey in his rips.

"Hey! Phoebe, why did you do that?" Joey complained. Then he saw Monica standing in front of him and realized what he did.

"Ok, let's go already!" Ross diverted Monica's attention from Joey by linking his arm with hers. "I wanna see my daughter."

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Minutes later the four of them stood behind a large window gazing down at the newest addition to their group.

"She's beautiful, Ross." Monica said softly, grazing the glass in front of her.

"Who would have thought that you and Rachel would make such a cute baby?" Phoebe wondered.

"Yeah," Joey acceded. "I mean, Rachel…that I can understand. But Ross..." He trailed off after seeing Ross staring at him. "Phoebe, would you come with me to the cafeteria?" Joey didn't even wait for an answer. He grabbed her elbow and led her away from the still mad looking Ross.

Monica looked like tears were starting to form in her eyes and Ross had a pretty good idea why his sister was down. Just as he wanted to console her he heard a voice behind him.

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"You mean Monica came to the book store to see me?" Chandler asked astound not knowing what to think about that information.

"Yeah, I'm sure it was Monica. And she and another, by the way, very annoying woman were asking explicit for you."

"Annoying woman?" Chandler asked a vague suspicion entering in his mind.

"Yeah, y'know, weird dresser, loud and nasal voice…"

"Oh my god." Chandler laughed.

"Hey! You sound exactly like her."

"Well, Viktor, you managed to meet two of my ex-lovers at the same time. And you survived." Chandler added when the memories of Janice came back to his inner eye.

"Two?" Viktor asked with wide eyes. "You mean you dated…"

"That's right. I dated Janice, that's her name, a couple years ago. Once or twice…or a few times." Chandler got quieter with every word and Viktor had to lean in to understand all.

"You dated her more than once!" Viktor couldn't believe his ears.

"Ok, ok, let's not discuss my ex-girlfriends." Chandler was getting aggravated and his friend knew not to pressure him anymore.

"So, what do you wanna do about Monica?"

"What do you mean? I don't have to do anything." Chandler didn't want to think about Monica.

"Well, I just mean that Monica obviously still loves you or at least cares for you enough to try and talk to you again." Viktor reasoned.

"But that's not my problem. I don't want to talk to her. I don't need her."

Viktor saw that Chandler felt defensive but he thought that he saw the problem now.

"You still love her!" Viktor exclaimed. Chandler opened his mouth but couldn't even say anything to that so Viktor kept going. "That's it. You still love her but you are too afraid and too stubborn to admit it to yourself."

Chandler fell heavily back onto the bench. "But even if you're right and I still love her. I won't risk my heart again. I know that it wouldn't survive if it got broken again." Chandler looked at the ground in front of his shoes. "So why should I put it out there again?"

"That's the saddest and…dumbest I've ever heard." Viktor shook his head. "Do you want to live the rest of your life alone? If you don't take the risk you're never going to find love again. And what a miserable life would that be?"

"I don't need to find a new love. I already had the perfect one. And it's better to have a life with a lonely heart than with a shattered one." Chandler argued.

"Listen," Viktor sat down beside Chandler with a sigh. "I don't think I need to make you see what's obvious to me. Somewhere inside you know yourself that you'll regret it your whole life if you let this chance slip through your hands. Don't you remember how crestfallen you were after you've gotten Monica's signature under the divorce papers?"

Chandler nodded his head but said nothing.

"As your lawyer it's my job to give you advice but this one comes as your friend." Viktor put his hand on Chandler's shoulder. "Go talk to her. See if you can discover your true feelings. And maybe see hers as well. And if you don't want to get back together with her now or later at least try to become friends again. You told me how your group had a close friendship. Don't you want that back?"

Chandler nodded for a few seconds before he turned his face to Viktor.

"You are right. I did this long enough now. I don't want to keep hiding for the rest of my life." Chandler stood up and turned to Viktor again. "I'll go and talk to her. I don't know what to feel right now but I hope that I at least manage to talk a few thing through with her."

"Ok, that's great. And I'll drive back to the hotel. I still have a few calls to make."

Viktor got up and walked with a smile on his face towards the street. Chandler on the other hand looked like a man about to be hung. He straightened his posture and with a deep breath he started to enter the hospital in search of his future. An unsure future but a future none-the-less. The next half hour would probably define the rest of his existence. He could win everything that really counts – friendship and love – or lose it all and be a bitter lonely man forever.

TBC…

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I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Vikki, but this chapter got so long that I couldn't get to the part where Monica and Chandler are in one room together talking. But I thought this would be a good place to stop.

My writers block seems to be defeated for now. But you need to encourage me to write more. So, please help me and review.