When Chandler found Monica, she was busy in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. At a glance, he realised that the quantities were more than just for the two of them.

'Hi,' he said as he walked in, 'What's cookin' good lookin'?' Monica rolled her eyes, permitted Chandler to put an arm round her waist and kiss her on the cheek.

'This is for tonight,' she said. 'We're going to have Phoebe and Rachel around for dinner.'

'Oh,' he said. It seemed to him that although they had moved in with each other so that they could have more time together, that really, it had made no difference. Evenings alone were just as rare as before, because people were always coming round. Then he felt mean for thinking that way. The girls were having a hard time at the moment…

'Chandler, will you let go?' Monica asked with slight impatience.

'Why?' He smiled into her hair. One of the nice things about holding Monica was getting the smell of her hair.

'Because I'm cooking! It could be very dangerous.' The hand that wasn't holding a kitchen knife plucked at his wrist, and acquiescing, he let go. After all, she was the one with the knife.

He wandered over to the kitchen table.

'What are we having?'

'The main course is a vegetarian lasagne.' Chandler could see the recipe on the kitchen table, and read through it. He knew that for Monica, the recipe was a mere suggestion. What she came up with would always be better. Like Phoebe, Chandler could see the future and with a grin he saw that the future had a good meal in it.

'So how are the girls?' he asked.

'Like you'd expect.'

'Reading magazines and runes?' Chandler asked.

'Well Rachel's not feeling that bad,' Monica said, 'She's more annoyed by that guy she was seeing than anything else.'

'I don't know why she went out with him,' Chandler observed.

'He was good looking,' Monica said, her voice wavering. They both knew that this was not a good enough reason, under the circumstances.

'He flossed his teeth at the dinner table. And then studied the contents,' Chandler said. 'I mean, she kissed the guy.'

'After he flossed,' Monica said.

'Better than before he flossed, I suppose,' Chandler said. 'And his cell phone ring was so stupid…'

'What about yours?' Monica asked. Just then, Chandler's new cell phone went off, with the tune, Yankee Doodle.

'Okay okay,' he said hastily. He tried a new tune every day but none seemed to really be him. On the whole, the novelty aspect of the phone was wearing off. He was really going to have to find something ordinary. The call was from the travel agency, confirming all his bookings. 'Thank you,' he said, ending the call.

'Who was that?' Monica asked. He wanted the plans to be a surprise, and he wanted no chance of any alteration to fit in needy friends.

'Oh, just someone from work.'

'Oh,' Monica said. 'Is there a problem?'

'No problem at all, everything's just fine.'

'Why are they calling you on the weekend?' The trouble with living with someone was that they often knew too much about what you did.

'They're just disorganised,' Chandler said.

'I don't know how you can hold down a job if you're disorganised,' Monica said, 'I mean, where would I be if I didn't think ahead? Which reminds me, what are we doing for Valentine's day?'

'I'm planning a surprise,' Chandler said.

'Oh that's nice. What kind of surprise?'

'If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise.'

'Is it dinner?' It would certainly include dinner so Chandler said,

'Yes.'

'Oh good. I don't want to do anything too fancy,' Monica said.

'Why's that?' He felt some misgivings about his plans then.

'Well Rachel would probably be okay, but Phoebe's really down. She's writing some dreadful songs.' Chandler looked blank until he realised that Monica meant, more dreadful than usual.

'What kind of songs?' Monica paused and frowned.

'"Black hole, I keeping falling into you, Black hole, in my soul, I'm not whole - " those sort of words. There's something in there about a cuttlefish too. She does that one really flat, like there's only two notes in it.'

'Oh,' Chandler said, 'She's not bringing her guitar tonight is she?' A fake emergency call to work might just be the thing he needed.

'No, but she needs company, so I want to be there for her.'

'She's got Rachel,' Chandler said. There are seven of us, he wanted to say, surely the other four can pitch in and help.

'But only I can see that she eats properly,' Monica said firmly. That was true enough. He had not believed that anyone could be worse than Rachel with food, until he had met Emily. Monica had been teaching her, so that they didn't have to live on whatever Ross made or on take out, but Chandler didn't know how far Emily had reached with the lessons. These had been interrupted by a minor rift when an impatient Monica had yelled at Emily because she had measured out 17 and a half ounces of something when it should have been 17 and three quarters. Emily had fled the apartment in tears, vowing to live on takeaway food for the rest of her life – oh and that Monica could stuff her kitchen scales somewhere anatomical too. Fortunately, they had made it up but Chandler was unaware of the results of the lessons so far.

'Well, Phoebe's certainly coming to the right place tonight.' Chandler looked at Monica who had resumed her work. He wandered over. There was a kitchen implement he wanted to explore.

'Chandler, don't mess things up,' Monica warned. He picked the thing he wanted out of the drawer, where it had lain, neatly arranged with the other things.

'What's this?'

'You know what that is,' Monica said, slightly impatiently, 'It's for brushing pastry. We don't need that.' Chandler grinned.

'It looks like fun,' he said, brushing the pastry brush along the back of her neck.

'Will you stop that? Now I'm going to have to clean it!'

'Then we might as well make the most of it, before you clean it,' Chandler said.

'Chandler, you don't interrupt people when they're cooking, it's dangerous,' she rounded on him and he tickled her nose.

'Can you possibly take a little break?' he asked. Looking into his eyes, she thought that she possibly could.