A/N: Thanks again for the nice reviews everyone. You guys are the best. This gives me the motivation to keep writing. Thanks.


Chapter 11 - Joey - Part 2

I'm in Ross' office, nervously pacing back and forth. When I got here, he was still teaching and his assistant told me to wait in his office.

I've spent the cab ride trying to prepare a speech for what I want to say to him. Trying to determine how much he has to know, if I should just leave out a few parts of the story.
But I can look at the problem from every angle, if I want to do it right, he has to know what was going on the whole time. If no one else has to know, he has.

I hear a woman giggle in the hall and then it sounds like people kissing. Heh, students.

Then the door to Ross's office suddenly flies open, making me jump and tumbling in comes Ross and a woman, who I think is Charlie, kissing without paying any attention to who might be in the room.

Great, what a totally crappy start for this conversation if he is mad at me for interrupting him like this.
Ross blindly closes the door and fumbles for the lock. It occurs to me that if I don't announce my presence right now, I might get to see more than just kissing.
I clear my throat loudly, without much effect.

"Uh … Ross."

That makes the two of them jump apart, looking around wildly. "Whoa … Joey … what …you scared me."

"I'm sorry, Ross. I came to talk to you about something but I don't want to interrupt … uh …anything."

It takes Ross a few moments to gather his wits but he pulls himself together pretty smoothly.
"Charlie, this is my friend Joey, Joey this is Professor Charlie Wheeler, a colleague and … my girlfriend."
They share a happy smile.

"Nice to finally meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too, Joey. You're playing Doctor Drake Ramoray on 'Days of our lives', right?"

Well, she is nice. Proudly smiling I say, "Yeah, that would be me."

"Why don't I give you guys some time to talk while I finish my paperwork for today and you pick me up when you're ready, okay?"

"Okay," Ross agrees and kisses her lightly on the cheek. "See you later, honey."

When Charlie is out the door, Ross looks at me, slightly embarrassed. "That was definitely not the way I wanted to introduce her to my friends."

"I'm sorry Ross."

"It's okay, Joey. So … what is so important you came all the way down here to talk to me?"

His face suddenly falls. "There is nothing wrong with Rachel or Emma, is it? You would have paged me if it were, right?"

"No, no Ross, they're alright."

"Good."

He sits down heavily in his chair at his desk and motions for me to sit too. "So what's up?"

"It actually has something to do with Rachel."

He raises his eyebrows questioningly but doesn't say anything so I continue.

"I want her and Emma to move in with me. We finally talked and we think it would be a good idea. But we're not just gonna be roommates. We're gonna be a couple. I'm in love with her, Ross."

Phew, that was easier than I thought. At least this part.

"Are you kidding, Joey?" Ross asks incredulously.

"No, I'm not. Why would I make fun of something like this?"

"So you are really in love with her?"

"I am. I love Rachel." God, I still can't believe how good it feels to say that out loud.

"And she loves you, too?"

I can't prevent an idiotic wide grin to spread over my face but I would rather not grin right in to Ross's face while telling him, because I really don't want it to look like a joke. One would think as an actor I should be able to control my facial expressions, but every time I think of Rachel being in love with me, I can't help but grin from ear to ear.

So I hide my face by looking at the table in front of me. "She told me so, just an hour ago."

Ross shakes his head with the weirdest expression on his face. It looks like he finds that amusing, but what do I know.
"You're not messing around with her, are you? I mean, you are really serious about her, right?"

"Of course I am, Ross! This is not a game for me, I am in love with her."

He sighs defeated and continues, "Just don't hurt her, okay." As an afterthought he adds, "Like I did".

This is my cue to confess the other things I've been meaning to tell him.
"Well, I guess ... I ... uhm ... I sort of already did."

"You what! You cheated on her, you ..."

"No, no no no, wait Ross, I didn't cheat on her. I would never ..."
Okay, deep breath, I have to start from the beginning or he won't understand what I'm trying to say.
"This is actually the hard part of this conversation, but please let me finish, okay."

He nods and motions for me to go on.

"Rachel and I had these feelings for quite some time. But we didn't tell each other and we weren't really acknowledging them, but there was this attraction, like some sort of magnetism or something ... and ... well... we .. we acted on that."

"Huh..?" For a doctor, Ross is sometimes really slow on the uptake.

"We had sex."

"I really hope this story has a point because if not, I don't want to know anything about this."

"You said you'd let me finish."

"Okay."

"But it was complicated. There was this history with you and her, the fact that we didn't know what the other one was thinking or feeling and the pregnancy and ..."

"Wait, wait, wait ... What pregnancy?"

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Rachel's pregnancy."

"You slept with her while she was pregnant?" he practically yells.

So this is not going particularly well. Not that I'm surprised.

"Hey, she was pregnant, not sick. And she was ... uhm ... erotically charged... and we always..."

He holds his hands up. "Stop right there Joe. Way too much information."

Again with the weird head shaking.
"I can't believe you guys go back that far. If that took place while she was living with you, it has to be almost a year."

"Yeah, it has."

"So what happened?"

"I couldn't handle it anymore. The secrecy, the emotional rollercoaster … the guilt…"

"And..?"

"I suggested that she should move in with you."

"So this whole thing wasn't a brilliant idea, it was your way of breaking up with her?"

"It wasn't exactly a break up, there wasn't even a relationship. But yes, I did push her away, I did say things I didn't really mean and was later very sorry about."

Maybe if I would have looked up at him the moment I was finished with that sentence, I would have seen Ross's fist flying at my face and maybe would've even be able to duck.
Instead I'm seeing stars right now.

When my eyes can focus again I look into the face of a very angry Ross who is yelling at me.
"How could you do this to her! Do you have any idea how much you had hurt her? Did you know that she cried herself to sleep every night after she moved in with me?"

Suddenly I'm glad I didn't have the opportunity to duck because I obviously deserved the punch.

"No, I didn't know that. I was actually convinced I did the right thing. I thought she'd belong with you and her baby with its father."

That calms him down a bit. He rubs his forehead and shakes his head.
"I always thought it had something to do with me. With us, or with the baby. I tried to cheer her up and when she kissed me that one evening, I did my best to let her down easy."

It is a miracle to me how any red blooded man could turn down Rachel.

He laughs mirthlessly. "A lot of stuff makes much more sense now."

"What stuff?"

"The kissing incident for starters. It actually hurts a bit to think that she was using me to get over you and not trying to win me back. I mean, when I think about it now, she seemed almost relieved that I turned her down and afterwards it was the first time we really talked about our relationship like grown ups. Without placing blame. And when you started helping out with Emma she was … I hadn't seen her that happy since the day Emma was born."

I was happy back then too. Great thing is, I'm gonna be even happier in the future.

"Why didn't you want her to move in with you again? She was really mad at you for that, you know."

Guess I'm gonna be in for another punch in a few moments.

"The situation from before she moved out hadn't really changed. We still hadn't talked about our feelings, there was still this strong attraction and I just didn't want to go through all of that again."

"So you broke up with her again?"

"It still wasn't a break up but yes, I managed to hurt her again."

"Joey, I swear, if my hand wouldn't hurt, I would punch you again."

I don't know what to say to that. He is right. When I think about all that it is even more of a miracle to me that Rachel still loves me. I clearly don't deserve it.

"Why didn't you just tell her about your feelings? I mean, you two spent hours together just talking after Emma was born. For about five months all I ever heard from her was 'Joey told me this', 'Joey told me the funniest story today', 'did you know that Joey did that', ad infinitum. Why didn't you tell her the one thing she should have known? Everything would've been so much easier."

"Like I said. I felt intimidated by her history with you, then there was the pregnancy, after that the baby, I didn't want to wreck our friendship and I hadn't any experience with being in love so I just thought it would be best to not say anything. And … look who's talking."

The way it looks it dawns on Ross what I mean. He's smiling a bit apologetically. "Yeah, you're right. I guess it's a men's thing, we suck at this."

"Well Chandler always found the right time to say the right thing."

"I said it is a men's thing."

I guess it is a good sign we both chuckle at this.

"So what made you tell her in the end?"

"I didn't tell her."

"You didn't? So she told you?"

"No, Chandler sort of clued her in by babbling about something I told him a few months ago."

Now Ross seems really amused. "Chandler, huh?" he chuckles.

The similarity between Ross and me is not lost on me. "He obviously still has it," I grin back.

"I guess next time Rachel wants to know how a guy feels about her, she can spare herself the effort and just ask Chandler," Ross says clearly entertained by his own joke.

I on the other hand don't find it quite that funny. The thought of any guy – even a hypothetical one - having feelings for Rachel makes me sick.

So I try to change the subject. There was something that made my ears perk up earlier.
"So, were you jealous when Rachel talked about me all the time?" I ask seriously. I don't want show off or something, I want to know if Ross still has feelings for Rachel. He is the only one who is allowed to, although it will make things complicated yet again.

"No, I wasn't jealous. Why would I be? I mean, even if I would have been still in love with her at the time – which I wasn't – I would've never thought Rachel would go for a guy like you. That's why I didn't pick up on all the clues that were clearly all around me all the time."

"What do you mean a guy like me? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing. It's just ... you know ... you're Joey."

The second time today someone uses this phrase to explain something to me. It really starts to grate on me.
"And...?" I prompt him trying not to sound as irritated as I am.

"I mean, she broke up with me because I cheated on her, so falling in love with you seems a bit like an illogical choice to put it mildly."

It is devastating to think that this is all my friends ever saw in me. First Chandler, now Ross. No wonder Rachel had such a hard time to acknowledge what she felt for me.

"Because I have to have it with every skirt who crosses my path, is that what you're saying?"

Ross squirms. "Joey don't you see how it had to look to everybody?"

"I understand how it looked to everybody, but you guys are my friends, you're supposed to know me better than this! I thought you guys knew that I wanted to have a happy and stable relationship as much as you did. The only difference was that I didn't spend my time waiting for the right woman to fall into my lap."

I can't help but grin when it occurs to me that this was almost exactly what happened with me and Rachel.

"Although it seems to me that it would be the right way to do it. Look at Chandler and Monica. Or you and Charlie. Mike and Pheebs. Maybe it's true that the right woman finds you just when you're not looking."

For some reason there is a look of guilt in Ross' face.
"Look Joey, I didn't mean to imply that you're a bad guy or a pathological cheater. I really did not. Because truth is, what I was thinking when Rachel kept talking about you all the time was , I wish she would be together with Joey'. I mean, I know you really care about Emma, I could see that Rachel and you were great together. Rachel couldn't end up with a better guy."

I am positively floored now. Whatever I expected to be the outcome of this conversation, it was definitely not this.
He approves. Just like that. Ross thought that it would be a good idea even before Rachel and I had figured that out.
I totally have to get myself a new set of problems because the ones I carried around with me for a year just vanished into thin air. All of them.

"I am still mad at you for being such an idiot, though."

Thank God, not all of them. I wouldn't have known how to handle this.
I nod confirming.

Something catches Ross' eye. "Does it hurt much?"

"Huh?"

Ross gestures vaguely in the direction of my face. "You should probably put some ice on that."

I hadn't noticed that I was touching my face.
"The funny thing is, you hit the same spot as Rachel back then."

Difference is, Rachel's punch did hurt a lot less. At least physically.

"You deserved it."

"Yeah I did."

In both cases.

"I can't believe she is giving you another chance."

"I can't believe that either but I'm not about to screw it up again."

Awkward silence fills the room for a while.

"So you and Charlie, huh? How's that going?"

"Amazing," he suddenly beams. "She is so smart and sexy and … you know …hot."

I noticed that one, but refrain from commenting on it since I am now a man in a serious relationship and funny enough, I really don't think that any woman could possibly be hotter than Rachel.
My Rachel.
If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up ever.

"We are working on that project together and maybe we will even go on a dig in the future and …"

He rambles on about all the things he has to say about Charlie and his work and his plans for the future and I find myself listening to him. Because he wouldn't tell me any of this if I wouldn't have been forgiven, if he wouldn't consider me his friend.

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tbc