Thank you to everyone who stayed with this story for this long. It's nice to know that there are still Joey/Chandler fans out there who haven't given up on them. Hopefully you will enjoy all the action in these final chapters.
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After leaving her dad's place in Massapequa, Monica got into the Porsche and drove toward home, or at least to Manhattan, where she had planned to visit her old friends and ask about Joey. But as she grew closer to the old neighborhood in Greenwich Village, she also grew more and more agitated about Richard. He was uprooting his whole life, apparently, for some girlfriend that she'd never heard of before, and it knocked Monica for a loop.
She remembered back when they were dating, and they had discussed their future together. Richard had said to her, "Well, uh, sometimes I think about selling my practice. We could move to France. Make French toast." That of course led to their pivotal talk about bassinets and babies, and eventually to their breakup.
Starting to cry from the memory, Monica pulled the car over and parked while she tried to compose herself. She wasn't sure why she felt so upset about this, as if the heartbreak were fresh. Was it normal to get emotional when an ex married someone else? Had Richard felt the same tug of melancholy when she married Chandler? Monica recalled that Rachel had suddenly rushed to London hoping to stop Ross's marriage to Emily, but she quickly lost interest in him after his divorce, acting like a madwoman about her latest crush. Maybe Monica's surge of old love was just a fleeting, meaningless reaction too. And yet, what if it wasn't? Ross and Rachel had ultimately reunited, after all, and were trying to make it permanent.
On impulse, Monica took her cellphone out of her purse and called Richard's real estate agent from the last time that Richard had sold his apartment; Monica improvised and claimed that she again had a friend who was interested in buying it.
The agent offered to call Richard and schedule a tour of the apartment, but Monica said that she just wanted to know where the apartment was, to find out whether her friend would be interested in that neighborhood. So the agent told her the address and described the apartment's many desirable features, as well as its upscale price.
Monica thanked the woman for the information and said that her friend would get back to the agent if interested. Hanging up, Monica then drove to Richard's current apartment building and found a parking space nearby. She felt compelled to see him one last time, before he left for Paris and it was too late.
She hesitated outside, wondering whether she should call Richard first, but she didn't know what she'd say on the phone. She needed to see him face to face. After a while, somebody came out of the apartment building, so Monica called out, "Excuse me!" and squinted. She pretended that she had a problem with a contact lens irritating her and needed to see her eye doctor quickly about changing the prescription. Her deception was helped by the fact that her eyes were still somewhat red and swollen, so the stranger let her into the building, and directed her to the elevator so that she could get to Dr. Burke's apartment upstairs.
When she exited the elevator and reached his apartment, Monica then took a deep breath and timidly knocked.
When he answered the door, Richard was clearly startled to see her, but he smiled with his usual charm. "Monica! What a surprise. It's been so long..." But looking more closely, he noticed that she had been crying. He frowned with concern and waved her into his apartment. "Are you okay? Uh, did the meeting with the car dealer go all right?" Richard hoped that nothing had gone wrong.
"Uh, yeah. Yeah." She sat down in his living room, looking rather jittery and distracted.
He gave her tissues and offered her a drink to calm her nerves. "Scotch on the rocks with a twist?" He remembered.
Dabbing her eyes and staring at the contents of his ashtray on the coffee table, she mumbled something about him still smoking cigars.
He smiled and joked affably, "Yeah, I can't break my bad habits at my age." His years of smoking hadn't taken a toll on his appearance, though; Richard still looked remarkably handsome and youthful for a man in his mid fifties. "That's one of the reasons I'm moving to France," he added. "They don't have so many anti-smoking laws." Richard gave her the drink, with a coaster, then sat down on his couch opposite her. "By the way, Monica, congratulations on adopting those twins. You and Chandler must be so happy now. I know how long you've wanted babies, and I know you must be a wonderful mother."
Monica winced and didn't want to talk about that. She gulped the scotch and said, "What about you, huh? Dad just told me about--about you going to Paris. In six weeks?" Her voice cracked a little. "And, and you're engaged too? Are you gonna get married in France?"
He shrugged. "Oh I don't know. We haven't made any specific plans yet. It might be very romantic and beautiful to have a wedding in France. But then again, both of us have family and friends here, so we may decide to just come back here and make the wedding more convenient for everybody. But yes, we're leaving in six weeks because of Janet's job. I've still got a lot of packing to do. Hmm, I wonder if it would be better to just sell this place with the furniture included, and only take my favorite stuff with me to France."
Her heart ached at hearing him speak like this, and she struggled with her words. "This--this is such a shock. You moving and getting married... I mean, the last time I saw you, you--you proposed to me. Remember?"
Richard nodded with embarrassment and coughed uncomfortably, wondering why she brought that up now. "Uh, yes. I'm so sorry about that, Monica. Really. Believe me, I had no idea about Chandler's plans at the time, and I was out of line anyway. I hope he doesn't hold a grudge against me or anything." Seeing the negative look on her face, he added, "In any case, just tell him that I'll be out of your hair soon enough. I won't keep coming back to haunt you, like Chandler's Janice."
Monica couldn't laugh at his joke, and it only reinforced the idea that this was the last time she would ever see him. She returned to her earlier point. "You even said you'd have kids with me."
Richard didn't like the way that she harped on the past. "That was back then..." he reminded her pointedly. "Over four years ago."
"Are you going to have kids with Janet too? Does she want babies? Would you give up smoking for them?"
Richard fidgeted and found the whole conversation inappropriate and troubling. He got up to pace around the room, then suggested quietly, "Monica, I-I think maybe you should go home now."
"Why?!" she protested, slamming down her drink hard enough to spill some of it, "So you don't have to answer my question? I had to stand there while you told me you still loved me in that kitchen!"
Horrified by her outburst, he apologized again, and spoke to her as rationally and gently as he could, "Monica, please. That's all over, and you know that. I've moved on since then. You moved on too, a long time ago. I-I don't know where this is coming from..."
Monica stood up and walked towards him, shaking her head miserably. "It's just--it's just... how could you go to France with her?" She felt cheated. "It's not fair! That's what we were supposed to do. You and me! We were gonna move to France, and make French toast, and have a little bassinet in the corner! We were supposed to have kids named Emma and Daniel, and--and walk them in the stroller down the streets of Paris. And we were supposed to live in an elegant old chateau filled with beautiful antiques, not--not some stupid house in the stupid suburbs!" She practically shouted the last part.
Richard stared at her in shock and dismay. Why would she vehemently dismiss Westchester like that, as if she hated her life there? He had no idea of any rumblings of dissatisfaction, based on what Jack Geller had told him in passing, nor had Richard expected Monica to construct such an involved fantasy about what might have been. He was utterly lost for words.
Monica wretchedly burst into tears upon realizing that she had echoed Joey's oft-repeated complaint. Suburban life had proved to be far more harried and out of her control than she could have imagined; the white picket fence and the wainscotting didn't magically create an immaculate atmosphere of perfection after all, and it was a huge disappointment.
Richard hesitated when she started crying, but finally he could not resist the impulse to go over to her and hug her. He tried to make sense of her words while he held her against his shoulder. "Monica, why are you here?" he asked her with a sigh. "What happened at home? What's wrong?"
"Everything's wrong!" she choked through her sobs. "Everything!" In a rush, she told him of her problems in Westchester, with Chandler, the house, the twins, and her mother. She felt trapped in an impossible situation, and only now admitted this to herself.
Though some of her words were unintelligible, Richard sympathized with her obvious distress. He stroked her hair soothingly and told her, "Well, then you should probably talk to Chandler about this, you know? And maybe your friends and family too, for some extra help and support. It'll be okay."
Still crying, she shook her head and moaned against his shoulder, unconvinced.
"It's not hopeless, Monica," he insisted. "I mean, you're just... trying to adjust to suburban life, that's all, and the babies too. Of course it's not gonna easy, let alone perfect! But Chandler's a good guy, and you can work these things out together."
He tried to gently pull away from their embrace and tell her to go home again, but she didn't want to leave his arms, for they brought back such warm memories of their old love. It also made her fantasy about Paris seem more vivid and real.
"Come on," he whispered insistently. When he raised her head to face him and reached to wipe away her tears, she met his eyes and pulled him down for a kiss. Richard kissed her back at first, but then he sharply stopped it and backed away, mortified.
"No! Monica! You're married, with kids! And I'm engaged. You--you don't know what you're doing here. You love Chandler! That's what's real. Not some what-could-have-beens about us in Paris. Please stop this and go home. You've gotta pull yourself together before you throw everything you have away."
"I'm sorry!" She wept again, feeling foolish and guilty. "I-I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry!" She turned away in turmoil and grabbed her purse before running out of the apartment.
He stood in the doorway and called after her, "Do you want me to call one of your friends to come get you?" He didn't think she was in any shape for driving.
She shook her head and just pressed the button for the elevator more vigorously. She took out a tissue and hid her tears behind it. Then the elevator arrived and she hurried inside it, giving a final glance at Richard before the elevator doors closed.
When she was gone, Richard slowly shut his apartment door and returned to his living room. Sitting down, he lit a cigar again and sighed heavily, feeling mixed up by the whole incident. He was quite concerned about Monica and wondered whether he should call one of her friends anyway, or her father, and tell them what had happened. On the other hand, that might cause more problems for her, and maybe he should let her tell them herself in her own time.
Frowning, Richard glanced at the drink Monica had left behind, with lipstick still on the rim. He got up to wash it before his fiancée could drop by and get suspicious about it. Richard wondered whether he ought to tell her of this run-in with his ex.
He also tried to ignore the disturbing fact that kissing Monica again had stirred up old memories in him. He told himself that this was mere sentimentality and nostalgia, though, and it was not real. He still could not decide what to tell Janet.
Too distraught to drive, Monica didn't go straight home after leaving Richard's building. Instead, she got back inside her parked car and sat sobbing for a long time. Richard's words had finally knocked some sense into her, and she now regretted coming to see him. It was a crazy, stupid thing to do. What was wrong with her? How could she forget her home and her family like that? How could she kiss him? Monica felt ashamed and miserable.
When her tears began to subside, she looked at herself in the rearview mirror as she blew her nose. She wasn't a bad person, was she? Not really? Monica thought about what Richard said--that she was just adjusting to suburban life. Could her troubles really be that simple? Was she just on edge because of her recent fight with Chandler, and the fact that he hadn't been sleeping with her for a week? Was the messy, incomplete state of her house making her envy Richard's tempting plans to move to Paris and have a fresh start? Was she just exhausted and stressed out? Maybe it was all of these reasons and more.
Monica got out of the car at last and took a long walk, hoping to clear her head. As she passed by all the skyscrapers and the noisy crowds, it occurred to her that maybe she missed New York too. Maybe she missed working and living in the big city; maybe she felt cut off from the world. At the restaurant, she had been the head chef, boss to a whole staff of workers. At home, even though she was still the boss there, she did not seem to have the same success at managing her environment. No matter how much energy or organization Monica put into the house or the babies, her plans went awry through the random chaos of daily living. She had been forced to postpone furnishing and decorating the house for three months, after all, which made her feel ineffective and frustrated.
At work, Monica also had customers with cultivated palates who fully appreciated the sophisticated cuisine that she prepared for them. At home, the twins simply wanted formula or breastmilk, and Chandler could be happy with nothing more fancy than beer and pizza. It was like her talents were going to waste every day.
Monica brooded about these issues and wondered whether returning to work early might give her some relief, or would she only feel guilty for "abandoning" the babies to daycare so soon? Her mother Judy would most certainly lay a guilt trip on her, regardless. Still undecided, Monica finally glanced a clock and realized how many hours she had been away from home. She gasped and turned around, hurrying back to the parked car. After getting in, she checked her appearance in the mirror, then started the car and pulled out, hoping that Chandler would not be suspicious.
She spent the whole drive home thinking up a plausible excuse for her tardiness and rehearsing it. Sometimes her thoughts strayed to Richard again, but she scolded herself for it. And when she finally arrived in Westchester at almost 3:30, she had to take a deep breath before unlocking the front door and entering.
"I'm back," she said as casually as she could, while coming inside.
Chandler was sitting in the living room with the babies, and he jumped a little as she opened the door. He had heard her park the car outside, and some paranoid part of him had imagined for a moment that it was Joey in a taxi, and he panicked, not knowing what to say to him.
When he realized that it was just Monica, Chandler looked away and spoke listlessly, "Oh. Hi." His relief was mixed with disappointment, though, because part of him was still worried, aching to see Joey again and know how he was doing.
Monica said, "I'm sorry I'm late. I forgot to call. Anyway, the car appraisal went great, and the dealer gave us a written offer." She dug the paper out of her purse, along with their copies of the real estate paperwork that she had signed today. She figured that getting him distracted with the papers would keep him from inquiring about her delay. "If we accept this offer, then we can bring the Porsche to his dealership next week and get a deal on a new minivan or something."
Chandler took the papers from her and gave them a cursory glance, but he couldn't really focus and just put them aside on the coffee table, on top of some clutter. He rubbed his temple as if he had a headache. "I'll look at it later."
"Oh. Okay." She got a little flustered again, then turned to Jack and Erica. "How were the babies today?" She went over to greet them with tender kisses.
As she passed by him, Chandler shrugged and moved to another chair. "Fine," he answered, "but they got a bit upset when you still weren't home after they woke up from their afternoon nap."
"Oh, I'm sorry. You must be so tired." She hugged the babies soothingly and rocked them in her arms while she whispered, "Mommy's here now. Mommy's here." Keeping her back to Chandler, she choked up a little from the guilt of what she had done at Richard's apartment. How could she have risked her precious family on such a reckless impulse?
Preoccupied by his own emotions, Chandler took the opportunity that her words had offered him. "Yeah, really tired. I think I'm gonna go take a nap now..." He started to get up from the chair and gather up the papers from the coffeetable. "So I'll take these with me--"
Hearing that, Monica turned around at last. "What? You're going now?"
Chandler bit his lip and froze in place. He should have known better; she wasn't going to let him retreat upstairs that easily anymore. Still, he tried again, "It's just--it's been a long day."
"Try being alone with them all day during the week like I am!" she said with some exasperation.
There was nothing he could say to trump that, obviously, so he sat down in defeat and sighed, waiting to be lectured for his insensitivity. "Sorry."
Monica, however, felt suddenly guilty for saying that, as if her babies were a terrible hassle that she couldn't wait to dump in daycare! They did exhaust her daily, but Monica loved them, and she didn't really want to be rid of them.
Chandler was surprised when she didn't say anything else, and he turned to look at her cautiously. He saw her embracing the babies tightly, almost desperately, like he did lately when he missed Joey and had to remind himself that he couldn't leave his kids. Or was he just projecting his own guilt onto her somehow?
To break the strange, uncomfortable silence in the room, he coughed and said, "So... did Ross find you today?"
"What?"
"Ross. He called here earlier and wanted to talk to you. I told him that you were out visiting your dad for lunch, so he said he would try calling you there or on your cellphone if you already left Massapequa. You didn't talk to him?"
"Uh, no. I-I must have missed his call." She dug her cellphone out of her purse and realized that she had switched it off after speaking to Richard's real estate agent. She winced at the reminder. "Oh, I accidentally turned it off. Was--was it anything important?"
"I don't know. He thought that maybe you could stop by and visit him on your way home or something. That's why I thought you were late. But I guess you didn't see him, huh?"
She fidgeted nervously and feared that Chandler was growing suspicious about her tardiness. Damn it! Why couldn't she have just gone to see Ross and the rest like she had planned to?
Chandler noticed her hesitation, and he sat up with an anxious frown. "You--you went to see somebody else? Was it Joey?"
"Joey?"
He looked more worried. "You tried to talk to him about our fight, didn't you?"
Monica decided to play along with his accusation. "Well, I-I just thought I could help out--"
"You can't!" Chandler was very upset. "I don't wanna talk about it, and Joey wouldn't..." He trailed off and seemed uncertain, whispering, "Did he say anything to you?"
Monica recalled what Ross and Rachel had told her on the phone about Joey's behavior. "No, uh, he didn't wanna talk either. So I gave up waiting and went home." Putting down the babies, she approached Chandler apologetically and rubbed his arm. "I just want you guys to make up and get past this, you know? Can't you talk about it with me at least?"
Chandler shook his head and turned away from her.
His reticence was driving her nuts, and she really wanted to bridge the distance between them. "Why can't we talk about it? What's bothering you so much? Come on, it's just me, honey. I love you." With that, she started to cry from her guilt and pulled him close to kiss him.
He resisted and pushed her away; it reminded him too much of the night he'd kissed Joey. "No! Stop it!" He even moved away to another chair and wiped his lips, while she looked hurt. Then he blinked and realized that he tasted something different in her kiss. "Were you smoking?" he asked in disbelief.
"What?" Monica played dumb, but avoided his eyes.
"You--you taste like you've been smoking." He frowned and looked at her sharply. "But you don't smoke."
Monica gulped at her blunder; she should have brushed her teeth or rinsed with mouthwash, but she had forgotten that Chandler used to smoke and would recognize the faintest trace of his former habit. "Oh, um, well, I-I smoked a little today because I got stressed out."
"You wouldn't smoke!" he insisted. "When you're stressed out, you clean. Besides, when I sneak a smoke every now and then, you get mad at me and flush my cigarettes."
"I know," she said, "but I was feeling anxious about Joey... and about our fight--"
"Wait, that wasn't even cigarette smoke!" Chandler thought it over further. "It was too strong, more like a cigar." His eyes widened with recollection. "Like Richard smokes!"
She bluffed and rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Richard! Come on, you're just paranoid about him, Chandler. It wasn't a cigar. It was one of my dad's cigarettes. You know that he secretly smokes?"
Chandler wouldn't be deterred, becoming more firm in his opinion. "No, I know what Richard's cigars smell like! You do too! You used to smell them after you broke up with them."
She scoffed. "It's been years since we've seen Richard! How do you even remember what his cigars smell like? I don't."
"I was in his old apartment just last year, with Joey! The whole place stank of him! So did the tape."
"That was still a year ago!"
"Why were you late today, Monica? If you weren't visiting Ross, then where were you all this time?" He no longer believed her story about seeing Joey and accused her outright, "You were with Richard! For hours! You slept with him, didn't you?"
"No! No! How could you think--?" She wanted to protest that he was leaping to crazy conclusions, but she felt wracked by guilt because he was almost right. "I kissed him!" she confessed, breaking down into tears. "I just kissed him."
Chandler stared at her without blinking. His anger abated now that she had admitted to a much lesser offense than he had imagined, but still, he swallowed and got very quiet. "You kissed him?"
She hurried to explain, "I'm sorry! I-I don't know what I was thinking! It's just, my dad told me today that Richard had sold his car and he was moving to France with his fiancée, and I-I was so shocked and upset. I couldn't believe it, and I-I drove to Richard's apartment." She wrung her hands with remorse. "I-I said some hysterical stuff and made a scene while he tried to calm me down, and then I kissed him. I'm sorry, Chandler! I'm sorry! I wish I'd never gone there. I left right away and kept trying to figure out why I did that. I love you, Chandler. I do. I was just, just stressed out about the house and us fighting and never going to Paris--" She tried to tell him all the reasons why she felt unhappy and trapped in the suburbs, but he interrupted her.
Thinking of his own guilty actions, Chandler frowned and whispered abruptly, "I kissed Joey."
"Huh? What?" She wasn't sure if she had heard him correctly.
"I kissed him," he repeated, almost feeling relieved to admit it. Then, standing up from his chair and looking sad, he paced to the other side of the couch as he told her, "The other night, when I asked him for the loan. He--he begged us to move back to the city, because he thought we were phasing him out like Kip. He thought... he'd lose me. So I asked him--I asked him to come live with us. Move into his room and bring his furniture. Babysit the kids and help us pay the bills." He closed his eyes and wistfully imagined this scenario.
"Wh-what?" For a moment she was bewildered enough by this statement to forget him kissing Joey. "You just invited him to live here, without asking me?"
Chandler shrugged. "I told you, when we were engaged, that Joey would live with us someday. Grow old with us." He opened his eyes and stared into space forlornly. "When I asked him, he was so happy, and he hugged me, and--and kissed me. We... got carried away, but after that, I panicked and ran out of there."
Monica gaped at him speechlessly; too shocked and confused to cry anymore, she tried to grasp what it all meant. This was the big secret he had been hiding from her all week? This was why he came home that night and said he would never speak to Joey again? And why he behaved weirdly and slept in Joey's bedroom? Oh God.
Chandler winced and glanced bitterly at the babies, who didn't understand what was going on at all. "What great parents you have--just like your grandma and grandpa Bing." He felt sick inside.
Monica at last stammered, "B-but Joey's straight. Why would he--? And you--What are you saying, Chandler? Do you mean that you're gay?"
Chandler pondered how to explain what he felt, how the kiss had opened his eyes and turned his heart upside-down. "I love him," he said simply, closing his eyes again. "I love him and I miss him and..." He broke off and turned away, too upset to say more.
Stunned and hurt by his words, she stood up and approached him miserably. "Love him? You mean, you don't love me anymore? You--you want a divorce?"
Looking up at last, he moved away from her and went to the front door with sudden determination.
"Chandler, where are you going?"
He stopped at the door. "I'm going to see Joey. I-I have to see him. Know how he feels."
She began crying again. "You're leaving me? Right now? What about the kids?"
He considered this, feeling torn, but finally he told her, "You--you can have the kids. You've wanted them so long, and--and maybe you and Richard can raise them without screwing 'em up like I would." He was more convinced than ever that Bings were cursed to have disastrous marriages and screwed up families.
"Chandler, no! He doesn't want me. He loves his fiancée, and he's going to Paris."
Chandler looked genuinely surprised by that. "But you kissed him. And the last time we saw him, he was on a date, and you and me had been together for two years, but he still came back and proposed to you anyway." Chandler rationalized, "So he'll change his mind and come back if you tell him what happened."
"No, Chandler!" She didn't hold out any such hope, since Richard had been so adamant about moving on and making her go home to Chandler. "He won't come back, not this time. Don't leave like this! Please!"
"But Joey needs me!" he insisted. "He's gonna lose his job, and he's alone. Maybe--maybe he'll let me move back in and take care of him again." Maybe Joey might even love him too, and they could be more than roommates this time.
"We need you, Chandler. Me and the babies!"
Chandler shook his head. "No, you don't! You need Richard. That's why you went and kissed him today, see? Because you love him." Convinced of that, he turned and rushed out the door, heading toward the Porsche in the driveway.
"Chandler! Wait!" She almost followed after him, but the twins had become increasingly distressed by this strange confrontation between their parents, and they were crying loudly now. So she returned to their side and picked them up, rocking them soothingly even though she was far from calm herself.
Meanwhile, she heard Chandler start the car and drive off, and she sobbed more fiercely. She didn't know what she was going to do. How could Chandler just abandon her like this after three years of marriage, and three months with their twins? How could he believe that Richard just would step in and take his place? Surely Chandler would change his mind and turn around once he realized what he had done?
Monica clutched the babies close to her and cried with them. Why did Chandler believe that she loved Richard, not him, even though she had told him so? Indeed, she'd been telling Chandler this for years, in response to his jealousy and insecurity about Richard. Maybe he just didn't want to believe it now, because of his feelings for Joey. She had to admit, she really hadn't helped by kissing Richard today either. Oh, everything was such a mess.
Having never kissed a smoker myself, I don't know if the taste actually stays with you for hours like it did with Monica, so if that's not realistic, I'm sorry. The last chapter will of course resolve things better for Monica.
