Later, after much crying, Monica came out into the hallway with the video camera and the tape, hurling them down in front of Joey and Chandler's door. "Here's your camera and your tape!" she yelled as the items broke on the floor. Going back inside her apartment, she retrieved the leftover birthday cake and threw that down next, not even caring about the mess she was making. "And take your cake too!"
She made more trips, spitefully announcing each thing that she grabbed and tossed--his laptop, his CDs, his clothes. Then, she pushed the barcalounger out onto the rubble. "Take back all your stupid stuff and live with him in that horrible place, with your stupid, ugly barcalounger and your stupid, smelly birds!"
Finally, she went inside for good and slammed the door hard.
Joey and Chandler cautiously came out to the hallway and started cleaning up the mess. Joey dragged the barcalounger inside their apartment, while Chandler picked up his damaged laptop and wiped the cake frosting off it.
Just then, Phoebe came out with her guitar, massage table, and a couple of packed bags. She slammed the door too, and called back to Monica and the others, "Fine! Kick me out! I'm glad! I'll go stay with Frank and Alice! They need help with the triplets."
Chandler jumped and wasn't sure how to react. He still resented how Phoebe had insulted and insinuated about him for the past month. And yet, he was confused enough to ask her, "You're leaving?"
"Yeah." She sighed, putting down her bags and leaning the table against the wall. "Monica's fed up with me now, and Ross and Rachel are mad that I kept causing trouble here, instead of just moving out again."
"Oh."
Joey returned then to help pick up Chandler's clothes, and he heard Phoebe continue, "Well, I'm gonna go down to the coffeehouse and call Frank and Alice, so they can come pick me up in the van." Frank and Alice lived further upstate.
"You could call them from here," Joey offered, and she smiled, asking if she could bring her stuff inside too, instead of having to lug everything downstairs at once.
Joey said okay and carried her guitar and massage table for her.
However, she looked at her watch and realized what time it was. "Oh, but Frank Jr. is probably at refrigerator college now, and Alice won't want to leave the triplets alone."
Joey said, "Well, maybe you could load everything into your grandma's cab, and drive yourself there."
"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot that I had that parked by my burned out apartment! Well, let me call Frank and Alice first, to let them know I'm coming."
She used their telephone, while the guys went back to cleaning up the mess. Then Phoebe came out and told them, "Thanks. I'm gonna go get my cab and bring it here, so I can pick up my stuff."
"Well... bye." Chandler said awkwardly.
"Yeah, goodbye," Joey said, a little more sadly. He did like Phoebe a lot, and he usually met with her once a month to discuss the other friends.
"Goodbye." She went over to give Joey a hug, then she started to go downstairs. But she stopped and asked, "Hey, um, are you guys gonna stay here?" She told them that they ought to consider moving to a new apartment too. "I mean, it'll be awkward being right across the hall from Monica. Like her breakup with Kip, you know, only much worse."
"Oh. Yeah." Joey looked at Chandler and got worried.
Phoebe said goodbye again and wished them good luck before hurrying downstairs.
Joey and Chandler paused and went inside to discuss moving away. Joey said that he's finally got a steady job with his Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. show now, so with Chandler's job, they could probably afford a bigger place.
Chandler agreed, but he was sad about leaving the place that had been their home for years. In fact, that was what he had said to Monica today: "I wanna go home." Home was here, not her place.
Joey hugged him and said they'd get used to it with a few games of Fireball or something. "As long as we're together, you know?"
Chandler nodded and kissed him again.
Because they left their door open, Rachel caught them embracing, and she scowled disapprovingly. "Don't you guys have any shame!"
They pulled apart and looked at her. "Rachel?"
She explained that she came over to pack her things and move back to Monica's apartment. What with Chandler leaving her, and Monica kicking out Phoebe, Rachel didn't want Monica to be alone at a time like this.
"Oh, uh, sure." They had forgotten about her being Joey's current roommate. Out of guilt, Joey offered, "Do you need us to help you pack?"
"No!" She noticed Phoebe's stuff and asked, "What, she's moving in with you guys?"
"No, uh, she's leaving it here until she can get her taxicab and go to Frank and Alice's."
"Well, good riddance! She should have done it a month ago!" Rachel stormed over to her bedroom door, and ripped down the poster that was keeping the two halves of the door attached. Then she went inside to pack her stuff.
The guys felt really bad, so they returned to the hallway to clean in silence. Chandler brought his clothes in and started to fold them, and sort out what needed to be washed.
Joey swept up the shards of broken CDs and wondered whether they were going to manage to get their white dog statue back, too. Or maybe Monica would deliberately break it in the process of getting it off her balcony.
As promised, Phoebe came back for her stuff, then drove upstate to move in with Frank and Alice. Phoebe ran her Relaxi Taxi business there for a while, and helped them with the triplets, but it made her sad again that she never got to keep the triplets as her own.
Then Phoebe's fire-damaged apartment finally got repaired, so she moved back there and let Frank and Alice keep the van. The two bedrooms had been converted into one bedroom with a skylight, and she liked having naked alone time again, now that she was rid of Rachel or any other roommate.
Phoebe decided to create a new circle of friends for herself. She knew plenty of people through massage and yoga and aromatherapy, after all, and she kept in touch with some of the people that she knew when she was homeless too. Why not hang out with them more often? She decided to start with Bonnie, and Jasmine from the massage parlor, and that guy that she met on the road trip back from Vegas, and maybe even invite Gunther to join. Still, Phoebe and Joey decided to keep getting together once a month to talk, though Chandler remained fairly aloof to her.
Meanwhile, Joey and Chandler began looking for a new apartment in another neighborhood, but it took them weeks to find a suitable place that allowed pets, so they did their best to avoid tense confrontations with Monica, Ross, or Rachel in the hallway. Also, they didn't go out to the coffeehouse or their other old hangouts, mostly just staying home together and watching TV. At least they still had the chick and the duck, to keep from being lonely.
Joey and Chandler often embraced and kissed affectionately, but in bed, they were nervous and shy. Neither of them had been with men before, nor were they used to thinking of themselves as gay; in fact they thought that they were bisexual, given their past experiences with women.
So the guys slept in separate rooms for a while, until one night Chandler crawled in beside Joey and asked if he could stay in bed with him. Nodding, Joey let go of Hugsy and pulled Chandler close. They kissed and talked until they fell asleep together.
They also worried sometimes about how and when they would come out to their parents and explain what had happened. Chandler decided to tell his parents first, thinking they might take the news better, and possibly have advice. However, Nora sounded rather bitter on the phone and said that Chandler had turned out just like his dad. "I guess you'll move to Vegas and join his burlesque show for good!"
Chandler was upset, and Joey understandably decided to postpone telling the Tribbianis, at least until the holidays, or maybe his birthday. Or maybe he'd start telling his sisters one by one and swear them to secrecy until he got up the nerve to approach his parents and grandparents.
Finally, Joey and Chandler found a new apartment and moved there, borrowing the Buffays' van. Since there was an extra room, they made it a game room with the foosball table, the Playstation, and their dartboard. They planned to get an arcade game too.
Joey's Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. show got cancelled after airing once, so he had to audition for a new job. Joey finally returned to his old soap and reprised his role as Drake Ramoray, although he was in a coma. Chandler advised him to suck up to the writers so that they would make him miraculously wake up.
Then one day at his office, Chandler received a surprising phone call from Phoebe. She usually only called Joey, not him, and he was confused. She explained that she had some great news, though, and couldn't wait.
Even with her new circle of friends, and her kickass apartment, Phoebe still found herself missing the old gang sometimes. They had been close for many years. So after three months of being cut off from them, Phoebe humbly made overtures to Ross and Rachel, saying that she'd learned her lesson. Monica's freaky new rules had simply driven her nuts, even worse than the last time that she lived with Monica; that was why Phoebe had been so bitchy to her and Chandler. But now that Phoebe has had some time and distance, she was sorry for having been so mean and antagonizing.
After talking with Monica, Ross and Rachel decided to forgive Phoebe and catch her up on what had happened with them lately. They had both taken care of Monica as she recovered from the breakup, and they had even stopped fighting about Paul and Elizabeth, deciding that they must unite as friends for Monica's sake. Ross and Rachel agreed to stay out of each other's love lives from now on, and now they were dating other people.
They had tried unsuccessfully to fix up Monica with a few dates too, once she felt ready, but nothing clicked. Then Monica unexpectedly met Richard again at her restaurant. He said that their lunch a year ago had made him ache inside, and he had spent a year in Africa trying to forget her, but failed. He desperately wanted her back and even proposed.
Monica was flattered and stunned by this, but cautious. She said no to his proposal, not sure that Richard really meant it and wanted kids now, or if it was just pity because he had heard about Chandler leaving her for Joey. Or maybe he was just trying to placate her, like he did at Barry and Mindy's wedding.
Richard insisted that he did really wants kids with her (because he had worked with blind kids in Africa and realized that having kids again wouldn't be terrible), but he agreed to slow down and just date her for now.
Chandler felt happy for Monica and wanted to congratulate her, but Phoebe warned that "it's still too soon for you to try to contact them yet. They're still pretty resentful and mad."
"Oh. Okay." He sighed sadly.
Phoebe told him that Monica wanted to test Richard's sincerity by having him help babysit Frank and Alice's triplets some afternoon. Maybe multiple afternoons, if Frank and Alice would agree.
"Okay, well let me know how it goes."
"Sure."
Weeks later, Phoebe called to say that Richard had passed the test, and he had agreed to stop smoking too. Monica finally trusted him, and they were even talking again about moving to France for a year, so she could study French cooking; Richard no longer objected to having a bassinet in the corner.
As they made their plans, Monica offered to give her apartment to Phoebe and Rachel for the year.
After Phoebe told him this exciting news, Chandler passed it onto Joey, who was also very pleased. They hoped that Monica would have a baby soon and be happy. Maybe someday Joey and Chandler would be able to make up with the gang too.
After putting the chick and duck to bed, Joey and Chandler retired to their own room. Remembering that night in London, they kissed and started to touch each other intimately again.
But Chandler was still scared and hesitant when Joey got naked and on top of him. "Uh, maybe--maybe if we got drunk on Boddington's again..."
Joey frowned and didn't want him to have to be drunk. Thinking for a moment, Joey got an idea and started talking dirty to Chandler. "Remember when we were talking about Phoebe being bi, and women taking showers in prison?"
"Oh, yeah." Chandler nodded and remembered the incident. "When we had the Playboy magazine... and--and I-I said I'd date you."
"Yeah." Joey told him that he imagined taking a shower with Chandler, and it made him disturbingly hot. "That's why I left for my date. 'Cause I got scared. But I'm not now. Not anymore."
Chandler understood and said, "I-I don't want to be scared, Joe. I just, um--"
"I know." Joey kissed him tenderly, then murmured in his ear a vividly detailed fantasy about them showering together. They got hot and sweaty, even deciding to go to their shower and do it.
"Ooh, wait!" Joey dashed into the kitchen for a bit, then returned and playfully sprayed Chandler with a can of whipped topping. Chandler laughed and dodged him behind the shower curtain, but then Joey grabbed him close and licked the cream off his body. That really turned Chandler on, and he became serious and passionate.
They turned on the shower and sensuously washed each other clean under the warm water. As the steam rose, they kissed each other intensely and at last made love without inhibition or fear.
The End