AN: Okay. Here's (finally) the next chapter. I think everybody has either forgotten or stopped caring that it exists by now, but whatever. This is chapter 6.5, entitled "In Which Chandler Gets the Hang of Thursdays" Also, the reason that the apartments are not switched is because Chandler would have been avoiding everyone around the time of TOW The Embryos, and the bet just never happened. And Phoebe being surrogate for her brother…that will be mentioned in this chapter- I just screwed up the timeline. Let's pretend I did it on purpose.
And Emily, well, I'm not sure exactly where she came in in Season 4 (I don't have that season on dvd) but she'd not in this story. Nor is Joshua.
Also, I am very disappointed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Very. It has also occurred to me that I read abnormally fast, and staying up all night to finish a book is not healthy.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: LucyGoose, SFGrl, fashion hottie, Niola, and Nicole.
'He never could get the hang of Thursdays.'
-Arthur Dent; Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Even after, well, everything, Chandler had still had a bit of optimism left, because he'd for some reason expected everything to be okay with him and Monica after that morning. She would understand, and it would be a the-two-of-them-against-the-world thing.
He'd thought he was only being realistic in saying that. Phoebe had used to say that they were like one person sometimes. Emotionally connected on the supernatural level. Instead, Monica had stopped talking about it altogether. For the next two days, she had been calm and serene, and exactly like before, except not, if that made sense.
She was quieter, and seemed to just buzz around aimlessly instead of cleaning or cooking. They were all expected to fend for themselves for breakfast, and always ended up going to Central Perk and consumed highly unbalanced meals of coffee and scones or muffins or bagels (or, in Joey's case, several plates of all three categories). Mon still made lunch and dinner for everyone, but had taken to absently dishing out food onto everyone's plates with a distracted and detached air that reminded Chandler of the crabby live-in cook he'd had as a kid.
"I can do that myself," he'd finally pointed out, almost wishing she had been treating him like a nine-year old because of her maternal instincts, not because she was looking for something to do that would keep her on her feet.
"That's alright. I don't mind," she'd replied, staring absently at where Joey had just splattered ketchup. Chandler had contemplated throwing his glass of water in her face. Maybe he'd get a blink, if she was feeling generous with her emotions.
So he'd decided to leave her to get past the 'denial' stage and tie up other 'loose ends', so to speak. In hindsight, he probably should have waited until he knew for sure, but however the job got done.
Nora Bing wasn't sure where the chair came from but was eternally grateful it was there, blessing the person who put it there, the person who made it, and even the person who came up with the very idea of a chair in the first place.
Her son had always been something of an enigma to her. Nora could remember walking into the house after a book tour, the buzz of escape already pounding a headache behind her eyes. Chandler had been a quiet child; nothing more than a shadow in the large bright house. Charles would sometimes try to "get to know" Chandler; Nora now remembered; to push his straggly hair out of his face and actually try and see him; but he was usually busy screwing the pool boy.
And now he was might be gone forever from her; not in the mental sense that Nora was always sure would fix itself by the time she came back to New York; but in the real way that would affect not only her but all his friends. The tall shy Ross and his Rachel and the rest of them.
Chandler had her hair. That was something that had always, strangely, stuck out in her mind. In the year after Chandler's birth, Nora's hair had grown out of it's current dye job (an auburn she now severely regretted) and it's original brown color had shown for the first time in a long time. She had almost regretted re-dying it, to no longer be able to point out one physical trait she shared with her son. His eyes were, according to Charles, his aunt Muriel's; and the reason that Chandler had the unfortunate middle name that he did. Chandler could very well blame his father for that as well. Charles Bing was convenient like that.
Nora shook her head to clear it, slightly disturbed by the fact that her hair, stiff with styling products, hardly moved when she did so.
"Are you sure, darling," she asked, further disturbed by the fact that her voice warbled on the enunciation.
"Well, I'm not sure I have leukemia. I just told you that," Chandler said calmly, and he sounded amazingly self-assured. Since when was he able to hold things together better than his mother, the Queen of Talk Shows? If it had been another type of situation, Nora would have been proud. As it was, she simply felt nauseous.
"Does your father know?" Chandler, much to Nora's surprise, looked angry and the seemingly reasonably question.
"Could you give it a rest just once? Yes, I told you first! Does everything have to be a contest between you two? Because-"
"Chandler, honey, that wasn't why I asked. I was just wondering." Nora wasn't sure what to say. The last time Chandler had verbally attacked her like this was when she had kissed Ross. It had been stupid, but he had seemed to think that she never paid attention to him! Honestly, the reason she had been in the same room with Ross was that-
However, now was not the time to ponder Chandler's thought process back then. He was staring at her suspiciously, eyes flashing angrily in a way reminiscent of how Nora imagined the look on Aleron's face in Mistress Bitch when he finds out that Dominique has been having an affair in his own opera house.
"Well, I'm sorry for thinking that. Because it's not as if you've ever done anything like that before! Like with the pool boy, and Frank, and Dean and Kevin, Mark, George, Bertram, Hank, Russell, Tyler, Ron, Norman, Michel, Leroy, Justin….and that was only the year you and dad were getting divorced!" He stopped, half-turning away from her and scowling at the wall.
"Whatever," he muttered finally. "It doesn't matter."
What he'd really been saying; back there, was that he didn't matter. All that mattered to her was her long-going fight with a man who no longer cared. A man that was arguably no longer a man, actually.
He'd had quite enough.
But in the end, he hadn't been able to go through with it. Hadn't been able to finally tell her off completely, and be able to finally tell her everything. Instead, he had once again ran away with his tail between his legs.
Chandler was quite willing to blame it on the fact that he'd just never liked Thursdays.
That was all.
'And it's gotten to that point.'
It'd gotten to the point where he was making up excuses like that one.
Maybe it was because he didn't want to understand her. It was easier to pretend she was just back story for his hilariously pitiful life. He didn't want there to be a reason for her decisions. Thinking of her as a real person, with decisions, just made it that much harder to deal with the fact that she couldn't love him. Didn't love him.
So far, the 'joyful parent-son reunion' tv special hadn't gone very well. But, he could always try his hand at craps or the slot machines if the second trip didn't end in happy reunions and understandings.
Okay, so at least the sarcasm was back. He'd been getting worried.
When Chandler entered 'Helena Handbasket's' dressing room, he was already shaken. As he first entered the burlesque, a leering…person in a low-cut black dress had sauntered up to him. If Chandler hadn't been previously aware that this was an all-male burlesque, there would have been some awkward stuttering as Chandler tried to figure out how to address this person. As it was, he was barely able to take his eyes off the tabletop as he requested to meet with Helena Handbasket. The drag queen frowned in what seemed to be disappointment. It was lucky Chandler knew that to be his father's stage name, because he was sure no one would recognize the name 'Charles Bing.'"
As the drag queen led him to his father's dressing room, patrons looking for entertainment between shows stared at him curiously, eyes lidded from the effect of alcoholic drink.
And then, after knocking on the door and receiving no answer he had pushed it open to see his father kissing another man. That was not in itself so scarring (it wasn't as if he'd never seen that before) but when the man turned out to be Mr. Garibaldi, his old music teacher, Chandler began to feel a little light-headed.
Chandler must have made some sort of shocked noise, because Mr. Garibaldi's head shot up with a start. When he saw Chandler, his eyes registered first annoyance with some embarrassment, than shocked recognition.
"Chandler?" he asked incredulously after a moment, and Charles, who hadn't bothered to look up before but has shifted to kissing Mr. Garibaldi's neck, looked up sharply. Chandler fought off a grimace. His father had done several things to further the image of Helena Handbasket- some sort of lip surgery, and definitely another nose job.
It was then that it really registered with Chandler what he was doing. Flying out here on a whim to see his father. The man that he hadn't spoken with or seen since the summer after he turned fourteen. There had been quite a few reasons Chandler hadn't returned his calls before, and they all came rushing back to him now.
The thirty seconds in which Mr. Garibaldi babbled an apologetic excuse and rushed out of the room, leaving father and son staring at each other was a vague blur. None of this was what Chandler had expected to find when he had come here. He had expected the place to smell of incense and sex and beer; the closest to hell as possible; as that was what Chandler felt he was entering. Instead it reeked of heavy perfume and several genres of beauty products that Chandler couldn't for his life place in any category other than 'bad for the environment.' (Phoebe would have a fit.) Chandler wasn't sure what he was supposed to expect anymore. He hadn't expected Mr. Garibaldi, that was for sure, and he hadn't expected Charles Bing to be looking as lost as Chandler felt, instead of easily slipping into the role of 'Helena Handbasket' jazz hands and all.
Eventually, Chandler figured he'd have to give some sort of an explanation for why he was here, because his father didn't seem about to say anything anytime soon. But he didn't want to make the same mistake he'd made with his mom; just coming out and saying that he might have leukemia seemed unnecessarily cruel. For the first time, Chandler wished he'd thought to read the letters his father had sent on the plane. He certainly wasn't going to take them out here; but if he left now, Chandler knew he'd never gain the courage to come back.
"I did try to wait," Charles murmured suddenly. He sounded almost desperate for Chandler to believe whatever he was trying to say. Chandler blinked.
"What?"
Charles cleared his throat, sat down, and gestured for Chandler to sit in the chair opposite him before continuing in a halting tone.
"I- I always knew I was gay, long before your mother and I got married. Nora was…lovely, but we were never in love. We only married because, well…" Charles hesitated, looking slightly guilty, before plunging bravely onward. "Because Nora was pregnant with you."
Chandler stared blankly at his father. That was just great. Instead of even remotely fixing anything in his messed-up life, he had found out that all of the crap his parents had put each other through was, essentially, his fault. His father might be happily married in Canada with someone, with no worries of sending Christmas cards to anyone or alimony to anyone else, and his mother. And his mother would maybe be happily married to a straight man her age if she'd never married Charles Bing.
Maybe not, but still.
Charles seemed to sense what Chandler was thinking, and shook his head empathetically. He reached forward to place his hand on Chandler's shoulder, changed his mind, and awkwardly changed the gesture to fanning his face to ward off the heat.
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear. None of this was ever your fault. I thought I was doing the right thing by proposing, and she thought she was doing the right thing by accepting. We were both wrong. I could have helped her out in other ways. Given her money…I ended up doing that anyway. Even so, we were both so happy when you were born. I thought I could wait until you were eighteen, or older, safely away at college, until we divorced, and I…came out of the closet, to use a crude and clichéd expression. As you can see, it didn't work. We were both sleeping with Giorgio, secrets eventually came out, and the person hurt most by this was the one innocent in this whole web of lies: you."
Charles paused and looked at Chandler hopefully, but Chandler wasn't sure exactly what was expected of him, so found it safest to stay silent. Charles sighed again, and adjusted a bracelet on his left wrist.
"I wanted to keep you in my life, Chandler, but the divorce was so…messy, and you wanted nothing to do with me. I don't blame you, really."
Chandler sat, stunned, and uncomprehending. So pretty much all he had believed about his father was a lie. Charles hadn't abandoned his family; or at least not his son. Truthfully, Chandler could have figured that out without any outward help from his father; Charles had, after all, tried to be a good father to him after the divorce. Was it his fault that he wasn't sure what being a good father entailed? A screaming match between Charles and Chandler (well, Charles hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise, so basically Chandler had just screamed at his father) after his freshman year had led to Chandler flying back to New York early and never returning to Las Vegas every other holiday like the custody papers had originally declared.
"Dad, I…I was wrong. The divorce wasn't your fault. Not completely. And I- I just wanted to come here and …straighten things out, I guess."
Chandler had truly never felt like more of a horrible human being in his entire life. He and his…his dad (it felt weird referring to him as dad instead of Charles--and without a bitter tone, at that!) had spent almost two hours talking- Charles had even postponed one of his shows- and Chandler had yet to tell Charles what he had originally come here to do.
"Dad," he said finally, when Charles had turned to the mirror and began to apply lipstick, looking almost secretive, as though he didn't want to further remind Chandler that his father was a drag queen, "I have to tell you something."
Charles looked at him through the reflection in the mirror.
"I-well, I didn't really come here to catch up with you. Not just anyway," he added rather lamely. Charles' expression was curiously blank.
"Ah, yes," he said quietly. "I thought it was a little sudden. I suppose you need money? I know your mother; she probably spent it all on makeup." He turned away from the mirror, and began to dig through several drawers.
'Her fourth and fifth weddings, actually,' Chandler thought, but couldn't seem to make his mouth move and produce those words or any others.
"I'm the one that left you," Charles went on steadily. "I'm the one that owes you so much; not just money, but memories. I did send you a check with every birthday card, but I don't expect you opened any, did you?"
Chandler did manage to move his lips this time, but still no sound came out of them. Charles took this as a 'yes' (he wouldn't be wrong) and smiled sadly.
"Well, I suppose-"
"Dad!" Chandler interrupted, finally finding his voice before Charles could make him feel any guiltier for something he hadn't even been planning to ask for, "that's not why I came! I came to, to I guess make up with you, but the thing is…it wasn't sudden. It wasn't random. At least not for me."
Chandler hesitated, unable to look directly at his father. Oddly enough, this was probably the hardest time he would have saying this. Somehow, just the simple phrase he'd used with everyone else didn't seem enough now. Nothing seemed enough.
"I- I went to the doctor's for a routine check-up, and as it turns out…I may have leukemia."
"WHERE WERE YOU?" Monica screeched as he entered Apartment 19. Chandler froze and tried to look innocent. He'd known that everyone would be worried, but had been relying on the hope that they would be waiting over at Monica and Rachel's. That was where everyone always was, anyway.
"Where have you been?" Monica repeated, this time in a quieter, more deadly tone. Chandler shrugged off the gym bag he'd had slung over his shoulder--he'd used it as a carry-on-- and leaned against the counter, debating internally whether or not trying to look as exhausted and depressed as he felt would be an advantage.
"We were really worried, Chandler," Rachel said, more calmly. Ross nodded furiously from behind her. His arms were draped around her, and she was leaning into him, Chandler noted with some surprise. Were they together again?
Chandler made a mental note to ask after Monica stopped staring at him like she was about to either cry or kill him.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I just had to do something."
"I highly doubt that 'something' had to be done without you telling us where you were going," Ross said heatedly, and Chandler glared at him. That right there was yet another reason he hadn't wanted to tell anybody: they started to act as though he was about six years old.
"Is that a Toblerone bar?" Joey asked excitedly, and Monica, Ross, and even Rachel glared at him. "Sorry," he muttered, abashed, although he brightened considerably when Chandler stuffed the large candy bar into his hands.
"Yeah, I got it at the airport. Thought-"
"AIRPORT?" Monica squeaked. Chandler sighed. It was like pulling off a Band-Aid. It was best to get it over with.
"Yes. The airport. I went to visit my parents."
"Your parents?" Ross choked, turning a strange shade of lavender. Chandler squinted at him, wondering if he needed someone to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on him.
"Not at the same time or place," he reassured Ross. He was probably worried because he knew how Chandler's parents got when in the same room together. Or at least, Chandler had told him enough so that he could imagine. Strangely enough, Ross' mind didn't seem to be put to rest.
"How- how could you visit them?" he spluttered. "You know how they can get- I know how they can get. What good could possibly come from seeing either one of them, but especially your dad."
Chandler bristled. A couple of hours ago, he would have whole-heartedly agreed with Ross. But now…anyway, that wasn't even the point. Ross had no right to tell Chandler what he should and shouldn't do.
"I think it's great that he went to see his dad." Rachel, to his surprise, leapt to his defense, twisting away from Ross and glaring at him. She turned back to Chandler, eyes softening. "Did you tell them?"
"Yeah." Chandler nodded, mouth suddenly feeling very dry. He was so glad that Rachel, at least, was on his side. And presumably Joey, who had abandoned the interrogation to stuff his face with the Toblerone bar.
Monica's mouth tightened. "You knew about this?" she accused Rachel.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Of course not. But really, why else would he suddenly fly out to visit both his parents in one day if not to tell them about…current events?"
Monica nodded, and all the anger seemed to drain out of her. "Right," she said wearily. "That does make sense."
Chandler straightened, as his left leg was beginning to fall asleep. "Where's Pheebs?" he asked, glancing around as though Monica might have hidden her in the entertainment unit as a key part of her intervention. He hadn't just noticed her absence, but a change of subject seemed to be in order.
Monica frowned at him. "She's at the doctor's. They're checking to see if the embryos can be implanted."
If Chandler had been drinking anything at that moment, he would have executed a fabulous spit-take.
"What? Implanted? Embryos? What!"
Monica looked shocked and guilty. Chandler was personally getting a little tired of having that expression directed at him so much over the past week. "You don't know. We never told you," she said, stating the obvious. "Well, Phoebe- she- to start with, Frank and Alice eloped."
"Frank and Alice?" Chandler repeated dumbly. The names seemed familiar, but he couldn't find faces and identities to match.
"Phoebe's half brother and his, well, new wife."
Chandler remembered now. An ill-shaven young man with bags under his eyes who liked to melt things, and a fussy home-ec teacher who seemed to have just stepped out of a Leave it to Beaver episode.
"Well, they eloped, and…they wanted to have kids. Then they found that they couldn't, and asked Phoebe to be the surrogate mother."
"Surrogate?" asked Joey in confusion. He had finished the Toblerone bar and wandered back over to where everyone else stood. "No, Mon, Pheebs isn't changing her religion; she's having their babies for them."
Monica, Ross, and Rachel rolled their eyes in a strange, scary unison, but no one bothered to correct him. Chandler sat down on a stool, feeling immensely guilty. Because everyone was focusing on him, no one had bothered to support Phoebe (at least not while he was in the room) because they were all worried about him. Worried about what could be nothing. Either way, they couldn't do anything about it.
And no one had told him. Chandler found it unlikely that it had slipped their minds. They probably all thought that he already had too much to worry about. What else weren't they telling him? Well, there was the possibility that Ross and Rachel were back together, and if they were, they weren't telling him. Did anyone else have new love interests? Did Monica?
Chandler forced away the strange, dark feeling in the pit of his stomach and concentrated on trying to look perfectly happy for Phoebe and not at all like someone who had so much to worry about that no one should tell him anything.
If the doctor would just call for the results, maybe Chandler could feel some emotion, instead of just feeling numb.
AN: Please review! (If you do, I promise I won't wait as long to put up the next chapter. Seriously, I already have the ending written.)