End of an Era

AN: Part 2 below…

Disclaimer: I don't owe the Friends etc etc etc… (soz for the spelling mistake in part 1 where is say I that DO owe the Friends, I don't it was just a typo! Lol)

Rachel yawned, another day, she thought. She dragged herself out of bed and stumbled out of her room.

"Morning Rach!" Monica said in a very cheery voice, Rachel just grumbled and stumbled into the bathroom.

Monica hummed to herself as she prepared breakfast; she was laying the table when Ross and Phoebe walked in.

"Morning." Monica said with a smile.

"Hey Mon." Ross and Phoebe replied as they sat down at the table.

Rachel exited the bathroom and went back to her room to get dressed; a few minutes later she exited again and sat down at the table.

"Rach, do me a favour, go and get Chandler. I'm not going to let him sulk anymore." Monica said.

Rachel sighed and stood back up; she walked out apartment 20 and knocked on Chandler's front door. As she knocked the door swung open. Rachel took a step in the apartment and saw Chandler lying on the floor in the middle of the empty apartment. She gasped, ran over to him and knelt next to his still form.

Rachel got tears in her eyes as she saw the state he was in.

"Oh my god." She whispered. She leant close to him and faintly heard breathing; his ragged breaths shocked her back into action. She stood up and ran back to her apartment.

She came through the door like a ball in a china shop.

"Chandler!" She shouted. "Quick, he's hurt." She then turned on her heals and ran back out.

The rest of the gang jumped into gear and raced after her, Monica grabbing the phone on the way. As each of them ran into number 19 they all were shocked to their very core. Monica threw the phone at Ross as she knelt next to Chandler and gently touched his face.

"Call for help Ross." She said.

Ross turned away and called 911. The rest of the gang circled Chandler, feeling powerless to help.

He looked dead, Monica thought, his face was horribly bruised. His eyes were swollen; he had a long cut across his forehead and down the right side of his face, there was a trail of dry blood from his nose and split lip which continued past his chin and down his neck.

"Who could have done this?" Phoebe said.

"Why didn't we hear anything?" Rachel whispered shakily. "How long has he been here like this?" She continued.

No one answered, they had no idea.

"I better call Joey." Monica said as they waited for the paramedics.

As Monica broke the news to Joey the paramedics arrived. They quickly moved him onto a gurney and started to move him downstairs, Monica hung up and she, along with the rest of the gang, followed Chandler.

Monica went in the ambulance while the others shared a cab. The journey was agonisingly slow; Monica studied Chandler's still form while the paramedic tried to keep Chandler stabilised. They hadn't said the words out loud but they knew it was bad, they could tell by their urgency and their grim faces – Chandler was fighting for his life.

And it scared them senseless.

Joey stood rooted to the floor for about 2 minutes after Monica hung up. Chandler, attacked, come quick was all that Joey heard, he was shocked, how could this have happened? All of a sudden Joey came to life and ran out of his apartment.

When Joey arrived he found his other 4 friends sitting around looking devastated, they all had spots and smudges of, what Joey could only assume was, Chandler's blood over them.

"Hi." Joey said quietly, "how is he?" They raised their heads to the sound of Joey's voice.

"We don't know," Ross sighed. "They haven't told us anything yet. But," he paused, "it doesn't look good." He finished quietly.

Joey felt like he was punched in the gut. If he hadn't moved out Chandler wouldn't had been alone, this wouldn't have happened! Chandler wouldn't be fighting for his life.

Phoebe stood up and put her arms around Joey; he leant his head on her shoulder and started to cry slightly. A couple of seconds the rest of them joined the hug, all leaning on each other for support. All hoping that Chandler will be okay, he will win this fight.

They didn't know how long they stood like that but they were interrupted by a doctor.

"Are you here for Chandler Bing?"

"Yes." Joey said, "Is he okay?" He asked hopefully.

The doctor sighed. "He has numerous deep bruising throughout his body, with an excess amount on his chest, abdomen and face. He also has 3 broken ribs however what we are very concerned about at the moment is his head injury, Chandler was continuously hit on the head by his attacker and at the present we don't know how much damage has been done, we suspect some swelling so until that has gone down we won't be sure."

"What type of damage?" Ross enquired?

"Worse case situation," he paused. "He could be in a vegetated state." They all gasped, "When Chandler was bought in he had loss an incredible amount of blood, we had to restart his heart twice, and his brain was deprived of oxygen for a couple of minutes. I'm sorry but we've done everything we can, we can only wait and see."

"Can we see him?" Rachel whispered.

"Yes, I'll take you to him."

TO BE CONTINUED

AN: I know I said that this is gonna be a 2 parter but I'm stuck and rather than not posting anything I thought I'd post this and work out the ending later.