In every person's life there are places that are remembered with a special fondness. With love even. Places where you were happy. Places that were lost to you for one reason or the other.
Your grandmother's house. The playground you used to play on with the neighbors' kids that you liked so much. Sometimes you ache to be there again because you loved it so much. You ache to be there again because life was so much simpler back then. You were happy, you had no problems, and everything seemed clear and easy. Now your life isn't easy anymore. There are problems, more questions than answers, there are uncertainties and doubts.
But when you have the chance to go back to the old playground, you'll find that being at that place changes nothing. Because the place can't make you happy anymore. You've grown out of it. When you run your hands over the slightly rusty climbing frame you realize it wouldn't be fun anymore to climb up there. Maybe you would even hurt yourself.
When you're sitting on the swing, you find that your legs are too long now to sit comfortably. You tilt your head towards the sky you thought you could reach when you were a child. But you realize that this old swing won't bring you close to the clouds anymore. Now there are other things that make you fly.
When you go back to your car, to drive back to the life you're leading now, when you're looking back one last time, it's a bittersweet moment. You know now that your past can't make you happy anymore. In a way, it is sad. But it also frees you to look for happiness in the life you have now, to look not back but forward. You pull your car out of the parking lot and a flash of happiness strikes you unexpectedly. You look forward to going home again.
(Day 52 – seventh week of pregnancy)
Rachel woke up with a smile. She slowly sat up on the bed and put her hand on her lower abdomen, trying to make contactwith the child growing inside of her. She couldn't even comprehend anymore how frightening the thought of having a baby had seemed a couple of hours ago. Now it just made her happy.
'We're going home now, sweetie. To daddy. He is…'
A sudden realization hit her, knocking the breath out of her.
"Oh my God."
He was waiting. She'd left him about ten hours ago and he was probably going crazy worrying about her. Spinning around she caught sight of Ross, snoring peacefully. Another gut wrenching realization almost rendered her unable to move. This would kill Joey.
She had known she was making a mistake the minute she stopped pretending to still be in love with Ross, but up until now it had felt as if this mistake was only affecting her. But it was devastatingly clear that this wasn't true.
"Ross… Ross… wake up, come on, wake up!"
Ross looked at her with half-lidded eyes.
"Whassup, Rachel?" he mumbled sleepily.
"No one must know about what we did, okay? I mean the whole having sex thing. I came over last night but we just talked and you slept on your couch, all right? You can't talk about this to anyone, ever."
"You're gonna lie to Joey about this?"
"I shouldn't have done this. It was bad and totally wrong. I'm going to have that on my conscience for the rest of my life. But Joey... this would hurt him so bad and it isn't worth that. I'm not gonna let this hurt Joey and the baby."
She scrambled off the bed and looked for her clothes. Figured, she left them all in the living room. Cursing her stupidity for getting herself into this, she quickly slipped into a t-shirt that lay on the floor and headed for the living room. After she had found her bra and her blouse, she felt as if someone was watching her. She turned around slowly, indescribable terror crawling up inside of her. Looking up, she stared right into the eyes of the one person she so desperately had wanted to never know about this.
"No," she breathed, wishing she could reach out to him, touch him, tell him she loved him and only him, begging him not to let what he saw affect him.
"No," she said a bit louder when he disappeared from the window.
When Chandler came to the window, looking shortly at her and then disappearing as well, her 'no' was a painful wail that got her Ross's attention.
"Rach, what is it, everything okay?"
He came up behind her in the moment Monica stood at the window for a moment, disappearing as fast as her husband. "NO!" she cried and sank to the floor, sobbing.
"Rachel, was he... did he... did Joey see you?"
She nodded mutely, the image of the look of pain and horror on Joey's face burning a hole into her heart.
"I'm so sorry, Rach. I didn't want it to come to this ... I didn't mean to screw that up for you. I just wanted you to be happy... I... Oh my God, Joey's gonna hate me."
Ross's defeated rambling gave her back her spirit somehow; it always had. It was like when he was weak, she had to be strong. She wiped the tears off her face and got up.
"I'll go talk to him. I'll tell him what happened. He'll understand, he has to. He said he loves me, if he does, he'll understand. Everything's gonna be okay."
Ross looked at her incredulously. "You really think he's gonna be cool about this? I mean..."
"Everything's gonna be okay. It has to," she repeated more to herself than to Ross while dressing herself hurriedly.
… … …
A few minutes later she knocked at Monica's door desperately. Monica opened but not enough for her to come in.
"Mon, please where is Joey? I need to talk to him."
"You can't talk to him now, Rachel."
Monica stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. She gestured for Rachel to go into Joey's apartment.
"Please, Monica, where is he? Did he go anywhere? I really need to talk to him."
Monica's face was closed off and borderline angry.
"Like I said, you can't talk to him now, Rachel. He's in your old room. Chandler is with him."
Rachel tried frantically to make sense of what her friend was saying. "What's he doing in my old room?"
"We're going to let him stay there until… until you move out."
Nothing of what she said was making any sense.
"But, Monica, I don't want to move out. I want to stay with him here. Why should I want to move out?"
That apparently tested Monica's patience a bit too much. "Because you cheated on him with your ex-boyfriend, because you broke his heart, because you left him a sobbing mess in my apartment."
Understanding painfully dawned on her and she stepped back a bit, clinging to the kitchen counter to hold herself upright. "He… he cried?"
"No, he didn't cry. He broke down. I had to give him a pill to get him to stop shaking."
"It was so bad?" she asked tonelessly, dreading the answer.
"What did you expect, Rachel? You left him totally confused after you had barely talked about the baby at all, he was up all night going insane with worry because you didn't come back and then he sees you coming out of Ross's bedroom. Honestly, how do you think he should've taken this?"
She pressed her free hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying but there seemed to be not much she could do about that.
"Oh my God, what have I done?"
"Seriously, Rachel? I have no idea. I know you're pregnant and I know you're confused and that this isn't how you wanted it to be, but what you did… I mean, I can barely stand to talk to you right now after what you did to Joey. And if I were you, I would stay out of Chandler's way for the time being. What the hell were you thinking?"
Her knees gave way under her and she slid to the floor, resting her head against the kitchen counter. "I suppose I wasn't," she whispered weakly.
Monica crouched down beside her and looked at her worried and with a bit of compassion in her eyes. "Did you want to get back together with Ross?" she asked her softly.
"No, I didn't. I don't even know why I ended up in his apartment, let alone in his bed. Maybe I needed to get closure, so I could leave all of that finally in the past. It made me realize… truly and deeply realize… how much I wanted to be with Joey, that I can't imagine being with anyone else than him – ever."
She noticed how saying that gave her back a bit of her strength, a bit of her will to pull through, tolet it not devastate her completely.
"So you needed to sleep with Ross to find out that you love Joey, is that what you're saying?"
"No, I already knew I loved him. It was like closing a door that was standing open for far too long. It made me realize that he – and only he – is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with."
"I hate to tell you this, Rachel, but what you did last night probably destroyed every chance at having what seems now so important to you. I think you've lost him."
"I can't lose him, Monica. Apart from loving him so much, I'm having his baby. I can't do this alone. I wouldn't know how to do this alone."
A wave of desperation was threatening to crush her at that thought. Her child was going to grow up without its father; she was going to have to live without the man she loved.
"I am sure he's not gonna let you do this alone. But I doubt he will ever be more to you than the father of your child."
This couldn't be happening; there was no way she would let that happen. She had to fight. Not just for her happiness, but for the happiness of her child.
"I have to talk to him, Monica. Maybe he can forgive me. Maybe I can make him see that I left everything with Ross in the past now. Maybe we can be happy again. Please, Monica, tell him I want to talk, I need to. Please."
Monica looked far too sad for her comfort. She looked as if she thought her hopes were pointless. But she wasn't even going to consider that.
"I'll tell him that. But you stay here and wait until he comes to you on his own."
Rachel acknowledged that with a short nod and got up again. "I'll wait," she said, trying to sound confident but mostly failing at it.
Monica looked at her for a while and then she started to smile a little.
"I don't even know if I should tell you how great I think it is that you're having a baby."
Rachel smiled back weakly.
"When I woke up this morning, I was so happy…" she whispered, trying to come up with a description for how she was feeling now. Truth was, she had no idea.
Monica looked at her searchingly for a while and then she put her hand on Rachel's cheek, comfortingly caressing her.
"You gonna be okay?"
"I don't know," Rachel gave back honestly.
………
After Monica had left she stood in the middle of the apartment for a while, just staring at the wall. At the wall where everything had started.
She wished she could go back to this day, to the day when everything was all right and easy. On the other hand, going back was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
She hadn't planned to, it had just happened.
………
(Flashback to the night before - day 51)
She wandered along the dark and slightly damp streets not registering what went on around her. She barely noticed where she was going.
Her thoughts were in maddening disarray. Scraps of conversation echoed through her head, but evaded her when she tried to use them to form a coherent thought. And questions, thousands of questions. Would she be able to do this, would she be capable to raise a kid, to be a good mother? What about her relationship to Joey? Would it be able to withstand the changes a child was going to bring for them?
Seven weeks, another thought ran through her head. They had been together for seven weeks. She had dated guys and not even seen their apartment after seven weeks. Of course it was different with Joey, she had known him for years, they had been living together for over a year, it wasn't like this was all new, but… a baby?
She tried to recall Joey's face when he had found out, she remembered shock and confusion and even some sort of sadness. But then again, he'd wanted her to keep the baby. He'd said that, whatever it meant. A painful jab went through her as she remembered his words. Did this mean he hadn't even trusted her that far? Did it mean he didn't know how much he meant to her, how much she wanted to see if they could work, if this was something real?
She stopped walking and looked around herself. She had been going in a circle, she was almost were she had started. And sadly enough, not just as far as walking around went.
Looking over to their apartment, she saw the warm light shining out of the windows of their living room. He was waiting for her. A warm feeling went through her at that, making her smile a bit.
Maybe, maybe this wasn't as bad as it seemed.
But then she realized where exactly she was standing.
It was the front door of Ross's apartment building. She wondered how he had taken this, what he thought about this. If she was honest to herself, she knew that he was hurting. There was no way he was taking that lightly.
Maybe she should talk to him. Maybe it would be a good thing, a necessary step into the right direction. Clear things up with Ross, closing the door to the past, opening the one to the future. And on top of that, she really needed to talk to someone who knew how it felt to know you will soon be having the responsibility for another human being. For your own flesh and blood, for your child.
………
She stood in front of his door for five minutes before she could work up the courage to knock. She told herself that there was no real reason for her to be afraid, but on the other hand, she knew that being the one to hurt Ross had always hurt her too, even if she would never have admitted to that. It was a bond she had never been able to cut completely
It took a while for him to open up after she had knocked and when he saw her, his expression went from sad, to surprised to closed off in a matter of seconds.
"What do you want, Rachel? Shouldn't you be with your boyfriend right now?" Ross mumbled gruffly and she had to keep a sliver of anger from interfering with what she was intending to say.
"I want to talk to you, Ross. I think I need to."
Reluctantly he opened the door further and let her step into his apartment. She took a seat on his couch and he slowly sat down too, still looking wary and slightly angry.
"So you and Joey, huh? How long has this been going on?" he asked before she could start with the speech Joey and her had prepared for this exact occasion.
"Seven weeks," she answered and before she could add anything else, Ross let out a fake laugh.
"Whohoo, just the right time to think about starting a family, isn't it?"
"It's not like we have planned this…" she said defensively and the anger came back again.
"Well, I know Joey isn't the brightest star in the sky, but I always figured he knew how to use a condom."
Handling Ross's arrogance was something she always had been bad at.
"They're only ninety seven percent safe," she sniped back. The she took a deep breath and tried to take the high road again. "And… Ross, this isn't the point."
"So, then what is the point, Rachel?" Ross asked with his voice raised. "What were you coming here for? To share your happiness?"
It dawned on her that this might have been a mistake. She couldn't handle this, any of this. She couldn't handle his pain and his anger, not while still trying to get a grip on her own emotional turmoil.
"Ross… you're… you're not making this easy," she said in a quivering voice, feeling tears sting in her eyes.
Ross was oblivious to her distress. "Am I supposed to?" he asked in a cuttingly sarcastic tone.
"I didn't give you such a hard time about Emily," she gave back, on the verge of yelling, hating herself for sounding like a sulking child.
But her irritation about herself quickly turned into anger at Ross when he said, "You gave me a hard time about Chloe."
Her eyes widened and for a while, she couldn't even find the right words.
"How dare you!" she finally exploded, "This is completely different. I didn't cheat on you with him."
"You weren't exactly forthcoming with the truth either," Ross gave back, infuriatingly calm. "Both of you."
The thinly veiled accusation let all her anger drain out of her in an instant. In a way, he was right. They should've told him sooner. It was unfair that he had to find out like this.
"We were going to tell you tomorrow," she mumbled, guilt forcing her to look down at the floor.
"Well, if you say so."
Ross's self-righteous condescension inflamed her fury once again.
"Really, I can't believe you have the nerve to even compare this. Let's compare, shall we? You had a one-night stand with some girl you picked up in a bar, two hours after we supposedly broke up. You and I are over for five years and now you're mad at me because I'm in love with a man I've known for seven years and whom I'm having a baby with?"
"Y…y… you… you love him?"
Only after she'd thrown an angry "Of course I do!" into his face, did she notice the change in his demeanor. She watched him staggering backwards, as if someone had delivered a mighty blow to his stomach. His back hit the wall and he slumped against it.
A little worried, she got up and stepped to him, watching with growing alarm how his face went deathly pale and tears started swimming in his eyes. It was clear that this was the exact moment he realized what was really happening. That he had lost her, that there was no getting back together. That it was over – forever.
Unsure about what to do, she gently put her hand on his face, softly stroking him. When the first tears left his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, a soft sobbing alerted her to the fact that she was crying too.
"Ross," she pleaded in a tear-saturated voice. "Ross… please… don't cry."
He tried to turn his face away from her hands, but she didn't let him. She wanted to help, she wanted to comfort him. And she felt that she could use a little comfort herself.
She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him to her. He followed her willingly, burying his face into the crook of her neck, sending a flash of familiar warmth through her.
"Ross," she breathed, suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of memories.
Still trying to comfort him, she kissed his hair, then the side of his face. When he turned his head a little, she kissed his cheek. After he had turned his face to her fully, she saw that he had stopped crying and looked at her with wide eyes. She leaned in and pressed a light kiss on his lips.
A jolt went through him at that but he seemed oddly paralyzed, so she kissed him again. And then, as if she had unleashed something inside of him, he kissed her back. He put his hand in her hair and held her against him, kissing her with a sweetness that awakened one year's worth of memories, most of them good.
She allowed herself to be taken in by those memories, to let herself carried away by them. Away from the questions, from the doubts and the worries. Back to a time, where life had been simple, where the future was clearcut and happy. A sudden yearning to have that back overwhelmed her so forcefully, she was powerless against it. If only things could be so easy again…
She pulled back and smiled at Ross. "Gunther drove me crazy the whole day with his constant telling me where the used cups have to go and that I have to clean the cappuccino machine… I'm so glad this day is over."
There was a weird brightness to Ross's gaze, but there was also some sort of happiness, of calm.
"I had a sucky day at the museum, too," he finally said. "I mean, it's 1996 and people still seem to have no understanding about evolution at all."
"How about we make each other forget about this horrible day?" she breathed seductively, her lips brushing over his.
"Very good idea, Rachel," he whispered back and closed the remaining space between their lips with a passionate kiss.
(A while later)
Rachel carefully drew the comforter up to her neck, suddenly feeling weird about Ross seeing her naked.
"Awkward, huh?" Ross said, blushing, and she nodded.
Then again, as awkward as it felt, it was a relief. Maybe things had been supposed to happen that way, maybe it was a good thing that it had happened that way. It gave everything a definite sense of finality, it gave them closure.
"So you really love him?" Ross spoke up again, trying to break the silence that seemed to feel uncomfortable to him. It didn't feel uncomfortable to her. She was safely tucked under a warm blanket and suddenly very tired.
"Yeah, I do," she answered, smiling. "I really do."
Ross shook his head. "Who would've thought?"
Since he didn't seem to expect her to say something to this, she closed her eyes and started drifting.
"God, you're gonna have a baby," she heard Ross say softly and it made her smile. "I guess I'm just realizing what this really means. You and Joey… and the baby… you're gonna be a family."
"Yes we are," she whispered back, beautiful pictures of the three of them walking towards a golden red sunset flashing behind her eyelids. "I'm just realizing that myself," she added almost inaudibly, as if saying that only to herself.
Silence stretched between them for a while, drawing her even deeper into her half-dream like state. But then, chuckling lightly, Ross suddenly asked, "So what is it about Joey?" His tone was light and friendly, and when she looked at him she could see no traces of malice or anger in it. It was like all of a sudden, they had left everything behind. It was an immensely comforting feeling. "Is it the good looks?" Ross kept asking teasingly. "Is it because he's a soap opera star, is it because he's good in bed…"
A soft chuckle came from her at that and she playfully swatted Ross's arm.
"Ross!" she chided, "Do you think I'm that shallow?"
He gave her a look that implied as much and made her chuckle again. Then she sighed dramatically and said, "Well, he is… all of that."
Ross just smirked and said nothing, apparently waiting for her to elaborate.
"But of course it's not just that. It's… see, with him, there are no limits, no boundaries, no pretences. When I'm with him, I feel as if nothing could ever hold me back," she mused quietly.
Ross looked slightly hurt.
"You felt like I was holding you back?"
"Not back then. Back then you were everything I ever wanted. If we hadn't broken up, it would have been enough for me for the rest of my life. But I'm not the woman thatI was five years ago, anymore . Even if it wasn't for Joey…" she paused for a while, looking at Ross's open expression and finally feeling that she could tell him what she was about to say, "Even if it wasn't for Joey, I could never go back to what we had."
"I just… I always thought we'd end up together. For years I imagined us getting married some day."
"You have no idea for how long I imagined us getting married, Ross."
"Well I guess you stopped after… Chloe, right? That's the one mistake you couldn't forgive me for. I ruined everything for us with this."
"Ross, I forgave you for that a long time ago. But the moment I stopped seeing you in my future, was the moment I stood at the gate in Athens, realizing I was on your honeymoon, while you were somewhere else, trying to save your marriage… to another woman."
"It's been over since then?"
"Wasn't it for you, Ross? I mean… you loved her… you wanted to marry her."
"Maybe you should've told me about your feelings back then. Maybe then I wouldn't have married her."
"Do you think you wouldn't have married her if I had told you about my feelings?"
"I guess…"
"See, this is the difference between you and me. Even if you still loved me, it wouldn't change a thing about me wanting to be with Joey. Because… because I love him."
While Ross silently contemplated this, Rachel closed her eyes again. Her twirling thoughts had finally given way to an even, silent stream of warm and peaceful feelings and she contentedly listened to Ross dissecting his current love life, assessing his chances on the dating market as a man three times divorced.
Or at least that was the last thing she was aware of.
(End flashback)
tbc