A/N: Enjoy and review.
TOW the hospital
A look at her watch alerted Rachel to the undeniable fact that she was late for work – again. She had excused herself with morning sickness for a while now, she really ought to come in on time at least every once in a while.
But since she had just eaten breakfast, she still needed to put on some lipstick before she went. She figured that she probably left the color that went with her outfit in the bathroom. She headed in there, located it behind Joey's aftershave and was just about to open it, when someone drew back the shower curtain and was about to step out of the bathtub.
Joey.
Her jaw dropped, her eyes went wide and her gaze roamed over his body. This well shaped body with its well defined muscles, broad chest and flat stomach. The body covered with smooth, now deliciously wet skin that she had touched every square inch of. Skin she knew the feel of, the taste. Skin she wasn't supposed to touch or kiss anymore.
Skin, if she thought about it, she wasn't even supposed to look at. The thought went through her like a knife and she pressed her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from giving voice to the embarrassment and pain she felt right now.
She turned away hurriedly and headed out of the door. Once outside, another bout of pain forced her to stop moving and lean against the nearest wall to catch her breath. When she could concentrate on something else again, panic began to rise inside her. What if Joey didn't believe she hadn't done it on purpose? What if he felt her invading his privacy like that was against their rules? What if he couldn't get over her staring at him like a psycho?
The pain hit her again and this time she had to squeeze her eyes shut and ball her hands into tight fists to try to get through it. Opening them again, she saw Joey standing in front of her, looking at her with the hint of a smile.
"God… Joey," she stammered, "I am so sorry. I didn't mean… I didn't know you were in there, I swear."
Joey looked down and shook his head. Her sight was still a little blurry from having squeezed her eyes shut before, so she couldn't interpret his expression, so she rambled on. "And… and… I wasn't meaning to stare. I was just… I was surprised that you were there, I swear I didn't…"
She was cut off by another sharp stab of agony, but that ebbed up pretty quickly when she saw Joey smiling genuinely at her.
"Rach, I might have a few problems, you know… up there," he said, tapping his finger against his forehead, "But I still can appreciate it if a woman can't take her eyes off me when she sees me naked," he finished with a winning grin.
Rachel heaved a sigh of relief and smiled back at him lightly, nodding. For a few more seconds, Joey stood before her, half naked, still dripping wet, and she had to use all her willpower not to let her eyes wander again. He looked into her eyes searchingly, then shook his head as if to chase away a thought, turned around and headed for his room.
A question suddenly popped into her brain, something she had meant to ask him since Monica had suggested she should. She figured that this was as good an opportunity as any.
"Were there any women seeing you naked lately?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
He didn't answer for the longest time, until she started to think he might not even have heard her. That would be better anyway. She didn't even know why she had asked. There was no good answer to that question. Just thinking he might have slept with someone else was gut wrenchingly painful, and trying to imagine him being so distraught over their breakup that he hadn't had sex in over four months wasn't any better.
She turned around to go to the bathroom when she heard his voice behind her.
"What if there were?"
The way this sounded, the fact that he hadn't answered her for that long, the look in his eyes when she turned around, convinced her that there had been other women after her.
Of course, Monica was right. After all, he was just a man – and he was Joey. The realization felt like a knife cutting through her belly – again. She stumbled forward and gripped the back of the lounger, digging her fingers so hard into its upholstery that they started to hurt. Gasping for air, she tried to come up with something to say. Something that wouldn't betray her feelings. But the more she thought about that, the more the blinding pain inside her rendered her unable to speak.
"What if I slept with other women?" he pushed, and looked at her with such a cold and almost cruel expression that she felt utterly defenseless. "How would that make you feel? Would you hold that against me?"
"I wouldn't. I would have no right to," she stammered tonelessly.
She started to wonder about the pain she felt. It didn't even feel like the usual heartache, it was something in her lower body, some unfamiliar, burning sensation that almost forced her to her knees. But she was determined to show him that she could handle whatever he had done, even when he told her this with a cruelty highly unusual for him.
"Why? Because you don't care anymore, or because you feel that it evens the score between us?"
Her vision began to blur and it was probably because there were tears all over her face, which she tried to wipe away, but she couldn't stop them because that pain just kept getting worse.
"No…"
Joey was looking at her furiously, letting her feel the full force of his anger, letting her see the devastation her betrayal had wrought upon his formerly sweet and forgiving nature. Just when she thought for a moment that the pain was going away again, it came back with a vengeance. She finally realized that it came from her uterus. And now she understood why the doctor had called the Braxton-Hicks contractions 'mild discomfort' because this… this was torture.
A high pitched wail pushed its way out of her and she doubled over, clutching her belly, moaning in pain. As she was able to look up at him, because the pain subsided a bit again, his expression had changed from anger to unadulterated terror.
"Oh my God, Rach, what is it? What's with you? Please…"
He rushed to her side and tried to haul her up, but another wave of pain let her slump against him, crying out again.
"Joey… the baby… the baby…"
………
Joey was sure that he had just lived through the longest hour of his whole life. He used to think that only his dentist could manage to prolong time, but right now he would've gladly gotten a root treatment without anesthetic, in exchange for having to pace up and down the ER waiting room, not knowing what was happening to the two most important people in his life. He still wondered how he had been able to get her into a cab and to the hospital, without giving in to the panic he felt. Rachel had stopped screaming, but she had moaned and cried the whole time, gripping his hands so tightly he could already see the bruises forming there.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, he had never felt so guilty about anything ever before. He knew he had been unfair, he knew he had let himself go. He was appalled by his sudden wish to hurt her like she'd hurt him, and even more appalled by the fact that he hadn't even stopped when he could see that she was in pain.
Her question had hit a sore spot, had made him vulnerable. He hadn't slept with any woman since he broke up with Rachel, and he perceived that as a weakness. It had been almost five months; he should at least have been able to have sex again. If Ross or Chandler had told him they were so hung up on a woman that they didn't touch anyone else for months, he would've laughed in their faces.
He had been on a few dates before the day Rachel came to him and tried to kiss him. It never went very far, and he'd found out that he couldn't bring himself to take the slightest interest in the girls he was going out with, so he decided to wait a while. After the disaster, he couldn't shake off the horrible images of her and Ross. Even when he jerked off, they were always in his head. Trying to sleep with some girl would've probably ended in a disaster as well.
It was so bad that he had honestly considered seeing a shrink, but he couldn't really bring himself to do that, especially since it seemed to have gotten slightly better since Rachel began living with him again.
Only now, instead of noticing that she was in pain, he had taken his anger out on her. Anger that was not even directed at her. Because, although he'd never told her, he had forgiven her for what she had done. He knew enough about getting weak, about doing stupid things when you're confused and upset. He knew he couldn't hold that against her forever. He never would've let her live with him again, if he hadn't forgiven her already.
What happened, the reason everything got so out of hand, was that he was mad at himself for not getting over it, for not being able to move on and start to live his life again. Rachel's question had fueled that anger, and had put her on the receiving end of his rage. But instead of just blowing up at her, he had done something even meaner. He had used his knowledge about her feelings to deliberately hurt her with a disturbing precision, adding emotional pain to the physical pain she already was in.
He thought back to when his mother was pregnant with his youngest sister. His parents were fighting a lot of the time, and as a kid, he had vowed to himself never to treat the woman who was to carry his child the way his father had treated his mother. Now he'd done the same thing. Maybe he was even going to be the same sort of distant and unfit parent as his father was.
If anything had happened to her or the baby, he would never be able to forgive himself.
"Mr. Tribbiani?"
He was shaken out of his self-reproach by a nurse who was calling into the waiting room.
"Yeah, that's me. I'm Joey Tribbiani."
"Dr. Zimmerman wants to speak with you."
Following the nurse, he tried to calm down enough to be able to talk with the man in a somewhat civilized manner.
"Are you the father of Ms Green's baby?" the man who was apparently Dr. Zimmerman asked him grumpily.
"Yeah, I am. How is she, what's with the baby?"
"The baby is fine. It wasn't in any danger, since the contractions Ms Green had, although intense and painful, weren't effective in terms of starting a premature birth. We gave her something to stop the contractions and a sedative to calm her down."
"Why did that happen?"
"Episodes like this are usually brought on by physically or emotionally traumatic experiences."
Joey felt his stomach drop and his knees go weak. "We... we had an... argument... before..."
"Well, I don't know how heated that was, but normally pregnant women aren't so fragile that they collapse because of an argument. But Ms Green seems to be in some very intense emotional distress. I called her OB-GYN and she told me that Ms Green always seems to be depressed. Lately she's even lost weight. That is a reason to worry. She is a physically healthy young woman, she should be radiant."
"Oh m... "
He was going to say 'Oh my God' but his throat closed in on itself and the guilt he had felt before grew tenfold. It was his fault, he hadn't only been adding to her pain, he had been the one causing it.
"Mr. Tribbiani, I don't know what problems you two have, and frankly I don't want to know. But if you want Ms Green and your child to be okay, you have to start to make that your first priority. If you can't, let someone else take care of her."
………
They had led him to her room and he stepped in there tentatively, suddenly unsure if that was still his place. The question became even more pressing when he stood beside her bed, looking down at her pale face, the white, almost translucent skin, the peaceful expression.
He remembered having looked at her from time to time back when they were together, just reveling in the knowledge that he could walk over to her at any given moment, giving her a kiss, getting one in return. Reveling in the knowledge that he was the one she slept beside at night, that he was the one who could see her writhing with pleasure, who could hear her moaning loudly when she came. That it was his name she called in the throes of passion.
He remembered getting drunk on the feeling that they were together, that she was his.
(Flashback to day 21)
Joey had never been much into jewelry. If he had known before how serious his lack of knowledge was of what was elegant and tasteful, he surely wouldn't have gotten that buddy bracelet for Chandler so many years ago.
So, no, he had no eye for jewelry.
But right now he found himself staring transfixed at a pair of earrings, nicely dangling from a pair of beautiful ears, belonging to an even more beautiful woman.
For the party on the DOOL set, Rachel had chosen to wear colorful earrings, shaped like a pineapple. Of course they went perfectly with her green dress, but he suspected she had a far more clever reason for wearing them, considering what had transpired the night before. And he liked it.
He liked the thought of her trying to put some sort of claim on him, of trying to make him remember that she wasn't about to share. And so he kept looking at her. Besides, there wasn't much else to do and he just plain liked looking at her.
In all her enjoyment of being here, she was a sight to behold. She was smiling and laughing, talking to people and very obviously having a great time. The dress she wore hugged her body perfectly in all the right places. She had her hair put up, but a few tendrils of it curled softly down her neck, which looked so inviting right now, he had half a mind to go over there and sink his teeth into it.
When he shook his head, slightly chuckling at that notion, he noticed something else. He surely wasn't the only guy staring at her. It seemed like every man in the place was staring at her, as if there were countless pairs of eyes greedily devouring her, hungrily roaming over every inch of her body.
Jealousy reared its head with an enraged roar. 'Take your eyes off her, you perverts', he heard himself thinking. 'You have no business looking at her like that. None at all. She's seeing someone. She's taken.' And somehow liking this line of thinking, he finished the thought with grim satisfaction, 'She's mine.'
The repercussions of that sudden insight still begging for further contemplation, he hadn't noticed the man coming up to stand beside him, until he got slapped jovially on his back, almost spilling his drink in the process.
"Hey Joe, what's up, man? Great party, huh?"
After cursorily glancing at Steve, he fixed his eyes on Rachel again.
"Yeah, it's nice," he grumbled, resolving not to let the fact that his mood had been decidedly ruined show too much.
"Damn right," Steve enthused, already starting to wear on Joey's patience. "And a lot of hot chicks here too."
Joey looked around himself, noticing only now that Steve was right. It wasn't like he generally didn't look at other women anymore, it just had somehow slipped his attention, which he found a little weird.
"See the one at the buffet?" Steve continued, rudely pointing his finger at none other than Rachel. "The one with the tight green dress, who's talking to Chris? She has the nicest…"
Fixing Steve with a death glare, he stopped him mid-sentence.
"That's my girlfriend," he growled menacingly, making sure to pronounce the 'my' the way that would make dimwitted Steve understand what he was talking about. It occurred to him that this was the first time he had ever called her that out loud, the first time he openly acknowledged their relationship. And it felt overwhelmingly good, it felt right.
Steve seemed unfazed. "Since when do you have a girlfriend instead of a one night stand?"
Joey didn't answer for a moment because he was distracted when he saw her pausing her conversation, turning to him and smiling and waving a little. He waved back, smiling happily.
"Since her," he finally answered, marveling at how easily she had lifted his mood with a few little gestures.
"Lucky bastard," the man beside him grumbled.
Rachel said something to Chris and then walked over to where Joey and Steve were standing.
"You're right, Joey, Christian Saunders is so gay."
"I'm not," Steve helpfully supplied, winking at Rachel in a way that made Joey want to hit him.
Rachel's mouth curved into a saccharine smile, and to Joey's utter delight she made a show out of clinging to his arm and snuggling as close to him as she could get.
"That's good to know, Stephen, but since the most attractive and definitely not gay man of the DOOL cast is already my boyfriend, I think I'll pass."
Steve rolled his eyes, finally looking as if he had got the message, and started to turn.
"Good lord, as if he needs any more stroking for his ego," they heard him grumble before he disappeared into the crowd.
Rachel tried to pull back, but without even thinking about it he held her in place. She looked up at him with a slightly apologetic smile.
"Sorry, Joe."
"For what?" he asked puzzled.
"For making it official like that."
"I already told him you're my girlfriend," he said quietly, smiling a little.
"You did?" she asked, in a surprised tone that sent a small pang of hurt through him. If there ever was a woman he wanted people to know about…
He put his other arm around her as well and lowered his head so he could whisper into her ear, "Felt great to say it."
"Feels great to hear it," she whispered back equally secretive.
With her mouth so close to his skin, her body snugly pressed against him and his arms around her, desire suddenly jumped at him so forcefully his breath hitched in his chest. Suddenly he found being surrounded by so many people extremely irritating.
As if reading his thoughts, Rachel winked at him.
"So… are there any parts of this set that aren't… crowded like this one? Where a girl could have a bit of private time with her… boyfriend?"
"We could go to my dressing room," he breathlessly suggested, while rapidly failing in an attempt to get himself back under control. He couldn't remember ever feeling so helplessly at the mercy of his own desires, of his own emotions. 'She's mine,' the thought from before still echoed through his brain. 'Mine'. And though it should've been a reassuring thought, for some reason, he needed to prove it to himself. He needed that – needed her - so badly right now, it was all he could do not to act on his impulses right then and there.
Rachel seemed to be blissfully oblivious to his state of mind.
"We can do that later," she smiled. "Why don't you show me where else you work?"
He nodded, not trusting his voice right now, took a deep breath and took a step back from her. With his hand on the small of her back, he gently guided her to the crowed and through a narrow doorway that led to other areas of the soundstage.
Desperately trying to divert his thoughts, he showed her the various rooms they shot scenes in, until they ended up in a mostly undecorated set.
"They use this one for sets you don't see so much," he said, to explain the lack of decoration. "Like the clinic's cafeteria, or the office of Drake's friend. They rebuild those when required."
Rachel nodded and started to walk around the empty room as if there was actually something to look at.
Joey just stared at her, unable to do anything else. The thought got louder and louder in his brain. 'Mine. Of all the guys, she chose me. The perfect woman, she's mine.' He was vaguely disturbed by the cavemanish quality of those thoughts, but he felt unable to stop thinking like that. It was like a rush, something that happened beyond his control.
Rachel turned and watched him for a few seconds and then she leaned against one of the walls and seductively ran her hands down her body.
"Why don't you come over here?" she crooned, and he was seconds away from growling, moments away from abandoning the rest of control left in him an jut pounce on her.
"I'm in a weird place right now," he admitted in a hoarse whisper, hoping it came across as a warning.
She smiled.
"Sounds interesting."
That one cut the cord that had been holding him in place up to that point. He took two large steps and crashed into her, using the weight of his body to press her into the wall behind her, that started to creak suspiciously. A red haze sank over his eyes, and as much as he fought for control over what was happening, he couldn't stop himself from attacking her with bruising kisses, from grabbing the skirt of her dress and pulling it up until it was bunched around her hips. He couldn't help but push himself forcefully between her invitingly spread thighs while tearing her panties off her with an impatient flick of his wrist. After some one handed fumbling with his pants and a condom, he entered her in a single, violent stroke that made Rachel gasp loudly. He felt helpless against the urge to keep assaulting her with a quick succession of powerful thrusts, that – if he had paid attention to such minor details – made the wall behind them shake dangerously.
The loud thunder of his own blood, the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears drowned out every sound around him. He was caught in a limbo of selfishness, of awareness that didn't reach beyond the boundaries of his own body. Nothing else mattered but satisfying an overwhelmingly powerful need, something that felt so raw and primal as if it had come from another,ancient time when self-control wasn't considered a virtue for a man. It urged him to finish what he had started and when he did, his release was so outstandingly intense, it left him drained and shaking.
As he came tumbling down from his orgasmic high, desperately clawing for recollection of what just had happened, he squarely landed right in the middle of the ugly reality of just having brutalized his girlfriend in an embarrassingly needy show of selfishness. Of things having been too fast, too hard and certainly unsatisfying for her. Of having the one woman that meant more to him than anyone else probably being thoroughly disgusted with him right now.
His body refused to comply with his wish to remove himself from her, give her the space she undoubtedly needed. Instead he heavily leaned against her, her legs still snugly wrapped around him. His forehead rested against hers and he listened intently to their labored breaths.
"Well, this certainly was a weird place," Rachel breathlessly whispered against his neck after a while and it almost sounded like there was a soft laugh in her voice. But he wasn't about to trust his senses after what he had done to her.
"I'm… I'm sorry," he rasped, desperation already choking him.
"For what?" Rachel asked, seemingly taken aback by his apology.
"Letting myself go like this…"
Rachel let out a soft giggle. "And there he goes, apologizing for passionate sex."
Just when he was about to explain the difference between passion and what had happened, the set wall behind them groaned in protest and started leaning away from them, putting Joey suddenly off-balance and sending both of them crashing to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs.
While Joey scrambled to help Rachel up again, he was distracted for a moment by an unladylike snort coming from her, that was followed by a fit of hysterical laughter. He wondered for a moment if she had lost her mind, but her merriment was so infectious it tugged at his grim self-flagellation until they were both howling with laughter at the somewhat ridiculous situation.
Still giggling, Rachel finally smoothed down her dress and turned to him, her face glowing with amusement and something that he could swear looked like happiness.
"So… what brought it on?" she asked, wriggling her eyebrows. "The dress… the earrings?"
That put a damper on his mood again and he looked down at his feet.
"Jealousy, I guess," he answered honestly. "All those guys back there, staring at you…"
Rachel sobered up a bit after that and gently caressed his cheek, forcing him to look at her again.
"I only have eyes for you," she whispered in a grave, overly dramaticvoice and then added with a grin, "You're my boyfriend, after all."
It came as a shock to him how deeply those rather carelessly spoken words affected him. While he enveloped her in a tight embrace, burying his face into her neck, words began to form in his mind and to push their way into his awareness. Not those claiming her as his possession, but those giving all his wildly churning emotions a sudden meaning, a purpose – and a name.
"Let's get out of here, Joey," Rachel whispered next to his ear. "Take me home."
(End flashback)
Joey noticed the slight tremble of his fingers when he caressed Rachel's pale cheek.
It felt like that night all over again. The guilt for having done what he did. The disgust with letting himself go like that.
And there was another thing that was exactly like it had been that night. The words that echoed through his thoughts, though they should've been meaningless now. But there was no doubt that, for all that had happened between them; he'd never stopped feeling that way.
He just hoped she would find it in her to forgive him once again.
………
Hearing is the last sense to go when you lose consciousness, and the first to come back. The first thing Rachel heard when she slowly made her way back through the haze was the sound of a heartbeat. Not her own, but the fast thumping sound of her child's heart, coming from the CTG monitor. The sound always made her smile.
Then she felt the somewhat rough hospital pillow against the side of her face, and smelled the disinfected air around her, indicating that she was in a hospital. The memories came crawling back slowly. The memories of the pain, the ride to the hospital, her yelling at the doctor to make it stop, to let her keep her baby as long as it needed to be inside her, his telling her that everything was going to be all right, that the baby wouldn't be born prematurely, if she would only stop panicking.
And she remembered Joey's face, the look of panic and terror that mimicked her own feelings, yet the way he managed to get her into a cab and into a hospital in record time. She hoped he knew everything was going to be okay. Slowly she opened her eyes, expecting blinding brightness, but she was surprised to find the room dimly lit and peacefully quiet.
The first thing she saw was Joey slouching uncomfortably in a chair, sleeping. Obviously being with her had made him getting used to sleeping in chairs. The thought made her smile again, although she began to wonder how long she had been sleeping. It had been morning when the pain began and now it was dark outside and the silence seemed to indicate that it was in the middle of the night.
Joey didn't look as if he was sleeping peacefully. His brows were knitted and his lips tightly pressed together. She remembered looking at him sleeping back when they were together. The peaceful and innocently calm expression on his face while he was sleeping had always calmed her down as well, had always given her a solemn feeling that made it possible for her to fall asleep again. He could slay her demons even in his sleep. Now he had to fight his own, the ones she had awakened.
She remembered what he had said to her before and the sadness that was her constant companion lately took its place by her side once again. But the sharp edge of the heartache she had felt at the words he had said to her was dulled somehow. They had probably given her a sedative or something that took the edge off. But it didn't lessen the ache she felt when she looked at him, nor the general feeling of sadness and hopelessness.
He tried to turn around and almost fell off the chair, waking up in the process.
His first look was at her, and when he saw that she was awake, he rushed to her bed, kneeling down on the floor beside it and took her hand tightly in his.
"Rach, you're awake. I'm so sorry I fell asleep. I wanted to be there when you woke up... "
"S'okay, it's late and I just woke up a few moments ago," she slurred, wondering exactly what kind of drugs they had given her.
He still looked stricken and inexplicably sad. She refused to believe he didn't know everything was okay.
"How are you, baby? How do you feel?"
"I'm okay. They probably gave me something, I feel a bit drunk."
"They gave you a sedative because you were... upset."
When she didn't say something for a while, to her utter confusion a tear started rolling down Joey's cheek, followed by another one. He wasn't even trying to hide them from her, or to wipe them away. She became even more confused, when he pressed his lips fervently against her hand, starting to sob.
"I'm so glad you're okay. So glad. Please forgive me, Rach. I was such an idiot, and I'm so sorry. I can't believe I hurt you both. I wasn't meaning to, I was just stupid. Please forgive me."
His words left her totally flustered. And although him kissing her felt so good it almost made her cry, feeling the warm drops of his tears running over her hand deepened her sadness to an alarming degree.
"What are you talking about?"
He lifted his eyes to her, and seeing them brimming with tears made her heart clench painfully, despite the sedative. She lifted her hand and tried to wipe his tears away. The sadness was momentarily replaced by a sudden happiness when he briefly leaned into her hand, closing his eyes and sighing. But then he turned his head away and looked at her again.
"It's my fault that you're here. The doctor told me. What I said... it upset you so much that those contractions started. I'm making you miserable, Rach, and I didn't even notice. I didn't notice that you were depressed, I didn't know about your weight loss..."
"Who told you that?"
"The doctor here called your OB-GYN and she told him about it."
Rachel could barely imagine what hearing that must have put him through. They made him feel guilty about something that hadn't anything to do with him at all. At least not directly. Before she could say something, Joey continued. "I'm not good for you... or her, on the contrary. You were probably better off with Ross."
Suddenly she was glad they'd given her such a strong sedative because it cushioned that blow at least to a degree where she could deal with it without losing it.
"You... you want me to leave again?"
Now there were tears running down her face too.
Joey pressed his forehead against her hand and said after a few moments, "No, I don't want that. But I... look where you are. I did this to you, Rach."
She lifted her hand to show him she wanted him to look at her.
"Joey, listen to me. This is not your fault. Nothing of this is, regardless of what the doctor said. Yes, I've lost weight. But that was three weeks ago, while I was still living with Ross. Since I've been living with you again, I've gained a few pounds, as I'm sure my doctor will confirm at my appointment with her next week. And... the contractions... those are my fault. I freaked when I walked in on you under the shower, that was when it started. At first I thought it was one of these Braxton thingies again, but they kept getting worse and worse..."
"But why were you freaking out? I mean, you've seen me taking a shower before..."
"I thought you would think I did it on purpose, that I didn't keep to the rules, that you might want me to leave again... Joey, I wouldn't know how to deal with having to leave you again."
He lifted his hand and tenderly touched her face, wiping away the trails her tears had left with his thumb. "Were you worried about that the whole time? That I'd throw you out because of something ridiculous like that?"
"I did something wrong once that made me lose you. When you allowed me to live with you again, I swore to myself that I would never make any mistake again, not even a little one."
"Rach, you can't live with that fear. Especially not if it endangers you or the baby. There is nothing you could do that could make me want to stop living with you. Nothing, I swear."
She closed her eyes at his words, sighing in relief. Joey got up from his kneeling position, groaning a bit, but still left his hand on her face. He leaned forward and pressed a tender and lingering kiss on her forehead.
"Living together again is not something I allowed you to do. And it's not something I decided on a whim either. I thought about it a lot, even before Ross suggested it. I knew I wanted it at least as much as you do. But, obviously, I've changed. What I did, what I said to you... even if it wasn't the reason for what happened, I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have felt the need to say it. The real question here is, if you still want to live with someone like me."
"Don't you understand that I'll never want to live with anyone else? And about what you said; you have a right to be angry. I know that, I felt it too. God knows I'm still mad at Ross sometimes when he starts with that 'we were on a break' bullshit. It's nothing you can control."
"I can't run around saying mean things to the woman who's having my baby. That is just lower than low. And I'm not mad at you. Not… anymore."
"I provoked you, I shouldn't have asked such an intimate question. It's none of my business."
"It is, Rachel. We're having a baby together, we should know about each other's lives. I should've just told you that I've dated a few times, but haven't slept with any other woman after you. I was embarrassed and angry at myself and then I took it out on you."
She put her hand above his that was still on her face and smiled at him with an odd mixture of regret and relief. But then her eyelids began to close as if pulled down by a heavy weight.
"Joey I... I'm so tired... I can't..."
He squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"Then go to sleep. I'll be there when you wake up, I promise."
The words were barely out of his mouth when she closed her eyes and the lines on the monitors started to show regular patterns of respiration and heartbeat. He jumped a little when he heard her whisper his name.
"Joe..."
It didn't look like she was awake and he smiled a bit at the memory of her talking in her sleep.
"Joey... I... I love you."
His heart lurched painfully in his chest and for a long time he sat on her bed, lightly caressing her face until he was sure that she was fast asleep. Then he leaned down and – with his face only inches away from hers –whispered a barely audible "I love you too, Rach." Then he closed the space between their lips and brushed a feather light kiss over her lips. "I love you too."
tbc