Rachel stared disgruntled at the colorful picture in the pregnancy book she was reading. 'How to eat for two. Your diet during your pregnancy.' On the picture were tons of fruit and vegetables she was supposed to eat, milk and cheese, eggs and fish. She had never been opposed to eating healthily, on the contrary, but looking at all that healthy food on the picture made her long for a fat-dripping pizza and a big chocolate milk shake.
It were probably these cravings – and the fact that living at Joey's provided her with ample opportunity to eat like that – that had led to her putting on weight again so her OB-GYN was very satisfied. She even felt great, well, at least noticeably better than she had while living at Ross's.
Things seemed to have become easier between her and Joey. They knew how to be around each other again, they kept the tone light and friendly. Neither of them dared to touch the dark subject lingering beyond the shiny surface. Neither of them wanted to risk another incident like the one that had led to her spending two days in the hospital.
She closed the book with a sigh and looked over to Joey, who was fussing around in the kitchen.
"Rach, do you know where that thing is that goes into the top of the blender?"
Shaking her head she replied, "No, haven't seen it."
"Ah, whatever," Joey shrugged, "how important can that be?"
Her eyes went wide, while in her head she already saw the contents of the blender flying around the whole apartment.
"STOP, Joey!"
He looked up at her quizzically. "What?"
"Trust me, it's very important," she said while getting up from the couch and walking over to him to help him look. When she stood next to him and peeked into the blender, she couldn't help being enticed by the smell that emanated from whatever he had in there. "Mhhm, what is that? It smells delicious."
"It's going to be a peanut butter smoothie, but not until I found that … ah, here it is."
He held up the item in question victoriously and then put in where it belonged.
"Can I have some?" she asked.
Joey chuckled. "Rach, not that I don't want to give you some, but you know you hate peanut butter."
"I… know but right now… peanut butter sounds really good all of a sudden."
Joey's smile widened. "Let's try something."
He took a spoon, took some peanut butter out of the jar and handed the spoon to Rachel. She hesitated a bit before putting it into her mouth, remembering how she always hated the fat, sticky texture of it, but it was like it called out to her. She tasted it carefully but then the rich flavor exploded in her mouth and her eyes almost rolled back into her head with appreciation.
"Mmhhhm… that tastes so great… can I have some more?" she asked eagerly and Joey grinned even more broadly.
"What is so funny?"
"Nothing," he smiled, "only that my daughter is making you eat peanut butter."
While she savored the feeling of another spoonful of peanut butter dissolving in her mouth, a question she had meant to ask him a long time ago popped into her brain again.
"How did you know it was a girl anyway?"
Joey grinned mischievously. "I knew what I made."
She couldn't resist rolling her eyes at that. "Joe…"
"I had a feeling," he admitted, looking down at his hands as if that was something embarrassing. "And I… I sort of wished it would be a girl."
She gaped at him for a while before she found her voice again, "But you said it from the minute you'd known I was pregnant."
With a sad smile he looked up at her and asked, "Remember when we talked about you fantasizing about having kids with me someday?"
"Yeah."
"I had my dreams, too."
She knew that he wasn't saying that to make her feel guilty. But she did. The guilt was always with her, hanging around her neck like a stone, but in moments like these it was worse. It made her wonder if she would ever be free of that, if she would ever have the feeling of having paid her dues.
"And I've destroyed them," she whispered and turned around, heading for her room.
She sat down on her bed heavily and tried not to give in to the urge to cry.
A minute later she saw him leaning in the doorframe, a glass of peanut butter smoothie in his hand like a peace offering. When she didn't say anything, he came in, sat down beside her and put his hand on her belly.
"Not all of them," he offered with a cautious smile.
The moment she forced herself to smile at him as well, the baby started moving around, bumping against Joey's hand.
"Hi sweetie," he cooed at her belly, putting the glass on the nightstand to have his other hand free as well, "it's me, your daddy."
"I think she knows it's you, Joey," Rachel observed solemnly, putting her hand above his. "She wakes up every time you have your hand on my belly. She… she loves you."
Her last words sounded hoarse and were laced with unshed tears. She would've loved to tell him that it wasn't just his daughter who loved him, but she didn't dare to, because he had been so adamant about her living with him again should be nothing romantic.
Joey was silent for a few moments, concentrating on the movement beneath his hands. Then he looked up at Rachel.
"I love her, too."
She took a shuddering breath, still fighting back tears.
To break the uncomfortable silence, Joey took the glass again and handed it to her. "Here, you have to drink that as long as it's fresh. I put some fruit in there as well, so now it doesn't only taste good, it's healthy, too."
She brought the glass to her lips and tasted the weird looking beverage. "Mhmm, that's so good."
After drinking the whole glass at once, she smiled at him genuinely. "Just keep those around and you won't have to worry about me losing any more weight. And I won't make you get up at three in the morning to bring me ice cream."
He chuckled at that and almost seemed relieved that the mood had lightened again. "And what do I do with all the ice cream I've already hoarded in the freezer? And what about the pickles?"
She made a face. "Ew Joey, if you don't want me to throw up, don't mention those again."
"Anything else that makes you sick?"
"Tuna, the smell of beer… and lobster."
"Okay, so I guess we'll stick to peanut butter."
"Yup," she confirmed and noticed that his brows knitted when he looked at her. She inclined her head questioningly and Joey tried to point out something on her face.
"Uhm Rach, you have… there above your lip,"
Apparently she hadn't gotten all of the remnants of peanut butter smoothie off her face when she had wiped her mouth before. Her attempts to get clean seemed to be somewhat unsuccessful because Joey still tried to indicate she missed a spot.
Just when she was about to go to the bathroom and wash her face, he lifted his hand and touched her, obviously trying to help. But feeling his hand gingerly touching her face made her go completely still, trying not to do anything that might scare him. But suddenly, he was the one doing something scary.
He leaned in and kissed her. On her mouth.
There were a lot of things she wished she could have back. A whole, endlessly long list of things she missed so terribly that she sometimes could barely breathe thinking about them. Him kissing her so heartbreakingly gently and lovingly was without any doubt somewhere near the top of that list. She knew it wouldn't last, she knew it was just a fleeting moment of weakness on his part, but she was determined to savor every last second of it, to remember every detail, every feeling. Kissing him back was something she didn't even consider. He was giving her something precious and she was not about to belittle that by demanding more.
A single tear rolled down her face at the thought that she could have had that in abundance for the rest of her life, if it hadn't been for her own careless foolishness. The tear made its way to where his lips were touching hers. He probably tasted the salty liquid and pulled back, looking at her startled.
"I'm sorry, Rach. I'm…"
She frantically shook her head at his misinterpretation of her tears and hurriedly tried to wipe them away. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Joey. Nothing."
"I really don't?"
Sensing that he was talking about more than just the kiss, she asked, "What do you mean?"
"I sometimes wonder if there's something I said, or should've said. Something I did wrong or didn't do or …"
She cut him off hurriedly, wanting him to not even think about such a possibility.
"I can't believe you think that, Joe. It was not your fault. You did nothing wrong. It was all me, it's all my fault, everything's my fault."
"But…" he objected weakly, but she interrupted him again.
"No, not but. I managed to screw up the best thing that ever happened to me and I did it all by myself."
Joey shook his head and looked down onto his lap. "My mother always said it takes two people to break up a relationship."
"Yeah, the one who is cheating and the one who then breaks up with the cheater."
His soft demeanor suddenly changed and he looked up at her again determinedly and almost a bit angry. "You have to stop doing that, Rach."
"Doing what?"
"Carrying around that guilt like some sort of… a punishment. That can't be good for you and it's certainly not good for the baby. We've already established that one."
She sighed. It was clear that the shaky truce they had wouldn't last forever. A conversation like this one was bound to happen sooner or later, so she might as well get it over with now. Maybe it was about time she told him how she felt about that.
"But it's what I feel. I feel guilty. I am guilty. You know, back when I broke up with Ross, I wanted him to take responsibility for what he did, I wanted him to acknowledge that our breakup was his fault. He never did, so I never gave him another chance."
A deep frown appeared on Joey's face while his gaze drilled into her. "So you think you taking all the blame for what happened will make me give you another chance?"
She gasped at the implication that she hadn't even been aware of, and shook her head frantically. "No, I… I… no Joey. That sounds like I've been wanting to manipulate you. I haven't. But I want you to know that I'm aware that it was my fault, that I'm not blaming anyone but myself."
He was silent for a few moments after she'd said that and she looked at him intently, trying to make him understand that this was really how she felt.
Joey took a deep breath. "Rach, I don't want you to take all the blame, because it wasn't only your fault. What happened takes at least one extra person to do, so don't you tell me you did it all by yourself. I don't want to see you feeling miserable and guilty all the time, I want to understand what had happened and why. And I'm not gonna understand that if you keep telling me you did it alone."
"I didn't do it alone, but you have to believe me that it had nothing to do with anything about you. Nothing at all."
He shook his head, almost like a petulant child, his mouth set into a grim line. "I seriously don't believe that, Rachel. Because you left me, you couldn't stand to be in one apartment with me, there had to be a reason and it is not too out there to think that this reason was - in fact - me."
"Joey, you know that I sometimes need time alone to think. I did it before, remember?" she said softly, pleadingly. She had to make him understand that he was not to blame for any of this.
"But even before, it had something to do with me," he kept insisting.
"No, it didn't," she objected firmly.
He shook his head again. "It had to do with me pushing you up against that wall over there. I was the reason for your need to think. So what did I do that made you leave this apartment that night?"
She sighed defeated. "You got me pregnant. And I'm not saying it was a bad thing, just like you pushing me up against the wall wasn't. But the thing is, back then, thinking about it hadn't gotten me anywhere. I was only realizing what to feel about it when I came back to you, when I talked to you. The night when I knew I was pregnant, I went to the wrong man. I made the mistake of not coming back to you, talking to you. Who do you think I can blame for that?"
"Maybe I shouldn't have let you go then?" he asked tentatively.
"Do you think I would've let you keep me here against my will?"
"No, probably not. But maybe I could've said something that would've made you stay?"
"You told me you loved me, you told me that nothing could change that. What more could I have wished to hear from a man who had just learned that he was gonna be a father?"
"I still think I saw something in your eyes that night. When you turned to leave, it looked like you were… disappointed."
Rachel swallowed hard. How could he have seen that? It was such a short moment and she had turned around a second later.
Joey came closer to her, staring intently into her eyes. "Rach, what are you not telling me?"
She closed her eyes for a second before she found the courage to tell him. "In that moment… what you saw… it was because you said that you didn't want me to think about not keeping her. It hurt me to know that you thought me capable of doing that. I thought you knew I loved you, that I wanted to have a future with you. It felt like you had no faith in me."
When he didn't say anything for the longest time, she continued, "As it turned out, you were right about doubting me."
"No, I wasn't right," he said sadly. "I shouldn't have said that. I should've told you how much I wanted to have her. How happy it made me that we were having a baby. Instead I was probably the first one to make you think of yourself as a bad mother."
Now it was her who was seeking his gaze, trying to make him understand. "It still doesn't make any of this your fault in any way."
"You were vulnerable, you didn't know what to feel and I wasn't helping."
"You were probably even more confused than I was. No one could've expected you to be all level-headed and calm in a situation like that."
"I still shouldn't have said it."
She didn't quite know what to say to that. In a way, he was right. It had hurt her and maybe if she had been surer about his faith in her, she wouldn't have felt the wish to turn back time. Using the opportunity that presented itself she asked, "Why did you?"
"There were so many things flying through my head, and that was one of them. And thinking that there was a possibility to lose her, to suddenly not have her in our life, was unbearable."
"It had nothing to do with… you know… your upbringing, being Catholic and everything?"
"No, that didn't even cross my mind back then. It was only that the thought of having a child with you felt so great, I didn't want to have it any other way."
She nodded, lost in memories. "I think I know what you mean. When I went to my doctor the day… after we broke up, she told me that home pregnancy tests aren't always accurate and there might be the possibility that I wasn't even pregnant. I'll never forget the feeling of thinking that there might be no baby."
"But then you should've been happy when you found out. But I've never seen you as confused as you were that day."
Revisiting the emotions she had been going through that day, thinking about how confused she had been, was painful, but she knew he deserved to know, he needed to know, so she took a deep calming breath and started to talk. "When I was holding that test in my hand and saw the two lines, I had the biggest smile on my face. I was happy, Joe. But the more I thought about it, the more doubts I had, the more questions. So I threw the test in Mon's trash, because I wanted to tell you after we told everyone else about us being together. I so wanted to make it official, to do it right. It still grates on me that we didn't have the chance to do that. I was so upset about it, that all the doubts I already had went crazy inside my head. Suddenly I was afraid of what you would say, if you'd think I did it intentionally, to get you to marry me or something. There was this beautiful fantasy I had about how it would be with us being together, and suddenly nothing was like it should've been. I didn't know what to do, how to deal with it."
His gaze softened after she said that and she couldn't see a trace of reproach or anger in his eyes. It really looked like he understood.
"I guess me telling you we should get married wasn't exactly helping either."
He understood, and that thought alone made her smile for a split second. But she got serious again in an instant to answer his question. "No, it wasn't. It was what I had been afraid of. That you would marry me because I was pregnant, not because you love me."
Now the understanding on his face gave way to shocked horror. "Rach! You knew how much I love you. How could you have thought that?"
"Joey, what we had was… exceptional. But in the end, it was only seven weeks. For a relationship that is pretty much nothing. It is definitely not enough to know if you want to spend the rest of your life together, if you really work as a couple. I mean… I was convinced we would, but I would've loved to find that out without carrying your baby already. It made a 'we have to' out of a 'we want to'."
"I wish I could've seen what was going on in your head that day. It hurts to think that I confused you even more. Because knowing you were pregnant didn't change a thing about what I felt for you. Or about how much I wanted us to have a future together. It still hurts me more than I can ever say that we missed that chance. Because I wanted it so badly."
"I… I still want that future, Joe. I know you said it's over, but I never stopped wanting that."
He froze after those words had left her mouth and she looked at him searchingly. She saw a plethora of conflicting emotions lingering beneath the calm and controlled surface, she saw the things he wanted to say, the questions he needed to ask.
In a way, she dreaded having to answer those, but when he averted his eyes, cleared his throat uncomfortably and got up, her disappointment told her that she wanted him to say what was on his mind, that she needed to honestly answer his questions, that she was ready to. But she lacked the eloquence and the right words to make him stay, to get him to open up to her, so she watched helplessly as he headed out of her room.
To her surprise, he paused in the doorway, stood there for a few moments with his back still to her and then turned around. A barely visible, almost shy smile was on his face when he said, "We've never… celebrated that we're having a baby. What about… me taking you out to dinner tomorrow?"
"I'd love that," she whispered, a happy smile lighting up her face.
………
That night, when she made her way back to her room from her nightly visit to the bathroom, Joey's voice made her jump a little.
"The little one bothering you again?"
"Well, she sure doesn't let me sleep through the night."
Joey made a sympathetic face, but she waved it off and said lightly, "Just as well – I have to get used to it anyway."
She sat beside him on the lounger and he put both of his hands on her belly, as always prompting the baby to move around inside her.
"Hi sweetie," Joey cooed, making her melt. She could so see him being this wonderful, doting father.
"Mommy and I gotta think about a name for you," he said and looked at her expectantly.
It wasn't like she hadn't given the matter any thought, but she had thought he would have a few suggestions first. So she went with what she thought he wanted. "What about Gloria?" she asked.
Joey shook his head decisively. "Don't know about that. Might be weird."
That surprised her a bit so she asked, "Why?"
"I don't want to think of my mother every time I say the name of my daughter."
Rachel nodded, thinking about how it might feel for her if she called her daughter Sandra. She had to admit that Joey had a point. "Makes sense. So, any suggestions?"
Joey had never been good at pretending, so when he suggested naming the baby Phoebe or Monica she knew exactly that this wasn't what he really wanted.
She shook her head, dismissing his idea, and had the distinct feeling he was glad about that.
"What about Kate?" she asked then, knowing which territory they'd steer into with that.
"Ah… no. Ex-girlfriend."
She gave a short laugh, once because he was so honest about that and second because it confronted them with a bit of a problem.
"Joey, if we're ruling out the names of all your ex-girlfriends, we're gonna run out of names pretty quickly."
Joey didn't seem to share that concern. "We just need to steer clear of Kate, Andrea… and Melanie. Oh and Janine. Kathy, Ursula… that's about it. Oh and Angela. And…" he trailed off, looked at her, and began grinning when he saw her raised eyebrows. "And… I kinda start to see your point."
They smiled at each other for a while and she felt tingling warmth coursing through her blood. But she caught herself in time and cleared her throat awkwardly and decided to just come out and say what she'd been thinking about - name wise.
"Julia sounds kinda nice."
Joey looked away and thought about it for a while. Then he said, "Yeah… it does." And almost as if saying it to himself he added, "Julia Green."
"Julia Tribbiani," she corrected him hastily.
He looked at her seriously and not for the first time she wished she could read his thoughts. "You sure?" he finally asked.
Rachel heaved an inward sigh of relief. "Joey, you're her father."
He smiled a little and looked down at her belly. "Yeah… yeah, I am her father." Then he gingerly put his hand on her belly again and asked, "Were you ever wondering when it happened? Could your doctor tell you the date?"
"She told me a possible date, but it was somewhere in the first week and… well there were a lot of possibilities."
Joey smiled wistfully. "Yeah, the first weeks…"
"Well if a condom doesn't work in three out of hundred times, this means it doesn't work in one time out of thirty three and I guess we kinda arrived at that number fairly soon," she said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. For once, she didn't feel sad and she wanted it to stay that way, at least for tonight.
"We always had a great time together, didn't we?" Joey mused, still with this faraway look in his eyes.
"Never had a better time with anyone," she admitted.
"Then why…?" he started but stopped when he saw her pleading look. It wasn't like she didn't want to answer that question, this one, and any other question he had. But they had just made such an important decision about the future, she didn't want to taint that with painful memories from the past.
But Joey apparently wasn't quite ready to let it go.
"I just… you know, those first weeks were amazing. But I… I liked the last two better. The ones where we knew that we were in love. When we wanted to tell everyone, when we felt as if nothing could ever come between us. If I could have that feeling back, if I could ever be so sure of you again, so sure of us… "
She knew what he meant. She knew the feeling, the doubts. What she didn't know was how to get back to that feeling of security and trust Joey had referred to. But she knew she had to at least try.
"Do you remember what I said after we… dropped out of the friend zone?" she asked haltingly.
"That you felt something?" was Joey's equally careful answer.
She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes. "That I felt we could be a perfect fit," she said in a firm voice. "And we were. Or at least that's what I always felt… it's what I still feel, that you're truly my other half. You're the man who completes me. There will never, ever, be anyone else."
He hastily looked away from her after she'd said that. "How can you say that? Maybe…"
She interrupted him, suddenly very anxious to make him understand. "Joey, if I learned one thing out of this horrible thing I did, it was that nothing and no one could ever make me as happy as you did. You're the One. The only one."
It was God's honest truth, but when she saw him still avoiding looking at her, slightly shaking his head in refusal to believe her, she knew she had failed yet again to convince him of her sincerity. Not that it surprised her much.
While she fought back tears, he began to speak in a low, barely audible voice. "I… I want to believe that so badly. I mean, really believe it… here," he said, putting his hand above his heart. "But I don't think I can. Not anymore."
She wiped her eyes and nodded bravely. "I know," she said, trying to keep the tears out of her voice, "I didn't expect you to. I just wanted you to know."
After having said that she stood up and went to her room. As she stood in the doorway she turned around again. "I like to think it was the first night," she said quietly, lightly smiling, "That she was meant to be."
He smiled back a bit and nodded, "Yeah, I think that too."
tbc