A/N: Again, apologies for being so late with this chapter. I'm in a bit of a 'Brokeback' mood right now and had some trouble focusing my attention on straight guys again. ;) Btw, if anyone is interested, I've read the most impressive, heartwarming and well written BBM story during the last few days - Human Interest 2759902 by MadLori (it's a pretty long story, but soooo good). The author is such a gifted writer (professional writer at that) that I feel pretty inadequate in comparison. Good for you though, because that means I won't detour into writing for another fandom any time soon. ;)

Thanks for the reviews, having more than one hundred reviews for this story makes me more proud than I probably should be. Okay, on with the next to last chapter.

TOW the official announcement

Getting up in the morning to go to work was something that had never been easy for her. She had never been a morning person.

It had gotten even worse when she got pregnant and her blood pressure went south the minute she got out of bed. But this morning had to be the worst. Not because she was feeling bad, not because she was sick or tired or anything, but because when her alarm sounded and she opened her eyes, she found herself snuggled up against one Joey Tribbiani. Getting out of bed, leaving his embrace and dragging herself away from him, seemed like the hardest thing she ever had to do.

She felt him tenderly kissing the top of her head. "Morning, baby."

"Good morning," she murmured back, turning around to him and giving him a quick kiss.

"Rach, I'm afraid you have to go to work," he said after a while.

"I don't want to."

She looked up at him and the sight did nothing against the overwhelming wish to stay right here with him until the end of time.

"Maybe you can call in sick?"

"I already used a lot of my sick days for being in the hospital and stuff. But I really don't want to. I don't want to leave you."

He gave her another kiss. "I'm not gonna go anywhere. I'll stay right here."

Rachel propped herself up and looked down at him, her gaze wandering over every feature of his face, over the exposed upper part of his torso and back again to a contentedly smiling mouth and happily sparkling eyes.

"Is this a dream, Joey?" she asked, gently caressing his face. "Because it feels like one."

Instead of answering her right away, he took her hand and sensuously kissed the inside of her wrist.

"If it is, who cares, as long as we're dreaming it together?" he finally said when she had already forgotten she had said something before, winking at her.

Like a spring flood, the emotion pouring out of her heart rushed through her soul, taking away with it everything that threatened to taint, to overshadow what she felt for him, sweeping away painful memories like it were ramshackle huts, leaving shapeless ruins that were barely serving as a reminder of what had been there.

"I love you… so much," she whispered, not trusting her voice not to break or falter, but desperately needing to tell him.

"I love you too," he replied with a relaxed seriousness, that appeared so new to her, after seeing him in tense desperation for so long.

"I don't want to go," she stated after they had kissed again.

"You have to," he reminded her dutifully. "At least, if you like your job."

"Not as much as I like you," she gave back, partly because she knew he couldn't resist flattery and mainly because it was the truth.

Joey didn't look like he was going to take the bait. "Why don't we give you something to look forward to?" he asked instead.

Moving closer, she whispered in her best seductive voice, "Oh, I know what I have to look forward to, but I don't even have to leave this bed to get it."

"No, I mean…" he started but thankfully got sidetracked when she started to kiss the side of his face, her hand purposefully heading south. But then he grabbed her wrist right before she reached her target.

"Yes, that too," he said with a grin and then got serious again. "But what about, you know, making it official? They don't know yet that we're back together so…"

A look of alarm crossed his face when she pulled back from him, her obvious intentions all but forgotten. Another bout of feelings rendered her unable to speak for a while. He meant it. He really meant it. It occurred to her that, yes, she should've known he wouldn't say the things he'd told her last night lightly, that he had given the matter a lot of thought. But then again, things had happened so fast afterwards, she still had problems believing it to be the truth, to be real. At least she had up until now.

"God, Joey," she forced herself to say after the lines of a worried frown etched themselves deeper and deeper into his forehead. "That is… what I always wanted. Sitting down, making them listen and then telling them."

His expression relaxed considerably and he drew her to him again for a lingering, gentle kiss.

"Do you still know your speech?" he asked after he had pulled back.

Smiling, she nodded and started to recite what she had committed to her memory six months ago.

"We know this might come a bit unexpected, but Joey and I want to tell you that we're seeing each other. We've been in a relationship for almost two months now and we're really happy." Her smile grew wider when she came to the last part, lowering her voice to a husky whisper. "We're in love."

"You really still know it?" he asked, though he seemed not really surprised.

"Wasn't much of a chore. I think you got the harder part."

He nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah, I think I did."

(Flashback day 43)

Rachel came home bouncing with energy. Her day at work had been great and she looked forward to spending the evening with Joey. A big happy smile spread over her face at the thought and she briefly wondered what people might think who saw her grinning like that. Although she didn't really care. She had found love again and she had found out that she had completely forgotten how good it felt, how perfect, how wonderful.

Nothing could really faze her anymore, it never took more than thinking of him to elevate her mood. It never took more than a kiss from him to make the world around them fade into insignificance. It never took more than him murmuring "I love you", to make her the happiest woman in the world.

When she opened the door, she found her boyfriend on the verge of a mental breakdown, surrounded by a plethora of crunched pieces of paper.

"What happened here? Tornado came and messed up our living room?"

Joey smiled a little tortured smile and stood up, stepped to her and gave her a quick kiss. "I'm working on what to say to Ross."

"Aww, poor baby. Have you gotten anywhere?"

"Look around you, that's the result of four hours' work."

He sighed dramatically and plopped down on the couch again, put his head in his hand and stared down on another piece of paper as if he could force the right words to appear on it by the power of his will.

Rachel took the trashcan and started to pick up the papers, reading a few of them before throwing them away.

"Ross, I know you're gonna hate me in five minutes… hmm, assuming too much. Ross, what would you say if I tell you I found the right woman… aww, Joey, I'm the right woman?"

"This is what I keep telling you. Would be odd, though, to say it to Ross that way."

"Agreed. So… Ross, remember when I told you that women are like ice-cream?... Joey, what's that supposed to mean?"

Joey leaned back and propped his feet up on the coffee table, apparently giving up on accomplishing anything in the next minutes.

"The day you moved in with Monica, Chandler and I were at Ross's helping him to move into his new apartment. He was still broken up about Carol and I told him that thinking there might be just one woman for every man was as ridiculous as saying there is only one flavor of ice cream for everyone."

"And?" she inquired, vaguely remembering Ross telling her about that conversation, back when they had been together.

"Well, I sorta wanted to say that I had found my favorite flavor. But then I realized that this whole comparison is really immature, so…"

The thought that he regarded her as his 'favorite flavor' was a pleasant one and she wasn't so ready to outright dismiss this approach, but after thinking about it for a few moments, she decided that he was probably right. She threw the paper in the trash and reached for the next one.

"Right. Okay, what do we have here? …oh, there are no words on this one."

She turned the sheet around in her hand and looked puzzled.

"Oh, that's just a little drawing I did to distract myself," Joey said, giving her a lopsided grin.

"Really, what do I see here?" Rachel asked, still not seeing what it was that Joey had drawn.

He walked over to her and looked at the sheet, too. Then he turned it around in her hand. "You have to look at it that way."

"Oh…"

A little blush heated up her cheeks when she realized what she was seeing. Not so much because it embarrassed her, but because the crude little drawing depicted exactly what had occupied a lot of her thoughts on her way home. Suddenly her focus rapidly narrowed. All she was aware of – acutely so – was his body so tantalizing close to hers, his warm breath caressing the side of her face. With demonstrative slowness she put the trashcan down and turned to him, leaning into his body and looking up at him with an expression that she hoped was unmistakable. But just to make sure, she felt compelled to make the invitation clear.

"Maybe we should do a little of that and maybe then it will be easier for you to think to… find the right words."

"You always have the best ideas," he murmured while his mouth slowly descended to hers. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

………

Half an hour later she sat on his bed, back rested against his naked chest.

"Did it help?"

"It always helps," he replied and even though she didn't see his face, she could hear the broad grin in his words.

"I mean, what about… thinking about what to say? I mean, you still have a few days but then…"

"Do you have your speech ready?" he asked, stomping on the rest of her sentence. She knew it was his way of changing a topic that was extremely uncomfortable to him. He didn't like the idea of having to confess to Ross any more than she did, but it had been his idea that he should be the one to tell him and she had agreed, with not only a little relief. They both knew they had put it off long enough, using even Monica and Chandler's honeymoon as an excuse for 'we'll tell him later', but time was running out. Still, she couldn't bring herself to pressure him, so she went with his question.

"Of course I have. Wanna hear it?"

"Shoot."

She turned around and straightened up a bit, clearing her throat importantly and then once more when she noticed that he was appreciatively ogling her exposed upper body instead of paying attention.

When his gaze snapped back to her face, she began.

"Well, we know this might come a bit unexpected, but Joey and I want to tell you, that we're seeing each other. We've been in a relationship for almost two months now and we're really happy. We're in love."

His expression, that had been more of a leer while his eyes had started wandering again during her speech, changed to disbelief.

"That's it?" he asked incredulously.

"Hey!" she cried with mock exasperation. "What's that supposed to mean?" knowing full well what he meant. "It's perfect. It contains all the necessary information, it goes right to the point and it's short enough for them to be able to start asking questions without interrupting me."

He sighed resignedly. "Looks like I got the hard part."

"Yeah, I'm afraid you did."

(End flashback)

Chandler was bored – and a little annoyed.

Phoebe and Monica were chatting about something that didn't concern him and he was done reading the magazine he'd brought with him. Normally, Joey would be here and provide some sort of entertainment, but for some reason, he wasn't there.

Just when he was about to get up, excuse himself and go to be bored in front of the TV, the door opened and Joey came in, Rachel in tow. Holding hands with her.

Chandler immediately knew what that meant. Or at least he hoped he did. Detecting the cautious smile on Joey's face confirmed his suspicion. Trying to contain an idiotically wide grin, he vacated his spot on the couch for the couple and sat down on the armchair.

Monica and Phoebe greeted them, but soon fell silent when they too sensed the air of expectation that hang around them, the sense that something profound had changed.

Joey gripped Rachel's hand a bit tighter and looked around for a moment, his expression almost impassive, controlled in a way that Chandler hadn't expected. He had always thought once the two of them would get back together, they would burst with joy. And he knew it was there, apparent in their body language, in the way their eyes sparkled and their skin was flushed. There seemed to be a bouncing, restless energy in both of them that they had carefully restrained, roped together and covered up, probably in an attempt not to jinx anything by being too euphoric, too enthusiastic and too sure that this time, everything would work out just fine.

It had Chandler smiling a little. He knew the feeling.

Joey didn't say much. Especially nothing anyone of them didn't already know or suspect. That they still loved each other, that they wanted to be together – really together – again. Wanted to be a family.

All of them nodded solemnly and only a little, almost comical "Yay!" escaped Phoebe, as if they too didn't want to ruin the moment with exuberance. A strange silence crept between them during which they realized how little they had to ask to establish this new situation.

It didn't seem new to them. Joey and Rachel already lived together, had done so for years. They had already bought almost everything for the baby – together. They had gone to Lamaze classes - together - when Joey's shooting schedule allowed it. There was but one thing that has changed and that was something they knew nothing about. Not before and not now.

"Kiss her," Phoebe spoke into the silence and the eerie feeling that she had read his thoughts flitted through Chandler's mind for a moment.

"What?" Joey implored, as if he hadn't heard her right.

"You heard me, Joey. Kiss her. In all this time, we've never seen you two kiss. Not once, not even a little."

It took an effort for Chandler to bite back a grin at seeing Joey's face turn crimson until the furious blush reached his hairline. The very man who hadn't been much embarrassed by Chandler walking in on him and his many conquests during sex was uncomfortable with this little public display of affection. But maybe that was just the reason, that this time, it was genuine affection, genuine emotion that was to display, not just 'having scored'.

Then again, he didn't object, didn't try to get out of it. He just turned to Rachel, gently touched her face as if to ask permission and then leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. He was about to pull back, when Rachel closed the opening gap again, treating them to the sight of a languid, sweet and lingering kiss, followed by the two of them smiling at each other and looking for all the world as if they had forgotten that they weren't alone.

"Aww," Monica sighed after a while, making them aware of their surroundings again.

They both turned and smiled radiantly, their happiness brightly shining through the increasing number of cracks and tears in the surfaceof their reserved, tightly controlled demeanor.

"If we had known we only had to make out in front of you, it'd spared us a whole lot of thinking about what to say to make it official," Rachel quipped.

They missed a beat and then laughed. Not so much because what Rachel said had been funny, but because it was freeing, because everyone felt a burden being lifted from them. Not just from the reunited couple, but from all of them.

At least, from almost all of them.

………

When Ross came into the coffeehouse a few minutes after six, he stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Joey sitting in the armchair. For the last months, they had somehow found a way to avoid each other. By some unspoken agreement, Joey was in the coffeehouse until six, after six Ross was there. It had worked so far, but now Joey was sitting there, looking as if he was waiting for him.

The rest of the gang was conspicuously absent.

Joeys expression was still stony and dark, but there wasn't the burning rage or the defeated desperation he had usually seen in his eyes. To buy himself some time, Ross walked over to the counter and ordered a cappuccino from Gunther. Then he slowly walked over to the couch, trying to look confident.

"Hi Ross," Joey greeted him politely, no trace of warmth in his voice.

"Hi Joe," Ross replied, opting to not ask him what was up. Luckily, Joey didn't let him wait.

"I came here to tell you that Rachel and I are back together. We decided we still want to have a future together and we want to be… a family."

As hard as he might have tried, Joey couldn't keep the happiness and excitement he surely felt at that thought out of his voice and it made Ross smile. "I'm so happy for you two. You have no idea how glad I am you could get over… what happened." He almost choked at his last words and looked away from Joey again.

A sharp feeling of loss cut through him when he thought about everything that had changed for him. He had lost a friend and he had no one to blame for that but himself.

"Ross," Joey spoke into the silence and just this one word sounded different than what he had said before. Less confident, less rehearsed. "I want you to know that I forgive you for what you did. I know what it means to be in love with Rachel, I know how hard it is… how impossible… to let her go. I have no idea what I would've done in the same situation."

Ross put his cup down on the table again, because his hands were shaking so hard, he was afraid he might spill the hot liquid. To say that what Joey had said took him by surprise would be a vast understatement.

"Joey, I'm so… thank you, man, I…" Ross was cut off by Joey lifting his hand.

"I'm not saying we're gonna be best friends again. At least… not now. It took me six months to get back with Rachel. So… I'm just saying you don't have to avoid me anymore."

"I had the impression you were avoiding me," Ross said honestly.

Joey chuckled at that without seeming to be amused.

"Not because you're afraid of me," Ross tried to correct the wrong impression. "But because… you just didn't want to see me. You know, Rachel never set foot in the copy shop ever again, even after Chloe stopped working there."

Ross didn't quite know why he felt the need to tell Joey that, maybe he just wanted to express that he knew how much it must have cost him to take that step.

Joey didn't say anything to that but the ensuing silence didn't seem strained or uncomfortable to Ross. It felt like an encouraging sign that Joey didn't seem in a hurry to leave.

"Can I ask you something?" Ross asked after a few minutes of silence.

With a curt nod, Joey gave him the sign to go ahead.

"If Rachel wasn't pregnant, if it had just happened, would you still have forgiven her?"

The second he heard the question coming out of his mouth, he knew he had put it totally wrong. Joey's reaction was accordingly.

"You mean like I only made the effort because she's pregnant with my child?" he replied with a sharp undertone to his voice.

"Joey, I didn't mean to…"

Joey waved his apology off and sighed wearily. "It's okay, Ross. I guess it's a fair question. You want to know if I might be more forgiving than Rachel was with you."

Ross nodded, a little astounded that Joey was able to put it into words so much better than he could.

"Thing is, as similar as these situations seem on the outside, they're not. Rach and I didn't even have a fight before she went to you, she just did it. On the other hand, she was upset and emotional and… you two pretended to be on some weird time travel…"

Ross felt his face burn like fire at the sudden embarrassment about Joey knowing about that. It had been a moment in his life he was trying his hardest to forget, to shove into some dark part of his brain where he never had to stumble over it ever again.

"She told you about that?" he asked, not quite willing to believe that Joey knew about that from Rachel. Then again, who else could have possible told him?

"Yeah, she did," Joey confirmed solemnly, as if it was no big deal at all. "Actually helped me to get a bit of perspective on that."

"What, to know that I was a total nutcase?" he spit back without thinking. He knew he was getting angry – irrationally so – at the humiliation he was just facing, but he couldn't help himself.

"Looked a lot better to me than the asshole who slept with my pregnant girlfriend," Joey gave back with equal irritation.

In this moment it became clear to Ross that they were walking on pretty thin ice, probably would be for a long time to come, regardless of forgiveness.

He shook his head and stared into his empty cup, not daring to look at Joey. Waiting for him to storm away in anger. But he didn't.

"Look Ross," he heard him say in a tone that seemed to ask for understanding. "I know you were in over your head with the situation. Fact is, we all were. That was the reason everything went so far downhill. We hadn't intended for you to find out that way, believe me. And I know … I should've talked to you before I started things with Rachel. If she wasn't pregnant, if things had been different, I would probably be the one of us sitting here feeling guilty."

Ross instantly knew that this was the closest Joey would ever come to apologize for being together with Rachel. He hadn't expected him to, he hadn't expected Joey to still value the rules of friendship so much, even after Ross himself had broken them so severely.

"I can't even tell you what I would've said if you had tried to talk to me," Ross said after mulling Joey's words over, finally mustering the courage again to look him in the eye. "I probably would've handled it as badly as I handled everything else."

Joey just shrugged and leaned back into the chair. "Who knows? I guess it's pretty pointless to think about the 'what if's' now."

There was an air of finality to his words and of course, he was right.

"So then, what now?" Ross asked, just the keep the conversation going. Even though they were traipsing through dangerous territory, it felt a lot better than not talking to him at all, like it had been for months.

"Seven weeks…" Joey said with a faraway look, "It's still seven weeks. That's more or less all I can think about at the moment."

Ross smiled a bit, lost in memories. "I suppose it's all you should think about at the moment, Joey."

tbc