"You sure she's not suspicious about me going to L.A. of the sudden?" Chandler asked as he went online and started to book a flight to Los Angeles.

Phoebe watched his movements on the laptop and nodded. "I'm sure. I told her it was a distraction so that you wouldn't find out about her going out to dinner with Don. Make sure you don't let on to her that you know about that. She still thinks you'll be all jealous about him, just like you are about Richard. Or were," she corrected herself. "I bet you don't even care about him now, do you?"

"No, I don't," Chandler said with an uneasy sigh. "I've been feeling too guilty lately from thinking about Joey, that I don't even try to scold her for flirting with guys all the time." He shook his head with disbelief and resentment. "You'd think she'd have more shame, being a married woman, but I don't even see her feel guilty when I catch her flashing her boobs at a karaoke bar, or letting soap stars autograph her bra, or drooling over the male stripper at your bachelorette party. It's like, does that wedding ring mean nothing to her? It only made her happy up until the wedding, and then the next morning, the thrill was gone."

Phoebe patted his shoulder comfortingly. "Well, now you and Mon can end this sorry excuse for a marriage and go on to better, happier relationships. I bet you and Joey will be so in love that you'll never have to get insecure about his commitment to you."

Chandler looked sadly into the distance. "I hope so. That's what I wanted to believe when he kissed me that night on Christmas. I wanted to think that he meant what he said about loving me. That it wasn't gonna be another crush that faded with time. I mean, sometimes it feels like Monica's lost all interest in me, especially since Daniel's been born. I've noticed that she's started to zone me out again when I talk about work, just like when I had my old data analysis job. Advertising can't be that boring, can it?"

Phoebe tsked disapprovingly. "Even if it is, you gotta make an effort for your husband. When David's all talking to me about physics, I try to at least know what experiment he's working on. I mean, after all, his paper proving that positronic distillation of subatomic particles can't be done yet was the whole reason why he got that job at NYU! I even taught Rachel how to memorize the titles of Ross's dinosaur papers, and I made him learn all that fashion jargon that he found boring before. They have to respect each other if they're gonna really love each other."

Chandler clicked the button to purchase his tickets to L.A. Now he was committed to this trip, even though he was scared of taking this step.

"Good for you!" Phoebe stood up and said, "All right, let's go get you packed."

Leaving the computer on the table, he hesitantly followed her to the master bedroom and got out his luggage, leftover from his commutes to Tulsa. As she started to help him pick out clothes to pack, Chandler asked her doubtfully, "Are you sure Monica's gonna fall in love with Don with just one dinner? I mean, neither of them even think of it as a date."

"Chandler, they're soulmates! It's meant to be. They will fall in love, even if I have to find excuses to keep pushing them together all weekend. You just worry about what you're gonna say to Joey when you get to his apartment."

Chandler looked worried. "What am I gonna say, Pheebs?"

"You're gonna say you love him, and that Monica's already got somebody else, so there's no excuse for him to keep moping in L.A. like that. Tell him he's got to come home."

"Are you sure he's moping about me? Maybe I'd just be intruding on his life--"

"Chandler, get it through your thick skull! He loves you. Even if he pretends that he's happy in L.A., even if he says he's dating somebody and he's moved on, don't believe him. If I had believed David when he bluffed like that to me, then I never would have been with him during those weeks before Barbados."

"But you ended up dumping him for Mike."

"I know! It was the stupidest thing I ever did. That'll teach me to let Monica meddle in my love life! I mean, one minute she was telling me that I should give it some time before I got over Mike, and the next minute she's talking Mike into showing up and proposing to me. I got all my emotions confused, I didn't know left from right, or right from wrong. What happened to her 'be patient' policy, huh? It was like she switched over to the 'go ahead, be hasty and lusty' mode that she was on during London, and we all know how well *that* worked out. Man, I'd never have forgiven her if I had wound up in a crappy marriage with Mike like you and Monica did." She shuddered at the thought.

Chandler recognized that shudder. He'd seen it before, on the flight home from Barbados, when Phoebe and Mike broke up. They caused quite a scene on the plane, fighting about the fact that Mike had just revealed that he had a girlfriend back in New York.

"What?!" she shouted furiously. "You came to Barbados to steal me from my current boyfriend! Why the hell didn't you mention your girlfriend to me before now?! Like before I slept with you in mine and David's hotel room? Before the never ending ping-pong match? Before we spent the whole weekend in Barbados acting like a lovey-dovey couple?"

"But I'm going to break up with her as soon as I get home!" Mike answered sheepishly.

"Yeah, and are you gonna tell her that you cheated on her all weekend? Where did she think you were all this time?"

"Just... out of town. I mean, sure I'll tell her that I cheated, Phoebe; that way, she definitely won't try to argue me out of the breakup. Now will you please calm down? What's the difference? She's just my girlfriend. You're the love of my life."

"Love of your life?" Phoebe scoffed and glanced at Monica for some reason. Then she gave a strange, unexplained gasp of horror and slapped Mike. "The love of your life is the one that you should be honest with! You've made me into nothing but a mistress, a tramp, a girl of no principles! A girl who'd dump her devoted boyfriend and jump on another guy the very same night! Get out of David's seat, get off this plane, and get the hell out of my life!"

"But, my luggage is--"

"Get off now, before the plane takes off and I have to throw you out of the emergency door!"

Faced with that threat, Mike got off in a hurry, and Phoebe kept shouting after him, "You bastard! You're nothing but a... a lawyer! Yeah, that's right! A lawyer! You put on your sweet piano player act, but you're just an evil lawyer! Evil!"

After Mike departed, and the deafening silence on the plane began to fill with tense whispers among the passengers, Phoebe muttered to herself, "I hope he rots in hell! Or worse, I hope he dates Ursula!" Then she choked and started to sob. "Oh God, I've lost David! I've lost him!"

Monica tried to hug her, but Phoebe repulsed her touch and moved over to Joey for comfort. He held her for the rest of the flight, while she alternated between curses about Mike and laments about David. Phoebe also shuddered at the thought that she had let Mike sleep with her so many times under false pretences. Even in the early days of their breakup, Mike had given her a rehearsed speech to convince her to have one last night of sex, and now in Barbados he had used her in an even worse way, cheating her of her David.

After the gang arrived in New York again, Phoebe had gone about in a depression for weeks, frantically trying to find David and beg for his forgiveness. David wasn't easy to find at first, because after leaving Barbados early, he had decided that he needed a change in priorities. He returned the engagement ring and moved in with some of his scientist friends from the failed Minsk project, and they all busily occupied themselves with finishing their joint paper and applying for positions at NYU. David had previously let himself get too distracted from work by his relationship with Phoebe.

Luckily, Ross saw David on campus for a presentation, and he informed Phoebe, who came as fast as she could to apologize for her behavior at Barbados and for all the times that she had ever accidentally called him Mike.

David wanted to melt into her arms, but first he had to ask, "If you love me so much, how could you leave me for him? Why couldn't you just forget him?"

She confessed through her tears. "Because I was afraid that you would leave me again. I waited for you for years, David, and every time you came back from Minsk, you couldn't stay. I was scared that when you got a new research grant, that you'd just go away again. I thought Mike was safer; I thought, I'm getting older and this is my last chance to settle down. I thought I wanted security, a future, and a normal, soccer mom life. I thought I wanted to join his snobby Park Avenue family, and it would make up for being so poor and homeless before. But I was wrong. What's the point of safety or money, if I'm not with the one I love? Even if we end up poor and cold, in the middle of nowhere, I want to be with you. Just you."

Deeply touched, David kissed her and whispered, "Oh, Phoebe." He wiped away her tears and met her eyes. "I'd lose all my toes to frostbite if I had to. I'd do anything for you. I love you."

They cried in each other's arms for a while, before they finally composed themselves and started to leave together. But suddenly David stopped them and remembered that he had to go break off a blind date that some of his friends had set him up on, to get over Phoebe. Hearing this, she happily kissed him and told him to come to her apartment when he was done. That was how they reunited, for the last time.

As Phoebe told Chandler the details of this reconciliation, he realized how much Joey meant to him and what he ought to say to bring him home.