Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.

Thanks to realtimelover over on tumblr for giving me this idea!


"Hey, Erica?" Monica called her daughter back to the kitchen. The twins were fairly well-practised at their afternoon chores but something was missing and Monica had watched Erica skip a step.

It was Friday afternoon and she'd just brought the kids home. They tucked their sneakers into the cubby beneath the telephone table by the door. Or Erica did, Jack kicked his shoes off to hide them beneath the table. Monica closed her eyes when she heard the shoe hit the wall. The two of them knew Friday night meant they didn't have to do their homework the moment they got home, a choice Chandler insisted was a good thing to give them but Monica disagreed, the homework was always forgotten until the last minute on Sunday. Monica followed the twins to the stairs and then veered across the open plan to the kitchen, taking the newest member of the family out of the car seat baby carrier and depositing her in the bassinet in the kitchen where she kicked her chubby legs jovially while the twins rushed past to put down their bags on the low table beneath the stairs where they unzipped the middle pocket of their school bags to pull out their empty cooler bags by the handle and their drink bottles and march to the kitchen.

Jack had a Spiderman cooler and Erica, ever trying to be just like her father, had a Batman one. Monica watched proudly as they unpacked them at the sink, years of watching Monica do it and a little urging and encouragement, a couple of rewards here and there, had resulted in the twins standing on their matching steps at the sink and pulling out their lunch containers in reverse order to the way Monica stacked them inside the bags in the morning. First came the square sandwich box, then the rectangle that was half the size that Monica put vegetable sticks in. Last came the flat cylinder that Monica put their cut-up fruit in and the brightly coloured Tupperware forks and putting them on the bench.

Only one of the sandwich containers was missing. Erica's purple one.

"Is your lunchbox still in your bag?" Monica asked as her daughter began to chase her brother up the stairs so they could change out of their sports uniforms.

Erica, holding on to the end of the banister and about to race up the stairs, swung backwards, backtracking. While she wasn't moving the way she wanted, Erica continued with the same pace, skipping over to her school bag and kneeling over it, opening the top zipper, the one with the deepest pocket that was the standard opening for students to put their school-supplied laminate pouches stuffed with excursion notes and their school diary, their pencil case and their school hat.

From the bag, Erica pulled out the document wallet, empty, and a sheaf of crumpled paper that made Monica inhale and step forward to retrieve the papers from her daughter, just in case they were important school notes. When Monica smoothed the papers, one was the school newsletter, an A3 sheet of paper folded over in the middle to make four A4 pages celebrating the school's achievements for the week.

She watched as Erica shoved her hand, her whole arm disappearing into the navy blue school bag and swiping it along the bottom of all three pockets. Nothing.

"I think I left it at school, Mum," Erica announced, standing up. "I

Monica sighed and rubbed the space between her eyes. She'd gotten better over the years when things weren't going her way, living with Phoebe and working at Allessandro's had done that to her. As had having twin toddlers and the exhaustion that accompanied that.

"That's okay," Monica looked down at her daughter's big blue eyes and soft, mousy brown hair which had been pulled back in a ponytail and then woven into a plait to avoid getting nits this morning but was whispy around her temples and curled over her forehead now. She must have had fun at sport.

It was soccer this week, and Erica was pretty good at kicking the ball around with Chandler. Mrs Bain, the PE teacher, typically opened the sports shed on the days she worked and left whatever equipment she was using during her lessons out during lunchtime. Erica's story didn't surprise Monica one bit. Her twins, while well behaved, could drop everything for a more fun offer in a heartbeat if the price was right. Monica's need to control things in her life, a desire that had manifested as organisation skills - extreme ones if her best friend was to be believed - came in as thoroughly beneficial these days. "It's labelled, which means they'll give it back to you on Monday."

Just like her father, Erica had a thousand and one tells. Most of them were the same as Chandler's. Erica was gazing up at Monica, her hands clasped in front of her sheepishly and she tucked her bottom lip beneath her top one in a deep frown that somehow didn't wrinkle her forehead and actually made her eyes look wider.

"My name came off the other day."

Monica squinted at her daughter. Chandler had been making lunches this week, and they'd gotten into a good routine of preparing their twins' recesses on a Sunday night and preserving them in the appropriate ways so they could be used later in the week without going bad, only making sandwiches in the morning, which is probably why Monica hadn't noticed. But it was halfway through the year and the labels from her label maker were starting to fray at the edges but the adhesive was still strong. All of Jack's labels were still tenable.

"Came off? Or picked off?"

Erica's facade immediately dropped, her hands flying forward in an epic shrug. Her children spoke and looked like little people, they went to school and while their homework wasn't difficult yet, and they still wanted their parents' hugs and bedtime stories and company, they truly were growing up, so much so that sometimes it was easy to forget they were still so young. Practically babies. Moments like Erica's toddler-esque tantrum arms, and Jack's pouty lip when he grazed his knee were nice, if heartbreaking, reminders.

Erica puckered her lips. "Having my name on all my containers is so lame, Mum. No one else has their name on everything."

Monica bit her tongue, refraining from asking 'no one else?' and laughing at the exaggeration. She took a placating breath. She was going to deal with this calmly. The last time Erica had left her lunchbox at school a few weeks ago, Chandler had been home and had stood beside her with a hand on her hip. He hadn't said anything or even looked at Erica in a way that his daughter would respond to, but his presence and his steady hand had been enough to soothe Monica's fears that she'd react the wrong way and end the conversation as a reflection of her mother and having Erica hating her.

"That's their mother's problem, Erica," Monica explained.

She'd learnt a couple of things over the years. She and Chandler had bought all the books, but they were ultimately useless. Most of what she'd learnt had been from watching Chandler (he claimed he learnt things from her) and from the way she thought about her mother. Chandler never raised his voice. He took a breath which gave him time to calm down and organise his thoughts, but also typically gave the twins time to squirm and confess what they'd done. And when Monica thought back on her mother, her memories were tainted with the pressure that had been put on her to be better, different, healthier, more like Ross. A lot of what hindsight and maturity made her realise was well-meant and perpetuation of how her grandmother had treated her mother, had felt like Judy was accusing Monica of not being good enough at the time. Monica was was conscious of that and careful not to continue that cycle.

At its simplest, that meant not gritting her teeth at the risk of sounding passive-aggressive, and not using Erica's name or 'you.' So, Monica spoke as gently as she could without sounding patronising. "But we take care of our things. We bring them home and we have our name on them so that when we do accidentally leave them at school," Monica threw in the word because that's what this had been and she wanted Erica to know she understood that. "Having our name on them means that the teachers return them to us first thing the next day. Without a label, how are they going to know who the lost things belong to?"

"But the labels are ugly," Erica whined.

Monica shrugged. They were pristine white with glossy black print. They were clinical and professional and easy to read.

"You'll just have to make sure the first thing we do on Monday morning is go check the lost and found and hope nobody has taken it," her voice was stern, callous in a way Monica didn't like. But Erica had to learn that her property should be respected and her things taken care of. This happened a little more often than she and Chandler would like and Monica would prefer if her daughter unlearn the habit of running from the aluminium lunch seats to the playground without making a pitstop at her school bag. "And then we'll have to re-sticker it."

Erica huffed.

"There are a couple of different fonts you can choose from if you'd like," Monica offered. They were all too small or too cursive, uglier than the printed Times New Roman standard. At least having a choice might make Erica like the label a little, Monica hoped.


Monica scrubbed her face as she climbed into bed, crawling one leg onto the mattress and then the other. She had changed into a pair of tights and an old flannel pyjama top of Chandler's and was toasty warm.

"What's going on?" Chandler asked from the other side of the room where he was undoing his tie and stripping to his underclothes. He was worst than the children.

They'd gotten the twins into a good routine of changing out of their school uniforms the minute they got home, but Chandler in his office clothes immediately rushed to the living room or the backyard, following the noise and joining in the fun, often leaving grass stains across his shirts and falling victim to the hazards of wearing a tie. These days, milky spit-up and thrown mushy carrots were also included in the stains.

"Because that's more than just newborn exhaustion."

Monica groaned. "I have a feeling the teenage years with her are going to be rough."

"She's two months old," Chandler grinned. "You've got time."

Monica chuckled. He was so good at that, making her teeth unclench and her shoulders relax. "She's got a rebellious streak that we laughed at when she was little but -"

"Is this about the Tupperware?" he asked, crawling beneath the covers beside her and wrapping his arms around her. Monica nuzzled her cheek against his chest and then looked up at Chandler, stroking a hand down his chest for balance.

"Did she tell you? Or did Jack?" Monica asked. They were fairly certain Jack was going to be a reporter or a lawyer. He was a talker and absolutely loved recounting facts and stories, especially when he was tucked into bed and defying his bedtime.

"Erica told me. She said she was sorry," he smiled softly in the darkness and kissed Monica's temple. "She also said you weren't mad. Which I think translates to you were sad instead."

Monica shook her head at her husband. For the last ten months, it probably would have been, given her raging hormones. "It's not even that she doesn't like my label, or that she pulled it off on purpose. She said 'lame.'"

Chandler gasped appropriately and Monica whacked his chest because she knew the sound to be sarcastic. "Did she call you lame or your labels lame?"

Monica blinked. Even before she answered aloud, she could predict Chandler's argument. It wasn't personal, not at all, just a little bit of socialisation that would hopefully wear off with a little effort on their part.

"I'll talk to her tomorrow," Chandler vowed. "I'll do it while we shop down the vegetable aisle and she'll be so intrigued by the scales that she won't even realise she's being disciplined."

Monica grinned at the thought. Saturday grocery shopping was something she and Chandler had done for years even before they dated, and once they had the twins it became a family outing, an hour out of the confines of the house. Now it was a chance to catch up on whatever they'd missed because school ate into their time together, and Chandler cherished the time pushing the trolley, a twin on either side of him so he could spend more time with them. When the twins were toddlers, Monica had foregone the outing to rest, a designated hour to herself every so often, and more recently it had been time to catch up on housework and sleep and one on one time with the baby, something Chandler was thoroughly jealous of. One day soon their tradition was going to change, he'd be the one to stay home with the baby and she'd take the twins, or only one of the seven-year-olds would want to shop with Dad, or neither of them would.

Monica hoped the changes would happen slowly.

"You know," she folded her arms over her chest. "One day they're not going to want to come grocery shopping with us."

"Not true," Chandler shook his head and pressed his lips together. "My babies are always going to want to spend time with me."

"What about me?" she blinked, waiting to watch her husband squirm as he realised he'd put his foot in it.

He grinned at her, no teeth showing, and hummed. "You don't want them in the house while you clean."

He was right, of course. As much as Monica loved spending as much time as she possibly could with her children, and grocery shopping too, they were still seven-year-olds and messy. The twins were old enough to pack up their toys after they finished playing and liked organising their crayons back in the miniature suitcase they came in, but they were still rowdy and riotous and an hour and a half to herself was both a relaxing gift and a chance to vacuum unencumbered. Or sleep. Sleep would be good.

Monica must have yawned because Chandler's next words showed that he was either very good at reading her posture or capable of reading her mind.

She felt his fingers brush through her hair. "You're tired, Mon. The twins and I will go shopping tomorrow, I'll threaten to buy an ugly black container to replace the one Erica lost, and you can sleep in."

"M'kay," she hummed, curling against him comfortably.


"Daddy," Jack giggled in his car seat diagonally behind Chandler. "This isn't the way home."

"I know, Jackie," he gasped. "We're going to Mama's favourite place to buy her something. How 'bout that?"

The twins cheered in the backseat. Naturally. The last couple of times they'd gone to pick up a gift for Monica they'd gotten balloons or flowers or ice cream. This was not going to be that fun.

"Alright," Chandler parked the car and hopped out of his seat quickly, moving to the driver's side back door and ushering Erica out of their seat to stand at the hood of the car while Jack shuffled out behind her. Chandler locked the car and followed Jack over to Erica, taking each of them by the hand and walking into the cold air conditioning of the store. "Let's go find Mummy a present."

He knew exactly what he was looking for. He actually circled it in a catalogue last week and was planning on squirrelling it away for Monica's upcoming birthday, but now was a more practical time to give it to her.

The store was clinical with glossy white tiles and electronics and office furniture displayed all along the right-hand side of the warehouse. Pop music played over the speakers but that didn't make the place more enticing or interesting, as far as the three of them were concerned. It was all stationary - which to the twins meant school supplies and reminded Chandler that he needed to order office supplies for his team.

The one saving grace, and probably only because they literally sold good organisation practices, was that the aisles were simple to navigate.

"I'm thinking we buy Mum a new label maker," Chandler announced, watching Erica carefully as her face fell and she wouldn't meet his eyes.

He squeezed her hand.

"I saw one that prints on coloured stickers," he explained. "And I think that might be nicer to have, not just on our lunch boxes, but in the pantry on the spices, and in your rooms instead of those ugly white ones."

Erica giggled. "You're not allowed to call them ugly, Daddy."

Jack swung Chandler's arm to get his attention, leaning around his legs to see his sister. "Mummy's going to be mad," he sang.

Chandler shook his head in amusement. Monica would be mad that he was teaching them to act out, but he was actually hoping to play up that the old labels were bad so that the new kind, even if not that much of an upgrade, seemed far better.

"Let's go find it," Chandler rallied them with a squeeze to each of their hands and a gentle tug, walking towards aisle nine.

Chandler located the label maker box on the shelf, eighty dollars for ten different colours of labels, white and black ink automatically selected to be visible against the sticker, five fonts, which was two more than their current label maker had and nine new colours to choose from. Plus, as a bonus, there were what the box termed 'stamps' that could be added to the labels, a little picture of a star or a dolphin or a spider.

Oh no.

There were two boxes, practically identical white cubes with matching images of a navy label maker printed to be the "actual size" on the front of the box beneath a list of features. The box on the left had ten images it could print - a smile, a heart, a dinosaur, a dolphin, a unicorn, a star, a rainbow, an ice-cream cone, a teddy bear, and a car. But the box on the right had a few minor changes, a spider instead of a rainbow, a pirate ship instead of a dinosaur, and a truck instead of a unicorn.

Chandler knew he probably shouldn't, given how much Jack liked Spiderman and Erica liked unicorns, but he picked up both boxes, squatted down to level with his children, and explained what the machine did and what the differences between them were.

"So there are two types we can get. They both print stickers the same as Mum's old label maker, but they also have pictures that you can add. This one," he pointed, "has a rainbow and a dinosaur and a unicorn."

"Cool," Jack cooed and Erica clapped happily.

"But this one has a spider."

"Awe-some," Jack murmured.

Chandler grinned at the boy. "It has a ship and a truck as well."

Erica's nose wrinkled in distaste.

"But before you decide," Chandler bribed unabashedly. "We can always go find actual stickers like Spiderman and unicorns."

"Ben Ten?" Jack perked up. He'd stop up like a weed in the last year, taller than Chandler was ready for him to be given that he was the tiny little infant that was smaller than the length of his forearm when Chandler first met him.

"Ooh, and Hannah Montana?" Erica added hopefully.

"Can we swap it so we get the pirate ship and the dinosaur?"

Chandler shook his head. His kids were too smart for their own good. "I don't think so kiddo."

The pair of them looked at each other, gesturing with their hands and heads, Monica wasn't kidding when she said they communicated the same way he did, but didn't say anything.

Jack, designated spokesperson, addressed Chandler so formally Chandler melted a little. "We've come to the conclusion that we would like the labels with the unicorns because the spiders might scare you when you wash up."

"Hey!" Chandler protested, secretly proud. "What about Mum?"

Erica snorted just like Monica did sometimes. "Mamma's not afraid of anything."

He ruffled Erica's hair. "You're not wrong, sweetheart."

Chandler tried not to groan as his joints cracked as he stood straight, replacing the box they didn't want on the shelf and then double-checking it was the one they didn't want and the one in his hands was the correct one, asking the kids to confirm their decision just to be sure.

"Now let's go find those stickers."


Chandler looked pale and proud simultaneously when Jack and Erica ran into the house screaming they had "something for mummy." Monica suspected that was the reason it had taken them so long to come home and also that he planned on wrapping whatever it was they'd gotten, fixing it up in some way because his face screeched that he didn't want them to give away the surprise.

"For me?" Monica's voice was high-pitched to emphasise her shock. "You shouldn't have. What is it?"

It was a fairly large, heavy-looking box roughly the size of a soccer ball and Jack presented it to Monica with a giddy, toothless grin.

Erica rubbed her hands together in front of her waist. "It's a new label maker that prints pretty labels and fun animals. We also got pretty stickers for our lunchboxes so that everyone knows they're ours."

Monica beamed down at her daughter. Whatever Chandler had done, it had been successful. That was a complete turnaround from her stoic, having her name on the box was too embarrassing and uncool stance.

Monica knelt between the twins and threw her arms around them.

"Thank you, you two. I love you," she kissed each of their cheeks, Jack first so that when she kissed Erica she could thank her personally. "Thank you for understanding, Erica."

"Dad," Jack asked. "Can we go out and play?"

Monica watched as Chandler pat his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Go change into your run-around clothes first."

"Come on, Eri!"

"Race you!"

The twins ran off in a flurry of giggles.

"Careful. No running on the stairs!" Chandler's voice boomed.

"You're never going to win that one, honey," Monica would prefer it if they didn't run in the house at all, but at least they were confident on their staircase and still gripped the banister when they ran it. She stood up slowly. "Thank you for this."

"I was going to get it for you anyway," Chandler shrugged. "The kids finally realising your stickers are lame was just a good excuse."

Monica twisted her lips and glared at her husband. "You're lucky I love you."

"Believe me," Chandler took a step forward and kissed her lips, not touching her anywhere else. "I know."

Monica couldn't fight her smile and let Chandler go back out to the car to bring the groceries in while she sat at the dining table and opened her gift, keen to read the instructions and find out how it worked.

Chandler moved in and out of the kitchen, bending to put things in the refrigerator crisper and stretching up to the freezer, twisting to put things away in their proper place in the pantry. The movements were rhythmic and consistent and Monica could down them out because of it. It was when he stopped moving to stand up straight, hip cocked against the bench and watching her read that Monica addressed him.

"You don't have to do that now," Monica told Chandler when she realised that he was unmoving because he had lifted a container out of the dishrack and slid his thumbnail beneath Jack's sandwich container label. "Let the kids do it after they come in."

Chandler snorted. "No. We're not showing them how to peel the stickers off. I'll do it."

"You are so smart," she kissed him happily and then fell back to her flat feet. "Remember to scrub all the glue off them and dry them really well when you're done."

It wasn't until the next day that they got around to labelling the containers. They made a day out of it, doing other crafts too, but the main even was picking fonts and making practice stickers.

Once upon a time, using a label maker would have been the highlight of Monica's day - being organised and efficient in one fell swoop. But Monica was finding that there was nothing she enjoyed as she did simply watching Erica type in her name with her tongue poking against her top lip in concentration.

Monica delighted in the way Erica scrolled through the pictures she could have at the start and end of her name. Her daughter's entire face lit up when Chandler said she had enough containers to do a different image on each container.

Jack had been filled with such joy as he picked the colour red for his stickers with white lettering, or electric blue, each label matching the plastic of the Tupperware. Monica basked in his laughter as he stuck the outside scraps of his sheet of stickers to Chandler's face.

After that, Monica kissed Chandler's eye, his lips hidden by the stickers, and the twins giggled. She loved that Jack sought her help to stick his label perfectly straight against the lid of his containers. Just like his twin, he held his breath while he was concentrating, humming in frustration when there was a bubble beneath the adhesive.

Monica couldn't be sure about the kids, but she'd never had so much fun.

And never again did Erica Bing lose her container. Well, she did, but it had a purple unicorn sticker with her name written on it with a heart for a dot over the top of the 'i' and was always returned to her possession before the end of the day because of the placement of Spiderman's head and a microphone sticker to make it look like the superhero was singing was so recognisable.