Smoked Out

Chandler held the unlit cigarette between his forefinger and his thumb as he ran it under his nose and sniffed its length. It had been almost three weeks since the last time he smoked, and when he did indulge in that last cigarette, all he could manage was one slow drag before he impulsively extinguished it and tossed it away. He remembered everything about that last, brief hit of nicotine that brought with it all of those familiar sensations that his body constantly craves. Even now, all these years later after he tried his very first cigarette, he still felt that buzzy, lightheadedness that comes with each pull on the filter. His on-again, off-again affair with this addictive drug only intensified over the summer as it provided a much-needed release valve on all the pressure that was building up due to how he and Monica were handling the aftermath of the miscarriage.

He thought that his cravings would have stopped once everything seemed to be getting back to normal, and Monica was finally starting to come out of her depression. He had thought they turned a corner in those last few weeks of summer as she focused her newfound energy on starting them on their new adoption plan. Seeing her regain the signature Monica Geller spark that had died down in her for those long months after they left the hospital in June should have provided him with a sense of relief, but instead, it only seemed to trigger his own repressed emotions. He had worked so hard and concentrated on Monica and the children while they were trying to piece their lives back together, that he did not realize he was not allowing himself the chance to process everything that had happened to them. It was almost as if he was subconsciously holding back his own feelings of grief until Monica recovered. Now that it looked like she had, all of those emotions began to flood out of him.

Chandler had spent most of his adult life taking those complex feelings about the things that have happened to him and burying them deep inside himself. Their only escape would be a sardonic comment or joke that worked to suppress those uncomfortable emotions. He found out at a very young age that it was much easier to laugh at himself than process his feelings in a more mature and no doubt healthier way. Over time, he mastered the artful craft of keeping himself detached from the painful events he had experienced in his life. He was able to treat most of them as if they happened to someone else. His parent's divorce, his father leaving him, his mother's neglect, bullying at school, terrible relationships; it all went into the vault. All of the worst events of his life stayed buried in those deep recesses of his mind and they rarely threatened to emerge. That repression of his feelings and worst moments worked for him, and he assumed that was going to be how he lived his life until the day he died. That all changed though, once he fell in love with Monica.

Up until that night in London, Chandler took the hits that life offered him and recoiled into himself, avoiding confrontation and without allowing himself to acknowledge the pain he felt with each new emotional pratfall. It was better that way. He could quickly move on and use a superficial barometer to prove to himself that he was fine. It was easier to fantasize about a stripper and declare to himself that he was over a painful break-up, rather than seriously evaluate what went wrong. Why dwell on the hurt and the devastating blows to his dwindling self-esteem when he could spend a week in sweatpants watching porn and then go back to life as it was before he had his heart broken and without pointing a microscope at himself.

Being with Monica changed all of that. She had this key that unlocked him, and before he knew it, every negative emotion he tried to avoid, in order to protect himself, was free to roam about in his psyche. To his surprise, instead of bringing more pain and sorrow and discomfort, it freed him from all of the baggage he had been carrying around ever since the day his parents told him they were getting a divorce. With Monica, he found that he cried easier, he laughed and smiled with a sincerity that he did not know he was missing, and he loved with more intensity than he ever had before. He uncovered an empathy, not only for others, but for himself, that he did not know existed. Thanks to Monica, he eventually confronted his resentment towards his father, and discovered a newly defined and more rewarding relationship with him than he could have ever imagined. He acknowledged the distance between he and his mother, and found that in doing so, it actually brought them closer together. He uncharacteristically spoke aloud his doubts about his abilities to be a father, and instead of being riddled with self-doubt as a result, his confession gave him permission to fail, which in turn, made him a better parent. It was all because of Monica. She made him more vulnerable than he had ever been, but she also made him a better man.

Being this new version of himself was working, and despite all of his misgivings, he noticed the changes he was going through. He fought for the things he wanted with Monica in a way that he never had before. He brought himself to confront difficult moments of adversity, when in the past, he would normally let a relationship dissolve under the pressure of the first setback or bump in the road. Instead of running away from those uneasy confrontations with Monica, as their early courtship experienced growing pains, he dove head first into the uncomfortable maintenance that all relationships require, another thing he had never done before. He wanted for things out of life that he never allowed himself to believe he would ever need or find. He was comfortable in his own skin, and with Monica, he finally got to the other side of the tunnel that had dogged him for so many years.

Yet, when Monica fell into her depression, he found himself slipping back into old habits. He started to bottle all of his own feelings up and stuffed them deep down inside himself again. This time though, he convinced himself that he was not doing it to protect himself from some painful self-reflections, and instead, he was doing it for Monica. He was certain that the only way to help her heal and recover was to tamp down his own worries, doubts and fears. In those months after they had left the hospital, he knew that she did not need him to be the vulnerable Chandler who was in touch with his own feelings. She could not fix herself and him at the same time. She needed him to be okay and even keeled. She needed him to take it on the chin and bury it all down. She needed him to be the old Chandler. Even if he wasn't really capable of being that man anymore.

At first, he was able to at least play the part by concentrating all his attention on the twins. It was easy in those first few weeks as Monica was still recovering physically from her ordeal. He worked from home, changed diapers, made lunches and dinners, gave baths and carried them upstairs for bedtime when they were too tired to make the trip on their own. He was determined to be super-dad and take all of the pressure off of Monica. When she was finally able to do more around the house, she seemed to be on autopilot. She prepared meals for Jack and Erica, but it took her twice as long as it used to. She laid out clothes for them, but she no longer tried to make them match each other in some way like she had before. She read stories to them in bed, but found herself nodding off before they did. It was as if she were a zombie, or the ghost of Monica, wandering the halls of their home.

The only time she truly came alive, was when she was working at the restaurant. Early on, Chandler thought that it might be a positive step in the right direction for her, a sign that she was close to finding her spark again. Instead, it became an escape for her. She used it to distract herself from everything that was going on. Under normal circumstances, Chandler might not have noticed this, and kept thinking everything was going to be okay, but he recognized it right away, because it was exactly what he would have done all those years ago before he and Monica were together.

He was not sure what he could do to help. Any time he tried to bring up a conversation about where they were, she would grow agitated and suddenly have an emergency at the restaurant. She would race off and not return until after everyone else had gone to sleep. He would lie there in bed, awake, listening to her as she rummaged around and changed her clothes before she disappeared again downstairs to stay up late with the television on. He found her more times in the morning asleep in the recliner than in their bed. For a brief moment, he started to worry that maybe they did not love each other enough to survive this thing that had happened to them.

He was certain that something had to change. Their lives were becoming untenable as they felt more like roommates than husband and wife. He reached out to his mother. He was not sure why he turned to her. He thought that maybe with her connections that she might be able to recommend a therapist or some grief counseling they could try together. His mother never gave any details, but she spoke for years about being in therapy herself, and she was the only person he knew who had any experience with it. They spoke on the phone for a while, longer than they had in years, and he opened up to her about what the last three months of their life had been like. He shared his fears about Monica and how frustrated he was as he felt futile in his attempts to bring her back to him.

The next day Nora Bing came to the house. He was outside playing with Jack and Erica while she spoke to Monica. He never really found out specifically what they talked about before he came back inside with the twins, but Monica seemed affected by something his mother had said to her. That night, the two of them spoke in the bathroom and she shared openly with him in a way she had not done since the miscarriage. They agreed to adopt again and made love for the first time in over three months. Later that evening, he watched her for a while as she slept in their bed, and he realized that this was the first time since they got home from the hospital that they were actually going to sleep at the same time. When he was sure she was in a deep enough sleep, he snuck out of the bedroom, went downstairs, and wept before returning to her side and falling asleep himself.

He thought everything was going to change. That they had finally gotten through it, but then, he started to feel depressed and distant. It was as if a barrier had been broken open inside him, and he did not know how to deal with the intensity of his emotions. He did not want to burden Monica with how he was feeling so soon after she had finally started to emerge from her own melancholy, and instead, he channeled all of those feelings back into the one thing that could always make him feel better. The one thing that had never failed him. He started to smoke again.

At first, he stole a drag or two after work from a borrowed cigarette. He thought nothing of it as he bummed a smoke from a coworker and took a few puffs outside the building before he started his commute home. Soon enough, he found himself sneaking outside the house at night after the twins were put to bed and while Monica was still at the restaurant to take a few hits from a loose cigarette that he brought home from work. He always made sure not to smoke too much of it at one time, knowing that, even hours later, Monica could sniff it out with very little difficulty.

But in those brief moments, when it felt as if his lungs were being wrapped up in a warm, fiery blanket, he would forget everything else he was feeling. He would be overcome with that sensation that feels like you are breathing and holding your breath at the same time as he inhaled the smoke. His mind would stop focusing on what he was feeling and instead, it would be distracted by his body as he was overcome with the sensation of useless air trying to escape his lungs as he allowed the tightness in his chest to alleviate all the worry and doubt about everything they were going through. Smoking was this little piece of heaven and hell that felt familiar and strange all at the same time. It invited him to surrender himself to the tingling aftereffects of the nicotine as it entered his system.

A week went by, and he started to smoke more and more. A few, slow, deep drags of a cigarette, turned into three smoke breaks a day. One cigarette at lunch turned into five an afternoon. A handful of cigarettes here and there turned into a pack-and-a-half a day habit. He knew he had to stop and that no amount of gum, mints, mouthwash and body spray could cover the smell and then Monica would know. Oddly enough, he was not afraid to take a tongue-lashing from her about the actual act of smoking. He was much more worried about having to talk to her and tell her why he started smoking again. At a time when it seemed things were going back to normal, and she was becoming her old self again, he felt like he was drowning. Suddenly, he was the one avoiding conversations and intimacy with his wife. He was the one who buried himself in his work and found excuses to drive into the city and spend more time away from home. He was the one who was pulling away.

It was three months into his latest smoking binge when he found himself outside his building, ready to take another cigarette out and smoke it down to the hilt, in hopes that it would help him forget about the distance that was growing between he and Monica. He wanted to bottle up those fears and doubts with the numbing agent that he held there in his hand. He lit his cigarette and took one, long, slow drag and then looked down at the pack in his hand that he purchased that morning at the newsstand in his building. Instead of providing him comfort in knowing exactly how many cigarettes he had left for the rest of the day, he became annoyed. He felt this overwhelming resentment for this pack of cigarettes as if it were holding him back and keeping him from being truly happy. Suddenly, he became very aware that these fleeting moments of mollification were a mirage; they were a lie.

Something took him over that afternoon and he started to involuntarily cough as he choked on the smoke in his lungs. It was as if this was the first time he had ever smoked, and he lost the touch and rhythm required to do it properly. He hacked away and started to spit up. He made a mess as he expectorated all over the side of the building, and he realized that this fit he was having was not due to the cigarette he was smoking. It was him. This old version of himself that he climbed into to avoid his feelings was making him sick. The one who convinced him to smoke his pain away. This person he had become that told him not to feel anything ever since that night when Monica finally opened up to him. The one who made sure he did not confide in her about his own grief; the one person in the entire world that up until that moment, he knew he always could, without reservation.

As he leaned up against the building and wheezed out another couch, he realized that the real Chandler Bing had been lying dormant, hiding inside this imposter he had become, and now he was finally awake again and pulling himself violently out of his own throat. This person was the one who trudged into Monica's apartment after their first fight in Atlantic City because he knew he couldn't lose her. He was the one who declared his love for her in front of his friends, unabashedly, even though he was not sure she would say it back to him. The one who wanted to move in with her. The one who wanted to marry her. The one who went to great lengths to get her the perfect engagement ring. The one who chased her around Manhattan and confronted Ricard because he knew they were meant for each other and he was not going to give her up without a fight. The one who would do anything for her. He was pulling himself out of hibernation, and this old, repressed, smoker he had been for these last few months had to go if he was going to be that other Chandler Bing again. He could no longer be this person who became insecure about his ability to simply talk to his wife about how he was feeling. This old, useless version of himself had to leave. Not just for now, but forever. This person was not who he wanted to be anymore.

He threw the cigarette on the ground, stomped on it for good measure, and crumpled the pack in his hand. This was not going to be how he lived his life. This was not how their relationship would be for the rest of their lives. Not after everything they had been through. Not after the way they have dealt with adversity over these last few years. Not after resolving to pay for their own wedding. Not after finding out about their infertility. Not after the awkward search for a sperm donor. Not after their initial decision to adopt. Not after he convinced Erica that they were worthy of her child. Not after they were surprised to be taking home twins. Not after their difficult move out of the city and away from their friends. Not after this latest tragic turn of events and not for any future hurdles they would have to jump over.

He called his boss as he got in his car to drive home and told him he was going to have to take the rest of the day off. He drove quickly and when he finally reached his destination, and walked into his house, Monica had leapt up in surprise and noticed immediately that he was crying. He grabbed her right there in the hallway and hugged her tightly and when she asked him what was wrong, he chuckled and smiled. It was just like when they first started on this journey together. The weight and the burden he was carrying as he attempted to bury his emotions disappeared once he realized he was safe to share them with her. A lesson he needed to learn for a second time. He swore to himself that it would be the last time.

Chandler sniffed at the cigarette again as he stood out on the back patio. He was careful and made sure to stay up against the house and away from the window so as not to be seen by Monica's watchful eye. He initially came outside for a moment of fresh air before the adoption agency consultant came to do their home inspection. When he first stepped out the door, he laughed to himself when he remembered that he used to refer to smoking as fresh air. He recalled that he had an emergency pack of cigarettes hidden underneath a loose patio stone close to the side of the house. He went over to retrieve it and after wiping off the dirt, he slipped out the one cigarette that he now held in his hand. He was certain from the smell that it had gone stale. It seemed fitting, as the habit and the reasons he started smoking had also gone stale and were no longer applicable to who he was anymore. What he was certain of in this moment is that, like this pack of cigarettes that were buried in a shallow grave under the patio, so to was the man he used to be. Buried. Gone. Dead.

He walked over to the garbage can at the end of the driveway and opened the lid, ready to dump the pack of cigarettes into it and be rid of them forever, but he paused for a moment and turned back to the stone they were hidden under which was still turned up in the backyard. He smirked and walked over, replacing the pack and burying it once again.

"Never say never."

He looked at his hands and upon seeing loose dirt along his fingertips and palms, he started to brush them together in an attempt to clean them. The backdoor opened, which startled him. Monica leaned her head out and looked around. She locked eyes with him and huffed.

"Chandler? What are you doing out here? The person from the adoption agency is going to be here in two minutes!"

"I know, I just wanted to take one last look out here and make sure everything was okay."

"Oh. Okay. That's actually a good idea. Is everything all right out here?"

Chandler stepped towards her and placed his hand on the door as he slowly entered the house. "Yes. Everything is perfect."

Monica smiled and her eyes dropped down as she looked at him. One last, quick inspection to ensure that her husband was presentable. Her smile quickly turned into a frown as she grabbed his hand and turned it over. She gasped and narrowed her eyes as she glared at him sternly. "Why are your hands so dirty!"

A/N: This is pretty much the last of the chapters that will deal directly with the aftermath of the miscarriage and the six months or so afterwards. I wanted to close them out with both of them reflecting on the time that had passed, so Monica got the last chapter, and Chandler got this one. I hope I didn't bring the tone down too much, or dwell on it for too long, but I felt it was important to explore it and not brush it off or gloss over it. Plus, it was kind of a personal arc for me and I guess I needed to finish it right in order for it to get out of my head.

I tried to break up the chapters that are more introspective or sorrowful with some lighthearted moments, and I jumped around just a bit so we didn't experience the months of depression and recovery firsthand, but saw it as the two of them got these small moments of retrospection. I hope it worked.

The final few chapters of part 2 of this post-series story will deal with the adoption process, Monica being on Joey's TV show, and a wedding! So, humor and happy times ahead. As always, thanks for taking the time to read.