The Best Friend

Chandler rubbed his eyes with his palms. He was starting to feel the haze of the alcohol wear off and a dull pain began to thump around in his head. He took a quick glance out of the small, circular window next to him. He wasn't sure what he was looking for in the darkness of the night sky. The only thing to meet his gaze were some blinking lights on the wing of the plane. They had already been in the air for two hours, but it felt longer than that since his pleasant boozy high started to fade the moment the plane took off from JFK. He was finding himself becoming irritable. Every noise from the other passengers were compounding his impending mood swing. It felt like something in his brain was trying to claw its way out. His conscience, his better judgment, or perhaps it was the misanthropic other guy he had buried deep into the corners of his mind the moment he saw Monica's lugubrious body language when she stepped out of her room and collapsed on the couch. He denied that guy access to all he would usually feed on as he cut jagged edges in the air with his sharp wit and poisonous tongue. Now though, with his buzz waning, that guy seemed to want out. The guy who was still bitter and angry at how things ended with his virtual courtship. The guy who wanted to brood and mope about and send Chandler into a sweatpants-wearing downward spiral where he slept all day and listened to sad songs all night. The guy who made everyone else miserable and tried to push them all away.

Suddenly, Monica crashed down on her seat beside him, giddy with mischievous exhilaration. He turned to face her and offered a weak smirk. "Oh man. I didn't think you could get a hangover while you were still drunk, but my head is killing me."

Monica pulled her seatback-tray down and unloaded several tiny bottles of booze on top of it. They began to spill out and roll around in uneven circles. She started to reach around the tray to catch the errant bottles and then flashed him a roguish smile.

"Look what I found!"

Chandler eyes went wide as he looked over the bottles. He nervously ran his hand through his hair and looked down at her. "Found? Or stole."

"What? They give these away."

"No they don't. They charge for alcohol. The soda is free."

"Technicality!"

Monica looked up and saw one of the flight attendants slowly walking up the aisle. She felt an outlaw's rush of nervous energy as she let her eyes dart back-and-forth between the woman making her way towards their seats, and the contraband she had smuggled from the drink cart at the back of the plane. She nervously began grabbing the small bottle and throwing them in Chandler's lap.

Chandler sat up and stared at her incredulously. "What are you doing?"

"Shh!" Monica continued throwing the bottles at him, causing him to appear like a juggler running out of hands as he tried to catch each one and keep them from falling on the floor. He finally scooped them all up into his lap and Monica tossed her jacket over to cover them. Monica then sat back and began to whistle in an obvious attempt to appear nonchalant as the attendant walked past them.

Chandler glared at her. "I don't like drunk Monica."

Monica scoffed and looked at him as if he were trying to make her believe in something that was obviously not real. "That's not true. Everybody likes drunk Monica. Phoebe always tells me how she's more fun."

"Getting arrested by an air marshal for stealing ten ounces of booze is not my idea of fun. What is with you anyway? You've been amped up ever since we got on the plane."

"I know! We should take a trip every year! We can call it a, uh, plane-iversary."

"Do we have to?"

Monica looked forward, still smiling at her newfound wanderlust. "I feel like a daredevil! I'm on a plane and I don't have anything packed. No travelers' checks, no change of clothes, no toothbrush, no toothbrush case, no toothpaste, no toothpaste case…"

"They make cases for toothpaste?"

Monica turned to him and grabbed his collar as she pulled him close to her. "I'm losing my mind. How could you let me do this?"

"Let?" Chandler started to gesticulate wildly with his hands. "What are you talking about! This was your idea!"

Monica released him and slumped back into her seat. She reached her hand over and grabbed a bottle from Chandler's lap. Without inspecting the label, she snapped off the cap and drank half of it down.

"Woah, slow down there, champ. You'll never make it to Vegas."

Chandler stuffed the rest of the bottles into the seatback pouch, slipping them in-between pamphlets about airplane safety and the inflight magazines. He sat back and studied Monica for a moment. Even now, drunk, on a wild adventure that was completely out of character, her eyes could not betray how she was really feeling.

He leaned over and spoke softly. "Hey, how are you holding up?"

Monica shook her head demonstratively. "Nope. We're not doing that. The whole reason we are here is so that I don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"The whole 'what happened with you and Richard' thing. Okay. That's why I'm here with you. You don't do that kind of stuff. You're not the deep one who cares about all the details."

Chandler took umbrage with her assumption and folded his arms tightly. "Hey! I care about that stuff."

Monica cackled as she lifted the bottle to take another swig. "Oh yeah. Okay. Why did Kip and I break up?"

"Didn't you come home one night and find him wearing one of your dresses?"

"What?"

Chandler let his fingers dance along his chin as he looked up. "Actually, that might have been my parents."

"See, you don't know because you don't pay attention to that kind of stuff."

Chandler scoffed and then looked out the window. "Maybe I don't want to say."

"See. You don't do the whole 'let's talk about our feelings' stuff. You don't dig deep. You're Chandler." Monica gave him a playful punch on the arm. "You know, Chandler."

"Ow. So, we've established my name and hit me." Chandler went quiet for a moment and then looked back at her. "Is that how you guys see me? Shallow?"

Monica reached over and rubbed his arm affectionately. "No. You're not shallow, you just, you don't do relationships and you don't do serious talks about the important things."

"Oh. So, I'm not shallow, I'm just aloof. That makes me feel so much better."

"Chandler, you aren't comfortable…I don't know…getting real. Rachel and I, we talk for hours about our feelings and what we're going through when we have bad dates. Even Ross, when he and Carol split up, he went to me to talk about it. He went to you to watch Robo-Cop."

Chandler loosened his arms slightly and then looked down. "Maybe, I don't talk about those things because I don't like seeing people get hurt. And when you talk about stuff, you just make people sad."

Monica smiled as she leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. "Come on. It's me. Just say it. It's no big deal. You don't pay attention to that stuff because, you don't want to have to deal with thinking about things."

Chandler turned to look down at her. "What sort of things?"

"Relationships, commitment, the future. Being vulnerable and honest. You don't want that. You want, Yasmine Bleeth running down the beach in a swimsuit. That's why you don't remember why Kip and I broke up. That's why when it happened, I talked to Phoebe and Ross about it. They're just better at that kind of stuff. You're, you know, Chandler."

Chandler shrugged her off him, startling Monica as she sat back up. She shot him an icy glare but softened when she saw how upset he was at her characterization of him. "You're wrong. You know why I didn't talk to you about why you and Kip broke up? It wasn't because I was uncomfortable about it. It's because I didn't want to see you get your feelings hurt."

Monica looked at Chandler with a hint of pity. She felt as if he still didn't understand what she was trying to say, but instead of getting frustrated, she felt bad for him. As if it was something he still needed to learn on his own.

"Chandler, I had just broken up with my boyfriend. My feelings were already pretty hurt."

"Yeah, but see, that's the problem. For you, you broke up with your boyfriend. But for Kip, he just stopped seeing this girl he was sleeping with."

Monica froze for a moment as her mouth opened wide. "What?"

"Kip never saw you as his girlfriend. He was just…I don't know…goofing around. You were the one who made it out to be more than it was. That's why you guys broke up. Because you wanted a relationship and he didn't."

Monica stared at him. Her face like stone as she tried to comprehend what Chandler was telling her.

"After you two broke up, I couldn't talk to you about it because I was worried that either I'd have to lie to you and tell you he was just as broken up as you were, or I'd have to tell you the truth. I just figured either way, I was going to hurt your feelings. So, I kind of took a backseat to Phoebe and Ross."

Monica looked at Chandler with a sense of betrayal in her eyes. He leaned back in his seat, feeling her steely glare upon him, yet, he was not the focus of her ire. She knew that he was not the treacherous one exposed by this revelation. She was. A deceit perpetrated on her by her own expectations of what love and relationships were supposed to be. A trick played by all the romance novels she had read, romantic comedies she had seen, and love songs she had heard. Everything that told her how easy it was going to be to find the one. To fall in love. It was all a lie, and her impression of what her time with Kip meant not matching the reality was more proof that she was no doubt cursed when it came to relationships.

"Did you always know? Did Kip tell you that while we were going out."

Chandler saw desperation in her eyes. He wondered if she truly needed to have this conversation now, in her state, on a plane to Vegas, and what good would come of it. Yet, he could not deny her when she was like this.

"He didn't say it in so many words, but I could kind of tell."

"Why didn't you say anything to me?"

Chandler sighed. "Mon."

"No, really, I mean, if you thought he wasn't as invested in the relationship, you should have said something. I'm supposed to be your best friend."

Chandler took her hand in his and stroked the skin between her thumb and forefinger. "Mon. I did try to tell you."

Her brow wrinkled as she seemed confused by his words. "What?"

"Come on. In the beginning, you would come over and talk to me when he wasn't there and I'd say things like, 'okay, but don't get your hopes up' or 'all right, but I don't think he is looking to get serious with anyone'. You didn't want to hear that. Girls never want their guy friends telling them that kind of stuff about the guys they like. They think you're just jealous, or maybe you have a crush on them, or they just don't listen to you."

"Oh." Monica looked down and nodded almost absentmindedly. She started to connect threads between all the men she had dated. She wondered; was she always out of sync with them?

Chandler, seeing Monica lost in thought, could only offer her a solemn "I'm sorry" in response.

Monica looked back up and gave him a half-smile. "No. You're right. I wouldn't have listened to you. I mean, I obviously didn't listen to you." She looked down once more and hesitated before speaking again. "Did you...what about Richard?"

"Huh?"

She grabbed at his hand and pulled his fingers into her own, almost for support, as if she were about to be expelled from the plane and he was the only thing keeping her anchored down. "Did you think anything like that about him?"

Chandler started to look around the plane and distract himself with anything else that could have been happening at that moment. "Mon, I don't…"

"You can tell me. I'm not going to get mad at you."

Chandler sighed and nodded his head. "Kind of."

"Why? Because of how much older he is than me?"

"No, it was more, well, little things."

"Like what?"

Chandler looked off to the side once more before returning his gaze to her. "Okay. Do you promise not to get mad?"

"I promise."

"Well, you weren't yourself with him."

"What does that mean?"

"You kind of became this, old lady."

Monica pulled back and arched her eyebrow as an aggravated look fell across her face. "What!"

"See, this feels like you're getting mad at me."

Monica closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She then opened them again and smiled at Chandler as she tried to speak softly. "I'm not mad. That wasn't angry, that was surprise."

"Oh."

Monica grit her teeth and began speaking sharply. "Surprise at my friend calling me an old lady!"

"See. I'm still picking up mad."

Monica resumed her exaggerated, calm demeanor. "Please. Continue."

Chandler eyed her suspiciously. "Okay. Remember when Joey and I were kind of hanging out with him?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, you'd be over in your place making dinner or cleaning up after him."

"I make dinner and clean up after you! That makes me an old lady!"

Chandler rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Will you let me finish woman!"

Monica closed her eyes once more to calm herself and nodded.

"Okay. Sure, you always make us dinner. And you usually clean up. but this felt different to me."

"How?"

"This felt like, I don't know, like Leave it to Beaver."

"The old TV show?"

"Yeah. You weren't Monica, the girl who needs everything just right or who takes care of everyone, but still had fun. This was, Monica, the homemaker. You weren't you. I just, I never saw you let yourself be so…I don't know…acquiescent before. You were Richard's woman who washed the dishes while he smoked a cigar on the balcony. You were like someone's mom on a fifties TV show."

"WHAT!" Monica's eyes went wide.

"I have to tell you; this feels like you're mad again."

Monica dropped Chandler's hand and narrowed her eyes at him. "You're damn right I'm mad. You didn't think Richard and I were going to work out because I was in a stable, healthy relationship. I'm sorry if I didn't want to spend all my time watching movies and grabbing coffee at Central Perk."

"Mon. It was more than that. You weren't having fun anymore. It wasn't that Richard was older, it was more like, you got older. It was like you skipped right out of your twenties and into your forties."

Monica folded her arms. "That's not helping!"

Chandler began to stammer as he tried to piece something together in his mind to soothe the savage beast that he saw bubbling to her surface. "Look, maybe I…"

"See, your problem is you don't know what it's supposed to be like. You've never been with someone for more than five minutes. How do you know what an adult relationship is? Richard and I were thinking about the future, or at least I was thinking about it. The stuff that happens next. Marriage, kids, a life. You don't think about that stuff. That's why you couldn't see it with us. Not because I was suddenly different. Or old!"

Chandler sat back in his chair and Monica faced forward. Both felt as if they were riding the wild tide of resentment. Each one reacting to the other's words. Angry. Frustrated. Drunk.

Monica closed her eyes again and then looked over at him. He had his head against the window and stared at the blinking lights of the plane in the night sky. He looked like a wounded child who wasn't sure exactly what happened to him. She felt a wave of guilt at how she behaved. Pushing buttons because he was telling her something she already knew. Something she was still having trouble accepting. She could not leave things like this with him. He did not deserve that.

"Chandler, I'm sorry. I'm just upset. And drunk."

Chandler spun around to look at her. The happy-go-lucky, drunk friend who was obsessing about a movie playing at an airport bar a few hours ago was gone. She could tell he had been replaced by the sardonic, acrid man he could become when he felt defensive. When he felt attacked. When he felt betrayed.

"No, you're right. What do I know about all that stuff? Take the woman on the computer. I really thought we had a connection. I was open and honest, and I was really myself. I wanted to meet this girl, date her. I don't know, maybe she would have been the one. The girl I would finally be able to commit to. Move out to the suburbs and raise kids with. Go broke trying to put them through college. But she wasn't. I didn't even get a first date with her." Chandler turned again to look out the window. His breathing seemed sharp and his eyes looked as if they could burn a hole in the plane.

Monica reached out and placed her hand on his back and gently glided her thumb side-to-side between his shoulder blades. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but all she could focus on was the idea of Chandler, living in the suburbs, raising kids, and despite her best efforts, she began to laugh.

"You think about stuff like that?"

Chandler rolled his eyes and turned to face her again. "Sure." When he saw her smile, his mood lightened, and he shook his head and let his lips curl up.

Monica squeezed his arm as her eyes lit up. "How many kids are you going to have?"

"Four. A boy, twin girls, and another boy."

The two of them laughed together and Monica slid herself under his arm. He gave her shoulder a squeeze as she leaned up against him.

"You know you're the only one I'd want to be with right now. Out of everybody."

Chandler looked down and smiled. "Really?"

Monica laughed. "Could you see Phoebe trying to cheer me up? She'd probably be burning incense and playing a gong. Telling me to find my happy place. Ross would be secretly celebrating. I don't think he liked the idea of me and Richard together. He'd be no help. Rachel would pry and just have me relive the story over and over. Joey, would, well, I have no idea what he would do."

"Probably offer to sleep with you."

Monica nodded and laughed. "You wouldn't do any of that."

"I know, because apparently I'm superficial."

Monica shoved against him playfully. "Stop that."

She brought her hand up to his cheek and turned his face so they were looking into each other's eyes. "You would just let me be me. Like you did just now. Mad, sad, crazy, quiet. You'll let me be whatever I need to be, and you won't try to fix it. You'll just be here for me. I mean, you didn't think Richard and I would last, but instead of trying to tell me that, you trusted me to figure it out on my own."

"I don't think I have ever been thanked for doing nothing before."

Monica flattened her lips as she tried to fight off a smile. "And you didn't try to say anything after the fact about how you knew it wouldn't work out either. You just let me take your hand and lead you around to city. And now, here we are. We're on a plane and I don't have an itinerary typed up that I spent all week working on and that is driving me insane."

Chandler chuckled and Monica settled back down against him. "You know, Mon, I'm sorry if I snapped at you before."

Monica reached up one more time to stroke at his cheek. "Chandler, it's okay. That's what friends like me and you are for. We can snap every now and then and say stupid stuff to each other and it's okay."

"Really?"

"Yes. You can always tell me anything. Except call me old. Don't do that again."

Chandler laughed and shook his head. He noticed that the throbbing of his impending hangover had subsided, and he felt oddly at peace. The other guy buried deep again. He looked down at Monica and thought about all the stupid fights they had over the years. He wasn't even sure if he could call them fights, it seemed more like both of them being comfortable enough around each other to blow off steam without worrying about hurting each other's feelings. He realized that he did not have this connection with anyone else. None of his other friends would be able to handle him when he became desperate and behaved despicably. Where he was bitter and uncongenial. Monica never ran away from him, or held it against him. She always had an encouraging word, or a couch for him to sleep on. Never questioning him. Always supporting him. He could only hope he did the same for her.

"Do either of you want blanket?"

Monica and Chandler both looked up and reached out towards the flight attendant who was leaning over their seats.

They answered her, almost in unison. "Yes please."

She smiled and turned to face her cart. She pulled out a blanket and frowned. "I'm so sorry, I only have one left."

Chandler snatched it from the woman and began to open it up.

Monica turned and stared at him with incredulous eyes. "Hey, that's' my blanket."

"Yeah, but your arms are so short, you couldn't reach it before me."

"Chandler. Come on. I'm chilly."

Chandler covered himself up and tucked the blanket under his chin. "So am I."

"Chandler!"

Chandler smiled and lifted up one side of the blanket. "Share?"

Monica nodded and allowed a satisfied, sleepy smile to spread across her lips. She pressed herself up against him as she curled her legs up on the seat underneath herself. She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes.

"I'm just going to close my eyes for a few minutes. Don't let me fall asleep. We have to have another drink so we don't lose our momentum before we get to Vegas!"

Chandler pulled her closer to him and let his arm drop down to her side. "Okay."

Monica's body became still as she started to let loose with a few gentle snores. Chandler gave her a quick kiss on her head. He turned and looked back out the window. She shifted her body and her arm slid around his waist. Her grip on his shirt loosened and her breathing became steady as she fell asleep.

Chandler realized in this moment that she was right. She can be anything around him without fear that he would abandon her when she was at her worst. She was his best friend, and he would be whatever she needed him to be on this trip. Even if that meant standing vigil over her while she slept for a few hours.