Here I am with another Chapter. This one following Chapter 5 and taking place the day after (it's Xmas Morning).
For the next one we will meet an old acquaintance of Ross and Rachel, but I don't want to spoil it. I hope you enjoy this.
RT
Judy and Jack were sitting on the couch in the living room, enjoying their time with their grandchildren. Emma was playing with her Play-Dough Barber Shop (Ross had asked Monica and Chandler to choose that gift as her Christmas present, since now she was old enough to play with it). Jack was jumping happily on his grandfather's knees (he was beginning to stay upright with his back even if it was too soon to walk yet) and Erica was crawling and screaming happily on the floor. Judy had a lovely smile on her face, long gone were the misunderstandings with her daughter because she didn't have a husband or children of her own. She was very happy to have a numerous family to celebrate the holidays with and she was looking forward to Ross's wedding, too.
Ross was sitting on the armchair next to the window with Rachel on his lap, Monica was on the other chair and Chandler was standing in front of them as they were opening their Christmas presents. Phoebe and Mike were still at his parents' house, but they would arrive later in the afternoon.
As usual, Monica was anxious to open her gifts, "This one's from Mom and Dad!" she yelled, excited.
"Actually you and Ross should open yours together, dear." Judy told her. "It's kind of the same present, but I hope you both enjoy it."
Rachel stood up from Ross's legs and searched into the bag among Ross's presents. She picked the one labeled Judy and Jack and she gave it to Ross.
The siblings ripped off the paper to find two wonderful silver frames that contained collage pictures of their children, Monica and Chandler and Rachel and Ross.
"Mom, this is amazing!" Ross exclaimed.
"Mom, thank you…I don't know what to say…You've never thought of something so personal before, it's lovely." Monica was on the verge of crying.
"Well, I guess these little kids inspired me. Having them around is such a bless. Isn't it, Jack?" she asked her husband.
But Jack Sr. was too involved with his grandson to consider her.
"Anyway, Rachel and Chandler gave me the photos, so you must thank them, too."
"Thank you, honey. This is gorgeous." Monica smiled, kissing Chandler.
"I actually wanted to pick a picture of your fat-era, but I couldn't find any." He quipped.
"Yeah, I hid them in the basement." Monica replied.
Ross laughed at them, "Rach, where does this picture come from? I don't remember ever seeing it."
The photo was a lovely image of Ross and Rachel sitting close to one another on the bench next to the window back in apartment 20. They were looking at each other, laughing.
Rachel smiled and hinted at Chandler.
"Well, I picked that one too. It's from last year, it was Thanksgiving Day. Remember when you all arrived late, the floating heads, and the vein?"
Ross chuckled and nodded.
"Well, we ate what was left after Joey propelled into the kitchen and fell on the table over the food, then we played Scrabble and we let Monica win."
"What!?" Monica asked, angry.
"Oh, come on, we always make you win when we play games, we don't want any more Pictionary incidents, do we?" Rachel reminded her.
Monica opened her mouth to retort, but Chandler spoke before she could start another futile squabble.
"After the game, you guys picked up Emma from her nap, then Mike arrived from his parents' house and we ordered pizza for dinner. While we were waiting, Monica picked her camera to take some pictures. You two were sitting on the bench and you were really intent in talking about something."
Ross seemed to recall the moment in his head, because he started to smile.
"Anyway, you said something and made Rachel laugh so hard, that I asked Monica to take the picture. And I'm glad I did, because it came out pretty well."
"It's wonderful." Rachel agreed.
"So, what were you two talking about? You weren't even back together back then, what did Ross say to amuse you like that?"
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be the funny guy of the gang!" Chandler said, feigning disappointment.
Ross and Rachel shared a knowing look.
"You know, I should be mad at you for not telling me about the Beauty Pageant."
"Oh come on, Ross. I thought you were happy about the thousand dollars!" Rachel winked.
Ross grinned, "Well, yeah, but I wish you'd tell me in advance from now on. Emma is my daughter too, you know. We should take decisions like those together, I mean...like a family."
Rachel inspired and took a glimpse at her daughter, who was sitting on Mike's lap. Phoebe and Joey were making her laugh and Monica was taking pictures with Chandler by her side.
"You see the three of us as a real family?" she asked him, surprised by his statement.
Ross looked at her in astonishment, "Of course I do. I know that we kind of…screwed things up when we lived together, but…those were the best days of my life, Rach, you have to know."
Rachel thought about those months spent in Ross's apartment. Not only the ones during the pregnancy, but mostly the weeks after Emma's birth. Taking care of their baby together had been wonderful, especially when she'd thought that maybe they could have sorted things out and started to be Ross and Rachel, again.
"And I know that in the last months our lives had taken very different…directions." Ross took a break from his speech, and both of them certainly thought about Joey and Charlie. "But I really missed you. I'm glad that now we are…reconnecting again."
Rachel couldn't believe his words. A very few times in the last years Ross had been so honest and open with his feelings. She took his hand in hers, "I missed you too." She confessed.
Rachel felt a weird sensation in her stomach, something that she hadn't felt in a long time.
Something that she thought was long forgotten. She'd been sure that everything she'd once felt for this man was now in the past, but as soon as she'd been told by Monica that Ross and Charlie had broken up, she'd felt a huge relief. And now all those feelings were coming back again, in a rush.
But wasn't in the end what their relationship was all about? Waves of passion, coming and going, fading at times but never actually disappearing?
Since the night of that disastrous second date with Joey, when they had understood that they would never hit it off, she had found herself remembering the details of her first dates with Ross. Everything was so perfect back then. And she wasn't doing this to hurt herself, no. She was just comparing her experience with Joey with the best she'd ever had. Because even if her relationship with Ross had ended in the worst possible way, it had also been the best of her life. She still thought about Ross as the benchmark to judge all the other men she went out with.
She stared at him silently, deciding that maybe it was about time to decide whether they needed to clear things once and for all. They owed it to themselves. And they owed it to Emma.
On the other hand, Ross didn't know why he had confessed all these things. His relationship with Charlie had been over for only a month, but if he thought about it he wasn't regretful at all.
He'd enjoyed his time with her, and they had a lot in common. Charlie was lovely, smart and very beautiful, but when it came to decide if he really wanted their relationship to last, Ross knew that no woman could ever compare to Rachel.
After Emma's birth, whenever he imagined his future, he wasn't able to see it with anyone but the three of them together. Even when he was with Charlie, he'd never thought about spending more time with her and Emma, because deep down he knew that he didn't want to introduce another woman in his daughter's life. He did consider the three of them as a family, even if he and Rachel weren't together as a couple. The fact that he had acted so weird the night of their double date with Joey and Rachel should have been proof enough to show his inner feelings.
Charlie could have been the perfect woman to Ross – hadn't she decided that she was still in love with Benjamin Hobart. But she wasn't perfect for him.
With Rachel, instead…Everything was so difficult, and yet so easy.
Ross loved her not only for her better qualities, but also for her flaws.
No matter how many faults and contradictions Rachel embodied, Ross loved them all.
Her being a little spoiled, or ditzy sometimes or too much into her looks. Her way to exchange every gift for something else, her way to always prevent him to go on with his life whenever he found another woman only to reject him a few hours later. The way they fought, the way they quipped at each other. All of this was part of who they were and defined their huge history.
Ross had started to understand all of this and other things during the last months while he was dating Charlie and moreover when he had found out that it hadn't worked out between Rachel and Joey.
And now, here they were.
Ross knew that he wanted to give their relationship another chance, they needed to try at least. Emma deserved the most wonderful family in the world. He wanted so much to have his daughter and Rachel back to his apartment. But before this could happen, he and Rachel needed to get closer enough.
Going together to the playground had been a good start. That had been a wonderful day, spent together as the nice family they were.
And today could turn out as a second moment.
They just needed to get that kind of connection again, like the one they shared when Rachel was pregnant. And Ross was sure that after this conversation, everything would be easier.
"You know what I'd love to do next week?" Rachel asked him.
"What?"
"Let's go see the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center together with Emma."
Ross's lips turned into a tender smile, "I'd love to."
They stared at each other silently, waiting for the other to say something to seize the moment.
Rachel smiled sadly, thinking that this might become the umpteenth missed opportunity to solve things.
She was almost breaking the silence by telling him how she really felt, when Ross decided to ease the tension by changing the subject.
"Oh, you are never going to believe who I saw the other day when I was to the playground with Ben and Emma!"
Rachel flinched when she felt Ross's free hand touching her leg. She let go of his other hand, coughing and noticing that he had decided to let the moment pass by.
"Who?" she asked.
"Bonnie!"
"Your ex-girlfriend Bonnie?!" she winced.
"Yeah!"
"Oh my God! How was she?"
"Well, she looked good, we had a nice chat. She was there with her husband!"
"Really?" Rachel grinned.
"Yes, they got married a couple of years ago, they were there with their children."
"Bonnie the bald woman has a husband and more than one child?" Rachel almost screamed.
Ross nodded, grinning, "They got twins, and you won't believe after whom they named them."
Rachel, "Well, knowing Bonnie, she might have chosen the names of two cities she had sex in."
Ross chuckled, "Nope. She called them Ross…and Rachel."
"NO WAY!" Rachel laughed.
"I swear, and she was so proud!" Ross explained. "She told me that after I broke up with her that night in Montauk, you know the night of the letter…"
"The one on which you fell asleep?" she challenged him.
"It was 18-pages-front-and-back!" Ross retorted and they both smiled about it, "Anyway…Bonnie went home with a cab and the driver was Brian, the man who became her husband!"
"That's so sweet!" Rachel said, sincerely.
"I thought so too. She said that she owed it to us, because if we'd never found out that we wanted to get back together that night, she would have never met him. They'd been together since then and so…she named her children after us."
"I can't believe this." Rachel shook her head.
"I know; it was a shock for me too. And you want to know another thing?" Ross grinned.
"What?"
"Bonnie's hair is long again, as when I first met her. But her husband is completely bald!"
Rachel burst out laughing and so did Ross. They were so loud that Chandler and Monica noticed them from the living room and he asked his wife to take a picture of them.
When Ross and Rachel stopped their guffaw, Rachel cleaned a tear from her eye.
"So, you reckon Bonnie was actually happy?" she demanded.
"Yes. And I'm honestly relieved, because breaking up with Bonnie like that was one of those things I've always felt really bad about."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, no, I mean…we both know why I did it." they shared a knowing look "I broke up with her because I knew that I was still madly in love with you. And in spite of what happened, if I could go back in time, I'd do it again, Rach."
Rachel blushed, stunned by his words. "Wow. It's hard believing that, seeing how you carefully wanted to demonstrate that WE-WERE-ON-A-BREAK."
Ross nodded, smiling, "I know. But many years have passed and my perspective about the whole thing changed a lot."
Rachel nodded in approbation. "So, what did Bonnie think about the two of us?"
"Well, she was glad to know that Emma is our daughter. But she was surprised to find out that we weren't together anymore. She was pretty sure that we would end up together, as I told her that night."
Rachel smiled sadly, "I know what she means. But you know, Ross…" Rachel looked at Emma, "I don't feel like a real loser in this battle, because Emma is the best thing we've done together."
Ross's gaze went from Rachel's face to his daughter. "You're right."
Then they looked at each other again and smiled.
"So, Bonnie married with a bald man. Great sense of humor, uh Ross?" Chandler asked his brother-in-law.
"Oh, come on, it was fun for us!" Rachel scolded him.
"Ok, let's go on with the gifts!" Monica shouted.
The four friends kept opening their presents, revealing the contents of the packages.
"Wow, honey this is the new pressure cooker I've been telling you about, thank you!" Monica exclaimed, happily.
"You are welcome, sweetie. Hey, guys, the new iPod! Now I can listen to Alanis Morissette while I go to work!" Chandler stated. When they all looked at him weirdly, he corrected himself, "And with that, I meant Metallica."
"Mon, what did you get Chandler?" Ross asked his sister.
"I booked him a flight to Los Angeles to go visit Joey in January."
"Yeah, that's the best gift ever. I know this sounds weird, but I really miss his presence. Our fridge has been so full since he'd left!"
Rachel was opening a tiny envelope and she found a Gucci coupon inside of it.
"Wow Mon, thank you!"
"No need to exchange this, you can buy whatever you want." Monica explained.
"Oh, you know me so well!" Rachel hugged her.
"And this is mine!" Chandler jumped, giving her a little package.
"Oh, what's this?"
Rachel unwrapped the paper to discover a DVD boxset including Sleepless in Seattle and You've got mail.
"Wow, Chandler, I didn't think you got it in you." Ross said when he saw the titles, "Are you also growing a uterus?"
Chandler glared at him and Monica laughed for her brother's joke.
"Thanks honey, I love them." Rachel kissed Chandler.
Then she took a huge bag that contained Ross's present and she took out a wonderful red coat that she'd noticed a few days before while they were shopping together in Manhattan.
"Oh my God, Ross! This is the one I saw the other day through the Gucci's shop window!"
"Yes it is!"
"But it cost a thousand dollars!"
"I SO hope you don't exchange it."
Rachel giggled, "I won't, it's so lovely, but you shouldn't have bought it."
"It's our first Christmas back together, I wanted to give you something really special."
"Oh, honey, thank you!" she kissed him tenderly. "Now open mine, open mine!"
Ross found an envelope too and he opened it with curiosity.
Inside he found a paper with the receipt of a hotel booking in Washington. There were also tickets for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
"I booked a room for you, me, Emma and Ben. I already spoke with Carol; we are going there next weekend!"
"Wow, Rach! There's the Exhibition of the Hall of Fossils this month. How did you know I wanted to see it?"
"Even I knew it, Ross, you've been speaking about it for like a month!" Chandler answered.
"I also booked a visit to the White House." Rachel affirmed.
"Wow, this will be the most boring trip in history!" Chandler joked.
Ross glared at him, "There's nothing wrong in learning a little something. Washington is the capital of our country and we've never even been there before! Thank you Rachel, this was a wonderful idea. And I'm so happy we are going there with the kids, Ben is gonna love it! Does he know yet?"
"Yes, I told him last week. I had to trade something to make him keep the secret, though."
"What?" Monica asked her.
"He wanted to pick his next brother's or sister's name."
Ross laughed, "Knowing my son, he would choose some Avengers superhero name. What did you tell him?"
"I told him he could pick Uncle Joey's first son's name. I called Joey and they agreed that TheHulk was the better choice."
A huge thanks to Babatomyfriends (beta angel!) and Boris Yeltsin, Aayushi Sinha, SC, Anna, cutoaayu and all the guests who reviewed until now!