A/N: I won't be offended if you all hate me for having gone on a bit of an updating spree, but here we go with the second chapter of my Cougar Town/Friends crossover. I hope that you guys will continue to support this novel as you have with my other four, and as always, I will always welcome feedback in the form of reviews or suggestions for future updates. Also, on a completely unrelated note, you should go stream Charlotte Lawrence's music because she is a really talented artist and one of my favourites by far. With that being said, let's move on to the chapter:
Chapter 2:
"How are you finding your first day as a resident here?" Monica asks Ellie, bringing over a cup of coffee for her and Andy.
"It's definitely interesting," Andy answers, dubiously. "Stan was keeping poor Ellie up most of the night, as he doesn't seem to be used to the move yet."
Monica looks at Ellie sympathetically. Ellie is sitting silently, sipping the coffee that Monica had just handed over to her. She's still tired, but she knows that Andy wouldn't appreciate her to really say what she feels like towards Monica.
"Hey, Mon," Chandler walks through the door of the sitting room. He sees Ellie and Andy. "Am I late to the party?"
Ellie looks up from staring at the coffee in her mug. "I think you're right on time," she said, smiling at Chandler.
"I don't think you met my husband yesterday," Monica said, gesturing towards Chandler and looking in the direction of Ellie and Andy.
Chandler waved awkwardly. He wasn't a fan of Monica turning the spotlight on him, but he also knew that it was common courtesy to introduce himself and so he decided that it was worth obliging than receiving punishment from Mon later. "I'm Chandler, the second-in-command of the ship that Monica sails."
Monica smiled at him. "He's the best second-in-command," she says, looking at him fondly.
Ellie made sure that she looking in the opposite direction to Monica, and mimed throwing up. She was sick of all the sentiment, and she didn't know how longer she could get Jules and Grayson to look after Stan before it became her responsibility, which she was desperately trying to hold off after the last sleepless night.
Monica left the room to check on Jack and Erica.
"If it's okay with you," Andy says to Ellie, "do you mind if I go back to Jules and Grayson's to get Stan back from them?"
Ellie didn't look up at Andy, but she nodded. Andy kissed her goodbye and then left the sitting room. Chandler and Ellie were the only ones left sitting in the sitting room. "How do you put up with being bossed around by your wife all the time?" Ellie asked, hoping that Chandler would appreciate her sense of humour.
"Barely," Chandler replied, and Ellie chuckled. Chandler liked her because she seemed to get his sense of humour in a way that even Monica couldn't completely get.
"I have my husband wrapped around my little finger," Ellie said, smugly.
"I'm sure he really appreciates that," Chandler says, and Ellie chuckled again.
"How have we never met before?" Ellie says. "You exactly get my sense of humour, even better than my husband."
"Good to know that the feeling's mutual," Chandler says. "Maybe you're not as bad as most people in this world."
"Likewise," Ellie says. "It's people like you that restore my perpetually diminishing faith in humanity."
The door opens again, and Monica walks in.
"Sorry to break up your bonding time," Monica says, "but Chandler, you're needed to take your turn looking after the twins."
Chandler leaves, and Ellie and Monica are left alone. Ellie revels in the awkward silence between the two girls, and Monica tries in vain to think of questions to fill the silence.
"What's your favourite thing about being a Mom?" Monica asked, as her best attempt at making polite conversation.
"Being able to send Stan to the nanny," Ellie replied, smiling at Monica.
Monica felt frustrated, but she desperately tried to hide it. "Sometimes I wish that I could say the same for Jack and Erica," she said. "But then I remember that I care far too much to let them out of my sight."
Ellie looked at Monica with a warning look, and Monica was forced to recollect the last sentence she said. Her expression changed from hiding her annoyance to self-consciousness. "I'm so sorry," Monica said, sounding really embarrassed. "I didn't mean that you didn't care about your son."
"I didn't take it that way," Ellie said, hoping that she sounded reassuring. "Promise you." She turned around again and glared at nothing in particular.
"Good," Monica said, not feeling any less awkward than the situation had already made her. "I mean, I wouldn't want to hit it off on the wrong foot with someone that was as close to me as my neighbour."
Ellie nodded. "Glad we're on the same page," she said, marvelling at how easy it was to lie straight to her face.
"I'm baaaack!" Andy called, as he walked into the sitting room, with Stan on his hip.
Ellie silently prayed a prayer of thanks, and stood up to join Andy and her son. "We're going to go back to our apartment now," Ellie says to Monica, and Andy adds a thank you for her hospitality.
When Ellie and Andy were back on the street, Ellie started talking to Andy.
"No offence," Ellie started to say.
"That's the first time in a long time that I have ever heard you say that," Andy says, "but continue."
"I really don't want to sound more ungrateful than I have to be," Ellie continued, "but that Monica really makes me want to stab my eyes out with forks, and I mean it."
"In what way?" Andy asks, knowing that he is treading on thin ice by enquiring further.
Ellie didn't even have to stop to think before answering. "She's just obnoxiously happy all the time, and she is far too polite for my liking," she said.
"That's what it's like being a pleasant person that people can rely on," Andy says, putting the emphasis on the 'that's'.
"But her happiness makes me want to kill myself," Ellie moaned. "It's not fair."
Andy chuckled at how typically Ellie she was being. "For once," Andy said. "It is not my problem so you'll have to figure that out for yourself. I'm just trying to keep the peace between everyone in this new neighbourhood, at least until we know them better."
"I think I can judge pretty accurately from the first few interactions," Ellie said, flouncing off towards her and Andy's apartment. "But I won't stop you from talking to the most childish woman I have had the displeasure to meet."
"Come on!" Andy says his signature catchphrase, and Ellie flips him off as she continues to walk up to their house.
He stands in the middle of the road, Stan still on his hip. The door on the house that was on the left side of ours opened, and a woman with dark blonde hair walked out and spotted me in the middle of the road.
"Hey!" she called. "Cute baby!" She started walking towards me and Stan.
"You must be one of the new neighbours," the woman continued to say. "I'm Rachel Green."
"Hi, Rachel," Andy said, looking her up and down and having a realisation that she really wasn't that bad looking at all. "I'm Andy Torres, I have a grumpy and rude but perfect wife called Ellie Torres and this is our son Stan."
"Awesome," Rachel said. "I have the biggest nerd in the history of nerds for a husband, a beautiful daughter and the most handsome and clever step nephew."
The door to Rachel's house opens again, and Andy saw a man that looked surprisingly like Monica standing in the doorway. Rachel beckoned him over, and his gaze immediately fell on Stan.
"That's one beautiful son that you have there," he said. "I'm Ross Geller-Green, by the way."
Andy felt less confused after Ross said that as it made sense that Ross had Monica's surname in his name as he had wondered if they were related. "So you're related to Monica?" he asked, interested to hear his theory confirmed.
"We're brother and sister," Ross replied.
"Cool," Andy said, rocking Stan in his arms as he had started crying. "So how did you get to know Monica, Rachel? If you don't mind me asking out of curiosity."
"I don't mind at all," Rachel said. "We went to high school together, and then after we both graduated I ran off and almost married a guy who I was sure was the love of my life."
Andy gave Rachel a look that he hoped she would read as a cue to continue on.
"I left him at the altar," Rachel admitted, sheepishly. "Then I use the telephone book to find Monica again at a coffee shop called Central Perk, and moved into her apartment after having a fight with my father over money and the wedding."
"And now you've wound up with me," Ross said, smiling at Rachel and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.
Rachel smiles back. "After a rocky few years, we finally tied the knot and I haven't looked back since," she concluded.
Andy felt so happy for the couple because he felt like he could really feel the affection that they had for each other. "You guys remind me so much of Ellie and I right now," he said.
Rachel and Ross smiled at each other, and Andy's happy expression changed to one that was more solemn as he recollected the argument that Ellie and he had had. "I gotta go," he said, stopping rocking a now content Stan, and hugging him against his shoulder on his way to walking to Ellie and his house.
Rachel and Ross started making their own way back to their house as they saw no reason to stay out, and Andy started dreading seeing Ellie again as he walked up the stairs to the front door. Keeping one hand on supporting Stan, he knocked. He got no reply, which didn't surprise him. He tried the door handle and had no luck.
"For God's sake, woman!" he exclaimed. "Our son is out here, getting cold! I get that you're mad at me, but Stan too? Really?"
Andy could hear the lock in the door shift, and the door became slightly ajar. Two hands reached from behind the door, and secured themselves around Stan so that Andy had no choice but to hand him over. The door closed afterwards, and was locked shut.
"I'll take that as you still don't want to see me," Andy said, walking back down the steps. He decided to sit on the grass on the sides of the path and hope that Ellie would take pity on him later in the day.
He had sat there for about five minutes when he saw Jules walking out of her house. She must have seen him sitting there because she started making her way straight over to him. "Ellie mad at you again?" Jules asked sympathetically, sitting beside Andy on the grass.
Andy nodded. He knew that Jules knew that Ellie often behaved exactly like this, but she also knew that Andy didn't always realise that he was one of the people that Ellie would never genuinely hurt him on purpose.
"She'll get over it," Jules says, wrapping her arm around Andy's shoulders. "She always does, especially when it's me or you."
Andy smiles. "I love both of you," he says to Jules. "You're always the best."
Jules smiles to herself. "Is it too early to ask what the argument was about?" Andy nodded silently, and Jules took that as her cue to quit the conversation. "Do you think Ellie will mind if I go and say something?" she asks Andy. He shakes his head so Jules stands up and starts making her way up the steps.
She knocks on the door, and the door opened a crack again. "Who is it?" Ellie asked quietly through the door.
"Jules," Jules says quietly back, and the door opens wide enough for her to get in.
Ellie was standing next to the foot of the stairs, Stan holstered on her hip. She was wearing an oversized hooded sweater with jeans, and the expression on her face was past fed up. Jules felt a wave of sympathy for her best friend, which quickly transferred into a flurry of ideas for a solution based on previous experience.
"This is because of Andy, isn't it?" Jules said, with a knowing look on her face.
Ellie mumbled a reply, but still didn't make eye contact with her.
"You were always like this back in Florida when you fought with Andy," Jules reasoned. "It's all because you love him, and have through everything he's done since you married him. You can't bear to see him sad."
Jules walked further down the hallway towards the kitchen. She walked over to where the coffee machine stood, and started searching in the cupboards for instant coffee. She found two sachets, and looked at the dishwasher. It had stopped the most recent washing up cycle and hadn't been emptied, so Jules selected two of the nearest mugs.
Once she had made the coffee, she passed one mug to Ellie and walked over to the dining table. Ellie sat Stan down in his high chair that had been switched this morning in the place of Stan's baby carrier, which had been acting as a temporary solution to the lack of one with no thanks at all to the removal van guy.
"Are you planning on saying anything at all?" Jules said, as Ellie handed Stan his teething ring in the desperate hope that there would be no chance of him starting to scream for as long as possible. "Because I have all the time in the world to sit here and listen."
Ellie starts to smile, and looks away as soon as she remembers that Jules is with her. Unfortunately for Ellie, Jules also was familiar with this move as a decoy to hide how she was really feeling, and was more than willing to rat her out for it.
"You're happy I'm here," Jules says, looking directly at Ellie despite the fact that she was still completely avoiding her. "You feel less lonely and sad because you know that I am one of the people that can improve your mood despite the fact that you are wondering why I bother to stay and care about you because of your acquired taste in humour."
Ellie cracked, and started smiling back at Jules. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate you for always being so selfless and right about me?" Ellie said, somewhere between trying to look annoyed and embarrassed that Jules was right again about the situation and she was letting her in once again.
"Often," Jules said, chuckling slightly. "You should go and apologise to Andy because you know that's what you want to go do."
Ellie rolled her eyes. "Yes, it is," she said, shrugging it off. "I still feel so bad though, and it's not to do with Andy."
"Oh," Jules said, a little shocked. "You wanna tell me, 'cause I'll probably find out anyway."
Ellie rolled her eyes a second time. "I hate Monica," she said, avoiding eye contact with Jules again out of shame.
Jules sucked her breath through gritted teeth. "That's awkward," she said, feeling a wave of sympathy and preventative second-hand embarrassment for everyone in the situation, but mainly Ellie. "Can I ask why?"
Ellie looked away again out of shame, but started talking regardless. "She's just obnoxiously positive about every single thing, and she wants to control everything. And she's also far too polite for my liking," Ellie added, and Jules sniggered.
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Jules said, trying to compose herself but failing almost as desperately as she was hanging onto the last unravelling thread of any kind of composure. "Now I can really see Andy's frustrations."
Ellie rolled her eyes. "He always gets over it," she says, smugly.
"True," Jules shrugs. "Do you want me to go and let him in?"
"I think he's been out there long enough," Ellie shrugs, feeling satisfied with herself and Andy's punishment. Jules stood up, and walked to the door. She unlocked the door, and saw Andy turn around.
"Is she ready to have me back in?" he asked, looking so desperate that Jules couldn't help but snigger a little. "She is," she said, and watched as Andy fist-pumped the air and started walking back over.
Jules let Andy pass past her, and started walking back down the steps to the road. She decided that she didn't want to go back home to Grayson, and started walking towards Monica and Chandler's, hoping that they would allow her to stay there for a while whilst she left Andy and Ellie patch up their rift.
A/N: And that's a wrap on the pretty long update for my Cougar Town/Friends fanfic! I hope that you guys enjoy this and will review and give suggestions for more ideas. While you're at it, I would also kindly ask that you read my Familiar Faces Trilogy and the Cougar Town book as well because all feedback is always appreciated to help me improve and grow as a writer. With that being said, I think I've talked long enough so thank you, goodbye and enjoy!