Ross stood there, mouth agape, staring at Emily; who stood there, smiling at Ross. Ross was barely aware of a distant ringing sound.

"Um, Ross, is that your phone? Ross? Ross, can you hear me? Earth to Ross!"

As if in a daze, Ross reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, never taking his eyes off Emily, who was now holding open the elevator door.

Ross put the phone to his ear and said, "hello?" The first clue he hadn't pressed the Talk button was when it rang again. But, his mindset wasn't one that he was able to decipher even the simplest clues. He simply stared at it.

Emily took his arm and steered him out of the elevator while she took his phone and picked up his call. "Hello, Ross' phone."

"Who is this," Rachel asked, totally confused. She hadn't expected to hear a woman's voice on Ross' phone.

"This is Emily Waltham, can I help you?"

The response couldn't properly be termed speech, although sound was escaping from Rachel's mouth, and words were being formed by her mouth, but if it had been any higher pitched, the neighborhood dogs would have gone crazy.

Emily took the phone from her ear in pain and the piercing shriek could be heard throughout the lobby. It also shook Ross from his reverie.

"I know that scream," Ross said, rapidly finding it in the hand of Emily. He picked up the phone and said, "Rach?"

"Ross? What are you doing in Paris? Who picked up the phone? Why did you do this? Did you go to my office? Answer me," she yelled, never having taken a breath.

"Then let me. Hey, Rach, I'm in Paris, and you're not. I'm in your office building, and you're not. I'm standing in front of Emily, and again, you're not. Where are you," Ross asked, quietly. All he heard was the clatter of a phone hitting carpet.

After a few seconds of silence, he heard, "Ross, its Monica. Rach is here, in my living room. It was to be a surprise for everyone, but we got a bigger surprise when you weren't in my living room. Where are you Ross," Monica asked.

"Wow, Monica's not getting Monicay yet. I got dibs on 5 minutes," Phoebe said.

"Are you kidding? You want to bet on this? We need to be here to support Rachel here in her time of need," said Judy Gellar. Then she whispered, "I want eight minutes, Jack wants three minutes," handing Phoebe a twenty dollar bill.

Joey whispered, "Seven minutes, Pheebs."

Mike handed her a ten and said, "twelve minutes, thirty seconds."

Chandler poked his head out and asked what was going on. Joey filled him in, using only hand gestures. Chandler made hand gestures of his own, then nodded, fully understanding what his former roommate was saying, and ducked back into the room where the kids were.

Joey leaned into Phoebe. "Pheebs, Chandler wants ten minutes, he'll pay if he loses." Phoebe nodded.

They listened to the one way conversation while Rachel just rocked back and forth, her face in her hands.

Monica turned to Rachel, "do you have a spare key anywhere?" She passed the information to Ross along with the address.

Monica hung up and stood in front of everyone. "Okay. Ross went to see Rachel and Emma, not knowing that they were headed to New York. He went to your office and saw Mark, and started to walk out. Then he ran into Emily. He doesn't remember anything after that until you screamed. You know his whole 'blanking out' thing? He did that," Monica finished as she sat next to Rachel.

"So, he's going to stay at my place until his flight, right," Rachel asked.

Monica nodded. "I'm sorry Rachel. We kept the secret so well, too."

Joey asked, "how long? Because we kept ours for two weeks. It was hard to, wasn't it Pheebs?"

"Oh, yeah," Phoebe said.

"How did you keep it from me, sweetie," Mike asked.

"Oh, I've been lying to you for a while about some things. I'm good at it," Phoebe said, more reticent as she finished the sentence. Mike just looked at her. "Hey, you said you had a gig this morning, and you were getting Rachel!"

Mike nodded sheepishly.

"You gonna be okay for a few minutes, Rach? I gotta go check on the turkey," Monica said. When Rachel nodded, she stood up. "Okay, Phoebe, you sit with her. Joey, check on Chandler and the kids, and if I hear bubble wrap, I'm killing someone. Mike, can you unload Rachel's bags from your car? Dad can help. Mom, if they need more help, can you take the kids and tell Joey and Chandler to help them out?" She walked into the kitchen, not waiting for an answer.

Phoebe looked at her watch and said "YAY," and pocketed the money. "Five minutes, 23 seconds."

--

Ross walked into the apartment and looked around. He dropped the spare key on the table and sat on the couch.

God, this has been the worst day. The only thing that would make it worse was if Bonnie was Rachel's roommate, and Chloe was her next door neighbor.

The phone rang. He waited for the machine to get it, hearing her voice on the greeting almost tore his heart out.

Beep.

"Ross, I don't know if you're going to listen to this, or not, but I wanted to apologize to you. I should have told you about Mark and Emily sooner. This isn't how I wanted you to find out. I'm so sorry. Ugh."

"Look, just treat it as your home, raid the fridge, there's a couple of delivery and take-out menus near the phone. There are a couple of gallons of ice cream in the freezer."

"I'll talk to you later, okay? Give me a call when you get there if you listen to this."

"I…um…I…Ugh. Yeah, Mon, I'm coming."

Ross smiled and looked at the machine.

He made a turkey sandwich and turned on the television. Everything was in French.

Paris sucks! So does Thanksgiving.

--

"Well, I guess I'm next," Mike started. He looked at Phoebe "I'm thankful for the most beautiful woman in the world. She's everything I've ever wanted in a woman. She's my life, my soul. I love you Princess Consuela. Thank you for being my wife, and having my babies."

"Oh, you're so getting lucky tonight," Phoebe said and kissed Mike.

"What? Baby? What is this?" They all spoke over each other, except Joey who said, "About time you told everyone."

"Oh, yeah. I'm pregnant. About three months along now. Twins! And how did you know Joey?"

"Hey, I'm not just another pretty face, you know," Joey said with a Joey Grin.

"Yeah, you also have sexy knees," retorted Rachel.

"Yeah, baby."

After congratulations were passed around, Rachel stood up.

"Okay. I'm last," said Rachel. "I'm thankful for my family, sitting around this table. Who would have thought that eleven years ago, when I walked into a coffee shop that I'd be sitting here with everyone I care about in the whole world. I'm not totally thankful for Joey and Phoebe at the moment, who left me without Ross. I know its not your fault, and it was a great surprise, but I thought we agreed that before there were any more surprises, you'd run them by someone else." Joey and Phoebe looked sheepish. "But, I love you guys." She ran around the table and hugged Joey and Phoebe.

Chandler stood to carve the turkey when the phone rang. Monica picked it up and quickly put it on speaker.

"Hey, Ross," Monica said and the table emptied quickly.

"Hey, guys. Rach, are you there?"

"I'm here, Ross. How's my apartment," she asked, tears in her eyes.

"Its good. This sucks being here. If you were on this side of it, you'd know how bad this sucks. Me here, all you guys there. Rach, I'm sorry for ever hanging up on you," Ross sounded like he was near tears. He wasn't. He was quietly crying.

"I know, Ross. And I forgive you, if you can forgive me."

"Hey, we all miss you, buddy," said Chandler. "This was a great idea, just next time let someone else know, okay?"

"Not a problem," Ross chuckled.

Everyone talked to him while the food got cold, except for Joey's, who made up a plate and took it to the phone. Once they were done, Rachel picked up the phone and everyone else went back to eat. Strangely, no one talked, having both ears tuned to the phone.