Edit: I tried to get this out so quick proper editing wasn't done- a few changes to make thing more coherent- even though Rach is only coherent up to a point.

Question: what do you call an author who never updates.

Answer: if I said if was me would there be an angry mob with pitch forks.

God, I really have no excuse other than life has been difficult and this chapter was particularly hard to write. And now we are into a whole new year.

Rachel had to sound like no one else, she's not particularly anilitical, she feels things I hope it reflects.

Exintari: I am especially sorry because you always review. That there was such a long freaking break, in reference to your review; this was semi in ross's point of view- he thinks he has a weird choice in women (though I totally spaced on Julie- which was pretty bad of me) and that goes for the childhood- because if anyone would delude themselves into believing their childhood was perfectly normal- it would be Ross. I relise he has self knowledge of his favourite child standard, but if Monica wan't in the room I don't think he would refer to it as not normal. He sort of thinks he's better than her. Anywho I'm not sure you'll even like this chapter, it breaks style, but I couldn't really write Rachel breaking down Chandler in any sort of hard hitting way.

Champers: you left me a really nice review and told me to update soon- and I didn't and I am very sorry. I hope you like this chapter, on anther note I remember reading and really liking your work, and I have a soft spot for randler so it's sort of suggested here.

Rachel ignores there presumptions.

But they presume she doesn't care- that she feel things, that she couldn't love her friend. Because she did, she really, really, did. She loved Chandler. She could hear the Gellar's having private aneurisms at the thought, but it wasn't like that, she didn't love Chandler like Monica did, or Joey or even Ross… but she did love him.

He always made her laugh, he suffered through her endless talk of fashion, and they had their lunch tradition. He always seemed happy even when he was sad, she loved that about him.

She was almost positive he'd just die if she told him that, and she's was defiantly positive he wouldn't believe her if she did tell him that. She's not sure he's ever believed it, when somebody has told him that they love him.

She imagined privately that she was in love with him. That if things had been different, that they'd met another way, or gone further than that time they made out when he was in college. She still thinks about it, as if sometimes she closes her eyes and she could almost feel the swell in her heart she gets from a guy she really likes.

Though sometimes when she imagined it felt wrong, though sometimes it felt right- but most of the time she felt like she knew it would never ever happen. Even if she really wanted it too.

She come back down to reality, and she could see him on his wedding day smiling lovingly into eyes that weren't hers. Chandler would marry Janice, or maybe Phoebe or some pretty laid back women who would ask him out instead of the other way around, and be the man in the relationship.

And she would marry some man who looked like he'd been plucked from a catalogue picture, or some hot forign guy- that would never try to hit on her friends.

But for right now, she would like it to be true. That she was madly in love, because if she was in love with him, she could kiss him, because if she was in love with him she could stop his hurting and she would know how to make it better.

If that failed she could just kiss cause it would feel good and she always felt better after kissing someone. She had kissed him before, a long time ago, and she could see her self in a room with hundreds of candles, getting swept up in a carefully planed moment.

But now the more she step away from fantasy, the more she thought maybe kissing wasn't the right route, she needed to think with her head about this, because this wasn't just anyone. This was her friend. Not her closest friend, but somebody who she couldn't live without.

So… maybe she could set him up. But Chandler would be difficult, he was always extra difficult, he'd probably fake enthusiasm and complain about it for weeks after. Or mess it up in the first five minuets on accident (on purpose). Partially because she didn't really want to see him even holding hands with someone else, but mainly cause she thinks Chandler doesn't really want to be in a relationship right now- or ever.

He doesn't want to be so close to someone. As much as it pains her, he fears the thought of someone having that big a part of him. Commitment terrifies him. Even she can see that (and if Monica was here, she'd roll her eyes at her and say 'duh.')

But she gets it. Better than Monica does, she gets being afraid of commitment- hell she ran out on a wedding. Okay that's not for the same reason he won't get in a relationship. But still she gets it. Really.

She understands he doesn't want to screw up a person so bad that they never recover, that he makes someone as screwed up as him. Which is insane, he can't do that much damage, he doesn't get women are strong. They don't just suddenly become screwed up over a failed relationship. They cry, and eat cookie dough and ice cream and burn their ex's stuff. Maybe throw some stuff around a bit if they're really upset.

Not that she thinks he's screwed up… well maybe a little. But not really cause that's just Chandler being Chandler, he's lovably screwed up! And even if being screwed up is true that just means there's more to love. Oh God. She used to say the exact same thing about Monica in high school about her weight. 'She's not fat, there's just more to love'

But Chandler can't not eat for a year, take daily hour long jogs and come out emotionally stable like Monica came out thin- because that's just not how it works.

There's no emotional crash diet for the psyche….

At least not anything she's seen advertised on paper view- but then again she doesn't watch a lot of T.V.

And now not only does she think she must be side tracking but she thinks she just rambling on like Chandler would, because really he's a bit of a rambler and maybe she's been spending to much time with him and that's why she's worried.

Hell, she may not know Chandler as well as everyone else -which is totally debatable because she's saw she at least knows him better than Phoebe- but she knows that's some day he'll slowly work out whatever it is that's got him up in knots.

So that he'll chew his mother out for making his childhood hard, or never being there, or making him a character in one of her books- which was something she just realized when she reread the story out the single mother of a son who sleeps around a lot and she had thought was a good story at the time, and now resides at the bottom of her waste basket.

Or maybe he'll talk to his father again- not that she presumes to know how that'll get fixed. Or maybe he will just put all the things behind him under a neat little label of things to painful to deal with. She knows he'll do something though, he might need a little push- but she knows that it'll work out, because it has too. Chandler's just to good a person for it not too.

He has to get better now because he's so sad, and it makes her so sad to and she'll die if he keeps drowning in depression, keeps skipping work and hiding in his room. Sometimes she forgets wanting to kiss him, she wants to slap him! Knock some sense into him. Tell him to stop being so self absorbed- even if was a little hypocritical of her, because people cared about him!

She wanted to scream, and yell and tell it to him straight. Cause hey, she may have been that spoiled, pretty rich girl, but life's not easy, not for anyone. Not for him, not for her not for anyone. But with friends like her, with friends like Joey or Monica or Ross or Phoebe, how could he sink into this depression. How could he just ignore all the good things, because there are just to many good things.

There are coffee shops, and best friends, and wasted afternoons. There are inside jokes and shared apartments and surprise parties. There were lots of good things, but he just focuses on the bad things. Afraid they'll judge him if he just lets it hang out. But it doesn't matter because they would love him anyway, they're a family.

So his first family was horrible, not a basis of comparison.

Now his second family, a family spread out over four apartments and a coffee shop and occasionally made detours in bars, restaurants, parks and job locations. They were dysfunctional and difficult and if you wanted to take the family metaphor to far- a little incestuous.

But they loved him, they love him. Even if he'll never believe it. Now she's decided she's going to have to say it. She's going to have to scream it. And they were going to have to say it. They were going to have to scream it. It was going to have to be said. And said. And said some more until nobody could deny it anymore.

Not even Chandler.