Disclaimer: None of these characters, settings, etc. belong to me. However, I do often dream that I own Matthew Perry...
December, 3 months later
"Hello, children!" came the now familiar, male voice.
Monica, Rachel, Joey, and Ross all looked up from their lunches, and – sure enough – Chandler Bing was approaching their table. He was dressed in his usual obviously expensive and preppy clothes, the matureness of the outfit countered only by his omnipresent white tennis shoes and his boyish grin.
"You sure sound happy," Monica noted as he took the empty seat between her and Joey. "Were you finally able to end your quest for nude Molly Ringwald photos?"
"Unfortunately no," Chandler frowned. He ignored Joey's own groan, and continued with his news. "I do, however, have three courtside tickets to tomorrow night's Knicks' game!"
"Three courtside seats? Dude, how did you get those?" Joey exclaimed, his eyes already widening with excitement.
"My dad's company is doing some campaigns for one of their sponsors, and my dad said he had no use for them. So he gave them to the Chan-Chan Man!"
"First of all," Rachel inserted, "please refrain from ever calling yourself that again."
"And secondly," Monica continued, "three seats?"
"Well, yeah!" Chandler answered, easily. "One for me, one for Ross, and one for myself."
Monica and Rachel raised their eyebrows expectantly. The two of them both crossed their arms over their chests indignantly.
"What?" Chandler asked. "What? Come on, the two of you ditched us at Joey's last weekend when we were watching the game! I didn't think you would want to go!"
"Fine," Monica shrugged. "We don't care."
"Right," Rachel said with a shrug of her own. "I couldn't care less."
"Rach, don't you have to go see Mr. Self before fifth period?" Monica asked, raising both of her eyebrows to imply that the answer was yes.
"Um, yeah, I have to talk to him about that – that thing that he wanted to talk to me about," Rachel stammered. "But he totally gives me the creeps when no one else is in the room. Come with me, Mon?"
"Absolutely!" Monica smiled a little too cheerfully.
Both girls stood from their respective seats, not bothering to pick up their lunches.
"Bye, Joey! Bye, Ross!" Rachel said sweetly.
"I'll see you in sixth, Joe. Ross, I'll see you at home," Monica said.
As Rachel and Monica both turned to walk away, Chandler's voice stopped them.
"What about me?" he asked.
"Right!" Monica laughed, smacking herself in the head. "I almost forgot! Chandler, could you throw away our trash for us? You know how much I hate messes."
"Come on, Joe," Chandler pleaded. "This can't be the first time they've been mad! You or Ross has to know how to fix this!"
Joey shut his locker and turned to his best friend. "If you want to make it up to Rachel, just buy her something. You've got the money for that!"
Chandler did a quick sweep of the hall before responding. "Rachel's not exactly the one that I'm concerned about."
"Dude," Joey grinned, "Monica has you buy the nu – "
"Du-ude!" Chandler interrupted. "Shut up!"
"Chandler," Joey laughed, "we're the only one's in the hall. The final bell rang fifteen minutes ago. Speaking of which, what took you so long to get here?"
The two of them began their walk out to the parking lot.
"What took me so long is the fact that I waited by Monica's locker for ten minutes waiting for her to stop by before leaving."
"Really? How did that go?" Joey asked.
"Well, considering I'm willing to take your advice on how to get her to forgive me, I'm gonna say not very well! She turned and walked away the second she saw me from around the corner!"
By that time, they had reached Chandler's BMW 325.
"Can we take a second and focus on the real problem here?" Joey asked.
"Pray tell, what is the real problem here?" Chandler asked, pulling his keys from his pocket and popping the trunk for his books.
"Why won't you let me drive your car?"
Chandler wiped his hands off on his cream, cashmere sweater before ringing the doorbell in front of him.
There was a long enough pause between his action and the opening of the door for him to completely rethink his plan, but he knew that there was really no turning back.
"Chandler!" Judy Geller, dressed in her usual sweater set and dress pants, greeted. "Ross had Biology club after school today, but I'm sure he'll be home any minute if you want to come inside."
Chandler took this as his cue to step into the foyer.
"Actually, Mrs. Geller, I'm here to see Monica. Any chance that she's around?"
Chandler noted how Judy's face seemed to falter at the mention of her daughter. He had heard Monica's stories on how Ross was highly favored by her parents – something about a medical marvel. Chandler shook his head. How could her parents favor Ross when Monica was – when Monica was –
"She's in the basement. Why do you need to see Monica, dear?"
"I'm afraid I might have upset her at school today," Chandler admitted, worried that he would be asked to leave. "I'm hoping to apologize."
"Well, Monica is known to overreact. Go ahead and go down stairs."
Chandler refrained from rolling his eyes and did what he was told. The pathway to the Geller basement had become familiar to him. He worked his way across the living room and down the stairs without hesitation.
He saw her sitting on the couch, her eyes fixated on MTV. Her hand was absentmindedly reaching into a bowl of popcorn and every few seconds a crunch of her chewing resonated through the room.
"Hey, Mon," Chandler said carefully, not wanting to startle her or anger her.
Her head whipped around, and she grimaced.
"What do you want, Chandler?"
Chandler sighed and gave the carpet a nudge with the toe of his white sneaker.
"I know that you're mad at me, and – while I don't fully understand the reason why – I want to make it up to you."
He watched as Monica's mouth twitched with a smirk, and she gestured for him to move to the other side of the couch.
As he made his transition, Chandler continued to talk.
"I guess it was kind of rude to invite the guys to something with me without inviting you and Rachel too. So, I'm sorry for that."
He stopped when he stood directly in front of her.
"I'm listening," Monica said. Her eyebrow lifted, urging him to continue.
"Right," Chandler nodded. "The point is that not inviting the two of you to come with us to The City wasn't very considerate. But, I think I've found a way to get you to forgive me."
"Which would be…"
Chandler reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Monica excitedly and took a seat next to her on the couch.
Monica tore the envelope open slowly, almost nervous to see what was inside. Chandler was being so sweet, trying desperately to make her happy with him again. Plus, he seemed so enthused by whatever he was giving her. She hoped that she wouldn't have to let him down if he had gotten her something that she would have no interest for.
All those thoughts came to a stop when she saw what she held in her hand.
"Oh my God," Monica squealed. "You got us tickets to Les Miserable and Phantom of the Opera! I only mentioned wanted to see these once and it was months ago! Chandler, thank you!"
"You don't have to thank me," Chandler was quick to rebut. "I owed you. I'm really sorry that I didn't consider inviting you and Rachel."
Monica leaned over and wrapped Chandler in a tight hug. She kissed his cheek before pulling away.
"No, Chandler, we overreacted. You were right, we would have no interest in seeing a Knicks game."
"Still," Chandler reasoned, "we're a group. We should be doing stuff like this together, that way when we get back from our trips nobody feels left out when stories from them come up."
"Chandler, this really means a lot to me. But, I understand if you don't want to take Rachel and me to New York. You have this big guy's trip planned, and I don't want to interfere with it."
Monica tried to hand the envelope back to Chandler, but he gently pushed her hands away.
"You're not going to be interfering with anything. I promise. The five of us can fit in my car, and trust me when I say there is more than enough room in our Manhattan apartment for everyone to have a place to crash."
"Only if you're sure," Monica said, still uncertain that this was what he wanted.
"Monica, there is nothing I would love more than having you come with us."
Chandler rubbed her shoulder affectionately and opened his mouth to say something else, but Monica spoke first.
"And Rachel."
Chandler's hand on her shoulder ceased its movement, and he furrowed his brow.
"What about Rachel?"
"There's nothing you'd love more than having Rachel and me come with you," Monica explained.
"Oh," Chandler cleared his throat and removed his hand from her shoulder. "Right, Rachel too. But enough about the trip, the new Flock of Seagulls video just came on. Turn it up!"
Monica laughed and did as she was instructed.
"You know, your obsession with them is boarder line creepy."
"Please," Chandler scoffed. "It's not like I'm going to go get one of those ridiculous haircuts. I just appreciate the music." His comment was followed by an uneasy laugh.
"You really want one of those haircuts, don't you?" Monica asked, amused.
"Is it that obvious?"
So this update took forever. I sincerely apologize! Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter! It means a lot to me!
This chapter was a lot shorter than the last chapter, so I also apologize for that! Hopefully you readers still enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for reading!
I would love to hear your thoughts/opinions/suggestions, so feel free to drop me a review!