Still My Favorite

"Oh my God, Ross! What happened to you?" Monica yells as the three boys enter apartment 20. Rachel and Phoebe turn to look at them, too.

"Yes, Ross, what were you thinking? You can't go out like that!" Phoebe joins in and rolls her eyes.

All of her friends look at Phoebe. "Sorry that I broke my nose," Ross says confused.

Phoebe's face lights up. "Oh," she turns to Monica. "You meant his nose."

"Yes! What else?" Monica asks.

Phoebe shrugs. "Well, these pants look awful!" Then she skips to the table in the kitchen, getting herself another glass of margarita.

Ross' jaws drops and Chandler and Rachel try hard not to laugh. Monica puts an arm around her brother and guides him to the couch.

"What happened?" Monica asks again.

"Well, all of his other pants were in the laundry and …" Chandler begins as he sits down on the couch as well, but Monica hits his arm and looks at him warningly to shut him up.

After Ross has told everyone the story of how he got his nose broken, Phoebe sighs. "You had a hard day, Ross. I think it's okay for you to wear those pants."

"Thanks, Phoebe," Ross says sarcastically, something Phoebe doesn't seem to notice though.

"So, what have you girls been up to?" Chandler asks after a while.

"We pretty much just talked," Monica shrugs.

"And had some margaritas," Phoebe giggles.

Rachel joins the giggling. "And some more," she laughs and gives Phoebe a wink.

"Hey! Let's play Twister!" Joey suddenly suggests.

"What?" Ross asks.

"Twister! The game where you …"

"We know what Twister is, Joe," Chandler rolls his eyes. "But why are you suggesting it now?"

"Well, you know how I always think logically, right?"

Chandler decides to not say anything.

"And there are drunk girls here," Joey shoots Phoebe a flirty glance. She blushes and starts giggling again. "Well, you all know what I usually do with a drunk girl around …"

"Joe…," Monica interrupts him.

"No! I'm not gonna do that. You're my friends. So I thought: What can I do with my drunk friends? You know it, right? … play Twister!" He shouts because no one is answering him.

"Of course!" Chandler says matter-of-factly.

"We are not playing Twister!" Monica says.

Joey's jaw drops and he points at Monica. "You're mean!"

"I … it's, because of Ross. He can't play. It wouldn't be fair for him if we … that … you know?" Monica says quickly.

Chandler rolls his eyes. "It's not because of Ross."

"It is!" Monica squeezes Chandler's arm until he yells. "It is!"

Chandler laughs.

"What's going on you two?" Rachel asks curiously.

"Monica hates Twister."

"I do not hate Twister!"

"She does. When Kip was still living here we used to play Twister all the time. But one day I won and it was the last time we ever played."

"You did not win!" Monica hisses. "You definitely cheated. Even Kip said you did!"

"Kip was head-over-heels in love with you, Mon! Of course he said that!"

"That is not true. And you did definitely cheat!"

"So are we gonna play now?" Joey interrupts them.

"Let's play Monopoly!" Monica suggests enthusiastically.

"No, I want Twister!" Joey whines.

"You know what, Mon? I really wanna play Twister, too!"

"Phoebe!"

"Yeah, come on, I can watch. I don't mind," Ross says.

"You're my brother! You are supposed to stand on my side!"

"Hey Mon? It's not a problem to lose," Rachel begins cautiously.

"Oh, what do you know?"

"You woke the beast, Chandler," Rachel chuckles and immediately takes shelter behind the couch.

"Okay, fine, let's play Twister," Monica sighs. "But," she adds after a look into Chandler's smiling face. "I want you to know that you are gonna lose this time, Mr. Bing! In the end you are going to cry because you lost at the only game you think you're better at than me!"

"I can't … anymore," Joey gasps and falls down on the Twister board.

They have already played many rounds of the game, but Monica refuses to stop. Each time somebody won, but never Monica. Most of the time Chandler's the winner as he surprisingly really is the best at Twister. He has also already asked Monica to give up, but knowing her as well as he does he knew that she won't let that happen. She forced them to play again and again just to get more annoyed every time as Chandler wins again.

"Go away, Joey," Monica yells at Joey, who is still lying on the board. It's once again only her and Chandler left in the game and they decided before that this will be the last round.

Joey gets up slowly and walks towards Phoebe, who is sitting at the kitchen table. "I know I wanted to play that game, but I start to hate it because of her," he says to his friend with clenched teeth and points to Monica.

"Okay," Ross begins. "Put your left hand on yellow."

Chandler laughs. To him it's very easy to do that. But Monica groans. She has to put her left hand over her other arm and then under both of her legs. It's seems impossible to do, but she has to win. She just has to. Otherwise Chandler will hold this against her forever. "I can…" she begins, but suddenly her right arm gives way and she bumps on the floor.

"Nooo," she yells, not believing that Chandler is still in his position, not at all stressed. "That … it doesn't …"

"I think we have a winner," Rachel mumbles.

"Shush!" Monica silences her and gets up.

"Good game, Mon, good …" He stretches his hand out to Monica.

"Don't!" She hisses. "Don't be too smug about it. There are tons of things I'm better at than you!"

"Of course, I know! But I'm better at this," he points at the Twister board and – as Monica turns away – he does his happy dance. There aren't many things he's good at and that he has just beaten Monica a couple of times makes him feel proud.

Without saying anything Monica climbs out the window onto the balcony. Chandler sighs. He knows how competitive Monica usually is and that's something he likes about her. For him it's always just a game, but Monica takes things like that very seriously.

"Hey, do you hate me?" He asks cautiously as he enters the balcony as well.

"I want revenge," Monica mumbles without even looking at him.

Chandler notices that she doesn't answer his question but he assumes that it's too early for her to talk to him normally. She'll need some time to recover from what happened.

"Okay," he shrugs.

"And I want to choose the game."

"Okay. What do you wanna play?"

"Pictionary," she says and he resists rolling his eyes. He hates that game. Of course Monica knows that.

"Okay," he sighs.

"And I play with Ross and Phoebe. Joey and Rachel are on your team."

"Okay," he sighs again. He knows that Joey and Rachel will probably be not at all helpful in this game. And he knows that Monica knows that as well.

"Good, let's go back inside," She walks past him, still not looking into his eyes directly and climbs back into the living room.

"We are playing Pictionary!" Monica tells her friends.

"I hate that game!" Joey complains.

Phoebe grins. "Oh, that's nice of Chandler."

"Hey!" Monica's still pretty pissed. "He didn't get to choose. It was my turn!"

Phoebe gives Chandler a winks and he shrugs.

"Okay, let's play," Monica shouts excitedly. "Ross and Phoebe are on my team, Rachel, Joey and Chandler play together."

"That's really nice of you," Phoebe whispers so that only Chandler is able to hear her.

"As long as she doesn't hate me," he whispers back.

"What? Monica will never hate yo…"

"Hey! Phoebe! Don't talk to the enemy!" Monica yells and Phoebe startles.

"Ross, concentrate!" Monica shouts at her brother.

"I can't. I had a hard day and my head really hurts."

"Don't be a pussy, it's still a tie!"

It's true. They have played for quite a while now and Chandler had decided after the first few rounds that he is going to do anything to let Monica win. But it turned out that Rachel and Joey are really good at the game and they don't want anyone else to win than themselves. Also, Ross isn't a great help for Monica at all, which has probably to do with his accident earlier that day.

"Mon," Phoebe suddenly says. "Something smells really bad."

"Oh my God, the pizzas!" Monica jumps up. It's already late at night and while they were playing they got really hungry so Monica decided to put some frozen pizzas into the oven. Now she is holding a plate in her hands with little black lumps on it. "Look what happened," she whispers, crushed that she – the chef – burnt something.

"It seems like you aren't good at anything anymore, right, Monica?" Joey asks and laughs out loud, but everyone falls into silence. They don't dare to look at Monica.

"Joey…" Monica says dangerously quietly and then things start to happen very fast. Chandler doesn't notice anything until something hits his face.

"Monica!" Rachel and Phoebe yell and Chandler puts his hand to his nose where the plate hit him.

"Chandler," Monica is next to him immediately. "I'm so sorry; let me see your nose!"

Chandler takes his hands away. "Ouch, I think it's broken."

"No, it's not," Monica says. "It's just a little red."

"A little?" Ross laughs. "Join my club, dude!"

"What?" Chandler asks alarmed.

"Oh, don't worry," Phoebe pats his shoulder. "He was talking about the broken-nose-club, not the ugly-pants-club. Your pants look really good, actually."

"I don't want to be in either club!"

"You are not," Monica says once again. "Your nose is not broken. You're gonna have a bruise for a little bit, but it's going to be okay."

Chandler shrugs. "At least my pants look fine."

"I don't hate you," Monica says as soon as they called it a day and everyone except for Chandler and her have left the room. Chandler is lying on the couch with an ice pack on his nose. Monica is sitting next to him, feeling really bad for her friend.

"What?"

"The question you asked me earlier. Whether I hate you. I don't. You are probably the only person I don't hate after such a competition."

"What?" Chandler asks again.

"Well, if anyone else would have had the luck you had today I would totally hate that person. For you, you only get a plate in the face."

"Oh, and that's totally appropriate for something that isn't even my fault," Chandler smiles.

"Do you hate me?" Monica asks, suddenly insecure.

"Of course not. Monica, I could never hate you."

"Really?" Monica smiles relieved. "Not even a little bit? Not one tiny part of you? No hate?"

"Well, my nose hates you right now, but I'm on it."

"Thank you, Chandler. I know I'm too competitive and I should really work on it, but it's …"

"No, Mon! You don't have to work on that. It's you and that's good. Do you know how incredible boring life would be without all your flaws?"

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course," Chandler smiles at her.

"You know that you're my favorite …" Chandler nods. "Opponent. You're my favorite opponent. But also my favorite team member, my favorite person to talk with, to stay silent with, to do … everything with. You know what I mean."

"You're my favorite everything, too," Chandler smiles.

Monica squeezes his knee and smiles as well. "You can stay here if you want. It's already very late and you probably don't want to move anymore so …"

"I'd love to," Chandler interrupts Monica's rambling. "But," he adds. "Only if you stay here with me. I really need someone who gets me water and changes the ice pack in the middle of the night."

"Of course," Monica says quickly, the bad conscience still in her face.

"Mon, I was kidding. I just want to make sure we're okay."

"We are," Monica says and gets a blanket. Then she lies down next to Chandler and pulls the blanket over both of them.

He puts his arm around her and Monica sighs contently.

"Good night, Mon."

Good night, Chandler," Monica mumbles, already drifting off to sleep. "And congratulations!"