The shirts had been folded and refolded so may times that Rachel started to think that one more go-around and they'd come apart in her hands. She made her fingers stop, stared down at the shirt she was clasping. Stupid shirt. Stupid azure shirt that was the same stupid colour as Chandler Stupid Bing's stupid eyes. She threw it away from her, looked at the crumpled heap on the floor, pushed down the urge to kick it, picked it up and refolded it.

God, she'd been living with Monica for so long she was starting to turn into her.

Azure was such a beautiful colour.

He had danced with her, he had slipped her back into her coat, he had taken them both back home to the safety of their respective apartments. Chandler Bing, it transpired, was revoltingly safe in the back of a taxi. Even with her thigh pressed hard against his he still hadn't-

When he had walked her to her door and they had stood in the hall he had, then, embraced her, and she had sighed a little in response, made that faint humming sound in the back of her throat, the one that had never let her down before.

Until then, of course.

He had offered her a 'Good-night' and one of those swift terrified smiles of his and fled into his apartment.

She used to be the girl that no man could resist. Miss 'I can get any guy I want without even trying'. Not lately, she thought again gloomily; no, not lately.

There was the cheerleader outfit hanging in a clothes bag in her closet. That had definitely never failed her before. Now, there's a plan: a twenty-eight year-old cheerleader.

Could you be more pathetic? a pleasant, sarcastic voice asked.

Wonderful, just wonderful. Even her own subconscious was a traitor.

'What do you think?'

Rachel started, turned and forced a smile. 'Great. That looks really great.'

He pulled nervously at the sleeves. 'Really? I'm not sure it's really me.'

'No, it looks good.'

'Oh. Oh, okay.'

He went back into the changing room and Rachel resumed her assault on the shirts. Why couldn't she have gone for someone like Joshua? He was handsome, he was charming, he was smart. Any other time she'd be throwing herself at him.

He wasn't Chandler.

He didn't try on the clothes she picked out and strike poses learnt from his burlesque-star father; he didn't make up stories about the shop mannequins; he didn't slide a silk scarf around her neck and flash her a smile of such sincerity and uncertainty it made her heart ache.

Joshua wasn't Chandler. And Chandler didn't want her.

'What do you think about gloves?'

She started again. 'Sorry?'

'Gloves. I, uh, I was thinking about gloves.' Joshua smiled at her.

There was a strange sort of tightness around his mouth when he smiled, she thought. Weakness in there somewhere.

'Right. Right! Gloves. Brown or black?'

'Brown?'

She curled her lips into a smile. 'Brown it is.'

Five pairs before he finally picked one out. A glove is a glove, she thought tetchily; they keep your hands warm, what more do you want? Seriously, what is this guy? A hand fetishist? Does he have his fingers insured?

Does everything I think have to sound as though it came direct courtesy of one Chandler M. Bing?

Joshua hung around, smiling at her, while she put the paperwork through on his order and the alterations and booked the appointment for his next session. Okay, he did a lot for her commission but the man needed more clothes than she did.

And that, somehow, just wasn't appealing.

ooOoo

He had spent the day not thinking about Rachel Green. He had not thought about her in that long black dress with the slits; he had not thought about her laughing, her eyes glittering, turning her face up to his; and he had definitely not thought about her sitting close to him, her perfume filling his head, about sliding his hand up along the expanse of her exposed thigh, about kissing her, hard, about making her forget she had ever been kissed before.

His secretary had brought him in cups of coffee, placed them on the desk beside his head that he had kept resting on folded arms and - he had sensed rather than seen - given him the sort of motherly disapproving looks that he had never really experienced first-hand but had always sort of wanted.

'Thanks,' he muttered after her last pilgrimage.

'It's a girl, isn't it?'

Chandler raised his head. She didn't look sympathetic exactly. Actually she looked more likely to rip Rachel's head right off her shoulders should she show her face. Not that she would know that Rachel had anything to do with any of this. Whatever this was, exactly.

'Yes,' he said. She sniffed.

'Hussy.' And walked out.

It was endearing, really. Chandler drank some of the coffee, scalding hot and far too sweet, and winced but after a while drank it all down. Because it was nice to feel looked-after. And with the God-awful coffee to deal with, it actually made him stop thinking about Rachel.

ooOoo

Rachel was sitting in his Barcalounger. Curled up, blanket pulled up to her chin, eyes on the television.

Chandler took a moment, checked the apartment number, blinked against the gloom to make sure she was still there, closed the door. 'Hey.'

She turned her head, smiling at him sleepily over the top of the chair. 'Hey. Where have you guys been?'

He held up the carton of milk.

'Ah. I didn't know you knew how to buy any; I thought you just got it out of our fridge.'

'Ha-ha. That's Joe. Me? I buy stuff.' She looked at him; he shrugged. 'Yeah, most of the time...' He slid the carton into the fridge door, closed it, padded across the floor.

'Where's Joey?'

'You know that new sandwich place that opened?'

'Uh-huh.'

'It has a hot girl working there.'

'Ah.'

'Yeah. Hot girl, sandwiches - it's kinda like Joey heaven.'

Rachel laughed lightly. The sound crept somewhere behind his ribs and squeezed. 'What are you doing over here? We, uh, we didn't swap back did we?'

'No. It's just, well, Monica is getting really Monica-y over there and it's been way too long a day for me to deal with it. Plus, that apartment still smells of bird,' she added darkly.

'Yeah, well, this apartment still smells of ... girl.'

Her eyebrows went up, one corner of her mouth curling.

He shrugged again. 'Yeah, okay.'

His bedroom still smelt of Rachel. As though the walls and floor and even the air had been instilled with Essence of Rachel.

'I didn't think you guys would mind.'

'Hey, you're welcome here anytime. But I wouldn't tell Monica. You know, she's-'

'-Always the hostess.' She rolled her eyes with affection. 'You want to watch the movie with me?'

'What is it?'

'Weekend at Bernie's.'

'Ah, the perennial classic! Sure.'

He hovered for a moment, indecisive, then climbed onto the arm of the same chair. 'This is my Barcalounger,' he said when she looked up at him questioningly.

'Joey doesn't let you sit in his?'

'Yes he does, but I know what he's done in that chair.'

Her face screwed up. 'Do I want to know?'

'Not really.'

'Ew.'

'Yup.'

'Do you want some blanket?'

Chandler took the proffered corner and they rearranged themselves, Rachel shifting across to give him enough room to be comfortable. He spread one arm along the back of the chair and she settled against him.

WENUS, he thought weakly, the WENUS- The WENUS can go to hell. Think about Bernie. Poor old Bernie getting bumped down stairs and skimmed over waves, and, damn even Bernie managed to get laid and he was dead and that is a totally disgusting thought-

Even that wasn't enough to distract from the reality of Rachel in his half-embrace. Most definitely not enough when she made that noise, that little purring sigh that made the more rational parts of his brain jam. The way she was doing right now.

She moved restlessly, her body finding the lines and hollows in his where she seemed to fit as though she had been made for it. Another little sigh. The smooth silk of her hair spilling over his hand.

Bernie. Poor, poor dead Bernie...

'Hey, Rach.'

'Yes?'

The light from the screen flickered across her face, playing with the fine bone beneath her skin. He cleared his throat.

'It's, uh, it's been great us hanging out lately.'

She turned more, leaning against him. 'Yes, it has.'

'I've really enjoyed it.'

'Me too!'

Her face was turned up to his. He did not have a wide basis for comparison but he thought she looked ... eager. Expectant. He had actually seen that sort of expression on the faces of other girls. Most of them had not been looking at him, but he had seen it. And Rachel was looking at him like that.

Kiss her.

'There's, uh, there's something I've been meaning to ask you.'

'What? What-what have you been meaning to ask me?' She had the edge of blanket pulled tight between her fingers.

Kiss her. Just kiss her, stupid. Or just kiss her stupid. Either. Both. Something.

'I- Dammit.'

He caught her chin in his hand, tilted her head back, and kissed her. He bruised her lips with his, claiming her. Then stopped.

'Whoa- You're kissing me back- Are you kissing me back?'

'Well, not right now.'

She had her hand at the back of his neck, pulled his head back down to hers.

Her lips were soft and yielding and they opened under his and her mouth was warm. Inviting.

She kissed him back.

Hunger was answered with hunger. Hands started to slide. Up under the worn hem of her shirt, grazing the skin over her ribs and she gasped, laughed slightly, pulled at his sweatshirt, and her nails raked lightly across his back.

They parted, slightly, and she stared at him, wide-eyed.

'God, you're- You're really good at that.' She sounded breathless.

'Well, I have kissed more than four women.'

'I hate all of them,' she murmured and kissed him again.

She tasted of cherries and black honey and he just couldn't get her close enough. He slithered down the arm of the chair, heard her gasp as his weight crushed her.

'Sorry! I'm sorry, I just-'

'Maybe we should-'

'Yeah-'

He stood and, suddenly daring, scooped her up, blanket and all, carried them through to his bedroom. Another gasp, this time tinged with a breath of delighted laughter. They landed on the bed in a tangle of arms and blanket and fought to free themselves.

Chandler pressed her down, framing her face with his hands, her hair twining itself around his fingers. Somewhere through the fog of need and want and the feel of her dragging her lips across the pulse in his throat came the solitary coherent thought that he should close his door.

He pulled himself away from her and every nerve ending screamed at the loss of contact. The door closed, he pressed both hands against it. Control, he needed some sort of control; he wouldn't fall on her like an animal; he thought about all the things he would do with her, the things he would do to her. He turned the lock.

'That door doesn't lock.' Her voice sounded ragged.

'Yeah, I fixed it so it will.'

She was breathy. 'You really are handy.'

Chandler turned and looked at her. She knelt on his bed in a square of light that crept through the window from the streetlamp. Her eyes glittered, strangely opaque and smoky. She kept them on him; her lower lip was pulled between her teeth for a moment, released, still glistening. And slowly, very slowly, she took hold of the hem of her shirt, pulled it up over her head, dropped it on the floor. Her hair fell around bare shoulders and his eyes took in the gold gleam of her skin.

Rachel, half-naked, was kneeling on his - his -bed and waiting for him.

'God, you are so beautiful.'

She smiled. He walked towards her.

ooOoo

At some point she wondered where the uncertain Chandler had gone. Where was the man with the crippling self-doubt? with the self-esteem so low it took a microscope to find it? Because this man, this man, seemed so sure of himself when he had his hands on her; he knew what he was doing and God, did he know what he was doing.

His hands were everywhere, finding patches of skin that flamed under his touch and still ached when those fingers - as strong and as dextrous as they looked - moved on. His hand circled her ankle, then slid down, fingers pressing into the ball of her foot, grazing against the arches; they investigated the tender skin between her toes.

'How,' she gasped, 'how did you..?'

He smiled, his head tilting to one side and the way his eyes glittered was inhuman. 'Remember when you guys helped me out with the seven zones? You got pretty excited about toes.'

She bit her lip. His fingers, then his mouth, his tongue-

'You, uh, you ... r-remember that ... huh?'

'Oh yeah.' He released her imprisoned foot, started to crawl up the bed towards her. 'As I recall, this is zone one-'

Rachel's breath shuddered through her.

'And this is zone two-'

Her back arched helplessly.

'Zone three is all the way over here-'

'God, Chandler...'

She pushed herself up, pulled him towards her, crushed her lips against his. He wasn't the only one who knew zones, she thought; her hands moved over him and she felt power flood through her at the guttural moan she elicited from him. And there was so much pleasure just from touching him, of feeling skin and muscle sliding under her hands. Of tasting him, and breathing the warm haze of his aftershave.

He captured her hands, pinning them over her head. He was breathing so hard she could feel his chest shaking against hers. And-

And that was it. He looked down at her, not moving.

'Chandler.'

'What?'

'Chandler, please!'

He smiled.