In the end, Rachel thought, Emily Waltham really hadn't been all that bad. A bit snobby, a bit pretentious - well, she was British after all - but once she'd been provided with some dry clothes and shoes she'd actually been almost fun. Not an evening that Rachel would wish to repeat but not one that would go down as being one of the worst in her own personal history.

She'd already had enough of those.

At the top of the final flight of stairs Rachel stopped, taking her weight onto one foot then the other. Even after years of inappropriate-shoe-induced numbness, every now and then her feet would flare up into agony. They throbbed dully at her. She hobbled down the hall, pushed open the door and sighed in relief when she entered, not having to pretend anymore. A few steps in and she wondered what was strange. A few more steps and she noted the Barcaloungers and she realised that, once more, she had come home to the wrong home.

She hated them both. She hated their mean smugness in enjoying taking their apartment - their beautiful purple apartment - from them. She hated Monica for having got her into this, and out of her home, to begin with.

This was still her home. That was still her bedroom. The one where Chandler now slept.

Perhaps, she thought, as she crept across the floor, her lovely but crippling shoes in her hand, coming in here had not been such an inadvertent mistake. Perhaps it was just that this was where she belonged.

She pushed down on the handle, familiar with its feel, with the strange little judder it made near the end of its motion, knowing just how much pressure to apply to keep the whole thing soundless. The door was closed behind her just as silently and she stood for a moment, blinking against the gloom. Like her, Chandler slept with the curtains drawn tight and the window open just a crack, just enough to let a current of fresh night air in. She breathed it in along with the scent that had become almost a part of her. The scent that lingered in her room, that clung to her skin and her hair hours after she had left him, that imbued the shirt that she had stuffed under her pillow and pressed against her cheek when he wasn't there just so that she could pretend that he was.

He was the shapeless lump under the sheets, just one arm visible.

Rachel put her shoes on the floor, her bag on the dresser, slipped off her coat, her dress, shook out her hair and felt its residual dampness against her neck. She slid in next to him, absorbing the warmth of his body. She pressed herself against the curve of his back, one arm around him getting herself closer, she buried her face in the curve of his shoulder and breathed him in.

Beyond the curtained window the city was a dull roar, muted to a perpetual rhythm of traffic and bass notes. Layered over it the hum of air-conditioners and generators, and over that, right beside her, the low in-and-out of his breathing. She could hear the change, how it shallowed as he began to stir and then his voice, roughened with sleep croaking her name.

'Rachel?'

She stroked his hair. 'Hey.'

'How was your hot girl-date?'

'It was not a date.'

'Why do you say stuff like that?'

She smiled into the curve of his neck, pressed her lips against his skin. 'Sorry. We held hands during the show, played footsie during dinner, then made out afterwards.'

'Awesome.'

She laughed lightly, imagined the way he would be smiling to himself. Chandler rolled onto his back, sliding his arm around her and she settled against him again.

'Are you staying or going?'

'Staying.'

'You want me to set the alarm?'

'You'd better.'

''Kay.'

No movement. She poked him in the ribs; he started. 'Chandler.'

'What?'

'The alarm.'

'Oh, yeah. Here I go. Here's me setting the alarm.'

Another poke.

'Hey, here's a non-fun game.'

'Then set the alarm!'

He rolled away from her again, jabbed at the clock on the bedside table, came back to her. When his arm went around her again he held her tighter. 'You are almost naked.'

'You noticed.'

'I'm great that way.' A pause. 'That was your cue to say, "You're great in lots of ways, Chandler".'

She yawned widely. 'You know I was totally thinking that.'

'You're lucky I think you're hot, you know that?'

Rachel curled herself against him, felt the way the contours of his body shifted to accommodate hers; she slipped one hand under the hem of his T-shirt, felt sleep-warmed skin and soft hair and stopped with her fingers resting over his heart. He pressed his lips against the top of her head.

'Chandler?'

He started again. 'What?'

'Do you ever get lost between apartments?'

He thought it over. 'Huh?'

'I mean, do you ever go home to the wrong apartment by mistake?'

'Seriously, so lucky I think you're hot...'

Rachel blew out a breath. 'I keep doing it. I keep coming home to here instead of your old apartment.'

'It's now your apartment.'

She drew light circles on his chest. 'C'mon, swap back.'

'No.'

'Please?'

'No.'

She lowered her voice. 'I'll do that thing you wanted to try.'

'N-' He paused. 'No. Nice try but you'll have to do better.'

'Better than that?'

'Go to sleep.'

'But-'

'Rach, go to sleep.'

ooOoo

In the hallway they smiled at one another - complicit - and resisted the urge to hold hands. Later, perhaps, out on the street she would take his arm and anyone who knew them would think nothing of it. Just two friends walking along being friendly.

'Hey, guys.'

Chandler felt his smile freeze. For weeks he'd managed to avoid spending much time with Ross, something about which the other man - your oldest friend, he reminded himself once again - seemed oblivious.

'Hey, hi!'

Rachel was smiling too brightly, he thought. She pushed her hair behind one ear, a jerking nervy gesture.

And Ross was wearing one of his morose semi-smiles. It dragged at his features. 'You guys going out?'

'Yeah, we're,' he glanced at Rachel; she was still wearing her pasted-on smile and staring at a patch of wall, 'we're just going to the movies.'

Ross brightened. 'That sounds like fun. Hey, there's a season of pre-Soviet Russian films showing at the Cornerhouse.'

'Yeah, we were just heading to the multiplex,' Rachel said, voice sharp, 'y'know, any old popcorn-movie will do us.'

The semi-smile returned. 'Oh. Oh, yeah, right... No, no, of course, I just thought... Y'know, I thought you guys might be interested...' He turned slowly towards number nineteen and an evening with his sister.

It's like kicking a puppy, Chandler thought. I'm the guy who kicks puppies. Big palaeontologist puppies. God, it's like when we were in college and I told him I didn't want to be in his band and it ended up being the choice between looking at that face for the next four years or being in the band. That band sucked. If I couldn't not be in the band, how am I going to tell him about Rachel? I should leave the city. Or the state. Or the country. Yemen. I'll go to Yemen.

'Hey, Ross-' Chandler forced his mouth up into a smile. 'Pre-Soviet sounds great.'

'Great!'

He really was like a puppy: doom-and-gloom one moment, ecstatic the next; if he'd had a tail he'd have been wagging it.

Ross started towards the stairs, cheerfully talking to a reluctant audience who didn't hear a word. Chandler looked at Rachel and her face was strained, incredulous. He held up his hands, shook his head in mute apology. She stared at him, and all of the sparkle that had danced in her eyes was gone. She nodded, started after Ross and he followed her miserably.

ooOoo

She was painfully, horribly, aware of Ross sitting beside her. The theatre was small, the seats cramped and if she relaxed for a second her knee would press against his. She tried to make herself as small as possible, shrinking away from him, and ending up pressing against Chandler on the other side. He sat, rigid, staring at the screen, flinching slightly at each inadvertent touch.

It was the quietest theatre she had ever been in; there were only five other people there. She felt like throwing her head back and screaming.

Ross was the only one enjoying himself: hunkered down in his seat, laughing at the supposed jokes that probably hadn't been funny even to the pre-Soviet audiences back in the day.

It was not the movie night they had had planned. It had not been much of a plan, admittedly, but it had been theirs: go to any no-brainer movie showing, sit in the back-row, make fun of the screen for a while, then spend the rest of the time making-out. And if they had ended up in a screening of Russia's answer to Chaplin, Chandler would have made her laugh by making up an alternative narrative and whispering it down her ear.

Ross laughed out loud at the action on screen, a high-pitched giggle that she found as welcome as nails scraped against a blackboard. He turned to Rachel, including her in the joke; she smiled weakly and her knee bumped against Chandler's; he flinched.

ooOoo

'You guys want to get some coffee?'

'Uh...' Chandler widened his eyes. 'I have to be at work early tomorrow, so...'

'Sure. Rach?'

'Yeah, me to, we, uh, we have to do inventory.'

The good-nights seemed interminable before Ross headed down the street. When he rounded the corner, Rachel sagged against the back of a bench, her head in her hands.

'Oh my God, that was awful.'

Chandler rested beside her. 'I know.'

Her head came up; she punched him in the arm. 'Why the hell did you invite him? It's Ross. Ross!'

'I know. I know! But' -his hand grasped at the air helplessly- 'but he had this look on his face like-like-'

'Like you've just kicked a puppy.'

'Yes! My God, yes, that's it exactly!'

They looked at each other. Rachel sighed softly and put her head on his shoulder. She fit so perfectly into the curve. Chandler stared at the pavement, stared at the small littering of cigarette butts at his feet. They looked tempting. He closed his eyes. Karma, he thought, really really crappy Karma; being with Rachel, with Ross' Rachel, meant that he deserved to feel this way. 'I am a terrible person.'

'No, you're not,' she said, soft. 'You are a good guy and you have been such a great friend to Ross.'

'Yeah. If I were a really good guy and a really great friend I'd say that we should stop seeing each other.'

She was still. So very still and he couldn't even hear her breathing.

'But I really want to go on seeing you.'

'Oh, thank God!' Rachel put her arms around his neck. Her face was damp. 'I don't want to stop seeing you! I really- I-' She pulled back. Her eyes were sparkling again, eyelashes studded with tears. 'I-I've been really ... happy ... lately.'

'Yeah.' Chandler cupped her face in his hand, wiped away the trace of tears and mascara from her cheek with his thumb. 'Yeah, me too.'

They did not kiss, out there on the street. Chandler held her to him, and buried his face in her hair.

ooOoo

'Is it crazy that I feel bad about doing this?' Monica asked.

'Yes,' Rachel replied, wrestling grimly with a Barcalounger. Chandler's Barcalounger; she'd left Joey's for Monica, Joey's with whatever was on it from whatever he'd done in it and derived a sense of satisfaction from the fact that Monica had no idea. As payback went it wasn't much of one but it was better than nothing.

'I can't believe they took the tickets and still kept the apartment.'

'Hey, you guys' -Phoebe, the look-out, stuck her head around the door- 'you better hurry up, the game will be over soon.'

Rachel straightened up. 'Oh, okay, sure. I'll just activate my jet-pack.'

Phoebe made a face at her, vanished again.

Monica threw herself at the Barcalounger, shunted it half-way across the room. She really was, Rachel thought, freakishly strong. Rachel gritted her teeth, grabbed the back of the chair and jerked it across the floor. When she reached Monica she stopped, pushed the hair out of her eyes.

'They'll be pretty mad when they get home.'

'Yeah.' Rachel rested against the back of the chair.

'They could just wait us out and switch it all back again.'

'Yeah, I've been thinking about that and I think I have an idea.'

ooOoo

Chandler closed the door, pressed his back against it. 'You are a devil-woman!'

Rachel looked at him innocently, wide-eyed. 'Who, me?'

'Yes, you! It was your idea - it had the black marks of Rachel Green all over it.'

She dropped the last of her belongings into a box, her lips twitching. 'I thought that you thought that the girl-on-girl action was worth it.'

'At the time...' He shrugged. 'The image has already started to fade.'

'Aww...' Her lips pushed out in mock sympathy.

'I want my apartment back.'

'Well, you got it.' Rachel gestured around the room. 'Enjoy.'

'This isn't over.'

'Yeah it is.'

They glared at each other across the bed. His shoulders slumped. 'Yeah, it is.' He wandered across, plucked at the scrunched-up ball of blue and frowned. 'Isn't this my shirt?'

Rachel felt the heat seep into her cheeks. 'Uh, yes.'

He was still fiddling with it. 'Why is it with your stuff?'

'I...' Her head lowered for a moment then she looked back up at him, defiant. 'I keep it under my pillow, okay? Happy now?'

He looked at her startled, again, and she reminded herself, again, that after all, after everything, it was Chandler.

'You keep it under your pillow.'

'Yes.'

'My shirt.'

'Yes.'

'Oh...' He shook it out, folded it again roughly and placed it in her box. 'Guess you should hang onto it, then.' His hands were in his pockets, head slightly bent. He was trying not to smile but the dimples either side of his mouth were deepening. Rachel watched him and felt the slow melting of her insides start all over again. It was lucky, really, that he had no idea how adorable he could be because if he did he would be insufferable. Or just like every other guy. And most of them were not nearly as adorable.

'So, uh... Before today, have you and Monica ever-'

'Chandler!'

'What?' His hands came out of his pockets, spread in the air. 'Really? Even now, I can't ask that question?'

'You-' Rachel shook her head. 'Men!'

'At least tell me what it was like... C'mon, you got your apartment back.'

'You watched it! You don't need me to tell you.'

He shrugged. 'I told you, the image is fading. Plus, Joey kinda hogged the whole viewing experience.'

'Yeah, he was pretty excited...'

'Just tell me how Monica kissed you.'

Rachel sighed. 'She-' She tilted her head slightly, walked across to him, placed her hands flat on his chest. 'She kissed me like this.' She pressed her lips chastely against his, held them there for a few seconds, stepped back.

'Huh. See, if it had been me, I would have kissed you like this.'

Her mouth was assaulted, ravaged, his hand holding her head, one arm wrapped around her waist. She was lifted off her feet, felt the hard door against her back and the solidity of his body pressed against her front. She couldn't breath. She didn't want to.

When he released her, still close enough that she could feel his breath against her lips, she was shaking.

'That-that is not fair.'

He smiled. 'Payback.'

They watched each other.

'I have to get back,' Rachel said softly.

'I know.'

He moved back, letting her past him. Rachel collected her box and felt a sudden pang at leaving behind this room. But maybe, she thought, maybe the feel, the scent of him would be on the air back in her new-again-old room. Chandler had his hand on the doorknob, before turning it caught her chin in his hand and kissed her again.

'You really are good at that.'

The dimples reappeared. 'Like I said, I have kissed more than four women.'

'Yeah...' He opened the door for her. 'And I've kissed more than one.'

'Ye- Wait, what? Rachel? Rach!'

And that, my friends, is what they call payback. She laughed to herself. But perhaps one day, if he was really good to her, she'd tell him about Melissa.