A/N: Alright, here goes the next chapter.

Chapter 2: Pouring

When Joey pulled into the driveway of the large two storey house they lived in – Monica insisted on calling it a mansion, which it wasn't – the house lay quiet. He knew by now that this wasn't necessarily a good sign.

To his immense relief, though, no catastrophe had occurred while he was away. The nanny told him that nothing out of the ordinary had happened and Rachel hadn't been out of her room once during the whole evening.

When he had said good night to the nanny and had sent her home, he went to look after Ally and Tyler and found them sleeping peacefully in their beds. Little Tyler was often haunted by horrid nightmares and slept in Joey's bed almost every other night, but tonight he seemed to be sleeping untroubled and deep.

Reluctantly as always, Joey then checked up on Rachel too, dreading where and how he would find her.

She was in what used to be their bedroom, curled up on top of the comforter, empty and half empty bottles all around her. With a few big steps he went to the window and ripped it open, greedily sucking in the fresh air. The stench of the room threatened to suffocate him. He pushed down a wave of nausea and stepped to the bed again, taking the empty bottles and putting them on the ground.

Marcia would probably curse again when she saw the mess she had to clean up. Maybe he really should give her the raise she always lamented about.

To keep Rachel from getting too cold while the window was open, he pulled out the comforter from under her body and haphazardly threw it over her. She still had her shoes on, but with how she stank right now, there was no way he would even consider touching her to get her out of her clothes.

He went back to the window to close it again, but then left it open a crack. The fresh air would probably do her some good. He leaned against the window frame to take a few deep breaths himself and with every breath of the cool, crisp night air, a pleasant calm settled over him.

A full moon stood in the sky, illuminating everything with a cold, white light.

Turning around to the sleeping woman on the bed, he studied her face. In the pale moonlight her face looked even more gaunt than usual. Her cheeks were sunken and her once shiny hair hung in greasy knots around her face. He rather not wanted to think about when she had washed it the last time. Or taken a shower. Or changed the sweats she was wearing all the time. This woman didn't even look like the woman he had married six years ago.

His wife had been a beauty other men had envied him for. Her charm, her wit, her grace, her style and her beauty had opened doors that had seemed closed to him forever.

After they had started going out, she had suggested going to a movie premier. Estelle, when asked, had even managed to get him two tickets. They had had a great time, he had met a few important people and talked to them. Rachel had taught him how to behave on events like those, what to say, what not to say.

It was a bit like acting and he got used to it. Amazingly enough, it was the start of a completely new phase in his professional life.

Sometimes he thought that Rachel had enjoyed this more than him. Being among stars and those who wanted to be, having glamour and fame around her had always excited her.

When he had had his first huge success in a drama series, when he had become a bankable and recognized star, Rachel had wholeheartedly embraced the changes that this brought for them.

Yeah, going with her to parties had always been fun. Until he had stopped taking her with him because she had started to embarrass him time and time again with her dissolute drinking.

He lied to the press about it. When asked, he claimed his wife stayed at home because she wanted to be close to their kids. It was a flimsy lie and everyone knew the truth anyway, but admitting it to the press would be like admitting defeat. And he wasn't quite there yet.

The next morning

"Bye daddy."

"Bye Allie."

"Bye daddy and give mommy a kiss from me when she wakes up," Tyler said, as every morning.

"I will," Joey lied, as every morning. "Bye Tyler."

They waved until the nanny had steered the car around the next turn and they were on their way to school and to kindergarten.

With an unusual spring to his step, he went into the kitchen. Although he had dreamt some weird things about Phoebe and prophecies and psychics, he had slept well and woken rested and fresh. His night, a noticeable exception, had not been interrupted by various emergencies or the patter of cold little feet running to come crawling under the covers with him.

Sunlight streamed red-golden into the kitchen as he brewed himself a cup of coffee. Fleetingly his thoughts touched on what had happened last night and he tried not to think about what it could mean that Phoebe had known all this ten years ago.

With a cup of coffee in his right hand, a fresh bagel in front of him, and a newspaper in the other hand, he sat down at the table. Reading the newspaper every morning was a habit he had started at first at Rachel's suggestion. She said that to know what people were talking about, he should at least read the headlines. Over time, the headlines had woken his interest in the whole article and ever since he had to eat breakfast alone, his daily newspaper was his silent companion every morning.

He almost spilled his coffee when, unexpectedly at this time of day, the door opened and Rachel came in, squinting against the sunlight.

"Did I miss them?" she asked in a clear voice, surprisingly different from her usual slur.

He had to bite back a deprecating laugh. As if she had ever seen their children leaving in the morning. At least not for about fifteen months. Still, it was unusual that she was up already. Usually she rolled out of bed around twelve, grabbed a few bottles and a bite to eat and holed up in the bedroom again.

"Yeah, they left about fifteen minutes ago," he answered, not taking his eyes off his newspaper.

"Damn," she muttered and it sounded a bit like there were tears in her voice, "I never even see them any more".

He said a silent prayer that it wouldn't be one of those days where she dissolved into self pity, only to drown it in even more alcohol.

"Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink," he muttered under his breath, while trying to hide completely behind the newspaper, wishing he could be invisible.

He heard a chair being pulled out and had the distinct feeling that she had sat down and was looking at him, obviously wanting him to turn his attention to her and talk to her, but willing to wait until he was ready to. Sighing he put down the newspaper eventually and looked at her.

She looked different. Better. From what he could tell, she wore fresh clothes and had even taken a shower. She had definitely brushed her hair, maybe even washed it.

"What?" he asked when she just sat there staring at him with eyes a little brighter than usual. They were still dull and lifeless compared to how they used to shine, but it seemed like there was a little spark in their depths.

She flinched a little at his harsh question, but at last she began to speak.

"How long do I have, Joey?"

The question took him by surprise. As did her tone. She had days when even he couldn't figure out any more what she was trying to say. This… this sounded a lot better, even if she sounded inexplicably sad.

"Until what?"

"Until you've had enough, until you leave me."

He couldn't stifle a pained gasp. Yeah, of course, sometimes, when it was so bad he just hadn't known what to do anymore, he had yelled at her, told her he would leave her if she didn't stop drinking. Asked her if that was what she wanted. But in the end, even when he thought about it, even when he tried to weigh the pros and cons, he could never actually see himself going through with it.

"I'm not gonna leave you," he said quietly, fighting the urge to hide behind his paper again, settling for just looking down at his hands.

"I'm a wreck. I'm a horrible mother, an even worse wife… you deserve better."

He looked up at her sharply. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No, of course not," she said, wide eyed. "It's just that… sometimes I ask myself why you're still here."

Although he had asked himself that question over and over again for almost two years, when he looked into her eyes, the answer was shockingly simple.

"I gave you a promise."

"A promise?"

It stood to hope that she hadn't lost the brain cells that contained that particular memory.

"Remember that big party we had, you in a white dress, me in a tux? I promised you to be there for you in good and in bad times. I figured these are the bad times."

She didn't say anything for the longest time. Just when he was about to go back to his paper and breakfast, she started to speak again dreamily.

"We had good times too, didn't we?"

He couldn't help but share this little nostalgic moment with her and smiled sadly. "Yeah. Yeah, we had a great couple of years."

When he saw the sorrow in her eyes, the regret, and the pain, he averted his gaze. He knew she suffered too. He knew she hadn't wanted it to be this way. But he dreaded what might come next. The promises, the vows that everything would get better, the futile attempts at getting over it, at staying away from the booze. He had seen it often enough to not fool himself into believing in that any more.

And there she goes again, he thought, when after a few moments she got up and went over to the fridge.

She took a full bottle of vodka out, then tucked it under her arm and grabbed two bottles of beer. He had long since given up on trying to get rid of the bottles that were stashed almost everywhere. For every hiding place he had found, she had two new ones he didn't know about. Now he only made sure that she kept the bottles out of the reach of the kids, though apparently some leftover motherly instinct still gave her the sense to see to that herself.

"Opulent breakfast today, Rach, huh?" he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Then he turned his attention back to his bagel. He had to get out of here fast before she was wasted again. The bottles clinked together when she placed them on the kitchen counter. The hissing of the beer bottles being opened made him roll his eyes with disgust. Soon enough the sickening smell of beer would be all over the kitchen and he would be out of there.

While Rachel had been pregnant with Ally, she had made him get rid off every bottle of beer they had in the house. The smell had made her sick.

Ever since she had started drinking, he was the one getting sick of the smell. The smell of every kind of alcohol made him so nauseous he hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol for over a year.

Behind him something was being poured somewhere. This was unusual. Rachel had started drinking right out of the bottle only three months after starting drinking. In her more lucid moments she had told him that this way, it didn't seem like she drank so much.

Too bad she never saw the empty bottles in the trash.

The pouring went on for a curiously long time. He rolled his eyes. She probably was daydreaming again and overfilling the glass, and then he would have to wipe the disgusting stuff away. He turned around hurriedly to control the damage, but when he saw what she was actually doing, his jaw dropped. She was pouring the contents of the bottles into the sink. She was pouring the booze away.

Before, when she had tried to quit, she kept her bottles. She had said she needed to face the temptation. Not surprisingly, it had never taken more than three days for her to succumb to it.

He had tried to convince her to attend at least one AA meeting, he had even secured her an appointment at the Betty Ford Center, but she had always gone ravingly mad at him when he told her something like that. She had accused him of having no faith in her, of not believing she would be strong enough to do it on her own.

Telling her once that he was convinced that she couldn't do it on her own had brought her down so terribly, he had to give the kids to Monica for a week because he hadn't wanted them to see their mother like that.

They knew that something was wrong, though. When Ally asked the first time why mommy was sick so often, he had burst into tears, terrifying his children beyond belief. After getting a grip he had tried to explain that yes, mommy was really sick, but no, she wasn't going to die like Tyler was afraid she would. Of course he hadn't told Rachel about this. Things wouldn't have changed anyway. If anything, it would've made it worse.

Meanwhile, Rachel had raided a few more of her hiding places in the kitchen and emptied a few more bottles into the sink. Then she opened the closet under the sink and pulled out a carton with washing-up detergent. It didn't surprise him that much that the actual content of the carton consisted of two little bottles of whiskey.

"I didn't know about that one," he said, trying to sound unfazed.

Rachel didn't even turn around to answer.

"You don't know about a lot of them. There are at least six more here in the kitchen."

"Six," he mused. After all, he had suspected he didn't know about all of them.

He continued watching her unscrewing bottles and getting rid of their contents, throwing the empty bottles in a large grocery carton. She didn't stop.

After a long while of watching he finally asked, "Need a hand?"

Now she turned and looked at him with honest surprise. "I thought the smell made you sick?"

"As long as we're getting rid of it," he shrugged, "it can't go fast enough."

"Okay, start with the living room, look under the couch and… behind the TV set… and behind the stereo…"

"What about the bookshelves?"

"I suspected you knew about the bookshelves. Just… look everywhere."

At the door he stopped and spun around again. "You know we can throw the full bottles away. I've never emptied them before throwing them in the trash."

She chuckled mirthlessly, while turning to face him. "I know. That's why I always knew where to look after you raided my hiding places."

Her careless admission shocked both of them to the core. There was no denying that she had hit rock bottom. There was no going lower than this. She turned back to the sink, pausing for a moment before she squared her shoulders, grabbed the next bottle and started pouring again.

After taking a few moments to pull himself together, he headed for the living room, determined to get this poison out of his house once and for all.

………

About four hours later they both collapsed on the kitchen floor, backs rested against the wall. Rachel had literally made him look everywhere, in every room of the house, even in the rooms of their children. To his immense relief, he hadn't found anything in there. They looked in the garage, in the cars, in their backyard. When they were convinced that not one single bottle was left, they had started to clean the kitchen, getting rid of the revolting stench, throwing the empty bottles in the trash.

Now they sat beside each other, exhausted and tired, but he couldn't remember when he had felt that hopeful the last time. He tried to play it down, to not get his hopes up too much, but this was so promising.

"It's a bit like after having sex," he said smiling.

"I don't even remember when we slept together the last time," she said sadly. "I guess that's because I was drunk."

"Yeah, you were," he replied, reluctantly remembering that night, "… and you threw up afterwards."

Rachel leaned her head back against the wall. "No wonder you didn't want to make love to me again."

"I wanted. Just not… like this."

During the ensuing silence he could sense her working up the nerve to ask him an important question.

"Did you ever sleep with anyone else?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lower lip. This was nothing he wanted to discuss right now.

"Rachel…"

"You can tell me, I won't get mad. I have no right to. And I know about you and Charlene."

For a second he didn't quite know if he was relieved or horrified that she knew. He had thought he had been discreet. "Charlene," he began haltingly, "we made out a few times. Never slept with her, though."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It always felt like I was just using her to get back at you, to punish you somehow. It just felt wrong."

She took his hand in hers and lifted it up a bit, looking at the ring he was wearing. "You're still wearing your wedding ring."

"We're still married."

"Yeah we are," she smiled, wriggling her fingers in front of his face, showing him her ring. Both their smiles froze on their faces however, when they noticed the way Rachel's hand was shaking. She probably hadn't had a drink in more than ten hours; she had to start feeling withdrawal symptoms already.

Rachel buried the traitorous hand in her lap and stared down on it. "I can't do this alone, Joe."

Joey had to fight back tears at hearing her say that. If only this meant that it would work this time. He cleared his throat a few times before he could speak again. "I still have the number of the rehabilitation clinic one of the doctors gave me when we were in the hospital two days ago. If you really want to…"

"I want to. I mean… I'm scared, but I want to."

"Then we probably should get going, these symptoms are not gonna get any better."

"I know, but… let's stay a while longer. We haven't talked for so long."

"Yeah… I've missed that."

"Me too. That and… a lot of other stuff. I miss having a job. I miss being Ally's and Tyler's mom. And I miss… being your wife."

This time he didn't contradict her because he knew what she meant. He slowly reached for the hand she had buried in her lap and enclosed it in his. He looked at her face until she lifted her gaze to him again.

"I still want you to be my wife. And Ally and Tyler don't want anything more than to have her mother back. We love you."

"I love you, too."

Now it was Joey who cast his eyes downwards.

"What is it, Joey?"

"What about Ross?"

"What about Ross?" she repeated the question without so much as batting an eyelash, apparently not understanding what he was getting at.

"This whole madness started after he died. What are you still feeling about him?"

Rachel stared at him open mouthed. Then she tried to say something, opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "You… you think… you…"

With growing alarm he watched her trying to catch her breath, trying to get a grip. This could deteriorate really fast.

"Rach, calm down. You started drinking two months after he died; of course I thought it had something to do with him. That doesn't mean I blame you. I know what you felt for him and I was devastated too, I…"

"Joey, Joey …stop it! Please. Let me… let me tell you something. I was devastated and sad about Ross's death. But not the way you probably suspected. But the reason I started drinking…"

A pitiful wail tore itself free from her throat and she pressed her fist against her mouth to stop herself from crying. She succeeded after a while and continued in a tear-saturated voice. "I was pregnant, Joe. And the day I was gonna tell you, I started having this heavy bleeding, remember? When I was in the hospital?"

He froze and his brain plainly refused to process the torrent of new information crashing towards him.

"Yeah but… that was just that, bleeding, right?"

"No. I had lost our third child, Joey. They told me I can't get pregnant again. And you know how much we wanted to have another baby. I couldn't bring myself to tell you, especially with Ross and everything… I knew I would have to eventually but I couldn't… "

Joey heavily rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

"… and then at that one party when I drank too much, I discovered that being drunk lessened the pain, the guilt I felt for ruining this for us. This was when everything started. But with every time I got drunk, the guilt grew until it only became bearable when I was wasted. And after a year or so, I had no idea how to stop anymore."

Rachel was openly crying now, but she didn't stop talking. It seemed like everything she had felt for the past two years was pouring out of her like the alcohol they had poured away a few hours ago.

"Don't you think I knew how disappointed you were, how hurt?" she sobbed. "Don't you think I knew how disgusted you were with me? Don't you think I saw how our children became more worried with every time they saw their mother being hammered? I knew all of that, I knew I was failing all three of you, and I knew I was too weak to do anything against that."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," he whispered into his hands.

"I can't believe you thought it was about Ross."

"I wouldn't have if you had told me what really happened," he said a little louder, looking up at her. But at the pitiful sight of her, he couldn't bring himself to be angry.

"I'm sorry, Joe," she whispered. "For not telling you, for ruining your life, our life, the kids' lives. I'm so sorry, so very sorry…"

Seeing her like this, dissolved into tears, weighted down by this intolerable heavy burden of guilt, he did something he hadn't done in months. He took her in his arms. And when she buried her face against his chest, sobs starting anew, his own share of guilt came into sharp focus.

"I'm sorry for doubting you… about Ross. But you have to promise me not to keep anything like this from me ever again."

"I swear I won't," she sobbed into his shirt.

For a few minutes they just sat there like this, him holding her, comfortingly stroking her back. Then he leaned down again and cautiously smelled her hair. He had been right about her having taken a shower and washed her hair that morning. Her hair smelled just the way he remembered. Vanilla and coconut – Rachel.

In this moment the feeling of having her back was almost overwhelming. He didn't try to fight the feeling of hope any more. The feeling that maybe this was the new beginning he had been hoping for.

tbc

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