A/N: Thanks for all the encouraging and thoughtful reviews. Next chapter is for all the Mondler fans out there.

Chapter 3: Visitors

Rachel slowly shuffled to her room, feeling miserable. Lonely. She had lots of visitors in the clinic, more than anyone else. Joey came every day and he always brought Ally and Tyler. Phoebe was there, Chandler, Monica, her mother. But when visiting hours were over, when they left, she felt terribly lonely.

She had talked about that with her doctors but they thought it would be good training for her to face negative feelings like that without having the next whiskey bottle at hand as a solution. She supposed they were right, but that didn't make it any easier not to cling to Joey when he got ready to leave.

He always gave her a kiss when he came and he always kissed her when he left. Just a short kiss on the cheek, nothing more, but it felt like he was starting to be able to touch her again. She had scheduled an appointment with the clinics salon for the next day, she wanted to surprise him by having her hair done. It was about time she cared about her looks again.

When she entered her room, she jumped a bit as she saw someone standing at the window, looking out. Her father.

"Hi kiddo," he greeted her when he had noticed her coming in.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed, surprised.

She hadn't seen him in over a year. The last time she had seen him, he had told her that he couldn't watch her slowly ruining her life and he had never shown up again. He had always made sure to send presents for his grandkids for their birthdays and for Christmas, but that was about it.

He took a few huge steps and enveloped her in his arms. It startled her a bit since her father was never a man known for emotional outbursts of the loving nature. It made her cry nonetheless.

"It's so good to see you again, daddy," she said, sobbing into his shoulders.

"I'm sorry I gave up on you, sweetie. I shouldn't have. I know he took good care of you, but I should've been there too. I'm sorry."

They stayed in that embrace for a long time until he awkwardly pulled back and motioned for her to lie down. She crawled into her bed and smiled at him.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"A bit nauseous sometimes. Headaches, dizziness, shaking hands. And I'm almost always tired. But it gets better."

"What's your prognosis?"

"Well, apparently I'm a medical marvel, because I was consuming alcohol in enormous amounts for two years and it didn't do any permanent damage. I'm expected to make a full recovery."

Her father looked like he didn't believe a word she just said. "Really? I mean, this is so amazing but… unlikely. What about your liver? Your heart? Did they do an EKG? There has to be vascular damage. And an EEG? Are they sure everything's okay with your brain? Did they…"

"Dad, they took like a hundred of things that had curvy lines coming out of it, they took thousands of samples of every substance I have in my body and they said everything is gonna be okay if I never drink any alcohol ever again. The liver thing seemed to have freaked them out too, because they say the tissue is starting to regenerate which, as I understand it, doesn't usually happen."

"Well, they're right. But if yours is regenerating, I'm not complaining. I have a hard time believing it, though."

"You can talk to the doctors here. I guess they can explain it to you a lot better than I can," she said with a shrug.

"I will do that. I'm going to make sure that Ross Geller hasn't managed to ruin your life from out of his grave."

Rachel gaped at him for a second before she managed to speak again. "Does everybody think that was about Ross?"

"It was pretty obvious. I really felt bad for that husband of yours. You're lucky you're still married."

"Dad, I had a miscarriage a month after Ross's death. They told me I can't get pregnant again. That's the reason I started drinking."

"Did Joseph know that?"

"No… he didn't. I told him a week ago. Before he brought me here."

"But… why?"

"I don't know. The longer I think about it, the more the reasons for not telling him evade me. God, I messed up so bad…"

"Hey, kiddo. Remember what I always used to say when I taught you to sail?"

"Greens don't quit?"

"Yeah. But just for the record, I'm glad you did. This takes a lot of courage."

………

"Aunt Monica, Aunt Monica!"

Monica could hear her godchildren's cries before she even saw them. A moment later, two unleashed bundles of energy flew into her arms.

"Hi Ally, hi Tyler, how's your mom today?"

"She's fine. Doctors say she has to stay in the hospital for another two weeks and then she can come home again."

"Really? That's good to hear. So where's daddy?"

Right on cue, Joey appeared, slightly out of breath and looking at her apologetically.

"I'm sorry Mon, the moment I said 'Look there's Aunt Monica' there was no way to stop them. They love to visit their mother, but sitting in that room for too long makes them go crazy."

"I can empathize. So Rachel's coming home in two weeks?"

"Yeah, she is," Joey said, smiling happily.

Monica smiled widely at hearing that and gently caressed Joey's cheek. "I'm so happy for you guys. You deserve your second chance."

Joey expression turned serious again and he looked at her intently. "Everyone does, Mon."

Monica shook her head dejectedly and turned her attention to the kids pulling at her hand. "So, wanna come to my place tomorrow? I'm making brownies."

"Yeah, brownies! Please daddy, can we go to Aunt Monica's tomorrow? Pretty please?"

"Okay, okay. But only if you don't give me a hard time tonight when it's bed time, okay?"

"We promise."

Joey rolled his eyes dramatically. "I wish they would keep that promise just once."

They gave each other a short peck on the cheek and Monica cuddled the children for a while. Then they said goodbye and Monica headed for the entrance of the clinic. Before she opened the door, she turned around again, watching Joey walk away with Tyler on his shoulders and Ally on one hand.

Who would've thought that Joey Tribbiani of all people would turn out to be a caring and committed father and husband, when the man she had chosen to spend her life with turned out to be such an immature egomaniac?

Thinking about Chandler always sent a painful jab through her heart. She had almost grown used to it. The divorce had been one year ago but they had been thinking about it for a lot longer.

It had started when that first book Chandler had written turned out to be this huge success. Apparently, writing best selling novels ran in the family.

Suddenly Chandler was an artist. Everything was judged by how it would affect 'his writing'.

And Chandler was rich. Now that they had enough of it, money seemed to be the most important thing in the world. 'Oh Monica, we should buy a new Porsche, you know, we can afford it. Monica, we should buy a bigger house, it's not like we can't afford it.'

At first, his childish joy had made her happy too. Enjoying the sudden wealth they lived in was exhilarating. But after a while she noticed that every time she tried to get something she really wanted, he stonewalled her.

'Chandler, we should have kids, it's not like we can't afford it.'

'But we have so much money now, we can travel around the world, we can have fun, why have kids now, we have all the time in the world.'

She had never told him that she felt her time was running out. And she had been right. A few months before Ross died, she had stopped menstruating. Doctors said she had entered her menopause. It was unusual for women her age, but apparently, she wasn't the only woman who that had happened to.

Chandler had barely shared her grief. Hearing him say, 'It's not that bad, I wasn't that crazy about kids anyway', made her dislike him for the first time. Of course they had tried to talk about it, but it always led nowhere.

'Why can't you understand how important this is to me?'

'Why is the one thing that could make you happy the one thing you know you can't have? We have everything else, why does it have to be that?'

The first time the word 'divorce' came up between them, they both had flinched and shied away from it. But after a while, it was in almost every one of their conversations. They had the papers almost ready when Ross died.

Sharing their grief over losing him brought them closer again, made them realize that they didn't want to be without each other. But unfortunately, it did nothing against their differences.

Sadly enough, it was Rachel's children that showed her how wrong she had been about him.

After Rachel had started drinking, Joey had brought the children to their house from time to time when he didn't know what else to do. They had a nanny, but Joey didn't want the children to be around when Rachel had her bad days and so she had volunteered to take the kids. She loved them. Tyler was two and Ally was four when Ross died, they had been so cute and adorable, it was impossible not to fall in love with them. At least for her.

Chandler was always in a bad mood when they were there. He said he couldn't concentrate on his writing when they were around. He complained about the noise they made and about the way they ate, about toys lying around everywhere… everything about children seemed to rub him the wrong way. It got to the point where she realized she would rather spend time with her friend's kids than with her own husband.

Monica shook off the memories and opened the door to Rachel's room. When she saw who else was there, she had the strongest urge to turn around and leave.

Chandler was sitting on Rachel's bed, apparently engrossed in a witty conversation. He froze upon seeing her and the awkwardness stood in the room like a fourth person.

"In or out Monica, it's getting cold," Rachel said good-naturedly, which prompted Monica to step in the room and take a few steps towards the bed.

"Hi Monica," Rachel greeted her smiling, "Nice to see you."

"Hi Rachel," Monica greeted back, "Chandler," she acknowledged her ex-husband with a curt nod.

"Hi Monica."

He looked older somehow. She hadn't seen him in almost a year and this was the first thing she noticed. And he lost weight. He had a few grey hairs and he probably hadn't shaved for a few days. But his eyes… she'd never met another person with eyes like that. Waking up in the morning, looking into these infinite pools of blue had always seemed like heaven to her.

"Uhm… I better get going now, I have a deadline," Chandler mumbled and grabbed his jacket.

"No, you haven't," Rachel said clearly, which made Monica smile. She hadn't heard her speaking in something other than a drunken slur for a painfully long time.

"I still think I should go. You girls probably want to talk about girl stuff."

"Oh, then why don't you stay?" Rachel joked. The corner of Chandler's mouth lifted in a painful smile.

Monica couldn't help giggling a bit.

"Seriously, you guys, sit."

Reluctantly both of them were looking for a place to sit down, as far apart from each other as possible, when Rachel began to talk.

"I'm gonna tell you two something. I'm going through something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And that didn't just somehow happen to me, I did it to myself. I hadn't had the guts to tell my husband about my feelings, about what was happening to me, about what I was thinking. I'm the luckiest woman in the world that he didn't turn his back on me, although he had every reason to. And I think you two have a lot to talk about, because you've been hiding your feelings for years."

Monica felt the need to protest. "Rachel, you know it's not like we haven't talked. For months we did nothing else but talk. It was useless."

"Oh, I know about that. Don't you think Joey and I didn't speak with one another during those two years? Of course we did. But we just used the words to hide from each other. Joey never told me he thought my grief about Ross was the reason for…"

"It wasn't?" Chandler and Monica asked in unison, looking at each other weirdly after they realized it.

"No, no, it really wasn't. It was my father who made me realize that this was the impression everyone had. I can't even remotely understand what that must have been like for Joey."

"But if it wasn't about Ross…" Chandler began but Rachel cut him off.

"I'll tell you that later. What I want to tell you now, is that I want you to talk, really talk, please. Do me that one favor. I mean, if I can kick alcohol, can you at least try to have a cup of coffee together for about an hour?"

"Do we have to?" Chandler asked.

"Yeah, you have to. You go out there, you buy Monica a cup of coffee and you sit down and talk. And I will check if you really did it and if not, I'm not gonna be happy. And believe me, you don't want to see a recovering alcoholic unhappy."

"I think I liked you better when you were drunk."

Clearly only meant as a joke, Rachel giggled at Chandler's words. But Monica was annoyed.

"Still always bringing the funny, right?"

Rachel looked to her and then back at Chandler, the giggles gone.

"And something else. You're gonna carry on this conversation without stupid jokes and cutting remarks and you're not gonna use the words 'always' and 'never'."

………

When they stepped out of the doors of the clinic, Chandler felt torn between the urge to run and the wish to just stare at his ex-wife. He wondered if she had ever been as beautiful as she was right now. Maybe it was just because he hadn't seen her for so long, but she seemed younger somehow. 'Of course, idiot', he chided himself, 'now that she isn't saddled with you any more, she feels better.'

"If we make something up, maybe she won't notice," he offered with a lopsided grin, hoping Monica wouldn't blow up at him again. He had seen her mad at him enough to last him for the rest of his life.

Monica looked up at him and shrugged a bit. "I don't find the idea that bad."

Chandler caught a hint of a smile in her eyes, which made his eyes go wide with surprise. "Me neither, I just thought you would. So… I haven't been in Central Perk for ages. Does the place still exist?"

"What about preferring the fancy places?"

He shrugged. "They got a bit dull over time. For a change, I think I would like to have someone serve me coffee who doesn't try to crawl up my ass."

Monica chuckled, "I al… I sometimes had the impression you liked that."

"Again, it gets dull after a while."

"Okay then, Gunther is gonna be surprised to see you."

"Gunther is still working there?"

"Of course. I sometimes go there with Ally and Tyler. He makes a mean cocoa with chocolate cookies."

"He likes Ally and Tyler?" Chandler asked puzzled but regretted the question instantly when he saw how defensive Monica became at once.

"Why wouldn't he? They are adorable kids."

He knew how much she loved those children. If they hadn't been such a constant reminder of his own shortcomings, he might have loved them too. His question actually had more to do with Gunther's feelings.

"I just thought… because they're Joey's."

The anger left Monica's face again and she almost smiled. "For him, they're Rachel's and he worships the ground they walk on."

"He's still pining after Rachel?"

"He's married and has his own kids, but I think somewhere deep inside he still has a soft spot for her."

He sighed and said before thinking about it, "Yeah, can't do anything about those."

"Do you know something about that?" Monica asked softly, as if hoping he'd say yes. But he felt too vulnerable to confess his soft spots to her on a parking deck of a drug clinic.

"Do you?" he asked back instead.

They looked at each other for a long time before the double beep of the doors of Chandler's car unlocking diverted their attention.

"Only the Porsche today? What's with the Jaguar?" Monica said with a teasing chuckle.

"In the garage. I had an accident involving a mailbox."

Again, Monica chuckled, and Chandler couldn't help but notice how happy it made him to be the one to make her laugh. Of course with his books, he made thousands of people laugh somewhere, but right in this moment he would have traded that in a heartbeat for just making one person laugh. Monica.

"I still think it was the mailbox's fault, though. It saw me coming from a mile away, it could've jumped out of the way."

He saw Monica struggle not to laugh, but she lost the fight after a while and laughed heartily. It brought an idiotic wide grin onto his face.

"Don't tell Rachel," he said, "'cause I'm not allowed to tell stupid jokes."

"That doesn't count, it wasn't stupid. It was cute."

"So, wanna get in? Even if it's just the Porsche?"

"I think I'll live."

………

They spent the ride in silence, contemplating what to talk about once they couldn't avoid it any more.

As they stepped into the coffeehouse, Gunther stared at them disbelievingly. Since the couch was taken, they took a seat at one of the little tables at the window. Monica noticed how gallantly Chandler helped her out of her coat, something he had never done before.

"So, what are we talking about now?" Chandler asked after they both had sipped a bit at their coffees.

Monica tried to behave as if they were still nothing but friends, never have been anything else. "How is life as a single treating you? I mean, you're free, you're rich… you must have a blast."

"It could be better. You know… now I can have all the girls, and trust me, I tried to enjoy that. But in the end, knowing that they just want me because I'm rich and famous does a lot less for my ego than I would've thought," Chandler said with a shrug.

"I thought that was what you wanted."

"See, me too. Turns out, we were both wrong."

"What about traveling around the world?"

"Oh I did that," he said, not too enthusiastic about one of his former favorite topics. "Last book tour took me everywhere. Monday Paris, Tuesday London and Wednesday I had to look into my calendar to know that we were in Berlin. It just kinda blurred together. And – most remarkably – lonely hotel suites are all the same all over the world. And… I hate flying."

She wished he might have discovered that about four years ago. Now, with him looking slightly sad into his big yellow cup of latte macchiato, she couldn't even bring herself to gloat and tell him that she could've told him all of that a long time ago.

"I heard you've sold the mansion?"

"Yeah, it was way too big for one person. I bought an apartment in Park Avenue, though."

"Still living it big, huh?" she said, raising her eyebrow. But it wasn't her usual derisive scolding for his reckless spending of money, it was more a bit of amused wondering at the choice.

"It's a nice apartment," he said nonchalantly, obviously inten on not taking any bait. "Where do you live?"

"Just about hundred steps from here."

"What? Did you…"

She almost felt caught in a bit of indulgence herself. Without Chandler's money, she couldn't have afforded her dream-apartment either.

"I love that place. I mean, at first I just wanted to buy it, subletting it to someone, but when I stood in there, looking around… it felt great." At the way he looked at her so genuinely intrigued, she felt she needed to elaborate. "When we lived there, everything was still okay with us. Even Joey says that. The first time he had brought the kids to my apartment after I moved in, he could barely bring himself to leave again. Later he told me how much it helps him to unwind, just to be there and pretend for a while it was six years ago."

While she had talked, Chandler's eyes had taken a faraway look and his gaze was directed at some far off place when he said, "God, I would love to see that place again."

"You can visit if you want," she offered before she had given herself the time to think about it. Because then it would have occurred to her that inviting her ex-husband to the apartment where they had fallen in love and spend the first few happy months of their marriage might not be a good idea.

Chandler, of course, saw that differently. "Of course I want to. What about right now?"

Biting her lower lip, she tried to come up with a believable reason to at least delay his visit. Having coffee with him and inviting him into her apartment was a little too much for her for a first meeting after one year.

"Uhm… Chandler…"

Surprisingly enough, he understood before she even had said anything. "Okay, I see. What about next Saturday? I'll bring food and make us a home cooked dinner."

Her jaw fell open. "You can cook?"

A blonde eyebrows rose over bright blue eyes which smiled at her though their owner gave his best to appear hurt. "If you don't trust me, you can put lasagna in the freezer, just in case."

"All right, Saturday it is. I can't wait to see you cook," she said, her heart and stomach giving a weird lurch at the mere thought.

………

After Monica came home that evening, when she undressed to go to bed, she noticed that her underwear was slightly damp. The thought that just talking to Chandler might have aroused her so much amused her to no end. Her amusement turned to shocked silence, however, when she saw what really had wetted her panties.

It was blood.

A/N2: So, this was my first serious attempt at writing Mondler, hope you guys like it. Let me know if you did.