A/N: Some more Mondler. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: Home cooked dinner

For about half an hour, Monica watched with growing amazement the way Chandler moved expertly around in her kitchen, slicing vegetables, stirring sauces, and all in all behaving as if cooking was something he was born knowing how to do. Thinking that not too long ago his abilities to prepare a meal had been exhausted with pouring milk over breakfast cereals, made this seem like a miracle.

"This is like the Twighlight Zone, Chandler. Seeing you cook, it seriously freaks me out," she said with a good-natured smile.

He turned around to her, a faux indignant frown on his face. "Hey, I live alone, I have to take care of myself."

She liked the easy and almost playful atmosphere between them, but she couldn't quite stop herself from asking the obvious question. "But you know that there are restaurants out there? Some of them even bring you food if you don't want to go out. And don't you have people you can pay to cook for you?"

It took Chandler a while to answer to that, while he had his back turned to her and fiddled with the food. She started to regret having brought that up, she had imagined keeping it lighthearted and friendly between them. But then Chandler suddenly turned to her, resolve in his eyes and nothing could've prepared her for what he said next.

"Monica, after you left… after the divorce… I was trying to do everything you always hated, everything you hadn't wanted us to do. I always ate in fancy restaurants, I went out with other women, I bought tons of stuff I didn't need, I started to drink… not as much as Rachel, but still a lot… But it all felt hollow somehow. Because regardless of how many people were around me, I always felt alone. I always knew that someone was missing. The one person that meant more to me than everyone else."

Monica swallowed painfully, trying to force down the urge to cry. But Chandler continued, oblivious to her emotional state.

"So I started cooking. Working with food somehow gave me the feeling of being close to you. Of course I was terrible at first, but after almost burning down the kitchen and ruining about twenty pots, I eventually got something right. It was the first time since our divorce that I felt a little like myself again. Because… I miss you."

She closed her eyes for a moment, fighting back tears. "I miss you too, Chandler," she said quietly, seconds away from just running over and falling into his arms.

Missing each other wasn't their problem, they both knew that. It had been what brought them together again and again, even after Ross's death when they both had been convinced that their relationship was ruined beyond repair. They knew that the love that had been between them would never vanish completely. But they also knew that this wasn't enough.

She remembered the night they had reached the final decision to file for divorce. They had a fight again, yelling at each other about something stupid she couldn't even remember any more. They yelled back and forth how fed up they were with each other. How what had seemed like a lucky coincidence had turned out to be such a terrible mistake.

A few hours later, in the middle of the night, she wandered over to his room, finding him lying in his bed, just as unable to sleep as she was. No words were spoken between them any more. She crawled into his bed and he took her in his arms, kissing her soothingly on the forehead, then on her temples, her cheeks… her mouth. They made love almost the entire night. When the first morning light started streaming through the windows, she sat up in the bed and looked at him again. Marveling at the way just looking into his eyes made her feel, agonizing over the fact that this would be the last time she would see him like that.

"I know I can't live without you," she had said. "But I can't live with you either. I just can't."

He had just nodded. There had been nothing else to say.

Monica shook herself out of her memories and smiled at Chandler who stood there staring.

"Something smells as if it's about to burn," she said with a slight grin and Chandler hurriedly turned around to save the food.

A few minutes later Chandler turned around again. "We have about ten minutes until everything's ready. Why don't you give me a tour?"

Monica raised her eyebrows quizzically. "A tour? Chandler, the apartment isn't that big."

Chandler took a few steps into the living room and turned around to her again. "Yeah, maybe but… it's like I said when I came in. It's like going back in time. How did you… where did you get all this stuff? It looks exactly like back then."

"You'd be surprised what is possible if you have enough time and money. Although the sideboard here is still original, remember, I got it in the divorce. The couch is new as is the coffee table. I was so excited to find a couch exactly like the old one. Everything else… well some things I had made to look like they did before."

"What is… what is in that room?" Chandler asked cautiously pointing at the door that had been their guest room before.

A lot of their fights had come back to that room, even as the already lived in this big twenty rooms mansion.

'You didn't even let me have my game room, it always had to be like you wanted it. You just can't accept that there are things not going according to your plans.'

'Then have your fucking game room now, no one's holding you back.'

'Now it doesn't matter any more, because now you don't have to give something up for me.'

'Oh, this is how it is? You want me to give something up for you? Am I supposed to give up on wanting to have kids to make you happy?'

She took a deep breath to push away the memory and slowly started towards the door of the room. Turning around again she stood between the door and Chandler, suddenly feeling very awkward to show him what that room really was.

"I was… planning on making it a guest room, but that seemed so stupid. Ally and Tyler sleep in here when they're here and they love it the way it is now... as does Joey."

"Can I see it?"

Monica reluctantly opened the door and let Chandler in past her. He gasped at seeing what she had turned the room into. There was the Ms. Packman machine Phoebe had gotten them for their wedding, a children-sized foosball table, a little ping pong table and a lot of other stuff to play with. A bunk bed was filled with a plethora of soft toys.

When Chandler's shocked silence started to make her uncomfortable, Monica said, "You wouldn't believe how good Ally is at Ms. Packman. And I think a few years from now, no one's gonna beat Tyler at foosball. Joey has long since given up on letting him win, now he really has to fight to save his dignity."

Chandler turned to her slowly, smiling warmly. The tension Monica was feeling dissipated quickly when she looked at him. She didn't even know any more what she had expected. Maybe she had thought he would gloat, or make a nasty remark or a stupid joke.

"It's a really beautiful room," Chandler said instead, still smiling. "I can see why they love it."

"If I had more room, I'd loved to have a pool table in here. Did you know Joey likes to play pool?"

"Yeah I do. I have a pool table at my place. We play sometimes when he comes over. Not as often as I would like, but..."

"Well, he said he'd rather have his children sleep in a real bed than on a pool table, so I decided against it," Monica said and Chandler chuckled.

"I see… I think food's ready."

They headed back into the kitchen and Chandler served the food with careful attention.

Monica tasted it tentatively and with a bit of apprehension. She had spent hours agonizing over the decision if she should just lie to Chandler in case what he had cooked would be horrible. But as it turned out, it was a moot question.

"This is fantastic! God, Chandler, I can't believe how good this is!"

He smiled shyly. "You really like it?"

"I love it. I mean, I was really worried I'd have to fake it, but… this is actually very good. Your own creation?"

"Mostly. It's a recipe I have from a book but I played around with it a bit," he said, trying to sound casual, but she knew him good enough to recognize the glint of pride in his eyes. She couldn't believe that all of a sudden she could talk to Chandler about food and recipies.

"What kind of books are you using?"

"Well, I started old school, Bocuse and guys like him."

"Uh oh…" she said with heartfelt compassion.

"Exactly. But then I found out I'm more a Jamie Oliver sort of cook."

She smiled at the thought that Chandler of all people would favor an English cook.

"I love most of the things he does," she said and then trailed off at the sudden yearning she felt at the thought of working in a restaurant. She had stopped working when all the money had come pouring in and it had taken a long time for her to miss her job. But eventually, she did. "God… to be a chef again," she sighed.

"Why aren't you? I mean, you have the money, you could start your own restaurant."

"I was thinking about it. But having your own restaurant has much more to do with not cooking than I care for. Besides, Ally and Tyler were here a lot and… don't know. Never really came very far thinking about it."

"But now, with Rachel getting better, maybe you should do it," Chandler said with a startling intensity to his tone. "You can hire a restaurant manager to help you with the not cooking."

"I don't know…" she hedged, hoping he would let it go already.

"If it's about money, I can lend you some."

Obviously, dodging a clear answer wasn't going to help matters. Considering he had been the one urging her to quit, he was curiously insistent on her starting to work again.

"I… I have other plans right now. And having my own restaurant doesn't figure in them too much."

"What plans?"

She briefly contemplated telling him about the return of her fertility. She had visited her gynecologist the day after the bleeding had started and she had told her that somehow, much to her astonishment, Monica's ovaries had started working again. But telling Chandler she was going to impregnate herself with a sperm donation to finally have the child she always wanted seemed like a bad choice right now. He would probably tell her what her doctor had told her, that she should try to find a partner to have that child with. Monica didn't want to tell people that she felt like she had to take that chance as soon as possible. Even her doctor couldn't tell her how long this would last. There was a huge possibility she wouldn't get a chance like this ever again.

"I don't want to tell," she finally said, looking at him, silently asking him to let it go.

Chandler cleared his throat uncomfortably. It felt like they were suddenly sitting further apart though they hadn't moved.

"So... have you seen Joey or Rachel lately?" he asked at length and she silently thanked him for the welcome change of topic.

"Yeah, both. They're home again and trying to... adjust. I mean... they've been through some pretty rough times."

"They'll make it," Chandler said with an astonishing lack of concern. "You'll see, they're gonna be all over each other again in no time."

Monica smiled. It was true; Joey and Rachel always had been the kind of couple who never hid their feelings from anyone. Neither Joey nor Rachel had come out of their apartment once during the weekend after their first date, which actually worried the rest of them, because Joey usually never missed the opportunity to raid their fridge. Especially not when he had a girl over. When they finally appeared again, hand in hand, glowing happily and still not eating a thing, it had felt as if suddenly two strangers were in their midst. Not unfriendly and still as likable, but still very different from the persons they had been. From then on, they had been 'Joey and Rachel', a term that changed to something like Joe'n'Rach after a while, because they were a lot like a single entity anyway.

"They always were inseparable, weren't they?" she asked, lost in thought.

"Yeah! There were times when I would only go into their apartment with my eyes shut," Chandler said, obvious thinking of a slightly different aspect of their relationship. "They didn't lock their stupid door once. And honestly... if I'd been in Gunther's place? I would've permanently thrown Joey out of the coffeehouse three weeks into their relationship."

He was right. She had wondered about that, too, and even Phoebe had said how she felt bad for Gunther, having to see them all the time. Only when Ross was there had Rachel and Joey seemed able to keep it down for a while. It wasn't so much that they were doing anything inappropriate, it was more that constant touching and holding hands, the short kisses every other minute, the absent minded caresses. And of course the sudden running out of the coffeehouse when they decided they needed a bit more privacy.

And the thing that amazed her the most was that it had been always like that, not just at first. After they got married, after they had kids, there was still this vibe between them that made the world around them become insignificant, when you could stand right beside them and they were so far away, that nothing and no one could reach them. This was one of the reasons watching them lately had been that painful, because it seemed so unnatural, so unlike them.

"Why do you think they were like that?"

"No idea. I mean, at first I thought it was some kind of trophy thing for Joey, showing the world he could get a woman like her. I even understand that, I had that feeling too when we first started going out."

For someone formerly quite inapt at expressing feelings, Chandler sure was talking a lot about them right now.

Only that now Monica didn't want to steer into that territory again. "Never thought about it that way, but... it makes sense somehow. Rachel... with her I always thought she needed to prove to herself and anyone else that she could be happy again, with someone else than Ross. But what about now? What about... let's say five years ago?"

"I think they always had something to keep them occupied, keep them happy. At first their new relationship, then the marriage, the pregnancy, the kids... I mean, I know it sounds mean, but now that Rachel has kicked alcohol? ... they have a whole new reason to be happy. Us... we always only had each other."

Fine, she decided, let him talk about us, maybe there's something I don't know.

"Were we ever where those two are?" she asked. "That much into each other?"

"I think we were. Only with us, nobody saw it because we had to keep it a secret."

Silence settled over them once again, but this time it felt like a cozy blanket woven out of warm memories.

"If I could do all of that again, I would still keep it a secret," she said at long last.

"You would do it again... I mean... with me?" he asked, a heartbreaking tinge of wonder in his voice.

"I never regretted how things started between us," she answered while looking directly into his eyes and smiling around the pain her words threatened to dredge up. "I regret how they ended."

………

After that they had managed to steer clear of potentially awkward topics. They had kept it lighthearted and friendly just as Monica had wanted.

As Chandler gathered his stuff and got ready to leave, Monica finally found the courage to ask him what had been on her mind. "Do you think we should do that again sometime?"

Chandler turned to her smiling happily. "I'd love to. Maybe next time you can cook something at my apartment. But … if you'd rather, I could take you out somewhere…"

"No, no… this was… this was so much fun. I'd like to do what you said. Maybe we can… think of something we both can work on, you know? Some huge seven course menu just for the two of us?"

"Still loving the challenge, are you?" he asked, a wide smile on his face.

He surely was just teasing, but after years of constant misunderstanding, she tried to be extra careful. "We don't have to…"

"No, Mon, it's okay," he assured her. "It sounds like fun. So what do we cook?"

"I leave it to you. You take the courses with the uneven numbers, I take the even ones. Surprise me."

"And when do we do this?"

"Are you free next Saturday?"

"I am," he said hastily almost before she had finished her question. Noticing his eagerness, he smiled apologetically. "I'm… I'm really looking forward to this."

"Me too."

Chandler stood next to the door, all packed up and ready to go. He didn't though and instead shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "So… then… see you next Saturday."

Monica debated with herself for a few moments but then she closed the space between them and gave Chandler a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Thanks Chandler and… see you next Saturday."

Chandler let go of the bag he had been carrying and it crashed to the floor with a thud. Then he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him tightly.

"I have to thank you. I hadn't had such a good time in ages," he whispered into her hair. Her heart constricted painfully at his words, as did something in her lower abdomen. Maybe it was really him who had that effect on her.

"Me too, Chandler. Me too."

tbc