The Sooners lost and the Slim Pickin's patrons had turned-over from disgruntled sports fans to the dinner regulars, none of whom paid particular attention to the couple from New York at the bar.

Not that anyone could have broken into their world anyway.

Chandler alternated between making her laugh, kissing her temple and caressing her arm while she finished her salad - trying to be in contact with her in any way he could.

Monica felt herself shiver each time she felt his touch and slowly but surely relax in a way she only could with him.

Their eyes made meaningful contact so many times she was sure she'd seen all she would see of Oklahoma on this visit.

They'd be in his hotel room the rest of the night, she was certain. And that was perfectly fine by her.

She smiled and leaned into him, placing her hand on his leg as AnnieMay cleared her plate away.

"So…" she whispered in her most seductive voice, looking into his eyes. "Whatever are we gonna do on a Saturday night in Tulsa?"

His breath caught and he couldn't help himself. Putting one hand on hers and burying the other under her hair he pulled her to him.

He kissed her hard and deep as she grabbed hold of his tie and pulled him to her. God, she'd missed his kiss. When he kissed her like this she could have easily been back in New York, in Tulsa or on the moon - she wouldn't have known the difference.

AnnieMay watched the couple with a bemused look on her face then cleared her throat - three times.

Reluctantly Chandler pulled away, vaguely aware that taking his wife in Slim Pickin's would scandalize the local populace.

"Alrighty, you two," the bartender said, trying not to giggle. "It's time for ya'll to go now."

Monica blushed as Chandler grinned and threw down enough cash to cover the tab and then some.

AnnieMay smiled, looking at Monica.

"I'm glad you're here, honey," she as she gestured to Chandler. "It ain't right for this one here to ever be lonely."

Then she winked at him, again, and sashayed over to the cash register as Monica stared at her, mouth agape.

And Chandler blushed.

"She's perky," Monica said, shooting the bartender a narrow look while picking up her coat from the bar stool.

"She's 12," Chandler said, rolling his eyes as they made their way out of the restaurant.

He stopped abruptly once they were outside and looked at her curiously.

"What?"

"How the hell did you get here?"

She laughed. "Ah…airplane."

He smirked at her.

"Ya don't say? I mean 'here,'" he said, gesturing down to the sidewalk in front of them.

"Oh," she said. "Well, I took a cab from the airport to your hotel and Billie at the front desk told me you'd probably be at Slim Pickin's. I see why it's a favorite haunt of yours…"

"Mon…"

She waved her hand to shush him.

"Anyway, I was going to ask Billie to call another cab when she said she'd drop me off on her way home."

"Really?" Chandler said, raising his eyebrows. "So you just left in a car with a stranger?"

"She's like 60 and a grandmother - very threatening," Monica said, crossing her arms and challenging him to disagree with her decision.

The gleam in his eye told her he was enjoying their banter as much as she was - and he'd missed it as much as she had.

"Continue."

"People here are so nice," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "She even waited until I came back to the car to tell her you were inside before she left!"

He nodded then thought a minute before responding.

"And the YooHoo?" he asked. "Thank you, by the way."

She smiled.

"Stuck a bottle in my coat pocket before she had my suitcase taken to your room," she said. "I bought it at the airport."

"Resourceful," he said with his lopsided grin, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"I know!" she said in perfect Monica fashion, then smoothing out the lapel of his suit jacket and leaning into him she teased, "I can track you down, Bing, don't you and your little blond bartender forget that."

"Humm," he murmured, twirling one finger around a lock of her hair. "I'm a brunette man, or haven't you noticed?"

She smiled as he winked at her and moved to open the passenger door of his company-owned, black Ford Focus.

She slid in the passenger side. Chandler mulled over an idea he'd been thinking about in the restaurant as he walked over to the driver's side.

He looked up. It was a slightly breezy and awfully chilly late-autumn evening in Tulsa, but the sky was practically clear.

Yep, he thought, they'd have just enough time.

"OK," he said as he put the key in the ignition. "Are you ready to be whisked away?"

She snorted, completely sure they were headed back to the hotel.

"Whisked away?"

"My trusty steed," he said, patting the dashboard. "You haven't been whisked away until you've been whisked away in a Ford Focus."

She laughed again.

"Then take me away."

He grinned and grasped her left hand in his right. They looked at each other briefly before he turned the car onto the two-lane road and headed west.

###

"Where are we going?" she asked, knowing that they should have been back at the hotel by now. They'd been driving almost 45 minutes.

"If I told you, would you really have any idea?" he asked.

She glanced at him. "Well…no."

"You'll just have to trust me then," he said with a little grin.

She fell back into her seat and let out a deep, cleansing breath, feeling herself relax.

"Always…" she sighed.

Tulsa seemed to have disappeared from view long ago and before her was an expanse of the western plains. A whole lot of nothing, with rock formations in the distance.

It was calm, peaceful.

And there were no friends to deal with, no work to tend to and no lingering issues looming to talk through.

Just her, Chandler and the open road.

And it felt wonderful.

Flying out here on the spur of the moment - because she'd barely slept a wink Friday night, she'd missed him so much - had turned out to be the best decision she'd made in quite a while.

Monica closed her eyes as Chandler looked over at her.

He smiled to himself.

The Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" was playing on the only station they could find a signal for way out in the middle of Oklahoma and the old song seemed to fit the mood perfectly.

This was the most peaceful and easy feeling he'd had in so long he couldn't remember.

He looked back at the road and saw exactly where he wanted to stop. He started to slow down.

Monica's eyes were at half-mast as she opened them when he pulled off.

A sense of exhilaration and freedom she hadn't felt in a long time came over her. It almost felt like they were sneaking around again, like when they were first together - as if they were the only two people in the world.

At that moment, they really were. There wasn't another person, or building for that matter, as far as she could see.

"OK, Chandler, where are we?"

"Middle of nowhere."

"Yes, I see that," she said, sitting up in her seat. "Why?"

He shrugged.

"I thought you might like to see the sunset," he said.

For the first time she looked out the windshield of the car. Right in front of her was the biggest sky she'd ever seen - light blue with just touches of pink, red, purple and orange hues beginning to form as the sun started to go down.

Chandler popped the trunk and got out of the car, he grabbed two heavy blankets from the back and then went to open her door.

"Blankets at the ready?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she exited the car.

He threw one over the hood.

"I've been told it would be a good idea in the winter to keep a couple in the car just in case," he explained. "It can get cold if you break down - and it could take forever for a tow truck to get out here."

"You're making me feel really good about this…"

"Hush, woman, I'm trying to be romantic!"

They grinned at each other as he handed her the other blanket and then threw his suit jacket and tie in the trunk, grabbing his winter coat out of it.

The wind had picked up just a bit and there was a nip in the air.

"When's the last time we snuggled up on the hood of a car?" he asked as he doubled the blanket over on the windshield.

"Um…never?"

"Well, there's a first time for everything," he said as he scooped her up, blanket and all, and deposited her on the hood.

She gasped, "Chandler!"

"I'm coming," he smirked as he made the first of three attempts to jump on the hood himself without sliding off.

He finally made it on the third try, with Monica pulling his hand.

"Maybe we're too old for this," he panted.

She giggled as he leaned back against the windshield, bent one knee up to have a foothold on the hood, keeping his other leg down.

Monica eased her body between his legs and leaned her back against his chest, bracing herself against his bent leg and unfurled the blanket.

He tucked it around them then wrapped his arms around her waist and held her to him as the wind picked up again.

She shivered.

"Sorry," he whispered. "This seemed like a great idea in my head."

"It's OK," she said, as tears started to form in her eyes from the cold wind hitting them. Her face was cold but the rest of her was toasty warm. The hood was holding the car's heat from the drive out and the blanket was plenty thick enough.

Her most precious heat source opened up his winter coat and she snuggled inside.

She looked out over the land again - just half of the sun was hanging over the horizon line now.

"Chandler… this is gorgeous," she breathed. "How did you find this place?"

He chuckled.

"Well, about anywhere an hour outside of Tulsa is 'this place,'" he said, looking at the sparse surroundings.

"One of the first weekends I got stuck working here," he continued quietly, "I was ranting about having nothing to do. One of the guys at the office told me I could go watch the sunset. I thought he was kidding. He told me it was like seeing the gates of heaven open or some such crap, but since I had nothing else to do…"

She felt him shrug.

"So you drove out here all by yourself?" she asked softly, gently squeezing the arms that were holding her.

"Yep," he said as he looked at the sky. It was almost time.

She shook her head against his chest.

"God, I really should be out here with you…" she started.

"No, Mon…"

"Yes, yes, I should, Chandler. You shouldn't be…"

"Monica…"

"…alone and I should…"

"Monica," he said a little louder. "Look at me, please."

She stopped speaking and looked up at him. He looked into her eyes for a long moment before returning his focus to the sky.

"That's what I thought," he said, a smile playing on his lips. "Just about perfect."

"What?" she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his face.

"The blue in the sky, right now, matches the blue in your eyes perfectly," he said, with a hint of awe in his voice. "I always wondered, since that first sunset, if it did. It does."

Her breath caught as she turned to face the plains once again. The sun was down - purples, pinks and a majestic, cobalt blue now painted the grand, natural canvas in front of them.

"When I can see your eyes in the sky," he whispered into her hair, "you are with me."

Monica closed her eyes, knowing the tears running down her face now had nothing to do with the cold wind.

She took a deep, shaky breath as she tilted her head back to look at him. He was smiling down at her.

"Do you have any, any idea how very much I love you?" she said, her voice thin, shaking and full of emotion.

"I might have some idea, yeah," he whispered as his lopsided grin came over his face.

She reached one hand up and laced her fingers through the back of his short hair, pulling him to her.

They kissed long and slow and deep as the last of the cobalt blue made way for the twilight ushering in the cold night.

When their kiss broke, he wiped the tears from her cheeks as she whispered his name, then wrapped himself around her tight as she burrowed into his chest.

She felt so relaxed, so warm and so loved that soon she fell asleep in his arms.

For a little while Chandler just sat there and held his wife, until it was so dark that hundreds of stars above made their presence known.

Maybe, just maybe, he thought as he kissed the top of her hair, this was heaven after all.

NOTE: So the kernels of this story were planted by a couple songs (big shock there, I know!). Have to thank the second verse of Jason Aldean's "Fly Over States" for inspiring the imagery in this scene, and since I live in a fly over state I completely appreciate it :) And in case it isn't painfully obvious, I am a complete sap for Romantic Chandler, and sunsets…