Hello Everybody!

It's been a while, but during these difficult days here in Italy, I've found the time to write a new chapter for this fiction.

Don't worry, I'm fine and so is my family. But we need to stay home for a while, so, why not spending some time with my favorite hobby?

Have a great day and please, be safe! Stay home! Believe me, it's the only way to fight this invisible enemy.

Rossella

Episode: The One Where Joey Tells Rachel (8x16)

After the awkward conversation with Joey, Ross had decided to head back home. He didn't feel like going out, knowing that all he would think about would be how Rachel and Joey's dinner was going on. Sure, he'd been the one to push Joey to confess his feelings, but now that he was alone in his apartment, the eventual consequences were getting so real and so hard to accept, that he was almost getting crazy.

The fact that Rachel had just moved in made things even more difficult. He couldn't help but feeling sick every time he pictured Rachel and Joey being together in that very apartment, under his same roof.

In the meantime, Rachel was getting home.

She was an emotional wreck.

Devastated.

Joey was in love with her.

At least a thousand questions were running through her mind, but the most important was the one she disliked the most.

Why?

Why had Joey fallen in love with her? How was this even possible?

They were friends, the best of friends, actually. She had loved living with him, they had fun and they were so in tune with each other. So when did things change?

She recalled asking him this very same question, during their dinner.

"Does it really matter?"

A very simple answer, and yet so true.

She was pregnant, probably at the lowest levels of beauty she had ever reached in her life, and yet she had been capable to make Joey falling in love with her, somehow.

This was so unexpected, such a terrible development in their friendship.

After their fake date, a few weeks before, Joey had mentioned something about feeling weird, but she had naively thought that it was something about the food.

Instead, he had been showing signs of unease around her, and she hadn't even noticed. Until now.

He had stopped dating other women, even at Valentine's Day – which was really Not-Joey-like. And maybe he was always a bit over the edge when they were in the same room, but she couldn't have imagined…

Wrapped up in her own thoughts, she barely noticed that she'd reached the door to her building.

Again, hadn't it been Joey's idea to move in with Ross? She wasn't sure, at the beginning, but Joey had been so supportive that she had finally accepted this crazy plan to go and share an apartment with her ex-boyfriend. Ross had been so happy about it…

Oh, my, God.

Ross.

'Does he know?', she immediately thought.

The panic started to rise even more. Did Ross know about Joey's feelings? And what did he think? Knowing the man like she did, he was probably picturing the worst case scenario, believing that she would feel something for Joey, too. Even if it was pretty clear to every single person on this Earth that she was pregnant with Ross's baby and that she couldn't feel anything for any (other) man.

Suddenly she was facing two problems, two sides of the same coin.

She had just rejected Joey, something she would probably be tormented for the rest of her life. And now she was afraid for Ross. If he knew, he wasn't definitely feeling fine.

She rushed inside the building, climbing the stairs too fast for a pregnant woman.

But right now she didn't care, she really needed to reach her apartment and…

She opened the door with a sudden movement, finding Ross sitting on the couch.

He was quiet, too quiet. He was staring sightlessly at the floor in front of him.

When he heard the noise, his eyes moved to Rachel, softening as soon as he saw her current state.

'He knows.'

'She knows.'

Rachel couldn't hold it anymore. All the emotions of that night crushed her completely and she burst into tears.

Ross didn't waste another second. He crossed the room as fast as he could, his arms wrapping her up in a soft embrace.

They stood close to the opened door. They couldn't know that in the next year or so their relationship would be constellated with important moments, good and bad, spent in front of that door.

Ross stroke her hair with tenderness, trying to soothe her.

The only thing that he could think about (being the pessimistic person he was), was that Rachel was in fact in love with Joey and she didn't know how to tell him. That she had come home to explain when and how she would move out to go back and live with Joey because she wanted to try things out with him.

In short, a catastrophic future.

'Will our nameless daughter grow up with Joey as step father? Will she be named Tribbiani? Will Rachel close the door to our past, forgetting everything that has ever been with us? Now that things were getting so much better?'

Ross knew that the two of them had never the chance to live together as a real couple. The fact that they were living together now, while Rachel was waiting for their daughter, felt like a dream. Something so fantastic he would have never allowed himself hoping for.

And now…

"Ross…"

He really didn't want to go down that road, not yet.

"Rach, whatever happened, I'll be here, for you and…and our baby. Whatever you decide. Nothing can't change how much I care about you, ok?"

Rachel nodded ruefully, she blinked fast and she finally found some courage to stare directly into his eyes.

How many times had they exchanged longing looks like those?

Whenever Ross gazed at her like that, he never failed to raise goose bumps all over her body. Like something incredible would definitely happen.

They hadn't been so close and intimate since Emma's first sonogram.

Rachel knew that she needed to extricate herself from that situation. She shook her head and lost eye contact.

Ross felt that was the right moment to talk, "Let's sit."

"Ok." She murmured, following him towards the couch.

"You want something to drink?"

"No, no, I'm fine…but we really need to talk, Ross."

"Sure." He tried his best to sound casual and not worried, but Rachel knew him better.

"I was out with Joey."

"What did you eat?" he asked, failing to ease the tension. Rachel glared at him, threatening to say another word, "Ross…"

"Sorry."

"He…he confessed that he's in love with me."

Ross nodded as slow as he could, feeling the lump in his throat almost suffocating him.

"How did you feel?"

"Well, at first I didn't believe him. I thought he was kidding, you know? Then I realized he was serious and I literally started to tremble."

Ross listened carefully, hanging on every word.

"It felt…surreal. Being there, speaking with my best friend who was saying these things…And I'm not used to deal with emotions and that kind of stuff anymore, you know? It's been a while since I've heard a man saying that he's in love with me…and the fact that it was Joey…I wasn't expecting that!"

Ross wasn't definitely known for his patience. He couldn't wait another second to know.

"Rach, you got to tell me…what you said."

Rachel felt his nervousness, but she was sure that the answer was pretty obvious by then.

Not so obvious, apparently.

"I think you know what I said."

"No, Rach...that's why I'm so uncertain, the problem is I don't know! If all this had happened four years ago, I know what your answer would have been. When we were together, even after…After Bonnie, after Emily, even after our divorce…I would have known, then. But today, Rachel…I have no idea. And it scares me."

Rachel nodded. Maybe Ross's point of view was silly and unreasonable to everyone else, but not her.

"I said that I love him so much. He's one of my best friends. But…"

She stopped, once again incapable of going on.

Ross sighed in relief after hearing the most beautiful but of his entire life. He closed his eyes, feeling the tension leaving his body.

Rachel noticed that the same three-lettered-word that had made Joey realize that she wasn't in love with him was the only word that Ross had needed to know that she still felt something for him, instead.

It was worth a thousand other words, kisses, hugs.

That but represented the awareness that Ross needed to know that Rachel wasn't in love with Joey, but also that the door wasn't closed for them, not yet.

Ross took her hand, caressing it tenderly.

"Are you sure that you don't feel the same way?"

"Come on, Ross. Maybe at a rational level you didn't know my answer, but you certainly know my feelings for Joey. He's a friend, I couldn't feel anything for him." She squeezed his hand a little more, softening her voice. "I wouldn't be here, with you, pregnant with our baby, if I felt something for Joey, wouldn't I?"

"Yeah?" he wondered.

"Yes. Our night together was probably something that happened by chance, but as much drunk as I can get, it would never happen with no one else but you."

This revelation felt like a ton of bricks falling on Ross's head.

They always spoke about that night as a one-night stand, driven by too much wine, ingenuity, his abstinence, Rachel's backpack story, her need for company. But it was so much more than that. He'd always felt it, but Rachel had never admitted, before now.

It was like confessing that she still felt something for him.

"I'm glad that you're here, with me. I'm glad that you gave a chance to this cohabitation." Ross answered back, conveying all kind of gratitude in his words. "But…"

He shook his head, finally feeling another emotion taking over.

Guilt.

"I'm sorry for Joey."

"I know. But I can't force myself to feel something for him when we both know that it's impossible. In fact, I think all the three of us, know."

Ross nodded, understanding her point of view.

"Ross…you knew about this."

He nodded again, with agony.

"Since when?"

"Today. I was the one to convince Joey that he had to talk to you. This secret was wearing him down, he really needed to take it out."

Rachel nodded, "You were right. Now we can put this behind us."

And yet, she was curious.

"How did you react?" she asked him.

"Honestly?" Rachel nodded. "I was out of my mind. I couldn't picture one of my friends having feelings for you. Anyone, any other woman. Even my ex-wives. I mean, I could accept this happening with Carol, as farfetched as it sounds…Or Emily, as much lovely as she was."

They both laughed for his joke.

"But…not you. Because, you know…"

He didn't need to say it out loud. Rachel knew.

Their hands were still joined together. And Rachel suddenly felt their baby kicking inside her belly, almost as if she was feeling happy for her father's words.

"I spoke with Monica. She made me realize that I couldn't lose Joey for this. I met him and we talked for a while. That was when I realized that if you were going to end up with somebody else, you couldn't find a better guy."

They both smiled at the idea.

"Yeah. Joey is sweet and I do love him. He was a real friend to me these last few years, since I moved in. But you know, he's not…"

They shared another knowing look, nodding together.

"Well, you know."

"I do know." Ross replied, smiling softly.

Ross knew that all he had to do was pushing things a little bit further. Words felt like rocks that night, and they had never been so honest with each other before.

But he also knew that this wasn't their moment. Not yet.

Too many things were at stake, their baby was due in a few weeks, and this needed to be their priority.

He caressed her tummy and Rachel smiled, with a single tear forming at the corner of her eye. She sighed in relief, glad that this nightmare was over.

Ross was fine, they would be fine.

"I was so worried about you, Ross…"

"You don't have to, Rach. Never felt sorry for me, because whatever happens, from now on I'm going to be there. We'll grow up this little one together and we'll make the best of this crazy situation, together."

Rachel smiled joyfully for the first time that night. "Ok."

"Ok." Ross smiled back at her.

"You know what I'd really want right now?" she asked him.

"What, Rachel?" he questioned her, almost hopeful.

"I want to eat. You know when you asked me what did we eat? We didn't! We spoke before having the chance to order and we spent so much time consoling each other that the kitchen was closed when we finally decided to eat!"

Ross chuckled amusingly, "Ok. I have some leftovers in the fridge; Monica gave them to me, she wanted to be sure that I ate."

They smiled at each other and Ross stood up, walking towards the kitchen. Rachel collapsed on the couch, sighing again. She touched her belly, speaking with her daughter.

"Sweetie, this went better than I expected. You know, maybe one day your parents will stop lying to themselves and they will get back together. But not yet."

Ross resurfaced from the kitchen with a heated plate.

"Voilà, lasagne for the lady!"

"Wow, Italian. You know it's my fave!"

"I know." He almost whispered.

Rachel smiled and took the plate from his hands.