Chapter 1: First Day of the Rest of Our Lives
Monica Geller-Bing waved from the passenger window of their new minivan until Phoebe, Mike, Joey, her brother Ross and likely future sister-in-law in Rachel were but a speck on the sidewalk. Turning her face away, she dropped her head into her palm and began to quietly sob so that only the rearview mirror could see her tears.
Even then, there was no fooling her husband.
Chandler chanced glances at his wife out of his peripheral vision and in between quick head turns while checking to see that their children were still snug in their car seats. Monica might try to hide it, but he knew her too well: he knew how much she would miss their little Apartment 20 on Bedford Street. It would always be where they had first lived together as a couple, and then as husband and wife, after they were married. It would always be the place where they brought their babies home, if only for a few days.
"Mon?" Keeping one hand piloting the steering wheel, Chandler reached out with the other and inlaid it over his wife's palm, stroking the back of her thumb with his index finger. "Honey?" A pause as Monica hugged herself, now working doubly hard to keep the tears from falling, much less hold in her soft sobs, lest their little ones awake.
Chandler chuckled, disconcerted to feel how the sound had to work through the lump gathering in his own throat. "Oh, baby…. You can talk to me…." After 17 years of knowing each other, which included six years as a romantic couple and three years of marriage, he had become adept at reading her. He knew her so well….
Monica finally lifted her head, the amber glow of the streetlights passing outside illuminating the tear tracks on her face, causing them to shimmer.
"Was that the last time we ever saw Joey?" she warbled.
Chandler chuckled, reaching out a palm to lovingly caress his bride's cheek, catching the tears where they fell and wiping them away with his thumb. "Of course not…."
She sniffled. "How do you know? He's moving out to LA any day and, well…. people grow apart…."
Smiling softly, Chandler shook his head. "Joey needs people. He gets too attached to let friends drop out of his life, once he's made them. Close friends like us?" He shook his head. "He'd never forget us…." A beat, and then he smirked. "Plus, he knows which side his bread is buttered on if he wants to be godfather to either of our little ones…"
Monica let out a shaky, watery laugh. Looping her arm through Chandler's free one, she dipped her face into his bicep, closing her eyes, inhaling his soothing scent. For a moment, she remained there, still, letting the peace of him, of their son and daughter, soothe her soul.
"Mike and Phoebe will come visit; you know they will…" Chandler was prattling on, as he expertly guided their minivan through New York traffic, slowly but surely maneuvering their way out of the congested city streets. "And Ross and Rachel – they're family." A beat, and then he snorted. "I expect they will be in every way before long…."
Monica brought her face up out of her husband's shoulder to study him. "You think Rachel and Ross are…. going to get married?"
"After the hell they put us all through, never mind themselves, for the past decade? They'd fucking better! We all deserve a wedding, at this point!" Monica flinched a little at her husband's strong language. Chandler almost never swore – he usually preferred to use jokes instead, and sarcastic ones at that, to get his point across. Even this instinct, though, had mellowed somewhat, in the time since they had fallen in love; she suspected it was her lover's way of trying to please her.
The high-rises were beginning to give way at last to trees and rural farmland. Monica glanced back as they left the city proper, feeling moisture pooling along her eyes, then clinging to her cheeks. They would be back, she promised herself. To visit Mike and Phoebe. Ross and Rachel and the children. She thought of her nephew, Ben, and Emma, her niece, and her chest ached.
The longing diminished somewhat as she now studied the little dark lumps slumbering peacefully away in the backseat of the van, and she smiled wetly. If it were possible, the tears gathered and flowed faster and harder, she was suddenly so overcome with such a crippling feeling of love. Reaching out a hand, she dared to brush her fingers over the little tufts of hair atop her daughter's head.
Her daughter…. Monica could scarcely believe it. At last, at long last, she was a mother! She glanced between Erica and her son, Jack, and wrestled down another sob, this time a happy one.
It had been a long road to get here. They may not have come out of her, may have never dwelled inside of her, cocooned in her womb, yet still they were hers. A miracle! Two little miracles, when she had thought her dream was all but lost!
Monica could feel Chandler watching her, even as he juggled between studying his family and keeping his eyes on the road.
"Aren't they beautiful?" he murmured.
Monica didn't even turn her head, her blue eyes transfixed. "They're the most beautiful little creatures I've ever seen…." She danced her fingers along Jack's little onesie, feeling his soft and fragile skin along with the fabric under her touch, which she kept feather-light.
"Sssssh…." Chandler whispered to her. "Don't wake them." As Monica twisted around in her seat to face front again, her husband flashed his classically boyish, long-ways smirk. "How far do you think we'll get before either of them wakes up?"
She shrugged. "Hard to say. Let's see if we can make it to the house."
Chandler's baby blues gleamed, even in the dark. "Wanna place money on that?"
She snorted and playfully nudged him. "Not on your life, Bing."
"What?..." he whined. "What happened to my girl who was on a roll five years ago in Vegas?"
Monica smirked. "She grew up." Chandler's smile brightened and he shook his head, staring out onto the road ahead, which was becoming more rural all the time. Monica pondered him for a couple of miles, cup overflowing with love for this man. He might never grow up completely, but he had matured in ways that counted, in ways that never ceased to amaze her. So long as he kept some of that boyish fascination, he was and would always remain her Chandler. Her husband. Her lover. Her best friend. The father of their twin babies. She wouldn't have it any other way. Could not imagine going on this journey with any other partner.
It was close to the middle of the night by the time the Bings' minivan passed the county line into Westchester.
"I can't believe we're gonna be so close to your folks…." Chandler murmured, squinting into the gloom to pick out the correct street signs on the way to their new neighborhood.
Monica stroked his arm. "Are you sad that we're not going to be as close to your folks?" It was a rhetorical question, even she knew it, but she felt it had to be asked. Monica always strove to be the open, caring wife she had groomed herself to be, over these three years.
Chandler snorted, as she had known he would. "No." A beat. "Well…. I'll miss not seeing my mom. We've – we've gotten better, she and I. Dad…." He shook his head; it was now his turn to keep the tears from falling. "If he – she – whatever – ever wanted to stop by, the door will always be open, but…." He shook his head, hanging a left off the stretch of country road as suburbia reared up in the near distance. "…. I'm not holding my breath."
Monica pursed her lips in sympathy, rubbing his arm. Leaning across the console, she brushed her lips along his cheek, working her way to his jawline. She kissed the corner of his mouth, but went no further, lest she distract him from driving in pitch-black night. "So strong…." she crooned, leaning against him, willing him to feel her understanding. Her love. "So brave…."
She felt Chandler weave his fingers into her raven locks, kiss the side of her head. Monica knew he still didn't like to talk about his parents, if he could avoid it. She had been relieved, for him, that both Charles/Helena and Nora had been in attendance at their wedding. Just the same, a part of her still wanted to curse her mother-in-law and…. other mother-in-law…?... for ever placing such trauma and feelings of inadequacy on such a little boy. Only nine years old. All she could say about it was that she hoped – well, trusted – that Carol and Susan would parent her and Chandler's little nephew better than Charles and Nora had parented their only son.
The headlights of the minivan made a sweep as Chandler hung a hard right, and the Bings pulled into the driveway of their new home. There was no sign of a moving van, but….
"I hope most of the boxes will be inside," Chandler hissed, as he quietly opened his driver side door and began moving around to the back. "Any extra, the movers will bring by in the morning…." He tugged on the door handle for the backseat, watching it slide open automatically.
Exiting the passenger side and circling the car, Monica tucked herself into her husband's side and the new parents observed with small smiles.
"How lucky did we get…..? – They're still asleep!" Chandler breathed.
"Ssssh!" Monica playfully shushed him. "You'll jinx it!" A moment where they just stood and took it all in. Their family. "Each take one car seat?"
Chandler nodded.
The little family of four mounted the front stoop of their house. Chandler procured the keys the realtor had given them and turned the key in the lock. He stood aside and allowed his wife to glide in ahead of him, moving through the foyer while holding Jack and his car seat in her arms. Monica paused to set the car seat down and gingerly lift her still snoozing son out of it, pressing her baby to her skin. Rocking him a little, she beamed down at him lovingly. Behind her, she could feel Chandler watching her, enraptured, but paid it little heed.
"Mon?" he hissed. "The nursery should be ready upstairs. The movers should have set that up first thing!" From her little car seat dangling in his grasp, little Erica whimpered, oofing, causing her parents to freeze. But then the little baby girl squirmed and rolled over without waking.
Chandler and Monica exhaled as one. "Let's get them upstairs…." She murmured.
Scampering to the second floor, Monica checked behind all the doors until she opened one into what was a completed nursery. She would have to get accustomed to the lay-out of the house as she floated into the room where her babies would rest, keeping Jack close to her body. Tenderly, she lowered her son into his bassinet, stooping over the railing, as she dared to kiss her baby boy on his forehead. "I love you…." she murmured, and tears threatened to clog her voice again at this maternal adoration she felt. It damn near crippled her, to realize that such love was now hers to give.
To her left, she could sense her husband putting Erica down, kissing their daughter's forehead. Lifting his face up out of the crib, Chandler flashed her a grin; Monica smiled back.
"I can't believe we actually got here without either of them waking up once! Now if they can sleep through the night…."
Smiling, Monica ruefully shook her head. That would be too much luck, for any new parents. Either that, or their little ones were almost unnaturally well behaved, for infant newborns. Chandler seemed to understand this on some level, for how he now turned the dial on a baby monitor he pulled out of his pocket. Tinkering with its twin, he tossed the second to Monica; she caught it while flashing him a look.
'Be careful!' she mouthed to him.
Chandler grinned sheepishly and nodded. "Now we'll hear them if they cry…"
Husband and wife now tiptoed carefully out of the nursery. Monica allowed herself one last look on her sleeping babies before pulling the door to. She and Chandler padded down the hall to the master bedroom, which Monica was pleased to see featured a bed that was made.
"Tons of boxes downstairs…." Chandler was warbling, as he turned down the coverlet on their bed. "I'll start attacking that tomorrow…." Turning back, he marveled at the sight of his bride, the most beautiful woman he had ever known in real life, watching him with such warmth.
"I love you…." she cooed.
He chuckled bashfully, gesturing to the double bed. "Care to join me, Mrs. Bing?"
Smirking, she rolled her eyes at him, even as she eagerly acquiesced to climbing into bed with her husband. Flicking off the bedside light, Chandler opened his arms, not hesitating to gather his wife into them.
For many, long minutes, the spouses and new parents held each other in the darkness. No words were needed. Listening for the sound of the other's breathing was all that was required.
From the intervals to his exhales, Monica began to wonder if her Chandler had fallen asleep. At least, until he rumbled out sleepily:
"I love you, Monica Geller-Bing."
She chuckled at the use of a hyphenated married name. "You've been talking to Pheebs too much, haven't you?"
"Mmm-hmmm," he huffed, already sounding half-awake. "Goodnight…."
Giggling softly, Monica curled into her husband's embrace, kissing his chest. "Goodnight. I love you too, Chandler Bing…."
There would be no making love tonight to christen their new marriage bed, but that was all right.
Monica and Chandler had the rest of their lives for that.
