Chapter 2: I Wish

Three Months Later

"Happy Birthday to you!... Happy Birthday to you!... Happy Birthday dear Monicaaaaaaaa….! Happy Birthday to you!..."

Monica beamed, gushing as her friends presented her with a birthday cake topped with 26 glittering candles.

"You baked this yourselves?" she marveled at her friends.

"Hey! You're not the only one who knows their way around a kitchen!" Rachel squawked, offended.

"Boy, I sure do!" Joey grinned, wolfishly.

Chandler glowered at him pointedly. "The only way you know around a kitchen is the one that involves you eating everything in sight, not cooking!"

"Ignore them," Phoebe chirped, bouncing in her seat and nudging Monica as if she was some impatient little kid. "Make a wish. Make a wish!"

Monica paused for a moment, her gaze and her bright smile briefly going to Chandler. Caressing the swell of her baby bump, a million thoughts zipped through her mind in that one moment:

She and Chandler had only gone to bed together twice before she had started to feel sick. Hardly daring to hope, hardly daring to breathe, Monica had taken a pregnancy test that Chandler had carefully bought and then smuggled to her in complete secret.

Those five minutes after peeing on the stick had been like eternity. But then, when she had glanced at it and seen the two pink lines she had thrown her arms around an elated Chandler's neck and kissed him soundly on the mouth. His lips had swallowed her hoarse whisper of thanks, of how she loved him. Crying, burying his face in her dark hair, Chandler had vowed to be there for her and their baby every step of the way.

The best friends had been dating in total secret ever since the night they had made love in that hospital supply closet, the night Ben had been born.

Monica's friends and brother knew she was pregnant, but she as yet had to tell them how and by whom. She hoped they, especially her brother Ross, would take it well when they learned the news. As she gazed at Chandler, at his warm and proud smile, Monica felt her heart swell, soothed and content in the knowledge that when she and her new lover did break the news that they were expecting together, the others would understand.

I wish someday to be your wife. I wish that we were married.

She blew out her candles. The act prompted much cheering and soft grappling of forks over the best slices of cake.

"Come on, whatdcha wish for?" Joey grunted through a mouthful of cake, icing coating his lips.

Monica grinned. "Can't tell. If I told you my wish, Joey, it wouldn't come true!"

"What makes you think she wished for anything?" Ross leaned back in his chair. "Monica's having a baby – it's what she's always wanted!"

Monica could feel the eyes of Chandler, her secret lover, on her; not meeting them, she just shrugged.

"Ooooh! I bet it was for that new Swiffer mop you can order off the Shopping Channel!" Phoebe pounced.

"Sure, Pheebs," Monica let her believe that.

After the party had broken up, Chandler stayed behind to help Monica clean. He always seemed to want to linger at her place as long as he could. It was getting to be torture more and more for him to go back across the hallway to Apartment 19, when he clearly wanted to be near Monica and the baby. Monica had promised him that once the others knew all the details of their situation, they would talk about them moving in together here to be ready when the baby was born.

The past three months had been heaven, and though there had been the thrill of discovered intimacy, thrilling and new, Monica now felt so giddy at the thought of being with, being in love with, her best friend.

She shivered with delight at how Chandler now placed a hand at the small of her back. "Mon, be careful! The…. the baby…"

"…. Is fine. I'm fine," she turned back, reassuring him with a gentle smile. Chandler grinned back and they leaned in and chastely kissed.

Taking a seat, Monica indulged her lover and watched as he practically waited on her hand and foot. He had grown so much since they had found out she was pregnant, taking on the responsibility that he had willingly volunteered himself in offering to give her a child. He was a steady partner, there right by her side as they had researched and hashed out details for a shared custody arrangement, due to activate once the baby was in the world and its birth registered.

Gazing at him now, with such love in her heart, Monica suddenly realized that she didn't want to have to finalize that custody arrangement.

Chandler glanced up and caught her staring. "…. What….?" he chuckled, bemused.

Monica sighed happily. "I love you….." she murmured softly.

Chandler beamed. "I love you too, honey…."

Monica continued to drink in his face, feeling utterly sick with love for this man. Recalling her birthday wish, she whispered, "Will you do something for me, then?"

Interest piqued, Chandler drifted to her side. "Anything."

Monica lifted her eyes to his. "…. Will you marry me?..."

Chandler's jaw dropped. "…. What?..."

Swallowing hard, tears in her eyes, Monica dropped to her knees at his feet. She knew it wasn't traditional, for the girl to ask the guy for his hand in marriage, but damnit, she was in love! "Chandler…. My Chandler….. will you….?"

"Yes."

She blinked, thrown by how quickly he replied. "I was going to ask you to…."

"Yes."

"Well, you can take a minute to…."

"No," Chandler whispered, a grin fighting its way onto his face. He was amazed with himself at how readily he answered. The commitment phobia that had once plagued him was gone.

Monica could only stare, heart melting all over again. Someone loved her. Someone loved her enough that they wanted to marry her. Chandler loved her and wanted to marry her! Rising to her feet as best as her swelling belly would allow, she giggled and looped her arms about her…. fiancé's neck, kissing him softly.

"I love you…." she cooed.

"I love you too, Monica. You have no idea how much…"

She started to cry happy tears. "So, do I need to buy a ring to put on your finger, or….?"

Laughing, Chandler cut her off as he drew her close and kissed her. Kissing him back, Monica let the questions, the particulars, die a peaceful death in her throat. The bethrothed couple embraced, their baby nestled between them in its mother's womb.

Seven Years Later

Monica Bing grunted as she hefted her growing daughter onto her hip.

"Oh….. you're getting a bit too big to be doing this…." she moaned, both with emotion and physical strain.

"I wanna see the baby! Lemme see, Mama!" Emma pleaded, her little eyes scanning the window of the nursery in this hospital.

Letting herself lean back into the strong and supportive arms of her husband, Monica sighed with contentment, smiling as, pointing, she chittered softly to her daughter:

"See, Em-and-Em? That one right there… is your little cousin."

Chandler peered into the nursery, his face nearly up against the glass. "Joanna sure is an interesting name…."

Monica smirked in bemusement at the almost delicate tone she detected in her husband's timbre. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, if you aren't worried about waking up in a cold sweat with Sweeney Todd blaring through your head."

Monica laughed and nudged him. "I'm totally telling my brother and Rache you said that!"

She was satisfied to see how Chandler went a little white. "Well, if you want to be a widow and single mom that badly, babe…"

Monica laughed. In truth, she had to deem Chandler's careful coveting of his opinion quite wise. Ross could be quite sensitive, and quick to upset, so if anyone thought his baby girl's name less than perfect, well…. Then again, Rachel would probably also be eager to get in line if she heard Chandler's views on the matter.

A moment or so later, Ross came wandering up, bursting with pride. "Isn't she beautiful….?" He practically crowed.

Monica hugged him, ignoring how Emma was smushed briefly between her and her brother. "Congratulations, Ross…."

"Thanks. Hey Emma-bean:" Ross engaged with his niece, his eyes lighting up. "You wanna come to the cantina with me? I saw some tortes and cheesecake that I'm just dying to sample…."

"Yeah!" Emma all but panted, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Race ya!" Squirming, she begged to be let down by her mother, who acquiesced. In an instant, Emma was off like a shot, Ross giving chase.

"Don't run so fast, you two….!" Monica implored, wincing. When no acknowledgement from either of her loved ones was forthwith, she pleaded, half-scolding, "Emma Cassandra Bing…..!"

"Mon:….." Chandler tucked his wife into his side. "They'll be fine."

Monica smiled up at her best friend. Her husband. Her lover. The father of their daughter. She and Chandler had been married for six years, tying the knot when Emma was only a few months old; their baby had served as the flower girl at their wedding.

"You know, I'm just as glad it isn't a boy," she observed. "If Rache and Ross had had a boy, I was afraid she was going to steal my name for our son from me…."

Chandler snorted, almost scoffing. "Rache would never do that!" he softly chided. "But if it makes you feel any better, we can call dibs on the name when we have the next one…."

"The next one?" Monica drew back, surprised by how cavalierly her husband was speaking. A pleasantly surprised smile was fighting its way onto her face and her sapphire-blue eyes sparkled. It had been quite some time since she had brought up with her husband the possibility of having another baby. "What is going on with you? Since when are you so crazy about having more babies?"

"I'm not crazy about babies," Chandler dismissed. "… I'm crazy about us…."

"…. What?..." Monica beamed, intrigued.

"Look, we've always talked about maybe having more kids someday, and I'm not saying it has to be right now, but…. I'm starting to think we can handle taking on another one. We're good. We're really good…."

The couple leaned in and kissed chastely. "We are pretty good…" Monica agreed.

"Besides, with this new little cousin, you know Em's gonna be badgering us for a new sibling or three to play with…."

"Whoa there, mister! Three?" Monica leaned back, eyes round. "How many kids do you think we're gonna have?"

Her stomach got all gooey watching the beaming, bashful smile lighting up her husband's face. "Four. Total. Originally, I had pictured it going a boy. Twin girls… then another boy…."

Monica grinned. "Really? What else did you think about?"

"Well…. stuff like…. where we'd live. A small place outside the city where our kids could learn to ride their bikes and stuff…. And you know, we could have a cat…. That had a bell on its collar and we could hear it every time it ran through the little kitty door." A pause, and then: "Course we'd have an apartment over the garage where Joey could grow old…"

Monica scoffed, shaking her head with a smile. "I'm pretty sure our daughter got her sweet tooth from him, God knows how…." Folding her arms, she studied her husband.

"You've really put thought into this…."

Chandler nodded. "And nothing has to happen until you're ready."

Monica slowly smiled. "Well…. maybe I'm ready…. Now. …. I mean, it's a little scary, but…. maybe it's right…."

"What?! It's not right! We're not ready to have another kid now!" At his wife's look of shock, Chandler laughed. "I'm kidding – this is gonna be fun…."

"So…. we're gonna try….?" Monica asked, looping her arms around him. "We're really trying…?"

Chandler beamed down at her, a cocksure smirk on his face. "We're trying to get pregnant…. again," he amended.

Giggling, Chandler and Monica embraced and kissed deeply. "So…. when do you wanna start trying?" he asked once they broke apart.

A beat as Monica performed some silent mental math on her fingers. "Well…. how about…. if we started trying… right now?"

"Right here?" Chandler glanced around the open hallway dubiously.

"No, not here!" she chuckled. "….. Maybe here….."

"Wait a minute: we have lots of time to kill, and we're in a building that's full of beds!"

"And so clean!" Monica squealed. They dashed off to find an empty delivery room.

They didn't find an empty delivery room.

They found something much better instead.

Stumbling across an empty supply closet, Monica locked the door behind herself and her husband before taking Chandler in her arms and kissing him deeply. She squeaked happily into his mouth as he lifted her by her bum and set her on a stack of buckets.

"Oh….. Oh, my….." she moaned, tilting her head back as Chandler began to pepper kisses along her neck. "Doesn't this just take you back…..? Our first time….?"

"You mean the time we shared our first kiss and then conceived our little bundle of joy on sackfuls of antiseptic gloves?" Chandler quibbled. "Our passion has never been hotter, babe!"

Twittering through a laugh, Monica slammed Chandler's lips back down on hers, moaning with pleasure as his mouth parted under hers and their tongues intertwined to grapple and dance.

Within moments, they were both sufficiently undressed, enough that they were free to mate, undulating against each other and moaning.

"Yes…." Monica hissed, throwing her head back as Chandler went to work on her breasts. "Yesssss….. Yes… Yes!... YES! Oh, God, Yes, Chandler, please…..! Let's have another baby!..."

All at once, there was a knock on the door, causing the copulating couple to freeze.

"Kids? Harmonica? Chandler? Is that you?"

Husband and wife shared horrified looks with each other. "Oh no…." Monica squeaked, her face coloring somewhere between translucent and pink, mortification and horror written all over her expression. "Is that my dad…..?"

"Sorry to interrupt, but if you're going to be…. doing that…. then for the purposes of getting the most reproductive results out of it, I picked up these brochures in the lobby that talk about best positions….."

"I'm not hearing this…." Monica bemoaned, burying her face in her palms, then her husband's chest.

There was a rustling as Jack Geller actually took it upon himself to slide these brochures under the door. Cringing, Chandler picked them up. Then, to Monica's horror, he started to leaf through them.

"Huh. It says here that if we want the best odds of conception, we should…."

Monica glowered at him darkly. "Finish that sentence and we won't be conceiving anything! Now, unless you want to be celibate for the rest of your life…."

"…. We fuck your way. Got it!" Kicking the brochures back under the door, Chandler proceeded to lift Monica in his arms, off the stack of buckets and take her ardently against the wall.

Roughly nine months later, at the birth of their son Daniel, Chandler would satisfyingly declare to anyone who would listen that the best way to get pregnant was to go do it in the romantic atmosphere of a hallway supply closet.

His authoritative confidence on the subject of where it was best to have reproductive sex would only inflate when, three years after that, Monica gave birth to twins: a boy and a girl, whom she named Piper and Jeremy.