Chapter 12: Do You Think He Loved Her?

"It was weird, Auntie!" Coco stressed into the phone receiver to her godmother, after she was sure that her mother had gone to bed. "I mean, I was a little surprised to hear her say in her CBS interview how she talks to him, but to actually overhear her talking to Uncle Matty's picture…. as if he was there…." She scratched at the back of her neck, worrying her bottom lip. "Maybe I'm just being too nosy. Maybe talking to loved ones who have passed on is just how…. some people grieve."

"Right," Jennifer acknowledged, where she was now sitting on her own bed, her rescue dog, Clydeo, in her lap. "Besides: your mom did also mention how she still talks to your grandparents sometimes."

"I guess…" Coco hedged. "I can understand that, but…." She sighed. "Aunt Jenny?"

"Yes, Cocolicious?"

"…. Do you think someone can be in love with two people at the same time?"

There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. Coco could hear her godmother clearing her throat. "Um…. what makes you ask, sweetheart?"

"Like…." Coco's mouth twisted in thought. "Do you think my mom could have had feelings for Uncle Matty as well as my dad?"

Jennifer frowned, deep in contemplation. "I'm sure I don't know, darling. While I would say that your mother was the closest with Matty when we were filming – closer to him than she even was to me, I'd say! – I don't think that would have translated into anything romantic, regardless of the arcs their characters took on the show. I doubt it, rather." In truth, Jennifer was being made to wonder all over again, about what exactly had been between her best girl friend and a man whom she had come to regard as her little brother.

"But just say…."

"Honey, I honestly don't know what went on, but I do know this: your mom and Matty had a deep, intimate connection. I also know that even if your mom did feel something…. more for him, she would never have betrayed your dad. Regardless of what occurred later with their divorce, your mother would never have been unfaithful to your father like that. Never. I mean, shit…." She chuckled. "We all practically took an oath not to date each other!"

"Date or hook up?" Coco pressed.

Jennifer let out a heavy sigh. "Oh, God…. It was so long ago; I don't remember the precise wording. But anyway, what's the difference?"

A whole hell of a lot, Coco didn't answer verbally, except to segue back, "You still haven't answered my question: regardless on whether anything is acted on or not, do you think someone could love two people romantically at the same time?"

"I'm not sure. I suppose that, in certain circumstances…. Maybe." Jennifer nibbled on her lip. "Hon, I can't speak from precise experience, but I have been in love twice in my life – not with both men at the same time, mind you, but even so…." She sighed. "I truly couldn't say. Perhaps. Possibly." A beat, and then: "That doesn't mean your mother…"

"Do you think he really loved her?" Coco blurted.

"What? Who?"

"Uncle Matty. Do you think he really loved her? My mother."

Silence. Jennifer leaned up against the headboard of her immaculate queen-sized bed, thinking back to one of the most emotionally fraught times in her career, watching her dearest friends go through such dark struggles, from addiction to fertility issues….

FLASHBACK – 2002

"And CUT!"

Immediately, the wet and wan smile fell from Courteney's face, clearing way for despair to take over, one that she had brought out into the work, the filming, just the tiniest bit. It had been a useful way in to achieving an emotional truth when meeting Ross and Rachel's new baby, and Courteney, much like a singer with impeccable breath control, had allowed her real emotional walls to buckle just a crack, but not too much while the cameras rolled.

Now that she had heard CUT, Courteney felt herself losing control over her emotional range, and decided that she had to remove herself from the situation before she came utterly apart. Turning on her heel, she fled from the hospital room set, all but running. She kept her face turned away even as she frantically wiped at her eyes.

Behind her, a decidedly not-pregnant and decidedly not-just-given-birth Jennifer Aniston attempted to clamber out of the gurney. "Court…. Courteney!"

She stilled when she felt Matty place a steady hand on her arm. "Don't," he cautioned gently. "I'll talk to her."

Matthew followed his onscreen bride from the set, stepping out into the hallway outside. There wasn't much set beyond that, for the purposes of this crucial scene, but the attention to detail was such that he could almost trick himself into believing they were in an actual hospital.

The realism of the aesthetics surely wasn't helping whatever emotional torment Courteney was going through.

Matthew found her down the hallway set-piece aways, her back to him. From the way her hands clutched at her sides, Matthew could tell she was hugging herself. Her head was bowed, and the shake to her shoulders indicated that she was crying.

Matthew approached cautiously. Courteney must have either heard or sensed him approach, for she lifted her head slightly.

"What's wrong with me?" she whimpered, not entirely turning around. Even in profile, Matthew's heart broke at the anguish he saw in her sapphire eyes, normally so sparkling and full of life. Normally so mischievous.

"Nothing is wrong with you!" Matthew assured her fiercely, turning her all the way around to face him and sliding her into his arms. She clutched at him, and he decided he would damn well let her hug him as tightly as she wanted, contenting himself with rubbing her back and rocking her.

"That took a lot of courage, to do what you just did," he consoled her. "Presence too."

She sniffled into his chest. "I wish I didn't have that emotional experience to draw on…"

"No. But I bet it damn sure helps." Crying on cue was a challenge even for the most experienced of actors – Matthew knew he would struggle to do it, even though his own life experience gave him plenty of material to cry about. He'd cried on cue to the point of exhaustion while filming a pivotal scene in Fools Rush In, past the point where he thought he'd had anything left in the tank for a single take, let alone a dozen.

Eyes blinking tearily, Courteney lifted her head from where she had nestled into Matthew's chest. "What if I told you…. that I was drawing on emotion from more recently?"

Matthew felt his chest constrict. "Meaning….?"

Courteney let out a shuddering breath that seemed to be covering for a sob. "I…. I was pregnant…. I lost the baby – again!"

Matthew gaped at her. He and all the others knew that Courteney had lost pregnancies before, but…. "When?"

She leaned her head on his shoulder, her head turned to stare at the wall. She couldn't bear to look him in the face as she told him the news, even as Courteney knew she'd find no judgment in her television husband's eyes. "I miscarried last night."

"Last night?!" Matthew's voice pitched in volume dangerously and she frantically shushed him. And she still came to work? Her strength and professionalism left him in awe. He glanced around, his eyes bugging in that way that Chandler was famous for. "Who else knows?"

"Until you, only Jen." Courteney shook her head. "I should stop telling people so early; it jinxes it."

"You were excited…." Matthew rumbled. He tried not to think about the agony that Courteney must have felt. He wondered if there had been a lot of blood. He almost asked her, then decided against it, thinking the question immature – like a teenager wanting to know the details of a violent video game or movie.

A silence passed between them as he just swayed, rocking her in his arms. At last, Matthew sighed. "Remind me: this would be how many times that you've…?"

"Seventh," she huffed tonelessly.

Fuck…. Seven miscarriages in…. he wasn't even sure how many years. Courteney and David Arquette had been married for a good three years now, and together nearly twice as long. "And here I thought seven times was our lucky number!"

At the reference to Monica and Chandler's magical London romp, Courteney laughed wetly into Matthew's chest, though there was no joy to the sound. "Lucky for Monica, maybe. Unlucky for me." She wiped at her eyes bitterly.

"You're going to have a baby, Court," Matthew told her, firmly. "And I don't mean just on the show. Though that would be just the best storyline ever, cause then I could say I got to sleep with you, even in an alternate reality!"

Now some brightness came into her laughter, and she even tossed back her head a little, and while the laugh pealed like bells, it still was tear-choked. She searched his face, shaking her head in a kind of wonder.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?" He cocked his head.

"Center me. Ground me. How can you even be so sure things will get better for me?"

A dark wisdom suddenly came over Matthew's face. As though a cloud had passed over him. "I just do." He paused. "People like you, Court…. deserve all good things in life. Things should get better because you deserve them to." He bowed his head, staring at their shoes on the linoleum floor between them. Sensing how he was about to say something else, and how it would likely be self-deprecating, Courteney pre-emptively threw out quietly:

"So do you…"

Matthew shook his head at the floor. "Not me. I'm where I am because I chose to land there. You're where you are right now through no fault of your own."

Courteney gazed at him, shaken and bewildered. In the years she had known him, she had never heard him sound so…. melancholy. There was a dramatic, despairing pathos that didn't fit with the boisterous comedian she knew and cared deeply for at all.

"I don't believe that," she murmured. Matthew lifted his head to argue, and she dropped a finger to his lips. "What you're struggling with right now is no more your own fault than it's my fault that I can't carry a baby. It's biology, right?"

Matthew nodded warily, perhaps even a bit indulgently, for his expression seemed to imply uncertainty as to whether or not he believed her. A beat, and then his lips were upturning into that thin and gentle smile that Courteney had always loved.

"Listen:" and he rubbed her arms. "You are still… one of my favorite people – and, still, the most beautiful woman I've ever known in real life." She smirked knowingly and leaned against him, humming as Matthew patted her head. "You and David are going to get through this… and you are going to be the most amazing mother!"

Courteney looked at him, then stood on her tiptoes to feather-lightly brush her lips along his in a grateful, chaste kiss. "…. Thank you…." she cooed.

The married-on-TV couple held each other until the first assistant called them back for another take. Matthew hoped that this was the deepest that Courteney would ever have to draw from her own emotional well of life experience while she waited for the baby – a real one – to materialize.

One Year Later

"We're… we're gonna figure this out…." Chandler warbled, rubbing his wife's back.

Monica sniffled, nuzzling her cheek into his neck. "I know…."

Chandler shifted his arm so that it crooked at the elbow behind her neck, holding her more firmly against him.

Somewhere, the directors called, "And…. CUT!" yet the tableau didn't break. Chandler and Monica disappeared, but Matthew and Courteney remained, and the tableau did not break. Already crying quietly, Courteney now wept harder and clung to Matthew: her friend. Her rock. Her alternate-reality lover and pretend husband.

Matthew decided that if he halted production itself for even a few minutes more, he was damn fine with that. He held Courteney close, letting her cry it all out into his green shirt. He felt the beautiful, amazing, generous woman in his arms shakily exhale as she slumped, relaxed in his embrace, nuzzling her head into his shoulder, and he suddenly wanted to curse Kevin Bright. Curse David Crane, and Marta Kaufmann, for witnessing a real woman's anguish and seeing only a great storyline. A compelling character arc that carried a lot of emotional resonance.

It was said that the best art imitated life, but did anyone ever consider the emotional cost of such imitation? It would have been so much better, Matthew opinionated, for Chandler and Monica to at least not have to suffer such a devastating setback. It was bad enough that Courteney had to, and that her trauma could not be dropped like a mask the moment the director yelled "CUT!"

"We're gonna be OK…." Matthew murmured into Courteney's ear, and he wasn't talking as Chandler anymore. "You're gonna be OK…. I can prove it…"

She whimpered and finally eased out of his arms, smiling weakly.

Matthew gave her a gentle smile, overflowing with warmth. "Love you," he choked out, just enough on the edge of his breath that she heard him, getting emotional himself.

Courteney smirked wetly. "I know!" she whispered, though she brought to the words the same emphatic punch as she did while Monica Geller-Bing. A slight pause, then: "Love you too…."

END OF FLASHBACK