Chapter 19: Heavenly Husband

Jennifer and Courteney left the counseling clinic. The best friends walked side by side, neither speaking for a moment. Courteney stole a glance at her baby's godmother, but Jennifer's expression was unreadable.

When they were about halfway to the car, Jennifer suddenly rounded on Courteney, the former's expression blazing with hurt and betrayal.

"You and Matty broke the Pact!" she accused.

"What? No, we didn't!"

"Yes, you did! I can't believe it…" Jennifer turned away slightly, still appearing a little in shock. "All this time…. The morning after he died, I asked you if you and he had ever broken the Pact!..."

"…. And I said No!..."

"Exactly! You lied to me!"

"I didn't lie! The Pact forbid any of us from dating each other while the show was going on!"

"Oh, so that night in your kitchen, if Matthew had asked you out, would you have said Yes?"

"I don't know what I would have said," Courteney blinked, frowning. At Jennifer's hard and probing look, she shrugged, hands fishing the empty air, spluttering a little. "I… If…. if things had been simpler with Johnny, if he and I had said that we were done for good, maybe, yeah."

"So our friend – our brother, practically – would have been a rebound for you? That's not fair," Jennifer folded her arms. "Not for either of you, but especially not for him!"

"Except we never went out, did we?" Courteney challenged. "If I hadn't known on some level that Johnny would come back, that he was waiting for me, I might have said Yes to Matty!" She took a breath to gather herself. "And you know what, if I had said Yes, why would you have cared, Jen? Friends had been done for over a decade by that point! The Pact said No Dating while the show was going on! It didn't say anything about No Kissing or…. No Having Casual Sex!"

Jennifer let out a gawking, uncomfortable little laugh. "Oh, so you think it would have been OK for me or Lisa to take one of the boys and go for a roll in the hay?"

"That's not the point! What is the point is that there sure was a lot of kissing backstage! Matty and I used to do it all the time! Matt and Lisa, and Lisa was married throughout nearly all the run!…" At Jennifer's gape of dramatic horror, Courteney just snorted. "Oh come on, Jenny! You were there! We would kiss each other, and it wouldn't mean anything beyond the platonic, because we were intimate and close enough friends back then! We love each other!" She was panting, gulping for air there in the parking lot. "We…. we love each other!"

Jennifer stared at Courteney wisely. "Loving someone and being in love with them are two very different things," she pointed out. "And what I saw in there is a woman who is mourning someone with whom she was in love!"

At their backs now came the sound of someone rolling down the window.

"Who's in love with who?" Matt called out.

"It's who is in love with whom, Matthew," Lisa snorted, rolling her eyes. It was very much a Phoebe thing to have said, yet Jennifer and Courteney both flinched at the name – they had only ever called one person in their little group Matthew or Matty, and it wasn't Matt LeBlanc.

Jennifer pointed an accusing finger at Courteney. "CC broke the Pact with Matty!" Courteney let out a gasp of dramatic horror, swiveling her eyes to her friend.

Now, David was rolling down his window. "What…?" He uncomfortably giggled, swiveling his gaze between the two women whom he viewed as sisters.

Courteney growled and grabbed Jennifer's hand, herding her into the car. "We did not break the Pact!"

"What? The one the execs handed down, telling us not to date?" Matt asked as the girls climbed into the backseat.

"Yeah, during the show! They didn't forbid any kissing or hooking up or even two of us dating after the show was over!"

"Oh, thank goodness!" Lisa chuckled. "Cause, you know, if I wasn't married, I would have dated you…" Her gaze shifted to Matt, who grinned.

"Yeah?"

Jennifer's face roiled with disgust. "Oh, God! Really, Floosh? Really?"

"Good Lord, it's like we're midway through the second act of Rent," David muttered.

"Will you just drive, Schwimm?!" Courteney glowered.

The drive began very briefly in silence. It wasn't long before Courteney broke it. "Matthew and I didn't break the Pact!"

"Sure you didn't," Jennifer snorted from where she was leaning her temple against the windowpane.

"We didn't! We kissed, but we didn't have sex…."

"You and Matty had sex?!" Matt yelped, turning nearly all the way around in the shotgun seat.

"NO!" a wall of sound came at him as all three girls chorused. Matt's eyes bugged in a manner reminiscent of Joey, and he held up his palms shoulder-height in surrender.

"But you kissed," Lisa nudged.

"Yes," Courteney ground out, rolling her eyes. "Pay attention… we kissed, but I told him that I had Johnny waiting for me…."

"You didn't know that…." Jenny mumbled.

"I thought you weren't supporting this," Courteney swiveled her head towards her former Maid of Honor. In any other context, she would have been almost amused.

"I'm not," Jennifer quipped. "Go on," she gave a wave of her hand.

Courteney felt her heart go through yet another twinge as she was reminded of Matthew's one-season flop of a series on NBC called Go On. By now, damn near everything was a trigger. "OK, so maybe I didn't know for certain that Johnny and I weren't through yet…."

"… but if you had been…." Lisa prodded gently. "Would you and Matty have….?"

Courteney's eyes flooded with tears and her bottom lip wobbled. Bowing her head, she began to cry quietly.

"I don't know! ….. OK, yes! Heaven help me, yes, I would have dated him!"

"Even though you knew he was struggling?" Jennifer lifted her head from the windowpane.

"He didn't seem to be at that time, but love isn't just something that you show for the easy stuff! You show it for the hard parts, too!"

Jennifer stared. "What happened to the girl who told me that neither one of us could have saved him in that way, and it wasn't our responsibility to?" Courteney dropped her head into her palm.

"I didn't go through with it, did I? I had a daughter to think about, and…"

"Matthew was never violent when he was using!" Lisa frowned hard. "Even if he had been, he would have died before laying a hand against any of us, but especially you or Coco!" Courteney nodded, blinking back tears.

"I know that…." She sighed. "If things were different…"

"What, if he had never touched drugs or alcohol?" Jennifer demanded. "I suppose he would have been a wonderful partner to someone." She smiled at Courteney softly. "Maybe even to you. But he had a sickness!….. Courteney…. God knows he was the toughest son-of-a-bitch I've ever met, but he was also the biggest pain in the neck I've ever met!" There were nods of nostalgic agreement all around. Jennifer laid a tender hand on Courteney's shoulder. "Happiness for Matty just wasn't meant to be in this life, tragic as it is to say."

Courteney stared at her, silent. She swallowed, hard. "Perhaps in the next life…."

Jennifer let out something between a sigh and a sob. "Oh, Cox-N-Hammer…. We can only hope…."

DREAM

Courteney was crying quietly, tasting the salt of her own tears on her lips as she and Matthew kissed again and again, holding each other tightly. They were in a bright meadow sparkling with sunshine, environs Courteney didn't recognize but that was nonetheless peaceful and grounding.

She and Matthew finally broke apart, and Courteney searched her lover's eyes as he huffed out a breath.

"If things were different…" he mumbled.

Courteney combed her fingers through the bronze curls at the nape of his neck. Suddenly, she hated herself. "I'm sorry…." she whimpered.

"Don't be. You had Coco to think about; I'm not offended that you would have wanted to protect her from me…"

"It wasn't about wanting to protect Coco from you, Matty!" Courteney babbled desperately. "You would never have lifted a hand against her or me or Lisa or any of us when you were high! We all knew that! I backed away from the idea of us because…"

Matthew nodded glumly. "…. Because you were still in love with someone else."

Courteney gulped. "Yeah…." She whispered emotionally. Sagging, practically collapsing against him, she began to weep.

"Ssssh…. Don't cry…."

"I wish…..!"

Matthew just nodded against the top of her head. "…. I know." Lifting her chin with his hand, he tenderly dried Courteney's tears.

"Wait for me?" Courteney suddenly asked, her eyes holding his. "Wait for me until…. until I get there. And then we'll be together – forever! Just like you always wanted… I promise… just like we always wanted…" She reached up and kissed him lovingly, deeply. "Please… please, wait for me."

Matthew nodded. "If that's what you want…"

Courteney nodded, beaming wetly. "That's what I want…." Suddenly inspired, she took Matthew's hands in hers. They knelt there in that ethereal meadow, heads bowed, the sight not quite that different from when Monica and Chandler had knelt in their candlelit apartment and Chandler had proposed marriage.

Courteney swallowed, suddenly moved by the weight of what she was about to do, and though it might not carry any meaning back on Earth, it would still hold sway in the one place it truly mattered: her heart. Their hearts.

"Matthew… for so long, I wondered if I would ever find my prince… My soulmate…. Then, thirty years ago, at the first table read for this exciting pilot series… I met this…" She chuckled. "Intelligent, passionate, crazy man and in him quickly found comfort…. and also everything I have ever been looking for my whole life!" She bowed her head, contemplatively rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. "I'm just sorry I let fear get in the way of fighting for what I wanted in this life." She took a deep breath. "Now… here we are…. with eternity before us… and I only want to spend it with you: my prince… my soulmate…" Lifting her head, she beamed at him wetly. "…. My friend."

Matthew could only stare, in awe of her. "…. Really?"

Courteney just smiled. "You wanna know if I'm sure…?" Lacing their fingers together, she closed her eyes and began to give her vows: "I, Courteney Bass Cox, take thee, Matthew Langford Perry, to be my…." she paused for a moment thoughtfully, then grinned. "…. Heavenly-wedded husband…." (Matthew chuckled at this, amused). "I thee wed, forever…"

Still a little amazed at her own boldness, she wasn't sure what he would say to that. When she felt his strong hands cup her face, compelling her to look at him, Courteney was struck to see the tears in his eyes, tears which mirrored her own.

"I….. Matthew Langford Perry…. take thee, Courteney Bass Cox, to be my heavenly-wedded wife…. I thee wed, forever…."

Courteney felt a happy sob escape her. "Forever…."

They leaned in as one and sealed their own union with a deep kiss. The kiss quickly escalated in its passion and Courteney felt her heavenly husband lower her to the meadow grass. But when her back touched the ground, it was cool kitchen tiles she felt beneath.

Her eyes fluttering open, she and Matthew broke the kiss briefly and she looked around, smirking. Their minds had transported them back to her kitchen, the night they had kissed. The first kiss where they had felt something real stirring between them. It hadn't been Chandler and Monica kissing, or even two friends kissing while goofing around backstage. It had been just them, just Matthew and Courteney.

Grinning into each other's eyes, Matthew and Courteney kissed again, reverently undressing one another.

Solemnly, yet no less passionately, they had sex, consummating a marriage that was not held down by the surly bonds of earth.

After making love, the held each other post-coitus, in rapture and bliss. Courteney stroked her lover's hair.

"I have a partner on Earth…." She smiled down at Matty. "…. and I have a husband in Heaven who I love… real as the sun in the sky…."

Matthew kissed the swell of her breasts. He glanced up at her, suddenly overcome.

"I love you…" His murmur was helpless.

Courteney beamed. "I know!" She said it just as Monica would have.

"You tell McDaid that if he ever fucks up with you again, I will hunt and haunt his ass!"

She giggled, touching her lips to his lightly. "I'll make sure he bears that in mind."

He gazed at her, lost in her eyes. "I can't leave you…"

"Sssssh…. You never will. No matter what happens, I'll always be with you… forever."

They kissed again – slow and passionate, savoring it. Matthew beamed down at her, sunshine backlighting him and making him look like the angel he now was.

The world began to fade, fall away….

"All right, babe…. Time to wake up…."

END OF DREAM

Courteney awoke with happy tears streaming down her cheeks. For the first time since late last October, she was flooded with an overwhelming sense of hope. Perhaps not peace, not yet - while she hadn't yet made peace with her Matthew's death, she had made peace with who he had been to her in life... and who he was to her now. For somewhere, between the mist and the stars, her Matthew still lived. He would never die - not if she or any of their Friends had anything to say about it.

Because death could not stop true love. All it could do was... delay it for a little while. While incontrovertibly true, and compatible with what she believed, there was no denying how schmaltzy the line was. It had been schmaltzy when Courteney had read and screen-tested for the role of Buttercup in The Princess Bride, when... goodness, when she had been Coco's age. Today, she couldn't even remember who her partner had been for that chemistry read had been, except to know it hadn't been Cary Elwes (much to her disappointment).

Leaping out of bed, she scampered down to her bookcase where her copy of her heavenly husband's memoir was kept safe and secure. Opening the text, she turned to the title page and read the inscription that her true love had written:

"My Love, My Monica Dearest…. My Courteney:

You have my heart…. For all eternity. I wish I could have been a better man, one who you would have deserved. I for damn sure don't deserve you. Then again, who does? I never knew what perfection and true beauty were until I met you. Thank you for hoodwinking the world into thinking someone so beautiful would date and marry a sad sack like me.

All my Adoration,

Your Loving TV husband,

Matty…."

Smiling softly through her tears, Courteney then flipped to nearly the back of the book. Page 246, where Matty had written:

"Courteney Cox: for making America think that someone so beautiful would marry a guy like me."

Wiping her eyes, Courteney smiled and lifted her gaze towards the ceiling. "I would always marry a guy like you, my love. I just did. And gladly."