A/N Thank you so, so much for continuing to read and comment! I hope I have replied to everyone, apart from guest reviewers.
Katnibellamione - I can only apologize for all of the angst and say that, you're absolutely right, poor Chandler did not think this through! As we're about to find out...
I'm pretty sure there are only 3 chapters left in this story now (including this one), and I'm afraid that you will all still be hating me by the end of this update! The good news is, all will become clear in the next chapter and hopefully I will be able to start making amends for all of the trauma and cliffhangers.
I have loved hearing some of your predictions as to what will eventually happen, there have been some amazing ideas, but nobody has guessed it yet, so please keep them coming!
"OK Mr Bing. Talk me through your movements on the afternoon of Pete Becker's death" Detective Connor arched an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, folding his bulky arms across his broad chest. Chandler was not sure if it was the effect of his own nervousness, or the way the morose gloom of the interview suite enhanced the detective's hollow cheeks and severe brow, but his intense dark eyes seemed even more menacing than Chandler had remembered: In fact, it felt like they were boring into his very soul. He cleared his throat anxiously before proceeding.
"Well, I was looking for Monica.. my girlfriend. My roommate, Joey, had seen her, and he told me that she was on her way to visit the restaurant."
"That restaurant being, Javu? The restaurant that Ms Geller co-owned with Mr Becker?" Detective Connor clarified.
"Right. So, I was a little worried, because Monica hadn't been to the restaurant since Becker had attacked her, so I thought it would be tough for her. Emotionally. And I was also concerned that Pete's sister might be there. Lucy. She has been pretty unpleasant to Monica in the past: She turned up at her apartment and tried to intimidate her... So anyway, that's why I went down there: To check on Monica." His eyes flickered over the faces of the two police officers, assessing their reaction to his story, but their expressions were predictably stony and inscrutable.
"I arrived at the restaurant at around 16:30, I guess? And as I was approaching, I saw Monica running out of the place, she looked really upset. I ran over towards her, but she was moving pretty fast and kind of disappeared into the crowd on the street before I could get to her. I assumed she must have had had a brush with Lucy, so I went in there to see what had happened, and that's when I saw Pete."
Detective Connor's thick eyebrows knitted together as he queried, "So you went inside the restaurant to see Pete's sister, rather than go after your upset girlfriend..."
Chandler took a sip of water to moisten his lips, "Well, I wanted to confront her. As I said, we'd had problems with her trying to intimidate Monica before, so I guess I just wanted to tell her to back off."
Connor regarded him neutrally, "So you entered the restaurant and you saw Mr Becker. Where was he?"
"I walked in to the office, I could hear somebody moving around upstairs, so I went up there. And there he was." Chandler took a deep steadying breath.
"And then what happened?" the detective leaned forwards in his seat as he urged Chandler to continue.
"He started antagonizing me pretty much straight away. He was gloating that Monica was going to lose the trial, telling me how he was going to destroy the two of us. He kept on and on, and I just wanted to get out of there, I wanted to call the police and let them know he had broken his bail conditions: Get the bastard locked up like he deserved. But he kept blocking my exit and eventually I grew tired of him taunting me, so I tried to shove my way past him. But I guess I shoved him a little harder than I intended because he... sort of stumbled towards the stairs and that's when he fell."
"So you didn't mean for him to fall?"
"No. I did not." Chandler confirmed.
"But you didn't think to call for an ambulance?" Connor probed, his eyes narrowing.
"I guess I just panicked. He looked like he was dead already when I went down the stairs. I just wanted to get out of there and check on Monica."
"And did you tell Ms Geller what happened when you eventually found her?"
"No. I didn't tell anybody." Chandler looked Detective Connor square in the face and told him confidently and definitively, "Monica has nothing to do with any of this and she still doesn't know what I did".
When Monica had returned to the boys apartment after dropping the blender back to Rachel she was deeply unsettled to find the place empty. She attempted to reach a rational conclusion, telling herself that Chandler had most likely nipped out momentarily to pick up groceries or run a quick errand, but she could not shake off the creeping uneasiness that gripped at her stomach.
Monica disliked the idea of being a clingy girlfriend: From the moment she had arrived in New York City she had been fiercely independent and had always taken pride in her self-sufficiency. She was certainly not the kind of woman who expected to have to explain her own movements to any romantic partner and similarly, she did not feel it necessary to be made constantly aware of their whereabouts.
However, the knowledge that the police could come knocking at her door at any time had left Monica justifiably terrified, and Chandler had made his sensitivity towards her current jitters abundantly clear. He had been attentive to a fault, so the idea that he would simply vanish, without thinking to pop his head through the door of Apartment 20 to let her know where he was going, seemed worryingly out of character.
So Monica did what she always did when she felt edgy or anxious. She cleaned.
A small, unexpected smile of affection tugged at her lips as she observed Chandler's very real attempt to tidy up the kitchen after his smoothie making earlier that morning. He had, of course, washed up the blender and given the surfaces what he considered to be a thorough wipe down with a dishcloth, but despite his best efforts there was still plenty for Monica to do. She set about clearing tiny dots of pink smoothie splatter from the cabinet doors, scraping a rogue smear of yogurt from the side of the microwave, and plucking pieces of strawberry stalks from the sink. Nobody could spot a cleaning issue better than she could.
But after half an hour of scrubbing, wiping and buffing, there was still no sign of Chandler, so Monica wandered reluctantly back across the hall to her own apartment.
"Are you OK?" Rachel asked her gently, as Monica made her way into their kitchen, unable to disguise her twitchiness as she leaned against the sink.
"I don't know where Chandler has gone" she told her friend awkwardly. She felt uncomfortable talking to Rachel about her boyfriend, given the overt disapproval her friend had expressed about their relationship thus far.
Rachel chewed her lip pensively, "Well... he did mention earlier that he had to head down to the Police Station..." she ventured carefully, "Maybe he went down there already?"
Monica frowned, feeling immediately nauseous at the mere mention of police.
"What? Why would he have to go there? They didn't ask him to go down there when they came over yesterday. And I'm pretty sure they haven't called this morning. And why didn't he tell me about it?" Her thoughts spilled from her lips as quickly as they careered through her brain, her voice gaining in pitch and panic.
"He just said they wanted him to stop by and answer a few questions. It doesn't sound like a big deal. He just didn't want to worry you about it." Rachel placated.
"Well he has worried me!" Monica snapped, before deciding breathlessly "I'm going to head down there."
"No, Mon!" Rachel told her, "He'll be back soon. He might even be in his way back now. Just wait here, he'll be fine. I know you're under a lot of stress right now, but try to stay calm."
"You try staying calm when everybody is insinuating you're a murderer and then your boyfriend sneaks off to the police station without telling you.." Monica sniped, a tearful scowl on her face.
"Nobody thinks you're a murderer, Monica" Rachel assured her quietly "Just sit here and we'll wait for Chandler together, OK? I'll get you some tea."
As the afternoon progressed, the rest of their little gang began to filter one at a time through the door of Apartment 20, as was so often the way. But today, there was one notable exception. The mood was somber and the atmosphere thick with Monica's ever mounting concern.
Joey eventually took Rachel to one side in the kitchen, glancing furtively towards Monica to ensure that she was being sufficiently distracted by Phoebe to overhear what he was saying. "You said he went down there at 11am? That's hours ago Rach, maybe one of us should head down there.."
But before Rachel could respond, the phone began to ring and every set of eyes on the room swung around to look at it. Rachel began to move towards it, but Monica clamored to get there first and answered the call tensely.
The others eyed her in expectation as the caller began to speak, hoping beyond hopes that they would see her take a sigh of relief. But instead they watched in horror as the blood visibly drained from her face.
"No...that's impossible" they heard her mutter, as every remaining shred of strength seemed to dissipate from her body. Her grip on the phone slackened, her arm crumpled to her side and she dropped the receiver wordlessly into her lap.
Ross scooped it up and finished the call on her behalf, as Phoebe tried, unsuccessfully, to engage with Monica: She seemed to have retreated to a place deep within herself and sat, completely mute, unable to communicate or even make eye contact.
"OK, thanks for letting us know." Ross ended the call gravely, looking almost as shell-shocked as his sister.
"That was Chandler's attorney..." he addressed his impatient friends, unable to tear his eyes from Monica's blanched face. "He's been arrested."
He cleared his throat as he struggled to form the words, "He confessed to killing Pete."
Rachel's hands shot to her face, and tears sprung immediately to her blue eyes as she gazed woefully towards Monica.
"No. There's no way!" Joey cried in disbelief, "Chandler's not a killer!"
Phoebe concurred, "I mean, it must have been an accident. Pete must have provoked him."
Monica finally garnered the power to breathe and she shook her head, her face glazed and devoid of expression "He wasn't even there Phoebe. He's lying to them. He's done this to stop them from arresting me."
"He wouldn't do that." Ross dismissed, "That's insane! The police had only just begun their investigation, they might not even think anybody else was involved. There was a good chance they would have deemed it an accident. It must be like Phoebe said: A fight that got out of hand. Why else would he confess before any arrests had been made?"
"Because he loves her!" Joey shot back a little hotly, "There's no way he was there Ross. He was so shocked when he found out about Pete, there's no way he already knew and kept it from us."
"Oh my God." Monica's breath was becoming rapid and shallow as she paced towards the window, cradling the back of her head in her hands. "Oh my God. He should never have come near me. I've ruined his life." She muttered to nobody in particular, "He had a decent job, a fiancee, a future..."
"None of this is your fault, Monica!" Phoebe told her, her tone so serious it was virtually a reprimand.
"But it is!" Monica shook her head frantically, "He was OK with Kathy wasn't he? He was happy. And then I went round there, I told him that I wanted him. None of this would have happened if I hadn't done that! It's my fault!"
She suddenly swung towards her brother, her eyes ablaze "But not just mine."
Her fiery eyes narrowed as she faced Ross furiously, "He has been made to feel so worthless by you people these last few weeks! He really believed all of those awful things you said about him, and about our relationship, no matter how hard I tried to reassure him."
"You made him feel like he'd taken advantage of me, like he'd let me down. You told him he was as bad as Pete! You made him feel so guilty. And now that's what he's told the police he is!"
A remorseful sob escaped from Rachel's throat, but Ross continued to stare down his sister resolutely, as he had so many times before. The Geller siblings enjoyed a genuinely close and loving relationship, but the bitter rivalry and competitiveness of their childhood meant that a heated, if generally short-lived, argument was only ever a misplaced word away, and the two of them erupted with vigor now.
"Hey, if Chandler has been dumb enough to make a false confession, that was his own choice Monica! And it just proves to me that I was right all along: That the two have you have lost your minds."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she hissed back darkly.
"Chandler dumping his fiancee? The two of you sneaking around behind everybody's back? Lying to your lawyer during a criminal trial, for crying out loud? The two of you have just gotten completely carried away by this whole "being in love" idea. You've both been so reckless, Monica!"
"Ross, that's way out of line, man!" Joey began, but Monica was more than ready to respond on her own terms.
"Maybe we have lost our minds, but don't you dare imply that we don't know what we feel for each other!"
The finger she pointed towards her brother trembled with rage," Maybe we have been stupid and reckless, but maybe that's part of what love is. Haven't you ever loved anybody so much you couldn't bear to be apart from them Ross?"
At any other time she would have felt a thrill of intrigue to have noticed Ross's eyes flit almost imperceptibly quickly over towards Rachel, but her devastation surrounding Chandler was all-consuming, and she had no time or energy for the "Will they? Won't they?" Ross and Rachel saga that had been rumbling on since time immemorial.
"I needed him Ross. I needed Chandler to be there with me and to support me through all of this, and that is exactly what he did. And you can say that was reckless but the fact is, I would not have survived this without him. He did nothing wrong. And neither did I. And now, we're going to be kept apart for God knows how long, because that clumsy piece of shit couldn't even manage to walk down some stairs without ruining everybody's life!"
Tears began to roll uncontrollably down her cheeks now, "All I wanted was somebody to love. A husband, a family... that's all I have ever wanted! And I finally found the person I want to be with forever, and now he's being taken away from me! None of this is fair! It's not fucking fair!"
Phoebe attempted to wrap her arms around her, but Monica was too distraught and thrashed herself free. "I need to go to the police station, he's still there right?"
"Monica, they won't let you see him. His attorney said so." Ross told her gently but firmly, a pang of sorrow tore through his heart and his eyes glistened with guilt as he observed his sister's unquestionable agony. "I'll take you down there tomorrow, I promise I will. And I'm sorry, OK? For what I said. I know you love him, and I know that he loves you too."
Monica did not respond, instead she turned her tear-stained face towards Joey and pleaded "Can I stay at your place? Please?"
"Sure you can.." he told her, glancing anxiously around at the others, unsure of how to proceed and desperate for approval.
Monica gave him a grateful nod and dashed immediately for Chandler's room, hoping desperately that being able to wrap herself in a comforter that smelled like him; being surrounded by his clothes; his posters; the silly little nick-knacks and novelty items that had, at some point in time, appealed to his humor and captured his interest; would offer her some solace. But she feared that the opposite would be true: That the absence of his cheeky grin; that infectious goofy laugh; his gentle soothing voice and the way he spoke her name; the comforting warmth and solidity of his body against hers; would claw to pieces the last few remnants of her already broken heart.
Nora Bing had received her own call from Chandler's attorney and had been left similarly reeling, having been informed that her only child had confessed to being involved in the death of Pete Becker.
She had immediately extracted a chilled bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and shakily poured herself a large glass as she attempted to digest this information.
It was true, she had not seen her son in quite some time: In fact, she guiltily acknowledged that she had not even spoken with him over the phone for a good couple of months. The two of them had never enjoyed a close mother/son relationship, and she was well aware that Chandler harbored resentment towards both of his parents surrounding his erratic and unstable upbringing, and she also knew that he found her current lifestyle problematic. Regardless of their complicated relationship, and the consequent distance between them, she loved him ferociously; and whilst Chandler might be embarrassed by her man-hungry vivaciousness and her successful career in erotic literature; Nora was endlessly proud of the sweet and empathetic man her son had grown up to be, despite, or perhaps even partially thanks to, the tumultuous and unconventional childhood she and her ex-husband had bestowed upon him.
She simply could not reconcile that her gentle, blue-eyed boy could ever be capable of taking another life, even in a momentary fit of rage, and she needed to find out how on Earth these circumstances had come to pass.
She reached for her Filofax and began flicking frantically through the pages. She was sure she had taken down his girlfriend's number at some point. When she found what she was looking for, she began to dial, taking a stabilizing breath. She drummed the countertop impatiently with her perfectly manicured nails, and was unsure as to why she could feel an accusatory tone building in her chest. It was completely unreasonable of her to apportion any blame to Chandler's partner for this, to assume that she could have prevented it in some way. Nora internally acknowledged that perhaps she was projecting her own guilt at not being there to support her son, onto the woman Chandler had chosen to spend his life with, and when the call was answered, she really did try to temper what she knew to be irrational anger.
"Honey, it's Nora. I've just had a call from Chandler's attorney, and I'm hoping you're going to tell me what the hell is going on?"
She heard a deep sigh at the end of the line and a quiet voice began to speak awkwardly, "Listen Nora, I don't think -"
Nora was not going to be fobbed off "No you listen Kathy, I want to know why the hell my son would be confessing to killing a man! There is no way on God's earth my boy is capable of that! And who is this Pete? Isn't he that rich guy Monica Geller was dating?"
There was a brief dumbfounded silence on the other end of the line.
"Chandler's confessed to killing Pete?" Kathy eventually breathed incredulously, "Oh my God, Nora, it sounds like there is a lot he hasn't told you".
A jangle of keys and the clicking of a lock startled Chandler from his mournful daze.
"Move your ass, Bing. You're out of here." An officer Chandler had not encountered before opened the door of his holding cell and gestured impatiently for him to get up and exit the room.
Nausea rumbled in Chandler's stomach, dreading to think where he might be taken next. His attorney had explained to him that he would be kept here in the short-term, for processing, before being put before a judge to be arraigned. He suspected that a transfer to far more intimidating accommodation would swiftly follow, unless he was able to arrange bail.
Whilst his holding cell was far from luxurious, comprising of nothing more than an uncomfortable, plastic covered bench-come-bed and a stainless steel toilet, he was at least alone, and most importantly, he was still in New York City. Despite being unable to see or speak to Monica, the knowledge that he was relatively near, geographically at least, brought him a small degree of comfort.
"Where are we going?" he asked the officer as he followed him out into the corridor.
"You're out of here." The officer told him brusquely, "No charges."
"What?" Chandler croaked, struggling to understand quite what was happening, when he saw Detective Connor stalking towards him.
"Ah! Here he is! My favorite time-waster!" the detective greeted him sarcastically, a grim sneer pasted across his face.
"What's going on?" Chandler breathed.
"Oh, you're free to go Mr Bing. That's one rock solid alibi you have."
Chandler could not even stutter a response.
"Your ex-fiancee did you a big favor. I've no idea why - you obviously have a way with the ladies." He smirked unpleasantly, "She managed to provide us with not one, but two, eye witnesses prepared to testify that they saw you hanging around her building at precisely the time Mr Becker went down those stairs."
"Kathy did?" Chandler asked incredulously, his face turning pale as the consequences of his failing plan began to dawn upon him.
"Well, they must have made a mistake. Maybe they got the wrong day? Or the wrong guy? " he stammered desperately.
Detective Connor grimaced "Oh that's what I hoped! But unfortunately the security cameras from the bar opposite her building confirm exactly what those eye witnesses said. In fact, they show that you were sitting in that bar most of that afternoon. Just like you told me when we first met, remember? Before you started lying through your teeth? And more importantly, those cameras show that you didn't leave that bar until after Becker's body had been found. So you, Bing, are officially in the clear."
Chandler swallowed hard as Connor's eyes narrowed callously, " I'm afraid I can't say the same for the lovely Ms Geller though."
He shook his head and tutted dramatically, seeming to enjoy the pain that warped Chandler's face. "Knowing that her boyfriend would go to such great lengths to throw us off her scent is a bit of a red flag don't you think?"
Chandler shook his head in panic, "No! Monica didn't do anything! I swear! She had no idea I was going to confess. Please! Please leave her alone. You do know what that guy did to her right?"
"Oh, I'm no fan of Pete Becker's Mr Bing, not many people are, by all accounts. And I know Detective Rossi had her fingers crossed for a conviction. But we have a job to do and we can't just turn a blind eye when people take the law into their own hands and shove people down the stairs, I'm afraid."
"If you had even the tiniest shred of humanity you would have just put this down to an accident. Which it was anyway!" Chandler accused him, his voice shaking with emotion "Monica had nothing to do with this, but Becker got exactly what he deserved, and everybody knows it! Who cares how he ended up at the bottom of those stairs? He attacked my girlfriend once and threatened to do it again. Any decent human would let her be. She has been through more than enough! "
The detective was swiftly losing patience and glowered at Chandler's impassioned outburst, "Alright Bing, maybe you should have thought about all of this when you decided to lie to my face. You've wasted enough of my time as it is. In fact, I could arrest you for that! But I won't. Because you are my star witness in this case now. In fact, you couldn't have presented our culprit to us more obviously if you'd dropped her off down here yourself, tied her up in a bow and attached a gift note that read "Guilty" ".
Chandler felt all of the air leave his lungs and he became unsteady on his feet. What the fuck had he done?
Detective Connor cast one last sneering look in his direction as he began to stride away down the corridor, "If you hurry, you might catch a glimpse of her Bing. One of my officers is bringing her down here for a chat as we speak. Hey! She might even get your old room!"
The officer who had accompanied him from the holding cell was worried for a moment that Chandler looked like he might collapse, and he eyed him somewhat sympathetically after having witnessed this devastating conversation with his austere and intimidating superior.
"Come on buddy." He told him gruffly, "I'll take you to the desk to sign you out and collect your stuff".