Disclaimer: I own nothing and no money will be made
A/N: Thank you to everybody who took the time to leave comments on my last chapter! So very appreciated as always. This is the first time I have written anything fictional since I was a kid, and I don't think I ever really thought anyone would bother to read it, so it really is amazing to hear your thoughts.
It's really interesting that some of you seem super keen for me to hurry up with getting Mondler together and then saltnvine2263 urged me to keep it slow - this is definitely something I am finding challenging to pitch! I really don't want to rush (as you may have guessed from the fact I have already managed to ramble on for 20 chapters!), I think that given what has happened to Monica it would feel wrong to move things too fast (and I have kept the timeline so far deliberately a little vague for this reason), but at the same time I do want to keep the story moving as I still have a lot to fit in (dealing with Pete, for instance!). Anyway, I will be attempting to strike a balance, and I hope it works out!
"Oh God, Chandler" he was awoken by the sound of Monica murmuring huskily close to his ear. His eyes fluttered open wide in confusion as his sleep-befuddled mind struggled to recall where on Earth he was, and more importantly, why his limbs were entwined with those of his best friend.
"I haven't slept like that in forever" Monica continued, sighing dreamily "Thank you for staying with me..."
As Chandler returned to wakeful reality and recalled last night's efforts to lull Monica into a desperately needed slumber, he felt a warm glow of pride that he had been able to help her finally get some rest, tempered by a hint of shame that being woken by her moaning his name languorously into his ear had caused a flurry of not entirely chaste butterflies to stir deep in his core.
Monica untangled herself from his embrace and brought herself to a sitting position, stretching luxuriantly.
As Chandler attempted to move he was suddenly aware of an excruciating pain in his neck caused by the awkward sleeping position he had found himself unwilling to move from last night, lest he disturb the sleeping beauty who had finally found peace against his chest. As he went to raise a hand to ease his injured neck he realized that his left arm was also completely dead from being trapped beneath his friend for the entire night.
"Well I'm glad you slept well because I can't feel my arm and I think my head is about to fall off" he howled in agony.
Monica winced as she observed his pain "I'm so sorry!" she told him squeezing his knee gently.
Concerned that she might have imagined his complaint to have been in any way serious, Chandler grabbed her hand and returned her squeeze by interlacing his fingers with hers "Hey. Totally worth it" he told her, his eyes meeting hers sincerely.
He saw her throat move as she swallowed hard before extracting her hand from his and telling him "I'll make us some coffee."
A sudden sharp rap at the door caused Monica's shoulders to tense up so much they almost met her ears.
"It can't be Rachel, it's too early" she spoke her thoughts aloud, her eyes round and fearful.
"I'll get it." Chandler told her, in a tone he hoped would be relaxed and easy enough to calm her anxiety.
Getting to his feet with a neck as stiff and painful as his, was no mean feat though, and the effort caused him to bend double, groaning loudly in extreme discomfort. He attempted to support his head with his right hand, his left arm still hanging numbly at his side. As he hobbled towards the door he was astonished to hear Monica let out a giggle behind him, and he turned to give her an inquiring glare.
"Sorry," she explained with a guilty smile "It's just... you're walking like Quasimodo"
He threw her a look of outrage, but an arch smile pulled at his lips: He was pleased that he had succeeded in alleviating her fear, even if is was by providing her with unintentional physical comedy.
"Chandler? Are you in there?" came a stern voice from behind the door.
Kathy. Fuck. He'd had every intention of being back in his own apartment long before her arrival.
Monica moved nonchalantly towards the kitchen and busied herself making coffee as Chandler answered the door to his stony faced fiancee.
"Hi Honey! How was your night out with Kimberley?" he asked her cheerily.
She gave no answer, and her expression remained glacial as she took in his disheveled appearance and awkwardly cocked neck. "What the hell happened to you?" she asked scathingly.
"I fell asleep on the sofa and my neck is killing me!" he told her, giving it a rub and wincing as if to qualify his injury.
"On this sofa? You slept in here?" Kathy asked without sympathy, her eyebrows raised incredulously.
He had assumed Joey might have already indicated that much.
"Uh yeah. I came over to see Mon, and we were hanging out and I guess I fell asleep" he told her lightly.
"Yeah I'm sorry, Rachel was away for the night so I guess I kept him talking too long" Monica interjected apologetically from the kitchen in an attempt to come to Chandler's aid, before realizing that she had inadvertently and unhelpfully provided confirmation that she and Chandler had spent the night together unaccompanied.
Kathy turned to look her up and down, scowling as she observed her mussed up hair and sleep attire. "Oh hey Monica. And did you sleep in here too? Probably not the best idea for two people who are supposed to be trying to convince a court they're not having an affair, is it?"
"Well, I - " Monica was taken aback by her forthright question and accusatory tone and began to answer before giving pause and pursing her lips "You know what?" she eventually replied coolly, "I have spent enough of my time being probed and interrogated these last few weeks. By professionals I might add. So I think I'll leave it to your fiancé to talk to you about this."
"Sorry about this Mon." Chandler mumbled, as she turned on her heel and stalked off towards her bedroom.
Kathy glared at him, incredulous that he would dare to apologize on her behalf.
"Sorry Mon?!" she fumed "In what world do you think this is acceptable Chandler? We haven't seen each other in nearly a week, I ask you to dinner to meet one of my oldest friends, you turn me down, ostensibly because you have to work late -"
"I did work late!" he interrupted pointlessly.
"- and then I find out you've actually been having a sleepover with your pretty friend across the hall? The woman who you are about to be a accused of having an affair with in a court of law! I mean, your own bed is literally twenty paces from this spot, Chandler! It's so... inappropriate!"
Chandler shook his head and scoffed before countering, in a voice low enough for Monica not to hear "I was over here keeping my "pretty friend from across the hall" company" he could tell by Kathy's face that his repetition of that particular phrase had been a mistake, but he continued undeterred, "I was keeping her company because - not sure if you remember this part - her psycho ex brutally attacked her and she hasn't slept since! By the time she fell asleep, I must have too. That's it. Now, if you want to get angry with me about that? Fine. But Monica really doesn't need this. If you want to continue this argument we need to do it across the hall. But what I'd really prefer to do is go across there, get showered and changed so we can go for lunch with your friend and enjoy our weekend together."
At this moment Monica re-entered the room, and headed towards the kitchen once more, glancing uncomfortably towards the couple. Kathy was the first to speak, shooting a small scowl in Chandler's direction as she did so, "I'm sorry for speaking to you like that, Monica. Where you choose sleep in your own apartment is your business."
Monica responded with a nod and a stiff smile, feeling a little guilty: She had spent the night in the arms of the woman's fiance after all, and platonic or not, the fact that neither of them would even consider being completely honest with Kathy about it, did make the scenario feel somewhat improper.
"How was your evening with your friend?" she inquired lightly, hoping to diffuse the uncomfortable atmosphere with a change of subject.
"It was great thanks. It's so nice to have her here and show her around the city - she hasn't visited New York for years." Kathy responded graciously.
She turned to Chandler now, looking more cheerful and even a little excited, "Aaaaand, she agreed to be my Maid of Honor. She was so happy I asked her. " A wide smile crept across her face.
Monica cleared her throat and turned away to reach for a coffee mug, Chandler returned Kathy's smile and hoped the quaver he felt in his voice was not too noticeable. "That's great!" he told her.
Kathy seemed to be bringing up marriage ever more frequently now, and was clearly keen to set a date. Chandler's head, however, was a million miles away from planning a wedding and every time she broached the subject his stomach churned with dread. At least on this occasion it seemed to have distracted her from Chandler's sleepover. He struggled not to react to the pins and needles that were now stabbing at his arm, as his blood flow began to return to normal, in a bid to keep everyone's mind away from that subject.
"Let's go back to yours so you can get showered," Kathy suggested, encouraging him towards the door "Bye Monica."
Chandler glanced over to Monica, gauging her response.
"Go" She reassured him, knowing he would be worried about leaving her alone. "I need to shower too and Ross said he would call round this morning."
He nodded. "Bye" he met her eyes with a shy smile as he went to close the door behind him.
Monica sighed deeply as she leaned against the counter warming her hands on her coffee mug, her mind drifting back to those blissful first moments of this morning. Waking after a desperately needed long and peaceful rest had been paradise. Every other recent attempt at sleep had culminated in her startling wide awake, gasping for air with sweat beading on her forehead, following an intrusive vision of her attacker, but this morning her eyes had drifted open slowly and naturally, her heart rate relaxed, her breathing calm and even, her body completely still and at peace in Chandler's arms.
Sadness threatened to overwhelm her as she felt that all too familiar wrench of yearning in her chest as she reminded herself that she could not afford to become dependent on him. Chandler was not hers to lean on. He had chosen Kathy.
But his sweetness towards her was making it increasingly difficult for her not to lean on him: All of her friends and family were being so incredibly attentive and considerate, and her counselor was constantly reminding her of the importance of accepting their support and care, despite it not coming easily to someone with her fiercely independent nature.
Chandler, more-so than anybody else, somehow seemed to know exactly what she needed, and precisely how to deliver it: Last night for instance: He hadn't asked her over and over if she needed company, like her concerned and well-intentioned brother had; he had simply shown up and provided it in a way that did not at all resemble pity, or make her feel like a burden; He had not tried to get her to talk about her insomnia or its cause, or how she might remedy it; instead he had reminisced with her, cracked jokes, distracted, comforted and soothed her. He had just been her same old friend. In doing so, he had reminded her of who she was before all of this, and more importantly, re-affirmed that she was still that same person now, no matter what Pete had done.
It was completely instinctive with Chandler. He just got her, in a way that nobody else seemed to. She knew it was inappropriate, dangerous even, for her to allow herself to feel so attached to another woman's fiance, especially at a point in her life when she was so low and vulnerable, but her heart refused to listen and her need for him elicited another physical ache in her rib cage.
She thought back to her desolating conversation with him the night of her engagement, where she had declared her feelings to him. She hadn't told her counselor about that. She hadn't told anybody about that, in fact.
The police had not actually asked her much about that night, other than to establish that she had left the restaurant and returned straight to her building whilst Pete had flown to Boston. She could of course, have volunteered to them the fact that her feelings for Chandler were a part of what led her to call off the engagement. Maybe she should have done just that. But she could not bear to admit it. Not to anyone. At a time when she was being forced to share excruciatingly intimate details of all aspects of her life with doctors and police officers and lawyers and counselors, her feelings for Chandler were the one card Monica was determined to keep close to her chest.
She had worried at first that Pete would be the one to tell the police about her visit to Chandler's apartment that night, and that her initial omission of this information would lend credence to Pete's allegations of an affair between the two of them, but of course, the nature of his lie had not allowed him to do so: According to Pete, he had left her apartment that day a happy, newly-engaged man. His fiancee confessing to having feelings for another man did not fit this narrative. She supposed this was why he had found another way to embroil Chandler in his lies.
She had fully expected that exposing her feelings to Chandler only to have him reject a future with her, would have made things irrevocably awkward between them, and she had certainly predicted that the affair story concocted by Pete and his legal team would have made Chandler want to distance himself, but weirdly everything had seemed to have had the opposite effect: Chandler could not have been more devoted and present in her time of need. It was as if that brutally honest, utterly heart-breaking conversation and the devastating events that followed, had somehow only served to further cement their bond.
Kathy was right though. Pete and his lawyers would be attempting to find a way to twist any hint of closeness between the two of them over the course of the trial. She needed to be so careful.
Another quiet knock at the door shocked her out of her thoughts.
"Hey Mon, it's just me" Chandler announced himself before gently pushing open the door.
"Did I leave my wallet here?" he asked glancing about the room. He was fresh from the shower, hair damp and sticking up every which way, and Monica felt immediately cross with herself for thinking how cute he looked, and enjoying the clean scent of his shampoo, after she had just been sensibly reminding herself to be careful around him.
She followed him towards the sofa to help him look. "There it is," Chandler spotted the wallet quickly and bent to retrieve it from the floor by the coffee table, rubbing absentmindedly at his tender neck.
"Still sore?" Monica inquired.
Chandler chuckled "Just a little stiff, the shower definitely eased it up a bit though."
"I'm sorry" she told him with a small smile, "You should have just pushed me away if I was hurting you."
He looked at her tenderly, "I'm just glad you got a little sleep."
"Thank you" she told him a little breathlessly, pushing all thoughts of prudence and appropriate behavior to the back of her mind as she allowed herself to get lost for a moment in his affectionate gaze.
"I'll see you later" he told her huskily, stepping closer and leaning in towards her. He did not know quite what had made him do it, it had just felt like the right and natural thing to do, but the realization that he was massively overstepping the mark suddenly hit Chandler like a train. Monica remained absolutely still, unable to so much as breathe, as he redirected the course of his lips away from their initial trajectory towards hers, to graze her cheek with a soft kiss instead, missing their original target by mere millimeters.
They stared at each other in shock for a moment, each struggling to decipher the spectrum of emotion they could read in the other's eyes before Monica managed a nervous smile as she murmured "See you later".
Chandler returned an equally anxious gaze, opening his mouth as if to speak but seeming to think better of it before turning to leave. Monica rested her back against the closed door. "Oh God... " she sighed under her breath in frustration.
Chandler crashed into his own apartment reeling from what he had almost done. Who was he kidding? There was no "almost" about it: Just because he had managed to stop himself from actually pressing his lips to Monica's, there was no disguising the fact that seeking her out in the dead of night, offering her comfort and enjoying falling asleep in her embrace, had really crossed the line of acceptability for a soon-to-be-married man.
"You got it then?" Kathy asked as she opened a metallic compact ready to slick on some lipstick.
Chandler stared back at her in stupefied silence.
"Your wallet?" she shot him a probing look via the reflection in her small mirror.
Chandler looked down at the wallet in his hand, recalling that the reason for his return to Monica's apartment had been to retrieve it. "Yeah" he croaked.
"Are you OK?" she frowned.
"I uh... My neck... It's still bothering me. I'm just going to find painkillers" he made a dash for the bathroom, closing the door swiftly behind him.
He braced himself against the sink and stared guiltily at his reflection in the mirror.
He had not meant to lean in to kiss Monica. And it wasn't a moment of madness or a spontaneous fit of lust. It had been the natural, loving, goodbye kiss that any man would give to the woman who was constantly on his mind and who had spent the night nestled contentedly of his arms.
The "almost kiss" was just the tip of the iceberg.
He could tell himself until he was blue in the face that he and Monica were just extremely close friends; that they had always been affectionate; that he would support any of his friends this way. But he knew deep down that there was simply no way in the world he would behave this way with any of the others. He would be there to offer care and solace, of course, but he could never imagine coaxing Phoebe or Rachel to sleep against his chest.
The fact that whenever either he or Monica was in a significant relationship the two of them would instinctively and noticeably reduce the amount of physical affection they shared, was probably proof that they were at least partially aware, maybe even subconsciously, that the way they generally behaved towards each other was not entirely platonic.
When Chandler had got together with Kathy, the two had certainly exercised more physical restraint, but now, what with Monica's desperate need for comfort, Chandler's equally desperate need to deliver it, and Kathy conveniently being out of town four days out of seven, here they were.
Chandler was absolutely clear that no blame rested with Monica for any of this: She was in survival mode and she was vulnerable. He was entirely at fault: He had relentlessly encouraged her to seek support from him, above anybody else in her life. Whilst he suspected that any romantic feelings Monica may have previously harbored for him were pretty irrelevant to her right now, he knew that she needed and craved intimacy and comfort from somebody she could trust implicitly, and he had thrown himself obsessively into that role.
Kathy was not wrong: The commitment and devotion her fiance was determinedly showering on another woman, was utterly inappropriate. Yet Chandler knew there was no way he could back away from Monica now, and this was not because of guilt or rationality of any kind.
It was impossible for him to pull away from Monica, or to encourage her to seek support elsewhere, because his own need to be there for her, to protect her, to help her recover, was an unstoppable force. It was the most intense compulsion that Chandler had ever experienced: Primal and all-consuming. It didn't matter how wrong it might seem to the rest of the world, or how foolish: At the very depth of his soul, Chandler was completely convinced that his being there to support Monica, wholeheartedly, without boundaries or compromise, was somehow predestined. It felt absolutely, one hundred percent right. And nothing and nobody could persuade him otherwise.
He supposed that what he really needed to figure out, was whether he could possibly reconcile this insurmountable need to be there for Monica, with being engaged to another woman. And deep down, he already knew the answer.
Monica stepped out of the shower, pushing yet another frustrating fantasy scenario from her mind: Every daydream that her imagination had concocted as she attempted to relax beneath the steaming stream of water, had culminated with Chandler bursting back into the apartment to tell her that it was over with Kathy and he was hers and hers alone. The last twelve hours had really gotten under her skin.
She sighed deeply as she towel dried her hair, acknowledging, somewhat grimly, that at least while she was back to obsessing over her feelings for Chandler, she was not worrying about Pete and the trial for once. Thank heaven for small mercies.
As she pulled on her jeans and a simple white shirt she heard another knock on the door. Ross she supposed. Or could it be Chandler? Perhaps he wanted to talk about that "almost kiss"? Her head was so absorbed in this thought she forgot to exercise her usual caution as she opened the door.
"Hello Monica." the caller gave her a sardonic smile, their eyes looking her up and down with undisguised disapproval.
Monica was temporarily frozen with shock and felt her jaw slacken to a gape.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she finally managed to splutter.