June 2004

Monica took a deep breath as she finished unpacking another box. They had been in the new house for a couple of weeks, trying to unpack their lives and raise two babies at the same time. It was madness. They had to go buy another crib, another car seat, another feeding chair. She was pretty sure that she and Chandler had bought all of the baby formula in the county. But very slowly and very surely, she was making her way through the boxes. They had started with their bedroom, mainly so that they would have a real bed to sleep in, then the nursery. Right now, Monica was working on the kitchen. She was so excited to cook a real meal in her own kitchen. As she was just about to open another box, she heard a knock on the door.

She walked over and opened the front door and saw Rachel holding multiple shopping bags.

"Rach, what is this?" she asked.

"Oh you have to see what I just bought!" Rachel said as she walked into the room. "I swear baby clothes are just getting cuter and cuter."

Rachel had donated a lot of Emma's baby clothes to Monica when they first found out about the adoption. But now with a second baby that required a whole new wardrobe, Rachel had made the decision to be on shopping duty for the twins. Monica was grateful for the help, but Rachel seemed to be buying everything under the sun.

"Now," Rachel opened one of the bag and pulled out the world's tiniest sweater vest. "Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen."

"Oh my god!" Monica exclaimed as grabbed the sweater vest. "Oh we have to put this on Jack right now!"

"Where's Chandler? We should surprise him."

"He's upstairs with the twins. I'll go distract him."

It was easy enough to convince Chandler to come downstairs, saying that she wanted to show him the progress of the kitchen.

"It would go even quicker if you actually let me help you," Chandler said.

"Well, someone needs to watch the twins." Monica replied.

"No you just don't want me to mess up your plan," he said as they walked into the kitchen. "Wow I have to say it looks really good."

"I know!"

"So who was at the door?"

"Rachel came over, she actually has something that she wanted to show you."

"Okay," Rachel said walking into the kitchen while holding Jack with his brand new sweater vest. "Jack Bing reporting for duty."

"Well would you look at that," Chandler smiled. "Looking good, buddy!"

"Now you two can match," Monica said.

"I hate to break to you both but I don't think sweater vests are really in right now," Chandler said. "To be honest I don't think they've ever been in."

"Well, they're gonna be in now," Monica replied as she took Jack from Rachel "I mean who could ever say no to this little face."

"What do you think, Jack?" Rachel asked. "Do you like your new clothes?"

Jack made a gurgling noise.

"You see! He loves it!" Rachel said.

"No that usually means 'I'm about to poop'. Here I'll go change him." Chandler took Jack from Monica and headed back into the nursery.

"How are you doing?" Rachel asked.

"I'm exhausted." Monica said. "Trying to move into a brand new place is hard enough on its own, and we have to do with two new babies. Especially when we were only expecting one."

"I still can't believe it was twins!" Rachel said. "How did Chandler react to that?"

"Oh he was a complete mess," Monica said. "Until he actually saw Erica being born."

"Then what happened?"

"He fell in love with her on the spot, just like he did with Jack." Monica said. "And at that point we knew we were taking them both home."

"Well, just remember that you don't have to do this alone," Rachel said. "We're all here to help, even if our help is not up to your standards."

"I know," Monica said. "We'll get through it. We just won't ever sleep again."

"They keep you up all night?"

"When one starts crying, the other one will start about 5 seconds later. And I swear, Erica refuses to sleep unless Chandler is holding her."

"Aww, she's a Daddy's girl."

"He loves it too." Monica said. "He'll walk around the whole house just holding her."

"Oh that's so sweet."

"So how is everything with Ross?"

"It's good," Rachel smiled. "We've been talking a lot about…well…everything."

"I can imagine."

"It's just…we've made so many mistakes before by not talking. We would just keep everything in until we both just exploded at each other."

"Yeah, I remember." Monica said.

"And neither of us want to deal with that anymore. I'm sure you guys were all sick of it. I know that I was sick of it."

"But what about Paris?"

"It was definitely a difficult conversation to have on the phone to suddenly turn it down," Rachel said. "But as wonderful as Paris seemed, I was going to be alone, with a baby in the middle of a foreign country where I didn't even know the language. I wouldn't have any support near me. And I'm sure I would have figured it out eventually, but I ended up getting an interview with Prada."

"That's great!"

"Yeah and Ross has been so supportive with everything. Which just makes such a huge difference from before. He never really respected what I did. But to be honest, I never really respected what he did either. I think we're finally starting to grow up."

"I'm so glad to hear that," Monica said. "Do you think you two will get married…again?"

"I think this time it'll stick," Rachel said. "But we're taking things slow right now."

Chandler walked back in holding Jack in one arm and Erica in the other. "Pretty impressive, huh?"

"How long have you been working on that?" Rachel asked.

"Since we moved here," Chandler said. He walked over to Monica so that she could hold Erica. He then sat down next to her and had Jack sitting in his lap.

"Can I ask you both something?" Rachel asked. "What was it like when you had to do long distance when Chandler was in Tulsa?"

Before either of them could respond, Erica's face scrunched up and she let out a scream.

"Exactly like that." Chandler said as he pointed to her. "Does she need to be changed?"

"I don't think so," Monica said. "Let me go look for her pacifier."

As she walked around trying to calm down the fussy baby, she could hear Rachel and Chandler talking.

"I'm serious though," Rachel said.

"It was awful," Chandler said. "I wasn't able to see my wife or my friends. I felt like I was missing everything that was going on back home. And I just felt isolated from everyone. There would be so many times where…never mind."

"What?" Rachel asked.

"It's stupid."

"Chandler," Rachel said. "I'm sure it's not stupid."

"Well," he began again. "There would be so many times in Tulsa where I would tell a joke or make a comment about something, and it's like I was waiting for Monica's reaction. Either to laugh or to roll her eyes at me. Sometimes I would even turn around because I was just…expecting her to be there. Because she was always there. I went from seeing her literally every single day to maybe a few days a week. But then I would remember that she wasn't actually with me."

"Aww," Rachel said. "You two are so cute!"

Monica couldn't see his face, but she was pretty sure that he was blushing. She finally found Erica's pacifier, which immediately calmed her down. She then returned to the kitchen to continue the conversation.

"Why are you asking about Tulsa?" Monica asked as she sat down again.

"Chandler actually had to move away from his friends and family, so I wanted to ask him what it was really like."

"You heard that?" Chandler asked.

"Yeah, I did." Monica smiled. "And I missed hearing your jokes, too."

"You did?" Chandler's eyes lit up.

"Don't let that go to your head."

"Too late." He grinned at her.

"Oh my god," Rachel said. "If you two keep making heart eyes at each other then I am going to leave."

"We don't do that!"

"Oh yes you do," Rachel said. She then looked down at her watch. "Oh, I actually do need to leave. It's starting to get late. I need to start heading back so I won't get stuck in traffic."

Monica hugged Rachel goodbye before she said goodbye to Chandler and the twins.

Later that night, or maybe it was the morning, Monica was having a hard time keeping track at this point. She finally got Jack to fall asleep again. As she walked out of the nursery, she walked by the guest room and saw all of the boxes sitting on the bed. She hadn't even touched this room yet. And she still has to finish working on the kitchen and the bathroom as well. There was just so much left to do. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. There was no use in going back to sleep. Erica would probably be up soon anyways. Might as well start working on this room while it was still dark and everyone else was still asleep. At least she wouldn't have any distractions at this point. It probably wouldn't take too long to unpack everything. She was in the middle of lining up the bedsheets perfectly when she felt Chandler wrap his arms around her and placed his chin on her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm unpacking the guestroom." Monica said like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"Mon," Chandler sighed, his warm breath on her neck. "You've barely slept at all since we've moved here. Come to bed."

"Just let me finish unpacking." Monica said. "I'll be able to get more done with the twins asleep."

"You won't be able to get anything done if you're not getting any sleep." Chandler placed a soft kiss right under her ear, his fingers playing with the hem of her shirt. "Come back to bed."

"Erica will probably be up in an hour anyway," Monica said.

"Then I'll go get her," Chandler whispered into her skin. "You need to sleep."

"But…t-there so much left to do…a-and I…oh," Monica gasped as he continued to kiss her neck and she practically melted into him, the lack of sleep finally catching up to her. He lifted her easily into his arms like he had done so many times before and carried her back to their bedroom. She was asleep before she even hit the bed.

Author's Note: Okay...so I cracked and made a discord server. I've never actually run one before so it's very basic at this point. But I feel like it would be fun to have a place to talk about Mondler with others so I'm trying it out, and if it doesn't work out then I can just delete it. So if you're interested just send my a message on my tumblr (blue-and-browneyes) or send my a private message through here. Thanks for reading.