Ten weeks.
Ten long weeks.
All of that time had passed, but moving on from London, still felt hopelessly beyond Monica's reach.
After almost two months of knowing things were completely wrong between the two of them, and feeling constantly guilty for stringing him along, Monica had finally taken the decision to part ways with Dan two weeks ago. Not that they had ever really been moving in the same direction anyway: The entire thing had been a complete sham, and Monica had expected to feel at least a degree of relief to be able to put the whole shameful episode behind her.
She had hoped that Dan's departure from her life might encourage positive change, but frustratingly their split had proved as inconsequential as their relationship had been, and Monica found herself feeling neither better nor worse after saying a permanent goodbye; most likely because Dan had never been either the source of her problems or a viable solution to them.
In fact, she had almost ended things with him a few weeks previously, but then Phoebe had mentioned in passing that the cute pizza delivery girl, that Joey, Chandler and Ross had taken turns in unsuccessfully attempting to flirt with for some time, had asked Chandler out on a date whilst dropping off Joey's bi-weekly pizza order.
Phoebe's benign revelation had caused Monica's heart to immediately sink into the pit of her stomach: She had been dreading this moment and it had felt every bit as searingly painful as she had predicted it would. Of course, she had always known that "moving on from London" would have to be a two way street, Chandler would not stay single forever, and she was certainly not in a position to begrudge him a date. But still the news had caused a potent jealousy to claw viciously and unrelentingly at her soul. Her unjustifiable hatred for that slutty pizza girl and her stupid haircut, had felt like a dagger to Monica's chest and had sent her spiraling into a pool of depression, and straight into Dan's bed.
Up until that point she had successfully managed to avoid consummating her halfhearted relationship with Dan. Both of their jobs involved a significant number of night-shifts, which had provided a convenient barrier to sex, and beyond that she had become something of an expert in finding reasons not to spend all that much time with him. She still had no idea why he had put up with her for as long as he had.
Predictably, sex with Dan had provided neither the comfort nor the distraction she had longed for, and it had simply made her feel like the worst person in the world, for using him so callously.
Even now it made her physically shudder just to think about it.
It was not that Dan had been an inattentive or inept lover, quite to the contrary; and he was certainly not an unattractive man; but it was not intimacy with Dan that Monica craved. She had tried so hard to focus objectively on all of the undeniably wonderful things about Dan, things that would surely make any normal woman swoon, but his kiss left her cold and she was wholly numb to his touch. Her body and mind remained hopelessly fixated on all of the things Dan was not, or more accurately, who he was not.
There had been just one more time after that. This second encounter had actually felt temporarily more fulfilling, but only because she had squeezed her eyes tight shut and allowed her mind to roam as far from Dan as it dared; and in the darkness of his bedroom, she could, for a few moments at least, pretend that the lips that trailed kisses down her spine and the fingers that grasped at her hips belonged to somebody else.
She had felt completely disgusted with herself afterwards of course, and it was that sordid incident that had finally prompted her to put an end to this miserable chapter of her interminably catastrophic love life.
She wondered, as she often did, if Chandler was as far away from moving on from London as she was.
She still had no idea if he had actually gone out with Caitlin, the pizza delivery girl, mainly because she had actively avoided finding out any further details. As well as carefully avoiding Dan, Monica had also been spending as little time as possible with her friends.
Rachel and Noah had become something of an item, and Monica felt incredibly awkward being around the two of them: Noah's friendship with Dan made her feel ill at ease, as she was sure that her campaign of frigidity towards him must be a regular topic of conversation between them.
Since hearing mention of Chandler's potential date with Caitlin, Monica had been terrified of learning any more about it, knowing how much hurt it would inevitably cause her, so she had been steering clear of both Chandler and Joey too.
Instead, she had been spending a substantial amount of time with her brother, and had thrown herself into supporting him through the collapse of his marriage as best she could; Ross's own mind was completely focused on his troubles with Emily, and he had no capacity for any talk of Dan, Chandler, or the pizza girl, which suited Monica down to the ground.
She had also busied herself at work, taking on as many extra shifts as the restaurant could give her; and she had spent a lot of time simply hiding from the world in her bedroom. She could only assume that the emotional turmoil of the past couple of months was taking its toll, but she was chronically exhausted, in a way that she had never had been before. In fact, she had never slept so much in her life.
Her solitude, depression and tiredness had not gone unnoticed by Phoebe and Rachel, and they were both deeply concerned for her emotional well being; so tonight they had insisted upon a long overdue girls' night, taking advantage of this balmy July evening by enjoying frozen margaritas, just the three of them, out on the balcony.
They had hoped that they might encourage her to open up and talk honestly, but Monica had remained introspective throughout. She had, however, enjoyed their company and it was good for her to hear their chatter, even though she knew her own silence was frustrating them.
The phone had begun to ring just as Phoebe was returning from the kitchen with a second icy jug of their favorite summertime cocktail, and she had answered a call from Noah, bringing the receiver out onto the balcony, and delivering it to Rachel.
"Hi sweetie!" a smitten grin spread across Rachel's face as soon as she heard his voice. Monica and Phoebe exchanged a fond smirk.
"Awww I'm sorry honey, but I have to be up so early tomorrow, I'm just having a quick drink with Phoebe and Monica and then I'm heading straight for bed. We're still on for Wednesday though, right?"
The other two women chatted softly as Rachel wrapped up her conversation and hung up the phone.
"Why do you have to be up so early?" Phoebe queried, not bothering to disguise the fact that she had been listening to Rachel's conversation.
"Oh I don't." Rachel told her, "Noah just finished at the hospital and asked to come over, but I got my period today so I wanted to put him off."
"Why lie?" Phoebe asked, eyeing her curiously as she took a long slurp of her drink.
Rachel shrugged "I don't know. Noah and I haven't really been together that long, I guess I just feel a little embarrassed talking about that stuff with him."
Phoebe scoffed "Why would you feel embarrassed? It's a perfectly natural part of being a woman. And Noah's a nurse! I doubt he has any weird hang-ups about the human body!"
"I know that!" Rachel said defensively, "I just didn't feel like going into it!"
As the two women sparred a little belligerently, neither noticed that Monica's head had begun to spin: She could see that Rachel and Phoebe were still conversing but their words were entirely drowned out by the increasingly strong and rapid thud of her heart.
For it had just dawned upon her that she had absolutely no recollection of her own last period.
She rose slowly to her feet, her throat suddenly dry and tight, a clammy feeling creeping gradually over every inch of her skin as she frantically racked her brain.
Her face had taken on an ashen tone that did not go unnoticed by Rachel. "Mon? Are you OK?"
"Yeah," she managed to croak, "I just need some water. It's really humid out here tonight"
"Do you want me to get it for you?" asked Phoebe, looking concerned, "You look a little pale... You're not about to pass out are you?"
"No, it's OK, I need the bathroom anyway" Monica muttered as she stumbled blindly indoors.
After fumbling the lock on the door closed, she clamored around the bathroom cabinet and pulled out a packet of tampons, staring at it, in the vain hope that the packaging would trigger some reminiscence of either buying or using such an item in recent memory.
She folded down the toilet lid and collapsed into a seated position, cradling her head in her hands.
Why couldn't she remember?
It had been a stressful few months, so it was not beyond the realms of possibility that mundane bodily functions would have passed her by and been dealt with on autopilot, but whilst Monica was not the type of person to feel the embarrassment Rachel had alluded to, she felt sure that she would have remembered if her period had coincided with a new sexual partner.
She and Dan had only had sex twice and they had, of course, used contraception. It seemed unfathomable, almost tragic in fact, that an encounter so insipid and devoid of feeling could possibly have created the new life Monica had always dreamed of nurturing. Surely that could not be the case? How the hell would she ever be able to tell him that the woman who had treated him with such consistently aloof indifference was going to be the mother of his child?
But Monica could not actually remember having had a period since London.
Her breath caught in her throat. She could not even allow herself to go there. Because if she dared to hope that it was Chandler to whom she might find herself inextricably linked by parenthood for all eternity, she was not sure how she would ever cope with the alternative, if it did turn out to be Dan.
And London was well over two months ago now. Surely she would have noticed if she had been pregnant for that long?
A rush of panic flooded her chest: If she was carrying Dan's child, that would spell the end. She had spent the last ten weeks telling herself that it could never happen anyway, but this really would be it: Any sliver of hope that remained stubbornly in her heart, that she and Chandler might somehow find their way back to each other, would surely be gone forever.
She stood at the sink and splashed water over her face with trembling hands, before gulping a few handfuls straight from the tap to ease the raw, sandpaper feeling in her throat.
She brought her breathing under control as best she could and reminded herself with some force, that she was getting way ahead of herself. Just because she could not remember a recent period, did not mean that she had not had one. Her mind had been all over the place lately, and had probably just made her a little forgetful. This was most likely a false alarm and there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it until she took a test. The only thing she could do was push it to the back of her mind.
And definitely refuse any further margaritas.
Three home tests, three positive results. Those little pink lines had appeared almost instantaneously, and seemed to taunt her with their vibrancy and clarity, leaving her with little room for doubt as to how conclusive they were.
And yet she still could not quite believe it. Even now as she listened wide-eyed whilst her doctor patiently addressed her concerns and questions, this all just felt completely surreal, as though she was watching from a distance, as this happened to somebody else.
"Now I know that you had thought there was a chance that conception had occurred around 3 weeks ago. As I explained before, we date your pregnancy from the first day of your last period, so if we assume that your ovulation and menstrual cycle are around about average, I would suggest that would make you roughly 5 weeks pregnant,"
Monica gulped and nodded her understanding. The doctor frowned a little as she shuffled through her notes.
"But, looking at your blood test results, your hGC levels; that's the pregnancy hormone; seem rather high for that gestation... Which could indicate that the pregnancy is somewhat more advanced than five weeks. Is that a possibility?"
Monica's heart felt like it might actually stop beating as she struggled to process what this could mean.
"Yes" she managed to breathe. "It is a possibility."
The doctor examined Monica's shell-shocked face with sympathy, "hCG levels can vary quite drastically for lots of reasons though: multiple births, certain medical conditions, or even just your own unique physiology. But given your uncertainty as to the date of your last period, I think we really need to get you in for a scan as soon as possible so we can measure your baby, or babies, and work out for sure where we are. And then we can get your maternity plan all figured out. Does that sound OK, Monica?"
"Yes. That sounds good." Monica replied in a whisper, her mind very much sticking on the phrase "multiple births". Please God, no. The idea of being a single mother was terrifying enough, but a single mother outnumbered by multiple babies?
As she gathered up her belongings and wandered out to the waiting room to book in her scan with the receptionist, an almost painful wave of desperate need engulfed her and she had to sit down. Her knuckles turned white as her fingers gripped tight, seeking solidity and security from the sides of that plastic waiting room chair.
She wanted Chandler at her side so badly it hurt.
As much as she was trying to exercise caution and deal with this situation methodically and rationally, she had been unable to prevent her heart from running wild. Somewhere in the depths of her soul, Monica was completely and utterly convinced that Chandler must be the father of her baby. She had always known that their night together in London had been more than special: Discovering that deep-rooted, primal connection with Chandler had felt somehow life-changing in a way she had never been quite able to understand, until now. This news, as shocking as it was, finally allowed her to make some sense of it all.
At least she hoped it did.
She had no idea how Chandler would react to the idea of parenthood, of course, and she was not so naive to believe that pregnancy would somehow instigate some instant "happy-ever-after" for the two of them. Or three of them.
Even the most sensible and rational part of Monica knew that Chandler was a good man. The best man she had ever known. And whether they embarked upon this journey together or apart she was confident that he would be the best possible father to her child. It had to be him.
But she couldn't allow herself to run away with this: Until she had seen what was going on inside her uterus with her own eyes, there was no way she could involve anybody else.
On no account could she put Chandler through the turmoil of a pregnancy announcement, and then drag him along to a scan where there was even the remotest chance that he might be greeted with an image of Dan's tiny 5 week old twins dancing around the screen.
The knowledge that her own poor decisions had allowed that possibility to come to pass caused bile to surge in her throat and a shudder of self-loathing to rattle her spine. What on Earth had she been thinking?
She swallowed back a torrent of tears that threatened to humiliate her right there in the waiting room and gritted her teeth hard.
It was her own fault she was in this mess, and until she was sure of how long that precious bundle of cells had been magically multiplying in her womb, she would have to do this alone.
But then the smallest of smiles tugged at her lips, a tentative flutter of joy lifted her heavy heart and her hand drifted tenderly to her still entirely flat stomach, when she realized that no matter what the outcome, so long as this tiny little fetus was healthy and thriving, she would not actually be quite alone anymore.