A/N Thanks so much to anybody who has made any attempt to read / comment, I know it's not easy at the moment! What is going on with this site? Things seem to be appearing and disappearing for no apparent reason!

His instinct was to hunt the bastard down.

To head right down to his stupid ophthalmology practice and drag the lying piece of shit out onto the street, to beat the fucking mustache from his face and expose him for the repulsive fraud that he was.

Probably was.

Michelle had expressed a shadow of a doubt.

Chandler knew that he should really try to remember that.

No.

She might have eventually backtracked, but the casual manner in which the revelation had slipped from Michelle's lips implied a long held belief.

Why would Richard's children make an assumption like that without having heard something conclusive?

Chandler knew that he had to head down there. He needed to hear this from the horse's mouth.

But he couldn't . At least, not yet.

As ever, his priority was Monica.

"That Michelle's a pleasant woman" Chandler remarked, his voice grim and oozing with sarcasm as he re-entered the apartment, "I'll bet you're really gonna miss her".

He might have sounded appropriately caustic, but he actually felt a little lightheaded; his pulse was rampaging hard, and a strange, nauseating pressure was building in his head and pushing painfully at his skull; but there was no way he was going to let Monica see that.

"I'm sorry she was so rude to you", she threw him a forlorn smile, and his heart suddenly clenched so hard for her that he could do nothing else but fly across the room and clamp her tightly against his chest.

How could Richard have done this to her?

The fierce intensity of his embrace caused her to let out a small whimper of surprise, but still, she slid appreciative arms around his waist and hugged him back.

His mind was swimming with questions he wanted to ask, he could feel his lips trying to move of their own accord, but at this point, words simply failed him. When all was said and done, Monica was not the person he wanted to demand answers from.

"Are you ready to get out of here?" he asked quietly, pressing a firm kiss into her hair, and when she managed a small, melancholic nod he made his way briskly to the bedroom to collect her suitcase.

He had never liked this apartment and the air in here felt like poison to him now. His lungs burned, and his head was getting ready to combust. He could not wait to get her away from the place.

The bedroom represented the epicenter of the toxicity, and as Chandler entered, he tried to stay solely focused on aspects of Monica: staunchly ignoring Richard's reading glasses on the bedside table; the bottle of grotesquely expensive cologne; the stupid, ugly golfing shoes that sat by the wardrobe.

His eyes raged as they landed on a framed wedding photo that sat on top of a chest of drawers. She really was the most perfect bride he had ever seen; luminous; magical; and as he stood, temporarily transfixed, he did not know if the look of guileless adoration on her beautiful face made him want to weep or scream.

The idea that for all of that time, Richard had been duping her so cruelly, tricking her into the kind of marriage she might otherwise never have wanted, and then watching her pain without saying a word; it was all just so horrifying that it very nearly made him retch; and as continued to stare at that black and white picture, Richard's contented smirk seemed to be daring him to hurl it against the wall.

Instead, he took a deep breath and tore his eyes away, snatching up a smaller wooden frame that stood just behind, one that housed a slightly faded print of Monica planting a kiss on the chubby cheek of a smiling baby Ben. Examining that picture calmed him a little, his fond lips even twitched at the corners, and he slipped it into her suitcase.

As he stepped away his ankle caught against the slightly open bottom drawer and he reflexively tried to push it closed with his foot, but it was wedged ajar. When he reached down to inspect it more closely he saw that the jam was caused by some bunched up fabric that was poking out of the corner.

He would recognize that tired, greying flannel anywhere, and he opened the drawer, removing the shabby old pyjamas that Richard apparently hated, and Monica loved so much: The ones that made her look like his Great Uncle Albie.

Chandler's fingers lingered against those soft, warm fibers, and then he stuffed the pyjamas in the case too, making a silent vow that he would never allow anybody to try to change her, or twist her to fit their own selfish needs ever again. He could see it all so clearly now.

When he finally dragged the bulging piece of luggage into the living room, Monica was somber faced, her teary eyes mournfully surveying the place she had called home her entire married life.

Chandler knew that this was not really an expression of sadness, rather one borne of guilt, and of a sense of failure, and he wanted so badly to make her understand that her god-awful deceiver of a husband deserved not a single one of her tears, but he bit down on the inside of his cheeks and gently urged her towards the door.

"Come on Honey, let's go find you a cab".

"What? Aren't you coming with me?" she asked.

Chandler wedged the door open with the suitcase as he allowed her and Tilly to pass through.

"I just have to nip to the office first, there's something I need to deal with. I promise I won't be long."

He had walked into Richard's practice with more than a little trepidation, and had been relieved to discover that Sophie was not working that day. He knew he would have been woefully incapable of making polite, mindless smalltalk with Ross's gregarious girlfriend today.

In Sophie's place stood a glamorous, well turned out woman in her forties, who had politely informed him that Dr Burke was not expected until after lunch, at which point Chandler had zipped his jacket right to the top, and paced the chilly sidewalk, determined to intercept Richard the moment he arrived on the street.

The more he dwelt on Michelle's revelation, the more agitated Chandler became; the flaring scorch of his anger desensitizing him to the cold that rouged his cheeks and numbed his nose.

By the time Richard's sickeningly flash Jaguar rolled up and slipped into an underground parking garage on the other side of the street, Chandler was feeling more ferocious than he had ever felt in his life, and he pursued, his walk so impatient he might as well have run.

"Hey!" He announced his presence with an angry yell, his voice echoing sharply around the sooty concrete walls of the dingy garage as he approached, "I wanna talk to you."

Richard was busily locking the car and stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, and his face appeared initially stunned when he looked up and saw Chandler striding purposefully towards him, but it did not take long for a hostility to darken his brow.

"You've got some nerve showing up here..."

He began to step away from the well-waxed Jaguar, averting his eyes from the younger man, in an apparent gesture of disregard.

But Chandler was not to be ignored.

"Yeah?" He planted his feet sturdily in Richard's path and drew back his shoulders, his eyes ablaze with warning, "I've got some nerve? I've just been talking with that daughter of yours, Richard. She's a delight by the way! A real credit to you!"

Chandler was sure that he saw Richard's lip curl slightly beneath his mustache.

"But anyway, she happened to let slip that a certain someone had a little medical procedure back in the seventies. One that I'm pretty sure he conveniently forgot to mention to his wife! Care to tell me a little more about that?"

Richard's glare was impenetrable and his lips were sealed tight.

"Well? You got anything to say?" demanded Chandler, infuriated by the man's silence. "How could you lie to Monica like that, huh? You tricked her into marrying you, and then you sat there and let her try to get pregnant, knowing that you'd had a vasectomy! You watched her heart break, month, after month, after month, Do you have any idea how sick that is? What the fuck's wrong with you?"

Richard began to slowly shake his head, his eyes were wide and full of fire, and his breath appeared more labored, but Chandler was unyielding.

"Come on! Talk! You big piece of crap!"

Richard lunged without notice, grabbing Chandler by the collar and twisting the fabric viciously in his hand, his face a grotesque contortion of the mild-mannered gentleman the world had always been sure that he was.

"I don't know who you think you're dealing with, you little shit, but you'd better get out of my face. Whatever it is you think you know, you don't, alright?"

Chandler was in no mood for intimidation and he sneered as he removed the glowering man from about his person with a shove so robust that it left Richard reeling and having to steady himself against the hood of his car.

"So who's the liar then? You or Michelle?"

Shocked and flustered by the physicality of Chandler's retaliation, Richard took pause, his voice suddenly losing confidence and betraying a crack of desperation.

"I had it reversed! OK? I had the vasectomy reversed before I married her!"

The wedding of Dr Mrs Barry Farber D.D.S. , April 1996

As is usually the case at weddings, the children were the first to hit the dancefloor, and even before the speeches began, two little girls decked out in their frilliest wedding finery were holding hands and jigging about sweetly, right in Monica's eyeline.

Monica and Richard had taken their seats at the table they had been allocated to enjoy Barry and Mindy's wedding banquet. The champagne had already been poured, all ready for the toasts, and despite the menu choices having appeared rather uninspiring at first glance , Richard wished they would just hurry up and get on with serving the food. His stomach was growling with hunger and he sensed he was not the only one who was feeling ansty. There was a general atmosphere of impatience around the room, with many guests taking repeated glances at their watches and eyeing the top table with increasingly irritable expectation.

Monica was not well known for her patience, and her own boredom and need for sustenance had culminated in her tearing into the pouch of sugared almonds that had been placed on the tables as wedding favors, demolishing a small handful and then playfully attempting to toss the remainder into Richard's open mouth.

There had been some tension lingering between the two of them today, following a recent uncomfortable attempt to instigate frank conversation about their differing visions of the future, so this moment of lightheartedness had felt like a reprieve and Richard had met her lack of decorum with rather more enthusiasm than he usually might.

But, somewhat inevitably, the topic they had been so strenuously avoiding cropped up again, and when Monica's glistening eyes fell on those two little dancers she looked pained, eventually voicing the very words he had been hoping not to hear.

"I have to have children, I'm sorry. I just do".

She really did look sorry. In fact, she looked distraught.

Richard took a slightly tremulous breath as he picked at a loose thread on the thick linen tablecloth, somber and deep in thought. He was saved from having to formulate an immediate response by the clink of a glass, that kickstarted some catastrophically awkward speeches, and culminated in an unfathomable performance of "Copa Cabana" by bridesmaid, Rachel.

That girl had really put in a shift today: As well as the impromptu karaoke, she had also kept everyone entertained and amused by walking down the aisle with her lurid pink frock tucked into her underwear. She was easily the most memorable thing about this wedding so far, and Richard mused that Barry and Mindy really ought to have paid her for her troubles, but as he watched the continuing expression of pained realization that was settling on Monica's face, he feared that today was going to stick in his own mind for reasons far beyond poor Rachel's near humiliation.

Embarking upon a relationship with a woman so much younger than him, there had always been a risk that she would feel drawn towards a life of traditional order; that she would want to live all of the experiences he had already enjoyed and long since grown out of and moved on from, Richard had known that from the start.

That was one of the main reasons he had tried not to fall for her in the beginning.

And he really had tried.

But how could he not fall for her? He might be getting on a bit, but he was still a red-blooded male with all of the normal wants and urges, and she was so sweet, so pretty, and so unbelievably smitten with him, that in the end he was simply unable to resist, and now he was so infatuated by her, that it was hard to feel any regret.

People had mocked, as he had always known that they would, but anybody who doubted the satisfaction of walking around with a beautiful girl who is half your age, had obviously never done it. It did not matter to Richard what anybody else thought, being with Monica made him feel good all over.

Even today, at a wedding attended by people who knew them both of old; who were well aware that Monica was one of his daughter's contemporaries, and that he was a friend of her father; Richard had walked into that reception with his head held high, convinced that the looks of disapproval, particularly those on the faces of the men, most likely masked plain old jealousy.

Monica was more than just an ego boost though: he genuinely liked her as a person, and the two of them got on well. She was not the "twinky" all of their detractors assumed she was. The more time he spent with her the more confident he felt that theirs was a relationship that could actually stand the test of time. Those silly boys her own age never even stood a chance with a woman like Monica: She was smart and sensible, valuing maturity and seduced by sophistication. No wonder he'd had such high hopes that offering her the opportunity to enjoy the finer things in life might entice her away from the mundane grind of parenthood.

She was passionate about her career too; ambitious; a characteristic that had given him reason to think that she might be the kind of woman prepared to skip the diapers, and the toddler tantrums, and the mind-numbing ballet recitals: All of the things that Richard would not have traded for the world twenty five years ago, but that he had now consigned very much to his past.

Being with Monica made him want to look forward, not back, and it was with an excitement he had never thought would be possible at his age.

His retirement looked impossibly rosy with her at his side: He wanted nothing more than to whisk her off her feet and show her the world. They would soak up the culture in Paris, London and Rome; they would spend lazy weekends of wine-tasting in the warm California sun; cold, hectic New York winters would be traded for lying on a beach in the Caribbean. He would have the time of his life, and it would all be done with Monica's gorgeous smile over the breakfast table, and her lithe body in his bed.

But earlier that week, when he had observed the way she clucked around her baby nephew, his heart had started to sink; and then when she began to tentatively, but not too subtly, seek to extract his thoughts on fatherhood, it sank a little more.

Maybe he should have just told her, right there and then, that a decision he had made back in 1978 would make any hopes of future parenthood rather complex for him whether he wanted a baby or not, but Monica had still seemed malleable; like she loved the idea of a life with him so much that she might just agree to a forego a life with children. So Richard held his nerve and he bit his tongue.

Having a vasectomy was a decision that had seemed so convenient and straightforward back then, when his family was complete, and his marriage as solid as a rock. How could he possibly have foreseen a breakdown between him and Barbara? She was his childhood sweetheart, the great love of his life.

And how could he ever have dreamed that somebody new would ask him to start right from the very beginning almost twenty years later.

But here they were, and now Monica seemed determined. A baby was a deal breaker, an inability to provide one would no doubt be deemed a relationship breaker, and Richard simply could not let that happen.

His divorce was still so fresh it smarted; not because he wanted Barbara back, Monica had certainly eased those pains; but the humiliation and the sense of failure still niggled away at him.

He was a proud man and he had truly hated the sympathetic head tilts and the looks of pity when he and Barbara had parted ways, and he knew that this time around it would be even worse.

This time they would delight in his failure.

This time they would jeer.

"Did you hear the latest? Richard Burke's been dumped by his twenty year old twinky."

"Could have seen that coming a mile off"

"No fool like an old fool"

Envious sneers he could take; but if she left him, that envy would turn quickly to laughter and scorn.

There was no way. No way was he going to lose Monica over this.

He was a determined man; a resourceful man; and he would just sort this out. After all, vasectomies are reversible.

As they took to the dancefloor, Richard met Monica's troubled gaze with intense sincerity.

"I'll do it."

He meant it. He would do it. He would do anything to keep her: The night feeds, the baseball practice, the school PTA; he'd do it all.

If he had to.

As Monica had looked back at him, he could see that she wanted to believe him, but something in her blue eyes told him that she was still plagued with doubt.

He observed her closely, and realized quickly that his face must have disclosed his duress. His face had spoken those words he had silently thought:

"If I have to."

She was teetering on the brink, and it was because she wanted him to want it too; She wanted him to want it as much as she did.

He knew the words she wanted him to say, even if he could not quite feel the feelings she wanted him to feel.

"We'll do it", he reaffirmed vehemently, leaning forward to frame her face in his hands, his eyes as convincing as he could make them, as he pledged his commitment. "I want to have a baby with you, Monica. I want it so much".

Her doubt melted to joy right before his eyes; sparkles of elation lighting up her face like fireworks, and Richard breathed a little easier.

She believed him.

They spent the rest of the wedding reception locked in a peaceful, dreamy-eyed embrace on the dance floor, swaying softly to the crooning jazz band, bathed in the golden light of the chandelier. Her face was nestled against his chest, but he could feel the gentle smile of bliss that rendered her oblivious to the cogs whirring in his brain.

He proposed to her just a couple of weeks later, and of course, she said yes.

He had gone into that first appointment with Dr Caroline Palmer brimming with foolish positivity.

It had all seemed so simple: He would have his vasectomy reversed; he would marry his beautiful, young girlfriend; and if he still could not convince a her to abandon all of those things she thought she wanted, in favor of summers of fine dining in Tuscany, he would give her a baby.

Dr Palmer had greeted him with a smile that was professional and refined, and she set about explaining the procedure for a vasectomy reversal.

Richard had met her patrician features with no hint of intimidation, nodding along with the assured comprehension of a fellow medical professional. The length of the operation; the anesthesia; the recovery time; Richard already knew it all.

"It usually takes three to six months to get a good level of sperm back in your ejaculate, but it could take as long as a year to eighteen months. We will take samples every three months to see how everything is progressing, and if we're still not seeing any improvements after eighteen months, we may need to revisit the procedure, or you could potentially look at other fertility options."

Richard sighed pensively. Eighteen months was rather longer than he had estimated. But he knew that when he explained it all to her, Monica would wait. Time was on her side after all. It just meant that Richard would be an even older dad.

Dr Palmer thumbed through Richard's notes and the look of concentration on her face suggested that she was doing some quick mental arithmetic.

"Given the amount of time that has passed since your vasectomy, the chance of achieving a successful pregnancy after the reversal operation will be around 30%, but the fact that your partner is so young might help."

He was not sure if he had imagined a hint of judgement there, but either way, Richard swallowed hard and a muscle in his jaw flickered.

30%? After a wait of up to eighteen months? He didn't like those odds, and Monica certainly wouldn't.

This changed everything.

Admitting the vasectomy was always going to be hard enough, and following it up with the news about the reversal was supposed to be the sweetener: The thing that convinced her to stay; The thing that assured her of his absolute commitment to giving her a baby.

30% wasn't going to convince anybody of anything.

Dr Palmer read his dismay and eyed him with sympathy.

"I'm sorry if that wasn't the news you were expecting. Reversals have a very good chance of working in the first few years after a vasectomy, but success becomes less and less likely the longer it's left, I'm afraid."

Richard swallowed hard and had to look away from the awful pity contained within the doctor's cool gaze.

"I'm guessing this wasn't what you were told at the time? I'm afraid I have no idea how things were explained to patients back in the seventies, or what the data was like back then..."

Richard could not even remember. The idea that he would ever want a reversal had not even occurred to him back then. Why would it? He had his son and his daughter and they were enough. They were still enough for him, but would sadly never be enough for Monica.

He took a deep breath as he sat with Dr. Palmer's words.

There was only really one way forward.

"OK. Well the sooner, the better then, I guess. Let's get it booked in".

Chandler looked Richard up and down, as he internally critiqued his words of objection and then shook his head.

"No. No way. You're lying!"

"I'm not lying!" Richard snarled, all ready to launch into an explanation of how things had actually unfolded, but then his eyes cooled and he took pause, "You know what? I don't have to vindicate myself to you".

"You're lying", Chandler repeated plainly, "If you'd had it reversed you would have told Monica about it..."

He gave a victorious shrug of his shoulders before punctuating his assertion with words that caused Richard's eyes to narrow, and a deep seething rage to creep over his face like a thundercloud.

"... and Monica would have told me".

Chandler folded his arms across his chest and his gaze was unwavering as he stared back into Richard's livid face through the ensuing moment of tense silence.

"What the hell makes you think she would have told you? What does any of this have to do with you? I'm her husband, Chandler. You're nothing. And you'd do well to remember that."

"Monica's my best friend. She tells me everything. Always has." Chandler countered calmly.

Richard's scoff sounded hollow and menacing as it reverberated around the garage.

"Oh yeah! Her "best friend", he sneered, "Let me ask you this, Chandler, what kind of "friend" lurks around in the shadows, just waiting for someone's marriage to hit a bit of a rough patch, and then swoops in and twists the knife? What kind of "friend" takes advantage like that? You think I don't know that you're trying to take her away from me? Well it's not happening, Chandler! You had your chance with her and you blew it!"

Disdain and confusion wrinkled Chandler's forehead, and he stared back at Richard like he was crazy "What "chance" did I blow? What the hell are you talking about?"

"All those years, Monica was sitting right there in front of you; living next door; seeing you every single day; snuggling up with you on the couch; and you didn't want her. Or if you did, you did nothing about it! You waited until she'd settled down with someone she loves and then you decided to jump on in there and wreck her marriage! What kind of "friend" does that?"

At one time, Richard's words might have hit a nerve. There had, of course, been times where Chandler had felt guilty; times when his subterfuge with Monica had not sat easy with him. In typical Chandler fashion, he had catastrophized: Worried himself sick that he had somehow abused his friendship with her; that maybe he had coerced Monica into straying from her husband when she was at a particularly low ebb; fretted that their relationship was something Monica would ultimately come to regret.

But not anymore.

"It's not a marriage if you trick someone into it, you big tree! It's a fraud!" he growled, "So you can keep your lecture, I don't want to hear it."

He gave a scornful shake of his head as he observed "Man, you're not fit to breathe the same air as Monica, let alone call her your wife."

Richard's nostrils flared as he snorted contemptuously, "God, you're loving this aren't you? You think this gets you right off the hook for everything you've done. Suddenly, you think you're the good guy, huh? "Mr High and Mighty"? I'll bet you couldn't wait to go running to Monica with this, could you? Even though you only have half the story! You'd do anything to poison her against me..."

Chandler met Richard's hateful grey eyes and told him with cool honesty, "If you think I could ever take any pleasure or satisfaction from somebody treating Monica this way, then you really don't know anything about me at all."

He ignored another sinister smirk of disdain that twitched on Richard's lips.

"I haven't told her anything, Richard" Chandler confirmed, "And I'm not going to. You are. You owe it to her".

"Oh, believe me I plan to. I'm going to explain everything when she comes home later, and when I do -"

"Pfft! You've got to be kidding, right? You really think I'm gonna leave her on her own with you in that apartment?" Chandler interrupted incredulously, "You can come and talk to her at our place, and I'm gonna be there the whole time".

Richard threw his head back and a mocking laugh rattled in his throat.

"Get over yourself, Chandler! Who do you think you are? Her bodyguard? Hate to be the one to break it to you buddy, but you're no Kevin Costner.

And "our place"? Please! You really think Monica is going to trade everything she has with me to bunk up with you and your little sidekick in that teenage hellhole you call an apartment? She's a grown up, Chandler. She's married and she wants a family. I think she's a little beyond the Baywatch and Foosball stage."

Chandler felt his fists clench at his sides. God, he wanted to wipe the self-satisfaction from the guy's face.

"Well, we'll see shall we. Let's head over there and ask her. That's where she is right now. Unpacking more of her stuff".

Richard's eyes burned as his cheeks blanched.

"This is ridiculous. You know, some of us have real jobs, and we actually have to go to work. We're done here. I'll see Monica later."

He tried to make his way past Chandler, barging him with a churlish shoulder, but Chandler stood firm, and as he rebounded Richard bared his teeth with a humiliated snarl.

"Screw your job!" Chandler insisted hotly, "You need to explain yourself to her right now! Tell work you got delayed! Shouldn't be too much of a problem, we all know what a proficient liar you are!"

"Yeah well, it takes one to know one" Richard pointed out darkly, but Chandler just shook his head, any shred of guilt he had ever felt about troubling the apparently doomed-from-the-start Burke marriage had long since evaporated.

"Fine, let's go." Richard reluctantly agreed, he slid his keys from his pocket and the Jaguar lit up like a Christmas tree. "Get in".

For some reason Chandler had not imagined that they would travel to Bedford Street together and he must have appeared mildly startled by the instruction.

Sensing an opportunity to finally gain the upper hand Richard raised his eyebrows sardonically, and addressed him in the most patronizing tone he could muster, "What's wrong? Why so scared? You always used to love taking a ride in my Jag! You used to beg! In fact, you used to get more excited about it than little Ben does! What is it? You worried I'm going to kidnap you, or something?"

Chandler's mirthless chuckle was loaded with scorn as he opened the car door, and his eyes never once left those of the older man.

"Get over yourself, Richard" he retorted with a grim but withering smirk.