A/N Thank you so much to everybody reading this, and to those who have taken the time to leave some lovely comments - so very appreciated!
Flashing back in time for a couple of chapters now. And let's just say it's not the best of evenings for Mr and Mrs Burke.
Hope you enjoy!
Two months previously: The evening of Timothy Burke's Birthday Party
"You look nice" Richard remarked, casting his eyes over the fitted, inky blue cocktail dress that he did not think he had seen his wife wear before.
He had not expected a particularly enthusiastic response; the moments of passionate warmth he had been able to take for granted at the beginning of their marriage were few and far between these days; but this particular compliment hung in the air completely unacknowledged, as Monica dragged herself wearily from the hotel bathroom and sank slowly onto the padded velvet stool next to the dressing table.
She stared dead-eyed into the mirror, seeing nothing but emptiness, as she told him quietly, "I just took a test".
Richard sighed, placing a hand on the cool skin of her bare shoulder and imparting a firm squeeze; a gesture of comfort that was predestined to fail.
Monica knew that the look on her face made it entirely obvious that the little pink lines she had been dreaming of for sixteen long months had failed to materialize yet again, but it still irked her that Richard greeted every sorrowful announcement with total silence now.
Not that she had many words of positivity or consolation left herself.
"I'm going to book us in for those fertility tests, Richard" she resolved gravely, there was tremble in her voice but her words still sounded more like a threat than a promise.
Her blue eyes followed him in the mirror as he moved sullenly across the room, "We have to find out for sure why this isn't working for us."
He had not noticed that his reflection was under observation, and consequently did not bother to disguise the annoyance on his face.
"These things take time, Monica..." he began to object with a shake of his head.
"Not this much time!" she snapped "I know you think that the fact that you already have two kids means that you're good to go, but things might have changed over the last 25 years!"
"Oh, here we go.. " he rolled his eyes and gave a knowing slow nod, "You knew how old I was when you married me, Monica!"
"You don't have to get so defensive about it! I'm not suggesting that this is in any way your fault!" she could already feel familiar tears of exasperation pricking her eyes, exhausted as she was by his continual reluctance to engage with her on this most important of issues.
"I'm saying that we should both get fertility tests so that we can decide how we're going to proceed with this! Because what we're doing, clearly isn't working! "
Richard sighed loudly as he swiped his tie from the back of the chair in the corner of the room and began to wrap it around his raised collar with agitated fingers, the muscles in his jaw flickering with tension.
"Can we not talk about this right now? It's my son's birthday; his mother and I have gone to a great deal of time and expense to make this party happen, and I would really like to just focus on that."
Monica swung around on the stool her mouth gaping and her eyes aflame "Well lucky you! And lucky Barbara! Because it's looking less and less likely that I will ever get the opportunity to arrange a party for a son of my own!"
"Could you please just try to think about the family we already have! Just for tonight!" he barked back, stalking off to the bathroom.
Monica swallowed back an angry whimper as she leapt to her feet. Her tears were usually Richard's cue to take flight; disappearing to hide in a far off corner of the apartment in order to escape her distress; but the bijoux nature of their room in the hotel that was to host Tim's party that night, as well as his birthday brunch tomorrow, meant that it was impossible for Richard to flee.
To his intense irritation, she followed close behind him and leaned against the jamb of the bathroom door.
"Family we already have? I don't know if you noticed Richard, but Tim and Michelle are still a pretty long way off calling me Mommy!"
"I don't want to get into this with you now." Richard warned again.
"I just don't understand why you're so resistant to us getting checked out!" she continued with dogged persistence.
"Because what then, Monica?"
It was rare for Richard to raise his voice, and Monica's resulting flinch caused him to immediately drag his tone back to a calmer register, a look of contrition passing fleetingly across his face.
"So we find out that I'm less fertile than I was 25 years ago - what happens next? Nothing changes does it? We just keep trying! Don't we? Or what? You ditch me for a younger model with faster sperm?"
"Oh, don't be so ridiculous!" she was so infuriated that she actually stamped her foot "If we find out what's going on, we can explore other options... IVF? Sperm donation? Adoption?"
He swept past her and sat down on the bed, cradling his head in his hands, releasing a sigh so frustrated it sounded more like a howl.
"Do you have any idea how expensive fertility treatment is? I'm not made of money! My divorce wasn't cheap, I've put two kids through college, and I'd like to be able to provide for my grandkids too. I'd also hoped to be able to retire in comfort! I'm not spending all of my children's inheritance on something that might not even work! Tim and Michelle would never forgive me! And adoption? I don't have the capacity for that Monica! It'll be hard enough breaking it to Tim and Michelle that they're getting a new brother or sister if we manage to have a baby of our own! I'm in my fifties! I can't take on a stranger's baby!"
Richard's explicit refusal to contemplate the alternative avenues that Monica herself was beginning to view as inevitable caused a searing spike of white hot pain in her gut, and she felt herself beginning to crumble.
"You know how important this is to me!" she cried, "You've always known! You know that I need to have a family of my own and you promised that you wanted that too!"
"And I wasn't lying!" Richard affirmed "I do want a family with you and I'm doing everything in my power to make it happen!" he looked up at her with desperation in his eyes.
"Well it sure doesn't feel like it when you dismiss all of our other options out of hand like that!"
Large tears trailed salty paths down her cheeks as she spoke, "It feels like you don't even want to try!"
He shook his head despairingly, running his hands over his face.
Sighing again and regarding her more softly he said "Before we got married, I promised you that I wanted to start a family with you, and we're trying to make that happen. And I want to keep trying. I want to give you a baby Monica, I really do. But I'm not going to destroy my existing family in the process."
She sat back down on the stool at the mirror, her heart defeated but her face defiant, as she rifled through her makeup bag ready to carry out the necessary repairs to her tear-streaked cheeks.
He almost approached her, almost tried to draw her into the hug that he was certain she needed, at least on some level. But a fear of highly probable rejection, and the danger of reigniting the conflict that simmered constantly between them these days, ready to boil over if touched by even the smallest of flames, prevented him from doing so.
"I'm going down to the bar", he told her despondently, smoothing his hair with a comb "Would you like me to get you a drink?"
"I'll get my own" she murmured with contrived indifference, her glazed eyes falling nowhere near his, connecting solemnly with her own desolate reflection instead.
"Scotch on the rocks with a twist, please"
Monica settled at the hotel bar and glanced back towards Richard, who was enjoying a glass of Merlot and chuckling contentedly as one of his golfing buddies regaled their crowded table with some amusing anecdote or other.
She had grown used to bouncing back quickly from these ever more frequent fractious episodes with her husband, and just as soon as she had wiped every trace of sorrow from her cheeks and masked her heartache with a fresh slick of lipstick, she had dutifully joined the party; working as hard as she always had to publicly prove herself a worthy and suitable wife to the esteemed Dr Burke.
Most of the guests gathered to celebrate Timothy's birthday, were around the same age as Monica, but Richard and ex-wife Barbara, who was also in attendance tonight, had made sure to invite a handpicked group of their own contemporaries to keep them company for the evening. Monica's own parents had been invited, but were unable to make it, and she could not quite decide whether this was a good or bad thing.
She had been sitting at the table with the older crowd for a good hour or so; trying not to stick out like the sore thumb she knew that she was; demurely sipping at her wine and determinedly ignoring the occasional glances of condescension from Barbara's habitually disapproving friends.
From the moment she and Richard had started dating it had not taken Monica long to work out that whilst charming the pants off his middle-aged, male friends was all too easy, his female acquaintances were rather more difficult to appease; and still to this day they seemed either unable or unwilling to view her as anything other than the human embodiment of Richard's midlife crisis.
Still, Monica had made a strong start tonight. She had convincingly feigned interest in a wide range of topics being discussed around the table, enduring endless conversations about golf club politics, petty suburban boundary disputes, and cholesterol scares.
But inevitably, talk always turned to babies.
Almost every person around that table had a son or a daughter who was expecting a child, or had only recently had one, and there was only so many times that Monica could bring herself to disguise her abject hurt and painful jealousy with the required polite smile and the necessary kind words of congratulation; which was what had prompted her eventual stealthy decampment to the quiet of the bar.
In the adjoining room the music was much louder, and so was the laughter. Birthday Boy Tim was surrounded by a boisterous bunch of his best guy friends, one of whom had just wobbled past Monica carrying a silver tray that rattled under the weight of a superfluity of tequila shots, interspersed with salt shakers and garnishes of fragrant segments of lime; the sight of which elicited rambunctious whoops and cheers from the other men as he approached.
Tim's sister, Michelle, was standing in another corner, bright of eye and glossy of hair, chatting animatedly as she shared a bottle of chilled white wine with a group of women Monica vaguely recognized from her school days. But whilst these women might share her age and education, they were about as welcoming towards Monica as Barbara's friends were; her controversial decision to marry into Richard's generation was apparently a transgression that immediately precluded her from being accepted by her own.
She felt lost at sea: A universally-shunned, out-of-place imposter; unbefitting of and unwanted by any group.
As she watched her stepson down his tequila, she almost subconsciously followed suit, draining her own glass, deriving only fleeting comfort from the peaty burn of the scotch as it coated her throat, before beckoning the bartender over again.
She sat there unnoticed and unbothered for quite some time, but eventually caught the eye of Michelle's husband, Steve.
The gentle-eyed man had always treated Monica with more kindness and affinity than she was generally accustomed to receiving from the extended Burke clan; in fact, Monica could always tell that Steve's consistent geniality towards her, very much galled his wife.
"What's up?" he inquired jovially as he sidled up to her, his slight dishevelment and merry grin indicating that he might have enjoyed one or two tequilas himself "Surviving a night of Burkesville?"
"Just about." she managed to smile back.
"You've been sitting here alone for a while..." he observed.
"Yeah well, it was getting pretty wild over there" she gestured with her thumb towards the table where Richard and Barbara continued to entertain their friends "I just heard all about the drama of Helen and Linda's lasagna battle at the Church potluck dinner; and received a detailed account of Marcus's ingrowing toenail operation. I wasn't sure how much more excitement I could take."
Steve gave a conspiratorial snigger as she smirked laconically into her scotch.
A few of the tequila drinkers ambled by, and one of them paused to place his meaty hands on Steve's shoulders, "Yo Steve-O, Mike found a pool table next door. Coming? "
"Hell yeah!" replied Steve enthusiastically, jumping to his feet and looking towards Monica, "Fancy a game?"
She glanced back over her shoulder at Richard. He was distributing expensive Cuban cigars to a few silver-haired menfolk, rolling his eyes with a long-suffering smile as Barbara appeared to be making some kind of joking chastisement about their filthy tobacco habit.
"Yeah alright" Monica agreed, arching an eyebrow as she added with more than a hint of bravado "Although I should probably warn you... I'm pretty good. My friend and I used to play every single night when I first came to the city."
Her mind drifted back to that gloriously carefree era, when she and Chandler would wile away many a happy evening together in their local bar, chatting and laughing; bottles of icy beer numbing their fingers; as they put the world to rights and honed their skills on the pool table.
She felt a sudden ache of nostalgia in her heart; a yearning so poignant that she squeezed her eyes closed and thought for a second that she would give anything to open them and find herself right back there. Back in a time and a place where she had always felt wanted and connected; always felt like she belonged.
As she followed Steve out of the bar area, she gave a morose, self-pitying sigh, and could practically hear the theme tune from Cheers intruding on her mind like a cognitive itch.
Monica's first few games were a veritable triumph: She had relished the opportunity to showboat her considerable talents in front of the gathered men; savoring each admiring nod and every exclamation of approval, as everybody in the pool room applauded the good-looking girl in the cocktail dress and high heeled shoes, who was showing the guys how it was done with masterful aplomb.
However, as the drinks kept flowing, her initially impressive skills had taken something of a nosedive, and so had the general behavior around the table.
She let out a groan of frustration as she screwed up yet another shot and suddenly found herself in the shadow of a towering, and particularly drunk friend of Tim's, who she suspected might also have attended her high-school.
"It was your elbow that let you down there, Sweetheart" he leered as he teetered towards her "C'mere let me show you what I mean.."
He began to position himself too close behind her; his unstable frame ready to spoon hers, ostensibly in order to offer a practical demonstration of stance and grip that she most certainly did not require.
"I'm good thanks," she told him scathingly, rolling her eyes and shrugging his guileful fingers from her shoulders as she moved away to the other side of the table to retrieve her drink, stumbling a little as she did so.
"Dude! Keep your hands to yourself! That's Tim's Dad's wife!" another of the men remonstrated with a chortle.
"No way! I wish my dad's wife looked like that" the tall guy exclaimed with an inebriated hiccup.
"As in your mom? Jesus, Tanner, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Oh yeah.. I didn't think that through..." the man slurred as a throng of raucous laughter reverberated around the room at his expense.
Monica snickered too as she downed the dregs from the bottom of her glass and contemplated a return to the bar, but her fogged eyes suddenly met the twin disapproving gazes of Richard and Michelle, who had wandered into the room in search of their respective wayward spouses.
Monica grimaced and braced herself for the inexorable friction.
"Steve, what the hell?" Michelle looked between the slightly reeling pair in disgust "If you think I'm sorting the kids out on my own in the morning while you lie in bed with a hangover you've got another thing coming!"
"Relax babe! I'm fine!" he assured her with a wide smile that was not returned.
"Listen, I'm going to say good night to Mom and then I'm headed to bed. Don't be long" Michelle pointed an austere finger at her husband and patted her father's arm gently, her appalled eyes roving Monica from head to toe, making no attempt to conceal her disparagement, before she turned on her heel.
"Are you ready to head up to the room?" Richard regarded Monica just as sternly.
"Nope", she replied obstinately, swirling the remaining ice in her empty tumbler, "I'm busy kicking these guys' asses. I'm on fire tonight; you'd be proud of me!"
"I doubt it" he replied gravely.
She met his depreciatory gaze and thrust her glass towards him with a defiantly toothsome grin. "Be a doll and hit me up with another scotch?"
"You've had enough," he stated coolly, taking her by the elbow ready to steer her from the room.
"I think I'll decide when I've had enough, Richard!" she spat, shaking herself free of his grasp "You're not my dad!"
"Well you're certainly acting like a child." he countered in a low voice, feeling very aware of the eyes of his son's peers upon them, all naturally intrigued and somewhat entertained by the increasingly bad-tempered exchange.
"What was it you said to me earlier?" she mused sarcastically, tapping a pensive finger against her lips in mock reminiscence.
"Oh yeah, I know, "You knew how old I was when you married me"" she mimicked, her eyes blazing back into Richard's angry gaze, "Why is it OK for Tim and Michelle and Steve and everybody else to have a few drinks and a little fun, but not for me?"
She spun around to face the pool table demanding, "Rack 'em up Stevie Boy!"
Steve appeared mortified now as he looked guiltily towards his father-in-law, who was silent but clearly incandescent with rage.
Richard addressed him in quiet, dangerous tones.
"I can't deal with this right now, I'm going to bed. Keep an eye on her will you? We're room 155, in case she can't remember."
Richard and Michelle's ire might have bounced from Monica like water off a duck's back, but it had a rather more sobering effect on Steve, and his anxious eyes followed Richard as he strode from the room.
"Monica, I'm gonna head up to bed soon," Steve told her, before suggesting encouragingly, "Do you think you should go back to your room?"
"Nope!" she replied with an obtuse toss of her hair, "I'm not staying here with him. I'm going home."
"You can't go home" Steve dismissed, "We have brunch in the morning, remember?.."
"Why's everyone think they can boss me around tonight? I can do whatever I want!" she murmured crossly, grabbing a fresh bottle of beer from a tray that had just been set down by one of the other pool players.
"I just don't think it's a good idea for you to head off across town on your own," Steve insisted.
"Well, I'm not staying here, that's for damn sure. I'm not spending the rest of the night being told off like a child... No way." She waved her bottle of beer in front of Steve's face in wild gesticulation as she spoke.
"Anyway, I know how to make my own way home, Steve. I'm a big girl, remember? I'm like...your stepmom... in-law... or something...aren't I? So what I say goes, young man." she wagged a finger and let out a twittering laugh, mildly amused by her own drunken humor.
He continued to regard her uneasily.
"Why don't I call your brother? See if he can come get you?"
Monica was feeling so antagonized and belligerent by now that she had been ready to dismiss any suggestion Steve could possibly make, but the mention of her brother caused her demeanor to soften instantly.
"Awww yeah! Ross! That's a great idea! See if he wants to come down here for a beer! And I'll destroy him at pool. He sucks!" she said with a wide smile.
"Don't tell him I said this..." she grabbed Steve's arm, her eyebrows earnestly raised and her lids drooping as she told him confidentially "But I miss him soooo much. Before I got married, we used to hang out all the time, you know? We were like this..." she squinted in hard concentration as she crossed her fingers by way of demonstration.
"OK, well let's get him down here!" Steve declared cheerfully, placing a beer mat in front of her and rifling in his pocket for a pen.
"Here. Write his number on this." he requested , relieved to have found a viable solution to his Monica-shaped problem, and more than ready to pass on the responsibility Richard had bestowed upon him to somebody else.
Chandler had been sitting in silence for at least twenty minutes now, taking leisurely swigs from his bottle of beer as the frozen face of Harrison Ford flickered back at him from the paused video tape.
Ross had been forced to dash away from the movie for the second time that night, following another distraught wail from Ben, who had already vomited once this evening and was apparently running a fairly significant fever.
Chandler had been expecting father and son to make another scramble for the bathroom after this latest cry, but things had quickly quietened and he assumed that Ben was mercifully settled in his bed.
He was starting to suspect that Ross might have fallen asleep next to his son, and was already considering the total abandonment of the movie they had rented, when the phone rang.
He gathered up the receiver quickly, to prevent the obtrusive chime from disturbing the poorly child in the next room, and was greeted by a voice he did not recognize, asking after Ross.
"I'm sorry, he's a little busy right now, can I take a message ?" Chandler offered cordially.
The man sighed with apparent exhaustion , before attempting to explain his predicament in an alcohol-addled, slightly incoherent drawl "It's Steve. You know, Michelle's husband? Richard's son-in-law? Monica's..I don't know... I need Ross to come down here to the Fitzroy Hotel. His sister needs him ... Who is this anyway?"
"Steve, it's Chandler speaking; Monica and Ross's friend; we met at the wedding. Is Monica OK?" Chandler asked worriedly, "What the hell is going on?"
"Yeah she's alright, she's just a little wasted. We're at a party, she and Richard had a fight, he left, and now she wants to head home instead of staying here at the hotel like she's supposed to. But I don't think she should head off alone, man...she's too drunk... it's not safe."
"OK... Just.. keep her there." Chandler told him decisively, and without a trace of hesitation, "I'll come pick her up and bring her back to Ross's place. He's here, but his kid's sick. Just give me the address and I'll head right over."
His eyes were busily scouring the dimly lit and by now somewhat sparsely attended bar area of The Fitzroy Hotel when he heard a familiar voice resound from the doorway that fed into the pool room.
"Hey! Look who it is! It's Miss Chanandler Bong!"
The strident greeting that referred to an unfortunate mailing list spelling mishap that had always amused Monica, brought an end to Chandler's search for his overindulged friend, and he turned to meet her delighted, if rather bleary eyes.
"Hi Mon," he greeted as she staggered immediately towards him and launched herself into his arms with unabashed enthusiasm.
"I am so drunk!" she confided completely unnecessarily, in tones that were not nearly as hushed as she thought they were, a huge beam plastered across her face.
His mouth dropped open slightly, not quite able to recall the last time he had seen her like this. Not that he had seen much of her at all lately.
She steadied herself against the wonderful solidity of his body, nestling insistently into his side, in a manner reminiscent of a baby bird huddling beneath a wing, squeezing him tight around his middle as she made an attempt at introducing him to the remaining party-goers scattered around the pool table.
"This guy right here? He is my all time favorite! Seriously! He is like my best friend in the whole wide world! And so funny! You should all have him tell you a joke! Seriously, he cracks me up!Hilarious!"
Chandler gave a self-conscious nod when he felt a few tequila-befuddled gazes land upon him with mild interest, and he prayed that none of them would take Monica's advice and start demanding humorous entertainment.
He could feel her rocking slightly as she gazed up into his face with smiling adoration, reaching up to pinch his cheek affectionately between her fingers.
"You are so cute!" she grinned, "I am just so glad you're here, Chandler! It's like.. the gladdest thing ever! Now let's go get you a drink!"
She grabbed his hand and readied herself to drag him away.
"Mon, I have a cab waiting for us outside. How about we head back home to see Ross instead?"
Chandler suggested kindly, keeping a firm hold of her hand as she pulled towards the bar, the physical resistance of his well-grounded stance enough to bring her ricocheting back into his arms with a giggle.
"Great idea!" she praised, her voice lowering to a loud whisper as her eyes scanned the room, "To be honest? These guys are a little annoying."
She frowned thoughtfully before offering a slight correction to her blanket condemnation.
"Not you, Steve. You're a peach." she amended, leaning to give the man a solid pat on the chest as Chandler began to guide her carefully towards the door.
"Steve? I'm guessing that Richard knows what's going on?" Chandler called over his shoulder.
"Yeah, I'll tell him where she is." Steve assured, his face relaxing in obvious relief to have absolved himself of responsibility, as he gave the pair a parting salute.
"Good night?" Chandler asked tentatively as he draped his jacket around Monica's bare shoulders and hooked a steadying arm around her waist, ushering her through the dimly lit bar area and nodding his farewell to the staff as he felt the weight of their collectively judgmental gaze upon them.
"Terrible!" she told him with a momentarily pained expression from which she recovered with remarkable ease, "What shall we do when we get home? Oooh! We should play cards! We haven't done that for ages!"
He instinctively hugged her closer as they arrived in the slight chill of the night air, a cool breeze causing Monica's raven tresses to whip at his cheek.
"I think maybe we should just head straight to bed..." he suggested reasonably.
"Wow, that's a little presumptuous, Chandler!" she quipped with an impish grin and a throaty chuckle, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief "You haven't even bought me a drink!"
"Ha ha! Very good" he replied with a sardonic smile, opening the door of their waiting cab and ushering her carefully inside.
The cab driver had watched their approach with apprehension, Monica's slightly uncertain bearings causing him some serious misgivings about accepting her as a passenger.
He fixed Chandler with a hard stare as he cautioned "Listen dude, if she pukes in this cab, you're gonna be liable for a cleaning charge, OK?"
Monica gave an offended scowl as she shuffled across the backseat to allow Chandler to squeeze in beside her.
"Hey!" she objected vociferously with an affronted scoff, "I'm not going to puke!"
She tutted as she huffily rearranged Chandler's jacket about her shoulders, before grumbling beneath her breath.
"Jackass"
Her mutter emerged in a manner that was rather more audible than she might have intended, and the driver swung around in his seat, wrapping his heavily-tattooed arm around his headrest and glaring at her with outrage "Excuse me?"
"Uhhh... it's alright man! She was talking to me! And she's not going to puke. It's all good, please just drive.." Chandler assuaged pleadingly, firing Monica a severe look of warning, but feeling an involuntary smirk pull at his lips as she looked back towards him with a cheeky smile, mouthing "Oops!" and placing her index finger over her lips in an exaggerated gesture of hush.
As the car pulled away, a relaxed yawn escaped from Monica's lips and she settled her head comfortably against her friend's shoulder with a dreamy smile.
"Do you know how much I love you Chandler M. Bing?" she asked angling her face towards his.
He looked back at her, his eyebrows raised in wry amusement at her alcohol-fueled affection.
"Heaps?" he guessed.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, as she poked the tip of his nose tenderly, a move that required significant focus given her somewhat hindered hand eye coordination.
"Thank you Monica E. Geller-hyphen-Burke," he replied with a gently sarcastic smile.
"And how much do you love me?" she checked, arching an inquiring eyebrow.
"Also, heaps" he assured, looping a fond arm around her shoulder.
Apparently satisfied by his response, she allowed her eyelids to drift closed and her head to become heavy: Comforted; relieved; and already feeling like she was home.
To be continued...