"Rachel, I know why you came to London."
Rachel heard the words, but they didn't make any sense. Ross knew?
About London? About the reason for her breakup with Joshua? About
everything? How? She froze as it sunk in that Ross knew, and dropped
the piece of toast that she was holding. Fortunately, it landed on the
plate.
"Rach? Rachel?" A worried Ross moved over to Rachel and gently shookher to get her out of her trance.
"Oh! Um... hi Ross," Rachel said, the words barely managing to come
out.
"Is it true?"
"Um... hi?"
"Rachel, don't avoid the subject!"
"I'm trying not to! It's very hard with something like this, y'know?"
"So it's true?"
"Do you want it to be true?"
"You still don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"Why I said your name in those damn wedding vows!"
"Well, I figured that it was just because I had shown up, I didn't
think it meant anything."
"Oh, yeah, apart from the minor detail that it meant that I was still
in love with you, oh, yeah, it meant nothing!"
"You... were?"
"Am," Ross announced. Rachel hadn't moved from her seat this whole
time, but she finally got up and got a glass of water, trying to keep
her composure. However, her shock was evident, because her hand was
shaking like a leaf.
"I think you should leave now," she told him. She couldn't cope with
this - it was too huge.
"That sounds familiar."
"Please, I really think you should leave now."
"Alright," Ross said, heading for the door. "I'll, um... I'll give you a call." Rachel, who by this point could feel tears forming in her
eyes, just motioned for him to leave, before she lost it totally.
Later on, Rachel was asleep on the sofa. She woke up, and heard the
radio playing in the background. She slowly got up, walked over to the
kitchen, and got herself a glass of water. She noticed how she seemed
to be drinking a lot of water lately - Chandler would quip that it was
something in the water suppply. All of a sudden, she had a flashback to
last Christmas.
***
"Come on, Rach, cheer up!"
The request from Ross seemed impossible to Rachel. The holidays were
hard enough without that special someone to share it with, but when that
special someone was your best friend, who didn't have a clue how you
felt, it was even worse. In any case, the gang was messing around, all
kissing each other under the mistletoe.
"Joey, move your hands, NOW!!!" Rachel heard a very mad Phoebe yell.
"Rach, it's your turn," Monica called.
"Yep, get ready for the Rachel round of the tongue-shoving fun,"
Chandler added.
"Ha, ha, very funny," Rachel told them.
"Come on, Rach, it's just a bit of fun!" Joey said.
"Yeah, we're all friends, there's mistletoe hanging, and besides, at
least 4 of us are drunk! That's what happens!"
"Shut up, Chandler!" was the reply that came.
"Alright, Rach, look up." What Rachel didn't know was that mistletoe
was hanging right above her, and before she could stop him, Joey gave
her a quick peck on the lips.
"Ugh!"
"That's one more person who can legitimately claim to have kissed Joey Tribbiani!"
"That's one more person who wishes she couldn't legitimately claim to
have kissed Joey Tribbiani!"
"She beat me to it. I'm losing it," Chandler said. "Okay, it's my
turn."
Getting up, Rachel protested, "What am I? A merry-go-round?"
"She beat me to it again." Chandler walked around and gave Rachel a
quick peck on the lips, much like Joey just had.
Ross, who was watching, couldn't help but feel jealous of them. The
reasons for the marriage that never was was all he had been thinking
about for the past 3 months. But why? He knew he still had some
feelings for Rachel, that was obvious, but was he prepared to let
himself be vunerable with her again, the way he used to be? He couldn't
help but wish that Rachel felt the same way that he did, even though he
wasn't sure of what the consequences would be if that was the case.
"Ross? Ross? Phone home, ET!" Chandler was standing in front of
Ross, holding his nose to make a funny sound when he spoke and waving
his hand in front of Ross's face. Ross snapped to attention and noticed
that everyone was looking at him.
"Ross, are you okay? You look kinda ill," said a worried Rachel. Why did he look so spaced out?
"Um... I'm not actually feeling so good. I think I'll go see if Carol and Susan want me to look after Ben, so that they can... whatever it is
that they do." Ross really didn't feel so good all of a sudden, so he
wasn't lying. He quickly took his jacket, and left.
***
As Rachel was sitting, listening to the radio and getting caught up inher thoughts, the phone rang. She reached over to pick it up. "Ross?"
"Uh, no, is Jade there?" a man on the other end of the phone asked.
"I'm sorry, you must have a wrong number," a disappointed Rachel told
him.
"Wow, you sound disappointed. Waiting for a call?"
"Um, that's none of your business, but yeah, I am."
"A guy?"
"No, an alien."
"Wow, no need to be so sarcastic."
"Sorry. The guy who lives across the hall from me is like that, I
guess a bit of it rubs off on you after a while."
"Well, you sound like a nice enough girl, so how come you're home on a Saturday night?"
"Because the guy I love is also the guy who I've messed around so much it's ridiculous. Ugh, listen to me, I'm divulging my life story to a
complete stranger."
"That's okay. I mean, I'm only trying to get through to my
ex-girlfriend, who I'm still in love with."
"What made you realise it?"
"We were both seeing other people - well, I was engaged to mine. God, it was ridiculous, we'd only even known that the other existed for a few
weeks, how can you base a marriage on that? Anyway, soon after my
ex-fiancée and I announced our engagement, she broke up with her
boyfriend. Something about him scaring easily or something." Rachel
was listening intently, realising that it all sounded familiar.
"Anyway, she decided not to come to my wedding at first. I don't know why, but still, she came in the end. But when it got to the wedding
vows, I screwed up and said her name instead of my fiancée's. That was
2 days ago."
"Take my advice. Tell her. You'll save youself a whole lot of pain."
"What about you? What happened to keep you away from the one you're
meant to be with?"
"A lot of stuff. Too much to go into on the phone."
"The games Cupid plays, eh?" the guy on the other end of the line said.
"I'm sorry?" Rachel tried to keep herself from laughing, even though
she knew it was no laughing matter.
"Well, he decides that you're meant to be with one person on the entire planet, then he makes all this stuff happen to keep you away from them.He's just playing a big game, isn't he?"
"Yeah, I guess he is. You sound just like my guy... except he probably got fed up with waiting, and took off with his ex-fiancéé."
"Take my advice. Don't let this guy, whoever he is, get away again."
"Stop Cupid playing at least one of his dumb games, huh?" Rachel said
jokingly.
"Something like that. It was nice talking to you."
"It was nice talking to you. Bye."
"Bye." Rachel hung up the phone. She knew what she had to do. She'd convince Ross. She picked up the phone, and began to dial.
Ross was in his apartment, looking out of the window. After a while,
he decided to try and ring Rachel again. He'd decided that he'd given
her enough time for her to try and make some sense of the whole thing.
Hopefully, she wouldn't be engaged this time. She'd been engaged
non-stop for an hour - she must have been talking to her mother or
something.
"For God's sake, Ross, where would you be at this time of night? It's 1 am! You couldn't be with Emily, she went back to England before you
came over this morning! Didn't she?" Rachel couldn't work out why
no-one was answering. Ross wasn't the kind of person to go out and not
tell anyone where he was going to.
"Oh, that is IT! I'm going over there," Ross decided, after yet
another engaged tone. As he collected his keys and coat, he thought,
"Why didn't that occur to me before?"
Rachel had given up on trying to call Ross for the night, and was
beginning to fall asleep again, when she heard someone come in the
door. It wasn't Monica, because she was staying over at her latest
boyfriend's. (How much longer she and Chandler intended keeping up the
charade about the London fiasco, which everyone - especially Ross - knew
about, was beyond her.) So if it wasn't Monica, who was it? She picked
up the small alarm that her mother insisted on her keeping all the time,
and slowly pulled out the pin. The room was filled with a deafening
sound.
"Rach! Why'd you do that?!" yelled Ross, with his ears covered and
trying to make himself heard over the noise. Rachel, seeing who it was,
put the pin back in, and the noise stopped.
"You scared the hell out of me! I thought you were some burgalar!"
"Me?! Where the hell did you get that idea from?"
"Well, who else would come into the apartment at this time of night?!"
"Anyway, it doesn't matter. I came to tell you that..."
"I love you."
"You do?" Ross was trying his best to hide the smile on his face,
although he was failing miserably (well, not miserably, but you get the
point).
"Yeah. And why are you laughing? It's not funny!"
"I'm trying not to let you see the massive smile that's going to appear on my face any time now!" Ross crouched down and rested his head on the back of the sofa. He and Rachel looked into each other's eyes for a
moment, and they leaned to kiss each other. Unfortunately, Rachel had
to pick that exact moment to sneeze.
"Well, if that doesn't ruin the moment, then what does?" asked Rachel.
"Do I look as if I care about catching a cold?" Ross told her, and
kissed her again. He wasn't lying either. All he cared about was that
he was back with Rachel, and he was going to make sure that it was for
good this time.
