I pull Monica closer to me, wrapping both arms around her. She lets out a watery sigh and burrows into me farther, pulling her legs up into a fetal position.

I don't ask her how she's doing. I don't need to.

She's not doing well. Neither of us are.

Finding out that you may never have a baby with your wife…it's not something you just get over.

All she's wanted her whole life is to have kids. She wanted to get married and have babies, and while I know I balked at all of that in the beginning, that's all I want now, too. I want to have kids with Monica. She would be such an outstanding mother, too. She deserves a baby. She deserves a dozen of them. She has so much love to give, so much to offer, so much to teach.

She waited her entire life to be ready for parenthood, to find who she thought would be the right guy…and I can't give her this one simple thing.

It's only been a week since Dr. Connelly gave us the news, and I feel like I'm hemorrhaging. My heart feels like it's been ripped open; my stomach feels like I'm being punched daily. I've cried more this past week than I have my entire life.

We're both trying to be strong for each other, trying to give each other someone to lean on. It's sort of working, though I don't know how strong either of us feel right now.

There are no empty words to give each other right now. We can't say that it's going to be okay because right now, it sure has hell doesn't feel that way.

We have another appointment with the doctor tomorrow; unless he's going to tell us there was massive lab screw up and he gave us the wrong test results, I don't see how anything's going to feel better by talking to him.

Monica lets out a tiny little sob; I can feel her tears soaking through my shirt. This is actually heartbreaking. My wife, the person that I love more than anything else in this world, is in pain and there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it.

I'm the cause of her pain.

I can't give her a baby.

Why the fuck can't I give her a baby?

What are the odds that we'd both have fertility issues?

I mean, seriously. What are the actual odds? I mean, I could see the world looking at me and thinking that maybe I wouldn't be an ideal candidate for procreation, but Monica? Seriously? There's not a person in this world more suited to motherhood than this woman and she has an "inhospitable environment"? What the hell does that even mean?

She shivers and I grab the blanket off the back off the couch, draping it over her. Her fingers tighten against me, but she says nothing.

I know she doesn't blame me for this, but I blame me. I should be able to do this one thing for the person that means more to me than life.

This is hell. This is actually hell.

The only person who knows so far is her mother, and that's only because Monica inexplicably agreed to lunch with her just days after we got the test results. Her emotions were kind of right at the surface. I wasn't able to get all of the details; just that Judy was going on about Ross, and that Monica couldn't take it and snapped, and that Judy somehow coaxed the whole story out of her.

I'm glad she could talk to her mom about this, though. It sounds like her mother had the same issue as Monica does, though, and they managed to produce two kids.

I guess there could be hope for us.

Other than that…no one knows. We haven't been able to talk to our friends about this. It's too much to deal with right now without dealing with everyone's good intentions.

I'm sure we've been freaking everyone out, though. Aside from going to work, we haven't really left the apartment all week. If we're home, the lights are off and the door is locked, chain engaged. We're screening all of our calls. Everyone's left multiple messages, asking about what's going on, if we're okay, all the usual stuff. We just haven't had it in us, though. We're both still trying to process it and nothing makes sense right now.

Everything just feels like shit.

There's a knock at the door and I look up slowly; Monica's head never moves.

"Guys—let us in." Joey. He sounds really concerned.

Gotta love that guy. He's not the brightest star in the sky, but he has a heart of gold.

There's another knock and this time we hear Phoebe's voice. "We're really worried about you two. Please let us in."

I put my cheek back on top of Monica's head and close my eyes.

The doorknob rattles and a moment later the door swings open—we purposely left it unlocked tonight. We both know that we have to talk to them at some point.

It's just not a conversation either of us ever expected to have, so we don't exactly know how to have it. How do you tell people that you can't have kids no matter how much you want them?

"Monica? Chandler?" Ross this time. "You guys here?"

I'd roll my eyes if I thought I had the energy for it. Instead, I just sigh, my hands gently squeezing Monica.

Neither of us say anything.

We can hear footsteps making their way across the room, the floorboards creaking, and then silence. I open my eyes slowly and see our friends in front of us, worried expressions on their faces.

"What's going on?" Ross asks, and I shift my eyes away. Part of me really wants to tell them but…it feels like it'll make it real. I can almost convince myself that it's all a bad dream if I don't tell anyone.

"Guys, you're really freaking us out," Phoebe says, sitting on the edge of the coffee table.

Suddenly, Rachel's sitting next to Phoebe, her hand reaching to grab Monica's arm—I don't know what she saw, but it was enough to scare her. "Oh, my God; Monica, are you okay?"

I feel Monica's body tense for a few seconds before her tears hit my skin once more. She shakes as she cries and I rub her back, trying my best to soothe her.

Joey sits down on the arm of the chair, looking floored and confused, but says nothing. Ross stands on the other side of the table, the expression on his face completely helpless as he watches his sister cry.

I understand that completely.

"Mon?" Phoebe asks softly. "Chandler?"

I tilt my head and look down at my wife, trying to get her attention. She sighs and looks up at me, her red eyes making the blue of her irises a truly startling shade, the pain she's feeling all too obvious. She nods her head just a fraction before resting her cheek against my chest again.

"Umm." I clear my throat, surprised as how dry and raspy I sound. "Monica and I went to the doctor last week."

Rachel's face falls, and I can only imagine where her mind is going. "Oh, no," she whispers. "Please don't tell me that you guys lost a baby…"

Wow—I hadn't considered that as a possibility. Just thinking about it makes my already broken heart crack even further. I can tell it doesn't do much for Monica, either, if the way her nails dig into my side is any indication.

"No," I whisper. "We…we went for fertility tests. It turns out that…" I stop for a moment, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. When I open my eyes again, the faces of my friends are blurry from my tears. "It turns out that we'll probably never be able to have a baby."

Rachel's hand goes to her mouth as she gasps. Phoebe's eyes fill with tears and she launches herself at us, wrapping her arms around as much of us as she can. "I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Thank you," Monica answers, burying her face in our friend's neck. Rachel sniffles and joins in the hug, too.

"I…I don't know what to say," Ross says, and I look up at him. His face is pale and he looks kind of shaky. "What happened?"

Monica pulls out of our mass hug, folding herself back into me. "I have an inhospitable environment," she answers, her voice tired and scratchy.

"What does that even mean?" Rachel asks, looking devastated.

We both shrug. "I don't really know," Monica answers, and my hand find hers, holding on tightly. "We go back to the doctor tomorrow."

"Why did you wait so long to tell us?" Joey asks, looking genuinely distraught, and I rub my eyes tiredly.

"We needed some time to try to figure all of this out. And we didn't know what to say."

Phoebe reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezing gently, her eyes bright with tears. She opens her mouth, trying to find the right words, but just shakes her head sadly. "I know," I tell her softly.

"But…you're Chandler and Monica," Joey says, standing up. "This isn't supposed to happen to you guys. You're supposed to have a million babies and live happily ever after."

Monica's chin quivers and her eyes fill with tears. "Believe me, Joey, I wish this wasn't happening."

He puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. "I'm sorry, guys. I'm so, so sorry."

Ross moves to sit on the coffee table next to Rachel. He reaches out and puts a hand on Monica's leg, squeezing gently. "Do you guys need anything?"

Monica's mouth quirks up a little, and it's the first time I've seen anything close to a smile in days. "I don't know yet."

"Well, whatever we can do," Phoebe assures us, and everyone nods eagerly, eyes full of compassion and pain.

Joey throws himself at me suddenly and I let out an "ooph." In an instant, we're surrounded by our friends, all of them hugging us and whispering words of sympathy, all of them trying to take our pain and make it their own.

I think we both forgot just how great our friends can be, and just how much it helps to know that they're just there for us when we really need them.

For the first time all week, I feel the tiniest glimmer of hope. I don't know what will happen at the doctor's tomorrow; I don't know if he'll have some sort of solution for us, and I don't know how we'll handle whatever is to come. All I do know is that our friends—our family—is here for us, no matter what the outcome. The pain isn't less, but knowing we have our friends makes my heart just a little less heavy.