Ten minutes later, Rachel heard a noise from the back gate being slammed. She moved over to the window and saw Emily red faced and obviously upset, hurry along the path to the apartment. Obviously still pregnant. What was going on, Rachel wondered. It was the first thought she'd had in that ten minutes that was not of Ross – she had been able to squeeze a lot of thoughts in that ten minutes about Ross. Why he had called, what he had really wanted to say, why he hadn't called her back yet, why she couldn't get through to him…

It was only when she heard footsteps down in the garden and saw that Emily was speeding away again that she realised she'd fallen into abstraction about Ross again. She would stop thinking about Ross, who wasn't going to call her again, obviously, and start thinking about something else, like the drama next door, and what Emily was doing. She got up and went to the balcony, just in time to see Emily disappear outside the back gate. But as soon as Emily was out of sight, Rachel thought of Ross again.

She tried Ross a few more times, but couldn't bear to leave any more messages, although she got a perverse kind of comfort from hearing his message, saying that he wasn't in, because at least it was his voice.

After another half an hour, Stuart returned, knocking on her door. Rachel had just been debating in her mind whether she could call someone else to pass a message to Ross, or check he was all right, or something.

'I couldn't find her anywhere,' Stuart said despondently, again taking up residence on Rachel's couch. She frowned. Stuart. Emily. Yes, that was something else, a distraction. She could get involved in this problem and that would help time pass.

'A watched pot never boils,' she said. Stuart frowned.

'What was that?' Rachel realised that she'd made no sense to him at all and said hurriedly,

'I mean, she came back.'

'She did?' Stuart jumped up. 'What did she do? What did she say?' As if Rachel would have given Emily the chance to say anything to her again!

'She only stayed five minutes. She went away again in an awful hurry. Out the back gate.'

'She wasn't in labour?' Stuart asked anxiously. Rachel suppressed the desire to roll her eyes.

'It didn't look like it to me. What it did look like was that she'd forgotten something.'

'Forgotten?' Stuart asked blankly.

'Like, maybe she'd forgotten her passport or something.' It was just a random thought of Rachel's but Stuart looked at her in horror, and ran out again.

Now what? Rachel sat where Stuart had been. It was all happening for Emily and nothing was happening for Rachel. Rachel's involvement had not been long enough to distract her. Suddenly the phone rang. In her haste to answer it, Rachel fell off the couch and managed to hang up on it before she was able to answer.

'No!' she screamed in frustration. She dialled Ross but got no answer. 'I didn't hang up on you, not on purpose! It was an accident!' she called into the answermachine. She hung up, feeling despondent, but the phone rang again,

'Hello!'

'Rachel?'

'Ross!'

'You got my message!' Rachel breathed in relief.

'What message?'

'On your answermachine.'

'I haven't been back home. I'm at Monica's,' Ross said. 'I thought after we spoke last that I should speak to her about things.'

'Oh.'

'You left messages for me?' he asked.

'Yes, I'm sorry for hanging up on you. Twice. The second time was a pure accident, I don't know how it happened. I was trying to answer the phone.'

'Oh,' Ross said. 'I've done that before.' Suddenly Rachel heard the back gate bang again and she took the phone with her to watch the back door. 'Are you okay?' Ross asked. 'Monica said you've been having a hard time at work and… and she said Emily was there. Is that true?' A resident of the apartment complex came through the garden.

'Yeah,' Rachel said, 'It's weird. She's here, she hates me and she's about to give birth, and run out on her husband.'

'She hates you?' Ross asked.

'She called me all kinds of names.'

'That's not fair,' Ross said, 'What went wrong between us had nothing to do with you. She can call me names if she wants but – ' Suddenly Emily came through the garden, in tears, carrying her bags.

'Yeah,' Rachel said, absorbed by the drama unfolding, 'she's come back again.'

'What? I don't understand.'

'Well she ran out and her husband went after her, then she came back and left and then he came back asking if she'd been back so I told him, so he went out and now she's come back,' Rachel explained.

'Huh?'

'I wonder what's going on,' Rachel said.

'So do I,' Ross said. 'No I don't, I don't care,' Ross said. 'I want to know that you're all right.' From next door came the cry of,

'I hate you!' Stuart must have come back without her knowing. Suddenly, Emily was on the balcony outside. She hadn't noticed Rachel, who stepped back into the apartment before she could notice. She could hear less audible sounds of masculine protest from the apartment next door.

'Oh my God,' Rachel said and then realised that the other end of the phone was very quiet. She'd managed to pull the jack out. She'd disconnected Ross again. He wasn't going to believe that was an accident. As she scrabbled on the floor to reconnect it, there was a far from polite knocking on the door. Rachel knew who that would be. She reconnected the phone, redialled, and then answered the door with the phone in her hand.

'Thanks,' Stuart said, 'She's gone and shut herself onto the balcony and won't listen.' Déjà vu, Rachel thought. In her condition, let's hope she doesn't climb off the balcony. Stuart had gone out to the balcony.

'Emily.' Rachel wasn't getting through to Ross. Maybe he was calling her. She hung up the phone and carried it to the small table by the couch, before sidling up to the balcony. She couldn't help wondering what was going on.

'What are you doing there? How dare you be there?' Emily exclaimed. 'What are you doing in that woman's flat?' Emily must have caught sight of Rachel, but her dialogue was with her husband only.

'How am I going to talk to you if you keep running away?' Stuart demanded.

'You're not going to talk to me! I'm going back inside,' Emily put her hand on the french doors and winced.

'Has it started?' Stuart asked.

'I don't think so. I think it's just one of those Braxton Hicks things. It happened when I was queuing up for a ticket and they wouldn't let me buy one,' she said.

'Good. You shouldn't travel, you should be here!' With that, Emily wrenched at the door. The handle came off in her hand. She started hitting the door which stayed resolutely closed. 'Now you'll have to listen to me,' Stuart said.

'Listen to you?' Emily turned on him, 'Why should I listen to you? You say things that you don't mean. You don't care about me.'

'Of course I care about you.'

'Then why won't you listen to me? You let me speak, and then you just do what you want. How about what I want?'

'What do you want?' Stuart asked, as though humouring a child.

'I want a home!' Emily said, cutting Rachel to the core. She wanted a home too, and suddenly she realised that even if everything went well, starting from tomorrow, she would never make a home in Paris. 'I want to be somewhere for more than six months at a time, not just for a year or for two years, but for good. I'm sick of having to move all the time.' Rachel moved away from the door, and sat down by the phone.

'But you love travel,' he said.

'I'm having a baby, in case you've forgotten. I need a home, the baby needs a home, and if you won't provide one, I'm going to leave and find one for myself!'

'Emily, this China trip is just for eight months, then we can settle down.'

'You said that last time, and this time. You said, "Paris is just for a few months, we'll be back in London to give birth and we'll have a home." You promised, but we're still here. We have no home and I'm going to give birth here, I know it.'

'That's not so bad Emily, they've got good hospitals here…'

'You promised!'

'I know – '

'Then if you love me, why don't you keep your promises?' Emily said. Rachel wiped away a tear that had come unbidden. If we love each other, we keep our promises, and we're where we belong, with each other, not an ocean apart.

'I'll never get another chance like this again, can't you see?' he said. Rachel could no longer sympathise with Stuart, much as she wanted to. Emily needed a home. Rachel needed a home. Emma needed a home. She reached for the phone book and looked up the airlines.

'That's what you said this time, and the time before. I always have to give in because you say it will ruin your life if I don't. What about my life? Don't I ever get to have a say?' Rachel had found the number for United, and started rehearsing the phrase in her head, I would like to buy a one way ticket to New York…

'Of course, but you're asking me to choose.' There was a brief, deadly silence before Emily said,

'If you really think that there is a real choice between me and going to China, then it's over, Stuart. I'm not coming second any more. Tomorrow, I take the Eurostar to London, with or without you.' Rachel rushed out on to the balcony.

'Stop!' Rachel exclaimed. They looked at her. 'You, Stuart, go back in there, you get yourself ready, and you take her back to London right now. I don't care how you do it, you just go.'

'What?' they both said.

'Now. You don't get a second chance at this moment,' Rachel said. 'You both go to London. You have to be together because you can't be apart, it's just madness, being apart, when you belong together. Crazy. I've got things I have to do, now. Just go.' Emily stared as Rachel shooed Stuart off the balcony and out of her flat. She had the number ready, and she knew what she was going to say. The phone rang again. She picked it up.

'Ross?' Rachel asked.

'Yes?'

'Tell Mom not to come. I'm coming home.'

'You- you're coming home? Are you sure?' Ross asked in amazement.

'I've never been more sure,' Rachel said.

'Because you don't like Paris?'

'No,' Rachel said, 'Because I love you.'