Disclaimer: There's a line or two of dialogue near the end that's taken from "TOW the Jellyfish," which, like Friends, I obviously do not own.

The following weeks and months went by slowly and monotonously for Monica. Every day was the same; she would be given a breakfast so small it could barely be called breakfast before she was be taken by one of the alien guards to a room where one of a decent number of alien men and women would question her about Earth and the experience of life on the planet. She would then be escorted back to her cell where she would receive the most meager of lunches, and then all afternoon was to be spent in a machine where her body was tested in countless ways. Some tests were mental, others more physical. After a couple weeks, Monica had lost all interest.

At first, she asked questions of her own. Why did they need her for this? Why couldn't they do this back on Earth? Why hadn't the government found such a huge spaceship yet? And, most often, where was Chandler and was he okay?

Some of the aliens ignored her questions, Vootil particularly seemed to love to watch her face as her questions went unanswered, but a couple did try to help her out in some capacity. She learned that, while many of the aliens were able to spend time on Earth and learn the language well enough to use it almost exclusively, they still had very little information about the planet itself and, subsequently, needed actual human examples. They couldn't do their work on Earth because someone would discover it, which was exactly what the aliens didn't want. And no one had found the ship because they were able to make it invisible, solving the mystery of how it had appeared so suddenly out of nowhere the day Monica and Chandler had been taken.

On the subject of Chandler, however, not even the nicest of the aliens would offer her an answer. She received shrugs, answers of "I don't know what you're talking about", and even a "I don't think you'd really like to know that, Monica" accompanied by a menacing grin from Vootil. From all this, Monica believed more and more that Chandler was gone, or, at the very least, that she would never get to see him again. Soon, she stopped asking about him; it hurt too much.

One morning, long after she had lost count of the months she had spent in the ship, Monica caught a whisper between the alien questioning her that day and another one that interrupted their session.

"The scouting mission has just returned. Everything seems to have gone according to plan," said the alien that had walked in.

"Excellent!" the one questioning Monica replied. "Is the first group getting ready to go down?"

The other alien nodded. "They should be down by this afternoon."

Both aliens smiled excitedly, and the one not questioning Monica left.

"So you guys are getting ready to go down to Earth then?" Monica asked, resignedly.

The alien's smile grew larger. "Finally! It's been so boring being cooped up in here for the past couple years. It'll be nice to stretch my legs and to have something to walk on that's not metal."

Monica's lips moved upwards for a moment in the weakest attempt at a smile, but she found that she couldn't bring herself to do it. She hadn't had a single thing to smile about since she had been taken from home.

Aside from this conversation, nothing in Monica's life really changed during the next few weeks. She had the same regular sessions and the same pitiful meals; however, the demeanors of those who questioned her and studied her had changed. The aliens were restless and excited, much like children during the last leg of a long road trip that ends with the prospect of a fun vacation.

However, the time came at last for effects to reach Monica. As she awoke one morning, Vootil was staring at her through the glass door.

"Good morning, Monica!" he said, his voice almost as cheerful as it had been the day Monica had first met him. "Rise and shine, for today we land on Earth and return you, as promised, to your home."

Monica held little enthusiasm at the prospect of a home without her family and friends, but the idea of getting off the horrible ship and leaving her tiny cell was definitely amenable to her.

Vootil practically skipped back down the hallway, saying he would be back to get her in twenty minutes time, as Monica prepared herself for the day in whatever ways she could.

Vootil, as promised, was back in exactly twenty minutes, and he led her down the corridor to the elevator and then out through a doorway.

Monica realized with a start that she was on the observation deck where she had been brought in. Aliens were pouring out the doorway opposite hers, the one where Chandler had been taken, so she searched, halfheartedly, through the sea of tall green heads for one that was sandy-brown. When Chandler was nowhere to be found, Monica's heart only dropped the smallest amount; she hadn't expected him to be there.

As the aliens crowded around the hatch, one of the creatures left on the observation deck pulled the lever to open it up.

The ship seemed to have stopped on some sort of makeshift landing pad that allowed the ship to remain far enough off the ground that the aliens could easily disembark through the center hatch.

Vootil, leading Monica, forced himself into the flood of the creatures, clearly wanting to get off the ship as badly as any of the others.

As Monica made her way out from under the ship's edge, she found herself in the sunlight for the first time in what must have been at least a year. She breathed in and looked up, letting the sun warm her, just as she had that March day when she had been here last.

When she looked back to Earth, she found that while the sun was exactly as it had been, the same could not be said for much else.

All around her the earth was ashen; small piles of rubble littered the ground, but little else was visible. Far off behind her Monica could see what was left of a body of water, though it's usual blue-green color was closer to black than anything else.

"Where are we?" Monica said to no one in particular.

From beside her, Vootil answered, smirking, "don't you recognize New York City when you see it?" He laughed ruthlessly. "You humans and your war."

New York City? Monica thought to herself. How can that be possible?

"Over here!" called a far off alien that seemed to be part of a smaller group.

Vootil grinned excitedly, hurrying forward. "I see you all did a good job: very nice landing pad," Vootil said to the alien that must have been a part of the first group to come that Monica had heard about weeks ago.

The other alien waved his hand as though to say it was nothing. "Everything's ready down that way if you all want to settle in," he said with a nod to what looked like a large encampment behind him.

"Okay friends!" Vootil yelled to the rest of the aliens, who stopped talking as he turned to them. "We did it! Head to camp down behind me, and we can all get to work!"

There was an overwhelming cheer as the aliens started stampeding toward the camp, eager to begin their new lives.

"And now you," Vootil said, turning to Monica. "Here's where we part ways. If you head west you'll find a little human oasis, you might say, just out of the city. It seems that some of your rural people tried to grow crops after the nuclear disaster, and even though they were all wiped out eventually, their plants and trees are still intact. There should be enough over there for you to live on, and enough materials for you to fashion yourself some shelter as well. Oh, and a gift, for your trouble."

As Monica stared at him, astonished that he expected her to simply go off, make herself some shelter, and eat whatever plants she could find, Vootil walked to the entrance of the ship and quickly returned with what looked like a silver motorbike.

"It hovers off the ground a bit, so it can ride over anything, and it's even faster than one of your human cars. Good luck, Monica, maybe I'll see you around some time." Vootil hurriedly scampered away before Monica could reply indignantly that she could not go live off in the middle of nowhere by herself for the rest of her life.

Monica stood alone for a moment watching the aliens in the distance setting up shelter and reveling in their new surroundings. Then she glanced at the bike. Oh well, I guess this is all I can really do, she thought, shrugging as she hopped on.

As she started the bike, Monica found it as easy to handle as a regular bicycle, and soon she was zooming off into the distance, away from the rubble of Manhattan towards the patch of green she could see far away in the distance.

Relatively quickly, she came to an enormous trench, with fairly steep banks that seemed to be at over half a mile wide. The Hudson, Monica suddenly realized, completely dried up.

She emerged from the shell of what used to be a flowing river in little time and found herself on better looking ground. New Jersey, it seemed, had faired a little better than the city next door. The ground was still blackened, but patches of grass poked through, and the amount of rubble was significantly less than it was where she had come from.

The green blur in the distance had been steadily growing, and Monica could just barely make out some trees standing over what must have been extensive vegetation.

After nearly an hour more of riding, Monica had reached the oasis, as Vootil had called it. Trees and plants of all kinds were growing all together. She could see wild berries and nuts on bushes beside innumerable flowers. She leaned her bike against one of the larger trees and was pleased to find an ordinary apple tree not ten feet away. Picking a nice sized one from the tree she took a bite and sighed contentedly. She had really missed the little things like this.

As she ate the fruit, grabbing an extra one for when she finished, she wandered through the trees and bushes, making sure to stay near the edge so she didn't lose sight of her bike. But then she spotted something glinting in the sunlight about fifty feet away. It was another silver bike, just like hers.

The second apple she had picked dropped out of her hand as she stared at the bike. The only way someone could have gotten that bike was from the aliens. And the only other human to have been with the aliens was…

"Oh my God, Chandler," Monica said, tossing away her apple core and running as fast as she could toward the other bike, looking all around her for any sign of her long lost friend.

When she reached the bike she found a half built shelter, decent enough for someone to spend a good amount of time in, provided it wasn't raining, since the roof didn't seem to be quite watertight.

"Please be around here, Chandler. Please," Monica whispered to herself, as she ventured deeper into the bushes. And, as she came out from behind a tree, there he was.

His clothing was ripped, his legs looked scratched up, and his hair had grown a little out of control, but he was there. Right in front of her. Alive. He was kneeling with his back to her as he gathered what looked like berries into a pile on a large leaf. Another leaf filled with nuts sat beside it.

Monica's breath hitched in her throat as her eyes filled with tears that for the first time in so long weren't of sadness, but were rather ones of complete and utter joy.

"Chandler," she choked out, her voice quiet, but perfectly audible over the sounds of the wind rushing through the leaves around them.

Chandler turned around on his heels, startled, and fell back into the berry bush he was picking from as soon as he saw his friend.

"M… M… Monica?" he said, struggling to stand, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

Monica stared at him and smiled for the very first time in a year. "Chandler. You're okay," she breathed.

Chandler finally stood up and walked toward her, shaking his head in disbelief, his arms opening.

Monica ran to him, and the two met in an embrace that told Monica just how much he had missed her and which she hoped told him just how much she had missed him too.

"Oh Monica, I thought I lost you," Chandler whispered into her hair. "I just kept seeing you standing there face to face with Vootil right by the hatch and for all I knew he threw you out or had you killed or something horrible. And then no one would tell me anything at all about you. And I just kept thinking that this was my fault. If I had fought Vootil off just a bit longer you could have escaped. Oh I'm so so sorry Mon. But, God, I've missed you so much."

Monica could feel Chandler's tears falling on her back, as she pressed her face into his shirt, crying just as hard.

"It was the same with me, Chandler," Monica murmured back. "I saw you dragged off, and they wouldn't even let you talk, and they told me nothing, and I thought for sure they'd done something awful to you. But it's okay. It's okay. I'm here now, and none of this was your fault. I'm so sorry I even thought about leaving without you. I could never have done it though really. Never. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself knowing that I left you behind. Really, I wouldn't have ever been able to live without you."

Chandler moved his head away from Monica so he could see her face. "I just can't believe you're actually here." He touched her cheek lightly as though he thought it would disappear if he pressed too hard.

Monica leaned her cheek into his hand. "I'm here."

Chandler smiled, his eyes shining as he began to laugh, just for the joy of laughing.

Monica joined in as she hugged him again and he spun her around.

"How long have you been down here?" Monica asked, her smile filling her voice as he set her back onto the ground.

"A few weeks," Chandler responded, shrugging. "I was part of the first wave of aliens down here after the scouting party. I had to help them out for a while, but they let me go about a week ago. And you?" He turned to her.

"I just got down today. Vootil gave me a bike, told me to ride out this way to find food, and then scurried away before I could say anything, as you'd expect." She rolled her eyes.

"He never did get over our escape attempt, did he?" Chandler shook his head. "Aliens, am I right?"

Monica laughed at the typical Chandler line, surprised at how they were talking completely normally, as though their adventures with the aliens were stories about work or something entertaining one of their friends had done. …their friends...

Monica's face fell instantly at the thought of Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey. They were gone. Long gone.

"What is it, Mon?" Chandler asked, concerned, looping his arm around her side.

"We lost everyone, Chandler," Monica said sorrowfully. "All our friends and our families. They're all gone."

Chandler's face grew cloudy as he pulled her into a hug. "I know. I'm so sorry."

Monica pulled away from her friend and slapped him lightly in the arm.

"Um, ow!" Chandler said, rubbing his appendage.

"This isn't your fault, so stop acting like it is." Monica glared at him.

Instead of cowering, as he normally would have, Chandler burst out laughing.

"What?" Monica asked, indignantly, not a fan of being laughed at when she was trying to be serious.

"I'm sorry," Chandler said, wiping a tear from his eye, "but I just haven't seen that Monica glare in so long, and I missed it."

Monica sighed exasperatedly, but let herself laugh. "Lucky for you, you're stuck with me, because that glare's going to happen a lot."

Chandler smiled again and then grabbed her hand. "Pick up that leaf full of berries will you, I want to show you my illustrious food stores."

Monica laughed in reply, but picked up the berries anyway, as Chandler grabbed the leaf full of nuts.

"Back this way." He led her through the bushes back to the tree where his partially built shelter and bike were located.

"And voila!" Chandler pulled back a layer of vines that was covering a space under a decent sized bush. Inside his makeshift pantry were more nuts and berries of all kinds, as well as a variety of fruit and vegetables.

"Impressive, huh?" he said proudly, as he knelt down and emptied the nuts and berries he had collected into larger piles under the bush.

He stood up and brushed off his hands, turning to Monica with a sly smile on his face.

"What?" she asked, smiling herself.

"All right," he said, "there was a nuclear holocaust. I'm the last man on Earth. Will you go out with me?"

Monica stared at him, her mouth falling open as she remembered him saying those exact words to her on a beach less than two years earlier, well two years for them at least.

"I've got a fully stocked mini food pantry," he added, playing off his "I've got canned goods" line he used at the beach.

Monica stared at him for another minute until she burst out laughing.

"Hey!" Chandler said, affronted. "That was a real question!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Monica waved her hands apologetically as her words jumbled together with her laughter. "It's just that the fact that we actually ended up in this situation is the funniest thing in the world to me right now," she finally said when her laughter died down.

Chandler smiled slightly as he looked at her. "I guess it is a bit humorous, but could you answer my question? I am the last man on Earth. Now, will you please go out with me?

Monica smiled in spite of herself. "Of course I will, Chandler. You're the greatest guy I've ever met. You did try to save me from the aliens with no thought of yourself – twice. If that's not boyfriend material, then I don't know what is. There is absolutely no one in the world I would rather be stuck with alone on Earth for the rest of my life than you."

Chandler smiled the most adorable smile Monica had ever seen. "Really?" he said, cutely.

Monica clasped her hands with his, leaned in, and kissed him swiftly. "Really."

A/N: This entire story was basically to allow for that last scene to happen (hence why I've spent so much time laughing hysterically over this). I really do hope you enjoyed this. Writing this was absolutely a day well spent for me.

Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are lovely and are so so appreciated!