Monica knew Joey was right. She knew she needed to stay put in the apartment and wait for Chandler to come home.

That didn't mean she had to like it, but she had to do it.

She threw her white jacket down on the couch and pulled her hair back into a tighter ponytail. She walked to the kitchen and gathered her cleaning supplies from under the sink. Soon she was scrubbing the countertops like there was no tomorrow.

"Mon?"

Monica whipped around the find Phoebe standing in the doorway.

"What do you want?" she spat out at her, quickly returning to the task at hand.

"I want to say I'm sorry," Phoebe said, hanging up her purse and walking pensively into the kitchen.

Monica ran the back of her yellow, rubber gloved hand along her forehead.

"Why, Phoebe, why?!" Monica said, trying to fight her rising anger. "Why did you say that?"

"I...I thought it would be funny!" Phoebe said in a feeble attempt to defend herself. "I mean, it is kinda funny, right? The guy who is marrying you two is the same guy you went to find that night in London? That's just...that's just great irony."

"Oh, yeah, Chandler's first thought was clearly the irony," Monica said, pulling off her rubber gloves in disgust and plopping down on one of the kitchen chairs. Phoebe sat too, and folded her hands in front of her on the table.

"I know, I should have thought of my audience," she said, wincing. "But, Monica, this will blow over, OK? It's not like you really wanted to sleep with Joey that night, right? You were just looking for sex and of course Joey was the first person who came to mind!"

Monica looked sideways at her and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. No, Joey was not the first person who came to mind that night, but she didn't want or need to explain that to Phoebe. She wanted to explain that to her fiance.

"Look... " Monica started, then sighed. "It's just...that night means...it means so much to, to both of us Phoebe and now it's, it's just tainted…"

Phoebe briefly put her face in her hands and shook her head back and forth with a little growl.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Monica, I…" she said, her face twisted in guilt when she looked at her friend again. "I didn't mean to hurt you or Chandler or ruin anything…"

Just then the door opened and Chandler walked inside, both women rose to their feet.

"Hey," he said, attempting to smile, which made Monica's whole body heavy with relief as she smiled back at him.

Phoebe walked over and put a hand on his arm.

"Chandler, I'm really sorry," she said sincerely. "I shouldn't have said anything. I'm really happy for you guys and...and I'm glad you had sex in London and you're getting married and…"

"Pheebs, hey," Chandler said, patting her hand. "It's OK. Really. OK? I just, um, I need to talk to Monica."

"Oh, yeah, OK," she said, rushing to grab her purse and looking back and forth between the two of them. "OK, you'll be OK?"

Chandler smiled at her and nodded. "We'll be OK."

"OK, OK good," Phoebe said, relieved. She smiled at Monica and walked out, closing the door behind her.

Chandler looked at Monica and she looked back at him with tears in her eyes.

"Will we?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. "Be OK, I mean."

He walked over and reached out to her. She quickly fell into his embrace and held him tight, closing her eyes when he kissed her hair.

"Of course we'll be OK, Mon," he whispered into her hair. "It was just a...a shock, and I was, I was a little confused..."

She looked up at him, "Chandler, I can explain…"

He shook his head and grinned. "Joey already did."

"Joey?" she asked skeptically as she pulled back from him.

"Yeah," he said with a surprised grin on his face as he stroked a lock of her fallen hair behind her ear. "He said that even though you may have wanted him for a half-hour one night, you wanted me for the rest of your life and that I should focus on that. He's right."

"Really?" she said, squishing up her nose. "Joey really said that?"

"I know," he said, in mild disbelief. "I was surprised, too! He said some other great stuff about us 'fitting together' that I hope he remembers for the wedding but I'm not holding my breath."

"Hump," Monica said with a mild chuckle as she played with the top of his jacket zipper. "Well, he was half right."

Chandler looked at her, raising his eyebrows. "Whatta mean?"

She looked up at him and blinked the tears away from her eyes, cupping his cheek.

"I do want you for the rest of my life," she said with a shy smile, "but I didn't really want him for a half-hour that night. I wanted you."

"That...that's the part that confused me," he said, softly, as he took her hand and they both walked over to sit on the couch, facing each other.

"I mean, you told me right here," he said, pointing to the couch they were now sitting on, "that you...you thought you had feelings for me before London..."

"I did," she insisted.

"Then, why did you think about sleeping with Joey?" he asked. She took a deep breath and looked into his confused face.

"Because," she said, now recognizing the absurdity of her next words, "I didn't think you wanted me."

"What?!" he nearly shouted, completely take aback. "Are you kidding me?! Of course, I wanted you!"

"Well, it didn't feel that way at the time," she said, dropping her head a moment, then she raised her eyes to his again with a sad smile. "I remember trying everything I could to seduce you that night at the bar and...and you refused me at every turn."

"Of course, I did," he said, shrugging up his shoulders. "You were my friend. You were sad, you were drunk and I didn't…"

"...want to take advantage of me and the situation, I know," she said, reaching out and cupping his face in her hands, cocking her head and smiling at him. "That's one of the million reasons I love you so much."

He grinned, then took her hands in his with that intense look in his eyes that made her stomach flip.

"But, believe me, I wanted you," he said softly, but with such conviction it made her shiver. "When I went back to my room I was determined to drink myself into oblivion just so I wouldn't leave again; so I wouldn't walk down the hall to you because, Mon, I tell ya, giving you exactly what I knew you wanted that night was all I could think about."

She squeezed his fingers in her hands, shook her head and sighed.

"I didn't know any of that," she said softly, searching his face. "All I knew is that you went back to your room and I...I wanted...to feel sexy and beautiful and not like Ross's mother, so I thought if you didn't want to do that then maybe...maybe I could talk Joey into it.

Chandler closed his eyes and shook his head. "He wouldn't have been that hard to convince," he said, somewhat irritably. Monica grinned at him.

"I almost lost my nerve," she continued, nodding slowly. "I almost turned back and didn't knock on your door. But I did…"

"Yes, you did," he said, with a grin as he raised her hand and kissed it.

"You have no idea how relieved I was that you were the only one there," she said in almost a whisper, tears in her eyes as she looked into his. "I think a part of me was hoping that would be the case, that you would be alone…"

Chandler shook his head again and sighed as they instinctively came closer together on the sofa.

"I knew turning you down then would be the hardest thing I ever would do," Chandler said, cupping her face. "You were so vulnerable and so...so sad. I would have done anything to...to give you comfort and make you happy. I just couldn't imagine that you really wanted me, at least not right away. I mean, eventually I caught on..."

She smiled at him and he grinned.

"I thought maybe you...regretted it in the morning?" she asked the question she'd been wanting to ask for a long time with a wince.

"No!" he said immediately. "No, I never regretted anything...other than Ross's pathetic sense of timing. Did...did you?"

She shook her head, "only insofar as I knew how I was feeling about you and...and I knew I wanted to be, ah, with you again. At first I didn't know what you would think about that, but it became clear soon enough."

"Humm…" he hummed with a grin as she reached up to kiss him again.

"So, are we good?" she asked, love shining from her eyes.

"Yeah," he smiled, "we're good, Joey's good, we're all good."

"So are we going to let him marry us?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, with a little smirk. "Since we're such a sharing and loving and giving and receiving couple."

Monica groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Just remember this when we're up there and he's marrying us," she said, running her hands through the sides on his hair. "I never wanted Joey. I wanted sex and I wanted comfort but, ultimately, I just wanted you. You are my Batman."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise as he smiled widely.

"And seven times, too," he said, kissing her again with mischievous grin on his face. "That's some superhero power if I do say so myself."

She giggled at him and shook her head, her eyes smiling at him.

"I love you," he chuckled as she smiled wider.

"Yeah, baby," she whispered, kissing him one more time.

NOTE:

The End - Thanks for sticking with this one all the way through!

I Call Baby is my sole focus moving forward - yay! I have several future chapters of that at least partially written, but when I'll get back to working on it I don't know.

Hopefully whenever it is you'll think it's worth the wait! ;)

'Til then...God Bless!