A/N: Over the years, I've received some of the loveliest reviews for this fic. If you're returning to this story after all these years, please know that you have my most sincere gratitude.

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost my (already limited) knack for brevity. This chapter covers just one letter - T. Sitting pretty at 2.6k words, this is basically a one-shot masquerading as a vignette. But there is some belligerent, pre-Mondler sexual tension going on here to make up for the extra length :)

Of Life and Love

Chapter 6

"And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you."

– Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars

~.~Tingle~.~

The loss of his toe has rendered him a bitter, bitter man, and he is in no mood to make an effort to hide it.

Ross and Carol are making out in the dorm room that he shares with Ross. Not wanting to be a witness to Ross Geller's burgeoning sex life, he growls at them to leave the room, but when Ross requests for five more minutes to get his "excitement" under control, Chandler leaves them with the threat that he will be back in ten minutes, within which time, they should make themselves scarce.

He limps out of the room, trying not to walk on his heavily bandaged foot, and he takes the elevator down to the lobby. When the elevator doors open, he runs into his other supposed best friend.

"Sir Limps-a-Lot," Gandalf bows with dramatic flair. "How are you this fine evening, Sir?" he asks in a terrible English accent.

Chandler had thought his brand-new nickname was a bad pun on Sir Mix-a-Lot. Apparently the moniker is a lot more versatile than he'd initially gathered.

"Fuck off," he mumbles and pushes past Gandalf and limps to the exit.

The evening is bitingly cold, and he curses himself for not throwing the horny couple out of the room much sooner. He sees several other students walking about, most of them looking at him curiously as he half-hobbles out of the building. He glares at anyone whose gaze lingers on him for more than a few seconds, until they turn away, embarrassed.

Once outside, he spots her a few feet away.

Monica Geller is hard to miss even when you don't know her. She is impossible to miss when you know her as well as he does.

She doesn't seem to notice him though. She is concentrating on trying to get two rather heavy-looking cardboard boxes out of the trunk of her car. Even from the ten-feet distance, he can see her grimacing as she tries to get both the boxes out simultaneously, one on top of the other.

Her bright-red coat hugging her curves, and her dark, wavy hair framing her profile, to his extreme annoyance, she looks even more beautiful than she had at Thanksgiving.

He'd just had to deal with one annoying Geller and he is in no mood to deal with this one. He turns to the opposite direction and just as he begins to walk away, he hears a loud thud behind him.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, before sighing and turning back again. Today just isn't his day.

The box that she'd stacked on top has fallen to the ground. She precariously places the other box at the edge of the trunk as she mouths 'Shit!' before bending down to pick up the fallen one.

He knows it's just a matter of seconds before the other one falls too, so he rushes to her car as fast as his injured foot would allow. At the last moment, he leaps across her crouched form and pushes the box back to a more secure position. She chooses this moment to stand back up and bangs her crown hard against his chin.

"Ow! Oh my God, woman!" he yelps from the excruciating pain, rubbing his chin vigorously. This girl is out to get him.

"What the hell?" she bites back, rubbing her own head. "What are you doing here?" When he raises an eyebrow, she clarifies. "I don't mean the campus," she rolls her eyes. "Here," she points to the ground she's standing on.

"Hello to you, too," he nods sarcastically. "I'm here because you look like you need help." He gestures at the box that she is balancing on her knee as she struggles to carry it. "Do you need help?"

"Nope," she shakes her head unconvincingly, grunting as the box slightly slips from her knee.

He rolls his eyes, exasperated, and grabs the box from her and puts it back in the trunk.

"Chandler!" She looks at him in disbelief. "I said I've got it." She leans into the trunk to stack the boxes one on top of the other again, and sucks in a breath as she tries to lift them both unsuccessfully.

"Monica," he tries again, feeling his patience dwindle. "Let me help you."

She looks warily between his bandaged foot and his face. "No offense, but you're giving off a Ted Bundy vibe."

Okay, now she is getting on his nerves, just for the heck of it. Here he is, trying to help the girl who is the root cause of his current state of misery, and all she is doing is being irritating.

"Bundy tried to get women into trunks. I am trying to get you out. Do you want help or not?" He snaps.

"I'm good," she nods with a tight smile. "Thanks, though."

He understands her hesitation. He hadn't been the friendliest of house guests to her at Thanksgiving. But in his defense, she had cut his frigging toe off and brought a rotten piece of carrot to the hospital in its place.

"All right then," he nods, poised to turn away, "I'm going to skip the rest of this Auld Lang Syne and head out. Your brother is not in the room, either. So just leave all this crap outside the door."

"It's books," she corrects him indignantly. "From last semester that Ross wanted for-"

"Whatever," he shrugs, already limping away. "Don't care."

This time when he hears a loud crash again, he is unsurprised. He turns back, lifting a supercilious eyebrow at her stunned face.

"Okay..." she nods slowly, looking down at all the books that have now spilled out of the boxes. "I need help."

He helps her pick everything back up and carries the heavier box to his room, and she follows him behind with the lighter one. He unlocks the now-vacant room, kicks the door open with his good foot, and motions with his head for her to enter. She drops her box on Ross's bed and takes a look around the room, visibly blanching. Clothes and books are strewn about on the floor and on both beds, interspersed with literal litter.

"Chandler..." she starts hesitantly, "when was the last time you guys cleaned the room?"

"Oh, let me think, today is Wednesday..." He drops the other box beside the first one and rubs his chin, pretending to think. "So that must have been... Neverday?"

"You guys have never cleaned the room?" she reconfirms, although from the state in which it is, it doesn't really take Einstein to deduce that.

"Nope. Not in a couple of months, at least."

"This is so not like Ross," she shakes her head, already picking up empty chips packets from her brother's bed. Ross has never been this bad.

"Well, your brother hasn't really had the time to worry about cleaning ever since Carol came along." He shrugs. "Now he only has time to worry about getting her ridiculously expensive and unbelievably ugly Swarovski ducks." He grimaces at the memory of that particular gift.

"What about you, why can't you-" She stops her query mid-sentence, watching him fiddle a bit with the bandage. "Sorry," she says quietly, embarrassed.

Any other time, he'd love to have stayed there and watch her squirm, but the wound is itching unbearably, and all he can think about is how Ross's tail comb sitting on their bathroom sink would perfectly scratch that itch.

"Excuse me," he mutters and leaves for the bathroom. When he comes back quite some time later, she is done with clearing out Ross's side of the room and has already arranged all the books that she'd brought, on the bookshelf.

He looks incredulously at all the books now sitting on the shelf. "Who reads all this crap anyway?"

"Well," she shrugs, looking deliberately nonchalant. "At least it's not... erotica."

He frowns at her, but his eyebrows clear in understanding when he follows her gaze to the book on his desk. "So, while you were snooping around my desk-"

"I was not snooping around, it's right there-"

"Did you at least look at the author's name?" He grabs the book and hands it to her, gesturing for her to take a look.

"Nora Tyler Bing," she reads and looks up at him uncertainly. "She is your...?"

"My mother. Yes," he nods. "She sends me signed copies of her books to share with my friends," he says, with a roll of his eyes.

"I had no idea..." She hands the book back to him. "That must be nice, to be an amazing author's son."

"Try embarrassing," he smiles wryly, and then the smile turns into a shit-eating grin. "'Amazing'?" he cocks an eyebrow.

"It was just an assumption," she shrugs, picking at the lint on her jacket, blushing in a manner that is entirely endearing.

"I'm sure it was," he nods indulgently, tossing the book back onto the desk. "It's not like teenage girls like to read about erect, pulsing, turgid 'members', right?"

She flushes beet red and looks away from him.

The itching has subsided, thanks to Ross's comb, and now he has all the time in the world to watch her squirm. He won't lie, it's extremely satisfying to watch her get all embarrassed; almost enough to make him forget the loss of his toe. But when she stays quiet for a whole minute, refusing to look at him, he realizes he may have crossed a line.

"I'm sorry," he smiles apologetically. "That was mean."

"Well," she looks up at him finally, with an impish smile of her own. "I've always been partial to straining, thick, swollen 'members'," she says, her tongue tucked against her cheek.

Now it's his turn to blush. He chuckles softly after a moment. "Well played," he nods, conceding.

"Thank you," she curtsies a little, still smiling widely. Her smile falls away as she regards him seriously for a moment. She pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear before she continues, looking self-conscious. "I cannot have you be mad at me, Chandler."

"Monica-"

"Look, you've made it abundantly clear that you aren't really keen on hearing my apologies," she shakes her head. "But I have this pathological need to be liked by people, and I cannot leave without apologizing one last time." When he watches her silently, she tilts her head to the side slightly. "May I?"

"Sure," he nods, interested to see where this is heading.

"What happened that day... It was the stupidest, most horrible thing I've ever done in my life. And I understand if you never want to talk to-"

"Okay, I'm just gonna jump in here and save you some time," he holds his palm up, interrupting her. "I'm not mad," he shakes his head. When she looks at him skeptically, he adds, "Not anymore."

"Really?" she smiles.

"Really," he smiles back. "Although," he holds a finger up. "Although, I would love to know what the hell was going on with you in the kitchen that day."

She suddenly looks more abashed than she had been to begin with. He watches her as she mentally wrestles with something and then nod to herself lightly, with conviction.

"Okay," she sighs. "I will tell you if you promise to not ask me anything more on the subject."

He is not really fond of this condition, but he will take whatever he gets. She has got his curiosity piqued. "Okay."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out, closing her eyes. "I was trying to flirt with you." Just as the mortification begins to color her cheeks maroon, she brings her palms up to her face to hide herself.

"You were flirting with me," he repeats quietly, slowly blinking twice.

She drags her palms down her cheeks and peeks at him through her fingers. "'Trying' was the operative word."

"You were flirting with me?"

"Okay, now you need to stop saying that," she giggles uncomfortably. "And can we please stop talking about this already?"

"You were flirting with me?"

"Chandler!" She whines, helpless, dragging him by the arm to his bed. She pushes him to sit down on it and gingerly sits beside him. "Now that we got that out of the way-"

"We did?" he looks at her, perplexed.

"Yes," she nods firmly. "We did."

"If you say so," he shrugs, his wide smile returning. "But I have a whole bunch of questions-"

"You promised," she says softly, pleadingly.

Her hand is still lightly wrapped around his arm. She smells like vanilla and honeysuckle, and he cannot, for the life of him, come up with one good argument against the fact that he had indeed made a promise. So he nods, giving in. "I did."

A slow smile spreads across her face. "Thank you," she whispers and then repeats, "Now with that out of the way," she pauses for a second, "I would love it if we could be friends...?" She ends it as a timid question.

Her hair falls across her cheek just right as she leans in toward him. Her startlingly blue eyes wide and imploring, they hold a spark that he hasn't seen in anyone in a long, long time.

He realizes with a pang that he may have a teeny-tiny crush on Ross's little sister.

"I would like that too," he nods, watching her beam at him.

"That's great!" She claps her hands, delighted. "Can I just give you-" She cuts herself off and wraps her arms around him abruptly.

He feels a tingle run down his spine and draws a sharp inhale.

His hands hover at his side helplessly, until he realizes that all that's left for him to do is wrap his own arms around her. So he does just that.

She pulls back after a second, still grinning. "All right, I gotta get going." She stands up but motions for him to not get up, pointing at his injured foot. "You need to rest that foot a bit," she says and remorsefully adds, "so sorry."

"I'll survive," he gives her a lopsided smile.

She waves at him and heads to the door, but pauses at his desk, looking at him sheepishly. She points at his mother's book and asks in a low voice, "Is it really a signed copy?"

He nods, laughing. "Take it."

"Thank you!" She snatches the book off of the desk immediately and holds it close to her chest, looking at him gratefully. "Thank you," she smiles again before heading out the door with a soft 'Bye'.

Yep, he can definitely see himself being friends with this girl.

~.~.~

A/N: Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed and favorited Forever and a Day after the last update! :) The epilogue will be updated soon.

Thank you so much for reading this chapter!