Just two seconds ago he’d had so many things to say to her. Now he couldn’t think of one.

Chandler looked at the woman sitting on the couch, the woman who was such an important part of his life. She’d controlled his happiness, his future and his trust. He sensed that she’d always be an important figure in his life, old habits were hard to break at this point.

Monica didn’t look at him. She’d turned her head towards him when he’d opened the door to the guest room and said that he needed to talk to her. But when he didn’t say anything she’d looked down again.

‘Go on, tell her!’ his mind urged. ‘She must get to hear it.’

But no words came over his lips. He was as if spellbound by her all of a sudden. He knew that the words he would say would most likely change their lives, push it one step further which would be a point of no return. It was scary to have such important things to say to her.

Monica quickly pretended as if she no longer noticed that he was standing there, or even cared. Her diary was open in front of her, and she was still writing in it.

It was closing up on eleven o’clock at night.

"Mon, I…" Chandler finally said, and then changed his mind. "You know what, I need something to eat."

Monica looked up at him and nearly started to laugh. They had fought earlier on and driven each other way too far, and now he said he needed to speak to her. And the first thing he said was that he needed to eat. But she knew how much her future life depended on what he might say next, so controlling the urge to laugh was simple.

"I don’t feel like cooking" she said, feeling as if she had to say something as well.

"I’ll call for a pizza" he said, and went over to the phone. Monica went back to her diary.

"Oh great, another embarrassing moment… Well Chandler, you created it this time, so now get yourself out of it. Whatever you wanted to say to me surely has nothing to do with dinner. And this time it’s time we lay the cards on the table. I am not leaving this couch until this matter is settled. When I go into my bedroom the next time it will either be as a single woman or as Chandler Bing’s girlfriend. And which ever one it is, I know it will last. I know Ross, and even Rachel, has told me as late as last week that their relationship came to it’s final end the same night I told Chandler that I didn’t believe you could forget someone you really love. Ross and Rachel’s relationship ended after Ross let her know that it was now or never, either they’d give it another try or they never would try again. And Rachel chose to lay their relationship to rest and try to keep the friendship instead. That’s what I am going to do tonight. Not what Rachel did, but what Ross did. Chandler’s going to have to make a choice, be with me now or be with me never."

‘Well what if he needs time?’ her mind asked her as she read through the lines. ‘What if he needs a few weeks to sort everything out before you can be in a working relationship again? Would you be willing to wait?’

Monica knew she would be willing to wait. But only if Chandler could promise her for sure that he would be with her again later on.

"Pizza’s on it’s way" Chandler announced, nervously biting his nails.

"Don’t bite your nails" Monica said, almost automatically and without thinking of the fact that she did so herself at times.

Chandler stopped with the biting and glanced over at her. He didn’t know what was worse, them being mad at each other or composed like they were now. At least when they were mad they didn’t hide any emotions from each other, or play any parts. But it was so hard to be mad at her, and so painful when she was mad at him, and when they were there was a chance they’d say things they didn’t mean, that could hurt the other.

Monica had gone back to writing in her diary, he saw. And he wondered if she’d read his entries in the past, but he didn’t dare to ask her. The truth was that he was slightly afraid of her, she had such power over him and she probably knew how to use it, weather it was to help him or to destroy him. Destroying people was not like Monica. But she could still do it without knowing it, or at least without intending it. She’d already done it once, when she’d nearly died on him.

‘Well you can’t give me anymore pain now’ he thought. ‘Because you’ve forced me to realize the truth. I guess that was the last horrible thing you did to me, you made me realize that now I hate you.’

How could he ever have grown to hate her? Looking at her now she was still the Monica that loved him so, and that he loved back with all his heart. Her appearance hadn’t changed, as long as she kept her mouth shut he could convince himself that she was still as she used to be inside.

‘But you’re not!’ he thought. ‘And as revealing it is to get to imagine that you are, I still don’t welcome it. Because sooner or later you start to speak, and then I have to realize that you’re changed. And that realization hurts! More than you’ll ever know! I wish you could either talk for ever and ever or not say one more word in your entire life…’

If Monica was aware that he was eying her, she didn’t show it. She turned the page and continued to write.

"Okay, so should we talk now, or some other time?" Chandler said, hoping that his voice sounded full of resolution. But most likely it didn’t.

Monica looked up at him.

"So you’re willing to talk now?"

She closed the diary, put it aside and leaned back.

"So go on, tell me what you came out here to say."

Chandler felt confused over the turn of events. This whole thing had started with her wanting to tell him something, now he was the one trying to talk to her.

"Chandler come on!" she urged, with a voice filled of both impatience, fear and determination.

"Well where do I start?" he asked.

"I don’t know, you tell me."

He thought about it for a second but couldn’t make up his mind. Should he start by telling her that he hated her? By telling her why? By explaining the year of hell that now laid behind him? Or by telling her just how different she was these days?

Monica decided to take matters in her own hands.

"Okay, you know what? This is what’s going to happen…" she said. "We are going to talk this all through, and we are going to do it now. Tonight. And neither of us are going to leave until it’s clear weather or not we will be going out anymore."

‘Then we can leave right now,’ Chandler thought, ‘because the answer is no.’

"And this will be our final decision" Monica continued. "No more of this on-and-off stuff. Either we can work this out or we can’t, and we’re going to know the answer before either of us leave this couch."

"Can I get up to open the door for the pizza guy?" Chandler sarcastically asked.

‘If he could just put his sarcasm aside for once…’ Monica thought.

"So what was it you wanted to say to me, huh?"

"Monica it’s not really that easy as to just blurt it out!" Chandler objected.

"Nobody said it was. But you have to begin by saying something."

"Yeah, I know…"

"So?"

"Monica I want to ask you a question." Chandler said, out of the blue. "I want to know why you have been so mean to me. Why you have hurt me so."

"Because I’ve had amnesia, I still do you know, and that’s made me act in ways I wouldn’t have before. That’s made me do and say things that have hurt you, even though it wasn’t my intention."

"Oh it wasn’t?" Chandler said, his voice remaining calm although he wasn’t so calm inside. "Monica, some of the things you’ve done have been downright evil. Some of the things you’ve said had hurt even if coming from a complete stranger. You’ve made fun of me for loving you! In words and in actions! So don’t give me any bull about doing it unintentionally, because any grown person with a sense of moral and some decency would have known better than to say or do some of the stuff you’ve done. And said."

"Like what?" Monica asked.

"Like what?" Chandler echoed, surprised that she would even ask him that. "Well how about for example throwing in my face several times that I’ve been a grade A fool for still loving you? How about pulling that damned trick on me, getting my hopes up just to crush them and then give me the blame?!"

"Your hopes wasn’t exactly the only thing that was up" Monica joked, causing Chandler to give a short laugh, getting rid of some of the tension. But Chandler grew serious again after just a few seconds.

"Mon you couldn’t have done all of those things without wanting to hurt me."

Monica snorted.

"You know, all I wanted with that trick was to test your sincerity. So many men have put on caring and concerned acts for me this past year, only to get me into bed. I was unsure if you were doing the same thing, so I decided to give in slightly and see how far you’d take it. And don’t lie to me Chandler, if I hadn’t stopped it you would have wanted to sleep with me that night."

"Yes, but is it so hard to understand that a guy would want to have sex with his girlfriend? For the first time in, what was it back then, eleven months?"

"I guess not" Monica admitted. "But did you ever even try to see if from my point of view? Did you? To me we weren’t boyfriend or girlfriend, we never were as far as I remembered."

"You only remembered as far back as when you woke from the coma." Chandler pointed out.

"Not totally, I had a few other memories. But that’s beside the point. To me you were just a guy in the crowd that surrounded me. And I tried to figure out if you cared for me for who I was or because you wanted to get me in your bed. So I gave you a finger and you would have taken not only the hand but surely the arm and shoulder as well, if only you’d had the chance. And what did that tell me? It told me that you didn’t care about me, because just a bunch of kisses immediately made you plan on having sex."

"Well aren’t we the know-it-all lady?" Chandler said, annoyed again. "Did your memory get replaced by psychic powers? You know, nothing said I wanted to get into bed with you that night."

"It wasn’t very hard to figure out, I could notice the reactions in your body" Monica pointed out. "Frankly you’ve never been good at hiding things like that."

Chandler blushed and looked the other way.

"So I’m right, then" Monica concluded of his reaction. "But why we’re even discussing this is beyond me, we have more important things to talk about. I’ve answered your question now, would you mind telling me what you wanted to talk about?"

"You haven’t answered it really" Chandler said, and looked at her again. Then he quickly looked away. "You’ve blamed it on the amnesia. But I don’t have any strength at the moment to argue about that." He paused and looked down on his hands. Even though he felt the way he did now, he still wanted to know something. "Monica" he said, and his voice started to tremble. "Did I ever mean anything to you?"

"Honey you know you did."

"No, I mean…" he paused and realized she’d said ‘did’. Not ‘do’, ‘did’. But that shouldn’t matter to him now anyway. "I mean after the accident. Have I meant anything at all to you since it happened? Am I important to you?"

"Would I be sitting here if you weren’t?" Monica asked.

"I don’t know" Chandler said, sill looking at his hands. "Would you? Am I anything more to you now that the person you once loved? And Mon, this year must have answered the question for you, would your life had been any better or worse if I hadn’t been in it?"

"I believe I’ve asked you the same thing" was the answer.

"I’m not kidding around, Mon!" Chandler said, slightly desperate. "Won’t you just tell me? If I had died that day as well, if we’d both been hit… or if I’d moved someplace else, would your life have been any better or worse than it is now? Or if I’d left your life the night you remembered us?"

Monica thought about it carefully. She knew the definite answer, what she didn’t know was how to tell him exactly what her answer was, without getting into a long monologue.

Chandler saw her think, and he tried not to get affected by it. It shouldn’t matter to him anymore since he didn’t love her, right? But he knew deep inside that he wanted to know, he wouldn’t be able to put the past year behind him if he constantly had to wonder.

Then Monica surprised him by singing to him. She felt awkward doing it, but she couldn’t think of any simpler way to tell him than to quote a song.

"If I never knew you…" she sang. "If I never felt this love. I would have on inkling of how precious life can be." She blushed, feeling awkward and embarrassed as she sang the next verse as well. "And I’m so grateful to you. I would have lived my whole life through, lost forever, if I never knew you."

Chandler smiled slightly upon hearing her sing so carefully. One look at her told him she felt awkward, but the message went through. And he knew the song she sang.

"If I never knew you." he continued, speaking instead of singing. "I’d be safe but half as real. Never knowing I could feel a love so--" He interrupted himself and didn’t quite know how to finish. He knew the line, but what he didn’t know was if he dared to say it. It was contradicting what he now believed, but supporting what he’d thought before.

"A love so strong and true" Monica whispered, completing the line for him.

"You know something Mon, it’s the bridge of that song that appeals to me" he said, accusing her, and rose to his feet. "But I won’t quote the song anymore."

"What should that tell me?" Monica asked, and then quoted it. "I thought our love would be so beautiful. Somehow we’d make the whole world bright. I thought our love would be so beautiful. We’d turn the darkness into light. And still my heart keeps saying we were right." She looked up at him, he was pacing around in front of her. "The bridge is about being wrong at first, and then it ends with stating that maybe they weren’t wrong. What is it that you mean?"

"I don’t know!" Chandler said, and stopped pacing to look at her. "I really don’t know. I’m like the person in the song, I thought so many things of our love. Things I now know aren’t true!"

"And yet that bridge states that they were true!" Monica insisted. "And you know why? Because they were! It may not be true now, but one time it was!"

"It can’t be true at one point and untrue at the next!" Chandler said. "It’s just not the way it works!"

"Then how does it work?" Monica asked. "Would you come down from your Romantic-Vision cloud and live among the regular mortals? Love can be everything you thought it was, and then one day not be it any longer. The thing was that one love wasn’t strong enough. Maybe it was mine, maybe it was yours."

‘Or maybe it was both’ Chandler though, but he didn’t say it.

"Somewhere along the way one of us got tired of fighting" Monica continued. "And then that one of us gave up."

"There you go accusing me again!" Chandler said, frustrated.

"What?" Monica said. "No one’s accusing you of anything!"

"You are!" Chandler bawled. "‘Somewhere along the way one of us got tired…’ For crying out loud, first of all that sophisticated act isn’t working for you, no more than it would for me! And second, after all you’ve thrown at me tonight about how you still love me and you think I hate you, then who else could you be referring to, huh?"

"Yes, I was talking about you" Monica admitted in a whisper. "But I’m not blaming or accusing you!"

"Then what?"

"I am stating a simple fact!"

"Yeah, well you know what?" Chandler said, starting to pace again. "You know what? The first one to throw in the towel was you. And don’t give me any more amnesia bullshit. You stopped loving me a long time ago."

"Then how come I love you now?" Monica asked.

"Don’t ask me!" Chandler replied. "You know, I fought for you, for us, from the day you woke up from the coma until the night you were back with me."

"An ironic place to give up, wouldn’t you say?" Monica coldly said.

"Quiet, I’m talking now!" Chandler said, then continued. "Now, you on the other hand have been fighting for us for about ten hours. Is it so damn odd that I’ve given up and you haven’t? Compare a year to a day! Hours with months!"

"Now who’s trying to sound all sophisticated?" Monica said.

"Don’t give me any blame for us being here right now. Because I gave up the fight because of you. I gave up because every time I tried to make some progress with you, you would push me down!"

"That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t give up the fight until we were back together!"

"Yeah, well I guess you were right…" Chandler said, and came close to continuing the sentence by letting her know what he felt for her these days. But somehow he couldn’t.

"I may be a hypocrite and I may be a backstabber…" Monica said, looking right into his eyes, her look somehow forcing him to stop pacing. "But you are just a big of a hypocrite as I am. You said you couldn’t live without me. So why aren’t you dead yet?"

Chandler snorted.

"How does that make me a hypocrite? Am I a hypocrite for not jumping out in front of a train?"

"You told me that if I died, you couldn’t live."

"You didn’t die."

"You also told me that if I left you, you couldn’t live. That you needed me, that without me you couldn’t live. Well you’ve been living without me for a year and yet you aren’t dead. So you told lies as well."

"Mon, that’s just something I said!" Chandler explained, frustrated. He instantly knew what she was referring to when she said ‘as well’. She knew what had made him hate her.

"So then you’re even more of a hypocrite!" Monica said, upset. "You didn’t even mean it? Did you mean anything of what you said to me? Because I meant everything that I said to you!"

"Of course I meant it, I just didn’t mean it literally!"

"Then what the hell did you mean?"

"That without you I wouldn’t want to live!" Chandler said, and turned away from her gaze. "That my life would have no point if you weren’t in it."

"Well that must have been a lie anyway, because your life seems to have had a point either way." Monica calmly said.

"Damn it Monica, you know what I meant by what I said!" Chandler yelled, though not turning to face her. "You know damn well! What did you mean yourself when you said that?"

"That if you died, I couldn’t live." Monica simply said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Chandler turned.

"Yeah, well then what did you mean when you told me I would never have to be in pain because of our love? What did you really mean when you promised that no matter what happened you would love me?"

"I meant every word I said…" Monica assured him. "Only I didn’t realize that you can’t truly promise things like that, because it’s out of your control. Nothing in the world could have made me think I wouldn’t love you anymore one day, when I said those things to you."

"Weather or not you knew, or thought something like this could happen, you still lied to me. And you let me down. You broke the promise, and now I’m the one who’s getting the blame for it."

"Blame?" Monica asked, surprised. "Who’s given you any blame? If anyone’s to blame, Pete is!"

"No, I didn’t mean the blame for the accident…" Chandler said, finding himself completely calm all of a sudden. At least now they were talking like normal people, and not yelling at each other. "What I mean is that you’re the one that lied and I’m the one who’s standing here getting heat for it!"

"You’ve gotten it wrong" Monica said. "But who cares anyway, it doesn’t change anything. Does it?"

"No of course it doesn’t!" Chandler said, thought he wasn’t too sure.

"Look Chandler, what do you want from me?" Monica asked. "I know you’re angry and you’re hurt, but what is it that you want? If you don’t tell me then how do you imagine getting it?"

"It doesn’t matter because it’s nothing you can give me."

"What? What is it?"

Chandler looked at her for a second, with a look in his eyes that she’d never seen before.

"I want my girlfriend back. I want the woman that I loved and trusted back. Not this person you are now. Don’t you think I know just how different you are? You claim that you’re not different, that it’s the memory thing that’s making you unsure. I knew you better than anyone else one year ago. And I can tell exactly in what ways you have changed. And I don’t like it. What I want is the Monica Geller that fell in love with me and that I fell in love with, back."

"So what you’re saying is…" Monica whispered, as she rose to her feet, "that I’m not good enough as I am? That changing is not allowed?"

"Changes are, but not these kind of changes. Not the kind that makes you so different that I don’t feel like I know you at all."

"I’m still the same person, weather you can see it or not!" Monica insisted.

"Same person?" Chandler asked, his voice filled with spite. "Oh damn it, you’re so different from who you were that you can’t even tell you’re related to my girlfriend!"

"So what’s the deal here?" Monica asked, trying not to let his anger affect her. "Must I pretend that I’m someone else for all time?" she asked, quoting a line from the song that she always had in her head, and then she continued with another line from the song. "Must there be a secret Me I’m forced to hide?"

"Don’t play any games with me, Mon…" Chandler said. "Don’t play the guilt-trip game with me."

"I’m not doing that, I am asking you!" Monica objected. "How can you even ask that I should be the person I once was? You’re not the same person you were last year! You’ve changed, maybe not as much as I have, but almost!"

"Is that so odd?" Chandler asked, calming slightly. "Is it so weird that what’s happened has made me different?"

"You are so blind!" Monica cried. "Don’t you realize that I’m different because of that too? It’s not just you who’s been different since everything that’s happened since the accident. What did you think it was that made me different? I didn’t change just to give you misery, or because I felt like it. I changed because something serious happened to me, I nearly died and my life ever since has been turned upside down!"

Chandler bit his lower lip, ashamed. He knew she was right, he just hadn’t really thought about it.

"I guess that gives me yet another reason" he said.

"Reason for what?" Monica asked.

When he didn’t reply, she slowly sank back down on the couch, looking up at him. She didn’t know that he was thinking that since they both had changed so much they might not be a good couple anymore. That maybe it was their past selves that had been meant to be, but that the people they now were shouldn’t be going out. All she knew was that something was on his mind, and she had a pretty good idea what.

"Just say it" she said. "Just tell me what you wanted to tell me. That you hate me."

Chandler looked down at her and begun to move his head in a nod. But then he stopped himself. For some reason it was still so very hard to say those words to her, or even just to admit it with a nod. How could he just tell someone he’d loved for so long that he now only felt hate? And at the same time, how could someone he hated make it hard for him to admit it? That should be the easiest part. But it was almost as telling someone that you loved them for the first time.

‘Why is that?’ he thought. ‘I mean, when you tell someone that you love them for the first time it is hard for two reasons. One is because you’re scared they won’t say it back. But why on earth would I be scared of Monica not saying that she hates me too? I should be wishing for her not to say that. And the second reason why it’s hard to confess love is because you don’t know how the person will react. But once again, why would I care how Mon reacts?’

He took one more look at her, and then he knew for sure.

"Monica, I don’t hate you" he said, meaning it with all his heart. And the surprised and relieved look on her face touched his heart. "No, you are wrong about that. I don’t hate you." He sat down in front of her on the coffee table and took her hands. "One thing I’ve learned over and over this year is that you can’t hate someone that you love. You don’t have the energy or the strength for it. I’ve tried to hate you at times, sometimes I’ve actually hated you for being in my heart so that I couldn’t hate you."

"Sounds confusing" Monica said, so low that he barely heard it.

"I guess…" he admitted. "And I know that they say that you can’t truly hate someone that you haven’t loved, but to be able to do that your love has to pass first. And mine hasn’t for you. I love you, I do. That’s why I haven’t been able to say that I hate you, you actually had me thinking that I did. But I realized just minutes ago that there can never be anything but love for you inside of me."

"Chandler that’s sweet…" Monica said, looking into his eyes with the eyes of a child. "You know I love you too. But where does all of this leave us? And how come we’re in this situation to begin with?"

"Because I couldn’t let it go" Chandler said. "The baby, I mean. And when I started to fight with you about that it was as if I took out all the pain and anger that’s been kept inside of me for so long, and you weren’t prepared for that. And you thought that I hated you, and in that moment when we argued in bed I might have hated you. On some level, at least. But I think that all of the pain, grief and misery has been like a veil over my eyes these past days. I haven’t seen you as Monica, I’ve seen you as the woman who’s put me through way too much. And these past few days I have hated you, because I haven’t seen you as you…" He smiled. "Now I’m sounding all confusing again."

"Where does this leave us?" Monica asked again.

"Wherever you want it to" Chandler softly said. "I’ll forgive you everything if you do the same with me. And then we can start from there. If you think it’s all worth it. And if not then maybe we can still remain friends."

"I don’t see how you could forgive me everything I’ve put you through, just like that!"

"Because even though I’ve said otherwise recently, you’ve been right. It’s not you who did all of this to me. I mean, it was you, but not you."

"You’re getting more and more confusing" Monica whispered, with a smile. "What about how different we are now?" she asked, wanting to be completely sure that everything was as it should before she gave him an answer.

"No matter how different you are, I still love you so."

"You told a different story just minutes ago." Monica reminded him.

"The veil has lifted" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I can’t explain it. I was so convinced that I hated your guts that it made me seek for more reasons to hate you, just to make the break easier. But I don’t hate you… I love you… I want to be with who you were. That’s the only thing I really wish for, that’s my eldorado… But on the other hand I don’t want to live without you, no matter what you’re like now." He felt something that resembled tears coming, although he knew he wouldn’t cry. "I have been forced to live without you for so long, and I don’t want to do that anymore."

"Chandler you said something different just a short while ago!"

"I know… But the point is that I want you. Do you want me?"

Monica leaned closer and kissed him, sweetly and lovingly. That was all the answer he needed.

"I forgive you everything…" he mumbled in her hair, when they hugged each other, seconds before he went to get the pizza that had arrived.

"I do the same with you" Monica whispered back. "But there’s still something you need to forgive me of, even though you just said you forgave everything."

Chandler sat next to her on the couch, holding her close. She was crying, memories washing over her as she told him everything, let him know exactly what had been going on the year before. Exactly why he didn’t get to know he was going to have a child.

"I came really close to rushing over to you at work and letting you know" she said, recalling the day she’d found out for sure. "But then something got in the way, I honestly don’t remember what now, and so I was going to wait until you’d gotten home. But when you did you’d had such a rough day, I could tell instantly, and you didn’t say much that night. I feared that a baby would bring you down even more. If you were feeling low and all of a sudden got to hear you were going to have a child, something you weren’t 100% for, the chances were that you’d get more depressed. So I decided to tell you when you were in a good mood, because I knew that if you were, you’d be happy to hear it."

"I was in a good mood plenty of times between our anniversary and the accident" Chandler calmly pointed out.

"Yes you were. But see, I then realized that your birthday was only a few weeks away."

[Author’s note: Yeah, I know Chandler’s birthday is somewhere in March or April, but since Ross gets to have 3 birthdays I figured Chandler might as well get to have 2 (plus if he doesn’t then this doesn’t make much sense)]

Monica looked up at him for the first time since she’d started telling her story. She looked him right in the eyes.

"And I made up my mind that I would tell you on your birthday. As sort of a gift for you. But I never got the chance, I was in that accident before your birthday. And that’s why you found out the way you did."

Chandler kissed her on the forehead and pulled her closer, as she slowly stopped crying. Now he knew. And now he could make his peace with it all, and hopefully help Monica to restore their relationship.