Word Count: 2020
Summary: "I don't believe in soulmates either." S08E16
Disclaimer: I don't own Friends or the characters.

He opened the door to his apartment, finding her there, crying. She was dressed in her pajamas, a robe she kept tightly against her to keep the cold from the hall away from her body. She looked like a small child that just woke up from a nightmare, except that she wasn't a child, and the nightmare was her entire life.

His thoughts drift off for just a second to when he was a child himself, holding tightly to his own robe, his hair wet from the rain, his breathing irregular from the running and crying, standing in front of his grandmother's front door. She held him as he cried, telling him everything was going to be okay.

That had been a week after that fateful thanksgiving. A week since his father had left to Las Vegas, a week since his mom had been barely seen by anyone in the house. His grandmother held him in her arms as the rain poured outside and she led him inside. He fell asleep on her couch, a couch he found himself in so many times during his childhood, during his teenage years when he wasn't in the all-boys school that made him far away from everyone. Not that he had cared at the time.

But that couch and his grandmother were the only comforting things he had missed. And he was no longer allowed to have her arms wrapped around him soothing him, her sweet words in his ear making him believe that everything was okay even though he barely believed.

In that second he could hear her last words, telling him that everything was going to be okay just one last time.

But he was no longer that kid. And neither was her.

In that second that took for him to react, as he thought about his own past, he gave her a small, sad smile as he took her in his arms and allowed her to cry on his shoulder.

He heard Joey appear from his bedroom, asking if everything was okay. He just nodded and told him to go back to bed.

She continued to cry.

He led her into the couch, and she put her head in his chest, still crying. He tried to make her talk, but the crying kept coming and he could only rub small circles in her back as she cried.

He didn't know why she was crying. Maybe it was her mother again, reminding his best friend that she was never going to get married and have children. Maybe it was something at work. Maybe it was Richard – the guy that broke her heart, her last chance to have everything she ever wanted, the guy that Chandler wanted to yell at for making his friend so miserable. Or maybe it was everything, added to her own pressures to make everything perfect..

Or was it because of the whole Ross and Rachel thing that was an on-going problem that never seemed to end despite their failed attempt to be just friends? Even Chandler knew that even though they looked like they were able to be just friends, there were feelings there no matter what. 'why can't those two just work things out?' he thought.

Monica had stopped crying and was just sniffing now, trying to cover up the fact that she had been crying despite the huge stain of tears in Chandler's pajama shirt.

"Sorry." She says, her voice hoarse from all the crying.

"What happened?" He asks, his voice as low as he could, making sure that only she heard, to make sure that Joey was able to sleep.

"I had dinner with my parents tonight. My mom-" Chandler interrupts her.

"Forget about her, please. You're going to find someone." He gives her a small smile, that makes her feel a little better. She knew her gut was right coming to him instead of Rachel, that would probably end up complaining about her own love life.

"How do you know that? Maybe I am destined to just die alone in that apartment with nothing but emptiness." She was being ridiculous, she knew that. But there was a part of her that wasn't entirely sure about whether or not she was actually going to find someone, and that part of her really thought that everyone was going to leave her eventually.

"Well, you won't be alone. I'll be there." He pulls her closer to him - if that was even possible.

"No, you won't. You'll meet someone, fall in love, and leave me. Everyone will." Although this was her moment to hate herself, her self-pity moment, she couldn't help but reassure Chandler that he wasn't going to die alone like Mr. Heckels.

"Why would we do that Mon?" He pulls her face a up enough to be able to see her, and to make sure she sees him. He looks around, in search of the right words. His mind drifts to his grandmother and him, sitting on that comfortable couch, her telling him he was smart, cute, and the funniest guy she had ever met. That he wasn't destined to be his parents. He swallows his own metaphorical tears that should've started to form – if he was normal and was able to cry. "You're smart and beautiful, and you love taking care of us. None of us will ever be able to leave you behind. Who else would make us such delicious food, anyway?" He smiles, but she just hides her face.

When she finally speaks, her voice is barely audible.

"I'm a clean freak, with a tendency to be fat if I'm not careful enough, I want things my way, I'm loud." She untangles herself from him and looks him in the eyes. "Who would want that?"

He understands what she's trying to do. He decides to play the same game.

"I'm a sarcastic idiot," he takes a breath when she looks questioningly at him and then continues with a small smile he can't seem to hide. "I don't know when to shut up, I'm messy, and I run from commitment. Who would want that?"

She stares at him, suddenly at the loss of words. He just smiles at her.

"See, we all have our things. Joey doesn't treat women right but is amazing with his friends, Phoebe is... well Phoebe" he laughs a little at that, and she cracks a smile. "And well, Ross and Rachel don't seem to understand that they belong together." He stops for a moment, thinkinf about whether or not he should continue. But when he looks at her face, expecting to be comforted, he decides to open up "My grandma used to tell me everything eventually ends up being okay, and then some cliché like 'there's a piece for every puzzle' or something like that." He looks away from her for a moment, remembering his prom night, dancing with his grandma in the middle of her living room as he stepped on her feet and apologized, her laughing all the way. "Apparently it took my grandma a long time to understand that it was my grandfather the missing puzzle piece." Chandler looks lost in thought for a little while, and Monica just looks at him.

"What happened to him?" It was the first time since she met him that he actually talked about anyone of his family that wasn't his parents without anyone telling him to.

"Alzheimer's." He says and looks at Monica with a sad smile. "I was 5. It was hard to lose him, but it was harder for my grandma. Before she used to say that they were soulmates, meant to live forever together. Then he got sick and started to forget about her. When he died, like really died because to all of us he had been dying for a long time now, she started saying that soulmates weren't real because if they were then he wouldn't have died."

"So you don't believe in soulmates?" He shook his head.

"You do?"

"I believe that with a little effort you can keep a relationship. I mean, Ross and Rachel are supposed to be lobsters or something, and even they couldn't stay together."

Chandler had enough conversations about lobsters with Phoebe to know that they would eventually find each other again. Some could call it wishful thinking, others could say Phoebe was psychic. But Chandler believed her. Maybe it was because he always, even if it was just a little bit, believed everything that Phoebe said.

"They will. Eventually, they'll understand that they are meant to be."

Monica laughs a little, as Chandler stares at her puzzled. She was no longer that woman that showed up at his doorstep crying. The conversation took a different turn somewhere along the way. Like most of their conversations.

"You sound like Phoebe right now. I think you two spend to much time together."

Chandler smiles and shrugs. He liked spending time with Phoebe. She knew the world differently than the way he was taught at school. Sure, most of the things she said weren't true, but he still liked to see her perspective. He also wished to be a little more like her. Despite her childhood, she was still able to laugh and be so carefree. He wanted that.

They stay in comfortable silence for a few moments, until Monica looks at him again.

"You really believe I'll find someone?"

Chandler smiles. He knew the conversation would go back to that. "Someone like you, that works so hard at everything? Yeah, you'll meet your soulmate."

It was Monica's turn to look puzzled. "I thought you didn't believe in soulmates."

"I don't. But I guess that soulmates could mean something different. You know, two people who fell in love and work hard in their relationship." Monica smiles and shakes her head, enjoying that new definition. "You'll find your soulmate Mon. I promise."

"Your grandparents were each other soulmates, and you believe that don't you?"

"They worked hard on their relationship until the day they were no longer together. I think she was just angry at him for dying so soon." He shrugs, smiling. "It was today, you know?" He doesn't even allow her the time to look puzzled before answering. "It's the anniversary of his death." Chandler looks at her. "I miss them, but I know that wherever they are, they are together."

She grabs his hand and squeezes it. "And working hard in their relationship."

When Monica tells him she knows exactly what she's going to write in her vows, she didn't know it was going to be this hard. She knows what she's going to write, of course. She didn't lie. She wants to use his definition of soulmate somewhere along with the vows, wanting to remind him she hadn't forgotten. Hoping he hadn't forgotten either.

The girls show up, and she's reminded of her past relationships, her past memories of her with the one she's spending the rest of her life with. She remembers their weird conversations in the middle of the night outside on the balcony or on that couch across the hall, before they were even in a relationship.

He was always her soulmate. Even when they were both searchings for that one person to share their life with, he was her soulmate. She just hoped he remembered that night.

That guy Don could be her soulmate if her definition of a soulmate was the one everyone else had. She understood at that moment that her soulmate – her real soulmate, the one she married – didn't remember their definition when she's staring at him asking if he doesn't believe in soulmates.

When she tells him that she doesn't believe in soulmates either, that she believes that they weren't destined to end up together, that they fell in love and worked hard in their relationship, there's a fraction of a second where she realizes he remembered. In that fraction of second, she understands that he had indeed forgotten – it was, after all, after three am when they had that conversation and was probably too tired to function – but he remembered.

He tells her he'll take her to a restaurant with mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers. She doesn't look very thrilled but understands right there that all those years ago, he was right. You have to work really hard to make a relationship work.

The End

This was my first Friends story, and it took a different turn than I was expecting. In the beginning I was writing so that they would end up hooking up earlier. But then I changed ideas and wrote about soulmates. It always bothered me that Monica said that Chandler was her soulmate in her vows but then said she didn't believe in soulmates. This was my attempt to "fix" it.

Hope everyone enjoys it.