"Okay, let me ask you something: if what you and your wife have is so great, then why are you spending Christmas with me?!"

Afterwards Chandler's thoughts kept returning to that one point in time, that single moment when Wendy had thrown that loaded question at him, probably expecting quite a different reaction from him than the one she got. Wendy of all people, his pert, mischievous, reckless, bored, boisterously playful colleague, the regional Vice-president who was just below him (and would she have blown him as Monica so readily misunderstood? You betcha!) and whether this sudden advance on him had really been as spontaneous and careless as she'd made it seem or she had planned it beforehand to spice up another boring work assignment over another boring holiday season he would never know. Not that he really cared anyway. Well, maybe a little – he did wonder if she would have played the same game if it would have been some other guy the corporation had manipulated into this idiotic useless work stint on Christmas Eve of all times or if it really had all been about him. That thought almost made him sneer. Sexy in Oklahoma? Yeah, right. What difference did it make?

If he kept at it much longer, he'd soon end up obsessing about it like Monica. Monica, who was probably wondering if Wendy was doing him on his desk right now. First wondering, then getting stuck with it, ending up obsessing about it and tearing herself up over it, thoroughly spoiling her Christmas and whose fault was that? His and his alone.

After Wendy's question he'd stood rooted at the spot and gaped at her openmouthed for what seemed like an eternity to him but had probably taken only a few seconds. Okay, half a minute or so. Still, long enough for her expression to change from sulky and defiant to puzzled and even hopeful concern. While he was wondering if what he'd just had could be called a real, honest-to-god true epiphany. Although, if yes, being what he was, it was probably the kind of epiphany that was not only long overdue, but also rather obvious, the kind of conclusion anybody else who was more levelheaded and reasonable and not as overly entangled in insecurities and minority complexes would have arrived at way earlier, at a much more suitable time than on a Christmas Eve in a strange city, far away from home and his wife and friends, on the brink of getting entrapped by a bored and mischievous colleague, and all through nobody's else's fault but his own.

It was strange to think that sometime in the past – the pre-Monica past – he wouldn't have been averse to Wendy's advances at all, would in fact have welcomed them, even instigated them himself if the idea of making a pass at the Miss Oklahoma runner-up would not have been too daunting. Now the very idea of ever getting entangled with her had him break out in a cold sweat. He could see it all before him so clearly, the whispers and sneers of his colleagues, the winks and fake smiles, the allusions, the rumors that would spread with light-speed all through the corporation before he even realized it was happening. Maybe it had started already? Make that 'probably'. Almost certainly. And of course it would get to Monica first thing and even if she believed him and stood by him, at some point the rumors and endless uncertainty would wear her down until their marriage was ruined. And for what?

"Right" he said then, or at least that's what he wanted to say. What he'd actually said, well squeaked, sounded more like a stifled croak and had him try to clear his throat and start over while Wendy looked on, her expression now bewildered and maybe even a bit scornful.

"You're totally right. I shouldn't be here. I should go home too." He checked the time, automatically deducting one hour time difference while as always when he did that a small part in his mind fondly remembered the days he'd had to deduct five hours instead, and winced. "Oh god. I'll never get there in time!"

"What? Where?"

"The airport. The next plane's in an hour already. 55 minutes actually. I still need to get my things –and the hotel, cancel the room, return the car –"

"Or – you could just take a cab to the airport and go home as you are." Wendy suggested, her earlier playful mischievousness suddenly replaced by calm efficiency. "And leave the rest to me."

Chandler gaped at her again. "Wow. That's – wow. You'd do that?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Go on, go home. I'll cover for you. You go home, celebrate Christmas, make up with the wife, have a good time." She grinned. "You deserve it, for sending the others home and sticking your neck out for us. You really deserve your Christmas." She put on a big reassuring smile while she picked up the phone and Chandler very much wanted to agree with her. Yeah, that was it, the perfect solution, just call a cab and go home, catch that flight and get home in time to celebrate Christmas. Maybe miss dinner and the opening of the presents, but maybe still in time to catch the gang still around the tree, definitely in time to be reunited with Monica and make her forget any weird ideas she might have entertained after that phone conversation. At least until the time he had to leave again – and then what?

He only realized he'd said it out loud when she arched an eyebrow at him. "What? Don't worry about that. Nobody will check on you here. You can leave and get back with no one the wiser. Go on, go." Her smile turned a little wistful. "Consider it my Christmas present."

He could only gape at her again, at a loss for words for once and all he could think of was how Monica would hate this when he told her. IF he told her, but how could he not? She was bound to squeeze it out of him sooner or later anyway, there was no way around it, and then she would start obsessing about it, tearing herself up about the fact that another woman had done him a favor, made it possible for him to come home to her, so that in fact she, Monica, owed her too, and she would never let it rest, never be able to quit unless – right. There it was.

"I quit" he said, his voice suddenly sounding hollow to his ears. "I have to quit."

Now it was Wendy's turn to gape.

.

Then suddenly he found himself in his office and firing up his laptop to send his resignation to the corporate headquarters in New York (with a distant part of his mind musing a little on the irony that although the email would arrive in New York much sooner than he would, Elaine and his other superiors would probably only read it long after he'd made it back home), grimly navigating and typing until the finished message hung there on the screen, ready to be sent. Just one final click and it would be over. Twelve years of his life in a job he kept telling himself he hated and yet couldn't let go because without it – what? He'd starve? Lose everything? Be nobody and nothing?

Of course he wouldn't actually starve. At least not as long as his wife was a chef. So what?

His safety net, that was it. He'd lose the safety, the refuge that enabled him to break free from his parents and also ensured he would never ever become like them, estranging him completely from them and his childhood. Actually that had been the decisive factor in his choice of jobs once he'd finished college, taking the one that promised to be the most boring and tedious of all, where things like creativity and talent weren't required, plus the one that looked like it would be only temporary, something to get him off on a good start until he found out what he really wanted to do. And it had worked too for a while, worked out quite great in fact. It was only a job for crying out loud, just a boring, ridiculous office job that never let him completely shake the feeling that he was only faking it, that in all those years – twelve years in fact, twelve unbelievable years! – he had never really achieved anything that could be reasonably called actual work instead of just fooling around, playing those numbers, mixing and distorting them until they seemed to make some kind of sense to his superiors if not to him. That is if he actually did try to work instead of just killing the long and boring office hours with stupid games and daydreams. Where in the whole wide world would he find a job like that again, where they would pay him – ridiculously overpay him in fact - for doing nothing much at all?

And yet he had tried exactly that once. Seven years ago he had made an effort to wrench free and look for something else. But all it had gotten him was more money, increasing amounts of money, all giftwrapped in generous pension plans and yearly bonus structures that he hadn't been able to refuse and that in the end had trapped him even more firmly and ultimately in the hated job, manipulating him into thinking that he would never be able to succeed at anything else and it would be sheer insanity to give it up. Something only a blithering fool would do, someone who was selfish enough to believe that his friends and next of kin would support him if his crazy plans of being self-employed and independent should fail. Someone like his parents. Someone who never had a friend depending on his always being able to pay the rent and the phone bill, to name a few. So at some point or other he could no longer even see the point of trying to leave and even stopped thinking about it, only going through the motions whenever a chance for a change was offered and always blowing it some way or other.

Until now. Now that he realized how much he'd been manipulated and fooled all the time he remembered something he'd once read, how you went about it if you wanted to boil a frog. The trick was to increase the heat so slowly that the frog didn't notice the water was getting warmer and would stay put -

"I can't believe you want to quit." Wendy had followed him to his office without his noticing and now stood much too close to his chair, craning her head to read his email.

"I have to." Chandler was surprised at how calm he sounded. "If I don't do it now, they'll send me away again. And maybe next time they'll really send me to Yemen!"

"Yemen?"

"Long story. Listen, did you get me that cab?"

"Yeah, but –"

"Great, thanks." And Chandler looked at the email again, took a deep breath and clicked on 'send'. For a long moment time seemed to stand still while he stared at the screen, his hand frozen on the mouse, then Wendy made a move – probably inadvertent, but who knew – and it was enough to make him let out the breath he'd been holding in, jump up, collect his laptop, briefcase and coat and then walk out of his office as fast as he could. Almost running in fact, and not just from Wendy's clutches but the corporation's clutches as well, those tentacles that had entangled and bound him for so long, firmly holding him down in the pot while the water kept getting hotter and hotter. When he came to the elevators he saw that they were all downstairs and swerved aside to take the stairs instead.

"Chandler, wait!" Wendy of course, and if she had followed him down the stairs, he would have really tried to outrun her and probably broken a leg, but mercifully she stopped just at the head of the stairs, looking down at him, and he made an effort to pull himself together.

"It's okay, don't mind me" he panted. "I'll be okay. They'll send someone else. Look on it this way, you won't have to do all that work!"

Wendy curled her lip. "Nah. They'll just send one of those stupid New York jerks again. One who won't send us home."

Chandler grinned wryly. "Then you'll have to show him how it's done. Or wait, hey, maybe they'll give you the job!"

That made her stare and then smile tentatively. Chandler waved her goodbye and continued down the stairs. Just before he took the next turn, he heard her calling after him.

"Merry Christmas!"

.

It was only after he'd caught the plane and was securely settled in his seat that the enormity of what he'd done caught up with him and had him almost whimpering in sheer panic. He had quit his job, thereby cutting off his substantial capital source, practically the foundation of his life, turning him from a fairly well paid executive to an unemployed parasite living on his wife's earnings. What had he been thinking? Why all the haste? Alright there had been Wendy, all ready to sink her claws into him the second he hesitated, but surely he could have run out on her without sending that email? Maybe he could still phone Elaine, tell her to ignore it. Chandler frantically fumbled for his phone, patting his coat pockets, which still held those damn envelopes with the phony "Christmas bonus" in them and nothing else, and them even took his coat off to turn the pockets inside out before he finally realized that his phone was where he'd put it this morning after talking to Monica – on his night stand, probably still charging too - and slumped back on his seat.

"I hope you're not looking for your cigarettes."

He hadn't noticed the stewardess who had just tended to another passenger in the row behind him and now looked him over as he grinned at her ruefully while he wrecked his brain for her name. Typical, she'd been on most of all those flights to Tulsa and back since he almost always took the same airline, and he remembered no end of things she'd told him during their casual chats – how her arches were killing her nearly all the time or getting adjusted to her eldest kid leaving for college and most of all, how her duty roster played hell with her efforts to lose weight - but drew a total blank as far as her name was concerned. Tanya? Tess? Something like that, or was it Tina? "Umm – hi. No, actually I was looking for my phone …" Upon seeing her frown, he added hastily "Good thing then I left it in my room, I guess!" As she visibly relaxed and smiled at him, he managed to steal a look at her nameplate. Terry! He heaved a sigh of relief which he barely managed to turn into a cough when she looked puzzled again. "Um … Terry, do you think you could get me some water – later, I mean?"

"Sure, no problem," she said briskly, and then added shyly "Say, I'm glad you're going home for Christmas after all. When you told me you had to work over Christmas, I felt really bad for you."

"And New Year!" he added, grinning wryly.

"Right! So, looks like they let you off the hook after all, huh?"

For a mad moment Chandler was tempted to just blurt out the truth. That he'd just quit his job, that this was probably the last time she would see him again, because he was going home for good – and then found he couldn't do it. Not because he was afraid of hurting her, their acquaintance was too casual for that, but because he had suddenly realized that if he did that, if he told someone else, said it out loud, then – then it would be real. There would be no going back after that. And he wasn't sure if he was ready for that. This way would still leave him a loophole, make it possible for him to take it all back, talk to Elaine before it was too late, grovel and beg until she relented, bear the grumbling and veiled threats of his superiors and sweat it out until it all returned to normal and he was back in the old job again, back in the old rut, the day-to-day routine he'd gotten so used to that he no longer knew how to get out of it even when he already had.

"Must have been the Christmas spirit" he said instead and put on a wide fake grin when she laughed.

.

Until they had finally touched down at JFK and he got up to join the other passengers leaving the plane he kept feeling the urge to confide in someone, Terry or one of the other stewardesses or even his fellow passengers. The enormity of what he had done was weighing on him, with the pressure steadily increasing until he was sure it would burst out of him uncontrollably at some point, making him jump up and yell 'I just quit my job!' at the top of his voice. The only thing that held him back was fear of the reaction he would get: enervated indifference at best, scathing derision at worst – if he would be able to even perceive it, for Chandler glumly suspected that he'd die of shame immediately after his outburst. Or burst into flames. Or both. Probably both.

What also held him back was Monica. How would she feel if she heard the news only after he'd told everybody else he'd met on the way to her? Didn't she deserve to be the first to know, wasn't she the one most directly affected? The money he earned was hers too, a good deal of it went into the savings they had set up together to finance a future he had half-jokingly outlined for her two years ago, soon after their engagement, the one that had let her give up on her long cherished dream of a big fancy wedding and opt for a marriage on a solid financial basis instead. Which he just had seriously jeopardized. If anyone, it was her who would have to make the ultimate decision whether he should really give up his job or take back his notice, phone Elaine and eat crow, throw himself at her mercy.

After he'd reached that conclusion, the urge seemed indeed to fade away. There was a sticky moment when he passed Terry at the door of the plane and realized that this was probably the last time he would see her. No more talks about the merits of green tea or her wife's handbag collection, or the time she'd been elected for jury duty, or the quirks and habits of other regular passengers. When she smiled at him and added a 'Merry Christmas' to the usual "Thank you for flying with us" he almost froze, mumbling a choked-up 'Thanks, you too' before turning away.

The next part was almost too easy. Since he had no luggage except his briefcase with his laptop and his coat, he beat the crowds to the exit and got a cab right away which had to count for a minor Christmas miracle at least. And more luck still, the cab driver seemed disinclined to talk which was a relief. Chandler checked the time and set his watch forward for one hour for what he hoped was the last time too. Back on New York time. Or rather, that special time he and Monica had been on since London.

When the cab deposited him in Bedford Street near his building, it had gone dark already. Even though the ride itself had seemed indeterminably long, Chandler suddenly felt that it had gone much too fast as he fumbled for his credit card. Then the cab driver cocked his head at the sky.

"Huh, look at that. You got really lucky there with that snow. Half an hour tops we woulda' been stuck."

The driver was right, it had started snowing, big soft flakes gently floating through the air to the ground, and for some reason Chandler felt his heart lighten with it. He got home. Home for Christmas with snow to boot.

"Merry Christmas" he told the driver as he added a large tip to the fare. As the cab took off, Chandler dug through his pockets for his keys, feeling the usual panic of having lost them looming until he found them and let himself in, and then his earlier nervousness returning as he climbed the stairs to #20. All five flights which gave him ample time to rethink what he had done and beat himself up with it over and over.

Had it really been the right decision? For god's sake, they were trying to make a baby! How could he even think of quitting when they needed all the financial security they could get? It had to be total madness. Yet how could they really go through with it, focus on that task and give it their best shot if he was more than a thousand miles away for most of the time? How could he give the matter his whole attention when he was torn up between his home and his workplace week after week after week?

No, it had to be the right decision. The only decision. Especially if it meant there would be no more questionable bedspreads, no more frustrated attempts at phone sex with Monica, or even more frustrated and lonely stints watching porn on some worn out TV set, and no more hapless attempts at hide and seek with Joey. No more missing out on the get-togethers of his friends with all the fun and laughter he could not share because he was away. No more waking up at night because he'd felt Monica prodding him to stop him snoring and realizing he'd only imagined it when he reached out and there was no one in the bed with him. No more lonely mornings when he was woken not by Monica's gentle but insistent kiss, but by the insistent and anything but gentle alarm function of his phone. And last but not least, no more smoking for hours on end, pack after pack, always conscious of Monica's fierce disapproval and hating himself for his weakness yet unable to shake off the vicious habit on his own, fully aware that Monica would give him hell every time she detected as much as a whiff of smoke on him. The one time he'd actually stood up to her had very nearly ended in disaster. Granted, it had also been a thrill, lighting that cigarette while facing up to her death stare, up to the moment when he had been at a loss to continue and somehow hoping she would show him how to disentangle them from that grim and somehow pointless stand-off. Which she had, and moreover in a completely unexpected way. She'd wanted them to have sex. Not because she was turned on, but only because no matter how incongruous it was they needed to do it so she could get pregnant. And as soon as they got down to it and he was taking off his clothes, almost choking himself on his tie in the procedure, he got more and disgusted with himself and the way his clothes reeked and the filthy smoke still almost coming out his ears. In the end he had only been able to go through with it when she made him believe that they had made up again. That time had actually been one of their more memorable sessions when he had tried to lose himself in their love-making, the scent and taste of her completing enveloping him until all traces of the cigarettes got wiped off – or so he had believed until she took up their fight with fresh energy once her goal was accomplished. Of course, the whole thing had turned out well – no small thanks to Joey and his matter-of-fact advice – and they'd made up for good later that evening, concluding it with a long hot soak in a scented bath. But whenever the memory of that fight surfaced, the thought of how different it could have ended gave Chandler goosebumps. What if Monica hadn't been ovulating? What if they hadn't needed to attend Phoebe's birthday party? There was so much that could have gone wrong. And all because of his need to smoke which was caused by Tulsa which was caused by his job.

That hateful nightmare of a job that after twelve years of plodding, faking, fooling around, worrying and simply enduring he had finally quit for good.

It had taken all five flights of stairs for Chandler to come to terms with his decision, and the relief almost made him giddy. When he came to his door and let himself in, all his doubts and worries had been pushed into the background for the time being. All that mattered now was that he was home. Home with Monica and with his friends, and for good too.

Home for Christmas.