prologue (1)

**[Monica's Apartment]**

"Okay, great, bye…" Monica said, turning off the phone as Chandler entered the apartment.

"So guess who's coming to Thanksgiving dinner?" she asked him.

"Sidney Poitier," Chandler replied sarcastically, prompting her to say, "Oh, I miss Rachel."

"No, my parents," she said.

"Oh, that's great. They haven't seen the place since I moved in."

"Yeah, you know, if you could not mention to them that we're living together, that would be great. I was thinking we could eat around 4," she said, turning towards the sink.

Chandler, a bit bewildered, asked while moving closer to her, "And why can't we tell them that we live together?"

"Because they don't know that we're dating," she answered.

"Do you think we should eat in the kitchen?"

"Why haven't you told them?" Chandler asked.

"Well, I was going to; I really was, but then, out of nowhere, I didn't," she said. However, the way she was moving her hands around and trying to keep herself busy clearly indicated that she was hiding something.

"Why didn't you tell them? Wouldn't they be happy?" Chandler asked again, his voice rising slightly. But Monica dodged the question, saying, "So, dinner in the kitchen around four," and moved away from him.

Before they could delve deeper into the conversation, a sound of knocking came from the door.

*Knock, knock.*

"I'll get it," Monica said quickly, moving towards the door. She opened it to see who it was, as she was quite sure it wasn't anyone from her usual group; they didn't knock…

"Hey, Mon, it's been a while," the man said. Although referring to him as a man was misleading, as he appeared to be 19; she couldn't remember his exact age right away though—The last time she saw him in person, he had been twelve and going to Harvard.

"Dan!!!, oh my god!!!, what are you doing here?" Monica exclaimed, launching herself into a bear hug, breaking his 'I look cool' posture against the door frame and prompting him to drop his duffel bag to return the embrace.

"I got evicted, so I came to crash on your couch for a few days while my apartment gets ready," he replied after breaking the hug.

"Evicted? How can you get evicted? Where did you live? You're not even 20 yet—what did you do?!" Monica went into full-on Mom mode in seconds, dragging him inside.

"Hey, it's not my fault, okay? Dr. Watson, our chief of surgery, kicked me out, saying something about 'you can't live in the hospital's on-call rooms policy and you need more human contact' and whatever other nonsense he had. Can you believe he threatened to suspend me if I didn't find a place to live outside of the hospital?" Danial was about to start ranting but was interrupted by Chandler, who said sarcastically, "Well, what do you know, hospitals aren't hotels now a days ?"

His voice brought the attention of both Danial and Monica.

"Chandler, this is my cousin, Danial White,if you remember " Monica said. "And Danial, you remember Chandler, right? Anyway, Chandler here is my boyfriend now, which you would have known about if you had bothered to call me at all last year," she introduced them while giving him a scathing comment and a pointed look about his negligence.

"Yeah, I remember—Ross's dorky friend. Hello!" Danial said.

"Hi, Danial, was it?" Chandler responded, shaking hands and trying to be funny.

"Really? Him?" Danial looked at Monica and asked.

"You'll learn to tune him out soon enough," she replied, knowing full well that her boyfriend was an acquired taste sometimes.

"If you say so, and for what it's worth, sorry for not calling as much las I was crazy busy. Still, I sent you gifts," he told her.

"You call the glass container full of suspicious white powder that you sent with instructions saying 'do not mix with alcohol' a gift? What is that, by the way? All you wrote on the containers was 'Biopure7' and how to drink it…" she gave him 'The Monica' pointed look again while asking.

"Umm, so you didn't drink it?" he asked her…confused…

"No, why would I drink something that suspicious?" she replied.

"Well, it's your loss. That jar alone is worth tens of thousands of dollars… It's my own detox formula; pharmaceutical companies would go crazy if they ever found it," he replied nonchalantly, making her freeze for a second.

"Are you sure it's a detox and not some kind of new recreational drug?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look.

"Monica! What the hell? I'm a doctor, for God's sake!" Danial stared at her in disbelief because How could she think that?

"Well, what do you expect me to think? The last time I saw you, you were twelve and going to Harvard Med. You didn't call at all since Christmas last year; my mind immediately thought of the worst." She explained, as if that excused everything.

"Wait, you went to Harvard at twelve? What's next? Curing cancer by 16?" Chandler said sarcastically, trying to enter the conversation between them.

"Not now, Chandler. Anyway, that's the guest room. Go in there, change, and get comfortable. My mom and dad are coming for Thanksgiving dinner today, so we'll catch up later," Monica said, pointing towards the room.

"Yeah, sure. Is Ross also coming?" Danial asked while moving towards the guest room.

"Yeah, he's coming later. Please don't start anything with him until after my parents leave."

"No promises."

"Hey, now that Doogie Howser is not interrupting our conversation, tell me why you didn't tell your parents about us?" Chandler asked Monica, wanting to resume their earlier conversation.

.

.

...…..

*Knock, knock.*

"Hey!"

"Hi, Phoebe."

"Hey, Phoebe, check it out. For dessert, I've chosen to make a traditional English trifle," Rachel said.

"Wow, that sounds great," Phoebe replied. She then turned around and asked, "And you, Monica? What are you making? In case Rachel's dessert is ....so good that I eat all of it?"

"Nothing," Monica answered.

"Nothing?" Rachel asked.

"No, sweetie, I trust you. Besides, with Danial being here, I'm trying to come up with ways to have him behave and not set Ross off before my parents go home," Monica replied.

"So, there really is nothing for dessert? What if I mess it up?" Rachel said again.

"You're not going to mess it up," Monica said, rubbing her hand on Rachel's shoulder in an affectionate way.

"Monica, I love that! You really have faith in me; thank you…"

"Yeah" Monica mumbled….

"Technical question: how do you know when the butter is done?"

"Two minutes before it starts looking like that," Monica answered and started moving, but Rachel called her again.

"Monica, did you say Danial is here? Your cousin Baby Danial?" Rachel asked, clearly just remembering what Monica said earlier.

"Yeah, and he's not Baby Danial anymore," Monica said in a sulking way, though she didn't want Rachel to comfort her.

"Oh, sweetie."

The door of the apartment suddenly opened with Ross and Joey entering and greeting everyone, telling Monica how great the food smelled and how nice the place looked.

It was then that Danial came out of the guest room carrying a bath towel over his shoulder— he wanted to do a quick shower after his short nap— he walked into the room only to find Ross trying to tell the girls about how they promised to stop by for a little party.

"Ross!, it's been a while. Still playing with rocks, or did you decide to get into some real science?" Danial said, making Ross stop mid-sentence while clenching his hands.

"Danial, I didn't know you were coming here," Ross said, giving a death stare to Monica. While the others exchanged subtle looks to ask if anyone knew who Danial was…

"Well, the chief of surgery found out that I've been living in the hospital since I began my training there and evicted me. What about you? Still with that lesbian wife of yours?"

"Dan, what did I tell you earlier?" Monica cut in with an 'I'm warning you' voice.

"What? I don't get to say I told you so? Because I did warn him on his wedding day, and he not only didn't take my warning seriously, but also tattled on me to Nana," Danial said, trying to justify himself while giving Ross the stink eye.

"I don't care. You two are going to behave today, and that's final," Monica said, looking at both of them.

"Fine, I was going to the bathroom anyway," Danial said in a resigned tone, and started walking towards the bathroom.

Right after he closed the bathroom door, The rest continued their arguments about the hot dancers' party, and that's when Monica's parents arrived…

.....

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