What if...

Chapter 1

AN: thx so much for the lovely feedback on that short snippet of a prologue. This is challenging for me because it is the first time I do more than a "vintage one shot". I will do my best to meet your high hopes for this!!! ❤❤❤

Jen was sitting on the couch of the living room set, joking around with Courteney. They had the last few months off, and today was the first day back on set with rehearsals for season 3.

She had spend most of the time with her boyfriend Tate, but also quite often met up with the gang to simply hang out. They had met to play pool, had held some barbecues in each other's gardens and enjoyed themselves, but it had been different this time around. Because it had only been 5 of them, with David being either too busy or out of town. She had kind of expected it to be different, but she had never expected to miss him THIS much. It had felt like a part of her heart had been missing.

Even now, going into the 3rd year of working with him, she was still unable to put their relationship, her own feelings for him, in words. Of course, the excitement she had felt reading his name on the callsheet before she went in for her first audition for the had been kind of an indicator. She had only once seen him in a play in Chicago years before that and had been immediately mesmerized with this mixture of good looks and obvious talent.

If she was being honest with herself, she had crushed hard on him after that. So his name had stuck to her, without ever even talking a word to him. She had been afraid that she would make a fool of herself meeting him for the first time when it was clear that she could do the show, either talking too much or not being able to form words around him. But somehow, they had formed an instant connection. She had spend a while trying to tell herself that this was pure friendship, but who was she kidding? She had fallen head over heels in love with the man.

That sounded strange from someone who had been in a relationship with another guy for years now, but that did not make any less true. Tate was a great guy, they were good together and pretty early on, a few people on the crew, especially Jimmy, had advised the 6 of them to avoid getting getting romantically involved with one another. She was no fool, she knew that this talk, even though directed at all 6 of them, was initiated after the connection between her and David had become more and more obvious. And since she knew that it made absolute sense not to get involved with you co-star on a series you knew would run for a while, she had simply fallen into a comfortable relationship with Tate.

And it was not that he did not make her happy, but somehow, it felt dull with him at times. With David, she had only gotten the stolen scenes on the show in the last 2 years, but apart from that, they had always kept this talk in mind.

She had spoken to him on the phone from time to time, to find out how he was doing. He seemed pumped with adrenaline and excited about the huge possibility that was offered to him.

It warmed her heart that he seemed so surprised by his own recent success. But honestly: she wasn't. Not at all. He was one of the most talented actors she had ever seen. He was empathic, he was eloquent and he was funny. Funny on more levels than she had ever experienced. His timing, his voice, his body control... were impeccable. Plus the whole world seemed to be in love not only with Ross, but also with David: because he was a smart, charming, down-to-earth guy and - she could not put it any other way - he was drop-dead gorgeous. Of course producers of movies with roles that could fit him would pick up the phone to try and get HIM for the part, given the current success of Friends.

She knew it had been an exciting time for him, and she could not wait to hear his stories from himself, see him again. Oh, how she had missed him!

When she heard the familiar creak of the stage door, her head immediately shot into that direction. The light falling in from behind shielded the face of the person coming in, but the from his form and the way he moved, she knew it was David in a split of a second.

"Oh, look who cares to join us! Isn't that this hot guy, handling all the aliens together with Tommy Lee Jones...", she heard Matty Perry joke when she shot up from her seat, running over to him to fly in his arms, sure earning herself confused looks from her friends.

As she embraced his neck, she felt his arms wrap around her waist. He landed his head in the small of her neck, and she felt his breath tingle on the skin of her neck as he spoke:

"God how I missed that."

Much to her surprise, she she then not only felt his lips briefly kiss the bare skin on her shoulder like he might have done it before, but he very discreetely and gently bit her skin. When she looked up at him in surprise, she could see him wink at her. Before she could say anything though, they were joined by the rest of the gang, welcoming him and already beginning to ask all kinds of questions. She decided to just let it go for now, briefly admitting to herself that she kind of liked this, whatever it was.

They spend the day rehearsing for what would be the first episode of the new season, and and extremely sexy one for Ross and Rachel for that matter, as not would deal with Rachel asking Ross about secret sexual fantasies, offering to fulfill whatever he confessed.

Even though it was all more than subtle, she felt that something in his demeanor had changed. He still was the sweetest, most grounded person she knew, but still, there seemed to be an extra pep to his step, a new level of self-esteem, that she had to admit was incredibly sexy.

In their scenes together, she had a feeling he was being slightly more brave, holding onto her more firmly, holding her gaze just a millisecond longer than he should have.

Was this her mind playing tricks on her, wishful thinking or was he actually trying to flirt with her for real? She still was unsure about what he was doing, but if she was being honest with herself: she did not mind one bit.

At the end of the day, they all decided to head out to a nearby bar, just to chat for a little while longer, fill each other in about what had been going of for them in the past weeks.

As to be expected, there we lots of questions asked about what it had been like for him to work on such a large project, what Tommy had been like and what the schedule was, from now until the film would have its premiere.

"We don't even have a date set yet, guys", David tried to calm them down, being his usual humble self, "this thing will require quite a lot of computer work until it really looks like something. There was a lot of green screens there and at times it was really hard to even imagine what the scenes would look like. You could not even see who or what you were up against. I was terrified the first day I had to do this. And I could not be more thankful for Tommy to put up with me. I hope I don't look like a complete fool next to him in the final cut, really."

After some time, Courteney decided to call it a day, and as Jen said she wanted to catch a ride with her, David got up, too. They bid the other 3 goodbye and headed out the door, still joking around with each other.

Jen felt butterflies in her stomach when David threw his arm around her shoulder to pull her into him as they walked over to Courteney's car. When Courteney unlocked the car and opened the door on the driver's side, David turned he towards him and kissed her cheek, dangerously close to the corner of her mouth, then looked at her while he waved Courteney goodbye. Then he turned around and walked over to his own truck.

"What the hell was that?", Courteney asked a confused Jen as she got in the car. Her hand was still touching her cheek where his lips had been a couple of seconds before.

Jen looked off into the distance, then turned her head towards her friend when she put on the seatbelt.

"I have no idea", was her honest, thoroughly confused reply.