Complicated Love

Old Friends

Brad's POV:

"I can't wait to see how happy she is, she's missed you guys so much."

I sit across from Matt Leblanc in a diner, planning his surprise visit for Jen.  She hasn't been herself lately since she's home with the kids more until we're back in LA, and I know this is the perfect solution for her to feel better.

"I feel bad that she hasn't been able to do as much recently."

"Yeah, but you know she loves the kids and being around them.  Even though I remember her telling us years ago that if you guys had kids she was going to bring them to work with her if she had to because she wasn't giving up working.  I'm surprised she isn't bugging you to move back to LA by now."

"Oh trust me, it's been brought up a few times.  We just have more help out here with her mom being close.  We can't wait to be back though."

"So... are we doing anything exciting?  Are you coming with?"

"I am, I told her to meet me here so she has no idea you'll be here too.  Her mom's gonna watch the kids and Jen's been asking for us to go out.  I know she'll love the extra company.  I still haven't really decided yet what we should do."

"Maybe we can go see the Friends building?  Walk around for a while?"

"I thought about that, maybe we can let her show us around a little too.  She's always talking about random places she used to go."

As we talk, I notice I have a text from Jen saying that she's on her way and should be here any minute.  Since we're in public with nowhere to really hide Matt, we decide to move away from the window and hope she likes the surprise when she walks in.

"Hey, sorry Liam wasn't too happy about me leaving." She walks right up to me, somehow missing Matt "Did you eat anything yet?"

"Not much, we've just been talking."

"We?" She looks around, now knowing I can't be alone, and her face lights up the second she sees Matt "Oh my God!  You're in New York!"

"I had to come visit you," He laughs as they hug "Court told me how cute the kids are, and Brad's been saying how much you miss us."

She turns towards me on the verge of tears, obviously loving my idea.

"Thank you, baby."

"You're welcome.  I could see how happy you were with Court the other day and I knew you needed this."

We all sit around talking about anything we can think of as we wait on our food.  Jen and Matt share some funny memories from Friends, while I listen contently.  Hearing stories about the show that I know she misses every day makes me happy because I know what she's been missing. 

"So when you're ready, I thought maybe you could show us around the area more.  You're always talking about all the places you used to love going and it's been hard for you to show me with the kids."

"You guys really wanna see that?  It's probably not anything really exciting."

"Of course we do, Brad wants to get you away from the kids as long as possible.  You need a break."

"Well I won't turn down a night out, even if it means I'll probably be falling asleep on the walk home."

She leads us across the street as soon as we're done, walking down all kinds of random streets that she must know from memory.  As she leads us through an alley, Matt and I both go into protective mode since she doesn't seem worried at all.

We finally get to a more normal looking street where we realize she pretty much took us in a huge square just to see if we would notice it.

"My friends and I used to go through there all the time we were trying to hide.  It worked out perfect because back then not many people thought that was an alley."

"It looked more like the place your homeless drug dealer meets you on his bike," Matt tries to catch his breath as Jen already has us walking somewhere else "What the hell did you do as a teenager?"

"Yeah, I feel like I deserve to know that answer before I find out from our kids." I stop walking, turning towards Jen "Do I need to worry about them hiding out in random alleys or are they going to be dumb enough to do that shit right in front of us."

"I always had my lies covered, so we should probably implant tracking devices in them any day now."

She shows us a few more places, like where her best friend lived, and where she would go on days she was sneaking out of school. 

"I learned pretty quickly that if you go to Central Park, you can very easily play it off as being on a field trip of needed.  And if you did anything dumb, you just got a college student to cover as your chaperone and there weren't any problems."

"Seriously I'm locking our children up."

"Yeah but that could backfire if Jen talks to them too much," Matt leads us around the corner, taking control now "They'll just get bad ideas from her."

Matt continues to lead us towards the Friends building, looking back at Jen and I to make sure she doesn't know where we're going.  He goes down some random streets, but based on her reaction as we get closer, I think she knows exactly where we're going.

"Baby why are we going through the backroads of Manhattan?  There's only one thing here..."

"Just wait," I whisper, pulling her closer "you'll see."

"If you guys make me cry and ruin the first good makeup I've done in two months I'm going to be mad."

"Well, in that case we're not really sorry."

Matt turns one last corner to reveal exactly where we are.  Jen immediately let's go of my hand and practically runs across the street to get an even better view. 

She's in complete awe, tears flying down her face once we reach up to her.  Something that seems to little is clearly exactly what she needed recently.

"I know we never filmed here, but... it's just so surreal.  All these quotes on the side, even that guy peeing around the corner.  It's the Friends building."

"It's symbolic," Matt joins her, "All these people crowd around every day.  They all care so much about the outside of an apartment, it's so weird... but amazing."

"You guys all mean so much to so many people, it's not really surprising though now that I know you both so well.  I can't imagine anyone not falling in love with you guys."

I take a bunch of pictures of the two of them, even some with excited fans while we look around at everything.  We read all the quotes written on ths bricks while people inside the little restaurant look out at all of us in shock.

"Okay... are you ready for the next surprise?  Matt thought of this all by himself."

She just nods, reaching out for my hand as we follow Matt again to the perfect rooftop restaurant.  One Jen used to brag about all the time, telling us all the fun she had going there as a child.

"Guys, I love this.  Thank you."

"You're welcome."