SEVENTEEN

"This hummus is great."
"God bless the chickpea."
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"Ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow." Monica and I were helping Rachel walk as we headed towards the reception desk at the hospital.
"Hi. Our friend was taking down their Christmas lights and fell of the balcony. She may have broken her foot." I explained to the woman.
"You still have your Christmas lights up?" She exclaimed and looked at Monica and Rachel. "Fill this out and bring it back to me." She handed me a clipboard. We walked over to a set of chairs and sat down.
"Ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow. Okay. Ooh. Alright." The three of us sat down. Rachel propped her leg up in my lap. I started filling out the portions I already knew.
"In case of an emergency, call...?" I trailed off and looked up at her.
"Both you and Monica." She answered very quickly.
"Really?" Monica and I turned to look at her in affection.
"Yeah." She smiled at the two of us.
"That's so sweet." Monica and I wrapped our arms around her shoulders.
"I love you." I kissed her cheek before going back to the form. "Insurance?"
"Check it. Definitely need some of that." She chuckled a little before reaching over to hold her ankle since it was practically throbbing.
"You don't have insurance?" Monica glanced over at her.
"Why? How much does it cost?" She furrowed her brows.
"X–rays alone could cost a couple hundred dollars." I replied.
"W–W–What will we do?" She stuttered out.
"Not much that we can do." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Unless...unless I use one of yours." Rachel suggested to us.
"Rach, that's insurance fraud." I whispered to her so no one could hear our conversation.
"Alright. Then, forget about it. Might as well just go home." She stood up and took a step. "Ow, ow, ow!" Monica pulled her back to the chairs.
"Fine, okay. I hate this." I let out a sigh.
"Thank you. I love you." Rachel wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I went over to the desk again to get a set of new forms. She gave it to me after calling me an idiot. Well, I guess for the night I'm Rachel and Rachel's me.
A little later, Monica, Rachel, and I were in a room, sitting together on the examination seat. Then, three doctors walked in.
"Okay. Uh...Suparna." One of the doctors spoke up. In my opinion, he was the cutest one.
"Yes." I looked up, but Rachel nudged my arm. "Yes, she is." I smiled and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
"Hi." Rachel leaned over my lap. "This is my friend Rachel and my other friend Monica."
"Hi, Rachel, Monica. I'm Dr. Jones." He smiled at me brightly.
"I'm his friend, Dr. Mitchell." The doctor in the middle took the file out of Dr. Jones' hands.
"And I'm both of their friends, Dr. Rosen." The final doctor introduced himself.
"Aren't you three a little cute to be doctors?" Monica, Rachel, and I were basically in a trance.
"Excuse me?" Dr. Rosen asked while smirking ever so slightly. Oh, they definitely heard her.
"I–I meant young. Young to be a doctor." Rachel saved herself. "Good, Rach." She let out a sigh.
"Thank you." I cleared my throat, reminding her of our deal.
"Right." Rachel nodded her head and played with the ends of her hair. Later in the night during Phoebe's surprise birthday party, Rachel was explaining our story to Chandler.
"So he said it was just a sprain, and that was it." Rachel shrugged her shoulders.
"You left out the stupid part." Monica added while pouring more chips into the bowl.
"It's not stupid." Rachel stuck her tongue out at her roommate. "The very cute, cute, cute doctors asked us out for tomorrow night, and I said yes."
"Well, I think it's totally insane. They work for the hospital. It's like we'd be returning to the crime scene." I opened up a new pack of dip and place it on the table.
"I agree. I saw we blow off the dates." Monica backed me up.
"Monica, Suparna, they are cute. They are doctors. Cute doctors. Doctors who are cute." Rachel kept repeating the same thing.
"Alright. What have we learned so far?" My brother clapped his hands together. Then, someone knocked on the door.
"Oh, God. Okay." I waved at the rest of the guests to go hide. Monica opened the door.
"Surprise!" All of us yelled, but it was only Ross. And he ended up dropping the cake.
"What the hell are you doing? You scared the crap out of me." He said in one long breath.
"Was that the cake?" Rachel pointed to the pink box on the ground that was spewing frosting out. Ross got on the floor and picked it up.
"Yeah. Yep. I got a lemon smush." We ran over to the couch to check on the cake. When Ross opened it up, we groaned at the mess.
"'Happy Birthday, Peehee'." Chandler read off the top.
"Maybe we can make a 'B' out of one of the roses." Monica suggested.
"We can just use our special cake tools." For the years we've known each other, Chandler really has rubbed his sarcasm on all of us.
"Hey, what's going on?" Phoebe asked us. We were about to explain but realized she was here.
"Surprise!" We stood up and yelled out.
"Oh! Oh! Oh, this is so great!" She exclaimed in happiness. "Oh my God! This was not at all scary." She smiled at us. "Everybody I love is in the same room." She hugged us. "Where's Joey?" She looked around.
"Did you see Ross?" Chandler pointed at him in a way to avoid the question. But she didn't need an answer to know what happened. The next night, I went over to Monica and Rachel's apartment since the cute doctors were here.
"Hi. Come on in." Monica opened the door and let them in.
"Hi." We greeted each other at the same time. Rachel and I giggled and waved at the doctors.
"Uh, here, we brought over some wine." David came over to me. "It's from the cellars of Ernest and Tova Borgnine, so how could we resist?" He handed the bottle to me.
"That's great." I smiled and gave it to Monica.
"So how's the ankle, Suparna?" Jeffrey Rosen asked me.
"It's..." I trailed off. Shoot, I forgot that I'm not Suparna anymore. "Why don't you tell them?" I smiled and motioned for Rachel to continue. "After all, it is your ankle."
"You know what? It's feeling a lot better. Thank you." Rachel nodded her head. "Listen, why don't you guys sit down, and we'll get you some glasses. Stat." The three of us headed into the kitchen while the guys sat on the couch and arm chairs. "Okay, listen, I'm thinking that we should just tell them who we are. I mean, it'll be fine."
"It will not be fine." Monica whispered while I poured the wine. "We'll get in trouble."
"Sorry, Rach, but I agree with her. We might got to jail." I shrugged my shoulders at her.
"Would you two stop being wusses?" She groaned quietly.
"Wusses? Excuse us for living in the real world, okay?" Monica replied. "We are not going to do it." Monica stood her ground.
"You can be such a big baby, Rachel. I'm serious." I shook my head while closing up the bottle.
"I am not a baby." Rachel's dropped as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Every day, you two are becoming more and more like Monica's mother." Rachel grabbed the glasses and took them over to the guys.
"This is a great place." We grabbed our glasses and sat down with the guys. "How long have you been living here?" Michael asked Rachel.
"Thanks, but I actually live next door. Monica has been living here for six years, and Rachel moved in a few months ago." Rachel replied.
"See, Rachel was supposed to get married, but, um...she left the guy at the altar." Monica answered for me.
"Really?" David glanced over at me.
"Yeah, I know, it's pretty selfish, but, hey, that's me." I shrugged my shoulders. "Why don't you try the hummus?" I pointed down at the bowl.
"So, Suparna, what do you do?" Jeffrey asked Rachel.
"Um...I'm the Vice President of Product management at Calvin Klein. Did you know Monica is a chef at a restaurant uptown. It's really fun because she gets to boss people around which she just loves to do." Rachel said a restrained tone.
"This hummus is great." Thank God for Jeffrey at least trying to make the conversation normal.
"God bless for chickpea." Michael added.
"Rachel here is so spoiled." Monica broke out into a fit of laughter and nudged my arm.
"By the way, have I mentioned that back in high school, Monica was a cow?" Rachel responded and laughed as well.
"Does anyone want some mac and cheese? It's the food of the Gods." I took a large sip of my wine and stood up. {If anyone understood that reference, comment where that's from.}
Then, Rachel's dad called, but Monica decided to talk to him and spill some stuff about Rachel that her father doesn't know. The next morning, Rachel—the real one—was trying to explain to her dad that she didn't sleep with Billy Dreskin.
"You are dead!" Rachel whispered loudly and pointed at Monica angrily. Marcel climbed onto the couch next to Ross and grabbed the TV remote.
"He's got the remote again, Ross." Monica said to him.
"Good." Ross glanced over at the monkey. "Maybe he can switch it back." Marcel turned on the TV, which was playing cartoons in Spanish. "Okay, maybe not." Then, Rachel came over to me and Monica with the phone.
"It's the woman from the hospital admissions office. She said there's a problem with the forms." The three of us started to panic.
"What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?" I blurted out quickly.
"Find out what they want." Monica pushed the phone back into Rachel.
"No, no, you do it." Rachel handed me the phone.
"Hello, this is Suparna." The woman told me what had happened, which lifted a weight off of my shoulders. I hung up the phone.
"We just forgot to sign one of the admissions forms. Everything's fine." I reassured them.
"You were right. This was just not worth it." Rachel let out a sigh of relief. "Let me just go and change." She headed into her room. Then, Joey walked into the apartment.
"Hey." He looked a little down.
"Hi." Ross, Monica, Chandler, and I greeted him, but Phoebe just stayed quiet. She had every right to be upset with him.
"Trouble?" Phoebe asked him.
"Your sister stood me up the other night." He sat down next to Ross on the couch.
"Oh, no. Don't you hate it when people aren't there for you?" Phoebe inquired, referring to her surprise birthday party.
"Did you try calling her?" Ross tapped Joey's new with a pencil.
"I've been trying for two days. When I called the restaurant, they said she was too busy to talk." Joey sighed a little. "I can't believe she's blowing me off." We all stayed quiet, continuing our game of Scrabble. Monica, Rachel, and I headed to the hospital.
"Remember us?" The three of us smiled and leaned our heads against each other.
"You just called a little while ago about needing a signature on an admissions form." I reminded her about the call. "Well, it turns out we need a whole new one because, you see, I put down the wrong name again 'cause, um..." I trailed off.
"You're that stupid." The same woman nodded her head.
"I am. I'm that stupid." I chuckled a little.
"And I'm just going to pay for this with a check." Rachel added.
"Well, you know your insurance will cover that." The woman handed Rachel the forms on a clipboard and a pen.
"Yeah, I know. I'm just not that bright either." Rachel replied. Monica grabbed our hands and pulled us to the seats before we could embarrass ourselves any further. While filling out the forms, we heard a couple of familiar voices.
"You have got to help me! My monkey swallowed a 'K'." We heard Ross exclaim.
"Okay, you'll have to get that animal out of here." The three of us walked up to them.
"The animal hospital is way across town." Ross replied.
"What happened?" We asked the two guys.
"Marcel swallowed a Scrabble tile." Chandler answered us before the two turned back to the woman. Then they suddenly turned back to us.
"Excuse me. This hospital is for people." The receptionist got our attention.
"Lady, he is people." Ross cradled the monkey in his arms. "He has a name, okay? He watches Jeopardy, he touches himself when nobody's watching. Please, please, please, have a heart." He begged the woman.
"I'll look at him." A doctor spoke up.
"Thank you." I glanced back at the doctor, only to see David.
"Rachel." He smiled at me.
"Yeah." Rachel responded but covered it up by clearing her throat and coughing. The five of us got to Marcel's room.
"We just got the message." Joey and Phoebe walked into the room. I crossed my arms over my chest, still a little upset at him.
"The doctor got the 'K' out. He also found an 'M' and an 'O'." Ross told them.
"We think he was trying to spell out 'monkey'." Chandler added.
"Well, the doctor says he's going to be fine. He's just sleeping now." Ross explained.
"Feel like a dad yet?" Chandler pat Ross on the shoulder.
"No. Why?" Ross glanced back at him before looking down at the monkey.
"Come on. You came through. You did what you had to do. That's very dad–like." Chandler reassured him. Ross was sitting next to Marcel by the bed. Chandler was standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder. Rachel and Phoebe leaned their heads against Monica's shoulder. And Joey had an arm wrapped around me, pulling me into him.
"Look. He's waking up." Monica pointed at Marcel.
"How you doing?" Ross asked, extending a finger out to him. Marcel wrapped his hands around Ross' finger, sitting up a little. Ross looked at all of us while we smiled at the two.


Robert Downey Jr. starring as Dr. David R. Jones
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