The One Where Rachel Comes Out

"Presents first, food later," Rachel said, leading her friends, minus Ross, over to their living room. She knew she would probably end up enchanting some of the gifts, but she loved seeing what her friends picked out for her. (And, hey, why include the gift receipt if you didn't want the recipient to be able to exchange it, anyway?)

She rushed through opening her gifts, not really excited about any of them beyond wanting to know what her friends had picked out for her, when she reached the last gift.

"Who is this from?" She asked as she leaned against Monica, who was perched on the arm of the big armchair she was sitting in.

"That one's Ross's," Chandler answered as Rachel started carefully tearing off the wrapping paper because she knew that Monica would probably want to save it. Once the paper was off, Rachel opened the box to find a beautiful, and familiar, brooch sitting on crushed blue velvet inside.

"Oh, my god," she whispered, stunned. "He remembered."

Rachel was amazed that her friend had remembered about the brooch from months ago. Or that he'd possibly gone back shortly after they'd seen it, getting it and waiting for her birthday. It was crazy to her to think that her friend cared so much about her, but it was so sweet.

"Remembered what?" Phoebe asked.

"It was like months ago, we were walking by this antique store and I saw this pin in the window. And I told him that it was just like one my grandmother had when I was a little girl," Rachel explained as she leant back more onto Monica and held the pin up to show her girlfriend, though she didn't take her own eyes off the sweet gift just yet. "Oh! I can't believe he remembered."

"Well, sure, but can you play it on a plane?" Chandler joked, holding up the travel scrabble that he'd given her, which Monica would insist that they play even though (or probably because) Monica would thoroughly beat her at it.

Rachel chose to ignore him in favor of showing the pin to Phoebe, who commented on how pretty it was.

"This must have cost him a fortune," Phoebe continued. Rachel thought she was probably right, which made the gift that much sweeter.

"I can't believe he did this," Monica said, but when Rachel looked over at her, she could see that she was pleased. Though they weren't out yet, Rachel knew it was a relief to Monica that Rachel was so well-liked by Monica's family. And seeing an insanely nice gift from her brother was probably a little overboard, but Rachel knew it was nice for both of them.

"Come on? Ross? Remember back in college when he fell in love with Carol and bought her that ridiculously expensive crystal duck?" Chandler said before he stiffened up, like he'd just realized what exactly he'd just said.

"What did you just say?" Rachel asked him, still reeling over the enormity of what Chandler has just revealed about the pin she held loosely in her now numb fingers and about the man who had given it to her- who happened to be her girlfriend's brother.

Chandler looked around wildly for help, but found none as all of their friends looked back at him with expressions that clearly said he was on his own. Even Joey didn't offer up any help.

"Crystal duck?" Chandler tried, clearly hoping that she'd let it go. But Rachel was too busy reeling over this information that she clearly wasn't supposed to know and what it could mean for her and Monica.

"No. No. No. The, um, the love part." At least she didn't sound quite as freaked out as she felt. This was not good and also a possibility she hadn't foreseen. She wanted Ross to like her, not fall in love with her whilst she was secretly dating his sister. She'd never noticed any attraction he had for her now as an adult (His crush on her when they were kids didn't count, they were young and most people move on from their teenage infatuations. Ross Geller aside, apparently), let alone done anything to encourage it. But now she felt trapped because of it. What was she supposed to do?