A/N: This is my first ever Friends story. I'm not sure if it's going to be very good or not, but I sure hope so. It's going to follow Joey and his life as he re-adjusts to New York City fifteen years after he left in the finale. It follows a little bit from some of the events in Joey, but not completely. I'm still really new to Fanfiction and I would love reviews to tell me how I'm doing. Will be shippy later on but I won't say who, just yet.

-Cecily

Chapter 1

Joey looked down at his watch and let out a low, angry, growl at the traffic around him. He was riding a bus, something he only did rarely, and hoping it would take him back to his apartment more quickly than the subway. It was becoming more and more clear that it wouldn't. He'd only been back living in New York for three days and was already frustrated at the city. He should never have come back. But he had a good job.

Finally he managed to get off of the bus within a block of his apartment and started walking the rest of the way there, it wouldn't take him long. He'd managed to lease the same apartment he'd lived in for ten years a long time before. That was another lifetime though and the apartment didn't feel at all like it had when he'd lived there, but as was life, things changed.

Pushing into his apartment he glanced at the door across the hall. For ten years that apartment had been his reprieve, his home away from home, where he'd spent thanksgivings, Christmas, new years, all with friends he'd though he'd never lose. They had grown apart though. He walked in to his apartment and smelled dinner already cooking in the oven. Smiling, he leaned down and turned it off.

“Alexa,” he called into the seemingly vacant place. He began putting the two pieces of partially cooked chicken in a freezer bag,“Hon, I'm gonna shut off this chicken and we can finish it tomorrow. Get your coat, we're going out to dinner.”

“Why,” she said, appearing in her bedroom doorway. “I thought since you had to work late you weren't gonna want to go out or anything?”

“Nah, I promised you I'd take you out,” he told her, a grin on his face. “Go get dressed. I'll finish putting the chicken away.”

She just smiled at him and headed back into the bedroom to change. Her smile made him feel like he was going to melt, she was the most important person he'd ever had in his life and the chance to bring a grin to her face, it was everything he ever wanted. “Dad,” she called back to him from her room, “dressy or casual?”

He flipped through his checkbook for a moment and then doing a little math in his head said, “make it dressy. We're celebrating anyway.”

She reappeared fifteen minutes later wearing a skirt that fell just above her knees and tank top with a button up blouse unbuttoned over it and little black flats. She tried to sneak one of her father's ties over her head but he pulled it away from her. He was dressed in khaki pants and a button up shirt. “No tie, you look better without it.”

“It's just because you want me to be girly,” she grumbled at him. “I'm twelve, if I don't wanna be girly you shouldn't make me.”

“I just think you look cute in what you're wearing, Alexa.”

She grinned at him and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the door. Once it was locked behind them they wandered down the stairs to find a cab. “So how was work today, dad?”

“Well today I got to meet with Jimmy Manning,” he said, knowing his daughter was going to glow green with envy. He chuckled at her star-struck expression. “We're pretty sure he's going to do the show.”

“Wow!” She said, swooning over the seventeen year old heart-throb television star. “Do you think I can come down to the set and meet him?”

“It's almost unavoidable,” he teased her. “So, how was school? Did you have any trouble finding your way home?”

“No, it's easy. Just take the red line to Twelfth and then walk up a few blocks.” She shrugged, “and school was okay. It's weird being in high school already. Seventh grade feels so much like middle school, you know?”

“Yeah but it's the safest school in the city,” Joey told his daughter. “And that was really my only concern when we picked it.”

“I know, I don't mind though... people are all pretty nice,” she was in a private school that spanned from grades seven to twelve. Despite the large amount of grades there were only about six hundred kids at the school making it one of the smallest and safest in the city.

They arrived at a restraunt they both agreed looked good, Italian, their mutual favorite, and wandered inside. There was a small line of people waiting in front of them to go in. It only took and instant for Joey to recognize two of them though.

“Phoebe, Mike,” he said aloud, amazed to see them there.

Thanks for reading. Please check back soon for chapter two. Also, please review and let me know how I did.