Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: I really don't know what else to say about the reviews except: thank you all. I appreciate the feedback and am always eager to hear your views of a story.

I liked this chapter. Oh, and for those wondering how Ben's been doing... he's mentioned in here. He makes a little appearance in the final chapter, too :)

XXX

"Mom, how old were you when you had your first kiss?" Emma questioned one cold, December morning as she helped Rachel unload the dishwasher after doing her standard twenty minutes of practicing the piano, a talent that she'd mastered quickly after she'd begged for lessons. Outside, Ross had abandoned "just watching" Sean and Jen play in the yard, and the three were now in the middle of a vicious snowball fight.

Rachel sighed lightly as she recalled a tall boy with light hair and hazel eyes. "Seventh grade, I think."

"It wasn't Dad, was it?" the fourteen-year-old wondered.

At that question, Rachel almost laughed out loud, but somehow kept her giggling to a minimum at the thought. She and Ross had never really explained, in-depth, their crazy past to their children, believing that they should be a little older before they heard the story that was Them. Emma knew, of course, that they hadn't been together the first few years of her life; she had figured out the math herself one day and had calmly asked her parents about it.

"Ooh, no, sweetie, he definitely was not," Rachel said.

Emma laughed. "Oh, right, Aunt Monica always talks about how you two were too cool. Wasn't he dorky then? Not that he isn't now," she added quietly with a small chuckle.

Rachel glanced out the kitchen window that looked into the backyard, and watched her husband of eleven years for just a moment. He had just been tackled by Sean down into the six inches of snow on the ground as Jen pranced around them, dumping more and more snow on top of her father. The scene was a Kodak moment, for sure, and Rachel suddenly wished a camera was nearby so she could snap the shot and keep it forever. Ross never really realized what a good father he was.

"Mom?"

"What?" Rachel asked quickly, snapping back to reality.

"He was dorky then, right?" Emma was looking at her mother with wide, curious blue eyes that made Rachel feel like she was looking at her younger self.

"Yes, he was," Rachel said, remembering the Ross from her teenage days. "No, he wasn't my first kiss, or my first boyfriend." She grinned at her daughter before going back to putting the dishes into the cabinet. "But he was my first real love."

"Really?" Emma seemed surprised by this. "Aunt Phoebe always calls you two 'crabs' or 'clams' or something."

"Lobsters?" Rachel tried with a smile.

"Yeah. Why is that?"

"I'll explain it to you another day when we've got more time. But we've really got to finish cleaning up before we leave to pick up Ben," Rachel insisted.

"You sound like Aunt Monica."

Carol and Susan were visiting some friends in the south, and would not be home in time to pick up Ben. Ross had jumped at the chance to have his college-attending son spend some time with them in Westchester for a few days, before Carol and Susan returned to take him for Christmas. The Geller family was going to pick up the twenty-one-year-old at the airport later that morning.

A silence drifted over Rachel and Emma as the young girl pulled her hair back in a pony-tail, her usual hairstyle. "Why are you so curious?" Rachel questioned lightly.

Emma turned a bit pink, and bent over the dishwasher, pretending to reach to the back of it to grab some "fallen" silverware. "Just wondering."

Rachel stopped what she was doing and cocked her head to the side. "Did you kiss a boy?"

"Mom!"

"What?"

"You say it like it's the most scandalous thing you've heard!" Emma said.

"Ah, so you have kissed a boy," Rachel continued with a slight smirk. "When?"

"I am not discussing this with you," Emma declared in a tone of finality, going back to wiping down the counter.

Rachel smiled, masking the bit of shock that had come over her at the revelation that her daughter had kissed a boy. She had been expecting this, of course; Emma was a pretty, smart, funny girl. What boy wouldn't want to date her?

The thought made Rachel's insides churn a little. Oh, God, what if her daughter got tangled up with the wrong type of boy? Or what if a guy tried to take advantage of her? She wasn't even in high school yet! What could she do? Should she ban her daughter from dating until she was twenty-five?

Get a grip, Rachel told herself, and finally said in a much calmer voice than her conscious was using, "If you aren't going to talk to me about this, then we're never going to be able to talk about anything."

Emma sighed and said, defeated, "Fine."

"Who was it? Was it that Jeremy guy who came over here that one time a few weeks ago? Oh! Who were all the boys at your party? I can go down all the names on the list-"

"It was Matt Burns," Emma cut in.

Rachel spent a moment in silence, trying to place the name. She finally remembered. "Wasn't he your first crush in elementary school?"

Emma's cheeks colored even more. "Yes."

"That's so sweet!" Rachel gushed, while a tiny part of her wanted to tell her ten-year-old son to start watching this Matt Burns at school and make sure he was a nice, respectable boy. "When did he kiss you?"

"At the end of Lindsey's party last week," Emma said shyly.

"Was it… good?" Rachel had no idea what she was supposed to ask. She resisted the urge to call Monica or Phoebe to demand that they tell her something to say.

"It was just a quick thing," Emma replied simply. "He said he liked me, and he kissed me, and the longest conversation we've had since then was when he asked me if he could borrow a pencil during history and I told him I only had a pen, was that okay? And he said yes. The end."

"Maybe he's just shy," Rachel suggested. "It took your father so long to finally tell me he liked me, and then when he did- well, actually, it was this gift he got me that did, but anyways, he had a new girlfriend-"

"You've told me this story before, Mom," Emma interrupted with a smile.

"Well… all I'm saying is, maybe you have to let him know that it's… okay. It's okay, right?"

"Definitely," Emma said, sounding aggravated. "Ugh, boys are so complicated."

Rachel smiled. "You know, they say the same thing about girls."

Another pause hung between mother and daughter, the dishwasher emptied and the counters cleaned to a sparkling shine. Emma hoisted herself up to sit on the right-angle part of the counter, and Rachel leaned against the one on the other side.

"Honey, just be careful," Rachel finally advised.

"I will," Emma promised. "It's not like we're gonna get married."

"Still, just… don't go too fast or anything. Don't do something you'll regret later."

Emma nodded seriously. "Of course I won't; I'm only fourteen. And if there's one thing you and Dad have always told us, it's to make the right decision."

"When did you get so wise?" Rachel inquired.

"Well, after listening to your advice and wisdom for so long, I guess some of it just rubbed off on me," Emma said.

"Okay, okay, stop sucking up," Rachel joked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Emma considered her mother. "I really thought you'd be freaking out about this."

"Why?"

"Because… you kind of used to make bigger deals about things."

Rachel nodded in understanding and glanced outside again, this time seeing that the father-son-daughter team out there were in the beginnings of making an igloo. "You're growing up," was all she said, but then added, "And you're at the age where it's time for you to make your own decisions about things."

"Erica and I were thinking about what Aunt Monica and Uncle Chandler's reactions would be like to something like this," Emma said with a smirk.

"Well, it depends what it is, who it is, and the circumstances surrounding it," Rachel told her. "And, well, Chandler would make an inappropriate joke no matter what."

"Do you think Dad would freak out if he found out?"

"Yes."

"Mom!" Emma whined. "Seriously."

Rachel mulled over what she thought. Ross was very protective of his children, especially his two girls. "He may, but he may not. You can never pinpoint exactly how your father is going to react to something."

"What am I reacting to?" Ross asked as he entered the kitchen through the back door and shook himself of the snow still covering his pants and jacket, while he patted his wet head of dark hair.

Emma and Rachel shared a look, and then Rachel turned to her husband and said, "Nothing, honey." They'd tell him later.

Sean and Jen bounded into the house behind their father. "What time is Ben's plane getting in?" Sean questioned as he went into the refrigerator and grabbed a soda.

"Yeah, when are we gonna leave to pick him up?" Jenny chimed in, going to stand in front of the counter that her older sister was sitting on.

Ross checked his watch. "His plane gets in at 11:30. Maybe we should go now in case there's traffic," he suggested to his wife.

Rachel nodded. "Sure, we'll meet you guys in the car."

Emma hopped down from the counter and followed her mother to the closet, where they kept the jackets, extra shoes, and odds and ends that had no other place. Normally, all of the contents of the closet would be found all over the house, but Rachel had insisted on tidying it up in anticipation of Ben staying for a few days.

As they were about to exit the house, Rachel stopped and yanked her daughter's ponytail lightly. "Do you think you're going to be dating this boy?"

"I… sort of want to," Emma said with a blush. "If that's okay with you and Dad. But I mean, I'm fourteen, and I'm going to be in high school soon, and I know you had a boyfriend when you were my age because you've told me, and I'm very responsible-"

"Emma, I trust you," Rachel said simply, walking out the door and leaving Emma to follow. She wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders when the teen caught up. "Just… let me know what's going on, okay?"

"It's a deal," Emma nodded, smiling and giving Rachel a quick, one-armed squeeze before opening the door to the car and getting in.

Rachel followed, getting into the passenger's side. In the back seats, the kids were already absorbed in their music, comic book, and drawing, respectively.

The big first kiss. It opened so many new, exciting, and sometimes scary parts of life that everyone goes through at some point. Rachel still could remember hers; the rush of feelings, the tinge of confusion, the self-consciousness, the fear of not knowing what to do next.

But if anyone could figure out how to go on from that, it would be her Emma.

XXX