Disclaimer: ... still no.

A/N: I'm glad you all liked the chapter before this one. This story is so lighthearted/fluffy, and it needed a bit of angst/sadness at some point. Though now, I suppose, we're back to cute mother/daughter stuff. What can I say, I like the happy times in life more than the upsetting.

I enjoyed writing this chapter, because getting your permit/license is a really big deal to teens.

(Now re-posted to fix the whole 'break/brake' thing. Sheesh, how dumb am I?)

XXX

"I passed! I passed, I passed, I passed!" Emma sang, practically dancing out of a small room off the main area at the Registration of Motor Vehicles to Rachel, who had been patiently sitting and reading a magazine.

Rachel stood up quickly, the magazine forgotten, and clapped her hands excitedly. "You passed?"

"I passed!" Emma repeated, still doing a little jig. The two hugged, and Emma handed a small piece of paper with her picture and information on it to her mother.

"Hey, nice picture," Rachel nodded, beaming. "Oh, honey, I'm so proud of you. You have your permit now!"

"I know!" the freshly-sixteen-year-old squealed. "I can drive! Well, with someone over the age of twenty-one along for the ride, but that's beside the point! I got my permit!"

Rachel grinned at her daughter, who was staring in slight awe at the piece of paper that gave her the right to drive. She fought back the wave of tears that wanted to leak out from her eyes. God, how could her little girl have her permit? Hadn't she just learned how to navigate on her own two feet? It seemed time was flying by.

Emma had been rambling on and on for months about driving. She'd checked the internet for ages and dates, begged her parents to take her out to drive in empty parking lots, and had even begun a countdown in May until the day she turned sixteen and would be able to take the test to get her permit. She'd been so excited she'd insisted that either Ross or Rachel escort her to take the test just two days after her birthday, which led them to this moment.

"So are you all set?" Rachel asked as they exited the RMV.

"Yeah, we can head home now. Hey, can I drive?" Emma nearly pleaded, her blue eyes wide in a manner she had obviously seen Rachel use before to get her way with her husband.

Rachel felt a small wave of panic as they reached the car. "Uh…"

"Oh, come on, Mom! It isn't that far!"

"Em, you've never driven on a main road before," Rachel pointed out, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice.

Emma shook her head, her hair whipping back and forth. "Yes I have! Daddy let me go around the neighborhood a few times a month ago!"

"Oh, he did, did he?" Rachel asked with raised eyebrows. This was news to her. She'd have to have a little chat with her darling spouse when they got home.

The teenager kept up with the pleading, pouty eyes that Rachel tried, in vain, to avoid, until finally she relented. "Fine, okay, but you have to be really careful. If I give you an instruction, you better listen."

"Uh, Mom, no offense, but your driving kind of sucks," Emma admitted with a smile.

Rachel shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's a lot better now than when I was younger, let me tell you. Your father actually made me drive him around a few times before he let me drive the car we got after we got married alone." As her daughter began giggling, Rachel shook her head. "But that's not the point. I'm better now!" she defended, not completely sure why she needed to stick up for herself.

"Uh huh," Emma nodded, seeming to only do so to pacify her mother. "Aunt Monica always says you drove really irresponsibly when you were my age."

"Yes, well, I was really irresponsible at your age," Rachel said. "And excuse me, but have I ever gotten into a car accident? No." She let out a small growl of frustration at how off-topic they now were. "Okay, seriously, promise me you'll listen to my directions."

"I promise," Emma agreed readily. She greedily grabbed for the keys in Rachel's hand, but the older woman pulled them back quickly.

"Now just wait a second. All right. What's the first thing you do when you get into the car?"

"Put the key in the ignition. No, wait, hold down the brake and then put the key in the ignition and start the car," Emma corrected in a textbook manner. "Mom, I know all this."

"I'm just checking!" Rachel said. "You usually go driving with your father, I don't know what crazy things he's taught you."

"Actually, we were right in the middle of a lesson on how to drive with your feet while not looking, but his cell rang and we had to cut it short," Emma said sarcastically, the tone of her voice startling similar to her Uncle Chandler's.

Rachel gave a false smile. "Keep it up and that car we were discussing getting you? Will suddenly not be available."

Emma crossed her arms over her chest in growing frustration. "Sorry. So are we going to stand in the parking lot of the RMV all night? Because I have homework to do."

Staring for a long time at the key chain in her hand, Rachel finally reluctantly handed them over to her daughter, who took them with glee and hopped into the driver's seat. Rachel got in on the passenger's side and sat slowly, immediately putting her belt on.

"Don't forget to-"

"Move the seat, fix the mirrors, turn on my headlights, got it," Emma finished for her, and grinned at her mother. "Mom, I'm a good driver, remember?"

Trying to relax, Rachel nodded. "Yes, honey, you are. I'm sorry, it's just a mother's instinct to worry."

Emma put her foot on the brake, pressed down, stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine. She adjusted her seat and then fixed the mirrors. Rachel watched her do all of this with careful eyes. Driving had become second nature to her again after she and Ross had moved back into the suburbs, and she'd prided herself in becoming a much better driver, since she had to commute to the city nearly every day for work.

The teen was about to put on the radio, but Rachel held out her hand and guided her daughter's own hand back to the wheel. "Let's try without the radio on first, okay?"

"Okay," Emma agreed, and checked over both shoulders and the rearview mirror repeatedly as she switched gears into 'reverse' and slowly inched out of the parking space, cutting the wheel quickly when she had almost reached the end of it.

Once safely a good distance from the space and the surrounding cars, Emma put the car into 'drive' and cut the wheel again, and then pushed down on the gas and drove slowly toward the entrance/exit of the parking lot, turning her right clicker on.

Rachel's hands were clasped tightly, a better and less-obvious way to control her nervousness than grabbing on to the dashboard. "Just take your time going out onto the street," she advised. "Wait until there are no cars coming at all."

Emma was looking back and forth down the road. "Actually, I thought I'd wait until cars were coming from both sides, and then pull out at the last possible second," she said, her face the picture of seriousness.

"Ha ha," Rachel mocked, internally cursing the fact that her oldest daughter had picked up this dry humor. "That car is looking harder and harder to get, isn't it?"

Sufficiently sure no cars were coming, Emma eased her foot onto the gas and pulled out, turning the wheel as she did so and pulling out onto the road. "You can open your eyes," she told her mother.

Rachel peeked through her fingers. "Are we dead?"

"No. But thanks for all the faith you're putting in me."

"Sorry," Rachel apologized, moving around in her seat a little. "Okay, well, we should probably take the back roads home. Less traffic… though your more likely to hit a tree…"

"I'll try to steer clear," Emma promised, and made another right turn down a residential street. They glided along, the fastest Emma going being forty miles an hour.

"Stop sign," Rachel said absently, seeing the red hexagon up ahead at the end of the street. When Emma didn't immediately start slowing down, Rachel repeated a little louder, "Stop sign."

"I see it," Emma assured. She pressed down on the brake and they came to a stop. "Mom, you've got to chill."

Rachel huffed to herself and started to drum her fingers on the center armrest, where her left arm was situated. "Driving is a big responsibility," she said.

"I know," Emma replied, taking her time in making a left turn. "Dad gave me the speech before we left."

"Well, I was over at Monica and Chandler's when he lectured you, so think of this as an extra helping of rules and advice."

"I'm all ears," Emma said invitingly, keeping her eyes on the road, and only letting them stray when she was checking the mirrors.

"Okay," Rachel affirmed, putting her thoughts together. She wasn't completely sure what else to say beyond 'driving is a big responsibility', and she'd already used that. "Always be careful. Always check your mirrors and be mindful of the cars around you. If you're driving your friends- which you aren't allowed to do so alone until six months after you have your license, so you better not before then- never turn around in your seat to talk to them or anything. Don't drink and drive, or do drugs and drive. Well, I don't want you doing either in general, and I know you're a very sensible girl, but just in case. Oh, don't go too far over the speed limit… but don't go too slow, either."

"How slow is 'too slow?" Emma asked.

"Um, okay, remember when we were coming back from Sean's soccer game and your dad was driving and there was a truck with some wood strapped in the back of it in front of us, and he was worried the wood was going to fall out and we'd drive over it?"

Emma shook her head at the memory. "Oh my God, he went at a snail's pace for, like, five miles."

"Yeah," Rachel nodded. "Well, 'too slow' is about ten above that."

Chuckling, the sixteen-year-old came to a four-way stop and halted the car. "Is that it?"

Rachel stared at her daughter with a soft smile. Seeing her sitting there in the driver's seat, her hands on the wheel at the ten-and-two position, her eyes moving to check the mirrors every so often, just hit it home how grown up her little girl was getting. What was left after this? Graduation… going off to college… getting a real job… getting married… having her own children…

"Oh, hey, look! Chandler, Jack, and Erica are outside!" Emma said as they neared the Bing's home. "Can we stop and say hi? I want to rub it in to the twins that I have my permit and they still have to wait two years."

"Sure, we have some time to kill before dinner," Rachel agreed, and Emma cautiously pulled into the driveway, stopping and turning the engine off a good distance away from Chandler's car, which was parked outside of the garage.

As Emma undid her seatbelt and bounded out of the car, brandishing her permit, Rachel sighed. The ability to drive was giving her oldest daughter a whole new realm of freedom that she'd yet to experience. In sixth months, when she got her license, she would no longer even need her parents to be in the car with her when she went places.

Getting her permit may have been one small step for Emma towards reaching independence, but for Rachel, it was one giant leap towards the girl no longer needing her parents.

As Rachel got out of the car and said hello to her brother-in-law, niece, and nephew, who were all congratulating Emma on her achievement, she knew in her heart that even if her daughter was growing up quickly, she'd always have some need for her mother.

XXX