A/N: I'd kinda like to pick back up with the last chapter at some point, but this idea came first. Enjoy!

A Rite of Passage

Jim Shepard cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. "Alright, honey," he said, and turned to the girl in the driver's seat next to him. "Are you ready?"

Esme gave her father a sullen look. "This is still pointless."

"Nonsense," he argued with a smile, "learning to drive is a rite of passage for all human kids."

"Then why don't any of my friends drive?" countered the teenager. "You know even Mom says it's stupid."

"'Stupid,' honey? Did your mother actually say that?" he asked, eyeing her.

Esme's head dropped. "No," she admitted. "She said that it's unnecessary. And she's right," said the girl, facing her father with a defiant glint in her eye. "Dad, I can't remember the last time I even saw a real vehicle aside from…from this." Esme's had flew in front of her, taking in the controls of the M-35 Mako they were seated in. "I don't need to drive when I live on ships or stations. I've never heard anyone say anything about a stupid 'rite of passage.' I could be out with my friends at the new club that just opened! Instead I'm sitting on some godforsaken wasteland in a big clunky vehicle I don't even need to learn how to operate." Esme folded her arms and thrust herself into the back of the chair with a final fwump.

Jim weathered his daughter's outrage with patience. In many ways, the girl was much like her mother, and Jim knew very well that he only needed to wait for her to expend herself before he could get anywhere in the conversation. "You can go out with your friends when we're done here, Esme," he offered.

"Mom still thinks this is dumb."

Jim resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Let me tell you a secret. You know how I always tell you that your mother is right, no matter what?"

Esme grunted and eyed him, curiosity overcoming her sulkiness.

"Well, the truth is I'm a horrible liar and your mother is dead wrong in this situation. See, she was raised on a space station, but I grew up on Earth. Being raised on the human homeworld, I obviously know more about what is and isn't tradition and necessary for humans to know. And as the Earthling expert, I say you do have to learn how to drive, and your mother doesn't know what she's talking about. Though," he added as an afterthought, "don't tell her I said that."

Esme stared at him, nonplussed.

Jim groaned. "Tell you what. The sooner we finish the sooner we can go home. And I'll throw in some extra spending money for you and your friends to have some fun tonight. Deal?" He extended a hand.

Esme glared at it, then snatched it in her own surprisingly firm grim. "Deal."

"That's my girl. So, hands at ten and two, check the mirrors…you know which is the accelerator and which is the brake? Okay, so ease it out of 'park' gently, gently…"

Jim stared bleakly at the wreckage. They had to call a salvage team to get together the largest pieces of the vehicle and put out the parts that were on fire. He had no idea how he was going to pay for this.

Beside him, Esme chattered, her expression bright. "Did you see where we came up on the hill and I was like, uuuughhhh this is going so slow we are never making it up, and you were like, we should go back down, and I was like, no wait and I floored it and we made it over and oh man I can't believe we actually did a corkscrew I love driving so much oh my god I gotta remember to take vids of this next time so I can show Becky and Padma oh hi Mom!"

Jim blinked, something at the tail end of her rambling pricking his ears. "Mom," he wondered, and turned his attention from the dwindling fires. "Mom!" he yelped when he noticed his wife sauntering towards them. "I mean, Hannah! Dear! Hi!" He winced at the manic edge to his voice. "I thought you weren't going to be back until Tuesday."

"Our inspection went faster than expected," she replied. Her expression was carefully blank, and not even Jim could decipher it and figure out whether she was amused or furious. This wasn't good.

"Mom, I can't believe you missed it!" Esme grinned. "You were so wrong; driving is awesome! I can't wait to go out again. I'm like the best driver ever. Dad said even he didn't get this far on his fist go. I'm a natural, can you believe it?"

Hannah's lips quirked. "I can't wait to hear all about it, honey, but didn't you mention something about meeting your friends tonight in your last mail?"

Esme's mouth clamped shut (and Jim exhaled in relief). She brought up her wrist and clicked a few buttons on her omnitool display, then let out a cry of horror. "Oh my god. The club! I forgot all about it!" she wailed, then dashed off to the vehicle Hannah had arrived in, her fingers a blur as she brought up a messaging interface.

The silence stretched between them as Hannah paced to Jim's side and eyed the wreck before turning her attention to some vague point in the distance.

"Did you two have a nice father-daughter outing?" she asked at length.

"It was a bonding experience," he said carefully.

"I see, I see," Hannah murmured.

Somewhere in the debris, an alarm went off, a garbled automated voice alerting a potential burglar that they were too close to the vehicle.

"So," Hannah prompted. Jim's eyes shifted to meet hers.

"Yes?"

She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, clearly expectant.

Jim could feel his face pucker as though tasting something very sour. He kept his mouth shut.

Hannah just stared at him, her expression the same. The skin around her eyes tightened, creasing the crow's feet that were beginning to wear into her face.

Jim held out a few moments longer before exhaling. "You were right," he relented. "You're always right."

Hannah's expression relaxed into a smug smirk. "There we go. Now how about we get out of here and let the men do their work? When we get home we can discuss whose paycheck this is primarily coming out of and exactly how our insurance agent is going to record this." She took off towards the vehicle where Esme waited. Jim could almost swear she had a spring in her step.

"Yes, dear," Jim groaned, and followed.