Ross quickly got over Charlie, and he didn't tell the gang what she had said about them. "Oh, we broke up because... we had some fights about some paleontology stuff. Nothing you'd be interested in."
So for now, Ross focused on the joys of spoiling his daughter Emma. He got her educational toys as well as the fluffy, frilly stuff that he'd never given to Ben.
Rachel often smiled at how cute they were together, and they kept calling each other Mommy and Daddy in front of Emma. For now, they still called Joey "Uncle Joey" too. Rachel felt happy that Ross was supportive and not jealous at all. Maybe he'd finally changed for the better.
Everything was great for a while, and Joey really surprised everyone with how sweet he was to Rachel and how ready he was to commit. (After all, he'd never been good at being faithful or serious before.) Joey defied those expectations, and he even talked about the future and settling down someday.
Then after a couple of months, Joey brought Rachel to dinner at his parents' house, to be formally introduced to all the Tribbiani relatives as his girlfriend, rather than just one of his five friends.
Rachel was nervous, and the dinner felt vaguely reminiscent of the Thanksgiving when Monica first told her parents that she was dating, let alone living with, Chandler. Except that this dinner was an Italian feast, and Rachel kept confusing Joey's numerous relatives. The confusion wasn't all on her part, though. Joey's grandparents and other older relatives kept thinking that Rachel was married to Joey, and that Emma was their baby.
"How did I miss the wedding?" they kept asking in Italian. "Did you elope?"
"No, we're not married," Joey said.
They gasped. "You mean you made this poor child a bastard? Shame on you!"
Joey eventually sorted out the misunderstanding, but it was a headache, as he didn't know that much Italian himself and had to ask other relatives to translate.
After they returned from the dinner and put Emma to bed, Rachel naturally began to think about arranging a reciprocal dinner where Joey would formally meet Rachel's parents. Actually, it would probably have to be two separate dinners, since Dr. and Mrs. Green still bickered even all these years after their divorce. Rachel realized with a laugh that Joey had once kissed Mrs. Green to distract her during Rachel's two birthday parties. How ironic.
As Rachel got into bed with Joey that night, she reminded him of the incident, and he frowned, feeling more disturbed than amused.
"Oh yeah. I forgot I did that. Weird. It's like that time Monica dated Richard's son. Or Ross kissed Chandler's mom."
Rachel laughed. "Don't worry. At least you only did it to prevent a fight between my mom and dad. You weren't hitting on her."
"But she thought I was, I'll bet!" Joey shrugged and sighed. "Let's just hope she doesn't remember it. Oh, and definitely don't tell Emma when she's older! She's gonna have a hard enough time understanding that her uncle is with her mom, without me kissing her grandma too."
Rachel grinned and teased him. "Yeah, I guess it's worse than knowing that her Uncle Joey stole Hugsy from her."
"Hey! I did not steal Hugsy from her. She stole him from me!" Joey pouted and rolled over, hugging the penguin doll close to him for security.
Joey could be so adorable sometimes. (He had eventually won the tug-of-war with Rachel by telling Ross about it, and Ross showed them a baby book that advised parents not to give stuffed animals like Hugsy to kids as young as Emma.) Joey had been happily triumphant ever since and always kept Hugsy near his bed.
Since Joey seemed in a mood to snuggle with Hugsy tonight, Rachel left him alone and thought some more about arranging the dinners with her parents.
She worried the most about presenting Joey to her father, because Dr. Green was harsh on all of Rachel's past boyfriends, especially Ross. The only guy that Dr. Green had wholly approved of was Barry, whom Rachel had left at the altar.
As she lay there in bed, Rachel started to imagine what it would be like to marry Joey. To have the traditional family that Joey's relatives were impatient for him to have. They had been waiting for years for Joey to get serious about any woman, and this seemed to be the one and only chance for him to settle down.
Rachel certainly did want to get married someday, though a lot of things would have to be worked out first, including whether to raise their kids Jewish or Catholic. Rachel would definitely enjoy planning out the wedding with the help of Monica and Phoebe. But as she imagined walking down the aisle in her beautiful dress, and the groom lifting up her veil, Rachel suddenly saw Ross's face instead of Joey's. That was silly. Rachel wasn't with Ross anymore, and hadn't been for a long time.
Rachel tried to dismiss the image and picture the wedding correctly, but Ross kept showing up as the groom. Ugh! Maybe it was just because Rachel had married Ross once, in Vegas. So Rachel tried to picture her life after the wedding, happily married to Joey and raising their kids in a big house; she smiled, until she again saw Ross's face instead of Joey's. With a gasp, Rachel abruptly realized that she was imagining their house, not somewhere in L.A., as Joey always talked about, but in Scarsdale, a place that Ross had once talked about when they were dating and first said "I love you" to each other. She couldn't believe that she could still remember that detail.
Rachel rolled over in bed and looked at Joey, who was already asleep. She snuggled up to him and tried to get her mind off of Ross, but couldn't. She found herself remembering many nights that she had spent in Ross's arms. Most of those memories were from years ago, but they somehow came back to life with startling clarity. Rachel lay awake most of the night, disturbed and confused by this resurgence of Ross in her heart.