Chapter Text
When Sammy is 10 years old, she comes back from school the Friday before spring break to see her father packing a suitcase. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. What is unusual is his big smile as he does, and the fact that her own, smaller piece of luggage has also been pulled out of the closet.
"Daddy, where are we going?" she asks, as she gets herself a snack.
"Its a surprise," he answers, "Now hurry up and pack, Monica is meeting us at the airport."
"Monica huh?" she says, raising a brow like he always does when she gets called to the principal's office.
He glares in a way that would probably be scary if he wasn't her dad. Sammy rolls her eyes like Gisele taught her to do when men are being ridiculous and starts by putting her favorite dress and a big sweatshirt (black, with "O'Connor's Garage Staff" on the back and "Hobbs Jr." on the front corner) into her suitcase.
When Sam is 18 years old, she catches the flight to Paris herself. It made no sense to go back to DC when she could just as easily leave from New York, where she's nearly done with her freshmen year of college. She's majoring in economics at Columbia, but considering switching from general econ to economics-political science.
When the plane touches down at Charles De Gaulle airport, she's surprised to see Mia and Monica waiting to pick her up instead of her father.
"Is dad ok?" are the first words out of her mouth.
"Told you she'd panic." Mia says to Monica, before turning to Sam with a grin.
"Your dad is fine. But considering you're officially an adult now, we figured you should come get ready with us."
Sam looks between the two of them in disbelief. Sure, she always knew that all of the women went somewhere on the first day of the Paris trip, but mostly, she had just kind of gone with it, hanging with her dad and the guys and the other kids.
"If that's ok with you," Monica adds, and Sam realizes she hasn't replied.
She squeezes both women tight, mumbling "that sounds perfect," but as they're getting into Mia's car another vehicle screeches up and her dad climbs out.
He holds out his fist.
"Three for the road?" he asks, his voice as vulnerable as she's ever heard her big, tough Daddy sound.
She hugs him first, then goes through the first bump (over, under, straight on,) before climbing in behind Mia and Monica.
Sam may be all grown up, but her dad will always be the first one she rode shotgun with.
Sloane doesn't remember ever not going to Paris for spring break, and it ends up having a somewhat outsized influence on her life.
Ramsey started teaching her French via Skype about at soon as she was talking, starting with the designers (Christian Loo-boo-taan not la-boot-in, Jean Paul Goh-teeay not Gaul-tea-air, and she's pretty sure if she ever said give-in-chee not Zhee-vawn-shee, they would never find her body) so it's a no-brainer to take it in school as soon as foreign languages are an option. From there, she tumbles down the rabbit hole of the rest of the Romance Languages: Portuguese from Elena, Spanish from Monica, Italian, and eventually Romanian because its the last one and why not.
She loves learning about each one, their history and culture and personality. She comes across a post on the internet that says "The Romance Languages are those siblings that everyone says look alike, and then they look at each other disgusted like 'ugh, we do not.'" She laughs for a solid 10 minutes before bookmarking it, then asks Neela, Sean, and Gisele to teach her Japanese and Hebrew to mix things up a little.
With all of this under her belt, Sloane ends up skipping college entirely in favor of an alphabet of certification acronyms: TOEFL, TESOL, and the like. She follows in her mother's footsteps as a teacher, Neela's as a translator, Gisele's as a permanent traveler. (And, to be fair, her whole family's as a trouble magnet.) The world is her oyster, and the languages make it open, revealing every pearl. She translates Spanish to French in Guatemala, teaches English in South Korea, meets up with Han and Gisele when they all want to see a newly-opened museum in Kuwait.
Sloane uses a beat up moped to get around most of southeast Asia, (fixed with help from Tej over skype with a crappy wifi hookup,) tries Gisele's favorite Tel Aviv bakery, spends 6 months driving a cab in Montreal, and nearly a year working at a hostel in Rome-the-city. Rome-the-person teaches her to gamble in Macau, so she can always hit up a poker table if she gets too bored of legitimacy. He also teaches her to pick pockets, and though her parents pretend not to know that bit, Mia snags Rome's wallet when they're visiting London one weekend, just to prove a point.
Every year though, she makes sure to make it back to Paris. Sloane looks around at dinner on the first night after spending the day shopping and getting ready with the women, at all of these people who have taught her to speak and drive and live. Her tribe. Her family.
Alexa is the baby, almost a full year younger than Andrew and Colin, about a decade behind Sam.
When she is 18, she runs away in Paris. Leaves a note on the table of the house where she and her parents are set up, and vanishes onto a eurorail car.
"I love you." The note says, "But I don't want this." Attached is that Year's Eiffel tower photo.
She's not dumb, she knows the rest of her generation is off living their own lives just fine.
Sam is perched in a high rise in New York City running a company that analyzes international business decisions for Fortune 500s.
Jack is one of the lead coordinators of the X-games.
Sloane is on break from an around-the world rock climbing trip with some friends she met teaching English in Chile.
Andrew is calling himself Andy, and is halfway through a bachelor's at UNC Willmington, majoring in Marine Biology, while Colin will have a sociology degree from UC Santa Barbara.
But they're all still held together by the gravity of The Family. Monthly check-ins, Skype conversations, and of course, this. Paris. She wants to resist that pull, to test her mettle against a force of nature. In the back of her head, she knows she can't lose them, knows how many security cameras and tiny microphones there are in the world but she thinks...she thinks maybe if she can get to the farthest corner of the world, then maybe she can be invisible for just a second.
So Alexa runs.
Sometimes, she thinks she sees someone. Gisele and Han, on Los Caracoles Pass. Mia and Sophie, taking a girls trip to Rome. Colin, studying abroad in Hong Kong.
After a year, she settles down. She's not made for constant motion the way Sloane is, running was just to get away. Alexa finds a job as a receptionist at a resort in Northern New Zealand and builds a life, all her papers done properly. She stays at the resort, works her way up until she's the manager. She marries the son of restaurant owner from the nearest town, has four kids, and doesn't touch anything capable of going over 100 for 11 whole years. During that time, she occasionally sends a postcard to The Family. They know that she's got a good job, that she's married, about the kids. They know she's more than ok, they know she still loves them. At the end of each one, she writes "please don't reply," and they have honored her wishes.
Her 30th birthday is full of joy, and at the end of it, Alexa turns to Quinn and says, "I think I'd like to go back to Paris."
He says "Okay."
The open road stretches forth from their door.