AN: This takes place shortly after "A Funny Thing Happened While You Were Away." A reader commented after reading this story that she wanted just a paragraph or something bringing the story back around to the business trip they were on in the first place. In pondering that feedback I realized that was the thing missing at the end of "Miraculous Adventure." So… here it is!

Tomorrow I will start publishing the final story in this "Spring Break" event, "Girls' Day Out," which brings together characters and plots from this story, "Purity and Corruption," and "The Queen is Dead."

Mme Legrand leaned back in her business class seat, kicked off her shoes, and settled in for the eight-hour flight home. The trip had gone fine – as business trips go, there weren't any major surprises. Well, there was one surprise…

That surprise was currently sprawled out across two seats a few rows ahead of her, her head on his shoulder and both already fast asleep from exhaustion.

Lorena had bought her explanation for Marinette and Adrien's absence readily enough on the day they pulled their disappearing act. The dress design Marinette had whipped up overnight had certainly helped to "seal the deal" for the story that Marinette had been inspired to create a line of Latin American clothing solely based on Lorena's "encouragement."

That story had started to wear a little thin after the first day.

When she received the notification that their itinerary had been changed abruptly, with Marinette and Adrien leaving from a different airport (in the middle of nowhere north of Lima) and flying straight to America, Mme Legrand had started to wonder. After all, what on earth could the two rising stars in the world of fashion be doing in Colorado of all places? The immigration agent had raised an eyebrow at her on entering Panama when he noticed the changes to her party composition, although he had not asked any explicit questions.

She wished the same could be said for their Panama City distributor, who was exceedingly disappointed to miss the opportunity to meet Adrien and especially Marinette. Mme Legrand had of course given him the same cover story as she'd used in Peru, though she could tell he was a bit skeptical.

And then on Saturday Adrien and Marinette had showed up at her hotel room in New York after midnight like nothing had happened… and brought a new "friend" with them. They looked like they had been through hell – their "friend" stood to one side and wrung his hands in agitation as though he was uncomfortable. She doubted any of them had slept well – an impression which was only reinforced when Adrien mentioned that they had arrived an hour earlier – and in Newark! She had opened her mouth to ask about their side trip to Colorado, but shut her mouth dumbly – it wasn't exactly her business, was it?

Instead, she had asked about sleep, and all three had passed out for the rest of the night. She had planned to let them sleep through the final meeting with the New York distributor and only wake them up when it was time to catch their flight to Paris. However, Marinette had tumbled off the bed and insisted on attending the last meeting, and Adrien had woken up at the crack of dawn anyways. She had no idea how they had done it – lots of coffee, no doubt – but they had survived that meeting. Marinette had even presented a handful of new designs to the New York advertising consultant, who had been duly impressed. No one else had noticed just how far off their game the kids were. They covered it up well, but by now Mme Legrand knew them too well to be fooled.

So here they all were on the plane back to Paris, their new seemingly-mute friend safely ensconced in the seat next to Mme Legrand, and the kids had finally crashed. Marinette had handed her no less than seven sketchbooks in the airport, every page of which she had covered with completely new designs. The first sketchbook she opened held an entire "Spring" line of clothing inspired by Latin America. The coloring and shading was just perfect, down to the last detail. How the girl could manage to design so many pieces in a week – on top of whatever else she'd been doing – would have to remain one of life's mysteries. For this particular line of clothes, Marinette appeared to have taken inspiration from the local Peruvian animal life.

The next sketchbook she opened was labeled "Summer" and incorporated the plant life and architecture of Lima into the designs. Bold greens and bright colors, with elements reminiscent of traditional Latin American dress worked into the pattern.

Each sketchbook was the same, filled with designs – some inspired by her time in America, some fitting more of a traditional Asian aesthetic, some feeling far more European for the regular "Marinette" line.

Finally, she came to the last sketchbook, the first half of which was filled with abstract pictures: various shapes shaded in brilliant colors. Silver and gold dominated the color palette, though green and tawny brown appeared as well. One worked with the colors of the color wheel exclusively, focusing especially on red and black for some reason. On closer examination, she realized that all the patterns and colorations looked familiar – the tapestries Marinette had commissioned from Agreste, and which Mme Legrand had seen the handful of times she had visited the Mansion since the fall. Perhaps Marinette was designing a new set of tapestries for their Mansion?

Near the end of that book she found a few t-shirt designs which shared a lot of common elements with the newest Heroes of Paris line. However, these shirts depicted entirely different animals and designs – wolf, eagle, raccoon, jaguar, dinosaur… Idly she wondered if Agreste was planning to expand its Heroes line. Or if these shirts represented new heroes. Or where these new heroes even came from. She'd seen a couple of heroes running around New York on her first day there, but none of these designs looked even close to the Majestia logo.

Mme Legrand had to pause on the final page of the sketchbook. The jacket Marinette had designed took her breath away. Clearly this was not inspired by anything in Latin America! The front of the jacket showed a beaded pattern covering both breasts which was clearly of American Indian origin. But on the back she saw a single large brown bear, standing up on its hind legs, front legs spread out and claws fully extended. The bear wore a headband with a single feather and stood protectively in front of a pair of cubs. But what really took her breath away was the expression on the bear's face: the perfect mix of strength, bravery, and resignation.

What could they have done to inspire these designs?

AN: Considering that "Latin America" covers the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (where seasons are reversed) as well as the tropics (where there are 2 "seasons": "Wet Season" and "Dry Season"), I'm making the assumption that they will use the South American calendar for seasons – meaning that "Spring" starts in August/September.