A/N: I just always wondered what happened to the picture that Barnum took of Rose and Sparrow when they were children, and what would have happened if Sparrow found it when she was at Reaver's Bloodstone Mansion when he killed Barnum.
Hearing words being exchanged behind the door caused Sparrow to open it. A flash of light hit her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She had to blink a few times for her vision to clear. When her sight returned to her a few seconds later, Sparrow saw someone she hadn't seen since she was a child in Bowerstone: Barnum.
Seeing his face brought on certain memories that Sparrow did not feel like re-living, but was forced to, regardless of her negative feelings on the matter. The last time she had seen Barnum was the last day she had spent with her sister, Rose, whose face she had not seen in twenty years.
Twenty years. It felt like someone poured ice-cold water over her. How was it possible for so much time to have passed? Sparrow felt guilty. Twenty years and she still hadn't avenged her sister's death. And the encounter with the banshee earlier didn't help either. The dead hag claimed her sister's last moments were spent seeing Sparrow shot, crashing through the window, and falling to her almost-death. So, it was most likely that Rose thought Sparrow had died before she herself did as well.
A loud gun-shot rang throughout the room, and Sparrow flinched, feeling as if she had been shot by Lucien again all over again. It was such an intense feeling that she had to place a hand upon her chest, checking for any bloody wounds. Feeling none, Sparrow looked at Reaver, just barely catching his angry hiss of:
"Three months?"
Sparrow recalled Barnum saying something of the sort from her childhood. He said it took three months for his photographs to develop, and the villagers that had stopped by to watch, walked away, thinking it was a scam. The photograph... the photograph! The picture that Barnum had taken of Sparrow and Rose. Would Barnum still have it? Granted, it had been twenty years, but neither of the sisters had claimed it, and Sparrow figured that Barnum probably used it as proof that his invention worked.
Walking forward, Sparrow ignored Reaver, who in turn seemed to be ignoring her for the moment as well, and stepped over Barnum's dead body. The body nor blood did not phase her, having already seen so much death in her life. Sparrow proceeded forward, grabbing what she assumed to be Barnum's bag and dumped the supplies on the floor. She scanned through the objects and found a box, which seemed to be the only object big enough to hold any photographs.
Opening it, Sparrow looked through the pictures, seeing many different people, even some she had met in her travels. Nonetheless, she flicked unimportant photos on the floor. Sparrow went through dozens of photos. Just how many had Barnum taken? She began to worry, thinking that perhaps Barnum had not kept the picture of Rose and herself. Growing frustrated, she threw the damnable box across the room, dozens of photos swishing through the air to fall to the ground.
Sparrow felt her throat tighten, and she had to suck in a shuddering breath.. She just wanted to see her sister's face. Couldn't she be allowed that one blessing in her horrid life? Apparently not. As Sparrow turned to leave, she happened to glance down and stopped. There was the photo, of her and Rose, ready to suck up Barnum's blood.
Quickly, Sparrow bent down to retrieve the picture before it was ruined. Unfortunately, it had absorbed enough blood to stain one side of the photo. Sparrow frowned, attempting to rid the blood off the photo by running her thumb through it. With an angry sigh, she realized too late that it just made the blood stain worse. Sparrow then decided to study the photo, ruined as it was, and didn't know how to feel about it. On one hand, she was seeing her sister's face again. Isn't that what she had wanted earlier? To see her sister's face? It should make her feel happy, but it didn't. It just made her experience a wave of loneliness. Not to mention that the blood had ruined her sister's side of the photo, and thanks to Sparrow's own cleverness, now stained part of her sister's face.
Sparrow wondered if it meant anything, or if some higher power was trying to send her a message. Rose, who was currently dead, was stained with blood, and Sparrow, who was alive, was unstained. She suddenly felt angry, her eyebrows drawing together and her lips forming a silent snarl. She didn't need a damn blood-stained photograph to tell her that her sister was dead! Maybe someone was making fun of her, or enjoying her torment, because of course, Sparrow didn't have nearly enough torment in her life.
Letting out a tired sigh, the anger melted away, though Sparrow's lips formed a frown. Again she studied the picture in her hands. A younger Sparrow was sporting a cheeky grin and giving a thumbs up, seemingly happy despite living on the street. Rose, being the teenage girl she was, was trying to look cute and was giving a shy smile. Her last smile.