Hi! This is a really old story I wrote, filled with head cannons and set in the days of St. Sebastian's orphanage. I hope you enjoy it!
Tom glued the last photo down and smiled.
'Finished.'
Shutting the book, he picked it up and walked over to Penny's bed. He had made it earlier, so it was pretty and pressed- not a wrinkle in a sheet. Placing the book down gently in front of her pillow, Tom closed his eyes and sighed, hoping it would be worth it.
Footsteps sounded up the hall, and Tom quickly hopped out the window and onto an adjoining tree. Peeking into the room, he sat and waited for her to receive the gift.
Penny stumbled in through the door and pouted. It had been a very long day in the city, snatching wallets and watches. It didn't help that she had to do it alone- Otto had told her Tom was sick that morning.
'Highly contagious, terrible cold.' Otto had frowned, 'But eh, I bet he'd want you to continue about your day- so I'll stay and help him get better.'
It had taken a bit of convincing and smooth talking, but Otto did finally manage to get Penny to leave for the day. It had given him and Tom the perfect time to prepare the little gift.
Penny threw the bag of goodies into her closet and sighed, ripping off the hat that had covered her bright pink hair.
It wasn't until she turned to grab her lip-gloss from the side table that she noticed the book.
Immediately rushing over Penny picked it up gingerly, handling it as though it was fragile as glass.
'It can't be.' Penny shook her head, eyes wide, 'No way.'
A single finger of hers dragged across the gold lettering on the leather cover.
"Richard's Family Album"
Penny opened to the first page and immediately burst into tears, for there on the crisp white paper was a sloppily pasted picture of her mother and father holding her as a baby- before the fire had taken their lives.
Every page she flipped, there were more pictures.
The grandma she had only vague memories of, a brother she didn't know she had had. And at the very end was the newspaper clipping detailing the flame that had extinguished the lives of her family.
Penny was about to close the book, when her finger caught the edge of another page at the back; it had been stuck to the back cover by accident- probably from the fresh glue. Curiously Penny pried it open, wondering what would be on it.
A beautiful color picture of herself and Tom was framed and glued onto it, with the words 'You are my family as I am yours' scrawled out in Tom's messy printing on the top of the page.
Penny's knees gave out as she sat on her bed and sobbed. She cried for her dead parents, she cried for the sibling she would never know- but most of all she cried because of Tom. She could never have wished for a better friend, and when Tom poked his head through the window he was almost catapulted off the tree by the sheer force she bear hugged him with.