Prompter: DominusTempori

Prompt: John and/or Clara is looking at a family photo album, one or more of the kids is all "Whatcha lookin' at?" and various little flashbacks or cute nostalgia stories follow.

Originally posted: 8 October 2015

Notes: I wrote this to commemorate the one year anniversary of TTTWLB, which was on 8 October; 1057 words; takes place October 1952


It was a lazy autumn day as John and Clara sat together on the couch, legs stretched out along the cushions and arms entwined around one another. With the weekend there, both were free to relax as the kids played with each other throughout the house and in the back garden. They were comfortable enough to begin drifting off, only coming back to full attention when two pairs of tiny, hyperactive feet came stomping through the sitting room.

"Mummy, Daddy, look what we found!" Wynn announced excitedly. Her parents looked and saw that she was holding a photo album high above her head.

"It's got a lot of pictures in it! Can you tell us what's going on?!" Davey added.

"Sure," Clara said, shifting so that she was sitting more upright and less slumped over into her husband. Once John swung his legs back so that his feet touched the floor, their kids climbed up on the couch between them and opened the album to a specific page.

"Okay, who's that with Auntie Sarah Jane?" Wynn asked. She pointed at a photo of her windblown aunt, decades younger and wrapped up in an unfamiliar man's arms, as well as his scarf.

"Oh… that was her boyfriend for a number of years—hated bringing him around the house because your Granddad Smith would get grumpy afterward," John explained. "He and I were okay mates, but we stopped talking once we got hit with your auntie's mean streak."

"She told us about that," Wynn said. "Is that the boyfriend that left her at the train station?"

"Him and I both, on total accident mind you," he frowned. "Anything else you wanted to see?"

"Yeah, this one!" Davey exclaimed. He flipped to a page that had his parents standing with their friend Collette on her wedding day. "I don't think I've seen Auntie Collie in something like that before."

"That was at her wedding reception," Clara said. "That's the fanciest I've ever seen Auntie Collie, both before that day and after."

"…that's 'cause she worked with you on ships, right Daddy?" Wynn asked.

"That's part of the reason," John chuckled. "She's never been very good at things like pretty dresses and keeping out of the dirt—it's been like that since she was your age."

"Did you see the photo of Daddy and Auntie Collie while at work?" Clara wondered. The children both shook their heads, so she found the page that had the photograph in question and pointed it out. There was a bunch of people gathered around for the photo: John was towards the back while Collette more around the middle. At the exact center of the group was a woman in pressed clothes and a fancy hat.

"Who's that?" Davey asked, pointing at the woman who seemed very out-of-place. "Was she the ship-building-place's owner?"

"No… you know how we have a new Queen?" Clara waited for the kids to nod in reply before continuing. "That's her auntie. She's a princess."

"Oh wow," both the children marveled. They stared at the photo, intently trying to make out any of the other faces.

"Where's that cross lady?" Davey asked.

"Miss Verity? She's right there," John said, pointing out his old coworker. It always made him chuckle when his kids referred to Verity as "that cross lady", considering how cross she really was with him over the years for no reason whatsoever other than getting his life together later than most. He turned the page and found an image of Clara feeding Donny, making a face as she tried to get the infant to open his mouth for the spoon. "Now who is that?"

"That's Donny!" Davey said. "That's at your flat, right?"

"It was," Clara replied. She kissed the top of her son's head and smoothed out his hair. "We often babysat Donny, since we didn't have any kids of our own."

"That's 'cause you waited until after the war to have us," Davey stated, repeating something said to him long ago.

"Correct," John said. His heart sank a little, but with one arm around his wife and the other occupied with holding the album, it didn't stay down for long. "We wanted to have children on-purpose until after the fighting stopped and we could move to London, because this is where we wanted to raise you kids."

"…and you had to wait until after the war because London liked to explode at random!" Wynn shouted, waving around her arms for emphasis.

"Now who told you that?" Clara asked. She raised an eyebrow as her daughter grew sheepish, already knowing the offending party's identity.

"Mr. Strax," she replied. "He said lots of things exploded, and that's why when we go into town, sometimes there's ruined buildings.

"That's right, but not completely," John said. "Bad people threw bombs at London, or made otherwise good people throw bombs or else they were fired from their job. Other places got out just as bad or worse, whether they were good or bad or a little of both."

"Mummy, where's the photo of Miss Gwen and Miss Ruby?" Davey asked. "Wynnie and I looked everywhere in here, but it's not in this book."

"I must have put it in a different album," she replied. Actually, she had it set aside in her room so she could take it to find a frame the following week, but she wasn't going to tell him that yet. It was a little miracle that the camera with that negative survived the bombing of the Wissforn house intact, and if she could find a frame for the one, she could have John make a duplicate and give it to them as a surprise Christmas gift.

"Really?! Come on Wynnie! Let's go find the other photo books!" he decided. He and his sister both slid off the couch and began to run out of the room, storming up the stairs to look for the albums.

"Forget a never-ending battery—just attach a wire to a small child and they'll have enough energy to power all of England for a year," Clara sighed. She took the album and snuggled into her husband's side, slowly perusing the pages. "When will it not be hard, John?"

"I don't know, but it's easier knowing I've got the three of you," he said gently.