A/N: You guys have no idea how much I've been wanting to get to Gwen and Ruby. They're adorable and have been bopping around in this story since August.

Shameless Plug: I've got another AU in the works, In Want of An Heir, that's a three-part nobility/arranged marriage Whouffaldi AU. If that sounds like your cup of tea, the first chapter's up!

Chapter Twenty-One: Saturday

The following morning brought with it rain that came down in torrents, trapping the inhabitants of 12 Wissforn Road indoors. For John and Clara, it meant that they went straight to the couch to read and cuddle after breakfast… but for their tiny guests, however…

"This place is cool," Ruby said as she stood on a chair looking at old photos on the wall. "Do you know when this house was built, Mr. Smith?"

"Oh, a couple hundred years ago, if you can imagine," John chuckled. "It was my grandmother's grandfather who built it."

"…and you're old, so that must make this place ancient."

"Ruby, be nice…" Clara warned. The little girl sighed and continued looking at the photographs.

"Where was this taken?" she asked. "It kind of looks like the photos in the halls in our flat block."

"Oh…" John disentangled himself from Clara and put down his book, going over to look at the photo Ruby was pointing at. "That was on a bridge by Parliament Hall. I was a wee lad then, on holiday with my granny."

"You don't look very 'wee'," Ruby said. "You almost look as old as our brother!"

John chuckled at that. "Oh really now? Well, I was seventeen that trip. How old is your brother?"

"Uh… GWEN? HOW OLD IS RUPERT?"

"You don't need to shout," Gwen grumbled as she walked into the sitting room. She sat down importantly in the easy chair closest to the front window and smoothed out her skirt before curling up with one of John's books. "Rupert is twenty-five."

"Okay! He's twenty-five!" Ruby smiled.

"That's a little far away from seventeen," John laughed. He looked over at Clara and smirked. "Twenty-five… I've got mates whose sons are twenty-five."

"…and you're married to a twenty-two year old. You could have fathered us all." Clara smiled in satisfaction as John frowned at that, not even snapping out of it when Ruby hopped up onto his back.

"So you could be our dad?" Ruby asked. She climbed further up and sat on John's shoulders, reaching for the ceiling. "I'd like if you were our dad."

"No… your dad is your dad," John said, looking up at the girl as he held her shins in place for balance. "Don't you have one?"

"Ruby," Gwen hissed. "Stop it."

"Come on… aren't you sick of Rupert pretending to do dad stuff? We didn't even have the same dad as he did…"

"Ruby, stop."

"Now girls, don't fight," John scolded softly. "I can't be your dad since if I was your dad then Mrs. Smith would have to be your mam. You already have a mam, and she loves you very much, and I don't think she'd take kindly to some strange couple keeping you from her. Now tell me, what does your brother do?" John sat back down on the couch and let Ruby tumble off his shoulders into the cushion between him and Clara.

"He's a soldier," the girl said, folded up on her back and staring at the ceiling. "Before that he drove a truck somewhere. I forget. But no matter what he's always 'clean your room' and 'eat your veg' and telling us we can't play football in the flat."

"Always telling you that you can't play football in the flat," Gwen chimed in. Ruby stuck her tongue out at her sister and scowled.

"Well, I have to agree with Rupert that it's probably not a good idea to play football in a flat," John sighed. He sat Ruby upright, only for her to drape herself in overdramatic boredom across his lap. "However, if your mam says you have to listen to your brother you probably should. He takes care of you, right?"

"Yeah… I guess," Ruby whined. "Still rather have a real dad though."

John paused for a moment, looking at Clara out of the corner of his eye. She did not seem to be bothered by the conversation and took that as permission to go ahead. "Does your dad not stay with you?"

"Our dad's in the Army, like our brother, but he went to India before the war and didn't come back. He's probably dead or something."

"Ruby…" Gwen snapped, her eyes threatening to cry.

"Well, it's true!" Ruby scoffed, craning her neck to look at her sister. "And no one cares because something or other and Mum's good at looking after us because she had to look after her and Rupert when his dad died. I'm seven, not stupid."

"Alright, that's enough of that," Clara said, snapping her book shut. "Girls, behave yourselves while I talk with Mr. Smith in the kitchen."

"Okay…" Gwen and Ruby sighed in chorus. Ruby rolled off of John's lap onto the floor and made her way over towards the large radio box, poking at the heavy knobs. Clara pulled her husband into the kitchen and sat him down at the table, smacking the back of his head.

"Ow, what was that for…?!" John whispered. Clara narrowed her eyes and huffed angrily.

"You are not their dad, you will never be their dad, and you need to stop getting attached to them. You are horrible!"

"Clara, I'm just making conversation!"

"Do you want to know how long I've had Gwen and Ruby?" Clara asked. John stared at her, not replying. "I've had them for over three months. Most kids, even working class kids, are able to get homes in one, maybe two. Not Gwen and Ruby. They're looking for someone to get attached to who will keep them, whether they realize it or not. There's an estate up in the Highlands that is willing to finally take them both in, but only once they've cleared the space necessary to keep them. Not next week, but the week after. Don't encourage them in the meantime."

"I'm not trying to be their dad. I just…"

"You just what?"

"I just want to know a bit more about them. No matter what they're still guests in my house."

"Our house."

"That I inherited, thank you. You've had them at the school for over three months and you haven't even asked them about their family?"

Clara sat down and sighed. "I've written their mum to let her know the progress, and she's written back. She worries about all three of her children a lot. It was actually all Rupert could do to convince her to let him join the Army and put the girls on a train up here after Christmas."

"He sounds like a smart young man."

"Real smart, from the way their mum goes on. She's worried he'll get himself killed like his stepdad, or die of the flu like his dad did, and never get the chance to amount to anything. She worries that her daughters will be split up like they would have if they'd gone to the English countryside with the rest of their classmates, and she didn't trust the people sending children into Wales. We owe it to her to not make this any more difficult than it already is."

John slowly nodded, but ended with a small smile. "There are children in the house for the first time in years. A year ago we hadn't even shared a bed but now we're married, there's children, even if they aren't our children, and I'm so happy, Clara. The house is happy. Can't you feel it?"

She blinked at him and raised an eyebrow. "The house? Now you're talking to the house? It's bad enough you're afraid of your family's ghosts but the house talking?"

"You stop calling the kilt a skirt and maybe I'll rest easier at night. There are people who take offense to that, you know," John replied, as if it was an argument they had fifteen times by then. His wife groaned and slouched in her chair.

"The nineteenth, one o'clock, Glasgow Queen Street to Aberdeen."

"Which means…?" He raised his eyebrows, curious.

"…which means you've got until twelve-fifty-nine on the nineteenth," Clara said. She held back a frown as she saw her husband perk up. "Don't think this is me wanting to have kids sooner by trying some out now; this is to stave off being a dad, not quicken it."

"Oh, of course, dearest," he grinned. John quickly stood back up and kissed her hair before going back into the sitting room, where Gwen was finishing her book and Ruby was moving her curiosity towards the back of the radio.

"Hey girls, it looks like the rain might be letting up for a little while. What do you say we go down to the river and take a look around? Did you bring galoshes?"

"Uh… no…?" Gwen said, pondering her answer. "I don't think we did."

"That's fine—I still think I've got some from when I was a lad knocking about. What do you say?"

"Yeah!" the girl cheered, jumping up from their seat and running to the door to get their coats. John turned around and saw Clara leaning on the doorframe between the kitchen and sitting room.

"Be careful," she warned. He made his way over and kissed her, grinning.

"Back in a couple hours, Mam. Now where'd you put my umbrella?"