FIC: Photographs and Memories, five ficlets, various fandoms, PG.
Photographs and Memories
Author’s notes: I wanted to commemorate having 500 posts memorified. So, I present five ficlets, none rated higher than PG. See each for title, fandom and other details. The overall title and theme for the collection comes from the ER episode, 'Photographs and Memories'.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, and I make no profit from this fan-written fiction.
Feedback is loved.
Photographs and Memories one: we'll cross the seven seas
Fandom: Swallows and Amazons, Nancy, gen, post-series future fic. 358 words. With thanks to _astralis for looking over this.
we'll cross the seven seas: shallowness
She hasn't long before she must go back below and join the other girls, but it’s enough time for her to take the picture out of the pocket in which she stowed it and unfold it. The natives had insisted on taking one of them all. They’re all so stiff. The Walkers are Walkers, not Swallows, and flanking them are a Ruth and Margaret who would never utter the word 'Amazon' outside a geography lesson.
But eyes used to looking at the horizon and poring over charts see that Susan is holding Bridget's hand, John is not yet taller than Nancy. She remembers that Titty had been told off for looking at the sky, not the camera, and sees the result of it in the solemn face that was captured. But Roger's lips are clamped together tightly, he was holding in a laugh, he whooped and whooped after the picture was taken, but never explained the joke. Perhaps he would have if they’d been free to threaten him with the plank.
She can almost remember the misery that followed of sandwiches pressed upon them, and their having to accept politely, when they were all busting to feast on the mates' rations after racing back to Wild Cat Island, the good old Amazon and Swallow neck and neck, the winning crew to pick the rest of the day's adventures. That’s why she put this picture and not another in her pocket in Beckfoot when no-one would notice in the flurry of packing and goodbyes.
“I’m so proud,” her mother had whispered, but when you had just come from Greenwich, you knew that however much you’d meant to go to sea when you’d joined up, you’d only freed a man for the fleet.
She’s a Wren and an officer now, and she tells herself again that she’s got to put up with this posting and make the most of it. She will, too. It’s her duty and her part of helping end the war. But she’s taking something of Captain Nancy with her, as she crosses as many of the seven seas as Third Officer Ruth Blackett will be allowed.
Photographs and Memories two: paint it black
Fandom: ER, Neela (Neela/Ray), spoilers for all of season 13, angst. 382 words. With thanks to lusmeitli for looking over this.
paint it black: shallowness
It isn't even a photograph of Ray, but his hand got into the shot, and she can't stop looking at it. The picture's subject, slap bang in the middle of the shot, is a cake she'd made for Abby. Well, she did decorate it. Neela was so impressed that she hadn't mucked up the icing, which was the right consistency and the colour she’d meant it to be, that she had to take a snap.
But Ray had got bored of being banished from the kitchen. Camera in hand, she'd ordered him to move away from her work, and he sort of stepped back, but his hand got in the shot. The camera wasn't digital, so she hadn't known until she'd had the film developed.
It was in the early days, when they were still testing each other's boundaries. She didn't have to be so precious about the icing, he was, she thinks now, only pretending to reach for the cake. Typically, it got wrecked anyway, thanks to a slip on an ice patch, and she showed Abby this picture to prove it. Then she had to go into a long explanation about how Ray hadn’t touched it, the accident had happened outside.
His nails were painted, and that brings back other memories of her watching him painting them black, despite herself, staring as if he were an attending completing a complicated procedure she'd never seen before. But her fascination wasn’t professional. He knew she watched him and would slow everything down as if to hypnotise her.
She'd complain about the smell, but she’d missed it when he stopped. Neela can't remember if it was because Frank said Weaver said it freaked the patients out or if it was after things went pear-shaped with the band.
The picture came out of a box full of near misses where someone had closed their eyes or got in the way that will never be put into albums or on show. She's on the end of a cleaning blitz, and emptied what was in the box into a pile. This picture was on top and she's got no further. She knows Ray's in a lot of them and she knows too that she'll put them all back in the box. She can't throw them away.
Photographs and Memories three: greet the day
Fandom: Harry Potter (book canon, but with a nod to the movies), Luna, gen, spoilers for Deathly Hallows, but set during Chamber of Secrets. 504 words. With thanks to rayslady for looking over this.
greet the day: shallowness
Luna woke herself early the day before returning to Hogwarts after her first Christmas holidays. It wasn't to pack, for her trunk was mostly done, and besides, there wasn't any light for it. It was to see the day in. Wrapping her blanket around her, she dragged a seat to her window and looked ahead intently. The familiar shapes of the valley below, leading on to rolling hills, weren't quite visible yet, but she could sense they would be soonish.
She'd nearly stayed up to see the dawn of the new year, but there had been lots of dancing and she’d fallen asleep downstairs, waking late in her bed. This was her last chance for months and months; she didn't believe the rumours that the school would be closed. The sun was grudging at first, but Luna was patient, and her reward was a view of her stomping grounds at first light to take with her back to school.
"Thank you, that was wonderful," she told the sun, and then stretched, leaning backwards to gaze at the ceiling. She knew she needed to do something about the gnomes she'd painted there last year, she'd known it all holidays. Perhaps over Easter she could paint the Hogwarts Thestrals. They might let her draw a sketch of them, but she needed to find precisely where they lived.
Nodding, she rose and went back to her bed to return the blanket, not needing its warmth any more. The empty frame caught her eye, lying flat by the side of her bed. She couldn't dither any more. She had two pictures that would fit. One would stay, the other would return to Hogwarts, safe in her History of Magic textbook with the others - like the one of her mother dancing at the doorway to their house, obviously pregnant - pictures that Luna sometimes took out at night and smiled at in silence. The book was one of her few things not to disappear over the term. Her socks and comb had come back before the holidays, but Luna was still glad she'd put the pictures there, even if she'd only done it for moral support for when she listened to Professor Binns promulgate centuries of cover-ups from the Ministry.
Her mother was in both the pictures that fit too, and Luna took her time again to look her fill. In one of them, all but Luna's legs was hidden behind the Quibbler and she was sitting in her mother's lap. Her father had his arms around them both. In the other picture, it was just her and her mother in an embrace. Luna liked looking at these pictures, just to check she was remembering rightly.
Luna made her choice, and set about putting the photograph in its frame. Once she’d done so, she nodded at her younger self and her mother. They waved back, as the waft of a Lovegood special leaving day breakfast rose from out of the kitchen for the second time in Luna’s life.
Photographs and Memories four: superabundance
Fandom: Sky High, Warren, gen. 146 words.
superabundance: shallowness
If the picture had a caption, it would be: 'All good things come to Will', Warren thinks. It's not that he hasn't struggled, but there's the girl by his side, his parents behind them. His smile says that Will knows he can knock out all the obstacles in his way, whether they're giant robots or not. And the picture’s framed in gold.
Will isn't smiling now, as he shuffles a little, embarrassed that his parents have decided to hand the latest photograph around to show his friends, but he can't stop them. Warren catches Layla giving Will an encouraging smile, and realizes he’s been holding the picture for too long. He saves face by muttering a dismissive, 'Cute', before handing it back to Will’s mom. She replaces it on a shelf covered with similar, older snaps.
There are no family photos on display at Warren’s house.
Photographs and Memories five: dressed in our finest scarlet and gold
Fandom: Harry Potter. Angelina, (Angelina/Fred). Angst. Set post Deathly Hallows. 432 words. With thanks to rayslady for looking over this.
dressed in our finest scarlet and gold: shallowness
Angelina always remembered the twins' birthday at school because Oliver Wood got twitchy during the run-up that his Beaters would get detention for doing something extra mad around that date. He worried too much. They never got caught.
This year, she and everyone else must ask themselves what you get a wizard who can afford anything, but has lost the first person he'd think to share it with. She has a card - she picked it because it was Quidditch themed - but sits for a long time, quill in hand, not knowing what to write in it. Even 'Happy Birthday' seems loaded. She scrawls, 'Thinking of you, love, Angelina', and pushes it away, because the truth is, she's been thinking of Fred more than George. She's been thinking of him, lying still and awful. She's been thinking of his cheeky greeting in the room of Requirement that last night, of a dozen rainy practices, of how she told him that she wanted to send him a Howler for deserting the team, but of course she couldn't, and he laughed.
She’s been thinking about a dozen and one visits to the shop, of George being obvious about giving them space. She’s been thinking of raising her gaze from Fred’s body to his family, of the way Fred held her arm when he told her the shop might not always be open, and how she didn't want to believe him because when she was in Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, she forgot that half of Diagon Alley was boarded up.
There is something she can give George, and she Summons it before she changes her mind. It's a team picture from the early days, before Harry joined the Gryffindor team. They're waving excitedly, togged up in their robes, but Oliver keeps looking away in the direction of the pitch, because he thinks time not spent practising is time wasted. Whenever he does, Fred rolls his eyes at him, and she can't help snorting through her tears.
She has other team pictures and some others that she won't share with anyone, because if, as casually as he'd asked her to go to the Yule Ball, Fred had asked her to marry him, she'd have said yes, all right, fine, soon as possible suit you? But he never got round to it. So she folds the photo in the card and puts it in its envelope, and taps it with her wand to seal it. She picks up the quill to address it to George, and steels herself against the strangeness of not putting Fred’s name first.
Fin.
Author’s notes: I wanted to commemorate having 500 posts memorified. So, I present five ficlets, none rated higher than PG. See each for title, fandom and other details. The overall title and theme for the collection comes from the ER episode, 'Photographs and Memories'.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, and I make no profit from this fan-written fiction.
Feedback is loved.
Photographs and Memories one: we'll cross the seven seas
Fandom: Swallows and Amazons, Nancy, gen, post-series future fic. 358 words. With thanks to _astralis for looking over this.
we'll cross the seven seas: shallowness
She hasn't long before she must go back below and join the other girls, but it’s enough time for her to take the picture out of the pocket in which she stowed it and unfold it. The natives had insisted on taking one of them all. They’re all so stiff. The Walkers are Walkers, not Swallows, and flanking them are a Ruth and Margaret who would never utter the word 'Amazon' outside a geography lesson.
But eyes used to looking at the horizon and poring over charts see that Susan is holding Bridget's hand, John is not yet taller than Nancy. She remembers that Titty had been told off for looking at the sky, not the camera, and sees the result of it in the solemn face that was captured. But Roger's lips are clamped together tightly, he was holding in a laugh, he whooped and whooped after the picture was taken, but never explained the joke. Perhaps he would have if they’d been free to threaten him with the plank.
She can almost remember the misery that followed of sandwiches pressed upon them, and their having to accept politely, when they were all busting to feast on the mates' rations after racing back to Wild Cat Island, the good old Amazon and Swallow neck and neck, the winning crew to pick the rest of the day's adventures. That’s why she put this picture and not another in her pocket in Beckfoot when no-one would notice in the flurry of packing and goodbyes.
“I’m so proud,” her mother had whispered, but when you had just come from Greenwich, you knew that however much you’d meant to go to sea when you’d joined up, you’d only freed a man for the fleet.
She’s a Wren and an officer now, and she tells herself again that she’s got to put up with this posting and make the most of it. She will, too. It’s her duty and her part of helping end the war. But she’s taking something of Captain Nancy with her, as she crosses as many of the seven seas as Third Officer Ruth Blackett will be allowed.
Photographs and Memories two: paint it black
Fandom: ER, Neela (Neela/Ray), spoilers for all of season 13, angst. 382 words. With thanks to lusmeitli for looking over this.
paint it black: shallowness
It isn't even a photograph of Ray, but his hand got into the shot, and she can't stop looking at it. The picture's subject, slap bang in the middle of the shot, is a cake she'd made for Abby. Well, she did decorate it. Neela was so impressed that she hadn't mucked up the icing, which was the right consistency and the colour she’d meant it to be, that she had to take a snap.
But Ray had got bored of being banished from the kitchen. Camera in hand, she'd ordered him to move away from her work, and he sort of stepped back, but his hand got in the shot. The camera wasn't digital, so she hadn't known until she'd had the film developed.
It was in the early days, when they were still testing each other's boundaries. She didn't have to be so precious about the icing, he was, she thinks now, only pretending to reach for the cake. Typically, it got wrecked anyway, thanks to a slip on an ice patch, and she showed Abby this picture to prove it. Then she had to go into a long explanation about how Ray hadn’t touched it, the accident had happened outside.
His nails were painted, and that brings back other memories of her watching him painting them black, despite herself, staring as if he were an attending completing a complicated procedure she'd never seen before. But her fascination wasn’t professional. He knew she watched him and would slow everything down as if to hypnotise her.
She'd complain about the smell, but she’d missed it when he stopped. Neela can't remember if it was because Frank said Weaver said it freaked the patients out or if it was after things went pear-shaped with the band.
The picture came out of a box full of near misses where someone had closed their eyes or got in the way that will never be put into albums or on show. She's on the end of a cleaning blitz, and emptied what was in the box into a pile. This picture was on top and she's got no further. She knows Ray's in a lot of them and she knows too that she'll put them all back in the box. She can't throw them away.
Photographs and Memories three: greet the day
Fandom: Harry Potter (book canon, but with a nod to the movies), Luna, gen, spoilers for Deathly Hallows, but set during Chamber of Secrets. 504 words. With thanks to rayslady for looking over this.
greet the day: shallowness
Luna woke herself early the day before returning to Hogwarts after her first Christmas holidays. It wasn't to pack, for her trunk was mostly done, and besides, there wasn't any light for it. It was to see the day in. Wrapping her blanket around her, she dragged a seat to her window and looked ahead intently. The familiar shapes of the valley below, leading on to rolling hills, weren't quite visible yet, but she could sense they would be soonish.
She'd nearly stayed up to see the dawn of the new year, but there had been lots of dancing and she’d fallen asleep downstairs, waking late in her bed. This was her last chance for months and months; she didn't believe the rumours that the school would be closed. The sun was grudging at first, but Luna was patient, and her reward was a view of her stomping grounds at first light to take with her back to school.
"Thank you, that was wonderful," she told the sun, and then stretched, leaning backwards to gaze at the ceiling. She knew she needed to do something about the gnomes she'd painted there last year, she'd known it all holidays. Perhaps over Easter she could paint the Hogwarts Thestrals. They might let her draw a sketch of them, but she needed to find precisely where they lived.
Nodding, she rose and went back to her bed to return the blanket, not needing its warmth any more. The empty frame caught her eye, lying flat by the side of her bed. She couldn't dither any more. She had two pictures that would fit. One would stay, the other would return to Hogwarts, safe in her History of Magic textbook with the others - like the one of her mother dancing at the doorway to their house, obviously pregnant - pictures that Luna sometimes took out at night and smiled at in silence. The book was one of her few things not to disappear over the term. Her socks and comb had come back before the holidays, but Luna was still glad she'd put the pictures there, even if she'd only done it for moral support for when she listened to Professor Binns promulgate centuries of cover-ups from the Ministry.
Her mother was in both the pictures that fit too, and Luna took her time again to look her fill. In one of them, all but Luna's legs was hidden behind the Quibbler and she was sitting in her mother's lap. Her father had his arms around them both. In the other picture, it was just her and her mother in an embrace. Luna liked looking at these pictures, just to check she was remembering rightly.
Luna made her choice, and set about putting the photograph in its frame. Once she’d done so, she nodded at her younger self and her mother. They waved back, as the waft of a Lovegood special leaving day breakfast rose from out of the kitchen for the second time in Luna’s life.
Photographs and Memories four: superabundance
Fandom: Sky High, Warren, gen. 146 words.
superabundance: shallowness
If the picture had a caption, it would be: 'All good things come to Will', Warren thinks. It's not that he hasn't struggled, but there's the girl by his side, his parents behind them. His smile says that Will knows he can knock out all the obstacles in his way, whether they're giant robots or not. And the picture’s framed in gold.
Will isn't smiling now, as he shuffles a little, embarrassed that his parents have decided to hand the latest photograph around to show his friends, but he can't stop them. Warren catches Layla giving Will an encouraging smile, and realizes he’s been holding the picture for too long. He saves face by muttering a dismissive, 'Cute', before handing it back to Will’s mom. She replaces it on a shelf covered with similar, older snaps.
There are no family photos on display at Warren’s house.
Photographs and Memories five: dressed in our finest scarlet and gold
Fandom: Harry Potter. Angelina, (Angelina/Fred). Angst. Set post Deathly Hallows. 432 words. With thanks to rayslady for looking over this.
dressed in our finest scarlet and gold: shallowness
Angelina always remembered the twins' birthday at school because Oliver Wood got twitchy during the run-up that his Beaters would get detention for doing something extra mad around that date. He worried too much. They never got caught.
This year, she and everyone else must ask themselves what you get a wizard who can afford anything, but has lost the first person he'd think to share it with. She has a card - she picked it because it was Quidditch themed - but sits for a long time, quill in hand, not knowing what to write in it. Even 'Happy Birthday' seems loaded. She scrawls, 'Thinking of you, love, Angelina', and pushes it away, because the truth is, she's been thinking of Fred more than George. She's been thinking of him, lying still and awful. She's been thinking of his cheeky greeting in the room of Requirement that last night, of a dozen rainy practices, of how she told him that she wanted to send him a Howler for deserting the team, but of course she couldn't, and he laughed.
She’s been thinking about a dozen and one visits to the shop, of George being obvious about giving them space. She’s been thinking of raising her gaze from Fred’s body to his family, of the way Fred held her arm when he told her the shop might not always be open, and how she didn't want to believe him because when she was in Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, she forgot that half of Diagon Alley was boarded up.
There is something she can give George, and she Summons it before she changes her mind. It's a team picture from the early days, before Harry joined the Gryffindor team. They're waving excitedly, togged up in their robes, but Oliver keeps looking away in the direction of the pitch, because he thinks time not spent practising is time wasted. Whenever he does, Fred rolls his eyes at him, and she can't help snorting through her tears.
She has other team pictures and some others that she won't share with anyone, because if, as casually as he'd asked her to go to the Yule Ball, Fred had asked her to marry him, she'd have said yes, all right, fine, soon as possible suit you? But he never got round to it. So she folds the photo in the card and puts it in its envelope, and taps it with her wand to seal it. She picks up the quill to address it to George, and steels herself against the strangeness of not putting Fred’s name first.
Fin.