#grandaprent polin

[hopepaigeturner]

🎄 Giftmas Day 9: Polaroid--Polin

On their fiftieth wedding anniversary, Colin and Penelope reminisce on their journey together.

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After the extended family had left, with the gaggle of grandchildren ferried out after their sugar-highs, Penelope rested in her armchair—the yellow velvet had faded slightly from their bright hue which had stuck out at that boot sale in Cornwall. The pair had spent a good twenty minutes trying to fit that, and a matching blue velvet piece, around Agatha’s car-seat.

“Here you go, my sunflower,” Colin said, bringing over a tray with tea and biscuits upon it.

“Thank you,” Penelope grasped the Christmas mug that George’s children had given them for Christmas last year “I do love our family but they do tire us out so.” Colin sighed loudly as he deflated into his blue velvet chair. “It was lovely for Thomas and his boys to make the trip, it has been an age since we visited Sydney.”

“Those boys have shot up—Richard in university already. Although I do worry about Jane. Still unsettled at her age.”

“Oh she has always been your daughter—always a wanderer. And she is not lonely with all her friends.”

“I suppose…fifty years…”

Penelope looked down at her wedding band, a little tarnished, but still as gold as the day Colin had slipped it on her finger in the church.

“Hmm, half a lifetime of adventures together,” she responded.

Colin turned to her and smiled—the same smile that had enchanted her ever since their first meeting as children.

“Indeed, speaking of. I have a little surprise for you.”

He slowly reached around, wincing slightly due to the stiffness in his back.

“Oh Colin, we said our present to one another would be that cruise in the New Year.” Penelope protested.

“I know, I know, but I couldn’t help myself—especially after your birthday present to me.”

Penelope blushed. It had taken a little bit of preparation to restore Colin’s old polaroid camera, as great a companion as Penelope, but Benedict had done a wonderful job—even with the arthritis settling into his fingers.

“I became inspired, and I made this—with Agatha’s help.”

He handed her a leatherbound book, Penelope opened and gasped.

“Oh Colin…”

Penelope flicked through the pages, filled with excerpts from Colin’s family journals in print or in spider-scrawl handwriting. At the centre of every page was a polaroid picture, taken on the very same camera Penelope had gifted him at his leaving party after A-levels.

She flicked through pages of their retirement cruises or visits to their children who had inherited their travel bug and scattered across the globe. Polaroids taken from significant family events both their immediate family and the Bridgerton brood. Penelope watched her grey hair turn back to the red of her youth as she posed in various countries with their children at different heights. The pictures trailed back further to the first years of their marriage when they had walked across continents and written as many words as their steps. Then a picture of Colin dipping her in a white dress, the backdrop being Aubrey Hall (ofcourse). Then a shot from their proposal ‘lunch’ at their favourite café in St. Andrews, frequented whenever Colin had visited Penelope through her university years. Then a few sunny photos of the pair in various places in the same pose but with different emotions in their eyes changing as subtly as their friendship had back then.

Then the final page, the final polaroid, but also the first taken.

Penelope sat posing half-heartedly to the camera, all eighteen-years of youth and bright smiles at Colin’s leaving party before his very first adventure. To this day, Penelope could remember that precise moment.

“Pen, blimey—this is amazing!” Colin cried upon unwrapping the polaroid. He lunged over to her and squashed her into a bearhug, almost capsizing the drink in her hand.

Penelope blushed. When he released her, she muttered.

“Oh, I thought it would suit—trendy you know?”

“And it’s yellow,” he commented, “for my sunflower-girl.” He gave her a wink and Penelope’s heart fluttered. But years of restraint ensured she only replied,

“Something to remember me by when you are away in all these exotic places.”

“Oh, Pen. I would never forget you,” Colin’s blue eyes sobered, and Pen became caught in them. A moment later the spark came back. “Go on pose!”

“What?”

“Pose—you shall have the honour of the first picture—off you go.”

“Colin—really?”

“Yes, I insist. Host’s prerogative.”

“Technically your mother is—”

“Peeen.”

“Fine, fine.”

She posed, blushing a little self-consciously as she always did in photos.

The camera flashed and Colin whooped. He kept his eyes glued to the picture as it developed his grin going wider and wider. Then it softened, just as his eyes had done, and he turned to her.

Penelope scrunched her nose up at the picture—as she did to most of her pictures—but made a noncommittal shrug of approval.

“I need a caption!” Colin cried and routed around for a pen, he chewed on the end of a biro. Penelope took a moment to memorise his features; the furrow between his eyebrows, the slope of his nose and the dimples on his cheeks.

“I’ll keep it simple,” he scribbled something down then showed it to her. Penelope blushed further but Colin was already storing it in his camera bag. “There.” He patted the pocket. “So, I never forget.”

And he hadn’t, not even after all these years. For there was the picture, and there was the caption.

My sunflower girl.

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Ngl. I might make fit this into the 'Six Moments' universe on AO3. Six important photos throughout Polin's life.