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It hit him like a punch in the gut. One minute he’d been out with his girlfriend (a word that was new all over again in exciting and promising ways) and their little boy, the next he was fighting down a panic attack at the zoo.
He had only stepped away for a moment, Henry wanting ice cream and neither Emma nor Bae willing to have anything be less than perfect, he had done his fatherly duty and gone off to procure the all important cones. Except, when he returned there was a stranger in his spot.
He knew it was a stranger, knew it was probably entirely innocent, but all the same the little brown haired boy standing with his mother was entirely too alone and too vulnerable, and the laughing stranger with the dark hair and the leather jacket looked far too much like another man Bae had known.
It wasn’t Killian Jones, that much was certain. That man was closer to his father’s age than his, and safely locked behind bars for another year or two at least. Of that much he could be certain, anyway. His father had reassured both Bae and his mother time and time again that — this time — they would be contacted before his release. It was standard for any victim of a kidnapping attempt to be notified to let them update any protective orders that were in place. Bae’s had expired on his 18th birthday, but he knew this wasn’t the same man.
That being said, it didn’t stop him from barging over and scooping Henry up into his arms, didn’t stop him from glaring at the stranger even after Emma introduced him as a guy from her European History class, and didn’t stop him from clutching Henry long after the perceived threat had passed.
“What’s your problem?” Emma asked as the other man left.
He knew he could tell her. She’d understand better than almost anyone else, but putting his thoughts into words would make them more real somehow, and he couldn’t deal with that right now with his little boy snuggled into his arms with an ice cream cone and happily making a mess of them both.
“It’s nothing,” Bae finally said. “Sorry, I just overrracted.
Emma didn’t believe him, because of course she didn’t. She’d known him before he’d really understood the difference between a boy and a girl, of course she knew he was lying. But she also knew to let it drop, and he was pretty sure no matter what else happened between them, he would love her for that.