all i can see is the “we meet at the park while my kid is playing and you’re there watching your nephew” AU
she is naturally suspicious of a man lurking at the park with a fucking sword so she yanks his arm behind his back and whispers a threat from behind and just over his shoulder that if he doesn’t remove his weird ass self from the park she’s going to take his weapon off him and use it to make him a eunuch
then a little boy with dark hair and blue eyes comes running up waving a plastic cutlass shouting ARR GET YER HANDS OFF ME UNCLE, YE SCURVY SCUM ARR
astonished, emma releases the guy’s arm and he stumbles forward, laughing
she stiffly says “sorry, i thought you were…” but doesn’t finish and he gets this mischievous twinkle in his eye, putting his hand on the boy’s hair and ruffling it a little. he leans down and asks the boy whether they should accept such an apology. the boy looks up at him and squints and says, “i dunno, uncle lefty. she’s a fierce pirate queen, she’ll run us through if we don’t.” then he runs off whooping, and emma notices he’s running straight toward henry. the boys link arms and run toward the swings, not before henry turns and waves and says, “hi, mama!”
“lefty?” she asks by way of real apology. she sits on a bench and indicates he should join her.
“aye,” he laughs, sounding both proud and sorrowful. “his father was my captain and i his lieutenant.” he pronounces it in the british way, and with emphasis on the first syllable. “liam jr there cannot say ‘leff-tenant,’ so my brother helpfully shortened it to ‘uncle lefty.’ he’s a kind man, my captain.”
“if i didn’t know any better, i’d think junior there was your kid.”
“strong family resemblance.” he pulls out his phone and shows emma pictures of his brother. when he gets to one of the two of them in bright white navy uniforms, emma has to purse her lips to let our her breath. goddamn, but it shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
he finishes by showing her a heart-melting picture of him kissing his newborn nephew’s sweet head, the baby in the arms of a beautiful blonde woman–”elsa, who is far too good for any of us jones devils”. so, knowing so much about this stranger’s family, emma feels obligated to show him pictures of her and henry.
if he notices a total and utter lack of a father in any of the pictures, he is polite enough to keep from mentioning it, but he does show a gratifying amount of interest in one picture henry had taken of her when she wasn’t looking. and the one of the two of them with chocolate milk mustaches.
after a few stilted beginnings, emma finally starts asking questions, finding herself a little bit cautiously maybe just a teensy bit interested. not that she’d do anything about it.
when the boys come rushing over, babbling about pizza, killian beats emma to asking if the two of them would care to join he and the boy at anton’s for root beer and a slice.
“and ice cream after?” henry pipes up hopefully.
neither emma nor killian has the heart to dash the hopes of the two little messy-headed boys, beaming one set of brown eyes and one set of blue in a team effort so effective that emma narrows her eyes, wondering if they were old enough to scheme.
at any rate, killian almost gets them kicked out of farrell’s ice cream parlor when his sword clangs noisily to the floor.
cshappybeginning 