And this black-haired boy, so achingly familiar, looked just as childish, just as unprepared for the world. Jack had seemed more worn, already beaten down but looking up with defiance.

Had either of them ever been children?

“I’m Will. Actually, it’s Gwilim. Gwilim Linwood Alistair. Don’t call me that.”

Jasper laughed. “All right. Will. I’m Jasper.”

They smiled at each other. Theo remembered white teeth and the cords of a tanned neck and an attraction which he couldn’t name, then. Theo watched these two children, so comfortable and youthful and content, and he was five seconds from losing his mind when he realized that Will had started staring at him with an odd look on his face.

He supposed he had been silent for rather too long.

He cleared his throat. “I’m Jasper’s father—”

Will’s eyes were wide and guileless as he said, “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

The little pipsqueak.

He ignored the snark, nodded. “Theodore Beaumont.”

“Okay.” He shrugged, not rude but not terribly interested, so eager to start this new chapter of his life. “Nice to meet you.” He smiled, a little crooked, then started unpacking his bag.

He had no idea who Theo was.

Fuck. That hurt. But it’s not like he should have expected—

Why would Jack tell anyone—especially his children—anything?

He remembered that they had always been...unspoken. Unnamed. Something that existed outside of time, even though it was beautiful and crazy and felt so fucking huge, the two of them together, raging and fighting and dancing and—

They were something abnormal. That life, the two of them, had never been here, in Baltimore. Didn’t belong here. Though he had wanted—

He blinked, put on a blank smile, and tried to remember that today, of all days, was not about him. “All set?”

Jasper looked over at him, and there was a little worry hidden in the dimple on his cheek, but not for himself. “Yeah, Dad.” He walked over, wrapped his arms around Theo, looked up with his open and honest smile. “Love you.”

He wished he could hold on to this child forever. The only child he would ever have, who was so much better than he had ever been.

“Love you too.”

Jasper smirked, cheerful. “Now go away.”

He did, trying not to notice the friendly conversation behind him—a shy voice, sensitive, and a voice with sarcastic cleverness. A conversation he wished he could have had; a path untrod.

Outside the dorms, Theo put his hands in his pockets and wandered back toward his car, kicking a few bits of gravel around and trying not to think too hard, and the world was exactly as it should be, with his son at school, making friends, and Theo’s successful investments, and the shine back on the family name, and he felt—

Entirely out of place.

This was the life he was always meant to have.