After Dark (Prompts)

Confidential Assignment - Epilogue

A/N: Last part! Thank you again to everyone. I really appreciate the comments and the tweets for this because I was initially hesitant to pair MTG and BJM. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Enjoy your Sunday everyone!

Main song here is still from Train - If It's Love but there is also a Carpenters reference.

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If it's love and we're two birds of a feather... then the rest is just whatever

Most fairy tales start with "Once Upon a Time" but rarely did it start with two children who were left by their parents and then led a life of crime.

Like Baek Jang-mi, Min Tae Gu would often muse on the reasons why he and Jang-mi were given the childhood they had. Was it some ill they needed to rectify from a past life? Because, as kids, they surely did not have any crimes to pay for when they were born. Yet, they were deserted and left to fend for themselves. 

The answer was elusive as the only ones who could provide them, their parents, cannot be found. Not that they tried. Neither of them wanted to. They were left behind and still they lived. They were okay with that. What was important now was the life they were making. It was in his power to change the future -- his and his daughter's. 

A daughter, he thought, smiling. 

He told Jang-mi many times before that he stopped thinking about a future when his sister died. That was the truth. Hyun Ju was the last family he had, and when he lost her, he was ready to give everything up. There was no reason to live.

Then, he met the Inspector. Ha Chae Yoon who, in spite of that brief interaction during the hostage crisis he started many years ago, still saw him as human. He would eternally be grateful to her for seeing the remaining good in him, which gave him the motivation to turn his life around. If not for that, he would not be here now... watching his wife hold their daughter. 

His wife. 

Baek Jang-mi who came into his world holding a knife to his neck. She was the blessing he did not think he deserved and yet he was given. 

It constantly astonishes him how someone who had such a rough life could still find happiness in the simplest things -- how her face lit up when he would prepare their meals. How she would sigh so content in his arms when he asks if she is warm enough before they sleep. But maybe that was why she appreciated joy and love so fiercely because she painfully knows too well how it is to be without them.

In her happiness, he found his. She was his bliss.

She once asked him who was his great love. Now, he was certain. It was her. 

It's always been her.

Now, he was grateful that she constantly chooses him and would now be sharing this new stage of their lives together.

Baek Jang-mi sat on the couch, staring at the little bundle in her arms, quietly sleeping. "Hi, my baby love. I can't believe you're home with us now."

The baby, who they decided to call Aera, was now holding Jang-mi's finger in her fist.

"Your Appa and I are new at this but we're going to try our best to be great parents to you," Jang-mi continued. "We might not do everything correctly but I hope you know we love you and we will never ever leave you. I already love you so much. Hopefully, you'll love us, too."

Min Tae Gu cleared his throat.

Smiling up at him, Jang-mi turned to Aera again and whispered, "Appa says you can't date until you're 45 years old. But we'll see if we can negotiate that."