Kai could not deny the momentary fright he’d felt at the sight of Myungsoo pointing a gun at him when the FBI had raided the warehouse.  He forgave Myungsoo the instant he woke up in hospital because the man presented him with dumplings, and dumplings were life.

“We had to make you look convincingly dead,” Myungsoo told him as he helped Kai to sit up.  Thant was in the corner of the room on the phone, and to Kai’s surprise, there were two men in suits wearing sunglasses standing to either side of the door.  “We’ve got the top dog in custody, as we wanted, but people who aren’t dead can still talk, and we didn’t want the wrong person finding out that you’d been working for us and were still alive so that they could come after you.  You being dead is your best cover to start a new life.”

Once he was sufficiently recovered from the tranquiliser, Myungsoo had invited Kai to come and stay with him at his house near Buffalo.  Kai didn’t really know what to expect on arrival and after so long having to think about where his next meal was going to come from and how he was going to have enough money to get something or other, he found himself at an utter loose end.  The house was quiet and Myungsoo, still officially suspended, nevertheless had a phenomenal amount of work to do and spent most of the day holed up in his study.  After exploring the building, Kai had taken the television set to pieces to keep himself occupied and then received a gentle admonition from Myungsoo’s wife Hana when she found him picking the front door lock after he’d accidentally locked himself out when he went to explore the garden.

“That’s illegal,” she told him.  “I know you’re staying here, but your default to get into a building that doesn’t belong to you has to be this, presented to you by the rightful owners.”  She dangled a key in front of him.  Kai stared at it.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually used a key for anything.  He’d just never really needed one.

“Of course, if you have a warrant to search a building, that’s a different matter,” she continued with a wink.  Kai had taken the washing basket off her and unlocked the front door so that she could go inside.  He’d known she was pregnant long before he’d met her, but from the snippets of information Myungsoo had given him on Dumpling Night while Kai had been spying on the gang for the FBI, her due date was right at the beginning of November and the pregnancy was very clear.

“Thank you, honey.  That was very kind,” she said as she waddled past him.  Kai blinked after her.  That was another first – somebody calling him honey.

“Sure,” he mumbled, but she was already out of earshot.

The drama started the following evening when Hana’s water broke.  Myungsoo nearly had a mental breakdown and went tearing around the house yelling “I’m not ready to be a dad!” as they waited for Hana’s parents to drop by, as they’d insisted on taking her to the hospital when the time came.  Kai mostly watched from the top of the stairs as the bustle went on, but when Myungsoo finally calmed down enough to grab a coat and his wallet to head out to the hospital in his own car, he almost sent Kai tumbling down the staircase.

“Come on, you’re coming with us.”

“No thanks,” said Kai, eyes wide and a little disturbed by all the hysteria.  “Normal life is a bit too much for me, thanks.”

Myungsoo made him come anyway.  Twelve hours later, Kai was granted the privilege of holding the little bundle of joy while Myungsoo and Hana bickered over whether to give the baby girl a Korean name or an English one.  The week-premature baby shut them all up by waking up and screaming her head off and Kai very nearly dropped her in shock.

Episode two of the drama was returning home two days later to find that the place had been wrecked.  Myungsoo rang Thant immediately.  Kai didn’t hear most of the conversation because he was too busy cooing over the newly named Sara with Hana in the car, though he did have an automatic panicked reaction when he heard police sirens approaching.  Myungsoo checked on the three of them in the car just as the police were pulling up.

“They’re not here for you,” he told Kai.  “You don’t need to worry.”

It was stupid how tense Kai got at the sight of men in uniforms, really, and he spent at least half an hour in high anxiety just because they were there while Myungsoo spoke to them before he returned to the car and announced it was best if they stayed with his parents-in-law for the time being.

Once they were actually there and Myungsoo had finished ringing around all the people he needed to talk to, he sat Kai down at the kitchen table.

“We have a massive problem,” he said.  Kai’s heart sank.  He thought he knew what that might be.

“Your house was the backlash, wasn’t it?” he asked.  “They want to kill you.”

“Yeah,” said Myungsoo.  “But that’s minor.  I’ll be relocating probably to the West Coast over the next couple of weeks with a new identity.  The big problem – well, there are sort of two, I guess... the New Mexico courts don’t want to hear the case because they’d been bought, so we were keeping him as best we could until we could somehow get him to trial, because no sane person puts somebody like that on an affordable parole... and apparently he’s escaped.”

“,” said Kai.

“Exactly.”  Myungsoo drummed his fingers on the table.  “You were with the cartel longer than me.  Are there any other safe houses or boltholes he might be heading towards other than the ones we’ve already raided?”

Kai shrugged.  “If you don’t