Time waited for no one and the journey over the past 11 months had been filled with an emotional landscape that slowly morphed from deep, dark valleys to glorious mountain ranges.

Jimin's recovery was slower than he'd hoped. Just hours prior to him being discharged from hospital, the Arctic fox had developed severe blood clots, one which went to his lungs. Because of the emergency surgery he'd had to undergo, Jimin's stay was extended for another 10 days. To say I had a very grumpy and impatient mate was an understatement.

It's often said that doctors and nurses make the worst patients, but I had to differ – my mate did.

While he was never rude to the staff looking after him, when Jimin came home, it was Yoongi and I who copped his frustration. He wasn't violent but he had fallen into an emotional funk that made him difficult to be around. My mate lost the spark that made him shine. Instead of the long deep and meaningful discussions I used to have with both mates, it felt like most of the time it was Yoongi and I holding up the conversation, with Jimin either grunting or giving one word answers. He was depressed and I could understand why he felt that way since he absolutely detested being on strict orders to rest. As an active hybrid with a job that was physically demanding, my mate wasn't used to sitting around 24/7 and not doing much.

I tried to be supportive of him and his mental health, but sometimes it felt like I was just the punching bag. To try and make him feel better, I cooked his favourite dishes and made myself look nice for him when we ate together. I never got any reactions because Jimin was just always so low and pessimistic about everything. It was like he was a ghost, haunting the house he used to live in.

As much as Yoongi tried to boost me up, my confidence and self-worth plummeted; it felt like my Arctic fox mate didn't want anything to do with me anymore since he wouldn't kiss me or touch me in any way for weeks. He even moved into the spare room, defending his action by saying that he needed to make sure he wouldn't be rolled onto during the night.

When he first started working with Jungkook a month after his second surgery, I hoped it would have helped with his depression. It seemed like he enjoyed the physical rehab but when results weren't coming fast enough, his emotional and mental well-being declined rapidly. We could go days without hearing him speak; the worst part of it though, was how one day when I was passing by the physio rooms, I saw Jimin and Jungkook working and chatting away happily. I knew then and there that the façade he put up for everyone else came down as soon as he came home.

For humans, it would take a year or so to kind of get back to where they were before they sustained the gunshot wound; hybrids on the other hand, with their faster healing, could recover in a few months. It took about five months for Jimin to fully recover, and unfortunately his mental health didn't improve at all.

The Arctic fox was already hanging onto the hope of him recovering quickly by the skin of his teeth, although, that was decimated when he was told he couldn't ever return to full duties as a detective. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to Captain Bang, otherwise he would have kept Jimin on the job. It was the top dogs who said that my mate would have to retire from the police force due to being injured on the line of duty, which sent him into an even deeper depression.

My Arctic fox started to resent Yoongi and I for not having our lives completely uprooted. He began using alcohol as a coping mechanism, much to Yoongi's and my dismay. I hated that my beautiful, strong mate was hurting this much; watching Jimin drink away his pain was not only harming him, it was killing me. I didn't want to bring children into a world where they'd learn that alcohol solved all their problems; so one spring morning when my Arctic fox was sleeping away his perpetual hangover, Yoongi and I gathered up all the bottles of booze and had stored them at Joon & Hobi's house.

If I hated watching Jimin find comfort at the bottom of his glass, it was so much worse to watch him become enraged as he learned this had become a dry house. While he was furious that we'd removed his coping device, none of that anger was directed at Yoongi or I; Jimin wasn't a violent person and as such, his tantrums were basically just him making a lot of his fox screeching and screaming noises as he stormed between rooms checking to see if we had left any of his precious liquor behind. If he hadn't been such a dick lately with his moods, I'd have probably thought the whole thing was cute and adorable, like a child having a hissy fit over not getting a bowl of ice cream before bed.

After a fortnight of pouting and quietly muttering under his breath about 'how much life sucks ass', Jimin's rut came around again. When he first started displaying symptoms that it had come, I was terrified that I would fall into the catatonic state again because our souls weren't unified like they had been before the shooting.

I was relieved on the fifth day when I hadn't fallen into catatonia, but instead I got my mate back; I don't know whether it was from us reconnecting to each other during the throes of passion or that he finally realised that I was still here for him and loved him unconditionally, but my Jiminie finally came back to me. During the lulls between his rut waves, Jimin and I were able to talk; Yoongi joined us for cuddles and conversations at times, but most of the time the cat allowed the two of us some privacy to reconnect.

My Himalayan cat mate and I had been as strong as ever throughout the period where we were caring for Jimin. At times I worried that I was focussing more attention on my Arctic fox but my Yoongi assured me that he wasn't being neglected. On nights where Jimin found comfort at the bottom of a bottle, Yoongi and I lost ourselves in each other, both wishing that the other part of our dynamic was there too since we didn't feel whole.

Yoongi and I stopped talking about the future, just in case Jimin didn't want to be involved in it with us too; as much as Jimin felt like his life was stuck in the mud after being forced to retire, Yoongi and I felt the same as we waited for my other mate to find his way out of the darkness in his head. So to have our old Jiminie back after his rut made Yoongi and I the happiest we'd been all year. I was relieved to have finally come out the other side of the dark valley.

Life after Jimin's rut was much brighter, not only because he was happier and more himself, but because the cold winter had made way for a sunny and warm spring. It felt fitting that the dark period of our lives was during the coldest winter on history, and just like how Samta was now bathed in warm and sunny days, so were our hearts.

In the middle of spring, we were invited to be part of the celebration as Taehyung married Jin and Jungkook. The ceremony was held in the Boxer hybrid's favourite park, the one that had all the spring wildflowers growing. All three grooms looked incredibly handsome and as I walked down the aisle with Jin, I was proud to be my brother's best woman. Jimin and Tae had bonded incredibly closely, with us nicknaming them as 'soulmates'; so it was only fitting that my Arctic fox was the alpaca's best man. Joon and Hobi were incredibly honoured to both stand beside JK, since the Boxer had been unable to decide which to be his best man; when they had been asked, there had been a heated debate between the two grooms over who was the more handsome best man, which was only settled when they fucked in my backyard.

As I walked down the aisle, I grinned at my feline mate, who looked incredibly handsome standing under the gazebo where he would be the celebrant to conduct the marriage; he had done a course on the internet so he could legally marry our family. Bang Chan and Felix were asked to sing as the grooms entered, the two mates sounding incredible together as they sung about everlasting love. Felix's deep voice harmonised perfectly with the higher notes the beagle was singing; looking out at the guests, there wasn't a dry eye in sight... but that could have also been for the three grooms.

Throughout the ceremony and reception, I kept thinking about our future, wondering if I would be lucky enough to marry the two loves of my life someday. I loved both Jimin and Yoongi with all my heart, body and soul. Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to be married before having kids, so I couldn't wait until we could make things official and start our family.

As a way to initially get Jimin out of the house, Yoongi had brought the fox along to his studio, where the two played around and wrote some music together. The first time they played for me the song they'd written, 'Lie', I burst into tears. Jimin's whine as he thought I hated it hurt so much it made me cry harder. It took me a while to calm down enough to tell my mates that I loved the song so much and that I was moved completely; Jimin's voice singing about the inner fight he'd gone through after his life changed monumentally was perfectly offset by Yoongi's melody and beat. The result was a complex masterpiece filled with metaphors that created a vignette of a cry for help.

'Lie' became Jimin's debut song after he was signed to the same label as Yoongi. The song shot up the charts. It broke records and set a new benchmark for music videos. As beautiful as the song was, people had fallen in love instantly with Jimin after watching his music video – the fox used his training in contemporary dance and hip-hop to perfectly embody the emotions he sung about. I'd always thought Jimin was a stunning and handsome man but watching him on stage as he recorded the MV showed me just how absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous he was. Though, I much preferred the private dance he'd given me later that night – performing his choreo while stripping off his clothes and finishing with sensual body rolls as he thrusted inside me.

As popular as Yoongi's debut album was, his follow-up record received even greater success. Dream, Reality obliterated records left, right and centre; it was the fasted album to achieve number one status in all countries. The album and its lead song, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, had been nominated for several awards, the ceremony that Yoongi had been asked to perform at in a few months. My two mates had even collaborated by writing and recording the song Tony Montana, which I thought was the best track; yes, I was biased simply because it featured both loves of my life.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

My jaw dropped as I looked at my friend standing beside me as I laid on the treatment bed.

"Did you hear me, Cara?" she asked calmly. "Sweetie, it's positive."

I opened and closed my mouth, but I couldn't work out how to formulate words to reply. I was dumfounded. "How did this happen?" I managed to squeak out between trembling breaths.

"Well, when two – or three people in your case – love each other, they do a special–"

"I know how sex works, Lisa," I deadpanned, cutting her off. "How could I get pregnant when we use contraception? I mean, unlike the human contraceptive pill, the one I have to take because we're destined mates has a 100% success rate in preventing pregnancies."

"Did you take it each day of Yoongi's and Jimin's ruts?" she asked, to which I nodded. "And for the five days after?"

I went to nod but then I remembered...

"Oh god," I whispered barely loud enough to be audible. "The day after Jimin's rut finished, I'd gotten food poisoning after eating at that new restaurant... you know, the one where it came out that they had that E-coli outbreak. I hadn't been able to keep anything down for days, including the contraception tablets."

Tears started forming, though I couldn't quite pinpoint the reason why. Even though it wasn't planned, I was happy by the news of the pregnancy and I knew that both of my mates would be over the moon too when they found out. Maybe they were tears of joy since this little life was made from love. Maybe they were from the hormones.

Whatever the cause, I just hope it's not the one thing I'm worried about.

"Hey now," Lisa teased, laughing softly as she brought me a tissue. "Save some of those tears for when we see your little bean later. For now, let's do some tests so we can see how far along you are and we can even check to see the species of your baby if you like."

I nodded rapidly as I blew my nose, the movements making the sound come out in loud snorts. I sat up, throwing my legs over the side of the treatment bed as the doctor placed a call to the imaging suites to let them know we were coming down. Soon after she hung up the phone, the two of us made our way down to the OBGYN department.

"Lisa," I whispered with a gasp as I realised something. "Yoongi's and Jimin's combined heats were two months ago and Yoongi being a cat hybrid..." I trailed off quietly.

"Yoongi's had another heat since then," she finished for me.

I nodded, whimpering at the thought that the contraception tablets I'd taken during his last heat a couple of weeks ago could have harmed the baby.

"Cara, I'm going to give this to you straight," Lisa said, grabbing hold of my shoulders and forcing me to look at her. Neither of us paying attention to how we were in the middle of the hallway and inconveniencing the people walking by us. "With taking the contraception tablets, which are made to block key hormones needed to fertilise eggs and grow foetuses, there's one of four possible outcomes. The first outcome is that the baby is fine and unharmed. The second, the tablets have stunted the foetus' growth and that can lead to potential birth defects."

Lisa wrapped her arms around me as I began crying uncontrollably. I'd hate if anything bad happened to the baby, but if it came from something I had done... well I don't know if I would be able to forgive myself.

"Shhh, it's a possible outcome and we'll cross that bridge IF we come to it, okay?" she said, releasing me from her embrace as I nodded in between hiccups. "Okay, the third outcome is that it's an ectopic pregnancy, but I'm hopeful that it's not this since you don't have any of the symptoms of that. And finally, the last one is that it could either result in a miscarriage or a stillbirth."

"S-s-so there's a one in four chance that it will be okay?" My friend confirmed this, frowning as I quickly added that there was a 75% chance that there could be something wrong.

"I know they are scary odds, but we will know more once we run some tests," she said, grabbing hold of my hand and leading me to the elevators.

The trip down two floors felt like time was moving so slowly, like someone had switched the playback speed to the lowest level. The whole time I tried to clear any negative thoughts out of my head by singing the lyrics of 'Lie' to myself. I didn't want to worry about the possible bad outcomes thanks to the contraception tablets. I didn't want to think about how my weight could affect the baby. I didn't want any of the 'what if's' that were trying to run through my head like horses around a racetrack.

All I wanted was to embrace the happiness of finding out I had new life growing in me. That, and the image of the looks on my mates' faces as they learned they were going to be fathers.