Frost Filly: Thanks for all the reviews! Don't worry, this story will not finish without Whitestorm...and who ever he brings with him...

15 minutes later I'm sitting in the passenger side of the Ford, driving down to Lake Green Leaf with Uncle Patchpelt. "So…" his voice trails off as my eyes lazily slide over to his general direction. After Willowpelt had said those words all I could do was stare and dart my eyes back and forth between the two of them.

"What? Why?" I had almost screamed, more at Patchpelt than at Willowpelt.

"Darkpaw, calm down," Willowpelt had tried to get me to sit down, but I wouldn't. "You need a male role model in your life, you're out of control! And Patchpelt-"

"Out of control!?" I wasn't out of control! "What the fuck do you mean 'out of control!?'"

Willowpelt had fixed me with a stern gaze while Patchpelt, obviously uncomfortable, had patted her hand, saying, "Let the kid let it go for a bit,"

"Ugh!" I threw my hands in the air, "And what's a 'male role model' going to do? We'd be better off with Tawnyspots!" Willowpelt bit her lip and I saw a few of her fingers tighten their grip on the couch cushion.

"Patchpelt is my brother," she was speaking a bit more softly, but sharply, "He's trustworthy and responsible. He's not going to be your father, but he is going to stay with us for a while," I opened my mouth to speak again, but she continued, raising her voice a little at the beginning, "And, the two of you are going to spend time with one another to..." she began nodding her head, as if the answer would be dislodged by doing that, "get used to one another."

"We could go down to the lake," Patchpelt suggested, trying to be helpful, "I hear Lake Green Leaf is beautiful this time of year," More quietly to Willowpelt, he said, "Now, how do I get there?"

"I'm sure it's on Google Maps," she replied.

He furrowed his brow before saying, "Yeah, I'm not really sure how to use that…is that connected at all with the Me Tubes everyone's talking about?" I rolled my eyes and turned to go upstairs.

"Be back down here in five minutes, Darkpaw!" Willowpelt had yelled after me as I slammed the door shut and grabbed the nearest hoodie. And now the two of us were turning onto the dirt road that led down to Green Leaf Lake, Patchpelt's Satan-voiced GPS giving us un-needed directions. Now my head was leaning against the glass, half awake, the awake part of me thinking of all the ways to drive him out of the house. It's not that I wanted Willowpelt all to myself, oh, God no. I just didn't need another stupid adult "watching over me" and screaming at me for things I might've done.

"Do you come down here often?" Patchpelt asked, trying to break the ice.

"No." I stared straight ahead, not bothering to look in his direction.

Patchpelt tried again, "Have you ever come down here?"

"No."

"Do your friends ever come down here?"

"No."

"Has your mom ever-"

"For the love of Jesus, shut up! Nobody ever comes down here, my friends don't exist, and seriously, my mom couldn't care less about where I was going anyway! God!" I slumped back down in my seat, pulling my hood over my eyes some more.

There was silence for a moment, "You know," Patchpelt gave it a third try, "There's a cemetery behind the lake,"

"No there's not," Yes there is, a voice in the back of head argued with the one that came out the front.

"Your mom told me you were into…that sort of stuff," He continued, obviously not wanting to repeat her exact words. Before I had a chance to reply we were coming to a stop. I pushed myself out of the car, squinting my eyes as the sun came into full view. "Why don't you take that hood off?" Patchpelt called from the other side of the car, "Makes the world a lot brighter,"

I zipped up my sweater in response. Patchpelt shrugged and began to walk along side of the lake. I just stood there, refusing to go anywhere with him, until he disappeared into the woods. A few seconds passed; nothing. A minute passed, then, "Aren't you coming?"

"Coming where?" I yelled back, not even half interested.

"To the cemetery!" He called back, as he faded back into the brambles. My curiosity got the better of me as I pushed myself off the side of the car and jogged over to where Patchpelt was. He smiled as I caught up with him. I just glared back.

It seemed like hours went by as we stumbled through the thicket, not bothering to take the path for whatever reason, and finally coming up to a small hill that led up the cemetery. "Do you know who's buried up there?" Patchpelt asked. I shook my head, not sure what he was getting at, but hoping it wasn't just some famous person I was supposed to care about. "I'm surprised," he continued, "I would've thought you'd know,"

"Whoever it is, whatever he did, I couldn't care less," I didn't break my pace, climbing up the hill that seemed a lot steeper than it probably was.

The corners of Patchpelt's mouth twisted into a mischievous grin as he said, "Really. I think you'll care a lot about what he did." I rolled my eyes at him for the second time that day as we finally made it into the graveyard. It was quite over grown, with a few head stones pushed to the side and some statues knocked over here and there. No fresh burials had happened here, obviously, at least within the past five years. You could barely make out any of the writing on the stones, yet they were haunting in their own special way.

I jumped as I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning around to realize it was only Patchpelt, "The newer graves are over there," He pointed near the back where a few stones lay underneath the branches of a weeping willow. "Why don't you go check those out?" Yeah, define "new". But I walked over to where he was pointing anyway, not bothering to step around the fallen stones. Once I got there I nonchalantly began to scan the names on the stones which, despite the conditions of the all the others, you could kind of make out.

"Sunstar Berthiaume…" I murmured the names to myself, "Robinwing Hager…..Poppydawn Prokop…Tawnyspots Mccoubrey….." Wait. I looked back at the last one, a small stone with the name Tawnyspots. The rest of the stones I had looked at had had little inscriptions along with the dates, things loved ones had asked be written on the stones to help send them off to StarClan or Heaven or wherever these people went. But there was nothing written on Tawnyspots' gravestone, only his name and his birth to death date. And that was all.

Patchpelt came up behind me and rested his hands on his hips, "You expressed interest in your father," He said, "Or so Willowpelt tells me. So I thought I might take you to see where he was buried," I nodded, still a bit speechless. The first time I had brought it up when I was four, asking where daddy was, Willowpelt had told me that he had been shot and that his body was taken by the killers to be used in a cult ritual. Now I could see that that had been a lie. Patchpelt let me be as I sat down on the grass, just staring at the stone, wondering if I was like him at all.

"So how did it go?" I was back in school and it was lunch time. I had been sitting in the small "garden" in the shade, my back against the wall, when Tigerclaw had sat down next to me. Neither of us had said anything for a while, not until now.

"How did what go?" I replied through bites.

"That car we saw in your drive way," he explained, "What was that all about?"

I swallowed, "Oh, that was…my Uncle, Patchpelt,"

"And what did he want?" Tigerclaw pressed, barely touching his own food.

"Um…" I wasn't exactly sure what to say. As much as I admired Tigerclaw and wanted him to trust me, I wasn't sure if I could replay that part of the day in my head back to him. "He just wanted to spend time with me, that's all."

"Huh," Tigerclaw seemed to consider this for a while, then said, "What are you doing tonight?"

This caught me completely off guard. The questions "What are you doing tonight" is something I'd seen Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza ask girls on the sitcom Seinfeld as a way of asking them out. "Nothing, I guess," Unsure of anything else to say.

"Then how about we go on a little adventure," he continued. The way he said it just sent shivers up my spine.

"What were you thinking of?" I asked, hoping my voice didn't come out sounding scared.

Tigerclaw must've noticed the look on my face, fore he said, "We don't have to, if you don't want to,"

"No, no," I shook my head, not wanting to disappoint him, "What were you thinking of?"

A small smile played across his lips as he replied, "There's this cemetery near Green Leaf Lake. You know the one I'm talking about?" My throat went dry, but I nodded anyway. "Well, I was thinking…" Tigerclaw trailed off to let the suspense build, "Maybe we should go there tonight and explore a little. See what we can find? You can bring someone else along if you want to," he added this last part, seeing as I hadn't blinked since he'd said this. I turned away for a moment, scanning the playground to see if there was anyone worthy of this expedition. My eyes rested, of course, on the only person who'd ever wave to me enthusiastically in front of a large group of people.

Tigerclaw followed my gaze, "Good choice," I couldn't tell if he meant it or not. "You know how to get to the lake, right?" I nodded. "Good," he said again, "I'll meet you there at 7." He got up with his unfinished lunch and left to go meet some other friends. Meanwhile, I got up to tell Longpaw what we were doing tonight.

"It's cold…It's getting dark….maybe we should go back?" By now I highly regretted my choice of choosing to bring a "friend" let alone Longpaw, who hadn't shut up since we'd entered the woods and were making our way toward the graveyard. I turned back to him, still walking, "Then you should've warn a warmer sweater, of course it's getting dark, the sun doesn't stay up forever, and no, we are not going back!" I whispered as sharply as I could for the millionth time that night.

It was time for Tigerclaw to intervene, "Longpaw," the three of us stopped as Tigerclaw turned around to face him. His voice was surprisingly gentle as he stooped down a little, looked him right in the eye, and said, "If you're scared, or don't feel comfortable doing this, you can go. Darkpaw and I will be just fine by ourselves." I folded my arms and looked down at him, my eyebrows cocking up in a mock question. Longpaw looked from me to Tigerclaw, then straightened up and put on a brave face.

"I'll stay," he replied. Tigerclaw smiled and patted his shoulder. As he turned away from him he faced towards me for a second. In that second he gave me a different kind of smile, one that suggested that there was something funny that only the two of us knew.

We continued through the woods until we reached the base of the hill. The three of us looked up, seeing the silhouettes of the remaining statues stand out in front of the setting sun. Tigerclaw was on my left, Longpaw was on my right, and even though it was unusually warm that night, I could help but feel cold, as if something was going wrong in all the right ways.