A/N: I have a million reasons as to why my updates have been taking so long, so to sum it up, the past few weeks have been Hellish, haha. The updates are probably gonna slack off even more as summer approaches because I'll be busy. But I'm not gonna discontinue. Please review! :) I'm not certain how alimony and such actually works, but it's just part of the story in this.


Jaypaw sat in English class; his last class before lunch. He anxiously tapped his blue mechanical pencil on the desk, not really paying any attention to the paper in front of him, but rather studying the clock. 30 minutes until lunch. Now 25. Now-

"Jaypaw, would you quit staring at the clock and get back to your paper." Mrs. Snowbird snapped in annoyance.

Breezepaw snickered. "I'm surprised he can see it." Jaypaw rolled his eyes and ignored the pestering tom, but inwardly wondered why the teachers never said anything to Breezepaw. Could it be that they were afraid of him? Surely not, they probably just don't care about the students enough to worry about it... His mind wandered again and the teacher cleared her throat and sternly made eye contact.

Oh lay off already, it's literally the second day. He grumbled to himself, staring down at the paper. But it all looked like gibberish, as his mind was focused on something...someone else.

Stop it already, you're not Lionpaw. He repeated once again. But at this point he couldn't care less about the paper quizzing his knowledge of nouns and verbs. For the first time he had met a she-cat...or any cat for that matter, who didn't make fun of him and wasn't being a brat. And they shared the same interests. I think she's even on the soccer team. And medic, and she gets good grades...

"Jaypaw, how many questions do you have answered?" Mrs. Snowbird raised her brows.

The student in question gulped audibly and looked down. "One." The class giggled and Jaypaw's embarassment rose.

"You have ten minutes to complete the 19 others. I don't care if it is the second day of school, you are to complete that paper." He said no more and quickly began answering the questions as accurately as he could. Soon, the bell finally rang and he put the paper on her desk and then literally ran out the class and to his lockers, then to the cafeteria, his excitement buzzing inside him like a bee.


After Squirrelflight had dropped off the younger Conners at the Elementary school, she made the navy blue van do a U turn and headed towards her sister's house. Leafpool hadn't called or came over since the accident, which was unusual. As she neared the driveway of the she-cat, she noticed something strange. Why does Leafpool have all of her furniture at the curb? She went past the pile and rang the door bell.

"Come in!"

She opened the door and was taken aback; absolutely nothing was in the house with the exception of the few paintings and knick knacks Leafpool had along the fireplace mantle, with the wide screen television in front of it.

"Leafpool what in the world are you doing?!" Squirrelflight yelled, having to raise her voice over the loud drill sounds. She followed the racket upstairs and to Leafpool's bedroom, which was also trashed.

"Oh, hey!" She replied cheerily, a small hole started in the pale yellow wall.

"What are you doing?" Squirrelflight repeated, eyes wide.

"Remodeling! Crowfeather and I's divorce finally went through. I now have $20,00 dollars in alimony, and the $8,000 that I get from the emotional and mental strain he put me through!" Leafpool screeched cheerily, and her sister almost fainted.

"Oh my- twenty eight thousand!?"

Leafpool nodded, dropping the hammer she was using to pound in the wall. "Yup, and you get $5,000 out of it for everything you've done for...me." It went with out saying; they both knew she meant the kits as well.

"Leafpool, I-I couldn't, I-"

"I insist." she stated firmly. "C'mon, I thought you might come over today anyway. Let's go on a shopping spree!"

Squirrelflight nodded excitedly. "But first...why are you smashing a hole in your wall?"

"Well there's a bathroom right on the other side so I thought, why should I have to always go out my room?"

Squirrelflight just shrugged off the craziness casually. "In all seriousness though...I'm so concerned about the kits."

"Agh, Squirrelflight." Leafpool groaned, searching for her brown leather purse among the rubble and various items flung around the room.

"Well I am!" She said defensively. "Lionpaw's acting all weird and sneaking around, and whatever it is Jaypaw's helping. Plus I know he and Cinderpaw Lawson are liking each other again..." She paused as Leafpools rummaging slowed to a halt. She grabbed the purse from under her bed.

"How do you know about Cinderpaw and Lionpaw?"

Squirrelflight ho-hummed around the question. "I might have accidentally overhead Hollypaw's phone call."

Leafpool snorted. "Brilliant."

"She's just been acting so weird. She's sneaking around too and staying out later than I want, and how about her new clothing choices?"

Leafpool gasped mockingly. "You don't mean...oh, no...they're acting like teenagers!" She laughed as Squirrelflight threw a pillow at her. "What's the big deal, we used to act the same way."

"Exactly." Squirrelflight said glumly. "Luckily Jaypaw isn't really into anything yet."

"I dunno, I would watch that." Leafpool said sheepily, leading the way down the stairs.

Squirrelflight was right on her heels. "What? What do you know?"

Leafpool climbed into the drivers seat of her own car. "Nothing, really. It's just that at the last medic meeting, I was assisting. And this one girl...uhm..Willowpaw's her name. Willowpaw Jackson. She sure was making eyes at Jaypaw."

"What?!" Squirrelflight screeched in despair. "No, not all three!"

"Would you calm down?!" Leafpool began driving down the road. "It's no big deal, Willowpaw's a sweet girl. And besides, Jaypaw barely showed interest in her."


Jaypaw took a seat at a table with no other kids and waited for Willowpaw. He could care less about food! He waited about 10 minutes and she finally came along.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, I was helping Mothwing with some stuff." Jaypaw nodded understandingly; the school nurse could sometimes keep you busy for hours.

"So wanna go get some food? I think they're serving cheeseburgers today."

They both stood up and started walking towards the line in awkward silence; both too nervous and shy to say too much.

"S-so, do...do you like reading?" Willowpaw asked shyly. Jaypaw perked up at that; reading and writing original stories were two of his passions that he never met very many others who shared them.

"Yeah, I love reading. I even write some of my own stories sometimes." He smiled as Willowpaw did the same.

"Really? Wow, me too!" She smiled wide and stuck the lunch trey under her left arm as she dug around in her purse on her right. She lifted out a book.

"Have you ever read Mice and Men?"

Jaypaw nodded as he grabbed a cheeseburger wrapped in tinfoil. "Oh yeah, that's a classic."

"I'm not finished yet, but I started reading yesterday and I can't stop."

They began walking back to their tables, chatting all the while. Jaypaw groaned as Breezepaw approached.

"Well if it isn't the schools two biggest nerds in one place." He roughly smacked the book out of Willowpaw's hands; it fell to the ground in a clump, the binding nearly broke.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, gently lifting it back up. "How dare you, this book is my grandmothers!"

"Ooh, so sad." Breezepaw said in face sadness.

"Would you...just stop?" Jaypaw asked through gritted teeth.

"Why should I? What are you gonna do about it?" He got nose to nose with the other cat. Jaypaw felt rage about to overflow. He looked around for Lionpaw or Hollypaw who would usually help in these situations; Jaypaw was never the confrontation type like Hollypaw, nor did he ever have the wittiness like Lionpaw during arguments. But Lionpaw was chatting with his friends a few tables down and Hollypaw was with Cinderpaw outside.

"Let's just go, Willowpaw." He mumbled, leading the way outside. Outside of Lakeshore school, there were grassy fields which the students were free to go during their free time of the schoolday. So they sat down in a grassy are where there was no one else for atleast 30 feet around.

"Hey, look at that." Willowpaw pointed excitedly at a caterpillar inching it's way along vine wrapped around a tree next to them.

Jaypaw laughed. "Look at how it moves, I always love to watch them." Willowpaw giggled softly and nodded in agreement. Their eyes met but Jaypaw quickly looked away.

"I love nature." Willowpaw admitted sheepishly.

"Me too." Jaypaw sighed, forgetting about the burger on his tray and laying back in the grass to stare at the clouds. The she-cat did the same, and they stayed that way for the next 15 minutes, chatting. Eventually the bell rang and they had to go their seperate ways, but they both had had a better lunch than they had remembered in any of their school years.


A/N: Next chapter coming right up! I actually have really enjoyed writing about Jaypaw and Willowpaw, so if anyone does want anymore chapters focusing on them I deffinantly will do it!