When Fireheart opened her eyes, she was puzzled to find herself in the medicine den surrounded by Tigerclaw, Bluefur, Featherwhisker, and her kits. Her entire body ached and despite her exhaustion, she could clearly see the worried expressions of her friends and family. As she pushed herself up, she felt Tigerclaw rush forward and press his nose to her cheek.

"Hey, there," Fireheart meowed weakly.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?" Tigerclaw demanded frantically. "Bluefur told us that you collapsed while the two of you were out for a walk."

"I'm fine, Tigerclaw," she reassured her mate gently.

"You gave everyone quite a fright," Featherwhisker meowed, eyeing her with concern clear in his gaze.

Fireheart laughed sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry about that," she meowed apologetically. "But I'm okay, really. Just, you know, being stuck in the camp all day...I guess I must have pushed myself too hard."

The others hesitated for a few heartbeats, and Fireheart could tell that they didn't entirely believe her. Finally, Featherwhisker replied, "Well, be that as it may, I'd still like to keep you in here until tomorrow morning. Purely as a precautionary measure, of course. If you say you're feeling alright, I trust you, but we can never be too careful."

"Fair enough," the flame-colored queen answered, too worn out to argue.

"And from now on, no more adventures out of the camp for you," Bluefur told her, sounding rather like a queen scolding a misbehaving kit. "You're staying inside until you get your strength back up."

"Fine, Mother," Fireheart meowed, rolling her eyes playfully. Bluefur cuffed her gently over her ears.

Stormflare looked at her anxiously. "Are you sure nothing like that has ever happened before?"

"This was the first time," she reassured her daughter. "As I said earlier, I just pushed myself too hard. Being stuck in the camp all day doesn't exactly do wonders in terms of staying in shape, you know."

The tortoiseshell molly still didn't look convinced. "Well...okay. But make sure you don't go out again until you're better, okay? I don't want my mama getting sick."

"I'll be fine, sweetheart," Fireheart meowed gently, giving Stormflare a gentle lick to her forehead. "Don't you worry about me."

Eventually, Featherwhisker shooed the others out of his den so that Fireheart could get some rest. Fireheart was a bit disappointed to see them go, but she knew better than to argue. It wasn't as though Featherwhisker would listen to her. Besides, she was sure they had duties of their own to attend to, not to mention sitting around in the medicine den all day would get boring after a while. As she curled up in her makeshift nest, Tigerclaw licked her ears tenderly before turning and pushing his way out through the fern tunnel, pausing only briefly to cast a worried glance at her over his shoulder. She nodded to him encouragingly, and he seemed to relax before he finally disappeared from view.

Once Tigerclaw had left, Fireheart turned her head to stare at the wall of the medicine den. "I see...so I passed out," she murmured to herself. "But why?"

She had been out of shape when she returned to her warrior duties after nursing Stormflare, but not once had she ever come remotely close to passing out. In fact, Fireheart couldn't remember ever doing so once in her life. If she were a bit older, she might have blamed it on age, but she was still a relatively young warrior. Surely a simple walk shouldn't have been enough to make her pass out, even if she was out of shape. Not to mention Swiftbreeze was considerably older than her and hadn't had any problems returning to her duties after Redtail, Spottedleaf, and Willowpelt were apprenticed.

Fireheart tried to brush her thoughts away. She was just being paranoid, she told herself. The reason she had collapsed had to be that she had spent longer in the nursery than most queens did in a single span of time. Maybe she was wrong; maybe simple exhaustion was enough to make a cat pass out. It wasn't as though she felt sick or anything like that.

I should get some sleep. I'm not doing myself any favors by sitting around worrying, Fireheart thought.

Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her paws and allowed herself to doze off. Regardless of what health issues she might or might not have, they could wait to be dealt with until later.


Tigerclaw paced outside the warriors' den, barely aware of his Clanmates eyeing him worriedly. A few fox-lengths away, Stormflare was murmuring something to Mosspetal, who was looking at her mate with a sympathetic expression on her face. Bluefur was sitting beside a half-eaten thrush, going back and forth between picking at her meal and casting anxious glances over to the medicine clearing. Petalpaw and Beepaw were watching over Briarkit and Scorchkit, but even the kits weren't interested in playing for once. All of them were worried about Fireheart, but until she was released from the medicine den, there was nothing they could do.

"What happened, exactly?" he asked, pausing in his pacing to speak to Bluefur. "Did she seem sick before the two of you left on your walk?"

Bluefur shook her head. "No," she replied, her eyes puzzled. "She was perfectly normal. Very chipper and excited to get out of the camp too. I really don't know what happened; one moment she was fine and the next, she just collapsed out of nowhere."

"Did she seem tired at all?" Tigerclaw pressed.

"Not really," the blue-furred queen answered. "As I said before, she was perfectly cheerful. It really did just happen out of the blue."

Tigerclaw nodded and resumed his pacing. Instead of easing his concerns, all his questioning of Bluefur had done was make him worry even more. If Fireheart really had seemed perfectly healthy before she passed out, it could only mean one of two things. One, that she had passed out due to exhaustion as she had claimed earlier, or two, that the underlying cause of her fainting couldn't be detected yet. He could only hope that it was the former and not the latter, but unfortunately, he didn't think even Featherwhisker knew for sure.

"Are we really sure she hasn't passed out like that before?" Stormflare asked. Tigerclaw jumped slightly; he hadn't even realized that his daughter had joined them.

"I haven't seen it happen," he answered. "And I've known her since we were apprentices."

"Neither have I," Bluefur confirmed. "She's never even really gotten sick except for when she had greencough as an apprentice."

"What about before she came to ThunderClan, though? Did she ever mention something like that happening?" Mosspetal asked, padding over to join the group.

"Not really, no," Tigerclaw meowed, thinking back to all the conversations he'd had with Fireheart about her kittypet life. "But then again, she wasn't too interested in talking about those days anyway."

Her littermates would know if Fireheart had ever passed out before, he realized. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he brushed it away. There was no way he was going to the trouble of looking for his mate's siblings just because she had collapsed. They didn't deserve to know what had happened, and he guessed that Fireheart wouldn't want them to get involved anyway.

"No," he meowed out loud. "We're just being paranoid. If Fireheart says she's fine, then we should trust her. It won't do any good to worry about all of the things that might be wrong with her."

Of course, when it came to Fireheart, not worrying was considerably easier said than done.