A/N:
cw: abuse/unhealthy relationships. focuses more on the impact than the actual abuse.
heavy angst and no happy ending. my bread and butter.
has a very non-linear timeline. just don't want to catch anyone off guard.
Leafpool wakes to Squirrelflight, wrapping herself around Leafpool. Squirrelflight rests her chin on Leafpool's head, her breathing faster than it should be for a just-awoken cat.
Squirrelflight never was good at being subtle.
Leafpool doesn't say anything, doesn't acknowledge the situation, just lets out a demure, still sleep-colored sigh, and shifts forward in her nest. She and Squirrelflight used to sleep like this, when they were kits, and during the Great Journey, when things seemed so much simpler.
It's a familiar position, one that feels safe.
That's why Squirrelflight keeps coming back to it, after all.
She's been doing this more and more, and if Leafpool didn't know why, she'd make a joke about needing to make her nest bigger. But it seems unfair to Squirrelflight, somehow, to make her openly acknowledge it.
Squirrelflight's tail wraps around Leafpool, and her breathing slows. She's asleep, or close to it, and Leafpool falls back asleep with her.
In the morning, Squirrelflight has left.
Leafpool isn't surprised. Squirrelflight never stays. She's returned to Brambleclaw or the nursery, slipped back into her role as easily as she always does. No one would notice if it were just one night. The kits are plenty old enough to be left alone for a night, and it's far from unheard of for queens to take a night off. But Leafpool doubts Squirrelflight came to the medicine den out of some premeditated act of respite.
Leafpool doesn't know what to do. She's a medicine cat, not a miracle worker, and whatever it is that's making Squirrelflight so restless, whatever it is that's driving her out of her nest at night, seems beyond her abilities.
(Her chance to fix this has already gone by. All she had to do what keep her mouth shut, let signs play out as they would, but she had to interfere, had to push her sister, and now she's here. She was afraid of what suppressing the sign would do, but she's not sure it could be much worse than the delivery.)
—
As soon as she realizes they're leaving, leaving for good, Leafpaw sneaks out after Squirrelpaw and Brambleclaw.
They bicker, Leafpaw can hear them, following as quiet as she can. She expected them to hear her sooner.
She flinches at Brambleclaw's accusation.
"I wouldn't tell on my sister," she tells him, and she can feel Squirrelpaw's rage, anger bubbling between them.
How dare he, she thinks, just because your sister left.
She passes them the herbs.
She wonders if Brambleclaw appreciates the work it took to get them. How Cinderpelt would notice if she took too much, and how she had to gather them special.
Squirrelpaw knows. Leafpaw didn't have to talk to her about it. Squirrelpaw helps her collects herbs often enough, and there's thanks glimmering in her eyes, a shine Brambleclaw doesn't share.
Leafpaw goes back to camp and curls up in her nest. She falls asleep with her tail over her nose, hoping that her sister is going to be alright. She'll keep her sister's secret. It eats at her, the guilt. She sees her father's worry, the way the anxiety rubs the Clan raw, and she hears her mother's prayers and Cinderpelt asking StarClan to speak to her.
But she keeps quiet.
She's loyal, she'll protect Squirrelpaw. She doesn't know where she is, but she's alive, and that's something.
As the forest grows hungry, she's almost thankful that Squirrelpaw left. At least her sister is safe.
Selfishly, sometimes she wishes she went with them. She could have been useful, even though her training wasn't close to complete, and then she wouldn't be another burden on her Clan, and she wouldn't be so hungry.
It's a selfish thought, one born of desperation, but she can't get rid of it.
Every time she misses a catch, one a warrior would have caught, she thinks that she's taking food she can't begin to replace. Squirrelpaw feels whole and safe, and Leafpaw is thankful for that.
(And if, as she's falling asleep, she sees Brambleclaw's face and wonders how she let Squirrelpaw leave alone with that, she tries not to dwell on it in her waking hours. She did, after all, sneak after them sneaking out. Leafpaw isn't exactly known for breaking rules. Brambleclaw's anger was masking fear, she tells herself. Squirrelpaw would be fine.)
—
Squirrelflight comes to her for comfort.
Brambleclaw has rejected her, and he's made no efforts to hide it. Leafpool can see the hurt that pools in her sister, the way it overtakes her demeaner.
If you asked her a season ago, Leafpool wouldn't have thought it was possible for Squirrelflight to be this quiet, this calm.
She hardly reacts when Brambleclaw criticizes her, only dips her head.
Leafpool watches, and winces, and later, when Squirrelflight has evaded his attention, she'll come to Leafpool.
Squirrelflight doesn't say what she's here for. She brings prey, or offers to help her hunt, brings her news of how Jayfeather is doing. But their nests are pushed together now, like they haven't been since the old forest, and Squirrelflight has an anxious, uneasy purr that always seems a breath away from starting.
Leafpool grooms her, reassures her that Brambleclaw will forgive her one day, that Lionblaze and Jayfeather will recognize her again. She's a medicine cat at heart, and part of the job is being comforting. Cinderpelt had told her that sometimes cats will report an uncaused pain, when they are under severe stress.
If Squirrelflight bears such a pain, she doesn't let on.
"I wish he would acknowledge them," she tells her, "for their sake."
She's staring wistfully at Jayfeather. Lionblaze, at least, has been cordial with Squirrelflight, but Jayfeather seems determined to be hostile.
Leafpool's ashamed of her apprentice. She thought she taught him better.
"He'll come 'round," Leafpool says, wrapping her tail around her sister. "He'll realize he's blaming them."
When he should be blaming you goes unspoken.
Squirrelflight doesn't respond, just rests her head on her paws.
Brambleclaw starts towards them, and Squirrelflight jumps. Leafpool feels the way her muscles tighten.
He turns, distracted by something or never planning on heading to them, and Squirrelflight is slow to relax. Her eyes are wide, the pupils unnaturally dilated, and she relaxes her muscles in stuttering gaps, not quite committing back to her nearly boneless stage from before.
"I just don't understand," Squirrelflight says. "I thought he..."
Leafpool wonders, desperately, what the rest of that sentence is, but she knows better than to ask.
(If it's, "loved me," well, Leafpool doesn't know how to answer that. But if it's "wasn't like this," then Leafpool can feel the guilt curled tight in her stomach, the knowledge that he was like this. Because Squirrelflight moved past it — at Leafpool's urging, no less — but Leafpool remembers how he behaved around Ashfur, remembers the way he treated Squirrelflight when he was supposed to be done with her. This isn't anything new.)
—
Seeing Sparkkit and Alderkit grow is reassuring.
There's an easy peace between them, and Squirrelflight, and Bramblestar.
(It's almost enough to forget why she was worried.)
They all grieve, but it is not the destructive grief, it is not the kind that sat lodged between them after Hollyleaf died.
Squirrelflight is a good mother. She always was. Leafpool has never regretted choosing Squirrelflight to raise her kits. But with Sparkkit and Alderkit, her confidence grows, once again blossoming into the cheerful cat Leafpool grew up with.
Alderkit begins to spend time in the medicine cat den, and Leafpool can't help but laugh.
"You keep raising medicine cats," she says to Squirrelflight.
"I don't understand it," Squirrelflight says, purring in amusement.
"They must hear about all the trouble you got in as an apprentice," Bramblestar says. Leafpool isn't used to his presence in their conversations. Their friendship has never been fully restored, but he's trying to be there for Squirrelflight, to prove he trusts her, and Leafpool can respect that.
It doesn't disappoint her when Alderpaw trains as a warrior. Hollypaw left her, too, and she only missed the time with her daughter.
Jayfeather is unwilling to force Alderpaw into the role, but Leafpool is glad they do. It suits Alderpaw well. When she's gone (that day looms closer than she likes to think about), he will temper Jayfeather, provide a much needed kindness to the Clan.
(Privately, she still wishes Bramblestar had asked him what he wanted.)
—
"I don't know what to do," Squirrelflight says, and Leafpool wonders what she's supposed to do.
She sees Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw.
She has her answer.
(Leafpool is a good sister and a good Clanmate and a good medicine cat, not necessarily in that order, and that means that if StarClan tells her something, she will say it.)
(It doesn't matter that she's sick with guilt over it.)
(It doesn't.)
(It doesn't.)
(Right?)
—
Maybe if Hollyleaf hadn't died, her family would've been able to heal.
The peace between them is fractured, the loss of their daughter tearing apart every ounce of normality. Their family was torn to shreds, and Leafpool doesn't know where to start putting it back together.
Jayfeather, superficially, is doing the best, but his exterior never cracks. Leafpool wonders if she needs to put a moratorium on allowing him to interact with patients, before deciding that he'd only grow more irritable and snappish if she deprived him of work.
Lionblaze throws himself into his duties, as if he's trying to take up the mantle of Hollyleaf. He pulls away from everyone, denying Squirrelflight as his mother, and Leafpool can't get within two tail-lengths of him before he moves away from her.
Brambleclaw is angry. He goes for walks on the territory, refusing to talk unless it's absolutely required. Leafpool hears him denounce Squirrelflight and accept Lionblaze in one breath, hears him claim Hollyleaf and deny the others, and knows he's shatterd.
Squirrelflight is the only cat who mourns in the traditional sense. It's possible its because she doesn't have a revelation laid in front of her like a banquet of crow-food. She barely talks, doing her duties without any of herself in it. She sleeps uneasily.
All Leafpool can give her a poppy seed if she seems to be exhausted.
But slowly, like honey seeping through a crack, they start to get better. It's different moments for all of them.
Lionblaze is the first to crack. He starts spending time with Squirrelflight again, starts easing her back into the habits of Clan life. He still avoids Leafpool, but she can live with that. She could put up with anything for a cat that starts bringing her sister back to life, much less her son.
Jayfeather takes longer. He makes amends with Leafpool first. Maybe it's something to do with his dreamwalking. At any rate, he starts to show gentleness when it's warranted. Leafpool hates to even think it, but Briarlight's injury brought Jayfeather back.
Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight, well, they don't go back. But a new normal arises, an uneasy truce settling over them. Leafpool feels hopeful. She thinks there's a chance. Squirrelflight is stubborn like that.
—
Maybe if Hollyleaf hadn't died, Bramblestar and Squirrelflight would've been able to heal.
—
In death, Leafpool grows closer to Juniperkit and Dandelionkit.
She was close enough with Sparkpelt and Alderheart, but being a medicine cat imposes some restrictions on one's ability to connect. Here, she mothers her daughter's kits, the same way Squirrelflight once did for her.
Juniperkit and Dandelionkit are ever-young, a youthful energy frozen forever in its very first moments. She keeps Juniperkit close to her, while Dandelionkit plays with other kits.
She wishes she could be more surprised at the kits lost for reasons they never should have faced.
Dandelionkit asks her about Squirrelflight and Alderheart and Sparkpelt a lot. Juniperkit has never known them, except in what he's been told, but Dandelionkit did.
("Do they still remember me?" she asked Leafpool.
"Of course they do," she said.
"They'll forget Juniperkit soon," Dandelionkit said. "Just like Mosskit."
Leafpool had only met Mosskit a few times, but she was fading, her memory exhausted with the death of Goldenflower.
"They won't," she promised. It wasn't a promise that was hers to keep.)
Juniperkit doesn't know to ask, but she still tells him. His only memories are of Squirrelflight, and she tells him whatever she thinks he'd want to hear.
"She loves you very much," she says.
"She doesn't know me," he says.
"You don't have to know someone to love them," she says, "and besides, she knows you."
He accepts this as truth.
They don't ask about Bramblestar, and she doesn't offer anything. She doesn't know what to tell them.
—
As leaf-fall sets in, things seem alright for Squirrelflight.
She seems happy.
Leafpool wishes she could be there for her sister, wishes she could be by her side. She knows Squirrelflight's grief still weighs heavy (even if Leafpool wishes it didn't), but she does seem happy.
She hunts with Bramblestar, and they run together. They look like apprentices, laughing and competing to see who can catch more.
Squirrelflight spends time with her sons and daughter, and Sparkpelt looks to her for advice.
There is peace.
—
They ask her if she regrets the wrong thing.
She would never regret her children.
She regrets believing StarClan was infallible. In believing there was always more harm in hiding an omen than sharing it.
Mothwing was right. Leafpool knew better.
She regrets that, but they don't ask her about it.