Author's Notes: Canon rewrite, obviously. Get in losers, it's Leafpool/Crowfeather shipping hours. It's always Crowfeather/Leafpool shipping hours in this house.

Originally published on AO3: 26 September 2021.

CHAPTER 2

Curious stares followed the four of them as Jayfeather and his littermates, plus Crowfeather, made their way through the tunnel and into the ThunderClan camp. Crowfeather forced his fur to lie flat as he followed his ThunderClan kits.

His kits. His and Leafpool's.

And he hadn't even known.

What could you have done about it even if you had known, mouse-brain? he asked himself, one ear twitching. Offered to join ThunderClan? Onestar and Firestar would have lined their nests with your pelt.

There was a rustling from the medicine den, and the ferns parted to reveal Leafpool. Her sleek tabby-and-white pelt caught the weak light from the rising sun, the white fur on her chest and paws glowing, and Crowfeather's breath caught in his throat as his heart skipped a few beats. The skin beneath his pelt suddenly felt warm, then hot as her amber gaze swept across the clearing to land on Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf. Puzzlement reflected there for a moment... and then her eyes found him, widened.

"Crowfeather." Her voice sounded thick, as if her mew had caught in her throat and she had to force it out. "What are you doing here?"

StarClan help him, he wanted to forget everything that had happened and push past his three kits to brush his pelt against hers, nuzzle her, breathe in her scent, twine his tail with hers. Pretend just for a moment that they really had run off together all those seasons ago and were now looking at their full-grown kits. He'd never felt this strongly toward Nightcloud, never had this reaction to Feathertail when she showed up in his dreams even after Leafpool told him the former RiverClan cat had given them her blessing.

Remembering himself, that the rest of ThunderClan was watching, he meowed, "There's trouble in WindClan. Onestar sent me to speak with you. Is there somewhere we can talk alone?"

Leafpool hesitated, her eyes flicking between him and the three littermates, and then nodded. "My den is empty, free of any patients. We can speak there." She turned, flicking with her tail for them to follow her, and disappeared back into the medicine den.

Crowfeather padded after her, gesturing for Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf to follow, and stopped a tail-length away from his former mate. He didn't wait for her to ask what Onestar had supposedly sent him here for before meowing, "I know, Leafpool."

She froze, a myriad of emotions flickering in her amber eyes. Grief, pain, shock, fear... and then relief. Her muscles tensed, then relaxed. "How long have you known?"

"Since dawn. These three"—he gestured with his tail toward the siblings behind him—"decided to trek to the WindClan border in the middle of the night, forced the dawn patrol to get me out of my nest, and quite bluntly revealed that Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw are not their parents and they are our kits."

Leafpool's gaze slid past him to their sons and daughter. "They didn't."

"They did." Despite the seriousness of the situation, a purr of amusement rumbled in his throat. Then he was silent, watching her. "Why didn't you tell me, Leafpool? You and Squirrelflight could have told me and Brambleclaw. We would have helped you, figured something else out."

Guilt had her fur prickling, her eyes sliding away from him. "I... I wanted to tell you, so much, but I didn't know what to do. You had already moved on, formed a family with Nightcloud, and I couldn't..." She bowed her head, eyes closing as she sank into a crouch, distress coming off her in waves so strong that Crowfeather could feel it lapping at his fur. "Spottedleaf, Bluestar, Yellowfang, they told me they would be with me, watching over me, that I would walk a path few medicine cats had before... and then they abandoned me when I was carrying your kits and terrified the Clan would find out."

A thorn seemed to be stabbing at Crowfeather's heart. Before he knew what he was doing, he was moving forward, brushing his pelt against hers, rasping his tongue over her ears in an attempt to comfort her. He was aware of three pairs of eyes burning into his fur, but he didn't care. Not when Leafpool sounded like she was on the verge of wailing like a lost kit. For all the cold stares and harsh words he had received from his Clanmates when he'd returned, it had been nothing like what Leafpool must have gone through—especially not when he knew how deep her belief and faith in StarClan ran.

Having to hide her pregnancy, knowing it was forbidden by both the warrior code and the medicine cat code, having no one to confide in but her sister... Crowfeather couldn't imagine the terror, the stress she must have felt at the fear of having her secret being discovered. "I'm so sorry," he murmured, pressing closer to her, feeling her body trembling. Regret for what could have been washed over him. "I should have been there for you. I would have taken care of you until my last breath."

Leafpool jerked back and stared at him, amber eyes wide. "But... Nightcloud—"

"Breezepelt isn't mine." It was a relief to finally admit it to Leafpool's face, to say it aloud. He'd already mentioned it to their kits, but it was somehow different revealing this to Leafpool. "And I never loved Nightcloud. She was already pregnant with Breezepelt's litter when I took her as my mate after we returned to the Clans, and I agreed to claim her kits and say I was their father. Since we were mates by the time Breezekit and the others were born, the Clan accepted it."

"Not every queen has to reveal who fathered her kits," came Squirrelflight's voice from the entrance to the den. Hollyleaf and Lionblaze stepped aside to let the dark ginger she-cat through, Jayfeather moved further into the den to sit beside the cleft that led to their herb store, and Leafpool pressed further against Crowfeather's side when she spotted the dark tabby shape of Brambleclaw pad up behind his mate, her tabby fur so close to her slender body that she seemed to have shrunk to the size of a newly-made apprentice. Squirrelflight continued, "Remember when Firestar told us nursery tales about Bluestar? How she had to give up Mistyfoot and Stonefur to their father Oakheart in RiverClan? Before she did, a ThunderClan warrior named Thrushpelt acted as their father."

Crowfeather wrapped his tail around Leafpool's side and stared questioningly at Brambleclaw. "Has Squirrelflight—?" he started to ask the ThunderClan deputy.

"Just now," Brambleclaw meowed, "when she saw you four walk into camp and into Leafpool's den." Something flashed in his eyes, gone too quick for Crowfeather to be sure what it was. His gaze focused on his adopted kits. "I'm proud to have raised you three as my own. Whatever else happens, know that."

"It's no thanks to me that they turned out so well," Crowfeather muttered with a dry snort.

Brambleclaw's whiskers twitched to show he'd heard, and then his eyes swept over all six cats before settling on Squirrelflight and Leafpool. "You could have trusted us enough to tell us and have us help you," he meowed sharply. "The two of you didn't have to do this on your own."

Leafpool's eyes closed and she turned her head to bury her muzzle in Crowfeather's shoulder. The stress, fear radiating from her now was so strong that the WindClan warrior could taste it, and his heart twisted in sympathy. He focused his blue gaze on Brambleclaw, held the deputy's amber eyes steadily. "How would the Clan have reacted if her secret was discovered?" he asked. "It was bad enough that we broke both the warrior and medicine cat codes and ran away together, but discovering after she was ThunderClan's sole medicine cat that she was expecting my kits? Firestar is a fair leader and would never think of throwing out his own daughter, but... other cats in the Clan? Onestar?" Great StarClan, it was weird to be the rational cat speaking for once.

Behind him, Jayfeather let out a snort. "Forget Onestar," the gray tabby meowed. "If he found out, he would have exiled you faster than you can say 'mouse'. StarClan forbid any of his cats have relations of any sort with ThunderClan after he turned his back on his friendship with Firestar."

Crowfeather turned his head to stare at him, and Jayfeather's blind blue eyes blinked slowly, insolently. It still amazed him how Jayfeather acted as though he could see just as well as any of his Clanmates. "What?" the medicine cat meowed. "I've heard the nursery stories the same as any other cat about how Firestar and Graystripe helped bring back WindClan."

That particular journey had happened long before Crowfeather had been kitted, but he knew the story well. From the glances Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw, and Leafpool were giving each other, so did they.

And he had to admit, his son had a point. "Onestar was born a mouse-brain," Crowfeather agreed with a dismissive flick of his tail. "He'll die a mouse-brain."

That comment earned him a shocked gasp from Hollyleaf, a snort from Lionblaze, and a mrrow of laughter from Squirrelflight and Jayfeather. Brambleclaw's eyes narrowed for a moment, and to Crowfeather's relief, Leafpool had stopped shivering. He turned his head to nuzzle her, a comforting purr rising in his throat, before returning his attention to Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight. "So what do we do now?"

Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight exchanged glances before looking back at him, Leafpool, and the three cats they had raised as their own. "Well, you're not here to claim them, are you, Crowfeather?" Squirrelflight asked.

The dark gray tom shook his head. "No. Not to force them to join WindClan, if that's what you mean. They only brought me here to speak to Leafpool first before deciding whether we should tell both our Clans or not. Besides, Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather are full-grown and have their place in ThunderClan."

Lionblaze relaxed slightly, but Hollyleaf twitched one ear and Crowfeather heard Jayfeather's tail-tip brush the floor of the medicine den as the gray tabby flicked his tail derisively. "I wanted to be a warrior," Jayfeather muttered, "before StarClan forced me into becoming Leafpool's apprentice."

Crowfeather blinked slowly in surprise, started to turn and open his mouth to question Jayfeather, and then decided there would be time to come back to that particular comment later. Although, now that he thought about it, that would explain the sudden switch between Hollypaw and Jaypaw as Leafpool's apprentice in between Gatherings, as well as him having to rescue Jaypaw from the lake when the gray tabby had fallen into it while exploring ThunderClan's territory on his own.

The smoky-gray tom shook his head to clear it. "Anyway," he meowed pointedly, "should we tell the whole of ThunderClan? I'll tell Onestar and the whole of WindClan myself if you want... or we can stay silent."

"The truth is out now," Jayfeather meowed, his tone somehow ominous and darker than was strictly necessary. "None of us can hide from it again."