Finally we're back at Leafpool's POV. A bit short, but it has Leafpool&Crowfeather fluff. YAY!

Crowfeather looked a bit stunned as he padded up to Leafpool a few dawns later. She was waiting in a tiny hollow just inside ThunderClan territory that they frequently met at. A thin moorland stream ran through it, and it was bordered by thick heather and gorse, which was useful. You could hear a cat coming from any number of foxlengths away as long as they had to pad through that.

"What's up?" she meowed, hopping to her paws to come meet him. She saw the flicker of sorrow in his eyes and swallowed. "Is it Ashfoot?"

Crowfeather stiffly inclined his head. "She's dead."

"I'm sorry," Leafpool mewed, her suspicions confirmed. It didn't surprise her. From what he'd told her, it sounded like the leaf-bare cold had been trapped in the deputy's lungs and would not come back out. But she had hoped just as much as Crowfeather that she would be able to get through it.

"Who is your new deputy?" she wondered. "Onestar did choose on time, didn't he?"

"Yes he did." Crowfeather's ears flicked. "But he picked...he picked me, Leafpool!"

For a moment he sounded excited, like an apprentice before their warrior ceremony. Then his eyes caught hers and his fur lay flat, anxiety and disbelief overtaking the pride in him. "I don't get it," he meowed. "I mean, I'm too young! What do I know about being deputy?"

Leafpool recovered from her initial shock enough to speak. "You know a lot about it," she meowed truthfully. Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight both say that you were a big help on the way to the sun-drown place."

"But deputy, Leafpool? How can I ever be deputy?" Crowfeather's voice was high-pitched with a fear that she knew he had been hiding for the past few days, since the annoucement had been made.

She bounded forward so that she stood beside him, pressing her side against his. "You'll be great, Crowfeather," she meowed encouragingly. "You're strong and smart- there's no better warrior. I know it, Onestar knows it, and Ashfoot must think so too- from StarClan."

Crowfeather's face was shadowed. "That's the thing," he mewed. "When she was dying, I told her. Everything."

Leafpool blinked. She hadn't expected that. "And...what did she say?"

"She didn't understand. At least I don't think she did. There wasn't much time. But she did tell me that I should make her proud."

The tabby she-cat wrapped her tail around her white paws. "You should listen to her." Even if it means that you'll give up seeing me, she thought, though part of her cried out at the thought. She forced herself to go on. "Crowfeather...if you want to stick by the warrior code from now on...I understand."

Crowfeather bowed his head, and Leafpool's tail drooped as she waited for his reply. Her fur bristled, though, when he looked up again, for his eyes were sparkling with laughter, the decision so clear on his face it could have been carved from stone. "Oh, Leafpool," he purred, "How could you ever think that I could give you up?"

"I...I didn't-"

He rested his tail-tip ever so slightly on her head. "You're a part of me, Leafpool," he murmured. "As much as Ashfoot, as much as any of my Clan ever was or is."

"Crowfeather..."

"You are. I love you, Leafpool. And how could I ever let you go?"

&&&

Leafpool looked for Brambleclaw on her way back to camp. It had been a whole half-moon, but she hadn't yet had the time to tell him about her dream at the Moonpool. She had wondered if she even should bother, but after he had told her about his own vision for StarClan she felt the need to return the favor. Crowfeather's news had reminded her of what she had neglected to tell her Clan- about Weaselpaw and the balanced rocks. She didn't want to be keeping anything else to herself.

She found Brambleclaw sharing tongues with Squirrelflight outside the warriors' den and awkwardly padded over. "Um, Brambleclaw, can I speak to you for a moment? Alone?"

Brambleclaw's ears pricked up as if he had a feeling what she was going to speak to him about, but Squirrelflight's eyes flashed indignantly and curiously. "Can't you tell me?"

"Er...it's nothing," Leafpool meowed hastily. "Don't bother yourself with it."

Squirrelflight's tail lashed, but she didn't say anything more as Brambleclaw and Leafpool padded farther away, to a secluded corner of the camp. The dark tabby faced her once they were out of earshot. "What is it? Did StarClan speak to you?"

"At the Moonpool, yes," Leafpool answered, and she rushed into an explanation of the dream she'd had, leaving out, of course, the bits about Crowfeather. Brambelclaw seemed even more perplexed by it than she. "Have you told Cinderpelt?"

Leafpool shook her head. "Not yet."

Brambleclaw sighed, digging his claws into the ground. "Why can't StarClan ever tell us outright what the trouble is?" he wondered. "How does it help any cat, wondering like this?"

"I think..." Leafpool paused, uncertain of what she was going to say, and then went on. "I think it's because they don't know themselves. All they see are these prophecies, and they do give them to us. They help us all they can, Brambleclaw, of course they do."

" 'There are far worse things than hunting in the stars'," Brambleclaw quoted. "Does that mean...does it mean that someone will die?"

Leafpool could only shrug, and he blinked, his ears twitching uneasily. Leafpool felt her eyes narrowing as she was reminded of Mothwing. Though Brambleclaw believed in StarClan- how else would he have ever gone to the sun-drown place at all?- he didn't have that strong, unshakable bond with StarClan that she did.

Perhaps it came from her steady meetings with her warrior anscestors, or just from being a medicine cat. She wasn't certain, but she felt suddenly grateful of this special relationship that came from being a healer for her Clan, no matter the trouble it had caused her.

Mothwing doesn't believe in StarClan, she thought. But does Hawkfrost? Did Tigerstar?

She had been having a lot of questions like that lately- so easy to think of, so hard to ask, and so much harder to find an answer to.

Brambleclaw's POV next chappie...

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