New chappie, this one is Whitepaw&Shrewpaw, suggested by Mudfoot and Twitcherz. Takes place sometime in Dawn, before they begin their journey.

A cold blast of air awakened Whitepaw. Her green eyes flashed open and she scrabbled against the sheer stone she slept on, feeling stiff. I miss the apprentices' den.

She blinked away her drowsiness and turned her head, seeing that Shrewpaw was beside her. The brown apprentice was awake; she saw the flash of sunlight against his open eyes. He was on his side, and watching Squirrelpaw. Just watching her. Whitepaw felt her lip curl. What did he see in Squirrelpaw? She was so arrogant. She never listened to anyone. Whitepaw felt like rolling her eyes whenever Squirrelpaw insisted on arguing over nothing, as if she knew so much more than everyone else.

"Shrewpaw," she meowed, to distract him. "Do you want to go hunting?"

"We won't find much of anything," he commented, but he leaped up all the same.

Squirrelpaw's dark green eyes flashed open. "I'll come too," she offered.

"Great!" meowed Shrewpaw, before Whitepaw could think of an excuse for her not to. The white apprentice trailed after them, into the open air of Sunningrocks. She wondered if she could somehow get Shrewpaw alone while they were hunting, or if he would be too caught up in Squirrelpaw.

There was the sound of claws against stone, and then a broud-shouldered dark tabby cat was padding up to them. Brambleclaw nodded to them and then turned his deep amber eyes on Squirrelpaw. "Hey, Squirrelpaw," he meowed. "Do you want to go on patrol with me?"

Immidiately Squirrelpaw's tail curled up, and her eyes shone with a new light. "Sure."

Brambleclaw seemed pleased, too, and as the two cats set off their tails touched. Whitepaw glanced sideways at Shrewpaw. He looked rather forlorn as he looked after Squirrelpaw.

She likes Brambleclaw more than him, she thought. But does that mean that Shrewpaw will give up on her?

A part of her wished that he would. Then maybe he would see there were others out there- like Whitepaw herself. She bounded up beside him. "We can still go hunting," she offered.

Shrewpaw blinked at her. "Okay."

The two apprentices set off into the forest, looking for somewhere to hunt that hadn't been scarred by Twolegs. As they crossed one particularly desolate place, Shrewpaw looked around, his eyes narrowing with anger.

"How can they do this?" he demanded. "They're ruining everything! What'll we do when there's no place left for us?"

"I don't know." Whitepaw's nose wrinkled as she smelled the reek of the Twoleg monsters. She stood beside the tom, trying to find some way to console him. "What if we do leave, like Squirrelpaw and Brambleclaw say we should?"

Shrewpaw's fur bristled. "That'd be even worse," he mewed. "Who knows what's out there, waiting to get us?"

"How's it any better, though, being here? We know what's trying to get us, but that doesn't mean we can stop them." Whitepaw looked at the broken earth where a tree had been ripped up, and she shivered.

A warm flank pressed against hers as Shrewpaw rubbed against her. There was something new in his gaze as he looked at her, and it made her paws prickle and her heart pound. "They won't get you, Whitepaw," he murmured. "I won't let them."

&&&

"Here." Whitepaw passed the vole to Ferncloud. It hurt to look at the queen, with her watery-eyed stare and and her thin pelt, drenched with the heavily falling rain. It clung to her, making it obvious how horribly skinny she was. "Please eat it, Ferncloud. Birchkit needs you!"

"Hollykit and Larchkit needed me too," muttered Ferncloud. "And did I save them?"

"That wasn't your fault," Whitepaw mewed. "They-"

Her voice was broken off by thunder, but instead of the illuminating lightning that should have followed, there was a dreadful squeal. Ferncloud's ears shot up and the roar of a sudden monster drowned out her cry of alarm.

Thornclaw's voice rose above the pounding of the rain. "No!"

Whitepaw jerked her head up. Thornclaw was Shrewpaw's mentor. Could something have...no. She didn't let herself think of it, only abandoned Ferncloud and the vole, leaping up the stones until she reached the one that the noise had come from. Then she froze.

Thornclaw was crouched on the slope. A Twoleg monster was chugging away, completely unaware of the cats. And just in front of Thornclaw, laying defenseless on the rock, was Shrewpaw. He was dead; the rain stained red as it fell off of him. His eyes were glazed and empty.

Whitepaw's eyes were huge, and she felt herself sway on her paws. No, no! she wailed inside. How could they have done this? To Shrewpaw, who never did anything to them!

Thornclaw threw back his head and let out a howl of grief. Whitepaw felt herself echoing it, though she wasn't truly aware of what she was doing. Cinderpelt and Leafpaw came running and nosed him, as if there was something they could do. But Whitepaw knew that it was too late.

Just like he realized to late that he liked me.

&&&

Later, Whitepaw sat vigil. Her head was low, and she felt grief eat at her inside far more than any hunger ever did. She stared down at Shrewpaw's body. It was limp and bloody, his neck grotesquely twisted. Cinderpelt said that it had broken, which meant that he hadn't felt any pain. Somehow that wasn't any comfort at all.

Ferncloud lay asleep on her son's other side. Whitepaw hadn't the heart to wake her to continue to hold the vigil, not when she so badly needed to sleep. And how could she bring herself to force Ferncloud back into the real world, where she was suffering so much?

Thornclaw had sat for a while, but he too had gone to the warriors' den to sleep. He was needed for the dawn patrol, and Whitepaw knew that, even in all the suffering, they couldn't forget their duties.

So the young she-cat sat alone in the darkness, beside the cat she had cared for more than any other. As she stared at the lifeless body of Shrewpaw, she willed him to open his eyes, to look at her, just one more time. She wished she could have told him how he felt. Then would he have looked to her, instead of Squirrelpaw?

Whitepaw didn't know the answer, however hard she thought about. She squeezed her green eyes shut, trying to hold her sorrow inside. Oh, Shrewpaw.

"Whitepaw." The voice was familiar, but so faint she thought she had imagined it. "Leave me alone," she mumbled.

"Whitepaw, come on." This time her eyes flew open, and it was several seconds before she realized they weren't decieving her. A small wiry cat stood on the top of one of the Sunningrocks, looking down at her. His form was like a shadow, but his eyes were bright with spirit, like always.

"Shrewpaw!" she whispered, not daring to raise her voice in case it wasn't true.

"Whitepaw, oh Whitepaw." He was leaping down the slope to her, and Whitepaw stayed frozen as he came, waiting to wake up, or for him to dissolve into mist. But he didn't, and when he reached her side he brushed past her, his muzzle against hers. His touch was soft like a cobweb, and his scent filled her nose, different than she remembered, tinged with ice and wild forests that she didn't know. It was the scent of StarClan.

"Shrewpaw," she mewed again.

"Whitepaw. I'm sorry," he murmured.

"For what?"

"For being mouse-brained."

Her whiskers twitched, and she let out a mrrow of laughter. "It's all right."

His amber eyes sparkled at her, and she looked down, unable to hold his gaze now that it was so full of unfamiliar wisdom and knowledge. "But you belong in StarClan now, Shrewpaw. I can't change that."

The small brown tom touched his nose to hers, and then his starry form melded with the night sky around him. She heard his voice one more time, though. "Hey, Whitepaw. Don't worry about it. Any time you need to see me, look at Silverpelt. I'll be there, hunting with StarClan. Okay?"

Whitepaw craned her head upward and whispered in a voice that carried on the wind, "Okay."

I kind of made it detatched, just in case Whitepaw meets someone else in Twilight or Sunset. (I'm volleying for Spiderleg or Sootfur or Rainwhisker). Anytime she NEEDS to see him...so she may (like Crowfeather) she'll forget him someday (if they were actually together). Maybe.

More suggestions are good, and PLEASE stop giving me Graystripe ones. I'm totally against him meeting anyone besides Silverstream- they were totally meant to be, and he won't forget her! (In my opinion).