Okay, so I figure I've taken long enough of a break from this story, so I'm returning to it now. Oh, just to let you know, Chapter Six for this story is still in production because it is an extra. But since without it I already have nine chapters written out, I'm willing to let you guys take a vote. If you would rather have me leave out the extra and have it appear later down the line somewhere else, I am willing to do so. However, if you would like to have me continue with the extra chapter, I am willing to do that also. When I feel I have had an adequate sampling of the reading population of this story, I shall say so on my profile page and then the voting will be over. So, yeah, while you're thinking about that, you can read and enjoy this...

Chapter Five

"Willowpaw!" called Mothwing from the medicine cat's den.

Willowpaw pricked her ears and, quickly grabbing a stringy squirrel from off the fresh-kill pile, loped over to her mentor. Dropping the prey at her paws, she asked, "What is it, Mothwing? Do you need me to do anything for you?"

"Yes, actually, meowed the golden tabby she-cat, twitching her ears nervously. "Listen, Willowpaw, have you had any signs from StarClan recently?"

"No." Willowpaw shook her head, unsure as to what Mothwing was getting at. It must be something serious, she thought, if she's inquiring about dreams from StarClan. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing, just wondering." Mothwing looked at her paws as she said this, and Willowpaw narrowed her eyes at the somewhat suspect nature of the medicine cat. Now that she looked, Mothwing looked really worried about something. She may be successful at hiding it from the other RiverClan cats, but not from her own apprentice. Her fur was hardly groomed, her ears twitched suspiciously whenever there was a noise, and her tail was in constant frenzy, swishing back and forth like crazy. However, Willowpaw had very little time to contemplate the nature of Mothwing's worry, as Mistyfoot chose just then to limp in with blood running freely from a wound on the inside of her left foreleg.

"Great StarClan, Mistyfoot!" exclaimed Willowpaw, blue eyes stretching wide. "What happened?"

"Me and my patrol were renewing the scent markers along our border with WindClan, where we met up with a WindClan patrol. Two of their warriors crossed our border, accusing us of trying to trespass, and we had a bit of a skirmish. Ashfoot got me pretty good just before it broke up." The deputy began to sway on her paws, and Willowpaw noticed with alarm that a pool of blood was forming at her paws.

"Hurry up and lie down," snapped Mothwing, indicating a freshly-made nest lined up against the wall. "Were any other cats of your patrol hurt?"

"Just a few scrapes and scratches," replied Mistyfoot, shaking her head. "Nothing serious, or I would have insisted that they come here with me."

Mothwing just nodded distractedly. "Very well, I'll go check on them in a minute. Willowpaw, hurry and get some cobwebs to stop the bleeding. Mistyfoot's going to be your patient for a while. Now, Mistyfoot, who else was in your patrol?"

Not wasting any time, the medicine cat apprentice scurried up to where the supplies of cobwebs were kept. She saw with alarm that there weren't very many of them left. Carefully wrapping the remaining cobwebs around her forepaw so as not to tear any of the precious strands, she hobbled over to where Mistyfoot lay and applied them to the wound.

She could see as the dressed it that Mothwing had already licked it clean, and looking around reminded herself to ask one of the apprentices to help her clean up all of the blood that Mistyfoot had scattered around. She also saw that her mentor had left a few poppyseeds laying next to Mistyfoot. Pushing these closer to the deputy with her paw, Willowpaw said, "Here, eat these. They'll numb some of the pain and let you fall asleep. That'll quicken the healing process." Willowpaw watched the darker gray she-cat as she licked them up and slowly relaxed, relieved of pain.

Seeing her patient was fine, Willowpaw turned toward the entrance and saw Pebblepaw walking past. "Pebblepaw!" she called. "Pebblepaw, do you have a moment?" The dark gray apprentice turned around and paused, waiting to hear her out. "Can you help me clean up the medicine cat den? Mistyfoot sprayed blood everywhere, and it's too a big a job for me to do alone."

Pebblepaw nodded and walked forward towards her. She ushered him in and handed him a ball of wet moss. She then took one for herself and the both of them began silently scrubbing the floor and the walls. As she worked, Willowpaw discovered that there was actually more blood than she had initially realized. At the end of the job they found themselves with four large balls of blood-soaked moss.

Willowpaw was about to ask Pebblepaw if he would help her carry them out of camp, but the warrior apprentice beat her to it. "I'll help you carry out all that moss, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," meowed Willowpaw around a mouthful of moss.

Pebblepaw picked up his share of the moss and the two of them made their way across the camp clearing and to the camp entrance. The dark gray apprentice estimated that it would take them one more trip after this one, and he suddenly wished that there was a larger pile of dirty moss back in the medicine cat den waiting for the two apprentices to dump it outside of camp. He did a sudden doubletake.

Now why would I wish that? he wondered. Cautously, he regarded Willowpaw out of the corner of his eye. Watching as she padded along beside him, head and tail held high and the lean muscles of her slender form working together to bring her forward step by step, he felt his admiration for her grow. Sure, he liked Willowpaw. Every cat in RiverClan did. The pale gray medicine cat apprentice was very popular, even with cats in other Clans.

True, when he and Willowpaw were kits, he had harboured a soft spot for her, and even though she had spent nearly all of her time in the medicine cat's den with Mothwing, he couldn't help but hope that she would change her mind and decide to become a warrior apprentice instead, but, she had chosen the path of a medicine cat, and Pebblepaw had decided to respect her decision and move on. Still though, he had a lingering sadness about what he had never had but still lost.

Suddenly hit by a shock at the way his thoughts were forming, Pebblepaw stopped dead in his tracks. Surely he couldn't have feelings for Willowpaw? Vigorously, he shook his head. No, he yowled silently to himself. She's a medicine cat! How could you possibly have feelings for her?

"Hey, Pebblepaw! Do you think this is far enough away from the camp? Pebblepaw?" asked Willowpaw again when he didn't respond. Turning around, she saw him standing a few paw-steps behind her, a blank expression covering his face. Dropping her moss to the ground, Willowpaw walked over to Pebblepaw and waved her tail in front of his eyes. "Helloo, anybody in there?"

"Huh?" asked Pebblepaw, just noticing her in front of him, her blue eyes staring directly into his. Stepping back, he looked down to where Willowpaw had dropped her moss and deposited his right next to it and then scraped dirt over it so that it wouldn't attract any scavengers.

"What was wrong with you?" asked Willowpaw, regarding him curiously. "You were just standing there staring off into space."

"Oh, nothing," replied Pebblepaw, turning away and beginning the walk back to camp.

"Really? Are you sure StarClan didn't send you a vision or anything?" pressed Willowpaw jokingly, hoping that her gentle teasing would encourage him to open up.

"Of course I'm sure," scoffed Pebblepaw, trying not to look even slightly embarassed. "Look, would you just drop it, please? It's nothing you can help me with anyway." Willowpaw was sure that she wasn't meant to hear that last part, as it had been mumbled just barely under his breath, and so she decided to pretend as if she hadn't.

"Hey, lighten up!" she mewed, pressing close to him in what she percieved to be a friendly gesture for just a moment. "Come on, I'll race you back to camp! Last one there's a rotten fish!" With that she tore away, choosing to forget about Pebblepaw's problems for his own sake. If he wanted her to know what they were, he would tell her himself when he was good and ready, with no additional prying on her part.

Poor Pebblepaw stood, bewildered for a few seconds, her sudden gesture confusing him. It took a while before he realized that Willowpaw was gone, and with a whole new feeling of warmth flooding over him, he took off after her. Though as he raced along, all his worries fading from his conciousness, somewhere in the back of his mind, one thought repeated itself over and over: Oh yes, I am in BIG trouble.

---

That evening, Pebblepaw flooped down into his nest. He had had a very busy day. Besides helping Willowpaw clean out the medicine cat den, he had spent his day hunting and doing a border patrol along the ShadowClan border. After the amount of hunting Mosspelt had made him do, he wouldn't doubt it if someone told him that most of the fresh-kill on the pile haed been brought in by him. And, even more exhausting than that, his realization of love for Willowpaw.

No, he backtracked hastily, not love. He wasn't exactly sure what his feelings for Willowpaw were, or if they were strong enough to be called love. Just to make life easier, he decided, I'll just say I have a crush. Yeah, I have a small, tiny, miniscule, minor crush on Willowpaw. Nothing to get too worriod about.

He was startled out of these thoughts as another cat made its way into the den. Looking up, he say it was his sister, Minnowpaw. The small black she-cat plopped down into the nest next to his and meowed, "I just had the most tiring bout of battle training in my life! And we only practiced one move! I spent all day in the training hollow, trying to best Voletooth. And you know what? The sneaky little furball beat me every time." Blinking her green eyes after her long tirade, Minnowpaw turned to him and calmly asked, "So, what did you do today, Pebblepaw?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, first, I helped Willowpaw clean out the medicine cat den. Apparently Mistyfoot and her patrol got attacked by a WindClan patrol over by the border and she sprayed blood all over the place. Next I went on a patrol checking the border with ShadowClan, and then I spent the rest of the day hunting." Pebblepaw had purposefully kept the part about Willowpaw short; he didn't want Minnowpaw teasing him about something he himself wasn't entirely sure of yet. Despite this, he did notice Minnowpaw's ears twitch at the mention of the medicine cat's apprentices' name. She knew something about her he didn't, and not only did he feel affronted, but he also had a sudden desire to know everything and anything he could about Willowpaw.

"What do you know?" he demanded, deciding that the best way to get information out of his blabber-mouth sister was to confront her in as straight-forward a manner as possible.

"Know? Know what? I don't know anything," she mewed, suddenly finding her paws to be very interesting.

"Oh, come on, Minnowpaw. I can tell when you're trying to hide something from me. And right now I can tell you're lying to me."

"I'm not lying!" growled Minnowpaw, leaping to her paws and fluffing out her soft, kittenish black fur.

"Yeah, right," snorted Pebblepaw in disbelief. "There's something you're not telling me, and we both know it." He fixed her with his most patronizing stare, and to her credit, Minnowpaw managed to hold it for a few moments before breaking contact.

"All right," she sighed, "but you owe me big time. Also, if you tell Willowpaw I told you any of this, I'll personally rip your fur off, if she doesn't do it first, I mean." Pebblepaw nodded, and motioned for her to continue. His sister glared at him for a moment longer, then began. "I can't tell you much, 'cause it's a secret. In fact, I shouldn't even be telling you this part, so don't go and blab to anybody. Anway, Willowpaw recently told me something very, well, I suppose it could be considered nice, if it wasn't breaking the warrior code."

"Would you just get on with it?!" burst out Pebblepaw, beginning to loose patience.

Minnowpaw slapped her tail over his mouth and glared at him again through narrowed slits. "If you want to know what Willowpaw told me, I'd advise you close your mouth and listen. I'm not going to say this again. Willowpaw, she, well, it's complicated. She-- ugh, how awkward!" She paused to gather herself, then tried again, "She said- she said she wasinlovewithsomeone!" she finally burst out all in one breath, self-conciously beginning to chew at an imaginary flea at the base of her tail.

Pebblepaw was stunned. Did his sister really mean what she had just said? If she did, then that meant-- But oh! Then that entire episode with the moss suddenly made perfect sense! She hadn't asked Pouncepaw, who had been walking right in front of him and whom she must have seen, for his help because she had wanted to spend time with him! Smiling suddenly with the strength of his realization, Pebblepaw eagerly began mapping out how exactly he was supposed to approach this subject with her so she could renounce being a medicine cat and they could be together without letting her know that it was Minnowpaw who had told him.

Minnowpaw, looked up worriedly from her grooming and meowed, "I'm serious, Pebblepaw. Don't tell consequences of you doing so could be very dire for everybody involved."

Pebblepaw just nodded absently as he settled down in his nest to sleep, staring out and up at the sparkling stars of Silverpelt. Laying his head on his paws, he offered a silent prayer of thanks to his warrior ancestors before drifting off into a deep, fitful sleep.

Alright, and as I'm sure I mentioned, I lost the page with the ending to this chapter on it, so the last bit of what you have just read is a bit of fantastic improv. On this note, I will also have to rewrite the begining of the original chapter six, as they were on the same page. So whoopie! Salutations to forgotten paragraphs that you have to tediously go back and rewrite to spare yourself the trouble of having to redo everything. Oh, and kudos to whoever takes away lost items and makes them unfindable. Really, big fan. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and don't forget to give me your opinion!