She'd been walking outside to sink up some of the late-afternoon sun when her body started convulsing.

The pain that shot through Watersplash was unlike any she had felt before, and she staggered and collapsed, moaning and clawing at the ground. Instantly, the camp broke into a frenzied mayhem. "She's about to have her kits!" some cat- was it Smokefur?- cried. "Get her to Mossnose, quick!"

Is that what's happening? was all Watersplash could think as tremors wracked her body. I'm having kits? She'd known she was going to give birth soon, of course, but it had always seemed like some unfathomable, far-off event. The fact that it was actually happening, here and now, was more than Watersplash could wrap her mind around. And the excruciating pain that was being brought on hardly improved matters. If this was what every queen went through when they kitted, Watersplash couldn't understand why any cat would choose to get pregnant. She felt like she was going to die- no exaggeration. She literally felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out.

She was carried into Mossnose's den because it was closer than the nursery and set down in an empty nest. "I'll go fetch her a stick to bite down on," one of the cats who'd carried her offered- it was Smokefur. Watersplash felt a burst of gratitude toward the gray-furred tom; she'd missed his companionship ever since Patchfur had run away. She tried to shoot her cousin a smile as he hurried off to find a stick, but she didn't think he saw. Then another spasm racked her body and she forgot Smokefur entirely, letting out a screech louder than she'd known she was capable of making.

After that, the whole experience was a blur. There was pain, pain, more pain, Smokefur hovering over her with a stick in his mouth… more pain, and wood splintering between Watersplash's teeth as she writhed. Mossnose gave Watersplash encouragements, but she couldn't make out a thing the medicine cat was saying. Her whole vision was blurred and tinted red.

Watersplash was positive that she was going to die. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. How could any cat survive this much agony?

And then… it was over.

She felt a great release as the last kit slithered out onto the nest. Watersplash sat back, chest heaving with exhaustion, as the pain slowly diminished. It was done. She was done. She'd given birth.

Dear StarClan, she was a mother!

Suddenly something rose up in Watersplash's throat; she was unsure as to whether it was bile or emotion. She swallowed it down with a gulp and lay on her side, panting, as Mossnose licked the final kit's fur the wrong way. She couldn't see the others- how many were there? After a moment, Mossnose handed the kit over to her. Watersplash stared blankly ahead for a moment before pulling her kit in close and letting it began suckling. Only then did she realize that two other kits were already there, nestled between her paws. One of them was very small and had cream-coloured fur, one was black, and the other was gray with shades of greenish-bluish-gray visible from the right angle.

As soon as she saw the kits, Watersplash knew they were not Oakleaf's. She let out a sigh of relief as the three kits suckled at her belly- her three kits. She had to keep reminding herself. This was really happening. She had given birth to half-Clan kits. She was a mother, and Grasstail… Grasstail was a father.

"So," Mossnose asked as she hovered over Watersplash, "Do you have any idea what you want to name them?"

Watersplash didn't have the faintest idea. It wasn't something she'd thought much about. She silently chastised herself for not having given it any consideration. If she hadn't thought about the ramifications of having half-Clan kits, one would think she'd have at least given some thought to naming the kits.

She took a good, long look at the newborn kits, and she thought about their father. The gray one in particular looked like it would grow into a cat resembling Grasstail. Finally, she settled on names that she thought would be fitting for them.

"This one I'm going to call Featherkit," she said, touching her tail-tip to the cream-coloured kit. Then she moved it over to the black-furred kit. "And this one is going to be Ripplekit. And as for this one…" She moved her tail-tip over to the final kit. "I'll call this one Sprucekit, after the Blue Spruce."

"Good choices," Mossnose purred. "Now, try to get some rest. Call me if you need anything."

She turned away from Watersplash and went to go tend to her herb supply.

"Wait," Watersplash cried. "There's something…" She gulped. She hadn't intended to tell the medicine cat this, but Mossnose needed to know. "There's something I need you to do for me."

The sun was sinking low in the sky on what would probably be the last decent day of the year. Grasstail suspected that if he were to venture over to ThunderClan territory he'd find the place swamped with fallen leaves. He was glad he was a WindClan cat, and didn't have to worry about having leaves fall all over him when he went for a walk.

He'd tried to be an active member of WindClan again after his initial bout with depression. And for a while, he'd succeeded. Then Grasstail's mood and energy levels had declined again. He didn't even know why this time- he was thrilled that Watersplash was going to be having his kits. Maybe there was no reason for it at all. In that case, this was probably StarClan's way of punishing Grasstail for mating with a RiverClan cat. He figured he deserved it, but he loved Watersplash, and nothing- not StarClan, not his Clanmates, not his depression, nothing- could ever change that.

Now, as the sun sank on yet another dreary leaf-fall day, Grasstail sat just outside the warriors' den and tried to keep his spirits up by fiddling with a piece of heather. It was a very kittenish thing to do, but it stimulated him just enough to prevent him from spiraling into absolute boredom. Inside the den, he could hear Appleshine and Barkstripe doing… Grasstail didn't want to know, which was why he was outside the den rather than inside with them.

Suddenly, the heather was wrenched from his claws by a small blur of orange. It took Grasstail a while to process what was going on, and by the time he had, Flamekit was already scampering away with the heather in his mouth.

"Did you get it?" asked Heatherkit, running up to his brother. His pale green eyes lit up when he saw the scrap of heather. "You got it!"

"I sure did- and boy, was it easy!" Flamekit boasted, puffing his chest out. He narrowed his eyes and dropped the scrap of heather at his littermate's paws. "Now, let's see if you live up to your name, Heatherkit…"

The two kits wrestled for the piece of heather, with Heatherkit coming away with it- he really did live up to his name. He tossed it up into the air, and Flamekit leaped up to bat at it but came crashing down unsuccessfully. Heatherkit cackled at him as the piece of heather drifted down to land on top of Flamekit's head.

Normally the rabbit-brained games that equally rabbit-brained kits liked to play were of no interest at all to Grasstail, but this time, he found himself transfixed by the play-fighting littermates. Would Watersplash's kits grow up playing those kinds of games, and running around in open, grassy fields? Or would they play around in the shallows with shale beneath their paws, splashing each other with water?

Grasstail wanted Watersplash to be able to raise their kits, but he didn't want to be without presence in their lives. Shuffling the kits back and forth between them was obviously out of the question, as was running away somewhere to raise their kits together. Every cat had been suspicious enough in early greenleaf, when Patchfur of RiverClan and Birchstripe of ShadowClan had gone missing at exactly the same time. If there was a similar occurrence so soon after, there was no doubt that cats would find out. There were already too many cats for Grasstail's comfort who knew about his relationship with Watersplash. Besides, he doubted they'd be able to survive on their own with kits to look after.

Then again, what about when they'd been carried away by that owl as apprentices? Watersplash had saved Grasstail's life then, and had it not been for that fateful journey home, it was doubtful that the two cats would be lovers now. Still, Grasstail hadn't been depressed then, although he had been injured pretty badly. Not only that, Watersplash- who was clearly the stronger of the two- would be busy looking after the kits. Grasstail probably couldn't be trusted to look after them for her when his depression was at its worse points, which was when he would depend the most upon Watersplash in the first place. She'd end up having to do all the work sometimes, and although she might say she was fine with it, Grasstail knew she wouldn't be. He didn't want to make her miserable, but living alone with him would be the surest way to do that.

Even so, Grasstail wasn't above entertaining the unrealistic fantasy of running away with Watersplash. It would never happen, but a cat could dream… and so dream he did, of a life with his mate and their kits that he knew could never come to pass.

"I want you to tell them that none of my kits survived."

From her shocked reaction, Mossnose must have thought Watersplash was insane, and Watersplash couldn't exactly blame her. It probably would have sounded crazy to any cat who didn't know the reasoning behind it- which Mossnose didn't, as Watersplash had yet to tell her.

"Tell them that they were all stillborn," Watersplash continued, curling her tail around the three very not-stillborn kits. "Say that I'm so destroyed by grief that I killed myself. If they try to get in the den and see, don't let them look. Say it's a bloody mess, and my body is so mangled that no cat should see me like this."

"But Watersplash, why in StarClan's name would you want me to tell your Clanmates such dreadful lies?!" Mossnose hissed, eyes wide in perplexity. "Your kits are right there, alive- and so are you!"

"I don't have time to explain," Watersplash whispered. "We need to do this, now. I don't want any cat to know that my kits or I are alive." Not giving Mossnose time to respond, she tilted her head back and let out her best impression of a grief-stricken yowl. "No! That's not true! Tell me it's not true!" She collapsed, sobbing, into her nest. "Oh, StarClan, how can you have forsaken me so?!"

Mossnose still didn't look too onboard with the plan, but she went along with it nonetheless, which was a pleasant surprise. "I'm sorry, Watersplash," she meowed, raising her voice so that the cats outside could hear her. They were beginning to draw a bit of a crowd. "Your kits were already long past saving."

"Nooo!"

While Watersplash carried on making as much of a racket as she could, draping herself over her kits so that the cats peering in from outside the medicine den couldn't see them, Mossnose padded outside with a somber expression on her face.

"Watersplash had a miscarriage," she meowed darkly. "She's extremely distraught, so I don't want any cats poking around here to bother her."

Watersplash heard her Clanmates break out into shocked and sympathetic murmurs and gasps. She craned her neck to see if Minnowleap was among them. Her mother hadn't seemed to care at all when she'd gotten pregnant, and Watersplash was worried that she didn't care about her anymore now that she was an adult cat.

Ignoring the pang of dismay she felt when she didn't pick out her mother's silver pelt among the crowd, Watersplash tucked her kits into an alcove where Mossnose kept her herbs and ran up to the entrance of the den, hurling herself up against Mossnose. "How dare you let this happen to me?!" she yowled in feigned outrage. "I'll kill you!" The medicine cat let her knock her to the ground, while around them, the others gasped. A couple of senior warriors dragged Watersplash, still struggling, off of Mossnose, who put on a shaken appearance and addressed the gathered crowd.

"You see- I told you she was dangerous," Mossnose cried. "I need everybody to leave her alone for a while. I'll give her some poppy seeds and let her rest for a bit. Now, clear out, all of you!"

Fortunately, this time the cats complied, albeit none too happily. As soon as the crowd had left, Watersplash gathered up her kits and rolled over to face Mossnose. The medicine cat looked somewhat exasperated, which she had every right to. It was a miracle the plan had worked.

"Thanks for going along with my bee-brained scheme," Watersplash muttered. "I can't let any cat see my kits, or they'll be bound to notice that one of them look at all like Oakleaf."

Mossnose slowly nodded as she stared at the kits. Her gaze lingered on Sprucekit in particular. "That one looks almost green, doesn't he?" she murmured. "…Just like that young WindClan tom. What's his name- Grasstail?"

With a gulp, Watersplash nodded. "Grasstail and I are…" She paused, not sure what the right word was. Not mates, really, although she liked to think of him as her mate. They were more like… "Lovers."

"Well, it sounds like you've gotten yourself into quite the predicament," Mossnose muttered darkly. She didn't seem quite as upset as Watersplash was afraid of, although needless to say, she was far from happy about it. "So, what are you going to do now? You'll need to make these kits disappear, and fast."

"I'll take them to Grasstail," Watersplash meowed readily. She gave the smallest kit a lick on the head, wondering where it inherited its creamy colouration from. "His sister's mate is a she-cat, so they won't be able to have kits on their own. I can give the kits to Grasstail, and he can give them to his sister and her mate to raise."

Mossnose nodded thoughtfully. "Good idea," she meowed. "You're in no state to do any travelling, of course, so I'll take them over for you tonight. If I get caught, my cover story will be that I need to gather herbs from WindClan territory."

"Sounds like a plan," Watersplash muttered. She wasn't exactly eager to give her newly born kits up, but it was the only option now.

Mossnose padded over to sort through her herb supply while Watersplash's kits suckled at her belly. Before the nest sunrise, those kits would be in a new nest- away from their mother, but close to their father. They'd be raised by kin, at least. Watersplash didn't know Appleshine and Barkstripe very well, but from what she'd seen they were perfectly lovely cats. Featherkit, Ripplekit, and Sprucekit would grow up in a safe environment, and they wouldn't have to know that Oakleaf so much as existed. That was the life Watersplash wanted for her kits, no matter how much she yearned to be able to raise them herself.

She only hoped that Grasstail would be on board with the plan…