It didn't take long for Hollyleaf to find Breezepelt.

Fallen Leaves had given her very little insight to his location, but she figured if he was still alive, he must have found a water source by now. So she followed the river, starting from the massive pool of water she had been fishing in and heading upstream to where it shrunk to a trickling stream. She knew there could be multiple water sources in the tunnels, but they likely all fed into the massive pool.

She had only been walking for a little bit, marveling at how well her leg had healed, when she smelled a vile, pungent scent. It smelled like rotting meat. She had never thought she'd see the day where she was grateful for the smell of fish, but at least the fish she was carrying helped mask the smell of this new horrible scent. Fighting the urge to gag, she stopped, set down the fish, and forced herself to sniff the air. She was definitely smelling crowfood, but mixed in was the undeniable scent of fox.

Fallen Leaves said Breezepelt has been eating off a dead fox, she recalled. If I find the fox, I'll find Breezepelt.

She veered away from the stream and followed her nose. Before too long, she came across the source of the smell. Up close, the scent was so close it made her eyes water. In front of her was something that had once been a fox. Now, it was almost completely eaten away, leaving behind just skin and bones. Has Breezepelt really been eating this? she wondered, horrified.

He wasn't there now, but his scent was fresh. Besides, she didn't think he could have gotten far on a belly full of crow-food.

Following his scent, it wasn't long before suddenly, another scent hit her. Fox, she realized. She would have smelled it sooner but it had blended in with the crow-food fox she had been smelling before. But this was fresh. And worse, mixed with the fox-scent was a distinct cat fear-scent. Breezepelt.

Dropping the fish in her mouth, she broke into a sprint, racing towards the smell. As she turned a corner, she skidded suddenly to a stop as a fox cub dashed past her, deeper in the tunnels. She hesitated, wondering if she should go after it, when suddenly she heard a cat yelp.

Turning, she saw a larger fox had just clawed Breezepelt's belly, drawing blood. He was breathing heavily and down on the ground, and not getting up quickly enough to defend himself. As the fox reared up on her hind legs, preparing to strike again, Hollyleaf moved, crossing the tunnel in a few quick strides and raked her claws across the fox's flank. The fox let out a yelp and turned, distracted from Breezepelt.

Before the fox had time to react, Hollyleaf aimed a second blow at the fox's side, knocking her off balance. Behind the fox, Breezepelt was staring at her, his eyes wide and wild. He didn't look well. First I have to scare off the fox, and then I can help Breezepelt, she thought to herself.

Hollyleaf reared up on her hind paws, and gathering all her strength, raked her claws across the fox's blood-spattered muzzle. The fox let out a yelp of pain, and after a moment of hesitation as she looked down the tunnel where the cub had run, she turned on her heels and ran off back the way she had come.

The cub must be hers, Hollyleaf realized. She was just a mother defending her cub. With a pang, she remembered Squirrelflight protecting her and her littermates from Ashfur, even as the flames threatened to destroy her. But then again, the only reason Ashfur hadn't killed them was because Squirrelflight had revealed her horrible secret, telling Ashfur she didn't care if he killed them because she wasn't their real mother. That's the real Squirrelflight. Not our mother. Just a liar.

She shook herself from her memories and turned her attention back to the situation at hand. "And stay out!" she yowled after the retreating fox. Mother or not, the fox had been about to kill Breezepelt, and even if she didn't like Breezepelt, she wasn't just going to let him die.

Speaking of Breezepelt, he looked truly terrible. He was bleeding fairly heavily from his underbelly, and he looked to be even skinnier than WindClan cats normally were. But most concerning was the look in his eyes. They were glazed over and unfocused.

He turned his gaze on her, his expression far from the anger and hostility he had glared at her with when they had last spoken. But he didn't look grateful to her for saving him, either. He just looked… confused.

"Are you real?" he asked blearily, eyes narrowing thoughtfully as if he genuinely wasn't sure who or what she was. Hollyleaf blinked. Was she real? How was she supposed to respond to a question like that? What happened to him? "Like, are you really here or just in my head?" he meowed, as if this was supposed to clarify. She didn't have time to explain her realness to him. Not while he was bleeding out on the cave floor. As he opened his mouth again, probably to say some other nonsensical thing, she cut him off.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, trying to bring his attention back to his current condition. He closed his mouth, pausing for a moment as he swayed on his feet, looking like he barely stayed upright.

"My belly," he meowed softly, in barely more than a whisper. That was what she had figured, but it was good he was at least aware of his own injury.

"Okay," meowed Hollyleaf, keeping her voice steady to avoid frightening him, the way Leafpool had taught her to speak to scared kits and apprentices. "Right, so I'm going to get some cobwebs, and then we can put those on your wound to stop the bleeding. Then, if I can find…" she trailed off suddenly as she realized he had collapsed to the ground. She rushed over to him.

"Breezepelt?" she meowed, beginning to panic. She nosed at his belly, turning him over. His wound was bleeding, but not badly enough that he should have been passing off from blood loss. Something else was clearly wrong with him.

Suddenly, she remembered being a kit, out in the forest with her brothers. It was the first time Squirrelflight had taken them outside the nursery, and they had been so excited to explore. Kits didn't usually get to leave camp, so they had felt proud their mother had thought they were ready. Lionblaze had found a dead rabbit, and brought it over to Squirrelflight excitedly.

"Look!" he had meowed proudly. "I found prey!" Jayfeather had wrinkled up his nose in disgust, as the rabbit smelled rotten, but Lionblaze had taken an eager bite.

"Spit that out!" Squirrelflight had hissed. Scared, Lionblaze had obeyed. "Do you smell that? That's the smell of crowfood. It means that rabbit isn't fresh- it's been dead for a while. We do not eat crowfood, do you understand?" Lionblaze had nodded, still looking frightened to have been scolded, but Hollyleaf had wanted to know more.

"Why not?" she had meowed. "Is it just because it smells so bad? Or is it against the warrior code to eat prey you didn't hunt? Or is it bad for you?"

"It's bad for you," Squirrelflight had replied. "Crowfood tastes rotten, but it can also be very dangerous. It can make you very, very sick."

"Sick in what way?" Hollyleaf had pushed on.

"It can make you very confused," Squirrelflight had meowed patiently. "Cats have gone crazy from eating crowfood. Long ago, before the Clans made the Great Journey, we were very hungry. Cats started eating crowfood just to fill their bellies, and it was never worth it. They would become weak, and start talking nonsense. Looking for cats who had died moons ago. It is very bad for you, do you all understand?"

They had all nodded, and Hollyleaf had been content, always happy to learn things from her mother. Squirrelflight had sometimes seemed like she couldn't wait to leave the nursery, but she had always had time for Hollyleaf's many questions, even when the other older cats had rolled their eyes at her constant questioning. It was one of the things she loved most about her mother. Not my mother, she reminded herself again. But still.

At any rate, she was now realizing this was what must have happened to Breezepelt. By the looks of it, he had been eating off of the dead fox for days. If a bite of crowfood could make a cat sick, what could an entire fox do?

She had no idea how to treat this kind of sickness, but she knew it wouldn't matter if he died from his wounds, so she would focus on that first. She needed cobwebs to stop the bleeding, and if she could find horsetail or marigold, those could be used to stop infection. She hadn't seen any flowers underground, so marigold was likely out, but she might be able to find horsetail.

But first, she had to stop the bleeding. Cobwebs were easy to find- they were in nearly every corner down here. She had to walk only a few fox-lengths before she spotted some, which she pulled down and brought back over to Breezepelt. She pressed them into his wound, applying pressure until the bleeding subsided. He stirred as she touched his wound, but did not wake.

Now that he was in no immediate danger of bleeding out, she could focus on his sickness. Perhaps all he needed was a few days for the fox to clear his system. In that case, she would make sure he was eating fresh-kill and drinking water, and hope for the best.

She had brought him fish, but dropped them when she saw the fox. She went back and retrieved them, and then followed the sound of the stream until she found water. Even better, there was some greenery on the side of the stream which included moss and horsetail. Satisfied, she pulled some horsetail, collected water in the moss, and trotted back over to Breezepelt. He was awake.

"Hey Breezepelt," she meowed. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine," he muttered, looking irritated to accept her help. At least he wasn't accusing her of being a figment of his imagination anymore.

"I brought you some water and fish," she told him. "And some horsetail. I want to use it to keep your wound from getting infected."

He wrinkled up his nose. "Gross. I don't eat fish. I'm a WindClan cat, not RiverClan."

"Well, this is what there is," she snapped, growing irritated. "Either you can eat the fish I brought you, or you can starve." She felt a bit bad, remembering her own hesitation to eat fish when Fallen Leaves had brought them to her. But she was actively saving Breezepelt's life. He had no right to complain about how she was doing it.

Breezepelt glared at her, but subsided. "Fine," he meowed coldly, accepting the fish and taking a bite. By his face, he didn't like it any more than she had her first time, but he ate it.

"I don't need your help, you know," he meowed after a moment, looking up from his meal. "I was doing fine on my own."

Hollyleaf was dumbfounded. He couldn't possibly think he was doing fine on his own. She opened her mouth to argue, and then remembered Breezepelt's reaction after Purdy had saved them from dogs on their way to the mountains. He had told Crowfeather that they would have found their way out without Purdy's help, even though it was obvious he had saved their lives. He's embarrassed to need help, she realized. Arguing with him won't change that. So she shut her mouth and just watched him eat.

When he was done, he reluctantly agreed to let her treat his wound with the horsetail she had found. Carefully, she unwrapped it, chewed the horsetail to a poultice, and applied it to the wound before wrapping it up again. Breezepelt was surprisingly silent during this process.

When she finished, she stepped back and realized he was staring off at nothing, eyes narrowed as if he was furious at a cat who wasn't there.

"Breezepelt?" she meowed, trying to bring him back to reality. "Your wound is dressed again." He pulled his eyes away from whatever it was he thought he was looking at and looked up at her. His eyes had that unfocused look to them again, as if he didn't quite know what was going on.

"Tell your brother to leave me alone," he muttered, eyes not quite meeting hers.

Hollyleaf blinked. "What?"

"He won't… he won't leave me alone. Him and Heatherpaw. They won't go away. Why won't they go away?"

"I don't know what you mean," she meowed gently, starting to panic. What was he talking about? "There's no one here but us. Which of my brothers are you seeing?"

"Lionpaw," he murmured. "Him and Heatherpaw are here. Well, not here here. But here."

"Breezepelt, no one is here," she told him. "And Lionblaze and Heathertail haven't gone by those names in moons. You ate a lot of that crowfood fox, and I think it's messing with your head."

His eyes widened. "No," he meowed, surprised. "No, my fox would never do that to me." Hollyleaf didn't know how to argue with him. He wasn't going to listen to reason.

"Why don't you go back to sleep?" she suggested. "I'll… I'll ask Lionpaw to leave you alone." Maybe the best way to make him listen was just to play along.

"I'm not tired," he grumbled. But he curled up, and within a few moments, he was asleep. Hollyleaf waited until his breathing was steady before deciding she should get some rest too. Picking a spot on the other side of the tunnel where she would still hear him if he woke up, she laid down and went to sleep.

By the next day, Breezepelt's condition was already improving dramatically. He slept for much of the day, waking only to eat or drink or when she changed the cobwebs on his wound, but when he was awake he was no longer talking to cats who weren't there, which was a good sign.

He didn't seem to have much interest in speaking to her, either. She wasn't surprised. He had clearly been furious with her after the last time they had spoken, and just because she had saved his life that didn't mean he wanted to be her friend. Well, good, she thought. Because I don't want to be his friend either.

That evening, she was returning from fishing. The small stream near their current position was too small and fast-moving for fish, so she had had to go back down to the large river where she had spent her time before finding Breezepelt. She was quite pleased with herself, having caught 3 large fish, two of which she brought back for Breezepelt.

As she turned the last corner that led to the tunnel where they had temporarily set up camp, she was surprised to see him on his feet for the first time. He still looked weak, but worlds better than he had even that morning. A few good fish and some time away from crowfood had helped a lot, it seemed.

"Hollyleaf," meowed Breezepelt shortly, nodding his head to her as she approached. "You brought more fish. Are those… are those for me?" She could tell he hated having to ask her for help.

She nodded. "Yup. I ate my share already," she meowed, setting them down in front of him. Breezepelt took a grateful bite.

After finishing the first fish, he paused, looking up at her. "I didn't realize ThunderClan learned how to fish," he remarked. "You don't really have rivers in your territory, right? I thought you hunted in the forest."

"We do," she replied, pleasantly surprised that he was making conversation. "And you're right, we don't learn how to fish. But I taught myself since I've been down here. It's really not too different than hunting." She paused, considering her next words. "I could teach you, if you want."

She figured Breezepelt would want to leave as soon as he was well enough to move. It would be easy now to find the way out, since they would just have to follow the scent of the foxes and go out the way they had come in. Which meant Breezepelt was probably only a day or two away from leaving.

Which is what I wanted, she reminded herself. Breezepelt will find his way out, and I will finally be alone. Well, alone except for Fallen Leaves. She didn't like Breezepelt, and he didn't like her. She didn't need his company.

But having a companion for just one day had made her realize how desperately lonely she was. And maybe there was a part of her that hoped, if she taught him how to fish and survive down here, that he would want to stay.

She realized Breezepelt hadn't replied. He was looking away, seemingly considering it.

"Yeah, maybe," he muttered. "I'm sure I could figure it out on my own though. You're not better than me, you know."

Well, one of us has a full belly and a clean pelt, and one of us was starving and half-crazed and about to be killed by a fox yesterday, she thought irritably. But she just nodded.

"I'm sure you could," she meowed. She hated being wrong, but arguing with Breezepelt had no satisfaction. He would just get snippy and defensive and it's not like he would ever agree with her.

He finished his meal, and shortly afterwards, they both laid down to sleep again. Hollyleaf got comfortable quickly, but Breezepelt kept moving around. She looked over at him, and he had his nose tucked under his tail as if to block out sound.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I wish that thing would stop whining so loud," he grumbled. Oh, StarClan. He's hallucinating again.

"I think the whining is in your head, Breezepelt," she meowed, trying to keep her voice gentle. "Remember what I said about the crowfood?"

"I'm not crazy," he snapped. "I know the difference now. That fox cub is still down here, and it's whining. Listen." Obliging him, Hollyleaf went silent and listened. To her surprise, he was right. From deep within the tunnels, a high-pitched whine was emitting.

"Huh. You're right. Sorry for doubting you," she conceded. "I didn't realize it's still down here." She felt bad. She had scared off its mother, and now the cub was all alone. It was probably terrified. She knew she certainly would have been if she had gotten lost down here all alone as a kit.

"Maybe we should help it," she murmured.

Breezepelt picked his head up. "Help it?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah, like help it find its way out," she explained. She knew this sounded mouse-brained. But she hated the idea of a baby all alone and scared down here. She knew her Clan would never leave a kit in need. How was this any different?

"You want to help a fox find its way out of the tunnels," Breezepelt clarified slowly. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Well, I helped you," she pointed out. Breezepelt sputtered, clearly not sure how to respond to being compared to a baby fox. Well, they were equally as helpless, she thought to herself, amused. "Look, I'll be back by tomorrow morning, okay? You think you can survive on your own without me that long?" she teased. He did not look amused.

"I will never understand ThunderClan," he muttered before tucking his nose back under his tail. Maybe this was a ThunderClan trait. Firestar had never been able to turn away a cat in need, and she knew the other Clans looked down on ThunderClan for it. And he was her kin, after all. Would he be proud of her for trying to save a lost cub, or would he think she was mouse-brained, too?

Regardless, she knew this was the right thing to do. So she took one last look at Breezepelt, and set off in the direction of the whimpering.