Lilypetal's POV

I was drowning in my own thoughts as I traveled back to camp after the Gathering. I mean, I couldn't even believe what had just happened.

Goldenshine was pregnant with Breezepelt's kits! That's where she's been all of these nights! I realized, finding myself extremely angry with Goldenshine and extremely worried about her at the same time. I knew that once we got closer to ThunderClan territory, I would need to look for her and make sure that her kitting had gone well.

No cat had explicitly told me, but I knew that was what was going on. I recognized the specific winces of pain, and that certain type of helplessness that glowed in my daughter's eyes.

My daughter, having kits. I feel like I just had her! I thought, my eyes widening. I wish that her kitting could have been a more exciting and happier event than it is...

I growled, almost as if to release my frustration of the situation, and shook my head as Brambleclaw suddenly came into my sight.

"Hey, Lilypetal!" he meowed kindly, falling into step with me. "Do you want to talk now, or should I come to you later?"

I flashed the ThunderClan deputy a look of gratitude. I appreciated that he knew that I was, you know, upset and probably extremely preoccupied in my own thoughts. Nevertheless, I looked up and smiled at the dark brown tabby tom. Plus, I knew what he was probably coming to talk to me about, and I figured, why not stack more news onto what had already happened? 

"Now is okay, Brambleclaw," I tried to meow cheerfully. "What is it?"

Brambleclaw hesitated for a few heartbeats before speaking. "I just wanted to tell you, I talked to Thornclaw," he explained, but his voice had a hint of regret and remorse to it.

Oh, dear... "And?" I said, sighing. Unfortunately, I thought I already had a pretty good idea of what the deputy was going to say.

"He wouldn't budge," Brambleclaw admitted, looking into my eyes. "I'm so sorry, Lilypetal. Do you want me to try again?"

I shook my head. I was pretty much giving up hope at this point. If another cat can't even get through to him, then why should I try again? I was absolutely bewildered by my former mate's behavior, remembering all over again that communication was so important to the both of us. I was still tempted to approach the golden tabby tom myself, but, of course, I knew that communication takes two.

"I hate to admit that you'd probably just be wasting your time, Brambleclaw," I murmured sadly, briefly licking his shoulder. "Thank you so, so much for trying, though. Really."

Brambleclaw dipped his head before giving me one more sympathetic look and trotting ahead to walk beside Firestar.

I sighed with sorrow and exasperation, coming to terms with my situation, and then continued to slowly walk toward camp with my head lowered. Well, it was fun while it lasted, right? I tried to tell myself. I'm going to be sad for a little while, but every wound heals...

Then, my ears flicked as I came to a realization. Wait, why am I being so depressed about my own life? I shook my head quickly and started to run, full speed, deeper into the forest. Goldenshine is having kits and I didn't even go to see her immediately! What am I thinking? I suppose that through the shock of the situation, I hadn't been thinking straight.

I started to follow her scent, also mingled with Snowflight's and Breezepelt's, through the forest. It smelled deeply of milk and fear scent. Just as I recognized that the group's scent was becoming stronger and stronger, another scent flooded through my nose.

Something smelled strange, and unfortunately, I knew exactly what it was. Death, I thought grimly, no, no, no...

As I gaped my mouth open to fully take in the scent, I realized the scent of death was also mixed with the smell of kits.

I shook my head quickly, gasping. "This can't be happening! No!" I held back a whimper and began to look for my daughter. I didn't even know for sure what had happened, but my heart was already breaking for her, whatever it was.

"Goldenshine! Goldenshine!" I yelled out, now desperate to find her and see what was going on.

I stopped in my tracks again as I suddenly heard a sniff come from behind a bush that I already passed, and once I had stopped, I heard a whimper that followed.

I pricked my ears, trying to listen for more. "Hello?" I muttered, whipping my head around. "Anyone there?"

"Lilypetal?"

I gasped as I heard the very familiar whisper, and all of the sudden, Goldenshine's ginger head popped up from the top of the bush.

Oh, my love. I'm so sorry I didn't come sooner. "Goldenshine!" I nearly shouted. I practically flew over the bushes and then pressed my muzzle against her head. "Goldenshine, I'm so sorry!" I repeated out loud. "Are you okay?"

Goldenshine let out a loud wail and let herself fall to the ground. "They're gone, mother!" She wailed. "All are dead except for one!"

No! My mouth dropped open as my gaze then fell down to a small and dark little bundle that was finding its way to Goldenshine's belly. This is the only one that survived?

I then took a deep breath, knowing that falling into hysterics in front of Goldenshine was exactly what I shouldn't be doing. I took a deep breath and nodded slowly as I observed my daughter's son. The first thing that I thought was that I wasn't surprised that it had lived. It was large for a kit, and it looked very strong and healthy. I sighed and bent down to lick the kit's head.

I then raised my head, meeting Goldenshine's gray-black gaze, my heart sinking as my own feelings reflected the sorrow in her eyes.

"Goldenshine, why did you hide all of this from me?" I asked my daughter, swallowing back emotion. "I could have helped you through all of this."

Goldenshine looked down at her kit. "I... I was worried that you wouldn't trust me again, that you would be angry at me..."

I tried to hold back my then rising anger, but I knew now was not the right time to take out anything on Goldenshine. What is with all of the secrets? I sighed and shook my head. I'm over-analyzing all of it. Clearly my family has a lot of things that they're just very ashamed of...

I stared down at my daughter softly. "I understand," I then murmured, looking at the small kit nestled on Goldenshine's belly. She'll be a good mother, I thought.

"Lilypetal," Goldenshine suddenly whispered, "What am I going to tell the rest of the Clan? Firestar was already cross with me, and now everyone knows now that I've broken the warrior code!" She tucked her head in between her paws, clearly incredibly stressed. For the moment, I had no idea what to tell her. Part of me was still completely bewildered that the sight in front of me wasn't just a horrible joke my mind was forming.

I mean, this wasn't like Goldenshine at all, and I almost wished I had found out about her infidelities in small portions. Hearing about the fact that she had met with a WindClan warrior in secret, continued to meet him, and had kits with him, made me tempted to think that it was all fake, that it wasn't true. I had only ever known Goldenshine to be dedicated to her Clan, wanting to be the best warrior that she could be, whatever that took.

Well... I suppose that love can make you do crazy things... I thought, briefly looking back at Leafpool and the choices she had made, even despite being ThunderClan's medicine cat.

"Don't worry, Goldenshine. I'll be right here beside you."

I nearly flinched as I suddenly heart a deeper voice echo out into the forest.

Goldenshine's eyes widened. "Father?" she exclaimed.

This time, I actually did flinch. Great StarClan, Thornclaw is here? I turned around reluctantly to see it was indeed Thornclaw slithering through the bushes. I let my gaze fall to the ground as he approached. And luckily, he ignored me right back and stared straight at Goldenshine, and she stared back at him, her eyes still wide.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Where is the rest of ThunderClan?" I then watched as my daughter flitted her gaze around fearfully, I assumed trying to catch sight of her Clan traveling through the shadows.

"ThunderClan is coming this way," he informed us, padding up to stand next to Goldenshine and touching his muzzle to her head. "Take a deep breath, Goldenshine. Everything will be okay, I promise."

As I watched the both of them, and the amount of warmth that Thornclaw gave his daughter suddenly gave me a pang of longing. I miss when Thornclaw was gentle like that with me... but that is long over.

Goldenshine nodded up to her father before standing up and picking up her son to carry in her jaws. As I began to hear a crowd's amount of voices heading our way, I backed up to stand by Goldenshine. I then licked her head, and put the tip of my tail on her shoulder. Thornclaw was still flanking her on her other side.

I hope that she always knows that both of us will always be here to support her, I thought, whether we're in a quarrel or not. The fact that we are parents to her has not changed.

After a few heartbeats of us waiting, listening to the sounds of several pawsteps getting closer, ThunderClan approached in our sight. For a moment, I thought that maybe they wouldn't even notice the three of us standing before them. But, to my dismay, nearly every cat's eyes immediately flew down to the kit in Goldenshine's mouth.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Brambleclaw was the first to eventually speak. "Hm, you better have a logical explanation for this," the dark brown tabby tom murmured to Goldenshine, his amber eyes not leaving the kit.

Goldenshine took a few steps back, clearly intimidated. She didn't respond to Brambleclaw's subtle interrogation.

I then rolled my eyes as Spiderleg pushed his way through to the front of the crowd. "Who's the father? Breezepelt?" He hissed.

Firestar glared at Spiderleg and raised his tail in front of him to silence the nosey tom. But I didn't know how that would help them situation. Even though the ThunderClan leader had managed to silence one cat, that didn't give the opportunity for Goldenshine to not give an answer. I glanced over at her to see that she looked completely lost for words. I tried to get my brain working in order to come up with a likely scenario.

"No. They're ours."

My eyes widened as a voice suddenly came from the back of the crowd, and I peered over and saw that it was Mousewhisker that had spoken. He lightly shouldered his way to stand at the front of the ThunderClan group. I looked over at Goldenshine, bewildered, to see that her face was filled with relief.

At first, I wondered why Mousewhisker had even considered speaking out like that at all, before remembering that ever since Mousewhisker was a young warrior and Goldenshine was an apprentice, they had been very good friends. They often went on hunting patrols and ate their fresh-kill together. Sometimes at night in the warriors den, cats would have to hiss at them to go to sleep with their loud whispering. The more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that it wasn't a surprise to me at all that Mousewhisker would do something like this for Goldenshine.

Goldenshine didn't seem surprised either, and simply looked back at Mousewhisker with gratitude and affection in her eyes. "Yes," she choked out. "Mousewhisker is right. This is our kit." She seemed relieved to have a believable lie to tell.

"Then how do you explain Breezepelt being the one to approach you first and carry you off before your kitting?" a voice shouted. I was tempted to shout out at them and tell them to shut up. Are you questioning Mousewhisker's and Goldenshine's words? Sure, they're lies, but you don't know that.

"We're good friends," Goldenshine answered evenly, nodding to Berrynose in the crowd. "We've talked at Gatherings a couple of times. And tonight, he happened to be near me when I collapsed, and he wanted to make sure that I was alright, that's all."

When the Clan did not say anymore, clearly trying to process the situation, Mousewhisker hesitantly padded up to Goldenshine and then briefly touched his muzzle to hers.

"Thank you," I heard her whisper to him as he pulled away.

"Anytime," Mousewhisker whispered back to her, his eyes full of sympathy as he wrapped his tail around her back.

"Makes sense to me," I heard Graystripe meow after a few heartbeats. To my relief, then more cats began to murmur and nod in agreement. Goldenshine sighed once more as the whole Clan began to travel through the forest again, clearly brushing off the situation. Thank StarClan.

I joined the others slowly, still overwhelmed about everything that had just happened, and me delving into my thoughts once again caused me fall to the back of the group. I recognized Thornclaw's golden pelt traveling just a few tail-lengths ahead of me.

I found myself walking a little faster. Should I talk to him? I wondered, beginning to become nervous at the prospect of speaking with him again. We may not be mates anymore, but this consensus of silence can't go on forever.

Trying not to overthink things, I took a deep breath and trotted up to walk beside Thornclaw.

As my eyes fell on him, I almost wanted to then run away without a word. And I almost did. But, I composed myself and finally spoke. "Hey," I said quietly, looking down at the ground.

"Hi," he murmured, not even trying to meet my gaze.

I then decided to try and talk further, realizing that things couldn't be any worse at this point. What did I have to lose?

"Listen," I started hesitantly, "It was amazing what you did for Goldenshine just now. She'll remember that kind of support for the rest of her life."

Thornclaw looked down as he walked, I guess the ground being more fascinating than a cat's face. "Sure," he murmured before actually looking up at me. "Well, for one, I felt badly that cats she was supposedly close to couldn't bother to trust her."

Oh, StarClan. Not this again. "Thornclaw-" I meowed, attempting to try and explain myself.

Thornclaw broke his gaze... and my words. "Lilypetal, I just can't talk right now, I'm sorry." I then watched as my former mate turned away and padded ahead of me.

I shook my head and let out a long and quiet sigh. Thornclaw has always been stubborn. The only time I've seen him like this beyond now was when we first met, when he hated the fact that Firestar had let another kittypet join the Clan. But after that, he was so kind, so funny, and so gentle.

I could understand to some extent as to why he was upset with me over this stupid Dark Forest situation, but couldn't he at least try to see where I was coming from? If he had been training in the Dark Forest and felt remorse for it, I maybe would have handled things differently. But the fact that he had only lashed out at me for thinking that training in the Dark Forest was bad... wasn't, well... good.

Trying to forget what had just happened, I trotted up to Squirrelflight to start talking with her. We luckily were able to get into a lighthearted conversation about Clan gossip. As we approached the gorse tunnel that led into camp, I turned my head slightly back, suddenly receiving that strange, intuitional feeling of being watched. And sure enough, glancing a little to the right, I saw that Thornclaw was hanging in the back of the crowd, staring straight back at me.

His eyes were gleaming and filled with sorrow, pain, and love.