"Dewpaw?" Dawn repeated, her voice barely more than a whisper as she slowly lifted her paws off the cream tom. The older apprentice looked at her with a funny expression but scrambled to his paws, blood spilling slowly from some of his wounds.

"Yes, that is what I said," the tom replied, nodding slowly.

"Do you two know each other?" asked Cheddar, looking at Dawn as she continued to stare at the mud covered tom.

"No," retorted the tom, the same time as the former apprentice said, "I will tell explain it later." Cheddar and Bandit just looked more confused but didn't press any further, standing on either side of the tom, acting as guards as they made their way back to the barn in silence. Dawn walked ahead of the patrol, watching her paws as she thought about Dewpaw.

"It would have been a tough journey for him," she realized, "if he looks that bad. I did tell him where I was going but he wouldn't have known the way here. He was a young apprentice when I heard the elder's reminiscing about their journey there, so there was no way of him knowing how to get her." She looked over her shoulder at Dewpaw, who was limping, had a disgusting coat and was suffering from multiple infected wounds, and she felt a spark of something inside of her.

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"So are you going to tell us about this stranger?" asked Bingo once all of the farm cats had settled down, with Dewpaw flopped down on a spare moss nest with Willow cleaning all of the mud off his pelt. Dawn looked over at him before taking a deep breath, launching into her story.

She told them how they had gotten along since they were kits, how they would spend hours in the sunlight stalking, running, chasing, hiding and leaping around with each other. She spoke about how they would talk for hours in the dying sunlight about what their warrior names would be. She remembered how they would constantly be competing against each other while they were both apprentices.

The whole time she spoke, the barn cats listened (except Dewpaw, who had fallen asleep), and when she finished, they looked thoughtful, until Angel broke the silence, stopping her game with Inky to look up at the older she-cat.

"Are you two in love?" she squeaked innocently, blue eyes glittering. Dawn snorted and looked down at the tiny little kit, nudging her gently.

"No," she replied, "we are just really good friends." If the former apprentice had looked up at that point, she would have seen Cheddar with a raised eyebrow, but it quickly disappeared when she did look up.

"So why is he here?" asked Willow, striding over as she spoke in a voice that was not exactly friendly.

"I don't know," Dawn meowed, "I did tell him where I was going, but that doesn't exactly explain what he is doing here."

"Do you reckon he came here to get you?" asked Bingo, and the former apprentice shook her head.

"No," she replied, "I told him I wanted to leave the Clan and not come back."

"But you still feel like you belong to the Clan," a little voice in her head reminded her, and she tried to shake it away.

"Do you reckon he wanted to check on you?" asked Bandit, and Dawn shook her head again. But before she could say anything else, Dewpaw interrupted.

"The brown tabby is right," he rasped, raising his head very slightly, "I came here to get you. Birdpaw, you need to come back."