Dewpaw and Inky came back after a little while, the tom with a large rabbit in his mouth and Inky carrying two small mice. Flowerstem nodded her approval and gave one of the small mice to Dawn, who lifted her head weakly and took a couple of bites from it before flopping back down.

"Come on," urged the medicine cat, nudging the mouse closer, "eat some more."

"I am not hungry anymore," yawned the apprentice, closing her eyes.

"You have to eat some more," pleaded Flowerstem, "please Birdpaw. You need to get your strength up."

"Maybe later," Dawn mumbled, "I need to sleep now." And with that, the apprentice drifted off, no matter how hard the medicine cat tried to keep her awake.

"Leave her," meowed Dewpaw, gently steering Flowerstem away from the sleeping apprentice, "she needs to sleep to get her energy back from fighting the fever. Let her rest now and we can try and tempt her to eat some more food later."

"But I have to at least try and get her better," pleaded the medicine cat, trying to push past the muscular apprentice, "please! You know both Whiskerstar and Maplestar will kill us if she dies. I have to make her better before they do."

"You are doing all that you can," soothed Dewpaw, "there is nothing else you can do until she makes up. And yes, I know that Whiskerstar and especially Maplestar will kill us if she dies, but you are trying your best and that is what matters."

"I promised Birdpaw that I would protect my kits," hissed Flowerstem, "and that I would never let any harm come to them. How do you expect me to that when Maplestar is going to come after me because I didn't keep her alive?" She jabbed her tail in the direction of Dawn and Dewpaw looked over his shoulder at her, sighing.

"You will keep them alive because we would fight against Maplestar if he dared to lay a claw on you or those kits," vowed Dewpaw, "we are your Clanmates and we fight together. No harm is going to come to those kits because Birdpaw isn't going to die, and you are making sure of that.

Flowerstem swallowed before turning away from Dawn and Dewpaw to settle down with her two kits not to far from the sleeping she-cat. The cream apprentice watched the medicine cat, curl up before he looked over at Inky and Angel, who had been watching the whole 'disagreement'.

"Come on," he said to them, nodding towards a pile of soft looking grass, "get some sleep. It has been a long day and you need to get some sleep for the big journey tomorrow." The two older kits nodded, curling up next to each other on the patch of soft grass.

Dewpaw stayed standing up, taking the first watch, as he stood beside the steam near Dawn. He bent down and took a couple of laps from the cold water before sitting down in between the sleeping apprentice and Flowerstem. He looked up at the almost full moon and sighed, breath visible in the air as the pale light gently touched his cream fur, making it shine.

"StarClan," he whispered, "please help us."