Hey! Here's the next chapter. Thanks a billion to everyone who reviewed :)

Sand padded into the den with a trout in her mouth. "Hey, I'm back." Her belly fur brushed the ground as she entered, and Feather glanced at it once again.

"Sand… we need to find a medicine cat. Mudfur must be around here somewhere…" she started.

"I'm fine," Sandstorm snapped. "Cats have been kitting for countless seasons before me. I don't need a medicine cat."

"Still… if something happened, neither of us knows the slightest thing about medicine. And I'm pretty sure we can rule out Crow," Feather purred in amusement. "That tom barely knows how to hunt."

Sand shook her head to clear it. "Whatever. But I don't need any help."

"Sand…" Feather said softly. "They're Firestar's kits. Don't you want to make sure they're born healthy?"

Sand stopped. She whipped around at Feather, eyes blazing. "You don't know the first thing about Firestar. You're hardly more than a kit!"

Feather stood up taller, measuring up to Sand, her own eyes ablaze. "But I know my father. I know how much he cared for Firestar. I know the stories he told me and my brother as we were falling asleep at night. I know how he fought with Firestar over my mother and how Firestar allowed my father to follow his heart. And I know how Firestar risked his life to save mine and my brother's when Tigerstar imprisoned us because of our parents. I may not have known him personally, but I knew his heart."

Sand turned away, lashing her tail. She stormed out of the den, her thoughts cursing Feather. She doesn't understand.

Suddenly, Sand felt an urge to return to ThunderClan's old camp. She hadn't been there in moons. The thought of the canyon that had housed her Clan made her chest ache. Every detail came rushing back to her now; the hollow tree of the apprentices' den, the Highrock, the brambled entrance. Her paws carried her quickly over the ground, across the river to the Sunningrocks, through the familiar forest…

Snap.

Sand's ears angled back to catch the sound. Someone, or something, was nearby. A flash of white caught her eye, and a medley of familiar scents washed over her. She felt a purr brewing in her throat. "Cloud? Bright? Dust? And… Fern?"

The four cats stepped out of the darkness, their eyes bright. "Is that really you, Sand?" Dust rumbled. "We… figured you were dead. No cat has caught scent of you in over a moon."

"Of course," Fern added, "the same can be said of many other cats."

Sand squinted at them. "As in?"

"Hmm. Mouse, Golden, Bramble, and Ash, most notably. And a similar selection from the other Clans." Cloud nodded his head to one side, as he often did when he talked.

"Frost is… being… held, by Scourge and his… accomplices." Bright put in. "Her, and a few other she-cats from the Clans. Tawny, I believe… maybe Feather."

"Not Feather. I've holed up with Feather and Crow, a cat from WindClan, on the border between RiverClan and WindClan."

Dust cocked his head at her, a hint of suspicion in his gaze. "Odd pair to ally with." he said softly.

Sand shrugged. "They knew how to fish. Forest prey is scarce."

Fern's eyes were trained on Sand's protruding abdomen. "Sand, are you with kits? Are they…" she trailed off.

"Firestar's. Yes. That's why I'm here. I'm looking for a medicine cat. Where are Mud and Littlecloud?"

Bright stepped forward. "I've spent a lot of time around Fourtrees. I know that Scourge has made Mud be BloodClan's medicine cat, if you can call him that—more along the lines of cat that treats the wounds of his cats when they get into tussles over scraps of food. Littlecloud, however, is running free with a group of leftover cats from RiverClan and ShadowClan. They're living in ShadowClan territory; it seems Scourge and the others don't have a taste for toads and lizards."

Then that's where I'll go. Sand nodded at the band of cats. "I'll be on my way, then."

"Wait!" Cloud huffed and stepped in her path. "We've finally found you. Aren't you going to stay with us? We're ThunderClan cats! We should stick together. We must do something about Scourge!"

Sand looked at him for a long time, her emotions unreadable. "The Clans are no more." She pushed past him, ignoring his protests behind her. They died away as she steadily padded onward to the Thunderpath.

The acrid smell of monsters filled Sand's nose, and she stealthily crept through the passage beneath the Thunderpath, flinching as her paws were dampened by the dank floor. She let out a long breath when she emerged, her gaze steadily passing over the swamplands of ShadowClan. Then she nodded to herself, sent a prayer up to StarClan, and set out to find Littlecloud.

"Crow, we have to find Sand," Feather pleaded. "She's our friend."

"Maybe she's yours," Crow muttered sourly. "But not mine!"

"Oh, fine; be that way, you stupid furball! But whether you're coming with me or not, I'm going to find her."

Crow scowled, then, secretly terrified of being left alone, mewed, "Oh, alright. I'll come. But only because you want to." He licked his black chest fur a few times, smoothing it down.

"And so that's why we're here. Have you seen her?" Feather concluded her story to the four strange cats in front of her. She was sure from the scent that they were ThunderClan cats, and was fairly certain that the dusky brown tom was Dustpelt—now Dust—from the descriptions of her father.

Cloud nodded. "She passed through here a sunrise ago. We asked her to stay with us, but she ignored us; seemed determined to get to ShadowClan territory. I think she was looking for Littlecloud."

So I did get through to her, Feather thought smugly. "Thanks. We're—" –She nodded at Crow, who was silently glowering at the ThunderClan cats—"going to go find her."

"Wait." The brown one, Dust, stepped forward. "Sand mentioned that you taught her to fish."

"Yeah, she did." Crow spoke now, a challenging look in his eyes. "What about it?"

Fern tilted her head and meowed, "We're proposing that we merge. Together, we stand a better chance of defending against Scourge. And," Fern glanced at Feather, "You should know that, if Scourge's patrols see either me or Feather, there's a good chance we'll be snatched."

"Snatched?" Crow's voice quavered slightly.

"Yes. It seems that Scourge and his higher officers have a tendency to capture she-cats and force them to be servants to BloodClan. The more of us there are, the better chance we have of defending against an attack."

"Then… I think we should join together." Crow shot a glance at Feather as he spoke.

Feather inwardly gasped. Despite the dark circumstances, she had to stifle a mrrow of amusement. Was Crow actually admitting that he wasn't very powerful? And furthermore, that he cared about her? She felt a mixture of annoyance that he felt like he had to protect her, when she was the one who saved his pelt from drowning. But at the same time, a warm feeling spread over her at his willingness to trust other cats for her. She decided not to be difficult.

"I agree," Feather added. "The more of us together the better. But," she continued, "after we find Sand, we'll need to move closer to the river. Otherwise we can't fish."

"Fine with me," Cloud snorted. "I could eat a fox, I'm so hungry." Then he muttered to himself, "Never thought I'd see the day when I ate a slimy RiverClan fish."

I know the main complaint is that my chapters aren't long enough, so this one is considerably longer than my others. It's what I intended to be two chapters compressed into one.

Please review, I really appreciate it, plus I'm almost out of already-written chapters so I'll need to write more soon. And reviews always inspire me to write ^^