Title: It's Me
Author: Moonlit Rainfall
Category: Warriors (books)
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Onesided ReedwhiskerxLeafpool

Enjoy :)

He knows they aren't his. Because they're not. They're mine.

She doesn't know it though, because in the darkness we look alike. Because in the darkness, we're all the same. We're just voices in darkness, voices with opinions. In darkness we're the same color and the same clan, and that was why it was alright.

She doesn't know I love her though, so all I can do is look into her world from afar, into the world where she lives with out kits and her not knowing that they were ours and thinking they were his.

And she doesn't know.

And she'll never know.

At Gatherings I pace in the shadows behind her, trying to summon up the courage and tell her that everything she thought, everything she knew, was a lie. But then I see the way she turns to look at him, with that warm, golden love in her eyes, and I cannot bring myself to shatter her happiness. I cannot bring herself to tell her to turn those eyes to me, for her to give me the golden warmth over him. He never loved her as strongly as I did. I loved her first.

She was supposed to be mine.

We were supposed to be each others.

But she slipped away. Because I was too loyal. Because I wasn't willing to risk the relationship that could have been.

Should have been.

I wonder sometimes if what I have done was sacrifice. I wonder that, by giving her up, I've made her happier then she could ever be with me, and when I think that, I'm happy.

That night was a mistake, a mistake that I would never be able to erase. She didn't know it was me in that darkness instead of him, and because of that I made them both happy.

I made myself miserable.

Sometimes I would pace at midnight on the border of my territory, by claws working their way down, down, down, into the marshes and splattering mud up onto my belly and onto my tail and over my muzzle until I would be filthy and stinking with mud and grime and swamp grease. And I still wouldn't have taken that step over the border and I think to myself – I'm stupid.

And so I would swim out to the Island. Not walk on the bridge, but swim. I would swim and swim and clean off all of the sweat and mud and grime and grease, trying to clean off the tainted love for her at the same time. And it never wore off, no matter how hard I tried, I could not help but long for her golden love to warm me and my frozen heart.

It froze over that day I first met her, back in the forest that our kits will never see. In a forest where we were closer, where we could have been and he couldn't have. We should have stayed. I would have stayed.

For her.

The frozen water froze my heart and no matter how much sun would warm my pelt after, all I could think of was her. Her. Her. Her. I struggled not to. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep me from getting up and trying to swim across the river to her, to make sure that her Clan was alright, to make sure that she was healthy and alive and breathing and sleeping and without a worry. I wanted to make her happy.

And I wonder if I have.

Sometimes I dream about her.

They're golden dreams, just like her golden love. And in it we would be together, and she would be happy with me in our golden warmth and golden light and golden happiness. And it would be so happy. So warm. So bright. And there would be no clans and nothing to separate us. Nothing, and I would move my body into the shape of her curled-up figure and nestle my nose into her warm fur, breathing in her scent. In my dreams she smells like flowers. Like daisies and roses and a little bit of rosemary herb. And we would be like that, warming each other through leaf-bare, smelling like daisies and roses and rosemary herb. And we would be happy.

But all dreams fade.

And when I woke I would be curled into myself, listening to the steady, slow beat of my frozen heart with my nose pressed into a piece of sweet-smelling moss. And if I was alone in that den I would break down, feeling my frozen heart grow even colder and I would long for her love even more. It was painful. Too painful. I tried not to dream that dream after a while. But it never went away.

She doesn't love me, I know, she loves him, because she believes that he is the father of her kits.

But he's not, Leafpool, he's not.

It's me.

It's me.

Reedwhisker.

Wrote it one a whim. I's take Reedwhisker over emo-angsty Crowfeather any day of the week. ;)