Regrets and Recovery

[spike]

Gone.

How could he be gone?

The deputy shook his head and turned again, his pacing starting to ache on his paws. It was as if all that denial was finally wearing down on him and it was crashing down. Hard. It was too late and he knew that. The large gray tom snapped his head to the side, eyes clenched tight when he knew how close he had been to Rookpaw. So close! He had brushed fur with that tom and then… then he was gone before there was a proper opportunity. Jaywhisker’s breathing was ragged and drawn in gasps, panic setting into him. Gone! Gone like the wind, gone like the prey, gone as gone could get. Dead. Deceased. With StarClan.

Every way he put it never made it sound any better. Rookpaw was still gone in all sense of the word. His legs started to shake, a distraught look striking his expression. “He was just here… No, he can’t be gone. StarClan, why? Why!?”

[/color] The tom turned and slashed his claws across a thick tree trunk, suddenly going to war with it as he leapt and tried his hardest to claw away at the brown layer as if below it would not be paler wood but rather blood and truth. All he knew was he ached and his heart was the one aching. After all this time of denying it and avoiding it, there was now nothing for him to confront. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell him!”[/color] he raged, drawing back in a haste when he started to sense the wetness across his paw pads.

And then he collapsed in a heap of fur, crying suddenly in a burst of tears. Rookpaw was gone. Rookpaw, the cat he had not been able to tell the truth to. Now here laid the deputy of ThunderClan, crying and bleeding to StarClan as if they could redo what they had done. He wanted Rookpaw back, even if for one day, just to tell him what he deserved to know. Instead, there was nothing. Emptiness. Nothingness. It was all the same. It was all Jaywhisker. ‘My son…[/color] Regrets were not something Jaywhisker remembered well. But this was one he would never forget.[/blockquote]

[:c a i:]

The Clan was struggling.

Recent, sudden, shocking, painful deaths had struck them all, like ice cutting the fragile stem of a soft-petalled flower. Nobody expected the plucky youngster who had joined them only so recently to fall, his life severed far too early. Roseclaw watched, and waited, and withheld her concerns, but somehow things looked bleak. ThunderClan was ever more bedraggled, more battered by hardship and loss. And what was Ashstar doing about it? Every day her belly swelled, making her a crude parody of what a leader ought to be, restricted and so obviously in breach of a leader's duties.

But they soldiered on. Roseclaw had seen more falling to Jaywhisker to sort out in past weeks, even though he himself seemed more distracted, preoccupied than ever before. She noticed. She had known him far too long not to notice when his mind was troubled, or when something pained him. But she was a cat who did not pry, who tended to let things lie and not get involved needlessly. She was neither a busybody nor a gossip, and she did not judge quickly.

But she did care about her friends greatly.

And Jaywhisker was beginning to concern her beyond the point where she could ignore it and call it just his business. He was crucial to ThunderClan, especially now, and she hated to see her old friend act so unlike himself. For some reason nobody had organised the noon patrol, and there was confusion in the Warriors' Den. So Roseclaw rolled her eyes, but worried underneath, and off she went to find the deputy, intent on talking frankly.

What she found was not what she would have expected in a thousand moons.

Sprawled close to the Great Sycamore, ThunderClan's deputy. A cat obviously in the midst of some great tragedy, curled in on himself and crying, really crying, and it was like no sound she had heard since her mother's death. Roseclaw stood, rigid, frozen, her face totally blank for a long moment, green eyes glassy and mouth tight. In some ways she could not believe what she was seeing - Jaywhisker was so strong - but in another she somehow felt as if this had been building for some time. It was like a raincloud bursting after swelling for days.

She stood hidden from view, too far to hear the words that poured from the distant figure, just close enough to see the slashed earth and torn bark around the wrathful figure. She was torn. She felt wrong to impose on such a private moment, and wanted to leave him be, but he was so broken. How could she leave him?

She saw the wild rage, saw the damage he was doing to himself and his surroundings, and broke into a run, throwing off her concerns about invading his privacy. He should know by now she had already seen him at his best and at his worst. She skidded to his side as he crumpled, and her face contorted in impassioned, shared grief, though she did not know the reason.

"Jaywhisker..."

[/color] she said, hushed, pained, her nose going to the back of his neck almost like a mother reaching for a kit. She inhaled sharply at the sight of his torn claws, willing herself not to berate him for his recklessness. His emotional state concerned her more now. She sat with him while he cried, her body close to his, just waiting for him to be ready.

Ready to unburden whatever great weight it was that had pushed him to this state. [/blockquote]