You requested, so I have delivered. I hope you like it :)

So this was something that I was working on long before Inside Out came out. After I saw that movie I knew that it would end up influencing this espeically because of what the actual plot of this fic was supposed to be. I'm going to leave a brief Trigger Warning because this is talking about dealing with death, even if it is for Warrior Cats. I've dealt with losses before and I know how difficult it can be to work through them...

You know, this was supposed to be a happy fic. Somehow my writing twists to something darker or sadder when I write short stories. WHY CAN'T I WRITE HAPPY THINGS?!! Ugh.

~Blaze

Memories

The breeze blew through the reeds, shaking them with an eerie, lonely howl. It traveled over the grass and touched the wetland before gently caressing the light brown fur of the she-cat that was walking through the marsh. She shivered as her body became chilled, but made no move to fix her windswept fur or to dry herself off.

The she-cat continued to slowly walk through the wet territory, barely taking care to remain close to the border. Her head almost never left it's bent position and her eyes refused to stray from the ground except to allow her to avoid obstacles. With her wet fur and droopy posture, she resembled a miserable, drowned rat.

The she-cat couldn't bring herself to care.

"Finchfur! There you are. Minnowpaw and I have been waiting for you. What took you so long?" Finchfur lifted her head and took in the form of her fellow medicine cats. The cheerful brown tabby RiverClan she-cat named Nettlesplash would have normally summoned a smile upon Finchfur's face, and her gray apprentice Minnowpaw would have put a bounce in her step. But after the last half-moon, Finchfur couldn't bring herself to care about much.

"Finchfur?" Nettlesplash asked after a few moments. Finchfur looked back up.

"Hi Nettlesplash, Minnowpaw." She said, body automatically falling into step beside them. They all began heading together towards the moonstone.

"Are you feeling alright? You don't look very good." Nettlesplash asked, concern lacing her voice. She padded closer to Finchfur and pressed her pelt against her shivering body. "You should probably get all the water off of your pelt. What did you do, accidentally walk into a river?"

The RiverClan cat meant it as a joke, but Finchfur winced anyway. She had accidentally walked into a small river between ThunderClan and RiverClan territory when she was walking and not paying attention to her surroundings. She knew that she probably looked like a mousebrained fool, but her thoughts had been on him so she hadn't made much of an effort to fix it.

Finchfur stopped and accepted Nettlesplash's help in cleaning off her fur. When she was fixed, they padded together towards WindClan's territory and later, towards the large rocky area that concealed the Moonstone.

"I'm sorry. I just haven't been myself lately." Finchfur finally said. A small part of her conciousness winced as she heard her own dull, dry sounding voice. A memory of him commenting on her smooth tones and loud, cheerful laugh rose to the front of her mind unbidden and she felt herself sigh and let her head droop again.

It had been exactly one full moon since her mate had died, but to Finchfur it felt as if it was yesterday. Everything around her reminded her of him and his accident, and how that fateful day had ruined everything in her life.

It was a clear, star filled night just like this one, and Finchfur had been traveling back from the Moonstone, alone but eager to meet up with her mate, a wonderful tom named Larkfrost. They had planned a quick meeting near the twoleg road, outside of the camp so that other cats wouldn't get suspicious.

Finchfur could remember how she got to their usual meeting spot and saw no cat nearby, how she called out his name and began wandering around, looking for him but seeing no cats nearby. She remembered following his scent on the air, following it closer and closer to the thunderpath until finally, she almost tripped over a body.

His body.

She remembered calling out in shock, dropping down beside him and turning automatically towards her medicine cat training but seeing that it was hopeless-he was already dead. Monster tracks had gouged deep marrs into the side of the thunderpath. It was clear that Larkfrost had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The monster must have swerved, it's large round forepaws leaving its tracks in the dirt around him and on his crushed, mangled corpse.

It had taken the rest of the night for someone to find them. The Warrior who was on duty guarding the camp had realized about halfway through the night that something was wrong when Finchfur hadn't returned at the time that she normally did. So he had sent a cat out to find her, and the poor young Warrior had discovered her sobbing hysterically over his body.

It was taken from her at that point. The entire camp was awoken from the Warrior's frantic yowls and a hasty vigil was created. Finchfur was devastated that while she could sit a vigil, she could not show her true anguish. She had sat beside his littermates and whispered comforting words to their shock filled trembling forms.

There was never anyone to show her affection.

The accident changed her. After his death she never felt cheerful, never smiled or laughed or did anything that would make her happy. She served her Clan with a new fervor, healing efficiently and quickly, but with a new businesslike air. Her own littermate had even gone up to her, concerned about her new attitude.

"Are you alright?" He questioned. She had reassured him loudly, managing to wave her tail and put a happy tone in her voice until he left and she fell, emotionally and mentally exhausted in her mossy nest.

Now as every moon passed, she felt her mind refusing to connect to StarClan. She longed to see her mate healthy and waiting for her in StarClan, yet every time she entered the starry realm he was nowhere to be found.

Neither was any other cat, but she didn't care much about them.

Finchfur didn't expect this half-moon to be any different. She was going to search the empty grounds of StarClan once more for her mate and find nothing, leaving herself once more a sad, broken shell of what used to be a happy she-cat.

So she padded alongside her RiverClan friends through the open plains of WindClan territory wanting desperately to just spend the night sleeping but knowing that though she hated the torture she put herself through, she would once more search for naught.

"StarClan punishes those who break their laws." Finchfur said to herself. It was the only reason that she could think of that would explain why she never met any cats in StarClan after the accident. They had taken Larkfrost away from her to punish her, and now kept him away from her in death to taunt them with endless suffering.

"Did you say something, Finchfur?" Nettlesplash asked.

"No, sorry." Finchfur said, turning away from her. She missed the look that the RiverClan medicine cat and her apprentice shared.

"Well it took you three long enough!" A black tom called from outside of the Moonstone's entrance. "The night is almost half over already! What took you so long?" Nettlesplash started giving out little excuses, but the ShadowClan tom simply snorted and ignored them, pushing his way through the small rocky entrance.

Finchfur had been to the Moonstone enough times that she could navigate the area with her eyes closed. Though that night had been illuminated by a sliver of a crescent moon, the tunnel leading to the Moonstone was pitch black and all the medicine cats relied on each other and intimate knowledge of the tunnel system to work their way through. Soon enough they had reached the glowing stone located in the center of the tunnel.

"Sweet Dreams." One of the other medicine cats muttered hopefully as they all settled before the glowing rock. Finchfur sat down beside them and stared at the glowing rock in front of her. It was beautiful and shiny, a deep yellowish green light emanating from deep within it. Above them the moon, half filled though it was, steadily traveled over the stone before it's light stoppend and shined gently above her.

Finchfur found her eyes closing and her body welcoming the embrace of sleep, her head falling in the perfect position to let her nose touch the stone.

The light brown she-cat woke moments later, eyes blinking into the starry prey-filled expanse of StarClan. She cast her eyes over the empty plain, having already given up before the search even started. Without heading into the forest behind her, she simply sat on her haunches and resigned herself to another mateless night.

Why did StarClan have to torture her so? Why would they conceal her mate from her? What did they gain from teaching a lesson to one set of mates that no other cat would ever learn from? Finchfur wallowed in her own misery, creating a pool of angst around her.

"What took you so long to get here?" A voice from behind her asked. Her head shot up, eyes wide. That voice! She knew that voice!

"Is this another trick? Have I finally lost my mind? I long to see you, but you have evaded me for moons on end and now my mind has resorted to calling on dreams of you from deep inside my mind." Finchfur said, not turning around. If this really was a trick, if he wasn't there, well at least she could still speak to and hear his voice, right? Perhaps losing her mind wasn't so bad after all.

"Finchfur, turn around." He pleaded. She shook her head, closing her eyes. She could just picture his bright green eyes, the way that he always stood beside her and allowed her to lean against him for comfort, the way his fur rubbed against hers when he tried to reassure her. Kind of like what she was feeling at that moment.

"Finchfur, open your eyes." Larkfrost said. His voice was coming from right beside her, a sound that matched with what she was feeling from the body pressed up against her. "I've missed you."

That one line made her stiffen, and she finally gave in and opened her eyes. She took in his happy, cheerful face and his pleased yet sorrowful eyes and something inside her broke.

"I've come here moon after moon, but I've never seen you. Is this real, or are you a figment of my imagination?" She whispered. He answered by gently rubbing his face against hers, filling her nose with his scent.

"I hate to see you so sad. You've made yourself miserable in my absence." He told her. She finally let out a sob and lunged at him, bowling him over.

"Why didn't you come to me on the first night that I was here?" She asked him, nuzzling every part of him that she could reach. Larkfrost frowned at her.

"What do you mean? This is the first time you've been in StarClan since I died." She blinked and looked at him.

"What do you mean? Every half-moon I've come here and spent the whole night searching for you. It's always been empty." Larkfrost's eyes narrowed.

"I don't know where you were searching, but I've seen all the other medicine cats in StarClan and this was the first time that I was able to see you." At her upset look he let out a sharp purr. "Nevermind that now. We have more important things to think about. I'm here, and will always be here waiting for you." He murmured.

"But why did StarClan have to take you away from me?" Finchfur cried out. Larkfrost shook his head.

"Sometimes there are certain things that are beyond the control of StarClan. Twolegs are one of them. I only brought it up because I don't want you to be so miserable." He said. When she didn't respond he nudged her gently, entwining his tail with hers.

"I don't know if I can stop. Every time I try to have fun, I always think of you and how you aren't there having fun with me." She whispered eventually.

"Try to think towards the future. I know that it hurts, and it will for a long while. But once you have passed, we will be together for eternity here in StarClan, where we don't have to hide our relationship and our love for each other. Until then, I want you to have a good time in life with your Clanmates." He reassured. She sniffled, nose dripping slightly, and took a moment to bury her face in his pelt. Larkfrost was purring loud enough to wake the dead (as he always did) and it comforted her.

Finchfur felt a knot inside her chest loosen and a darkness lifted itself from her soul. "We will be together again." She repeated. "We won't ever be truly apart. And as a medicine cat I can come back each moon to see you." She honestly couldn't remember what had made her so miserable. Really, compared to some of the other mated pairs in ThunderClan, she was lucky. After all, she could see her mate every half-moon while they had to wait until death.

"But where were you every time I searched?" She implored, looking up at him.

"Lets not dwell upon that, Finchfur. Lets just take these last few moments to be together. I can already feel some cat shaking you awake." Finchfur gasped and curled closer to him, refusing to move back. But she could feel it too. It seemed that it was time to go.

"I love you." She choked out. His purr, if possible, grew louder.

"I love you too. See you next moon." He said as she dissapeared from his embrace.

Finchfur woke up suddenly, breath ragged. Her body began trembling, and she made a concious effort to soften her emotions knowing that Larkfrost would always be watching her.

"Are you ok? Your face is all wet. Did you get some important news?" Nettlesplash asked. Finchfur's pelt heated up as she realized it must have been Larkfrost licking her face to comfort her. She ran a paw over the spot, taking the moment to pull herself together. When she removed her paw, she knew that something had officially changed. There was still a heavy weight on her from her sadness from her mate being dead, but she knew that she could push through it to enjoy life.

"No, no. It wasn't anything like that. I'm alright. Thanks for asking... and for caring. You are an awesome friend." Finchfur told Nettlesplash as she stood. When the RiverClan cat shot her a happy look she responded in turn, briefly entwining her tail with hers. For a moment they brushed pelts and Finchfur was reminded of how she could still enjoy her life.

The other medicine cats had already began leaving through the tunnel, so the two she-cats moved to follow them, ushering Minnowpaw before them with giggles. When they all emerged from the tunnel, Finchfur took a deep breath and couldn't help but compare it to the air in StarClan. Up there it was fresher, cleaned from the harm Twolegs had caused. But this air she breathed felt real, made her feel alive and awake as she hadn't for a very long time.

"Let's go home." She told Nettlesplash and Minnowpaw. They waved briefly to the other two medicine cats before padding towards their own territories.

"You don't realize what you have until it's gone." Finchfur murmured to herself. When Nettlesplash pressed against her she realized that the she-cat had heard her.

"Yeah, but you also need to learn to move on. Think of the good times of before and the good ahead. Never dwell on the bad." Finchfur looked at her friend and for a moment she saw something that resembled wistfulness in her eyes. She looked troubled; sad and anxious and scared for a brief moment before it cleared and Finchfur forgot all about it.

"You're right." The ThunderClan she-cat agreed.

The two continued to walk in silence broken only by random amusing mutterings by Minnowpaw. Finchfur grinned as she recalled her own time as an apprentice, and then other moments of her life until her mind settled once more on Finchfur. Thinking of him no longer felt devastating as she dredged up good but sorrowful memories of him.

Sometimes after a loss, to move on you have to think of the good times and struggle through the bad. And remember that those that you have lost are always waiting for you. Finchfur thought as she lifted her head high for the first time in moons.