A/N: The story Hunter is reading is Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains. Self-indulgent work. Also, how dare FFnet not have Leanne Omino as a character option.

"Boo," is how she greets him after over a year of literal silence and another one of minimalistic letters that were passive aggressive more because she was mad at her father than because she didn't want to talk to him. He's not holding a grudge, because that would be immature and he outgrew his childishness a long time ago, but he's also keenly aware that if it hadn't been for a few pointed words from Blake she wouldn't have bothered to come all the way here at all.

He does the mature thing and hunkers down lower in his seat, drawing the short story about nuclear bombs and misfortune and the time closer to his nose. Above him, Leanne rolls her eyes. "Really?" She asks, "This is how you say hello?"

"I'm not saying anything," Hunter grumbles, tearing his eyes up from a description of an empty nursery and a lonely house chiming the time. Four-thirty. (He shouldn't be invested even though the sense of frozen life rings true in its war against time. For one thing, there's no blood. Just charred wall and the outline of what once was.)

"Years without even a picture-"

"And whose fault is that?"

"And this is our reunion?" Leanne huffs, hands on her hips and he doesn't love her - barely even likes her most of the time – but she's here and breathing and alive and he knows if he reached out just a touch, just enough, the air would dry out and tingle and it would feel strangely like a home.

"You're not even here for me."

You shouldn't be here at all.

Leanne scoffs and plucks the printed pages from his hand, flipping through it idly while he grumbles protest but doesn't dare try to snatch it back. She'd beat him, for one, and if he reaches in her direction at all he's going to end up doing something embarrassing like hug her to him. He's not doing a damn thing until that kind of dangerous urge passes.

"You read this in middle school," she chides. He doesn't deny it, shrugging a shoulder and drawing his leg closer to his chest.

"Required reading here," he says noncommittally, and wraps one hand around his own ankle when she looks at him again. "I don't exactly mind," he points out. "It's important reading."

"It's depressing," Leanne sighs. "All emptiness and death and fire."

"Maybe that's why I like it," Hunter says, taking the chance to swipe it back. She lets him have it, but also joins him, so he doesn't really count it as a success.

"You've never been that morbid," Leanne informs him, like she knows anything about him at all. (She knows a lot, is the thing, and Hunter would be so content to blame Blake for that except he remembers their first meeting and Blake had nothing to do with it at all.) "And you've never lived in an empty house. How far did you get?"

"The dog died," Hunter answers blithely because he knows she hates that kind of thing.

"So the house is still standing?" she asks back. Hunter pauses, more thrown by the subdued tone than easy words, and can't quite meet her eyes when he turns to look at her.

He's actually seen Leanne look worried before but bleak is new and his chest constricts with the dull ache of something too-familiar for him to comfortably name.

Run away. You shouldn't be here, just run far away and don't look back until it's safe again. The words are trapped in his throat, which isn't really a surprise, but her steady stare is getting to him and he's going to end up mooring her into this if he's not careful. Sensei might have used the support, or even just the company, but it's not safe and she doesn't belong and he can and will do a lot of things but willfully endangering Leanne Omino will never be one of them.

"There weren't any buildings left," Hunter says woodenly. Leanne is too practiced, too perfect, to give him anything to work with. He reads into her careful expression anyway, the grim line of her lips says grief and the calm fold of her hands says rage but the way she leans forward just a bit begs for something straightforward and empty and docile like comfort. She's already seen the foundations of Thunder Academy laid bare. She either tracked them down, or Blake's letter managed to hit gold and find her despite all odds saying that should never have actually worked.

Her eyes plead, Tell me what happened.

"'Not one would mind,'" she starts and Hunter clicks his tongue, loud but not angry.

"It was Lothor," he says evenly. "It's all Wind baggage and maniacal ambition. And we might not be Spring herself but we noticed." She smiles, thin but kind.

"The Beast school has kindly abstained from involvement and withholds their judgment." It's a simple statement, it should've been straightforward, but he realizes with a bit of a jolt that everything it implies belies everything he thought he knew about what she's been doing for the past few months. Her smile looks a little less kind, her grief a little more pronounced. There were probably temples and students in other countries, overseas, but their opinion would hold very little weight.

"There's not much else they can do," Hunter says carefully. The news might have stung a long time ago but Hunter's been involved in enough of this to just be grateful for the sound judgment. If it were them – if it were Dai Shi – he wouldn't have exactly been chomping at the bit to go run into their fight. If it weren't her father, he's pretty sure she'd have understood that without the reassurance. He's pretty sure she understands it now, without it, but he's sure as hell not going to be the one to tell her she has to like it.

If he were the kind of person that his family actually needed, he'd have reached out for her by now. The best he can do is offer her what he'd offered back before they'd decided not to give up their morphers after all. "There are good people working to fix it, now. I know that much."

"You and Blake both," she sighs, explosive and dramatic for her, but her shoulders lower too and she looks almost curious. "It's not like you to have that kind of faith in others," she notes. "Or for Blake to get himself a girlfriend."

"Did he tell you that?" Hunter asks. She rolls her eyes. "Of course he didn't."

"Little brothers can't date until big brothers get hitched."

"Says the oldest, chronically single and possible a wit-ow!"

"I think that's the first time you've admitted I'm your big sister," Leanne says sounding entirely too self-satisfied. She's buffing her nails on her shirt, and Hunter's a little miffed she's not even pretending to notice his sullen glare or the bruise forming on his arm.

"You're a monster," he grouses; she pulls him up to his feet.

"Beach boy. You know you can write me any time, right?" For only the third time in his entire life, he sees Leanne look nervous. At any other point in Hunter's, he might have been upset that she was leaving just as soon as she had arrived but he can't bring himself to feel it. He's too busy feeling relieved.

"And where are you going this time? Taiwan?"

"I was in Milan, Hunter, and I told you I'd write you as soon as I figured out I was going to be in one place for a while." She actually had, is the thing, and he'd left all but the most recent of his own stack in his room unopened – which was now, incidentally, in Lothor's ship. Go figure. Blake has a similar stack but until she'd shown up right in front of him he'd assumed that they'd been left behind on the ship as well even though he knows Blake actually read his.

"Grab a bite to eat before you drive off in a- is that a convertible?" Hunter asks, torn between disbelief and dismay.

"Is this California?" Leanne asks back, dry and smug and then glowering when he hops over the side to sprawl out over her backseat.

"You have terrible taste in vehicles."

"Says the two-wheel dirt junkie," Leanne scoffs, but she slides in and the car growls to life and he doesn't even question that she knows exactly what burger joint he's most fond of in this town. "I'm-"

"Paying!" Hunter calls over the uptick in wind, strapping in before she can do something crazy and illegal to make him regret not doing so. "You are so paying! And there's no talking when the roof is down!"

The car ride is good, the food is better, and he checks the urge to ask her to stay when she kisses his cheek and squeezes his arm good-bye. It's better – and if it's not actually better than it's at least safer – that she leave before anyone can give her proper attention and she disappears off into a morbid space collection belonging to an evil vindictive space ninja.

It's easy, easier than he'd thought it would be when he'd entertained thoughts of Leanne sweeping back into his life for however long she bothered to stay, and he revels in it while it lasts, desperate to reach with both hands even knowing he won't be grabbing and holding on.

There's only one stumble: "Why'd you wait until now to come see me?"

"I didn't think you'd want me to," she answers, simple and honest and Hunter can't really deny it but he's not bitter anymore, about that at least. Agreeing won't bring them anywhere but Awkward City though, so he holds his tongue and waits her out. "Blake said he hadn't told you that he contacted me. I suppose I knew you were around, but mostly I was helping him remember his old lessons. I came as a mentor, not a friend."

And, Hunter supposes, that really does make all the difference. "I guess-"

"Don't apologize," he interrupts. She raises her eyebrow at him. "It's – yeah, I was mad when you left. More than I should have been. But it was your decision, and your path, and I just."

"Didn't want to lose anyone else," she says. He shrugs helplessly because she's not wrong, and she snorts softly into her soft drink. "And now here we are."

"Yeah," Hunter sighs, feeling the sharp prick of loss in his throat and swallowing around it. "But not forever. This can be fixed. Be changed." There was still time, still a way, and he'd believe that until he was dead. "Sensei is alive, Leanne."

"My father had faith in the power rangers," she tells him, and Hunter consciously refuses to react, reaching steadily for another fry. "I have faith in my father. And in you and Blake."

"Is that enough for you?" He asks, trying not to sound self-conscious and probably failing spectacularly if her steady look is anything to judge by.

"It's always been enough for me. Now stop dwelling and eat your potatoes."

"They really don't count as a healthy food item in this context, Leanne," Hunter says because this conversation is familiar and entirely Blake's fault. She smiles, flicks bits of wrapper at his head, and the last time he'd watched her walk away he'd been angry and desperate and mildly resentful of everything he'd given and everything she'd taken away when she left.

Now he just feels lighter.