A/N: The timeline for this story is about a month after 'Storm before the calm' and a few weeks after my last C/H fic "Sentry Duty". Remember when Hunter asked Cam what date it was at the end of Sentry Duty? Well, here's the answer to that…

Secret Demons
By Dany
PG-13

Summary: Blake's imminent departure for Factory Blue forces Hunter to finally confront and battle his lifelong secret – with some unexpected help.

The warm morning sun streamed through the open window and into the room, dust motes floating lazily in its beams. A soft breeze rustled the leaf-covered branches of the old cypress tree outside and a lone blackbird suddenly landed on the windowsill, eying the solitary body sitting on the floor of the room for a moment before it flew on. The leather-clad figure never noticed the bird; he was too focused on his inner voice to notice anything.

'Inhale…hold it, exhale…cleanse your mind of all invading thoughts…aw, damn.'

With a sigh Hunter opened his eyes. This was not going to work. Head teacher or no, he was just not qualified to teach meditative techniques, even if it was to a class of only first-year students. 'Jeez, give me ten kata classes over one meditation class any day.'

For the umpteenth time he wished he had more teachers, so he didn't have to sub this class, but since the Thunder Academy and its ninjas had been released from Lothor's imprisonment two months ago, dozens of students as well as quite a few teachers had left, unable to deal with the trauma of a one-year confinement on an alien spaceship.

Thankfully, Blake had volunteered to take over a few classes until he was leaving for Factory Blue, but the school was still way too short on teaching staff.

With another sigh, Hunter slightly re-adjusted his lotus position and closed his eyes again. 'All right, let's try this again. Inhale…'

The sound of his door bursting open and the familiar, babbling voice it carried inside made him jump.

"Bro, check it out! It's here, it's finally here! Just came in the mail today."

Hunter glared at his little brother, but in his excitement, Blake never noticed the look as he waved an envelope into his brother's face. It had been Blake's turn to go down to Blue Bay Harbor to check on their PO Box, and whatever was in there had obviously been enough to put a huge, goofy grin on the younger Bradley's face.

"And what would It be?" Hunter growled, untangling his legs and rising from the floor.

"The Factory Blue racing itinerary," Blake exclaimed. "And they sent my plane ticket, too."

A faint alarm went off in Hunter's head. Plane ticket? Already?

It had only been a few weeks since Roger Hanna had offered Blake the chance to get into professional motocross racing with his company, Factory Blue. Blake had been hesitant at first, torn between his loyalty to the Thunder Academy and his love for racing, but after some cajoling from Hunter and the rest of the gang, he had finally signed a one-year contract and had been nothing but psyched about it ever since.

Now Blake shrugged out of his jeans jacket, threw it on Hunter's bed absentmindedly and plopped into his brother's desk chair, flipping through the thin magazine. A moment later he let out a whoop. "Ha! And there I am!"

Hunter approached his desk and took the magazine out of Blake's hands. "Lemme see that," he said and quickly skimmed over the New Faces At The Track article.

"Not a very flattering picture, bro," he grinned, motioning to the headshot of Blake at the end of the article, but the proud expression on his face belied his words.

Blake rolled his eyes. "Dude, that was taken right at the finish line at the Blue Bay semifinals. And besides, have you ever seen yourself at the end of a 30-round race?" The ex-Navy Ranger smirked and Hunter laughed. "Yeah, but my appearance is carefully cultivated. Took me years to get the messy look just right."

The two brothers grinned at each other, and Hunter handed Blake the itinerary back.

"My brother the professional motocross rider. I'm proud of you, man. Jealous, but proud," Hunter ruffled Blake's spiky hair. "Going out there into the big world, making a name for himself, grinding the competition into the dust. And don't worry about leaving me here all alone, I'll be all right." Hunter said in a mock-dramatic tone of voice, making an overly dismissive gesture with his hand, and Blake took a playful swipe at him.

"I'm not leaving you here all alone. You've been spending more time in Cam's bed than in your own lately," Blake grinned.

"And it's seriously interfering with my beauty sleep." Hunter promptly yawned, but managed to look smug at the same time. "I mean, last night, when…"

Blake threw up his hands. "Whoa, bro, spare me the details, please!"

Hunter laughed at the expression of feigned horror on his brother's face. "All right, all right. Seriously, though, it's gonna be weird having you gone."

Blake nodded. "Yeah, it's gonna be weird being gone. But I'm really psyched up about it."

"I know," Hunter replied sincerely. "But hey, at least you'll always have a place to come back to, just in case you suck."

"Which I won't!" Blake retorted with a glare that Hunter didn't take seriously for a second. "But yeah, it is nice of sensei Omino to let me keep my room here."

"I'm glad about that, too. I like having my own four walls. Eighteen years of rooming with you is enough," Hunter teased him. Blake grinned good-naturedly, but the look in his eyes was rueful. Hunter caught his brother's expression, leaned forward almost conspiratorially, and winked. "Not that you'll actually be using your room much, because I'm sure that whenever you're visiting, you're gonna be spending more time in Tori's bed than in your own," the ex-Crimson Ranger smirked, mimicking Blake's earlier words.

"Smart-Ass!"

"Right back at ya!"

The two brothers smiled at each other until Hunter motioned to the still sealed envelope with Blake's plane ticket. "Anyway, so when are you leaving?"

"I dunno. The race's in a week. Let's check." Blake ripped open the envelope, studied the ticket, then looked at Hunter's MotoX calendar hanging on the wall. "Four days from today, man. I guess that makes sense, with the training and the preliminaries…"

The rest of his sentence died in his throat when he saw Hunter's face, which had suddenly lost all color. "Bro, you okay?" he asked worriedly.

Hunter's troubled gaze went to the MotoX calendar, and for a long moment he was quiet. When he finally did speak, Blake had to strain in order to hear him. "Bro, it's…It's that time of the year. I was gonna ask you later on to start crashing in here tonight for…you know."

Blake's eyes went wide. Hunter didn't need to elaborate any further and neither was there any reason for subtlety; the former Navy Ranger knew exactly what his brother was talking about and as he turned his own gaze towards the calendar, he couldn't stifle a dismayed groan. Shit! Talk about bad timing…

But there it was, right in front of him. Not that Hunter had marked anything on the calendar in any way; he didn't need to. The date had long been branded into both of their brains, but Blake couldn't believe how totally he had missed it this year.

Today was August 1st. And that meant It would start tonight…

Blake kept staring at the calendar while Hunter was staring at nothing in particular. "How could this have so totally flown out of my head?" he finally mumbled to himself in a thick voice. Behind him, Hunter was quick to respond. "Dude, you've got a lot on your mind. Your upcoming races, helping with the Academy restoration, subbing all those classes for me…"

But Blake only shook his head, then turned and picked his jacked up from Hunter's bed, fumbling to get something out of an inside pocket.

"What are you doing?" Hunter asked, a note of alarm creeping into his voice. Blake didn't answer as he pulled his cell phone out of the jacket pocket and began to punch numbers.

"Bro…"

With the cell phone already to his ear, Blake turned to face Hunter. "I'm calling Roger Hanna. He's just gonna have to reschedule me for another race…"

He didn't get any further; Hunter crossed the room in one lightening-fast motion, grasped his wrist and punched the 'End Call' button.

"What the…?" Blake began to protest, but Hunter cut him off with a glare and a voice that could have cut glass.

"No way, man. You are going to do this race."

Blake twisted his wrist out of his brother's grasp, but did not make another attempt at dialing. "And how do you suppose I do that, huh?" he exclaimed, meeting Hunter's glare with one of his own until the older Bradley suddenly averted his eyes. Hunter sat on the edge of his desk and scanned the clutter that covered most of it. He moved an empty coffee mug two inches, then put it back. Anything to not having to look at Blake right now.

"I'll be ok." It sounded less than convincing, even to his own ears and Blake promptly rolled his eyes.

"That's bullshit and you know it. And unless you suddenly thought of a miracle cure we haven't tried yet in all those years, you need me here for at least the next six nights," he snapped.

With a sigh, Hunter looked towards the window. "This could be destiny, Blake. Maybe I'm supposed to rough it this time."

"Bro, did you forget that last time you tried roughing it and waking up on your own, you stopped breathing? I had to zap you to start your heart again." Blake came around to stand right in front of Hunter, waving his finger in his brother's face. "I told you back then that we're not gonna try such a stunt again, and I'm telling you the same thing now."

Hunter had been playing with the coffee mug again, but now he slammed it down onto the desk. "I won't have you blow your first race because you have to babysit your older brother who can't even manage to wake up from a fucking dream!" he growled and the effect was more powerful than if he had yelled it out loud. Blake let out an exasperated sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Hunter, stop this! Right now! We go through this shit every year. How many different ways have we tried to get you to wake up from this or get rid of the damn nightmare altogether, and nothing's worked! It's not like you haven't made the effort, ok?

"You will not miss this race!"

"Well, I guess my trophy will look really good on your grave, then. Because that's exactly where I'm gonna put it. And then I might as well get the plot next to yours, because if I left for that damn race, I couldn't live with myself anyways."

Both brothers were staring at each other, neither one backing down.

After a long moment, Blake was the one to break the stalemate when he finally sighed and raked a hand through his hair.

"We need to find a solution for this, bro. Or at least a compromise." The younger Bradley's eyes shone with genuine concern.

Hunter's dark stare softened at his brother's expression. He let out a sigh of his own. "Yeah, I know," he mumbled.

Quiet reigned for a long moment between them until Blake shifted and scratched the back of his neck, his face taking on a sudden awkward expression.

"Look, I know how you feel about this thing, but I think I might know a solution."

Hunter narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "And that would be…?"

Blake looked at him intently. "I know it's only been you and me in this so far, but there is someone else now who could help, you know?"

But before he could go on, Hunter was already shaking his head vigorously. "I don't like where this is going, Blake."

"Come on, at least hear me out!" Blake's voice now held an undertone of pleading.

"I'm not dragging him into this, dude." Hunter was back to glaring at his little brother.

"Hunter, he's your partner. I trust Cam enough to pass the torch to him, and besides, if you two are planning on staying together, he's bound to find out about this sooner or later anyway.

"Around this time next year at the latest," Blake added, and with a dismayed expression, Hunter turned his head to stare out the window. Blake was right, of course, but it was definitely not an option Hunter wanted to take. Next to him, Blake pressed on.

"Hunter, I think you should talk to him."

Hunter didn't reply; instead he stubbornly kept his gaze on the ancient cypress tree outside his window until Blake's voice sounded again.

"All right, then I'll talk to him!"

The sound of boots crossing the room and the rustling of Blake's jacket as it was picked up from the bed finally made Hunter move. He shoved away from the desk, tucking on the vest of his teacher's uniform to avoid having to look directly at Blake. "Fine, you do that," he said, starting towards the door. "In the meantime, I have a class to teach."

He didn't, but Blake didn't know that. And he suddenly found himself in dire need of some solitude to do some major brooding.

Inner reflections…

Hunter found his 'contemplation spot' in the form of a tiny clearing next to a small stream in the woods. The Thunder Academy was set much deeper into the forest than the Wind Academy, so such secluded spots were plenty. With a heavy exclamation he dropped down onto the mossy ground, resting his back against a tree trunk, and for a few long moments he just focused on breathing.

'He's your partner, and if you two are planning on staying together, he's bound to find out about this sooner or later.' Blake's words still echoed in his brain and Hunter ran a hand across his face. His brother's logic was undeniable, but Hunter had sincerely hoped to keep this particular piece of insight about his life from Cam as long as possible.

But fate obviously had other plans. With a sigh, Hunter picked up a pinecone and tossed it into the stream. Blake was right, he grudgingly admitted to himself, there was no way of getting through this without help. But to have to have Cam involved in this…Hunter's scowl deepened.

Not that he thought Cam wouldn't be up to the task – all it involved were a couple of firm shakes, after all. No, it was the idea of Cam seeing him at his most vulnerable that made Hunter's stomach turn.

Vulnerable! Hunter hated that word and everything it represented. Vulnerability equaled weakness, and the one thing Hunter had always been proud of was his strength, both physically and mentally. No other way of surviving a first-rate ninja academy and an entire year of being a Power Ranger than to be the best he could be. But then once a year reality would kick in for a week and put him firmly back in his place. Which was usually in his bed at night, shaking and whimpering from a recurring dream he couldn't even remember – with Blake hovering over him, since Hunter was unable to rouse himself on his own.

Hunter sighed again. That was always the worst part; needing his brother's help. Not that he hadn't tried numerous times to wake up from this crap by himself, but the results of one of those endeavors made him shudder to this day.

Panic, paralysis, burning lungs – and Blake pounding on his chest. "Shit. Breathe, Hunter, damnit!"

Hunter was breathing now, struggling to re-center himself mentally. Even years later, he still couldn't completely shake the feelings of dismay and utter embarrassment every time he remembered Blake's terrified face staring at him when he had finally come to again. After that episode, they had both agreed that Hunter would not be sleeping unsupervised for those particular few days a year, and although Hunter hated being dependent on Blake for this, it had worked out all right for them up until now.

Yeah, up until now! Which brought Hunter's train of thought back to Cam. Was he willing to let Cam in on the most private aspect of his life? Did he have any other choice? 'Face it, Bradley,' he thought, raking a hand through his hair. 'When it comes down to it, there really isn't anyone else but Cam you'd rather have by your side, because…' Hunter abruptly sat up straighter as a revelation hit him. '…because you would do the same for him if the roles were reversed.'

That was a fact Hunter didn't even have to dwell on and with a sudden infusion of vigor he rose and brushed the grass off his pants. Better go and make sure Blake had all his facts straight when he 'exposed' the family secret to Cam.

To be continued…