Disclaimer-see first chapter

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blake Bradley was confused. He had been telling his would-be girlfriend about some friends on tour when she abruptly stormed off. For a moment he had thought that her heated declaration of 'That's it' was directed at him. After all, he had been discussing his relationship with another woman. However the pleasure of this thought gave way to discomfiture as he watched the pretty blond woman march up to his older brother. A group of teenagers walked in front of the navy ranger and he lost sight of the action. When his view cleared again he spotted Kapri dancing with someone new, but Tori and Hunter were nowhere in sight.

That's odd, Blake thought to himself. He toyed with the idea of cutting in on Kapri to find out what had happened, but the memory of their last dance together held him back. Instead he toured the boardwalk and surrounding beach in search of his missing friends. There was no sight of Tori or his brother, but he did find the rest of his ninja friends talking on the patch of sand they had claimed earlier in the night.

"Yo, has anyone seen Tori? Or Hunter?" Blake asked his assembled friends.

"Dude the last time I saw Tori you were totally dominating her time on the dance floor. How did you manage to lose her?" Dustin queried.

The navy thunder ninja briefly explained about Tori's outburst. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Cam and Leann exchange a glance, but Shane was waving his hands dismissively.

"She was probably just saving Hunter from Kapri's dancing skills. She can be brutal," he opined.

Blake laughed, "I hear that!"

"You two are just sore losers." All heads turned in the direction of the new voice. Kapri stood smiling at the gathering with her hands on her hips. "I dance beautifully. Well enough to get Tori jealous anyway."

Blake was briefly confounded by this statement, but he gaped at her when he put it together. "Wait a minute," he scoffed. "Are you saying Tori was jealous because you were dancing with Hunter?"

"Well, duh!" Cam's cousin replied with a roll of her eyes. "It was really unfair of you to start dancing with Tori without telling me the game was on," she scolded.

Blake ignored this while he tried to get his racing thoughts in order. "Are you telling me that Tori, Tori Hansen, wind ninja, water sensei, and former blue ranger is in love with..." he was so flabbergasted he couldn't even finish the question.

"Hunter, Hunter Bradley, thunder ninja, thunder sensei, former crimson ranger, and your brother," Kapri confirmed mockingly. "I told you it was so obvious even an airhead like Marah could see it."

They all looked to the woman seated next to Dustin. She nodded and then processed what her sister had just said. "Hey, I am not an airhead."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

Blake stared from one woman to the other. The pettiness of their argument reminded him that the source information he had just received might not be all that accurate. He turned to his more reliable compatriots.

"Is this true? Is Tori really in love with Hunter?" he demanded of them. He had hoped for immediate cries of shock and denial. The responses he actually got were much less reassuring.

Leann and Dustin avoided answering by trying to keep the fighting ninja siblings apart. Shane looked as if he were really weighing the question. Most disturbing of all, from Blake's perspective, was Cam's poker face. Cam's ability to stay cool in a crisis had served them all well during their ranger days. The fact that he was calm now did not bode well for whatever he was trying to hide.

"Cam? Shane?" Neither man answered their friend. "Will someone please tell me what's going on? Because just the other day you were all reassuring me that I had no reason to worry. Have you just been covering for them? I thought you were my friends too."

Shane spoke up, "It's not like that bro. We just never considered the question before. I promise you, neither Hunter nor Tori have ever even hinted to me that they might feel more than friendship for each other." The red ranger looked to his green counterpart for confirmation.

"They've never said anything to me either," Cam responded. He hesitated and added, "But you've been gone a long time Blake, and feelings can change before we even realize what has happened to us. It's not exactly like you and Tori had made any sort of commitment before you left."

Blake was taken aback. "Well, but I mean, Tori knew, knows, how I feel about her. She's...I...and we...she's mine," he sputtered.

"Whoa, bro. Tori doesn't belong to anyone." Shane corrected.

Leann chose this moment to enter the conversation. "What you think everyone may or may not have known when you left is irrelevant. If you never said the words, she didn't really know. A girl likes to be told how you feel." Cam squeezed her head and mouthed, love you, to his girlfriend. She smiled back at him before shifting her attention back to the younger Bradley. "And three months is a long time for doubts to set in."

"And only Hunter really understood how hard it was to watch you leave," Dustin pondered aloud. "After you left the two of them really retreated into themselves. For the first few weeks it seemed like they would only open up to each other. That really bonded them."

"Tori didn't seem to feel the need to save you from Kapri earlier tonight," Shane mused.

Blake felt as if his head might explode from all these new revelations. "So what are you guys saying? That Tori does love my brother?"

The three guys and Leann looked at each other. Shane spoke for the group. "We don't know dude. We're just saying that it's maybe not completely impossible. But I do know this-Tori would never deliberately hurt or betray you. So if her feelings have changed, and she hasn't mentioned it to you, she probably isn't aware of the change herself."

Blake had to get away. He needed time to process this information, and to decipher his own feelings. "I need to be alone for awhile guys. I'm going to go for a walk. When you see Hunter and/or Tori could you tell them I'll find my own way home?" Shane nodded and Blake added, "And don't tell them about this conversation." This time Shane looked unsure so Blake continued, "If we're just blowing smoke here I don't want them embarrassed. And if any of this is true, I would like them to come to me on their own." Shane nodded again, and Blake took his leave.

"You know," Cam observed, "He never asked if we think Hunter loves Tori back."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tori Hansen was experiencing the most perfect moment of her life. A first kiss straight out of a romance novel had been followed by a series of long, slow kisses. Tori's moan of disappointment when Hunter lifted his mouth from hers quickly turned to a hiss of pleasure as he began kissing his way down her neck. She tilted her head to one side to grant him better access. Each kiss and each touch contained the promise of passion, but for now the embracing couple were content to take things slow.

Hunter smiled into the hollow of the surfer's neck. He loved all the little sounds she was emitting. He wanted to catalog every sigh, every mewl and store them away in his memory. He moved his mouth back up Tori's jawline and hovered above her lips without touching them. He couldn't comprehend this was really happening. He couldn't quite trust that all of those dreams he could never acknowledge, even to himself, were coming true.

When Hunter's kisses stopped the water ninja opened her eyes, and blue met blue as she smiled at the blond man. Hunter felt his heart swell and thought to himself, What do you know? Sometimes love does catch you by surprise.

"What?" Tori asked.

Hunter shrugged. "I just wanted to look at you for awhile." Tori blushed and rolled her eyes, but she understood. She hadn't until this moment allowed herself to believe what her heart had been telling her for awhile now. She was in love with Hunter Bradley. Tori leaned up to kiss him again, but Hunter eluded her with a smirk.

"Please," Tori whimpered turning the full force of her puppy dog eyes on her companion.

The crimson ranger groaned and granted her a quick kiss, but pulled back when she tried to deepen it.

"Tease," Tori accused.

"Not me," Hunter told her as he pulled her closer. "If we weren't on a public beach you'd be in big trouble by now."

Tori shivered at the promise in his voice. "I like trouble." She glanced around them. "We could streak back home."

Hunter laughed at her hopeful expression. "I'm sure Sensei would totally understand."

"He doesn't have to know. One of the guys could drive the van back to our place."

Hunter imagined the looks on his friends faces when he explained why driving home would be entirely too slow. Cam would roll his eyes, Dustin and Shane would be horrified because it was Tori, and Blake...

Blake...Damn. How am I going to explain this to Blake? The smile rapidly fell from Hunter's face as he thought of the younger man. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten. For as long as he could remember, especially since the death of their parents, Hunter's main role had been as Blake's protector. And now here he was, stealing the most important thing in his little brother's life.

Tori had felt Hunter tense up and was looking at him with eyes full of concern. He squeezed her reassuringly, kissed her forehead, and stepped away from the warmth of her body. She pouted prettily but made no move to reclaim him.

Hunter was grateful for the space, but missed the other ranger almost immediately. Blake was no longer a boy. He was traveling the world on his own, or at least without his brother. Maybe it was time to cut the apron strings. If Tori's feelings were in line with his own, it would be unfair to all three of them to ignore that. Of course first Hunter would have to find out what the wind ninja's feelings were.

Tori watched as shock, shame, and guilt played across the thunder ranger's face. She knew exactly what, or rather who, he was thinking about, but she remained silent while he worked out his feelings. Her own were crystal clear. The rush of love she was feeling for Hunter had opened her eyes to many other things. Among them was the realization that she had never felt anything like this for the younger Bradley. She cared for Blake, but the feeling was no longer anydifferent from what she felt for her other friends. Only Hunter had this terrible and wonderful hold over her heart, and she could no longer imagine giving it to anyone else. No matter what the crimson ranger decided, Tori knew she had to tell Blake that her feelings for him were not of a romantic nature.

After a few minutes of pacing, Hunter seemed to come to some conclusion. He turned to face his waiting teammate.

"What are we going to tell Blake?" he asked with anguish in his voice.

Tori gazed at the face she knew so well and hated the pain she saw there. He looked like a lost little boy, and she desperately wanted to take him into her arms again. Despite her resolve to make a clean break with Blake, she didn't want to deal with this right now. It had been a glorious night, and she didn't want the memory of it tainted with pain and heartache. So she adopted a carefree, playful tone when she answered.

"Do we have to tell him anything?" she said with a laugh.

Hunter felt his world shatter into a million pieces at her words. He schooled his features to cover his feelings, but inside he was dying. How could he have been such a fool? Tori didn't love him. She wanted to be with Blake. As soon as he mentioned his brother's name, she wanted to forget the whole thing. He had obviously been the recipient of some misplaced affections. If that's how she feels...I won't stand in their way. I'll let her go so they can both be happy.

Tori knew instantly that something was seriously wrong. Hunter's face became a mask of blandness, and she could feel distance between them where before there had been only heat and intimacy.

"No, of course not. This was obviously just a mistake. Right setting, wrong person," Hunter said with forced casualness.

Tori's eyes filled with unshed tears. A mistake? Nothing had ever felt more right to her. How could he call it a mistake?

"Don't worry. Blake never has to know. It's not your fault I'm so irresistible to women," Hunter tried to reassure her, misunderstanding the source of her distress. Tori let out a sob. Hunter knew he had to get away before he took her into his arms and made an even bigger fool of himself.

"Goodbye Tori," he whispered before streaking back toward the party.

Tori fell to her knees in the sand, still covered in Hunter's button-down, and screamed her pain into the night. She never noticed a streak of navy following the crimson one down the beach.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was incredibly painful to write, but I assure you there is a method to my madness.