Chapter 5

Hunter slowly stretched his arm out in his bed to find the space next to him vacant. Rubbing his tired eyes he looked over in the direction of his bedroom window and saw the figure of his girlfriend sitting on the window sill and looking out towards the full mooned night sky. She seemed to be in deep thought.

Hunter yawned before sitting up. "Penny for them," he said breaking the silence.

"Huh?" Simone replied after blinking a few times. She didn't realise that Hunter was awake until now and didn't hear what he had said. It sounded like a mumble at the time.

"Your thoughts. You seemed to be swimming in the deep end of them." Hunter turned on a light beside the bed.

"Oh it's nothing. Just day dreaming."

"About me?" Hunter raised his eyebrows and grinned.

"Maybe, maybe not," Moving her gaze from the enchantment of the moon, Simone turned to face Hunter. "I was thinking about Alan becoming a Thunder ranger and I was thinking about us."

"What about us?"

"Our relationship. It's changed. I'm just wondering at which point it changed."

Hunter's grin turned into a little smile. "I knew we would discuss this sometime soon."

"So you've noticed too?"

"Of course I have and not just in our relationship. I've let work get in the way of all my friends. I hardly hang out with them or you because I get so wrapped up. The academy means so much to me that I don't want to fail it, Sensei Omino or my parents."

"So what do you want to do about it?"

"Sensei said that I need to have balance in my life." Hunter closed his eyes briefly. "I think I had more balance back when I was still fighting Lothor."

"You want him back?" Simone joked.

"No way." Hunter shook his head. "Ever since Lothor attacked the academy, it just hasn't been the same. The security has been improved, so it'll be harder to gain access to the school. But..." Hunter sighed. "Once all of our newest students have settled in, things can finally get back to normal."

Simone hated to see Hunter get burned out with everything in his life and what she had to say next didn't make life any better. "That's one discussion out of the way."

Hunter sighed. "I thought the other might've slipped your mind."

The young couple stayed silent. Neither one of them wanted to blurt out something that they would regret.

Simone bit onto her thumb nail and decided to plunge right in. It had to be said. She didn't like to keep things bottled up for long in case it exploded out at an inappropriate time. Removing the tip of her thumb from between her teeth, she voiced her opinion. "Our relationship…I feel that we were a whole lot closer in the beginning and when we were just friends."

Hunter sat up straighter. "You want us to go back to being just friends? As in break up?"

"No…I don't know…I mean," Simone sighed. "I don't know. It's just that..."

Silence filled the room again, but not for long.

Hunter got off his bed and stood up while running his hands through his already messy hair. "It's just that what?" he said, his voice slightly rose.

Simone looked towards the door. "Shh. Shane's only down the hall. You're going to wake him up."

"At the moment I don't really care if the neighbours wake up. All I care about at the moment is you and me. I want to know where you're going with your revelation about us. You don't want to break up, but yet on the other hand you don't know. And to top it all off you think we were better...no sorry, were closer at the beginning as friends?" When Simone didn't answer, Hunter threw his arms up in the air before heading to the door. "I'm going to watch some TV. Let me know when you have it all figured out." With that Hunter was gone leaving Simone alone to her thoughts.

Simone walked over to the bed and sat down crossed legged with her head in her cupped hands. So many thoughts rushed through her mind. 'Why did I open my big mouth? Why did I say all the wrong things? I just wish it was like the first time we got together. Being spontaneous, having fun, being alone without having any worries about work or family. Just being there for each other. But it's not his fault.'

Just as Simone decided to seek out Hunter, an earth tremor stopped her in her tracks. It didn't take long for it to stop or her morpher to beep.