"D'ya know how early it is?"

Blake grinned at the sound of his brother's voice, slurred by sleep but laced with enough indignation to make his expression vividly clear despite the distance between them. "We're only on Mountain Time," he told the phone. "And we're still heading east. It's only gonna get earlier, bro."

"Don't remind me," Hunter grumbled. "You gotta call in the morning?"

"Yup," Blake said cheerfully. He didn't, but it amused him to wake Hunter up. "How are things?"

The sound of a yawn distorted the reply. "Fine. School's still here, which is more'n I can say for this time last year. You?"

"It's all good here," Blake answered, thinking back to the days they'd spent on Lothor's ship. "Listen, I wanted to let you know I cleaned out the apartment. The company's pretty much paying the rent while I'm outta town, but I wasn't sure if you'd get down there at all."

"Nah," Hunter said after a moment. "My schedule's pretty tight right now."

"Yeah, I figured. The fridge is empty and everything's locked up, so it should be fine." He hesitated, then added, "I left a few things with Tor... y'know, stuff I didn't want anyone to find lying around if someone broke in or something."

"Sure, good idea." Hunter didn't ask, and Blake knew his bro had understood. Ninja stuff. Weapons that really should have been registered when they first arrived, but somehow neither of them had gotten around to it.

"So run your race dates by me again," Hunter said, sounding marginally more awake. "Maybe I can get out to see you while you're still sorta local."

Blake heard the sound of a door, and he assumed that Hunter was either moving around the suite to which he was entitled as head teacher, or that he had left the apartment entirely and was heading somewhere else on campus. At one point during his recitation he heard talking in the background and Hunter muttered a hello to someone, so it must have been the latter. His bro already had their tentative racing schedule, and he obviously wasn't writing it down now.

Finally Blake stopped and asked him, "Why am I telling you this, again?"

Instead of answering, Hunter demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Blake frowned, but then he heard someone else's voice in the background. Where was "here," he wondered? And who? There were times when he didn't think videophones were such a bad idea. Or maybe his brother could just learn to communicate better--that would be fine too.

"What do I need a videophone for?" Hunter wanted to know.

Blake opened his mouth to ask how Hunter had guessed what he was thinking. Before he could say anything, though, Hunter complained, "Last time I didn't even get the message until general what's-his-name was gone. I don't need to see pictures of him."

This time the voice that answered was closer to the phone, and Blake could hear someone reply, "If you'd actually carry your cell phone with you, that message would have gotten to you sooner. It's not intended for use as a paperweight. Try to keep up with the technology."

He couldn't help grinning. There was only one person who could make sarcasm sound that smooth. "Is that Cam?"

"Yeah, it's Cam," Hunter said, somewhat irritably. "Who else would be in my office at six o'clock in the morning? Don't they have a curfew at the Wind Academy?"

Hunter was touchy this morning, Blake thought. It wasn't *that* early. And since when did he care if people were in his office or not? It wasn't like he ever locked the door.

"There's no need for a curfew," he could hear Cam saying. "All we need is house arrest for head teachers who can't wake up before noon, and the campus would run a lot more smoothly."

"What do you know about the way this campus runs?" Hunter wanted to know.

"Whoa, guys," Blake interjected. Cam probably couldn't hear him, but really. They were both on a tear this morning. It was like listening to four-year-olds without a cause. "Get some coffee already."

"Yeah," Hunter muttered. "Coffee would be a good thing. You want some?"

Blake assumed the question was directed at Cam. The voice that replied was muffled again, but a moment later Hunter said, "Okay. Back in a few minutes."

"You get up on the wrong side of bed this morning or what?" Blake inquired.

"I dunno what you're talking about," Hunter groused.

"I'm just saying, don't tick Cam off," Blake told him. "You know he doesn't deserve it... and don't forget he could make your life hell. Two people you never harass: your mechanic, and the computer guy."

"Yeah, whatever." Hunter's grumpiness seemed to be lifting now that he was on a caffeine-acquiring mission. "I get on Perry's case all the time. And Cam coulda called first."

"He probably did," Blake said dryly. "You really should check your voice mail more, bro."

There was a brief silence, and then Hunter grunted. "Huh. Yeah, I guess he could have," he admitted. "Not like his voice mails are helpful. 'It's me, call me back'? What does that tell me?"

"To call him back," Blake answered. "What do you have against Cam all of a sudden?"

Hunter hesitated again. "Nothing," he said at last. "I just think he could be a little more... well, less... I dunno. Forget it."

"Right," Blake agreed, amused and a little puzzled by his brother's confusion. "Well, I gotta go. Try not to permanently piss off any of our friends while I'm gone."

"Contrary to popular belief," Hunter informed him, "I'm a very friendly person."

"Uh-huh," Blake said with a grin. "Keep telling yourself that, bro. Catch you later."

Hunter muttered something he couldn't hear, followed by what sounded like "See ya."

Blake shook his head when his brother hung up. At least it was Cam that had picked this day to visit the Thunder Academy instead of one of the other Winds. The Wind Academy's technical genius had no patience for Hunter's occasional broodiness. Cam would snap him out of it if anyone could.

Whether there would be anything left of Hunter's office by the time he was done, of course, was another matter entirely.

"Coffee," Hunter announced, by way of greeting.

Cam didn't look up from whatever he was doing. "Thanks."

Hunter studied him for a moment, torn between irritation and concern that he didn't even get a look from the distracted ex-Ranger. Cam had seemed more preoccupied than usual lately--but then, maybe Blake was right and Hunter was easier to annoy lately too. He really didn't know how stupid arguments like theirs started, and it wasn't like they had a history. He could count on one hand the number of times they had argued when they were Rangers: the CyberCam incident, the Riff Blaster quest, the time he'd tried to get Cam to go camping.

This wasn't like that. Then they'd had reasons for arguing, opposing views on a particular topic, something they were trying to get the other person to understand. Lately, though, Cam was just annoying him. It wasn't anything he did--at least, nothing that mattered. He just... left short voice mail messages. Showed up without telling anyone, and sometimes left before Hunter knew he was there. It was annoying.

Cam sighed. "Don't you have anything better to do than watch me?" he asked over his shoulder.

Hunter considered that. Not really, he decided, but he didn't say it aloud. "Since when do you care if people watch you?"

"Since 'people' started treating me like tech support again," Cam snapped. "You know, I contributed as much to the Rangers as anyone else, but somehow everyone else is qualified to teach and I'm right back where I started."

"What are you talking about?" Hunter asked, surprised.

"I'm talking about this!" Cam sat back in Hunter's chair and gestured disgustedly at the desk. Or not so much at the desk, Hunter assumed, as at the components that were strewn across it. "All people expect me to do is fix things, set things up, and stay out of the way. Leave the real work to someone else."

"Yeah, okay, wait a second." Hunter frowned at him. "Tori said you were offered a class along with everyone else and you turned it down. She said you didn't want to teach."

Cam was staring at something Hunter couldn't identify like he could make it put itself together just by looking at it. "Well, maybe I don't want to be holed up in Ninja Ops all the time either. Most of the new students don't even know who I am. Half the old ones think I'm still just the geeky guy with the glasses. They probably don't think I do anything at all."

He almost asked why it mattered what other people thought, but to Cam, it did matter. It always had. Too bad he couldn't see what everyone else already knew. "You're the guy," he said abruptly. "The guy that everyone whispers about, you know? The one they know is important but they're afraid to talk to because they know they're not."

Cam gave him a strange look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what happened yesterday?" Hunter asked. "A teacher told me off. A teacher, right? 'Cause I don't have the right 'experience' to be doing what I do. No one would ever dare say that to you. You get more respect than the rest of us put together, and you don't even see it."

"No one would say that to me because they don't know what I do," Cam said, rolling his eyes. "And even if they did," he added as an afterthought, "no one else could do it anyway."

"Yeah, see?" Hunter couldn't help smirking. Funny, Cam didn't annoy him when he was being all superior. He expected that. "I dunno what you're worried about. Just because no one understands what you're doing doesn't mean they don't respect you for it."

Cam folded his arms, a pensive expression on his face as he stared over Hunter's shoulder. "You know how tired I am of being the one that no one understands?" he asked. "It'd be nice to do something and have someone say, 'wow, that was really brilliant' instead of, 'uh... was that good?'"

"The curse of the gifted," Hunter said bluntly. "We all know what it feels like, Cam. You're just mad 'cause you think no one appreciates what you're doing."

"They don't," Cam retorted. "Why do I do all this if no one cares?"

"I don't know," Hunter said, returning his stare. "Why do you?"

"Because someone has to," Cam shot back.

"No," Hunter countered. "Because you think someone has to. Do you really think I need a freakin' videophone in my office? You have plenty of other stuff to do; why'd you come all the way to the Thunder Academy when you could be working on something you care about?"

Cam shrugged it off. "Because you always say thank you," he said simply.

Hunter paused, thinking about that. "Oh," he said at last. He frowned, studying Cam with a flicker of the same annoyance. "Well... now I feel like kind of a jerk."

Cam smiled for the first time that morning. "You'll get over it."

Hunter snorted. "No doubt." He glanced at the clock next to the door and decided that this conversation might go better on neutral ground. "Look, you want to get some breakfast or something? This meaning-of-life stuff is a lot easier on a full stomach."

Cam opened his mouth, probably to protest, and Hunter pointed at him. "I'm going," he informed Cam. "And if you don't come, I don't want to hear you blaming your schedule on anyone but you for the rest of the day."

Cam rolled his eyes, managing to look a lot like Blake in that moment. "Fine," he declared, pushing himself to his feet. It sounded less like an agreement and more like a challenge. "Lead the way."