Classes at the Wind Academy started up again the next day. It wasn't a full schedule, or even regular classes, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it was something, and it was more of a routine than the site had seen in almost a year.

It started spontaneously, with a unannounced but well attended sunrise meditation, a tribute to the normal lives of ninjas who hadn't had anything of the sort for too long. Communal meals were an absolute necessity and a logistical nightmare. Afternoon basics classes followed, mostly as a way to keep less experienced students occupied while people in authority tried to organize, prioritize, and plan.

The Rangers weren't allowed to join either of the groups. The Winds had actually been sent home soon after the ninja students' return, and the Thunders' offer of help was politely but firmly denied. Even Cam was told to keep to Ninja Ops as much as possible. It was an order that he at first automatically attributed to his lupine alter ego, but eventually he realized he was being given the same instructions as the rest of the team: stay out of the way.

He tried not to resent the implication that they were useless when it came to anything other than fighting evil space aliens. He was out early the morning after the return, and when he saw the meditation in progress he silently joined in. His father was there too, and said nothing. But when he went to offer his assistance with breakfast, he was unceremoniously turned away.

It took him the rest of the day to figure out what was going on. When Shane, Tori, and Dustin invaded Ninja Ops that afternoon, complaining that they had been barred from the basics class and Sensei was nowhere to be found, Cam actually felt a little better. Because it wasn't just him. All of the Rangers were being deliberately kept apart from the other ninjas.

It took him the rest of the week to understand why. Not because the reason was so complicated--once he got it, it actually made sense. But the why took longer because as soon as he realized the what he started avoiding the academy. Sulking, Hunter said, but since Hunter was just as annoyed about it, and since Cam did most of his supposed sulking wherever Hunter happened to be at the time, the Crimson Ranger didn't complain very much.

He did give Cam a present, and that was even stranger than it sounded once he explained where it came from. Which he did by handing Cam the note that had been wrapped around the handle of the odd-looking plastic brush. The odd-looking plastic brush with bent metal bristles.

Iza told me to apologize, the note told him. The handwriting was slanted and sharp, and nowhere did an actual apology appear. It was signed simply, Akeelah.

It wasn't a hairbrush, Cam realized, with an embarrassed sort of resignation. It was meant for animal fur. And there was a reason she had given it to Hunter instead of to him. He supposed it might be a typically siren way of saying "I'm sorry."

In return, he gave Hunter a rabies certificate, a dog license, and two tags. It was all perfectly legitimate, which required an explanation of Kathy's visit--also sent by Iza, interestingly--to explain the guard rotation, duties, and volunteer benefits. She had been full of other potentially more useful information too, so Cam had questioned her until she had to leave.

She had told him how to find the butcher in Killington, who the butcher was related to, and what his hours were. She had told him which private property owners had up "no hunting" signs, how to spot the monitoring stations in parks and wildlife reserves, and where to get non-prescription contact lenses if he wanted to hide his eyes as a human. She'd even told him about a guy at one of the sports stores who did "custom sunglasses work": a free service for human wolves that involved double tinting the lenses.

And she had told him there was a vet tech who had married into the pack two years ago. The girl worked in Blue Bay Harbor, got regular rabies shots herself, and knew how to fill out seamless paperwork. Cam had gone to see her the next day.

Kathy had also mentioned, in passing, that her day job was psychiatric therapy. She had a medical background, invaluable all on its own and made moreso by her contacts at the hospital, and very few human clients. The pack kept her in business. More a testament to their loyalty, she assured him, than to their need for psychiatric care.

Cam wasn't convinced, but he asked for a card anyway. He was a little disturbed at how easily members of the pack were managing to find him, even at a secret ninja academy that didn't officially exist, but after her recitation of names, addresses, and helpful skills, he decided that the fact that he didn't know everyone was apparently the oddity. He planned to change that as quickly as possible.

The dog tags made Hunter smirk. He didn't keep them, either. The rabies certificate and the license, yes, but not the tags. What good did they do him, after all? Cam should have known Hunter would follow through on his collar threat.

It was a dark green nylon choke collar, and it had Hunter's number embroidered in black on the outside. Hunter put one tag on the choke ring and one on the dead ring before handing it over. Cam just stared at him.

Hunter shook it. "So it doesn't make noise," he said, like that was Cam's problem. "What?" he added, when Cam kept staring at him.

"You must be joking," Cam told him.

Hunter raised his eyebrows. He was leaning on the desk out back at Storm Chargers, supposedly looking for some part or other for Dustin. Cam was pretty sure Dustin didn't actually expect Hunter to turn up with said part for quite a while. The store wasn't exactly busy on a Wednesday afternoon, Kelly didn't seem to be around, and most of the employees were doing their own thing.

"You really want to get locked up at the dog pound?" Hunter was asking. "Or hit with a tranquilizer dart by wildlife control? Or hey, maybe someone will just take a shot at you and leave you to die in the woods. Bet a collar won't sound so stupid then."

Cam frowned at him. "First off, wolves are protected. And second, I'm not about to let anyone get close enough to toss me in a dog truck."

Hunter snorted. "Oh, good, an aggressive unlicensed dog. That's even better. Then the dogcatcher will start carrying a tranquilizer gun, they'll probably put up wanted posters, and you'll make the evening news with warnings about keeping small children and pets indoors.

"And just because a guy has a gun," Hunter continued, not letting him interrupt, "that doesn't mean he knows what he's shooting at. So wolves are threatened, so what? So he thinks you're a really big raccoon, a coyote, or hey, maybe that rabid dog people have been seeing around town!"

"No one's going to see me," Cam insisted. "Kathy says human wolves have been in the area for hundreds of years. No one's shot at them."

"She tell you that?" Hunter demanded.

Cam blinked. "Well, no. But we would have heard about it if someone had killed a werewolf."

"Yeah," Hunter scoffed, "just like we heard about the wolf blades before Shimazu. Or the aliens that have been coming and going from California for the last thirty years. Or hey, the secret ninja academy in the mountains. That stuff makes the news all the time, so if we haven't heard about it then obviously it isn't happening."

"No one's going to see me," Cam repeated, folding his arms. "I'm not stupid, Hunter. I'm not going to go strolling through a residential neighborhood in broad daylight."

"You could," Hunter informed him. "If you were wearing a collar."

It wasn't his most convincing argument, but Cam ended up leaving with the collar. He didn't actually wear it, but he did keep it where the wolf could reach it. Unfortunately, that meant leaving it out, which normally wouldn't have been a problem, but his cousins had discovered early on that he didn't lock his door anymore and they had an annoying tendency to make themselves at home.

Word of the collar made the rounds quickly after that. He and Hunter were still taking their share of teasing for dating in the first place, and the collar made it exponentially worse. On top of that, there were no alien incursions the entire week, so there wasn't a lot to distract them.

The return of the ninjas could have done it, of course, if they'd been allowed to integrate in any way. They weren't, but Cam did eventually figure out that his father was keeping the Rangers separate, not because they were useless, but because they were too powerful--both physically and symbolically. They were literally too strong to train with anyone outside the team, and they were the subject of too much hero worship to help the already struggling ninja hierarchy.

It was an odd thought. Their strength wasn't something they'd ever had to worry about, since they hadn't had anyone else to train with since before they'd received their morphers. And as far as hierarchy went, the Winds had always been at the bottom, the Thunders had been anonymously middle-ranked, and Cam had been outside of the power structure entirely.

Sensei finally met with them all again on Thursday, which was the day that the Wind Academy started to empty out again. All of the students had been accounted for, given several initial assessments--both physical and psychological--and then assisted in the process of relocating friends, relatives, and professional contacts. The school would remain largely shut down for the next week while returning ninjas dispersed to deal with the tangible consequences of their lost year.

Dealing with the intangible consequences would be a much longer process, and it occurred to Cam that maybe the Rangers were the lucky ones after all. Being left behind hadn't been fun, and holding the line against a seemingly unending flood of evil aliens and their cohorts had been life-altering and potentially life-ending. But at least they had still been living. At least they'd been able to do something.

Even now, being kept apart from everyone else and isolated from the academy itself, they were the ones who had somewhere else to go. No excuses or explanations, just more free time than they were used to and a whole lot of unanswered questions. Nothing like what the ninja students were going through right now.

Nothing worse than enduring his friends' mockery over the collar his boyfriend had given him. Cam smiled a little to himself, not sure whether the "boyfriend" or the "collar" part of that amused him more. Yeah, fighting Lothor had turned him into a wolf. But it had made him go after Hunter, too, and who knew that would turn out to be a good thing?

Hunter never did remember getting slammed to the deck by the wolf. Or waking up in the medical ward afterwards, for that matter. His memory of that entire afternoon was hazy to nonexistent, but he let Cam recount the rescue for him and he swore up and down that no, he wasn't lying about forgetting it, and yes, he would have forgiven the wolf for it anyway. Cam had to take his word for it, because Ava said that if he hadn't gotten the memory back by now he probably never would.

It wasn't so bad, Hunter told him later. It wasn't like he really needed another memory of Lothor's ship. The best part, according to him, was that Cam couldn't accuse him of not trusting him anymore. "'Cause really," Hunter drawled. "Demorphing as a giant wolf leaps at me? If that's not trust, I don't know what is."

The worst part, as far as Cam was concerned, was that he couldn't fill in all of the gaps himself. They talked about the recent lack of alien monsters at their meeting with his dad, but he honestly didn't know what had happened to Lothor. The wolf had been raging and out of control and distracted by Hunter before the situation could be objectively assessed.

His uncle could be dead. He acknowledged that aloud, and his father didn't flinch. The rest of the team was steady and matter-of-fact about it too. Which might have had something to do with the way Hunter sat next to him, leaning back against his shoulder and liberally distributing the evil eye while Cam talked, but he didn't really think so. He preferred to think that they had learned to deal with whatever came, and if there was a killer wolf inside the Green Samurai Ranger now, well, at least there was an alpha in his boyfriend.

Hopefully circumstances like those on Lothor's ship would never be repeated.

They would have the opportunity to train while the campus was closed, Sensei reminded them. Even if Lothor was dead, he had left behind generals and technology and enough kelzaks to consititute a serious threat. And they were the ones with the Power, they were the ones with the experience, and half the team was on the Scroll of Destiny. So they would keep their morphers and they would continue training as Rangers.

That was when Tori bit the bullet and told them all about the deal she'd made with Dill. Cam wasn't expecting Blake to look surprised, but he did. Hunter folded his arms and didn't say anything, even when Cam gave him an odd look. Sensei didn't seem at all taken aback, but then, he never did.

The rest of the Winds, not to mention Blake, gave Tori a harder time about the dolphin thing than Cam had ever gotten for being a wolf, and he wondered why. Because she had chosen it? Because she wasn't an alien with a guinea pig dad? Or just because she had kept it a secret?

It was still affecting her ninja abilities, she confessed. She didn't know why, and she didn't know exactly how, since the last time they had trained together had been last Friday--the day she'd gone off with Dill and come back a dolphin. They'd taken the weekend off from training, and they'd been basically banned from campus since, so it hadn't come up until now.

Cam was cynical enough to wonder at her timing, but not skeptical enough to say anything aloud. Her secret, he reminded himself. Her decision. He felt the press of Hunter's shoulder against his, and he knew what it was to have secrets again. After last week, when his soul had been laid bare for anyone who was watching, it was nice to have some control over his life again. He wasn't about to challenge the way Tori handled hers.

Hunter and Blake disappeared that night, off to check in at the Thunder Academy even if they weren't allowed to train there either anymore, and the Winds were left to sort out Tori's shapeshifting abilities on their own. Cam tried not to get involved, but they dragged him into it, and as the only other shapeshifter on the team he grudgingly admitted that it was fair. What help he actually was, he didn't know, but it kept them all out of trouble and maybe more importantly, off-campus.

By Friday the Wind Academy was deserted. Marah and Kapri were running around "fixing" things, there was still no sign of Lothor, and Sensei had cleared all the Rangers to come and go from the grounds again. Tori stopped by after school, alone, and she and Cam commiserated over the side effects of having animal alter egos.

Then she caught sight of one of her classmates, which was odd given the current quiescent nature of the site, and she and Cam conferred quietly before agreeing that Tori was the more approachable choice for confidant. So Cam sat back and watched as Tori flagged the other girl down. Not a first-year--he was sure he'd seen her around longer than that prior Lothor's arrival--but no element badge, either, despite the blue accents on her training uniform.

Nena. The name came back to him suddenly, and he had a vague recollection of her training. Much like Tori, she'd failed her first water test. And she'd been in the process of failing her second when Lothor arrived. What was she doing at the academy now, he wondered? Didn't she have friends, family, someone who would have missed her while she was away?

He was still sitting there some time later. Not wondering about Tori's water ninja so much as he was just enjoying the quiet... he felt like lying down and closing his eyes. He wasn't tired, and he didn't really do it, but he did think about it.

The wolf, he figured. Run or rest. No in between.

Somewhat surprisingly, Cam didn't mind. He worked hard, he always had, and he knew people worried about him burning out. It wasn't something he gave much thought to himself, but he did find himself enjoying the chance to actually stop when he was taking a break instead of just starting work on a different project.

He let Blake sneak up on him. He heard the other Ranger coming before he saw him, but he was relaxed and unworried and he was safer here on his own ground than probably anywhere else in the world. So he didn't react, didn't even look around until Blake said his name.

Of course, Cam didn't give him the satisfaction of thinking he might have startled him, either. "Blake," he said aloud, not moving. Tori and Nena were gone, Blake was alone, and Cam could only imagine what Hunter's brother had to say to him right now.

"You've got a lot of nerve," Blake remarked. His tone was perfectly even. "Thinking you can come between Hunter and me like this."

That made Cam turn around, at least. He hadn't expected Blake to say that aloud. He knew perfectly well that Blake didn't like having Cam around in this new capacity as--well, as rival for Hunter's attention. He also knew that he was a lot more interested in what Hunter thought than he was in whatever problem Blake was having. So he didn't put as much effort as he could have into trying to figure it out.

"I like nerve," Blake was saying. He was standing there, arms folded, a half-smile on his face. "I respect that."

Cam studied him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said at last, which was mostly true. He had won. He knew it and Blake knew it. So what did he care if Blake was okay with it?

He looked away, telling the wolf to stop it already. Of course he cared what Blake thought. They were a team, they were friends--or they had been. "Sorry," he muttered at the ground. "I know I've been kind of... confrontational, lately."

"Yeah, like that's new." Blake sounded so much like his adopted brother then that Cam looked up in surprise. Blake was even wearing the same familiar smirk, and, not for the first time, Cam wondered how the two of them shared so many mannerisms.

"Look," Blake said. "I don't like this wolf thing. I don't like how weird it makes Hunter. But I don't have any problem with you, and I don't have a problem with you and him together. Okay?"

Cam frowned, defensive and annoyed and aware that it wasn't the wolf's reaction at all. He didn't need Blake's approval to be who he was. He didn't need Blake's permission to be with Hunter. And he definitely didn't need Blake's acceptance of the wolf.

But Hunter did. Hunter would want it. And Hunter didn't need him and Blake at each other's throats if there was any possible way to prevent it.

"There are things about this that I don't like either," Cam said at last. "There are things about it that I do like, but there's a lot I could do without. I'm not gong to add competing with you to that list."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blake demanded.

Cam suppressed a sigh. "It means 'I don't have a problem with you either,'" he said. "All right?"

There was a long pause before Blake nodded, and in the quiet, Cam could hear voices from the direction of the waterfall. Convenient, he thought. Lucky. Neither of them wanted to be the one that walked away, and if that was Tori on her way back, they might not have to.

"Right," Blake finally said. "Fine."

Then he added, "Hunter says the pack has ranks. How does that work?"

Cam blinked. Taken by surprise, he admitted, "I don't know. Why?"

"I always heard Iza was the pack leader," Blake said with a shrug. "But Hunter said he was in charge at the community center, and you basically do whatever he says, so."

Cam just stared at him, too confused to be offended by the implication. Had Blake somehow missed the concept of "alpha" all this time? Had Cam known what it was before he'd experienced it for himself? He was trying to figure out if it was even possible that Blake had no idea, or if Cam had just misunderstood a more complicated question, when Blake caught sight of Tori and her friend.

"Company," Blake muttered, and Cam blinked again. His immediate reaction was, yes, thank you, he'd noticed them five minutes ago. His next response was, wait, was that a display of... solidarity?

"It's like the Rangers," he said abruptly. "We can all work independently, but if we're going to do anything as a group, someone's decisions have to be more important than everyone else's. We have to agree to let someone be the leader. Like Shane. Or Hunter.

"That's what the alpha is," he continued, keeping his voice quiet enough that it wouldn't carry to the girls. "It's just whoever the majority respects in any given situation. Leaders of little groups, like family packs, or the Rangers, answer to leaders of bigger groups. Like Iza, or the academy's sensei."

Blake was staring at him, and Cam couldn't tell if it was because of the explanation itself or the fact that he'd given it at all. "So," he said after a moment. "Hunter's in charge when he's with you, but not, like... if he was with Iza, he wouldn't be?"

Cam couldn't squash the flare of irritation this time. "He's not in charge," he snapped. "I just listen to him. That's all."

Blake looked taken aback instead of amused, and that was all it took to convince Cam that he hadn't really been thinking about it that way. He really was just trying to understand. He wasn't thinking about what it meant.

"Okay," Blake was saying. "Whatever, you listen to him. And he listens to Iza?"

"He's supposed to," Cam said reluctantly. And just like that, it hit him: why Iza didn't like Hunter. "He doesn't feel it, though. That's she's the alpha."

"Wolves can feel it," he elaborated, when Blake gave him a weird look. "It's just, I don't know--instinctive, I guess. We know who to trust. I trust Hunter. And he should trust Iza. But he doesn't... He doesn't have any reason to. Because he doesn't feel it."

"Hi guys," Tori called. Her voice was cheerful, but he though the question was sincere when she added, "Are we interrupting?"

He and Blake exchanged glances.

"Nah." Blake turned toward them with a grin, unfolding his arms and hooking his thumbs in his pockets. "Just catching up on academy stuff. Who's your friend?"

"This is Nena," Tori said, smiling at the other ninja student. "Nena, this is Blake, and you already know Cam, right?"

Blake's and Nena's "hello"s overlapped, but she shook her head in Cam's direction. "We saw each other around," she offered carefully. "I don't think we were ever introduced."

"Cam," he said, holding out his hand. It was redundant, and he did it on purpose, as a joke, because she looked like she wasn't quite sure if he was going to chew her out or ignore her. And depending on how much she had known about him before the Rangers, that was probably fair.

The gesture made her smile a little, and she held out her hand in return. "Nena," she replied. "Nice to meet you."

He shook her hand. "Same here."

"There's a rumor going around," Nena continued, surprising him with her frank stare. "That the wolf on Lothor's ship was you."

Cam raised his eyebrows, and he saw Blake and Tori look at each other out of the corner of his eyes. "That's true," he said. He hadn't realized it was still just a rumor.

Her reaction was possibly the last thing he had expected. "Congratulations," she said. "That was fast."

It took him several seconds to figure out what she was thinking. He hadn't even been a student when she left, and now, as far as she knew, he had Ranger powers and ninja transmogriphication abilities. Maybe she figured a sensei's son advanced through the disciplines more quickly than the average student?

"It's not a ninja animal form," he told her. "I fought Lothor by myself and lost. Hence the wolf."

She tilted her head to one side, still staring at him intently. "Lothor turned you into a wolf?"

Had it really only been two weeks ago? Not even, Cam realized. Now the explanation felt like it would take hours. "It's a long story," he said simply.

Another smile broke through, and this time it touched her eyes. "I bet."

Something about that made him smile back. He was surprised when Tori interrupted, "Hey, have you seen Hunter?"

Cam gave her an odd look, wondering if she thought he needed to be reminded of who he was dating. "He's not here yet." They were supposed to meet at the academy for dinner tonight, all of them together. It was a combination of a "welcome back" party and a planning session, and maybe some of the Rangers had ideas about Halloween that Cam was trying to ignore. If there had ever been a more unnecessary holiday, he didn't know what it was.

April Fool's. Now that he thought of it, actually, that was an even more useless holiday. He didn't like days when people deliberately set out to embarrass other people. Mostly because he was usually one of the people being embarrassed.

"Nah, he and Dustin are out by the road," Blake corrected. "Dustin's got some new thing he's testing out."

"We saw them," Tori agreed, glancing at Nena. "I wasn't asking where he was," she added, and now she turned her most innocent expression on Cam. "I was just asking if you'd seen him."

Cam frowned back at her. What did it matter? If she had another collar crack coming, she could just keep it to herself. Against his better judgement, he asked warily, "Why?"

"No reason," she said blithely.

It did make him a little nervous that Blake was smirking too, but that was all he got out of her until the rest of the team came tromping through the woods toward the training grounds. Even at a distance, he could see that the tallest figure was wearing a black bandana, and Cam rolled his eyes. Hunter had come in costume, then. Great. He supposed he could at least be thankful that everyone was wearing their ninja uniform: it limited creativity.

But not enough, he realized a minute later, when Tori noticed them and he looked up again to check their progress. Hunter was carrying a brightly colored bird under his arm, ignored while he and Dustin talked animatedly over Shane's objections, and the black bandana had been tied pirate-style over what was obviously a wig. A bright green wig.

Cam was going to kill him.

He entertained the killing option very seriously for about three quarters of a second, which was how long it took him to notice that everyone in their group had turned to catch his reaction. Blake was looking at him out of the corner of his eye, Tori was grinning at him, and even Nena was darting curious glances back and forth from the incoming Rangers to him. So he folded his arms, schooled his expression, and bit his tongue.

Then Shane caught sight of them, and of course, his eyes went straight to Cam. Something made him laugh, and he slapped Hunter's shoulder before waving at their little gathering. "Hi guys!" Shane yelled. "Happy Halloween!"

Hunter looked for him first too, but when Cam glared at him, his gaze slid away to land on Blake. "You've gotta see Dustin's bike!" he crowed. "It's got killer speed now, you're not gonna believe it!"

"I told you Perry could do it," Dustin interrupted, shoving him like he really wanted to be jumping up and down but knew he'd be mocked for it. "Dude, you've just gotta give him a chance and he can do, like, anything!"

"Hello," Shane added, finally noticing Nena as they joined the group gathered around Cam. "I'm Shane." And he was very suave about it, but after seeing him hanging out with Skyla the whole week, Cam had finally realized that Shane was just like that. He wasn't trying to impress anyone, he was just being himself.

It wasn't so different from Blake's usual attitude, if it came to that.

"Nena," she answered, nodding to him.

"And this is Dustin and Hunter," Tori added, when they were still too busy congratulating each other to acknowledge her. The sound of their names got their attention, and she added, "Or should I say, Dustin and Blackbeard?"

"Parrothead," Hunter corrected cheerfully, brandishing his stuffed animal with one hand and holding the other one out to Nena. "Hey."

"Hi," Dustin added, while she shook Hunter's hand. He grabbed Hunter's parrot away from him and used it to peck Cam. "I love Cam!" he declared in a squeaky, supposedly bird-like voice. "Caw!"

Cam wished he could get his eyes to glow on command, because he thought the freaky look would add weight to his stare. "Parrots don't caw, Dustin. That's crows."

"Well, maybe he's imitating a crow or something," Dustin retorted. "You don't know."

The conversation degenerated from there, and Cam tried to keep his mouth shut as long as he could. The parrot got passed around, there were the obligatory remarks about Hunter's "hair" matching Cam's collar--which he really could have done without, especially in front of someone outside the team--and Hunter made fun of them all for "dressing up" like ninjas.

This prompted Blake to protest that he was actually in costume as a spy. "I'm like a chameleon," he declared. "I blend in wherever I go. You never know I'm not one of you until it's too late."

"Yeah, and I'm like, a motocross rider pretending to be a ninja student," Dustin agreed.

Cam thought Dustin might have missed the point, since that actually described him pretty well, but he didn't want to get dragged into this. Especially when Tori informed Hunter that she was a dolphin, so he'd better get off her back about dressing up or she would get into "costume." That gave everyone a moment's pause while they tried to figure out whether she'd really do it or not.

Apparently deciding that not asking was the better part of valor, Shane said smoothly, "I'm a ninja master. I wear a student's uniform to denote my modest mastery." This was followed by an entirely appropriate amount of mocking while he pretended to slick his hair back.

"Nena can be a Ranger," Tori decided then, and to Cam's surprise, she pulled her morpher off and handed it over. Nena didn't take it, so Tori lifted her hand and put the morpher on the other girl's wrist herself. "There! Now we're all in costume!"

"Except Cam," Dustin had to say, and Cam sighed.

"Come on," Hunter scoffed. "Anyone can see what Cam is just by looking at him. He's my arch-nemesis," he added, taking the parrot back from Tori and setting it on his own shoulder. "Every pirate needs enemies."

"The sea police!" Shane exclaimed. "Dude, that's totally you."

"Yeah, that does kind of describe you," Dustin remarked. "Except for the 'sea' part."

"You've got the glower down," Blake added.

If only ignoring Halloween made it go away, Cam thought, he would be all set. Unfortunately, holidays weren't particularly obliging that way. Lucky for the rest of the world, because if they were there would be a lot fewer of them.

Hunter caught up with him when they finally started in the direction of the academy proper, building restored by the same magic that had destroyed it the year before. "Hey, nemesis," he said under his breath. "You all right?"

Cam glared at the others, just in principle, but Hunter had picked one of those rare moments when no one was paying any attention to them. What was he supposed to say, though? "I think Halloween is an embarrassing holiday"? "I'm tired of everyone making fun of us for going out"? "I can't believe I'm dating someone who names his pirate persona 'Parrothead'"?

"It's just the wig," he muttered at last. "It's a bit much."

"The--oh," Hunter said, and there was a long pause. "Um, how pissed would you be if I said it wasn't a wig?"

Cam frowned, not getting it. Then he looked at Hunter--really looked at him--and Hunter shrugged apologetically. The bright green strands brushed his collar when he lifted his shoulders, and they suddenly looked very... real. Cam stared at him.

"It's not permanent," Hunter said quickly. "I mean, it'll wash out. In a week or... two, maybe."

Cam couldn't quite get his mind around the idea. "You dyed your hair green?" he repeated.

Hunter stopped where he was and reached up to pull the bandana off. It was even more shockingly green without the bandana to cover it up, and Cam couldn't stop staring at it. Hunter gave him a sheepish grin, ducking his head to prove that yes, it was dyed all the way to the roots.

"Why?" Cam wanted to know. He was only peripherally aware of the others going on without them, either not realizing that they had stopped or deliberately ignoring them. He hoped it was the latter, because after this week? They owed him.

Hunter shrugged again. "I was bleaching it last night and I went a little overboard. But it's Halloween, so I figured, why not?"

"Bleaching it?" Cam echoed. He couldn't seem to get past even the most basic part of this story. "Why were you bleaching it? Your hair's lighter than Tori's."

"Yeah," Hunter agreed, giving him an odd look. "Because I bleach it."

Really? And he'd never noticed that? He was struck by the sudden urge to smell Hunter's hair, and he told the wolf to shut up. "What color is it normally?" he wanted to know.

"Normally it's blonde," Hunter said patiently. "Naturally? It's brown."

Cam studied him, deciding he had to have known that and just never really acknowledged it. It was obvious when he looked for it. Maybe that was the answer, though: he hadn't looked for it. He supposed he'd just never wanted to admit he cared about Hunter's hair.

"You weirding out on me?" Hunter wanted to know. "I didn't do it to piss you off. I kind of like it, actually."

Cam lowered his gaze, smiling. "It's different," he allowed. Green hair. And the Winds teased Tori for wearing navy blue. They'd never hear the end of this.

Maybe he didn't need to hear the end of it. It was a strange thing to think, all of a sudden, that he didn't really mind being the center of attention. It wasn't so strange to think that Hunter might as well declare himself Cam's, because he was, and that wasn't going to change just because the color eventually washed out of his hair.

"Hey." Hunter touched his chin tentatively, and Cam looked up in surprise, because out of every look, every word, every kiss they'd shared that gentle touch might be the most intimate thing Hunter had ever done.

"What?" Hunter added, letting his hand fall. "The hair? Seriously, that's your thing now? Amnesia, collars, all the shit I've done and it's the hair you don't like?"

Cam couldn't think of any response but to laugh. For so many reasons, for no reason at all, maybe because there was nothing else Hunter could have said and Cam still couldn't have anticipated that question for anything in the world. He couldn't predict Hunter, and he couldn't control anything about him... but he could trust him.

"I like the hair," he interrupted, when Hunter opened his mouth to protest.

Hunter frowned, and Cam repeated firmly, "I like it." He didn't even bother to look around for the others before he reached up to touch the disturbingly green color that now framed Hunter's face.

Whatever he used, it must be good stuff, because his hair felt perfectly normal under its heavy tint. Normal and soft and curly and Cam didn't even realize he'd buried his fingers in it until he was breath away from Hunter's face and he was absolutely about to kiss him except that Hunter got there first. And when he got the chance he didn't even think before whispering, "I like you."

He felt Hunter's soft sound of amusement on his skin, and that silly stuffed parrot was still in his hand because he could feel it against his hip where Hunter was almost-holding onto him. There was something about standing so close to each other in the middle of the training grounds that felt more real than anything they'd done in Hunter's apartment. Which wasn't a direction his mind needed to go right now, if it came right down to it.

"Yeah, well," Hunter said, giving him an annoyingly sexy look from under his eyelashes. "Sometimes I like you too."

His eyelashes were brown, Cam noted. Had he really never noticed that before?

"Don't make me growl at you," he told Hunter.

Hunter just smirked at him. "Bring it on."