"Alright," Dawn said. Taking the strawberries over to the sink, she washed them off and dried them with a paper towel.

By that time, Nika had set up a plate with foil over it and was starting to melt the chocolate. She hummed quietly, a little off-tune, as she did.

Dawn set the strawberries down on the counter, within Nika's reach.

"A little higher," she said absently.

"My humming?" Nika just smiled with a hint of embarrassment. "Yeah, I'm a little tone deaf. I can never tell if I'm off or not."

She started dipping the strawberries, twirling it in the chocolate before placing it on the foil.

Dawn blinked, and then blushed slightly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize..." she said. "It was completely unintentional."

"I didn't actually think you were," Nika said after a moment. "You have music in the blood. You weren't even thinking about what you said." She shrugged.

She frowned at the strawberries for a moment. "I think we're gonna need another plate."

"Still, I didn't mean it," Dawn replied. She poked around the kitchen until she found another plate, and handed it to her. "In the morning, do you want to follow me to my mom's place? I can pick up the spare guitar then, and we might even make it in time for lunch."

"Cool. Thanks." Nika shot her a quick smile. "I think I'd like to meet your mom." She'd met mothers before, of course, but never in the capacity of being someone's friend, and never someone who knew about everything else.

"She's cool," Dawn agreed. "Since it's a weekend, all three of them should be home, too. Brian's still in high school, and Dave teaches a Saturday class, but is out by lunchtime." She grinned. "Please humor Dave if he asks questions. I've yet to figure out how to actually get him to Chiron so he can bother him. Dave is a classical mythology teacher."

Nika nodded. "Okay. Just tell me if I get too... honest. Or anything." She shrugged. She had no idea what to expect.

"He shouldn't ask anything too in-depth," Dawn replied. "Though he might ask about the original gold-net incident." She grinned. "He's gotten all the information out of me that he possibly can. You are officially an untapped resource."

A slow grin spread across Nika's face. "You mean he's only heard half the embarrassing, horrifying, and humiliating stories about Ares and he's willing to listen to all of them?"

"You have no idea," Dawn replied. She grinned. "You'll like my step-dad. Just be prepared to answer questions about things like what Ares kids can do and all that. I had to answer a million of them once I started going to camp. Dave knows about as much about my abilities and my brothers' abilities as I do."

Nika nodded. "That's fine," she agreed. "I don't mind. I can probably tell him more about the gods in general too."

"I'm sure he'll appreciate it," Dawn replied. "Like I said, just humor him."

"I can do that." Nika grinned.

Dawn grinned.

"I'm sure he'll be tempted to adopt you or something," she said. She glanced at the plate of strawberries, and her hand flashed out and grabbed one.

Nika rolled her eyes and put the rest of the strawberries in the fridge to cool and harden. "Well I don't know if you can adopt someone who's already legal, but he's welcome to try."

Dawn snickered a little around the chocolate covered strawberry.

"Well, either way, we can drop by tomorrow," she said once she finished the fruit.

"Yeah." Nika got out the ice cream so it could defrost and be not a solid chunk when they wanted it.

"So what now?"

"Up to you," Dawn replied. "I could always break out the guitar again."

"Nah, we've got music lessons planned for tomorrow," Nika said. "Hmm. Well, there's watching bad sci-fi movies on TV."

"Those are terrible," Dawn replied, though she was still grinning a bit. "At least see what's on TNT or HBO or something. Even FX."

"Here, you do the channel surfing," Nika said, handing over the remote. "I only watch maybe four channels."

Dawn rolled her eyes, but took the remote. Immediately she flipped to Discovery to see what was on.