"Yeah..well, never said I was one to clean."

Athena arched an eyebrow, feeling herself smile as he did. It mae things less awkward she thought, to tease. And she liked teasing him. Athena was finding she liked a lot of things about him.

"Do your best," she cautioned, ready and willing to do her best at pummeling him if she came home to bugs and a mess. "But you can stay if you want, if that would be easier and all."

Would he be sleeping in her bed? And why was she concerned about that? All the same, it made her feel a bit strange, in a way she didn't quite understand yet.

"A month? That's a long time, love. Will ya...will ya mind, at all, if I wrote ya?"

A long time. Yeah, he was telling her. She didn't want to go. In fact, she thought she had plenty of right to stay right where she was and continue on with a somewhat stable life that she was developing.

"No," she answered. "You ever owl anything before?" Probably. He had a sister who was a witch and he... well, he knew other witches, didn't he. "I'll see if I can get my parents to let us borrow one of theirs or something." The sentence coated her mouth with it's usness.

And suddenly, a fear heretofore unknown to Athena gripped at her, at the once fearless warrior of Kent. A month was a long time. A lot could happen in a month. He'd meet a lot of people in a month, and chances being what they were, about half of those people would be female. And out of that population, a great deal of them might be his age, and attractive, and a lot more willing to let him get close than she happened to be at the moment. And she didn't want that. Athena would eradicate all of those types from the whole of the world, or at least his world. Somehow.

But how to articulate this? She didn't know how without sounding stupid. And so she simply stood silent, letting those strange thoughts and fears and feelings whorl around inside of her imagination.

"You'll not forget about me," she blurted. It wasn't a question, or even a suggestion, but a flat out statement. He wouldn't. She'd not let him.