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Chapter Text

He could hardly believe that she was real sometimes.

It was three in the morning; and he watched her sleep, something he had taken to doing since she returned to him one blustering cold morning. She slept so soundly, curled up in a little ball taking as little space as possible, completely unmoving, not making a noise. He’d wake up suddenly, startled by a dream, and bolt upright, believing that she’d gone again, only to turn and see her lying there. She’s quieter than the dead, he thought, but no, that wasn’t not right, because she was alive – gods be good, she was alive – when he’d spent the last five years thinking she’d died.

The other Brothers hadn’t recognized her at first. Lem had pointed her out, a lone woman on a pale mare, and called out to her, saying she was stupid for being on her own. Women shouldn’t be on their own during times like these. Things had never been particularly safe, but they certainly weren’t now. She’d trotted up to them, the same defiance in her eyes, and said that Lem was the one that shouldn’t be on his own. Well, he’d heard the commotion and had come out from behind a tree where he’d been pissing, so that he could tell the woman that Lem wasn’t alone, only to be nearly blown off his feet.

“Arya?” he’d croaked, the name clogging his throat.

She had blinked at him, as if unsure whether or not that was her name, but her eyes were grey as the sky that morning. Her hair might have been longer, in a silky braid, and her body might have been much more filled underneath the men’s clothing, but she had the look of a wolf all over her. Her grip had tightened on her dirk at her side, but he had been in too much shock to care and Lem had looked like he might shit his britches.

It had been two weeks since then, and she was lying in his bed, as close and far from him as possible. He didn’t think it was even possible for her to be here and there were some nights when he woke up that he was sure she was just a dream. But then he would look over and there she was, defying him even in her sleep. He desperately wanted to reach out and touch her, every night, every morning, just to wash away his insecurities, but he was far too afraid. Despite the fact that they had shared a bed every night since then, they hadn’t touched one another since that first morning, when she’d dropped off her horse and thrown herself into his arms. She had been wild, out of control, and he’d felt her whole body vibrating then, but ever since then, she’d been still and quiet.

They didn’t talk much, but when they did, the words would rush out of her like a river. If they slept in an inn or someone’s home, he’d always offer her the bed. She always shook her head. The first night, there had been enough beds for everyone, including her, in the whore house they’d stayed in. His had been the only bed that hadn’t also been occupied by a woman’s body and squeals of delight. Arya had appeared silently at his bedside, looking nervous like the girl of six and ten that she was, tittering on the balls of her feet. She held her pillow in her hands. “Can I—?” It was all she had to ask. The smile had jerked onto his face and he pat the mattress. She’d slipped in next to him, but made sure that she was on the very edge, as far from him as possible, with her back turned to him. He hadn’t cared and he still didn’t. It was enough to just have her in his sight and to feel the heat of her body under the blanket.

And to think, he might not have found her. It had all been by accident. The Brotherhood had been traveling, looking for food and trouble and whatever they could come across, hunting bandits throughout the Riverlands. He had left the place he’d kept with Jeyne, after a knight had come to take his place and sweep Jeyne into his life. It had made him happy, and he’d moved on. He thought that he’d forgotten about Arya, but on those nights when they traveled endlessly and he grew exhausted on his horse, his thoughts would creep back to the wolf girl that had brought him here in the first place.

“Gendry?”

He snapped out of his reverie and turned on his side to look at the girl next to him. “Yeah?”

She was lying on her back, holding her dirk tightly in her hands. She always slept clutching the knife like a child might hold onto a doll. Tom had joked about her accidentally stabbing Gendry with it while they slept, but he knew that she would never do that; she never moved in her sleep. He waited for her to say something, but she was silent. If not for the fact that her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling, he would’ve thought that he had imagined hearing her speak his name.

Finally, after licking her lips, she spoke again: “I hated you for so long.” These weren’t exactly the words he wanted to hear, but he listened to her anyways. “I don’t – not anymore. I just thought you’d abandoned me, like everyone did in the end, but it was really me all along; I was the one that abandoned you.”

“You don’t have to apologize–”

“I know,” she said quickly, still not looking at him. She chewed on her bottom lip and then added, “I wanted to come back, but I didn’t think there was anything left here for me. My family was dead; and I’d heard that someone was acting as me. I was as good as dead. But mostly…I didn’t think anyone would want me to come back. I thought it might… I thought it might upset things. I’d just lost everything, and I didn’t even care that the Boltons had Winterfell.”

The memory of what had happened when he’d heard that Arya Stark was marrying Ramsay Bolton washed over him as silence fell between them. He hadn’t known who Ramsay Bolton was, but Lem had told him a few stories that had made Gendry sick to his stomach. He had nearly ridden to Winterfell in a fit of insanity, but a few of the Brothers had dragged him back and locked him in a room until he got his wits together. It had been stupid, but he hadn’t been able to handle the thought of her marrying a monster like that. A month after though, he’d come to the conclusion that it couldn’t be her. She was dead. From all the reports they’d been given, she’d last been seen at the Red Wedding, and very few people had returned alive from there.

“I almost lost it when I heard you were marrying the Bastard,” he said quietly. If she was going to marry a bastard, he had thought furiously, then why did it have to be that one? No one had talked about it, but Thoros had put a hand on his shoulders. He’d seen the stormy look that had appeared on Gendry’s face after that.

She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. “Stupid, you should have known better. I would have died again before letting them marry me off to him.” She fingered the dirk while she spoke, twirling it delicately in her fingers. Looking down at it, she bit her lip again and then carefully laid it on the nightstand. It was the first time she’d parted with it while lying in bed. “I grew up hearing stories about him. I would have died before I let him touch me and take Winterfell from me.” And he knew she was telling the truth. The girl in bed next to him was still the girl he had known all those years ago. She would have died a thousand times before letting Bolton take her. A smile twitched onto her face, as if it was uncomfortable being there. “Besides, you and Jon are the only bastards for me.”

Unable to stop himself, he reached out and grasped her fingers, just barely. She stiffened at first, and he started to retract, but then she grabbed at his hands. “I thought I lost you. I never forgave myself.”

“Why are you so stupid? I was the one that left.”

“Why did you come back? You still haven’t told me.”

She let go of him, and he pulled his hands back. There was a distant look on her face, but her eyes were filled with pain that she couldn’t hide, not from him at least. “Rickon…” She swallowed. “When I heard that Rickon was alive and Winterfell was being contested for – I realized that I wasn’t alone, that I never had been. I’d just made myself think that there was nothing left for me in Westeros, when I was really just avoiding my responsibilities. And then Sansa revealed herself to be alive and I–” Emotion seemed to clog her throat, but she pushed on resolutely. “I knew it was time to come back and face all my fears. I couldn’t avoid who I was, no matter how hard I tried to hide it. I am a Stark of Winterfell, of the North, and winter is always coming.”

“The Boltons will be even more furious when you show up. Ramsay still claims Winterfell is his through his marriage to you, despite Rickon’s being alive.”

“And despite the marriage being completely fake.” The grin on her face was filled with more amusement than it should have been. It was a wolf’s cruel grin that was cut on her face, ragged and vicious. “He’ll be even more furious when I cut his balls off and feed them to the wolves. All of the North will want a piece of him, but I think I deserve the first go since he is my husband.”

He let out a cold laugh. “You are the same as ever and different all the same.”

She settled a serious look on him suddenly, like she might’ve been seized with the panic of not knowing who she was. She had a look about her sometimes, when people talked to her, that suggested she didn’t know how she was supposed to respond or act. What would the real Arya Stark do? her face seemed to ask, as if unsure. But then she would look at him and he would smile and she would find herself again. “I’m glad it was you who found me.”

He snorted. “I think it was the other way around. I had my pants around my ankles while you did all the work.”

“As usual.” Without warning, she scooted closer to him, pressing her body against his chest. Panic and fear shot through his chest like an arrow, but he didn’t move. She was warm, warmer than he’d expected when she acted like winter itself, and it felt pleasant to have her so close. Her hair smelled like smoke from the fire they'd made earlier. She always stood too close to the fire. “You don’t have to go with me, you know. None of you do. I didn’t ask you. This is my battle; and I won’t ask you to fight it.”

“If it’s your battle, then it’s mine.” He tentatively moved his arm so that it was around her, allowing her to be closer to him. “Besides, I remember you promising me that I could smith for your brother, and, well, I’m kind of unemployed these days. Once this battle is won” – because it would be won, no matter what – “if you like, I could stay.”

She smacked him gently on the chest. “First off, you’ll be smithing for me.”

“You?”

“Yes, you’re going to be my personal smith. No one else can have you.”

“Seems a bit selfish, I think.”

“I can’t have everyone running around with the finest swords and armor.” She looked up at him, her eyes as bright as the moon, and he couldn’t help but smile. How they managed to joke about something so serious was beyond him, but nearly everything she was and did was beyond him. The fact that she was here was so beyond him that it scared him sometimes.

“As m’lady commands.”

She smacked him much harder this time. “And I’ll have none of that.” He bit back a response and instead nodded his head. She nuzzled against him, growing silent and still again. Her chest slowly rose and fell into a rhythmic pattern while his heart was still hammering away in his chest. All the nights that they had slept in the same bed, he had not once expected her to be the one to move closer to him. The moment had passed and he was sure that she had fallen asleep again when he heard her whisper, “Don’t ever leave me.”

He looked down at her. “I won’t.”

Somehow, she managed to press herself closer to him. “Not ever. Not in any way. I don’t want anyone to leave anymore. The pack has to stay together.”

“You just don’t leave me, okay?”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

No, she was wrong. It was all he worried about and it would consume him every day. He held onto her now as she fell asleep in his arms, sure it was a dream that he’d wake up to eventually, but for now, he was happy with this.

Chapter Text

“Your red god has made you weak,” she snarled, her white teeth gleaming in the firelight. “There is only one god, and he will get what is his through me, not you or anyone else.”

“You dare defy me? I am your rightful king, and you will do as you are told.”

“Really? There’s a king in every corner of the world these days. I can’t be sure which the right one is.”

“There are plenty Arya Starks running around as well. You are the third.”

“I am the only Arya Stark.” Her eyes were like an oncoming blizzard, furious and cold and grey. They were the color of the North, of winter and the long night to come, of every imaginable atrocity that had been done to Stark house.

Gendry watched with a closed expression as Stannis Baratheon glowered at the young woman before him. There was no doubting that Arya Stark was a woman now. Through sheer power and stubbornness, she had pushed through the snows of the North, determined to seek whatever end she could find. Instead of finding Winterfell though, they had been found by southern knights and taken before the “rightful king.” Once Arya had stated who she was, the knights had tried to separate the Brothers, but mostly they had tried to pull Arya away from him. She’d sliced the fingers off of one man before Gendry had stopped her from killing another. The look in her eyes in that moment had been terrible.

People were naturally suspicious at first. From what he’d heard, Arya Stark had escaped Winterfell with Theon Greyjoy three years ago and had been sent to the Wall to meet with her bastard brother, Lord Commander Jon Snow. The Wall had been blocked off from most of Westeros from the winter storm, so no news had been heard of since then. The moment Arya – the real Arya that I can touch and is real, blood and bones and rage – had found this out, her hard face had slipped and the face of a lonely child had flickered in the light. It hurt her that a fake was able to see her beloved brother when she could not. However, she’d chucked that vulnerable face away and demanded to see the king. They’d tried to take only her, but he’d stupidly stepped in between the knights and Arya. It had taken a lot of not-so-empty threats to allow him to stay at her side.

Of course she would refuse to bend the knee the moment they were escorted to his room while Gendry had fallen to his knees without thinking. This was more than her being highborn and him being lowborn. She just didn’t care.

“When do you plan to take Winterfell?” Arya looked and sounded very relaxed. The way she said the words was almost flippant, like it was an afterthought. Gendry could tell differently though. She may have been leaning back in her seat, her arms hanging loosely over the armrests and her legs crossed, almost proper-like, but her eyes were sharp and her face was stone. She would not have Stannis leaving her out of this, no matter how hard he tried to deny her.

“I will let you know once I have killed the Bastard.”

Without warning, Arya was on her feet and her dirk was buried deep into the wood of the table in between Stannis’ splayed hands. Five knights jumped at the noise and started to unsheathe their swords. Gendry did the same, despite the odds being very much against him, and stepped towards Arya. However, neither the king nor the wolf girl had moved.

“The Bastard is mine!” she snapped ferociously. One hand was pressed against the table while the other gripped the handle of her dagger so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Stannis did not stand from his seat; he looked as if he hadn’t been bothered in the slightest and so his guards stood unsurely. Gendry felt his head spinning. “He owes a death, and it is mine to give. He used my name to strip Winterfell from the Starks, and I will take it back for my brother Rickon. You had three years to take Winterfell back; and you failed. It is my turn now, with my god and my sword.”

Stannis stood up, an icy look in his blue eyes. They were eyes that Gendry saw every day. “I am your king.”

Arya jerked the dagger out of the table. “And I will bend the bloody knee once I reclaim what is my family’s. I learned a long time ago not to care about whose ass sits on the Iron Throne. My only concerns are the North and my family. As should yours.” In this moment, her eyes strangely fleeted to Gendry, and he saw something in them that looked remarkably like understanding. She turned away from him, glaring back at Stannis Baratheon. “I only ask to have what is mine and my family’s.”

For a few minutes, Stannis said nothing. The two merely stared at each other, as if locked in a competition. Gendry felt out of place in the room, his hand still gripping the pommel of his sword, but there was nothing he could do but watch. It wasn’t his place to speak to highborns, no matter how much Arya gave him hell over that. Stannis Baratheon was not like to give a bastard any leniency.

“Your men can fight?” Stannis finally asked.

“As well as any of your men, if not better,” she proclaimed proudly. Gendry wasn’t so sure of that. These were actual knights at Stannis’ command, although half of his army seemed to be made of hill tribes according to Arya. He was a knight himself, but he had never particularly felt like one or even been trained in combat. He’d only ever fought bandits and outlaws and drunks. “You need all the help you can get. Take what I’m offering you – or I will take it for myself. I don’t need your permission to take what is mine.”

“Very well then.” Stannis stood up and waved a hand at the door. “In a week’s time. We are drawing the plans now. I will let you in on them in the coming days, so that we may prepare. As long as you pledge fealty to me, you can have the Bastard and Winterfell may be returned to your House. Where we were enemies before, Baratheon and Stark may be allies once again.” Arya shoved her dagger back into its sheath, turned on her heels, and swept out of the room. Gendry made a funny bow, unsure of what to do since Arya showed blatant disrespect, and then moved to follow her when Stannis called out again, “Boy.”

Gendry froze. His eyes were ahead, and he saw that Arya had stopped too. She turned around, looking at him blankly; she gave him a quick nod, and Gendry turned around to face the Baratheon king. “Your Grace?” It had been a long time since anyone had called him boy. He had seen twenty name days come and go without anyone, least of all himself, to care. And war aged everyone. It looked as if it had worn Stannis ragged.

“What is your name? Ser Clayton told me you nearly knocked his teeth out when he tried to part you from Lady Stark.” Though there was no smile or hint of amusement in Stannis’ voice (Gendry doubted there ever was), he still looked like he thought the ruckus might have been humorous. Ser Clayton, a burly and fairly unattractive man standing behind Stannis, cleared his throat and looked to the side in anger and embarrassment. Gendry thought it inwardly amusing that Stannis was referring to Arya as “Lady Stark” now that she was no longer in his presence. “It takes a strong man to overcome him. What House are you from?”

“No house, Your Grace,” Gendry said in a tight voice. A bastard shouldn’t speak to a king, he kept thinking, but it was hard not to do that when the king was speaking to you directly. “I’m just a common bastard.”

“Just a bastard that Lady Stark favors above all her other men?”

Gendry didn’t know what to say to that, so he ignored the comment altogether. “My name is Gendry, from King’s Landing.”

“You would be a Waters then?”

Gendry shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t know, Your Grace. I didn’t know my father or my mum.” He didn’t understand why it mattered anyways, and it only humiliated him further to talk about his being a bastard in front of a king, his men, and Arya. She didn’t care, of course – she had never cared and constantly wacked him if he said anything to the contrary – but that didn’t mean that he didn’t care.

There was a distant look on Stannis’ face as he turned to look into the fire. “Yes, yes, of course… You wouldn’t…” He had a look on his face, like he had seen a ghost or someone that he hadn’t seen in years. It was the same exact look that Gendry had worn the moment Arya had slipped back into his life. “You may leave. You can tell Lady Stark that I will call on her when the war council begins.”

Gendry nodded his head, feeling a bit dizzy and unsure of himself, and left the room. A guard shut the door behind him. Arya was still standing there, her eyes never leaving him. When he reached her, they both began to walk, side-by-side.

“What did he want with you?” she asked in a whisper.

“He wanted to know who I was, who my parents were.” Gendry furrowed his brow deeply, trying to think of what had just happened. He didn’t really want to think anymore; all he wanted to do was rest. His nerves were so shot that he was still gripping his sword handle and didn’t even seem to realize it. “Why do so many people ask me that? I’m just a bastard.”

Though she had remained hard and stony for the past day, Arya’s expression softened considerably. She grabbed him by the arm and forced him to stop. “You’re not just a bastard, Gendry. You’re important.”

Gendry couldn’t help but groan. “You say that, but he’s a king, and I’m–”

“A better man than he will ever hope to be,” she interrupted him fiercely, emphatically, desperately. She wanted him to believe it as much as she did. Well, he did too; it was just difficult. “I don’t care what you are. And when this is all said and done, no one else will either. I don’t care who your father was or if you’ve got noble blood or piss water for blood, and you shouldn’t either.” She took a deep breath and her hand fell from his arm. “We should sleep. This is going to be a long week, and this might be the last night we’ll get a full night’s rest.”

Gendry was content enough with hearing the word “we” come from her mouth. It was enough to help him push away the troubled and confused thoughts brewing in the back of his mind.

Chapter Text

The first time Arya pressed her lips against his, Gendry was sure someone was going to gut him with a sword and his head might actually be lopped off. Spots had burst in front of his eyes from when she had smacked him hard in the head and she’d snapped, “When are you going to know that you being lowborn or a bastard doesn’t matter to me?” and then she had stood on her tip toes, jerked him down by his collar, and mashed her lips against his so hard that it had actually hurt.

He’d kissed girls before – he’d kissed loads of girls – and he’d been with women before. Sure, he’d only been with two, the Brothers determined to make a man out of him a year after Arya had disappeared, but this… This was different. And she was right in saying that it had nothing to do with her being highborn and him being lowborn.

It had everything to do with her being her, Arya bloody Stark.

His feelings towards her had been confusing enough all those years ago, when both of them had been too stupid and too young to know what the hell was going on. He had four years on her, and he was just old enough to become a man and be with a woman; while she was at the age too young for that. Give her another four years, and she would’ve been more than a maiden flowered. She would’ve been auctioned off to the best little lordling her father could find. Things had been mixed up and weird and he’d felt so protective of her, but not like a big brother. And then she was gone.

Now though… Now Arya was a woman grown and confusing as hell. One minute she was distant and cold, barely there and not even sure of who she was; and the next minute she was curled up next to him, so close to him that he could barely breathe. It was enough to drive any man crazy. He could see the shadow of the girl he had known in every step she took and every look she gave him. When she smiled – and oh, how rare that was – he was blown away by how young and beautiful she looked. She was a princess, just as she had been when her big brother had been King in the North.

And she had a woman’s body now, though she remained petite. It was hard not to notice when she would press her thin boyish body against his, her small breasts resting against his chest. Gendry wasn’t quite sure if she was trying to torture him on purpose, but she had managed to even if she wasn’t trying. He’d woken up one morning with one hand splayed against her breast, and he’d nearly choked on his own tongue. But besides hugging here and there, brief touches, and cuddling in bed – to keep warm, it’s so cold in the North, he kept telling himself – there was a very physical barrier between them, especially outside of the bedroom they shared.

Gendry had been trying to explain to her that it wouldn’t be proper for them to share a room, not in the keep they were now sharing with Stannis Baratheon and his men. When they’d been on the road with the Brothers, it hadn’t been a problem. Tom would wink slyly and Lem would crack a joke, but for the most part, no one brought it up. Here though, it would cause problems. Someone would report back to Stannis and he’d march down here himself and tear them apart. He’d want Arya Stark, the little lady of Winterfell, to be clean and pure. Even if they weren’t doing anything improper, Gendry had said, it would look bad and Stannis would have none of it.

He won’t have a bastard boy dishonoring a highborn lady that he might need to pawn off later, was the bitter thought that Gendry kept to himself.

Well, Arya just wouldn’t have any of that, and now she was kissing him, and there was nothing Gendry could do to stop it – if he wanted to stop it at all. Something buried long ago, deep and nearly gone, swirled in his mind and he felt a burning sensation churning in his gut that felt a lot like desire and terror. He slid his hands around her waist and to her back, pressing her body closer into his, and she took a sharp intake of breath against his lips. For a second, he thought she was going to stop, so he kissed her harder, molding his lips against hers, with more desperation than he’d thought possible.

He’d kissed girls and he’d kissed women, but despite any of his dreams, he’d never once thought that he’d actually kiss Arya Stark, who was in a category all of her own.

In between angry kisses and gasps of breath, she huffed, “I don’t” – kiss – “bloody care” – another kiss – “if you’re” – here, she bit his lip so hard that she drew blood, as if trying to make a very strong point – “a fucking bastard.”

He moved her suddenly, spinning her around, and pushed her back against the stone wall. He slammed her there, a little too hard he thought, but she didn’t protest. Instead she pushed back against him, like she was fighting him and wanting him to fight her. This was a struggle of lips and breathing and hands and clothes and heat, such heat. He was warmer than he’d been in years. He hadn’t felt this hot since being in the armory in King’s Landing during the summer, but this was the kind of heat that spread throughout every inch of his body, lighting his fingers on fire as they brushed against the exposed skin of her raised shirt.

The fire in his gut nearly exploded when she moaned against his lips when he ground his hips against hers instinctively. Nights of loneliness, days of frustration, hours of mourning, and minutes where his life had seemed to tick by in agony without her there and with her there melted all into one as he pushed his body against hers. He wanted to search every last bit of her, map her out, so that he would never be able to forget her face or her body like he almost had. He wanted to remember how she tasted like fury and she smiled like fire. He wanted her to never be still when lying in bed with him. He wanted the pain from her nails clawing into his back to never end because it reminded him that she was here, she was with him, she was alive and he was alive and the fire burning between them was real.

And then she pulled away and pressed her forehead against his heaving chest. Gendry struggled to breathe, and he leaned over her, his sweaty forehead pressing against the cool stone wall. She felt so little against him all of a sudden. He closed his eyes and listened to the rush of blood in his ears, the wild hammering of his heart, and her ragged gasping breaths. She’d balled her hands into fists, grasping his shirt, holding onto him.

“I told you not to leave me,” she muttered into his shirt.

“And I told you I wouldn’t.” He opened his eyes and looked down at her. She hadn’t moved, as if afraid that he might do the opposite of what he’d said. This was the most vulnerable he’d ever seen her since she’d returned. She was more open and scared than the night she’d finally opened up to him. Her body trembled in his, making him remember just how small and young she was. She had spoken to King Stannis Baratheon as an equal and she promised to murder the men who had used her name to take her home and she could fight off men twice her size and age, but she was six and ten and had been alone for so long.

Finally she began to squirm, so he took a step back, giving her space to move. When she looked up at him, for the first time, her eyes were open to him. There was so much swimming in there; he could hardly begin to tick them off. “I don’t care what the king or anyone else says, not about me, not about you. I’ve lived the past five years free of everything that held me back but completely alone. I didn’t come back here to take what is mine, just to have them take you away.”

You are mine, were the unspoken words, or at least he hoped they were. He would be hers for the rest of time, if she’d allow it.

“He’ll want you to marry a lord, after this is done. It will be expected of you.”

“I don’t care,” she said, reaching up to brush his black hair out of his eyes. “You’re worth a thousand lords and a hundred kings. I don’t care if we can never marry or if I have to denounce my birth rights, I don’t care. I want two things and only two things: I want to avenge my family and I want to remain with you.”

Gendry’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Easier said than done.”

“I ran away once; we can do it just as easily again. The Free Cities are wonderful, or we could make a new home somewhere in Westeros. Dorne maybe, or we could return to the Riverlands after all is done.”

“You do recall that I don’t have nearly the subtly, cunning, or stealth that you do, right?”

Arya pushed him a few steps back and kissed him again. “I don’t have nearly as much subtly as you think I do. I never have. You’re just too bull-headed, is all.” She pushed him once more, and he fell back onto the bed, bouncing on the hard mattress with a quick laugh. She grinned at him triumphantly, hands on her hips, and stood over him like victor might stand over their prize.

He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her down, making her squeal and fall into him. They tumbled back, so that she was on top him. While laughing and squealing, he managed to flip them over so that he was the one on top, pinning her down on the bed. Her hair was a mess now, wild and frizzy, framing her face. “We’re supposed to be resting.”

Lifting her head, she kissed him again, drawing him down to her, and kept mumbling, “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care,” with every press of her lips against his, every moment his lips touched her skin, when his hands found a spot he’d never dared touch before, with every sigh that escaped her mouth.

But oh, she cared, and he cared. There was just too much to care about these cold nights.

Chapter Text

Arya had been spending her time getting reacquainted with her fellow Northerners. She’d told him that he could join her – had even tried to drag him along – but he’d thought that she should do it on her own. She needed to reconnect with these people, her people, people that lived in her world and not his. She needed to be with others that had the North in them. When he saw her with them, eating and talking, he saw how well she fit in and how she seemed to find herself again. This was her place, her home, and Arya Stark was returning. Winter is coming, he thought, but then, no, that’s not right – she’s already here, now.

So when there was a knock on his door, Gendry was confused more than anything else. Before he could say anything in response, the door opened to reveal Stannis Baratheon, two of his knights standing behind him.

Gendry nearly let go of the helmet that he was holding and dropped to one knee. “Your Grace.” The king waved him to stand, which he did. Gendry edgily looked up from the ground, not sure what he was supposed to say or do. He’d never been around a king before. Arya had been the highest highborn he’d ever been around; and she wasn’t exactly what people would describe as the typical highborn lady. “If you’re looking for Ar- Lady Stark, Your Grace, I believe she’s with the Mormonts, but I’m–”

“I’m not here to see Lady Stark; I’m here to speak with you.”

Gendry stared at the floor hard. It felt strange and difficult to look at Stannis Baratheon: one because he was a king; and two because there was something very, very familiar about the man. It was like looking at his reflection in a dirty silver plate. Stannis had the same piercing blue eyes that Gendry had had all his life; and though his hair had thinned considerably, he had dark black hair that looked as if it had once hung down to his eyes as Gendry’s did now. They both wore the most serious of expressions, looking like they might be pained when thinking. It left Gendry uncomfortable and befuddled.

“Why would you want to speak with me, Your Grace?”

Stannis stepped inside the small room and shut the door. This was to be between them. Though Gendry was stronger and broader than the older man, there was no doubt in Gendry’s mind that Stannis could easily kill him if he wanted. This was a man that had been trained by a master-at-arms and had more experience in war and combat than Gendry ever would. “There is no need to play stupid with me,” Stannis announced. His voice was powerful and made Gendry want to take a step into the corner. “I have received word about what is going on between you and Lady Stark. I will be as candid as possible, to make this clear to you. I will not have a lowborn bastard sullying Lady Stark.”

Gendry flushed, despite himself. “I’m not sullying–”

“She comes to your room every night instead of staying in the quarters that were given to her. She looks as if she never sleeps. And I’ve been told that this has been going on for weeks before your party arrived here.” Stannis’ frown could not deepen further. Gendry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with himself. He felt humiliated and angry and even frightened. He’d heard people talking about how Stannis gave those that were disloyal or disobeyed to the red god and its flames. It wouldn’t matter to Stannis if Gendry had passively been following R’hllor for three years or if Arya cared for him. “If that’s not sullying, then I’m not quite sure what your illiterate definition would be.”

Every word or comeback or response Gendry could possibly think of stuck in his throat. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of that first night when he and Arya had gotten into it and they’d ended up kissing and rolling around in bed and doing nearly every sullying thing they could think of. He fiddled with the helmet in his hands, avoiding eye contact, and finally said, “We haven’t… I never meant any disrespect…”

But how could he explain that he felt like he could breathe again when she was lying next to him? How could he explain that the world felt right again after it had been slighted for three long years in her absence? Could he possibly explain to Stannis that Arya looked like Arya again when she was standing next to him? That he woke up every morning, afraid that it was all a dream, only for her to roll over and smack him in the arm and that those were the moments he loved the most, the sleepy smile on her face and warm look in her normally cold eyes and the soft expression that didn’t speak of years of torment and loss? And that if he didn’t have moments like that, then he didn’t know what life was worth living for? Would he be able to explain how Arya looked like a distant storm on the horizon when standing in a crowd of people but she would snap back into the world the moment she looked at him? How could Stannis Baratheon even begin to understand things like that?

“I’m sure you didn’t, but boys like you… You all have your filthy needs.” Stannis gave him another one of those strange, distant looks, tinted with disdain, like Gendry might’ve done something disgusting. Gendry had no idea what he’d actually done to cause Stannis to loathe him so much. “Lady Stark is not one of your common whores. She is a highborn lady who will be wed to a highborn lord, not to some halfwit bastard knight. If you need to get your fix so badly, there is a whorehouse a ways away.”

“Your Grace, I don’t– I’ve never– we’ve never, I mean–” Gendry sputtered, his throat constricting painfully. He glanced up at Stannis, a meek and ashamed expression written on his face. “We’ve never lain together, not like that. I mean, we–” He did not want to talk about what he and Arya did in bed, least of all with the man that looked at him as if he were scum. No, worse than scum. Stannis looked at Gendry as if he were someone that he’d hoped to never see again. “She still has her maidenhead.” As far as he knew, at least. He hadn’t the desire or need to ask her something like that. “I would never dishonor like that, I swear it, Your Grace. I know I’m just a bastard, and I have no right—”

“You’re right,” Stannis snapped firmly. “You have no right.” He shook his head, balling his hands into fists at his side. Gendry felt as if he had been punched with one of those fists. “I should have known the moment I saw you…” Stannis was no longer looking at him. It was like Gendry was no longer in the room with him; and neither one of them wanted to look at the other. “Your blood has made you weak – made you succumb to acting with your cock instead of thinking with your wits and knowing your place. This will stop immediately or I will—”

“You’ll do what, Your Grace?”

Gendry whipped his head up. Arya stood behind the king, who had turned to face her. She had somehow managed to slip into the room silently while Stannis had been talking. There was a blank expression on her face, but he could see that cloudy storm swirling in her eyes. He thought it was a good thing that she’d left her sword in her room, though he was sure that she had a dagger or two hidden on her somewhere. She always did, even when she was told to disarm herself before the king.

“Lady Stark, I was just explaining to your bastard knight that he would do well to stay away from you in the future and that this…affair of yours will come to an end.”

Arya tilted her head slightly. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Stannis’ mouth twitched. “It is my business, when I am your king.”

“So a king must be aware of who everyone in their camp is fucking? That must make things very complicated.”

Gendry coughed, feeling as if the wind had been sucked right out of his lungs. He had been unsure if Stannis had believed him when Gendry had said that he and Arya had hadn’t sex yet, but Arya had just said something to the contrary. He wanted to point it out again, but felt unable to speak. It wasn’t his place, he kept thinking. This confrontation wasn’t for him anymore, even if it was about him directly.

“You are a lady. Surely you understand what this means.” Stannis had no idea who he was talking to. Gendry still struggled with not calling her m’lady, even though he knew that she hated it, if only because it had been ingrained in his brain for twenty years. But Arya was no lady and never would be, just as Gendry would never be a lord. Arya kept silent, though he was sure that her rage was building inside of her chest. “You are a Stark. A marriage would help secure a strong political alliance–”

“Perhaps you don’t understand this, and maybe you never will,” Arya cut in coldly, “but I will never be a pawn in your game. I will help you win over the North; I will help bring Winterfell back to my family; I will help you burn these traitors; and I will bend the knee to you. But I will never marry some fancy ass ponce just to strengthen your power in the North. I will do what I like; and if that includes lying with my bastard blacksmith knight or joining the Wall to be with my bastard brother or living beyond the Wall with wildlings, then so be it. I will not have someone else telling me how to live my life.” She paused, glaring at the older man, before dryly adding, “Your Grace.”

Gendry briefly thought that being sacrificed to R’hllor might not be so bad, compared to the fury that had grown on Stannis’ face. He could practically hear the king grinding his teeth into dust. No, Arya was not the highborn lady that he could control. She was as wild as the North that he was trying to win over; and if he was to win over the North, he would have to win her. But Arya was not the type of person to be simply won. Gendry knew that well enough.

“We will speak of these matters later–”

“No, we will not,” Arya said, jutting her chin up defiantly. “I’m sick of speaking of this, to the both of you. I am a woman grown; I will do what I please and if it bothers you, then pull the stick out of your ass and move on to next puddle of mud.” Her mouth twisted into something that looked like a smirk. “And if it’s really blood you’re worried about, then I think we both know you’ve got no place in complaining, otherwise you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to sit your ass on the Iron Throne.”

Gendry furrowed his brow. Why did people have to always speak in so many riddles? He didn’t understand why people couldn’t just say what they were thinking outright or be plain about things. It didn’t take sideways comments and beating around the bush to intimidate people; all it took was a sword and a scary enough look about a person, sometimes not even that much.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, Your Grace, I am tired and would like to be fucked like the common whore you think I am.”

Stannis seemed like he might want to lash out, but instead he snorted and said, “You Starks are all the same: brash and difficult.”

“At least we’re not as stubborn as you Baratheons. You should change your sigil to a bull.” She made a little bow. “Your Grace.”

Stannis Baratheon shot Gendry one more look, making him nearly bend in half to bow as fast as possible, and then strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. An awkward silence fell between the two of them, now that they were alone. Gendry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. Arya was still buzzing with anger; and he was scared of touching her or saying the wrong thing for multiple reasons.

“You’re not a whore,” was the thing he settled on saying, though it felt stupid and pointless the moment it came out of his mouth.

However, the tension in her body seemed to slip to the floor, and she stepped out of it like it was a piece of clothing, her feet not making any noises on the stone. Before he could say or do anything else, she stood on her tip toes and pressed her lips against his. It all felt so right, despite Stannis saying that it was wrong. How could something that felt this right be wrong?

“What did you mean earlier, when you mentioned blood?” The words tumbled out of Gendry’s mouth. He immediately regretted them, wanting to pull them back into his mouth where he could keep them to himself, but it was too late. She heard him and pulled back, looking him in the face carefully. He took a deep breath. “King Stannis, he mentioned, well, he said my blood made me weak, and it could be just because I’m a bastard, born because some bloke couldn’t keep his prick in his pants, and–”

“Not now, Gendry, I’ll tell you later.” She wore a tired and sad expression, like she’d heard a tragic tale about a knight. “I promise. It’s just…now’s not the time. I don’t even think I’m the right person to explain it.”

Gendry shrugged his shoulders. “If you’re not the right person, then maybe no one is.”

Arya smiled and kissed him gently again. “Stupid. Flattery will get you nowhere.” She brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Let’s work on your letters. We can impress Stannis with the fact that you’re a lowborn bastard that can actually read and write.”

“Arya,” Gendry groaned, “I doubt that anything impresses Stannis.”

“Then impress me.” Her smile turned sly, and she pulled him down to whisper in his air, “In more ways than one.”

In three nights’ time, they would be waging the war for Winterfell. For now though, it felt good to pretend like they might not die before the week was over. It felt good to not worry about the king or blood or anything in the world. It felt good to act as if they were living a normal everyday life, because their lives were made up of anything but the everyday.

Chapter Text

The night hung over them like a dark cloud, thickening the air and clogging up their throats. She had been restless the moment she’d woken up, storming through the castle and pacing in every room she stopped in. He’d been completely at a loss in helping her, left to watch her with a guarded expression. All he wanted to do was reach out and pull her into his arms, just to still her for one moment, but he’d stood back and let her blow through the stone walls like the howling winter winds.

“She’s scared,” Harwin whispered during supper. “This ain’t like anything she’s done before.”

“She’s not scared,” Gendry cut in. Arya had never been the type to show fear. She was the strongest person he knew; she was as hard as the North.

Harwin peered at him sideways. “She’s scared. The little lady just shows it differently, is all.” He took a sip of the little soup he had. “When we were on our way to King’s Landing, all those years ago, there was this nasty incident with Prince Joffrey and her direwolf, Nymeria. He threatened her; and well, her wolf didn’t take too kindly to that. When we found Arya that night and she was brought before the king, I’d never seen a person so angry before. She was wild and screaming and making all sorts of threats, but I knew it was because she was afraid. The girl ain’t never shown fear, but she sure knows how to show anger. It took us a whole night to find her after she ran off.”

“Girl’s got a habit of running off,” Lem muttered into his bowl. “Who’s to say she won’t do it again tomorrow?”

“She won’t do that,” Gendry snapped, resisting the urge to punch Lem square in the nose. “Besides, you don’t have to fight if you’re too chicken shit. She never asked you, any of you, not even me. You chose to follow her; she didn’t command you or anything.” He stood up from the bench, towering over the older man, who had scrunched up his reddening face. “When we get up tomorrow, to take back Winterfell, you can cower under your blanket in your piss. She won’t hate you or blame you or anything, but I will.”

With that, Gendry turned on his heels and stomped out of the room, causing a few people to throw glances in his direction. He didn’t care and ignored everyone that looked at him. Shoving the heavy doors open, he pushed his way out of the dining hall, fury vibrating in his bones (or was it fear?), and headed for his room, where he’d be able to brood and think without a bunch of idiots muttering under their breaths.

Most men didn’t have their own room, and a few of the Brothers had made complaints that Gendry did, but Arya had made sure of it. Tom had shut right up when Arya had told him that he could take her room, which had gotten him in trouble the first night when the king’s knights had thought that Tom was stealing away into her room to sleep with her. Everyone in the Brotherhood knew and even respected Arya’s favoritism towards Gendry. The men that had been with them from the very beginning had seen it all those years ago. Lem, Tom, and Harwin were the only ones left. Even Thoros had died and Lady  Stoneheart had finally perished as well, after the old Lord Frey had been killed a year before. Gendry hadn’t understood her pull towards him himself, but he was learning not to care, since she told him not to. As m’lady commanded.

Gendry sat down at the foot of his bed and put his head in his hands. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow could be the last day of my life. Arya’s too, but he wouldn’t dare dwell on that or even think of it. There was no way in any of the seven hells that he would allow her to die. He couldn’t picture his life without her again. He wouldn’t. She would outlive them all; she had to. The bringer of death would be the receiver of life.

His door opened and shut with a slam, startling him out of his dreary thoughts. When he looked up, Arya was standing before him, wearing a rather strange expression on her face. Though her body was stiff as a corpse, her face was etched with a vulnerability that he’d never seen before on her. “I thought you’d want to be with the men longer.”

Arya just shook her head mutely.

Gendry dragged himself to his feet. “Arya, what’s–?”

She cut him off, sweeping across the room and throwing her arms around his chest, burying her face into his shirt. He was so startled that at first he just held his hands in the air in shock, but then he slowly wrapped his arms around her, bringing her close to him. Gods, she was so small in comparison to him. There were nights, when she was standing and speaking to the men, she looked as tall as a mountain, but here right now, she was as tiny as a mouse.

“She’s scared,” he heard Harwin whisper in his mind.

He could feel her shaking in his arms, the anticipation of tomorrow damn near tearing her apart. She had waited so long for this day; and it was finally here. She was going home. She was going back to Winterfell, where she truly belonged. This was the type of wanting that could break a person, the type of longing that could drive even the strongest person mad. It had been six or seven years since she’d been in the only place she could call home. She was taking back what was hers, and he knew, without a doubt, that tomorrow would be the day when Arya completely returned to Westeros.

Winterfell was in her bones, in her spirit, in her soul. It was Winter and the North and Arya Stark. It was hot like her touch and cold as her blood.

And she was terrified of it.

“It’s going to be okay,” he muttered into her hair, because it was the only thing he could say. Maybe it was a lie and maybe it was the truth, but for now, it was all he had to give.

“But what if it’s not?” she whispered. Suddenly, her whole body was seized with panic; and she gripped the back of his shirt tightly, moving to look up at him, her eyes wide and so very open to him. “What if you–?” Tears sprung to her eyes, unbidden and unwanted, but she barely seemed to notice them. “I don’t want you to fight tomorrow.”

Gendry shook his head. “Well that’s out of the question.”

“No!” She tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let go of her, and they struggled into a tangle. “No, no! I don’t want you to fight. I want you to be safe and remain here. Gendry, if anything were to happen to you–”

“And what do you think I’d do if something happened to you while I sat on my ass twiddling my thumbs here?” His voice was harsher than he’d meant it to be, but it stilled her in his arms. He sighed, trying to shake away the fear and frustration out of his mind. “Your battle is my battle, remember? You fight; I fight. We’re in this together now. There’s no going back.”

I don’t think there ever was.

Without warning, Arya shoved him as hard as she could, and he toppled back onto the bed. Before he could even react, she had crawled over top of him, straddling his waist, her hands pressed down on the bed near his head. She was absolutely brimming with anger, but now he understood what Harwin had meant earlier. She was angry, yes, but she was also afraid. She couldn’t dare show her fear so she displayed her rage. In a way, as she hovered over him, her lips pressed into a thin line and her face blank yet somehow mad, she was almost frightening. He knew she wouldn’t hurt him, but he could also tell that she was angry with him, like she wanted to hurt him.

He put his hands on her hips, meaning to move her off of him, saying, “Arya,” as gently as he could, but she ground her hips against him, sending a jolt of electricity through his body. He glowered at her. “Arya, stop it.”

“No.” But her voice wasn’t angry or defiant or even scared. It was distraught and vulnerable and it caught him completely off guard. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his. “No, no, no.”

She kissed him on the forehead, on his temple, his cheek, and down his jaw, all the while pushing against him as hard as she could. He gripped her hips tighter, trying his damnedest to lie still, but it was so bloody hard when she was moving against him like that, pressing her soft lips against his stubble-covered neck. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done this before. In the past six nights they’d been here, every night had been filled with their bodies, heated touches, and desperate kisses. This felt different though. He could feel it in the way she ground him into the bed and pulled on his shirt and when she finally kissed him on his lips, slipping her tongue between them, the heat in his belly burned into a firestorm.

“Arya, we can’t,” he mumbled into her lips, kissing her nonetheless. His hand found its familiar place on the small of her back, right underneath her shirt. She shook her head and pressed her chest against his. “I can’t. The King would have my head.”

“And I would have his,” she stated, pausing just a moment to look him in the eyes. Her face was so close to his that she was almost blurry, but he could see the tears built up in her eyes, so close to spilling on his cheeks. “If anything was to happen tomorrow, and I didn’t – if we didn’t–” He wiped away a rogue tear that had slipped out of her eye. “I want this, Gendry. I want what is mine – everything that is mine – and it’s time you finally got something that is yours.”

Gendry licked his lips, trying to figure out what to do or say. What is mine, he repeated in his head. She was his. He knew that he had been hers – it had been unspoken between them the moment she’d come back – but he’d never once considered that she might be his in return. Arya was free like the wolves that prowled the Riverlands, to be owned or tamed by no man. But she is mine.

“I’ve never–” She blushed deeply, a strange sight to see indeed. It had been years since he’d seen her blush. She pulled away, sitting up on top of him, bundling her hands together on top of his chest. He wasn’t asking her to tell him any of this, but she looked like she had to explain it herself. She looked…timid and embarrassed. “I almost did, once, a few months before I left Braavos. I thought I wanted to – I thought I wanted it to be with him – but… He was no one, and I was no one, and nothing mattered. I realized I didn’t even know who he was and he could never know who I was, not like…not like you. You’re the only one that has ever known me, when no one else did. I was someone to you.”

He sat up carefully, holding onto her so that she was still sitting in his lap. Taking her face in his hands, he told her, “You have always been someone to me; you will never be no one to me. You are Arya of House Stark, of Winterfell. Your brother was a king and you were an orphan boy-turned princess when I met you, but you have always been more than that to me and I–”

She pressed her lips against his, cutting him off effectively.

Did it really need to be said anyways? 

This time there would be no holding back. This time he would not pause her, hold her back, or tell her no in that pained voice that made her furrow her brow. He would not restrain himself when he wanted to taste more of her; he would not tear himself away when he wanted to tear her clothes off. When his skin itched to be pressed against hers, he would let it happen. When his body ached for hers – and oh, how it ached – he would ease the pain. He would map her entire body with his fingertips until she was a constellation in his mind that he could never forget.

Sliding his hands underneath her, he turned and flipped her over so that he was on top. She squirmed underneath him, trying to get back to their original position, all the while not stopping kissing him, but he wouldn’t let her. Arya was a fighter; and she did nothing if it didn’t involve some sort of fighting. She was quick and nimble, but he was bigger and stronger. It was not often that he used his size against her, but if she wanted this, if she wanted him to let go and release, then he didn’t know what might happen. Even as they fought for control, he could feel her smiling against his lips. He felt like his head might explode at any moment because they were actually doing this and it wasn’t just one of his four in the morning dreams that startled him awake.

His hands found places that he hadn’t dared touch before, had only thought of painfully when they were kissing. She arched under his touch, little gasps slipping out her mouth, when he found each new place. Her skin was hot under his fingers, burning him like a flame. People expected her to be cold, like the snow, but she was hotter than the seven hells. He’d always known she was made up of fire instead of snow; it was a good thing he was used to fire though. They peeled each other’s clothes off like peeling an onion; each layer was new to them, fresher than before. He was amazed at the pale skin of her stomach, skin that hadn’t seen the light of day, much less another’s eyes but his own. He drank in the sight of her underneath him, taking in every random freckle on her skin that he’d never known about before. She was much more impatient, tugging at his shirt, nearly tearing it, and pleading, pleading, to go faster, faster, faster. Her hands slipped over his bare chest, causing him to suck in air. He hadn’t known how badly he’d wanted her to touch him until now.

This was different from anything he’d ever done before. This was not like the other girls, not like that one the Brothers had brought for him when he was nice and drunk or Jeyne when they’d been alone and so tired of everything. This was a passion that he hadn’t felt since forging the most beautiful sword he’d ever made in his life. This was fire beyond what he used to bend metal to his will. She was the one bending him to her will. He was actually afraid, and yet it was wonderful and brilliant and all he ever wanted.

“I want,” she gasped, her voice husky and harsh. She was pulling him to her, pushing into him, clinging to him, and scratching her nails down his back so hard that he was sure he would bleed. He didn’t care though. When was bastard’s blood important? He kissed every inch of her skin that he could find, taking note of the spots that made her gasp or shudder. He remembered every single one, occasionally returning to one just to see if she’d do it again. When he pulled her pants off ever so carefully, she shivered as the cold air flew over her. He pressed his lips down her chest, her stomach that sucked in like she couldn’t breathe, and her thin hips. When he kissed her inner thighs, she set her jaw and began to tremble again. He paused, his crisp blue eyes peering at her unsurely from underneath his shaggy black fringe, but she just nodded her head and whispered, “Please.”

Gendry was twenty years of age, and he had never made love to a woman like this. He was wrong. He wasn’t afraid. He was terrified out of his mind.

There were so many things about this that caused his brain to scream and want to shut down altogether, but he forced himself to think, to remember, to take notes. He didn’t want to blow through this so quickly that he wouldn’t be able to picture it later. As much as he wanted to completely ravish her and lose sight of everything, he didn’t want to lose sight of her. She was so wanting and so eager, and both of them so scared.

But when she loosened the strings of his pants and slid her little, delicate hands over him, it was almost enough to make him forget everything. He’d already felt like all the blood in his brain had shot down to that area, but now it was even worse. He bit his tongue in the process, tasting his metallic blood, and she kissed him desperately, tasting it too. Her name was caught in his throat, and he was choking on it, but he didn’t care. He shut his eyes tight, trying to gain control, but with his eyes closed, her touch was amplified, and her gasping breaths mixed with his haggard ones.

It was too much.

He kicked his pants off, somewhat clumsily, and then crawled over top of her. Just as she started to rise, her eyes wider than ever before, he held her wrists and pinned her arms down. “Are you sure?”

She glared at him. “Yes.”

“Arya,” he said in a deep tone, his face turning into that pained look that showed he was thinking, “I mean it. You can’t go back from this. I’ll have ruined you.”

“Oh shut up, stupid,” she sighed, arching up so that he was touching her just barely. Just the mere sensation was almost enough to send him over the edge. “If I didn’t absolutely want to be ruined, I wouldn’t be lying naked underneath you in your bed.”

The moment he entered her, spots burst in front of Gendry’s eyes. It had been a long year apparently, coupled with two months of sleeping in the same bed as literally the girl of his dreams.  She let out a little cry at first, which almost made him stop, but she shook her head again and begged him to continue. Begged. Arya Stark never begged in her life – except for him. He let go of her wrists, so that she could run her hands all over him again, and as he moved his hips, she bucked wildly against him, his name slipping out of her lips like she was cursing, over and over again. He felt as if half his vision had gone black as he moved harder and faster, the muscles of his arms straining underneath him. She fought wildly, scratching at him, caressing him, whimpering and moaning and twisting and howling, and gods, everything was alight with wildfire.

And when she came, her muscles tightening around him to the point where he thought he might actually pass out from shock, she pushed hard up against him, off the bed, gripping the sheets so tightly he heard them rip, and said his name over and over again. She didn’t scream, perhaps not like she wanted to, but his name came out of her like an enchantment. Her voice was raw and haunting, as if beckoning him to follow her, and he did. He exhausted himself, doing his best not to just collapse completely, wavering over top of her. She drew his face down to kiss him, breathing heavily, and he fell to her side, unable to hold up any longer. Sidling up next to his slick body, she threw her arm over him and kissed his chest.

He wanted to tell her how good it was, how it was better than anything he’d dreamed up, how it was more than he’d ever wanted, how he loved her and always would, how he didn’t want to let her get out of this bed ever. All he could say though, in between breathing, was, “We should get dressed in case…in case anyone comes in.”

“Let them,” she said recklessly. “Let them see just who I belong with.”

“I thought you belonged to no one,” he said, a tired grin on his face.

“I belong to no one but myself,” she told him playfully, “but I belong only with you.”

There was silence and then, “We should sleep. Tomorrow…”

She sighed, closed her eyes, and laid her head on his chest. “Tomorrow is just another day.”

Chapter Text

Gendry was standing guard in scratched up armor that was not his own when he spotted the king walking towards him. He felt like turning away and running straight into the battle, but knew that he would have to face the king instead. Anyone in the world could see the change in Arya that morning, but he’d hoped people would assume it was because she was brimming with the anticipation of battle. The morning of battle brought out many emotions in soldiers. She was running through the hall, inspecting all the men of the Brotherhood, repeatedly asking them if they wanted to do this and reminding them that they didn’t have to. Even Lem had been adamant that this had to be done and that they would fight for her, as they had done her mother.

She’d found some armor for him that fit him well enough. He hadn’t asked where she’d gotten it from; he’d thanked her, jokingly remarking that he wished he still had his bull helmet that he’d made all those years ago. There had been a misty look in her eyes before she’d turned on her heel and went to help a boy not far from her age put on his armor. She had yet to put on any; he worried that she wouldn’t.

Standing tall and straight, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, Gendry cut a striking figure in the hall. He looked every bit of a knight and much more. More than a few people had shot him intimidated looks. Tom had whistled at the sight of him and had said that if he managed to somehow survive this battle, he’d have to write a song about Gendry. “A girl will get out of her dress that much faster if I sing a song about a lowly handsome knight being victorious over Winterfell,” he’d pointed out. Now that Gendry looked the part, he was able to feel the part more too. There was something about standing in armor, taller than most others, that made him feel proud and confident.

(Or it may have been his night with Arya that made him feel that way.)

But with Stannis Baratheon walking towards him, Gendry didn’t feel confident anymore. He slouched, as if trying to hide behind anyone that walked in front of him, but it was impossible. Stannis had business with him that needed to be dealt with before the battle apparently. Gendry just hoped that it had nothing to do with the fact that Gendry had deliberately gone against what Stannis had told him and had taken Arya’s maidenhead the night before.

“You look different in armor,” Stannis said, by way of greeting.

Gendry bent to one knee, his armor clanging. “Your Grace.”

“You may rise.” Stannis waved him up impatiently; and Gendry stood up. They were the same height, he realized. Stannis was also in his armor, but his was much better. It bore the Baratheon stag antlers, but they were encased in a flaming heart. Gendry recognized it as having to do with the Lord of Light, R’hllor, but said nothing of it. He doubted that Stannis was a devout man to the religion, but the religion had clearly had devoted itself to him. “That armor will be of better use to you than half the men here. Are you good with a sword?”

“Not as good as I am with a hammer, Your Grace.”

For some reason, Stannis’ mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Of course you’re not.” Gendry furrowed his brow at the comment, trying to figure out what it might mean. Why did everyone have to be so cryptic? Stannis was looking at him, yes, but he wasn’t seeing him. It was a look that Gendry had seen on many people’s faces when they were looking at him; it was like all those people were seeing someone else when they saw him. He didn’t know whose ghost he reminded them of, but he rather wished someone would just bloody well tell him. “How old are you, Ser Gendry?”

It made Gendry feel awfully queer to be called that by the king, but he answered anyways, “Twenty, Your Grace.”

“Twenty…” Stannis looked out at the men outfitting themselves for battle. Arya was still skirting around, doing her best to help any man that might need it. “My older brother Robert was twenty when he went to war for Lyanna Stark. It seemed old to me then, when I was younger, but now, looking at these men, at you…” He turned back to face Gendry. “I know it’s young – younger than you should be going into war. He was brash and stupid and in love, or at least he thought he was. The things people do for love… They can be mad.” He shook his head. “Tell me, Ser Gendry, would you do anything for Lady Arya?”

Gendry knew all the things that he would do for her. He would die for her. He would live for her. “Yes, I would.”

“Do you love her, as my brother loved Lyanna?”

“I don’t know how the late King Robert loved Lady Lyanna, Your Grace, but I know that I love Arya, aye.”

“Would you start a war?”

Gendry bit his lip, unsure of what the king wanted him to say. “I think the war started before I had the chance, Your Grace.” But he didn’t know if he would start a war. It seemed very drastic; and now that he’d lived through one, he knew the costs that war brought for every man, woman, and child. Maybe he would though. When Arya had been taken from him all those years ago, he’d wanted to tear the world apart in search for her, but the Brotherhood had kept him grounded. If something were to happen to her now, if she were to be taken from him somehow or captured, he would’ve gone to each of the seven hells to have her returned safely.

"My brother nearly went mad when Lyanna was taken from him." Stannis sighed, the frustrated sigh of a man that did not understand how emotions could rule someone so strongly. He was a man that was clearly in control of his own. This war for him was not about what he wanted, but what he felt was right. Gendry could understand how Robert might have felt. When the Hound had taken Arya, Gendry had wanted nothing more than to tear him apart, but the Hound had become a ghost that tore through the Riverlands, no longer a real man but a skin that people put on to become monsters. "He tore through the Seven Kingdoms for her, siring bastards everywhere he went, and yet he still wanted her. I couldn’t understand it, but he was my older brother, and I did what I was told out of respect for him." He glanced at Gendry. "Have you sired any bastards?"

"No, Your Grace." Gendry could not help but flush. "I-I could not do that to a woman or a child."

"You’re a more honorable bastard than my brother was, ironically." Stannis’s mouth twisted into a frown as he watched Arya flitter through the room. She had stopped for a moment to wipe sweat from her face and push her dark brown hair out of her eyes. “She looks like her, you know.” When Gendry gave a puzzled look, Stannis clarified himself, “Lyanna Stark – she looks exactly like Lyanna Stark, the She-Wolf of Winterfell, they called her. I’d never seen Lady Arya before until a week ago, but I swear by R’hllor, for a moment, even I thought it was Lady Lyanna walking through the door.”

He’d seen people look at her like that before, some of the older men that had been around for Robert’s Rebellion. He wondered if she knew just how striking of a resemblance she bore to her late aunt. She’d have a laugh at that, people thinking she was as beautiful as the woman that tore the realm apart. Gendry was the only one she let call her beautiful, and even then, she smacked him on the arm for that. “Begging your pardons, Your Grace, but she just looks like Arya to me.”

Again, there was that wry smile on the king’s face. “Before we go into battle, I thought you should have this.” Stannis picked up something from behind him and held it out. In his hands was the most beautiful and strong-looking warhammer that Gendry had ever seen. He’d only seen a few, mind you, since most men, soldiers, and knights preferred swords or long bows, but he could tell this one was special immediately and not just because it was from the king. The Baratheon antlers were etched into it. Cautiously, Gendry took his hand off his sword hilt and took the warhammer into his own hands. The weapon seemed to nearly glow as he held it. He could hear it singing on the armor that kept men alive in battle. “It was my brother’s warhammer, the very one that killed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. It was kept at Storm’s End as a monument of sorts.”

Gendry’s eyes shot up to the king, and he blanched. “Your Grace, I can’t–”

“You can and you will keep it,” Stannis interrupted firmly. “It is yours. I’ve no real use for it. I cannot use a warhammer and very few of my men are trained with one. You’re a blacksmith; I’m sure you’d be more comfortable with a hammer than a sword at any rate.”

Stannis was not incorrect. The warhammer felt more right in his hands than any sword had; the only thing that felt more right in his hands was Arya. “Thank you, Your Grace. I can’t… I can’t begin to thank you enough.”

“Then don’t. You can thank me by helping me take Winterfell back and reclaim the North. We aren’t killing dragons this time around, something much more human and much more evil.” Stannis started to turn and walk away when he paused, as if suddenly struck by indecision. When he turned back around, there was something on his face that looked a lot like regret, but Gendry couldn’t be sure. “I’m sure your father would be proud of you right now. Lady Arya is right; you’re more than a bastard. That much is for sure.”

Stannis left him, leaving Gendry to his thoughts. He found a way to fit the warhammer into a strap on his back, but he longed to feel it in his hands again. The steel seemed to hum a song that Gendry knew by heart without ever having heard it before. He scanned the room, trying to find Arya, when he saw her slip back inside, this time wearing armor that fit her perfectly. It was the armor that he had made for her a month back; it was light and flexible, so that she could move quickly and with less noise. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing. When she saw him, she smiled again, and Gendry knew that he would’ve started a thousand wars for her, would risk his life a million times, if only it meant that she was with him and safe and happy. For now though, there was this one battle, and he would do it for her.

Chapter Text

The warhammer whistled sharply in the air as he brought it crashing down into the metal breastplate of an unnamed Bolton knight. Gendry could not tell you how the battle began (or how it would end); it was like he had just been transported into the middle of the fray without having any memory of how he’d gotten there. One minute, he had been watching the cloudy expression on Arya’s face as they’d rode to Winterfell; and the next, they had been battling. Somehow or another, he’d managed to get inside the walls of Winterfell, though he didn’t know when he’d done that. He hadn’t been privy to the war plans; he hadn’t needed to be. Arya would talk about them right before they fell asleep, but he would close his eyes and try not to think about it. All he needed to remember how to do was fight.

“You’re strong,” she had told him, over and over again. It was something that he’d been told his whole life, but it had never truly mattered until now. Strength was necessary in the forge when shaping armor and bending metal, but it was a matter of life or death here. This was when everything counted. He realized, quite suddenly, that he wasn’t nearly as prepared for battle as he’d hoped. Some of the men they were fighting were well-trained; they had been raised by master-at-arms or had squired for years before they earned their knighthood. Gendry had done nothing to earn his own knighthood; he’d merely bent the knee, said he could work as a blacksmith, and watched as Arya ran away from him.

Though it was heavy in his hands and nearly threw him off balance once or twice, the warhammer fit him well. Gendry was an alarming figure among the men they were fighting. He was taller and stronger-looking than most of the knights, his armor shining like a warning. While many carried long swords that could slice and dice, he held a warhammer that could crush a man’s body. He’d startled himself by the first person that he’d hit. The man had come out of nowhere, shouting and swinging his sword wildly. Gendry had reacted more out of shock than skill and had knocked the man clean off his feet, sending him five feet back. Lem had let out of laugh, which had sounded strange against the metal clangs of swords and screams of men.

Gendry slid the warhammer back into the strap, pulling his sword out of its scabbard. It would make it easier for him to travel through the castle walls. He’d told himself that he would keep track of Arya at all times, but that had been impossible once the battle had begun. He’d lost a sense of nearly everything, trapped in a bubble of war, and only the fighting had remained. All of his thoughts became actions – swing, duck, dodge, swing, swing – and he forgot what fear and anger and wonder tasted like. The only thing he could taste was blood. The first man he’d hit in the face with his warhammer had splattered blood all over his armor so much that Gendry had been distantly reminded of the Lannister crimson colors on the armor he’d made in Harrenhal all those years ago.

He had to find Arya. He’d promised to watch over her and protect her, though he hadn’t said that out loud. She would’ve slapped him for that and said she didn’t need to be protected. Instead she’d slipped away from him the moment the fighting began, quiet as a mouse. While most men shouted and chanted, she had been silent. She was deadlier that way. She always had been. Even her armor had somehow remained quiet, or maybe it had been just a trick of the ears since everyone had been shouting and horns had been blowing.

“Arya!” he called out as he entered the castle, stepping over a pile of dead bodies. He doubted that she could even hear him. Another man ran down the stairwells at him, sword raised high. Gendry just barely had enough time to raise his own sword to counter, but was lucky to be the stronger one. With their swords locked, Gendry raised his foot and kicked the man in the shin. When the man tumbled, Gendry sliced his sword in the air, hacking at the man’s neck. He wasn’t a clean fighter or even a good one, his stance clumsy and his actions clumsier, but he was strong.

I’m not as strong as Arya.

As he ran up the stairs, taking three steps at a time, Gendry wondered where Stannis was. He’d always figured that king sat back while their men did all the work, as he’d heard King Joffrey had done on the Battle of Blackwater, but Stannis Baratheon was not the type of man that sat on his ass. He’d stood in the front lines with his men. Gendry felt strange hoping that the older man was alive, despite the fact that Stannis seemed to despise him.

Gendry was surprised by a young man jumping out of the shadows. He jumped to the side, but the man still managed to stab Gendry in the arm, just in between armor plates. A shot of pain shot through his arm, as the man tried to pull the dagger back out, but it was caught in the chainmail. Gendry jabbed the hilt of his sword into the man’s face, knocking him back into a wall, and then shoved his sword into him. Grimacing, Gendry jerked the blade out of his arm and threw it aside. It wasn’t a deep stab. Besides, the adrenaline coursing through his veins gave him relief. He carried on through the halls, pushing through more than a few men with the help of some of Stannis’ men. Arya was nowhere to be found up here. His heart raced like an out of control mare.

He didn’t know his way around the castle; he just ran from place to place, fighting men at every angle. His arms strained as he swung the sword and his legs begged for release. He remembered how he’d been in such pain after walking constantly with Yoren and those bound for the Wall, but this was beyond any pain he’d felt. All the battles and spats he’d fought with the Brotherhood had been short and quick. Though he couldn’t have been fighting for long, it felt like he’d been waging war against these men for days and they just kept regenerating and coming in droves. For every men that Gendry slew, two more popped up. He was exhausted.

There was a pair of large doors ahead of him. Men were fighting in front of them, no one he recognized, but he felt drawn to that room. The only castle he’d been in had been Harrenhal, but these doors reminded him of the great hall that had been there. He ran through the fighting, briefly sparing with an old man who he easily managed to knock off his feet, and shoved the doors open. They were so heavy that he nearly toppled over once they finally opened for him; he stumbled instead, doing his best not to fall to his knees, and swung the sword up, using its weight to pull his body upright. When he finally looked ahead, he saw her, dancing around a knight, slicing and stabbing him as gracefully as a swan. She’d told him, years ago, that she was a terrible dancer, but he knew that was a lie; she didn’t know how good she was.

However, there was no time to say anything to her, and he didn’t dare distract her from her duel. A Frey knight was over top one of Stannis’ men, trying to shove a dagger into the Baratheon knight’s throat. Gendry ran in that direction, kicking the Frey knight onto his back and bringing the sword down through his chest. The metal of his armor was cheap, practically worthless against the sword that he’d been given a few days ago. When Gendry looked back at the man on the ground, he realized it was Ser Clayton, who was holding onto his throat that had been barely scratched. No time. Gendry felt rushed and unsure of what to do, so he just went on to fight the next person he could find. Battle was an endless day; it was like the Long Night that other children had told him stories of when he was little in King’s Landing.

A door on the left opened and more men poured out. They were not the kind of men that Gendry wanted to see, but he hacked away at them as best as he could. When there were two knights on him, one managed to knock the sword clean out of Gendry’s hands. The three of them watched it soar in the air and then clutter to the side uselessly. He didn’t have time to draw another weapon, so Gendry recklessly barged into one of the men, catching them both off guard. Grabbing the man, Gendry threw him into the other and the two Frey knights tumbled to the ground in a heap of armor and shouts. Before they could get up, Gendry pulled the warhammer back out and slammed it down on them both repeatedly, like he would a piece of armor in the forge. Each hit sent a vibration up his arms, making him ache, and blood splattered up to meet him.

Wiping the blood from his face, Gendry spotted Stannis Baratheon fighting a man that Gendry immediately recognized as Roose Bolton. It had been six years or so, but there was no mistaking the man that had once lorded over Harrenhal when he, Arya, and Hot Pie had been held captive there. Gendry knew that Stannis was more than capable when it came to combat, but he seemed to be struggling somewhat against the Lord Bolton. It wasn’t until he realized that Stannis was favoring his left that Gendry saw that Stannis bore a bright wound on his right side that was seeping blood down his armor. Despite being wounded, however, Stannis fought incredibly hard against Roose, the two mens’ blades clashing louder than most. In true fashion, his face was strained, and he was ground his teeth with every blow that Roose gave.

He turned his head and saw Arya, still dancing around men, stabbing at them in a way unlike everyone else in the castle. She was fighting against two men though, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult for her as another Frey knight jumped in. Everything in Gendry screamed for him to run to her defense, especially when he saw blood slipping down her face from a cut on her cheek, but then he heard a shout and the unmistakable sound of a sword clattering on the stone. When he turned his head, he saw Stannis on one knee, holding his side, and weaponless. Roose was standing above him, raising his sword. Gendry reacted without thought. He turned from Arya, ran to the king, and brought the warhammer up to meet with Roose’s sword. It was like sparks flew the moment the sword hit the hammer, sounding like a sword might make when hit against a whetstone.

For a moment, there was a pause, as Gendry came face-to-face with a man that he had only ever watched from afar. Roose’s cold, dead eyes narrowed as recognition and confusion flitted across his face. “Robert–”

With all his strength, Gendry shoved Roose Bolton back. He stumbled briefly before catching his guard, meeting the warhammer again and again. He was more fluid than Gendry, who merely swung as hard as he could again and again and pushed Roose back, but he was also older and weaker than Gendry. In one lucky stroke, Gendry hit Roose’s hand instead of the sword, which nicked Gendry on the right arm; Roose let out a shout as his hand was shattered and his sword went to the ground. There was no thought in Gendry’s mind as he shouted with the effort and brought his warhammer on the Lord of the Dreadfort’s chest, forcing him to his knees. His eyes were not dead enough for Gendry’s taste, so he swung the hammer at his head, knocking the man to the ground. He took a staggering step backwards, nearly tripping over a dead body, and spun on his heels to see Stannis Baratheon standing up, sword in hand again. There was an indescribable expression on his face.

It turned out, Gendry realized dizzily, as the room spun around him, that it didn’t matter if you were highborn or lowborn when it came to war. Everyone died all the same, by anyone’s hands.

“Gendry, your right!”

The high pitch scream of a girl pulled Gendry back into reality, but it was not enough to save him completely. He turned, only to see a sword heading straight toward him, and jerked backwards. The sword sliced thinly through an opening in his armor on his chest. He would’ve been killed had he not stumbled over a corpse and fell onto his ass. A knight from a House Gendry didn’t recognize stood over him brazenly, but before he could deal Gendry a fatal blow, a sword poked through his neck. The knight’s body was kicked to the ground, revealing a wild and terrified-looking Arya.

“You have to watch your–”

Gendry did not say anything, but instead reached out and jerked on Arya’s leg. She fell to the ground, letting out a shout, and the sword that would’ve taken her head off merely sliced through the air. He watched as she reacted so quickly that he could barely realize what was going on. She’d knocked the knight off his feet and stabbed him before Gendry could even think of what to do. They both got to their feet and looked around the room. He could feel the agitation and adrenaline rolling off of her.

They both spotted the real target at the same time. He was at the head table fighting one of Stannis’ more skilled knights, Ser Justin Massey, while two others fought beside him, protecting him from anyone that tried to interrupt.

Gendry looked at Arya. “I’ll get the other two; you can get the–”

“Bastard!”

Arya’s scream was so loud that nearly all of the knights looked in her direction. Even Ramsay Bolton looked her way. It had even startled Gendry, who had never heard her so angry and vicious and raw before. He’d seen her heated and they’d had plenty of arguments over the years, but this was the first time he’d heard such danger and blind rage in her voice. She took off in his direction before Gendry could react, and he followed her as quickly as he could. She was so much faster than him and was able to weave through the fights much better than him. Whereas she could dodge a blow, he had to parry and knock someone to the side. She had already somehow managed to slip past the two knights guarding Ramsay before Gendry was there. One tried to hack at her, but Gendry grabbed him by the back of his armor and threw him back down the stairs.

He was beyond exhausted, but so were these men. Gendry didn’t even know how any of them were managing to still fight, but they did. When he caught sight of Arya, who had pushed Justin Massey aside so she could fight Ramsay, she was still fast as lightening. How she had any energy left was beyond Gendry. He would’ve probably died or just plain passed out if it wasn’t for Massey helping out with the second man. Massey killed one man and then began to help Gendry with the other. Gendry tried to focus on the man before him, but it was hard not to catch snippets of what was going on behind him as he heard armor clanging and metal smacking against metal.

“I’ll enjoy when this is over so I can fuck you senseless!”

“I believe you already have, husband!”

Gendry couldn’t help but wheel his head around to look at the stunned look on Ramsay’s face. It didn’t last long though as he had to fight off Arya again. There was less fluidity in her movements now. She was growing irrational and angry and was attacking him like a rabid dog. She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving, and he saw tears in her eyes.

“I am the real Arya Stark,” she ground at with each hit.

“No!”

“Yes, and I will take back what was stolen!”

Ramsay slipped, his sword going low when hers went high. He cut her in the side, his sword burying itself into her armor, but she buried her sword in his neck. She pulled on the sword, jerking his whole body forward onto his knees as the sword was buried too deeply in his fleshy neck. “Send the Stranger my regards,” she hissed, before pulling the sword out and sending blood spurting everywhere. Ramsay Snow, the Bastard of Bolton and Lord of Hornwood and Winterfell, fell to his face and his death. Dark, thick, red blood seeped out from underneath him, pooling around Arya’s feet. When it reached Gendry’s, he looked up.

The look on Arya’s face was one of loss. Covered in blood and scratches and bruises, tears sliding down her dirty face, Arya looked more like a child than ever before. He wondered what she would do now that she’d done everything that she’d dreamed of doing.

As he reached out for her, the warhammer hanging at his side, he knew in his heart that the battle had been won. But will the war ever really end?

Chapter Text

“We should leave.”

“We can’t leave.”

“I just… No, we should leave. We need to leave.”

“No, Arya, we’re not leaving. We can’t. Besides, you don’t really want to leave. You’re just saying that because you’re scared.”

That earned him a smack. “I am not scared!”

“Then we’re not leaving.”

Arya glared at him hard, but Gendry was unrelenting. He was the steel now. It had been over a week since the Battle for Winterfell had been won. She had been in a strange fog for the week, as if unsure of what her place was in the world now. It had been Gendry that had come up with the suggestion of helping with the rebuilding. People had been hesitant at first, telling her that she didn’t have to because she was a lady, but she would have none of that. If she was capable of fighting in battle, then she was capable of helping rebuild her childhood home. “For my father and mother,” she said, before randomly adding, “and Bran the Builder.” She had smiled at the sudden addition, like it had reminded her of something almost forgotten, and then started on her work.

For Gendry, it had been an exhausting week. The days were spent rebuilding anything they could. Since he was a smith – and a much better one after years and years of practice – he was needed practically all over the castle. He rarely had the chance to see or speak with Arya during the days, but when he’d catch a glimpse of her across a hall or outside, she’d somehow know it and would turn to catch eyes with him. He lived for those tired smiles that were filled with more happiness than he could remember. His nights all belonged to Arya though. The first three nights, they had slept together fitfully, curled up together on a mat in a room filled with many other people. Stannis hadn’t liked it, but upon realization that she was one of the very few women in this new camp, he had realized it was just safer that way. After the fourth night, Arya had dragged him into a separate room, one that he was sure hadn’t been meant for sleeping, and their bodies had clashed together like hot metals. For Gendry, the days were the Stag’s, but the nights were the Wolf’s.

However, the moment she’d gotten a letter stating that her siblings were returning to Winterfell, Arya had gone shaky. It was like her world had turned on its end. She’d spun around to look at him, the letters dangling in her hands, with wide eyes filled with fear and joy and an overwhelming sense of panic.

“I can’t…” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t let them see me like this, Gendry. I’ve lost it.”

“You haven’t lost anything,” Gendry told her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest.

Arya rubbed her face into his shirt, breathing him in. “Six years, Gendry – it’s been six years. Nearly seven since I saw Rickon. He’s ten now, the age I was when I met you. I don’t even know what he looks like.” When she pulled away from him, he saw that she was wearing a miserable look on her face. “And Sansa is married – again apparently – to the heir of the Vale, of all things. I don’t know them anymore and they– they won’t recognize me.”

“They’ll recognize you,” Gendry pointed out, chucking a finger under her chin, “because I recognized you. If I can, then your brother and sister can, too.”

“I’ve killed people, Gendry,” she whispered painfully, looking down at her hands. It was like she was seeing blood all over them. There were moments when he caught her looking at the floors in the castle, and he could tell that she was picturing the blood and dead bodies that had been there a week ago. All of them had been given to the Red God.

Gendry covered her hands with one of his and squeezed them. “So have I.”

“I killed people after I left, Gendry; I killed people in Braavos. That’s what I did, what I learned.”

“And you think I was able to stay bloodshed free while in this war-torn place? While with the Brotherood?” Gendry shook his head and leaned over to press his face into her hair. She still smelled like smoke; she always smelled like smoke these days, but also of the godswood. “Listen to me, Arya; you did what you had to do to survive. We all did – your brother and sister included. They’re not going to turn you away because you survived.”

Arya titled her head so that she was gazing up at him. She had calmed down a little, but he could still sense her tense body, and looked as if she was going to kiss him. These were the moments when she usually crawled over top him – when she itched for a release she could not find on her own. They were intense moments when Gendry felt like his blood would begin to boil under her heated gaze.

And then the door opened.

Both Gendry and Arya turned their heads to the direction, expecting to see one of Stannis’ men come to tell them something. Arya looked ready to snap at them while Gendry wore a tired and frustrated look, when they both realized that it wasn’t a man. In the doorway were a young woman and a boy.

“Arya, is that you?” the boy said, his voice cracking over her name.

Gendry watched as Arya slowly pulled herself to her feet, staring at the people in the doorway, like she was in a dream. She was in that fog again, lost and uncertain of her footing. He grasped her hand behind her back, squeezing it, and she squeezed it in return, blinking the fog away.

“Rickon?” she finally said, her voice painfully small. It reminded him of the Arya he knew all those years ago, when she was ten and one and he was ten and five. They had been children then. She had been so tiny back then, but now she sounded it again, her eyes wide with fear and wonder. Her grip on his hand tightened to an almost painful level. “Sansa?”

“It is… It’s good to see you, sister,” the young woman replied, a smile breaking out onto her pretty face.

Without warning, she let go of him and fled to the two people in the door. The three bodies crashed into each other and they wrapped their arms around one another in an awkward hug. Gendry was sure that Arya would’ve fallen to the ground if she was not being held up by her long lost sister and brother.

“How did you–?”

“We told Stannis we didn’t want a big procession. Not yet. We just wanted to see you.”

“I met Sansa in the Vale and we traveled here as fast as we could when we heard about the Battle.”

“You’re so difficult! I can’t believe you actually fought in battle!”

“What else would you expect from me?”

“I’m jealous. I wish I could’ve fought, but Lord Seaworth said I’m too young. Can you believe that?”

As they cried and spoke to each other, over one another, so happy and excited, Gendry began to feel out of place. I shouldn’t be here, he thought. This was Arya’s time. This was the hour of the Wolf. This was for her and her alone. It was not his place to be here. He felt like he was intruding on something so private that no one in the world should see and felt awkward, staring down at his feet and wondering how he should leave and if he’d be able to do it quietly. But they were standing in the doorway, so he wouldn’t be able to slip out unnoticed, and he was certain Arya would thwack him for it later.

There was an almost delicate clearing of the throat, and Gendry realized that the room had quieted down. When he looked up, he noticed that the young woman – Sansa – was looking at him curiously. “Arya, are you not going to introduce us to your friend?”

“I–” Arya looked confused for a moment, looking from Sansa to Gendry, when she suddenly realized what her sister meant. Her friend. Yes, they were best friends – but they had become much more than that over the past few months. “Sansa, Rickon, this is Gendry. He… Well… it’s a long story, but he’s helped me so incredibly much with everything. He…” She looked him in the eyes as she spoke and when she was unable to come up with anything good enough to say, she stopped and smiled. “He’s been there for me when no one else was or could be.”

Gendry stood up and automatically bowed. He could practically hear Arya rolling her eyes at him, but he didn’t care. He might not bow to her or be proper with her, but this was her family. They might be different. “M’lady and m’lord.”

“You’re with someone that knows his courtesies?” Sansa said, her voice light and filled with laughter. He lifted his head, peering at her cautiously, and caught the disgruntled look on Arya’s face. They were children all over again and he grinned faintly. She gave him a look that told him he would pay for this later, but he didn’t care. “How delightfully shocking.”

“Gendry, eh?” Rickon added. “You a bastard?”

“Rickon!” Sansa frowned at him. The boy just shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not polite at all.”

Gendry stood up straight and gave them a sheepish smile. “It’s alright, m’lady. If I was offended every time someone called me a bastard, I’d be out of tears.” Which was true. He’d been called a bastard his whole life. The only reason very few people called him one in the North was because the Bastard had been a nickname for Ramsay Snow. And it was clear as day that Gendry was no Ramsay, bastard blood or not. “Arya has told me so much about you both. I’m truly glad that you’ve made it to Winterfell, although I think we were hoping it’d be a little more…cozy before you arrived.”

Rickon snorted. “I lived in Skagos for three years. I think this is positively peachy.”

Sansa sighed, but Arya looked quite pleased with the outcome of her little brother. When she connected eyes with Gendry, he saw a light in them that had been missing for as long as he knew her. It suddenly came to him that he’d never known her during a time when she had been with her family. He’d been with her when Rickon had supposedly died and when Sansa had been married off to Tyrion Lannister. He’d been with her after she’d lost her father. He’d never known that light was missing from her until he saw it in her just now, and it warmed him and saddened him at the same time.

“I’ll leave you all alone,” he said. “You all should catch up."

Arya took a step towards him. “No, don’t–”

“Really, Arya, it’s fine.” Gendry walked up to her, trying to ignore the cool gaze of her sister and arching eyebrow of her brother. It was obvious that they were on a show, and he wanted to put on a good performance. These were the opinions that would matter. She would say they didn’t, but they mattered to him more than Stannis Baratheon’s opinions of their relationship ever would. “I’ve been with you for the past few months, but they haven’t seen you in years. You belong with them tonight.” She grasped his hand again, gazing up at him and biting her lip. “They probably need me down there anyways to help with something. They always do.”

“Oh, alright,” Arya sighed, though she knew he was right. She wanted to be with her family. It was just strange parting when they had been together for so long. “But I’ll see you at supper, yes?”

“Of course,” he told her. “I’m not going to miss a free meal.” As she pushed him away, he made another quick bow as he backed towards the door. “M’lady, m’lord,” he said to Sansa and Rickon, who nodded their heads to him, before he stepped out of the room and started for the stairs.

When he was nearly out of hearing range, he heard Rickon say, “Does he call you m’lady?”

Arya responded quickly enough: “He knows damn well not to.”

Gendry grinned to himself as he went down the stairs, thinking that he might just call her that at supper.

Chapter Text

“Ser Gendry, do you have a minute?”

Gendry stood up straight, wiping the sweat from his brow, and looked around to see the Lord of Winterfell waving a hand. It was still somewhat strange to have to bow and do all the proper courtesies to a boy that was half his age, but he’d learned to bend the knee to a child when Joffrey Baratheon (No, Lannister, you have to remember that.) had been king in King’s Landing. Still, it was clear that Rickon Stark was nothing like the boy king. The boy standing before him wore an easy grin and clothes similar to the ones that lowborn children from the North would wear. Stannis Baratheon and even Sansa Stark had tried to dress him in proper highborn lord clothing, but Rickon would just shrug out of them and Arya would sneak his old clothes back to him.

Waving to the men he was working with on restoring the stables, Gendry walked over to Rickon. He had at least a foot and a half on the young boy, if not more, but that didn’t seem to intimidate Rickon in the least bit. Arya had told Gendry that Rickon had lived in one of the most dangerous places in the world. A young man that looked like he could smash his face in wouldn’t bother Rickon in the least bit. “M’lord?”

“My lord,” Rickon said with a laugh. “Sounds a bit stupid, doesn’t it? You’re a man grown and I’m a child.” He started to walk and Gendry followed. Rickon was a child, his hair a mop of curly Tully reddish-brown and his eyes Stark grey. He was small for his age, probably from living on a remote island for so long, but he walked with a certain presence that commanded people to pay attention to him. He might not have dressed like a highborn or acted like a highborn, but there was no denying that he was one. “Besides, you’re Arya’s best friend. You can just call me Rickon.”

Gendry furrowed his brow, unsure of what to do. It was like dealing with Arya when she had been ten all over again. “As m’lord commands.”

Rickon let out another laugh. “She told me you’d say that! I didn’t think you would, but you did. You better watch yourself, Gendry, because Arya knows you too well.” Gendry shrugged his shoulders. It was the truth. Arya knew him better than anyone in the world. He’d never had any real close friends before; even though he’d been a member of the Brotherhood for years, he’d never been terribly close with any one of them. “You know her the best too now. It’s been…years since I’ve seen Arya. She was my age the last time I saw her, and I can barely remember her, to be honest. I was three. What do you remember from when you were three?”

“My mother,” Gendry said without thinking. When Rickon stopped walking and gave him a questioning look, Gendry turned a bit red. “I mean, well… My mother died when I was little, but my first memories are of her. I remember her singing to me, washing my hair, telling me I looked like my father, and then I remember that she was dead.”

Rickon looked at the floor, and Gendry was suddenly struck by just how young Rickon was. He was ten, for the Seven’s sake. “Those sound similar to the memories of my own mother,” he admitted. “One day she was here and the next she was gone and she never came back home.”

Gendry didn’t have the heart to tell this boy that he’d seen his mother before she’d died – or maybe after she’d died. He’d never been able to tell with Lady Stoneheart, and he hadn’t wanted to. There had been something awfully terrifying about the woman. Perhaps it had been the fact that Gendry had been so close to the woman’s daughter. He’d always been frightened that Lady Stoneheart would somehow read his mind and see how he’d lost Arya and hang him for his inability to protect her youngest girl. He still hadn’t told Arya about Lady Stoneheart – none of the Brotherhood members had – and he didn’t know if he could.

“But I didn’t pull you away from work to talk about our mothers,” Rickon suddenly said, swelling up. He had to take on the role of the leader now, the one in control. It must’ve been somewhat awkward for him since he was the youngest person in Winterfell at the moment. There was a young Frey boy that had been taken, Big Walder Frey, but Rickon was still younger than him by a few years. And even though Stannis was their king, Rickon was their lord, and a Stark finally back in control of Winterfell meant so much more to the Northern men than anything else.

“What was it you wanted from me then, m’lord?” Gendry asked warily.

“Arya,” he answered, and Gendry felt his stomach do a flip. “Do you love her, like how the knights love the maidens in all the songs?”

“I beg your pardon, m” – Rickon gave him a look – “Rickon.” It had been strange enough talking about his feelings for Arya with Stannis Baratheon, but it felt even stranger talking about them with her ten year-old little brother. When he had been Rickon’s age, all he’d cared about was the fact that he was working in a forge and wasn’t running around Flee Bottom like most stupid orphans. He hadn’t thought a thing or two about girls, not until he was out of King’s Landing and nearly a man grown.

Rickon threw him a wolf-like grin. “It’s not a hard question. Do you love my sister?”

“She’s my closest friend. I am completely loyal to her. I would never do anything against her. I–”

“I know all that,” Rickon interrupted dismissively. “That’s not what I’m asking anyways. Do you or do you not love her, Gendry? It’s important for me to know.”

This wasn’t how things should be. Gendry was twenty years and Rickon only ten, and yet Gendry was the flustered one. Rickon, on the other hand, looked hardly perturbed, like he interrogated every boy that had more than decent intentions for his older sisters. He was far too ahead of his age; that was for sure. The little lord was just a child and yet, unlike Gendry, Rickon could manage a proper sentence without turning red or white.

Gendry looked down at his feet. “Of course I love her,” he muttered, but then he glanced hastily to Rickon, “but it’s not proper of me, I know. She’s…she’s Arya Stark, and I’m just a bastard. I know I’m too lowborn for her and–”

Rickon gave him a look that was remarkably similar to the one Arya had given him six years ago when Gendry had first found out that she was a highborn lady, and it was that look that made Gendry cut himself off. The boy just shook his head. “Does it look like I care if you’re a lowborn bastard?” he asked. Gendry didn’t respond; he didn’t even move. Rickon sighed. “I have a bastard brother; I’m sure Arya told you about him. Jon is his name. I loved him well enough as any of my siblings. Maybe it was because I was young, but I never understood why it was so awful and I still don’t. Seemed to me that his being a bastard had nothing to do with the kind of man he was, and it’s the same with you.”

“So…” Gendry gnawed on his bottom lip, trying to think of what to say. “You’re…you’re not mad that I…”

“Why would I be mad that someone loves Arya?” Rickon sounded incredulous, almost confused, raising his eyebrows defiantly. “And even better, why would I be mad that Arya loves someone?” He shrugged his shoulders, and it felt like every weight had been lifted off of Gendry’s own shoulders. He hadn’t even known how tense and worried he’d been about this whole thing until now. “Stannis told me last night about your ‘improper relations’ with my sister. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. It’s got nothing to do with me, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t tell Arya who she can love and I can’t tell you that either, Lord of Winterfell or not, and neither can King Stannis Baratheon. Neither a king nor a lord has that kind of power. It’s stupid.”

Gendry honestly didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t really spoken with Rickon or Sansa since they had come to Winterfell. A few words here or there, but nothing too deep. Arya always made sure he sat with them when they ate, but he was always quiet and let them get caught up in wild conversations. He rather liked just watching them. He’d never had a brother or sister before, and it was really nice seeing Arya with her family again. This was what I fought for, he’d think when he watched as Arya laughed at a dirty joke from Skagos that Rickon told or when she would grasp Sansa in the tightest of hugs. He hadn’t been sure what Rickon or Sansa had thought about the bastard boy that their sister was so fond of, and he’d been too afraid to really think about it.

“I… Thank you, Rickon?”

Rickon just shrugged his shoulders and squinted into the sun. “You’re a good man, Gendry, better than most. When I lived on Skagos, I learned to watch in order to learn, and I can see how you’re with Arya, how you treat her, and how she trusts you.” He smiled sadly at Gendry. “Some days, I don’t think she even trusts us, like she’s afraid we’ll just vanish into thin air the moment she does. I know because I feel the same way sometimes.”

“I’ll never leave her,” Gendry promised wholeheartedly. “I’d only leave if she asked me to.”

“I doubt she’ll ever do that.” Rickon sighed. "All I want - all I really want, now that Winterfell has been returned to us - is for Arya and Sansa to be happy. I'm still unsure about Sansa's husband Harry Hardyng, but I'm sure as I'll ever be with you. I don't want her to marry some stupid highborn lord just to make my claim in the North stronger. I'm a Stark, and the North will always be mine and a part of me. Arya's happiness, especially after everything we've gone through, means more to me than Winterfell itself, if I was honest. The king can bugger off if he has a problem."

“Lord Stark!” someone called from behind. Both Gendry and Rickon turned around to see Ser Justin Massey walking up to them. Rickon looked away to roll his eyes and make a face, but smiled almost pleasantly when the knight was standing with them. Massey glanced at Gendry briefly before looking away and ignoring him completely. “The King would like to see you. Important matters, concerning some of the higher-born prisoners.”

“I wish we could just hang them all and be done with it,” Rickon grumbled under his breath.

Massey leaned in slightly. “Pardon, my lord?”

“I said I’ll see the king right away,” Rickon responded without missing a beat. Massey nodded his head and started to walk back the way he came. “You can go back to work now, Gendry. I’ll see you at supper unless Stannis feels like taking his sweet time.” Gendry nodded his head and turned to walk back to the stables. A few seconds later though, he heard Rickon saying, “And Gendry?”

Gendry stopped and turned around. “Yes, m’lord?”

“If you hurt Arya, I’ll sick Shaggydog on you,” Rickon proclaimed somewhat cheerfully. “He developed a slightly unhealthy taste for men even before we went to Skagos.” He grinned that wolfish grin away and waved goodbye. “Good day to you, ser.”

Chapter Text

Arya rolled off the top of him, plopping down on the hard mattress next to him. While he laid there trying to get his bearings straight, she was breathing heavily and wearing a triumphant look on her face. She always did that after they lay together, as if she was proud of making him come. He had once joked that it wasn’t difficult for her to make him do so, but she always took it as a challenge, and she always made sure to prolong it as much as possible, as if to torture him. He’d tried to tell her that this wasn’t a game or a competition – she didn’t have to try to defeat him since both of them were going to win in the end – but she did so anyways, and he let her be after the first time times he’d told her. He had even told her that they shouldn’t sleep together now that her little brother and older sister were here, but that only made her more determined to drag him to some dark corner of the castle and pounce on him when he least expected it.

There was just no stopping her once she started, and he learned to accept that quickly enough.

“Ready for round two?” Arya asked breathlessly, her victorious grin broadening on her face.

Gendry shot her an incredulous look. “Seven hells, Arya, give a man a moment to breathe.”

She laughed and snuggled up close to him so she could nip him on the ear gently. “Never.” She continued to tease him, raking her fingernails lightly over his sweaty chest, making him shiver under her touch. Every time he tried to cover up immediately, in fear that someone would walk in on them, she’d force him to lie back down or swat his hand away from his shirt, quick as lightning. Her body was so hot next to his, her little breasts pressed against his side and one leg thrown over his. They always wound up in a tangle of some sorts, as if they couldn’t get close enough.

Just when she thought that she had him, Gendry grabbed her hands and flipped so that he was on top of her, holding her hands above her head so that he was the one in control. That didn’t mean much though. She was so tricky. Still, surprise flashed across her face briefly, only to be replaced by a sly smile again. He shook his head though. It was far too soon for another round. She might have been ready to go again, but he needed to recharge for more than just a few moments. “I want to play the game,” he told her instead.

Arya squirmed underneath him. “Gendry,” she mewled in that voice that almost always made him cave.

Not this time though.

“The game,” he insisted.

Arya huffed at him, but then nodded her head. He smiled triumphantly himself and then rolled to his side again, reaching for one of the furs to pull over them. The fifth night they had laid together at Winterfell, they had started to play a game of sorts in order to learn more about each other. He asked a question, and then she asked a question, simple enough. Gendry had realized that he really didn’t know much of what had happened in the past few years of Arya’s life. So much had happened in the past few months that they hadn’t had the chance to actually sit down and talk. Even when they had talked, there had never been details and a lot of it had to do with what would happen in the future. Now that all of that had happened, he was deeply curious about her past.

What had happened to her while she was gone all those years? He knew a few things, of course. He knew that she had lived in Braavos for some time, but he didn’t know how she’d gotten there or how long she was there or if she’d lived somewhere else in the Free Cities. She had also learned to kill people there, but he didn’t know why or how she’d done that or who had taught her. He knew that she had still kept up with the news in Westeros, despite telling herself that she didn’t care. But that was it for the most part. And she didn’t really know much about him, except that he’d stayed as a smith with the Brotherhood without Banners. He thought about telling her about her mother, Lady Stoneheart, but nothing came close to bringing her up when they played the game.

Gendry touched a light scar on her right bicep. “Where did that come from?”

As usual, Arya struggled to come up with the words. She had been hesitant to play this game, sure that he would hate her if she ever told him her life story, but he had insisted on it and had yet to find a reason to hate her. Nonetheless, she was still wary of opening up, even to him. She would never judge him, but she was still afraid that he would judge her. “I was caught stealing an orange when I was fourteen.”

“And he tried to stab you over it?”

“They were very nice oranges,” Arya explained, as if that made perfect sense. He’d only had an orange once, due to the kindness of a customer that had come to Tobho’ Mott’s armory and appreciated the work of the young apprentice. It had been delicious, but he would never have stabbed someone over it, even if they weren’t in season. She ran her fingers along a circular scar on the inner side of his left arm. “That one.”

“I was ten. It was my third week as an apprentice with Tobho, so I was stupid enough to get too close to the fire and was burned.” Gendry had always considered himself lucky to somehow become an armory’s apprentice, especially when he’d just been a common boy, and even luckier to actually be talented at it. He had never known how he had become one or who had paid the fee and his master hadn’t known either. After a while, he’d learned to stop thinking about it altogether and just work. He snaked his hand under the furs, touching the scar on her left knee. “What about this one?”

Arya smiled. “I fell out of a tree when I was eight. My younger brother Bran and I were climbing trees to see who was better, but I slipped and fell to the ground. He was always a better climber than me until–” Here she faltered and her smile fell from her face. “Until his fall which crippled him.” Gendry wanted to say something, wanted to comfort her or say something nice, but before he could, she touched a jagged scar on his chest. “How?”

“It was two years ago.” Gendry grimaced at the memory, not wanting to think about it, but he’d been the one that had started this game. Not all of the questions led to pleasant memories, but they all had to be accounted for in the end, good and bad. “Some bandits came to the Inn at the Crossroads where I was working. It was a place for the Brotherhood to come together, but mostly it was just me, Jeyne Heddle – she patched everyone up – and a bunch of little kids. They happened upon us in the night, broke in and tried to steal stuff, but we had next to nothing. They got mad and one of the men tried to… well, he tried to force himself on Jeyne. Her screaming woke me up and I…” The good and the bad, Gendry, you started this game. “I knocked him off her and dashed his head against the wall. But by then it was bloody mess and there were two other men. They’d even killed one of the children, so I…” He took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. “I killed them both, but not before one of them stabbed me in the chest with a piece of glass from the window they’d broke.”

Not looking at him, Arya continued to stroke his chest gently. “You told me you’d killed people after I left, while in the Brotherhood. I thought you were lying to make me feel better about what I did.”

“I wish that was true,” Gendry told her, a frown on his face. “I don’t much like killing.”

“I do,” she admitted in a whisper, “or well I did. I’m not sure anymore.”

There was silence as her words sank in. What had happened while she was in Braavos? Looking her in the eyes, Gendry laid his hand down on her stomach where there was a long thin scar. “How about this one?” he asked, changing the conversation like he knew she wanted.

“A man attacked me one night a month before I returned to Westeros. It didn’t end well for him.” There was something cold in her eyes that reminded Gendry of the first month she had been with them. She had been so distant then, as if her mind was still in that far off land and not with him. It had been a while since she looked like that, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Why do you want to know all of this, Gendry? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“I want to know what happened to you – I want to know where you’ve been and what you were doing – I want to understand you.” Before she could say anything, he continued, “That counts as a question, by the way.” She furrowed her brow at him, words of protest forming on her lips, but he pulled her left hand in his and held it up, kissing the tips of her fingers. “And this one?”

“Training.” The word was hard, like flint, as if it took a lot of energy to get it out of her. When he just looked at her expectedly, wanting more, she huffed and added, “For the House of Black and White.” He didn’t say a word. She growled in frustration. “To be a Faceless Man, all right? I was training to be an assassin.”

Gendry’s eyebrows shot up. “An assassin? Truly?”

“Yes, you stupid bull,” she snapped. It was a serious moment. It was a very serious statement. It was a very serious history. But Gendry burst out into laughter nonetheless, which only seemed to aggravate her even further. Arya shoved the fur off her and sat up, leaving her chest exposed in the moonlight, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. “What’s so funny? It’s not funny!”

“It’s not, I know,” Gendry said in between laughs. “It’s just… Well… It’s not something you’d expect to hear – you training to become a Faceless Man. I thought of so many things, but I never thought of that.” He stopped laughing and propped himself up on his elbows, giving her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Arya. I didn’t mean to offend you. But…you have to admit that it’s kind of crazy.”

“You became a knight for a group of knights that were led by a man charged by my father that was killed and revived repeatedly,” Arya pointed out accusingly.

Not to mention that it was later led by her mother that had been revived but still been more dead than alive, only fueled by vengeance. Gendry shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement. “True enough.” He sat up. “But Arya, it is crazy. You were a Stark of Winterfell, the daughter of the Hand of the King, and then you became a boy meant for the Night’s Watch, Roose Bolton’s cupbearer, an outlaw basically, and then you went to the Free Cities on your own to become an assassin. Who does that? It sounds mad and completely made up, but you did all those things.” He ran his fingers through his shaggy black hair and gave her a sheepish look. “And I love you for it all.”

“You’re the mad one,” Arya proclaimed.

“Maybe I am,” Gendry said with a stupid grin on his face, “but so are you.”

Arya fixed him with a glare and then pounced on him, shoving him onto his back again and straddling him. She leaned in close and he could smell the sweet scent of the woods on her. “Stupid,” she said, but then she kissed him. “I don’t know why I love you.”

But that was a question he never asked, because she would never let him. If he so much as doubted that she loved him, she became furious with him. As far as she was concerned, he was the best man she had ever known and that was a good enough reason for her to love him.

Chapter Text

When a king said the words, “I need to speak with you,” you didn’t disagree with him or turn him down, hence why Gendry was now standing in the presence of King Stannis Baratheon in the godswood of Winterfell.

Gendry felt like an intruder in the godswood. Even if they were Arya’s gods again, they were not his, and he didn’t know what to do with them. He just stared at the carved and bloody face in the white weirwood tree. It reminded him of a dead man whose blood was seeping out of his body little by little after a terrible wound. The thought was not a good one, especially when he was already so nervous. Despite the fact that he had now spoken with the king a number of times, had been given a Baratheon warhammer, and had even saved the man’s life, Gendry found it awkward being around the older man for reasons he could not explain. While Rickon was the Lord of Winterfell, he was young and easygoing, making him good company for a highborn lord. Stannis was not like that though; he was cold with a hint of anger in almost everything he did or said.

Once they had entered the godswood though, Stannis did not speak for a long time. He stared down into the hot springs, watching his reflection ripple in the dark water. Though he found it awkward to look at the king, Gendry struggled not to stare. Now that Stannis had cleaned up and looked more like a king than a soldier, it was easier to see what he looked like. If Stannis was looking at his reflection in a mirror, then Gendry was as well, but a different sort of mirror, one that spoke of the future.

I look like him, Gendry thought somewhat timidly. They weren’t an exact match, but it was hard not to notice their similarities. He’d seen more than a few of the men stop and give them a second glance if they stood anywhere near each other. Gendry was almost always at Arya’s side whenever she spoke with the king, so it was hard not to notice the fact that they looked strikingly similar. I have his eyes.

Stannis Baratheon had bright blue eyes – but they were more than that. They were also somehow dark, as if cast in a shadow, but then when he looked at someone, they were bright again, as if on fire. Gendry had those eyes as well: hidden in shadow when he was thinking, but bright and alight when he was smithing. How could he not notice something like that? People might have thought him slow, but it was more like denial than anything else. He’d never thought of it before, not until he’d found Stannis staring at him, but the idea of finding someone that he was related to in some way was startling. They’d spent so much time finding Arya’s family and reuniting her with her family that he’d never once thought about meeting his own. Quite frankly, the idea cowed him, and he’d tried not to think of it for the past month. Truth be told, he didn’t want to think of it. For some reason, being a bastard boy with a dead mother and no father to speak of was easier than knowing just who had abandoned him.

“I knew who you were from what moment I saw you,” Stannis finally began, still staring down at the water. His voice was steady, devoid of any sort of emotion that might betray him. Stannis was a man ruled by his mind; Gendry couldn’t help but think, when all he’d ever been was ruled by his heart, what a burden it must be to never allow those emotions out. “I didn’t know your name or where you came from, but I knew you. I’d seen you before, in King’s Landing, years ago when my brother was still king. And as soon as you walked in the door with Arya Stark, I knew beyond a doubt where you came from, and I hated you for it.”

Gendry’s eyes dropped to the ground quickly. You really didn’t want to hear a king tell you that he hated you; that usually meant that your head was about to be cut off. Couple that with the fact that he was a bastard that had gone against the king’s orders many of times and continued to do so by sleeping with a highborn lady; and, well, it was off with his head for sure. Still, Gendry said nothing, keeping his lips pressed together firmly. He tried to keep himself from reacting, his face a blank slate, but it was difficult. He’d always been ruled by his emotions. Whereas Arya could go blank at the flick of the wrist and Stannis could grind his emotions into submission, Gendry could not. When he was angry, he would rage; when he was happy, he would smile wide; when he was sad, he would mope about; and when he loved, he loved with all his heart, even when it hurt. He had always been like that; and it was hard to be otherwise.

“I hated you for it because you reminded me so much of what I had lost – of what I had destroyed and betrayed in order to get where I am today.” Stannis looked up from the water and turned his gaze on Gendry, a fierce and cold one at that. “Make no mistake; I want justice and what is right and by the law, but I have not always taken the honorable way, as much as I wish I could say I did. I thought it was the blood that ruined me, but perhaps it was the crown that corrupted me in the end, just as it did my brothers before me.”

“You saved the Wall from Wildlings and you helped retake Winterfell for the Starks and the North from the Iron Throne,” Gendry pointed out, thinking back to all the stories that had been told over the month. From the sound of things, Stannis was more like a god than a mere king. He was the Lord of Light reborn, some men whispered at their fires at night, the Prince that was Promised, though Gendry had no idea what that meant. Still, it seemed like a good idea to remind Stannis of that.

Stannis nodded his head. “Aye, I did both those things,” he sighed, his mouth twisting into a cruel frown, “but I also did terrible things as well. I nearly burned my bastard nephew, just for his blood. And I killed my younger brother.” He looked down at his clean gloved hands, most likely seeing something entirely different from Gendry. “I didn’t want to believe it then, but I know it to be true now. Somehow or another, I killed Renly, the boy who I kept alive by giving half my rations to during the Siege of Storm’s End, the boy who continuously took what was mine by rights, whether meaning to or not. Should a kinslayer be a king even if the death is sound and justified?”

“I don’t know, Your Grace.”

“Before the battle, I thought about having you killed as well,” Stannis continued, still looking at his hands. Gendry took a deep breath. He had expected as such, had told Arya multiple times, but she hadn’t listened and in the end he hadn’t cared enough to stop. “Not only did you disobey me directly, but you brought shame upon House Stark as well. How many times have you risked putting a bastard in Arya Stark’s belly, if you’ve not already?”

Gendry bit his lip. It was a constant worry of his. They’d only used moon tea a few times, but they’d lain with each other multiple times. Nearly every time, he spent himself inside of her. He was terrified of hearing her say the words that she was carrying his bastard child. He could not bear the idea of bringing another bastard into this world, a child without a name. He’d grown up without a surname of his own, a House of his own, a crest or family words. Arya had them all, and he didn’t want her child to be like him. He didn’t want to make a Snow, even if she proclaimed to love her bastard brother on the Wall with everything in her.

“I couldn’t help but think that of course you would ignore my commands – of course you would dishonor her – of course you would taint her with your blood and your bastard seed and selfish desires. How could I expect any more from you?” Stannis shook his head and looked piercingly at Gendry, making Gendry feel like he couldn’t move. How could anyone turn away from a gaze like that? It terrified him and stilled him at the same time. “I was wrong though. I was the selfish one, wallowing in my self-pity and anger. I looked at you and saw someone else and hated you for things you had never done in your life. You may look like him – a spitting image, in fact – but you are nothing like your father.”

He couldn’t stop it if he’d tried. At the mention of his father, Gendry’s heart skipped a beat. “My father?” He was both curious and scared, both desperate to know and hopeful that he wouldn’t.

“Surely you know or at least have an inkling?”

Gendry swallowed the knot in his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. It took everything in him to shake his head slowly. It was a lie though. He’d never thought about it before – never had to, never even bothered – but being in the presence of King Stannis Baratheon made it impossible for the mill to not start turning in his head. There were looks from people that couldn’t be ignored and things that had been said throughout the month that he couldn’t just forget. They might have to beat it into his head, like a hammer on a breastplate, but he would know eventually, even if he didn’t want to, even if he was afraid to.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, he tried to tell himself. You’ll always be just a bastard.

Except that he wasn’t – except that Arya had been telling him for years, since they were children, that he wasn’t just a bastard. He’d always thought that he would only not be just a bastard to her, but now there was more, and he didn’t want it to change. He’d become a knight to be better and be good enough for her, but now he was desperate for the simple life that being a blacksmith bastard gave him. He didn’t have to worry about the game of thrones or squabbles between high lords or any sort of courtesies. He just had to be himself, a bastard and a damn good blacksmith.

“Gendry, you are Robert Baratheon’s bastard son.”

The words sounded fake and unreal. Gendry shook his head, the word “no” on the tip of his tongue, but all he did was laugh instead. It wasn’t filled with any mirth or disbelief or anger. It was just a laugh because he didn’t know how else he was supposed to react. “You’re not just a bastard,” Arya had said so many times before, but especially after they’d crossed paths with Stannis. “You’re important.” And he’d thought he’d just been important to her and that had been enough to him. He hadn’t thought that his father might be more than a sorry drunk of a lout that had impregnated his mother for a copper or two. Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong though. King Robert had whored his way through the Seven Kingdoms.

“You may be his only remaining son in Westeros, certainly his oldest,” Stannis continued, full steam ahead, not caring if Gendry was slowly backing away, as if trying to escape the godswood and the truth that it held. “Edric Storm is away in the Free Cities, but he is younger than you, more like a child, and Robert’s treacherous wife had many of the bastards killed.”

It was all starting to make sense now. How he’d suddenly been chucked into the Night’s Watch, for his own protection, and why the gold cloaks had come searching for him all the way on the Kingsroad. The queen had wanted his head because he was the king’s son. She couldn’t have the son of the dead king, even a bastard one, running around looking exactly like him when her son, the boy king on the Iron Throne, was being passed off as a Baratheon and looked nothing like one.

“It cannot be by chance that you came here. I don’t know if the damned Lord of Light brought you here or maybe even these old gods that the North hold so close, but something brought you here.”

“Arya,” Gendry choked out, the only sane thing he could latch onto. “Arya brought me here.”

Stannis smiled, but it was a strange smile, one that did not look friendly. “Of course it would be her. A Stark and Baratheon pair has been in the making for decades, but has never come about, like some sort of curse.”

“I’m not...” Gendry ran his fingers through his coffee black hair, the same hair that Stannis had, the same hair King Robert had had. He’d lived in King’s Landing; he knew what the king had looked like, and he’d never once thought of it. How could he have been so blind? (But no, it would’ve been too arrogant to think of the king as his father; and Gendry was anything but arrogant.) “I’m not a Baratheon,” he finished weakly, falling back against a tree to hold himself up.

“You may not have the name, but you have the blood,” Stannis corrected him. “I saw it plain as day for myself during the battle when you defeated Roose Bolton and saved my life. I saw your father in that moment, but when it was over, I saw you, perhaps for the first time. You are your father’s son, but you are not your father.”

“I’m not,” Gendry said, practically pleaded, shaking his head. “I can’t be. I’m just a bastard, just…just a nobody. It can’t be true.”

“But it is,” a soft voice said from behind him.

Gendry spun around, still leaning against the tree, and saw Arya standing in the opening of the godswood. There was a solemn expression on her face, as solemn as the one she’d been wearing on the first day he’d met her in King’s Landing. Her father had just been killed then, and she had been so sad yet unable to talk about it with anyone. (He’d heard her crying though, deep in the night, when she’d thought no one could hear her, and when he’d catch her face in the morning, it would be so sad and heavy.) It looked like that now, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders, but then it wasn’t. It wasn’t even on his really or on Stannis’. It was on all of their shoulders, bearing down upon them without mercy.

“If you won’t listen to me,” Stannis said, “listen to the girl.”

Gendry never took his eyes away from Arya; and she never took her eyes away from him. “How long have you known?”

Arya shrugged her shoulders, trying to be nonchalant, but he could see the way it hurt her to do so. “A year or so. I realized it randomly while I was in Braavos. I saw a man from the back and thought it was you, but when he turned around, he was older, and I thought he looked like the old king. And then slowly I began to piece together things. It wasn’t until I spoke with King Stannis that I knew for sure though.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gendry demanded heatedly, pushing away from the tree and glaring at the both of them. He was stuck in between them, a sad-faced Arya on his right and stone-faced Stannis on his left. “Why didn’t either of you tell me until now? I had a right to know and instead you just kept me in the dark.”

“Because you didn’t want to know!” Arya snapped. And Gendry was mad at her for it, mad at her for presuming to know what he wanted to know about himself, but she was right as well. He hadn’t wanted to know; he hadn’t thought he’d ever need to know. Being a highborn bastard didn’t change things for him; they didn’t make his situation any better or change his feelings or relationship with Arya. He would’ve been happier off having never been told of his true parentage. Now it just hurt, knowing that he could’ve never had a real family. He’d always been doomed to be a bastard. His mother had once told him that his father was a very busy man and that his father loved him but could not be with him. It had been a nice lie to warm himself up at night as a child.

But now he knew for certain it was a lie. His father hadn’t loved him; his father hadn’t even known him. He’d just been one more sad and sorry whelp that he’d gotten on a whore. Perhaps he’d given her more than just a copper then, maybe a golden dragon for her time.

Gendry blew out some air and rubbed his face. “What does this mean? What’s it change?”

Arya stepped up to him, sure-footed and true, and took his face in her hands. “It changes nothing. You’re still Gendry; you’re still you.” She cast a glance at Stannis, and Gendry followed her gaze, red-faced and uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be physical with Arya in front of Stannis, but all the gods be damned, he wanted to pull her into his arms, flush against his body, and hold her against him for hours. He wanted to press his face into her hair and smell the scent of smoke and the North.

“There are some…matters that can be dealt with later,” Stannis announced, sounding a bit off. He clearly did not know what to do with two young lovers so close to one another. Maybe now he felt like the intruder. “You needed to be told of this first, so that you may think about decisions to come later. They will not be easy ones.”

You’re not just a bastard. You’re important.

But to who?

And for what reasons now?

With that, Stannis left the godswood, leaving Gendry and Arya alone with each other. Once he was out of sight, Arya threw her arms around his neck and Gendry wrapped his arms around, lifting her up so that he was hugging her tightly as can be. They stayed like that for a while, her feet dangling in the air and rubbing against his shins, with her face buried in the crook of his neck and his face buried in her wild brown hair.

“Remember what I told you before the battle,” Arya whispered as she moved to kiss his neck up to his ear. “No matter what blood runs through your veins, no matter whose son you are, no matter your name or where you came from, I will always love you. I don’t care about anything else but you. It’s not the father or the blood or the name that makes the man; it’s only the man himself.” He slowly let go of her, letting her body slide down his until her feet were touching the ground again. Once more, she put her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. “And you are a better man than most could ever hope to be, Gendry. You will always be my stupid bull and I your wild she-wolf.”

“Your forest love and my forest lass?” Gendry’s lips quirked into a weak smile, the old song playing in his head like a distant fog.

Arya pulled his face down and kissed him gently on the lips. “Always, no matter what.”

Chapter Text

For the next few weeks, Gendry had done his best to stay away from everyone, even Arya. True to her nature, she followed him around nearly everywhere, trying to talk to him, trying to get him to open up. On the first day of the third week, however, he snapped at her so viciously that she punched him hard in the chest, called him a slur of things much worse than "stupid", and stormed out of the forge. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt, but hadn't had the heart to follow her and apologize. Instead he sat on the cot and sulked with his face in his hands.

Gendry wasn't even sure why he felt so angry and betrayed. So what if his father was the late King Robert? So what if he had Baratheon blood running through his veins? That made absolutely no difference in his life. He was still a bastard and he was still an orphan. Now he could say that he was a Waters, a highborn bastard, but a bastard nonetheless. Why had they felt the need to tell him when he hadn't wanted to know in the first place? When it didn't even affect him? When it didn't even matter? What was the point?

"May I join you, Ser Gendry?"

The polite and almost delicate voice startled Gendry out of his moody thoughts. When he glanced up, he saw Sansa Stark standing in the doorway of the forge. Out of everyone here, she was the last person that he had expected to see. He had been certain that Rickon and Shaggydog were going to come trotting in to bite his face off.

Somehow, the Lady of the Vale was so much worse.

"Of course, my lady," Gendry responded, averting his eyes from her. "This is your forge, after all."

Sansa smiled and stepped inside. Her hands hovered over everything in the room, not touching a thing. "No, this place is more yours than mine." She picked up one of the tools, examining it carefully, and then set it down. "I never even stepped foot in the forge when I was little. It wasn't a place for a lady. Arya, on the other hand..." She gave Gendry a knowing look that made him squirm. "She would trail in here after Jon, Robb, and Theon to watch Mikken make their swords. She always wanted one of her own, of course."

"She has a mysterious way of getting what she wants," Gendry said with a nostalgic smile on his face. She had gotten him, even when everything had been standing in between them. There had been a sea, a king, and hundreds of knights and lords; and yet she had gotten him. And he had her.

"Yes she does," Sansa agreed, laughing lightly. "I used to be jealous of her. She broke all the rules to get what she desired; and no one told her otherwise. Meanwhile I struggled and I curtsied and I suffered and yet I was denied time and time again. It took me many years before I realized that she too had been struggling, just in a different ways for different things."

As she spoke, Sansa continued to walk around the forge, examining things like she had never seen them before. Gendry watched her cautiously, unsure of what he was supposed to say or do. Lord Rickon was easy to talk to, considering he didn't act much like a lord; Arya was no lady; and King Stannis liked to talk as much as Gendry did. Sansa though... Sansa was a true lady. Gendry could barely manage to look her in the eyes.

Finally, Sansa sat down next to him on the cot. "What do you want, Ser Gendry?"

"I'm not..." Gendry flushed and looked down at his feet. "I'm not really a knight..."

Sansa tilted her head slightly. "Did you not fight for Winterfell?"

"Yes, I did."

"And were you not knighted?"

"Yes, but it wasn't really official or anything." Gendry recalled the night he had knelt on one knee before Lord Beric Dondarrion. He had done it for Arya, though he had never told anyone that, not even her. It had been the only way that he could ever be good enough for her, but in the end it had only made him lose her.

Sansa suddenly stood and picked up a sword that he had forged yesterday. It wasn't finished and looked a mess, but in her hands, it was gold. She tapped him gently on the shoulders with the tip of the sword. "Then I name you Ser Gendry Waters, knight of Winterfell, for your valor in battle and help in returning Winterfell to House Stark." She smiled, set the sword aside, and sat back down next to him. "There; now you are a true and official knight."

Suddenly, despite the beautiful dress, the proper courtesies, and sweet smiles, Gendry could see that Arya and Sansa were sisters.

"Thank you," Gendry murmured, trying to bite back a smile.

"You're very welcome," Sansa told him. "But true knighthood is not what you're after, Ser Gendry, now is it?"

"I..." Gendry looked down at his hands, dirty with soot and calloused. He bet that Sansa's husband, Harry the Heir, was always clean and had hands as soft as a woman's. "I don't know what I want."

Sansa gave him a look. "I highly doubt that. In fact, I think you know exactly what you want."

Gendry looked out the window and spotted Arya in the courtyard trying to teach one of the squires a sword trick she had learned in Braavos.

I want Arya, he thought. It's always been Arya.

When he looked back to Sansa, he realized that she had followed his gaze and knew exactly what he was thinking. He was wary until he saw that she was smiling again. He turned red and looked back to his hands.

"I often wonder," Sansa mused, "what it must feel like to have a man's love."

Gendry furrowed his brow. "Your lord husband-"

"Is generous and courageous," Sansa interrupted coolly, "but he does not love me." She glanced back out the door to look at her younger sister. "Any man, woman, and child could see plain on your face that you love Arya. It is a dream many women hope for - to have love from a man like you - especially myself as a girl, but not one that she had. Ironic that it was exactly what she needed."

"It's not proper though," Gendry pointed out.

"You love her and want her; she loves you and wants you. What is not proper about that? It is worthy of a song indeed." Sansa waved her hand about in the air. "The She-Wolf of Winterfell and the Bastard Knight." She gave him a sly look. "Or is it the Stag Knight?"

So she knew as well. Did everyone in Westeros know?

Gendry looked away from her in shame.

"Truth be told, you look more like Renly than Robert, but only because you are not nearly so fat or bearded. You're also not drunk." There was an amused smile on her face, but he still felt sick to his stomach. "I lived in King's Landing; and I grew to know their faces well. I knew what you were the moment I saw you in the room with Arya."

"A bastard."

"I said I knew what you were, not who you are," Sansa said delicately. "Gendry, whether you realize it or accept it or not, you are a finer man than most highborns."

"I'm still just a bastard and always will be. Arya says we can be together, run away with each other if we must, but I will always be the one that stole her. I will always be beneath her."

"Will you?" Sansa asked him curiously.

Gendry narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean? Of course I will."

"Strange," Sansa said with a mysterious smile, "I thought there might be something else." She stood up before him again and he looked up to her. The sun glowed behind her, making her look like a queen. "I thought you were a Baratheon."

Gendry got to his feet and watched her walk out the door. He stood there for a while, her words resting heavy on his mind. He wasn't a Baratheon. He was a bastard and there was a very big difference. One was highborn and one was nothing. If he was a Baratheon, then he would never have to worry about not being good enough for Arya.

But it was more than that. If he was a Baratheon, a true one, then he would be royalty. Technically, the claim to the Iron Throne would be his. The chair was a craft to look at in wonder for him though, not to sit upon and rule. He wasn't meant for anything more than a simple life. A highborn life would never give him that. When he dreamed of his life, he thought of owning a simple shop that was small but well renowned for his work; he thought of children running around and playing and laughing, his children, calling him father and rushing into his arms; he thought of Arya dancing in a courtyard with a sword that he made especially for her and rolling on top of him to rouse him from his sleep with sweet kisses and nibbles on his ear.

If he was a Baratheon, then he would have Arya.

But would he have the life he truly wanted?

Gendry sought Arya out before supper was served. She was still in a foul mood with him, but allowed him to pull her outside of the hall into a little cranny. With her arms folded across her chest, she looked at him plainly. "What do you want?" she demanded.

"I want you."

Arya rolled her eyes. "As if I wasn't aware of that already. I meant what do you want to talk with me about?"

"That I'm sorry and I was being a right pain in the ass," Gendry told her honestly. He could tell that she was trying to stay angry with him, but her face softened nonetheless. "It's hard to explain, but... I've been alone for practically all my life. I've never truly let anyone in, not after my mum died. When the king told me that I was King Robert's bastard, I just got scared. I never really had a family before - a father, mother, brother, or sister - and then I realized that you're all the family I've ever known. To think that I could have one... It frightened me more than I could say. I didn't know if I could handle having a family only to lose it again. I can't remember my mum, but when you were gone, I could remember you. You're the only family I need, but you've got a family of your own."

Arya stepped closer to him and put a hand on his arm. "Gendry, you will always be a part of my family - of my pack."

"Even if I'm just a bastard?"

"Of course, you know that already."

"What if I'm a Baratheon?"

Arya wore a cool expression and placed her small hands on his scruffy face. "You are a Baratheon though. You're as strong and stubborn as Robert; kind and humorous as Renly; and honorable and commanding as Stannis. Their blood is your blood. Bastard or no, you are a true Baratheon; and I will love you all the same." She grinned at him. "You need to get that through your thick head."

"I'm stubborn, remember?" Gendry quipped, a small smile on his face.

She tapped him on the cheek lightly. "Too right you are." Her hands fell to her side and a serious look came over her. "Promise me, Gendry: whatever Stannis asks of you, do it for yourself - not for the king, what you think your father would have done, not even for me. Swear to me: only yourself."

Gendry nodded his head. "I swear."

"You better," Arya warned, "because Sansa told me that she knighted you, so you just swore an oath to me."

"As m'lady commands," Gendry replied, swallowing her protests with a kiss before they could escape her mouth. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. If he could just stay here in this moment, he would be the happiest man in all the Seven Kingdoms. "What do you think the king will want from me?"

"I'm not sure," Arya sighed, "but I worry though."

"Why?"

She frowned slightly. "When I was in Braavos, there was many a men that worshipped the Red God. You know that god as well as Stannis does." It was the truth. Ever since he joined the Brotherhood Without Banners, he'd been passively following R'hllor. "But what Thoros of Myr did not tell you is that the Red God requires sacrifices to appease him." She looked him in the face, as if searching for something. "They say there is great power in king's blood."

"I'm not a king though."

"But a king's blood runs through your veins," Arya pointed out.

"I doubt that King Stannis is going to burn me at the stake as a sacrifice."

"All the same, I worry." She slipped her hands into his, grasping him tightly as if to never let him go. "Stannis is not cruel by nature, and yet men were burned after the battle. I want him out of Winterfell; I want him away from you."

Gendry kissed her on the top of her head. "You worry too much. That's my job."

"Nonetheless, there is power in king's blood; and Stannis knows you have power." She gave him a queer look. "Many of the men already defer to you."

"Now you're being the silly one," Gendry scoffed. "Listen; you don't have to worry about me. Whatever the king asks of me, I will not balk. It's my duty to listen to the king. But he's not going to burn me."

"He better not," Arya said seriously, "or I'll kill him."

Gendry gave her a smile that was tinged with regret. "You're done with that now."

Arya gave him a sad look. "I don't think I'll ever be done with that nor do I think we are safe just yet." She put her hands to his face again. "Promise me, Gendry, promise me. You must be careful. Whether you realize it or not or even want it, you're playing the game now."

Gendry furrowed his brow. "What game?"

"You're a king's son," Arya told him darkly, "the game of thrones. What else is there?"

Chapter Text

A hushed silence fell around Winterfell when she arrived.

Gendry didn’t know what to make of her, so he just did his best to stay as far away from her as possible. It killed two birds with one stone, seeing as how she was always around King Stannis. That way he was able to avoid both of them. Winterfell was large and still needed enough work where he could stay busy and keep his head down. It helped that he had Arya watching out for him. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to know, but he could tell that she was on edge. She stuck by his side more often now; and while she worked tirelessly, he caught her pretending to work and looking around instead. It was almost impossible to tell, but he’d learned her tells quickly enough. She always surveyed the area three times before going back to actually working.

“I don’t like her,” Arya announced one night. She was leaning against a wall, her arms folded across her chest and a dark frown on her face, as she stared across the room where the she and the king sat. There were so many men in the hall that it was easy to get lost in the crowd. Normally, they sat up front with Stannis, but they’d taken to eating with the men ever since she had arrived. Rickon was just fine with that, seeing as how he wanted to get to know the men that had pledged fealty to him more; and even Sansa had come down to sit with them.

Sansa sighed. “Sit down and eat your food, Arya, please.”

“She should go back to wherever she came from,” Arya snarled viciously, still not pulling her eyes away from the woman. “She doesn’t belong here.”

“She came from the Wall,” Sansa replied placidly. She was the only one besides Gendry that was able to calm Arya down, though she seemed to be failing at the moment. Ever since that she had shown up a week ago, Arya had been brimming with energy. She even felt hot to the touch; and he could see the fire in her eyes where there was normally ice.

Arya huffed and pushed herself away from the wall. He thought she was going to storm out for a moment, but instead she sat down on the bench next to him. “It’s not fair that she was at the Wall,” she muttered, more or less to herself. Sansa gave her sister a sad look, but said nothing in return. Their half-brother Jon Snow was at the Wall, but while they could have had news from him, they’d all steadfastly refused to speak with their new guest. Arya jerked her plate towards her and began to eat without another word. Their food was small, rationed out so that everyone could eat. They still had to prepare for winter. It always marveled Gendry that this was still considered fall, seeing as how there were foots of snow out there. The knights from the South were not used to this and many were left shaking in their boots.

“Where’s Rickon?” Sansa suddenly asked. Arya immediately perked up as they all began to search the room. It came to Gendry that he hadn’t seen the youngest Stark since they’d broke their fast this morning. It wasn’t uncommon for him to lose track of others during the day, but normally Rickon enjoyed being around all the men and stuck fairly close to Gendry whenever he was working.

Before Arya or Sansa could even begin to think about panicking, Gendry stood up from the bench. “I’ll go look for him.” When Arya went to protest, he cut her off, “I’m done eating; and you’re not. I’m sure he just lost track of time.” He left the room before she could say anything else. He knew that if he stayed any longer, Arya would somehow argue with him and get her way.

She’d been finally happy, but for the past week, she had been nothing but restless, prowling Winterfell and glowering at nearly everyone in sight; and when she was on edge, it made him feel on edge. He could tell that she was itching to leave Winterfell again, but she hadn’t felt like that a week ago. The new presence had changed a lot, though they hadn’t talked about it. He could tell though, even if she didn’t realize he could. There was something about that woman that made everyone feel like they were standing too close to a fire. He was still curious about how she’d managed to get here with only a few men to guide her. Maybe she’d burned a trail through the snow with the heat that seemed to radiate off her. Whatever it was, he wasn’t like to find out soon, seeing as how he didn’t want to be anywhere around her or the king.

Gendry knocked on the door to Rickon’s room, which opened slightly. “M’lord?” When there was no answer, he pushed the door open completely and said, “Rickon?” But when he stepped inside, there was no one in the room. Scratching the back of his head, Gendry frowned, thought of searching the stables, and turned around.

Only to stop dead in his tracks when he came face-to-face with the red woman.

Gendry jumped back a little, shocked and completely off guard. He caught himself quickly though and stopped, giving her a wary look. “You startled me, m’lady.” He didn’t know what else to call her. He’d heard her name whispered throughout the castle, but he couldn’t call her that.

She smiled at him. It was a beautiful smile, he couldn’t help but think, but then it wasn’t. It was more dangerous than beautiful. “I’m not a highborn lady, Gendry,” she told him, her foreign accent light. “I am not of Westeros at all.”

I know that, Gendry thought, but he said nothing out loud. He was more concerned with the fact that she knew his name and called him by it, as if to silently let him know that she knew more than he did. She was a priestess of the Lord of Light, just as Thoros of Myr had been, but he’d liked Thoros a lot more than this red woman. He had not been a good priest, if truth be told, not until the war began and he began to actually see things in the flames and used the Lord’s Kiss to bring Lord Dondarion back to life. This woman was her religion though, he could tell; and he thought that more dangerous than anything else. The rumors he’d heard were not good ones. They made him want to grind his teeth while Arya fumed about them. Fire doesn’t belong where Ice does.

But it was clear that Melisandre belonged – or believed she belonged – by the king’s side.

“You have been avoiding your king since he told you of your parentage,” Melisandre said, looking at him carefully. She could have looked just like any other woman, but he knew she wasn’t. The dress she wore was not meant for this type of weather; and yet she did not appear cold whatsoever. He could feel the heat coming from her skin; and it was not natural.

A hard expression came over Gendry’s face. “Did the king tell you that?”

“He does not need to tell me things that I can see with my own eyes,” she replied.

He always hated games like this. People should just speak straight. With religion though came all those dodging answers and questions. You could never get a straight answer out of any god or priest, not from the Seven or R’hllor. Gendry sighed and went to brush past her. “Well, I don’t mean to, ah, hurt his feelings or anything, but I’m kind of busy, so–”

“Lord Rickon is eating with his sisters,” Melisandre interrupted coolly.

Gendry paused and glanced at her again, his brow furrowed in suspicion. How could she possibly know what he was doing? Then again, she had caught him snooping around Rickon’s bedchambers. She’d probably heard him calling for the Stark boy as well. “I should probably go back to the hall then…”

“Do you know why the king told you?”

Gendry stared at her in return. He felt glued on the spot by her eyes – those impossibly red eyes, like they’d come out from a nightmare. It wasn’t natural just how red she was. Her hair was fiery red, her dress was a deep red, the ruby at her neck was red – but the eyes were the worst of all. For some reason, he was reminded of the red bleeding eyes that had been carved onto the weirwood tree in the godswood. But that wasn’t right though. The old gods and R’hllor were not the same and they certainly did not mix together.

Finally, Gendry managed to find himself. She’s only a woman, he told himself. (He knew that was wrong too. There was something terribly powerful about her that made him very wary.) “To prepare me for the burning?” He said it in a joking manner because that was all he could do, even though he’d become more concerned about being burned alive since she’d arrived. That was how Stannis had started burning people in the first place. And he could hear Arya’s voice as he stood with the red woman: “There’s power in king’s blood.” But that power certainly could not rival this woman’s.

Melisandre smiled again. How radiant it looked and how very, very wrong. “King Stannis is not going to burn you,” she said. There was something about the way she said it that made Gendry even more uncomfortable. She was looking at him in a strange way, like he was prey. Perhaps Stannis would not burn him, but given the chance, to help her king, she would burn him. “He is far too…fond of you, for that.”

“The King is fond of me?” Gendry thought back to all the times he’d interacted with the king. None of them had given him the idea that Stannis was fond of him in any sort of way; they’d all given him the impression that the king wanted his head on a spike perhaps. “Does he show fondness by threatening to have people’s heads?”

When Melisandre laughed, it was a throaty laugh. Gendry imagined that most men found it sensual even, but again, he could not help but feel on edge. This was a woman that had power in everything she did – from the way she looked to what she said to the strange other powers that men whispered about at night. The night is dark and full of terrors, Thoros had said, and that R’hllor and his servants protected the people from those terrors. She was a fire against the night. When she looked at him again, it felt like she was searching him, looking for his soul. He didn’t like it. “I can see what he sees in you,” she said. “You are everything your father was – and yet you are more. Perhaps you are everything he should have been?”

That just made Gendry’s head spin.

“My father was king,” Gendry replied, almost defensively. Why did he feel so defensive in the first place about the man that had left his mother pregnant and abandoned them both? “He smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident and took the crown for himself. He was all he needed to be. I’m not like that. I don’t have that kind of power. King Stannis does.”

Melisandre sighed. “He does. He did. The past year and the battle of Winterfell have weakened him severely.” Gendry thought back to the king. When he’d first met Stannis Baratheon, the man had looked as if he’d been cut from steel. He was harsh, thin, but bitter and angry. Nothing could stand in his way. He’d been injured during the battle though by Roose Bolton. Gendry would always remember the sound that Stannis’ sword had made when it had fallen to the ground and how he’d collapsed to one knee. A king should never be on his knees. “But you…” She placed a delicate hand on his arm; and he felt her heat burning him through his sleeve. “You could help him.”

“Me?” Gendry gave her a suspicious look. “How could I help him? He just needs a proper maester, is all. There isn’t one here in Winterfell.”

But Melisandre shook her head, and her hair waved. “No maester will help His Grace,” she told him, “only the Lord of Light.” When she ran her fingers down his arm, his hairs raised and a shiver went down his spine, despite the heat; and he took a step back away from her. “You share his blood.”

“King’s blood.”

“Yes, king’s blood.” Her eyes were almost mesmerizing. Lesser men might fall to her whims easily, if only they looked into her eyes. He realized that he didn’t fall that far from lesser men. “His Grace is strong, but he grows weaker with every battle; and I fear his fire is too close to failing for me to draw anything else from him. But you, even if your blood is tainted, there is the same strength and power in you that I see in him. You may be of his brother, but you are close enough to His Grace that perhaps, if I could–”

“Get away from him!”

The words startled Gendry even further. He hadn’t even realized how on edge he was until the voice made him jump, and he looked to the side to see Arya storming towards them, a furious expression written all over her face. Melisandre took a step back and dropped her hand, appraising the younger girl with a careful look. Arya, on the other hand, did not seem to care whether or not the other woman knew she was angry. She was positively brimming with it. When Arya was next to him, he realized that heat was coming from both women. Melisandre may have been fiery red, but Arya was filled with the fire that anger brought on.

“Stay away from him,” Arya warned, grabbing onto Gendry’s arm. He saw the way she went to grab her dirk, but she didn’t have one on her. She must have left it in the dining hall. He was silently thankful for that. “You can stay by the king all you want, but never come near Gendry again. I’ll have you out of this castle before you can even blink.”

“Arya Stark…” The name had been more of a breath, coming from Melisandre. There was an even stranger look in the red woman’s eyes, as if she was seeing a long-forgotten ghost from the past. “I tried to save you once, long ago, for your bastard half brother.”

For just a second, the tiniest of moments, Arya faltered for the first time in many years. Vulnerability flashed into her eyes; and it both amazed and shocked Gendry to his core. He hadn’t seen her look like that since…since the Hound had taken her, all those years ago. Not even before the battle of Winterfell when she’d clawed at him and made him hers. He’d seen her maybe a bit vulnerable, but nothing like this. To be honest, it frightened him; and he didn’t know what to do or say. Arya was never vulnerable. She was the strongest person he knew. To think that only a few words or the thought of one person could bring her to this, even if it was only for a second…

“Twice, I tried to save you,” Melisandre continued, “but both times, I read the flames wrong. You hid from R’hllor’s flames, from me… Your brother hated me for it.”

He could see the questions in Arya’s eyes. She wanted so terribly to know about her half brother, Jon Snow, on the Wall. He had been Lord Commander, she had heard, but there had been a terrible storm; and no one had heard from them since. It scared her not to know. This woman had been with her beloved brother though and she knew of Jon Snow, but Arya was too stubborn to ask the questions that plagued her mind.

Arya took a deep breath; and her resolve seemed to solidify itself again. She pointed a threatening finger at the other woman. “Stay away from Gendry. I saw what people like you did in the Free Cities. He’ll have no part of your shadow magic. You have the king for that, whether he knows it or not.”

And with that, she dragged Gendry away. He followed her the entire time, through the hall, up the stairs, until they found themselves by her room. The whole situation left Gendry feeling strangely unsure of himself and what was going on. Since when had magic played a part in anything so far? It wasn’t even real. (Except it was. How else had Thoros brought Lord Beric back to life and then Lord Beric, Lady Stoneheart?) They’d vanquished the enemy, only for something foreign and foreboding to walk right into the castle. For a while, Arya said nothing. She merely paced the room, her body practically shaking. He didn’t know what to do, so he left her alone. She threw things around the room, angry and upset. She wanted so desperately to know what was going on with her brother, and yet she could not bring herself to ask. Her pride would not let her.

Finally, Gendry decided to broach the subject that no one spoke of. “Sansa or Rickon could ask about Jon–?”

“No!” Arya slammed a chest lid down, splaying her hands against the wood and leaning heavily down on it. “I was the closest to Jon. I loved him more than any of my other siblings.” She gnawed on her bottom lip. “He gave me Needle…”

The little sword that she’d had when he first met her. He remembered it well – how he’d originally thought she’d stolen it, since it was such fine work, and how so many people had tried to take it from her. It had been hers though, in truth.

“Then ask,” Gendry told her gently.

“I can’t,” Arya admitted in a quiet voice, her eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t because…because I’m afraid of what I’ll hear. Maybe he’s dead. Or maybe he’s alive and happy. Maybe he’s forgotten me.”

Gendry walked up next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “From what I heard from Melisandre, it certainly doesn’t sound like he forgot you. He tried to have you saved twice. That’s a pretty big thing for someone to do when they’re not supposed to take part in what happens in the realm.”

“I just thought…” Arya let out a sigh; and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I thought that after we regained Winterfell, everything would be fine and I would be perfectly content again, but I’m not. I still have nightmares; I still dream about people I want to kill; there are still things left undone, loose ends that need to be snipped off…”

“Then let’s go do those things.”

Arya turned to face him, a sad smile on her face. She reached up and touched his scruffy face. “Oh, Gendry, you know nothing.”

Chapter Text

Gendry stood outside the king’s chambers, nervously tugging at the sleeves of his jacket. Somehow or another, he’d been forced into some fancy get up. How they’d managed to find anything fancy was beyond him and even further beyond him why he had to wear it. Oh, how the boys in the Brotherhood had roared with laughter when they’d seen him. “You look like a proper lord for the little lady,” Lem had sniggered.

Arya was not little (well, she was, but not anymore at the same time) and she certainly wasn’t a lady. If she’d been around when Lem had said that, she would’ve whacked him in the head with the flat of her sword. Still, the older man’s words bothered Gendry. When he managed to catch a glimpse of himself in the newly placed windows, he damn near grimaced. Fancy clothes weren’t meant for him. He felt like he was wearing someone’s skin and it was altogether too tight and stuffy, like he was sweltering under the heat of someone else’s pressure.

Still, some of the higher lords that were appointed to the king’s council had insisted on it. If he was going to talk to the king of Westeros, then Gendry needed to at least somewhat look like he belonged in the presence of the king.

“Come in,” a voice called from inside.

Gendry tried not to gulp and pushed the door open, shutting it behind himself to make the conversation private. “Your Grace.”

Stannis took one look at him and harrumphed. “You look ridiculous.”

It wasn’t exactly what Gendry expected the king to say to him, but the man wasn’t entirely wrong either. That was a good description of how he felt right now. Still, he deflated slightly. “The other lords said–”

“Piss on what those lords said,” Stannis interrupted, shocking Gendry into silence. The man looked much better now. The Battle of Winterfell had taken a lot out of him, especially due to Roose Bolton’s attack, but he seemed to be gaining his spark back at a much quicker rate now that his red witch was at his side. “Would that I could have my Hand at my side.” When Gendry just gave a confused look, Stannis continued, “My Hand was once as lowborn as you, a simpler smuggler, until I knighted him.”

Anyone can rise to the top if they know the right people, Gendry thought, but he dared not say that aloud. Lately, his thoughts had grown more dangerous and…free. It was a consequence of being around Arya so much. Growing up, he’d been taught to listen to lords and ladies and all their opinions should be his opinions, even if he didn’t really agree. They were right and he was wrong because they were educated and they knew better. Arya didn’t live by that code, even though she was a highborn. She thought everyone should think for themselves. Slowly but surely, her way of thought began to rub off on Gendry. One day, he was certain, it was going to get him in trouble.

“Did you need anything from me, Your Grace?” Gendry asked, trying not to sound too rude. “We were just about to finish up the last of the touches in the stables; and I wanted to make sure they’re done properly.”

“You’ve done a lot of overseeing when it’s come to the rebuilding of Winterfell,” Stannis noted.

“Well, it’s important, right?” And it was important to Arya. She had been somewhat restless and acting stranger as of late. She was becoming uncomfortable in this place that was supposed to be her home but didn’t look like her home anymore. The only thing Gendry could think of to do was to help rebuild this place. Maybe then, once it was complete, Arya would finally feel at home.

“Many of the men look up to you,” the king added.

That sounded like a very loaded and dangerous comment to Gendry, especially coming from the king. The men should’ve been looking up to Stannis Baratheon and that man alone. Gendry looked down at his feet. “I think they only do so because they’re afraid of Arya. And most of these men have never done hard labor like I have, so it only makes sense that–”

“No, this is different,” Stannis interrupted, yet not angrily. It still didn’t make Gendry want to look up at him. “You’re respected, well-liked, trustworthy – all of which I could perceive as a threat, considering your parentage.”

At this, Gendry blanched and his eyes shot up. “Your Grace, I-I would never–”

But the king just waved a dismissive hand in the air. If he was one to smile, there probably would’ve been a smirk on his face. “You’re not a threat. You have no intentions of laying claim to the throne. It’s not what you want.”

I just want Arya to be happy, Gendry thought, though he wouldn’t dare say the thoughts out loud. I want to be happy.

“But there is something else I might ask of you.”

This time, Gendry gave a questioning look and leaned back slightly, as if to sink into himself. If the king asked something of him, there would be no refusing it. “Your Grace?”

“The Baratheon line is…well, it is near exhausted. I have but one heir, my daughter, Shireen.” Stannis did not look at him as he spoke. He merely paced around the room, his hands held behind his back. “It’s something no one likes to talk about – the fact that having heirs is part of the duty of being king – something I did not want to think of. I have Shireen. She is all I need. This does bring up some…questions.” Gendry did not want to speak; he didn’t want to even be in this room. Instead, he focused carefully on the wall behind the king, searching and counting out the cracks in the stone that would need to be fixed one day. “Storm’s End has been under the care of the Baratheon line for as long as myths can say. It belonged to Renly; and in another time, it would have passed to his heir. Alas, Renly is gone; and there is no Baratheon to lord it. Should I give it to some high born lord as a reward?”

Gendry now knew that he had to be very careful. Stannis was beating around the bush, which was very much unlike the older man. It was clear that he had not wanted to originally go this route, but it seemed like there was little choice. “I’m sure a lord or another will expect it. Lords always expect to be given things.”

And then there was a smile on Stannis’ face, though it was more cutting than amused. “You speak the truth of someone who has seen it firsthand. Storm’s End is priceless. I would not give it up years ago even if it meant my death by starvation. I do not wish for it to leave the Baratheon blood line. And yet my daughter cannot be heir to the throne and Storm’s End. There is also Dragonstone to consider, as I was given lordship to that castle and lands by my elder brother.”

Despite the fact that Stannis was standing in a room in Winterfell, it appeared as if he had his fingers dipped in nearly every area of Westeros. The man had travelled throughout the land and fought his battles across it as well. It struck Gendry that Stannis Baratheon was the only contender for the throne to have done that.

“You’ve been an incredible asset and you have proven yourself time and time again,” Stannis said, finally pausing and looking at the younger man. It looked to Gendry as if Stannis was sizing him up, which made him feel even more uncomfortable. “I could legitimize you. Seeing as how I know you would turn down any claim towards the throne. Perhaps I could even give you Storm’s End.”

Gendry nearly choked. “That would mean…”

“You’d be a lord, worthy of Lady Arya Stark.”

For a moment, Gendry was at a loss of words. He would be on level with Arya. It was a wild dream, one he’d never considered before. After all, he was just a Flee Bottom Orphan. How many people were up-jumped from bastard to knight to lord in a matter of months? It didn’t seem possible.

Stannis frowned. “Of course, you’re not the most…civilized of Robert’s bastards, but I know not of where Edric Storm was sent. I curse myself for my ill thoughts towards the boy. He would’ve been perfect.” The two of them locked eyes, blue on blue, though Stannis’ were plenty more focused. Gendry still felt like he was in a daze. Him – a highborn? He’d learned how to read well enough over the past two years, having asked Thoros to help him, but that didn’t mean much. In his heart, he would also be lowborn, a bastard. “But men listen to you and you naturally command a power most cannot. I could not see it then, before we retook Winterfell, but I can see that you have king’s blood now, more so than bastard blood.”

“Your Grace, this is…this is too much,” Gendry sputtered, not quite sure what he was saying. “All I did was save you. Surely that doesn’t deserve…”

“I’m offering to not only legitimize you, give you a name, and one of the greatest strongholds in Westeros – and you’re turning me down?” Despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly king-like, Stannis snorted derisively. “What is it with bastards saying no to legitimization and lordships these days?” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m not–” Gendry rubbed his face. It was getting a little more than scruffy. He’d need to shave soon, but there was little time and resources to do something as simple as shave.

Here I am thinking about shaving when I should be thinking about what every bastard orphan dreams of, Gendry thought irritably.

He sighed and looked up at the king. “It’s just…overwhelming. It’s not every day a bastard gets offered a castle, a family name, and a lordship.”

“You have time to think it over,” Stannis told him, “although everyone else would jump at this.” That was true enough. Gendry didn’t even know why he was being so hesitant about all of this. This was everything he could have ever wanted and more. He’d be a proper lord and, though she could deny it all she wanted, Arya was a lady. Any reservations that still might linger in the back of his mind would be worthless. “Now I am sure that your help is needed. Think on this. Talk about it with Lady Stark. But speak of this to no one else, not even her siblings or your unruly Band of Brotherhood members.”

Gendry all but ran out of the room as soon as he was given leave. His mind was swirling so much that he walked past a few men that called his name as he wandered around Winterfell. Though he wanted to find Arya as soon as possible, he couldn’t even begin to think straight to look for her.

He could be a Baratheon in true. Born in a rundown alehouse to a whore, an orphan in Flee Bottom, a simple smith’s apprentice, an unwilling almost member of the Night’s Watch, a prisoner, a runaway, a sort of knight in a ragtag group of outlaws… That was all he was. But now he was a knight. And he could be more – a lord with a castle and everything. He’d have his own smith. He wouldn’t have any want for money. Food wouldn’t be a daily struggle. Gendry’s mind boggled the most at that. What would it be like to not have to wonder if he would be able to eat more than a bowl of slop a day? He could sleep in a bed with a fire in the hearth. He’d have servants, people that would answer to him, nice clothes, and things to call his own.

He would have a name. No longer would he have to introduce himself as Gendry or Gendry Waters. It would be his name, his blood, all his. People would probably call him things like the Baratheon Bastard. Would he care though? He may have once been a bastard, but if he was legitimized by the king, then he’d be a Baratheon and that would be that.

Gendry was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even spot Arya walking towards him. He didn’t even realize she was there until she put a hand under his elbow and pulled him to the side. “Arya?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you alright? What did the king want with you now? What did he say?”

Abruptly, Gendry’s mind went blank and he just stared at her, finding himself at a complete loss of words. What did the king want with him? Well, basically, the king had offered to give Gendry everything he and every bastard would ever want. It would be too difficult to explain to Arya in full, so he had to force himself to tell her the basics. He couldn’t possibly put into words how it would feel to have a name. Arya may have played at being different people for years and she may have hidden behind masks and fake names, but she was always Arya Stark underneath.

“The king…he, uh… He offered to legitimize me and give me Storm’s End.” Gendry furrowed his brow. “At least, I think he did.”

“He what?” Arya took a single step back and looked him over carefully. All he could do was give her a pleading look. He didn’t know what to do. For some reason, he didn’t know what he wanted when it should have been clear as day. She had to know what to do. Arya always knew what to do. He would follow her to the edges of the world if she asked him to. “That conniving man…”

“Conniving?”

Arya folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s using you. He needs the allies. By placing you in a position of power – by giving you the Baratheon name – he has more assets that he can use if and when he’s king.”

“Well, if he’s going to use me by giving me all the things I dreamed about as a kid, then I don’t see how I should complain,” Gendry pointed out. Arya harrumphed, which only irritated him further for some reason. What would she know about any of the things he’d never had? She had grown up in this castle, her only concerns being that she didn’t want to be a proper lady. She had a bloody name. Stark, Arya Stark of Winterfell. She had family. Yes, she’d had a taste of what he’d went through during the past few years – but those few years for her had been his entire life. “I could finally be worthy–”

“Don’t,” Arya growled, “don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like, Arya,” Gendry practically snapped. She gave him an alarmed look, telling him that he would pay for that later, but he didn’t care. She had to know that. “You’re a Stark. That’s who you are. And who am I?”

“You’re the greatest man I–”

“No, I’m a bastard,” Gendry interrupted, “and that stains me whether you like it or not. You might think I’m the greatest or bravest or whatever man, but that’s not who I’ve been my entire life. And to have the opportunity to become something different – someone different…” When he smirked, it was filled with more bitterness than humor. “You don’t think every bastard dreams about secretly having some wealthy parent that will rescue them one day from their poor, shitty life? Because, Arya, I might seem plenty cynical, but even I played the pretend game where my father was some lord that would find me one day and take me to live in his castle and feed me and clothe me and…love me.”

Silence stretched between them. Arya gnawed her lip, something she always did when she was thinking. The anger had vanished from her face, replaced by a look of sadness. He didn’t want her to pity him. His life had been what it was, thanks to the sins of his father, and it had made him stronger. He was more than certain that had he not had a rough life in the beginning, he wouldn’t be alive today and he wouldn’t be right here standing in Winterfell with the girl he loved more than anything in the world. There was no sense in regretting the past. But the idea that he could have a brighter future was daunting and tantalizing at the same time.

“What do you want then?” she finally asked.

His shoulders sank and he let out a sigh. “Honestly, I don’t know – which I feel means something. This was more than I could dare to dream about as a kid. I never played at being a lord. I’d pretend that my father would come and I’d still be a bastard, but I wouldn’t be an orphan and I could live in the castle and work for him. That was all I really wanted – to have a purpose.”

Arya reached out and gently touched his scruffy face. “You do have a purpose.”

This time, when Gendry smiled, it was for true. “Yeah, following you around and doing whatever you tell me.”

“Smart ass,” Arya grumbled, smacking him lightly on the cheek, but there was a smile on her face too. And then, suddenly, it went away and she dropped her hands from his face. “You know, I could never…at least not for a while… I don’t know if I could ever settle down.”

Gendry took her small hands in his. Her hands had never been smooth like what highborn ladies’ hands were supposed to be like; they had always been just as rough as his. He liked them that way; they told him so many more stories about her life. “I figured as much.”

“And you know I’m not much of a lady.”

“I may have noticed that once or twice.”

She turned his hands so that his palms were face up and she could gently trace all the lines and calluses. “I remember when I was in Braavos. I played at being so many people. I was an orphan; I was a bastard; I was everyone and no one at the same time; I was Cat of the Canals… But at night, I was always a wolf and I could not run away from my being a Stark no matter what. I always had a name, no matter how much I tried to forget it. I will never truly be able to understand how it feels to not have one, no matter how much I love you or my bastard brother Jon.” Arya looked him in the eyes. “But this isn’t about me, Gendry. This is about you. This is your choice.”

Of course she was right. Gendry had been foolish. He’d wanted to find her so that she could tell him what to do – after all, ordering him around was one of her greatest abilities – but in the end, only he could make this decision. He had to decide for himself. That was scary in itself. He’d always been good at following orders and listening to other people. Making his own decisions had never truly been allowed. He listened to his mother; he listened to Tobho Mott; he listened to Yoren; he listened to the men at Harrenhaal; he listened to Beric Dondarion; he listened to Lady Stoneheart; he listened to King Stannis Baratheon; he listened to Arya…

Now Gendry had to listen to himself.

He placed a hand to his head. “Seven hells, this is a lot to think about.”

“Being a lord of a castle is really just a lot of work,” Arya said, a half sympathetic, half amused smile on her face. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed, m’lord.”

Gendry made a face. “Ugh, that sounds awful. Now I can see why you hate being called ‘m’lady’ and such.”

Arya took his hand and led them to their room. They readied themselves for sleep in silence. When they finally laid down and slipped under the covers, he turned on his side so that he could slide his hands up and down her body. This he knew – this he was familiar with and understood. He knew her curves and scars and everything in between. Normally, they were so rushed and wild, but he took his time tonight, forcing everything out of his mind so that he could only focus on her. He was lazy with his touches and even lazier with his kisses, dragging her to him and forcing her to be patient. All he wanted was to be consumed with Arya right now. Her skin heated under his touch and she sighed and closed her eyes as they came together and for once he saw a gentleness in her that he’d never thought her capable of. It was like she was carrying him away from his worries.

She fell asleep quickly after despite the slowness of their dance, but Gendry could not find sleep for the life of him. At first, he listened to her breathing and the sounds coming from outside, but then his thoughts crept into a different area. They could have a castle. They could have their own bedroom where they could make love. And it would be his and hers and theirs. Maybe they’d marry, though she’d probably keep her name. Arya was a Stark and she could never be anything else.

Could he be something else though then?

(A stranger thought: did he even want that dream anymore after all these years?)

It was in the early hours of the morning when Gendry rolled over and poked Arya in the side. She opened her eyes almost immediately, as if she’d never been asleep in the first place, and found his eyes. There was barely a hint of sleepiness written on her face.

He had so many things that he wanted to say – so many things that needed to be said – thoughts swirling around in his mind, but all he managed to get out was, “Let’s go to the Wall.”

Arya arched an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“The Wall – we should go to the Wall.” Gendry almost growled in frustration. He wasn’t getting the words out properly. Arya looked at him like she thought he might’ve lost his mind. “You want to leave and I…I need time to think – time I won’t get with the king around here. He’ll want an answer, but I don’t think I’m ready for that. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready for that. Being Lord of Storm’s End, being a Baratheon… I’m not sure that’s me.” Still, she said nothing, which only made him feel antsy. He squirmed underneath the covers and moved to scoot closer to her. “I spent a lot of years hating what I was, but these past few months have made me realize that I’ve got everything I dreamed about. I’ve got a family; I’ve got a home. It doesn’t have to be a castle. I swear by the Seven, I could be huddled in a tent and as long as you were there, I’d have a home. And I’ve got a name.”

A sleepy smile spread itself onto Arya’s face. “Gendry.” She said his name with such soft fondness that it made his fingers ache to touch her again. He could feel at home hearing her voice anywhere.

“You want to see your half brother again more than anything,” he continued, “and I figure he’s someone I should talk to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch,” Gendry replied, probably not sounding nearly as logical as he had in his head when he’d come up with the idea. “It’s a pretty big leap from bastard to Lord Commander, even if he is a Stark bastard, right? I figure he’d understand what I’m going through.”

A strange look crossed Arya’s face, one that he’d never seen her wear before. It was thoughtful and a bit amazed. “You clearly didn’t fall asleep.”

Gendry shrugged her shoulders. “Too much thinking.”

“I shouldn’t have let you be so slow with me,” Arya sighed as she dragged a finger down his arm. Before he could say anything else, she gripped his wrist tightly. “It will be cold – much colder than this – and more dangerous too. And we’d have to leave in the middle of the night so Stannis and his men would not stop us.”

“That red witch of his might figure us out,” Gendry mumbled. “She knows everything.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Arya said darkly. “I can hide from her. I can hide from anyone.”

“Hm, I don’t think you can hide from me.”

She poked him in the gut. “No jokes.” There was a hint of mirth in her eyes though. “I probably wouldn’t even tell Sansa or Rickon. They’d try to convince me to not leave. We’d need time to gather supplies – we couldn’t do it all at once or it’d look suspicious – and at least one horse. The snows lightened up slightly in the past week, but it’s always been heavy and cold at the Wall even during the summer.”

“Seems like you’ve already given this some thought,” Gendry noted.

Arya bit her lip. “I…I miss Jon. I thought about him a lot when I was in Braavos. For a long time, he was the only family I had left alive.”

“You need to see him then,” Gendry said. “I don’t think you can ever settle until you see him again. This is important to you. And if it’s important to you, then it’s important to me. So let’s go the Wall then.”

Arya pushed herself up on the bed and kissed him. He threaded his fingers through her hair, allowing her to roll over top of him and deepen the kiss. They did this for a few minutes until she broke apart from him and laid her forehead against his.

“What about Stannis?” she asked.

Gendry smirked, a true Baratheon smirk if there ever was one. “He said I have time; he didn’t say how long. Isn’t that how you play the game? He needs me. I don’t need him – not when I’ve got you.” He kissed her again. “Besides, we could always get married and you could make an honest man out of me and I could become a Stark.”

When Arya laughed, it was true and warm and all he ever wanted. “You’re a snarky bastard,” she said, “but you’re mine.”

She couldn’t have been more right. These days, Gendry didn’t always know who he was – but at least he always knew what he was. He was Arya Stark’s.