A/N: Something I started working on after 8x04 that surprisingly still made full sense once 8x05 aired, with just a couple wee alterations. The title and lyrics are from Where's My Love by SYML because I've been listening to a particular Gendrya playlist repeatedly since 8x02 like the trash I am.
i break that way
Gendry.
No. She had said no.
She had said no and he felt the air leave his lungs, the exhilaration that had swelled in his chest moments ago escaping into the night around them to be burnt out by the torches. He now had the promise of a House, a title, a home; he could offer them all to her. He could now be her family and yet she didn't want him.
But she hadn't left him; she's still here and she had kissed him, and he's a fool and he's drunk and he's delusional. The first thing he thinks to say to her after surviving the long night – after hours of fighting the dead and praying for dawn, the weight on his chest growing heavier with each body he saw fall and rise again that could be hers – is to tell her he loves her. The first thing he thinks to do, after he had laid with her the last time he had seen her, thinking that was a better end to his life than so many other options, is to propose. He is such a fucking fool.
Gendry reaches out for her arm, hand shaking more than he would like. "Arya." Her name is soft on his lips, like a prayer.
She stops her move to draw the bow when his hand touches her, and in that moment he doesn't want her to turn around. He almost wishes his life had ended last night, with the thought of her arms around him and hope in his heart still. He is no lord. All the Dragon Queen's word had meant to him was that he was no longer lowborn; no longer a bastard who could never have a chance with the woman he loved, because that is not how this world worked. None of the last few months had been how this world worked, but it would never truly change. Not enough for him; not enough for her.
"Gendry." It's not a look of denial she gives him as she turns to meet him; it's sadness, pleading with him to stop before she too breaks.
He swallows thickly. "I should—I should go.
.
cold bones
oh, that's my love
Arya.
She had once asked her father if she could be lord of a holdfast. She wouldn't have minded being a lord, she had thought then. Her father was a lord, and he was good and honest. She could have been that. Instead she was born a girl and would have to wear pretty dresses and sew and talk nonsense with other ladies.
Arya can't do that. She hadn't wanted to do it for her father and she can't do it for Gendry. That isn't her. It is the one thing she has always known about herself, as she had watched Sansa's perfect stitching, watched her receive praise; as she had watched Robb and Jon and Bran shoot arrows across the courtyard and wondered if she too could be praised for doing what she was good at.
She looks to the pack she had readied the moment things had settled, resting against the frame of her bed, like it's taunting her.
There's an ache in her chest and she swallows it. It had ached the same when she had watched her father die, when she was to be reunited with her mother and Robb only to have her hope shattered, when she had heard of Rickon's death. It had ached when she had returned home and found Sansa and Bran and Jon, after the long night when they had been very much alive.
There is still a name on her list, a death owed to her God. The Night King won't replace that, and even if he does, even if killing death itself was enough to satisfy the Many-Faced God for ages to come, hatred still burned deeper in her than any other ache she had left to feel. She owed it to herself to extinguish the flame, event if she went out with it.
Death has many faces. She feels Gendry had worn one when she had broken his heart.
.
she hides away
like a ghost
Jon.
They leave for King's Landing in a week, and half their men are gone.
Armourers, fletchers, arrowsmiths, blacksmiths – half the men they needed to repair armour, work on weaponry, are dead alongside the Knights of the Vale, the simple Northern folk and the wildlings. The smell of burnt flesh lingers from the pyres even days later, ash picked up by the wind and settling in clouds of grey. Jon feels as though they have won the war but lost the battle. Death has made a home of Winterfell. Nestling its bones amongst the bodies of the living, a reminder of all they have lost. The pit that had settled in the bottom of his stomach since he had returned home won't dissipate and he wishes the long night had been the last of his concerns.
To his side, Davos lays a pile of arrow remains bare on a counter, voice calling over to the blacksmith who had survived, "Here you go, lad. Should be the last of them." The dragonglass flickers to life in the light of the fire pit and Jon turns away. He has seen enough fires for one lifetime.
The past two days had been spent scrounging for materials to melt down and repurpose. He had been making himself as useful as he could in both the armoury and forge, sure he was more of a hinderance than a help, but it kept him busy and away from his Queen and his sisters and that suited him fine. Daenerys' thinly veiled threat still lingered in the back of his mind and he had yet to tell what remained of his family the truth. Neither of his sisters needed to face it, not yet.
Not sisters, he reminds himself. He should call them cousins.
Gendry merely grunts in response to the knight. "Sorry," Davos feigns, the sound of a smirk on his lips, "My Lord."
That gets a vocal response from the smith, but it's cool, "Don't."
Jon looks up from his own collection of arrows, the pile of broken heads he had separated from their wooden shafts looking underwhelming. Gendry had always struck him as rather blunt, unafraid to speak when he should perhaps hold his tongue; it's what had endeared Jon to him on their first encounter when he'd plainly revealed his ancestry. But he was rarely brusque, least not with Davos.
"You left the feast early last night. I meant to congratulate you," Jon offers, attempting a smile. The closer they get to the next war the harder they are to force. He keeps the title from his tongue, not wanting to add heat to flame.
"Don't," Gendry repeats, then reconsiders his tone, "I mean, you don't have to." He looks about as weary as Jon feels, but it's not from exhaustion. He looks bitter, sombre, and he bangs a cooled mould against his workbench in a way even Jon knows is harder than needed. He has noticed too the distance others in the forge keep.
"You're acting awfully grim," Davos says, an eyebrow raised. He clasps a hand on the boy's back. "Thought a lordship might have cheered you up some."
Jon is glad he is not the one to have mentioned it. The smith had seemed plenty happy last night, and from memory hadn't shied away from house pride; he recalls the intricate antler design on his hammer. Gendry makes a noncommittal noise, discarding the mould and inspecting the newly formed arrowheads.
Davos lets out a sigh. "Brooding doesn't suit you, lad. That's Jon's job."
Jon snorts. Davos shoots him a guilty smile, and he doesn't know himself if it was a response of laughter or offence; he's too weary, but Davos' light-hearted jest is a welcome relief.
"I'm not brooding," Gendry mutters. He discards the new arrowheads and returns to the anvil. "I'm busy. We have things to do."
"Aye," Davos says, doubt lacing his voice. He begins pulling leather remnants from the dragonglass arrowheads he had retrieved and grimaces; the bonds thick with congealed blood. Jon looks to his own hands, stained red from the same task, and hopes that if there are Gods they are forgiving. He doesn't want to see any more innocent men die. The pit in his stomach tells him there will still be plenty to come.
Davos clears his throat amidst the uneasy silence. "Must be about his lady friend," he says to Jon, whose eyebrows arch. The smith had shown more commitment than half the men in the lead up to the long night, he hadn't thought he'd have the time for any Northern girls. Least of all when he seemed to live and breath the forge. He sees the Gendry suck in a deep breath and stiffen.
"Seemed in an awful rush to leave the feast last night," Davos continues, "And I heard he had a guest in here looking for him often."
"I'm right here," Gendry says, sounding as heated as the fire. He casts aside his hammer and turns back towards the pair. "I'm right here and I don't need this right now."
A crease settles between Jon's eyebrows. He had visited the forge often before the battle to check on progress, to bring the poor blacksmiths more work from the armourers. He doesn't recall seeing many women in those times, only one on occasion, and he was never surprised to see her. She had explored the castle grounds just as freely as a child to watch people work. "I saw Arya in here often."
The smith turns solid as steel himself. Davos chuckles nervously next to Jon, but before he can press further he's being called to meet with his Queen and a thousand other thoughts flood his mind instead.
.
cold sheets
oh, where's my love
The Hound.
"So did he find you?" he asks, tired of the long silence that had drawn out between them. He may be happy the wolf girl isn't talking at him like she had years ago, but if she's going to insist on becoming his traveling companion again he wishes she'd at least wipe that grim look off her damn face. She's no better than her bastard brother.
"What?" Arya says, screwing up her face even more as she eyes him warily.
"Your smith," Sandor grunts. Recognition flits across her face, her eyes growing wide and soft in a way he's seen on plenty of other girls fawning over young lads, but not on Arya fucking Stark. And then she pulls back on the mask she'd returned from God knows where wearing like a crutch.
"He's not my smith," she says, voice cool. He's not buying it.
"Wants to be though," he retorts. He's not sure when he developed a care for the Stark girls; he'd happened upon being a ward for each of them at some sorry point in his life and he'd never particularly enjoyed it, least of all for this one. She ran her mouth too much, thought she knew shit about everything. But then she'd gone and killed the fucking Night King and he found himself feeling proud of the little bitch's tenacity. Same way he'd felt two nights ago when the little bird told him she'd fed a bastard to his own hounds. He almost cracks a smile.
Arya scoffs. "He's an idiot."
She's staring straight ahead, collected, but Sandor can see her grip whiten around her reins. "Aye," he says, "one who's in love."
She sucks in a breath. Swallows. He's not sure why he gets mad when she doesn't respond, but he does. He hadn't missed the looks between them in the forge when he'd been collecting weaponry, let alone that reunion he'd had the misfortune of witnessing that had left the smith dumb as a cunt. It hadn't been one-sided then and he doubts almost fucking dying had changed much.
"Well?" he demands.
"Well what?" she says, storm brewing in her eyes. "What do you want me to say?"
"The fuck did he do to make you so fuckin' sour faced? You look like shit."
Arya stares at him for a long moment, relenting only when she realises this is not a conversation he is going to drop. "He proposed."
He barks out a laugh; a proper one, something that he hasn't done in a long time, and his hand tightens on his rein to steady himself. He'd known the kid was lovesick, but he hadn't thought him stupid enough to propose to the Stark the moment he'd been given some sort of worth, drunk or not. Clearly Sandor had thought too much of him. What a fucking idiot. "That why you're running away?"
"I am not running away." Her eyes burn into him, indignant.
Sandor looks her up and down, raising his eyebrows lazily. "Aye you're not. That's why you're fucking off on a horse and choosing death when you just killed it with your own hands."
That raises her hackles and she all but growls at him, "I still have things to do."
"Your list?" He isn't surprised she still has the damn thing, perhaps only that she hasn't scored him from it yet. He supposes she'll leave him for dead again instead, seems like she'd enjoy watching him suffer. 'Course, he knows who she's talking about. "We both know the bitch is gonna die one way or another. Doesn't have to be your hand. Was Joffrey?" he jeers, "Fuck, we both know I'm dead at the end of this. Who's left after that?"
She's quiet this time and he grunts a momentary defeat.
The trot of their horses' hooves starts to grate at his ears when silence settles between them again. He knows why he's mad. He's mad because he knows he's going to die on the other end of this damn road, because he wasn't even meant to make it this far but now that he has he's finally going to take his brother with him to the seven hells. But the wolf bitch has something waiting for her at the other end. She'd said as much before the long night, fucking off to live a little before she died. He spits the words back at her, "You want to end up a miserable old cunt like me, do you?"
She turns, mouth curled into a snarl. "Will you fuck off already?"
He snorts. "Fine. Do what you want. Kill the fucking Queen if you have to. But we both know where you're going to end up when you're wondering what the fuck to do with yourself after it's over."
She looks away from him, face still contorted like it had been in the first place and he's wasted a whole fucking half hour of his life. "How do you know I'll survive?"
She was like a damn cockroach, that's how. If there wasn't a man left standing in King's Landing she'd still be alive. If the Night King had killed them all at Winterfell, the little she-wolf would have still been fucking crawling. "I'd bet on you over the rest of these fuckin' twats."
.
i got a fear
oh, in my blood
Davos.
Their journey to Storms End had been filled mostly by silence. King's Landing was behind them but it's scars would follow him until he was on his deathbed, of that he was sure. He was a lucky man; he had survived yet another war but he was one of the least deserving. Not least as a part of the army of Daenerys Targaryen. He had been on the wrong side of history this time.
He was relieved, to say the least, when he was sent away from the broken city to aid the new Lord Baratheon. It was almost as if things had come full circle. He was back where he had been the last time a war this large had ravaged the Seven Kingdoms, at the hands of another ruler.
Fire and blood, he thinks. He has seen enough of both for a lifetime.
"That it?" Gendry asks beside him. Davos takes in the lad's expression. It's one of awe as they approach the craggy coastline at the seat of the Stormlands, the trees dropping barren from the Kingswood long behind them. He supposes it must be a sight to see for the first time; even he feels a wave of calm at seeing the fortress, standing as strong as ever. Something the war hadn't touched.
Storms End is a quarter the distance of Winterfell from the capital. The smith had travelled after it was over – no point in him passing through King's Landing prior or dying when the Queen could use his house allegiance. He sees Gendry smile despite himself. Of course, he hadn't been an accomplice in a massacre. He could still smile without guilt.
"Aye, that's it," Davos says.
"It's… not what I expected." Gendry's voice is quiet and the awe washes away to something else. He furrows his brows, looks down at his horse.
"Still worried?"
"She wasn't at King's Landing," he replies, voice peaking near the end like a question. One he had heard several times from the boy on their travels. The answer had always been the same: there had been no sign of Arya Stark since she had left Winterfell, save for whispers of her companion with the burnt face. They'd found him amongst the bodies.
"She's a fighter," Davos says, trying to reassure him some but it's no lie. He'd seen Lady Stark fight like it was simple as breathing during the long night, using her lance like a second limb. Hells, she had even slayed the Night King. He didn't much believe in Gods anymore but perhaps the girl really was the Warrior of Light the Red Priestess had talked of. "I'm sure she's somewhere. Safe."
Gendry hums in response and it's a doubtful sound.
He appreciates that Gendry had opened up as they had travelled; poor boy had looked sick with a worry he couldn't share. He supposes he couldn't, really – wasn't like he felt a lord enough to speak to the Warden of the North and ask of news before or after her brother had ascended the throne, not without the questions Davos is sure she would have had. And then he had been whisked away across Westeros. If not for Jon asking him personally, he doesn't think the lad would have even taken the lordship.
"I'll have to marry," Gendry says, resigned, breaking the moment of quiet. Davos spins to catch the smith's eyes so fast he almost topples from his horse. He'd thought he was following his thoughts but apparently not. How he had gone from worrying for Arya to marriage he had no clue. Unless—
"That's why you were in such a rush to leave the feast, is it? Going to propose?" A smile curls his lips, for once not one he feels he shouldn't have. He supposes men had done stupider things after battle.
"I did." Gendry's eyes burn into the back of his horse's neck.
"Oh."
Davos isn't quite sure what else to say. That's something he hadn't known, much as he had teased the lad before he had left for King's Landing. He hadn't expected a proposal is what had been rejected. No wonder the boy had looked so grim – no wonder he still looked so grim, and a wreck with worry. Poor boy probably wondered if he'd been part the reason she left.
"Yeah. Oh," Gendry mutters. "Told her this wasn't worth it without her. Told her I could barely even use a fork let alone be a lord."
Davos hums, holding back a chuckle.
"I suppose you will have to marry some time," he says eventually, knowing it's not the right thing for the time but there's no use in lying to appease. They both value honesty. Davos clears his throat. "But not for some time. One step at a time, lad. Suppose the first will be teaching you how to use your cutlery."
Gendry snorts, and it gives Davos another reason for a small smile. Least he can still do some good to make up for what he's been a part of, even if he is underqualified to be teaching a Baratheon how to be a lord. He's still serving the same house though. Funny how things turn out.
.
did she run away
i don't know
Sansa.
"You said no to the blacksmith," Sansa says, one evening, as they sit by the fire in silence and contemplate what the future holds now that the war is over. Arya almost chokes on her wine. She turns to stare at her sister, incredulous.
"Or should I say Lord Baratheon of Storms End," Sansa corrects, eyeing her sister's expression with a smile. Gods, it has been some time since she has been able to smile so openly; least of all to tease a sister she had once long lost.
Sansa had thought, often, what would come of them once winter arrived. She had thought them all dead, even with the Dragon Queen's army. She had thought it as she clutched the dragonglass dagger tight against her chest, blood on her hands and her dress, doing what she could for her people. But they had survived, and she had wondered instead what would become of Westeros; what would become of it if a Targaryen took the throne, to what degree she would be worse than Cersei.
And a Targaryen had taken the Iron Throne, but an honourable man. Now that it had come, she found she almost missed the game. There would be more to come, though, and for now she was Lady Stark of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and her future was clear. Her sister's she was not so sure of.
"Why are you bringing this up?" Arya coughs. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, near slamming her goblet back onto the table between the two of them, but her eyes don't leave her sister's. A fire burns behind them but Sansa has been burnt by far worse. "How'd you even know about that?"
"Word travels fast." It hadn't been difficult to surmise. Arya she had seen visiting the forge often before the long night. She hadn't thought much of it – her sister had always been strange, more interested in swords than politics, and she had supposed she had wanted to be amongst the action– but there were the occasional lingering gazes. Across the courtyard, across the great hall. Sansa hadn't had the time to think for who then, but she had seen Arya's eyes search for another pack member after the battle, even with the four of them united, and she had known then.
Then the smith had seemed awful grim in the days before he left with their men for King's Landing, despite the lordship that had been bestowed upon him. Both Jon and Ser Davos had said as much, and Davos had rather heavily implied the man had been turned down by someone. Someone he didn't see himself measuring up to before the title. He had given her a wry smile and she had known.
The silence settles between them like snow. Cold enough to tear Arya's gaze away and her mouth back to her drink. Their relationship still needs work and Sansa knows she is overstepping, but she wants her sister to be happy in spite of everything she's been through. She says so.
"I am happy," Arya retorts.
"No, you're not," Sansa says, her tone measured. "You're home and your list is finished and you're pretending to be satisfied."
Arya doesn't respond.
"Of the two of us, it would be ironic for you to be the one to fall in love." Fairy-tales had been her childhood, not Arya's. Dreams of being whisked away by a dashing prince, living happily ever after in his castle, a soft and sweet future. She knew better now. She had been thrust into a political hellscape instead – her princes' monsters, their castles cells, her mind with as many scars as her body. There was no such thing as happily ever after, but perhaps there could still be happy.
"Sansa." It's a warning. Sansa chooses to ignore it.
"I hear he's redefining what it is to be a lord," she muses. The ravens from Ser Davos had been quite plain – the young Baratheon Lord cared little for tradition, to the point where he often didn't even know he was breaking it. "Still works in the forge, alongside his men. I hear the people accepted him more readily than anyone expected."
"Why are you telling me this?" Arya says, exasperated. The storm in her eyes is weaker now. Sansa can see her trying to swallow her emotions. She wonders if Arya's hands still itch for the faces she keeps, if she wishes for one now as she struggles to keep her own face like a mask.
"Because you could redefine what it is to be a Lady."
"I am not a lady."
"Lady is nought but a title, Arya. Ser Brienne is a lady, the first knighted woman, and has served where her heart and loyalties lead her." Her eyes bore into her sisters. Jon had rarely listened, even when she knew best, but Arya had known better. "Mother was a lady, every bit a wolf as the rest of us, and she led a war alongside Robb. Lyanna Mormont was a lady, after her own mother, and stood 'til the end beside her soldiers – just like you."
Sansa reaches over to touch her sister's hand. "I am not the only kind of lady. You can be a lady that allows able women to fight alongside able men. You can be a lady who travels east, west. You were born a Lady, Arya, and you can't escape that – but it is simply a title and you can make of it what you will."
Arya's gaze lingers on hers, but she is absent. "I don't… want that."
Sansa softens. As much as her sister has been through, the destruction of King's Landing is still a fresh wound. She had seen it on the face of every man and woman who had survived, but there was a darkness in the eyes of the men who returned to Winterfell, something her sister does not have. Arya had always been more comfortable among the smallfolk; Sansa hopes she can see now what she could do for them.
"There is a lot you have not told me," she says, and Arya's hand twitches beneath hers as she removes it. "I picked up bits and pieces from others, from Bran. Everything you have done has been for your family; to avenge us, to protect us. You sailed across the seas and back again to do so."
Arya blinks back to the present, eyes watching Sansa as she empties her goblet. "And now I'm home. With my family."
"I believe you once asked him to be your family," Sansa says. Arya's eyes are on her like a wolf stalking prey. Bran's name hovers between them, unspoken, like the ashes from battles long passed.
Sansa rises, smoothing her skirts. "Sleep on it. You deserve something that you want now. Something good. Someone good."
.
did you run away
i don't need to know
Arya.
Sansa is right. She's right and Arya hates it. The bite of her words the previous night had left a wound; a reminder to Arya that she too was a wolf, an alpha, her senses keen as any others'.
She has spent half her life on the run, seeking vengeance and training to become something she was never born to be; not as a Lady of Winterfell, not as Eddard Stark's youngest daughter. It's who she is now, though. A seasoned killer. Death is her God. He has taken everyone from her list, not all by her hand but none pleasant, all deaths they deserved. Those she had forgiven had met their ends, too, even dying for her to strip a face of her god.
Death had also taken innocent people, cold and unforgiving at the hands of once good men, once good women. Yet she is alive. She is in Winterfell, where all of this began but where none of it ends. She thought she might find solace in her home, the comfort of its walls reminding her of who she was, who she would have been had war not moulded her into this version of herself. Instead, she is cold as the winter winds and empty as the halls of Winterfell are with half its pack gone. For so long she knew nothing but the anger and hatred that fuelled her – and now without them, what is left of her?
Her hand twitches by her side. Her finger runs the hilt of the Valerian steel dagger, the one all of this had begun and ended with. King's Landing flashes through her mind and her grip tightens.
A girl is not no one, but neither is a girl Arya Stark; the girl who had gleefully shot arrows across the courtyard to the surprise of her brothers', who had thought to fight a Prince, who had been so elated to be gifted her own weapon. She has no brothers left, there are no longer any princes, and now her body is the weapon.
Sandor Clegane had sent her away to live, to seek something other than death, but she isn't sure she knows how. Death had found her in the streets of King's Landing, amongst the agonising screams and burning flesh of the common people, crushed between the bodies of dead men. The cries still ring in her ears. Snow feels like ash in her hair. She may have survived but part of her had died there.
"You're leaving." Sansa's voice reaches her ears and her hand freezes on the strap of her steed. It's not a question and that's the worst of it. Dawn has hardly touched the highest tower. She should be asleep. Arya turns to see her sister watching her absently, dressed in furs but not her pretty dresses, and knows she woke specially to taunt her.
She slips her hands free of the final buckle on her horse's saddle and crosses the distance of the courtyard to meet her sister. "Here," she says, in lieu of any reasonable response, removing the dagger from her waist.
Surprise flits across Sansa's face. "What am I to do with this?" she asks, but she doesn't hesitate to take it. A crease settles in her brow as she feels the weight of it.
"A lady should have more than words to defend herself with," Arya replies, heading back to the mare. Her sister's lips are parted and she doesn't want to think about what she's going to say. It's as bad as fucking Sandor Clegane knowing exactly how she would feel once all of this was over, and she's almost sick she can't kill him for a second time. She knows the dagger won't get much use, but she no longer needs it and feels lighter for it. Weapons aren't all there is to protect people. "Besides, it's more elegant than the dragonglass."
She mounts her horse and looks back to her sister once more. Sansa doesn't speak but her smile is wide, even with the slayer of death clutched in her delicate hands, and Arya can see their mother looking at her through those eyes too. A girl is not no one, nor is she Arya Stark. She is a wolf, an alpha, and there can no longer be two of them in this pack.
She will need a new dagger, she thinks.
.
but if you ran away
come back home
Gendry.
"My Lord," Davos greets, bowing his head.
Gendry looks up from the anvil and snorts. He doesn't expect he'll ever get used to the title, but it always amuses him to hear it from Davos of all people. They're both inclined to drop formalities when alone; suspecting he is needed for something he lays his hammer aside, clears his throat. Being a lord still feels like an act he has to prepare for.
"You have a guest," the knight continues, bowing his head and stepping aside to clear the path to the doorway.
Arya Stark steps into the forge and his heart stops beating in his chest.
"You're doing your own dirty work," she says plainly. She looks well, better than he had last seen her. Her black eye is gone and there's a new scar etched across her forehead instead. She is looking around at the swords, the armour; looking everywhere but at him. "Sansa was right."
"Arya…" he breathes. He had received a raven from her brother seventeen days after he'd reached Storms End; he'd counted. He knew she was alive but he hadn't expected to see her again, not unless he were to be summoned to Winterfell or King's Landing or somewhere he'd set his eyes on her just by chance. Gods, was it good to see her. Here, of all the places.
"Hello," she says, voice almost wavering but gaze steady on his, "M'lord."
He laughs, and then he is crossing the distance between them and embracing her so hard he feels he might break her. Gendry hears her let out a sigh of relief. She settles in his arms, hands lacing behind his back in return. He'd known she was alive but having her here was the proof he had needed the last few months to clear the pit in his stomach. He sees the twinkle in Davos' eye as he leaves.
"I looked for you," he whispers into her hair. She smells of the woods and the salt from the sea and gods it's good to see her. "I knew you were with your family the next day but you left. Heard it was with the Hound."
"I had to," she says, voice quiet.
"I know." He pulls back, hands resting on her arms. He knew but he had hoped. "Your list. Cersei. You went to King's Landing."
Arya swallows and pain flashes across her features in a way Gendry hasn't seen since they were kids. He traces his thumb across the scar on her forehead, featherlight, and she leans into his hand. He doesn't want to think about what she saw at the capitol; he'd been sick just hearing the news. His home had been burnt down along with everything else by the Dragon Queen just because she could. Innocents died. If he had been there, he might have tried to slay her himself, stupid as he knows it would have been. He grits his teeth.
"No one could find you, when it was all over. Couldn't find Cersei. I heard they found the Hound but not you."
"He saved me," she says, smile ghosting her lips. "Told me to live."
"Yeah," Gendry says, thinking back to the feast, never thinking he'd be thankful for Sandor Clegane of all people, "He told me something like that too."
The moment passes, as does Arya's smile. "I don't want to see any of that again. I don't want to see innocent people die."
"You won't," he says, and he wishes it could be a promise. The way she draws her brows together shows she knows that; and he knows that it will probably never be true, not in Westeros, not when the scars of war run so deep they'll never heal. "We could disappear. We could go to Essos."
"You're Lord of Storms End," she says, catching his eye, now wearing the stubborn face of the girl who had shoved him years ago for bringing up her own title.
"Arya, I don't need any of this. I never did, I just…" Gendry swallows. He doesn't want to confess to her again; she'd told him no once, and he knew why. His mistake had haunted him half way across the continent and a part of him had been left in Winterfell that night, with her. "I was always lowborn. And you were high."
"That never mattered to me."
"I know, but it mattered to me – until I had it, and then it didn't," he says. He's not sure he can take another no from her, not on the grounds of a title he's not sure he had ever wanted. One he didn't need. It's his choice to make, not hers. He doesn't want to think she would come here just to break him again. His voice hardens, eyes staring back into hers just as stubborn. "I can leave Storms End. I'll never be the kind of lord I should be for here." I'd rather be with you, he leaves out.
"And that's why you should stay here." Her voice is soft and he isn't expecting it. She cups the hand still resting on her cheek, brings it down from her face and curls her fingers around his. "I've heard you're doing good things. That the people like you."
No. She's saying no, again. He breathes her name, much more than a prayer this time. "Arya—"
"I can't be a lady, not with fancy hair and fancy dresses," she says, eyes downcast, and he can see his heart on the floor at their feet. "Not like the lady I should be."
"I know, Arya," Gendry says, exasperated. They don't need titles. They never did five years ago and he'll be damned if it stops them now after everything that has come to pass. He's not asking for her hand this time. He's asking for her heart, and he'll have her company in any way she'll give it to him. "I was so stupid—I was drunk and I was talking shit, I never meant—"
"I can't help the smallfolk if I'm one of them." Her gaze steels him. A storm like the sea around this fortress. His heart jumps into his throat. "But I can be your lady. Here. With you. We can do whatever we want, titles be damned."
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just come home
A/N: I wholeheartedly believe this is within canon for Arya and you can fight me on it. I also did not initially intend to continue this but as of posting it on AO3 last night I've had a couple potential ideas floating about and I'm open to prompts from folk.
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