The great hall was warm. Music and shouts could be heard from across the castle. Arya was standing on the sidelines watching as everyone made toasts to the dragons, to the king in the north, to her. The party had started up almost immediately as the fighting had. Everyone was so relieved to be alive that they had almost forgotten about the dead outside, how the walls were covered in blood. Arya could still hear the screams, no matter how much summer wine she drank.

She still couldn't see him. She saw John, the Dragon Queen, Sansa, the Imp, the Hound everyone except… She saw him. Slipping through the door to the hall. Absolutely covered in blood. She wasn't sure it if was the blood of the dead or if it was his own. She didn't care. He was alive and that's all that mattered.

He watched her from across the room. He couldn't believe it, the same small girl… woman he corrected himself. Arya was now completely a woman, there was no denying that. He blushed at the memory. He watched as she slipped past all those celebrating and into a side door. He quickly followed, not wanting to lose sight of her.

In the empty corridor the sound of the feast died down a little. The floor was still wet from when the whites shattered into pieces of ice. She looked out the window at the aftermath of the battle. There was going to be a lot of cleaning up to do. A lot of dead to bury, or burn. It was unlikely that anyone here wanted to take any chances of the dead rising again.

Gendry watched her from afar. He knew she probably needed space after the battle. Yet, there were so many things he wanted to tell her, wanted to talk to her about.

"Are you going to stand there all day, or come over here and talk to me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You're not exactly sneaky." with his cover blown he walked over to the window and looked out at the battlefield. The sun was just coming up over the horizon, making the sight more gruesome by the minute. He turned away from the window and looked at her instead. In so many ways she was the same Arya from before. From back when they traveled the riverlands together, but there was something very different about her.

He told her he was proud of her but it came out more like "So was that a one time thing or?"

"What? Fighting the army of the dead?" a sly smile turned up the corner of her lips

He cleared his throat "Yeah... Do you think they're going to come back?"

"Note very likely since I killed their leader." She looked back out the window.

"Yeah, probably not." He moved his gaze back to the window as well.

She turned back to him. "Or were you meaning to talk about something else?"

"What?! No! Just about the dead, that's all." he nodded. "Yeah, that's just what I was talking about."

"Alright."

"Because I wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable because -"

She placed a hand lightly on his bruised cheek and kissed him. He moved his hand to touch her but before he could she pulled away and looked back out the window at the dawn.

"Does that answer your question?" She asked with a grin

"Yep, yep." He nodded. "That clears things up for me."

She slipped her hand in his and the two watched as the long night ended for good.