A/N:Gut reaction piece when discussing 8x02 with someone right after it premiered. Super Spoilers for Arya and Gendry. Don't read if you haven't watched episode 2. Also, this was hammered out super fast, like, an hour tops, so it's not the most eloquent thing ever, but then these are not the most eloquent characters!
The prompt with the friend was "he better be careful if he asks her number, because if not he's going to get her kill count instead of partners."
Arya's eyes snapped open. She couldn't just lie here when such a colossal wave was so close to breaking upon Winterfell. Truth be told, she was almost feeling sheepish, waking up under a fur in the forge, after falling into a slight doze from what she and Gendry had just done. It was a forge her father had walked many times. It was a forge she had watched Mikken work in for hours and where her own Needle had been made on Jon's request.
She glanced over at Gendry, sleeping beside her and she made to get up, reaching for the cloak she had discarded. As her fingers skimmed the soft fur, however, Gendry's fingers wrapped around her arm, pulling her back. She had to fight the instinct to raise the dagger to his throat in that moment. He wasn't a threat, but a restraining hand didn't sit well with the training she had undergone.
One look at him, though, and that training melted away. The minimal flirting they had done since their reunion left the both of them feeling a little off-balance. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting or hoping for when she had come to the forge and began taking off her clothing, but it had gone better than she could have hoped.
In those days when she and Sansa had talked openly of what their journeys had brought for both of them, Arya felt sick. She hadn't been old enough to think of Micah as more than a friend when he'd been killed and the first boy since than that she had taken any interest in had been the very man now grasping her arm. This could either go very poorly or very well, but given her experience, the former was far more likely.
"How many?"
Arya turned these words over in her head. How many? What was he asking? How many times had he made her feel like this? She had heard plenty of stories, travelling among soldiers and sleeping in pubs, but even the basest of men wouldn't assume some magical prowess for love-making when it had been hurried, inexperienced, and in front of the forge fire. Weirdwood's sake, no man could be that arrogant, especially the bastard son of a king who grew up with nothing.
She slipped out from underneath the fur and located her pants and tunic where she'd stripped them off less than an hour before. "What d'you mean how many?" Arya wasn't one to mince words or to offer unnecessary explanation any more. She used her words carefully, saying no more than necessary, and if he didn't get it, well, he could sod off and continue to make weapons to save the north while she was actually out there defending it.
"I mean, how many men?"
Oh.
OH.
Well, that was quite the embarrassing question when asked by him. She wanted this man to want her. How many men found assassins desirable?
"13"
Gendry sat up rather quickly as she secured the laces and began searching for the weaponry she had brought down here with her. "Thirteen?" He ran a hand across the top of his head. It would have been a nervous habit, had she ever known him to have hair long enough to run fingers through. "No wonder you jumped straight from two to twenty when trying to guess mine."
Now Arya knew he was talking about partners and not the number of men she'd killed. She smirked. That didn't mean that he had to know what she meant, "indirectly, it's closer to 70. But since I didn't one-on-one take each of them, I'm not sure I should count all of them."
He had moved to the edge of the sacks she had roughly pushed him onto before she had all but ordered him to remove his pants and he began looking for that discarded garment. "Look, I don't know what happened to you after the Red Woman took me and after you went off on your own, but if you were taken advantage of, I'm sorry." He looked down at her while tightening the ties on his own pants. "you deserved better than that, My Lady."
Roughly grasping at his shoulders, still fully exposed to her, she kissed him again. "I thought I told you not to call me that?"
When she pulled back, his eyes were still closed, as though he wanted to keep kissing her. "You have, but as I'm a simple King's bastard and you're the trueborn daughter of the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I'll keep calling you 'My Lady' no matter what you've had to endure." He paused for a moment, the fabric of his stained and sweat coated tunic bunched around his elbows, poised to go over his head. "What did you mean, one-on-one take them? Any man who forced himself on you, I would love to run him through with a still glowing sword."
The smirk growing ever-wider, Arya stepped toward him and placed a hand on his chest. "Well, no man has forced himself on me. I meant it earlier when I said that I wanted to know what it felt like if we died. The number I gave you, well," she paused, looking at the fires glowing around her, seeing the tools her father's most trusted bladesmith had used, she decided that either her father and Mikken would be proud of her, or they could sod off for having left her in this world, left to survive any way she could, "that's the number of men I've killed."
Gendry blanched. "killed?" he sank back against the coarse sacks underneath him, "You've directly ended the lives of 13 men? And been responsible for over 40 more?" He looked as though his entire world was shifting.
Arya just smiled, lifting the spear he'd made for her and testing the weight in her hands again. "I've learned much in our time apart. As I said, I've seen many faces of death. I suppose I wanted to see this one face of life before meeting another one."
Looking as though he was struggling to find a way to respond, he was spared finding the words by a warning blast from a horn far above.
Arya held out a hand, "The army of the living thanks you."
Gendry accepted her grasp, stood, and grabbed for as many dragon-glass blades as he could hold before following her up the twisting stairs.