This is a modern AU based on a picture I happened to find on deviantart. Please make sure to check out: piggie50 dot com deviantart dot com (forward slash) art (forward slash) Assassin-AU-441866651. Sorry it has to be posted like that but FFN is a bit touchy that way…
Here is the description for the picture that set my mind churning:
"When her father dies young, Arya Stark hires the mysterious assassin Jaqen H'ghar to dispose of her father's killers. The two form an unlikely friendship, and when the job is done Jaqen must leave, but he promises to return...when she has the most need of him. Valar morghulis." Thank you piggie50 for the inspiration!
She remembered that her dad had told her to have a good day that morning and ruffled her hair as she ran out of the back door to catch a ride with her sister to school. Had she cared much about her short, brown hair or put as much effort into styling it like Sansa did, Arya would have been mad at her father for messing with it. But, she didn't and she wasn't. When Ned showed up to the high school later on to surprise his girls with an off-campus trip for lunch, Arya was thrilled to escaped the school grounds, even if Sansa was whining about having to leave her boyfriend, Joffrey, behind.
And now, as the shell-shocked girl realized that it was the last time her father touched her, the anguish slowly stretched its fingers into every part of her numb body which sat on the hard plastic chair in an interview room at the police station. "I'm sorry, what?" Arya asked, shaking her head to return her attention to the detective who was seated across the metal table.
"Do you need to use the restroom to clean up?" the female officer gently urged with a glance towards the hands Arya had previously hidden beneath the edge of the table.
Blinking rapidly to keep the tears in check, Arya nodded; she couldn't swallow, let alone speak any words from her suddenly constricted throat, knowing that she still was covered in her father's blood. The sixteen year-old followed the policewoman to a small, private bathroom. With a reminder that she would be outside of the door, the detective allowed the teenager solitude.
Staring at the splotches of dried blood on her hands and arms, Arya turned on the hot water spigot and began to wash as a sob erupted from deep within her. She furiously lathered and then reapplied soap over and over again, weeping and scrubbing her skin raw until the door slowly opened. The detective reached forward and turned off the water before pulling down paper towels and gently drying the girl's arms and hands, without a judgmental word or look. The detective offered Arya a clean t-shirt and helped the distraught girl change from her bloodied blouse. Supported by the sympathetic police detective's arm around her shoulder, Arya's body shook in heaving gasps as her sobs subsided on their path back to the interview room.
A can of soda and candy bar had been placed on the table in front of Arya's chair. Mutely, the girl peeled back the wrapper and chewed her way through the chocolate, mind floating back to the streets the Stark trio had taken to go to lunch. They had walked from campus, Ned insisting to take them to the burger joint a couple of blocks away. Sansa was droning on and on about Joffrey and prom before Arya snapped at her sister to shut up.
"Arya," Ned chastised her, trying to suppress a chuckle. He looked as exasperated as Arya felt from Sansa's ramblings about the captain of the football team, all-star quarterback and perfectly coiffed son of Ned's recently deceased business partner. Robert Baratheon had died just months before of a heart attack, although no one was surprised by the morbidly obese man's demise. Joffrey and Sansa were constantly between making out and making up. Personally, Arya thought her sister's boyfriend was a rude bully who was a bit too dramatic for a boy. His equally theatrical mother had hired a driver/bodyguard for her spoiled teenager after contriving some story that Robert had been targeted before his death. Arya wasn't sure who was more extreme, the mother or son, but she couldn't stand either of them and Sansa's fascination with the pair drove her younger sister crazy.
Arya had stopped to tie her shoelaces; the high top Converse shoes had a way of constantly untying themselves. She dropped to her knees and told to her dad and sister to go on and that she'd catch up. As Arya finished a double knot for good measure, car tires screeched to a halt just up the sidewalk. The kneeling daughter jerked her head up as a masked man in all black clothing lunged from the passenger seat, gun pointed at her father's head. Sansa screamed at the top of her lungs until the man in black brought his gun across her face with a resounding smack. The elder sister wilted to the sidewalk as Arya saw the flash of the muzzle near her father's head, accompanied by a small popping noise. The gunman returned to the car in two short strides and it sped past Arya who was trying to move towards her family.
"Where's my sister?" Arya asked the detective after finishing the chocolate bar. She felt exhausted, like she had been forced to run extra laps in P.E. class. Where was everyone? Why was she sitting at the police station alone? Why wasn't her mom here? Or Jon?
"She's with your mother at the hospital, remember?" The detective reached forward and patted Arya's raw, pink hand.
"If I remembered, I wouldn't have asked," Arya snapped, chest heaving with a surge of adrenaline. No one would leave her alone on purpose; she needed to get home.
Patiently, the detective reiterated that Sansa was admitted to the hospital with a concussion and laceration to the face. Arya recalled the deafening sirens, the flurry of yelling, pushing, and screaming for her father as someone pulled her away from his body. Catelyn was with Sansa at the hospital and would arrive soon, the detective assured the lone Stark.
Arya's annoyed gaze returned to her own hands. She pulled them both into her lap and inspected her palms and then the backs. Under the cuticle of her left thumb, a speck of blood that she had failed to wash away made tears build up again.
She bolted forward as the dark car raced away. "Daddy!" Arya shrieked as his body practically folded on itself, collapsing beside her unconscious sister. "Dad," Arya begged as she fell to the pavement between her father and sister, blood already pooling on the sidewalk beneath his head. His lips opened and closed repeatedly while his blue eyes seemed to search the sky for something. His youngest daughter instinctively knew that there was nothing she could do, but hoped that he could hear her voice before he died. She dropped her mouth to his ear, stroked his hair and whispered over and over, "Daddy, I love you. Daddy, I love you," until his body ceased its lurching and a final breath gurgled out. Reaching out her free hand to hold Sansa's limp hand, Arya hugged her father's head to her chest and despondently wailed.
At the station, the door opened behind Arya and pulled her wandering mind back to the present as another detective indicated that the one across the table from the girl was needed outside. Arya pulled her legs onto the chair, squeezed them to her chest and rested her chin atop her knees. She was tired and wanted to go home. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare. She wanted…her dad.
When the door pushed open behind her again, Arya didn't even bother to look; she didn't want to talk the detective and go over details again. "Arya." Jon pressed his hand to the back of her head as he spoke her name. The younger Stark jumped up so quickly that she knocked the chair over in her haste to embrace her brother. "It's okay. It's okay, I'm here now," Jon muttered into her neck, his shoulders beginning to shake as they both wept, clinging to one another as if it would save them from drowning in grief. The smell of oil from his job as a mechanic comforted the heartbroken girl. Jon guided his sister out of the station and to his old, tattered convertible. Arya slid all the way across the seat to rest her head on his shoulder as he drove her home; Jon had moved out of the house on his eighteenth birthday much to Arya's dismay and his stepmom's relief.
As the siblings rounded the last corner to the affluent house on the outskirts of Kings Landing, Arya felt sick to her stomach at the sight of numerous cars crowding the driveway. "I don't want to see anyone," she desperately croaked, her throat sore from crying. Jon killed the headlights and pulled his derelict car to the rear of the sprawling house. He went so far as to turn off the engine and coast the closer they came to the back door.
"Come on," he urged once they had stopped. Scooping up the lithe girl as if she weighed nothing, Jon whispered, "Pretend you're asleep in case anyone sees us. I'll take you straight to your room." Grateful, Arya pulled her arms tight to her chest and closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of grease, oil and sweat. "There's my girl," Jon chuckled before striding towards the house.
The back door banged open and Arya heard her oldest brother, Robb, start to ask a question before Jon shushed him into silence. The mock sleeper felt Jon pause his footsteps just before Robb's hand stroked her cheek. Arya couldn't help but peel her gray eyes open to look at her brothers as they protectively crowded her. With a kiss to her forehead, Robb told his younger half-brother to take her upstairs and Jon willingly complied.
Once safely inside her room, Jon closed the door and told Arya to take a shower. She mechanically went into the bathroom she shared with Sansa and took the hottest shower her skin would allow; the scorching water urged another round of crying that left her spent. The weary teen dried off and dressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants that Jon had apparently dug out of her dresser and deposited on the counter while she showered. Returning to her room, she could hear people talking loudly from somewhere downstairs. Jon wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided his sister's steps to her bed, urging her to lie down before drawing up the comforter to her chin. His gray eyes searched hers; his sister that resembled him the most and loved him more deeply than their other siblings had witnessed their father's murder.
"Please don't go," she pled, reaching out and clamping onto his hand. With a silent nod, Jon climbed atop the comforter next to her, boots still on, and pushed his arm under her head. He held her tightly through the bedding as her body shook with sobs again. "I told him that I loved him, Jon. I told him over and over so that it was the last thing he heard. I love you Daddy. I love you Daddy," she hiccupped through her crying.
Voice thick with pain, Jon whispered, "He knew, Arya. You did good. Go to sleep, now, kid."
"Don't leave me, Jon."
"I won't. Go to sleep."
Thanks for stopping by for the first chapter. A very special thanks to Winterlyn Dow, editor and encourager extraordinare! (If you haven't checked out her story "The Assassin's Apprentice," please set aside a big block of time and do so! You won't regret it!) Thought I'd let ya'll in on the songs that keep it going for each chapter:
The Civil Wars – The Violet Hour
U2 – The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
Florence and the Machine - Heavy In Your Arms