a/n: Modern (sorta), AU, Gender Bender. My first Game of Thrones fic, hope you like it and please review!

I changed the Stark kids' ages slightly:

Robb - 16
Jon - 16
Sansa - 14
Arya - 13
Bran - 10
Rickon - 8
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Fic Summary: Arya is going to be what and whoever she wants to be, and isn't going to let anyone stop her.

Chapter Summary: Arya tries something new, and after making a mess of things, she goes to her big brothers for help.

********Game/of/Thrones********
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North Winter High School,
Being Who I Want To Be:

Part 1:
Cracked Reflection

Arya studied her reflection in the mirror as if she were judging the strength of a stud, which she had only basic authority over, but did so any way. She needed to be apart from herself, unbiased—it was the only way. She was too emotional, always fired-up.

Tomorrow she would make the impression that would follow her for the next four years of her life. Any rumours previously voiced about her would vanish upon the impression that she intended to make.

She looked at herself critically, locked away in her bedroom, fresh from the bath, as nude as her born-date. Her brown hair was dripping, wet ringlets hanging over her shoulders. Her grey eyes wide and ever big, set evenly in her tanned, long face. She had a small nose, and puffy lips. Her shoulders were narrow, her hips following suit, her waist slim. She hardly had an arse, and her breasts were like mosquito bites. Her height came to a shuddering stop at 4-and-a-half-feet, with a complete weight of hardly 6 stone. She was thirteen name-days old, she'd already bled, yet she was as flat-chested as a boy.

She wasn't beautiful like her sister Sansa, who was only a year older. Who was tall, and had curves. Though she'd bleed just last year, while Arya had when she was 12, she already had breasts the size of oranges that continued to grow into grapefruits, while Arya had baby crab apples. Sansa had gorgeous red hair that flowed like silk past her shoulder blades, with unblemished, ivory skin. Her shoulders were straight, her bum round, and her hips wide. She seemed to be all curves and nothing else.

Sometime, when Arya watched her, she couldn't help but curse her sister.

She knew that she took after her father greatly, more so than any of her bothers and sisters—except for her half-sibling Jon. That she was considered handsome instead of beautiful. That if it weren't for her long hair, and the skirts that she was forced to wear, people would think that Ned and Catelyn Stark had born 5 sons and a single daughter, instead of 4 sons and 2 daughters. But she hated the skirts; they restricted her, made sure that she stayed still and didn't go tromping off for an 'adventure'. She much preferred trousers, or shorts, they allowed for manoeuvrability, and she loved to move. She hated staying still.

She didn't hate being a girl. Sometimes it wasn't all that bad. But then sometimes she wondered if she wasn't meant to be a boy. She gave herself a slow once over, wondering what it would be like to not bleed each month, and instead having a protruding organ between her legs, instead of a smooth patch of light brown hair. Things would be so much easier. She could stand up to make water. She could go out and have fun. She could get dirty and mother wouldn't give her a look of mild anger and disappointment.

Her gaze strayed to her breasts, or at least what there was of them. As flat-chested as a boy. Now she looked at her hair. How it so annoyed her to no end. It was useless; it didn't do anything but get tangled and in the way. Make her even hotter during the long summer years. She reached up and held the tangled strands behind her head, imagining what it might be like short. It's be no different than when she wore it pinned up.

Coming to a decision, she turned from the full length mirror that hung inside her closet door, and walked across the carpeted bedroom, to her connecting bathroom. She stood on the small step at her sink, and took a pair of shears and cut lock after lock. The brown strands of damp hair fell softly into the sink and on the floor around her. With each snipe, as her head grew lighter, the invisible weight on her shoulders lessened. When she finally set the scissors on the counter, she felt free, so unburdened that she could fly.

She looked at herself in the mirror and tried a smile. Her hair was cut unevenly, of course, she had no idea how to cut hair. And any surface traces that she was a girl, vanished.

She stepped down from the step, and swept up the discarded hair. She bid them goodbye before flushing it all down the chamber pot. She put on her pyjamas; a pair of sleep shorts and a tank. She ran a brush through her hair, and when she went to turn off the lights, and she passed her closet mirror, she froze as she caught her reflection.

She looked at herself again. Trying to be like a casual observer. And all she could see was her hair. Her mother loved her hair. When Arya was smaller, before bedtime, her mother would sit with her on her bed and brush her hair, telling her a bedtime story. It had been one of the most intimate moments that the two of them had shared. Her mother could never do that again. It didn't matter that Arya hadn't let her do it since she was seven.

In the morning, when she went downstairs for breakfast, she didn't have to wonder how her mother would react when she saw her youngest daughter's hair. Aghast; at first, at least; then that would turn into anger. She'd be grounded for the rest of her life, forever doomed to live with her parents. Her father would be less angry, but upset nonetheless. She didn't want to think about her siblings. Sansa, after that first surprise, would act in her usual condescending manner and goad at her with giggles. Rickon wouldn't understand, and Bran would laugh at her like a little brother. Jon and Robb would probably laugh—no, she knew they would—though she knew it wouldn't be in the same manner as Sansa.

Arya felt horror overwhelm her small body, and fear. Tomorrow would be her first year at The North Winter High School. This would be her first impression on what every teenager referred to as the Underworld. What had she done? How could she take this back? She felt tears prick her eyes. She needed help. She couldn't go to mother or father, Bran and Rickon were useless, and she'd never go to Sansa for anything if she could help it. Her big brothers, though they were boys and three years older, she was closest to them than any of her other siblings. Jon and Robb would know what to do, they could fix this, they always fixed everything.

She turned off her bedroom light and slowly cracked her door open. The hinges never squeaked, Maester Luwin saw that the workers oiled the hinges every month. The hall was in complete darkness, but for the interlaying windows from which moonlight shone. The whole household was in there bedrooms, asleep.

The Stark house was so large that people called it a mansion or castle, its true name was Winterfell Manor. Her parents had their own wing, her four brothers shared a wing, so did she and Sansa. There was a wing for guests, and even the servants had their own barracks. The dinning room could seat thirty people in a professional capacity, the kitchen could staff ten. There was ten washrooms. Her father had an office, her mother a sewing room. There was a wreck room, a living room, a family room, the hall, and the library. They had a swimming pool, and a dog run for the six husky wolves, and a barn and stables for the horses. The place was surrounded by fields and acres of woods to ride in.

She crept from her room and down the dim hall like a mouse. She knew this place upside-down and inside-out, she was master of every creak in the floorboards—the only one quieter was Ghost, Jon's dog. She crept passed Sansa's room, and several empty ones, before she came to a juncture, straight was to her brothers, and left was her parents. Staying true, she passed Bran and Rickon's rooms, and further down she finally came upon Jon's.

She didn't pause as she grasped the knob and opened to the door a crack, slipping through into even darker darkness, closing it behind her like a whisper.

She knew the layout of Jon's room as much as her own, she'd been in here enough times. She knew that he was asleep because she could hear his even breathing, he didn't snore like their father does.

She crept to his bed like a thief in the night. When she arrived at the side of his bed, he stirred at her presence, but did not wake.

"Jon?" She whispered. Nothing. "Jon?" She tried again, this time shaking his bare shoulder.

Jon groaned. "Hm..."

"Jon." She snapped this time, unable to help herself and his eyes snapped open.

"What's wrong?" He said instantly; something always seemed to be when his little sister woke him up in the middle of the night. He couldn't see any details of her, just the silhouette as his window stood at her back.

Arya was quiet for a moment, not sure what to say. And with tactlessness she blurted, "I cut off all me hair!"

"You what?" Jon asked in confusion, rising to his elbows. Must be a dream, he figured. What she said wasn't making any sense.

"Jon..." Arya whispered, and it had the edge of a suppressed sob.

Jon instantly sat up. "Arya," he said, and reached over next to her and turned on his bedside lamp. He wasn't able to stop the gasp. "What happened to your hair?" He said, finally seeing her in the light.

"I cut it off," she said.

Jon reached out and touched the clumpy and uneven hair. "What were you thinking?" was all he could whisper.

Arya didn't answer. She had been thinking, she really had, just not about the fact that she obviously couldn't cut hair.

He didn't try and force the answer from her, she'd tell when she was ready, he knew. Trying to force an answer from Arya was like trying to squeeze blood from a rock—it couldn't be done. She'd come to him for help, for a solution to this unusual problem. But all he could think about was how lady-mother was going to react when she saw what had happened to her daughter's beautiful hair.

He gave her a fond look as he climbed from bed, clad in just a pair of pyjama pants, and took her small hand in his. "Come," he commanded gently, tugging her along. He left his room, and walked the brief distance across the hall to where Robb's room lay.

Much as Arya had done, he entered Robb's dark room without so much as knocking, and shut the door behind them. Unlike Jon, Robb was a snorer like their father, but seemed to stop when he slept on his stomach. Right now, he was snoring. Jon turned on the light, but it had no effect on their brother, who was a very heavy sleeper.

Still holding Arya's hand, he stepped to his brother's bedside, and shook his shoulder. "Brother." There wasn't even a stutter in his snoring. Jon gave a rougher shake and this time snapped, "Robb!"

Robb moaned. "Wha?"

"Get up," Jon told him. "We have a problem."

"Do it yourself," he mumbled.

Jon rolled his eyes. "Get up, idiot." He repeated.

Robb cracked his eyes open, but his blue gaze was still glazed with sleep. "Screw off, bastard."

"Arya needs our help." Jon growled, and promptly yanked the pillow from under his brother's head and whapped him on the head with it.

"You're dead!" Robb growled, rolling over and sitting up with a glare, more awake.

Jon didn't say a word, and simply picked their sister up as if she were a toddler and placed her in front of him on the bed.

Robb looked at her blankly for a long moment in confusion, before it seemed to finally click what he was actually seeing. "Arya?"

She looked at him with big grey eyes, her lips pursed in what could only have been the beginning of a cry-frown.

He reached out and touched her chopped hair, making sure that it was real and he wasn't having a bizarre dream, much like Jon had. "Did Bran finally make good on his threat and cut off all you're pretty hair?"

"I cut it off," she told him, her voice miserable as she knelt on the covers between his legs.

"Why?" He asked, curious, his hands on either of her shoulders; both in comfort and taking the option for her to run, away.

Jon sat on the edge of the bed next to Robb, and mirrored his expression, his arms crossed lightly over his bare chest as he nodded in agreement with the question.

Arya looked between her two big brothers. So was so embarrassed to explain, that she felt her cheeks flush with the heat of a blush. But her relationship with them was so different than with her other siblings. Though there was a three name-years between them, they got on great. She had more in common with them, than she did with Sansa. They were dirty boys, and she was a girl who played like a dirty boy—and she loved every minute of it. They had laughs, and they had adventures, and though she was a girl, she never let up an inch; and though she was small, her fiery personality more than made up for it. She trusted them with everything. And though they could have looked at her with disdain like her sister, it was love that coloured their gazes when they looked at her. She would tell them, and they would understand.

Arya took a big breath, squared her narrow shoulders, and stuck out her chin as she looked at them with steel in her grey eyes. "I was nervous about tomorrow," she admitted. "I thought about what impression I would make on my first day. I'm not as pretty as Sansa, you know." Jon and Robb made no comment, just continued to listen. "And while I was thinking how girly Sansa was, and how much I'm not, I realized that I hated my hair. Mother never cut it, she only trimmed. She said I was a girl, and girls were made to have long hair. Well, I hated it!" Arya cried, leaping to her feet in her passion. "It was useless and always got in the way. It's my hair, I should be the one who decides what gets done to it. I don't care if it makes me look like a boy—I don't!"

"Shush!" Jon hissed at her, grabbing her arm and dragging her back down to her rump. "You'll wake Bran and Rickon with all your shouting!"

"Sorry." Arya mumbled, but here gaze was still firm.

"What are we supposed to do about this?" Jon wondered. There was no point in getting angry. He believe in what she said, about it being her hair and she should say what happened to it. He just wished that she had talked to them first before she went through with it. There was no going back now, only forward.

"What's done is done," Robb said simply. "There's no way we can cover this up... so we're just going to have to neaten it up." He decided.

"You mean you'll help me?" Arya asked.

"Of course, you little fool."

"You're the best!" She claimed, and leapt into his arms, wrapping her skinny arms around his neck.

Robb chuckled warmly as he hugged her back. "I always knew it." He smirked at Jon.

Jon glared at the two of them. "What about me?" He asked, pouting.

Arya smiled as she released Robb's neck, and climbed into Jon's lap, hugging him just as tight. "You too," she agreed.

"So how do you supposed we go about doing this, Robb?" Jon asked, as Arya finally released him and reclaimed her spot between her other brother's legs on the bed. "I don't think we're better hair dressers than our dear sister."

"I figured that we couldn't be any worse, could we?" Robb shrugged his shoulders. "And we could always put a hat on her— or cross The Wall when mother finds out in the morning." Both brothers and sister shuddered at what mother's reaction might be.

"I suppose you're right," Jon reluctantly agreed, it wasn't as if he had any better solutions to this problem.

They got out of bed and set up in Robb's bathroom, crowding around the mirror above the sink, Arya standing on a small chest that Robb had grabbed from his desk. They dampened her hair like mother always did before she cut their hair, and laid a towel around her shoulders.

Robb stood behind her with the scissors in his fingers. It was decided that he would go first since it was his idea. She watched in the mirror as he started to cut out chunks of hairs. Before a minute was over, it was very clear to her that he was just as bad as this as she was—that was a boy for you!

"Robb, you're making it worse!" Arya protested, as she felt the falling hair brush her cheeks.

"Better than you!" Robb returned.

"Enough!" Jon told them. "Quit bickering and give me the scissors."

Robb handed them over, and stepped out from behind Arya. Jon took his place and scrutinized the mess that both his brother and sister had made.

"Can you fix it?" Arya asked quietly, looking at him through the reflection of the mirror.

"I'll do my best, Arya," Jon told her, "but I can't promise anything."

Arya nodded and held still at Jon's first and final attempt to salvage her hair, and save their lives.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut tight, afraid to watch as the floor came out beneath her and she ended up bald. She would just die if that happened, no matter how her mother reacted. Her brothers never let her down, so she knew that they wouldn't this time. But she prayed to the old gods and the new as she heard snick after snick.

"Alright," Jon sighed finally. "I'm finished. You can open your eyes now, Arya.

After a deep breath, the girl did, and looked at her reflection. Jon had been better than either her or Robb. She wasn't bald. And though there was considerably less than there had been when Robb was finished, she couldn't have hoped for better. The cuts were straight. It wasn't clumpy. And though it made her look like a boy, she loved it.

"Well, I guess if mother doesn't murder us all, you have a future career as a hair dresser, Jon." Robb told him, patting his brother on the shoulder.

"That's more I can say for you," Jon said.

Robb rolled his eyes. "Shut up." Jon smirked.

Arya interrupted them as she spun on her heals and wrapped her arms around their waists', burying her face between them. On one cheek she felt warm skin, and on the other, the soft material of a t-shirt. And she cried, but she didn't care because they were happy tears.

"I guess this means you like it?" Jon asked.

Arya nodded her head in answer as they hugged her back.

"It's going to be fine," Robb told her, rubbing her small back. "No matter what mother might say."

"Yeah, little sister, we got your back." Jon affirmed.

Arya sniffed, and withdrew her face from their ribs, but didn't release her arms as she looked up at the two of them. "You're the best big brothers," she told them. They grinned down at her.

"It's late," Jon said. "Time for bed."

Arya released them reluctantly, she was feeling pretty tired after all this stress with her hair, and now that it was fixed she felt rather drained. She sniffed, her face wet from her tears. She reached for Robb, and he watched as his sister took the edge of his shirt and wiped her face with it.

"What are you doing?!" He exclaimed. Arya didn't seem to hear him as she was already wandering from the bathroom. "I'm not just some tissue that you can blow your nose on, I'm a human-being!" He said as he and Jon followed her from the bathroom.

Jon snickered at his side as she left without any further words. When Arya arrived back at her room, she closed the door and didn't even bother turning on the lights as she climbed under the covers and fell instantly asleep.

Robb glared at him.

"Goodnight, brother."

"You're leaving, too?" Robb asked.

Jon nodded. "It's a new semester tomorrow."

Robb furrowed his brows as he glanced behind him at the mess of hair on his bathroom floor. "What about the mess?"

Jon grinned at him. "It was your idea, Robb, your bathroom. Have fun!" He clapped the other boy on the shoulder, leaving his brother's room before said brother could grab a hold of him.

Robb glared at the door. "A bunch of ingrates," he opined as he turned back to his bathroom and wondered about how he was supposed to clean it up before he went to bed.

When Arya's alarm went off in the morning, she bolted upright in bed, remembering everything from last night. She jumped from her bed, and ran to her bathroom, jumping on the step and peering at her reflection. She reached up and touched her short-cropped hair, like her brothers had done the night before, to make sure that it was real. And it was, as she ran her small hands through the short, silky brown locks. It was for true.

She couldn't stop staring at herself as she got ready for her first day at North Winter H.S., in either of her two mirrors. Her bathroom as she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Her closet mirror as she stripped from her tank and put on a undershirt, white button-up, grey blazer (with a dire wolf head crest on the left breast), with a charcoal-gray and white tie. She ignored the black leotards and the pleated skirt as she slipped a pair of black socks on her bare feet. As she had gotten dressed she had made a decision—She was Eddard Stark's daughter, she never went half-way.

She peeked out of her cracked door into the hall. Her mother wasn't there, and Sansa would be forever in the bathroom. She needed to be quiet like a mouse, but fast like a wolf. She streaked from her room, through her wing, and down her brothers' and didn't stop until she was in Jon's room, her back pressed against the closed door.

Jon came from his bathroom in full uniform, but stopped short when he spotted her. A chuckle escaped him as he took the sight of her in; from the waist-up she wore her knew school uniform, and the other half was still clad in her pyjama shorts. "Am I missing something, or did they change the school uniforms?"

"Don't be a dummy," she told him, standing up from the door.

"What do you need, Arya?" He asked her.

"Another favour."

"Ask away," his hands landed on his hips as he looked down at her, noting that she looked quite cute in her new hair-cut, and he just hoped that lady-mother wouldn't be too harsh on her.

Everyone else was already up and dressed, and down in the dinning-room for breakfast. Ned sat at the head of the table, with Rickon to his right, his wife next, and Bran afterward. To his left sat Sansa, Robb, Jon and Arya between the two boys. Jon and Robb took their places at the table before her, giving her encouragement before she was for sure grounded for life.

"Oh my Gods!" Sansa exclaimed, seeing her first from the placement at the table.

"What is it, dear?" Catelyn asked, looking to her eldest daughter.

Sansa couldn't seem to form the words for whatever this was, and just continued to stare at her sister standing in the doorway. Everyone looked and watched as Arya, with her hair, and pants walked slowly to the table, and took her regular seat between Robb and Jon.

"Arya, what in the world have you done?!" Catelyn exclaimed as she took in her youngest daughter's especially boyish appearance. "What have you done to your lovely hair?"

"I cut it off," Arya told her truthfully. She didn't see how she could lie about it, the proof was there for all to see.

Anger flashed in mother's eyes. "How could you do something so foolish?" she demanded.

Arya swallowed, but kept her chin high, confident with her brothers on either side of her. "It wasn't foolish."

Catelyn narrowed her eyes. Of all the stupid things that her daughter did, this beat anything previous out of the way.

Ned saw the look in his wife's eyes and decided to step in before things got completely out of hand. "Arya, please explain why you cut you hair." He instructed her.

Arya swallowed and looked to her father. "I didn't like my hair long. I'm not a child any more. It my hair and I should be the one to decide whether it stays long or not."

"You look like a boy!" Sansa finally regained her voice, and Arya glared daggers at her around Robb.

"Sansa!" Ned scolded his eldest daughter before turning back to his youngest. "You should have spoke with us before you did something like this, Arya. You're to be punished." He nodded to her mother, leaving that up to her.

Arya looked back to her mother nervously. She could see how angry her mother was just by the set of her lips. "You're grounded; not aloud to step outside to ride your horse or play with Nymeria, instead you will be with me in my sewing room." Arya had expected to get grounded, but being stuck in her mother's sewing room—sewing? Her mother continued, "No telly or internet. And you're to clean the dog run for the next week."

Arya nodded her head, it took everything in her not to protest, but she held her tongue—just barely.

"I know you two had a part in this as well," mother glared at Robb and Jon on either side of her. "You are to join your sister in the dog run."

"Yes lady-/mother." The two boys muttered, there was no point in denying it. They'd both cut her hair, gave her encouragement, and Jon was the one who had dug out an old pair of slacks from his closet for her to wear instead of that leotard and skirt—completing her new look.

Despite all the punishment, Arya couldn't help but smiling as she ate her breakfast. Today, she'd make this image hers for the next four years and embrace it.

-tbc-
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Note:
I hope that you liked it, and that I did the characters to their liking. Please review, I want to know what you think.
Thank you for reading!

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