He infuriated her. She'd put on the dress just for him and it was a rather drastic change from the rags she'd worn when she returned from her time in Braavos. When she'd first entered the Inn at the Crossroads months ago he'd acted as if he didn't even care that she'd come back. He'd been in a very good mood earlier this evening, laughing and smiling with her, Jeyne, Willow and the children at dinner, but now, after giving her a glance over his shoulder, he wouldn't even give her a second look.
"Do you not like it?" she asked, attempting to mask the hurt she felt at his apparent lack of interest.
His voice was low and clueless as he dipped the end of a glowing sword into a bucket of water. "Like what?" When he wasn't being stupid, he was often pretending to be.
Arya looked down at the dress Jeyne had made for her. It was a faded, sad shade of blue with gold and white designs embroidered around the neck and cuffs. Though she hated dresses, she thought this one was quite pretty and it reminded her of something Sansa might wear. Perhaps that was why she'd been so willing to try it on. With a sigh, she answered him, "The dress." Arya waited but he said nothing. She began to feel stupid for ever thinking he might like it on her and tried to cover her emotions, summoning up her childish spirit. "Well, I don't like it. You know how I prefer tunics and trousers anyway. It's stupid to think I might impress someone by looking ridiculous as this."
He turned to her, his face smudged with soot, and he looked almost concerned. "Are you trying to impress someone?"
"No," she lied, shaking her head, "but isn't that the reason why girls wear pretty things?"
He resumed his focus on the blade and frowned. "I s'pose so." He returned the sword to the heat. "Are you thinking of finding yourself a suitor? It's past time for you to be married anyway and the Brotherhood is no place for a lady."
"I'm no lady." she said, almost offended. Arya considered pointing out that her mother, or rather the ghost of her mother, had once led the band of outlaws, but she decided against it. She preferred not to speak of Lady Stoneheart. Arya took a step towards him. "You're always saying that- that the Brotherhood is no place for a lady, but you have no qualms over Jeyne and Willow staying here." Again, he didn't reply. "Do you truly want me to leave?" She was frightened of his answer.
"Sometimes, yes." He pulled out the sword and looked it over before returning it to the coals. "Sometimes no."
She closed her eyes in frustration. "What does that even mean?"
Gendry didn't look away from the embers. "It means I only want what's best for you."
Whatever anger she'd just felt was mildly abated upon hearing his words. "And you think that going to Winterfell so my brother can have me married off to some pompous sap is what's best for me?"
He replied as if the answer should be obvious and repeated, "Sometimes, yes."
Timidly, she asked, "And the other times?"
He sighed as he waited for the steel to heat further. "I know that's not what you want," he looked at her with a sad sort of caring, "but the Brotherhood really isn't the safest place for you what with bandits running amok in the wake of the war. The Brotherhood," he shook his head, "I might not always be able to protect you." He pulled the sword out and, seeing that it was ready, placed it on the anvil and absent mindedly spun the handle of his hammer in his hand. "It's the same for Jeyne and Willow. I'd send them away if I could, but they've got nowhere else to go. You, however, you've got a castle and guards and servants waiting for you." He drew his arm back and began pounding on the blade.
"And what about the children?" she asked loudly over the sound of his hammer. "Would you be able to care for them all by yourself if the three of us left?"
Gendry stopped and, breathing a little heavier, replied, "I'd manage, yes, but if you left I'd hope that you'd take the girls and the children with you to Winterfell. Surely you could find something for them there."
Arya frowned at her selfishness. He's right, she thought. I'd only need to send a raven and Bran would send men to take all of us back. "You wouldn't come with us?"
"And do what? Smith for your brother?" He waved her question away with his hand. "The Brotherhood needs me more than he does."
"And what if I need you?" He looked back at her, surprised, and she quickly corrected herself, "What if we need you? Myself, Jeyne, Willow and the children?" She took another step towards him, hopeful. "You're like a brother to Jeyne and Willow and the children look at you like a father."
He laughed, "A father? Have you been drinking?" The humor was lost on Arya and she only gave him a hardened stare in return for the dismissal. Gendry looked back to the sword and saw that it had begun to cool and so placed it back in the coals. "And as for the rest of you… I'm hardly a knight and barely a blacksmith. You'd be fine without me."
"You'd rather stay with the Brotherhood for the rest of your life, smithing and fighting until one day you have a run in with bandits, the Gold Cloaks or the Lannister army and they cave your head in with your own hammer?" She sighed in exasperation. "Haven't you ever thought about doing something else with your life, Gendry? Isn't there something else that you want? A safe, stable home? Smithing for someone that can provide decent steel to work with?" She shook her head and turned away from him, running her fingers across a rusty pair of tongs hanging on the wall. "Perhaps a wife, even a family?"
"The Brotherhood has given me more than I ever deserved." He took the sword out of the coals and examined it again before returning it to them. "And of course I've thought about it. Finding a wife, that is."
"And?" she asked.
"The men are always chiding me about Willow, how she dotes on me and the way she looks at me, the things she says." He drew the sword out and placed it back on the anvil, readying his hammer once again.
She felt heat in her cheeks but played along. "She does fancy you. Truth be told, I'm rather surprised you haven't bedded her yet."
Gendry blushed and scowled. "Do you really think I'm like that?"
"No, not at all." she assured him.
His tone was defensive. "Then why would you even say it?"
Arya picked at a stray thread hanging from her sleeve. "It just seems the normal thing for a man your age to do."
"A bastard's life is something I'd never wish on anyone. I don't care what's normal." He grimaced and turned back to the anvil, slamming his hammer down on the sword with such force that Arya nearly jumped. "I'd think you of all people might understand that. The only reason I'm here is because my father grabbed my mother instead of the girl next to her that night." Somewhat less forcefully, he began hammering at the blade again.
"Isn't that a good thing, though?" she asked.
He looked at her and furrowed his brow. "What are you talking about?"
"Isn't it a good thing that it happened the way it did?" He didn't answer and she continued, "You wouldn't be here. I would never have met you."
He scowled again. "Is your life really so much better for knowing me?"
She stamped her foot, suddenly furious with him again. "Of course it is! I might not even be alive if it weren't for you." Gendry only shook his head and resumed hammering at the sword. She quietly added, "You're the reason I came back."
He stopped abruptly, his shoulders moving up and down as he breathed. Without turning to look at her, he replied, "Well, that's on you."
Her heart dropped. To hear her very dearest, closest friend say that… Arya whispered, "I suppose it is." She desperately wanted to be angry, to scream at him, to demand that he take it back, but all she felt was abandon. Arya watched him as he resumed hammering the blade and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. It didn't matter what she felt, what she wanted to say or even what he meant to her. Without another word, she silently turned and walked out of the forge.
Outside, the air was cool against her cheeks. I will not cry, she asserted to herself. Hastily, she made for the door of the inn and inside, through the empty main area and then up the stairs to her room. She gently closed the door behind her so as not to wake the sleeping children. Her room felt so empty with only a bed, an open chest where she kept her clothes and other belongings, and a night stand with a lone candle on it- a lone, withering candle. Alone and almost gone… like me, she thought. Suddenly angry, only a few moments too late, she tugged and pulled at the dress until it came off and she tossed it to the side. How she hated dresses, and how stupid she felt for thinking that perhaps Gendry might like it, might like her wearing it, might like her.
She threw herself onto the lumpy straw bed and blew out the candle, pulling the sheets up to her chin and muttering to herself, "Come morning, I'll ride for Winterfell. If Gendry wants nothing to do with me, there's no reason for me to stay here." Arya bit her lip, striving to retain her determination, but her mind drifted to Jeyne, Willow and, especially, the children. She couldn't just run off and leave them, not like Gendry would have her do. No, she'd send a raven to Bran. She spoke to the shadows, "I'll send a raven and have his men come pick them up… but I'll be gone when they arrive."
Arya knew she could go anywhere, do anything at all that she pleased. She wouldn't let her brother, never mind a stupid, bull-headed bastard boy, dictate what she would do with her life. Her mind wandered to thoughts of Dorne, to possibly going up north past Winterfell to the Wall or even to Highgarden to see its beauty and splendour she'd only ever heard about. She could even take a ship and go to the Summer Isles, maybe cross back over the Narrow Sea and travel to a distant city like Qarth, perhaps even the Shadowlands. Wherever she went, at least she'd be free to live her life the way she wanted or die trying.
Outside, she could hear the faint sound of Gendry still hammering at the sword. She listened to the rhythm, envisioning him bringing his hammer down, sparks flying with each strike. It comforted her to know that he was there, that it was Gendry making that noise, and she felt her pulse beginning to slow. The sound was now so familiar to her that she wondered what it might be like if she never heard it again. While it was unlikely that she'd never again hear a smith at work, how many more times would she hear that sound and know in her heart that it was Gendry, the boy, or man, rather, that caused her so much frustration and yet calmed her with just the sound of him working? She closed her eyes in an attempt to fight back her burgeoning tears, but it was useless. Arya was crying, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The sound of Gendry hammering ceased and her eyes fluttered open as she listened intently. She waited for what felt like an hour, but heard nothing else. Just as she was beginning to think he must have gone to bed, she heard the door downstairs open and the sound of his heavy footsteps. She could hear him splashing in the basin by the door, washing himself off as Jeyne requested so that he wouldn't get soot on everything he touched, and then his footsteps again, slow and deliberate, as he walked to the stairs and then up to the hallway and to her door. He knocked softly, the door opening slightly, and asked, "Arya? Are you still awake?"
She wiped her eyes dry and cleared her throat, "Yes."
"May I come in?" he queried.
Arya didn't answer and he stepped inside, carrying a lantern. The flickering flame cast moving shadows on the walls and she could see his eyes, deep and blue, twinkling in the warm light. Arya loved his eyes. They were so very beautiful and she never tired of looking at them, whether they were bright and cheery when he laughed and smiled, stern and serious when he was thinking, or downcast and dark when he was angry.
He immediately spotted the dress on the floor and sighed, setting the lantern down in the middle of the floor and crossing to the dress, carefully picking it up and smoothing it out, examining it thoughtfully. She watched him as he looked it up and down, a sad kindness in his features and a gentleness in his motions. He spoke softly, "It's a very pretty dress, Arya." He walked over to the chest and laid it inside, still admiring it. "Did Jeyne make it for you?" He turned his eyes to her, awaiting her answer.
"Yes," Arya modestly pulled the covers up a bit further, "she says that all women should have at least one dress," she smiled, "even women like me."
Gendry returned her smile and crossed back to the center of the room, sitting down next to the lantern and propping his knees up, resting his arms on them. The flame of the lantern flickered as he made himself comfortable and she could see a smudge of soot still on his cheek that he'd missed while washing himself off. Gendry was rarely entirely clean, but she didn't mind. She rather liked it, in fact. A two day old scruff had grown on his chin and cheeks, nearly the length that he'd shave it again, complaining of how it itched. At first she'd found it odd to see him with scruff on his face, but it was now so familiar that it almost made her sad when he'd sharpen his knife and walk off to the river. In her mind, he was still the same boy she'd known so many years ago- but now he was a man, taller still and filled out, just as she was now a woman.
"You've changed." she whispered. He furrowed his brow in questioning thought and she explained, "When it was just you, me and Hot Pie in the Riverlands I used to think that the three of us would be together forever. We'd find my family in Riverrun and," she sighed wistfully, "I don't know, grow up together, I suppose. But then Hot Pie left us and I remember thinking, 'At least I still have Gendry.' If I'd been forced to choose, I would've picked you over him anyway." Her admission brought a quiet smile to his face. "I always felt that you were different, Gendry. I always trusted that out of all the people who'd left or had been taken away from me, you would somehow still be there." Her eyes watered and she blinked them dry. "And I was wrong. Even you left."
"Arya," his eyes darkened, "the Hound took you away before-"
"But you meant to leave me." She waited, but he didn't deny it. "After everyone else, you meant to leave me too." A tear ran down her cheek and she closed her eyes for a moment, willing the rest away. Gendry stayed silent. "And so many years later, I return and find you in the very place we last saw each other and tell you that you're the reason I came back," her voice cracked, "and all you can say is that it's on me."
His eyes fell from her to the space on the floor between them. "I haven't changed much at all then, have I?"
She sniffed. "Why would you say that, Gendry? Do I really mean so little to you?"
Gendry's voice was low and even. "Arya, you're a princess."
She balled her fists and did her best not to shout, "I am not a-"
"Your brother is king in the North and your sister queen of the Vale. You were a princess then and you're a princess now." He shook his head. "You can't run from who you are anymore than anyone else, Arya."
Her voice shook. "I'm not running."
Gendry looked back up at her. "Then why are you here?"
She stared at him, shocked and hurt that he even had to ask. "You think I'm only here because I don't want to be a princess?"
He clarified, "I think you're here because it's convenient."
"Convenient?!" She sat up slightly and Gendry raised his hand to quiet her, glancing at the door. "Convenient?" she asked again, more quietly this time.
"You need time to adjust. You've been across the Narrow Sea doing gods know what for nearly five years now," He grimaced and continued, "but you won't be here forever. Eventually, you'll want to go back home. You'll want to be with your family again, just like before."
"I've been here almost half a year and I've never even spoken of going anywhere else." She looked at him pointedly. "The only time anyone ever talks about it is when you bring it up. I don't understand why you-"
He turned up his hands, incredulous. "It's all you ever talked about before, Arya! When we were younger, the only thing you cared about was getting back to your family."
"That's not true." She glared at him, "I cared about you and Hot Pie and Weasel. I cared about-"
"Don't flatter yourself." Gendry looked away from her. "You only kept Hot Pie and Weasel around because you felt sorry for them, and I…" he looked back at her and swallowed before looking to the ground again, "I was just a means to an end."
Arya didn't know where to begin. He was wrong about everything; about Hot Pie and Weasel and, especially, wrong about himself. She would've tried to find Weasel if they hadn't been captured, and why would she have bothered to take him and Hot Pie with her when she left Harrenhal if she didn't care about them? That, however, wasn't what angered her the most. She mocked him, "'A means to an end?' What do you mean by that? Are you trying to say that I used you?"
"I don't think you saw it that way, but yes." He nodded, serious as a sworn knight. Her first inclination was to yell at him, to berate him for believing even for a moment that it could be true, but she heard him out instead. "You were safer with us, with me around, and you knew that I'd go along with whatever you wanted, wherever you wished to go. Who was I to say 'no' to a lady, a princess no less?" His tone softened. "I don't blame you for it, Arya. It was my decision to stay on with you." He looked off to the side, blinking, and grinned, "At times I even felt special for once in my life, like I was a valiant knight from a song and it was me against the whole seven kingdoms, protecting the lost princess and ensuring that she made it safely back to her family." His expression darkened. "But life isn't a song, is it?" He looked up at her.
"No." she whispered.
"Arya, the reason I want you to leave…" His voice trailed off and he looked over at the opened chest. His breathing seemed labored as he'd open his mouth to speak and then close it again, searching for words that wouldn't come. "Do you remember the first time I saw you in a dress?" She nodded slowly, wondering where he might be going with this. "When you came down the stairs in that funny little thing I laughed, but not because I found it funny." He cleared his throat. "It scared the hells out of me. I'd known for a while that you were a girl, that you were highborn and even a princess, but I'd never had to think about what it really meant. When it was just us, when you were Arry and not Arya, we were equals." He half-smiled into the darkness. "But there you were, all pretty and done up like a doll, and for the first time I saw you for who you really were and not who I wished you to be."
She wasn't cold, but Arya began to shiver. "Gendry…"
"I knew then that there was no place for me in your life." Gendry stared at her sadly. "There never was and there never will be." She could hear the anger behind his words. "I'm too bloody lowborn, Arya."
"I don't care if you're lowborn, Gendry." Her teeth made to chatter and she bit her lip to stop them. "That doesn't matter to me."
"But it matters." He glanced again to the chest. "When you came to the forge in that dress tonight, Arya..." Gendry lowered his head and spoke at the floor. "As much as I want to believe that things could be like they were before, when you were Arry, I know that they can't be. I know that things can never be the way that I want them to be. And it's just easier, I suppose, if you're not around. I don't have to be reminded of what you are and what I'm not every time I see you. And when you came to me wearing that dress, Arya," he looked back to the chest, "a part of me wanted to tell you how beautiful you looked in it; and the other part of me was scared," he swallowed and looked into her eyes with a vulnerability she'd never before seen from him, "only scared, and I still am. Because I know that it's not my place, that it will never be my place to tell you how beautiful you are."
Arya looked into his eyes for a long time trying to process his words. She always thought of him as her equal and it never even crossed her mind that others might look at her as anything other than an equal of theirs. She worked with them, side by side: Jeyne when she cooked their supper and brewed ale, Willow when she'd wash their clothes and linens, Gendry when he'd hunt or chop wood. She even helped the children when they'd go about their chores, washing the tub that they bathed in or scrubbing the floors. Surely they don't look at me and think, 'That's a princess.' She broke bread with them, laughed with them, cried with them and not for a moment did she ever think of herself as their better. She lay her head back on the pillow and pulled the covers up to her chin, closing her eyes. He thinks I'm beautiful… Arya shivered more and couldn't help but feel foolish for it.
"Are you cold?" Gendry asked.
"No." She shook her head, keeping her eyes closed.
He ignored her. "I'll get you a blanket."
Arya heard him getting up and opened her eyes. "Gendry." He looked over to her. "Would you hold me?" She watched him and could tell he was considering it.
"It wouldn't be proper." He walked over to her chest and bent down to go through it.
"Please?" she asked.
He looked towards her again, still bent over the chest, and in the dim light it seemed he was glaring at her. "Arya…"
"You never had a problem with it before." She felt she wouldn't be able to convince him, but tried anyway. "What's changed?"
Gendry stood upright and scratched at the back of his neck. "You're a woman grown now, Arya."
She tried not to pout. "Please, Gendry." He continued to stare at her for a time, his face scrunched into the familiar scowl he wore when he was thinking. Without a word, he slowly crossed to the bed and climbed over her, laying on his side behind her and putting his arm around her as she snuggled up next to him. They lay there in the soft light and she listened to his breathing, steady and controlled, feeling the soft, warm puffs against the nape of her neck. In as subtle a motion as she could, she brought her hand up to his and traced her fingers across his knuckles, examining every detail. She took a deep breath, "I'll only go back to Winterfell if you come with me."
He sighed with subdued exasperation. "That's not going to happen."
"Because it couldn't be like this?" she questioned.
He responded with an angry whisper. "Because it shouldn't be like this."
She felt her eyes water. "Damn you, Gendry." She took his hand pulled it to her stomach, scooting further back against him, wanting to be wrapped in his warmth. She felt him recoil slightly, but he slowly settled against her. For a time, she just lay there with him, watching the play of light from the lantern dance on the wall. After a while, its movements became more erratic and pronounced and, gracefully, the flame began to dim. She turned her eyes to the lantern and almost felt pity for the flame as it fought and writhed for every last second of life.
And then it was out. The room was silent, save for Gendry's deep, slow breathing behind her. It took all of her will to draw herself away from him, from his touch and his warmth, but she knew it wouldn't last forever anyway. As silently as possible, she dressed in her favorite tunic, strapped Needle to her waist and slipped out of the room, down the stairs and outside into the cool night air. Waking her horse, she saddled and mounted it, riding off into the night as fast as she dared, away from Gendry, away from Jeyne, Willow, the children, and everything she'd known these last few months. No, she knew what she must do and, if she rode hard enough, she might make it to her destination by first light. The ravens would be waiting.