a/n: Written for Day 7 the Gameofships tumblr challenge "Golden Ships," which invited authors to change an element of canon and run with it. I decided to turn Gendry into King Robert's trueborn son. I hope you enjoy. :)

One

His helmet is too big for his head and has two horns on top. It is, without a doubt, the stupidest thing eleven-year-old Arya Stark has ever seen.

She thinks that Gendry Baratheon, King Robert's son, tends to strut around and puff out his chest too much normally. But when he wears that helmet of his it's ten times worse.

As the Baratheons, here for their annual visit to Winterfell, climb down from their carriage and greet the Starks in front of their home, Arya sees immediately that Gendry is wearing that helmet again.

He must think it makes him look like some kind of ferocious animal, Arya realizes, suddenly. She has to stifle her laugh in her palm.

"Do you think you look like a bull or something when you wear that thing?" she asks him bluntly, later, when they're seated next to each other at the feast in Winterfell's great hall. She points at the helmet on his head and smirks.

Gendry turns to look at her, looking affronted.

"What are you talking about?" he asks tersely. As if he doesn't know. But his eyes are narrowed and Arya can tell she's made him mad.

"Your stupid helmet," she clarifies.

"My helmet is not stupid," Gendry insists. His face is starting to get red. Out of the corner of her eye Arya sees him clenching his hands into fists.

"You want to hit me now?" she asks, one eyebrow raised. Caught, he relaxes his hands.

"Of course not," Gendry says, scoffing. He turns to the bowl of hot turnip soup in front of him. "You're a girl," he mutters.

Arya laughs. "So what?" She's tough, she knows. She beats Bran in archery all the time, and even bested Jon once in wrestling. She might be a girl, but she can handle whatever Gendry might do to her.

She flicks the end of one of her uneaten breadsticks at Gendry's helmet, then, trying to goad him into doing something. She ignores her mother's shocked reprimands and does it a second time.

Gendry's face is so red now it's practically the color of the beets from their first course. His jaw is clenched.

But he does nothing in response to her attack.

He continues to eat his soup, ignoring her.

Two

Ever since their father told them of Sansa's betrothal to Gendry Baratheon, Arya's sister has been an even bigger fool than usual.

Or so it seems to Arya.

"It's a smart match," their father told them last week in the sisters' chambers, their second night in Kings Landing. "The oldest daughter of the King's Hand, and the oldest son of the King." He grinned at Sansa then, hands spread out in front of him, clearly proud of what he'd accomplished for House Stark.

Sansa, her face flushed and eyes bright, flung herself into their father's arms and squealed.

Every afternoon since then, Sansa has made her friend, Jeyne Poole, and Arya accompany her to the palace grounds and watch Prince Gendry practice his fencing with the Hound.

"Isn't he just so…. handsome?" Sansa asks Jeyne and Arya every afternoon, breathlessly, like clockwork, halfway through the match.

Jeyne always agrees immediately and enthusiastically, and the two friends giggle together like a pair of idiots. Arya does her best to sound be enthusiastic as Jeyne but in truth can't be bothered to care.

She recognizes that Gendry is an amazing fencer, though. He's very strong for a boy who's only had fifteen name days, with a man's broad chest and thick, muscled arms. He beats the Hound more often than not, even though the older man must be nearly twice Gendry's age and half again his height.

Although she'd never admit this to Sansa, Arya actually enjoys watching them spar. She admires Gendry's skill with a lance and quickness on his feet.

The prince occasionally looks up from the field – normally when either he or the Hound need a break for drink – and manages an ambivalent wave and wan smile in their direction.

He's always very sweaty when he does it, looking rather like he's just taken a dunk in a lake. Sansa swoons over this whenever he acknowledges them from the field, saying over and over again how his sweat is so "manly" and "heroic."

Her words make Arya blush a little. But she tells Sansa that she thinks sweaty boys are gross.

Three

They haven't stopped to rest in more than two days.

"Yorik," Arya begs as quietly as she can so the others won't hear. The old Black Brother is right in front of her so she does not need speak very loudly to be heard. "Please."

Yorik stops and turns to look at her.

"'Arry," he sneers, quite loudly, hands on his hips. He sighs impatiently and pinches the bridge of his nose with wisened fingers. "With the Lannisters on the throne, and King Robert and Lord Stark murdered, it's chaos, it is. Aye, ye know that, boy. We can't stop movin'. Not yet."

Arya knows she has no choice but to do what Yorik tells her to do, and she nods reluctantly. Her hair is so newly shorn that her head feels strangely light, and the up-and-down motion makes her head snap forward more forcefully than she'd intended.

What Yorik is really telling her without coming out and saying it – telling Gendry, really, who's here right behind her, disguised like she is but not nearly as well, is: "The queen wants you bad, boy."

Because with the new queen Cersei Lannister's son Joffrey – an abomination, they say; a product of incest – on the throne, and the old King, and the rest of Gendry's family, and the King's Hand all dead by Lannister steel, the only person who can stop the Lannisters from ruling Westeros is right here with them.

Queen Cersei, knowing that, will stop at nothing to see Gendry dead.

"Here, 'Arry," Gendry says, sidling up to her. He and Yorik are the only ones in the party to know her true identity, and that she's a girl. "I can… carry you on my back for a while. If you like."

His offer makes her recoil at first. She's no cripple. She can walk just as well as anyone else.

But before she can tell him as much her legs buckle under her and she falls to the ground.

"Please," he says, squatting down beside her. She looks up at him. His piercing blue eyes are filled with guilt and sadness, and his mop of jet black hair falls into his eyes.

In a much quieter voice he says, right into her ear, "It's because of me that he won't let us rest. It's because of me that your father was killed and your sister taken hostage." He doesn't mention the fact that his betrothal to Sansa is obviously over now. Or that Sansa may, for all they know, already be dead.

He extends his hand. "Please, Arya. Let me help you."

She wants to protest. Wants to shove him away from her and tell him she's fine. But in the next moment he's picking her up like she weighs nothing at all and carrying her on his back like a knapsack.

Instinctively, and realizing this is a fight she cannot win, Arya wraps her arms and legs around him. He begins to walk quickly to catch up to the others.

The gentle rocking motion of his even steps lulls her to sleep in seconds, her head lolling against his shoulder.

Four

By the time they're captured and dragged off to Harrenhal nearly two years later, they aren't Lady Arya or Prince Gendry anymore.

Her hair is long again and her body has started to change. Much to her chagrin. There's no hiding that she's a girl anymore, and she's stopped trying. But no one here thinks to ask her name, and so she never gives it. And so no one treats her differently than they do any of the other poor wretches being held here.

Arya thinks a few of the guards might know who Gendry really is. Gendry thinks so too. His face, after all, has been known throughout the realm his entire life. But even if they're right and some do suspect his true identity, none have bothered to summon the Queen Cersei's gold cloaks. A very small mercy.

Despite the past two years' deprivations Gendry is still powerfully strong. The Boltons recognized this immediately, and Gendry's been assigned to the smithy ever since he's arrived. Arya only sees him at night now. Men and women here are housed separately and to be caught sneaking across camp lines means severe punishment.

She's surprised at how much she misses him. His constant presence. But she doesn't have the luxury of thinking about that right now.

She tries to sneak food to him from the kitchens whenever she can. She knows how hard he has to work all day, and she knows they don't feed any of them nearly enough.

"I've met someone who says he can help us escape," she tells him one night as he tears into the bread she's brought him. His jaw works furiously as he wolfs it down, ravenous.

When he's finished eating he stands up and puts his hands on her shoulders. He looks right into her eyes, and what she sees in his causes an odd, unfamiliar swooping sensation to settle in the pit of her stomach.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" he asks her. His mouth is just a hairsbreadth away from hers. They dare not risk being overheard and so he needs to speak as quietly as he can. She can feel his words against her lips, short little puffs of air, more than she can hear them. Her heart stutters a little in her chest.

"I… don't know if we can trust him," she admits. She covers his hands with hers, and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly. "But you can trust me, Gendry."

He holds her gaze for another long moment, this boy with the blue eyes who's hidden with her and fought by her side for so long.

Finally he nods and takes a step back from her.

"I can trust you," he repeats, emphatically, folding his arms across his chest. One corner of his mouth quirks up in a sad half-smile.

It takes Arya a very long time to fall asleep after that.

Five

He always keeps his eyes averted when she bathes now.

It never used to be like this, when they first ran from Kings' Landing and hid from the gold cloaks together with Yorik and those other boys bound for the Wall. Back then, they'd run together through the forest during the day and take turns having a dunk in whatever nearby stream they could find at night, Gendry always standing guard to make sure no one else discovered Arya's secret.

But now, whenever she tells him she's off to take a bath in the river, he never joins her. He instead turns eleven shades of scarlet and stares at his hands.

One day she decides to play a little prank on him and sneaks up on him unawares while he's bathing. He's about twenty feet away, his back to her, and she crouches behind a bush to lie in wait. Lake water runs down the rippled muscles of his back in little rivulets. She finds that she can't look away from him, is transfixed by the sight of his strong sun-bronzed body, as he bends down over and over again to scoop large handfuls of water over his head.

But the sun is apparently in his eyes, and in another moment he turns in the opposite direction – facing her but not seeing her, hidden as she is behind the bush.

One glance at the front of his naked, wet form makes her realize, like a flash, why he is now so intent on avoiding her while she's bathing.

Flushing scarlet, heart hammering in her chest, she runs from the scene as quickly as her legs will carry her.

One

Gendry has her pressed up against the old heart tree by the Brotherhood's camp, his hands playing with the hem of her shirt, and his mouth molding itself to hers.

He'd just been telling her that he plans to stay on with the Brotherhood. His family is dead and gone, as she well knows, and so he'll be staying here, with them. Leaving Arya after all these years together on the road.

Arya started shouting at him. She punched him – his shoulders, arms, face, every part of him she could reach. He'd shouted back at her, and then…

Arya can't really remember exactly what happened after that.

His mouth finds hers again and he parts her lips roughly with his tongue. She whimpers a little, awash in sensation, all of her synapses firing. She begins caressing his tongue with hers, very tentatively, all of this new and completely foreign to her. But it's enough for him, and he moans indelicately into her mouth.

She knows this doesn't mean he's going to stay with her. He's going to throw away whatever it is they have – throw her away – and serve these men, after spending the better part of the last four years swearing that he'd never serve anybody ever again.

But she decides to try and convince him to stay with her one last time.

"Gendry," she breathes against his ear. She traces its shell with the tip of her tongue, and he shudders.

"It was always you," he says, almost whispering, as she begins suckling at his earlobe and curls her hands into fists in his hair.

"Always," he repeats. He's breathing very heavily now, and shifts a little so that his lower body is positioned away from hers. "Ever since we were children. Since you threw that bread at me at Winterfell." She starts nibbling at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder and he laughs breathlessly. "Possibly even before then."

"Then don't leave me," she begs. "Please. Take me home. To Winterfell. I'm strong, you know that, but I can't… I can't do it alone…"

She begins kissing up his neck, and he groans, loudly this time, loudly enough to earn some snickers from the handful of men standing not ten feet away from them.

"I can be your new family," she murmurs against his skin.

He throws his arms around her at her words and buries his face in her neck.

"Do you mean it?" he asks very quietly. But it sounds like pleading.

She tries to respond with words but she cannot find her voice. So she nods.

He lifts his head and looks into her eyes. Without realizing it, a tear has escaped her left eye. He brushes it away with the pad of his thumb.

Beaming down at her, eyes glistening with what might be unshed tears of his own, Gendry bends down and captures her mouth in another kiss.