He thinks he is dreaming. A fever dream, surely. He has caught the fever that has been passing from one orphan to the next, wracking their small, thin bodies with chills and sweats. How else would he be seeing her now, if not in a dream?
But no, Gendry is not feverish— his body is strong and hearty as ever, his limbs do not shake and groan with sickness. He tries to reason with himself, explaining that it is merely a girl who resembles her in face, hair, and movement— the quiet way her body slips through a crowd that betrays both stealth and graceful femininity. Standing just outside the back of the inn, his sharp blue eyes stay trained on the look-alike girl, watching her among the crowd of villagers laughing and dancing and feasting around the fire. They celebrate the coming of spring, the winter having lasted six grim, bleak years. But the snow is melting, and winter is slowly creeping back and loosening its hold on the land; he can almost smell the arrival of the leaves on the tall, spindly trees.
He had gone outside to observe the gathering, to listen to the music playing and watch as people danced and sang. Had he stayed in the inn he would not have seen this girl at all. He would be back in the forge by now, repairing the odd sword and armor that knights passing through the village brought to him. He would have gone to bed ignorant of this particular girl's existence.
She does not dance or feast at a table. She stands motionless near the roaring bonfire, staring in to its flames. His feet carry him forward, toward the gathering, by a force he can't explain. Perhaps it is his curiosity that carries him toward this look-alike girl, since he knows the real girl to be dead. But there it is again— that strange feeling in his stomach that forms whenever he tells himself she is dead. It is a feeling related to instinct, a primordial wrenching in the gut that says "something is not quite right." It is an instinct that has long kept men who learn to trust it alive. He has felt it for so many years that he is able to ignore it, and gets by (he survived the disbanding of the Brotherhood and survived the long winter at the inn) by quietly accepting her death. But the appearance of this look-alike has brought the instinct-feeling back, and his mind helplessly repeats it's not her it's not her even as his feet carry him closer to her. He reasons that he only wants to see her up close to confirm that it is not the girl he knew.
He is pushing through a group of men and women dancing, and is able to feel the heat of the fire when he makes it out the other side. Gendry never grew accustomed to snow and cold winds, and is grateful for his small forge, the near-suffocating heat of the place his constant refuge. The title of knight, a title he once held so dear, is meaningless to him now that the war is over, and he finds that he can never escape from being a bastard blacksmith. Maybe it is better that way. Maybe he is better that way. The large bonfire warms his middle and extremities, but the tips of his fingers hold onto the cold.
The look-alike girl wears a long, woolen dress with simple embroidery. A thick cloak rests on her shoulders, but the hood is down, revealing a long, pale face and dark brown hair that spills down her back and whips about in the wind. This girl appears too beautiful to be the girl he knows to be dead. He foolishly thinks seven years is not enough time to turn a child's soft, round face into the elegant face of the young woman who stands a stone's throw from him now. She is taller than the girl he knew, but would barely reach his shoulder were he standing right beside her.
The sun is setting, coloring the sky with pink and orange hues. The colored light glints off her skin, covering her face in dull versions of the warm colors.
It's not her it's not her it's not her, ringing in his head over and over again, ringing like the repeated sound of a heavy hammer singing against steel. He thinks of Harrenhal (a place he has managed to keep out of his mind for years), and thinks of when he would tell her not to talk to him while he was working. And the forge would be silent save for the ringing of the steel and the crackling of the fire; and she sat silently for once in her life while she watched him with calm, grey eyes.
The look-alike girl's eyes are turned away from him, and he can't make out their color.
It's not her it's not her it's not her.
Her head turns an inch, barely perceptible if he were not watching her so closely, and she lifts her eyes to look at him now, to see who is staring at her.
He thinks perhaps it is improper for him to meet her eye— she could be highborn for all he knows— but the instinct-feeling tells him that she is highborn, and that this highborn lady would want him to look at her.
The golden sunset colors are suddenly pooling in her eyes— grey eyes that seem to shine at him, grey eyes that he has seen behind his own lids a thousand and one times since they left one another.
The repeated sing-song of the words in his head that doubt her identity is abruptly cut off, and the realization that this girl is not a look-alike floods his brain so rapidly and with such stunningly bright clarity that it feels almost as if some sort of cosmic violence has been inflicted upon him. Her eyes widen for an instant as she recognizes him, but then she turns away, walking swiftly in to the crowd, and he is unsure if it was fear or elation that flickered across her face when she saw him.
He wants to call out to her, wants to run to her and pull her to him and ask her every question that has crossed his mind in the long hours of night. But a certain fear— perhaps it is the fear of startling her off, as if she was a skittish animal; perhaps it is the instinct-feeling working to his advantage once more— keeps his steps measured and steady, keeps him from yelling out, and lets only one word pass over his lips in a hoarse whisper:
"Arya."
The very name, three simple syllables, causes a wave of feeling caught between memory, grief, and longing to course over him, weighing him down like the snow that sits heavily on the frail tree branches. Over the past seven years there were times when he would speak her name in the privacy of darkness, whispering it as he lay in bed, unable to find sleep. He would close his eyes and whisper her name like some sort of private vigil, like he was holding some kind of personal memorial for her in the confines of his bedroom. But here she is, just as alive as he.
She moves quickly among the crowd of villagers, careful not to bump in to any of them. He increases his pace trying to get closer to her, to bridge the distance she keeps putting between them. She looks back at him, her eyes hard and unreadable. She comes to an abrupt stop near a group of young women who seem fairly drunk, and they take no notice of her. Her eyes shoot him a desperate, pleading look as he draws nearer, and Gendry slows almost to a stop when he looks in to her eyes. There is something there he can almost recognize. The realization hits him that everyone thinks her to be dead; she fears she still has enemies in the Riverlands. He doesn't know whether that is true or not. The war is over, and anyone seeking some sort of revenge on a Stark has probably been tempered by the long winter, their rage subdued by more pressing matters, such as the possibilities of starving or freezing to death.
But the fearful look she gives him is real, and he knows she doesn't want him to approach her in front of the crowd. He turns to the group of giggling girls, making some comment or other about wine. They laugh at his joke, and from the corner of his eye he sees Arya move. He takes a step back from the girls, so that she runs right in to him.
"Steady, girl!" he says in a good-natured voice, pretending to have had his fill of the wine being passed around. He grips her shoulder as if to right her path. He turns her body to the side and leans down, putting his lips next to her cheek.
"Follow me," he says, his voice coming out softly, just loud enough so that she can hear him over the din of the crowd.
He lets go of her shoulder, and she walks away from him, not sparing him a glance. He heads in the opposite direction, slowly meandering through the crowd and making his way toward his forge. He doesn't check to see if she is following him. If she wants to follow him she will. Gendry has a feeling that she will. Why else would she be here? If she has been in hiding for the last seven years (and he thinks she had to have been, for how else would she have survived) why would she come to the Riverlands now, unless it had something to do with him?
Perhaps she meant to kill him, he thinks as he makes his way in to the forge. The fire isn't going but it is still pleasantly warm inside the small stone structure. Perhaps she has never forgiven him for joining the Brotherhood after all these years and perhaps the promise of vengeance burns inside of her like it once did when she would recite her list, the sound of the names piercing the air as he fell asleep beside her every night. But he doesn't believe that for a moment. He moves toward the back of the forge, toward the adjoining room that serves as a small bedroom. He preferred sleeping there to sleeping at the inn ever since that night a few years back when Jeyne had come in to his room and crawled in to his bed, pressing her body against his and kissing his face, wanting to lay with him like they had done a handful of times. He had climbed out of bed amidst her protests, leaving her to sleep in his bed alone, and had not slept in his room at the inn since then. He and Jeyne maintained a lukewarm friendship from there on out, with neither of them ever mentioning that night. He never gave her a reason for choosing that night to put an end to that aspect of their relationship, but Gendry suspected that Jeyne somehow knew that he was still carrying a torch for a dead girl.
Gendry sits down on the bed and waits for her, for the girl he now knows to be Arya Stark. A dead girl come back to life.
He doesn't hear the door of the forge open, doesn't hear her slip inside, but suddenly she is standing in the doorway to the bedroom, her face completely void of emotion, lit by the candles that burn in their holders on the wall. His heart is hammering wildly in his chest. He stands up and goes to her in two long strides. But he doesn't embrace her. He can't seem to bring himself to touch her, afraid that she'll run off, or even vanish in to the air like smoke.
In her features he can see remnants of the child that she once was. But gone from her face is the little bit of childhood innocence she had remaining when he first met her— it is replaced by something keen and sharp, a look in her eye that lets him know that the war has taken its toll on her, has changed her as much as it has changed him.
He thinks back to how he used to be afraid to touch her, thinking it improper for a bastard to touch a highborn lady. He thinks about how he gradually changed his position on the matter, how she changed his mind with her playful sparring and casual touches. As Gendry looks her over there seems to be something about her— a certain regal or noble quality, though she would hate him for saying it— that rebuilds that wall, that makes him feel as though some unseen lord will demand his head if he were to so much as place his hand on her arm. Besides, a boy touching a girl is far different from a man touching a woman. They are no longer children, and now that she is here before him, a woman grown at seven and ten, he can't deny that he wants to do far more than place a hand on her arm. He stays his hands though his fingers itch, longing to run over the planes of her face, wanting to know if her skin is still as soft as it had been when they were children.
"You're alive," he says, his voice soft and low. Perhaps it isn't the right thing to start with after not seeing her for so long, but it's the only thought that will come to his lips.
"Yes," she says. "So are you."
He considers the way they observe one another so matter-of-factly, and it fills him with a certain sort of sadness that aches in his throat and chest.
"Arya," he says, and he thinks he sees a flash of something— longing or perhaps sadness— cross her face. "Where were you?" he asks simply.
"Across the Narrow Sea," she answers, and seems unwilling to give him more than that for now.
"Have you stayed here the whole time?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "I was traveling with the Brotherhood for a while. The Brotherhood is no more. Most of them are dead," he says. "I've been here for the past few years, acting as a blacksmith for the inn. And looking after the orphans with Jeyne and Willow."
She smiles at him, very softly. "That's quite noble of you, Ser."
"There was nowhere else for me to go, milady," he explains, and he likes the way she rolls her eyes at him when he uses the nickname. "I couldn't return to King's Landing. They all think me dead." He leaves off the part about being a dead king's bastard. He figures she has known for a while. It doesn't matter now, anyways.
"I guess that makes two of us, then," she gazes in to his eyes. "Two ghosts."
Gendry snorts. "You seem pretty real to me. Solid," he says, and pokes her in the shoulder with his finger. To his delight she does not dissipate in to the air, revealing herself to be some wild hallucination. Nor does she flinch at his touch.
"You grew a beard," she says, sticking with observations. He runs a hand over the short, dark beard on his face.
"A lot has changed since we were children," he muses, looking her up and down, not feeling the least bit bashful or ashamed anymore. She smirks up at him.
"You haven't changed that much," she says.
"War changes us all," he says seriously, his tone suddenly grim. Sadness fills her eyes at that.
"Aye," she agrees.
He considers asking her what she had done for six odd years in Essos, but thinks now is not the time to ask.
"Why did you come here? Why not go north?"
Gendry thinks it odd that she was this far south. Surely she would want to go back to her family, to her sister and brother in Winterfell. She was a Stark, and her home was in her blood.
An odd, far away expression settles on her face then, and she walks away from him, over to a table where there are an array of swords, daggers, and horseshoes. She reaches out a finger and traces it along the handle of a broadsword.
"When I returned to Westeros I heard talk of… my mother."
Gendry shifts nervously. He had hoped she would not need to know of Lady Stoneheart.
"So I headed for the Riverlands, because I knew the Brotherhood was stationed here. At least, it used to be. But as I got closer to the Riverlands I learned the truth: that the Brotherhood no longer exists and that my mother died— again." She turns to face him and her eyes have a hard look to them.
"Is it true?" she all but whispers. "Did Thoros— my mother— did he—"
"Aye," he interrupts her. He thinks she will react, but her face goes blank at that.
"When I heard she was really gone," she continues, "I thought I would start heading to Winterfell. Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell, and Bran is there with her." She looks at him then, her eyebrows drawn together.
"But I kept having dreams of this place," she says, her voice low and peculiar, as if she knows what she is saying sounds ridiculous. "And—" she hesitates, as if she is unsure if she can trust him.
"I knew you were still alive," she finishes.
"You heard word of me?"
"No," she says. It is all she says. Gendry finds that it is enough for him, given that he knew her to be alive.
He gets her a room at the inn shortly thereafter, introducing her to Jeyne but not using her real name. He explains to Jeyne that she isn't to be charged and takes her to her room. She walks around the small space, runs her hand over the furs on the mattress.
He can't resist teasing her like he used to do so long ago.
"Is it to milady's liking?"
She whirls on her feet so quickly he's surprised she doesn't topple over. Her face is mostly devoid of expression, but he thinks there might be a look of surprise or amusement lurking just below the surface.
"Don't call me that," she says, but a smile twinges at the corners of her lips.
"You stupid, bull-headed boy." She is smiling outright now, and the sight makes him want to laugh and weep.
"Goodnight," he says and turns, walking out the door.
Gendry makes his way back to the forge, relieved to find that Jeyne was no longer in the entryway of the inn. He lay in bed for what feels like hours, and wonders whether or not Arya has found sleep. He closes his eyes and tries not to imagine the feel and weight of her lying beside him. He chastises himself for thinking of her that way— the same way he used to think of her when she had to press herself against him when they slept on the cold forest floor.
He supposes the years of being apart— of him thinking her dead— have quelled his hidden longing for her, have turned it to nothing more than a dull, thrumming ache in his chest. But seeing her again, seeing her as a woman grown, had ignited some familiar passion within him that he had barely been aware of when he was a boy of five and ten. It burns inside him pleasantly. Gendry wonders if honor has ever gotten him anything as he falls asleep, making little effort to keep her out of his thoughts.
He is jolted awake by the feeling of a hand clamped around his wrist. Arya is sitting on his bed, her face blank but her hand firm. She has brought a torch with her, and it rests in a holder near his bed, casting the room in hazy orange light and long shadows.
"Wha—" he starts, his head whipping from side to side, looking for a sign that something is amiss. "What is it?" he croaks, his throat gone dry. Images of robbers sacking the inn, or of someone looking for Arya, flood his brain as he waits for her to respond.
"Calm down, nothing is wrong," she says, as if it were obvious. The images leave him as quickly as they came, and are replaced by confusion once more.
"What in the seven hells, Arya—" he begins, but she cuts him off.
"Why did you become a knight?" she asks with a note of anger in her voice.
"What?" Of course she would wake him in the middle of the night in such a manner, only to be angry and ask him foolish questions.
"Why did you join the Brotherhood instead of coming to Riverrun with me like you said you would?"
"Why are you asking me this now?" he thunders, sitting up in bed.
"Because I've wanted to know for the past six years." Her voice is low and calm, and he finds it infuriating.
"So you just come in here in the middle of the night to ask?" he says, knowing he is partially irritated by the intrusion, partially avoiding her question.
"It's nearly dawn. Now answer me."
He realizes her hand is still on his wrist, so he wrenches it from her grip.
"When you asked me to go to Riverrun with you, to your brother Robb, you told me the fact that I was a bastard wouldn't matter, and that he would let me smith for him. And he would have, that much is true. But you are forgetting that your idea of a bastard comes from your own brother, a highborn. I could have been a smith but that is all I would have been." He pauses to hold her gaze, wondering if she understands his words. She is silent so he goes on.
"A baseborn bastard is born without a name and without honor. With nothing. I was tired of having nothing, Arya. Can you understand that?"
She looks at him and her face softens. He had almost thought she would start in on her tired argument of how his lowborn status did not matter to her. When she speaks her voice is barely more than a whisper.
"You would have been more to me."
He wonders if she knows what it sounds like she is telling him. He pushes the thought— the thought of having her, loving her— away.
"You never needed to prove anything to me," she says, and her voice seems to shake. She closes her eyes and takes a breath.
"Did you find it? Some sort of honor? Some purpose?" she asks when she opens her eyes again.
He thinks it over. Thinks of how he felt when he was knighted. Thinks of how it felt to travel around with the Brothers, slaying bandits and Lannisters. But he also remembers hearing about the Red Wedding. Remembers Lady Stoneheart's resurrection and final death. Remembers hearing that Arya Stark was alive and had married the Bolton bastard, knowing it was a lie or that they had the wrong girl, and remembers hearing of the bastard and the girl's demise. He remembers news of the Dragon Queen; news of King's Landing being all but burnt to the ground. He remembers the winter; remembers being afraid that he and Jeyne and Willow and the orphans would all starve to death.
"For a time," he finally answers. "But after a while I found that it didn't matter anymore. And then… I was just surviving."
She nods, as if she knew just what he was thinking about.
"Just surviving," she echoes, and he wonders what she has had to do to survive. He reaches out, feeling braver than he knows he is, and lays a hand on her forearm.
"Where have you been, Arya?" he asks, knowing she isn't likely to tell him more than she already has. His eyes search hers for some kind of hidden truth. But any kind of truth he is likely to get out of her isn't in her eyes. It must be buried very deep, sitting like a weight in her chest.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she says with a shake of her head. She locks eyes with him and the air around him changes, heat clinging to his skin and making the small room seem hotter that it is.
"I'm alive," she breathes. "You're alive," she adds, and she seems too close to him now, or perhaps not close enough— he can't be sure when her body is right there in front of him, warm and comely and blocking out any rational, self-restraining thought he may have. He gazes down at her, looking from her eyes to her lips and back again.
"That's what matters," she says, and brings her hand up to touch his cheek. The gesture is so intimate that Gendry nearly pulls back, shocked by her gentleness. He barely thinks about what he's doing before he brings his lips down to hers, his mouth firm and eager when he kisses her. She kisses him back and her mouth is hard and pressing yet soft and coaxing at the same time. She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling her body closer to his. With his powerful arms he moves her so that she is lying beneath him, her back pressed against the soft furs. He pushes his tongue in to her mouth, and her lips move against his with an unrestrained eagerness.
When his lips move to her neck his hands are clutching her hips, bunching her thin nightshirt and wishing to feel the warm skin beneath. He tastes her on the spot where her ear and jaw meet.
"Gendry," she says, and he realizes it is the first time she has said his name in seven years, and how he had forgotten how much he liked the sound of those two syllables passing over her lips, so he drags his tongue just behind her ear in hopes of getting to hear her say it again. He runs his hands up and down her sides and then pulls back to look at her.
"Has a man ever kissed you before?" he asks. His voice comes out low and near gravelly.
"No," she answers, breathing heavily. He knows it isn't rational to feel pride at that, but he does anyways.
"Has a man ever touched you like this before?" he asks, moving his hand so that his fingers brush the underside of her breast over her nightshirt.
"No," she tells him. "I've wanted you since I knew how it felt for a woman to want a man," she confesses.
She is lying there beneath him looking like some kind of vision with long hair and flushed skin and swollen lips, lying there and telling him she has wanted him since she was a girl. He kisses her again and she's got her fingers in his hair, tugging and pulling as she fights to get closer to him, wrapping her leg partway around his waist. The added contact makes him groan in to her mouth.
Gendry wishes to lose himself in her completely— in her skin and her hair and her soft curves. He thinks of peeling her clothes off and running rough, calloused fingers over every bit of pale skin. He wants to do away with his small clothes and push his cock inside her, wants to be surrounded by and feel and touch and love her.
His hands are clutching her waist and her hips are just starting to thrust upward against his when he stops, tearing his lips and hands away.
"Arya," he says, and it comes out as a sigh against her hair. He lies beside her and pulls her to him. His touch is still needful but he curbs his lust with a dose of restraint. She rests her face against his neck, one arm thrown across his chest. The first light of dawn creeps in to the small room, and it glints off of her hair, turning brown strands golden and orange. She murmurs something against his skin. He feels her lips part and close, part and close, but it is unintelligible to him. The sound of his heart beat and the rush of blood roars in his ears. He takes a breath and wills some of the blood to leave his cock. But his own body is just as stubborn as he is.
She pinches a spot on his side, the sensation causing him to remember that she was saying something.
"What?" he asks.
"I asked you why you stopped kissing me," she says, pulling back from his neck slightly. Her words ghost over his skin, her breath tickling the shell of his ear. He turns his head so that he can stare directly at her, his nose just a hair's breadth from hers.
"I wanted to do a lot more than just kiss you," he whispers. She blushes, and it makes him want to laugh at her. Arya Stark could stick a man through with a sword without so much as flinching, but the thought of a man desiring her makes her flush bright red. But that can't be quite right, since this grown, womanly Arya must surely know that most men find her desirable. Perhaps the blush comes from the knowledge that Gendry, her bastard blacksmith who she has apparently wanted since girlhood, desires her. The thought fills him with a sort of possessiveness over her; surely that will prove to be a mistake, he thinks, to want to possess a girl like Arya.
"When do you head north?" he asks, reminding himself to not grow too attached to her. He knows that this bit of self-discipline is futile; he had become attached to her the moment he recognized her. Even earlier, he thinks, when he had spotted her in the crowd and had felt a flutter of knowing— a foolish yet accurate spark of blind faith— that it was her, the lost girl.
"I want to leave tomorrow morning."
He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, relieved to have another day with her.
They spend the day hardly away from one another. He takes her out to the forest with him, to collect the small game in the traps that he had first set out when the snow had finally begun to let up. They find several rabbits in the sharp metal jaws, and he thinks that Jeyne should be able to make a fine strew for them and the orphans with their find.
As they head back toward the inn a small heard of deer— three doe and their three fawns— passes in front of their path. They pause, hardly daring to breathe. Gendry wishes he had thought to bring a bow, knowing how much meat just one deer could provide. When the deer clear the trail Arya takes a few silent steps in their direction, staring after their receding white tails.
"Fawns," she says, her voice reverent and low. She turns to him and her eyes are wide.
"They must have been born a few weeks ago," she muses.
"It's a miracle they survived," he says, thinking of the harsh winds and the biting cold. Food must have been even scarcer for the animals than it was for the villagers.
Arya stares out wistfully in the direction of the deer's path. She looks so solemn, he thinks. There are few traces of the young girl he met on the King's Road all those years ago. In place of the buzzing energy that once radiated from her in waves is a peculiar stillness that frequently catches him off guard and makes him uneasy. The stillness washes over her now, her eyes looking through the trees and her limbs staying still in the faint breeze. She appears ethereal to him then, as if she is not of this world, of his world.
"Life will always start again," she says. "Even winter can't stop that. Winter could stomp out the lives of every man and it would mean nothing to the land and the animals."
"Do you think so little of man?" he asks, not expecting such a deep conversation with her.
"It doesn't matter what I think," she says, turning to face him, and he thinks that she is talking in riddles.
She pauses a moment and then turns to follow the path back toward the inn, and he is left with nothing to do but follow her.
When they pass Jeyne in the inn she asks Arya if she would like to have a bath. Gendry feels relieved that Jeyne has apparently accepted Arya's presence, though perhaps it is because she knows her presence is temporary. Arya nods and smiles at the older woman, and then Jeyne is whisking her away. He leaves the rabbits in the kitchen with Willow and then makes his way back to the forge.
He returns to hot steel and a heavy hammer and for a moment he feels normal again.
He heads to the inn for dinner a few hours later. The fragrant, rich scent of rabbit stew hits him as he walks through the entryway. He sees Jeyne and Willow bustling about, handing out stew and ale to the guests. He takes a seat at an empty table, his eyes scanning the room for signs of Arya. He's half way through his stew when he spots her. She's sitting at a table at the other side of the room. She has been scrubbed clean and her skin glows pink. Her eyes are bright and her hair is pulled back in a braid. She is wearing a simple, pale blue dress that shows more of her chest and arms than he has ever seen. Sat next to her are three old men, giving her what seems to be more attention than Arya would normally be comfortable with. But she is smiling and laughing right along with their bawdy jokes. He wonders how much ale she has had to drink, or if her time in Essos has just changed her more than he thought.
He turns away from her, staring down in to his flagon of ale. He sips slowly, hoping that she will look his way. He feels pathetic all of a sudden, trying to gain the affection of a woman— of a lady— that will never be his. He is pushing back his chair when something— instinct maybe— tells him to looks up, tells him that someone is looking at him.
He jerks his head up and her sharp eyes are on him, boring in to him. She is standing there in the middle of a crowd of people moving the tables so that they can dance, and someone is tuning a lute, and the light is dim and there are people bustling all around but it's as if everyone is moving in slow motion, as if the noise has dimmed to a dull hum, and all he can see is her, all he can focus on is the way her eyes are shining at him.
He registers the fact that she is moving her lips, and he makes out the words she mouths to him.
Follow me.
The same words he first said to her.
He sees her move briskly; she is headed toward the staircase. He does as she commanded and moves away from his little table in the corner. He trails behind her on the stairs, thinking she must be leading him to her room. She proves him right moments later when she opens the door to her room, glancing behind her as he walks through the doorway. In an instant she's closing the door behind him and then pressing her lips to his, her body flush against his. He can smell the soap she must have used; she smells of lavender and rose oil. He thinks he must smell like ash and burning coal and metal, but he cannot find it within himself to be ashamed as he runs blackened fingers over her hips, his callouses catching on the smooth material of her dress.
She presses herself closer yet, and his lips move down to her throat and chest, dropping kisses on every bit of bare skin. She moans, a high, desperate sort of sound that is so very un-Arya that he revels for a moment in the way he is able to make her feel. Her hands begin to pull off his worn leather jerkin, and he finds himself complying, moving his arms so that she can push it off his shoulders. Her lips go to his neck then, the sensation of her lips on his skin sending a wave of heat through him. She pulls his shirt over his head and then he is standing bare-chested before her. Her eyes roam over the planes of his muscled chest and arms, her hand following. She presses kisses to his collarbone as her hand move up and down his back.
"Arya," he groans. She looks up at him, her eyes wild and her lips parted, her breath coming in and out, in and out as her chest heaves.
"Don't you dare tell me to stop," she says. He doesn't. His mouth finds hers again, and his tongue pushes in to her mouth now, unrestrained and taking from her what he desperately wants. His fingers pull at the laces in the back of her dress until it is loose enough to pull off her shoulders, pushing down, down, down until her breasts are exposed before him. He moves his grimy blacksmith's hands to cup her pale breasts. Her eyes are burning him up. He kneels in front of her and moves his mouth and tongue over the sides and tops of her breasts. When he takes one of her nipples in his mouth he feels her hands fist in to his hair, and her breath is sharp, panting.
"Gendry, Gendry," she practically whines, and the sound urges his hands on, pulling down the pale blue dress until it lay crumpled at her feet. His hands rove over her stomach, her hips, her thighs. He kisses along the waist of her smallclothes. He looks up at her as he peels them from her, silently asking if it is alright. Her hands grip his shoulders, and her face betrays the pleasure and anticipation she feels. He pushes her gently backwards until the backs of her thighs hit the mattress, and then she is lying down and he is kneeling on the floor, his head between her thighs. He kisses the soft skin of her thighs, his hands beneath her ass. He moves his lips until they are right there, and he is kissing her and tasting her and pushing his tongue in to her, her thighs clamping around his ears and her fingernails digging into his scalp. He moves his tongue up until he finds the little nub of flesh, and then she is nearly shouting, and he is positive that if there is someone in the room next to them then they can hear her.
He feels her tremble and squirm beneath him, and then she is crying out and bucking her hips, and he holds her down, pinning her hips to the mattress as she rides it out. He kisses his way back up her stomach and chest, and he lies beside her as she pants, her cheeks pink as her chest rises and falls. He rests his hand on her stomach and puts his face against her neck, tasting the sweat there. She turns her head and then she is kissing him again, her hand moving down his stomach until she is tugging at the laces of his breeches. He is painfully hard, and when her hand dips below his waist band and tentatively wraps around him he cries out, his voice muffled against her neck.
She pushes his breeches down his legs, and then she is urging him on top of her, her hands tugging on him and her fingernails biting in to his skin.
"I can't ruin you," he says, his mouth next to her ear and his cock just brushing against her. He's not sure if he means that, not sure if he would actually make her stop.
"Haven't you learned by now that I'm not a lady? Did you really think I was planning on marrying some lord?" She kisses him deeply, fiercely.
"So much has been taken from me, Gendry. Can't I get something that I want?" A flicker of sadness passes over her face before it is replaced by yearning.
"And I already told you how long I've wanted you."
Any bit of doubt he has instantly dissolves at her words. She wanted him. He wanted her. Would it be so wrong to have her? Had the war not taken from him as well?
He gets lost in her. He pushes inside her, tearing her maidenhead. She bites down on her lip and closes her eyes but doesn't further betray any pain. He kisses her neck, one arm braced near her head, his other hand clutching her hip. He moves in and out of her, unable to even pace himself.
She is making soft gasping sounds beneath him, so he kisses her hard as his hips slam against hers. She is warm and alive and wet and moving beneath him, moving her hips up against him. She moves her legs so that they are around his hips, and he wills himself to slow down. He takes measured thrusts, his breath coming in heavy pants. He gazes down at her, at her heaving breasts, her flushed throat and face, her full, parted lips, her burning grey eyes. Her long hair is spilled around her head, fanning out like a halo. Then her face is crumpling, then she is pulling his face toward hers to pull a hard, deep kiss from his lips, and then she is wrenching her lips from his in order to cry out. She repeats his name, her voice frantic, and he feels her body clenching around him, her body pressed to him from where they are joined up to their chests. He holds his breath as he speeds up again, and then the feeling of it, of her, of everything rolls over him like a crashing wave, and then it is all he can do to pull out of her and come on her smooth, pale stomach.
She is still making a whimpering sound, and he is still panting, and he rolls off of her and grabs a bit of cloth off of the nightstand to clean her up. He pulls her close to him then, engulfing her in his large arms, and she curls against his chest. He kisses her again, slowly, unhurried, his eyes half closed and one hand cupping the back of her head.
"Come with me," she breathes when he pulls his lips from hers. "Come with me to Winterfell."
He considers it. He considers telling her it would be improper, a lady traveling with a bastard. He nearly laughs at that thought. He considers telling her that he can't leave the inn, but he's not sure there is much conviction behind that. Hadn't he stayed for so long in the hopes that she might find him there one day? He's not exactly sure anymore.
He stares at her and wonders if he would be able to have her this way in Winterfell. Normally he wouldn't think so, but he remembers the words she said to him, about getting what she wanted. He thinks maybe she would take what she wanted. Propriety had never gotten either of them very much.
He knows she doesn't belong to him, and that she never will. This girl belongs to the trees and the snows and the winds, the cold and frost and bleakness of the North. She belongs to her home. He had forgotten while he was buried inside her, proclamations of love and promises of fidelity on the tip of his tongue. She will return to her home no matter what he tells her, and there is a tinge of bittersweet pain in that thought, a note of dulled rejection that would have stung far more if he were younger and stupider. She will head north, and he will never have her in all the ways he wants her. But he could follow her.
He holds her close, strokes her hair, and tries to focus on having her in this moment, in this way. He kisses her forehead, a promise to her, a promise not to leave her again.