The reason why I decided to merge these two stories was because I realized how similar "The Journey of Natty Gann" and Arya's story (as well as other things) were after recently watching this old favorite of mine. "The Journey of Natty Gann" has so many similarities that I have to wonder if GRRM was influenced in some way by this obscure 1985 Disney movie.

Similarities:

Natty Gann is a grey-eyed, brown haired, plucky tomboy (complete with boy clothes) who is very much a daddy's girl. Unlike Arya, Natty isn't from a wealthy family, and her father doesn't die, but is shipped off half way across the US,. However, like Arya this "loss of daddy" begins her journey through the county that gives us (the audience) a bigger view into the country's poor.

Wolf (yes, a wolf) is Natty's companion and protector.

Harry (yup, just like Arya's alternate name Arry?) is an older boy Natty meets during her travels. Their first meeting, he stands up for her against the other hobos in the boxcar when they start picking on her. They do separate early in the story but are reunited toward the end.

There is a blacksmith. This man also happens to embody characteristics of Sandor Clegane (at first, is very gruff and seemingly mean. He's large with half his face scarred from burns. My family's jaw dropped when we saw that one. Later, it's shown that he's actually sweet and wants to be helpful).

I should say, if this movie was some inspiration, then kudos to GRRM for creating a rich side story from those elements, but he may need to revisit his opinion about fanfic.

I did a fair bit of research about this era and the life of a hobo, but I'm sure I may screw something up somewhere. If I do, let me know, and I'll try to work in the fix so long as it doesn't change the overall story. I'm not sure how much interest there will be for this story. I have ten chapters outlined, but I figure if it's a dud, I can kick it to the bottom of my To Do list.

I own nothing of this world, just playing around with what ifs within it.

Mycah stood in front of his apartment building with his hands in his pockets and his head hung low. He kicked at something on the ground with the toe of his shoe and sighed after glancing up toward his apartment.

Arya was going to go to him, to talk to him and cheer him up. His dad had a temper. Not so much the kind that would rough up a boy, but the kind that would make a boy think twice about being in the same room with him. The Dabney family had a hard couple of months, enough to make Mr. Dabney a little nutty.

In two months time, Mycah lost his grandma, two sisters and a baby brother to a cough that everyone got at the beginning of winter. The doctor said they just didn't have the strength to fight it with so little food to eat.

Not many have that kind of money or food nowadays.

Even though Mycah stopped going to school so that he could work, the money he and his dad made wasn't enough. Wages were little more than nothing if you were lucky enough to find a job. That's just the way it was.

Their grief was something else she could understand. Arya's little brothers died of whooping cough over a year ago and pneumonia took her mom and sister a couple of years before that. No matter how much time passed, though, she still missed them. It got lonely in their two room apartment with only her, her dad and big brother.

For Mycah she couldn't do much but tell him he wasn't alone, but just as she took a step into the street to cross, two cops dragged Mr. Dabney out of their apartment and threw him to the ground. Another man followed a very weepy Mrs. Dabney out of the apartment carrying a bundle of things in his arms. When they got to the street, the cop threw everything on the ground and turned back to see the fourth leaving, locking the door behind him.

There was a crowd gathering at the sight of yet another family put out on the street. This was the fifth family in the last week, at least that she counted, and it broke something in her to not only see five, but that it was her friend and his family. It seemed to brake something in the people around her too because there were people shouting at the cops and pumping their fists in the air, getting very angry.

It happened so fast, Arya wasn't sure it really happened if it wasn't for the puddle of mush on the ground at the feet of the cop. Someone threw an old, rotted apple and it just missed the cop's head, hitting the wall in back of him. That's when it all went in the crapper. People were throwing things, anything they could get their hands on: buttons, bottles, even stones laying around on the street. Arya looked down at her feet at the stones in the street then looked at her friend cowering in the crook of the stairs of the next building. The cops were nothing more than muscle for the rich. Sure, they had their badges, but sometimes it felt as though that was all that separated them from any other hired goon with their batons and their pistols.

She bent down and reached for one of the stones when a hand grabbed her wrist. It was her father, and he shook his head at her to let her know he knew exactly what she was going to do and that he didn't like it one bit.

"Let's go, Arya," he said to her, pulling her by the wrist down the street.

"But Dad," she tried so say while also trying to keep up with him, "Mycah'll have no where else to go."

Her dad stopped and spun around on her, looking her square in the eye. "Arya, everyone's got to do what they can to survive. Even us. More cops are gonna' come and…" He closed his eyes and sighed. "I just don't want you there when they do. You hear me, Arya?"

"Yeah, Dad," she said, but couldn't stop the trembling when she saw the look on his face. He was scared, really scared.

"Good." Her dad nodded and let go of her wrist, jerking his head in the direction of the factory. "Now, come on. Your brother's waiting for us."

Her dad and brother worked at the textile factory owned by Mr. Baratheon. Him and her dad were on good terms, but as wages dropped and jobs disappeared, things weren't so great.

So in the basement of the factory before work began, several men argued among themselves, asking questions like how they and their sons work all day and still didn't have enough to feed and house their family, but Mr. Baratheon can afford his swanky house and new rolls. How it can be fair that their children are dying because they were too weak from hunger to fight off a cough but the Baratheon children are as plump as can be.

Throughout the gathering her dad listened to each man, but kept his head down. The only thing to perk his ears was when a man mentioned forming a union. For some, it was a dirty word. Many bosses didn't like unions and would fire any workers on the spot for just saying it or talking to someone saying it, but some thought it was the land of milk and honey, a promise of a good life.

"What say you, Ned?" asked the guy and all heads turned to her dad.

Her father lifted his head and his gaze landed squarely on the man. There was a hint of annoyance, but mostly her dad just looked tired. With an exasperated sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, "I used to think it was a bad idea, but now…"

He sighed again. "They're squeezing as much work as they can from us without paying what we're worth. I'm not a Red, but we have to stand up for ourselves or we're gonna' be used up until there's nothing left."

Most of the men cheered around them, Robb too, but then Arya heard a grunt from the back of the large storage room. There was a man on the ground with a wound on his forehead that leaked blood everywhere. Standing over him was a man the size and look of a walrus with a cap and a baton in his hand.

There were several men in back of him, looking just as mean and just as dangerous.

All hells broke loose in the basement as men scattered and screamed. Arya wasn't sure where to go, where to turn, because she didn't know the factory well. She'd only been visiting her father or brother, and had never been in the basement.

Her big brother, Robb, grabbed her arm and pulled her to an exit where her father was waiting for them. They ran up the steps and to the back alley, and Arya thought she have enough time to breathe when more men stood in their path, blocking their way out of the alley. They hadn't seen Arya, her brother or her dad yet, so Robb pushed her behind the garbage cans and her dad told her not to make a sound, no matter what happened.

The men turned to the voices and caught them just as Arya was able to hide fully. They were yanked and pushed down to the ground on their knees. Out came a woman with golden hair, a beautiful face. and clothes that must have cost a pretty penny. At her side was a golden-haired boy sneering at her father and brother. Mrs. Baratheon, her father said her name, and she smiled in a way that didn't reach her cold eyes. He said something else to the woman, something Arya couldn't hear, but the woman replied, "He died yesterday. He can't help you now."

That's when one of the men took out a pistol and held it to her brother's forehead, and right before Arya's eyes, he was shot dead in the alley. The man moved to her dad and placed the pistol at his head.

"Snow!" he yelled loudly, enough to be heard blocks away, then the gun fired and he slumped down to the ground with her brother.

Arya blinked back the tears and bit the side of her hand between her pointer finger and thumb, stifling a cry. In that one instant, she lost the rest of her family. Her father and brother murdered, and there wasn't a damned thing she could do but watch.

Even after the woman and her henchmen left the alley, Arya couldn't bring herself to move from her hiding spot. She curled up with her knees pressed to her chest and her arms around them, rocking to soothe herself. She was an orphan, now, and she knew what happened to orphan girls. The cathouse down the street was full of them with their sad faces and dull eyes.

What was worse was that her mind replayed their deaths like the moving pictures looping over and over. And each time, she remember more and more blood. There was blood everywhere. Her dad and brother's blood.

By the time it got dark, Arya was able to think of more than the moment her brother and her father's murders. She thought about rich Mrs. Baratheon, her weasel-faced son, and her muscle doing what they did to the men in the factory. She thought about her brother and father hiding her before they died, and she thought about her father's last word: Snow.

She had a cousin whose last name was Snow. Jon Snow. She barely remembered his face but she remembered him even though he'd moved West for a better life, someplace where no one knew that he was born out of wedlock. And when he moved, he changed his name from Stark to Snow. He moved to California.

It was the first time since it all happened that Arya had any desire to lift her head or get up and leave her hiding spot. Still, she feared going too far and seeing the blood and bodies of her father and brother.

She peeked out from behind the garbage cans to make sure there was no one around and stood up. It was dark, but she could see there were no bodies in the alley. For some reason, the Baratheons and the hired goons took them. Some part of her was angry that they would take what was left of her family like that, but another part of her was thankful. At least she didn't have to step over them to get out of the alley.

They barely had the money to eat and pay for the apartment, and Arya knew her father had anything they had left in his pocket at the time of his death. So there was nothing for her to go back to, nothing to help her get to California. But there was one way to do it rather than walk all the way there. She'd heard some men, frustrated with the lack of jobs in the city, talk about riding the rails.

Hoping trains for a free ride was a dangerous thing; her father had told her so when she asked him about it. Legs getting chopped off and running into men who'd cut your throat for your shoes. It was no place for the average man, much less a girl. But when he told her that, she was a girl with a family and a home. Now, she had neither.

Arya started walking toward the railroad station and patted the small dagger, hidden in her vest pocket, that her cousin had mailed to her a couple of years ago. Her father didn't like it at the time, but he let her keep it so long as she promised not to use it unless it was life or death.

"Well, Dad, it's life or death," she said to herself as she continued down the street in the direction of the station.