a/n: My first multi-chapter fic for this fandom. I hope you enjoy.
They expected the journey north to take less than a fortnight.
But with winter is in its third full year now and no end in sight, the snows north of the Riverlands lie deep. With the northern winds whipping at their faces and thick wet snow clinging to the treads of their boots, it's taken their small party nearly twice as long as it would have during summer to reach the ruins of Winterfell.
They're all grateful that Gendry Waters is so proficient with bow and arrow. Were he not, their provisions would have run out weeks ago. As loathe as some initially were to take King Robert's bastard son with them to where the Dragon Queen fights what they're now told is the real enemy, the first night that saw them with hot rabbit stew in their bellies changed their minds about Waters with a quickness.
As they finally approach the lands of the once great House Stark Gendry tugs sharply on the reins of his mottled gray mare. She gives an answering whinny and comes to a halt.
The unofficial head of their party – the old man they call The Commander, more as a jape than for any legitimate reason – stops his horse as well and turns to face him.
He eyes Gendry dubiously. "Waters?" he grunts, clearly displeased that they've stopped. "What is it?"
Gendry swallows hard and steels his nerves, working up the courage to ask the question that's been keeping him up at night ever since leaving the relative warmth of Harrenhal all those weeks ago.
Gendry opens his mouth, to finally get it out in the open. But in the end he finds he can't.
"You… uh… sure we're welcome here?" he asks instead.
The Commander rubs his chin a moment as if in thought. Then he shrugs. "You saw that raven, boy. The Lady Stark is askin' all able-bodied Westerosi that's survived the war to come join her brother's war efforts north of the Wall." He shrugs again. "In exchange, she provides food and drink for a fortnight. And medicine too, insofar's she's got it. Which, as you know, some of us quite direly need." He chortles, then claps Gendry on the back. "Can't see why she'd turn even the likes of us away, aye? There's so few of us left."
With that, The Commander turns his horse around, signaling the end of the conversation. He puts his spurs to his horse and she runs off at a gallop, closing the distance between them and the men who've gone on ahead.
But Gendry waits behind.
Gendry knows there's no "Lady Stark" anymore. Not really. There hasn't been a proper Lady Stark since the Lannisters made off with the heads of the poor King in the North and his lady mother at the Frey wedding. The Commander undoubtedly knows this as well, and is only using the obsolete title out of respect for the old days, and for what the Starks once represented to the Realm.
But The Commander's words, meaningless as they are, stir up memories in Gendry that he'd long ago stopped letting himself think about. Memories of a perpetually hungry belly. Of terror. And worst of all, memories of feelings – hot, conflicted feelings to which he knew, even as a boy, he had no right.
Coming north with these men had been the right decision, Gendry reminds himself. There is nothing for him in the southron lands anymore. Nothing for anyone, really, Queen Danaerys' dragons having laid waste to nearly everything the Lannisters left untouched during the war. When The Commander found him in that Harrenhal tavern two months ago, half in his cups, he agreed he might as well go north along with everyone else to see this thing through to some sort of end.
It wasn't as if he had anything else he needed to be doing.
He's a man grown now, with twenty-one name days behind him. But now that they are here, on the cusp of the great abyss that lies on the other side of the Wall, Gendry feels all of fifteen again. Tired, hungry… and confused.
But there's nothing to be done about that. Because, at last, they've arrived at Winterfell.
Gendry sighs, and puts his spurs to his own horse. As he trots off to join the others, and the rocky outcroppings of the ruined Winterfell begin to peek through the drifting piles of snow, he wonders, nervously, if Arya still has that old sword made from Valyrian steel. And if she's had occasion over the years to use it.
He supposes he'll find out soon enough.