Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones
She didn't remember falling asleep. She just remembered laying across from Gendry, not knowing how to respond to the way he looked at her. She expected that he would be joking or arrogant after they had sex. But he had looked at her with such a tenderness, she was not prepared for. She watched his chest rise and fall. Maybe she hadn't been ready, it was rushed, impulsive, but she wouldn't regret it. Laying with Gendry was everything she had hoped it would be, more than she could have imagined. She could have been jealous of the three women he had before her, but she was grateful for his experience. Now that she knew and understood one of the pleasures life had to offer, it would be so painful to walk out onto the battlefield and have it all end. She turned her head away from Gendry, her eyes found the door.
She thought it would just be sex. She thought it would stop her from feeling, but now she felt everything. She hadn't realized that her interactions with Gendry were slowly bringing her humanity back. She hadn't realized that she actually cared for him again. Now this act had opened the floodgates and everything she had been pushing away came back. She remembered who she was and thought of what could have been. With nothing left to do but face the fact that she could die in her home that night, she stared at the entrance of the room where the darkness of night was taunting her.
Maybe she should have been spending time with Sansa, Jon, and Bran instead of thinking of herself.
No, she deserved to be selfish. She deserved to find out what it felt like to be a young girl, without a care in the world, giving into her desires, and laying with a handsome young man.
Besides her family didn't really know her. They didn't know what she was like after their father died. Gendry knew apart of it at least. He had been there during the awkward years when she had to hide her identity, as a girl, as a person from the world. He had made her feel beautiful. It was something she never thought she could feel, something she thought she didn't need to feel, and it felt good. She could have laughed at herself. She was more complex that she thought.
She had been so focused on her hatred, her revenge, survival, that she had never stopped to even wonder what life would have been like. There were many things over the years she could find herself regretting. No, she would not die with regrets.
"Are you alright?"
Gendry's voice startled her. She looked back at him to see his blue eyes gazing at her.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Arya rolled on her side to face him better.
"You could tell me if you didn't-"he continued with the expression that she had come to know as one he had when he was at a loss for words. "I thought it was incredible but if you didn't like it."
"I liked it."
He looked almost looked like that young boy on the Kingsroad again. "Really?'
Arya nodded, "It was incredible."
"Was it your first?"
Arya scoffed. "Did you just catch on?"
"No, I mean, I figured. You just really seemed to know what you were doing."
She shrugged, "Natural talent I suppose."
Gendry stared at her for a second before releasing a laugh.
"There is no one like you, Arya Stark."
Arya gave him a small smile before running a hand through her hair. It had come undone when Gendry had yanked her head down to kiss her during the second time.
She tried to remember the last time she wore it down, was it Bravos? It had grown since then.
"What does this mean?"
Arya raised her eyes to meet his. She knew what he was asking.
"Do you really want to get into all that now?"
He took her hand in his.
"There's been something between us since I arrived. I could feel it. That can't have been all in my head."
Arya sighed, "No you're right." Still, the fact that she acknowledged there was something more between them didn't mean she wanted to discuss it.
"This wasn't just a fuck I needed to get out, not for me."
Arya raised herself up, bringing her knees to her chest still covered with his cloak.
"I want more." He rose with her, wrapping his arm around her middle. The tenderness in his eyes was back. She could feel something stir within her. Not the overwhelming lust she had felt hours earlier but something sweeter. Damn him. She felt like those blue eyes could see through her now. Now that they knew her like no one else did.
"A girl could fall in love if you look at her like that." She tried to joke.
The intensity of his gaze did not waver. "It'd be easy to fall in love with you, Arya Stark."
Her heart stopped. She opened her mouth to say something but could not find her voice.
Gendry must have sensed she was about to panic.
"We're not there yet. I know. It's not quite love yet. But I promise-"
"No," Arya shook her head and put her hand on either side of her face. "No promises until all this is over." Gendry placed his other hand over hers. "It will just make things harder if one of us dies."
"We could be worrying ourselves over nothing. We could all live."
"Gods, I hope so." She said, kissing him, softer than she had all night. "Still, no promises. If we live, we can make all the promises we want."
"As my lady commands."
He brought his lips down on hers again. She ran her hands along his shoulders as he pulled her closer. The passion that they had felt earlier was returning.
The sound of the warning horn broke them apart.
They both knew what it meant. The dead had arrived.