A Girl and a Boy

"I've met your sister."

Jon trudged through the snow and looked to his left at the stocky young man. "Sansa?"

Gendry shook his head. "No, the other one. Ary."

"Arya?" Jon said with a look of surprise. "When?"

"We left Kings Landing with a company headed to the wall," Gendry told him as they walked. "She was posing as a boy then. The Lannisters raided the party and killed our guides. They were looking for me it turned out, but they killed one of our friends, and Arya told them he was me. They took us to Harrenhal, and made us slaves. She became friends with a man named Jaqen H'ghar I think, and he arranged for us to escape, three of us."

Jon smiled. "I can see her doing that," he said. "Smartest of the lot of us, she is."

"Far sight smarter than I am," Gendry said. "We got taken in by the Brotherhood Without Bounds, and they sold me to the Red Witch. Arya knew the bitch wanted me for something evil. Turned out she wanted my blood for magic."

"She's at Winterfell," Jon said.

"The witch?" Gendry asked in disgust.

Jon looked at Gendry with a smirk. "No, Arya."

Gendry stopped dead. "Alive, she's alive?" He said, joy unexpectedly rushing through him. He sniggered and shook his head. "'Course she's alive." He looked at the stoic man next to him, and Jon gave him his 'do go on' look.

"She was our leader," Gendry continued. "I was oldest, biggest, but she has… will, will to live, will to win, will to avenge. She just… grabbed the reins, and me and Hot Pie were along for the ride."

"Hot Pie?" John asked.

"The only name he had," Gendry said. "He cooks. Really well, and that's what everyone called him. Don't know if he has another name."

"How was she?"

"I imagine you know her pretty well," Gendry said with a grin. "She was angry, really angry at King Joffrey, Cersei, anybody involved in getting your father's head cut off. She was clever, resourceful, she kept us alive."

Jon saw the wistful smile. "Yeah, hard not to love her," He observed.

"What?" Gendry said, taken aback. "I never said I was in love with her. She's just… she's a good friend."

Jon nodded to himself. "Whatever you say."

(*)

My beloved sisters

Our mission has been successful. Queen Cersei has conceded to send her armies north to wage the Great War with us, Queen Daenerys comes with her armies and dragons, and I return with hope.

Arya, I am also bringing a friend of yours back to Winterfell. One Gendry Baratheon.

JS

Arya let the raven scroll roll itself back into a cylinder. Gendry. Her mind wandered back to Harrenhal. Gendry sweating and swinging the hammer was indelibly etched in her mind. It was the very first time she had felt "the stirrings". That was what her cruel mentor among the faceless of Braavos had called it.

"You will feel the stirrings of desire sometimes for the name chosen for you," she had said. "And perhaps, from time to time, you may allow yourself the pleasure of satiating those desires, but only to serve the Red God's purpose."

Arya hadn't felt them in Braavos, she hadn't felt them at the Twins, but she was feeling them now just thinking about that day in the smithy. She shook her head. He was older, not by much, but still he wouldn't have these thoughts about her. He thought of her as a child, a little sister. He would never think of her in that way.

Would he. Would he?

(*)

They crested the ridge and Winterfell rose from the snow to stand in stately grace a few miles away. The damages wrought by war were still evident but much had been repaired. The snow for its part did a great deal of smoothing of the edges, and adding a polished look to the landscape. Gendry had to admit, it was beautiful.

"Always loved the place in the snow," Jon said from his horse.

"At least it keeps the shit smell down," The Hound said from behind them. "Standing here looking at it doesn't make me any warmer, let's go before we fucking freeze."

"I could stand some mulled wine and a fire," Ser Davos said.

Gendry didn't comment. He was consumed by a singular thought. She's there.

(*)

The horns sounded as the King approached. "The King in the north returns!" the heralds shouted, and people started to gather in the courtyard of Winterfell. Lady Sansa emerged from her chambers smiling in a way she hadn't in a month. As much as she liked the pomp, ruling was an unpleasant business, and she was happy to hand it back to Jon. In her childish imagination, all those years ago, she had thought sitting on a throne meant planning parties and receiving guests. Now she knew better. To rule was to be the one who decides, who gets what, who was right, who was wrong, who lives, who dies.

She had been forced to render decisions on all of these things while Jon was away, and she had found it distasteful. She had no desire to return to needle point and knitting, she much preferred being on the small council, but sitting in the big chair was not to her liking.

She found her sister already in the courtyard, waiting. Sansa smiled at Arya. She and Jon had always been the closest of the siblings, and Sansa could see Arya quivering with anticipation.

"I'm sure he's just as excited to see you," she told her younger sister.

"I don't know," Arya said. "It's been a long time."

Sansa sniggered. How could Arya even think Jon would forget her. "You've been his favorite forever."

"How would you know," Arya said, puzzled. "You've never met him."

Sansa looked down at Arya. "What? Who are you talking about?"

Arya looked back up at her. "Who are you talking about?"

"THE KING IN THE NORTH!" the shouts began as the procession neared the gates, drowning their conversation. It repeated over and over until Jon and his company were dismounting in the courtyard. He mounted a cart in the procession and flipped back the covering revealing a glittering mound of black shards.

"We have dragon glass!" he shouted, and the crowd cheered. "We have a truce with the queen in King's Landing." They cheered again. "And we have an alliance with Queen Daenerys and her dragons." The roar of the crowd was deafening. "Our fight is not assured, but at least now we have a chance, a hope. Fire the forges come morning, and we'll begin our great work." The crowd cheered again as Jon descended from the cart to walk among his people.

They had been angry and concerned while he had been away. Sansa had written him, voicing her own concerns, but he had stayed his course. He would have had to have been a fool not to know that leaving the north would cause turmoil, and he was not a fool, but he had listened to wise council, and that council had led him to a wise decision. Now all was forgiven. He was back, alive and whole, and he had succeeded. For that they loved him.

All the while Arya and Gendry had been staring at each other, first with expressions of unease and concern, then a slight smile of hope, and at last joy. It was all they could do to stay where they were as Jon walked amid the people of Winterfell and approached his sisters. Sansa saw it all.

Arya's joy at seeing Gendry alive and happy to see her was momentarily swept aside in the overwhelming rush of love she felt for her brother. She jumped into his arms and he hugged her fiercely. "Thank the gods," he said in an emotion roughed voice. "Thank the gods."

(*)

"How many?" Sansa asked in hushed wonder.

The remaining Starks were gathered in Sansa's outer room by the fire. Jon sat in one chair facing the fire, Sansa in the other, and Arya stood by Bran in his rolling chair. Sansa, Bran, and Arya had talked about their adventures before, but Arya had glossed over or changed the subject when the conversation turned to her list, Braavos, and what had come after. She had a feeling Bran knew everything, and she had given Sansa a demonstration that had shocked her, but now she felt free to share with her siblings the true extent of her revenge.

"I don't know," Arya replied honestly. "It was nine, no wait, ten before The Twins." She unconsciously smiled at the memory. "Like I told you, I was angry I didn't get to kill Joffrey, But I did get to kill Meryn Truant, some Lannister soldiers that killed my friends, and the Freys."

"The Freys?" Jon said, puzzeled.

"That was you?" Sansa said in wonder, staring drop jawed at her sister.

Bran's eyes were closed as he silently counted. "Sixty four," he said. "Tallying all of them including Littlefinger."

Jon and Sansa stared at Arya in stunned silence, finally Sansa spoke. "The story that came north was that the whole of the Frey men died of bad food at a feast two months ago," she said. "They executed the cook."

"Wasn't Macklyr," Arya said. "No great loss though. He was an ass, and not nearly as good a cook as Hot Pie."

"How?" Jon asked, still stunned.

"Poison," was Arya's one word reply.

Sansa rose quickly and hugged her sister, tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said and hugged Arya harder. "Thank you. As much as you wanted to kill Joffrey, I wanted to kill Walder Frey and his whole wretched house. It won't bring Rob, mother, everyone back, but you put paid to that account."

Arya accepted Sansa's embrace and returned it in kind. "I wish I'd have got back to the north earlier," she said. "After what you told me about the Boltons, especially Ramsey, I'd have gladly killed them for you too."

"But how, Arya?" Jon asked.

Sansa looked at her younger sister. She hadn't fully appreciated Arya's talent, her gift, until she had demonstrated it. "Show him," was all she said.

Arya nodded once and left the room.

"Where's she going?" Jon asked.

"You'll see," Sansa said with a smirk. She poured some wine for both of them and sipped. "It won't take long." She looked back at her brother with a haunted expression. "But be prepared. What Arya can do now, what she learned, is…amazing. She didn't tell me everything, but there's a skill, and I think some magic involved." Just then there was a knock at the door, and Sansa opened it. Petyr Baelish stood just outside the chamber.

"Baelish!" Jon said in disgust, and he turned to Sansa. "You said he was dead?"

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Littlefinger said as he entered the room. "But the reports of my demise are… quite accurate."

"What?" Jon said looking back at him.

"Remarkable," Baelish continued in his haughty, slightly hoarse voice. "Isn't it. A disguise so beguiling that even when you know it can't be, it still seems real."

"What do you know of the Faceless of Braavos?" Sansa asked her brother.

"Not much," Jon replied. "They are hired assassins, I think. I haven't been to Braavos." He was still staring at Littlefinger. "Disguise?"

"Yes," Baelish said, and Arya removed his face. She seemed to shrink before them, losing a foot in height. Jon shook his head in near disbelief. "I trained for most of a year with the Faceless Men," Arya told him, her voice her own again. "I never intended to stay with them though. I wanted to learn their secrets so that I could avenge my family. When they found out they tried to kill me, but I killed the one they sent, so The Red God was satisfied."

Jon gawked at her in Baelish's oversized robes. "And this is how you took the Freys?"

"I killed Black Walder and Lothar Frey first," Arya said with a slight smile, remembering. "Then I baked them in a pie and fed them to old Walder before I killed him."

Sansa was taken aback by her sister's fond reminiscence of the bloodlust and carnage she had engaged in. Sansa had learned over the last two months that Arya was a formidable presence, but just how dangerous and lethal she had become was only now starting to become evident to Sansa.

"I had a stock of The Choke I stole from the store house of the Faceless," Arya continued. "I used Walder's face and called a feast. Poisoned the wine, but I left the women alive. Old Walder's wife was pregnant, and the serving girls were innocent."

"She was going to Cersei next," Bran said stoically from his chair. "But her friend told her of you, and she came here instead."

"Can you do that with anyone?" Jon asked.

Arya smiled without mirth. "Only if they're dead," she said. "And I have their face."

(*)

"The Lady Arya requests your presence," Brienne said.

Gendry looked up from the forge bench. He'd been laying out his tools and organizing them for the next day's work. Tomorrow they would begin forging the weapons they hoped would save them. The mundane task also took his mind off the ever-present thought of the dark haired girl somewhere in the castle. Her brother had drug her off for a reunion, depriving Gendry of the reunion he desired, so he had set about organizing the forge.

He looked into the inscrutable face of the tall woman. He could divine no anger or mirth or any hint of what she might be thinking. He had no clue as to what might happen next, but he'd wanted to see Arya since he'd learned she was still alive, and If the stars were right maybe hug her and feel the reality of her living body against his. At that thought his own body stirred.

"Let me wash up a bit," he said, and he went to the bucket in the corner. After scrubbing his face and hands of the soot he finger combed his hair and turned back to Brienne. "Am I at least not filthy?"

The first smile he had ever seen on the woman Knight's face appeared. "I'm fairly sure she doesn't care." She turned and walked out of the forge motioning Gendry to follow.

"Where are we going?" He asked as they entered the castle proper.

"Lady Arya has arranged a supper," Brienne said. "You'll be dining with her in her chambers."

A thousand possibilities raced through Gendry's mind. "Her chambers?"

Brienne looked at him and nodded. "The same rooms she has always occupied here," she said as they turned and ascended a stairway. "Lady Arya reclaimed them upon her return to Winterfell."

He smiled. He would see her childhood room. Perhaps it had changed, perhaps not, but being in that safe place in her memory would put her at ease. He would finally see her unafraid. "She's grown, changed," Gendry said. "How much?"

"I wouldn't know," Brienne told him. "I've only begun to know her here. My impression of the Lady Arya is one of admiration. She has survived many trials that would have killed a lesser person, and she did it mostly by herself. She is the most accomplished swordswoman of her age, and she has… a certain drive that I can relate to." Brienne chuckled to herself.

The stairs ended at a portal into a long hallway, glassed over arrow loops lined one side and doors the other. "These are some of the guest rooms," Brienne said as they walked. "I believe you will be given one in this row as it's close to the forge."

"A room," Gendry said softly.

Brienne looked at him for a moment. "Have you never had a room of your own?"

Gendry shook his head. "No," he said. "Slept on the floor of the smithy in Kings Landing, slave barracks at Harrenhal, might call what the witch kept me in a room, but it was a prison cell really."

Brienne sniggered to herself. "The Lady Arya has taken an interest in your welfare," she said. "I would imagine you circumstances will improve dramatically."

They turned down another hall, and then through another portal to a set of stairs. Ascending one level of the castle, Gendry found himself in a corridor lined with tapestries and the occasional display of armor. "These are the family residences," Brienne said. She went to one of the doors and knocked. "My Lady?"

"I'm not a lady," a loud but amused voice said from beyond the door.

Both Gendry and Brienne smiled, and she opened the door. "Gendry Baratheon, My Lady," she said, and she closed the door behind Gendry as he entered.

(*)

There he was. Scruffy beard, broader shoulders oh my, sooty clothes, brooding eyes, and a warm smile just for her. Arya, with a complete lack of proper ladylike behavior, ran to him and jumped into his arms. "You're alive," She whispered, crushing him to her.

(*)

If he wasn't as strong as he had become it would have been tough to breath. She was hugging him so hard, arms and legs wrapped around him. "'M happy to see you too," he said. She smelled of leather and steel with just a hint of flowers, but below all of it she smelled of woman. He would happily stand here in her embrace for as long as she wanted, but he pulled away when she began to shake slightly. She was crying.

Looking down into her face he was struck. Gods, she was beautiful. He set her feet back down on the floor, cupped that face, and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. They were tears of joy he could tell, because she was smiling radiantly. Was this the moment? Was it too soon? Was… She ended his vacillation by grabbing the back of his head and bringing him down for a firm kiss.

(*)

Silly boy she thought. You're just too proper. Once her lips connected with his, or collided depending on the point of view, all his reserve vanished, and he returned the snog with equal enthusiasm. After a few moments she drew back, breathing heavily. "I've wanted to do that for years," she said, and she hugged him again, resting her head against his chest. "Thought I'd never have the chance."

"Me either," he said, trying to shift his body so she wouldn't feel just how happy he was to see her, hold her. "But maybe you should back up a bit so I don't get my stink all over you."

She laughed. "Your stink I can handle," she said. "But I'm hungry, and I imagine you're starving." Releasing him from the embrace, she turned and sat at the small table in the room, indicating he should sit in the chair opposite her.

"My L…"

"Call me 'My Lady' and I'll run you through," Arya said dangerously.

"Uh... love?" he continued with a laugh. "Thank you." He sat, and she drew the cover from the platter on the table. Two whole chickens, some roasted vegetables, a few pieces of fruit, and a small loaf of bread lay waiting for them.

Arya grabbed a leg from one of the chickens, tore a hunk from the loaf and set them on the small plate on her side of the table. "Eat," she said, and began herself.

He didn't need to be told twice.

(*)

They, well mostly me he thought, had eaten both chickens and nearly the rest of the platter. It was the first time in years he had been comfortably full. Now they sat on the floor in front of the fire. In truth, he sat on the floor. She was in his lap, arms wrapped around him, her head on his chest.

"Lady Brienne said they have a room for me downstairs," he said.

"If you want it," she said and looked into his eyes. "Or you could stay here." At his surprised look she smiled beguilingly, a shameless look that was a bit incongruous on her face, but one that set his blood on fire.

"Uh, your brother…"

"Will keep his opinions to himself," she said. "If he knows what's good for his health."

He chuckled. "I think I might love you, Arya Stark," he said with a smile in his voice.

"I know I love you, Gendry Baratheon," she said much more seriously.

Many minutes later he found himself on his back with Arya astride him, still snogging him with vigor. He could feel a heat on his thigh, right where they met, and she could not help but feel his ardor. It was going very fast he thought, and he separated from her lips for a moment. "Arya," he began.

"Bath," she said, breathlessly.

"What?" he asked.

"Bath," she said, looking slightly dazed. She stood and pulled him to his feet. "Come on."

(*)

They had descended a long, winding stair to a door that let into a multisided room with several doors. Those doors opened into other rooms below ground level. They entered one and he saw a steaming tub more than ten feet wide and fifteen long was set into the floor.

"I had it prepared earlier," she said. Reaching up she unclasped his cloak and pulled it from him. Then she pushed him back until his calves hit the bench behind him. He sat reflexively, and she pulled off his boots. His jacket, shirt, and what passed for stockings joined the growing pile on the bench next to him. When she pulled him to his feet and started on the drawstring of his trousers he stopped her.

"Arya," he began. "I want you, b.."

"Good," she said. "I want you too." She looked at him sternly. "Gendry, don't be so noble. We could die any time, especially me, so let's get on with life, shall we?"

He smiled and shook his head. He could, would never win and argument with her, he was coming to realize, and that was fine with him he also realized. "Well then," he said. "Your turn."

He unclasped her cloak and let it fall to the stone floor. Sitting her on the bench, he removed her much more well-made boots. Stockings, a leather and armor jacket, and her over shirt followed. Then, with the air of one who is opening the greatest gift of a lifetime, he undid her blouse.

Gods! He thought as he beheld the woman she had become. You are so… his mind ground to a halt. Three small scars shown pinkish on her stomach. He reached out and gently traced them. "What happened?" he asked.

A small, knowing smile graced her. "Lessons," she said simply.

Gendry was done. He quickly divested her of the rest of her clothing, dropped his own trousers, and carried her into the tub.

(*)

Arya lay in her bed looking at the canopy while Gendry slept next to her. They had scrubbed the dirt and grime and cares from one and other in the bath. Upon their return to her rooms she had held a sword more satisfying than any other, and Gendry had wielded that sword with care and gentleness, twice. What would come after the Great War she didn't know, but now she had a reason to live through it. Your sons will be princes and lords her father's voice said in her head. She looked at the prince in her bed. "They just might be," she whispered into the night.