When Arya came to, she was lying on her back on the grass, nothing but blue sky above her. Well, blue sky and a group of handsome young men gathered in a circle around her, looking down.
"Sorry mini-wolf, we didn't mean to hit you," one of them said. Arya slowly turned her head to look at him better, taking in the dusty brown hair and scruffy facial hair.
"Theon," she murmured as she tried to sit up slowly.
"Woah there mini-wolf," Theon said with a smirk as two other guys reached down to steady Arya in her attempt to get vertical again.
"What happened?" Arya asked. Her sinuses were slowly beginning to pulse and shake in her head, a slow pounding slowly building momentum in her cranium.
"You just took a pigskin to the face. Pretty graceful fall though, your sister would be proud," Theon smirked. Arya groaned and covered her head in her hands, partly out of shame and partly in hopes of containing the throbbing head ache.
"You must have been pretty distracted not to hear us yelling at you though, mini-wolf," one of the other guys commented. Arya sighed behind her fingers, the smell of her own breath bouncing back and filling her nostrils. She resented the smell of it and wished for gum, water and an ibuprofen.
"What's going on over here?" A voice came from outside the circle of guys. They broke their line to reveal Arya's oldest brother, Robb Stark, standing just outside their rankings.
"Arya? Are you all right?" Robb asked, concern furrowing his handsome features.
"Yeah I'm fine I was"
"Spacing out and didn't notice the football coming right at her," Theon interrupted. Robb and Theon had practically grown up together back home, with Theon right down the street from the Starks. They had been inseperable as kids, but then puberty struck and Robb grew more and more handsome and more and more popular as Theon grew good-looking, but average in comparison to Robb. Despite the fact that Robb had almost always outranked Theon in everything, school, jobs, looks, girls, Theon had always looked at Robb with a kind of awe-filled worship, eager to please his best friend, no matter the cost.
Arya glared at Theon for interrupting.
"Arya," Robb sighed and Arya could sense the lecture coming just on the way his voice changed. Robb's lectures were ones she was familiar with; the time she had fallen off her bike when she tried to jump it over the curb and fell (she had been nine and stupid at the time), the first time she got thoroughly trashed and Robb just happened to find her in the bathroom heaving the contents of her stomach into the toilet in front of her, when Arya posted pictures of her new Malamute puppy on Facebook and he showed up at her apartment with that ever familiar look of concern on his face.
"Save it Robb, I already know what you're going to say," Arya said from the grass.
"How could you possibly know?"
"Because your face says it all and I've seen that face since I learned how to talk," Arya replied. "Now which one of you is going to help me up and get my things for me?"
Robb offered his baby sister his hand and pulled her to her feet while another guy grabbed her laptop bag for her and passed it over.
"Besides, it wasn't even my fault really. How was I supposed to know your team decided to have an impromptu practice on the main quad?" Arya asked, gesturing to the suddenly sheepish football players. Robb was quarterback of the university's football team, a grad student with his eyes set on his doctorate after he got his masters, and aiming to go into politics when he graduated from the doctorate program. He was tall and handsome with wide-set shoulders and stormy grey eyes and a sharp jaw line. He was commanding and intelligent but fair and gentle with a rumbling laugh that consumed his entire body when he let it. Ever since he took over the football team in high school and moved on to be the most stereotypical popular kid ever (complete with prom king and student council president), people had called him the King Wolf. Arya, known for her fierce tongue and equally fierce loyalty, had found herself in the center of attention in a different circle of people. All of the Stark children did, with the exception of Bran and Rickon, who were still in high school and middle school respectively.
"You should have been watching where you were going," Robb reprimanded. Arya huffed and pushed up her glasses. "What had your mind so distracted that you couldn't even hear the team yelling at you?"
Arya opened her mouth to respond but then shut it like a fish. She didn't really feel like telling her big brother that a boy had distracted her.
"Never mind then. Look, are you headed back home?" Robb asked. Arya nodded.
"Well maybe you should get some coffee or something before you go. Water would be better. Wait to drive until you get a chance to rehydrate and your headache goes away. Do you want one of us to take you home?" Robb offered.
"Maybe your favorite brother can take you," a voice chimed in. Robb and Arya turned to face the speaker and a grin split Arya's face from ear to ear. Standing there in all his nomadic glory, was their half-brother, Jon Stark.
"Jon!" Arya cried and threw herself at the older man, who laughed heartily and threw his arms around the small young woman, squeezing her tight. Jon had finished his undergraduate degree in writing and then told his parents that he was going to travel the world for a while and not worry about school. Every now and again, when he could, he would come home for holidays. He wrote often, but most often was to Arya, who could very rarely write back depending on where he was in the world and how long he would be there. There was a whole wall in her apartment dedicated to the postcards and pictures that he sent her, the longer letters stored away in a special box on top of her closet where her Malamute, Nymeria, couldn't get to them.
"Hey there kiddo, how are you feeling?"
"Better now that you're here," Arya said with a grin. When she had been a child Arya had sworn that she was in love with Jon, and it was easy to see why. He was handsome and kind, much more approachable than Robb was. He had thick curly black hair and dark brown eyes that twinkled when he truly smiled. When Arya had announced her bisexuality to her family, Jon had been the first one who had just shrugged and treated her as normal. When Arya said she wanted to get a tattoo, her father had agreed, her mother had rejected the idea but Jon had been the one who helped her research where the best place was to get it done. And the second one. And the third. He had gone with her to each one and held her hand.
"I'll drive her home. Still got that sidecar?" Jon asked Arya, looking down at her, still attached to him like a barnacle desperately attached to a rock.
"You know it. Nymeria has to sit in something."
"Well now you have to sit in something," Jon said with a chuckle and Arya let go of her half-brother long enough to give him the keys to her motorcycle to him.
"Thanks for taking care of her," Robb said. Jon gave the other man a smaller smile and a nod—things had always been a little bit strained at times between the two of them. They were the same age, but their father had chosen Robb's mom over Jon's in the end. When Jon's mother passed away when Jon was three, he had come to live with the Starks.
"Always will," Jon said and Robb nodded back. Jon looped his arm around Arya's trim waist and she leaned her head against him as they walked towards the parking lot. She was thrilled that her brother was here. She adored Jon, he was easily one of her closest friends.
"I should let my flatmates know that you're coming. Make sure they're wearing pants and all that," Arya said, going for her phone in her pocket.
"Who're you living with again? Still with Prior and the Targaryen girl yeah?" Jon asked. Arya nodded and grunted a response as she focused on what her thumbs were doing on the screen of her phone.
"I don't think either of them home, but Addie might have beat me there at this point," Arya admitted.
"Sounds like a plan. You'll have to give me directions," Jon said as they came up to Arya's bike. Arya rattled off directions to her flat and Jon nodded. Arya settled into the sidecar of the bike and pulled on the helmet Jon passed her. The siblings headed off onto the streets, Arya leaning her head back to attempt to look at the sky. The wind was too harsh though, the speed of travel too much for her eyes to handle without watering. When the bike came to a stop and rumbled into silence, Arya opened her eyes. Jon reached down and helped her out of the sidecar and she grinned at him. She couldn't stop grinning, really.
"Come on, we're just upstairs," Arya said, pulling Jon along behind her. Jon laughed and followed her into the apartment building. Arya took him to the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.
"Top floor eh? Mom and Dad must be paying," Jon joked.
"Shut up, so what if they are? Besides, I wouldn't call it paying since dad already owns the whole building," Arya replied, sticking her tongue out at her beloved half-brother. Jon laughed and the siblings left the elevator as the doors slid open. Arya led her brother down the hall to where the door to her flat lay in wait.
"Welcome, brother mine. What's mine is yours," Arya unlocked the door and swung it open into the apartment, letting her brother in in front of her. Jon walked in and whistled in appreciation. Arya smiled; it was an amazing apartment for a trio of twenty-something girls. With its three bedrooms, kitchen, and nicely sized bathroom, the apartment was perfect. Skylights added a nice natural lighting to the place and the balcony looked out over the ocean in the near distance.
"Good thing Papa Stark is a real estate mogul or we would be screwed over and probably still stuck in the dorms," Arya commented.
"The couch pulls out into a bed if you want to stay here," Arya offered. Jon looked over at her, a small smile on his lips.
"What about your roommates?" He asked. Arya shook her head.
"They won't mind. Want to see your infamous wall?" Arya asked. Jon smiled and followed her into her room, a grey green the color of her eyes and there was his wall. Corkboards had been put up and postcards and pictures covered the multitude of boards. The postcards started all over America and slowly migrated through Europe into Asia. It seemed like the only continents Jon had yet to touch down in were Australia and Africa.
"Wow, you didn't lie about it. This is incredible," Jon commented.
"Looking at it makes me feel like I've seen the world too," Arya said softly. Jon looked at her and smiled.
"One day you will. Maybe you can join me when you graduate," he suggested quietly. Arya smiled at the idea. She desperately wanted out of the bonds that kept her in school-the society that expected her to get an education that would leave her bankrupt if her parents weren't filthy rich. A society that expected her to do what they wanted, without ever asking her what she wanted. Arya longed to escape, to travel, to run and fly, but she stayed where she was and didn't bring it up with parents because she wasn't sure that they would understand.
"Arya? Are you home?" Another girl's voice called from the main room.
"I'm in my room Dany!" Arya called back.
"When is your brother getting," the girl's voice replied and came to a stop as the owner appeared in the door of Arya's room. Daeneyrs Targaryen was slight and trim, fit and lean muscled with hair the color of freshly spun silver. Her eyes, an unnatural shade of periwinkle-blue that appeared almost purple in certain lights widened at the sight of Jon standing just behind Arya.
"Oh, hi there," Dany said, blushing slightly. Arya smiled at her friend and flatmate.
"Dany, this is my half-brother Jon, Jon this is my friend Dany," Arya introduced the pair.
"It's so nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you and Arya's other friends," Jon commented, stepping forward to shake Dany's hand. Dany shook it, looking at Arya, urgency in her eyes. Arya just raised an eyebrow at her—Dany had never really shown an interest in guys, but she looked forward to Jon's letters almost as much as Arya did.
"All good things I hope," Dany commented.
"Well there was that one time freshman year," Jon trailed off, eyes twinkling down at the younger girl. Dany flushed and struggled to regain control of her facial features. Dany had prided herself on her ability to not be reduced to a silly puddle of girly fear.
"Well, yes, but that goat wasn't really our fault when you look at it," Dany replied. Jon laughed and gave her a winning smile.
"So did you get to ride in the side car to get over here?" Dany asked.
"No, she did. Genius here got hit in the face with a football so I drove her home and she rode in the sidecar," Jon chuckled. Dany smiled and rolled her eyes. Arya huffed as she played along in the teasing of her brother and her friend.
"How are you doing now?" Dany asked in concern.
"I'm fine, even the head ache is gone," Arya replied.
"Well that's good, since you've got the open mic tonight," Addie's voice came from the hallway. The redhead appeared in the doorway next to Dany.
"Don't remind me," Arya groaned and flopped down on the bed.
"Why don't you want to go? You're poetry is really good," Jon replied.
"It's not the poetry she's worried about," Addie insinuated.
"Then what is it?" Dany asked, confused.
"It's Gendry, our TA. He's going to be there," Arya replied from the bed, covering her face with one hand in shame.
"So?" Dany asked, searching for clarification.
"So remember the time she vanished during open mic freshman year?"
"That was!?"
"Gendry."
Arya groaned as Jon smiled at his half-sister, her friend's exchanging knowing glances in the doorway. She just wanted this night to be over and done with already. Little did she know what it would bring in it's wake…