A/n: Wow, you guys are kind of the bomb. And by kind of, I mean you totally are. I am so out of practice when it comes to writing, so I'd love any constructive critique you can offer, because I want to make this good. And without further ado…

When One Goes Missing

Chapter Two

ARYA

x

Arya finds Lady Sansa at court.

She lurks for days before determining that it isn't the smell of danger that permeates the Red Keep, but her own apprehension lingering in her nostrils.

She drops to the ground in front of the woman, startling the beauty into a shriek. How well guarded could this place possibly be when no one can hear you scream?

Neither sister has been a Stark in years.

Sansa has been a Lannister, an Alayne, a coward.

Arya has lost track of all her faces.

And yet still, across the vastness of their estrangement, the many travelled miles and the sands of pain in their hourglasses, they recognize each other immediately, as only sisters can.

JON

x

Jon trailed at the back of the hunting party with Tyrion. He had no desire to chase the fox through the thicket and much preferred the imps company to the competitive jeers of the court's knights. Let Jorah have his fun; he needed no aid from the hands of the Queen to impede it.

Once, Jon had suspected resentment on the Lord Commander Mormont's part. For Dany had not known him long before extending her hand in grace and friendship, offering a dragon in her palm. The short while where the idea of marriage to the beautiful Queen was contemplated were the most frightening of his life. It was not enough that he was a Targaryen, that he was a Stark, that he was his liege lord, banisher, possessor of his father's sword, that he was one of the Dragon's Three Heads… Now he would be offered the chance to consort with the woman he loved?

There were many restless nights until the decision- which was not his own –was made.

It had been many years since his first dealings with the company from across the narrow sea and it had been almost as long that he was able to call himself the Lord Commander's friend. He was glad of it. The Bear made a greater ally than enemy.

"You seem very lost in thought these days Lord Bastard."

"You seem anxious to pick a fight these days Lord Halfman."

"Your sweet sister worries, and so I thought it my place to antagonize. As you know, it is what I do best." He wrinkled his face oddly, the way a person with a nose would wrinkle theirs.

"Sansa is always worrying, it is her nature," Jon replied sadly, thinking of the scarred young woman, waiting in the keep.

Tyrion chuckled and urged his horse forward, passing Jon's. He shook his head in amusement and called to him casually over his shoulder. "I speak of your half-sister, not of my Lady Wife."

Jon forgets sometimes, despite the years of settling into the idea, that they are not a family. They never were a family. He never blamed her for her distance in Winterfell, but there was no kinship between them. That is, not until they came to King's Landing. It is strange, he thought some days, how people could latch onto ideas and feelings, no more true than Old Nan's wildest stories, and refuse to let them go.

"Old habits," he explained.

"Of course. Understandeable." Once satisfied that Jon was stable, Tyrion pulled back his steed to trot beside him again. "I have been a friend to you Jon. Not a very good one, but then again I have not had much practice. There are not many who befriend Imps and Lannisters. I have the unlucky fate as to be born both."

"Are you playing the pity card with me?"

"My friend, a man lacking in your brawn must use what few weapons in his arsenal he can. However, you are mistaken. I am merely explaining my less than admirable qualities."

"Sansa speaks highly enough of you that I can forgive most of them."

Jon could not be sure, but he thought that perhaps Tyrion were blushing.

ARYA

x

Arya waited. And waited.

And waited.

The sun crept closer to the horizon, laying itself down to sleep. It shone over the tips of the trees and reflected off the glass of the tower windows in her view. She didn't see how this was a good idea in any way. She had kept to the shadows so long she'd almost forgotten what one does when they meet new people.

What does one say to the conquering Queen of Westeros?

The door opened and in entered a creature of beauty, grace and suspicion. Sansa followed in her wake, a meek little shadow.

"Your Grace," long dormant habits awakened in Arya. She curtsied, and halfway through realized what she was doing and gave pause. 'What in the world?'

"You have come a long way, I am told."

"From Braavos."

"From the Faceless Men."

Arya shot Sansa a look and vowed to tell her no more. A secret kept by her sister was as good as a royal announcement apparently. At her look Sansa colored in shame. 'Perhaps she had not realized', Arya thought of her, generously.

"I have been many places and seen many things since my father died." Since everything changed.

"I am very sorry for your ordeal." While not insincere, the sentiment did not feel comforting.

"Thank you," she replied tersely.

"Of course, Your Grace. Whatever you wish to know. It is my duty to tell you anything you wish to hear." But not the truth. Arya had been careful with the truth for a very long time. She knew how the game was played now and she was willing. She would be polite and well spoken; the very model of a perfect lady. It need not be for long after all.

"Perhaps you will begin your tale tonight. You will dine with me in my chambers. Sansa," her sister glanced up from her contemplation of the toes of her red satin shoes. "You will join me as well of course. I wouldn't dream of parting you from your sister so soon after finding each other."

With a nod of her head, a reciprocated bow from both Stark women, Daenerys took her leave.

Sansa held out her hand, which Arya took awkwardly.

"You look as if you've been living in the forest."

"I have, I arrived at Lannisport-"

"New Port," the older woman corrected absently.

"I arrived at New Port, two moons ago."

The hand she'd been holding was wrenched from her grasp when Sansa whirled on her, tiny, sweet and looking fiercely angry, "And it took you so long to come to us?"

"Who is 'us' Sansa? We are the only ones left. I was learning, I have been gone a long time. I know about Robb, Theon, Bran and Rickon. And Jon. Or Aegon, or whatever he goes by, whoever he is. It is just you and I now.

"Arya-"

"Not now," she shushed her severely and pulled her out the door insistently. She ignored all attempts to dissuade her pace. In another time, another season, perhaps she would have said something nasty, but there were no brothers to hide behind, mother to deal out punishments, or father to complain to. There was only Sansa and all the love that Arya had pushed down deep inside herself; rising up to engulf her, with no focus but the sweet, silly girl who was now a woman she did not know.

They tread the familiar path to the godswood, where no one but the Old Gods could hear them. It was only then that Arya found herself able to look into Sansa's eyes and pour her frantic thoughts into her hands before they slipped through her fingers all together.

She took a breath and retreated into well tread territory.

"It's going to be alright." Arya could not stop looking at Sansa's face. She was just as beautiful, just as untouchably perfect as she'd always remembered her. She carried a sweet sadness in her posture and gait. Her watery blue eyes were wiser and older in ways her body and face were not. She was watching her with eagle's eyes as if she might disappear. "I'm going to get us out of this. We'll go north and then across the Narrow Sea, we'll be safe there. I've learned things while I've been gone, I have…a certain set of skills that make me uniquely qualified to disappear. I can take you with me. We can leave this place and never come back. You don't have to be the queens pawn, or the Lannisters' brood mare anymore."

"Tyrion is-"

"A Lannister." Arya stressed, trying to make her see her point. Dread took root and grew in her heart with every moment that passed.

"My husband."

"Against your will!"

"He is good to me."

"Relatively speaking, maybe. Please, Sansa, you must see that it is best for us to go. We don't have to be part of the game anymore."

"The game is over, Queen Danaerys has won."

"The game is never over."

A/n: Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think!

-Fiercy