Author's Note:

As always, thanks so much for all the reviews and favorites! This week brings us back to Arya's POV and contains an absolutely shameless Princess Bride reference. I only feel a little bit guilty.

Chapter Four.

Arya sits and fidgets in the waiting room, opening and closing her phone anxiously. Click. Open. Click. Close. Click. Open. Click. Close. Click. Open. Click.

"Would you stop that?" Sansa whispers irritably. Arya mumbles something akin to "sorry" and instead shifts her phone from hand to hand. Left to right. Right to left. Left to right. It only makes an almost inaudible slapping sound as it passes from palm to palm. Sansa is visibly less annoyed.

"What's wrong with him?" she hears Rickon ask their father, but Ned only shakes his head. He doesn't know either. No one knows. Catelyn is the only one inside the operating room - one visitor and one visitor only, as the surgeon insisted - and even she probably doesn't know what's going on. All that anyone knows is that Bran fell, from very, very high up.

So high up that he shouldn't even be alive right now. The doctors have told them repeatedly how lucky he is to be breathing.

That doesn't make Arya feel any less guilty, though. She knows he must have fallen in the middle of texting her. She knows it's her fault for diverting his attention. She knows Bran would never have fallen if he hadn't been distracted. She knows it's her fault for continuing to text him even when she knew he was climbing, and should have been focusing on that particularly dangerous activity. She knows all of this, but she doesn't tell anyone. Catelyn would never forgive her, and she's on thin enough ice with her mother already. Rickon would scream and kick and probably even bite her. Sansa would hate her forever. And Ned... she couldn't face her father, if he knew she was responsible for this.

Because he wouldn't be angry. Arya knows he wouldn't be angry. He would simply be disappointed, and he would look at her with those stern grey eyes and she wouldn't be sixteen anymore, she'd be six years old, or maybe six months old. She'd be reduced to dust and tears - salt and water and nothing more - in front of him, and she can't stand to be reduced to anything less than she is now.

So here she sits, fidgeting and waiting for Catelyn to emerge from the O.R. and tell them that everything is okay, that Bran will be just fine, that nothing bad has happened, maybe he has a concussion but that's fine, that's not too serious, right? People recover from concussions, people who have concussions come out just fine, they turn out perfectly all right. "Arya," says Ned quietly, and she looks up at him sharply. "You're hyperventilating," he says as gently as he can, and she takes a deep breath.

Bran is fine, she tells herself, and that becomes her mantra. Bran is fine. Bran is fine.

She doesn't know how long it is before Catelyn comes out, a grave look on her face, and whispers a few solemn words to Ned. Then Ned calls all the children close to him, and they huddle together as they once did during a winter many years ago when the heating cut out. "He'll live," Ned says first, his arms around Rickon and Arya. Sansa sniffs gratefully where she stands between Arya and Catelyn. "But," Ned amends, "he's never going to walk again."

Sansa gasps. Rickon blinks and shakes his head, not comprehending. Arya simply closes her eyes. This is the same as killing Bran, she knows. Everything Bran did, he did with either his brain or his legs. He was always climbing, always running, always kicking around a football or riding his bike. Even when he was sitting down to do his homework or edit his photos, he was swinging a leg under his chair, constantly in motion, scaling mountains in his mind even when he wasn't climbing in real life. "Are they sure?" Arya asks, and is only a little surprised to find that the words catch in her throat.

Ned nods. "He's paralyzed from the waist down," Catelyn tells them. "I need you all to do your best to keep him happy. These next few months of adjusting are going to be absolutely miserable for him, so we need to ease them as much as possible."

"How are we supposed to keep him happy if he can't do anything?" Sansa asks, and Arya wants to punch her. Bran can do things. He just can't do any of the things that he used to.

"I don't know," their mother shakes her head sadly. "We can try and call his friends from back home down here for the weekends. Gods know, we certainly have the room to house them. Ned, Robert wouldn't mind, would he?" Ned shakes his head somberly, and pulls away from the rest of his family to make a call to Robert and clarify. "Arya, you know who Bran's friends with, don't you?"

If circumstances were any less severe, Arya would question aloud just what made her mother think she knew anything more about Bran's life than Sansa or Rickon, but as it is, she simply nods meekly. "Reed. Something Reed."

"Something?" Sansa echoes weakly.

"I'll find him on Facebook," Arya assures her, and she too pulls back.

She doesn't know how to make her brother happy in his current miserable state, but she'll be damned if she isn't going to try.

Arya considers taking Bran and the not one but two Reeds who answered her call to the Rec Center, but then she realizes that Bran would only get more depressed. He can't bowl. He can't fence. He could play some of the arcade games, but his shortened height in his wheelchair would prevent him from being able to see most of them. Arya doesn't want to make her brother feel any worse than he already does, and though the Reeds' presence, particularly the girl's, seems to put him at ease, the last thing Arya wants is to contribute to Bran's misery.

She settles for taking them all for pizza, because everyone, regardless of their ability to use their legs, enjoys a good round of cheese, grease, and garlic bread. And so it is that Arya coerces Sansa into driving Arya, Bran, and both the Reeds downtown to what Robert cheerfully insisted was the "best pizza joint in King's Landing."

Once they're seated, with plastic menus propped up in front of them atop a waxy checkered tablecloth, Arya does her best to strike up an active conversation. "So, you guys know Bran from class, yeah?"

"He was in my AP English class, yeah," the girl says brightly. "Beat us all senseless with adjectives, didn't you, Bran? No one knew what to make of you. Youngest kid in the class, and put us all in our places with that first essay of his. I think the teacher still has it pinned to the board, even though you've transferred." Arya makes a mental note to actually remember her name, since she's worth having around. Meera. Meera Reed.

Bran smiles weakly and absently runs a finger over the menu. "You're a right genius, you know," the male Reed points out. Arya tries her best to remember his name: Jackson? Jason? Jonathan? Jojen. That's it. "Kids your age aren't supposed to be in trig."

"No one is supposed to be in trig," Arya joins in. "Honestly, what use is trig?"

"Actually," Jojen cuts in, "it's applicable to a lot of professions. Like, if you were to go into architecture, you would..."

Arya thanks any and all gods that she can think of that the waiter shows up at that moment. "Hi," he says, his blue eyes on the pad in his hand, "can I take your - seriously?" He's looking up now, but his eyes are on Arya alone. "I'm starting to think you're stalking me."

"I'm treating my brother to what we've been informed is the 'best pizza in King's Landing,'" Arya says. "No stalking involved."

"Gendry," Bran remembers.

"Oh, are we all acquainted?" Meera asks.

"He delivered pizza for us in Winterfell once," Bran explains.

"Long way to go," Meera observes.

"Tell me about it," Gendry groans. "What can I get you kids?"

"We're not kids!" Arya argues. Gendry simply gives her a weather eye and turns to Bran, pen cocked readily against the pad of paper. Bran recites his order, and so it goes around the table until it comes full circle to Arya, who stares defiantly back up at Gendry. "Personal-sized pepperoni with olives," she says, her voice tight, "and a cherry Coke."

"As you wish," he says with a grin, and disappears.

"Stalking?" asks Bran with a sly smirk. It's the first time since he fell that he's ventured to a facial expression other than self-pity and the feeble, depressed shade of a smile he's offered to everyone who's come to visit him. "You did mention you were with him the other day, when..." And just like that, the smile fades from his face. Arya hates how easily he's reminded of what happened.

"He works at the rec center, too," Arya says quickly. "I've been going there for lessons with Syrio."

"Syrio?" Meera asks.

"He's a fencing master," Arya gushes. "I've learned so much in so little time, stuff I never knew before, all these moves and all these little things you can tell yourself to keep yourself grounded, you know? It's fascinating. He's a genius."

"Fencing," grunts Jojen.

"He prefers fishing," Meera volunteers, nudging her head toward her brother with an apologetic smile. "Me, I'm all for track and field. Javelin's my specialty. I could teach you," she offers to Bran, and again Arya feels insanely grateful that she's here.

"That would be... great," Bran says slowly, and Meera smiles warmly over at him.

Dinner passes that way, with Jojen mostly silent, Meera cheerily entertaining Bran, and Bran and Arya bantering as only close siblings can. Arya counts all the stars in the sky as lucky ones for letting him live; she doesn't know where she'd be without Bran. She doesn't make friends easily, particularly not with girls, and she's always found that her brothers understand her best. It was hard enough losing Jon when he went off to boys' university, which he jokingly refers to as the Wall for the high fences that surround the campus. Arya can't imagine being without Bran as well.

Once their plates are clean and their glasses are empty, Meera stands and stretches and suggests they all go and get ice cream. Bran beams up at her, a childlike excitement dancing in his Tully blue eyes. Jojen nods, and a faint smile lights up his somber face. "I'll go look for an ice cream shop, yeah?" Meera offers.

"I'll come with," says Bran quickly. "Arya, you're plugged into our account, right?" Arya nods. All the Stark children are hooked into one bank account via a network of credit cards. She and Bran can both pay with the same money.

Jojen crosses to stand behind Bran, glances from the crippled boy to his sister and back again, and then sighs dejectedly. "I need to pee," he announces in a bored tone, and disappears off to the bathroom, and as Meera wheels Bran out the door, chatting to him excitedly about something or other, Arya is left completely alone.

She waves Gendry over, and he ambles toward her jauntily. "All alone, then?" he observes. "And they've left you the tab. Lovely."

"Yeah, well," Arya says, and lays the credit card atop the check. "I can handle it."

"Aren't you a proper lady, paying for everyone," Gendry muses, gathering the check into his hands.

"I'm not a lady!"

"You are," Gendry laughs. "You come from money and you're polite enough to pay for your brother and his friends. You're a proper little gentle-lady."

"I am not!" Arya insists. "I'm a fencer, I'm a runner. I'm not a lady. I don't want to sit around the house and moon over boys and embroider unicorns onto handkerchiefs and wear strawberry-scented perfume." Gendry's eyebrows lift in bemused surprise, and Arya sucks in a deep, exasperated breath. "Not that it's any of your business," she adds. "Just... just go run through the credit card."

Gendry grins wildly, bows his head ever so slightly, and says, "As milady commands."

Arya hurls the remains of a breadstick in his general direction, but he's already gone.

He returns mere moments later, the credit card and receipt tucked deftly between two fingers, and lays them against the table without a word. He still has that stupid grin on his face, though, and Arya stares angrily back up at him. "I'm not a lady," she says again.

Gendry glances over his shoulder, to where the breadstick sits, forlorn and wasted, on the ground. "Did you throw a breadstick at me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You pissed me off." Again, Gendry merely raises his eyebrows. "You're annoying," Arya tries.

"You know, you really shouldn't insult people who are bigger than you," Gendry advises with a laugh.

"Then I wouldn't get to insult anyone," Arya complains. "Except maybe Rickon, but insulting your twelve-year-old brother just isn't any fun."

"I'm sure," Gendry nods. "Now, please, milady, could you just sign for your damn pizza?"

"Not if you don't stop calling me that," Arya replies through gritted teeth, and folds her arms stubbornly against her chest.

"Then prove to me you're not a lady, she-who-pays-for-everyone-else's-stuff-and-lives-in-a-mansion," Gendry says.

"I threw a breadstick at your head," Arya reminds him. "I've spent all week kicking the shit out of everyone in your damn fencing studio."

"It's not my fencing studio," Gendry points out. "And I haven't seen any of that. Door's closed, remember?"

Arya frowns and tries to think of something else to persuade him to stop referring to her as a lady. She's not a lady. She might be female, but she'll be damned if she's going to end up boring and desperate like Sansa, polite to everyone whether or not they're polite back like her mother, or even just aloof and well-dressed like Cersei. Arya refuses to become any of these women. "Well, it happened," she insists stupidly. "I've beaten everyone I've come up against, except for Syrio, of course." When Gendry says nothing, she continues: "I've knocked at least twelve people on their asses. No regrets."

"How unladylike," Gendry sighs. "Now can you please just sign?"

Arya glares up at him with narrowed grey eyes, but relents and scribbles a messy signature across the receipt, tucks the credit card back into her wallet, and stands to go. Gendry blocks her path, though, so she clears her throat and tells him, "Get out of my way."

"As milady commands," he laughs.

She pushes him out of her way and stomps toward the door. "I've got a fencing tournament next Saturday," she shouts back at him. "See how much of a lady I am when I'm knocking people flat on the ground!" Gendry salutes her with another wink, and heads toward a family at another table.

Arya, thoroughly enraged, storms out.