Chapter 9-Arya and Gendry
They spend the car ride in silence. Gendry never let go of her, holding on to her as if she was his life line. Arya in return couldn't help but snuggle close into his embrace. This would be complicated enough, once they reached where ever he wanted to take her, so she basked in the peace they had now.
As soon as they left the car Gendry wasted no time and lifted Arya up bridel-style again. If Seth had been stunned when he had showed up yesterday with Jay in his arms, his eyes practically popped out now with Arya in his arms. Gendry ignored him, just nodded while he passed and entered the elevator. The lift ride was spent in silence and soon enough the reached his apartment.
When they entered Gendry's apartment Arya's first impression of the place was darkness, and the second sadness. The place radiated both en vast mass.
Rather abruptly Gendry let her down to her feet again and made sure she could stand on her own, before he took a step back, puting visible distance between them, showing the one that had been coursed by eight years of separation miscommunication.
"I guess you want to take the opportunity and freshen up a bit, we have a lot to talk about, and no time to waste."
With that he walked right past her and entered the livingroom. At least he was a thoughtful kidnapper, though not a very helpful one he had left her in the middle of the hallway without any directions. But she wouldn't ask him, they had more important things to talk about then directions to the bathroom.
Arya was amazed though, how well he still knew her. Anticipating that she would need a bit time and space alone to compose herself, after his sudden appearance in her life again and then been swept away by him. And maybe he also need some time to calm down as well.
When Arya came back into the livingroom she was greeted with piano music and a melody that she had hold on to for years. Their melody. She walked up to him slowly not to disturb his concentration. He had alway's been quite a sight when he was lost in playing, like now. She waited for the right moment, as it came she started to sing, stopping in her path towards him just before she could touch him.
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one.
It can't be told with a few words.
She didn't even finished the first sentence before he stopped and looked at her with an unreadbele expression.
"You still remember the lyrics?", he asked softly. The question had something desperate, that it pulled her towards him and vanquished the distance that she had instinctively tried to put between them, to protect her. But it wouldn't go like this, all or nothing that how it alway's where between them and would be now.
"Of course I still know them, this lyrics they were meant for us and I kept it in my heard for you."
He didn't reply instead he turned back to the piano and started to play their song again.
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one.
It can't be told with a few words.
This story of a man and a woman is a new one,
and it can't be told with just a few words
Arya sang and where stuned when Gendry but in and sung the lyrics of the next verse
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one.
It can't be told with a few words.
This story of a man and a woman is a new one,
and it can't be told with just a few words
Separated from each other when we are made for each other
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one.
It can't be told with a few words.
When I started to love you I felt I got the world,
Never thought that one day you would be so close and miles away
Why did you give me such a dream to only destroy it in reality?
Separated from each other when we are made for each other
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one.
It can't be told with a few words.
Arya had moved even closer towards Gendry and stood now directly behind him but a bit to the side. He had turned his head to the side and titled it a bit so he could look at her, never interrupting his play.
She took his head in both of her hands, much like he had when they had been in her apartment, and looked him sincerely in the eyes, drowning in those deep oceans.
Each and every moment we shared was filled with joy
It can't be told with a few words.
You are in my every feeling, each memory is filled with our story
It can't be told in just a few words
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one
The day's sneak up on me, the nights steal away
Thought on you hound me every moment
This longing wants the distance between you and me to disappear.
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one
It can't be told with a few words.
Separated from each other when where made for each other
Each and every moment we shared was filled with joy
It can't be told with just a few words
You are in my every feeling, each memory is filed with our story
It can't be told in just a few words
Yours and mine, mine and your love story is a difficult one
It can't be told with a few words.
This story of a man and a woman is a new one,
and it can't be told with just a few words
Arya had sat now beside Gendry, with her back towards the piano. He looked at her and she at him. They sung the last part of the song together. He had stopped playing, instead his right hand was tangled in her long hair, her head jerked towards him and hold in place by his strength.
When the last words tumbled from there lips, they clashed in a heated, passionate and desperate kiss, that had been fueled by eight long years of separation and was filled now with longing and want. When they had to part for air Arya leaned her forehead against his.
"Tell me what happened between us eight years ago.", Gendry said with a raged voice.
"I know only half of it, your's is the other half of the story, you need to tell me as well.", she answered equally breathless.
"I will, but you first."
"How about we take turns? I tell you a bit of my side and then you fill in the blanks with your side, then it's my turn and so on."
"Ok you start."
"How about we toss a coin and decide who start's."
"How about you stop stealing time and get the fuck on already."
Arya sighed: "I guess since I left you it's only fair. Best thing I start with how my family found out about us and I found out about Jay.
It was a few day's after new year. Though monday she had slept in shamelessly using the opportunity when her parent weren't holding the reigns over her as strong as usual. She knew she had to get up at some point soon today, since Rickon had a game and she had to be there, but half awake she prefered to fantasized about how she would meet Gendry later the day and celebrate there delayed little new year party, then to think about that. That's when Sansa entered her room. Of course she was dressed properly and looked like she had been up already for hours. She sat on her bed and shook her shoulder.
"Arya get up we need to talk."
Arya only turned her head into the pillow and answered: "Go away.", her voice muffled by layers of fabric.
"You know what THAT is?", Sansa asked.
Arya lifted her head to take a look just to humor her sister and maybe get her of her case.
THAT was one of these useless smartphones that everybody seemed to have these day's and nobody really needed. She drooped her head back into the pillow.
"Your cell.", she groaned.
"No. Yours.", Sansa answered and got of the bed.
Right she and Sansa had the same cellphone now, since her sister insisted on getting her the same model in the same color for her birthday just a few weeks ago. It took Arya a moment, but once realisation dawned to her she scrambled of the bed.
"Change first and meet me in the livingroom we need to talk.", her sister said from the door before she left.
Arya didn't even think of changing first, her sister had her cell for good's sake! Instead she hurried after her and reached her just as she entered the livingroom. Her parent's where there as well, but she didn't paid them any attention. If she had she would have seen the stony expression on her father's face and the nearing tears in her mother's eyes. Wich would have told her that she was in serious trouble and in reaction would have send her running to Gendry as fast as her feet would have carried her. But she didn't so destiny took it's turn.
"Sansa what the hell are you doing with my phone and give it back to me now.", she held out her hand expectantly.
"Arya sit down we need to talk.", her father interrupted. Arya turned to look at her father and saw the look in his eyes, but it was too late to run now. So she slumped on the nearest seat.
Sansa took a seat beside her, and reached for her hand.
"Arya I wanted to say I swear I didn't ment to take your phone I thought it was mine, you know how you always leave it lying around so...," Sansa rambled on a few more moments before she stopped herself and took a deep breath. This was when there mother spoke up.
"You haven't felt so well in the last couple of week's, right?"
Arya furrowed her brows.
"Yes but I'm all better now." Well that was only kind of true, the nauseous feeling, that she had complained about she felt all the time now and decided to just live with it.
"But you did see a doctor about it?"
Arya nodded she did, but only on Gendry's insistence. He was so overprotective sometimes.
"The doctor called.", Sansa said. It was the fist time she said anything since her rambling. "And I picked it up. Since I thought it was mine, and when he said he was a doctor and confused me with you, before I could tell him he told me what he had found."
"So what is up with me? I am I dying or why are you all make so serious faces?"
Her father looked like he wanted to speak up, but it was Sansa who answer her.
"You are pregnant."
"WHAT?" That was not possible, especially since the only time she had slept with Gendry without protection, had been the first time at all. On the roof of his flat. They had both been to consumed by there passion and want for each other to think straight. After that time always with. And even then she had taken immediately the after pill and a couple of weeks later she had, had her period.
"Well that was my first reaction as well.", Sansa answered.
"How is this even possible, I took the pill, I had my period, I can't be pregnant."
"We called the doctor here he will explain everything." But Arya didn't listed for the first time in her life she didn't know what to say, had no snarky remark or sarcastic comeback.
"Who is it Arya?", her father asked. "Who is the child's father?"
And then she realised something they where in the livingroom discussing this. Sansa could have given her this piece of live shattering information earlier in her room when it had been just the two of them but she had led her out here, to have their parents involved in this discussion. Why did she do that?
"He is nobody.", she answered distracted. All she could think about was that she needed to get to Gendry. She needed him at her side right now, plus he had no idea that there was a child on it's way and as shocked as he would be he would also smile, shout that he was the happiest man alive, then vowing that everything will be all right and drown her in his joy over this. That was exactly what she needed.
"Now Arya don't be like this tell us.", her father interrupted her thoughts. She looked at him, that was odd why did he insist, the same moment she realised the second thing today.
"You know." This was not a question, but a statement.
"Did you really thing you moving all that money from one account to another would go by unnoticed?"
Indeed she did.
"I thought you would be too busy to notice."
Ned choose to didn't answer that.
"Stop skirting around the subject and tell me what I wanted to know.", he said in his commanding voice that never failed him. But instead of making her answering him, it only triggered her defiance.
"I won't tell you jack."
Her fathers eyes narrowed on her the famous Stark-Steal fixed on her but she wouldn't crumble. That was when her mother interacted.
"We won't harm the boy if that's what you fear, just tell as and all will be good." But Arya didn't belive that.
"You don't know him, and he is nobody of our social circle either." Her mother looked relieved and enraged the same time.
"You wanted to run away with a nobody? And allowed him to get a child on you what where you thinking?"
"We weren't just planing to run away, we where going to get married. Anyway the child wasn't planed, at least not yet. However I knew how you two would react if you knew about us, the same way you are reacting now, so that was what I was thinking."
"What? You where going to marry and run away?", Sansa asked disbelieving. Come to think of hearing her sister speaking there plan out loud like this it sounded an awful lot like a story from one of the romantic novels Sansa used to read as a teen and that Arya had despised. She cringed at that thought, and looked at her sister sudden rage building up in her.
"How could you tell them about the pregnancy?", she verbally attacked her sister.
Sansa went to speak in her defiance but their father beat her to that.
"Don't turn on your sister she did the right thing in telling us. Now I ask you for the last time who is he?"
Arya answered with shutting her mouth, pressing her lips into a thin line and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"Fine have it your way. You are grounded."
"What?!", she interrupted but her father continued as if she hadn't said anything.
"Your relationship with this boy end's now. You will stay within these four walls, without contact to anybody, but the family and the security, until the child is born. When that happens we will give it up for adoption."
Arya looked at her father shocked by his decision. A quick look at Sansa told her she was shocked as well. She jumped at her feet in protest.
"You can't do this, this is my child and...", her father looked at her expectantly reckon that she would spill Gendry's name in her rage. She wouldn't do him this favour. "And my fiancé's. You have no right."
"I have every right as your father, since you are still a minor. And since your "fiancé" obviously doesn't know he can't object wich leaves the choice with me."
Arya couldn't belive what she was hearing.
"This is about your good dam reputation isn't it? You don't want to deal with what the media would make out of this. That's why you want to take my child away from me.", she shouted at her father.
"Arya, think this through", her mother tried to reason. "You are sixteen. You have school and college to consider. You can't do this and raise child all on your own."
"I won't be on my own.", she answered and turned her back on her parents and sister who had sold her out to there parents like this. Walking towards the elevator. Now she wished she had listen to her sister and changed but even in her sleepclothes she wouldn't stay a minute longer in this place. It hadn't be planed like this but now it was crucial that she got to Gendry and left town with him, it was the only way to be with him and keep there child.
Seven minutes later she was back in her parents apartment. The chef of security Jory himself had dragged up her here again.
"Like I said you are grounded.", her father greeted her when Jory went back to his post. Her mother and Sansa where still in the room though Sansa looked like she didn't want to.
"Not for long she answered coldly."
"Arya...", her mother tried again.
"No I won't I love him and neither you and dad nor anyone else is going to separate me from him. And you won't take my child from me either!"
"Think about what you wanted to do with your live Arya, you wanted to be a photographer, you wanted to travel... Do you really want to throw all that away for a boy who can't provide for you and a child who will always burden you? Please, my daughter, see reason. Think about where your heart lies."
Arya fixed her Stark-Steelgaze on her mother and for the first time ever Catleyn Stark could keep her daughters gaze and looked away.
"That is the problem mother I don't know where my heart lies because it isn't with me any longer.", Cat looked at her again.
"What do you mean it isn't with you where else should it be?"
"Where is my heart? Well that is a good question. It's not inside a fire, or above the sky or under the ocean or outside the wind."
They all looked at her disbelieving but she continued.
"It is there in HIS hand, HIS eyes, HIS life, HIS soul and WITH his heart. It is where it truly belonged."
Stunned silence flowed her declaration before her mother stuttered out.
"Who are you and what have you done with my daughter? I don't even recognise you anymore, do you know how you look and sound sputtering such nonsense just now?"
Arya cringed she knew exactly how she sounded. Like the most sappiest, love-struck character of the most cliché ridden romantic novel ever written. But she could help it that was exactly how she felt, to hell with the consequences.
"Enlighten me mom how did I sound and look?"
"Like a stupid fool in love."
"Really? Well I'm willing to look so stupid till I've had enough!"
That was it. There was nothing more to say about. Arya went to her room and stayed there. The doctor came and went she couldn't care less. As the afternoon went along Sansa came to see her.
"Dr. Luwin was here. That's the doctor you went to see for your condition."
"Why?"
"Why? Because you are pregnant despite your precautions. You need answers."
"No why did you tell them?"
"I thought it was the best for."
"Yeah? Well it's not thanks to you I'm looked up here now. Why didn't you just came to me and talked to me first Sans?"
"Me talking to you?"
"Yes."
"I would have Ria if I had thought you would talk to me in return. But let's face it you wouldn't do that. You would have brushed me of. Me and my worries for you and went on fixing things on your own. How could I know you where about to run away and leave us all behind. I only was trying to be a good sister too you. I was just trying to help. I understand when you hate me right now but..."
"What did Luwin said.", Arya interrupted. "Why am I pregnant?"
"Because you had sex."
"Sansa...", she said threatening.
"And because the Pill doesn't always work as fail save. It's not hundred percent sure method to prevent a child. The percentage is small but it is there."
"And my period how does he explain that?"
"He says bleeding can happen during the first month of the pregnancies, it's nothing too unusual. Some women bleed through out there whole thing. I quote "Nature is unpredictable and we understand only a small amount of it.""
"Sound's like the man is a real Confucius."
"Anyway regarding your nauseous feeling. Just eat and rest properly and it will go away. He also said you will start to show soon. You are in you fourth month right?"
"Three and a haf."
"Right, then I better leave you to rest." Sansa stood up and walked to the door, before she could leave Arya spoke up again."
"I wouldn't have done it you know?"
Sansa turned and looked quizzically and her sister, but Arya had her gaze averted out the window.
"If our places where reversed I would have told you before mum and dad. Even if you would have brushed me of. And I don't hate you either."
"Arya I..."
"I'm tied Sansa I think I need to do the resting you mention."
"Of course.", with that she left the room.
Shortly after that Rickon showed up. And his simple unconditional love for her was balm for her wounded soul, just what she needed. Then a few hours later Jon showed up, summoned by their father. Her favorite brother turned into her prison guard taking her chance to get out of this place away from her. Not even two day's later Gendry showed up demanding to see her, but he was denied. So he started to sing for her. Arya got Rickon to go down to him for her and recorded what he played. Rick was the only one she could ask for the favour. Jon didn't want to take sides in this fight and just did his job. Robb was utterly disappointed with her and enraged towards Gendry. Sansa still felt guilt over what had happened and Bran gave her the silent treatment furious with her for trying to run away. So Rickon was the only one left. He wouldn't give Gendry any messages from her but he recorded what he played. When he got it back to her she listen to it for day's and day's and then started to write lyrics for the melody.
It took her two week's, Robb's reckless decision to beat her fiancé up and her father's calculating behaviour, but in the end she got Jon on her side. He left wich gave her the chance to escape. As she did, two day's after he left.
"I didn't waste any time and looked everywhere for you but it was like earth itself had swallowed you up. And I was hunted by my own family and pregnant. Not the ideal combination. Where where you?"
Now it was Gendry's turn to explain what happened. How he met Robert after Robb hat beat him up and the deal he made with him. Followed by the month's he had worked like a mad man to achieve his goal. Then finally when he thought himself worthy of her he had written those latter's fully expecting her to show up, so they would be reunite to never separated again. Instead Jon showed up with the worst news imaginable.
"All my dreams where shattered that night."
"I can't belive Jon would do and say something like that. Robb, ok what ever, but Jon..."
"It was him!"
"I belive you but still, I wasn't even with them when you wrote the latter, so why..", suddenly something Sansa said crossed her mind.
"I wasn't with them, and neither with you. They must have thought something terrible had happened to me, and they blamed you. That's why he beat you up an told all those lies."
"If that's true, why didn't he just tell me that instead?"
"He must have thought me not wanting you was the better punishment."
"So he had me all those years pining and longing after a woman he thought, what? Dead?"
"Very likely." If this was true Sansa's comment made sence, and she had a whole lot more mess to fix.
"Great. I love your family more and more by the day!", he remarked sarcastically.
"Anyway, where were you?", Gendry asked getting to the original topic.
"Do you remember Jaqen H'ghar?"
Of course he did. That was the guy they meet when they came back from there trip to Harren Hall. Harren Hall was a castle ruin outside of New York. At the beginning of the last centuries a billionaire with too much money and time had bought the whole thing in Europe and brought it back to the States, to rebuild it stone by stone. Nowadays' it was a tourist attraction. It had been the weekend of Arya's birthday, and of course her mother Cat and sister Sansa had planed a birthday party as grand as Sansa's had been a few weeks ago. Arya on the other hand hadn't want to celebrate at all and instead bagged her father to allow her a trip to Harren Hall on that weekend. Officially she wanted to take some scenery shoots from the castle ruin and the landscape around, for the magazine she was working for. In reality she just wanted to get away from her family and spent her birthday with Gendry without having to fear they could be discovered by her family. Ever since Gendry had proposed to her they had kept a low profile, even more then they already had, to tip nobody off.
In the end Arya agreed to a compromise. The grand party was of the table, instead it would be a small gathering with her family and close family friends in a small low profile restaurant, wich would hopefully keep them of the radar of the paparazzi. After the party Arya was of for the weekend to go to her trip while her father paid for it, that was his birthday present for her. They had rented a small cottage in the village near the ruin. The memory of that weekend was one of the happiest in all his live. The closeness they shared and joy of just being together freely, the experience was one of a kind and made hope for the future.
On sunday evening they had driven back to New York. On their way back they came across a accident. Of corse they immediately went to help. A man was stuck with his legs under his car, as it turned out later that had been Jaqen. Without heavy tools there wasn't much Arya and Gendry could do and sadly since they took a back road, reception had been impossible. So Arya had stayed with Jaqen while Gendry took the car to get help. As he was gone Jaqen's system broke down and Arya saved him with mouth to mouth. When Gendry had been back with help the man had barely been alive, but thanks to Arya he still was. Before Jaqen had been transported away he had given Arya his card with the promise to help when ever she needed it.
Gendry remembered.
"Yes, but what has he to do with it?"
"I stumbled upon a few of his assets and they helped me searching for you, while hiding from my family.
The pregnancy had been a long and messy affair, more like a sickness than a pregnancy really. Feeling nauseous the whole day, and worrying about Gendry all the time hadn't help her getting better either. Chained to her bed, coursing to live like an eremite, not being in touch with the world outside the walls of the "House of Black and White" or search for Gendry herself, wasn't also much of a help. Than there son had finally had made his appearance. Arya slowly regained her strength, a nother month past, by then she could leave the bed again and Jaqen with incredible timing had finally found Gendry. Arya had never been happier in her life. Finally they would be together again.
But the evening she finally saw him again she realised everything had changed in the worst way possible. He was a rock star now, and not just that but also the son of a powerful man with mony and assets all over the world. So she was faced with a decision that altered hers and Gendry's life forever. For his sake she stayed away, but she couldn't leave like that without letting him see her a last time and giving him prove that she still loved him and would so till the end of time.
Arya got back to the car where there, no her son and Jaqen waited. She had left the baby with him with the intention to get him later. She didn't want to go like a bull at a gate, at him by showing up with a baby.
She didn't utter a word when she got in.
"I've warned you things changed.", Jaqen said.
And in deed he had, but Arya hadn't listened. For her nothing could have changed so dramatically that they would find a way, together. Boy had she been wrong
"So what now?"
"You fulfilled your end of the barging I let you of the hook. I only need a ride back to the "House of Black and White" to get my things. Then I won't bother you any longer."
"Girl I owe you a life dept did you really think a small errand would be enough to pay you back? Besides your family is still after you. You know how powerful they are, do you really want to take any chances? Name it what else do you want!"
Small errand? Finding Gendry had not been a small errand. It had taken him the whole rest of her pregnancy, five month and the one month she had recovered to finally find him. Six month of work! But Arya wasn't in the mood to argue with him. Not when desperation was eating her up, like a hungry animal did devour his pray. She was standing in front of a gaping dark pit. Behind her shone bright light but she was too sacred to turn and see if it was real or false hope. Where had she heard those words before? She didn't remember but there where no truer words for how she felt.
"Name it!", Jaqen repeated.
"A new life.", Arya answered, that's was what she and her son needed. A clean slight, a new life.
"Done."
Not even twenty-four hours later Arya held her and her sons new documents in hand.
She was "Mrs. Arry Waters" from now for the rest of her life.
"I still don't get it. Ok I was a rock star, still am, and the new son of a powerful man. My status finally matched yours, so why oh so suddenly couldn't you be with me?"
"You really don't understand it?"
"Didn't we just went through that?"
"Ok then lets play this out. How would you have reacted when I showed up out of the blue with our son?"
"I would have been happy, no delighted. Sure I would have been surprised, but I loved you and wanted nothing more than to be with you. Wait... did you thought I wouldn't have felt this way? Arya! How could you even think such a thing?
"No of course I didn't thought that, it didn't even crossed my mind. But tell me what would your father, manager, and all the other's have said in that scenario?"
"The would have been happy for me."
"Really? Wouldn't they have asked why I showed up at that time of times? Isn't it more likely they would have thought me a self-obsessed, arrogant, gold digger, who is only after your money, especially after my brother showed up not even a month before that and told you, you where not good enough for me?"
Gendry shrugged: "Maybe, either way it wouldn't have mattered. I knew you weren't like that I loved you."
"I know, but they would have planted a seed of doubt in you."
"That's why you left? A seed?"
"No but what that seed would have grown into. Don't you get it? You where a rock star, you had the world at your feet and had chances and opportunities even I with my privileged background couldn't dream of. But with Jay and me in the picture there would have been a lot of things someone in your position would miss out."
"So? I wouldn't have minded."
"At first sure."
"At first? What do you mean?"
"I mean at first it wouldn't be a problem, missing out on things because you suddenly had a wife and a child to take care of. But every time we had fought or had an desagreement you would start to question my intentions and ask yourself if the others where right about me. Maybe you want to argue that we wouldn't have fought, but don't kid yourself of course we would have our relationship wasn't perfect, . So you would have started to resent me for it, and I couldn't bear to lose your love like that. And I couldn't force you chose either, so I left for your sake."
"So instead of trusting me, having faith in my love for you and talk things through with me you made a decision not just for yourself but for me as well as our son and robbed me of the chance to be a father for him, in return you let him grow up fatherless. I won't even mention that you broke my heart in the process."
Arya flinched hearing him saying it like that made her selfless decision sounding a lot more selfish. She looked at him, he had an icy expression on, that betrayed nothing and looked away.
"And why didn't you come to me when I had been a rock star for few years, and had the chance to take on all the opportunities you spoke of? Let me tell you between us I had it all by now, and I would traded them for you and Jay any day."
"The same reason why I couldn't come when Jay was born. The timing. The question would still have stood: "Why didn't I came early, like when he was born, or when I found out, or before you became famous.
"So what now?"
She looked at him again, quizzically this time.
"I still love you, even after you left me, and after all this years. Heck I will love you till I die. And you love me back. That much is obvious. And now that we have a son together I know about. There is no way in hell I'm letting go of him, so we are again connected through him as well, but that has nothing to do with our relationship. If we continue or not. I made the mistake once and force marriage on you. You weren't ready back then, that's why you left. I see that now. But what are we going to do about us, it's your call now."
Through his little speech Arya had wanted to protest several times especially when he said she hadn't been ready back then. But she knew he was right. She had been so afraid of rejection, that she had winded up the easy way out, not trying. She could also see why he wanted her to make the decision. It had been always him who took a leap of faith. He had been the one to ask her out, turning their friendship into a relationship. He had been the one to sought her out as soon as he had a lead after she had run and even through their separation always believed in them as couple. Sure she had asked him to run away with her, but again he had asked her to marry him, wich made things seriously official. The only time SHE had been tested, she chosed to run. Now it was her turn to take a leap of faith and after eight years, almost nine she sure as hell was ready for it.
Arya slid down the bench, turned and kneeled in front of him. He was so tall, she had to title her head back while she took his hands in her's, as she looked in his unreadable ocean-blue eyes.
"If this years apart from you have teached me anything, then that I can't live without you."
She said simply. "Now that you found me again I can never let go of you again, I don't have the strength for it."
Arya slipped the ring he had given her from her left hand.
"With this ring you have asked me if I wanted to be yours. I have sworn by it that I would be. Let me tell you that I have honour my vow. I was yours all this time, even before you gave me the ring. Now I ask you by this ring, will you be mine in return? Will you marry me?"
Arya looked at him with hope that everything would be righted now. Gendry's face betrayed nothing when he gave her the answerer.
Ned Stark wasn't used to be let wait. Especially not by the man he vowed to never see, much less talk, in his live again. Gendry Baratheon, the man who had coursed the ultimate downfall of his favorite child. God how he despised him. But here he was in one of the conference rooms in the "Red Keep"-hotel summond like a lowly servant and left waiting like a unwanted pet. If the Baratheon boy hadn't donated a huge sum to his partie, just to meet him he would have been here in the first place. But this was getting ridicules now.
Finally the door opened and the young man entered. Clad in a designer suit, a expensive but decent Rolex on the wrist, expensive looking italian shoes on his feet, Gendry looked very much the like the rich heir to a multimillion dollar companie he was now and not at all like the last time Ned had seen him. The boy walked to the seat across from him and sat down, without much fuss. Like him he didn't stop far false pleasantries, like hello or how are you.
"Ned so nice of you to find the time come here."
"Cut the garbage boy, what do you want?"
Gendry raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on the rudeness of the senator.
"I'm here to deliver a message from my fiancé Arya to you and your family. Yes she is alive and yes even through all your meddling we are still going to marry. If you don't belive me ask Sansa. They have been in contact for a while now. She will confirm that it is truly Arya."
Relive surged through Ned, after all those years in suspense they finally got a live sign from her. Then the cold anger he had felt ever since he had learned of his beloved daughter relationship with this scum.
"What does she want?"
"The day after tomorrow we are going to get weed and spent our honeymoon in Winterfell. But before we take this step Arya want's to talk things out with you and the other members of your family, set things right. She also wants our son to meet her family and want to rid him of the impression he got of you people when he meet your brute children the first time. If it where up to only me I would make sure as hell he stays away from you. But Arya wishes it, so..."
"So you indulge her. Careful with that, I did it all her childhood and look how she turned at me."
Gendry sneered at that.
"Tomorrow at ten back here. Be in time and bring the rest of your family."
"What makes you think I would come? I disowned Arya the moment she left, I don't want to see her."
"You know my father tought me it is always helpful to have intel on people if you want things done. I'm sure you don't want the press to know about Jon and Sansa's true parentage."
"What are you talking about?", willing himself not to bleach. "I'm there father, and my wife is their mother."
"That is true for Jon but not so much for Sansa. On the other hand Catleyn is unmistakably Sansa's mother but Jon's...", he trailed of, not finishing the sentence. Then he stood up.
"Teen o'clock don't forget, and be in time we have a tight schedule.", with that Gendry left.
Ned slumped into his chair. How the hell did the boy found that out? A moment later a side-door opened and his son and security guard Jon entered. He had been in the neighbouring room vigilantly monitoring the whole meeting.
"What the hell did he ment father?", Jon looked shocked and angry and had all right to be. Ned knew he had a lot of explaining to do.
Each and every moment we shared was filled with joy. You are in my every feeling, each memory is filled with our story
Those are my favortie lines out of the song. And hello again. This is the finall chapter and I hope you liked it, corse I have been waiting to write this^^.
I hope it wasn't to predictable and you where surprised a few times.
I smuggled a few quotations into the dialoges. Tell me if you reconised any. So now it's just the epiloge left that will hopefully wrap up everything to everbodys satisfaction. I also will reaveal where I got all the quotes from I smuggled into all the chapter's.
As allways I liked to thank everybody who had reviewed, liked and favorite the story it means a lot to me. So please don't hesitate to review this chapter as well^^
I don't own a thing, just Jay
And as allways I appologise for any spelling and grammar mistakes