Hello, everyone! Sorry to not update for a few weeks. It's summer now in the Midwest and my physical therapist has cleared me for running AND on top of that my job has been super busy, so writing gets pushed aside a bit. Sorry to make you wait :(

CHAPTER TEN

GENDRY WATERS

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20

It was a slow morning at the rentals office that Sunday with Meera. He was starting to get the hang of things and even had a couple of the other coworkers come to him for help calming down a few of the more wild or upset children. Most of the group homes he had been in growing up were filled with young, not-so-well-adjusted kids and so he had eventually learned the best ways to get their minds off whatever was bothering them and calm them down.

Around eleven-thirty, Meera motioned for Gendry to join her and help clean up the tuning shop and asked the rest of the workers to start on cleaning up the front of the rentals area. Most of the people that stayed at the resort were usually either arriving or leaving on Sundays, so the majority of the work that they would get would be rental returns in the morning or groups dropping off their equipment for tuning or sharpening in the evening at the last minute before they closed.

It had been nothing at all like the morning before. Thankfully after Arya's outburst he didn't end up staying at the party much longer, just another drink or two talking to people, trying to take his mind off of how something he thought would go so well could end up going so horribly wrong. No one else really had too much of an idea either, he remembered. Most just chalked it up to Arya being Arya, stubborn, not much unlike himself, he thought, with a wild streak and a temper that breaks easily. Didn't have to tell me that part twice, he laughed to himself. Least of all, he'd never expected to see her less than twelve hours after the party walking into the rental office, but now he wasn't sure why he was so surprised. She gave multiple lessons almost every day by the sound of it, and it wasn't too far of an impossibility that every once in a while someone would have equipment problems. The resort was big, but not so big as to make running into her impossible. Why did it have to be her, though? And gods, that kid she was teaching was awesome until that question about us. Although, the idea that she lets her students call her Miss Arya only makes me want a lesson more… though I'm pretty sure I couldn't say that with a straight face… or without her attempting to murder me.

Gendry had thought about that chance meeting with Arya yesterday for a while later on Saturday night once he was off work and had resigned himself to spending his first Saturday night in town not out with his new friends, but in front of his computer working on his latest assignment from Jaqen instead. Jeyne was a little disappointed sounding when he declined her invite to come out to Wintertown Brewery for dinner and a couple rounds of drinks with her, Hot Pie, and Theon, but after meeting with Jaqen on Friday and receiving his next assignment he knew he'd need some more time.

He was absolutely beside himself on Friday when he had met with Jaqen and explained to him his goal that he'd only thought up minutes earlier in the front entryway. He followed a few paces behind Jaqen to one of the small group meeting rooms, catching the eyes of Missandei and Pod as he passed by their workstations and got approving smiles from each of them.

He took his time, explained to Jaqen a bit more about himself, how he was raised and better yet, how he wasn't raised, all leading up to his explanation. Jaqen seemed to be a man of few words, but surely he could appreciate good reasoning.

"That's why I decided," he explained, coming to the end of what he had planned in the last few minutes, "that the best purpose and target to have for this whole experience is to prove to myself that I can do this. I'm not here to impress my parents, haven't got any anymore, and I'm certainly not here to impress the other interns. I want to impress myself, prove to myself that whatever happened in the past is past and won't affect the way my future turns out as long as I don't let it."

"Has a man explained himself thoroughly?" Jaqen asked, not showing any hints of accepting or hating the reason.

"Almost. I've got one last goal that I'm shooting for, sir, and that is the fact that in four months time, one of the Baratheon CEOs will be announcing my name at the awards ceremony and there'll soon be a picture of me hanging up in the lobby for future interns to look at, just as I did today." Half satisfied with himself, half trying desperately to not show any amount of weakness or self-doubt in from of his mentor, Gendry folded his hands in his lap and waited patiently for Jaqen to say something, anything really.

A few awkwardly long seconds passed before Jaqen started to speak.

"A man sees great potential in you, Gendry Waters. It is not a small thing to come from nothing, a man knows much of this himself. You have made much of very little so far, it is no wonder you are here. The goal is admirable, not only that, it is achievable, if the work in your portfolio is any indication. Now, for a new test…"

He had stuck around the Baratheon office for most of the afternoon on Friday, taking advantage of a quiet work spot, huge monitors, fast computers, and binders upon binders of ski and snowboard designs from when the company started thirty years ago up to last year's designs. The assignment Jaqen gave him was to find five previous Baratheon ski design, each having been from the first fifteen years of operation, and update the designs based on the recent popular style trends. Not exactly the type of assignment that he had thought Jaqen would give, but he was very happy for it. It allowed him some actual creative outlet and the ability to do what he liked best, actually design new and show what he had in him.

He had until Tuesday at noon to turn in his five designs and he found himself eagerly eying all of the equipment that guests were bringing in for service. All of the rental skis were Baratheon designs but they were all plain grey or black skis with red tips. He was happy to help work on the in-take for the tuning shop since it gave him time to study lots of different skis and see what designs were actually popular, not just what was presented in the Baratheon product guides, which of course didn't include any of the competitor equipment.

Meera got to work on checking that all the skis and snowboards to be picked up that afternoon were finished and accounted for while Gendry busied himself reorganizing everything they'd used that morning. A few minutes later, he heard something buzz followed by a loud ringtone and saw Meera immediately pull out her phone, grin, and start frantically texting whoever it was. He watched for a second and then got back to working on cleaning up the tuning shop, knowing it was none of his business who she was talking to. It was one of the cardinal rules that Meera had instilled upon him, always leave the shop looking as clean as it was when you got there. Just like hiking or camping, she'd said, Or do you Southerners not do that either? There was a lot of specialized equipment and tools and not being able to find what you needed could have someone spending the majority of their shift searching instead of working.

"That was Bran," Meera mentioned out of nowhere, tossing her phone over onto the counter. "He's going to come here and hang out for a while until my shift is done and then we're gonna go grab some lunch after. You're welcome to come with if you don't have any other plans."

"Are you sure? I really don't want to end up being third wheel on your lunch date."

She looked over at Gendry and smiled widely. "It's not really like that."

"Hah, are you certain about that?" Gendry asked. "It seemed pretty 'like that' the other night."

"It's… complicated," Meera said, sliding her stack of paperwork over to where her phone had landed, then walking over and plopping down on the old couch. "We've known each other practically forever. This is my first full season here, but I worked part-time during the past two winters and the summers as well, and my father and Ned Stark have been friends for a long time, since they were younger than us. When we were little and still lived down in Greywater, my younger brother Jojen - he's Bran's age - and I would come up every winter vacation to ski and stay in the old Stark house. At first I just thought it was cute, ya know? A harmless little crush that Bran had on his friend's older sister, nothing out of the ordinary. But last winter, Jojen got sick and couldn't come up to Winterfell for vacation. Arya and I get along well enough but she was busy teaching lessons most days so it was just Bran and I a lot of the time and…well I think I realized then that I'd started to feel the same way. It just happened. I'm not really sure what our "title" is," she explained, pausing to make air quotes with her hands, "but it doesn't matter to either of us."

"Aww, Meera, you're blushing," Gendry teased, not really sure if he had intended on getting himself into this sort of conversation with Meera. "Really though, I'm not judging, I was just a little curious. I think it's awesome you've got someone that you connect with like that. I wish I could find that…" he said, partially under his breath but apparently not softly enough.

"Oh, gosh, Gendry, whoever could you be referring to?" Meera said, pulling herself up and out of the old couch and walking back over to where she had dropped her paperwork a few minutes earlier. "We all saw you and Arya on Friday night. You were getting along so well before she exploded at you. Maybe Bran'll have some advice for you when he gets here, but first we've gotta keep on getting this place cleaned up. I'm surprised at how it got so out of hand this morning."

It was around noon when Bran made his way to the shop and the conversation quickly turned to Arya again.

"I don't think it's about impressing Arya, She's not going to be impressed if you just try and woo her…" Meera said as she flipped through a large stack of work order request forms that the next shift had to work on, organizing them based on the day of the week that people needed their equipment returned to them. She looked bored out of her mind now that the room was in order. "But maybe just putting yourself out there would work. Give yourself a bit of a taste of the embarrassment she felt."

"It was really that bad?" he asked, leaning against the workbench and slowly re-organizing all the different kinds of wax that the late night crew had used for their jobs.

He saw Bran catch Meera's attention and give her a look and a smile that told him that yes, yes it was as bad as that.

"Listen, Gendry," Bran started. "I know you don't know her very well yet. Arya's always had to be the tough one. It doesn't matter if she was already running late to the greeting, that little collision you two had was what made her late in her mind and like it or not, she blames you for embarrassing her and getting her in trouble with our mom. I agree with Meera," he said, trying not to blush as she smiled back down at him. "Maybe you just need to put yourself out there, embarrass yourself in public a bit to make it up to her. From what I saw, you two were getting along great until you went and asked her for a favor not a second after your apology. I bet she thinks you owe her, not the other way around."

Meera put down the papers she was going through and walked around the island counter to where Gendry was standing, then pushed herself up to sit down on the counter, making her close to eye level with Gendry. "This might sound weird, but trust me here. Have you ever seen Ten Things I Hate About You?"

"You mean that old movie with Heath Ledger and that guy who was in Inception? Yea, of course I have, years ago, but what does that have to do with this?"

"Well, for starters, when the bristly Julia Stiles, aka our dear Arry, wants nothing to do with Heath Ledger, the handsome stranger from out of town, after a party," Meera said with a big grin, pointing to Gendry. "He puts himself out there in front of a bunch of people by singing to her and she finally gives him a chance." She folded her arms across her chest, looking very satisfied with her teen movie comparison.

"That might have worked for him, but what am I supposed to do? Serenading Arya while she's teaching five year olds how to ski doesn't seem like a great idea. Plus, I'm not even a great singer."

"That's the point, you're not supposed to be great at it. Look, you're not trying to ask her to wear your cloak and marry you in the Wintertown sept, right?" Bran asked, and Gendry shook his head no. "Right. I've never seen her let a guy cozy up to her like she let you on Friday, at least not since she was dating Ned, even if it was just sitting and talking, the body language was there. Now we just need her to forgive you and give you a ski lesson, that's all. She's stubborn, that's for sure, but I think she'll come around if we put a little effort in."

"It'll definitely work, Gendry. Not just in that movie either," Meera continued, trying to drive her point home. "It worked in Say Anything and in Top Gun too."

"Alright, I'm in." What the hell, Gendry thought. It can't be that bad and it might even be a bit of fun. But when? I don't want to wait forever… but then, as soon as he thought that, he had it. "Did I hear Arya tell Hot Pie that there's an open mic night on Mondays? Do you think she'll be there tomorrow?"

"She wouldn't miss it," Meera replied. "She's there every Monday at seven-thirty, sometimes by herself, sometimes with one of her friends, but she'll for sure be there… right, Bran?"

"She will, she hardly ever misses it. Some of our friends come almost each week and our brother Jon will be there, he's there every week too, like clockwork. Ever since he moved out Arya has taken every chance she gets to see him. She'll be there - and so will you."

"Perfect. It's settled. Monday night," Gendry confirmed.

With a little less than a half hour until the next shift started, the passed their time with Gendry finishing up the tasks for the end of the shift and Meera writing up her daily report to her boss and the next supervisor about how the morning went, but mostly the three of them were talking more about how they were going to pull off his plan.

"You don't have to go in to Baratheon today, do you Gendry?" Meera asked once their shift was over.

"Nope, not on Sundays, which is good since I haven't got a long time to figure out what I'll do about tomorrow's performance and I have no clue where to begin. With my luck I'll sing some song that brings back awful memories or some stupid radio hit that she can't stand."

"Well," she started, "Bran and I were just going to get lunch, hang out at my apartment, and catch up on some TV shows that I tape for the both of us, but I was thinking that you should come with us and we can spend the rest of the day practicing. I can't play guitar like Arya can, but I took piano for years and I've got my keyboard at home. It's got one of those portable stands so I can even bring it in to the coffee shop and play along with you tomorrow, that is, if that's cool with you."

"Really?" Gendry asked, looking at both Bran and Meera as they nodded in affirmation. "That's really cool of you. I'd probably be sitting at home all day getting suggestions from Hot Pie if it weren't for you."

The workers for the next shift came in and Meera, Bran, Gendry, and the four or so other workers all made their way out of the building to head their separate ways. On their way to Meera's apartment they stopped once again at Crown Deli to pick up the order of sandwiches that Bran had called in a half hour or so ago, and then headed back to Meera's apartment. It was a short walk to her place, which turned out to be a good-sized complex that was about fifty-percent condos or timeshares and fifty-percent apartments. There was a circular driveway in the front with a large overhang for dropping people off, much like you'd see at a hotel, and staying in line with almost all of the buildings in the village the was an underground parking entrance as well. Space was limited in the small valley between the three peaks of Winterfell and the other rockier, more craggy looking mountains that weren't so suited to skiing on the other side, so the only areas that actually had regular parking were some of the day-by-day guest parking lots and the single-family houses that dotted the lower half of the mountains.

They walked up to the new-looking building, a clean and white six-story mid-rise, each story getting slightly smaller and using part of the roof of the one below it as a patio or shared open space, and were greeted by an amazingly lavish lobby area and a young man in a suit very similar to the type that Gendry noted was very similar to the style he wore when he worked valet in downtown Kings Landing. The man nodded at Meera in greeting and smiled as he handed her a bundle of mail from behind the counter.

"Thank you, Kevin," she said, returning the smile at the man she was obviously familiar with as she tucked her mail under her arm. "I know what you're thinking, Gendry. Probably that the Starks need to up your pay if I'm able to afford to live in an apartment like this, right?" Meera asked when she saw the astonished look on Gendry's face that he was trying to hide. She swiped her key card in front of the glass door to the left of the front desk and held it open for Bran and Gendry.

"You've got that right. Meera, this place has a front desk with a reception counter for gods' sake! Now that you mention it, maybe tomorrow would be a good time to walk to Mr. Marsh about an advanced pay raise…" he replied jokingly, though there was a part in his mind that was definitely serious.

"Don't worry, Gendry. I'm pretty sure you're not getting shafted on your pay, right Meera?" Bran added, reaching out to press the up button for the elevators.

"You're not. The Stark's are really good about paying everyone a wage they can actually live off of, and besides," she said, pausing a second as the elevator doors opened, "whether I want them to or not, my parents are paying for the majority of my apartment. Believe me, it certainly doesn't suck to live in a place like this, but if I had to pay for it myself, I'd be over in a shitty little hole-in-the-wall in Wintertown with Jon and Gritte. But, mom and dad wanted a nice place for Jojen and them to stay when they come to visit, so this is what I've got now."

The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and he followed Meera and Bran to the right and down to the end of the hallway. The apartment was about the size he'd expected after Meera had said her parents picked it out so they could stay there as well. There were two bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, a bright and airy open kitchen, and a living and dining room that were separate from each other. Aside from the size and the brand new appliances in the kitchen, the rest of what he saw of the apartment was decorated, well, pretty much like you would expect for an eighteen year old college freshman. It wasn't messy, but it was definitely lived in and Gendry could tell where the study spots were by the groupings of empty coffee mugs on the kitchen table and living room coffee table, as well as the spread out environmental science and conservation textbooks, notebooks, and binders. Her walls were covered in mostly old movie posters or band posters, the majority of them the girl plus guitar variety, which he thought suited her personality and there was a large Direwolves Football Club flag on the wall behind the couch.

"It's big, I'll give ya that," Gendry said, helping her dole out the sandwiches and sides they'd bought, "I don't think I want an apartment this size, but it still feels cozy. I like it."

"Thanks, Gen. I actually told my mom that I couldn't take any more of their money to furnish this place. We don't have the money like a lot of families have that stay up here all the time, so I worked practically day in and day out all last summer when I was up here, trying to save up money to even just buy all this IKEA stuff from White Harbor."

"She really did," Bran chimed in. "I've never seen anybody give more hiking tours or nature lessons than Meera did last summer. It was worth it though, this place is awesome."

"Alright, enough about the apartment… do we have any idea of what sort of song to pick for Arya? Bran, you're probably the best authority on that," Meera said, grabbing her plate and joining the rest of them around the table in the living room. She set her plate down then grabbed the four or five empty coffee mugs from the table and hurried back to the kitchen with them.

"Not sure off the top of my head, but I've got a good idea of how to figure this out," he started. "Can you grab my backpack, Meera? I think I dropped it by the front door when we came in."

She picked up his backpack on her way back from the kitchen and passed it over to Bran before taking her spot on the couch with Gendry. They both watched him rummage through his backpack intently and finally pull out a pad of paper, mechanical pencil, and what looked like a brand new MacBook covered in stickers.

"Just gonna open up your iTunes account and press random then?" Gendry asked. "It's a bit ballsy and might not work out the best in the end, but I could get behind it."

"Always an option, but with your luck you'd end up on a dubstep track with no lyrics. We can do better than that," he said and turned the laptop around and passed it over to Gendry. "We share an iTunes account, or at least we used to until a couple months ago when mom got Arya a new laptop for graduation. I sorted by most played tracks so we can see what she listens to the most and pick from there. I figure all we have to do is filter out what songs you clearly shouldn't sing to her and we'll be good to go."

They quickly finished eating their sandwiches and got to work on going through Arya's most played songs and creating a list, narrowing it down, listening to songs, and then narrowing it down some more. Meera grabbed her laptop from her room and busied herself with checking online for the sheet music that went along with each song and helping decide which would work out well for the keyboard.

For the most part, Gendry didn't mind one bit getting to browse through Arya's music collection. It started to give him a good idea of the type of personality she had, even just based on the albums she had and different singers and bands she'd listened to on repeat. The majority were all bands he had heard of and liked, with only a few he had no clue about, a few he absolutely hated, but there was a good amount of what he recognized that he knew he had the same albums already downloaded and ready to go on the phone in his pocket. There was a good amount of classic rock, Led Zeppelin, of course, not surprising him at all, some David Bowie, and a lot of Fleetwood Mac, which was also no surprise after watching her play on Friday night. The majority was twenty or thirty year old rock or punk rock, The Smiths, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, and Social Distortion, and Gendry found himself quickly transported back to one of his group homes from junior high and memories of sitting in the garage listening to Sonic Youth while one of the older boys tried his hardest to fix up their beater car.

After about an hour they had finally settled on a song that Gendry believed he already knew well enough to sing and was also not too difficult for Meera to learn to play in the next twenty-four hours.

It was around nine pm, after hours of practicing and a large order of Volantene takeout from Triarchs later when they finally decided that Meera and Gendry sounded as good as they'd get by tomorrow evening and declared the practice a success.

"Alright, guys, I think we're about good for the night," Bran announced, packing up his laptop into is backpack and putting it around the back of his wheelchair. "Gendry, Meera's gonna drop me back off at home, but it'd be a good idea if you stopped by Indigo tonight before it closes and get yourself signed up."

"He's right," Meera said, smiling at Bran, grabbing her coat along with both of theirs. "There usually aren't other people signed up for open mic night unless they're Arya's friends, especially this early in the season, but you don't want to take any chances on your big day. I'll pass by the main village on the way to the Stark's condo, I'll drop you off."

She handed Bran and Meera their coats and they made their way to the elevator down the hall to find Meera's car in the underground garage. It only took a few minutes for Meera to drive Gendry to the entrance of the main village, which Gendry quickly realized was dead empty. The only shops left open were some restaurants, a few bars, and Indigo. The coffee shop still had a good number of people inside and a few sitting in the outside seating around by a small fire pit, most hunched over laptops or stacks of books. Finals coming soon, he thought to himself, not jealous in the least bit. He made his way inside, not completely sure of how sign up, but decided that waiting in line at the counter was as good of an idea as anything else.

A few moments later, a young girl with very short, very light blonde hair came back to the counter from behind the Employees Only door, arms full of new syrup containers and full cartons of milk. Her bangs were pulled back by a headband with a large red flower and she wore a black t-shirt with the Indigo name and large sailboat logo on it.

"Hey there, what can I get for ya?" she asked cheerfully, as she started to put things away.

"Well, I know I'm gonna get a drink," he started, "But first I wanted to know how I sign up for a spot at the open mic night tomorrow. I'm new here so I guess I'm not sure where the sign-up sheet is... or if it's actually that organized in the first place."

She turned around and grabbed a clipboard that was hanging on a small brass hook on the wall behind the cash register. "Here ya go," she said, handing the clipboard over to him across the counter. He was surprised when he looked down and noticed that the sign-up sheet was just a couple pages of computer paper full of blank lines, with Arya Stark typed in permanently in the top spot. "So, what kinda drink can I get for the new guy in town?"

"Largest mocha you've got," he said, not even stopping to think. "So, is she really the only person signed up so far?"

"Yea, just Arya. She's sort of our regular. Even got some townies that come to see her each Monday. She loves the attention," the barista said, and saw Gendry raise his eyebrows in disbelief. "Oh, she'll tell ya she don't play for the recognition, but don't you believe her for one second. Not to worry though, she's real good 'bout other people signing up. She'll give you as much time as ya like," she assured him as she worked on his drink, speaking a little bit louder so he could hear her over the noise of the milk steamer.

"Well, she can play as much as she wants," he replied as she set his drink down on the counter in front of him. "All I need is one song."

He quickly signed his name on the line below hers, paid for his mocha, and started on the walk back home.

Note: I've got the next chapter already in progress so hopefully I can have it by Wednesday. My in-laws will be over all weekend so we'll see. The next chapter will be split between a Bran POV and Arya POV, most likely heavier on the Arya side but I do like putting other viewpoints in there too.