The next day, Arya found herself on a ship taking her towards Eastwatch. Jon had barely looked at her the whole time, and Gendry was nowhere to be found for hours. She was alone with her thoughts, watching as the seas drifted them further from Dragonstone. She felt someone come to stand beside her. Arya looked over thinking it would be Jon or Gendry, but she was surprised to see Jorah Mormont.
He stared out over the vast ocean, the wind whipping his hair around in all directions. She waited for him to speak, but the minutes rolled by in silence. She decided he just needed some air, not conversation, when he spoke.
"I am impressed with what little fear you carry, M'lady. There are grown men who would never agree to go out beyond the Wall. It will be a honor to fight beside you."
Arya was taken by surprise at his words. Emotions sprang up, making it hard to speak. Jorah understood her, understood she needed to do this, and he looked past her gender to see her as an equal.
"The honor will be mine, Ser Jorah," Arya said, finally.
With a bow of his head he walked away, leaving her to watch his retreating back. He moved out of the way as someone walked past him. Gendry. Arya watched him approach, wondering what had caused him to stay to himself for so long. Even now, as she watched him walk towards her, she could tell there was something on his mind. His forehead wrinkled, as if worried. His eyes were dark and brooding. Arya turned fully towards him as he came to a stop a few feet away.
"Hi," he said, not meeting her eyes.
"Hi," she replied back.
They stood in silence for a moment. The wind, the only sound around them. Gendry was troubled by something, that was for certain. Arya thought she had settled his nerves about her going beyond the Wall the night before, but he looked uneasy.
"I—I have thought about how to approach this subject with you, but I have come up with nothing."
Arya sighed, she thought this topic was done. "Gendry, I am going with you all and…"
"You love someone else…"
She choked on the words she was about to say. Her eyes grew wide, but she forced herself to recover and clamp down on her emotions. Her heart beat against her chest as the words he said echoed in her mind over and over. He knew. Somehow he knew.
"Gendry…" she whispered, but he raised his hand to stop her.
"Let me get this out…please," he begged. "I have been angry and gutted since you said those words to me last night when you thought I was sleeping." Arya felt the blood drain from her face. He had not been asleep. She felt horribly stupid. "I have wanted to stay angry with you, but I realize that I cannot. We were separated, and even if we had not been separated I would have let you leave me. I allowed you the chance to love another, because I was not willing to allow you to love the man I was. When I realized this my anger melted away, and now I just feel a sadness."
Arya cut the distance and touched his arm, wanting to take his pain away, a pain she was causing. "I love you as well. I do, Gendry," she whispered, putting every once of emotion she had behind her words. Gendry gave her a small smile.
"I know. Which is why I am willing to fight for you. I am willing to fight to be with you, whatever it takes. I know, without even knowing who the other man is, that I can give you what you need, Arya. No matter how long it takes to prove that to you I am willing to do just that." He took her hand and placed it upon his chest, over his heart. "This beats for you and only you."
She wrapped her arms around him, closing her eyes and breathing him in. She knew she deserved for him to hate her. She deserved for him to walk away and never look back, yet he remained. He loved her still.
"Now you know why I hesitated. I want to give you everything, every part of me, and until I can I am trapped in this limbo," she said.
"I will just have to prove to you I am the better choice," he said, kissing the top of her head.
Arya closed her eyes. How she wished she could just forget Jon and be with Gendry. This man had put aside his anger and pain for her, to have her, and she knew she did not deserve it. She needed to decide one way or another and soon. There was a choice to be made, and that choice could not wait. They spent a while on the bow of the ship feeling the wind whip around them. Arya clung to Gendry, begging her heart to choose him completely, but her heart would not listen.
Later that day, Arya lay on her small bed in her cabin. She stared up at the ceiling, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts. Gendry had not asked who it was she had fallen in love with, which she was thankful for. Would it be worse for him if he knew it was Jon? Arya sighed, it did not really matter at this point. Gendry would fight for her no matter who it was. He had made that perfectly clear.
She turned on her side, staring at the bare walls of the ship. She could feel the ship lull her back and forth in a gentle embrace, and soon she felt her eyes grow heavy. With a yawn, Arya fell right to sleep.
Some time later Arya was awaken by someone sitting on the side of her bed. The slight dip in the bed the visitor made aroused her enough that she came awake with a start. When her eyes adjusted to the dark room she saw it was Jon.
"Please, do not put yourself in danger, Arya," he whispered. The utter defeat in his voice slapped her in the face.
She reached for him in the darkness, and found his arm. She pulled him towards her as gently as she could. Like a child, Jon came easily, sliding in beside her. Their faces lay inches from one another as she tried to smile, but it never came. Jon gently smoothed her hair from her face.
"What would you do if the situations were reversed? I swore to protect you, and that is exactly what I will do," he said.
"And what if I do not need your protection anymore? Jon, I can do this, I swear to you I can. You know I am one of the best fighters you have. Whether you admit it or not you know that you need me."
"I do need you," he said, miserably. "That is why I beg you not to go."
Arya leaned in, kissing him softly. It surprised her how easily it was becoming for her to kiss him. Jon responded just as gently, holding her face to his.
Arya was the first to pull away, yet Jon refused to let her move very far. She met his dark eyes. "Tell me I am not the only one that feels how right this is," he said, softly.
"I wish it were that simple, Jon."
He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back turned to her. "I saw you with him today. I have to admit it took everything I had not to tear you out of his arms, but I know that would only push you away."
"He knows there is someone else…not you, just someone else," Arya said.
"Good. I do not have to be the only one suffering," Jon said, bitterly.
His words made her wince, a reminder of the consequences of her actions against both Jon and Gendry. "I would even be willing to let him win, to let you choose him without a fight from me, if you choose not to go with us beyond the Wall."
"And this would last forever? You would just let me walk away?"
Jon turned to the side, cutting his eyes towards her. "No, it would not last."
Arya sat on the opposite end of the bed, their backs to each other. The gap reappeared between them, the heaviness evident. No amount of kisses could make this work between them. Both of them knew.
"Will it always be like this between us? Always pulled together…always separated," Jon asked.
"Yes," she answered, quietly. "Unless we end this tonight, for good."
"You would have to choose, Arya…" he started, but she spoke up, interrupting him.
"I am going to choose Gendry. I am letting you go, Jon. I have to let you go. One of us has to do it if we are going to survive this." The words were like hot lava flowing from her mouth. She knew he would argue, yet she was so tired of arguing with him.
"Is that truly what you want?" he said, his voice a soft echo.
Arya slammed her eyes shut against the voice screaming in her head. It spoke of lies and deceit, of blasphemous words.
"Yes," she whispered.
"And you think I am just going to accept it without a fight? You think I am going to let you go?"
"You do not have a choice anymore. It is done, Jon. My mind is made up and I choose Gendry."
"That kiss said otherwise."
He had her there, but she played it off so easily. "I never said it would be easy, but it is what I want. He will give me a good life, and he deserves all of me, just as Daenerys deserves all of you."
Jon stood to his feet and walked towards the door. Arya thought he had accepted her words as truth, but his next sentence proved otherwise.
"The moment you can look me in the eyes and say those words will be the moment I believe them. The moment you can let me go without every part of your being shaking I will believe them. Until that day you have me from now until always."
With that, he closed the door behind him and left Arya to think on his words hours into the night.
The days passed without another meeting between her and Jon. They passed one another, but only their eyes spoke of what their heart dared not say aloud. She spent most of her days and nights with Gendry getting to know him again. Arya had forgotten how at ease she felt in his presence, how he could make her foulest moods turn brighter. By day they walked the deck of the ship talking of their many adventures, while at night they lay in each other's arms. Arya would lay awake long after he slept, listening to the sound of the wind and waves, feeling the same storm raging within her. Even as she lay in Gendry's arms her mind lay with someone else.
Eastwatch by the Sea loomed before them tucked against the enormous Wall of ice. They were welcomed by Tormund and several Wildlings. There was steaming hot soup and mead to warm their bellies. Once that was taken care of, Jon went to work on filling his friend in on the plan to catch a Wight.
"And how many men did you bring?" Tormund asked.
Everyone looked around the table, unable to hide their embarrassment.
"We were hoping you and your wildling brothers would help us," Jorah said.
Tormund's eyes landed on Arya, a look of surprise shining through. "You brought a woman to join us?"
"She is here in the name of Daenerys Targaryen. I—I do not…approve," Jon said, cutting his eyes to Arya.
"Then, you are blinder than I thought! This one is wild, Jon. I see it in those eyes staring back at me. She will outlast us all! I like it!" Tormund said, with a hearty laugh. Arya smiled, liking him right away.
"Well, it just so happens that we are not the only ones that want to go beyond the Wall. Just days ago a group of men trespassed, trying to go out there, and I locked their sorry cocks up. Maybe they will be willing to join us."
"Who are they?" Jon asked, curious.
Tormund led them down a deep stairwell into a dark and damp place. The smell of mold and dirt assaulted Arya's nose making her cover her mouth. He brought them to a cell where she could see three figures laying about, yet she could not see their faces. She did not need to, for Jon saw for the both of them.
"You are the Hound. I saw you once in Winterfell," he said.
The sound of his name brought back a long forgotten memory of a broken man that she had left behind to die. Yet, there he lay before her, and when his eyes met her own wide ones she heard a voice she thought long dead.
"What in the fucking hell…"
Arya walked straight towards the bars of the cell to get a better look at this ghost. He was supposed to be dead. How had he survived? Questions zoomed around her mind as he took a step towards her, a step into the light. There was no mistaken the man in front of her. The Hound had survived that day.
"You look as though you have seen a fucking ghost, girl," he mumbled, but she saw a slight smile grace his heavily burnt features.
"I should be seeing a ghost," she said, giving him a smirk back.
"You two know each other?" Jon asked, looking confusingly between Arya and the Hound.
"We met…some time ago," she answered.
"She was a pain in my ass. Not to mention she left me to die!" He said, growling.
He and Arya stared at each other, so many unsaid words hanging in the air around them. She had almost forgotten his face, had almost forgotten that time on the road with him.
"He saved my life…when Robb was murdered."
Arya was not sure why she chose that memory to speak aloud. She wanted to rant and spit, yet all she felt was grateful that the Hound had survived.
"And in return she left me to die!"
"The Lord of Light had other plans for you, my friend." Another voice from the past. Thoros of Mry moved into the tiny light in the cell, his face smiling. Beside him Beric Dondarrion sat. Arya looked between the three men wondering how in the world they ended up together. Last they had all been in the same room the Hound had put a sword through Dondarrion's chest.
"Here we all are, at the end of the world, all of us having the same purpose," Thoros of Mry said.
"You are a liar. Whatever they say, do not listen to them," Gendry said, walking to the cell bars. He stared down the three men, his anger evident. "Remember me? You sold me to the Red Witch to be murdered."
"You were to serve a bigger purpose, the Lord of Light's bidding, if the Red Priestess wanted you," Dondarrion said, softly. Gendry grabbed the bars, as if he had the strength to break through and reach the men inside.
"Enough," Jon said, taking a hold of the escalating situation. "We can not fight amongst ourselves. You are going beyond the Wall, correct?" All three men nodded their heads. "Then, we are all on the same side."
"How?" Gendry spat.
"Cause we are breathing." Jon opened the cell releasing the three men. Their group of five just turned into a group of eight. Each one took the rest of the day to gather their nerves and prepare for the most dangerous mission any of them had been a part of.