Jon (Sunday)

He woke late in the morning, but the idea of moving from the mattress was too much effort. Out in the main warehouse, he could hear voices, activity, but none of it held much interest. Ghost was a warm, steady presence at his back, but he couldn't draw much comfort from him either. Right now it was just pain. He knew in some ways he was over reacting - he had know the man less than a week, yes they had fucked - made love, a voice whispered in his mind - but in a lot of ways they barely knew each other. So what if talking to him was easy. So what if they idea of riding down the road side by side gave him a thrill of exhilaration. So what if being with him just felt so damn right. Jon curled around himself and tried to push the thoughts away. Gendry was gone and he just needed to deal with that fact.

Behind him, he felt Ghost move as he looked up, and Jon looked back over his shoulder to see Robb approaching. He groaned but shifted until he was sitting on the mattress, leaning against the wall. Robb lowered himself to the mattress beside him, sitting close enough that their shoulders were touching.

For a few moments they didn't speak, and then Robb said softly, 'I miss Talisa all the time. Everything is easier when she's around me. I feel calmer, I can think better, she just grounds me. If little Eddard wasn't still so young, she'd be here.'

Jon looked over at him. He knew how hard it was for his brother to be without his wife. The two of them were inseparable.

'Things were rocky at first - you weren't around to see it, but we used to fight like cats and dogs. I'm sure she thought I was a pompous idiot.'

Jon smiled softly. His sister-in-law had often told him about her first impressions of the swaggering, leather-clad Direwolves leader.

'She didn't come from this lifestyle - you remember. She was a nurse originally. But eventually, she came to see what what we did was noble. It was for a reason. It led to less killing, not more.'

Robb sighed, 'I guess what I'm trying to say is that this person might come to see the same thing. All you can do is hope. This, now, what you're doing. It's not helping Jon. You know it's not.'

He looked over at Jon with a smile. 'Do me a favour, brother? Come out and keep an eye on Arya? That creeper Ramsay Snow has been sniffing after her all day. If someone doesn't punch him in the face soon she'll probably cut off his cock and feed it to him.'

Jon snorted softly despite himself.

'I'd lay him out with pleasure … but there is the alliance to think of, and I don't want that bloody Bolton to have any reason to start things up.'

Jon sighed and nodded, thinking over what his brother had said. He knew Robb was right. 'Sure,' he said. 'I'll be out soon … thanks Robb.'

Robb pushed himself to his feet, looking back down. 'Any time Jon. Don't wait too long, hey. I'm going to do my rousing speech to the troops.' He tipped Jon a wink and left the room.

Jon sat for a while longer, gathering himself, pushing away all thoughts of loneliness and pain and loss. His brother needed him. His sister needed him. Duty to his family came before everything. He squared his shoulders, raised his head and headed out. Most people were gathered around the corner of the room where the Dread Riders had set up their makeshift throne for Roose Bolton. Robb was standing on it, speaking to the assembled group.

'… and a shipment of two to three hundred young women. They call them the brides. They're kidnapped from their home and brought here for forced prostitution.'

'Well,' called out one voice from across the room, 'we'll just have to disrupt their wedding celebrations then, won't we.' There was a huge cheer across the room and Robb grinned savagely at them all.

'Now,' he said. 'This is how we're going to do it …'

.

.

Gendry (Friday)

He was useless at work that day. All day memories and fragments of conversations kept whirling around in his head.

Jon's words to him and the hopeful, needy look on his face, I haven't wanted anything as much as that in ... a long time

His offer to bring Gendry into his home, and his life. A completely different light on it now what he knew what he did, Maybe I could show you around

The joy of tearing down the road on a bike with him.

The shared understanding of growing up without a parent.

The comfortableness of working side by side.

The last words he'd said to him Get. The Fuck. Out of my house.

Gendry slept badly that night. The next afternoon he was waiting for Hot Pie when he came home from work.

'Can you look into something for me?' he asked his housemate.

'Sure. What?'

'Can you find out everything you can about biker gangs in the North, especially a gang that has a wolf or a wolf's head as their symbol?'

Hot Pie looked at him oddly, but shrugged. 'Sure. I haven't had a caffeine fuelled all-nighter in a while and I don't have to work tomorrow … could be fun.'

It was late Sunday before Hot Pie emerged from his room, looking like he'd been up all night and fallen asleep on his keyboard. He made himself a coffee and called Gendry in to his computer.

'Okay, I think I found what you're looking for. There's just some basic shit on the internet, what all the gang names are, articles about the latest shootout or whatever. Boring stuff. So I dived into the darknet to see what I could fine and damn, this thing is a treasure trove of gang activity. There are so many meet ups for weapons, drugs … people. Do you know there's a massive market for human trafficking? It's crazy. Anyway,' he paused for a breath. 'I found a heap of stuff. The Direwolves - the Starks - they're Jon and Arry's family, aren't they?'

Gendry looked at him in surprise, 'How did you figure that out.'

Hot Pie clicked for a few moment then a black screen of headshots came up with the words 'Kill Count' written across the top in thick red text. In the bottom corner of the screen was unmistakably Arya's face. Her hair braided up on one side, the undercut shaved away, piercings glinting in her ears and a look on her face that was … chilling. Gendry suddenly remembered her parting comment to him 'If you hurt my brother again, you won't make it back home'.

'What the hell is this?' he asked, looking at the faces spread across the screen. Each one had a name under it, a gang name and two counts: 'Bodies:' and 'Points:'

'I'm pretty sure it's a betting ring. All of these people belong to different gangs and the bodies score is how many people they've killed. The points score is like bonuses for difficulty I think.'

Gendry looked at Arya's profile. The name under her image read Nymeria: Direwolves and her body count was ten, which put her last on the screen of headshots, but her difficulty score was off the chart. She was beating the top name by fifty points.

'Is this for real?' Gendry asked, gesturing at the screen and trying to reconcile what he knew of the fun-loving friendly young woman who'd danced with him and eaten dinner at his table, with this person who had … killed people.

Hot Pie nodded. 'I think she's some sort of assassin for her family. If you click here,' he demonstrated, 'it comes up with the profiles of the people killed - every one has to be verified to be added to the list. Have a look at some of these guys, they're all really bad news. This guy was just called 'Biter' - he killed a bunch of women, raped them and then … ate them. It's really fucked up. And this guy … he was called the Tickler. He tortured and killed this huge number of people in the North apparently, before she killed him.'

Gendry looked at him, 'Are you approving of her killing people?'

Hot Pie shrugged, 'If what's written here is true … every single one of these people was beyond redemption. What they had done means they deserved to die. You know the law means shit around here. There's no one who has the power to keep these bastards in line. I was up all night reading about this stuff, and I think, in the North, they do it differently. This Direwolf gang - the are the law.'

Gendry shrugged, 'So they're the biggest thugs, so what?'

'No,' Hot Pie said, shaking his head, 'That's the point. They aren't thugs. The Stark family has been running that gang for the last sixty years or so. Over that time they've united a whole bunch of other gangs under their colours. They've made deals and alliances and set up a system of rules. People who break those rules get tried and executed. No exceptions. It's all here,' he said, clicking around to various window.

'They've cleaned the drug trade right out of the North. You can barely find Shade of the Evening up there. There's a few sites on here seeking sellers and offering massive prices. Even Sourleaf isn't that common.' He paused to take a deep drink from the large coffee mug beside him.

'And see here, even guns are tightly controlled. There's this guy in Winterfell - their base - called the WeaponsMaster, and he controls the entire ammunition supply throughout the North. That's how they keep things under control.'

Gendry looked at it, not understanding, 'So if they don't sell drugs and they don't sell weapons and they don't steal from people … how the hell do they get their money?

'That's the thing,' Hot Pie said. 'All the cities and towns across the North pay a tax basically, like a protection tax. But the tax isn't to protect them from the Direwolves and their people. It's for the Northern gangs to protect the people from the drug trade, from the weapons trade … and from the Southern gangs. It's ingenious really.'

Gendry looked at it, struggling to get his head around the concept. This gang, Arya's gang … Jon's gang, were basically the police, in a world that was unpoliced. If all this was true … they were the good guys, just like Arya had said. Jon's words came floating back through his mind, 'do you really think I'm that kind of guy?'

He started to feel sick, thinking about the way he'd reacted to both Arya … and Jon.

'Thanks, man,' he muttered, turning to leave the room.

'Tell Arry hi when you see her,' Hot Pie said to his back.

Gendry turned to look over his shoulder, 'I'm not going to see her.'

Hot Pie turned back to his computer with a snort, 'Just tell her hi, and tell her now I know she has super assassin killer skills, I'm upping her difficulty level next time we play Mortal Combat.'

Gendry stared at him, 'I can't believe you're so okay with all of this.'

'Dude,' Hot Pie said seriously, leaning back in his chair and looking him in the eye. 'I've seen bad guys. You've seen bad guys. Arry and Jon … they're not bad guys. What did your mum used to say to you, "Stop being bull-headed Gendry, and look at what's right in front of your face", he mimicked in a high pitched voice.

Gendry glared at him, but it didn't hold much heat.

'Whatever,' he muttered. 'I'm going for a ride. I need to think.'