Jaqen
He had felt a crushed and defeated when Arya had told him of her choice. Then she had sat there across from him and he saw that she was not convinced that she had made the right choice. He still had a chance; there was still a glimmer of hope for him. She was still attracted to him. That was all he needed, the in that he could use to drive a wedge between the two of the love birds.
"Varys I have a favor to ask you." Jaqen had called to asked after he had left the coffee shop.
"Anything for you Jaqen. I am here to serve." His voice had floated over the phone as smooth as oil.
"I need you to call the school and get in to be a guest lecturer in the advanced art class." He had told Varys.
"And why would I grace your pitiful sec pool of a high school with my magnificent presence?" Varys sounded both annoyed and intrigued.
"I have a little issue. Arya has made a decision on who she wants to be with. It seems that she has chosen the Bull. But I am not giving up yet. There is still hope." Jaqen sounded so sure that Arya still had feelings for him.
"Ah, Miss Stark, your muse. I see why you want her in your life. She is something special. What is it that you had in mind?" Varys' voice had a malicious lit to it that implied his eagerness and his willingness to be complicit to Jaqens schemes.
Jaqen had outlined his plan to Varys and they plotted the best way to get his plan into action and Arya Stark to Jaqens side.
Vacation ended and Jaqen and Varys stood in the art classroom talking to the teacher when the rest of the students slowly filtered into the room. Jaqen was watching the door waiting for Arya to arrive. In true Arya fashion she rocketed into the room right as the bell rang and had to double over to catch her breath. She rolled up from her crouching position vertebra by vertebra and her eyes alighted on Jaqen. He held her gaze for several moments until the teacher called the class to attention.
"Ladies and gentleman I would like to introduce you to Varys, the artist. He has agreed to teach the advanced classes some techniques for you all to learn. I will let you take the floor now Varys and explain your lesson for the next week." The teacher fell back to her desk and she sat down and pulled out some cheese smut novel and tuned out the rest of the class.
"Hello there students. As your teacher has said I am Varys, just Varys. No mister, no other name. I am here today to show you all how to draw still life and people. We will be starting on the human form and it will be in charcoal today. And we have the privilege to have with us an amazing model here to help us out today. Jaqen has volunteered to let you fellow students draw his exquisite likeness for free. Now we will be working on nude drawings so that you all can learn how to draw and show the human body." Varys' eyes twinkled and he was smiling and rocking on the balls of his feet. "Jaqen will not be completely naked, but he has agreed to leave little to the imagination."
Jaqen had watched as Arya swallowed convulsively at what Varys had said. She was fighting the urge to look Jaqen in the eye. He wanted her to look at him and see him. Jaqen was going to make things so difficult for Arya for the next week as he stood there in front of her in next to nothing.
As the class got ready to start the project Jaqen walked over to where Arya was getting ready.
"Have you ever drawn a still life?" Jaqen had asked her watching her fumble around for her supplies.
"No I never have drawn still life, or at least not people." She refused to meet his eyes.
"They are not to hard to draw. And it makes it easier when you know the subject that you are working on." He was playing with a paint brush as he was looking at her. She still refused to meet his eye.
"That is good to know." Arya mumbled.
"I have to go get ready to go and get undressed." Jaqen smiled at her one last time seeing the discomfort on her face.
Jaqen walked behind a screen and took all his closes off except for a pair of speedo underwear and walked out to stand on the display. He looked around at the class full of his fellow students. The guys were looking at him with calm detached artistic appreciation, or most of them were. A few questions he had were answered, there were defiantly two boys hiding in the closet. As for the females in the class they were all watching him with bright hungry lust filled eyes, even the teacher had put down her smut book to look at him.
The only person not looking at him was Arya. Her eyes were glued to her paper. She sat and sharpened her charcoal pencil and he let a large grin spread across his face.
"All right students we will be doing a rough outline of the figure today. As the week progresses we will give the drawing more in depth refinement and details. Now which way would be the best way for Jaqen to pose for you all?" Varys looked around the class, and a number of hands shot into the air.
Jaqen was pleased to see that most of his classmates were evaluating him in an artist's perspective. The only person who was not discussing his body position was Arya. She had continued to ignore him.
"Arya how would you pose Jaqen?" Varys inquired of the shy little Arya. He stood there with the tips of his fingers tapping on his lips.
"Um, I don't know. Standing?" She shifted on her stool in obvious discomfort to finally have to look at Jaqen.
"That's very original Arya. Why don't you go and pose Jaqen while the rest of the class gets ready, as you already have done so." Varys commanded.
Arya stood up on shaky legs and walked over to Jaqen. She looked at him and he couldn't stop thinking that his plan was going according to plan. Varys had positioned her to have to touch him. To move his body in to a position that she would enjoy drawing. Her hands were cold as they touched his hot skin. She was hesitant at first and he kept looking at her whenever her little hands made contact with his body.
"Thank you for molding my body into a good position." Jaqens voice swept down Aryas spine. She shivered.
Arya placed him standing but leaning against a half pillar with his left elbow on top and his right arm behind his back. She placed his right foot against the pillar so that it was slightly bent at the knee crossing his left leg. Then she stood back to look at her handy work. Aryas head was cocked to the side and she looked slightly bird like. She nodded her head once then walked over to her work area and sat down and started to draw.
She had positioned him facing her so Jaqen was able to watch her face as she drew him. She was concentrating on what she was doing, but he noted a blush spread across her face when she got to an uncomfortable part of his body that she had to sketch. Then bell rang all to soon for Jaqens liking and Arya scrambled to clean up her area and then bolted out the door before Jaqen could talk to her.
He felt a hand land on his naked shoulder. He turned his head and looked at the hand and let his eyes travel from the hand to the owner.
"I think that this plan of yours is working out very well my boy. That girl is most defiantly still into you. I expect to see a few new paintings in my gallery by the end of the week and I want to get Arya to do some pictures as well." Varys voice was assertive and dismissive at the same time.
Jaqen was still standing on the platform almost completely naked. He felt certainty that his plan might actually work. All he had to do was continue to stand there and let her draw him. He had to talk to him and spend some time alone with him. He had to get her to paint with him. Then he had to somehow convince her to give one or two of them to Varys. This was going to be difficult, very difficult. But Jaqen loved a challenge.
Bran
Bran hated doctors' offices. They gave him the creeps. They were to clean and they smelled funny. But he would admit that doctors' offices were better then hospitals, at least people didn't die in the doctors like at hospitals.
Catelyn had made an appointment with one of the top neurologists in the country to get his head checked out. He hated that his mother had insisted that he come here. He had figured that he would go to a normal doctor, not a brain specialist. But then his mother always went a tad bit overboard with the medical attention that her children received. Sansa had been lucky that it had been their father with her at the ER when she had been in for her arm. If it had been Catelyn she would have made them admit her and have had a second and third opinion of what was wrong before she would have let Sansa come home.
Bran hoped that this was the only doctor that he had to see. He would not let them poke and prod and test him. His mother might want that, but he would not allow it. No matter what they said was wrong with him.
They had gotten to the appointment an hour early and at an ungodly hour in the morning so Bran was in a really bad mood when the medical assistant called him back to the room. He had not wanted his mother to come with him but she would not take no for an answer and followed him to the exam room.
The exam room smelled cleaner then the waiting room. The smell alone was giving him a headache, but he figured that he was supposed to have a headache was the reason why he was here. Bran did not want to sit on the exam table but he was forced to as the only chair in the room was occupied by his mother and the other seat was a stool on wheels intended for the doctor.
There was a knock on the door and it swung opened and in walked the doctor. His eyes glanced at Bran then they found his mother and a smile spread across his face.
"Cat! It is a pleasure to see you again. It has been to long." The doctor walked over to Catelyn and took both of her hands in his.
"Petyr it is a pleasure to see you as well. Thank you for seeing us so fast. You know how us mothers can be. If our children are hurt we can go over protective." She smiled at Bran.
The doctor finally tore his eyes away from his mother and looked at him. Bran noticed how his eyes went from true pleasure to false happiness. The good doctor extended his band out to Bran.
"Hello. I am Dr. Petyr Baelish. You must be Bran. I hear that you are having headaches." Petyrs hand was cold and impersonal when they shook hands.
"Yes I have been having headaches." Bran took his hand away from Dr. Baelish as fast as he could.
"Well let us take a look and we will see what the cause is. Can you describe the symptoms and give me a time line of when these headaches started?" Dr. Baelish sat down on the stool and took a tablet out of his small desk and looked at Bran expectantly.
Bran sighed and told Baelish everything about his headaches, except for seeing visions. Baelish nodded his head along with what Bran was saying and entered it into the tablet. He would pause to interject a question every now and then.
"Do you have a headache now Bran?" Petyrs voice was soft and delicate as he probed Bran for answers.
"I do. I always do. I have had them since I got here." Bran was annoyed with this man that was sitting in front of him. He watched as Baelish stole glances at his mother and she tried to avoid his gaze.
"We should do a CT and an MRI. Then if do not show why I would like to run other tests. We can place electrodes to your head and do more diagnostic tests." Dr. Baelish was looking at his mother as he spoke about the tests that they would run.
Bran sat and swung his while the doctor and his mother spoke. His part in the appointment was over and now it seemed that his mother was reminiscing with the doctor.
"I am so happy that you came in to my office. I think that I might be the only doctor who could be able to get to the bottom of your sons condition. Those nose bleeds are slightly concerning. If you would like to make an appointment for the scans with my receptionist on your way out that would be great. And Bran I would like to take some blood to do a blood test to rule out some minor causes of headaches. But for now I can prescribe you a pain medication to help at the moment and you will not have to resort to smoking pot." Petyr laughed and Bran looked at his mother appalled that she had told nom about that.
"Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to squeeze us into the schedule today." Catelyn stood and pulled the strap of her bag up her shoulder. "It was very great to see you again Petyr. You will have to have dinner with Ned and I one of these nights."
"Yes we shall." Baelish beamed at Catelyn taking her hand again and stroked it with his. Catelyn looked uncomfortable and pulled his hand away. "Bran it was a pleasure meeting you as well. We will get this figured out and we will have you back to normal in no time."
"Thank you doctor." Bran mumbled.
They walked out the door of the exam room to find a nurse waiting to take them to a lab to get his blood drawn. He hated needles. Then were the world thing in the world. His mother had told the lab tech about his fear and his reaction to pain so she had sprayed the crook of his elbow with a numbing solution before she plunged the needle into his vein. He looked away as the tech took three vials of blood from him.
Bran was relieved when they were done and they walked out of the lab. His mother stopped at the reception desk to schedule the appointments for all the other tests that Dr. Baelish had ordered and she was handed a prescriptions that were supposed to help his head. While they were leaving they were stopped by Baelish one more time.
"I would like you to see one of my colleges in the next week. He is a psychologist and I think that he can help you as well." Petyr handed Catelyn a card and they finally left the office.
"And now Bran we can wither catch brunch before I take you to school or I can take you straight there." Catelyn inquired of Bran as they walked to the car.
"Brunch, most differently. Who is Petyr Baelish?" Bran asked as he strapped on his seat belt and she turned on the car.
"He was my neighbor boy when I was a kid. I think that he had a thing for me when we were growing up. But Lysa had a thing for him. Then I went to college and left. He went to school as well and went to med school. I have not seen him since high school ended. I heard that he was a neurologist here in the South and I wanted the best for you Bran." She looked at her son and smiled tenderly at him touching his cheek in a motherly manner. "Now let's go get something to eat."
Sandor
His schedule had not changed much with the new term. In fact it stayed the same. He had hoped that Sansas had as well. He had not called her or texted her since that night that they had talked about Titanic. That comment that she made about Joffery being Mr. Wickham had bugged him most of the night so he had looked it up online. From what he had found her comparison was pretty close to the truth and it most differently reviled to him that she was not as into Joffery as she appeared to be.
So he sat at their at their lab table during first period waiting for her to breeze into the room. She was walked to class by Joffery and he watched as he guided her to their desk, give her a kiss on the cheek and walk out of class.
Sansa put her bag down and took her seat beside him.
"Hi Sandor. How are you doing this morning?" She sounded tired and medicated.
"Fine. How is your arm?" He inquired with real concern in his voice.
"It is okay if I take the medication that they gave to me. But it tends to make me feel a little fuzzy and tired. I want to be at home in bed in my jammies with my stuffed wolf named Lady that I have had since I was a little girl. I still sleep with her when I don't feel good." She babbled.
"You sleep with a stuffed animal?" Sandor asked chuckling.
"Um, yes. Yes I sure do. Do you have a problem with that?" She demanded.
"No I do not. I think that it is cute." He smiled at her.
Class started and they were unable to talk while the teacher droned on and on about the chemical makeup of the different elements of the periodic table.
It was a very boring lesson and when the teacher had stopped his lecture to the class start their assignment they went to work. There was the sound of pencils scratching on paper and the sharp sound of pages in the textbook being flipped opened to random pages.
"I hate the assignments in this class. The questions are straight forward, but the lectures suck and I never know what is happening in them." Sansa confessed as she looked at the index of the book.
"It is really does suck." He also had his nose in the book looking for the answer.
"I wish that I could just give it to Bran to do." Sansa grumbled as she wrote down an answer on the question sheet.
Sandor chuckled as he wrote down an answer.
"I am taking an astronomy seminar this weekend. I was thinking of taking some classes at the observatory." Sansa confessed as she worked.
"I think I might be going to the same one that you are going to. Want to car pool?" He asked putting down his pencil and looking at her.
"Sure. But only if we can take my car." She smiled at him remembering the last time that he had tried to get in the car.
"Hell no. We are going to be taking my big American car. One that I know that I can fit into." He grumbled also remembering the escapade.
"Fine. But since we won't be taking my car we will be going to have to watch Titanic." She gave him a malicious smile as she reminded him of his promise.
"I had hoped that you were to drugged up to remember that I had said that." He chuckled.
"I do not forget things when Titanic is concerned." Sansa boasted
"When do you want to do this?" Sandor asked raising one of his eyebrows.
"We can do it anytime this week." Sansa offered.
"I will agree, but only if I can bring homework with me and we work on it during the movie." Sandor said as he started flipping in his book again.
"That works for me. Thursday work?" She asked.
"That should work for me." He answered.
"Okay. Now let's get back to work!" Sansa ordered.
Arya
Arya was distracted and spacey most of the morning. She had not been able to concentrate in her poetry class, causing Beric and Aegon to throw chunks of erasers into her hair. She was called upon in math class to answer a question and she was not able to answer it and Myrcella had to answer for her. She had not even been able to put the section of the car that she was working on back together. All she could see was Jaqen standing before her naked, or almost naked. His eyes bored into her as she sketched him.
"Arya you have been tightening that bolt for the last fifteen minutes and haven't said a word either. What is wrong?" Gendry asked as he wiped his hands on a rag as he stood looking down at her.
"What? Oh yeah I was distracted. That is all. What's up?" She smiled up at him.
"Nothing is up. I just wanted to say hi to my girlfriend." He said leaning down to kiss her.
"You can say hi to me anytime." She returned his kiss and put the part that she was working on down and stood up to wrap her arms around his neck.
"Hi." He kissed her again and again and again.
"That is enough you two." The teacher barked from the door of his office.
They broke apart and smiled at one another.
"Do you want to say hi to me later today?" She asked, her arms still wound around his neck.
"Can't. Beric won't let us." Gendry frowned.
"I think that I might just kill that little shit." Arya grumbled.
"Don't you do that. We need him. He is the talent of the bunch." Gendry shook his head.
"Well this sucks. Because of him I never get to see you." She pouted.
"I know." He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers.
"Can I come with you tonight?" She asked.
"I don't think that Beric would like that." Gendry told her.
She scowled up at him then smiled up at him.
"I know what I can do while you play rock star. I can go shopping!" She smiled at him; he gave her a bewildered look.
"Shopping? You?" Gendry just continued to look at her as if she had sprouted three heads.
"Yes shopping. For paint, for your room." Arya let the smile tug at her mouth as his opened in disbelief.
Eddard
Things had been going better for him business wise since he had threatened Robert a few weeks back to clean up his act. The threat of leaving and forcing Robert to have to sell off his company piece by piece had really woken him up. He had noticed a change back to the man that he had once known.
His deal with him included breathalyzer tests every morning and mandatory AA meetings once a week. He got reports from inside his house staff that he was even starting to care for his children even. He was taking Tommen to his sports practices and defending Myrcella from her mother's cruelty. Ned knew that Joffery was to influenced by his mother to stand a real chance of a change, but the younger two would really benefit from a relationship with their father.
He sat at his desk and worked on contracts and paper work. If things continued to go this well the Starks could be moving back North before the end of the school year. He had not anticipated the impact that this move would have on his children to the extent that it seemed to have on them.
He found it ironic that the child that he had the most worries over about the move was the one that he had the least worry about now. Arya had flourished and changed for the better in his opinion since they had moved South. She had found friends and an identity. She no longer hid in the shadows and pretended to be something that she was not. Sansa on the other hand seemed to have lost herself. He should have never allowed her to date Joffery, knowing what he did about the boy. And Bran was deteriorating as well. There was something that he was hiding from him and Catelyn, something that he was afraid of. He wanted to help his children be normal again. For no other reason he would pack the family back up and move them home.
His family came first. That was how he had always been. He had made his sister a vow on her death bed to protect her son and his children from all the evil in the world and he was trying like hell to honor that vow. He would die for them and kill to protect them. He hoped that things never came to that, but he knew that he would do anything to see them safe and happy. The arrangement with Robert still needed his attention at the present time so things would have to stay the way that were now and he just had to go pick up the pieces as they fell.