3
He's late.
Arya sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. The early morning chills of King's Landing pervaded into the spring, and were sweeping the lazy streets surrounding the Dragonpit. Across the street, the bells of the Sept of Baelor, each as tall as two men high up in the great towers of the cathedral, droned the seventh and final tone denoting the hour of the morning. She was sitting atop a concrete border of a flowerbed, while her father and Luwin, the manager of the Direwolves and longtime family friend, stood rigidly several paces away, routinely glancing up and down the sidewalk.
For someone she wanted so badly to show up and succeed—if only so she could later tell all of her family how she, the sports management major, had scouted her first dynamite prospect from nothing—Gendry Waters was already doing a wonderful job of fucking everything up.
Luwin had raised a gray eyebrow when the bells had begun to ring, glancing sidelong at her father with a questioning look only he had ever been able to get away with. It was a disapproving air that she had more than once been on the receiving end of herself from the elderly, bald man, and she could personally say it was less than enjoyable to be met with such a convicted disappointment.
To avoid her dismally falling hopes, she glanced down at her older brother, who was doing his best to go back to sleep beside her on the concrete. She nudged him with her elbow, but Robb merely moaned and batted her arm away before covering his eyes with a hand and trying to descend into slumber once again. "Go away," he groaned. "I didn't get in 'til midnight, and you woke me up at fucking six, if you didn't notice."
"Don't be such a baby about it," she pestered, prodding him with a finger in his side.
Eyeing the two squabbling siblings, Luwin shifted on his feet sternly, made a point of glancing at the watch on his left arm, and then turned to her father. "Well, my lord, how long should we wait for your prospect to show up?"
Her father sent a glare at Arya, who shrugged and gestured for him to wait. "He'll be here. Trust me. He's not the type to back away from this."
"You say that," Luwin commented, "after having met him for about ten minutes?"
"He's right," Arya chimed in. "Gendry didn't seem the type of person who would just shirk off an opportunity like this."
"Forgive me, m'lady," Luwin said dryly, his other eyebrow raising. She hated when he used the title he insisted upon, forgotten to the rest of the world but those old friends who still honored the reputedly ancient Stark house. "I didn't realize you had extensive knowledge of the man."
"I..." She hit a stonewall, caught at a difficult junction; she couldn't admit what Luwin had seemingly hit upon without meaning to. She couldn't admit that she felt as though she knew Gendry, knew his character, even though they had only met the day before that. She had recognized him the moment he turned around in the car shop as the pitcher she'd seen in the alley the previous day, even if it had taken him a while longer to recognize her, and even in the two brief exchanges they'd had she felt as if she understood him more than other people ever had, and vice versa.
Which was completely irrational and idiotic. Because we just met, she reminded herself, and just because we both like baseball and are misfits doesn't all of a sudden make us best friends.
"Look," Ned said, and she immediately jerked up, whipping around. "There he is."
Arya swung around to look in the direction he indicated. Sure enough; careening around a corner on a bicycle, dangling the glove he'd used the previous night, looking mightily disheveled and angry, Gendry rode up to them quickly and skidded to a quick halt before them. He wore a pair of black sweatpants, a gray, blank cotton shirt and a pair of ratty sneakers that would have caused Sansa to faint in astonishment. Arya was so angry at him, even if he was only a few minutes late, that she wanted to wring his neck.
She grew even angrier when he addressed her father, not her, first. "I'm really sorry. I got stopped by two different cops."
"For what?" she blurted out, before she could help herself.
While Luwin's brow creased and her father's eyes darkened, Gendry merely turned his eyes on her and answered, "They apparently thought it was weird that a guy like me was riding a bicycle full bore down downtown King's Landing at seven in the morning with a baseball glove."
Ned actually laughed, and Luwin seemed to soften. Arya continued to glare, but Gendry's return gaze was calm and composed. Don't let him get under your skin, she urged herself, already furious with him. As her scowl deepened and a small smirk appeared on his lean, dark face she realized something. He's doing it on purpose. The bastard is provoking me on purpose.
"Gendry," Ned Stark called, and the mechanic's eyes turned away from hers, leaving her curled fists the only sign of their silent war. "I'd like you to meet Luwin, manager of the Winterfell Direwolves, who has forgotten more about baseball than... well, you know how it goes."
Gendry stepped forward heartily and immediately sobered from the grinning fool he'd been in interacting with Arya a minute beforehand, taking Luwin's proffered hand earnestly and firmly. "Sir. Thank you for giving me this time."
"Well, if I trust Lord Stark," Luwin replied carefully, eyeing the aforementioned lord, "and I do, it is well worth my interest to give the opportunity."
"And this is my son," her father continued, "Robb."
Arya hadn't noticed Robb stand up from his place on the flowerbed and saunter up to the rest of them. He and Gendry shook hands briefly, friendly enough, and then both men turned their attention towards their two elders again. Arya did notice, however, Robb eye Gendry's drab garb and raise a single eyebrow in her direction.
"Well, shall we?" Ned announced, holding out an arm towards the gate. Luwin took the invitation first, followed closely by Robb. Ned let Arya bring up the rear with Gendry as he followed his son and friend.
Arya fell into step beside him and glared. "Had to be late, didn't you?" she hissed. Casting an eye back at the bike he had hastily chained to a lamppost, she added, "Why the hell did you ride a freaking bike down here?"
He returned her glare with equivalent malice. "You saw where I live. What the fuck makes you think I can afford a car?"
"You're making me look bad," she snapped, as way of cutting off his point and interjecting the main thesis of her anger. "I vouched for you."
"And I appreciate that," he replied testily as they approached the gate. "I'm not about to go crazy and embarrass you, if that's what you're worried about. I can still throw. Your father has seen that."
She wanted to tell him that Luwin hadn't, and that was the only thing that mattered—or else that he was a stupid bullheaded moron who had never learned how to shut up—but they reached the gate before she had a chance, and Gendry passed through the metal grate being held open by her father. He did not do so without a miniscule hesitation, which Arya wasn't sure anyone else even noticed, but his step faltered for a moment and his eyes flashed upwards at the giant stadium before his feet resumed their course.
"Usually, I'd just fly you up to Winterfell for a tryout like this," Ned told Gendry as Arya slipped through the gates and the three of them continued after her brother, "but this is a cheap alternative, and the Monarchs' owner consented to allowing this. He and I… we have a history, and it was convenient."
"He and Robert Baratheon played together," Arya told Gendry, who merely nodded, as if being informed of something he already knew. Arya scowled at him and turned away. Snob.
Luwin and Robb did not lead them through the locked doors that led down into the team clubhouses, as she had thought they would. Instead, they walked directly through the concourse of the stadium, empty except for a few workers driving vending loader carts to and fro, straight into the lowest level of seats. Down the aisles they walked and Luwin opened the small gate at the edge of the nearest dugout, ushering all four of them through before stepping through himself.
The morning was crisp. Even so early, a dozen members of the grounds crew were about the outfield and infield. One drove a large lawn mower near the warning track while others were watering own the dirt outline of the entire field. Arya inhaled deeply, letting the unparalleled aroma of fresh grass and dirt fill her nose. She loved the smell, the feel, the sight, the senses that pulled her so far away from all the work she had left unattended in her dorm. She glanced sidelong at Gendry, to analyze his own reaction; she was curious if he was affected as deeply by the baseball field as she was. He didn't disappoint her; his eyes were as wide as plates, his body on a hinge as he swung one way and then another, drinking in the scene before him. Arya could have actually laughed at how entranced he was, until she reminded herself that this was the first time he had ever seen a professional baseball field in the flesh. The thought sobered her slightly.
Luwin cleared his throat, and Gendry jumped, his reverie broken. "Well, I don't see any reason to delay, do you? Robb, go warm Mr. Waters up. Let's see the spectacle your old man has brought us down here to see."
"Right," Robb nodded, sliding his catcher's mitt onto his hand and slapping it, the same mannerism Arya had adopted over a decade of watching her brother play ball. "Come on, Gendry."
Her brother began to walk in the direction of home plate, and Gendry followed, unsteadily making his way out onto the diamond. He paused as he reached the chalk foul line, and Arya couldn't help but smile as he looked first out towards the corners of right field and then the other way to left, finally glancing at the plate before taking a giant step over the line, into fair territory and out towards the mound. It was as if he had just crossed over a border between worlds—the moment he was on the infield grass, marching towards the mound, Arya had to admit he looked like he belonged.
Robb produced a ball from a pocket of his jacket as he tossed it aside, lobbing it lazily towards Gendry. The two of them began a steady back and forth, building their blood rush and loosening their muscles. Watching them, Arya got the impression Gendry didn't properly warm up very often, but despite the intense look of concentration on his expression that threatened to make another smirk split her face, he didn't appear completely hopeless.
Her father and Luwin moved closer together by her side. The three of them casually strode towards the foul line, watching the two young men playing catch in the middle of the diamond.
In an undertone, Luwin leaned towards her father and murmured, "He looks exactly like…" The trailing off left a clear implication Arya didn't understand, but it was clear her father did, from the crinkling of his brow. "At least, the way he did twenty years ago."
"I noticed it, too," Ned Stark replied. His arms crossed involuntarily against his chest, a brooding look occupying his grey features. "Right when he opened his door, I noticed that. It has to be coincidence."
"If you were so sure of that, my lord," Luwin replied, "you wouldn't voice your opinion."
Her father glanced at his team's manager from the corner of his eye. "You don't actually think that… I mean, King's Landing is a big place."
Luwin shrugged. "Who is to say, my lord? But the features fall right in line. The boy is certainly strong."
Arya absorbed the conversation silently, choosing to listen rather than pry. She was lost as to whatever they were implying without making a blatant statement, but Luwin's last statement made her look closer at the mechanic as he tossed the ball back to Robb. He's strong, she agreed, watching the considerably cut muscles in his upper arms flex as he unfolded his arm in its throwing motion. And fit. He has an athlete's body, lithe and strong and powerful.
With a start, she realized her cheeks were coloring, and cursed silently. She had meant the words in relation to Gendry strictly from an objective point of view, as an outside observer looking into a baseball situation. She was, however, very happy she had kept such a statement inside of her head, as she eyed Luwin and her father watching Gendry silently.
"You ready to go?" Robb called across the stretch of grass after another minute of throwing.
The mechanic merely nodded, catching the ball in his worn mitt and turning to stalk up the hill to the mound. Robb assumed his crouch with the adept agility and flexibility he and other freaks of nature who called themselves major league catchers were seemingly able to do twenty-four hours a day.
Luwin crossed his arms, as well, making him nearly a carbon copy of Ned down to the furiously focused expression on their face. Beside him, Ned shouted to Gendry, "Just throw like you did yesterday when I was there."
Gendry nodded, without looking. His heel toed the rubber, his gaze locking in on Robb's mitt as he had on Arya's yesterday. The look on his face was focused, but in a different way than any she had previously observed on him. He was in his zone; she wouldn't have been surprised if he had not heard her father at all.
He hesitated a long moment in his stance, Robb and Luwin and Ned and Arya all waiting patiently for him to stride and release. When he finally did, his step was more pronounced, more thought out, and more intentional than those he'd taken yesterday, this time not striding outward but striding downward, down the plane of the mound. His arm whipped around familiarly, and the ball left his hand in a straight arc. Robb was used to catching mid-nineties fastballs, and so was slightly more prepared than Arya had been the day before, snagging it in his glove and framing it where the outside corner would have been.
There was a moment of quiet as Robb retrieved the ball from his glove and tossed it back to Gendry, and then Luwin whistled, low and steady. The bald manager turned to her father and raised his eyebrows. "Can he do that again?"
Ned gestured towards the mound, and they proceeded to watch Gendry deliver five more pitches to Robb, dropping the ball in or near the strike zone each time. He shook his arm between the fourth and fifth pitches with a barely perceptible clenching of his teeth, Arya noticed, but returned to the mound and delivered the next pitch with just as much force and conviction.
Stubborn, she thought, with a wry, grudging admiration. Stubborn as a bull.
"He has speed, I'll give him that," Luwin murmured, the tone of his voice unguarded and implying he was far more impressed than he let on. "Easy to tell he's not trained right. Horrible mechanics. His arm dips sideways… if that doesn't change his elbow's bound to have problems in a few years, if it doesn't already."
"Mechanics are fixable," Arya's father said. "Throwing a ball ninety-nine miles per hour isn't. You don't teach that."
"Is he really throwing that hard?"
"It's what my gun said yesterday, and I check three different times when I got back to the hotel to see if it was working properly. It was." He paused a moment to let Luwin watch Gendry hurl a pitch home. "He hasn't lost any velocity. If anything, he's throwing harder."
"Any other pitches besides the fastball?" Luwin wondered.
As way of answer, before her father could answer, Arya cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, "Gendry! Throw your slider!"
He glanced up briefly at her words and then nodded. Returning to the mound, he surprised her by offering the correct signal to Robb for a breaking ball before coming set. For whatever insult Luwin had about mechanics, if she hadn't known it was coming Arya wouldn't have been able to tell from his arm motion. Nevertheless, the ball arced spectacularly halfway to the plate and Robb was only just able to snag it a half foot above the dirt.
Luwin's breath hitched, and Arya had to grin when she glanced at his face. The manager released the air in his lungs in a coarse hiss and shook his head in brief disbelief. "I want him. I can't tell what I thought when I saw him roll up twenty minutes ago, my lord, but you've proved me wrong."
"I had hoped you'd say something like that," her father replied, grinning himself and eyeing Arya behind Luwin's back. "I have much the same thought, you can imagine. I'm glad we're on the same page. You know our pen's been shorthanded since Harwin went down with the separated shoulder last year. He's not ready for the big leagues again, and we lost Murch to Pyke in free agency."
"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Luwin stated, seeming to sober himself as he held up a hand. "You say he's never played any real ball. Never in an actual game situation."
"He's played in game situations," Arya piped up. "Just not in an organized fashion. You won't have to worry about that, though, he's so competitive he'll pick it up in a heartbeat."
Luwin scrutinized her. "Forgive me, my lady, but I'll have to analyze that for myself. Regardless, it would be a feat indeed for him to step right off of the streets and right into the big leagues. Nevertheless, I loathe to think what would happen if we passed on him and he showed up in someone else's farm organization."
"So you'll offer him a contract?" Arya blurted gleefully.
"Assuming all passes well with his physical," Luwin said. Quickly, turning to her father, he added, "And his background check. I feel as though we'd best figure out everything we can about Gendry Waters before we sign him out of the blue. Once other teams hear what we've done and see what he can do they and the media will be on us like flies."
"Agreed," Ned replied. "I'll take care of that, don't worry about it. Do you want to see more, or can we get right to the facilities? I took the liberty of having Hullen come down, just in case you decided you liked him."
Arya grinned at her father; him preemptively arranging for the Direwolves' trainer's presence showed his confidence in Gendry, and to a lesser degree, his confidence in her. She was reminded of how mindlessly and trustingly he'd followed her the previous day when she had burst into his purchased box on the third level of the stadium and insisted he come and see an unproven, unheard of prospect in the middle of slummy Flea Bottom. Theirs was a special link when it came to baseball; a link Ned Stark had tried to hold with all of his children. For some, it had held, as in Robb and Arya. In others, as in Sansa, it hadn't. Then there was Bran, who... couldn't anymore. And Jon. That was something else entirely.
"All right, guys!" her father called again, clapping his hands a few times to emphasize himself. "We've seen enough! Come on over!"
Gendry lobbed the ball back to Robb and then both boys trotted back over to the older men and Arya. Robb clapped Gendry on the back and appeared almost as overwhelmed and delighted as her father and Luwin. Gendry accepted the camaraderie in-step, with a glance that wasn't quite familiar but friendly enough. Arya, for some reason, was relieved that her brother and the mechanic—who could throw faster than most cars moved—were getting along.
Luwin broke the short silence that encompassed them. "That was rather impressive, Gendry. Where did you say you learned to play?"
Gendry shrugged. "In the streets. I've never really had a coach before."
"Really?" Robb said. He looked near a scoff, but the grave looks on everyone else's face forced him to take the situation seriously. Gendry affirmed it and he whistled. "You learned all that without any instruction? How?"
"Watching. Imitating. Improvising, a little bit of everything until it felt kind of right and worked when I was pitching to people. They missed, so I figured it couldn't be horrible."
"There are certainly some things that need fixing if you want to succeed on a high level," Luwin commented, not unkindly, continuing, "But those are not big issues. What you can throw is very impressive, and any else that needs tweaking will only add to the quality of your pitches."
Gendry shifted on his feet. "Does that mean..." He paused, glancing at Arya and rubbing at his neck nervously. She tried to nod him on, and after a moment he tried again. "Does that mean that... I made it?"
"Why don't we take you down to see our trainer, get a physical first?" Arya's father replied, sweeping an arm towards the dugout they had entered behind. "After that, we can talk about where to go from here."
Gendry acquiesced—as if he was not surprised enough to do anything else. After a brief word with their father, Robb climbed back through the gate and departed, presumably to head back to the hotel, while Luwin, Ned, and Gendry descended the steps into the dugout, Arya nipping at their heels uninvited but not unwanted, she figured. She almost ran into Gendry as he stopped for a moment to drink in the smell and appearance of the dugout, as well, knocking him with her shoulder just for the hell of it as she stalked past him and followed her father and Luwin up the tunnel towards the clubhouse.
She had never been down here in the Dragonpit before, but the general layout of the inner team rooms was pretty much the same as the Direwolves' back in Winterfell. The first rooms split into a stocked trainers' facility and the locker room, out of which also branched the showers; further down the hall, there was a weight room and a film room next to the conference room. The locker room was empty, the team long since cleared out, but Hullen, the gruff old trainer who had possessed more injuries himself than he knew how to heal, was lounging inside one of the empty ice tubs, reading a fishing magazine. A few electronic bicycles and ellipticals sat against the opposite wall with some sick beds and a large machine with a scanning table.
Her father knocked on the door as they sidled up, and Hullen peered up from the magazine to glare at them with one eye closed. "Well, top o' the mornin' to ya, Master Stark! I was told ya wanted me down here for somethin' today, bright and early."
"Yes, thanks for coming, Hullen," Ned said, drawing back and presenting Gendry behind Luwin. The mechanic swallowed and stepped around Arya into the room, stepping forward anxiously. "This is Gendry Waters, Hullen. I'd like for you to run him through a quick physical before we get on the plane later."
"Physical, eh?" Hullen said, climbing out of the tub with little agility and fixing Gendry with an assessing eye as he stuck out a scarred hand. "Nice to meet you, Master Waters."
"Likewise." For his nervous body language, his voice never wavered.
"Anything special?" Hullen asked her father.
"No. Just the stipulation for the contract." Ned eyed Arya and grinned at her. "A very special find, Gendry is. No normal prospect, and no normal means of coming across him, either. Do a full MRI, if you would so please. The Monarchs can bill us for that expense."
"Will do, boss," Hullen growled good-naturedly, and patted one of the sick beds in the direction of Gendry. "Hop up there, lad, and we'll get this over with right and quick."
As Gendry moved to comply, Arya sat down in a chair on the wall while Hullen accessed the computer network from a laptop seated on the counter. Her father, while this was happening, tapped Luwin on the arm and murmured, "A word, Luwin?"
The two older men left the room. Gendry sat on the table, waiting for Hullen to ready himself, staring at Arya in a strange way. She raised an eyebrow at him and mouthed, "What?"
He didn't reply, only grinned at her in an absurdly goofy way that made her want to blush again. For that, she frowned instead, mad at both him for eliciting that reaction and herself for letting it happen. To her dismay, her grumpiness only served to make him grin wider before he sobered as Hullen turned around. She was left to crumple back in her seat with her arms crossed and sulk.
Hullen began to ask Gendry a series of basic health and medication questions, to which the answers were usually a toss-up between "I don't know" and "No". He had no irregular lung conditions, no freak or recurring injuries, no allergies or medications. He stood six foot three and weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds. Arya drank in the information greedily, as she did every time she inspected a new baseball player. That was how one entered a tactical situation in a baseball game; knowing your opponent's traits, tendencies and weaknesses.
"Any unusual pains or aches that stick around regularly?" Hullen asked Gendry at one point.
Gendry hesitated, and then answered, "Just my arm. My elbow."
Hullen approached him and took Gendry's right arm in his hands, turning it over, pressing his fingers into it, and testing its flexibility by carefully bending his arm several ways. "Heh. Your throwing arm, yes?" Gendry nodded. After a moment, Hullen dropped the arm and tapped a few keys on his keyboard. "Well, if there's anything the matter with it, I'm sure the MRI will show it. We'll get to that later. Take your shirt off, and we'll get started."
Arya felt her blush coming before he'd even reached for the hem, and surreptitiously glanced to the side to try and hide it. When she looked back, Gendry was pulling it over his head nonchalantly, completely unperturbed by her presence, but Hullen was eyeing her skeptically, as if only just registering that she was there.
"Go on, there, young lady," Hullen commanded, gesturing towards the door. "I can't imagine your father would want you to be here. Best be on with you, and catch up with Mr. Luwin and him. You'll be notified the same as the rest of them."
Arya chose not to argue in favor of trying to salvage her dignity. It infuriated her that she was behaving like this; usually she could count the number of times she blushed in a year with her fingers. It was the third time that day that she had been smitten by one in the presence of the damned mechanic. What's wrong with me?
She succeeded in not looking in Gendry's direction as she left the training room, and saw that her father and Luwin had entered the conference room and shut the door behind them. She repressed her mischievous desire to eavesdrop and instead slumped down against the wall, opening a game on her phone to pass the time.
Before long, while the muffled whispers of her father and the Direwolves' manager leaked unintelligibly through the door and Hullen executed gods-know-what health analyses on Gendry, Arya's mind wandered out of the ballpark, back to the real world she always avoided by sinking back into baseball.
It would be nice to be back in Winterfell. Back with the family again. It wouldn't be complete without Sansa, of course. But she wants to go on and ruin her freaking life, so what have I got to say about it? At least she would get to see Bran for the first time since Christmas, and Rickon. Robb would be in town half of the summer, and she could perhaps manage to have a civilized conversation with her mother that lasted more than a few seconds.
But there were things that wouldn't be good about going home, too. Jon's empty room, which, up until the accident three years before, had always been a haven for her. Bran's... condition, always a struggle to him, always a misery to the family, always a future that could have been and wasn't and could never be. Catelyn's reluctance and wry eye, at everything Ned had built and everything that Arya loved.
Her thoughts alternated between looking forward to the end of the semester and her reserves about her family. She still sat there sifting through her mixed feelings when the conference room door opened and Luwin and her father emerged. No sooner had they done so than did the trainers' room also open and Gendry and Hullen walk out, Gendry looking none the worse for wear, if a bit sheepish.
"How'd it go, Hullen?" her father asked him as she scurried to her feet to join them.
"Eh," the trainer replied, screwing up his face and shrugging. Gendry frowned. "He's a brute, but he's a healthy brute, for the most part. Blood pressure could be better, but at least he's got a head start on the heart attack he'll have at our age."
Gendry glared at him, but the other men were merely nodding. "Excellent," Luwin said.
"The MRI results on the arm will be a few hours in coming," Hullen continued. "I've arranged to have them faxed to me as soon as they're ready and I'll get back to you with those when I've glanced them over, probably on the plane."
"I understand."
"Will that be all then, Master Stark?" Hullen checked his watch and scratched his face. "It best be time to collect my things and be off to the airport before the team bus leaves. Otherwise I'll be caught with all those bloody miscreants."
"Yes, that should be all. If there's a moment there, get a glance at Harwin before we board, will you?"
Hullen growled, but nodded. "If the lad would stop being a pussy about it maybe he could actually make a career out of himself. I'll see you there, gentlemen. M'lady."
She couldn't help but grin at the complaint Hullen made about his own son's injury, but it was wiped clean at the title she so dearly hated. She saw Gendry glance at her curiously and they made peripheral vision eye contact. She scowled at him, but that only seemed—as always—to cheer him up. If she were a step closer and could get away with it, she would have punched him.
Hullen made his way out in the reverse direction of the field, sneaking out a backdoor and leaving the four of them there by themselves. After exchanging a look with Luwin, her father stepped forward and addressed Gendry. "What would you say to going out for breakfast, Gendry? We have something we would like to discuss with you."
An expression of excitement flitted across Gendry's face before being replaced by his classically stubborn frown. "I... can't pay."
Ned Stark blinked at him, and then barked an amiable chuckle. "You don't have to worry about that, son. We'll definitely take care of it. What do you say to it?"
"Sure," Gendry answered, his voice implying that he was all for it.
The two older men again led the way, out the back doors the way Hullen had departed. They wound their way through a short network of bright, wide tunnels, before ascending a flight of stairs and emerging back onto an area of the concourse right next to a gate. Ned led them all across the street to the parking ramp where he and Luwin had both parked earlier after he had picked Arya up from her dorm room.
As they were ascending the parking ramp stairwell, a rather loud process, Gendry bent down towards her and muttered in a low voice, "What do they want to talk to me about?"
"What do you think?" she replied, smirking up at him. He withdrew then, masking himself with indifference and entertaining his own thoughts. She continued to watch him for several moments afterwards, wondering what serious thoughts could be crossing his mind when a million men across the country would cut off one or more extremities for the opportunity he was about to receive.
Her father drove his rented vehicle, which he never took anywhere without at least one bag of baseball gear stowed in the trunk. Arya rode shotgun, and Gendry slid into the seat behind her silently while Luwin drove himself. As Ned steered out of the parking ramp and onto the busy King's Landing streets, she caught herself staring at the bull-headed pitcher in the sideview mirror inconspicuously. She need not have worried about being noticed; his attention was clearly elsewhere, though on what only he knew, most likely the same reserved thoughts he had been holding since they left the stadium.
Whatever they were kept him distracted enough that he had absolutely no idea he was being spied on quite intently from the front seat. Arya tried to look away, more than once, but each time she only found her gaze drawn back to him in a way that was almost magnetic. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, and perhaps she would have if her father hadn't have been there, but she also didn't want to pry into another person's business, for once. With other people, their business was silly to her and she usually didn't care about meddling in it one way or another, but Gendry was different. Gendry was alone and quiet and stubborn and lonesome, and surprisingly intelligent for how long it took him to think sometimes. And he loved baseball. The combination intrigued her in a way that no one else ever had.
Which also scared her. In a way.
She was still staring when her father started shaking her arm, and she realized that he had pulled into the parking lot and that even Gendry was making to get out of the car. Belatedly, she apologized sheepishly and climbed out of the car. The last thing she needed was to be fixed with the suddenly familiar "you seem to be going crazy" look Gendry was shooting her, and she merely pushed him lightly to follow her father as Luwin pulled into the parking spot beside them.
The diner was small and quiet, and no one, thankfully, recognized their father as they were shown to a table and given their menus. They selected their choices and ordered them quickly with a waitress. It was not yet even ten in the morning, the Direwolves' flight leaving at three, but Arya knew her father liked to get to airports at least three hours before his flight, but insecurity reasons he had never explained but which her mother told her were the result of a rude practical joke early in his playing career. It sounded like a story she would have loved to hear, but neither of her parents had ever been willing to share it with her, before.
Luwin and her father made small talk, and to her surprise, Gendry responded with a manner of social skill. Arya watched grudgingly as he politely answered all of their questions about where he went to school and how he had come to love baseball. He shrugged off their inquiries about his family with only a slight wince of discomfort, and even asked a few questions of his own about Ned's playing career or Luwin's desire to manage. They didn't pay her much attention, which she didn't mind; instead, she absorbed the common information Gendry was willing to tell them, and wondered at the secrets he was hiding behind their conversation.
Their meals came, and her interest in the conversation diminished as she delved into her skillet. The men were rather entranced with their food, as well, though she finally noticed Gendry appearing curious about the situation. He would steal uneasy and impatient glances at her every few bites, that seemed to say, "Make them get on with it, already."
Finally, all four plates were pushed away, and Arya's father leaned forward intently with clasped hands. Luwin seemed at ease, gazing lightly across the table at Gendry, but both Gendry and Arya were on the edges of their seats. They had been waiting for the moment since the two older men had walked out of the conference room.
"I'm going to go about this bluntly, Gendry," he began. "We like what you have. We like the potential you have. We think you should look into getting an agent, because we want to offer you a contract, and it would be best if you had some representation on your behalf."
Arya's heart soared. They're offering him a contract. I discovered a prospect and now Luwin and Dad are offering him a contract!
Gendry stiffened across from her, and for a moment a cold pit of fear that he was reconsidering seized her. Her dread was only dissuaded when he cleared his throat and said, "I can't afford an agent, but I won't need one. I can read, that's enough. I can negotiate for my own contract, if need be."
"Are you sure?" Luwin asked gently. "There are several general managers—Roose Bolton of the Flayers, Petyr Baelish of the Monarchs, to name a few—that will very quickly take advantage of you if you are not careful."
"They're not the ones offering," Gendry replied gruffly, his shoulders squared as if for doing battle. "And I can fend for myself."
Luwin and Ned Stark exchanged a glance, and Arya sighed under her breath. Like a bull. Stubborn bull.
"Very well, then," her father said, after a moment. He spread his hands and placed them on the table in a nonthreatening, placating gesture. "Pending your total physical records, we would be willing to offer you a substantial minor-league contract."
Gendry paused, contemplating the words. "What does substantial mean?"
"The numbers I came up with originally would be three hundred and forty thousand dollars over one year, with a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus," her father said. "If you had other figures you had in mind, I'm certainly willing to hear your argument."
From the look on the mechanic's face, Gendry had absolutely no problem with the numbers. Arya lamented, in brief astonishment, that the four hundred and forty thousand dollars was probably more money than he had earned in his life... probably more money than the lifetime of work in the shop he was otherwise cursed with would cumulatively give him.
Several seconds later, Gendry finally recovered and clamped his jaw shut as his eyes found Ned Stark's. "The amount sounds good to me. Why only one year?"
Her father hesitated. Arya had been wondering that herself, but had not intruded into the conversation to voice her curiosity. "Respectfully, as much as we're excited to have you, you're untrained and unproven, and that money total is rather a lot for an undrafted prospect who has never really... well... done anything. I don't mean to give offense. It's just a baseball investment."
"I understand," Gendry murmured. He glanced at Arya again, and she could see the disbelief in his gaze. He dropped his eyes to the table and wrung his hands in his lap nervously as he thought. His expression screwed up again, as if he was in pain, and she bit her lip to hide a smile. "If I... agree to this, if I sign your contract, where do we go from there?"
"Once the contract is drafted and you sign it, Luwin and I would like you to begin in Blackhaven with our single-A affiliate," her father replied. "It's only about a forty-five minute flight south of here, and you'd be acclimated to the weather better than any of our other affiliates. It will also give us a chance to see what you can do without you undertaking the pressure of having to face elite hitters right away. If you're successful in Blackhaven, we'll see where we take you from there. How does that sound?"
"Perhaps not the most extravagant beginning to fulfilling dreams," Luwin supplied softly. "But all legends and losers alike must begin somewhere, and everyone must make their own way to the top."
Gendry pondered this for a moment, and then surprised Arya by turning directly to her and fixing her with his blue stare. She felt paralyzed, as though the tidal wave of a raging sea storm was crashing over her. "What do you think?"
A moment passed before she was actually certain he had been asking her. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then simply shrugged. She knew what she was going to say, even if it wasn't perhaps the approach he'd been looking for. "It sure beats the hell out of fixing cars all day."
For a second, she thought she'd said something critically wrong, but then Gendry grinned, a miniscule upwards turn of the corners of his lips. She watched him turn to her father and nod. "I think I'll accept your offer."
"I'm glad," her father replied, offering his own smile. "I'll have the contract written up, then, and I'll contact you in a few days so you can sign it and we can arrange for your travel and placement in Blackhaven."
"How will you contact me?"
"By..." Ned Stark grunted. "By telephone, presumably. You should go out and get yourself a cell phone, perhaps."
Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing away. "I can't afford one, sir."
"You can now," Arya pointed out.
"And we'll write that into the contract," her father said, chuckling a bit to himself. "Hopefully, no one will find that strange. They shouldn't, I suppose, it's almost definitely been done before. In any case, bill it to us, Gendry."
From the way he was still crinkling his face, Arya could read his discomfort like an open book. She imagined what was going through his head, and had to remind herself that since yesterday he had taken about thirty steps outside of his comfort zone, which was an admirable risk at the best of times. Quickly, before he could say anything else, she came to his rescue. Sort of.
"I'll go with him to get it," she blurted. The two older men turned their gazes and her, and she quickly added, "And everything. Then he can give me the number and I can get it right to you, so you can arrange directly with him about the contract. And stuff."
What is wrong with me? She shouldn't strange, out-of-character, and silly even to her own ears. Only the gods knew what she sounded like to them; offering to go out of her way to help some strange man purchase a cell phone? Then again, it was only Gendry, and for his snobbishness at least he was of the rare crowd of whom she didn't feel an irrepressible urge to tear apart. Actually... she found that she liked him. He didn't have the superficial surface that a ton of other people had; he seemed honest, straight-spoken, and, like her, there were parts of him that he kept tightly bottled up so that no one could see them. They were very similar in many ways, and that made his company pleasant.
What the hell are you saying? You don't know him. You just met him.
To her vast relief, after only a moment Ned Stark raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Well, that would certainly make sense. Does that work for you, Gendry?"
The mechanic nodded, glancing between the two Starks. "That would probably be for the best, yeah."
"Splendid," Luwin announced happily. Or, at least, with the grim expression of content Arya usually associated with Luwin's near-happiness.
The two older men spoke pleasantly for only a few moments longer, and then the endings to the gathering were made. They all stood, the manager and owner shook hands with Gendry, Arya hugged them both, and then they were departing the diner without incidence. Ned called a taxi for the two of them and then said a quiet goodbye to her.
"See you soon, little wolf," he whispered to her as he hugged her one last time. "Don't let him get overwhelmed. We'll be with him every step of the way."
"Already are, Dad," she replied, smiling. "See you at Christmas."
With a final wave, her father pulled his rental car out and left the parking lot, Luwin already gone. Arya waved until he turned out of sight, and then faced Gendry, who had watched them go with his hands stuck firmly in his pockets and his face set in an unintelligible expression. She stared at him for several moments after as he didn't move, continuing to gaze blankly after them.
"Oi, stupid," she called lightly, causing him to blink and turn his eyes on her. "Not lost, are you?"
He didn't reply immediately, kicking at the sidewalk absent-mindedly. She was just deciding he'd gone mute when he looked her straight in the eye again. "It's like a dream. I'm terrified if I trip or run into something I'll sit up in bed and have to get to work again. Work..." He ran a hand through his unkempt black hair, the blue of his eyes dancing. "I can quit work now. I can get a better apartment... maybe even buy a car. My gods..." He looked at her again. "I'm not dreaming, right?"
"Not unless we're having the same dream." Arya smirked. "And I'm not running away from you screaming, so it's definitely not one of my nightmares."
He grunted at her. "But this is really happening? Not some sort of cruel joke?"
"No joke," she said, stepping towards him and crossing her arms. "You're really going to be a professional baseball player. How does it feel?"
"Unreal," he answered. His voice was distant, not rough and strong as it usually was but whimsical.
She watched him, content for a few moments to trace the features of his face with her eyes while he was distracted. "You know, you really should be thanking me. If I hadn't've said something to my father, you would be lying in bed right now dreading the cars you'd have to fix on Monday."
He eyed her again, this time narrowly and grudgingly. "Not very modest, are you? Little spitball of annoyance. What was that your dad just called you? Little wolf?"
Arya bristled, and looked away, surprised he'd heard the intimate exchange with her father. "None of your business. And don't call me that."
"Okay," Gendry replied, his smirk returning and his eyes twinkling. He was doing it again; getting under her skin without apparently trying. "I'll just have to come up with my own nickname for you, then. Something nice and annoying."
"Don't you dare," she threatened.
He didn't flinch under her death glare. "Maybe something like 'Arry' or 'Lumpyhead'. Those fit, eh? Or 'Cat'. You're more like a cat than a wolf, anyway."
"This cat's claws are about to be buried in your face, Lumpyhead," she snarled angrily, as the taxi pulled into the parking and she began to stalk towards it. "Hurry up, you arrogant bull, before I call my father and tell him to reconsider."
When she turned around, the look of glee had vanished from Gendry's face and he had paled. She ducked into the taxi to hide her triumphant smirk as he practically sprinted to make it to the taxi, and glanced innocently out of the window as he slid in opposite her and she relayed their destination to the driver.
—
The flight was still an hour away from Winterfell when Ned saw Luwin stand a few rows ahead of him. He was speaking on a cell phone with a grim—grimmer than usual, that is—look on his face, and hung up gingerly as he made eye contact with Ned and quickly moved out of the aisle with the Direwolves' pitching and hitting coaches to join Ned in his a few rows behind.
What now? Ned wondered as Luwin sat down in the seat next to his slowly. He set aside the paperwork and stat sheets he had been pouring over, steeling himself for whatever blow his team's manager was about to deliver.
"What is it?" he prompted courageously.
"I'm afraid Hullen's just sent back some very bad news, my lord," Luwin began. "The boy's got a hole in the collateral ligament of his elbow. He needs Tommy John, Ned."
Gods. Tommy John. Just the mention made Ned shiver. Blessed as he'd been in his own playing days, he'd never needed surgery of any kind, much less the dreaded Tommy John. He'd heard horror stories from many of his teammates who had undergone the operation, however; twelve months recovery for a pitcher, eighteen in some especially poor situations. Many players never recovered from such an extensive operation as the replacement of the ligament, and in one so young as Gendry, the injury could very well be crippling.
Ned leaned back in his seat woefully, thoughtfully, and then suddenly remembered the readings he'd seen on the speed gun the previous evening, watching Gendry hurl heat down the middle of a Flea Bottom street. "You're telling me... that the lad threw a ninety-nine mile per hour fastball with a hole in his arm?"
Luwin shook his head, clearly short of an answer. "It appears so. I'm as shocked as you are. How he could ever pitch—and pitch well, no less—through that pain is beyond me. It's a wonder he didn't tear the ligament in half with as hard as he throws."
"Surgery would take a year to recover from," Ned said, thinking aloud.
"It would be spending over a hundred thousand dollars on an unproven pitcher who has never seen a real baseball field," Luwin commented. "Not to mention signing him for a significantly larger portion of money than that. The transaction will definitely attract the notice of the league office, and we would be laughed out of the market for anyone."
"Maybe," Ned replied, "but how often do you find a guy in the street who can throw that hard? This is a diamond find, Luwin, and we can't just pass it up."
Luwin sat quietly for a moment, looking at the hands calmly folded in his lap. After a long moment, he sighed, and then folded his hands the opposite way. "The young Waters failed his physical, my lord. By rule, we cannot sign him without putting him through the surgery procedure. And if we did so, there is absolutely no guarantee he could return to the form he showed us today after recovery."
"No other team would make this investment."
"Exactly."
Ned had made the comment, however, for a different reason than Luwin seemed to ingest. "I was like him once, Luwin. I was a nobody in a small college in the north while my brother was on the fast track to fame. Then he got hurt, and someone important gave me a chance. Thirty years later, here we sit. In another life, I could be in a position as low as his is now. Damned if I'm going to leave him to rot in that life forever."
The two of them lapsed into silence. Ned was remembering that moment long ago, when word had come from King's Landing that his brother's career was most likely over and a contract offer was made that changed a team's dynasty and changed his life. Luwin's thoughts were his own, but the wise man he knew was probably considering Ned's anecdote.
After a while, Luwin cleared his throat. "There is one other possibility, my lord. We could ignore the MRI in our report to Major League Baseball and sign him to the contract anyway. He would not undergo the surgery. He could go to Blackhaven and begin his development as planned, pitching through the injury as he's already done. Our trainers could aid his elbow as best they could while he did so."
"Lie? You want to lie?" Even after the manager nodded, it took Ned several moments to take him seriously, and when he finally did he felt a grin spread on his face. "Why, Luwin, you cold-hearted bastard, I never would have thought you had it in you."
Luwin ignored the quip as he allowed a slight smirk to curl his lips. "It would seem the most prudent course of action for the boy's future and for your own wishes, my lord, if not for the boy's health."
"Who else knows about the hole?"
"As of now, only you, Hullen, and I. Hullen's sworn to secrecy and no one else even knows Gendry was tried out this morning except for your son, who isn't about to go off spouting your managing secrets to anyone. If you want to bury the MRI and run with it, there won't be much in your way to stop you. If the injury gets worse, we can always discover it anew, and by then he will have shown at least partially what he can do, and we will have a better idea whether or not to offer a renewal after the surgery and the season."
Ned caught his manager's eye and held it. "We're really willing to do this?"
Luwin shrugged. "Well, he might be a wash-up. We do not know yet. I am not opposed to bending the rules, though, in favor of this... expedition."
Ned needed only a few more seconds of thought before his mind was made up. He offered a silent prayer to the gods that the execution of their plan would not injure Gendry, and then nodded. "Very well. I'll have it drawn up. When it's ready, I'll fly back down and meet with him personally to have him sign it."
"My lord," Luwin murmured, glancing over his shoulders and towards the aisles where the rest of the team sat before lowering his voice and continuing, "do you think we should tell him?"
"I'm not sure," Ned answered. He sighed. "If anything Arya told me was true, he won't want to quit, either, and it clearly hasn't bothered him enough up to this point that he's wanted to stop pitching. Even if we told him, he would refuse to have the surgery done."
"So we're not going to tell him," Luwin nodded, his tone neither approving nor disapproving. "Very good, my lord. I will inform Hullen to remain silent about the development and call Dondarrion in Blackhaven to tell him he'll be receiving a new reliever. With his arm as it is, I imagine we'll want to mix him in slowly from the bullpen and see what happens."
"Agreed," Ned said, releasing a strained breath and reaching for the paperwork again. He was eager to be home, but he also wished his daughters were with him. The incidents in the capitol had made him very nostalgic for the days when his family was together, and the most he had to worry about was finding time to coach Robb's little league and make sure Arya didn't get into any fights with boys three times her size.
As if reading his thoughts, Luwin turned back and asked softly, "How is Robert?"
The phone call during his lunch with his daughters rushed back, and Ned rubbed at his beard anxiously. "Still in critical condition. They're not... they don't know yet." He pondered silently, and then angrily added, "They still haven't found the car or driver that hit him... hit and runs in the capitol of the kingdom, what nonsense is that?"
Luwin watched him a moment longer, and then nodded, moving back towards his own seat forward up the aisle. Ned stroked his face for a second longer and stared up the plane until he caught sight of the back of Robb's head, leaned up against the seat in slumber. He couldn't help but picture Gendry sitting where Robb was.
Gods, please do not let me harm the boy. Please make the choice I've made the right one.