Untouchable

by Collier World

Modern AU. Off the streets of King's Landing, Arya Stark plucks an undiscovered talent. Charging headlong into the world of professional baseball, Gendry Waters must navigate more than the pressure to compete and the need to survive. His fastball puts him on the mound. She makes him untouchable.

26. Chapter 24

24

On the morning of the first game of the World Series, Gendry rose before the sun. In late October, there was barely any light to be had when he left the apartment, too tired to keep sleeping, too nervous to eat, but he flipped his motorcycle lights on and rode it to the Great Keep, knowing full well he wasn't expected to report for at least another seven hours. It would be at least twelve before the game started; he wished it was right now. He didn't want to wait.

It was freezing in Winterfell, the clutches of the tundra already settling in mid-autumn; frost clung to grass in front of businesses to lampposts as he rolled into more metropolitan city. As the sky began to brighten, his breath misted heavy behind him, the chilling wind sinking into his bones as he rode. He barely noticed it; he had been born in summer, raised in it, molded by it, but he felt nothing but winter now. He was prepared.

Frozen dew clung to the Direwolves' field, as well, when he got there. The concourse was empty so early in the morning; his footsteps echoed forebodingly as he crossed it to climb down the rows of seats. All he had to wear was a jacket and jeans and the backpack he pulled off to carry by its strap at his side, but he wasn't bothered by the cold.

He dropped his pack and sat in the first seat of the first row, watching his breath dance before his face, looking out over the field and imagining forty thousand people ringing it, lights at full blast, players at full throttle. In only a few short hours—yet far too long for his taste—Winterfell was going to come alive for its first World Series in over a decade, and he was to be an integral part of it. Millions of people across the nation would be tuning in on their televisions. The better team would win four games in the series. The loser would walk away with nothing. Just thinking about it set his heart accelerating. It was the ultimate ultimatum, in the life of his that had been cursed to death with ultimatums; it was his stomping ground. It was his trade.

But that wasn't why he was here, before the sun was up, his skin turning blue, his eyes watching the field blankly from the stands.

He had dreamed of fire that night, and ice, a lot of them both, and throughout it all there had been a voice, laughing at him—it had sounded peculiarly like Aegon Targaryen's. As if that hadn't been enough to unnerve him, the dream had shifted then. Arya was there, alone, standing between the flames, completely unconcerned about the inferno around her. Gendry tried to reach out for her, to save her from the blaze, but every time he got there she wasn't, anymore, and waited just a little farther in the flames, glaring at him with anger and contempt. Then she was gone, and there was a baseball hurtling over the flames, straight at his face, and he had cringed and tried to get out of its way...

...sitting bolt upright in bed, releasing a shuddering gasp, clutching at his chest, where his heart was beating so quickly that it reached the point of excruciation. Groaning through the pain, it had taken several minutes for his sweat-coated body to return to its normal homeostasis, during which he could do nothing but pray and be haunted by the aftershocks of his dream. As soon as it abated, all he wanted was to get out of the apartment, and he had nowhere else to go but the Great Keep. It was where he'd begun. It was where he belonged.

Now that he was there, though, the cruel laugh in the background of consciousness bounced around his head even more than it had lying bedridden for the few helpless minutes before. It had been weeks since his encounter in Casterly Rock with the son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Beyond an understandable level of discomfort with the situation, Gendry hadn't given it much thought throughout the short extent of the National League Championship Series.

Ever since its conclusion, though, nothing had weighed heavier on his mind. It was ridiculous, he knew; a threat that couldn't be anything but empty, that sounded like it came from madness rather than actual hatred. Gendry still couldn't understand what the man had been speaking of, a weeks' worth of neglected thought meant he didn't recall the specifics. What he did remember was that the man clearly thought that they had vendettas against one another, and that they were bound to clash in the World Series. While the former was certainly news to Gendry, the latter had played out all too close to Targaryen's prediction, which made uneasy. Uneasiness entering the biggest game of your life was not something that boded well. And then there was Arya, evading him between the flames, and that only made everything worse.

Sitting in the bleachers, completely numb, he looked up at the dark morning sky and tried to find a shooting star to wish upon. He stared for several minutes, every possible outcome of the World Series flashing through his mind, every possible outcome of Aegon strolling to the plate against him on the mound. Not a single flare streaked across the night, and then the sun rose and he shivered until he could no longer see his breath.

The hours dragged by that day, and yet they were a blur. Gendry tried to eat something and failed; his stomach was churning with butterflies all day. The moment of any young ballplayer's dreams was about him, but all felt was nerves and uncertainty. He prepared himself a bath in the late morning, a steaming bath to soak his body, but that did little. He took a cold shower, and that had little more effect. It helped when other players began to arrive, hours earlier than necessary, shared nerves letting them all share a laugh here or there. But Targayen loomed in the back of his mind. Gendry hated his inability to push the bastard out.

When Robb arrived, one of the last to do so, by design, he tapped Gendry's shoulder on his initial walk through locker room and nodded towards the door. Gendry followed without question, his mind too preoccupied to worry about what Robb had to say, but once they were in the hall Robb turned around and offered him a grin.

"We're here, eh?"

"Yeah, we're here," Gendry acknowledged.

Robb's face turned a little more serious, a little more captain-like, as he took a deep breath. "I want to make sure you're okay, again. I know you left early, and if I had to guess, your sleep has probably been like shit lately. And you're not even getting married."

Gendry drudged up a smile he didn't really mean, finding himself almost wishing that weren't the case. "Just... just a little nervous. Just want to get out there and play."

"You sure? Now is the only time we get if you need to talk. Later... later it's too late. If there's something, get it out now."

Isn't there always something? he remarked irritably to himself. There was. Always Arya on his mind, always Targaryen scraping away, swinging at him. But he had to be strong. He was steel. He forced himself to shake his head, looking Robb straight in the die. "There's nothing."

"Glad to hear it," Robb said. He grinned widely, clapping Gendry on the shoulder. "This is the World Series, man. Let's go make history."

The atmosphere reminded him of King's Landing. As he and the relievers made their way to the bullpen, the crowd was alight and afoot, dozens of flashing bulbs going off around the stadium every second. The roar was nearly deafening, even on field level, and followed them into the slightly-insulating underhang and sanctuary of the bullpen. It felt exactly as it had in the nation's capitol, when the stakes had been infinitely lower and the Monarchs had taken every game of their matchup, when Gendry had caved beneath the pressure—understandably—and surrendered to his anger. He did his best to ignore the Monarchs and their dugout as both teams came out forty five minutes before the game's beginning, but it was difficult. From mere, inevitable glances he got caught of a dozen familiar faces—Lannister, Pycelle, Tyrell, Clegane, even Joffrey Baratheon, each one looking more smug and self-assured than the last. Except for Clegane; Clegane just looked terrifying, per usual. The only difference between then and now was that before an upwards of fifty thousand people had been burning him in effigy, whereas now the number was closer to forty five thousand who wanted nothing more than for him to carry their team on his back to the promised land, an immediately preferable alternative. And once he caught a glimpse of a face that hadn't been there the last time. The silver-haired man perched on the top-step of the Monarchs' dugout as Gendry strode across the outfield grass, and staring at him the entire time. Gendry did his best to glare back, but before long he was forced to look away, and did his best to put Aegon Targaryen out of his mind. The purple eyes followed him all the way to the outfield wall, though, he knew. The words returned to him from some nights prior. I hope you're prepared, because I'm coming. Gendry was appalled by the almost-shiver he experienced, and, angrily, forced himself to concentrate on his nerves, instead, interestingly enough.

The pregame passed like a blur, even though he was aware of every minute of it. Slowly, he became actually aware that he was a member of a professional baseball team that was about to play the first game of the World Series. As the rest of the bullpen resumed their normal lazy activity in a rather jumpier state than usual following the national anthem, Gendry found himself remaining afoot, anxiety and tranquility alternating as his mind flashed between panic and a realization that he was prepared for what was to come. He glanced at the others, then, as epic music began to play over the loudspeakers and the crowd screamed with excitement and delight as the Direwolves pranced out of the dugout and took the field for the beginning of the Series. Observing his fellow relievers' movements, he was relieved to find that their bodies exhibited much of the same tension as his, even if their actions were trying to demonstrate relaxation. It made him feel better, and, actually, less anxious, to realize that he wasn't an odd one out; he was actually just an ordinary member of the crowd, now.

Then he remembered that he was playing in the World Series, and he might as well not ever have calmed in the first place.

It was Jory's day on the hill, opening the series with hopefully a bang for the Direwolves. He, unlike the bullpen, appeared as fluid and quiet as ever as he delivered his warm-up pitches. Robb's throw-down to second was on the money, as well, his body language demonstrating nothing but confidence and focus. Gendry forced himself to sit down next to Cayn on the bench bordering the double wall and gazed across the outfield at his captain. He couldn't have asked for a better friend, but he could do without Robb's constant concern. Yes, he was in pain, but he had, as yet, forced himself through it for the better of his team. He loved Robb like a brother, but Gendry was past the point of comfort. He was to the point of trust and belief, and, though one couldn't find a more loyal or honorable person than Robb Stark, Gendry was beginning to wish that the man would just let well enough be.

But that doesn't matter, he forced himself to say, watching Robb fix the dirt around home plate as the ball went around the horn. You're here to pitch, not whine. It's the only thing you've got left, so do it.

The tension and ecstasy on the air was nearly palpable. Janos Slynt was the leadoff hitter for the Monarchs, and he strode towards the plate with swagger. Gendry watched him say something to Robb and watched Robb smoothly snap something back so snarky or surprising that Slynt froze on the spot to swing around and glare at the catcher. Robb was too quick; he had already dropped his mask and was crouching behind the plate, waiting for the batter to step into the box so he could sign the first pitch of the World Series. Gendry grinned to himself and felt just a little bit better.

So the battle began.

For the first game of the Series, it might as well have been the last. Hitters were taking heavy swings, treating each pitch as though it separated them from certain death, but the pitchers were even better. Jory squared off against Osmund Kettleback, the Monarchs' young ace, and it was a duel for the keys to the kingdom. They were the perfect microcosm of their respective teams: Kettleback wove through the Direwolves' lineup over the first five innings, seemingly picking them apart without breaking a sweat; Jory, alternatively, plowed through the Monarchs like a bulldozer, clearly using everything he had in him on every pitch, anything he had in him at all to get outs. It was working, for both players; Gendry earned a small amount of satisfaction when Aegon Targaryen, batting third for the Monarchs ahead of Clegane, dinked out to the mound for his first out and struck out looking for his second. On the other side, Robb was not having the best day of his career, nor were Edric or Hallis. Both pitchers had stacked up exactly six strikeouts through five innings, with only three hits scattered between them, the Direwolves' only receiving a prayer bloop with two outs in the third that was instantly squelched.

In the top of the sixth, it looked as though Jory would have another clean campaign, getting Slynt to swing through three offspeed pitches and Tyrell to watch embarrassingly as a full count cutter slipped down the middle of the plate. The momentum was to the Direwolves at that point, if only from home field advantage, but the crowd was certainly behind them, cheering for Jory's every pitch as if they realized just how much of a small victory each one was, as Gendry did.

Stepping in after Tyrell with two outs was Targaryen, tapping his shoes carefully and showing no sign of how much his first two failures must have been eating at him. Clegane, standing on deck, was certainly making no such attempt; his vicious practice swings clearly showed everyone in the solar system that he was quite unhappy with his own two uncustomary popouts. Gendry focused on Targaryen, though, leaning forward on his frosty knees and silently begging Jory to make the silver-haired phantom look a fool for the third time.

The first pitch missed low. Targaryen let the second curve fall in for a strike nonchalantly, stepping out of the box and tightening his batting gloves, taking his sweet time while Jory stood poised on the rubber, patiently awaiting the next pitch. They weren't very big, from where Gendry was sitting, but he noted that they looked exactly like they belonged; two professionals competing against one another for the highest honor, completely calm and waiting for each other to make the first false move. Exactly how Gendry should have been feeling, or at least showing, when he was nervous enough simply watching his teammate pitch.

Abruptly, an ominous air sank into Gendry's skin, just as Jory went through his windup and strode towards the plate. He couldn't have explained it, whether it was intuition or just having a strong feeling for the game, but the next thing he knew, Targaryen had swung and connected sweetly, and the baseball was airborn, arcing towards the Direwolves' bullpen as if it flew with a purpose.

Gendry's glove was sitting next to him on the bench; robotically, he grabbed it and slid it onto his hand. Around him, a half dozen voices called, "Heads up!" but he saw the ball the entire way. Glumly, he plucked it out of the air a foot in front of his body, where it would have struck him square in the thigh had he not reeled it in. A few muffled swear words reached him from his teammates as he stared at it, and he felt like joining them.

Groans and moans reached him from the crowds, but his own mental ones overpowered them. He glanced up to the field to find Aegon Targaryen rounding the bases at a quick jog, wasting no time, the respectful and appropriate way to do so. Gendry watched him the entire way around third, and the Monarch did not glance towards the bullpen, after his home run, a single time. For some reason, that made Gendry all the angrier.

As a run tallied sadly onto the scoreboard under the Monarchs' name, Gendry handed the ball to Desmond, sitting next to him on the bench. "Give that to your dog."

"I don't have a dog," Desmond replied, staring at the ball in hatred.

Gendry slapped it into the man's hands anyway, turning back to the field bitterly. "Then buy one, and then give the damn thing to it."

Where the momentum had been the Direwolves' before, it was no longer. The mood did not go out of the crowd, despite the home run. Truthfully, on the exterior, it seemed more than ever that Winterfell had the support of its fans. Underneath, though, even after Clegane struck out furiously to end the inning, the Direwolves' coming up empty in the sixth and seventh made the looming run on the scoreboard appear weigh ever more heavily on the minds of players.

At that point, the anxiety of playing left Gendry, replaced by an anxiety to play, and he began silently urging Luwin across the baseball diamond to pull him out of the bullpen. But there was no cause for it, of course. He was the closer; it was the first game of the World Series, not a time to waste an irreplaceable arm. So he was forced to watch Cayn jog in to take the eighth inning instead, and, when the Direwolves were able to pile up nothing once again in the eighth, Quent was called upon to subdue the Monarchs enough to give their team a chance in the ninth.

But despite Jory's epic pitching, and considerably admirable outings by Cayn and Quent which restricted the formidable but frustrated Monarchs' lineup to their one run, Edric and Robb struck out back-to-back to end the game, both of them looking afterwards as though they had cost their team the entire World Series, instead of simply failing to offer a chance for the comeback. In the end, it was no one's fault. Jory had thrown terrifically; Kettleback had thrown better.

Long after the Monarchs had shaken congratulatory hands with each other, long after Gendry had been forced to watch their smug faces, from Baratheon to Slynt—minus Clegane, who chose burned and furious over confident—long after the Winterfell crowd had filed dejectedly out of the stadium and the Direwolves had acquired a one-game deficit in the World Series, Luwin had little to say about the loss. He expressed his short displeasure with the lack of hitting, but himself admitted that Kettleback's stuff had been virtually unhittable before ordering them to an early bed.

"We're in a short hole already," he told them in all their assorted states of depressed undress, just before he ducked towards his office with Rodrik Cassel to discuss their position. "Go home. Tomorrow we have to show that their fluke is all they'll get out of us. We're still only four wins away from victory."

The others seemed to brighten slightly, afterwards. They found laughs and encouragement with each other, while Gendry dropped his uniform in the laundry bin and pulled on his street clothes. They remembered that they had only lost by one run, that they had actually been competing, scrap to talent, and realized that they had a chance to win. Perhaps it was his already distressed state, but Gendry could not join them. He managed smiles for Edric and Mikken and a few words of determination, but on his freezing ride home on the motorcycle, he couldn't help but think about Targaryen's polite but nevertheless condescending round of the bases—as if he were trying to minimize the Direwolves' pain while still succeeding in crushing them. It infuriated Gendry.

They think we're here by luck, he growled to himself mentally. They all do. They think their way is paved for them.

Then again, they had the right to. While both teams were experiencing incredible success in the middle of the regular season, the Monarchs had taken the Direwolves to town, winning all three of their matchups definitively, if one had not been handily. Gendry hated to admit it—he wouldn't have, perhaps to anyone who wasn't... perhaps to anyone—but the Monarchs were the better team. The Direwolves had more honor, character, and grit, but they were on the world's biggest stage; talent and ability won out in the short-term, and they didn't have another season to prove themselves.

With these thoughts bouncing around his head, he avoided Robb pointedly once he made it back to his apartment, for fear of voicing them aloud, something he thought might make them truer than they were. For his own part, Robb's face remained dark and clouded, and it was not difficult for the two to avoid a conversation in their minimal interaction before they both turned in for an early sleep. Or—at least in Gendry's case—an early attempt.

He found himself at the stadium before dawn again the next day, this time in the film room. No one would be there for hours, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Sleep wasn't there for him; only memories, that variably tormented and then tortured him. He couldn't afford it, not when he was playing in the World Series. So he locked himself in the film room and tried to be productive, scrolling through old games, examining his deliveries, his leg positions, his release point consistency. Scrolling through his successful saves mostly showed him the same things—accuracy, consistency, potency—and were generally unhelpful as he tried to work out kinks in his motion. All of it brought him down to his two blown saves, where, if ignoring the Harrenhal game—which he refused to return to under any circumstances—he had thrown the worst. One of them had been the result of luck from the other team, leaving him, ironically, with only his demise in King's Landing to scrutinize.

Which left him staring at the screen, passing from at-bat to at-bat, replaying that fateful day. First Blount's leadoff walk, then Swann's long flyout, followed by hits by Slynt and Tyrell and then...

Gendry had been scrolling through the same pitch over and over again for nearly a half hour before he realized that he was at it. He blinked, and paused the playback on the most recent loop of the pitch, conveniently catching the frame of the instant that he released the pitch. Moving his hand away from the cursor, he sighed, surveying the scene of the screen. Clegane sat at the plate; his face was brutal and ravenous, as if he already knew he would hit the pitch out of the park. Robb was in the frame, sitting back on his haunches, ready to catch the pitch that he never would. The umpire crouched behind him, fated to toss Gendry from the game only a few moments later. It was like a window back to his past, a freeze frame of a moment that could have broken his short career.

Thinking back, having watched it an upwards of one hundred times over the last thirty minutes, he could have ran the whole clip in his head without needing to see it visually, but instead he clasped his hands, rested his chin on them, and stared at the screen, stared at the frozen picture of him and Clegane and tried to figure out exactly what had happened, why the ball had been hit how it was, how he had made such a drastic mistake and lost his team the game that day. It wasn't a big deal, he knew; his team had recovered from the win, they had made the playoffs, there were in the World Series... At the same time, Gendry couldn't help but think about how Clegane and the team that had beaten him that day were residing only half a ballpark away, or would be in a few hours. Staring at the image, staring at the moment, he remembered his devastation, his anger in King's Landing. The cause had returned... would a moment like this happen again? Could a pitch very similar to the one he couldn't get off of his mind come again? Would it haunt him?

The pitch hadn't missed, then. He had released it where he had been supposed to. It had broke like it was supposed to. It had been Clegane's weakness; his only one was breaking balls. He hadn't messed up. It had been a great pitch.

Yet Clegane had knocked it out of the ballpark. Knocked him out of the ballpark.

Sighing in exhaustion, he unclasped his hands and placed his face into his palms, leaning over his knees. I made the right pitch. A good pitch. And I still lost. I lost everything. By the time his thoughts concluded, baseball was the farthest thing from his mind. The screen before him wasn't displaying the only right pitch he'd thrown that had missed its mark. He gritted his teeth in self-loathing. Throwing the right pitch for the wrong reasons. The wrong pitch for the right reasons. There's no difference. You still lost. Lost the game, lost the girl, lost your chance.

No. That was his voice, too, but it came from somewhere very far back in his head. Almost obscured by the rest of his thoughts. Not your chance. Not yet.

"Not yet," he repeated aloud, and pulled his head out of his hands to stare at the screen. He still saw himself. He forced himself not to look at Clegane, not to see anything but himself, his arm pulled back, his elbow torqued, his body twisted to throw the slider. He saw his name stretched taut across the back of his jersey, the pride of his life standing for the world to see. The Series is dark and full of terrors. But it takes four games to win, not one. Not two.

He said it again, and again, and again until he thought that he believed it. Then he stood up and turned off the screen, turned off that damn pitch, and went into the clubhouse to lie down on a bench. It wasn't the most comfortable thing he had ever slept on, but he only woke up when someone nudged him hours later, the first of the rest of the Direwolves arriving at the ballpark. He wasn't sure if he felt any better than he had before the nap, but it didn't matter now. There was baseball to play. And he was going to get that chance.

He didn't notice the crowd that day. It was as cold as it had been the day before, the sun set before the beginning of the game, and the fans were as loud and supportive as they had ever been, but on that day Gendry had focus only enough for the Monarchs, and he was staring at them hard. All day. From the back of the clubhouse tunnel as they took visiting batting practice. From the dugout as they stretched before the beginning of Game 2. From the bullpen as they prepared to bat in the first inning. He wasn't sure what he was watching, but he was watching them and waiting, pondering, itching to be on the rubber. He wanted his chance. He wanted them to come up swinging. Loathe as he was to admit it, that pitch was still frozen in the back of his head; he wanted to prove that it had been only a blip on the radar, that the true storm was still waiting for them, that he was everything they didn't want to hit them. He wanted to prove that he wasn't that pitch, that he was better than it.

The game started off slow. Sluggish, in fact. The first three innings saw a lot of pitches, and not many baserunners. It was nearly a mirror of the day before, except today the pitchers were less dominant and hitters were missing pitches. Clegane popped up a down-the-middle fastball that might not have ever landed otherwise. Edric struck out on consecutive fastballs that he should have lined into the gap. Mikken swung on 3-0 and grounded out. It was almost a boring game, really, Gendry begging his team to do anything.

It was an unusually scoreless affair, then, both starters lasting into the eighth, both teams scrabbling for runs. The Direwolves' hitters were seeming to become desperate as the game progressed, understandably; it wasn't necessarily a must-win game, but going on the road with two losses to show for your homestand was not something any of them wanted to do.

Then, in the bottom of the eighth, where the top of the lineup had failed, the bottomof the order came through. Consecutive singles were followed by a perfect sacrifice bunt by a pinch hitter. Hallis followed in the leadoff spot, and on the first pitch everyone in the stadium held their breath when he took a pitch off the end of the bat and skyed it to shallow center with runners on second and third. Gendry actually rose to his feet and inhaled with the other forty five thousand people in the stands, hundreds of cameras flashing around the moment, every single person in the stadium wondering the same thing. Is it deep enough to score the runner?

It all came down to speed. Tyrell settled under it, gearing up for a charge as the runner squared off on third, quite prepared to sprint home with everything he had. Then the center field let it sink into his glove, took three steps towards the plate, and, as the runner exploded off the base, fired.

The race was on.

Ninety thousand eyes followed the ball inside of the stadium; millions more did around the nation as it launched itself over second base and hurtled airborne towards the plate. It would arrive on the fly, there was no doubt of that. The runner was quick, but it would have to be as close a play as there ever could have been for him to have a chance at the run.

The catcher, Blount, had to take one and a half steps to the right of the plate to catch the baseball; the runner reached the edge of the circle of dirt surrounding home plate. Both catcher and runner gathered and threw themselves headlong at the white base sitting directly between the two of them, a mitt and a finger stretched full extension, both as desperate as one could possibly be to get the other first, like two lovers reaching, begging for contact when they knew it was impossible.

The runner's most outstretched finger touched the plate. Blount's glove slammed into the runner's arm at somewhat roughly the exact same time, while both bodies went careening impossibly out of control thereafter. No one in the world could have called the play except for the man wearing pads and black, only two feet away from the plate, staring directly at it as it happened. No one else could have the courage to open their mouth, as the umpire did, and make the call. Gendry and the rest of the world held their breaths, as though it were Game 7, not the eighth inning of Game 2. He heard the call from the bullpen; he didn't need the arm motion.

"Safe!"

The stadium exploded. Gendry didn't participate in the celebration. He was already shrugging off his jacket, baring his arms to the frosty chill of the night, seizing his glove and beckoning to the bullpen catcher. A run had crossed for the Direwolves, putting them into a save situation in the World Series. He didn't have to wait for the bullpen coach to receive the call from the dugout, to let him know he was up; even if he wasn't, even if for some reason Luwin didn't want him... by the gods, he was going into the fucking game.

He warmed up normally, as if he had been told to stand up, the bullpen coach simply watching bemusedly, not even answering the phone when it rang. The rest of the bullpen watched, too, as Edric stepped up to the plate, potentially able to drive in the insurance run from third base as Gendry heaved pitch after pitch to the bullpen catcher, knowing full well that he would face the brunt of the Monarchs' lineup in the coming inning. He felt invigorated, energetic, and actually relished it when Edric struck a weak grounder to second base for the third out of the inning. He had one run to work with; one run was all he needed.

Love and devotion showered down upon him as he jogged out to the mound, wild cheers arising as his name was called over the loudspeaker. He tried not to look at the fans, to focus in on Robb as his captain trotted behind the plate and prepared to take the warm-up pitches, but he couldn't help glancing up once or twice and drinking in the bright lights, the flashing bulbs, the loud applause, the trust that he held in his hand in that moment. It was something a nobody from King's Landing didn't get every day.

Eight pitches later, after the throwdown, he and Robb exchanged a meaningful glance, and nothing more needed to be said. They went to work.

Janos Slynt stepped into the box. He and Robb exchanged a few more words. The crowd was on their feet, shouting too loud for Gendry to hear the men's exchange, but the expressions on both of their faces suggested plainly the trash that was being passed between them. It only made Gendry grin as Robb dropped to a crouch and signed for a fastball.

The first pitch was an uncontested, ninety-nine mile per hour fastball down the heart of the plate for strike one. Slynt appeared unperturbed, but Gendry just told himself that the man was all the more vulnerable because of such overconfidence. With that thought in mind, he delivered the low, away slider Robb called for next, which Slynt waved at, and completely missed. Whether or not he was unperturbed or not, Gendry didn't care; it didn't matter as long as the pitch was true. So when Robb showed another slider, he shook it off in favor of the fastball and hurled another heater at the inside corner as hard as he could. Slynt was by no means a respectful man, but even he could not argue with the called strike three, and, after cringing beneath the roar of the attendants, set his bat carefully on his shoulder and walked back to his dugout.

It was almost like an earthquake, how loud the fans were as the ball went around the horn, and Gendry drank it in like a starving man, enjoying the feeling of goosebumps explode across his skin. This was his chance, his calling, what he had sacrificed everything for. The crowd at his back, the game in his hand, every possible outcome a result of his hand. He stepped back on the rubber eagerly, avid to be at the next hitter.

The next hitter was Tyrell, undaunted in the face of Gendry's might. The blond-haired man actually exchanged a few words with Aegon Targaryen as the latter stepped on-deck after him, both of them turning a hateful eye towards Gendry. Gendry glared back as Tyrell dropped the chalk to the circle and began to stride towards the plate, and glared longer and harder at Targaryen, as if to promise what was coming for him. Targaryen, after several moments, glanced down at his bat shiftily, and Gendry thought that it was a better feeling than the previous strikeout of Slynt.

Tyrell dug into the box and it was all back to business. Another first pitch fastball was in order, on the outside half. Gendry released it true, and watched Tyrell's body tighten as he swung at it. And through it. For a split second, perplexity crossed the man's face, disbelief mingled with amazement, before he masked himself again, but that was all Gendry needed for the confidence to throw a second one on the second pitch, a ball only a few inches lower than the last one. Tyrell swung again, and only managed to nick it, sending it bouncing foul behind the plate. Robb reached for the next baseball; all the foul one signified to Gendry was that the hitter was down two strikes to none.

Up that count, Robb glanced up at Tyrell and motioned for a slider. Gendry didn't argue. He slid his grip into position and released a breath, sweat gripping the hairs of his neck despite the awful temperature of Winterfell. With a stride and a tiny grunt of effort, he twisted his elbow and let the pitch fly, watching it soar towards the low strike zone, when Tyrell began to swing. Twenty feet before the plate, the ball dropped down without any warning, and Tyrell's compensating bat swatted by without making any contact as the ball spiked in the dirt behind the plate and bounced harmlessly off of Robb's chest protector to land a foot in front of the catcher as the crowd screamed its excitement. Tyrell, in the midst of swearing, dropped his bat and took off for first base on the dropped third strike, but Robb calmly picked the ball off of the ground, stepped out of the baseline, and chucked it to first for the second out before Tyrell was halfway down the line.

He could have sliced the power on the air with a knife as the ball went around the infield. He could barely hear his own thoughts—which wasn't easy in the first place—as the crowd pounded the air with cries and echoes, knowing full well their team was one out away from a World Series-evening win. Gendry took the pitch back from third base and let the roar of the crowd wash over him as he climbed the pitcher's mound for the third hitter, knowing full well who it was.

Aegon Targaryen took one last swing in the on-deck circle and then pounded the knob of his bat into the dirt, knocking off the practice weight and taking a deep breath before he strode to the plate. Gendry watched him come with glee, the silver-haired man looking at the ground, outwardly calm but internally, Gendry could have imagined, just about shivering uncontrollably. For as awed as he was to be there, Gendry knew that Aegon was even less experienced, even less big-league ready, and for all the young slugger's success, with the crowd beating down upon him, talent aside, Gendry had the advantage.

No words were exchanged between Robb and the man as he stepped into the box, taking only a moment to dig his feet in before swinging his bat up into a stance and staring down Gendry. The closer stepped onto the mound, fingering the baseball carefully until he was satisfied with its feel. There was no room for error, but he had every confidence in his ability. He leaned over in the stretch and waited for the sign, which came in the form of a fastball.

It was a short pause at the top of his stance, the crowd almost stilling for a moment with him, before he lunged to the plate, hundreds of cameras capturing the second in time, and released the heater with everything he had. His arm twanged painfully, but the ball couldn't have been thrown better. Down the outside half it went, as it had to Tyrell, and, like Tyrell, Targaryen swung... and missed.

Gendry's eardrums actually rattled as the crowd roared. He tried to block them out, block out his own excitement, but he himself could feel it building as he took the throw back from Robb. Up two outs, two strikes away from a victory. Targaryen glanced down at the end of his bat—not perplexed as Tyrell had been, but nonetheless curious. The image stayed with Gendry as he turned and strode back to the rubber, his mind already locked onto the next pitch.

Targaryen's words returned to him, whispered in the dark on a creepy Casterly Rock night. Here we are, you and I, a pair of sons in the same place as our fathers were twenty years ago. Who's going to win this time?

A tinge of anger crept into his excitement as he bent for the next sign, fueling him even as much as his excitement did. Robb hesitated, appearing torn, before finally dropping a second fastball. Gendry accepted it without much debate, bringing himself set and staring menacingly down the pipe of the plate. He exhaled carefully, already striding to the plate and releasing. The ball's trajectory was farther inside than it had been before, but its speed was no less. Gendry watched Targaryen start to swing and then try to stop, straining with the effort of pulling his bat head back from the front of the plate and out of the way of the ball as Robb snagged it from the air. The check swing ended up not mattering; the umpire stepped back from the plate and roared the strike call anyway, and the crowd roared its own cal thereafter.

Gendry hissed as the ball came back, excitement actually pouring out of his body as he turned one last time to the mound, staring up at the scoreboard. Yesterday's score, flopped now in favor of his own team stared him back, along with two's next to the outs and the strikes. Here he stood, poised on the brink of a nine-pitch save in Game 2 of the World Series. The pinnacle of his dreams. The only thing standing in the way was Aegon Targaryen. In that moment, whatever he had said before, Gendry decided that there was a rivalry between the two of them, that went deeper than blood, deeper than honor... it was about them.

And he would win.

He climbed onto the mound, leaning into the sign. The crowd was beyond deafening, not a single seat in the stadium occupied. Participants from both dugouts stood at their rails, peering on desperately at the waning battle taking place at the plate. Gendry had to force himself to breathe, completely surprised that Robb was able to do the same as his captain placed a fist between his legs and finally dropped two fingers.

Gendry nodded and came set. Your chance, he whispered to himself. Your destiny, he added, voicing both himself and Targaryen, a reminder of dark nights and cold loneliness and everything in between, every hardship he had ever endured to put himself where he was.

With a shudder as he exhaled, he blinked, the stadium surging before him, and then there was no more time for waiting. He was done with waiting. The stride was perfect, his arm was perfect, his release was perfect, and a perfect slider took off for the plate.

He heard the crack of the bat.

He heard the crack of the bat, but he never saw the ball leave it, or dart upwards, or soar a dozen feet over his head to dead center. What he did see was Targaryen's eyes so up and Robb drop his glove and stand slowly, looking in the same direction. He saw Targaryen lower the bat from the swing that had taken his perfect breaking ball, saw the man take one step towards first base at a walk, and then a second. Then those purple eyes dropped from the ball and glanced at Gendry, for just the barest of moments. In the space of less than second, Gendry watched triumph flash brilliantly behind their dark violet shade.

Targaryen tossed his bat away, and his eyes were off Gendry, and Gendry had been... dismissed.

Only then did Gendry turn his body around, and find the ball in midair, and realize that forty five thousand mouths had simultaneously gone silent. He might have been able to hear a pin drop on the upper deck, for all of the noise that penetrated what had been a cacophony only a minute before. There was only the crash as the ball slammed off of the centerfield scoreboard and fall to the field near where Edric stood glancing forlornly upwards.

A moment passed, the echo of the blast reverberating inside of Gendry, shattering him, and then the Monarchs' dugout erupted. They were not nearly as loud as the crowd had been, but they were still more than loud enough to turn Gendry upside down. He stared emptily as Aegon Targaryen rounded second and moved off towards third, glanced down at his glove, glanced down at the rubber. He knew exactly what had happened; he knew that the game was now tied; he knew he had blown the save. Only the rising din from the visiting dugout, though, made him realize that whatever chance he had had... was gone.

A murmur rose in the crowd as Gendry's heart thudded soft and heavy, punching his gut with every beat. Robb called his name, neither happily nor angrily. When Gendry turned to him, his friend's face wasn't accusing or furious. His captain simply tossed him a new baseball, sharing a look of determination as it sank into Gendry that the game wasn't over, that the damn inning wasn't over. He forced himself to watch as Targaryen crossed the plate and jogged past Sandor Clegane, who didn't offer a high-five, but even the brutish man waiting to hit next couldn't faze Gendry—not after what had just happened. He blinked, still trying to put words to the emotions running through his chest, the failure that encompassed him. And then, he decided, that was exactly it, as he stared off after Targaryen as the silver-haired man reached his jubilant teammates at the dugout.

He had lost.

Clegane had put one foot in the box when Luwin climbed to the top step of the Direwolves' dugout beneath a disgruntled crowd and began to walk towards the mound. At first, Gendry wondered what the man was doing, and then asked himself why Luwin would want to speak with him in the middle of an inning. Only when Robb glanced at the dirt in defeat and began to jog out, and the infield began to collapse onto the pitcher's mound, did Gendry realize what was happening. His body locked up in shock, disbelief flooding his body. Everything. Everything.

Everyone was there by the time the Direwolves' manager reached the mound. Robb patted his back with a grim face and planted himself by Gendry's side, as if standing protectively. Luwin climbed the dirt to the rubber slowly, with a long face, staring downwards until he was within arm's length of Gendry.

Only then did the balding man raise his eyes and sigh, holding out an arm. "Good effort, Gendry."

"Luwin," Gendry replied, having to try very hard not to scoff. "You can't take me out. Not now."

"I have to, Gendry," the manager replied, looking for all the world as if it was something he didn't want to do. "Please just hand me the ball. No one thinks less of you."

"Coach, I need this," Gendry groaned. There was desperation in his voice, and he didn't care. "I need to get this out. I need—" He glanced towards the plate, towards where Sandor Clegane waited for his opportunity to destroy Gendry Waters, and instantly he was back in King's Landing, watching the bat shatter and the ball fly over the outfield fence. His tongue tied itself into knots and the spot and he forgot whatever it was he was trying to say.

There was no way Luwin had escaped noticing, and he reached a little farther for the ball, his gaze becoming sympathetic. "Just trust me, Gendry. You are my closer. But, right now... you need to be out of this game."

It was all a bad dream. He had fallen asleep in the film room that morning. He was going to wake up and be rested and fresh for the game that evening. This wasn't happening at all. He told it to himself a hundred times, but it didn't matter. The ball passed from his hand to Luwin, the manager patted his arm, and then his feet were carrying him towards the dugout on autopilot, the rest of his body unresponsive to his thoughts. He stared at the ground, because there was nothing else to stare at that didn't remind him that he had failed. The crowd watched him silently, their thunder stolen, his walk to the dugout filled with disappointment and letdown. The Monarchs watched him go with glee, no-doubt mourning his exit from the game, wishing he had stayed in to surrender the winning run to Clegane. That was what he would have done, after all; he gritted his teeth against the pain, against his own disappointment, but it stuck to him like glue. Failure, failure, failure; Arya, Ned Stark, baseball. There was nothing and nobody he couldn't fail.

He sat in the corner of the dugout, alone—just as he had always been—and stared at his glove for several minutes admitting to himself that he had missed yet another chance. While the next reliever came into the game and warmed up, he spent a very long few minutes convincing himself anew that he was stubborn and would not succumb to this hate. He wiped his nose from the cold and stared at the field, staring at the scoreboard, telling himself it was still a tie score, telling himself it wasn't the end of the world, telling himself that it was only Game 2. Some of it managed to shovel an inch of hope back into his body, but the rest only reminded him of his failure.

In silence, he watched Sandor Clegane walk. Joffrey Baratheon came up after that and would, no-doubt, have struck out or some such other failure, except that, somehow, the tiny snot was walked, as well. Then a single was surrendered—the crowd showed their first signs of life since Targaryen's home run by groaning—and Clegane scored easily from second base, despite running through a stop sign from the third base coach. The crooked number tacked up on the Monarchs' scorecard, and then the Direwolves were losing. Then a third out was recorded, and a smattering of applause sounded. And then Gendry watched the Direwolves go down in order in the bottom of the ninth.

And then the game was over. And they had lost.

He was still sitting in the same place in the dugout, staring at the wall, when Edric slapped his arm later and dragged him into the clubhouse, out of the cold. Gendry missed it, instantly; it had turned him frozen, numb. As his body warmed up, his blankness turned to empty rage, a burst pipe with a river to escape into.

Luwin had few words for them. No blame was asserted, for a second straight day. No one glanced in his direction. No one indicated him. They didn't need to: Gendry blamed himself more than enough for all of them combined. They were dismissed shortly, a group of forty tired, dejected men who were two games away from elimination, four very long, hard games away from a dismally distant victory.

Robb drove him home that night, leaving his motorcycle in the parking ramp. He went directly to his bed and actually slept the entire night through. He dreamt of Arya. He wasn't sure of what, but when he woke he could remember how it felt to hold her in his arms. He had lost her—just like he had lost everything else. Closing up on himself in his bed, he told himself that he would have willingly lost all that he had, all opportunity and chance that he had blown and had yet to blow, for just one more day with her. But all of his chances were gone. He had destroyed them all.

Look at you, he growled at himself, after almost an hour of lying await in the ugly grayness of dawn. You're pitiful. This isn't you. You've hit a rock in the road. You're better than this. It's a new day. The sun just fucking came up. Games 1 and 2 are over, big fucking woop. You're still their fucking closer, and they need you.

They needed him. Just like Arya had needed him. He closed his eyes against himself, seething, boiling with emotion, and threw the covers off of himself. Sitting up, he jammed his palms into his eyes three times, hard, and climbed to his feet. He had had his night of succumbing to bitterness and depression, and that was all he was allowed. He dressed himself and packed the bag he would need for their road trip, their sojourn to King's Landing.

Robb drove them both to the airport, and it was another woefully quiet transit. Occasionally the captain would glance over at Gendry in the passenger's seat, but Gendy didn't trust himself to speak and did not return the eye contact. Halfway through, beginning to wonder if Robb had lost faith in him, too, he reached to switch on the radio, just for the distracting noise.

The AM sports station Robb had left it on came on in the car. "—dropping two home games to start the World Series? That's a death sentence. Taking two games out of three from the Monarchs on their home turf? No team did that all season. The Direwolves have just about written themselves off already—"

Gendry slapped the dial moodily, seething inside as the radio station changed.

"—completely dominant, building up a good case for Series MVP only two games in. A critical home run in both games, when his team needed him the most, including an 0-2 shot off of a Waters breaking ball... if he could get his team to hit like that, Targaryen and the Monarchs could easily run away with the Series in 4 games—"

He nearly broke the dial with the force of the smash he delivered to it, shutting it off completely and slumping back in his seat, staring forlornly at the dashboard. The silence had been much preferable, he decided. At least in the quiet he could at least pretend that the world hadn't lost faith in him.

From the driver's side, Robb made a sound halfway between a sigh and a cough. "They're just like all the others, you know. Like everyone else who said we wouldn't get this far. If you don't listen, or if you learn to laugh at them instead of getting angry, then everything they insist upon won't come true."

Gendry let a moment of doubt set in, dwelling. "It has so far."

This time, Robb's sigh was not questionable. "Damn it, Gendry, you're letting them get to you. You've been fighting it for months and you've been doing better than any of us thought you could, but now you're losing it. It's unfair for me to ask, but I need you to put if off longer. I need you to be strong."

"I am being fucking strong," Gendry growled, staring out the window.

"I know that. But this is where we need you the most. Last night happens to everyone, okay? Everyone's got bad days—"

"Bad days in the fucking World Series?" Gendry hissed, actually turning to glare at Robb. "Freaking unacceptable."

"You can't just sit around beating yourself up about it," Robb replied. "You might think you're making yourself stronger by doing it, but you're not, you're weakening yourself, and your team. You make yourself stronger by believing in yourself, and you've done a phenomenal job of it lately, when the chips have been down or the times have been hard. We're still in this, man. We lost a few games, whatever. Crazier things have happened than us coming back from this."

Gendry listened to his words, listened to comparisons of strength, and finally shook his head. "I'm aware of that. But it's not as easy as you think it is." It never had been. Every moment where his strength had been "phenomenal" had been a clash of wills that he barely survived. "I'm trying really hard, Robb, but..."

But what? You've been shoving it off, forcing it back, holding your ground only through the sheer will of digging your heels in. But you've run out of traction, now. It's catching up to you. And Gendry knew it was true. He was strong, he could admit that to himself without bragging; he'd fought through a childhood of loneliness, pulled himself up by the power of his own back, pressed and battled for everything that he had, had lost, had desired. Yet everyone had a breaking point. He didn't know how far off his was, but he could feeling it closing. Fast.

"I can appreciate how hard it is," Robb said calmly. "I know what you're going through—"

"No, you fucking don't!" Gendry swung away from the window, the words jumping out of his mouth without him realizing, but even after the fact he had no desire to take them back. On the contrary, he let his feelings fly. "You don't know. None of you know. Not your damn father, not Luwin, not a single one of you know me. Not a single one of you understand what I've gone through, what I go through every day. I have lived a life of doubts, and this thing, everyone weighing in on me, the pressure of it... it's fucking killing me. None of you get that. You all have people who love you and who you love, and you're all happy. The only one who I loved is gone. The only one who got me is gone, Robb. She's gone."

The silence returned with a force, invading the car absolutely except for the rasped breaths of the aftermath of his explosion. Robb stared out of the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, his face rigid and expressionless. As always, the calm after the storm brought everything crashing in with a new reality, and Gendry suddenly realized that he had shouted at his best friend, who had been speaking to him quietly and politely, who had been trying to ascertain his condition.

"Robb, I'm... I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Robb replied, after a moment. "You're right. I don't know."

Gendry waited for the man to say something more, to continue where his tirade had broken the conversation in half, but another word wasn't spoken in the car for the remainder of the trip, until they had parked, removed their luggage and silently joined the rest of their team awaiting the plane's departure.

Nor did Robb say a word on the entire flight. Gendry tried to lose himself reading a magazine next to his captain, but the lines melded together and came out meaninglessly while he tried to imagine what was on his friend's mind. He snuck glances, occasionally, but always saw the same thing. Robb sat with his elbow on an armrest, his chin resting on his thumb while he stared out of the window. Gendry was relatively certain he did not move the entire flight. Too afraid to say anything himself, the reliever endured it guiltily.

King's Landing looked as it always did, congested and dirty and unwelcoming. Even still, he grew more depressed than usual as his eyes washed over it. He avoided glancing at the buildings and the smokestacks and the streets as the Direwolves piled into the bus which carried them away from the airport and into the city. The day was already closing, the sun dipping towards the horizon quicker than the last time they had been there, and they were taken directly to the hotel, to no one's complaint. Gendry made no attempt to engage anyone in conversation on the way, but his silence went unnoticed; a somber mood hung over the team. It felt as though they had already lost. Gendry hated it, but he had too many personal demons to worry about it. Robb, who should have been dealing with it, stared out of the bus's window without a word.

The key cards were handed out at the hotel, but the following go-around of ideas for the players to spend their free time in the capitol didn't exist. Where they would usually take advantage of the early evening to enjoy themselves together, none of the Direwolves were eager today. Gendry himself shouldered his pack and went straight to his room. He was not the only one to do so. Robb was not, which he considered a quiet blessing, so he went to their room alone, where he threw his bag untouched into a corner and fell backwards onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. All he could think about was the game the next day, the game they had to win. He couldn't decide whether or not he was ready for it or eager for it.

An unspecified amount of time passed, in which he took no notice of the outside world. One could only stare at the ceiling for so long, but he did it for a very long time without finding desire for anything else. He didn't even look up as he heard Robb's card slide in and out of the door and the handle turn.

His friend entered the room without closing the door. Gendry heard him take several tentative steps into the room and then pause, followed by a thump as he dropped his bag to the ground. There was a pause, in which Gendry didn't bother looking up. Just as he was beginning to wonder what Robb was up to, the captain spoke.

"Get up."

Gendry did look up, then, to find Robb's smoldering gaze on him. Possessed by a surprising wariness and an unexpectedly large conviction, Gendry got to his feet without delay. "Why, what's going on?"

"Come with me." Robb's voice left no room for disobedience, but Gendry had no intention of doing anything except for whatever his captain told him.

His heart began to sink, though, as Robb turned and led Gendry out of the open door of their hotel room. Had the captain rethought their encounter earlier? Had he decided that Gendry's outburst really indicated something was irreparably wrong with the closer's mindset? Gendry sighed internally as Robb led them a short way down the hallway, turning a corner into another corridor of rooms. He was beginning to suspect that Robb would lead him straight to Luwin's room.

Fear turned to resignation when Robb halted abruptly before a specific door and knocked briskly without looking in Gendry's direction. Gendry rubbed at his eyes discreetly and tried to think of what he would say, whether or not he would fight—if Robb was against him, maybe it really was time that he accepted whatever would be decided for him.

Except, when the door opened, it wasn't Luwin who answered it. It was a curious Edric.

"Edric," Robb greeted bluntly. "Do you know any clubs in King's Landing?"

That was not a question that Gendry had been expecting Robb to ask. By Edric's face, the center fielder had been caught completely unawares, as well. Edric glanced his way, and the two of them exchanged a frantic shrug of uncertainty before the shorter man turned back to Robb with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "As a matter of fact... I do. Why?"

"Good." Robb half-turned to Gendry and slapped him lightly on the arm with a backhand. "Take Gendry clubbing."

Edric blinked. Gendry blinked. They looked at each other, as if they were asking if each of them had heard what the other had. Robb's face was perfectly straight, perfectly serious. Edric opened his mouth, glanced sharply at Gendry again, and then blurted, "Excuse me?"

"Take Gendry clubbing tonight," Robb repeated, as stoically as he had the first time. "He needs it. I can't do it because I'm the captain, but you can and I'm letting you so please take him clubbing."

"Robb." Edric glanced helplessly at Gendry, who frantically shook his head to tell the man that he was as confused and clueless as the center fielder was. Fumbling over words for a moment, Edric finally managed, "Robb, it's the night before Game 3. We have a World Series game tomorrow, we can't—"

"Yes, you can. Look." Robb exhaled, looking left and right up and down the hallway to confirm it was empty and then taking a step closer to Edric, peering over the man's shoulder into his room. In a low voice, he murmured, "He needs to get his mind off of things." Robb glanced at Gendry. "You need to get your mind off of things." Turning back to Edric, he continued, "I know this is a bad idea, but I seriously think it's better. Take him out, make him have a good time. Take Mikken with you. Don't fucking drink, just..." He shrugged, gesturing suggestively with his hands. "Make him forget about shit for a while, all right?"

Edric shot a look over his own shoulder and then one at Gendry, thoughtfully. For his own part, Gendry was still trying to recover from the surprise of Robb's inquiry to do anything but stand there watching. "Um... okay... I guess I can do that, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea. I mean, shit can get crazy in these King's Landing places..."

"I don't want to know," Robb said quickly, holding up his hands. "Not now, not later, not ever. I just want you to take him out, have fun, come back, and then we'll get back to our business tomorrow like nothing ever happened. No questions asked."

Gendry finally snapped out of it. "Robb—"

"No," the captain snapped, pointing a finger at Gendry's chest. "You don't get a say. Be quiet."

He turned back to Edric expectantly. Helplessly, the center fielder glanced back and forth once more between the two taller men before he finally shrugged in resignation. "All right. I'll do it."

"Good." Robb turned to Gendry and spoke again before the larger man had the opportunity. "Have fun. Seriously."

Then the team captain stalked past Gendry and disappeared around the bend in the hall again, leaving Gendry with his mouth hanging open, his unspoken objections dying there. Gendry never got the chance to tell Robb that clubbing wasn't going to help, that drinking wouldn't help, that nothing would be able to make him forget long enough for it to matter. All of those things vanished as his route for escape dissipated, and he was forced to turn back to Edric, the two of them wearing equal masks of surprise and uneasiness.

Edric was the first to shrug, then glance down at Gendry's clothes. "You're not going to go dressed like that, are you?"

Gendry glanced down defensively at his sweatpants and gray t-shirt, before realizing his absurdity. "I don't want to go, at all."

"Never mind, doesn't matter." Edric turned back to his room and called inside, "Mikken! Get dressed. We're going out!"

"What?" Mikken's disgruntled voice carried through the open door, the outfielder appearing shirtless in the background with a bewildered expression. "No, we're not. We've got a game tomorrow."

"Robb's orders. Hurry up, we've got to take Gendry to a club. Don't protest, man, let's just do it."

Mikken stared at Edric with a gaping mouth and then at Gendry for a long moment, closing it suspiciously. Then, with a massive shrug and eye roll, he walked back out of view and returned a moment later pulling a sweater over his torso and the top of his jeans, grumbling to himself. His mutterings, Gendry noticed, were not questioning Robb's strange request. "Fucking club. Hate those. You're not going dressed like that, are you?" Gendry opened his mouth to bark something very rude, but Mikken waved it off before it began. "Never mind, let's go."

Working in tandem, the two somehow to drag Gendry into an elevator and down to the lobby. Crossing the first floor forced Gendry into silence, in hopes of avoiding notice or anyone recognizing them, and once he was crammed into the taxi between the two outfielders he had more or less given up on trying to dissuade them. In the space of moments, they had adopted the guise of two men on a mission, and Gendry knew that protesting further would only dig in deeper to the hole.

Go along with it, he told himself grudgingly. Just for a little while. You only have to stay long enough to convince them you're better, then we'll all get back to the hotel and you can forget about it.

Edric asked the taxi driver to take them to a place of King's Landing where Gendry had never been before, something of an oddity in itself, but Gendry had only been to a club once or twice, and neither experience was a highlight of his life. Under his breath, unable to help himself, he continued to voice his misgivings, but Edric told him it would be good for him with a too-cheery smile on his face and Mikken ignored him completely.

"What if someone recognizes us?" Gendry protested, as the taxi turned down a side street and began to slow. A crowd, large despite the sun barely having set, on the side up ahead, beneath flashing neon signs of an establishment he had never heard of before, showed their destination. He saw people dressed far differently, far less than he, pushing together eagerly to get into the club; just the thought of so many gyrating bodies made him uneasy. He could hear the base of the club's music half the street away.

"You kidding me?" Edric replied cheekily, grinning. "Everyone will be way too drunk to recognize us, trust me." He slapped Gendry's arm as the taxi slid to a halt, right in front of the flashing, blaring building. "Come on."

He hesitated, but Mikken shoved him, and he was forced to climb out of the car, finally glancing down sheepishly at his unbecoming state of dress. Cursing himself for his vanity in a situation he didn't want to be in, he noticed that no one else had even glanced in their direction. Everyone was pulsing in the direction of the busy bouncers, already shouting in excitement before they had even gotten inside.

Gendry squinted and winced beneath the brightness and volume, leaning towards Edric. "What is this place, anyway?"

"I know the guy who owns it," Edric said, and then shrugged. "He owns a lot of things around here, actually. Among other places. A rather dominant man, actually. Quietly dominant." Without another word, he pressed into the crowd himself, and Gendry, not without a sigh, was forced to follow.

The crowd was very uncomfortable, and Gendry only wondered what he would feel like once he was inside. A few times he tried to tell this to Edric, a last ditch effort to convince the man how much of a bad idea this entire affair was, when they had to wake up and play in the most important game of any of their careers, but it was too loud and Edric too intent on pressing inside to get off any words. In frustration, he followed, every step he took inside one more step he wished was in the other direction. He took more than one elbow to the side of his ribs painfully, but could never figure out who it was in the logjam. He wished that he hadn't erupted on Robb in the car; that's what had led to all of this.

When all three of them had finally made it past the bouncers, Edric shouting a few words into a large one's ear to gain them passage, they grouped in the back and stared out at the crowd. It was packed on the October night, jammed from one end to the other. The dance floor was a mess. The lights were entirely too bright and flashy. The music playing would have interested Gendry normally, but with the base cranked to a maximum it did a rather good job of hurting his insides.

"What a party, huh?" Edric said, rubbing his hands together and staring out at the dance floor.

Gendry followed his gaze, trying to find something half enjoyable. There were plenty of girls, plenty of women in the house. His eyes traveled over some—some of their eyes traveled over him, too. One or two of them he could've taken a second glance at, but as soon as his eyes fell away the pit in his stomach reminded him of his anguish. No number of pretty girls, whether or not they were clothed—as several on the floor nearly were not—could make him forget.

"Look, guys," he began, "I'm really—"

"Shut up," Edric said. Why the hell did he have to keep grinning? Mikken, at least, could frown. Then again, he was at least ten years older. Some of the girls around could almost be his daughters. "Come on, let's go get some drinks."

"Robb said not to drink..." Gendry muttered pathetically.

"Fine, I'll buy you a bloody Coke. Come on."

Edric conveniently led them along the edge of the dance floor, as if inviting someone to reach out from the crowd and try to drag them in. One or two actually did, at least to Gendry. He was fairly certain one of them was a three-hundred-pound male that he barely escaped with his life. They all managed to shake off any attempts on their way to the bar, where Edric loudly ordered them three sodas, earning a very rude glare from the bartender before they were delivered. The center fielder passed them around and started throwing his back like it was a shot glass.

"Come on, dude," Edric said, nudging Gendry with an elbow. "This is where you feel alive. You need to get going."

"I don't know about this."

"Bloody indecent, this is," Mikken supplied to him, on his other side.

"Ah, you just have to get out there and get going," Edric said, half-heartedly trying to push Gendry towards the dance floor. "Go find a girl. Get her number. Make out with her. Do something."

Gendry sighed, wanting to tell Edric that it was the last thing he wanted to do. Instead, he let his eyes wander the crowd. With the pulsing light, it was difficult to make out any features, but he searched anyway, half because Edric told him to, half to see if he could actually catch a glimpse of anyone who would have caught his attention. That girl was too tall, that one wearing way too much makeup. That one was red-haired, that one clearly thought she was the center of the universe. That one was actually a man. Gendry kept looking, but everywhere he looked he found himself searching for a girl who didn't know that she was the most beautiful one in the room, and nowhere could he find her. She didn't exist, not in this club. There was nothing for him here. He had wasted his time.

Then, near the door, something did catch his eye. A flash of silver hair.

His eyes darted back, and he was shocked to find that he had seen true. Beneath the silver hair reflecting the arcing light of the club stood Aegon Targaryen, newly into the club. He wore a dark jacket and jeans, standing looking over the scene with a confident smile over his face. Gendry's jaw fell open as he observed the man, completely shocked to see his opponent in the club. Where Gendry was hiding in the back, Aegon stood out front, murmuring a word to a young man on his right, surveying the establishment with a glare intent to enjoy. Whoever the man was otherwise, it was clearly his environment much more than Gendry's. The thought only made Gendry angry, stewing in the bottom of his coke bottle, griping that yet another thing belonged to Targaryen instead of him.

Almost offhandedly, he glanced at the girl on Targaryen's arm, whom he had almost taken for granted. The coke battle shattered in his hand.

Edric jumped in surprise, bumping into the man next to him, who cried out in protest. Mikken cursed under his breath. Edric, after a muttered apology, turned back to Gendry with just the barest bit of irritation. "Dude! What was that for?"

Gendry barely heard him. Arya Stark stood at the front of the club, one hand tentatively wrapped around Aegon's arm. She was wearing a jacket and jeans like Aegon, he was actually relieved to see, but the sight of her nearly knocked him dead. It had been months since he had seen her. The last time had been in the batting cage, when she screamed at him to get away from her. Which he had done.

In the interim time, he had completely forgotten how beautiful she was. Her brown eyes were glancing around the club, clearly overwhelmed, the flashing lights dimly bouncing off of her irises. Her hair was down, uncurled and unstraightened, the usual wavy naturalness it usually was, that Gendry loved so much. Her face was still perfect, still short and tight. It looked perhaps a bit thinner than the last time he had seen her, but otherwise it might have been yesterday that they had gone their separate ways. He remembered the tears on her cheeks that day, how they had cut into him, how they had thundered into his heart like bullets. The strength he had needed to walk away had been nothing like he had ever needed before, and even now it weighed down upon him. The mere sight of her, an oasis in a desert of misery, nearly broke his knees; they wobbled and nearly toppled, only keeping him upright through a desperate grasp for the bar he barely clutched. In an instant the only thing that he could think about was her, was going to her, was needing her, was telling her that he loved her and would love her until he died.

Her hand was on Aegon Targaryen's arm.

Her hand was on Aegon Targaryen's arm. His fist curled; tiny pieces of broken glass bit in his palm, but he didn't notice. Inside of his chest, a flame hotter, darker, more painful than anything he had ever directed at Edric Dayne sprung up. His eyes flashed towards Targaryen again, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the man. Wrap his hands around the son of a bitch's throat and squeeze. Throttle until the silver hair fell out of his bed, until his purple eyes popped out of his head. Arya was his, his, his.

That was when Aegon Targaryen saw him. Their eyes slid over one another like two raging hurricanes, and locked as though they were stone. Gendry knew, in that moment, that, whether or not it had existed before, there was indeed a war between him and Targaryen. Their names, the World Series, Arya... Gendry hated the man. He was one short inch from the brink, one step away from charging across the club and tackling the man into a fistfight.

Targaryen smiled, a smug, victorious expression. He leaned over and whispered something to Arya, who glanced up at him and smiled back. Gendry died. Then they both turned away from him, moving off into the crowd.

He fell back against the counter, the loser of everything. His fall must have been violent, because Edric reached out both hands as if to catch him. "Whoa! Gendry! Are you all right?"

"I'm..." He shook his head to clear it. He couldn't think. Everything was broken. "I'm really not feeling this, guy. I really..."

"Come on, man," Edric replied. "Seriously, let's go out and you can—"

"Edric," Mikken cut in swiftly, quietly. By a glance, Gendry could see his cold, stone expression. The man's eyes were towards the entrance, and Gendry knew that they had both seen the same thing. "Don't."

"Not you, too," Edric sighed, shaking his head. "Both of you, you need to—"

Mikken shoved off of the bar and brushed past Gendry, taking Edric by the arm and leaning low to whisper into his ear. His head jerked in a manner that was supposed to be surreptitious as Edric's face turned from eager to horrified. Both of their eyes flashed out into the crowd again, Edric searching for the crippling sight both of the others had already seen. Gendry didn't join them. He didn't want to see. He couldn't see. He was already broken.

It was his opportunity. They were both looking the other way. He seized it.

Turning, he slinked away from the bar more stealthily than he could ever remember beings, merging with the crowd and gone before either of the outfielders could notice. He didn't look anywhere; he was too afraid of what he might see. Pressing straight through the crowd, straight through the dance floor, he wasn't aware of the bodies he was rather heavily sweeping aside in his earnest need to reach the door, to get out of the fucking club. The closer he got, the quicker he moved, not looking back, not looking anywhere. He pushed his way through the torrent still trying to get into the club, pushed his way out into the street, past the exclaiming bouncers, and then he started walking. Mindlessly. It didn't matter where. He just went, not caring in which direction it was as long as it wasn't back. No one called his name. Edric and Mikken didn't catch up. He hoped he'd lost them. They could just join his collection.

Sometime later, a blank except for pain, he didn't think he could walk any longer. Under normal circumstances, he could have, but his heart was constricting, his lungs collapsing with it, and with a groan of pain he stopped on the sidewalk somewhere, surrounded by happy signs to happy restaurants and happy stores, leaning against a happy wall and listening to the happy bustle of the city's evening.

Gendry sank to the ground and listened to his sucking breath, listened to the gulps of air he forced into his body only barely. He glanced about the signs, at the cars passing by, at the people giving him strange glances as they hustled past. He didn't recognize where he was, but that didn't matter. That was better, actually; somewhere he didn't know, something new, something that didn't cause him pain. It didn't matter. There was enough pain inside of him to more than make up for the rest of the world combined.

How long he sat there, thinking about Arya, wanting to cry, wanting to die, wanting to forget, wanting to be stronger, he didn't know. It must have been hours, spent running back through the only date they'd ever had, the only night they'd spent together, the secrets they had passed to each other in the dark. How much he loved her. How much he treasured her smile. How beautiful she was, even when she looked horrible. How much he wanted to tell her that he had been wrong, that he would give up everything, that he work three jobs, that he would sacrifice anything and everything just for her happiness. That was all he wanted in the world. Her happiness.

And if she is happy?

That was a startling thought, in a world where he didn't think he could be any more surprised than he already was. He blinked quite a few times, trying to wrap his mind around it, before his mind found a rational thought process behind it. Was she? Robb had told him that she was as miserable as he, but that had been weeks before. She had always been stronger than him, and he had no doubt that he loved her more, that no matter what her brother had told him, that he, Gendry, had been the one who was struck hardest by their end.

She had smiled in the club, she recalled. Smiled at Targaryen. The thought made him draw a shuddering breath, almost made him double over in pain. It was the first time he had seen her smile since that night, since before he had broken her heart. It wasn't the biggest smile of hers that he had ever seen... but Targaryen had made it. Not him.

He lowered his head into his hands, contemplating. Was she happy? Has she moved on from me? It took him several moments to admit it, but he could finally say to himself that it was a good thing she had. If she was experiencing anything even close to his pain... then he wanted it to end for her. He never wanted her to feel anything like his anguish. Even if... He shivered, closing his eyes. If Aegon Targaryen could make her smile, could make her happy...

If he makes her forget...

He sat like that for a few moments, trying to accept the endgame. Tears prickled at his eyes, but they were long overdue and did no good. Crying couldn't help him now. Nothing could.

Gendry pressed against the wall and coughed, trying to clear his throat of the multitude of lumps that had formed. He staggered to his feet, as unstable as if he were drunk. Glancing about, he could see that there was no one within a block or two that he could recognize, which was, all things considered, a very good thing.

It was a very big effort to consider what to do next. He was exhausted—heartbreak and acceptance of things that made one want to kill oneself did that—and wanted to sleep, but the thought of returning to Robb and the hotel room at that moment nearly made him sick. Glancing about for alternatives, all he saw within close-walking distance were a few restaurants and high-end stores. And a bar.

His eyes locked on the bar and he decided on the spot that he was past the point of caution. He had just enough presence of mind and willpower to look both ways before he crossed the street, but he didn't hesitate for an instant before crossing to the establishment and pressing inside, stalking immediately to the counter and sitting down stiffly onto a stool without even glancing about.

There weren't many people around, anyway. A few in a corner, nursing solitary drinks, just like him. Silent, sad drinking partners, they were. Gendry liked them. He was already drunk on depression, and didn't care.

The bartender seemed to pick up on his mood, approaching only warily, after a minute. "Can I get you something?"

"What's the strongest thing you have?"

The question earned him a wry glance and a long moment of consideration. He should have looked at the man, he knew, but he didn't care enough to raise his eyes from the bar. After a long moment, the bartender shifted and answered, "I have a bottle of tequila. You look like you've had a rough night. I'll knock it down a few dollars for you."

"Thanks," Gendry mumbled, and the bartender moved off to pull a dusty bottle off of the back of a shelf. The amber liquid was splashed into a glass, to a considerable level, and then placed before Gendry.

"Take care with it," the bartender warned softly. Gendry nodded in thanks, and then the man set the bottle down next to his glass with a sympathetic tap of the counter before marching away. Gendry watched him go for a moment in surprise, but then decided that he didn't care. He threw back the first glass without noticing, and was already filling it again before the man had reached the other end of the bar.

It had been a while since he had had a drink, but the first two glasses did nothing to distract him. His goal wasn't to get drunk, but his pain was still evident and his eyesight completely unimpaired as he poured himself a third, and he was starting to consider just going back to the hotel and trying to sleep off his pain until he could find some distraction in the World Series. Which he shouldn't have been drinking before. Where Aegon Targaryen, who shouldn't have been in a club the night before, would be competing. Where Arya would probably be rooting for her new happiness. Which wasn't him. Which was against him.

He threw down the next two glasses so quickly that he almost choked, and poured a fifth, setting the two-thirds empty back on the counter and staring at it emptily with his chin resting in his hand.

A moment later, the counter rumbled, the floor shaking as a large man sat down hard on the stool next to Gendry. Normally, he would have been annoyed by the intrusion, but four glasses deep and a heaping of agony into his night, he could care less. He didn't even glance at whoever it was, finding the bottle and full fifth glass more interesting than anyone else who could possibly have sat down beside him. In his peripheral vision, he did see the bartender's lower half cautiously walk down the bar and stop before the newcomer.

"Can I get you something?"

The voice that answered was low, guttural, furious. "Whiskey."

"We don't carry whiskey, sir."

"Do you think I give a fuck?"

The bartender sighed. "I can't help you, sir. Maybe you'd be best served somewhere else."

The guttural voice turned into a harsh growl, dangerously close to a warning. "Then bring me whatever the hell you do have. It better be fucking strong."

After a moment of hesitation, the bartender pulled a glass from below the counter and set it atop the bar. Reaching for the bottle he had placed in front of Gendry, he muttered, "May I?" Gendry waved a careless hand in his direction, and the bartender poured a fair-sized amount of tequila into the new glass. Setting the now-nearly empty bottle down onto the counter, he pushed the drink at the newcomer. "Bottoms up."

Gendry watched it tiredly. Without thanks, it was seized off of the counter by a massive hand, lifted to an ugly face, and drained. Gendry blinked, having to squint against the light of looking up and the tipsiness beginning to affect his system. Distantly, he was able to make out the ugly burns covering half of the large man's face, able to see the giant rippling muscles of the man's arm as he finished off his drink and clapped the glass back down on the bar. His mouth fell open in disbelief.

"You."

Sandor Clegane looked up coldly, as if intending to scare. Their eyes locked, two men sitting next to each other at the bar, two mortal enemies. Gendry had gone through far too much that night to be intimidated by the glare; they both sat for many moments, watching each other, apparently trying to come to terms with who they were next to.

Clegane's expression was as dark as his, he realized, as long and tired, if much more angry, but, finally, the man just shook his shaggy head and placed both hands on the bar, instead of taking a wild swing at Gendry's head like the closer had been expecting. "It's just that kind of fucking night."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Gendry demanded.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Clegane retorted in a soft roar. He reached over and seized the bottle from next to Gendry, dumping the rest of its contents into his glass and gulping it down brutally. "I'm getting drunk. Let me do it in peace."

Gendry watched him for a moment and then turned back to the bar himself. "That actually sounds like a good idea."

And it was. For about ten seconds.

"What are you in for?"

From Clegane's throat came a rumble. "What the fuck did I just say?"

"Just, if you want to talk."

"What in the fucking seven hells makes you think I would ever want to talk to you?"

Gendry massaged his temples. He had already had too much to drink, even if he wasn't actually drunk. "Look, I'm just trying to be fucking polite, all right? Fine, drink your shit by yourself. I just thought you might want to talk."

"Not to you," Clegane barked lowly, staring at his glass. If Gendry hadn't known better, he would have said the man was close to tears. But he would sooner see a tree cry than Sandor Clegane. "Right now, I'd much rather kill you than talk to you."

"Know why I'm in?" He had to stop talking. His otherwise unflappable tongue was loose. The tequila was to blame.

"No, I don't, and I swear to the gods it had better stay that way..."

"It was a girl."

Clegane's knuckles cracked. "Oi. Bring me two more bottles of anything. One to drink, and one to smash over this fucker's head."

Gendry was beyond caring. "It was a girl, and I broke her heart because I thought it was the right thing to do. I broke her heart because I thought I was protecting her." He paused, waiting for Clegane's onslaught to continue, wondering why he was still talking. To his mild surprise, the large man said nothing. "I thought I was making an honorable sacrifice, that she'd be better without me." The bartender approached warily and placed one bottle between the two of them, pulling both of their glasses towards him and refilling them with something the tasted far less strong than the tequila the two of them had destroyed. Placing his back on the counter and hissing through the burning of his throat, Gendry continued, "Well, tonight I found out that it worked. She's better without me. She's happier without me. And now that I see it, I can't stand it. I hate myself."

"You're pathetic." Clegane took the bottle and swigged directly from it, and then, surprisingly, offered it to Gendry. After narrowing his eyes, Gendry cautiously took it and mimicked the man's actions, listening to the large man as he unexpectedly added, "And you're not alone."

Glaring, he placed the bottle back on the counter and tried to decide how many Cleganes were actually sitting next to him. "What does that mean?"

Clegane turned to him, and for a moment or two it seemed like the larger man would either kiss him or pummel his face in. The moments passed, and Clegane did neither. After a lengthy sigh, coated with the smell of alcohol and it slammed into Gendry's nose, Clegane took a hoarse breath and said, "I understand you."

"Bull fucking shit," Gendry swore. "Nobody understands me."

"I do."

"How could you possibly understand me?"

"Because I did the same fucking thing, Waters."

Gendry blinked, trying to figure out what Clegane meant. When he finally did, he guffawed and shook his head. "Bull shit."

"I did," Clegane insisted, taking another swig from the bottle.

"How?"

Clegane glared down at the bottle, clearly debating, and spent a long moment lifting it to his lips and then lowering it without a drink. Finally, the large man snarled in disgust and clinked it down in front of Gendry, bending to lean over the bar with two muscular arms, shaking his head. "It was a mistake. It was all a mistake. I never should have fallen for the girl. She wasn't mine to have."

"Who was it?" Gendry asked.

"Sansa Stark."

That Clegane had answered at all made Gendry ponder just how drunk the both of them were. He glanced at the bottle, questioning the alcohol content of the drink before he accepted the fact that he was far too wasted already to read the label. When he was finally past the shock of the answering, he graduated to the shock of the answer itself, and the memory of Arya telling him that her sister was sleeping with Sandor Clegane replayed itself a million times in his head in the space of a drunk second.

He blinked, several times, and finally sputtered in disbelief. "You're in love with Sansa Stark?" Clegane didn't answer; that was answer enough. Gendry raised his eyebrows and reached for the bottle. "Damn, Clegane. That's got to be the most fucked up shit since—"

"Fuck you, Waters. Fuck you."

"I'm just saying," Gendry answered. The bottle missed his lips, and he decided he had better set it back on the counter. After doing so, he was so far gone that he slapped Clegane on the shoulder, which earned him a curt backhand that probably would have torn his arm off had they both been perfectly sober. "I never knew you had it in you."

"Shut the fuck up."

"No, I'm serious. I mean, I surprised myself when I fell in love with Arya, but you just take the fucking cake..."

"What?"

Gendry glanced at the man. "What what?"

"Arya," the man repeated, his face contorted in something close to a grimace. "You said Arya."

Gendry realized that he had. "No, I didn't."

"Arya Stark," Clegane said, as if the name pained him. With a growl of disgust, he glanced away shaking his head. "You're fucking telling me that this girl you're so torn up over is fucking Arya Stark?"

"Nope," Gendry said. Fuck me.

"I don't fucking believe this." Both of them shook their heads and glared at each other, and then at the bottle. Gendry rubbed at his head as Clegane added, "The little wolf bitch? She's the girl you broke the heart of? I fucking never would have thought she had a heart to break. She was tough as nails."

"Yes. She is." Gendry sadly glanced downward, and then squinted at Clegane. "And you and the other Stark. Damn... I would have thought you would break her in half."

He expected the comment to earn him some sort of violent response—he almost welcomed it—but instead Clegane's angry expression almost vanished. Almost. "I did, too. At the beginning. She was so small... so... fragile." He paused. Gendry waited, patiently. "I don't know what she ever saw in me. I don't know what made her think I was a good man..."

"Beats me."

"...but she did. The only one who ever did." Clegane scratched at his face, at his bruises, raking fingers across ugly skin, skin Gendry thought would make any sane girl cringe. "I only wanted to protect her. The shit told me that if I didn't back off, if I didn't go away, she would be the one who paid the price. So I did. I backed off. And when she came back demanding explanations, all I could say was that I did it for her... and she..."

Clegane stopped talking; on any other man, Gendry would have described the action as choking up. He was almost—almost—embarrassed for the man, and, for reasons he couldn't have truthfully stated, he tried to cover the man's feeling by speaking. "Her father made me do it. He said he'd cut me, that it would be the end of my career if I didn't end it. I didn't want to do it. But if he cut me... where would I go? I wouldn't have anything to give her, nothing to contribute. She would have been miserable. She screamed at me, but I did it anyway. I was stupid. I wish I hadn't. I wish I could go back."

"That sounds pretty fucking stupid to me."

"I think it's pretty fucking stupid that you actually found a girl who considered you anything but ass-ugly."

Clegane stared at him, distantly, and shook his head after a pause. "Fucking Stark girls."

Gendry sighed. He reached for the bottle and tipped a little bit of the liquid into Clegane's empty glass, sloshing what was left and staring at it before he raised the bottle high, staring at Clegane. "Fucking Stark girls."

Staring at him as if he was brainless for several long moments, Clegane finally picked up his glass, reaching over to touch it ever so slightly to Gendry's bottle before they both tossed them back, a quiet salute between the unlikeliest of drinking partners, an ode to love of Starks gone wrong, the only tribute their breaking hearts would get.

"Well, I think you two have had quite enough to drink."

Both Gendry and Clegane plopped their drinking vessels back onto the counter and twisted in their chairs to glance behind them, where the voice had come from. At first, Gendry found that he couldn't see anybody and believe that he had imagined the voice out of nowhere. Then, for some reason, he glanced downward, at found himself looking at a man who probably wouldn't have stood higher than his waist. It was an ugly man, height aside. Gendry had to stare at him blinking for several moments before he was to distinguish any features through the buzz of the alcohol, but he finally found, with annoyance, that he recognized the man. Not by appearance, for they had never met, but more than once he had heard the description, and he knew by definition that the man's appearance usually spelled trouble.

It was Clegane who growled, though. "What the fuck do you want, Imp?"

"It was actually you I came looking for, dog," Tyrion Lannister replied, crossing his arms. The man was wearing a little tailored suit, the tie knotted pristinely below his short, stunted neck. "And I must say, my disappointment in you grows by the minute. To find you drinking in a bar the night before a World Series game? Not something general managers aspire to do every day."

"Go fuck yourself," Clegane muttered.

Lannister cocked his head to one side as Gendry watched, trying to puzzle out the situation. The short man turned his eyes onto the closer, then, disdain morphing into curiosity. "Him, I was expecting to find here. He comes here often. You, Mr. Waters, on the other hand... not something I would expect. You, too, have a game to play tomorrow, and my fantastically intuitive mind would have picked you as someone who took such things more seriously."

Gendry glanced at Clegane, and shrugged. "Go fuck yourself."

To his surprise, Lannister laughed, and then approached the stool on the other side of Gendry. Both of the other men watched as Lannister stepped onto the rung, and not without effort and in a fully tailored suit, hopped up onto the stool with a sigh of exertion. "That bad, eh? Well, I'd best join you. Misery knows no company like a dwarf."

Once more, the original two men exchanged a look, and then looked down at the counter as Lannister ordered a much more mild drink from the bartender, and much more politely, as well. As it was being gathered, Lannister turned to Gendry. "A most interesting gathering, this, though. Of all the people I would have imagined in a bar together, you two are some of the last couples I would name."

"It was a co-in-ci-dence," Gendry said, enunciating his words carelessly. "I was here first. He invaded my space."

"Indeed," Lannister commented. "And how was it that you two did not immediately kill each other?"

The bartender set Lannister's drink before him, and Gendry watched the little man pick it up and down it much quicker than would have normally been expected. "Other things on the mind, I guess."

"And what would that be?" Lannister asked, watching of them with eyes that seemed to know too much. "The lost love of Stark women, perhaps?"

Gendry opened his mouth to deny it. He wasn't even surprised; too much had happened that night to even act like it, anymore. After a moment of consideration, he decided that it wasn't even worth denying, and clamped his mouth shut, to find Clegane doing precisely the same thing at precisely the same time.

Lannister grinned, but it was a soft grin, not malicious or tyrannical. Softly, he said, "I thought as much."

"Go away, Imp," Clegane growled, glancing out of the corner of his eye down at Tyrion. "You're not wanted here."

"I beg to differ," Lannister replied, sighing. "Let me share in your drink, gentlemen. Tonight is not a night of exclusion. There's been plenty of that in the past. In the morning, we'll find ourselves on separate sides of the aisle once again, and any sympathy tonight will vanish. Let's pool our pain together and ride it out as one."

Gendry bristled. "How do you even know about it? About us?"

"And the Stark daughters?" Gendry nodded, and Lannister sighed. "My living is based off of acquiring information, Gendry. What I know that nobody else does, and what I know about things that many other people know about, would probably surprise you. As to you and Arya Stark... well..." The little man grimaced and Gendry did, too. "If someone wanted to, there wouldn't be many people who did not know about that, by now. In the way of internal baseball gossip, that was a relatively easy morsel to gobble up." As Gendry glared at the countertop, wondering just how many people knew, Lannister threw a thumb towards Clegane dismissively. "In his case, the relationship was of personal importance to my family. Either way... you both have my sympathy. Would that I could, your broken hearts would be mended. All of your pain would be taken away."

Clegae grunted hatefully. Gendry shuddered. "What do you know of our pain?"

"My heart was broken, once, too."

Both of the other men scoffed. Gendry exclaimed, "When? How?"

A refill was placed before Lannister. Practicing more restraint that either Gendry or Clegane had shown that night, he sipped at the drink with distant eyes. "A long time ago. The details aren't important. It was cruel and it was unjust and it was not my fault. Just as in the case of both of yours. So, I believe I know exactly what you're going through, and if I could I would gladly spare either of you from it."

"Why?"

Lannister glanced at Gendry and found the younger man's eyes trained directly on him. Gendry watched the small man pause, and then... squirm. "Well, in Clegane's case, while she was dating my nephew I found that I had a soft spot for the girl, and she seemed genuinely happy in her affair with the dog. For her sake, I would have them together."

Gendry watched Lannister drink, growing impatient. "And in mine?"

"In yours." Lannister sighed and set down his drink, before waving his hands nonchalantly. "Why not? You're both drunk, I'm probably going to get there myself, we'll all probably forget this in the morning." He turned on his stool so that he was facing Gendry and placed the palms of his two hands together in front of him. "I have a bit of a confession to make, Gendry. Your falling out with young Ms. Stark?" The man paused, but Gendry shook his head to signify his lack of understanding. Lannister spread his hands; his ugly face was pained. "It was partially my doing."

It was so ludicrous that Gendry laughed. "What?"

"I'm afraid it's true," Lannister replied.

"How could that be true?" Gendry demanded, looking at Clegane to see if the larger man could believe the crazy statement. Clegane was bent over the bar, his eyes screwed up, looking as if some dark memories were rushing through his head.

"It was politics," Lannister explained quietly. As he spoke, as the words sunk in, Gendry realized, drunkenly, that the man was speaking the truth. "I was offered something if I removed you from the Direwolves equation. Initially..." He sighed once again. "Well, Gendry, honestly, I thought that you would be selfish. I thought you would take the girl. I thought you would leave behind the team and be happy with her. Instead, you chose the team, and I'll have you know that threw a monkeywrench into all of my own plans."

"What are you talking about? You're saying you told Ned Stark about us?"

"No," Lannister said. "But I... arranged it. Indirectly." The man hesitated. "I've done some cruel things in my life... but not many wrong things. I think what I did to you and Arya Stark was one of those wrong things, though. It was your loss at my gain, and I'll actually have you know that it's one of the guiltier things I've ever done. It's my fault your heart is broken, Gendry. It's my fault that you're sitting here in a bar, drinking with..." He glanced strangely at Clegane. "...that."

Gendry glared at the short man, as he looked away from Clegane, and back down at the drink. In his state, he was having a great deal of difficulty understanding everything the dwarf was saying, but what he could decipher left him feeling surprisingly... empty. He considered the words, and he thought that he would find himself furious. He reached for anger, for bile, for hatred rising inside of him. Past the alcohol, his pain was still liquid, flowing fluidly over him. He hated it; he hated himself. He wanted it off, he wanted it away. He thought that he would hate whoever had caused it, if he hadn't caused it himself. He expected to have to physically hold himself back from attacking the little man next to him, unfair as the fight would be. Instead, he felt... nothing.

"I can understand..." Lannister began, and then chuckled dryly. "Actually, I would expect for you to hate me. I'm actually surprised you haven't began screaming."

Half-wondering the same thing, Gendry ran a finger across the top of his glass. "What would it change? My heart would still be broken. Arya would still be gone. Attacking you won't bring anything back."

"Hitting him might make you feel better," Clegane supplied unhelpfully. "The gods know I would, if I was sitting where you are."

Gendry only shook his head. "It wouldn't make me feel any better. I don't know what could."

"Gods, you're so pitiful," Clegane hissed. "Why don't you just go out into the streets and find some whore to suck your cock for a couple of dollars? It's King's Landing, you'd be shocked at the opportunities."

"And what the fuck would that solve?"

"Well, it would prove that you actually had a cock, for one thing, I'm starting to seriously question it over here..."

At that, just barely, anger flashed inside of Gendry. He glanced up from the counter and felt his fists curl. With careful movements, using every fiber of his being to keep from stumbling as he stood, he pushed off the bar stool and squared off against Clegane, standing a few paces away from where the man still stood hunched over the bar.

"All right, asshole," Gendry growled. "You've had your little cry and I've had enough of your mouth. I'm drunk enough that I don't care. Let's go out back and finish this."

"If you think I'll pay you a couple of dollars to suck my cock, then I'm sorry to burst your bubble—"

"No, I'm going to fucking bash your face in," Gendry snarled, pulling a wad of bills he thought was something close to what he owed out of his pocket, setting them on the counter. "You and I are going to go outside, we're going to fight, and I'm going to fuck you up, because you piss me the fuck off."

Lannister cleared his throat. "Now, I'm not too sure that's such a good idea. If you'll both recall, there is actually a World Series game tomorrow that is within both of your interests to at least be physically capable of playing in."

Clegane barked a laugh, glancing comically over his shoulder at Gendry. "Listen to the Imp, boy. You don't want to embarrass yourself and get killed in the process."

"Don't worry about it," Gendry replied. "I'll just call your brother and have him bruise up the other side of your face for you. Then no girl will ever look at you again and you won't have to worry about your whiney, crying heart."

He watched Clegane's back muscles tense up. The man's entire body went rigid, and he knew his goal had been achieved. Very carefully, with a tiny shaking of rage that might simply have been the alcohol inhibiting Gendry's vision, Clegane stood and dropped his own amount of money on the counter, turning to Gendry with eyes that promised murder. "Fine, Waters. We can send you back to your precious puppies broken in half. Remember, you fucking wanted this."

And Clegane turned and walked out of the front door of the bar, and Gendry, in his drunken, heartbroken, pained state, followed, realizing that he was entering a fistfight in the streets, drunk, the day before Game 3 of the World Series. He didn't care in the slightest; he probably wouldn't have if he was sober, either.

Either Lannister had decided that it wasn't worth another objection or he, too, was too drunk to continue protesting. Gendry's last glance over his shoulder as he walked out to fight Sandor Clegane was a small, sad man alone at a bar, surrounded by the heartbreak of three.

—

When he stumbled back into the hotel where the Direwolves were staying, Gendry was sober enough to realize that entering that fight had been perhaps one of the more stupider things he had ever done. Exactly the type of thing Arya would have berated him for, once.

He had not won, to put it lightly. Nothing seemed broken, but a dozen bruises or more would cover him in the morning. If it wasn't morning, already; Gendry wasn't quite sure. He was bleeding from a number of places, including a cut on his forehead that would probably be complemented with a black eye. How he was going to explain any of it to anybody was beyond him, but so was caring. The fight had solved nothing; he had landed his own fair share of blows, but it was nothing compared to what he had been dealt, and his heart was in as many pieces—if not more—than when he'd begun.

Arya was still gone. There was still a game to play in the morning. Aegon Targaryen still had what he wanted. All he had was fuck himself up worse. There was nothing to show for it, except maybe a very creepy connection to Sandor Clegane that had ended with them beating the shit out of each other.

He wallowed in his pain in the elevator. All he wanted was to sleep. And forget. Gods, how was he supposed to explain any of it to Robb? For a moment, he considered what Arya would have said if she could have seen him, and it actually made him laugh to imagine her insults. But that only hurt worse. He swallowed and grimaced at the pain al the motions caused him. If he hadn't gone to the club, he wouldn't have seen her. He would have been in pain, but not... this.

The elevator dinged onto his floor, and he struggled to his feet enough to stumble out into the deserted hallway. Trying to rehearse what he was going to say to Robb only made his head hurt worse; he was flat-out fucked. Fucked for the game. Fucked for his career. It was all over. And he didn't care.

Finding his door was a challenge, but he finally did. Leaning his head against and taking a deep breath, hoping to the gods that Robb was asleep and he could avoid a confrontation until the morning, he dug into his pocket for his card key, only to discover that he had forgotten it earlier. Or lost it along the way. Either option was plausible. He almost sat down on the ground and gave up, but that would have been too difficult. Instead, swallowing his guilt at possibly waking his friend and preparing himself for the inevitable lecture, screaming match, or disappointment that would be to follow, he knocked on the door.

"Gendry?"

Gendry shifted, opening his eyes and pushing himself frantically off of the door, blinking. Robb stood in the hall with him, holding a container filled with ice, looking at him in surprise and relief. Then his captain's eyes narrowed as he saw Gendry's cut, bruised face and the tear or three that marred his t-shirt. Knowing that he couldn't—at all—Gendry burst out with, "I can explain."

Robb stared with a gaping mouth for a few moments longer and then slowly closed it. "Edric and Mikken told me you gave them the slip."

"Yeah, they—" He remembered the club, his loss, his anger. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stay there. I just—" He was so tired. He raised his hands and pressed at his eyes, completely lost and completely hurt and completely finished with everything. "Yeah, I'm fucking drunk. The day before a World Series game. I know that I'm in a fuck ton of trouble and everything else, but all I want right now is to sleep. Maybe when I wake up it'll all be better. If it's not..." He released a shuddering breath, and looked down, unable to meet Robb's eyes any longer. "Can you just let me in so I can go to bed and we'll talk or whatever in the morning?"

"Wait," Robb said, as Gendry held out his hand for the key card. "All right, sure, but first, there's something you should—"

The door to their room opened, an answer to his belated knock. And when Gendry turned to cover his surprise by discovering who it was, he was met for the second time with a shockingly unexpected view of Arya Stark, her eyes locked on him as if he was the only thing in the world.

Gendry had no defense to stop it. Twice as drunk as he'd ever been in his life, bleeding lightly in multiple places, having been dealt several successive and none too gentle blows to the head, and faced with the unexpected and horrifically beautiful visage of the girl he loved...

...he sank to his knees and flatly passed out.