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.

28. Chapter 26

26

He arrived at the ballpark that night all business. Exhausted, but all business.

The team was in surprisingly good spirits, considering the already crippling atmosphere the residents of King's Landing had delivered them in one way or another. The smiles and jokes in the locker room before the game didn't indicate that the Direwolves were two losses away from limitation. It certainly gave no hint that they had to win four out of five games to pull out a World Series championship. Edric was at the forefront of the merriment, something Gendry suspected the man was doing in part to convince Robb not to be angry at him. The captain himself looked the worst of the bunch and unsmiling, but otherwise it was a decently calm cloud of concentration and enthusiasm. Even the unexplained bruises and his black eye that were clearly visible didn't earn Gendry more than an odd glance or two, which immediately turned into faces that were clearly determined not to ask. So they all left it at that and Gendry slipped into his uniform thankfully, without having to reveal the horror and roller coaster of his night. He could only imagine the speculation and scandal the media would rip up as soon as a single camera caught a hold of him that night, but that was out of his control, so he resolved not to worry about it.

Everything the Dragonpit had been the last time the Direwolves in town, it was that night, as well. Though the air was considerably warmer than it had been in Winterfell, at least by a factor of several dozen degrees, night still fell before the first pitch, leaving the stadium sky black and bright beneath the luminescence of the massive stadium lights and the thousands of cameras in the house. Before he had even come out of the tunnel into the clubhouse following their pregame routine, Gendry could hear the buzz of the crowd, and as the team came out for final stretches every guest in the place let them know exactly how little they were loved.

When Gendry climbed out of the dugout, he was surprised to find the crowd giving a little extra oomph to their hatred, every eye swiveling to him and every voice raised just a tad bit. He listened to it for a moment as he trotted a pace or two behind Cayn and Desmond, and eventually smirked, deciding that he was absurdly pleased with their hate. He welcomed it; it set him apart from them, which was something he found himself suddenly aiming for. I'm not from here anymore. I'm not one of you. I belong someplace else.

He spared a glance behind him then, up at the stands. The chances of him actually seeing her were obscure, but he knew that there was a face present amongst the mass that had been missing from his baseball for a long time, which was now returned. That gave him a surprisingly inspiring amount of courage and determination, even if he couldn't see her, even if he know she might be packed into a corner of the stadium, probably refusing to attend with her father, probably having to beg and threaten and bludgeon for a last-second ticket purchase. But he knew that she was there—now, after last night, there probably wasn't a force in the world that could keep her away—and that was a power more bolstering than any steroid could supply.

They rounded the infield, and the Monarchs, stretching down their left-field line, came into view prominent and cocky as ever. Their body language, from Tyrell to Slynt to his disgusting half brother—who had yet to get a hit, or even reach base, in the series—clearly told anyone watching that they had no doubts about who would be winning. The rest of the relievers steadfastly ignored, rigidly locking their faces on the scoreboard or the bleachers or the furious fans already belligerent twenty minutes before gametime.

Gendry, on the other hand, stared. He had no qualms over their intimidation factor, not after the months he'd endured and the pitches he'd thrown and the night he'd just had. Watching them didn't anger or irritate him, but it did build a quiet determination. And it allowed him to see early the player detaching himself from the mass at a decent walking clip, striding straight for an intersection with the group of Direwolves' relievers on the way to the bullpen. He wasn't coming for all of the, though. Gendry raised in eyebrow in surprise at the purpose in the man's walk and questioned his timing, but he also told himself that he wouldn't back down. Now or ever again. So he let himself fall back from the reliever group until he came to a complete stop in the outfield grass, hoisting his pink backpack of snacks on his shoulder and staring the man down intensely as the distance between them dwindled.

His adversary stopped at around five paces, with a fiery face and a startlingly powerful expression for someone decked head to toe in a baseball uniform. Clearly seeing the man intended some sort of confrontational conflict, Gendry spoke first and quickly. "What's up, Aegon? Always a pleasure and everything, but I'm kind of busy at the moment."

"Just couldn't stand to see us together, huh?" Aegon growled, without preamble. He shook his head furiously, glaring at angry with eyes of infernal intent. "Couldn't see her happy. Who the hell do you think you are?"

Gendry blinked. He had not been expecting such blatant hostility. "Hey, man. Calm down. I don't know what you think I did, but I can tell you positively that I didn't do it."

"Oh, yeah, that's bull shit," the Monarchs outfielder snapped. "What'd you do to her, that she saw you and was so afraid that she had to run right back? How'd you make her do it?"

"I didn't make her do anything."

His anger flared; it threatened to appear. Before he could stop himself he had taken a step closer to Aegon, who didn't back down. From a larger height, though, there was no doubt who was the physically dominant of the two. Gendry couldn't be sure, of course, but he felt that he stood a far better chance of beating this thin man than he did the man's teammate. Then again, in the middle of the outfield, before Game 3 of the World Series, with twenty thousand eyes turned in their direction at any given moment, most likely... well, it wasn't the greatest place to get into a brawl. This time, he was sure, Arya would kill him.

"Like hell," Aegon replied sharply. As opposed to backing down, as Gendry had half-hoped he would do, the man had the gall to take another step forward. For the two big strides, they were suddenly only feet apart. "I don't know what you did, but I swear I'll make you live to regret it."

Gendry stared at him for a moment, and then broke out into a disbelieving grin. "All right, Targaryen, I have to say, I've thought you weren't right in the head before, but this is a little extensive."

Purple eyes smoldered. "Don't condescend."

"I'm serious," Gendry said, low and serious. "All that shit about some feud between you and me? That's imaginary! It's all in your head, if it's even there at all. Man, I've got nothing against you. I had nothing against you, before you went and made something against me."

"It exists," Targaryen rumbled, in a dangerous undertone. "It prevails. It's like my birthright, the only thing I have left of my father. Everything I've ever done brought me back here, back to baseball and Westeros, so I could bring some glory back to the name Targaryen. That starts by beating you, the son of my father's worst enemy."

Gendry rolled his eyes but chose to ignore the man's crazier points. "And all of that has nothing to do with Arya, so—"

"So you did do something."

He sighed. "If by something, you mean let her in when she knocked on the door and talked, then yes. Because that's what she did and that's what we did. I didn't tell her to do what she did, that was her own conscious decision."

Targaryen glared at him before shaking his head slowly. "I don't believe you."

"Whatever," Gendry retorted, waving his hands carelessly and half-turning to follow the others towards the bullpen. "You believe whatever you want. I'll see you in the game."

"You think you can just take her from me?" Aegon demanded, and actually pursued a pace before Gendry swung around in annoyance. "You think you're better for her than I am? You think she's so much better with you than she is with me?"

Standing there side-faced to Targaryen, surveying his angry face bordering on fury, Gendry couldn't help but narrow his eyes, staring with what could only be described as pity and disbelief. "I just did, I am, and she is. And if you can even think about classifying her as someone who can be 'taken' and 'returned' or 'won' or anything like that, then you don't know her at all. Or deserve her. You knew her for I don't know how long, but it's been less than the time that I've known and loved her, and that was one of the first things I realized about her."

"I knew her long enough."

"Well, she made her choice," Gendry hissed, heavily holding himself in check. "I'm sorry if it displeased you, but I didn't make her do shit. If you had made her happier, then fine, she would've picked you, I would've lived. She didn't."

Targaryen's fists clenched, and for a second Gendry thought that he was actually going to have to sink to the unfortunate level of an offensive defense, which would affect more than just the two of them. With a raging shudder and a barely perceptible shake of the head, though, Targaryen clearly overexerted himself with the effort of taking a step back. For all of his apparent anger, his pale complexion somehow remained completely, implying total control where Gendry was sure his own face would have been flaming with heat; it made the man look even more intimidating, but Gendry was as unfazed as ever. Whatever could be done to him had already been done; he wouldn't back down again.

At length, after his step and another few moments of seething, Targaryen grunted, a disconcerting sound that came across as absurdly regal. "Fine, Waters. Your choice, your funeral. We'll see who takes the Series. We'll see who the real man is."

Targaryen turned with no shortage of purple glares as Gendry watched with a scowl, striding across the outfield grass at another decent clip. Glancing after his relievers, Gendry realized he had fallen behind, but couldn't keep from sparing another glance after the Monarchs' outfielder, warily. Not that he was afraid or nervous—not like he had been—but where he had hoped the war would be over between them, where it only came down to baseball, it seemed that instead of ending the war had simply transformed. And now it was completely about baseball.

With a sigh, Gendry turned his back on Targaryen and the Monarchs' sideline, where more than one face had begun staring since the beginning of the encounter. Putting all of them behind him, he finished his now-solitary trek to the bullpen, letting himself forget what had just passed between the two men, one of whom thought they were at war and the other who refused to believe they were. It was all inconsequential, anyway. His pitching, or lack thereof, was his contributory factor now, and he couldn't ruin that by throwing in variables that didn't exist.

Time passed, his thoughts swirling and standing still at the same time, and then the Monarchs were running to take the field. It was time. The crowd rose to their feet and cheered on their hometown heroes, while Gendry and the rest of the Direwolves glared on in contempt. In the brightness and calamity of King's Landing, the two teams made their final preparations for gameplay, tightening gloves and stretching out arms and warming up pitchers. Then Hallis stepped in for the first pitch and Game 3 of the World Series was underway.

For the first inning, Gendry was annoyingly tense as he watched Hallis bat. He gripped the railing in front of him in excitement when the leadoff hitter towered the second pitch to center field, but he had gotten under it and everyone who knew anything about the game of baseball knew it after a few moments of flight. Tyrell, inching towards the gap, pulled it in without difficulty and lobbed it back in for the first out. The inning turned, though, after a sharp single by Edric. Lounging off of first base aggressively, he then took off immediately on the first move by the left-handed pitcher, who immediately planted his foot and darted a pickoff throw to first. Edric never slowed down, though, and the first baseman spent a moment too long corralling the throw from the mound on its way to second. The Direwolves' center fielder dove in safe with a stolen base without seeing a pitch; on the next one, he added insult to the Monarchs' injury by stealing third, as well, and two pitches after that Robb skyed another blast to left center that Tyrell caught shy of the warning track but which was well out of range of a throw to the plate. Edric trotted in to score right off of the bat, and the Direwolves had an early lead in a game they needed. Gendry was able to breathe just a little bit easier. But then, there were eight and a half innings yet to play. A lot of baseball.

As the game progressed, though, it seemed as though his worries were unwarranted. Though a desperate cling was a good way to describe the Direwolves' lead, they maintained it, inning by inning. After Robb's initial sacrifice fly, his exhaustion seemed to catch him with a strikeout, and Mikken fought through a twelve-pitch at-bat only to end up popping out to third base, but usually silent factors managed to supply a pair of additional runs by the fifth. The Monarchs finally broke the Direwolves' flawless pitching and defense with a blemish in the bottom of the sixth, courtesy of back to back doubles by Targaryen and Clegane, but otherwise the Monarchs' hitters could not, with clear frustration, squeak out any of their usually lucky hits, which left the entire bullpen giddily clinging to themselves with hope.

The first call to them came in the seventh. Seeking not to run their starter's luck too short, the call came for Desmond that inning, who burst on at a hearty jog that clearly indicated his desire to get his job done. He got Tyrell to line out to center on a tough pitch that the man should never have gotten so much bat on, but Edric caught it regardless to tally the first out. After that, the young Monarchs' superstar, who had struck out looking and hit a weak grounder to second base previously—both to Gendry's glee—hit a meager flyball to middle left-center that threatened to fall only by virtue of distance from either outfielder. The two Direwolves' converged at a dead sprint, though, Edric peeling off at the last minute as he was called off, and Targaryen was retired without damage to put two outs in the book.

Gendry took a deep breath. He was now only a handful of outs away from standing up to stretch, to come into the game with a one-run lead. It was his chance at redemption, his chance to pay the Monarchs back for Game 2, and a chance to show the world that he wasn't who he had been the past few months; not when he had his muse watching from the bleachers, not when he knew that he had the possibility of a future, after all.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than did Sandor Clegane slug a low, outside fastball on a sky-high drive to right-center. The Dragonpit erupted with cheers and roars as Edric gave a half-hearted chase, the ball almost skimming the second deck as it landed for an opposite field home run.

Gendry exhaled, forcing himself not to panic, watching Clegane furiously round the bases after his blast while Desmond punched his glove in fury. His eyes following the giant, brutish man, who—annoyingly—did not have a single scratch on his body from their altercation. If the man was going through any pain akin to Gendry's regarding his heartbreak at the hands of a Stark, he certainly wasn't showing it; both of the games RBI's belonged to Clegane, and his stature was no less imposing or frightening as he stomped third base on his way to the plate.

Another run ticked onto the scoreboard for the Monarchs, but there was still a run of separation between them, a run in favor of the Direwolves. After Joffrey promptly popped out to first base, the inning was over and Desmond stalked to the dugout unhappy with himself, regardless of the advantage his team held. Gendry could sympathize with his mindset, even if there was little fault in giving up a home run to Clegane. They had six outs to get, a more than manageable total, but no insurance was added in the top-half of the eighth, but they weren't in the clear yet.

Set-up man Cayn was called in for the bottom and surrendered a leadoff double, which left every Winterfell fan and player within a thousand miles holding their breath, Gendry included among them. As the player pulled up in second base standing up, several paces ahead of Mikken's throw, Gendry felt the advantage beginning to slip away. Cayn, however, proved his worth, then, reaching back and striking out the side. Gendry grinned at the man's emotional exclamation as he left the field for the dugout, too anxious to give his own exclamation as many of his teammates around him did, and instead glanced again up at the stands, imagining Arya standing and screaming her approval amid an endless sea of enemies. She would do it, too. And all of the fans around her would be too scared of her to talk any trash.

He heard the phone ring and the bullpen coach pick it up, and glanced over only to nod as his name was called. Standing and stretching out his arm, as always ignoring the flaming pain in his elbow, he proceeded to warm up as he had dozens of times before, preparing for his entry into the game, preparing for his new moment under the spotlight.

His teammates, unfortunately enough, let the drama of the moment cling to a single run, and didn't score again before three outs had been recorded in the top of the ninth. Trotting out of the bullpen with the top of the Monarchs' lineup due first, Gendry exhaled in the face of the jarring boos from the crowd, and forced them all out. He jogged to the mound as if they weren't there, as though the stadium were empty except for him and Robb. And one other, located somewhere amid the blaring crowd, the one he knew was actually rooting for him.

Having his mind set against them did nothing to deter the fans, of course. They were as loud, as ever, once uncomfortably zapping him back abruptly to the last time he had played in King's Landing, his three appearances, punctuated by his first blown save. It was behind him now, and he would not focus on it, but the environment served cruelly to remind him where he was. And that the hitters approaching the plate to face him were no easy outs.

Robb did not come out to meet him before Janos Slynt stepped to the plate, but he was probably operating on the verge of collapse from sleep deprivation as it was. Gendry could already imagine what he would have said, anyway; something along the lines of, "They're not desperate, so they won't be taking pitches. Put 'em away." As Gendry dug into the rubber with this in mind, Robb's head was bowed in his crouch, in a familiar pose of thought, but Gendry already knew what he was going to throw, regardless of what Robb wanted to sign. Slynt stepped into the box and Robb dropped down a fastball and Gendry couldn't fight back a grin as the tremors of distaste and cruel hope flickered through the crowd around, as the cameras went off to capture the moment.

He came set and delivered the pitch. His mental specter of Robb had not been wrong; Slynt swung at it, and managed to get the bat on a piece. A piece was all he got, though; the foul ball swung up at a hard ankle and shot over the backstop screen towards the press box with velocity, its flight only just deflected by Slynt for the first strike.

That was all it took for Gendry to smell victory in the at-bat. The slider he threw on the next pitch missed the strike zone but sent Slynt reeling from his wayward swing, perhaps as a result of the best break that Gendry had ever thrown in his life. Just for kicks—if he was willing to admit it to himself, the crowd's hostility made him want to toy around—he tried to make Slynt chase on an outside fastball, which the batter only just held himself back from doing. All joking aside, Robb requested a slider in the dirt for the fourth pitch, and Gendry chose not to argue. It was almost as good of a throw as his second pitch had been, and Slynt was no more able to make contact than he had been the first time. Robb scooped the ball out of the dirt and tagged Slynt out before the man had even realized he'd swung at a ball far out of the strike zone and completely missed. Gendry listened to the crowd hiss in disgust and dismay as his team captain enthusiastically slung the baseball to third base, shouting out to his teammates that they had one down.

Which left two left to go between Gendry and his team's victory in Game 3, with Loras Tyrell stepping to the plate.

The center fielder had been quiet that day, but it didn't fool Gendry. A hundred times he had been over the scouting reports of each of the Monarchs, and every time had let him know that it was a team of sluggers and sleepers, and when a hitter wasn't on-track it just meant that he was due.

With that in mind, Gendry and Robb silently went conservative on the first pitch and dealt an outside slider that Gendry couldn't have placed better had he simply handed Robb the baseball. Tyrell flinched like he wanted to swing but held his bat back in the end, and was rewarded for it by a ball call just off the corner. Undiscouraged, Gendry quickly evened the count with another slider, this one low and inside, and followed it up by a blistering heater that Tyrell swung far behind, harmlessly tapping it towards his own team's dugout down the third base line, foul.

Far up in the count on the left-handed hitter, Gendry tensed inwardly and coiled like a spring, ready to unleash the fastball that had powered his rise. Robb, however, with his customary glance towards Tyrell's eyes, did not oblige him. On the verge of shaking his captain off, Gendry steeled himself and nodded instead, coming set briefly. A pause for a breath passed, before he stretched and strode to the plate, releasing an arcing breaking ball destined for the heart of the strike zone.

Down to his last strike, Tyrell read the break visibly, but he was behind the pitch, even after expecting fastball. His contact sent the ball skyward in fair territory, shooting at a steep angle upwards. Five voices on the infield screamed, "Up!" and Gendry pointed at the ball to show his teammates as it soared out weakly towards left field. His eyes turned downwards to Hallis as the large shortstop ranged out into shallow left, head straight upwards, tracking the white orb against the gray King's Landing sky. The man gave one cry of claim before the even larger Mikken tumbled in from the deeper outfield and called him off. The left fielder caught it softly in his mitt, and Tyrell was retired.

The crowd deflated a little more, as their team was reduced to their last hope. Aegon Targaryen strode in from the on-deck circle, his pale face set rigidly. On his way to the plate, he shot a cursory, seething purple glare at Gendry, but that was the only sign of anything except from his body language, and it was a cold warning as opposed to an angry retort. Gendry, buying for a little time, lobbed the baseball back into Robb to receive a new, clean one from the umpire; half to gather himself, half to send a message to Targaryen once and for all that Gendry was the one in control.

He didn't look again at the batter as he dug himself into the mound, but he remembered the last time the two of them had been on opposite sides of the pitch. He remembered the control he had possessed, how it had slipped away in one pitch, in one mistake, in one great swing. Not this time.

Targaryen was only a blip in the corner of his eye, a picture of confidence grossly misplaced. Gendry only saw Robb's call for a fastball, and wasted no time coming set before the pitch. On his stride, his arm came back and hurled a baseball traveling faster than a speeding vehicle, straight for the heart of the plate.

Targaryen's eyes lit up like a lightning bolt. Gendry saw the bat head fall off the shoulder as fluidly as though it were liquid, flowing into the zone, lurching towards the baseball hurtling inwards as though they were destined to collide.

Except that the ball ended up impacting Robb's mitt.

All three of them—Robb, Targaryen, and Gendry—stared at the glove for a moment after the backswing, as the crowd released a groan of anguish. For Gendry's part, at least, it took him seeing Robb pluck the ball out of the webbing and toss it back to him to convince him that Targaryen's swing had actually missed the fat pitch, but Targaryen himself looked even more shocked. When their eyes met, Gendry glared back harshly, without the sheepishness he'd had outside of Casterly Rock, without the defensiveness he'd had in the outfield.

His elbow twanged as he stepped back onto the hill; he set the pain aside. It was no time to give in to such trivial things as agony.

Testing his luck, Robb and he proceeded to throw a couple of sliders outside of the zone in an attempt to make Targaryen go fishing without offering anything hittable. The Monarch managed to hold back both times, though he jerked in a manner that made it very clear he wanted to bite at the second one, which dipped at the very last instant out of the strike zone.

With the count now in Targaryen's favor at 2-1, Gendry shook off a fastball just to confuse Targaryen and then also shook off a third straight slider, forcing Robb to sign back to fastball. Hopefully enough to fool the hitter into guessing wrongly what was coming, Gendry gripped the ball in his glove fiercely and let the moment settle over the entire Dragonpit and all its tense occupants before he delivered the pitch.

It wasn't where he had wanted to put it, low and away, but its trajectory towards the high outside corner would still put it in the strike zone, and Targaryen pounced on it with his hands back, trying to drive it the opposite way. This time, instead of completely swinging through it, he got a decent piece of bat on the ball, finishing his swing high and tight. He wasn't quite fast enough, though, and the baseball deflected high into the air in foul territory to the first base side, hit hard enough to fly into the third deck but harmlessly out of play.

Put it past him, Gendry told himself as he got a new ball and walked back to the mound. The crowd had grown restless, but they were the farthest thing from Gendry's mind. He needed one strike. Put it past him. One game at a time.

Robb gave him a slider, but he shook it off, Targaryen waiting in the box with a bouncing stance that was far less confident than it had been four pitches before. Gendry watched Targaryen, now, contemplating: the slider wasn't his bread and butter. He nodded for the fastball, the pitch that had put him in the major leagues, and came set. On his stride, though, the knowledge that Targaryen had gotten a piece of his last pitch tweaked his arm. Anxiously, he heaved even harder, summoning every last ounce of strength, to try and throw it quick enough that Targaryen couldn't catch up to it.

Once again, Targaryen inched, like he wanted more than anything in the world to swing, but at the last second held himself back. The ball slipped inside, not where Gendry had wanted it, just maybe nicking the corner of the plate, as close as a pitch could possibly. Robb framed it exactly where he caught it, milking for the life of him for the strike call from the umpire. The large man in blue and black only stood, though, relaxing as the play ended, leaving the count filled to the brim at three balls and two strikes. Targaryen stepped back from the plate, his face impassive, but his eyes gleaming with the knowledge that Gendry had to now throw him a strike or else lose him to a walk, an act which would bring the winning run to the plate in the form of Sandor Clegane.

No, Gendry hissed at himself in his thoughts. You will not lose him. He has to earn his way on. He stalked back to the mound, all the while thinking about Clegane. The last they had faced each other—the only time they had ever faced each other—Gendry had blown his first save ever and lost the game to boot. He didn't want to admit that he was afraid of a similar situation, but he was already facing a batter who had hit a home run off of him in their only previous encounter and he didn't want to put Targaryen on base only to face another, especially when they had homefield advantage.

No. You're getting this now.

Forcing himself to calmly stride back to the mound was an effort, but it was also an opportunity for him to take several deep breaths. He glanced towards the crowd, for strength, imagining Arya looking at him from somewhere in the swirling depths of hatred. Muttering his breath, he told himself, "Calm and collected, smooth and serene. All you can do is make your pitch. You can't control now whether or not he hits it."

He dug against the rubber with his own words swimming about in his head, and bent over his lead knee to squint at Robb's sign. Beneath the camera flashes of the Dragonpit, next to a bead of sweat dripping off his cheek, Gendry watched one finger go down between the catcher's legs and a confident closure of the mitt that meant business. Exhaling once more, he came set and breathed deeply before lifting his leg high into the air, well aware of what this pitch meant to his team, to his life, to his heart, and strode towards the plate.

It roared towards the plate with the swiftness of a wolf, as perfect a pitch to hit as ever. Targaryen's eyes tracked it the entire way, followed his bat off of his shoulder towards the ball, looking for a liner through the hole, or a shot into the gap, or a towering blast towards the bleachers.

Instead, he swung through it. And the game was over.

Behind Gendry, as he came down off of his plant leg and growled loudly in triumph, several cries of enthusiasm went up from the infielders. Targaryen finished his swing, coming down looking even more confused than on the first swing-and-miss, and Gendry had never seen a sight so gratifying. Robb popped out of his crouch with a decent exclamation of his own and started jogging out to congratulate Gendry before the crowd could even begin to react with angry jeers.

In the space of the following moment, his hips still turned in futile swing, Targaryen made eye contact with Gendry as he climbed down off of the mound. Distraught surprise and anger sat behind a dangerous veil of purple, promises unmade and promises deadly mingling as one. Gendry wanted very bad to smile, to smirk, to tell Targaryen to his face that he had lost, like the man himself had done in the club, after the home runs, all the times before. But that would not have been him. Instead, while making no attempt to hide that he had just won the game, Gendry turned his head away to shake Robb's exhausted hand and share smiles with his teammates, and, as much as was possible, Targaryen was forgotten.

It wasn't the big one, but it was a victory when they needed it the most. Game 3 went to the Direwolves, to put them on the board in the Series.

As they finished shaking hands and rounded to make a final set of high-fives with the coaches, Gendry caught sight of a small figure in the second deck, noticeable partly because of the larger, flame-haired figure she was standing beside. Both of them remained where they were, watching the field, not filing out like the rest of the dismayed crowd, and there was no way they could have been anyone else. They couldn't hear him, couldn't make out his face and certainly hadn't heard his thoughts, but Gendry thought to himself then that if they hadn't have been there, if Arya hadn't convinced him to stop lying to himself, he wouldn't be the pitcher he had been that day. For all of his sappiness, she completed his arsenal. And he had come through for his team.

Just like that, the euphoria of mid-to-late July seemed to burst back into him, and inject some life back into the Direwolves' franchise. The next day, in Game 4, it was like night and day from where they had mentally only weeks before, both for Gendry and for his team. His arm pained him more than usual, despite the much better sleep he had acquired the previous night, pain which left him worried in the aches of the morning hours. The evening, however, turned out a welcome surprise when his team didn't need him.

Winterfell was dominant, in foreign territory: the only inning they didn't have a hit was the eighth, and they batted around in the fourth, crossing no fewer than six runners to add to a total that was already five. Pycelle was furious in the opposite dugout the entire game, Gendry noted happily from center field, making six pitching changes, one of them before an ailing reliever had even gotten through a single hitter in the inning. The Monarchs tried to throw together a weak rally late, but all they could contribute, in the face of a horrible day from Tyrell and Targaryen both, was another pair of RBI's from Clegane, who had found a stroke the rest of his team seemed to have lost. In King's Landing, against all odds, instead of rolling over to die like most of the world had expected them to do, the Direwolves took Game 4 of the World Series 13-6. Suddenly, the series was tied at two games, either team only two more wins away from winning it all.

Gendry thought about calling Arya that night, but decided against it in the end. Although he wanted to hear her voice badly, wanted any piece of her now that he knew that they didn't have another tragic end in the foreseeable future, he wasn't out of the deep water yet, in both the sense of their relationship and the World Series. He didn't want to push his luck, for either case, by making a mistake where patience was the key.

No sooner had he set down his phone, comfortable with his decision, it chimed with a text message, so perfectly that he snatched it back up and read the thing so fast his life may have depended on it. As soon as he saw it was from Arya, he found himself hoping, praying for any type of praise, for her to say that she was proud of him or something else along those silly lines. Instead, there was only a two-sentence message congratulating him on the pair of wins, but also saying that he had thrown too many sliders in the third game. Which, somehow, was even better than praise, and left him smiling until he went to bed.

The Monarchs had clearly underestimated their opponents in the first two games in King's Landing, but in Game 5 they came out with no misconception. Their previous disarray was cool and focused, as if to insist that the previous two games of the Series were a fluke that would not be repeated, under any circumstances. But the Direwolves were there to play, too, the taste of victory still warm as blood in their mouths, and Gendry, foremost among them, had had enough of backing down. They were both there to win.

It was a bloodbath. First, the pitchers were untouchable, moving through fourth with barely a hit to their records. In the fifth, on both sides, the floodgates opened, and runs began to pour in on both sides. At the end of the seventh, courtesy of home runs from Tyrell, Clegane, Robb and Edric, the two teams were locked at seven runs apiece, neither giving any signs of giving up, ferocity leading them nearly to each others' throats. Neither team could then gain another advantage into the ninth, and, though his arm was really beginning to kill him, Gendry was called on to handle the bottom of the Monarchs' order and force extra innings, which he did easily.

In the tenth, he was lifted in favor of a pinch hitter, who struck out. The Direwolves did not score. Then Slynt, leading off for the Monarchs, put a two-strike slider off of Quent into the right-field corner with nobody out, and didn't slow down until he had reached third base. With the infield in and the game on the line, Tyrell bounced a normally routine grounder past a diving Hallis into center field for the game-winning hit, and the Monarchs took Game 5.

The post-game locker room was disappointed, but, contrary to the first two games of the Series, Gendry was glad to find that it wasn't discouraged. They had held the opportunity to go up in the Series—to take all three games from the Monarchs in King's Landing, something that hadn't been done in years—but although they hadn't achieved the sweep they had done what they came down to the South to do: in an unlikely scenario, their scrappy team had taken two games away from the team with the best record in baseball in their hometown, and earned themselves enough of a gulp of air to force the two teams back to Winterfell for Game 6.

There was no further illusion, though. They had to win.

When Luwin walked into the locker room post-Game 5, he stood on the threshold of the door with his arms crossed and stared at them all for a long moment. Gendry was one of the last to notice him standing, poised in the doorway, silently watching, silently waiting. The conversations around them died slowly, as more heads turned and swiveled from changing clothes and ice packs to the manager sliding his eyes over them. Before long, the hush Direwolves were completely focused on Luwin, with a pregnant pause stretching the entire room across.

After a time that seemed to stretch into infinity, Luwin took a few steps into the room and stared at his shoes. "We did what we had to do. We took two wins in a hostile environment. Two wins where we weren't supposed to win. Two games that we were never expected to be in, when this season began."

He paused, pacing between them, not raising his eyes, not raising his voice. He walked past Gendry, and Gendry could almost feel the emotion rolling off of the visually-composed man. As Luwin went on a few more steps, he sighed. "I have never coached a team with so much heart as you all. Never." He glanced up, his eyes searching their faces; as far as Gendry could see, every one of his teammates was as serious as if Luwin was reading a eulogy.

"The chips were down, more than once," Luwin continued, his trek weaving his way between his players. "The odds were never in our favor. There are some of us who have been here for many years, waiting for this chance." Mikken raised his head. "There are some of us who are young and strong, who were born to be here." Robb didn't look up, but his jaw clenched in acknowledgement. "There are those who didn't believe in each other, who found that the determination to win despite everything against you can bond people who hate each other closer than brothers." Cayn glanced at Gendry, and gave a very slight nod. "And there are those of you who never knew you had it in you until you were called upon. Until you got the chance to prove that you were a Direwolf."

Gendry swallowed past the lump in his throat, and greeted Edric's smile with a clap on the shoulder.

"We're not out of the water," Luwin said. "We barely have our heads above water, truthfully, gentlemen. Our road to get here has been hard. Awfully hard. As hard a road as any of us has ever traveled." He paused, letting his words hang on the air, letting them take pride in themselves for a moment. "But it's going to get worse. We are backed into a corner now. It was bleak before, when they held two games over our heads, but, now, gentleman... now, they only need one."

He stopped pacing and raised his head, to look them in the eyes, turning to face them all in turn with a gruff shake of his head. "We can't let them have it. Losing is not an option. Regular season, hell, even the first two playoff series, a loss was not the end of the world. There was always another game. Another chance. All the Direwolves needed was another chance," he announced, as though he were reading from a newspaper article, "and they'll prove to you that they're beyond your expectations.

"But this time... This time, we don't have another chance." He looked around at them, for a moment, as though the solemnity could actually sink in deeper than it already had. "We are flying home. We are flying back to our pack. Our brothers and sisters of Winterfell. And if we lose... it's all over. Every step we've taken, every unlikely moment that we have proven ourselves since the beginning of this season..."

He shook his head, his eyes fierce over his somber face. "All meaningless. If we lose, we get scratched off as just another team that got lucky until the real dogs came out to play. 4 games, 6, 7, it doesn't matter... a loss tells the world that we weren't meant to be here, at all.

"But a win..."

The word hung on the air like destiny, floating between them in an ever binding chain. It held itself there, unbroken by speech, until Luwin repeated himself, "A win, and then another. A victory. A victory tells the world that the Direwolves were meant to be here, that they didn't climb up the mountain—that the mountain crumbled beneath their charge. Their hunt was fate. They were destined from the first unlikely victory to the last to win." Luwin watched his players, pursing his lips in a way Gendry could only identify after a moment as emotion. "Words can never express how proud I am of all of you. How many times I expected you—expected you—to stumble and fall on this wild ride. I have been in this game for a long time, and, by far, you are the finest group of men I have and ever will coach. You have already proven yourselves to me, each and every one of you, a hundred times over."

He froze. Gendry, far too shocked to even think about speaking himself, thought the man's eyes might have actually been glassy. After a moment, Luwin seemed to gather himself. "But it's not over yet. We have two games to win. Two games before the people of our city to show them that we do. Not. Back. Down."

Abruptly, he dropped his arms and began to walk towards the door again. "Finish this. Finish what we were never expected to accomplish." He paused once again on the threshold, to toss another phrase back over his shoulder. "Show them how dangerous a cornered wolf really is."

And Luwin strode out the door, leaving behind a team that took several minutes to gather themselves emotionally before they could continue.

The plane ride back to Winterfell was quiet. Gendry spent the first half of it simply staring at the seat ahead of him, his lips pressing against his clasped fists, Luwin's words of the previous night still bouncing around his skull, still stirring primeval determination and heart deep within him. He may well have spent the other half of the ride contemplating it, as well, Robb leaning his head back in the attempts to catch up on sleep that was still lost, but an hour and a half out from their landing his thoughts were interrupted by a hand falling onto his shoulder.

Nearly startled, he looked straight up into the dark eyes of Ned Stark.

The man's face was impassive, neither angry nor pleased, nor did the hand on his shoulder feel tense or relaxed. All of Ned Stark was as indifferent as a man could possibly be, but the jerk of his head towards the back of the plane was decidedly non-optional. "A word, please."

Gendry had no idea what he could have done now that warranted another discussion with Ned Stark. They hadn't spoken face-to-face in over a month, since before the payoffs, and Gendry found that he had no desire to now; especially considering the relieving arrangements he'd made behind Ned Stark's back with his daughter, a situation the man himself had forbidden. Stuck between a rock of refusing and a hard place of going, however, Gendry unbuckled his seatbelt and rose to follow Ned Stark to the back of the plane to hear whatever it was the man had to berate him about this time.

He had barely gone three steps when he looked over Ned's retreating back and nearly stumbled.

Arya was seated in a row near the back of the plane near the window. In her hands she held a book, which she was studying intensely, as though trying not to look somewhere else. What she was doing there Gendry didn't know, but he found that the normal excitement he felt upon seeing her was more than offset at the adrenaline rush he received from realizing that he was being led straight towards her like an executioner waited on the other end. The seat next to her had Ned Stark's coat draped over its arm, suggesting that he had just vacated it. For a moment, half of him assumed Ned Stark would drop him into the seat next to her and scream at them, tell him that he knew everything about what they had agreed to and that he would throw them off of the plane if they didn't end their foolishness.

To his vast relief, Ned Stark did no shouting or insisting or forcing whatsoever. Instead of leading him towards the back of the plane, the man turned—just as Gendry dropped his eyes, barely avoiding being caught staring at Arya—and gestured Gendry into an empty row between the players' seats and the coaches' seats behind them. Gendry didn't hesitate, still fearful of some ploy to lure him out and crush him again, and ducked to the window seat before Ned Stark had a chance to prove something else.

The older, greyer man sat himself down on the aisle slowly, without looking at his player, while Gendry waited as patiently as possible, still able to hear the blood pumping in his ears. Without greeting exchange, Ned Stark cleared his throat. "I noticed in King's Landing that you had an encounter with Aegon Targaryen."

Gendry blinked. "What?"

Ned Stark's eyes narrowed, but his voice remained smooth. "Aegon Targaryen approached you on your way to the bullpen, before Game 3, didn't he?"

Feigning nonchalance, Gendry shrugged and nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I suppose. Why?"

"I was wondering what the two of you spoke about."

Gendry hoped his gulp wasn't as obvious to Ned Stark as it felt like it was. Lying through his teeth was not a great option, but he had little choice. "We were just exchanging pleasantries. We're both fans of each other's work, and we'd never had a chance to talk before." Not your daughter. That's not what we talked about.

"Oh?" There was no way to tell whether Ned Stark was genuinely believing and surprised, or playing him. "He didn't look that happy when he was walking away. Did your pleasantries turn bad or something?"

"No," Gendry said, his mind racing. "I didn't think he was that angry. I guess he just looked that way. We parted on the same grounds that we met on." At least that was the truth.

"Oh," Ned Stark replied, his face distant and pensive. Gendry didn't know how to react, whether to look truthful or simple or curious. It might not have mattered, because the owner wasn't looking at him, but he was still anxious. After a moment, Ned Stark breathed softly and said, "I knew his father. Once. So to speak. But I've never had the pleasure of meeting Aegon myself." He raised a hand to his face to run over his mouth, and then glanced at Gendry from the corner of his eye and away once more. "If he was anything like his father, then exchanging pleasantries might simply have been another scouting mission. Or a pissing contest."

Gendry forced himself to chuckle, as though it were ridiculous to assume such, all the while thinking of how correct Ned Stark actually was. "He seemed nice enough to me."

Ned Stark grunted softly, but Gendry felt as though he were no longer there, as though the only things that Ned Stark noticed were his own thoughts. For nearly a minute, he sat there silently, afraid to break the silence of the icy man's thoughts, terrified but desperately tempted to glance back at where Arya was, to enjoy seeing her with the rare opportunity that he could. Instead, he made himself sit perfectly still until the man stirred and blinked at him as though suddenly realizing he was there, and then telling him that Targaryen was the only thing he had wanted to discuss. Gendry returned to his seat without looking towards the back of the plane and somehow managed to continue staring forward for the rest of the flight, although Luwin's inspiration was considerably more difficult to focus on.

The Great Keep was prepared for Game 6 when they arrived the next day. The team was quiet, the words of their manager still fresh in their minds. They knew exactly what they had to do, and they were all determined to go out and do it. Gendry spent an hour of the morning convincing himself to stop trying to imagine why Arya had been on the plane back to Winterfell, and the remaining time preparing himself mentally for a game that the Direwolves had to win.

As perfect as they had been emotionally in the first two games of the series, as raucous as the King's Landing crowd had been in the three games down South, the fans of Winterfell couldn't have been greater as they took the field for Game 6. On a cold autumn night in Winterfell, the cheers and support that followed the relievers out to the bullpen, that supported the fielders taking the field, couldn't have been any more powerful and great had the players been able to hear the thousands and thousands more of people cheering for them across the continent of Westeros. The hairs on Gendry's neck and arms actually stood up with the electric energy of the Great Keep, beneath the dazzling lights and the incredible crowd, as he and the relievers made their way to the bullpen. From the time the fans began to fill the stadium an hour and a half before gametime to the moment of the first pitch, the only time they quieted down was for the national anthem, after which they rose up louder than before. They weren't a desperate audience; they were a confident, believing base for their team.

It was Jory's night on the hill, and he led the team out from the dugout beside Robb with the march of someone who had no option and no ability to do anything but win. The crowd backed him, almost shining no doubt on who the victors would be even before gametime. Watching from the bullpen, Gendry could see many of their visitors shifting. Anxiously. Worriedly.

On the other hand, the game started, and the Monarchs didn't play like they were nervous. Jory was every bit as forceful as he had been in the first game of the series, but where before he had dominated unprecedentedly the Monarchs began to steal back some of their luck. Tyrell managed a bloop and hustle double down the left field line with one out in the third, and when Robb couldn't completely block a breaking ball in the dirt he aggressively took third base, to be brought in by a ground ball from Targaryen. The Direwolves then came up empty in the first and second innings, while the Monarchs added one in the top of the third and then shut the home team down again through the fourth inning.

Just as Gendry was beginning to grow nervous, though, a single, followed by a double, followed by another single, brought in two runs for the Direwolves, to the ridiculously loud applause and cheers from a crowd that had never quieted down in the first place, to tie the game.

Some time in the sixth, while Jory still scrabbled through the Monarchs' lineup without surrendering further damage and the Direwolves' hitters determinedly looked for pitches to drive in the winning runs they needed, Gendry began to fidget nervously. He wanted to contribute to the battle of his teammates, but it wasn't his situation. If only they could get him there, he wanted very much to lead his team through Luwin's words, to take the games that they were never supposed to have been in and secure the series. But that could only happen if they gave him a lead first.

In the bottom of the seventh, like a beacon in the dark Winterfell night, Robb stepped into the box with the stoic expression of a leader and took a swing at the first pitch—a motion almost to be considered habitual, obvious—and launched the ball so high in the air that Gendry was on his feet and screaming in excitement before the ball had even left the infield.

As the orb grew higher into the air, the crowd's noise level followed, and escalated as it began to make its descent back to the earth. Soaring far over Gendry's head, far over the humbled Monarchs that watched it fly, Targaryen backing himself to the fence while it fell over his head, the ball crashed into the stands like a shockwave, every body in the house leaping to the air in excitement as Robb touched first base, his face as calm as though he were taking a stroll.

It didn't have to be as it was, but at that moment the Direwolves had all but won the game. Before Robb had touched the plate, the life had completely left the Monarchs. Shocked out of their senses, all of the momentum they had reclaimed by winning Game 5 was gone. The middle of the order, including the red-hot Clegane, struck out completely in the eighth inning. Gendry climbed to his feet to warm up, the heated ache of his torn elbow the farthest thing from his mind, and even lobbing warm-up pitches in the bullpen he knew, in the deepest part of his soul, with Luwin's words reverberating inside of his very consciousness, that he would not be beaten. Not that day.

He almost broke into tears when the eighth inning ended, when he began his entrance to the game, when the crowd began to chant his name. As though they were summoning him to the mound to save their game, they called him in, across the warning track, over the outfield grass and the infield dirt, past a nearly reverent Hallis, up to a mound while the team captain and hero jogged in his gear towards the plate beneath an atmosphere brighter in the night and hotter in the winter than anything that had ever been.

The Monarchs were no match. Not the bottom of their order. Not that night. It didn't help them that Joffrey led off, shouting more half-hearted taunts out at Gendry. Far more composed and far more elated than the last time such an event had occurred, Gendry struck his half-brother out on three pitches and didn't pay the asshole a single piece of his mind beyond the out as he shuddered a breath beneath the crowd's glee.

The next batter grounded out to shortstop on two pitches, the one after whiffing on two sliders before popping a fastball straight up the chimney over home plate. Robb screamed loud enough to let the entire stadium, over the anticipated fury of the crowd, that he had the catch, and waited for several seconds without moving before he raised his mitt and pulled in the third out of the inning and the last out of the game, before turning with a breath as heavy as Gendry's to celebrate their win of Game 6 of the World Series.

Under the thunderous boom of the crowd, Gendry shook hands with Robb and immediately found himself searching the luxury boxes of the stadium, bathed in the flashing lights of cameras. Arya was there, somewhere. He couldn't see her, couldn't remember where the Stark family box was, but he could almost bet that she was jumping up and down with as much fervor as he had at that moment, as well. It drew a smile from him just thinking about it, before he turned his attention to his teammates, all with gaping grins and apprehensive smirks. He had to enjoy the win with his brothers, now; he could with Arya, later.

It was hours before he and Robb were able to escape from the press, from the elation of the clubhouse, from the insanity of the ballpark. On the short ride home, the joy of the win sobered quite a bit, the both of them turning their minds away from the win and onto the next game of the series. They addressed it briefly in undertones, but otherwise the revelation concerning it was each of theirs, alone. Gendry sat quietly in the passenger seat the whole ride, his mind circling around a single thought: it was a new Series. A one-game Series. Winner-take-all.

That night, essentially barricaded in his room, Gendry sat down on his bed in the darkness and realized that when he woke in the morning, nothing would be the same as it was. There would be one game, for everything. For all he had ever dreamed of.

No, he reminded himself, and couldn't help but smile. Not everything.

Which was how he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Arya's number, and held his breath up to the point where the line clicked open and her soft voice came over the line. "Hello?"

"Hi, there."

A soft grunt came through the line. "What happened to waiting until the World Series was over to resolve us?"

He raised an eyebrow in the protection of the darkness, leaning back on his bed. "Should I hang up, then?"

Her irritated sigh made him smile. "No."

"Where are you?"

"The Manor," she grumbled, clearly unhappily. "Why?"

"I was just wondering," Gendry replied. He remembered his shock at finding her on the plane with him, something that had escaped him until he had seen her in her seat, and shook his head to himself. "Not that I'm not glad for it, but what are you doing here?"

"You're joking, right?" she said. "It's the World Series. It's the Direwolves. Before I had trouble watching because..." She stopped talking, and then cleared her throat. "Now, there's nothing holding me back. I wouldn't—I couldn't miss this for the world. I'm not build that way."

"I saw you on the plane."

"I noticed." Her voice was unmistakably amused.

He huffed at her humor. "Yeah, well... I did not expect to find you there, much less... with your father." He hesitated, and then added, "I was actually under the impression that you would rather lose 162 games every season than speak with your father."

Arya remained silent for a moment, unseen on the other side of the line. The unmistakable sound of a door closing carried through the line before the rustling of bed sheets followed. "I don't know if it's that bad, but you're right in that I never wanted to speak to my father again. It's the World Series, though... I have to make allowances."

"So you two made up, then?" He thought about it for a moment and made an uneasy sound. "I don't think I could've. I don't think I would. I'm not a big fan of your father."

"I know. You still spoke with him on the plane."

"I didn't really have a choice, then," he pointed out exasperatedly. "He came to me and said he wanted to talk to me. He's still the boss, I can't exactly say no. When I saw you on the plane... I thought he might've found out about... yeah. I kind of freaked a little inside."

After a moment of silence, Arya giggled very slightly. Before he could retort mock-angrily, she said, "Well, I went to him after Game 4 and pretended like I was over you and that I decided he had been right after all, and he fell for it, so..." She grunted. "I couldn't miss Game 6, and now you'll have to shoot me to keep me away from Game 7. Then I might rise from the dead anyway and get there anyway."

"I don't doubt it."

He was smiling. She was smiling, he was sure, too, even if he couldn't see it. For a long few moments, they lied where they were in silence, listening to each other breathe, for Gendry's part feeling a closeness that had been so vacant for so long. They weren't truly that far apart—only a few miles, now—but compared to the thousands that had separated them over the past few months, it was almost painful to be so close without touching. But Gendry could stand it, now; one game. One day. The most important day of his life.

She broke the silence first. "I would wish you good luck, but you don't need it. So I guess I'll just say that I'll be watching. Very closely."

A new grin spread across his face. "I know."

"Kind of fitting, isn't it?" she murmured in the dark.

"What is?"

"It all comes down to Game 7. One game. The whole season, from the crappy start to when you got called up to all of the ups and downs to now. All of the wins, all of the losses, all of the moments that were really hard to bear." She paused, and then added, "Us. It's all led up to one game. One game to take them all. It's a romantic end to a romantic season, isn't it?"

"I suppose," Gendry whispered. "But I don't think I ever expected anything else. That's the way it's gone the whole time, hasn't it? Even when we were winning big midyear, it all kind of came down to single moments in time. The whole way. When we lost because I gave up Clegane's home run. When I picked off Biter from first base. When Robb walks up to the plate in a pressure situation and knocks one out of the park like he's done it a million times before. It seems like we're used to playing like this. So far we haven't stumbled."

"No," she agreed. "You haven't."

The unspoken words hung between them. Gendry put voice to them, in his head, too afraid of jinxes and karma to speak them aloud. And we can't stumble. Not now.

The pause stretched for another few seconds, before Arya's soft laugh broke the phone line. "You know, I've never actually wanted a baseball season to end before. I've always hated the offseason, hated it completely. Right now... I actually want it to end. I want it to end so I can see you and my brother lifting a World Series trophy for Winterfell. I've wanted that all of my life. And also because..."

She let herself trail off again, not needing to voice the other half of her thoughts. Gendry didn't need her to, either. He exhaled into the line, and nodded, even thought she couldn't see it. "Me, too."

So much, spoken in so few words. He felt it, all of their separation and desperation and need, all in the short phrases they spoke, the soft words they left to the imagination. After the World Series, he reminded himself, even though the more he considered it, the more they strangely seemed to be intertwined. Thinking back carefully, though, across the six months that separated him from poverty in the lowest slum of King's Landing and being a star closer on a World Series competitor, with all of the roller coaster hops, as Arya had pointed out, Gendry didn't know if he would have had it culminate in any other way.

The two things he wanted most in the world, not dependent on one another but layered and joined in a way that was perfect. For him, for her. For them.

"Well," Arya murmured, at length. "I'd better tell you to hang up. You need sleep. You have a big game tomorrow."

She was right. But that didn't make him any more inclined to hang up the phone. With a sigh, he succumbed to reason, much as he didn't want to. "Yeah, I suppose. You'll be watching."

"I'll be analyzing," she corrected. "Don't hang breaking balls."

"Yeah," he muttered, faking annoyance, drawing a laugh. "I got it."

A soft nothingness that needn't have been filled by anything held the line for a moment. He didn't know if he'd ever heard her voice sound so intent before. "I love you."

He let out his breath, closing his eyes. She had never said it in so many words before, and for a very long time he didn't think that he would ever hear them, as much as he wanted to, as long as he lived. Now, regardless of the outcome tomorrow, while they both knew that he was going to fight himself to death for his team, win or lose, there was one thing he could look forward to after, anyway. One thing, even if—as Luwin had said—the Direwolves season amounted only to more maybes, that Gendry could carry into his uncertain future, and all of the new challenges that awaited him.

But one thing at a time. The game they both loved came first. Yet even before that came honesty—the most honesty he'd been able to get out, possibly, in his entire life.

"And I love you."