Gendry wasn't surprised that they didn't stay in King's Landing much longer after the Stark's left. His siblings needed to get back to Storm's End so they could start fixing all of the things that Connington had ruined while they were gone. A raven had been sent to the castle once it was revealed that they were alive and then again when Connington was executed so the Stormlands knew what was happening. It was going to be a big deal, and Gendry was worried about how they were all going to react to all of the attention. There was a decent chance that one of them was going to have some sort of fit, and that was not something they could do in public. Right now, they needed to show strength, and no one could see how much they were hurting.
"Thank you for coming with us to Storm's End, Arya," Mya said as they began to make their way from King's Landing. Arya blinked and looked very confused. "You're not just supporting Gendry when you're coming with, but you're supporting all of us. We all appreciate it more than you could ever know."
"You're family," Arya replied, which wasn't quite an answer, and Gendry could see how tight her smile was. He needed to get over this separation issue, and he needed to do it fast. Even if he wasn't ready, Gendry knew that they couldn't stay at Storm's End long. He didn't think Arya could take it, and he didn't want to risk losing her. He would rather suffer in the North and know that she would be there and be okay than let her turn around and leave him. It was the thing that kept him awake at night because he was so conflicted; on the one hand, he wanted her close and all the time, but at the same time, he could tell that she didn't want to be at Storm's End.
The people of Storm's End were cheering when they rode through the gates. Gendry made sure that Edric, Mya, and Bella were all ahead of him because they were the rulers and not him. However, the blacksmiths all personally ran up to tell them how happy they were that he was back in Storm's End and asking how long he was going to stay. Gendry didn't have an answer for them, so he just smiled and said that he would come by to see them soon. It was a lot, but there was one thing that he was looking forward to, and they were waiting on the steps of Storm's End.
Davos and Marya were the first ones they wrote to when it was time to reveal that it was safe, and Gendry was positive that they left the day they got the message to come back to the south. Marya took one look at all of them and immediately burst into tears while Davos looked like he was trying to do his best not to do the same.
"When Princess Arya told me all of you were alive, I almost didn't believe it," Davos whispered as he looked them all over. "I'm sorry that-"
"Davos," Edric said as he held up a hand. One of his arms was still in a sling, and the process of building back motion in it was extremely painful and slow going. It required patience, which his little brother very much did not have. "You did absolutely nothing wrong. They fooled everyone, and there were forces at work that you couldn't have protected us from. You have nothing to feel guilty about, and I refuse to allow you to even think that."
"We're just glad to be home and to see both of you," Mya said, and that was apparently the thing that broke both of the Seaworth's. One moment they were all standing together, and the next, they were all in some massive six-person hug. Gendry looked over his shoulder, and he could see Arya watching them with a warm smile. It was the happiest she had looked since they had reunited, and it eased a little something in Gendry's chest.
Marya immediately began to fret over each of them and their various wounds and scars. None of them had a lot of experience with having attentive parents, so the fact that Davos and Marya both appeared to switch into parent mode immediately was nice. Gendry held out his hand to Arya, and she threaded their fingers together. Gendry followed the Seaworth's and his siblings back into Storm's End. The Seaworth's were going to hover for the foreseeable future, but Gendry found that he didn't mind. If there was anyone he could tolerate the hovering for, it was Davos and Marya.
Even though Gendry knew it was ridiculous, he still hoped that being back in Storm's End would somehow make everything better again. He thought that maybe being in a familiar place with people he knew around him would make this easier, but everything in the castle was just a little off. Connington had done little things to make the place his own, and Gendry didn't know how he felt about them. All of their things were in locked trunks in the dungeons, and Gendry felt his heart break a little when he saw that the trunk his things were in was cracked, and some moisture got in. He didn't care about the clothes, but Mott's tools were in there, and some of them had rusted. Arya was with him when he found them, and she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"They're ruined," Gendry said softly. He didn't know why this was bothering him so much; it wasn't like he was ever going to use the tools, but it was making that knot form in his stomach again, and for half a second, he thought he was going to be ill.
"If someone let Needle or Thread or anything you ever made me rust, I would be reacting the same way," Arya replied. Gendry looked over his shoulder at her and offered a watery smile. Arya leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, but it didn't bring comfort. She was still looking tired and like she didn't want to be there. Gendry knew that he could read Arya, he was sure that he could still read her, and he knew that she didn't want to be here, but she didn't say anything. Part of him still wanted her to just go back to the North so she could be happy and he would come home as soon as he could, but another part of him was so sure that Arya wouldn't want him back.
The thoughts plagued him as the days went by and hung over his shoulders like a winter cloak in the middle of the summer. It felt stifling, and he couldn't chase them away. Arya was quiet, and she didn't say much. She didn't smile as much as she usually did, and when Edric asked if she wanted to train with him, she said no. Gendry felt his blood run cold when Arya turned Edric down to train; he couldn't remember the last time she said no to training. The days turned into weeks, and before long, almost a full moon turn had gone by. Gendry started sleeping in his own room, but he kept waking up from nightmares. He couldn't stop thinking about the sword going into his gut the night they were stolen from here. Gendry couldn't sleep, but he laid completely still in bed so Arya wouldn't know. He wanted her to think that he was sleeping just fine.
Bella was the one who noticed, and she gestured for him to follow her to the top of the tower. Edric had trouble climbing and once he was downstairs, he was avoiding climbing the stairs for the rest of the day if he could. Mya was in town on official business, and Arya said she wanted to go for a walk down by the water. Gendry had wanted to offer to go with her, it would have been good for them to go together, but instead, he silently nodded and watched her walk away. She was just going to the beach, Arya would be back, and it still felt like she was walking away forever. It still felt like he was losing her, and he hated it.
"You aren't sleeping," Bella said as they sat down. Gendry could see the blade on her waist, and her hair was styled in a way that covered her missing ear. Gendry made sure he was sitting on the side where she could still hear and looked down at his hands.
"I need to get better at it if we're going to go home to the North," Gendry replied
"That's not an answer," Bella said, and she narrowed her eyes. "Do you want to go back to the North, or do you want to stay here?"
"Arya, she wants-"
"What do you want?" Bella insisted, and Gendry winced. "Little brother, Arya wouldn't want you to do this to yourself. She loves you, and she wants you to be happy."
"I'll be happy when she's happy and she's unhappy here. We need to go back to the North, and once I'm there, I'm sure I'll be fine," Gendry insisted. Bella sighed heavily and reached forward to take his hand into hers. "Bella, I can't lose her. I can't keep letting this thing follow me around and ruin my life. I've lost too much to Connington, Daario, and the Lannister's as it is. I lost a year of my life; I can't let them take anything more from me, and I can't let them take her from me. We need to go back to the North, and I'm going to ask Ser Davos to prepare a ship for us. We should leave within the next few days."
"You know you can always come here if you need us," Bella said softly. "I need both of my little brothers, and I hope you know that just because you aren't here in Storm's End and you don't have our name that you're our brother, and nothing is going to change that. You're family." Gendry wanted to tell her that he had family in the North too, but they felt like a lie. He wasn't sure how Jon or Sansa or any of them could forgive him for continuing to hurt Arya. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything, and he and Bella stayed on the roof of the tower until Mya and Arya found them later.
At dinner that night, Gendry told Ser Davos that he and Arya were going to leave for the North in a few days, and for the first time, Arya looked brighter. It felt like someone dropped an ingot of metal in his stomach, and Gendry ignored it. It would be fine.
Arya didn't want to tell Gendry how much she did not want to be at Storm's End right now. All she could think about when she walked around the castle was Connington preening around after he nearly got Gendry and the others killed. All she could think about was how the rug in the solar was different because the last one was too stained with their blood. She thought about it again when the Baratheon's found all of their things in locked trunks in the dungeon. Gendry's things were ruined, and the tools he took from Mott's all of those months ago were rusted. He looked devastated by that, and she didn't know how to help him.
She didn't know how to help him at all. Arya had secretly hoped that being in Storm's End would help Gendry, but every day, he seemed to pull further and further away from her. She went for long walks along the beach, and every time she wanted to ask him to come with her. She wanted him to ask if he could come with her, and every time he didn't. He vanished for hours one day until her and Mya found him and Bella on the top of the tower. When Gendry mentioned that he was ready to go back to Winterfell, Arya was relieved, but she was also worried. He didn't seem better, but being here wasn't helping. Maybe being back in the North, away from all of the bad memories, would make things better. Arya had to hope that things would get better.
Arya held each of the Baratheon's and Marya tightly as they got ready to leave. She promised that she would come to visit but made sure not to say that she would visit soon. The south still felt unsafe, it still felt like their enemies were lurking in the shadows, and Arya knew that she would feel safer if nothing else in the North. Davos helped them get their things onto the ship, and Arya followed him onto the boat to give Gendry some time to talk to his siblings alone. Arya watched from the ship as the four of them talked, and she wondered if he was going to actually get on the ship. There was a chance that he would stay, she knew that, and Arya didn't know if she had the strength to figure out an argument to get him to come with her.
"You're going to be okay," Davos said, and his voice made Arya jump. She almost forgot that she wasn't alone on the ship. "I know it doesn't seem like you're going to be okay, but you will be. It's going to take time and hard work, but it's going to happen."
"I hope he will be," Arya replied.
"I didn't just mean Gendry," Davos said, and Arya turned to look at him. She remembered that he was the one who saw her separation to get Gendry back more than anyone. He was the one who watched her frantically try to track down some evidence to bring him home. If anyone knew what she went through, it was Davos. Arya didn't say anything, and she tried not to show how surprised she was when Gendry picked up Mott's tools, turned his back on his siblings and Storm's End, and got on the boat. He stayed and watched his siblings, and the castle faded into the horizon. Arya watched them fade too and disliked how much better she felt when Westeros faded from the horizon line.
Arya was thankful that the trip on the boat was uneventful, but she also knew that Gendry wasn't telling her something. It took a full day for her to notice just how lethargic he was and how dark the circles under his eyes were. How had she missed those circles? They wouldn't be that pronounced if he were sleeping at Storm's End, but she didn't notice them. He was still and held her at night, and Arya thought he was sleeping fine, yet here was the evidence that he wasn't. When she tried to confront him about it, Gendry brushed it off.
"It's just some nightmares," Gendry said like that wasn't a big deal. "It's being away from Storm's End that must be causing them. I'm sure they'll pass soon." Arya felt her blood run cold because Gendry just lied to her. She knew that he didn't just get one bad night's sleep, yet here he was looking her in the eye and lying. They didn't lie to each other, and Arya refused to accept that telling Gendry was fine with staying in Storm's End as long as he needed to wasn't a lie. She was fine with it; she just didn't want to be there. There was a difference, but now he was lying to her. That patience that Gendry said she had for him was starting to wear thin. Arya didn't want to be angry at him, but the fact that he looked her in the eye and lied would not leave her alone.
Davos kept giving them strange looks, and Arya saw him talking to Gendry a few times, but she never learned what they talked about. It was a strange journey because she spoke with Gendry all the time, but it felt like they weren't saying anything to each other at all. They slept together at night and even hugged and kissed, but it felt like they were just going through the motions. Arya's heart wasn't into it, and she could tell that Gendry's wasn't either. Davos kept reminding her that they were going to get through this, and she kept agreeing with him because the thought that they wouldn't wasn't something she could cope with.
They were less than a day from White Harbor when Arya realized that Gendry might not get better. She might have to spend the rest of her life pushing her own things aside to help take care of him, and the weight of that felt like it was going to crush her. She was one woman, and she had her own things she needed to deal with. The time that Arya thought Gendry was dead and then wondering if she was ever going to find him again were some of the worst of her life. She remembered how Sansa, Bran, and Jon didn't want her to go because they thought she was going off to die. It hadn't dawned on her at the time that if they had asked if she was all right dying on the journey, she would have been. The loss of her fingers barely registered because, in some ways, she wanted to die. Arya had lost so much in her life, and she didn't think she could handle that loss. So maybe she did want to go on the journey west because she knew, on some level, that it might fail and she would die, and the constant ache of this life would finally be over.
Arya didn't know how to cope with any of that, and she didn't know how to make Gendry feel better either. She felt pulled in too many directions, stretched thin, and almost made of glass. There were cracks, and Arya wondered when another crack would cause her to shatter. She wondered what shattering would even look like.
They got to White Harbor and said goodbye to Davos. He made Gendry promise to write once a moon, and Gendry agreed. Before this journey, Arya would have assumed he was telling the truth, but he was still telling her that he was sleeping fine when she knew he wasn't. There were horses waiting for them, and they made their way through the North toward Winterfell. Arya breathed deep and tasted the crisp air of home. There were enemies here, but she could trust more people here than she could in the south. She glanced at Gendry as they rode and tried to see if he looked any different.
"It's the opposite of Essos," Arya said, and Gendry looked up at her. "The weather, it's nothing like Essos. Maybe try focusing on that?"
"Thank you, I will," Gendry replied, which was what he was supposed to say, but Arya could tell that he didn't mean the words. They had more empty conversations, and the days they spent on the road until they got to Winterfell. Nymeria and her wolfpack tracked them down, and Nymeria looked torn, like she wasn't sure which of them needed her to look after them. Arya wanted to tell her to look after Gendry, but Nymeria stuck herself to Arya's side and didn't leave her. Arya tried not to think about what all of that meant. Gendry didn't say anything either, and it was just another thing that they didn't talk about.
Arya was glad to see Winterfell in the distance. She had to believe that things would get better in Winterfell, that they would get better because all of this was starting to get to her. When she asked Gendry how he was doing, he would reply with a simple 'fine,' and they would move on. [Arya did not think about the fact that she replied the same way when Gendry asked her the question, she did not.] There was quite a commotion when they arrived back at Winterfell, and as much as Arya wanted to talk to everyone and let Gendry talk to everyone, she needed to get inside and possibly in her room right away. Gendry smiled graciously and promised he would explain what had happened someday, but right he wanted to go get some sleep.
There was a more private greeting of family members and everyone welcoming Gendry home again. His smile was just as empty as his words, and he once again lied to all of them when he said that he was doing much better. He wasn't, he was just as bad as he ever was, and Arya felt like she was getting worse too. She didn't know how to take care of him and herself. So they both continued to exist and didn't talk.
It was nearly a moon later, and Arya couldn't remember a time when she and Gendry were fighting more. It was constant, and nothing either of them did seemed to make it better. They were avoiding each other and bickering in the few moments they saw each other at meals or when they went to bed. There was a time or two that Gendry never came back to their room and slept in a tiny cot in the forge. Their fights were getting louder, nastier, and they were both starting to go for soft spots. The fights were stupid, Arya knew they were stupid, but she couldn't stop herself. The night before Gendry had finally said the words, "maybe it would be better for both of us if I went back to Storm's End for a while," and despite those words being her worst nightmare, Arya's anger and the pain were too much and she spat back the words "maybe you should."
They were breaking their fast as a family, and everyone looked a little uncomfortable. Things had been tensed for a long time now, and Arya knew that the tension between them was making it worse. It made Gendry sloppy in the forge, so he made stupid mistakes, and it made Arya careless in training, so she got frustrated. He wouldn't talk to her [and she wouldn't talk to him, but Arya couldn't think about that], and it was all just too much.
"That's it," Val said. Everyone turned and looked at her. Her stomach was beginning to swell with child, and Arya caught Jon gently touching it like he couldn't believe that this was really happening to him. "Arya, Gendry, pack some bags with warm clothes. We leave in an hour."
"Leave? Where exactly are we going?" Arya asked.
"I'm taking you both beyond the Wall. You're going to spend some time there, alone and together until you sort all of this out," she said. Gendry frowned and looked like he was about to say that they couldn't do that when Val glared at both of them. "As your Queen, I command you. Pack your bags and bring warm clothes; it gets cold even at this time of year beyond the Wall."
