AN: If you combine the stats for all my stories, I just got my 700th "favorite"! That is amazing, and I feel truly honored. Thank you for all the reviews, as well. Surprising fact: I posted 2 Game of Thrones fics on the same day and thought this one would be more popular. NOPE! Turns out, people want to read more about Sansa and Tyrion. Well, if I come up with more to say about them, you all will be the first to know! Please review! Who knows, maybe there aren't more Tyrion/Sansa fans...maybe they're just noisier!
Arya took Gendry's hand and gazed up at him adoringly. Somehow he knew it as not Arya looking up at him but the girl she was pretending to be. To others, they looked like a love-dazed couple traipsing through the streets, but she was deftly guiding them while avoiding any chance of being noticed or followed. She eventually pulled him into a Fleabottom flat, and the lovesick look dropped from her face instantly.
"Home sweet home," Gendry muttered, and he looked around the tiny, decrepit room, knowing nonetheless that she was incredibly lucky to have a place to herself. Not many did in this neighborhood. "Arya, h…"
Whatever he was about to say escaped him as she reached up and seemed to pull the other girl's face away, and suddenly that face was a limp, dead mask in her hands. She carefully draped it over a domed form to help it keep its shape. Her real face was back. She didn't look much different from when he'd last seen her years ago. She was a bit taller, her face a bit sharper and her body a bit rounder. Arya looked at Gendry and smiled. It really was Arya smiling at him now.
Gendry was a taller, too. His chest was broader. His arms had evened out from all the rowing. (When he'd been a blacksmith, he'd born the tell-tale sign of a hammering arm far more muscled than the arm that held the tongs.) His hair was as messy as ever, with black strands falling over his sharp blue eyes.
"Remember Jaqen? The man who saved us a Harrenhall?" Arya began.
"He…he could change his face."
"I was almost to my mother and my brother, Gendry. They were at the wedding, but before I could get to them…"
"You were at the Red Wedding?"
Pain flickered across Arya's face, followed by a hard look. "My family was gone, so I took the coin Jaquen gave me and used it to take the first ship I found to Bravos. I went to the house of Black and White and learned…well, I learned to do this," she said.
"You should have stayed in Bravos," he said in a harsh whisper, "If Cersei Lannister learns you're alive…"
Arya laughed a mirthless laugh. "No one is safe anywhere. And I could say the same to you." She leaned forward until her lips were close to his ear. "You're the last living Baratheon. You have a better claim to the throne than she does."
"No, I'm not, and no, I don't. We can't talk about this. Not ever." He turned away.
"Wait," she said. "Don't go!" Gendry didn't like upsetting her, but he was also glad to see the chilling blankness driven from her face.
He turned back to face her. "I wasn't going anywhere…m'lady." He grinned mischievously. She gave him several playful jabs until grabbed her tiny, strong body, pinning her arms at her sides. The hold relaxed to a hug, an Gendry noticed they were rocking back and forth like a tiny boat on a peaceful ocean. Arya pulled her arms loose. For a bit, they hung at her sides. Then she looped them around his waist.
"I thought I would never see you again," Arya said, her voice just the same after all these years. "I thought I'd never see anyone I…" She couldn't force the words past the hot lump in her throat.
"But you did, Arya. And we'll get you to your family."
"My family?"
She looked up at him. Arya pulled away, realizing that she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a woman embracing a man she hadn't seen in years.
"You don't know?" Gendry asked.
"I've been focused on other things." Namely her list. She had only been able to believe in her list. She hadn't allowed herself to believe that her family might still be out there…that her home might be her home again. She had heard a few things when she first reached Westeros: That Jon Snow led the Night's Watch. That Jon Snow was dead. That her sister—or someone pretending to be her sister—was married to the new Lord of Winterfell, a man said to be so evil that Arya hoped the girl was an imposter and not Sansa.
Arya gestured for him to sit and put a kettle on the fire before grabbing them bread and cheese from the bag of provisions she'd bought at the market. She stoked the fire while he talked, seated on a bench at her tiny table.
"The trade routes are closed, yet information continues to flow. Your brother, Jon, left the Night's Watch and has retaken Winterfell. He's been declared King of the North. " Arya smiled at that. "Your sister, Sansa, is there with him, serving as Lady of the house."
"Now SHE was meant to be a lady," Arya said.
Gendry laughed, then sobered before adding, "I'm sorry to tell you, but Rickon was killed by Ramsey Bolton, who died in the battle to retake your family's holdings…or just after. Rumor has it, your brother bound him and fed him alive to a direwolf."
The distant look was back. "I can't imagine Jon feeding a bound man to Ghost…not even someone who killed Rickon. What…what about Bran?"
"No one seems to know what happened to Bran. For all we know, he's still out there somewhere. Like you."
The blank look was replaced with hope. "Like Nymeria"
They talked for many hours about the places they'd been and the things that had happened since they last parted. In Gendry's mind all these years, when picturing Arya, she'd remained a fierce little girl. She was still little, but she was a woman now, and a dangerous woman at that. She told him of each person she'd scratched from her list. Only for The Hound did she show a flicker of remorse, and her countenance as she described dispatching Walder Frey and his kin sent a spike of fear through Gendry. Arya still needed him, but for very different reasons.
AN: Reviews are such a positive motivator. I'd appreciate if you'd leave me one. Thanks! Special thanks to Lightingmist95, who helped me fix a name mixup!