Chapter 2: Gendry

The last thing that Gendry expected when he walked through the front door covered in oil, grime, and sweat, was to be met with the sight of two girls sitting at the bar in the kitchen chatting with Jon. Jon was spooning a large square of lasagna onto each of their plates and talking about a working as a Teaching Assistant for a class in the Geology Department—something wholly unrelated to his field.

"I really don't know anything about it, but it seems ridiculously excellent. Besides, most of the students are in their final year so they probably won't be too much trouble."

"That's provided they do the work. I mean, it's a geology class. Who wants to be studying rocks?" said the smaller of the two. She was a compact person, which was, he supposed, a politer way of saying she looked almost like a little girl. Short dark hair, small framed, small chested, small hipped and a surprisingly long, thin face. She carried herself as though she had muscle somewhere underneath the sweatshirt she was wearing.

"They might just be taking it for the science credit," agreed the other one. She was taller, with long reddish brown hair. She looked the more womanly of the two. Words like "slender", and "willowy" popped into Gendry's mind. "Arya's taking an ornithology class just for a science credit, after all."

"Ornithology?"

"Yeah, Robb said it was ok."

"So those binoculars might come in handy, then?"

"Shut up."

"Hello," smiled Gendry as he passed through the kitchen. They had not noticed when he had entered, but they noticed him then. The redhead's face tightened slightly, the short one looked at him with eyebrows raised. Jon waved the hand that was holding the spatula.

"You're back early," he smiled. "Arya, Sansa, this is my housemate Gendry Waters. Gendry, these are my sisters. They live in old Frey's other house."

Gendry nodded at each of the girls, who said hello.

"Why are you covered in oil?" demanded the smaller one, Arya.

"I work in a garage. Mott's, down on Harbor Street."

"Oh."

"You're welcome to join us if you would like. Jon made plenty of lasagna," said Sansa. Her voice was quiet and there was a determined set to her jaw.

"That sounds nice. I might go clean myself up first though."

"Why?" asked Arya, her mouth full of lasagna.

"I'm covered in oil, as you pointed out."

"So? I eat covered in dirt all the time."

"Much to mother's joy," commented Sansa dryly.

"Not everyone's like you, Arya. Some people like to be clean sometimes," grinned Jon, reaching from a mason jar full of wine and taking a sip.

"Like you'd know, you dirty hippie," smiled Arya, nudging him.

Gendry snorted.

Some of Jon's clothes looked as though they had never been washed. Others he picked up from the thrift store for less than a stag. Still others were clearly the ones that Robb had worn through and thrown out, but that Jon still thought could be useful and had swiped before they had reached the charity store in Winterfell.

They were often covered in dirt, which he claimed were vestiges from the hikes he had taken when doing his undergrad degree in Environmental Studies at Castle Black. Indeed, at that very moment, Jon was wearing a pair of jeans that looked at least thirty years old they were worn so thin, a Castle Black t-shirt that he could only have gotten in thrift since it referred to a graduating class from before Jon had been born, and a red and black lumberjack flannel shirt. If Jon wasn't wearing flannel, regardless of the heat outside, something was wrong. If Jon's hair looked manageable, he probably had something important to do sometime that week, though it would be unclear precisely when.

Perhaps Gendry would not have described Jon as a "dirty hippie," but the description was not far from the mark.

Jon rolled his eyes. "Hey, I've showered this week. I think that's quite the achievement, personally."

"I was wondering what smelled funny," deadpanned Arya.

"Dirty hippie," confirmed Sansa, also taking a sip of wine out of another mason jar.

Gendry slipped out of the room while they were arguing.

He was very glad he didn't have sisters. Jon's seemed like a handful.

Though Jon said he got on quite well with Arya, the younger one, she seemed more confrontational than he would have expected of someone related to Jon. And then of course, there was Sansa.

Jon said that she had spent most of the summer shying away from her brothers, who were related to her. A strange man was probably exactly what she wanted to deal with. And yet she had not been hostile. Nor had she been particularly distant. It surprised him some.

After Jon had warned him about Sansa, whose situation Aurane and Daemon were both familiar with having lived with Robb Stark the year before, he had gone onto the internet and read the articles surrounding her case.

They weren't pleasant.

Joffrey seemed like an evil little shit.

An especially evil little shit. He wondered if the University had been relieved of the charge of plagiarism in his own uncle's course, since it would make him that much easier to expel. For some reason (according to the disgusted editorial Sarella Sand had written for The Citadel) perpetrators of abuse never got as harsh a punishment as those who committed academic dishonesty. There were some other articles about how the University was changing its policies about that, which was good. Unfortunately, that was too late to be of any use to Sansa.

By the time he reentered the kitchen, Arya was holding a wooden spoon like a sword and showing Jon the proper technique for sabre fighting.

"I thought you could only stick 'em with the pointy end," Jon was saying.

"With épée and foil, yeah. But with sabre," she knocked him with the side of the wooden spoon, moving so quickly that Jon yelped more from shock than pain, "sides are fine too."

Jon shrugged and grinned. "Whatever. I can still take you any day."

"Don't be so sure of yourself young man. I know damn well how you fight. You have no idea how I fight," growled Arya, her stance changing.

"I think between me and Gendry, we'd have you, wouldn't we Gendry?"

Arya turned around and cocked her head, looking Gendry up and down.

"He's too big. Probably really slow. I'd run circles around him."

"Oh really?" asked Gendry, crossing the kitchen and pouring some wine into a jar for himself.

"Yep."

"But I've got more muscle than you."

"In fencing, speed is everything."

"I don't think Jon was talking about fencing. Besides, I'd never hit you."

"Why, because I'm a girl?"

"That and because you're tiny. It wouldn't be fair. You'd probably end up halfway across campus if I knocked you thoroughly."

"If you could hit me, that is. Remember, I'm fast."

Gendry shrugged. It's more likely that he would never hit her because she was a Stark of Winterfell. But he'd never say that—not in front of Jon at least.

He wondered briefly if Jon hated being a bastard. It had, after all, been his idea to call their house "Bastard House" but his face did darken whenever Gendry spoke of what his mother was doing back in King's Landing.

Gendry wondered if his own face darkened similarly when Jon talked about his father.

"Can we talk about non-violence for a while?" requested Sansa. "What do you study Gendry?"

"Anthropology."

"Why?" demanded Arya.

"Because it's interesting."

"It sounds boring to me."

"That's because you probably don't know what it is."

"It's studying people, isn't it?"

"Basically."

"Yeah, boring."

"And what are you studying?" he asked.

"Linguistics."

He had to choke back a laugh. "And how is linguistics more interesting than anthropology?" She rolled her eyes, but did not answer. "You see?"

"Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"That means you've won, Gendry," grinned Jon, clapping him on the shoulder and taking a sip of wine.

"It does not. It just means he's probably too stupid to follow if I talk about phonemic variations and the like."

"He's a grad student at Oldtown's University, Arya. I doubt very much that he's too stupid for anything," intoned Sansa.

"I wouldn't count on that. Look at his face. It looks pretty stupid to me."

Gendry raised his eyebrows as Jon barked, "Behave, Arya."

"Sorry," she mumbled after a moment. But the sentiment did not quite reach her eyes, which were positively alight.

"You shouldn't insult people who are bigger than you. It could get you into trouble."

"Then I wouldn't get to insult anyone."

Gendry laughed.

For the rest of dinner he did his best not to interfere. It seemed that Arya and Jon liked to get into hypothetical arguments. They would argue over what kind of dog was the best (Arya had a doberman, Jon had a sheepdog; Sansa's golden retriever, it seemed, had died mysteriously last spring), how one ought to go about selecting workout music (Jon suggested the importance of a bass-line; Arya was determinedly in favor of heavy percussion), and which trails near their home were the best to run on. Sansa would add in perspective where she had it, but Gendry felt almost as though he were watching dinner theater between two very passionate characters.

He did the dishes (it was only fair—he had barged into their meal) and escaped upstairs before the girls left.

When he entered his room, he made immediately for his coffee maker and set it percolating. Then he pulled out the first few readings for the course he would TA this semester, to prepare to take notes.

When his coffee was ready, he stood by the window and looked out at the backyard, the little brook running down the middle of the yard, the big elm tree in the middle.

He sighed, and set to work.