Chapter 7: Arya

She always wore black and white. She was very skinny, to an unhealthy extent, and her hair was lank.

Arya was fascinated.

Arya always sat behind her in syntax, and marveled at how she never took notes, never even seemed to pay attention. But Arya saw her grade after the first midterm and it was highest in the class.

She too seemed to live off campus, and sometimes Arya would follow her home part of the way, simply because their routes were the same.

Today, as always, the girl lit a cigarette along the way and the scent of tobacco mixed with something filled Arya's nose from several feet away. When they walked passed the old sept, the girl stopped and turned around.

"You live over on Pate's Way." It wasn't a question. The girl's dark eyes were very, very dilated.

"Yes," replied Arya.

"Let's walk together."

And so they did. The girl did not start up a conversation, the way that Hot Pie tended to. She did not say anything at all.

"What's your name?" asked Arya after a moment.

"Names don't matter," said the girl.

"Yes they do."

"No. They don't. You aren't defined by your name, Arya Stark. You are defined by who you are."

"That sounds stupid."

"It's not. Maybe you'll see that one day."

Arya did her best not to roll her eyes.

"What should I call you then?" she demanded.

"Nothing. Don't call me anything. I'm no one."

"You're not no one. You're at the top of the class for syntax."

The girl shrugged.

"I'm no one," she repeated.

They stopped outside of Arya's house.

"Can we study for syntax together sometime?"

"If you'd like."

They exchanged numbers. Arya, still not knowing the girl's name, saved her number as Syntax Waif.

"Hello," she called as she walked into the house.

"Hi," called Roslin, "You're uncle stopped by, but both you and Sansa were in class. He is really very nice."

"He still seems a bit of a twit to me," grumbled Arya. She had done her best to avoid Uncle Edmure. She knew he was only looking in on them because her mother had asked him to, and because he wanted to ogle Roslin. He was not the most interesting conversationalist and always managed to say something that made Sansa pale.

Arya could often forget that bad things had happened to Sansa. Then something would make her remember.

Sometimes, it was Edmure bringing up a place where Sansa and Joff had been on a date, other times it was when she walked home late at night from Ballroom all by herself and came home jumpy and shaking. Sometimes, Arya would hear her crying in her sleep.

"Oh, he's nice," said Roslin calmly. "He looks a bit like Robb, actually." Her voice turned wistful.

"Did you love Robb?" asked Arya suddenly. She'd wanted to know for as long as she'd known Roslin and she was in a reckless mood.

Roslin considered. "Not in the sense that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him or anything." She blushed. "Sex was pretty good though, and I thought we got on well. I don't begrudge him Jeyne though, if he's really happy." She smiled, and Arya recognized the smile. It was the one that Sansa wore every day.

"He was really quite the dick to you, wasn't he?"

Roslin sighed. "I really don't care at this point. There's no point dwelling on it. Not when he has a hot uncle who digs me," she winked.

"Don't do anything with Uncle Edmure. Your dad will probably kick me and Sansa out of the house if things end badly. I'm surprised he even let Jon move into the other house."

"He almost didn't," confided Roslin, "I had to talk to him. It was ridiculous. Jon had nothing to do with the way that Robb handled things. He wanted to kick out Aurane and Daemon too."

"Your dad seems like a right fine fellow to me."

Roslin cocked her head, considering. "He's a good father," she said simply.

Arya shrugged. Her father was a good father. Walder Frey seemed like a right pain in the ass as a father.

Later that night, after fencing and when she couldn't take reading about penguins anymore, she walked down to the harbor where Jon had his shift.

She often went down to Jon's shift to keep him company. He guarded a wall. That was it. As far as they had been able to figure out, there was nothing behind the wall. They often spent evenings guessing. So far, they had come up with a crypt, a voice-less lion, and a naked commune.

"Hello, little sister," grinned Jon.

"It's dumb that they have you dress all in black like that. What, do they expect you to blend in with the night?"

"I expect so," shrugged Jon, "What's on your mind today?"

"Sansa was crying again last night," mumbled Arya.

Jon nodded slowly. "Is it getting less frequent?" he asked.

"I think so? Only because she's sleeping less frequently."

"And she won't go see someone?"

"She insists that she's fine."

Jon sighed.

"I don't know. I'm bad at this sort of thing," he confessed.

"Me too," said Arya very quietly. She shivered. It was starting to get cold out. Leaves were changing, and beginning to fall. She had noticed this the other night when she had been watching the geese that were migrating south who had settled in her back yard for the night through her binoculars. They had been chasing leaves, and she had looked up at Gendry's window and found it less obstructed than before. He was wearing a shirt this time, but his arm muscles (covered in motor oil) bulged from underneath his t-shirt.

"What was that face?" asked Jon.

"What face?"

"The one that looked like Summer when Bran's rubbing his tummy."

"I didn't know I could look like a wolfhound."

"I didn't either until just now."

"Do you think mum will let me bring Nymeria down next semester?"

"You'd have to ask Sansa. She's still upset about Lady, I think. And I'm wary about upsetting Sansa."

"Yeah. You're not always stupid, you know."

"Thanks? I think?"

"I miss dogs. They're much easier than people."

"Sam's going to bring Ghost down sometime soon. When he and Gilly come to visit. You can play with him when he gets here."

"Which one's Sam again? Is he the fat one?"

"Yes, Arya, he's the fat one."

"Why does he have Ghost?"

"I wasn't sure if my roommates would let me have a dog."

"They let Robb have Grey Wind."

"Yeah, but I didn't know how Gendry would feel."

"Gendry's stupid. You shouldn't care about how he feels."

Jon rolled his eyes. "You can't call everyone stupid all the time, Arya. You might hurt their feelings."

"Do you think I'm going to hurt Gendry's feelings by calling him stupid?"

"No, but—"

"So it's fine then. I don't go around just calling anyone stupid. I only call stupid people stupid. And Gendry is stupid."

"He's not."

"He is. I promise you."

"And what makes you say this?"

"He doesn't close his shades when he walks around naked," she blurted out before thinking. "That's stupid of him."

Jon's jaw dropped. Arya froze. Dammit.

"Arya…How in seven hells do you know that?"

"Sometimes when I birdwatch—"

"Please tell me you aren't using the binoculars I gave you to spy on my housemate."

"Not to spy on him. Sometimes he's just there and the birds are in the way. He's not unclothed all the time. He just doesn't close the curtains when he is."

"Please tell me—no. Don't tell me anything. I don't want to know."

"You can't tell him Jon."

"Can't tell him that my little sister is leching on him while he is in his room? Why the hell not? Do you enjoy it?"

"It's not that. I'd never be able to look at him again."

"I'm surprised you can look at him now."

"Look, if you tell him, just don't tell him it's me."

Jon took a deep breath.

"All right. But you'll owe me one. Big time."