Chapter 11: Arya

November

Gendry was shirtless again.

She liked it best when he was shirtless.

Honestly, if she was going to be inappropriately creepy, she might as well reap the benefits. His body gleamed that in his post-shower coffee drinking. (She couldn't decide whether to be proud or ashamed of the fact that not only did she know that this was a habit of his, but that she had come up for a name for it.) It was one of the nights when he had a towel wrapped around his waist. He hadn't let the towel drop since she let slip to Jon that she'd been watching him, so she assumed that he knew that someone, if not her, spent her evening spying. He seemed to care only enough not to give her a full show.

She couldn't decide if she minded or not.

Sighing, she put down the binoculars and set about writing an outline for research on Westerosi White Ravens. She was extremely pleased she could just use writing about them as an excuse for a final research paper. She could do it easily from the comfort of her own room, and wouldn't have to hunt down books in the library where she might run into Hot Pie or Ned Dayne.

Ned Dayne was proving to be a very annoying member of the fencing team. He fought épée and somewhere over their tournament in Highgarden, he had gotten it into his head that he needed to be nice to her. He took every possible opportunity to wave to her, or ask her how her day was going, and it seemed that she need barely set foot in the library before he was hailing her for some reason or another.

Hot Pie was barely any better, but at least she understood why he wanted to be nice to her. She was better at Semantics than he was, and he usually needed her to finish problem sets.

Her phone buzzed.

Gendry Waters: What are you doing?

Arya Stark: Outlining a research plan for Ornithology. Why?

Gendry Waters: It's a Friday night, shouldn't you be out with one of your friends or something?

Arya Stark: Roslin's on a date with my uncle, Sansa's at a ballroom competition. I decided to take full advantage of an empty house to focus on work.

Gendry Waters: Don't let me keep you from it then.

Arya almost laughed. She didn't see how Gendry could possibly distract her more than he already had.

Arya Stark: Shouldn't you be out with one of your elitist anthropology friends?

Gendry Waters: That's tomorrow night. Tonight I'm supposed to be nice to your brother and his guests from undergrad. They brought his dog over, if you want to play with him.

Arya Stark: I'd forgotten that Sam and Gilly were in town.

Gendry Waters: They're nice, but a bit soporific.

Arya Stark: I am not entirely sure that that's the right word for them.

Gendry Waters: What would you choose?

Arya Stark: I don't know. I can't think of the right word.

Gendry Waters: Some language nerd you are.

Arya Stark: Shut up, stupid. Being a linguistics student does not automatically make me knowledgeable for every word ever.

Gendry Waters: I beg to differ.

Arya Stark: That is because you are a moron.

Gendry Waters: Or because I won.

Arya Stark: You did not win. Winning is not possible in this situation. Can you go away, I'm trying to do work.

Honestly, it was ridiculous that someone that good-looking could be so infuriating. If she hadn't just had her brain numbed looking at his body, she probably would have given up on him faster.

She sighed and turned to her laptop.

Her phone buzzed.

Gendry Waters: I definitely won.

Arya Stark: 1) Shut up. 2) No you didn't. 3) Leave me alone I'm working.

Gendry Waters: Yeah yeah.

An hour later, when she could no longer stand the concept of staying put on a Friday Night, she called Syntax Waif.

"Are you doing anything?" she demanded.

"I'm high out of my mind. Do you feel like joining me?"

Arya thought for a moment, then made an excuse and hung up. She called Hot Pie. There was no response.

She called Ned Dayne who would be able to tell her if the team was doing anything that night, and there was no response.

Honestly, why was it that no one picked up their phones on a Friday night. Were they all stupid? That's what phones were for on a Friday night.

She looked at her phone one last time, weighing the choice. Then called Gendry.

"I thought you were working," he teased when he picked up.

"I was, until someone idiotic and distracting made me lose my focus. Do you want to go for a walk?"

"A walk?"

"Yes. It's a thing people do when they want to get out of the house."

"It's eleven at night. Where would you want to walk?"

"Just around the neighborhood. I don't care."

"I'll be over in a few minutes. Let me put a shirt on."

Arya almost suggested that he skip that step, but bit her tongue.

A few minutes later, she and Gendry were walking through the snow towards a park by the seaside.

"I miss my dog," sighed Arya as a squirrel ran away from them.

"Understandable."

"She would have ripped that squirrel apart."

"Less understandable. She sounds like a monster."

"That's because you don't know her. She's the best. Her name's Nymeria."

"Like the Rhoynar queen?"

"Yes."

"I didn't take you for one who believes in legends."

"I don't believe in legends. It's a great story though. A warrior queen who burns her ships in commitment to her new territory? Pretty cool."

"Do you believe in Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons?"

"Dragons aren't real, stupid. They never were."

"They say that there are dragon skulls underneath the Red Keep somewhere."

"They also say that there used to be an eight hundred foot ice wall north of Last Hearth. You don't believe everything you hear, do you?"

Gendry shrugged. "I'd believe in dragons, maybe."

Arya rolled her eyes. "You're like my brother Bran. He says that there are dragons in his dreams sometimes. And that that somehow makes them real."

"And who are you to say that they aren't?" he demanded.

"That doesn't make them real. Just because I can't prove that they are fake doesn't mean that they are real."

"It doesn't mean that they are fake though."

They looked out over the water for a while. They had diverted from the original plan of going to the park, and were standing on the cold boardwalk, leaning over the railing. The wind blew over Arya's face. She hoped it would rub her skin raw.

It was what she missed most about the North—the unbelievable cold. Lips chapped even if you put on seventeen layers of chapstick, hands dried to the point of cracking in your gloves, numb cheeks if you were stupid enough to expose them to the wind, nosehairs frozen solid…

She missed rolling around in snow drifts that were bigger than she was, racing Nymeria across the Godswood. She missed racing Bran too, though Bran hadn't run in years—not since the track meet that had ripped apart a ligament in his left leg. She missed Rick's snowball fights and she missed snuggling up against her father after a long day romping.

"What's your family like?" asked Arya at last.

"Just me and my mum, really," said Gendry. "She owns a bar in Flea Bottom."

"Do you know your dad at all?"

"No." Gendry's voice was clipped. "I don't know who he was. Mum doesn't talk about him. I don't ask. If he wanted to be part of my life, he would be." He sounded gruff. She wondered if she had angered him. She knew that Jon got tetchy when someone brought up that he didn't know who his mother was.

"Sorry," mumbled Arya.

"Don't be. It's not your fault," sighed Gendry. "Your dad is a good guy. He raised Jon. It was hard, but he was responsible and he took that responsibility. My dad's clearly just a shit."

"Mum hates him for it."

"Your dad?"

"Jon."

"Why would she hate Jon for it? It's not his fault."

"No. But I think it's easier than hating dad for it. I mean, I'm pretty sure she does hate dad for it, but she has to hide it. He cheated on her when they hadn't even been married a year. Not even a few months, really—given how close Jon and Robb are in age. But they worked on it, so she can't just hate him for it openly anymore. She doesn't have to hide hating Jon though. Everyone just understands that."

Gendry nodded.

She wondered if he really understood.

"I suppose I'm lucky I don't have to deal with a step-mother," Gendry said. She saw him looking at her out of the corner of her eye, gauging her reaction.

"Jon takes it pretty well, I think."

"Jon's a good guy."

"The best," murmured Arya.

"I wish I had siblings sometimes. Little brothers that I could roughhouse with."

"Your mum never married then?"

"Nah. She didn't want to. Figured most guys would be bastards to me, and figured I deserved better than that. She's a good mum. The best. And I'm grateful for it, but you get wistful sometimes when you see other people's siblings."

"I suppose it must be lonely. I never really thought about that. I've had five siblings all my life."

"Five might be overmuch."

"I used to think that. When I was little, and we were all at home, and Robb and Rickon and Sansa got all the attention. Bran did too, just because he was mum's favorite. But me and Jon…We were on the outside." She shrugged. "Got used to it though. And when Robb and Jon left for school it got easier. It was easiest when Sansa left though…"

"You didn't used to get on with her, did you?"

Arya laughed bitterly. "She and her friends would make fun of me when I was young and impressionable. Jon thinks I got into fencing to let out my pent up aggression towards Sansa."

"I can see that."

"She was always…she was always so perfect. And I was always trouble."

"I feel like that happens when it comes to siblings."

"Doesn't make it any easier."

Gendry leaned against the railing, considering what she said. "I suppose not. Probably makes it harder, since it's acceptable. Siblings fight. Girls don't get along with each other when they are too close in age. All those things."

Arya nodded, biting her lip. It was chapped.

She smiled.

"What's that for?" asked Gendry.

"I like the cold. I love the winter."

"Fair enough."

"You don't, do you?"

"I never said that."

"You implied it. Wimpy southerner."

He chuckled.

"You know, most people in Westeros live in the South. Even if the South is the size of the North, the population spectrum is—"

"I know that. I'm not an idiot. But you lot are wimpy. Very very wimpy. This is barely cold. This is brisk."

"You just said it was cold."

"Relatively speaking it is. Compared to August and September, it's positively frigid. But I promise you, this is like late summer in Winterfell."

"Late summer?" The corners of his lips were curled in disbelief.

"All right, maybe early fall."

Gendry laughed.

"I think you're making that up."

"I'm not. I'd never do such a thing."

"Yes you would."

"I'm offended, Gendry Waters."

But she was laughing too. Somehow his laughter was infectious, and she wished it weren't. She wished she could stand her ground, but something about him made her unable to breathe and she figured that made her particularly susceptible to his stupid laughter.

She was glad she had the railing to hold her up, as their howls of mirth tore into the sky.

When she settled some, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He looked at her, and for one wild moment she thought that he was going to kiss her.

But he didn't. Instead, he looked out over the bay again, his brow furrowed in thought.