Chapter 16: Gendry

"Oy Assface, my band is playing in Oldtown tonight and you should come."

"You are, as ever, the poet, Lem."

Gendry had met Lemoncloak in a bar in King's Landing, when he (Gendry) had been too drunk to stand up straight. Lem had seen him home safely, asking only that Gendry come see his band the next night at a hole in the wall on Rhaenys' Hill.

The band had been bloody awful, and Gendry had sat through the whole thing. He wished that he hadn't in the end, because every time Lem and Tom and the rest had performed, Gendry had been dragged to their shows.

He had hoped that Oldtown would never hear the likes of the Brotherhood Without Banners. He was, most woefully, wrong.

He had known this was coming from the moment he had answered his phone. He hadn't realized just how quickly the command would come.

"We're performing tonight at Quill and Tankard at eight." Lem had hung up without waiting for Gendry's response. Gendry looked at his watch. He had half an hour to get to the bar. Cursing Lem under his breath, he closed his laptop and got to his feet.

Then he froze and looked out the window. Arya's room was dark across the yards, and he wondered…It would be funny, probably…and sometimes on weekend nights she didn't watch the birds…she might not see.

So he had scribbled a note and stuck it to his window.

He was listening to the worst imaginable arrangement of Valonquar and King when his phone buzzed.

Gendry rolled his eyes at his phone when he read Arya's messages. This was not a conversation he particularly wanted to have over text message. Indeed, it was not a conversation he particularly wanted to have at all, since it would probably end up with him being thrown out of her life forever, labeled as a pervy creep.

Gendry grabbed his coat and was out the door before the set was done. He was privately grateful that he had an excuse that Lem might understand. Getting a girl was always a good excuse.

Arya Stark: Don't you dare.

He didn't get the last message until he was standing in the doorway of the darkened house. The door had been unlocked, but as far as he could tell, no one was there.

"Hello?" he called.

There was no response.

"Dammit Arya," he muttered. She would run away from this conversation, even if she were not sure if he would be deterred by her last text.

It was when he was making to leave, feeling cold dejection in his stomach, his buzz worn off and frustration high, that he heard it, somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

"Who's there?" he called into the house.

There was no response.

He turned on the hall light and made his way upstairs.

He found her huddled behind her bed in her darkened room. Her hair was knotted and chunks of it were lying on the floor, tears were streaming down her face, and her breaths were coming in short, shallow gasps.

"Sansa?" his voice cracked. He clicked on the light and she flinched away from it.

She cried louder.

"Sansa, what is it, what's going on?" When he made his way into the room, she began to moan.

"No, no, no…"

Gendry froze. Then pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Jon. But Jon was at work and Gendry hung up halfway through the answerback to his voicemail.

He called Arya. She did not pick up.

"Sansa, everything is fine. You are safe. I'm not going to hurt you." But every time he tried to get close to her, she started hyperventilating even more. She was trembling and shaking and clearly terrified of something and he, Gendry, was making it worse.

He stepped back into the hallway and tried calling Arya again. "Pick up," he muttered into his phone as it rang. "Pick up, I'm not trying to confront you, I need you." But she did not pick up.

Completely at a loss for what to do, Gendry called the police.

For ten minutes, Gendry waited for them in the hallway outside Sansa's room. He sometimes would peek in to check on her, usually when her crying got more hysterical or when she spoke.

She did speak. Well, mutter to herself really. Things like "No, no, no, please no," and "He can't find me," and "Gods, he'll kill me."

Gendry tried calling Arya again after the first time Sansa spoke. He didn't really expect her to pick up, and was unsurprised when her voice mail came up. This time, he left a message, lowly, urgently.

"Arya, Sansa is having a panic attack of some sort. I'm taking her to the hospital. Please call me when you get this message."

He sent Jon a text message, detailing something similar and waited some more.

"He can't be coming back. No, no, he can't be," moaned Sansa.

There was a firm banging on the door. Sansa shrieked. "No! He's here. Oh gods!"

Gendry bolted down the stairs and found two crisp looking paramedics. He did not know how they managed it, but they eased Sansa, still trembling, still crying, down the stairs and into the back of an ambulance.

Gendry steeled himself, then climbed in the back too, making one last attempt to call Arya.

She did not pick up.