S'up guys!

Please enjoy some intense Arya and Tywin interactions.

Chapter 2: Cooperation

Exactly sixty seconds after the explosion ….

Tywin Lannister's Study, fourth floor, Lannister Mansion

Arya remained under Tywin's desk and waited for the ringing in her head to stop before she retracted her hands from her ears and started to remove the rubble blocking her exit from under the desk.

When she had shifted enough rubble to let her squeeze through she released herself from under the desk and immediately she started to cough from the dust settling in the air. Arya tested her ear piece but all she could hear was static; Bran would be no help now. The dust clouded the room and made it hard to see but her eyes went to the spot were Tywin had been standing.

He wasn't standing there anymore.

Arya made her way slowly around the room noting the disrepair of the furniture and ceiling. She tiptoed between broken pieces of wood and concrete not knowing how stable the floor was.

What the hell just happened, Arya thought as she looked through the hole in the ceiling. Was this an earthquake? No, the building is still standing.

A pained moan broke her from her thoughts. She spotted the elder Lannister pinned under a slab of concrete that had clearly fallen onto him when the ceiling collapsed. It covered his upper body meeting the floor on his right side. He was trying to push the slab off himself to no avail. The gun was just out of his reach. Arya made her way over to Tywin. She picked the gun up and pointed it at his head. She knew anyone else's first instincts would be to help the trapped man but this man might be responsible for her parents' deaths and she wasn't averse to shooting people.

"Did you murder my parents," she asked again kneeling beside him ignoring their surroundings completely.

Tywin fixed Arya with a cold stare and tried to push the offending remains of the ceiling off himself. When it didn't budge he took in a gulp of air and closed his eyes for a second before addressing Arya.

"I didn't murder you parents. I am trying to figure out who did if anyone did at all and if there is a connection to Robert's death," Tywin puffed out still struggling to keep his breath as the slab slowly crushed his lungs.

Arya kept the gun pointed at Tywin. 'Why would you investigate?"

"Because if there is a person out there powerful enough to organise the deaths of Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon that is a person I want to know about. As Prime Minster I would suspect I am a possible target to them and I have no desire to join the dead quite yet. I still have work to do in this life."

Tywin saw the doubt in Arya's face and sucked in a laboured breath, "If I wanted your father out my way there are easier ways to achieve that objective without resorting to murder and there are easier ways of killing people than tampering with planes. I would have just bought out your family business."

"I didn't have your father or your mother killed," Tywin ground out behind clenched teeth. The pain of the pressure on his chest was getting to him. "Are you going to help me or leave me here to die?"

Arya dropped the gun to the floor and moved into a position beside Tywin's shoulders to leverage the slab off him. She wasn't convinced that Tywin was innocent but she had to begrudgingly accept that if Tywin hadn't shouted at her before she could be the one pinned to the floor.

She placed both her hands on the slab, "On three we push together okay," Arya told the breathless Lannister.

Tywin nodded in reply as a trickle of sweat rolled down the side of his head.

"One, two, three, and heave," Arya said.

They pushed together with enough leverage that Tywin was able to roll away. The slab clattered to the floor with a heavy thud. Tywin stayed on all fours trying to catch his breath while patting himself down to make sure he wasn't bleeding anywhere. Arya took a few steps back to sit on Tywin desk and look around the room. There was a massive hole in the ceiling revealing the upper room to be a bedroom.

Probably Tywin's, Arya thought.

Tywin's study was a mess with the collapsed ceiling covering the floor and the furniture was all destroyed and splattered around the study. Wooden splinters and random debris littered the floor. Arya spied the shattered brandy glass by the remains of the fireplace.

An earthquake wouldn't do this surely.

Tywin must have been thinking along the same lines. He stood up and dusted his suit down. He turned to Arya with a raging expression on his face, "This was a planned attack against me, someone set off a bomb in my home."

A bomb, thought Arya. Oh god I have to find Robb and Sansa.

Arya made her way to the door slowly avoiding any floorboards that looked damaged when two men armed with assault rifles kicked the door down.

They don't look friendly, Arya scrambled behind a pile of rubble. She looked back. Tywin was nowhere to be seen and neither was the gun. Arya cursed silently.

The two armed men made their way into the room searching for something or someone. If Arya didn't move soon she would be discovered but she had nowhere to go. She took her emergency knife from her sleeve ready to jump out at the men searching the room. Just as she was about to spring out of her hiding place. Tywin shot at the men from behind the desk on the other side of the room. One of his bullets found its target and one man fell to the floor while the other advanced on Tywin's position peppering the desk with waves of bullets giving Tywin no opportunity to return fire.

The remaining upright man was a few steps from the desk when Tywin decided the better option was to simply jump out and shoot the man instead of letting the man flank his position. At least if he died he will have died fighting. Tywin jumped up from the desk and pointed his gun at the armed man.

He paused.

The armed man was reaching for a knife that was stuck in his neck. His assault rifle forgotten on the floor. Arya Stark was behind the dying man watching as he fell to his knees and flopped to the floor. The wound in his throat produced a sickening stream of blood that started to stain the golden lion in the rug while it spilled into the uneven floor.

Tywin made his way to Arya grabbing her arm, "Girl we need to move, more men will be coming to finish the job."

Instead of replying Arya shrugged out of Tywin's grip and knelt down to the dead man to retrieve her knife. She wiped the knife on her trouser leg while examining the body further.

"These two men are Dothraki," Arya noted pointing to the sun kissed features and horse sigil on the shoulder pads of the two dead men, "Not your common assassins."

"Common assassins don't use bombs either," Tywin mused as he ushered her out of his now decimated study.

Tywin and Arya stepped over his now dead bodyguards. It was clear that they had been killed by the initial bomb. Their guts painted the floor.

She isn't even flinching, Tywin observed as Arya skirted around the dead bodies. She didn't hesitate when she killed that man either, thought Tywin. This wolf is different.

"You need to get to my panic room and wait for the City Watch to get here. I'll give you the code and the location -".

"You can do that I need to find my brother and sister. I need to make sure they are okay" Arya interrupted before walking off.

Tywin let out a deep sigh and held the bridge of his nose, "That isn't the quickest way to the great hall."

"Why does that matter to you. You are going to your panic room."

"No, I am going to find my family, I will not hide while my children and grandchildren are hunted down and eliminated," Tywin roared.

Wait he said hunted, Arya realised. This is a mobster style hit on the Lannisters. Great. And Robb and Sansa are in the middle of it.

Tywin as if reading her thoughts said, "Yes there will no doubt be more men with assault rifles looking for me so its best if you aren't near me when they find me."

"How about you don't get found then. Our families were both in the great hall last time I checked so we are going to the same place."

Tywin gave Arya an annoyed look that told her he would prefer that she just stayed out of it. Arya's defiant face told Tywin that this wasn't an option. "Very well, can you fire a gun?"

Arya looked at the knife in her hand, "I prefer knifes but I can shoot if needs be."

Tywin grunted in response and signalled Arya to follow him back into the study. He placed his hand on a panel of the wall behind his desk that still stood. The wooden panels slid away revealing a hidden compartment filled with various guns and a few knifes.

"Pick your weapons girl, we are going to need them," Tywin said while appraising the secret weapon cabinet.

Arya's face lit up in excitement and she gained a new respect for Tywin. She was definitely going to acquire one of these compartments at Winterfell if she ever made it back there. She quickly scanned the weapons attached to the inner wall collecting half a dozen throwing knifes and testing out the weight of a small looking handgun. Tywin handed her a silencer to go with the handgun and then grabbed ammo for the gun already in his possession and grabbed another small gun he tucked into his suit waist band.

"A suspicious contraption for a Prime Minister to have in his personal home," Arya prodded, holding the small handgun by her side.

"I wasn't always in politics," Tywin answered evasively.

Arya looked at the dead man she had killed, "Why not take his assault rifle? It's not like he needs it anymore."

"When fighting in close quarters, I prefer a gun that is easy to handle and easy to conceal if necessary," Tywin reasoned, "and I think a stealthy approach is called for in this situation."

"Sounds like you speak from experience," Arya summarised, "What was it you did before you went into politics? Were you a military general? I think I read somewhere about your war exploits."

Tywin ignored Arya's comment and questions, "You ready?"

Arya nodded with the gun in her hand, checked that the knifes were secure and moved to join Tywin as he walked to the door.

Time to go save the family, Arya thought as she reached the door with the armed Lannister by her side.

Authors notes:

So what did you guys think about the Tywin and Arya interactions?

Next up: Arya and Tywin about to paint the walls red :P