A/N: Hey guys, I'm back. It's been a long and busy 11 months since I posted last. I'm over halfway through my Master's, went on a research trip abroad in Uganda, and am finally looking at a place to live with my boyfriend cause we are done with long distance in t-6 months! I've been working on this particular piece for at least 4 months or so but unfortunately, when things got busy, writing was what I put aside. This semester should be a little easier to manage, so I'm hoping this won't be the only chapter until summer, but I'm not going to promise that. Thank you to everyone who's stuck out my absences and is still reading this story. I love creating and writing, but I also do it for you guys.

Anyway, this chapter was inspired by but by no means based on Bioshock Infinite. It's another look at Arya's journey through all of her different identities because that's definitely the coolest part of her story. This one goes farther than Past and Present did though, because it took on a mind of its own after the first 15 pages or so and...ended up being 42. Remember when I thought The Wedding Date was a monstrously long one-shot? Yeah, me too. Whoops. This one also includes the identity she takes on in the Arya chapter from Winds of Winter that GRRM published online. So, if you haven't read that, you probably should. At this point it's probably all we're ever gonna get. But I'm not gonna get started on that, cause I could rant for days (and definitely have). Point is, I'm back with a story for you guys, and I hope you enjoy!

Thanks to GrowlingPeanut, ReadLikeHermione, LyannaDolores, and AllIdiotsMustDie for reviewing ch. 12.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to George R. R. Martin.

Rating: M for language, implied violence, sexual content and other just generally rough stuff.

Jaqen H'ghar was just finishing the last of his mediocre egg salad sandwich when the phone rang. After tossing the wax paper beneath into the trash can beside his desk, he lifted the receiver.

"Thank you for calling Faceless Men Investigations. This is Jaqen H'ghar speaking, how may I help you?"

The woman on the other end sounded sad, as many of them often did, and after setting her up with an appointment for the following afternoon, he bid her good day and returned to staring at the blank expanse of his desk.

Tragic as the circumstances often were, he was glad to finally have what sounded like a real case again, and not just another wife who wanted pictures to prove her husband's infidelity. It had been a while since he'd had to put his skills to their true use. Quite a long while.

The woman's name was Sansa Stark, and she looked about as distraught as she had sounded over the phone. Her blue eyes were rimmed with red and she sighed wearily as she sank into the chair that Jaqen offered.

She had said when she called that her sister had gone missing, though hadn't given any further details, and so after handing her a glass of water and allowing her to get settled, he began.

"So it's your sister that's gone missing, ma'am?" Though she appeared younger than him, there was a large ring on her left hand and he didn't want to seem presumptuous.

She nodded and slid a worn photograph across his desk. "Arya."

"Stark as well?"

Again, she nodded.

"And how long has she been missing?"

At that, Miss Stark hesitated, and when she finally spoke again, her voice was quiet. "Thirteen years."

His pen hovered over the worn legal pad on his desk for a moment of indecision before he raised his gaze once more. "Thirteen?"

Sansa sighed wearily at the hesitation in his tone and cupped her hands absently around the glass of water. "I'm going to be married next year, and…she's the only family I have left. Believe me, Mr. H'ghar, this isn't the first time we've tried to find her. When my mother was still alive she sent every policeman in the state out looking for her, but no matter how many posters we put up or how many calls we made, we never found her. My fiancé suggested a private investigator, and though I have to admit that I have my doubts, I found you. You're my last resort, sir."

Jaqen nodded slowly and then cleared his throat before replying, hesitantly. "I hate to have to suggest it, Miss Stark, but do you think that she might be—"

Sansa shook her head, adamantly, and for a brief moment her grief was replaced by almost frantic determination. "She's alive. I know she is. I can feel it." There was desperation in her gaze and pleading in her voice. "Please. Bring me my sister and I'll be in your debt."

A silence fell between them and then finally, Jaqen nodded, dropping his pen. "Very well then, Miss Stark. I'll do everything in my power to find your sister, I promise you that."

"You're home early." The comment was made with a smile and Jaqen stopped for a moment in the kitchen doorway to admire the rare sight of his girlfriend at the stove. "And I know that look," she continued. "You finally got a good case, didn't you? Tell me all about it."

Jaqen cocked an eyebrow. "You know I'm not supposed to share any details."

She looked back at him over her shoulder and returned the gesture. "So this is an 'investigation into matters private' then?"

The first time she had been to his office she had teased him incessantly about the expensive window fitted into his door, clouded glass with a thick black inscription: Jaqen H'ghar: Investigation into Matters Both Public and Private. He had ended her mocking and made her sufficiently glad for the window's opaque setting by bending her over his even pricier mahogany desk.

Chuckling, Jaqen ignored her question for the moment and moved up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "What are you making?"

"Just spaghetti," she replied, tilting her head back to give him a quick kiss and then shimmying out of his grasp to tend to the food. "You know I'd burn anything else I tried."

He smiled slightly in reply before taking a seat at the table and obliging her earlier request. "As a matter of fact I did get a case. I'm looking for a girl named Arya Stark."

"Shit." The curse was savage, but quiet, and he raised his eyebrows.

"You alright, Mercy?"

Turning from the sink with a weak smile, she nodded. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just...wasn't paying attention. Burned myself a little. What were you saying?"

She was quiet as she brought the food to the table, and her expression was a bit distant as she sat down across from him. After giving her hand a quick squeeze he continued, pulling the old, faded photo from his wallet.

"It was her sister that came to me. She's getting married and so she's reopening the case, hoping that she can finally find her. This is her when she was eight, which is when she went missing. That was thirteen years ago, so she'd be about your age now."

Nodding absently, Mercy took the photo and looked at it for a long moment, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip. "She was so young. That's a long time to be away from family, if she's still alive."

"That's what I said," Jaqen replied, absently pushing his fork through his food and then moving it around thoughtfully. "But the sister says that she's still alive. That she can 'feel it'. As long as she keeps paying me, she can believe whatever she wants. I just hope I don't end up finding a body in the end."

"You should give the sister a little more credit than that," Mercy chastised, sliding the picture back and beginning to eat. "She may know what's she's on about."

Jaqen shrugged. "Maybe. Either way, I will find Arya Stark."

His girlfriend nodded, and after a long moment, she replied. "If she wants to be found."

"Detective Baratheon?"

The large man looked up as Jaqen tapped at the doorway and his face lit up in a grin. "Jaqen H'ghar, isn't it? The PI. You lot give us honest cops a bad name."

Chuckling wearily at the joke at his expense, Jaqen nodded and entered the office, shaking the offered hand.

"Well I'll try to get out of your hair before anyone sees us together then," he replied, removing his wallet and the picture within. "I'm looking for this girl."

Robert Baratheon took the picture and looked at it for a moment before handing it back and nodding. "Sansa Stark put you up to this didn't she?"

The detective noted Jaqen's look of surprise and continued, seemingly pleased that he had caught the private investigator momentarily off guard. "I was an old family friend of the Starks. Ned and I fought together in the war and I was the best man at his wedding. Sansa even dated my oldest son for a while when they were younger." He sighed heavily, his expression turning grim. "Now my son is dead and Sansa's marrying one of our former employees. Funny how things turn out."

Jaqen nodded absently. He, of course, had known all of that before he even walked into Baratheon's office. But, he had learned from experience that the police were more forthcoming when they believed they had the upper hand. A moment of feigned embarrassment was a price he was willing to pay.

"But Arya, sir?" he pressed. "Did you know her as well? Did you investigate her disappearance?"

"Of course I did," Robert blustered. "It was the least I could do for Cat after what happened. Her husband died and then her daughter disappeared all in one day. She was never the same after that."

"Eddard Stark died on the same day that Arya disappeared?" Jaqen prompted, withdrawing his notepad from the pocket of his jacket.

Detective Baratheon nodded and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Yeah. They were in the city together when they got mugged by some thugs. They robbed Ned, stabbed him, left him for dead, and then took his daughter. God only knows what they did to her. I never had the heart to admit it to Catelyn, but I can't imagine that Arya's still alive. She was a spunky little brat, but there's not much an eight-year-old can do in the face of an organized gang."

After he finished scribbling in the margins of his existing notes, Jaqen hesitated for a moment and then asked his final question. "May I see the file?"

The detective eyed him for a moment before nodding and pulling out the bottom drawer of his desk. After a considerable amount of rummaging, he withdrew it and tossed it in front of Jaqen. "Go wild."

Taking the file with a gracious nod, the younger man riffled through the papers within, scanning each until he stopped on the same picture he had folded deep within his wallet.

"This says there was a witness. A man named...Yoren?"

Again, Baratheon nodded. "Yeah. He was there when it happened. In the end, he was able to point us to Ned's killer, a lowlife by the name of Ilyn Payne. Of course, by the time we caught up to him some five years later, he was already dead. Found his body floating in the river."

"And what about Arya? Did this Yoren see what happened to her?"

At that, Robert shook his head. "He's a stubborn old homeless bloke and aside from the tip about Payne all he was ever able to do was confirm what we already knew. Payne and a bunch of his gang men cornered the Starks in an alley, robbed them at knifepoint, Ned threw down his wallet and tried to reason with them, and then there was a scuffle. Ned got a knife in the gut and when the smoke cleared, Arya was gone, as were the murderers. And she hasn't been seen since."

"Yoren?"

The bundle of tattered blankets shifted at Jaqen's voice and a man emerged, his dark beard streaked with grey and his eyes startlingly bright.

"Aye, that's me, boy. What do you want?"

Jaqen looked down. "Name's H'ghar. I'm here for information about Arya Stark."

Yoren raised his eyebrows at that and gestured for Jaqen to join him on the opposite side of the bench which he had claimed. "Who are you with?"

"No one," Jaqen replied, cautiously taking a seat. "I'm a private investigator."

The old man snorted at that. "You private dicks may get a bad name, but I'd trust you over the policemen in this town any day."

"You don't trust the police?" Jaqen probed, withdrawing his notebook and twirling his pen into position above it.

Yoren shook his head, his eyes narrowing. "Girl's been gone thirteen years now. If they were worth their salt, they'd have found her. There was one constable who used to come around a lot, asking about her. Tall fellow, white beard and dark eyes. Never trusted him. He always seemed to think I was hiding something."

Jaqen lifted his gaze. "Are you?"

The older man grinned at that, exposing yellowed teeth beneath his dingy mustache. "May be that I am. What's it worth to you?"

Grudgingly, Jaqen withdrew several crisp bills from his wallet and handed them over. He was loathe to part with the cash, but Sansa Stark had said she'd be in his debt, and from what digging he had done into her family, he gathered that the last surviving Stark heir had inherited a healthy sum of money.

Yoren took the money and crumpled it absently in his fist before responding, his gaze distant. "Maybe it's time for the truth." He blew out a breath and it fogged in the cold air before fading into the mist that surrounded them. "I saw what happened that night, but it wasn't all what they thought. I saw Payne pull his knife, but by then it was too late for Eddard Stark. I snuck up behind the girl and grabbed her before they could. I covered her eyes so she wouldn't have to see his body, but she had seen the blood, and when we were safe, I thought she'd be crying. Instead, she was angry—furious. She wanted revenge for what they had done, so I offered to help her. She let me have what they'd left in her daddy's wallet and in return I sent her to the Night's Watch. After that, I never saw her again. And I kept my mouth shut."

Jaqen took a moment to process what he was hearing, his pen scratching across the paper as he frowned. "The Night's Watch?"

Yoren nodded, his gaze returning to the investigator at his side. "Aye. Eddard Stark was murdered by the Goldcloaks. Night's Watch was a rival gang back then. If she was going to get her revenge, it would have been with that lot."

Jaqen finished his notes and tucked the notebook back into the pocket of his vest before rising and extending a hand for Yoren to shake.

"Thank you. You've been a great help."

Yoren nodded and took the offered hand, but not before imparting one last wisdom. "Good luck, H'ghar, but I'm not sure you'll find her. The police always treated this as a kidnapping, but she wasn't abducted. She chose to disappear, and if she doesn't want to be found, not even the trickiest of your type can catch her."

"You're distracted."

Mercy returned from the foot of the bed and rested her head on her boyfriend's chest, soothing its uneven heaving with the gentle brush of her fingers.

"Sorry," Jaqen mumbled apologetically, running a thumb across her bare shoulder.

"It's this case isn't it?"

Jaqen sighed heavily and turned his face to hers. Mercy lazily captured his lips in a kiss before pulling away to let him speak.

"There's something strange about it."

"What do you mean?" She snuggled closer and slung a leg over his, breaking his concentration for a moment. He shook his head to clear it.

"I don't know. It's something that the witness said. And that you said, actually."

Mercy raised her eyebrows and placed a kiss against his jaw, her eyes closing. "What did I say?"

Jaqen frowned. "You and Yoren both suggested that she might not want to be found. Do you really think that's true?"

Mercy shrugged. "I don't know. I just think, if the sister's right and she's alive, but the dozens of police on her case never found her, it's because she's trying not be found at all."

"But, when she disappeared, she still had her family, and she chose not to return. Now, Sansa's the only one left alive and still she hasn't come back to be with her. Why would she not come back?"

Mercy shrugged again, hesitating for a moment so brief it was imperceptible. "Maybe it's because of what's happened to her in those thirteen years. Maybe she doesn't think she belongs here anymore, or maybe she's just scared to come home and find that everything she knew has changed."

Jaqen turned to face her, but she quickly cut off any reply with a deep kiss, effectively clouding his mind and making him forget her words.

"What say you forget about her, for just a moment?" Mercy whispered. She took his hand in hers and led it to the heat between her thighs. "And just think about me..."

The Night's Watch had fled New York after a particularly violent clash with the Goldcloaks, and when Jaqen found them, they had settled in Boston, a day's train ride away. He tried to sleep through the journey, but what sleep he managed to get was troubled with strange, elusive dreams.

In each, he was back in his New York office, Sansa's words ringing in his ears. "Bring me my sister and I'll be in your debt." With her voice in his head, his eyes would fall to the door beside his desk, a door that did not belong. It was the door to his bedroom, and though he knew that it would only be Mercy behind it, peacefully asleep beside him, something pulled him to it. Sometimes, he would fight the urge, and wake with sweat pouring down his forehead and his fists clenched at his sides. Other times, he would go to the door, but as his hand found its knob, he awoke once more, disoriented, and feeling as though there was something hiding at the back of his mind that he could never quite remember.

"Last call for the Wall. All passengers for the Wall please make your way to the nearest exit."

The conductor's voice shook Jaqen from his thoughts and he scrambled to gather his things, pushing his way blearily to the closest door. When they opened he was greeted by a blast of cold air and any lingering weariness faded in an instant. Pulling his coat tighter beneath the satchel strapped across his body, he followed the crowd from the train station and after briefly checking his notepad, he began to walk.

Jaqen didn't find the Night's Watch so much as he was found by them. On his second night in the city, while walking back to his hotel at dusk, he was suddenly cornered by three men in a dark alley, his pistol clattering to the ground before he even had the chance to cock it.

"Heard you've been asking questions about us," one of the men said in a low voice, his small, dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What is it you want?"

Trying his hardest not to look as rattled as he was, Jaqen yanked his arm free of the grasp of one of the other two men and reached beneath his coat, withdrawing his wallet and the picture within.

"I've been hired to look for someone. Girl named Arya Stark. I have it on good authority that she joined your ranks, when she was just a child. It would've been thirteen years ago."

The man in charge, Alliser Thorne, if Jaqen's investigative skills were to be trusted, took the picture and looked at it for a long moment, almost uneasy. Finally, he shook his head and handed it back.

"I've never seen this girl. If she meant to join us, she never got here. The Night's Watch isn't in the habit of taking in little girls."

Jaqen frowned deeply and took the picture back, frustrated that he was once again at what appeared to be a dead end. Perhaps Yoren had been right. And Mercy.

"Get out of here and don't come back," Thorne ordered, before gesturing to his men. "Let's go, boys. He ain't worth the trouble."

For a moment, Jaqen remained leaned against the brick wall, catching his breath and watching them disappear into the shadows of the street. He was just turning to go when a figure appeared at the end of the alley. It was a young man, with shaggy blond hair and an expression of deep paranoia on his close-set features.

When Jaqen approached, he looked furtively over his shoulder, and then began to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. "Thorne was right. She never came here, but she tried. I knew her then. She was disguised as a boy: Arry. She fell in with me and two other kids. I'm the only one who got here, but if you want to know what happened to Arry, find Hot Pie. He owns a bakery up in Bangor where all of this started and he might be able to tell you what you want to know."

With that, he turned and ran off into the night and Jaqen, spirits raised by the new lead, followed.

"Arry? That's a name I haven't heard for a long time."

The young man behind the counter kneaded the dough before him thoughtfully, a deep frown on his pudgy features.

"She made her way with me and a couple of other fellows. Lommy, who sent you, and a guy named Gendry Waters. We decided we weren't cut out for a life with the Night's Watch so we went off on our own. It's not too hard living on the streets when you're a kid. People gave us coins and food if we asked nice enough, not that Arry was ever much good at that."

"Where did you end up?" Jaqen pressed. "When did you last see her?"

The baker let out a long sigh, his brow furrowed. "I suppose it must have been...eleven years ago now or so. We were...hired, by a man named Roose Bolton. Last I heard he was still in the prison outside the city if you have a mind to talk to him. He used us to steal on the streets, pickpocketing, or robbing the houses of unsuspecting rich people who refused to think ill of children. I was never very good at it, but Arry was. She was a natural actress; never met anyone who wouldn't believe any lie that she made up her mind to tell. By then she was going by Nan. After almost two years I left, started here under the old owner. I was always better at baking than stealing, and it felt good to make an honest living."

He laughed nervously and paused at his task. "I've never really told anyone all this. About who I used to be when I was a kid. You aren't going to publish this story or anything are you?"

Jaqen shook his head and tapped his pen absently against his notepad. "What about Arry? Did she stay with Bolton?"

Hot Pie nodded and returned to the dough, put at ease by the steady routine of his work. "I think so. Far as I know. Not sure for how long, but she and Gendry were still with him when I left. Lommy had already gone on and found the Night's Watch anyway and I never saw any of them again after that day."

Suppressing a sigh, Jaqen nodded and tucked away his things, offering a hand to shake and giving the younger man his thanks before moving to the door. His hand was on the knob when Hot Pie spoke again, his voice quiet.

"Mr. H'ghar?" Their eyes met and there was something akin to hope in the ones that held Jaqen's gaze. "If she's still out there...I hope you can find her."

A slight smile tugged at Jaqen's lips and he nodded curtly, pushing his way out into the crowded street. "So do I."

"When will you be back? I miss you."

Jaqen smiled, pleased with his progress on the case and put at ease by the sound of his lover's voice.

"I miss you too, Mercy. But I'm probably going to be gone a while. I'm in Bangor now and I got a lead that's going to keep me here. There's a man in a prison outside the city named Bolton who might have information for me. If so I'll be on the move again in a few days, but if not I'll probably have to lay low in Maine for a bit and do some more digging. I'll let you know when I can."

He could hear her sigh into the phone and imagined the pout that would be turning down her lips.

"How's the show going?" he asked, changing the subject and prompting another sigh, this one exasperated.

"As well as can be expected I suppose. Although I swear I'm the only person at the Gate who knows a damn thing about acting."

"Well they can't help that you're more beautiful and talented than they could ever even dream of being."

He could hear the smile in her voice when she responded and for a brief moment he wished that he could just abandon the case and return to her side.

"Flatterer. I need to go, but call me tomorrow, won't you? Either way, just to let me know."

"Of course. I love you, Mercedene Chase."

She laughed, a light and happy sound that was still ringing in his head long after the connection had ended.

"I love you too, Jaqen H'ghar. Come home soon."

"You have five minutes." The guard's voice was curt and Jaqen could tell that he thought little of men in his profession. To be honest, Jaqen thought little of most other PIs, so he couldn't blame the man.

At first glance, the man handcuffed to the table didn't look like he belonged in prison. He was tall and slender, clean-shaven, with short greying hair and a well-manicured look about him. But his blue eyes were far too cold and empty, and meeting them made Jaqen glad for the cuffs around his wrists and the guard in the corner.

"Roose Bolton?"

The older man inclined his head in a gesture of affirmation, his voice as cool as his unfeeling eyes. "Jaqen H'ghar, I've been told."

Without answering, Jaqen slid Arya's photo across the table and Bolton stared at it for a long moment, an unsettling smirk making its way to the corners of his thin lips. Jaqen had looked over every scrap of paper in the Bangor law enforcement's file on Bolton and what he had found brought an interesting turn to his case. Not only did Roose Bolton employ the young Arya Stark in his crew a decade before, but the crimes he was paying a life sentence for were unrelated to his career as a thief. After a deal with a young New York businessman had fallen through and Roose Bolton found himself compromised and facing betrayal, he had gone to the city and killed both the boy and his mother, who was unlucky enough to be visiting her son. Their names were Robb and Catelyn Stark.

"She came to me as Arry and worked for me for almost three years under the name of Nymeria, or Nan. But I suppose we both know now who she really was. Are you truly foolish enough to believe she isn't dead?"

Jaqen shrugged, unwilling to show how dedicated he had become to recovering Arya Stark—alive.

"Well, I don't know where she is, if that's what you were hoping," Bolton said drily, leaning back in his seat when Jaqen took back the picture. "Or, where her body is, I should say. She and the boy Gendry escaped when I was arrested."

Masking his disappointment, Jaqen took back the picture and stood. When he gestured toward the guard he stepped away from the wall and opened the door. As a second guard entered to escort Bolton back to his cell, Jaqen met his eyes one final time.

"Perhaps you should be glad she left when she did, Bolton, after what you did," he said, expression cold. "From what I've heard, Arya Stark isn't one to be forgiving."

Jaqen was seated on the bed in his hotel room, legs folded beneath him as he looked across the pages of his notepad he had torn out and fanned across the duvet. He was making absent notes in the margins when there was a knock at the door and he frowned deeply, displeased at having been pulled from his work.

"Just a moment."

With a sigh he gathered up the sheets of paper and deposited them in the table beside the bed. All evidence tucked away, he moved to open the door and the look of surprise on his face was genuine as Mercy bounded into his arms and peppered his face with kisses.

As she pulled away and swept into the room he stared after her, closing his dropped jaw as he regained his bearings, and then the door.

"Mercy? What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?" His expression soured slightly. "You didn't talk to Rorge did you?"

Rorge, the other investigator with the Faceless Men, though decent at his job, was a man who never failed to make Jaqen feel inexplicably uncomfortable. There was something menacing and unctuous about the man and he was eternally grateful that he had, as of yet, been able to keep him from meeting or even so much as knowing about Mercy for the duration of their relationship.

"No," Mercy soothed. "I know you like to keep your private life private, so I did a little investigation of my own." She took his hat from the bedside table and cocked it playfully across her forehead, giving him a wink from beneath its brim that had him forgetting all about Arya Stark. "You mentioned Bangor and a man named Bolton. I made a few phone calls and found out you were staying here. You know, a fine looking gentleman such as yourself can't hide very well."

At that, Jaqen softened slightly, offering a weary chuckle and moving forward to reclaim his hat. Tossing it aside, he bent to meet her lips in a long, deep kiss, noting with satisfaction that her cheeks were flushed when he pulled away.

"How did you get away from the show?" he asked, moving to take her things and setting them in the chair in the corner.

She sighed and sat heavily on the bed, leaning into his shoulder when he came to join her. "The incompetent buffoon playing opposite me got sick and we had to cancel our rehearsals for the rest of the week. At this rate our performance will be a disaster, if it even happens at all. You shouldn't waste your hard earned money on this one."

"Of course I will," Jaqen protested. "I'm your good luck charm, aren't I?"

Mercy smiled widely and pressed a kiss to his neck. "That you are."

They had first met nearly three years ago. Jaqen, not a typical patron of the arts, had attended a show at the Gate Playhouse for the case he had been working. When the curtains parted and he was faced with the steely grey eyes, long blonde hair, and petite frame of Mercedene Chase, he had been utterly taken by surprise. After the show, he asked her out for a drink, and she firmly but politely refused. He took the rejection well and did not attempt to ask again, but at the opening night of every show for the next six months, Mercy had seen him in the audience, eyes tethered to her despite whatever else was happening onstage. Finally, she had gotten up the nerve to ask him out to the nearest bar and he had graciously accepted. A year later she moved into his flat, and they had been living together ever since.

"And perhaps I'm yours," she continued. "Maybe now that I'm here you'll be able to find your girl. Maybe she's been here all along and you just needed my good luck to realize it."

Jaqen shook his head, frowning slightly. "I've stared at that damn picture for so long I think I'd be able to recognize her if she so much as passed me on the street."

"Even thirteen years later?" Mercy challenged.

He shrugged. "Perhaps. I suppose we may find out someday, if you are as lucky as you say you are." His lips brushed against her nose and she curled a hand around his neck to draw his mouth lower. For a few long moments they lost themselves in their embrace, but when Jaqen's cool fingers began to trace their way along the heated skin beneath her blouse, Mercy gently pulled away and sat up again.

Running a hand absently through her long golden hair, she offered her lover a soft smile that soothed the sting of her withdrawal and then looked about the room.

"So?" she began. "Tell me what you've learned. Maybe I can help you. If you're stuck somewhere."

Jaqen sighed and sat up beside her. He had spent every waking second of the last three weeks thinking about the case and had hoped that Mercy's unexpected arrival might mean a break from the monotony that could cloud his overworked mind. But, she was right. There had been enough times that simply talking through the details of a case with her had revealed things which had been stubbornly locked in the depths of his mind.

Withdrawing his papers from the table, he spread them across the bed once more, settling a restless hand against Mercy's warm upper thigh. She leaned into him and began to read through the neat cursive of his notes.

She was quiet for a long while, scrutinizing each piece of evidence as she came upon it, picking up the sheets of paper to hold before her narrowed grey eyes and then resettling them so as not to disturb Jaqen's organized layout.

When she reached the last set of notes, she let out a heavy breath and turned her gaze upward.

"Bolton killed her mother and brother? Do you think she knew?"

Jaqen thought about it for a moment, his fingers tracing absent circles across her skin. Finally, he nodded. "Yes. I think she probably only learned about their deaths when Bolton was arrested. Honestly, I think she might have wanted to kill him, but for her own safety she had to run, and I don't know if she ever realized they kept him in Maine. The prison they have him in isn't exactly maximum security and I imagine a child would assume a man like Bolton would be locked up in Alcatraz. I had to follow a lot of different threads to find out where he was myself, and I doubt if she would have ever returned for information from the people in her past. I think if she had ever come back here, I wouldn't have been able to speak with him today."

"You think she would have killed him? Not just wanted to, but would have, had she known where he was held?"

He hesitated only briefly before nodding again. "There's still a lot I don't know about Arya Stark, but from what I've pieced together, she was angry, more than anything." He frowned and then continued after a brief silence. "There was something that the cop, Baratheon, said to me. I did some more research when I thought of it again, and, there isn't enough evidence to support my theory, not before any court anyway, but..." He trailed off, his frown deepening. "I think she found her father's killer and killed him. I think maybe…the reason she stayed away for so many years was so that she could get her revenge. So that she could kill everyone who had ever hurt or wronged her family. That way, when she decided to come home, if she ever did, she knew the family she had left would be safe. But that doesn't explain why she still hasn't reappeared."

Mercy's expression grew deeply troubled as he spoke and she sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "She was just a child. How much rage must she have felt to take a life before she had even begun to live her own?"

Jaqen shook his head. "I can't imagine."

They fell into a lengthy silence and when Mercy broke it again, her voice was stronger. "Have you talked to the sister again since she visited you?"

"No. I tried to call after I spoke with Bolton but she must have been out."

"What about the fiancé? Do you know what he thinks about all of this?"

Jaqen shook his head again. "I haven't spoken with him. Don't know a whole lot about him, other than his name, a news story I found connected to a childhood accident, and that he used to be the bodyguard of Baratheon's deceased son."

Turning his attention back to his notes for a moment, Jaqen missed Mercy's reaction; her eyes momentarily widened before she shook her head almost absently, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.

"I think the next step," Jaqen said suddenly, gathering his things together once again. "Is to try and find a man named Gendry Waters. I've heard his name twice now and I think the odds are high that he knows something about the girl."

Mercy nodded and began to run the tip of her finger along the knuckles of Jaqen's roaming hand.

"Just promise me that you'll call the sister soon, or Clegane. It seems you've been making good progress and they might be willing to give you some of your pay for what you've already found. Maybe you can buy a girl something nice," she teased.

When she received no reply she looked up to find Jaqen's gaze fixed firmly to her face, a strange look in his dark blue eyes. She cocked an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Who did you say I should call?"

She didn't understand right away, and when she realized what she had said, she laughed lightly and gave him a smile of endearment. "Clegane? Sandor Clegane? The fiancé. You just told me his name, love."

Jaqen continued to stare at her, trying in vain to replay their conversation in his head. The name was familiar; he had looked into the man after all, but...had he said it aloud? He didn't think so, and yet...what other explanation could there be?

"Come on, Jaqen," she said gently. "It's been a long few weeks and you've been working that big brain of yours to death." She guided his hand beneath her blouse and smiled softly. "Let's just take an evening to relax."

With his notes put aside and Mercy's talented lips against his skin, Jaqen's mind was guided elsewhere, and when the sun rose to warm the lovers' tangled limbs, he could no longer recall what had so greatly troubled him the night before. Perhaps, had he remembered, things would have been different.

When Jaqen woke the next morning Mercy was still sound asleep beside him, exhausted from her day of travel and subsequent nightly exertions. Perhaps Jaqen had been under a greater strain than he had been willing to admit. If the intensity with which he had taken Mercy was any indication, he had been suppressing a lot of pent-up frustration.

"Mercedene?" She moaned softly in her sleep and curled the blankets tighter around her petite frame, eliciting a smile from her lover. "Mercy, love?"

When she gave no further indications of hearing him he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder and absently brushed her hair from her face.

"I have to meet with that fellow, Waters," he murmured against her skin. "Try not to get yourself into any trouble while I'm gone?"

Her steady breathing was his only answer and he lightly kissed her temple before rising and dressing for the day.

After Mercy had fallen asleep the night before, Jaqen managed to reach Gendry Waters at his private residence. After briefly explaining his intentions, they had agreed to meet at a local pub that afternoon. Until then, he had a morning of research planned, beginning with anything he could find concerning the mysterious death of Ilyn Payne.

"Are you H'ghar?"

Gendry Waters was a tall man, and muscular, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. For a moment, Jaqen wondered why a young Arya Stark would have wanted to part ways with him. But Waters also looked supremely uncomfortable, and his expression suggested that there was a reason the two had ended their friendship, one he wasn't particularly keen on dredging up for the sake of Jaqen's investigation.

"You...uh...you look like a PI."

Jaqen sighed softly. In his tan overcoat and matching hat, he looked as though he had sprung fully formed from one of the radio dramas invented around his chosen profession. "Yes," he said drily. "I've found that when conducting meetings such as this, it's easier to play into the image. Lets you spend less time asking every stranger in here if they're who you're supposed to meeting with."

Gendry nodded and sat at the bar beside him, raising a hand to the bartender and ordering a beer before responding.

"So you want to talk about Arry, huh? Or, Arya."

Jaqen nodded. "I've been following her trail since her father's murder and your name came up enough times to warrant this conversation. I was hoping you might be able to tell me what happened to her after Roose Bolton was arrested."

Gendry snorted and took a long drink of his beer. "God, Bolton was a sack of shit if I've ever met one. Pardon my language."

Jaqen shrugged half-heartedly and finished his own pint. "Nothing I haven't heard before. And after speaking with him, I'm inclined to agree with you."

Gendry smiled at that and seemed more at ease. "Well, I hope I can help you, but I don't know a whole lot. Arya and I were only together for about another year after Bolton before she...disappeared again."

"Where were you for that year?" Jaqen pressed. "Who were you with?"

Gendry's brow furrowed and he sighed heavily. "We fell in with a guy named Beric Dondarrion. He and his crew, they..." He snorted in disbelief. "Considered themselves to be the fucking Merry Men, and Dondarrion their Robin Hood. They took us on because of the skills we'd gained under Bolton, but for that year we were, you know," He shrugged dismissively. "Robbing from the rich, giving to the poor. I always suspected that Beric kept more of the shit we stole than he gave away though."

"And Arya?"

Gendry shrugged again and finished his beer before raising a hand for another. "By then she had...changed. When I met her she was angry about what had happened to her father, but then...when she found out what Bolton had done, to her mother and brother, she was...a whole different person. She was destructive. To herself and everyone around her."

Jaqen nodded. He had anticipated a statement to that effect.

"I fancied myself in love with her back then, you know," he added softly. "As much as a fifteen year-old kid understands what love even is. And I admitted that to her. I think maybe that's why she left in the end. On the outside she was furious all the time, but I think deep down she was just terrified. I think she worried that she would be next, and that anyone she cared about wouldn't live to see another day. I mean, she was thirteen for God's sake. She should've been scared."

"So..." Jaqen hesitated for a moment, trying to piece together the younger man's testimony. "You were with Dondarrion for a year and then after you took it upon yourself to tell her how you felt about her, she disappeared?"

Gendry nodded and sighed heavily. "That's the sum of it. The last time I saw her she had secured passage on a goddamn ship, bound for God only knows where. She tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, but I followed her. Sometimes I wonder if she wanted me to go after her, but..." He shook his head and finished his second pint. "I never did. I wonder where she is now."

Jaqen had wondered the same thing himself, many times over.

"Do you remember the name of the ship she was on?"

"Yeah. The Titan's Daughter. I never forgot it. Or her."

Jaqen paid for their drinks, returned Gendry's nod of thanks with one of his own and then stood, burying his hands deep in his pockets.

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Waters. And...pardon me for saying so, but, it sounds as though you still feel something for Arya Stark. Something you might understand a little better now."

Gendry stood as well and smiled ruefully. "PI's gift of insight is it? I guess maybe you're right, but...believe me, Mr. H'ghar, if you had ever met her, you would understand. I never met a man who didn't feel something for Arya Stark, even if it was just admiration. She was a force to be reckoned with. Still is, I have no doubt."

For several hours after his meeting with Gendry Waters, Jaqen lost himself in his research. By the early evening, he had found a record of the departure of the Titan's Daughter from Maine around the time that he thought would've been when Arya had boarded. There was enough uncertainty about periods of time from those he had spoken to that he wasn't completely confident in the timeline that he had created, but he knew he was close enough to move forward. And when he did, he got confirmation from the ship's former captain that a teenage girl had joined his staff.

Jaqen had been ready to question the man immediately and had only realized how late it had gotten when he was politely rebuffed, as the man's wife had just brought dinner to the table. After making him promise that he would call Jaqen at the hotel the next day, he had relented, and packed up for the evening.

Upon leaving the public library where he had holed himself up to investigate, Jaqen opted to walk back to the hotel. It was only a few blocks away and he knew he could use the fresh air after being surrounded by the must of old books and files for hours on end.

He hoped absently that Mercy had found some way to entertain herself, whether it be at one of the nearby shops or at the small cinema down the street. He knew she got bored easily and hadn't intended to leave her alone all day. When he was on a case he tended to let the time get away from him, and it had ended a few budding relationships in his past. Thankfully, Mercy found it endearing.

When he unlocked the door to his hotel room he was promptly ambushed. But when the grip of Mercy's arms around his torso wasn't accompanied by her lips against his he faltered. As he managed to get enough room to look at her, he saw that she had been crying.

He gently pulled her away from him and held her out at arm's length. "Mercy, what's wrong?"

"I...I was so worried about you," she managed, breaking into hiccupping sobs.

"Worried?" Jaqen's brow furrowed and he brought a hand up to wipe away her tears. "Why?"

At that, her eyes widened slightly and she was able to take a shaky breath. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"Haven't heard what?"

Hesitating for a moment, she took his hand and led him over to the bed, sitting down beside him and wiping her face. "I...I stayed here, today," she began softly. He could see from her still tousled hair and the fact that she was wearing only one of his shirts and a pair of panties that that was true. "I wasn't sure how long you would be out since I was asleep when you left and I didn't want to be gone when you came back. So, I was listening to the radio and just looking through your notes to see if either of us had missed anything."

"And?"

"And suddenly there was an interruption on the radio. A news broadcast. They..." She bit at her bottom lip, reliving her initial panicked reaction. "They said that a prisoner had been found dead in his cell." Jaqen's face paled and Mercy nodded. "It was Roose Bolton."

"I was so scared," Mercy continued as Jaqen swore under his breath and tangled together the opposing sides of his dyed hair with his fingers. "I thought that...that you might be next. I mean, it can't be a coincidence, right?"

Jaqen was quiet for a long moment, his mind racing. He had done enough digging on Ilyn Payne to be almost entirely certain that he had died by Arya Stark's hand, and now, Roose Bolton was dead. Mercy was right, it couldn't be a coincidence. And that meant that Arya Stark was alive. And that she was just one step behind the man who was looking for her. He remembered his own claim that he would recognize her if she passed him on the street, and wondered if she had done just that.

"I told you she didn't want to be found," Mercy said, crying anew. The words were accusatory but lacked any real admonition. "And now look what's happened. Jaqen, what if she finds you? What if she hurts you?"

He wanted to soothe her, to reassure her that Arya Stark was no danger to him. But, he couldn't say that in full confidence, and Mercy had always been able to tell when he was lying.

"You should go back to New York in the morning," Jaqen responded. "If anything happens, I don't want you in harm's way."

"Do you think she knows about me?" Mercy's grey eyes were wide with fear and Jaqen once again regretted leaving her alone all day. It appeared she had spent the hours apart doing nothing but worrying about every terrible way for this case to end.

"I don't know, love," he said softly, kissing the top of her head when she tucked closer against his chest. "But it's not a risk I'm willing to take."

With her face buried in his chest and her ragged breathing soothed steadily by the hand on her back, she didn't seem to detect his lie, and he thanked God for small favors.

"I don't know about any Arya Stark," the man on the other end of the line said thoughtfully. "But there was a girl who worked with me and my men that fits the description you gave me. She called herself...Sally, or...Salty. Some silly name like that that I knew weren't her real one."

Jaqen sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been almost a month now and every new person he talked to had the same story. Yes, they knew her, but by some other name. And no, they didn't know where she was now. He was lucky to have gotten as far as he had, and that most people had some inkling as to where she gone when they had parted ways.

His profession was one that he supposed was frustrating by nature, but this case was impossible. He almost missed taking dirty pictures of cheating spouses and cashing in on his clients' scandalized expressions.

It didn't help that he was on edge following Bolton's death and had a halfway hysterical girlfriend to contend with. Mercy had gone back to New York, but hadn't done so quietly and had threatened death if he didn't call her at least once a day. With the exorbitant price of long distance calls and the necessity of them for this case he would be penniless by the time he ever even got a glimpse of Sansa Stark's money.

"So...she wasn't taking the ship anywhere out of Maine?" Jaqen clarified, his voice coming out sounding as weary as he felt. "She stayed on and worked with you?"

"That's right," the man confirmed. "Just cooked a little and cleaned a lot. For oh, round about six months I'd say."

"Six months," Jaqen murmured, more to himself. He closed his eyes for a moment. Another six months accounted for nearly six of the years she'd been missing. But where had she been for the other seven? He didn't want to believe he had as many people to go through to find out as he'd had to reach out to already. Surely she had settled down at some point. She was a young woman in her twenties now and not a child.

And yet, she had enough mobility to have tracked him to Bangor, likely from his home in New York.

"Do you have any idea where she might have gone when she left your employ?" Jaqen asked, desperately hoping the answer would be affirmative.

"Not really, sir," the other man said apologetically. "I wish I could be of more help, but…all's I know is that she left off by New York. Never saw her again."

Jaqen thanked the man, trying to hide his excitement. True, he hadn't been given any more information from this source than any of the others, but this time, he had one important clue. After six years of running, Arya Stark had finally come back home.

"Hey, boss, you look like shit."

Jaqen raised his head from the cradle of his arms and cast a half-hearted glare toward the doorway where Rorge was leaning with his arms crossed.

His excitement at the new lead had been fleeting and he had spent the past fruitless two weeks in his office alternating between softly banging his head against his desk and trying not to scream.

"Still working that missing persons? The client came back while you were up in Bangor, with the fiancé." He whistled appreciatively. "That's one finely made woman. Shame she's wasting herself on that big, ugly son of a bitch, though I suppose it's the "big" that does it."

Jaqen's expression was flat and showed no remote signs of amusement. Rorge shrugged unapologetically.

"Come on, boss," Rorge needled the younger man. "It can't be that bad."

"Easy for you to say," Jaqen grumped, dropping his head back to his desk. "You haven't been chasing this girl all over the Northeast for the last…month and a half now. You are getting paid."

His partner shrugged again. "Sounds like you just need to get laid."

For a brief second, Jaqen considered finally telling Rorge that he was not only no longer a bachelor, but had in fact been living with a woman for almost two years. But, he didn't want Rorge to have any capacity for thought about Mercy, so she would remain a secret. And, as it happened, the Gate had begun their dress rehearsals around the time Jaqen returned to New York, so Rorge wasn't entirely wrong. He was certain however, that he wouldn't find Arya Stark between his girlfriend's legs.

"Sounds like you need to shut your goddamn mouth," he deadpanned.

Rorge's eyebrows rose and he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Damn, alright, H'ghar. Message taken. Just...maybe let me know if there's anything I can do to help on this one, eh? I won't even ask for part of the money. It's just..." He gestured toward Jaqen's despondent expression and the growing pile of scattered papers across his desk. "This is really bringing down the office. How do you expect me to have any success with the jilted wives when you're next door whining like a kicked dog?"

Jaqen groaned. "Get out of here before I shoot you and myself. We can't afford a murder suicide on our budget."

Chuckling, Rorge departed, but not before Jaqen had time to consider his offer. He was loathe to admit it, but maybe it was time to get some help.

Jaqen was still awake late that evening when Mercy returned from her rehearsal. For once, it had gone well so she was surprised, but receptive, when her boyfriend led her straight to their bedroom and tore off her clothes with uncharacteristic insistency.

For his part, Jaqen was trying to drown his failures in the sweet smell of Mercy's soft skin and damn Rorge if it wasn't helping.

"Jaqen, is some—oh..." She arched her back and sighed softly as Jaqen sank into her welcoming heat. When her fingers tangled in his long hair and anchored him to one of her small breasts, she continued between gasps of pleasure. "Is something wrong, love?"

"Don't wanna talk about it," Jaqen growled, his teeth grazing her nipple and then moving up to mark her pale throat.

"I think you should," she answered, though any conviction in her tone was melted by a low moan.

"Not while I'm fucking you."

That effectively silenced her and she brought one leg up to drape over his shoulder, crying out when the new position pulled Jaqen deeper and he increased the steady rhythm of his hips. She didn't like to see Jaqen spiraling as far as this case was causing him to, but she couldn't deny that she was appreciative of the more dominant side of him that his frustration brought out in the bedroom.

When Mercy let out a hoarse cry of his name and trembled beneath him Jaqen let himself go, driving into her with a force that surprised them both. She coaxed him eagerly to his own end and then curled into his side as he rolled off of her. For the first time in at least two weeks he looked satisfied, and she hoped it would last.

She allowed a few minutes to pass before she spoke into the crook of his neck. "Do you need to talk about something?"

At that, he sighed, and she felt a momentary pang of guilt when his brow furrowed and his lips turned down.

For a blissful but ultimately fleeting moment he had been able to forget about what was troubling him. Now it was back at the front of his mind. Alas, the only prize between Mercy's legs had been a dizzying orgasm, and while he appreciated it, it wasn't what he was being paid to find.

"I just...I've been a private investigator for almost six years now and I've never had a case that's been so fucking infuriating. I'm getting halves of stories and a run of fake names with no apparent pattern and if that wasn't bad enough this happened thirteen years ago and half the people I talk to don't remember if they ever knew her."

He sighed and ran a hand across his face, grimacing slightly at the feel of the stubble he had allowed to grow along his jaw. By God, he was falling apart.

"I should have listened to you at the start and just left well enough alone. Or taken the easy way out and said she was dead and collected my check."

"You still could," Mercy said softly. Her tone was almost hopeful, but Jaqen shook his head.

"It's too late for that now. Now I know she's alive. And she knows about me. There's only one way this can end, and it's with one of us finding the other."

To be fair, that wasn't his only reason to continue pursuing the case. Before all of this had started, Jaqen had decided that it was past time to ask Mercy if she fancied becoming Mercedene H'ghar. The only thing holding him back had been a ring. For a few months he had been saying that he would buy one the second a real paycheck presented itself. Well, now it had, but it was just out of reach. And whichever apostle had said love was patient was selling a crock of shit.

To give up now would feel like giving up on their future together, and no matter how frustrated he got, he wasn't willing to do that. For the first time in his twenty-seven years of life he was genuinely and hopelessly in love.

"Okay," Mercy replied quietly. It sounded as if she had more she wanted to say, but she didn't continue, and when she curled into him and closed her eyes, he decided not to press her.

Little did he know that the end he was expecting had long since come to pass.

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait!" Jaqen leapt from his chair and hurried to the other side of his desk to rummage through a pile of papers. Rorge jumped slightly at the sudden movement but looked up in anticipation.

"I think I have it. I think I found her again."

Jaqen shuffled through the stack and then pulled out one of the many arrest records they had collected, hoping against all odds Arya had found herself on the wrong side of the law once again.

"What was her mother's name again?"

"Uh..." Rorge shifted through the papers on his lap. "Catelyn."

"Catelyn. Yes. This has to be her."

He handed the paper over to Rorge who scanned it briefly. There was no mugshot attached to the record, but it gave the name Cat and described a girl who sounded a lot like Arya Stark might've looked during her teenage years. The arrest was for prostitution as one of the many girls who had done their tenure on the streets beneath a pimp known to his associates as "the Kindly Man." He made Jaqen's skin crawl.

"You really think this is her?" Rorge asked doubtfully. "This one was a prostitute. How old was the kid by this point?"

Jaqen shook his head. "Fourteen or fifteen, I think, if everyone's stories have been on the level."

Rorge whistled through his teeth. "That's young to be working the streets, boss."

"Wouldn't be the first time this asshole ran girls that age. Or, the cops called her in only to find out she never actually sold herself. Either way, I bet you whatever your take is on your next case that this was her."

Rorge considered the offer for a moment then nodded. "Alright, I'll bite. What are you gonna do now though?"

Jaqen paused, looking around at his papers and biting absently at his bottom lip. "I'll go back and talk to Baratheon again. If he's even halfway decent at his job he'll know where to find the pimp and I'll go from there."

"Anything you need me to do?"

"See if you can track down any of the other girls from this year. One of them was bound to have known her."

"If it was even her," Rorge challenged. Jaqen waved the comment aside impatiently and then stopped his partner at the door.

"Rorge, wait." When he turned in the doorway Jaqen extended an accusatory finger. "If you so much as think about spending your last paycheck on one of them, I swear to God I'll fire you."

Not even the sound of Rorge's smug laughter could dampen Jaqen's mood. Things were looking up again and if this lead played out as he was hoping then he'd be ringing that little bell above the door at a downtown jeweler's by the end of the month.

When Jaqen arrived at the police station he was funneled rather efficiently through the proper channels before finding himself in Robert Baratheon's office once again. The police chief looked surprised to see him.

"Back again, boy? Did you have more questions about Arya?"

Jaqen had intended to be straight with the police chief, but the diminutive address made him pause. He had traced Arya Stark's trail much farther in two months than the police had managed to in thirteen years and he thought that perhaps revealing that fact would make Baratheon less willing to talk. There was enough animosity between their professions to begin with and he wasn't keen to add spite to the equation.

"No, sir," Jaqen replied. "I seem to have hit a dead end in that case. I came for information on another matter."

He didn't miss Robert's smug expression at his feigned failure.

"Do you know where I might find the pimp they call the Kindly Man?"

At that, the policeman's expression darkened. "That shit stain in trouble again? Doesn't surprise me. He's been in and out of jails for the past decade. I think he's been out on bail for a month or so. Just biding his time until we catch him again."

There was a moment's pause and then Robert continued. "I'd check his old place in Flea Bottom." His eyes flicked up briefly to meet Jaqen's. "Do you need the address?"

"I think I can find it on my own," Jaqen responded drily, rising from his seat and moving toward the door. He hesitated for a moment and then turned, offering the policeman a terse smile. "Thank you for your help."

Baratheon nodded and eyed him critically. After a few seconds, he shrugged. "I'm sorry you have to be the one to tell Sansa, H'ghar, but...you can see now that the Stark case is a lost cause. By now, Arya Stark is either long dead, or long gone, and either way...she's never coming back."

As the favored locale for seedy business transactions and illicit affairs, Jaqen had been to Flea Bottom many times before. It was as grimy as always, but this time, he found himself imagining that the leggy blonde on the corner was a petite brunette, using cheap rouge and her skills at deception to pass for a woman older than her fourteen years.

What he couldn't figure out was why this hadn't been the final straw. The Stark family was wealthy—incredibly so, and if Arya had gone back home when she returned to New York she never would have been forced to work the streets to feed herself. Unless she was afraid. Afraid that Sansa would somehow know what she had done to Ilyn Payne in the shadows of a dark alley. Afraid that she would never be forgiven.

"Looking for some company, handsome?"

Jaqen blinked and the woman on the corner was transformed back into a tall blonde, desperately trying to look younger than she was. He shook his head.

"I'm looking for the Kindly Man."

Her eyes narrowed through the cloud of cigarette smoke between them. "You a cop?"

He shook his head again and after a moment's consideration she decided to take his word for it. With a lazy gesture she directed him toward the rundown place on the corner, her interest in him waning when his wallet failed to make an appearance.

Nodding his thanks Jaqen approached the building and he hesitated for only a brief moment before knocking on the leaning door. When there was no reply he tried again, louder than before.

"My name is Jaqen H'ghar. I'm looking for a girl named Arya Stark."

A long silence met his words and he was beginning to think that the place was empty when the door cracked open. The face that peered out at him was one that he recognized from a half dozen mugshots over the years. The man before him had no qualms about his line of work and had been known to employ underage girls on more than one occasion, but he had a round and unassuming face that held a smile naturally and easily. It was that, and nothing else, that had earned him his nickname.

"Arya Stark?" he repeated, brow furrowed. "Don't have a girl with that name."

Jaqen nodded and pulled out his wallet, handing over the picture within. "She would've been working for you about six or seven years ago. Might not have looked exactly like that and would've been going by the name "Cat"...do you recognize her?"

The Kindly Man looked at the picture for a long moment, squinting in concentration. Jaqen was about to ask him again when his eyes lit up and he began to nod.

"Sure, sure, I remember her. She was older than that though, of course." His eyes flicked nervously toward Jaqen's face and he offered a faint scowl. Fourteen wasn't much better than eight when it came down to it. "And her hair was red. Not a real good dye job but most men don't care about that. And you're right." He handed back the picture, bobbing his head emphatically. "Her name was Cat. Called her my little Alley Cat, or Cat o' the Alleys."

He chuckled at the memory and Jaqen's expression darkened. "She was fourteen years old, you sick fuck."

The pimp's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "Aw, no. You misunderstood," he said quickly. "Cat weren't never one of the girls. Not really. She just got the men off the streets and brought them to one of the working girls." He gave a one-shouldered shrug that offset his crooked, nervous grin. "She might've gotten on her knees for a man or two though. Street livin's hard for a kid—gotta feed yourself somehow. If she'd been willing I know a man or two who would've paid a pretty penny to pop her cherry, young thing that she was."

Jaqen's lip curled at the thought. When a nineteen-year-old Mercedene Chase had whispered to him in her darkened dressing room at the Gate that he would be her first, he had felt nothing more than a surge of performance anxiety and a disquieting reminder of his six year advantage in age. The arousal that followed was by merit of her nakedness and eager lips alone, not the least by the knowledge that he would be taking her virginity.

Then again, the kind of men who sought out dirty alleyways for a woman's touch were a different sort of man altogether. He shouldn't have been surprised to hear that their tastes ran rather more sordid than his own.

Jaqen shook his head in disgust and let out a short sigh. "Can you think of any...regulars that might have gone through her? Anything unusual that ever happened that she was connected to? How long was she here, and what made her leave?"

The older man didn't seem to appreciate Jaqen's overt revulsion and his expression hardened. "What's it worth to you?"

His scowl deepening, Jaqen dipped back into his wallet, withdrawing one of the bills from the back and handing it over. This conversation was proof enough that his hunch about Cat had been right so Rorge would be handing him a check when he got back to the office. Until then, any reliable information was worth parting with a little cash.

"Nothing like a re-acquaintance with President Jackson to jog your memory, eh?" When Jaqen looked at him coolly, his expression soured.

"Fine. I'll tell you what you want to know. There was an incident. And it was the last night I ever saw her. Rich guy tried to buy her for the night and she flipped on him: screaming, hitting him. She was furious. I tried to talk to her after he ran off and all she would tell me was that she knew he had a woman at home." He shrugged. "Not sure why she cared, cause he certainly wasn't the first in that kind of a situation. She'd been with me for a year and a half before that happened and then the next morning just..." He made a gesture with his fingers that was intended to look as though Arya had simply scattered away in the wind. "Gone."

Jaqen took a deep breath before responding in as even a tone as he could manage. "Do you know who the man was?"

"Sure I do," the Kindly Man responded with one of his winning grins. When he said nothing further, Jaqen snarled and handed him another twenty. He wasn't a man typically prone to violence but he wanted nothing more than to punch the smarmy smile off of the pimp's face.

"It was the police chief's son himself," he said smugly. "That rich prick Joffrey Baratheon. And you know what happened just two weeks after their fight? They found him dead in his mansion with track marks up his arms. You ask me...it weren't no overdose that did him in."

A familiar face around the establishment, Jaqen was accepted backstage at the Gate without question and he found Mercy in her dressing room, bent half-dressed over her vanity and applying a heavy layer of makeup.

She met his gaze in the mirror and her eyes widened slightly before her painted lips curved into a smile. "Hello there, handsome. What are you doing here?"

He closed the door behind him and moved to her side, leaning back against the vanity counter. "Just stopped by to let you know that I won't be home for dinner tonight."

"Out with your mistress?" she teased. He rolled his eyes.

"Hardly. Mr. and the future-Mrs. Clegane are hosting me for the evening. Something interesting came up in the case and it necessitates a long conversation with Sansa Stark. I think she might know more about all of this than she's let on."

Mercy finished applying her mascara with a flourish and stood, moving toward the rack of costumes beside the door. "You think she's hiding something?"

Jaqen shrugged. "Maybe not intentionally, but nonetheless, yes. I do."

"Help me into this?" Mercy asked, changing the subject and bringing him out of his thoughts.

He moved to stand behind her, his slender fingers making easy work of the laces on the back of her dress. When she tilted her head back slightly to rest against his shoulder he noticed that the roots of her hair were a dark brown and his eyes fell to a discarded box of hair dye lying face down on the floor.

"Are you playing a brunette in this one?"

Her brows furrowed slightly. "Hmm?"

His lips fell to brush against the top of her head and he gestured toward the box on the floor. "Did I interrupt you? The show opens in a week and you're still mostly a blonde, love."

Mercy laughed lightly and though Jaqen took no note, it sounded forced to her ears. "Something like that." She turned to face him and stood on her toes to give him a quick kiss. "You should get going. It wouldn't look professional to show up late to the home of the people who'll be paying our rent for the next few months."

Jaqen chuckled and nodded, moving back to the door. "I don't know when I'll be home. You know I think better when I walk, so I may forgo a cab tonight, depending on what Miss Stark has to say. If it's late, I'll try not to wake you."

Mercy nodded and gave his hand a parting squeeze, a smile on her lips that did not quite reach her eyes. "Just be careful. You're already deeper in this than I like, and I don't want to lose you."

The Stark family home was massive. It would have been large even for the family of eight that had once filled it. Jaqen couldn't imagine how empty it must feel to its two inhabitants.

Sansa Stark opened the door at his first knock and he got the impression that she had been waiting for his arrival somewhat anxiously. Hanging his hat and coat on the rack in the foyer, he gave her a nod of greeting.

"Thank you again for seeing me on such short notice, Miss Stark."

"Of course," she said softly. "Anything that I can do to help you bring my sister home is worth the trouble." She gestured deeper into the mansion. "Follow me to the parlor. Sandor's fixing drinks for the two of you, but he'll join us in a moment."

They arrived only a few seconds before her fiancé. He gave Jaqen a thorough once-over through narrowed eyes before seeming to accept what he saw and offering one of the two glasses in his hands.

"Bourbon okay?"

"Perfectly." Jaqen struggled valiantly to maintain eye contact as he took the glass. He had seen a grainy photo or two of Sandor Clegane during the course of his investigation, but they hadn't done justice to the horrifying severity of his burns.

Jaqen took a seat in one of the elaborate armchairs and the couple took the sofa across from him. Sansa crossed her ankles and settled her hands in her lap before meeting Jaqen's patient gaze.

"What is it that I can help you with, Mr. H'ghar? I have to admit you were a bit cryptic over the phone, and I don't know if I should be intrigued or worried."

Jaqen took a drink of the bourbon and pondered how best to proceed. After lowering the glass again, he cleared his throat.

"Tell me about Arya. All I know of her is following your father's death. What was she like when you were growing up?"

He didn't know if the question was directly pertinent, but when Sansa's face lit up with a smile, he knew he had asked the right thing.

"I don't know how she's changed in the past thirteen years, but the Arya I grew up with was fierce, and passionate. There was a time that I hated her for it, because we were so different. I was everything my mother wanted from a daughter: the perfect New York debutante. But where I wore expensive dresses and followed my mother to every social event, Arya would come home in a pair of Robb's trousers, far too big for her and with new holes or stains at the knees."

She smiled, a bit wistfully. "She was a girl who loved adventure and mystery as much as I loved fairy tales and love songs. She could barely sew a single stitch and burned everything she tried to help Mother cook, but by the time she was seven she could hit the center of a target with our father's pistol." She laughed softly. "Not that Mother ever knew that."

For a moment she grew silent, and Jaqen waited for her to continue. He had other questions to ask, but it wouldn't do to push her and miss any details that could be important. When she spoke again, her tone had grown solemn, and she absently reached for her fiancé's hand.

"Arya had her opinions and wouldn't give them up without a fight. She was loyal, and even when we fought, I knew that she would be there for me if I needed her. Arya wasn't one to love or trust easily, even then, but when she did, she loved deeply. And when she was hurt, she hurt deeply. I suppose that's why we're here now. She always cared more about revenge than forgiveness, and I guess our father's death was never something she could just mourn and move past."

Sansa lapsed into silence again and after a minute or two, Jaqen flipped open his notebook and poised his pen above the next blank page.

"Tell me about your relationship with Joffrey Baratheon."

Sansa's eyebrows rose and at her side Sandor tensed noticeably. "What the hell does that bastard have to do with Arya?" he growled. Jaqen's eyes followed Sansa's hand as it moved absently to her fiancé's thigh. He couldn't tell if the gesture was meant to comfort or to restrain.

"What about it?" she asked evenly.

"Everything you're willing to share. I can't say with confidence what might be relevant to your sister's case."

Sansa sighed softly and nodded. Jaqen could tell that it was only with great effort that she was keeping her features schooled and there was a haunted look in her eyes that she couldn't quite hold back.

"We all knew Joffrey growing up. I'm sure you know that his father was close friends with ours. When I was fifteen we started dating. I thought that he was the perfect gentleman, and my parents approved of the match. An eventual marriage between the Stark and Baratheon families would have been good for the city."

"But?"

"But..." Sansa echoed. "It didn't take long for me to realize that everything about Joffrey was a lie. He was cruel and abusive. I fancied myself in love with him, but I don't think he ever felt anything for me. Within the first few months he started beating me if I did anything he didn't like. He told me if I tried to tell anyone about the way he was treating me, he would..." She swallowed thickly and Sandor put an arm protectively around her shoulders. "Do worse. Much worse."

A light sheen of tears had begun to form in Sansa's wide blue eyes and when she turned them up toward her fiancé, he continued her tale.

"You probably know I was the prick's bodyguard back then. She had been trapped with him for a little over three years before I finally got up the nerve to offer her a way out. If we had had the time to go through with it, it would've been stupid, and maybe even dangerous, but I couldn't keep watching what he did to her."

"But you didn't have the time?" Jaqen asked. His pen scratched quickly across the page in an effort to capture all the details.

"No," Sansa continued. "A month later Sandor found him dead of an overdose in his bedroom."

Jaqen continued writing, his mind working furiously as it tried to find a way to deflect from his real question and shock Sansa into revealing anything she might be holding back.

"So you were eighteen when he died? Arya would have been sixteen?"

Sansa nodded.

"And how old were you?" His gaze lifted briefly to meet Sandor's and the older man's eyes narrowed. Before he could respond, Sansa deflected the question.

"Sandor was the only one who ever tried to do anything about Joffrey's abuse. After he died I was able to escape from the Baratheons and Sandor found employment elsewhere. We met again a few years ago and reconnected. Our relationship when I was with Joffrey was not of a romantic nature, and I daresay I'm old enough now to make my own decisions about who I choose to love."

There was a challenge in her tone and Jaqen let her have the victory. He had no real interest in their relationship, whether it had begun five years ago or two months. He had however, drawn their attention to another matter. Sansa was using his silence to soothe her fiancé with a kiss to his burned cheek and Jaqen didn't look up when he spoke again.

"Did you know Arya came back to New York seven years ago? That she was likely a few rooms away from where you were sleeping while Joffrey had a needle forced into his arm? Did you ask your sister to kill him for you? Have you been keeping her hidden since then?"

Jaqen's eyes flicked up and he was met with two expressions of identical shock that looked disappointingly genuine. Sansa was still staring at him with wide eyes when Sandor spoke.

"What the fuck?!"

Jaqen's voice remained even and he maintained eye contact with the woman across from him. "I have reason to believe that Joffrey was killed, and that it was Arya who did the deed. I have it from a reliable source that she was seen having an argument with Mr. Baratheon two weeks before his apparent overdose, and that she had been in New York for almost two years prior to his death. I believe she was watching you and when she realized the truth of your relationship with Joffrey, she did the only thing she believed she could."

As he spoke, Sansa's eyes welled with tears, and she was crying softly when he finished, her gaze falling to her lap. "How could I have not known she was so close? If she cared so much about protecting me, why didn't she just come home?" Her jaw tightened and she looked back up again to meet Jaqen's eyes. "It's my turn for a question, Mr. H'ghar. Is my sister still alive, and do you know where she is?"

For a long moment, they sat in silence, neither yielding beneath the other's gaze. Finally, it was Jaqen who spoke.

"Yes, Arya is still alive. But I don't know where she is. I apologize for treating you in this manner, but I had a hunch that you might know where she was and I intended to follow it."

"Why would Sansa pay you to find her if she knew where she was the whole time?" Sandor asked. Whatever marginal acceptance of Jaqen he had settled on upon his arrival was long gone at the sight of Sansa's tears and he glared at Jaqen even as his hand rubbed soothing circles against his fiancée's back.

For a moment, Jaqen felt foolish. Clegane had a point, and a pretty good one. In his frustration, he hadn't challenged the initial feeling that Arya was much closer than he'd assumed, and now it was all unraveling before him.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "It's my job to follow every lead that crosses my desk. And it isn't as though you don't have the money to put me at the butt of an elaborate joke if that was your intention."

"I have half a mind to tear up the check with your name on it," Sandor snarled. Sansa took a shaky breath and shook her head, taking one of his hands in her own.

"No. I hired you to find my sister and I intend for both of us to honor our side of the deal. I understand that you're only doing your job, Mr. H'ghar. It's just difficult for me to relive the life I had with Joffrey and to learn that you aren't the only one that Arya's been one step ahead of. I know you didn't intend any harm coming here tonight, and I forgive you for your lapse in manners."

Although he felt he had no reason to, Jaqen was suddenly chagrined and he hid the flush of his cheeks behind his glass of bourbon as he drained it.

When Sansa spoke again, her voice wavered. "All I want is my sister back, Mr. H'ghar. Our family is gone, and I just want her to know that nothing she's done or can do will bring them back. If you find her before she disappears again, please tell her to come home. I don't care what she's done, and if the police haven't kept up their chase, they don't know. I don't know if she'll listen to me, and I can't know that she'll trust you, but if she's allowed you to get this close it's because a part of her is ready to stop running. I'm begging you, bring my sister home."

For a moment, Jaqen didn't know what to say. In the end, Sansa saved him from having to reply.

"If that's all of your questions, I don't want to keep you," she said, and Jaqen knew it was the most polite dismissal he would ever receive. "You have more work to do, and you've given me a lot to think about."

With that, they all stood and Sansa excused herself as Sandor walked with Jaqen back to the front door. The older man was still tense and there was palpable anger radiating off of him in waves, but he seemed content to accept what Sansa had said despite his personal feelings. When Jaqen stepped out onto the stoop, he turned and caught Sandor a moment before the door shut behind him.

"I'm trying my hardest to find Arya Stark," Jaqen said, unflinching beneath Sandor's stony gaze. "But at this point, I don't know if it's possible. She knows what she's doing; and she's making fools of all of us as she does it."

The sun had set outside and the shadows were lengthening along the street that Jaqen H'ghar walked as Sansa Stark retreated to her bedroom. She had thought she was prepared for her conversation with the private investigator, but he had caught her by surprise and she found herself feeling tired and confused.

Sandor was sitting in the chair in the corner with his third glass of bourbon as Sansa silently stepped out of her dress and into a thin nightgown. Her fiancé's eyes followed the movement, but without any real interest. He was still brooding over H'ghar's visit and the alcohol wasn't helping to clear his mind.

"Have to admit he's got balls to stand up to us like that," Sandor muttered, more to himself than to Sansa. "Almost have to admire his determination."

Sansa nodded absently and meant to respond, but was interrupted by the phone downstairs. They hesitated for a moment and then Sansa moved to the door. "I'll get it."

She made it down to the parlor on the third ring and lifted the receiver, expecting to hear Jaqen's voice on the other end.

"Hello?"

For a long moment there was near silence, broken only by the faintly audible rhythm of her caller's breathing. Then, "Hello, Sansa."

The young woman fell heavily into the chair beside her, her free hand gripping the arm and turning her knuckles white. "Arya?"

Her sister breathed a soft laugh. "Yes, Sans. It's me. I suppose I should have called sooner, but...better late than never."

At first, Sansa was stunned, unable to speak. When she was able to regain her faculties, her words were faint and disjointed. "Arya...were you...did...Joffrey?" She lapsed back into silence and brought her trembling fingers to her lips.

"Did I kill him?" The voice asked. "Yes. Him, and Ilyn Payne, and Roose Bolton. Everyone who ever lifted a hand against our family is dead. How does it feel knowing your sister is a killer?"

"The police don't know," Sansa stammered. "It would have been in the papers if they ever thought it was you. And Mr. H'ghar won't tell. I hired a private investigator to find you," she rambled, unable to stop herself. "I suppose you know about him."

Bitter amusement colored Arya's words. "You could say that."

Sansa's voice weakened. "Please don't hurt him. He's only doing what I told him to."

She was met with a moment of hesitation. When Arya replied, there was twinge of something Sansa couldn't identify in her tone. "I hope I don't have to."

In the silence that followed, Sansa's mind cleared somewhat and she gripped the phone tighter in her fist. "Arya, why won't you come home? Mr. H'ghar said you've been in New York for seven years. I miss you." Her eyes welled with tears. "I love you, and I want my sister back."

"I love you too, Sansa," Arya soothed, but that did not change her answer. "But I can't. I almost did, once. After I killed Joffrey, I...I tried to find myself again. Tried to live a life for the first time, so that I could home to you."

"Why didn't you?" There was dull betrayal in Sansa's words and it hurt Arya more than she had expected.

"Because...things changed. Something happened that I couldn't have anticipated and now, I don't think I can ever be Arya Stark again. If I come home, I'll be hurting someone I care for. Someone I love."

"More than me?"

Arya sighed, almost impatiently. "You have Sandor now, Sansa. You aren't alone. And neither am I. I should have come home, I know that now. But we aren't children anymore, and we live separate lives." Sansa moved to speak but Arya interrupted her. "It isn't safe to talk anymore, and you have to swear you won't tell Jaqen about this, but I need you to know something. Whatever happens next might be out of our control. But no matter which way it goes, I want you to know that if you ever need me, I'm here."

Just before the line died, Sansa could hear the sound of footsteps and the jangle of keys. Then, with a click, she was gone.

A week later, as both an apology and encouragement, Sansa left half of Jaqen's payment in an envelope slipped under his office door and he was still at his desk with the check in his hands when Rorge found him.

"Hey, boss."

Jaqen sat still and silent, eyes on the rectangular paper and his mind far away. The amount was far more than the fee he had asked for and he had spent the morning daydreaming about how big of a diamond he would have set in Mercy's engagement ring. Rorge called his name twice to no avail and it wasn't until he stuck a hand between Jaqen and the check and waggled his fingers that Jaqen snapped out of his thoughts.

When he jumped slightly, startled, Rorge snorted out a laugh and backed up again, leaning over with his palms on the surface of Jaqen's desk. "I can see the dollar signs floatin' in your eyes boss, but I've gotta say I have news that might make you even happier than whatever figure that sexy broad wrote down for you."

Jaqen frowned at his partner's choice of address, but set it down with a sigh nonetheless. "And what news is that?"

"One of the Kindly Man's other girls had a tale for me, and it points the way to a girl named Beth."

"Beth? Is that what Arya was going by after Cat?"

Rorge nodded. "Far as my source says, yeah. After the girl left the alleys, she went back to begging on the streets. Maybe she figured she was getting too old and that the Kindly Man might make her do more than just draw in the customers. About ten or so years ago there was a girl who was found murdered by Flea Bottom. She had been one of the Kindly Man's crew and had run away, but...well, she didn't get far. Her name was Beth."

Jaqen's brow furrowed and Rorge made a gesture to hold back any questions.

"When the Stark kid decided to run away, this other girl told her to take the name Beth and to send them word if she ever got into any trouble. The name became a sort of code for the girls who ran away from the life. If anyone still working Flea Bottom heard word on the streets about Beth, they knew one of their own was in trouble, and they've tried their best to keep anyone else from the same fate as Beth numero uno."

"And did they ever hear word?"

Rorge shook his head. "No. She said she never heard a peep about her after she left; thinks she might have ended up going straight in the end."

Jaqen frowned deeply, considering what his partner had said. Finally, he spoke again. "Is there anyone else who knows about Arya during her time as Beth? Anyone that your source mentioned? It's going to be hard to track down a teenage girl begging in the streets of New York. Not to mention it would've been five years ago."

Rorge nodded. "She gave me a few names that might pan out. Want me to give you a couple or take care of them myself?"

For a moment, Jaqen hesitated. On one hand, he wanted to find Arya himself. But, he doubted that this shaky lead would take them to her, or that she would allow herself to be caught by Rorge. Call it conceited, but Jaqen was fairly confident that he had earned her respect and that if she appeared from the shadows, it would be for him and him alone. Besides, he had other plans, and they didn't involve interrogations for the time being.

"You go ahead," Jaqen answered. "If you get anything good out of it I'll give you a cut of my fee. I have other things to attend to."

Rising to his feet, he grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and shrugged it on. Sticking Sansa's check in his pocket, he made for the door and Rorge followed.

"You should find a woman to take out with your newfound cash, boss," Rorge suggested. "Get Arya Stark out of your head."

Jaqen's lips quirked into a smile and he gave Rorge a brief wave as he stepped out onto the street. That was exactly what he intended, and he would make sure it was a night to remember.

Jaqen walked to the Gate playhouse with one hand in his coat pocket, his fingers running absently over the small box within as if to ensure that it was still there. It was the opening night of The Bloody Hand and when the performance ended, Jaqen would sneak his leading lady out the back door and off to a reservation at one of the nicest restaurants in the city. It was a little Italian place Mercy had looked at wistfully for years, but which had always been too expensive for a couple living on a PI's salary and the supplemental income of a stage actress.

His mind ran in an endless cycle over the events of the evening, from the rise of the curtains to a night spent in bed, Mercy wearing nothing but a diamond ring on her left hand. For one night, Arya Stark be damned. He had allowed her to run his life for the past nine weeks, and he had neglected the woman at the center of his life for the one who hid at its periphery. No longer. Not tonight.

The performance was good, surprisingly so based on Mercy's complaints about the process. She captivated the audience and although Jaqen wasn't the only man in the house whose eyes never left her, she spared no glances for any others, flashing him a grin and a wink when she ducked offstage for the last time. When the house erupted in applause, Jaqen snuck out amidst the standing ovation and he was waiting at Mercy's dressing room when she appeared. She paused at the end of the hall, admiring the sight of her boyfriend in a dark suit with a bouquet of roses in hand.

"For me, monsieur?" she asked with mock surprise as she approached, fluttering her eyelashes and breathing deeply into the bouquet. "You're too kind."

Her teasing ended when he caught her around the waist and kissed her deeply. Her already flushed cheeks were a deep red when he pulled away and she cocked an eyebrow at him, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.

"You're in quite a state, Mr. H'ghar."

His gaze was dark and intense and she half expected him to drag her into her dressing room and have his way with her when he took the roses back and stepped away from the door.

"Get your things," he said. "We have a reservation at Othello's in forty-five minutes."

Mercy's eyes widened. "Othello's? Can we afford that?"

He shrugged. "For tonight we can. It's on the Stark family money."

A brief smile crossed Mercy's lips that he couldn't quite interpret and then she opened the door and obeyed his command, gathering her few belongings before joining him again. Locking the door behind her, she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.

"Whisk me away, handsome."

It wasn't until after they had snuck out the back door and Jaqen raised a hand for a cab that Mercy realized she didn't have her coat and she frowned, tucking herself closer against Jaqen's side and shivering beneath a gust of wind.

"Where's your coat?" he asked, looking down at her. "Did you leave it in your dressing room?"

She shook her head. "I would have seen it. I must've left it at home this afternoon. It wasn't this cold when I left."

"Do you want mine?" He moved to take it off as a cab pulled up beside them but Mercy shook her head.

"Do we have time to run home before dinner?"

Jaqen glanced down at his watch and hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I have a reservation. If we're a little late they'll hold a table for us."

Mercy smiled as she settled into the back of the cab beside him, snuggling up to him as he leaned forward and told the driver their address. "Why don't you always treat me like this?" she teased.

"Because tonight is special," Jaqen replied, tucking a finger beneath her chin and tilting her face toward his. "And because we're usually poor."

She laughed against his lips and then brought her mouth lower, brushing lightly against the underside of his jaw and making his eyes flutter shut. She met the driver's gaze in the rearview mirror and smirked when he quickly looked away.

"I'll have to think of a way to thank you for all of this," Mercy whispered, her tongue flicking out to press against the unsteady beat of his pulse. Her hand slid from his knee to the inside of his thigh and when he bit back a groan she moved her lips to the shell of his ear. "Any idea how I could manage that?"

Before he could respond the cab was pulling up in front of their building and the driver cleared his throat pointedly. Jaqen stumbled to the curb on suddenly unsteady legs and passed the driver a bill. "We'll be just a moment." The driver seemed doubtful but he took the money regardless and waved them on.

Grinning smugly at the hazy blue of Jaqen's eyes, Mercy unlocked their front door and pulled him after her. After delivering a quick kiss to his cheek she retreated to their room, leaving Jaqen alone in the foyer.

In that moment, Jaqen thought of nothing but Mercedene Chase and the ring in his pocket. Had he known what the next few minutes would bring, he might have insisted she take his coat, or left the cabbie at the curb and gotten them well and truly distracted, enough that they wouldn't have noticed the phone ringing, or wouldn't have cared. As it was, he did neither of those things, and he would soon be proven right. It would be a night to remember.

Mercy rounded the corner with her coat on at the same moment that the phone rang. For a moment, they hesitated, Jaqen checking his watch and Mercy looking to him for direction. In the end, he decided they still had time.

Mercy smiled faintly as Jaqen held up a finger with a sigh and she leaned against the kitchen doorway as he put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"H'ghar, is that you?"

He frowned slightly. His mind was still hazy with half-awakened arousal and he didn't immediately recognize the voice of his partner. "Yes. Who is this?"

"It's Rorge. I'm calling with news on your girl. I've had a busy day, and I managed to talk to everyone on my list."

"And?" When Mercy cocked an eyebrow he mouthed his partner's name and she gave him an exaggerated grimace in reply. He smiled slightly, but allowed his attention to return to what Rorge was saying.

"And I think I found her. Or...I don't know. The next version of her. You've been at this for over two months already so let's cross our fingers, eh? You need a break from this and I need a break from you."

"Sure," Jaqen responded drily. "Just tell me what you found out, Rorge. I have places to be."

Across the room, Mercy faltered, her eyes lifting to Jaqen's face. He was frowning slightly, listening to what Rorge was saying, and she felt her stomach drop. Jaqen had foregone his usual tan overcoat for a suit jacket and it sat a few feet away on the dining table, the grip of his pistol jutting from the pocket.

"Sure, boss, sure. So, she's living here, in New York. Changed her name again, predictably."

"Go on."

"Yeah, so, she's an actress with the Gate Playhouse. Has been for the past four years now. You know it?"

Jaqen's grip tightened on the telephone and he felt his mouth go dry. His eyes shifted to find Mercy staring at him intently, their reservation forgotten.

He nodded and then remembering that Rorge couldn't see him, cleared his throat and croaked out a reply. "I know it."

"'S'what I thought," Rorge answered, oblivious to Jaqen's sudden change in tone. "Well anyway, girl you're looking for now is called..." He hesitated for a moment and Jaqen heard the sound of turning pages before his voice came again. "Yeah, okay. Thought it was kind of a funny name. You're looking for a girl named Mercedene Chase. She's Arya Stark."

The phone fell heavily from Jaqen's hand and the sudden silence of the room was broken only by the faint sound of Rorge's voice through the swinging receiver.

"H'ghar, did you hear me?"

Then, a familiar click, and the voice again, worried now.

"...H'ghar...?"