Based off an old Gendrya Week Prompt.

Davos had dragged him through the gates, screaming for a Maester.

The old salt dog was usually so calm. He greeted every new raven with a wry smile and a quip and Arya had grown fond of the man her brother Jon had claimed his most trusted advisor. She had never seen him unsettled in the ever darkening days the closer they grew to war with the Night King.

But this, this was something else. His eyes were full of panic. His voice was cracked and desperate, and the hands that clutched at the man's heavy furs where he cradled him on the ground were possessive and shaking.

"Help me! Maester! Someone, HELP HIM!"

Arya had been so disturbed by the sight, that a group of their men had strode forward and lifted the half-frozen man to carry him into the stronghold before she'd even set a foot forward to help.

They'd had to pry Davos' fingers off him to move him.

Arya crept to where the old man still knelt in the snow. She stood side-face, approached like she would a skittish wolf. "Ser – "

He was staring at the door the men had just disappeared through. "He's a good lad. He shouldn't – he shouldn't even be here."

She stood by his side now, steady and calm like he had been for her and her brothers and sister so often before. "Who is he?"

"Just a boy. A bastard boy stolen and abused by the red woman, like so many others."

Arya stamped down her flinch as a flash of black hair and blue eyes being traded like cattle for a bag of gold flit across her memories. A gleeful witch in red, so pleased with her new captive. Jon had told her about the murdered princess Shireen, and Davos couldn't hear her mentioned but let a black mood take him. Everywhere she was, she left behind ghosts.

"Not so like them," she gently leaned on his shoulder. "I thought no one survived her, yet here he is. Unless – is she out there Davos? Is that what happened?"

Davos staggered to his knees and rubbed his eyes viciously. "No," he nearly spat. "No. This – the idiot boy nearly killed himself trying to save your brother."

Her blood was Winter, but Arya felt the ice in her veins. Jon had already left to meet the Dragon Queen before she'd returned to Winterfell, so she'd had no choice but to wait here with Sansa and Bran and wait for news. It had left her frustrated and angry. When they had received a raven about the mission beyond the Wall to capture a wight, Bran had thwarted her attempts to escape and join them twice, before she eventually had admitted defeat. "Your place is here, Arya Stark," he'd said. "You must be in Winterfell. At least for a while, yet."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there. I was waiting at Eastwatch. We found him collapsed outside near death in the Snow. Jon had sent him to get a message to Danaerys Targaryen for aid. They were pinned down beyond the Wall – death was certain if the message didn't get to her in time."

Her breath stilled. "And did it?"

"Yes. Because when Jon told him to run, he didn't stop running. Nearly a full day and night and the stupid boy didn't. stop. Covered in frost burn. Nothing but ribbons were left of his feet. He couldn't speak, he could barely breathe and even when he did it sounded painful. He couldn't even open his mouth the eat or drink. He slept for days. It's only the Wildlings at Eastwatch – there's no maester, no medicine to speak of. He just slept and I didn't think he was ever going to wake up until he did. Took a few mouthfuls of broth then went back under again. Then the Wall came down and I had to get us out of there. Now I've made it worse. I think I've killed him. Leaving him there might have been merciful. But I've always been a selfish man."

Arya's head was spinning. "What do you mean the Wall came down? How could the Wall come down?" It was unfathomable. Everything her father had ever told her about the Wall, there was no chance it could have been breached.

"Gods, he has one of her dragons. The Night King. It had those dead blue eyes like the rest of them and breathed ice instead of fire."

I felt like lead in her belly and a vice at her throat. "We have to tell Jon. I'll fetch –"

"No, my lady, let him be." Davos gripped her wrist firmly. "The Night King won't be marching on King's Landing anytime soon, and they'll be heading back before the raven ever reaches them. We have to get ready, here."

Reluctantly, Arya nodded. "Alright. You can report to my sister."

Davos was no stranger to the cold, being a seafaring man, but the Great Hall of Winterfell had chilled him in places he'd forgotten existed. Arya had strode in before him, summoned the attention of her sister the Lady Stark, and he'd found himself pushed into a seat before the high table and hot wine pressed into his hand.

"Speak, Ser Davos. What is your news?"

The Lady Stark was a breathtaking creature. Her hair burned like the fire in the hearth and her eyes were as sharp as the frost on the windows. A true lady, he was pleased to know. He'd forgotten they'd ever existed.

"The Wall has come down at Eastwatch."

He'd expected ridicule. An outcry. Some great clamouring of Northern voices, but all that met him was silence – the silence of a room full of people who'd grown up hearing about the great, unbreachable wall.

"Jon and his men were in trouble. Many of them had been killed. The wights were too many. They were going to die up there." Now the lords and ladies started to rumble. "But one of them – a boy, only – managed to get to Eastwatch in time and the Targaryen Queen came with her dragons. Only – the Night King – he killed one. He killed one and I swear my Lady, I saw him riding it to Eastwatch and he had it breath icefire to bring down the wall. The Wall is down. The dead are coming."

That was when the hall erupted. Lord Glover tried to call him a liar. Lady Mormont was calling for a report on Jon's safety, the Manderlys were predicting the doom of the North. But the Starks were silent. Stoic. Calm. Bran from his chair, Sansa from her place at the centre of the table, and Arya behind her to her left.

"Ser Davos." Bran's collected, oddly sweet voice, quietened the hall. "What you say is true." Lord Glover sat heavily back on his bench. "You told my sister that we must prepare for war here, in Winterfell."

"Yes, my Lord."

Bran turned, met his older sister's eye and nodded once.

Sansa stood. "Very well. Lords and Ladies of North," she commanded. "Winter is here. I know your houses have been preparing for the War but now it has come. Send word to ready your armies. Men, women, boys and girls. We are the North, and we are safer together."

"Safer?" Spat Lord Glover. "We are no safer together. Forgive me my lady but not all of us have fine valyrian steel blades to fend off the Walkers. Nor have we seen a speck of that dragonglass our King had left us for!"

Bran settled those wise, too old eyes back on Davos, and they commanded him to speak. "The dragonglass is coming in ships," he blurted. "Great loads of it, my lord. There will be plenty for everyone, you have my word."

"Yes and how is it to be fashioned into weapons. You are asking smiths to fashion weapons quickly out of something they have never even seen before!"

"We have a smith!" Davos snapped back.

Lord Glover stepped back, and Sansa commanded him again. "Your companion?"

"Yes my lady. He's young but he's the best I've ever seen. He learned under Tobho Mott in King's Landing and his master taught him the secrets of valyrian steel. He can make us these weapons my lady but –"

Bran spoke for him. "But you fear for his life. You think he will not recover."

Davos nodded at the floor.

"He will live, Ser Davos."

Something squeezed his heart. "My Lord?"

"Your blacksmith. Gendry. He will live. He has much to do at Winterfell. It is not his time to die." Bran spoke those last words to his dark-haired sister, who's eyes had blown wide, and skin had gone nearly as pale as Sansa's. He turned back to the room. "Gendry will have command of the forges as soon as he recovers. Winterfell with have a Master Blacksmith, again."

Davos was relieved to see that everyone seemed satisfied with Bran's proclamation. He'd worked hard to win over this gruff, suspicious, unforgiving lot, and he didn't want to have to throw all that away defending Gendry until he ran out of breath – or skin to pierce. And he would. He'd let the North turn him into a pincushion a thousand times over to protect that boy.

All, that was, save the Lady Arya, who looked between him and Bran with and angry fire growing behind her eyes and thinning her lips.

"My Lady?" he stepped forward, cautiously. "I am sorry if I have distressed you but-"

She mouthed something, too quietly for him to hear anything, but Sansa's head cracked around like a whip and glared at her sister.

"Arya!"

But she paid her no heed. She spoke again, and this time the entire hall could hear her.

"That. BASTARD!" She turned on her heel as the gawping nobles and guardsmen looked on, and stalked from the hall, seething. "That big, stupid, bull-headed bastard! WHERE IS HE?!"

A great door slammed behind her and the hall erupted into grumbles and shouts and members of the North's great houses leaping to their feet. Until the Great Lady's voice, like a swirling winter storm, smothered them all.

"Be silent." She only had to wait a few moments until her command was obeyed. "My Lords. My Ladies. We don't have time for arguments and petty words. Winter is here and we must prepare."

Davos' head was hurting.

His Lady had fed him, warmed him with hot cider and clothed him in fresh, mercifully dry clothes, but after that she had been merciless. He had been closeted inside council chambers for hours. He'd been sent around the Castle fetching this and that person. Carrying this and that order. He'd poured over maps and provisions lists until his eyes couldn't make sense of the scribblings on the paper – as if his lovely, lovely Shireen had never taught him his letters. After one blink too long – one that threatened to stay close and have him make a fool of himself in front of the Starks of Winterfell and their bannermen, Sansa had finally taken pity and told him to find her errant sister. "I don't know what got into her earlier, Ser Davos. Please find her. I need her."

And so he would. But first, to the maester.

No one had brought him any report of Gendry. He took it as a good thing, at least. Surely if the boy had succumbed to his wounds they would have told him. But all the same, he felt a deep itching to see that black hair with his own eyes. He'd found a kitchen girl in a corridor he was convinced was near Tarly's chambers and she'd nodded to the floor and pointed to a thick, dark door fastened with iron boltings on his left.

He braced himself. With a hand he told himself wasn't shaking, he pushed the door open.

He'd expected to see Gendry lying there, still and unmoving and packed down with furs with a roaring fire in the heart. And he was. But he hadn't anticipated seeing the uncomfortable wooden chair by his bedside, that he'd fully intended sleeping in, already occupied. By the younger Lady of House Stark, of all people.

She paid him no mind. Her hand didn't even go to the hilt of Needle. She simply sat, staring at the rise and fall of Gendry's chest, her hands pressed between her thighs and an odd look on her face.

"Forgive me my la-"

"I know him."

Davos was tired. His heart, body and his mind. So he closed the door, waited for the latch to click and stepped forward until he could take seat at Gendry's feet. The lad didn't so much as twitch as the bed dipped under his weight.

"Arya?"

A wan smile was all he got for dropping his courtesies. "I did. Though it seems so long ago now."

Davos kept his tone gentle. "He's never mentioned you."

"He was never much one for words. Not with others, anyway."

"No. No, he's nearly as good at silent brooding as your Kingly brother is."

Arya snorted. Davos considered it a victory.

"What did the maester have to say?"

"His feet have been cleaned and bound. He had water in his lungs, from breathing in the ice. That's why he sounds like that," she referred to the horrid rattling coming from Gendry that Davos had wholeheartedly been trying to ignore.

"But it will clear. He'll live?"

Arya raised a little brow at him. "You doubt my wise little brother, Ser?"

But Davos matched her. "Being told something and seeing it with your own eyes are two very different things, as you well know."

She cocked her head and granted him another victory. "Yes, Davos, he'll live. He needs to rest and keep warm, but he'll live. Sam promised me."

Davos didn't want to think about what would befall sweet Samwell Tarly if he turned out to be wrong. He rested a hand on Gendry's foot underneath the furs. Solid. Thick with bandages. Healing.

"How did you know him, my lady?"

And suddenly, a look softer than any he had seen on the lady's face since they'd met blossomed over those Northern features.

"We were smuggled out of King's Landing together," she said. "When father was – when Joffrey murdered my father," she licked her lips, "Yoren refused to let me look. Pressed his hands to my ears and my face against his chest. He cut off all my hair and told me I was a boy. 'Arry the orphan from Flea Bottom – being sent to the wall with all the other gutter rats. Only Gendry was there, too."

Davos watched her eyes trace his features, the line of his body. He watched as she leaned forward a little to study him even more closely.

"There was a fat boy called Hot Pie. And Lommy. They tried to take Needle from me. They pushed me on the ground and threatened to kill me. I didn't know it at the time but they were harmless. Gendry heard them and scared them off. Told them he'd make them sing like steel," she nearly smiled. "Only, then I grabbed Hot Pie's wrist and told him I liked killing fat boys. Gendry and I – we barely left each other's side after that."

And then she spoke, more than he had ever hear her talk before. She told him about their long march on the King's Road. Of the Gold Cloaks looking Gendry – she still didn't know why – and Gendry's discovery of her secret – and that he never told a soul. Then she told him of Yoren's death and being taken to Harrenhal.

"After everywhere I've been, I've never been anywhere quite like that place. They stuck us in pens at first - like cattle. They still thought I was a boy and the Mountain's men would pick a few girls every night and we'd have to listen to them get raped and beaten. I made Gendry promise that he'd never let them take me."

Her fingertips reached out, stroked the back of his hand. "He was nearly killed there. They were looking for the Brotherhood Without Banners, and were torturing prisoners for information. One day, they picked him. They put a rat in a bucket, strapped it to the chest, and when they didn't get the answers they wanted they put a torch to the end of the bucket, so there was only one way for the rat to go."

Davos gripped Gendry's foot tighter.

"Gendry didn't have their answers, obviously. So they lit the torch and put it to the bucket – only that's when Tywin Lannister arrived. I never thought in my life I'd be relieved at the sight of a Lannister. But he set us free from the pens and put us to work. Gendry was in the forge of course, and I was his cup bearer.

Then she told him about Jaqen H'ghar and their escape from Harrenhal and how their eyes turned to Riverrun. But then the Brotherhood had captured them. A minor inconvenience at first, but then they'd also caught the Hound and he'd given her away. They'd tried to separate her and Gendry a bit more after that, but neither of them would have it. She told him about the Hound's trial and how Gendry had been the one to fight her back, away from a Hound backed into a corner and baying for blood.

"They finally agreed to take us to Riverrun after a while. I was excited, I told Gendry he could come and smith for Robb and he'd be my family – because he was my pack. For so long, he was the only pack I had left."

Her small palm rested on Gendry's chest. She let it move with the rhythm of his breaths, watched it as if in a trance.

"I'm sure he was grateful for your kindness, my lady."

Her laugh was just a little bit broken. "He refused. He wouldn't come. He told me he could never be my family, because I'd always be m'lady. Bloody stupid, stubborn boy. Look at where he ended up, anyway."

Davos couldn't think of what to say, but he didn't need to.

"All he wanted was a family. He thought the Brotherhood could be his – that's why he wouldn't come with me. Only do you know what they did the very next morning?"

Davos shook his head.

"They sold him. Like livestock. They sold him for two bags of gold and said it was for their fucking stupid god. All because that Red Witch told them so. God's I'll kill her."

At last he found his voice. "She has a high price on her head, Arya."

Finally those grey Stark eyes looked at him. "She murdered the Lady Shireen Baratheon. The sweetest, most beautiful girl in the world. I loved her. So very much. And that woman burned her at the stake. I don't care if she did bring your brother back, she still has crimes to pay for. Jon banished her – told her if she ever returned he'd have her hanged as a murderer."

"I would slit her throat and be done with it. Truly, I thought she'd kill Gendry. I told her as much."

"Aye she wanted to." That got her attention. "You know I was Hand to Stannis, yes?"

Arya nodded.

"Well, when she bought our boy from that brotherhood, she brought him Dragonstone – to Stannis. They wanted him for his King's blood you see – for her dark magic. I don't know everything that happened but I know he was bled and she used that blood to curse your brother Robb, Joffrey Lannister – even Stannis' own brother, Renly. And before Stannis was to go to the siege of King's Landing, they wanted to burn the boy at the stake – a great sacrifice for a great reward, she said. Well, I wasn't going to stand back and watched her murder another innocent."

"What did you do?"

"One of the stupidest things I've ever done. I freed him and helped him escape. Put him on a rowboat and told him to get back to Flea Bottom. Hide in plain sight and all that."

She barked a surprised little laugh. "After all of that, he ended u back in King's Landing?"

"Aye. And he was safe. Until I came back to get him and dragged him back into this mess."

"Come now Davos, if you know him at all you know there's no forcing him to do anything. Stubborn oaf."

Davos smiled. "No, I suppose not."

They were silent then, listening to the crackle of the fire, and those raspy breaths Gendry was dragging through his lungs. The shadows were flickering across her face and Davos watched as her eyes drooped and a little more of her weight slumped against Gendry's chest. He was loathe to interrupt her. She'd almost started to look peaceful again. But, however unconventional, he was a Ser, now. A Ser with a seemingly limitless fondness for Starks.

"I can watch over him, my lady. I'll send for you if he wakes."

"She looked at him with heavy eyes, and he already knew her answer.

"No Davos. I'm not leaving. Find your bed, and make my excuses to my sister if you must. But I'm staying here." And as if to illustrate, she leaned back as far as the wooden chair would let her, and propped her now bootless feet upon Gendry's bed. She closed her eyes and Davos turned for the door.

"And Ser?" She spoke just as he was about to shut it behind him.

"Yes, my lady."

"What did you mean by his King's Blood?"

"That's a story you should hear from his own lips, my lady. When he wakes."

Her feet tucked a little under the heavy weight of his body. Davos wasn't even sure if she was aware of doing it. As he closed the door, he heard her murmur through the wood.

"Soon, then."