Based off a prompt I received on tumblr. Arya and Gendry in the aftermath of the Great Battle

It was silent. The snow had stopped.

It was over.

The Night King had perished in a storm of ice and darkness that had taken so many more of the army of the living with him. Another of Daenerys's dragons had been lost – Drogon, defending his mother – and a wolf, too. The Wise Wolf, Bran, one of the last to fall. Her little brother.

But it was over.

Her heart ached and she was trembling and she'd lost Needle a long time ago and she was fairly sure those were tears frozen to her face – but it was over.

There was no great roar of victory. How could there be when the dead outnumbered the living? All around her people dropped into the snow beside someone frozen and unmoving. Frantic grabs for cloth to stopper wounds, wails for those whose blood had stopped long before the battle, and joyous shouts of names across the snow fields as friends saw each other still standing on two legs – all of it surrounded Arya.

She stood in the snow, still and gasping, her breath frosting in front of her eyes. She watched as that great, hulking Wildling with the fiery hair hauled Jon up from the Snow. She saw Davos crawl his way towards them, a bloody trail left in his wake before the Hound loped up and plucked him from the ground.

There was no Lord Beric. He had died his last death. Sweet Sam lay slain. Three men were frantically hovering over Brienne, stripping her armour and binding the wounds – doing whatever they could to keep another one alive. One of them was Jamie Lannister.

But she couldn't see him.

Arya ducked just in time. She felt the slice of air as the blade swung overhead. She leapt under the wight's arm and took off its head with a ragged cut. Her sword work had stopped being neat several deaths ago.

"Arry – side face!"

Her jerkin caught the tip of a spear this time, and she shoved Needle through its eye socket – thanking the Gods Gendry had agreed to tip it with dragon glass. She turned with thanks on her lips, to see him smashing a path towards her with his war hammer. Wights' chests caved in and their skulls cracked and he was standing next to her, panting.

"Thought you were supposed to be quick?"

She laughed and shoved him out the way, gutting the wight that had crept up behind him. She heard him swinging at her back – defending her blind spot.

"I'll remember that next time!"

"Next time? Plan on doing this again, are we?"

She dived and rolled on the snow and Gendry swung where her head would have been. Another wight down. "Aren't you having fun?"

He huffed disbelieving as she parried, and he blocked, and they beat the beasts back. "Don't get cocky now Arya – stay alive. Or you'll have me to answer to."

She laughed again – that strange little giggle she'd returned with and had no place on a battlefield. "A terrifying prospect."

A hand grabbed her arm and she'd raised her catspaw before she'd realised it was Gendry. Only her reflexes saved him from a fresh gash in his arm. "I mean it, Arry. You better be breathing after this, or I'll – "

"You'll what?" she'd said, more defensive than she'd meant to.

He'd stared, blue eyes afraid and he gripped harder. "I don't know."

I don't know. I don't know what I'd do without you. I don't know. I don't know. Don't die.

"I do."

And she did. This boy who had been with her through everything since they were thrown together on the Kings Road. This boy who had fought for her, followed her, obeyed and challenged her, who had been the closest friend she'd ever had in her life. This boy who had chosen to leave because he didn't want to watch her mother and brother take her away from him. This man who had helped her family when she hadn't been there, who had armed them and given them the means to protect themselves. This man who had been the one to help her find her way out of the darkness of the House of Black and White.

Of course she knew. Of course.

She could see the wights rushing them again. Their reprieve was over.

"Do you hear me," she hissed. "I do."

Gendry's eyes brightened as her meaning dawned on him. There was no time – the wights were here. He was already raising his hammer and she was already preparing her body to spring. There was no time, except for –

"I love you, too."

She'd lost him after that. There had been no more reprieves – not until the battle was won. The dead had fought fiercely and relentlessly, and their salvation had been the death of the Night King.She hadn't even been able to risk a glance to look for him. And now, as she surveyed the battlefield, she couldn't see his unmistakeable form anywhere.

She didn't want to have to kneel in the snow and roll bodies stiff with ice over on their backs. She didn't want to have to pry open eyelids and see that Baratheon blue clouded over. She wouldn't.

Snow crunched under feet behind her. Arya spun on her heel, and whatever breath she'd had left, left her.

His cloak had gone. The staff of his hammer had been snapped off and he was holding it by the jagged stump that remained. His left eye and his nose were bloody, there was a slice across his throat, and one shoulder drooped down so far, she knew it was dislocated.

But he was there.

She stepped to him, slowly, and he stood still and waited. When she got close enough that they were sharing air, she let her hand reach out, and her fingertips caught the sharp edges of broken chainmail.

He was alive.

A hoarse, broken, sigh fell from split lips. "Arry."

She could have said a thousand things, yet she didn't. "You look terrible."

Gendry may have laughed or sobbed, she wasn't sure. He tried to shrug with one limp shoulder. "You don't look too great, yourself."

And what a strange moment it was to feel a flicker of self-consciousness about the blood that was matting her hair.

"That is no way to speak to someone you love, Ser."

Gendry blushed and raised his good arm and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah well, you said it to me first."

I love you, or that he looked terrible? She wasn't sure and it didn't matter.

"I did."

He dropped the remains of his hammer and laid one massive hand over her slight wrist and tugged. She let him – went willingly, even. He was too big and she was too small to allow him to rest his head against hers. But he clutched her tight with one arm and set his chin on her hair, blood and all.

"You did as you were told, for once," he murmured.

"Hmm. Don't expect it to happen again."

She looked up at him. The adrenaline from the battle was wearing off and she hurt all over, everywhere. They both needed a maester, but their hearts were beating, they were bleeding, and even in the snow Gendry was impossible warm. And it was all that mattered.

A hand with split knuckles cradled her cheek and she covered it with her own. Gendry's breath ghosted across her lips and thawed the frost there as he leaned down. In a moment neither of them had thought they would get the chance to share, their cracked and bloody lips met in a sweet kiss. Gendry was careful, gentle, trying to keep more blood from her face despite the fact that she was drenched already, and Arya didn't want to hurt him anymore than he already was. A soft press of lips that left her warm. They parted, hands still clutching each other, and shared a moment of peace on the snow fields. Around them, their army was gathering the wounded, burning the dead, and preparing to make their way back to the camp that most of them had thought they'd never see again.

Arya wanted to return to Winterfell. She wanted to settle with her sister and her brother and look after the North as her father and ancestors had done before her. They were a pack, and they had survived. And as Gendry refused to drop her hand as they followed the troops away from the battlefield, and she felt like maybe he was the only thing keeping her from shattering, she refused to consider Winterfell without him. Gendry may be a Baratheon – technically – but Arya was determined he was a Stark. He was hers.