From this year's Gendrya Week.

The aftermath of Sansa's conversation with Gendry.

Sansa had been playing their conversation over and over in her head. For three days she recalled his every expression, every hitch in his breath and nervous tick. Every emotion she could possibly have discerned from him was picked apart and laid before her eyes from dawn to dusk.

It had left her cold and uncomfortable.

All she wanted was to protect her family. By all accounts that had reached her ears, Gendry was a good and honest man – if a little grumpy – but she couldn't trust her sister's safety merely by the words of others. She had to see it for herself.

And she had. She had seen him sit there, uncomfortable but trying to do his best to please his Lady, Arya's sister. She had seen him grow fire in his belly and passion when he thought she would do anything to make Arya upset. She had watched that fire burn out and the man retreat inside himself, as he put Arya's happiness before his own.

Even if she hadn't, she'd had it laid painfully bare before her that evening as she retired for bed.

Arya had been waiting her for her.

One day, Sansa Stark would cease being caught unawares by her sister, but it was not that day, and she hoped the maids wouldn't be too put out finding another scorch mark in the furs on her chamber floors, from a candle dropped in fright.

"Stop doing that," she huffed.

Arya didn't look as pleased to have surprised her as she usually did.

"Do you need something, or are you planning on giving me nightmares standing over me all night."

Arya ignored her at first. She watched her sister ready herself for bed, and waited until he slipped under heavy linens and furs, and stepped lightly up, next to her head. Sansa's eyes were already closed.

"I know you have no plans to marry me off."

They snapped open.

"Well, I – yes," Sansa stammered. "We spoke about this. We agreed."

Arya nodded gravely. "Except Gendry seems to be under a different impression entirely. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

She cursed the blush she felt heating her face. Arya cursed and spat and stomped her feet.

"I knew it – I knew it! What the hell were you playing at, Sansa?!"

"I just –" she scrambled to sit up. "I just wanted to get to know him."

"Then ask –"

"You wouldn't tell me anything about him! I asked you, several times; how did you meet? How do you know him? Tell me about him. You never told me anything. What was I supposed to do Arya? Trust a complete stranger with my family –"

"You're supposed to trust me!"

Sansa felt a flush of shame. "I am sorry."

Arya's spine snapped straight and she turned on her heel, marching for the door. "Fix this, Sansa," she ordered over her shoulder. "He won't even talk to me so just – fix it."

So on the third night, after Gendry had somehow managed to weasel his way out of two summons to her council rooms, she found herself stealing over the courtyard well into the night, determined and dainty strides taking her directly to the forge.

The door was slightly ajar, and she could see a gentle glow inside. Sansa took a moment, and a breath, and squared her shoulders as she strode to the door. Her finger tips reach forward to curl around the silken, soft, worn wood and tug it open – until two voices still her grasp.

" – 'an't just go breaking in here, Arya." The voice was low and gruff. Gendry.

"My name is Stark isn't it? This is Winterfell? That means I can do whatever I want." Her sister's voice was cold and angry.

She heard a bitter laugh. "Yeah. Course. Do whatever you want, then. But I'm going to bed."

There was a scuffle and some huffing, and Sansa heard the dull thumps of skin hitting skin –

"You will stay here," and Arya's voice wasn't so cold anymore. It was high and cracking. "If I have to command you, you will stay."

Silence.

"Three days, Gendry. You've been punishing me for my sister's idiocy for three days."

A soft tap of a foot on the dirt floor. "M'not punishing you for anything."

Arya scoffed. "No? You haven't been locking me out of the forge, or taking on more work than you can handle, to avoid me? I don't know why you're being so stupid!"

"And I don't know why you're pretending like it can be anything different!"

"Gendry –"

He was almost shouting now. "It was going to happen eventually wasn't it? We were kidding ourselves, Arry. Some pissing high born lord was going to come along and –"

"And what," Arya growled. "Claim me?"

"Take you away from me."

There was more shuffling, and the sounds of small steps and Sansa suspected her sister had stepped up to the Blacksmith's chest.

"I'm not going anywhere you great lumbering idiot." There was more affection in her voice than Sansa had ever heard before. Even with Jon. "Sansa isn't going to marry me off. She was just trying to... Gods I don't even know what she was trying to do. Get to know I suppose."

Gendry huffed. "You weren't there. She made herself perfectly clear that you were not for me."

"Good thing she's not the one who gets to decide that, hmm?" Sansa heard grumbling and the soft slip of cloth meeting cloth. "Trust me Gendry. I know my sister. That wasn't her intent."

"Then what in the seven hells was it?"

"She doesn't know you. She was trying to change that. She can see how important you are to me. She's not completely stupid you know – unlike you. She knows by now you're not going anywhere. I think she just wants to know what we mean to each other."

Gendry huffed. "But you're sisters. Why did she have to come after me? She could have just asked you."

Even Sansa could hear the blush filling the silence.

"Arya, for fuck sake –"

"Yes, yes – I know! I'm sorry," and Sansa nearly fell through the door when she heard her sister's voice muffle and the soft sound of a sweet kiss. "I promise I'll talk to her. Soon. And with lots of wine, but soon."

Gendry hummed. "I mean – I can, if you want me to. It's just –"

"No, it's okay," Arya soothed. "But – what?"

Sansa thinks that might have been a laugh. "I have no idea how to – say what you mean to me. I'm a blacksmith Arry girl, not a bloody poet. I'm not even Tom o' Sevenstreams." There. That was definitely a chuckle she could hear along with Arya's raspy little laugh.

"Good," another kiss. "I can't bear poets. And Tom's an arse."

"Yeah he is," Gendry said fondly. "But –"

"I know, Gendry. Me too."

Slowly, carefully, Sansa peeked her eyes around the doorway, and saw her sister, wrapped all up in Gendry on her tiptoes, as he leaned down to peck kisses on her mouth, along her jaw and in her hair. He clutched her tighter to him, as he kissed her forehead, and cradled her in his embrace. His eyes were closed where he finally rested his chin atop her crown.

It was time for her to slip away.

As she walked back to her chambers, a soft smile played at her lips. Perhaps, she thought as she finally reached her room, and blew out the candles, she could add one more name to the list of people she could trust. Jon's name had been looking awfully lonely, lately.