Summary:

Arya and Gendry arrive at Jon's apartment, find out exactly what's been happening, and have a small reveal of their own.

Author's Note:

My apologies for disappearing for a few days. I had some internet issues so that I wasn't able to post on the Tumblr challenge page on the designated date. I was going to wait until "Fill Day" to post the remaining three chapters, but that seemed like such a long way off. Also, I'm not really pleased with this chapter whatsoever, so I needed to just get it up so I could move on (I'll probably come back in the future and rework it, but for now it is what it is).

"See... Arya and Gendry are eating," Sansa told Robb with a smirk gracing her lips.

Robb didn't reply, instead choosing to watch as the youngest two in the room tossed pieces of cake up in the air for the other person to catch in their mouth. After Gendry threw a particularly short pass, to which Arya had jokingly told her friend to get his act together, Robb couldn't help but note the drastic change in behavior from when she'd first entered the apartment that night.

Yes, Arya was her usual easy-going self now, but a few minutes prior when Jon had opened the door to let them in, Arya had immediately rushed to Sansa with uncharacteristic concern. Arya had disregarded her sister's attempts to shoo her away and gave Sansa a lengthy once over to ensure that she was, in fact, still intact. Then she'd grabbed her hands to examine, no doubt having seen the scratches on Joffrey's face. Robb knew Sansa had scrubbed them thoroughly, but there must have been enough blood remaining, because, after a few seconds of inspection, Arya had nodded her approval and given her sister a one-armed hug.

Sansa had looked entirely uncomfortable at the unusual attention she was receiving from Arya and mumbled, "I'm fine, really."

Arya seemed to have come to the same conclusion as well because she'd dropped Sansa's hands, and upon spotting the food on the table, exclaimed, "Oh! Is that lemon cake?"

Jon had helped them drag chairs in from the kitchen, despite Arya and Gendry's protests that they'd be more comfortable on the floor. As they did so, Robb had gotten them up to speed on what they'd missed. He had hoped, although not expected, either Jon or Sansa to chime in, but neither had said a word through his explanation.

He was also hoping, as he now got to the part about Sansa secretly coming to Jon's for some time, that he could finally share in his shock with someone else. But that hope was quickly stomped out when Arya didn't bat a single eyelash at the reveal. She simply paused after tossing a piece of cake to Gendry and shot an unreadable glance at Jon. "I knew it."

Robb straightened his chair, asking her incredulously, "You already knew?"

Before answering, Arya dove forward and snatched a flying, yellow square from the air with her front teeth. "Not exactly," she said, mouth full of cake. After receiving a glare from her older sister, she took a moment to swallow before continuing. "I mean, after you told me on the phone that Sansa was here, I just connected the dots." At that, it was everyone else's turns to look surprised. "What? I can be perceptive when I want to be!" she huffed. "Plus, I hadn't seen Sansa cry in forever, either meaning that she wasn't fighting with Joffrey anymore..." Arya wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Or she was crying somewhere else."

"Alright, alright," Sansa intervened. "You're making it sound like I never do anything but cry!" There was a beat of silence and Sansa sniffed indignantly. "Fine! But it's a much healthier coping mechanism than beating people up." She squinted and turned her attention to everyone in the room, one by one, ending on her companion on the sofa to whom she gave a particularly meaningful look.

Jon paled, mumbling, "I didn't know you knew about that."

Sansa rolled her eyes. "Of course, I knew! Even an idiot could have put the pieces together when the day after coming to your apartment, Joffrey showed up to class with a black eye," she snapped.

Robb remembered the incident in question because it had been hard not to stare at the huge, hideous bruise on the young Baratheon's face as he'd passed by him in the quad. At the time, Robb had wished he himself had been the one to do it, but he supposed finding out it had been his best friend who'd thrown the punch was the next best thing.

Speaking of his friend, he focused back on Jon to find him looking regretful, but not at the actual punching part, only at the fact that Sansa had found out. "I'm not sorry I did it," he told her, expression hard.

"Nor am I," Sansa responded quietly, so quietly she probably hadn't intended for anyone else to hear. They shared a secretive smile that had Robb feeling like, not for the first time that night, he was missing something important.

Jon snapped his head back up, as if just realizing that all of the attention was on the two of them. A hint of red colored his cheeks, and he tried to divert the focus away on someone else. "So, Arya, what took you so long to get here?"

"Yeah," Sansa said, and Jon visibly relaxed as she picked up the new direction of conversation without missing a beat. "Robb said he called you over an hour ago. What took the two of you so long to get here?"

It was an incredibly enjoying sight to see Arya flustered since she was so rarely caught off guard. "Uh… I had to make a little trip first," she said, avoiding her sister's eye, and glancing around the room until her gaze landed on the coffee table. "You know, Sansa's right Robb... You are the odd one out." She grabbed a lemon cake off the tray and shoved it forcefully at her brother.

Amused, Robb raised an eyebrow but complied. "There," he said, making a big show of taking a small bite, even though he was still not in any mood to eat. "Now that we've taken care of everyone's sudden concern for my eating habits, can you continue?"

Arya looked like she wished a hole would appear in the middle of the room and swallow her up. Then Sansa suddenly gasped, causing Jon to jump a little. "Arya, you didn't!"

Although the two sisters always boasted that they were nothing alike, they were able to read each other surprisingly well.

Apparently, Jon had come to be able to read Sansa too, because after frowning at her face for a moment, he turned to Arya, who had stationed her chair beside the sofa, and patted her on the head like a puppy who had pleased its owner.

Gendry looked at Arya with a fond smile. "You should have seen her. It was brilliant." His voice held a sort of awe and Robb could tell exactly when Arya took note of it, because his sister, Ms. I'm Never Having a Boyfriend, actually blushed in response.

Robb, realizing he was once again the only one still in the dark, shouted, "Would someone mind telling me what's going on?!"

He didn't have to wait long to get his answer.

"I can't believe you did that!" Sansa shrieked, standing up from the sofa and appearing as though she were about to strangle Arya. "You went to Robert? The mayor?!" Her eyes were wide and furious. "Why? You had absolutely no right to do that!"

Arya was not going to be cowed, putting on a fierce mask of her own and throwing her hands up in the air. "I had every right! You're my sister and that psycho hurt you!"

Obviously taken aback by Arya's words, Sansa could only manage to sink back down on the sofa. Robb could see the protests fall away as her eyes softened and her shoulders slackened.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that beneath all of the fighting, deep down the two girls really did love each other.

There was a considerable lull in the conversation after that, eventually prompting Jon to ask, "So... what did Mr. Baratheon say?" Everyone turned to Arya and Gendry, wondering the exact same thing, although Sansa looked more reluctant than the rest to hear what had happened.

The answering smile on Arya's face at the posed question was so sharp and deadly, that Robb couldn't help but think that they all needed to be very concerned when Arya became a full-fledged adult. If not already. She was only eighteen and yet Robb had the feeling that if she wanted to, she could take every single one of them down with just a glance.

I've got the startings of the final two parts, but I'm still working on them. Look for those soon!

Thanks for reading and reviewing. I love hearing what everyone thinks!