Summary:

The next morning, Arya and Sansa have tea and discuss some things.

Author's Note:

As promised... two months ago (whoops!) here is the fifth part.

The reason for the delay is made up of several things, mostly my computer dying, finishing up my Auditing class, buying a new computer, moving from my apartment back home, and graduating college. None of which are a good excuse for this taking so long because I should have found the time, but I can't change the past now.

Arya was just turning on the electric kettle when Sansa stumbled out of her bedroom, looking bleary-eyed and not yet fully awake.

Opening the cabinet door to her right, Arya pulled out two mugs and set them down on the kitchen table. Then she leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms as she peered over at her sister.

"You look terrible."

And it was true. Arya was very tempted to take a picture for proof that Sansa Stark didn't always look perfect, but just this once she decided to give her sister a pass. Plus, she knew that last week Sansa had taken some less than flattering pictures of Arya herself and would prefer not to have them forwarded to Sansa's entire contact list. Of which, a year ago when Arya had moved in, Gendry had found his way onto said contact list.

So instead she just continued to stare at her sister, trying to commit it to memory forever. Now whenever she was having a rough time of it, she could just pull up this image of her sister with her rat nest hair and instantly feel better.

It took quite a long time for Sansa to form a coherent response, frowning at Arya and saying in a scratchy voice, "Thanks. I have a hangover."

Arya's eyebrows rose. "Sansa," she said slowly, as if she were speaking to a child and not her older sister. "You can't possibly have a hangover. You only drank water last night."

Sansa shot Arya an irritated look. "Not an alcohol hangover, dummy," she said, rolling her eyes. "I have a food hangover."

Mm. Arya's hand went immediately to her stomach, which had been feeling quite unsettled since she'd gotten up that morning. And whereas she was usually starving upon waking, the only thing that sounded good to her so far was a cup of tea.

"That actually makes sense," she admitted.

The look on Sansa's face now could most accurately be interpreted as "duh."

They had had quite a bit to eat last night. There was the popcorn at the movie before its unexpectedly abrupt ending… the burger Gendry had brought her… all of those lemon cakes at Jon's apartment. Arya also remembered vaguely other food being ordered and consumed somewhere in that equation, but couldn't recall what.

As the water in the kettle began to boil, making faint gurgling sounds, Arya walked over to the refrigerator to get some milk. There was a cardboard box sitting on the middle shelf and when she peered inside she saw a half-eaten pizza. Well, that answered the question of what else she'd eaten last night.

She had been half asleep after finishing off the lemon cakes, lulled into a peaceful nap by the conversations of her family and friends around her. And with the cold pizza to jog her memory, she did have a hazy recollection of eating a few slices in between dozing off. Arya also had a gut feeling that she'd rested her head on someone's shoulders whilst sleeping, but she didn't want to dwell too much on the implications of that.

With the bottle of milk in hand, Arya went to shut the fridge door when her stomach rumbled unpleasantly and she eyed the pizza regretfully. Maybe it would be better to skip the dairy this morning.

She placed it back in the fridge and then went to turn off the kettle. After pressing the "off" button, she took the kettle over to the kitchen table and sat down.

A loud chorus of rock band music began to play in the kitchen, and Sansa groaned, burrowing her head into her arms.

Arya pulled out her phone to find a new text from her older brother. "Robb wants to know if we want to get breakfast with him."

Sansa groaned again as a response.

Arya smirked, getting ready to text him back. "I'll let him know." Then her phone began ringing again. "It's Robb calling. Gosh, he's impatient." She went to answer it, then paused, pointing over Sansa's shoulder. "Hey, can you get the box of tea behind you?"

As Sansa got up to get their tea stash, Arya accepted the call. "I was just about to text you back. Sansa and I are going to pass."

On the other end of the phone, Robb gasped dramatically. "What?! Since when do you pass up food?"

"I'm not hungry," Arya said shortly, then added, "Too much to eat last night."

"But I'm going to your favorite place…" Robb sing-songed back.

Arya narrowed her eyes. "He's going to the diner," she told Sansa, but she didn't think it would make much of a difference.

As expected, Sansa turned around and harrumphed. "That jerk. He didn't eat practically anything last night. This is probably payback for everyone trying to force him to eat." Then she turned back around and reached up to get the box of tea off of the top shelf.

Arya was about to say something sarcastic back to her brother when she noticed something on her older sister. "Sansa!" she cried out in alarm, dropping her phone onto the table and circling around it.

Sansa leaned away from Arya's grasp with wide eyes. "What?!"

Slowly, Arya reached over and pulled down Sansa's nightshirt which had already shifted, exposing bare skin. On her upper arm were bruises that were distinctively in the shape of fingers. "Were you going to say anything about these?" she asked her sister with a pointed look.

As Sansa was about to open her mouth to respond, a voice came screeching out of Arya's forgotten phone. Sansa gave an amused smile and nodded to the table. "You better get that before Robb has a conniption."

Pinning Sansa with her best "we are still going to be talking about this" look, she snatched up her phone and held it to her ear. "Sorry about that."

"What's going on?" Robb's voice was heavy with concern. "Do you need to me to come over?"

Arya took a moment to study her sister, who was readjusting her nightshirt as if Robb could somehow see the bruises through the phone. She knew Robb would want to know about them, but Arya also knew that it wouldn't change what had happened. Sansa was no more in danger than before, just slightly more affected physically than Arya had realized.

"Arya?" Robb prodded.

Clearing her throat, she quickly said, "No thanks Robb. We're about to have tea. Talk to you later." Then she hung up.

Sansa, apparently deciding that she was going to let Arya be the one to broach the topic again, laid the box on the table, sat down, and began rummaging through their mish-mash of tea bags. "I'm thinking I'll just stick with English Breakfast. What kind do you want?"

"Sansa."

Her sister sucked in a breath, then plucked another tea bag labeled "Twinings: English Breakfast" from the box. "English Breakfast for the both of us then." She ripped open both of the packages and placed the bags in their respective cups. Then she went to grab the kettle but Arya stopped her, placing her hands gently overtop Sansa's. They were shaking.

Picking up the kettle, Arya poured hot water into each of their cups. "Were you going to tell anyone about the bruises?" She kept her gaze on her mug, watching as the steam rose out of it and dissipated into the air. Maybe Sansa would feel more comfortable answering if she didn't feel as much pressure.

"No," her sister answered honestly after some had passed. "I wasn't going to mention them. It's not a big deal."

Arya practically choked, even though she hadn't been drinking anything. "Not a big deal?" she rasped. "It's a huge deal."

Sansa looked up from her own mug and stared at Arya. "You're misunderstanding."

"Then explain things to me," Arya replied, trying but failing to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Sighing, Sansa plucked the tea bag from her mug and squeezed out the water. "I'm not saying that what happened last night wasn't a big deal. Of course it was. But does whether or not I have bruises change what happened?"

Arya was about to bite back that certainly did change things, but then realized that that was the exact same logic she'd used to reason with herself about not needing to tell Robb. "Alright, I suppose I can sort of understand where you're coming from with that," Arya admitted. "But, that's not why you weren't telling us, was it?" When Sansa looked away again, Arya knew she was right. "You didn't tell us not because it wouldn't change what happened," she continued, working through the idea as she spoke, "But because you didn't want any of us to know. You didn't want to face our reactions."

Both sisters seemed to be surprised at this. Arya at the idea that Sansa would feel the need to hide something like this from her, and Sansa at the fact that Arya was able to figure it out.

"Can you really blame me?" Sansa asked, suddenly pushing back her chair and standing up. At first, Arya thought she was going to leave, but then Sansa just circled around the table and went to their cabinets. When she came back around and sat down, she had the sugar shaker in her hand. With forceful motions, she poured in a mound of the white, granulated stuff, and slammed the shaker back onto the table with a loud thud.

Arya took the shaker and poured a small amount into her own tea. "What happened last night… Joffrey… the bruises. None of it is something to be ashamed of."

"That's easy for you to say," Sansa muttered with a frown, stirring the sugar into her tea. When she took a sip, Arya half expected her to wince at the sweetness, but she didn't bat an eyelash. "People don't look at you like you're weak. Like you're damaged."

"No one looks at you like that. Not me, not Robb, certainly not Gendry who isn't all that great in a fight himself… Oh, I see. You're worried about how Jon sees you."

Sansa glared at her sharply. "You're delusional."

With a smug expression, Arya blew on her tea and took a sip. "Actually, after everything I've discovered in the past 24 hours, I believe that we can all acknowledge that my logic is quite sound."

Sansa didn't respond.

"Here's the deal," Arya said, leaning across the table towards her sister. "Either we talk about Joffrey or we talk about Jon. You pick, but I'm not letting you stew over there in silence."

"There's nothing to talk about concerning me and Jon."

"Please! Finding out that you've been going over to his apartment explains everything." Pretending to look unconcerned, Sansa sipped at her tea. "It certainly explains why for the past few months whenever we're with him he can't seem to keep his eyes off of you."

Sansa's eyes widened and she started choking on her drink. "What?" she asked, putting a hand to her chest. Even when coughing Arya could hear the faint glimmer of hope in her voice.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She waited until Sansa had settled herself again to repeat her previous question. "So… are we going to talk about you and Jon then?"

Recovered, Sansa shot back. "I don't know, are we going to talk about you and Gendry?" Arya promptly shut her mouth at that. "Don't think I didn't notice you using his shoulder as a pillow last night."

Arya was quickly losing control of this conversation and it was gearing into places that she was definitely not discussing. Ever. "Fine. Fine. I won't mention it again," she said, although they both knew she was lying. "But," she added, holding up her pointer finger, "I do think you should go talk to him. He's probably still worried about you."

Sansa actually seemed to mull the suggestion over, then nodded. "I think you're right." Then she rose from the table and headed to the front door where they kept their coats and shoes.

It took Arya a moment to process what was happening. Then she jumped out of her chair and followed her sister. "Wait! You're going now?" she asked incredulously.

"If I wait too long, I won't ever get the courage to do it," Sansa said, slipping on her jacket.

"Okay, but maybe you should change into something else first…" Arya drew out. "And brush your hair."

Sansa's hand flew to the rat's nest on top of her head and her eyes bulged comically. Then she shrugged off her jacket and ran to their bathroom.

As Arya walked back to the kitchen to finish her tea, she saw a light turn on and heard a faint shriek coming from Sansa's general direction.

Hopefully I'll have the final part up soon, but please be patient. And thank you to everyone who has read and commented so far!