A/N: I'm back home now, everyone! I had a great time, but it's equally great to be back home writing :). Enjoy Chapter 6!

Chapter 6

Robb POV

Daenerys Targaryen? Of all the people who might come and vouch for me, Daenerys Targaryen? Who I've never spoken a word to in my life, who I always thought was far too quiet and introverted to ever feel enough compassion towards someone to risk their reputation to defend them? And what about that speech she made? She fabricated a few vague stories, and somehow convinced Mr Baelish simply with an authoritative demeanour I never knew could exist inside of someone like that.

Humans are a judgemental species. We think we know who someone is from a few brief glances across the classroom; from the way they walk, the way they dress, the way they respond to teachers' superfluous questions. It's only when an opportunity like this comes up, that someone like Daenerys has a chance to tell someone like me what I've missed in them all this time. It's frightening when you think about it; there are hundreds of people I know, but don't truly know.

I try to my clear my head, and construct at least one rational thought about what's happened today. What she did was crazy. A type of craziness you think only happens in stories about courageous heroes, who risk their lives to save random strangers, not in real life. When I saw her shock of white blonde hair enter the office, I immediately thought of her as one of those fictional heroes, so brave, but also simultaneously so insane. Insane enough to risk everything she's ever worked for just to persuade a very stubborn man of the innocence of someone she knows nothing about. More than a part of me thinks that I too would do something like that, impulsively, but I'd deeply regret it later. Maybe she will, too.

But perhaps it wasn't an act of bravery at all, nor one of madness. Look at what happened from a different angle, and it seems to be the ultimate act of friendship, compassion, or love. I'm not entirely sure which of the three. Could Daenerys have done what she did out of personal feelings towards me? Or, to see the whole thing under a very different light, could there have been something in it for her? Both seem impossible. Daenerys has never seemed manipulative or calculating, but she's never showed any particular interest in me either. But I can't be certain about anything. If I've learnt anything from the fifteen minutes I spent in that office, it's that there's a lot Daenerys doesn't let people know about her.

Daenerys and I walk silently down the hallways in the direction of our next class. I know not to try to talk to her, and she knows not to try to talk to me. There's nothing really to say, and her head is probably no less confused than mine. We walk in synchronisation, and we don't make eye contact, but it's not awkward. I think we'd both prefer to forget about what happened rather than talk about it. That's until I realise we're not headed to a classroom like I thought, but rather to the school's entrance.

"Daenerys, we have Maths next. It's on the second floor, not down here on the ground floor."

"Who said we were going to Maths class?" she replies, still looking forward, instead of at me.

"I just assumed– "

By this point, we're standing down the hallway from the school's front door. Daenerys cuts my rambling off by looking me straight in the eye and saying yet another thing I wouldn't expect from her.

"Would you like to get the hell out of here?" she says with a vaguely fierce tone, through gritted teeth.

"You never struck me as the type to want to 'get the hell out of here'." In fact, there are several things she never struck me as before now, that she has proved me wrong about.

"Never struck you as the persuasive type either, I guess," she says sarcastically, reading my mind. "But come on, Robb. Just think about what everyone in class would say if you sauntered back in like nothing had happened. We can just miss this afternoon, and by tomorrow, all the conflict-hungry idiots will have forgotten all about it. And then there's the small matter of me. They won't just ignore me now, like they always have done. Going back now would practically destroy my goal of getting through school without being noticed."

"Is that your goal?" I ask, suddenly intrigued. She's definitely never really been noticed before, but I wouldn't have guessed it was a conscious goal of hers to remain invisible.

"See, that is the kind of thing we could talk about if you skipped school with me. I mean, you don't necessarily need to come, but I can't see why you would want to go back to class, or back home, and I can't think of anywhere else you'd want to go."

"Where are you going to go for the rest of the afternoon? Home?" I realise now that, apart from her father having died fairly young after a life of scandal, I know nothing at all about Daenerys's home or her family.

"No! My brother will kill me!" she says, obviously trying to hide her anger and fear. "He never really got over what happened to our father, his downfall and everything, and he thinks our family deserve a better reputation than they have," she explains, calmer now, but still sorrowful. "And he was kind of a failure in school himself, so basically he's completely relying on me now. Considering the sort of person he is, that doesn't make my life too great."

"I'm sorry," I say. It's pathetic, but it's the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

"Don't be," she replies. "That's only the start of the things you should know about me. And I'm guessing the same is true of you." I smile slightly at this. Daenerys definitely can read people better than most. Perhaps it's all that silent observing I've always associated with her.

"You never did say where we could go, if neither of us can stay in school or go home."

"I know a place we could go, if you're still up for it."

Daenerys has used her persuasive skills once again. "I am." I reply, more confident than I've been in a long time.