A/N: Lots of family-ness and tickle battles.
Part II
Arya squirms in her seat as her father bears down on her, suddenly seeming about ten times taller than usual. "The Free Cities?"
"Arya..." Her mother's voice drips with dismay.
"You know I'm not happy here in King's Landing, and since I'm not starting college until next year, I thought I'd take some time out and go travel. I think it'll be a good experience." Arya tries her very hardest to sound adult and responsible.
Sansa interrupts helpfully. "A lot of people rail around the Free Cities. I was talking to a few girls, and they said they had an amazing time, and Arya's always been good with languages. Wouldn't it be great for her to get some real practice in Braavosi and Volantene?"
Her father seems to be bending slightly, but Catelyn's face is rigid in its disapproval. "I've heard what young people get up to over there! If you had someone to go with you, it'd be fine, but-"
"Arya is an adult, Catelyn," her father reminds her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "She's more than able to protect herself." He gives his daughter an amused look. "Besides, she can almost pass for a boy with that new hair of hers."
Her mother sighs. "Gods above... Coming home hurt, cutting off all your lovely hair..." She focusses on Arya, and finally, smiles. It doesn't quite reach her eyes, but it relieves Arya anyway. "But you'll call us every day, won't you?"
Arya nods furiously, her heart rising in her chest. "I'll try!"
"You will." Her father stands up, and the squeak of his chair seals the decision. "When are you leaving?"
"Day after tomorrow, hopefully. Sansa will drive me to the airport." Her sister lays her hand over the back of her chair in a show of solidarity.
"Very well." Her father's phone starts ringing, and he answers it with a little difficulty; he can barely handle a block, never mind a smartphone. He exits the room to conduct the conversation, directing an apologetic hand gesture to his wife.
Her mother watches him as he walks out the door, accepting his apology with a smile; when it shuts, she returns her attention to the sisters seated side-by-side. "I must go collect Rickon from training; I don't want to leave him out in the rain. Sansa, do you mind putting the chicken on in twenty minutes?"
Sansa stands up, dusting off her navy skirt. "Sure!"
Arya gets up as well to find her mother's coat and her keys; Catelyn can never find them herself, and always appreciates help. When she hands them over, her mother holds her shoulder.
"Be careful, my little wolf," she whispers, that singularly maternal mix of concern, exasperation and love shining in her deep blue eyes.
"I will." For once, Arya doesn't wriggle when Catelyn presses a kiss to her cheek.
When the driveway is empty and her father's footsteps have faded up the stairs, she finally lets the guilt settle on her. She crumples into a chair and lets out an indistinct moan. Arya loathes lying, especially to her parents. Her father raised her to be better than that, to be better than to betray the trust in her mother's eyes.
Sansa sits down beside her, but in a far more graceful manner than Arya's haphazard descent. "You don't have to do this, you know," she tells her. "You could just give up and go across the Narrow Sea to travel. You could see the Titan of Braavos, taste Tyroshi pear brandy, hear the bells of Norvos..."
The offer is tempting. She closes her eyes for a second; she can almost smell spices in the markets of Pentos and feel fine Myrish lace...
The moment dissipates. Arya opens her eyes.
"I can't," she says, simply.
Sansa nods, resigned. "I'll be there to help you every step of the way, okay?"
Arya snickers. "What am I doing, having a baby?"
Sansa's jaw drops, scandalised. "Arya! Don't joke about... Wait." Her eyes narrow. "Unless you are... By the gods. What were you doing with that mechanic?" Sansa dives for her stomach.
It's Arya's turn to shriek at her sister, but she stops when she notices the mirth sparkling in her sister's eyes. She goes for Sansa's belly as well, and they spend the next few minutes attempting to tickle the other into submission; they end up on the ground, Arya gasping, tears of laughter trickling out of Sansa's eyes.
"I will help you, though," Sansa says suddenly. "Always." Her hand clutches hers.
Arya smiles at her, and feels a sudden rush of both hatred and gratefulness towards Joffrey Baratheon. What he did was despicable, but it dragged she and her sister, kicking and screaming, together. Since they moved down to King's Landing, she and Sansa formed the kind of bond she never thought they'd have when she was thirteen and Sansa was unreachable, in more ways than one.
"Is everyone nice and cosy? Do you want me to get you two a blanket?" Arya turns her head so quickly it cracks off the hardwood floor.
Bran is in the doorway, head tilted to the side. He's grinning, mouth screwed up in his particular smile, and she beams back.
"Join us!" Sansa says brightly, patting the floor beside her.
"Not worth the hassle," he replies, wheeling over to position himself between them. Arya uses one arm to pull herself up, and Sansa the other. Once vertical she ruffles Bran's auburn hair, of a slightly darker shade than Sansa's Titian curls; Robb is even darker, almost brown, but Rickon is fairer, more of a strawberry blond. She is the only one left with Stark dark brown.
"Your hair is longer than mine now!" she exclaims, tugging on a stubborn curl that springs out of the crown of his head.
Bran swats her hands away. "Keep your razor away from me, will you?"
She gives him a half-hearted scowl. "Keep that up, and I'm not bringing you a present from the Free Cities."
"Firewine," Brans says decisively.
Sansa gasps. "Bran! What would Mum say?"
He shrugs, the movement jerky. "I can't get any worse, can I?"
They stare at him in uncomfortable silence before Arya bursts out laughing. Sansa joins in, giggling tentatively.
For nine months after the accident, Bran wallowed in self-pity, and refused to leave his room no matter how much his mother pleaded. Three months ago, when the family moved down to King's Landing, he suddenly developed a dark sense of humour that left their mother floundering as she tried to formulate a response. Sansa thinks the upswing is due to the fact that their new home, and King's Landing in general, is much more accessible than the narrow corridors and winding staircases of their old keep and the icy streets of Winterfell. Privately, Arya believes it's because no-one knows him here; to them he is just a kid in a wheelchair, not the Stark boy with so much potential who had a tragic accident. In Winterfell people pitied him, mourned the loss of his boxing talent; here, they just ignore him.
"I'll bring you back a Lyseni girl as well, if Meera will allow it," she promises, and he huffs, cheeks colouring; Meera is his pretty occupational therapist, and Bran refuses to admit his small crush on her. Her brother Jojen is his psychologist. They used to all be good friends when they were small; Arya particularly liked Meera, who always cycled faster than Robb and Jon and let Arya ride her bike. Her little brother, though... He had and still has a habit of beginning a sentence, leaving it, and finishing it either in the next few minutes or up to three weeks later. Weird, but harmless. When confronted about these oddities, Bran just shrugs, a sheepish smile on his face, and says that as long as he himself isn't crazy, his psychologist can be.
Sansa elbows her. "Don't you have some bags to pack?" She communicates something else with her eyes. Bran is clever, as sharp as a knife and far more observant than any kid his age has a right to be; he'll pick up on any vagueness or uncertainty on Arya's part, and he'll blow her cover to bits.
She wishes with all her heart that she could involve him. Bran idolised both Robb and Jon, and his brother's departure played a part in his accident that Jon never forgave himself for. However, she can't risk him getting hurt, even though he'd hate the coddling.
She rolls her eyes at Bran, who gives her a conspiratorial grin, the one they reserve for when Catelyn is being obstinately motherly, or when Robb is emulating their father, or when Sansa displays her Tully roots. Family, it seems to say, with a psssh! tacked onto the end. Her heart twists. She'll miss Bran and his dry jokes and crinkle-eyed smiles; Robb and Rickon too, of course, but Bran will be the worst.
She bounds up the stairs as she always does; her father calls to her from his study, call concluded. "You'll have to marry a farmer," he tells her, grey eyes soft, "with all the thumping you do up and down those stairs. You're rooted in the earth."
"And move to the Reach?" She wrinkles her nose. "Too warm. Thanks, but no thanks."
He shakes his head, an affectionate smile curling his lips. "Stark in name and Stark in nature." His phone rings again, and he shoots her a contrite look as he answers, struggling with the touchscreen.
Finally, she reaches the relative sanctuary of her room. She can hear Sansa downstairs, humming as she prepares the chicken, Bran's newly deepened voice sounding every now and then. Her father's stern tones float down the hall. The dogs are careering around outside, battling over an old sock, except for Lady, who naps sedately under an elm.
She falls backwards onto her bed with a thump, staring at the ceiling. Her room is rather nice; the wall behind her head is painted wintry blue, and the rest are a nut brown, the colour of sand. Posters of bands and movies plaster the walls. Her punching bag leaks stuffing in the corner, a set of weights inherited from Robb scattered beneath it. Her laptop blinks on her desk, flashing periodically. Beside it is a TV, accompanied by various consoles. Clothes spill out of bags in the corner. She had better hide them soon; if her parents inspect them and find heavy jeans and oversized t-shirts, rather than tank-tops and flimsy shorts, they might begin to doubt the veracity of her story.
The luxury of her room is a far cry from where she's going to be staying, in a shitty little studio in the Bottom with no bedstead and an icebox. Sansa almost fainted when she saw it, but Arya dived into haggling with the landlord. She told Sansa it was out of the way, and it was cheap. She didn't tell her that it was no more than five blocks away from Gendry's place.
She is more willing to throw a virtual stranger who treats her like an actual person into the fray than her brother. She trusts a car mechanic with no degree more than she does her own parents.
Arya wonders what that says about her.
But something in her bones tells her she can trust Gendry. Even when he was looming over her, blue eyes ablaze with fury, she knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn't dare to try to hurt her. In any case, if he did, she's sure she could flip him and split his chiselled chin in two.
She stares at the ceiling, at the lampshade punctured with holes to throw the constellations of the North across the walls. A few months ago, she harboured aspirations of returning home, of attending the university at White Harbour, of returning to her boxing team and her friends and her woods. She is Northern to the bone; the blood of the First Men sings within her. She was made for stone water and iron earth, not the constant sunlight and muggy breezes of the Crownlands.
But she can't go home. She can't even go here. This is her last week before she loses herself, becomes someone else entirely. Arya Stark was a noble girl with the world at her feet, a fierce slip of a thing with ambitions as high as they were honourable. Arry Snow will be a kid raised on housing estates and educated in overcrowded classrooms, a secondary school drop-out with naught but an inflated ego and a loaded gun to his name.
She is not excited. She is simply resolute. Steadfast. Jon will be back with his family within the next twelve months. It is not a promise, not a wish; it is a fact. It is the truth.
Beforehand, she had her doubts. Could she? Would she? Should she? Now, with Gendry at her side, she is certain that she can do it.
After several minutes' deep thinking, she rises with a grumble, bed creaking in protest; she'll never get out of here unless she finishes packing her bags, and if she dallies her mother will get involved, and then things will truly get ugly.