Okay so explanation: To clear some things up, I really didn't enjoy writing the fix the way I had been writing it, and I realized that I had always really wanted to write it this way instead, and so I scraped the old chapters and replaced them with these. Same premise, same basic story, just a totally different way to go about it. Arya is still 16, soon to be seventeen, and this is still the mob, it just starts in a different place and a few things have been changed. The old chapters aren't gone completely, and if you want to read them, there's a link to them on my profile where my information is. If you didn't like those chapters, please give this story a second chance. I promise this new approach is way better!

Gendry

Gendry was exhausted. His fingers were slick with grease and sore, aching like an old man's, stiff and unsightly as he rubbed them together, trying to work out the tension and the numbness in them. It had been stupid, he knew, to go back to work at such a vigor after what he had done last weekend, but if Gendry was one thing, he was stubborn. He was not about to let defeat in the ring mean defeat in his work. But... though he had tried with all his might to keep his work up to its usual standard, there was no denying that the fighting was starting to lower his performance. And his boss was starting to notice as well.

But the taste of money had been so sweet, and he needed money, desperately. His job at Tobo Mott's mechanic shop paid him only scrapings, just barely enough to buy groceries and toothpaste. He kept trying to save up, but his piggy bank was empty, its belly hollow and its eyes pleading. Every time he passed it, he felt a stab of failure. No matter how hard he worked on one car after another, it would never be enough. At this rate, he would never have enough to buy his own shop.

Every day his dream seemed to be pinched smaller and smaller, until it was nothing but a joke, just like the piggy bank that sat on his dresser with nothing but a few coins. The joke seemed to mock him just like his coworkers.

"Wants to own his own shop," they'd croon. "Trash, that's what you are kid. Your mother was a whore and your father, well... Who knows? Who cares? No one like you is going to own their own shop."

Those were fighting words, and Gendry was stubborn. Every time they mocked him, he would grit his teeth and repeat the words in his head. That's what you think, he'd say to himself, but I'll show you sorry lot. I'll show you all.

And that's what he endeavored to do. Whether it was honestly or not was the only thing. Gendry would have liked to do it honestly but... with some things you had to get your hands dirty, just like with cars. And so he took to the ring.

He was big, he knew, and strong too, but he woefully lacked technique. What he had been thinking when he stepped into Robert Baratheon's ring he could not say. A fool would even flirt with the mob, or so much as glance at Robert Baratheon, the man who ran it, and his horde of blonde haired Lannisters. But Gendry had gone willingly, talked to the right people and gotten himself a spot in the fighting pit, all in honor of Ned Stark's arrival in King's Landing. The smell of money, of thousands of crisp, green bills had turned him crazed, he knew, and when he had been beaten bloody, he had learned his lesson.

Gendry was done with fighting, and he was done with shady deals and getting his hands dirty with anything but car grease. It would take a long time, and it wouldn't be easy, but he would get his own shop and he would get it honestly, by god, or he wouldn't get it at all. I'm not that person, he told himself, I might be a white-trash bastard, but I'm not a vicious, greedy killer. I'm not so self centered as to grab for things that I didn't earn.

Yawning, he stretched and finally turned off the lights, shuffling towards the door that would lead to the basement. He couldn't afford to live on his own, so his boss had let him use the little cramped room under the shop. The plumbing was shit, and the electricity flickered, and he had caught more then one rat, but Gendry liked living so near the shop and the cars. It allowed him to work as long as he wanted, and often that was well into midnight. As was the case now.

He opened the door and turned on the lights, which blinked on and off feebly, and started down the stairs, shutting the door behind him. It creaked loudly, like it always did, and he had to jiggle it to get it to shut. Yawning, he descended the shifty stairs and into his little cramped room, trying not to rub his eyes with his still dirty hands.

Some idiot had tried to put wall paper on the cement walls, but the moisture from the faulty pipes had sent it peeling. Gendry had tried to rip it off, but some of it just refused to be torn away, so there it stuck, clinging to the walls in a death grip and looking hideous. Besides the paper, there were a few things taped up, like a calendar and a few pictures of Gendry's favorite cars, but not much else. His dad had never been in the picture, and his mother hadn't been one he would ever want to put on his wall.

Shuffling past the bed with the saggy mattress, Gendry went into the small space of the bathroom and washed his hands, scrubbing away the grease until they were clean. Dried blood swirled down the sink as well as the dirt and grease, and he had only himself to blame. He had gone down kicking and screaming, but he had gone down just the same.

"Those are some impressive cuts, boy."

Gendry let out a yell and jumped, slamming his knee into the sink and swearing loudly, his eyes exploding in pain as his knee throbbed. He whirled around, facing his intruder, his entire body seizing.

"Fuck you," he snarled, gasping. There was a dark chuckle, and then Yoren stepped into the light.

The light wasn't much improvement. Ugly and thoroughly unbathed, Gendry was surprised he hadn't smelled him a mile off. Yoren had the look of a homeless man, were it not for the nice but bruised leather jacket and new pair of black boots. He was a member of the Night's Watch, a police force up North that kept the peace... while conveniently ignoring the mob.

"We want no part in any of it," Yoren had said to him once, but Gendry had a hard time believing it. It was hard to believe something was keeping the peace when it was asking you to kill someone.

"This is no part of the Night's Watch," Yoren had snarled. "You'll be good to remember that."

Whatever it was, Gendry had done it, damn him. He had been young, angry and stupid. After his mother's death, he had been homeless and expelled from school, a kid of sixteen, full of rage at his father who hadn't bothered to give a fuck and at the world. Yoren's offer of money and a way to unleash his pent-up rage seemed brilliant to him. Dangerous, a face to beat that he would never have to see again, but along with that had come money and promise. Promise for a better future.

It was a few robberies, mostly, and odd jobs that Gendry didn't really know what were all about, but he had played his part blindly, knocking out guards and beating people bloody. But when one job had gone wrong, and all hell had broken loose, Gendry had been forced to kill a man, and that had ended it all in one great, crashing glory. After that, he washed his hands and got his head straight, graduating high school and collecting what little money he had saved to work at Tobo Mott's. He had never, ever, expected to see Yoren standing there, in his room, still smelling the same. He probably hadn't bathed since Gendry had last seen him.

"That wasn't very kind," Yoren said with a simpering look. Clutching his knee, Gendry glared at him.

"What are you doing here?" Gendry demanded through clenched teeth. "I thought I told you I've done with you! I'm not working for you anymore."

"I know what you told me," Yoren said, looking around the room and chuckling. "But I couldn't help but think you'd regret that decision when you hear what I have to offer."

"I don't care what you have to offer!" Gendry snapped, straightening up. "I don't want to hear it! I want you to get out!"

"Not very friendly, are we?" Yoren sighed, sucking the air through his disgusting teeth.

"I ought to report you to the Night's Watch!" Gendry shouted at him. "All the shit you've done! How long do you think they'd lock you up for?"

"Not longer than you," Yoren shot back him, his eyes black and steely, but not threatened in the least.

"How'd you even get in here anyway?" Gendry demanded. "The door's jammed, I would have heard you... How long have you been in my room?"

"A couple of hours," Yoren said with a shrug. "Your toilets a bit messed up, I must worn you. And your bed isn't too comfortable either. I can't help but think you're not happy in a shitty dump like this."

"I am," Gendry snapped. "I'm perfectly happy, so you can get your smelly ass out-"

"No, you're not," Yoren cut across him lazily, drawing something out of his jacket. Gendry flinched, thinking it might be a gun, but then he saw that it was only a vanilla colored folder. "Or else you wouldn't be entering illegal, underground boxing matches."

Gendry felt his cheeks flare.

"How'd you know that?" He demanded but Yoren laughed.

"Trust me," he said, "that was easy. So is this job, if you will take it."

He chucked the folder onto the bed between them. Gendry made no move to take it, he just glared. Yoren laughed again.

"You are stubborn, aren't you boy?" He said, shaking his head.

"I'm not a boy," Gendry said angrily. "I'm twenty-one-"

"Oh ho ho," Yoren cut across him drily. "Pardon me, you looked like a boy, dependent on everyone around you, living in some basement with a shitty job-"

"I love my job!"

"-and a shitty life, with no prospects, no education, and no parents. Looks to me like you could use yourself a fairy godmother."

"Oh and you're supposed to be her?" Gendry shot back fiercely, but he knew, in that moment, that Yoren had him. Because he was right... About all of it. Maybe not about the job, but it was one thing to be the greasy boy everyone kicked around. It was another to own your own car shop.

"There's big money in this," Yoren said softly, totally serious. "More money than you could ever dream of."

Gendry eyed the folder warily.

"What do I have to do?" He demanded. "I'll not bloody my hands again, not ever."

"I can't promise anything," Yoren said gravely. "You'll have to look and see for yourself."

Reluctantly, his heart swelling with apprehension, he reached out and gently took the folder, picking it up and staring at it, his fingers running over the smooth surface.

"Well, are you going to finger it or are you going to open it?" Yoren snapped. Patience was lost on him. Gendry scowled, but did as he was told.

"Arry the orphan boy?" He said dubiously, raising his eyebrows. Yoren did not so much as blink.

"That's right," he said with a nod.

"And... And all I have to do is protect this kid?" Gendry asked, sure this was some sort of fluke.

"Make sure he comes to no harm, that's right," Yoren said with a nod. "All the way to the Wall."

"What's so important about this kid if he's just an orphan?" Gendry wanted to know. "What's so valuable about keeping him safe?"

"Never you mind," Yoren snarled gruffly. "There will be no questions, only an answer. Are you in or are you out?"

Gendry looked back at the name. Arry. Just that. Nothing else. This little kid could be anyone. He could be the presidents son, or some bastard, just like Gendry, who had been born to the wrong parents at the wrong time, and someone wished him harm. The thought made Gendry feel a strange sense of trepidation, and he rubbed the back of his neck, the hairs standing on end.

"Well?" Yoren demanded.

"Sorry," Gendry sighed, though it did taste sweet. He threw the folder back. "I've got my job and I'm not about to ditch it."

"I had a feeling you might say that," Yoren said with a sigh, turning to go. "So I fixed that little problem."

"What?" Gendry demanded, confused.

"You don't have a job anymore," Yoren said, turning back to him with a wane smile. "You're fired."

"You can't do that!" Gendry shouted. "You don't know how hard-"

"I can, and I did," Yoren said sharply. "Save it kid. There's a bus, leaving at eight o'clock tomorrow. Be on it."

And with that, there was a loud creaking from his weight on the stairs, and then Yoren was gone, the door shutting behind him.

Arry. Arry the fucking orphan boy. Whoever he was, he had given Gendry a world of trouble, and Gendry had a bad feeling that this kid was about to give him more.