Gendry

"I just want to know why."

Those were the words Gendry had said when Hot Pie stood at the edge of the table where they made sticky buns, looking down at the floured wooden surface rather than Gendry's eyes. Gendry crossed his arms over his chest and waited for an answer.

"You know she's going to be upset," Gendry said, feeling especially irked. 'I put my neck on the line for this kid,' he thought to himself, 'I was the one who pushed for him to come, and now he's gone chicken shit.'

"No she won't be," Hot Pie said at once. "She hates me."

"She acts like she hates everyone," Gendry said with a snap. "Don't use that as an excuse to cop out. I put myself out there for you. She didn't want you to come, but I said you should, and now you're leaving?"

"Come on man," Hot Pie said, looking at him earnestly. "It was only ever the two of you."

Gendry frowned, and for some reason he felt his face go bright red.

"What are you talking about?" He said defensively.

"Man you know," Hot Pie said. "You've gotta know."

"No I don't," Gendry snapped. "But if you want to do this than, fine. I guess it really is the two of us."

"Look man I'm sorry-"

"Save it," Gendry said shortly, "for when she wakes up. I don't care what you say, she's going to be crushed."

"I don't even know who she is," Hot Pie said feebly, but Gendry had had no time for his excuses. He left him standing there at the corner of the table.

She had been let down too, Gendry could tell. The instant he told her, there was a sadness and a loneliness that had passed over her face and she had bowed her head and looked away so he wouldn't see the betrayal she felt. But Gendry knew what it felt like to be abandoned, he knew it so painfully well that when she snapped and pretended to be happy about the loss of Hot Pie, he knew better. He knew exactly how she felt, and suddenly there was this incredible rush within him to show her how she was not alone, so he had taken her hand and told her just that.

"I'm not going to leave Arya," he had said, and he meant it too. Because if he left her... If he left than what would she become? For a second he looked at her and all he saw was her face after slitting Chiswyke's throat, the deadness in her eyes...

And when she reached out and hugged him, he felt her arms clinging to him, thin but fierce, and she had held him as if she didn't believe him. As if he was already gone...

"Gendry!"

"What?" Gendry asked, snapping out of his trance as Arya grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"There's a log there?" She said, raising her eyebrows. "You almost tripped?"

"Oh," he had been too lost in thought to notice. "You're seriously the stupidest person I've ever met," she sighed, rolling her eyes, but it was good natured and her hands didn't leave the folds of his jacket until after they had safely passed the log. When she let go, she still remained close.

"I hate this," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why we couldn't have just used a car..."

"Told you it was too dangerous," said Lem over his shoulder, a member of the Brotherhood. "Tywin's going mad looking for you. His men are combing the streets. Stealing a car would be like calling him up and telling him where you are."

"Read a newspaper," Tom, the one who liked to sing, chirped up, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a newspaper before chucking it back at Arya, who caught it, scowling. "You made the front page."

"'Millionare's daughter goes missing'?" Gendry read over Arya's shoulder as she opened it. "Isn't that a dangerous move on his part?"

"It's more dangerous for him if she's gone," Anguy, the one with the sniper rifle said. "You've gotta take into account that Arya's been at Harrenhal for months. The information she knows is enough to kill for, and if she went crying back to brother dearest-"

"I don't cry," Arya snarled, shoving the newspaper closed as they tromped through the woods.

"Tywin got way too smug if you ask me," Lem said, "keeping her there and not thinking she's escape. Never underestimate a Stark, that's what Beric always says. He was right. I heard you slit the throat clean apart of one of his men."

Arya shot a look at Gendry, but did not meet his eyes. She bent her head down.

"We can't walk the whole way to Riverrun," Gendry said quickly.

"Says who?" Asked Tom.

"Well it's ridiculous!" Gendry snapped. "At some point we've got to get a car or our feet will... I dunno explode."

They laughed.

"Once we get to the Peach we should find some ulterior mode of transportation," Anguy relented. "But until then you'll have to walk."

"Are we supposed to sleep rough in the woods?" Arya demanded.

"You slept in a sewer, didn't you?" Lem asked, raising his eyebrows. "This should be a leg up."

Arya scowled.

"I still don't think we should trust them," she said in low tones to Gendry. "The last time I saw it, the Trident flowed the opposite way we're going."

"How do you know? You don't even know where we are," Gendry pointed out. "It seems to me that the best thing to do is trust them, either way we're stuck with them."

He made an important head nod towards the large sniper rifle.

"Or we could run away," Arya whispered. "We've done it before."

"No," Gendry said firmly. "I believe them. They said they were on our side, and they haven't given us reason-"

"They kidnapped us!" Arya hissed. "For all you know they could be leading us straight to Tywin!"

"No they won't be," Gendry growled right back. "Do you remember when the Mountain broke my arm? It was because they were looking for them, the Brotherhood! Tywin's afraid of them. That must count for something."

This seemed to catch her argument, so Arya merely scowled, but Gendry had a funny feeling that this wasn't the last he was going to hear of her doubts. She wasn't unfounded, he supposed... But he didn't believe that these men, putting the sniper rifle aside, were dangerous. They could have hurt him when they caught him in the tunnel, but they didn't. They merely tried to calm him down and reason with him. No one had given him the time to reason in a very long while. Gendry had almost forgotten what it was like for people to be reasonable and just.

"Are we going to tromp through the woods all day?" Arya called out, still looking grumpy. "It's going to get dark soon."

"We're trying to make it to hollow hill," Tom sang and Arya rolled her eyes. "Shouldn't be long now, ehh Lem?"

"Nope," Lem said amiably. "Not long."

Arya pouted, and Gendry knew she hated to be made fun of. He watched her, out of the corner of his eye, as they walked. At times like these, she reminded him so much of a badly tempered child. He supposed she was the sort of girl that, when a boy pushed her and tugged on her braids, she'd knee him in the balls. Most girls would cry. When Gendry was little, he had seen it often. Girls like Arya who didn't take shit, even then, were rare. She must have had lots of friends who were boys. He wondered what she was like back then, how different she must have been. A whole different person.

"And here we are!" Lem called over his shoulder, winking at Arya.

They broke through the forest and looked up at a small slope of earth the rolled upwards and then down again in a perfect hill. Before Gendry could even stop her, Arya was racing up it, and he was racing after her, reaching out to catch her when she stopped-

"Look," she said.

They were standing on the top of the hill, and around them, in a delicate ring, there were what looked like a dozen stumps of what must have been huge trees, all perfectly spaced apart. Gendry gasped for breath, but Arya didn't even look winded. In the deep afternoon light she looked at him, and for some reason a smile broke over her face.

"Let's count them," she said eagerly, and then, as Gendry watched her in bafflement, she leapt on top of the one closest to them. "One."

Gendry shrugged and followed suit, getting on the one behind her and turning in the opposite direction.

"Two," he said.

Arya leapt nimbly from one stump to the next.

"Three."

Gendry was not so nimble. He sort of lumbered.

"Four."

"Five."

"Six."

"Seven," Arya called as they got farther and farther away from each other. They were at opposite ends of the circle.

"Eight."

"Nine."

They began to slowly curve back towards each other.

"Ten."

"Eleven."

"Twelve."

Thirteen," Arya stopped so that they were facing each other, one stump in between them. She smiled at him, and Gendry could only wonder what it was about this particular hill, and this particular ring of stumps that had brought about such a change in her.

"Fourteen."

They said it together, standing on the stump, and suddenly she was very close, but only for a moment. Arya gave him a half smile, and then she sat down on the stump. Gendry followed suit.

"It's a shame," Gendry said, running his palm over the ridges of the stump. "These are huge. They must have been ancient. It's too bad someone cut them down."

"They were ancient," Arya said, surprising him and he looked up to see her tracing her fingers over the rings in the stump, a tranquil and almost lost look on her face. "They're called heart trees, or rather they were."

"How did you know that?" Gendry asked, watching her as she continued to trace her fingers over the lines. There was such a tenderness in the act, and Gendry saw, not for the first time, the deep humanity that resided with her.

"We had one, back at Winterfell," she said softly, still absorbed in the stump. The glowing light of the evening shown against the pale smoothness of her skin, the outline of her cheeks touched with gold. Gold danced in her hair too as it tousled in the breeze. "We used to say, my brothers and I... That when we got married, we'd all do it out by the heart tree. My Dad used to tell us about how if you listened, really listened, when the wind blew, the leaves of the heart tree would whisper to you."

And suddenly it all made sense. Her sudden change in mood, the rare rush of happiness the stumps had brought her. They reminded her of home. They reminded her of her family and of the love they must have shared. To her, these weren't just stumps. They were sacred.

"What would it whisper?" Gendry asked softly. She blushed.

"I don't know," she said. "I remember sitting there for hours as a little kid and listening but I never did hear anything."

"They must have been massive," Gendry said, tracing his fingers over the circles as well. He lost track of thought for a moment, and their fingers brushed over each other like a whisper. Arya drew her hand back, her cheeks burning, but for some inexplicable reason, just for a second, Gendry had the strongest urge to take her fingers and tangle them with his. And then he was looking at her, and her hair was blowing in her face, so he reached out and brushed it behind her ear like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He found himself smiling at her.

Something flickered across her eyes and she shook her head, shivering, and then inched away from him. And suddenly, unexpectedly Hot Pie's words floated back to him. "Come on man, you've gotta know. It was only ever the two of you."

"All right you two!" Lem shouted. "Time to go! We've got the tents set up down by the trees and dinner's almost ready!"

Just like that the moment was broken. Arya hopped off the stump, wrapping her arms around herself and pulling her jacket closer, and then she walked back down the hill, the sun shifting downwards in the sky and casting a shadow over her as she went.

Jon POV next chapter! Taking a short, but sweet break from Arya/Gendry perspective to see what Ygritte is up to (why did she need all that money?), and what impending dangers Jon faces guarding the border.