Author's note: I know you all waited so long for this. I know. This story gave me a whole lot of grief, and I honestly wasn't sure how I wanted to end it. It was a battle of writers block, the desire to give up writing fanfic all together, and the fact that I started university and that was a whole other thing. Thus, this epilogue is a sort of 'take it or leave it' thing. Some of you wanted one thing, some of you wanted the other. This is what I envisioned the ending to be. It's short. I'm sorry.

There was a damp chill in the air. Not the kind that bit at once, but slowly, sinking cold

teeth down through Arya's coat and clamping hard on her bones. She drew her arms

more tightly around herself, but there was no blocking it out. Once a cold like that had

settled in, there was nothing to escape it. By the time she realized it was crawling deep

past her skin, it was too late. No amount of crossing her arms would hold the cold at bay.

It was pleasing in an empty way. Fitting, for the scenario. Fog pushed thick

around her, moist with the taste of rain. A bitter wind whipped past, spilling even more

cold down the back of her neck.

"I didn't expect to see you here."

Arya jumped, but she expected he had been there a long time. She had felt the

weight of another person for some time, but hadn't had the motivation to see who it might

be. Now, she turned, and gave the stranger a curt nod.

It was Bronn. She had seen him before. Tyrion Lannister's right hand man.

"Well, maybe for you family," he went on; though it was quite obvious she was in

no mood for conversation. "But never over her—"

"I wasn't here for her," Arya snapped, wanting to make that point very clear.

"Wasn't, but now you are," Bronn replied, raising an eyebrow. Arya scowled and

turned back to her point of fixation. Bronn came to stand beside her. For a moment, he

too was silent.

"Can't imagine you're sorry," he said.

"No," Arya said rather harshly, but then a sort of exhaustion fell over her and she

sighed. "Or maybe I am. I don't know."

Bronn seemed to chew this over for a minute.

"I can't believe they didn't send you to prison," he said with a chuckle.

"I had a good witness," Arya muttered dully. She could feel Bronn looking at her.

"Yeah you did, didn't you?" He said slowly, appearing to mull that over as well

with inappropriate care. "I'm surprised he's not here now. Don't you two come as a

packaged deal?"

Arya gave him a withering look. The comment was not worth a response, but

there was something about Bronn that gave her a sort of nagging to speak.

"Some things you have to do alone," she said.

"Yes," Bronn agreed. "And I can't imagine he'd ever want to see that name

again."

He gestured to the grave in front of them. Arya felt a stab of something, panic

maybe, or perhaps it was something else. She could never be sure of her feelings when it

came to him. Protectiveness, she decided. The desire to shield him from everything

bad and horrible that lay in the past. Maybe if he could forget, she could.

"So why drag up old ghosts?" Bronn was asking her, nudging his elbow towards

the grave. "It's been what, a year?"

Arya shrugged.

"Maybe I was curious," she supplied lamely.

"Wanted to make sure it was over," Bronn said, as if reading her mind. "See that

she can't haunt you anymore."

Arya looked up at him, perplexed by this very uncharacteristic insight. Bronn

shrugged at her quizzical expression.

"It's what Tyrion does," he said. "I figured you two weren't very different."

Normally, this comparison would send Arya into a flurry of outrage, but now she

hardly cared. Maybe she and a Lannister shared similarities. It didn't matter anymore. The

names meant nothing. That was all in the past and she was quite content to be done with

it. It was buried, just like Cersei Lannister, down in the cold depths, one day to be

forgotten.

With this thought in mind, she drew away from the grave and nodded a silent

goodbye to Bronn. Pulling her coat higher around her throat, shoulders hunched, she

made her way back to her car. In the fading fog, she almost thought she heard Bronn

shout after her, "Give my regards to Gendry!" but that might have well been a figment of

the whistling wind.

She turned and peered back to see him, but the grave was too far away and the fog

too thick. She realized she had never asked Bronn why he had been there, by himself,

but she decided it didn't matter. Everyone had dead to bury, and she was rather tired of

death. After all they had gone through; it was time to give living a chance.

Also an RIP to Philip Seymour Hoffman. I am deeply sad about his passing.