Arya crawled alone through the second set of tunnels; her mind rushing in to fill the silence and the dark. She had left Tyrion and Jaime in the dragon chamber; glowering at each other like a couple of two year olds. She fervently hoped that the glowering would eventually translate into an argument of some kind. Arguing was a far better thing than not talking at all.

When Tyrion had emerged from the tunnel, alive, exhausted and insufferable, Arya had run across the chamber, plummeted to her knees and seized him in a bone-crushing hug (which had naturally prompted the little man to enquire if she was drunk or unwell). Jaime, on the other hand, had stood riveted to the spot like a gargoyle, unable to move or speak as Tyrion had asked a thousand frantic questions about Daenerys, and whether or not she had escaped.

Arya, observing from Tyrion's body language that telling him the truth would do him far more harm than good, had patiently provided him with a thousand, identical and perfectly untrue assurances that Daenerys' injury did not pose a significant threat to her life, and that she would recover quickly. And still Jaime had said nothing, and still Tyrion had not done so much as look at him; acting as though Arya were the only person in the room as she pressed him to tell the story of his own escape.

When the fighting had started (Tyrion had been throwing up in a flowerbed at the time), he had torn back to the great hall immediately; fearing that some evil had befallen Daenerys. Having ascertained that the queen was nowhere to be seen, he had then made a combined use of his height and his knowledge of the Red Keep's secret passageways to seek her in the great hall's immediate surrounds. No sooner had the situation rendered him confident enough to reasonably conclude that she had escaped, however, that his luck had run out, and he had been chased all the way to the Tower of the Hand by a group of drunken Northerners, who had mercifully decided to put his miraculous disappearance within the confines of his own bedchamber down to sorcery, and had investigated no further.

The whole story had pained Arya, not because of its content, but because Tyrion and Jaime had not looked at each other once in the telling of it, and when she had finally put her foot down and forced the two idiots to greet each other, they had done so as strangers: formally and grudgingly; like two lordlings of opposing tastes forced to play together while their parents were visiting.

Arya's mind had then turned to their own escape, and she had determined to go out alone into the city, and establish which alliances and allegiances had changed overnight.

'One of my masters has a house here,' she had told Jaime and Tyrion, 'I'm bound by honour code to report once a month on the king and queen's secrets, and on anything else of interest I might hear.'

'What did you say?' Tyrion had sharply interrupted.

'My master will be able to tell me exactly where things stand,' Arya had continued, ignoring him, 'without any crying or hysterical embellishment, both of which I'd have to take into account if I simply went to a tavern. He might even help us, if I can convince him there'd be something in it for him.'

'Gods be good, you're a fucking spy!' Tyrion had exclaimed, looking crestfallen.

'Well what the fuck else did you imagine I was doing on the Kingsguard?' Arya had asked, deeply surprised, and a little annoyed, that Tyrion hadn't surmised as much the moment she had arrived in Meereen.

'I know of no Faceless Man elder in King's Landing,' Tyrion had stubbornly persisted.

'There are too many of us in the capital for there not to be an elder in permanent residence,' Arya had replied, 'it's hardly our fault you lot never pay attention.'

'There are how many – but – but – does Varys know about this?'

'Not as far as I know.'

Jaime, who had remained silent till then, had chosen that moment to interject with even more stupidity.

'Surely you don't expect me to let you go alone,' he had retorted.

'Surely you don't expect me to let you come along,' she had drawled, in as annoying a manner as she could muster.

'Arya!'

'Jaime.'

'Can you…will you… will you at least tell us where to look if you don't come back?'

Arya had changed her face at that; hoping it would destroy all evidence of the warmth rising in her chest, and as she had felt the mask spreading over her face; her features disappearing beneath those of a beautiful Volantine girl who had come to the House of Black and White long ago to die, she had grinned wickedly at Jaime and Tyrion; both of whom had blanched and stared in horror. She had turned away from them, then, and had re-entered the tunnels on her hands and knees; and as the light, the earth, the sound, told her where to go; she had fervently hoped that her face, at least, would give the two idiots something to talk about.

Daylight was glowing ahead of her now, and the smell of smoke rushing through the tunnel mouth to meet her, and she quickened her pace and scrambled ahead; the light and the smell, drawing ever closer.

She emerged from the tunnel into a morning desolate with ash and dust. Ruins rose burning and smoking around her; empty shells of buildings; empty streets; a silence not of this world; a greyness. Smoke burned at her eyes, and choked up her throat…charred bodies littered the road; some curled up like children; some lifting their arms upwards as if in supplication…a child came dashing out of a nearby house and ran shrieking across the street before her, darting into the ruins on the opposite side and disappearing; its face so horrifically burned, so hairless, so black, so red, that it might have been a boy or a girl, and her Facelessness did not rise up to tell her which. She could hear people screaming nearby…for help, for pain, or because there was nothing else to do... and the devastation went on as far as the eye could see. Her devastation.

Arya tried, and failed, to suspend her guilt somewhere within herself; to look at it later and not let it affect her now. Now, she needed to calm herself, and to be presentable and unassuming for her meeting with her master.

But she could not be calm. She could not put her feelings in a box and lock them away. But unless she succeeded in getting herself firmly and immediately under control, her master would know it the moment he saw her, and then she'd be caught in a shitstorm of note.

It is of little matter, she thought, at least now I may tell him where No one has gone, and not have to risk lying to him.

It would be a despicable lie, of course. A selfish one. But that would not stop her from telling it. Because for the past month, the longest month of her life, a state of fear, worry, panic and anger at herself had lingered constantly in her mind and in her vision each time she closed her eyes. Because minute by minute, second by second, ever since some ridiculous five-minute-long conversation on a balcony on the night of her welcoming feast, her Facelessness had been dying; slowly at first, imperceptibly, then faster and faster, in larger and more frightening chunks of serenity, cold-bloodedness and peace of mind.

She had not seen her master since it had started, and she feared what he would do when he saw her. Because this was nothing like what had happened when Daenerys had tried to wake her up: mood swings, tantrums, flashbacks, nightmares, demons in her head that could come screaming and scratching out of her at the sound of a particular word or the potency of a particular smell. Her master had seen her many times after that occurrence, and had found it extremely funny. But this…he would punish her if he saw this; if she did not lie well enough about what to her felt like going blind and deaf at the same time while the huge energy of mind that usually went into constant calculation and observation diverted into other, stupid places that it shouldn't be frequenting at all.

Arya snorted to herself and wondered why she had used the word 'places' when she could simply have said 'Jaime.' After everything that she had seen and felt and experienced…after everything she hadn't…after everything that she had worked for, it was almost unjust that this insanity was happening to her at the hands of a madly-irritating, intensely-arrogant, utterly charmless shit, who was a Lannister to boot, and who…Bran…gods…but who was, and who might just be…the truest friend she…

Except he wasn't her friend, and she didn't want him to be. Too much had happened for them to be stupid friends. But nothing had happened…much…and yet ever since that first time at the feast…when she had reached out and touched him…an invisible, limitlessly powerful thing, made of iron and fire, had existed in the space between her and him; burning No one to cinders over a slow, beautiful flame that never went out. And underground, in the chamber with the ladder, when Jaime had helped her stitch up her arm, the iron and the fire had taken hold of her Facelessness and had strangled it completely; she had felt it die just as she had felt the heat of Jaime's skin through each strip of shirt he had used to mop up her blood, and just as she had known that he could feel the heat of hers…embarrassing, stupid…and tiny, absurd things that didn't mean anything had crowded in on her senses and drowned them: the way he winced each time she stuck the pin into her arm; the way he ignored it when his hair fell into his eyes; the scars on his neck and the way they would change in the light…and whatever this thing in the space between them was, it was terrible, and painful, and…good…because being near him hurt, and looking at him hurt, but it hurt in the best way there was; the Someone way…and then he had made her angry; and No one had come back to life and nearly killed him. And as she had held him against her, alive, she had wanted to scream and cry in terror at what she had almost done…and at how her own stupid sentimentality had let it happen.

Facelessness never dies, you stupid little girl. The Red God takes what is his, and nothing will deny him his wish.

And yet No one had never been all of her; never, not even after Jaqen died. She had been No one…with an empty space; a space that Daenerys had filled two years ago; and though Someone had been born again, it had only been as a little ghost, who came ripping out of Arya's soul when rage did; leaving her to serenity and to the cold for most of her waking life.

But with him…with Jaime…it was the other way round; No one sometimes, Someone all the time… and she loved it: arguing with him, laughing with him, the feeling of his arms around her, the heat of his mouth as it pressed hungrily into hers, and the way his emerald gaze always seemed to understand what she could not put into words.

It was terrifying. How could she be Queensguard…and live for nothing and for no one but her queen, and…be this way? Who would she save if she had to choose between them? Who would she kill should she someday stand between them with a sword in her hand?

What would happen if she turned into a ruthless, cold-blooded killer every time Jaime decided to be a jackass? What if she killed him by mistake?

Arya paused where she was and put her hands on her knees; inhaling the smell of burning stone, burning flesh, burning air –

What if I kill him? What if I kill him? What if I kill him? What if I kill him?

She breathed deeply, and thought back to the men she had killed the previous night; how she had stood behind them as though from atop a glacier, her hands steady, her heart silent. She invoked the fields of emptiness within her and tried to gaze across them; summoning Facelessness to her; calling upon it to bring her peace; to descend across her eyes and protect her when she came before her master.

King's Landing the Grey, King's Landing the Burned. If he notices, then this is why you have lost yourself. This, and nothing else.

'Who are you…No one…who are you…' she murmured to herself.

A shadow fell across the stones in front of her; a shadow where there was no sun.

'Valar morghulis, Servant,' a gentle voice said.

Arya straightened up immediately; her heart lurching as she faced the man in white.

'Valar dohaeris, Master,' she replied, bowing, what the fuck is he doing out of his house?

'Servant, you are unwell?' the man in white asked her.

'Yes, Master,' she responded.

The man in white gazed calmly at her.

'Perhaps this explains why you have misunderstood the meaning of 'tell no one,' in the matter of Master H'ghar.'

Arya ran. The world turned black. Her limbs turned to water. And to any person passing by, she seemed nothing more than a beautiful girl, fainting in the arms of a man in white.

'You like her,' Tyrion smirked, from his place beside Jaime in the dragon chamber; breaking a silence that had gone on forever.

'You're completely mad,' Jaime replied; wondering if Arya would notice if he immediately retreated to the opposite end of the room.

Tyrion's grin widened.

In the past, Jaime might have grinned with him; even when he himself was the butt of whichever joke his brother was no doubt about to make. But there was a malice in the way Tyrion was smiling at him that was so utterly uncharacteristic that Jaime could do little more than stare, and try to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

Tyrion cleared his throat theatrically.

'I was watching you when she mentioned leaving alone –'

'You were looking at me, and now you're talking to me? Has winter come already?'

'– and you turned white, brother. White.'

Jaime bit his tongue, smothered his own discomfort, and did not reply. His brother had never been spiteful before.

Did I do that to him?

'I might even have done you the courtesy of laughing at you were it not so pathetic,' Tyrion sneered.

'Will you please be quiet?' Jaime snapped.

Tyrion smirked triumphantly.

'How old are you, brother? Five-and-forty?'

'You keep track of my namedays? I'm touched.'

'Well whatever your age, I'm amazed at your stupidity. Beautiful young girls don't fuck broken old men unless they're paid.'

'Only you would know.'

'And then there's the matter of her brother, and her father, and your trying to kill her when she was a girl, and – shall I continue?'

'Only if your intention is to make me fall asleep.'

'Gods, you really are pathetic.'

'At least I can stand to be told the truth, which is more than I can say for you.'

Jaime instantly regretted his words as all the colour drained from Tyrion's face; mockery and spite replaced by hatred and disbelief, and worst of all, heartache.

'Ah, yes,' Tyrion said softly, 'the truth. The truth that was meant to set you free.'

Jaime looked at him in silence; the truth and the untruth of those words binding him with ropes made of guilt and self-loathing and despair.

'Tell me,' Tyrion continued, in a disconcertingly pleasant voice, 'what did you think would happen when you told me the truth about Tysha? Did you think I would thank you for it?'

Jaime tried to reply.

'No, but –'

'Why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning?' Tyrion snarled abruptly, 'from the moment I walked into that fucking hall and found you and Father together? Why did you lie?'

'Father told me –'

'Do not talk to me about Father, Jaime!' Tyrion shouted; his face an agony, 'Father changes nothing. I was a miserable, terrified little child –'

'I know,' Jaime murmured.

'You were a man grown; you had your own life –'

'My own – are you mad?'

'You could have told him you would have no part in it; you could have refused –'

'The same way you refused to fuck the girl when everyone else was done with her?'

Tyrion struck him hard in the face. It hurt, but not as much as his brother's eyes did; their black, their green, like gateways to the seven hells.

'Tyrion,' Jaime said, forcing himself to look at his brother, 'no Lannister had his own life when Father was still –'

'Don't – you fucking dare,' Tyrion growled.

There was an agony of a silence; punctuated only by the torches crackling in their sconces, and the sound of Jaime trying not to talk.

Tyrion stared hard at the dragon mosaic; as though he'd never seen anything more fascinating; his face screwing up in concentration; his voice steady and unbroken when he addressed his brother once again.

'I spent…my whole life…wanting to be you. My tall handsome brother; admired by all the world; a knight straight from a song…and my brother. Mine…I didn't blame you. Not for Tysha, not for myself. If anything, the whole fucking mess only made me love you more. Why did you decide to tell me the truth after hiding it for so long? Why?'

'What else should I have done?' Jaime asked quietly.

Tyrion looked at him.

'You should have stayed away and let me die.'

'Tyrion –'

'Don't.'

They were spared the pain of another tortured silence by the sound of scratching, scrambling and complaining as Arya emerged from one of the tunnels, clutching two saddlebags that she had somehow managed to drag along with her.

'Lions of the Rock, I bring food and wine!' Arya roared, and immediately began to cast about for a place to put the saddlebags; scurrying rapidly in one direction, changing her mind, scuttling back the way she had come, changing her mind and changing it again, pacing, pacing, pacing, dancing with indecision and babbling all the while; and Jaime was getting to his feet in horror, and Tyrion beside him doing the same, as he saw that her doublet was completely undone, her eyes huge and black, and her body…and her mind…

'There'll be horses waiting for us outside the city tonight,' Arya jabbered, walking from left to right and back again across a distance of four feet, 'so we can go anywhere, Lannister brothers, but not till tonight.'

Jaime stared at her; unable to move; unable to think; wanting to help her…but frozen…but stopped…She was pacing madly up and down as Aerys had done at the end, trapped within herself like an animal, and pacing, pacing, pacing, as she began to look for something in one of the saddle bags, which she still carried on her shoulders.

'Aegon is in league with Sansa!' Arya sang, pace, pace, pace, look, look, look, 'she gets her men to orchestrate the wedding massacre and make it look like Daenerys died while caught in the crossfire; the black cloaks go after Jaime and make her a widow again, just because; Aegon frees the North and lets Sansa's son take the Stark name. Brilliant! AHA!'

She ripped a wine bottle from one of the sacks and threw it to Tyrion; laughed uproariously when the force of the throw knocked him over; deposited the bags on the floor in front of her with a crash; and continued to pace, and speak; throwing her hands up in the air and twiddling her fingers expressively.

'The wedding massacre and the queen's death cause widespread panic and increased tension across all Westeros, if that's possible,' she continued, pace, pace, pace, 'darling King Aegon steps in to resolve said tension all by himself; [pace, pace, pace] everybody loves him! Brilliant!'

Jaime walked slowly towards her.

'There's no proof, of course,' she said, pace, pace, pace, 'nothing; just deductions and whisperings; anyone would think it was entirely Sansa's doing if they and we didn't know better.'

'Arya, what's happened to you?' Jaime asked; his voice so soft he could scarcely hear himself speaking.

'Nothing at all!' came the reply, pace, pace, pace, 'I'm fit as a fiddle and ready to die all over again!'

'Arya – stop doing that,' Jaime said, gently touching her shoulder and trying to make her stop pacing.

She hit him so hard the blow almost knocked him over.

'Don't touch me!' she screamed.

She resumed pacing, seriously and intently, as though the world would come to an end were she not permitted to walk to and fro; and when Jaime tried, once again, to make her stop…

It was as if she had lost her mind.

She fought like a demon; struggling, shrieking, scratching, kicking, screaming, as Jaime seized her by the shoulders, and then around the waist; her ears deaf to every word he said to calm her. She tried to claw his eyes out; she tried to bite him; everything about the way she fought savage; primal, as though all that she was had been shocked out of her. Every plea that she be calm only had the opposite effect; and her screams were hurting him; killing him; her screams, and the thought of what she might do to herself if he let her go.

She elbowed him hard in the stomach and burst from his grip; making his heart lurch and stagger in his chest, and she dashed to the far end of the chamber and turned to face him; her face ashen and wide-eyed and alert; too alert; a mask of terror and desolation. He took a step towards her. She took a step back.

Jaime jumped as Tyrion's voice abruptly interjected from somewhere to his left.

'Show her that you're not going to hurt her.'

Jaime unbuckled his sword belt and let it drop to the floor; making Arya jump, and stare at him. Then he showed her the palms of his hands, because he couldn't think of anything else to do, and immediately felt like an idiot. A golden hand was not much use in winning the confidence of a person who was out of her fucking mind.

But as Arya gazed intently at Jaime's hands; her entire head glancing frenetically from left to right and left again and right again; she did not seem to stare at the golden hand for any longer period of time than she did at its flesh-and-blood counterpart. The thought made him smile affectionately, in spite of himself. She was just as careless when in full command of her senses.

Arya was moving uncertainly from one foot to the next, and breathing deeply and hard, and as Jaime slowly began to approach her, she started to hum tunelessly; as though singing herself to sleep. She kept her eyes fixed on him as she hummed, and side-stepped, and the closer he came, the more terrified she seemed, though…

Not of me, he realised, it isn't me she fears.

'Don't touch me,' Arya mumbled as he came to her.

'I'm not touching you; I'm just putting my hand out,' Jaime replied; stretching his left arm out in front of him; his palm facing her, 'touch it, ignore it, I don't much care. You choose.'

He took several steps back, and waited.

For a few minutes, Arya's eyes seemed to blur; moving from Jaime, to the space around him, and back again. She moved several feet to the left, and then several to the right; humming all the while; keeping her eyes fixed on him; waiting for him to follow her. His arm was starting to cramp. He didn't move.

Finally, she began to edge forward. She took tiny steps; every footstep imbued with the desire to run away again. He had never seen her look so small and frightened. He waited for her.

Her eyes were shining with tears by the time she put her hand out. She looked so, so frightened. He waited for her. She came closer.

Their fingertips touched. Arya's fingers clutched his. Then somehow, her arms were around his neck, and she was whispering his name into his doublet as though she hadn't said it in years, 'Jaime. Jaime. Jaime,' and he was holding her tightly and rocking her gently and thanking the gods she was alright; and when he looked at her, he realised that she was sobbing, and too exhausted, or too uncaring to pretend otherwise.

'What have they done to you?' Jaime whispered.

She shook her head frantically, on and on; stopping only when he held her to him again; and when her eyes slowly closed; as though with relief, he wanted to kiss her until she forgot what crying was.

'Jaime, they've ruined my arm,' Arya half-whispered, half-sobbed, 'the one you helped me fix.'

Jaime froze; dread clutching at his heart and turning it to ash.

'Let me see,' he said.

'No,' she sobbed; hysteria growling at the back of her throat again.

'No, no, no, Arya, look at me,' Jaime persisted; framing her face with his hands and looking into her eyes, 'look at me.'

'I'm afraid,' Arya whimpered.

'I know,' Jaime whispered.

'They made me drink something,' she continued softly; laying her head on his chest and tightening her grip around his neck, '…I saw things…'

Jaime felt his hand moving to stroke her hair, and his lips touching the boiling skin of her forehead; though he was fairly sure he had not intended to do either.

'It's alright, my love,' he murmured softly, 'you're not there, with them. You're here with me.'

He hadn't intended to say that either.

Arya looked up at him. She had stopped crying. Her hand cupped his cheek and traced the lines of his face, and he felt sure, now, that she could feel his heart beating, faster than it should be, faster than he had ever intended it to be. Then her hand dropped, and she was mutely offering the end of her right sleeve to him; her left hand moving slowly to her collar.

Her face screwed up in pain as he helped her out of her doublet; the absence of her shirt making the leather stick to her skin. And when Jaime looked at her right arm, he saw that the wound they had sewn up together had all but disappeared; covered up by a precisely-executed but horrific burn that disfigured the skin from shoulder to elbow; as though a maester had been forced to cauterise the wound on the battlefield because he had run out of silk. As though a slaver had decided to brand her.

Jaime almost jumped at the sound of Tyrion gasping in horror. He had completely forgotten that his brother was there. And he forgot about him yet again as anger boiled out of his heart and took hold of the rest of his body like a fever.

'Who?' Jaime growled.

Arya shook her head; tears forming in her eyes once again.

'They know I told you about Jaqen. I don't know how, but they know.'

'I want names,' Jaime persisted.

'They'll kill you,' Arya whispered, still shaking her head.

'I don't give a fuck if they kill me,' Jaime snarled, 'Who?'

Arya's entire body was trembling in pain, and her voice when she spoke was both small and fierce.

'I do not need you to die for me; do you understand me?'