Hey guys, guess who's back! Now that life has started to settle, this story can finally be finished! :D Here's day five of AxG Week, hope you like it :)

~Beauty~

Today, Arya thinks, is a beautiful day. There is rain, yes, and they are huddled in some tiny, miserable cave and shivering so much their backs ache, and yes there's no good wood for the fire and it's horrible and smokey and making tears run down her face, and yes, alright, she twisted her ankle a few miles back before the rain hit and now it's swollen and frankly horrifying to look at. It does not matter to her, though, because the boys are turned away, huddling as close as they can to the fire, and there is a secret hidden in her hands.

She parts her fingers slightly, allowing herself another look. It's a bad idea, really - her constant sneak peeks might attract their attention - but her eyes search it out all the same. A flash of fire red against muddied hands. They'd been running for shelter when she'd seen it out of the corner of her eye, and with the wind and rain howling all around her and Gendry's back fading into the distance, she had paused to rescue it from the brambles and tuck it inside her jerkin for safe-keeping.

She looks again.

At first, she'd been unsure of why she'd taken it - she'd never had much interest in that sort of thing, had outright hated it at one point, but something had driven her, something beyond her control.

Another look. This time she opens her hands fully, gazing down with something akin to fondness for the little red flower she cradles so carefully in her hands. She understands now what had drawn her to it. It's so obvious when she looks at that exact shade of crimson, turning and twisting it to catch the firelight. Such a little thing, and not a true beauty, she knows; the petals are crumpled around the edges, and there are spots and faded colours on one of the leaves. It doesn't matter, though, not to her. The vibrant red sings out in defiance against the imperfections and the rain.

She hopes Sansa is alright. She hopes against reason that the Lannisters haven't dulled her colours, that Joffrey hasn't hurt her. She hopes her sister hasn't forgotten how to smile.

Arya curls her fingers around the flower again and presses it against her heart.

He watches her from the corner of his eye. His gaze sweeps over the curve of her back and aches with longing and disgust. She can never know. He has been strong - it has not happened again since that night alone in the woods, no matter how the dreams plagued him, the memory of her teeth against his flesh stirred with every glimpse of her mouth. She can never know what happened that night, nor what threatens to consume him every night before or since. Arya Stark is a lady and a child, and he will never be worthy of her.

So why then had he stopped for it?

He tears his gaze away from her and looks down at the little bundle in his hand. Feathers and holly sprigs, that's all they were. They'd been tangled up together, protected from the rain by the brambles that had finally led them to shelter. He'd taken them immediately, sheltering them from the rain and Hot Pie's curious eyes.

She can never know.

And yet there is no denying that what he holds in his hands is a bouquet. Not a traditional one, perhaps... there are no flowers and ferns in sight, and the only plant is covered in sharp spikes, but then Arya is not a traditional lady. She is wild and free as the birds whose feathers he's found, as resilient and fierce as the holly. Winter is coming, but the wild things live on.

His mother, long ago before the sickness had taken her, had told him of how she'd always found comfort in the bright red and green of the holly sprigs, and had hung them around the house in winter to chase away the despair. He wants to tell her that she is the same for him. Every time he sees her, the uncertainty of their lives seems a little more bearable, the winds a little less cold. It is not love, not yet, but he wants to spend an eon by her side if she would only let him, to bask in her roughened beauty and give her all he has to give. Together in her castle they would live, she in furs and hunting leathers and he forging her fangs and claws. In the day they would hunt and camp and swim in the forest streams, and in the night they would feast on Hot Pie's cooking and slip away together - to his straw mattress, her feather bed, a nest of leaves in the woods - and explore each other with hearts laid bare.

But then, that is it, isn't it? Even if she was older, even if she was not so consumed by vengeance, she would still be a lady, and he a bastard blacksmith with no titles or armies or fine things to give her. He realises this and his heart falls, but it is a familiar ache now – an old friend that keeps him company after dreams of hope and freedom in her frozen homeland. It is stupid to think this way, stupid to long for a life he will never have and yet he is powerless to stop it.

It is then, staring into the flames, that Gendry makes his decision.

With one last look at her back and the ridiculous bundle of crap in his hands, he hurls it into the fire. He cannot live like this much longer. In his mind he can see only two options before him; a life spent pining away in misery, every day a torture - or he can leave now before it is too late and he is bound to her forever. The thought that he could tell her what he feels when she is old enough to be longed for does not cross his mind - all bastards learn their place long before they learn to speak.

She can never know.