Aaand it's time for another exciting chapter, and the return of mega angst (I could only hold it back for so long!) There may be another long wait before the final chapter, Drug, is uploaded, as I'm having issues with where it's going right now. Sorry about all this, and double sorry for it being such a short chapter! Seems when I type rather than write, I lose 1000 or so words in the process...

~Calm~

"Joffrey. Cersei. Ilyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

A thin voice in the night, almost drowned out by the snores of their captors. The captors Gendry has chosen to stay with.

"Joffrey. Cersei. llyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

That he has picked the very men that almost killed them makes her upset. That he has also decided that her and her family could never be enough fills her with a cold fury. How does he not see that she doesn't care about his heritage, couldn't care less who his father was or what titles he has? Bastards make the best boys, she has found - but then it seems bastards always leave her in the end. She thinks of Jon and hurts.

But Water Dancers feel no pain. Water Dancers do not know how to grieve.

"Joffrey. Cersei. llyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

With every name she lets the hate fill her, consuming her until there is nothing else left. She'd woken up with the roar of the crowds and the scent of blood heavy in the air, and there had been no blue eyes to anchor her, no voice to calm her racing heart. Alone she'd choked back screams, alone she'd surfaced from the tide, and alone is safer than anything else. You cannot be left by someone who is already gone.

Where friendship had once saved her, now it is hate that keeps her heart beating.

"Joffrey. Cersei. Ilyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

What a fool. She has allowed herself to be seduced by the hope he stirs in her, and in doing so has been distracted from her purpose. Love will not bring her father back, and so she has no need for it at all. She'd loved her family, and now they are torn apart, maybe forever. She'd loved Syrio, and he had died. She'd loved Hot Pie, and he had left. She'd loved Gendry and...

"Joffrey. Cersei. Ilyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

She covers her heart in layers of ice, and vows never to love again. There is no one but herself she can trust, and no one but herself to save her when the nightmares come. She is alone, and that is how it should always be. Like a lake, she is calm and steady; she fails to realise that though the surface of the water is still, beneath it the undercurrent rages on.

"Joffrey. Cersei. Ilyn Payne. The Hound. Polliver. The Mountain."

When Melisandre comes for him in the morning, voice sweet with honey and false promises, she argues to keep him safe - not out of love, she convinces herself, but because the Brotherhood had welcomed him with open arms and then given him up in a heartbeat.

See? she thinks to herself. Love and trust can only end in betrayal. But she is still a child no matter how she tries to forget, and it is a child's love that fights for him.

I could've been your family. I would've kept you safe. I never would've let her take you. I don't care if you're a bastard blacksmith or a knight or a king, you're still my stupid Bull.

Please come back.

She watches him being taken away, and her frozen heart is breaking.