Whenever the weren't on the battlements or in the library, he was shy. Sansa noticed how he wouldn't look at her, and how he would become panicked whenever she approached him in the forge. It had been a week since she began teaching him how to read in the library, and Sansa had begun to feel a real connection with her betrothed, but in the following seven days something changed. She had first noticed it the day after he had arrived, when she had gone down to breakfast and he had hastily excused himself from the table. When she sought him out in the main hall, one of the serving girls said he had gone to the forge and had been beating the life out of some metal. For a week that was the only answer she got - he's in the forge, hammering. She was smart enough to know when someone wanted to be left alone - Gods know she had experience on that end - but she began to miss having company apart from her screaming, sickly cousin and her lecherous guardian, whose hands often found their way on her shoulder, or playing with her hair, as he waxed on about strategy and when she should be married. She had taken to rereading the books she had loved when she was younger, but her mind kept drifting off, lost in memories of snow and the soft fur of her long dead Lady. On the seventh day, when she couldn't take it anymore, she swapped out her gown for a simple linen dress and cloak and walked down to the forge.

He didn't notice her come in- he was too busy hammering away at some poor piece of metal. Sansa stood in the doorway, her eyes traveling up and down his body. He was muscular, with large hands and chest hair that traveled the length down his body. Sansa always wondered why men would work without shirts, but at this moment, she was grateful for the gendered quirk. She leaned against the doorway, watching his hands twist the hammer idly as he considered his work. He turned to the water and plunged the steel in, and Sansa watched the muscles of his back ripple as he dipped and drew it back out. Heat bloomed inside of her, and she almost lost her voice.

"You've been in here a while," she said. He jumped, startled to have heard someone. She removed her hood and walked into the forge. Her long hair was dyed black again, and pinned back into a messy knot.

"I've been..." he looked at the table and reached for his shirt. Pulling it over his head in a show of decency, but what Sansa knew as a means to have extra time to think. "...working."

"On what?" She said, letting her fingers glide over the smooth pieces of metal that lay on the table.

"Nothing. Anything," he picked up a piece and flipped it in his hands. "They're all scraps. Not anything can could be made into something useful,"

"I can talk to Lord Baelish," she said. "Perhaps he can get you what you need,"

Gendry scratched the back of his head. "We have what I need, the smith just won't let me touch it."

"Why?"

"He thinks me a nuisance. Just some lowborn dropped into his lap. No one knows about..." he trailed off, still embarrassed to meet her gaze.

"Our engagement," she finished for him.

"Right,"

Sansa nodded, and looked at the piece of metal before her. Copper shined back at her, dancing in the firelight.

"Do you only make weapons?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Helms, armor, anything a soldier needs,"

Sansa picked up a small piece of copper that had been forked at the top, with five pieces branching out away from the other. She turned to him and held it up.

"This one looks like a flower," she mused.

Gendry considered her. This Stark was so different from the one he had met on the road. Where Arya would have stepped on flowers, Sansa found their likeness in the smallest scraps. Anya's fire was hot and angry, Sansa's was warm, calm-but still had the ability to burn. Gendry had watched her play off Baelish, he wasn't as stupid as everyone thought him to be. He picked up on the ways that she would smile at him, notice those small shifts of power that lasted seconds at the longest, where the most cunning man in all of the Seven Kingdoms was at the mercy of a sixteen year old girl. She knew it, too. He could tell she didn't trust him- and before she had been introduced to him he had seen her in the main hall, pacing up and down. Stark girls always seemed like they were plotting escape.

"I could make a prettier one," he said, almost too eagerly. Sansa's eyes met his. Gods, she was beautiful. "Why have you secluded yourself in here for seven days?"

Gendry was speechless. She thought he was avoiding her. And in a way, she was half right-but not because he held any disdain for her. Rather, he was scared. The minute he saw her he was scared. He had avoided her because he didn't want to embarrass himself with his lowborn ways - Arya hadn't minded, but what of her sister? The one who loved songs and poetry and handsome men? He was a bastard, dirty with soot and shame. Working was the one thing that calmed his mind, and as he pounded away, he had been trying to think of how he could better himself. He didn't want a life at court, but something about Sansa made him want to impress her, to learn songs and know which bloody fork he had to use to eat a crab or whatever it was people with money ate. He didn't think she could want him as he was, and was mapping out a strategy to change.

"Thinking," he said. He ran his hands across his beard. "I feel safe in forges, I suppose."

Sansa nodded. "I felt safe in the Godswood, back home," she looked around the forge. It was hot, and she was sweating through her dress, but something about this place- she felt comfortable.

"Could I stay here?" she asked. "Sit while you work?"

Gendry was at a loss for words. All he could do was nod.

She smiled at him, not with one of those fake smiles that she gave Petyr. From under her arm she pulled out a book, and found a perch on the table. Ladies shouldn't sit on tables, but she wasn't a lady - not in the Vale.

"What are your reading?" Gentry asked after a beat.

"Fairytales, child's stories," she said. "Embarrassing,"

"No," he responded quickly. There was a pause as they locked eyes. He reached for the scraps on the table, and a tool to shape it.

"Would you read me some?" he asked "While I work?"

Sansa was surprised by the kindness in his voice, and turned her attention to the book in her lap.

"'Once upon a time...'" she began.