Sansa had been a lady at three.

It seemed like since birth she knew how to curtsey, what dress was appropriate for what occasion, and even which stupid fork to use. She had pricked her fingers raw with sewing needles until she had mastered stitching, and brushed her hair until her arms were sore every night. She had starved herself at dinners at her septa's, and now Petyr's, encouragement, for their fear she would get plump. But as Sansa sat on her bed, finishing off the last of a lemon cake she had snuck from the kitchen earlier, her hair spread around her in a long, copper mess, with her betrothed snoring beside her, she didn't feel like a lady. She felt like a girl.

Sansa rolled onto her back and sucked the sweet juice off the tips of each of her fingers. It was late, and she knew it wouldn't be proper for her to stay out in the gardens. Petyr had the villianous habit of waking early, and taking long walks around the grounds. In addition, he had every servant in the castle under his thumb, and could make them talk with the slightest pressure. He would yell at her, tell her that if anyone else had seen she would have ruined their opportunity- opportunity for what, she didn't quite know, or at this moment, care.

It had happened earlier in the evening, when they had been sitting in the library and Sansa was showing him recipes that the kitchen hands had lent her. She thought the mix of numbers and words would challenge Gendry, but not completely stump him. He was smart- when she was younger, Sansa often thought intelligence was only an attribute of those who could afford to be educated, but watching how quickly Gendry picked up words, the ferocity at which her copied down his letters until they were perfect, and how he was getting better at sums than she was ("I'll need a new teacher soon", he had said when she couldn't make heads or tails of one of the equations she had found in one of the old school books), she began to realize that what she had believed before was the privileged outlook of a noble girl, and that intelligence appears in every class. She had met bumbling noble idiots with enough gold in their pockets to pay for the construction of thirty universities, and now she was sitting across from a boy who, weeks before, couldn't tell you all the letters in the alphabet, but who now seemed more well spoken and logical than half the men she had been surrounded by her entire life.

"This is making me hungry," Gendry said suddenly, dragging Sansa out of her trance. She had been drawing some flowers in the margins of one of the older books that SweetRobin had deemed to be reappropriated as a sketch book. She looked up and saw him holding up a recipe card for wild boar.

"We just had dinner," she smiled up at him.

"I just had dinner. You pushed around some meat on your plate,"

Sansa bit her nail - nasty habit, Petyr had scolded her for it before.

"I've been warned against eating too much," she said.

"Eating too much?" Gendry balked. He stood up and grasped her hand, gesturing for her to raise. "You're practically a stick. Didn't they feed you before I got here?"

Sansa searched for words that would calm him down, and assure him that she was being taken care of, but he spoke up before she could finish.

"Come," he said, pulling her towards the door. In the passing weeks since their kiss outside her room, he had gotten more comfortable with her, confident, even. Where before he seemed to blush and keep his head down whenever she entered a room, now he smiled at her and touched her lightly on the arm or fingers whenever she drew close. He was chivalrous, yet forceful, in a way that excited her. Any touch or small, knowing smile from him made a heat bloom in the pit of her stomach, and many nights since her gave her the rose, she would lay awake, thinking of his strong hands folding the metal onto itself, the sweat that formed on his forehead whenever he worked. Those night, she thanked the old gods and the new that she didn't share a bedroom with anyone.

"Where are you taking me?" she giggled and they crept down the stone corridor. Gendry was playing up his walk- tip toeing and pressing them against walls whenever they heard the on coming footsteps of a servant. Once during the mission he pulled Sansa into a small nook and held her close as a servant walked by, oblivious to the two of them. Sansa felt his hand on the back of her head, and looked up at his face, shethed in the not-quite-darkness of a hallway at night as he watched the servant leave, and wished they could stay like this; pressed against each other while inhaling the intermingling smell of forge and sweat.

"Coast is clear," he said, pulling out almost too fast. Sansa stumbled out, but caught herself before falling, just in time to notice Gendry's hand readjusting the front of his trousers. Oh.

It was a quick trip to the kitchen from there, and the two were quickly raiding the counters and cupboards for any bread or left over meat. Sansa had just found a small loaf when Gendry gave a small cry from the other side of the room. Quickly, she picked up her skirts and went to him, just in time to see him turn around and beam at her.

"Quickly," he said as he handed her a large plate. Sansa smelled them before she could make them out in the dark. Lemon cakes.

"Where did you-?" she asked before Gendry turned around, his hands clutching the bottom of his shirt to form a small pouch filled with other sweet bread. "Let's go," he interrupted her, gesturing to the doorway with his head. Sansa followed, dumbstruck, as he led her out the servants entrance of the kitchen, down the corridor, and into the small garden on the west wing of the castle.

"Think we're safe now," Gendry said, settling himself under a tree. Sansa daintily walked over to him, and sat down on the grass as gracefully as she could.

"Good haul," he said, laying the desserts down on a loose napkin he had put in his pocket. He looked up at her, waiting for her stop say something.

"How did you know they had these?" she said, running her thumb along the edge of the plate she was holding.

"I over heard the servants talk," he said, reaching out and grabbing a raspberry tart, and chomping into it aggressively. "They said Lady Sansa is fond of her lemon cake."

Sansa blushed and looked down at the cake. She hadn't had it for months, not since she arrived at the Eyrie. She sometimes put lemon in her wine when she missed the sour and sweet sting of citrus, but it was no substitute.

"Well come on," Gendry said, licking tart of his fingers. "Eat,"

"I...I don't have a fork," Sansa said quickly.

"You don't need one," he leaned over the bread and took a pinch from one of the cakes, and put it back in his mouth. "See?"

Before she had known Gendry, Sansa would have been disgusted with such a display, and never would have dreamed to lower herself to eat in such a manner. But something about him - his boyish smile as he exaggerated chewing the cake and made loud noises of contentment, or the way the moonlight cast a blue outline across his beautiful face and strong muscled arms. Maybe it was the fact that lately even the thought of him made her palms sweat and her stomach tie itself in knots. Whatever the reason, Sansa Stark decided that tonight, she wasn't going to be a lady.

She picked the lemon cake up with two hands and brought it to her face, eagerly chomping into the center and savoring the taste. Gods, how she had missed it. She looked up to Gendry expected to see disgust, evidence that she had crossed a line, but instead he laughed and reached over and took a chunk from her hand.

"Hey!" she reached out for it, but he held her back as he bit into it.

"I thought ladies knew how to share." he said, scraping the lemon meranguine off his thumb with his top teeth. Sansa pulled her hands back, and reached up to undo her hair. Her long tresses fell past her shoulders and she crawled closer to the pile of food. She reached out for the last remaining lemon cake, and dragged her tongue across the surface. Smiling, she held it out to Gendry.

"By all means, my lord," she said, smiling through her teeth.

Instead of taking the cake like she expected, Gendry pushed her hand aside and brought her face to his.

He tasted like raspberry. Sansa felt his tongue run against her bottom lip before she experimented with opening her mouth. Almost immediately, he stabbed his tongue in, causing her pull back.

"Sorry!" he said almost immediately. There was a long pause before he sighed, and looked down at his hands. "Men at the taverns on the Kings Road said women liked that...I'm still new at this,"

"New at what?"

"Women."

Sansa smiled. "I think you're doing well enough," she said, sitting back up and scooting closer to him.

"Do you?" he said flirtatiously as her hand began to move along his jawline, scratching the soft patches.

"Just take it slow," she said. "Like you're biting into a peach you want to savor,"

Gendry laughed out loud, almost falling over onto the picnic.

"What's so funny?" Sansa snapped. Gendry kept laughing, rolling on the grass with his hands of his belly.

"If you don't tell me, I'm going to go back to my room," she threatened. His hand reached up, and pulled her down on top of him, landing with a squeak.

"You're funny," he said, pressing a kiss onto the top of her head. Sansa relaxed against him, listening to his heart beat through his linen shirt. She scoot in closer to him, throwing her arm over his torso as they looked up into the sky.

"Do you know the constellations?" she asked. She felt him nod.

"Tell me their stories," she said, reaching down beside them to grab the lemon cake she had licked. Breaking it in half, she handed a piece up to Gendry and began to nibble on her portion and he began to tell her.

"That one," he pointed. "That's the first dragon. It made a wager with the gods that he could fly farther..."

Sansa fell asleep to his voice, telling her stories about knights and monsters and star crossed lovers. When she awoke again, she found that they had rolled onto the desserts in their sleep. Every instinct told her that staying out in the garden would be improper, against everything she was taught, and would call her reputation into question.

Sansa Stark was a lady at age three, but at seventeen, she discovered she much preferred just being a girl.

She snuggled in closer to Gendry, who wrapped his arm tighter around her shoulders.

Let them find me, she thought, breathing in the smell of sugar and smoke on his shirt. Let them find us.

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Hey guys!

Thanks for keeping up with my little story. Someone asked about the rationale of pairing Gendry and Sansa, and honestly, I just like them! I don't like Arya x Gendry because of age difference, and Arya now being a faceless man and making a vow to never marry. I want Robert's son with a Stark girl though! And Sansa seems like her perfect match would be a common man who would love her without any hidden agenda.

Thanks for reviewing!