No one appeared to have noticed their brief absence from the group, nor comment when they returned to it. Camp was made, and a few fires constructed amidst the now slackening rain. The dampness of the wood caused the fires to smoke and had been judged by someone insufficient to create the typical meal of hot soup, so dry biscuits were once again passed around. Most of the recruits were too tired and wet to complain. Arya was about to refuse her portion but a glance from Gendry and she accepted it.

Later, her sleep was erratic. She kept waking up from cold. Though she was as close to one of the fires as she dared, her clothes were still stiff with mud.

It was on that night that everything fell apart.

Someone cried out. Arya stiffened, but didn't move. There were often cries during the nights; she herself had probably uttered her share. But then there was another. And a warning shout of rage from Yoren.

She shot upright.

There was fire, too much fire. Torches being thrown. The clang of iron and steel. Horses screeching.

Panic surged then, and she scrabbled around nearby, finding Needle's comforting length at her side. And a body a few paces away from her; Lommy's stupid curly head somehow still sleeping. She thrust a hand under his neck and shook him. Her fingers came away wet and shiny in the firelight. She gaped for a moment. His head lolled, helpless. Dead-fish eyes.

She tried to make sense of it and finally did.

The goldcloaks had caught up with them, and they were looking for her; they had to be looking for her. Someone grabbed at the back of her neck and she nearly screamed, but it was Gendry hauling her up. She scrambled with him over Lommy's body and towards the bushes. She tried to pop back up again to see what was going on but Gendry put a hand on her head and shoved her down.

"I want to see!" she insisted, furiously, batting his hand away. The wagons were burning. The cage was empty, but still had the horses attached. Arya writhed. "The horses—"

"Damn the horses," he muttered. He had a tight grip on her shoulder she couldn't squirm away from.

"I have to find Yoren!"

"You have to keep your own neck safe!"

Some of the recruits were fighting back, swords engaged with the goldcloak soldiers, but falling one by one, unable to hold their own. Arya watched in horror as she recognized Yoren receiving an arrow in the chest from a crossbow a short distance away. It was happening so suddenly and they were doing nothing to help. She made an attempt to lurch forward and Gendry's hand slid to her wrist, pulling her in the other direction. "Run," he said, and her legs responded to the urgency of the command even while her mind argued.

She raced alongside him, unable to see anything, crashing through the bushes. They ran until the shouts faded and the light from the fire had disappeared, and even then they could hear horses somewhere in pursuit, but they kept running. Arya's legs and lungs were burning in equal measure. Somehow Gendry kept her behind him while he shouldered through branches and bushes, his hand still around her wrist so tight that her fingers grew bloodless.

They stopped, panting, when they couldn't run any more. Arya sucked in gulps of cold night air. She kept seeing Lommy's dead eyes when she stared around them at the darkness. Her stomach was churning from the panic and activity.

Gendry had wandered away from her for a moment and now he came back, taking shape in the dim quarter-moon light. "There's a cliff. They'll have to take another way. Let's go."

Slowly now, they moved towards the cliff's edge, finding their footing as they escaped downward. The ravine yawned wide and open, peppered with rocks of all sizes and shapes, and it took a long while to reach the bottom. Moving along the dry riverbed, they could hear the snuffle of horses and see shadows of torches at the top. They ducked behind rocks, keeping still until the sounds and shadows subsided.

By mutual silent assent, at some point, they sank down near the riverbed under a tree. Side by side they sat, and Arya felt Gendry's arm next to hers, companionable, solid. She meant to stay alert and on guard as long as he did, until dawn if necessary, but after an hour or two of the engulfing tiredness, her fatigue proved too much and her head fell to his shoulder.

Dawn came, as it was wont to do after an exhausting night, impossibly soon.

"Gendry?"

"Mm."

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"I fell asleep." On you, she added mentally, since that was really the part she was apologizing for. But it was a little embarrassing to say.

"Idiot," he said, but it sounded more indulgent than mean. Like something Robb or Jon might have said.

They separated. Arya clambered at once behind another grouping of rocks because she desperately needed to pee. He disappeared for a few minutes too.

Once rejoining they took stock. She had only Needle and the clothes she was wearing. He had brought a bundle of his own things with him. She could see the odd shape of the bull helmet poking through the sack. She wasn't sure how he'd managed to hang on to all of it (and her at the same time) during last night's mad flight but she was glad. It made her feel more hopeful to have supplies, however limited. It meant they had resources. It meant they weren't totally without defenses.

And they had survived this first night, uncaptured. Unscathed. That was something, whatever the day might bring. It was probably silly, but she felt optimistic. Despite yesterday's memories. Despite seeing Yoren shot down, Lommy (whom she'd loathed, but still) lifeless.

She remembered something and rooted around in her pocket, retrieving a handful of crumbled biscuit.

"No telling when we'll eat again," he said, waving away her offer of half.

They could hunt, of course; but she knew there would be no time to spare for hunting until they put some distance between themselves and the goldcloaks.

Further up the ravine, there was water, where they drank, and Arya was able to wash Lommy's blood and several days' worth of accumulated dirt off her hands.

All that day they walked steadily. The sun appeared now and again, making a vague estimation of their direction possible. Arya knew they were somewhere in the Riverlands, but could only hope they were approximating a rough parallel of the road north. During one of their infrequent rest breaks, she asked Gendry whether he recognized any of the territory but he replied he had never been out of King's Landing his whole life. She was somewhat taken aback by this admission, considering the confidence with which he had been taking charge of the journey, but grew more philosophical as the day wore on. After all, without a map, it was not as if she could do any better herself.

By evening, when there had been no signs or sounds of obvious pursuit, they stopped.

Arya felt able to lie down anywhere and fall asleep within moments, yet there was food to be thought of. There had been plenty of water to drink throughout the day, but nothing else.

"I can catch something," she volunteered.

He looked doubtful. "You?" A lady, she almost heard the echo.

"I'm a better shot with a bow than my brother Bran," she retorted. "And back in the citadel, I was learning how to catch cats. I could absolutely catch a stupid rabbit."

Gendry wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "If you say so. I'll make the fire."

Arya scrambled back up, feigning an energy she didn't really feel. It was important to forge his image of her as a not-lady, essentially the complete antithesis of—for instance—Sansa, who would surely sit around moaning about the tangles in her hair and rips in her dress if she were forced to undergo a cross-country march.

Still, Arya wouldn't have felt quite so confident about her ability to provide supper if they hadn't still been in the middle of the lush riverlands. Here was green, fertile ground and underbrush, sure to be home to plenty of small animals. She could hear the chatter of squirrels and the flutter of evening birds as she paced through the forest on tired feet.

It took the better part of an hour, but she returned to their impromptu campground, near the banks of a cold and clean rushing stream, with the carcass she had bragged of.

Gendry was nurturing a fire encircled by stones. He sat back in a crouch, looking mildly impressed when, without comment, she held out the dead animal. "All right, then, Arya Stark, you can catch a stupid rabbit."

"We should have made a bet," she said, saucily.

"Nothing to bet with." He took the carcass from her and began to divest it of its fur. Shortly after, the meat was roasting over the flames. Gendry went off to dispose of the innards and wash his hands, then rejoined her at the fire.

Dark was closing in around them. Arya hugged her knees, in a trance of fatigue. But she had some questions, now that there was time for answers.

He had just speared a strip of meat on his knife and offered it to her. Around the stringy mouthful she said, "What are we doing now?"

"How's that." He was occupied in retrieving his own portion from the fire now. She was momentarily distracted by the way his fingers didn't seem to feel the flames.

"Well, are you coming with me to Winterfell?"

"I'm taking you to Winterfell, yes."

"And then what will you do?" If we get there. If we make it that far.

He seemed to consider this question seriously for a few moments, while chewing.

"Will you go on to the Wall?" she persisted. "My brother Jon is there. Jon Snow...He's...like you," she added, lamely. "Natural-born." That hadn't been at all what she was going to say, she had meant to say something about how fond she was of her brother and indeed felt that she understood him more than Robb, Bran or Rickon, even if they only shared one parent...but it had somehow come out that way. She wanted to kick herself.

He gave her a side-long glance. "That's a fancy way to put it. Doesn't bother me if you say bastard."

Arya shrugged, still embarrassed by her own inability to say what she meant.

"How many brothers do you have?"

"Four," she said eagerly, grateful for the change of subject. "And a sister. Do you have any?"

Gendry shook his head.

"As for the Wall," he said eventually, "I'm not partial to the idea of freezing my tail off up there."

"It's not that bad," she said, thinking that he was referring more to the North in general.

He pointed at the fire. "All I know is that's life, right there in those flames...that's what I'm used to."

"I like the cold," she said, in a small voice. They really were rather different, she realized. Maybe it was just loneliness, maybe she just missed the companionship of her family but for some reason, she wanted to find some common ground with him.

"Of course you do. Wolf sigil and all." He rescued the last of the meat from the fire. "Eat some more...and try and grow, will you, what do they feed you Stark females that you're so small?"

"My sister is tall." Arya haughtily accepted the meat. "Taller than most."

"Does she catch rabbits with her bare hands like you?"

"No. She's not like me. She's a lady."

Gendry looked at her for a moment. "Bet she couldn't have kept up with me today."

Something in her soul warmed in a comfortable way. "There's nothing to bet with," she reminded him.

He grinned at her.

It was strange how after everything had happened, after everything she had seen and endured, the loss of her father, the flight from the citadel, the privations since, that it could still feel good to have a simple shared joke.

Arya curled up beside a fallen log a few paces from him.

"D'you need my shoulder tonight?"

"No," she said, and closed her eyes, falling asleep to the crackle of the fire, which was over-scored by the susurration of the wind in the oaks above.

Gendry couldn't sleep.

He'd been staring at the sky and listening to the stream for some time. He was tired enough that he should have been sleeping—long ago. Mostly his mind was circling around on itself trying to decide what exactly he was doing out here.

He did not, normally, make decisions based on impulse. Up until recently his life had been a series of straightforward events and he had neither expectations nor desire for it suddenly to become exciting or dangerous. He was accustomed to waking early, working hard, going early to bed. He had no reason to believe that life would hold anything else for him.

He stayed away from trouble.

But here was trouble right here, in the form of an apparently innocent girl, a child really, sleeping a few paces from him.

He was not a fool. At least he wasn't enough of a fool not to know trouble when he saw it.

So why had he told Arya Stark he was going to return her to her family's holdfast? When he didn't know he could do anything of the kind. Not that he didn't mean to try; he hadn't been able to leave her to the mercy of the goldcloaks and he wasn't going to abandon her now, but by his best reckoning there were still at least five or six hundred leagues between them and their destination. And he with only the few provisions he'd managed to smuggle thus far.

As far as an actual plan went, this one was lacking in virtually every way.

It was, all things considered, a shit plan.

He decided he would tell Arya so in the morning. And then she could decide what she wanted to do. If she was determined to continue, despite his pointing out of the facts, he wouldn't argue.

Well, maybe he would. Depending on how crazy it all seemed.

Gendry sighed and cradled his head behind his hands, shifting because a twig was poking into his shoulder.

He was just settling into the calm of sleep when Arya stirred and mumbled something incoherent. After a moment she was silent and he relaxed again, but then she let out a low, keening moan that had the sound of heartbreak to it; like a mother losing her child, or a child losing her parent.

It didn't stop, and he elbow-crawled over to her side, hesitant at first to touch her or say her name, but doing both, eventually. "Arya."

She began to tremble, and he wasn't certain if she was awake or not now, but he put an awkward, protective arm around her small body, and she turned towards his chest and pressed her face into it.

He muttered stupidly, ineffectively, by way of comfort. Things about it being all right, when it wasn't. Telling her not to cry, when he wasn't even sure if she was, and it didn't matter anyway, she had a right to cry if anyone did. He might even have said something about the stars...of all the stupid things.

But after what seemed like a long time, she stopped trembling and lay quiet and still, and her breathing evened out again into warm little puffs against his collarbone.

And even though there was another twig lodged in his ribcage, he stayed where he was because Arya had fallen back asleep.

After breakfasting on the remains of the rabbit, they were crouching by the stream to refill their one waterbag. He made himself say it: "I don't think we should go on."

She sank back on her heels, dark brows drawing together. "What?"

"We don't even know where we are right now."

"So, we'll find out."

"Right, that's the first thing. But it'll take weeks, maybe months to get to Winterfell. We've no supplies. Ought to find somewhere closer, where you can send a message to your family."

Arya considered. "My mother's family is at Riverrun. If we are anywhere near Crossroads Inn, that is not so far." She stared into the stream for a few minutes. "You think we ought to go there first?"

"That would make sense," Gendry said, enunciating his words so she couldn't fail to miss the sarcasm.

She threw a pebble in his general direction.

"That didn't hurt."

"I would've picked a bigger rock if I wanted it to hurt."

Her pertness was amusing to him.

"D'you think you can find the way? I've never been this far north before."

"This isn't north yet," Arya said. "This is not even close to north. Once we get back on the Kingsroad, then I'll know how far we've come, and I can find the river road that goes west." She sounded confident.

"So today we find the Kingsroad." Gendry scooped water in his hands and sluiced it over his head. It was cold as it dripped down the back of his neck. He shook his head like a dog.

"You missed a spot," Arya said, staring at him.

"A spot of what?"

"Dirt."

"Your whole face is dirt, Lady Stark."

"Shut up. It's part of my disguise."

"Yeah, you're supposed to be a boy, not a piglet."

"Piglets," Arya replied, "are actually very clean. And one would think you would know that, since you were probably born in a barn."

"Not far off," he said, laughing at how she was trying to be haughty. "C'mon then, let's go if we're going. Which way do you reckon the road is?"

"East," Arya said, "-ish."

She stepped forth, head held high. Still smiling, he shouldered his bag and followed her.