At daybreak Arya and Gendry left the camp, guided by Elgar, one of the men who had been in the original group that had ambushed Arya and Waldron. Elgar kept a tactful distance ahead of them, perhaps having been advised to do so, but it little mattered since they weren't holding any conversations. The landscape did not allow for it, even if the atmosphere between them had. At least it was easier travelling this route now she could see where they were going. By the time the sun was directly overhead, their scout was slowing his horse and Arya recognized the terrain that she and Waldron had chosen for their camp spot.
Yet the tents were gone.
Her first instinct was to feel incredulity he hadn't waited for her. Surely he couldn't have considered the less than two days an excessive amount of time. She had told him she would be back. Why had he not waited? Or had someone set upon him, a solo traveller, this close to the river road?
She eased a leg across her mount's back and slid off, gathering the leads and walking about the small clearing. Scattered black ashes from the fire remained, but no other trace of their having been there.
Gendry said what they were thinking. "What now?"
"I propose lunch," Elgar said, dismounting.
They had brought bread, and dried meat, and water to drink. Arya had no appetite, and for once Gendry didn't comment on it. The three of them sat without speaking on the forest floor while the horses rested and cropped at the foliage.
Arya stared up at the sky, trying to determine the most logical course of action. She had no doubt both men would want to return to the camp at once since, personal desires aside, they lacked the supplies for a lengthy journey. She didn't know what she wanted to do, but going back to the brotherhood would not answer the question of what had happened to Waldron. Either she must look for him, doubling back along the river road towards the Crossroads, or continue on to Riverrun, her original destination.
With or without accompaniment.
The silence stretched. As soon as one of them spoke they were going to have to make a decision. No one wanted to be the one to initiate the discussion.
At last Elgar said, "It's afternoon."
"We should go back," was Gendry's contribution.
"I need to find him." Arya made a groove in the dirt with her feet. "I need to try, anyway."
"Dondarrion said—" Gendry began.
"I remember what he said, I was there. He said you should bring me to somebody you trusted. Is that person here?"
There was silence and then Elgar said, diplomatically, "I'll return to the camp. We have excellent trackers; someone can be sent with supplies to catch up with you. If you're sure you want to go on."
"I'm sure." She didn't look at Gendry.
Elgar separated his horse from the others, bade them a quick farewell and departed.
"Which way do you want to go?" Gendry asked with flat resignation, after the beat of the horse hooves had faded in the distance.
Arya wanted to be decisive but the truth was, she really didn't know. Had no idea. East to the Crossroads, west to Riverrun? Round and round in endless circles, is what it feels like. You choose, she almost told him.
"West," she said.
He stood up, heading for the horses.
There was still plenty of daylight left, time enough to ride a long way before sundown.
Arya knew it was just nerves, that she would have felt so no matter which direction they were going in, but she was already questioning whether it had been the right choice.
It was necessary, as always, to hunt down a more secluded spot to sleep for the night when in such close proximity to a main road. This time, Arya was acutely aware that since they lacked tents, privacy would be nonexistent, and that the last time she had slept under the sky with Gendry she hadn't yet been of an age to think anything of it. True, too, that the last two nights they had been side by side, but that had been in the camp of the brotherhood where the sounds and smells of so many others nearby had not allowed for the illusion of isolation.
Here, in a small green glade peppered with whispering trees, with the cool darkness settling in like a dusky blanket, it was far too easy to imagine they were the only two in all of the Riverlands. The trouble was, of course, that the physical propinquity made the emotional distance between them all the more difficult to endure.
That was from her perspective, of course. Maybe Gendry didn't notice the tenor of the atmosphere, or didn't care if he did. His movements were always economical, practical, those of a man accustomed to working in a limited space and producing the best possible work despite such restrictions. She studied him as he set up the fire, marveling even though she'd seen before that he could still make one faster than anyone she knew.
She turned the bracelet under her sleeve. She didn't think he would notice but he said abruptly, "You're wearing that?"
"You gave it to me," she said. "I suppose I can wear it if I like."
Gendry knelt, across from her on the other side of the fire circle, and breathed life into the skeleton framework of twigs and branches, sending smoke curling up from the strips of tinder. He crouched, brushing off his palms. He had a streak of soot along his jaw and she had a strong impulse to reach over and wipe it off for him. He locked eyes with her.
I'm sorry I left, she tried to say, but couldn't. Perhaps he would be able to read it in her eyes.
But he looked away soon, too soon, and the brief connection was broken.
Dark came quickly then, swallowing even the shadows, until there was nothing but them, and the fire, and the occasional sounds from the horses, tied up beyond the trees.
"Sleep," he said.
"Don't tell me what to do."
"When did you ever listen anyway?"
"Maybe I'll listen when you can think of something better to tell me than 'sleep', and 'eat', and 'sit', like I'm one of the dogs!"
"Sorry to give offense, m'lady."
"Don't try to make it about that, it was never about that with us." She took a breath trying to keep herself calm. "I just want to know what you're thinking. If you're angry at me, then say so. I'm not afraid of your anger."
"You've never seen me angry," he said.
"Maybe I want to."
"I don't want to play." He tossed a twig into the fire. "Not with you."
"What does that mean?"
"I can't let you get to me the way that you do."
She wasn't sure what to reply to that. Or what to think. Perhaps she was trying too hard. This was only their first of many nights. A wound couldn't heal that fast; she was being unrealistic to think that it could.
She just needed things to be right with them, so much. There was no way she could face Waldron or her future with him if things weren't some kind of right with her and Gendry.
But she couldn't tell that to him, either. He would hate that thought and she didn't blame him, it was deceitful in some way. How could you wed one man and always have another first in your mind?
Arya dug out her bedroll and smoothed it across the ground. She lay down with outward docility, though her mind was still busy, unlikely to settle or allow rest anytime soon.
He stayed where he was on the other side of the fire.
Sleep always came eventually no matter how sure one was that it wouldn't—pain, excitement, mental turmoil—but neither of them got much of it that first night.
She stirred from cold when the sky was still blue-black but the fire had subsided to glowing coals. She crawled out of her bedroll more out of instinct than conscious thought, making her way around the fire to him. He let out a sleepy grunt as if too tired to argue and raised his arm a little, allowing her to snuggle under it against his chest. He was a solid wall of warmth and utter comfort. She closed her eyes in contentment and listened to their mutual breathing.
Morning followed far too soon after this interlude and was hateful by comparison. Arya was rolled abruptly awake when Gendry's arm disappeared from under her neck. "Ah—" The sunlight was sharp in her eyes. Her stomach was empty, and her throat dry. "Water," she muttered pitifully, feeling around for it.
He was sitting up and handed her the waterbag. Its contents were still night-cool and delicious.
"What are you doing over here," he muttered.
"I was sleeping." She rubbed her neck which ached from the sudden removal of his arm. "I was cold," she added, unrepentantly.
"That's what the fire was for."
"It was dead."
"It was not, you were just too lazy to get it going again."
She shrugged, tacitly allowing by her silence for that to be true.
"Want to eat, or be on our way?"
"Ride." Arya got to her feet.
Gendry noticed some patterns starting to form over the next few days of travel.
Arya rarely had any kind of breakfast when they awoke; often she didn't eat anything until midday or whenever their first break for the horses occurred. He had given up suggesting or ordering that she do otherwise, though it was hard to see her looking undernourished. He wasn't sure whether she honestly had no appetite or if this was her way of punishing herself (or him) for something. If the latter, he wished she'd choose another form of penance. Perhaps when you weren't low-born you didn't really understand the importance of food. Denying yourself nourishment was a luxury he couldn't understand.
During the day, they covered a lot of ground. She showed no inclination to linger or delay. They didn't have conversations, beyond a casual exchange here and there, when they did stop.
There was nothing to talk about.
There was far too much to talk about.
When nights came, he could not keep her away from him. She would settle by the fire, if he made one, and stay there while he picked his own sleeping spot, near or far, it didn't seem to matter—by morning, she always ended up next to him, more often than not in his arms. He was cursed if he knew how she was able to get him to put his arms around her without waking him, but she managed to do it every time. She was as quiet and deft as a thief, stealing his personal space, and showing no embarrassment or discomfiture when they woke. After the first few nights of this he began resignedly to accept that it was going to happen whether he liked it or not.
It wasn't that he didn't like it, either. He was a man, and she was a woman, not just any woman, someone he didn't want to allow himself to want because he knew, he'd known before now, that she was not his to have. He thought he'd accepted that. And then she had gone. And he had had two years to try and make some sense of it, try and reconcile himself to the idea that perhaps it was better this way. That maybe she was better off being free and doing what she wanted, not stuck in a tower room waiting for her lord husband's visits.
The only problem, the only thing he'd never been able to reconcile was that he'd never known if she was safe. If she was even still alive. Not knowing, he couldn't put her behind him.
And now she was here—safe, but with some demons hiding in her eyes—and going to marry the cursed Frey anyway.
And now she was here, against his chest, a place he could keep her safe (though he didn't know what, if anything, he could do about the demons) and still engaged to be some other man's wife.
Every morning that came he couldn't countenance it, couldn't lie there and be awake and just hold her. It was too much and not enough. Every morning as soon as he surfaced from sleep he untangled her arms from around him and pushed her (gently, if he had the self-control) away.
He didn't know how many more times he had it in him to push her away.
One such night he was still awake when she crept over. There was a bit of moonlight. She hesitated; he could see her thinking about it. There was something odd about the way she was doing it. Like she was practicing a skill, trying not to forget how to do something.
Arya lay down beside him, ghost-silent, her hair brushing his chest. She was just settling and breathing out when he leaned over her and captured her arm, trapping her flat underneath him.
She went very still, but in the moonlight she gazed up at him with calm acceptance.
"How'd you get to be so good at this?" he asked.
"Someone taught me," she said. "How to move, how to steal. I could steal anything from you."
He grunted grimly. "Someone?"
"Nobody," she said. "Nothing."
"Really?"
"No."
Her throat moved as she swallowed.
"I couldn't learn for free," she said, trying to sound flippant, but he felt his stomach knot from the catch in her voice. "I only paid once."
He didn't know any words to say to her, though his head filled with all manner of incoherent expletives. He took his hand off her wrist, because it didn't feel right now to be holding her down, not when she'd just said that, and hesitated, because he didn't know if she wanted to be touched at all. Maybe only on her terms, and who could blame her for that.
She shifted, and he instantly moved back, out of her way so she could sit up. She was quiet for a bit. He didn't speak either, just watched the way the night breeze was dancing in her hair.
"I didn't mean to tell you that. Not so you'd feel sorry for me. I don't want that." Her voice was soft but definite. She looked back over her shoulder at him. He nodded because he still didn't trust himself to speak with any clarity.
"I didn't want it to be a secret. I don't want to have anything hidden from you."
"Arya," he said finally, and only managed to get the words out by extreme force of will, "Shouldn't—you...be saying these things—to your future husband?"
Her gaze was simple, unashamed. "I'm saying it to you. Because you're the only person—" Here she stopped.
The only person who what? he wanted to shout. He felt like she had said something like that to him before. Was it so unreasonable to want to know what, if anything, he still was to her? Was this exasperating creature never going to tell him? Worse, was she going to tell him and then still give herself to someone else?
There was another space of silence between them. Arya said, "You don't think of me differently now, do you?"
"Because of what happened?"
"It's something Robb said. That if I wasn't...that they might not find me suitable."
He pressed fingers to his forehead in an attempt to momentarily drive out the tension. "If anyone judged you for that," he said, "damn them."
She threw him a half-smile.
He couldn't help himself, he held out an arm then and she slid over back beside him, snuggling familiarly into his chest. For a long second he pressed his face against the side of her head in what was, almost, a kiss.
Though the next morning, for the first time, Gendry did not push her away but let her lie in his embrace until she decided she wanted to get up, Arya still couldn't consider it a victory. Now she worried he was only taking pity on her, that his feelings of antipathy hadn't changed, but because he knew what had happened to her, he felt sorry for her. And that wasn't what she wanted. In fact, she considered that a step backward.
Pity was not love, and she didn't want it from anyone, least of all from him.
It made her feel more awkward than before and she tried to behave normally, or at least as normally as she had been over the past few days.
The tracker from the brotherhood camp caught up with them during their midday break. It wasn't Elgar, but one of the others. He and Gendry talked for a short while, during which time Arya took all three horses to one of the closest creeks for water. When she returned the man was preparing to be on his way again and wishing them an uneventful journey to Riverrun. He left them with food and other supplies, took their thanks, and then they were alone again.