Oh my God, I can't believe I was so long without updating! As an excuse, I must say that I was traveling, and College started (finally! Bye bye High School!) so I was literally unable to write anything for neither one of my stories! But now, finally, I'm back! :D I hope you all had a wonderful summer!

Ok, so I have no idea how the rules of the Faceless Men wobut or if there are restrictions whenfit comes to whom they can change into... But whatever, this is fanfiction! I can dowhatever I want!

Enjoy!

Arya turned around as soon as she heard those words. In the entrance of the main hall, where Gendry had been standing mere seconds ago, was now Jaquen H'ghar, the Faceless Man that Arya hadn't seen in four years, since he helped her scape Harrenhal and taught her those words in High Valyrian that she had pronounced as she killed Walder Frey- Valar Morghulis.

Jaquen was dresses with Gendry's clothes, and he had the same face that he had when Arya first met him: she recognized immediately the hair red on one side and white on the other. His voice sounded funny in the same way that Gendry's had sounded, just that now the accent was stronger. It only took Arya two seconds to realized what had happened.

"You..." she mumbled, her voice shaking. Jaquen just nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. "Why...?"

"A girl needed help. A man gave it to her."

"But why?!" she exclaimed, her voice stronger now. She took a few steps backward, leaving bloody footsteps on the stone floor. She didn't know how she felt, she was confused. But angry was probably the best way to describe her feelings right at that moment. Cheated, maybe. "Why did you come?! Why did you help me?! Why are you disguised as Gendry?! How did you find us?!"

"A man followed a girl all the way from Winterfell. A man was curious to see what a girl would do" Jaquen said as he slowly approached her. "Taking a boy's face was the safest way for a man to approach a girl and see what a man wanted to see."

"But, but... Have you been Gendry the whole time?" she asked, now in a calmer tone of voice (she didn't want to wake up the inhabitants of the castle and alert of the murder of their lord) but she was still shaking. She dreaded the answer.

Much to her relief, this time Jaquen shook his head. For some reason, the thought that Jaquen might have been disguised as Gendry the whole time had scared her, and she was happy that Gendry was still at Winterfell... Until she realized what that meant.

"Then... Gendry never changed his mind? He left me alone...?" she whispered with astonishment. Jaquen didn't say anything, he just stood there watching her. She scoffed, feeling furious and... abandoned. "He left me alone."

It wasn't a question this time. It was a statement. And it hurt, it hurt more than anything in the world. She gasped (which sounded more like a sob than a gasp) and her back hit the wall. She dropped Needle without even noticing that she had let go of the sword, and she closed her hand to a fist, burying her fingernails in her palm.

"Is a girl alright?" Jaquen asked, taking another small step towards her.

Arya didn't look at him, she was looking at the floor, and she slowly shook her head. "No" she finally said "a girl is not alright."

"A man knew a girl needed help."

"A girl didn't need help!" she exclaimed angrily again.

"But a girl wanted the help. She wanted company. Is a man wrong?"

Jaquen was right. She didn't need Gendry, she didn't need anyone. But she hadn't wanted to be alone. She hadn't been alone, Jon and Sandor had been there with her, but she had wanted Gendry there with her too. The fact that he had decided to stay at Winterfell hurt her like a knife in the heart, and she couldn't understand why. Stupid, stupid bull headed boy! And stupid her for feeling that way! What in Seven Hells was wrong with her?!

She felt tears stinging in her eyes, and she dried then using her sleeve. Then she saw the corpse of Walder Frey lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and she felt something shattering within herself. She had taking her revenge believing the entire time that Gendry was the one standing behind her, supporting her, but he hadn't been there. In her place there was Jaquen, the man that had also left her when they escaped Harrenhal. Everybody left her at some point or another, and those who didn't died. She was sick and tired of it, and she hadn't been able to admit it to herself until now.

"I want to get out of here" she said, picking Needle from the floor. Then she looked at Jaquen, whose eyes were still fixed on her. "Please."

He nodded, and then he turned around to walked towards the doors, where he awaited for her. She shed, and took a last look around the place where the Red Wedding had happened years ago, the place where her mother, brother, and goodsister had perished in the hands of treason. She wanted to get out of that horrible place, so she looked down to the floor and followed Jaquen to the doors. There she stopped and looked at him again, but it was like she saw him for the first time that night. Now she was looking at him without remembering Gendry, and she was able to smile a little bit. She was taller now, so she didn't have to look up a lot to look at Jaquen in the eyes, like she had to do before. He stared back at her, and then she hugged him (being careful as to not hurt him with Needle). It seemed to catch him by surprise, but he returned the hug.

"It's good to see you again, Jaquen" she whispered.

"It's good to see a girl again" the Faceless Man admitted.

"What are you really doing here?"

"A man saw a girl back in Braavos, before a girl left with her family. A man has heard many stories about a girl, flying on a dragon into King's Landing with the Queen. A man has been watching over a girl, and a man has seen that a girl is very brave... But a girl can not do everything alone."

She didn't insist anymore saying that she didn't need help, because she knew that Jaquen was right anyways. She couldn't do everything alone. He was right when he had said that she had wanted the company. She had been alone for so long, felt alone for so long that she couldn't resist it anymore.

"What are you going to do now?" she asked then. Would Jaquen leave, now that she had killed Walder Frey? "Are you going to leave?"

"Does a girl want a man to leave?" he asked in return to her question.

Arya thought about it and realized that she would feel much worse if he left. She slowly shook her head, and it was answer enough for the Faceless man.

"A man will take a girl to Winterfell. Now let's go and find your friends..."

They walked all the way back without making any noise and without being discovered. They found Sandor and Jon alone near the main entrance of the castle, with the knight that had accompanied them nowhere in sight. Arya wondered what had happened, and she saw Jon's and Sandor's swords bloodstained.

"There were some knights" Sandor explained, whispering so that they wouldn't be discovered. "We killed them before they could raise the alarm... Did you find the fucking old bastard?"

Arya just nodded her head without saying any words, and she could hear Sandor whispering "good!" while Jon also remained silent. When she raised her eyes to him, she saw that her cousin was staring at Jaquen and was pointing his sword at him.

"Who are you?" he asked then, and Sandor just seemed to notice the Faceless man. He pointed his sword at him as well.

"Bloody hells!"

"He's a friend" Arya quickly said before anything bad happened, and Jon and Sandor shot her a perplexed look. "His name is Jaquen, he helped me escape when I was in Harrenhal."

"Why is he wearing the smith's clothes?"

"He has been the smith the whole way over here" Arya said then, her voice sounding somewhat resentful even though she didn't notice it, and she walked past the two men to leave the castle with Jaquen behind.

"Where are the other men?" Jaquen asked then.

"We sent them back with the horses."

They went back to the place where they had left the horses hidden and where the knights had been waiting for them after Jon and Sandor told them to leave the castle. They seemed extremely relieved to see that they were all safe and sound, but they were also extremely confused when they saw Jaquen instead of Gendry mounting the horse that the young man had been riding all those days. However, they knew (judging by Arya's expression) that they shouldn't ask questions.

They all looked back a pt the Twins one last time to make sure that they still hadn't been discovered and no one was following them, and then they rode away in silence. The way back to Winterfell seemed much shorter than the trip down to the Riverlands, but it was even more tortuous for Arya than the first one had been. She barely said a word, and even thought she felt relieved that she had finally had her revenge, she felt awful. Not because of what she had done, obviously. She couldn't really explain what was happening to her. It felt as if something had broken inside her, and she wasn't able to fix it, mainly because she had no idea what was wrong. She felt stupid, and acted moody the whole time. Sandor and Jin had tried to talk to her, but she kept pushing them away. Only Jaquen succeeded in getting closer to her and actually get her to speak a word.

"Why did you do it?" she asked one day, so lowly that only Jaquen was able to hear her. "Come with me. I know that you said that you knew that I... couldn't do it alone" she felt embarrassed of saying those word out loud, they tasted like vinegar in her mouth. "But why? Why did you care?"

Jaquen didn't respond for a couple of seconds, he just stared into the distance. Arya was started to doubt he had heard her, when suddenly he replied:

"A girl is strong, and brave. She has the courage of a thousand armies of strong warriors" he turned his head to stare at her. His eyes were somehow warm. "A man admires a girl."

Finally, after many days of keeping her expression hard as stone and cold as ice, Arya smiled a little bit. It was a very small, almost unnoticeable smile, but it was enough.

When they finally reached Winterfell days later, Sansa ran towards them, eager to hug her husband and sister and cousin, and Ygritte came running behind her.

"Seven hells, I was so worried!" she exclaimed. Sansa almost never swore, which meant that she had been really scared for them while they were gone. "I thought you might be dead!"

Sandor was the one that took her in her arms first, and they kissed passionately before she let go of her husband, hugged her cousin who later ran to the arms of his wife, and then she saw Arya.

"Arya!" Sansa exclaimed with a huge and relieved smile on her face. "Gods, Arya, I was so scared... Are you alright?"

Arya nodded. "He's dead" was all she said.

Sansa immediately understood, and a serious and solemn expression took over her face. She knew how revenge tasted like, and she knew that her sister had needed her.

"Good" she said then, really meaning it.

Arya didn't talk anymore with her older sister, for she had just seen Gendry standing on his feet a few meters away from where they were, his eyes moving nervously from her to the ground, unsure of what to do or say or where to look, but he also looked relieved. Very relieved and incredibly uncomfortable. Arya fell a hot rage within her, an explosion of fury, and she walked past her sister and everybody else towards Gendry.

"Arya..."

He couldn't finish what he wanted to say, for in that moment Arya's fist collided against his face. Gendry fell to the ground and he took his hands to his face, where he had a pained (and surprised!) expression. Blood was running from his nose.

Arya heard everyone gasping behind her back (but maybe a man or two chuckled, amused) but she didn't say anything. She didn't as much as give Gendry a second glance before she walked away and entered the castle.