Hello! Here's another chapter. Let's see how married life is going for those two, shall we? ^^

this one is not beta'd, but hopefully my beta will start working on it soon enough ^^ I hope there aren;t any horrible mistakes of mine.

3 Years Later.

It was a nice day in the Stormlands, which could not usually be said about the weather in that region of Westeros. Storm's End. The sky was usually grey and full of black clouds, and thunder struck more often than not. However, that morning the sun had risen, the sky was clear and blue, and the clouds didn't seem to be going to appear anytime soon, offering the inhabitants of those lands a peaceful morning. The sound of some thunder was heard once or twice, but it came from afar, so no one feared that the storms would be coming back at least for a few hours.

Arya loved Storm's End. She loved how wild and powerful and mysterious and strong it was. She loved its thick rock walls, the sound of thunder falling from the sky, the powerful waves crashing against the cliff below the ancient castle. It might seem a dangerous place to anyone else, but she felt safe there. It was a wild place just like she was wild, and the weather never stopped her from doing whatever it was that she wanted to do. She enjoyed riding outside the lands of the castle with the sound of the distant thunder and the flash of lightning illuminating the sky above her. She had made the Stormlands her home, just like the North was her home before she started a new family; a pack of her own. A pack that, instead of running through the woods and snow while howling to the moon, ran through the storms and the fierce weather fearing nothing. Always strong, always unstoppable.

The reason why she loved storms so much was probably because of her husband. Other lords and ladies, the household, the knights and the smallfolk called her the Queen of Storms. Because wherever Arya Stark went, Gendry followed. And wherever Gendry went, storm followed.

That morning, both of them decided to go out for a ride as soon as they awoke and saw from their window the lovely weather that the Stormlands were offering them. It was an opportunity that had to be taken, or so Arya thought. Gendry had tried to make her stay in bed a little longer, but when he saw that his wife would go out for a ride with or without him, he had no choice but to go after her with a small smile on his face.

Almost three years had passed since their wedding day, since they left the North behind and came to their new home. In that place, in those new lands, beyond the thick walls of that castle, they had grown much more than they could have possibly thought they would ever grow. They had grown with the war, true enough. It had polished them and made them leave childhood to become adults. But the wonders that that new life that they were living in Storm's End made them grow in a new way. It had made them discover peace.

Arya wasn't a lady, not in the proper sense. She had never been, and she would never be. Having just passed her eight and ten nameday, she still liked to wear men's clothing and do the kind of activities that she had loved when she was younger. She rode horses like a man did, not like a lady would ride them. She still carried Needle in her belt from time to time, though she never actually had to use it; the only sword fighting that was required in Storm's End was in training sessions, for violence had not been able to reach them at any time since they were there. Arya went to the training sessions in the inner yard of the castle with her husband and their knights, and she managed to defeat them in several occasions. She had become as good a soldier as any, and she felt proud of it. Everyone in Storm's End and in the entire Stormlands loved her for who she was. They loved that their lady was such a strong and independent and unique young woman who could stand up for herself and who didn't give a damn about what was proper and what was not. She had, however, toned down her stubbornness just a little bit when she felt that it was needed. Even though she had already agreed to wear gowns in some occasions when she was still in Winterfell, in Storm's End she would dress up as a lady from time to time in special occasions. And there were many other things that she did that she thought that she would never ever do…

Gendry had changed a great deal as well. He had polished himself since he was given the title. True, he was still Gendry, just as stubborn as his wife, and sometimes he just acted as a young, normal man, but he was now a true lord. At twenty and three, he had grown a bit more, becoming an imposing man of great height, broad strong shoulders and covered in muscles. His deep blue eyes shone with the fierce intensity of a true warrior when he spoke with his men or when he was acting as the liege lord that he was meant to be, but they also melted with gentleness and love when he looked at his wife. He had become a much wiser man than his father, just as good a warrior, but a better person, a just lord, a caring and loving husband… and a protective and proud father.

When they rode that morning, Arya urged her horse to go faster, as usual. She enjoyed leaving Gendry behind and make him chase after her. She put several feet of distance between her horse and his, and she laughed. Gendry laughed as well, enjoying spending time with his wife in any way he could. He loved to ride with her, and, even if he never admitted it out loud, he loved chasing after her. He was used to it, after all.

"Arya, wait!" he exclaimed when he saw that he was falling very behind, and he kicked his horse to urge him to go faster.

Arya took a peek over her shoulder and laughed. "It's not my fault that you are so slow!"

Gendry only grinned as a response, and his silver horse managed to pick up the pace and close the distance with Arya's black horse, until they were riding side to side.

They slowed down when they reached a small creek not too far from Strom's End, they could still see the castle from where they were. They made the horses stop so that they could drink some water from the creek and rest a little after the race. It was a nice and quiet until the peace was broken suddenly. Gendry was distracted contemplating the nature around them when all of a sudden he heard Arya gagging and he turned his head in time to see her jump off her horse and run to hide behind a big rock. Then she started vomiting all the contents of her stomach.

"Arya!" Gendry exclaimed, worried. He jumped off his horse as well and ran towards the rock behind which Arya was hiding, but before he got there her hand shot up in the air, appearing behind the big rock, and it stopped him.

"No!" she cried. Her voice was bitter and disgusted, and it sounded like she was choking on something. "You don't have to see this!"

Gendry rolled his eyes and resumed his walk to get to the rock and his wife.

"Arya, I've seen you throwing up dozen of times, remember? Besides, I'm your husband."

Behind the rock, Arya snorted.

"Oh, so because you are my husband you can do whatever you-" she didn't get to finish complaining, because she started throwing up all over again. Gendry rushed and jumped behind the rock, finding his wife kneeling behind it and holding her stomach as she spilled all the half-digested food all over the ground. Gendry sighed and gently grabbed her long braided hair to pull it away from her face.

"No, because I'm your husband I get to help you," he said, patting her gently in the back in a comforting way.

Arya wanted to say something, but she couldn't because she threw up again. After her stomach was emptied, she grimaced and shook her head.

"Ugh. I hate this. Don't look."

Gendry rolled his eyes again, not getting why Arya felt so uncomfortable with him seeing her sick. It was a perfectly normal thing, getting sick from time to time, it happened to everyone. Plus, he had seen much worse and gross things in his life, and as he had stated before, it wasn't the first time that he had seen her sick. In fact, he doubted that anyone had seen his wife getting sick so much as he had seen Arya.

While he still held her braid with one hand, he put his other arm around her and helped her up.

"Come, let's get you cleaned up," he murmured with a comforting ring in his voice. He led her to the creek without her complaining anymore, though she kept grimacing because of the foul aftertaste in her mouth. They both knelt next to the creek and she washed her mouth with the fresh and cold water. She spit in in the ground as far away as she could, and then Gendry put his hands in the water, and washed Arya's face with never-ending tenderness. Arya didn't protest and she let Gendry help her. Then she sighed.

"I told you. Those eggs weren't well cooked!" she exclaimed.

She had mentioned at breakfast that the scrambled eggs tasted odd. They had seemed perfectly fine to Gendry, so he hadn't paid Arya a lot of attention. He thought about it for a second, but he still didn't remember that there was anything bad with the eggs that they had eaten. In fact, there's was another completely different idea quickly raising in the back of his mind…

At first he wanted to dismiss it. But then it came back again, and he took a good look at Arya. She seemed different lately, but she looked different in an already familiar way.

Gendry raised his eyebrow and looked at her in the eyes again while a small smile started spreading all over his face.

"I don't think it was the eggs, Arya…"

She stared at him blankly at first. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared at him with an intensity that would have made any seasoned warrior cower before her.

"No," she muttered, clenching her jaw.

It was a pretty clear 'no', but Gendry insisted, feeling excited. His wife did not share his mood, however.

"Why not, Arya?! It's obvious, isn't it?"

"No, it's not."

"Arya, please, just…" Gendry stumbled with his own words, so he held Arya's hands between his and paused before begging: "Go see the maester, alright? He will be able to tell us!"

"I'm telling you already! The breakfast did not get along well with my belly!" Arya exclaimed, annoyed.

"Arya, I ate exactly the same thing as you did, and I feel fine. There was nothing wrong with the eggs. I'm telling you, go see the maester."

"I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to go!"

"Please!"

"I'm telling you, it was the eggs!" she insisted, and Gendry felt exasperated.

"IT could be something else!" he insisted.

"I'm not pregnant!"

There, she had said it. Now it felt more real, and the weight of the word fell down on Arya, making her stop and take a deep breath. She looked away from Gendry for a second, trying to get her thoughts in order and calm down, but when she looked back up to Gendry, the look in his eyes was victorious. She glared at him again for that, but he didn't care.

"You could be, Arya, and we both know it very well. Or do I need to remind you how I…" he started saying with a cocky smirk on his face, but Arya raised her arms and pressed her hand against his mouth.

"No, you don't need to!"

Gendry moved his head to pull free from Arya. He observed her wide eyes, her tense shoulders and her fast breathing before commenting:

"You are afraid."

She snorted and then she rolled her eyes, imitating him.

"Of course not! I'm just not an idiot like you are!"

"I was right last time!" he retorted.

"That was luck," Arya muttered, not wanting to admit that her husband could be right about everything. Gendry laughed at that reply, and then his face adopted a begging expression.

"Why are you so stubborn?! Arya, my love, please… Why don't you want to give me this little joy?" he asked, caressing her cheek and moved a few stray hairs away from her face. She loved it when he touched her, but at that moment she was very mad at him, so she slapped his hand away, and she went into a shouting rampage.

"Because you are not the one who has to carry a baby inside for nine moons!" she protested, indignant. "It's tiring and uncomfortable, and I'll have to wear dresses and stay in bed! And you-!" she punched Gendry in the chest with both her hands curled into fists, just like she had done many years ago when he accused her of being a girl, "-are not the one that's going to have to push a giant baby out of you!"

She punched him again, pushing him back, but Gendry only laughed even more.

"That's it! You are behaving just like the last time!"

She made a noise that sounded like an angry wolf, and for a second, Gendry was scared that Arya might rip his head off. She was angry because, even though she hated to admit it, Gendry was right. She was behaving just like the last time, and the last time he had been right.

"I hate you sometimes…"

"I know," Gendry sighed, and then he leaned forward and cupped his wife's face tenderly between his warm, big and calloused hands, and he looked her straight in the eyes. "My love… My lady," he said, smiling, "please… Go and see the maester. Please. I swear to you, if you are right, and it's just a false alarm, I'll do anything you want me to. Anything."

There was a moment of silence in which Arya looked skeptically at him with a raised eyebrow, trying to make up her mind. Gendry silently prayed to all the gods, old and new and foreign, that she would finally agree with his request instead of deciding to keep beating him. Finally, he saw the shadow of a smile in the corner of her mouth.

"But you already do whatever I want you to do…"

Gendry chuckled, knowing that he had won the argument.

"Yes," he admitted, nodding at her statement. He put an arm around Arya's waist and pulled her closer to him, making her gasp, "but I won't complain about it."

He kissed her then. It was a pure, sweet and chaste kiss, of only lips to lips. It was a kiss meaning to relax her, to show her that he was at her side and he would always be. It worked, for Arya relaxed in his arms and let out a long sigh before their lips parted and she pressed her head against his chest.

"And if you are right?" she asked. "What then? What do you get?"

"If I'm right, we will have a baby on the way. I don't see what else I could possibly want more than that," he answered with complete honesty.

"I can't believe that you convinced me…" Arya murmured as she stood up. She made him a gesture to tell him to stand up. "Come! If we are going to do this, I want to do it now. Why wait? If you are right, I rather know as soon as possible. And if I'm right, I can't wait to laugh at your stupidity!"

"Oh! You'll laugh at me?!" he exclaimed, raising his eyebrow with amusement as he stood up as well. Arya's expression betrayed that she was up to no good. Of course she wasn't…

"Yes," she nodded with mischievousness. Before Gendry could wonder why there was such an expression on her face, she pushed him again in the chest, harder than before. "In fact, I'll do it now!"

Her push threw him off balance and made him fall backwards… which resulted in him falling on his arse in the creek, soaking himself and splashing water all around. He couldn't help the initial shocked expression from twisting his features, and he glared at his wife when he heard her laughing. She entertained herself for about two seconds looking at him in the water before she turned around and ran towards her horse, which was drinking water from the creek next to Gendry's horse.

"My lady, always oh so very charming…" he murmured between gritted teeth as sarcastically as he could manage. However, he couldn't hide the amusement from his voice.

Arya turned her head to look at him again and smirked.

"I'm not a lady! You knew that before you married me!"

"Aye, I did…"

Arya mounted her horse and rode off. Just as she did that, Gendry stood up and walked out from the creek, completely soaked and dripping and feeling cold, but he didn't mind and he ran for his horse, mounting it and riding off behind his wife. They rode back to the castle, having to cut short their morning outing. Arya wasn't happy about having to go back so soon because of her sudden illness, but she didn't really feel very well, and she did want to prove Gendry that he was wrong as soon as possible so that he wouldn't keep bothering her for the rest of the day.

She truly believed that Gendry was mistaken, and that she wasn't with child. How could he possibly now?! He was a man, and not a maester, he knew nothing of those things! She wasn't much more knowledgeable than him in that particular matter, she had the same exact amount of experience as him… though he wasn't the one supposed to carry the child, she was! Were she with child, she would know… She wasn't new to pregnancies anymore, she should know better.

The arrived at the massive castle of Storm's End. They rode to the thinnest part of the massive wall that surrounded it, where the gate was placed. When they saw their Lord and Lady approaching, the guards opened the gates for them, allowing them to enter the courtyard. Their squires ran towards them to take the reigns while Arya and Gendry dismounted their horses. Arya felt a bit dizzy, but she was sure it was due to how suddenly she had stopped riding and how fast she had gotten off her horse. She blinked a few times and her head to clear it, and then she smiled at her husband in the articular way that she always smiled at him when they argued about something. Gendry saw her smile and smirked, and Arya just rolled her eyes as a response before she started walking towards the colossal drum tower that was Storm's End. Gendry followed her and entered the drum tower behind her.

Storm's End was calm and silent that day, except for the servants that went from here to there attending their chores and the knights seeking their Lord and Lady to ask them anything of importance. Some knight entertained Gendry with some urgent matter while Arya continued walking, not minding them. She wanted to get to her chambers, where she could rest a little and get rid of her dizziness, which didn't seem to want to leave her. She was also feeling a bit sick, and it was making her even more convinced by the second that what she had was food poisoning. She would lie on her featherbed, sleep a few hours and when she woke up she would feel better, hopefully.

She had almost reached the staircase. She had closed her eyes one second when she started hearing tiny footsteps that were approaching quickly, and she opened her eyes at once and smiled full of joy, recognizing who it was immediately.

"Mama!" a little boy dressed in the yellow and black Baratheon colors exclaimed happily, pronouncing the word with a childish accent that was still developing. He was closely followed by a wetnurse that took care of the little lord in his parents' occasional absence.

"Robb!" Arya exclaimed, forgetting about her dizziness and her sickness, kneeling down to be able to catch her son in her arms. As soon as she hugged his little body, she once again felt the overwhelming joy that she had found with motherhood.

She hadn't expected Robb to come into her life. She hadn't really thought about children, or cared to have none when she got married. When she was younger, she despised the idea as much as she had despised the idea of marriage to a Lord. But, just as she had found love and being a lady pleasant in its own ways when it surprisingly came into her life, so she had discovered motherly love.

Robb Baratheon had been a complete surprise. He was born exactly nine moons after Arya and Gendry's wedding, and it had been quite a shock for Arya when she heard the news about her pregnancy from the maester. Gendry had been the first to notice that there was something off with Arya and started suspecting it, and he had turned out to be right. At first, Arya had been incredibly angry with the idea of becoming a mother, and she didn't talk to Gendry for weeks, believing it all to be his fault and not wanting to recognize that it was hers as well. But soon she got used to the idea; she could be a mother and still do all the things that she wanted. Gendry had promised her that she would have the life she wanted even though she was married to him, and he had kept his promise; it didn't have to be any different with motherhood. And when Robb arrived, Arya finally understood what her sister had told her about having a child. It felt like a miracle, a wonderful miracle. She had stared at his tiny hands and feet and fingers and toes and nose and eyes and she had not been able to believe that such a perfect little being was hers.

He had the Baratheon black hair, and he was a very big boy. Someday he would be tall and strong and broad like his father. But he had the Stark eyes, grey like Arya's. She was very happy when she saw that, the babe was a perfect combination of her and Gendry. He was also proving to be as stubborn as she was, but she was easy with smiles like his father.

Arya stood back up carrying her son in her arms, and planted a kiss on his round and rosy cheek, making the little boy laugh with joy. He clapped his hands, happy, and Arya brushed his black locks with her fingers, not being able to hide her big smile.

"I missed you so much this morning!" she told him. "I wanted to take you outside with me on the horse, but you were deeply asleep! You know how I hate to wake you up when you sleep like that…"

She almost couldn't recognize herself when she was around her son. She was like a totally different person than the unruly girl that she used to be, but she didn't mind. She had other moments to be that girl again, and she enjoyed her time as a mother with her son.

Robb closed his tiny fist around Arya's long brown braid and pulled from it. Far from protesting, Arya laughed again. She heard then Gendry's voice behind her and she turned to look at him, still carrying Robb in her arms. Gendry was approaching them from down the hall, still soaked wet.

"Robb! Look what your wild mother did to me!" he exclaimed, showing his soaked self and pretending to be offended.

"Papa!" Robb said, extending his little arms towards his father. Gendry was going to pick him up but Arya pulled her son away from him.

"No! You are soaked! Go change first," she demanded. She didn't need her son to get sick with a cold because he got soaked with his father's clothes.

Gendry narrowed his eyes at her.

"And whose fault is it, Arya?" he hissed. She merely shrugged.

"Fine, I'll go change," he said. "But then you know where we are going."

Ugh! She had hoped he had forgotten while on the way back to the castle, but it appeared that she wasn't going to be so lucky. Now it was her turn to glare at him, and his to wink at her. She gaped, but she didn't protest, and she didn't glare at him eithr.

"Fine. Now go and change. And maybe get a bath, you smell funny," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Here, Robb, give papa a kiss. He'll come back later."

She raised her son in her arms so that he would be near Gendry's face, and Gendry planted a kiss on Robb's cheek just like Arya had done moments ago. Arya loved to see them both together; her stubborn bull and her little wolf pup… or fawn, depending on the way of looking at it. Gendry was always mesmerized with Robb. Everyone in Storm's End and in the whole Stormlands, in the North and in all of Westeros knew that Robb was Gendry Baratheon's biggest pride and treasure, next to his wife.

Yes, Arya had more than enough reasons to be proud of her pack.

Gendry passed a hand through Robb's hair, messing it up a bit, and then he smiled at his wife. He gave her another brief and tender kiss, like the one in the creek, before he walked away towards his and Arya's chambers to change and maybe take that recommended warm bath.

Arya could have followed him, but she preferred to spend some time with Robb before Gendry came back looking for her to drag her to the maester. She was not looking forwards to it.

She dismissed the wetnurse and then she hugged her son tightly.

"Come, Robb." she whispered. "Let's see if we can find a good hiding place from your father, before he comes back with the full intention of torturing me."

And she disappeared with Robb into the halls of Storm's End.

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