Hello! I'm so sorry for the delay, I didn't think that it would take me a month to update! But, you know, summer vacations, friends, the beach, parties, the start of university all over again... Time flew by and I was so busy! But now I'm back and I'll try to update as soon as I can. Say goodbye to the days when I updated every day, though, cause that's not going to happen ever again. Sorry!

I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was kind of weird and I rewrote it like four times and well, this is the final product. The story is going to have more action from now on. There are going to be more than ten more chapters, though I don't know if there'll be twenty more.

I'm sorry if there are typos. My phone is being extremely weird today and I couldn't write in the computer.

Enjoy!

49. Anonymous.

Jaqen had waited for Arya to put down the knives that she was still holding in her hand, but after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence in which the girl remained still and giving no hints whatsoever of wanting to drop the knives, the man sighed and proceeded to tell her, as calmly as possible, what he had come inside that room to tell her.

He delivered to her the news that would sure devastate her, and the whole time he was careful with his choice of words and his tone of voice, trying to keep Arya from exploding like a bomb... which he knew that she would do, eventually. As he spoke he observed her reaction, trying to read her expression and know what was going through her mind... But it was impossible. Arya's expression remained blank, giving away not a single hint as to what her emotions were. It was disturbing, to say the least, and highly worrying because Jaqen had no idea what to expect of her at that moment.

He decided to ignore the knives that were still trapped in Arya's tight grip (which, Jaqen noticed after one last quick glance, was become tighter and tighter until her knuckles were white and her hand was trembling furiously) and started taking small and slow, cautious steps towards Arya, getting closer to where she was while he continued speaking in that friendly, calm and soothing manner, trying as hard as he could not to anger the girl.

He had finished speaking and was now silent, still taking small steps towards Arya. The way in which Arya glared at him with her storm-grey eyes was sending chills down his spine, and even though her face was still expressionless, Jaqen was certain that inside of her a volcano was erupting. He was less than two feet away from her now, and he was about to try to speak to her again and see how she was coping with the news that she had just received when suddenly Arya took a step forward, dodged him, and walked straight towards the door of the training room. Jaqen thought that maybe Arya was going to try to get out, and he was ready to stop her even though he knew that the door was locked, but instead of going towards the door Arya stopped in front of the one-way mirror. He could see her reflection in it, and he could also see how radically it had changed. While Arya had been expressionless up until that point, now her expression was contorted into that of pure anger and exploding rage. At the same time her expression was cold and cutting as ice. She looked murderous, and it was terrifying.

"Are you that much of a coward?" when she spoke her voice was surprisingly low, hissing, and calm. That was worse than if she had been yelling and screaming, because no one could be sure when she would finally snap and use her entire wrath. She glared at the one-way mirror. "Are you not brave enough to come and say to my face that they were killed?"

Time passed with a heavy silence falling upon them. Arya kept glaring at the mirror, and Jaqen was standing behind her, wondering what was going on inside her head. He looked at the four knives that she was still holding in her hand. Arya turned away from the mirror then, and she started throwing the knives once again to the dartboards. In the two first she hit bull's eye, and the third knife was thrown with so much force and rage that it cut through the dartboard and the whole blade was buried in the wall behind it. Arya didn't throw the last knife. Her furious gaze was lost in a blank point in front of her while her back was turned to the one-way mirror.

The heavy silence was interrupted when the door suddenly opened. The Kindly Man was standing there, looking at Arya with gentle eyes. She turned around and glared at him, but the Kindly Man did not seem bothered by the rage and hate in her expression. Behind her, Jaqen eyed Arya's knife with worry, fearing that she might throw it at the Kindly Man. Jaqen knew that they boss could dodge the hit, but it would only make things worse for Arya. He took a step towards her for precaution, willing to stop her if she lost her nerves and attacked their boss. However, Arya never attempted to do such a thing.

A silent battle seemed to be taking place between Arya and the Kindly Man. Arya threw daggers through her ice that the leader of the Faceless Men blocked with his serene gaze. Without a word, the man signaled for Arya to come out of the training room. She seemed to hesitate at first, but them she just walked out of the room without saying as much as a single word. The Kindly Man exited the room right behind her, and Jaqen followed them.

The Kindly Man took Arya and Jaquen to a small office that he had, and he silently invited Arya to sit down. She refused, and remained standing in front of the man while she glared at him with defiance.

"Tell me why shouldn't I kill you right now," she hissed, being the first to speak.

"Because you wouldn't succeed," the Kindly Man simply said, taking a step towards her, "and because I can offer you a deal."

"I'm not interested in your deals!" she almost shouted. "You kept me locked up for months! You have kept me away from Westeros for over a year! You broke the contract, you stopped me from taking my revenge!"

"Faceless Men don't take reveng-"

"I paid for it!" she did shout that time. Jaqen approached her, though he didn't know how to calm her down. Arya was like a bomb when she was angry, and at that moment she was wrath embodied. She was an H-bomb. "I did everything you ever asked of me! I always did everything you asked, but you broke your part of the deal! And now my family is dead!"

"Your brothers, your sister, and your nephew are alright..."

"My family is broken! And they are alive, but for how much longer?!"

"Arya, we couldn't let you kill Joffrey because we didn't know who we would be fighting against! But now we do!"

That was enough for Arya to calm down just a bit. Te rage in her seemed to decrease, even if it was just one tiny bit, and it was replaced by confusion and disbelief.

"What?"

"Jaqen infiltrated them," the Kindly Man said, walking towards the desk in the office and opening one of the drawers. He took a folder from inside it and handed it over to Arya. She put the knife that she was still holding on the table and then she picked up the folder and looking at the files in it. She read the documents and looked at the pictures while the Kindly Man spoke. "It wasn't easy, but now we know who wanted to kill you to protect Joffrey, and why."

Arya read everything. With each new line that she read she frowned even more.

"But... But this doesn't make any sense..." she murmured, reading the familiar name on the files. She would never have guessed that he was the leader of the people that had attacked to stop her from getting her revenge. She could not understand why he would do such a thing! "But I don't understand... Why is he doing this?"

"For power," Jaqen was the one to answer her. "It is what everybody wants, after all."

"But it doesn't make sense! Why did he protect Joffrey? Why didn't he want me to kill him?!" Arya exclaimed, feeling completely lost. "Getting Joffrey out of his way would suit him!"

Jaqen shook his head. "It would ruin his plans. He knows what kind of man Joffrey is, and what kind of politician. He knows that Joffrey is a time bomb that will eventually just cause destruction. He wants to create chaos... and then appear as the savior that will rescue the nation."

"He wants people to believe he's a hero?"

"It's the only way that he'll ever be able to be a leader."

"He was going to kill Robb," the Kindly Man informed her, and Arya's eyes became wide. "So that Joffrey could take over... But, once he found out that Joffrey was already going to do it himself he decided that it suited him better..."

"I didn't discover that until it was too late," Jaqen tried to apologize, though he knew that no apology would ever make Arya forgive any of them, at least not completely. "When I found out that Robb's plane was going to crash, they were already in the air... I didn't have time to do anything."

He was glad that Arya had out her knife in the table. Had she had it in her hand, Jaqen was sure that she would have thrown it at his throat.

And once more, silence followed. The Knidly Man took another thing out from inside the desk's drawer, and he handed it to Arya. Her eyes widened with surprise when she saw that it was the gun that had been taken away from her many months ago. She looked it with a bit of hesitation, but the Kindly Man gave her an encouraging nod.

"I want you to infiltrate them," he told her. "And then you can have all the revenge that you want. Save your family."

"I thought that Faceless Men did not save lives," Arya muttered, remembering the words that the Kindly Man had said to her when he ordered her to be locked up. "We take them."

"Exactly," the boss nodded. "But taken the lives of these men will save your family's lives. And someone has paid for this man's life to be taken," he said, signaling to the contents in the files that Arya was still holding in her hand.

"Who?" she asked, wanting to know who had paid so much money to kill that man.

The Kindly Man smiled softly, almost sadly.

"Me," he said. Arya's eyes became even wider. "I want you to kill him. And them I want you to kill Joffrey. Save your family. Fulfill your promise to your sister."

After hearing those words, Arya took the gun in her hand. She did not need to be told twice.

Sansa paced up and down the room, feeling like she would explode at any moment because of how nervous she was. Her hands trembled with anxiety, and she kept her gaze fixed on the floor while her mind focused on what she was about to do. What if it didn't work? If anything went wrong then that would be a disaster. What if Gendry refused? She would understand if he did, but she prayed all the prayers that she knew so that that wouldn't be the case.

With each second that passed her nervousness and anxiety only incremented. Where was he? Sansa checked the hour on the clock on the wall. 12:07am. Gendry should have already been there. Sandor had done as Sansa had asked, and he had contacted Gendry to let him know that Sansa wanted to speak to him in private. They had agreed on a time and day when Joffrey, Cersei and Tywin would be away from the Red Keep mansion so that they wouldn't take the risk of anyone spying on them. Sandor had inspected the took to make sure that no filming or listening devices were anywhere, and after being completely sure that the room was safe Sansa had gone to it to wait.

She tried sitting down but that did nothing to her nerves and so she ended up standing again and pacing around the room even more impatiently than before. Her anxiety was gathering together into a tight knot in the pit of her stomach, and her heart was beating so fast that it felt as if it would come out of her chest at any moment. She went towards the window and stood in front of it, staring at the empty gardens of the mansion. While she roamed the whole place with her anxious blue gaze she repeatedly tapped her foot against he hard wooden floor, and she had to fight the urge to bite her nails. She had had that habit once when she was very small but it had been corrected when her mother scolded her. 'A lady does not bite her nails!' Catelyn had said.

Thinking about her mother at that moment made Sansa's eyes start stinging with tears, but she fought them back. She had cried enough.

"Sansa?" a strong male voice suddenly called her from the door of the room, and she turned around to find Gendry there. She smiled full of relief when she saw him. For a moment there she had almost started to believe that he wouldn't come.

"Gendry," she said. Her voice was weak as a result of days of hardly speaking a word. Her throat felt sore, but she wasn't going to let that stop her.

Gendry stepped further inside the room and closed the door behind him. He approached Sansa, who moved away from the window. After a brief moment of hesitation Gendry hugged Sansa, and she welcomed her friendly and comforting embrace.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured then, letting go of her. "About everything. I... If there is anything I can do, Sansa, please just tell me. I'll do anything."

He was being sincere, Sansa could hear it in his voice and she could see it in his eyes.

"Thank you," she murmured softly before taking a deep breath. "I... I didn't know who else to go to."

"Why did you want to see me?" he asked, and his tone have away that he knew that he was there because Sansa was indeed going to ask something of him.

Sansa hesitated, feeling guilty... Extremely guilty. She had seen her loved ones die around her because of the dangerous game that they had been playing with Joffrey, and now she was going to ask Gendry to put himself in danger as well. That was selfish of her, but she had no other choice! It was now or never, and the safety of her family was above that of anyone else's. If she was selfish because she wanted the family she had left to be safe at the expense of Gendry putting himself in danger, then she was going to be selfish.

"I need to ask you a favor. A big one."

She waited for Gendry to nod his head, letting her know that he was willing to listen I whatever she had to say. Sansa took a deep breath and then proceeded to continue explaining herself.

"But first I need you to know something. Joffrey..." she stopped, feeling a sharp pain in her chest. God, the words were so hard to say out loud... "Joffrey... He was the one... He killed Rob, and Mom, and Talisa..."

She waited for Gendry's reaction. The young man's eyes became wide and his face became pale as if he had just seen a ghost. He clenched his jaw; the fury palpable in him, and it reflected on his deep blue eyes.

"I-" he said, lowering his head and staring at his feet for about two seconds before looking back at Sansa and saying, "I suspected it... I think, deep down, I had no doubts..."

"He killed my father too. And Theon," Sansa confessed, and she saw the fury in Gendry's eyes becoming stronger. "And I'm afraid that he won't stop. There was a plan to deal with the whole situation, but... I don't know what happened."

Gendry frowned. "A plan? To escape?"

Sansa shook her head. "To get rid of him."

Gendry's eyes became even wider that time, shocked by Sansa's confession that there had been a plan for killing his half-brother. Gendry hated Joffrey, and after what he had been told moments ago he hated him even more, but he wasn't expecting to hear that.

"To get rid of him? Where you the one that ordered his attempt of assassination?"

Sansa quickly shook her head again. She wasn't responsible for the attempted assassination that had resulted in Gendry's uncle being killed. She felt terrible for that death just because of the fact that it was her sister who had done it, even if it wasn't on purpose. She knew she had to tell the whole truth to Gendry in order for him to trust her, and it was only fair since she was going to ask him a huge favor. But how do you tell a dear friend whose help you need that your sister, the woman that he loved, killed his beloved uncle? Sansa hated to have to do that, but she had made a decision days ago, and she was prepared to explain everything to Gendry.

"Do you know who the Faceless Men are?" she asked, and he nodded. His frown gave away how confused he was. "They were the ones that tried to shoot Joffrey. And Arya..." Oh God, here we go. "Arya is with them. She joined them after our father was killed. She was the one that pulled the trigger."

If Sansa had expected Gendry to be furious or to shout or run out of the room after hearing those awful news, she was disappointed. Gendry's expression lost some of the fury that had reigned in it seconds ago, and it was replaced by the sadness. There was also a knowing look in his eyes, and it was Sansa's turn to be confused.

"I should have known," Gendry murmured, nodding slightly. He passed his hand over his face and groaned. Suddenly he looked very tired, as if realizing what his girlfriend was and what she had done had drained him of energy. "I should have known she would do something like that..."

"She didn't want to kill Renly."

"I know. She was going after Joffrey for revenge... Gods, how... How do you know that it was her?"

"I saw her."

"When?"

"A week after the funeral, when I went to Tarth. She went to talk to me, she wanted to explain where she was and why she was doing what she did. She told me that she was going to attack Joffrey again, that she was going to kill him... But it never happened. I haven't seen her since then, and the only news that I had of her were that she was in India. I've been waiting two years for an opportunity to get away from this hell, but bow my mother and brother are dead, and I know that I can't escape."

"Sansa, you can't go on like this," Gendry quickly protested, taking a quick look at the young woman and seeing what all the grief that she was experiencing, all the stress and all the fear was doing to her. She was still beautiful, but her face looked gaunt, and overall her whole body was weak as a result of sleepless nights full of nightmares. Her deceased loved ones tormented her, and knowing that her brothers, her nephew, and soon her child were under Joffrey's control was making her sick and restless. She was paranoid. Gendry was right, she couldn't go on like that. "We need to do something to stop him!"

"We can't do anything. No one can. Joffrey is not the silly boy he used to be anymore," Sansa said bitterly. "He has grown up into a murderous man, and he is intelligent. He is calculating and ruthless. He knows what he is doing and he won't let anything or anyone stop him. I have tried everything that I could, and nothing has worked. My brother was the most powerful man in the country, he tried to help me, and he is dead," she said, and her voice almost broke. She stopped talking for a second, trying to remain calm, and Gendry looked at her with pity. Sansa's stomach turned. She hated it when people looked at her with pity. She did not want it, what she wanted was to be free and be treated like any other person, she did not want to be some broken little girl that people felt sorry for. "I have accepted that I am not getting out of here, at least not anytime soon. I can live with that, I have been doing it for the past three years… But now my brothers are here, and my nephew, and I'm so scared for them! I'm terrified that Joffrey will do to them what he did to everyone else!"

Gendry realized what Sansa wanted then, and a look of understanding covered his expression.

"You want me to take them away and hide them."

Sansa bit her lip, wondering if she was maybe asking too much. She knew that Gendry would help her in any way that he could, but from that to asking him to sneak three people out of the country and keeping them away from the most powerful and dangerous man of the nation… She would definitely understand it if he refused to do such a thing, if he refused to risk his neck, but the thought that he could say 'no' terrified her.

"I'm asking too much, I know, I'm sorry!" she immediately apologized, even thought Gendry hadn't protested yet. "It's just that…! I can't keep doing nothing and just waiting for that monster to kill someone else that I love! I can't! I won't allow it!"

Her body was shaking, panicked. Gendry put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down so that he would be at the same height level as her to look at her straight in the eye. His expression was serious and solemn, with no a shadow of hesitation in his fierce blue eyes. He had already taken his decision.

"I will do it," he said. At first Sansa thought that she hadn't heard well, that he had said something else, but after looking at him in the eyes and seeing that cold determination in them she realized that Gendry had said what she thought that he had said. "I will take Ned and Bran and Rickon and I will get them far away from here, where they will be safe and looked after. Everything will be fine, I promise."

"Gendry, thank you!" Sansa cried, feeling a wave of relief and happiness wash through her. She gave Gendry a tight hug, wanting him to know how much she appreciated what he was going to do for her. "Thank you! Oh God, I feel terrible that I'm involving you in this, but I had no one else to ask! You are the only person I trust that can actually do something…"

"I understand, Sansa, and you don't have to thank me," he sad, hugging her back.

"How can I ever repay you?

"You don't have to," he said, letting go of her. "You are Arya's family, and even though after all that happened, after everything that I've found out… I love her more than anything in the world," he said, almost chocking on his words. The mention of Arya had suddenly made him emotional, but he kept his composure and his strong appearance. "You Starks are like my family, then. You have been better to me than any of the Baratheons. I will do anything I can to make sure that you are all safe."

Sansa thanked him again, and Gendry simply smiled as a response. Sansa didn't think that she could ever thank him enough for agreeing to do what she asked; even if Gendry did not want her to, Sansa would spend the rest of her life trying to repay him for it. Thinking about separating from her family (specially in those hard and dark times that they were living) made her heart ache, and she knew that she was going to miss them terribly, but it was for the best.

"What about you?" Gendry asked suddenly.

"What about me?"

"Aren't you coming too?"

"I can't. I want to, but if I go then Joffrey will look for us for sure, he will want to find me and take revenge on me, and then we will all die. But if I stay… If I stay he might let you go… As long as I give him what he wants."

"You can't!" Gendry exclaimed, horrified, but Sansa shook her head.

"I can, I have to," she hissed. "I have to protect my family, no matter what it takes. For now this is what I get, but I will leave… Eventually, when it's safe for me, for all of us." She looked down at her belly and gently put her hands on it, tenderly caressing it. "I have to protect my baby too, so I won't stay… But I can't leave now."

She wasn't sure if Gendry understood or agreed with her, but he didn't say anything and he didn't try to protest again to convince her to leave. A long moment of silence followed, which ended with Gendry's tired sigh.

"Well, then… I have to leave. I have to start planning and preparing everything if we are doing this."

"Where will you take them?"

"To Europe. I have some properties around in several cities, so it won't be hard to hide them. I will arrange everything to leave as soon as possible."

"Perfect," Sansa sighed.

"Have you told them?" Gendry asked.

And again, Sansa shook her head from side to side one more time.

"Not yet."

She was planning on doing that right away… And, knowing her brothers, it wasn't going to be easy to convince them to leave.

Sandor saw Gendry going down the stairs when the young man was about to leave the mansion, and they greeted each other quickly. Sandor wondered how the meeting between Sansa and Gendry had gone, and to what sort of agreeing they had come. He hadn't asked Sansa much about her plans, even though he knew that she would tell him anything that he wanted to know. However, he deduced that the less people that knew what was Sansa was planning, the better it would be.

He was on his way to Sansa's bedroom to see how she was when he stopped in his tracks in the middle of the corridor, realizing that he was standing right next to the open door of Joffrey's office. The President had been occupying that office but almost twenty-four hours a day ever since he got back from the North, and that day was the first one that it had been empty. There wasn't anyone around to catch him and get him into trouble, so Sandor wasted no time in walking inside the office.

He paid no attention to anything except the portrait on the wall. He went straight towards it, remembering what Ned had said to him. There was a safe behind that portrait, he had always known that, but what was in the safe? Sandor had used every opportunity that he had to try to find the knife that had killed Eddard Stark. He knew Joffrey too well, and he was completely sure that Joffrey had kept that knife as a reminder of the murder that he had committed; Joffrey was sick like that. Sandor hadn't found the damn knife anywhere, and he had almost lost hope to find it until he was reminded of the existence of that safe by Ned. He hadn't thought about looking in there before, but it was the last option that he had left. The problem was that he didn't have access to that safe anymore, he had no clue what the password was.

He stood in front of the portrait for a very long time, scrutinizing every single part of it with his narrowed grey eyes. He was trying to think of a way to get access to the bloody safe, but everything was too risky.

"Fucking hells," he grunted under his breath.

It was no use to stand there in front of the portrait like an idiot that day. If he wanted to do things right he would have to think about everything carefully so as to not screw up. He took one last look at the portrait before walking out of the office. He went to Sansa's room as he had originally planned, but she wasn't there. He searched for her over the mansion until he hears voices coming from Bran Stark's bedroom. Sandor heard Sansa and Bran speaking, but he didn't hear what they were saying. He was not going to stand there eavesdropping on them, and he didn't know how long he would have to wait for Sansa to stop talking to her brother, so he returned to his bedroom.

He was tired, and his intention was to take a long hot shower and lay in his bed and just close his eyes for a while. Then later he would maybe east something and drink a great deal of wine or beer or whatever he got his hands on first. Before he could get to any of that, however, a big brown envelop caught his eye. That hadn't been there when he had left the room.

Frowning, Sandor slowly approached the bed, never taken his eyes off the brown paper envelope. His name, S. Clegane, was written in black market on it. With wary hands Sandor picked the enveloped up and opened it. He let the contents of the envelope fall on his bed, and he was shocked when he found a bunch of pictures and a typed letter.

What the fuck is this? he wondered, confused by what he was seeing. He looked around the room, as if he was hoping to find whoever had put that envelope in there to still be in the room. Of course, there was no one else but him in his bedroom.

He picked up the letter first and read it. He wasn't sure if he could even call it a letter, for it only said:

Meet me at Visenya's Hill tonight at midnight. Come alone.

V.

"What in seven hells...?" Sandor muttered out loud, rereading the letter and frowning even more. Who the fuck had sent that to him?! And who the fuck did that person think that he was, ordering him around?!

Sandor was about to tear the letter to tiny little pieces and throw them out the window and scatter them to the winds when his attention turned to the pictures that had fallen from the envelope along with the short letter. Feeling curiosity to know what they were and why the person had sent them to him. He hadn't payed a lot of attention to them when he picked up the letter, so he didn't see what was photographed in the pictures...

He took one of the pictures and looked at it, and before the image could even register in his mind his eyes caught a glimpse of auburn in it. Sandor became pale once he realized what he was looking at.

It was a picture of Sansa and him, kissing in a dark corned in the street in Sunspear one night when they had been absolutely sure that they were alone.

Horrified, Sandor looked at the rest of pictures. They were all of him and Sansa, taken in almost every place that they had been, and some of the picture were from days that had happened longer than a year ago. In all of the pictures they were kissing.

"Fuck!" Sandor yelled, tearing the picture that he had in his hands in half. He took all of the pictures and the letter and shoved them inside the envelope again, and then he ran out of his room.