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In all honesty, he had not thought about her for a very long time.
At first, when the pain of her disappearance was still fresh, and the wound she had left behind still raw and bleeding, her face haunted his dreams every night for a year. Sometimes, he wouldn't even realize it was her he was dreaming about. Sometimes, the girl he saw was a stranger, not because she looked different, but because she looked wrong. Sometimes, she would be dead; other times, she would be full of life and laughter, with that familiar twinkle in her eyes - the one she used to get when she beat him at swordplay, or when she caught a fat rabbit at the end of a long day.
But that was years ago, and he had long since accepted the fact that she was gone. Not dead, though. The rumors told him otherwise, but he never believed it for a second. And he had the right of it too, for another rumor cropped up not so long after - the one about her being married to that Northern bastard. The girl he remembered wouldn't have married someone she liked, let alone someone she didn't even know. So he swatted that notion away just as easily as he did the first.
After that first year, as the war reached a crescendo, his mind wandered elsewhere. He would spend weeks forging weapons, then less than an hour breaking them in the bodies of men he would never know. He mourned his steel more than their lives. At the end of a bloody battle, he would always stink of death. But death didn't smell so bad once you got used to it, and red always did suit his coloring.
When that was over - when the Silver Princess came with her dragons and all but incinerated the entirety of Westeros - he felt. . . contented. The world suddenly smelled of smoke and fire, a scent he had always found comfort in.
Perhaps that was why he went to Winterfell.
The first step he took through those gray walls sent a shiver down his spine. He told himself it was because of the cold. He could have stayed where it was warmer, down south with the Brotherhood, but even in the presence of his brothers he did not feel at home. The castle in the snow was no home to him either, but it was to someone else that he had once cared about, and that was better than nothing.
Her sister was as beautiful as the stories told. Thick auburn locks framed her pallid face, and her cheeks flushed a pretty pink whenever the wind nipped at her skin. The Queen of the North was nothing compared to her, though. But when the regal woman narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion, he thought it best not to voice his opinion.
"What's your business here, Ser?" she had asked him with sharp courtesy. War made everyone wary, so he did not resent her for that.
He had rehearsed the answer to that very question for a fortnight, but when he looked into those mistrusting blue eyes, the practiced speech died with the wind.
He took a deep breath and spoke from his heart instead. "I knew a girl once. A long time ago. She didn't talk much, but when she did it was mostly about her home. It was all she ever talked about, really, and she never shut up about it." He had cast his eyes downward, but when he looked up again her grace's lips had drawn into a hard line. He swallowed a lump in his throat and continued. "She said it was beautiful, like her mother and sister, and that it was strong, like her father and brothers. I just thought. . ." he glanced around at the burned and broken fortress before him, wondering where the beauty was. "I just. . .want to make it perfect for. . . for when she comes back."
In truth, he didn't believe that last part himself, and somehow he knew that her sister could tell.
The silence that followed drug out for an eternity, chilling him to the bone. The queen's face never changed, nor did she speak a single word, but she spun around abruptly, her gown whirling gracefully about her feet, and marched back into her castle.
Not long after, he followed.
*****
Gendry was working in the forge when he first heard the shouting. "Get back! Stay away from us! Monsters! Beasts! Savages!" The shrill screams of women and the desperate cries of children triggered his instinct. Hefting his hammer he rushed toward the commotion.
The crowd was thick and clotted as the townspeople huddled together and shrank back in unison. A few brave men wielded weapons, but he could almost hear them praying that they wouldn't have to use them.
He shoved through the dense mass of bodies easily enough, but when he got to the front, a clamor of deep voices boomed to his right. "YOUR GRACE, STAY BACK! YOUR GRACE! IT'S NOT SAFE! STOP! DON'T!" Several guards grabbed for the queen's arms, but she yanked away with such a force it took even him by surprise. And whatever physical strength she lacked, she made up for with her venomous glare.
To everyone else the woman might have looked half-mad, but Gendry knew the truth of it. He knew without even looking.
A tumultuous gasp rose from the frightened crowd when they witnessed their queen fall to her knees not ten feet away from the fearsome creatures. A massive golden-eyed beast at the head of the pack regarded her coolly. For a long while, nothing - not even the wind - dared to move. The tension in the air was taut and painful. Everyone was holding their breaths.
Suddenly, someone began to choke. The sound of it resonated loud and clear as it dispersed itself into the thin air. He nearly choked as well when he realized whose voice it was.
A symphony of sobbing commenced shortly after.
In the stretch of snow beyond the walls of the castle, where a pack of vicious wolves stood frozen with caution, where the wilderness of the forest met the civilization of man, sister clung to sister as they drowned each other in tears.
Gendry thought their cries were getting louder, but when bass joined with soprano, and the pack took up the howling chorus, he knew the girls were no longer alone.
A lifetime passed, then another. Whole winters might have gone and come again, with not a soul to notice.
Eventually, ragged gasps and sniffles marked the end of the moment.
Their words were not as loud as their wails, but Gendry did not bother to strain to hear what they were saying. In fact, everything but his eyes ceased to function in that instant.
She was taller now. Her hair longer. Still skinny as ever, but with small bumps that weren't there before, and slight curves that made her look a little less gaunt. Her clothes were filthy, smeared with mud. Or was that blood? Her face was clean though. He had only seen it like that once or twice, but never did it look like that.
He hadn't realized his feet were moving until someone laughed in his ear and shook him out of his trance. The people were going to greet their lost princess. He was going to greet his lost friend. A smile came unbidden to his lips. He opened his mouth to call her name, but when she turned to look at him, his heart fell.
She was dead.
*****
Three moons had passed since her return, and for three moons she ignored him. No, ignoring him would have been a mercy. She was pretending - pretending not to know him - and in his mind that was much, much worse.
It didn't matter if he was two miles or two paces away from her, she would always blink at him like a child would a stranger, then carry on as if he were nothing more than a leaf in the wind.
Queen Sansa had sent out nearly every raven in the rookery, inviting all those inclined to attend the feast that was to be held in honor of her sister to Winterfell. Within weeks the castle walls were filled with men and women and children alike. Laughter and shouting and more laughter rang throughout the corridors. Gendry realized that he had forgotten what happiness was like. Almost.
But when he saw her - looked into her eyes - even from across the courtyard he could see it. She had forgotten what it was like. Completely.
He wasn't the only one who noticed.
Jon saw it the moment he laid eyes on her. Even when she donned a smile brighter than the moon for him, her brother could tell. It never reached her eyes, that smile, not even for Jon.
Queen Sansa sensed it too, though she hid her dismay better than her baseborn brother. Gendry could see the way her grace would watch her sister with eyes full of sadness. He could feel her heart breaking.
Rickon was less perceptive, wild and carefree as he was, but his wolf understood. Shaggydog would whine when she pet him, and sometimes even growl and bare his teeth. But if it bothered her at all, she did well to mask it.
Gendry wondered what could possibly make someone so broken.
*****
The feast was a joyous event, filled with indiscriminate raucous and drunken hooting guffaws. The smell of roasted meat drowned in rich sauces mingled with the scent of cloves and cinnamon and spice in mulled ale.
The feast was in her honor, and honor her it did.
Her hair was washed thrice times over, then brushed until it shone. Queen Danaerys had styled it herself - braided and twisted into a bun so that her face was not hidden behind a mass of brown silk. Her face was kept plain and pretty, but her gown more than made up for that modesty.
The bodice was too tight, the collar cut too low. The skirt was too sheer and the lace was too delicate. The color complimented her eyes too well, and everything about her made him sick.
Men were all over her. They rubbed the silk of her skirts between their fingers, stroked her cheeks that burned red from the wine, tucked stray strands of hair behind her ears, made her smile and poured her drinks.
Tens of proposals were made that night. A jape, on the surface, but Gendry could feel their desire. They wanted her power - her position. They wanted her lands, her claims, her rights. They wanted to see what was beneath that pretty little gown of hers. But most of all, they wanted her, not for a wife, but for a prize.
Gendry emptied his tankard, filled it, emptied it again. He repeated this process so many times over he had lost count. One moment he was watching the room spin, the next he was leaning against a bleeding tree.
Silence was a merciless bell that rang and pounded in his head. He leaned over and expelled a bellyful of ale and acid. A deep breath of the cool crisp air returned to him his senses.
Just then he recognized the tree that had so generously supported him in his drunken stupor. He thanked the weirwood with a pat on its face, wondering why gods always had to be so damn scary.
His journey back to the forge proved to be nothing if not arduous, but he smiled when he spied the familiar path indicating that his destination was just around the corner. His smile morphed into the shape a mouth would make if it said "oomph" when he accidentally knocked someone to the ground.
Her hair had fallen out of its bun and braids, and her gown was disshelved and dirtied, and for the briefest of moments he glimpsed the girl he had remembered from so many years ago - it was Arya. But the moment lasted no longer than half a heartbeat, and when her empty eyes stared up at him with no hint of recognition or shock or even anger, it took everything in him not to take her by the shoulders and shake her until her brain righted itself in her skull.
But she was a highborn lady who incidentally commanded a pack of feral wolves. And if that wasn't enough reason to hold back, he suddenly realized that he no longer cared - not for her, and certainly not for her petty little games. If she wanted to live her life out in misery then so be it. He had forgotten her long ago anyway.
"I beg your pardon, m'lady," he sneered in, to his pleasant surprise, a passably sober tone. With a mocking bow, he took his leave. He felt her eyes on his back, blinking at him like a child would a stranger - as if he were nothing more than a leaf in the wind.
*****
He was sparring with her brother one morning. Jon was a great deal more skilled than he was with a sword, but Gendry was much more proficient with a hammer or axe. He was a quick learner, though, and catching on fast. "Oft times the ability to deflect a blow is more important than the ability to deliver one. Being on the defensive can be more advantageous than -"
But Jon's lesson was cut short when she snuck up from behind and tapped her brother lightly on the shoulder. She smiled that smile that never reached her eyes, and Jon hesitated for only a moment before stepping aside.
Gendry was shocked, and made no attempt to hide it. The first time he's seen her in weeks, and there she stands, five paces away with a sword in hand and a face devoid of emotion. He looked to Jon in askance, but her brother was just as confused as he was.
He licked his lips nervously. "Arya. . ." he began, her name sounding like a foreign word in a language long forgotten.
In reply, she assumed the stance of a water dancer, holding out her weapon at the ready. Around them witnesses gathered to watch the procession with curious eyes. He wanted to walk away. It was the smart thing to do. But Gendry was not smart. Clever at times, and stubborn to a fault, but he wasn't going to turn down this opportunity, even if it meant losing.
They wasted no time. Swords clashed and resonated in the courtyard, her slender needle against his brute longsword. Jon's lesson echoed in his head, reminding him to remain on the defensive. Though it wasn't like he had a choice - a single blow would more than likely cut her in half, and as angry as he was with her he did not want her blood on his hands.
Her cuts and jabs came swift and unrelenting, but Gendry met each strike with one of his own. Sweat beaded on both their foreheads, and she was red with frustration. For a long while she thrust and he parried, but he was growing tired while she remained resolute.
It dawned on him that this was deliberate, that if she had been putting all her energy and skill into the fight he would have been beaten long ago. But if she didn't want a quick victory, what did she want?
With all his thoughts focused on her motives, Gendry failed to pay attention to her actions. In an instant he was disarmed, his weapon clanging against the hard floor. "Yield," he lifted his palms in surrender when she aimed the point of her sword at his chest.
She lowered her arm. He relaxed. It was a mistake. She flipped her weapon over, her ungloved hands gripping the blade just above the guard, and slammed the pommel into his temple.
He fell back with a hard thump, his vision blurring and his head swimming in black molasses. He felt her climb onto him, and for a moment he thought she was going to kill him. But the clattering of a sword somewhere to his left told him that she had tossed it aside.
She gave him no time to savor the momentary respite.
Something hard crashed down onto his chest then, knocking the air right out of him. A rock? Her fist? He couldn't tell, and he didn't think it mattered, either. Fist, rock, nails, elbows, and knees landed on his chest, his stomach, his throat, and his face.
But the only thing he felt was water. Hot water. Hot, salty water. She was crying.
He could hear distant voices shouting at them. He saw a blur of flesh - hands - reaching out to pull her off of him. The black blob shoved them away, and she continued to hit, to scratch, to pound.
Someone yanked her off, and someone else helped him up. He groaned when a current of pain coursed through his body, setting off a succession of coughs that brought up blood with each breath. A shrill voice was shouting louder than the rest. It took a while for him to process the words.
"You bastard! You stupid, stupid bastard! You left me! You were supposed to be my pack. You were supposed to be my friend. Well bugger you, SER! Bugger you and your stupid titles and your bloody stupid honor!"
He heard her stomp off then, and for a second, Gendry wondered if she had that familiar twinkle in her eyes - the one she used to get when she beat him at swordplay - but his world faded to black before he could check.
*****
"Quit fidgeting," she grumbled, tugging at the bandages wrapped around his hand. Her own hands were bandaged too, cut deep when she clutched the blade of her sword. It was stupid of her to do that, but he dared not say it to her face. Or behind her back, for that matter. In fact, he wasn't sure if she was reading his mind now, seeing how she was so angry.
A hiss escaped through his teeth when she ripped the cloth off a half-healed wound. She rolled her eyes and continued to tend the cut in silence.
When she finished replacing every bandage on his body she kneeled beside his feet, gazing at nothing in particular. She stared for a very long time, but just as Gendry made to speak, she abruptly stood up and stormed out.
That night, he returned to the smithy to find a skin of mulled wine beside a bloodied rock atop the anvil. He laughed, then coughed, then cursed her under his breath. He took a swig of the drink and accepted her apology.
*****
When his wounds were sufficiently healed, he took up the hammer again and returned to pounding on the anvil. She visited every day, but she never spoke to him or looked him in the eye. Her presence made him nervous at times, but at other times she was so quiet he hardly even noticed she was there.
One day she came dressed proper, like her sister, and when he saw her sit on his cot with her knees drawn up to her chin, he couldn't help but smile at the sight. It was a mistake though - one of many that he tended to make around her. The hammer missed the steel and landed on his thumb. The nail remained intact, the finger unbroken, but blood colored it red and it hurt something fierce.
She hurried to him and snatched his hand away from his own eyes. She grimaced at the wound, then scowled at his face, then turned back to examine the finger. "Stupid," she grumbled to herself, "I knew you weren't healed yet. Weak. I told them so."
For some reason that made him angry. She had been back for nearly a year now, and in that year she had either disregarded his existence, beat him to a bloody pulp, or tossed insults in his face. He snatched his hand away from her grip and glared at her, clenching his jaw shut to prevent himself from saying anything he might regret later.
At first she met him with the blank stare that boiled his blood and made him want to break something, but she must have realized just how far she had pushed it when her eyes suddenly softened. It wasn't by much, but it was a change.
But what surprised him more was when she brought a gentle hand to his cheek. She stroked the corner of his eye, a strange sort of sadness flickering in her face. "These aren't laugh lines, are they?" she wondered quietly. And in his bewilderment all he could do was lick his lips and shake his head.
She was full of surprises that day, and she had saved the best one for last. She smiled. A real one, that touched her eyes and made his blood boil and made him want to. . .
And long after she had gone, the warmth of her hand - Arya's hand - still lingered.
*****
The bleeding trees were as frightening during the day as they were at night. The last time he stood face-to-face with one he had been drunk. This time, he had Arya.
"What about this one?" she asked him curiously, her bony finger pointing at the scar on his neck. He told her about the time he and Lem were practicing without armor. "And that one?" she pointed to another one on his bicep. He told her about the battle against some Lannisters, and how one shot an arrow into his arm. "How about this one?" she held up his finger. He told her about the time he was cutting onions and got so teary-eyed he couldn't see where the knife was.
That one made her smile.
They came to the godswood almost every day, and each time he would tell her a story. She always listened intently, even when he thought she didn't. And after all his stories were exhausted, she asked to hear each one again.
She never told him any of her stories though, nor shared any of her scars.
At least, not right away.
Gendry was still asleep when she snuck into his chambers and dragged him out into the godswood. He complained about how it wasn't even dawn yet, she told him to stop being a baby, and that was that.
She split a warm loaf of bread in half and gave him his share. They washed down the breakfast with wine just as the sun started to peek out from behind the horizon. She didn't speak until it was halfway up the sky. Gendry did not think to complain.
She told him everything that day, then showed him her scars.
"I should have died," she said with her face twisted in scorn. "I drank their precious poison. Three cups. Bitter," she licked her lips in reminiscence. "They were going to kill me, but I wouldn't let them. I wouldn't give them that pleasure. I'd do it myself. I promised."
When she was done, he wanted to cry for her. To hold her and stroke her hair and kiss her on the forehead and tell her he was sorry that he ever left, sorry that he was ever angry with her, sorry that she had to suffer it all alone. But his body betrayed him, and his voice got lost in his throat, so he just stood up and walked away without another word.
He felt her eyes watch him leave, like a child would a stranger, as if he were nothing more than a leaf in the wind.
*****
For weeks he did not see her. He wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to speak to him again. He'd only blame himself.
It was the hour of the wolf when Jon knocked on the door of his chambers. Her brother's face told it all before he uttered a single word. They ran together.
He could hear her sobbing from down the hall, and as he neared, could hear her sister's soothing hushes as well.
There was blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Blood on the bed. Sansa's gown was marked with bloody handprints, but they weren't her own. In her arms she cradled her little sister, frail and frightened, her hands drenched in blood and her nightshift painted red.
Without a second thought Gendry strode over to the bed, pulling her away from the queen's grasp, not caring how rude or improper it might have been. But her sister did not care about that. She only cared about Arya. "What's wrong with her?" he demanded to know.
Jon was the one to explain. It occurred frequently at first, once every few days or so. Over time she started to get better - once every few weeks. Then suddenly it stopped happening altogether. They didn't know what was wrong, but they thought she was fixed. And now. . . this.
"She forgets herself," Jon said sadly. "Her name, her family. . . even Nymeria refuses to come close. Sometimes she just cries, sometimes she screams. Rarely has she ever hurt herself. It might not have been as bad if we had been more careful. We didn't let her keep blades in the room at first, but then she got better. . . we didn't expect. . . " his voice trailed off from there.
Gendry had never felt so guilty.
His hand reached down to the wetness of her belly. No one protested when he lifted her shift, though the moment he did he wished someone had. Her stomach was scored with a number of cuts, some deeper than others, but each one wet and sticky and fresh. When he asked why a maester had not been sent right away, it was Sansa who explained that Arya was prone to attack anyone who tried to touch her; the queen had the scars to prove it.
"Arya?" he ventured, whispering into her hair. "Arya, listen to me."
Her crying stopped so abruptly he would have thought she was faking it had there not been tears streaming down her cheeks. "Arya?" she repeated with perfect clarity. "That's not me." She cracked a smile then, bright and innocent. It scared him more than any weirwood ever could.
"Who are you then?" he asked her. And when she answered with "no one", that's when he knew.
*****
Not counting the night she was No One, they had not spoken for over two moons now, but on her eighteenth name-day he made her a crown of flowers. It was lopsided and limp - not nearly as pretty as the ones Jeyne and Willow made for each other - but it would have to do.
He didn't attend her nameday feast that night - he didn't think she'd want him there - so he had woken up before the sun that morning and left the present outside her chamber door. She could tear it apart and stomp on it with her mud-caked boots for all he cared, so long as she knew he didn't forget.
His hammer and steel sang louder than the music in the castle, and for that, he was grateful. But when the work was done he wiped his brow and retired to his chambers, wishing for something to distract him from the noise.
He should have been more prudent with his wishes.
She lingered shyly by the door, the moon shining down on her and casting soft shadows across her flushed face. She wore an ivory and blue lace gown, simple and pretty, like its wearer.
In her left hand she held a skin of wine, and in her right a crown. She tossed the crown on the floor and stomped on it. When she was done she kicked it to the side like it was nothing at all. That was the first time he had ever heard her laugh.
"It's hideous," she told him simply, then brushed a hand gently across her head, where the lopsided and limp crown of flowers was weaved intricately into her hair. "I like this one better."
His smile made her smile, the one that touched her eyes.
She smelled of fruit and alcohol, laced with hints of ginger and cloves. She gave him the skin of wine and soon he smelled like fruit and alcohol and ginger and cloves too.
It might have been the wine that prompted him to kiss her, and it might have been the wine that made her kiss back, but he was pretty confident that it wasn't the wine that had started the fire in the pit of his stomach.
Eager lips parted willingly, and a fresh surge of pleasure rushed down his body as the warmth and wet of her tongue slid with practiced ease into his mouth.
It was meant to be sweet and innocent, but Gendry couldn't remember when he had ever seen Arya sweet or innocent.
This is bad, he told himself, you're a bloody stupid fool. But this bloody stupid fool had spent too many sleepless nights wishing he could take it all back, and gods damn him if he was going to fuck it up again.
His hands slid from her neck down to her back, forcing her closer, deepening the kiss. The silk of her gown was so thin he could feel her, soft and supple and ready.
A low groan laden with desire escaped his lips.
She pushed him back then, and the look on his face made her laugh for the second time in one night. In the blink of an eye she was out of her gown, a pool of silk and lace at her feet.
A hundred things raced through his mind in that instant, one of which was that his dreams never did her justice.
In two short strides she was on him again, tugging up his tunic and tossing it aside carelessly.
Whatever qualms he held a few minutes earlier were completely shattered when she pressed her naked body against his. He lifted her with ease and lowered her gently onto the bed, taking care to bear his weight on his arms.
His greedy lips could stay in one place no longer. He stamped kisses on her neck, on her shoulder, on her collar. His tongue traced slowly down her chest, to her soft breasts, to her hardened dark nipples. He took one in his mouth, circling it gently, then biting it roughly. He did the same with the other.
He had thought that there could be no sweeter sound than that of her laughter, but he was wrong.
She gasped when he was rough, and moaned when he was gentle. Like a fan to his fire.
She urged his head down, and he grinned at her impatience. Defiantly, he moved back up, his lips finding hers all over again.
Her whimper was both of pleasure and frustration, and Gendry heeded her cries, not being one to say no to the likes of Arya.
His one hand buried into her hair, drawing her in deeper, but it was his other hand that made her whole body shudder.
Her cunt was hot and slick and wetter than he had ever thought possible. He slipped in a finger, eliciting a gratified "oh". Relishing in triumph, he slid his finger out and back in, slowly. . . deliberately, quickening his pace only to slow back down again.
When he stopped without precedence, the look on her face made him laugh.
"What's so funny?" she wanted to know, but all he could do was stroke her cheek and gaze into those gray eyes he remembered so fondly. She punched him before coaxing him back down again.
He complied without complaint, this time bringing his mouth to the lips between her legs.
She tasted sweeter than honey, and her drink was more intoxicating than the blackest of beers or the most potent of poisons. Her hands dug into his hair, tangled with the thick black locks, and made him shake with lust and arousal and yearning.
She sucked in a sharp breath when it happened the first time, and he drank her in before kissing the swollen lips beneath her freckled nose.
His judgment had been completely shot to the seven hells, until her fingers began working at the ties of his breeches. She was quick and precise, and the deed was already halfway done by the time he caught her by the wrist and stilled her motions. She tried to yank away, but he was too strong.
"Why not?" she demanded, "don't you want me?"
Of course he wanted her. He wanted her more than anything in the world - and more than ever just now. It was painful to have to hold back, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to breath. "I don't want to ruin you."
Her face was incredulous. "Gendry," she said, making his heart catch in his throat because it was the first time she had said his name in ages, "I'm already broken beyond repair. I was ruined long ago, and it has nothing to do with my maidenhood." She placed a small hand against his neck, her pleading eyes bearing into his. "Just give me this. Please."
It was as if the fire in his body had melted his insides along with every last morsal of his morals. He'd lose his head for this. Or they would geld him first, then cut off his head. But it didn't matter. Nothing was more important than her, not even his life.
She discarded his breeches and graced him with a lingering glance. She had seen it all before - by accident, when she was just a girl - but she had never looked at him the way she did now.
Passion engulfed them both in mere seconds. Her slender fingers wrapped around his girth to guide him. He broke her maidenhead in a single thrust, making her nails dig deep into his back and drawing blood, but when he eased out slowly, then slid back in, her muscles relaxed and her eyes fluttered into the back of her head.
He tried to take it slow - truly, he did. But Arya wasn't the only impatient one, and soon he found himself pumping in and out of the tight warmness of her sex until her back arched off the bed and her moans turned into screams.
They finished at the same time, and he collapsed beside her with no breath left in his lungs. She rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around his. Laughing for the third time that night, she wiped the sheen of sweat off his brow and flicked it at his face.
He woke up later to find her wriggling back into her frumpled gown.
"Arya," he said quietly. She turned to him and smiled. "I lo- "
Without warning a hand clamped firmly against his mouth before he could finish. Just like that her smile was gone, and her eyes, which had been glistening a half-second earlier, turned hard and cold as ice.
"Love is for the weak," she said simply, as if he had asked why the sky was blue and her answer had been that it just was.
She was gone before he could blink.
*****
She came often to watch him work, or to drag him into the godswood. Rarely would they make love - most of the time they just fucked - and never again did he tell her he loved her.
Sometimes it was Queen Sansa who came for him, other times it was Rickon. Jon had come on occasion as well, until he left Winterfell to find a maester called Sam that might know about the poison Gendry had told him about.
They would bring him to Arya's chambers when she forgot herself again, and he would hold her and let her make him bleed and wait for her to fall asleep.
"She loves you, you know," the queen had said to him one night, when he was holding her sister in his arms and she was doing needlework to hide her grievance.
He didn't know how to answer, wasn't sure if she knew, wondered if she would finally take his head for what he had done. But all he could say was, "I'm only a smith, your grace."
Sansa snorted at him, mocking and utterly unladylike. "Is there some law against loving a smith?"
Again, he was at a loss for words, but the always articulate queen saved him the trouble. "She doesn't say it, and she doesn't show it, but that's because she doesn't know. Not yet, at least. But I know. I'm her sister." Sansa walked over and stroked Arya's hair. "Don't wait until it's too late, little sister. Don't make the same mistake I did."
*****
"Bring a cloak," she told him one morning, before they left for the godswood.
They stood in front of a bleeding white face and Gendry cocked an eyebrow in confusion, but Arya only laughed and squeezed his hand in hers and told him she was cold. So he draped his cloak around her shoulders and she squeezed his hand again and told him her lips were cold, too. So he kissed her softly and she smiled and told him to tell her how he would never leave her. So he told her just that, not because it was what she wanted to hear, but because it was true.
She made him pray in silence with her then. Gendry never pretended to know how the Old Gods of the North worked, but he did it anyway.
They made love afterwards.
*****
They had always been careless, but this time they crossed the line. For a fleeting moment, Gendry almost regretted ever meeting Arya in the first place.
That is, until he saw her face again. Red eyes above swollen red cheeks, the tears only half dried. The queen stood beside her, stiff and regal and furious, but most of all, sad. Arya held a skin of wine in her hands, but Gendry knew it wasn't wine.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her away, to the godswood, to where they would strip themselves bare and share with each other their words and their bodies.
He kept his face devoid of emotion, like Arya used to do to him. Her sobs squeezed her chest and he could see her tiny body breaking under the pressure. He wanted to hold her, but he was so angry. Angrier than he had ever been - angrier than when she pretended he didn't exist.
But when he looked at her gray eyes full of apology, he knew why she had done it.
Arya wasn't empty, but there was not much left in that broken soul of hers. She thought she was ready, but she wasn't, and never would be. There just wasn't enough of her to give.
Gendry took the wineskin from her hands and uncorked it before handing it back. She stared at him for a long time, then gulped down the vile liquid in one pull. When every last drop was gone, her whole body shuddered and shook, and she retched up a pool of blood and acid.
He held her then as she lay in silence against his chest. When she spoke again, it was in a voice so quiet he had to lean in to hear her.
"I thought I could. . . thought I had. . ." she was whispering into his leather jerkin, "but I don't. I gave it all to you." her hands reached down to her stomach and she started to cry all over again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. . ."
Gendry hushed her and stroked her hair and kissed her head and hugged her tighter. He could never stay angry at her, he knew, and just now he didn't think he had ever loved her more.
When her tears subsided he tilted his head to look at her. "One less bastard, at least, right?" he feigned a smile because he hated to see her like this, wanted to see her happy again.
"He wouldn't have been a bastard. . ." she said softly, but before Gendry could ask what she was talking about, she touched his cheek and smiled a real smile - the one that reached her eyes - and said, "I love you."