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It is only when the raven is sent to Queen Daenerys Targaryen that Gendry feels that he can properly breathe. He has been dragging in short, stilted breaths since being carried back into Eastwatch, unable to get in enough air, his lips frozen, throat raw from the ice and the wind, the copper tang in his mouth of having run so far and for so long. He manages to relay Jon’s message to the Maester, to write for Queen Daenerys, voice hoarse and cracked, and then refocuses on regaining control of his body. His legs feel like lead, and he hasn’t the energy to even lift himself up from the chair that they have lowered him into. His heart has not yet slowed from the exertion, yet he is so cold that Davos is worrying over him with great concern. He won’t let Gendry warm immediately by the fire as he says that they have to warm him up slowly.
Gendry refuses to let him start that process until he sees that the raven has definitely gone, and that he has fulfilled the order that Jon had given him before he had told him to go. Only then, does Gendry allow Davos to help him out of his wet clothes and into dry ones, allowed to edge closer and closer to the fire.
“I knew you were fools to go out there,” Davos grumbles to himself, “The lot of you.”
“We can’t leave them,” Gendry croaks out, throat scraping around the words, “I need to…” he tries to get up from his chair, and fails.
“You don’t need to do anything,” Davos tells him. “You have gotten back here to call for help. You have done everything you can possibly do.” He crouches in front of Gendry, puts a hand under Gendry’s chin, meets his eyes. “Now you need to rest and recover.”
“But Jon…” Gendry mumbles.
“They know what it’s like beyond the Wall,” Davos reassures him softly, “They will survive until Queen Daenerys can get to them.” Gendry knows Davos is worried, even if he isn’t admitting to it. He knows how much Davos cares for Jon Snow, because Gendry does, too. Even after only knowing him such a short time.
“I can’t just…” Gendry protests, even as his eyes start to grow heavy.
“You can,” Davos orders gently, “And you will.” He runs a hand over Gendry’s cropped hair. “All you need to do now is sleep.”
Gendry thinks he hears Davos say, “Good lad,” before he succumbs to the exhaustion.
Gendry dreams of dead men walking; skeletal faces with rotting flesh and bright blue eyes. He stands in a blizzard. He runs in the snow. Whilst he runs and runs, trying to find a Wall that he might never reach, he hopes to whichever gods are listening – the Seven, or the one that Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr seem to believe in so much - that he is lost, and he keeps on running, because Jon Snow told him to, and he will do anything for Jon. He sees a shape in the distance, and it lumbers towards him with alarming speed. He didn’t know bears had blue eyes…
Gendry jolts awake, chest heaving, panicking in unfamiliar surroundings.
He comes to recognise one of the small rooms of Eastwatch. He is in a bed, swamped in furs, and finally, finally feels warmer. His gaze falls on Davos, sleeping in a chair beside the bed.
Gendry tries to say Davos’ name, but ends up coughing instead. The noise wakes Davos, who hurries to fetch Gendry some water, holding Gendry’s head with one hand and the cup to his lips with the other. Gendry drinks it gratefully, then tries to speak again.
“How long have I been asleep?” Gendry asks.
“Just through the night.”
“Any sign of them?”
Davos shakes his head.
Gendry sighs miserably, sinks back against the cushions.
“There is still time yet, lad. Don’t give up on them yet.”
Gendry thinks of the other men out there; Jon Snow, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Jorah Mormont, Tormund, The Hound. He might not have seen eye-to-eye with all of them, but he knows that they are brave men, strong fighters. But he also knows that one of them is already wounded.
“I haven’t,” Gendry says, but decides to tell Davos that Thoros had been attacked by the bear, and that it had not looked good for him.
Davos has a grim expression on his face.
“This can’t have all been for nothing,” Gendry says, haunted by the things he has seen; what the others may be seeing right at that moment. “They have to bring a wight back. They all have to see. They all have to know.”
Gendry had been quick to believe Jon’s stories of the wights, because Jon had immediately struck him as the kind of man who would not lie, just like Davos. To have seen the wights with his own eyes, however, was something far more than believing. It was knowing that so many still did not believe. It was fearing what these creatures could do.
“They will, Gendry,” Davos says with certainty, “Queen Daenerys will come to their aid. I know it.”
“Because of Jon Snow,” Gendry says, he feels resigned, but says it bluntly, because it is true. He has heard the rumours about Jon Snow and the Dragon Queen.
He understands the feeling of doing something just because of having faith in Jon Snow. It’s why he is here, at the Wall. It is why he went beyond it. It is why he did as Jon ordered him to and ran back to Eastwatch, abandoning them there.
He understands why the Dragon Queen likes Jon Snow. He understands why everyone likes Jon Snow. He understands why so many believe in Jon Snow.
On their journey from Dragonstone to Eastwatch, Gendry had gotten to know Jon. Despite the severity of their mission, Gendry had still managed to make Jon smile and laugh. He had spent a lot of time with Jon. Jon had taught him how to use a sword, and they had practiced on the deck of the ship, jesting and sparring. When they had moved to colder waters, Jon had sat beside him, made sure he was warm, kept him warm, once, by warming his hands whilst huddled below decks. It had been intimate, and it had been confusing, at first. But Gendry knows what attraction feels like, despite not having had all that much experience with relationships, he knows he is attracted to Jon Snow. Jon seems to enjoy his company too, looks out for him, listens to him, smiles at him, and his brown eyes go soft when he sees Gendry smile back.
Gendry knows he likes Jon Snow, and that maybe Jon likes him in return, but Gendry also knows that these things are never that simple. These things are complicated. The Dragon Queen makes things complicated. The fact that he followed Jon into the white to catch a wight, and now does not know whether Jon is even still alive, make things complicated.
The answers require waiting.
But Gendry has done years of waiting, forging swords and armour for the armies of a Queen he does not want to win. He has waited for adventure, and despite everything that happened beyond the Wall, has not yet had his fill.
He has to wait to find out if the men beyond the Wall will return.
Gendry is so tired of waiting, but there is nothing else to do but wait.
At least he is no longer running.
***
He is sitting in Eastwatch’s common hall when there are shouts from the Brothers of the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings of Eastwatch about the Dragon Queen.
He looks to Davos.
“Wait there,” Davos orders him, brooking no argument.
Gendry does not want to, but he does as he is told and watches Davos walk out of the room.
He does not have to wait long. The men he journeyed North with all trudge in one by one.
Lord Beric Dondarrion is the first in, Gendry stands and rushes to him. “Thoros?” he asks.
Beric shakes his head, clasps Gendry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad,” he says.
Beric is looking at him sadly, and Gendry feels as though the apology is not just for what has happened to Thoros, but also for what Beric had done to Gendry in the past, selling him off to the red witch. Gendry is saddened to hear of Thoros’ death. Despite his resentment towards the Brotherhood, he had come to understand them a little better, and had liked Thoros, by the end.
Gendry looks at The Hound, who enters the hall behind Lord Beric.
The Hound grunts at him. “You’re alive then.”
“Yes.”
“I lost your hammer.”
Gendry curls his fingers, as though he can still feel the weight of his beloved hammer between his fingers.
“That’s ok,” he says, though it does not sound convincing.
The Hound scowls at him for his lack of reaction.
“I wouldn’t want to complain,” Gendry explains pointedly.
The Hound snorts in amusement, and Gendry counts it as a small victory, even though his hammer is lost to him. He can always make another.
When nobody else follows, Gendry rushes out the hall and into the courtyard. Caught suddenly by the wracking cough he has picked up from his journey north of the Wall and run back down southwards, he almost runs headfirst into Tormund.
“Tormund,” Gendry says, eyes flicking over Davos, Jorah Mormont and a distraught looking Dragon Queen near the entrance. There are two dragons flying overhead. He does not see Jon. “Where’s Jon?”
“He got separated from us,” Tormund says, voice heavier than Gendry has heard it before. “We had to leave him to save the dragon. The Dragon lady says she is waiting two days in case he returns.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Gendry dreads asking it.
Tormund shakes his head. He looks sad. “He is a strong lad, and I have known him do things I thought were impossible. He might still make it.”
Gendry’s heart feels heavy, and Tormund must see his face fall.
“For someone who has not seen snow,” Torrmund says, assumedly attempting to make Gendry feel better, “You can run in it.”
“Did you bring one back?” Gendry says. He has to know, has to know if the sacrifice has been worth it; the sacrifice of Thoros, the Eastwatch Brothers and Wildlings that accompanied them, and maybe even the King in the North. “A wight?”
“We did.”
As Tormund leaves him to go into the hall, Gendry feels lost, wandering in the direction of Davos, or maybe to the steps up to the top of the Wall, so he can look out for Jon’s return. Jon has to return. Jon Snow can’t have died. Jon Snow can’t die.
“Gendry,” he hears Davos call out his name.
He turns to find Davos and Jorah watching him. The Dragon Queen is gone.
“Gendry,” Davos says again, “Get inside. You are going to get cold and worsen your cough.”
Gendry stops, floundering, until Jorah walks past him, clasps his shoulder.
“Thank you, Gendry,” he says quietly, “For what you did.”
Without Gendry making it back to Eastwatch and sending the raven, the Dragon Queen would not have come with her dragons, and all the men he had just spoken to would be dead. But it had not been enough to save Thoros. It might not have been enough to save Jon Snow.
The loss weighs heavy on him, draping around him like a second fur cloak.
He can make another hammer, but there is only one Jon Snow.
***
He stands on top of the Wall, watching for any sign of movement down below. It all looks white and empty and dead down there.
A dragon swoops down above him and Gendry ducks on instinct.
“You do not like them?” A curious, authoritative voice asks him, and Gendry turns to see the Dragon Queen standing a little further down the Wall. He does not know when she had arrived.
“Your Grace,” Gendry says, “I have only just seen snow for the first time, forgive me, but dragons are going to take a little getting used to.”
“These are my first snows too,” The Queen says, looking out at the white beyond. “And I lost a dragon to it.”
“I was sorry to hear it, Your Grace.”
Gendry has heard rumours of the Dragon Queen using her dragons to burn people alive. But that is not the Queen he has witnessed. She is here, and she has saved the group, and lost a dragon to the cause, and now she waits for Jon Snow to return just like he does. And he finds that he is genuinely sorry that she has lost a dragon.
“What was your name again?” she asks.
He had seen her briefly before they had set out from Dragonstone to Eastwatch, but he had not spoken to her. Davos had thought it best to keep Gendry away from her, again, to avoid Jon Snow the trouble of having to ‘harbour the bastard of a dead king’.
“Gendry,” he replies.
Nobody but Davos and Jon know that Gendry is Robert Baratheon’s bastard. Tyrion Lannister might have guessed, possibly, but Gendry cannot have the Dragon Queen know. He knows that his father was the reason the Targaryens were usurped from the throne, he knows that Robert Baratheon was an enemy of Daenerys Targaryen. He might be grateful for her bravery in helping the others, but he does not trust her not to kill him, just like Queen Cersei would. He still does not really trust people in power, apart from Jon Snow and Ser Davos.
“Gendry,” she repeats, as though waiting for him to expand, to give her a surname, a house of loyalty, a location of origin.
“Just Gendry, Your Grace,” he says, “I’m a b…” he pauses, “I’m a blacksmith.”
“Where are you from?”
“King’s Landing, Your Grace.”
She watches him suspiciously, “Is Cersei Lannister your Queen?”
“No, Your Grace, she is not. I follow the King in the North.”
“He is your King?”
“I suppose so,” Gendry admits, noting how they both speak about him as though he is still alive. He had better still be alive. “He is who I follow.”
And he is waiting for him to return, so he can follow him again. Daenerys Targaryen turns to look back out over the Wall, and Gendry slips away.
***
Gendry is on the deck of the ship, sulking in his misery as preparations are made to leave, when he hears that Jon Snow has returned, and the weight on him lightens instantly.
He sees Jon be carried down onto the ship, and hovers worriedly in the background as Davos has to force the furs from an unconscious Jon’s shoulders with a frozen crunch.
He wants to stay with him, but the Maester asks everyone but Davos to leave.
Gendry sits with Ser Jorah instead, hears about what happened after he left the group beyond the Wall.
It is a day’s journey before Gendry can finally see Jon.
He knocks on the door of the room Jon is occupying, and is relieved to hear that Northern accent tell him to enter.
He does so, and finds Jon lying amongst furs and blankets, his bare chest exposed to the room. Jon smiles when he sees him, and Gendry finally feels truly warm again.
“Gendry.”
“Your Grace,” Gendry says in return, glancing around the room before shutting the door behind him. “I thought the Dragon Queen might still be here.”
“She’s just left.”
Gendry makes his way over to the bedside and sits down on the chair set beside the bed. Jon watches him, dark eyes following his movements.
“I am glad to see you alive,” Gendry tells him. It is an understatement, to say the least.
“And I am glad to see you,” Jon says earnestly. “After I told you to go back to Eastwatch, I began to fear that I had sent you to your doom. You had left without your hammer, defenceless, asked to find your way in a place you have never been, in snow you had never seen before. But I will admit those fears did not last. I know you. I knew you would do everything in your power to send that raven. That is why I sent you.”
“And I was the fastest,” Gendry reminds him.
“And that,” Jon says, sincerely. “But I also didn’t know what would happen to us out there, and I knew you were safer heading back to Eastwatch than with us. I did promise that I would try to protect you.”
“But I also promised that I would keep you safe,” Gendry says quietly, “And you made me leave you.”
“You did keep us safe, Gendry. You sent that raven. You are the reason Daenerys came to our aid,” Jon reaches out and takes Gendry’s hand. “You are the reason we are still breathing.”
Gendry squeezes Jon’s fingers, is glad to feel the warmth in them. He had been so worried that Jon had died out there in the snow and the cold.
But Jon hadn’t died. He had lived. And now they are taking a wight down to the south to show all the non-believers that the army of the dead is very real, and very much something to fear.
“Your plan worked,” Gendry speaks his thought aloud, “You are going to show them all that they are real.”
“At a cost,” Jon shifted in the bed. He looks guilty, and terribly sad. "Thoros, Daenerys' dragon, my uncle..."
Gendry does not know who Jon's uncle is, but decides from the look on Jon's face that he likely does not want to discuss it.
“Everyone back at Eastwatch made their own choice to join the cause,” Gendry reminds him. “They won’t have died in vain. Not even the Dragon Queen's dragon.”
Jon sighs. He does not look entirely convinced.
“She has been here with you a lot,” Gendry cannot help but comment. “The Dragon Queen. She likes you.”
Jon does not reply.
“And you like her.”
There is silence between them for a moment or two.
“I bent the knee,” Jon says finally. “I believe in her.”
It is a huge decision to have made on behalf of the North, but Gendry understands it. Jon looks like he is waiting for Gendry to say something about his decision, but Gendry is not in any position to question a choice like that. He is not an advisor, or a lord.
Gendry looks down at their joined hands, and considers letting go. He doesn’t.
“She and I aren’t…” Jon starts. He stops. He glances at Gendry and away again. “I don’t know what we are.”
Gendry knows that Jon is not just talking about him and the Dragon Queen. He is talking about the two of them, too, because Jon has still not let go of Gendry’s hand.
Gendry decides not to push it further. It’s not his place. He lets his eyes wander instead. He starts at Jon’s dark curls, down to his soft brown eyes, his striking face, framed by facial hair, and then to his chiselled torso and abdomen. Gendry’s eyes skip over the obvious scars still present in Jon’s skin.
“So the red witch truly did bring you back,” Gendry whispers.
Jon startles. He takes his hand from Gendry’s and looks down, tracing the large scar over his heart.
“You know, you are the first person who has asked me about them since I have woken up. Daenerys saw them, but she didn’t mention them.”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace, I didn’t mean…”
“No, no,” Jon says, looking up at him fondly, “I admire your honesty. Yes, Melisandre brought me back. I am sorry I did not tell you when you first talked to me about her.”
Gendry shakes his head to let Jon know that that does not bother him. “I am just glad to hear she finally used her powers for something worthwhile.”
Jon Snow had once died. He had been stabbed to death, by the looks of it. But the red witch brought him back. It makes him despise her for what she had done to him a little less. He is glad that Jon is here now. Gendry is glad he got to meet him, to know him, to care for him, about him. To devote himself to whatever cause and course Jon Snow decides to take.
Jon laughs at Gendry’s words, but wheezes afterwards. Gendry passes him a goblet of water, and Jon takes it with a small smile.
“I would ask you to keep this between us,” Jon asks, motioning at the evidence of his death, “Not many people do know.”
“Of course.”
Jon nods in thanks, believing Gendry’s word, which fills Gendry with pride, at knowing Jon Snow trusts him at his word.
“It is good that I live in a place that requires a lot of clothing,” Jon says, “It avoids people seeing them.”
“Everyone has scars,” Gendry says. He holds out his arm, where a number of blacksmith-related burns lay white in his skin. “Yours tell a story, just like mine do.”
Jon’s brown eyes lift from the sight of Gendry’s scars to look up at him. There is vulnerability in that gaze, and Gendry finds himself caught.
“It’s a story I would rather keep to those I care about,” Jon says.
“I understand,” Gendry says, “There are things I have to keep secret too.” He takes a breath, “I would rather the Dragon Queen not know about me, Your Grace.”
“We agreed to trust each other,” Jon reassures him, catches his wrist again, and Gendry remembers their journey here, when Jon had warmed Gendry’s hands between his own. He remembers how his heart had spiked, and how the air below decks had felt charged. On this occasion it feels comforting. “And I won’t tell anybody who you are.”
“I appreciate that,” Gendry says. “Thank you, Your Grace.” He pauses, takes a breath. “I don’t intend to leave your side again, unless ordered. I want to stay with you and Davos. Please don’t send me away again.”
“Not even to Winterfell?” Jon asks, “To Arya?”
“I want to see her again, very much, as you do,” Gendry says. He cannot wait to see Arya Stark again. “But I will come with you until the day you return to her. If you will have me.”
Gendry does not want to leave Davos. He looks up to Davos, and feels safe with him. Davos is like the father Gendry was never lucky enough to have, and likely, even better of a a father. He also does not want to leave Jon. Not again. Not after what happened beyond the Wall. Gendry wants to stay with Jon, and protect him, until the day he gets to Winterfell and they can see Arya again.
Jon smiles. His thumb runs over the underside of Gendry’s wrist, and Gendry’s breath stalls.
“I will have you, Gendry,” Jon says quietly.
It is such a loaded statement that Gendry is left stammering for something to say in return. Jon does not say anything more, but there is a pleased glint in his eye.
“Jon, I…” Gendry starts, forgoing the formalities of the King by accident, and Jon reacts to the sound of his name from Gendry’s mouth, licks his lips nervously.
And then the door opens, and Gendry and Jon’s hands drop to the bed.
Davos bustles in with a plate of food.
“Your Grace, I…” he turns. “Oh, Gendry, there you are.”
“Thank you Davos,” Jon says, attempting to sit up, and Gendry moves to help him the rest of the way when he sees him struggle.
Gendry starts coughing the moment he sits back down, and Davos, having handed Jon the plate, throws his hands up in despair.
“You may as well look sorry for yourselves, the pair of you,” Davos says, “One of you nearly dying of exhaustion and the other almost freezing to death…you are lucky you both survived. I would advise against such foolhardiness again, but I know you will not listen. Advice from a man of ripe old age falls on deaf ears.” He looks at them both pointedly, “You two are going to be the death of me.”
Gendry glances at Jon and grins sheepishly at him. Jon’s lips quirk.
“We hope not, Davos,” Jon says. And he says it sincerely.
None of them decide to mention that the wars to come could very well see the deaths of all three of them. That is not a thought to linger on at this moment. For now, they will live in the knowledge that they survived the snows and the wights beyond the wall; that they achieved what they had all set out to do, no matter the cost.
Gendry remembers the wonder he had experienced at seeing his first ever flakes of snowfall whilst on the ship with Jon whilst travelling to Eastwatch. He thought it was beautiful. But now he has experienced snow in the extreme, fought in it, fought through it, fought the things that came with it. He knows that snow can be as dangerous as it is beautiful.
Just as Jon Snow is too. Gendry knows the dangers of falling too deep with Jon Snow, because it is obvious that there is also something happening between Jon Snow and the Dragon Queen. Gendry isn’t blind to it. But he also knows that he can outlast a storm, and there is a beauty there, a beauty in Jon Snow, the beauty of Jon Snow, that Gendry knows he does not want to give up, no matter what may happen.
He can weather the approaching storm and see what is left existing at the other side; both for the Snows of the North, and the Snow he has vowed to follow to the ends of the icy earth.