Work Text:
Gendry looked down at his lap, fighting the urge to laugh as Catelyn glared at Arya from across the narrow table. Gendry heard a small snigger escape Sansa’s lips before she clapped her hand over her mouth to stop any further laughter. Arya pressed her heel down on to Gendry’s toes roughly causing Gendry to momentarily lose the little control he had and release a loud snort.
“Do you find joy in making things difficult, Arya?” her mother pressed quietly.
Arya rolled her eyes. “I am trying to simplify things,” Arya muttered. “I know what kind of cake I want -”
“We’re going to be trying types of cakes that I’m sure you have never tried,” Catelyn told her, sounding very frustrated. But before either Stark women could speak, the employee at the bakery came to the table and set down several plates of cakes.
Hot Pie, a close friend to both Gendry and Arya, insisted on making their wedding cake and so that is how Gendry found himself spending his Saturday morning with the three Stark women tasting different kinds of cakes. This was perhaps one of the better wedding tasks they still had to complete so Gendry had chosen to be the optimistic one out his and Arya’s partnership and keep spirits high.
Arya, of course, had chosen to complain as soon as the four of them met up at the bakery about all this stupid wedding stuff . But as Gendry promised when he asked Mr. and Mrs. Stark for permission to ask Arya to marry him, Gendry has continued to insist on having a wedding ceremony - an intimate ceremony, but a ceremony nonetheless.
Gendry had proposed to Arya after two years of dating four months ago and now they were nearly two months away from their set date. Gendry was giddy at the thought of Arya being officially and forever his, and he knew she felt the same even if the whole wedding-planning made her grumpy.
“I don’t know why you get so angry about everything we do to plan your wedding, Arya,” Catelyn said quietly after the server left their table.
Arya rolled her eyes for probably the twentieth time within the fifteen minutes the four had been together and Gendry had to fight the urge to laugh once again. “I trust Sansa to make my wedding something that I would be okay with,” Arya answered tersely. “So I just don’t understand why she can’t plan everything. I told you that I want a tier to be red velvet cake and the rest can be white cake for other people. Simple.”
Catelyn chose not to respond, much to Arya’s annoyance since she insisted on making things difficult, and began trying different kinds of cakes and frostings. Gendry was surprised by the amount of cakes he had never tried before, especially since his best friend and old room mate owned the bakery that they were currently seated in. When asked, Gendry gave overly enthusiastic responses to Sansa’s and Catelyn’s inquiries for their notes while Arya watched him in amusement. The last five kinds of cakes given to them to sample included Arya’s favorite, red velvet. She tried small bites of the other four before snatching the plate with the untouched red velvet and taking a large bite, giving her mother a pompous smirk.
Catelyn blew a long breath out of her nose as she watched her youngest daughter although there was a small smile on her face. But it wasn’t five seconds later that Arya’s face fell. She put the plate back on to the table roughly and after a moment’s thought, jumped up from her seat and ran to the back of the building toward the bathroom.
The three of them watched her for a moment in silence, then the two red heads turned back toward Gendry. He changed his look of bewilderment as he cleared his throat and wiped his hands off.
“I’ll go see if she’s alright,” he told them, giving Sansa an odd look as he tried to think of what the bright glint in her blue eyes might mean. He felt the two women’s eyes follow him as he walked toward the back of the bakery and when he glanced back at them, they were both talking amongst each other.
Gendry knocked on the door. “Arya?” he called before knocking again.
He heard the door unlock but it didn’t open so he turned the handle slowly and poked his head inside. Arya was sitting on the floor next to the toilet, her eyes closed and her face tilted toward the ceiling as she evened her breathing.
“Are you alright?” he asked her. He wetted a paper towel and gave it to her, crouching in front of her. Arya took it and wiped her mouth with it, also dabbing her tongue. “You didn’t drink last night -”
“Gendry, I’m pregnant,” Arya said, cutting him off. She was sitting up straight and looking at him now, biting her lip.
“What?” Gendry asked stupidly.
“I’m pregnant,” Arya repeated. “I took a test yesterday when Hot Pie and Lommy first got over and I was going to tell you when we got home today. I haven’t had my period for almost two months and I threw up a shit ton of licorice a couple days ago.”
Gendry stared at her for a long moment as he processed what he was telling her. She was pregnant. With a baby. With his baby. A grin broke over his face and an expression of relief washed over his fiance’s face. He laughed and kneeled over, grabbing her face and pecking her lips.
“I wish you didn’t just throw up so I could kiss you properly,” he told her. Arya laughed. “I love you Arya,” he said, kissing her nose, each of her eyelids and her forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you too, idiot,” Arya said smiling with a new brightness to her. “But my nosey mother and sister are out there -”
“Oh shit,” Gendry said, suddenly realizing what the look in Sansa’s eyes had been. “They know,” he said. Arya bit her bottom lip to stop herself from smirking. “No, really. Sansa had this look in her eyes but I didn’t know what it meant -”
“The crazy glint?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Oh shit, they’ve definitely named the baby already.”
“This isn’t funny Arya!” Gendry exclaimed, standing up and pulling her up with him. “They know and they’re going to tell your father and they’re going to tell Robb and Jon and -”
“And we’re going to be married before the baby is born -”
“But they’ll know we’ve been having sex!”
Arya threw her head back and laughed. Laughed hard enough that Gendry was almost annoyed by the sound.
“Rickon has definitely walked in on us banging multiple times and you know that he has never kept a single piece of information to himself for more than ten minutes -”
“But your parents never said anything! This is their grandchild! We’re not married -”
Arya stood on her toes and pulled Gendry’s head down toward her for her to kiss again. She smiled when she pulled away. “Their grandchild,” she repeated quietly. She looked at him through her eyelashes. “They’ll act disappointed in us but you know as well as I do that Lawsen is their favorite Stark.”
Gendry smiled at that. Robb’s son, Lawsen, was without a doubt a light in Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s eyes. “And I doubt my mother will say anything when we go out there,” Arya added quietly, but Gendry noticed that she seemed to be assuring herself. “We better go quickly. Come on.”
The two exited the bathroom with matching calm expressions. Sansa and Catelyn were speaking with one of the bakery’s workers again but the worker saw them and nodded. Sansa and Catelyn both turned to look at them, searching both Arya and Gendry for any signs of information that they could find. Arya rolled her eyes and shook her head in a very characteristic way as she took her seat back at the table.
Sansa and Catelyn both looked at the two expectantly. Arya pretended to be confused. “I didn’t think I drank enough last night to throw up,” she lied easily. Catelyn narrowed her eyes at her daughter as expected - in her opinion, Arya simply drank too much. Not anymore, Gendry thought to himself. He caught Sansa’s eye and she looked away, smirking. “Anyways,” Arya continued. “I think we should do white cake and poppy seed.”
“No red velvet?” Sansa asked in an innocent tone.
Arya chewed her lip. “And red velvet,” she said. “Like I said… I’m just sick from last night.”
Sansa didn’t look convinced but wrote down what flavors of cake Arya said on an order sheet.