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“Tell me again, Daddy.”
Gendry smiles indulgently at their daughter before looking over at Arya, his eyes bright with mischief.
“ Again ?” He pulls a face, pretending to be surprised. For her part, Arya just rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “You don’t really want to hear this story again, sweetling. Do you?”
Catelyn sits up at that and pouts, her plump bottom lip sticking out defiantly. In moments like these–specifically, when she isn’t getting her way–she looks so much like Arya it makes his chest ache.
“I do want to hear it again.” Cat folds her arms across her chest and glares at him, shaking her head. “I always want to hear it again.”
“Gendry,” Arya says, very quietly. She’s trying hard not to laugh, he can tell she is, but he also knows she’s pretending to be bored and embarrassed by the whole conversation. He won’t blow her cover. He’s damn lucky she lets him tell the story as it is. “If Cat wants to hear it again, why not?”
Gendry sighs, pretending to be put out by what their daughter is asking of him. Though in truth, there’s little in this world he loves more than telling Cat how incredible her mother truly is.
He rolls over in their bed, onto his side, so that he’s facing her. Cat’s little nose is just inches from his, and her bright blue eyes are round with anticipation.
“Are you ready?” he asks in a hushed tone.
“Yes.” She nods, solemn. “I’m ready.”
“Okay.” Gendry closes his eyes, and pretends to think hard about where to begin.
He has, of course, long since committed every detail of that horrible night to memory. He probably couldn’t forget them now if he tried. He remembers, like it was yesterday, how convinced he’d been that none of them would live to see the dawn. He remembers that horrible stench of blood, death, and decay that clung to everything as they fought desperately for survival.
And then, later, after the battle, there was Arya. Arya, her lips on his throat, his hands tangled needfully in her hair, once it was finally over and they found each again.
Most of what happened that night isn’t appropriate for their daughter to hear at this age. Some of it Gendry would sooner die than share with her, ever.
But the parts she can hear…
Gendry committed those parts to memory long ago, too.
He clears his throat dramatically. “Okay. A long time ago, far in the north, there was an evil man called–”
“The Night King,” Catelyn finishes for him.
He nods. “That’s right. The Night King. He spent all his time trying to hurt other people and make them his slaves.”
“Why did he do that, Daddy?” They’ve answered this question for her countless times, and Gendry knows Cat knows the answer, such as it is. But asking it is part of the nightly ritual all the same. Jon tells them it’s normal for kids her age to do this. Gendry has no reason to doubt that’s true. “Why was he so mean to everybody?”
“No one really knows for sure, sweetling.” Arya moves closer to their daughter in the bed, wrapping a protective arm around her. Answering this particular question is the only part of all this that involves Arya’s active participation. The rest of it–the telling of the battle itself, heavily sanitized for Cat’s young ears; and the role Arya played in it–they’ve decided Gendry would handle it all. (“You’re better at this stuff,” she’d told him, bluntly, once Cat started asking questions. “Better with her.” Gendry doesn’t think that’s true at all. But if going along with it here means he gets to tell this story his way he’s happy to oblige.)
“But the important thing to remember,” Gendry continues, “is that the Night King was a very bad, very evil man.” Gendry nods. “And everyone had to work together to stop him.” He swallows thickly, remembering. “So one day, there was a terrible battle, when people from across the Seven Kingdoms came together to try and stop him.”
Cat chews on her bottom lip as she processes this. She looks up at him. “And you fought in this battle, didn’t you?”
Gendry smiles at her. “I did.” He looks over her head to Arya, who’s looking back at him with an expression he still can’t quite read, even after all this time. “And… and your mother did, too.”
Recognizing that they’ve finally gotten to the point of the story, Cat rolls over in bed so she can look at her mother. “You saved everyone.” Cat’s voice is quiet, reverent. “With a knife your brother gave you.”
Arya’s eyes are a little too bright, and she looks likes she wants to say something. But she doesn’t. She only nods at Gendry, encouraging him to answer the question.
“She did,” he says. He swallows down the lump in his throat as his mind travels back to the moment he’d found her, shivering and covered in dirt and dried blood, the weapon that had saved humanity clutched tightly in her fist. She’d looked so small, and so fierce. Terrifying. No man had ever been more in love than he was with Arya Stark at that moment.
“And your mother wasn’t afraid, Cat,” Gendry continues. “The rest of us were terrified, thought we were all going to die, but your mother? No.” He shakes his head solemnly. “Your mother marched right up to the Night King, shouted, ‘ I won’t let you hurt people anymore! ’, and–” He mimes a stabbing motion with his right fist. “And then, she stabbed him with that knife, which broke the evil Night King’s spell and saved the world.”
Cat nods to herself quietly for a long moment before speaking again. She looks up at Arya, eyes round as saucers. “You’re very special, aren’t you, Mother?”
Arya shrugs, looking very much like she doesn’t agree with that assessment at all. She opens her mouth to reply but Gendry beats her to it.
“ Very special,” he says emphatically, eyes on his wife. “The most special woman, the best mother, you could have possibly had.”
He reaches across their daughter and grasps her mother’s hand. Gives it a gentle squeeze.
“Well,” Arya says shrugging. Dismissive. She quirks an eyebrow at him, and gives him a smile he would end worlds for. “You’re not so bad yourself.”