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“It is not enough,” Grey Worm says just as Bran has worked out how to keep Tyrion Lannister alive. “Jon Snow cannot be allowed to live.” He adds decisively and Gendry is the one of everyone here with the least idea how any of this is supposed to feel, but it’s like the relief and the confidence that was building to an answer is taken away. And tension gathers over all of them again as everyone sort of slumps, and stays where they are.
Everyone except Arya who slowly rises to her feet and stares at Grey Worm, challenging his damning of her brother.
“Arya, don’t,” Gendry says in a panic, the words coming out of his mouth before he realises it. He’s on his feet too. Instinct, maybe. Or habit, because he remembers he’s said it before, more than once.
He hadn’t been planning on saying anything. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, and he understands that. But it’s Arya and Davos calmed it down before when she’d threatened Yara Greyjoy but he thinks maybe it should be him. Maybe that’s the thing he is capable of, he is most suited for, more than any of them.
He can feel everyone looking at him, the first time they have since this gathering started. He would have been bowing to all of these people just months before and now he’s on his feet as they sit and it feels wrong, but he can’t sit back down until she does. He can’t leave her there alone, and he can’t let it go until he knows she has. The questioning stares come especially from those sitting next to him, but he doesn’t look away from Arya. He won’t until she looks away first, another habit he knows he has. Or maybe that's always been instinct too. Often he’s been the one left staring after her. He thinks it might have been that way since she first shoved him over, when she told him who she really was. That had only happened because he’d called her on it. No matter what they are now, or aren’t, Gendry has to believe he can still affect her. And he doesn’t know how not to try.
She hasn’t listened to him when he’s said the same words to her before. Once he followed her, the second he held her back. If she does something here…he’s sure he’ll follow her wherever it ends up leading to, but it’s a mistake, he knows it is. And gods he hopes she realises it is too. He hopes she actually listens to him for once.
This is different than the times before though, he never got a chance to try to communicate beyond telling her not to in the last second. She’d never looked at him those times. They’ve communicated dozens of times just by looking at each other, when they were surrounded by people who couldn’t hear what they were trying to say to each other. But everything between them is different now too, and Gendry doesn’t know if he has that power anymore. But she’s still looking at him, along with what feels like everyone else and Gendry doesn’t know how much time is passing. He can only guess it isn’t much by the fact that no one else has gotten involved yet. He subtly shakes his head at her, willing her to not to make a move yet, not to attack Grey Worm and start something else. He wills her to trust him at least one more time.
Her eyes drop away from him, turning her head back to Grey Worm in front of her and Gendry is wondering how fast he can move. To get to her, to get to whoever comes at them if he can’t stop her in time. But she sits back down before he’s finished his thought. She turns back to him, staring at him again across her family and he isn’t sure he can tell what she’s thinking. And he’s afraid if he’d guess, surely how things have gone between them would tell him he’d be wrong anyway.
Something releases in him when she takes her seat though and now he’s the one slumping slightly as he sits down too, adrenaline and emotion and just too much going through him. And everyone is still looking at him, Davos is practically looming into his space, obviously wondering what the fuck just happened. Gendry isn’t sure himself.
Arya looks away, sitting quietly again with her head held high as if none of it happened. Gendry thinks it must mean he got through to her. He wants to believe he still recognises when she’s made a decision.
Looking ahead, he finds Grey Worm staring at him now. Trying to figure something out, expecting something of him maybe. Fuck knows what everybody is thinking about him. He’s not the one who speaks out, he’s not the peacemaker. He’s not the strategist or diplomat. He has none of the education the rest of them do. All he could do is make their weapons, but right now he knows Arya herself is the deadliest weapon in sight and maybe he is the one who can get through to her where the rest cannot. If it’s the only other skill that sets him apart here, he’ll take it. He’s pathetically proud of it, actually. There’s something inside him that feels a belonging and rightfulness he hasn’t since before the words “Lord Gendry Baratheon” were said. It’s like having a hammer in his hands. He knows it. He knows her. He’s survived half the things he has because he and Arya could read each other, could understand each other.
And Grey Worm… 'Sons of King’s can be cruel and stupid...His will never torment us.’ Tyrion Lannister had said as he had chosen Bran to be the new king. Gendry is the only son of a King here. A King who had started a war because he lost the woman he loved. He knows what happened to Missandei, and then Daenerys. Gendry assumes they were the only two people Grey Worm loved. Robert Baratheon, his father would have shown his fury by now if it was him. Gendry carries that with him now, as the sole Baratheon, even if he never knew him. And he understands it, in a way that he didn’t expect he ever would, but he’s worried it’s another thing he’ll know. He doesn’t think he’s cruel, but maybe Arya was right all along and he is stupid. Arya doesn’t want him but if she moved on Grey Worm, if she killed him and there was a fight in return – or if Grey Worm hurt her, Gendry would take his hammer to any Unsullied that went near her until there was none left. He understands Grey Worm’s loss, and he fears his own.
If such a reaction would make him stupid, then he’s stupid. If such a reaction would make him like his father, then he’s like his father.
From what he’s been told, ruling didn’t mean anything for his father without Lyanna Stark. He hadn’t known that when he’d told Arya that none of his Lordship would mean anything without her, but knowing the similarity doesn’t make it less true. The panic, the fear, the insecurity, the understanding, the relief, the pride, the validation he just felt in that moment with her was more than anything he’s felt in the time since he last saw her, even though he’s seen a whole new world in that time. The only new world he wants is with her. He does believe he knows Arya Stark where Robert Baratheon didn't know Lyanna Stark though. And he wants Arya to know he accepts her, and her choices, even if he's not one of them.
It’s quiet, attention still on him. “We’re not going to agree to Jon’s execution.” He says, as formally as he can. As much like a Lord as he can. Not like a panicked lover, or some unaccounted-for impulsiveness that will worry the ones around him, but simply, non-threateningly, and still backing Arya, hoping she hears it. The terms Grey Worm wants won’t work. They can’t. Gendry doesn’t know all who’s here, but the ones he knows know Jon Snow, fought for Jon Snow. They’ll speak for Jon as much as they can, including him. But Arya… Arya will not accept those terms no matter what. And he won’t be able to keep talking her down if that’s all that’s offered.
“Then we have a problem.” Grey Worm says, still looking at him and Gendry is grateful at least that he hasn’t moved. The commander of the Unsullied stands waiting still, open to something.
“Perhaps we can find a compromise?” Davos voices from beside him and Gendry breathes a little easier, so fucking thankful for the man as Davos once again, saves him.
“How do we find this?” Grey Worm asks, his focus now on Davos.
The loss of contact lets his own focus wander down some as he tries to get his breath back and he finds Tyrion Lannister looking at him with a thoughtful frown. Dropping his head, Gendry bows out again. He wants to look at Arya. Wants to know if she’s looking at him, or if it’s her family’s attention he can feel from that side of him. He wants to know if she’s okay, if she felt anything of what he just did. But he keeps his head down, letting the rest come up with how they all get through this.