Chapter Text
He was never not going to be hers.
From the moment she revealed to him that she was really Arya Stark of Winterfell, Gendry was forever hers. He would never forget her grey eyes wide with nervousness as she confessed her true identity. He promised her that her secret was safe with him. I will never betray your trust, he also silently promised. He followed her to Harrenhal; he would have followed her to Riverrun, to Winterfell, to wherever she went.
Then the Hound kidnapped her from the Brotherhood, and Gendry’s understanding of the things to come fell apart. He still remembered the rain against his skin as he chased after her in the night, calling her name until his voice grew hoarse. He still remembered the chill that ran through his blood when he learned about the massacre at the Twins — the Red Wedding, they had called it. He still remembered every second of the devastation that was losing her.
As the war dragged on, Gendry found himself back in the smithy. Beric may have knighted me, but I’m no true knight, he reminded himself, hammer in hand. He didn’t know how to be a knight without Arya. In another lifetime, he’d be the knight gallant to her ladyship. Chivalry would allow his ardent admiration of her, with no expectation that he would ever do anything about it. And he wouldn’t. He knew his place was to follow her, and protect her, but never to love her.
But still he loved her. He dreamed about her sometimes. Her fierce face and sharp tongue. The way she trusted him. That trust meant everything to him. He had never been trusted before. Not like that. He still had never been trusted like that since then, and it was her trust more than Arya herself that invaded his dreams.
She almost made me feel worthy, Gendry mused, after he woke one morning after one those dreams. In the dream, Arya had gripped his arm tightly and he had sworn to make the journey north with her.
Any semblance of worthiness was quick to fade away whenever he dreamed other things about her. It wasn’t often, but on occasion, he would dream of her, older now — the woman he imagined she would have grown up to be had she lived — naked and in his arms. After those dreams, Gendry would hate himself. It was torture to imagine what might have happened were Arya still alive, still with him. He knew, guiltily, that he never could have had her. She would never kiss him, never slip into his bed, never whisper hot and heavy in his ear how much she desired him. He never would have considered it if she had lived, but it was all too easy to imagine it, knowing that he would never see her again.
Until he did.
It had been painful to ride north to Winterfell with Brienne, knowing that he should have done this with Arya years earlier. But the King in the North had requested a blacksmith who knew how to work with dragonglass and Valyrian steel, and Tobho Mott had taught Gendry both arts during his apprenticeship. I should have known I’d end up smithing for her brother, Gendry had thought with grim good humor, though it was Jon Snow not Robb Stark, in Winterfell not Riverrun.
Gendry liked Jon. He recalled Arya speaking fondly of her bastard brother. He was her favorite, wasn’t he? Gendry tried to remember. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Jon that he had known Arya. He hadn’t been able to tell Brienne either. It hurt too much to try to speak of her.
It hurt to look at Jon sometimes. He had the same long face and same piercing grey gaze as Arya had. Sometimes Gendry couldn’t stand to be around Jon because he missed Arya so much. It was always easy then to retreat to the forge and throw himself into his work. It was less easy when Jon sought him out in the forge one day.
“Brienne tells me you’re Robert Baratheon’s bastard,” said the King in the North, grey eyes watching Gendry closely. “One of the few that remain.”
Gendry set down his hammer and squared to face Jon. “That is what I’ve been told,” he said, “Though the Baratheons never claimed me the way they did Edric Storm.”
Jon stepped closer. “You do look very much like him,” he said quietly.
“That is what I’ve been told,” said Gendry again. He had never seen King Robert, but by the Seven, he had heard so many times how much he resembled the man who must be his father.
“I would legitimize you, if you wanted,” Jon proposed, surprising Gendry and immediately making him think of Arya.
Too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high, he had told her once, years ago. That had always been a festering sore spot between them once they met up with the Brotherhood. If Arya were still alive, Gendry wouldn’t have hesitated to accept Jon’s offer of legitimization. But he didn’t see the point without her. “I am happy as a blacksmith,” he told Jon. “I don’t need any fancy titles or a castle, just a hammer and a forge.”
And it was true. Gendry didn’t need anything more that — not until the day that Winterfell was abuzz with the arrival of the king’s sister. Gendry heard the whispers and assumed it was Princess Sansa. She had been missing, just as Arya had been, but she hadn’t been at the Red Wedding. She must be still be alive. All Arya wanted was to get back to Winterfell, and now she’s dead and all her siblings are home. The thought kept Gendry in the forge. He had no need to witness the homecoming of Arya’s older sister.
There was a feast prepared in a flurry to celebrate her arrival. Gendry had planned on eating alone in his modest accommodations until Brienne came by the smithy. “Are you coming?” she asked. “You’re invited, you know.”
Gendry knew it was because of his father. Kings didn’t invite blacksmiths, no matter how good, to banquets, but they did invite royal bastards. And our fathers were best friends, thought Gendry with a sigh as he relented and followed Brienne to the great hall. The two had become friends after their journey together from the Riverlands to Winterfell. Gendry supposed he had a soft spot for lady warriors.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if the feast was a waste of time and resources while the White Walkers still posed a threat. Brienne laughed when he said as much to her. “You can’t fault Jon for wanting to celebrate having his sister back, or the North for honoring the sudden return of their lost princess,” she told him as they picked their way through the crowded tables.
While Brienne took her place, as befitting the Lady of Tarth, at the table near the the dais, Gendry slid onto the bench at a lower table with the retainers of the North’s lesser lords. The feast was already underway. Brienne must have left to retrieve him, Gendry realized with a twinge of guilt. But he just couldn’t bring himself to care.
Then he looked at the king’s table.
Gendry could barely eat for the remainder of banquet. All he could think was, She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was alive. She was here. She was smiling at her brother, grey eyes gleaming as he had so often seen in his dreams.
Look at me, Arry, he thought desperately, silently begging her to notice him. But he was just another face in the crowd, and she never once saw him. It was both a disappointment and a relief. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to face her, the ghost that had loomed so large in his mind for years.
After the feast, Gendry restrained his need to go lunging straight to the king’s table. He knew it wasn’t befitting for a bastard blacksmith to seek out the Princess of Winterfell. Too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high. The thought returned unbidden to his mind as he watched her leave with Jon.
The hall emptied, but still Gendry sat at his table. It was like the sight of her had rendered him immobile. Stop being so dramatic, you stupid bull, he told himself in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Arya. Get up!
“Why are you moping?” asked Brienne, surprising him by suddenly sitting down across him. “Still mourning the loss of precious time and resources?” she teased.
Gendry shook his head. “I didn’t… I thought it was going to be the other sister.” His voice sounded hollow to his own ears.
Brienne gave him a calculating look. “Gendry,” she began, stopped, sighed, and began again. “Gendry, why does that make a difference to you?”
“I… It doesn’t,” he lied. He knew it shouldn’t. There was no reason for it to make a difference to him. But there was a reason, because his shameful little secret was that he knew Arya.
Brienne made an unconvinced noise, and Gendry all but fled from the room. He knew he would have to address the truth eventually; Arya would see him if nothing else. But he had spent years decidedly not talking about Arya, and he wasn’t sure how to begin now.
The next day found him back in the smithy. There was still much work to be done before the next battle against the White Walkers, whenever that would be. Weaponcrafting was easy for him — he knew exactly what he needed to do in the forge. It was everything else that was difficult. But working always helped cleared his head. The stories always said that Robert Baratheon was made to have a warhammer in his hand, and Gendry supposed there was some poetic justice in the way his bastard son was made to have a blacksmith’s hammer in his hand.
Then the door to the forge flew open, and any clarity Gendry had achieved was immediately lost as he watched Arya stride in, glaring at him. For a second, he was back at Harrenhal, where Arya visiting him in the smithy was a regular occurrence. But Arya was older now. She was older and angry and opening her mouth to ask, “What are you doing here?”
“Arya…” Gendry’s mouth was dry, his heart pounding as she took a step further into the smithy.
“I said,” she hissed, “What are you doing here?”
Panic began to rise in Gendry’s chest. He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him or why she was so angry. “I’m making swords for your brother!” he blurted out. “Just like you always said I could!”
She was on him in a flash. Gendry didn’t have time to react before he realized she was embracing him, her arms tight around him. “You stupid idiot,” she whispered pressing her face against his chest.
Instinctively, Gendry returned her embrace, wrapping his arms around her just as tightly. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Arya made a choking sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Gendry, I’m not mad that you’re here at Winterfell,” she told him and pulled back enough to fix him with a probing gaze. “I’m mad that you’re here in the forge. Why didn’t you come to me when you saw me at the feast last night?”
“I…” Gendry had no good answer for her. “Arry… It wouldn’t have been proper.” Belatedly, he added, “M’lady.”
He expected her to chafe against the title, as she had so many times in the past, but Arya surprised him with a crooked smile. “Which is it?” she asked and stepped out of his arms. “Arry? Or m’lady? Which am I to you?”
“M’lady…” began Gendry, noting the way her eyes darkened and her face fell. “I know that you should be m’lady. But you’re always going to be Arry to me.”
“I’m not a lady,” said Arya simply, and it showed how much older she was than the girl Gendry had known before. She wasn’t scowling or huffing or shoving him over. She simply stated it like a fact. “Not really. Not anymore.” Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she continued, “And anyways, Jon says you’re Robert Baratheon’s son. I should be calling you ‘m’lord.’” She didn’t laugh, but Gendry saw the merriment in her eyes.
As much as he loved seeing her happy, Gendry had to ask the question that he’d been wondering since he first saw again. “Arya, how did you survive the Red Wedding?” he asked. “Where you have been for all these years?”
Arya did laugh then. “I’ve been nowhere, being no one,” she told him cryptically. “And I was never at the Red Wedding. We got there too late, and the Hound wouldn’t let me die with Robb and my mother.”
“I’m glad. I’m really glad you’re not dead,” said Gendry. He touched her arm gently, then, surprising himself with his own boldness, her face too.
Arya sighed and leaned into his touch. Eyes closing, she reminded him, “We may still die yet.”