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She has to get out of there. She has to ride away, but she doesn't even know where to go, where to start. Where does the destruction end and freedom begin?
It's sticking to her skin, her lungs, her heart like the gods above were trying to make her commit to memory every single detail of this wretched day, like new and fresh scars littering the milk white plains of her body, all the parts of her that hadn't been tattered and had gone so long unscathed by tragedy, now marked with the burden of seeing. It's scratching her throat and she swears she'll never forget this smell, not when it's attacking her senses so brutally.
She wants home, she craves home.
Sansa.
She has to tell Sansa. Sansa needs to know that she's alive, that she's not buried with the rest of King's Landing. Not in this city that holds all the bitterness and hate that spun root in her when she was only a girl.
This was too hard. It wasn't supposed to be this hard. She left the hard part in Braavos when the waif tried to kill her, when Jaqen tried to erase Arya Stark, when the red god wanted her name, her face. She overcame the hard part.
She overcame it when she heard Ilyn Payne unsheathe that sword, her father's sword, and she saw those ravens flying high, crying out because the world lost the best person it had to offer.
She overcame the hard part when Yoren chopped her hair off and she had to be Arry. When Gendry found out she was a girl, she was a Stark, she is a Stark and he protected her. When Lommy died and Gendry would have too if she hadn't been so quick on her feet.
When they were taken to Harrenhal, anticipating torture or death. When the tickler almost killed Gendry. When Tywin Lannister came face to face with her. When Petyr Baelish saw her. When that fever almost took the only family she thought she had left from her.
When the brotherhood took Gendry from her. When Gendry chose the brotherhood to be his family instead of her. When they sold him to the red witch.
She overcame the hard part when Sandor Clegane took her and she saw her family die and more than anything she wanted to die with them. But he wouldn't let her. He wouldn't let her see how they ruined her brother's body, how they mocked Stark and Tully tradition alike. How they chanted 'King in the North' like it was a jape she wasn't a part of. She swore she wanted to die, she swore she did. She'd give anything to never feel that again. To never deal with the hard part again. It wasn't supposed to get harder.
She came home. She let go of her list. She came home. It was supposed to feel like home. King's Landing only ever seemed to offer her pain. She should've stayed in Winterfell.
This feels too familiar. The hysteria, the panic. Her heart hammering against her chest and her eyes burning with the sting of fresh tears and ash, her stomach churning and her never really knowing which moment would be her last.
She wonders if the gods were real. They had to be if they sent her this horse. Sent her this sign of freedom. It seemed every escape she's ever been offered was always accompanied by a white mare. But what gods were cruel enough to let something this terrifyingly heartbreaking happen?
What gods were cruel enough to let her fear and anxiety take root in her when the moment to have her family she has always wanted presents itself?
What gods were cruel enough to make her leave Gendry behind?
She sees light, she sees men lined outside the no longer standing and entirely charred gates of King's Landing. Survivors maybe. She doesn't care. She needs to get out of there. She needs to leave King's Landing.
She needs to go home.
Home where she belongs. Home to Gendry. He became her home so long ago. He held her close, he gave her warmth while he froze. He protected her. He loves her.
Gendry is her home and she has never felt more homesick.
She needs her family, needs to see Winterfell, where Bran and Sansa are safe and Brienne and Podrick are training squires.
She rides and she rides and she rides, past the cluster of men, past the set up of battlements and into the openness where all the tents were set up. Where the northern men were. Where Jon was.
Jon.
Her heartbeat picks up and she feels her vision blur. Her tears were falling now.
Jon, he had so much faith in the new world. Was he in the battle?
It's a stupid thought, of course he was. He would never expect men to fight for him without fighting side by side with them. Was he still alive? Was he just another casualty?
Her grips on the reins loosen and with it, the horse's speed slows until coming to a stop at the end of the base, where everything starts. She can see it all before her, barely.
She doesn't want to believe it. How can she?
But the pain in her body, the ache in her bones reminds her it's real, it is all very real and she was a part of it. She would've been buried underneath it, scorched by it. Sandor made her leave. Sandor fought for her like he did all those years ago. He fought for her one last time.
She doesn't know who comes up beside her, but maybe it's another gift from the gods because her body sags, giving into the emotional distress and fatigue this ugly day has poured down on her. She nearly falls off her mare but the arms holding her are strong, familiar and it can't be, it really cannot be.
What in seven hells would he be doing here? This wasn't his fight. It wasn't even supposed to be her fight. She had one mission and it was taken from her and in it's place was a reminder to live.
She looks up but her eyes are screwed shut. She can't look. If she looks, it won't be him, and that'll hurt more than anything else this day has done to her.
"Arya. Arya. Are you alright? Arya!" His voice is soft and then frantic and she opens her eyes because it is him and she's home in his arms and she feels her resolve break because why was he here? He shouldn't be here! It isn't safe, doesn't he know it's not safe!
"Gendry." Her voice cracks and she feels those tears that had started their trail remake it fresh. They want to be known and they make it clear on her ash covered face, blood staining her forehead.
She looks at him and her heart breaks because it looks like his heart is broken at the sight of her.
"Arya, what were you doing here? You could have died!" His voice is urgent and it sounds broken and she hears the tears in his voice more than she sees them in his eyes. His eyes were wild with blue. Angry that this happened to her, to Arya, to his Arya.
Her legs almost give out beneath her before he bends down and scoops her in his arms and for once, she doesn't argue with him for it. He walks them over to a tent, littered with abandoned swords and shields and even better, food and water. He sets her down on the cot to their left and doesn't hesitate in giving her some water to quench her thirst and surely help lick the wounds that have been made fresh on her heart and her mind. Her throat feels better at the sensation of water running down cool in her body and it's like she's reminded all over again of all she has left behind. Of the ease and practicality of being at home. She wouldn't have these scrapes if she were at home. She wouldn't have more trauma to add to the load if she had just stayed. If she had gone with him to Storms End.
"I was- I was-" Suddenly being there to have killed Cersei doesn't seem good enough. She almost lost her life at the hands of this wretched place under her control.
Her mind reels and Gendry knows all too well what it means, what its meant since they were children,"You were going to kill the queen." He says softly and she thinks about how much she doesn't deserve his softness. How was he so kind, so patient, so good, so Gendry?
She just nods, unable to give him words she's not sure are ready to be said yet, words of unspoken promises and a home she so desperately wanted more than anything now. She's not ready because she doesn't think he's ready, not anymore at least. Not after she said no.
"Did you do it then?" He asks her, sitting down beside her on the cot and she's pulled out of her thoughts of what if's and just stares at him.
"No, I-no."
Gendry doesn't know which question he wants to ask first but he decides against asking any question at all when his eyes bore into hers. He sees all the pain she's carried with her since she was only a child, all the grief and misery that tried so very hard to fuse itself as one with her soul, all the things she should never have had to see but did. She saw it all. She saw everything. How badly he wished to be the one to have seen it all so that she wouldn't look this sad, this scared, this small.
"I want to go home." Her voice is scratchy and she barely coughs it out, but he hears it all the same.
He nods and moves a strand of hair that had been matted down on her forehead with blood and ash to the top of her head. He grabs a cloth by the swords, pours some water over it and begins to gently scrub at the muck and grime painted on her face as proof of survival, proof of something destructive, some other evil that tried to take her out but didn't.
"I'll take you back to Winterfell, as soon as you have enough energy and we've gotten you cleaned up, we'll ride back-"
"No, no, no. Didn't you hear me? I said I want to go home." She's shaking her head and it stops his scrubbing and he's just sitting there, face scrunched up in confusion.
"I don't understand, Winterfell is your home Arya-"
She's shaking her head again,"No it isn't." It hurt her to say it, it hurt her to even think it, but it felt sort of true. Like alcohol on a fresh wound, it stung, but it was what was meant to be, the aftermath of something done only to help you. It would always sting before it would feel fresh and thinking of Winterfell as only Winterfell felt like that.
It hadn't been much the same. When she got there, it was like a dream. A sad dream, where she was where she was supposed to be but her heart was filled to the brim with longing and hurt, missing the family she had spent such little time with. She missed how naive she was, how safe she was. Winterfell was home, but mostly everything that made it home was gone.
Her mother and father watching her overhead, playing with Bran's bow and arrow. Robb and Theon chasing her around the castle grounds during all of their little games that they played. Rickon hiding beneath her bed every time he was scared and her pulling him out and hugging him until they both fell asleep. Sansa and Septa Mordane ridiculing her needlework. Jon letting her wield a sword before supper and loving every single thing about her, everything her mother couldn't tolerate and Sansa and Jeyne made fun of. Jory carrying her from the dining hall to her bedroom whenever she fell asleep in her stew. Bran, listening to every single stupid thought that crossed her mind and then climbing walls with her. Luwin cleaning her cuts and wiping her tears whenever she fell too hard. Rodrick holding her hand and walking her to the kitchens whenever Sansa and Jeyne were a little too mean. Hodor carrying her on his shoulders so she could climb the white oak with Bran.
It was all gone. All that was left was the shell of a place where even in the coldest of winters, warmed her heart and every bit of her body from head to toe.
It was Winterfell, yes. But it wasn't home. Not anymore.
"Winterfell hasn't been my home for a long time, Gendry."
He places his hand gently against her cheek, so softly she wants to cry. She closes her eyes and her expression is pained and how he would love to kiss away every hurt she's ever felt.
"Where's home then, M'lady? Where do you want to go?" His voice is low and gentle and she could drown in it.
She opens her eyes and his are so blue, so full of love. She leans her forehead against his and he lets out a breath neither of them had realized he'd been holding in.
"You are. You're home.You're my home. I want to go with you." Her voice cracks and tears are spilling from both of their eyes before they both lean forward and are kissing each other with all their pain behind them. They could forget it, if only for a short while, whenever they were wrapped up in one another.
It's what had made travelling on the road to the night's watch so easy. It's what had made staying in Harrenhal easier than what it should have been. They had each other, they would always keep each other safe, protect one another and always be equals, whether Gendry had believed the last part or not.
They break away, but keep their foreheads pressed against each other. Her breathing evened out for a bit and she knows it's the cause and effect of Gendry.
"Let's go home then."
It's all still so hard. Breathing, seeing, feeling. She thinks it might feel hard for a long time. But she felt something in her heart that she hadn't felt before when she was riding away. She felt it spread through her, she felt hope. She had Gendry. She would always have Gendry. He would shelter her, fight with her, learn with her, keep her safe. He would love her shamelessly and absolutely wholly, no matter how she thought, how she fought, how she looked, how she dressed. She was Arya and for him, that was reason enough to love her.
She's not okay, but she would be. She had Gendry. Gendry would help her get through the hard part, because Gendry was the easy part. He would always be the easy part.