Chapter Text
He watched her as she started to slip away, slowly and quietly, and it all felt so wrong. His little sister was anything but slow and quiet, yet that was the way her life was drawing to an end, all too soon.
It was the feeling of hopelessness, just sitting there next to her hospital bed watching her die when she had so much to live for. He was her big brother, and he was supposed to look after her, yet there was nothing he could do when the nurse told him she likely wouldn’t make it through the night.
She’d mostly been asleep and he just hoped she wasn’t in pain. She didn’t deserve any of this - nobody did. Then his name fell from her lips, barely even there, and he might not have heard it if he hadn’t been so focused on her. As if watching her die was going to stop it from happening.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed her, taking her hand as gently as he could. “It’s okay, Bella. I’m here, I’m right here.”
He wasn’t sure she could even hear him, if she even knew what was going on, but it was a comfort to him at least when she seemed to come around just a little bit.
“Please don’t let them take her.”
“Nobody’s taking her anywhere.”
He knew that leaving her daughter to the same life she'd had as a kid hurt more than any kind of pain her body could put her through. He didn’t know how to make it better.
“Look after her,” Bella practically begged, and he felt his gut sink as he realised how agonising it was for her to speak. “Gendry, please. I need to know you’ll look after her. I need to know.”
“Of course I will,” He saw the look in her eye, the desperation, as if it wasn't quite enough. “Listen to me - nobody is taking her anywhere. I’ll look after her.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Bella smiled at him, and he held her hand tighter than ever as she slipped away for good.
The next few hours didn’t feel real.
It had been the two of them for so long. In reality, it had only ever been the two of them - and now she was gone. Just like that.
They took her body away before the sun even came up and he knew he should have been prepared for it, they’d known for weeks the illness was terminal, but he wasn’t ready at all. Everything just felt numb and empty.
He headed home and tried to get some sleep, but found it was pointless. Because now the worry and the anxiety that had come from watching his sister get sicker and sicker, had turned into worry and anxiety about what the hell he was going to do.
There was the funeral, which he’d have to plan - and, somehow, pay for. There was all her stuff that was just sitting around her aparment, that she’d never use again. There was the innocent little girl who had no idea she’d never see her mother again, who he’d just promised to look after.
He sunk into his grotty old sofa, squeezing his eyes closed and willing himself to get some sleep just so it would all go away for a few hours, before he’d have no choice but to face a much more complicated world without his sister.
A distraction was provided by a knocking at the door. He wondered for a minute if it was one of the nosy neighbours, who had somehow found out, because nobody else was going to come knocking at four o’clock in the morning. The thought didn’t inspire him to move, but the knocking started up again and he knew nobody on this street cared that much that it couldn’t wait until at least noon.
He had to force himself to get up off the sofa and begrudgingly head to the front door. As soon as he opened the door, Arya was pushing past him. A rush of relief washed over him - his first instinct was always her, and he’d almost phoned her the second he realised Bella had stopped breathing.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Why didn’t you use your bloody key?”
“I was in a rush to get here and forgot it,” Arya huffed, panic recognisable in her grey eyes. She looked at him for a second longer than normal, her voice softening with her face. “Well?”
He didn’t answer her, couldn’t answer her, couldn’t make the words come out.
But he knew he didn’t need to, not with her. She hadn’t even asked about Bella specifically, but he knew that she’d know. She always did.
Her arms were around him within seconds, practically smothering him in a much needed warm embrace. For someone so small, she was scarily strong - something he had been teasing her about for as long as either of them could remember, and he couldn’t help but smile sadly for a second.
“I’m so sorry, Gendry,” Arya said, her fingers combing the ends of his black hair. “Bella loves you so much.”
Then, he didn’t even try to stop himself from crying. He didn’t have to with her - she was his best friend, after all.
Arya didn’t leave his side once in the following few days.
(He was maybe starting to see how his sister’s nurses could mistake her for his girlfriend on more than one occasion.)
But Arya was a natural caregiver, she always had been. If she saw someone who needed help, even if they hadn’t asked for it, she would do everything in her power to help them. It was one of the things he loved most about her.
He had no idea how to plan a funeral, or how to apply for guardianship of his six year old niece, or any of the rest. But he figured it out, maybe because Arya helped with pretty much all of it and made it look easy.
It was all one massive blur, for the most part, that still didn’t seem at all real. But he tried as much as he could to focus on Charlie - reminding himself that, no matter what he was feeling, he at least knew what was happening. He wasn’t sure that she completely understood where her mum had even gone, being only six years old.
As much as he just wanted to lock himself away, he couldn’t. He reminded himself over and over again that he made a promise to his sister - he would look after her baby girl if it was the last thing he ever did.
Gendry and Bella were both in and out of foster homes for years when they were kids. He would never let the same happen to his niece, not after Bella worked so hard to give her the life she deserved.
He’d always helped Bella with her, babysitting when he could and giving her any spare change he had at the end of the month, but now was the time that he would really step up for her. Protect her baby, somehow. She would never end up in the system, that he knew.
“What are you thinking about?”
Her voice snapped him out of his hazy train of thought, and it was only then he realised Arya had laid down next to him on the bed. All the years he’d known her, it never failed to amaze him how quietly she could sneak in and out of places. He’d always told her she’d have made an excellent criminal in another life.
He sighed, keeping his eyes on the ceiling above them. “Charlie.”
There was a moment’s silence between them - not awkward, never awkward, not with Arya.
“She’s going to be okay, you know,” she said softly, placing her hand over his and squeezing.
He didn’t know. He wanted to believe her when she said that, he did, but he had no idea how.
“I promised Bella I’d look after her.”
“And you will, Robb said there’s no reason for the courts to deny you guardianship permanently so-”
“I don’t know how to raise a kid, Arya.”
She seemed slightly startled when he cut across her, but her features soon softened in understanding. “Look, I’m not saying it’ll be easy... but Charlie adores you. You’re kind, and loyal, and smart - and she’s so lucky to have you. Plus you’re so moody all the time that it might just translate pretty well into parental discipline.”
He sniggered, catching the teasing grin threatening to break out across her face. “Yeah right, I don’t even know what kids need to be disciplined for . Might need your help on that one.”
That made her laugh properly, at least.
“You’ll have my help on all of it, idiot,” Arya said, affectionately rolling her eyes. “I’ll be right here with you, every step of the way.”
“You’ve done more than enough already.”
“I’m your best friend,” Arya scoffed, giving him a soft nudge to the arm. “So don’t be stupid, stupid .”
Arya had pretty much immediately enlisted Robb - he specialised as a divorce lawyer, so was used to approaching custody of a child in a slightly different way but he was still able to help. Even if most of what he said just sounded like legal jargon to Gendry (he owned a bar, after all, not a court), it was still reassuring that he had a professional on his side.
Yet another thing he had to thank Arya for, he guessed - Robb’s unexpected insistence on helping him out as a favour, completely pro bono, may as well have come directly from Arya’s mouth.
Still, he was of course grateful for any help he could get. At the end of the day, he just wanted to make sure his niece was okay and looked after. According to Robb, as long as he could prove he was stable and able to care for Charlie, he shouldn’t have a problem. Child services always preferred to keep a child with family where possible, and it wasn’t as if there was any other family. He was the only family member she had - her useless dipshit of a father’s side of things certainly didn’t count - so he knew the best place for her was with him. Even if that was completely terrifying to think about.
A week later, the funeral came and went. He’d hoped it would bring him some sort of closure, saying a final goodbye to his sister. It hadn’t, and now everything felt like the world was going to move on without him.
It hadn't been a massive funeral - Bella had no family apart from Gendry and Charlie. Thankfully, she had always been the life and soul of the party who had no trouble making friends; he was glad they turned out for her, at least.
Davos and Marya had been there too. They'd fostered both of them when Gendry was seventeen, Bella a year younger, after a string of temporary homes, and they'd stayed with the Seaworths until they were adults. They'd been treated as family ever since.
Davos and Marya had retired to Storm's End a few years back, and had given Gendry ownership of their bar - he had a 90% ownership of the business, with 10% of the shares still going to Davos, and also fully owned the upstairs apartment. Gendry saw that as a more than fair deal considering he hadn't paid a penny for any of it.
They'd flown back from Storm's End just for the funeral, even offered to stick around for a few weeks to help Gendry out, but he insisted they'd done enough and gently urged them to get back to their retirement by the sea.
(Arya had also forced almost every one of the Starks - the ones that still lived within the hour’s drive of Winterfell, which was everyone but Jon and Sansa - into attendance for the service, so that was a few more seats filled. Quietly, he was grateful.)
He was still staying at Bella’s apartment, trying to find a way he could afford to pay the rent. The short answer was that he couldn’t.
The bills in front of him on the coffee table made him nauseous. Business was good enough at the bar - he made enough money to keep himself afloat comfortably, which was more than he could have dreamt of growing up. But funeral expenses, an extra apartment to rent and a child to provide for? Plus being able to give Davos his share. Business wasn’t that good.
He’d have to give up his apartment, that was the only solution. It would take away the convenience factor, sure, but he couldn’t raise a six year old in a studio apartment above a bar that was open until the early hours of the morning most nights anyway. He didn’t know how he was going to balance working late nights and taking care of Charlie by himself, but he’d just have to figure that one out as he went along.
Bella’s two-bed (that was being gracious, considering it was more like one bedroom with a wall down the middle) wasn’t in a great part of town, he’d never been happy about them living there, but none of them could afford to do anything to change it. Even when he’d attempted to, Bella had shot him down, and he knew better than to push her into accepting help she didn’t want.
Still, none of that mattered now. Now, he’d been plunged back into the financial uncertainty he thought he'd seen the back of. Something had to give.
He sighed, throwing the piece of paper onto the pile with the rest. A glance at his phone alerted him to the fact it was almost three in the morning, but it had been a week of sleepless nights that showed no sign of stopping, so he couldn’t find the energy to be surprised or concerned.
Picking the papers up off the coffee table, he folded them neatly and tucked them away in one of the kitchen cupboards. The last thing he needed was Charlie seeing them - even if he knew she wouldn’t have understood what any of them meant anyway.
There was a chance that the mixture of sleep deprivation, grief, and sudden parental responsibility made him slightly irrational.
“Uncle Gendry?”
“Yeah?”
“When is Mummy coming home?”
His entire body froze.
“Charls, we talked about this, remember?” He said softly, climbing down off the sofa to sit next her on the floor. He didn’t know why she preferred to throw all the pillows on the floor and then sit on them, but he let her do her thing. He let out a sigh, trying to remember what all those charity websites said about dealing with this conversation - again. “Where Mummy’s gone - once you’re there, you can’t come back home.”
She nodded, bright blue eyes casting back over to the TV for a second, as a cheery kids’ channel advert distracted her. He wondered for a moment if she’d just forgotten where her Mum was - she did that quite a lot, but her social worker insisted the best thing he could do was be honest and keep repeating that Bella couldn’t come back until she understood.
It was quiet for a few minutes - and even he found himself distracted by the silly cartoons playing on the TV - before she suddenly spoke again.
“When can I go and see Mummy?”
Maybe it was a good thing she didn’t fully understand the finality of death yet, he thought. Maybe it was a good thing she still had that innocence in her eyes, the hope in her voice. Maybe confusion was better than grief, for the time being. He knew from experience that she had plenty of time ahead of her for grief.
“One day,” He eventually managed to say, gulping down the lump in his throat.
“Soon?” The way her little face lit up and her head tilted to the side, as if she’d casually asked when she could go to the park, definitely confirmed that confusion was better.
“No, not soon,” He sighed. “Mummy wants you to stay here for a really, really long time first. But one day, when you’re really old, then you’ll be able to go and see her.”
She simply nodded again.
“Does that make sense, Charls?”
Another nod. “Can I have ice cream?”
He laughed - he never knew when she was going to spring those questions on him, but they never lasted very long at a time. “Yeah, course you can. Chocolate or strawberry?”
“Chocolate please!” She grinned, before quickly being drawn back to the TV again.
He smiled at her as he pushed himself up from the pile of pillows on the floor, heading to the fridge freezer.
She was going to be okay, he told himself. He’d make sure of it, one way or another.
Finally, he'd managed to figure out what to do about the new-found financial problems. He was on his way back from a meeting with an estate agent, who advised him on the best way to rent out his flat. It may take a while to find a tenant due to the location above the bar, but the flip side of that was that it was in the centre of town and would probably be a good fit for young couples or professionals who weren't bothered about the noise.
He'd asked Arya if she was able to babysit for him for a few hours, and she'd thankfully agreed. When he returned to the flat, he could hear her voice as soon as he opened the front door.
“You said he had a good chance.”
“He does,” Robb’s voice could suddenly be heard, the rustling a tell-tale sign of Arya’s crappy speaker.
She could more than easily afford to buy a brand new, top of the range phone every time Apple released a new model and yet she insisted it was unnecessary.
“So, what’s your point then?” She asked, and it almost made him laugh how quickly she grew agitated with her brother.
“I just don’t think he realises what he’s taking on here.”
“He’s taking on his niece, Robb.” Arya hissed, crossing her arms across her chest.
Oh. Yeah. Right .
They were talking about him.
Maybe he should have seen that one coming.
He heard Robb sigh on the line, he could tell from the uncomfortable crackling noise - and, Gods , she needed a new phone. “Yes, and that’s amazing of him. But can he give her a stable upbringing? Has he got the means to do it? Raising a child isn’t exactly cheap.”
Gendry had no issue with Robb, he really didn’t. He was pleasant enough most of the time, and he could hardly fault the guy for the free legal advice (even if it was clearly to get Arya off his back). But, he certainly knew how to sound like the patronising rich boy stereotype he was always destined to be.
“Why shouldn’t he, Robb? Dad did exactly the same with Jon when Aunt Lyanna died.”
“Dad had a wife to help him care for Jon, a family home to raise him in, children of a similar age for him to grow up with. Gendry doesn’t have one of those things.”
It was almost comical to him, the things that rich people thought mattered to a kid. He and Bella had grown up with a single mother in and out of shelters, followed by foster carers and group homes. They hadn't had the faintest idea they were missing out on anything - no idea their lives were out of the ordinary, until they found a loving home in Davos and Marya. Though, their childhoods weren't uncommon in Westeros. But rich people still managed to convince themselves their way was the only way.
“You think he needs those things?”
Arya was different. She was the only one who ever was different for him.
“I don’t - but the courts might.”
He decided he’d heard enough and backed up as quietly as he could (not as easy as it sounded for someone who was over six foot tall and had two left feet), hoping Arya hadn’t heard him come in. She hadn’t seemed to, which was unusual for her considering she had eyes on the back of her head most of the time, but he didn’t overthink it.
Maybe Robb was right. He didn’t have any of those things - and, sure, he hadn’t grown up with those things either but he couldn’t argue that maybe life would have been a hell of lot easier for them all if they had. If his shitty excuse of a sperm donor had bothered to stick around, if his mother had the support, if they’d had the basic privilege of a roof over their heads.
If they’d had money, they wouldn’t have ended up in homeless shelters and foster homes. They would have been safer and maybe they’d have been better off now. Maybe Bella wouldn’t have been a single mum barely out of her teens, maybe she’d been able to get ahead in life and maybe she wouldn’t have had to life on the wrong side of town just to put a roof over her baby’s head.
But none of that was true. And, deep down, it didn’t matter because he hadn’t promised his sister that her daughter would go live with someone rich. He’d promised to look after her himself.
No one, not Robb Stark or the courts or the shitty system, would make a liar of him. He didn’t just abandon innocent kids, let them be thrown to the lions because he couldn’t be bothered to take responsibility and keep his promises.
He wasn’t his father.
It wasn’t long before he realised he’d promised Arya he'd be home by now and she’d probably be worried, realised he couldn’t expect her to look after his niece for any longer than she’d offered to.
When he returned to the apartment, Arya was standing in the kitchen, back to him as she peered into the open fridge.
“I don’t know how your rich girl fridges work, but staring into that doesn’t make anything new appear,” His voice suddenly boomed into the room. “Believe me, I’ve tried enough times.”
Arya quickly spun round, glaring at him.
“You scared me, idiot .”
She really hadn’t heard him come in again? Seriously, what was up with her?
He chuckled as he moved to sit as he threw his jacket down on the sofa, before sitting down on the arm. “Funny how you’re the one who always says I walk into a room like an… what is it? An elephant with bells on.”
“An elephant with bells on playing the trombone ,” she quickly corrected him, making a show of giving up and closing the fridge door. “And don’t try to be funny, it doesn’t suit you.”
“Apologies, m’lady,” He smirked, raising his hands in mock defeat. He considered his next question for a second, wondering if she’d tell him the truth, wondering if he even wanted her to. “What’s got you so distracted?”
Nothing on her face gave her away, but then it rarely did. “Nothing, I was just thinking about what I could cook for Charlie. You know, because she can’t actually live on ice cream.”
“Has she been okay for you?”
“Yeah, of course, she’s a good kid,” Arya nodded, a smile spreading across her face as she walked from the kitchen to join him on the sofa. “Did you get everything sorted at the bar?”
“Uh, yeah,” he grumbled. “Yeah, sorted. Is Charls in her room?”
“Yeah, she’s just got in there. I brought her my old tablet for her to have, I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course,” Gendry - very inelegantly - slid off the arm of the sofa and onto the actual seat.
“Okay, cool,” she said, sitting next to him on the sofa. “She was using one of the kids’ coloring apps when she went to her room. I logged in my netflix account for her as well - figured it’ll delay the cartoons from slowly driving you nuts.”
“Gods, no wonder she likes you so much,” he smirked.
“What can I say, I’m a natural,” she teased, winking and flipping her hair over her shoulder.
“You are a natural, you know. You’re much better at this than I am,” he said. “And not just because of the tablet thing.”
She gave him a shove as she scooted over closer to him. “Stop it, Gendry, you’re doing an amazing job with her.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” he grunted, rubbing a hand across his face. It definitely didn’t feel like it after what he had heard. But he couldn’t tell her he’d overheard her private conversation and stormed off like a brat, so .
“Well, you are. So shut up and stop making me give you compliments, stupid.”
He grinned. “Can’t help it, can you?”
That earned him another shove to the arm.
They both laughed for a second, before he sucked in a breath. “So, uh, Charlie’s social worker rang earlier - it wasn’t the same woman as before, but she said she’s coming over this afternoon.”
She frowned, concern falling over her features in an instant. “Really? What for?”
“I don’t know,” He answered honestly, shrugging. “She just said it was important on the phone. She should be here soon, actually.”
“Want me to stick around?”
“You’ve been here all day, Arry, you don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind, I don’t have anywhere to be,” she shook her head adamantly. “Besides, I’ve got to make sure you don’t act like a grumpy arsehole in front of the social worker, haven’t I?”
He laughed - she wasn’t wrong. But still, he played along, “Nobody else thinks I’m grumpy, you know.”
“Gendry, everyone thinks you’re grumpy. Me included,” she rolled her eyes in affection. “Charlie might be the only one who doesn’t and that’s only because she’s six and you give her ice cream whenever she asks for it.”
He raised his hand to his chest, clutching at his shirt. “Excuse me if I’m still in favourite uncle mode.”
“Favourite uncle? You’re her only uncle.”
“See? No competition, is there? Unlike your lot, that Christmas after the twins’ were born was what cemented my appreciation for small, barely existent families like mine.”
She audibly gasped then. “Okay, first of all - I’m the twins’ favourite member of their entire family, full stop . And I like having a big family, there’s always someone there.”
“You like people , Arya, that’s the difference,” he scoffed, tilting his head to the side as he resisted the urge to laugh at her.
That seemed to stump her, yet he could still almost see her scouring her brain for comebacks. “That’s... well, that’s fair, actually. You loved Christmas with the Starks, anyway.”
It was on the tip of his tongue - I loved Christmas with you . As usual, he bit his tongue.
“Your Mum only invited me because you talked her into it and let her think we were dating behind her back. Again ,” he frowned at her. “Being silently interrogated over the potatoes isn’t my idea of fun, Arya.”
“Oh, shut up. She invited you because I told her Bella was going to her boyfriend’s and you’d be at yours on your own, in your pants, eating microwave lasagne and drinking half of your stock.”
Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Knowing it was the new social worker, Gendry did his best to appear polite and cheerful as he answered it. In front of him was a fairly tall woman, probably in her late thirties, with long red hair and green eyes. She was wearing a black pencil skirt, with a smart purple blouse and a black blazer.
“My name’s Elizabeth, I’ll be Charlotte’s new social worker,” she said as she stepped into the apartment, Gendry closing the door behind her. “You must be Gendry Waters?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he stood awkwardly, trying his best to hold eye contact, before he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to Arya, letting out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding in, before turning back to the social worker. “And, uh, this is Arya.”
“Lovely to meet you both. I assume Charlotte is here?”
“Yeah, she’s, uh - she’s just through here,” he pointed towards the living area. “Charls?”
As they stepped into the cramped living space, Charlie popped up from in front of the sofa.
“Charls, this is Elizabeth. She’s come to talk to you, say hello.”
“Hello."
Elizabeth spent about twenty minutes just watching Charlie play, listening to her show off her brand new tablet, talking to her quietly as she did so. At one point, she asked Gendry and Arya if she could have a few minutes to talk with Charlie alone.
“What do you think she’s asking her?” Gendry asked, pacing back and forth the tiny gap between the bed and the wall.
“Just probably asking her how she’s feeling,” Arya shrugged, eyes following his movements. “Please keep still before you knock something over.”
“She’s not going into the system,” He couldn’t help but grind his teeth. “It’s not -- it’s not happening.”
“She’s not going anywhere. It’s going to be fine.”
“How do you know?” He scoffed.
“Because I know.”
Gendry stopped his pacing, meeting the challenge in her eyes for all of two seconds. He moved to sit next to her on the bed then, elbows resting on his knees as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I heard you earlier,” he mumbled under his breath, before looking over at her. Her face would still never give anything away, but he knew she already knew what he meant. “On the phone. With Robb.”
“Wh- how?” She frowned, shaking her head. When he simply shrugged, she let out a sigh. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“He’s a fuckin ’ family lawyer, Arry. I think he does, even if it’s annoying as hell to admit it.”
“He’s a divorce lawyer,” Arya clarified. “He knows how to make sure his clients get custody over the other parent in a divorce. He even said himself that this is a totally different situation than what he does every day.”
“What if he’s right anyway?” He questioned. “What if she does need all those things he said and I can’t give them to her? I don’t know the first thing about raising a kid by myself.”
She softly raised her hand to his face, forcing him to look at her properly, her thumb stroking his cheek. “You’re not by yourself.”
There was a knock on the half-closed bedroom door, and he quickly snapped out of whatever that just was, as he jumped to open it fully.
“We’re all finished in here,” Elizabeth said with a gentle smile, before turning to Arya. “If you’d like to come back through.”
The three of them headed back to the sofa, where Charlie was still sitting on the floor, Arya’s old tablet firmly in hand.
“So, uh, is that it for today?” Gendry asked Elizabeth, keeping his voice down as Arya headed over to Charlie.
“There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with you,” Elizabeth whispered, just loud enough for Gendry and Arya to both catch it. “In private, if possible.”
He didn’t have to say a word before Arya was helping him out.
“Uh, Charlie, why don’t we go and put a movie on your tablet, hm?” Arya immediately suggested with more false enthusiasm than he thought was possible, extending her hand to Charlie, who quickly nodded and took her hand.
Once Arya closed Charlie’s bedroom door behind them, Elizabeth took the opportunity to speak up again. “Charlotte seems like a very content child.”
“Yeah, she is,” he replied defensively, taking the opportunity to sit on the make-shift plastic chair they’d shoved opposite the sofa as Elizabeth took a seat on the sofa.
He watched her as she pulled her binder out of her bag, placing it on her lap.
“I can tell,” she nodded, and - against his better judgement - he had to admit that she seemed genuine enough to Gendry. “So, what I wanted to talk to you about... Charlotte’s paternal grandparents have been in touch.”
He just about resisted the urge to laugh in her face. Bella never got anything from that arrogant twat of an ex or his family, yet now her body was barely cold and they were after her kid. Of course.
“Well that’s hilarious because they’ve never been in touch before,” he crossed his arms across his chest, growing more agitated by the second. “How do they even know about -- about Bella?”
“Charlotte’s father is named on her birth certificate, he was contacted as soon as Charlotte’s case was brought to us,” Elizabeth explained. “From what my colleague has noted, he was informed of your sister’s passing but had very little interest in reinitiating contact with Charlotte and was keen for her to remain here with you, at the time."
Prick.
Would have been nice if someone had informed him of that, but whatever.
“So what have his parents got to do with any of that?”
“All I know is that they expressed their interest in raising Charlotte and were advised they'd have to go through the courts if they objected to her current guardianship order," Elizabeth explained. "I believe they’re now in the process of filing for guardianship of Charlotte themselves, their son won’t be involved in Charlotte’s upbringing at all.”
“Wait - they'd have to go through the court? So this will have to go to court ? If it’s me or them?”
He wasn’t exactly an optimist at the best of times but - fuck.
“It’s likely that Charlotte’s case would be handed over to the courts under those circumstances, yes. In which case it would be up to the court to decide what is in Charlotte’s best interests.”
“Charlie doesn’t know them - I don’t think she’s ever even met them, you can’t stand there and tell me you would let her go and live with complete fucking strangers who haven’t given a shit about her for the last six years.”
“Obviously, we want to cause as little distress to Charlotte as possible. But if they do apply for guardianship, then we will legally have to consider them as a permanent option.”
“She doesn’t know them.”
“I understand this is frustrating, but please try not to worry - I assure you we all want what’s best for Charlotte,” Elizabeth said. “Now, I just need to ask you a few questions and I’ll be on my way.”
“Yeah, sure,” he grunted. She’d already given him the worst case scenario, what harm would a few questions do?
“Have you come to any further conclusions about your living arrangements? I understand from your notes that you’ve been living here with Charlotte since your sister’s passing?”
Gendry sighed, running a hand over his face. “Uh, yeah, I have an apartment of my own above my bar in town but I’ll be renting that out.”
“You work late nights at the bar, I assume? Who is with Charlotte then?”
“I’ve tried not to work past nine since Bella…” he sucked in a breath, letting his sentence trail off unfinished. “But, Arya watches her for me whenever she can.”
“And she’s supportive of you caring for Charlotte full-time?”
Odd question, he thought, but sure. He guessed it was important that he had supportive friends to help.
“Uh -- Arya ?” He questions, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, she’s been fantastic. But she’s always fantastic, so.”
“You’re a lucky man to have such an understanding girlfriend.”
Oh. Oh , okay. That made more sense to him than the supportive friend thing.
Hardly the first time he’d had to clear that one up anyway.
“Oh, she - Arya's not my girlfriend,” he laughed.
The surprise across her face wasn’t a first for him either. “She’s not? Oh, I apologise. That’s my mistake, I just assumed...”
Suddenly, Arya was by side. How long had she been listening?
“I’m not his girlfriend, I’m his fiancee,” Arya said brightly with a grin, as she slid onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“Right,” he said with a nod.
Right.
Wait . No. Not right.
She’s his --- she’s his what ?
What.
“Oh, I didn’t realise you two were engaged. Is this new?”
“No, we got engaged a few months ago,” Arya said, frowning in confusion and looking her up and down. “It’s not in your binder?"
As Elizabeth started flipping through the seemingly endless sheets of paper, Arya gave him a reassuring smile.
Weirdly, it did make him feel reassured. It was on top of the feeling of shock, confusion and stress but… it was reassuring somewhere.
“No, nothing in here,” Elizabeth said. He caught Elizabeth’s eyes slipping to Arya’s ring finger then, and clearly Arya caught it too.
“I take my ring off for work - I’m a veterinary nurse - but I was in a rush to get over here for Charlie, so forgot to slip it back on like I usually do. It’s gorgeous though.”
She then proceeded to laugh, in what may have been the weirdest way he’d ever heard her laugh - and he’d heard her laughing whilst high. What was she even saying? What was happening?
“Well congratulations. The two of you will be raising Charlotte together then?”
“That’s right,” Arya said, squeezing his shoulders that bit tighter as she leaned her head on his arm. “Oh sorry, that reminds me, babe-”
Babe ? Did Arya just use the word babe? Did she just call him babe?
“-I forgot to tell you earlier that my Dad called about the house. He’s going to sort out all the legal stuff and we’ll be able to move in pretty much straight after the wedding.”
“Are you buying a home together?”
He’d actually forgotten for a second that Elizabeth was still there, a bit caught up in suddenly becoming a soon to be husband and homeowner. Apparently.
It was then that he finally realised what Arya was trying to do. It was what Robb had said he was missing - a marriage, a family home, other kids. He had none of those things two minutes ago and now suddenly he had two out of three - and, it was fair to assume, the two that Charlotte’s wannabe grandparents had going for them.
It certainly didn’t feel like a bad idea. It didn’t feel like a good idea either, but maybe that was the shock talking.
“We’re renting it off my father,” Arya said. “He owns a lot of property across the country, and we were going to save up a bit after the wedding to buy this one off him completely but with the change in circumstances, we’ll be moving in with Charlie as soon as possible.”
Elizabeth quickly scribbled something else down in her binder full of paperwork. So, he took the chance to turn to Arya again - his blue eyes wide, mouth pressed together in a straight line, hoping she’d get the ‘ what the fuck ’ that he was trying to silently ask her.
She seemed to get it, the way she narrowed her eyes and subtly shook her head. That usually meant ‘ shut up until I can explain ’ in Arya talk.
“And when is the wedding?” Elizabeth suddenly asked, drawing both their attention back to her before she could look up from her binder.
The following words came out of Arya’s mouth so casually he wasn’t sure he’d even heard them properly.
“Next month. The wedding’s next month.”
Not long after that, Arya was showing Elizabeth out of the apartment and it was just the two of them - save for Charlie, who was still on that apparent Gods-send of a tablet.
Gendry shifted over the sofa, finding himself at a total loss for words.
“Okay,” Arya breathed as she walked back over to the sofa, tucking one leg beneath her as she sat down next to him. “So…”
“Please, please , explain to me what just happened.”
“I heard what she said, about Charlie’s grandparents.”
Apparently, they both needed to stop listening at doors.
“Right.”
“So, think about it... ‘ what if Robb’s right ’ - that’s what you asked me earlier,” she said slowly. “Well, what if he is? And what if you don’t have those things but suddenly there’s an option that does?”
“Yeah, I kinda worked that bit out for myself,” he said. “But you’ve just told a social worker we’re engaged and she’s going to find out everything you just said was a complete lie when we’re not married and still living here in a month.”
“Alright -- I jumped the gun a tiny bit with the month thing, but you don’t know how long we’ve got to make this work.”
He put his face in his hands, trying to unscramble his brain enough to think this over. Usually, he’d trust Arya with his life. Usually, he’d be on board for taking an authoritative figure for a ride but this was different. He had to think about his niece - about his sister, about what he’d promised her.
He promised Bella that he’d look after her little girl - she’d never get palmed off to stranger after stranger like they’d been as kids. This felt like too big of a risk.
Arya pulled his hands away from his face, holding them down on his lap. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. He’d have never got through Bella’s death without her - she was his best friend, he loved her more than anything, he trusted her more than anything.
“You honestly think this is a good idea?” He asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Do you have a better one?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” she smiled - that wicked, clever, beautiful smile that could get him to do so many things that he wouldn’t dream of doing for anyone else. “I think you made a promise to your sister and I think I’m going to help you keep that promise, no matter what it takes.”
“Guess we’re getting married then.”