GoT AU: The Heart Wants What It Wants

30: Digging Deep

Ages:

- Talisa, Willas, Ygritte – 36; Robb, Jon, Gendry, Meera – 34; Sansa, Joffrey – 33; Arya, Alys, Trystane – 31; Bran, Jojen, Myrcella – 30; Rickon, Shireen, Tommen – 26

ARYA

Arya did what she had to do to figure out the truth. And she did.

Wednesday night, Arya went home and planned to spend the night at their family's ancestral home in Winterfell, the Stark Manor. After spending an afternoon in the Gift while overlooking the Starkitects geodetic surveying team, her feet were sore.

Mostly, it was running after her puppy, Visenya. And yes, of course, Arya brought her dogs with her. Nymeria's behavior was tolerable, and it was because she and her five siblings went through obedience training in Castle Black Military Base, which was basically Jon's idea.

Before going home, Arya went through a drive-thru of a Brynden's Burgers branch originally to buy chicken nuggets for little Ned, but unfortunately they ran out of it, so instead she brought home a bucket of fries.

When she arrived at Stark Manor with her dogs and entered the living room, she saw something she didn't expect to see. Her brother Bran was in a ridiculous cartoon octopus onesie, but he had never put it on, just the hood over his head and his arms into two of its tentacles. And he was tickling two kids on the largest couch, who were both dressed like pirates.

One kid was their nephew, Robb's son, little Ned. The other one looked like Bran when he was that age. She assumed this was the kid Jon was referring to, Meera's son, Mykel.

She remembered what Jon had said about Mykel. I swear to the gods, this boy is like a mini-version of him. He had said. When she saw the boy, she gasped. Jon was right. Mykel does look like Bran, with his auburn hair and his lean demeanor.

After making her presence known to her parents, Arya went to her room to make a phone call to Jon. She paced back and forth across her room, waiting for her cousin to answer.

"Hey, Arya," Jon answered from the other line. "What's up?"

"Jon!" She exclaimed. "Oh my gods! Dude, you're right!" She said, then tried to keep her voice down from being heard from the hallway. "The kid looks just like him."

"Wait, you've met Mykel?" He asked.

"Yes," Arya said. "Bran brought him here in Stark Manor. And it turns out he's good friends with Little Ned."

"I know." Jon said. "But—wait, the kid's there? In Stark Manor?" He asked in disbelief. "Meera allowed that to happen?"

"I don't think Meera knows her son is here." She guessed as she sat down on her bed. "Bran had mentioned that she's in a convention in the Reach and Jojen was supposed to be picking him up but got busy with work or something. But seriously, I have this gut feeling that Mykel is really Bran's son." She insisted. "And our nephew."

"Well, I've tried asking Meera about the kid's father," Jon recalled. "But I got nothing from her. She just started crying when I did. But if Bran wasn't actually Mykel's Dad and it's really some guy in Oldtown, then Meera might have already told us who this guy was. Because, first of all, we don't know him; and second, he lives in that closed city in the Reach."

"My question is, why did she have to hide him from Bran?" Arya asked. "From us?"

"Obviously, Bran and Meera aren't even—" Jon started to say.