this is our homecoming (this is a land half forgotten)

1

He's a hero.

People tell him this.

They tell him a lot of things.  How brave he was.  The loyalty he had shown to Jon during the battle, escorting him through the field where the fighting was thickest, cutting down white walker after white walker with each swing of his hammer, and later they would swear that they saw the ghost of his father come back to life that day, a Stark and Baratheon fighting side by side once more. About how when he went down, they thought that he was lost to them, and then he rose again, the dead things hanging off every limb and how Gendry just ripped them off, and the only way they could tell it was him was how hard he swung the hammer.

Gendry supposes it's true, if they say it.  Truth be told, he doesn't remember much of it- he tends not to remember much of any battle, really, all of it coming back to him in scattered fragments that he has to piece back together, and whenever Gendry tries to claim his actions on his own, they sit a bit funny on his tongue, like some ingrained part of him knows that these stories belong to some other person, some other boy that he can't ever remember being. 

(It's in these moments that he misses his father most.  If he knew him, he imagines he would have liked to ask him certain things- things like, were you ever afraid, or, did you ever wonder if you were doing the right thing, and things like, how do you let yoursef forget the sound of the screams?  I don't want to hear it anymore.  Gendry supposes it is strange to miss something that he never had more than the things that he did- strange that he can grieve over the imprint of someone's absence rather than his ghosts, strange he can feel for someone who only existed in the negative.)

"You helped us a great deal," Jon had said, and Gendry inclines his head, holds himself stiff.  In the battle, they were brothers, and before, he was only a commoner, but now, what with Daenerys legitimizing him as a true born Baratheon, there were rules to follow.  And people were watching (people were always watching him now), and would know if he messed up.  Gendry wanted so desperately not to mess up.  "Provided a great service to our house.  And if there is somewhere that you would rather go, I swear it, we will do whatever is in our power to get you there, but you are welcome in our halls as long as you want to stay."

Our house.

Targaryen.

Not Stark.

It's taken everyone some getting used to.  Gendry still isn't sure what to think of it, how a person's entire life rests on a name, a banner, a collection of words.  But he supposes its only a name that was allowing Gendry to stay.

"Here?"  It was not the right thing to say.  Doesn't matter.  This is a private audience.  There is only a handful of people listening, and all of them are friends- all of them had seen each other in worse conditions in this.  "At Winterfell?"

"Yes, Winterfell."  It was Daenerys.  When he looks at her, she smiles at him, and she seems so kind that he can see why people swear their swords to her so easily.  She is the type of woman that men dream of dying for.  "Or King's Landing, when the time comes.  I'm sure we could find a position for a man like you."

He doesn't know what that means- man being a fighter, or a blacksmith, or a Baratheon, or maybe just a friend.  But it doesn't matter, really.  He knows the answer the moment the offer comes, has known it since the moment he saw Arya lurking in the back of the courtyard.

"Of course I'll stay," He says, and he kneels down in front of them, but when he speaks, his words are for someone else.  "I'll go anywhere you need me to."

Arya is hard to find.

He sort of thinks that she's avoiding him, but he can't imagine why.  Maybe she just wants him to be the one to seek her out, and that's okay.