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

12

She's getting ready for the coronation.

Gendry is just watching.

"You do know," She says, and she catches his eyes in the mirror, lets herself smile.  Arya has such a soft smile, these days. "That it's rude to stare at a lady?"

"You aren't a lady."  He leans back on his elbows and keeps watching.  "Haven't you been telling me that for years?"

"Yes."  She turns, and for a moment she thinks she's going to abandon the task and come over to him, but she just moves over to stand in front of the chest at the foot of the bed and starts to drag a silver backed brush through her hair.  Gendry had found it under the bed during their first nights using the quarters as their own, and she had gone quiet, running her hands over the pattern of wolves imprinted in the metal.  Funny how memories turn up.  "But it seems strange that you finally decided to start listening."

"Well."  He motions for her and she comes to him, and doesn't protest when he draws the brush out of her hand.  She kneels down in front of him and he starts to pull it back, one section at a time until it flows smooth over his palm.  Arya had just washed it yesterday, and this close, he can still smell the soap on her, the faint remains of lavender.  "You're very persuasive."

She goes silent, watching him.  "You're leaving tomorrow.  After the feast."

"Yes."

"Do you still want me to come with you?"

He stills.  She does not sound like she is telling him no- she sounds reluctant, hesitant, like she honestly thinks he might have changed his mind.

"Yes."  He slides off the bed and onto the floor, and even though they are both already dressed for the ceremony.  She goes still for a moment and then leans against him, her back pressed up against his chest, and he leans forward so he can wrap his arms around her.  He still finds it strange, how easily they fit together.  "If you want to."

"I promised."

"You don't have to keep it."  He rests his head on the back of her shoulder because he does not want to see her face.  "If you changed your mind.  I don't want you to feel like you have to follow me half way across westeros because of a promise you made right when we were coming off of a war."

Sometimes, the things you say in the heat of the moment are not things that you intend to keep.  He wants her to mean this.

"I do.  I do, I only."  She is messing with the hair brush again.  It looks too small in her hands.  A gift from her mother, she had said, and then refused to talk anymore about it.  "I don't want you to, to get tired of me, or start getting in the way, I'm not- I just don't see how much help I'll be to you."

"I don't think," He starts and then shakes his head, because whatever he was about to say was wrong.  "I don't want you there to help count crops, or something.  I just want you there because I'd miss you if you weren't."  It seems to simple, when he says it like that.  He also doesn't know why she would come with him, when her brother needed so much help right where she was at.  "Arya."  He had to clear his throat twice to get her name out.  "Marry me."

She doesn't stiffen, and she doesn't flinch, but she doesn't answer, either.

"I'm not trying to make you into a lady.  If you want to wear a dress and keep house, that's- I wouldn't stop you."  He can't imagine her walking around a castle in dresses, even his castle.  He's not sure if he wanted her to.  "But if you wanted to sail around from here to Dorne and everything else, or go be a pirate or a wildling up beyond the wall, I wouldn't keep you away from that, either.  As long as you came back."  This wasn't about belonging.  This wasn't about keeping his house strong, or being a lord.  This was about a boy in a bull's helm ready to go where ever a little girl told him to, before they even knew who they were.  "Just as long you come back to me."