"... but I'm not a lady. I never have been. That's not me" As Arya walked off Gendry's heart shattered. Then he grew angry. He was close. So close to having everything, a name, a family. The girl he loved. He should've known that she would say no, yet after that night...he hoped. He wished that maybe just maybe he had a chance at everything.

Gendry went to the forge and pounded on a piece of metal with all his might. He replayed the scene in his head over and over and over again. What did he say? Where did it go wrong? Then with the ring of the hammer on the anvil, it hit him. 'be the lady of Storms End'. She didn't know. Didn't understand what he meant. That's where he went wrong. She just didn't understand. With the revelation coursing through his blood he sent out to find his Wolf girl in the only place he knew where she would be.

When they were on the road together 'Arry' would talk about Winterfell so much that in end Gendry knew his way around the place by heart without ever stepping foot behind its gates. She always talked about the gods wood. And sure enough, as he turned the corner he saw her there surrounded by the white trees that bled. She was sitting there staring at the ground. Gendry immediately knew that she was staring at the exact spot where she killed the Night King and saved everyone. She was like a statue. Showing no emotion on her face, rarely blinking. Gendry hesitated. Should he try again and have his heartbreak even more?

She had been through much, and the few times her name was brought up in conversation with other people he knew that she wasn't the same girl he knew. He knew she was broken and darkness surrounded her. Yet none of that mattered. Yes. He needed to try again. And when he saw again that first time in the forge he knew she had changed. Her quick smile and even quicker temper were gone. Arry was replaced by someone cold, with a mask that couldn't be seen through. Then she smiled at him and said that he didn't know any other rich girls, he knew that his girl, his best friend. His family was still in there somewhere. When he saw her throw the dragon glass arrows with such precision all the while keeping her eyes on him he knew that she had set out to do what she always wanted to do she learned how to fight, she had learned how to get her revenge. She could more than take care of herself. She didn't need him anymore. Then there was that night. Her in his arms, taking charge like she always did, but she let go. She let herself go, for him. She relaxed under his touch and Gendry knew that he would probably be the only one that she would ever be like this with. He wanted to be the only one allowed to touch her. After all those years thinking that she was dead Gendry finally had his wolf girl back and he didn't intend to let her go without saying what he really meant.

"Arya," He spoke softly. Barely above a whisper but it was enough to make her jump onto her feet, her hand on needle ready to fight. His heart clenched at the sight. After a moment she relaxed but he could tell she was ready to bolt. Runaway at any second.

"Gendry I.." She backed away as Gendry walked towards her.

When he was again right in front of her he spoke. "Just listen, that's all I ask at the moment. Just listen to what I have to say," He watched her nod her head slightly after a few seconds giving him the go-ahead to speak. "Back in the keep, I don't think you understood what I met. Yes, I said' be the lady of Storms End' but you need to understand. I want you to be mi'lady. Not a lady."

"I'm not a lady," Arya said harshly yet her words didn't hurt Gendry. Not yet at least.

"No, your not a proper lady. You don't like to sit and sew, wear dresses or have braids woven into your hair. You're MY lady. You like to fight, wear pants and do whatever the fuck you want whenever you want including insulting people who are bigger than you. Ever since I found out who you were I never saw you with dresses on or sitting in a corner and sewing. The second you pushed me to the ground for calling you a lady I knew. I knew right then and there Arya that you were mi'lady and I would do anything for you. Just you. I don't want to change you I want you as you are because to me your perfect. You're my family Arya."

Arya's face was as emotionless as it was when he first started talking but her eyes. Her eyes were filled with emotion. Confusion, longing, anger and something else. Gendry couldn't tell what that something else was but he hoped it was something good. Arya couldn't form her thoughts into words, she didn't even know what her thoughts were. SO she did the only thing she could do. She ran.

Gendry didn't stop her he stayed where he was and died inside. Without her he was a shell of a man once again like he was for the years he thought she was dead. His only family gone, once again. Without Arya in his life, Gendry was nothing

Sandor watched from the shadows. He heard everything and watched as Arya ran and Gendry stood broken. The little bitch assassin and the bastard lord. One reaching out and the other running away. The Hound had found his little bird again and while she rarely had time for him, barely saw him or spoke to him he saw something in her eyes that gave him hope. That something was all he needed. He wanted to help his little bird be happy in any way possible and he knew that one way of doing that was to help her sister be happy. Sandor moved from the shadows and headed to find Arya.

He found her in the stables readying a horse. "Going to King's Landing already?" He watched as her back stiffened slightly before she continued on with her tasks.

"I'm going to finish my list." Her voice was void of all emotion and Sandor wanted to bang his head against the wall. Damn this girl and her fucking stubbornness. He stepped in front of her path, blocking her from getting on the horse.

"I need you to listen to me girl. Not everything is about Revenge." Arya tried to move around him but Sandor grabbed her arm. "Look at me, I've been after revenge all my life and look at me. At what I am. I'm an empty broken man waiting to face an empty broken death," Arya once again tried to move away from him. Sandor seethed in anger and grabbed a fistful of her hair forcing her to look up at him. To really look at him. "Look at me! Do you want to be like me! You ride off to Kings Landing and one of two things will happen to you mark my words. You will either die there an empty death or you'll kill her and have nothing left to live for. You say you want revenge for your family yet you don't seem to care that all your family wants is you by their side. Your family needs you, Arya."

Arya looked like she was going to grab needle and stab him through his heat. Killing him like she promised to do all those years ago. Instead, she looked at him. Stared into his eyes and the more she looked at the Hound the more her life flashed before her eyes. Happy days here at Winterfell, her fathers head getting chopped off, being on the road with Gendry and Hot Pie. Gendry leaving. Seeing the aftermath of the red wedding. Braavos. Becoming faceless, no one. She saw every person she had ever killed. Revenge had consumed her for so long that the thought of life without it scared her. Looking into the Hounds eyes, Arya was finally able to admit to herself what she was. She was a scared little girl who just wanted her family.

"I don't know how to live without revenge. I can barely remember a time I didn't want revenge."

The fact that she admitted that out loud, and to Sandor no less, showed just how much she wanted to try. Sandor let go of her hair.

"I think if you truly want to try and live you need someone in your life that will help you. That will be there for you in a way your siblings cant." Arya sucked in an angry breath. The Hound knew about what Gendry had said. Sandor saw her rage-filled face and smiled. "Go to him, Arya. He's your first step." With those last words, the Hound turned and walked out of the stables. He did his part in trying to help his little bird get back her family and that's all he could do.

Arya waited until the hound was truly gone before she got on the horse and head towards the gates of Winterfell. Her mind was torn. Sandor was right. What would she do after she killed Cersei and finished her list? What about her family? Bran, Sansa. Jon. For so long all she did was kill in the name of the Starks, she walked out of the house of black and white for the Stark name. Yet here she was, leaving once again. Yet this time it was by choice. Could her heart even bare it?

Snow started to fall on the ground around her covering the world in a white blanket. Covering the signs of the battleground. She had always thought of snow as pure and innocent. Being able to cover the sins of the past. Sandor was right. If she left she would be even more empty and broken than she was right now. She slipped off of the horse walked back towards Winterfell. She not a lady. Never was and never would be. But, maybe she could have a family.

A family of wolves, a bird, and a bull turned stag. If the bull was still willing that was.

The forge was empty and the fire dead. She waited there anyways; curling up on the cot she knew was his. The forge was Gendry's home no matter what title he got. He would come here eventually. And when he did she would be here waiting for him.

It was well into the night when Gendry made his way back to the forge. His heart, mind, and body numb. He knew that as a lord, he could request rooms in the hall if he so wished but the hall was filled with Starks. He didn't want to see a Stark yet, any Stark really. Yet as he got to his cot he found himself staring at one. She was curled up, sleeping peacefully. Gendry didn't know what to think or how to react. He wanted to wake her up and scream at her. Kick her out of the forge. Yet he couldn't. Because she was here. She ran away from him twice only for him to find her in his bed. Here, where she knew he would be. Why? He needed answers, he needed to know.

So instead of yelling, he bent down and lightly put his hand on her shoulder. She was awake and choking him within seconds. The moment she realized who he was she let go of his neck and curled up into herself. Ashamed. Gendry knew that she had been through things no should have gone through. He had the rumors of her becoming faceless. Yet the fact that her first instinct was to kill broke his heart in an entirely different way.

"I'm sorry..it's just. You just startled me." Arya stumbled, her voice thick with an apology.

"I startled you? You break my heart twice in one night only for me to find you in my bed and you're saying that I startled you." Arya lowered her head, ashamed. Gendry sighed and sat down next her, rubbing his temples. He was too tired to go through this again. Whatever this was. "Why are you here."

Arya bit her lip and repeated his first sentence from the Godswood. "Just listen. I need you to listen to me." She held her breath and after a few tense moments, Gendry nodded his head. "I was going to leave. Go to Kings Landing and Kill Cersi. Finish my list."

"Why didn't you?"

"The hound stopped me. He forced me to listen to some things I didn't want to hear and eventually I realized that he was right," Arya looked at Gendry and after a second he looked back at her. "For so long all I wanted was revenge. Revenge for my family, for myself. Every time I killed, I killed in the Stark name. Yet that's not what a Stark should be. All I wanted was my family but after everything that's happened, everything I've done...I'm not the little girl who left Winter Fell all those years ago. I don't think I could be her again even if I tried. I've done so much, have killed so many people. I don't know anything else. How to be anybody else. The family that I had been trying so hard to get back to is gone. None of us are the same and the people that we've become...We aren't a family. Not anymore.

"For years I thought you were dead, that the red woman killed you, the last member of my family dead. When I saw you, riding into Winterfell I felt something that I haven't felt in years. Emotions that I thought were gone, that had been taken from me in the house of black and white came flooding back. For the first time in years, I felt something besides anger and rage. I felt at home. I had Sansa, Bran, and Jon back into my life but they're strangers to me. The second I saw you I was able to admit to myself that I was home. That scares me. I've been with my family over six months, I've been back at Winterfell, but I didn't once think of myself at home or with my family until I saw you riding in through the front gates.

"I don't know how to live without revenge. But maybe if you're willing, you can help me learn. You can teach me how to be apart of a family again." Arya paused. Her words lying heavily in the air, after a few minutes she spoke up once again. "I don't want to be a lady, but if what you said is true, then I wouldn't mind being your lady. Your my family Gendry. My home. I'm sorry I couldn't admit that earlier."

Gendry was silent. It was now his turn to figure things out. He had two rejections and now this. All in one day. From the corner of his eye, he looked at her. His wolf girl. She no longer needed his protection from the world. She could protect herself. She was broken and trying to piece herself back together. Eventually, Gendry stood up from where he was sitting next to her on the cot. Arya didn't move. She barely looked at him. She stayed through his tense silence. Gendry took off his belt, then his tunic. Within a minute he was ready for bed. He was so tired. He stared at Arya some more. His lady that was not a lady. He went back to the cot and picked her up and settled back down and holding her captive in his arms. He didn't want to have sex with her, not at this moment. All he wanted was to hold his wolf girl captive in his arms as they slept and make sure she didn't run away again.

After a few tense moments Arya uncurled and turned around in his arms burying her face in his chest, placing her hand over his heart. Gendry's hand found her other one and their fingers laced together. His other hand found its way into her hair where it played with it. Her hair was longer than he had ever seen it. No longer sheared into a shaggy boys style but not long enough to be a lady. He loved her hair.

Neither spoke, they just lay there on his cot next to the quite forge and listened to one another breathe. They remained in a quiet moment of just knowing. Without words, they both knew that this was the moment when a wolf girl and a bull turned stag became one. They became a family. Slowly their positions changed. Gendry moved on to his side. Arya entwined her legs with his. They could no longer tell where one body started and the other stopped.

"I love you Gendry" Arya whispered. Gendry felt her declaration more than he actually heard it. Her lips moving on his chest. He held her even tighter.

He kissed the top of her head. "I love you, Arya."

Arya moved her head from his chest and looked into his eyes. They were filled with love. Yet there was also sadness and uncertainty. "I don't want to get married yet. I'm not ready and I don't think I'll be ready for a long time."

Gendry knew that was coming but she didn't say no. Just not yet and that was enough for all his prayers, wishes, hopes and dreams to be answered. "We'll get married when you're ready and not before. No matter how long that takes."

Arya didn't smile. Instead, she looked sadder, even more worried. Gendry's heart raced in a panic fearing the worst. His grip tightened even more. She couldn't leave him. Not again. But she didn't leave instead she buried into him even more. "I can't give you everything you want. I can't give you children. I can't give you a family." Gendry's heart stilled.

"I know," Arya looked up at him questioningly only for Gendry to kiss her on the forehead, "I figured as much when I saw the scars. It doesn't matter. I have you. You're my family."

"As Lord of Storms End, they will expect you to have heirs."

"When we are ready. When you are ready. We'll adopt. This war has caused enough children to be orphans. They need a family too."

Arya nodded her head and smiled softly before burying her face against him once again.

"My stupid bull. Who could be with anyone he chooses yet you choose me. A broken assassin."

"Mi'lady wolf. There is no one else I could choose. You were it from the moment I found out you were a girl."

With no more words to be said a comfortable silence fell over the two as they fell asleep in each other's arms.

It was well into the late morning when they were discovered.

"Sansa I found her!" Jon yelled; startlingly the two awake. Murder was in Jon's eyes as he saw his little sister in the arms of the blacksmith turned lord.

Arya grumbled as she twisted herself around to face her brother. "What do you want Jon." Arya, a trained assassin who could wake up and kill someone in an instant was not a morning person what so ever.

Jon seethed. "Arya, what in seven hells is going on here?"

"It took a while and some convincing but I agreed to be with my stupid bull."

Jon didn't know what to do. What to think. How did the two even know each other? "Sansa! Get over here now!"

Arya just smiled at her brother while Gendry held her tighter. He finally had his wolf and not even her family could take her away from him.

"Sansa!" Jon yelled in a panic once again. He was a bloody idiot leaving Longclaw in his chambers with a sleeping Daenerys.