Wow, thanks for all the positive reception! Keep reviewing and letting me know its worth it to continue. I have a lot of ideas where this could go, so leave your thoughts and suggestions. And don't worry, Jon and Gendry will talk soon enough. Enjoy!

The walls of Winterfell could suffocate a man. If not by cold alone, then by the people-and the pressure. Gendry felt almost weightless as he exited the great hall, narrowly avoiding the 'big brother' talk he'd been dreading.

"We need to talk," Jon Snow had said to him. He moved to approach him, but Gendry stopped him in his tracks.

"With all due respect, I think there's someone else I need to talk to right now," Gendry had said, wincing as the words left his mouth. Who was he, a commoner recently stripped of his lordship, to refuse the Warden of the North? Jon nodded, understanding him instantly.

As Gendry sped through the halls, his mind was focused on one thing. He searched the dungeons, the roofs, everywhere he could imagine Arya to be lurking. He sighed in exasperation; she was nowhere to be found. Gendry began to panic, the dawn in the distance catching his eye. As he glanced out the window, he could just barely make out the shape of two riders in the distance.

"We should water the horses." Sandor Clegane grunted behind Arya. They had been riding for almost a half a day, long enough for Arya to both triumph at her decision to finally kill the queen and to regret the man she left behind. She closed her eyes, wishing for the ache in her heart to go away. She'd heard of lonely girls who wined on and on of heartbreak, she just wish they'd mentioned how much it hurt.

"Did you hear me? I said we should water-"

"I heard what you said." Arya turned to face him, eyeing him up and down. "The horses can last for a few more hours. We can continue until dusk."

"We might not pass another river for a while," Clegane said. He halted his horse, jumping down from the saddle. Hesitantly, Arya halted hers as well.

"Why are you so insistent on stopping now?" Arya smirked. "Having second thoughts?"

The hound threw his head back, laughing as if she had told a joke.

"Second thoughts? You women are all the same." He turned to her as he recovered. "If you think a man ever spares a mind for second thoughts you're dumber than most-"

"Killing a brother is nothing like killing a stranger," Arya said. She cocked her head to the side, "No matter how seasoned you may be."

The Hound narrowed his eyes at her, his grip tightening on the reins of his horse.

"The fuck you think you know about-"

"Quite a lot." Arya held his stare, refusing to acquiesce to his anger. "I know death, much more intimately than most. But killing family...that's something even I could never think to do."

Sandor led his horse to the river, allowing Arya to dismount her horse. Clegane halted just before the riverbank.

"And you?" He said, keeping his gaze forward. "Are second thoughts not the reason you're so fucking devoted to moving forward?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your stubborn ass is too afraid that if you stop now you'll never go forward, isn't that right?" The hound whirled on her, towering over her small form. She didn't back down, of course. She shook her head, her grip tightening on Needle.

"You're wrong," Arya said.

"I'm no more wrong than you are blind," He spat. "You're conflicted. For the first time in your life your little list isn't the most important thing to you." He stomped past her, ripping open the leather bag on the side of her horses saddle and pulling out the bottle of wine. Arya marched after him.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh I think I do." Sandor turned, bending down so his face was only inches from her own. "The girl who knows death so well she can barely feel any other kind of loss."

The pain in her hand was nothing compared to the slap she just delivered. The hound clutched the side of his face, grinning despite his bruised cheek. Arya whirled on her heels, pulling her horse to the riverbank.

"You forgot something in Winterfell, girl!" The hound called after her. "And he's a pain in the ass as much as you are."