When it's all over, when someone is finally sitting on the Throne for more than a few months, everybody seems to be breathing for the first time in years. He doesn't quite know who is on the Throne, actually. Is it the Usurper's brother or the Dragon Queen, he couldn't tell. It doesn't really matter either, because the North is free again and the Queen sits on her own ice throne here in Winterfell. It suits her, prettier than ever with her long red hair and her solemn face, with that silver crown he made for her on her head. Spitting image of her Lady mother, or so people say. She looks nothing like Lady Stoneheart to Gendry.

The War is over, Wolves and Krakens free to do as they wish now, the Others nothing more than a legend at last, and it feels good. Winterfell feels good too, even if a bit cold at times. Nothing he can't survive though. He's working at the forge, melting and recreating swords from scratch, when he hears new whispers. The Stag lord is coming north. The Usurper's brother is here.

Gendry thinks he knows why - not that he hopes he's right, he's not that selfish and haven't been that hopeful in a long time. His daughter is married and peace treaties with the North are strong, so it is another matter bringing the lord that up north. And Gendry may not have a maester's education but he's not stupid - he knows the looks people give him, he knows what they whisper behind his back. He has come to the conclusion long ago, he knows he's Gendry Waters of King's Landing, bastard son of the late Usurper.

So it doesn't come as a surprise when the Stag lord asks for him - it wasn't even surprising that Gendry was found that easily, because they already sing of the Wolf and the Bull going to battle together. It doesn't come as a surprise when the Stag lord nods and says "you'll be the second heir". Edric Storm, now Baratheon, is the first heir, or so he learns. But heirs can die before they have sons, so two is a good number, a safe number.

"It is your right to refuse," Queen Sansa tells him softy. But being a Lord is better than being the Knight of a dead brotherhood, which is better than being a nobody. So he accepts, and asks to be excused. Lessons and courtesies and everything will come later; he just needs his hammer and fires now.

She comes to see him later, when the sun is about to set, when he's done working. He leans against the forge's large doorframe and she stands by his side, both looking in front of them. It's not like her to be that silent, filling the air with her chatter and her 'stupids', but she doesn't open her mouth as they watch the Stag lord talking with the master of arms.

"So..." she begins, and he can hear her laugh and her teasing in that single sound, "Ser Gendry Baratheon of Storm's End."

"I'm no Ser, m'lady, I'm a Lord."

She has a breathless laugh before punching his shoulder, not strongly enough to hurt. When she finally looks at him, it's with a grin and sparkles in her grey eyes. He grins back.

"It's my lady, you should say it right."

"As my lady commands."

Another punch, another laugh, muttering a 'stupid' under her breath. Then they fall back into their silence, looking at Rickon running around with his wolf by his side and his septa following close and screaming at him. Gendry knows a lost cause when he sees one, and the Wild Wolf will not take his bath today. It makes Arya chuckle as she comes to the same conclusion. Then there's a comfortable silence again for a few minutes, until she breaks it again.

"Are you leaving then?" Her voice is serious and detached, like it was when she first came back to him from Braavos, when there were still fragments of no one in her mind. He's come to associate that with her will to hide her emotions - not than she can hide anything from him.

"Not if I don't want to. I need to learn my letters, don't see why I couldn't do that with your Maester."

"Good... Good." He hears in her words the smile than isn't on her lips. Then, unexpected and almost mockingly, as if imitating his own voice, she says "Our is the fury."

"How fitting," he replies, and her laugh is long and loud. He had never been one for the fury, before the war. But if there is something he's learnt from the last few years, it's that war changes a man, and that his hammer in his hands can kill a man as easily as it can create a sword - then again, something he and his late father have in common. His was the fury, when it came to make sure the She Wolf would win the war for Winterfell. Which she did, anyway.

"Those should be my words," she says, so simply, so naturally.

He can't help it then, can't stop himself from replying "They could be your words too."

She stares at him, turning her head so suddenly it might hurt, with a strange look on her face. He doesn't know what he's supposed to read in her eyes, so deep and serious, especially associated with the small smile on her lips. It's disconcerting, that combination. Especially when she turns her head back to the scene in front of them, Rickon running and Stannis talking with Sansa now.

He already regrets his words, already tries to find a fitting apology and no, it was only a jest, don't worry. He's actually about to say so, mouth open and everything, when she whispers "I'd like that."

He blinks hard, not sure if he heard right or if it's just his mind playing a trick on him. But then she looks at him again, and her eyes are no longer hard and cold. It's that look, the one she only ever has when she looks at him, the one he's come to understand as you're mine and maybe I'm yours but mostly you're mine and no one's else. He loves that look.

"I'd like that", she repeats.

A smile creeps on her lips, turning into a grin, turning into a laugh. He smiles too, biting on his bottom lip not to grin like the idiot he is, and opens his arms to her. She accepts the hug without second though, forehead again his chest. He kisses the top of her head and hugs her tightly and raises his head to see Sansa smiling knowingly at him.

"Looks like we'll finally be able to make a little lady out of you."

She manages to hit him hard without moving away from him, and he feels the "stupid stag" against his chest more than he actually hears it. He can be a stag. He'll be everything the little she-wolf wants him to be.