The Stag and The Frog - (GendryxMeera GOT fanfic) Part 1: Alone

13: Waking up

They gave the signal to the rest of the armies to enter the castle. Suddenly the place was filled with people making themselves at home. Exploring every nook and cranny. Figuring out where people should sleep, what there was to eat, were materials would be stored and so on.

Over the castle gate, the Baratheon banner was hung. Everyone from far and wide could see the stag on its yellow background flapping in the wind. They could see that house Baratheon was back, in the castle where they belonged.

The castle seemed so impossibly big to Gendry. So many rooms echoing empty. The whole population of Flea Bottom could probably fit in it. Quite comfortably. Even after the commanders and other staff from the Baratheon armies had been given housing there were rooms left empty.

The Lord's bedroom was bigger than the whole workshop were Gendry had worked in King's Landing. It didn't feel like a room where he belonged. He felt like he was going to ruin it by existing in it. Like his blacksmith's hands weren't gentle enough to touch the furniture. The floors were decorated with big deep yellow carpets. The Baratheon color. When Gendry entered the room for the first time he walked around those carpets, afraid to dirty them with his boots. The curtains and bedspread were the same yellow color with an intricate pattern of stag antlers and tree branches embroidered on them. The same stag antler pattern also recurred in the wood carvings on the dressers and benches. Even when the castle had belonged to the Lannister's the Baratheon spirit had remained in the decoration.

As he laid down to sleep during his first night in the castle he spread out all his limbs as far as he could reach. He still couldn't reach the edges of the bed. The bed was like a damn ocean. He looked upon the canopy as he tried to sleep. Yes, the bed had a damn canopy... A pattern of stags and other woodland creatures looked down on him from it. The thoughts caught up to him as he laid there. He should be happy, he should be ecstatic. He finally had everything he never had. A bed. A bedroom. A castle. But he wasn't. He was just lonely.

Gendry couldn't get settled in the bed, it was too spacious, too soft, too lonely. It had too many woodland creatures above it. He wasn't used to sleeping in beds, and certainly not in beds like this one. Growing up he had slept on the floor, or if he was lucky on a mattress filled with hay. He thought of asking Devan to join him in the bedroom to make it less lonely, but as that might be misinterpreted he decided against it.

His thoughts kept whirling as he laid there. Thoughts of what he had done and what he was expected to do. He tried to focus on woodland creatures above him instead but they just made him remember. They brought back memories of when he ran for his life through the woods of Westeros. With Arya.

To escape those memories and the loneliness of his too big bed he decided to make his way to one of the couches that lined the walls of the room. He brought one of the less fancy sheets from the bed with him and laid down.

As he laid there another thought entered his mind. A thought he hadn't dared to think. Now he thought it, if only for a moment. The thought of a hand in his. The thought of hope. The thought of Meera Reed. Because he had felt something when he was with her. A closeness, a connection, a vibration. Something he never thought he would feel for anyone else than Arya.

Before he was able to chase the thought away he had fallen asleep.

***

In the castle of Greywater Watch, Meera Reed couldn't sleep either. She didn't want to. Not because her bed was too big or too soft but because she was haunted by her memories. Every time she closed her eyes she could see her brother's eyes before her, how he had closed them for the last time while in her arms. Every time she laid there in the silence she could hear Summer crying as the white walkers crushed her and she could hear Bran screaming to Hodor to hold the door. Every time she woke up after a brief respite of sleep she thought she was still there, in that cave, watching the boy she had loved disappear. She didn't want to sleep because she couldn't bear to relive it all again.

As soon as she figured her father was asleep she made her way out of the castle. She sat down on the dock outside and tried to forget her memories. Fireflies whirled around her and lit up the darkness. She could see lines on the water from animals out on their nightly swims. Frogs were croaking, cicadas singing and mosquitos buzzing. The swamp was full of life at night. Here she didn't have to see her brother's eyes. Here she didn't have to hear their screams. Here she didn't have to wake up.

Another memory came to her as she sat there. A memory she didn't want to forget. Of someone who had sat next to her on that dock not long ago. Of someone whose hand had been so cold in hers. Of someone who had been handsome and kind. A memory of Gendry Baratheon. During that brief moment when he had been there with her, she had felt safe. She had felt something she had never felt before. A closeness, a connection, a vibration. A feeling she wanted to feel again.

She fell asleep right there on the dock, still thinking of that memory. Nothing haunted her as she fell asleep. Nothing haunted her when she woke up the next morning. She knew she wasn't in that cave any more. For the first time since she got back home, she woke up knowing that.

***

The couch was not the most comfortable place to sleep so Gendry woke up early the next morning. Feeling just a little bit more ready to tackle the task of being a lord. He had a feeling of hope he hadn't felt the day before. He knew what he needed to do now. He knew how he should start being a lord. He looked around for his clothes and found them in a dresser. A helpful maid must have entered the room during the night, folded up his clothes and put them in there. She had probably wondered why he was on the couch.

He made his way to the only place in the castle where he truly felt at home. The blacksmith's workshop. He walked around it and touched the workbenches, the tools, the finished swords lined up by the wall. It all felt so familiar, and nothing else felt familiar to him these days.

The fire was not lit yet so no work could be done but Gendry decided to make sure that work was started up as soon as possible. His army was going to be the best-equipped army in all of Westeros. Everything else expected of him as a lord evaded him, but this one thing. This one thing he knew. This one thing he could make sure of. He would put the blacksmiths to work, making weapons and armor for the Baratheon army. This was where he would start being a lord.

The Baratheon armies would indeed become the best-equipped army in the whole kingdom. Gendry would make sure of that, just like he envisioned. And he would be very thankful for that years later. When he and his armies marched on the capital to take down the king.