WHO: Aria Winters WHEN: Very early on October 19 WHERE: First the Winters-Reed home, then the Church-Wolfe home SUMMARY: Aria has a panic when she wakes from a dream and seeks out some normalcy and comfort a few houses down. WARNINGS: IT GETS REAL SAPPY Y'ALL and has spoilers for GOT if that's something you're worried about? BINGO PROMPT: Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe
When a girl woke with a start, her heart pounding and her body covered in a cold sweat as she sat up straight, she was blind.
So many points on her body ached, as though a bruise was forming under the skin of each spot the Waif had struck her with with the staff. She could taste the blood in her mouth from one perfectly executed strike and she half expected for a tooth or two to be missing. Though she had been able to deflect a few blows, it hadn't been enough. It was never enough, not for the Waif. She didn't believe that a girl would ever be no one.
But she was. Wasn't she?
And that was when a girl realized she wasn't blind at all. The room was simply dark, but the clear night sky and a nearly full yet waning moon left a dull glow from the window, even with her curtains drawn. Next to her was a cell phone, light up with the time -- an hour that was both very late and entirely too early, especially for someone who had come off a closing shift at a diner. This wasn't the House of Black and White. This wasn't Braavos or even Westeros. And she wasn't no one or a girl or even Arya Stark.
Aria blinked rapidly, willing her heart rate too slow as she forced her breaths to do the same. She was alone in bed, but the relief at finding her as such due to her reaction at being pulled from Arya's life was slowly being replaced with longing.
Hardly registering that she had made the decision at all, Aria winced as she turned in the bed, then pulled herself out of it. Despite knowing that she hadn't actually sustained injuries, her mind seemed as of yet unconvinced. She ignored her stiff joints, finding the nearest hoodie, one of Drew's that she practically drowned within that she had worn home a few nights before, and zipping it up to cover the tank top she'd paired with her pajama pants when she'd gone to bed hours before. Her cell phone was slipped into a pocket before she fished her keys from her messenger bag that was slung across the back of her desk chair. A pair of shoes later and she was quietly walking through the home she shared with Jasmine, then out the front door.
It was a cool night in Dunhaven, but Aria didn't have far to go. The lights in the houses of their neighborhood were all out and not a car drove by as she walked down the sidewalk, clearly no one else -- at least in this part of town -- as awake as her.
When Aria reached the door of the home that Drew now shared with Benjy, she was as silent as only a Stark girl that had completed training as an acolyte of the Many-Faced God could. The dream may have been from the middle of that training, but Aria had seen so much more of Arya Stark's life. She could do things that she shouldn't, having grown up as nothing more than a normal girl in a smalltown in Virginia. Normally she had no cause for using those skills; sneaking into the home of her boyfriend and one of her best friends was apparently a cause.
The route was familiar. She had spent much time in Drew's house since they had reconnected and more or less picked up where they had left off. It took only moments for her to use her key to enter the house, then find herself carefully easing open the bedroom door that separated her from her boyfriend.
Aria slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Though she didn't stand there long, looking at the sleeping form of Drew in his bed, it was just long enough for Aria to feel herself settle.
She wasn't Arya Stark. She wasn't no one or a girl or any of the other many names that she had taken up since her life had been turned upside down. No, she was Aria Winters. And while her life may have been intertwined with that of the world of Westeros in so many strange, perplexing ways, it didn't have to change anything here. Her parents were Edison and Katherine Winters. Her brother was Max. Her future sister-in-law was Danielle. Her aunt and uncle were Lyllianna and Rhys Stone. And her boyfriend was Drew Church.
Not Gendry. Not Gendry Baratheon. Drew.
Every time she dreamed about Arya, her emotions and instincts took just a little bit longer to shake. Not all of those emotions and instincts were bad, but Aria didn't want them. For as much as they felt like they belonged to her, they didn't. They couldn't. Because she knew how things had ended for Arya and Gendry and she had sworn to herself again and again that it wouldn't be the same ending for them.
After shrugging off Drew's hoodie and slipping out of her shoes, Aria padded across the floor until she could ease into the bed next to him. Careful not to jostle the mattress, she settled on her side, taking just enough blankets to not be a bother. It didn't take long for her eyes to grow heavy, but it was Drew's sleeping face that she watched as she willingly let sleep overtake her once more.
The pain from the Waif was gone. The heaviness on her heart from all Arya had endured was still present, but had lifted. She was Aria Winters and she was home.