Chapter Text
Arya Stark dreaded the moments before her sixteenth birthday since the day she learned what it would mean for her.
She did everything in her power to make sure it didn’t happen, like skipping her birthday would make destiny and fate stop on its heels. She tried to get sick, taking cold showers and sleeping in the drafty hallways as if being sick would make a difference. She tried to stop their mail from being delivered, calling the post office and claiming they had moved (alas her mother caught her and grounded her for the week after finding she had been charged for late bills). She even tried to run away, leashing up Nymeria and offering Jon and Rickon to coming along. Jon declined because he had a girlfriend to think about and no matter how cool she was, she wasn’t invited and Rickon didn’t want to leave without mother and ruined the whole point. Arya would have asked Robb but he was the worst of them all, finding his soulmate before he was supposed to- overachiever as always. Bran would rather face the odds than go on an adventure and Sansa, well, that was just a plain old no.
On the day of her birthday, Arya ran to the woods behind their house to hide but was found and dragged back in by her father an hour later. She struggled against his grip on her shoulder, trying to shake him off.
“I don’t want it,” Arya hissed lowly.
Ned nodded his head and ruffled her hair affectionately. “Then you don’t have to have it.”
Arya blinked. “I don’t?”
“I’m not going to force it on you. You don’t have to open it if you don’t want to.”
And that is the reason the counter box laid unopened in her closet for about an hour before Sansa annoyed Arya enough to opening it.
The actual opening of her counter was rather anticlimactic. The only person present was Sansa who insisted she just open it and Arya preferred it that way (or maybe even without Sansa, if she were being honest). When she ripped open the box and peered inside, dread filled Arya and made her wish she had thrown the damn thing away and never looked at it.
1,250,467
“Wow,” Sansa said amazed. “That’s not even a whole year!” Of course, she’d know how many steps the average person took in a year.
“Whatever,” Arya grumbled, shoving the counter back into the box and throwing the whole thing back into her open closet.
Sansa only shook her head in dismay and left to tell everyone the amazing news. Arya spent the rest of the day in her room, sulking and not taking any steps. She was too old to cry about stupid things like this, but the frustration of the situation made her want to. She even found herself wiping her eyes, especially when she looked into the closest and could see the shiny black box among the clothes.
However, three days into taking the least amount of steps and staying in bed as much as possible, her father came to her again and said, “Just because you’ll meet your soulmate then, doesn’t mean that you have to pursue anything with them. Not everyone is going to be like Robb or Sansa. Jon even took a little bit to warm up to his soulmate.”
“Well, I don’t want to warm up to anyone,” Arya mumbled, burying her face into her pillow.
“Then don’t,” her father ruffled her hair. “No one is forcing you to do anything.”
“But the counter-”
“The counter,” Ned spoke calmly and surely, “is just information. Knowledge is power but you chose what you want to do with that knowledge, not the other way around.”
Arya didn’t say anything and her father left shortly after pressing a kiss to the top of her head. But the next day, when ten o’clock rolled around, Arya slunk down the stairs and plopped herself in a chair across from Theon Greyjoy at the kitchen table, both of them late risers.
“Change your mind?” he mused, shoving a piece of waffle into his mouth.
“No,” Arya stole his plate and he didn’t fight her on it. “I just don’t care.”
“Good,” he smirked and nodded his head in understanding. “I wouldn’t want some poor sap to be stuck with you.”
Arya kicked him under the table but the subject dropped after that. Her actual siblings were a little less receptive to the idea of Arya not giving a damn about what the counter did or said ranging from Jon’s understanding, Robb’s support, Sansa’s apprehension and Bran and Rickon’s curiosity to see what would happen in less than a year’s time.
Thankfully, no one pressed Arya about the counter locked in her room after that. She basically forgot about it a week after her birthday. The most Arya ever came to being aware of the counter’s existence was when one or two of her siblings, usually Sansa and Rickon, came to check how many steps she had left. She rarely, if ever, wore it. Again, usually it was on Sansa’s insistence, especially as the number of steps dwindled down to the thousands and the days grew closer.
But as those steps grew less, Arya couldn’t help but think about the counter and the dwindling steps. She didn’t care for who would be on the other side; all she knew was her life was ruined no matter who it was. Or would be ruined in such a short time. Only sixteen and her life was going to be over.
"Arya, get up, we are going outside."
"Never," Arya crossed her arms firmly over her chest, pushing herself as far back as she could against her pillows. For the past five days, she made as minimal steps as possible. Her counter has reached the double digits and it was only a matter of time (or steps) until Arya hit zero. She knew it was going to happen soon, but she wasn't ready. She was only sixteen years old. She wasn't ready for a soulmate. She wasn't like Robb who had his whole life and soulmate figured out before he was sixteen. She wasn't like Jon who found happiness in his soulmate after years of uncertainty and misery. She definitely wasn't Sansa who had time to find herself before finding her soulmate. Arya didn't have time, she didn't have her life figured out, and she knew deep in her heart she wasn't going to find happiness in a person, at least until she found happiness in herself. She needed time, more time than the counter was going to ever give her.
But that didn't mean her family agreed with Arya staying in bed until she was ready. They let her miss a week of school- probably more her father’s doing than her mother’s -and Rickon even pitied her situation enough to bring food directly to her. The only time she moved was to go to the bathroom but she got Jon to carry her to the door more times than not.
When she had woke up the first morning at the beginning of the week, her counter read 97 but five days later it had gone down to 72. It was Saturday, the sixth day of her double-digit counter and it seemed as if the pity and sympathy had come to an end as all her siblings stood at the end of the bed.
"It is easier if you just face it," Jon tried sweetly, holding a hand out for her.
Arya pulled the covers tighter around her, hoping to bind herself to her bed. "No, not today."
"We hate to do this," Sansa sighed, "but it is for your own good."
"You don't hate it!" Arya growled. "You even came back home from King’s Landing to see it! You want this!"
Sansa shrugged but patted Rickon on the shoulder. "Grab her blankets. Bran blocked the door. Robb, Jon, whenever you are ready."
Arya could only watch in dismay as both Robb and Jon came to the side of her bed, Rickon's little hands grabbing the bottom of her blankets. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sansa rummaging through her closet and Bran watched from the door, his chair blocking her exit.
It happened quicker than Arya could even process. One minute she was gripping onto her bedding for her life and the next, Jon had his arms around her and was carrying her towards the car, fully clothed with the outfit Sansa had picked out and her counter in Bran's hands. She had refused the counter on her wrist, savagely ripping it off but they took it along with them. It would still document her steps, now at 64 with her struggle but she wasn't going to take another step, they couldn't make her and Arya already knew dragging didn't register.
Robb drove with Sansa in the front seat. They had the audacity to talk about getting coffee and going shopping, catching up like Arya wasn't about to have her life end forever. Jon and Bran bracketed her in case she thought of flinging herself out of the car with Rickon curled up on Jon's lap, his legs over Arya like another seatbelt.
When they pulled up at the town center, Arya grabbed the seat for dear life. It was no use, not with Jon lifting her out of the car like she weighed as much as a balloon. No amount of kicking or screaming would do it, he simply ignored it. The worst part is no one even looked over. The rest of her siblings worried about getting Bran in his chair or making sure Sansa had all her coupons or if Rickon wanted to go shopping with Jon and Sansa or having coffee with Robb and Bran.
When Arya was gently set on the sidewalk, she froze in place, keeping her feet firmly planted on the ground.
"You're going to have to move eventually," Robb sighed. "You are making this out to be way worse than it really is."
Arya didn't respond with anything other than a glare.
"Just leave her," Jon shrugged with a little tough love in his voice. "She can't stay there forever."
Oh, just you wait. Arya didn't even give Jon a reaction, keeping her glare on the rest of her siblings.
With a final goodbye from all her siblings and a reassuring pat from Rickon, Arya was left alone on the sidewalk. It took her a few minutes to realize that Rickon had slipped her counter into her pocket.
The only reason Arya dug it out of her pocket was to see how many steps she managed to lose in the fight with her siblings from her bed to the sidewalk. She sighed with relief to see 59 was the number blinking. With that, Arya kept the counter in her fist: not looking at the screen but not forgetting the reason she was going to stand absolutely still. Even if the sun was bearing down on her and even if people muttered rude comments as she blocked the sidewalk. She didn’t care. Arya was as clever as she stubborn. It would take a mighty force to get her to move.
She hadn’t realized at the time that an actual mighty force would come two hours later, as her legs begun to ache and sweat was covering her body. She was thirsty but not thirsty enough to leave her spot. She knew her siblings would fold soon and she was willing to wait it out.
That didn’t stop some asshole from knocking her to the ground, counter flying out of her hand as a body fell on top of her.
“Shit!” the body yelped over her, it was male and squeaky like it was still going through puberty. “Sorry!” The body rolled off her and she watched as a scrawny kid half crawled, half stumbled toward his cellphone that had fallen to the street. He swiped up his phone, leaving Arya’s counter in the dirt. He pressed his phone to his ear without even a glance at Arya. “You guys still there? Don’t let him move! I want to see it! I’m like a minute away!” and with that, the kid was running without a single fucking look at the person he shoved to the street.
With pride, anger and a bit of adrenaline-fueled blindness, Arya raced to her feet and took off after the boy, her legs still weak from the hours of standing but she pushed herself to follow. “Hey! Get back here!” she yelled, sprinting after him.
They weaved through crowds, Arya still fuming as she chased the boy. She idly noted her jaw hurt from crashing to the ground and she knew she was going to give that guy a piece of her mind. She almost had him, until she didn’t.
He was agile, she’ll give him that. She hadn’t expected the scrawny kid to sidestep so quickly. She hadn’t expected there to be someone just standing there. Then again, Arya didn’t have room to talk as she had done the exact same thing only moments ago. Regardless, the point was she didn’t see him standing there as the scrawny weasel moved around him.
The crash this time was less powerful than before. Probably because Arya and the scrawny kid were roughly the same weight and this guy was like four times Arya’s size. Still, she was pleased enough to note she was able to push him back a step. A step she would immediately regret.
“Holy shit,” the scrawny kid gasped, standing beside Arya and her new stranger. The stranger who was looking down, not at Arya, but the fading black to white counter on his wrist.
“Well, looks like you met your soulmate, Waters. And it’s a dude!” a third person spoke up; one Arya hadn’t even seen when she crashed.
Stumbling backward, Arya looked up at her stranger, a tall muscular boy with the most stunned expression on his face. Arya was about to say something, anything to him, but was more focused on something else.
“I’m a girl, you fuckhead,” Arya hissed at the third, portly boy.
“Some soulmate,” he muttered to the tall boy.
“Shut your mouth, Hot Pie,” he hissed back, breathing heavily before looking at Arya with impossibly wide eyes. “What did you do?”
“What did I do?” Arya exclaimed, taking a step further away. “You were just standing there!”
“That was the point,” he snapped back to her before rubbing his face with his hands. “I didn’t want to meet you.”
It should have felt like a slap in the face. Apparently, Arya was that awful a human being that someone would be this upset about being her soulmate. Except…Arya had felt the exact same way. So much in fact that her only reaction was to start laughing, un-fucking-controllable laughter.
“I think your soulmate is crazy,” Hot Pie whispered. “Couldn’t you have been chased by someone else, Lommy and find Gendry a normal human being?”
“I didn’t mean for her to chase me!” the boy named Lommy exclaimed. “She was just standing there when I ran into her and she started running after me!”
Realization came crashing onto the tall boy’s face. “Standing there?”
Still giggling, the laughter unable to stop, Arya nodded her head. “Newsflash: didn’t want to meet you either.”
“I take it back,” the one called Hot Pie deadpanned. “She’s perfect for you Gendry.” Arya and Gendry, her soulmate, both sneered at Hot Pie with disgust. “What? You think your soulmate is someone who isn’t perfect for you? Just because you don’t want it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit. Now can we get something to eat? We’ve been here all day and I’m starving.”
“Please?” Lommy nodded vigorously in agreement. “You said you’d pay, Gendry.”
Gendry looked at his two friends and sighed tiredly. “Fine.” He glanced at Arya. “You coming?”
“So much for not wanting to meet her,” Hot Pie muttered with a smirk.
“Well, she’s here. What do you want me to do? Ignore her?” Gendry grumbled, waving his hands around. Arya’s eye couldn’t help but be drawn to his white counter and it suddenly hit her that hers was still on the street somewhere.
Wordlessly, she spun on her heel, knowing her siblings (Sansa) would have a fit if she didn’t retrieve it. It wasn’t so much for sentimentality, but a person’s counter held some basic details about the person it was assigned to and it was probably for the best she grabbed it before some weirdo did.
“Where are you going?” Gendry asked, walking up to her side. Arya was disgusted with herself that she didn’t seem to mind.
“I left my counter on the street. I should probably go see if it is still there.”
Hot Pie pulled up on her other side with Lommy next to him. “You left your counter on the street?”
“Well, someone knocked it out of my hand,” Arya pinned Lommy with a piercing glare.
“And you just left it there!” Lommy shot back.
“You don’t have to come along,” Arya muttered, but she didn’t outright tell them to go, not like she would have if it were other people. She didn’t like that revelation.
Bittersweetly, Arya’s counter was still there, stark white instead of ink black as she had left it. She picked it up, not even bothering to see if it was still intact. It didn’t really matter anyway. It would probably just go back into her closet.
Behind her, one of the three boys coughed. Turning, she saw Hot Pie looking at her questioningly. “You coming with us to lunch or not?”
Arya crossed her arms firmly over her chest. “I don’t know. Are you buying for me?”
“Let your soulmate do it,” Hot Pie patted Gendry on the arm.
Gendry and Arya groaned in unison but followed as Hot Pie led them to a tiny café where they took up a table in the back.
“So, what’s your name? Or are we just calling up Gendry’s Unfortunate Soulmate?” Lommy asked, giving Arya an appraising look.
“Arya,” she muttered, sipping her soft drink with a shrug. “Arya Stark.”
“Lommy Greenhands,” Lommy introduced.
“Greenhands?” Arya pointedly looked at his not-so-green hands.
“Shut up! Arya’s a dumb name too,” Lommy shot back.
“Anyway,” Hot Pie interrupted, “I’m Hot Pie, and yes it is a nickname.”
“We don’t call him by his real name,” Gendry muttered from across the table.
“I don’t even know it,” Lommy admitted. “Oh! And this is Gendry!” As if they hadn’t said all their names multiple times before the introductions.
“So, you two are…soulmates?” Hot Pie just jumped right into it, like it was meant to be a group discussion.
“I guess,” Arya grumbled, still not wanting to meet Gendry’s eyes. “It’s whatever.”
“So you both don’t want one?” Lommy asked. He was smiling like he couldn’t help it. “Well, aren’t you two just a match made in heaven?”
“Or some government lab,” Gendry muttered.
Arya smacked the table hard. “You think that too?”
Gendry looked up, a pleasant expression on his face for the first time. “Thank you. Neither of them-” he gestured to both Lommy and Hot Pie “-think it is true.”
“But it makes so much sense! The government issues them so they must be behind the matching process!”
“Right?”
“So, do we stay until they start making out or…?” Hot Pie stage whispered to Lommy, both of them sniggering like children.
“Ew.”
“Gross.”
Arya and Gendry both looked at each other, grinned, and high five. At least they were on the same page. It would be unfortunate if her soulmate actually wanted her.
Lunch turned into an afternoon affair, Arya staying with the three boys well into the evening as they sat, talked, rambled, and reordered basket after basket of French fries. It wasn’t the worst way to spend the day…actually, it was probably one of Arya’s better days in a long time and it had nothing to do with the fact that the guy in front of her was her soulmate or supposedly was her soulmate. It was more the fact that she might have gained three friends that day. Well, two according to Hot Pie since Gendry wasn’t allowed to count being her soulmate. But still, it was nice.
“Give me your number,” Hot Pie demanded and Lommy nodded his head insistently. “We can add you to our group chat. You seem alright.”
Arya dug for her phone and noticed a few texts, mostly from Sansa and Jon asking for an update. Once Lommy and Hot Pie put their numbers in, Gendry reached for the phone it was meant with teasing.
“Ooh, want your girlfriend’s number?”
He ignored it and handed the phone wordlessly to Arya. While they had gotten along splendidly during the day, both of them were too conscious of their present situation to overzealously talk. Arya found herself toning back her enthusiasm to similar interests and wondered if he did the same.
“Are you busy tomorrow?” Lommy asked as they exited the café.
“I doubt it,” Arya admitted.
“We are doing a movie day at Gendry’s if you want to come,” Hot Pie offered as he and Lommy headed in one direction. “I’m sure Gendry wouldn’t mind.” The comment was followed by winking and plenty of muffled laughs. “Text us! Later, Stark.”
Arya waved them goodbye and it was until they turned the corner that she realized she was left alone. With Gendry. Her fucking soulmate.
They walked in silence at first, neither of them sure what to say but knowing that they should say something.
“I don’t want a soulmate because I want to live my life,” Arya blurted out. There. She might as well get it out there.
Gendry’s sigh of relief was both reassuring and comforting. “I don’t want a soulmate because I want to see what life is like before introducing someone else into it.” Both of them smiled at this. “Plus, I’m only nineteen.”
Arya chuckled. “I’m only sixteen.”
Gendry’s eyes widened. “Well, at least know we have to wait.”
“That’s not a horrible age difference,” Arya sneered playfully.
“No, but some people would consider that pedophilia.”
“I’m three years younger! I’m not a child! Get a grip.”
“You look like one! What are you? Four feet tall?”
“Yeah, Gendry, I’m four fucking feet tall. God, my soulmate’s an idiot.”
“At least I’m an adult, you child.”
As they came to the end of the sidewalk, both began to turn separate ways and realize their conversation is coming to a close.
Arya swallowed. “So, we cool?”
Gendry’s eyebrows rose. “With the soulmate thing?”
“With the friend thing,” she corrected. “We both agreed we didn’t want soulmates, so let’s just forget it.” Arya stuck out her hand. “It never happened. Deal?”
Gendry gave her a small smile and grasped her hand. If he felt the electric pulse up his arm like she did, he didn’t mention or say anything about it. “Deal.”
Six years later, Gendry asked Arya on the date he had been wanting to ask for the past two years and Arya said yes to the guy she had been thinking about for the past year.