As Long as You'll Have Me

Winterfell was different now, Sera thought as she looked around the small stone room that had been gifted to her by Jon and Sansa just after the Battle of the Bastards was won. They had told her that's what Arya would have wanted.

Sera accepted graciously, happy to live again at her childhood home, and made herself comfortable in Arya's old chambers. She climbed onto the bed that no longer contained any of the furs or pillows it had during her youth, they'd all been scrapped by the Bolton's, but the layout was the same. It made her feel more comfortable than she had in a long time.

The young woman sat quietly, her mind reeling from the battle after her bath.

Sera's family had always been close with the Starks, she'd been taken in as a ward just as Theon had been, only shortly before her sixth nameday.

Her parents had lost their only son and her father Lord Olsyn had began to go mad with rage - he had lost his only heir, the only little lord that he saw fit to leave his house to. Sera had grown scared of her father, and her mother knew what she had to do to save her daughter's life. Within the fortnight Sera was sent, with a group of Stark soldiers that had come to escort her, to the castle further north.

Sera was withdrawn when she first came to Winterfell. She felt unwelcome in the eyes of the Stark's mother, Catelyn. The red haired woman was tall and cold and watched her with an unwavering glare. Sera cried herself to sleep every night after she arrived.

It wasn't her fault, she thought as she cried, it was her mother fault. Her father's fault. She hadn't asked to be sent here to this strange place. Every night she bawled beneath the furs on her bed until the youngest daughter of the Starks, Arya, had heard her relentless sobbing one night.

Arya peeked through the crack of Sera's door, her wondering eyes taking in the small, shaking lump on the bed. Arya put her hand on the door and it creaked open to reveal the lump was actually a young girl - Sera - her family's newest fosterling.

"Are you alright?" Arya asked quietly, her dark brows furrowed. "Should I call my mother or the maester?"

Sera's head flew up, her hair that had fell from it's braid looked a bit wonky, sticking out from both sides of her head. "N-No, my lady. I only miss my family is all. It's nothing your mother or your maester can remedy."

Arya's heart ached for the girl. She didn't know what it was like to be taken away from her family, and would rather be ignorant to the feeling if she were to be honest.

Arya walked quietly to the bed, chewing her lip in thought. "I know you're lonely, but you'll find happiness here if you try. I can help you!"

Sera sniffed. "T-Thank you."

"You're welcome," Arya smiled. "If you ever feel unsafe or alone my room is just down the hall. You don't have to sleep by yourself if you don't want to."

Sera nodded, a yawn escaping her not two second later. "I apologize, my lady. I haven't slept well, you see."

"It's alright," Arya whispered. "Get some sleep, Sera. I'll come get you in the morning."



After that night Sera and Arya had been inseparable - where you found one the other was sure to be only seconds behind. Their friendship had blossomed over night and when Arya was sent to King's Landing with Lord Eddard and Sansa Sera felt like she was that small girl again, crying in her bed once the darkness overtook the castle.

Sera was there as Bran got better, she was there when Robb and Catelyn got killed. She was there when Theon sacked their home - she'd hidden under the bed in Arya's old room when it had happened, listening as people screamed around her - and she had survived.

And then there were the Boltons, by the Gods they'd almost been the death of her. She thought she'd die so many times she thought she might welcome the finality of death like a long lost friend.

She tried to hide the scars on her arms where the bastard had began to flay her. Had it not been for Jon and Sansa reclaiming their home later that day she was sure she would have been dead come nightfall.

Ramsay was a sadistic man that was undeserving of the end Sansa gave him.

Sera had wished to flay the man himself, to end him the same way he had so many others, but Sansa reminded her that he may enjoy leaving the world that way. He should have suffered, Sera thought.

Sera knew that she had no place giving orders to a Stark, so she stepped back and let Sansa have him killed in whatever way she chose - he had done so much worse to Sansa than herself, she remembered.

She had never felt a great joy than when a group of Stark soldiers had taken her down from the platform she was strapped to. They had done her a courtesy and turned as she pulled on a robe they had found discarded.

Sera was ashamed of what had been done, but she never stopped fighting for her home.



"Sera." Sansa's voice brought her back to the present. Sera looked at the red haired girl that looked so much like her mother Catelyn, and wondered about the smile that threatened to split her face. "Someone's arrived and they wish to speak with you."

"Someone to see me?" Sera asked, her eyebrows raised high. "Who in the seven hells would come to see me?"

"Well," Sansa began, her thin lips stretched to their length's end, and moved aside to let Sera's visitor inside the room.

For a moment all was still in the world. No breath left Sera's lips and no movement was made from the inside the room. The only thing Sera could hear was the background noise outside those cold walls.

In her room, right before her eyes, stood the only person Sera could think about all those times death almost claimed her.

She looked different than Sera remembered. Her once long hair had been crudely cut, now hanging just above her shoulders, and she wore breeches now. Her eyes, thought Sera, hadn't changed at all, though. They were still the same sage color she seemed to drown in each time she remembered the young wolf.

"Arya," Sera whispered, tears filling her eyes.

Arya stepped into the room and Sansa slipped quietly away, shutting the door behind her. The two girls stood in silence for a few moments, both taking their fill of the other before Arya began to creep forward slowly.

"I never thought I'd be back here," Arya said in a voice little above a whisper. "And I never thought you'd still be in Winterfell after all this time."

Sera shook her head sadly, tears now falling freely down her reddened cheeks. "Oh, Arya. Where have you been all these years? What happened to you after King's Landing?"

Arya lips twitched upwards. "I've been all around Westeros. I've traveled with bandits, and with killers. I became No One and lived to reclaim my identity. I've avenged and I've killed."

"You're home," Sera dried her eyes on her sleeve. They stood nearly nose and nose now, both of them bleary eyed from the wetness that piled in the corners of their eyes. "You've come back to me."

"And you?" Arya said quietly. "How did you survive the raids on our home?"

Sera stared at the ground in silence wringing her hands. She sucked a deep breath through her lips to calm her crying, then cleared her throat. "I thought of your parents taking me in - they gave me a place to live, food to eat," she admitted softly. "Someone to love."

Arya blinked. "Someone to love?"

"Yes." Sera breathed. "Someone I've loved for a long, long time." Sera raised her arm slowly, her hand reaching out to Arya's face to caress her cheek. "Arya, you are what kept me alive when death was so very near. It was you I thought of when the coldness almost claimed me. It has always been you that I cared the most for."

Arya's bottom lip quivered slightly. "And I you."

Sera's hand rested on the nape of Arya's neck, playing with the ends of her nut brown hair. "Promise me you'll never leave again."

"I promise," Arya whispered.

Their breaths danced together as their faces inched closer and closer. Sera felt her eyes slid shut at the closeness of Arya, wanting nothing more than to lean in a hair's width and kiss her.

"I've never kissed anyone before," Arya admitted. "I've never wanted to before now."

Sera's tongue darted out to wet her lips, her eyes opening. She saw the darkness in Arya's eyes and hoped that she wanted this much as Sera did. "May I?"

The Stark girl said nothing so Sera took it upon herself to use the hand on the back of Arya's neck to softly pull her in, giving her any opportunity to pull away if she so wished.

Arya's lips felt much like Sera thought they would. Hard, but not rough, soft, but not like the pillows they'd shared as children. Sera thought it a good combination for the young wolf.

Arya didn't know what to do with her hands so she simply let them rest on Sera's waist - she'd seen people kiss before, but never really paid much attention to where their hands went. It felt right, to be able to feel the person she'd so wished to see for so long. Arya's hands tightened on Sera's waist, pulling her closer.

The kiss lasted only for a moment longer before Sera pulled away breathless. She leaned her forehead against Arya's her eyes still closed.

"Was that okay?"

"It was more than okay," Arya breathed, still holding the girl close to her. Sera opened her eyes and pulled back slightly to get a better view of Arya. "I'm glad you did it, I never would have thought you felt this way about me."

Sera felt herself stiffen at her words. "Am I mad to think you could ever feel the same about me?"

"You're not mad," Arya said with a grin. "I always felt something for you that I didn't understand. As I grew older and saw the horrors of the world," Arya paused momentarily, her eyes somewhere far away. "I could think of nothing better than growing old in my home - our home."

Sera nodded. "It's understandable you'd want to be home, I wish I could have done something about your mother, your father. Robb -" Arya cut her off.

"I miss them more than you can imagine," she said sadly. "But I still have Jon and Sansa and Bran. And I still have you."

Sera's smile rivaled that of Sansa's as she stood in the doorway just a few moments ago. "And I you, little wolf."

Arya leaned in to capture Sera's lips in a single, brief peck. "I will never leave you again, as long as you'll have me."