章 2369: 4
Chapter Text
4.
The Man in The Snow
308 ac.
Castle Black.
As he dragged his feet, brushing off the mud and snow that had stuck to his boots he observed the fur-covered material, dirty and damp, he realized he'd have to find a replacement soon.
A throat clearing pulled away from his attention, his gaze set on the tall, beautiful woman standing in the darkened room in front of him.
Sansa.
"Hey," he greeted simply.
"Jon," she said in a whisper.
It wouldn't be the emotional reunion of a few years ago, though he hadn't seen his sister-cousin in almost three years.
Jon stepped into the common hall of Castle Black and sat down in the seat across from her. He wondered for a beat if he should bow but once he was seated, he just didn't care.
He sighed as he closed and opened his eyes.
He started when her hand found his on the table and looked down at it with a frown.
"How are you, brother?" she asked with concern. Sincere or feigned, he would not know how to tell.
"Alive," he said.
"Did my messages reach you?"
"It's a long way north," he answered, and pulled his hand away.
She didn't speak any further for a long moment in which Jon felt her intense gaze assess him.
"Your people...how are they?
"They are dying."
"There are villages infected in the North as well." Her face leaned closer to him. "Jon, why don't you come home?"
He whipped his face at her.
"Home?"
"Yes. Winterfell. Our home."
Sure it hadn't felt like it for most of his time there, he thought.
"Bad memories. Too many," he excused.
"What about the good ones? Aren't good memories of our family strong enough to make you come back?"
"I cannot break my oath. Nor do I wish to."
"I need your help," she blurted out, "The North is no easy maid to entice."
"I don't remember it being any easier while I was there."
"But it would make a difference." She reached out for his hand again. This time giving it a soft squeeze. "Let's go home. Together."
He winced, the words too close home.
"What kind of man am I if I let those who trust me die while I walk away?" He drew his hand again and this time stood up and turned around. "It's my responsibility. All of it."
"Jon," she also stood up and walked around the table to approach him. "None of this was your fault." She seemed convinced he needed her reassurance, which was not the case. It only worsened it all. "It wasn't your fault she went mad."
"Shut up," first he pleaded with a hoarse voice.
"Somebody's got to say it."
"Shut up!" he shouted back. He put distance between them.
"Jon," she called him, "What are you going to do? Spend the rest of your life being miserable?"
Aye, he wanted to say. Because he could. He was doing exactly that. He wished he could put into words the pain of his soul so she would see the extent of the damage but with Sansa, it was all worthless. She disregarded vulnerability and deemed it just a weapon to utilize at convenience.
At least, he wanted to know one thing.
"Why did you break your oath?"
Her expression turned odious.
"Why did you bend the knee?" she returned.
"Because I was sure who she was."
"So was I."
Even if she was right, she was not. Cause it didn't matter what she knew, Jon knew deep in his heart there was a chance for all of it to be different. Because it'd be different. It'd be different if she had tried. If she had acted a little less prideful, a little more kind.
"No. You just were bitter 'bout it."
He skipped the rest of the conversation, stood up, and took off to the tunnel, where he squatted down and leaned his back against the icy wall as he sank his head between his shoulders. It was not enough, nothing ever would be. She was gone and he'd killed her. Killed her for her own good. For the good of everyone. Except for him. There was no part of him that felt it right.
She was one person.
She was one person but her absence carved the void of thousands.
It took him to lose her for him to realize he was losing himself with her.
***
He marched towards the northern night, Ghost joining him at some point.
As the stars shone brighter in the clear night sky, his dark eyes reflected the blazing colors of the northern lights. What was especially beautiful about this darkness is that gave forth light. The green reminded him of an explosion of wildfire or the glowing, warm jade scales beneath his gloved hand. Jon's eyes shut and met hers as every time; the gods knew that in them, he has seen more colors than in the sky of this eternal night.
I miss you, he professed her. I love you, for all the times he should have told her but he didn't and now will never have the chance.
Her eyes would blink with no answer and close when he opened his.
"I miss you," he whispered but the words were carried away by the hollow wind; echoes in the void of her absence. Sometimes Jon wondered if madness had taken hold of him too. His prevailing desire to be alone and be swallowed up by that loneliness could be nothing but. It devastated him and obfuscated him, making him lose himself in the maelstrom of his mind that seemed not to understand, accept or admit what happened.
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.
***
"Our real foe is time," Jon said one night, sitting by the fire with Ghost and Tormund for company. Before, he used to think death was the ultimate adversary. But it's not. Time is the true foe: relentless, its uninterrupted passage does not wait for the stragglers. A neutral actor in the contest between life and death that is above them, not between them. "Every breath we take means time is yet sparing us."
"At least we are alive," Tormund answered. There were many dead are among them. Tormund knew that Dany was one of them. When they asked Jon why was he there with them and not in his castle, he always replied that everyone he ever loved was now gone and home was no home without someone to love that loved you back.
"Does that mean something?" Jon retorted.
"Not much, but it is something. Whenever you think otherwise, you must remind yourself why we fought death itself in the first place."
Jon laughed dryly because he didn't remember it.
***
Blue.
He had never seen her with that color before, except perhaps for a cloth in a much lighter shade that had hanged from the chain that embraced her body, the day he showed her the cave. Or was it gray? Either way, it was a shocking image for him as he had always associated that color with cold, sadness, and unease. He never imagined that it could mean strength and resilience.
In his dreams, she always looked at peace, unfazed by the chaos of the world she left behind. Jon watched her quietly from afar, not daring to break into her peace.
I love you.
He didn't say the words but thought them and as if she could hear him, Dany raised her face and looked directly at him.
Then he woke up.
***
* Present Reality *
304 ac.
Winterfell
Jon pinched the bridge of his nose as he took a deep breath and tried again to make sense of it and hold onto the images in his head. Images that looked like something out of an Old Nan song, night terrors, and silver-haired maids calling out to him.
But what he saw repeatedly was the man in the snow. A grieving man wandering aimlessly through the vast extension of the North beyond the wall.
There was only one reason why he could be so disturbed and that was why it went to Bran, who almost stagnated in the Godswood, under the Heart Tree.
"Did you have one of those dreams again?" he welcomed him, so cold and so distant ever since he returned to Winterfell.
"Yes," Jon said simply.
"When did they start?"
"A little before you and Arya arrived."
Bran finally looked at him and his eyes were filled with confusion. These days it was hard to find emotion on his face. Meera Reed claimed that it had been that way ever since they had emerged from the cave of that being called the Three-Eyed Raven.
The thing that had taken over Bran in mind and body.
"Daenerys Targaryen is already in Westeros. She and her dragons are magical, I could feel them," he blurted out.
The mention of her name only compounded the grief he carried from the moment Bran told him the truth.
He didn't know what to do with all this pain he was feeling. Uncertainty was the only thing he was sure of.
"There are many things that I do not understand," Bran spoke again, "I also see things that make no sense." Though his eyes were lost in something Jon couldn't see, he could sense his uneasiness.
Bran turned his face around suddenly and asked him, "You still haven't told Arya and Sansa. Why?"
Jon winced and took a step back. The remainder of it like having his heart pierced again.
"I know who your mother was," Bran told him the night he first arrived. "But I thought I wouldn't find you here to tell you."
"I still can't accept it," Jon admitted, feeling defeated by the knowledge of it. "What am I supposed to do with this Bran?" he asked desperately.
But Bran did nothing but look away and reply in a monotonous voice, "We need the dragonglass."
***
The bustle of the Great Hall drove Jon deeper into himself, leaving him numb in the tangle of his own thoughts. That moment his father — his uncle — promised him he would know his mother's name when they met again played out in his mind over and over again.
"You don't carry my name, but you carry my blood," he had said.
But then he had let him go.
He wasn't selfish enough to blame him for having to carry this huge and painful secret with him, taking it to the grave with him but also every moment of their shared life was now tainted with the uncertainty of whether it really was love or duty that had motivated Lord Stark.
Did father really love me? Or was it just his duty to love me?
Jon had accepted both things ambivalently at one point, when he was just his bastard son. Always grateful for the crumbs of an affection he never felt entitled to; neither that of his father nor that of his siblings.
But now...his existence became whimsical, hollow.
A low sound escaped his throat as he rubbed his brow with his gloved hand. The dreams of a man in the snow, wandering like a lost soul, came back to his mind. Was it a sign? Could this be his Uncle Ben? Would Ben also know about this?
"Are you okay?"
Jon jerked a little when he heard Arya's voice ask. He opened his eyes and met her look of genuine concern on him.
"It's alright," he said, with a forced smile on his face but a warm feeling spreading in his chest, he looked up at his little sister in front of him. Having Arya back was one of the few things that brought a little light to his days, making his burden less heavy on him.
"We need to talk about something."
His smile faded when Sansa joined them. Arya also glanced suspiciously at her, as she came from another of her long private walks with Lord Baelish. According to Sansa, it was feigned cordiality — a necessary ploy only she could handle.
Jon looked at Sansa carefully with the same bittersweet feeling in his mouth. She met his eyes with the same acrimony.
"My lords and ladies please give me your attention for a moment," Lord Baelish walked in shouting, his guards escorting him. Northerners weren't fond of him, so they glared at his back as he walked in, raising his arm in the air, a piece of parchment between his fingers. "This message comes to me from Maidenpool, from a very reliable source, saying Daenerys Targaryen has finally made it to the shores of Dragonstone."
Dissonant voices broke out, but Littlefinger continued, "This young Targaryen queen brings with her an army of her own made up of a little more than eight thousand Unsullied and ten thousand Dothraki riders. Among her allies are to be found an exiled Yara Greyjoy, a grievous Olenna Tyrell of The Reach, and de facto ruler of Dorne, Ellaria Sand. Oh, and to the surprise of few, she is also accompanied by the dwarf Casterly Rock who she made her Hand, and the eunuch Varys, who served as master of whispers for his deceased and mad father and the Baratheon kings afterward. And of course, the mother of dragons is bringing her children with her."
Then he bowed slightly and added with a sharp-eyed gaze, "I place this information and my modest resources at the disposal of your grace, the King in the North and, my lady Sansa, the lady of Winterfell."
Lady Mormont was the first to speak after Baelish shifted to an adjacent place.
"This is obviously a call to unite all the houses in the North to confront the invaders," she claimed as she surveyed the room. "We must mount a defense!"
"What defense can we mount against dragons?" another Lord responded. "She will burn us alive as her father burned Lord Rickard and Lord Brandon!"
"Silence!" Sansa's voice shut them up, "There's no need to lose our bearing just yet. Daenerys Targaryen will not turn North while Cersei Lannister sits on the Iron Throne."
Lord Glover stood up, "Forgive me, my Lady, but how much time does that give us? The moment the Lannister bitch is charred by her dragons, so all of Westeros will become a bloody field of fire!"
"The true enemy is in the North," this time, was Jon's time to broke in, "And he's coming for us no matter who wears the crown or sits on the throne." He stood up as well and watched at the face of the Lords and the few Ladies. They thoughtfully listened to their king. "You made me your King and it has been the greatest honor of my life but not because of my pride will I lose sight of the purpose that has brought me here today. The Night King and his army are moving further south every passing day, and Winterfell will be the first line of defense!"
"If I may, your Grace," Baelish interrupted again, "But at this moment, the dragons are a far more real threat. They can fly and be here in a matter of days whereas, a huge iced wall separates us from these dead people that are marching to us."
Jon's hands closed into fists at his sides.
"And while I choose to believe in your Grace's word," Littlefinger's eyes veered to Sansa, "I think it will be a harder task to convince the rest that the dead are more than stories mothers tell their children to send them to their beds at night."
Jon realized there, the people of the North also doubted the veracity of the threat that loomed over them.
All this while the bloody Littlefinger kept talking, "The word of a man is only valuable insofar the truth he speaks can be proved at some point. Is there any more practical way of proving the existence of these dreaded beings, Your Grace?"
***
"You've gone mad!" Sansa claimed, moving from Arya's side to Bran's. The four siblings were having a private reunion in the Godswood.
"Sam and Bran know it's true," Jon argued, "And whether you want it or not, we need the dragonglass and no one else will believe it's necessary without hard proof!"
His fist clenched and unclenched as he talked. Rancor grew thicker inside him but Jon refrained from grumbling further about Littlefinger's constant meddling in the affairs of the North. Every time Jon did, Sansa would remind him that it was her and her maneuvers that had won back Winterfell.
At the cost of thousands of lives that could have been spared, he thought bitterly.
"You're going to give up your crown just when you've obtained it!"
"Sansa, do you believe me?"
"What?"
"When I tell you that the dead are real and they are coming, do you believe me?"
An expectant silence hung over them. Sansa's incredulous eyes looked at him, her mouth open.
Arya broke her silence, standing between Sansa and him, her arms folded behind her and a firm look on her face.
"I do," she affirmed, "I do believe you."
Then she stood to one side and so Bran, Arya, and Jon looked at Sansa waiting for her answer.
"Of course! I do believe you." She shifted nervously. "It's just that none of you seem to care about the threat coming from the south. Ice or fire, our position is vulnerable!"
"I need to convince her to come and fight with us," Jon said in a grave voice. He shut his eyes tight. Headache coming back in waves, he rubbed at his forehead. "We need her numbers. Her strength. Her dragonglass." He sighed and opened his eyes, finding his siblings — cousins — staring back at him. "And we need her dragons."
Sansa gave a small whine.
"Will you bring the dragons to Winterfell?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.
Already worn off of this conversation, he said, "What matters who rules whom if Winterfell becomes a graveyard?"
Jon made to move past her.
"Jon, don't make a mistake," Sansa said from behind. He stopped and sighed heavily. "The men of our family don't do well in down there," she reminded him.
"I'm not going south." He turned around. "I'll go North. And only when I get what I need will I go south to convince Daenerys Targaryen that if she wants to rule even the smallest portion of Westeros, she needs to deal with this as well."
Arya walked to stand in front of him.
"I'll go with you," she stated, and even if he had wanted to object, the determination in her grey eyes told him there would be no way to convince her otherwise.
"You can't—!" Sansa started, but he cut her off in time to say,
"Take this as a victory, Sansa." Jon's anger was now palpable. "You will rule on my behalf until my return."
Notes:
No touching reunions here. I don't intend to make this story about the Starks, even though I'm trying to be more benevolent towards them.
Since Dany did not summon Jon to Dragonstone here, he reunited with Bran and Arya before meeting her (probably the timing it's not exactly the same but I'm taking some licenses here and there). His time with Arya in the North will encapsulate all of the things we were deprived of in the show. And I'm still undecided whether to make Jon tell her of his parentage first or having Daenerys be the first to know like in canon. Either way, he'd be no telling Sansa any sooner, because in this fic though Jon does not remember exactly his past life, he does remember the feelings he accrued till his dying dead, and suspicious and resentment towards Sansa is some of them.
Oh, Resentment...that's a feeling I want to explore with this Jon. Years of belittling himself had taken their toll on his character to the point he cannot be told otherwise and filled him with a deep-seated sadness. These negative feelings ended up souring every aspect of his life (including his relationship with Daenerys). That's the sort of focus I want to give his character this time.
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