Chapter Text
Jon’s first thought was not of his friends, his brothers at the Wall, or all the preparations they had no time to make.
No, Jon Snow’s first thought was of Sansa, sleeping so peacefully, and how he would protect her.
After issuing orders for all who were needed to be woken, for maps to be fetched, Jon returned to the chambers to dress.
He debated waking Sansa, to invite her to join them, to ask her opinion on how to best secure the keep, but he was afraid.
If he woke her…
If he woke her, knowing that the Wall has fallen, knowing that the Others were coming, knowing that their time could be limited…
Jon Snow had done a reasonable job controlling himself. He had not bedded Sansa on their wedding night only for her fear in her eyes, and his own fear that it would consume him entirely. It had been easier since Arya’s arrival to tamper those desires, though there was nothing wrong with wanting Sansa any longer, easier to not reach for her.
But with the knowledge that the war would be on them again, that he very well could fall, Jon found himself struggling.
If Jon Snow woke Sansa, it would be with a kiss.
It would be to consummate their marriage.
It would be to know her touch, just the once, before the threat of death loomed too large that it shadowed everything.
Though his thoughts were of her, of his husbandly duties he wished to perform, and the Wall was secondary, Jon dressed and left while she still slept so serenely.
Jon Snow stood in the Great Hall, a map of Winterfell’s buildings and the surrounding land from Lord Stark’s solar flat on the table before him. The northern lords, Quenn, Sam, and Brienne of Tarth, accompanied him. Jon suspected that Arya was nearby. He had not seen her, however. She had not allowed him to speak to her, nor had she spoken to Sansa, since he told her the truth of his birth in the godswood.
On the map, he had marked the towers and structures that had been damaged or destroyed by the sacking, and what had been rebuilt.
They spoke of strategy—pits that could be dug into the snow, oil drums that could be dumped from the walls, trenches and spikes and torches and fires.
Jon Snow listened and agreed with much of what they spoke; Quenn and those who had faced the Others before spoke wisely of traps that could be set simply, without wasting too many resources or men.
There was an issue that plagued Jon, though, that the others seemed to not have considered.
“There are smallfolk in winter town. We can ask all those able to fight, but there are women and children. There’s…” My bride to consider, Jon thought, but he could not bear to call her that with the notion that Arya could hear. “The Lady of Winterfell to consider. We need a secure location that is easy to defend.”
“A tower would be easiest, something with a spiral stair. It would require only one or two skilled swordsmen to defend it.”
“And the smallfolk?”
“The Guest House will be empty when the fight begins. It is in the center of the keep. They would no doubt be safest there.”
“We should begin to relocate them immediately. Empty winter town and bring everyone within the walls before the mist comes. Once it is empty, shut the gates. None in, none out.”
Several broke off to see his orders done.
“There is the dragonglass, as well. We have blades and arrowheads. We must be mindful of their distribution, for their number is finite. The texts in the Citadel claimed their weaknesses to be dragonglass, fire, and dragonsteel,” Sam explained. “The maesters believe dragonsteel to mean Valyrian, which is more limited in quantity than the obsidian. We should do what we can with fire first, and arm only our best archers with the dragonglass. Once the arrows are fired, they will be lost, unlike a blade.”
“Unless we are able to collect the arrows?” A Cerwyn asked.
“We cannot risk that. The Others can raise the dead as their wights. We need not bolster their numbers. We need to fight as much as we can from the walls of the keep, not on a battlefield.”
“Shall we begin preparations come dawn?”
“No,” Jon Snow ordered. “Tonight. Wake all who would be useful.” Jon issued orders to the northern lords and Quenn, tasking each with duties to defend Winterfell. Sam was to begin a list for who would receive dragonglass. One by one, the men took their orders and exited, until Brienne of Tarth was all who remained at the table with him.
“I had made mention of this to Lady Stark upon my arrival, but if Valyrian steel is truly a weakness to these creatures we’ll face…”
From her waist, the lady knight undid her sword belt, setting it on the table between them. Jon had not noticed her blade before. The pommel was far grander than what he expected to see. He knew immediately it was not a common steel sheathed in the scabbard.
“It is a Lannister blade, gifted to me with the command to use it to protect and defend the Lady Catelyn Stark’s daughters. It is made with the very same Valyrian steel that had one been Ice, House Stark’s ancestral blade.”
Jon Snow took up the sword, removing the sheath to expose the steel. It was clear enough that the blade was forged of Valyrian steel, though he thought the steel looked different than he remembered Ice appearing. Jon Snow had once dreamed of being given Ice, of being named Stark. That blade had been dark and smoky; this had a dark red that flickered in the ripples of the folded steel.
“I offer it to you, to aid in the defense of the Ladies Sansa and Arya, of Winterfell, and House Stark.”
Jon recalled his relief at Longclaw being brought to Mole’s Town, and Sansa’s insistence that it be passed to his sons. Though, he supposed, it would be their sons now that they had wed. He heard her whispers about heirs and consummation as clear as he had the night she voiced them.
Jon Snow studied the pommel. It was far more Lannister than he suspected Sansa would be comfortable with. It might have been Ice once, but it was no longer a Stark blade.
“House Stark has acquired a blade to replace Ice. One that is untainted by Stark blood and Lannister hands. But I will accept your offer to use it to defend Lady Catelyn Stark’s daughters. The men spoke true that a turret would be the easiest to defend with only a single knight or two. I would put you and that sword at the door.”
“I will defend them until my last breath.”
The bed was as cold as Sansa had grown accustomed to when she woke. She could not recall the last time that Jon had lingered beside her. The ache of missing him, though he remained in Winterfell, grew duller each morn. She oft found herself wondering if this was how her parents felt when her lady mother had first arrived to Winterfell to be greeted by her lord husband and another woman’s son. Was the distance she felt between herself and Jon similar?
Or was it worse, because she wanted nothing more than to be the perfect wife for him, if only he would allow her?
Jon’s face was as grim as Sansa had ever seen it as he handed her the parchment. A chill swept over her as she read the words. She wanted to ask why he hadn’t woken her, why had she not been included in whatever preparations had him appearing as if he had not slept, but he spoke before she could.
“When the mist comes, you are to take Arya, Jeyne Poole, Lady Royce, and any others who cannot fight, and you go to the First Keep,” Jon told Sansa.
“The First Keep?”
“Aye. There’s a way into the side that remains standing, chambers that are high and secured. I’ve marked the door for you. I’ll post Brienne and her squire at the door. Her blade is made of Valyrian steel. She is the only other one to wield such a blade, and I would trust no other to defend you. She told me of her oath to your lady mother, and has vowed to not leave your side once the mist comes. Ghost I’ll leave with you as well.”
“Ghost? No—”
“The stairs spiral there, so it shall be easier to defend with fewer. I believe it is where you’ll be safest.”
Sansa shook her head. She knew she was no fighter, but she would have preferred to be by his side, not tucked away in the keep with no knowledge of what happened in the battle. She recalled being sequestered in the Queen’s Ballroom within Red Keep during the Battle of the Blackwater. Sansa recalled Ilyn Payne being present, and when she asked Cersei, she remembered the queen’s answer: Ilyn Payne was under orders to kill them both, should King’s Landing be sacked. Sansa remembered the tears of the women, and the prayers they sang to the Maiden, beseeching for mercy. She recalled sitting on the edge of the battlefield when they won back Winterfell. That had been hard enough, when she could barely see Jon and when it was only mortal men he fought against.
How could she be expected to wait in a tower, far from where he fought?
“I’ll see it well provisioned, with oils, furs, and food. You’ll be safest there.”
“No,” Sansa began again. I would be safest at your side, she thought, though she knew he would never allow it. He would not be commanding from the back, from the walls as Joffrey and Stannis had done. He would be in the thick of the fighting, just as Robb had done.
“Should the walls fall, the Others dislike fire. If you bar the door with oil-soaked rags—”
“Jon—”
“And dragonglass,” Jon continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. In his hand he held a thin, black blade. “Take this. If any should breech or if Brienne should fail—"
Sansa stared at the shard of obsidian. Jon had told her of the dragonglass that Sam had brought, how it was one of the few weaknesses of the Others. She knew that there were limited quantities of blades, and that Jon and Sam had spoken at length about how best to distribute the weapons. She had never dreamed that she would be granted one.
Jon was still speaking, telling her of where their armor would be weakest, explaining how to grip the blade. Sansa could barely hear him for the pounding of her heart.
“Keep it close. You must take it when the mist comes.”
When she failed to move, Jon grabbed her hand, placed the blade in her palm, and closed her fingers over it.
It was the first he had touched her since Arya’s arrival.
“Promise me that you’ll keep it close. You’ll have it and you’ll stay in the tower.” Jon’s grey eye was hard, his jaw clenched, but his hands were soft, gentle even, as he held the weapon in her fingers. His voice thick with an emotion she couldn’t name. “Promise me.”
Sansa stared at her husband, tears filling her eyes.
“I promise.”
In the ten days following, the few survivors from Castle Black arrived, starving, wounded, and haunted. The stories they told plagued Sansa’s dreams. The white mist and the extreme cold that had come before the first of the Others had been spotted. The cold blue eyes that shone in the darkness, how they moved with such speed and grace, without leaving tracks in the snow. The crystal blades they wielded with such precision. Gilly and Yarrow told her further stories, of Craster’s sons and how the Others will come to Winterfell next, for they will be able to smell the warmth of all the bodies.
Jon spent all of his time with the bannermen, pacing the battlements, digging pits, setting traps, and doing everything he could to prepare. Sansa had barely seen Jon since he made her promise to keep the dragonglass blade with her, to flee to the tower once the mists came. She could not even have been certain if he was sleeping in their chambers or if he slept elsewhere.
If he slept at all.
Sansa remembered that Old Nan had told stories of the Others, of white walkers, and how they had been some of Bran’s favorites. Sansa had never enjoyed those stories. She thought them too scary. She could not recall any of the details—she had more like than not clapped her hands over her ears and refused to listen.
Now she wished that she had. Sansa felt woefully unprepared for the battle that would soon be at Winterfell’s gates.
The days grew shorter, and with every one that passed, the keep grew colder. Each evening, after sundown, Sansa would peer out the window, terrified of the white mist that would mean the Others had come. She knew it would be soon. Winter town had been emptied, the gates to Winterfell barred. There had been no more men arriving from Castle Black, and no further ravens had come.
She spent her nights with a roaring fire, wrapped in furs, the obsidian clenched in her fist, waiting.
Sansa awoke with a start. The fire in the hearth had died and though she was in the warmest rooms in Winterfell, her breath was visible.
A hand shook her shoulder.
“Sansa!”
Arya’s eyes were wide, panicked. She knew there was little that would have her sister waking her, speaking to her.
“They’ve come,” Sansa breathed.
Arya nodded.
Sansa stood, pulling on a cloak over her woolen gown, and bundling the furs she had fallen asleep under. The obsidian blade she tucked into the belt at her waist.
“Come. We must go to the First Keep,” Sansa said. She tried to take her sister’s hand, but Arya twisted from her grasp, shaking her head.
“The smallfolk in the kitchens. I have to wake them first.”
“I promised Jon that I’d take you and the other women to the First Keep.”
Arya’s face darkened. She slipped from Sansa’s grasp again.
“Keep your promise to Jon.”
“Arya!” Sansa called, but Arya had vanished.
In the tower of the First Keep, Sansa paced, waiting for Arya to appear. The other women were there; Brienne, her squire, and Ghost stood at the door. Arya was the lone person they were waiting for.
When Sansa heard footsteps, she turned, rushing to the door.
It was not Arya who stood before her, but her lord husband.
Even on that grey dawn when they faced the Bolton army, Sansa had never seen Jon so ready for war.
His hair was bound back from his face, the eye patch she stitched covering his scarred eye. He wore the cloak she had sewn, Longclaw at his hip, obsidian daggers on his belt, and a bow at his back.
“Jon?” she gasped. “Shouldn’t you be—”
He reached for her, pulling her from the door he had marked and into a shadowed corner.
“Do you have it? The blade?” His voice trembled.
Sansa pulled the obsidian from her belt.
“I…” Jon’s chest heaved; his forehead pressed against hers. Sansa couldn’t be sure she had ever seen him so afraid, nor so relieved. “I had to be sure.”
Sansa recalled the heavy emotion in his voice when he pressed the dagger into her palm. She heard the same in it now.
“I promised.”
Jon nodded, firm, and made as though he was going to step away, but Sansa caught his arm.
“The plan is to fight from the walls?”
“That’s the plan, aye.”
“And you’ll come back to me?”
Her husband stared, studying her face with his singular eye. Sansa read his hesitation, his reluctance to speak, with ease.
Instead of responding, he cupped her face in his rough hands and pressed his lips to hers. It was the kiss she had almost hoped for before she went with Quenn and Ghost to Stannis’s camp. Hungry, soft, and bittersweet.
With a groan he released her, stumbling back as though he was in his cups.
“Tell Brienne to bar the door.”
Sansa stood frozen, fingers raised to her lips.
“Jon, wait,” she called, remembering herself.
He turned, his face shadowed. Sansa’s breath clouded with each exhale, obfuscating him even further.
“Arya hasn’t come yet.”
She saw as his eye flicked to the door, to the ceiling, and back to her.
“If she comes, let her in. I’ll give orders that she’s to be delivered here should anyone come across her.”
Sansa nodded, if only because she was unable to speak. If she were to open her mouth, she knew that she would beg him to stay. To forget the plan, the war, the Others.
To kiss her again.
Inside the chambers, Sansa took up her post at the singular window. From it, she had a view of the lichyard, the door of the crypts, and some of the broken tower. She could see nothing of the Hunter’s Gate, on the other side of the keep, where Jon would be bracing for the onslaught.
It had been stupid, Jon Snow knew, to waste the precious little time they had detouring to the First Keep, but he had not been able to concentrate, wondering and worrying about Sansa as he had. It might have been stupid, but going into battle as distracted as he was would have been dangerous.
Jon told himself it was only to confirm that she was safe, protected by Brienne and Ghost, that she had remembered that dagger he had given her.
His plans were to only set his eyes on her, but then he had seen Sansa. His bride.
It had been out of his control, reaching for her, bringing her into a sheltered alcove, away from the eyes of Brienne, the other women.
Jon Snow did not regret refusing to bed her on the eve of their wedding. He had known she was afraid. He had been afraid himself. Had Arya not arrived…
Jon did wonder if it might have been easier, without the girl he had actually thought of as his sister nearby. If, after so many nights of sharing a bed and Sansa’s concerns about an heir, he would have given in, just as he had with Ygritte. He would have told himself just the once to consummate the marriage, though it would have been as much a lie as it had been beyond the Wall.
With Arya’s presence, Jon found it impossible. Not with her anger still so raw. Not the reminder that he and Sansa had been raised as siblings, just the same as he and Arya had been, even if it had been a lie. Even if Sansa had never felt or acted sisterly toward him, the way Arya had.
Faced with Sansa’s blue eyes, knowing she was trying to be brave, Jon regretted the distance he had put between them. He regretted not treating her as his bride, not taking the privileges she offered.
“And you’ll come back to me?” Sansa asked. Her voice was soft, but Jon heard the iron beneath, turning it from a request half into a command.
Jon swallowed, knowing better to speak. If he did, he would vow that he would, and make promises he would undoubtedly break.
Instead, Jon Snow gave into his most base instincts and kissed her.
It was not the soft, gentle kiss they had shared before a fire all those weeks ago. This was every kiss he wished he had given her since he had carried her back from the heart tree. It was the promise of what could be, if he returned. It was an apology, in case he failed.
It was over too soon, and Jon Snow knew he must leave. If he lingered any longer, he was as like as not to abandon his duties commanding the men against the coming dead, and instead take his bride and hide in the godswood and love her until either the cold or the Others took them.
The words he spoke were reflex, his orders to have Brienne bar the door. He knew he had to get to the other side of the keep before the mist reached the walls. Any longer in Sansa’s presence would be a risk to all who sought the shelter of Winterfell.
“Jon, wait.”
His knees locked instantly. He had no choice but to turn and face her.
“Arya hasn’t arrived yet.”
Jon should have known. The horns that blew had been loud enough to wake most of the keep, save for anyone sleeping in the very heart of the Great Keep. Arya would have known what the horns meant. She would have gone somewhere she thought herself useful, no doubt.
“If she comes, let her in. I’ll give orders that she’s to be delivered here should anyone come across her.”
If Jon Snow could say with any confidence where she had gone, he would have gone to fetch her himself, but he knew he could not afford the time it would take to search for her. He could only pray that she would find someplace safe.
On the walls of the Hunter’s Gate, Jon watched the white mist roll in.
They were out of time.
Arya Stark stood hidden by the forgotten door beside the Hunter’s Gate. Gripped in her hands were two dragonglass daggers. One she talked the fat man, Sam, into giving her. The other she stole off a boy only a few years older than herself that Jon was allowing to stand beside him on the walls. She missed the weight of Needle on her hip, but she understood that the steel, as fine as it was, would be useless against the coming threat. In its place was an empty quiver.
In the weeks since the news came of the Wall falling, Arya had heard the whispered worries of the limited dragonglass, of how they hadn’t enough arrowheads. How only the best archers would receive the arrows, for any that missed their marks would be wasted.
Arya knew that Jon would not allow her on the battlements with him. She knew that he wanted her safe in the tower, wanted her locked in with Sansa, with his bride, but Jon didn’t know all she had done, all she had learned, since he had gifted her with Needle.
The night was so black that she was blind, but Arya had been a blind girl before. She was familiar with the lack of sight. It heightened her other senses—how the air grew even colder still, or the sharp collective inhale from the wall above the gate. She could hear the sounds of flint being struck repeatedly, a muttered curse, and then the whistle of arrows being fired.
It was not the first volley she was waiting for. No, those first would be flaming arrows, not dragonglass, to set alight the oil barrels, in the hopes to create a wall of flame between the army of the dead and the keep. She had heard Jon’s plans, to use fire to draw the Others into the pit that had been dug out beneath the snow, then to rain down enough flaming arrows to create a pyre. Arya knew that it was his intention to not face them on the field, but defend Winterfell with only fire and dragonglass tipped arrows.
It was why she waited at the door, listening for the shout of Jon’s orders for the archers to switch to obsidian.
Arya understood the importance of those arrows, and she would not let them be lost to the snow.
The Others came with a grace that Jon Snow had not seen when he faced the wight that tried to kill Jeor Mormont. They spilled from the trees in a number that gave Jon pause. The shock of it was audible for everyone along the wall.
Each of them knew that they were resoundingly outnumbered, but Jon Snow had not considered what the difference in those numbers would be.
Jon had stupidly still held hope before. Staring out at the otherworldly creatures with the haunting blue eyes, he felt any warmth that was left in him, any faith, or courage he had gained from Sansa’s kiss, leave him.