Chapter Text
September,2021
The sun is shining bright despite the sharp cold, a rare thing for a winter day in Winterfell. They call the small town of the north ‘The heart of Winter’ after all. He looks straight at the sun, allowing it to shower his pale skin with its light as he toys with the yellow stone ring on his finger for a moment.
He can hear a dog barking from a couple of blocks away, he understands that for someone else it should feel cold, he looks at the snow melting under the bright sunlight, funny thing the snow, it always reminded him of himself in a way, he looks at the people passing wrapped in heavy coats and at the uneven stones on the pavement under his boots, he looks at anything except the tall mansion in front of him, tries to avoid it for as long as he can.
The times he has been a coward in his life can be counted in one hand, he was always a protector, a man the people in his life could count on. He was taught from a very young age the meaning of courage, the importance of facing his fears, of stepping forward and slaying any threat as if he was a Prince in a children's book and he slayed the monster. And he did, no matter the challenges over the years he did not break, he did not run away. A house was strong enough to break his shield of courage it would seem, and he loathed himself for that.
Until he finds it in himself and his brown eyes fall upon his old home and he swears he can feel his breath stop. For a moment he wishes he gave into the fear and didn't look.
Memories dance around his mind like flames threatening to consume him and burn him alive, memories full of silver hair and songs and a scent of vanilla. He lets himself burn in the flames for a moment, lost in fond memories that make him feel warm and cold all at once. How happy he was, how he's not anymore.
“You think we can get in?” His brother’s voice gets him out of his thoughts, a bitter reminder of reality where silver hair and songs and scents of vanilla have no place in his life anymore.
“I mean it is ours but even if that doesn't work I can and if I can that means you can as well, worry not.” He walks to the door slowly, his steps hesitant and heavy as he gets an old key out of his pocket and places it on the lock, opening the door to his home that now only manages to bring him sorrow.
For a moment he wants to run again, to close his eyes for the house looks exactly the same as it did all those years ago. The main hall, grand, luxurious and almost empty where his late, now, father used to hold his infamous parties. For a moment he can hear the waltz playing, the notes filling the air as the smell of food and wine floods the house, but the only thing that tickles his nostrils is vanilla.
He stops himself from traveling back to the days where this place meant joy and love, the pain is there without him trying to bring back all the things he lost.
He closes his eyes as he turns to look at his brother with a smirk. “Robb please do come in.'' He watches his brother step inside with a smile on his lips as he walks deeper into the house, to the living room and looks around him. The rest of the house is mostly as they remembered it, some of the furniture are different, more modern but mostly it looks exactly the same as the last time they saw it. He watches his brother drown in the feeling, he supposes for Robb it's more sweet, for him it's more bitter.
“How is it so well preserved, it looks like a day hasn’t passed. Do you think someone lives here?”
“I checked, the place is empty.”
“Then how…?” he shrugs, toying with one of the expensive curios that decorate the big, wooden, dining table.
“Don’t ask me, I have no idea.” Robb looks at him for a moment, his eyes uncertain and he knows instantly that his brother wants to ask him something but hesitates so he simply challenges him with his own eyes. A voice in his head screams at him not to, because a part of him knows what Robb is going to ask and he doesn't want to hear it.
“Do you think it might be Daenerys?” Jon scoffs and his eyes meet the ground as he bites his lip. He feels like he's drunk, because he feels like her name lingers in the air more than any other word spoken that morning. For a moment, quick as a flash, he hears the waltz and smells the vanilla once more.
“I doubt that Daenerys gives a damn about this place to begin with.”
“Then who?”
“Don’t know and don’t care, whoever it is we have to thank them, we have a place to stay and we don’t need to spend more time making it look like a house again, we can start right away.” Robb studies him for a moment, with concern and doubt written all over his face.
“Are you okay Jon?” he simply shakes his head. Jon knows that for a man who looked danger in the eyes, it was ridiculous he couldn't even look at his own feelings. But they were his biggest enemy, he would sure as hell not let others see them.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he says as he simply walks away and Robb sighs as he follows him upstairs.
The sun is shining bright despite the sharp cold, she welcomes its light on her skin as she walks around the streets of Winterfell with a smile on her lips. Her floral dress almost reaches the ground and her silver hair are braided in a neat, fascinating pattern, a bouquet of blue roses resting in her hands.
She greets anyone who she meets in the way as she allows herself to enjoy the smell of every flower and tree, the melting snow and the wet dirt from the gardens.
Thankfully for her, as a mistress of nature, Winterfell is a small town in the heart of the north and the curse of the big cities hasn’t fallen upon it yet. It used to be bigger, she knows, but the sharp cold of the north drove people in the southern, warmer parts of Westeros. Mostly vacation homes occupied the town, meaning the place was full of life during Father’s celebration in December, when people seeked the snow and cold for the holidays. Every other time of the year, the place was quiet, full of a different kind of life.
That is why she chose to make it her home after all, or this is what she likes to tell everyone, including herself. Because Dragonstone is even closer to nature with its crystal blue waters and powerful storms and it’s her home. She could also go with Margaery to Highgarden, the home of spring, where the weather was always sweet and the earth always blooming. Yet she chose this little town.
She shakes her head as she reaches a house. Her lilac eyes meet those of an old man that sits in the garden. She smiles and waves as he walks to the door to let her in.
“Oh Princess good morning.”
“Good morning, Mr Snow .” She hands him the blue roses with a grin and he smiles. “I thought I would drop those before work, I know how much you love them.”
The old man lived in Winterfell his whole life, a bastard surely given by the name yet no one minded. He was one of the best people she had ever met in her life, a kind old man with a wise mind and a bright smile. He was like the father she never met, she hoped this one wouldn't lose his mind too.
“Thank you dear, where do you even find those?” she chuckles softly, hugging her coat around her body against the cold.
“I’ve told you, they’re quite rare, they only exist in a small village close to old Valyria, my aunt sends me the seeds occasionally.” Mr Snow nods with a smile, as he brings the flowers closer to his nose once more and she smiles as she looks at him.
She fears the moment she will have to leave Winterfell and she will have to sooner or later, this has been her life for quite a while now and she is used to it, but she is so connected to the people of this town, to the town itself that it breaks her heart even thinking about it. Maybe coming back here was a bad idea.
“Thank you Princess.” She simply kisses his cheek before leaving, heading to the school.
Her steps slow down as she passes through the Stark mansion, lilac eyes observing it for a moment as she takes a deep breath. She shakes her head after a while, she has a good life here, she’s a history teacher, she has friends, she has Daario, she doesn’t need to dig up old memories of the past and hurt herself in the process. Yet that never stopped her from preserving the house to the way it was, in a desperate attempt to preserve her memories along with it. As if she fears she'll forget, as if that's possible.
She sighs as she finally reaches the school, forcing her memories in the back of her mind where they belong. She smiles at Gendry, the geography teacher and one of her closest friends as they meet outside the gate.
“Hello Daenerys.”
“Oi hello old man, the old Gods with you.” Jon says as he walks to the garden door of a house two blocks away from the mansion. The old man in the garden sees him and smiles at him, politely.
“Good morning son, you hold the Old Gods?” Jon chuckles and nods.
“A bit.”
“Are ye new around here?”
“Somewhat. My name is Jon Stark, my brother and I moved here to stay in the old mansion of the family, life away from the city and all.” He nods with a smile on his lips.
“The Stark mansion has been a place of glory once, I’m glad to hear that someone will use it again. My name is Garth Snow. How can I help you son?” Jom rubs the back of his neck as he smiles at the old man.
“Well, my brother and I, we just arrived, we haven’t unpacked yet, we haven’t even showered and we are starving. I was wondering if you would be kind enough to give us something to make a sandwich.” His eyes open widely at the words that dare to come out of his mouth.
“A sandwich? Are you mad son? I cooked chicken, you’re going to take some of that and you will wait so I can make some fries.” Jon smiles softly as he looks at him.
“Please I don’t want to trouble you, the chicken is more than enough.” He scolds him with his eyes and Jon laughs.
“Jon, one week here and ye’ll know that no one dares to say no to me. Now come inside and wait till your fries are ready.” He raises his hands in defeat and walks inside the house, thanking his luck that he invited him in on his own and still laughing a bit. Back in the days the people of Winterfell used to be as cold as its weather, it seems that things have changed.
His smile drops when he notices a vase with blue flowers on the table, he almost loses his balance. The old man notices his gaze and smiles softly. “You like them? A very nice girl brings them to me from time to time, they’re very rare.” He nods, his eyes never leaving the flowers.
“I know, I had a friend, she uhm, she loved blue roses.”
“From Old Valyria?” he simply nods again and for a moment he considers asking the name of the girl that brings the flowers, even though he’s certain he already knows. Blue roses don’t exist, it can’t be a coincidence. Yet he remains silent, he doesn’t ask, afraid of the confirmation, afraid to hear it, to face it so he simply changes the subject.
Once his fries are ready he leaves, his steps as heavy as his heart feels and when he walks inside the house, his brother, always knowing something’s wrong with him, raises his eyebrows.
“What’s wrong?” Jon bites the inside of his cheek strongly enough to draw blood.
“Daenerys, she’s here.” Robb’s eyes open widely as he rests his glass on the wooden table.
“How…?” he never gets to finish his question, it's enough, Jon answers.
“Blue roses.” He pretends not to be embarrassed by how his voice breaks or by the way he bites his trembling lip.
“Can’t it be a coincidence?” Jon scoffs.
“Knowing my luck, absolutely not.”
“If Daenerys is really here it’s a gift Jon, not bad luck.” Jon chuckles bitterly as he throws his coat on the couch.
“How is that bitch being here a gift exactly?” Robb sighs as he meets his brother’s eyes, a mixture of hope and worry written in his own blue ones.
“I know you don’t mean that and you know it as well, leave your ego to the side, you know what’s at stake.” Jon sighs, avoiding Robb’s eyes like the plague. Ego? Maybe. Fear? Definitely. Jon equally longs and dreads for the moment he will look into her lilac eyes once again.
“I brought chicken with fries, it will help with the cravings for a while, when it’s dark you’ll go find us something to eat?.” He simply leaves the room without another word after his brother nods, lost in his thoughts and Robb knows better than to follow him.
Daenerys walks back to her home after school is over, holding her black coat tightly around her to fight the cold, when she hears Mr Snow yelling her name from his garden. She smiles as she walks closer to the fence and meets the kind man’s eyes.
“Everything alright, Mr Snow?”
“Did you hear the news Princess?” Daenerys raises her eyebrows with a smirk, Mr Snow loves his gossip from time to time and Daenerys could never say no to the old man she loves so much.
“What news?”
“Some people moved into the Stark manor.” Her breathing stops, her smile falls and her heart runs a mile as her mind is praying to the old Gods, the new and nature itself that the house was sold.
“Who?”
“2 young lads, brothers, descendants of the Starks, one of them came here for some food.” Her heart beats even faster to the point she fears it will burst, she feels dizzy and lost, her face white as the snow that covered the trees until yesterday.
“Did he tell you his name?” Garth looks at her with concern but simply nods.
“His name is Jon.” Daenerys feels as if a thousand knives pierce through her heart and her blood caughts on fire all at once as she looks at the ground, biting her lower lip, trying to control all the emotions that she’s feeling. The weather gets a little colder and the wind a little stronger for a few moments. “Princess are you alright?”
“Mhm.” She nods and forces a smile. “Just a long day at work, children, you know. Great news Mr Snow but I must leave now.” Garth doesn’t look convinced but he nods with a smile and gives Daenerys a kiss on the forehead before she walks away.
Her head is a mess as she walks back home, she doesn’t really think about where she’s going, her steps just take her. Her mind is focused only on the words of Mr Snow and no matter how hard she tries to shove them in the back of her mind, to bury them under the dirt, she can’t do it not this time.
He's back, he's here, where it all began. A terror grips her heart tightly, not because she is to see him but for how she longs for that moment, guilt replaces the terror, then anger, the dragon inside her roars at the change or mix of emotions. How is she supposed to feel?
Daario’s lips are on hers the moment she walks inside her house to greet her with a chaste kiss. Not even the great man that she has the honor to call her fiancé can help her at this point. Lost in her own thoughts she returns the kiss coldly, he doesn't seem to question it, even though she knows he realises it.
The moment she sees Margaery sitting on the couch, brown hair braided simply and a worried look on her green eyes, she feels like she can breathe again, she knows that it will be alright. Margaery is her best friend, her oldest friend and the only person she can talk to right now, the only one who knows, the only one who will understand.
“You’re alright,babe?” she smiles weakly at Daario as she caresses his cheek.
“Just a long day at work.” But when she looks at Margaery she knows that she understands the truth, she always does. Daario on the other hand just nods and gives her one more kiss.
“Okay, I have to take a shower before Missy, Grey and Gendry arrive.” Margaery hardly waits until he's out of the room to raise her eyebrows in question as Daenerys pours herself a glass of whiskey and sits next to her on the couch. She waits until she hears the water running and then she meets her best friend’s eyes as she sighs.
“Jon is back.”
Daenerys waits, she has a movie night with her friends, tries her best to keep her mind on them, laughs at Gendry’s jokes and mocks Missy and Grey on their undeniable crush along with the others. When they're gone she takes a long bath, kisses Daario goodnight, and she waits.
She waits until she hears his soft snoring filling the room to get out of bed, wear her dress from this morning, grab her car keys and walk out of the door before she regrets her choice.
She drives, she knows she has to talk to him, to tell him to walk out of this town and out of her life just as easily as he walked in, to tell him that he had no right to do this to her, she even thinks she has to kill him even just for this, if what he did so long ago wasn’t enough. But even though she knows she has to see him, she has to talk to him, at least to ask him what the fuck is he doing back in Winterfell, she doesn’t drive to the Stark mansion.
Maybe it's because she’s scared of how she will react to seeing him again. It always scared her, how her mind, soul and body responded to him. Maybe because she longs to be where she’s always going since she first came back to Winterfell, consequences on her heart be damned. Maybe because something inside her tells her he’s going to be there as well, or at least she hopes he will. No matter what fuels her, instead of driving to the manor she drives to the forest just outside town. And when she parks her car and enters the forest her steps take her to that waterfall close to the house, where they first met.
She does find him there, his back turned to her and his hands in his pockets but she knows it’s him, she would always know. Her heart beats faster, her breathing stops and a part of her surely wants to run a stake through his back but another part wants to run and hold him after all these years once more.
For a moment she stands there, not even breathing. She considers talking to him but she doesn’t know what to say. Should she yell at him like hey bastard remember me? or should she simply call his name like how she used to say it, softly and only a purr? She considers simply clearing her throat to make her presence known but she couldn’t stand them being awkward, she could deal with them fighting, she’s prepared for it, but not acting like strangers.
So she does the only thing that comes to her mind, she raises her hands and focuses on the ground raising her favourite blue roses in front of him, her flowers, her connection to the earth.
He smiles fondly as he turns around to look at her, to take her in and she tries really hard not to return it but she fails, her face lighting up by the sight of him.
He is exactly as she remembers him, with his thick, long brown hair and eyes and that smile that still takes her breath away. He looks as gorgeous as the day she met him and he has the exact same effect on her as he had all those years ago.
They take a moment, looking at each other, simply smiling, time stops, for both of them, the rest of the world stops to exist and for a moment all their walls, their ego, the dark thoughts are all gone drowning in her lilac eyes and his bright smile. Her anger from before vanishes, but it’s only for a moment.
“How did you know I was here?” His voice is exactly as she remembers it, deep, strong, it sends a shiver to her spine that spreads through her entire body, igniting that fire that warms her insides, that fire that hasn't been there for so long and for a moment she feels like her legs can’t hold her.
“Mr Snow…”
“Not back in town, here, in the woods.” She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, avoiding his eyes like they could burn her.
“I don’t, I don’t know, I just came here.”
“How long have you been back in Winterfell?” she folds her arms in front of her chest and takes a few steps closer to him. He follows every single one of her moves, mesmerized, many times in the past he wondered if she casted a spell on him, or if it was just the reflection of the moon on her silver hair and the warmth of her amethyst eyes and the fact that she was the most beautiful woman that ever walked on earth that did the job. Still to this day he didn’t know and yet he was still enchanted by her.
“About a year now, I came here with Margaery and…” she stops and looks at the ground, not that she feels guilty, she has no reason to, but she knows that once she says the word, this moment would end and she would sell her soul to live in this moment for a little bit longer. He raises his eyebrows as he tries to meet her eyes.
“And?”
“And my fiancé.” Everything stops, she swears you could hear a pin drop in the silence, it feels as if even the forest holds its breath, as she watches his smile dropping.
“Your fiancé, I see.” His voice is bitter and she can read him well to know that he is mad , his anger ignites her own once more, her blood boiling.
“You are nowhere near the fucking position to do this, you caused this, all of this.” He laughs and bites the inside of his cheek to the point that it bleeds. The sound that once brought her the comfort of springs and joy of summers is now bitter like the cold of winter.
“I’m to blame for this? Me? You left Dany.” The way he says her name makes her shiver, he used to call her like that for as long as she can remember them, but usually it held fondness and love and devotion while now it holds hatred and poison and pushes the daggers back in her heart, but her ego is too strong and it can’t be broken.
“Would you prefer for me to stay and be burned alive? Would that prove that I loved you? Would you be happy then?” he scoffs, his eyes red and his hands in fists.
“Are you even listening to yourself? Of course I didn’t want you to die, nothing mattered more than you to me but we could have fought it together…”her bitter chuckle interrupts him, lingering in the air like poison.
“There’s no fighting Jon, you haven’t lived it, I would either leave or die, those were my options. I didn’t have anyone to help me because I stayed in this fucking village for you in the first place, remember that the next time you try to blame me.”
“You had me. You knew you had me.”
“Against an entire village? Against your father? What exactly would you do when they would tie me to the stick? Kill them all? Drain your own father out of his blood?” his ears are ringing with each word, like bells that he just can’t listen to anymore.
“Damn it Dany you could have let me try” he screams. She doesn’t even flinch, she knows he wouldn’t hurt her, he never would, even after everything that happened.
“I would die, don’t put this on me.”
“You left.”
“And you didn’t follow. You should have come with me, I told you to come with me, I fucking begged you and you stayed.” He takes a few breaths as he tries to calm himself down, to lower the walls of his pride.
“You know why I stayed, I couldn’t leave my siblings.”Her eyes mock him as she's walking closer to him. When she's close enough, her scent of vanilla embraces him like a long lost lover, not a faint memory, but the actual scent, intoxicating and dangerous like a drug, his eyelids fall closed as he breathes it in.
“I told you, they could come with us.” He sighs and looks down, tired of fighting, tired of feeling even.
“They didn’t even know at the time, what was I supposed to do?” she shakes her head and bites her lip, looking away from him as well.
“I don’t know, but I know what you should do now.” She bites the inside of her cheek and digs her nails in her arms, anything to find the strength. “Leave, leave this town and walk out of my life.”
“Sorry darling, can’t do that and actually I need your help.” It takes a moment but she starts laughing, loud and clear and despite the context her laugh makes him feel somewhat warm, he missed this sound.
“You’re delusional.”
“Dany.” He whispers, so low that it could be the whistling of the wind.
“You have the audacity to ask for my help…”
“Dany.” He tries again, his voice a little higher this time.
“After everything you put me through, after all the suffering, after…”
“Dany” his voice is soft, even though loud and determined as he grabs her by the shoulders tenderly and brings her closer. She stops and gulps at the closeness as she lifts her eyes to meet his own, he seems truthful and desperate, she’s certain what he’s about to tell her is serious and it really troubles him. “It’s about Arya.” Her eyes open widely, her heart heavy as a rock and her stomach tight as concern places itself on the pit of it and she nods for him to tell her the story.