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Alone in the great hall, he walked up to the high table. For once, the hall wasn’t filled with people asking for something, complaining about something, screaming for nothing. The high table had always been out of his reach, unattainable. Now he touched the chipped wood, haunted by memories he was only a spectator to. Arya throwing food at Sansa, Robb sneaking wine, Rickon falling asleep in his Lady Mother’s arms. Like ghosts they played in front of him.
Of course, now, when his life was upended and the world was ending would he be able to get it. The only thing he’d ever wanted and of course it was the cracked and warped version of it. To belong, to truly belong, to the Starks. Knowing the truth made this all the more bittersweet. It just all felt so wrong.
“Jon, we need to talk.” The icy chill of his sister’s voice called him back. Sansa had been furious with him since he’d arrived with Daenerys. He fidgeted under her gaze, so similar to her mother’s. He looked into her eyes, expecting to see it, that hate. Instead he saw gentle pleading.
He nodded and started walking towards the Godswood. He knew she would follow. He would have no peace until she had hers. With every step his anger built up. He knew he was wrong, was always going to be wrong, and now more than she knew she was right. The steady crunch of the snow as they were within the safety of the Godswood was all she needed to begin.
“Jon, I can’t quite understand why..” Her tone set him like an arrow.
“What is it now Sansa? That I didn’t listen to you with Ramsey? That I gave the keeps back to the Umbers and Karstarks? That I went south and bent the knee? That you’re not Queen in the North?” Sansa had the decency to look surprised. “Aye, I know you’re better than I am at near everything. Aye, I know you’re smarter than me, I know this bothers you...that I trusted someone who is not family but…”
“Jon, please! I came to have a rational conversation with you, but if you’re just going to lob insults at me, there is no point.”
Jon took a breath and tried to calm himself. He was so tightly wound that he had been snapping at just about anyone. He couldn’t fight his family. Not now, while the very ground underneath his feet was unsteady. He nodded not trusting himself to speak.
“I cannot say I am pleased, all I have ever asked is that you simply listen. Be smarter than Father. Smarter than Robb. You’ve allied yourself with this Queen, but I’ve heard things, Jon. At what cost? Was she so beautiful you could not resist? How long before you fell into her trap? I need to understand, why- why reject everything we’ve fought for, everything I have fought for? Do you think it was easy for me? Lying to Petyr, keeping him at a distance? Do you think I enjoyed being treated like nothing while the lords waited for my brother to return with gods know what, or even if you would return at all? It was me, I won Winterfell. I kept it while you were gone. You charged into the madness and gave in to Ramsey’s whims. You would have lost it all for nothing.” She shook with anger. Jon let it wash over him. In battle, he knew himself. The steady thrum of hooves and the pulsing of his veins. Not that knowing himself helped, in the end he knew nothing. He had never won just survived. He lost at Castle Black. He lost at Hardhome. He lost the Battle of the Bastards. He lost at the frozen lake. He was losing now. She continued.
“Winterfell is mine to decide if we give the north away to a foreign queen who knows nothing about the true north. To a Targaryen, after what they did to our family? Burned our grandfather, murdered our uncle, raped our…”
“My mother.” Jon said quietly. So quiet Sansa finally stopped. “She was my mother, Sansa, and she wasn’t raped.”
“I don’t understand. Who? Aunt Lyanna? How? She was kidnapped, taken against her will. Rhaegar kept her in a tower in Dorne away from family and friends. Farther south than any Stark should go.”
“Aye, the story goes that Rhaegar kidnapped her, locked her away like the vile prince he was, forsaking his duties to his wife, his two young children and the realm. Alas, Ned Stark never told us that. He was never angry or bitter. He was just sad. Not once did he say anything ill against the Targaryens, when he had every right. In fact we learned their history. We studied their noble deeds. Why, Sansa?”
“Jon, did Bran see this? Is this possibly true? What madness is this?”
“Madness it must be. But Bran saw it, Sam has proof of it all, and now I am more of a fraud than ever. You saved us and yet they named me king because I was the last Stark male heir. I bent the knee when there was nothing for me to give away. I went north to find a wight for nothing and lost a dragon along the way. Perhaps I am as doomed as my mother.”
“No, Jon, no- the Queen, we don’t have to tell her. She would likely burn you alive like the Tarlys for her throne, a male heir, even a bastard..”
The bitterness in Jon’s laugh smacked Sansa in the face.
“The joke of it all is that Lyanna Stark was never raped. Lyanna Stark, in the end, was wed to Rhaegar Targaryen, the Last Dragon. He had his marriage annulled and as he lay dying in the Ruby ford his new wife gave birth to his heir.” Jon smiled in such a way that he was sure Sansa feared for his sanity. He’d begun to question it himself.
“Jon, you’re the heir. The true heir, not Daenerys. The other lords, they’ll…”
“ The Northern Lords will abandon our cause because they cannot, or rather, will not serve a Targaryen. No matter the proof, I will always be the product of rape to them. I am the reason their families died. Not father going south or Robb marrying a foreign woman. Me. My birth, I am the result of selfishness and lust. Marriage or no, I am the monster your mother thought I was. Sansa, I will not lie and say I haven’t thought about it. Ruling. If nothing else so we can just stop fighting each other and fight our true enemies. If I am honest though, truly honest, I always imagined it. Being a lord. See, in the end I am the grasping, reaching bastard your mother warned you about.”
“Jon, you are a good king. You are not a monster. I’ve seen true monsters. I trust you, I believe in you and I will fight with you. My anger with you is that you need to listen, not retreat inside and fight alone. You’re not alone. You have me, and Arya and Bran in his own way. Samwell Tarly will speak for you. Davos has been loyal and true, though I often disagree with him. Lady Mormont, and I am sure even Tyrion will come to our side eventually.”
Jon stopped her then, Sansa had already begin her plotting. “Dany is our queen, I bent the knee, I”
“A queen who burns those who don’t bow to her!”
“A leader who treats dissension with force. I’ve done the same.”
“With swords not fire!”
“A fire so hot it kills faster than being hung”
“So you find out you are a Targaryen and so quickly you abandon your morals?”
“No Sansa, she is more than that. She doesn’t take life easily, no one does. Did they deserve to be punished, aye. The man who passes the sentence swings the sword, yet she has but one weapon. I do not fault her, though it does make me fear her.”
“Is that why you bent the knee? Out of fear?”
“No. I bent the knee because she saved my life. She could have let the usurper die in the frozen north, didn’t even have to lift a finger. Yet she came. She fought the dead. She lost a dragon. When she stopped asking mean to bend the knee is when I bent it to her freely. I saw what those dragons could do, with her dragons, the dragonglass and her armies, we have a chance to survive.”
“You expect me to not think that you bent the knee for dragons and politics when you couldn’t even lie to Cersei? Bullshit, Jon. You call her Dany, you’ve slept with her.” She threw the words at him. “You’ve slept with your AUNT. Here you stand defending her, what am I to think”
“Aye, Sansa. You’re not wrong. What would you have me do? I have not lain with her since we’ve learned about it.”
“We?” Alarm rang through Sansa. “You could not have told me that you told her?”
Jon looked down again, hiding from her mother’s eyes. “She was there, when Sam and Bran told me. She heard everything.”
“Jon, we have to hide you she-”
“I had never seen anyone so happy to have kin. She was positively radiant, and then I left her. I couldn’t be there. Sansa, she never wanted to rule, she’s done what she’s done because she was the last of her kind. She needed to survive. She called to me and I turned my back on her. I loved her and I left her. She has had chances to burn me alive since and yet all I see now is the shadow of the queen, the remains of something that could never be. I broke her heart, Sansa. I can’t protect the realm and my heart at the same time.”
Sansa sat down on the bench by the great Weirwood tree. Jon sat beside her, waiting for more words, more reprimands. None came, just her hand on his.
“Jon, it’s clear you care for each other. I cannot say I trust her, I cannot say you are not better than her. I can say that if you love her enough to walk away, I can trust you bent the knee for a good reason. You are still so very wrong, on so many things, and I will tell you every time, but brother- yes brother- you cannot let this break you now. You cannot let this defeat you now. We need you because for once, I know nothing. I have not faced this enemy. I cannot prepare us or defend us. I need to know, I need YOU to know, that I cannot trust anyone with my safety and I worry that someone would take advantage of you. You’re good, too good. This can make you so very dumb.” Jon had to laugh. She smiled at the end.
“Aye, and Arya would likely kill me herself before anyone else could if I didn't listen.”
They shared a laugh. Sansa shook her head. Jon couldn’t read her, he never could but he knew, just this once, she would let him be. Even if he was wrong.
“Jon, you’ll always be our brother. You’ll always have a seat at the table with us.”
Just like that, Jon finally felt right.