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Jon made his peace with killing Daenerys by the time he got to the Wall. Intellectually he supposed he should’ve been more perturbed or disturbed by his actions. By rights he should be vacillating rapidly, soul-crushed and unsure of his conviction, wracking his mind in a desperate search for justifications. It was the most sensical summation; he did, after all, put a knife in the heart of his aunt. The queen he’d sworn to. The woman he’d loved.
He should feel guilty, wretched even. It was only logical. He should feel… bad.
Jon did not feel bad.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or maybe the disgust and horror with her actions; regardless, Jon simply couldn’t find it within himself to be more concerned. There was no guilt, nor a single shred of it marring his soul.
The flashes of memory were present though, and always unshakable. The screams of children cut short, tiny blackened bodies littering the bloody streets around him, the smell of excrement and urine and blood and so so much death. He recalled people running in terror and there was no class disparity between them, no distinction other than they were afraid and fleeing and dying all the same.
Bakers and tanners.
Merchants and mothers.
Daughters, babes, elders.
Even the stray mutts and feral cats and scurrying rats had died just as easily as the people. If it breathed, it burned.
At the back of his mind, Jon wondered if Daenerys ever loved him more than she loved power, more than she loved that wretched throne.
In retrospect there were warnings. She’d always been a woman of arrogance. He’d made the mistake of letting it go far enough as to supersede the compassion within her, which was already dying. Most prominent was her reaction to the revelation of his parentage. There was no pleasant surprise, no joy, only suspicion, distrust, fear. That, Jon concluded, was the height of hypocrisy. She’d been so reasonably concerned with the continuation of her family, yet the moment another living member appeared, that worry doused by her ambitions.
Her endless quest for supremacy reigned supreme in and of itself.
He closed his eyes, forced away the image of burnt children and sobbing parents and blood and dirt and bodies. He breathed in the crisp northern air. Even in spring there was a pleasant chill.
You became exactly what you swore you’d never be, Dany. Queen of the Ashes, Jon thought. You are you father’s daughter.
Queenslayer, Kinslayer, oathbreaker, traitor—he would accept all of those titles gladly if it meant the rest of the world was safe from an indefatigable tyrant who commanded the most destructive force known to man. Let their labels come. Let them spit on his name, let them curse and categorize him. All they would ever know was cursory, anecdotal. They were welcome to it, the rumors and lies and their own simmering bitterness.
As far as Jon was concerned, he was headed home.
Tormund was there when he arrived at Castle Black. The man grinned, spouting off a King Crow before hugging Jon tightly. Jon relished the embrace of his friend, his brother in all but name. And that held true; he’d say Ghost was his oldest friend, but Ghost was more like his son, a conclusion which he’d always kept to himself.
He’d taken Ghost in from the cold, nursed him to health, raised him. Ghost was his boy.
At night Jon told Tormund everything. There was curiosity in his gaze, but no judgement, and a grim, gritty sense of agreement when he spoke of King’s Landing. The free folk valued justice, and they may have been a violent people prone to raiding, but there was a limit to how much abject slaughter they found permissible.
They left the next day. Jon didn’t engage with any of the black brothers or recruits. They weren’t worth his time. No, he’d fought his wars, earned his peace or at least a semblance of it. Sansa, the oathbreaker who hated Cersei Lannister yet emulated her every negative trait, could have the North. She could have Winterfell and the stubborn vassals. Bran could have the south, if that thing was even Bran. Arya… Arya had watched him go, had said nothing when the sentence was passed. He couldn’t say he loved her anymore, but he hoped the Sunset Sea didn’t swallow her ship.
Tormund and Ghost; calling this a family felt right, moreso than anything before it. He wondered why he ever wanted to be a Stark, why he ever ran from being a Targaryen, when he could be thoroughly irrevocably Jon Snow.
As they rode out, Jon saw that Val was there too. It was impossible to notice otherwise, her white-clad visage ethereal and dangerous, golden hair shining like a beacon, crystal blue eyes piercing.
The free folk’s natural deference humbled him. On the way to Hardhome he was ensconced in duties, managing hunts and patrols, consulting the various leaders and elders, even occasionally entertaining the children, which Ghost seemed to enjoy very much.
He spent a lot of time with Val. They rode together, reminiscing of anything and everything. Their time at the Wall, the War for the Dawn, Jon’s childhood, Val’s sister, some obscure legends from Essos and beyond.
“So this… Kaydath—”
“—K’Dath” Jon corrected.
Val rolled her eyes. “Right, whatever. This K’Dath is in a freezing desert and holds unimaginable evil.”
“Supposedly,” Jon shrugged. “That’s what I read about it. That and Stygai, but that’s further south. The records in Castle Black called it a Corpse City, whatever that means.”
“And you wanted to go to both of them?” Val’s rich blue eyes looked at him like he was mad.
Jon grinned. “I mean, they did sound quite interesting.”
Val laughed.
It was the most beautiful thing Jon had ever heard.
I missed what was right in front of me, he thought. The feelings, the observations, they were inchoate right now, transient things he couldn’t confirm. He’d keep them in mind, but neither would he cast them aside.
Most of the party didn’t even disperse amongst the wilds as they journeyed. They wanted to go to Hardhome, and that proved the prosperous decision for many. With Jon and Tormund’s leadership, the ruinous site of their most horrific defeat became a thriving center of civilization. They mined the Frostfangs and established trade and transportation routes for the bounty: gold and silver, copper, tin, and iron, rubies and sapphires, emerald and jet, and even diamonds. The exotic fur trade became almost equally as popular in the south as the precious gems were. The collective effort turned the true north into a proper economic giant. Traders from Braavos came for the abundance of lumber. Ironwood and ash, sentinel and soldier pine, all shipped out from Hardhome’s port, sometimes on vessels freshly built from the newly established shipyards.
Every other night they had a fire, a great roaring thing that brought boisterous conviviality and somber reflection alike. Shadows dappled the gathered crowd as people danced conjoined rings around the flame. Embers ascended in the night, swallowed by the starry sky. It was there that Jon discovered Val could sing. She was good, too. Her face turned so red when he said as much that he thought something was medically wrong.
It was instinct then, to reach out and push her hair from her face. A wall fell between them.
It wouldn’t be the first one.
The port town of Hardhome became a port city within a year, growing every second of every day. Myriad refugees from the south arrived, claiming that word of a free land and the righteous former King in the North had spread. Jon told each of them that he was no king, but that they could stay and make their own lives as long as they respected the native customs.
“You’re a good leader. A great one, actually,” Val said to him one day. She was visiting his cabin near the western edge of the city, as she’d done often. Her hand stroked Ghost’s head and the direwolf closed his eyes in pleasure.
“I try,” Jon admitted. “I think someone has to, at least.”
Val moved towards him, her eyes contemplative. When she was a foot away, she stopped and reached out tentatively, almost as if she feared rejection. Her hand brushed his chest, laying flat.
She said softly, “It’s more than that. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
For the first time in his life, Jon conceded that point.
“Maybe,” he nearly whispered. The last year had taken the obstructions away, blinding him with the light of the fact that people respected him immensely. He didn’t revel in it, but it felt good to at least acknowledge. He met Val’s eyes. “Thank you.”
Val kissed him then, a slow thing that was still sudden. Jon shook himself from the surprise and reciprocated vehemently, his arms wrapping around her. She was soft, a sweet taste to her.
Her lips felt like home.
It developed rapidly from there. One day, Val was living with him, and that was that. Ghost already liked her, but now the direwolf had taken to her like she was part of their pack. Tormund teased Jon endlessly, but Jon knew that his friend was also happy for him. The redhead had told him one day that if anyone deserved peace, it was him.
Every instance—every second in her presence, every sight, every touch—was perfection. It was as if he’d discovered another part of his soul. There were no nightmares, no flashing images of daggers and blood and betrayed violet eyes, just Val.
One year after Jon stole her, Ghost burst into their room, a frantic string of Father-Mother-pregnant-pups-pups-pups-pups hammering down their mental bond.
Nine months later, Val gave birth to twin girls. They were opposite inversions, one having Jon’s dark hair and his wife’s icy eyes, the other a honey blonde with a stormy Stark-grey gaze.
They named them Lyanna and Dalla.