Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones/ASOIAF. The face claim I'm using is Zhang Xinyuan.

Author's Note: This timeline is after Jon Snow is stabbed by the Night's Watch.

There was no other choice but to welcome death.

His eyes no longer could see the world. After being stabbed by his men, his brothers, the last thing he could barely see before the darkness came was the night sky and the twinkling of stars. When he was young, he often would look to them with a sense of hope. He heard people once say that one's destiny was written within the sparkling orbs of unknown. Jon always wondered if his was written up there. What would he accomplish? What mark would he leave on the world? Never would he imagine that the day he would take his last, final breath that it would because his brothers, the Night's watch, would betray him.

Despite the rage he wanted to feel, Jon could not fault them. He knew of their hearts were untrusting of the Wildings and he thought that his words alone could persuade them into doing what needed to be done for the greater good of Westeros. They had not seen the White Walkers, but they had seen the Wildings and what they had done to them and their fathers and forefathers and so on before them. Yet why must his life end here? Could it be that this what he deserved for picking up the cloak?

In the back of his mind, he always wondered if he had turned away from this sudden dream of his to protect the Wall and followed behind Robb, then would Robb still be alive? If he had done right, if he had taken up the sword to fight alongside his older brother, then all would be right. Winterfell would be right. Sansa and Arya would be home and safe. Catelyn, despite her hatred for him, would be alive. And his father? Ned? Did he look upon the realms of the afterlife at him with disappointment? With sad eyes of the overly trusting failure he had become.

Lodged in his throat was regret. This was not how Jon wanted to die. Even though he could feel every last bit of life's blood leaving his body, he still wanted to protect Westeros from the fate that lied ahead. Winter. He had to protect them from the Winter that was near. But he could not move, he could not save anyone; not even himself.

Death was silent.

The pain was numbing him, so the pain felt like nothing compared to the fact that life was no more for him.

Fool. Fool. Fool.

It was the only thing he could say to himself as his mouth remain slacked and cold air began to freeze over his lungs. He couldn't move his mouth, not even a twitch, but at least he still had some control of his last thoughts.

He'd liked to think that within this last moment he could remember a time where he felt genuinely happy. One moment wasn't enough, he had many. Yet he was afraid that if he tried to think of them all then he would end up not being able to think of any. So his mind pick and prodded, thinking of shorter moments that meant dearer to him. Like sparring with Robb, the talks with his father, watching Sansa sew, seeing Arya with that smile amidst her mischief. Then there was hearing Bran talk for the first time, and the day Rickon was born, and even though it was for a short time, the way Catelyn prayed to the Faith in the small sept.

He did think of Sam and their talks. The jokes that made him want to laugh but his body could not act on it.

The last thing that came to mind was someone he wanted to forget.

Ygritte.

He thought of many memories of her.

He thought of the kiss of fire that was her long hair, the paleness of her skin and freckles that adorned her face, especially the way her flesh felt upon his during those moments of intimacy. He thought of her sass, the determination in her eyes, and the way she handled a bow better than any man he ever known. He thought of the look of betrayal and tears in her eyes, and the last glimmer of love that she had given him as she died in his arms. And lastly, her body in the state of death that looked as if she was sleeping peacefully before he set her body aflame.

If he could tell her a million apologies then he would, but for now he could only think of them. His death, right here in this snow of the castle where she last took breath, would be the biggest one. He'd like to think that she would forgive him now. No longer would she burden herself with a grudge as the saying of her words went:

"You're mine. Mine, as I'm yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live."

He could fulfill it now despite it not being his choice. Ygritte never relented, her words were probably a curse.

For the first time, Jon consented to her words.

He would die as she did.

Jon Snow, the bastard of Eddard "Ned" Stark, was dead.

...

Winter's bitter woes was nearing in a quick hurry, and just little time to spare.

It was not new that the thin snowflakes fell, fluttering down in the lands of the North in dismal silence that would make the bones feel dreary and grow tense. Yet the people of the North on this day would miss the howling of the wind that would pass through like a ghost, unseen but its presence inexplicably known. It was normally envisioned like a wolf's cry to a full moon in the middle of the silent night but the wind would not greet them nor surprise them upon this day. All there ever for this day was silence and snow. A combination that would make one's heart feel wary. What was to come? What did such silence mean? It must be an omen. A bad one.

It had been her first week of the land where the snow falls, and she had not been used to the nitpicking cold. In fact, she suffered from a light illness the first week she came but due to her strength in herbal medicine, she managed to live. Sometimes all it took was a fever to rid someone of life, she was just too determined to live. Never would she let a cold claim her, she would end her life on her terms and in the only way she found acceptable. That was the way she lived. That was the only way she knew how to live. If her father ever once thought his daughter would be as weak to let an illness claim her, he be shamed and kill himself in the afterlife upon the hit of his honor. He raised her well. He raised her good. She could not shame him even when his soul was no longer amongst the living.

Her horse was quiet under her, only neighing whenever he wanted to eat or became impatient by her staying idle. He would rather eat the grass that peeked through the snow as she observed her surroundings. It merely proved that the young horse ate out of boredom, which she deemed as charming but it would rest its head whenever her slender, pale fingers would gently comb through its untangled and smooth mane. That was the only way to temper the young thing, and it wasn't tiresome. She enjoyed the act just as he much as the horse did. "We'll have to go back." This animal had been the only means of life she had been around for weeks. There had been no one else to talk to and no one else to fill the void in what felt like days that would drag on very slowly. Time seemed to stretch on when you were lonely, and quicken when you weren't. Life was odd like that.

The horse went into a slow gallop once she done a light clench of her legs against its sides. Whatever the trail would lead her, she would go. Soon, she would have to find a place to rest her head but without any currency, she would have to get odd jobs here and there for a bed to sleep in.

The deep blueness of her eyes soon saw a woman donned in red with a horse, moving very much in a hurry. She slowed down upon the sight of her, "Are you a woman of medicinal skill?" The woman asked.

"Yes." She answered, "Are you in need of assistance?" This woman hardly looked ill or hurt.

"No, I do not but I have someone that does." The horse turned to see a body wrapped in silk. The raven-haired girl tore her eyes away from it and then at the woman in red. "Follow me if you take this task."

Seeing as she had nothing to do and no place to stay, she followed. Maybe she could get this woman to pay her for her work, it should not come free. Her horse galloped with some reluctance, probably feeling that eerie feeling she also felt as she followed the woman in red. They had soon traveled to what appeared to be an abandoned village and the woman struggled with taking the body inside of an empty house and laying him down on a cot.

By the time she reached in after them, the sheet was taken from the man and there was a young man with pale skin, a ghostly color but if weren't from the movement of his chest rising and falling then she might've thought him dead. Her eyes looked to see the blood stained in his black clothes, feathers adorning him that reminded her of a crow.

Is this not what the men of the Night's Watch wore? Their names were carried throughout the lands so it was hard to not know it. They were considered rapers, unwanted, and outsiders forced to protect the Wall with their lives against those from the other side. They've been called many a names but none of them never sat well with her. If they were men made to protect then why call them such names?

"He is ill." The auburn haired woman said to her, gathering her out of her thoughts. "Take care of him. I shall return when the time is ripe."

"I request a fee for my skills." She stopped the woman in her tracks. "My skills are professional and medicine is not cheap. I believe that currency talks and produces greater results."

"And paid you shall be." Consenting to these words, she allowed the red woman to go before she walked towards the gravely ill man. He looked as if he was been brought back from death but was still knocking on the Stranger's door. The signs would indicate that what ailed him was a terrible flu, something she could cure.

What she had gotten herself into, she was not sure. Yet because her skills and his health came with a price, she voiced no complaints.

The woman stripped him of his cloak, his chain mail, and his boots. All that would remain were his breeches since sweat poured from his skin nearly all over. He was no child, no man she loved, and so she would not bathe him but instead would get a rag and dip in snow-laced water to make it cold and kill his fever. She would let the rag sit as she went back to her horse and grabbed her medicine. Herbs that she would grind into dust, mix in a bowl of water, and make him drink. This was all she would do for now to see if it would beat the fever. The real work would be done until she knew he could be actually saved.