Jon Snow turns his black cloak white, for her.

A/N: Just a Jon/Dany drabble. Getting geared up for the HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, so I thought I should put out a little A Song of Ice and Fire love. UPDATE JULY 2011: Now considered AU, since ADwD has come out...

Dislcaimer: All characters, settings, etc. etc. of A Song of Ice and Fire belong to George R.R. Martin. End of story.

Black and White

"I want you to be one of my Queensguard, Jon."

How did it end up this way?

Jon Snow cannot begin to comprehend his situation. Sometimes, he wonders if the gods like playing with his life.

Daenerys smiles at him uncertainly in the flickering light of the fireplace. It is late, and she is wrapped in nothing but a white linen robe- he knows she wears nothing beneath, and wonders if she'd planned it that way. There is a high likelihood that she has; her hesitation turns into amusement when his eyes wander back up to her face. She knows that he is not quite pleased with this request- this command- but he is enjoying the presentation.

"But I am not a knight, Dany," he finally decides upon as an answer. "Besides, you have a full Queensguard. Unless I have miscounted?"

Dany reaches for his face. Her hands are warm, hot even, but Jon leans into the warmth. A Stark carries the blood of winter, but he has Targaryen in him too, and like calls to like. He can never deny his attraction to the last Targaryen queen, but his duty comes first, as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

"No," Dany whispers, almost inaudibly, "No you have not." She tilts his head lower to brush her burning lips against his, sighing. His hands clench at his sides before he sighs as well, and brings them to her slim waist to pull her closer.

"Then are you planning on assassination, my queen? The last I checked you seemed contented with those who surround you. It would be an ill deed done to make me one of your guard by having another murdered, and they have all been loyal."

Her eyes flash up at him sharply, before she realizes he his teasing, and a wry grimace appears on her face. "I am the blood of the dragon, and love all my children," Dany states, "but I dislike war and intrigue. You see me as Dany, Jon, not as the fulfillment of a prophecy."

"Even if you are the fulfillment of a prophecy," Jon quips lightly. Dany huffs, her hands dropping to his chest as he hugs her around the shoulders. She grips his black tunic, and nuzzles her head into his shoulder.

"Aggo and Rakharo are my blood riders, queen or khaleesi, I am still the blood of their blood to be protected and obeyed." Her eyes slip close as she sends a silent prayer up for her lost bloodrider, Jhogo, who fell in battle fighting against the Others. Jon hugs her tightly as she mouths her foreign words, the strange guttural syllables of Dothraki. After another moment she opens her eyes to meet his. "Brienne of Tarth and Loras Tyrell are also so loyal, warriors of the truest blood, who will keep my secrets and guard me well. But they are never more than polite, to them I am a legend become real, in some ways I feel they also fear me as they revere me." Her fingers trail over Jon's shoulder to play with the clasp of his black cloak.

He wonders if she is attempting to distract him, but he realizes that she is lost in thought, and has let her walls come down. She is simply Dany now, young but mature, strong-willed and intelligent, but hardly past her seventeenth year. Rare moments when Dany is just Dany, and not Queen Daenerys Targaryen, are mostly part of what makes up Jon's love for the woman in his arms.

Her eyes are unfocused as she thinks, the amethyst irises hazy like the firelight around them. "I forgave Lannister when he was his sister's executioner, when Tyrion forgave him also, when Brienne and Loras and even Edmure Tully came forward to support his case, though Barristan is still keeping an eye on him. I will never trust him fully either, but it is better to keep him close if he is our enemy." She studies Jon's face, which he keeps carefully impassive. Personally, he disagrees with her decision, though Jaime Lannister has done nothing but accept his new Queen's commands. Daenerys demoted him from Lord Commander, restoring Selmy to his rightful place upon doing so. Yet the Kingslayer- now called the White Lion for his fearless one-handed defeat of the Others at the Battle of the Reach- has served in every unsavory mission, rooting out the Queen's would-be assassins since, with the help of information gathered by Petyr Baelish, Dany's new master of spies.

"As for Grey Worm, well, he is no different than Aggo and Rakharo," Dany thinks aloud, "and while he may have been bought with coin when this all began, he has been unwavering in his support of me. I could not ask him to fall upon his sword, as Missandei had once suggested. So he will serve me until the end, the same way Barristan will serve me until the end. There is still much to set to rights yet."

Jon sighs as Dany's gaze shifts again, focusing on his face. "I will not break the tradition of the seven who make up the guard, but Barristan is growing old, Jon."

"I still do not quite see how that explanation would be viable to win the court over," he replies, his brow rising, a silent addition of the words, Or me. "The Lord Commander of the White Cloaks has seen much, but is still unbent, and still as sharp as his blade, and his vow should only end with his death."

"I need someone to be around me when I am just Dany, Jon. Barristan will eventually pass on, but who will keep my knowledge and secrets? Who will protect me, Dany, and protect the Queen all at once?"

"Dany, you have many people who will do so. Missandei. Tyrion, whom you made your counselor. Your husbands." Jon stresses that last word deliberately.

Dany draws back a little. "Quentyn and Victarion do love me, but not moreso than their own ambitions."

"But they will not turn against you," Jon replies.

"They will not turn against the Mother of Dragons."

"You love them."

"I love them as I do all my children, love them as I love those I protect, and those whom I respect." Her amethyst eyes blaze as they look up at Jon, and he feels the dragon's fire all around him, though Drogon is nowhere near. "They see me only as Daenerys. You see me as Dany. I do not love them as I love you, Jon Targaryen."

Jon grips her arms and steps away, momentarily brushing aside the words that he doesn't want to hear. "Howland told you."

" Yes. But that is not the point."

Jon does not want to acknowledge the point.

"Stay with me, Jon. No one need ever know that you are my brother Rhaegar's son. Lord Commander is but a title in this instance, and you will still be protecting the best interests of the realm; the only difference is that wearing the white cloak will keep you by me always."

"I cannot just- w-wait. Lord Commander?"

Dany smirks up at him meaningfully. "I believe you just stuttered," she points out, "you never do that. I never thought you capable."

He closes his eyes again, pushing her away. "Dany, no."

When he opens his eyes her smile is all teeth. "Must I ask you to do this as your Queen?"

"You already are," Jon replies bleakly.

She tilts her head, then reaches to embrace him again. Jon mutters a curse, but returns the embrace with a long sigh. "I am asking you this as Dany and the Queen, Jon. I admit I am selfish. But you are one of the fiercest warriors of Westeros and elsewhere besides, and one of the sharpest. It is not just me who notices. Barristan was the one who suggested that you be included amongst my honor guard, though he will help you in the transition before he takes up the position of my Hand, and all of my Queensguard has agreed that you would be fit to stand command over them if it so please me. You have led armies against the Others, after all- you're capable of performing this duty."

"Armies of crows and wildlings, perhaps." Dany's becoming impatient, Jon realizes, when she squirms and slides her body up against his most provocatively. "I am assuming that my acceptance of this post would please you?"

"Yes, it would please me. You always please me." She giggles like a young girl at that, her hands slipping up to the direwolf clasp at his shoulder, unlatching it deftly. "Please Jon, you needn't say the words, but come to bed with me. It's cold tonight."

Jon is grateful for the brief respite, and for that, who is he to deny her? But something so simple as the act of making love will not distract her from her goals for long- Jon knows that upon the morrow, and the day after that, and again and again, Dany will slowly break him down, the same as she does any man.

Then she will build him back up, until he is hers and hers only, though, Jon suspects, he was always meant for her, as Dany means him to be- but she is also his, too, as she means to be.

"I never agreed to anything, yet," he reminds her as he slips the linen from her creamy ivory shoulders, brushing her silvery hair back so that he may kiss her neck.

"But you will," she says, murmuring and moaning softly, and he knows she's right.

Three months later Jon leaves the Wall, rebuilt with dragon's fire and restocked with dragon's glass daggers and arrowheads, and no small amount of Valyrian steel blades. His men call him turncloak, but this time there is a jest to the words, because he really is turning his cloak. The men of the Wall might be hardened by the worst of winter, but they know that the vows of the Queensguard are no different than the vows of the black cloaks, and will make fun of him for it.

He will still father no children, hold no lands or titles other than that of the Lord Commander, and will still sport his steel besides, in the protection of the best interests of the realm- but he will wear a white cloak.

For her.

"I would feel a lot more comfortable," Jon admits to Maester Samwell the night before his leaving, "if I could wear black always."

"Well," replies Sam, "black always did suit you best. I cannot remember if I have ever seen you in another color." He grins as the keep's raven- once Mormont's and now Sam's- perches on Jon's shoulder to nip at Jon's hair affectionately. Jon chuckles. "But it hardly fits that a commander of crows should be a commander of white knights. Are you sure about this Jon?"

"Jon," the bird caws. "Jon, Jon."

Jon lifts a finger to trail over the black plumage of the bird on his shoulder. "I am sure."

"Sure, sure."

Sam huffs and holds out his arm to take the raven, and replaces the ominous bird back on his usual perch. After a hesitant moment, the maester says, "You are doing this for her, aren't you, Jon?"

Jon remains quiet. He cannot lie to his old friend, his brother-at-arms. Sam grasps his shoulder, and says, "Jon Snow, if you are doing this for her, to protect her, then there is no black and white here. Just grey. There is grey of all shades, the maesters of the Citadel told me. Your honor and love have the same motivation."

"Jon Snow, the former nine-hundredth ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, presents himself to Queen Daenerys Targaryen, rightful Queen of Westeros, Stormborn and khaleesi, Mother of Dragons, and King consorts Quentyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, and Victarion of House Greyjoy, Commander of the Iron Fleet of the Iron Islands."

Missandei's sweet, high voice, accented with intonations of the east, is oddly reassuring to Jon.

Ghost is beside him as Jon enters the courtyard, under the open sky, where the all the Gods may see and hear. Even at high noon, the morning is chill, and fresh snow falls in soft, lazy swirls onto the tiled stones beneath his feet. He is still in his blacks, having arrived not moments before. "My Queen," Jon slips onto one knee smoothly before Daenerys and her court, all seven of her Queensguard present amongst them. Ghost comes to a heel beside him, the albino direwolf's presence a comforting one.

"Former Lord Commander Jon Snow, your black brothers have voted to renounce your claim as the nine-hundredth ninety-eighth commander of the Wall. We received these tidings, and sent for you immediately. Have you also renounced your vows, or do you remain a Sworn Brother?"

"I am a Sworn Brother still, but by honor alone. However, I have agreed at the behest of the Night's Watch to abdicate leadership, and have voted to install another suitable candidate in my place, my Queen. I was summoned thereafter, so I do not know who was elected as Lord Commander." Jon suspects Cotter Pyke now has the command, but there is no sense in giving anything but assurances to the Queen. Besides, they will hear of it soon enough.

"Then we pray that the nine hundredth ninety-ninth Lord Commander, whomever has been named, will be as noble and true to his duty as you have been, Jon Snow."

"My Queen." Jon bows his head lower. He dares not look up, knowing that to do so he will see Dany, not the Queen. To her left sits Quentyn, and to her right Victarion, and he feels it would not be wise to glance up lest they see Dany, and only Dany, reflected in his eyes.

"You have protected the realm, dutifully and with valor beyond measure." Daenerys continues, her voice resounding, "Without you there would have been no warning of the Others. Without your command, Westeros would have fallen not a year into this long winter. We are grateful to you, and wish to bestow a gift upon your person." Daenerys pauses, to draw out the suspense of those assembled. They wait on baited breath appropriately.

But Jon can also sense Dany's eager anticipation, burning brightly as his own; he can even hear her catch her breath to ask the question, though he stands well away from the last Targaryen.

And here it is, Jon knows. Here it is, and I will be made to wear white instead of black. But it is all the same, except that I do this for her.

"We would have you knighted, and made Lord Commander of the Queensguard, to serve our person in entirety, and thus the realm in its entirety, for the rest of your years until death. What say you, Jon Snow?"

There is no black and white. Sam's words reverberate through Jon's mind. Just grey.

Stark grey, Jon decides. Stark grey and white, and Targaryen black. Night's Watch black, and now the white of the Queensguard. I think the sum of it is certainly grey, when it's all mixed and jumbled.

He realizes all is quiet because she awaits his answer, to be declared before them all. The former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, still a bastard, coming to Daenerys a black crow, will be made a knight, and a white wolf in the face of a long winter, as Lord Commander of her Queensguard.

His words will be binding. But he will say them for her, because she needs him to say the words, and hear that he will place her above all others.

And later, she will tell him again, that she is his.

I do not love them as I love you, Jon Targaryen.

"Your gift would honor me beyond all measure, my Queen. I will take the vows."

My sword is yours, my life is yours. And now, now I am all yours, too.

End

Comments and reviews are much welcome!