"I need to get back at him."

The words are nearly a whisper, but she knows he hears her. She knows that she stands in front of him like an open book, and the fact that he can read everyone the way he reads her isn't as comforting as it should be. He has that way about him that always makes her feel as if she's bound to do something sinful. It's because, she's already figured out, she'll never know him, or who he is, or what he means when he offers her words of wisdom. And yet here she stands in front of him, her entire life story written in mascara cascading off her face.

"Come in."

It's been two years since the fight, two years since she's seen her family, two years since she searched for refuge on Jaqen's doorstep, and there he is. All dark and handsome and look at that hair, eyes glinting godlike, sweeping across the room. Still a few inches taller than she is, but not as fine posture as he might've had years ago. He's slouched.

"Arya," is the word her ear receives, the sender of the message standing almost atop her. She doesn't flinch, but she doesn't respond. His breathing clouds her senses, his hair mingles with hers. They stand back to back, but neither is concerned with anyone else in the room.

Almost.

"Don't call me that," she bites, her eyes traveling millimeter by millimeter as her victim strides across the crowded room.

"Whatever you say, Jack," he growls at her and she smirks, feeling his shoulder blades push against hers. "Your wish is my command."

"Then get out of my personal bubble, Jack," she snaps, but it isn't harsh, and they both know she doesn't mean it.

She tells him she doesn't want to be Arya Stark anymore, and he tells her he can fix that.

"Who do you want to be?" His voice is light, as of he doesn't care if she's serious or not, and it kills her. "Rich and famous? Poor and lonely?" She feels like he's mocking her, and his voice is scathing in the most sympathetic of ways. "A glamorous A-lister who's taken a turn for the worst? A killer on the lam, maybe? That would suit you well."

"Stop being funny," she commands, but neither of them are laughing. "I came to you for help."

"You should be able to handle yourself," he informs her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're a wolf girl."

"Not anymore," she almost shouts, rage shaking her fingers, trying to believe it herself. "I'm more than a wolf."

"That's right," he confirms smoothly, but she catches the glint of amusement in his eye before he continues. "You're a coyote now, girl."

"Why won't you take me seriously -"

"A hyena, perhaps. You've certainly got the snarl down."

"You're not helping Jaqen -"

"Ah," he proclaims with such an epiphanic gesture that she stops in her tracks, "I've got it. A jackal." It fits, she realizes, and despite the circumstances she feels a smirk growing on her face. It's a wolf but not, skinny and catlike, bony and fierce, and ugly as hell. The lone wolf dies while the pack survives, but she's the only jackal out there.

"You'll sleep in my room. I pray you aren't picky about privacy, Jack." His mouth settles into a mocking grin as the name slides off his lips, and she scoffs. Jaqen. She should be calling him Jack.

"No worries, Jack," she tells him, smirking as she leads the way into the bedroom. "I'm sure there's room enough for both of us."

"Oh, I don't vote, actually. But I definitely agreed with his policies, even if his tax cut was outrageous."

The bastard didn't recognize her, and now she was stuck here making small talk with him as Jaqen triumphantly sniggered from his vantage point by the player piano.

"I completely agree," he told her, but she wasn't listening and he could tell. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again?"

"I didn't," she replies too sweetly, feeling like a trophy wife without a husband. She sticks out a hand for his eventual shake. "My name's Jack."

Behind him, her companion almost spits out his champagne, and the temptation to let her mouth curl into a smug grin is overwhelming.

"That's a unique name, Jack," she hears, not quite listening because Jaqen is pouting at her, and the strong hand now gripping her own doesn't seem to be that important anymore. "I'm Jon."

"I know," she replies, because it's true, and it's only then that she snaps out of her reverie and looks back up at Jon. He's eyeing her confusedly. She gives him five seconds. She sees Jaqen's flailing movements out of the corner of her eye, fingertips faux-slashing his neck. Abort mission! he hisses in the confines of her mind. Get the fuck out of there! And that she does, but as she pushes into the cold night air she hears a strangled cry of "Arya!" before assuming a brisk walk away.

"You blew it."

"I know."

They lay side by side in what she still calls his bed, regardless of that they've shared it for the past two years.

"Maybe not."

"Optimism never suited you, Jack. Don't lie to yourself, and don't lie to me. I blew it."

"Dammit, Arya, you fucking blew it."

She hates how with the lights off in here, her eyes have adjusted to the dark and everything she sees is in shades of grey.

"You didn't blow it." He says it with such sincerity that she's taken aback.

"Please, enlighten me. How did I not blow it? He knows who I am. It's over."

"No," he argues, and the pillow under her rustles as he shakes his head. "We simply can't be done. There's a loophole. I'm just waiting for you to figure it out, so we can get on with our lives."

It's almost as if him saying that flicks a switch in her head. She knows Jon. She knows him, really, truly.

"When Jon was sixteen," she begins as Jaqen waits with baited breath, "that was right after Dad died, you know - he started to have these nightmares. It was always either Robb or me, or sometimes Bran, being eaten by wolves."

"Wow," Jaqen replies drily. "How fascinating.

"Shut up," she commands, slapping his chest and leaving her hand there. "Anyway, they had to start putting him on meds, because he started seeing them while he was awake. You know, hallucinations. He'll convince himself he forgot to take his meds, and he only just imagined me."

She rolls over, eyes trailing Jaqen's body as he props himself up on his elbows, a grin spread across his face. "A girl is genius."

She hates it when he does that. "I hate it when you do that."

"Listen to me," he dictates, and his eyes clash with hers as she lets her voice fall. "Jon has, for all intents and purposes, hallucinated seeing you this very night. Or, he has had a premonition. Tomorrow is the perfect time. A girl is a genius, I meant it, Jack. Tomorrow Arya Stark dies."

She sucks in a deep breath. "Jack." She's sure he hears her over the howling winds. He's transfixed, eyes focused upon the ground so far below them. Too still. Air whistles into her ears, and his voice isn't a part of it. They have minutes, seconds, until the white lights appear and the train comes rolling in. "Jack, I'm not going to do this."

"You have no other choice," he points out definitively, and she realizes his hands are shaking when he almost drops the girl. The body, she reminds herself, forcing her breaths to steady.

"I do have a choice," she counters, and she sees shock register on his face as she acts more defiant than she has in years. "I can go. Walk away right now, and forget everything. Go back to my family. Become Arya Stark again. You can return this girl to the morgue and she can have a proper burial. Arya Stark doesn't have to die. Arya Stark never has to die." She's shivering and clutches her arms against herself in an effort not only to warm herself but to give herself comfort. When she finishes, it's in almost a whisper, and no longer is it Jack, but Arya Stark who decides her fate.

"I could leave you."

She doesn't know if she could.

He's stepped forward at some point and she's shrunk back, so when he whips around she feels small. She watches a lifeless girl with Stark coloring clatter onto the tracks out of her periphery vision, for her eyes are trained on his and she doesn't seem to be able to move them.

She doesn't register it when she feels him on her lips, she only processes the heat in the middle of the freezing winter winds, the eye of the storm. It takes her at least seven and a half seconds to realize that he's actually, properly kissing her, and she gives herself a moment to be surprised before realizing he's not letting up any time soon, fingers bruising her hips, pinching her scary hard. She finally finds it in her to reciprocate, pushing her body up against his because it will never be enough, gripping his hair between her frozen fingers, knowing neither of them will ever be satisfied.

But it's over before it started - it's been six minutes, actually, but for her it's barely even begun - and he lets her go and she clings to him, lips grasping to his as he fights his way away, gripping his shoulders, until he hoarsely whispers, "Enough." So she pulls away hastily, meets his eye, nods once, and turns back the way she came.

She's left as Arya Stark wondering what that last kiss meant, and settles upon the idea that it means nothing, at least not to Arya Stark. She doubts it would have meant anything to Jack either. It didn't matter.

If that didn't matter, she wondered what did.

There is no ending between you and me.