Jon never thought he'd be back here, yet he is. It's a large tent, and Dany has set it up the way it used to be. Tapestries, generals, maps, all the same. The only thing changed now is that the Queen is not here, but in King's Landing.

Come quickly, Dany's letter had said, Aegon has risen and tried to steal my throne, Jon. I need you here, as my general. You understand, don't you? I am the queen now. I must stay in King's Landing. If I leave, Aegon has won. Come as fast as you can. Sansa can keep the North.

Sansa had looked at him, her face unreadable when she'd grabbed the letter and read the words aloud. "My Lord, you must go," she'd whispered.

Jon hopes he's left a child in her. He knows how much Sansa wants children, even if she doesn't want him. If he dies without an heir, so does Dany.

For some reason, he misses Sansa. She's occupying much of his free thoughts (little as they are) as he eats, as he sleeps on the rough ground and right before he enters battle. Every time he rides into a fight, with Ghost at his side, he feels as though this might be his last battle, like mayhaps he should have sent another letter to his wife.

He doesn't love her. But he thinks he can, and that is enough to make him want to return to her.

Sansa occupies his free thoughts. More often, though, he is thinking of the waging war.

The North is secure from Aegon, Jon knows, and so are the Eyrie and the Riverlands, loyal to Sansa and in turn loyal to the Queen. The stormlands are Aegon's though, and so is Dorne. Daario Naharis and the Unsullied take to Dorne and Jon and his army set for the Stormlands.

Sansa weeps when she sees her moon's blood.

I failed. The only job I was given I have failed.

Jon is fighting for the realm and Sansa's fould mood permeates the castle for a week after he has left, from the day he leaves to the day her moon's blood comes. Only then does she take herself in hand, open the doors to Jon's chambers, and breathe in his scent.

He is gone, to fight for the thrones and play the game once more. But I will keep the North for him.

She walks to his wardrobe and picks out a shirt. It smells like him, woodsy and heady and as if he's just taken it off after a day of listening to petitions. Over the month after the queen's visit, Sansa has grown familiar with his smell.

It is past midnight when Sansa settles in Jon's bed, wearing his shirt and nothing else, and trying to sleep.

She can't. She is too busy worrying.

Her mother once said that the woman always waited. For her man. Sansa's never understood why she must wait, what fear there is in the waiting. But now she knows.

She gets up, cinches her robe, and resolves to stop moping and be the Lady of Winterfell. A lady Jon will be proud of. One that he could- nay, that he will love.

And then she will tell him that she loves him as well.

Jon's armor is heavy with gore and another man's blood when he gets the letter.

I am sorry. I am not with child.

He should have expected it. They'd only started trying a short while ago. Still, he'd hoped.

I pray for you, My Lord. Jon, be careful. I shall be dreadfully angry with you if you die.

Jon grins absently, reading the page.

"What's so funny?"

Jon turns, and there is Arya, flicking blood off her own sword. She has a proper one now, named Nymeria, but fights with Needle tucked on her sword belt. During the battle, Jon remembers seeing her poke a man with Needle, right in the neck. The evidence is all over her armor, blood and guts staining the steel plates, but Jon just feels relief. His sister-cousin is alive.

"Oh, just your sister telling me that she's angry with me."

Arya scoffs. "Oi, she's got no right. You're the one fighting for her safety, ain't you?" Then, in a softer tone, "How is Sansa?"

Jon slides his sword belt off so he can see the letters on his desk better. "She sounds fine, Arya. Not pregnant, though."

Arya clicks her tongue. "Well then, you weren't trying hard enough, I'd say."

Jon missed Arya while he was in Winterfell. She lives in the Reach now, and although Jon hasn't made her say it yet, he knows that it has something to do with a boy named Gendry who's settled as the blacksmith for the Tyrells. Sansa's name is a sore point between them, and Jon knows she disapproves.

"You should write her, little sister. She misses you."

Arya scoffs, "Right."

Jon shrugs out of his armor finally, and asks his squire to fetch him some blank paper, so he can write to his wife.

Dany should have known Aegon would find out about it.

He was raving mad. He would have accepted anything else so long as he was king. But he couldn't have accepted this.

Dany sends her bedwarmers away before she allows herself to cry.

Jon's letter is crumpled in her hand. I am queen, she thinks, and I must make the hard choices. I did this for the good of the realm.

True, she could have married off Sansa Stark to Aegon instead, but that meant that her heir would be Aegon's son. She wouldn't allow that. From the moment she met Jon Snow, she knew that he would be the father of her heirs.

Even if that meant she couldn't have him.

Dany cried, under the light of the same moon that shone on both her nephews, Jon writing diligently to his wife and Aegon plotting his revenge. She cried because Sansa Stark had her love, and she didn't even want it.

Dany was a wreck when she came back from Winterfell. She should have known Aegon would find out about her feelings.

Jon comes home from battle a year after it starts, and his family has become smaller once more. Aegon, his laughing brother, his beautiful brother, dead, and once more Jon is still alive.

He is so far in his gloom that he hardly notices Winterfell until he is almost upon it.

Sansa is beautiful, as ever, and smiling at him. He does not love her, but he thinks he can.

He bows to her as soon as he gets off his horse. "My lady," he says gravely.

Her smile tastes like lemon cakes.

Sansa kisses Jon when he comes to her chambers, softly and on the cheek. "I have missed you My Lord."

He is weary and tired and hardly notices that he has reached for her, embracing her tightly, until she is already in his arms and shaking. She is not crying exactly, but rather relieved that he is alive and in her arms.

"And I you, My Lady."

He kisses her slowly, learning her again. She has undone her hair for him, and it is a curtain over them as he lays on the bed and she sits on him, kissing him. He opens her eyes, and they stare at one another for a long moment.

It's dark, but they can see one another.

Finally.

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