Full Summary: In the aftermath of the battle beyond the Wall, Daenerys buries the pain of Viserion's loss beneath every last defense mechanism she possesses. With the threat of war brewing on two fronts, the Queen does not have the luxury of indulging her grief. But as the shock begins to dissipate and the distractions wear thin, she finds the iron grasp on her control beginning to slip. The night, after all, is dark and full of terrors. Fortunately, an old friend has been keeping a watchful eye on her - one who knows better than to believe her pretense of cool detachment.

A/N: Hello guys! I originally put this story on AO3, and decided (probably against my better judgment) to post it here too, for those of you who don't read fic in both places. Because there are no tags on this site and the summary box is limited, let me be absolutely, 100% transparent... This story is Dany and Jorah centric. Notice how I put that in bold so no one can claim that I was not abundantly clear about this from the beginning. ;) I always believed, as many of us do, that if she were to ever open up about her grief with anyone, it would be with the man who had been with her since the day the dragons were born.

Disclaimer: I don't own Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire. Just playing in the creators' sandbox. I would very much like to give Dave and Dan the benefit of the doubt and assume that they purposely chose not to show Daenerys having any kind of grief response in season 7 because they need to save it for when she sees Zombie!Viserion next season? But that's the joy of missing scene fics. I have no time constraints, you see - if they're not gonna write it, I'll take one for the team. ;)

I cannot begin to thank sunshine and lollipops enough for her beta-reading services. Girl knows what's up, y'all. You're a wonderful sounding board and I appreciate your insight so much.

Daenerys drifted through the morning in a haze of shock. She remembered very little of it, afterwards.

At some point she was vaguely aware that she must have made it back to the Wall, for she knew that she had been standing at the top of it when a horn blast signaled Jon's return. She must have given the order for the men to take him aboard her ship, for the captain to embark at once for Dragonstone, but she didn't recall saying the words. There was a strange dissonance to her thoughts, fading in and out in a kaleidoscope of consciousness, images, sounds. She felt herself move, heard herself speak as though she were somehow detached from her body. Adrift somewhere. Like a dream.

She had gravitated to Jon, knowing only that she needed – desperately, viscerally needed – to watch him breathe. She had stared for hours at the stab wounds along his chest and stomach, watching his ribcage rise and fall. It hadn't been a figure of speech, a flight of Northern fancy. He had literally taken a knife to the heart – several knives, each of them a death sentence – and somehow managed to walk away. Just as he had plunged through a sheet of ice into the depths of a lake, swarmed by an army of corpses, and somehow reappeared at the Wall several hours later, frozen through, but breathing.

She needed him to survive. It was the only thought that permeated the fog of her mind. She sat there all morning waiting for him to open his eyes, praying to every god in the universe that they would still be brown.

And gods, how his brown eyes had ached with apology the moment they opened on her face. She couldn't… she'd shaken her head, unable to even begin to process the loss he meant to console. Instead, she steeled herself with promises of vengeance, alliance; fire and blood. He'd reached for her hand, undeterred, holding her gaze with such tenderness that it made her want to weep. He called her Dany. Dany. She'd laughed at the absurdity. Dany had been a child, cowering as her brother grabbed fistfuls of her hair and pinned her to the floor, screaming inches from her face, his elbows digging into her ribs until she couldn't breathe.

Dany.

Perhaps it was the conjuring of that old childhood name. Perhaps it was the shock beginning to wear off. Perhaps it was the words he chose to profess his faith in her, gently peeling back the layers of her composure to reveal the vulnerable young woman who hid beneath a Queen's façade. Whatever the reason, Daenerys stared down into his eyes and felt herself beginning to break.

Too late, she withdrew and suggested he should get some rest.

At first, she wasn't fully conscious of the volcanic pain building in her chest. It had lingered all morning, little more than a hollow ache at the periphery of her mind. She'd smothered it in favor of the more immediate matter at hand; Jon's miraculous survival offered a much-needed distraction, a focal point on which to direct her attention. Without it, there was nothing left to stop her living nightmare from bleeding through the rapidly dissipating haze of shock. Alone for the first time that day, Daenerys locked herself in her private quarters and pressed a shaking hand to her diaphragm, feeling suddenly that there wasn't enough air.

The memories came back in fragments, streaking across her mind's eye like forks of lightning.

Snarling, gnashing teeth.

A flaming sword.

Rotting grey flesh hanging from a horse's face.

Jon's voice, screaming at her to go.

Blood, everywhere… blood in the water, blood on the ice, blood pouring like a waterfall from the sky…

Her mind shut off, then.

It was an old instinct, nearly as old as Daenerys herself. Some of her earliest memories were of cowering beneath her brother's maniacal rage, having made some innocuous mistake that triggered a violent outburst — "waking the dragon," he called it. Any struggle, any attempt to plead or scream or fight back only served to reward him. Viserys took sick pleasure in seeing her writhe. The quickest way to end it was to shut down, to disconnect completely. With time, it became one of the more effective and well-used tools in her arsenal. It allowed her to stare into the pale, decomposing faces of one hundred and sixty-three crucified children without shedding a single tear; to stand glassy-eyed as the person she trusted most in the world confessed his treason; to unflinchingly burn proud old noblemen and frightened boy soldiers by the thousands.

Daenerys lowered herself onto the edge of her bed, her eyes empty, and told herself that this time was no different. If anything, the morning's catastrophic loss required an even tighter rein on her control than ever before. Cerebrally, logically, she knew what it meant that the Dragon Queen had lost a third of her force in one fell swoop. Her image as a conqueror would suffer irreparable damage. No one had known – she had not known – that the dragons were mortally vulnerable. It would not be long before that fact became common knowledge. She had no doubt that upon learning it, Cersei would immediately set to work trying to devise a method to annihilate the remaining two.

There were plans to be made, ravens to be sent. Tyrion needed to be updated on their success in capturing the wight so that he could make arrangements for the parley in King's Landing, while Grey Worm and Qhono awaited her command to march on the capital. Daenerys intended to arrive with the full might of her armies behind her. The mobilization of tens of thousands of troops over an entire continent was no small feat to organize. There was plenty to distract her, plenty to keep her occupied. She went to her desk and began to draft plans and letters, throwing herself into her work.

Only once, when the telltale swoop of wings dove over the ship, did her penmanship falter. She blinked – once, twice – as Drogon cried out, his voice hoarse and ragged with pain. She held stone still for a moment, waiting for an answering cry. She gripped her quill until her hand cramped, and a quivering black ink blot dripped onto her paper. When nothing but silence followed, she stoically crumpled the parchment in a fist and swept it aside.

Rhaegal had not been with them when they touched down at Eastwatch. That was one thing she did remember, through the haze of the morning: staring desolately out at the sky from the top of the Wall, waiting for him to return. She had come North with all three of her children. Only one remained with her, circling overhead, crying out for his brothers. Every fiber of her being had resisted leaving without the other two – a mother does not flee without her children –but Ser Jorah had come to fetch her, promising that Tormund would send word as soon as his men spotted any sign of "the green one."

That had been hours ago.

The whole ship had been blanketed in an eerie, uncomfortable silence since they set sail from Eastwatch. As she worked through the afternoon, Daenerys was acutely aware of the footfalls edging past her door, the insistent shushes whenever anyone raised their voice above a whisper. Her traveling companions were treading on eggshells, taking great pains not to disturb her.

It was early evening before the first murmurs of conversation reached her ears, and this despite the speakers' best intentions. It wasn't their fault that the old wooden walls of the ship did so little to dull the passage of sound. Ser Davos had taken the band of survivors aside, trying to ascertain exactly what had happened beyond the Wall. The young man called Gendry seemed to be the only one willing to engage him in conversation; he spoke enthusiastically at great lengths about a twelve-foot, undead polar bear before taking over the line of questioning himself, turning to grill his fellow expeditioners for details of the battle he was crestfallen to have missed. His efforts earned him, at best, a few gruff answers from Jon, glowering silence from Jorah, and vulgar insults from Sandor Clegane. After a while Daenerys began to tune out his youthful exuberance in favor of the more pressing matters at hand, until one phrase in particular caused her breath to hitch in her chest:

"A full-grown dragon? Seven Hells, what kind of weapon could take down a beast like that?"

A chorus of hisses followed, hushing the young man violently. Someone must have cuffed him upside the head, for he let out a yelp of pain. A few harsh whispers passed back and forth between the men, none of which she could make out, before the clang of an old copper bell rang out, interrupting them.

Daenerys froze for a moment before recognition set in. She hadn't been thinking… but of course, it was nearly sundown. The cook would have prepared the evening meal for her and her distinguished guests. The very thought of food soured her stomach and brought the iron taste of ashes to her mouth, but a failure to present herself for supper would not be so easily dismissed as an afternoon spent holed up with her work. She was out of excuses; if she hid out any longer, it could only be construed as a sign of weakness.

With a sigh of resignation, she finalized the last sentence of the letter she'd been working on, signed her name, and sealed the parchment with her official crest. She set it aside quickly, her eyes glazing over at the image of the three-headed dragon burned into the red wax.

A lie, now, she mused darkly. Perhaps all of it was. Her visions, her magic. Perhaps she'd been a fool to believe any of it in the first place.

Daenerys closed her eyes, drew in a long, deep breath, and rose to her feet. When she opened them again, she made sure that the Queen's gaze was iced firmly in place.

The men turned to face her the moment her door opened, dipping their heads respectfully. Most of them at least had the good grace to look ashamed of themselves. Daenerys strode past them with long, confident strides, and they followed after her single-file into the small dining hall adjacent to the ship's galley. A long oak table filled nearly the entire space, elegantly dressed with fine silver, candelabras, and heaping platters of food. A veritable feast had been laid out before them: chicken, goose and trout, parsnip pies, boiled cabbage, baked apples with cinnamon, a spread of various cheeses, and good brown bread. Somewhere behind her, one of the men's stomachs growled.

Ser Jorah wove his way through the small gathering to pull her chair back for her, and tuck it back in once she was seated. She didn't so much as glance at him. There was a cacophony of sound as the rest of her companions seated themselves, in turn, around the table – the scrape of chairs, the rustle of cloaks, a few coughs – and then pin-drop silence. Daenerys felt the burn of half a dozen gazes on her face as she poured herself a glass of red wine and lifted it to the group.

"To your health, my lords," she toasted, in the deep, authoritative tone she bore as the Queen. "Thanks to you, we now have irrefutable evidence to present to Cersei. We can only hope that your efforts will be rewarded with a truce, once she looks upon the face of our common enemy." She shifted her gaze to Jon, needing to prove that she could still look him unflinchingly in the eye. She stared at him evenly as she reiterated her promise to him for the rest of the group. "Today I saw for myself where the true battle for Westeros lies. I need no further convincing. I want you all to know that regardless of the outcome in King's Landing, it will be my honor to continue to fight alongside you in the Great War to come."

She completed the toast with a sip of wine, and the rest of the men followed suit. Jon gave her a subtle, appreciative nod before raising his voice in his official capacity. "I'm glad to hear it, Your Grace. We certainly welcome the help."

"Aye," said Ser Davos, his tone pleasantly surprised. "I'd say that's the best news we've had in weeks. If there's any chance of us actually winning this war, we'll need you on our side. We witnessed that much for ourselves today."

Daenerys nodded. A muscle in her neck twitched. Anxious to redirect the conversation, she gestured to the platters of food in front of them. "There's no need to stand on ceremony, my lords. Please, help yourselves."

The men didn't need to be told twice. Before she had even finished the sentence, Sandor Clegane had taken hold of the roast chicken in front of him, ripped the carcass in half with his bare hands, and begun shoveling it into his mouth. The others showed a bit more decorum, but were no less ravenous; they filled their plates to the brim and tucked in like the starving men they were. It had been days since they'd had a solid meal, and they had fought long and hard on empty bellies. Thankfully, they were too distracted by the banquet to make any further attempts at conversation beyond murmurs of appreciation for the food.

Daenerys served herself a small portion of fish from the platter in front of her, which she proceeded to pick at idly with her fork. To keep up appearances, she nibbled at a crust of bread, but blanched as the bitter taste of ashes filled her mouth again. She forced herself to swallow the bite, but didn't make the mistake of trying another. The wine, on the other hand… she poured herself a second, rather generous glass of the Dornish vintage.

"Have we received any ravens this afternoon?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral. Her companions looked to one another, each shaking their heads.

"No, Your Grace," said Ser Davos, who had apparently assumed the role of speaking for the group. "Not that I'm aware of." He tilted his head slightly. "Is there anything in particular we should be looking for?"

Hiding her tight throat behind a sip of wine, she lied, "No. Nothing in particular." Admitting to this battle-weary group of men that she was desperate for news of Rhaegal's whereabouts would only make her seem like a weak, fretful woman. They had already spent the day tiptoeing around her like she was a fragile porcelain doll; she didn't need to reinforce their perceptions. She returned to moving the food around her plate, and hoped the rest would follow suit.

All but one of them did.

Daenerys tried, and failed, to ignore Jorah's lingering stare across the table. She sat rod-straight, staring at nothing, focusing all her attention on keeping her features smooth and unreadable. It was a fool's errand, admittedly. There was no mask she could hide behind that his piercing blue eyes would not see through with a single glance. He knew her too well to believe her pretense of cool equanimity. The best she could do was avoid eye contact and sip at her wine while she tried to gauge just how long propriety required her to sit at the table before she could reasonably excuse herself. When Gendry sopped up the last bit of gravy from his plate and inquired about dessert, she decided that was her cue. She pushed back her chair with a screech of wood, and at once the men staggered to their feet, their mouths still full of food.

"I'm told the cook has prepared a wonderful blackberry pie," she announced, a bit too brightly. "Please, stay as long as you like. Eat and drink your fill. You have all earned it several times over. But if my lords will excuse me, I think I will take my leave and retire for the evening."

Jorah dropped his napkin over his plate and moved to follow her. "Allow me to escort you, Your Grace—"

"No," she snapped, more sharply than she intended. She quickly schooled her features back into neutrality, and waved a dismissive hand at him. "Thank you, Ser Jorah. I wouldn't wish to disrupt your meal. Please, stay and eat. I am more than capable of finding my way back to my room."

He'd always been terrible at hiding his disappointment. "As you wish, my Queen," he murmured, bowing his head submissively.

"I'll do my best to keep this lot in line, Your Grace," Ser Davos offered. He gave her a charming wink. "Won't have them kicking up a drunken ruckus and disturbing your royal slumber."

"I appreciate the effort, Ser," she told him. "But please don't hinder the festivities on my account. This may be the last feast these men will see for quite some time."

"That's good of you, Your Grace, but we'll keep the noise down just the same."

"As you will," Daenerys relented. She turned then and strode down the line of chairs, making for the door. Each of the men, in turn, bid her goodnight, and she nodded politely at them as she passed.

Jon was the last person seated at the table, and he spoke to her softly as she walked past him, "Sleep well, my Queen."

The timbre of his voice made her stride falter. Daenerys tightened her lips in what she hoped passed for a smile, while privately she thought, Not likely. She left the room in carefully measured steps, so as not to appear too eager to leave. Only once she was well out of eyesight of anyone in the dining hall did she pick up her hem and flee for the safety of her room. Inside, she pushed the cabin door shut behind her and latched it for good measure.

The silence that followed was deafening. Daenerys knew better than to linger idly in it, so she set at once to undressing and changing into her nightclothes. It was more difficult than it looked, without a handmaiden there to help. There seemed to be an endless number of hooks, buttons and laces holding her outfit together. When she finally unclasped the last of them, she dropped the whole ensemble to the floor and stepped gingerly out of it. She shivered in the night air as she drew a simple ivory silk shift from her nightstand and pulled it over her head. The wardrobe that had suited her well in temperate Meereen was proving to be wholly inadequate for the frigid Westerosi nights.

She climbed quickly into bed and pulled the heavy furs up to her chin. For a while she lay quiet, straining to hear the hushed conversations from the other side of the ship. Davos had kept his promise; she couldn't make out a single word. Giving up, she opened the drawer of her nightstand to find something to read. She had left her well-loved songs and histories of Westeros here, knowing that the only time she ever read for leisure any more was during her travels. Her fingers brushed thoughtfully over the faded leather bindings. Most of them she could recite from memory by now. She selected one of the dryer historical volumes tonight, and flipped cautiously through the yellowed pages, avoiding any passages on the Long Night or Targaryen conquest. After some consideration, she decided that the Andal Invasion proved safe enough, and she settled back against her pillows, her eyes drifting over each paragraph without processing a single word.

She had just skimmed the chapter detailing the fall of the Fingers when the shuffling of boots returned from the dining hall. Daenerys quickly snapped her book shut and leaned forward to blow out the candle on her nightstand, anxious to deter any visitors. Someone's footsteps approached her door, checking on her, and she held very still, barely breathing. Whoever it was must have decided she was asleep, for she heard nothing more from them. The sound of doors opening and shutting echoed along the corridor. A few minutes later, several of the men were snoring.

A slant of moonlight broke through the heavy cloud cover beyond her port window, illuminating the ribbon of grey smoke that rose from the extinguished candle wick. Something about the sight of it sent a cold chill down Daenerys's spine. Shivering, she turned over in bed and drew the furs tightly around her shoulders. She tried to convince herself that it had simply been a draft, but the cold tendrils of fear had already slithered through the cracks in her defenses and coiled in her chest like a vice.

There was something sinister, something inherently frightening about the dark. The longer she stared at the panels of the wall, the more she saw eyes in the knots of wood. Empty, soulless sockets. The faces of corpses. She squeezed her eyes shut and curled into a ball, pressing her fists to the galloping pulse in her throat. That was even worse; out of the darkness burst a cascade of blood and flame, hurtling down…

Daenerys flung the furs away from her and bolted upright in bed. She couldn't stay in this room any longer. She needed to move. She needed air. She needed out.

The wooden planks of the floor were like ice against her bare feet, but she didn't stop long enough to pull on her boots or a cloak. Her fingers fumbled on the latch to the door until it lifted with a metallic clank, then grabbed the iron knob and wrenched it open.

Her throat was closed with fright; she didn't even have the ability to scream as she stumbled forward over the body that sprawled across the opposite side of the threshold. A scarred hand reached up to grab and steady her as its owner staggered to his feet. In an instant of mortal terror, Daenerys was certain she was about to die – that the captive wight had somehow escaped its confinement and come for her.

Then a voice spoke out of the shadowed face before her, as familiar to her as her own. "Easy… easy. It's only me."