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ALTERED FATE
Chapter One

JON

Jon Snow stalked down the corridor towards Daenerys' chambers. He was still deeply troubled by the fiery execution of Varys. The man was a traitor, but watching him burn to death without so much as a cry of pain was disturbing. But it was the tone in which Dany had spoken when ordering his death that bothered him the most. Since he had met her, there was always passion behind her words. But not then. She sounded cold. Empty. Lonely. Without hope. He had to talk to her. To reassure her that in spite of the dark place she was in, that there would again be light. But not if she went through with her plan to destroy King's Landing.

As he entered her chambers, Gray Worm turned to face him, clasping his hands behind his back. The expression on his face was one of distrust. The Queen said something to him in Valyrian, and the Unsullied left the room.

They looked at each other intently for a long moment, and then Daenerys broke the silence. "What did I say would happen if you told your sister?"

"I don't want it," he responded without delay. "And that's what I told him."

"She betrayed your trust," Daenerys countered. "She killed Varys as much as I did. This is a victory for her. But now she knows what happens when people hear the truth about you.

Jon looked away. He wished that he had never told her about his true heritage. In fact, he wished that he had never learned of it himself.

"Far more people in Westeros love you than love me," Dany said, her tone still displaying no emotion. "I don't have love here. I only have fear."

Jon looked back at her, not sure what to say. He had to say something. Anything to bring some measure of hope back to the woman he had bent the knee to, out of both love and for the sake of the North. "I love you," he managed, though the words sounded hollow. "You will always be my queen," he added, hoping that reinforcement of his loyalty and devotion would add strength to his statement.

Daenerys stood and closed the distance between them, standing right in front of Jon, here eyes staring directly into his. "Is that all I am to you," she asked, with a tender smile on her face. "Your Queen," she inquired with a whisper, as she leaned in to kiss him.

Jon felt revulsion as her lips met his. Not because of what she had done, or what she was planning to do. But for the simple fact that she was his aunt. He had thought about this a lot, and the more he did, the more it turned his stomach. He knew that incest was common among Targaryans, but he had been raised as a Stark of the North, and in the North, it was an unacceptable practice.

He was about to pull away when a voice exploded in his head. Love her!

It was Bran's voice. Clear and unmistakable. You must love her, or a disaster will befall her.

He felt undeniable truth behind those words. And it terrified him. In an instant id dawned on him that if felt unloved by him, even after just saying that he loved her, that it would be yet another betrayal. And the gods only knew what that might push her to do.

Dany pulled away and looked at Jon coldly. She was about to open her mouth to speak, but was silenced as his lips crushed against hers. His arms were around her and she melted into his embrace. She had felt dead a moment before, but now she felt more alive than ever. And after a few more moments, they were stripping each others clothes off and then proceeded to make love, right there on the floor.

When they were done, they lay there holding each other. And again, it was Dany who broke the silence.

"I don't want to be feared," she said, her voice quavering.

Jon reached over and stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

"Then be merciful," he said, and immediately regretted it.

"Merciful," she said. "After what Cersei did? I tried to make peace with her, but she refused. She woke the dragon. She deserves fire and blood."

Jon nodded. They were both sitting up now. "She does."

Dany released some of her defensiveness, and Jon continued.

"But the people don't." He met her eyes directly. "If you go forward with your plan, innocent people are going to die. Men. Women. And children."

Her eyes widened for a moment before she squeezed them shut against the memory of horrors she had seen. Children crucified on mile markers on the road to Mereen, their dead eyes staring with fear and agony. The charred remains of a little girl that Drogon had burned to death while hunting livestock. Her father had not blamed her, but that did not assuage his pain of loss. And there was nothing she could do to fix what had happened. Jon was right. If she took King's Landing with fire and blood, she would be responsible for the death of children. And only one sort of ruler reigned with that sort of blood on hus or her hands: a tyrant.

She sighed and opened her eyes again. "I cannot become the very thing I have sworn to destroy." Tears leaked from her eyes,

Jon reached over with both hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. "Then don't."

She placed her hands on his and smiled at him. Here, like this, with Jon, her rage was pushed back into the recesses of her mind. She no longer could blame him for telling those he thought of as family the truth. In all honesty, had their roles been reversed, she would not have kept those she loved in the dark. It was unfair to ask it of him.

Her smile melted away as another thought came to her. "Sansa is going to be a problem."

Jon blinked. "She doesn't have to be."

Dany's tone took on a cold edge. "She looked me in the eye and told me she would not bend the knee."

Jon thought for a moment and then smiled.

The expression on his face piqued the Queen's curiosity. "What is it?"

"I just remembered a conversation I had with Tyrion shortly after Theon Greyjoy arrived on Dragonstone," he said. "He explained the nature of the Ironborn alliance with you. You granted the Iron Islands independence on the condition that they acknowledge you as the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

Dany saw where he was going. "Yes, but they bent the knee."

Jon nodded. "Yes, but they knew that once you took the throne, you would honor your agreement. They knew that would not be dominated."

"The North is not just a tiny collection of islands, though." She said, standing up and gathering her clothes. "It makes up a very large part of the Crown's territory."

"With exactly what on it," He asked.

Daenerys looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"There aren't even proper towns in the north," he continued. "Just a scattering of holdfasts serving as centerpoints for common people just trying to live their lives apart from all the chaos to the south."

Dany shook her head as Jon began putting his own clothes back on. "The Vale is loyal to Sansa, and from what I am told, their fighting men decimated Ramsey Bolton's army. I would be a fool to leave such a powerful fighting force in the hands of a foreign power."

Jon stared at her for a long moment as he struggled with himself. "Very well," he said with a sigh. "I will give you the solution to this problem. I will embrace my Targaryan herritage and return to my role as King in the North. The independent north."

Dany frowned. "I came to rule seven kingdoms," she said coldly. "Not six."

"What is the alternative," he asled. "You defeat Cersei, take Kings Landing, and then march on the North? How many will die as a result?"

"No-one in the North need die," she said. "Let the lords and ladies bend the knee, and I will harbor no ill will towards any of them."

Jon laughed. "That's your problem right there," he said, meeting her eyes again.

"What do you mean," she asked.

"You talk about how nobody loves you this side of the narrow sea," he said, shaking his head.
In Essos, how many of those who became your subjects were made to bend the knee?"

Her eyes widened with realization. "None," she said.

"Right," he said. "Missande told me once that if she asked to leave your service and return home, that you would let her without question. And Tyrion told me that the first thing you did with the Unsullied, after having them kill the masters, was to give them the freedom to choose between fighting for you as free men, and going their own way as free men."

Dany looked away. Her nephew was making too much sense for her comfort.

"You have given everyone else a choice," he continued, "but after crossing the Narrow Sea, all anyone hears from you is 'Bend the knee or else.'"

"What am I supposed to do," she demanded. "Let the lords and ladies of Westeros run roughshod over me?"

"No," Jon said. "But you don't need to run roughshod over them, either."

"I'm the queen," she said. "They need to know it."

He smiled at her, "As if you sitting on the Iron Throne wearing the Dragon Crown, with a real live dragon flying over the Red Keep won't tell them that?"

She couldn't help but smile as well.

"Look, Dany," Jon said. "These lords and ladies of Westeros, especially those in the North are a stubborn lot. The more you throw your weight around with them, the more they will dig in and resist. If you rain down fire upon them, or put them to death, the only message you will send to the rest of the realm is that you are yet another tyrant who needs to be removed from the throne."

That made her very uncomfortable. But she was thinking clearer now than she had been since leaving Winterfell. "Drogon is all I have left," she said. "The Night King killed Vyserion. Euron killed Rhaegal. If the houses of Westeros were to rise in rebellion, Drogon may turn many of their armies to ash, but every day the war would rage would give the rest a chance to produce scorpions of their own, and all they will need is one good shot. Then all of my children would be dead."

They had both finished dressing. And were standing in silence, facing each other.

"I need to get to the trone room," Dany said at last. "The war council is meeting to plan the attack on King's Landing. I want you to join me."