"I should like to speak to my uncle."

Rhaenys stared at him. "No."

"Rhae..."

"No, Aems. He had the opportunity to speak to you for years and he refused to tell you the truth. He let that awful woman torment you, made you feel like you had no true home and only ever half a family. I won't let him hurt you more!"

Jon's heart ached listening to her speak. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Rhaenys saw some of what he lived. But she seemed to have seen few of the good times. It was those times he was in danger in some way that the magic most responded to.

"And I would like to ask him why. I want to hear it from him, not just speculate."

"...What if the answer just makes it worse?"

He sighed, shoulders slumping. "Then at least I know."

When she walked away from him, he thought she might deny him. He technically outranked her, but none of their forces really acted like that. And pulling rank on his older sister, who was also going to be his wife in a few moons...well, he wasn't that big of a fool.

"You can speak to him, but I want a guard with you-Duck, we can trust him." Jon grimaced, imagining that every little thing that was said would be reported to Aegon as soon as they got back. "And you'll only have an hour, I'm not having you two talking all night so you're exhausted for the ride back."

With the meeting over, Rhaenys had made it clear they would start their return flight shortly after first light. Lord Stark had offered them rooms in Moat Cailin, but Rhaenys and the guards with them had immediately refused. The partial army settled around them hadn't even started packing up, wouldn't until they'd left and were therefore safe from any surprise attacks incoming.

Maybe it was from the expression on his face, but Rhaenys' own softened a little and she offered a small, sad smile. "You'll see him again when he comes to King's Landing for the wedding, little brother. This isn't the last time you'll see him."

"Thanks, Rhae."

He pressed a kiss to her cheek as he walked past her, going to the edge of camp with Duck and sending a guard to request his uncle's presence at a point a little deeper into the nature around them.

Ned hurried towards him and, despite Duck's hand dropping to his sword, pulled Jon into his arms. They were, technically, in private, and Jon let himself enjoy the feeling for a moment before pulling away.

"Uncle," he greeted, watching Ned wince. "Thank you for meeting with me."

"Of course I would, Jon, you have to know that."

"Do I?" He wondered aloud. "You sent me to the Wall and traveled South, we might have never seen each other again."

At that, he looked a little guilty, and Jon wondered if he'd actually felt like that from the beginning or if Rhaenys' words had weighed on him. Shaking his head, he motioned Duck to step back and got a few more feet out of him.

"How are my cousins?"

"They're well, they miss you. Robb, especially. He wanted to come, but I needed him at Winterfell. And Arya?"

Jon's lips quirked up thinking of her. "She's good. Great, even. She managed to make it to Essos and through a few of the cities all on her own before our people found her. And she's obsessed with the dragons." Ned looked queasy for a moment. "They like her, too, especially Aegon's."

Ned's eyes widened. "Does it? And how does...the King feel about Arya?"

Frowning, Jon wondered if his uncle was really that worried that Aegon would do something to hurt her. "She might be seen as a hostage, uncle, but you should know I wouldn't let anything happen to her. Rhaenys and Aegon are fond of her, too, she's practically one of Rhae's ladies."

"So, she'll be part of your household?"

"I...suppose that's true. We don't know if we'll be staying in the Red Keep or Dragonstone, as the dragons would make it simple to go back and forth, but I'll make sure she's safe and provided for, no matter what."

Silence engulfed them, just the noises coming from the swamp and the camp behind them filling the air.

"...And you're well, Jon?"

"Do I not look well, uncle?"

Ned sighed. "You can...if you want you can still call me 'father', Jon. I've thought of you as my son for so long and I had hoped you saw me as your father."

That would be a dangerous habit to get into, he knew. It had taken his siblings and their people moons until Jon stopped slipping and calling Ned that. Going back to it would just lead to frustration that they might take out on the Starks.

"If you were my father by blood, would you have done more for me?" Ned looked as though Jon had struck him. "Would you have fought Lady Stark harder to make sure I was okay? Would you have set me up with a squireship or given me a keep?"

"Jon-"

"Would you have loved me more?"

"Oh, Jon." Ned gathered him into his arms again, tears in his eyes, and Jon just let his arms hang at his sides, still wondering. "Of course not. You might not have been my son by blood, but you always were in my heart. It was my guilt and my shame, at everything that happened with your mother, at having to hide you as a bastard and pretend to have betrayed Catelyn, that...that caused my failings."

Jon licked his lips, blinking back his own tears. "...And letting me go to the Wall? Letting me think it was noble to be there?"

There was a grimace in Ned's voice, even if Jon couldn't see his face. "I shouldn't have. Just...so much had happened, we were in such a precarious place. I was terrified Robert or someone with him would recognize Rhaegar in your face and Catelyn..."

Scoffing, Jon tugged out of Ned's grasp again. "She blamed me for everything she thought you did. And any time you did something else she didn't like, or one of your children did, that too was my fault. I thought that was normal. But I know it's not. It's not normal for a child to be terrified of an adult around them."

"Jon, I'm sorry. I made bad choices, I know that, and if I could take them back..."

"Would you have felt like that anyone? Or do you only feel like that because I know who I am now? Because my brother, who your best friend usurped, who he wanted dead, is King, now?"

"You have no reason to believe me, but I'm glad your siblings lived. I used to have nightmares about the bodies of the children we thought were them, nightmares about the same things happening to you." Jon couldn't remember ever seeing Ned's face look like it did, so filled with grief. "It was one of the many reasons it was so hard to tell you the truth. I should have, I was a coward not to, but thinking about you realizing that your family was dead..."

"Instead you just left me always wondering, not knowing that there was ever anyone that cared for me." Jon shook his head, holding up his hand to keep Ned from talking more. "I'm not ready to forgive you, yet. I need more time for all of this. But...I want you at my wedding. You, and Robb, and whoever else wants to come."

A part of him never wanted to see Lady Stark again, but another part of him wanted to force her to be polite to him as he was treated as the crown prince and she as the wife of an out-of-favor lord and the daughter of a known-traitor.

"We will." Ned gave a shaky smile. "I never imagined I'd get to see you wed, you were always so against such things...I'm glad. Even if...well, I'm glad you're getting to experience what you should have had, Jon. And no matter what, I hope you know that I love you."

Jon bit his lip, nodding. "Like I said, Uncle Ned, I just...I need time. I hope you have a safe return to Winterfell and...and tell my cousins I miss them."

He left then, too close to tears to stay.

Duck fell into step behind him. "Are you okay?"

"I will be. It's just..."

"Someday it will be better." He glanced over his shoulder and caught Duck's encouraging smile. "Let's go find your sister, she'll berate you into feeling better."

That almost got a laugh out of Jon as they walked back through the camp, the black and red banners waving around them and the soldiers bowing as he passed. His life had changed so much, looking back at the past was only getting harder.