When Jon Snow returned from the north, Theon had hoped he'd be a changed man. One of those cold, brutal men of the Night's Watch. Stern, stolid, quiet. Celibate.

He was, certainly, a changed man. But Jon Snow had always known his duty to his family and he didn't abandon it then. Those years on the Wall might have changed him to the outside world but to his family, he was the same person.

He was still their brother. He was still the thorn in Theon's side, the bastard son who didn't belong, who wouldn't leave no matter how those not blood-related to him scorned him.

The blood knew who he was. The blood welcomed him. He was their brother. He was Robb's brother.

He would always be more important than Theon.

It's a funny thing, being a hostage. After a couple of years of not seeing your real family, of living day in and day out in someone else's castle, under some other family's rules, you start to forget that you're not one of them. You start to forget the lines between hostage and foster son and brother.

Theon had all the honor in the world in his position and Jon had none. And, yet, Jon had still won.

Society wanted Jon gone. He was a blemish on Winterfell, a child only reared by the Starks because Nedd Stark was a more honorable man than most, and he didn't realize it. Jon Snow was stubborn. He wouldn't leave. He wouldn't find his whore mother and live with her. No, he had to stay with the Starks, getting closer every day to people he had no right to even look in the face while Theon, a Greyjoy fosterling, had to suffer his presence.

But then he left. He went to the Wall. Nedd left with Sansa and Arya, and Lady Catelyn was so worried about Bran that she wasn't much around.

And it was just Theon and Robb. Just the two of them. Theon didn't have to worry about stupid Jon Snow or bow and scrape to the lord and lady. He had Robb to himself, when Robb needed someone there for him. It was wonderful.

Now Jon Snow was back. Now Theon remembered why he had hated him so much, why he had tried to push him away at every turn.

They were a pair, Robb and Jon. Those first few days, they went everywhere together. It drove Theon mad, seeing them together. Robb didn't understand, had never understood, why Theon didn't like to be around him when Jon was there.

It was worse now. Jon no longer took heed to his disparaging words. He was a block of ice, cold and uncaring, making Theon look like a fool. And that damn direwolf of his. Massive and pure white, making Theon eat his words for calling it the runt of the litter, making Theon remember, once again, who belonged to House Stark and who didn't.

It wasn't right that a bastard son should be so loved by a great house. It also wasn't right that a hostage should be in love with the heir apparent of that same great house.

And yet it had happened.