All of Pieces

Chapter - 8

  Jon sat next to the great canopied bed, watching over Dany as she slept. He had seen to it that she had bathed, assisting in getting her scrubbed clean from the battle. She lay naked underneath the silken sheets, her silver hair damp from the water and flowing wild. She had fallen into a deep sleep, her body and mind finally succumbing to the exhaustion. She laid on her left side facing him, one arm propped up under her head and the other resting beneath the swell of her belly. He was cleaning Longclaw to keep himself occupied as she slept, bringing the Valyrian steel to a gleaming shine. Tyrion had shown them to rooms that he explained traditionally housed the crown Prince or Princess, a temporary necessity until all of Cersei's things could be removed from the Red Keep. He wondered if these had been his father's rooms, but then that would be the same room in which his sister would have been drug from underneath the bed and murdered in cold blood. He shuddered at the horrible thought, the histories of House Targaryen taught to him long ago in Winterfell by Maester Luwin. He thought then of the man who had raised him as his own, and sacrificed his very honor to keep him safe. He had known all along who Jon was, and protected him anyway. You may not have my name, but you have my blood. The words of Ned Stark echoed in his memories. His own child might not be here for more moons yet, but he already knew that he would do everything in his power to ensure his or her safety. Even give up his own honor, if the need ever came.

The softest brush of air made all the hair on his body stand up, and goose pimples to form on his flesh. Drawing Longclaw up into a defensive position Jon spun around. He was instantly greeted by Arya Stark, Needle barely a hair away from his neck. He still didn't quite understand what his sister had become, and the way she crept around virtually undedicated when she wanted to was unsettling. Neither made a move against the other, the tension growing to a suffocating level. Suddenly the young woman cracked a smile, a barely suppressed laugh under the surface, as she lowered her weapon. He lowered Longclaw back down and sheathed it, a half smile appearing on his own face.

"You're going to do that to me one day, and my heart is going to stop. I'm not a young man anymore." He sighed out, the exasperation in voice exaggerated in jest. "What are you doing here?"

Arya smirked, knowing that he was just four and twenty and a young man still despite the hardships handed down over the past eight years to their family. "I came to kill Cersei," she motioned over to Daenerys "but she got there first."

He shook his head in response "No, she didn't do anything to that woman. Gods know she wanted to, as did I. She met her justice through other ends than ours. You have Jaime Lannister to thank for that."

She raised an eyebrow up, finding the information both frustrating and satisfying. She looked to the woman sleeping on the bed, looking so vulnerable and cradling the swell of her babe. She had been down in the courtyard earlier, seen the tears on the Dragon Queen's face and witnessed how they loved and relied on each other. Guilt crept into her body, the feeling a sick twisting in her stomach. Sansa had had her convinced that the Dragon Queen could not be trusted, that she would tear their family apart and take their home from them. Except Daenerys had done none of that. She had fought for their home, fought to rid the world of Cersei, and was obviously madly in love with her brother. And now would be the mother of her niece or nephew. She looked up into his eyes, so very much like her own. "Are you truly happy, Jon?"

"More than I've ever been in my entire life." He did not have to think about the answer at all. Happiness was something he never imagined he'd have. Duty and responsibility would be what fulfilled his life, but never was happiness part of it. Daenerys had changed all of that. She never once looked down on his baseborn birth, even if it wasn't true, as almost every single person in his life had. She inspired feelings in him that he'd never felt before, a sense of completion and contentment that had been missing. And now they'd be parents. A child was also something he never allowed himself to imagine, except for a few handful of naïve times. But now it was real. He would hold a son or daughter of his own blood.