Jonerys

Together

A rewrite of their scene following the feast in the Hall of Winterfell (post battle); S8,E4.

Daenerys opened his door gently, peering inside to find him settled upon his bed trying to steady his mind from battle and the northern ale.

"Are you drunk?" She inquired softly.

He stood to welcome her, only to stumble slightly from his bed before jesting, "Only a little"

So much had transpired since they last spoke. Friends lost, foes defeated, oaths acquitted. But the words he spoke in the crypt before the battle were still so raw. Daenerys entered his room with caution, not knowing where, or how, to reset things between them.

His eyes smiled to see her, to behold her - alive and beautiful as ever. He sensed her unease and attempted to lighten her burden, to sooth her grief. He moved closer to her as he spoke,

"I didn't know Ser Jorah well, but I do know this. If he could have chosen a way to die, it would have been protecting you."

Her old bear, now gone. A man most loyal and true, a trait all northerners seemed to hold. He had died protecting her as he had sworn to. An oath fulfilled and replaced by a bittersweet grief.

"He loved me. But I couldn't love him back. Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way I love you. Is that alright?"

A gentle flow of relief overcame Jon to hear that she loved him. What a thing it was to be loved by her - this magnificent dragon queen. He pulled her close by her waist, dipping his head to kiss her. A sense of urgency beginning to grow between them as their lips pressed against the other, an urgency born of shared admiration and also of shared grief. For both had fought. Both had won. But both had lost too much.

As they moved and embraced each other, a flash of memory burst into his thoughts, 'My name, my real name - is Aegon Targaryen'. An unwelcome intrusion, much like an unwelcome stranger who had come to sit at his table. He tried to bury the very thought of their kinship, but the words rang out loudly, screaming in his mind. He abruptly pulled away from Daenerys, turning to brace his hands back on the bed, knuckles strained white with anger and disbelief.

Feeling his sense of disgust at their intimacy, her heart began to sink. There were little words she could offer to make it right. Her own anger bubbling below the surface,

"I wish you'd never told me. If I didn't know I would be happy right now. Rejoicing in your Hall. Standing proudly at your side...But now; you can't even look at me."

Jon, still turned from her, closed his eyes bidding away the thought of their relation. That the woman he had fallen so deeply in love with – was his kin.

Daenerys sat at the chair by the fire. Rolling her palms over the velvet fabric, trying to anchor herself to the present by the touch of something real. She stared into the flames for some time, trying to make peace with her denial of the news he'd spoken earlier.

A realisation then; her war was all for nothing. A cruel end to a thousand-mile journey that had seen her wander deserts, birth dragons and cross seas. A journey which had hardened her through loss and challenged her with fear. A journey that had stripped bare the girl she once was to raise the Queen she had needed to become. Yet, every step, had been made on a false premise. Jon's claim to the throne now stronger than her own. She was not the last Targaryen. Starring into the flames through a deadpanned expression she exhaled,
"You're the rightful heir to the iron throne."

Hearing the statement aloud was almost a relief. For now, he too, would bear the burden of it. A burden she had carried across deserts and seas and snow.