"Stay close to me," Jeyne said "Don't leave me."
"I will be right beside you." Theon promised.

-A Dance with Dragons

The storm had ceased its endless beratement on the land. Their camp would reach Winterfell by midday on the morrow. Now was his chance, her chance. He'd managed to smuggle her to the makeshift stable and steal provisions for her ride. She'd been pleading with him to come with her, saying she didn't want to be alone, and each time she asked him to come, his answer still remained no.

She was to go, and he could not follow. He had to stay. He couldn't leave Asha, not after they had planned on punishing her for what he did.
I must answer for what I did, not Asha.
She was a bit of a bitch, yes, but she was his sister. His blood. He wouldn't let her be burned or shamed in his place.

Jeyne Poole, clad head to toe in grey, stood next to the mare, stroking its sinewy neck. She turned to him with sad eyes and a black tipped nose.
She has to understand. It makes sense this way. She knows it. Jeyne, Jeyne, rhymes with sane.

"Theo-"

He placed a cool finger on her lips, silencing her. A sense of Déjà vu crept over him, but he paid it no mind. He removed the bony digit and placed both of his pale mangled hands on either side of the young girls face, touching the papery skin of his forehead to hers.

He would not see her again for a long time after this, likely ever again. He was surprised to find himself upset at the notion.

"Listen to me, Jeyne,"
He tucked a loose bit of hair behind her ear, and she closed her eyes. Trickles of mucus were dripping from her blackened nose.
"You are strong, and brave. But you need protection that I cannot give you because of who I am."
You'll be safer without Theon Turncloak of the Kraken's blood riding with you, girl. Can't you see that? Don't you understand? I'm a liability. And I'll be dead soon. You don't want to be here to see that.

In a high cracking voice she sputtered out
"You said- that we'd stay together, that-"
He closed his sleep crusted eyes and sighed.
"I know. But everything changes. Fate is as fickle as man himself."
Silent tears were streaming from her closed lids, leaving clean paths of fair skin down the soot and dried blood that mottled her cheeks. Defiantly, she rebuffed
"Women aren't allowed on The Wall."
"They're not allowed to serve. And if what Stannis says is true, you'll be safe, Jon will protect you. And do a better job of it than I can."
Or ever will. Not with this body, not anymore.

She looked up at him with those big brown eyes.
Brown eyes, not grey.
He'd grown fond of her. They'd been though much the same and had become close through like traumatization. He knew how fucked it was to base a kinship on grounds such as those, but he did not care. He would miss her company.
I will miss her.

She'd offered to marry him. And had told him she thought him handsome when they were young. Before...all of this. But they were words said out of desperation, holding no more meaning than a fools jape.
Words are wind.
Besides, there was little point in a marriage for him now. And for more reason than one.
"I want to stay here with you."
Now she was forestalling the inevitable. Before she had a chance to say anything else, he pulled a thick wool and lambskin scarf he had stolen from Asha and wrapped it around her face so that only her eyes were exposed. Her pretty brown eyes.

He helped her onto the back of the grey mare. Handing her an iron short sword he'd taken from a solder's corpse and the dagger that he'd carried on his person since before their escape. She clutched them to her chest with gloved hands before putting the sheathed sword in the saddle bag and placing the dagger between her breasts. Theon was reminded of his sister, and would have laughed had he been his old self.
Jeyne held the reins with trembling gloved hands. Though he couldn't say if it was the cold or the nerves.
Likely both.
He placed a pale hand atop her gloved ones, looking up at her eyes.

"Stop for no one and nothing."
Jeyne no longer looked like she was about to cry, though her eyes remained sullen.
Theon continued,
"Give the letter to none bu-"
She interjected with a voice of desperation,
"Will you keep your promise?"
"Will I-? Yes, of corse."

She beckoned him closer, he obliged, stepping closer to the mare and Jeyne as he looked up at her with both bemusement and unease, half expecting her to hit him.
He inwardly chastised himself at that thought; Why would she hit me?
She did not hit him. Instead the young woman wrapped her arms around his head, neck and shoulders, giving him the closest she could manage to a true embrace whilst upon the tall creature.
She does not mind my stench anymore. Not like the others. She is...kind. Sweet Jeyne.
He tentatively wrapped his rail thin arms around her middle, closing his eyes at the touch of another human that wasn't meant to maim.
She muttered something into his thin white straw like tuft of hair that sounded much like
"Swear it,"
Nonplused, he croaked his answer to her in a voice that didn't sound much like his own
"I swear."

She let go, turned away and kicked the mare, not once looking back. And she was gone, disappearing almost immediately into the white landscape. He flicked his tongue across the few teeth he had left, feeling the muscle fill the gaps of the missing ones.
I swear. I swear it, sweet Jeyne. Now and always.
He closed his eyes momentarily, thinking of what he'd promised in the heart of the Godswood.

Now morose, he turned back to the tent, back to Asha. As he made his way in, slipping once more past the watch, he thought to himself that Jeyne must know as well as he did, that he would not likely survive to make good of what he had said. And that he may have just sent her to her death, if she could not reach Castle Black. He shook the thoughts unbidden from his head and crawled into the pile of blankets and skins that served as a bedroll, and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. But all he could see when he closed his eyes was the face of the dead steward's daughter. So he let his mind drift to the night they had escaped, not two days past.

They were in the heart of the Godswood, holding hands in the pitch dark night so as to not separate. Jeyne was crying. He was telling her she must be brave. He remembered telling Bran that same thing once, years ago it seemed. But right now, she was frustrating him. And acting like a child.
She had pulled him to a sudden stop and he reeled around to face her. Ice crystals had formed on her eyelashes where tears had once been. At the time, he thought it queer that that should be the first thing he noticed. He still thought it queer in his recollection.
"Theon," she had croaked out "Please, promise me,"
He was tired. So very tired. He'd already told her he'd protect her with his life.
What more could she want?
His face wore a look of poorly masked exasperation. He attempted to give her a toothless smile through unparted cracked and bleeding lips.
"Jeyne, I will protect y-"
"No!"
She almost shouted the word. He looked at her sharply, but she continued.
"After this-all this-"She swallowed "If we get separated,"
Her dark sad eyes were locked on his darker, older ones. Though just as sad, hers were still unbroken. Ramsay had never actually broken her she'd been saved before he could truly crush her. Saved by Abel. And the spearwives.
Breaking, but not broken. This girl is not yet soiled as I am. She can still go on and live a good life, she can still make a family, still-

Her pleading voice had interrupted his inner musings.
"Find me again. After it's over"
He had looked at her dumbfounded. He felt his mouth opening, words forming on his tongue, though remaining unspoken.
Why? I wasn't even the one who saved you.
He blinked a few times.
But I did save her. I could have told them who she really was, but I didn't. I wanted them to save her.
He refocused his eyes and looked down at her. Fear still lingered in her eyes, though not as prominent as it had been before.
Theon Greyjoy nodded his head. He would protect this girl, and if she wished it, find her again after the war. For whatever reason she had.
"I swear."
A smile had formed on her cracked and peeling lips at those words, and something warm had stirred in Theon's belly as he realized there was a good chance he would have done so without any spoken vow or agreement.

"Now and always."