A.N.: Well, this isn't me working on school projects. Oops.
I don't know yet if I'll make this a multi chapter fic where I go into a number of different reunions after the battle. For now, I just wanted to write Jon's reunion with Arya, so here it is!
Jon stood there staring at the crumbled pieces of the dragon he had been so sure would be his end. He stood there so long, in fact, that the sun rose well over the Lonely Hills to the east.
He thought he'd seen his last sunrise.
He'd been sure of his own death in this conflict. Ever since Melisandre's Lord of Light had brought him back from the dead, he'd been convinced that it was so he could die here, to give his life to end the Night King and his army of the dead. But, he'd failed. He'd been so close outside the walls of Winterfell, but the Night King had gotten away from him.
In the end, someone else had done what Jon couldn't.
The sun was rising and the dead were all dead now. Really and truly dead.
Gods, it was over…
It was the distant songs of the birds that made him think of Bran and thoughts of his brother finally got him moving, uprooted him from that spot he'd spent so long standing in. He made his way through the open spaces inside the castle walls in a daze, unable yet to focus on the countless dead around him. He could do nothing for the dead. He had to check for the living.
A part of him also had to make sure that it was truly over.
He wasn't surprised to find the bodies that waited for him in the Godswood. The soldiers from the Iron Islands had fought valiantly and the counting of wights who had fallen to them were impressive indeed. He looked for the Night Kind but saw only the dark figure of the only remaining soldier over by Bran and he knew he would have to thank that man for his efforts that night.
But, the cost of this battle had been heavy indeed, for among the dead, Jon spotted Theon. He stopped to kneel over the man, a man with whom he shared no blood but had once viewed as a brother all the same. He'd been impaled with the broken shaft of a spear. The other half was still in his hand and, as Jon closed his unseeing eyes, he wondered if he had been the one to do it, if killing the Night King had been Theon's final act in this world.
The sound of something landing in the snow made him look up and that's when Jon saw that the person standing near Bran wasn't a soldier of the Iron Islands as he'd thought upon half a glance.
It was Arya.
His relief at seeing her was instant and consuming, making him light-headed and nearly sending him right back down as he stood quickly. He didn't even realize he had dropped Longclaw in the snow beside Theon in his haste and then he was standing in front of his sister, clutching her arms as he checked her over for injury.
She seemed to be in shock, staring vacantly forward at his chin. She was bleeding from a wound on her forehead and there were a few other bleeding cuts that he could see, but none of them looked life-threatening.
Gods, she was alive… Alive and, despite her shock, well.
Assured of this, he glanced over her shoulder to check on Bran, for whom he'd been so scared as each obstacle had barred him from reaching this place. His brother, fortunately, seemed to be the only thing that had been untouched by this devastating battle. He was about to ask him what had happened when Bran looked pointedly downward and Jon followed his gaze.
There was a dagger in the snow at Arya's feet, possibly the source of the sound which had drawn his attention to her in the first place. The dagger was made of Valyrian steel and in an instant Jon knew what it meant and he felt a strange sort of calm wash over him for the realization.
It was the realization that his sister had been the one to do it.
His wild little sister who used to have scabs on her knees from running around playing at battles, his sister with her heart which craved so much more than the duties of the Lady she'd been born as.
Jon hadn't been there. Despite his best efforts and his every intention, he had failed to be that place. And while he had failed to be there, Arya had gone.
When he looked up from that dagger in the snow and everything it had told him, Jon found she was crying, silent lines of moisture cutting down her face. Arya was looking at him this time and he saw relief there, that same relief which had nearly knocked him from his feet when he'd seen it was her standing in that courtyard. And when he took her face in his hands, he did so with a reverence unlike anything he'd ever felt in his life.
Because she had done what he couldn't.
Arya had killed the Night King.
No words would come to him, but he thought in that moment as he stared into the eyes of his little sister that perhaps words weren't necessary.
He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her and Arya, perhaps still a bit in shock now that everything was over, latched onto him a moment later. When he felt her sob, a forceful and ragged sort of exhale, Jon set his hand on the back of her head and he felt his eyes prickle in the frigid winter air, moisture gathering there for the weight of the knowledge that it was done.
Against all odds, the living had prevailed.
When Arya's weight became dead in his arms, he thought that her knees may have given out for the weight of that same knowledge, that it was finished and she didn't need to stand anymore. Jon tightened his hold on her to support her and lowered them to the ground. Kneeling with his brave little sister in his arms, he pressed a kiss to her hair and breathed out a jagged, uneven breath fraught with so many different emotions that he may never be able to sort them all.
But, chief among them was an undying gratitude and it filled him to the brim.
"Thank you." His voice sounded as thick to his own ears as it felt and Jon knew he was crying too. He held his sister a little bit tighter and let the tears come. "Thank you!"
Arya's sob was different that time, twinged on the edges with laughter and that broke him. For the first time in a long time, Jon laughed without that weight in the back of his mind telling him that he had no right to, not while the dead were on the march. He laughed and thought that he'd almost forgotten what it was like. And when he laughed, Arya laughed and soon there was no stopping them and they were both crying in each other's arms because it felt so damned good to laugh.
Because they had won.
There would be time to grieve for their many losses, for the countless lives that had been given on that long night. But, they were alive. This war Jon had been fighting for so long was finally over and they were alive at the end of it, all thanks to Arya, his courageous little sister who had waged into the middle of death itself to end it. Until the end of his days, every time he saw the sun rise in the east, he would thank the Gods that she existed.
And as Jon held her, he laughed like a man reborn.