"Where did you get that sword?" He asked.
She smirked with a mouth that was not her own. Of course. "From the little girl I killed," she said quietly. "Did you know her? Oh, but of course you did. She was your sister, wasn't she? I drove this sword through her heart. I watched her blood spill upon the stones of Braavos. I watched her die, whispering for her family... Do you even care? Do you care that the body of Arya Stark rots in a ditch somewhere? Do you care that she has died?"
Jon was livid. Aside from that, he looked the same; grey eyes and dark hair. She could almost picture him smiling down at her with a fondness that only he held. He would muss her hair and call her 'little sister'. "How dare you? You have no right to ask if I care! She was my little sister — " Jon's voice broke. Gods, Jon. She was truly here, standing not a foot from him with Needle in her hand. They were home, and he cared, and he had tears in his eyes and his cheeks were red just like they had been when he had left... "I swear to the old gods and new I'll kill you for touching a hair on her head."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," she blandly announced. It was difficult, because inside she felt as though she was shattering into a thousand pieces, like the mirror she had been for so long was broken and she knew the only person in this world who could put her back together and actually want to help her was standing right in front of her and he didn't even know who she was. And then she studied the blade in her hands, which she knew so well, which was her own. But Jon did not know that. Yet. "For years I've travelled. From here to there, and I've met so many people..." As she spoke she let the voice of the waif slowly wash away, her own true northern tones slipping in. "Every person I met ended up dying or leaving me. But you... You were the most important to me. I could never forget your face. It was burned into the back of my mind along with all of the others, the ones I wanted dead. But more than that you were in my heart, and I couldn't forget you no matter how hard I bloody well tried—" she broke off, herself, blinking away her tears. Jon — Jon! — looked so confused. She met his eyes once again and let the waif's bland brown bleed away. "I was worried... that you had forgotten me."
"...Forgotten you?" Jon was confused, as was his right to be. "I don't know you."
She looked down, and she removed the face of the waif. She kept looking down though. She let the light brown hair of the waif grow darker before his eyes, between every blink... "You do, though. You do. And I spent a lot of nights staring up at the sky thinking, 'What if he never calls me little sister, ever again?' And, 'what if he's dead?'." She looked up once more, and it must have been too much for him, because he took a step back.
"Arya?" He breathed, "how did you...?"
Arya smiled sadly. She waved the blade before his face. "I pretended to be so many people. It comes easier the more you do it. But I'll always be Arya Stark in the end. And I'll always have this sword..." Her voice quavered and her chest felt tight and her eyes were hot with tears. "And that's all because of you. You gave me Needle and now I'm alive. And you're still stupid, and I still wish you had gone with us to Kings Landing, and..." She wiped her eyes furiously. "And I still need you."
Jon was speechless. And then, tentatively like he was afraid she'd bite, he reached out and mussed her hair. She sobbed, and he laughed and sobbed. Then she made to hug him but he twitched back. "Careful," he smiled through his tears, and she realised she was holding Needle, still. She shoved it into her scabbard and then she lunged, wrapping her arms around his neck in the way she had always done before they had left home.
He caught her, stumbling back some but he caught her still. And then he held her close, as though she were the only thing in the world that mattered. "Little sister," he whispered.