Husk.
Jon keeps losing the ones he loves. He should have placed collars around their necks and tied them up with heavy chains, or buried them in iron chambers beneath the hard frozen ground. Even knowing they faced years of captivity would be better than this sense of loss. A terrible weight, it presses down on the top of his head, as if the sky itself were resting there.
..
Even when he closes his eyes in the darkness he cannot see her. Faceless and without form she haunts his memories. He lost her before he even knew what loss was. He wishes he could remember her smile, her mouth, the sound of her laughter, but he remembers nothing. It is the shame of forgetting that hurts the most. He doesn't even know her name.
..
It feels like something is eating him from the inside out, a thousand tiny insects burrowing out from his stomach. A deep hollow noise pours forth from his lips, from his mouth, and he knows his cheeks are wet and stained. He cannot rationalise this moment, he cannot put it into words. This is his second loss. The loss of his father.
..
He hears the news shortly after his horse is unsaddled and rubbed down. He clutches at the parchment, smoothing gloved fingertips over hastily written words, grappling at the wall for support. Bran. Rickon. Their names are like whispers, echoing back into his memories. One October morning, years ago now, Jon had taught Bran how to shoot an arrow from horseback. Bran had cantered past, his knees gripping tightly to the saddle, his elbow knocked to his side. As the shaft hit the straw target Bran had smiled, a pure unadulterated smile. That boyish smile disturbed Jon in the corridors of Castle Black as he crouched down over the death notice of his little brothers. His little brothers.
..
Jon holds her head in his lap and he doesn't know how to feel anymore. He traces his fingers over every line on her face, painting her picture into his memory. She is cold now, and grey. Her cheeks are beginning to sink into the hollow below her eyes. He hasn't wept yet, hasn't let the enormity of this fill him up. There is no more room for emptiness and holes, he is a shadow of a man, a husk.
..
Whiteness surrounds him. He is so accustomed to the brilliant severity of the landscape of the North that he forgets to blink. Even when another letter comes he cannot blink. He receives the news of Robb's death with his eyes wide open.
..
All Jon has is tomorrow. He doesn't know how much he has left within him, but even a hollow shell can risk everything for the ones he still has. Arya. Sansa. He would focus on tomorrow.