Author's Note: This was written for the GameofShipsChallenge on tumblr.

It's not beta'd so please excuse any mistakes. Also, I'm not GRRM and am just having fun playing unauthorised in his sandbox.

Against All Odds

It was completely the wrong time for them to be surrounded by walkers. If the herd had caught them ten days or even a week ago then they would've dealt with it much better.

But it wasn't then. It was now and now was completely the wrong time.

Meera's head wasn't in the game and whilst Summer ripped out throats and Hodor slashed indiscriminately – with great affect as usual – it was with no strategy. Strategy was Meera's remit but she wasn't really with it. Hadn't been with it since Jojen.

The thought of Jojen made Bran wince as he gripped the handgun hard in his hand as if that would somehow even the odds. This was the closest shave for them yet and he didn't have much hope that they would make it out alive. The blood pumped fast through his veins as the adrenalin hit, raising his heartbeat. He took aim and took out the walker that was coming up on Meera's blindside.

Normally, she would scowl and shot him a fierce glare for using a gun. Guns were loud and attracted even more walkers. Using a gun was always the last resort. However, this time she didn't even glance in his direction. He wished it was because this really was the last resort, but he knew it was because she had withdrawn emotionally and very little impacted upon her anymore. It didn't mean it wasn't the last resort, either, because it felt like it was.

Bran shot five more zombies, his aim good each time, but it made no difference. They were being overwhelmed and he felt the crushing disappointment of failure.

It wasn't meant to be like this. Jojen was to have lead him to the facility up North where he was to share his findings with Professor Rivers and the Bloodraven Institute. He was to have helped turn the tide against the walkers.

However, Jojen had been bitten five days ago and just like that the heart of their mission had gone.

The squelching crunch of a walker's head being bashed him had him turning to his left side and he stared in amazement as five women came marching up over the motorway verge, weapons already swinging.

"Thought you could use a hand," one of them said cheerfully as if Bran's little group had just broken down or something, rather than being under attack from a herd of the undead.

"Thanks?" Bran replied as more of a question than an actual statement of gratitude.

The girl grinned at him as she raised her mace (holy shit it was an actual mace) and brought it down with brutal grace into the face of another walker, splattering rotten flesh and brains across the tarmac.

"Gross, Lyanna!" one of the other girls exclaimed. "I don't want to be walking around with zombie guts in my hair for another five days."

"But look how smooth and shiny it now is," Lyanna said, her grin getting even bigger.

A hard and violent ten minutes followed as the five newcomers along with Meera and Hodor made short work of the herd. Finally, the last zombie was taken out and there was an opportunity for everyone to take stock, panting hard.

Bran sat in simmering silence feeling even more useless than usual chained as he was to his wheelchair.

A broken boy for a broken time, he thought bitterly.

"Check for bites. Anyone got any bites?" the oldest of the newcomers asked.

If Bran had to guess then he supposed this would be the younger girls' mother. She was older than them by a good few years but they all had the familiar look of related family. The thought of anyone else having a mother made his heart hurt. He wished he knew where his family was, but he had been away at university when the outbreak occurred and by the time he had made it back to Winterfell, it had been nothing but a smouldering wreck with no signs of any of his family.

He couldn't dwell on that, though, and checking for bites was one of the few things he could do.

"Here," he said to cheerful girl, Lyanna, who was nearest him. "Turn round and I'll see if anything took a chunk of you from behind."

"Thanks," she said and bent slightly so he could easily check out her upper body. He fought down the flood of bitterness at her actions, knowing it was useful and practical, but how he wished it wasn't.

When it was ascertained that she was clean and she'd done the same to him, she sat down next to him, digging out a water canteen from her pack. She gulped some back before passing it over to him.

"Want some?" she asked.

He took it and swigged some of the lukewarm water back more for something to do than actual thirst.

"I'm Lyanna," she said sticking her hand out. "Lyanna Mormont."

"Nice to meet you," Bran said, and it wasn't just the manners his parents had hammered into him that made him say it. "I'm Bran Stark."

"Do you mind if I take a look?" she asked, pointing towards his gun.

"If you want to. Not particularly impressive or useful these days," he said.

"Oh, I don't know. We saw some pretty neat shooting as we came up to help."

"Still not much use against walkers. I only used it because it was a last resort. It's not like I can do anything more stuck as I am in this," he said, hitting the arm of his wheelchair.

He was expecting an uncomfortable shifting away of her eyes and some weak words of pity, but Lyanna looked straight at him solemnly and said, "I've met a fair few people who can't do anything at all and they don't have a disability. Don't put yourself down, Bran Stark. All anyone can do is their best and that's what you did."

Warmth filled his chest at her words. Most people shied away from anything to do with his disability. Preferring to pretend that he wasn't disabled and laughing awkwardly whenever it was impossible to ignore. Only his family and Meera really referred to it normally. For Jojen, it had been the event that had freed his brain to reach its maximum capacity and Bran didn't think that really counted as treating his disability as normal.

Then here was this stranger, who didn't offer him any pity or disdain, but instead words of respect.

"Thanks," he said a little gruffly.

There was a couple of moments silence between them and Bran used them to look around at the recovering group. Meera sat off a little by herself and his heart ached for her loss. He wished he could be of more comfort but there was nothing he could say that would help. He worried that she blamed him for Jojen's fate and so kept his distance a little. He wasn't sure it was the best solution, but he didn't really know how to handle it. Hodor was sitting in between two of the new women, he was grinning as they shared some kind of jerky and crackers with him. Summer sat on the other side of Bran, his ears still alert as he stared out.

Then Lyanna broke the silence and asked, "So, where are you headed?"

"The Bloodraven Institute. Have you heard of it?"

She shook her head.

"It's a scientific research centre that's based up north. They were running tests when the outbreak first occurred."

"How do you know about them?" she asked.

"They were affiliated to the science department of my college. I had a summer internship up there last year and Professor Rivers sent me some of his initial findings asking if I could run some analysis my end."

"And I take it you're headed up to help them?"

Bran hesitated a little. Jojen had always told him that he should keep his findings quiet and within their group. That if others found out then they might not hesitate to try to forcibly make him go somewhere else. Jojen had been adamant that Bran needed to get to the Bloodraven Institute and that only they had the resources he needed. At first, Bran had been sceptical. Surely, it didn't matter what scientific centre he went to. They would all be working on the same thing and he'd been tempted to head down South like everyone else was trying. It was supposedly safer down there and there was Casterly Rock, which was the biggest and best science institute there was. It was also rolling in money. However, as Jojen had pointed out, it was run by the ruthless and less than reputable Tywin Lannister, who always seemed to manage to get his hands on the latest innovation, even if it was being made by his fiercest rivals and protected with all kinds of security measures. That didn't make Bran think Tywin Lannister was very trustworthy. Also, if Bran was anything then it was incurably fair and it wouldn't be right to share Professor Rivers' findings with other institutes, so he, along with Jojen, Meera and Hodor had started to make their way north, regardless of the increasing number of walkers the further north they got.

So far they hadn't really come across anyone else. There had been Old Man Liddle, who'd shared his meal with them, but that was it. So Bran hadn't been tempted to tell anyone of what he potentially carried with him, but he instinctively trusted Lyanna and although a voice in his head urged him to be cautious, he decided to tell her.

"Yeah. I think I have something. A potential vaccine for the outbreak."

She sat up straighter then, her face showing none of the bonhomie that she'd arrived with. Her eyes searched his face for any sign that he was lying. After a moment she nodded. "I believe you," she said. "Are these the only people you are travelling with?"

"Yeah, we had one more, Meera's brother, but he got bitten a week ago."

She shot a sympathetic look in Meera's direction before she pointed to one of the women sitting with Hodor. "My sister, Alysanne, she lost her kids in an attack on our home. Bear Island is pretty remote and we thought we were safe there. We'd stock piled canned food, supplies and weapons, but we got overrun pretty quickly. We've been drifting ever since."

Bran gripped her hand briefly to express his remorse for her family. "Where are you heading to now?" he asked.

"We were planning to try and make it South. We heard it was easier to survive down there, but if you have the cure and you're only travelling with your two friends and a dog, then I think we should go with you."

Hope spiked in his chest at her words. He'd felt an instant bond with this girl and he was really worried that they wouldn't make it much further if the number of zombies continued to increase, especially with how withdrawn Meera had become. But it was followed immediately by guilt. He could not ask these women to put themselves in danger for him.

"No, you should head south. I can't ask you to come with me."

"And how far are the three of you going to get?"

"We'll get there," Bran said stubbornly.

"You might," Lyanna replied doubtfully. "But there is every chance that you won't. If you have the cure then I don't want to take that risk."

"Potential cure," he emphasised.

"Still better than anything else right now as far as I know," she said before rising and making it over to where her sisters and mother sat.

There was an expressive five minute conversation with lots of hand waving and pointing in his direction and he wished he could hear what was being said.

Then Lyanna sauntered back over, a smile on her face. She gave him a decisive nod and said, "It's settled, we're coming with you."

He couldn't help but be glad, but he tamped the feeling down. "I'm not sure that's a good idea," he said uncertainly.

For the first time since he'd meant her, Bran saw that Lyanna looked unsure. She shot him a nervous glance from underneath her eyelashes and asked, "Would you prefer that we don't come?"

"No! I would love you to come," he said without hesitation and emphatically and he was rewarded with another one of her blinding grins. "I just don't want anyone else to die for me."

"We Mormont women are a tough breed, Bran Stark. It'd take a lot of Zombies to take us out."

Her bravado was infectious and Bran could not help the laugh that spilled from his mouth. It had been a long time since he'd laughed and it felt good to do so again.

Ten days later and Bran was definitely gratefully that Lyanna and her family had come along. They certainly wouldn't have got very far without the addition of the Mormont ladies, but as Lyanna cleaned yet more Zombie mush off her mace, he couldn't help but feel irritation.

"What's got you all riled up?" she asked, coming over from the narrow stream they were washing in the best they could in.

"I hate this," he spat out. "All my life, my father has told me that he who says the sentence should swing the sword, but here I am relying on others to defend me all because of my stupid legs. I'm the one who needs to go north and yet I'm the least able of all of you. Even my dog does a better job defending this group than I do!"

"Hey," she said in a gentle tone not usually heard from her. "It's not your fault that you cannot fight off the walkers the same way that we can."

He made a frustrated sound and looked away.

Kneeling down by his side and cupping his face in her hands, Lyanna turned his head so he was looking back at her. "You have something so much more important than a mace or a sword. Anyone can fight off a zombie if they really want to, but you – you – can save us all. And I'm pretty sure that makes you unique, Bran Stark."

Her words reached a part of him that he'd closed off after he had been paralysed. The part that had dreamed about daring deeds and a glowing future as he sought fame down in the south. To be a kind of knight that was put into the songs that Sansa had loved so much. Then the accident had happened – he'd fallen whilst rock climbing – and his planned future was gone.

Bran had struggled to come to terms with his changed destiny. He'd disconnected from his family and friends (something he deeply regretted now as he didn't know where they were or even if they lived), and had gone through the motions of following his parent's suggestions of going to University in the Neck.

There he had met Meera and Jojen Reed, and whilst he'd been irritated at first by Jojen's insistence that his accident was a good thing, they had gradually drawn him out of his shell. Jojen had encouraged him to follow a path in the sciences, which he had done. He had committed to it, too, but it had always felt a little like following someone else's future for him.

However, it wasn't until now that he felt as if this was really his destiny. That his disability wasn't some kind of curse but just how it was, and that it wasn't going to hold him back. He finally came to terms with the idea that whilst he might not be able to fight a physical battle, it didn't make him useless – at least not in Lyanna's eyes. And if he wasn't useless in her eyes then he wasn't useless in his either.

"You don't care that I can't take on a herd of walkers and come out victorious?" he asked a little unsure.

She made a scornful noise at that. "I can take on a herd of walkers, I don't need anyone else to do that. However, I can't cure the world."

"And you think I can?"

She smiled at him with a fondness and warmth that he'd never experienced before. It was the kind of smile he had once wished Meera to send his way. It caused his heartbeat to spike and his hands to become a little clammy.

"I know you can, Bran. You can do anything you set your mind to." She leaned her forehead against his, her grey eyes heated and intense, and said, "I'll swing the sword for any sentence you pass, Bran Stark, and that doesn't make you lesser than your father or anyone else."

She kissed him then, her lips soft and inviting against his despite her fierce words.

Jeers and catcalls from her sisters caused them to break apart, breathing heavily, and Bran could feel the flush in his cheeks and mentally cursed his Tully genes as the colour deepened when he saw the amused expression in every Mormont eyes – even Maege, her mother.

Meera looked at them curiously but she gave Bran a small smile, the first she had given since Jojen's death, and he knew she approved. Hodor had an uncertain expression on his face but as he saw the smiles around him, he took beamed and happily exclaimed, "Hodor!"

"That's right, Hodor, Lyanna finally made her move. She's only been pining over Bran since she met him," Dacey said as the rest of the Mormont girls laughed.

Lyanna gestured rudely towards her eldest sister as she sat on Bran's lap and snuggled into him. "You're just jealous, Dace, but don't be too down. I may have snagged the best Stark, but Bran tells me he has an older brother and a cousin. There's a couple of sisters, too, Lyra," she said cheekily.

Bran noticed the doe eyes Lyra sent Meera just then and he wondered if his friend would be interested. She hadn't said too much since Jojen's death, but he had noticed that she had become closest to Lyra. He hoped that she allowed herself to open up further. She deserved some happiness after everything she'd been through.

Hodor, too, was relaxed. He was generally nervous around new people, but the Mormont women had treated him as they did everyone else, and he had blossomed under their acceptance.

The Mormont women had saved his group from certain death. Their fierce ability to fight had kept everyone alive but it was more than that. Their willingness to find the best in even the worst situation and to laugh through it had lifted the small group from the despair that had engulfed them since Jojen's death.

However, it was Lyanna who had saved Bran.

Her unwavering confidence in him banished the anguish that had remained with him since his fall. With her at his side, he was sure he could do anything.