Jon sighed. This next goodbye would be the hardest; Ghost had been with him for years, almost as constant as his own shadow. When the wind whistled through an empty room, vague memories of trying to nudge his cold dead hand with Ghost's snout came back to him, as if from a dream.
Ghost, he thought, more to himself than anyone else, but Ghost lifted his head from across the yard. Jon knelt down, and when the wolf stopped in front of him, he buried his face in the thick white fur.
"I have to go South," he said. Ghost's uninjured ear twitched, and Jon sighed. "I know," he said. "And - boy, you can't come with me." He blinked back tears; he'd never been separated from Ghost for as long as this would be, if he even made it back at all. "I don't trust anyone," he said softly. "And I know that you won't let anyone hurt Sansa or Bran."
When he pulled back, Ghost butted his head against Jon's shoulder.
"I know," Jon said again. He glanced toward the gate. "I already told them. They'll - Sansa said she wanted to take another look at your ear."
He wasn't sure he would have trusted Ghost not to bite Arya if she inadvertently hurt him touching a wound, but Ghost knew Sansa - and if he hadn't tried to bite her when she'd taken care of his wounds after the Battle of the Bastards, Jon was confident he wouldn't do it now.
"Keep them safe," he said, hugging Ghost again. "I'll - I'll see you again. Why don't you go find Sansa? She said something about food for you, too."
After a moment of hesitation, Ghost turned and walked toward the entrance. He glanced back twice, and Jon swiped the back of his hand across his face. He hoped this wouldn't be the last time he saw the big white wolf.
The goodbye they wrote sucked. Apparently the writers don't have pets or something, because that's not how you treat your pets (even if they did get rid of every other important thing about direwolves from the books). And that's not how Jon would treat his pets.
Anyway. I rewrote it.
