A/N: Welcome to my first Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fanfiction! I love thinking and theorizing about the possibilities of what might happen if Jon and Daenerys should ever meet. This fic pulls from both the books and the show. For instance, Ser Barristan is still alive. Dany is already Queen of Westeros and made her way to the Wall to aid Jon Snow. More about how that happened will be revealed in later chapters. I've decided to write POV chapters like GRRM. Dany is the first up and the next chapter will be from Jon's POV. I hope you enjoy! Please review if you feel so inclined. Thanks! -Katie

Daenerys

"You're one of the only people I've met who knows no fear," Jon said. Daenerys's hand stilled in its motion of tracing patterns on his chest. She was silent for a long time. She thought if she did not speak he'd think she had fallen asleep.

"What makes you think I don't have fear?" she finally asked quietly.

"The way you lead your men into battle. The way you leap onto Drogon. I can see it in your eyes."

She looked up at him then and cocked her eyebrow. The fire had burned too low in the grate and his grey eyes seemed black.

"My eyes?"

"You get that fearless look of someone who doesn't have anything to lose."

"You're wrong. It's not a look of bravery. I know exactly what there is to lose. It's because I'm afraid that I know it's worth fighting for, but I'm not brave. I don't feel brave."

"My father once told my brother that the only time a man can be brave is when he's afraid."

"I'm no man," Dany whispered. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable for no reason other than he was exposing her innermost thoughts, those which she kept buried deep inside to keep herself and those around her safe.

"Thank the gods for that," Jon replied, dipping his head to capture her lips. Dany returned the kiss, sighing softly when she broke it. She gathered the furs around her for warmth and sat up in the bed, her back to Jon when she spoke.

"I used to loathe your father," she said. "I hated him for what he did to my family...what I thought he did. I never knew what he did to keep us both safe."

"Neither of us did," he reminded her. "He never could've told us. There was too much at risk."

"Do you think he would have told you the truth if you had seen him again? Like you said he would, or do you think some secrets are better left unsaid...until the time is right?"

Jon was silent for a few beats and without looking she could see the curious expression on his face. She sensed perhaps he was trying to read into her thoughts. "I like to think that he would. Maybe he thought I'd try to find you."

"Would you have?" Dany asked over her shoulder.

"I don't know," he replied honestly.

No, Daenerys thought. You would not have tried.

"How different things would have been."

"Better or worse?"

Dany shrugged. She was not sure how to answer. Would the two of them finding each other any sooner have saved anyone from heartache? Would it have been worth it? She wasn't so sure. "Just different."

Jon sat up behind Daenerys then, the cold biting at his exposed skin. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and ran his hands up and down her arms. She leaned back against him. In the past year since she'd joined his cause against the Others at the Wall being alone with him in her bed was the closest Dany came to feeling safe. For months on end she had pushed aside her feelings for the former Lord Commander. There was no room for love in a place like the Wall. There was no room for love within the vows of the Night's Watch. There was no room for love in the life of a queen who was fighting for the survival of an entire realm. Or so they thought. Slowly and yet suddenly none of that mattered. The first night they were together so many words were left unspoken. Words of fear, words of loss, words of love. They'd spent the better part of a year, planning, strategizing, fighting side by side.

That first night they finally gave in had started much the same as every other night, but the two of them remained awake long after Jorah and Barristan retired. Neither Jon nor Dany remembered the exact moment their walls came down, but she knew soon afterwards that the future was too uncertain to give up whatever they had gained. Longing and loneliness had brought them together, but a growing love and respect kept them that way. That night had been nearly four moons past now. I know I've counted them.

It scared her how quickly she had come to care for Jon, how deeply she loved him. It was the same with your sun-and-stars. But it was not. She knew it was different from falling in love with Drogo. It was all consuming

Daenerys didn't know what Jon had been like before she came to the Wall. She didn't know how he had been before his brothers turned on him and by some form of magic he was brought back to the land of the living. Then again, she could scarcely remember what she had been like before she stepped out of the ashes with nothing but her dragons. The girl she had been died in the Dothraki Sea. Whatever was left was cleansed by the fire of her husband's pyre and strengthened through the Red Waste, the House of the Undying and her trials in Slaver's Bay. She was young, but no longer a girl. She was a queen, a khaleesi, a sacker of cities, a breaker of chains, a mother of dragons and those she had freed. I am a mother.

"You're the one who ended up finding me," Jon said, dragging her back to the moment.

"Perhaps I just knew how badly you needed me." If only I'd known how badly I needed you, as well. "At the very least I knew you needed my dragons. Sam told me as much."

"When I sent Sam to Oldtown to find out how to fight the white walkers I never thought he'd return with a person. Maester Aemon knew to look for you. I regret he never got the chance to meet you."

"And what would he have said of this?" she asked as she laced her fingers through his. He feels warm. He always feels warm. He may have ice running through his veins, but there is fire as well.

"He once told me 'love is the death of duty'," Jon recalled. Dany turned on the bed to face him, her legs draped over his to keep the distance between them close. "That was on the day he revealed he was a Targaryen to me. He knew I was thinking of riding south to help Robb, of abandoning the Watch. He too was tested when Robert raised his rebellion against your brother and father."

Rhaegar was your father, if only by blood. "Maybe he knew that you were more needed at the Wall. I doubt anyone could have prevented what happened. Not even you, Jon."

"He told me 'What is duty compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms?'" Dany glanced up at that, her violet eyes catching his. If he perceived anything he did not reveal as much, but continued on. "'Or the memory of a brother's smile...We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory and our great tragedy'."

"That doesn't exactly answer my question."

"After he told me who he was he said he would not tell me to stay or go. I needed to make that decision and live with it for the rest of my life."

"And can you?" Dany asked, their faces were close, mere inches apart. I need to know. "Can you live with this?"

"I have to," Jon whispered, taking her face in his hands. "I can't live without it."

She turned her face enough to press a kiss to his palm before wrapping her arms around his frame and holding him close. Her face was buried in the crook of his neck and she drank in his scent. Everything about their union should have been forbidden. He was her brother's son. Targaryens have always tried to keep bloodlines pure. He was the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He was. Those vows ended with his death, regardless of what some of his men still call him, what she called him for formality. She was a queen and despite Jon being Rhaegar's son, he was still a bastard. I could legitimize him with one word. The last time she gave into her desires for a man it nearly cost her dearly. Jon is nothing like Daario. He has honor, he would never betray me. I trust him with my life.

Jon kissed her hair. "I should be gone soon."

"No, you should stay," she nearly whined against his skin. "You've only just come back and you were away nearly a month."

"The men will talk if they see me leave in the morning."

"The men already talk because you stay much later than the rest."

"And does it not bother you?"

"Should it?" Dany asked, looking up at Jon. This was not the first time they'd had this argument. Whether or not all of Castle Black knew they were lovers, he returned to his modest quarters behind the armory. They kept their affections for when they were alone, though their guards had slipped on more than one occasion. "You're not the Lord Commander anymore. You're not beholden to their vows."

"I know," Jon replied quietly. He pulled away from her and tilted her chin up so he could look at her. "But I will always be a watcher on the Wall. Vows or no, I won't let this wall fall to the Others, we've not wiped them out completely. Not yet. My men still look up to me, they still respect me."

"And you think they'd stop because you've bedded a queen? This between us is stronger than we know. Don't you think I tried to resist it, to resist you?" She was letting the emotions get the better of her. If I tell him now would it make a difference?

"Don't say it like that. You know it's more than that, Dany." His voice softened around her name.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? It's not as if this is the first time we've fought. I doubt it will be the last."

He's trying to make me feel better. "For wanting more than I can have right now. Every time you go out with the scouts I feel like I wait an eternity for you to return. I feel selfish for wanting this and the worst part is, I don't care. I won't apologize for loving you."

"And neither will I. If I die tomorrow or if I die in fifty years, I want to know that I died loving you, trusting you, above all others. I would marry you if I could."

"What?" Dany ask, surprised at his words. They'd confessed their love before, but never talked of marriage although she spent many nights dreaming of such a day. The dreams were always different, but the one constant was Jon, her brave, handsome, loyal Lord Commander. Dany bit her lip and closed her eyes. I have to tell him. He deserves to know. She felt as if her head was in a struggle of conflicting emotions with her heart.

"I would be yours forever if you would have me," Jon whispered almost reverently. "But we can't. You're the queen and I'm...I'm still a bastard. But if I could, I would."

"I would have you," Dany nearly sobbed taking his face in her hands. "I would have you, Jon Snow. I would have you a thousand thousand times. I don't care what you think you are. We're one. I married once to please my family, once for my people, but never for myself, never for love first."

"What would they say in King's Landing?"

"Damn what they would say. I don't need to be married in a Sept in front of gods I don't worship of a faith I don't believe in. I kept the Faith to keep the peace. I would marry you here at Castle Black."

"It's not safe."

"Why not?"

"Because Night King aside there are still enemies around us still. This could make us both vulnerable from within and without."

"There has to be some way." You can't give me this and then take it away in one breath.

"There's a godswood a mile north of the Wall. The heart tree there is where I said my vows. Any vows said before a heart tree are binding. We could keep it a secret...for now."

Another secret. "The area is secure?"

"It's been secure for months."

"How soon?"

"On the morrow if it pleases your grace," Jon said with a teasing smirk as he pulled her onto his lap.

"It does please me," Dany replied, circling his neck with her arms. She kissed him soundly and rolled her hips the way she learned years ago. "You please me."

"Gods, Daenerys," he cursed against her lips, letting his hands trail down her back.

"Which ones? The old or the new?"

"Both if you don't stop."

"And why would I stop?" she asked, feeling him harden again beneath her.

"Your first welcome was exhausting for a man who has been riding all day for nearly a week straight after being gone close to a month."

Dany smiled at the memory of their coupling earlier that evening. It had been frenzied, both of them barely getting the chance to remove their clothes before tumbling onto her bed without shedding their smallclothes.

"You're speaking to the khaleesi of the Dothraki Sea, a week upon a mount is nothing. Your body betrays you, Lord Snow. Tomorrow I will be your wife. I consider it my duty to tend to your needs."

She raised her hips and lowered herself down onto him, keeping her eyes locked on his the whole time. Jon laid his hands on her hips and massaged them lightly in encouragement. When she felt his fingertips drift over her stomach she paused for a moment, searching his eyes. He knows. He couldn't tell earlier when we were both still in our smallclothes, but now he knows. Even in the dim light he knows.

"Your grace," he began and swallowed hard. "Does your body betray you?"

"Jon, I-"

"Do you deny it?"

"Why would I?" she asked softly, sliding off of him and covering herself with the furs once more. She was suddenly self-conscious of his eyes on her.

"Because you kept it from me." He was sitting up now, running a hand through his dark mess of curls. "Kept it from me for long enough that even I can tell."

"I wasn't sure." Dany replied desperately. It's the truth. "I didn't even know it was still possible. Not after Rhaego, not after what the maegi said."

"How is it possible?"

"I don't know. How is it possible that a man is raised from the dead? How is it possible that a girl can walk into flames and emerge unscathed? I don't have an answer. Maybe the maegi lied to me. Maybe it was possible all along."

"You should've told me."

"I wanted to be certain. I needed to be certain," she stressed, turning to face him. "After Rhaego died, after what Mirri Maz Duur said to me I didn't dare hope I could have another. What if this was taken away from me again?"

"No one will take this child from you," Jon vowed. He took one of her small trembling hands into his own and kissed it almost reverently. "I swear it to you. No one will harm your child...our child. Not while I have breath in my body."

"I never meant to deceive you."

"I know."

"I wanted to tell you a hundred times, especially before you left for Winterfell. I knew you needed to go and if you knew you'd want to stay."

"I would've, to keep you safe."

"I have dragons for that," Dany smiled, referring to her other children. "And Ser Barristan and Jorah. This can't affect our campaign here."

"But it does. The white walkers are subdued, save for the Night King and his cohort. You should return to King's Landing."

"I'm not leaving the Wall until we have complete victory in the North. Tyrion is perfectly capable of handling matters in King's Landing."

"This isn't about politics, it's about safety."

"So your solution is to send me back to the capital where we have enemies as well? The fighting may have ended with my ascension to the Iron Thrones but there will always be those who hate my family, our family. Wherever I go, some kind of danger will follow."

Dany had spent her entire life running from one place to another, and now that she finally had the opportunity to stop she did not know how. Her new ladies-in-waiting in King's Landing had thought her preference of boots over a delicate pair of slippers was odd. They don't know what it's like to flee at a moment's notice. How fortunate for them. She loved Jon for wanting to keep her out of harm's way, truly she did, but being away from him was not the answer. She cupped his cheek in her hand and kissed him chastely, drawing him down so they were lying face to face.

"I can't lose you," Jon said, pulling her to him so they're bodies were flush together.

"You won't,"Dany replied, resting her forehead against his.

"You could go to Winterfell."

"To Winterfell?"

"If we feel you're in danger. If we perceive there is a threat that I can't protect you from promise me you'll take Ser Barristan, Rakharo, Missandei, your ladies, and Drogon to Winterfell. Stay with Sansa and stay safe. Promise me, Daenerys."

Dany reluctantly nodded her head in agreement. After everything he'd been through, everything he'd done and continued to do for her and for the realm he deserved the small piece of mind she could give him. The past few years had not been kind to either of them. Jon had lost men he called father, brother, and friend. She knew the toll it took on him, knew the guilt he bore for each life lost. She had her own ghosts as well. Ghosts that were a connection to her past. Ghosts both living and deceased. For too long she had dwelt among them, let them consume her thoughts and actions. In a war against death itself, she was now firmly planted on the side of the living. Her entire life had been affected by one war or another. She was growing weary of it. She still craved the tranquility that was brought on by her dreams of the house with the red door. Although they seemed to become less frequent in the past year, she still yearned for the feeling of peace that always accompanied them.

"I can't believe I didn't notice earlier," Jon said, interrupting her thoughts as he ghosted his knuckles across the gentle swell of her stomach.

"We were both very...anxious to celebrate your safe return," Dany grinned. She threaded her fingers through his black curls and pressed her lips against his. "You weren't still thinking about about returning to your quarters, were you?"

"You've given me some compelling reasons to stay, at least until first light. Soon enough the men will know. Some of them may be dense, but they're not stupid. For the time being it's still a good idea to keep it between us."

"You want to keep me your secret?" she asked.

"I don't want to," Jon replied, kissing her quickly. "But the Queen of Westeros wedding some bastard from the Night's Watch isn't exactly a prudent political move for you."

"I'll just convince my small council that I did it to further secure an alliance with the North."

"You almost make it sound easy."

"It is," Dany yawned. "I'm the queen and as I've told you, this time I intend to marry for love."

"My queen is tired."

"A late night meeting with one of her most trusted advisers has proved to be tiring, but it was well worth it."

Silently, Jon bent his head to capture her lips, sliding his arms around her once more. Dany ran

her palms down his chest and moaned lightly when he traced his tongue along her bottom lip before pulling back. "Sleep, Daenerys."

"I'm not tired yet," she murmured as she tucked herself against him and laid her head in the crook of Jon's neck.

"You're a terrible liar," he chuckled and rested his chin on top of her head.

"I'm a queen not a politician, I don't need to be a good liar."

"But you do need your rest, tomorrow night we'll ride to the godswood."

"Then I shall spend all day waiting for the night."

Dany kissed Jon's chest and closed her eyes, breathing him in deeply, memorizing his scent before falling into her first peaceful night's sleep in nearly a month.