I have had barely any time for fic over the past couple of months - sorry to those of you waiting on continuations for ongoing stories! This fic was written as part of a livejournal fic exchange challenge.

Sam had been born in the chill of winter, and it was that, said his mother, that had made him grow up fat, for from the very first he had hated the cold, had screamed if a cold breeze had touched his face, and would only be consoled by latching himself onto her breast. When he was weaned it was still cold enough that it made his new milk teeth ache. His mother was busy with a new baby, his sister Talla, and so gave Sam sweetmeats and comfits to soothe his crying. Not long after that spring came, and Talla learned to walk wobbly-legged in the sunshine of the courtyard, not on the rugs in his mother's rooms as he had done, but Sam would ever-after associate hunger with the chill of winter, and a full stomach with his mother's hands and her voice humming lullabies.

"What're you doing, Sam?" said Talla, playing in the yard with her best doll, whose hair she could plait over and over for hours. Sam, who had just passed his sixth name day but was as heavy as a boy of ten, had wrapped his mother's gilt-edged scarf about him like a cloak and was murmuring seriously over a pile of twigs, a scrap of folded parchment held in his hands like a book.

"I'm practising spells," he explained. "So I can be a wizard."

"Why d'you want to be a wizard?" said Talla doubtfully. She never had very much imagination.

"Wizards can make things happen. I'm going to make it summer all the time, and the fruit in the trees'll already be honeyed," Sam told her, always eager to explain, and Talla tilted her head to the side, squinting her eyes at him, and then ran across the courtyard to their father, who was talking to a servant.

"Father," she said, "Sam wants to be a wizard. Can I be a wizard too?"

"Women can't be wizards," said Randyll Tarly brusquely, "and Samwell will be a lord." Randyll stalked across the yard, face twisting in disgust. "What's this nonsense, Samwell?"

"I – want to be a wizard, Father," said Sam, swallowing hard as he looked up into his father's hard, lean face. Randyll scared him, which he knew made him craven, but he couldn't help it. Sam's stomach gurgled, nerves making him hungry, and Randyll's lip curled. "I'll learn magic, and – I'll make it never be winter again, and Horn Hill will always have harvests and plenty," he added, a rush of enthusiasm overcoming his nerves. Surely his father would appreciate that? But Randyll just looked down at him the way a man would stare at a dog that had just pissed on a clean floor.

"You could do with less plenty," he said. "Look at you, dressed in your mother's silks, playing at magics," and he boxed Sam's ears hard enough that Sam staggered, head ringing. "You should be playing with the dogs or climbing trees like the village boys, not fooling with this trash," he said, and tore the parchment out of Sam's hands, the parchment Sam had laboriously written shaky-handed letters on, and crumpled it into a ball. Sam's stomach rumbled fiercely, and Randyll gave him a look of complete contempt and walked away.

Later, in the kitchen, Sam crept under the table with a handful of comfits and ate them one by one until he stopped shivering.

"I will be a wizard," he whispered determinedly. "I will." That way he'd never be cold again.

Twelve years later Sam said:

"I always wanted to be a wizard,"

and Jon Snow laughed, his surprisingly bright smile shaking the Stark shadows out of his features for a moment, and as Sam had hoped it also shook Jon out of his misery about being turned away from the rangers, and made him agree to take his vows with Sam at the heart tree. Jon took it as a joke, which it was, but Sam's jokes at his own expense were always things that were true.

Sam had been thinking a lot about magic, these past weeks, lying in bed with his teeth chattering, dreaming of warm beds and hot wine and the soft press of his cat's fur against his stomach as he slept. Sam missed Tamsin the tortoiseshell cat, the way she would butt his cheek with her head in the morning, her soft yowls for milk. Sam had fallen in love with a litter of kittens eight years before: two were kept to be mousers and the rest his father had drowned, despite Sam's tearful protests, but running out to the pond he had found that one small wet bundle out of the four was moving, and this kitten he had kept as his own. Randyll had spat with disgust, but for once Sam's mother held sway and Sam was allowed to keep the animal, even though house cats were for pampered princesses, not for sensible households, and definitely not for boys to keep as pets. When Sam left for the north, Tamsin could not come with him: "the Wall's no place for a cat," said Talla, and added "I'll look after her," which was the first kind thing she'd said to her brother since she'd grown old enough to know better than to play with the son their father despised. As Sam made his vows that night in front of the heart tree, abjuring family and titles and possessions – things his father had already asked him to give up – he wondered how seriously Talla had made her promise to him, if she'd keep her word or if Tamsin would end up starving in the stables because she'd never get a look in for mice with the lean mousers of the barns stalking the courtyard. He thought Talla would; Sam might not mean much to his family, by Tarlys kept their word.

"I pledge my life and honour to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come," said Sam. His knees ached from kneeling in the snow, and Jon had to pull him up by the arm, but that night he went to sleep for once without feeling the cold, the memory of his new brothers' arms embracing him in congratulations as sweet as comfits.

It was not long after that word came of Ned Stark's death. Jon stalked to the stables, face fierce and pale. Sam ran huffing at his heels, for he feared what Jon would do. He had seen Jon as he received the news, seen something hard and cold settle in his eyes, and Sam's stomach churned with anxiety.

"You can't leave," he said, and he hated the tone of his own voice, the childish pleading in it.

"Get out my way, Sam." Jon's voice was all collected fury, and Sam could tell Jon barely saw him, saw nothing but the scene in King's Landing where his father had been beheaded as a traitor.

"D'you know what happens to deserters?"

"Better than you do," Jon said, saddling his horse, and Sam wrung his hands together.

"What you going to do?" he asked desperately, trying at least to delay him.

"I'm going to find my brother, and put a sword through King Joffrey's throat."

Sam couldn't speak, only a thin sound of dismay coming from his mouth. Jon swung up easily onto his horse, and gestured impatiently at Sam who was standing in his path.

"Move."

"I miss my cat," Sam blurted, and Jon blinked, for the first time this evening looking at his friend.

"What?"

"I miss my cat. Tamsin, she's called. I raised her from a kitten. My father tried to drown her, but I saved her. If my father died, I think – I think I might be glad of it, and I don't care if it's wicked," he said, voice trembling, but he stuck his jaw out as defiantly as he could. "So I don't know anything about what you're feeling, Jon. But I wish I did, because – you're my brother now. And I'm yours, because of what we swore. So I won't let you go." He crossed his arms.

"Sam, get out of my way," said Jon, voice rising, but it wasn't with the determined fury of earlier.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post," said Sam slowly, deliberately, and with great courage he reached out and grasped at the bridle of Jon's horse. The horse whinnied, and Sam jumped, but he did not stop.

"Shut up," said Jon, and his voice trembled slightly now. "I don't care about my oath."

"I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men," continued Sam obstinately.

"I don't care," said Jon, voice breaking on the last word, and he pressed a gloved hand against his face.

"You do, Jon," said Sam simply. "You're a good enough man that you wouldn't sleep with Ros with the perfect – you know – " he gestured at his chest – "so of course you care about your oath."

"My father's dead," said Jon, dropping his hand. It was dark, but Sam could see the gleam of tears against his cheeks.

"I know," said Sam. "I wish he wasn't. But you can't undo what's been done."

Jon sat in silence for a long moment, and then he dismounted. Sam approached him timidly, and then Jon put his head down on Sam's shoulder. Sam wrapped his arms around Jon, and thought that he'd held someone in his arms to give them comfort before. It made his stomach hurt, but not altogether in a bad way. He thought of how twelve years ago he'd wanted to hold back winter to help his family. And now winter was here, and he was no wizard; but maybe, just maybe, he could be of some use to his new family after all.