I have been going a little crazy over a Jon/Ygritte WWI AU over on Tumblr for the last few days, and finally decided to write this. ygrittebardots has written a fic for this AU, as well ('dulce et decorum est' which is stunning and I will not stop telling people to go and read it), and while this one stands alone, the rough premise and a few details are the same as hers. But she is a complete darling and let me go on with this anyway.
not today
Jon can not recall reality ever having faded this quickly.
There is the blow of the explosion that rips him off his feet and sends him flying – all his life he has dreamed to fly and for that brief, deafening moment that he does, all the dreams shatter into a pile of bloody ash.
There is the dull punch as the piece of shrapnel buries itself in his stomach, lodging deep.
He feels no pain. Hears not the panicked shouts of his comrades or the sickening crunch as everything around them is torn apart. Vaguely, he can feel cold hands pressing against his stomach, but that is all he feels. Cold.
When they carry him away – he wonders where he is going and if he is flying again – dirt and debris fill the air, raining down on them. There is blood, too. Tears of flesh, but he sees none of it.
The world twists and turns, and he wants to move his arm to his breast pocket where the weight of her last letter presses comfortingly against his chest. His fingers can almost feel the rough paper, folded so often that her untidy scribblings were beginning to fade. It does not matter. He has memorized each word.
But he can not lift his arm, wonders why, wonders why the sky is such an ugly shade of brown and when the sun has disappeared.
Jon! The sound of his name echoes among the odd drumming noise. Or was it really his name?
The voice sounds familiar, but he can not grasp onto the face. Over and over it blurs in his mind, morphing into a deep shade of red that he wants to reach out and touch.
He wonders where she is now, if she can still see the sun. He hopes so. God, how he loves the sight of the sunlight sparkling in her hair. Or the way it makes her freckles stand out against the milky white of her skin. She needs to see the sun, not the muddy brown that threatens to suffocate him.
Vaguely, he registers that he can not breathe, but somehow, he does not feel the need to. In the distance, he can hear her laughter across a meadow of greens, can see the way her eyes shine with tears of joy, and can feel the rise of goosebumps all across the planes of her skin whenever he presses his lips chastely against that secret spot behind her ear.
People shout around him, and it feels as though they are shouting at him. It tires him – he wants to be alone with her, don't they understand? She is right there next to him, her hand cupping his cheek. The curls of her hair have fallen loose from her cap, dancing like flames, warming him.
Soft pink lips brush his forehead and whisper his name, over and over until it turns into a song so clear he feels the sharp edges digging into his heart. Still, he feels no pain, feels only her smile against his skin.
Suddenly, she retreats, leaving behind nothing but a cold void. He fumbles for her, grasps for the hand she has pulled away. She cocks her head to the side, tears leaving glistening trails down her cheeks.
He wants to speak her name, but when he opens his mouth, the taste of blood coats his tongue. With a sharp gasp, she plunges her hand into his stomach, screaming his name.
The last thing he sees is her, leaning over him as her salty tears drop down onto his cold cheeks, crimson stains of blood soaked into her white apron.
. .
His last letter is tucked away beneath her pillow. The ink is smeared, washed away by salty tears, and the paper folded so often that it nearly comes apart. Still, she reads it every night in the dim light of the flickering candle by her bed.
Two months. Two months since she has replied. Two months without a word from him.
She knows the truth. It is written in blood on her palms when she holds the letter in her trembling hands.
He is dead. Nothing but pieces of torn flesh in the mud of the trenches all the way across the sea. She can feel it in her bones. The cold sinks deeply into her skin, night after night as she lays awake. Silent tears soak her pillow, fingers curled around the ring he has given her, the edges digging into her palm until it hurts.
Just once, she wants to see him again, marvel at his smile, laugh at his silly jokes, take his face in her hands, get lost in his arms. Anything she would give. But the only thing she has are her tears, and while they are as clear as crystal, they are not enough to buy back a lost boy's life.
. .
The woman who wipes the sweat of his brows with a soaked cloth has the whitest hair he has ever seen, almost blinding, and she speaks in a tongue he recognizes but does not understand. Part of him knows he should, the melody of some words tickling corners of his brain that he has long thought lost.
Around him, other men are coughing and crying, the stench of blood, sweat and urine sharply burning his nostrils. All he sees is the white woman, and she smiles softly until she suddenly disappears.
Deep in his stomach, the pain throbs violently, and Jon digs his fingers so deeply into the mattress beneath him that he can feel all the blood vanishing from his hand. The only comfort is knowing that the pain will soon become so sharp that it will send him to sleep, a blissful quiet that always welcomes him with open arms.
In that darkness, she is always there waiting for him with crooked teeth peaking out between wide-stretched lips. There, all light pours from her eyes, all warmth radiates from her touch. Over and over, she takes him in her arms and kisses his forehead. Their hands are always intertwined, forming one rather than two, the shine of two rings like beacons in the darkness. She paints his name into the side of his neck with her lips, and in the distance, he can sometimes hear the laughter of a faceless child. Soon, she promises him each time, and always he wants to ask what she means. But like always, the light breaks through the comforting darkness, the pain rushes back until he has to open his eyes.
Above him, a lamp flickers nervously before it dies.
. .
She hates black. Despises how it makes everyone and everything look even more miserable and bleak. Walking through the village, it greets her everywhere. Frocks, coats, ribbons. Even the sky has adapted the colour today, looming dangerously above them all.
She avoids the village whenever she can, the sight of the graveyard much like a knife twisted into her stomach. Someone is always there these days, and the planes of untouched green are dug into until the wet earth welcomes another life ended much too soon.
Every day someone else gets the message that their son, father, brother, friend has died. And with every passing day, Ygritte envies them more.
Their faces are ripped shadows of what they used to be, and more often than not, tears fall despite the presence of strangers, all senses of propriety forsaken. Still, at least they know.
All she has is the darkness that curls itself around her heart with every day his letter does not come, and the memory of his last kiss. Yet even that is beginning to fade.
. .
The pain lessens after a while, but so do the dreams.
Her letter is gone, along with everything else he has kept with him. Scattered into the wind, drenched in blood and muck and covered with dead men's flesh.
Around him, men suffer and die, only a handful seem to get better. He watches boys drown in their own blood, sees limbs torn off and faces grotesquely disfigured and burned. His own hand is still bandaged, but he can feel how sickening it must look beneath the white fabric. Oddly enough, while he can dimly recall the explosion that sent the shrapnel into his stomach, he has no recollection of the fire that nearly melted the flesh off his bones.
Day after day, he fights not to join the long line of boys who are carried out with a bloody sheet covering their young, dead faces. Night after night, he longs to be back at Winterfell, to swim in the lake and laugh with his siblings, to take Ygritte's hand and hear her laugh.
He can not make contact, does not even really know how long he has been here, or where he is. A simple note is all he desires, to let his family know he is alive. And Ygritte... He has promised her to come back, and he has every intention of keeping that promise.
But what good is that promise now, lying here, helpless and in pain while she is all the way across the sea, all alone with their secret and lost in the pain of uncertainty, not knowing what has happened to him?
I'll see you soon, I promise. Jon wants to laugh at his own folly now, at the promise he never should have made.
All along, she has been right. You know nothing.
. .
Robb is visiting for the first time in months, and things in the castle are suddenly both easier and more tense.
On the second evening, as Ygritte is helping to serve dinner – their footmen have left long ago, with nothing to remember them by but two telegrams that arrived within a fortnight of each other, informing them all of their death – the stiff conversation suddenly turns to Jon. The illegitimate son who has been lost for months across the sea without leaving even the slightest trace.
Until the day before, the day of his arrival, Robb has been clueless about his brother's fate. Now, politely declining the platter of vegetables she is offering him, he fires question after question at his father. Ygritte knows all the answers – as large a castle as Winterfell is, no secrets can be kept inside its walls for long – but she listens intensely anyway as Lord Eddard hesitantly answers his oldest son's questions. There are no real answers, though, no one knows anything.
Eventually, little Arya breaks out in tears and storms out of the dining room, and it is Lady Catelyn who rushes after her. Ygritte can hardly read the expression on her face, but there is a sadness embedded there she did not expect. Silence falls heavily upon the hot room, dozens of candles burning wickedly on the long table.
Lord Eddard finally rises and walks out without so much as a word.
Ygritte swallows. Rickon pokes at his fish – a poor child, he barely understands what is happening and why it is tearing his family apart – and Bran has set down his knife and fork, staring blankly into the flames.
Do you think he really is dead? Lady Sansa's voice is soft as a song, but the scared words sent a chill down Ygritte's spine, and the shudder causes her to clumsily drop the platter she was holding. Vegetables scatter all over the floor, the loud noise of the silver hitting the ground echoing in the small room, and she stutters apology after apology.
She can hear Mr Seaworth cursing and muttering, bustling at the other end of the room, but suddenly, as she fumbles to scoop the ruined food back onto the platter, a hand appears to help. She looks up to see Robb kneeling by her side.
I am so sorry, I must have tripped, she lies, unable to look at him, at the uniform that reminds her of the last time she saw Jon. He had looked handsome in his own, crushing her against his chest with his face buried in her neck. Fighting against the burning in her own eyes, she had pretended not to hear his choked sobs or feel the warmth of his tears against the skin left exposed by her coat's collar. The memory cuts deep, just like his promise had. I'll see you soon, I promise.
He is a liar.
Milord, I have to apologize, Mr Seaworth states overly politely as he always does, but Ygritte can see the terror in the butler's eyes at his Lord's son kneeling down in a mess of vegetables.
It's quite all right, nothing's happened. Are you hurt? Robb's voice is kind, but then Ygritte notices how something catches his eyes and they drop down towards her chest. She follows them, feeling her throat constricting when her eyes find her ring dangling freely from its chain. She always keeps it beneath her frock, the coldness of the chain against her skin a comfort whenever she dusts Jon's old room, walks through the library where he has always sat reading or clears the breakfast table – his seat empty and cold. The memories of him are scattered everywhere in the castle, and they reopen the wounds she so meticulously tries to stitch up.
Kneeling down, it must have somehow slipped out from underneath her frock, and in the dim light, the golden band shines sadly. Her eyes shoot up, panic rushing through her veins like icy water.
Robb says nothing, only reaches out his hand to help her back onto her feet.
. .
He can barely sit without assistance, but they still transport him to a different field hospital, the journey claiming what little energy he has regained over the past weeks. Of the world they pass, he sees little. Fields stretch on forever, empty and dry, and the sky is dusty and brown.
Two days after he arrives, the fever takes over.
. .
Barely a single star fights its way through the thick blanket of clouds that cover the night sky. It is bitterly cold, and Ygritte feels the pain of it on each inch of exposed skin. Still, she sits motionlessly on the cold grass with her eyes pinned to every star she can catch. Sometimes she wonders if he can see the same in this very moment, wherever he is. Perhaps he is one of them now – she recalls a story she has heard as a child, but the mere thought seems foolish and she shakes it off like cold rain.
There will be grass stains on her frock later, stains that will take all night to wash out. Sleep only brings nightmares, violent glimpses at his scarred, unrecognisable face, the feel of hot blood on her hands, rising and rising until she drowns in it. There is no escape from sleep, but she is a fighter, always has been, and for as long as she can, she will stay awake. Her fingers dig deeply into the cold earth, until she can feel the dirt pressing beneath her short fingernails.
She longs for rain, for cold drops to run down on her and wash away the pain. Wash away her clothes and each layer of her skin until nothing but bones remained. Those can dry up into dust until the harsh autumn wind blows them away, carry her ash across the grounds and into the sky.
But all that soaks her skin now are her tears.
Ygritte! The sound of her name echoes across the field behind the castle – as close to the woods as she dares to go at night - and she turns to look towards the castle. It is Robb who is running towards her, and her eyes widen when the scarce light reveals he is wearing his pyjamas. No coat, not even shoes.
She stands slowly, the weight of the delicate chain around her neck suddenly threatening to suffocate her. It dangles down her chest freely now, reflecting the light of the stars, always there at night to catch her tears. There is no rain to wash them away, only the darkness of the night to hide them.
There are no words than can console her any more. No touch that can ease the agony.
When Robb comes to a stop before her, barefoot on the cold grass and breathing raggedly – his eyes are blood-shot and swollen, and the urge to look away is almost unbearable - she suddenly notices the many lights burning in the castle's windows over his shoulder. Dinner has ended hours ago, and by all means, she should be in bed like everyone else. Yet, instead of the stars that were now hidden, the castle glows lively in the darkness.
He is alive.
. .
The salty smell of the sea still lingers, he can almost taste it on his tongue, even now that he is back in his old room at Winterfell. Here where the smell of firewood and ancient stone fills every room and hallway. The curtains are drawn, a glowing fire casting shadows and crackling softly. The bed feels a thousand times softer than he remembers – and how often has he clung to the memory of his bed in the past months?
Robb and their father are the only ones left, his siblings and Lady Catelyn long since gone to bed. Arya had put up quite the fight, clinging to his good hand with much more force than anyone might expect from a girl her age. I won't be going anywhere, he had reassured her, and when she kissed his forehead, tears had prickled in his eyes.
Now, his own eyes are heavy with exhaustion, and the effect of the morphine diminishing by the minute. The burn on his hand throbs worse than the deep gash in his stomach, and he longs for sleep to claim him so he can be at peace.
Only one thing is more important than sleep in this moment – red hair and soft smiles - and he stirs restlessly as his father speaks to him. It is an odd sight, Lord Eddard Stark with his eyes shining from tears he will not shed, and when he leans down to rest his hand on Jon's cheek, he is reminded of all the times he has spend awake at night begging for the mother he never knew. She is nothing but a vague shadow now as his father smiles at him.
When he steps out of the bedroom, leaving the door the slightest bit open, Jon turns towards his brother. He looks older, so much older than the last time they have seen each other, nearly a year before. There are lines dug deeply into his skin that have not been there before, a tiredness so foreign on Robb's face. Jon supposes he must have changed, as well. He feels changed, every fibre of his being set aflame and born anew.
Robb claps his hand carefully on his shoulder, as if he were one of Sansa's porcelain dolls, fragile and easily broken. He is broken. The realization only sinks in slowly. There will be no going back to the war that has changed his entire life. All of their lives. I'll bring her up.
For a moment, as Robb's words fade into the crackling of the fire, Jon is utterly confused. Only when a gentle smile tugs at Robb's lips – there he is, the brother he was sure never to see again – does he begin to understand. She told you? Worry immediately sets in, a weight in his guts that settles angrily beneath the gash that throbs more and more with each breath he takes. During all these months, it has never occurred to him that their secret might be discovered, that she might lose her position. Her security.
But Robb only smiles more, softly shaking his head. He looks at him like he does at Arya sometimes, whenever she needs reassurance, a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen without judgement. She didn't have to.
He walks out then, slow and determined steps, but Jon notices the way his brother's right shoulder hangs a little low, and the rigidity of his neck. The war has left its scars on them all, and he knows it is long from being over. The flame at the core of it is still burning brightly, a tight coil still waiting to burst.
Moaning into the dim light and silence of his room, Jon clenches his eyes shut. All the pain is making him dizzy, the room turning, a sick swirl of colour he has no wish to see. All he wants to see is red and white. It is all he wants to touch. Gentle warmth and soft cold. It is all he wants to hear. Raspy words and husky laughs.
Quick footsteps echo in from the hallway, the unmistakable sound of heels against stone, dampened by the thick layer of carpet that lines most of Winterfell's endless halls. With a sharp intake of breath, his eyes shoot open, head turning towards the door where a thin line of light falls in, illuminating the wardrobe that has been his ever since he can remember.
And then she is standing there in the door, all pale skin and red hair let down across her shoulders, falling in gentle waves, framing her face. Red eyes glistening with tears, pink lips trembling. She is wearing her nightdress, as white as her skin. The dark black of her shoes are peeking out, and he laughs, imagining her slipping into the first shoes she came across instead of walking barefoot.
For the longest moment, she stands entirely immobile.
Ygritte. His voice is heavy with sleep, and he reaches out his good hand towards her, needs to hold her before the darkness claims him.
It all happens in a rush, then. All he has pictured over the past few months. The mattress dips slightly beneath her weight, and he ignores the stab of pain the shift causes in his stomach. It matters little now when her cold hands cup his face, and her eyes are so close he can see the tears that are clinging to her lashes.
I hate you. Through the choked sobs he can barely understand her, but he does, he always has. He reaches up to brush away a tear that is trailing slowly towards her jaw, his thumb catching at her lip. In that moment, her eyes fall shut, and she shudders above him, her entire body trembling.
His fingers sink into the soft curls of her hair, his skin tingling at the sensation. It is all too much, all too soft and too warm and she is pressing her lips against his with a stuttering sigh. I love you, too, he whispers against her lips, allowing her to swallow the words, grateful that she does, and her whimper only brings forth his own tears. They mingle with hers, her breath damp on his skin.
Again and again he whispers the words, for all the times he has not said them. He will say them until she grows tired of them, until the day he closes his eyes forever.
But that is not today.