A/n: I will go down with this ship.
Disclaimer: I don't own A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, nor it's characters. That honor goes to to George R.R. Martin.
He raises the glass to his lips, the sweet nectar tasting bitter on his tongue before he sets down the wine with a sigh. Shadows streamed in through the window, stretching across the floors and draping across the walls like a curtain. Tyrion rubs his temples before setting the book down, the candle's light flickering across it's pages. The dwarf stands, stretches, then seats himself once again. He flips through his book, eyes tracing the words with great ease, now weary from the sleep deprivation that plagued him.
There's a soft sound, something that pricks his interest but he stops, hesitates, before turning the next page of his book. The youngest Lannister lets himself believe for the briefest of moments that it was nothing; just a rat scurrying around in the hallways. But then he pauses and listens again, the closed door helping little to seal away the sounds that drone through the rooms. Tyrion stands abrunptly and waddles over towards the window, prying the shutters open to peer around -some safety measures that he had taken- and after a moment, he spotted the briefest of movements flurry on the ground - a flash of white. The shape is further along the ground by the wall, right beneath the window that belonged to - ...
Pulling back with a set frown and a sigh, he turns on his heel, moving towards the door like a man with a purpose. He picks up the candlestick from the table when he passes it. His black and green eyes survey the room once and settles on the auburn-haired beauty, laying in their -her, he corrects himself- bed. The blankets are loosely covering her, revealing the pale of her neck to him, and for a moment, he hesitates. But then he turns and opens the door quietly, moving slowly so surely not to wake her. He steps into the hallway, for once glad that he had abandoned his shoes before.
He has a rising suspicions of what had happened, but he didn't quicken his movements, only frowning to himself as he held up the candle in the dish with a steady hand. He stops when he nears the end of the hallway of the Eastern wing of the houseand stares at the wooden door with a worried expression before he pushes the door open, gently. The light in his hand brought the shadows to life as it danced along the walls.
The first thing he noticed was the solemn rose, dipped in blue that rested smoothly against Arya's pillow. The signifigance hits him quickly, and he almost drops the candle in alarm then. Tyrion raises his black and green eyes to the window, where the movement had stilled. Jon Snow stares impassively back at him, one leg dangling out of the window and one arm propped on the window sill while another was helping Arya out.
Although, Tyrion mused, it wasn't Jon Snow now, was it? It was no secret that Lyanna, Ned Stark's sister, had been "kidnapped" by Prince Rhaegar and wed to him, thus making Jon their legal son by both Stark and Targaryean blood. (Tyrion wasn't sure how it was found out, but he suspected that it had something to do with the only other living person who had been witness to it aside from Ned.) It was probably one of the only reasons why Queen Daenerys hadn't killed him when he took back the North and abandoned his duties as a man of the Night's Watch.
The former-bastard never once lets his gaze waver from Tyrion's face, his grip tightening on Arya's waist, drawing Tyrion's attention to that spot. Snow was spotted in Jon's dark brown hair, the gentle but cold winds outside of Winterfell giving reason Tyrion to worry for them.
"You're going to fall out the window," he says with a quick shake of his head. They stare at him as if he's grown two heads. He continues anyways, rubbing along the remnants of his nose. His mismatched eyes never left them for a long while, "and you'll both fall to your untimely deaths. Sansa would be dreadfully heartsick."
"Sansa can eat my Needle!" Arya calls out, childishly, before Jon nudges her and whispers something in her ear. The woman scowls and steps down off of the step, and Jon drops down next to her. He closes the window with a quick frown.
For a long moment, Tyrion simply regards them. Arya had long since grown in a long-legged nimble woman, her hair spilling down her back in a loose braid, and her breeches and shirt covered by thick layers of fur. The dwarf almost laughed at how Wildling-like the girl was. Jon seemed to have noticed a change in Tyrion's expression, because he leans forward, about to say something, but then his mouth closes quickly with a near inaudible snap. Jon watches him with his dark stormy eyes, and for a brief moment, Tyrion suspects he could see faint wisps of dark hues of purple in it. But then Jon blinks and it's gone.
"Sansa won't like that either; I don't think she's a professional swordeater," he says in amusement. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the wax dribble down the candle. "What are you doing, Jon?" He's referring to Jon seemingly kidnapping Arya - who doesn't seem to mind.
"..It'd be improper for me to fake it as a going for a nightly stroll, wouldn't it?"
"It'd be more believable if you weren't going out through the window." Then something in Jon's face shifts and the tension lifts and the air feels lighter somehow, almost lapsing into comfortableness. Arya hadn't seemed to have felt it because she'll looking at all of them skeptically now.
"Sansa would be displeased," Tyrion observes.
"You're her Lord husband, I bet you could calm her down," Jon says a bit too lightly, but his eyes are serious. He hasn't removed his hand from Arya's waist either, but he's smiling warmly at Tyrion, in that loose way that comes easy to someone's face when they spot a friend. That thought tugs at Tyrion and he finds himself smiling, although the skin across his scar pulls tight at it.
"It'll be a ballad, a song to be remembered for all ages," Tyrion found himself agreeing, his green and black eyes watching the pair in a fond manner, "the one of which true love conquers all." He laughs a bit bitterly, "If that were only true." He's referring about the love being a conqueror; it seems almost ridiculous, he thinks.
Something lights up in Arya's face then and she launches herself forward, rocking on her heels and eyeing the Lannister up as if he was a meal to her. "It is true," she says a bit shrilly, but then she seems to remember who she is because then she glares at him in an almost gentle manner. At least she tried, he thinks to himself.
"You knew, didn't you?" Tyrion glances over to regard Jon when the prince speaks; Jon looks dreadfully sure of that fact. Tyrion doesn't even have to nod to confirm it. "Arya, I told you to conceal those ravens better," he reprimands the younger gently, and he turns to face her. For a moment, the blonde ponders about how similar Jon and Arya look, now that the cousins facing each other. Like Jaime and Cersei, he thought. And look how that turned out.
"I actually expected for you to be here sooner," Tyrion admits, drawing their attention. Jon raises his eyebrows, but there's a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth, barely concealed. Arya has the decency to look ashamed, although she's fighting down a smile too.
"You expected for me to ask for him?" Arya asks, not sounding surprised at all.
"Don't you always?"
They both pause to consider the words, and then Arya rocks back on her heels with a nimble grace of a cat and sighs, drawing it out for extra emphasis. Tyrion isn't phased.
"Am I really that predictable? Syrio said-" but then she stops herself, a pinched expression crossing her face before it smooths over and she looks too-much like Lyanna. (Not that Tyrion met her before..) "I won't marry Gendry," she says smoothly, her voice only hitching when she says 'marry' but other than that, Tyrion is proud of how confident she sounded. Tyrion was a bit uncertain of how they talked about the bond that Jon and Arya shared to Arya's arranged marriage to Gendry, who had been the heir apparent to Lord Stannis when the Lord didn't have any sons and after Queen Daenerys legalized him.
"I never expected for you to agree to it," Tyrion says, drawing his eyebrows up in a placid manner. Arya only huffs and blows on the hair that tumbles across her forhead and into her steely eyes. "But wouldn't it be nice," he continues, "to marry someone you know?"
"Wouldn't it be nice," she counters, "to marry someone you love?"
He silently admits that she has a point.
"You can always learn to love," he says, watching her carefully, judging her silently and with a closed expression. "Best friends often lead to romances." He draws his eyebrows up again for a moment before they settle for his normal brooding appearance. "Or were you not best friends in your youth?" They look startled for a moment, before they eye each other out of the corner of their eyes. "You two were startingly close; I wouldn't be surprised if you thought of each other then." He tilts his head, a frown tugging at his skin and scar.
"Best friends don't always love each other," Arya points out.
"No, not always," he agrees. "But you two fell in love." She has nothing to say to that because it's true; Jon and Arya had always been the closest siblings until the war happened and Jon reclaimed his place as Rhaegar's heir. "A joint union between the now-official legitimate heir to the Baratheon House and the House of Stark would surely ease the strain on everybody and settle the matters of allies." He pauses then, shifting the candle tray to his other hand and let his right hand drop from the lessended weight. "I once married for love," he says, watching them, judging them, waiting to see their reactions. "But then I married for duty."
"But you fell in love with my sister," Arya objects, and Tyrion finds himself nodding.
"Yes, but I am but only the Imp to her - as well as her Lord Husband," he sighs, "not her lover."
"You don't know that," Jon says then, and both Arya and Tyrion start, not having expected for Lyanna and Rhaegar's son to speak so suddenly and so surely. "She could love you." But he's frowning, his eyes dark and his brows knitted together as if he's trying to read a letter in a language he didn't understand. Tyrion couldn't blame him.
"She could," the Lannister glances away for a brief moment. "My point here being, what would you marry for, Arya? For duty, or for love?"
There's only a brief flash of uncertainty in her eyes before she replies boldly, "Love." She tightens her grip on Jon's arm.
Something clouds Tyrion's eyes before it clears and he nods. "Then may the Gods preserve you," he mumbles quietly, but he knows that they heard him by the way a dark expression cross their faces. "I wish you the best of luck, younger Lady Stark, Lord Targaryen." He motions vaguely behind him, "I suggest not going to the Trident like your father had done, though, Jon. It'd be best for this legacy not to continue." Jon looks guilty for a moment. "Of course, Arya would probably be fighting in the war." He didn't have to be friends with Arya to know that.
Tyrion frowns slightly before he smiles, the skin pulling tight on his face especially around the massive scar when he adds, "What do you want me to tell Gendry?"
Arya makes a face before she scowls, "He knows how close I was to Jon; he -Gendry, not Jon- is my best friend - he should know that I don't love him." She tilts her head, her dark locks spilling across her shoulders in a messy cascade of hair.
Jon's expression becomes uncertain when Tyrion directs his next question at him. "What about Margaery? You're engaged to her; you can't just run off with Arya. Her Highness wouldn't appreciate that."
"Sansa or Queen Daenerys?" Tyrion hears Arya ask bitterly, but he doesn't know how to answer so he lets the question hang.
"Margaery..." Jon fidgets, glancing away breathing out in a quiet sigh, before his expression brightens for a moment, "Margaery could marry Gendry." Tyrion smirks and he finds himself rolling his eyes. Of course.
"I'll suggest it to Sansa," Sansa was the one who suggested for Arya to marry Gendry, he remembers. So although she would be upset about the alliance between Baratheon and Stark would have been ruined, she probably wouldn't have a problem with her friend marrying the younger Baratheon heir if it meant that Margaery would be happier that way. "Jon?" The Targaryan-Stark son pauses, his brows knitting together in mild confusion and he stops, about to unlatch the window and begin to crawl through again and climb down the ledge, as Tyrion assumed. Tyrion smiles, the motion meeting his mismatched eyes. "Going through the front doors might be easier." Jon smiles too and Tyrion knows he's making the right choice.
Sansa doesn't seem to think so when she wakes up the next day and finds Arya missing; it doesn't take a genius like Tyrion to know it was Jon who took her, especially when a single blue rose was placed on her pillow. It was common knowledge that Rhaegar won Lyanna over with a crown of blue winter roses, so it wouldn't have been a surprise that his son would do the same for the woman he loved. But Sansa doesn't seem to figure it out until months later when the choices of who it could've been run thin and the news of their impending marriage reaches Winterfell. (Tyrion knows that she already knew it, but didn't want to believe it.)
Queen Daenerys isn't exactly pleased either, but when she learns of who Jon decided to sweep off their feet and marry, she writes a letter to Tyrion and congratulates him on his choice. -Wolves do not marry stag; they hunt them down and kill them. Wolves make packs with other wolves. Rhaegar and Lyanna were the only exception; they were drawn together like fire and ice. It was the call of the pack and of blood that drew Jon and Arya together. He really does have Targaryen blood really does run in is like fire to Jon's ice; I know he has made a good choice in choosing her as his wife. Daenerys writes him, not long after. Although I do not approve of you choosing to withhold this information from Queen Sansa and I, I understand completely how loyal you are to my nephew. I have decided that this loyalty is something that I need. Tell me where Jon and Arya have gone and I will give you the position of the Hand of the Queen, no strings attached. Reply as quickly as possible.
Tyrion knows that she actually doesn't expect for him to tell her. She's counting on it. It's just the loyalty she needs, he thinks as he sets the letter aside, folding it up for the eleventh time. She's testing me. She knows what I will do. He knows that he won't change his mind. He opens the next letter, rereads it and smiles, fur coats draped on his small body, his feet feeling slightly cold and damp against the cool stone on the balcony. It's a letter, inviting Sansa (there's a scribble after that looks like Arya's writing that insists on their reluctance on inviting the Northern Queen) and him to their wedding before they left to travel the Seven Kingdoms. It's written in Jon's hand (aside from Arya's note), Tyrion could tell, and the boy (who's not really a boy anymore, but rather a man grown and in love) seems eager to have Tyrion show up, and seemed almost hesitant on adding that Sansa should come along. (Tyrion remembers that Sansa often referred to as Jon as her bastard brother until his title was changed, but even then, he doubted that she ever truly saw him differently. Tyrion wants to blame the late Lady Catelyn for Sansa's lack of acceptance to her cousin, but he doesn't because he doesn't know if it was really Catelyn's fault or Sansa's.) There is no mention of Daenerys. (Tyrion doesn't know if she was invited as well; even though she is Jon's aunt, the youngest Lannister knows that they don't have the best relationship, even if they are the same age.) Sansa would prefer if I left, he thinks. So it wouldn't matter if I accepted Her Grace's offer. She'd probably be eager to see Jon and Arya's wedding, though, even if she doesn't approve of them together.. or of her suspicions of my involvement of that.
"Tyrion?" his wife calls and he starts, turning around, the crisp morning air pricking at his skin. She looks uncertain, her posture perfected and her skin flawless and her pale, auburn hair twisted in loose braids that were placed neatly and gracefully atop of her head, loose strands tumbling across her forehead. She's beautiful, Tyrion knows (he can't help but think that, and everybody already knows that), but it's not that he's fallen in love with. She purses her lips, and asks, quietly, "I was wondering if you'd like to join me for breakfast." Her voice is light but with a quick undertone of strain, her eyes are uncertain, a bit too open and bright in the light. He can see her innocence and her gentleness shining in her eyes. He knows he's in love before he even answers.
I may just have to change my answer,the next time that Her Grace asks.. He thinks as he accepts Sansa's offer. Maybe we could be happy together like Jon and Arya. He thinks again. It doesn't seem as impossible anymore, was the next thought he thinks when Sansa takes his hand uncertainly and leads him down the steps. Then he thinks to himself for a moment about how lucky he is to have his own blue winter rose in the form of Sansa. When she smiles shyly at him out of the corner of her eye when he opens the door for her, he realizes that maybe Jon's guess had been right and perhaps they could be happy together. He thinks that they deserve it. (He hopes they do.) Sansa's grip tightens on him and he assures himself than nothing has ever made him happier. (Not even Tysha.)