What Comes After:
The fire crackled merrily in the hearth of the Winterfell Solar, logs cracked and hissed while soft flames danced in their nests of sparks but of the pack who had once called this castle their den, only two wolves remained.
Many of her father's elder bannermen, would remark that she was more and more the spitting image of lady Catelyn each day. She couldn't decide if that made her proud or sad. Even before she died, she hadn't seen her mother for almost two years, now all this time later, she could scarcely remember her face.
Despite her position, the seven long years since the end of the Targaryen Resurgence had done little to weather Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, Queen of the North. She wished the same could be said of Jon.
The years beyond the Wall, for she knew he spent little of his time at Castle Black, had not been kind to him. He was haggard, worn and there was a distinctly unhealthy tint in his eyes. She had scarcely recognised him when he had ridden into Winterfell. The Jon she had known had been so staunchly determined to live, to uphold his duty that even death couldn't stop him, but it was if the life was draining out of him now. When they had embraced in the castle courtyard she could feel his ribs.
They had sat there in silence, the empty chairs in the solar only served to seat the shades of all those they had lost.
"Has Bran visited?" At least his voice, though weary, maintained some of its old vigour.
Sansa laughed a bitter laugh.
"King Brandon has more important matters to attend to than an official state visit to the sister who seceded the North from his crown."
Jon winced. Sansa hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but since she had left KingsLanding she hadn't seen Bran, she hadn't seen any of her family. She couldn't help but feel a sense of bitterness. She had ruled the North alone for over half a decade. She knew when she heard of the Red Wedding that she had lost her mother the day she had ridden south from Winterfell, but she hadn't realized until after the war that she had lost the rest of her family too.
"At least you got letters." Jon remarked in a weak attempt at humour.
Sansa wanted to laugh back but couldn't, "Tyrion writes those letters, he told me so when he visited. He says he thinks there are some days when Bran doesn't speak, he only watches the realm through his thousand eyes, or relives the past, waking from his slumber every so often to issue a decree, which he describes as sometimes making sense and sometimes not."
Jon didn't reply.
"Our Brother never came back from beyond the Wall." Sansa remarked.
A particularly large log split apart as the flames took it. Sansa noticed Jon making a conscious effort not to look at the fire.
"And Arya? Still no word?"
Sansa shook her head, "I wouldn't worry about her though, I think the gods themselves would be too scared to stand in her way if she wanted something."
They did both laugh genuinely then. But Jon grew sad again.
"I miss her, we had such little time together. All the time we did have was either spent fighting or preparing for a fight."
"We did fight, we fought and won, against the Bolton's, the Army of the dead, against Cersei." And Against Daenerys, "We were victorious." It sounded hollow even to Sansa.
"This doesn't feel like Victory."
"No it doesn't." Sansa concurred.
The North had won its independence and yet she had lost her entire family in the process. Robb, Rickon, Father and Her Mother to the grave, Jon to the Wall, Arya to the Seas and Bran to the throne. Many of the Houses of The North had shared the same fate. They had lost their lords and heirs to this battle or that war, she struggled to remember how many wars there actually were in those eight years.
Yes she had tried to fill the gaps by seceding these lands to that family or legitimizing some bastard or other, but still, many Keeps stood empty, fields unsown and villages devoid of life. Villages where only the wind wandered the streets. From what her spies told her, the situation was much the same, if not worse in the Riverlands and Stormlands. Too many had fallen, too many had vanished, too many had been burnt or executed or killed by disease. She doubted whether the country would ever truly recover.
She noticed that Jon was finally looking at the fire, peering deep into the flames as if to extract some meaning from their random movements and flickers.
"I fought for so long, I fought at the Wall and beyond it. I fought at Winterfell, I fought at Kingslanding. I fought wildlings, Bolton's, Dead Men, I thought I was tired of fighting, but it's only now, now that there's no one left to fight that I realized that…" He paused. "I realized that if I'm not fighting, I don't know who I am. All I was ever good at was swinging a sword or teaching others how to swing swords but now there's no more need for swords and no more need for the men who swing them."
It was painful to watch him like this. That shadow she had saw hanging over him at Kingslanding, still hung over him now. She still hung over him.
"Do you think years of conquest would've been better, would've given you a purpose? Would've given you plenty of people to swing your sword at?" There was no point in trying to dance around the ghost of the Dragon Queen forever.
Jon spoke with some of the old force in his voice.
"Of course I thought about it! I would have marched to Seven Hells if she had asked. I loved her."
"You love her" Sansa corrected sharply "You still love her, you haven't stopped loving her. You haven't stopped loving a dead woman. And that love has been killing you for seven years."
Jon didn't turn away from the fire.
"I killed the Woman I loved, twice. Once at the Wall and once in Kingslanding. Beyond the Wall there's Tormund and Ghost, but no one else. The Freefolk asked me to lead and I lead them when they need it, that's what I have now, a Wolf, a Drunk and a shit chair I get to sit in and try to make up laws about why clan's shouldn't kill each other. All the men of the NightsWatch I used to know are all gone now, Sam is too busy to visit, the wildlings are so few and so spread out that sometimes I feel like I'm the only man in the North."
Sansa couldn't be too angry at him, not when he was like this.
"When we were fighting, I guess we never really got to consider everyone we had lost along the way." Jon Continued. "But now… Robb and Rickon, I miss them, I miss Theon and Ser Rodrick, Commander Mormont, Grenn, Pyp, Edd the list doesn't end. But most of all I think I miss Father. Sometimes I still want to turn around and go tell him something, or I think I hear his voice calling me. It only ever lasts a split second and it hurts worse every time it happens."
Sansa felt the same sense of profound loss she heard in Jon's voice. The names of all those she had lost rattled through her mind, as they did so often. She noted with sad pride that he still called Eddard his father.
"I wanted to be a Targaryen" Jon seemed to say what she was thinking," I wanted to be a dragon like she was. That's why I sent Ghost beyond the Wall, that's why I tried to push you and Arya away. I knew that I couldn't be half Stark and half Targaryen, I'd have to choose one or the other … and I wanted to choose her to be with her… but I couldn't."
"We're wolves Jon, we've always been wolves, and we will always be wolves. We may not like it, we may try to change it, but it's what we are."
Wolves without a pack, Sansa thought.
Jon finally looked away from the fire. Sansa knew there should be tears in his eyes, but they had all long since been shed. The anguish was still there though. The silenced engulfed them for a long time before he spoke again.
"A Song of Ice and Fire they called it, only they don't tell you that once the Song ends, all that's left is Ash and dust."