It was cold, bitter even. Stuck deep down in her bones. With every step – every breath – she could feel it. The ice. Freezing and crippling as she moved. It lingered in her skin. The north was no longer just in her blood; it was her blood, her body. She was the north, and the north was her.

The window was open, letting frozen air into the room. Frozen air that tore at her thin, cracking skin. She felt ridicules. She felt pathetic. But she supposed that she was. A Queen of death, decay and winter. It would not be the first time that she hung her head out of the window and looked down, wondering.

It would be so easy, too easy. To step up onto the window ledge and jump. No, not jump, just step. Step off out of the castle and let her body crumple and break. Die out in the cold winter, like Robb.

She thinks she has become wrong. A twisted, broken creature who thrives off of death and broken hope.

Her spirit had died with her heart. The Seven had never saved her, and the Old Gods had never been the merciful type. It was the Old Gods she prayed to at nights, when she lay in her bed – pale, thin fingers gripping into her upper arms as she sobs, yet no tears ever fall. She is naught but a broken monster, who steals the hope of the young to fuel herself.

Rickon. Young, sweet Rickon gives her as much hope as he can.

Young, sweet Rickon who look so, so much like Robb. Like Bran and mother.

It had been hard to ignore when she first seen him. The young boy she had thought to be Bran until she realised Bran was far, far older. And lost. Rickon had Tully hair and eyes, but the woman he had called mother was not a Tully. No, a wildling woman named Osha, whom Sansa did not think resembled Rickon in the slightest, was his mother.

But it had been the Tully look that had drawn Sansa to him. Her want, her need, to keep him close. A constant reminder of what she had lost, but a hope that perhaps she was not alone. She could pretend the boy was her brother.

But Jon was back. Her real brother – bastard brother – was back. In a room just a short walk away. Real – flesh and blood. He was real. Real. Real. Real! She had felt him, solid and frozen. Blood pumped through his veins, and when he spoke it was him – it was real. She had a member of family, tarnished as he may be, with her.

She closed the window and let herself smile. Feral and broken. But it was a smile; the most real smile that had been on her face in a long time. She moved towards the door. Rickon could sleep without her for one night.

She slipped out of her chambers and padded along the corridor, headed for a room she had not been in since she was a young child.

She could only faintly remember the last time she had been in the room. Robb had taken ill and she had been terrified. Mother refused to leave Robb's side. Father had been visiting banner men. Arya had been sleeping soundly in her bed And Bran had slipped into her room and she had rocked him to sleep before slipping out of her own room. She was terrified for her brother; so worried and so she found herself stood outside of his chambers. Her bastard brother, whom she had barely spoken to in almost a year.

She had slept in his room that night. Curled up against him, gripping his hand. He had let her in, no questions asked. He had comforted her as she lay next to him crying. He had been completely brotherly towards her, something she had not expected.

And now he was all she had left.

So she tapped on the door, twice, before slipping into the room. The door closed behind her, and when she looked at the bed, she realised that he was asleep. A part of her was tempted to turn away, return to her room.

But what if he left in the middle of the night?

No. She had to keep him close. If only for one night. She needed to make sure it was him, that he was not going to abandon her. He had already done that once before. But even if he was to leave again, where would he go? He was stuck there, with her. And she grinned at the thought before approaching the bed.

She slipped into the bed, pulling the furs up to her chin. She pressed herself into Jon, one of her hands gripping tightly onto his arm. Afraid that if she let go he would disappear.

Once she had imagined how sweet it would be to see him again. And now she could. She could lay her eyes upon the bastard brother that she had once longed to see more than anything in the world. He could not disappear, not now that she had him back.

"You're all I have left."

"Are you going to Westeros?"

The man scoffed and shook his head. A dry laugh passed the mans lips. "Why the hell would I be going there? It's bloody winter over there."

'Winter is coming. And it will make ruins of us all.' Or was it monsters? He could never remember.

But he frowned, nodded and made to turn away. "Look, boy. Why would you want to go there anyway? The Seven Kingdoms have been at wa-"

And he spun around with wide eyes and a snarl on his face. He did not need someone to tell him what he already knew. "I am aware of the war. Why else would I wish to return? I have a family over there."

Had. He had once had a family in Westeros. Only the Gods knew if any of them remained. But a Stark must always be in Winterfell, and he needed to find a way home. He had been gone far too long. Gone. Gone so far he had almost lost himself. But he had pulled himself back, and now he had to return. Now he had to get home.

"You know what they say over there. A war before winter is a killer. If you do get back, I would not expect to find your family alive. And if you do, you won't recognise them."

"Then I suppose that evens things up. I shall be as unrecognisable as them. We can start anew." And he walked away.

He knew his own fathers words. He knew the dangers of winter. But he also knew his family. Or what was left of them at any rate. By the time he had been taken to Braavos, Robb, Jon and Sansa were all that was left. And he was determined to hold the hope that they were all still alive. He would not give up on that hope. And he was sure that they would not give up hope that he too was alive.

He did not care if it was winter in Westeros. He had been preparing for it to be so. After all, winter lasts a decade. And when he was being taken to Braavos, autumn was ending.

Winter was no longer coming.

Winter was there.

And Bran would be damned if he did not do all he could to return before winter was over. His family would need him. Just as he needed them.

He just had to find a way across the narrow sea first.

He awoke to the sensation of an elbow digging painfully into his ribs. A terrified sob hitting his ears. He turned his head to see red hair, and for a moment, he thought it was Ygritte laying beside him; tossing, turning, crying, screaming. But he was pulled back to his senses when the name Robb tore from the girls lips. The name became an almost chant as she tossed, turned and her body was lashing out against him.

He grabbed her wrists and positioned himself so that he was able to keep her pinned to the bed.

"Robb. ROBB. ROBB." Louder and louder. A chant. A prayer. Desperation. "Please. Please. NO!" The anguish was tearing at him, and the guilt was eating at him.

He had lived and Robb had not. He wondered if she wished it had been Robb not him who had turned up in front of her. If he was dead and her full brother had lived.

He knew he wished it had been the opposite way round.

He felt guilty and wrong. Perhaps he should never have turned up in Winterfell. He had not been thinking about the effect it may have on Sansa. All he could think of was warmth and home and saving Gilly, Sam and Sam.

But as he had said to Sansa, this was no home. The creaky, destroyed gates. The crumbling door that was guarded by two men, who had to pull all the barriers away simply to put them back into place to retain some form of heat in the castle. He supposed it worked to an extent, it was no where near as cold as it was outside.

But there was no heat.

He had become the cold and the cold had become him.

He had seen the parts of the walls that were crumbling. And the throne room... Oh how he had despaired. Odd bits and bobs strewn everywhere, and he knew. Just knew that those where the belongings of the dead.

And then there had been her. His sister sat on a throne he just knew she no longer wanted. He could see it in her heavy eyes as she sat there, her pale, gaunt face impassive. Her eyes held too much. As broken as his spirit, and he regretted not arriving earlier.

'Queen of what, Jon Snow?'

Queen of nothing. He had wanted to say. Queen of rack and ruin. Queen of the dead and dying.

But he had said nothing, watching almost horror stricken at what had become of his sister. His young, hopeful, beautiful sister who loved songs and stories and dancing. He had taken one look at her, and knew the girl he had been raised with was dead. As dead as the corpses he had witnessed being burned earlier.

He had returned though. Perhaps a little to late. He hated himself for that, for not having been able to return sooner. For not having been able to help her. He was her brother – her big brother. He had promised their father to protect her and he had failed. But he could make up for that. He could spend what was left of his broken life trying to make up for having left her alone for so long.

When her Tully blue eyes opened, they were as broken as he felt. What had once been bright and full of life, were dull and heartbreaking to look at. But he did so anyway.

"I thought you were going to leave. I thought that maybe, you were not real."

Shit. He thought to himself, and the guilt intensified. Because she had been suffering as much as he had. Though he supposed that everyone was suffering.

'War makes ruins of us all, Jon. Winter shall take whatever is left. And whatever survives, is the monsters children are raised to fear.'

He did not want to be a monster. He could not live with himself if he was a monster. Yes, he had done things he would never, could never, be proud of. But never had he been a monster. He thought returning to Winterfell would save him, could save him from whatever monstrous fate he was destined for if he had remained out in the icy wastelands. But Sansa, his sweet sister, was twisting and breaking and he was surprised there was anything truly left.

Perhaps he could help save her from becoming a monster.

He still held onto the hope that she might save him.

"I am as real as you are, little sister."

"I am not so little, any more, Jon Snow."

He frowned deeply, because she was right. Last he had seen her, she had been small, slender, flat chested and full of life. The Sansa he was with now was a woman, if she was not so thin, she would have curves – rather than jagged hips.

"No. You are not." He responded quietly.

He could think up nothing that would express how sorry he truly was. Slowly, he pulled his hands from her tiny wrists. He was surprised it still horrified him that he could see the outline of the bones in her body. After all, he could see the same in Gilly. He had seen the same in so, so many others.

Perhaps it was his memories of the girl he knew that made it so difficult to accept. He needed to get past them, because he would not last long focusing on the past. But then again, if he kept the young girl he once knew stuck in his head, perhaps he would be able to bring some of her back.

If he lived long enough.

He had seen enough of the castle, of the people, to know that most of them were all just ghosts waiting to happen. It did not sit well in him, knowing that there were so many people that were just sitting waiting for death to claim them. He did not want to be one of those people who just waited. And suddenly he wondered if Sansa was also one of those people, sitting around waiting for death to come and finally take her.

"Will you return to the Wall? Wh- When winter is over, will you be leaving?"

Her voice was quiet and raw. She was scared, he realised. The fact that she was scared he was going to leave made him feel slightly better about the fact that he was not – would never be – Robb.

"There is no Wall any more." He told her, carefully, watching her face for a reaction. "It was torn down."

Relief washed over her face before she gave a small smile. "So you will stay? Help me rebuild?"

"There is no where else I would rather go, anyway." He replied in an almost bitter voice.

He did not want to be in Winterfell any longer. Seeing it broken and in ruin, with his twisted sister and the ghosts that haunted the halls. Winterfell was no longer his home, but he had nowhere else to be. And when winter ended, his it would all have to be fixed and he could never leave his sister to so alone. Sam could stay and be the new maester while Gilly could be given some sort of work as well.

It would never be his family. But it would be a family none the less.

He could not ask for much more than that.

She had closed her eyes. "I am glad you are here."

If it had been the Sansa he once knew, those words would never have been uttered, far less him ever believing them. And yet she had spoken them, and he had believed them.

Because he was glad to see her too. Even if she was not the girl he knew.

She was all he had left.