Past

They hadn't gotten any immediate answers at the hospital. Lyanna woke up in the ambulance and was alert by the time they reached the hospital. She swore nothing like this had ever happened before. The doctors promised they would know more once they ran all their tests. Lyanna refused, she argued they were unnecessary, that she was fine, just overworked. Jon had pleaded with her to allow them to do the tests. He knew she was likely worried about the cost, but she was stubborn and refused to be swayed. So after a night of observation she was released with a referral to a primary care physician that would decide on the additional tests and a course of treatment if needed.

Jon took his mother home where she immediately insisted he return to school Sunday as planned. When he told her they could discuss it later she demanded he finish the semester. She told him it was not up for negotiation and furthermore she had not been working two jobs so he could take incompletes and risk his scholarship. Jon argued her care was more important. They went around in circles for hours. So when Catelyn called that evening to check in, Jon explained their impasse. Ever the loyal friend, and in an attempt to help, she insisted Lyanna stay with them for at least the next week. She said she had the time right now and would keep an eye on her, including going to her new doctor with her. His mother had hated the idea but she agreed because Jon proclaimed he would not leave if she was going to be in the house alone.

The rest of the weekend passed without any further incidents. Jon took his mother to the Starks Sunday morning before he went back to school. Ned assured him he was doing the right thing and to do his best not to worry. He promised him that his mother would be well cared for. With a heavy heart he returned back to school to finish the semester. He felt blessed that at least Thanksgiving had been late this year and it would only be two weeks until he would be able to come back home.

He passed his finals, though how he was still unsure; he had been unable to focus much on studying those last couple of weeks. As soon as his last final was over he had packed up and headed out. He arrived home Friday evening and found his mother sitting at the kitchen table. It was clear she'd been crying.

"You're early," she observed quickly rubbing her face. "I thought you were bringing the train home tomorrow morning. Didn't we discuss that I would pick you up then?"

"I grabbed a ride off the ride board instead of taking the train. I wanted to get here as soon as possible, maybe surprise you?" He had hoped to sound cheerful but failed. His mother's pained expression told him there was little point anyways. "What's going on? Why were you crying?" He sat down and looked at her with concern. His heart began pounding in fear.

Lyanna cupped his cheek and let out a deep breath. "You're a good man. I raised you right. I will always be proud of that."

Jon put his hand over his mothers and then took it from his face and held it. "Mom, you need to tell me what's going on."

"It's cancer Jon."

Jon recoiled as if he had been burned. He got up from the table and began to pace. "What kind? Where?"

"They said it's called a Glioblastoma, brain cancer."

"I know what a Glioblastoma is," he snapped. His mother gave him an apologetic look. It made him feel like shit. "I'm sorry. I meant, what stage? What's the prognosis?"

She looked even more apologetic now. "Mom?" His voice was barely a whisper now.

"It's bad, late stage four. They were shocked I made it as far as I did without more symptoms. They said I probably have six to eight weeks."

Jon felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. He stood in the middle of the kitchen and stared at her for a long moment. He decided he would not accept this. "They're wrong. We'll get a second opinion," he stated calmly as he moved to the side of the table opposite his mother.

"I already did. This morning in fact. They said the same thing as the original doctor," she informed him in a sad defeated voice.

"Then we'll get a third! You are not dying! I won't allow it!" Jon cried and slammed his hands down on the table.

Lyanna jumped and then rose from her chair. She came around the table and made him look at her. She cupped his face between her hands and looked up at him. "That's not up to you."

Jon wrenched his face from her hands and turned away and walked to the sink to fill a glass of water. He took a long drink and a moment to compose himself and then turned back to her. "What treatment did they offer?" he asked.

Lyanna sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. She knew he would not like her answer and she hated that she was causing him such pain. She opened her eyes and regarded him sadly. "They didn't," she began. "It's untreatable at this point. They will put me on hospice when I ask, but that's all they can offer."

"This is bullshit!" Jon yelled and flung the glass at the wall. It shattered and he went on over the sound. "They have to do something else. Is it because you don't have decent insurance? Give me the number of the doctor. Give it to me!"

Lyanna crossed the room and grabbed his face between her hands again and pinned him with her gaze. "You have to calm down. You need to accept this. I can't take care of us both this time. I'm going to need you to be the strong one, because I'm scared Jon." Her voice trembled and she dropped her hands from his face. He tried to speak but nothing came out as she began to weep. Jon wrapped his arms around her as his own tears began to fall.

They stood in the kitchen for a long time after that weeping together. Eventually they ceased but it had exhausted his mother. She told Jon she needed to lie down. He helped her up to bed. He couldn't believe how weak she had become in just two weeks. He knew she wasn't exaggerating when she said she only had a few weeks left.

He waited for her to fall asleep, which had only taken a few minutes. He went downstairs after and cleaned up the broken glass. He felt on edge, he wanted to crawl out of his skin. He scribbled a quick note to Lyanna that he had gone out and a moment later he grabbed his mother's car keys and headed for the Starks. He needed someone to talk to. He knew Robb was still at school. He won't be back until Christmas Eve. His school ran a week later and he was spending the week after with his new girlfriend's family. He knew he could talk to Ned or Catelyn though. They would understand, they would know what to do. And even if they didn't it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he could not stay in his own home right now, not when his mother lay upstairs slowly dying.

He stood on the Stark's porch and rang the doorbell. No one answered immediately, in his desperation he began to knock and ring the bell repeatedly.

A moment later the door flew open. "Jesus Christ! What in -," Sansa began and stopped when she saw him. "Jon?"

"Is your….. Is Ne…. I'm sorry." His voice crack and he started to cry.

"Oh Jon," she said gently and stepped barefoot out on to the icy cold porch and embraced him. He buried his face in her neck, his arms winding around her tightly. He clung to her like she was a tree and he was someone being swept up in a flash flood. And he was in a way, he was drowning in fear and grief.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured as she stroked his back.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there but he knew it was at least ten to fifteen minutes. Sansa never complained, she just held him and kept telling him she was sorry. He finally stopped crying and released her.

"How'd you know?" he asked as he wiped his eyes. He felt embarrassed when he saw how soaked the shoulder of her sweatshirt was.

"Your mom told my parents when she got the initial diagnosis. My mom went with her this morning to her appointment."

"Oh."

"No one else is home right now. Do you want to come in? I can make you some tea. Or maybe hot chocolate?"

"I don't want to bother you….. I mean more than I have."

"Its fine, you could never bother me anyways. Please come in." She could see his hesitation. "You'd be doing me a favor. I'd like the company at least until I have feeling in my feet again. If I start to lose a toe I might need you to drive me to the ER."

Jon let out a barking laugh. She hadn't even said anything that particularly funny but his emotions were completely out of control at this point. He appreciated she was doing her best to put him at ease and take his mind off his terrible news.

"Ok, but only as a favor to you," he agreed and he followed her into the house.

xxxxx

Present

Sansa awoke to gentle sunlight. She could tell it was just after sunrise. She looked in the back seat and found it empty. She sat up and looked out the window and saw Jon standing on the edge of the camp site facing the river. In the daylight you could see it between the trees. It was wide and powerful, moving with a strong churning force. There were flecks of silver popping up where it reflected the sunlight between the shadows of the trees. It was beautiful.

She pulled out her camera and rolled the window down and began to snap away. She could only see roughly a quarter to a third of Jon's face in profile but there was a haunting quality to it. She could tell he was thinking about something sad. She used the zoom and continued to click away. After a couple of minutes she carefully opened the car door and quietly got out. She moved slowly towards him and continued to take her shots. After a couple of minutes she stepped on a branch and he turned back and looked at her. She lowered the camera and met his eyes and felt herself flush a little.

"I hate when you do that," he sighed as his shook his head slightly. He wasn't mad, he had grown use to this over their time together. She loved un-posed shots, capturing people when they were unguarded and natural. It was one of the things that made her work so beautiful but it also lead to some embarrassing freeze frames now and then. He hoped their agreement still stood, that he had veto rights to any picture she took of him.

"I know. But you know how I love candids, and the light is beautiful right now."

She came and stood beside him now and looked out at the river. "Did you sleep?" she asked.

"A little. Just a lot on my mind, couldn't get it to turn off I guess. You?" he asked before she could ask him what was troubling him.

"Better than I expected. Maybe I should drive the first leg? You might be able to sleep some on the drive."

"Alright."

They stood quietly for a few moments and listened to the river. "Do you want to talk about anything?' she finally asked him.

"Not right now, but I appreciate the offer."

She nodded in response and after another minute they went back to the car and ate the granola bars and mini muffins they had purchased last night. They cleaned out all the trash from the car before packing their blankets and pillows in the trunk and setting out.

They drove in silence until the merged onto the interstate. "Can we go up the arch?" Sansa asked bringing their silence to an end.

"I don't see why not. Could be fun."

They were quiet again. Jon could see she was thinking about something. "What are you thinking?" he finally asked as she began to chew on her lower lip. It was something she always did when she was mulling something over or was trying to hold her tongue.

She stopped chewing on her lip and smiled. She liked that he could still read her so well. She like that they seemed to have fallen into such an easy rhythm so far. She knew it was false. She knew there were so many issues remaining unspoken between them, but she liked that without a discussion they had somehow mutually agreed to ignore them. She also knew she might be bringing that to an end.

"I was just wondering….. If I hadn't come with you…. Would you still be doing this?" she finally asked.

"Going to the arch?"

"You know that's not what I'm asking. The road trip. If I said no, would you have just gone alone?"

He knew what she was really asking was why they were doing this, but he wasn't ready to discuss that just yet. He decided to deflect.

She glanced at him for a moment waiting on his answer. "Robb and I talked about taking a trip like this once," he answered instead.

"Really? When?"

"The summer after high school. I mean it was just something we talked about, we both knew it would never happen. I needed to work all summer, but it was still fun to think about." It actually was the truth. They had discussed it once, in the same conversation that they joked about backpacking through Europe. "Pyp's excited to have us. I haven't seen him in over a year I think," he continued.

"He was always nice. But honestly I'm just excited for a chance to get clean." It had been a couple days since her last shower and she was starting to worry she was beginning to smell. The AC in the car didn't always counteract the sun that poured through the car windows and she found herself quite sweaty even now.

"Me too, though maybe we should wait to get our hopes up until we see his place." They laughed at that. Pyp always had the dirtiest room when they had lived together.

They drove on and eventually Jon drifted off to sleep. Sansa kept the radio low and hummed along as she drove. She knew she should probably turn her phone on in St Louis and respond to the inevitable texts that would be waiting from Robb and Arya.

Jon murmured something in his sleep and she glanced at him. His expression was distressed but a moment later it relaxed and cleared. She had made a note that he had avoided directly answering her question about this road trip. She knew he still cared for her, but she wasn't fooling herself into thinking this was all for her. Between the look in the diner yesterday and the one she saw on his face this morning she knew he was going through something as well, she just wasn't sure what.

She had spent a good part of the last year trying to sort through her feelings for him. She had come to the conclusion that the end of their relationship had been a failure on both of their parts. Jon had become distant after Catelyn's cancer diagnosis and that had upset her, made her resent him sometimes. It was a resentment that had come out in passive aggressive jabs, words she could never take back. She also knew it hadn't helped that she had gone home the summer after her sophomore year promising to return in the fall, only to end up staying there without really discussing it with him. He never said it directly but to her it was clear that he felt abandoned by her. After that he had shut down on her, he stopped trying to be there for her; he had just let her go. She had resented that as well. She had wanted his understanding, his patience, she'd only gotten his hurt and indifference.

He mumbled her name now in his sleep, drawing her attention back to the moment. She stole a glance at him and felt her heart flutter as he breathed her name again. She didn't chastise herself for liking how it made her feel. You couldn't love someone nearly your whole life and then just turn it off. She sighed, she had hoped once she was back at school and they were in the same city again that they might have tried to find their way back to each other, to work through all the things that had driven them apart. But now she felt there was little hope of that. He was clear he was never going to return to live in their hometown. And if she was being honest, at the end of this trip she would likely return home and care for Bran, it just seemed inevitable.

'Why do things have to be so hard?' she thought as she sighed again and turned the radio up a little louder. She glanced at his sleeping form one more time and wished things could just be different.