this is a disclaimer.

AN: more of the watch!verse. Whereas the first lot of stories were in chronological order, these ones probably won't be. So for the dates in the chapter titles (aRW = after the Red Wedding) I refer the interested Reader to the last chapter of my watch began, which is a timeline for this AU.

If R+L=J (which is the assumption of this verse), then this chapter contains incest.

daenerys – (11 aRW)

Aemon has that look again – that cynical look of his, slightly mocking. Dany doesn't like it. Robb told her once that he used to brood when they were boys; now he looks wry and sardonic instead.

She can guess when that started. Reconciling himself to being Aegon's brother, Lyanna's son by Rhaegar Targaryen, was one thing. Reconciling himself to not being Eddard's son was quite another. Gaining parents is all well and good, but losing one, and the only one you ever knew at that –

Aegon had gotten sardonic himself when Dany had spoken to him of it and remarked that at least Griff had done him the favour of disowning him officially – publicly too, and in person. When Dany thinks of the way his mouth had twisted she remembers red doors and a day in the Dothraki sea: the day she had first known she would have to take herself home, that there was no one else to do it.

And now here she is. Not long past dawn, the shadow of the castle darkens on Dragonstone's gardens; the dew lies heavy on the grass and the leaves rustle in the morning breeze. Dany passes between the trees silent as a shadow in black and red. She went to put her Dothraki leathers on this morning, had a sudden, firm conviction that her mother would have thoroughly disapproved of them, and put them away again – at least for today.

The small postern gate is heavy, but she is not Drogo's child-khaleesi anymore and it opens for her with only the briefest murmur of protest. Jon's footprints are clear in the wet grass, though Dany cannot tell if Ghost went with him. She follows him across the meadows down to the sea-path and the sand dunes. The salt tang of the sea she'll treasure the taste of for the rest of her life wraps itself around her, borne inland by the wind. It had never been so precious to her before her first sight of Dragonstone hovering over the waves in the evening sunlight, painted with its blood-red glow; between one glance over the prow of the ship and the next, she had finally come home, and the sea had become an irrevocable part of her.

She finds her dragon-prince sprawled on his back in the sand dunes, dark eyes half-shut, arms behind his head.

"I didn't mean to wake you, love," he says. He always knows when she's near him.

Dany sinks down beside him, not touching. The sand is cold, and slightly damp. "You didn't. I wanted to come out here early and watch the sunlight on the sea."

He shifts. "Here it is, then."

"Don't be cynical. It suits you about as well as patience would suit Rickon."

He laughs. "Forgive me, your Grace."

"My Grace will consider your petition."

Sigh. They stay silent for a short while, watching sea and sky respectively, and Dany is sure now that this is the best way to get a confidence out of Aemon: by waiting and by not looking at him when he speaks it.

"I can't feel it," he says at last.

"Feel what?"

"Home. I feel – I feel closer to them at King's Landing. And yet he was born here, lived here, and she loved him, so I... ah. I don't know."

Dany pauses. "I should perhaps make a joke about true Targaryens," she says.

Jon snorts.

"You and Aegon have other homes. This will be Daemon's, and his siblings'. That's enough. That is more than I have ever hoped for."

"It –" Aemon says, but can't finish the thought. Half dragon, half direwolf; they call him the Prince of Summerhall and yet he lives with an ear to the North Wind and the tales it tells him; he is not entirely himself down here... but he is not entirely different either.

It's just complicated.

Dany sees, quite suddenly, very clearly.

"Prince Aemon is not the man I fell in love with," she says. "Jon Snow is. And if your lady mother had thought of you as Rhaegar's child she would have let Lady Ashara take you east with Aegon, not begged Lord Eddard to raise you as a Stark of Winterfell."

He draws a sharp breath, but stays silent.

"Aemon need not be a different man to Jon," she says. "In fact I would prefer him not to be. Nor is he... somehow the truth, while Jon Snow is a lie. You are who you are. If you don't trust yourself in this, trust me. And trust Lyanna."

Jon lays a hand on her back below her shoulder blades, warm but light, as if afraid to touch her.

"Fire and Blood," he says. "That's how I think of you – as though your very blood were wildfire."

Dany smiles. "I think of you the way I first saw you. In the woods just south of Eastwatch with a battle in the snow all about you and a hunter's moon shining on your sword-blade."

"Hopelessly, incorrigibly romantic," he says. She stretches her legs out and lies down beside him and he takes her in his arms, beard-stubble grazing her forehead. The heat of him warms her and his heart beats steady under her hand.

"Stay with me as long as you can stand to," she says. "Go home if and when you need to. I want your love, not your devotion. I've come to believe those are two very different things."

He smiles. "I think you may be right."

It's hardly the most comfortable place to make love in – nor the warmest, or the most private. But Dany loves her wolf-lord most when he smiles like that, and he has a way of watching her as if she's a Queen whose likeness he's come far to see; not devotedly, but with awe and admiration.

They walk back to Dragonstone together hand in hand. Dany carries her boots. Jon's tunic hangs unlaced.

"We could still be wed," he says. "If you wanted. Pyp's gone and done it, and he's not the only one, so they can't really object about my oaths."

Dany purses her lips. "It might give people ideas. After all, Aegon has a better claim than I to the Iron Throne."

"It's hard to argue with three fire-breathing dragons," Jon points out wryly. "Besides, the throne will come to Daemon eventually."

Married or not, they will never have a child together.

"Still, I think it safer not to. I love Quentyn, but I've yet to meet his sister and she is Doran's heir. Trystane is wed to Cersei's daughter and Mace Tyrell bounces back and forth between allegiances so often you could play at catch with him for a ball."

"Hmm."

She looks up sharply. They might not object about his oaths, whoever they are, but he is not so cavalier about his honour. "Unless you –"

He laughs. "Once," he admits. "Perhaps even now, a little. But one day the Wall will stand again, and then... well."

"I do nothing but tear you in two," says Dany ruefully. "Winterfell or Dragonstone, a wedding or your vows..."

"Ah," says Jon, "but you don't ever demand of me that I fix the cracks."

They kiss beneath the oak tree inside the gate, Dany's back pressed against the rough bark, her hands in Jon's hair.

"Shave for me?" she says when they draw apart.

"After breakfast," he promises.