the sword in the darkness
DISCLAIMER: Every character mentioned and anything in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire belongs to George R. R. Martin. I own nothing except the writing.
A/N: Another random AU, set sometime after aDwD's happenings and Jon doesn't get betrayed and decides to stay at the wall.
13. live
"No, no, Arya, no," he chants, a frenzied prayer, his breath rising in faint clouds in front of his face even in the room, his heart beating much too fast, frantically snatching more blankets to tuck around her limp body and clutching her wrist, searching for a pulse. It's there, but faint, much too faint, and he can barely feel it under his numb fingers. Melisandre stands to the side, watching, always watching, but doing nothing, and Sam is shouting for more firewood to make the room warmer, his voice panicked and nervous.
Jon's senses dim and his focus on the room dwindles, and he begs his little sister to wake up. Don't die on me, he hears himself say. Live, Arya. Live for me, live for Sansa, for taking back Winterfell, most of all, yourself. Wake up. Please.
She's different and grown, her face gaunt and longer and her body malnourished, and he knows that she must be starved and weakened from the long journey to the Wall, and he does not know how she got here all by herself and avoided the dangers of capture other than her sheer, natural strength of will, or where she's been all these years, but he knows that he will wait by her bedside forever if it means that she will wake up.