Chapter 36 – Jorah – Hurt
Jorah breathed deeply in and out to calm himself before he knocked on her door.
"Come in," she called in her wonderful voice and all his calming breaths were in vain.
He tentatively opened the door and stepped inside.
She was alone, sitting at her desk and reading some letters. She smiled at him, though it still didn't reach her eyes, and went to him. "And?", she wanted to know, and he fell instantly into his role of her advisor, and nothing more.
"I have inspected the camp outside of Winterfell," he dutifully reported. "Only a few are sick, with fevers or the sniffles but I have ordered to bring them more blankets and hot herbal soup. They should be fit in a few days. The rest of the army looked fine. It is a good thing to have brought enough tents and furs."
Her worried face softened slowly, and she nodded relieved that her people were alright. One more thing he admired about her – not many leaders would worry over their thousands of army men as long as they had enough.
Suddenly she stepped closer so that only two feet were between them, and all his thoughts vanished.
"Thank you, Jorah," she told him sincerely, raising her petite, elegant hand and resting it gently on his cheek. "You've always been the best of my friends."
At first, the touch felt like heaven to him, but only a second later a hurtful pang went through his heart when his mind realised that what he wished the most would never happen. He closed his eyes in agony and stepped away from her, her hand hanging in the air. "Please, don't," he mumbled in a low voice that conveyed his desperation. He dared to glance at her and she watched him in confusion and hurt, so he explained further. "You know that I love you, and I know that you'll never love me."
She opened her mouth, probably to object, so he added quickly: "Not in the same way," and she closed her mouth slowly, thereby agreeing.
Gulping she replied in a thick voice: "You are my truest friend. I value your friendship almost above anything else." She sounded afraid; maybe she feared that after Missandei she would lose another friend.
He didn't want her to be frightened, he just needed to set boundaries. "And I always will be your friend – but nothing more. I know that one day you'll find someone you genuinely love and who will love you. And I am prepared for that but please don't make it harder for me than it already is." He wasn't stupid. Of course, he was too old, too tainted, and too ugly to have any right to be by her side like this. And he had seen the way she looked at Jon Snow. She had stayed at his bed for hours when they had departed from Eastwatch, constantly worrying, and had let him comfort her after Missandei's death. He had thought about asking her, advising her – but in the end, he didn't want to know. It probably was masochistic to still hope for anything, but without hope, there was only despair left…
He suddenly saw tears in her eyes, something he had never wanted, and it raised his own tears to his eyes.
"I-," she started but had to clear her throat. "I wished I loved you," she whispered.
He sighed. There was no need for her to speak the inevitable 'but' that was clinging in the room. Her words weren't making anything easier for him and the tears in his eyes threatened to spill over, so there was only one thing left for him to do. "Please, excuse me," he quietly insisted and bowed. "Khaleesi." He didn't dare to look at her face again, so he simply turned around, and fled the room, the situation and most of all her. But when he thought about the pain she was feeling now because she was a wonderful, gentle, caring woman, probably standing still, peering at the closed door, maybe even crying, he finally let the tears silently fall over his cheeks.