"Jon Snow," Tyrion greets as the north man sets foot on the sands of Dragonstone once more. He briefly wonders if he should have used 'Your Grace' instead now that he knows the truth of the man's identity.
"Your ravens brought dark news. How did this happen?"
"Euron Greyjoy's fleet ambushed us just as we were dropping anchor. The ships were armed with crossbows that shot these gigantic arrows at the dragons and at our ships. As for the girl… well, I tried to make Cersei see that this didn't have to end with her own death. But now our queen is going to ensure that Cersei does not get out of this alive," he says solemnly.
Jon looks up at the castle and the one lone dragon circling the sky. When they left Winterfell and went their separate ways, it had not been on good terms. And though he is displeased at her selfish reaction to the news that he has the better claim to the Iron Throne and still conflicted in his feelings for her, he never would have wished this suffering on her. "And Daenerys… how is she?"
It is Varys who answers, "Not good. I fear for her sanity."
"She has just lost a child. She has lost her best friend. And this on the heels of losing Ser Jorah and Viserion," Jon argues. "She is grieving, not insane."
"You failed to mention that she has lost you as well," the master of whisperers counters. "I can't imagine that our queen took the news of your true identity very well. Tell me, was she the one to end your romantic relationship because you pose a very real threat to her reign… or was it you who ended things because she is your aunt?"
After glaring at the eunuch for a moment, Jon turns to the dwarf, "Sansa told you?"
"She did."
He lets out a frustrated sigh, "Dany was right. I couldn't even trust my own family with this secret."
"Sansa was right to tell me. But she shouldn't have had to - it should have been you or our queen who came to me with this news. Especially if, as your sister also mentioned, you have no desire to claim the throne for yourself," Tyrion informs him.
"I do not want the Iron Throne. Daenerys is my queen," Jon tries to make his way up the beach to the stairs leading to the castle.
Varys moves to block his path, "And what if you are more fit for the throne? You too have suffered great losses and injustices in the recent wars plaguing the Seven Kingdoms, but I have no doubt that you will not climb atop a dragon and rain fire down on the city."
"In case you have forgotten, I have no dragon to ride anymore. Euron Greyjoy and Cersei Lannister made sure of that," he remarks angrily. He had had his doubts about Daenerys when they initially met, but she had risked everything to aid him in the war against the Night King. Despite their current issues, he would keep his word and support her in the battle for the throne.
"You have the trust of the people, Jon Snow. No matter how hard she tries, Daenerys is never going to have that - not with her gender and her family name against her. You are the only one who can keep the Seven Kingdoms intact," Tyrion joins in trying to persuade him to claim his birthright.
"It is treason to be discussing this. She is your queen, just as she is mine," Jon returns, the fire in his gray eyes revealing his Targaryen heritage. "And even if I did want the throne, she would never bend the knee to me. What would happen to her?"
The looks on her advisors' faces tell him that they had already discussed possible options to clear the way to the throne for him, and he is angered that he can find no trace of guilt in their looks.
"I want no part of your conspiracies. I do not want the throne, and I will certainly not be convinced to take it like this," the King in the North says, disgusted with her so-called advisors, and he pushes his way past them.
"Jon, if you tell her about this, it will be the end. It will push her over the edge, and she will never recover," her Hand warns as he watches the rightful king walk away from him.
He does not deign to reply as he slowly climbs the long flight of stairs leading up to Dragonstone. His mind races during the journey, Tyrion's last words weighing heavily on him. The woman he had fallen in love with was not crazy; then again, the tales of her father indicated that the paranoia and madness had only come to afflict him after he had been crowned. With the onslaught of betrayals and losses in such a short amount of time - and with her fiery temper demonstrated to him on more than one occasion previously - he too fears for her mental state. She needs to know the truth about her advisors, but first and foremost he promises himself that he will protect her - not only from those that wish to do her harm but also from herself.
Jon has never been to her chambers in the castle before, though he is easily able to guess at their location. Two Unsullied guards stand outside the door, and a serving girl is just leaving as he approaches. When no one moves to stop him, he softly knocks on her door before pushing it open.
She is standing beside the fireplace, though his knock had caused her to turn toward the door. When he has shut the door behind him and turns to face her, he can see the surprise in her eyes. Him coming to Dragonstone had not been a part of their plan; he was to march south with their armies while she returned to her ancestral home to await their arrival at King's Landing. He had diverted from this plan before the raven bringing news of Rhaegal's death had reached him - he had felt the loss of the dragon within himself, had immediately known that something was wrong, and he knew that he had to be with her.
"Have you come to bring me more bad news, Jon Snow?" she asks, her voice cold. She looks tired and thinner than when they had parted, though barely a week had past. Her silver hair is coming loose from her braids as if it hasn't been touched in days, as if she can't bring herself to erase the last piece of Missandei that she carries with her.
He crosses the room, his hands reaching out for her. "I am so sorry, Dany."
Wary of him and the apology he is offering, she raises her hands up as she takes a step back from him. "What have you done?"
Beneath the fear that he has caused her further harm, he can see the immense sadness in her violet eyes. It doesn't matter that he is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. It doesn't matter that she is his aunt. All that matters to him is supporting her through this pain that she is experiencing. He steps closer and wraps his arms around her.
"Do not touch me," she protests, trying to take another step back as her hands push him away.
Jon doesn't let her win this fight, his arms encircling her small frame and holding her against his chest. "I won't let you go through this alone, Dany. Whatever you are feeling, let it out," he encourages.
And suddenly the resistance leaves her body as she collapses against him, her hands clutching at his sides as her tears dampen his neck. His own heart breaking at her grief, he cups the back of her head with one hand and the other traces soothing patterns over her back while the sobs cause her entire body to tremble.
The fire is burning low by the time he feels her body stop shaking. Several minutes pass with no movement from her save for the slight expansion of her chest which assures him that she is still breathing. Having seen the exhaustion on her face when he entered and knowing that whatever strength she had left was drained with her tears, he believes she has fallen asleep in his arms.
Supporting her upper body against his chest with one arm, his other comes behind her knees to lift her off the ground. Her red and puffy eyes blink open at this movement, and he is quick to soothe her. "It's alright, Dany. I'm just going to lay you down on the bed so you can rest."
Once he has set her gently down on top of her bed, her hand wraps around his wrist, "Stay."
Before they had left Winterfell, her intention to continue their romantic relationship was undeterred until he had pushed her away, until he had insisted that he had to tell his family. While he doesn't know where they currently stand, he is unsure that he could deny her anything that she wants right now, even if she is his aunt.
Seeing the uncertainty in his eyes at getting into bed with her, she says, "I just don't want to be alone right now."
Jon gives a short nod before gently pulling his wrist from her grasp. He quickly removes his sword, boots, and worn leather jerkin.
Daenerys sits up and moves to the center of the bed. He settles down with his back against the pillows, his legs stretched out before him. Biting her lip timidly, she positions herself sideways in his lap, her right side pressed against him, knees drawn up nearly to her chest, and her head resting against his shoulder.
"Is this alright?" she whispers, afraid that he will deny her this closeness.
His arm wraps around her shoulders, and the fingers of his right hand entangle with those of her left in her lap. "Yes."
Letting out a small sigh of relief, she closes her eyes once more as she fully allows herself to relax against him.
He doesn't know what this night will mean for them, but his willpower is slipping. When he found out they were related, the love he had previously felt for her became tainted. He had come here knowing she would need a friend, and he thought he could be that without wanting more. But now those feelings of love are stirring in his heart again, and a relationship with her somehow does not feel as wrong as it initially had.
They would still have a lot to deal with - Cersei, her traitorous advisors, his claim to the throne. But she would overcome these challenges, just as she had so many before to get to this point, and he would help her to keep her sanity. He would not let Tyrion and Varys be right in their judgment of her.
- Ice and Fire -
He feels her weight move off of him, drawing him out of his slumber. He keeps his eyes closed, wondering if she now regrets letting herself be so vulnerable in front of him, but these thoughts fade when he feels her shoulder brush against his as she sits beside him.
"How did you sleep?" he asks, eyes now opening to look at her.
Dany gives him a hesitant smile, "Best sleep that I've had since before we went north of the wall."
He returns the smile, glad that he had been able to give her some comfort. She does look better than she had the previous evening, though her hair is more of a mess than he has ever seen it.
"Why did you come here, Jon?" she questions, curious at his presence when he was to be marching south with his army.
"I thought you might need a friend right now."
"How did you sail here so quickly? It's only been two days since…" she trails off, unable to bring herself to say the words. But her purple eyes meet his as she comes to the realization that it wasn't about the loss of her handmaiden. "You knew when Rhaegal fell from the sky."
Before he can answer, there is a knock on the door, and the serving girl he had seen leaving the previous night has returned with a tray of food for the queen. "I thought you would want to break your fast, Your Grace," the girl says nervously.
"I'm afraid I have not regained my appetite," she says, dismissing the girl, but a moment later rethinks her decision, realizing that he must be starving. "You may leave the food. Jon is surely hungry."
"Your Grace…" the girl looks down at the tray, her hands starting to shake, "I shall… I shall return with another tray for… for Lord Snow."
At this, a frown crosses her face, "Certainly whatever you were serving me is good enough for him."
"Actually, I am not hungry either," he says, placing a gentle hand on her forearm. It is immediately clear to him why the serving girl does not want him to eat the food from the tray meant for the queen, and he can tell that Daenerys is suspicious at the girl's refusal.
With a bow, the serving girl retreats from the room.
Eyes still fixed on the door, brows knit together in thought, she says, "That was odd."
His stomach betrays him, growling loudly at that moment.
"Why did you let her leave with the food when you are clearly hungry?" she turns to him, even more confused.
Jon takes a deep breath, hoping that he can keep her anger in check as it appears that he must now tell her the truth. Not only will she just become more suspicious, his failure to tell her may cost her her life as her advisors have already put their plans into motion. "We need to talk, Your Grace. But perhaps we should go where there are no ears in the walls."
After a moment of studying his face, she gives a brief nod and climbs out of bed. Deciding that she should make herself more presentable, she splashes water from the basin onto her face and then sets about finding a new dress to wear.
He pulls his jerkin back on over his shirt and then laces his boots. As he is fastening the belt of his sword around his waist, he glances over a her. Her naked back is to him as she is pulling a new pair of riding pants over her hips, and then he watches her pull a black dress over her shoulders.
Just as she finishes fastening it, she turns to find him watching her. Daenerys's eyes narrow slightly at this, though she doesn't comment; he had seen her naked many times before, and it was he, after all, that took issue with their relationship now.
"Sorry, Your Grace," he quickly says, averting his eyes and blushing.
Ignoring him, she moves in front of the mirror and stares at her own reflection. With a soft sigh and resigned look on her face, her hands come up to remove the braids from her hair. She ignores his reflection over her shoulder in the mirror as she brushes her long silver hair, and then she twists the strands at her temple back, pinning them together behind her head.
"Your braids…" Jon says when she turns away from the mirror to pull on her boots. He has never before seen her without the elaborate plaits in her hair.
"I have lost the battle. I do not deserve a braid," she states simply and then leads him out of her chambers.
They finally come to a stop halfway down the stairs to the beach, at the same place where she had agreed to let him mine the dragonglass. "What is it that we need to discuss?" she rests a hand on the wall and looks at him.
He hesitates for a moment before he speaks, needing her to understand that they are not enemies, "I swear to you that I do not want the Iron Throne. It is yours. I am a man of my word, and I promised that I would fight with you to take it back from Cersei. No matter what has happened between us, I will not break my word."
"What have you done, Jon Snow?" Daenerys repeats her words from the previous evening, suspicion rising one more.
"I will tell you everything, but I need you to not act irrationally or it will only be proving them right. I need you to promise me that you will not climb onto Drogon and bring fire down on us all."
"Jon…" her voice contains a warning and her eyes harden in anger, already not liking the start of this conversation.
"Promise me, Dany," he refuses to back down from her glare.
Her hands clench into fists, but she eventually concedes, "I will not act irrationally."
He looks down to the beach where he had learned of her advisors' deceit the previous evening. As much as he wants to separate himself from them, he knows that it is his fault that they even have an alternative monarch to support, and he must be honest with her if he is to have any hope of keeping her temper in check. "I told Sansa and Arya the truth. You were right about everything, Dany."
"The North will no longer support my claim to the throne," she sighs in frustration.
"I am afraid it is much worse than that, Your Grace," he replies, waiting for her to look back up at him. "Sansa told Tyrion who I am."
"Tyrion is loyal to me; he is my Hand," she quickly says, though he can see the doubt forming in her eyes.
Jon reaches out for her hands and squeezes them, "I am afraid that is no longer true, Dany. Tyrion told Varys, and the two of them…"
"They now support you," she finishes his statement, anger evident on her face though she does not pull away from him.
"I am sorry, Dany. I never meant for this to happen."
After a moment, she nods, accepting this. "I believe you, Jon Snow. If you truly desired to sit on the throne, you would have told everyone that you are Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, while we were gathered together in the North. It would have immediately invalidated my claim to the throne, and I would only have the support of the foreigners that I brought here with me. Without any support from the Westerosi people, I never would be queen."
Of all the ways he imagined this conversation going, her not immediately blaming him for these problems was definitely not one of them. He is stunned by her understanding, especially when she had been so quick to withdraw from him when she learned that his claim to the throne was better than her own, when she had been so adamant before that he tell no one of his parentage.
"I suppose that Tyrion and Varys only came to my aid in Essos because they saw me as a better option than Cersei and believed that I had the strength to beat her. But now that someone better has come along, they're abandoning me."
"More than just abandoning, Dany," he tells her. She frowns at him in question. "They see you as an obstacle to me sitting on the throne and want to remove you."
The incident from this morning comes back to her mind. "They are trying to poison me. The serving girl was part of the plan; she couldn't let you eat the food that was meant to poison me, or they would lose their new king." She pulls out of his grasp and wraps her arms around her body in an effort to stop herself from trembling.
The shivering of her body does not escape his notice, and he prepares to stop her from fleeing to her dragon. "Daenerys, this is what they want. If you let the rage take over, you are legitimizing their belief that you will be just like your father. You are above this; we will find some other way to deal with their betrayal."
"I'm not angry, Jon," Dany steps closer to him, her voice small, and she is unable to keep from shaking. "I am afraid."
"I will keep you safe, Dany," he promises, his arms wrapping around her.
She lets him hold her for a few moments before pulling back to look at his face. "I can't stay here any longer, Jon. I don't want to live with this fear for my life constantly hanging over me, and I cannot let them get away with this betrayal."
"Then we shall leave," he states.
"How? They will have planted spies on your ship, and it won't be safe for me there either."
"On Drogon," he nods toward the dragon lazing in the morning sun.
"We can't, Jon."
"I'm not afraid of him, and I am not trying to claim him. But he will obey you if you command him to allow me to ride him."
She releases a shaky breath before giving a short nod, her gaze landing on her last child.
"You wait here with Drogon. I will be back in a few minutes. If anyone else approaches… if you feel unsafe at all, he will protect you," Jon assures her before quickly making his way back up to the castle.
Fifteen minutes later he returns, his thick cloak around his shoulders. "I thought you might want these," he pulls a cloak for her out from under his own and in his other hand holds out her three-headed dragon pin. "May I?"
Dany takes the cloak from his hands and gives him an appreciative smile. He steps closer, brushing her silver hair behind her shoulder so that he can put the pin in her dress. When he feels her body go rigid as he slides the pin in, he worries that he has pierced her skin, but he finds her violet eyes have narrowed as they look past him up at the castle.
"We have to go," she informs him as her Hand makes his way down the steps toward the grassy field they are standing in. She throws the cloak over her shoulders as she approaches Drogon, climbing up onto his back.
With a cautious look at the beast, Jon follows her. Drogon gives a low growl, head turning back to watch him ascend, but he does not harm him. He positions himself behind her on the dragon's back, arms wrapping around her to grab onto two horns on the neck next to where her own hands rest.
For a man of such short stature, Tyrion is approaching them rather quickly. Yet she does not command the dragon to fly, and he begins to question her intentions. But then they are suddenly lifting into the air, Drogon's powerful wings unfolding and pushing them higher.
"Where to?" Dany questions once Dragonstone is far in the distance. He doesn't even have a chance to make a suggestion before she says, "I will not go back North. Your sister did not like me. Now that she knows that you are the rightful heir to the throne and has been colluding with Tyrion, I do not trust her. And your other sister is an assassin."
"No, I do not think the North is safe for you right now," he agrees and then ponders their destination for a few moments. "Harrenhal. Littlefinger was named Lord of Harrenhal, and he is gone. Anyone currently residing there will abandon it in fear when Balerion the Black Dread reborn is seen circling overhead. The armies should be nearing the Trident, and we can easily meet them at the gates to King's Landing."
"If we are still going into battle for King's Landing, Grey Worm should be there," she says, realizing that she had left the commander of her army behind.
"I found him in the castle, told him that we had to leave but he should still meet us as we had planned before."
A long silence comes between them then, lasting until they are approaching the coast of Westeros.
Jon adjusts his hands, moving them to her hips as he says, "Dany, I think we should talk. About us."
She nudges his chest with her elbow, glancing at him over her shoulder, "Scoot back a bit."
He does as she requests, hands moving from her body to the warm scales of the dragon's back as he braces himself.
She then spins around so that they are facing one another, unfazed by the fact that she is now flying backward. "I did not realize that there is still an 'us' to talk about."
Though her words hurt, he knows that he has given her no reason to think otherwise. They had been distant with each other since he told her about his parents, driven apart by the rivalry for the throne as well as the knowledge of their relation.
"I loved you before I knew the truth. I thought I would stop loving you, but I am not sure that I can," he admits.
Her eyes close but not quickly enough to hide the tears glistening in them from him.
"I apologize. I am just making this harder; there is too much between us for it to ever work," he sighs at his own stupidity.
Suddenly her hand is on his cheek, her soft lips brushing over the other. "Do not apologize, Jon Snow, for I have come to love you as well," she whispers, forehead resting against his.
Tentatively he tilts his head so that their lips meet. She eagerly returns his kiss. Drogon, thrilled at their reunion, lets out a roar. They break apart, grinning at each other.
"Where do we go from here?" she asks.
"We take King's Landing. We avenge Missandei; we avenge my family and yours. And then we deal with Varys and Tyrion."
"And after that?"
Jon brushes her hair way from her face, "Westeros will be yours. And you will be the best ruler that it has ever known."
Her hand covers his on her cheek, "And what of you? Of us?"
"Ruling has always been your dream, not mine. I will not take that from you. But if you want me at your side, I will be there."
"I would like that," Dany smiles. "Jon… I… I have been struggling with the urge to just burn the entire city to the ground since she died. It took every ounce of willpower I had left to walk away, to wait for the army before attacking the city. And Tyrion and Varys… if I had learned of their betrayal before they managed to kill me, they would have been burnt to a crisp without you there to stop me. So I must thank you. For keeping me sane. For believing in me."
"Always, My Queen."