He is just reaching the castle when he sees Drogon descend with the queen, and he hurries his pace, wanting to reach her before anyone else. He finds her in the ruins of the throne room, her hand resting on one of sword handles that make up the armrest of the Iron Throne.
She turns around then, apparently to take a seat, but stops when she sees him in the doorway. "It isn't quite how I imagined a chair made out of a thousand swords would look as a little girl," she smiles, slowly descending the few steps leading up to the throne.
"What have you done?" he shouts, unable to hold back as he quickly crosses what once was a large and expansive room.
"I did what had to be done. A few innocent people may have died in order for me to claim this, but she was using them against me. It was for the greater good," Dany answers, startled by his outburst.
"It was far more than a few, Your Grace."
"I don't know what you are talking about," her eyebrows knit together in confusion as she frowns at him.
"You don't know?" Jon raises his voice again in anger. He grabs her by the arm and leads her across the room, "Then I will show you."
Alarmed by his sudden hostility, she does not fight him. Drogon stands when they pass, shaking off the mix of snow and ash that had gathered on his body, and she tries to direct Jon toward the dragon.
"No," he tightens his grip on her arm, pulling her instead in the direction of the stables. The people of King's Landing had been terrorized enough by the queen and her dragon; he would not allow her to frighten those that remained by flying over the city again. Plus she needed to be on the ground in order to truly see the damage that she has done.
He leads two horses out of the stables, holding one steady as she climbs into the saddle before getting onto his own horse and setting off at a fast trot out of the gates to the castle.
The Unsullied are marching up the street toward them. Jon slows briefly to instruct Grey Worm to continue onward to the castle and secure it, and then he sets off again at his face pace, her following in his path through her troops.
It doesn't take long for them to reach the start of ruinous city streets. They slow to a walk, and the air is heavy with ash and the heat of the flames that still haven't burned out in some places. He watches her face as they ride through the street, but she remains impassive to what she is seeing.
"They had surrendered, Daenerys. And you still slaughtered them," he quietly says.
"Cersei -"
"You wanted her dead. I understand that - she betrayed us, she had your friend and your dragon killed. But she was in the castle, far away from what you did here."
"Her soldiers -" she starts to argue but is again cut off by him.
"Were blocks from here. They had laid down their weapons in surrender when the bells rang."
In the quiet of the ruins of the street, he can hear the deep breath that she takes in, her eyes widening as she continues to take in the damage and her face losing some of its stoicism. Reaching a group of charred bodies laid out in the street before them, she brings her horse to a stop and dismounts. She walks through the remains until she comes across a small body with its arms still wrapped around a larger one, what must have been a mother and child.
Jon slides down from his horse and watches her. She stands there, frozen amongst the burnt remains of her victims, for so long that he begins to wonder if he has made a mistake in bringing her here. While the woman he had first met on Dragonstone had been ruthless in her pursuit of the throne, she had shown restraint when it came to harming innocents. The Dragon Queen that had brought fire down upon the city earlier had been a woman who had lost herself in the anger and pain that she had suffered. He could relate, having lost control as he beat Ramsay Bolton to a bloody pulp, but he is angry at himself for being unable to stop her.
Daenerys returns to him then, her face a mix of sorrow and grief, and she can't quite meet his eyes. "Jon… it has to be you. You are the king that they need, the king they deserve. And I know that you will make the world a better place."
"No, I don't want it. The throne is yours," he shakes his head. He had wanted her to know what she had done, not give up the throne that she had fought for her entire life.
"The people of Westeros will never forgive me for what I have done. I will never be able to forgive myself for becoming exactly what I told myself I would not be," she quickly brushes away a tear that has fallen from her eye. "I can't be trusted to rule, to not do something like this again."
"Daenerys, you don't have to give up the throne," he steps closer to her.
"I loved you, Jon. And I understand why you couldn't love me back," she places her hands on his hips and finally meets his eyes. "Just promise me that you won't let them harm Drogon? He only did what I commanded of him; he is not to blame for what I have done."
Jon is still busy trying to make sense of her words when she steps back from him, his dagger in her hand. She has the tip pressed to her body just beneath the sternum and both hands around the hilt before he realizes what she intends to do.
"Dany!" he yells, wrapping his hands around hers on the handle.
"Let me do this, Jon," she pleads, trying to pull the dagger towards her with all of her force.
He counteracts her, pulling in the opposite direction, "No, don't do this, Dany. Please."
Realizing that she cannot overpower him, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Jon, however, anticipates her movement and suddenly jerks the handle of the dagger upward, tilting the blade downward, as she falls towards him.
Her fingers loosen around the blade, and he lets go of her hands, though he keeps his dagger. Her violet eyes are filled with sadness when she opens them, more than when she was grieving the loss of her friends and advisors, more than when he had rejected her. "You brought me here because you wanted me to know, because you disagree with it. This is the only way I can fix what I have done. Why won't you let me?" she whispers.
"Your death won't fix anything," he sheathes his dagger and takes her hands in his.
"You won't let me abdicate the throne to you. I took the lives of all of these innocent people, and you wont let me end my own life. So what is it that you wanted to accomplish by bringing me here?"
"You needed to know what you did. You can't break the wheel if you brush it off as casualties of war."
"You were right - I didn't fully know what I was doing when I was up there on Drogon's back. But that just makes me as unfit to rule as my father was."
"Your father never questioned his sanity."
"Then he was lucky," she says, looking away from him. "I can't live like this, questioning my mind every moment from now on."
Jon doesn't know how to respond to this and simply squeezes her hands, hoping to transfer some of his strength to her. Eventually he brings her back over to their horses. She looks at the animal for a few long moments before climbing up and taking the reins. He hesitates for only a couple seconds, glancing toward his own horse, before he climbs up behind her. His arms wrap around her waist, and he gently untangles the reins from around her right wrist where she had wrapped them. She stays silent, eyes fixed on the back of the horse's head and refusing to acknowledge that he had seen through her plan, and he kicks the horse to start their journey back to the castle.
Her last child is circling high above the castle when they reach the gates, but not even the sight of him cheers her. He squeezes her sides slightly with his elbows to get her attention as he asks, "Would Drogon fly back to Dragonstone?"
"You think he is in danger? Or are you worried that his presence is just frightening the people here?"
"I think it would be best for us to leave the city for a while."
"Us… as in you intend to leave with me and Drogon?" she turns her head to look over her shoulder at him in question.
"If he will allow me to ride him." She doesn't answer, not quite sure how to feel about him riding her dragon. Since she has already made her wishes for the throne clear, he adds, "I can't exactly take the throne if he eats me."
Dany contemplates this for a moment before nodding, "He will allow you to ride him, though I don't know why you would want to come with us."
They come to a stop, and he gets off the back of the horse. "Because you need a friend right now, Dany," he replies, holding his hand out to help her down.
Seeing Tyrion, Ser Davos, and Grey Worm approaching, he gestures to a couple of the Unsullied to guard her, though he unfortunately doesn't know their language in order to warn them that they should be guarding her from herself.
"The queen and I will be away for a while," he informs their advisors.
"The queen? She has no right to that title after what she has done," Tyrion growls, glaring in her direction. "It should be you sitting upon the throne. Don't get caught up in this mess she has created."
"She's not in a good place right now. She recognizes that she made a grave mistake, and I am not sure she will ever recover from it. Until that time comes, I expect you to put together a council of suitable people to guide the Seven Kingdoms in a manner that upholds the ideals that the queen had. I shall keep you updated on her condition."
"Even if she does recover, how can she come back after slaughtering thousands of innocent people?"
"As her Hand, I look to you to come up with a plausible path forward."
"And if I refuse to continue to support her?"
"You've seen what she is capable of. Is that really the death that you want, Lord Tyrion?" Getting no further comments, he turns around and walks away, pausing briefly to take Daenerys's hand and lead her through the courtyard to where Drogon has landed.
She leads the way up his wing and settles herself between his shoulders, and Jon takes a seat behind her. Afraid that she may try to throw herself off of the dragon's back as she had intended to do with the horse, he wraps his arms around her. They involuntarily grip her tighter as the dragon rises into the air. When the ground is far below them, one of her hands moves from the dragon's back to tug at his arms around her to get him to loosen up. "You don't have to worry, Jon Snow. Drogon won't let me fall even if I wanted him to."
"It isn't you that I am worried about falling off of the dragon," he admits, though he does acquiesce to her request and relaxes his hold on her somewhat.
- Ice and Fire -
"Leave me, Jon Snow," she commands, though her voice lacks the authority that it once held.
"I can have a handmaid and an Unsullied guard sit with you if you would prefer their company," he offers.
"What I would prefer is to be alone," she glares at him.
"I cannot allow that right now, Daenerys."
She sighs in exasperation, "You have taken away anything that could be a weapon. If I want to end my own life, I either have to bash my head against the wall repeatedly or use a pillow to suffocate myself."
Jon eyes her for a moment before crossing the room to remove the pillows from her bed and the chair by the fireplace.
"You intend to keep me prisoner here?"
"No."
She lifts an eyebrow at that, "We both know that is a lie, just as it was when you asked the same question of me upon your arrival to Dragonstone."
"How am I to keep you prisoner? You command a dragon, Your Grace."
"Don't call me that," Daenerys snaps, her eyes trying to set him on fire.
"Then what would you like me to call you?" he asks.
"I don't know. Just not that. I don't want it, and I don't deserve it any more," she folds her arms over her chest and angles her body away from him.
"You should get some rest, Daenerys," he eventually tells her, hoping that she would wake in a better mental state than she is currently in.
Dany slowly crosses to the bed, and she pulls her leather coat off of her shoulders. He had taken her chain that held her cloak as well as her dragon pins, fearing that she would use them to harm herself. Standing beside the bed in a simple shirt and trousers, she debates removing the rest of her clothing in attempt to get back at him for this by making it as uncomfortable as possible for him to remain in the room with her. She ultimately decides that it would be petty of her and won't do anything to improve the current situation. Out of energy, she simply collapses onto the bed and curls into a ball on her side with her back to him.
- Ice and Fire -
Two days pass in almost complete silence. She remains in bed much of the time, dozing on and off, not changing clothes, and refusing to eat anything. Jon finds his own eyes slipping closed as he contemplates how to make her eat, sure that her strategy had become to starve herself to death.
"Jon," she whispers, voice rough from disuse.
His eyes blink open to find her crouched down before him, her face full of concern for him and looking more like herself than he had seen since before their battle with the army of the dead in Winterfell.
"Come to bed," she says, her fingers wrapping around his hand and tugging on it to urge him up out of the chair.
"Dany…" he uses his free hand to rub the sleep out of his eyes and try to clear his head.
"You have been sitting in that chair for two days watching me. It cannot be comfortable, and you are utterly exhausted. I promise that this is not some ploy, and it doesn't need to mean anything."
After a few seconds of hesitation, he stands and allows her to lead him to the bed. She sits first and pats the other side of the bed to encourage him to lay down. He complies, letting out a sigh of relief as the tension of sitting in the same chair nearly all day leaves him, and his eyes fall closed once more.
Minutes pass before she feels him jerk awake beside her, his face turning toward her to ensure she is still breathing. In the dim light of the fading fire in the hearth, he sees her beside him, her eyes open and staring up at the ceiling and her hands resting on her stomach.
"I'm not going to do anything, Jon Snow," she sighs, though she doesn't look over at him. "But I know that it is unlikely you would take my word so if you want to tie me up to make sure I can't, I won't blame you."
He looks at her hands, which she is holding out towards him, and after a moment he gives a small shake of his head. "I trust you."
"More like you trust that you have removed everything I could possibly use to harm myself," she lets her hands fall back onto her stomach.
He finds himself too tired to fight with her and simply closes his eyes once more.
Several minutes pass before she speaks again. "Jon?"
"Yes?"
This time she does turn her face toward him, "Why do you care so much about what happens to me? I murdered thousands of people in the city. Even in Slaver's Bay I wasn't a good queen, and my solution to their continued resistance to my reign was to burn them. And I haven't exactly been very nice to you since you told me who you really are."
"I don't believe that you are truly a bad person, Dany. You were selfless when you brought the dragons north of the wall in order to rescue us. And even when you knew firsthand what we were facing, you still came to Winterfell. You knew that you could lose a significant part of your army, you could lose another dragon, you could lose your own life - and yet you still came to save us when we were reluctant to recognize you as our queen. The anger and grief and sorrow just became too much for you to keep inside any longer. So no, Dany, you are not a bad person; you're just someone who made a mistake."
Daenerys suddenly turns onto her side, her back now towards him, and tries her hardest to keep the sobs from wracking through her body as the tears fall from her eyes.
Jon, however, notices the trembling of her body in the low light of her chambers. He rolls onto his side and reaches across the bed to place his hand on her arm just below the shoulder, trying to let her know that he is here to support her. She makes no move to accept the comfort he is offering, and he can't bring himself to push her any further.
- Ice and Fire -
"Have you been watching me all night?" he asks when his eyes open in the morning to find her bright violet eyes fixed on him.
"You've been staring at me nonstop for two days. I think this is only fair," she replies, a trace of lightness to her voice that he hasn't heard since before they fought the Night King.
"Did you get any sleep?"
She gives an ambivalent shrug, "I've slept on and off for the last two days. You're the one who needed to rest."
"Thank you," he pats the mattress between them to indicate his gratitude for the improved sleeping accommodations that she had provided. He finds himself longing to ask how she is doing - they had had more conversation in the last few hours than they had had since arriving on Dragonstone, and it could almost be called friendly in comparison to the harsh words that they had been exchanging lately.
Before he can find his voice again, she bites her lip before hesitantly asking, "Would it be possible for me to leave this room today?"
"Where would you like to go?"
"Outside."
"To see Drogon?"
"Are you worried that I will fly away on him?"
"You are not a prisoner, Dany," he replies, allowing his fingers to brush over hers. Her stomach rumbles then, startling both of them, and he says, "Perhaps we should have something to eat first."
She hesitates but finally nods in agreement to his suggestion and makes one of her own, "And perhaps a bath as well."
- Ice and Fire -
He turns at the sound of footsteps behind him and finds her approaching, the two handmaids in whose care he had left her a few steps behind. She is in a black dress, the fabric covering her shoulders and upper arms crossed over her chest and held around her waist with a belt. Her silver hair, which had been in such disarray before, falls in loose curls down her back. While still a long way from the confident queen he had known, she at least looks somewhat stronger.
"I was told I had to ask you if I could have the pin for my cloak," she says, her eyes meeting his for just a moment before flickering away, and she pulls a maroon cloak over her shoulders to protect herself from the chill.
Jon gives the maids a small smile of appreciation for following his commands to keep her safe and accepts the three-headed dragon pin that one holds out. He then steps closer to her and carefully pins together the material just below the hollow of her neck so that it remains fixed around her shoulders.
"Thanks," she whispers, her eyes flitting back up to his as her hand raises to brush briefly over the heads of the dragons on the pin. Seeing his eyes follow her fingers, she quickly drops her hand back to her side, not wanting to give him a reason to take it away.
They walk side by side out of the entrance hall to the castle and start the journey down the steps. When she departs from the path to head out onto the grass where Drogon is sunning himself, he comes to a stop. Realizing he is no longer beside her after a few steps, she turns back to look at him in question.
"Go on, Dany," he encourages, wanting to give her some semblance of freedom and knowing that if she does truly want to escape on the dragon, he won't be able to stop her anyway.
Her eyes linger on him for a moment longer before she continues on to the dragon.
Jon watches her, first as she strokes the dragon's snout and then as she makes her way up his wing and settles onto his back. She sits there for a several long minutes. Expecting them to take flight and not return, he is quite surprise when she descends, and once she is safely on the ground, Drogon leaps into the air, wings stretching outward to propel himself further into the sky.
Daenerys stands there watching her child for awhile before she eventually turns to walk back to him. She continues on down the stairs, him following suit, until they reach the beach.
"I couldn't do it," she says so quietly that he almost misses it. She stops walking and closes her eyes. "As I sat up there on his back, all I could think about was the city burning beneath me."
He comes to stand before her, his hand reaching for hers as the wind blows one side of her cloak open. "Riding dragons won't be ruined forever."
"Perhaps it is for the best," she says, eyes opening to look up at him. "I am less likely to make rash decisions if the power to do so isn't right there beneath my fingertips."
Seeing him struggle to respond to this, she starts walking again, tugging on his hand with hers to keep him at her side. They walk through the sand just above where the waves are washing in.
"I felt so lonely growing up," she begins, eyes set out over the sea. "Viserys was always cruel and came to see me only as leverage in his attempt to get the Iron Throne back. But now I know how stupid I was - now I know what it is like to truly be alone."
He opens his mouth to tell her that she is not alone, but she is already speaking again before he can get his words out.
"Ser Jorah was with me since my wedding to Khal Drogo. Our friendship endured betrayal, illness, assassination attempts, unrequited love. And he died protecting me only for me to reveal that I am not worthy of the faith he had in me. And Missandei… I set her free with the Unsullied, but I am so grateful that she chose to stay with me. I never questioned her loyalty to me, and I could tell her anything without fear of judgment. To see her executed in such a harsh manner when her only crime was her affiliation with me…"
Jon glances over at her, finding the fingers of her free hand tracing the dragon heads on her pin again as she tries to ground herself with something familiar.
"Tyrion and Varys, on the other hand…" she gives a slight chuckle at that. "I always knew it was a risk to allow either of them to serve me. I always expected them to betray me. They were so afraid of me becoming my father that they made become something worse. If they would have just let me go to King's Landing and destroy Cersei in the Red Keep when we arrived in Westeros, it wouldn't have been like this. Viserion wouldn't have been lost north of the wall, Missandei and Rhaegal wouldn't have been slaughtered in front of me, perhaps even Ser Jorah wouldn't have died if we had had the southern armies supporting us against the dead. I wouldn't have taken my anger and pain out on the people I am supposed to be leading."
He squeezes her hand gently, happy she is opening up to him but afraid that this conversation may bring back her desire to harm herself.
"And then there is you, Jon Snow," she stops walking again, her violet eyes coming up to his face.
"I'm sorry, Dany. I wish that I had made Sam and Bran promise not to tell anyone. I wish I hadn't told you."
The corner of her mouth lifts slightly, "You not telling me why you were suddenly ending our relationship may actually have been worse."
"I suppose I'm not a very good liar," he admits with a frown, realizing now that he would have miserably failed at coming up with another excuse for breaking up with her.
"It hurts… being rejected by someone you had loved and had thought loved you in return. But at least this way I can understand why you had to do it."
"I never meant to hurt you," he replies, his dark gray eyes revealing his anguish at having contributed to her pain.
"You wouldn't be here now if you had. You wouldn't have stopped me from putting that knife in my heart."
Jon brushes his thumb over the top of her hand, "Things between us may different than before, but you haven't lost me, Dany."
She lifts onto her toes in order press her lips against his cheek, "Thank you, Jon."
He studies her for a moment before finally voicing the question he's been wanting to ask her since he woke up beside her hours ago. "How… how are you doing?"
"Are you asking me if I'm still crazy, Jon Snow?" she laughs for the first time in several weeks. Her eyes drift from his to the castle up on the hill behind him, her smile slowly fading as she contemplates her response. "It is hard, trying to reckon what I did with the person I thought I was. Worrying that I may make another wrong choice, the thought of not being able to trust myself, having to question every decision I make…"
Daenerys slips her hand from his, her gaze falling to the sand between their feet. "I meant what I said before. I don't want the throne anymore - I can't trust myself to rule. You are the rightful heir and more deserving of it, Jon; it should be you who helps the Seven Kingdoms to heal from the wars that have left it in ruins."
"And what will you do?"
She shrugs, "Stay here on Dragonstone… go back to Slaver's Bay… explore Old Valyria with Drogon. I can't say for sure."
"And if I don't want to be king?"
"Then it was all for nothing. I lost everything - my children, my friends, my love… myself. Please don't let it be for nothing, Jon."
Jon looks away from her, his gaze on Drogon as he lands on the cliffs above them. After a few moments, his gray eyes come back to her face. "Dany… I don't want you to hate me. I don't want you to regret this decision."
"I will regret the choice I made for the rest of my life. But I will not regret the decision for you to take the throne, Jon," she assures him with a small smile.
"How do I know that you won't… harm yourself the moment I leave you here alone?"
Dany brushes her hair back from her face, taking a moment to answer. "You once asked me to trust you, Jon Snow. I suppose you will just have to trust me now."
Thank you to everyone who has read and especially those that wrote a review. I hope you enjoyed it!