The last thing he hears is Ghost's mournful howl before everything goes back as his lifeblood spills out darkening the fresh coating of snow under his body. His brother's daggers are still in his body as the blackness swallows him up. The price he paid for doing what he thought was best.

The next moment Jon opens his eyes to find himself still laying on his back but instead of the darkened surroundings of Castel Black he was now laying looking up at the battlements of his former home.

Winterfell.

Complete with the more comforting tapping of wooden swords hitting against one another bringing back some of the happier times from his boyhood of playfights with his brother.

"I'm gonna get you." A child cheers reminding the weary man of his younger sister with the hints of the wild in her voice as the hits come quicker now as another child a young boy Jon guesses cheers her on much like Rickon would when Bran would practice with his bow as the small group draws closer to the place Jon was still laying.

"Papa, Papa look."

A wolf reaches him before the child, but it wasn't the white fur of Sansa Starks direwolf as he would have thought but the dusty coat of Greywind licking his face as Jon's fingers fist in his scruff nuzzling his muzzle affectionately.

"Go tell your mother, little wolves," A warm voice instructs as the wooden weapons were momentarily tossed away onto the ground.

Jon only catches a splash of wild russet brown hair as Greywind and Lady both obediently follow the retreating twins before another shadow falls over the man yet to do more than sitting upright from his place on the ground. For a long moment, Jon's voice leaves him as he once again looks on the smiling face of his brother now holding out a hand with a laugh "You gonna sit there all afternoon, Snow?"

Robb's smile only grows at Jon's stammered "S-Stark." As he was pulled to his feet then just as quickly in for a strong hug. Just as they had that last day biding one another goodbye in his very courtyard.

"Black is still your color." Robb teases when they separate clapping the other man on his shoulder.

"Robb."

The two men look as one toward the upper walkway where so often Ned would watch them at archery when they were younger boys.

Jon had never gotten to meet the woman who'd stolen his brother's heart but seeing Talisa Maegyr smiling at them now with a russet-haired young boy at her hip he can surely understand why his brother was so eager to break his vow to marry her.

"My Lady." Robb smiles proving the new arrivals point for him.

"We don't have much time, my King." The healer reminds with a shy smile of her own after setting the young boy she was holding down on his feet with a coxing 'Go get Grandpa Ned' that sends both the boy and Lady back into the inner depths of the castle with an agreeing node as the short-turned queen once again fixes her gaze on the two men standing below her. "Also, I seem to have lost track of your daughter."

As if on some kind of cue Jon feels a pair of strong arms wrap around his leg in a grip much like when Arya was young. Greywind standing obediently at her side with a wolfish smile of his own watching her as closely as he would Robb.

"Cass." Robb smiles his eyes like Jon's now looking at a long wavy mane of dark hair.

"I wanna say hi before he goes away." Cassie Stark smiles without dropping her arms from Jon's leg.

It's Jon that chuckles this time as he snatches the now laughing child up for a bear hug of his own. "I'm not going anywhere, little wolf." He says

"You know Nothing Jon Snow."

Jon's eyes close at the honey voice from behind him. Cass's eager "Yiggy." Is enough to prove this isn't just a flittering phantom of his dying mind.

"Ygritte."

Her name is a whisper on his lips as Robb takes his daughter back into his arms leaving Jon free to turn on the spot.

Her hair was even redder than he remembered shimmering as it was in the afternoon light bathing the courtyard in its warm glow in complete contrast to the sharp bite of the winter wind blowing the banners hanging on the castle walls.

"Snow." His wildling smiles in that sassy way of hers as she makes the short running jump into Jon's waiting open arms.

Her lips were just as warm and tempting as he remembered as they press greedily to his own. Drinking him in as he lifts her from the ground.

"Your mine crow. In life. In death. In whatever lies between. Your mine." She murmurs against his mouth. "and I'm yours."

Jon smiles into another kiss letting it be his agreeing vows as a new sound of hurrying feet falls on the heavy aged wood a few paces from where they stood.

"Jon."

Lips may have broken apart at his name, but the former Lord Commander didn't let go of his lady at the sounds of his father's call. Ygritte didn't seem the least bit bothered by it in fact as she hugged onto him even tighter nuzzling her face against the curve of his throat.

Jon's eyes are drawn to a dark-haired woman at his father's slide her gaze searching as she takes him in.

The yard had gone deathly quiet as the pair hold gazes until Jon breaks the quiet with a single whispered word.

"Mother."

The next second Jon is gasping as if he'd been submerged in water as he sits upright on a hard table. His clothes were gone and Ghost curled as loyal as ever a few paces away. His red eyes brighter now as Jon's blurred gaze castes around for some kind of explanation as he desperately tries to hold onto the warmth and the happiness, he'd felt just seconds before back in the sunlight yard of his boyhood home.

It wasn't until he looked down at his necked chest that he put the pieces together.

It hadn't been a dream after all.

He really had died in the snow. Stabbed in the heart by those calling themselves his brothers.

He'd been dead. And they brought him back.

Ghost pads over nuzzling tentatively against his fingers.

"At least I still have you, boy." Jon sighed running his fingers through his wolf's thick white fur.