Moving closer and closer to the Wall, Dany began to feel apprehensive and exposed as they ventured nearer to the Kingsroad. They needed to get to Castle Black, where the Wildlings ("Free folk," Jon had corrected) were sheltering as they healed from the Battle at Winterfell, and it just so happened to be at the very end of the road they had been avoiding from the beginning. Jon felt certain that nobody else would be there, believing the news they had heard about the bulk of Northern forces having been part of the siege at King's Landing, but Dany was suspicious.

"Half of the people we could meet would want to execute us both for running away - though technically we committed treason against ourselves. The others would want to kill me and crown you - if there's a crown left, that is. And, on the off chance we met someone who wouldn't want me dead, they'd probably be killing you and I quite prefer you alive," she told him one night, annoyed at his optimistic assertion, "We don't even know how Westeros is being governed. We could be walking through complete anarchy right now!"

"Do you have a better idea?" Jon had snapped back coldly, taking Dany aback.

Jon softened. "Sorry. This is just a lot more difficult to do than I thought. And I don't know why I thought it wouldn't be."

"It's all right," Dany replied, taking his hand, "You're doing your best with what we've got."

"We both are," he amended, placing his other hand overtop theirs.

They had avoided people since Sisterton, at first because the potential for Jon being recognized grew exponentially, but also because Dany's silver hair was showing as of late since she spilled the last of the dye. This meant their knowledge of what was happening in the Seven Kingdoms was woefully outdated. Thrice they narrowly missed being spotted by groups of people on horseback, and more times they had seen evidence of increasing activity in the areas around them. "Friend or foe?" was a constant refrain on Dany's mind whenever these instances occurred.

Once, they saw a group of three riders in the distance that included a woman with red hair that stood out against the snowy landscape. Dany had felt Jon stiffen beside her and knew he was thinking the same thing as her: had that been Sansa?

Neither had spoken much on their thoughts of those they had left behind, but they had thoughts all the same. Dany often lay awake in the middle of the night desperately praying that Grey Worm had led the Unsullied and the Dothraki back to Essos and left Westeros behind. Her stomach ached with familiarly shameful feelings of selfishness each day as she took steps further and further away from where they could be waiting for her to return. But it was a dull ache, tending to settle behind the knowledge that life was growing within her. She was now very certain she was pregnant, having missed a third bleeding last week, and it was a constant beacon of joy for the pair despite their frayed nerves.

She had her first nausea-free day three days earlier and it had held steady for the most part, allowing her to enjoy a real meal again, which, tonight, consisted of rabbit and the last of their hard cheese.

"I think," Jon said carefully after they ate, watching as Dany folded up the rabbit skin and bent down to place it in her satchel, "We may make it to the Wall by tomorrow."

They had been able to see it, towering in the distance, from the shelter they had found (an abandoned hut within a small copse of trees) before the night set in.

"Can we really be there?" she mused, lifting up and turning to face him. He opened his mouth to reply, but it was lost as Dany dramatically threw out her hands and leaned forward to balance as her head spun.

"Oh, wait," she said quickly, moving to sit on the furs they had already laid out, "Sorry, I moved too fast."

Jon chuckled, moving so he could sit down beside her. "Too excited?" he joked. Her dramatic reactions to her upswing in dizzy spells had turned into a source of humor for both of them, given how graceful Dany tended to be.

"Yes," Dany told him, "And nervous...I tend not to be well-received at new places that often."

She realized that she had been thinking about the last statement for a while. The free folk were completely foreign to her and she to them. She knew little of their culture, - cultures? - only that they had been decimated by the Night King and the Army of the Dead. And she knew they were proud of never kneeling. How could she hope for them to accept her, when for so long she had demanded everyone bend the knee?

Jon, although she knew he was only replying to what she had said out loud, seemed to answer her thoughts. "You have the same heart they saw at Winterfell," he told her, "And you're not trying to conquer them. The gods made the earth for all to share. We're allowed to share it with them."

His certainty was strong and Dany remembered how Jon had told her of his time living amongst the free folk as one of them with fondness. She thought of the respect and love that all of them had regarded him with at Winterfell. In a way, though they had passed Winterfell weeks ago, Jon was going home.

As am I, Dany thought, feeling intensely sure of herself as she gazed at the man sitting beside her. He was her home. Her future. Hers.

In an instant, she had moved to be straddling his lap, wrapping her arms around him as she kissed him, suddenly desperate to put her feelings into actions.

Jon responded, his arms coming to hold her close as Dany's kisses intensified beyond passion to become fiercely demanding. She paused to pull off his shirt and her own before hungrily returning for more, forcing Jon to try and keep up with the blazing pace she had set. His hands only had time to move to settle around her hips - where they had come to rest every night since he had found out he was going to be a father - before Dany had pushed him to lay down and began to trail kisses from his mouth down.

"Where are you going?" Jon teased breathlessly as her trail edged close to his navel.

Briefly, Dany looked up, a coy smile playing at her lips. "Nowhere," she whispered, "Nowhere you aren't."

Jon began to laugh, but it quickly changed to a gasp as Dany continued her descent.

In the recent months, Dany had become very well-acquainted with the vastness of the world. She had walked the length of the whole of the North of Westeros and had felt dwarfed by every peak, every valley, and every expanse to which they had looked ahead.

Yet now, standing before the opening gates of Castle Black - the last part of Westeros she needed to walk through to be free of everything she had once sought out - she felt somehow even more diminished. Was this what it was like to be faced with the beginning of your future?

Our future, Dany reminded herself, conscious of Jon standing next to her and even more conscious of the quiet swell beneath her clothes.

She reached for Jon's hand, stepping closer to him as the gates finished opening and the figure of a broad-shouldered man walked out to stand before them. He folded his arms across his chest and looked them up and down gruffly. Dany squeezed Jon's hand apprehensively.

The man's ginger beard quivered as his face broke into an enormous grin.

"You fucker," Tormund Giantsbane said to Jon, "I thought you were dead, you son of a bitch!"

Theatrically, Jon lifted his hand up to inspect it. "Well we're not ghosts," he replied, also grinning. Tormund boomed a laugh as he and Jon embraced as if they were long lost brothers. The big ginger man clapped Jon on the shoulder so hard that Dany was certain she heard a suppressed grunt of pain.

Then Tormund turned to regard Dany. "'Fraid I won't be kneeling to you any time soon," he told her cooly, getting straight to the point.

"Wasn't planning on asking," Dany replied, surprising herself by matching his tone. She was unsure of where her response came from, but immediately knew it was the right one. Tormund boomed another laugh before unexpectedly picking Dany up into a bone-crushing vice grip she believed to be his version of a hug.

She saw Jon stiffen protectively, but Tormund had already sat her down before he could say anything. He began pulling them through the gates of Castle Black shouting, "LOOK WHO'S BACK FROM THE DEAD AGAIN!" to the other Free Folk in the yard. They weren't able to move very far, however, before Jon had another reunion.

Ghost gave a low whine, shyly walking forward to sniff at Jon, who knelt down and placed an outstretched hand into the direwolf's shaggy white coat. Tail wagging, Ghost licked Jon's smiling face before turning to lead his family further inside.

"What are you writing?" Dany asked sleepily from one side of the bed in the old maester's quarters. Ghost was sprawled across the rest of it, head resting over Dany's stomach and eyes closed as he enjoyed the scratches behind the ear Dany was currently giving him. The direwolf had taken to her with quick ease and, after a first sniff, had not left her side since they entered Castle Black.

Jon didn't look up as he spoke. "A letter," he told her, "To Sam. To...explain." Though Tormund did not know everything about what had been happening, he did confirm that what they heard in Sisterton was true: King's Landing had been burned by wildfire.

"He said that one second they were keeping watch over the siege, and the next: FWOOSH!" at that part in the description, Tormund had stood up and arched his hands over his head, "The green flames came one after another! Then everyone was running all over the place, trying to help people out of the city or fleeing. Siege turned into a bloody rescue."

The "he" Tormund had been referring to was Davos, who Jon and Dany had learned was still in occasional correspondence with Tormund along with Sam. From their letters and what Tormund knew, they had also learned that most of the remaining noble Houses of the Seven Kingdoms were currently coming together at Oldtown to meet with the maesters at the Citadel to discuss what was to happen next. Cersei's carnage, it seemed, had united them.

Dany breathed a sigh of relief to read in one of Davos's letters that Grey Worm was alive and still had Dany's former army on Dragonstone, though there was no word of them past that mention.

"Are you going to write to your siblings too?" Dany asked Jon as he rolled up the letter.

He shook his head. "No. Sam will know what to do," he replied, staring into the fire. Wistfulness hung on his face, but when he got up and came to slide into bed with Dany, it was no longer there.

"Move over you big lummox," Jon told Ghost, playfully shoving him. Ghost responded with a grunt, sliding off the bed and moving to settle on Dany's side of the floor.

Jon settled next to Dany, draping his hand to replace where Ghost's head had been and rubbing the swell between her hips in gentle circles. "Get some sleep," he told her, "We're leaving early tomorrow."

"More walking," Dany groaned, only half joking. Laying in a comfortable bed after four months of sleeping on cave floors had made her feel very sluggish and she resolved that, wherever they decided to settle, the first thing she wanted was a real bed to sleep on for the rest of her life.

"Aye," Jon agreed with a yawn, "Only this time you'll be walking free."

Until next time.