The stars still shone outside, but the events of yesterday morning still thudded incessantly through Jon's brain. Perhaps he had behaved badly, but while he certainly felt a pinprick of guilt for upsetting his little sister, what he did not feel a pinprick of guilt about was breaking the Kingslayer's nose.

He had felt his fist and Jaime Lannister's face connect with a satisfying crunch. He had felt his stomach flip as the old man, after dropping like a stone, had seized hold of Jon's ankle, pulled hard, and brought him crashing down with him, to raucous laughter. Jon had gone for the Kingslayer's throat; the Kingslayer had gone for Jon's; and then suddenly, out of nowhere, innumerable blows had begun to rain down on his back; on his limbs; on his head; on any part of him that remained immobile for more than half a second.

When the disembodied whipping eventually turned out to be Arya beating the shit out of both him and Lannister with a pair of practice swords, Jon's face had burned with shame, and by the time his little sister had finished, both men were lying insensible on the ground and had to be helped to their feet by brothers jostling for the honour of assisting them.

'You bastards,' Jon muttered, as he was half-carried off someplace to be stitched up, 'if I survive this day, I will punish you all.'

'Now that's no way for a Lord Commander to talk!' he had heard Sam exclaim, 'you should be behaving with humility!'

Humility. Right. My sister has married herself to the worst Lannister of them all, and I must somehow find the time to think of humility.

'I cannot believe that you have done this,' Arya said, again and again as she took needle and thread to the Kingslayer's face, and Sam did the same for Jon, 'I cannot believe that you have done this,' she repeated; and Jon had glared at Jaime Lannister, and Jaime Lannister had grinned impudently back at him, and somehow, with that gesture, the turmoil had begun all over again; with him and Lannister talking, and Arya and Sam begging them not to.

'After all the horror that you and your House have inflicted on ours,' Jon had spat at one point, 'anybody would think that the girl whose brother you crippled would be a bit too close for common decency, but no! Instead you stick your Lannister cock in my sister, get her with child and –'

'Jon!' Arya had exclaimed.

'Technically, she's my sister too,' Lannister had japed in response, 'technically.'

'Jaime, shut up!'

But Jon had flown from his seat once again; Arya had punched him this time and shouted at him to calm down while Sam fled the room in terror; and after she had clouted her Lannister husband on the head, she had said, 'I wonder if I might have a moment alone with my half-brother.'

And Jon had hated her tone of voice, then. The way she talked had changed. The way she asked questions.

She didn't sound like herself anymore. She sounded like them.

I have lost even her, he had thought as Lannister had limped out of the room with the tiny girl they called Jo, they have taken my brothers, my father, my home. They have taken both my sisters. But her most of all. With her, they have taken everything.

Arya was pacing up and down before him; her dark hair pulled back into a severe braid; her slender form clothed in immaculate black riding leathers that fastened all the way up to her chin, and did not leave an inch of flesh exposed. She was pristine; like something he would pollute if he embraced her, with his dirt and sweat and numb, numb cold. She was someone he didn't know anymore.

She glared at him as though she had guessed his thoughts.

'What?' Arya demanded, 'did you think I'd still be a messy little girl who agrees with everything you say and do?'

Jon thought that was rather unfair.

'You never agreed with anything I said or did!' he protested.

'Like punching Jaime?' she plunged on; ignoring him; 'before you so much as looked at me; what do you expect me to do; congratulate you?'

'He was kissing you,' Jon muttered, sulkily folding his arms while Arya stared at him as though she thought him mad.

'He's my husband!' Arya exclaimed, 'he's allowed to kiss me!'

'In public? In front of everyone?' Jon complained, 'I think that's in rather bad taste.'

He watched Arya try to be rational; watched the present leave her, and its reason, the past, rise within her and hurt her, overcome her, gut her; and for a moment, he was glad as her voice trembled, and the horror he knew was inside her turned her voice grey.

'I know…' Arya ventured softly, 'I know that…losing Father, and Robb, and…and Bran and Rickon, and…I know that it's been hard…'

And Jon found himself snarling at her; at the lion pretending to be a wolf.

'You do not know,' he growled; every inch of loneliness and anger and helplessness that he had ever felt burning his skin from the inside, out, 'no one knows.'

Arya's eyes darkened in anger, and for a moment, Jon thought she was going to stab him. But she hid her hurt prodigiously. Tywin Lannister had taught her well.

'They were my family too,' Arya softly said.

'You've got an interesting way of showing it,' Jon replied.

Arya hung her head and breathed. He could tell that her self-control was leaving her. She raised her hands – black, gloved hands – and smoothed them over her forehead, still breathing.

She looked at him.

'In your letters. When you said you couldn't wait to see me. Were you lying?'

And for a while, she looked at him, and for a while, he looked at her.

When he hadn't replied, she had left him. He hadn't seen her since. He didn't even know if she was still in the castle.

The stars no longer shone outside. The dawn was dim and grey. Jon got out of bed and went to the practice yard. He had a sudden urge to hit something.