They had no choice but to leave Nymeria at the heart tree until help could be sent from the Wall. She had broken her leg and could not walk.

'Stay, Ghost,' Jon commanded; wincing at the pain in his leg as the white wolf gave him what could only be described as a dirty look; and when Jaime attempted to stroke Nymeria in comfort (he had grown very fond of her in recent years), he had almost gotten his hand bitten off for his trouble.

'Bad wolfie,' Jo scolded; still gathered up in Jaime's arms and refusing to be put down, 'bad bad wolfie.'

As Jo continued to scold Ghost with her newly-acquired powers of speech; as Ghost began to look decidedly sheepish; as Nymeria let out a whine of pain, and Jon an uncomfortable grunt of it while attempting to mount up unaided with his bloody bandaged leg; Jaime thought it again.

Arya's going to kill me.

'Oh, for fuck's sake, Snow, will you stop that?' he snapped, and gave his good-brother an undignified shove in the arse that sent him sprawling into the saddle. Jo he kept nestled in front of him, within the warmth of his furs.

Halfway back to Castle Black, they met Arya. She looked like a wildling princess; wearing nothing but her riding boots and cloak, with her sword belt buckled over her sleeping shift, and she had worked her horse up into such a gallop that she shot past them for a good half mile before she was able to get the bloody animal to stop.

The sight of her mother seemed to make something in Jo crack, and within seconds the child was crying again; wailing in terror as though the walker were still there and flinging herself into Arya's arms so abruptly that she almost fell to the ground between the horses.

'Mother,' Jo sobbed; her arms around Arya's neck and her legs around her waist; 'mother mother mother mother –'

'I heard you, my darling, I heard you,' Arya shushed; rocking Jo back and forth in her arms; 'it's alright; I heard you, I'm here…'

When she looked at Jaime over Jo's shoulder, her expression was fearsome.

'What the fuck were you two doing?' she demanded.

In his head Jaime could still hear his child screaming; her eyes flashing; the walker collapsing into dust; his child screaming no; dear gods if the gate had not been open –

There was a horrible, angry, pregnant silence. Then Jaime and Jon both started talking at once.

'We don't know how she got out –' Jaime blurted.

'We just found the gate open –' Jon concurred.

'We just didn't want you to worry –' Jaime added.

'We know how you worry –' Jon exclaimed.

'We thought it'd be a quick, harmless little ride to the heart tree and back –'

'A very harmless, perfectly safe –'

'Perfectly safe –'

'– ride; we didn't know of the danger –'

'Actually, there was no danger –'

'Just a mild danger that I think we handled rather well –'

'Even if your brother's technique just smacks of sexual frustration –'

'Fuck you, old man!' Jon grunted, turning a bright shade of red.

'When was the last time you fucked someone, incidentally?' Jaime enquired.

'At least it doesn't take me an hour to get it up!' Jon mocked.

'WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY CHILD?' Arya bellowed, 'all I heard was a scream, and…my wolf. WHERE'S MY WOLF?'

'Shit,' Jo wept, 'shit shit shit.'

'You don't ever get to decide what I do or don't need to know!' Arya shouted, 'I'm not a –'

'You kept it from me the last time it happened!' Jaime quietly accused.

'Is that meant to be funny?' Arya screeched.

'Will you keep your bloody voice down?' Jaime snapped; cocking his head in the direction of Joanna's narrow cot, 'she needs to sleep.'

'She needs to sleep?' Arya scorned, 'she's been pumped so full of essence of nightshade she probably won't wake up for days!'

'So you can shout as much as you want?'

'Yes!'

'Stark!'

Arya's hands were on her hips; her eyes glimmering like grey sunlight; light passing from them to the glint of her swordbelt; cold and hard against the pristine white heat of her shift.

'You could have taken me with you!' she sulked.

'I could have WHAT?' Jaime repeated in disbelieving anger.

'You needed another sword,' Arya snapped, 'I was right there!'

Jaime towered over her; bristling with anger at her beautiful stupidity.

'If you think that I would knowingly put you in danger just because –'

'– it wasn't knowingly –' Arya scowled.

'THEN YOU. ARE. MAD.' Jaime finished determinedly.

Arya's eyes and their…interesting expression… tore away from his as Joanna let out a small, pitiful whimper, and the two of them dashed over to the cot like inexperienced children afraid a younger sibling would die.

In her sleep, Joanna's face was screwed up like a prune; a crease between her eyes; her little mouth a grimacing agony of fear.

Arya stroked Joanna's hair, the golden strands glistening against the calloused alabaster of her hands.

'It's gone, now,' she whispered, 'it's gone and it's never coming back…if anything or anyone tries to hurt you again, Mother and Father will shove a sword up their arses.'

'A blunt one,' Jaime concurred; touching Joanna's hand and not giving a fuck if the promise was an unconventional one to make to a child; 'very blunt and very painful.'

Jo's fingers closed around his thumb, and she smiled in her sleep as though she could hear them. Jaime felt himself gripped by a wave of fear and nausea and guilt: the thought of what might have happened to this tiny living thing if anything else had happened…if she'd died…

What if this ruins her for the rest of her life? What if she wakes up mad? What if she –

He felt the siren song of Arya's eyes on him. He looked up at her. Her dark hair poured over her shoulders like an unruly waterfall; and her face was lined with emotion, but not in the same way as before.

'You said she… warged into it?' Arya quietly said; everything about her tone suggesting that she wanted him to say no.

'It looked like it,' Jaime softly answered, 'but her eyes…they…they weren't…'

'Weren't what?' Arya asked.

'They flashed white instead of…like it was rejecting…or maybe she was rejecting, I…'

Arya gave an audible swallow.

'It looked like it was…fighting her…or defying her, or…'

Arya's eyes were closed in a desperate attempt to control herself.

'Seven hells,' she murmured, 'seven fucking hells.'

She opened her eyes and looked at Joanna, who was now gently snoring.

'She must have been so frightened.'

'Arya, there's something else.'

'What?'

He only just had time to realise that he had no desire to tell her about the something else before she was standing before him and poking him violently in the chest.

'Alright, I understand; you don't want to tell me; you want to spare me; you want to protect me; it's very sweet and it's very considerate and I appreciate it –'

'Oh no you don't.'

' – but I suggest that you fucking tell me before I –'

'Alright!'

Arya folded her arms and nodded her head in approval as Jaime began to speak.

'When Jon and I, that is when Snow and I began to fight it, it seemed to forget about her. Then she went to help Nymeria and touched her…and it forgot all about us, and went for her again. Only her.'

Arya's face was so white that Jaime feared she was going to faint. He reached carefully out for her, expecting to be shoved. Instead, she stepped into his embrace and put her arms weakly around his waist; her forehead touching his chest.

'I'm scared, Jaime.'

'I am too.'

'The warging must come from my family –'

'– but where's the rest from?'

'I hate it when you ask the obvious.'

'Someone has to, little wolf.'

Arya gave her head an abrupt shake, as though clearing it of something tiresome.

'Old Nan used to tell us stories about…magical people who could change their skins and make it snow –'

Jaime couldn't help the obviousness of his skepticism.

'Magical people?'

Arya gave him an angry look.

'They could also turn naughty children into teacups; what do you want me to say? You asked.'

Jaime paused; trying to ask what he wanted to ask in as un-idiotic a way as he could muster.

'Can many people in the North warg…that is, can they do it like you can?'

'I never met any except my brother. My other siblings all had wolves, but I never saw –'

She cut herself off.

'I dream of them sometimes, and their wolves, and I know that they're the same, but I never saw…It doesn't matter anyway. They're dead.'

Jaime said nothing. Arya continued.

'I've heard stories about people north of the Wall who can do it.'

'So who can warg into white walkers north of the Wall?'

'No one can do that anywhere.'

They looked instinctively towards Joanna again. Jaime felt Arya's fingers crook in the small of his back; saw the little crease reappearing on his daughter's forehead…and he remembered it again: fighting, failing; his child in danger; his being unable to do anything; her fear coursing through his veins like his own blood; the nausea of it; the nausea of helplessness. Panic swept over him again; panic, terror; the sight, the feeling, of the impossibly-strong, unbleeding thing with the pale blue eyes that had danced slowly like a curse as though to further enjoy the killing; helpless, weak, half –

Arya's hands cupping his cheeks were a wrench back into the real; Arya's breath; Arya's lips; Arya's mouth and the warmth inside it; Arya's voice in the back of her throat as his lips parted and his arms pulled her tight against him; the world spinning in a slipstream of grey to form a centre once again:

Her. Here. Jo.