Chapter Twenty-Six: The Intruder
The pale sky is starting to lose its grip on daylight as I climb the wooden staircase to the commander's quarters. Soon the sounds of clanging metal will fade as well, and the men will be emptying the courtyard to make way for the dining hall, where I expect I'll be singing tonight. As I was passing through, I heard one of the men saying, "The Songbird of Castle Black returns," and a few snickering, but I ignored them. Others looked hopeful or nodded at me. Even in this world, I am a divisive matter. I stop at the door, take a deep breath, and do my short prelude knock before going inside.
When I enter his quarters, Jon is sitting at his desk, quill scratching away at something. He glances up from the parchment and the scratching dies down.
"Lord Commander," I say tentatively.
He sets the feather quill aside and nods at me. "How's your arm?" he asks, quieter and calmer than I expected.
"Fine," I say, rotating it and massaging the wounded area on instinct. "Gilly did a decent job sewing it up. Stitches just like Mother used to make."
His mouth gives a little twitch, accompanied by the smallest scoff. I don't think my facetiousness fazes him anymore. "Good."
A few seconds of silence pass. I feel each one in my chest, expanding with tension like they might as well be minutes. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing here, and he's looking at me and pursing his lips like he doesn't know either. "Olly said you wanted to see me," I remind him.
Jon blinks once and gets up from his chair, wandering into the back area where I can see his cloak hanging from the wall. He emerges with the two empty game bags, bringing them over to me. "Thought you might want these back," he says.
Nonplussed, I accept them from him. "Right. Thanks," I say, barely masking my confusion. He could've given them to Olly to bring to me. Or he could've just left them with Hobb, as I would've assumed he did if I never got them back. "You asked me here just for these? He made it sound a lot more pressing than that."
"Did he?" Jon asks, surprised.
"Yeah, something like 'if I were you, I wouldn't keep him waiting much longer,'" I say ominously, raising my eyebrows. "Guess it's back to 'suspicious wildling girl' for me."
Jon shakes his head with a little grin. "Buttercup turned up his nose at you when you arrived as well. Doesn't change the fact that he was looking around for you at supper, or asking for you last night when you hadn't returned."
"Asking for me?" I echo, smirking despite my doubt.
"He was very vocal," Jon says with a grin.
That, I can believe, which is a curious epiphany. When it comes to Olly, I'm a little more skeptical, so I take Jon's implications with a grain of salt. I have seen him looking my way when I'm spending time with Shireen, though I'm pretty sure it's the princess he's looking at. Even so, it's kind of funny to imagine both Olly and Buttercup yowling about my absence and then giving me the same cold shoulder upon my return.
"Actually, I…" says Jon, interrupting my thoughts. He paces over to the table in a few slow steps. "I also wanted to apologize for my behavior in the library yesterday. There was no good reason for me to speak so coldly to you."
This catches me off guard. Whatever I was expecting from him, it wasn't that. "I mean, I get it," I say, following, while still dumbfounded by the apology. "You heard me talking about Hardhome after you told me not to, so…" I give a half-shrug.
"Sam and Gilly already explained that to me. I didn't know what I heard," Jon counters. Turning to me, he sighs. "Forgive me. I let my emotions get the better of me."
Part of the downside of not forgiving people easily is that I'm terrible at accepting apologies. I don't know what to do when people mean them genuinely, as I can tell Jon does. I avoid his eyes and adjust the bag straps awkwardly. "I guess it just surprised me that you'd react so strongly to me telling Sam," I say. Which makes me feel guilty, remembering what else I've confided in him.
"To be honest, it wasn't Hardhome that affected me," Jon says. "I overheard more than that."
There's the distinct sensation of falling, like I've just been shoved off the top of the Wall. My eyes shoot up to meet his, wide and questioning despite my struggle not to panic. Again, I'm furiously trying to remember what else was said yesterday. "Does this have anything to do with you asking me about the Red Woman?" I venture carefully.
Jon looks a little thrown by my moment of obvious terror, but he recovers just as I have. "Yes and no," he says, and gives me a prodding look. "You mentioned a cave…?"
"Cave?" I ask. Now I'm lost. "What does that have to do with Melisandre?"
"In the library, you said, 'do you remember that cave,'" Jon answers, and my mouth falls open slightly as this jogs my memory. Now he's averting his eyes again, sending a pensive glance out the window. "That was one of the last things Ygritte said to me before she died. The Red Woman did the same thing here in this room a few days ago. 'You know nothing, Jon Snow.'" He scoffs, gripping the edge of the table for support. "I suppose, hearing something like that again, I got a little…"
"Paranoid?" I offer, and he looks over at me. Perhaps he's just unfamiliar with the word, but at the same time, saying it feels somewhat insensitive. "I would be too. I'm sure the Red Woman did it on purpose, she's quoted President Snow to me before…" I stop myself. I don't want to talk about Snow with him, and I already feel bad for dredging up painful memories. "I had no idea, really. I was just talking about one of the places where I made camp before I made it to Castle Black."
Jon's forehead wrinkles, and something flickers in his grey eyes as they lock onto mine. "Where was this cave?"
"A few hours from here," I tell him, bemused. "You follow the Milkwater west from the lake, and not that far from the fork is this cave with a hot spring and—"
"—a waterfall," Jon finishes for me.
My breath hitches in my throat. "Yes," I say slowly, searching his face.
He's trying to hide it, but the fact that he knows which one I'm talking about and he's upset again tells me one thing – it's the same cave. The one Ygritte spoke of before she died. I have never met this woman, and yet somehow, I keep finding ways to step on her toes.
To disguise my annoyance, I distract myself by running my fingers along the edge of the table and inspecting the tips for dust. "So, I take it that cave holds some kind of personal significance to the two of you?" I ask, and bite my lip to refrain from commenting that I didn't see their names on it. It's not like he's outright scolding or accusing me of anything. The only one being petty here is me.
If Jon has picked up on my abrupt change in attitude, he doesn't show it. In fact, when I idly glance back up, he's not even looking at me. His brow knits together like he's not sure if he should say what he says next. "It's… it's the place where Ygritte and I first…" he trails off.
For some reason, this vexes me further. First the whole unnecessary thing with him switching to "my lady," now this? "You can say 'kissed' around me, it's okay," I say impatiently. Besides, it's just another bizarre thing we have in common. "You told me about the Red Wedding the first night we met. I think I'm not too delicate to hear that you kissed your wildling girlfriend in a cave."
I'm pretty sure I took it too far, even before Jon's eyes shift back to mine. He stares hard at me under a furrowed brow, his expression odd and almost hesitant. His mouth parts briefly, but no words come out, he just closes it again and gives me a meaningful look.
It takes me a moment, as I'm both trying to make sense of it and getting irritated by the idea that he would think I'd care if he and Ygritte had some steamy first kiss under the waterfall. That's like me thinking he would care that my first kiss with Peeta – my many first kisses with Peeta – happened while we were hidden away in a cave of our own. We're both adults here, I don't think it's too scandalous even in the Night's Watch to talk about the first time we—
My thoughts screech to a halt. This world's cave flickers in my mind – beautiful, secluded, romantic. Thorne's words slither their way back into my memory.
Do you want to choose a man who has fought the wildlings all his life, or a man who makes love to them?
"Oh," I say, feeling stupid. The epiphany hits me again, harder, like an unexpected shove in the chest. "Oh. Wow. Different first. Got it. That's…"
I can feel my entire face flushing with embarrassment. And what's even worse, it's noticeable, judging by the swift transformation in Jon's expression from discomfort to amusement. A grin stretches across his lips before he can help it, if he even bothers to help it, and he actually laughs a little.
"What's that you were saying? About not being too delicate to hear it?" he teases, eyes crinkling with mirth as they shamelessly meet mine, which I'm sure are still wide with mortification.
No, that is very much not something we have in common. My experience in the arena's cave with Peeta, a few shared kisses and snuggling together in a sleeping bag for warmth, seem innocent and juvenile in comparison to the passion they shared in this one. And Jon must know it, because he's laughing at me just like Peeta did after Johanna's strip session in the elevator. Because I still can't fight the burning in my cheeks, can't ward off the resurgence of thoughts of Jon in that pool since he probably was in it with her, can hardly think of anything else except the very real possibility that I slept in the same spot where they were together.
Peeta was right. I am pure. Even compared to a man of the Night's Watch.
"Is that even allowed?" I ask, desperate to divert my thoughts as I pretend to be interested in the books and parchment on the table. "Or don't your vows cover that sort of thing?"
"It's not encouraged," Jon says, which I can tell is an understatement. "Though Sam would make the argument for it."
"Oh, I bet he would," I say with a lift of my eyebrows, earning a chuckle from Jon. "So, if Thorne knows about it, how come you got away with it?"
Jon scoffs again. "Make no mistake, he and Slynt wanted my head," he assures me, feigning the same interest in the parchment. "I told them the truth. I was bid by Qorin Halfhand to do whatever I had to to get the free folk to trust me."
"Whatever you had to?" I echo, snorting as I look back up at him. "Oh, I see. You were just following orders, huh? It was all part of the job, you didn't enjoy it at all—"
"Of course I enjoyed it," Jon interrupts, rolling his eyes. Then he realizes what he just blurted out and has the sense to look embarrassed.
Well, that definitely didn't do any favors for the thoughts I'm still trying to kick out of my head, but at least now I'm not the only one blushing. Biting down on my lip, I lower my gaze to the table again. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be teasing you about this," I say, and muster the courage to look back up. "You loved her. I know. Sometimes, you do things to survive, and then it becomes more than that. It becomes… real." At once, sewer Peeta's face flashes in my mind. Then it's just Jon before me, looking vaguely confused and thoughtful. "And I didn't mean to trespass on your and Ygritte's cave."
"It's all right, it doesn't belong to me," says Jon. "Besides, you couldn't have known."
"Yeah, but it holds that memory for you," I point out. "I mean, call me petty, but it would bother me if I learned that someone else was making use of…" I pause. The cave? The beach? Both places in the arenas, which are going to be destroyed. What's left of the 75th one, anyway. Then there's the rooftop of the Training Center, a good memory but not personal enough for me to care. What's left in Panem that would make me irrationally upset if intruded upon? "The woods, and the Meadow. Back in District 12," I finish.
"The woods?" Jon looks at me with exaggerated astonishment. "The Meadow?"
"It's just where we hunted!" I say defensively, matching his scandalized expression.
Jon laughs. "I'll never hear that song the same way again."
As much as I fight it, I laugh too, though I shake my head and make sure it holds a note of disgust. Which is a lot easier when I remember that the Meadow is now a mass grave. "Doesn't matter, anyway," I say. "I don't really plan on going back anytime soon."
"The cave, or District 12?" Jon asks.
"Either one," I say, and shrug, which is not a good move. Glancing down, I examine my arm, and memory strikes. "Except maybe the cave just one more time. Ought to go fetch the pelt of the thing that did this to me."
A pause from Jon. "You were there last night," he says. It sounds like both a statement and a question.
I look over at him, confused. There's a strange expression on his face. Not upset, but troubled, like he's trying to make sense of something in his head. "Yes," I say simply.
"That's very far away to hunt," he notes.
I start to shrug again, then think better of it and incline my head. "I liked it there," I mumble. At least, I used to. Now it'll be impossible to sit or sleep or bathe anywhere without wondering if that's where it happened between them. It was difficult enough pushing him out of my thoughts before I found out about this. But I can't exactly tell him that's the reason, so I add in, "Problem is, wild Westeros cats like it too. For all I know, that might've been its lair."
"The shadowcat," Jon says.
This gives me pause. The tone, the way he's staring at me… "How did you know it was a shadowcat?" I ask. Shireen wouldn't have told him. Is there only one species of dangerous big cat lurking the lands beyond the Wall?
His forehead wrinkles more deeply. "After Ghost left, I dreamed that…" He frowns, cuts his eyes to the side. "I thought it was a dream."
I don't say anything, only stare at him to silently urge him on. If he knows about the shadowcat…
"I dreamt through Ghost's eyes last night," he says. "I was in the cave. I thought I only dreamt of it because you mentioned it, but…" He pauses, giving a slight shake of his head like he's doubting himself. "There was a shadowcat, had you cornered, and… it had injured you." His gaze falls to my wrapped wound. "It's the same arm."
"Are you saying that you… inhabited your direwolf's body last night?" I ask, my thoughts beginning to race again.
"I know it sounds…" He trails off, shaking his head again and making a face. "You asked him what he was doing there—"
"No, I believe you," I say quickly. I'd be a hypocrite not to, and it's not the weirdest thing I've come across in this world, despite Jon finding it irregular too. That's not the part I'm concerned about. "How long were you in there? What else did you see?"
Jon blinks with startled comprehension. "Nothing I shouldn't have," he assures me.
I already know this, since I wouldn't have gone into the pool in front of Ghost even if I'd had time to, but I tease him about it anyway. "Good," I say. "Because if you knew about this ability beforehand, I'd start to question your motive for sending him after me."
He manages a small, sheepish grin, but averts his eyes again like even the suggestion embarrasses him. Instantly, I feel a twinge of regret. Jon's an honest guy, very earnest; there's only one reason he would send Ghost to track me down, and here I am, making jokes about his honor.
"Sorry for disappearing like that. I should've…" I pause to attempt a light shrug, "gone back and let someone know what I was doing first. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision. Didn't mean to worry anyone."
"There's no need to apologize. You didn't need permission," Jon says, then appears to reconsider. "But after last night, I'd be more comfortable if you don't go alone the next time you venture farther out than Whitetree. Bring someone with you, even if it's Ghost."
I nod, accepting this. As conditions go, it's plenty fair. Besides, I'm not ready to encounter another shadowcat just yet. Another thought occurs to me, and I laugh to myself as I turn and lean back against the table. "Feels like we're always apologizing to each other."
Jon chuckles too, matching my stance as he settles next to me. "I've noticed that, too," he admits. "Especially when there's nothing to apologize for."
"Or on someone else's behalf," I say, looking over at him. I haven't forgotten what he may or may not have read about Snow. Maybe I'm not the only one who's painfully aware they're standing in another person's shadow.
My suspicions seem further confirmed when Jon's smile dissolves into a more pensive expression, as if mulling over a memory. "There was something else," he says after a moment. When I give him a questioning look, he goes on, "In the… dream. I thought I heard… Were you talking to someone?"
"Talking to someone?" I feel my stomach do a flip as my heart starts to race.
Yes, I remember now. I remember how I started to turn my microphone on until Ghost's unyielding stare froze my fingers. I remember how I told him I was going to check to see if there was anything else out there, and Ghost tried to follow me, but I told him to stay. And he seemed to listen, but when I came back with the gauze and second game bag, I remember finding him waiting a little closer than where I'd left him.
"You went up to the entrance," Jon recalls. "And then it sounded like you were saying something. Who were you talking to?"
I open my mouth, searching for words. Damned wolves and their heightened sense of hearing… This is fate's way of calling my bluff. We're alone, we're on good terms again, and he's insinuating he can possess his direwolf's body in his dreams so he's really in no position to call me crazy.
Just tell him about Beetee, I order myself. You can tell Sam and Gilly, so why not Jon?
Silently taking a deep breath and gathering my courage, I turn slightly and lift my eyes to Jon's. A dark, serious grey, familiar and curious yet questioning. Eyes that invite the truth. My friend, I want to say. But a gate crashes down inside my chest, and what comes out of my mouth is: "My father."
Jon blinks in surprise. His face clears, but then a fresh line of confusion creases his brow. I'm sure he's trying to remember, just as I am, what I've told him about my father. Certainly that he is dead, or at least not in Westeros.
"He wasn't really there," I tell him. The lie has escaped my lips, I might as well commit to it. "I just… We used to hunt together. Or, he brought me along and showed me how. Back in Twelve, he used to take me into the woods with him, show me which plants were edible and how to shoot an arrow. I was only eleven when he died, but he taught me almost everything I know." I start wringing the straps of a game bag in my hands. "I thought he would've liked to hear about his daughter bringing down a cat that size."
His features smooth over with understanding, a sympathetic smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Explains why you like being out there in that forest so much," he notes.
I swallow down the guilt and mask it as grief, which isn't hard. I've even managed to convince myself. "It's not the same without the mockingjays, but it'll do," I say. "He used to sing to them, and after a polite pause, they'd always sing back. He had a voice that made all the birds stop to listen."
"Sounds like you take after him quite a bit," Jon says kindly. His eyes flicker to the mockingjay pin. "Is that why you chose it as your sigil?"
"Among other reasons," I mutter, discreetly shifting my hair to cover it up while adjusting the game bag on my shoulder. I'm an open book, I literally wear my secrets on my sleeve, and yet I still can't explain to this direwolf-inhabiting eavesdropper the concept of multiverse travel and communication. "I should take these to my room."
He nods, dismissing me, and I make my retreat.
The lie follows me out the door. It trails me across the courtyard to my room. Catches in my throat when I sing at dinner. Dances around my head like the flashlight beam over Buttercup's when Shireen and I play Crazy Cat that night. It makes my blankets itchy as I toss and turn, trying to fall asleep, and hovers above me like a dark cloud when I feed the ravens their breakfast the next day.
If I was going to be this tired in the morning anyway, I should have just taken the time to tell Jon the truth. That I was talking to a friend, that I am from another world and this friend is the connection I still have to it. It would have been so easy to just take out the devices and demonstrate them to him as I did with Sam and Gilly, or it should've been. So why couldn't I do it? What happened to resigning myself to his reaction and giving him the option to push me away, if that's what it's going to come to?
The anonymity has always been the main allure of living in a new world, getting a fresh start, but before this, I was just carefully omitting some truths. Now I am actively deceiving him. Though I can't say I expected Jon to accidentally possess his direwolf's body, and in fairness neither did he. Haymitch and Peeta would've been impressed with me for lying off-the-cuff like that, but personally, it just makes me need to freeze for a minute in the middle of the ravenry and clutch the edge of the wooden table while my stomach roils with guilt.
Because it's not just the lie. It's the fact that I've told him about nearly everything else that's personal to me. I've let him believe that I do trust him, and in turn, he has trusted me. So why shouldn't he take my word for it when I tell him the truth about Panem?
Maybe I'll wait until Stannis leaves with his army to tell Jon. That way, if he tells me to go, Buttercup and I might be able to accompany Shireen. Keep her safe until we have to part ways, if we must. Jon will be leaving for Hardhome shortly afterward, anyway, and I'm still debating whether Castle Black will be safe for me without him. I'd probably be the one protecting Sam and Gilly, instead of the other way around. If I hear something from Beetee about the location of the White Walkers while I'm with the Baratheons, I can do like Westeros does and send a raven. Or maybe I can ask Beetee for extra communication devices so I can contact Sam and Gilly, if not Jon himself.
I try to contact Beetee about it but get no answer from him. Maybe it's too early or he's away from his workshop. Instead, I mentally go over what I'm going to say to Jon, as well as the details of my backup plan. Too caught up in my thoughts, I don't notice a non-raven presence in the rookery with me until a male voice calls my name.
"Katniss!" Edd says, making me jump and almost topple the bowl of meat bits.
"What?" I groan, rescuing the bowl while trying to sound more irritated and less like he's shaken me out of an emotional crisis.
Edd looks entertained by this for a moment, but quickly regains his composure with a lift of his eyebrows. "There's someone at the gate, says he knows you," he gets out in a haste. "Says he's from Panem."
My mind, still reeling from inner conflict and Edd's sneak attack, takes more than a few seconds to comprehend this. "From Panem?" I repeat dumbly. Either that's a lie, or Beetee isn't answering because he went through the portal himself. And I don't understand the reasoning behind either of those possibilities. "Did he say anything else? What does he look like?"
Edd gives a light, scoffing laugh. "Prettier than the Lord Commander," he says with a smirk.
My head spins some more. This is not Beetee we're talking about here. "That's impossible…" I say, tossing aside the feed bowl and sweeping past Edd toward the stairs.
I fly down the steps, hearing the wind and my heartbeat in my ears and, faintly, Edd's footsteps coming down after me. Making a couple of shortcuts and turns I already know by heart, I storm across the east courtyard toward the Wall passage, where a few men are already crowded around this visitor, obscuring him from view. I only have to dart around a couple of Night's Watch brothers, both of them Thorne lackeys. The rest make a path for me, sensing that I will mow them down since my mind is currently occupied.
If not Beetee, then who? Who else knows I'm here, knows about the portal? Who else from Panem would go through that portal to find me?
As I close in on the small crowd of onlookers, it parts for me, revealing the answer. The only answer. The one I should've suspected since the rookery. A man, carrying a pack, a crossbow, and a game bag, draped in furs but wearing a coat he only could've gotten from Panem. Snowflakes falling on his dark hair and olive skin. Seam grey eyes, sheepish yet firm as they lock on mine.
Indignation and disbelief clog my throat, but I manage to choke out his name. "Gale…?!"
Gale smiles faintly at me, like he's had time to anticipate this exact reaction.
"Hey, Catnip," he says.
A/N: Thanks for all new faves/follows/reviews! 100 alerts, this is quite the first! Zain, glad the chapter was a cherry on top of what sounds like a good day! I do love the Beauty and the Beast comparison, since I stand by the fact that Jon and Katniss are Wolf and Scarlet from TLC.
Fun fact, there is a whole other alternate version of this chapter, where her answer to "Who were you talking to?" is different. It took me up until the last minute to decide which route to take. Hope I chose the right one.