For days on end, Theon couldn't eat, barely drink, or leave his bed, so paralyzing was the malaise that overtook him. His only comforts were the voice went away, and Robb and Jon never came to see him.

It should have broken his heart neither wanted to be around him, but Theon wasn't saddened. He was relieved he'd driven them away. How could he face them after letting Bran fall? And after allowing his greed to nearly bring catastrophe down upon Robb again?

No. No. The shame of his inaction and selfishness made it impossible for things to be as they were between Theon and the boys ever again. Better they should be apart.

When he could sleep, snatches of rest that seldom last more than a few hours, Theon dreamed. He didn't have nightmares—those were all saved for when he was awake. And it was always the same dream.

Theon dreamed of the Iron Islands—of Yara, his mother, and himself. Quenlyn was also there, loosing arrows from her bow at a man-shaped target placed on the forward part of a ship—the Nier. There was no more room on the target, and arrows stuck out all over the mannequin like the spines on the back of a hedgehog, and Quenlyn had begun launching arrows past the target. Her arrows shot over the ocean's surface at dizzying speed before disappearing into the distant horizon.

In his dreams, the sky is cloudless and blue, and the sea is so calm the waves barely disturb the ship as it cuts through the water. Theon, his mother, and Yara sat in a circle on stools on the deck, and each of them sewed golden Kraken patterns into the chests of black velvet tunics. Theon was a young boy again, hardly more than five or six name days, and he wore a gray, emblem-less leather armor chest piece, trousers, and boots. Sometimes he'd glance up from his needle and thread to look at the sea. Or watch Quenlyn in her training leathers as she loosed arrows until their mother scolded him and commanded him to finish his pattern.

They never sailed away from the Islands, but around them. Winding their way between the dozens of islands and islets that made up the chain, as strong winds kept the Nier's sails billowed. The air was sweet with brine as waves crashed against the rocky cliffs and sandy shores they passed.

In the other time, the other place, Theon stopped dreaming of the ocean. He'd been gone from the sea too long until he forgot what he'd lost. The memory of living so near the vast blue-gray waters surrounding the Iron Islands had become more of an impression; a half-remembered thing, seen a lifetime ago.

In this life, Theon remembered what was taken from him clearly, and he let it go willingly. He made himself not think about home because it was safer to not think about it—to not yearn for it—because then he would not hurt at its absence. It was better for everyone if he accepted his place in the world and did not want more. Wanting more is how it all went so wrong before.

When Robb agreed to send him back home, it wasn't until Theon boarded the ship that would deliver him there that he began to feel a long-missing part of himself stir and make itself known. He'd stood on the deck for hours—regaining his sea legs as the waves rocked the ship under his feet, and the saltwater misted his face and dampened his hair.

Theon had truly believed he was finally going home—that he was going to be someone. Not a hostage, not some hangers-on to Robb, but someone who could make a difference in the war. Someone who would finally really matter.

Only Theon learned he didn't matter. Not to his father, or to his sister, not to his people, and in the end, not to Robb. And what did he do after such a blow to his deluded expectations and his wounded pride? He took the only home he'd truly known, and he set it aflame. Stone and flesh alike.

Waking from his dreams of yearning, Theon couldn't smell the sea or the sprite winds anymore. All he could smell was the stale rankness of the dress he hadn't taken off since the night of the feast. And the sweat-soaked bedsheets and furs, and sick in the chamber pot next to his bed from when he tried to eat.

Awake, Theon had no way to escape. Awake, there was only him and his regrets, and that made for a very crowded room.

When there was a knock at his chamber door, Theon remained silent. He thought it was one of the maids bringing him food to break his fast even though he had refused every meal brought to him for weeks. Theon wondered who gave them orders to keep trying? He fleetingly hoped it was Robb, then berated himself for wishing it were so. Theon buried his head under the furs and tried to let sleep take him once more.

He'd find consolation in his dreams.

Theon's eyes snapped open when he heard the door open with a loud click. He'd never raised his voice at any of the servants for as long as he'd been in Winterfell, but Theon was sorely tempted to shout at the one intruding on him now. Theon heard the door close a moment later, silence followed. Theon relaxed, believing whoever opened his door only did so long enough to see him still indisposed, before going away.

"Quinn?"

Theon slowly pushed the furs down and turned to see Arya standing several feet from the bed. The girl wore a woolen dress the color of dandelion blossoms. Her dark hair a familiar mess of braids, and her big round eyes sparkled with something Theon had never seen in them before. A hesitance that did not suit the rambunctious little girl at all.

"You look awful," Arya said all too candidly.

Theon gave a humorless snort. He probably did look a fright. "Yeah," he said.

Arya came closer and when she was only a foot or so from the bed her cute little nose scrunched, and she looked as though she wanted back out of the room.

"And you smell bad!"

You reek. Reek! That's a good name for you! What's your name?

"Yeah," Theon said, tears burning behind his eyes.

Arya's expression smoothened and she looked down at Theon with the same look she had when she came into the room. She stretched out her arm and pulled back the furs covering Theon and hopped onto the bed. Before Theon could protest, the girl wrapped her arm around his waist and tucked herself against him.

"You smell even worse close up," Arya said and squeezed Theon even tighter.

If there was any part of Theon wanting to resist hugging Arya, he thoroughly ignored it. He pressed his nose into Arya's braided hair and smelled the perfume of rose essence and lilac. He was grateful that, for a few moments at least, he wasn't suffocating in his own miserable stench.

"Don't cry," Arya said.

Theon couldn't help it. Before the disastrous night of the feast, he'd never held any of the Starks the way he held Arya now because deep down he knew taking such comfort would be unearned and thus, stolen. And he'd raided too much from house Stark already. Still, Theon was touch starved, and he hadn't understood just how much until he and Robb embraced under the sallow.

"'Hum not crying," Theon mumbled with his mouth pressed against the top of Arya's head.

"Stinky liar."

Theon chuckled and stroked the back of Arya's head as if he were comforting her, but really, the act was probably more soothing to him.

"Are you sad because Bran got hurt?" Arya asked.

"Yes," Theon said. It wasn't the whole truth, but it was truer than he could ever tell the girl.

"Mother's very sad too. Because Bran won't wake up. She won't even…"

"Even what?"

Theon felt Arya's chest expand as she took a breath. Her tiny fingers clawed at his side for a long second before they relaxed.

"She won't leave his room," Arya said, but Theon sensed she intended to say something else but changed her mind on it.

Theon remembered well those dark weeks Bran was unconscious. The boy's fall had taken a terrible toll on all of Winterfell but on none more than Lady Stark. The woman's melancholy shrouded the castle in a miasma of grief that only lifted once she went on her ill-fated quest for justice.

"He will," Theon said.

"What?"

"Bran will wake up."

Arya pulled away and looked at Theon with a suspicious glint in her eyes. "That's what Jon and Robb keep saying, but they're just telling me what I want to hear. I can tell."

"Well, I'm not," Theon said. "He's going to survive, and he will wake up."

Arya's gaze remained doubtful as she searched Theon's face for deceit, and for a moment Theon was reminded of the Arya Stark that returned to Winterfell not long before the dead marched on the living. Her gray eyes calculating, and dreadfully chilling, especially when they looked his way.

"You swear it?" she asked.

"I swear it."

Arya smiled and reinserted her against Theon. "Okay."

They lay like that for some time, and for the first time in weeks Theon felt like he could have fallen into a restful sleep had it lasted a few moments longer.

"We leave for King's Landing on the marrow," Arya said.

Theon's breath caught. The panic that had ravaged him after the feast charged through him once again. If Arya leaves, it will be years before he sees her again. The wild, curious little girl will have disappeared under an ocean of blood, and a killer will resurface in her place.

No. Don't go!

Theon's arms tightened around Arya as though his impotent embrace could keep the girl from leaving Winterfell.

"I'll miss you," Arya says.

Is there a way to prevent this? Something Theon could say or do to keep both Arya and Sansa from being devoured by King's Landing? Would it really be a violation of the rules to keep them safe here in Winterfell? The girls did not die in the other time and place. They lived beyond Theon, he's sure of it. To what god did it matter if these innocent children evaded the cruel, painful paths spread out before them?

"I have to go," Arya said, wiggling out from Theon's arms. It took all he had not to drag her back.

With tears in his eyes, Theon watched Arya walk to the door. As she began to leave, she turned to him, the uncertainty she came into the room with shined in her eyes once more.

"Jon says you're really sad, so sad you can't get out of bed, but—" Arya dropped her gaze. "But you're strong."

Arya looked at Theon and her stare hardened.

"This isn't you."

Looking into the mirror over his vanity, Theon can no longer see the beauty, nor the figure, he'd so bemoaned since he flowered.

Arya had said true: he looked terrible.

Confining himself to his bed for weeks has caused Theon to shed a stone, perhaps two. The lean muscle he worked so diligently to build over the years was gone. He was thin, so thin his dress hangs on his emaciated frame as if he were a little girl playing dress-up in his mother's gown.

Theon's complexion, normally honey tan, was dingy gray. His eyes looked sunken, while his cheekbones poked out sharply under his ashen skin. His dark, shoulder-length hair was limp and dull, and when he ran his hand through it, it felt stringy and disgustingly oily.

Though he wasn't nearly as vain as he'd been in his other life, Theon nevertheless felt appalled at his filthy, disheveled appearance.

Theon left his room and asked one of the chambermaids to have a bath drawn for him. That done, Theon used some clean linens and water from a pitcher to freshen up—

A whore's bath, the voice sneered.

—though it did little to mute the mustiness his body had accumulated.

Bending over, Theon and pours the rest of the water over his head and does his best to scrub and twist as much grime from his hair as he can. Lastly, Theon changed into a blue linen blouse and dark grey wool-spun trousers over a clean set of small clothes and then left his chambers.

He went to the kitchens. He still wasn't hungry—truly the thought of eating made Theon's stomach roll over. But he needed to eat to get his strength back.

It was mid-day, and the cooks were already preparing meals for the feast to mark the king's departure from Winterfell. Broth made from chicken stock simmered in a large iron pot over an open flame in one of the kitchen's half dozen blazing fireplaces. The soup, usually paired with a biscuit, or slice of day-old bread, was on offer to the smallfolk in the castle if they wanted or needed a hot meal.

Theon took two ladles full in a bowl and retreated to an out-the-way spot in the kitchen. As he sipped the broth down with a spoon, none of the kitchen staff paid him any mind and left him alone. He'd eaten like this when he was with Ramsay. Anxiously hugging a bowl of scraps as he crouched in some dark corner of the castle.

Theon would pray no one decided he didn't need to eat that day and kick the food from his grungy, mangled hands. He'd hurriedly stuff those meals into his mouth and swallow it barely chewed before they could. Sometimes Theon's stomach rebelled, and he would vomit, but he quickly learned he'd be eating his sick off the floor if he didn't swallow it back down.

Theon sips the broth slowly. It was hot and savory, but the best thing about it was the lack of meat—not even the loose bits of flesh from the chicken bones used to make the stock. There's only soft minced onions, celery, and carrots in the broth probably leftover from the preparation of some fancier, heartier dish to be served at the farewell banquet.

This isn't you.

Theon thought he knew everything there was to know about shame until a girl of nine declares him strong when he feels anything but. He wanted it to be true, though. To live up to the faith Arya had in him, even if he didn't know how to be worthy of it.

Theon considers joining the feast, to prove he was strong enough to face the world again but decides against going. He didn't know if he would be welcome in any case—he wasn't last time. Only the Starks—save Catelyn—the royal family, and a select few others had attended.

By the time he finishes his broth, Theon knows what he must do. Belly full, he returns to his chambers, and a tub filled with hot, rose-scented water waits for him. The soiled sheets and furs on his bed have been replaced. And his chamberpot has been emptied and cleaned.

Theon ignores the bath and instead retrieves a beautifully varnished box from under the bed. After he opens it, Theon runs his hand over the silken hand-sewn garments within. They are gifts, but Theon never found the right time to give them.

Now is the right time, he thinks.