A/N: Hey gang! All right, so I missed the Thursday update. I was desperately trying to finish another project yesterday and I just did not have the time to get it done. But here it is today so I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 59: The Long Night

"You're going in?" Bran asked.

That was the last thing Jon heard from his brother before the line went staticky. There were a few more scattered words that got through. You and out. But then…nothing.

"I've lost Bran," Jon said. "The coms are acting up."

"Old pieces of junk," Officer Qhorin said. "They'll be back up in a minute."

Jon nodded once, but the hairs on the back of his neck had raised. He didn't like this. It all seemed too simple and with Bran nearby, he couldn't help but worry for him.

"Bran." He tried again. Nothing. He took a step back. "I'm sorry. I have to go check and make sure things are fine."

"We need to stay on mission, Stark," Thorne said. Gods he wished he wasn't on the job today. But of course, he couldn't resist being involved in the Night King's capture. Couldn't let a rookie like Jon get too much credit for it. "Your brother is fine."

"With respect, we don't know that for sure," Jon said. "We know where the guy is. We have our directions. I need to make sure he's okay."

Thorne hissed something in response, but Jon had already turned and started back the other way. He was nearly to the door when his phone buzzed, and he checked quickly, hoping to see a message from Bran.

Instead, it was from Ygritte.

Y: It's a trap, Jon. The Night King knows. His people attacked us today for giving his information to a cop. He knows you're coming.

Jon's eyes widened. The cameras had been clear. But if it was a trap then…

He turned and started back toward the others, speaking into the radio. "Pull back. Pull back now. It's a—"

A huge blast cut him off, shaking the whole building. The hall in front of him began to crumble. Fall. And Jon turned and ran as fast as he could for the exit as the warehouse came down on top of him.

On one hand, Jaime was glad to be back on the force. It gave him a purpose for his day and plenty of excuse to be around Brienne as often as he liked. But on the other hand, he was stuck working on the day of the King's Landing Tournament. And not even the interesting work of going out to catch the Night King with Jon Stark. No, he was stuck watching the station.

"In a lot of ways, you're a rookie," Brienne said. "So you don't get dibs on days off."

"You do." Jaime glanced at her. "So why are you working?"

She shrugged. "I have a lot to get done. Don't want to put it off."

Jaime exhaled, staring at the ceiling.

"What?" she asked.

"Much as I like you now…you're still a bit boring, Tarth."

She flicked him on the head as she passed. "Do your paperwork, Lannister."

He groaned, sitting up at the desk. There wasn't even a TV back here. He wondered if he could sneak into the lounge just to catch a bit of the game. The Lions would be playing soon.

He cast a glance back toward Brienne who had disappeared around the corner. Then, whistling, he slipped casually away from the desk and into the lounge. Sure enough, the Lions were gearing up to start the first game against the Stags. He leaned on the back of the couch, watching with interest. He knew Myrcella and Tommen were there today with Arya Stark. Lucky kids.

"Jaime," Brienne's voice came from behind him. That exasperated tone that he had become fond of. "Really?"

"Just taking a break," he said.

"From what? Complaining at your desk?"

"Exactly. Now I'm complaining in the lounge," he said. "Just want to see the start, Tarth. Then I'll—"

The TV turned off. But not because she had hit the button. All the lights in the station flickered and failed. And they didn't come back on.

"We have a backup generator, don't we?" Jaime asked.

Brienne nodded slowly.

"Doesn't seem to be working, does it?" Jaime asked.

"No," she said. "No it doesn't."

She hurried from the lounge, him close behind her, checking one of the phones. "They're down. Do you have service?"

Jaime checked. "Yeah, I do. It's just the power it seems."

"Call the chief. Let him know something is up," Brienne said.

Jaime nodded, searching for Selmy's personal number. It only rang once before he picked up. "Lannister. What's happening at the precinct?"

"Power went out," Jaime said. "And the backup generators aren't kicking in."

"Same thing is happening at the other stations," Selmy said. "And at the prison. They need everyone available over there now."

"Is there a riot?" Jaime said.

"Worse than that," Selmy said. "Some sort of gas is making the prisoners act up. They think it's—"

"Long Night," Jaime finished. "Shit. We're on our way."

He hung up the phone. Brienne looked at him with wide eyes. "Long Night?"

"Yep," Jaime said. "Seems the tip Jon Stark got was more accurate than we knew. The Night King turned it into a gas. And it's flooding the prison."

Brienne was still only for a moment before she snatched her keys off the desk. "Let's go then."

It was the middle of the day. The busiest part of the tournament. Arya was still riding a high from the Wolves narrowly edging out the Suns in the final minutes of the game and the whole room was making bets on the next game between the Lions and the Stags. Lommy and Hotpie had gone to grab more snacks. When the screen hovering above the center of the field changed. No faces of players. No faces of the crowds. Just a black screen with a single sentence.

The Long Night Begins Here.

The others were confused by the words. Gendry wondered aloud if it was a new slogan of some sort. But Arya's heart plunged into her stomach like a stone. Because she knew who Bran and Jon were after today. Why they were trying to stop him.

The Long Night Begins Here.

"What's that?" Tommen asked, pointing at the edge of the stadium. Arya turned to see a bluish white gas pumping out of the vents and into the arena, filling the giant space with shocking speed. It was coming from all sides, sweeping over the room like some hungry mist. She looked at once to the vents in the box. Nothing. They must have different ventilation.

Below, the crowds on the outer edges seemed to shudder. Stir. Some of them sank into their seats, lulling back a bit, like someone suddenly very high. Others were different. They shuddered. Shook their heads or tore at their clothes. Or lunged at the nearest person in a rage.

"Oh man," Rickon said, taking a step back.

It rippled through the stadium. Gradual at first, then erupting. A riot of a sort Arya had never seen. A mass of people throwing themselves at each other with anger in their eyes, trampling those who had the opposite reaction without thought.

"Oh gods," Myrcella said. She repeated the same words over and over again. "Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods."

"We need to stay in the box," Arya said. "I don't think there's gas coming in here. We need to stay and wait."

"Arya," Gendry said. "Lommy and Hotpie."

A chill went through Arya and she backed up toward the door. "I'll get them. The rest of you stay here."

"You just said not to leave," Rickon said, his voice cracking. "And now you're leaving?"

"I have to find them and bring them back. They might not be in an area effected by the gas," Arya said. She pointed at Gendry. "Do not let any of them leave."

Then she slipped out into the hallway. It was a mess of people panicking and running. But no one that seemed violent. She pressed up against the wall, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. She reached into her pocket and drew out one of the knives she brought along. It would be little defense if she got surrounded, but still.

Breathe, she thought. Stay calm. You may not be Faceless anymore. But you have their training.

She pushed off the wall, moving through the crowd, fluid as water. She slipped through the gaps they left behind, occasionally pushing people to the side. And in every face, she looked for Hotpie and Lommy.

You'll find them. You'll keep them safe. You'll find them.

She hit the staircase that led into a more open area. Close by the snack counters. This area was already chaos, and she could see some of the drugged attendees were amongst them. Lashing out. Biting, scratching, kicking. Fighting with whatever they had on hand.

But on the other side, she saw them. Hotpie and Lommy, pressed up against the wall, wide eyed and confused.

"Hotpie!" Arya called out. "Lommy! Over here! You have to move."

Hotpie did. He found an opening and darted toward her voice. Lommy didn't. He was still frozen as Arya ran down the stairs. One of the Long Night heads came at her from the left. She blocked a wild swing with her forearms and elbowed him twice in the nose. A knee to the stomach sent him stumbling back. Then she turned and found Hotpie's shoulder with her hand.

"Run to the box," she said. "I've got Lommy. "Just go. Get in there. Close the door and do not leave."

Hotpie nodded, running for the stairs. She turned back to focus on her other friend. Trying to force her way through the crowd as it thickened. "Come on Lommy. Let's go!"

He pushed off the wall. Started to make his way toward her.

But then they came. The mob from below, fighting tooth and nail to get up the stairs, either to escape to higher ground or to fight. Lommy had made it a few steps toward her when they knocked into him, throwing him to the ground. He disappeared beneath a mass of feet.

Arya cried out for him. Tried to move toward him but the crowd shifted her back. She had to jump away to avoid getting pushed down as well and she pressed herself against the wall, trembling. It was going to be a bloodbath here soon. She had to get back to the others. But she couldn't leave Lommy.

She could see him through the crowd, lying crumpled on the ground. His face already swelling from the blows. He might still be alive. But barely. Barely.

Breathe. Breathe. Focus.

She did. And that's when she noticed the gas coming from the vents.

She stopped breathing. She covered her mouth with her hand and stopped breathing as she turned toward the stairs. One of the drugged came at her again and she dodged, but he got a lucky shot on her cut, driving the air from her lungs.

She coughed. She breathed.

She breathed in the gas.

It was hard to describe the sensation. It was familiar and foreign all at once. She was no stranger to Long Night after all. The Faceless Men had used it for training. To strengthen their focus and constitution. To train them to act even through the worse symptoms. Like blindness. Lethargy.

But in that moment she didn't feel lethargic. Her brain fuzzed, but her body was full of energy. And her brain was full of fury. Fury for Lommy's lost life and for all of them people who would die today because some madman. Bran and Jon were out looking for him. What if they were dead? What if she had lost more of her family?

Her fear fell away. Her hopelessness fell away. The only thing there was wrath. And anyone who made the mistake of crossing her path would feel it.

Jon's whole body ached and when he woke, he was coughing up dust. But he was alive. Stuck under rubble, but alive. He tried to move, wincing as his ankle rubbed against a sharp edge of concrete. It was stuck. Stuck. Gods, he didn't have time to be stuck here. He had to find Bran. He had to find his fellow officers.

How long have I been out? He wondered. Is it already too late?

He shifted in the rubble. A shadow moved by the door, and he moved immediately for his gun, pulling it out and aiming.

"Don't shoot me before I save your life."

Ygritte's voice came as a relief. He lowered the gun with a groan. "Fuck. Ygritte. You found me."

"I found the explosion. Figured you might be in the rubble of it." She rested a hand on his shoulder. "I thought I might be too late. Thought your pretty face was gone forever."

He laughed hoarsely. "My leg. It's stuck. Can you…"

"Leave it to me." Ygritte crawled over the rubble, shimmying down to the other side. She heaved and Jon let out a breath as the weight came away from his ankle. He crawled from the rubble, coughing again.

"There could be other officers trapped in there," he muttered. "We have to go for them."

"Jon I don't think the others could have survived if they went deeper in," Ygritte said. "You'd understand why…if you saw it from the outside."

Then I led men to their deaths, Jon thought. He pushed himself from the ground, staggering a bit. Ygritte steadied him.

"Bran," he said. "I have to get to Bran. If they knew we were coming then…then they might…"

"You're in no state to go anywhere," Ygritte said.

"Doesn't matter," Jon looked down at her. "My family has lost enough, Ygritte. They've lost enough."

She stared up at him. Then she exhaled and nodded. "All right then. I'll help you walk."

When Catelyn arrived at the Arryn Estate, she found the grounds surprisingly quiet. She realized quickly it was because none of the staff was around. She wondered if Lysa had given them the day off, but that seemed a bit unlike her sister, who had initially been drawn to her husband because of his substantial fortune and the charms that came with that life.

She knocked at the door and no one answered. When she tried the handle, she found it unlocked. She called out into the foyer. "Lysa!"

Something shifted upstairs but she did not receive a call back.

"Robyn?" she asked, moving deeper into the house. She stopped at a flash of movement near the stairs. Robyn was there, sitting on the ground, head between his hands. "Robyn, what's wrong? Where's your mother?"

"Upstairs," he murmured. "In the bathroom."

Another loud thump punctuated his statement. Then another. As if someone was shifting furniture.

Catelyn took a step toward the stairs. Robyn caught her ankle with his hand.

"Don't," he said. "I locked her in. She's not right."

"You locked your mother in the bathroom?" Catelyn asked.

"Somethings wrong," Robyn said. "She screamed at me. Her eyes weren't right." He tugged at his thumb. "She took something."

Took something? Catelyn thought, her brow furrowing. Her mind flashed immediately to the drug that had a recent, unwanted presence in her family. The one Bran and Jon were trying to deal with that very day. Had Lysa been taking it?

"I'll handle it Robyn," Catelyn said gently. "Stay down here, all right?"

He nodded mutely, but it took him a moment to release her ankle. Then she made her way up the stairs toward that sound which was growing more and more persistent.

She wandered back into Lysa's bedroom and found the locked bathroom door. She swallowed hard, when she saw her sister's shadow shifting beneath.

"Lysa?" she asked softly.

A pause. Then she hit the door again, hard enough to rattle it. Then again. And again. She was throwing herself against it, letting out an almost inhuman scream.

Gods, Catelyn thought. She needed to call someone. But first she needed to get Robyn out of the house. He didn't need to see this. She went back down the stairs, dialing quickly. Fortunately, the Stark house was close to the Arryn house. Less than fifteen minutes away. Their driver could make it there quickly.

She went back downstairs and waited with Robyn. Explained to him that she was going to make sure his mother got to the hospital, and that he had to go wait at her house. Gods, she wished anyone was home right now, but they had a few staff around the place that could look after him until she got back. Maybe Robb would be done with his meeting soon and could go straight home. Or maybe Sansa wouldn't mind leaving her friend's house a bit early.

The noise upstairs quieted for now. Catelyn paced away from Robyn to make the emergency call. But the line was busy. Strange. She tried again. Nothing.

Is something happening? she wondered, staring at her phone. She hadn't gotten a text from any of her kids. But that didn't exactly sway her fears. Not after everything that had happened recently.

She kept trying until the driver got there. She guided Robyn gently toward the door and gave the man specific instructions. Then she climbed the stairs again. Maybe she would have to get her sister to the hospital herself, but if she was reacting violently to the drug, she couldn't exactly get her in the car. Maybe she would tire herself out after a while?

"Lysa?" she called out.

The sound resumed with vigor. Evidently, she wasn't tired yet. Catelyn passed a hand over her face and headed for the nearest TV to see if there was an explanation.

The answer that awaited her was a horror. Chaos and panic at the King's Landing tournament. No one was quite sure what had happened except for some device had been set off. There was a riot like nothing anyone had ever seen. A similar riot was happening at the prison, and there were power outages at police stations everywhere.

It was so much information to process that Catelyn couldn't wrap her mind around any of it. She swayed on the spot as her thoughts went immediately to Arya. To Rickon. They were at the tournament. Were they caught up in the riot?

And Jon and Bran. If police stations were affected…what about them?

Too much. Its too much. I can't deal with this right now.

She took a few steps back from the TV. She turned and headed for the stairs but stopped when she passed the open door to the bedroom. Passed that, she could see the bathroom door.

It was wide open.

And she barely had time to register that thought before a tremendous force hit her from behind.

"If a girl is no one," Jaqen used to say. "Then it should not matter what ailments afflict her. Hunger. Thirst. Pain. Substances. She must be able to keep a clear head in all of them. Must be able to use her skills."

"Saying I'm no one doesn't make my sight come back," Arya had replied, still recovering from the latest shot of Long Night.

"No. But blindness is no excuse. Pick up the staff."

Arya was not blind right now. She could see everything. In fact, the drug seemed to almost slow the world around her down. The gas had faded, but its effects had taken hold on anyone who had breathed it in. She was just a single body in a rioting mass of people. But she felt no fear. Only rage.

A figure lunged at her clumsily. Her knife snapped up and slashed across his throat. Her blade moved nimbly in her hand, beating back her attackers. One came at her with a pipe and dove into the gap he left at his shoulder, driving her knee into his gut and her fist down across the back of his neck.

Another shift from behind her. She turned with the man and let him take the next blow instead. Then she dropped him, scooping up his pipe. It became a new weapon as the attacks continued.

She got hit. She knew she did. She felt the sensation of kicks and punches and scrapes. But it was dulled. The pain did not register and none of it slowed her down. In the same way, her blows did not have as much effect on the drugged. They kept coming back from things that would leave a sober person gasping on the ground, unable to fight.

That was fine. She could keep swinging.

She lost track of time. Of movement. Everything was just a fight for survival. Her muscle memory kicking in to save her. It was like fighting in a dream. Everything was a haze, and she was just a passenger in her body.

She backed up toward the hall that led back to her friends. Friends. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if they were okay. Then she thought of Lommy and her rage returned all over again.

She swung wildly as another assailant came at her from behind. This one blocked her strike, twisting the pipe from her hand.

Precise. Too precise, her foggy mind thought, even as she thought against the hold.

Then a hand slapped over her mouth. She tasted something bitter and she bit down on instinct, breaking skin. Tasting blood. A man grunted, but she swallowed what he'd given her anyway.

The effect was immediate. A clearing of her mind. And she found she recognized the taste and sensation. It was the same thing they used to give her back at the House of Black and White when her training with Long Night was over. An antidote to bring the drugged abruptly back to sobriety. It was a rare thing, and not common in the West.

She blinked. Stumbled. And for a moment, she feared she would look up and see Jaqen. The devil she hoped she had left behind. But instead, there was a different voice in her ear. And a different face hovering in her peripheral vision. Oberyn Martell.

"All right, Miss Stark?" he asked.

"Where…" she asked hoarsely. "Where did you get that?"

"Braavos," he said. "Same place you trained, yes?"

Trained. Trained. So he knew she was training to be a Faceless Man. He knew about the Faceless Men.

She nodded weakly. Then slumped in his arms as her confused body dragged her toward unconsciousness. A typical reaction to this antidote, but she wished she could fight it with all her heart. She didn't have time to sleep. She needed…to protect her friends.

"Don't worry, Arya Stark," Oberyn said. "Your friends will be all right. So will you."

Lommy won't be, she thought. And it was the last poisonous thought that entered her brain before she tumbled into darkness.

A/N: More Long Night fun coming next time. There was no way I was gonna fit it all into one chapter this week. But next week we'll see if the Long Night reaches a conclusion! Review, subscribe and I'll see you next time!