The Wintertown train station was nearly empty and I wasn't at all surprised. The biting wind was enough to keep even the strongest man indoors and I was thoroughly looking forward to a bath, a hot fire, and a bed with as many blankets as I could weasel out of the innkeeper.

Pia and I stood huddled on the covered station steps while Jon and Peck argued with the miserable looking men at the taxi stand.

"My lady," Pia said after a moment with disgusted awe, "those snow drifts are taller than my head."

"Aye," I said, "and they're only going to get taller yet. D'you know, they still use horses to plow the roads because the cars can't manage it?"

Pia's look of great horror was a thing to relish. "I thought it snowed in Harrenhal," I said casually. "Really, Pia, one could think you were from Dorne."

"There's snow and then there's snow, m'lady," she said grimly and dug about in her bag for another pair of gloves.

I understood the sentiment exactly. Jon hadn't tried to take his coat back and at this point I was considering not making him. Let the wind try and cut through two layers of wool, a layer of down, and several layers of silk and cotton and see where that got it.

One of the cabbies was waving his arms and yelling hoarsely, pointing at the dogs and yelling again. My beautiful babies were bouncing through the snow banks piled at the edges of the paved station lot, panting and in Nymeria's case, baying with excitement.

"Oh gods," Pia said. "They're not going to take the dogs."

"Do you think," I wondered, burrowed into the collar of the top coat to contain my periodic coughs, "that if I told them to go home, they'd run back off to Winterfell?"

"For shame!" Jon told me, trudging back through the building snow. "Abandoning your children like that, and at Year's End no less!"

"Dogs of their, ah, breed, do very well in the snow," I told him sourly. "I, however, do not. I want a bath, Jon, and sometimes sacrifices must be made."

"Not this time," he said and cupped the back of my head to bring me into a kiss.

I wasn't having it, and ducked away.

"Aye, fine," Jon said, resigned but cheerful. "They'll take us and the dogs and the luggage and it'll only cost me nearly a year's wages."

"I've seen your idea of a year's wages," I told him, thoroughly unimpressed. The army was paid a pittance, and that was even before they'd suddenly had to come up with back pay and wages for a war's worth of widows.

"So sour," Jon teased. "You didn't seem to mind the thought in Braavos but I suppose General Mormont is right, and you did only marry me for the money."

Peck was getting to work hauling the luggage to the cars. "My dastardly plans exposed," I said and let Jon kiss me-but only because he was very warm and I could hardly feel my face anymore.

But I drew the line at letting him put his hand on my neck, perilously exposing the back of it to the cold. "Go help Peck!" I yelped and drew away.

"Alright," he said cheerfully and tucked a strand of hair back behind my ear. "We'll have you warm soon enough."

"Ha," I said because I knew exactly what he thought that would entail and I highly doubted his vision involved a glorious stack of down quilts and at least three warm bricks for my feet.

Pia was giving him a gimlet eye, too, and he decided-sensibly-that the better part of valor would be to give a hand hauling the luggage.

While we waited, listening to the faint curses floating through the air, I contemplated the landscape. It was intimately familiar and still what I thought of when I thought about the idea of home, but I hadn't been to the North in nearly six years and the mind had forgotten some of what the heart still knew.

The trees were so dense and furiously thick, the icy drifts so tall and majestic, the snow muffling the sounds in the air so absolutely. It was brutal and horrible and perfect. I wanted to express the thought to Pia but she was so unromantic a soul that I knew it would fall flat.

So I went and wrestled collars onto the dogs instead, whistling them out of the snow and fighting to reach the buckles through four inches of the thickest fur known to men.

"I ought to have you for gloves and a coat," I told Nymeria as I pushed her enormous head of my armpit for the fourth time. "You stay still and be good and I shall let you eat as much taxi upholstery as you like."

She panted foully into my face. "Gloves," I told her. "And your horrible beast of a brother will make such a beautiful bedspread."

Ghost raised his head, mouth dripping half-melted snow he had frantically started wolfing down, and stared happily. His tail whisked briskly, sending ice crystals flying in all directions.

"You leave my horrible beast be," Jon said and put his arm about me. "I've reserved rights to his magnificent plumage."

I'll admit, I jumped perhaps two feet into the hair and said fiercely, "Don't do that, stupid!"

And then, grudgingly, "Ha, feathers."

"Aye," Jon said. "I thought you'd like that." He brushed snow off my shoulders and asked, "Are you done rolling through the banks, dearheart? We're all set to leave."

We piled into the first cab with the luggage and Pia decamped into the front seat of the second to spare her dress, while Peck clambered into the back to keep the dogs from going out the window from sheer joy of being in a car.

Well, out. Perhaps through would be more accurate.

"To the keep then?" the cabby asked, tugging at his hat. "M'lord?"

"To the inn," Jon said with some irritation.

"Aye, alright," the cabby said. "Only, it's just, his lordship said, ah, to bring you all to the keep and he'd pay double the going rate."

Jon ground his teeth. Fathers, I thought irritably, and said, "My friend, we are already paying you and your companion far more than the going rate to transport my horrible beast and my dogs to our destination. If you don't wish to take us to the inn, we will simply get out, brave the damn cold, and walk."

"I am," Jon added with menace, "already well versed in marching. I don't intend to do any more."

"Aye, aye!" the cabby said with some small alarm. "The inn, alright! It's no problem, m'lord."

He turned the engine on and pulled out onto the road. I was gratified to see his fellow following. I could only imagine the kind of trouble that would happen if they showed up to Winterfell sans the master and mistress.

Mother couldn't stop us from taking up a room in absolute (perceived) sin if she didn't even know we were there.

Under the edge of my second coat-Jon was still in shirtsleeves and I decided he could stay that way-he pinched my leg. I knew exactly what for, but batted his hand away.

His look was amused and far more expectant that I was happy with, but that was a problem for the inn.

Wintertown unfolded around us as the car progressed, sprawling out bigger than I remembered. Some of the stores of my childhood were gone, I was sad to see-the pharmacy we used to get dragged to when sick, the place Mother bought our clothes when she couldn't have them made, the little butcher shop where they'd relented to my endless questions and taken me behind the counter to see exactly how they made a pig stop fitting together in a neat package.

"Everything's different," I said in a murmur.

Jon, perhaps, had less expectations that Winterfell would still remain the eternal childhood pile, but petted at my hair comfortingly, saying nothing. I leant my head against his shoulder and shut my eyes, not feeling prepared to notice anything more.

I was drowsing, half asleep, when the cab came to a gentle stop. "We're here, m'lord," the cabby said.

The Smoking Log was a picture out of my memory, unchanged by time and war. The sign, still filthy and half peeled away, hung at its normal crooked angle and the door boasted the same hideous wolf knocker.

"Do you remember when Sansa told me the knocker would come alive and eat my fingers if I touched it?" I said fondly as Jon helped me out of the car.

He looked surprised, then nodded, laughing. "I do!" he said. "You hid half under the post box and cried for nearly an hour."

The second cab was pulling up, the cabby grim. Nymeria was baying like a hound out of one of the seven hells and Peck sprung the door open straight away to let the poor dear out.

"Come here, darling," I cooed and brushed a piece of ice out of her fur. "Oh, you poor thing. You wanted to run the whole way, didn't you…"

She had not, I was pleased to see, eaten any of the seats and Ghost had behaved himself similarly well. But the cabby, looking furious, had barely waited for Peck to help Pia out and peel out a few bills for him before he slammed on the gas and took off careening down the street.

"Surely they weren't that bad," Jon said as he set one of the suitcases on the sidewalk.

"Ghost decided to lick the poor man's head," Pia said with resignation. "I believe he felt the next logical step would be Ghost biting his head and thusly desired to take evasive maneuvers."

"He must have liked him," I said and stroked Ghost's head between his ears. "Ghost hardly does that to just anybody."

Our cabby gave Ghost a nervous look as he stepped past with another suitcase.

"Mayhap you should go inside," Jon said and tweaked my chin. "You look half ready to fall over."

He was hardly going to let me haul my own suitcase around so I resigned myself to standing inside with a warm fire and Pia's fine company. "I shall introduce you to the innkeeper," I told Pia. "I have known him since I was small."

The inside was just the same as the outside-slightly grubby in a familiar, comforting way and I led Pia easily through the empty clusters of tables and chairs to the bar where a man with a scraggling grey beard and more eyebrows than eyes was wiping at a glass.

"Royce Snow!" I cried happily.

He looked up and his wrinkled face changed at once into a craggy smile. "Why it cannot be!" he shouted. "Little Arya Underfoot!"

Pia said in an amused tone, "Underfoot," but before I had time to fire anything back, Royce had come around the bar to embrace me.

He was gentle, for which I was grateful. The cold hadn't quite turned my lungs into the promised cheesecloth but any more jostling and I was sure I'd spend the night coughing discreetly into my hands.

"Arya Stark, back in the North at last!" he said as he held me at arms length and looked me over. "I never thought I'd see the day."

"Aye," said Jon from the doorway as he hauled in a bag. "And me as well, though I'm hardly half so good a prize."

Royce gaped and shoved his way across the room to embrace Jon too. "Jon Snow!" he bellowed happily. "You've come back for Year's End, then."

"Just so," I said and settled myself onto one of the bar stools. "Are there rooms still, Royce? We've come up from Pinkmaiden and could sorely use a rest."

"We have rooms aplenty," Jeyne Snow said, coming out of the kitchen behind the bar. "If my husband hasn't shouted the roof down into them."

She was already smiling to see me and kissed my cheek happily. "You're too thin, girl," she said and pinched my cheek with gentle fingers. "You need some feeding up."

"And you, Jon Snow," Jeyne went on, looking over at him. "You come here and give us a hug."

He did so happily. "You look well enough," Jeyne told him. "But too thin, the both of you. Why I remember when you were this high, Jon, and I couldn't hardly keep you out of the pies for love or money."

Jon laughed easily, a bright and happy bark. "I'll keep my fingers to myself this time, Mistress Snow," he said.

"You had better!" she chided him and smacked at his chest. "Gods be good, boy, where's your coat gotten to?"

"Arya has it," Jon said shamelessly. "The cold isn't very good for her now."

And there it was-his compulsive urge to hide behind my hospital gown to escape bossy women and their judgement. "You're a wretch," I said irritably as Jeyne turned back to me.

"Not good for-" she said and then her whole face changed. "Oh, girl, I had forgotten. We heard, you know, when the telegram came." And she took me up in her arms, the same tight and reassuring hug she'd given me when I was a frightened child or an unhappy child or a grumpy child.

Something in the six-year-old hindbrain that hung around my older memories relented. I knew at once that I could tell Jeyne that the war had been a horrible and scary thing and she would comfort me just as she had comforted me about her evil door knocker.

Perhaps, I thought with only a small amount of grudge, coming North hadn't been so bad an idea after all.

"None of that now," Royce demanded as he shut the door behind Peck and the last of the luggage. "You'll have me blubbering and that ain't such a pretty sight these days."

"Aye, alright," Jeyne said. "Now, you sit yourselves down, the four of you, and we'll see about warm rooms for your whole lot."

"Two should do it, Mistress," Peck said cheerfully and peeled off his gloves to shake Royce's hand. "Josmyn Peckledon, at your service, and the fine woman at the fire's my wife, Pia."

"Pleased to meet you," Royce said and shook his hand. "Two rooms, aye? One for you and the mistress, and one for whoever ain't going on to the keep?"

Ah, the eternally awkward question. "One for my man and woman, and one for myself and Jon," I corrected him cheerfully. "We shan't be staying at the keep, for obvious reasons."

Royce's considerable eyebrows rose towards his hairline with alarming speed. "My lady," he began, no doubt to start a rounding scold, but Jeyne was almost immediately lapsed into a fit of laughter.

"Oh gods!" she cried and wiped at her eyes. "Have you finally managed to make her give up her wild ways, Jon Snow?"

Now, I'll admit, that stung a little. "Mistress," I said with great dignity, "I wasn't that wild."

But Jon was laughing too, as he came over and put his arm around me. It took away some of the sting to be able to lean against him. "She's taken me up," he said easily. "It took much convincing, but I managed it at last."

"Oh, I'm glad," Jeyne said and laughed again.

Even Royce had to relent in the face of such overwhelmingly sappy love. "You two always were such damn peas in a pod," he said and shook his head. "Two rooms then and gods help us all when your poor mother finds out, m'lady."