They were preparing at the base of the wall. Re-measuring the rope, re-counting the bolts, at lot of re-counting of everything. Jon saw Ygritte and Verona sitting not far away, Ygritte explaining something to her. The wind picked up a bit, Verona's hair going in all directions, making Ygritte laugh.

She never did put it up, she said she had short hair for so long she didn't know how and didn't see the point of it. Ygritte was talking more, he couldn't quite make out what it was, but it looked like Ygritte was pulling Verona's hair back. She must have convinced her somehow.

He hadn't seen her face clearly before, it surprised him to see her eyebrows were a grey instead of blue though. He assumed they were just darker. She had sharper features than he expected. Sharp nose, chin, jawline, brows slightly arched. It could be an intimidating face, but her eyes were round and made her look gentle. The scar on her temple went back into her hair, it reminded him of a tree branch almost.

Ygritte had pulled her hair back as best as possible, the shorter strands still in her face, her hair looked like it was just to her shoulders in the back. He caught Ygritte's gaze and they shared a smile.

"I could tie yours back too, Jon Snow!" she called to him. "Don't want it flapping about if the wind gets worse!"

"I think I'll be just fine" he called back with a small smile.

Being with Ygritte was indescribable. To know someone so intimately, just thinking about it made his heartbeat faster. He tried not to think further ahead, wanting to enjoy just being with her. He think he might even love her.

With everything prepared, the free folk approached the wall. Their eyes following Verona as she pressed a hand against it, she wasn't wearing gloves though, they were black fingerless hand covers that matched the boots she wore. There might have been silver details on them but they were mostly obscured.

"She says she doesn't need them… gloves. She would be able to climb better if she could feel things." Ygritte explained to him as she walked closer. "I warned her not to come crying when she loses her fingers to the ice."

Jon acknowledged her with a small hum.

"Come on, Jon Snow, we're tying teams up now."

Verona's POV:

This really isn't so bad. I can tell where to put the pick, where to put my feet, and how to use the bolts. It just took a while. I could just start to sense the top of the wall, and I could sense the others climbing, nothing unexpected had happened. The wind was hardly blowing, which Tormund has expressed surprise about, I didn't say it but it might be a subliminal thing with me…

Not even a minute after thinking everything was going perfect, I hear the ice start to crack below me. Shit!

I look down on instinct, even though it doesn't really help. Its from Ygritte, spreading to our right very fast. Tormund hears it too, and the warg, Orell, below me. He's bracing himself against the ice, I do the same, making sure my pickax is in deep, my boots digging into the wall. Then it happens, the ice starts to fall in huge amounts. I can feel the other climbing groups screaming, I let out a gasp of dismay.

I feel the ice below me start to fall away, Ygritte Jon and Orell fall with it, I feel a huge jerk against me, but I manage to keep myself in place, for a few seconds I'm holding the three of them, but Orell below me manages to get ahold of the ice again.

"We have to cut them loose!" I hear him yell below me.

"NO!"

"What?!"

Tormund and I yell at the same time.

Fuck, he's actually doing it. I hear him start to cut the rope.

"Stop! We have time to figure it out, just give them a chance to move over! Stop cutting damn it!" I try in vain to get him to stop. I can feel myself getting really pissed off now. The wind picks up around us, I know what I have to do. I can feel Jon start to swing to the left, I'm not sure if he'll make it in time though, or if he can get a good enough hold on Ygritte to stay on the wall. I'll give them a push.

I reach out my arm, pointing left. I focus on where I think Ygritte and Jon are from the way the rope is swinging. I hear a surprised 'oof' from them both as they dig into the wall again. The wind is still blowing a lot harder around us, but I can't bother to try and stop it, I'm still pretty pissed off. I hear Orell pause in his cutting, and almost sheepishly continue, no point having a half sawed through rope anyway, better to just cut it completely.

Oh, we are going to have words. Right after I get my breathing under control… I can't afford to freak out right now.

Tormund hoisted himself up the side of the wall, I heard him walk around a bit before I think crouching down. I was just getting to the top when I felt his hand on my arm, I grip it back and he helps hoist me up. He pats my shoulder as I pass, he must have realized what I did… the wind was still howling.

I finally hear Orell at the edge, a march over to him. I grab his coat and haul him up, tossing further on the wall. He lands with a huff of surprise. I was so frustrated, I didn't know where to start. Maybe with what bothered me most.

"You didn't even try." I snapped out at him. I hear him scoff.

"That's not how things are here other worlder. Its understood – "

"I don't care what's normal here! You could have helped move them by swinging the rope, you could have tried to pull them up, or something! You just decided they were doomed and were just going to let them die. You should have tried first. You should have tried!" I end up shouting out the last part.

He just scoffed again, muttering how there was no point explaining to me. I could hear his heartbeat faster though, he scrambled up and walked off away from me.

What a Fucking Coward, I kept thinking.

I can hear Ygritte now, she was already over, I didn't even notice. She was about to pull Jon up too. I turned away, walking past Tormund, who was probably listening the whole time… I needed space right now. It was starting to hit me, what I did. I just need a space to catch my breath.

I'm not sure how far away I am, but there's a chunk of the wall I can lean against. I can still feel it, all over me, humming and aching and reminding me, reminding me of what I did, what I couldn't stop myself from doing. I've already done it twice since I've been here…

I feel myself sinking down against the wall, my head hangs down and I can't stop shaking, I keep thinking about it. The places I destroyed… the people I killed… hearing the heartbeats slowly disappear while the sky warped around me. What did they tell me to do when I got like this? Count?

If I just let myself feel… maybe if I concentrate, I can tell how tall the wall is… yes, I can feel the ice, solid and unmoving, at least at the moment. I can tell where we were when the large chunk slid off, I can feel where the bolts are still logged, I can hear people breathing, they're alive and with me, everything is fine, it will be fine.

I slowly stop shaking, my breath slows down. I slump a little further down against the ice.

They camp at the bottom of the wall, all of them exhausted and feeling like they could sleep for a week. They had chores to do though. Tormund and Verona were gathering firewood, so they could at least be warm. Tormund's eyes followed her, wanting to ask more about what she could do.

"Your eyes glow a bit, when you… do what you do." Tormund tells her.

Verona actually looks surprised, she turns toward Tormund a bit, an eyebrow raised. "No one's ever told me that… no one really likes to talk about it."

"You'd think after you escaped and joined your people, they'd tell tales of what you could do for them."

"I didn't do that for them." She says back, voice hard. "I wouldn't use it to destroy, not ever again." Her voice was stern and even angry, Tormund considers her words, and decided it was better not to push. He saw her shaking at the top of the wall.

Something else then. Tormund grinned as he thought of something.

"Didn't expect a little thing like you to be so strong, tossing someone about like that. I enjoyed watching you fling him about." He was chuckling just thinking about it.
Verona turned to him, her hair still pulled back so he could see her exaggerated offended expression, a hand going over her heart.

"I don't look strong to you? I'm offended. You've offended me. I hope you're happy." the sarcasm was practically dripping from her tone. She huffs loudly and marches off with the sticks she managed to find, Tormund's gruff laughter following her.

They walk back to camp in silence, Tormund starting the fire while the others finished camp. Ygritte, after finishing cleaning the rabbits she spotted while making camp, approaches Verona. Her eyes follow Verona's hands curiously.

"So, didn't loose any fingers then?"

Verona acts like she's inspecting them thoroughly before replying, "They look fine to me."

"Ha. Ha. But come on, how's that? Don't you feel cold?"

"Yeah I guess… but its not like I remember. It's not as strong, I think. Same for the heat." Verona pulls back a sleeve and slides one of her gloves off, revealing a pale scar starting on her wrist and going further up her arm, two centimetres across and unnaturally straight. "They changed me as much as they could..."

Ygritte watched her, a surprised face turned into an angry expression.

"I hope you gave those fucks what was comin' to them." Ygritte spat out. Verona's mouth twitched up in a smile before putting her fingerless glove back on.

"They got theirs, in the end." Verona tells her quietly.

"Good. Lets go make Tormund cook for us." Ygritte marches over to the fire.

Jon starts making his way over, but before he could say anything Verona interrupts.

"Everyone's taking turns today, talking to me. Next the warg will have something to say… probably not though I sort of yelled at him." She frowns to herself.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Not the yelling – " Jon adds after seeing her raise an eyebrow and frown. "Just… thanks I suppose. For… trying." Jon ends up sounding pretty awkward, and walks off to Ygritte.

Verona listens to him leave, a small smile on her face. "Anytime" she mutters to herself.

I wasn't long before they were all gathered around the fire, sharing food curtesy of Ygritte and a reluctant Tormund. Verona sipping on her warm water, listening to the sounds of the night grow louder. She could always tell what time of day it was because of the insects… in a city or base though, it was harder to tell. There were always large amounts of people awake, drowning out everything else.

Thinking of people back home got her to thinking of people here. How similar some of the stories were, compared to her own history, different technologies but, similar conflicts, at least in the past… She wondered just how many people lived in this world. It was hard to tell.

She tuned back into the conversation at the fire, listening to them talk about the sight on top of them wall, ironically enough. They were all murmuring their agreements, Verona gave an exaggerated, "amazing" that got a scoff a groan and a chuckle.

"I have a question." Verona announced.

"Who's it for?" Ygritte responded, looking expectant.

Verona shrugs in response, "Anyone who has an answer, I guess. How many people live in Westeros?"

An exact number of people? They didn't quite know that… they turned to Jon, he would probably have a better guess than they would at least.

"Umm, more than thirty-five million maybe? More people live in the south overall, it's hard to determine an exact number… I know that there may be, about four million in the north." Jon supplied after thinking a bit.

Verona's eyebrows raised, surprised at how low it was… she knew the technology they had would mean less people, but this was less than Europe was with the same sort of technology and systems in place, and she thought there here was larger than Europe… perhaps their constant warfare took a bigger toll than she had thought…

"What about your home, you have a number?" Jon asked.

Verona looked a bit unsure, and maybe even concerned. She took a sip of her water, still looking uncomfortable. "More than that…" She muttered quietly before sitting up more.

"There was over four hundred million in the US, before the war started… I'm not sure how many people there are now… Or what areas are considered part of it… It got weird at the end of the war, I wasn't sure what other places joined, or if it was temporary…?" She shook her head in exasperated confusion, but the others were now looking at her in shock.

That many people in one country? And they had somehow managed to get here once, could they do it again? With even more people? Maybe that was why she was uncomfortable telling them, it didn't feel good knowing you were so vastly outnumbered, even if it was an unseen force.

"You said you were born in the largest city in your country. How many people were in that?" Ygritte asks her next.

"New York? The city was nine and a half million, but with the surrounding areas it was twenty-seven, maybe more than than, a lot of people still travel there from all over the world. Even still, it wasn't the largest city in world…" She looked down, her brows pulled down, looking more sad than wistful, as she usually got when talking about home.

"I imagine it was quite a site, seeing people live on top of each other." Tormund huffs out.

"It was crowded, but spread out quite a lot. Or we built taller buildings. It really wasn't so bad..." she had a small smile on her face this time, instead of just looking vaguely sad. That seemed like progress, at least to Jon.

Conversation resumed afterwards, but Verona continued to look down, no more smile on her face, lost in thought, as she often did sometimes. Jon and Ygritte exchanged troubled looks but didn't try to get her to say more.

AN:

I'm trying, and I hope succeeding, in building actual friendships between all the characters that seems believable.

Some interesting new details revealed here. So Verona's not sure what is still considered the US? What could that mean? Is she keeping something else from them perhaps?

Let me know what you think!