He is with some of the elders from the town, sorting out a dispute over chickens, of all things, with Min sitting on his shoulders and singing one of her cheerful little songs about clouds and Lady and her mama's hair, when Sansa comes to find him.
He has rarely seen his wife so visibly anxious about anything, but she motions for him to complete his business before he goes to her - he does set Min on the ground, though, and she runs as fast as her fat little legs will carry her towards Sansa, babbling happily because, aside from Jon's father, Sansa is Min's favourite person in the whole world.
He finishes as quickly as he can (the fat man must pay the man with the bad teeth a stag for the two chickens he stole, and then he must report to Father for judgement for stealing), and Sansa is stroking Min's hair and biting her lip when he reaches her.
"My lady?"
"My father has written to me," she says, her voice thin and hoarse, and he cradles her face in his hand without thinking. "There is something wrong with my mother, Jon."
Jon knows what it is to lose a mother - his own has been dead for many years now, after all - and he hopes that Sansa does not have to find out for herself for a good long while yet. He knows, too, that there is little he can say to her. She is as close to her mother as he is to his father, and he cannot imagine how it will affect her should anything happen to Lady Stark.
Min whines until he picks her up, balancing her against his chest so she doesn't feel left out, and Sansa sighs and leans close to him, closer than she usually would in public. She's usually so proper that it takes him entirely by surprise, and he finds himself a little at a loss.
"Mayhaps we could visit Winterfell?" he suggests, wondering if such a thing is wise with Sansa already four moons gone with their second babe, but when she smiles up at him he can't even imagine taking back the offer.
Lady Stark has a fever, and the maester at Winterfell forbids Sansa from coming too close to her mother due to the babe - Min, having no such ban in her way, proceeds to spend her mornings sitting on Lady Stark's bed, singing and chattering to her grandmother until the maester comes to collect her.
Sansa swells so rapidly and so suddenly that it takes them both by surprise - Maester Luwin suggests that mayhaps she is carrying twins, and the thought terrifies Jon. Sansa never admitted it to him, but Sal, Sansa's maid, told him in confidence that birthing Min could have killed her, had old Carton not been so used to delivering big babes. Two babes with his size, though?
It took them near a moon's turn to reach Winterfell, the snows were so deep, and he can hardly ask Sansa to leave after less than a second moon, and the notion of travelling back while she could be in such danger, so far from a maester...
It is with that in mind that he approaches Lord Stark about remaining at Winterfell until the babe - or babes, gods - is born, sick with fear at the thought of losing her to the bloody bed.
Three weeks into their stay at Winterfell, Jon loses his wife.
Lady Stark is recovering well and, as everyone knew would happen, has taken to Min - she is such a lovely child that anything else would be impossible, after all - and so he never has to worry about his daughter. She spends her days with her grandmother and, because Lord and Lady Stark make time for one another every day, her grandfather, and could not be safer unless she was with Jon himself.
Sansa, though, he has completely lost the run of - one moment, she is with her sister, talking in hushed tones of Lady Arya's upcoming wedding to Cley Cerwyn. The next, she is with Alys or Robb and their boys, or she is with Lady Stark and Min, or with her younger brothers.
But today, he has looked everywhere that she has been these past weeks, even in their bedchamber, and she is nowhere to be found.
Eventually, it is bright-eyed Bran that points him towards the godswood, which surprises him - Sansa is devout, yes, but she rarely prays alone. She always at least keeps Lady with her, but Lady is presently serving as a toy for Min in Lady Stark's solar.
She is sitting on a broad, flat stone, her back to the bubbling hot springs and her face towards the heart tree. She is a pretty picture, red hair and pale skin against red sap and pale bark, but her cloak is deep brown and heavy, and her stomach is swollen and peeking out from the folds.
He sits beside her, and she smiles a little. Words have always been difficult for them with one another, but the godswood requires no words, only company.
"I missed home," she says after a long while, now leaning against his arm with her head on his shoulder, her hand tucked into his. "If I ignore the springs, then mayhaps..."
It warms him to think that she considers Last Hearth her home, so he lifts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her closer. She smells of lemoncakes and gives a sweet little sigh, and, not for the first time, he considers what words he would be best served to use to tell her how he feels.
Sansa's time comes early - four long weeks early, and Jon is frantic even when Lord Stark assures him that Maester Luwin is more than competent.
The babe is so big, he thinks, walking the halls with Sansa as her pains come and go and trying not to let her see how scared he is.
He thinks it again as he helps her out of her clothes and into bed - she teased him just last night about how fascinated he is by her body now, but there is no room for that here, as he shucks his boots and climbs up onto the bed to support her weight.
"Jon-"
"I was absent for Min's birth," he says softly, kissing her shoulder and helping her sit lower in the bed. The maester and midwives are frowning, but he does not care - Sansa is his wife, and birthing this child might kill her, and he will spend every moment he can with her just in case.
"I love you," he says quietly, just as a contraction passes and she sinks back against him. "Swear to me that you will not die, my lady."
She laughs tiredly and reaches back over her shoulder to touch his face, shaking her head.
"That decision is not mine to make, my lord," she says, but her shoulders square all the same, and she holds tight to his hands as the pains become more frequent and, with that increased frequency, harder to bear. She is crying, tears trickling down her cheeks because she does not have the strength to sob or even to weep, by the time the maester sighs in relief and tells her that it is time to push.
Jon wonders how it is that any man can claim to be brave when every woman willingly bears children, knowing that this awaits them before they can meet the child.
There are celebrations when word spreads that both mother and child have survived - Lord Stark orders the bells to be rung, and they are, from early in the morning 'til sunset, and Lady Stark smiles fondly and hefts the babe higher against her chest and says that she remembers the day that Sansa was born, that those same bells rang just as long.
Jon is only half aware of this, because while the babe - Jon, Sansa wants to call him, because the Lord of Last Hearth has been Jon Umber for nigh as long as there's been an Iron Throne - is as big as Min was when Jon first saw her, when she was near three moons old, loud and bright-eyed and bursting with health, Sansa bled and bled and bled and is a pale shadow of herself.
Jon sits by her bed, holding her hand, and waiting for her cheeks to pinken and her smile to return. It astonishes him how much he misses her, although he is not even mildly surprised that Min is inconsolable at being kept away from her mama. Even Lord Stark, who Min has taken to as completely as she ever did to Jon's father, cannot sooth her, and while Jon does his best he is constantly distracted by the knowledge that he may return to Last Hearth with a new son but without his wife.
Little Jon is near six moons old when Maester Luwin finally says that Sansa can travel, and they are the longest six moons of Jon's life.
Min takes to sisterhood as easily as Sansa took to motherhood, and dotes as best she can on her brother despite barely speaking full sentences quite yet. Seeing them together - Little Jon lying on his back on the hearthrug and Min playing with his toes - is one of the few things that can bring a full smile to Sansa's face.
She has not smiled much since the maester told them that she would not be able to bear any more children.
Still, he thinks that mayhaps they can get past that - or at least, he thought that they could until they reached Last Hearth, until she took to only emerging from their rooms when Min asked her too, when she took to sleeping in a different bed.
He is not good with words, words do not come easily between them, but Sansa needs them now, he knows that, and so he writes them down because it seems to be easier than saying them aloud. He writes a letter, and he leaves it on her pillow, and then he spends the day with Min and Little Jon and his brothers.
She is waiting in his - their - bedchamber after he has settled Little Jon with his nurse and Min has had her story and her cuddle, curled under the covers on his side of the bed, her hair loose across the pillow.
She has worn her hair tightly braided and twisted up high on her head these past moons, and some ache in his chest eases to see it down.
"I am sorry," she whispers when he lies behind her and wraps an arm over her waist, and he can do nothing but pull her closer.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," he says sternly. "You have given me two beautiful children, Sansa, and you have lived - you have done all I ever asked of you and more, sweetling."
She rolls over, looks up at him with tear-filled eyes, and then sighs and burrows against his chest.
"You have three brothers," she whispers, "I have three brothers and a sister, I should have been stronger-"
"None of my brothers or yours were as large as Little Jon, Sansa," he soothes, stroking her hair. "There is no blame here, and I will not have you upset over this - what can I do, Sansa? How can I help you?"
Words, he thinks as she begins to cry in earnest and eventually falls asleep against his chest, the deep sleep of true exhaustion, will never come easy between them, but he is glad he made the effort for once, instead of allowing things to go unsaid.