Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Game of Thrones. So, this story incited much more of a reaction than I would have thought possible. After much thought, and several months, I've found I have more of a storyline to share with you all. I wanted to continue from Tyrion's point of view, but I also wanted someone closer to both Jon and Sansa, and Arya kept inserting her voice. So, this chapter is Arya POV.

Thank you for all the lovely reviews and kudos/favorites I've received. And for those who don't like the representation of Daenerys in this story (which is consistent with both show/books btw), the summary was clearly marked before you even read it. Therefore, kindly refrain from personal insults. Constructive criticism – and even just saying you disagree with my portrayal – is always welcome!

Summary: Arya Stark is finally reunited with her beloved brother, Jon Snow. However, a series of revelations leaves her uncertain how she feels. She is certain, though, that the Dragon Queen, and her Lannister Hand, only bring trouble.

"Stay here, Samwell Tarly," Bran said, sounding overly formal and distant. "This should be just between our family."

The rotund Nights Watch man, who reminded Arya of Hot Pie, nodded and released Bran's chair. He hadn't taken his eyes from Jon since he had arrived in Winterfell's snowy courtyard. "It will be alright, Jon," he promised now. "You'll see. And…and you can come and talk to me about it after. If you want."

A Girl Sees Much

Arya kept a hold of Jon's hand as the four remaining Starks moved through the silent crowd and into the snow-covered stillness of the godswood. She could feel the eyes of the silver-haired dragon queen boring into her back and gripped tighter to Jon's leather-clad fingers.

Sansa, slightly ahead and pushing Bran's chair, turned to look back at them. Her frost-colored blue eyes swept, without expression, over Arya and Jon, before glancing behind them. Arya, who had watched her sister closely since returning to Winterfell, noticed the faint tightening of her lips before Sansa turned to face front once more.

Jon was silent at Arya's side, his presence warm and reassuring. Arya's heart was still pounding erratically. She had prayed so often to be reunited with her brother that now she was here, she was desperately afraid it was all just a dream.

There was little that Jon's dark eyes did not see. Now, he looked down at her. "You still have it," he commented, gesturing towards Needle, ever buckled at her waist.

"Yes," she said, simply, looking up to meet his gaze and all but clinging to his arm.

Jon's smile was radiant and, as always, unexpected. "Good," he said softly, not even breaking his stride as he scooped her back up in his arms. She squawked indignantly at such treatment but still buried her cold nose into his throat.

"A big brother's prerogative," Jon insisted, amused.

Sansa's icy eyes were bright as she glanced at them again. "Almost there," she murmured, inconsequently, to Bran. She didn't seem to know how to talk to this new version of their little brother. Arya could feel Jon studying the two of them carefully.

She had missed how he would always quietly watch and assess a situation before speaking. It was something she noticed Sansa now doing as well, and she wondered if her sister had always had that inclination or if it was something she had learned from Jon during the year they had spent taking back the North together.

Robb – and even Arya herself – would have jumped in and demanded to know everything that had happened. Jon silently waited for them to tell him in their own time. Arya smiled against his neck. "You haven't changed a bit," she sighed, relieved beyond words.

Sansa, to the surprise of them all, snorted. "He broods even more now." The smile she shot at Jon was cheeky, one part mischievous and one part…something else. Hinting at shared experiences between only the two of them. If Arya didn't know better, she would say her sister was…flirting?

"Death does that to a man," Jon returned, imperturbable, sounding like he was pretending to be their brother, Robb, after he had bested Ser Rodrik Cassel for the first time.

Sansa hummed disbelievingly, as though humoring him, and Arya thought Jon was actually trying to make a joke. About dying.

"Not funny," she whispered into his ear. If Jon hadn't been at Castle Black when Sansa finally made it there…

" – Sansa would have become Littlefinger's puppet. If she even managed to take back Winterfell at all. It's unclear," Bran said, his voice distant. He didn't even look at them. "And you would never have come home but would have died trying to kill Cersei."

Arya supposed he was talking to her. She shivered at the bleak future he painted. "You can see alternate futures?"

"No," Bran said, not looking back, and still in that distant voice he always had, as though he was not really there with them, but somewhere far away. "But I know Littlefinger. And I know the Northern lords, and Ramsay Bolton, and Cersei, and you."

Arya had no response to make to that.

"Together," Sansa said, firmly. "We stay together, as Father would have wanted."

They'd reached the heart tree, its face scary and gaping, and its red leaves – blood-red – the only color in a landscape of pure white snow and the black bark of dormant trees. Sansa wheeled Bran to a stop, and Jon placed Arya back on her feet.

They stood in silence.

"Uncle Benjen is gone," Jon said at last. There was grief in his voice, a slightly bitter melancholy that was almost tangible in the air before them. Arya wondered what it had been like for him, alone at the Wall, as he watched while one by one he lost his family and his home all without being able to do anything about it. And to Bran, he asked, "You sent him to me?"

"The ravens found you and they told him where you were."

"Uncle Benjen saved you?" Sansa asked Jon, looking back and forth between her two brothers. "North of the Wall?" She sounded as confused as Arya felt. "I thought Uncle Benjen had disappeared…"

"…years ago," Arya finished.

But Jon, for the moment, ignored both of his sisters. Kneeling in the snow before Bran, his kingly cloak spread out around him, he looked carefully into Bran's eyes. Bran returned that incisive glance calmly, looking over Jon and through Jon and within Jon, but not really seeming to see Jon.

A thousand-yard stare, Arya thought, having seen it so often during her travels in the war-torn Riverlands. In Stark and Tully and Lannister-loyal folk alike.

"Bran," Jon said, quiet and commanding.

Bran looked up at his older brother, his king. His smile was sad, but distantly sad. As though he almost pitied Jon. "I'm not though, Jon. Not really anymore. There's so much…. other in me now."

Jon didn't flinch as Arya wanted to. Nor did he pull back.

He glanced at Sansa. "Bran has visions," she explained to him, as she had to Arya.

Jon carefully pulled off the glove on his right hand and raised bare skin to place his palm on their brother's cheek, He tilted the boy's head down to better meet his gaze. "Bran, where's Summer?" he asked.

"Dead." The reply was dispassionate, and Arya shivered. She wondered if she had seemed as strange to Hot Pie and Sansa after her long absence; all the death and changes she had been through turning her into someone else completely.

"How did Summer die, Bran?" Jon's voice had grown cold.

"To save me."

"Like you sent Summer and Shaggydog to save me?" Jon asked now, still staring straight into Bran's eyes. What he was looking for, exactly, Arya didn't know. "After you and Rickon fled Winterfell. And you came North. To the Wall. Were you looking for me, Bran?"

Bran started and for a moment Arya thought she saw…

"It was dark and pouring rain," Jon continued. "Tormund's band of raiders had captured a farmer and they wanted me to execute him to prove my loyalties. Did you see that Bran?"

Bran made no reply, but he seemed to watch Jon almost warily.

"You were watching me somehow, for when I couldn't do it, couldn't kill that man even though I knew the others would do it if I did not…they named me traitor. And the wolves came out of the darkness. They saved my life." Jon was silent for a moment. "I had no idea they were Shaggy and Summer until after I'd made it back to Castle Black. After I was healed of my injuries, Sam told me about Robb's death, and Winterfell's capture by the Ironborn and then the Boltons. And how he had seen you and let you through the Wall."

"We tried to get to you," Bran whispered. "Maester Luwin said to go north." And then, as if to himself, "My brother's in the Night's Watch."

"I tried to find you," Jon confessed, his voice rougher than usual. "When I led the attack on Craster's Keep." Jon cleared his throat. "I half-expected to find you there."

Bran started and for a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, before his eyes dropped and he grew still once more.

Jon shifted a bit. "What happened to Hodor, Bran?" It almost sounded like an interrogation to Arya, but she trusted Jon to know what he was doing.

"Jon…" Sansa began, but he shook his head at her and she fell silent.

"Did he die for you too?"

Bran's eyes opened wide and suddenly there was…horror in them. "Hold the door," he whispered. And then he was seeing Jon, actually seeing him. Hands rose to clasp Jon's forearms in an iron grip. "Jon," he gasped, sounding like he was surfacing up from deep water, frantic and unsure how long he could stay on top. "Jon, I did something terrible!"

Jon grabbed the back of Bran's neck. "What did you do?" And it was their father's voice, stern with forgiveness lurking in the background, but broking no refusal to answer.

"I wasn't ready!" Bran cried, sounding almost like the Bran Arya remembered. "I wasn't ready, and I did it anyway and I was in the past and in Hodor's mind at the same time and I…." he trailed off, eyes still filled with horror.

"You what?" Sansa whispered.

"I made him Hodor," Bran said, and then he was gone again. "Stable time loop," he said, as if that explained anything.

When he looked back at Jon he was distant and impassive again. "He became Hodor because he had always been Hodor. I am Brandon Stark because there has always been a Brandon Stark."

Arya raised an eyebrow. "You're not making any sense, Bran."

Their younger brother turned to look at the weirwood tree. Snow fell softly around them, Jon rose to his feet, and Arya shifted her legs. The clinking of Sansa's pointy necklace was the only noise for several seconds. Arya slipped her hand in Jon's again and felt him reassuringly squeeze it. She bit her lip and thought about what had just happened.

Bran had been different – in some ways all-but gone – since Arya had returned home. Whatever had happened to him North of the Wall had changed him. Forever, she'd thought. Like she had been changed. And Sansa had been changed. In some ways, all three of them were unrecognizable from children they had been when they'd last seen each other.

Only Jon was the same.

Was that what had made Bran almost Bran again? Was Jon disappointed that none of them were the same from how he remembered them?

She squeezed his hand tighter, not sure what she would do if Jon was disappointed in her. Sansa and Bran hadn't seemed to be, but Sansa had been wary those first few weeks and Bran was…not being Bran.

Ghost prowled out of from behind some trees, rubbed against Jon in greeting and then went to stand beside Sansa. Absently, the Lady of Winterfell placed a hand upon the snow-white creature's furry head. "What did you want to tell us, Bran?" Sansa asked. "Why are we here?"

For a moment Arya didn't think their little brother would actually answer. Sometimes this new version of Bran made her want to stab him with Needle. Just a little bit.

At last Bran, without looking at any of them, said. "Jon, you're not actually our father's son. No more than I am really Bran."

Jon frowned. "Of course, you're Bran," he said, at the same time as Arya, feeling anger swamp her, yelled, "Jon is just as much a Stark as you are, Brandon Stark!"

Bran glanced over at her, startled. "I didn't say he wasn't a Stark."

Sansa was frowning. "So, what are you saying?" she asked slowly.

"Jon isn't really Father's son," Bran said simply, like he was commenting on the weather. "He's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and our aunt, Lyanna Stark."

For a moment there was complete silence. Then…

"Bullshit," Arya said, and Sansa began laughing, first in humor, then incredulity and then shading into hysterical laughter, until Jon dropped Arya's hand, took two strides over to her and pulled her into his arms. Arya realized that he was trembling, and that he hadn't said anything, anything at all, to Bran's statement. Jon had never felt like one of them. If Bran made him doubt…

She spun to face their brother. "What are you talking about, Bran?" she demanded. "Father claimed Jon as his."

"He lied," Bran said simply. There was the faintest wistful smile on his face now. "He didn't even hesitate. Aunt Lyanna begged him to protect her son, begged him to protect him from King Robert. And Father held Jon in his arms and watched Aunt Lyanna die and he…he loved you, Jon, from the moment he held you."

Sansa's face was still pressed into Jon's shoulder, her arms still clenched around him, but to Arya it now looked like she was the one holding him up. He clenched their sister – no, Sansa wouldn't be his sister, would she? Cousin. The word felt wrong – too tightly.

"But I…." his voice was a ruin, a croak. He looked horrified.

"You slept with her already," Bran said, "I know." And Jon flinched.

"What?!" Sansa and Arya cried together.

"Slept with who?" Arya demanded.

"That…that…" Sansa couldn't seem to get the words out. She pulled away from Jon, her icy eyes suddenly hot and uncertain. Her hands clenched at her sides and Arya was surprised to realize that her lady-like sister looked like she wanted to hit something.

"Daenerys Targaryen," Bran explained, for her benefit. Arya scrunched her nose up. That haughty-looking silver-haired shorty with her army of foreigners wasn't the person she would pick for Jon.

"I slept with my Aunt." Jon was obviously going down an entire different mental track than the rest of them. Arya tried to stifle a giggle. Sansa shot her an exasperated look.

"What? It's very Targaryen," she said, and Sansa looked a little, a very little less like her entire foundation had been destroyed right under her feet.

"Targaryen," Sansa murmured, and shook her head as though she had never heard the word before.

"Yes," Bran agreed, looking unusually abashed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. It wasn't something I wanted to entrust to a letter…"

"No, no…that's…. right…" Jon began to pace back and forth. "Are you sure?" He asked. "How can you be sure?" He was a man grasping at straws, praying to the Old Gods that this was all a dream. He looked wildly between Arya, Sansa and Bran, and then the heart tree. He looked at Ghost.

"Jon," Sansa began, reaching out a hand towards him, and he stepped back from her as though she meant to strike him. Sansa stilled, instantly, and then very slowly lowered her hand.

Jon had dropped his eyes and was studying the snow under his boots intently. Arya wondered if she would be fast enough to run and tackle-hug him before he could move out of the way.

"What's my real…the name my mother gave me?" He asked at last.

"I can show you. I think," Bran said. "If you touch the tree. We've done this before, Jon, and so I think it will work this time. Touch the tree, and I'll show you."

Jon didn't look at any of them before he placed his bare hand on the white trunk of the tree. Bran raised a hand to place on top of his. He looked up at their brother – cousin, brother – and for a moment, finally, Arya could see her little brother in those grown up features. "Jon," he whispered, and Jon's eyes flew to his. "You will always be my brother," he promised.

Later, after Jon had seen Bran's vision and then silently walked away from them all. Later, after Arya had cuffed Bran on the back of the head and told him there were about a thousand better ways of telling Jon something like that than the half-baked way he'd gone about it. Later, after Arya had stuck to Sansa's side for the rest of the day, helping her settle their guests and keep her away from the dragon queen and afraid that her sister would fall apart at a single harsh word. Later, after the welcoming feast and the speeches and Jon leaving as soon as decently possible to lock himself in his study.

Later, after everyone else had gone to bed, Arya slowly made her way up from the training yards and hovered, uncertain, outside the door to Jon's study. She had been in there many times since she had been home. Sansa had kept it exactly as Jon had left it before he'd gone to Dragonstone, and Arya loved looking at all the maps of the North, and the old books taken from Maester Luwin's rooms and Winterfell's library, and Jon's scrawling handwriting covering random bits of parchments.

The door was slightly ajar and warm, golden light glimmered out into the dark hallway. Arya made to push the door open, but Sansa's voice on the other side stopped her.

"Jon," Sansa said, quiet and coaxing, barely above a whisper.

Arya hesitated, suddenly uncertain, before taking a deep quiet breath and inching the door open.

Quiet as a shadow, she reminded herself.

Jon was asleep at the big table in the center of the room, a tankard of ale at one elbow, a flickering candle at the other, and his cheek pillowed against a giant book that looked like one of the histories of the Seven Kingdoms. Arya shot it a disgruntled look.

Septa Mordane had once tried to get her to read the entire set of the Histories of the Seven Kingdoms, but Arya had gotten bored at the sections that didn't talk about battles. She'd particularly liked the recounting of Ser Arthur Dayne's exploits against the Kingswood Brotherhood and his slaying of the Smiling Knight.

Sansa was bent over their brother, gently brushing a curl of dark hair away from his bearded face and calling to him softly. "It's time to get you to bed, Jon," she said, and Arya had never heard her cold, stern sister sound so soft since the day Arya had returned home and Sansa had grabbed her in a fierce hug.

Jon grunted slightly but didn't open his eyes, and Arya stifled a giggle even as Sansa sighed.

Sansa knelt before his chair and took his right hand in hers, her other hand placed on Jon's cheek. "You have to wake up now, Jon," she called, and Arya watched as Jon's fingers curled around Sansa's and his eyes hazily opened. They were blurred by sleep and drink, and she didn't think he was aware enough to know he was awake.

Sansa dropped her hand from his cheek.

He raised his head with a groan and looked down at Sansa, kneeling next to his chair and almost at eye level with him. His fingers were entwined with hers. He studied their hands for a moment with a bemused expression, before looking up into Sansa's eyes.

"My beautiful sister," he murmured, his other hand coming up, hesitating, before finally he brushed his fingertips, feather-light over Sansa's cheek, skated over her parted lips, pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear.

Arya's heart was pounding in her chest and she wasn't sure she was breathing enough.

She could just make out Sansa's face, turned mostly away from her, and watched her eyes close, a tension she hadn't noticed her sister carrying leaving her at Jon's touch. "Cousin," Sansa murmured, barely a breath of air, her eyes still closed.

Jon's eyes never left her face. He sighed and slowly bent his head until his forehead rested against hers. Sansa's hand came up to cover his, where it rested against her cheek.

The fire glowed off of red hair and dark brown and Arya could clearly see the longing writ across both of their features by its light.

"Jon," Sansa began, clearly marshalling some argument she had been preparing. Arya knew that tone.

Jon obviously did too, because he groaned.

And then he kissed her.

Sansa gasped, Arya did as well and then hastily clapped a hand over her mouth. Jon froze, and then they both pulled apart, staring at one another, eyes wide, until Sansa made an indescribable sound, low in her throat, hands twisting in Jon's curls, before she tugged him back towards her, lips pressed against his once more.

Arya, wide-eyed, heart pounding, took two silent steps backwards and pulled the door shut. She spun, intent on running…. somewhere, anywhere, and almost ran straight into the silver-haired Targaryen queen.

The woman was undoubtedly beautiful, and she wore her hair in northern braids, and she had been nothing but polite to Jon's siblings…cousins…but she wanted the Iron Throne and she wanted Jon, and she had no idea that Arya's brother was actually Aegon Targaryen, the true heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Or that he was kissing his sister-cousin in his study right now.

Seven Hells.

"Is Jon in there?" Daenerys Targaryen asked, attempting a smile in Arya's direction.

Arya knew her face was cold and unwelcoming, could see the raised eyebrow of the queen's attendant, the dark-skinned girl with the cunning eyes, but she couldn't let any of her sudden fear and uncertainty show. "No." She shook her head. "No, no, no he's not." She realized she was still shaking her head and stopped. Cleared her throat. "I think he went to bed already. I was just about to check." She shifted a but, knowing something else was needed, but courtly manners had never been her strong point. This should be Sansa's job.

But Sansa was in Jon's study kissing their brother.

Seven Hells.

"Shall I tell him you asked after him, milady?" Arya asked, desperately, and tried to ignore the handmaiden's – or whatever she was – disapproving frown. She had no idea what was wrong with that statement anyway. She had been perfectly politely. Frantically she tried to remember what Septa Mordane told her to do when confronted by foreign royalty, but all she could remember was curtseying and she didn't think it would come off well in her leathers with Needle buckled at her waist.

Arya bowed instead. "Can I escort milady back to her chambers?" And she firmly pushed the dragon queen away.

Jon and Sansa better appreciate the effort she was making on their behalf. Her nose wrinkled as she pictured just what had them distracted behind the study door, and then she shuddered, pushing the image from her mind.

It was very…very Targaryen. And she had no idea how she felt about it.

The next day Arya spent avoiding all of her siblings. If Bran had been watching them last night…she didn't want to know. And she was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to meet either Jon's or Sansa's eyes after what she had seen. She prayed to all seven gods that it had gone no further than kissing.

Her mother's admonishments on the subject rang in her ears and she wondered if Lady Catelyn was somewhere rolling in her grave. The Bastard of Winterfell had dared lay hands on her eldest, trueborn, daughter.

But Jon wasn't a bastard. He was the heir to the Iron Throne. And he was surrounded by Northern Lords who would hate him for being half-Targaryen, and by his Targaryen Aunt and her army, who had claimed the throne as her own. Arya shivered again and began to think long and carefully about what would happen when the truth was made known.

Late in the evening, as the snows fell, and the dull grey day had long since descended into a black night, Arya entered the main courtyard from the stables. Various bonfires had been set up, Free Folk and Knights of the Vale and Northmen and Targaryen loyalists were scattered about telling stories, even singing songs.

Arya wrinkled her nose. Singing songs badly.

Around one of the first, she found Jon and Bran and Samwell Tarly and Ser Davos Seaworth and Tyrion Lannister. For a moment she watched Jon clap a hand on the Tarly man's back, watched Bran smile, looking more like Bran since Jon had returned.

A faint clanking of metal armor and the tinkling of her sister's necklace heralded Sansa and Brienne of Tarth. Sansa was talking with Lady Lyanna Mormont, who had made the trip to Winterfell for the meeting of the Northern Lords being held tomorrow.

Lady Mormont nodded at Lady Stark before she headed off for her own retainers, but Sansa and Brienne moved towards Jon and Bran. Brienne reached over and grabbed a tankard of ale from Ser Davos, sitting down and engaging him in conversation, but Sansa moved to Jon's side. He moved over on the wooden bench upon which he was seated, and she gracefully sat beside him, her arm going through his as she leaned gratefully on his shoulder.

They looked happy together.

Bran was smiling, and Tyrion Lannister was watching them intently, eyes keenly speculative.

Seven Hells.

Arya marched over and plopped herself right in Jon's lap. Her brother swore as his ale flew from his hand, but he quickly grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling off.

"Arya!" Sansa cried, reprovingly, and Arya smirked. She leaned against Jon and whispered in his ear.

"Be more discreet."

She felt her brother still against her, before he took a deep breath, nodded and pressed his lips against her forehead. "I don't know how I've survived all these years without you," he said, his beloved, familiar northern accent warm and filled with happiness.

Arya closed her eyes and listened to his steady heartbeat, heard Bran's voice as he talked with Samwell Tarly about dragonglass, felt Sansa's hand slip into hers. "I don't know either," she told her big brother truthfully.

She wasn't sure how she felt about all the new revelations she'd had yesterday, but she did know that Jon and Sansa and Bran were family, even if they were being weird and gross. And no Lannister or Targaryen was going to harm them as long as she was here.

End Notes: This chapter took forever to write. Not sure how well I got Arya's voice, and the scene before the heart tree, where Jon's parentage is revealed, gave me such trouble…I'm still not really happy with it. Ah well.

What did you think of the scene between Jon and Bran? And Jon and Sansa in the study? How did I do capturing Jon and Arya's special, close relationship? Hopefully not terrible.

Part 3 will be Daenerys POV. And Part 4 will be Jaime Lannister POV. Next chapter, Daenerys stands before the Northern Lords. Sansa and Daenerys take center stage.