One day Jon knew he would wake up and all of this would be nothing more than a distant memory. But right now, it was almost too much for him to take. He had kept his glance low, barely lifting it from the ground for nearly a week now. He couldn't bare to lift his eyes to look into the face of the woman who had thrust a blade into his heart. The first night was by far the hardest. He simply lay in bed the entire night, staring out his window aimlessly. He must have asked the Gods over a hundred times why they had done it. Why would they give her to him only to snatch her away? Why did they curse him to have to live the rest of his days knowing his own brother had stolen the only woman he'd ever loved?
He would never admit it to anyone, but Jon made no effort to try and hold in his tears that night. In the darkness of his bedchamber, only he would ever know how badly his heart had been broken. Each time it beat he felt as though it would be his last. Surely no man could ever recover from the pain that had wracked his body. And yet, somehow, as time slowly passed, Jon's anguish begun to diminish. He still avoided Gwynne, but it didn't hurt as much as it did in his father's study. He was finally feeling like himself again until she had cornered him in the kitchen below the castle of Winterfell.
He hadn't heard her coming as she silently closed the door behind her. Still unaware of her presence, Jon picked up a chuck of the loaf of bread in front of him and shoved it into his mouth. A big part of avoiding her had been missing breaking his fast with his family. It had resulted in him sneaking down into the kitchen late at night. He thought his routine would remain hidden from her, but Gwynne caught on quick enough.
"I haven't seen you around in almost a week."
And just like that, the paralysing feeling of having lost her came rushing back to him. His mind froze but his body spun around to look upon her face. His mouth suddenly went bone dry as he swallowed the piece of bread .
"Gwynne." He whispered her name. It was all he could bring himself to say.
She stepped forward, her eyebrows scrunched together in anger. "Why have you been avoiding me, Jon? I know you're upset with me, but you can't just ignore me and go about your life as though I don't exist."
He opened his mouth to say something but she didn't give him the opportunity. She had followed him down here to get a lot of things off her chest and she refused to give him the chance to stop her.
"Are you so selfish to assume that you're the only one who is hurt from all this? You don't think this is killing me too, Jon?" Gwynne stood before Jon, a mere foot away from him, as she tilted her head back to look into his eyes. "Do you know the guilt I'm feeling from the thought of marrying your brother while my heart is in your hands? Or how Robb would feel if he ever found out of our betrayal to him?"
"I think Robb would understand our mistakes." He told her simply. This wasn't how he had wanted to part ways with Gwynne, but Jon felt as though he was left with no other choice. She had always loved Robb. He just had to remind her of that.
The anger on her face quickly turned to hurt. "Mistakes? You're calling our time together a mistake?"
"We were foolish to think, even for once, that what we were doing was a good idea." Maybe if he said it out loud his heart would stop aching with each passing second. "I'm to leave for the Wall soon and you've been Robb's future wife for as long as I can remember. We knew both of these things and yet we still continued to ignore them. And now it's all come crumbling down at our feet and here were are. Nothing has changed. I'm to spend the rest of my days at the Wall and you're soon to be announced as Robb's betrothed."
"You're telling me things I already know, Jon." Her hands reached forward and grabbed a strong hold of the collar of Jon's shirt. She jerked him forward and tried to dry the tears that were stinging at her eyes. "But I would never call what you and I had a mistake."
He tried to keep his guard up and stick to the plan of pushing her away and into his brother's arms, but he had to know. He would accept his lonely fate that awaited at the Wall but he couldn't go without knowing."What would you call it?"
She paused for a moment and found herself lost in his eyes. She saw the hurt in them and recognized the agonizing pain they had unintentionally caused themselves. She had seen that in her own eyes when they stared back at her through her mirror. But there was only one thing to call their time spent together, no matter the fact that it had been doomed before it had even begun. "Love."
With that one, simple word, she had caused him more pain than any man or blade ever could.
"Until my dying day, Jon Snow, I promise you that I will always love you. And, if the Gods are good, they will find a way for us to be together someday." Her grip on his collar never wavered. She had too much anger and pain in her to let him go. She couldn't do it. Not yet.
A voice screamed at him in the back of his mind to stop but his arms wouldn't listen. He brought his hands to her face and gently cupped her cheeks between them. All he needed was one last time. Just one more second with her. One more kiss and then he would head to the Wall and only see her in his dreams.
He gathered every ounce of strength he had within him and opened himself up completely. "You are the only woman my heart will ever yearn for, Gwynne. I will think of you every moment for the rest of my life and I wish nothing but happiness and joy for you." He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and couldn't resist the small smile that spread across his lips. "You'll have to promise me that you'll tell my little nieces and nephews all about their brave uncle Jon at the Wall."
Gwynne had tried her best to ward off tears but hearing Jon speak of her future children had proven to be too much. She realized how different her life would be in the next few years. How different all their lives would be. She would bring children into the world and Jon would die defending the Wall from the horrors that lurked beyond it. The innocence of childhood had never seemed so distant.
"I pray you're right, Gwynne. I will pray to the Gods every night and beg them to reunite us someday, somehow. My uncle Benjen is on his way to Winterfell. When he leaves for the Wall, father has agreed to let me go with him."
They were only words but they hit her like a ton of bricks, nonetheless. She felt breathless and almost dropped to the floor from how violently her legs shook beneath her. They both knew that he was leaving but she had been completely blindsided as to how soon it was approaching.
"When is he arriving?"
He took a deep breath and lovingly caressed her cheek with his thumb. "Tomorrow."
It was that moment that the fantasy Gwynne had been living in shattered like a piece of glass. In a few hours, Jon Snow would leave Winterfell and be gone forever. This could very well be the last time she would ever look upon his face. His touch would be nothing but a memory. Her body desired Robb's touch but Gwynne knew that it was Jon's she would miss one day.
Her grip on him finally loosened as she tried to catch her breath. This would be the last time she'd ever kiss him.
Standing on her toes, Gwynne found Jon's lips and claimed them with a desperate hunger she didn't know she could ever feel. He kissed her back with the same overpowering need. He didn't care that someone could enter the kitchen at any second and catch them. He cared about one thing and one thing only, and that was Gwynne. She was everything he had ever needed and for the next few minutes, she was his.
He pushed her backwards, his body seeming to move on its own. She let out a small gasp when she felt her backside collide with a wooden table. Jon wasted no time in grabbing a strong hold of her waist and lifting her up to sit upon the surface used to prepare food for the Starks. Plates clanked together and should have been a sign for Jon to stop himself but he ignored it. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to stop himself if someone walked in on them.
Gwynne's fingers grabbed the bottom of Jon's tunic and lifted it up over his head. Their lips parted as she rested her forehead against his, gasping desperately for air. Her fingertips trailed down his neck, inching down his chest. She felt the scars on his skin, tracing them gently. Each scar told a story. Each scar was a permanent reminder of all the heartache and hardships Jon had overcome throughout the years. She had always thought that one day she would know the story to each and every one. But she knew they had run out of time.
Jon shivered from her touch, goosebumps appearing along his forearms. He felt her trace the muscles of his stomach, muscles he had earned from years of training and sparring. If he died at that exact moment, Jon was sure he would die the happiest man that had ever lived. There was something about the way that she touched him, even as innocently as she was then, that ignited something inside of him that couldn't be put out.
"I wish I could show you how much you mean to me." He ran his fingers through her hair and prayed that he would never forget the softness between his fingertips. He would surrender his life at dawn if it would mean that he could, just once, feel her wrapped tightly around him.
Gwynne licked her lips as her eyes followed the trail behind her fingertips. His muscles tensed beneath her touch. Finally, she looked up into the face of her beloved and the man she was moments away from losing forever.
"Show me."
Never had two words left Jon as breathless as he was in that moment. There she was, sitting before him with swollen lips that he was responsible for, asking him to take her innocence. He had dreamt of this hundreds and thousands of times and he had never been closer to achieving it. And yet all he could do was shake his head.
"You know that I can't, Gwynne."
"Then why is your body telling me something different?" Gwynne moved her hips forward slightly, coming to a stop only when she found his. She felt him, hard and tense, against her and ground against him gently. There was something inside of her, something astonishingly strong that pushed the urge of giving herself to Jon to a point where she was sure she would explode. How could such a strong desire be so wrong?
Jon rested his open palms against the table on either side of Gwynne. His fingertips dug into the splintered wood beneath them when he felt her rub against him. He gritted his teeth and took in a sharp breath. If he was to ever take her, it would not be on a dirty table in the kitchen.
"It's the perfect way to say goodbye, Jon. And whenever you close your eyes, when you're half a world away at the Wall, you can see us together, just like we are now."
It would be something Jon would regret until his final breath, but he took a step away from her. Her hands fell to her lap, her mouth open as she watched Jon reach over to pick his tunic off the ground. He put it on and finally looked her in the eye.
"I love you, Gwynne." He placed a kiss on her forehead. "Goodbye."
Gwynne wasn't one of the few people who saw Jon off. He had said his goodbyes last night when he had turned and left her alone in the kitchen. He hadn't given her the chance to speak but she had decided that perhaps it was better that way. He had a choice between her and the Wall and he had chosen what he desired most. It hurt to know that it wasn't her, but she decided that his choice had been the right one.
Robb had come to her bedchamber in the afternoon once he had gotten word that she was still asleep. He had gone to wake her, to tell her that his dear brother was leaving and to see if she would accompany him to say goodbye. A part of her had tried to believe that Jon leaving today had been nothing more than a dream but Robb had quickly brought her back to reality.
She forced a smile and told the man she was to marry that she wasn't feeling well enough to leave her bed. She asked him to say goodbye on her behalf and turned over to cry into her pillow the moment Robb left the room. After what seemed like a lifetime, Gwynne pushed herself away from her bed and stumbled towards her open window. She looked out into the yard, her eyes searching desperately for the two brothers she had found herself torn between.
It wasn't long before she saw them and felt her heart nearly stop beating. She watched Jon saddle his horse before giving his brother a strong hug. She watched silently as they said their final words to each other before Robb turned his back on his brother and walked away. Jon watched him go for a few moments before his eyes looked up towards the castle.
She was far away but he saw her. He couldn't help but smile as he watched her hair blow past her face. He would miss the smell of it and the way it tickled his skin, but his memories would have to be enough. Silently, Jon said his final goodbye to Gwynne before pulling himself onto his horse's back and leaving the city of Winterfell for the last time.
It wasn't that long after Jon had arrived at the Wall when he had gotten word from Winterfell. Gwynne was nowhere to be found. Some said she was taken by a rejected suitor while others said that she had simply run off with another man.
Robb wrote to him sometime later and explained the whole thing. Gwynne had left a note for him, which he found when he awoke to find her bedchamber empty. She had apologized a dozen times, Robb's letter said, and begged for his forgiveness for turning her back on him and his family. She asked him to let her go, though if she was sought after and punished she would put no blame on him. She didn't tell him why she left because she couldn't bring herself tell Robb of her betrayal. She had simply blamed it on herself, saying the thought of one day being the Lady of Winterfell had overwhelmed her to a point where she felt running away was her only option.
Robb was heartbroken, Jon could see it in his writing. Jon wished he could be in Winterfell to help his brother get passed this. But instead he was stuck at the Wall with no option but to simply pray for Robb to recover and move on.
Part of Jon had expected Gwynne to head to the Wall. Sometimes he would find himself daydreaming about standing on the edge of the Wall and catching sight of her approaching from afar. Women weren't allowed at the Wall, and vows had been taken that restricted him from ever laying with a woman, but in those daydreams none of that mattered. He would bring her to his room and take her over and over again until they both collapsed from exhaustion. The Lord Commander would somehow let Gwynne stay with Jon at the wall and they would defy all odds and become man and wife. She would bear him children and he would have everything he had ever wanted.
He felt his world come crashing down each time that daydream abruptly stopped and he found himself alone in his cold, darkened room. She never came. Nothing came but word that Robb had been killed, slaughtered at their uncle's wedding.
The choice Jon made that night in the kitchen had changed their lives forever. Jon had always told himself that he had made the right choice but when he felt that fourth blade pierce his flesh, he finally realized he had been wrong.
Well, I guess that's it for this story! I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you so much for reading this story. I know it took a while to get here, and some of you might be seriously disappointed with that ending, but I hope you've enjoyed each and every chapter. And, hey, you never know, there may be a second part to this story someday! Just keep an eye out for it!
Please drop a review and let me know what you thought. I'd love to get everyone's feedback. Thanks again for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed this story. (Not gonna lie, I'm going to miss updating this one!)