2) A family reunion.
The four reunited Stark siblings were holding a meeting in their late father's solar. King Jon sat at the head of the table with Sansa on one side and Arya on the other. Bran's chair had been pushed next to Sansa's. Four chairs were conspicuously empty, and the four people in the solar couldn't help but remember the four missing members of their family. They all looked at each other and nobody felt like breaking the silence. The tension was palpable in the air and the awkwardness cut like a knife.
"It's good to be back" Jon finally said, his sincere smile reaching both his ears. "I couldn't believe me eyes when I finally saw you again" he told Arya.
"Likewise" she replied warmly holding his hand on the table. "I missed you all these years"
"You too Bran. It's good to see you again" and his younger brother just nodded in reply.
"It's good to have you back, Jon" Sansa intervened.
"It feels good to be back" Jon smiled.
"Does it?" Sansa questioned him.
"What do you mean?" he asked confused.
"You took so long to come back and there were hardly any letters. For months I fretted about your fate not knowing if you had arrived safely at Dragonstone. Then, when I finally get news from you, it just said that you were coming back and that you were bringing the Queen with you. Our Queen, the letter said. What happened?"
"I had to do it" he replied defensively.
"What is it that you had to do?"
"Make an alliance with her. We needed her dragons."
"Did that alliance include handing her the North?" Sansa insisted.
"I did not hand her the North"
"You just called her Queen of the Seven Kingdoms" Arya interjected. "Is the North not part of the Seven Kingdoms?"
"Well, yes, but …." Jon stammered.
"Is she our Queen?" Arya pressed him.
Jon held his breath for a few seconds and bit his lip. "Yes" he finally said.
"Why?" was all that Sansa asked.
"We needed her dragons. We needed her" Jon tried to plead with his sisters but only met steel gazes in return. "What would you have me do?" he asked, his eyes begging understanding.
"Well, not that, for starters" Sansa replied. "The people of the North named you their King. They did so freely, something that does not happen everyday. They had named Robb, and now they named you. And the first thing you do is surrender their trust to a foreign Queen" she cried shaking her head. "I had to lie for you, did you know?"
"Lie? To whom?"
"All the Lords. Your Lords. They kept asking me about you. I had to cover for you and tell them everything was going according to plan, that you were working very hard for them, for us, for the North. I could not tell them I had no idea where you were. I could not tell them of the raven I received last month informing me of our new status in the realm. Why did you do it, Jon? Why?"
"Do you love her?" Bran spoke for the first time.
"No! I mean, love? No, I …" Jon stammered again.
"You kissed her in the yard" Arya observed with a tinge of hurt in her voice.
"Does that bother you?" Jon retorted.
"I'm not sure how I feel" she admitted. "I came back home hoping to see you all again only to find that you had already left. At least Sansa was here and Bran came back" she smiled timidly at her crippled brother. "Sansa and I have talked a lot. She said you kept ignoring her opinion and belittling her ever since you returned home" she continued, but when she looked at her sister for support she just lowered her gaze. "I have been listening to the men, the Lords, the soldiers. Many praise your courage and bravery and cheer for you. But many curse you for not listening to them and challenging Ramsay's army with no strategy. They say that you were rash and foolish, that many men died unnecessarily. Many claim that you have snubbed Sansa" her sad voice could not hide her disillusion. "I refused to believe that, but now I'm not so sure. You ignored my sister's counsel and bent the knee to a Targaryen Queen, the daughter of the Mad King, the man who killed our grandfather and uncle. I need to know why. Are you in love with her?"
"Yes" Jon finally admitted. "But that's not why I did it"
"All our lives my mother had ill thoughts of you. She feared you would take our place and betray us. For years I resented her and was angry on your behalf. Now I … I don't know Jon" she trailed unable to finish her own jumbled up thoughts.
"I did not betray you" he defended himself again.
"That's not the way it looks, Jon" Sansa replied. "You left and never wrote back. Then you sent news that you had surrendered your crown, the crown our men gave you of their own free will, to a foreign Queen. And now you show up with her and kiss her in front of everyone. I don't doubt your words. I do not doubt you, Jon. Neither does Arya, for that matter. But I had to lie and cover for you. I don't know that our men will like this new development or that they will even believe us."
"But we need her" Jon continued. "Without her dragons we have nothing, no way to fight this threat that looms closer and closer as we speak. We shouldn't waste what precious little time we have on some trivial squabbles!"
"You're right" Sansa agreed. "We are indeed running out of time. We received a raven from castle Black weeks days past. Apparently EastWatch by the Sea has fallen. The Wall collapsed and all the men perished there. The Maester was able to send a raven to Castle Black before the tower collapsed. The new Lord Commander, Edd Tollet wrote saying white walkers have been spotted on the south side of the Wall. We sent a reply right away, but have received no news since. His last letter mentioned blocks of the Wall falling and parts of the Wall cracking not too far away from Castle Black itself. It also mentioned a blue dragon that spits icy fire."
"Viserion" Jon sighed, covering his face with his hands.
"Who?"
"Daenerys had three dragons when I met her in Dragonstone. She considers them her children, and loves them as such. One of them died north of the wall fighting the Others." He took a deep breath and began his story. "We realized we needed to get Cersei's support in order to have a fighting chance against the Others. But we knew she would never help us unless we could convince her of the danger we were facing. So Tyrion came up with this plan to go capture a wight north of the Wall and take it to Cersei. Me and a few other men decided to undertake the mission."
"Jon, that was a stupid ass plan!" Arya yelled.
"We walked for miles until we found them" Jon continued ignoring her remark. "We managed to capture a wight, but at one point we found ourselves surrounded by white walkers. We sent one of our men, a young strong lad called Gendry, a smith from Kings Landing, back to EastWatch to get help"
"Gendry? Gendry was with you? Tall, dark hair?" Arya asked, her excitement seeping through.
"Do you know him? He's Robert Baratheon's bastard"
"Yeah, I met him. He helped me escape. And I helped him. But then we went our separate ways" she finished with a sad tone leaving no room for further discussion on the matter.
"So Gendry ran all the way back to EastWatch, they sent a raven to Daenerys at Dragosnstone, she flew North past the Wall and rescued us."
"But you said you were surrounded by white walkers. How come you were not attacked? It must have taken some time for this man Gendry to get back to Eastwatch, for the raven to arrive at Dragonstone and for your friend to find you so deep into the North" a disbelieving Sansa reflected. "Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely glad you survived, Jon, but I just don't understand."
"I don't know. I guess we got lucky" Jon replied shrugging his shoulders.
"So, what happened to the dragon? Visiyin? Visaenien?" Sansa insisted.
"Viserion. Drogon is the one she flies on. Rhaegal is the other one. So Dany arrived just in time to save us"
"Dany?" Arya snorted under her breath only to be hushed by her older sister.
"Daenerys arrived just in time to save us" Jon resumed with a sidelong glance at his sister. "She was flying Drogon while Rhaegal and Viserion stayed hovering above. We had the captured wight bound and tied. It was of the utmost importance that she returned with that wight. Which one and how many of us came back with her was immaterial. While the other men started to get on the dragon carrying the captured wight, I stayed behind fighting the creatures to give them time to escape."
"That was very brave of you, Jon" Arya said nodding her head in respect.
"Thank you Arya" he smiled timidly. "It was then that the Night King threw a spear and killed Viserion."
"But wasn't Viserion soaring up high in the sky? I thought you said Drogon was the one on the ground with Daenerys and all your men and that the other two dragons were flying out there up above. Why would the Night King aim for the moving target that is far away and not for the one on the ground?" Arya pondered aloud.
"I don't know. I guess we got lucky" Jon shrugged his shoulders.
"But Jon, you had plenty of time to get on the dragon. There was no need to stall" Bran's monotone voice suddenly came out. His tone was devoid of all emotion and there was no hint of accusation in it.
"Bran, what are you saying?" Arya asked fearful of the answer.
"I'm saying he had plenty of time. I saw it. He could have got on the dragon and flown away with the rest before the Night King even had time to throw the spear."
"Jon?" Arya beckoned him.
"I suppose I could have got on the dragon. I don't know. I felt that I needed to continue fighting."
"So, instead of getting on the dragon as soon as possible, you stalled unnecessarily and got the dragon killed?" Sansa concluded shaking her head. "Just like you rushed into battle against Ramsay with no plan and got most of your men killed? Jon!" Sansa cried disheartened.
"Well, maybe if I had known the Vale army was coming to aid us, I would have waited, instead of rushing in with no plan" he exclaimed quoting her own expressions.
"I didn't know exactly when they were coming" she tried to explain. "But you wouldn't have listened anyway."
"I guess we'll never know, will we?" the question hang in the air.
"Was this before or after you surrendered to her?" Arya questioned him trying to get the conversation back on track.
"Before."
"Can you continue?"
"When Viserion fell, Dany was devastated. I was in the middle of a fight surrounded by white walkers. I yelled for Dany and the men to leave me. As I said, it was of the utmost importance she got back with the wight, the rest of us were irrelevant."
"That was brave Jon, again. Incredibly stupid, but brave."
"I was pulled underwater by the creatures but managed to pull free and climbed out of the water onto the ice. As I was making my way out, I was surrounded again. I thought that was it, that I would die. But you'll never guess who showed up" he gave a sad smile to his sisters. "Benjen."
"Uncle Benjen?" the two girls gasped in disbelief.
"Yes, he just happened to be riding by and started fighting the creatures giving me time to escape. He sacrificed himself for me."
"He was already dead" Bran's emotionless voice said.
"You got lucky. Again" Arya noted.
"I suppose. So I made my way back to EastWatch and arrived there before they had sailed back to Dragonstone. Between the cold and the wounds I had sustained in the fight, I was half dead by the time I arrived. I have no recollection other than waking up on a boat and Dany taking care of me."
"Let me guess, that's when she became your Queen" Sansa said derisively. When no other reply was forthcoming she just shook her head. "You said she considered her dragons her children. You had one of them killed! I just can't picture Mother kissing Walder Frey and falling in love with him after he had Robb killed."
"Sansa!" Jon pleaded with her sister, but she just lowered her gaze.
"There are other things to learn, as well" Bran said cryptically.
"What do you mean?" Arya pressed him.
"Other things" he replied. "But in due time"
"So, what do we do now?" Arya asked after a long uncomfortable silence.
"We need to get ready for the white walkers!" Jon urged.
"But we need to tell our men the truth" Sansa added. "And I don't know which of the two I dread most"
Nothing else was said after that. The four siblings just looked at one another. There really was no anger or hard feelings between them, just dread and fear for what they knew was coming and had no idea how to face. But their problems were about to be doubled, as they failed to notice the presence of a little servant boy in the room.
TBC