Nota Bene: Quick chapter with another one up later this week or next week. Thank you for reading!

Jon was quiet as they wandered down the halls of Winterfell together. It was odd, being beside the person he had most wanted to spend a night with and now having done it, badly and in the entirely wrong way, he found he didn't know what to say to her. Besides, it wasn't like he had bedded her, and as far as he remembered, Robb hadn't quite managed it either. It had been a sloppy night for all involved but nothing they could not fix. Nothing had been broken. Still he didn't quite know what to say to Pippa. She had gone awfully pale and her freckles stood out like little pinpricks on her skin. He couldn't think of the last time she had looked quite this miserable. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and before he knew it, she had folded into him, her head tucking into the curve of his neck.

"You've no right to be angry at me, you know."

Jon wasn't sure whether to sigh or laugh. Leave it to Pippa to refuse to back down even as she held tighter. Leave it to Pippa to be stubborn even when she had the most to lose. He found he almost didn't mind. This was the girl who he cared about, not that silent creature he had woken to.

"I'm not angry with you."

She released some of her hold and pulled back slightly, just enough to catch his eyes and try to see if the truth was in them. He was always serious, like his father. The Stark line was so prominent in him; it had painted him in the wolves' very image. It had been fortune's cruelest trick to bestow the title of Bastard on him. His stubborn jaw, lightly dusted with uneven stubble, his dark hair, even the circles under his eyes were all what made him. The fact he was shorter than Robb and pretended they were of a height, the way he loved Arya dearly and the way they seemed more siblings than her legitimate siblings did. The way he fought until his hands bled because he had something to prove. Jon Snow always had something to prove. Her eyes darted from thing to thing that she adored about him and settled on his lips.

"I kissed you last night. Didn't I?"

He gulped and in an instant his eyes were everywhere except looking at her and he dropped his arms from around her and kept walking. "You kissed Robb too. It didn't mean anything."

She made a noise that sounded almost like a growl and her hands were on her hips and her cheeks were lighting up and hiding her freckles under a flush of deep red. "It didn't? How do you know?"

Jon kept walking, expecting that she would catch up. "You'd been drinking, we all had. It's not your fault, you probably just got lonely."

He looked over his shoulder and found she hadn't moved at all. He wasn't exactly sure what he would call the expression on her face, but it certainly wasn't one that he would have wanted directed at him. She almost spat out the words. "My fault? Of course it isn't. It takes two to kiss, Jon Snow."

Jon turned to look at her, his breath came out in a huff of frustration, why did she have to stop in the middle of a corridor, where servants could stop and stare. Rumors were started with less and she wasn't moving, wasn't budging no matter how much he glared at her. "Pippa, can we please do this somewhere private? You're being-"

"What?" She snapped angrily and finally moved, storming down the hall and shoving past him, she tossed her loose hair over her shoulders, "What am I being? Unreasonable? Frustrating? Intolerable? Please tell me. Because all of those things, you kissed last night. All of those things you don't like about me, you wanted last night. And you can get up on your shiny and fancy high horse, Jon Snow, but you're a damned idiot if you think I go around kissing anyone and anything and then letting you get off calling me an idiot for it."

"I never called you tha-."

"No. You didn't." She walked a little bit faster, "You just said that I was too drunk to know what I was doing and that I couldn't control my raging loneliness. Don't you think if I was lonely and out of control I might have gone for an easier target? Don't you remember anything about last night?" She walked backward for a moment as if she expected an answer and when one did not come she spun on her heels and turned away. "I have duties to attend to."