Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire, or His Dark Materials, nor any of the characters therein. I'm just playing with them for a little while.

Title: in fear of what my life may be

Summary: 'But his eyes had not changed; still grey as her family's colours, and stern as their father's had ever been.'

A drabble series centring around Arya and Jon. Some of these oneshots may be related, but when in doubt, assume they're not.

Genre: adventure/friendship/love/everything in between

Arya rarely leaves his side after they find each other again. As if she is afraid that he will disappear, fade into nothing more than dust-like Father, like Winterfell.

Ghost and Nymeria shadow their steps, hulking mountains of white and grey. When she sleeps, it is in the crook of his arm, wild hair a tangle around them both, and he cannot find it within himself to push her away.

It isn't proper, but then, he thinks, when has Arya ever been proper? And it isn't as if he trusts any of his brothers with her, no, not any further than he can throw them - she's still only a little girl; and they rapers and thieves.

Arya does not seem to share his concerns, though. Making friends with Grenn and Pip and the rest like she was born to it, and Jon despairs over her recklessness when she openly taunts Tormund Giantsbane.

Tormund, though, takes the girl's japes in stride, laughing before poking her in the side. You've got balls girl, for one so small. And just like that, they're interacting as if they've known each other for years.

Jon notices the golden bands she hands over, and doesn't say a thing.

But, besides Tormund and Val (You like her, don't lie -you'd have to be blind and deaf and dumb not to I like her) , Arya doesn't truly talk with anyone else. It is Jon she confides in, Jon she weeps with; but she does not speak of her time across the Narrow Sea, and he decides that he will have to content himself with that.

Her chin rests on his shoulder now, her legs tangled with his, and he knows that normal grown siblings don't do this. They did this as children, he remembers-before her Lady mother had deemed it too scandalous- and thinks that perhaps it is the comfort, that this sense of familiarity the embrace gives is reason why.

It is the only way she sleeps, she tells him. Being in his arms makes her feel safe. And Jon needs her to be just that; safe.

Because he couldn't help Robb or Lady Catelyn or Father or Sansa or the boys and gods...

His arms tighten around her sleeping form, and Arya frowns in her dreams, pressing closer like a pup - seeking the warmth he gives. Staring at her serene face, Jon loses himself in thought. She looks her age when she sleeps.

Sam says that he met her when the ship carrying he and Gilly docked in Braavos, that she saved him from the Bravoes and then fed him. (Sam also suspects that-now knowing who she is- it was she whom killed Daeron).

Jon doesn't like to dwell on that fact.

He lets himself bury his nose in her hair and drift into oblivion.

.

It takes three years, but she does open up. But it is only after the new King deigns to visit the Wall.

That Arya already seems to know him, and the way he acts the lovesick fool makes Jon bristle. Arya spits on Aegon Targaryen's affections, throws them back in his face along with his promises, and disappears into Castle Black like a ghost to lick her wounds.

Jon cannot find her for hours-and really, what does it say that the Lord Commander can't find one girl in his own stronghold?- but he eventually does. She's in one of the old towers, glaring out the window at the snow as it falls by her feet. (Nymeria's massive frame draped around her like a cloak may have also given her away).

He hears her sniff, and sees her wipe her face free of traces of tears and he pauses. Ghost is as silent as ever by his side; intent and altogether all to aware.

"Arya?" Jon asks, stepping forward. He strokes Nan's ears and the she-wolf settles again, Ghost laying by her. Arya only glares out and away, does not say a word in response. Jon waits.

After what feels like forever, she mutters, "I met him in Esoss. He and his Dragon-queen aunt."

She moves until her shoulder brushes his, and then until she is leaning into him. Still she does not glance up and meet his eyes, only stares at her gloved hands with an intensity bordering on hatred. "He was pretty," she finally says. "And I was stupid for only a moment…"

Jon knows what she means, does nothing more than move to rest his chin on the crown of her head. But the tension does not leave her body. There is a pain laced into her words, he finds. He likes it not. "He promised that he would marry me, and I know he meant it. But then, of course things happened." She laughed bitterly. "They always do."

She finally glanced up at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed from weeping, and her face is flushed from the cold, but her eyes are still fearless, still very much Arya. "He returned to Dorne to wed his cousin... and I finally see him after years and all he has to say is that he is sorry."

Jon felt like punching something, preferably the silver-haired prick speaking with Lord Stannis. She sees his expression and quickly objects. "Oh, Jon no. He did not steal my honour from me... what little I have left of it." She touches his face with a gentle hand. "I was no maid when I went to him," Arya confesses with a lop-sided grin, and pulls her hand back to her side. "It only irks me that Aegon compares himself and I to Rhaegar and Lyanna."

Arya leans up and presses a kiss to the corner of Jon's mouth, and he almost, almost pulls her back and oh, how he wanted to kiss her properly then, as a man kisses a woman.

The urge frightens him, makes his breath quicken in panic, and he lets her go without a word.

Jon isn't sure how long he stands in that abandoned tower, chin tucked against his chest, with Ghost at his side.

Long enough, it seems, that Arya takes notice and returns in a rush.

The only thing he registers is that her body is flush against his and that her lips are chapped and warm and that sense of familiarity sinks in.