He woke to a familiar snickering. Sitting up, he managed to get a drowsy murmur out of Gilly before making certain Little Sam was not asleep beside her.

"Where's my little man?" Sam asked, turning to let his feet touch the cold stone of the floor. More snickering, coming from under the bed. "Perhaps he smelled ham and bacon and went off without us."

"Heehee!"

"Or he went to ask a maidservant for hot water for his mother, like a good lad." The snickering grew more pronounced, until it sounded as if the boy had both hands clapped over his mouth. By now he's likely red in the face with tears in his eyes. Sam stretched, stood, heard the distant wailing of the infant giant hungry for breakfast.

"Didn't waste any time, did they?" he said, when he saw Gillly's eyes were open.

"Neither did we." she replied, making him splutter a bit.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, wishing to change the subject.

"A little. Not so much as to have you going down without us, though."

"Go with!" cried Little Sam from beneath the bed, promptly emerging. "Baby cry?" He looked dubiously at his mother, unsure if that was quite how it all worked.

"No, no. Our baby's fine." Gilly put her hands on her belly. "You go with your da now, and bring back eggs."

"Eggs!" The little boy made a face.

"Ham is better! Bacon an' sausage!"

"None of that, little monster. Your mother wants eggs, that's what we'll fetch." Sam scooped him up, the boy roaring with laughter. When they left the room, though, Little Sam persisted.

"Bacon an' ham! An' bacon!" He can hardly be blamed for having such a taste for such fare. He has a northman's palate. To his great surprise, though, when they reached the kitchens Little Sam gaped shamelessly at a small bag of lemons someone had left on a table. "Look! Big egg!" he pointed.

"Lemons, little man. Sour. Not for eating."

"What's sour? Want!"

"No, no. It tastes awful." Sam said, laughing, making a face. Little Sam giggled in reply, making a face of his own.

"Hold on there, my lord. It isn't like a little tartness is going to make him bawl." one of Winterfell's serving girls said, slicing one of the lemons up and handing Little Sam a slice.

"Lemon! Is sour!" he cried promptly, before jamming it in his mouth. His lip curled into a repulsed knot, one of his eyelids fluttered and out came the lemon slice into Sam's palm.

"See, lad? Sour."

"More, please!" Little Sam replied.

Sam returned to their chambers with breakfast in one hand, Little Sam in the other, the boy clutching a fresh lemon.

"For Ma!" he cried after seizing it off the table. On entering he found a stranger awaiting him, Little Sam immediately pointing. "HA!" The stranger frowned while Sam shushed the boy.

"Haven't you got something to show your mother?"

"Lemon!" Once put down the boy dashed into the bedroom, still clutching his prize.

"Apologies," Sam said as he set Gilly's tray on their little table, "he does that sometimes when he sees someone he's taken with. It's a habit we're trying to mold him out of." Their guest was of Baratheon blood, that much Maester Aemon would have been able to see, but while Gendry Baratheon was a giant of a kind all his own the young man before Sam was not half so imposing. Perhaps it's because of the ears. Growing up, he often heard about the Florents of Brightwater Keep, big ears and all. As impressed with themselves as the rest of the Reach was unimpressed with them. Sam's own mother had been a Florent by birth, though her Crane mother had been the one to pass her ears down. For the better, I daresay. Had I been born with Florent ears I surely would have lost them to frostbite beyond the Wall. Is that why he's here? Some distant bid for Brightwater Keep? "Who are you? Moreover, what can I do for you?" At this, the young man reddened, as if embarrassed.

"Ser Edric, knighted by His Grace, Aegon the Sixth of His Name. Say rather, what can I do for you, my lord? It was Lord Baelish's notion that Connington's pet dragon wave me about to woo the stormlords, only to find they'd found the real article in his absence. Storm's End was my boyhood home, but boyhood has a way of ending before manhood rightly starts, if my lord knows my meaning."

"I do, Ser Edric, and how." Sam said steadily. "One day you're eating dinner with your mother and sister, the next you're in the Haunted Forest being chased by dead men." And falling in love despite all the rest, can't forget that bit. Ser Edric paled.

"I got into a tavern brawl in Lys and was thrown through a window."

"A fight's a fight." Sam said, shrugging.

"Speaking of fighting, I don't suppose you've gotten bogged down in the bickering between the lords of the Reach?"

"I had, unfortunately, but since White Harbor their ardor seems to have passed. I should bring one of those cold giants with me the next time I go before them." Ser Edric mulled that over.

"Since I was doing little good among the stormlanders, I thought perhaps I might try to stiffen the Reachmen. Only, I find there's little weight these days in Florent blood, still less on one's mother's side and that of bastard birth."

"Through one's mother is about the only way anyone alive has got Florent blood, Ser Edric. Whomever among them didn't die when Brightwater Keep fell perished in the snows with Stannis Baratheon." This Ser Edric's uncle, Sam realized too late, though the young knight did not much seem offended.

"I spent some little time at Dragonstone before Ser Davos had me shipped off to Lys in the dead of night. Though I was loath to be parted from Shireen, I was keen to quit the company of that queer red witch. They may worship trees up here, but I've yet to spot a nightfire burning, or hear a prayer to Red Rahloo." R'hllor, Sam corrected in his mind, before he realized Ser Edric might well have said it wrong on deliberately.

"You mentioned Florent blood." Sam said, changing the subject.

"As well as I can reckon, the lot of us are kin. Our grandfathers were brothers, and even with all the world's thrown at us, we managed to find each other in the end." Sam couldn't help but smile. Someone keen on finding a light in the dark. "Besides," he said, flicking his ears, "I've got all winter to lose these bastard things to frostbite."

After he saw to Gilly and Little Sam, the pair of them fast asleep in bed, Sam lightly closed the bedroom door.

"Now that you mention it, perhaps the issue of Brightwater Keep is something we might hammer out before the Others' next push." he said, turning back to Ser Edric.

"To be sure, I don't rightly want the castle myself- well, I do, the same way a rich man might want to find a bag of dragons on a stroll through his gardens, but even were I trueborn, my grandfather was the fourth of four sons." And two of the sons born before your grandfather left issue of their own and them issue in turn, myself among the rest. Another mess in need of cleaning up. On the way to the halls and corridors where the lords of the Reach had taken up, Sam felt the old weariness sink into his limbs. Hopefully I find Olenna before I find the lords. Going over the Florent family tree in his mind, he stopped midstride. Ser Ryam left only Shireen, and she has no more need of Brightwater Keep than the bloody dragon does. Ser Ryam's elder brother Alester had been Sam's own grandfather, once brought to his notice in a talk with old Ser Denys Mallister at the Wall. Not just mine own, he thought. Talla's and Dickon's, as well. Dickon stood to inherit Horn Hill, a task for which he would be pushed to his limits, but what of Brightwater Keep? This Ser Edric has had a lordly upbringing, to be sure. No one will follow him on account of name or birth, but then, the same could once have been said of Jon. And Talla… Alester Florent's elder daughter's only daughter. Would the Reachmen object? Some, for a certain. Others might leap at the chance to needle the first patch into place, the wars and intrigues have left the Reach as torn and scorched as Dorne. Sam spent the rest of the walk following that yarn in his mind, passing by the various chambers of the Reach's highborn until he found himself standing on his family's threshold. Stiffly he knocked, still half lost in thought, with Ser Edric lingering uncertainty at his elbow. It wasn't a Tarly who answered the door, though, but an aging knight he vaguely recognized whose device was a hunted deer on a pole. A Hunt, one of House Tarly's vassals.

"Is your lord here?"

"Begging your pardon, but Lord Randyll and his son have gone to council with the other lords of the Reach."

"Where?" The old knight shrugged.

"Lord Randyll left me to keep an eye on Lady Melessa and their daughter. It isn't for me to guess at whatever the mighty-borne get up to behind closed doors."

"You bear a Hunt device, oughtn't you have gone as well?"

"Aye, I wear the slung deer, but that doesn't make me a Hunt, now does it? I'm barely more than a hedge knight but for the years I've given the Lodge, no Hightower nor Redwyne nor Tarly's going to spend a penny for my thoughts."

"Only because they'd sooner spend dragons hearing the same thoughts they hold in their own heads come out of each other's mouths. If you would, tell Lady Melessa I've come to call on her. Her daughter, too." The knight peered at him. Only then did Sam wonder if this knight whose face he barely remembered from boyhood did not recognize the man before him. All the better, I suppose. Rather than protest the knight turned and left, returning with Mother and Talla in tow.

"Sam!" she said, her face falling when there was no forthcoming eager giggle from her grandson.

"Hello, Mother." Sam said, unable to keep a boyish joy from filling his belly on seeing her again. "Talla." He nodded to his sister.

"Father isn't here, Sam. He's gone off with the rest of the Reach somewhere, oughtn't you be with them?" Talla asked.

"To be sure, I think I ought be with Gilly just now, but instead here I am wiping snot off grown men's noses." Talla turned pink and put her hand to her mouth. "In fact, it may yet prove fortunate that Father isn't here to ram his bald head into things beyond his understanding." Sam turned to Ser Edric, who stepped forward.

"I have the honor of being Ser Edric Storm, my ladies. Natural son of Robert Baratheon and Delena Florent." The name 'Florent' made both mother and daughters' lips purse. I shall never live to forget how fortunate I am I got my wits from Mother's side. My hair, too. "To my knowledge, Brightwater Keep is an issue outstanding with no living male Florent to claim it. However, one only needs to look at a family tree to see how many branches survive in the female line. Ser Edric here is a grandson of the youngest of four Florent brothers, while you and I, Talla, and Dickon too, are grandchildren of the eldest. Even the hint of such a match backed by Father's fierce reputation would make the other lords of the Reach approve, if only outwardly." Talla gave another blush, her eyes flicking back to Ser Edric who turned a proper red. "Were I to say such a thing with Father in the room, he'd call for a septon then and there, but with him absent you have the option to turn such an idea down. It's nothing set in stone, of course, it just came to me while I was in the corridor-"

"And marry Symun Fossoway instead, as Father wanted? At least your Ser Edric has all his teeth!" Talla remarked.

"And isn't more than twice your age as well, at that." Mother added, giving a small smile.

While Ser Edric spluttered and stammered, Sam moved from one issue to the next. That's one castle spoken for and done in a few friendly minutes. While the lords of the Reach honk like geese trying to resolve the same issue, and Cider Hall with claimants on the male line aplenty.

"We'd best go find Father and the rest of them." he said wearily. And bring plenty of handkerchiefs while we're at it, he added.

"Winterfell is massive, how will we manage it?" Ser Edric said, finally reining his tongue in.

"You've never heard my father try to think aloud before, good ser. Nor the lords in his company. We'll find them only too easily, I think." Talla said, making a face. Sam turned to the old Hunt knight.

"Accompany us, ser. There will be no one here for you to chaperone in a moment, and any man who knows his way around a sword has a voice at council when Others are about and working their cold mischief freely." The lot of them left soon after, Sam making sure to wrap his lady mother and sister both in warm furs. As he rather dreaded, they needed only to go down a floor to hear the bustle of a good number of people stuffed into too small a space, a little hall looking like the spot the lords had chosen for their latest deliberations. He happened to look away from the doors and out a window into the yard, where a good three dozen lads were learning the sword and the spear. Drilling them was the ugly man he'd cracked in the jaw back in King's Landing. The brown apple. Harry Strickland might have looked a far cry from a sellsword, but Ser Franklyn Flowers was built it seemed from the boots up to turn striplings into soldiers, to squeeze discipline out of discord. "Ser Edric, see my lady mother and sister inside. I'll join you shortly." Sam said distantly, heading out into the cold midafternoon. Ser Franklyn was not one to miss being approached by someone Sam's size until the last moment, squinting at him coldly.

"Leave off for a bit, lads. Get some lunch, I think it's venison and barley stew today."

"Excellent." One of the boys said, grinning as he led the charge toward the Great Hall.

"I'm glad to see you've made it this far, Ser Franklyn." Sam said, trying to take as casual a tone as he could. And hope he doesn't remember our last meeting. "Able fighters are the brick and mortar of any successful war, but training at arms and training at war aren't the same thing." And the Reach is desperately in need of the latter. Father can fight armies of men, but armies of wights? It required a wiliness he knew Randyll Tarly was hopelessly dispossessed of. Ser Franklyn blinked, evidently not expecting such a greeting.

"You do recall you put me into a pile of grain sacks the last time we met?" As any rational man might expect when he struts around another man's country with his pride on his shoulder and his cock hanging out.

"Be glad it was a southron you were greeting in King's Landing and not a northman in Winterfell. They're not so civil up here." Ser Franklyn blinked his beady brown-black eyes.

"I've been a fighter all my life, but I've taken precious few hits so nasty. It rung me good, I spent the whole voyage hurling whatever I could get down right back into the barrel it came out of." Sam frowned.

"Are you unwell?"

"Fuck, no. I only needed a few days to come around. A week. It just occurred to me then that I'm not so young as I used to be and selling one's sword is a young man's game." "Be that as it may, I might have a proposal for you."

"Is that so? I thought you were married already?" Sam ignored the jest.

"House Fossoway of Cider Hall is an utter shambles. They've no idea whom among them is fit to lead their power, with greybeards, old women, babes, and bastards in the mix." As Sam suspected, the name 'Fossoway' drew a shadow over Ser Franklyn's face.

"I came to Westeros to fight the Fossoways. One of them raped my mother, who did no more wrong than have a pretty face."

"You'll find the Fossoways poor sport, Ser Franklyn. A single hungry direwolf could do for the lot of them, if he took a liking to apples." Ser Franklyn Flowers was unmoved.

"You heard Homeless Harry. It's a brown apple I am, and brown I'll be until my ugly carcass litters some field."

"Brown?" Gilly's voice made Sam's head snap back toward the castle. Little Sam sat comfily in her arms, sticking his tongue out to catch snowflakes and giggling whenever he accomplished his aim. Once she reached them, she squinted almost comically at Ser Franklyn. "I've seen browner. Hard, frozen things. Good for the pigs and barely that." She spat on her thumb and rubbed the sellsword knight's cheek. "There's gold underneath here, I think. Sam tells me you're a Golden Company man, as well. Say rather a gold-apple Fossoway, now there's a good lad." To Sam's sheer amazement, the surly knight blushed deep crimson and even stammered a bit.

"The Reach needs seasoned men of war, ser. Find someone else to drill the lads. You're Lord Fossoway now."

The man was dizzied all over again, following Sam and Gilly with pronounced difficulty.

"But my lord, the Fossoways proper will never have me." he finally said to Sam's back.

"Then the Others will mash the lot of them into frozen applesauce. Fear not, my lord. No one will oppose you just now. Should we live to see the spring, well, you might hear some grumblings then, but that's watering ground yet to be seeded." He rapped on the door of the hall, still buzzing with the deliberations of the council. Arryk (Erryk?) pushed it open from within, revealing that the preeminent of the lords' number were gathered around a table, arguing over old family trees and who knew what else. As I feared I'd find them. Lord Randyll stood among them, with Dickon at his side, while Mother, Talla, Ser Edric and the old Hunt knight filled a bench behind them. Sam strode forward, men-at-arms falling over themselves to get out of his way. He scooped up all the papers and parchments on the table, all the squabbles and disputes put to ink, and flung them into the crackling hearth. "I told you blood claims and Gardener blood meant nothing to the Others. I know now I expected too much of you. At least, at last, I've found the right man to lead House Fossoway." He pointed to Franklyn, who looked so precisely the gaping stableboy in the fierce fighter's body Sam couldn't help but laugh. "Years Lord Franklyn's served in the Golden Company, years your good selves have spent whiling away the days wheedling at each other. He's learned more of battle, of war in not even a single lifetime than the rest of you have put together. He's even got red-apple blood on his father's side. Worry about his breeding and his birth after we've defeated the Others. Until then, House Fossoway has its head in Lord Franklyn." A few cups were raised to toast the new-made lord, but Sam found more faces by far were locked on him. "Well, bugger the lot of you. I'm thirsty." he said briskly, taking a horn off the table and drinking it. Arbor red. He hoped the moment would pass by the time he took a swig, but even after emptying the horn the room remained silent. Finally Olenna Redwyne appeared, flanked as ever by her huge guards. And quit of her mourning clothes at last, it would seem.

"You've set Cider Hall to rights, then?" she asked.

"I have. Lord Franklyn is just the sort of man to turn the Fossoways into a house capable of pulling its weight."

"And your mother tells us you mean for your sister and this handsome storm knight to succeed to Brightwater Keep."

"It was the best way I could think of to keep the Florent line intact, if not in name. Any of House Florent's vassal houses who take exception to their oaths they've sworn House Florent are welcome to, it is for Talla and Ser Edric to earn their loyalty." He heard no angry voices, no shouts of protest. "As for Highgarden, I can only pray the one among your number most fit is the one who prevails. One of the precious few mistakes Daenerys Targaryen made in her campaign was to ask the lords of the Reach to choose a lord paramount from among themselves, it seems. I rather wager the issue will have yet to be settled when the Others come in force." He sat on a bench.

"Samwell, you say it was the dragon queen's decree that one from among the lords of the Reach should be chosen by his peers." old Lord Hightower asked. "So it was." "Well and good, but was the idea hers, or yours?"

"Does it matter? In theory, it was the cleanest way to rally the Reach. In practice, it's been a tasteless farce."

"Nothing less, Samwell." Olenna agreed from across the table. She folded her wrinkled hands in front of her. "It's plain that none of these louts would be much fond of one of their own being preeminent." She swallowed. "Another option has been brought to our attention, Samwell, one we've rather reached consensus on." That was almost enough to knock Sam off his bench.

"Oh, thank the old gods and the new. I don't suppose they were smart enough to choose you, Lady Olenna?" She snorted humorlessly.

"You can make better japes than that, Samwell." Sam shrugged. "Lord Redwyne? Lord Hightower? My father?" Lady Olenna seemed unable to find the words for whatever was needing saying.

"Not me." Lord Randyll said, as if he could not quite believe what he was saying, voice gravelly. "You."

Sam stared at his father for a long time, unable to so much as call him drunk or mad. Finally, he blinked.

"What?" His tone must not have been very accommodating, because Olenna chose that moment to speak up.

"See? I told you he'd never have it. Even with Tarly pigheadedness and Florent ambition bringing him into the world, he's too smart to bed down with the likes of you."

"Samwell, you are more learned than anyone in this room. Perhaps the castle over, save maybe the dragon queen's pet imp-" Lord Redwyne said.

"Learned, yes, and from more than books and the Citadel's old scrolls and grey mice. The way I hear the tale told, the Great Ranging was beset by wildlings and dead men both." Lord Hightower added.

"You know your way around up here, Samwell. The King in the North counts you his oldest friend." A once-hopeful for Cider Hall among the Fossoways chimed in.

"Yes, yes, he's the perfect man for the moment. No doubt he'd do just the trick. There's the small matter of him being able to see through all your horseshit-" Olenna tried to say, but the lords ignored her. Dickon took a swig from his own horn, spluttering a bit.

"He would be a Tarly not just for Horn Hill, but the Reach at large."

"Whose golden notion was this?" Sam asked, tongue slowly untied.

"Mine own." Lord Randyll replied, spending every word as though it were gold. "I had another son, once. Fat and cowardly, barely with steel enough hin him to put knife to meat. I sent him north into the snow, half-expecting to hear of his death within the first year. No raven came to tell me it had come to pass. Nor in the second. Nor the third. Then, a man I had never seen before came to Horn Hill with a wildling girl in tow and his son in her arms. You have my son's name and face, but you are not him. Somewhere beyond the Wall he died, and you came in his place." He tore his eyes away from Sam. "The Wall is fallen, the Night's Watch and its vows are done. The dragon queen said we were to choose our own overlord. None of you is the man I would put above myself, nor my son. We are neither of us the man whom you would put above yourselves." He put a hand on Dickon's shoulder, then turned back to Sam. "You are that man. Worthy of that land and title, to name us as your vassals. Worthy to hold Highgarden in your own name and none other, with a wife proven fertile and your son to follow after you." My son, Sam thought, his mind a tumult of incomprehensible noise. He turned to Gilly, staring at him wide-eyed. Sam rose, went to her, took her hand. Little Sam, uncharacteristically, was very quiet, shyly reaching for him. Sam took him, tucked his head on his shoulder, patted his back. Who am I if not his father? Who is he if not my son?

"What say you, Gilly?" he finally managed to whisper out.

"They want you, Sam."

"Not just me. You, me, and our Little Sam." Gilly blushed.

"Gilly's a silly name for a lady. Might be we do it just for now. Once the Others have gone back into the white, though, I'll want you back all to myself."

"Didn't you like Highgarden?"

"I liked it fine, but no pile of stacked stones would be home without my Sams, big and little. I am yours, and you are mine." He put his forehead to hers.

"As my lady wills it."

"Lady this." She stuck out her tongue and blew, making Olenna laugh so hard she went red as one of the Arbor's grapes. Someone called for wine, more wine, and Sam found himself back on his bench with Gilly beside him and Little Sam sat between them, pointing gleefully as each lord stepped forward to swear his allegiance to Samwell Tarly, Lord of Highgarden. Whoever he is, Sam thought.