You Are The One
Chapter 8
Oh, you big beautiful bastard, thank you for coming back.
That is the first thing Jon thinks when she walks out onto the balcony just in time to see Drogon breaking through the clouds a few miles away. And as the way she would see Dani smile whenever she watched her dragons fly, Jon smiles the same oddly proud smile now, even though she barely knows the beast, really.
"My, my, what a handsome one he is." Aegon notes as he walks up beside her, resting his hands over the stone edge of the balcony. His head is tipped back, both watching the dragon and letting the disappearing Sun warm his face.
Jon nods, but tells him, "I wouldn't know. His brothers looked too similar to him. Well, apart from their colours and size."
Aegon chuckles nervously as he points out to the horizon. "Someone is coming. Please tell me you know who."
Jon squints and when her eyes settle on the ships, just small black dots right now, she blows out a breath of relief. "I think," She pauses, thinks about it, nods, then, says, "I think maybe Drogon has brought my pe—my, uh, friends to come get me."
Aegon turns his body to face her, though, his eyes are still warily locked on the ships. "Lady Jon, I cannot be seen. I don't think whoever Your Grace currently is would like it too much if they knew I was...back." He finally turns his head to shoot her a less than eager smile.
Jon arches a brow.
Because she did not see that coming. Did not, for a moment, think that he was even worried about such things.
Even without his fucking huge dragon under him, he was already known for being a fierce warrior and a charismatic one at that. She thinks, if he really wanted to, he could kill her, take Drogon and conquer all of Westeros again.
She fights back a smirk as she tells him, "I'm sure the Queen would like to know if you plan on killing her first before she kills you."
Aegon scoffs quietly. "If I were her, I'd kill me and ask my corpse the question afterwards before I could kill her."
Jon stiffens, but recovers quickly as he glances back at her. She keeps her face neutral and her tone low but calm as she asks, "Is that what you're here for? To kill the Queen and take your throne back?"
"What??" Aegon turns fully to her, looking more than surprised by her words and a little confused. "No." He shakes his head.
Jon simply stares at him.
Aegon doubles down with a stern look as he repeats a little firmer, "No."
Jon sighs, nods and takes a step back.
She doesn't know how, but she can tell he's telling the truth. Maybe it's the intense way he looks at her or the way his presence itself simply demands to be heard and seen.
Drogon darts back down out of the clouds at that moment. His roar sounding rather like a happy sort of trill.
Jon turns back with a smile, getting lost in just watching the giant flying miracle that is dragons—or was...
Her heart sinks along with her smile as the images of Viserion falling under the ice, and then, later shattering into millions of icicles, and then, Rhaegal screeching in pain as he fell to the oceans between Dani's ships, flash through her mind.
Gods, all the times she has felt so lonely, but now, she doesn't even think she could imagine how Drogon feels.
Or Aegon, for that matter.
Drogon chooses that moment to swing by the balcony, close enough for the beat of his wings to force the winds back...
And Jon along with it.
She's still getting used to dragons existing, but she's glad that Aegon is there with her. He catches her shoulders from behind and gently steadies her footing.
She's smiling to herself when she hears Aegon's chuckle and he teasingly asks, "Do I have to retract my statement about you having good form?"
He smirks when she swirls around with a glaring pout and tells him, "Just six months ago, I never even knew dragons existed again. So, please forgive me if I'm still getting used to them...and also, for not really giving a shit what you think." She adds with a sly little smile.
Aegon chuckles, grins.
Something tells him she doesn't curse very often; doesn't let herself go completely at all, if not rarely.
He bows his head, hand to his chest as he says, "Of course. Pardon my input, My Lady."
Jon fights a roll of her eyes, but meanwhile can't also fight back the next smile tugging at her lips. Though, when she turns back to the skies, her smile drops right off and her eyes slowly widen.
Where...
"Where is he going??" Jon tries not to sound panicked, but mostly fails when she sees Drogon's retreating form.
Aegon tilts his head and watches for a few moments. When he realises, he has to purse his lips to keep from either laughing or smirking.
Oh, dear. She isn't going to like this.
Aegon clears his throat, taps her on the shoulder to get her attention. Waits for her to turn to him before politely informing her, "I believe he may be trying to relocate you and your friends. Seems he's lead them here to you."
At her wide-eyed alarm, a soft chuckle escapes him.
He shrugs. Tells her, "You're a Northerner. You live in The North, I presume. Dragons don't like the cold. And yes, Dragonstone isn't the warmest place, but it's better built for them than even King's Landing, because they don't like being kept in pits or cave-stables. They're free to roam here, away from the people who fear them."
Well, fuck.
There's a lot of things Jon hasn't thought about.
But she has only been Queen for quite literally a week and a half. She's still easing into things...while trying to pick up the broken pieces of her mind from the last ten years worth of things that have happened to her.
"Oh, you bastard." Jon growls under her breath as she turns back to glare after the dragon, who is now almost a dot in the distance again.
Aegon chuckles, but there's that nervous look on his face again as he says, "Either that or he was just checking up on you—and your friends' arrival is purely coincidence."
Great.
There's no more denying or hiding the fact now.
Jon has to tell him. Because if she doesn't, he'll only end up finding out when she's inevitably addressed by her new title.
Jon glances back out to the oceans and sees the ships slowly but surely growing bigger the closer they get. She estimates she has at least half an hour before they dock.
Jon walks back into the room, hearing Aegon following slowly. She picks up his sword from the Painted Table, right where she left it and turns to face him.
Aegon stops in his tracks when he sees her pointing his own weapon at him. He frowns, slowly raises his hands and carefully tells her, "Those ships do not belong to me, I swear to you, Lady Snow."
He realises it probably seems like he's been stalling her. So, if he needs to be on the pointed end of her sword to prove his loyalty, he would gladly kneel at her feet.
Which is why he does so before she can deliver that pointed end to him.
"That's not—what are you doing?" Jon takes a small step back, lowering the sword just a fraction in her confusion.
Aegon looks up at her while on both his knees. His eyes slightly wide, the only part of him betraying his calm exterior. "I am putting myself completely at your mercy, Lady Snow. I don't know who those ships belong to any more than I know just how the fuck it is that I have woken up three hundred years into the fucking future. Everyone I have ever known is dead. Everything I have ever done, I now, will never do—I don't even know if me being here now means anything will change for your history. All I do know for certain right now is that I am here, and your name was the one thing ringing loud and clear in my head when I woke up. And that you were right here after I woke up."
Jon lowers his sword a little more. Takes a small step forward. But eyes him suspiciously as she demands, "Tell me everything you remember and everything that happened from the moment you woke up here to the moment we first spoke."
Aegon nods eagerly, tells her, "I've only been King for four years. But after conquering, I've never really felt real purpose. Being King is fine, but it lacks...something."
Everything...
"I suppose I just let my sisters rule in my stead a lot of the time. They're a lot better with politics and a lot more interested, too. Though, I'm still there whenever they need me to be. And Balerion gets restless, so, I am not proud of it, but I fly him around looking for a new battle or war. It's less the killing part that thrills me and more the part of just knowing I have that kind of power; the kind that nobody else has. Silly boy stuff, really."
Jon briefly muses to herself of just how fucking useful his dragon would have been with the walkers.
"Anyway," Aegon shakes his head and moves quickly back onto track by telling her, "I must have had too much to drink, because one moment, I was...flirting with a barmaid..."
He grins sheepishly when she arcs a brow and quickly tells her, with a hand over his heart, "I never strayed from my wives, not once. Flirting is nothing. Everybody does it without even realising."
Jon rolls her eyes and silently waits for him to go on.
He does, telling her, "Yes, and the next moment, I find myself waking up bleary-eyed in some old woman's bed."
He looks horrified and Jon has to fight back a smirk when he tells her, "I thought, just for a moment, that she'd...taken my manhood while I was passed out. But she assured me that she'd found me sleeping under her chicken coop and somehow had gotten me up and walked me into her home. Bless her."
Jon nods, not allowing herself to pay attention to his soft smile this time. "And then?"
Aegon blows out a defeated breath, tells her, "And then, she gave me some water, said she would go prepare one of her horses for me to ride back home and I fell asleep again while I was waiting and that's when I woke up here. Well, I woke up down on the beach right next to the fishing village. Waves lapping at my ankles, and only my crown on my head and my sword in my hand."
He pauses, scowls, then, notes, "I didn't even have my sword with me that night. I always leave it strapped to Balerion's saddle when I'm with civilians."
Jon knows that if he isn't telling the truth, he at least believes what he's saying with unwavering doubt. Which means that she's no closer to figuring out why he's here or how.
Still, he seems too calm. Has since she first saw him.
But...if she wants to build real trust between them...
"It's me." She finally just says the words: "I am the Queen."
She then, takes a solid step back and even though he is still on his knees before her, she raises his sword just a smidgen.
Aegon looks shocked for a moment, then, swiftly lets out a breath of relief. "Oh, thank fuck."
Jon's eyes narrow a tiny bit as she watches his expressions closely.
He grins tiredly and says, "I'm hoping you haven't slain me, because you don't think I am a threat to your throne..." He trails off with a sheepishly hopeful look.
"I'm hoping you're right." Jon replies solemnly.
She really does; she'd hate to have to really "slay" him.
Besides being exceptional to look at, talking with him over the past two days has been like that peaceful time away she was just looking for.
Aegon holds his hands up, while slowly rising from his knees. "Keep the sword until you trust me fully." He tells her.
Then, turns his back on her as a show of him trusting her not to stab him right then and there. He smiles softly to himself when she doesn't, then, grabs the one other thing he came here with from the end of the Painted Table.
He turns to face her, walks back over to her and holds it out to her as he tells her, "My crown is yours now...Queen Jon."
He smiles, because she smiles—and Jon is smiling, because he's the first one to add the "Jon" on instead of the name her mother gave her.
She is grateful to everything her mother ever did for her, except for her choice of name for Jon.
Though, she is curious to know what he will think as she tells him, "My real name—the one my mother gave me with her last breath—is Aegonyra Targaryen."
The grin that slowly splits his lips and spreads across his face makes Jon's heart both leap and flutter. "Aegonyra." He nods, breathes, "Beautiful."
Jon couldn't stop the unladylike snort that comes out of her even if she'd have tried or even wanted to.
Aegon pouts a little. "You don't think so?"
Jon rolls her eyes and smirks—because she knows he's really asking if she likes his name.
Aegon lowers his arms, the crown going down with them. That cute pout still lingering on his face as she tells him, "The two children my father had with his first wife, he named the boy after you, as does anyone who names their children 'Aegon.'"
Aegon simply stays silent and listens to her speak. A pleasant shiver erupting all over him as she speaks his name and he realises this is the first time he's heard her do so.
Jon frowns, only a little stung, but still stung nonetheless as she says, "He obviously hoped for another son when he met my mother."
As far as he knew at the time, Rhaegar still believed his other children were alive—even while they and their mother were being violated and murdered horrifically.
Aegon frowns, too. Shakes his head. Says, "Not necessarily." He shrugs, says, "My father, like a lot of Targaryens, was off his fucking rocker. But not just mad—he was cruel and arrogant with it. Thought he was a dragon in human form, literally."
He nods at Jon's surprised look.
"My uncle Aegon, who my mother named me after, and who was the youngest of my father's brothers—he used to tell me all about the horrible things my father had ever done to him. Like one time, my father threw Aegon's pet cat and new born litter of kittens down a well just because Aegon picked up the dragon egg my father owned to have a look at it for a few moments."
Jon's eyes widen in horror.
Gods, she's so glad Lord Stark had a heart enough for their direwolves.
Gods, she misses Ghost.
(Which reminds her, she must go to The Wall to bring him back with her as soon as she has the chance.)
Aegon nods in agreement with her expression. Smiles sadly as he then, tells her, "A lot of the time, my father would joke about how Aegon was too pretty to be a man. And one time, he even crept into Aegon's chambers at night, held a knife to his throat and threatened to cut his cock off so that my father could make him woman enough to marry him."
Jon sucks in a breath at that.
Aegon gives a watery smile, but is quick to assure her: "He didn't. Thankfully."
Jon nods.
"My point is: my father was a monster and yours sounds very much like he always did everything he could for the good of everyone except for himself. He is surely a better man than most and a better one than me..."
For all of the shit that he did just because he could.
And now, for falling for someone when he already has two someones.
Or did have...
"Again," Jon puffs out a chuckle, glancing down at his sword still in her hand. "I wouldn't know."
"Are we truly the only ones left?" Aegon asks quietly as he glances gloomily around.
Jon looks him in the eyes when he turns back to her and reminds him: "I killed the last one."
Aegon gives her a withered look and reminds her: "You didn't kill her because of who she was, you killed her because of what she became."
Damn.
He always seems to know just what to say to her...
It's as annoying as it is actually comforting.
She puffs out a breath and finally tells him, "Keep your crown. It's yours. And...I already have one. I just..."
At his small smirk, she scoffs and spits out, "It gives me a headache, OK? It's heavy."
Aegon scoffs smoothly and says, "Whoever didn't make sure you liked it beforehand is a complete idiot."
Another thing he will have to fix for her.
Is everyone around her just either a murderous prick or utterly useless?
Jon chuckles. Shakes her head. Tells him, "It's all right. I have about a thousand other worries on my mind. The literal weight of my crown doesn't even come close to the mental one it weighs upon me."
Gods, why is she even telling him any of this? Even if it feels easier than breathing to.
Aegon frowns softly, abandons his crown back to the Painted Table without taking his eyes off of her. He moves closer, careful and slow, not wanting to give her a reason to use his blade on him.
"What worries?"
He can't exactly say why he's more concerned with her problems when his own are so beyond surreal and inescapable that he doesn't even know where to begin.
He really should.
But...
No. She needs you.
That thought in his mind is so strong that it's all he can focus on.
You want her.
He does.
He really does.
You—I wish to see her sat on that throne with me between her legs...
Aegon blinks the thoughts away, fighting back a scowl for himself as he moves to stand in front of her. He's pleased when she doesn't raise his sword against him.
Again, she's calm and collected and is bravely looking back up into his eyes without breaking away or even straying a hair.
A flash of her on the Iron Throne, naked and legs spread for him knelt between them flashes ravenously through his mind.
Aegon shoves it away with a small frown. His hand slowly lifting to the scar over her eyebrow.
This time, she doesn't lean in, nor do her eyes flutter, causing her lashes to brush over his knuckles. But the soft, yet, intensely soul searching look she's giving him almost takes his breath away.
So careful.
So proud.
So cautious.
So scarred...
He can see it in her eyes; all of that pain left behind and thought or maybe forced to be forgotten.
And he won't have it.
Can't stand it.
Will fix it and make her smile every damn day if he has to die doing so.
Yes, I will help her.
"I will help you."
Jon arcs a brow, confused but intrigued. "What do you mean?"
Fiercely, Aegon says, "I think—no, I know that I am here to help you. I don't know how I know that, I just feel it. And it cannot be coincidence that the only thing I woke up remembering for sure was a name I'd never heard of, of a woman I'd never even met; couldn't possibly have ever met."