[He absorbs this, mostly silent. She doesn't understand that one of the things he had sworn he would never do was to lie with a woman: he is free of that vow now, but he had broken it of necessity long before he was free of it, and the breaking was bitter and sweet all at once. Still, loving a woman freely does not come easily to him. And it's for him like it is for Claire, in some ways: Ygritte has been dead for some time. He had mourned her; he had thought to join her, when he was dying himself, and then it had not happened that way. She is utterly lost to him, and always has been, and he had learned to live without her. There had been no other choice.
But the life he remembers with Claire had gone on for centuries, not only a few moons, and had never been so fraught as his time with Ygritte had been, and today, Claire means more to him. It is hard for it to feel like a betrayal of a woman he is not likely to see again. He can even imagine what Ygritte would have said, with that sly smile of hers: Taken up with a woods witch, have you, Jon Snow? But she would have wanted him to live freely, not to suffer and mourn and think only of duty.]
That's the trouble, isn't it? I don't like to think of you all lonely like that. You ought to be happy. If we part now, there will be other men -- someday. I don't like to think of you with another man, either. Not your Jamie, I am sorry, and not anyone else.
If I break with you in truth, those things will come. They should come. I will have to stand aside, watch them. No right to do anything else, and no one to blame.
[Right now, it seems she is a widow, more than another man's wife. She is much older than he is, too.
If those things don't come, might be that she will leave this world the way others have, and it will be like it was with Alicent: his hesitation, knowing of her husband, knowing the man had sat the Iron Throne all those years ago, had removed all possibility between them.
The idea of all of that makes him feel heartsick. He has endured that before, though. His heart is usually of such little matter.
He does reach for her hand, covers it with his, for all that he wears a slight frown. It feels good to touch her. A living woman, right in front of him, and both their futures in his hands.]
We were happy for so long. And we might -- that might be near enough to our lives now, not in five hundred years. Not after all that sorrow. Is that what's right?
[He doesn't know if she can tell how much he wants it, and how hard it is to take the last step. But he is beginning to understand that there might not be another chance.]
no subject
But the life he remembers with Claire had gone on for centuries, not only a few moons, and had never been so fraught as his time with Ygritte had been, and today, Claire means more to him. It is hard for it to feel like a betrayal of a woman he is not likely to see again. He can even imagine what Ygritte would have said, with that sly smile of hers: Taken up with a woods witch, have you, Jon Snow? But she would have wanted him to live freely, not to suffer and mourn and think only of duty.]
That's the trouble, isn't it? I don't like to think of you all lonely like that. You ought to be happy. If we part now, there will be other men -- someday. I don't like to think of you with another man, either. Not your Jamie, I am sorry, and not anyone else.
If I break with you in truth, those things will come. They should come. I will have to stand aside, watch them. No right to do anything else, and no one to blame.
[Right now, it seems she is a widow, more than another man's wife. She is much older than he is, too.
If those things don't come, might be that she will leave this world the way others have, and it will be like it was with Alicent: his hesitation, knowing of her husband, knowing the man had sat the Iron Throne all those years ago, had removed all possibility between them.
The idea of all of that makes him feel heartsick. He has endured that before, though. His heart is usually of such little matter.
He does reach for her hand, covers it with his, for all that he wears a slight frown. It feels good to touch her. A living woman, right in front of him, and both their futures in his hands.]
We were happy for so long. And we might -- that might be near enough to our lives now, not in five hundred years. Not after all that sorrow. Is that what's right?
[He doesn't know if she can tell how much he wants it, and how hard it is to take the last step. But he is beginning to understand that there might not be another chance.]