[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.]
[ She can tell. And she suspects that there are things still to know, information to process, and other realizations to come to. But she wants to know those things and understand with him. When he reaches for her hand, she covers his with her free one and lightly slides her thumb along the side of his palm. His admission feels like a spark of hope despite every manufactured moment and differences between them.
Keeping her hand in his, Claire stands and moves around the table to the chair right beside him. Now her free hand is against his cheek, holding his face in her hand, a perfect fit. It's a gesture that feels so familiar, and she tries to soothe away his frown with her touch. ]
What do you want, Jon Snow?
[ She answers his question with a question of her own. Has he ever been asked that, ever been able to ponder the question and ultimately choose himself? The hand in his squeezes gently in encouragement, but she doesn't let her believe it will be as easy as a simple answer. She has hope, but it's hesitant. ]
[The way she rubs her finger against his nearly makes him pull her in; the way she cups his cheek only adds to the temptation. He leans into the palm of her hand, closing his eyes, and has to stop himself from turning his head to kiss it.
So easy to live in this love, this moment. It could be the last, or it could be only one of many.
He opens his eyes, catches her gaze with his.]
You know what I want.
[You, for as long as I can have you.
He exhales, then adds,]
But I also don't want either of us to do something we'll regret.
I would be breaking faith with no one. You say you would not be: I want you to be sure. We have never touched each other in truth, but I remember every -- [Every inch of you, every breath.] Everything. There's a difference between something that fell on us and something we chose.
When I was a boy, I did not think I would ever marry. I had nothing to offer a wife and no reason to think I'd ever have funds to support a family. These last few years, now that things are different, I have known that I might have little choice in my bride. If I married, it would be for the North, not for who I wanted in my bed. Not for love of anything but my people, though it might be that love could grow.
But you and me -- this is a choice, now.
If we are lovers in truth, or more than that, we should be sure of it.
I don't regret how I feel. That's where my guilt comes in, knowing there's the potential to hurt Jamie if, one day, at any point, he should arrive. But even that guilt isn't as big as how I've felt for you for centuries.
[ If that love was manufactured by the Singularity, then wouldn't it have dissipated along with everything else? She listens to him now and leans in to press her forehead to his tenderly, closing her eyes. Bringing their hands between them, she holds onto his hand with both of hers. They aren't married here, he's never been more correct that they have the opportunity to walk away cleanly. ]
I remember. Nights we talked out problems until sunrise, mornings we stayed lazily in bed mapping one another, the days of walks and exploring, solving problems together. I remember, and I'm sure. I want this, I want you.
[ Voicing it, these last three words especially, feels as though she's reaching for him across a gulf even though he's right in front of her. ]
[He holds her hands tightly, leaning against her forehead with his eyes closed. Her mouth is so close; they share the same breaths now, if one is truly breathing in the Horizon. He nearly kisses her -- wants to kiss her, moves his mouth to do it -- but stops himself in time.
When he speaks, his voice is low, hardly above a whisper, and his lips are almost against hers.]
In Nocwich. I want to see you in the flesh. If we both still want it, if you haven't changed your mind, if I can know in my heart that I am with my own woman and not some other man's, we will see each other there.
[He ought to move to leave, as tempted as he is, but he doesn't. It had been hard not to call her his wife, but she is not, not right now.
Sitting here with her like this, nearly kissing her, almost holding her, it's a taste of what he wants. All that really stands between them now is his worry that this desire is wrong -- that giving in to it might dishonor them both. Even so, it's all right to stay a while longer... all right when it's a beginning, and all right, too, when it might be a farewell.
Isn't it?]
Before then, there's something I want you to know. A few years before they brought me here, there was a mutiny. My own men stabbed me -- I don't know how many times. I have scars, ugly things, all over my chest and my belly. You haven't seen them.
[In their hundreds of years together, his face had been scarred, lines over each eye that were faint or deep depending on the day, but his chest had been smooth and uninjured.]
[ It's a comfort to be so close, and not have him pull away. She doesn't want to risk it now with a kiss, satisfied that he hasn't decided to walk away from her. It's why, even with her eyes still closed and her forehead pressed to his, she nods. ]
That's fair, Jon.
[ She pulls back enough so that she can look at him, holding his gaze while her thumb grazes his cheek. ]
I'll agree to that.
[ For some reason she hadn't expected any other confessions, but the more Jon speaks, the tighter her lungs feel in her chest. Mutiny, stabbing, scars. One hand drifts to his chest, pressing there through layers to feel the muffled beating of his heart. ]
I remember listening to this at night. [ Her forehead creases in pain at the image her mind conjures, of Jon being brutally attacked, his blood pooling out of him. It makes her feel nauseous, but she swallows the emotion back. ] You think scars are going to mean anything to me other than you lived? [ She shakes her head, and this time, her forehead comes to rest on his shoulder, a hug that isn't one, not yet. ]
[At first, he nods slowly: to her agreement, and to the way she looks at him in light of his confession, and her memory of resting against his chest, her ear to his heart. And when she leans on his shoulder, he leans his head against hers for a long moment, then pulls back slightly to explain.]
It's a long story. I will tell you more of it some other day.
For now, it's enough to say that I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. The men choose their Lord Commander, and the vote had been a narrow thing. When I made... an alliance with an old enemy, to fight a worse one... some disagreed. It was our only chance, but some disagreed. They had not seen. They did not know what we would face.
[He is now trembling, but only a little.]
The word of the Lord Commander should be law, and once a man is made Lord Commander, he is Lord Commander for life.
Claire, I didn't live. [It's hard to say this, but if she ever sees the scar over his heart, she will know. No man could survive that wound.] I was dead and cold on a table for two days until a priestess brought me back. I don't remember anything, but believe me when I say I was dead in truth.
[This might go some way to explaining his insistence, even through the years of their marriage, that he was not a god, only a man. Back at Castle Black, in his last days there, he had had to insist on it.]
[ The trembling isn't little enough to go unnoticed by her, and she aches to hold onto him. To take each scar, one by one, and claim them with her lips. It isn't the first time a love of hers has been scarred, and she wonders why Jon had to be hurt so deeply, on different levels. Instead of tugging him to her bed in the small Horizon home, or even kissing him to soothe, she simply takes one of his hands in both of hers and attempts to be an anchor for him, support. She thinks that's all of it, but then he continues, and she feels the breath hitch in her chest, hanging there painfully until she raggedly exhales. ]
Dead.
[ She repeats it slowly, thinking of those she knows who have told her if not for Abraxas, they would be dead. She thinks of vampires, of Louis, how death and the dead aren't what she'd come to believe. It's still difficult to wrap her mind around, that this man she loves was dead and could have been gone forever, might never have arrived here. Bending her head, she presses a very soft kiss to his knuckles, reassuring herself of his solidity and leaving behind a bit of dampness from a stray tear. He was hurt, murdered, and it makes her stomach ache. ]
I believe you, Jon.
[ She's straightened, looking at him again. She wants to pull him close, to love him, but she's made an agreement and she can only hope that in Nocwich, he'll let her take him in her arms. ]
[If he had not already begun to suspect that he has stayed longer than he should, it's the little kiss to his knuckle, her hot little tear on it, that would have told him. So at first, his only response to what she has said is a sober nod. What he has told her is something he has barely spoken of to anyone, and now that she knows, he is content to let it rest where it is.
Not much longer than a fortnight before they can go to Nocwich. If he doesn't leave here soon, there won't be a decision to be made; there will be only more kisses and more than that. And though he thinks he knows what his decision will be, and she likely knows from the things he has just said what it will be too, it would still be wise to take the time to be sure.
Even so, it is not easy to stand up and walk out a door right after such a confession as he has just made, so he does not. He takes a few slow, hard breaths, masters the trembling, masters the desire to linger here, holds her hand all the while.
Then he gives it a little squeeze and releases it. He places the flats of his hands on his thighs as if he's about to stand.]
I ought to be getting back. Send me your list of anything you need from the markets in Thorne; I have a little coin, as long as you can wait for them.
[Then he does push to his feet.]
Claire, one way or another -- whatever either of us decides -- we will see each other in Nocwich. All right?
[ There's a part of Claire that dares not hope, even if most of her does. Whether it should be wrong or not to hope for Jon is something she'll have to come to terms with, and she will. Just as she did two hundred years in the past. (At the very least, the choice of going back to Jamie has been taken away from her when she very much could have walked back to Frank.)
It's a comfort to her that Jon stays as long as he does, and when he stands, she stands with him, smoothing her hands down her stomach as he offers to purchase a few goods for her. She manages a small smile at that, one that curves her mouth but doesn't reach her eyes. ]
Thank you, I will. I can't imagine there will be much, but I'll let you know.
[ It isn't as if she has to escort him out, but she leads him to the door anyway, and once they're both at the entrance, she looks at him again. ]
We'll see one another.
[ She reaches out to lightly squeeze his hand again, offering another small smile. She struggles for a moment to say goodbye, not because she is, but because she has to choose her words carefully, not too endearing or loving the way they once were. ]
[He wants to stay there, like a fool, holding her hand, but he is at the door, on the threshold, already resolved to leave. So he gives her hand one last squeeze and releases it.]
Good fortune, Claire.
[And then, after a deep inclination of his head and a moment's hesitation, he's gone: away from her little house, and not long after, away from the Horizon, back to his bed in Thorne.]
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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.]
no subject
Keeping her hand in his, Claire stands and moves around the table to the chair right beside him. Now her free hand is against his cheek, holding his face in her hand, a perfect fit. It's a gesture that feels so familiar, and she tries to soothe away his frown with her touch. ]
What do you want, Jon Snow?
[ She answers his question with a question of her own. Has he ever been asked that, ever been able to ponder the question and ultimately choose himself? The hand in his squeezes gently in encouragement, but she doesn't let her believe it will be as easy as a simple answer. She has hope, but it's hesitant. ]
no subject
So easy to live in this love, this moment. It could be the last, or it could be only one of many.
He opens his eyes, catches her gaze with his.]
You know what I want.
[You, for as long as I can have you.
He exhales, then adds,]
But I also don't want either of us to do something we'll regret.
I would be breaking faith with no one. You say you would not be: I want you to be sure. We have never touched each other in truth, but I remember every -- [Every inch of you, every breath.] Everything. There's a difference between something that fell on us and something we chose.
When I was a boy, I did not think I would ever marry. I had nothing to offer a wife and no reason to think I'd ever have funds to support a family. These last few years, now that things are different, I have known that I might have little choice in my bride. If I married, it would be for the North, not for who I wanted in my bed. Not for love of anything but my people, though it might be that love could grow.
But you and me -- this is a choice, now.
If we are lovers in truth, or more than that, we should be sure of it.
no subject
[ If that love was manufactured by the Singularity, then wouldn't it have dissipated along with everything else? She listens to him now and leans in to press her forehead to his tenderly, closing her eyes. Bringing their hands between them, she holds onto his hand with both of hers. They aren't married here, he's never been more correct that they have the opportunity to walk away cleanly. ]
I remember. Nights we talked out problems until sunrise, mornings we stayed lazily in bed mapping one another, the days of walks and exploring, solving problems together. I remember, and I'm sure. I want this, I want you.
[ Voicing it, these last three words especially, feels as though she's reaching for him across a gulf even though he's right in front of her. ]
I want this, I want you.
no subject
When he speaks, his voice is low, hardly above a whisper, and his lips are almost against hers.]
In Nocwich. I want to see you in the flesh. If we both still want it, if you haven't changed your mind, if I can know in my heart that I am with my own woman and not some other man's, we will see each other there.
[He ought to move to leave, as tempted as he is, but he doesn't. It had been hard not to call her his wife, but she is not, not right now.
Sitting here with her like this, nearly kissing her, almost holding her, it's a taste of what he wants. All that really stands between them now is his worry that this desire is wrong -- that giving in to it might dishonor them both. Even so, it's all right to stay a while longer... all right when it's a beginning, and all right, too, when it might be a farewell.
Isn't it?]
Before then, there's something I want you to know. A few years before they brought me here, there was a mutiny. My own men stabbed me -- I don't know how many times. I have scars, ugly things, all over my chest and my belly. You haven't seen them.
[In their hundreds of years together, his face had been scarred, lines over each eye that were faint or deep depending on the day, but his chest had been smooth and uninjured.]
no subject
That's fair, Jon.
[ She pulls back enough so that she can look at him, holding his gaze while her thumb grazes his cheek. ]
I'll agree to that.
[ For some reason she hadn't expected any other confessions, but the more Jon speaks, the tighter her lungs feel in her chest. Mutiny, stabbing, scars. One hand drifts to his chest, pressing there through layers to feel the muffled beating of his heart. ]
I remember listening to this at night. [ Her forehead creases in pain at the image her mind conjures, of Jon being brutally attacked, his blood pooling out of him. It makes her feel nauseous, but she swallows the emotion back. ] You think scars are going to mean anything to me other than you lived? [ She shakes her head, and this time, her forehead comes to rest on his shoulder, a hug that isn't one, not yet. ]
Why? Why did they do it?
no subject
It's a long story. I will tell you more of it some other day.
For now, it's enough to say that I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. The men choose their Lord Commander, and the vote had been a narrow thing. When I made... an alliance with an old enemy, to fight a worse one... some disagreed. It was our only chance, but some disagreed. They had not seen. They did not know what we would face.
[He is now trembling, but only a little.]
The word of the Lord Commander should be law, and once a man is made Lord Commander, he is Lord Commander for life.
Claire, I didn't live. [It's hard to say this, but if she ever sees the scar over his heart, she will know. No man could survive that wound.] I was dead and cold on a table for two days until a priestess brought me back. I don't remember anything, but believe me when I say I was dead in truth.
[This might go some way to explaining his insistence, even through the years of their marriage, that he was not a god, only a man. Back at Castle Black, in his last days there, he had had to insist on it.]
I only don't want the scars to surprise you.
no subject
Dead.
[ She repeats it slowly, thinking of those she knows who have told her if not for Abraxas, they would be dead. She thinks of vampires, of Louis, how death and the dead aren't what she'd come to believe. It's still difficult to wrap her mind around, that this man she loves was dead and could have been gone forever, might never have arrived here. Bending her head, she presses a very soft kiss to his knuckles, reassuring herself of his solidity and leaving behind a bit of dampness from a stray tear. He was hurt, murdered, and it makes her stomach ache. ]
I believe you, Jon.
[ She's straightened, looking at him again. She wants to pull him close, to love him, but she's made an agreement and she can only hope that in Nocwich, he'll let her take him in her arms. ]
no subject
Not much longer than a fortnight before they can go to Nocwich. If he doesn't leave here soon, there won't be a decision to be made; there will be only more kisses and more than that. And though he thinks he knows what his decision will be, and she likely knows from the things he has just said what it will be too, it would still be wise to take the time to be sure.
Even so, it is not easy to stand up and walk out a door right after such a confession as he has just made, so he does not. He takes a few slow, hard breaths, masters the trembling, masters the desire to linger here, holds her hand all the while.
Then he gives it a little squeeze and releases it. He places the flats of his hands on his thighs as if he's about to stand.]
I ought to be getting back. Send me your list of anything you need from the markets in Thorne; I have a little coin, as long as you can wait for them.
[Then he does push to his feet.]
Claire, one way or another -- whatever either of us decides -- we will see each other in Nocwich. All right?
no subject
It's a comfort to her that Jon stays as long as he does, and when he stands, she stands with him, smoothing her hands down her stomach as he offers to purchase a few goods for her. She manages a small smile at that, one that curves her mouth but doesn't reach her eyes. ]
Thank you, I will. I can't imagine there will be much, but I'll let you know.
[ It isn't as if she has to escort him out, but she leads him to the door anyway, and once they're both at the entrance, she looks at him again. ]
We'll see one another.
[ She reaches out to lightly squeeze his hand again, offering another small smile. She struggles for a moment to say goodbye, not because she is, but because she has to choose her words carefully, not too endearing or loving the way they once were. ]
Be safe, in the meantime.
no subject
Good fortune, Claire.
[And then, after a deep inclination of his head and a moment's hesitation, he's gone: away from her little house, and not long after, away from the Horizon, back to his bed in Thorne.]
[FIN.]