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Jon learns that you’re a fighter—always have been. And it shows.
There’s a scar that begins beneath your left eye, stretches across your cheek, and reaches the angle of your jaw. You had it before Jon had even met you the day you rode into Winterfell wearing a black cloak and riding a white horse. The lesion is deep, red, angry. It’s the first thing he and Robb and all the rest of them notice when they formally greet you and the rest of your family. He figures you’re used to the stares because you don’t shy away. In fact, you seem the tiniest bit annoyed. He’s quick to notice that and immediately regrets looking so enamored.
But he can’t help it because the next thing to cross his mind is that he doesn’t recall knowing any woman engaging in combat the way your father says that you do. You hunt, learn with all the other men about how to fight; you get roughed up and have proof permanently etched into your skin of what beasts you’ve faced. Jon learns that there is always a broadsword at your side and daggers in your boots. He learns that your fingers twitch when you’re anticipating a fight, itching as you are to draw your weapon and dive right into the action. He learns the way you move, the smoothness of your swings and the fluidity of your parries because he is right there fighting alongside you.
He learns to be himself around you, to open himself up, which is a frightening venture to begin with. It’s more intimidating than anything he’s every done before. There’s always been Robb, the ear always willing to listen. But he hadn’t heard everything, because for as close as the two of them are, Jon doesn’t want to be completely truthful. Being so might create a rift, an unfixable gap forever changing the climate of their relationship. And in a kingdom where he barely fits in to begin with, Jon doesn’t want to risk ruining any good relationships he has.
It’s exactly that issue that never reaches Robb. Jon is, to be quite honest, bitter about the situation he finds himself in, as the subject of Catelyn Stark’s resentment. For her, he is the symbol of her husband’s infidelity. He suffers for actions that weren’t his own, for circumstances over which he had no control. It makes him angry, it makes him sad, it makes him hurt. But he learns to push those feelings off to the side because there isn’t time for weakness in those who fight, in those who live and breathe the hunt.
He thinks he’s doing a good job of forgetting those sequestered feelings. For a long time it’s just him and his sword and his thirst for victory, motivated by Robb and you, who both make formidable opponents when training. The three of you can be awfully competitive, no one can deny that. It’s easy to forget he feels anything at all when he’s out of breath and sore and the moment he falls into bed he’s out like a light, giving himself no time in the darkness to reflect. And he likes it that way.
But one day your father doesn’t return from his latest hunt alive, and Jon sees you break. You barely have the strength to keep your composure when you receive the news, but when you’re in private, hidden away in the library and curled up in the corner, there are tears and Jon feels things again but he feels them for you. He is angry, sad, hurt. All for you. And he sits with you, with one of the greatest fighters he thinks he’s ever known, as you crumble into a tiny million pieces in his arms, no matter how gently he holds you. He learns he doesn’t have to be tough as stone all the time. He can be vulnerable because you are there to listen to whatever he wishes to share.
You don’t see him differently for being a bastard. You don’t see him as Jon Snow. You see him as Jon, a good man and an even better friend. You keep secret the things he gains the strength to tell you, the most personal of which is his feelings about being illegitimate, and it’s only you whom he shares it with. He tells you he wishes life were different, that he doesn’t care if he weren’t born to a lord. He hates the name Snow, a simple surname which means so much and which will follow him for as long as he lives. You tell him he is more than a name, that one day he will be so great that others no longer pay mind to it. They will see a warrior whose illegitimacy is irrelevant because he is good and honorable and it is traits such as these which determine the true value of a man.
He knows you’re not just saying those words to make him feel better. When he looks you in the eyes he knows you mean it. And he loves you all the more for it. So much so that when he has to go to the Wall, his heart cracks, and when he sees the shock and confusion in your eyes at learning this, the crack grows, until it splits his heart in two. It’s painful to be the cause of the tears that pool in your eyes when you truly take in what this means, because Winterfell will never be the same. Your father left you and Jon couldn’t possibly leave you too. But he must.
“Don’t forget about me,” you whisper because you can’t bring yourself to talk out loud, for if you do, you might let out a choked sob.
Jon smiles slightly and he also talks in a whisper because he has the same concern. “I could never forget about you.” He cradles your face in his hands, runs his thumb along your scar, feels the dip in the skin. You set your hand over his own which effectively stops the movement and you’ve mustered up a smile. It’s never been said out loud in the years you’ve known each other, but you know Jon loves that scar. He met you after you’d obtained it, and he can’t imagine you looking any other way. He thinks it strange to even try to think of how you might look without it. So he doesn't linger on the thought for long.
The kiss he first gives you is slow and cautious and he basks in the feeling of your lips. He memorizes the curve of your waist and the softness of your skin and the way your eyes glow in the dim light of his room. Your gaze is half-lidded and hazy and he wants to kiss you until you’re breathless because you are a woman who can drown oceans. His heart squeezes because he loves you so much—a phrase he mutters with every pass of his lips over your skin—and because he has to leave, though he wishes he never had to. He also wishes the night can last forever. He doesn’t get that either.
Come morning, Robb notices something is different almost immediately. He eyes Jon suspiciously but said boy is unaware of the close scrutinization. Then Robb’s lips twitch, for he is unable to contain his small smirk, as he speaks up in a search for confirmation.
“You have that look.”
Jon looks up from polishing his sword to look at his half-brother, an eyebrow raised in genuine confusion. “What look?”
“You’re in love.”
Jon doesn’t respond right away, but that in and of itself tells Robb all he needs to know. Still nothing is said, and the raven-haired boy is trying to quell a blush but with no success. It’s Robb who interrupts the silence again.
“How does it feel? To be in love?”
Jon continues to try to look uninterested as he brandishes his sword and studies it for any imperfections, but he’s considering the query. On the flat side of the sword he catches his reflection, which he stares at for a few moments. He then sets the weapon back down carefully on the wooden table and sighs, his eyes trained on the far side of the courtyard at nothing in particular as he tries to piece together his thoughts. Which is difficult, because how do you give feelings words? How do you make the abstract into something concrete? “It feels… It feels like everything I’d ever lost came back to me.”
He hopes he makes sense. Based on the way Robb nods wordlessly and smiles, he concludes that he has.
It’s years down the road when Jon finally sees you again. He sends a raven and he honestly isn’t expecting anything to come of it, but then you’re riding into Winterfell again, and warmth blooms in his chest at your familiar form. He meets you in the courtyard. This time there’s a second scar on your face. It’s on your right eye, a vertical gash starting on your forehead and continuing beneath your eye until it comes to a stop in the middle of your cheek. But when he sees you again up close it’s not what he’s looking at. Your eyes are warm and welcoming and they grab his attention entirely.
You lunge forward and wrap your arms tightly around him. He wraps his own arms around you and he closes his eyes because this was never meant to happen. You were never meant to see each other again, yet here he is, here you are. He learns the impossible can be made possible, and he never wants to let go of you because he thinks that if he does, you’ll disappear. It’s easy to ignore the curious stares of the others in the courtyard. You are his sole focus.
The two of you sit alone in the throne room while you eat. You’d actually eaten before arriving, but Jon had the cook make one of your favorite meals from when you were in Winterfell with him and Robb, and the smell of it made you hungry all over again. You swap stories of your endeavors until long after you finish eating and it’s dark enough outside that Jon has to light candles. No one comes to interrupt. Based on the earlier reunion, Jon had no need to tell them that the two of you wanted to be on your own for a while.
“You’ve got another one.” Jon points to his right eye, showing that he’s talking about your new scar.
You chuckle. “It felt imbalanced just to have the one,” you joke.
“I like it.”
“Thanks.” You then eye him playfully. “And I see you’ve managed to tame that mane of yours a bit.”
It’s Jon’s turn to laugh. You did always like to tease him about the unruly state of his hair. “Can’t command an army if I can’t see them.”
“No, you can’t.” You laugh as well. It’s a sound that’s been sorely missed.
You amble down the corridors late in the night, when you’re too tired to tell another story. That could wait for morning. Jon walks you to one of the guest rooms and opens the door for you. You peak inside and smile as you glance up at him. “Thanks.”
Jon nods, then smiles a little. “I missed you.”
The smile you grace him with is fond. “I missed you too, Jon.” It’s a hushed sentence, as though someone might hear, even though it’s late enough that there is no one awake.
There’s another bout of silence, and Jon almost wants to let you alone, but something tells him not to, to voice what he’d been thinking, been wanting, the entire walk over here. “Stay with me tonight.”
You don’t say anything right away and he wonders if he made a mistake. Neither of you had addressed where the two of you were in your relationship since you arrived. Your reunion had been as good friends, for that is what you are before all else. But he still loves you, a sentiment that had never faded when he was at the Wall because it is the image of you which kept him warm in spite of the ruthless northern chill. He hopes you still love him, and he knows you do when you smile again. He doesn’t miss the impish look in your eye.
“Just tonight?”
Jon smiles and shakes his head. “Okay, I said that wrong. Stay with me.”
You hold out your hand for him to take as he leads you to his bedroom. “Always.”
Jon doesn’t fall asleep right away. You, on the other hand, had passed out immediately, tired from your recent activities and from the day you’d spent traveling here. The presence of you next to him in his bed feels so perfect, so normal, that it’s almost as if no time has passed since the last time you’d seen each other
He brushes the stray strands of hair away from your face and is met with those scars again. He runs his thumb along the length of the left one, and at the sensation, your nose scrunches and you cuddle closer. He leans forward slightly to kiss your forehead before he closes his eyes and allows sleep to take him as well.
Jon’s known many men who hope to find their heart within the walls of a city, up in high towers, in a room with a balcony upon which to watch the sun rise and set. He finds his own heart at his side, wielding a broadsword and donning scars like trophies.