Chapter Text
They couldn't get enough of each other, it was like the days that followed their first time in the cave. Even when their bond had grown to its strongest point before, even when the ghosts of feelings had started to seep through their connection, it had never been as strong as it was then.
Jon's breath crystallized in the air as he huffed and panted, his body ached beautifully. They rolled apart and pulled their clothes back into place and he could feel everything. He could feel her heart beating faster, still fighting off the pleasure from the sex, he could feel it like it was beating in his own chest alongside his own heart. He could feel her happiness and joy, contented and full of love. Her emotions had become a part of him, it was something stronger than anything that had been recorded since a hundred years before the birth of the seven kingdoms. No longer just the ghost of something. It was so strong it was almost a physical thing.
"Remember what you said to me once?" Jon breathed as Ygritte drew him into her arms. He drew a gentle hand through her fiery hair and studied her face as if taking it in for the first time all over.
"You know nothing?" she smirked.
A smile pulled at his lips and he had never felt happier. She was there, the fur of her clothes creasing around his gloved hands, her breath was warm against his cheek and ear and her chest rose and fell against his own. She was so real, so so real. She was there with him, part of him. He felt whole, no longer an empty, broken shell. It was almost too good to be true. Yet it was true.
"You are mine and I am yours," he murmured, kissing her like he had wanted to every day since her death. "Remember that? I remember that."
"I remember," she whispered and he was almost shocked to see the tears running down her cheeks even though he could feel how overwhelmed she was through their strengthened bond.
***
They rode together through the gates, through the tunnel and back to Castle Black. Ygritte's arms were wrapped around Jon's waist, her breath hot on his neck and her legs bumping against his as the movement of the horse beneath them jostled them. Heads turned as they passed, free folk and Night's watchmen alike.
As they slid from the horse, Tormund, Ed, Davos, and Melisandre strode towards them through the thin layer of snow. Jon looked to them nervously as a stable boy took the horse away and the two were left facing the four.
Tormund carried on forward after the others stopped, drawing Ygritte to his chest. Jon watched as the two hugged fiercely before Ed came up to him.
"What are we going to do about the traitors then," he asked.
Thorne, Yarwyck, Marsh... Ollie. The two other brothers in black that he was too preoccupied to recognise. He knew what he had to do but the thought was less than savory. The thought of taking Ollie's life, a boy younger than Bran was... he didn't want to do it. He knew he had to though.
Ygritte seemed to get the turmoil inside him, pulling away from her friend and turning to Jon, it must have shown through their bond.
"Erect a gallows. Ser Alliser, Yarwyck, Marsh and Ollie will be hung tomorrow," Jon said in a low voice.
"As you wish Lord Commander," Ed dipped his head before hurrying off to carry out his task.
"Lord Commander?" Ygritte questioned with raised eyebrows.
Jon looked to her, his soulmate, and felt the lightness of reuniting fall away and the heaviness of everything around them return. Once again he felt older than he was, tired and sick of it all. He no longer wanted the Night's Watch, it held no allure anymore. Looking at her then, Jon realised that the vows he took those years ago no longer applied to him. His watch had ended. He had died, he had come back but he had still died.
Taking a deep breath he turned from them all and strode off, away from the noise and chaos of the courtyard. His cloak trailed behind him, the leather of his glove didn't stop the cold from numbing his fingers or making his soulmark tingle.
***
He was acutely aware of her presence in the crowd, they bond seeming to thrum with the tension building at his end. Jon couldn't look back at her though. This was his last action as Lord Commander but he still didn't want to seem weak.
Before him stood the three men and the boy with rope around their neck, each looking to him with a different expression. None of them seemed to feel the cold anymore, not with death inches away. Yarwyck and Marsh seemed afraid, Ollie took one look before staring at the ground while Thorne stared smugly right at him.
"If you have any last words now is the time," Jon said to the four, keeping his voice free from emotion.
"You shouldn't be alive, it's not right," Marsh's voice quaked slightly.
"Neither was killing me," Jon spat back, this time unable to keep the venom from his tone.
He gritted his teeth, concentrating on the biting cold to keep his mind on the task at hand rather than the bitter anger and hurt he felt towards his killers. Through the bond, he felt Ygritte trying to reassure him pushing the warmth of her love towards him. All it did was increase the weight on his heart, the mess of the world that she now had to live in.
Shaking away the feeling Jon moved until he was in front of Yarwyck. The man's lined face was tight with worry, trying too hard to hide the fear behind a calm, quiet and reasonable voice that quickly broke down to near tears.
"My mother's still living at Whiteharbour. Could you write, tell her I died fighting the wildlings?" he begged.
The words brought rage to Jon, he knew that it must show on his face but he did not care. The man before him had murdered him, had betrayed him and the Night's Watch and yet still asked Jon to give him honor.
Slowly he strode on across the wooden boards to face Ser Alliser, the man that had hated him since he first stepped foot into Castle Black. He looked up at the man and hated himself for still partly respecting the man even as he stood there with the noose around his neck, even as the words "for the Watch" rang in his head.
"I had a choice Lord Commander," Ser Alliser stated," betray you or betray the Night's Watch. You brought an army of wildlings into our lands. An army of murderers and raiders. If I had to do it all over knowing where I'd end up, I'd pray I'd make the right choice again."
"I'm sure you would Ser Alliser," Jon replied, he couldn't argue with that because at the end of the day, what the man did he didn't do out of his hatred of Jon Snow but for the actions of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He genuinely believed that Jon had betrayed them all.
"I fought. I lost. Now I rest. But you, Lord Snow, you'll be fighting their battles forever," Ser Alliser finished, looking away and up, striking Jon with how brave he really was.
After a moment, he moved on again until he stood in front of Ollie. It hurt to stand before the boy and he had to take a moment to even look at the boy as his chest constricted with the grief of what he was about to do. He had come to love the lad, taking him under his wing, training him, seeing the fiery strength of his personality and all the potential that came with that. Now he was there, after driving a knife through Jon's heart, the rope around his neck promising to take away all of that potential.
The boy said nothing to him, just glared down with pure anger and hatred shining in his young eyes. He huffed out a breath through his nose, his mouth held tightly shut as if he was afraid to open it. Jon couldn't help the sadness that he felt as he looked up at the boy but as it became obvious that he wasn't going to say anything, he gave a small nod before looking away.
As he walked away, he drew his sword, the rasp of metal ringing through the silent courtyard only to be devoured by the layer of snow that covered every surface. His heart beat faster as he walked up to the rope with Longclaw clasped in his gloved hand and there he hesitated. He felt his resolve falter for a moment before Ygritte pushed against his soul through their bond, wrapping herself around him, comforting, reassuring him.
He swung Longclaw up and then down through the rope, listening to the clatter of barrels behind him then the snap as ropes tightened and finally the gurgling of dying men. He turned to watch as the three men and the boy writhed and twitched until finally they were still and the only sound was the creaking of rope rubbing against wood. The faces of the former men of the Nights Watch were swollen and blue, lips parted as they tried to suck in a last desperate gulp of air.
Jon sheathed his sword again, his heart heavy. He strode over to Ed who stood stiffly with his hands behind his back.
"We should burn the bodies," he stated, not quite looking at Jon.
"You should," Jon told him and then Ed looked at him.
Jon shed his cloak then, handing it solemnly to his friend while focusing on the feeling of Ygritte in the back of his mind.
"What do you want me to do with this?" Jon's friend asked.
"Wear it, burn it, whatever you want. You have Castle Black," Jon told the other, watching Ed's face fall before he strode off.
Swiftly he took off down the wooden steps, not looking back as men of the Nights Watch and free folk alike parted for him.
"My Watch is over."