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Chapter Text

White flecks fall on them as the wind carries ash and snow alike. Jeyne tugs her furs tighter about her, sniffling as she stares into the flames. When she feels his gaze on her, she lifts her eyes to his and offers a small, shy smile. She’s been smiling more since they came to Stannis’s camp. Since Theon introduced her as Jeyne Poole, not Arya Stark.

He’d still called himself Reek, and Asha had had the presence of mind to go along with the lie. Theon Greyjoy is a wanted traitor, but Reek is no one. Reek was Ramsay Bolton’s servant, and his request to take Jeyne and sail for Braavos on Tycho Nestoris’s ship was easily granted. Stannis had no need of a servant with finger stubs and splintered teeth, nor a steward’s daughter with broken ribs. They were only a hindrance, if anything, and he was well rid of them by foisting them off on the Iron Banker.

They’ll live a new life in Braavos, the kind they had only been able to dream about in Winterfell.

You could be my man , Jeyne had said. He will be her man, and she will be his woman, and they’ll have each other always. Ramsay will never find them in Essos. No one will.

“What is it?” she asks, cheeks flushed with warmth from the fire.

He shakes his head, trying to form the words. “Are you...warm?”

She nods. “Yes.”

He puts his arm about her anyway, drawing her against his side. He doesn’t know what warmth his skin and bones can offer, but whatever he has, he’ll give it to her. He’ll give her anything and everything he can.

Chapter Text

Theon stirs from his sleep, eyes blinking in the darkness of the cabin. A candle is still burning by the bedside, and when his eyes adjust, he sees that Jeyne’s brow is furrowed. Her lips move, soft mumbles spilling from her lips. So that was what woke him up.

“Hush,” he whispers, stroking the hair from her face--and sitting up.

She’s burning hot to the touch.

“Jeyne?” he says, louder.

She shakes her head, furrow deepening.

He gives her a small shake, his heart pounding.

“Don’t,” she whimpers, burrowing under the furs.

“Jeyne, you’ve got a fever.”

She mumbles something incomprehensible.

He gets up, reaching for the water pitcher. He wets the cloth hanging on the bowl and presses it to Jeyne’s forehead, trying to alleviate the fever. The furrow in her brow smooths as the cold cloth touches her skin. Slowly, her eyes flutter open.

“Theon,” she murmurs. “I’m so cold.”

He smooths the furs over her shoulders. “I’m going to take care of you, Jeyne. I promise.”

Her eyes close, and on her lips is a faint smile.

.

Theon tends to her day and night, cooling her brow with the washcloth and feeding her broth when she can stomach it. She’s weak as a newborn kitten, her limbs heavy and eyes glassy. He piles blankets and furs on her, trying to sweat the fever from her.

But Jeyne only gets worse.

.

“She isn’t long for this world,” Justin Massey says regretfully.

“There’s got to be a way,” Theon pleads. “She can’t have survived everything she has only to die here, like this!”

“I’m sorry,” Justin says. “There’s no maester onboard--all we can do is pray to the gods.”

But they’re miles away from Jeyne’s gods, the old gods. And the Drowned God…

He won’t listen to Theon’s prayers. He hasn’t listened in a long time.

.

Theon wakes when something touches his head. He lifts his head, blinking. Jeyne is looking at him, her face pale but smiling.

“Jeyne,” he murmurs, sitting up. He touches her face, sighing in relief. The fever’s gone.

“That’s twice now you’ve saved me.” She strokes his cheek, smile widening.

“You saved me first,” he says, cupping her hand with his.

Above, they hear shouting.

“What is it?” she asks, half-rising from where she’s reclined on the bed.

“I don’t know.” He gets up, poking his head out the door. Justin Massey is passing, but he stops when Theon calls to him. “What’s happening?”

“The Titan of Braavos--come and see.”

Theon goes back to the bed. “We’re near Braavos.”

“Can I see?” she asks, pushing herself up.

He wraps her in his cloak and lifts her in his arms, carrying her out of the cabin and up the steps. They both blink in the sunlight, unused to it after several days in a dark cabin. Sure enough, an enormous statue of a man raising a sword looms over the horizon, and beyond him, a city.

“Braavos,” Jeyne breathes. “We’re here.”

“We’re here,” he agrees. And may they never need a reason to go back.

Chapter Text

Winter has come to Westeros, but in Essos, it still feels like summer.

Jeyne finds work in a mummer’s troupe, patching up torn costumes and building new ones. She likes the work, and the colorful mummers. Theon catches her in the wings most days, watching with a broad grin as they take the stage.

As for him, Theon finds work on a fishing boat catching oysters, mussels, cockles, and clams. They sell them to girls with carts, who push them through the city and shout their wares.

It’s easy enough work, and it pays decently. His wages combined with Jeyne’s allow them to rent out a room in Silty Town. They sleep on a straw pallet on the floor, covering themselves with faded quilts purchased second-hand. It’s not a grand life, but they are safe here, and they sleep all the more soundly for it.

“What do you think will happen to everyone in Westeros?” she asks quietly one night when they lie curled beside each other, the fire all the warmer for the wind rattling the shutters outside.

“Everyone?”

“Do you think Stannis will be king? Do you think the Boltons will hold Winterfell forever?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” he confirms. “I don’t think Stannis will be king and I don’t think the Boltons will hold Winterfell forever.”

“What do you think will happen?” she presses.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t care. All I care about is you.”

She smiles prettily, and then she does something very unexpected.

She kisses him.

It’s a chaste kiss, more a brush of the lips than anything, but it’s a kiss all the same, and it steals his very breath away.

Chapter Text

They furnish the room in Silty Town bit by bit; a table here, chairs there. A cupboard that they slowly fill with mismatched cups and plates. The best, though, is the bed. It’s a real bed, not a straw pallet on the floor, and they cover it with linen sheets and thick furs to warm them as the city gets colder.

He’s walking home from his fishing boat one afternoon, his wages jingling in his purse, when a silk merchant’s stall catches his eye. He stops, turning to look at the merchant’s wares. He has a number of dresses hanging up for display, but the one that Theon’s eye keeps wandering to is the one in blue and silver. He’d seen Jeyne wear those colors many times in Winterfell. How much better they’d look on her than the droll grey dress she’d worn here.

He feels his purse, and knowing there’s enough bread and cheese in the cupboard, he buys it. The merchant wraps it in paper and ties it with string, smiling knowingly as he hands it to Theon.

When was the last time he’d bought a gift for a woman? He can’t remember. Perhaps he never had. The old Theon had not been kind to women. Oh he’d liked them, of course, perhaps too much, but he hadn’t been kind to them. He’d flirted with the pretty ones and fucked the willing ones and smiled knowingly at all the rest.

He hasn’t smiled in years. He’s afraid to, his teeth being what they are. And flirting and fucking...those days are well behind him.

If you’d told the old Theon that he’d be buying a silk dress for a woman he wasn’t fucking, he’d have laughed outright. He’d have said something about how good could a cunny really be, or why buy clothes for a woman when you were just going to rip them off her?

But he isn’t going to rip the clothes off Jeyne, or go near her cunny--not unless she asks, and he doubts very much she will. He wants to clothe her and feed her and keep her safe and warm and happy.

.

“Oh, Theon,” she murmurs when she unwraps the parcel. “It’s beautiful .”

“Just like you,” he says, his tongue feeling clumsy and sluggish. How had the old Theon flirted so easily?

She bites her lip, a flush spreading over her cheeks. “You’re good to me,” she says softly.

He doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t she know she deserves good things? Doesn’t she know he’d clothe her in nothing but silks if he could?

She strokes his cheek. “Help me put it on?”

She doesn’t need help, not really, but his stiff fingers unlace her grey wool dress and pull the blue and silver silk one over her head. She smooths the fabric over her body, patting her hair self-consciously.

“How does it look?” she asks, turning this way and that to see.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her earnestly.

Her cheeks flush with pleasure.

I was never beautiful like Sansa, but they all said I was pretty.

“I’ll buy you a looking glass,” he offers. “So you can see for yourself.”

“You’ll spoil me, my lord,” she teases.

“You deserve it. You deserve more than I can give you.”

She crosses to him, resting her hand over his heart. “You care for me better than anyone has ever cared for me before. I love you, Theon, and I want no one but you.”

His throat feels dry. “You love me?”

“I do.” She kisses him, her lips soft and sweet against his.

He reaches down and lifts her, carrying her to the bed and laying her down on the furs. She beams up at him, and oh, what has he done to deserve this? This beautiful, wonderful, perfect woman.

Chapter Text

Outside, the drunken laughter of sailors and whores floats down the street, seeping into the cracks in the shutters. Jeyne stirs, moving closer to Theon.

“Do you remember Old Nan’s stories?” she asks softly, her breath soft against his cheek.

“How could I forget?” he mumbles. He pitches his voice in his best imitation of the old crone. “‘Fear is for the winter, and the Long Night.’”

“I was so afraid when she first told me about the Long Night,” she murmurs, her foot running absentmindedly up and down his leg. “I used to walk around at night and try to imagine if it was like that all the time.” She’s quiet for a long moment. “She told me the Long Night would come again. I wanted to be ready.”

“I never knew that,” he says, surprised.

She shakes her head. “I stopped being afraid as I got older. I realized she was just trying to scare us.”

“She was good at that,” he remembers.

“Were you ever afraid of her stories?”

“I was too old by the time I came to Winterfell. But I remember the others, who were still young enough to believe her stories. Jon had nightmares for weeks when she told him about the ice spiders.”

“I wonder what happened to her,” Jeyne says softly. “She wasn’t at Winterfell when I...when I came back.”

“She was taken captive at the Dreadfort,” he says, tracing her shoulder through the furs. “That’s the last I heard of her.” He doesn’t say what they’re both thinking, that even if the Boltons hadn’t flayed her, there’s a slim chance a woman that old could survive the Dreadfort that long.

“So many people are gone,” she murmurs. “The Starks. Old Nan. Septa Mordane. Hodor. Mikken. My family.” Her voice tightens. “Sometimes it feels like I died, too. It’s like I’m a different person.”

“I know. It feels that way for me, too.” He strokes her cheek. “I think maybe some part of us did die, and new people rose from the ashes.”

“What is dead may never die,” she says, her lips quirking in a small smile.

“But rises again, harder and stronger.”

Chapter Text

There’s a Dornish vessel in the harbor when the fishing boat comes back.

“What news from Dorne?” one of the men on Theon’s boat calls as they draw nearer.

“The same as in all the Seven Kingdoms--war,” one of the Dornishmen calls back. “Stannis Baratheon has joined with the Night’s Watch to overthrow the Boltons and take the Iron Throne from the Lannisters--or what’s left of them. Our own Prince Doran’s daughter tried to put little Princess Myrcella on the throne. And word has it that all the Dothraki have united under Daenerys Targaryen, and now she means to sail the Narrow Sea with them and her Unsullied to claim the Iron Throne for herself.”

“Those Westerosi,” the Braavosi says, shaking his head.

Aye, thinks Theon: those Westerosi. They sound as distant to him as if he had never lived in that country, as if Stannis Baratheon and the Boltons and the Lannisters are figures in a song and not real people.

“And that’s not all,” the Dornishman goes on. “We hear there are white walkers beyond the Wall.”

“White walkers!” the Braavosi exclaims. “How do you like that?”

White walkers, just like in Old Nan’s tales. Are they real? Or is this another story, one meant to frighten all who hear it?

He wonders whether he ought to tell Jeyne what he’s heard. He doesn’t like keeping things from her, but won’t it upset her if she hears about her old home? Won’t it upset her to hear about these people she knew?

.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to say anything at all.

“Did you hear about the Dornish plot to put Princess Myrcella on the throne?” Jeyne asks when she gets home, hanging her shawl on its hook. “They think Myrcella ought to inherit before Tommen because women can rule in Dorne and she’s older than him. Not that it matters; Daenerys Targaryen is supposed to be sailing for Westeros, and if she doesn’t destroy the Lannisters, the white walkers will.”

“Does it bother you?” he asks. “To hear about...to hear about home?”

She shrugs. “Not really. I miss it, sometimes, but everyone and everything that I miss are gone. This is my home now. Here, in Braavos, with you.”

He kisses her forehead. “You don’t mind it here?”

“I’m happy here, and safe, and I have you.” She kisses his chin. “What more could I need?”

“Lots of things,” he says before he can stop himself. “A bigger house. A man who can take care of you and keep you like a proper lady. A child.”

“We won’t live in this room forever,” she says gently. “And you do take care of me. And as for a child…” She shakes her head. “There are plenty of orphans out there who need a home. We can have a child, if that’s what you want. But for now, all I want or need is you.”

“If that ever changes, I want you to tell me. I want you to have everything you want,” he says seriously.

“There is one thing I want,” she says shyly. “But if you didn’t want it, I’d understand.”

“Anything.” He takes her hands in his. “Tell me.”

Chapter Text

There is no godswood on the Isle of the Gods, nor are there any drowned men. They settle for the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea, where Theon removes the cloak from her shoulders, on which she’d embroidered House Poole’s blue plate, and wraps her in a black cloak stitched with the Greyjoy kraken.

Two septas are their witnesses, stern-faced old women who watch as the septon marries them in the sight of gods and men. They pledge themselves to one another from this day until the end of their days, and then they seal it with a kiss.

“Jeyne Greyjoy,” Theon murmurs when they leave the sept.

“I’m a proper lady now,” she teases with a smile.

“My father was a king,” he teases back. “Which I suppose makes you a princess.”

“Princess Jeyne Greyjoy,” she murmurs. “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Come along, my princess,” he says, lifting her into his arms. “Let’s go back to our palace.”

She smiles at him and touches his cheek. She remembers her wedding to Ramsay and the horrible wedding night that had followed. She remembers leaping from the battlements of Winterfell and Theon landing on top of her. She remembers the way he’d carried her through the woods, all the way to Stannis’s camp. She remembers the way he’d tended her fever on the voyage to Braavos, how he’d used his wages to buy a silk dress for her, how he’d agreed to marry her in the sight of gods and men. There is nothing Theon wouldn’t do for her, and there is nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

“I love you, Theon Greyjoy,” she tells him tenderly. “Now and always.”

“And I love you, my princess.” He smiles, and for a moment, he looks so like his old self that it makes her heart leap. “Now and always.”