Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be an easy side job, is the thing. Land on Castamere, get the orb, get out of there before the Night Corps figure out that he's landed on an abandoned and possibly condemned planet, hotfoot it back to Xandar and an impatient Petyr Pimple and try not to get eaten along the way, and then roll around in the credits.

You know. Simple.

But then, Theon's never been one for the easy jobs. If he were, he wouldn't be here right now, held at gunpoint (and swordpoint) by Kree thugs, that lovely little orb that he's currently risking his life for held firmly in his hand.

But flarking hell, sometimes he wishes he were.

"Who are you?" the head Kree thug snarls, a slight lisp to his words. He's thin, gaunt, with a long and black beard and a general look that just screams please put me away in jail forever, and days like these Theon hates his life, really. "And what do you want with that orb?"

"Well, I don't want it," Theon says, cheerfully, "but a client of mine does. You know how it is in the business." He grins, showing teeth, and says, "And as for who I am? I'm Star-Lord."

There's a long silence. Then: "Who?" the head thug asks, confused.

Dammit, he thinks viciously. "Star-Lord!" he says. "You know, the legendary outlaw? The man who broke into the impenetrable vault of Xaro Xhoan Ducksauce of Pentos and got away with it? Me?"

"I've never heard of a Thtar-Lord," the thug says. "But that maketh no matter here. Drop the orb."

Theon huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, right, sure--"

Something sharp presses into his back, and Theon thinks suddenly of old Suggs, and the messy, messy clean-up after he'd gotten his dumb ass cut in half. "All right, jeez, quit poking me, Ninja Turtle," he mutters, bending down to place the orb on the floor. "Here you go."

The thug beams, beams at him, and wow, he needs to clean his teeth more often. "Good," he says, and picks up the orb.

Theon moves, spinning and kicking weapons out of the thugs' hands, a hand waving over his ear to activate his mask, and he presses a small button on his belt as he ducks down and sweeps the next thug's feet out from under him.

There's a hissing sound, and smoke starts escaping from the fake orb.

The head Kree thug screams, something that sounds vaguely like Get that bathtard!, but by then Theon's running, cursing at the rain (thankfully not acidic, or he'd have a lot more to worry about than just getting to Space Bitch with all his parts intact) and trading shots with his pursuers. He vaults over a jutting stone, tosses off another smoke bomb, and runs flat-out for the small ship he's been calling his own for the past three years.

He pulls the hatch down, swings himself up into the cockpit, and launches off with a mad laugh.

Then the fucking geyser he parked his ship above suddenly bursts, blasting Space Bitch up and up by the sheer force of the water, and he swears viciously. Again. He's got to get out of this geyser and into the atmosphere right the hell now.

"You will regret thith! Bolton will not thow you any merthy!" he can hear the Kree thug scream. "You will be thkinned!"

Right. If he doesn't get out of here right now, he's very, very fucked.

Waters, if the hyperdrive doesn't work my ghost is going to haunt you forever, he thinks, then he hits hyperdrive.

The ship shakes, and then warps away, and it's all Theon can do to hold on to the wheel and try to maneuver the damn thing so he doesn't accidentally hit an asteroid on the way out.

The second he drops out of hyperdrive, he laughs once more, the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

He hears a groan, then, and someone pushing on the door, before: "Ugh, Zeon, what waz zat all about?"

He doesn't bother to correct the mispronunciation. Zarnikons can't pronounce the "s" or "th" sound, owing to their unique and very talented tongues, like this guy’s, and instead of correcting zir, Theon just swivels around in his chair. "Oh, uh, hey..." he trails off.

"Dolloz," ze says, zir tone chiding. "You forgot my name and to drop me off. You are not a good bedmate."

Theon coughs. "All right," he mutters, "I'll drop you off. Christ."

"What waz zat lazt part?"

"Nothing."

Dolloz eyes him with some disdain, and then says, "I'm going back to zleep. If I am woken again zen I will make you pay dearly for it." Then ze disappears beneath the hatch, and fifteen minutes later a rumbling noise starts up. Theon sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose and starts plotting a route.

Right. Zarnik first. Then Xandar.

And that's if Stannis doesn't find him and skin him first.

--

So here's the thing: space is a lot cooler than eleven-year-old Theon Greyjoy could have ever imagined. He has adventures, loot, a good and faithful ship that'll take him wherever he wants, even a crew he can rely on sometimes, for all that a lot of them want to roast him as a sacrifice to R'hllor.

And, hell, it only took being abducted just twenty minutes after his mother's death to get there.

(He still has her mixtape, still listens to it as he pilots his way through the stars. He still has her last present, unopened still after twenty-one years, lying in a drawer in his ship.

They're his last ties to her, his last threads to his family on Earth--to her and Asha and Uncle Rodrik, to the sea and to home.)

--

"Theon," Davos says, looking very disappointed over a holoscreen, "what are you doing?"

"You keep saying I've got to strike out on my own at some point, yeah?" He holds the orb up for Davos to see. "Tada. I struck gold!"

"And risked your life on top of that," Davos says, "and called attention to yourself. And therefore us," he adds as an afterthought. Theon can't help but smile--for a smuggler, Davos cares about every single member of his and Stannis' crew, even their crazy priestess who likes burning people, though that's a more reluctant sort of caring brought on by long amounts of proximity. Cares, even, about their hostage-turned-mascot-turned-fully-fledged member. "The Night Corps will come down on you, Theon. They might come down on the other Ravagers, and Stannis is wroth about that."

"Stannis is wroth about everything," Theon grumbles. "Gendry gets ten thousand less than he expected off that obviously fake jewel, Stannis gets wroth at him. Broth is saltier than usual, Stannis gets wroth at it and the cook. I hit a huge score, Stannis is wroth at me and Mel starts piling up the firewood. When's he not wroth?"

Davos chuckles. "You know as well as I do," he says. "Still--if you insist on this, then you know you can't count on our support." He sounds regretful about that, but Theon knew that, when he accepted the job without letting either of them know. "We won't be able to bail you out of jail, as per our agreement with the Night Corps."

"Relax, Seaworth," Theon says. "I won't get caught."

Davos gives him a long look, and says, "That's the same thing I said before I got caught."

Theon winces, a little. Davos has told him and the other crew members, quite a few times, about when he got caught smuggling and got his fingers shortened for it.

"Don't worry," he says, giving Davos a confident smile. "I'm not you. I'll be just fine."

"As you say," Davos sighs. "Still. Be careful."

And with that encouraging note, he reaches out a gloved hand, and the hologram flickers off. Theon sighs, leans back in his chair, and looks out at the stars.

How many roads must a man walk down, Bob Dylan sings, before you call him a man?

"Question of the century, Bob," Theon mutters.

--

He doesn't get his credits. The second he mentions the name Bolton, Petyr Pimple's eyes grow as wide as saucers, and before he knows it the asshole's pushed the orb back into his hands and started shoving him out, ignoring his protests.

"Sorry, sorry," Pimple says, in a way that makes Theon think he's more relieved than sorry, "can't accept, you understand, just business, some things are so valuable--"

"What the hell are you on about--"

"Goodbyeandnevercomeback!" Petyr near-shrieks, pushing him out the door and slamming the shutters closed.

Theon huffs out a breath, then throws the orb in the air and catches it again. "Fine," he shouts at the door, "I'll find another buyer! One who'll follow through on his deals!" He kicks at the door. "Never trust a Frey," he spits, stuffing the orb back into his pocket.

"What made you think you could trust that one in the first place?" someone asks, and Theon turns, about to yell, and stops. "Someone with a bearing as honorable as yours, I'd think you'd have taken your business anywhere but here."

There's a young man, leaning against one of the pillars to Petyr's hidey-hole pawnshop with a blue apple in his hand, river-blue eyes glancing Theon up and down. He pushes himself up off the pillar, bites down on the apple, and walks up to Theon.

Theon briefly entertains visions of kissing those lips till they're swollen and tracing those funny markings around the man's eyes, pulling on that red, red hair. He coughs, shifts his balance, and wills himself to think about Stannis naked just so his pants stop being so tight.

"A lapse in judgment, mayhaps," he says. "I've been known to have those. Theon Greyjoy, also known as Star-Lord." He gives a lazy wave, and smiles his most charming smile. "What's someone like you doing here, anyway? Seems to me you're a little lost."

"I'm Robb," the man says, "and I'm exactly where I need to be."

Theon turns to Petyr's shop, still closed and shuttered. Every so often he can see Petyr peeking out, as if checking to make sure he's left the premises. "Well, Pimple's just closed up shop, so you're shit--" out of luck, he means to finish, but then something hits the back of his head. Hard.

What the fuck, he dazedly thinks, whipping around and going for his trapping gun, but Robb is quick, kicks him between the legs hard enough that Theon drops his gun, then he draws a knife. There's a gleam of silver, and Theon hears the rip of fabric, and before he knows it Robb is running off with the orb.

"You son of a flarking bitch," Theon screams, his voice pitched slightly higher than normal, "I stole that first!" He grabs his gun, gets to his feet, starts running, and pulls the trigger, and watches with vindictive satisfaction as the net spins and catches Robb's legs, tangling itself around his ankles and tripping him up.

Ha, he thinks, point to Star-Lord, asshat.

Then he feels another, more powerful force knock him back from behind.

--

AN HOUR EARLIER.

"Are we done here yet?" Arya grumbles.

"Not yet," Sansa says, scrolling through the tablet's contents and making a face. "This Theon Greyjoy's worth a few thousand credits, Arya. And the contact said he'd be here."

"The contact's a Frey," Arya points out.

"You can't judge someone on where they come from alone," Sansa admonishes her. They're standing in the middle of the plaza, waiting for a wanted criminal to step into sight, and in the meantime Arya's watching the crowd. It's a habit Sansa hasn't quite gotten her to get rid of yet, but it's a useful one, so she lets it be.

No one pays attention to either of them, which means the disguises are a success. All anyone will see when they look at them are Alayne Stone and Nymeria "Nan" Salt, tourists and cousins, instead of Sansa and Arya Stark, bounty hunters and sisters, the last of Winterfell.

"He hasn't shown up in hours," Arya complains.

"He will," Sansa says. "He's a Ravager, they're known for keeping their appointments. Stannis Baratheon is strict on that."

"Oh, so we're tracking down a Ravager? Great," Arya says, sarcasm coating her every word. Sansa sighs, and tries to rein in her instinct to snap at Arya. "Seaworth is going to string us up if he finds us."

"Not really, no," Sansa says. "Listen, look--"

"I'm listening and I'm looking."

"You know what I mean," she huffs. "Greyjoy's apparently broken off and struck out on his own for this one. He pissed off the Night Corps going to a Class-V planet and stealing an artifact from there, and the Ravagers can't help him now." She holds the tablet up, searching through the crowd.

Arya leans on her shoulder. "Too old," she dismissively says. "Too young, too girl, too tall, too short--oh my gods who even wears that in this weather."

They watch a young woman stroll past, clad in winter furs, all four arms engaged in something as a six-legged furry beige creature runs alongside it. It's hot out, and Sansa finds herself wondering what on earth possessed the woman to go out dressed like that.

You don't know, she tells herself, and returns to the tablet, still scanning the crowd. 20% match, 5% match, 17% match--

"Ha!" she crows out loud, attracting the four-armed and befurred woman's attention. "Sorry," she says, and the woman huffs and moves on.

"What is it?" Arya demands, and Sansa points to the 93% match to the mug shot, currently moving to Petyr Pimple's pawnshop. "Let's get him!"

"Let's wait," Sansa says.

"But he'll have pawned it off," Arya argues.

"And we'll have a witness to his attempt," Sansa says. "Come on." She tugs her sister along to a small clothing store nearer to the shop than the fountain, pretending to be taking her on a shopping trip. Arya puts up a convincing fight, protesting and grumbling all the way, and Sansa's eyes slide over to the pawnshop.

There's something familiar about the man leaning on the pillar, something about the way the sunlight catches on his red hair that makes her feel strangely nostalgic, but she can't focus on that now. Instead, she and Arya settle in and play the waiting game, like they’ve done a thousand times before.

Sure enough, some time later Greyjoy's pushed out, swearing and cursing, an orb in hand. She wonders what made Petyr suddenly go back on his word--he's well-known for taking and keeping whatever catches his eye, and there's no way the orb didn't.

They move, then, the two of them exiting the clothes store to get closer to the pawnshop. Should be an easy job, bag up Greyjoy, find the Night Corps, wham, bam, thank you ma'ams, then off to the next job if she can find one.

Then the other man, with the red hair and achingly familiar eyes, throws his apple at the back of Greyjoy's head, and kicks him in the groin, snatching up the orb before the other man can react.

Arya swears. For someone who's only just celebrated their eighteenth birthday, she has a vocabulary that would make a pirate blush, and Sansa's long since given up on getting her to stop expanding it.

"Come on!" she snaps, and they're moving, running after Greyjoy and this new player. Sansa spares a moment to be envious about Greyjoy's net gun, then focuses.

A translucent, green whip materializes from her hand, and she lashes out, cracking it across the back of Greyjoy's head and knocking him back hard enough to join the other guy, struggling in his bonds.

She can't help but grin.

It's good to be a projector, sometimes.

--

Robb has enough time to think, Of course there are bounty hunters, before Theon's knocked back flat on his ass right next to him, just as he manages to get the net untangled from his legs.

"I'll have that," Theon breathlessly says, snatching the orb out of Robb's hand, and Robb reacts instinctively, slamming the back of his hand into Theon's face hard enough to knock his head back a little, then kicking the orb out of his hand and snatching it back, moving to shove a knife near Theon's neck.

"Stay down," he snaps. "And don't even think about taking this, you little--"

That's when he feels something attach to his back, and before he knows it he's screaming, electricity arcing through his body, and the orb drops from his hand as he's lifted into the air by thin translucent green ropes and turned around.

"That's our bounty, you Dornish camel cunt," the younger of the two snarls, holding a smoking gun.

"You can have him," Robb spits, "just let me--"

"No you can't have him!" Theon singsongs, and he's already running past them, the orb back in his hands.

The older girl swears, says, "Arya! Now!"

"You don't have to tell me," she says, backing up and then launching into a sprint, catching up with and then tackling Theon hard enough that they break through the nearby store's window.

Robb winces. From what he knows, Terrans' bodies don't like getting thrown through windows.

"Let me go," he says to the older girl. "Please. You have your bounty, let me have that orb--"

"Get your d'ast hands off my flarking orb, you bitch!" Theon's voice shrieks, and the older girl whips around, the translucent green bonds holding Robb in place disappearing. Robb drops to the ground, rolling to absorb the impact.

"What did you just call my sister?!" she yells, just as Theon emerges from the wreckage. Robb takes a step back, sees her throw her palms out, and green energy pulses out, throwing back everything in its way with a lot of force.

Theon hits the nearest wall hard enough that Robb can see cracks spidering out, and lets out a scream. The orb drops from his hand, and Robb runs for it, snatching it up before either the bounty hunters or Theon can react and sprinting for it.

There's a shout, a sound like a gunshot, and a pained, feminine yell, and Robb can't stop, he has to keep going no matter how much he wants to make sure the bounty hunters come out of this alive--

"That's mine!" is the only warning he gets before an averagely-sized Terran body slams into his back, and the orb flies from his hand and rolls across the ground.

He twists, slams the heel of his hand up against Theon's jaw, eliciting a scream, then kicks up, his knee meeting the other man's groin. Again.

Theon howls, this time, and Robb takes the moment's distraction to wriggle out and run.

He chances a glance back, sees translucent green hands holding a large cloth bag, sees Theon get unceremoniously shoved inside that bag, and suppresses a snort of laughter. Then he turns back, ducking beneath a beam as the orb comes to a stop just within arm's reach.

He reaches out, fingers almost brushing against his goal, and then--

"Freeze!"

Oh, no.

That's the last thought he has before something pulls him and the orb upwards, and he lets out a vicious curse.

"Language, sir," the Night Corps pilot scolds. "Should that be Mr. Young Wolf, though?"

He swears again, and twists around as much as he can. The two girls are floating too, the younger struggling valiantly and screaming bloody murder, the older settling for glaring up at the ships. Theon's floated out of the bag, too, only his foot has managed to get tangled on the way out, and he's kicking at it furiously.

"The Others take you all," he mutters.

--

There are days when Margaery really hates her job, days when she walks in, sees the criminals lined up behind the glass wall bound for the Red Keep, and suppresses the urge to walk out of there and get a drink.

This is one of those days.

"You're telling me," she says, flatly, "that you caught a Ravager, an assassin, and two bounty hunters disturbing the peace."

Alliser Thorne coughs, and says, "Well, yes."

She sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. "You didn't catch them before they did sixteen thousand credits' worth of property damage?" She needs to get better men. And upgrade her database's software. And find a way to tighten security on the spaceports, because this is terrible. "The Seven save me." She turns to the holographic display on the glass wall, and the people behind it.

"All right," she says, "who did we catch?"

Thorne flicks his wrist to the right, and the conveyor belt they've strapped the criminals to moves, till Margaery's looking at a young man. Can't be more than twenty-seven, she's sure. He's handsome, with unruly red curls and eyes blue as the sky, clad in a sleeveless black vest and a black shirt with black pants and combat boots, a black choker around his neck. Overdoing the black a little, she thinks.

Then she takes a closer look.

There are intricate, barely noticeable tattoos around his eyes. No, not tattoos--cybernetics, she realizes, her gut churning. In the light, the lines of cybernetics etched onto his skin flash silver.

"Robb, also known as the Young Wolf, twenty-seven," Thorne says. "One of the last survivors of Winterfell at fifteen, had the dubious luck of getting picked up by Tywin Lannister right after the man himself rendered the planet uninhabitable. Over the past twelve years he's built up a reputation for being one of the most dangerous assassins in the known universe. The cybernetics help."

She can't help but feel pity, for him. Seven have mercy on your soul, she thinks.

"Recently," Thorne continues, "Lannister loaned him and another of his strays--someone named Ramsay, I believe--out to Roose Bolton, which leads us to believe that the both of them are currently working together."

"Well, that was plenty obvious already," she sighs. Ever since his exile from Xandar, Bolton's been working with the Kree Empire, as much as her Kree contacts keep denying it. There's no one else who would back his terrorist acts but Tywin Lannister, and no one else who would support it but the Kree, not many of which are particularly thrilled about the recent peace treaty drawn up between Xandar and the Empire. "Who else?"

Thorne flicks his wrist again, and the belt moves until a young woman, no more than eighteen, is glaring at them. She's short, enough that she could probably pass for thirteen if she has to, and her hair is cut short, in case she has to pass for a boy (and she has--among the aliases listed on her holographic display, "Arry Snow" is one of them). As Margaery watches, she bends down and tries to pull at the restraints, swearing when she finds they won't give.

"Arya Stark, known as Experiment 3254 in some circles," Thorne says. "Another survivor of Winterfell and a bounty hunter, she and her older sister have been on the run since someone kidnapped her and used her as a lab rat for experimental cybernetics when she was eight. Even before that, though, she had an uncanny talent for tinkering, and after that, getting into and breaking out of prison."

"How many times has she broken out?" Margaery asks.

"Twenty-two," Thorne says.

"How old is she?"

"Eighteen just two weeks ago."

Margaery wants to scream. The system she works in should be better, has to be, because Winterfell's remnants deserve better than to be consigned to a life in prison, after everything they've been through. They especially deserve better than a prison like the Red Keep.

Only eighteen, she thinks. "Who's next?"

A flick of the wrist, and Margaery is staring at a young woman with dyed brown hair, red showing at the roots, a woman with kind blue eyes and a smile like a sun, and her gut starts churning again. Not you, she thinks, Mother have mercy, please, please, not you--

"Sansa Stark," Thorne goes on, and Margaery knows that name all too well. "Another survivor of Winterfell, twenty years old. Projector, half-trained, could probably take out a whole five floors on raw untapped power. She's the brains and brawn of the bounty hunter outfit, her sister Arya's the bang and boom. They're inseparable, as much as they fight."

You don't know her, she wants to snap. Thorne has never spent three days with her, watching the Dornish sunsets together. It's not on their records, it's too trivial a thing to be one, and yet to Margaery it feels like one of the most important things in the universe.

You wanted this job, she reminds herself. "There was a fourth."

"Last but not least," Thorne says, flicking his wrist again, "Theon Greyjoy."

The belt moves. She blinks in surprise at the young man, in a bright red jacket and dark brown pants, an empty holster at his belt. He's handsome, certainly, dark-haired and charming, and he's moving his left hand in a circular motion, like he's cranking something, and--

"Remind me again," she says, dryly, "why we didn't get that 'Obscure Rude Gestures' upgrade when it was offered?"

Theon's right middle finger is raised at them, and he waves quite cheerfully, for someone bound for jail. "Don't tell Seaworth I got caught!" he says.

Thorne rolls his eyes. "Thirty-two," he says, giving the offensive gesture a glare, though she knows Theon can't see them. "Terran, abducted at age eleven by the Ravagers and raised by them. Has a list of crimes about ten miles long, from petty theft to illegal seduction of a Gramosian Duchess."

"That's pretty hefty," Margaery says. Gramosian Duchesses are rather particular and easily angered, and what's worse is that they have the power to make laws and pass them into practice. In the hands of someone as touchy as the current one? It's not a power wisely used.

"His alias is Star-Lord," Thorne continues, and Margaery snorts out a laugh.

"Who calls him that?" she asks.

"Himself, mostly."

She sighs. "And they're all bound for the Red Keep?" she asks.

Thorne nods. "Rules are rules, ma'am," he says. "Truth be told, that Young Wolf belongs there. Gods know he's done plenty for a place."

"Three of them are survivors of Winterfell," she points out. And I loved one. "They deserve better than the Keep."

"They're criminals, ma'am," Thorne says. "The system will deal with them."

The system rewards people like Slynt and lets people like Bolton and the Ravagers slip by, she thinks. "And there's no better way?" she asks.

"This is the better way," Thorne says, and she wants to yell at him, for how ready he is to condemn three survivors from one of the worst massacres in history. For how ready he is to condemn someone she cares for so deeply.

She realizes, with a sick feeling in her chest, that she's going to have to condemn them herself.

"Very well," she says, trying to tamp down on her disgust at herself. Do the job in front of you, Tyrell. You wanted it. You have to keep it. Needs of the many, after all. "Send them to the Red Keep."

The belt moves, and she watches them again--Greyjoy, Arya, Sansa (Mother have mercy on us both) and Robb. She closes her eyes once they've all gone, then turns away.

"You're dismissed," she says, to Thorne and the rest of them. And I need a drink.

--

"Well," Theon says, "thanks a lot, you guys. I mean, really. I'd've gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids."

"I'm eighteen," the girl with the short hair huffs. "And Sansa's twenty. We're not children."

"You still meddled," he huffs. He tugs at the shackles again. They don't give.

"If you'd just given me the orb--" Robb starts.

"You didn't even bother to ask!" Theon snaps. "You just--honey-trapped me! You kicked me in the groin, that is just a low, low blow, and you did it twice--"

"Fine, all right, I'm sorry I didn't just ask someone fairly well-known for being part of a double-dealing backstabbing--"

"You d'ast bastard, if you'd just said I'd've been happy to sell it to you--"

"Shut up already," the other girl--Sansa, Theon recalls--snaps. Her hands are twitching in her special glowing shackles, as if she's wishing she could just will them off, and she glances at Robb. "They called you the Young Wolf."

"I am," Robb says, all the fire suddenly out from his voice, and Theon chokes.

He's heard of the Young Wolf, actually. Stannis and Davos have told the Ravagers about one of Tywin's strays, a man who could probably rip them all apart like a wolf with its prey if given even half a chance. The guy sitting next to him, collared and shackled like a rabid animal, seems the furthest thing from a dangerous, cybernetically-enhanced assassin. He just looks like somebody in mourning who's down on their luck, in fact.

"Oh, great," the little girl with the short hair and temper grumbles. "You're one of his."

Robb looks down at his hands, and Theon should feel vindictively satisfied, because the guy got him arrested, but instead--instead he feels sad for him. He doesn't look as if he particularly likes the label. "I was," he corrects.

"Was?" the girl snarls. "Why should I trust that from someone like you, working for the same man who killed my family?"

"Arya--" Sansa urgently says.

"I should just--"

"Kill me?" Robb finishes, looking up, anger palpable in his blue eyes, and dammit, Theon just wants to be away from here like right now. "Fine, if you want to avenge your family on someone who's gone through the same thing, do it! I don't have any weapons, I don't have any support, I'm chained head to toe--"

"No one is killing anyone!" Sansa explodes, at the same time that Theon snaps, "For fuck's sake, don't make things worse than they already are!"

Robb and Arya flinch almost simultaneously, in response. For two people who want to murder each other, Theon's surprised that they're doing it in sync. Maybe they're long-lost siblings, or something.

Sansa sighs, and lets out a breath. "Arya," she says again, "please."

The younger girl huffs, but doesn't try to leap from her seat to make a valiant effort at strangling Robb.

"Don't think this means I trust you," she warns them. "Either of you."

"Lady, I could say the same for you two," Theon mutters.

"I wasn't expecting trust," Robb says, but it's clear he's a little hurt. "How long to the Red Keep?"

"The what now?" Theon asks, dread sitting heavy in his stomach.

"The Red Keep," Robb clarifies, "you know. Red, because not a month goes by without the floors somehow getting stained with red--"

"I know that," Theon says, "I'm a fucking smuggler!"

"Pirate," Sansa supplies.

"Don't let Seaworth hear you say that," Theon says, then turns right back to Robb. "They're sending us there? What the hell did I do to warrant the Red fucking Keep?!" He raises his voice, and shouts to the pilot, "Hey, asshat! Why am I going to the Red Keep?"

"The Duchess sends her regards!" is shouted back, and Theon groans.

Like his week can't get any worse.

--

Somewhere across the galaxy, someone says, quite cheerily, "So the wolf turned his cloak at last? Good--I've been looking for an excuse to sharpen these."

--

"I want a lawyer," Robb hears someone grumble distantly as he and the other three are shoved unceremoniously off their transport. From the outside and from the interior, the Red Keep seems like something of a misnomer, but he knows better.

The Red Keep is aptly named, because then there's a scream from the distance, and a sobbing that sounds like, "All right, all right, I'm sorry, oh my gods please--"

He blocks out any other sound from there, and turns his attention to just trying to salvage whatever he can of his dignity as he walks down the halls, following after a guard. What little of it remains, anyway.

Theon says, "Well, a trip to jail was just what I needed to cap off my day, thanks plenty." He smiles, sardonic, as if he knows something no one else does. It comes off as something defensive, to Robb. "Don't drop the soap, by the way."

"Why would I drop the soap?" Robb asks.

"Oh my god, is this your first time in jail?" Theon huffs out a short laugh. "The stories I can tell you--" he cuts himself off, his smile dropping off and his eyes widening in shock as they pass by one of the rooms.

One of the guards is inspecting their things. Among them is that strange recorder that Theon seemed to carry around, formerly clipped to his belt, and its accompanying headphones. As they watch, the guard slips the headphones over his ears and starts humming along.

A storm rolls over Theon's features, and he snarls, "I'll be right back," before he marches into the room, shouting.

Arya bumps into him, glances at Theon, and says, "What a dumbass."

"He'll get himself electrocuted," Sansa says, walking up to them. Sure enough, as Theon is ranting about something called Blue Swede (that's mine! that's my song!), a guard creeps up behind him and shocks him senseless.

"Move!" one of the guards yells at them. "Shuffle faster, maggots!"

Arya snarls. Something instinctive makes Robb step (or, well, shuffle) in front of her, putting his body between her and the huge guard with a cattle prod.

"Welcome to the Red Keep, wolf!" someone shouts, laughing, and Robb breathes out. You'll get out of here, he tells himself, you've gotten out of worse.

--

They're separated from the two boys, a little after that small incident. Arya wishes them both good riddance. Anyway, at least she still has--

"No weapons, girly," one of the guards rumbles, drawing Needle out of its sheath, and she sees red.

"Give it back!" she screams, flying at him and headbutting him in the stomach. "Give it back!"

"Hey, stop--aaaaagh!"

"You might want to give it back," Sansa suggests, as the guard keels over, moaning in pain. "I promise I'll keep her from sticking people with it."

"You're not going to keep her from doing anything," the guard Arya's just kneed snaps, his voice a higher pitch than normal, "because we're splitting you up."

"Don't you dare," Arya snarls, ready to kick once more.

Sansa just says, "The last cellmate she had who wasn't me? Ended up confessing everything after two nights because he didn't want to stay with her for one more."

Arya bares her teeth.

The guard gulps, his eyes darting between the two of them.

"As long as you keep it hidden," he says, "I saw nothing. D'you hear? Nothing."

--

"Argh," Theon grumbles, once he's regained consciousness, gotten his shirt stripped off and gotten doused in that weird orange delousing juice. He walks into his new cell, and rubs at his now free wrists. "Should've listened to Seaworth."

It's not too bad a cell, honestly. There are two beds and four shirts on each, and he presses down on one bed--not too hard, not too soft. A guy could get used to that.

Which is why he can't. He's got to get out of here, or else he'll never hear the end of it. And there's all the stories he's been told about the things that happen in prison, too.

Someone's pushed in, and he says as he turns, "So, well, here's a perk: at least we don't end up sleeping on the--"

He stops.

Robb looks pretty unhappy. Very rugged, which is an achievement considering he's just gone through the same delousing solution as Theon and Theon knows he probably looks terrible now, but here's Robb still looking as handsome as ever.

And then Theon looks down.

"Those," he says, faintly, "are not tattoos."

Cybernetics, his brain helpfully supplies. He can see silver lines flashing in the light as Robb moves, snatching up a puke-yellow shirt.

"Astute," he snaps. "Turn around."

Theon, for once in his life, obeys without saying anything.

He knows how painful cybernetics can be. He only has one implant, the translator implant in his neck that lets him understand nearly everyone he encounters, but even with consent and under a ton of anesthesia and Davos holding his hand and reassuring him the whole time it's still painful to think about. Robb has enough implants that some of them are printed on his skin for all to see.

And Tywin Lannister, from stories Theon has heard growing up amongst the Ravagers, is the kind of person who would have a young boy cybernetically enhanced against his will, to have a weapon he could point, aim and unleash. Theon feels sick to his core as he tugs on his own shirt.

"You can turn back around now."

Theon turns. Robb is tugging down his shirt, then he turns around and lets out a breath. He looks even less like a dangerous assassin now in the puke-yellow prison get-up, and if someone were to ask Theon, he'd say Robb just looks like someone who ended up drawing the short straw at some point in his life.

"So," he says, and gives Robb a smile. "We're cellmates."

"Not for long," Robb says, sitting down on his bed and idly twiddling his thumbs.

Theon blinks. "What, is my company that bad?" he huffs. "You asked to be transferred immediately?"

Robb shakes his head. "Most of the people in this jail have had loved ones die by Lannister's hand, if not mine," he says. "Others--well, they've heard of me. It'll be dishonorable, to kill a man if he has no way to fight back, but from what little I've seen of this jail? There's not much honor here."

"You think they'll try to kill you," Theon says, sitting down on his own bed.

Robb shrugs. "I have a reputation," he says, bitterly. "And the blood on my hands to prove it."

Theon huffs out a breath. "I could help," he offers.

"You?" Robb snorts out a laugh. "You? You're a pirate, what do you know of helping someone?"

"Okay, first of all, that is a totally and completely unfair stereotype and also I'm a smuggler, and second, what makes you think I don't?" Theon stands up, folds his arms across his chest. "I'm an asshole, yeah, and a fucked-up one, too, I will admit to that, but I'm not a complete shit. Seaworth's made sure of that." He pauses, then says, quietly, "What happened to the man of honor thing?"

Robb looks down at his hands. "My father was one, I think," he says, small and quiet.

"...who?"

"Question of the year," Robb says, and looks up again, blue eyes locking with Theon's own. "Lannister made sure I wouldn't remember, but--it was imperfect, the memories refused to up and leave completely. He doesn't know I still remember a few things." There's a little quirk at the corner of his lips, and then he lies down on his bed. "And that's all you need to know," he says.

Theon blinks. "But--"

"Lights out!" comes the shout, reverberating down the hall. "Go to sleep, dingweedles!"

"That's creative," Theon observes, clicking the lights off and lying down. "You still gonna be there in the morning?"

"With luck," Robb's voice answers.

"Good for you, I'm very lucky."

"Sure, you are." There's a healthy layer of sarcasm coating Robb's voice just then. "You're so lucky, you ended up in the Red Keep sharing a cell with a notorious assassin, just across from another cell with two bounty hunters after your head."

"I'm sharing with an optimist, apparently," Theon huffs. "Night, Robb. May you dream of, I dunno, fluffy bunnies and rainbows?"

He turns over and closes his eyes, and the last thing he hears before he drifts off to sleep is a confused, "Fluffy what now?"

--

So two smugglers and a red priestess walk into a pawnshop. It sounds like the start to a terrible joke, but that's what's happening right now.

Petyr wishes Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, and Melisandre found another pawnshop. Hell, he wishes that fucking Greyjoy boy went to a different pawnshop, because Melisandre is eyeing his wares with interest. And not the usual sort of greedy interest, either, but the kind of interest he's only ever seen in fervent fanatics.

"This," she says, gesturing to a priceless blue gem, "would make a worthy sacrifice."

Davos sighs. "We're not here to sacrifice anything," he says.

Petyr stares at the arrow hovering in the air, between him and Stannis. It's hovering, that's all, but it's hovering at a point where it would be very disadvantageous for Petyr's continued business prospects if Stannis were to whistle the arrow just a few inches closer.

He gulps.

"You know who we're here for," Stannis says, his voice cold.

He gives a tiny nod.

"Where is he?"

"I--I--"

Stannis huffs out a frustrated breath. "Stop your stuttering and come out with it," he snaps, his voice commanding.

"Greyjoy was arrested!" Petyr gets out in a rush. "He--He got into a fight, there were bounty hunters and--I think somebody illegally enhanced, I don't know any more than that, Mother have mercy--"

"There is no Mother," Melisandre interjects, turning from the Sapphire of Tarth to look at him, her eyes twin burning flames. "Or Father, Warrior, Maiden, Crone, Smith, or Stranger. There is only R'hllor, the Lord of Light, who gives life to the stars so that we may live."

"Spare him the spiel, woman," Stannis grumbles, and whistles. The arrow, thankfully, moves away, returning to the holster on Stannis's belt. "Fool boy."

Davos' brow furrows. "The boy deserves better than a cell," he argues, and Petyr thinks, the bastard tried to sell me something Roose Bolton's been looking for.

"I know you have an affection for the boy, Davos," Stannis says, "but he's dug his own grave this time, and I'll be damned if I risk our lives to get him out of it."

Petyr watches all three of them go, Davos and Stannis arguing over whether they should go and rescue Greyjoy. He sees Melisandre glance back, sees a spark of knowledge in her burning eyes. Her mouth moves, and he swears she's figured out just who else wanted that orb.

Unless his lip-reading skills are very rusty, she's just said the word, Bolton.

--

Theon sits down next to Robb in the prison's cafeteria the next day, and says, without preamble, "So I think the cook is actively trying to poison us."

Robb blinks, looks down at the slop on his tray. The cook did give him a dirty look when it was his turn, but then almost everyone's been giving him dirty looks since he got here. "You're certain on that?" he asks.

"No other explanation why this tastes so horrible," Theon says, poking gingerly at the grey slop on his own tray. It jiggles for longer than something that supposedly isn't alive should. "Oh, sweet. It's still alive." He makes a disgusted face, and pushes his tray away.

"So the cook is just terrible at their job," Robb says. "I've used poison before. It shouldn't have a taste, you don't want your target to know until it's too late."

"Maybe they're using being a terrible cook to cover up the fact that they're trying to kill us," Theon says.

"Or maybe you're delusional." He picks at his slop, scoops up what little of it he's sure he can stomach, and shoves it into his mouth. He swallows quickly, but the bitter aftertaste lingers. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"You're a familiar face," Theon says. "The only one who isn't after my head, anyway, though I don't know if you aren't thinking about aiming another kick at my balls like the first time we met."

Robb hums, scoops up more of that grey slop again. "Your balls are safe," he says, simply.

"Oh, good," Theon sighs. "Now, hey, I have to ask--"

"Well, well," someone chuckles, and the both of them turn to see a heavyset man with yellowed teeth and three eyes, grinning at Theon. "What a pretty, pretty boy. And the wolf, too." The man's three eyes flick over to Robb, raking over him as if he's an object, there to be desired. Nothing new, really, though Robb bares his teeth at him in a snarl to get him to back off.

Theon gulps. Grins. "Okay, big guy, thanks for the compliment, but--"

"I bet you'd look good tied up to my headboard and squirming," the man muses, reaching out to stroke slender fingers along Theon's cheek, and suddenly Robb sees red. He snatches up his fork, prepares to launch himself out of his seat and possibly net himself an isolated cell--

--and then something yanks the man back, something green and translucent.

Robb stares at the man's bonds, thinking back to the last time they were wrapped around him. He glances off to the side, and feels a corner of his mouth quirk upwards.

Sansa has one hand in the air, and as Robb watches, she twists her hand just so, and the ends of the ropes go up into the man's wide nostrils with a painful squelching noise. The man screams.

Arya steps forward, and as small as she is there is a lethal grace in her quick movements, a coiled tension like a predator ready to spring. Even dressed as the rest of them are, in vomit-yellow clothes, there's something dangerous about her still. "Listen up!" she shouts, and everyone not looking at the whimpering prisoner pays attention to her. "You know me, and you know her. In case you don't, I'm Arya, and this is my sister Sansa. We're bounty hunters."

"Famous ones," Sansa adds. "We have--well, delicately put, we have a reputation."

"What my sister means to say," Arya says, "is that we're very good at what we do. And what we do is getting paid for killing or kidnapping people and stealing things." She gestures to Theon, sitting petrified in his seat. "That pirate over there?"

"Smuggler, technically," Theon mutters weakly, as if someone hasn't just tried to take him by force.

"He's our bounty," Arya continues. "You want to get to him, you have to go through us." She smiles, then--or, rather, she pulls her lips back to bare her teeth. "Or, more accurately, we go through you."

Sansa crooks her finger, and the prisoner screams again. Then she drops her hand.

The ropes disappear, and the man falls to the ground, crying and whimpering, as Sansa and Arya walk over to sit down next to Theon.

Theon says, "Well, uh. Thanks for defending my honor, I guess. What little I've got left of it."

"You're worth eight thousand credits," Arya says, simply. "Alive and unharmed. And that includes your honor." She eyes him with some wariness, and adds, "What little there is of it."

Sansa sighs. "I couldn't stand by and let someone do that to you," she explains. "It's happened to me, too. The non-consensual touching, anyway." Her gaze flicks to Robb, and he's suddenly aware that he's still holding the fork like he would a knife, ready to plunge it into the neck of a threat. "Though stepping in might've been unnecessary," she notes.

Theon turns, his eyes drawn immediately to the fork and to Robb's white knuckles, and he says, "Oh."

Robb, slowly, lets go. The fork clatters to the table's surface. The grey slop on his plate moves, a little, in response.

"I didn't like the way he looked at either of us," he explains.

"Thanks," Theon says at last, picking up the fork. It's bent slightly out of shape, and he pokes at the slop on his tray with it. "So, uh, that aside, who here's sure the cook is trying to kill us all?" he cheerily says.

Robb turns away from them, tuning out the conversation Theon gets going with Sansa and Arya, and scans the crowd of prisoners for any other threats.

His gaze lands on a young man, with dark curls and grey eyes, a scar like someone clawed at him just below his right eye. The man looks back at him, his jaw tensing, and--well, whoever this man is, he just might count as a threat.

--

"I don't trust him."

Arya's perched on top of her bed, her eyes occasionally darting to the cell across from them, where Theon Greyjoy and Robb are talking to each other. Sansa's not sure just what Theon is trying to do, besides get in Robb's pants. He's got something of a rep for that.

"I don't trust him either," Sansa says. "You know how I feel about Lannister's strays." She focuses, a translucent green tendril materializing from her hand and stretching out, trying to wrap itself around the bars to their cell. It disappears almost immediately upon contact, and she hisses against the headache that comes on. "But Greyjoy seems to trust him. Or he wants to get into his pants, anyway."

"Greyjoy has terrible taste," Arya bluntly says.

"Mm-hmm," Sansa hums, glancing at the cell again. There is something familiar about the Young Wolf, something itching at the back of her mind to be recognized and named. "Do you think anyone else managed to survive?" she asks, quietly.

Arya goes rigid, the way she always does, when Sansa brings up Winterfell. She can't blame her--Arya barely remembers it, she was only six at the time. Sansa's only a little better, she'd only been eight when they lost everything in a day.

"No," she says. "I read about it. No one would've been left alive, it was too thorough." She lets out a breath. "I'm surprised we got away."

"We got lucky," Sansa says. "For once." She focuses again, watching a green tendril stretching out from her hand to stroke Arya's hair.

Arya whines, pulling her legs up and hugging her knees close to her chest. For a moment, she doesn't look like the young woman feared by most of the galaxy's criminal scum, just looks like Sansa's scared and broken little sister.

Sansa crosses the room, then, letting the tendril vanish into nothingness, and sits down next to her. She places a hand on her back, and Arya leans in close to her, one hand fisting in her shirt.

"We're going to get out of here," Arya says. "Somehow."

"We will," Sansa says, and she makes it sound like a promise. "We'll get out of here."

--

Across the galaxy, there is a stairway. It's been bathed in blood many, many times already, by one ruler after another. It smells of dried blood, and no matter what anyone does the smell just won't. Come. Off.

Which is really a shame, in Tywin Lannister's opinion, but it's gone a long way to contributing to his reputation as a fearsome being, so he doesn't complain much about it. He thinks some of his strays even like the smell, if you ask him.

Roose Bolton certainly doesn't seem to mind, but then, Tywin knows he has a dungeon where he keeps Xandarian hostages. He's used to the smell of blood by now, and it's been said that he bathes in it, blue skin soaking in black Xandarian blood.

Bolton says to him, "Your wolf has gone rabid."

"He has always been, I'm afraid," Tywin sighs. No matter what he did, Robb still clung stubbornly on to his sense of self, to little shards of morality evident in every mission. He isn't surprised the boy's turned his cloak now, he’s more surprised he hasn’t done it sooner. "The orb?"

"The Goat speaks of a Ravager," Bolton says, his voice a soft whisper. "A Terran, in fact. One who named himself Star-Lord. He says that this Star-Lord, gods know why he would take such a name, stole the orb to sell it to the highest bidder."

A Terran. The last time Tywin dealt with Terra, five Terrans and an Asgardian drove off Viserys' Chitauri fleet with little effort. He makes it a point not to deal with Terrans again, not until he's gathered an extensive file on their world. Backwater planet, ha.

Tywin taps his fingers on the armrest of his chair. "Go on," he says.

"I mistakenly believed that once loosed on this Ravager, your wolf would then bring the orb to us," Bolton says. "That has since proved unwise. Do all your strays have designs of treachery upon you?"

"Most have tried and failed," Tywin says, calmly. "Need I remind you of Castamere?"

Bolton nods in understanding, his jaw tight. "And the wolf?" he asks.

"Is in dire need of a reminder," Tywin says, and glances off to the side. "Your son?"

"Will be happy to provide one," Ramsay calls, sharpening his curved knife. "The stairways need another bath, anyway."

--

(He's eleven years old, he's just lost his mother, and he's running.

He doesn't know where he's going, just--just not there, just not back, back to his grieving sister and his broken uncle, back to the corpse that was once his mother, back to that outstretched hand that he couldn't grasp--

He trips, throws his hands out on instinct to break his fall, and cries from the sudden pain. It's stupid and he's weak and his mother is dead, and she asked him to take her hand but he couldn't, he couldn't.

He grips her last gift to him tight, holds it close to his chest, and sobs.

He'll never see her again. He'll never--he'll never get his hair ruffled by her again, he'll never get to eat her homemade pancakes, he'll never get to hear her sing along to their Awesome Mix, she's dead and he's never going to see her again.

And that's when the buzzing starts. At first he tells himself not to freak out, it's probably just insects mating like Uncle Rodrik keeps saying, but then the buzzing gets louder, faster, turns into the whir of engines, and harsh light suddenly fills the space around him, and he looks up.

There's a disc in the sky, and he's screaming and holding on to his mother's last gift as something pulls him up, up, and up--)

Theon gasps, snapping his eyes open and nearly falling off his bed.

"Fuck," he mutters to himself, breathless. "That again. God." He glances to the other bed, and blinks in surprise.

It's empty.

The hell?, he thinks, getting to his feet. Somebody's been careless and left the cell door open, so he gingerly steps through and sees a flash of red hair, hears the sounds of struggling, before it disappears around the corner.

There's not much honor here. He pales, then glances to the cell across from them.

Arya's not there.

For a second he's afraid Arya's gone and dragged Robb off to kill him after all, but then someone small tugs him in the same direction as where a bunch of prisoners with a grudge dragged Robb--seriously, where the hell are the guards--and Arya says, "Come on, Greyjoy, this way!"

"Arya? Thank god, I thought you were one of them." Theon lets her tug him along--it's obvious she's better at tracking than he is. "Though, I have to ask, why aren't you? I thought you'd jump at the chance."

"If I kill him here I'll end up with a longer sentence, an isolation cell and tighter security," Arya says, "and I'll have a harder time trying to break out."

"Logical," Theon observes.

She stops them before they turn another corner, and Theon can hear venomous accusations, unintelligible snarls, and the unmistakable sound of a sword sliding from its sheath.

No, wait, that last one's from Arya.

"How do you still have a sword?" he asks her. "Why do you even have one in the first place? What the hell?"

"I threatened the guard," Arya says. "My brother gave it to me, before he left, and it's the only thing I have. Don't worry, I won't use it on Robb, I know you want to get into his pants."

And he doesn't even have a witty comeback for that, because in all truth, he would be very, very happy if he could get into Robb's pants. But that's not why he's trying to make friends with the guy--it's just that it's really obvious that Robb has absolutely no friends and no one that he really trusts at all. And he's seen the cybernetics. He doesn't want to touch the guy if the guy doesn't want to be touched.

All right, he does want to touch him, but. Well. Theon's not 100% an asshole. And Robb looked about to stab the three-eyed creeper from earlier with a fork, and probably would have had Sansa and Arya not intervened.

"I told him I'd help," Theon says. He looks around, and there's one guard who is most definitely in hearing range, but he just looks far too absorbed in his book to care about what he's hearing. Goddammit, the place needs better security. "And that's what I'm going to do, so put that sword away." He bats Arya's hand away from his, turns away from her and hears the sound of her sword sliding back into its sheath alongside her grumbling, then walks into the room and says, "All right, step off, the guy's my cellmate!"

All three guys--for lack of a better term, really, because he's certain two of them aren't actually guys--turn to look at him. One of them is scaled like a snake, and hisses at him with a forked tongue darting out from behind his (its? her?) teeth. "What busssinesss," it hisses, "iss it of yoursss?"

"Bastard killed my brother!" another one, the one with black and white striped skin who's got his hand in around Robb's throat and a knife held to his gut, snaps.

The one with large eyes like an insect and jaws like a praying mantis's just clicks its (Theon is not even going to try on this one) jaws together, and Arya, behind Theon, says, "What, you're just here to paint the floor red?"

A series of clicks follows, and Theon should really get his implant updated at one point, because now Robb just looks offended.

"I think I can guess at what they hauled you in for," he says to the mantis-faced prisoner, then doesn't get the chance to say any more because the black-and-white prisoner is trying to strangle him, and Theon's crossed the room and grabbed him by the shoulder and is just about to throw a punch at him when someone says, "What's going on here?"

They all whip around, and Theon can hear Robb sucking in lungfuls of breath as the black-and-white guy lets go of him and skitters backward, stuttering, "Lord b-below, what are you doing here, gladiator?!"

And, huh, the new guy really does have the look of a gladiator. He's got a scar like something tried to claw his right eye out, he's not wearing a shirt so Theon gets to see just how toned he is, and there's a tension to his movements like he's just looking for a fight.

Also, he's very hot, and from what Theon knows about gladiator shows, they only take those who are very attractive, the better to draw in the viewers with.

"I heard a fight," the gladiator says, simply. He gives the black-and-white prisoner a dirty look. "And I have a name."

"It'sss none of your busssinesss!" the snake hisses.

"Is it?"

Theon looks over at Robb, who's looking over this new guy with a calculating and wary expression. "Hey, look," he says, "somebody else on your side!"

"Who says I'm on his side?" the gladiator says, and both he and Robb move, fast enough that Arya has to yank Theon back from a collision, and before Theon knows it the scaled prisoner is down for the count thanks to a well-aimed kick from Robb (which, he supposes, answers the gender question), the mantis-faced fellow's scythe-like limb has been broken (which is probably the gladiator's fault), and the black-and-white guy is howling in pain--

--and the gladiator's holding Robb by his throat, a knife pointed up under his chin.

Theon swallows. Shit.

--

"You're a gladiator," the Young Wolf says, "aren't you? I recognized the way you fought."

"I was," Jon Snow acknowledges, and keeps the knife at his throat. Once upon a time he wouldn't even have thought about holding a knife to someone's throat, or strangling them, but it's been a long, long time since he's been that innocent. "You're the Young Wolf."

He gets a slight nod.

"Flarking hell, put the damn knife down!" someone shouts behind them. The Terran, Jon figures, the one who sat beside the Young Wolf. He wonders how some people can be so ignorant.

"Don't listen to him," the girl supplies. "Keep it there."

"Whose side are you on, you little rat?" the cellmate snaps at her.

"I don't remember ever meeting you," the Young Wolf says, strangely calm even with his throat exposed to a blade.

"I wasn't there," Jon says, "when your benefactor ravaged my whole planet and killed my family." He doesn't bother to keep the fury from his tone, and he presses the knife a little deeper. "But I was there when Bolton led slavers to the colony where I was staying."

"That was years ago, wasn't it?" the Young Wolf asks. "I wasn't there for either. And as for my benefactor ravaging your planet, you'll need to be more specific, because he's done that to more than one--"

"You weren't there, no," Jon acknowledges, "but if there's one thing I learned from being a gladiator, it's that when you care for someone, nothing, nothing, is going to stop anyone from taking that away from you and leaving an open wound where they were." His grip tightens on the knife, and he snarls, "They took my family. What's stopping me from taking theirs?"

"Because he's not their family at all!" the cellmate snaps. "Robb, I'm right, right?"

The Young Wolf's gaze slips from Jon, then to his cellmate. "You're right," he says, at last. "I never--I don't remember them well, but I remember I had a family, before. Lannister killed them and took my memory of them, but he couldn't succeed entirely." He smiles, bitterly, the same kind of smile Jon sometimes sees in his own mirror. If it counts as a smile at all. "Bolton, Lannister, his strays--I never thought of them as family. They took my real family from me, and I'll never forgive them for that."

"So, why did you keep on working for them?" the girl asks, her tone carefully controlled, perching herself atop a beam and swinging her legs, watching them with some interest.

"Oh, come on," the Terran huffs.

"You can't turn your cloak if you're dead," the Young Wolf points out, "and you know what happened on Castamere."

"Why should I trust a single word you say?" Jon snaps at him. "You say you're a turncloak, so why should I trust you?"

"Oh, flarking hell--"

"And you!" Jon says, briefly taking his knife off to point it at the Terran, who backs up with his hands held up. "He tried to kill you, didn't he? Word travels fast in prison. Why would you defend him?"

"It's cute that you think he's the first one to try and kill me," the Terran says, then yanks his shirt up to expose a small, circular scar, and Jon assumes, for a moment, that he got it from some kind of altercation, then he continues, "This one, I got from a Meereenese. She found out I was screwing a Qartheen on the side, and, uh, well, she didn't take it too well. Meereenese grow suckers with teeth on their palms when they're pissed, who knew."

"I did," the Young Wolf volunteers.

"Everyone knows," the girl says.

"I fought one once," Jon says. "The trick is to cut their hands off. All six of them."

The Terran makes a face, and tugs his shirt down before pulling down his collar to expose a burn mark. "This one was from the Qartheen," he says. "He, uh. He didn't take it too well either. Word of advice, never piss off a Qartheen warlock, it will only end in pain, and don't fuck them either because they have really weird kinks--"

The girl throws a small piece of debris at him, and says, "Quit talking!"

"Quit throwing things at people, little lady!"

"I'm not a lady--"

"My point," the Terran says, raising his voice over the girl's, "my point is, I'm defending him because he's my cellmate, and I happen to like him. Also, because like he said, he betrayed Bolton and Lannister. They'll be coming after him."

"How nice of you to remind me," the Young Wolf icily says.

"And when they do," the Terran says, "you get to do this to them." He puts his finger on his throat and slides it across, like he's dragging a knife across.

Jon looks back at the Young Wolf, who says, "I'll help you do it, if you just let me go," with the utmost sincerity.

His grip slackens, and for a moment he thinks he might've made the wrong decision, because then the Young Wolf looks him over once more, calculating and wary. Then he looks at the Terran and says, "Theon?"

"Yeah?"

"Why?"

The Terran--Theon, apparently--shrugs. "Because I like you and I'd really rather you didn't end up a red splatter on the wall like everybody else in the Red Keep does."

Jon flips the knife in his hand, catching it by the hilt. The balance is good, though the blade needs sharpening, and while it's not a sword, it'll do until he can find a replacement. "I'm keeping this knife," he says to the black-and-white prisoner, prone on the ground. "If you don't mind."

--

Sansa says, "So, I have a plan," the next day.

Theon blinks, then puts down the spoonful of whatever they're serving today--a pink, pulsing, runny mass. "Let's hear it," he says.

Robb pokes the thing on his plate, with a clear look of disgust on his face, then pushes the plate away, looking up at Sansa. She's still not sure if she can trust him, but after what Arya's told her about what he said, she's not sure if she should be so wary, either.

Speaking of Arya, where is she?

"We need a Quarnex battery," she says, "like that one." She gestures to the battery powering the Watchtower looming over the rest of them. "But we need to get it last--first things first, we have to get a security armband."

"Good luck," Theon says, "those things are practically bolted onto the guards' arms. Either they get them off voluntarily or--" he mimes chopping his arm off at the elbow.

"That's where you come in," she says, turning to Robb. "I hear the guards took a liking to you. They think you're attractive."

Robb blinks at her. "What," he says, flatly.

Theon stifles a laugh.

"No, really," she tells him, "they think you're attractive." She shrugs. "You could flirt with them a little, convince them to take their armband off, then just hit them on the head. You're good at that, you're an assassin."

"I kill people," Robb says. "I don't seduce them. I have no idea how to flirt."

"All right, so no on the flirting," Sansa says, holding her hands up.

Theon raises a hand and says, "I'm good at flirting."

"Fine, you get the armband," Sansa says, pointing her spoon at him. She spies Arya, moving over to talk with the shirtless gladiator, then turns back to Robb. "You get a pack of chocolates from the kitchen."

Robb drops his spoon. "Chocolates?" he asks, but he doesn't sound as insulted as she thought he'd be. In fact, he sounds--downright hopeful.

"Don't eat them all, I need them," she says, in as stern a manner as she can manage.

"And the battery?" Theon asks.

"That," she says, "we have to get last. If we get it before then we tip off pretty much everyone in the Red Keep to our plan." She watches Robb lean forward and poke the pink mass on the plate again, as Theon taps his fingers against the wood of the table.

And that, of course, is when the alarms go off.

Sansa whips around in her seat, to see Arya holding the Quarnex battery into the air, perched on top of the gladiator's shoulders, and curses, "Flarking hell, Arya!"

"I'll get the armband," Robb says, sounding somewhat dejected, "Theon gets the chocolates. There's an armory around here, right?"

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Theon says. "I'm not looking forward to chopping off a guard's arm, anyway."

"All right," Sansa says, "we'll improvise."

--

The last thing Robb sees of Sansa, Arya and the gladiator before he runs off to find himself a guard and an armband, the gladiator's just thrown Arya a very large gun. It's large enough that he's not sure a woman of her size should be carrying it, and yet it's apparent she's handled guns of the same size before, from the ease with which she drops the first few robots that come after them.

Sansa's already throwing out green energy tendrils and discs and dealing out her own damage, so he figures he can leave them be for now. Right, the weapons the guards kept for themselves should be down this corner--

"Freeze!" someone screams. It's a familiar voice, and he realizes where he last heard it--last night, the guard who'd told the three prisoners to clean up the mess they were sure to make.

He runs. There's another prisoner in the way, someone else who had the same bright idea as he did, and he has no doubt there are more on the way, so he tucks into a roll and dives beneath the prisoner's legs, then untucks and runs once more.

"I said freeze, you sons of poxy whores!"

That's rich coming from you, Robb thinks, leaping up to grab on to a stray bar and letting go, letting his momentum propel him forward feet-first into another prisoner's face. He notes, with some satisfaction, that it's the same three-eyed creeper from before.

He charges into the armory, kicking down the door once he's knocked the guards over the railing and into the waiting mob below. Let the people of the Red Keep do what they will with them, Robb has other matters to deal with.

He breaks the glass holding a Valyrian steel sword--Widow's Wail, the display reads, worth at least thirty thousand credits, and he will probably messily murder whoever decided to name their sword something so ostentatious--then, after a split second's consideration, grabs a nearby shield as well.

He whips around, just as the guard squeezes off three more shots before the weapon clicks. The bullets bounce off the shield, dropping uselessly to the floor.

The guard stares at him, and makes a small, whimpering noise, somehow louder than the screams of his fellows just below.

Robb smiles.

And by "smile", we mean he pulls his lips back and bares his teeth.

--

The cook eyes him, and says, "There are no chocolates here." She folds her spindly arms across her chest and taps her foot. "Get gone, boy."

Theon shakes his head. "I don't believe you," he says. "For one thing, there's a drawer plainly marked 'Chocolate Stash' right behind you."

"We're out of chocolates," she says.

"You've got one in your hand," Theon huffs, and gestures wildly to the drawer. "Also, your drawer is open and I can see that there is a ton of chocolate right there."

"Are you sure you're not seeing things that aren't there?" the cook asks, raising an eyebrow. Then she takes a deliberate bite out of the chocolate.

Theon sighs, rakes a hand through his hair. "Well," he says, "I didn't want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice."

The cook's eyes widen, and she swallows.

--

The next time Jon sees Theon and the Young Wolf (Robb, he thinks), they're meeting back up on the third floor, at the entrance to the Watchtower, Theon has an armful of chocolates, and Robb has a bloodstained sword, a shield on his back, and a security guard's armband.

Sansa--the projector's name--eyes the both of them, and says, "Did you chop someone's arm off for that armband?"

"I threatened to," Robb says, pleasantly. "He was cooperative enough with Valyrian steel at his elbow." Theon gives the sword near him an alarmed look, and inches away. Jon can't blame him, Valyrian steel has an edge like no other. "I think this one's called Widow's Wail?"

"That's a stupid name!" the small girl--Arya, she tells him--declares. He thinks of his own sister, dead twelve years, thinks, She'd have been just like you. "I vote we call it something else."

"Later," Sansa says. "Hand me that armband, Robb."

Robb tosses her the armband, then glances down at the sword. "I should probably find a sheath and get this cleaned," he says.

Jon, wordlessly, digs out a small, bloodstained white cloth and hands it off.

Robb blinks at it, and says, "I take it you used your new knife?"

"I didn't exactly have the time to go to the armory," Jon says. "Besides, it worked well enough, I'll wait till we can get our hands on our things again to switch it out with my sword."

"You can borrow mine," Robb says.

"All this talk about swords," Theon says, "and no one's asked me if I have any. Which I happen to, it's in my pants and I'm very good at stabbing people with it and getting them to scream--"

"Shut up," Jon says, almost at the same time as Robb, Arya and Sansa do. Sansa doesn't even look up from her work, but Jon feels, suddenly, light-headed.

"That's creepy," Theon comments.

"We're in!" Sansa crows, and steps back just as the doors hiss open, and the two guards on duty whirl around in their seats, eyes wide in shock.

Jon says, conversationally, "If you get out of your seats now, we won't make you get out."

The guards all but sprint out of the room, and the doors shut behind all five of them. Arya settles into a chair, fingers flying deftly over the buttons and pulling levers, and Jon looks around.

"Uh, guys?" he says. "Heads-up, there's more of them coming our way."

And there are unmanned flying ships coming towards them, led by three manned. All of them have their weapons trained on the five of them, trapped in a small room with one sword, one shield, two knives (or one knife and a weapon so small it might as well be one, Jon didn't quite catch more than a brief glimpse), and an armful of chocolates between them to defend themselves.

"This is not how I thought I'd die," Jon says.

"It's better than dying gruesomely in an illegal cage match," Robb remarks.

"You and I have very different ideas about which way of dying is better, wolf."

"Hand me one of these chocolates!" Arya snaps at Theon.

"Are you planning on attacking those robots with chocolate?!" Theon asks, incredulous, but moves closer and shifts his hold on the chocolates to let Arya snatch one up.

"What? No, stupid," she huffs, opening one. "Sansa and I just wanted chocolate."

"Are you even going to use these?"

"No, I just want to eat them."

Theon stares at her, his mouth opening and closing, and then whips around to Sansa. "Why did you ask Robb to get you chocolates?!" he demands.

Jon blinks, then glances at Robb and says, "Wait, if you asked the Young Wolf--"

"I have a name too, you know," Robb says, "besides Young Wolf. Which isn't even my name, honestly."

"If you asked him to get you chocolates, why did he get the armband instead?" Jon continues on. That's my brother's name, he thinks, and had he lived, he would've been a more honorable man than you.

"Well, originally the battery was supposed to be last," Sansa says, giving Arya a frustrated glare, "but someone thought it would be a great idea to get it first, so we had to improvise a little."

"If you'd told me your plan I wouldn't have gotten it first!" Arya yells, and Jon's sympathetic to her, he really is. "All right, come on, come on--"

There's a whirring noise just outside, the sound of multiple weapons being loaded, aimed, and readied, and Theon says, "Oh fuck everybody duck--"

Jon ducks, dragging the nearest person down with him. As it turns out, that's Theon, and he lets out a dismayed noise when he realizes that some of the chocolates have spilled.

"Oh, come on!" he huffs. "I had to bribe the cook with thirty thousand credits from my account for these!"

They open fire, and Jon prepares for the shattering of glass, the thud of bodies, but instead he hears a sound like rocks hitting very flexible glass.

Sansa says, quite cheerily, "For once, the laserproof glass works in our favor."

"Not for long it won't," Theon says. "I give it ten, fifteen minutes tops before it gives under constant fire. And that's if it's high-quality."

He hears a crack, sees a small crack spidering out from the corners of the window. "And if it isn't?" he asks.

"Two to five minutes," Theon says.

"I need three!" Arya snaps. "Sansa--"

"You're so going to owe me so much when we're out," Sansa huffs, but breathes out and holds a palm out. Jon sucks in a breath, as a flat plane of green energy emerges from her hand, quickly flattening itself onto the window. She winces visibly, under the laser fire, and says, "Got you an extra minute, hurry up!"

"On it, on it, seven hells Sansa." She leans over, flips another switch, then ducks down beneath the panel with the battery and starts tearing out wires.

The place shakes under the barrage, and Sansa's shield flickers for a second, but holds.

Jon moves closer to Sansa, who's breathing heavily from the effort, her hand shaking. "Hey, hey," he says, placing one hand on her back and another on her shoulder, "you're doing good, come on."

"Arya," Robb says, warningly.

"One minute!"

"Shit, they've got a plasma cannon," Theon says.

"Chocolate!" Arya yells from beneath the panel.

Jon grabs one of the chocolates lying on the ground and tosses it to her. She's quick in catching and unwrapping it, and soon enough she has half a bar of chocolate stuck in her mouth as she works, hooking up wires to the battery and flipping switches.

"They're powering up!" Theon says.

"Flarking hell," Robb mutters. "I can see that."

"Twenty seconds!" Arya calls.

Sansa's sweating, and Jon is beginning to worry whether she can hold up under the constant barrage.

"I have a dumb idea," Theon announces. "Sansa, drop your shield for a moment. How big's that hole in the window?"

--

"Firing plasma cannon in t-minus five seconds--five. Four. Three. Two."

A click.

"Alert: foreign object lodged in cannon. Emergency repairs needed. Foreign object identified as: bar of chocolate."

--

"Huh," Robb says, "good aim."

"Did you just throw chocolate at a plasma cannon?" the gladiator asks. "Did I just see it work?"

If Theon's going to be brutally honest here, he hadn't expected it to work either. But he's been raised among space pirates, so instead, he says, "Feel free to bow down at my feet any time soon, gladiator."

The gladiator just narrows his eyes at him, and says, "Jon. My name's Jon."

"Right, Jonny-boy," Theon replies, then glances back at the panel. "Arya, you done yet? I bought us a few more seconds!"

"Ten seconds!" Arya answers, and he can see her attaching and disconnecting wires with a look of utter concentration on her face. It reminds him of Gendry, except Gendry is tall, perpetually shirtless, has four arms and green skin and a permanent scowl like someone killed his dog in front of him or something. Arya is short, has two arms and is most definitely cybernetically-enhanced somehow, and in the short time he's known her he's learned that her emotions range from tiny angry hurricane to tiny angry hurricane with a huge gun.

Sansa's breathing hard, leaning on the gla--Jon, but she still has her palm outstretched. The brief respite she had during which Theon lobbed a chocolate bar at a plasma cannon with deadly precision doesn't really help her now, and he can't imagine the strain she's putting herself under now just to buy them all a little more time.

Then--

"Done!" Arya announces, crawling out from under the panel and perching herself atop a chair again, and she flicks a switch.

The world outside grinds to a stop, the barrage ceasing suddenly, and Theon wonders just what the hell the girl's done.

Then he pulls himself up to his feet, and looks out to see that the prisoners and guards and robots outside are suddenly floating, some of them flailing about in the air, others trying to grab on to a beam or a railing in an effort to anchor themselves. Other, more gelatinous prisoners are either struggling to keep themselves together or accidentally engulfing others too close to them, and overall it's like the riot outside has ground to a halt.

Everyone, prisoner and guard alike, is denied the effects of gravity, and therefore its benefits as well.

Except for the five of them.

"Oh my god," he says.

"You turned off the gravity everywhere but in here," Robb says. "That's--you're skilled."

Arya beams.

Jon pulls Sansa up, and Theon sees her hand drop and the shield flicker off at last.

"You're amazing," Jon says. "Both of you. Even you, Theon, sheer absurdity aside."

"It worked," Theon huffs. "So, uh, next step in the plan?"

Arya grins at Sansa, who nods. "Hit it," she says, and Arya responds by pulling another lever.

Outside, Theon can hear the snapping of ropes, the creaking and breaking of ancient metal. By instinct, he grabs on to the nearest person in the vicinity--which, in this case, is Robb.

Who, surprisingly, doesn't immediately try to break his wrists, but he does give Theon a surprised look for a moment, before something beneath the floor gives way at last, and suddenly the little room is floating too, and it's all Theon can do to steady himself.

Robb, he realizes fairly quickly, can also hold on to things pretty tightly, when the occasion calls for it.

Arya's humming something off-key, something Theon distantly recognizes as the opening to The Dornishman's Wife. She reaches up, pulling herself up on the panel a little to reach, and presses a button that reads "THRUSTERS".

The floor beneath them shakes, and Theon will deny making a small whimpering noise until the day he dies, because he doesn't. No, really.

And then the room flies up, propelled by built-in thrusters, and Theon is gripping on to Robb and Sansa's holding on to Jon and Arya is grinning like a maniac and they're flying, they're getting out, they're actually escaping.

He lets out a small, hysterical snort of laughter.

--

"So that's where they've been keeping my shirts," Jon says, once they break into the inventory. There's a look of relief on his face as he pulls one out of the bag it's in and yanks it on, then pulls out a sheathed sword with a wolf's-head hilt, and if Theon takes a moment of silence to mourn the sight of Jon's fine shirtless body then no one has to know. "Didn't know why they confiscated those, too, I mean, it's not like a shirt's a deadly weapon."

"Damn shame," Theon agrees, rifling through his bag. "Hey, Robb, here's that orb that got us all in trouble in the first place."

He tosses Robb the ornate orb with little aim, then pulls his puke-yellow prison shirt off and tugs his own shirt back on. He glances at Sansa, who raises an eyebrow.

"I know," he says, smirking, "I'm a catch."

"Hey, they folded your clothes!" Arya says, looking over at Sansa's bag. "They rolled up mine into a ball. That's just rude."

"What, you're not carrying it?" Robb asks, and Theon snorts and pulls his jacket on.

"Well, I gotta get something first," he says. "Something very important." He waves a hand in the hangar's direction. "The Space Bitch is this way. You'll recognize it, some asshole scorched the paint job on the side once and I haven't been able to get that repaired in a while."

"Is there a catch?" Arya asks.

"Yeah, kiddo," Theon says, arming his plasma gun, "don't put a scratch on her."

--

The jig is up, the noose is out, they finally found me, the renegade who had it made, retrieved for a bounty...

It is laughably easy to sneak up on the guard. That's probably because the guard still has Theon's headphones over his ears, and if the sight of that makes Theon hit him harder with a bar than he should, well, good.

"Renegade, Styx," he spits at the unconscious guard, snatching his headphones and Walkman up. "My song, bitch. Mine."

--

"He's taking a little too long," Sansa says.

"Let's go," Arya says, "he might be dead by now, and that bounty's worthless if he's dead. We're risking being found and taken back in just staying here, and I didn't break out of prison just to get dragged back in there."

"He's probably back in his cell or dead," Jon says, and Robb looks away, looks out the window. The Red Keep looms behind them, a great, floating, hulking mass, dirty and grimy. Come on, Greyjoy, he finds himself thinking, come on.

"Well, if that's the case, let's haul ass!" Arya declares.

"We're not leaving him behind," Robb says.

"Who said you have an opinion?" Arya huffs at him.

"We are not leaving him behind," Robb repeats. In his head, he can hear Tywin Lannister's voice, asking him why he's become so attached to this Terran, and he thinks, Fuck right off, Lannister. "That would be dishonorable, and if we leave him behind at this stage, he'll die."

"And you're such an expert on honor, is that it?" Arya asks, not bothering to disguise the acid behind her tone.

"He's right," Sansa says. "We can't leave Theon behind. His bounty's huge, for one thing, and for another, this is his ship. For all we know he's got booby-traps in place for thieves."

"And I hate to say it," Jon says, nodding to Robb, "but he's right. If we leave him behind, we'd turn our cloaks on him and he'd die." He lets out a breath, and says, "I've let enough people die when I shouldn't have. Theon Greyjoy is not going to be one of them, as annoying as he can be."

"And he won't be," Robb says, looking out the window again. There's a shuttle coming towards them, and he has never felt so relieved.

About five seconds later, Theon's voice crackles over the comm, and he says, "Hey, guys! I got what I came back for, but I might've pissed off a guard or two. So, uh, please open up before they kill me?"

--

"So what did you come back for?" Jon asks, once they're safely away and the Red Keep is, thankfully, out of sight. "To risk your life and freedom like that and go up against impossible odds, it must've been highly important."

He has a valuable artifact of some kind in mind, a precious family heirloom that needs protection. Something sentimental, and also very expensive.

Instead, Theon holds up a Terran device, with buttons not unlike a dated recorder's. Then he presses the play button.

Why do you build me up, build me up, an unfamiliar voice croons, buttercup baby just to let me down?

As the song plays and cold realization dawns, Jon says, very calmly, "You went back for that?"

"Oh my gods," Robb marvels, behind them, as the singer sings about how I need you, I need you, more than anyone, darling, "you're an idiot."

"It's a nice song," Sansa argues, from above.

"It's a dumb song," Arya shouts, from below.

"Don't diss the Foundations!" Theon huffs. "This shit's a classic." Then he sings along to the next few lines, and Jon contemplates whether staying in the Red Keep was all that bad, once he compares it to his current situation and allies.

Or, well. Tenuous allies.

He glances over at Robb, and says, quietly, and with a surprising amount of curiosity, "So what does an assassin know of honor?"

"Tell me what a gladiator knows of honor and I'll tell you," Robb says.

Jon looks down at his hands, and says, "Gladiators don't know much about honor. We fight, and we fight to win. If we don't, our lives are in our opponents' hands. Honor gets you killed, in the arena." He lets out a breath, and says, "But before I was forced to be a gladiator, I had a father. He was an honorable man."

And for the first time since Jon first met him, Robb's hard expression softens. The lines etched on his face flash silver in the light as he looks away, and he runs a hand through his red hair.

"Assassins don't know much about honor, either," he says. "I don't remember my own father well, Lannister made damn sure of that, but--from what I do recall, he was an honorable man as well. As long as I hold on to that, Lannister doesn't have me."

He watches the way Robb fiddles with his thumbs, looking less wolfish, and just young, broken down and grasping for hope.

He takes his hand.

"My name's Jon Snow," he says, his voice a low whisper.

Robb smiles in reply, a small, tired one. "I'm Robb," he says. "Just Robb. I don't remember my last name."

"That's fine," Jon says. "Snow's a bastard name, anyway. Where I'm from. Before, you know, Lannister destroyed it."

Robb hums, in understanding, and says, "Nice to meet you, Jon Snow."

"Nice to meet you too, Robb."

--

"All right," Sansa says, once they've all assembled in what Theon claims is the living room, "where to now?"

"We definitely can't go back to Xandar," Theon says. "I can't call Seaworth for help. And like hell are we going anywhere near the Red Keep ever again."

"Knowhere," Robb says, walking into the room. "I got a buyer for the orb there, he'll be able to tell us what it is and what it's worth. Better than Petyr Pimple can."

"Great!" Arya cheers, voice muffled by the bar of chocolate in her mouth and the loud whirring of something.

Sansa groans. "Oh, not Knowhere," she says. "It's terrible there."

"You just don't like it because I beat you at a drinking contest at the Imp's once," Arya says, sliding out and sitting up, holding up her new, dust-covered trophy. It looks suspiciously like Theon's first attempt at building his own plasma gun, wires sticking out over what might be the handle, stains all over it.

Jon eyes it with some disgust, and says, "Theon, how long has it been since you last cleaned?"

"I clean pretty often!" Theon defensively says, then glances at Arya. "Hey, don't touch that," he says, and she draws her hand back from the open drawer, where a wrapped and garishly-decorated box sits on top. He walks over and nudges it closed with his ankle.

"Touchy," she remarks, then drops the thing on the ground, next to a lot of other parts that Theon is vaguely certain she got from their recent prison break. "What is that thing on top, anyway?"

My mother's gift, he doesn't say. Instead he kneels down and pokes at what she's building. "The hell's this?" he asks.

"It's a bomb," she says, and Theon immediately steps back.

"Why are you building a bomb?" he asks, fully aware that he sounds on the verge of hysteria.

"Just in case we need one," she says. "Don't touch it, I made it strong enough to blow up a moon."

"Why would anyone want to blow up moons," Theon half-shouts.

Robb walks over and says, "Not if that wire's in that plug. You'd get half the power needed, probably just take out a whole city instead."

"Huh." Arya pulls the wire out of the plug, and Theon says, hurriedly, "Okay, hey, don't you have something to put that thing in?"

"You just closed it," she says.

"You're not putting a bomb anywhere near that drawer, kid," Theon says, folding his arms and glaring down at her.

"So I'll find another place to put it," she says, looking rather unperturbed by his best glare. "Hopefully a cleaner place."

"When was the last time you cleaned up?" Robb asks, and Theon groans. "Because, seriously. Theon, this place looks worse than a dump."

"It's very clean," he huffs, "if you don't shine a blacklight in here." He looks around and smirks at them. "Then it looks like a Jackson Pollock."

"Who?" Jon asks.

"Wow," Sansa says, inching away from the table and looking vaguely disgusted, "you have a lot of issues."

Arya hops up onto her feet, then her gaze slides over to the weapons rack. "Hey," she says, "is that a Hadron Enforcer?"

"Oh," Theon dismissively says, "that." He waves a hand towards the large, unwieldy thing and says, "I lost a bet and got that saddled on me. I haven't figured out a way to get rid of it since. You're free to do whatever you want with it, god knows I have no use for it."

"Maybe I will," Arya says, thoughtfully, pulling out and unwrapping a bar of chocolate from her pocket. "Maybe I will."

--

"I only need but one name," Roose Bolton says. "Robb Stark. You know him better as the Young Wolf, though. I need to know where he is."

"He's--he's gone, escaped two days past with four others, oh gods please sir--"

"A pity," Bolton regretfully sighs, and turns away. The guard breathes a small sigh of relief--too soon, it turns out, because then he turns again. "Where was he headed, and what did he take with him?"

He can hear the sound of screaming, choked sobbing, just a few cells away. Is there gold in this prison, the Tickler must be saying, precious gemstones, valuable heirlooms, good cold steel? Where is Robb Stark? What did he take with him? Who sheltered him? Is there gold--

Bolton says, "Ah, yes. You must apologize for my colleague. The Tickler is quite good at what he does, though, that isn't something that can be denied." He arches an eyebrow at the guard, breathing hard, hands struggling against the shackles. "He can get answers out of even the most recalcitrant of people. Are you one of those?"

The guard babbles, "No, no, please, they only took their things and a few weapons and their ship, and--and--and there was an orb, I think, I don't know, please--"

--

Roose Bolton walks out of the cell, his knife dripping red.

There are traditions to be upheld, after all, and that's what he tells his bastard when he asks--uphold our traditions. Emphasis on the our.

The boy is of his blood, after all.

--

Knowhere, as it turns out, is the severed head of a Celestial being, turned into a mining colony ("you have no idea how much money people will pay for a Celestial's bodily fluids, Jon," Theon says, once he sees Jon's face), turned into the criminal haven of the galaxy. Jon's starting to understand why Sansa's so disgusted with the idea of going there.

Unsurprisingly, his companions know the ways of it better than he does, and Jon finds himself the primary student for what Arya calls "a crash course on a little slice of hell in space".

Over the next few days, he finds it's a fairly accurate summary. There are no laws in Knowhere, and if there are, they're ignored by most of the populace. Including whatever makeshift police force is there, if there's any at all.

"At this point," Sansa says in one lesson, "they're more of a gang than a police force. And there are a lot of gangs around, all of them looking to get to the top. There are also a lot of non-affiliated criminals around, looking to fence a few jewels or something around those lines." She shrugs, then adds, "Like us. Respect is everything there, hard as it is to believe, and it's a little harder to earn when you're just passing through and you don't have protection from one gang or another, but you can earn it."

"You're a pretty guy and you're new, so expect to get hit on a few times when you hit the bars," Theon says, in another. "Or, well, once. Gladiator like you, you could probably kick their asses quick and earn your respect in a day or so. Speaking of bars, you know the Imp's?"

"The Imp's is Tyrion Lannister's business," Arya explains, not looking up from the improvements she's making to Theon's ship (much to Theon's distress, which in Jon's opinion is unneeded, considering that Arya's skilled and has repaired a lot of the systems already, especially the weapons system). "He's one of the better business owners around, in that he waits until you're turned around to stab you in the back, and at least he's upfront about that possibility from the get-go. He has some semblance of a conscience, which is probably why his father disowned him. But there's still a bar fight there every other day, so."

"I don't trust Tyrion Lannister and he doesn't trust me," Robb flatly says, when Jon asks him about it. "We have a non-interference agreement, that's all."

"I thought you'd get along with him," Jon says, "considering he's been disowned."

"He has too much of his father in him, if you ask me," Robb says. "No matter how much both of them try to deny it. Tywin Lannister hates him because he dared be born a dwarf--that's where the brand of Imp comes from, by the way--and Tyrion hates him because Tywin denied him his rights, as he sees it." He shrugs, gives a bitter smile. "I had to witness their arguments a few times."

Jon says, "That's something you have in common. Hating Tywin Lannister, I mean."

"That's all there is to it," Robb says. "Contrary to what you think, Jon, hating the same person doesn't necessarily mean you like each other." He reaches over and grabs a berry from the box of frozen fruits Jon's found in Theon's fridge. "But he's been a useful contact. He told me about Varys."

"Who?"

"Also known as the Collector," Robb clarifies. "He's who we'll be selling the orb to. I don't trust him one bit either, but I do know that he's very loath to sell something once he's got his hands on it. He collects things, keeps them all in--I suppose you could call it a private museum of artifacts, living and non-living." He pops the berry into his mouth, chews, hums in delight. It's strange, Jon never thought he'd see the Young Wolf quite so vulnerable, so relaxed.

He's surprisingly okay with that.

"Collects information, too," Arya adds behind them, and Jon nearly falls off his chair in surprise. "He's very interested in that. The last time I dealt with him I didn't have any money on me, so I just told him a few things about me in exchange for what I wanted." She shrugs, patting Jon on the back, then hops up on a chair. "He likes secrets. And I'll have a berry."

Jon holds the box out to her, lets her take a small, black, heart-shaped berry. "I don't have many secrets," he says.

"Good thing we have that orb, then," Robb says. "Arya, what else do you know about Varys?"

"He's a eunuch," Arya says, quite bluntly. "He tells a lot of stories about how he lost his manhood, but I don't know which is true. I think Sansa does, but I never asked her." She pops the berry into her mouth, and kicks her feet up on the table. "Hey, these are good," she marvels, "where did Theon get these?"

"I'd wager he got them on one of the Summer Planets," Robb says. "They're sweet enough." He takes another one, and once he's swallowed, says, "All right, so he's a eunuch who is very interested in hoarding information and rare artifacts from all over the universe, whether living or non-living. The Imp mentioned he had a whole network of spies all over the galaxy."

"The Little Bird Network, yeah," Arya says. "I did some research on that. He usually recruits kids with nowhere to go, I managed to dodge him since I was with Sansa, and anyway," and here her smile grows sharp as a dagger's edge, her fingers tapping on the wooden surface of the table, "after--well, I was more than a little noticeable."

"And he just hoards all that?" Jon asks.

"Nah, sometimes he sells stuff," Arya says. "Mostly information, he hates it when he has to sell from his collection."

"He sets fairly high prices for both, from what I've heard," Robb says. "Higher, for his collection." He snatches up another berry. "You know what else the Imp told me he's called?"

"The Spider," Arya says. "Yeah, I know." She traces out a spiderweb shape on the table, and says, "Look--think of the galaxy as a spiderweb. Sometimes something big happens on a planet or a station, like a murder or a revolution or a marriage, whatever. Those are the flies that get tangled up in the web."

"And Varys," Jon says, getting the gist of it, "is the spider at the center of the web. Isn't he?"

"Yep," Arya says, popping the p.

He looks at Robb, then, and says, "And you're selling the orb to him?"

"He's the only one who knows what's inside it," Robb says. "I don't. All I know is, it's something powerful, and I can't let Bolton or Lannister have it."

Arya leans over, snatching up a berry. At this rate, Jon's certain that they'll devour at least half the box. "But first," she says, "let's go see the Imp."

--

I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night, he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be fresh from a fight--

"I didn't know you could sing," a new voice cuts in, and Sansa jumps and whips around, sure that her face has gone as red as her natural hair color. It's showing more and more, she hasn't dyed it back yet. She should stock back up, she knows.

Robb's leaning against the doorway, as Theon's Awesome Mix plays. Over the past few days spent living on the same ship, she's learned that he has a habit of sneaking up on people and just waiting for the right moment to speak up and startle them.

It's strangely childish, especially when coming from someone so notorious as he is, but she's found that for a man with his reputation, he's--actually rather kind. Damaged, certainly, but then, she's noticed that everyone else on the ship somehow is, as well.

"I can," she says. "I just--I don't know that many songs." It's a lie and she knows it, but all the songs she knows are from Winterfell, taught to her by her mother, or by Septa Mordane. Only Arya hears them. Only Arya knows she still knows them. "Theon's songs are--they're strange, I suppose, but they're pleasant."

He nods. "They're not that bad," he admits. "I liked the one about American pie best. As confusing as it was."

"It's the one that goes like this, right?" She sings, "Bye, bye, miss American pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry."

"And those good old boys were drinking whiskey and I," Robb sings as well, straightening up, and she knows those aren't the lyrics, but then he keeps on, his eyes closed, "singing this will be the day that I die, this will be the day that I die."

"Rye," Sansa says. "Whiskey and rye." She makes a face. "I don't know why anyone, even Arya, would drink either, they taste disgusting."

Robb shrugs, walking over to the tape deck. "It'll be the day they die, right?" he says. "Maybe the taste doesn't matter, when you're about to die."

She looks at him then, leaning against the tape deck, red hair and blue eyes and black clothes and all. She thinks, you have her eyes, you know.

She doesn't say it. Instead she lets out a breath, and says, "If you were about to die, what would you do?"

"Morbid thought," he comments.

"It's one I've had a few times." She's always pictured herself doing one last thing for Arya, telling her to go find a new life, a better life than the half-existence they're living, chasing one job after another. "I bet you have."

"It used to be," he says, "I'd try to track down whatever family I have left. If I couldn't do that, I'd avenge them. But that was when I remembered them." He shrugs. "Now--well, I don't know. Remember them, probably. Or try to. Hope they're okay."

His shoulders shake, a little, and she knows that trick. Arya's used it on her, pretended everything was fine, and she's learned to tell when everything isn't fine. She doesn't even think, before reaching out a small, thin tendril, but then it stops, just inches from his face.

His eyes widen, surprised.

"Stop me if it's not okay," she tells him.

"Sansa," he begins, then stops. "It's fine, but--"

"Good enough for me," she says, then lets the thin tendril continue, brushing his hair back and stroking his cheek, the way she would if it were Arya, half-ready to break down in front of her.

Robb doesn't, but he gives a small shudder at the contact. She stops for a moment, afraid that she's pushed too much, but he says, quietly, "It's fine. I'll stop you if it stops being fine, all right?"

"All right," she says, and he closes his eyes and leans against the wall. The tendril brushes his hair back from his face, and in this light, the silver tracings of cybernetics don't shine as much.

He isn't much older, she realizes, than her own older brother would've been. She can hardly remember him, she'd been so young and it had been so much of a shock, but she remembers that he'd held her close, told her to run, far and fast, take Arya with her, take care of each other, Sansa, please, I'm not going to be around to.

She pushes the memory away. No point in thinking about the dead.

It lingers still, though, that pleading voice and hazy face, and the last ball of light he'd conjured for her, a small, fluttering thing that guided them away from the house and from danger before finally winking out.

The music changes over, and someone begins to sing, You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back; where there is love, I'll be there...

--

A day later, Tyrion Lannister looks up from the counter he's wiping down and says, very calmly, "You again, Greyjoy?"

Theon grins at him and flicks a lazy salute. And behind him--

Seven flarking fucking hells, Tyrion thinks. Behind him are Arya and Sansa Stark, a dark-haired young man with a Valyrian steel sword hanging from his hip, and the Young fucking Wolf himself.

"Imp," Robb icily says.

"Wolf," Tyrion responds, just as icy. "Word was you were arrested."

"Word's old," Theon says, throwing an arm around Robb, and Tyrion half-expects Robb to throw the Ravager across the room. Instead Robb just rolls his eyes, and Tyrion sees a note of fondness in the way he looks at the Terran. Well. "The new guy's Jon, by the way. We picked him up in the Red Keep. Wait till you see him fight."

"Gladly," Tyrion mutters, just as the next wave of regulars come in, one of them with tonight's little bastards in a small box in his arms.

"Gimme my usual," Arya says, hopping up on a bar stool. "It's the last night of the tournament, isn't it?"

"How astute," Tyrion says.

"What tournament?" Jon asks, and Tyrion waves to the arena he's set up in the middle of his bar.

"Lizard-fighting, pet-jousting, cockfighting, whatever you want to call it," Theon says, sliding three heavy gold coins across the counter. "Twenty credits on one of the new guys pulling off an unexpected win. The extra's for a shot of whiskey."

"We're out of whiskey," Tyrion tells him.

"Water," Robb interrupts, giving Theon a look. "We need to meet the Spider in a few hours, sell him something. I don't think he'll like it if someone throws up all over him."

"Suit yourself," Arya says.

Tyrion looks at Sansa, hovering worriedly over her little sister, her hair going from red at the roots to a dyed brown, then his eyes slide to Robb, talking with Theon. Robb moves, and for a second his vivid red hair catches the light, and Tyrion thinks, Well, I can see the family resemblance.

He wonders if the rest of them do.

--

The Imp's sits right on the edge of Knowhere, is the thing. Lannister's installed a glass-domed balcony keeping any drunken patrons from falling right off into space, and Robb leans on the railing and puts a hand on the glass, pretending for a second that he can touch the stars.

"Robb," Theon's voice drifts in, and Robb turns to look at him. He looks mostly sober, though there's a stain on his shirt like someone accidentally spilled his drink on him. "You should come check this out, I think I'm gonna win the pool this time--"

"What are you doing out here?" Robb asks, leaning back against the railing.

"I needed to get away for a bit," Theon says, and gestures to the stain on his shirt. "Some asshole knocked into me and I spilled my drink. Don't worry, I got him back, though I'm pretty sure he's still looking for me."

"So I'm your last line of defense?" Robb dryly asks.

"Kinda?" Theon smiles at him, and if there's one thing Robb's learned about him, it's that he smiles. A lot. But this is the kind of smile he's clearly not used to giving, the soft, tender sort of smile. "But hell, maybe I just want to talk to you."

"About what?"

"Whatever, I guess." He cranes his neck around, as if watching the stars as well.

"All right," Robb says. "How did a Terran end up in space? As far as I know, they've only gone as far as the moon. Not even the Chitauri's attack has changed that."

"I'm the exception," Theon says, looking back at him. "I was a kid. Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth--abducted me, I suppose you could say." He shrugs, smiles again. "It wasn't so bad, once I got used to it. And if you ask me, I wouldn't trade this for anything."

"You never thought about going home?"

"Going in deep now, aren't you?" There's a snort of laughter. "Once or twice, but. It's been a while, no one probably cares anymore. If I go back, it'll probably be just for the music." Theon shrugs, and that smile is still there, but there's something false about it. "What about you? Not to pry, but--do you ever feel like going home?"

"Don't remember it," Robb says, automatically.

Theon's smile slips, a little, and his eyes soften. "I keep forgetting," he says. "Look, uh--forget I asked."

Silence falls over them, and Robb looks back out at the stars, and imagines that on one of them, a family waits for him.

"Tell me about it," he says to Theon, abruptly.

"What?"

"Terra," Robb says. "Legends. Music. Whatever. Tell me about it."

"What's all this interest for?" Theon asks.

"Are you going to tell me or not?"

Theon holds his hands up and says, "Fine, fine." He taps his fingers against the railing, biting at his top lip. "We've got a legend," he says, at last, "about people like you. It's called Footloose, and it's about--there's this hero."

Robb pictures, immediately, a knight, with great honor and a valiant steed. "Go on," he says.

"So this hero--Kevin Bacon, by the way--rolls into a town full of people with a huge stick up their collective ass, and shows them how to get that stick out--"

"That's honorable of him," Robb remarks, pushing away the horrifying images his brain supplies him with. "But how did a stick get up there in the first place? Someone must've put it there."

Theon makes a strangled noise of dismay. "No, Robb, it's just--"

"It's cruel, is what it is," Robb huffs. "This Kevin Bacon was truly a valiant man, to help these people remove the sticks."

"He went above and beyond, yeah," Theon agrees. "But the sticks are--it's figurative, Robb, they don't actually have sticks up their ass, it just means--" he cuts off, and sighs. "It has a really good soundtrack," he says, at last. "The legend, I mean. Not the sticks, which don't exist."

"Let me guess," Robb says, "you have it on your tape."

Theon beams, and takes his headphones from off his neck. "You'll like them, I swear," he says, placing them over his ears and pressing play.

It's--It's not a bad song, really. It's slow and sweet, and the voice is soothing. Looking into your eyes I know I'm right, the singer croons. If there's anything worth my love it's worth a fight.

"It has a pleasant melody!" he shouts, because he can't hear his own voice over the music in his ears.

"Yeah, I know!" Theon shouts back, his voice just barely loud enough to be heard. "It's great, isn't it? Classic!"

"It's good!"

Theon smiles, then, that soft smile again, and Robb has never thought he would see a smile like that on a Ravager, a smuggler, a thief, but here Theon is.

He looks good when he smiles.

That realization is followed quickly by another thought, one that simply goes, Oh.

Love's the only thing that keeps me here, the song goes on, and Robb is--Robb has no idea what to do with this. It's nothing he's ever been trained for, that realization that he would do anything to see that soft smile, that he would do anything to keep one person--well, four other people, in all honesty--safe. He is in over his head here.

"You're attracted to me!" he shouts.

"What?" The smile quickly disappears, and Theon looks stunned by the proclamation. "Well, hell, you're very attractive! Anyone would be! Didn't Sansa say so?"

"No, you don't understand, Theon, I--"

Theon suddenly whips around, the expression on his face concerned, then passing over to surprise, then worry. "Arya!" he shouts, heading back inside.

Robb has no choice but to follow, the music still playing on over his ears.

--

"You take that back!"

Surprisingly enough, it's not Arya or Jon beating the shit out of some drunken boor. It's Sansa, and Theon remembers the rage she got into when they first met, after he called Arya a bitch. Hard not to, when she slammed him into a wall because of it.

"Let me at him!" Arya's shrieking, held in place by Jon, who looks like he's wishing he could land one on the guy too. She's drunk, that's obvious from her flushed cheeks, from the way she's flailing wildly out, screaming. "Let me at him, I said!"

Robb takes the headphones off, and says, "What in the hells is going on here?"

"Beats me," Theon mutters. "Hey! Sansa, get off of him."

Sansa complies, though somewhat reluctantly. She also kicks him in the side, just to keep him down. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she snaps at the man.

"The hell's wrong with you," he coughs, "hangin' 'round that--that d'ast little monster--"

The guy prattles on, but Arya's stomped her foot down on Jon's, and now she's marching up to the man, swaying a little as she does so, utter fury on her face. Theon glances away, and hears the satisfying crunch of a nose breaking.

"I didn't ask for this!" she screams, and it's like the entire bar goes still. Even Tyrion's staring at her, midway through wiping the inside of an intricate glass. "I never asked to be made! I never asked to be torn apart and put back together over and over and over again and turned into--into this!" She whirls around, snarling at the man. "I'm a little monster, huh? A little rat? I never wanted to be! Never!"

Theon glances at Robb, who's gone horribly, terribly still. In the light, the etchings of cybernetics on his face flash silver.

Sansa reaches a hand out for Arya, and says, pleadingly, "Arya, please."

"Go away!" Arya yells at her, and Sansa draws her hand back like she's been slapped.

Arya stares at her, and then whirls on her heel and stomps away from them, out of the bar.

The man staggers to his feet. "Good riddance to it," he spits.

Theon's not the next one to throw a punch, nor is it Robb, though Theon's tempted to let Robb go and give the guy a good kick in the unmentionables. It's Jon, who walks calmly up to the d'ast bastard, draws his arm back, and slams his fist full into the man's mouth with all the force he can muster.

Things kind of devolve from there.

--

It's a slow night. Skuzz is kind of suspicious of that--slow nights, on Knowhere, tend to be a rare thing. Usually someone always wants Skuzz to send off one message, and then after that someone there's another someone, then another, then another, and before you know it Skuzz has spent the entire night sending coded messages all across the galaxy.

So slow nights are something they find suspicious.

They're tapping their spidery fingers idly on the board. They're getting suspicious in their old age, they're sure, only--well, this is Knowhere. Quiet nights are never quiet for long.

No sooner has that thought passed their mind before the door's kicked in, and Skuzz whirls around in their chair.

There's a drunken young woman at the door, a thin sword in her hand. She walks closer, the light from the holoscreens illuminating the visible cybernetics on her face, and she says, with all the anger of a young girl with everything ripped from her and nothing left to lose, "I want to talk to Roose Bolton. Now."

--

They walk out of the bar, with a collection of new bruises and cuts each, Theon leaning on Sansa and muttering under his breath, I wasn't even drunk, what the hell, headed first to a clinic she knows of where no one asks questions, then on to the Spider's place.

"Do you think Arya's okay?" Sansa asks. She should be going to find Arya. She has to, only with how big Knowhere is, she'll never be able to find her in time before they meet with the Spider. She knows, for a fact, that Arya can take care of herself. Hell, maybe she's gone to Theon's ship and blown a few things up there just to feel better.

Gods, she hopes so.

"She's fine," Jon says. There is something familiar about him, about his eyes, but Sansa can't place it, like she can't place where she's seen Robb before. "She's eighteen."

"She's drunk. She could get hurt." Sansa bites at her lower lip.

"Or she could end up blowing up whoever tries to hurt her," Theon puts in. He's still, she's certain, bitter over Arya nearly blowing up his ship. "Drunk or not, the kid can handle herself in a fight."

"What happened to her?" Robb asks.

Sansa swallows, then lets out a breath. "I was ten and she was eight," she begins. "We were on Aegius, trying to survive, and one night we fought over something so--so small, so she stormed out. She always did have a temper." She remembers that fateful day like it was yesterday, remembers Arya screaming at her to go away! When she closes her eyes, she can hear the slam of the door. "I was so angry at her I decided I'd wait till morning to find her. See how she liked wandering alone."

Theon says, "Wait, Aegius--Seaworth told me a few things about that. There was that whole blow-up some years back about an entire organization illegally conducting cybernetics experiments on children." He pauses, then pales. "Oh my god. Did she--"

"They caught her," Sansa confirms. This is the part of the story that she hates the most--that Arya was caught because Sansa had been angry at her, had decided to sleep instead of go looking for her. Take care of each other, her brother had pleaded, only she hadn't.

"My gods," Jon says.

Robb is quiet. They pass under a light, near the small clinic, and the silver traces of cybernetics peeking through his skin reflect the light just then. "I'm sorry," he says, at last, the words dragged out of him as though they're unfamiliar to his tongue. "For both of you. It must've been difficult on you both, and I'm sorry if I was prying."

"You're not," she assures him. "That was ten years ago, but--well. You understand why neither of us spoke of it overmuch."

"Only eight," Jon says, sounding horrified.

"The things people do for science," Theon says. "Look--Sansa, she's okay. I think. I don't know, you know your own sister better than I do." He smiles at her, and says, "But I think she'll be fine."

"You don't know her," Sansa flatly says. "You really don't."

--

Varys's private museum is, simply put, huge. Eclectic, for another. Robb recognizes artifacts from long-destroyed worlds: priceless swords with rubies in the hilt, gold-encrusted masks on silk cushions, flowers with glass petals.

He also recognizes some of the living artifacts, trapped behind glass walls. A Dark Elf, shivering behind the glass; a Terran animal in a Terran spacesuit, barking at them; four direwolf puppies asleep in a cage too small for them--they're all part of the collection, too.

Jon says, quietly, "Gods be good," once his eyes land on the direwolves' cage.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" a voice comes from behind them, and all four of them whirl around. There is a young girl, in a white uniform with a spider embroidered upon her breast, smiling at them with her arms folded. "Lord Varys is quite fond of those wolves. They're very pricy on the black market, especially alive--their planet was destroyed years ago, and their mother died giving birth to them."

Robb says, "Where is he, anyway? We have something he may be very interested in."

"Oh, yes!" The attendant claps her hands together, smiling brightly. Something about how her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes disturbs him, though, and he glances to Jon, then Sansa. Did I make the wrong call? he wants to ask. "You must be the Young Wolf, and his compatriots."

"Robb," Jon corrects, before Robb can open his mouth. "His name's Robb. I'm Jon, this is Sansa, and--"

"Theon Greyjoy," Theon interrupts, leaning against a display of ornate instruments from Valyria. "But you might know me better as the legendary outlaw, Star-Lord." He smiles, brilliant and charming.

The attendant is silent, her mask of cheerfulness slipping for a moment and her confusion and annoyance showing through, before it slips back on again and she smiles. "I'm sorry," she says, politely, "I have not heard of anyone named Star-Lord until now."

Theon's face falls for a moment, dismay written all over his face, but then he smiles once more. "So, where's the Spider?"

The attendant waves a pale grey, four-fingered hand to the innermost sanctum. "My Lord Varys is this way," she says. "May I show you the way? There are many traps inlaid, for those who aren't careful. Quite a few have attempted to steal these valuable treasures for themselves."

Robb eyes the direwolves' cage again, and thinks, Some of them are living creatures. He wants to throttle Varys, just from spending a few seconds inside his private museum, but if he wants this orb out of Bolton's and Lannister's hands, he'll have to make a few compromises.

It's not like he sleeps that much, anyway.

They walk on, following the young woman, and Robb has to tug Theon along whenever Theon stops to stare, agog, at a display--not a surprise, really, Theon was a Ravager, a smuggler and a thief, he has an eye for valuable things. That's most definitely the reason why he went to Castamere to steal that orb in the first place.

But sometimes he has to tug Jon along, and for very different reasons. From what he remembers, a gladiator who voluntarily became one is a rare thing, and Jon certainly didn't.

"Here we are," the attendant says, stepping aside to let them through a narrow entrance. Robb steps through, careful not to look at the pulsating heart immersed in yellow liquid just beside. "Lord Varys? Your visitors are here."

Varys turns around, jowls sagging, and smiles at them. Even here, Robb can smell the stench of perfume clinging to him.

Sansa, stepping through after Robb, mutters, "Oh, I forgot about this part."

Jon is wearing a pinched expression, and says, "You couldn't have mentioned the smell?"

"Would you have believed us?" Theon says, already looking vaguely green. "Think I'm allergic to this, whatever this is." He raises his voice, and calls, "Found some pillar and stones yet, Spider?"

"As cheerful as ever, Greyjoy," Varys answers smoothly. "No, I have not. But I have found a great many other things since we last met." He tilts his head at them, and says, "You're certainly an odd sight. And Sansa Stark, what a pleasant surprise! I thought your sister would accompany you."

"Arya drank too much," Sansa says. "She left for Theon's ship." At least I hope she did, is left unsaid, but Robb can still hear it anyway. "So, uh."

"We have the orb," Robb says, and pulls out the ornately-decorated orb that started this whole mess. He tosses it to the attendant, who catches it deftly and walks over to Varys to hand it off, her smile fixed upon her face.

"I don't trust him," Jon mutters.

"Who does?" Robb whispers back.

Varys hums, and says, "Oh, this is a very valuable artifact. Which one of you found this piece?"

Theon raises his hand. "It was on Castamere," he says.

"Yes," Varys murmurs, "the Reynes were quite protective of their Infinity Stone. To the point, in fact, of a desperate last stand to defend it."

Infinity Stone. A cold chill seeps into Robb's bones, at the words.

Sansa, very slowly, turns to look at Theon. "You had that in your purse this whole time and you didn't even know?" she asks, sounding horrified. Robb can't help but sympathize.

"You know, if I knew what it was I'd have gotten it the hell away from me," Theon answers, stepping back. "I wouldn't have even accepted the deal in the first place, I mean, look at it."

"You're japing," Jon says, disbelieving.

"I'm afraid not, my dear gladiator," Varys says, and Robb sticks a hand out to keep Jon from stepping forward to snap at him. "Still, I need to see if this is the genuine article. Flowers." He gestures to the table at the center, and the attendant--Flowers, apparently--nods, her gaze fixed upon the orb.

She walks over to the table, followed closely behind by Varys, still examining the orb and remarking on how lovely the art engraved upon it is. It takes a moment for Robb, then Sansa and Jon and Theon, to follow after, still shaken by the revelation.

And by the various exhibits, too. There's a stuffed direwolf mounted behind a glass case, and Robb thinks of the four direwolf puppies once more. That must be their mother, with her teeth pulled back in a permanent snarl.

He really, really wants to throttle Varys.

"That thing's a freak," Theon comments, eyeing the stuffed direwolf.

"That thing's a fully-grown direwolf," Sansa says. "I think--I think it was their mother."

Varys sets the orb on top of a small bowl on a metal perch, and as Robb watches, presses a button. The two strange screw-like extensions start whirling, then drill into the orb and unscrew the halves.

The Stone glows, the purple light bathing everything within the room, and images flash on the ceiling, of stars and planets, like holoscreens.

It'd be beautiful if Robb wasn't so fucking terrified of the Stone, really.

"The Infinity Stones," Varys says, "are some of the most powerful and most valuable stones in this entire galaxy. The Reynes valued theirs quite highly, and died to the last one to keep it out of Tywin Lannister's hands." Above, on the ceiling, Robb sees that destruction, sees men and women and children fall with blades and clubs and sticks in their hands, the orb sealed away safely all the while. "But they never tried to use it, either. Far too dangerous a thing to even hold, bare-handed or even linked with as many people as you can persuade."

Another scene, and Robb watches, in numb horror, as five cloaked men, linked with each other, chant around the Stone. One by one, in front of his eyes, they disintegrate into nothing.

Theon says, "Oh, Jesus."

"My gods," Jon whispers.

"We've been living with that for four days," Sansa says. "Four. Days."

Robb's eyes cut away from the images on the ceiling and to Flowers, staring at the Stone, her smile gone. Her jaw is tensed, her wide eyes seeming purple in the Stone's glow.

Varys just titters. "I'm surprised you're all still alive, then," he says. "One wrong touch and you might have gone the same way as all the poor fools who tried to harness its power once."

"But you want it?" Robb asks.

"It would make for a very lovely addition to my collection," Varys answers.

"Good," Robb says, thinking of the direwolves, "because we happened to see a pack of direwolves in a cage on the way here. I'd say four puppies are more than a fair price for an Infinity Stone."

Varys's smile doesn't falter. "You drive a hard bargain, Young Wolf," he remarks.

"It isn't that hard," Sansa says, behind them. "They're certainly not so valuable as an Infinity Stone. You could part with them and it wouldn't hurt you or your collection much."

"You do know they're not pets," Varys says. "Do you?"

"You do know they're not supposed to be kept in cages," Jon says, "do you?"

Theon inches closer to Robb, and hisses in his ear, "What are you going to do with four direwolves? You've seen the size they can reach, what the hell."

"I can't let them stay here," he mutters.

"Where are you planning to let them stay, then?"

"That's." He coughs. "That's a work in progress."

"Very well," Varys sighs theatrically. "I suppose that, when compared to an Infinity Stone's boundless power, four immature direwolf pups are a paltry deal." He steps closer to Robb, sticks his hand out, the light glittering off the many rings decorating his fingers.

Robb gives a tight smile, takes Varys's hand, and shakes it. Hard.

"Flowers," Varys calls, breaking contact and turning to the attendant, "the pups, if you please."

Flowers doesn't move. Or rather, she does move, but it's not in their direction. She steps closer to the Stone, a fire in her eyes that Robb recognizes as one borne of desperation for a way out. Any way out, if possible.

Theon grabs on to him. Behind them, Jon curses, and Robb glances back to see Sansa stepping back, eyes wide.

She's got a good plan. As one, they all step back towards the door.

Varys says, "My dear, step away from the Stone, unless you want to share the same cage as your sweet cousin."

Robb shook hands with this man. He should've broken his fingers. Taken his head off. Whatever. He recognizes that mad look in Flowers's eyes--it's the same one he's seen himself wearing, in the mirror, that grim determination for freedom, no matter the cost.

"On the count of three," Theon says, "we run."

"Sounds good to me," Jon says.

"How about we just run?" Sansa says, as Flowers looks up at Varys, her hand hovering just inches near the Stone.

"Also a good plan," Robb says.

They turn straight around and launch into a sprint, just as Flowers screams, "I will not be your slave anymore, Spider!"

Long after everything, long after this fiasco passes and the Guardians have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, this is what Robb will remember most vividly about what happens after Flowers's declaration: a brief absence of sound outside of their footsteps and breathing, then a scream cutting through the silence, then everything falling apart around them, display cases breaking and priceless objects shattering, a translucent green dome materializing over them, over the display case with the direwolf pups.

Robb grabs on to Sansa, holding her free hand tight. "Sansa," he says, quiet and desperate, then he can't say anything more over the din.

He can dimly hear Theon's cursing, Jon's heavy breaths, the pups' whimpering. He holds on to Sansa, feels her hand shake from the effort of holding the shield in place.

And then, just like that, it's over. The shield holds for a few moments longer, then flickers off, and Sansa slumps against him, breathing hard from the effort she's expended. He drops a hand in her hair, murmurs in her ear, "Want to see a trick?"

"What kind of trick?" she asks, and the words knock all the wind out of him, with how young she sounds.

He breaks away from her, holds his palm out. "Watch," he tells her, and he concentrates and closes his eyes, hoping that he hasn't lost touch with this, this small thing that he's held on to throughout the tortures and the missions.

He opens his eyes, and in the center of his palm, a small ball of light has come to life. It flickers like a candle in the wind, unsteady and unstable, from how long he's kept this hidden away, but against the darkness, it burns like a sun.

Theon says, "Holy shit. You're a glorified night light."

Robb decides not to dignify that with an answer, instead saying, "Go get the pups, Theon, we paid for them after all."

"All right," Theon cheerfully answers, and gets up, brushes the dust off his trousers, and goes to work on the lock keeping the direwolf pups caged.

Robb watches Sansa, and says, "I used to do this, I think. I haven't in a while, there was no need to. And I couldn't, either."

Jon scoots closer to them, and says, "I've seen that before."

"My brother used to conjure them," Sansa says. “Five at a time, for me and Arya and our other siblings. He'd say they were--"

"Small stars for small Starks," Jon says. "He--He did that, a lot."

Robb breathes in, out. Something in his head slots into place, something warm blooms in his chest. He has no name for either, no frame of reference to use but memories walled away in his mind. You're not so small anymore, he thinks.

Sansa's quiet, then she looks up at Jon. In the bright light, Robb can see the tears forming in her eyes. "Oh," she says, "oh," and she throws her arms around both of them.

"Sansa," Jon's saying, "my gods, I thought you were gone, oh gods Robb I am so sorry, I thought--I thought you were dead--seven hells, I held a knife to your throat, I am so sorry--"

"I missed you," Sansa's sniffling, "both of you, I knew you looked familiar but I couldn't place it, I should've known, I missed you so much--"

"I'm interrupting something, aren't I?" a new voice cuts in, and all three of them look up to see Theon holding four pups in his arms, blinking at them in surprise. "Robb? What--What's going on?"

"Family reunion," Sansa tells him, "go away, you're ruining it."

Theon opens his mouth. Closes it. Bends down and drops the puppies and stands back to watch them immediately tackle the three of them.

Robb picks one up, a grey-furred little thing whining at him. "Theon," he says, trying to maintain some resemblance of dignity while holding a grey puppy next to two of his siblings (siblings, he thinks dazedly), "I don't--I told you I don't remember my last name, right?"

"Yeah, you did," Theon says, raising an eyebrow.

"I just found out," he tells him, and sucks in a deep breath. "Stark. My name is Robb Stark." On his tongue, the syllables flow, better than Young Wolf ever could. The name feels right, feels true, and for the first time in years, he breathes out and feels lighter for it.

Theon stares at him, understanding dawning on his face, then gives a small, honest smile. "Nice to meet you, Robb Stark," he says.

"Wait till we tell Arya," Sansa happily says, scooping up two small balls of fur. One barks at Theon, the other snaps her jaws at Robb.

Jon has his own wolf, a white, silent thing with red eyes, and Robb can swear both Jon and his wolf pup are having a Moment, capital M truly deserved. They're staring soulfully into each other's eyes, after all.

And that's when something else blows up behind them.

"Oh, come on!" Sansa yells. "We were having a moment!"

"Uh, Sansa," Theon says, "I don't think they're going to listen."

Robb looks up at the Dread Aster, at the shuttles now about to land, and then looks closer at the small figure with a thin sword, yelling curses at the ship.

"Oh, no," he says, at the same time Sansa says, "Arya, what the flarking hell did you do?!"

And, because the universe always finds ways to make things worse, the orb comes to a roll near Theon's foot, the Infinity Stone inside illuminating the etchings on it with a purple light, just as two shuttles land right in front of them. Then they open.

Robb says, very calmly, "Oh. It's you."

Theon says, bending down to grab the orb, "Nice to see you again, Raphael, who's your pal?"

Vargo Hoat, better known to Robb as the Goat, hisses, "Thtar-Lord," venom dripping from the title.

Ramsay Snow smiles pleasantly at Robb, and says, "Wolf. I always knew you'd turn." He eyes the orb in Theon's hand and says, "Hand over the orb."

The direwolf in Robb's arms growls murderously. Theon's hand drifts near his gun, as Jon's fingers curl around the hilt of his sword and Sansa's hands twitch.

"Tell your boy to hand the orb over, Stark," Ramsay says, and Robb decides he should've throttled him, the second they met and he knew the bastard was of Roose Bolton's blood.

"Or what?" Robb asks.

Theon says, "Technically, I'm not his boy, it's a rather complicated thing--"

"Theon," Robb huffs. "I don't think you were listening to me, I'm--"

"Or," Ramsay says, "everyone here dies, I get a new pet or two, and a few wolfskins as well."

Robb's blood runs cold at the thought. He knows exactly what Ramsay means by pets.

He pushes the wolf in his hands towards Theon, and says, "Give me the orb, Theon. Please."

Jon chokes, and says, "You're not planning on--"

"Robb," Sansa says, "Robb, think about this--"

"I've thought about it already," he says, looking to them and trying to give them a reassuring smile. "I just found you. I'll not lose you." He breathes out.

Theon says, "Robb, for fuck's sake, what the hell are you thinking?"

Something that's bound to get me killed, he thinks. "Theon," he says, instead, "trust me on this. Please."

Theon stares at him, says, "I really, truly hope you have a plan, Stark," and sets the orb in his hands. Robb sucks in a breath--even trapped inside the orb, he can sense the power of the Stone. But he's got a plan.

"Here," Robb says, "come and get it."

Ramsay snorts, says, "Well, that was easy," and walks forward to take it, knife in hand.

The second he's in range Robb moves, ducking down and kicking upwards, his heel connecting with the other man's wrist. There's a sick snapping noise and a scream, then Robb sweeps his feet out from under him and grabs the knife once it clatters to the ground.

"I never said I was giving it to you so easily," he snarls. "Jon, Sansa, Theon, get the wolves and Arya and get out of here."

"But--" Jon starts.

"You're not expecting us to leave you!" Sansa yells.

"What, are you kidding me, you heard what the guy said," Theon snaps, holding the grey, snarling pup close and nudging the both of them away from the scene as best as he can. "Go, go, go, you two, find Arya, your sister's bit off more than she can chew on this one."

Robb doesn't pay much more attention, because then he spies Hoat aiming his plasma gun right at Theon's head.

He sees red, and sends the knife flying. Hoat screams, dropping his weapon, the knife sticking out of his hand.

"Run!" he yells, and ducks, avoiding a thrown punch. He kicks wildly out, catching Ramsay in the stomach and knocking him back.

"I never said," comes the snarl, and if the bastard thinks he'd be intimidated by a little circling, then ha, joke's on him, "I would spare them either."

"You think I'd be so foolish as to not consider that?" Robb draws his sword, the one he's still deciding on renaming, and in the light, the Valyrian steel seems to ripple blood-red. "You're not going to lay a hand on them. Or on the orb. Not for as long as I live."

"Then I'll just have to kill you first." And quick as a viper, there are two knives in Ramsay's hands, and Robb has to dive to the side to avoid the first one thrown at him. He hears the distant thunk of a knife embedding in a wall, registers another knife flying towards him, and moves, fast as he can.

It still manages to graze his cheek, leaving behind a shallow cut. He doesn't pay much attention to it, or to the pain that comes from the rapid healing, he can't afford to. He swings his sword out in a curve, catches Ramsay's leg and sees him back away quick, stumbling and cursing. Usually even his best sword wouldn't be able to penetrate through the armor, but nothing has a bite like Valyrian steel.

Then something knocks into Robb's shoulder, and he's thrown back with the force of it. Fuck, he thinks dazedly, I forgot about Hoat. He'll heal, certainly, but he's lost a few precious seconds, and already Ramsay is advancing, knives held at the ready.

Then there's a flash of light, and he's knocked back as well. Robb sees blood welling up from his shoulder, and glances back.

Theon's standing there, the barrel of his plasma blaster smoking, his jaw set.

"What the hell are you still doing here, Greyjoy?!" Robb snaps.

"Saving your ass," Theon returns. "Your sister and brother went to get Arya, by the way, she'll get a good scolding if we all survive this." His eyes narrow, and he says, "You're planning on surviving this, right?"

"Well, it'd be nice if I could--watch out!"

Theon ducks, the blast from Hoat's rifle passing over his head, and fires back. "We were having a moment!" he yells. "You have the worst timing!"

Robb huffs out a short laugh, then rolls away, avoiding what might've been a fatal strike to his head. Right. He still has Ramsay to deal with.

--

THREE MINUTES EARLIER.

"You're suggesting we leave him?" Sansa asks, sounding betrayed. "What made you change your mind?"

"Hell no," Theon says, and pushes the grey wolf pup into Jon's arms. He nods to the other battle going on, where Arya's trying to poke Roose Bolton full of holes and failing, and says, "But I can back Robb up here. You two go get your little sister, I'll watch out for your brother."

"Keep him safe, Greyjoy," Jon tells him, adjusting his grip so he can better hold the silent white wolf along with Robb's grey furball.

"Remind me again, how did we first meet?" Theon asks, and grins when Jon scowls at him. "But seriously, get going. We'll handle things on this end. Trust me."

"Trust a Ravager," Sansa says, skeptically, "sure." But she shifts her grip on the two wolves in her arms, then nudges Jon and heads off to get to Arya.

Theon watches them go, then draws his gun and whips around. The guy with the knives, the guy who'd sent a chill down his spine with just how disconcertingly cheerful he was about the prospect of getting new pets, is bearing down on Robb, ready to drive a knife straight through his heart.

Theon takes aim and fires. The man staggers back, bleeding from his shoulder, and Robb whips around, Valyrian steel in one hand and Infinity Stone in the other. He's bleeding as well, and Theon can see his wound knitting itself back together before his eyes.

He also looks a little surprised, even somewhat outraged. "What the hell are you doing here, Greyjoy?!"

That's an angrier reaction than Theon was expecting out of him, and he huffs in response, tries to hide the sting. "Saving your ass," he answers. "Your sister and brother went to get Arya, by the way, she'll get a good scolding if we all survive this." They're all related to each other, this ragtag group that Theon's somehow become a part of, and none of them even knew it. The part of him that isn't trying to comprehend the improbability of this is tempted to just laugh, because how often does that happen?

Then something occurs to him, and he narrows his eyes at Robb. "You're planning on surviving this, right?" he asks.

Robb makes a choked noise like he seriously cannot believe what Theon's saying, and says, "Well, it'd be nice if I could--watch out!"

Theon ducks, hitting the ground just as a laser blast whizzes over his head, where his chest would've been had he been a second too slow. Right. Lisping Kree guy. He gets himself up and fires back, snapping, "We were having a moment!" He goes for the guy's foot, because he's feeling very vindictive. "You have the worst timing!"

The guy moves, too fast to not be cybernetically-enhanced as well, because Theon does not miss his targets, and spits, "Give up the orb, Terran, and I might jutht thpare your life."

"Go thcrew yourthelf, dickwad," Theon says, and immediately has to dive to avoid another blast coming his way. "Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't have it with me, and I'll be damned if I let you shoot the guy holding it."

"Then you'll be damned," the lisping Kree says, drawing a wicked-looking curved sword from his back. "It maketh no matter to me."

Theon's free hand drifts over the handle of his other gun. "Try me, you overgrown Ninja Turtle," he says, as confident and cocky as he can be, and hopes to god that the rumor about Kree smelling fear really is just a rumor.

--

Their new wolves are barking in their arms, squirming and snarling at the chaos around them. Sansa would let them go, but they are adorable little puppies and there is a lot of fighting going around and a disconcertingly high amount of sharp and pointy objects, and she's not about to risk it.

"Arya!" she calls. Arya launched herself at Bolton earlier, and they'd wrestled until they were out of sight, so now Sansa's frantically ducking plasma blasts and debris while glancing around furtively for her little sister.

She feels that old panic, rising in her chest once more, the panic that came with every time Arya went out for an extended period of time after her rescue. Please be safe, she prays, please, Arya, be okay. We just got our family back.

Jon nudges her with his free hand. He's still clutching Robb's grey wolf, but his own wolf, the silent white pup, is following along at his heels. "We'll find her," he says, his tone full of conviction. "We will."

"How could she have been so stupid," Sansa mutters, then calls, "Arya!"

One of the wolves in Sansa's arms, the one growling all the louder, barks suddenly and squirms, as though wanting to break free of her grip. "Hey, calm down," she huffs at it, but it refuses to stay still.

"Put it down," Jon says. "You need a free hand, right? For what you do?"

"For projecting, yeah," Sansa says.

"When did it manifest?"

She hesitates, then says, "When I found Arya. When I saw what they did to her." Her sister had been curled up in a corner of a white cell with bloodstains on the floor, and the sight of it had filled her with such a rage that she'd blacked out. "I don't remember much, I was so angry, but when I came to, Arya was with me and we were surrounded by rubble."

Jon is quiet, and his silent wolf pup breaks away from him to nudge at her ankle, as though to comfort.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come get you," Jon says, at last. "If I'd known, I'd have broken out sooner."

Sansa shakes her head. "You didn't know," she says. "None of us knew anyone was still alive." In her arms, the two wolf pups squirm and whimper. "What happened, anyway? How did you become a gladiator?"

Jon huffs out a breath. "Slavers in the Frostfangs, no thanks to Bolton," he says, simply. "I got caught while trying to hide, and then sold off. It took a few months for me to be sold again to the owners of the arena." He's calm about it, telling it in a flat tone, but Sansa can see how he looks away from her. "I spent a few years there, broke out just a year back. Two months later, I ended up in the Red Keep." He looks at her, and says, "I didn't learn about Winterfell until a few weeks before I escaped."

The grey pup in Jon's arms whimpers and starts to squirm. "Jon," she says, softly. "You're holding him too tight."

"Oh." Jon's hold relaxes, and the pup whines contentedly. "Sorry, little one," he says to the pup, then his gaze flicks back up to Sansa. "I know it's irrational," he says, quietly, "but sometimes--sometimes I think that if I'd been there I might've been able to do something."

"You couldn't have," Sansa says. "In the best case, you might have died anyway. In the worst case--you've seen Robb." Robb, with silver lines etched on his face around his eyes, with a trail of bodies behind him, ready for a fight at any moment. She thinks of how unsteady the little orb of light he'd conjured for her was, how it flickered like a candle in the wind.

Jon lets out a breath, and says, "Did Arya tell you? About how we first ran into each other?"

"She said you held a knife to his throat," Sansa dryly says. She can't judge, really, the first time they all met they got into a three-way firefight, and she'd gone and tied Robb up in her energy tendrils. Looking back now, knowing what she knows, she's a little horrified. "I tied him up. Don't feel too bad, none of us knew."

"I should've," Jon mumbles.

"I did say don't feel too bad, Jon," she says. "Look, how about this: you apologize about it later. I'm planning to."

"If there is a later," Jon says.

And that's when one of the wolves in her arms starts struggling in earnest. It's the one that was squirming and barking earlier, and she huffs at it and says, "Stop it already, I'll put you down if that's what you want, just don't run off, all right?"

She bends down, letting the little pup drop down onto the ground and sniff about. For a second she's certain it'll do as she says, but suddenly its head snaps up, and sniffs the air. It howls, and darts off, a speedy little thing.

Jon's white wolf runs after it, and before Sansa knows it she's sprinting after them too, yelling at them to come back, you!

"Ghost!" Jon's yelling behind her. "Ghost, come back here!"

"You named your wolf already?" Sansa asks him, as she jumps over someone passed out and drooling on the sidewalk, tentacles occasionally twitching limply. There's already a shoe print or two on the body, and on its tentacles.

"It seemed a good name," Jon says, stepping around the tentacles with care.

The two wolves dart around a corner, and Sansa follows, careening to a stop when she sees a flash of steel.

It's a sword. It's a thin, thin sword, broken in two. No, Sansa thinks, desperately, no, no, please--

And beside it--

"Is that Needle?" Jon asks, coming up behind her. Robb's wolf pup is following behind him now, at some point it must've managed to wriggle out of his grip. "And--Arya! Oh, gods, Arya--"

Arya's slumped against the wall, cradling her hand and making a small, wretched noise of pain. She looks up, says, "Sansa?" in such a small, pained voice that shatters Sansa's heart.

The wolf pads up to her, nuzzles up against her, and she blinks. "What's this?" she asks, staring at the wolf.

"A direwolf pup," Sansa answers, coming closer and letting her own pup drop down to the ground. "We found some." She holds out her hand, and says, "Let me see your hand."

"It's healing," Arya says, but holds it out for her to inspect. Sansa can see bones resetting themselves, bruises healing and an open wound across her palm knitting back together. "I'm sorry," she adds.

"Are you sober now?" she asks.

"My head hurts and my throat feels like a desert," Arya admits. "And I think I broke a rib. Or two. I don't know."

Sansa gingerly sets Arya's hand down, and says, "Don't ever do that again, all right? I was so scared for you, I honestly thought you'd be taken back to be--to be--"

"A lab rat again," Arya supplies. "I'm okay, Sansa, really. Besides the ribs and the hangover."

"You deserve the hangover," she huffs, but brushes a strand of hair back to tuck behind her little sister's ear. "I'm forbidding you from drinking until you're twenty, do you hear me, Arya?"

"I'm an adult, you can't forbid me from doing anything," Arya blearily says.

"I'm your big sister," Sansa says, her eyes watering. "Just watch me." She glances back to Jon, who's knelt down near the remains of her sister's prized sword. "I have something to tell you."

"I messed up," Arya says. "I fucked up, I get it, I'm sorry, I wasn't--I was so angry I wasn't thinking straight--"

"Where did you get this sword?" Jon asks, picking up half of the broken blade by the hilt.

"My brother gave it to me before he left for the Frostfangs," Arya says. "His lesson was the first thing I ever knew about swordfighting. He said--"

"Stick them with the pointy end," Jon says, just as Arya does. "Aye. I recognize the mark, it's Mikken's mark." He glances up at Arya, eyes watering as well. "Hello, little sister. I've missed you."

Arya's eyes are dry, but her voice is shaky enough that Sansa gingerly wraps her arms around her and holds her as tight as she can when she says, "I missed you too, Jon."

Jon steps forward, putting the broken blade aside, and engulfs the two of them in a gentle, tender hug.

Then the wolves nudge up against them.

"Have you named them yet?" Arya asks. "Because I'm going to call mine Nymeria."

"I suppose mine's Ghost," Jon says, glancing down at his silent wolf. "He's as quiet as one, certainly."

"Lady," Sansa decides, thinking of her mother. She remembers her being a proper lady, kind and gentle yet stern at times, when she needed to be. And strong, always strong, in her own way. "Mine's Lady."

The last wolf, Robb's grey wolf, nudges Jon's hand.

"And whose is that?" Arya asks.

"Robb's," Sansa says. "And, uh, Arya? You're not going to believe this."

And it's then that Robb's wolf pup throws his head back and howls.

--

"Do stop running," Ramsay calls, somewhere off in the distance and a few turns away, "and I promise I'll show the utmost hospitality to your friend!"

I know what kind of hospitality you plan on giving him, Robb thinks viciously. Beside him, Theon is breathing hard, his hand pressed to a shallow wound near his shoulder where the Goat managed to get a cut in. "Can you keep running?" Robb asks him.

"Do I look like I want to find out what kind of hospitality that guy wants to show me?" Theon asks. "Hell yes let's run."

"Good," Robb says, grabbing on to Theon's hand and tugging him along as they sprint down the street. Knowhere is a maze of streets and alleys, and that isn't even taking into account the many, many levels and all the ways you can get from one to the other, but Robb has memorized the layout as best as he can, knows his way around enough that he's not like to get lost. Theon's an expert, too, and it's Theon who tugs him to the left, saying, "This way, there's an alleyway wide enough for both of us, then it's up a level till we get to the shuttles."

Robb's ready to follow him, he really is, but then he hears a wolf's howl.

"Shit," he breathes, and all but drags Theon in the opposite direction. He can hear Theon protesting, but right now he can't be bothered, because there are only four wolves that could've made such a noise and Sansa, Jon, Arya, gods be good, please be safe--

He turns the corner.

"Robb!" Sansa exclaims. She and Jon are huddled close to Arya, who's cradling her hand close to her chest and staring at Robb in utter shock. "Oh, I'm glad you and Theon made it out safely--what happened to your leg? And--Theon, what happened to you?"

Robb looks down at his leg. The wound from where Ramsay tried to hamstring him is mostly healed by now, though it still aches a little, the distant sort of pain that can be pushed down in favor of other, more important matters. "Someone tried to hamstring me," he explains.

"Not-so-teenage Mutant Cyborg Ninja Turtle," Theon says. "Sickle sword. Tried to decapitate me, the piece of shit."

"Tell me their names," Arya orders.

"Why?" Robb asks.

"I have a list," she says, simply.

Robb can guess at what sort of list she keeps, and says, "No, you're not going to add them to your list," at the same time that Sansa huffs, "Don't even think about it, sis."

"We should get out of here," Jon says. "With the Stone, probably. We can't exactly let it fall into the hands of Bolton and Lannister, now, can we?"

"And it's safe in ours, is that it?" Theon asks.

"In the Night Corps', definitely," Arya says.

Sansa nods. "Margaery Tyrell put a lot of protocols into place, for if ever they came into possession of an Infinity Stone," she says, then blushes. "Or, well, at least that's what she told me she'd do, if she ever came into power."

"How do you know the Lady Commander herself?" Robb asks.

Arya snickers, and says, "Yeah, they know each other really well--"

"Arya!" Sansa squeaks. "They don't need to know that!"

"On the contrary, I'm your brother, and I have a right to know so I can threaten her if she hurts you," Robb says, and it's so, so easy, to slip into the role of brother, bickering with his siblings. "She hasn't, has she?"

"No, um." Sansa looks down, her face red. Arya's dissolved into hysterical giggles, and Jon is trying to keep his amusement from showing on his face. "We just. Uh. We lost touch, that's all. I've been keeping up on news about her, though."

Sansa's wolf pup gives a mournful yip.

"Oh, not you too, Lady," Sansa huffs.

"You named them?" Theon asks, sounding a little disturbed. "Oh, hell. You named them."

"Of course we did," Jon says. "Mine's Ghost. Say hello to Theon, Ghost."

Theon suddenly yelps, jumping back, and Robb looks down. Ghost is curiously sniffing at the space where Theon was, as though wondering where the Terran went. "Good name, considering it scared the living shit out of me," Theon grumbles.

"Mine's Nymeria," Arya proudly says, and the wolf pup in front of her barks happily at the mention of her name. "She's going to flark things up when she grows up."

"Mine's Lady," Sansa says, and a small tendril materializes from her finger to stretch out towards Lady and rub her head. "Yours--well, it just howled and brought you running."

Robb looks at the grey wolf pup. It barks at him, and he goes to his knees and holds out his hand, despite his better judgment reminding him of the blood on his hands, of the murders he's carried out under orders. What makes you think you can take care of one living thing? a voice spits at him, sounding like Tywin Lannister. You are a weapon, a wolf, nothing more.

The wolf nips playfully at his fingers, and he thinks, I'm not a weapon, no matter what they say of me. And if I am a wolf, then I have a pack.

"Hey there, little fellow," he says, and the wolf damn near vibrates with excitement. He scoops it up and holds it close with his free hand, then turns to Theon.

"Last time I had a pet," Theon says, simply, "I was seven, it was a goldfish, and I killed it." He sighs theatrically, then reaches out and scratches behind the pup's ears. Then his eyes slide to something lying on the ground, and he says, "Hey, what happened to your sword?"

Arya's quiet, and Robb's eyes catch sight of her needle-thin sword. The broken shards of her sword, anyway.

"Arya," he says, quietly, "what happened?"

"Needle broke," she says, sounding utterly wrecked.

"We're going to fix it," Jon assures her. "I know someone just as good as Mikken was. His name's Donal Noye, he's a blacksmith, he's good at what he does."

"Assuming Stannis is willing to let me borrow the guy, Gendry makes some great shit," Theon puts in. "The extra arms help."

"We'll get it fixed, Arya, I promise," Sansa says, smiling gently at her. Then she glances at Robb, who swallows the lump that's grown in his throat.

"Arya," he says, putting his pup down and stashing the orb away into a bag he'd managed to steal, "want to see a little trick?"

--

("Want to see a little trick, Arya?" her brother asks, on a cold summer night.

She grins, says, "'Course I do!" She scoots closer, as close as she can, as her older brother bends down to meet her eyes, a spark of mischief in his own river-blue eyes.

"All right, then," he laughs, then holds his hand out, palm up. She sees the center of his palm start glowing, and then to her delight, little orbs of light start floating out of it, up towards the sky. "I did say I could make stars now. Small stars for small Starks, don't you think?"

She gives an indignant huff, and says, "I'm not that small!"

"Forgive my mistake, then," he says, "because clearly you're taller than this tree." He grins when she punches him on the shoulder, and plants a brief kiss to her forehead. "Come on," he says, "Mother's calling, it's already bedtime."

"I'm not tired," she declares, and then her body goes and ruins it with a yawn. "I'm not!" she insists, seeing his skeptical look.

"Well," he says, "lucky for me you're light as a feather," and he lifts her up high, and for a moment she feels as though she's flying amongst the stars.)

Arya watches the uncertainly flickering light float upwards, and wonders if it's possible to feel her heart both begin mending itself at last and tear itself apart at the same time. It's not as bright as it could've been, they're already wasting valuable time here, yet she can't bring herself to feel angry or sorry over it.

"I used to do that," Robb (her brother, her kind and sweet and caring brother) says. "Used to. It's--It's been a while."

The bones in her hand reset with one last painful crack, and she hisses out a curse through the pain that lances up her hand. Robb's eyes flick down to her hand, and his brows shoot up in alarm, but she shakes her head when he looks back up at her.

"That's the last thing I remember of you," she says, and it's like she's wiping away the frost on the glass of her memory. He's older, more careworn, broken and scarred and changed, with traces of cybernetics etched on his face, but this is her brother. There is no doubt of that now, she realizes. "You got me and Sansa out. You should've come with us."

"I'm sorry I couldn't," he says, and she reaches up with her uninjured hand to pull him into a hug, careful to keep her sword hand between them. "I--I am so sorry, Arya, I truly am--"

"I missed you," she says, and she feels warmth rise in her chest. It's the closest thing she'll ever have to a home. "I missed you."

Theon coughs behind them, and says, "Not to interrupt this heartwarming moment between long-lost relatives--seriously, under normal circumstances I'd be all for it--but we still have to get out of here with the Stone before--"

"Wolf!" someone calls, from a distance away. "Where are you?"

"--that," Theon finishes.

Robb pulls away, then looks around. "You've a point," he concedes.

Arya stands, and picks up Needle's shards. She'll get it fixed, either by this Gendry fellow or someone called Donal Noye, but until then she realizes, with a sinking feeling, that she has few weapons left. Her hand is twinging still, fresh from healing. But she knows Knowhere, and she says, "There's a way up to the shuttles, I'll show you. Come on!"

--

"Oh, wolf, where are you?"

No answer. Well, of course Stark wouldn't make it easy to track him. Especially not now, when he's found something to protect. Stupid of him, really, to give in to that protective instinct of his.

The Goat's nose wrinkles, and he strokes his pointed beard and says, "Here, thir. They went thith way." Ramsay supposes he should be thankful, for the Goat's finely-tuned nose and greed, but instead he's fuming. A Terran should've been easy pickings, but the Ravager managed to score a few hits with his blaster before he and Stark ran with their tails between their legs, and he hasn't had a pet in far, far too long.

The other Kree soldiers fall in behind them. The Brave Companions, they call themselves, but Ramsay knows them better as the Bloody Mummers, and they've certainly lived up to that name. He's more than a little impressed by their reputation, less so by their leader.

"Kill the rest," he says to them, as they come up to an alleyway. "Leave Stark and the Terran alive, I have plans for them."

He flattens himself against the wall, his knife sliding from its sheath into his hand. He raises his other one, and silently counts down: three, two, one.

He turns, throwing his knife to catch someone in the back, but instead it embeds itself into a wall.

Son of a d'ast bitch.

--

"All right," Jon says, as they're all pulling each other up to the next level, "that guy earlier, he mentioned pets. Care to share?"

"Only if you want to lose your appetite for a week," Robb says, sourly. He grabs on to Theon's hand and drags him up, and says, "All right, how are you so heavy?"

"I work out," Theon lightly says, then looks around. The wolves are currently gathered around Sansa, and Arya's gone off to bully some of the shuttle keepers into letting them rent a few shuttles for a lower price than usual, at least until they can get to the Space Bitch. "Creepy asshole talking about pets aside, how do we talk to the Night Corps without, you know, getting arrested again?"

"I could talk to Margaery," Sansa says. "Let her know we're there to hand over a valuable and potentially world-destroying artifact."

Robb says, "Sure, you want to talk to her." He glances at Theon, a small smirk playing on his mouth.

"You've only been my big brother again for about twenty minutes," Sansa huffs.

"I have twelve years to make up for and I'm starting right now," Robb says, serenely, rifling through the contents of his recently-acquired bag and tossing out papers to make room for weapons. "Right, Jon?"

"We may need to have a word with Lady Margaery," Jon says. "You know. Just to make sure you're both just going to talk."

Theon catches her glancing at him and holds his hands up in the air. "Don't drag me into this," he says, "I know for a fact I'm not related to any of you." And thank god for that, he thinks.

"You're all assholes," Sansa informs them. "Twenty minutes."

"I got us shuttles!" Arya says, walking back to join them and waving papers in her hand. "All the multi-seaters are gone, though, and there's just three of them left that aren't being repaired right now." She blinks at them all, and says, with a conspiratorial smirk, "I heard Margaery's name."

Sansa just groans, and buries her red face into her hands. "Please stop, I am begging you all," she says, as Lady barks at them. Theon can almost swear the damn wolf sounds judgmental, except. Well. It's a direwolf.

"Sansa and Margaery sitting in a tree--" Arya singsongs.

"Arya!"

Robb laughs, then, a startled, boyish, happy sort of laughter that Theon's never heard from him. It sounds--nice. Awesome Mix nice, actually.

Oh, won't you smile awhile for me, Sara, he thinks, and somehow the song is in his mother's voice, oh, smile a while, won't you laugh?

"Hey," Robb says, snapping him back to reality, "Theon, what's that song?"

"Huh?" He takes stock of his surroundings--Sansa, Jon and Arya have gone off to confer with each other, or, more accurately, argue heatedly amongst one another, if the wild way Sansa's flailing her hands about is any indication.

"The one you were humming earlier," Robb clarifies.

"Sara Smile, Hall and Oates," Theon says automatically, a hand drifting over his Walkman. Robb is close, he realizes. Very, very close. "I, uh."

"Intelligent," Robb says, utterly deadpan.

"Why, thank you." He is so far gone on this guy, it isn't even funny anymore. He's never been more aware of the way his heart is beating double-time, of how low his voice has gone, of how tight his pants are. He almost, almost reaches up a hand, to thread through Robb's red hair and reel him in for a kiss.

Robb reaches up a hand to Theon's forehead, brushing a few dark strands back to tuck behind his ear. "You know," he says, at last, "you're--a decent man. I'd say honorable, but that's a stretch."

"Oh, good," Theon remarks, a corner of his mouth twitching up in a small smile, "I've got a rep as a thoroughly dishonorable man, I wouldn't want to ruin that now."

Robb huffs out a laugh, and smiles, a tender and sweet kind of smile that looks so very good on him. "I won't ruin it," he says, "I promise. But I keep meaning to tell you, Theon Greyjoy, I'm--"

"So what are you both talking about?" Jon asks, and they jump apart fast.

"Not something you need to know," Robb says quickly, and Jon raises a brow, folds his arms across his chest. "So, uh, who's going with us first?"

"Me," Sansa says, walking up to them. "We drew straws."

"Sansa cheated," Arya huffs, following behind her sister. Now that Theon knows they're all related to each other, he can see some resemblance--Arya and Jon have the same stormy grey eyes, the same shape of face, the same dark hair. Sansa's hair dye is washing out, so her natural hair color can be seen at the roots, and it's just as red as Robb's, and their eyes are the same shade of blue.

"Well, maybe I don't fancy the idea of you getting yourself hurt again after Bolton broke your hand--"

"Well, maybe I can take care of myself--"

"Hey," Robb interrupts, before they can devolve into more bickering, "Arya, can you do much with your hand? I know you're a fast healer, I am too, but even a freshly-healed hand still hurts a little."

She shakes her head, but says, "I can still fly a shuttle!"

"Very badly," Sansa points out. "You need two hands."

"You can't fly anything with just one hand," Theon says. "I should know, I broke mine once and got sidelined for months. Couldn't fly anything."

Arya glances at Jon, who says, "Well, they're telling the truth. But think of it this way--it's been years. We should catch up."

"Fine," Arya relents. "But I can still take care of myself, if Bolton and his bastard and whoever else they've brought along come on us."

"That," Jon says, cold and fierce, "is not going to happen." His fingers curl around the hilt of his sword, and for a second Theon is honestly a little scared of the guy, he looks as angry as he did the first time they all met, when Jon held a knife to Robb's throat.

It's a little funny, now, to see the two of them pulling each other into a tight and somewhat awkward hug when he remembers a time when they were, quite literally, at each other's throats. A few days and a revelation on this scale, he supposes, works wonders for relationships.

"Let's get moving," he says, out loud. "My bitch of a ship awaits."

--

Here's the thing.

There's more than one shuttle service in Knowhere, and in a place as lawless as this, there is nothing, absolutely nothing stopping someone from, say, threatening an owner into letting them have their best, fastest, most heavily-armed shuttles all for free.

As it just so happens, there's even another shuttle service on the same level, one slightly more disreputable than the one Theon's chosen.

Usually no one in their right mind would think to even threaten the owner of the more disreputable shuttle service, but hey--no one's ever said Ramsay Snow was in his right mind, now.

--

The first time Sansa ever found herself in a shuttle, it had been after her home had been turned into a smoking ruin, a shadow of what it once was. She'd held Arya close to her and wept, for the brothers she was sure she would never see again, for the light that had flickered out at last, after it led them to where the Starks kept their emergency shuttles. She still doesn't know how, exactly, did she manage to get one of them working--most of that fateful day is a haze in her head.

But now she's clear-headed, and her brother is in the shuttle just before her, and someone is singing over the comm, and I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation, oh no, not me.

For the first time in days, she feels--well, content. She'd be even more content, of course, if they can get the Infinity Stone to Margaery, and if Arya was sitting beside her ridiculing Theon's music taste, but Sansa'll take what she can get.

Seven hells, this is honestly a lot more than she'd ever thought she'd have.

"One of these days you need to tell me about the Dorne job, Sansa," Robb's voice crackles over the comm.

"What?" Theon asks, breaking off from his attempt to keep up with the song. "What Dorne job?"

Sansa coughs, and says, "Oh, that. It wasn't that hard, we just had to track down the Mountain's body. We didn't account for whatever he'd been enhanced with that enabled him to survive being poisoned."

"Wait, wait," Theon says, "that was you?"

"How did you hear about that, anyway?" Sansa asks, flicking a switch to stabilize her shuttle.

"The Mountain was one of Lannister's most fearsome men," Robb says. "I had to work with him once. It--It was terrible, let's go with that." He pauses, says, "It was impressive. I'm proud of you, Sansa, I really am."

"It wasn't that hard, my ass," Theon grumbles, then: "Hey, wait, shit--"

"Stark!" another voice crackles over the comm, and Sansa feels a chill run down her spine. It's the bastard, the one who'd mentioned wanting new pets. "Give up the orb, now."

"Or what?" Robb snarls.

Sansa's screen blinks, a red flashing dot suddenly appearing with INCOMING written on it, and she has to maneuver to the left just to narrowly avoid the incoming missile. Judging from Theon's sudden curse, he's had the same thing happen to him, too.

"Fucking flarking krutacking sonuva--"

"What the hell," Robb yells. "Sansa has nothing to do with this! And neither does Theon!"

"I would beg to differ," the bastard says. "My shoulder is still healing. And of course the bitch has everything to do with it, she's related to you."

"Excuse you, you creep," Sansa snaps. "I'm not a dog."

"What, regenerative implants not working for you?" Robb says, his voice taking on a taunting tone. "Didn't you always get second best? I mean, your father sells you off to Lannister first, then Lannister keeps overlooking you in favor of literally everyone else, then when you go back to your father he keeps reminding you that you're his bastard."

"I am not!"

"Illegitimate child, then? By-blow? Born on the wrong side of the blanket? Child of passion? I can go on."

Even here, Sansa can hear the sounds of weapons systems reconfiguring, refocusing. I just found you, she thinks desperately. Robb, please.

"Give me the damn orb now," the bastard hisses.

"Come and get it, bastard of Bolton."

It happens too fast, for Sansa to really tell. Or maybe she's just too in shock, because then there's a sound like gunfire, there's Robb's voice (I am so sorry, Sansa), and she watches, helpless, as the shuttle is ripped apart, and--

"Robb!" she yells.

Or maybe that's Theon's voice.

--

So what no one tells you about floating in space sans any kind of life support is that it's actually a slow death. Theon knows, he's seen it happen once or twice--some unlucky dumbass stumbling out an airlock by accident, screaming as they tumbled into the void, knowing no one would come for them. It's too great a risk, to go out into the cold void alone.

He doesn't know how much longer Robb has to go, floating in space. Were he to guess, he'd say just a minute or two more. The Stone is gone--their pursuers took that, nothing more, thankfully enough. Maybe Sansa's warning shots did the trick. Maybe it was Theon's, he's not quite sure. He's a little in shock.

Sansa's saying, "Theon--Theon. Theon, we have to--we have to go. We can't do anything for him, I'm sorry, gods, Robb." She sounds wretched, like she wishes she could do something, like she's watching her world be destroyed all over again. He realizes, with a sinking feeling, that it might as well be. "Theon?"

He stares out at Robb, running out of breath and time too soon, too fast. He can see frost forming on his skin, on his clothes, and soon enough the cold will claim him, as it's claimed so many others sharing his fate.

Except.

Except Theon has stood by far too many times already. He can't do it now.

"I'm sorry, Sansa," he says, "but I'm going to do something incredibly stupid like your brother and your sister did. If it doesn't work, Arya gets the Space Bitch and you get my tape. Jon probably gets, like, my bed or something, may he enjoy it in the full knowledge of all the vaguely blasphemous acts I've done on it."

"What."

He shuts off his link to her before she can start to yell at him, then forges a new link, punching in an old, familiar number and praying that's in range.

"Who is this?" Davos's voice comes in, crackling over the comm.

"Davos, is Stannis there?" Theon says. "This is Theon. You know, the guy who got himself dragged off to the Red Keep. I managed to get out, by the way, and I'm giving myself up and sending you my coordinates." He punches in a string of numbers and hits send, and says, "Sorry, Davos. If I worried you."

"Theon Greyjoy," Davos huffs, "one of these days one of my hearts may just give out on me because of you." He's quiet, then says, "We're nearby. We'll come and get you. Stannis will probably have your hide, for getting caught. And for breaking off from us without saying."

"He'll have it for more than just that, I think," Theon chuckles, then, "I have to go." He shuts off the link then, sucks in a breath, then activates his mask, the metal sliding into place as he presses the eject button on his shuttle.

He's sure Sansa's screaming at him now, what the hell are you doing, but that makes no matter. The sudden cold in his hands makes no matter either.

Breathe out. Breathe in. He can't really feel Robb's body against his, maybe because they're both so cold now, but he imagines that he's warm still, hopes to god he's not too late as he deactivates his mask, unhooking the device that generates it from the shell of his ear and hooking it onto Robb's.

There's a sudden, startled breath once the mask slides into place, and Robb shudders back to life, and Theon thinks he hears him say his name, and he's cold, he's so, so cold, his hands are numb and there is darkness at the edges of his vision. The Ravagers won't get to him in time. He hasn't opened his mother's gift yet, he's thirty-two, and he is dying among the stars in the cold vacuum of space, the cold seeping into his bones, and all he can think is, Thank god, thank god, you're alive.

There's a ship, a bright light, like his last night on Earth, and he thinks, Mom?

Theon Greyjoy holds on to Robb, breathes out, and closes his eyes.

--

"Uh--sir?"

"What?"

"Um. You're not going to believe this."

"Tell me. I have no patience for being told what to believe."

"Uh--well, we got Greyjoy in the beam all right. But he's got somebody else with him, he gave them his mask, and it looks like--frak me with a bloody dragon dagger, I think it's the Young Wolf. It's the Young smegging Wolf."

Teeth grinding. "That boy is going to be the death of me."

--

As falls go, it's not the most dignified one Robb has ever made in his life. And he knows falling--he's made better landings than this, falling flat on his stomach on top of an unconscious person, and Robb might be on the verge of panicking but he has this covered, truly. He just. He just has to wake Theon up, that's all.

He fumbles with Theon's mask, managing to get it to dissolve back into a little earring-like clip on the shell of his ear, and curses.

"Theon," he says. "Theon. Wake up, wake up, wake up, gods, please--" He presses his fingers to Theon's cold neck, feeling for a pulse. For a moment he's afraid, in a way he hasn't been since--since he can't remember, but then--

--there's a pulse. There's a faint pulse, but it is steady, thud-thud, thud-thud, and Robb could cry from how relieved he feels. He settles for a small, half-hysterical giggle.

Then he feels for the orb with the Infinity Stone, and finds--nothing. Absolutely nothing.

No, he thinks, a cold weight of dread sinking into his stomach. He knows, already, what Roose Bolton might plan to do once he finds out he has an Infinity Stone in his possession--the alliance he had with Lannister was always somewhat tedious, and part of the reason why Robb was sent to him was to keep an eye on him, and on his bastard son. With the power of the Infinity Stone in his hands--Robb shudders.

Try as he might, he can't get the images of Castamere's destruction out of his head, can't shake the memory of people suddenly dissolving into nothing with a touch of the Stone, can't forget how Flowers screamed. He'd wanted to keep the Stone away from both Bolton and Lannister. Now it's in Bolton's hands, and it may as well have been Robb who led him to the Stone.

"Wake up," he says to Theon. "Please."

Theon's eyes flutter open, flakes of ice falling off his eyelashes, and he mumbles, "'M'awake, ‘m’a lil' woozy, s'all." He blinks up at Robb, grins dopily, and says groggily, "Hey. Y're 'live."

Robb breathes again. Funny, he hadn't known he was holding his breath. "Don't you ever do that again," he says, both hands resting on the sides of Theon's face. "Gods, I--I don't want you dead, I've had enough of people dying on me, you will not be another of them."

"C'mon, Stark, I just saved your life!" Theon huffs, but the smirk doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Not even a thank you? I mean, not to brag, but I was totally a hero there--"

"Why am I attracted to you," Robb says.

Theon stops. Stares. His jaw has fallen open in a comical o, and it seems to take a moment for his brain to really restart, because it takes him a moment to say, "Back up. What did you say?"

"I," Robb enunciates, approaching it as though he's speaking to a toddler, "am attracted to you. That's what I've been trying to tell you." He pauses, lets his head fall forward onto Theon's chest. "I'm attracted to you, and you're an ass."

"Um," Theon says, intelligently. "Oh."

Robb feels his cheeks heat, as he lifts himself back up to look at Theon. "Thank you, I suppose," he says, at last. "For saving my life back there. Twice, if we count Knowhere, and about--thrice or so, if we count the Red Keep." He is indebted to Theon now, he realizes. Somehow, he doesn't mind.

Theon is practically preening, under him. "So I'm guessing this means I'm awesome, right?" he asks. "Because I am. You said as much."

"I did not."

"Ooh, Theon," Theon says, pitching his voice high, "you saved my life, you're so amazing, how can I ever repay you--"

"You're an ass," Robb informs him, before dropping down and sealing his lips over Theon's. He feels a hand slide up beneath his shirt, fingers pressing down on his skin, and Robb presses his own hand down on Theon's shoulder, holding hard enough to bruise.

Then--

"Are you two planning on rutting on the floor like animals while I'm standing right here," a new voice cuts through the air, breaking whatever spell Robb is under, "or will you stop and spare an old man the sight?"

Robb breaks away, and Theon backs up, face red. "Dagmer!" Theon says, his voice pitched higher than normal. "Shit--uh, hey?"

Robb stares at the newcomer, taking him in. He cuts an imposing figure, added to by an array of weapons on his person and the scar splitting his lip in two. The fact that one eye is clearly cybernetic doesn't help, and neither do the long talons sprouting from his fingers. For a moment he's staring down at the two of them, his expression cold and hard, and Robb's hand drifts over his knife, attached to his belt.

Then the newcomer grins at Theon. "A right mess you've gotten yourself in this time, Greyjoy," he says. "Is this going to be another Duchess situation?"

"No!" Theon huffs. "No, I--Robb, this is Dagmer Cleftjaw, he's. Sort of an uncle, I suppose. Dagmer, this is Robb, he's--" he trails off, then glances over at Robb, beseeching.

"To be honest," Robb says, "I still have no clue."

"No need for introductions, Greyjoy, I know who the Young Wolf is," Dagmer says. Robb can tell he does, he's keeping his distance from him, as though the second Dagmer drops his guard Robb will try to tear him apart. "Baratheon's wroth, by the way."

"Oh, great," Theon groans. "I'm in for it now."

"Dagmer Cleftjaw," another, more feminine voice greets them, and Dagmer steps aside to let in a woman in red. No, that's not right--a red woman, not just someone wearing red, because Robb can see the flame-red of her hair, of her dress, of the rubies embedded into her skin around her neck. A red priestess, he thinks. "Theon. I see you've brought the Young Wolf with you."

"And mayhaps he'd have brought him to his bedroom too," Dagmer says, snickering.

"I have a name," Robb says, at the same time Theon huffs, "He's got a name."

"Robb Stark, one of Winterfell's remnants," the red priestess says. "I'm well aware of your reputation, and of more than that besides. The Lord of Light granted me a glimpse of what you were all up to." She tilts her head and smiles, the way someone would, if they know more than the person they're speaking with. Robb's hand drifts over the hilt of his knife once more. "And I would advise against trying to kill me here, Robb Stark. I have more than adequate protection."

Robb withdraws his hand from his knife, and says, "So--you're on our side?"

"I am on the side of the one true god, who has chosen Stannis Baratheon as Azor Ahai reborn. I follow Stannis, not a Terran and one of Winterfell's survivors." She steps aside, letting a pack of Ravagers--all in red, and all looking particularly unhappy--through the door.

Theon scoots over next to Robb. Then he nudges him in the ribs with one painfully sharp elbow before holding his hands up. "Don't kill us?" he tries.

Robb follows suit, holding his own hands up. "Take us to Stannis Baratheon," he says, "we have to speak with him. It's important."

"Where do you think they're going to take you, Robb Stark?" the red woman asks, still smiling. "Stannis wants to speak with you as well, though the matter is of a rather different nature from your question."

The way she says it, Robb feels dread sink down into his stomach. Judging from Theon's similarly fearful look, he feels the same way.

It makes the dread feel even heavier.

--

"Where are Robb and Theon?" Arya asks, when she spies Sansa landing alone and stepping out of her shuttle, looking incredibly angry in a way she only dimly remembers from the lab. "Did anything happen to them?"

"They got caught by Ravagers," Sansa says, then explains--from Bolton's bastard catching up to them, to Robb nearly dying, to Theon calling down the Ravagers and then exiting his own shuttle to save him, to the Ravagers showing up and pulling them into their ship.

By the time she's done, Jon says, "The next time I see both of them, I'm not going to be held responsible for what I do."

"Get in line," Arya huffs. "I called dibs first."

"I did that before either of you," Sansa says. "How far away did Theon park his ship, again?"

"We parked behind a moon just nearby, so about ten minutes to get there," Arya automatically answers. "Think we can jack some of the shuttles being repaired here?"

Jon lets out a slow breath. "Or we could find another service," he says.

"Where's the fun in that?" she scoffs, then glances to Sansa, who's rocking back and forth on her heels.

"We can talk with the owner here and offer to repair the shuttles we'll be taking ourselves, sure," Sansa says, "but the repairs will take an hour at least, and that's time we can't afford to lose. Right now, the Ravagers have both Robb and Theon, and we need them back if we're going to go after the Boltons."

"We do have a plan for going after them, right?" Jon asks. "Because I think we've seen what happens if we go in with nothing."

Arya sighs, and says, "I'm sorry about that, all right? I was just--after what that guy said, I got really mad, and I thought, maybe I could somehow cripple Lannister by taking out an ally of his." She folds her arms across her chest, then kicks at the ground. "I wanted to go home for a long time," she says, at last, "but--well, I never can, and so I went for revenge. The next best thing, I thought." She reaches up, wiping away the tears stinging at her eyes. "That was stupid, I guess," she says, quietly. "And now Robb is gone again and--and--"

She stops and sniffles, then sinks to her knees, and Nymeria whines, bumping up and nuzzling against her leg.

Then Sansa's hand slips into hers, and Jon takes her other hand, and they pull her into a hug. She hears the wolves whimpering, feels Robb's unnamed wolf pawing at her thigh.

"We'll get them back," Sansa promises. "We'll get them back, and then we're going to come after the Boltons, do you hear me, Arya?"

"I do," she whispers. "I do."

Jon doesn't say a word, but his hold on her tightens, as though he's afraid that if he lets go again she'll slip through his fingers. She lets him--it's not like she isn't holding them as tight as she can, too. This is the closest she will ever have to going back home, she knows, and she'll take it and she won't let go of it, not again, never again.

They stay like that for a few moments more, Arya basking in the warmth, then they break apart, and she says, "All right--let's find ourselves another service and get back to the ship. And then, we find the Ravagers, and we get our brother--and Theon as well, I guess--back."

"How do we do that?" Jon asks.

Arya grins, showing her teeth. "Simple," she says. "I still have a moon-destroying bomb lying around, and Theon has that Hadron Enforcer just sitting there waiting to be repaired and used. Should be more than enough for a ship as big as the Ravagers'."

--

"Greyjoy, Stark," Stannis greets them, when they're roughly shoved into what Theon's come to think of as the War Room. It certainly has the look of one, there are holographic star maps projected on the walls, more old-fashioned paper maps of various geographies posted up alongside them. There's a desk, papers, an arrangement of weapons lined up in a rack nearby, though Stannis keeps his sword Lightbringer on his person at all times. All in all, it's the sort of room the captain of the Ravagers would have, save for a hologram of a young girl with cracked grey skin on the left side of her face on the desk.

It's the only piece of sentiment Theon has ever seen Stannis keep. Everything else has a practical purpose, even the trinkets he's kept over the years.

"Hi, Stannis," Theon says, because he can never quite resist being irreverent even when he's a hair's breadth from fainting dead away. "How's tricks? Hope you don't mind if I don't salute, my hands are kind of tied together right now."

Robb manages to get on his feet without stumbling too much, though the shackles around his wrists aren't helping. It had been an extra measure of protection, and Theon had demanded that either they take the damn cuffs off or cuff him too, which is the reason why there's cold metal around his wrists as well. Again.

Stannis grinds his teeth. "Explain to me, Greyjoy," he says, "what the Young Wolf is doing on my ship, and why you went running off to a condemned planet behind my back."

"Petyr Pimple wanted me to go get an artifact for him," Theon says. "Figured it'd be easy, but--well, I got ambushed by Kree. And then when I tried to sell it to Pimple I told him Bolton was after it and he pushed me out of the shop. Didn't even buy the damn thing, though now that I think about it that was smart of him to do."

"It was an Infinity Stone," Robb supplies. "I was to retrieve it for my former employers, but I planned on turning my cloak and selling it to someone else, before I knew what it was and what it could do. And as for why I'm here--" He pauses, then glances at Theon. "It's--complicated. Long story short, their other hirelings caught up with us and our companions on Knowhere. They took the Stone, so now we have to get it back. Bolton plans to use it to take over Xandar, and by now, he's found out what it is. Mayhaps he's broken off from Lannister already."

Stannis grinds his teeth once more, and fixes a glare on Theon. "And you believe him?" he asks.

"Yes," Theon says. "I mean, he was my cellmate in the Red Keep. And he's been living with me on my ship for days. If he wanted to kill me and take the orb I stole from Castamere for himself he would've done it, he had plenty of opportunities."

He glances over at Robb, who smiles at him, the soft sort of smile that looks right on his face, no matter how rare it seems to be. "I've done wrong in the past, I know that," Robb says, turning to look at Stannis. "But I can't stand by and let Bolton destroy an entire planet, either because he couldn't harness an Infinity Stone's power or because he could and wanted to demonstrate. I've stood by before. I can't do it again, not when millions of lives are at stake."

"So, you know," Theon says, cheerfully, "let us go and we'll just be on our way--"

"You admitted you planned to turn your cloak," Stannis says, and Theon can feel the tension in the room rising. "How should I know I can trust your word and not let my men sacrifice you to Melisandre's red god? Tell me, wolf, how do I know I can trust a turncloak assassin?"

"I swear," Robb says, his jaw tensed and his back ramrod straight, "on my father's grave--my real father--and on my mother's as well, that I am telling you the truth. I swear on Winterfell's remains, may the Others take me if I break it." He takes a deep breath, and says, "I swear, by the gods of the weirwood, Stannis Baratheon, that every word I've said to you here--and every word I will say to you in this room--is true."

"Words and wind," Stannis says, "and I do not follow the gods of Winterfell. They died along with your planet."

"I'm still alive," Robb says. "My sisters are. And so is my brother." He breathes out, and for a moment his gaze flicks away, and Theon knows he's worried--gods know what Sansa did, if Arya and Jon have found out by now. There's no way they wouldn't have, and none of them would leave their newly-found brother alone for long.

(He's a little worried now, too, but not for Robb's siblings.)

"And if that's not enough for you," Theon says, "I'm vouching for him."

Robb whips his head around to look at him, surprise flashing across his face for a moment before he smooths his expression over and he glances back at Stannis.

"That still isn't enough for me," Stannis says, simply, "and I have trouble believing either of you can find any man onboard who would believe your story."

Robb lets out a soft, resigned breath, and looks down at his cuffed hands.

Theon presses his lips together, and says, "So what, you're going to throw us to the wolves--no offense, Robb--just like that?"

"None taken," Robb says.

Stannis sighs. "I cannot afford to trust the word of a turncloak vouched for by another." He sounds almost regretful about it, but he stands, and moves to the door as though to let in whatever guard is posted outside to drag them both off.

He's beaten, however, by Davos throwing the door open, crossing the room, and then engulfing Theon in a hug.

"Don't," Davos says, "ever get yourself captured again. Gods, boy, did you know the worry you put us through, getting dragged to the Red Keep like that? I was so certain you were among those who'd been killed when Bolton came there!"

Theon blinks. Well. That's new to him, and he figures he knows why Bolton came to the Red Keep. "No, we left before he did," he says. "By we, I mean me, two bounty hunters, a former gladiator, and--uh, Robb over here."

"Hello," Robb says, looking deeply awkward and wiggling his fingers in a sad attempt at waving.

"Sorry I got caught, by the way," Theon adds. "I swear, it's a very long story. Short version is--"

"I know," Davos says, "I heard everything." He nods to the door, and Theon fails to stop a little snort of laughter from escaping his lips.

Stannis lets out a slow breath, then shuts the door behind them. "You cannot think--" he starts, but then there's another knock on the door. He whips around, grinding his teeth, and marches over and pulls it open with enough force that the hinges actually shriek.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, my lord," Melisandre says, walking inside with all the grace of a queen. "Davos Seaworth, I assume you aren't here to resume our previous discussion on religion?"

Theon catches Davos' left fingers twitching in his glove, before the older man calmly answers, "No, my lady. Rather, I came here to vouch for Theon's friend."

"You have a habit of vouching for strays, it would seem," Mel notes.

"The Young Wolf has confessed to turning his cloak," Stannis points out. "And must we forget his other crimes, in Lannister's service?"

"Sure, talk about us like we're not here, thanks a bunch," Theon grumbles. "Chairs would be nice, seriously. My feet hurt."

Davos shakes his head, trying not to show his amusement, and Robb buries his face in his hands and snorts out a laugh.

"I would argue," Davos says, keeping a straight face, "that anyone turning their cloak on a man such as Lannister is better for it. It might even be a courageous act, with what we know. Will you condemn someone for breaking their loyalty to a man rumored to regularly bathe the pathway to his throne in blood?"

Stannis grinds his teeth--again. Theon's surprised he hasn't lost them by now, with how much he does it.

Robb rocks back and forth on his heels, and says, suddenly, "Bolton has an Infinity Stone, now, and he'll have broken off from Lannister once he's learned of its power. His target is Xandar, and if he gets there--if he's allowed to even touch the ground--then he'll use it. The problem is whether he can harness that power, and if he can, what he'll do with it."

"You've said as much before, why are you bringing this up now?" Stannis snaps.

"Because I can't stop him by myself," Robb says. "And even if my siblings were with us, we'd only be five people. You have a crew of--Theon, how many Ravagers are there?"

"Fucking lot," Theon says. "At a given time, about a hundred twenty or so, on different ships."

"A hundred fifty men," Mel says.

"One hundred and fifty-four," Davos says, his eyes on Robb, as though searching for any tells that could give him away. He's good at that, Theon recalls, knowing when people lie. "Counting me and Mel here."

"A hundred and fifty-four men might help make a difference," Robb says. "Especially with the strength of the Night Corps. If Margaery Tyrell believes us."

"You're asking me," Stannis says, "to risk my men, my ships, and a non-interference agreement with the Night Corps on your word alone."

"Not on his word alone," Theon says. "On mine too. Since I'm vouching."

"The boy is telling the truth," Davos says, simply, one hand coming up to grasp at the pouch around his neck with his fingerbones. "I will stake my life on that."

"I agree," Mel says, clasping her hands together. "I have seen Xandar's beauty in the flames, eaten by the darkness the Infinity Stone brings. You are Azor Ahai, must I remind you of that?"

"Woman," Stannis mutters, "you never let me forget."

"You must fight against the darkness," Mel says. "If not, then what other planets will fall to the darkness inside the Infinity Stone and its current master?" Her eyes slide to Theon, then to Robb, and she smiles, in that enigmatic way that really kind of scares Theon a little. "It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility for the entire galaxy to fall to it. And that, I cannot let pass."

"We live in this galaxy as well," Davos says. "Aye, we take a risk on trusting Robb Stark's word, I will acknowledge that--"

"Thank you for using my name, at least," Robb dryly says, and Theon huffs out a laugh and nudges his side with his elbow.

"He's a good guy," Theon says. "Just--brutally honest, sometimes."

"--but I trust his word and will stake my life on it, as I've said before. And where would we go, if the galaxy is destroyed because of this Stone falling into the hands of a madman?" Davos glances at Robb, and says, quietly, "I did not know your father, Stark--your real father--but I worked with someone who did, once. From what I know, he would've been proud, to call you his son. It takes courage to break from a man such as Lannister."

Stannis glances at them all, grinding his teeth in frustration, then says, "Fine. We’ll set a course for Xandar."

"Great!" Theon cheerfully says. "Could you get these cuffs off? They're starting to chafe."

And, because his luck is kind of shit, that is the same time the alarms start ringing and static nearly screeches out from the comms, and Arya's voice breaks through the static to say, "All right, you have ten seconds to hand over my brother--and the owner of this ship too--before I blow your ship to pieces!"

"Fuck," Theon says, grabbing at Robb's bound hands with his own and trying to tug him along into the corridor. "Shit, come on, goddammit, Stark, we gotta talk to your siblings before they accidentally blow us all to hell!"

"Your sister?" Davos asks Robb, following along behind them, as Stannis curses and runs ahead with a speed Theon does not usually attribute to people of his age.

"She's very good at making bombs," Robb says, sounding proud. Theon supposes he shouldn't be so surprised considering that Robb's an assassin and knows bombs very well. Of course he'd approve of Arya's frankly terrifyingly vast knowledge of bomb-making. "Also--Theon, you mentioned you knew someone who could fix her sword--"

"Sword later," Theon huffs, rounding the corner, "bomb now!"

--

"Ten seconds?"

"Sansa, I'm giving them a chance!" Arya huffs.

"Too small of one," Sansa says. Jon's gone up--in a suit that made Arya break out into hysterical laughter the second she set eyes on it, Sansa is going to have words with Theon once they get him and Robb back for having such an outdated spacesuit on his ship--and is aiming the cannon in the Ravagers' ship's direction, waiting on Arya's word.

It's a huge ship. It certainly makes Theon's Space Bitch look like small potatoes, even with the boosts Arya gave to its arsenal. Sansa knows, for a fact, that if he wanted to, Stannis could just blow them all to pieces by ordering his cannons on them.

Which is why the first thing she did was advise Arya to first disable their weapons systems. Tricky as that had been, with the Ravagers' considerable security measures, Arya's gift with machinery had made things significantly easier.

"Ten seconds is enough time," Arya says.

"No, it isn't," Sansa says. "You remember the last time someone gave us ten seconds to come out with guns down? We barely made it to the door before they tried to blast us!"

"We did make it," Arya argues.

Sansa sighs. "Let me handle this," she says.

"I'm handling it just fine!" Arya protests.

"Arya."

"Sansa," Arya says, her tone a parody of Sansa's threatening tone. "Handling it. See?" She pauses, then glances at the comm. "Shit," she says into it, "did you all hear that?"

--

"Your sisters," Davos says, "are incorrigible." He shakes his head, as though he can't entirely believe it.

Robb shrugs. "If we're being honest here," he says, "I didn't know I had sisters until about--less than an hour or so ago. Before that, we kind of landed each other in jail because we all fought each other."

"I still haven't forgiven you for that!" Theon calls, clambering up the stairwell. "God, this would go easier if my hands were free."

--

"All right," Sansa says into the comm, "we're giving you thirty seconds to give up our older brother and our Terran. Alive and unharmed. We're clear on that?"

The insect-like chatter she gets in return gets translated as Yes, it is definitely, our message is loud, is clear. She has a feeling they meant to tell her they got it loud and clear, but her translator implant hasn't been upgraded in a month or two.

There's another series of clicks, and Arya says, "Well, that's a new insult." She snorts out a laugh. "It's not even that insulting!"

"What did they say?" Sansa asks. For some reason, Arya's always been able to tell just what someone is trying to say, even when they're just clicking their mandibles at her. She figures Arya's innate gift, and the experimental and ever-changing state of her implants, have something to do with it.

"They said you were a two-eyed two-armed softbelly mouse-krik," Arya says.

"True," Sansa remarks, "outside of eating mice." She taps her fingers on the comm, counting down the beats. "Twenty seconds," she says.

There's another series of clicks, taking up five beats, and Arya mutters, "Do they kiss their mother with that mouth?"

"Do they even have a mother, is my question," Sansa says, tapping her fingers. "Ten seconds."

"Nine," Arya says, "eight, seven, six, five, any time now, four, three, two--"

There's a sound of a scuffle, and just as Arya reaches one Theon's voice crackles to life over the comm, yelling, "For fuck's sake don't blow up the ship! It's fine, we're fine, we worked some stuff out with Stannis, so for the love of god don't blast us all to pieces!"

"Theon, hey!" Sansa greets. "Where's Robb?"

"Right here," Robb's voice comes in. "Sansa, we're on the ship. We're okay, we're not being held prisoners. Please don't blow us up."

"What he said," Theon adds. "Please." He pauses, and Sansa hears a muffled conversation, and here and there catches a phrase or two. "Okay," Theon continues, "Seaworth wants you guys to beam over or dock the ship, and trust me, he really does just want to talk with you. Arya especially, Robb mentioned her sword and--well, maybe we can drag Gendry out of the forge long enough for him and Arya to meet and talk business, yeah?"

Arya hums, then says, "Sansa, what do you think?"

"Robb," Sansa says, "what do you say?"

"He vouched for me," Robb says, simply. "And Theon trusts him, so yes, I'm sure you can too."

Sansa sighs, then says, "Fine, we'll dock the ship. But we won't be surrendering our weapons, just so you all know."

"Oh, come on," Theon grumbles. "The crew isn't that bad, and I'm saying that as someone they abducted at eleven. Sure, there was the occasional threat about being burned at the stake--ow, Christ, Rolland for fuck's sake let go of my fucking ear--"

"Good idea," Robb says, and she imagines a twinkle of mischief in his blue eyes, almost the same as her own. "I didn't exactly surrender all of mine either."

The comm feed cuts out then and there with a click, and Sansa lets out the giggle she's been trying to hold back. It feels good, she realizes, to know that her brother is safe, at least for the time being.

She clicks on the comm again, and says, "Jon, you okay up there?"

"Fine," Jon says. "So are the Ravagers giving them back?"

"No, but we got to talk to them, and they both said not to blow up the ship," Arya says. "Robb's fine. So's Theon, and I think we're going to get Needle fixed." She smiles at the prospect, and it occurs to Sansa that this is the first time she's seen Arya smile like that, genuinely happy and--not exactly carefree, but the closest thing either of them can come to that. Content, she supposes, is a better word for it.

"That's good," Jon answers. "Unlock the hatch and help me fit this thing through without accidentally triggering it and blowing something up, will you, Arya?"

"You fit it through just fine getting up there," Arya counters, and Sansa snickers.

"I nearly blew a hole trying to," Jon grumbles. "This suit isn't helping matters, either. I think the temperature control on it broke some time ago." He grunts. "Gods, it's hot in here. Did either of you tell Greyjoy to get a new suit?"

Sansa coughs, and behind her, Lady whines, having just woken up from a nap. Nymeria whimpers pleadingly from the floor, placing both front paws on Arya's thigh.

"You didn't, did you?" Jon says, resignedly.

"No," Sansa admits.

"Sorry," Arya mumbles, abashed.

"Help me get the Enforcer down?"

Arya hops out of her seat, and says, "You can pilot the ship without me, right?"

"Hey, don't worry about me," Sansa says. "I'm just as good as you are. Worry about Jon accidentally blowing something to smithereens instead. Why I let you build bombs with that much power, I will never know."

"Because you love me!" Arya calls, already on the climb.

Sansa chuckles, then starts plotting the ship's course.

A minute or so later, she hears a curse, and a sound like something crashing.

--

Theon takes one look at the ship when it touches down on the floor of the Ravagers' hangar and says, "Please tell me your siblings didn't almost blow a hole in my ship."

Robb shakes his head. "It doesn't look that damaged," he says, before he catches sight of a suspicious-looking scorch mark that he knows wasn't there before. "I take it back," he decides. "I see it."

Theon groans, one hand coming up to massage his forehead.

"Look on the bright side," Robb says, "at least we aren't cuffed."

"My poor ship," Theon mutters.

"It doesn't seem that bad," Davos observes, and Robb sees him reaching for his pouch, tugging on it as though praying for luck. "Though that was a close call back there." He glances at the two of them, then says, "So. You two?"

Theon coughs, and says, "Recent development."

Robb looks down at his feet, feeling heat flood to his face. He shuffles his right foot, then rocks on his heels. "I'm new to this in general," he admits. "Mostly. But very new."

"You'll spill if I do?" Theon asks, and Robb shakes his head. "All right, fine. I can live with wondering who your mystery first love is, I guess." He shoves his hands into his pockets, then turns to Davos, to catch him up.

Robb glances around, and for a second he sees a flash of brown hair and eyes, you will always be in my heart--

He closes his eyes and breathes out. When he opens them again, Jeyne Westerling's image is gone, and Theon is still talking with Davos, something about the Space Bitch's physical condition and inner workings and extra rooms.

Robb steps closer, threads his fingers through Theon's. Theon glances back at him and says, "Hey, sap. Didn't know we were at that stage already."

"We kissed," Robb huffs. "I'd say I'm well within my rights to hold your hand." He pauses, then adds, "If you're all right with that."

Theon stares at him a moment, a flash of surprise and worry passing over his face. "I--" he starts, then falls silent, scrubbing his free hand over his face like he can't quite believe the turn his life has taken. Then he glances over at Davos, who's still behind him and who's sighing deeply now. It occurs to Robb that maybe he shouldn't have just gone for it, taken Theon's hand right then and there.

"Are you all right with it, Greyjoy?" Davos asks.

"Well, yeah--" Theon starts.

"Then I see nothing wrong with it," Davos replies, and Robb watches him turn to leave, calling someone named Gendry over. Theon's friend, Robb recalls, the one who could be able to fix Arya's sword.

Then he looks back down at his hand, still tangled with Theon's.

Theon lets out a breath, and says at last, his head ducked down, "Tell you the truth, I have very little clue what I'm doing either."

"I had the impression you did, actually," Robb points out. Theon's obviously proud of having more experience than Robb does, ever did, and he's enough of an asshole to bring it up whenever there's a perfect opportunity, that much Robb has learned over his time on the Space Bitch. "Considering that you've bragged about it more than once."

"If you're talking about one-night stands, then yes, I do have experience," Theon answers. Robb feels Theon's thumb rub experimentally over his finger, as though trying to map new territory. "Not so much in actual relationships. I've had--exactly one, and we were a thing for a month before we broke up years ago. We’re still friends, she’s living happily and legally somewhere now." He shrugs, his eyes flicking upward to meet Robb's. "So, uh. That's my big secret. I don't have the best map either."

It should scare Robb a little more, probably, the idea that neither of them know where this is going, that they don't have even the barest semblance of a plan about this thing they have between them. He's used to having at least the bare bones of a plan to work with, and he doesn’t have even that now, holding Theon's hand. It feels like he's standing on shaky ground, looking down a cliffside, wondering if he should jump and trust that Theon will catch him.

He steps forward, closing what little distance is still there between them, and slides his free hand into Theon's hair, and makes his choice.

Robb Stark jumps, and the fall tastes like freedom.

He jumps away for real when Jon says, having descended from the Space Bitch's hatch, "Oh my gods Robb--"

"I knew it," Sansa triumphantly says.

"Ha!" Arya crows, pumping her fist into the air. She winces visibly at the motion.

Theon says, "Christ, this is the second time, is this some kind of omen, am I going to have to buy clean socks and a doorknob--"

Robb huffs out a laugh, then turns to look at his siblings. "Sorry," he says. "For, uh, plenty. Starting with getting my shuttle blown up and nearly dying."

Sansa's quiet, then she marches up to Robb and punches him in the shoulder, hard. He lets out a pained grunt, rubbing at his shoulder. It's going to bruise later, he figures.

Then she whirls on Theon and aims a punch at his shoulder, managing to get him to stumble backwards a little with an undignified squawk.

"Ow!" Theon huffs. "I saved your brother's life, what the hell--"

"Never," Sansa tells them both, "do that again. Promise me that. Especially you, Robb." She wheels on him at that last part, and he sees the tears welling up in her eyes, the same shade of blue as his own, before she surges forward to hug him. "We lost you before. I can't--I don't want to go through that, ever again, do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Robb says, hugging her back. "Wait--what about--"

And that, of course, is when a grey blur of fur darts out from the ship and collides with Robb's ankle. He has to give his wolf pup credit, here, he certainly takes him off-guard with how fast he is.

"Grey Wind," he says, suddenly.

"Huh?"

The newly-named wolf pup whines at his feet, and Robb picks him up and pets his head. "His name," he clarifies.

"Real creative," Theon mutters. "What about Squid?"

"Absolutely not," Robb says, flatly. Grey Wind barks at Theon, but it's a more inquisitive bark than anything, as though he's wondering what Theon must be thinking, going with Squid. "Who names a direwolf Squid?"

"Somebody who names their pets very, very well," Theon retorts.

Robb huffs out a laugh, then looks around at them--at Sansa and Arya, wrangling Nymeria and Lady apart, at Jon, talking with a five-eyed, eight-armed Ravager with familiarity as Ghost sniffs suspiciously at hir ankles, then at Theon.

"Do you have a plan?" he asks. "I mean, back in Stannis's chambers, about Bolton--I had the start of one, but I'm willing to hear if you have any."

Theon huffs out a breath. "I might have something," he says. "But I haven't got all the cards, you do. I can volunteer my ship so we can all meet up, sure, but I want to hear that plan of yours so we can hash out a few things."

"I'll tell you the same way I tell everyone else," Robb says. "You just have a few more details."

"You're not planning on, what, a suicide charge all by yourself, are you?"

Robb looks down at Grey Wind. Once upon a time he might've said yes. "I don't know," he says, now. "I mean, I used to think I'd be fine with dying, but now--now I have something to live for. And I promised Sansa."

"Tell me that plan of yours," Theon says, all trace of light joking gone. "I'll tell you what I've got. Maybe we can get a few things straight." He pauses, then adds, "So, you know, you don't end up on some misguided suicide mission."

"Misguided--"

"You said it yourself!" Theon huffs.

Robb does not throw his hands up, for the wolf squirming in his arms. "I said I used to think that way," he says. "I don't now. I have--gods, I have too much to live for now, I never had that before."

"Good," Theon says, "live, all right? I saved your life, don't wanna see it get thrown away again even for something noble." He rocks back on his heels, and says, "So tell me that plan of yours."

Robb tells him.

"That's--" Theon starts. Stops. "Well, that would probably make up about 8% of a plan, at most."

"I did say I had the start of one," Robb says. "Care to share yours?"

Theon sighs, and says, "I've got something. Maybe about 4% of a plan, but it's still something."

"I told you mine," Robb says.

Theon shrugs, says, "If you say so," and tells him.

--

"That," Arya declares, once they've all managed to gather together in the Space Bitch's living room turned war room (and foisted the wolf pups off on poor Gendry for a few moments), "is not a plan."

"It's twelve percent of a plan!" Theon protests, waving his hand in a gesture that Jon is fairly certain is the begging kind, please can we just leave that alone now.

Arya throws her head back and laughs. "Twelve percent?!" she says, incredulous. "Where did you come up with that?"

"Oh, you're one to talk, after that stunt you pulled back on Knowhere--"

"--oh, go eat a camel cunt, Greyjoy, I was about to save your life after that--"

"--blowing up the ship I'm on is not saving my life, it's endangering it!"

Sansa snaps, "Are we done yet, Arya?" at the same time Jon says, very irritated, "Gods help me, Greyjoy, I'm going to throw you out the nearest airlock if you go on."

"Please don't," Robb sighs.

"Dangle him out an airlock?" Jon tries. "It's fine, I won't let go of him, I know you're smitten with him."

"I once did the same thing to someone else," Robb says, eyes darting briefly away from him, and Jon's stomach churns at the thought of it. "It's not pretty, trust me. Please don't do it."

"Right," Theon says, "look--everyone clear on the plan? Let's go over it: ring up the Night Corps, tell them Roose Bolton is headed to Xandar for genocidal reasons, bring the Ravagers with us to stop the--what did you call it, again?"

"Dread Aster," Robb says.

"That's a cheery name," Jon remarks.

"That," Theon says, "and somehow get inside it to kick ass and take names, and most importantly kick Bolton's ass."

Jon says, skeptically, "Wait, so you want the names of the people we--"

"It's a figure of speech," Theon hurriedly says, not catching the conspiratorial smirks between both Jon and Robb. "Terran thing." He crosses his arms and says, "So who wants to help save the galaxy?"

Sansa's quiet, curled up on a seat and watching them all bicker amongst each other. Then she says, "You know what you're asking is all but impossible, right? You're asking us to go on a suicide mission in the hopes that we can stop a man in possession of near-limitless power."

The silence that falls is almost suffocating, sobering. We're going to die, Jon thinks, and suddenly he feels so very, very scared.

Theon lets out a slow breath. "You can back out now," he says, quiet, and for once completely serious. Jon hadn't known that was possible--he supposes that means he should give Theon a little more credit. "It's a lot to ask, I know. But this is the galaxy we live in that we're talking about here and now. I mean, we're losers, we've all--" he falters, as though just realizing what a blunder he's made, then runs a hand through his hair. "We've all lost something," he says, and his other hand drops down to his ever-present player. "But we have a chance."

"To what?" Arya asks.

"To care," Robb says, at the same time Jon says, "To give a damn."

Theon blinks at them both, and says, "Right, well, knowing you're brothers explains a whole lot now."

Jon sighs, then gets to his feet, just as Robb and Sansa do.

"A whole lot," Theon repeats, staring at all three of them.

Jon says, "I said it before, and I'll say it again--I've let enough people die when I had the chance to save them. I won't let it happen now." He smiles, and it feels brittle on his face. "And--I should like to see our father again."

"For as long as I can remember, I've lived with my enemies, wondering if someone was going to stab me in the back while I slept," Robb says. "I would be glad to die with my friends--no, my family--and to trust them to watch my back."

"It would be nice," Sansa admits, "to see Mother and Father again. But in all honesty, I can't let you two go in with no one else to watch out for you." She shrugs. "And I've done my fair share of watching out for people, in my time. I'll be glad to do so for my siblings." She eyes Theon, and says, "And for my siblings' significant others, I suppose."

"I'm watching out for them," Theon grumbles.

Jon rocks back on his heels, then looks at Arya. She's so young. "You don't have to stand up," he says, "if you don't want to."

Arya stares at them all, her mouth working as though she's trying to formulate an argument, but then she sighs. "Fine," she says, "fine, you flarking assholes," then she stands too. "I never expected to live for long anyway," she says, shrugging casually.

Jon's heart nearly breaks at the thought. This is his little sister, the girl who cried for Jon when she skinned her knee when she was four, the girl he once hoisted onto his shoulders so she could reach for the fat red autumn apples hanging down from the trees. She should think herself immortal, invulnerable, untouchable at this age, arrogant and confident that she would see tomorrow.

She glances sideways at him, then smiles, a sad and wistful sort of smile, before she takes his hand and squeezes, one two three.

He squeezes back, I love you.

"All right," she says, promptly ruining the moment, "see? I'm standing now. We're all standing, like a bunch of assholes with absolutely nothing to do but stand around like idiots." She puts one hand on her hip and glares at Theon, who holds his hands up and gestures to Robb. "I hope you're happy."

Sansa giggles, and quickly stifles her laughter with her mouth, turning it into an unconvincing cough.

I would be glad, Jon thinks, to live with my family. Even for a few hours more.

He squeezes Arya's hand once more, and feels her squeeze back.

--

Dagmer's waiting for them, when they step out of the Space Bitch. He smiles at Theon and says, "Well, look at the crew you've gathered. You've even got your own mascots." He eyes the direwolf pups with some trepidation, which is kind of understandable, really. Theon's seen their mother, teeth bared in an eternal snarl. Even in death, she was fucking fearsome, and he’s sure her children will grow up to be terrifying little monsters in time. "You all come up with a plan yet?"

Arya rocks back on her heels, and says, "Yeah, but I'm going to need your eye."

Dagmer blinks in surprise, then his gaze darts around. "Well, uh--"

"No," Jon says, calmly. "We don't need your eye, Arya's just having you on." He pauses, then adds, "But if you have any chocolate, that would be very nice. You know, just in case somebody gets close enough for Theon to chuck a bar at them."

Theon nearly chokes, as Robb breaks into hysterical giggles and leans on him, shaking with laughter.

Sansa snorts out a laugh, and says, "In all seriousness, though, we do have a plan, and it does require chocolate."

"I'll be sure to let Seaworth know, then," Dagmer mutters, then points one taloned finger at Theon. "You and your crew better not eat all of it."

Arya smiles beatifically. "We would never," she says.

Theon's pretty sure she's lying.

--

"All right," Robb says, walking into the middle of the actual War Room, all the holographic displays set up and coded around him, "the Stone reacts to anything organic--the bigger the target is, the bigger the power surge. Think Castamere."

"All Bolton has to do," Theon says, striding in as well, "is touch the Stone, and everything gets wiped out. Animals, plants, people, everything even slightly organic gets dissolved into atoms. And that's if he can't harness the power."

"And if he can?" Dagmer asks.

"Total control, I would guess," Davos dryly says. "Or he would raze the whole planet to demonstrate."

"You guess right," Robb says. "He's mad, certainly, but there's a method to his madness. He wants power, and the Stone has an excess of that. He wouldn't destroy a planet if he could control it somehow." He taps the holographic display of Xandar, and in an instant the scenery changes from pristine white beauty to a smoking ruin. "If not, well. This is Castamere, or what remains of it."

"So Bolton cannot make it to the surface," Theon says. "Once he gets there, we'll all be pushing up daisies." He pauses, then looks around, seeing confusion written across every face. "Dead," he clarifies.

"Should've made it clearer," Jon says.

"Arya will be leading a team to blow a hole in the Dread Aster's starboard hull," Theon continues, pulling another display screen over to show. "It's got to be a big one, else my team and Stannis won't be able to get in."

Davos turns to look at Stannis then, a hint of pride and respect in his eye. Melisandre smiles at him, that calm, enigmatic smile that has always unsettled Theon a little.

"There will be soldiers," Davos says, then, turning to Theon. "Hundreds of them, and a mixture of Kree and Sakaaran as well, and they'll not give you an easy time of it."

"Paper people," Jon says. "Especially the Sakaraan soldiers." He pauses, then adds, "They're actually fairly easy to tear through, I had to fight a few in my time. You just have to make sure they don’t swarm you--their strength is in their numbers, more than anything else.”

"Once they know we're onboard," Robb says, "Bolton will hide behind impenetrable security doors on deck, but those, I can disable by dismantling the power source."

"Once we make it to the flight deck," Theon says, "we'll use the Hadron Enforcer to kill Bolton. Thanks for the repairs, by the way, Arya."

"You weren't even using it," Arya says. "You just had it lying around." She sniffs. "What a waste."

"Oh, for the love of--"

"Once Bolton is dead," Robb interrupts, picking up a tray of discount container spheres and passing them out, "we'll retrieve the Stone. These are discount orbs, but they'll work effectively enough to contain it. Don't touch the Stone with your bare hands, or else it'll kill you."

"Sansa and I will contact the Lady Commander herself," Theon says, giving Arya a dirty look and getting a raspberry in return. "Hopefully, she'll believe us."

"And we need one more thing to round it all out," Arya says. "Do you have any chocolate?"

Davos blinks. "There's plenty in the kitchens," he says.

"Good," she says. "We need it. All of it. Literally all that you have, right now, we need it."

"No, we don't," Theon interrupts. "Half of it, though, yeah."

Davos says, with a sigh, "You don't actually need that much chocolate, do you?"

Theon gives him his most innocent smile, and puts a hand over his heart. "You wound me, Seaworth," he says, "we do." He pauses, then adds, "And does anyone have a bow and arrow I can borrow? I need a last-resort weapon."

--

"You have: two. Incoming voice messages. From: Sansa Stark. From: Theon 'Star-Prince' Greyjoy. Would you like to play, ignore, or save for later?"

--

"My lady," Alliser Thorne says, "you cannot seriously be saying we should trust these--criminals at their word alone."

Margaery raises an eyebrow, in response. "I'm not saying anything to that effect, Ser Alliser," she says, innocently. "I can't imagine what would bring you to that conclusion. All I've done is play the messages for your judgment." She turns to her grandmother, sitting at the head of the table, and says, "Isn't that right, ma'am?"

"True enough, dear," Olenna Tyrell says, serenely. Thorne bristles, but stays quiet.

Instead it's Bowen Marsh, this time, who says, "We can't trust them. So far, we've received few reports on Roose Bolton's plans, and none of them indicated an attack on this scale. And where, exactly, would he find an Infinity Stone?"

"Exactly!" Alliser stands up, then, as if to leave. "My lady, there is no evidence--"

Margaery presses the play button again, and Theon Greyjoy's voice says, "--I'm an asshole, I know that, but I'm not a hundred percent a dick. Look, think about it this way: we got arrested once, and normally, once you've broken out of jail, you'd do your best to avoid the shit out of the people who arrested you in the first place. But we're coming back and risking our necks. We're doing it for a reason."

"Why," she says, "would anyone only recently broken out of prison contact the very people who arrested them?"

"Interesting question," Olenna says, leaning forward, and Margaery can't help but sit up straighter, feeling more than a little proud of herself. "Let me pose another one, my lords: how recent is your intel on Roose Bolton?"

"Somewhat less so than we would like," Alliser admits. "But there is no indication--"

"What was his most recent move?"

"His alliance with Lannister was teetering on the point of breakage," Bowen says. "With the Young Wolf turning his cloak, he had very little reason to trust whoever else Lannister sent to assist him. Still, no one has made mention of an Infinity Stone--"

"Then it's a very recent development," Margaery says. "These two messages comprise the best and most recent intel we have."

"Their sources are unreliable," Bowen argues. "I wouldn't trust Theon Greyjoy with the smallest coin. He's a Ravager."

"May I remind you of our long-standing agreement with Stannis Baratheon?" Olenna asks, tenting her fingers. "Personally, I find him too moral for his profession, but his men respect him greatly. Very few have dared to even toe the line."

"Theon Greyjoy has more than toed the line, he's gone flying across it screaming at the top of his lungs," Bowen says. "Why should we trust him?"

"And I wouldn't trust the bounty hunter's word, either," Alliser adds, and Margaery's lips press into a thin line.

"The bounty hunter," Margaery says, "has a name, and a story that lines up with Theon Greyjoy's, and with what we know about Bolton's plans, scarce though they are." She taps her fingers on the table, and says, "What do you say, ma'am?"

"Margaery, dear, this is your decision," Olenna says. "You are the Lady Commander, not I. Do you trust their word?"

Alliser huffs. "I say no, my lady," he says. "We cannot--"

"I wasn't asking you, ser," Olenna pleasantly says, pinning Alliser to his seat with a look. Margaery recognizes that look--it's one Olenna's used on her when she was younger, and she'd just been found with her hand in the silksnail jar and had tried to lie her way out of the punishment she was sure to get. "I may be old, but my memory is not so bad that I cannot recall who I was addressing ten seconds ago."

Margaery looks down at her answering machine, then at Bowen Marsh, who shakes his head and beseechingly mouths, do you trust them?

"Yes," she says. "I trust their word." She stands up, and looks at Marsh and Thorne both. "Mobilize the Corps," she says. "I want every hand we have that isn't injured or sick on deck. Call back everyone currently on leave, I want men at their stations and in their shuttles right the hell now, do you hear me?"

"Yes, my lady," Alliser sullenly says.

"We hear you," Bowen says, standing up.

"Then do your duty and get to it," Margaery says, "now."

Alliser stomps out of the room with enough force that she can't help but wonder how it is that the ground doesn't shake. Bowen stands, walking out of the room in a much calmer manner, before he looks back at Margaery.

"My lady," he says, "what if we mobilize the Corps and nothing happens?"

She hesitates, then says, quietly, "Then I will take full responsibility for it. Now go."

She watches them leave, then turns to her grandmother, who says, "I noticed you didn't play Sansa Stark's message in full." The older woman leans forward, and says, "Why is that, I wonder?"

"We've met," Margaery answers. "She's--not the sort of person who would lie on something as serious as this." She's well aware of how precarious a line she's walking here, well aware that one wrong move and she'll fall, fall, fall. "I trust her."

"Is it merely trust, now?"

Margaery hesitates.

"No need to answer," Olenna says, leaning back and smiling beatifically. "You need to work on your poker face a little bit more, Margaery. It slips when it comes to Sansa Stark."

Margaery stands, then, smoothing out her black jacket. "I'll take that into consideration," she says, primly. "Thank you, Grandmother."

--

They're a few minutes away from entering Xandar's atmosphere when Robb spots it--a huge, dark mass just above, already ahead of them and descending fast. Dread sinks into his stomach fast, chokes him until he can hardly breathe, because here and now he can see purple flashes of light emanating from the Dread Aster every so often.

"Gods," he says.

"Oh, hell," Theon says.

"That," Arya says over the comm, "is the biggest ship I've ever seen."

"Second biggest," Sansa corrects. "Crow's Eye, remember?"

"Can't you go any faster?" Jon asks.

"Working on it," Theon snaps irritably, flicking a switch. "Waters, swear to god, if this cuts out on me now--"

Robb grips tightly onto his seat, as the Space Bitch's thrusters engage and propel them faster into the atmosphere, and mutters, "Others take me," as he shuts his eyes.

He doesn't know how long it is until the thrusters cut out, but when they do, he opens his eyes and lets out an awed breath.

Xandar looks beautiful, from above, all sleek lines and pristine glass arranged in the shape of a star in the middle of the ocean. There are trees with purple leaves scattered throughout, and he imagines that more of them are bearing fruit now. The people below look like ants, going about their everyday lives. Most of them don't know what it's like to lose everything in one day.

He knows he can't stand by again while they learn that.

Welcome to the Hotel California, someone's singing on Theon's tape. Robb makes a note to himself to ask Theon what that is later. If there is one. Such a lovely place, such a lovely place, such a lovely face.

"It's a lovely place," Jon says.

"I think they fixed the plaza," Sansa says.

Robb gives a startled laugh. "That was fast," he says, and catches Jon's confused glance. "We met in the plaza," he explains, "and--it could've gone better."

"You started it, you kicked me in the balls," Theon grumbles. "I would've given you the orb if you asked!"

"For how much?"

"Fair point."

Jon snickers, and says, “Wait, truly? I thought you were invested in them.”

“Well, now I am,” Robb says, as Theon sputters, “but at the time I just really wanted the orb he had on him. I figured I’d sell it off, then use the money to start over.” He nods to Sansa, then adds, “Sansa and Arya threw a wrench into those plans, though.”

“Hey, you were the one in the way, Robb,” Sansa says, and Theon just groans. “We just wanted the bounty.”

Robb huffs out a laugh. For a moment, he almost forgets why they’re here, why they’re risking getting arrested again.

Then Arya’s voice crackles over the comm, shrieking, “Guys, you’ve got incoming!”

Theon curses, pulls his ship into a downward dive, and Robb grips on tight to his seat, as missiles and plasma blasts come streaking past them. The Space Bitch rocks for a moment, and Jon mutters, “Oh gods,” almost fervently, just loud enough for Robb to hear him.

“Hold on, guys,” Theon says, and Robb opens his eyes to see that they’re pulling back up again, weaving and bobbing through plasma blasts and missiles. Already Robb can see the Ravagers’ fleet closing in, shooting down the shuttles and ships from the Dread Aster, can see Arya and her team trying to blow a hole in the shields and the hull, but there’s too many for the rest of the fleet to shoot down easily.

“Missile!” Dagmer’s voice comes in, and in response the Space Bitch spins out of the way, the missile shooting past and hitting one of the Dread Aster’s ships instead.

“You know,” Theon says, as they streak past the ensuing explosion, “in a twisted way, that’s a pretty cool sight.” He presses a few buttons, and Robb sees the screen change from the normal view to a green-tinted screen. “Holy shit,” Theon says, sounding gleeful, “Arya, you are the best almost-sister-in-law I could ever have.”

“Enjoying the new weapons system?” Arya asks, and Robb could swear she’s preening right now.

“Of course!”

“Great! Now if you don’t mind, I need to teach this guy a lesson.” And just like that, her link cuts out.

Sansa gives a mock-sniff. "I'm feeling very unwanted here," she says, but when Robb turns to look at her she's grinning.

"I don't know, I want you around," he says, and she reaches over to wave a hand dismissively in his face.

"You're my brother," Sansa huffs. "You're obligated to."

"What, am I? I'm a little rusty, it's been years--"

The ship spins once more, and Sansa near shrieks, and Robb lets loose a curse.

"Is that any way to say thanks to the guy whose fancy moves just saved your life?" Theon says.

"It's a good way to treat the man whose fancy moves are going to make me throw up my lunch," Jon grouses.

"You don't even look that green!"

"Am I supposed to? I'm sorry, my biology doesn't work the same as yours does--"

"Plasma cannon!" Robb shouts, at the same time Sansa yells, "Get us out of the way before they blow us up!"

"Working on it!" Theon answers, but the other ship's plasma cannon is just seconds away from firing, too short a time for them to be able to get off a good shot or dodge in time. We're going to die, Robb thinks, suddenly, and fear sinks its claws into his heart.

Then there's a barrage of plasma blasts coming from somewhere behind and above them, and the ship that had a cannon trained on them suddenly blows up.

"Holy fuck," Theon says. "Who--"

"Star-Prince, this is Alliser Thorne of the Nova Corps," a new voice crackles to life over the comm, "what's your status?"

"First of all," Theon huffs, and Robb has to hold back a burst of laughter at the deeply indignant look on his face, "it's Star-Lord, goddammit. Second, we're fine!" He covers the comm with his hand and grins at them all. "They got my dick message!" he crows triumphantly.

"And my message," Sansa reminds him.

"Yours too," Theon says, somewhat less enthusiastically, and takes his hand off the comm.

"For the record," Thorne says crisply, "I, and a number of my colleagues, advised against trusting you here. Prove us wrong."

Robb breathes out, and says, “Gladly, ser.”

--

“Our priority is our people,” Margaery says, to the hurriedly-convened war council. The holo-table in front of them is displaying the battle above them, the great, twisted Dread Aster making all the other ships around it look like mere ants. “We need to get our people away from the battle. Evacuate them right now--I want everyone currently on the ground directing civilians toward the designated safe zones, with the minimal amount of chaos.”

“But if that thing makes it onto the surface,” Igon Vyrwel says, waggling one stunted finger at the imposing figure on their holo-table, “not even evacuation will spare our people from certain doom.”

“Then we have to make sure that it doesn’t make it to the surface,” Margaery says, and hopes that the Seven are hearing her fervent mental prayers right now. “All Night Corps pilots, interlock and form a blockade. The Dread Aster must not reach the ground.”

--

Stannis doesn’t quite know how to tell Greyjoy that his comm is still on, and he can hear all the arguments that Greyjoy’s crew members are striking up. He has absolutely no clue how they haven’t all tried to slaughter one another yet, though the family connection--and the relationship that Greyjoy has somehow managed to strike up with the Young Wolf--probably has something to do with that.

He pulls his ship up, weaving away from a small explosion and launching a torpedo, catching a small, black ship and blowing it to pieces. He can see Arya Stark and her borrowed team, concentrating all their firepower on one spot in the starboard hull, and another ship coming up to train a cannon on them.

Davos is on Arya’s team. It isn’t even a decision: Stannis looses another torpedo, and blows the ship that had been about to blow his lieutenant up to smithereens.

Then his own ship suddenly rocks, and Stannis curses as it begins to spin, the holo-screen flashing red. He’s lost a wing, from the looks of it, and there’s no way he can repair it, not in the middle of battle.

He hits his comm and activates his link, and says, “I’ve been hit--I’ll not be able to make it onto the ship, but I will see you by the end of this, Greyjoy. You can be assured of that.”

“What?!” Greyjoy shouts. “Wait, shit, Stannis--”

“Stannis, I’ll come get you--” Davos. Stannis grinds his teeth.

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Focus on your task, Davos Seaworth. I’ll meet back up with you once all this is done. Until then, I’ll take care of myself, and I expect the same of you.”

“All right,” Davos says, reluctantly. “I’ll meet with you again once this is done. Gods, if one of my hearts gives out on me one of these days, at the very least I’ll know why.”

“Your hearts,” Stannis says, “are far stronger than that.” He lets himself smile, a little--after all, no one is around to see--before he hits the comm and deactivates the link, and braces himself for the impact.

--

“Theon! Now!” Arya shouts over the comm.

“On it, on it, on it already,” Theon yells, dodging debris and crossfire and the occasional dead body. He pulls the ship upward, pouring everything into the thrusters, and mutters, “Come on, come on--”

For those about to rock, Brian Johnson is screaming, we salute you, yes we do--

He’s pretty sure he can hear the tips of the Space Bitch wings breaking off as it’s propelled into the Dread Aster, and is a lot more certain he can hear Sakaaran and Kree alike screaming before getting squished, and Sansa and Jon cursing up a blue streak just behind him.

He yanks on the brake, hard, and the ship skids to a stop, taking out plenty of soldiers along the way. It’s almost worth the cost of the repairs Theon is sure he’ll have to pay for, as soon as this is done. If we all get out of this alive, he thinks.

“Seven hells,” Jon says.

“Mother have mercy,” Sansa dazedly mutters.

“What’s that noise?” Robb asks, as the song breaks into the next verse: we’re just a battery for hire with the guitar fire, ready and aimed at you!

“That noise,” Theon informs him, in the most indignant tone he can muster, “is AC/DC, and that is one of the most classic rock songs you will ever hear in your life.”

“Huh.” Robb pauses, as though thinking it over, and Theon glances back towards Sansa and Jon.

“That was actually kind of fun,” Jon says, surprisingly pleasantly, considering that just a few minutes ago he’d been swearing up a streak so blue Theon’s surprised his skin isn’t tinted blue by now. “We should do it again sometime. Only without the possibility of death.”

“Let’s never do that again,” Sansa says.

“Hey, Theon,” Robb says, and Theon glances back to him and sees the giddy look on his face. “I just realized something.”

“Lay it on me,” Theon says, still feeling a little light-headed from the adrenaline rush.

“We’re just like Kevin Bacon,” Robb says, in utter seriousness, and Theon can’t help but break into hysterical laughter in response.

--

Anyone looking up from the surface of Xandar, right now, would find themselves treated to one of the rarest sights in the universe, and one of the most beautiful--that is, if it wasn’t in the middle of a pitched battle for the lives of two billion people.

All Night Corps pilots are taught this formation, in the beginning of their training, and all have had it stressed to them that this formation was only ever used once before, and that had been to stop a band of well-funded and weapons-laden terrorists from bombing the city. All also know what had happened to the pilots who’d stopped the terrorists--they all died, but the city stayed standing.

It’s a death sentence. Thorne knows this, and so does Marsh, and so does every single one of the pilots that went up to fight the Dread Aster.

But sometimes the lives of two billion people more than outweigh the lives of a thousand, and so Bowen Marsh flies into formation, locking his ship beside Alliser Thorne’s, and says, “Locked in.”

“Locked in,” says the next pilot. “Locked in,” says the next, and the next, and the next, and a silver-grey net forms, growing with each pilot that locks in.

The Dread Aster slams against the net, and somehow, miraculously, it holds.

--

“Give me that,” Ramsay snaps at a passing Sakaaran, who jumps and obediently holds out its knife. “I’ll deal with this breach. All of you, secure the doors--prove to me that you’re all good at something other than fucking up, or else.”

It’s good enough incentive to get them all moving, and in the meantime, he’ll have to set his own plans for the Stone aside to deal with Stark and his friends, first. Then, his father and Lannister, then--well, whatever else he can think of.

But first--the wolf.

--

“It’s dark in here,” Jon says, stepping out of the Space Bitch and into the Dread Aster’s interior, carrying the Hadron Enforcer. It’s a heavy thing, and not for the first time, he’s reluctantly thankful for his own cybernetic enhancements. They aren’t obvious as Robb’s or Arya’s, but they’re enough that he can lift something as heavy as this thing for longer than most others.

He just wishes he had a hand free, to draw and throw a dagger at a moment’s notice. It’s dark in here, and it’s taking a while for his vision to adjust. Anyone could take advantage of this and sneak up on them.

“Should’ve brought a lighter,” Theon mutters.

There’s a rattle just beside Jon, then the sound of Sansa trying to turn on her light with some percussive maintenance, before Sansa glumly says, “I should’ve brought fresh batteries.”

Jon’s eyes have adjusted to the dark just enough that he can make out Robb stopping in his tracks, then holding his hand up, his fingers uncurling, and there’s a steady globe of light glowing in his hand. He blows it up and away, and it separates into smaller balls of light, all of them slowly descending on them and lighting the way.

Small stars for small Starks, Jon thinks, only now they are countless little stars, burning bright against the darkness.

“Wow,” Theon says. “Nice light show.”

Sansa punches him playfully on the shoulder, eliciting an ow! “Thanks, Robb,” she says. “So, where to now?”

“Flight deck,” Robb says, beginning to move. “It’s this way.”

Jon follows behind, and says, “Remember when I held a knife to your throat?”

“Yeah,” Robb says, his gaze sliding to Jon, surprise etched on his features. “It wasn’t the first time someone’s held a knife to my throat, in all honesty.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For the knife, and the mistrust.”

Robb stares at him, then, slowly, sadly, smiles. “I wasn’t really expecting anything else,” he says. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know, I didn’t know.”

“Still,” Jon says. “You’re my brother, and as reunions went, that was a rather poor one.”

“I tied him up,” Sansa says. “I told you, Jon, don’t feel too bad. Save Theon, we all had a very poor family reunion.”

Theon huffs out a breath, and Jon catches him muttering, somewhat bitterly, "At least you had a family reunion."

Sansa looks around, the corners of her mouth turning up in a nostalgic smile, and says, “Remember when we went down to the crypts when we were kids, and you and Robb played this prank on us? He said there was a ghost down there, and I nearly cried when one showed up.”

“Arya kicked me in the shin,” Jon wistfully says, earning a snort of laughter from Theon. “It took a whole week to get all the flour out from my hair. Actually, you know what, I think I still have flour in it.”

“But you looked so convincing,” Robb huffs, then stops. “I--I thought I forgot that,” he says, finally.

“That mental image,” Theon says fondly, “is going to stay with me forever, thanks to all of you. When I need a mood boost, I’ll just think of Jon covered in flour and Arya kicking him in the shin and feel better immediately.”

“I have the Hadron Enforcer with me right now,” Jon says.

There’s a crash, and Robb lets out a groan and mutters, “Oh, great, it’s you again.”

“Oh, look,” Theon announces, “it’s the creepy dickwad. The hell do you want now?”

"Plenty of things," the man from Knowhere says. There's a wicked sword in his hand, and he idly twirls it around. "Wolf, what a surprise. Last I saw you, you were floating in space."

Jon readies the Enforcer, locking in on his target.

"I probably should've stayed to finish the job, in retrospect," the man remarks. "But where would the fun be in that?"

"You and I have very different definitions of 'fun'," Robb spits.

The man laughs, the kind of laughter that sends ice shooting down Jon's spine. "You were always too soft, Stark," he taunts. "Always rather weak, I'm surprised your reputation even got so big. And now, you're just a soft-headed little turn--"

Jon pulls the trigger, and the man is blasted away.

"No one," he says, firmly, "no one insults my brother and gets away with it."

Robb stares at the space where the man once was, then at Jon. "Thank you," he says, and Jon feels a warmth spread throughout his body, at that small, hesitant smile.

Theon holsters his blaster, and Sansa's energy tendrils retreat back to her outstretched hand, dematerializing at a slower rate than usual.

"Asshat," Theon says.

"What a jerk," Sansa says. "What a creepy jerk."

"But a jerk I've dealt with before," Robb says. "The flight deck's that way. I'll deal with the power source and Snow, and meet up with you all once they're open." He draws his Valyrian steel sword, and it shines blood-red in the glow of the little lanterns. It's such a contrast to what Jon remembers of the boy his brother used to be, but then--none of them are kids, not anymore. "Take care," he says, quietly, "all of you."

"You take care," Sansa says. "And you'd better come back alive."

"I promised, didn't I?" He strides off, then turns back. "Jon," he says.

"Yes?"

"You're the only one who ever apologized for holding a knife to my throat and meant it," Robb says. "So thank you, and I'll see you on the flight deck."

Jon watches him leave, Valyrian steel sword shimmering red in the light. Then he says, quietly, "May the odds be in your favor."

"What?" Sansa asks.

"Gladiator thing," he answers, as they set off to the flight deck. "It's not said lightly among gladiators, especially not to your opponent. You say it to someone, you're not only wishing them luck, you’re telling them you hold them close to your heart and don't want them to die." He shrugs. "I only had it said to me the once."

"Wanna tell?" Theon asks.

"Absolutely not, Greyjoy," Jon flatly says. "You want to carry the Enforcer?"

"Why, you getting tired?"

"Guys," Sansa says, as the doors hiss open and a troop of Kree and Sakaaran comes pouring out. "We've got incoming!"

"That," Theon says, activating his mask, "I can see very well."

The lisping Kree they met on Knowhere comes to a stop, and grins. "Thtar-Lord," he hisses.

Theon says, "Fucking finally," before he draws his blaster and fires first.

--

“Necrocraft pilots,” Roose Bolton says, his voice barely above a whisper, “enact the immolation initiative.”

--

Stannis dusts himself off, looks back at the wrecked and ruined remains of his ship, and sighs. There’s no salvaging this one. He can already imagine Marya Seaworth’s face, if she ever finds out he wrecked his ship. Again. Ships are expensive, my lord, building them even moreso! he can already hear her exclaiming.

“Freeze!” a gravelly Sakaaran voice shrieks behind him, and Stannis turns, holding his hands up. He’s surrounded on all sides, he realizes, and there’s a shuttle already training its weapons on him. “Ravager,” the Sakaaran soldier hisses.

“Baratheon,” another soldier snarls.

“Kill him,” yet another spits in a more guttural tone.

Stannis brushes his coat aside. He’s one against about twenty or so, give or take a few, and a shuttlecraft. Should be easy enough.

He whistles, and the arrow slides out of its holster, the tip of it glowing orange as it spins in the air. The soldiers look at each other, confusion flashing across their faces, before one of them trains their weapon on him and snarls, “Enough of this, Ravager!”

He stops whistling, and the arrow stops spinning in the air. Then he whistles again, and it goes shooting through the soldier aiming at him.

One, two, three, ten go down, then he whistles the arrow through a chink in the shuttle’s tough armor and then the pilot’s head, and then it goes straight through six more soldiers before Stannis catches it in his hand and holsters it once more.

They stand, for a second, wobbling as though still trying to register their deadly wounds, then they all collapse. The shuttle crashes to the ground, and he must’ve ruptured a gas main, because then it blows up fairly spectacularly.

He sighs, then looks up and narrows his eyes.

Are those shuttles streaking toward the city?

--

This is what Elinor Tyrell will remember, long after the city is cleaned up and the dead are buried, long after the Guardians of the Galaxy have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with: screaming.

She runs, Alla and Megga trying their best to keep up alongside her. People are screaming, sobbing, running, dying, and all the while the shuttles are raining down on them, crashing into the ground and killing everyone caught in the ensuing blast--everyone who hadn’t been cut down by plasma blasts beforehand, anyway.

“Keep running, come on, that’s it--”

“Ellie,” Alla is sobbing, “Ellie, I can’t, I can’t--”

But it isn’t Alla that stops, it’s Megga, who trips over a dead body and gives a pained cry. Elinor knows she should go on, but her feet carry her back. She kneels down next to Megga, Alla following close behind her.

“Elinor,” Megga says, sounding terrified, “Elinor, I think--I think I broke my leg, I can’t--” She gives a gasp, grasping on to Elinor’s dirty sundress. They’d only wanted to go for a picnic. “Ellie,” she half-sobs. “Alla, I can’t--”

No, Elinor thinks, when she looks up and spies a shuttlecraft racing towards them, no, no, no, Meg’s only fourteen, Alla’s even younger, no, no, please--

It’s then the shuttlecraft explodes harmlessly above them, and Elinor sees a small, sleek ship, painted in black and golden colors, descending until it’s hovering just a few feet above them. The hatch opens, as though kicked with great force, and then a young girl jumps down onto the ground, landing in a crouch.

“What are you all doing?” she asks, annoyed. “You should run.”

“We can’t,” Elinor says, and she doesn’t know how she’s so calm when her insides are roiling, and her lunch is threatening to come out of her the wrong way. “Megga broke her leg.”

The girl’s quiet, then she says, “Wait right here. I think there’s a kit in the ship, I’ll go get it.” She looks around and starts kicking some debris into place, building a makeshift staircase, and Elinor watches in mute astonishment as she rolls a huge boulder with little effort to make the last step. Then she climbs up to the hatch and disappears once more, just as another ship, in the same gold and black color scheme, descends as well.

An old man drops from the hatch, wincing as he lands. “Are you all right?” he asks as he draws near, crouching down near Megga, who whimpers in pain.

“My leg,” she says.

“The girl went to get medicine,” Alla says.

“Hair like a boy’s, mouth like a sailor’s?” the old man asks.

“She did have a boy’s cut,” Elinor says, just as the girl climbs back down, a small square kit in her hand.

“Seaworth,” the girl says, then: “can you help me set her leg?”

“I can do you one better, Arya,” the old man--Seaworth, apparently--says. “I can get her and her friends to safety.” He turns to Elinor, and says, “Where’s the nearest safe zone?”

Elinor points to the hospital they were running to, and says, “What’s happening up there?”

“A bunch of stupid idiots are going to kill the guy who just ordered a kamikaze attack,” Arya says, bluntly, as she flips the lid’s kit open and passes over a splint and bandages. “Emphasis on stupid idiots.”

“Some very foolhardy people are going after Roose Bolton,” Seaworth says. “Our best chance is to hope that they succeed at what they plan on doing.” He eyes Megga’s leg, and says, “This is going to hurt. A lot. We’ll need something to keep her from biting her tongue.”

Alla takes off her belt in response, folding it and offering it to Megga. “You have to bite down,” she says.

“Where’d you learn that?” Arya asks.

“I watch a lot of movies,” Alla says. “And a lot of medical shows, too. I saw somebody using their belt to gag someone else to keep them from screaming once, and--um.” She pauses, looks down at Megga, who’s bitten down on her belt, then at Elinor. “Will we be okay?” she asks anxiously.

“We will be,” Elinor promises.

There’s a crack, then Megga screams, and Elinor has to hold her tight to stop her thrashing about. “Shh,” Elinor whispers, “shh, Megga, it’s fine, Meg, look at me, we’re going to be okay.”

The girl holds on to Megga as well, and says, “Stop that, you’ll be fine--we’re going to get you to safety, all right?” She glances at Seaworth, and says, “And once we get them to the safe zone--”

“The rest are already on it,” Seaworth says.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you think we would leave the city defenseless?” Seaworth asks, nodding towards their surroundings as he works. Elinor follows his glance, and sees a row of gold-and-black ships, their weapons pointed up towards the sky, shooting down shuttles before they can make it to the ground. “We’re smugglers, aye, but as Theon put it, we’re not 100% dicks. We will not stand by while innocents are slaughtered for a vendetta.”

Elinor says, very quietly, “Thank you.”

Seaworth smiles, a kind sort of smile. “You’re welcome, my lady,” he says.

(This is what Elinor Tyrell will remember, long after everything: an act of kindness, in the midst of all the destruction around them.)

--

"They're headed for the city! Should we break formation?"

"No!" Thorne barks over the comm. "Hold your positions." He wants to break away, certainly, that's his city they're bombing down there, but if he does--if he does, then what's stopping the Dread Aster? What's keeping Bolton from using an artifact of near-limitless power to destroy nearly everything on Xandar, or worse?

He shudders to think of it.

"Thorne," Arya Stark's voice crackles over the comm, snapping him out of his reverie. "Don't worry about the civilians down here, we're taking care of things. You stay up there, we'll keep an eye on things down here."

"We've come to this," he mutters. "Taking orders from a lab rat."

"I heard that!" she shouts, and he huffs out a breath.

"All right," he says, and somehow--somehow, the reassurance works. Someone is down below making sure the city is safe when the rest of them can't. If he ever makes it out of this--which he doubts, in all honesty--he supposes he owes Arya Stark something of an apology, for that.

"Greyjoy," he mutters, "you better know what you're doing."

--

Even without the little ball of light lighting his way, Robb could probably find his way around the Dread Aster just fine. He's memorized the layout well enough--past this corridor and to the left is the cramped room he used to sleep in, as well as another, less enemy-laden way to the flight deck, and the power source for the security doors.

But he summons up a ball of light anyway, and blows it out of his palm, mapping out the route it'll take in his head as he follows. He doesn't know what surprises Bolton must have added to the ship, in the time that's passed since Robb got arrested. He'd much rather not be surprised.

In the end, it's not the ball of light that alerts Robb to Ramsay's presence--it's the sound of bones snapping back into place, of cybernetic implants whirring and working overtime to fix the damages to a body, of someone cursing venomously under his breath.

"Wolf," Ramsay spits, once his jaw is back in place.

"Snow," Robb coolly says. "Can I cut the power source?"

Ramsay bares his teeth in answer, says, "Did you even have to ask?"

"I'll take that as a no," Robb says, before he draws a knife and throws, then runs over to the power source's container, pulling out the green glass tube. Just one swing from his sword will do it.

He glances sideways, sees the knife in Ramsay's hand, and ducks down and rolls away before it hits the spot where his head had been just a few seconds before. Should've checked where you hit first, Stark, he tells himself, just as Ramsay bears down on him, and he ends up blocking with his sword.

"Remind me again, Stark," Ramsay says, "what has Xandar ever done for you, that you're trying to defend it? Didn't the Night Corps throw you in the Red Keep just last week?"

"They did that," Robb acknowledges, blocking a strike. "But what has your father ever done for you?"

Ramsay grins, madly. "What makes you think I'm not going to turn my cloak on him as well when the time is right?" He bounces back, another knife slipping out of his sleeve and into his hand, and twists away from Robb's strike before kicking his feet out from under him.

Robb is fairly certain he'll have a concussion after this, but he pushes that thought and the pain away, rolling away fast from the knife to reach for his sword.

"Somehow I'm not surprised," he says. "And they say I'm the turncloak." He swings his sword out in a wide arc, catching Ramsay's leg. "You can't do anything with the Stone, it'll kill you!"

"Just watch me," Ramsay says, baring his teeth even as he stumbles back, bleeding from his leg. "And you, wolf, are going to pay first and dearest. That Terran of yours--how long do you think he has until he breaks?"

"Don't," Robb says, rage building inside. "Don't you dare."

"That pretty little piece of meat--I'm sorry, should I specify? The girl, the one that howled when I left you to die? Should make for good hunting, and I figure that gladiator will too--"

Robb charges forward, slashing down and snarling don't you dare, and only when he's already in motion does it click: he's doing the same thing I did to him before he blew up my shuttle.

And then he doesn't have much room to think, because there's 2,000 volts of electricity coursing through his body, and it seems to last almost an hour before he's knocked back to the floor near the glowing green tube, stunned. His sword clatters to the ground, just out of his reach, and Ramsay idly flips the cattle prod in his other hand, before sheathing it once more and drawing out another knife.

Stark, Robb thinks, you dumbass, you should’ve seen that coming.

Gods, he hopes Theon, Jon and Sansa are having it much better than he is right now.

--

"I hope Robb's having it better than we are right now," Sansa mutters, flicking her wrist. The huge, translucent green hand extending outward from her real hand backhands another approaching troop, and with a thought and a whip-crack motion, it reforms into a whip.

"You will fail," the lisping Kree guy is spitting--literally, with every word Sansa can see spittle spraying from his mouth. It's a little gross, and she'd point it out, but she's too busy cracking the energy whip to herd the troop back to say much. It must suck to be Jon right now, especially since he's being choked out. "The immolathion inithiative has begun, and after thith there will be nothing of Thandar left but--"

Sansa moves, to whip the Kree across the head, but it's Theon who gets his shot in first, nailing Jon's opponent in the shoulder.

"You're welcome, by the way!" Theon shouts, before ducking someone's sickle-shaped sword and blasting their iridescent brains out at point-blank range. He doesn't see the Sakaaran approaching him from the sidelines with a club.

"Watch out!" Sansa shouts, sprinting for him, tucking and rolling to avoid the gunfire. She comes up and throws out her hand, a green tendril lashing out and slicing the Sakaaran soldier deep enough that he stumbles back, howling.

Theon whips around, nailing the soldier in the head. His blaster clicks on empty then, and he curses, tossing it at a rapidly-approaching Kree soldier and knocking them back, before he pulls the bow from off his back and nocks an arrow, loosing just as the soldier comes within range.

The soldier doesn't scream, for the arrow buried in their throat, and instead only makes wet gurgling noises before collapsing. The next throws a knife, and Theon dives to the side, letting another arrow fly before the thrusters on his boots engage, sending him flying backward.

Sansa dives down as well, hitting the ground and rolling to dodge another spurt of plasma, then sweeps her foot out in an arc, tripping up the soldier aiming at Theon, then forming a translucent disc with a razor-sharp edge in her hand. She's on top of the soldier in a moment, and she brings the disc down on his chest.

Blue blood spurts out all over, and she pushes down the urge to throw up. She'll do that later, if there even is a later.

Jon crashes into a crate near her, followed quickly by Theon, who lets out a pained groan as he slumps to the ground. The lisping Kree advances toward them, smiling.

It's not a pretty smile, even for a Kree.

"Ath I wath going to thay before I wath tho rudely interrupted," the Kree says, "by the end of thith, all your effortth will been in vain. You will never make it to Bolton."

--

He has near-limitless power at his fingertips, and he is growing very, very short on patience. The Night Corps' blockade is stretched to its very limit trying to hold the Dread Aster back, and all that's needed to break it is a little push. If they weren't already straining the engines just trying to get past--

The Infinity Stone embedded in the hilt of his knife glows, then.

He doesn't smile. Instead he holds the knife up, pointing at the golden wall keeping his ship from advancing, and moves it down, as though cutting into someone's skin.

The Stone glows even more, and one after the other, the Night Corps' shuttlecrafts explode, their pilots dying in a fiery inferno. And seeing as they're all linked in--

--well, all the better.

--

Arya's in her ship when she sees it. It's hard not to, considering that she's been looking up at the sky for some time now, shooting down the Dread Aster's shuttle's attacks, though every so often her attention is torn away by the sound of another ship blowing up, another string of last words cut off by the comm link's abrupt breaking.

They're losing this battle.

Above, the silver-grey net breaks, one pilot after another dying in a fiery inferno. She can hear them screaming over the comm link, hear others pleading plaintively for help, and--

"Can anyone hear me?" Thorne's voice cuts through the air. "Seven hells--we held as best as we could, but Bolton did something, I'm not sure--the line is broken--"

"Thorne, just--just hold on, all right?" she snaps. "We're coming, just hold--"

"Arya Stark?" For a moment, he almost sounds hopeful, but then there's an awful crunching noise, and she hears, "I can't--"

Then the feed cuts out entirely.

The fate of the galaxy is in their hands, and they're losing.

She has to get up there, too. She’s helping here, sure, but it’s not enough, it will never be enough.

“Seaworth,” she says, “can you take care of things without me down here? I’m going up there, and I’m going to help my family.”

--

Margaery watches the destruction from the window, and her heart sinks into her stomach. No, she thinks, and it sounds like a desperate prayer. Soothe the wrath and tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way, isn't that how the old hymn goes?

Only, there is no soothing this sort of wrath, the cold, calculating sort in possession of something that could wipe out a whole world in seconds and knows it. There is no kinder way to be found here, not if her people and her planet has any future at all past the next few minutes.

She's beginning to doubt that.

Sansa, she thinks, you and your friends are our only hope now.

It's a disquieting thought, really, or it should be. Theon Greyjoy is a criminal, after all, and the Young Wolf--Robb Stark, she sternly reminds herself--is an assassin, and from the sounds of it this Jon Snow is a former gladiator, while Arya Stark has made a habit of breaking out of prison. It should be more troubling to her than it is, that the fate of her planet, her people, her family is in the hands of a ragtag group of altruistic criminals, that all she can do here is make sure enough of her people and her city survive the next few minutes, and hope that Sansa's team can somehow end this.

But, she finds, putting her faith in Sansa is a surprisingly easy thing to do.

She presses her hand against the glass. Her people are dying out there, and all she can do is wait out the storm, and hope.

"My lady?" Igon asks. The war council behind her has gone quiet enough that she's almost forgotten they were in the room. "What do we do now?"

"Send condolences to the families of the men who were up there, after this," Margaery says, her voice quiet. "If there is an after. For now, we wait, and we hope." She turns to them. "My orders still stand," she says, her voice commanding once more. "I want civilians in the safe zones, and I want men helping the Ravagers shoot down the kamikaze attacks."

"But--"

"Our priority," Margaery reiterates, "is our people. And our people are dying. I intend to hold off the Stranger for as long as I can, and that means fighting back for as long as we can." She crosses her arms, looks at her war council. "Does anyone want to argue?"

No one answers.

"Good," she says. "Go, and do your duty."

--

The ship rocks for a moment, from the force of the explosions. One such explosion manages to blast another hole in the hull, and for a second Ramsay's stride breaks, and he stumbles.

It's all the time Robb needs to recover. He scrambles nearer to his sword to grab its hilt, then, and pushes himself to his feet. He's bruised, battered, and parts of him are tingling still, if not sparking (and he has never been more reluctantly thankful for self-repairing cybernetics than he is now), but he isn't out of the fight. Not yet.

Ramsay swings his knife at him, and Robb dives down, landing flat on his back, and kicks upward. Ramsay howls, bending double, knives clattering to the ground, and Robb doesn't even have to think about it before he drives his sword through the other's chest.

"Theon Greyjoy, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow," he says, his tone laced with venom. "They have names, and they're my family. You should never have threatened them."

He draws his sword out, then pushes Ramsay's corpse off before pushing himself back to his feet. Right. Power source.

The little ball of light he'd conjured up earlier then lands back in his free hand, a steady light even now. He smiles, softly, then closes his eyes and imagines it winking out. When he opens them again, it's gone.

He breathes out, hefts his sword up, and swings.

--

The ship rocks, and the lisping Kree staggers, trying to maintain his balance. The soldiers behind him are thrown off by the sudden lurching motion, and Jon does not let the onset of nausea stop him from pulling out a dagger and throwing it, catching a soldier in the throat.

They spring back into motion then, Theon nocking, drawing and loosing arrows at a rapid rate and muttering something about boomerang arrows, goddammit, should’ve asked for those too. Jon glances at Sansa, her jacket and shirt covered in blue blood, a translucent green whip extending from her hand, then takes out the dagger hidden in his boot and goes back to the fray.

An arakh comes whistling through the air, and Jon ducks before it can connect with his neck, then springs back onto his feet and stabs upward, gutting the soldier. He throws the dagger at another soldier trying to sneak up on Sansa, catching him in the back, before he grabs the arakh and spins, swinging it out in a wide arc and slicing two soldiers near in half like butter.

Butter people, a part of him thinks, the part detached from the fighting. The arakh’s Valyrian steel, most likely--only Valyrian steel can cut like that. He vaults over a crate, using the momentum to kick the lisping Kree from earlier in the head, hard enough that there’s an audible snap, and the Kree collapses to the ground.

It’s then that the door opens to a corridor, and another troop of Kree and Sakaaran soldiers comes marching through in a straight line.

“Oh, fuck,” Theon curses, “I’m out of arrows.”

“Jon!” Sansa yells behind him. “Get clear!”

Jon dives to the side, and looks up just in time to see Sansa send a razor-sharp tendril through the line, then slam them into the walls, the ceiling, the floor, other soldiers trying to come through.

He glances at Theon, who shrugs and says, “I think she has issues.”

“You think,” Jon says, his tone flat.

“You didn’t see her send those things up a guy’s nose, right?” Theon gags audibly behind his mask. “It looked painful.” He kicks at a nearby dead body--the lisping Kree’s, Jon notices--then starts pulling out arrows from where they’ve been embedded. “Why didn’t I ask for boomerang arrows, god.”

“Why would anyone?” Jon asks. “Those sound like a terrible idea.”

Theon points an arrow at him, and says, “You have never tried to take an arrow out of an eyeball in your life, Snow.”

Jon makes a face, and says, “Of course I haven’t, I don’t aim for the eyes. You wouldn’t have that problem if you didn’t aim for the eyes.”

“Are you two done?” Sansa asks levelly, and Jon looks back at her, then at the corpses littering the corridor, some looking particularly squashed. “We need to hurry up.”

“I’m done,” Jon says, lifting his new arakh up and testing for balance. “Theon, can you get the Enforcer? Last I had it I stashed it near a crate.” Then again, they’ve wrecked plenty of crates in the ensuing battle.

“Don’t worry, I found it,” Theon calls back, slinging his bow onto his back and lifting the Hadron Enforcer up. He winces, and says, “Christ, but this thing’s heavy. How do you carry it?”

“I work out,” Jon answers. “Can you carry it?”

“Well, it’s heavy, but I’m good for a few minutes.” He holds it close to his chest, and says, “Let’s get moving.”

Jon nods, then falls in behind Sansa, picking his way through a hall of corpses and trying not to step on them. Theon follows behind him, and they’re all silent for a few moments, treading carefully along.

Then Jon stops. There’s something nearby, something like the sound of footsteps. “Did you hear something?” he asks.

“Like what?” Theon asks, behind him. “I didn’t hear anything--oh.”

“Someone’s near,” Sansa says, holding a hand out to stop them both in their tracks.

Jon strains to hear, then he doesn’t have to, the footsteps have gotten loud enough that his grip on the hilt of the arakh tightens. He crouches a little lower, settling into a fighting stance with ease.

For a few moments, all Jon hears is the sound of his own breathing. Then he hears the sound of a weapon powering up, muffled by the wall between them, and then Sansa urging them to get back, then--

There’s a fairly loud noise, and the next thing Jon knows, someone’s blown a hole in the wall and Sansa’s thrown up a shield over all three of them. The shield dissipates, and Jon’s ready to throw himself back into a fight when Robb steps out of the hole, carrying a large rifle and looking worse for the wear.

“What the hell,” Theon says.

“What happened to you?” Sansa worriedly asks.

“Who did this?” Jon asks, his voice cool and calm, but there’s a cold rage rising within him.

“Modified cattle prod, I got shocked, don’t worry, I killed him.” Robb waves a burned and rapidly-healing hand at them, and Jon manages to stamp down the bile that rises in his throat, when he sees the burns trailing down his brother’s arm. “I heal pretty fast, anyway.” He eyes all of them--Sansa in her bloodstained clothes, Theon carrying the Hadron Enforcer, and Jon with a Valyrian steel arakh in his hands--and says, “Did I miss anything?”

“Not much,” Jon says. “There was a guy lisping and slobbering all over the place, though. He’s dead.”

“Which leaves the Brave Companions without their leader,” Robb says, and Jon knows sarcasm when he hears it, especially that much in just two words. “Or not. They must’ve cut and run and left Hoat behind.” He looks around at the hall of corpses, and says, “What happened here?”

“Sansa worked out some issues,” Theon says.

“It was actually somewhat impressive,” Jon says.

Robb glances at Sansa then, and says, “Remind me never to get on your bad side.” He readies the rifle, and says, “Let’s go kill the man I used to work for, then.”

--

Breaking into the flight deck, after that, is laughably easy. Lining up the shot is even easier, and Theon relishes the stunned look on Roose Bolton’s blue face for a moment before he lets the shot fly, and it hits, dead center.

The recoil knocks him back into Robb’s arms, and he can’t help but let out a loud, “Ha!”

“Did you do it?” Arya asks over the comm link, and Theon grins.

“Hell yeah, we did,” he says, steadying himself. “Ding, dong, the witch is dead!”

“I’ve known some perfectly nice witches,” Jon huffs, coughing due to the dust that’s kicked up from the shot, and Theon snorts out a laugh. “I don’t see what Bolton has to do with them.”

“It’s a Terran thing, Snow--”

“Uh,” Sansa says, stepping back, “guys?”

“Fuck,” Robb says, his tone not at all celebratory.

Theon looks back at where Bolton was standing--no, where he’s still standing, looking faintly unimpressed as he dusts off his clothes. “That was rather inconvenient,” he remarks, then points a knife at them, a familiar glowing Stone embedded in its hilt, thrumming with power.

“Fuck,” Theon says. “He’s not dead.”

He twists the knife, and the resulting wave knocks them all back, hard. The Hadron Enforcer crashes to the ground, and Theon is pretty sure he’s got a concussion, from how hard his head knocks back against the wall. “Flarking fucking hell,” he mumbles.

“I’m coming!” Arya yells over the comm link.

“What?! Arya, we can take care of it up here--”

“If he’s not dead, then you clearly need help!” she shouts, and it’s loud enough that Theon winces, mutters a dark curse and deactivates his mask, the comm link along with it.

It’s a bad idea, he quickly realizes, because then he starts to cough. He can see Jon staggering to his feet, picking up that arakh he got off a dead soldier, can see anger and hatred burning in Jon’s grey eyes. It’s a familiar sight--he saw it back in the Red Keep, trying to keep Jon from shoving a knife through Robb’s throat. I was there, when Bolton led slavers to the colony where I was staying, he remembers Jon snarling.

Fuck, Theon thinks.

None of them have enough time to shout a warning to Jon--Robb and Sansa are still dealing with a bout of unconsciousness and all, Theon's fairly certain that the room should not be swaying this much before his eyes--before he charges toward Bolton, the wicked arakh in his hand glinting red before he swings wildly, Bolton stepping calmly back then slashing upward with his knife, a wave of power pulsing out and knocking the arakh from Jon’s hand.

Then Bolton's free hand darts out, and lifts Jon up off the ground by his neck.

"I remember you," he says, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it sends a cold knife scraping down Theon's spine. "Very dimly, but I remember you all the same. Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you? The man was far too honorable for his own good, mayhaps he'd be so very disappointed in how his offspring turned out." He tilts his head just a little to the right, and says, “Though Catelyn Stark might not be surprised at all, at least not by you. I heard she was never fond of you. I wonder why.”

Jon's kicks come harder, faster, his hands clawing at the hand around his throat, but he may as well be kicking at empty air, for all the good they're doing. A cold weight drops in Theon's stomach, even as his sight goes ever so slightly fuzzy.

"I was hoping to send your brother along to your father first," Bolton continues, icy eyes flicking over to Robb, who's only now stirring awake. "But I suppose I can change that plan. You may even meet your mother at last--you can explain to the both of them just how far you and your half-siblings strayed from the path of honor."

His grip grows tighter, and Jon's kicks grow weaker. Theon's hand drifts up to his bow--he's got a few arrows in his quiver still, all of them spotted with blood, and he's always been good at blasters and bows. Maybe an arrow in the neck will do what the Enforcer couldn't.

He doesn't get the chance to find out, because then Arya Stark's crashed her ship through the glass and into Bolton, and Sansa--Sansa is still unconscious and in the way, and Theon's groggy brain kicks back into high gear and screams at him to go. He's launched himself out of his spot before he even really registers it, and he grabs Sansa and gets her out of the way moments before Arya's ship skids to a stop.

Robb, who's very slowly pulling himself out of the debris and rubbing his head, looks up at him, then at Sansa. "Is she okay?" he asks, worried.

"Mmf," says Sansa, stirring awake.

"Think so," Theon says.

"Okay," says Robb, then he jumps to his feet and runs to the ship. Theon glances at Sansa, who's sitting up now and rubbing at her eyes, and says, "Well, now I think he's dead."

"Oh," Sansa faintly says. "Hooray." She pumps her fist into the air without much enthusiasm, and then staggers to her feet and sways a little. She blinks at the scene before her for a moment, as though taking it all in, then her eyes snap wide open.

"Jon!" she shouts, rushing to the ship's debris.

Theon leans back a little, mentally cataloguing all his bruises. He's lucky he doesn't have a broken rib making it hard for him to breathe, but he's bruised and battered and also bleeding a little, and his body is beginning to protest. He kind of misses the adrenaline rush's numbing effects already.

Robb pulls Arya out of her seat. They're almost the same height, Arya's just two inches shorter, but she looks so small when he's carrying her. Theon spies her arms locking around him, holding on tight.

Sansa's doing less well with Jon--she's trying to drag him out of the debris with translucent green tendrils, and it isn't working so well, so Theon gets to his feet, walks over and starts clearing away the ruins, to let Sansa pull Jon out. It's hard work, and more than once Theon stops to cough, but then they're done, and Sansa unceremoniously drags Jon over to a clear spot, as Robb carries Arya over to her and Theon follows.

They're going to crash. No one's piloting the ship, none of them know how to operate those weird ball things, and they're going to crash and die on impact.

And somehow he's okay with that.

"Goodbye, my friend, it's hard to die," he sings quietly, "when all the birds are singing in the sky. Now that the spring is in the air, pretty girls are everywhere, think of me and I'll be there."

He pauses, glances around at the grimy and solemn faces around him. Arya's back on the floor and on her knees, and Jon is still out cold on the floor, but stirring slowly awake. "Depressing, I know, but kind of appropriate," Theon says, and tries for a smile. Instead it twists all wrong, and he is going to die. For a second he's eleven all over again, scared and alone and on the verge of breaking down, but then Robb's hand is squeezing his, and Robb is pressing up against his side and--somehow that helps.

"Could you go on?" he asks.

"It sounded like a nice song," Arya says, quietly. "How did the next line go?"

"We had joy, we had fun," Theon sings, a little louder this time. "We had seasons in the sun."

Sansa doesn't say a word, but she looks around at them all with an utterly devastated look on her face. Then she holds out her hand, and a green dome slowly grows out over them.

Arya's eyes grow wide, as the dome comes down, and she clambers forward, nearly kneeing Jon in the face ("argh," Jon grumbles) and fisting her hands in Sansa's bloodstained jacket. "You can't," she pleads, "Sansa, please, you promised you wouldn't."

"Arya," Sansa says, and her eyes have grown watery. Theon can feel hot tears pricking at his own eyes, and he reaches up to wipe them quickly away. "Arya, I know what I promised."

"You nearly died last time," Arya sobs, and Theon has never seen Arya so broken, so afraid. "Sansa, please, just--just drop the shield--"

"I'm sorry, I can't," Sansa answers, and holds up her free hand to wipe away Arya's tears. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. You're my little sister, I will always be proud of you--of us. All of us." She smiles, and a tear runs down her face. "Father and Mother would be proud of all of us, I think."

"Sansa," Arya's sobbing now, and Theon feels like an intruder, an outsider. "Sansa, why?"

"Because you're family," Sansa says, firmly. "And I would die for you. Any of you." She glances at Theon, and wryly says, "Even you, Theon."

"Thanks," Theon says, his voice weirdly thick.

Robb is quiet, then he holds his hand up. A small star flickers to life in his palm, and when he blows it out, it blows apart like a dandelion, seedlings floating in the wind. Or lanterns, in this case, floating in a little dome like stars lighting the night sky.

Jon sits up, looks around. To his credit, he's quick to register what's going on, and he says, "Sansa--"

"Jon, Robb, Theon," Sansa says, her voice choked, "Arya--if I don't make it, and I know I probably won't, just--know that I'm happy. The past few days, I've been the happiest I've ever been. And if I die, I die happy." She smiles, and in the light of a hundred lantern-like stars, it's almost brilliant. "Thank you," she whispers, "all of you."

She closes her eyes, and Theon grabs on to Robb's hand. He can see Jon's hand on Sansa's shoulder, Sansa's hand sneaking into Robb's free hand, Arya's hands still fisted in her sister's jacket, her body wracked with sobbing pleas.

If I die, Theon thinks, at least I'll die happy.

He braces himself for impact.

--

Elinor Tyrell looks up and sees the Dread Aster falling, falling, falling like a meteor towards the field just outside the city. She holds on to Alla and prays, Gentle Mother, fountain of mercy, please have mercy now.

Margaery Tyrell watches the Dread Aster fall, far away from the site of impact, and prays that Sansa is safe and sound. Only twenty, she thinks.

Davos Seaworth looks up and sees the Dread Aster fall, and his gut churns at the sight. "Gods be good," he whispers, clutching at the pouch hanging from his neck. Luck, he thinks, and may Theon and Arya and their family have all that they need.

Stannis Baratheon watches the Dread Aster fall like a meteor, a safe distance away (along with about a good-sized crowd of one hundred and still growing nearer to the impact site than they should be, do these people know anything about the danger they're in) and clenches his teeth. "Fool boy," he mutters. "What did you do now?"

The Dread Aster crashes to the ground in a smoking ruin, with an explosive, almost deafening sound. But it's not the ruins, as impressive as they are, that draw the attention of the crowd.

It's the five badly-battered, bruised and bleeding criminals, lying prone on the ground.

--

Theon groans, and winces as he pushes himself up off the ground. All right, he's fairly certain he broke or sprained something, he just isn't sure what it is now, his entire body hurts too much for him to really pinpoint what hurts most.

"Argh," he mutters intelligently, rolling onto his back and wincing even more. "Fuck, next time I'm taking an easy job."

Liar, he thinks. He glances to the side, sees Robb slowly lifting his head up. "Doing okay?" he asks.

"Where is that music coming from?" Robb asks, and Theon glances over to where they parked the Space Bitch and winces. Even from this distance he can see that his beloved ship won't be flying any time soon, and no matter what he tells himself--it's a ship, Greyjoy, and a cramped one too, you were always bitching about getting an upgraded model anyway--he can't help feeling like someone's ripped home away from him all over again.

And Mom's gift was in there, he thinks, and suddenly it's all he can do to choke back a sob.

Once I was a funky singer playin' in a rock and roll band, someone croons from a distance away, and Theon kind of wishes his tape would play something more appropriate than Wild Cherry right now. Something sad and slow, probably. He pulls himself up to a sitting position, his gaze cutting quickly to Jon and Arya, over Sansa's prone form, and the wrecked Hadron Enforcer near them.

Oh, fuck, Sansa.

She isn't moving. She isn't moving, and Arya is pleading with her to wake up and Jon is cradling her, and Theon crawls over to the three of them, Robb following him close behind.

"Sansa," Arya's saying, "Sansa, wake up, please wake up--"

"Arya," Robb says, as kindly as possible. "Arya, she's--"

"She'll be okay," Arya says, her voice tinged with hysteria, "she'll be okay, she did this before and she came out of it fine, she's going to be okay, do you hear me? She has to be!"

Jon looks up at Theon, and Theon sees devastation written all over his face, in the tears threatening to fall and in the shaking of his shoulders. Sansa's head is in his lap, and Theon can see a trail of blood coming from her nostril.

She's still, her eyes closed and her hand limp. Theon takes it in his hand, and presses two fingers to her wrist, not really expecting to feel anything. For a moment he doesn't, and he steels himself to tell Arya the bad news.

Then he feels it--a pulse, faint and unsteady, beating double-time as though to make up for the pressure Sansa's put on her body, but a pulse nonetheless.

"Arya," Theon says, quietly.

"She's waking up," Arya insists, "right? She'll wake up!"

"I got a pulse," Theon says, earning looks of shock that soon give way to relief. "She's got a chance, but we gotta get someone here--" He glances around, only just noticing the crowd congregating around the ruins, all of them wide-eyed and weirdly horrified. "Hey!" he yells. "Hey, any of you a doctor?! We got heavily injured over here, come on, do your flarking job--"

A man at the forefront of the crowd makes a small, choked noise, and points one trembling finger behind them.

Theon turns his head to look and groans.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he says, "how are you still alive?"

Roose Bolton just smiles in response, that cold, calculating, and most of all deeply chilling smile that will haunt Theon's nightmares for the rest of his life, the asshole. In his hand is the knife with the Infinity Stone embedded in the hilt, glowing purple. "The Guardians of the Galaxy," he says, his tone laced with derision. "What did your efforts bring you in the end?"

Arya's frozen in her place, but then she presses her lips together, and she all but launches herself at the man, screaming, "You hurt my family!"

Bolton sighs, points the knife in her direction, and flicks his wrist upward, just slightly. The wave tosses Arya back, and she lands on her back by the Hadron Enforcer.

She stares at it a moment, then looks up at Theon and mouths, I need a distraction for a minute.

Theon glances at Jon, who shakes his head, then at Robb, who cocks an eyebrow. "Fine," he mutters. "I'm just going to embarrass myself."

He gets to his feet, as Bolton is eyeing the crowd around them. His entire body is protesting, and every single instinct he has is screaming at him to run like hell and fuck everything else, but he sucks in a breath, winces from the pain that lances immediately through his side, then steps nearer.

Bolton is talking, saying something about exile being a great help in clearing up his priorities, some crap about how he's a merciful man, really and truly, he's willing to demonstrate, starting with Tyrell and then the rest of them. Theon can tell from his tone that he's lying through his teeth, can tell from the terrified faces around him that everyone knows it, too.

Hell, Theon's really fucking terrified already, but he sucks in another deep breath and steps into Bolton's line of vision.

Distract him. Well, Theon's good at that, and it just so happens that his tape is hitting the chorus to Wild Cherry's damn song already.

--

Robb presses a kiss to Sansa's forehead, murmurs, "Wake up, Sansa," then glances up at Arya, hurriedly repairing the Enforcer with some help from her own special affinity with machines and whatever she's stashed in her pockets, then at Jon, rummaging through the debris of Arya's borrowed ship to find whatever tool that Arya needs that she hasn't packed in her pockets.

Sansa's still lying unconscious, but she's breathing, she's still alive. He feels giddy, even just thinking that. His sister is still alive.

"Will you be all right?" Robb asks.

Arya nods, then makes a shooing motion. Go, distract him, I'll take care of things here, he can imagine her saying.

He nods, then gets to his feet and follows after Theon, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, just in case it doesn't work.

"--should anyone want to cross me, of course," Bolton's saying, in that chillingly calm tone of a madman with far too much power at his fingertips, almost above a whisper yet somehow amplified by the Stone, "I may not be quite so merciful--"

"And just when it hit me," Theon suddenly belts, at the loudest possible volume, swinging his hips and raising his arms in what Robb is fairly certain is supposed to be sensual but only comes off a little silly, "somebody turned around and shouted: play that funky music, white boy!" He spins in place, shakes his shoulders, and shimmies his hips. "Play that funky music right!"

Robb stares at Theon in shock, his sword clattering to the ground.

Well, he thinks, it's certainly distracting.

"What," Bolton says, his tone completely flat, "are you doing."

"Play that funky music, white boy," Theon's still singing, leaning to the side and rolling his hips while snapping his fingers, then spinning again and kicking his foot up, "lay down the boogie and play that funky music till you die! Bring it down, and--" He circles his hands in a complicated motion, then points at Robb. "Robb!" he shouts.

Robb's mouth falls open a little. "I'm an intergalactically-wanted assassin," he manages to say after a moment passes, with all the dignity he can muster in the face of such an absurd situation, "I don't dance."

Theon blinks at him. "Subtle," he dryly says, smirking, then reeling his hands back as though pulling something in, then starts dancing again in earnest. "Take it back, aaand they shouted play that funky music, play that funky music--"

"I ask again," Bolton says, very calmly, "what are you doing."

Theon pauses, his eyes sliding back towards Arya and Jon getting into position and Jon taking aim, before he grins, as though he isn't close to pissing his pants from the fear. Robb can tell, his hands are shaking noticeably even as he shoves one into a pocket and points to Arya and Jon. "Uh, duh, you great big bag of dicks," he says, as easily as anything, "I'm the distraction!"

Bolton turns around, just as Jon fires, the recoil knocking him back into Arya's arms, and the shot doesn't hit Bolton, this time.

It hits the knife, and the Stone flies out of where it's been embedded from the force of the shot. Bolton reaches, and Theon leaps, one hand outstretched to grab on to the Stone, and Robb can already see what's about to happen before Theon's fingers even close around the Stone.

"No!" Robb screams, just as Theon closes his hand into a fist around the Stone, and then all the sound is sucked out of their surroundings.

The last thing Robb hears, before the Stone in Theon's hand lashes out and kicks up a sudden storm of dust and power and energy, is Sansa's voice groggily asking, "Arya, whasgoin' on?"

And then everything

goes

quiet

for only a second before sound floods back in, and Robb can hear Theon screaming, see him struggling to stand up (and his skin is flaking off before Robb's eyes) and does the only thing he can think to do.

He flings his hand out and screams, "Theon! Take my hand!"

--

"Arya?" Sansa blearily asks, pushing herself up to a sitting position. "Whasgoin' on?"

"Sansa!" Arya shrieks, flinging her arms out and nearly tackling her sister to the ground. "You're awake!"

"'M'fine," Sansa mumbles, as Jon kneels down next to her. "M'fine, 'lly."

"Does this usually happen?" Jon asks. "The, uh, unintelligibility?"

"Um, sometimes," Arya says. "Also, by the way, Sansa, Robb and Theon did something stupid again."

It takes a moment for Sansa's fuzzy memory to match faces and memories to the names, but the second it does she lets out a loud, clear curse.

"Yeah," Jon says, "that's exactly how we're feeling right now." His voice is somewhat muffled by the powerful storm going on around them, so he raises his voice to continue: "And we're going to help them do it!"

"What?!"

"S'not a ba'plan," Sansa slurs, leaning against her sister for support. She's going to need a while longer to really regain all her physical faculties and full authority over her tongue, but she knows they don't have that time. "Arya--"

"I'm not leaving without any of you," Arya says, firmly.

"All right," Jon grimly says. "Let's go do something stupid." Then he stands up, sucks in a breath, and marches straight into the eye of the storm.

Sansa looks at Arya, and for a moment has to squint, because all of a sudden there are two Aryas swimming before her. Then her vision refocuses, and she leans on Arya even more. "S'rry," she mumbles.

"Never do that again," Arya says. "Please. Please."

"N'r'grets," Sansa says. "C'n't pr'mise 'nythin' 'ther." She pauses, then adds, "Tell y'next time. Promise."

"I'll settle for that," Arya murmurs, then helps her through the storm.

--

He's screaming. Probably. He really isn't sure right now, there's just--there's too much, the Stone is lashing out at him and flooding his head with images and scenes and Theon! someone is screaming.

He can't hear them, only he can, and--and--

--he's smiling at Robb, and there is a crown of bronze and iron upon his red, red curls, and he says, don't miss me too much, Stark, and Robb smiles back at him and the letter in his pocket--

--burns up in the candlelight, and he imagines Robb's smile and the snowflakes melting in his hair and--

--he knows the cost of rebellion and the cold and bloody kiss of a knife into his skin, knows his name and his place and--

--Asha smiles at him, inviting and enticing, only Asha has never worn anything like that, he hasn't seen her in years--

--the smell of burning paper wafts up to his nostrils and he sees the words written on the parchment, sees his promises going up in smoke--

--it's cold and they're at war and he kneels and says, with all the confidence of youth, am I your brother, now and always, and Robb blinks in surprise and echoes back, now and--

"Take my hand!" someone screams. "Theon! Take my hand already--"

He turns his head, and his mother is there, stretching a hand out towards him. "Theon," she says, her eyes kind and her smile sweet, and she looks almost the same way she did before the cancer ate away at her, "take my hand."

"Mom?" he whispers, and stretches his hand out to thread his fingers through hers.

--

Robb screams once Theon's hand locks with his, the Infinity Stone's power surging through, and he would almost welcome being shocked with 2,000 volts of electricity for almost an hour, at least he knows he can take that. This is different, this is power at its strongest and purest, and he doesn't know if he can take the memories it's dumping into his head, the drums are pounding and his men are dying around him--

--no, no, that isn't right, that never happened, he's reaching a hand up to twist the crown of bronze and iron around, it is not an easy thing to bear but he must, he must--

--he thinks maybe he's screaming, he can't tell if he really is or if it's the Stone and the things he's seeing. He can't--he doesn't know if he can hold on, they're only two people and he can hardly breathe from the pain--

--and then he feels something shift, feels the power lessening. He turns his head to look, and Jon is screaming as well, his hand clamped down on Theon's shoulder, and for a second there are snowflakes in his dark curls and Robb says, farewell, Snow, and Jon grins back and says,and you, Stark, and he steps forward and Robb snaps back to reality, his grip on Theon's hand tightening even more.

He catches sight of Arya, with Sansa leaning heavily on her, pushing through the storm with steel in her eyes, and Robb is both proud and frightened for her, for both of them. He doesn't know how long any of them can hold out against the Stone's onslaught. Hell, he doesn't know how it is that they haven't been disintegrated into atoms yet.

Arya's hand slips into Jon's, and Sansa's hold on Arya's arm tightens, and suddenly they're both screaming as well, and it's an awful sound and Robb never wants to hear it ever again in his life.

The power shifts, then, and suddenly Robb can breathe easier, can see clearer. They're strong enough to share this and brave the storm, all of them.

Bolton shakes his head, trying to shake the disorientation, then looks up at them. For the first time, Robb can see shock in his pale, icy eyes.

"You're mortal," Bolton whispers. "How?"

Theon grins in answer, his eyes glowing a bright purple. In his hand, the Infinity Stone thrums with energy, and Robb has to tell himself to focus on getting the discount container from his belt. "You said it yourself, dick," he says, "we're the Guardians of the Galaxy."

He opens his hand, the one with the Infinity Stone, and it shines, brightly enough that Robb has to look away for a moment, purple spots dancing in his vision. He doesn't hear Bolton scream--maybe he didn't. Either way, when Robb looks back, Bolton is gone.

Which leaves one last thing: he pulls the container from his belt and all but slams it over Theon's hand, just as the power and the pain of holding so much of it in his body starts to build up, and the storm around them stops. Theon lets out a sudden gasp, and for a second Robb wonders why he can see fear in his eyes, then they're all slumping against each other in an exhausted heap.

"Ow," Arya says, quite succinctly.

"We did it," Jon says, wonderingly.

"Woohoo," Sansa mumbles. "M'gonna nap now, if you don't mind."

Jon blinks, then glances at Sansa, surprise etched across his expression. "Hey," he says, "I understood that."

Arya blinks at her, and says, "Sansa--you're not feeling too bad, are you? No fevers?"

"No, not really," Sansa says. "That's--That's weird." She yawns, slumping even more against Arya and closing her eyes. "But I'm going to sleep now."

"I," Theon announces then, leaning his head against Robb's shoulder, "am going to sleep for a few days. Maybe a week."

Robb huffs out a laugh, and reaches up to thread his hand through Theon's hair, absently scratching his scalp. Theon hums, and inches as close as he possibly can.

"We did it," Robb says, quietly. "We actually did it." He glances up, to meet Jon's gaze. "And we lived," he says.

"So," Jon says, "what do we do next?"

--

Meet with Stannis Baratheon, as it turns out.

To his credit, the man waits a day for all of them to recover before he knocks loudly on the door to their hotel room ("oh my god eight-star hotel rooms we need to save the world more often" had been Theon's exact words when they were ushered inside by solemn-looking Night Corps officials, and then he'd grabbed Robb and dragged him into the bedroom and locked the door behind them both), and says, once Jon opens the door, "I need to speak with Greyjoy." He holds up a bag in one hand, and a cage with all four direwolf pups barking excitedly at him in the other.

Jon nods to the locked door. "He and Robb went in there a day ago," he says. "The last time they came out was for breakfast, and they'll probably come out around lunch time, which is," he steals a glance back at the grandfather clock in the room, "about two hours from now."

Davos Seaworth, just beside Stannis, says wryly, and with all the experience brought on by years of knowing Theon Greyjoy, "What did I tell you, Stannis?"

Stannis grinds his teeth, and Jon feels sorry enough for the both of them that he opens the ornately-decorated door a little wider and steps aside, to let them in.

"You can come in," he says. "Uh, sorry about the guards in the corridors, I guess they're afraid we'll make off with the Stone the second they loosen up."

"Which is just dumb!" Arya shouts from the kitchen, where she's definitely raiding the fridge again. "I mean, it was painful! Who'd want it?"

"Well, Lannister does, for some reason," Jon says, as Stannis and Davos step inside the room, and Stannis sets the cage down and opens its door, letting the pups tumble out free. "I'd ask if you want anything, but one of our only two cooks is asleep and probably will be for some time yet to recover, though the Stone helped speed her healing along, the other is with my brother doing things I do not want to know anything about, and Arya's laid claim to pretty much all of the fridge." He shrugs, and says, "Room service tastes pretty good, anyway."

"I let you have some yesterday!" Arya shouts.

"And you stole most of it back!" Jon yells back, and is answered with a maniacal cackle. He turns back to Stannis and Davos, and shrugs.

"We could use you and the rest of your family on our crew," Stannis comments, and Jon imagines that, for a moment. He shudders at the thought of it--some of the Ravagers might not trust Robb, and Arya only plays well with teams when she wants to, he's found. Most of the time, from what Sansa's told him while awake, she doesn't. And Jon himself rather doubts his own potential as a criminal, considering his first go at it had ended in an arrest.

He shakes his head. "No," he says, simply, sitting down in a very comfortable chair. He could practically sink in this, and so he does let himself sink into it, as Stannis and Davos take the couch, and Stannis sets the bag between the two of them. "But I don't think that's why you came here."

"You think right," Davos says. "We came here for three reasons. The first one--" He nods to the pups, already sniffing around and exploring their new surroundings. Nymeria has gone off to join Arya in eating at least half of the fridge's contents in less than two hours, Grey Wind and Lady have discovered the bathroom, and Ghost is trotting up to Jon and placing his front paws on Jon's thigh in a clear plea. "Waters is asking that you never foist your wolf pups on him again," Davos continues, as Jon picks Ghost up and settles him on his lap. "Apparently he had plenty of trouble trying to keep them from nearly killing themselves from curiosity."

"Ghost is smarter than that," Jon says, then looks down at his silent pup, who places his front paws on Jon's chest in an effort to climb up and lick his face. "Right, Ghost," he says, "very, very right, hey, not on the mouth--"

Stannis gives him a long look, and says, "You realize that is a predator that can rip out your throat with its jaws? They're not pets."

"I'm a gladiator," Jon says. "Or I used to be. I've faced worse." That, and after what he's seen from the Stone, he's honestly kind of reluctant to let go of Ghost. "Besides, Ghost wouldn't hurt me."

Ghost delivers another lick to Jon's face in response.

"You'll want to call Arya out from the kitchens for the second," Davos says, rummaging in the bag and pulling out a thin, thin sword wrapped in cloth.

Jon nods, then stands up and heads on to the kitchens.

The first thing he sees is the table, laden with cakes, breads, rolls, chocolates, fruits, every kind of dessert he can think of and some he's never seen before. Nymeria, he notices, is scarfing down some fruits with gusto, while Arya is only just kicking the fridge door closed, her arms full of sweets.

Jon's mouth is watering a little right now.

"You're sure you can eat all of that without feeling sick?" he asks.

"Watch me," Arya says, dumping the sweets on a conveniently clear spot near her chair. "No wonder this hotel's so expensive--look at all the food!"

"Looks a little too rich to me," Jon says, and it's then that his stomach rumbles.

Arya raises an eyebrow, and says, "There's a meat pie. It isn't that rich." She pauses to bite into a cake, chewing and swallowing before saying, "It's a change from prison food, at least."

"And arena gruel," Jon says, taking a seat beside her and picking up a piece of lemon cake. "The winners usually got some bread, maybe a bigger helping of gruel, but usually just gruel." He bites down on the cake and has to stop for a moment, to savor the taste, almost familiar on his tongue. "And you had to guard it jealously, else someone would steal it and you'd go to your cell hungry, because they wouldn't let you get another serving."

"That sucks," Arya says, blunt as ever, and Jon chuckles.

"At least I knew where my next meal was coming from," he says. "Honestly, the Red Keep's food was something of a step up from the arena's."

"It moved," Arya says. "Food isn't supposed to still be moving when it's on your plate."

"It tasted good," Jon says, and Arya tosses a bar of chocolate at him in answer. "But I didn't come in here to compare the arena's food's quality with the Red Keep's." He smiles at her, and says, "Needle's been fixed."

Arya blinks at him a moment, her mouth parting in a small o, before she very slowly smiles, her eyes beginning to water, then she all but launches herself at him, tackling him around the middle hard enough that they fall out of the chair with a resounding crash.

--

"Did you hear something?"

Theon mumbles something in answer, his voice muffled by the pillow he's pressed to his face. It takes a moment for Robb's slightly hazy mind to figure out exactly what he's said.

"Staying in bed's not a half-bad idea, I guess," he says, lying back down and throwing his arm over Theon's torso.

"Told you," Theon mutters, "I'm full of good ideas." He squirms a little, turning so Robb can see his face and his eyes, pupils blown wide, and says, "I've got another one."

--

"Oh my gods," Arya whispers, once she's unwrapped the cloth around her sword. "I--thank you. Thank you." She sets the sword aside on the table, before she wraps her arms around Davos and reels him in for a hug. "And tell Gendry thanks for me, too. Especially for looking after our wolves."

"Man deserves some compensation, apparently," Jon wryly says. "I'd give him some, only we're not exactly allowed out and about to do anything, at least until we can hand over the Stone to the Night Corps." He eyes the two smugglers and adds, "I'm a little surprised you got past the guards, honestly."

"We very nearly didn't," Davos says, with a sigh.

"Every time I have to deal with Tyrell's men, I wonder how far the Night Corps' standards have fallen," Stannis says, bluntly. Arya can at least appreciate that quality. "Mayhaps it'll fall even further now."

Arya lets go of Davos then, looking down at her hands. "A lot of people died, up there," she says, at last. I heard them die, she doesn't say, but it hangs in the air all the same.

"More would've died had they not held the line," Stannis says. "I'll say this much for them: they had their duty, and did not shrink from it."

Arya sheathes her sword once more, then perches on top of a particularly plush leather armchair. "What happened to the girl, the one with the broken leg?" she asks Davos.

"She's fine," Davos answers. "I took the liberty of looking in on her already."

Arya breathes out, relief bubbling inside her chest. She saved someone. She saved someone, someone is alive and well because of her, and she feels--content. She'd be more content if she could actually get out of here and if they could get some sort of monetary reward for saving an entire world, but the hotel room's good enough. Or would be if not for the armed guards.

"So what brings you down here?" she asks. "The guards aren't easy to get past. I should know. I tried."

"Mayhaps the Night Corps' standards haven't fallen quite as much as I first thought," Stannis dryly says, and Arya fixes him with a glare. "Two hours, you said, Snow?"

"Yeah," Jon says. "You have to give this place this much--at least the soundproofing's good. I only heard them once and that was because I walked in on them." He buries his face in his hands and gives a weary groan.

"I told you what they'd be doing," Arya says, "but did you listen? No. It's all on you."

"I hope you've learned a valuable lesson," Davos says, his face completely straight.

Jon makes a small, strangled noise at the back of his throat, and Arya can't help it--she laughs, and claps her older brother on the back.

"You'll get them back one day," she assures him.

"If that ever happens," Jon says, "it'll be far in the future."

--

It's lunch when they both reemerge from their room, hastily-dressed and more disheveled than usual. Arya takes one look at them and says, "You look like rejected Summer Planets mummers."

Robb smooths out his jacket--well, Theon's jacket, in all honesty, but Theon is kind of into the sight, and damn if Robb doesn't pull it off--and says, with all the dignity anyone can muster with a hickey on their neck and hair like a hedgehog's quills, "It's not that bad."

Theon takes one look at the occupants of the couch, and lets out a slow breath. There's a very noticeable purplish hickey on his collar, and he's pretty sure that if something drops and he bends over to pick it up, everyone present will see the bruises blooming on his skin. That isn't even getting into the rumpled state of his clothes, or at least the clothes he's wearing right now. He runs a hand through his hair in an attempt to get it back to something vaguely resembling its usual meticulously maintained state and says, "Seaworth, Baratheon, hey."

Stannis raises a brow, then turns to Davos. "How did your hearts not give out?" he asks.

"I still have no clue," Davos sighs, with weary experience behind his voice. "I hear you've both been somewhat busy."

"Somewhat," Jon says, his tone similarly long-suffering.

Theon's not entirely sure how to tell them that they didn't actually have that much sex (though it was spectacular), that most of the time they just slept or talked or made out like horny teenagers. He decides not to tell them--he has a reputation to maintain here. "What brings you here?" he asks, settling easily into a chair, Robb moving to sit down next to him.

"If you'll recall," Stannis says, "I mentioned that I would see you by the end of the battle. And I am not one for breaking my word."

Theon shrugs, in answer. "You've seen me," he says. "In a less-than-decent state, might I add. You couldn't have given us some time to fix ourselves up?"

"What do you plan on doing, after this?" Stannis asks.

"I'm guessing there's no spot for me anymore," Theon says. "I mean, I'm recognizable now, and there's that small matter of, um, defying long-standing orders to stay on the ship in order to take a solo job on a condemned planet." He huffs out a breath, and adds, "Which I'm not sorry about. But I don't actually have any plans."

"You have it right," Stannis says, doing nothing to soften the blow for Theon. "There's no place for you anymore, at least on the roster."

"You know," Arya says, butting right in, "I kind of liked this. The whole 'saving the world' thing. Maybe we could do that on a smaller scale for a living."

"It'd make a good change from my previous job," Robb wryly says. "But anything would be a good change from being someone's lackey."

"Or being a gladiator," Jon adds, just as dry. "I mean, nearly dying was terrible, but on the whole, it's an improvement."

Theon opens his mouth to argue, then closes it. They've got a good point, is the thing. They've got a very, very good point, and if he's going to be honest here, being a full-time Guardian of the Galaxy doesn't really sound like a bad idea. "Criminal records aside," he says, "that doesn't sound too bad. But, you know, we all have criminal records. We might get arrested even before we get really started on guarding the galaxy."

"We broke out of the last prison we were in," Arya dismissively says. "And once you break out of the Red Keep, you can break out of literally any other prison in the galaxy." She kicks her heels up over the arm of her chair, lounging sideways like a cat.

"We could do it, you know," Jon says. "Be heroes. You said so yourself--we've all lost something, but we have a chance to do some good, stop others from losing the same things we did."

"You mean we're all losers," Theon says, earning a punch to the shoulder. "Ow!"

"And you're all bent on taking that chance?" Davos asks.

"Yeah," Arya says. "I'd love to have a place to sleep in that isn't a seedy motel or the ground."

"Yes," Jon says. "I want to fight for something that I chose. And I'm choosing this."

Theon glances at Robb, who says, "I've fought for all the wrong reasons, my entire life, alongside all the wrong people. I've found something better." Robb's eyes slide to meet Theon's, and his mouth twitches upwards in a small, honest smile. "I've found people to fight for."

Theon lets out a breath. "We don't have a ship," he says, and it tears his heart apart to say it, as much as he tries to keep his tone even. "We crashed the Space Bitch into the Dread Aster, I don't know what the Night Corps did with it afterwards. We've still got to turn the Stone over to Tyrell, and after that--"

"After that," Stannis says, "you're free to do what you wish."

Theon's jaw falls open. "What?" he manages to say.

"We spoke with Tyrell," Stannis continues. "We all agreed that actions such as yours must needs be rewarded in a fitting manner, though I personally thought you all could do with some time spent in service." He leans forward, and says, "But Tyrell wanted to wipe the slate clean, as it were."

"Gee, thanks for sticking up for me," Theon mutters. "So, what, we're not going to be arrested?"

"Why would anyone be arrested if they don't have a criminal record?" Davos says, and smiles, a fatherly and familiar sort of smile. "I don't doubt that at some point you'll have to restart it--doing right does not always mean upholding the law, and funds can be hard to come by--but until then, this should more than suffice." He pulls a sizable pouch from his jacket, and drops it onto the table with a jingling noise.

Theon picks it up, almost afraid to untie the twine keeping it closed. "What's all this?" he asks.

"Severance pay," Stannis says, standing as well to leave. "You've been a Ravager for twenty-one years, Greyjoy, and did fairly well for all of it, recent side job aside. And I know how to reward good service." He smooths out his jacket, and says, "You'll find fifteen thousand credits inside. It should be more than enough to start with."

He goes first, striding back out the front door, and for a second Theon imagines him with a crown on his head, one made from bronze and shaped like fire.

Then Davos nods to the door, and says, "Walk with me."

Theon stands, then, smoothing out his shirt and combing his fingers through his hair again, and falls in step beside Davos.

"You've come a long way from the boy we abducted," Davos says, to start with, a note of pride in his tone. "Especially in the past few days."

"Well, what can I say," Theon says, looking back at his team, Jon regaling Arya and Robb with a tale of a fight from his days in the arena, "I had a good team." He looks back at Davos, and grins. "And I had someone who raised me right."

Davos huffs out a breath, and says, "Then I've done my job." He claps Theon on the back, then draws him close for a brief hug, and says, "I'll meet you again soon enough, and then--mayhaps we can talk. About your father."

Theon's breath hitches in his throat. There'd been a time when he wanted to know, about who his father must've been--an angel of light, his mother had called the man as she lay dying, and he doesn't know what to make of the implications, even twenty-one years afterward.

But he's gotten on fine for two decades without knowing who his father was, aside from some vague guessing based off of what the Stone left in his head.

"Whoever he was," Theon says, at last, "I honestly doubt he can do better than you did." He claps Davos on the back, and says, "I'll miss you, old man. Don't have a heart attack, yeah?"

"If my hearts have stayed strong while I was running after you," Davos says, turning his collar up as he steps back out into the corridor, "I doubt there's anything in the universe that can cause them to give out now."

--

Margaery Tyrell summons them, a week afterwards and three days after Sansa reemerges from her room with an appetite rivaling Arya and Robb's combined. Jon's expecting the guards to "gently nudge" them into the waiting car, even with their squeaky-clean records, but instead the guard just opens the door to tell them all that the Lady Commander wishes to receive them.

"Right now?" Theon asks.

"As soon as possible," the guard says, eyeing Robb's unruly red curls and the fading marks on Theon's collarbone, as well as Jon's hair stuck up in every direction, the frequently-mussed rat's nest situated on Arya's head, and Sansa's messy bun, then the wolf pups wrestling with each other on the carpet. They don't look like the saviors of the galaxy from just a week or so past, Jon figures--they don't have the bruises or scars they’re supposed to have, they all look fairly hale and healthy, for having held on to an Infinity Stone for more than a few seconds.

Then again, the damn Stone is probably why they're all hale and healthy, instead of battered and bruised and still healing. The accelerated healing would be nice, if it didn't come with nightmares of blue-eyed dead men walking around ready to kill.

His gaze cuts briefly to the Stone, contained in an innocuous-looking orb. Every so often, as they head down to the shuttle with somewhat more presentable appearances than before and four direwolf pups trailing behind them, there's a purple glow pulsing out from the orb, and whoever's holding it then immediately flinches away, passing it off to the next poor schmuck.

It glows again, and Robb looks half-ready to drop the thing and make a break for it. Instead he pushes it into Jon's hands with a mumbled "sorry", and inches closer to Sansa to resume their discussion.

“Thank you,” Jon dryly says, the orb in his hand. He doesn’t dare open it--he’s been too up close and personal with it enough times already, and the sooner the Stone is in someone else’s hands, the better. “Sansa, you’re sure you can contain your excitement when you see her?”

“Jon,” Sansa says, her face turning as red as her hair, almost all of the dye having now washed out, “you’re my brother and I love you, but please stop. Robb and Arya getting on my case is bad enough, please, don’t add on to it.”

Theon opens his mouth.

“Not you either,” Sansa huffs. “In fact, maybe I should turn it around on you, since you’re dating my brother--”

“Oh my god, I was just going to ask if she’d take well to me asking after my ship,” Theon says, throwing his hands up but failing to suppress a smile. “I’m trying to play nice here!”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Sansa says.

“No, I’m not,” Theon says. “Robb, back me up here, it’s practically your duty--”

“I’m not getting in between you and Sansa,” Robb says, serene.

“Arya?” Theon tries, glancing hopefully at Arya, who gives him a long, flat look. “I’ll take that as a no,” he mutters, then looks at Jon with a pitiful look. Jon doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it works better when Arya does it.

“You’re on your own,” he says.

“You’re all assholes,” Theon mutters, as the guard opens the shuttle’s doors for them. "See if I ever save the galaxy with you guys again."

Robb clambers in after him, already switching the subject to something besides needling Sansa about her love life, and Jon climbs in after Arya and Sansa and their wolves, the orb still in his hand. For a second he starts to think maybe it's finally decided to behave (and it's strange, that he and the rest of them have taken to thinking of the Stone as a misbehaving child, but sometimes it does act like one), but then it pulses again, glowing faintly purple for a moment, and Jon is sitting out of sight of the lords and ladies who've come to feast, and he's drunk off wine and feeding Ghost a leg of lamb and he snaps back to himself, Ghost nudging his free hand with some worry.

"I'm fine, Ghost," Jon mumbles, looking down at the Stone. Ghost snarls at the Stone, snapping his jaws at it, and Jon can't help a small smile. "If only biting it would help," he says. "Here, Theon--you want it?"

"I'd rather eat worms," Theon says, eyeing the Stone with fear.

"Suit yourself," Jon says. "Arya, catch." He tosses it over, and Arya catches it, fumbling with the orb for a moment before she glances at the black-clad guard.

"Do you have a spare pack we can stuff this thing in?" she asks.

--

The Night Corps' headquarters is, in Sansa's opinion, fairly intimidating. It looks almost like a gigantic wall of ice, with black towers jutting out like points on a crown, and at this time in the afternoon, the Xandarian sunlight makes it look as though it's been weeping tears of ice.

It's a breathtaking sight, and for a moment Sansa forgets about the Infinity Stone stuffed into a bag, watching black shuttles flying in and out of the towers and all over the city, some headed to the nearest sept to pray for those lost, others headed to the hospital to care for those injured, still others headed all over the city to clean up the damages. Xandar is healing, a week or so after the Dread Aster's crash, slowly, but healing all the same.

And if she isn't mistaken--

"Theon," she says, seeing a black ship lined with golden colors with two distinctive scorch marks on its exterior, anchored to one tower, "I think they salvaged your ship. No, actually--they fixed it."

"Wait, seriously?" Theon scrambles over, and Sansa sees his eyes grow wide, his ever-present smirk melting away like ice in spring. "Flarking--my god, they actually did it! It looks almost exactly like it used to, there's even the scorch marks right there--"

Sansa inches away from the window, letting Arya press up her face to the glass and marvel over the sight as Jon clambers over to see, and glances at Robb. "So, uh--"

"Do you care for her?"

This again. "Yes, I do," Sansa huffs.

"Does she care for you?"

"Well, yes!" The guard glances sideways at her, clearly wondering what she's angry about. She's almost ready to ask him the same questions when he looks down at his hands.

"Then that's good enough for me," he says. "And before you ask--" His eyes cut away from her to Theon, and he smiles softly, the same way she dimly remembers their mother smiling at their father. "We care for each other too." He looks back at her. "So what should we expect from her?" he asks, his tone serious once more.

Sansa shrugs. "It's been a while since I last saw her," she admits. "But--if I remember right, she'll be friendly enough. She was to me, when we first met, and for a long time she was one of my only friends. Then--well." She coughs, glancing at the guard. "But like I said, it's been a while."

"She sounds like a good woman," Robb says, as the shuttle docks. "If she was your friend."

"I'm hoping she still is," Sansa says, thinking of nights in Dorne. "Scared?"

Robb lets out a breath. "Very," he says. "I'm half-expecting this to be some sort of elaborate trap." He shrugs, then adds, "No offense, sir."

"Ma'am," the guard corrects.

"No offense, ma'am," Robb says, ducking his head down and looking somewhat mortified. "What about you?"

"Out of my wits," Sansa confesses. "I missed her terribly, but--it's been such a long time, she might not be the same person I knew."

"You're not exactly the same person she must've known either," Robb says, and--he's right, is the thing. Even discounting the Infinity Stone, Sansa's grown from the soft, sweet young woman Margaery knew. She's older, harder, one half of a bounty hunting team with a reputation across the galaxy, and now she's related to two people just as skilled and dangerous as her and Arya. She twists a red lock of hair around her finger and tugs a little on it.

"No," she acknowledges, "I'm not."

The shuttle shudders to a stop, and Arya's yelp brings Sansa's attention back to the trio gawking at the sights--or, well, not gawking anymore. It's rather hard to gawk when you're pinned beneath somebody else, she's sure.

"Ow," Theon's muffled voice groans, from beneath Jon.

Sansa breaks into a fit of laughter, leaning on Robb and trying to catch her breath, in between bursts of girlish giggling. Robb, beside her, is shaking with laughter as well, holding his side and gasping for breath.

It feels good.

--

Margaery waits on the balcony, with bated breath. Officially, the Lady Commander's role is to give out honors to the brave heroes that risked their lives and their freedom to save her planet, and to see them off with a stern reminder to keep their noses clean, but unofficially, Margaery's a little more excited about the prospect of seeing Sansa once more, and meeting the rest of her family as well.

All of which spent some time in the Red Keep, and her hand drifts close to her baton at the thought, before she crosses her arms again across her chest.

Ironic, really. Just some time ago she'd had to send them to the Red Keep for property damage, and now she's seeing them off to freedom for saving Xandar from destruction and packing away an artifact of world-destroying power.

She shudders, a little. She’s no fool, she knows what happened on Castamere, why it happened, knows the near-limitless power in the Stone, knows exactly what it is capable of. By all the eyewitness accounts, the second Greyjoy got his hands on it, he should’ve been vaporized, along with the rest.

She’s going to have to update her files. Certainly, Terrans have been far more resilient than she’s ever given them credit for, if the whispers of five Terrans and an Asgardian defending the planet from a full-scale invasion are true, but she doesn’t think even a Terran could hold on to an Infinity Stone for long.

She’s snapped out of her reverie by the sound of the doors whistling open, and straightens up, clasping her hands behind her back and summoning up a professional smile.

“--and then she said, I’ve no clue how to do such a thing, and I said, well, it’s a good thing I’m such a good teacher,” Theon Greyjoy is saying, gesturing wildly, “and let me tell you, Robb--”

“--nearly had my hand burned off, the slobber was so acidic,” Jon Snow is saying, with Arya listening raptly, “and I couldn’t risk getting up close, so I found some heavy rocks--”

“Good morning,” Margaery cheerfully says, snapping the two storytellers out of their tales, her eyes straying to Sansa. “I trust you enjoyed your stay at Highgarden Hotel?”

“I’ve never eaten anything so good before,” Arya reverently says. Her dog--no, direwolf, and gods Margaery is a little scared of the tiny little pups trailing along after these people--gives an affirmative bark. “We should stay at eight-star hotels more often, Sansa.”

“Yeah, we should,” Sansa says, smiling as soft as Margaery remembers. Her hair is red now, shining copper in the Xandarian sunlight, and Margaery’s breath catches in her throat at the sight. She turns, blue eyes bright with cheer, and says, “We enjoyed it very much, Mar--my lady.”

“Please,” Margaery says, striding forward. “Just Margaery will suffice today.” She notes the way Robb’s gaze cuts away from Theon to her and Sansa. “On behalf of the Night Corps, the population of Xandar, and perhaps even the rest of the galaxy, we would like to express our profound gratitude, for your help in saving Xandar,” she continues, in the voice of the Lady Commander.

Arya puffs up her chest with pride, almost at the same time Greyjoy smirks, combing his hair back with his fingers.

“We tried to cleave as close to the way it was before you crashed it into the Dread Aster,” Margaery says, gesturing to the restored Space Bitch, the golden lines gleaming. “With some improvements, where needed.” She turns to Arya, then adds, “By the way, Arya Stark, one of these days I mean to ask you just how it is that you’ve boosted its systems to such a level with the materials you have, our engineers told me that most of what you’ve done is on par with the work of the Iron Fleet’s engineers.”

Arya’s grin grows even wider. “It isn’t that easy,” she says. “It’s--I guess you could say I just have a way with machines.”

“She means it’s her superpower,” Theon says, but his eyes are trained on his ship. “I--my god, I don’t know what to say.”

“I can,” Jon says. “It starts with ‘thank’ and ends with ‘you’.”

“It was the least I could do,” Margaery says, honestly. “You saved my planet. More than that, my family is alive because of all of you. Arya in particular, and by the way, Elinor says hi.”

Arya pumps a fist into the air, and yelps, for Sansa’s elbow jabbing her in the ribs. Margaery manages to hold back her laughter at the sight, but not before a short chuckle makes it past her lips.

“I do have to warn you against breaking any more laws in the future,” she continues, earning a groan from both Theon and Arya. “We expunged your criminal records, but we will arrest you if the first thing you do is immediately break a law, saving the galaxy aside. And I, for one, would really rather not have to send any of you to jail again, especially after the Red Keep.”

“But what if I see something I want or need and somebody else already has it?” Theon asks. “Like, say, boomerang arrows. A lot of boomerang arrows, and one of those fancy dragonbone bows.”

“You’ll be arrested,” Margaery says.

“But what if I want it more?”

“And what if we’re subtle about it?” Arya puts in. “Like, just a little pickpocketing, the previous owner doesn’t even need to be too bothered. At least until they find out that it’s gone missing, but they won’t even know it was us!”

“That,” Margaery says, feeling a headache coming on and respecting Davos Seaworth all the more for putting up with Greyjoy, “is still a crime, thus you’ll still be arrested.”

“But I want it more,” Theon repeats.

“Come on, you two,” Robb huffs, one hand resting on Theon’s back and the other on Arya’s, “let’s fix up the ship.” He glances back towards Margaery, and mouths, I’ll take care of these two, you and Sansa have your moment, before they head off to the ship.

Jon breathes out, then glances at Margaery. “So say someone insults my family, or a good friend of mine,” he says. “Can I break their nose?”

“That’s assault,” Margaery says.

“But if they keep going on about it even after I’ve punched them the first time--”

“Whatever you’re thinking of,” Margaery cuts him off, “it’s murder, and one of the worst crimes in the system, so yes, you will be arrested.”

“Huh,” Jon says, thoughtfully, and walks off to the ship.

Sansa looks at Margaery. “Well, I’ve got a question,” she says. “Say I want to take someone out for dinner. And I happen to like this someone very, very much, even if we haven’t seen each other in a while, and I’m not sure if she still likes me back, and if she likes lemoncakes and--” She stops, blushing. “I’m not being very subtle, am I?”

“No,” Margaery says, grinning, “you aren’t. But it’s certainly not illegal, and maybe that someone would love lemoncakes and would clear a day from her very busy schedule to accommodate a dinner with someone she likes very, very much, even if she hasn’t seen her in a while.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Margaery confirms. “So, the Laughing Lord? I have it on good authority that their lemon pudding is very good.”

“You know me so well,” Sansa says. “Next week, around this time? I can try and bribe my sister into acting as transport.”

“My, my, Sansa Stark, how wicked of you,” Margaery says, her tone light, “don’t you know bribery is illegal? I could haul you in for that.”

“Somehow, I don’t think I’d mind,” Sansa says. “So, next week?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Hey, Sansa!” Arya shouts. “Let’s go already!”

“I’m coming!” Sansa yells back, then turns to Margaery, her smile bright and brilliant. “I’ll see you again next week.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Margaery says, and Sansa nods before she turns and walks away, to join her family.

--

"Do you think Theon knows?" Davos asks, once he, Stannis, and Melisandre have returned to the ship. Theon's a smart boy, Davos doesn't doubt that he'd have some clue, at least, to his father's true nature. But there's something about the way Theon had hesitated over the subject that makes Davos wonder. "About his father."

Stannis doesn't turn from the window, but Davos knows him well enough that he can imagine him grinding his teeth at the reminder of Theon's father. Balon, wasn't that his name? Balon, the King of the Iron Sea. "He held an Infinity Stone in his hand for longer than he should've," Stannis says at last, and Davos winces at the memory. "If he did not suspect before this misadventure, he does now." He turns from the window then, hands behind his back. "Do you regret breaking our contract with the King of Iron?"

"Gods, no," Davos says, shaking his head. The King of the Iron Sea had been a cold, cruel man, Davos remembers that, and mercy seemed a foreign concept to him and the rest of his family. He'd met Rodrik and Maron, his elder sons, and they were just as harsh and merciless as their father and uncles, if not moreso. No matter how he tries, he can't reconcile the image of those bitter, cruel men with what he remembers of Theon, eleven years old and slipping a pair of headphones over Davos's ears, you'll like this song, I promise. "Never."

"Neither do I," Stannis says, then turns back to the window. "Set a course for Dragonstone. Let Marya know we will need new ships."

"Aye, Stannis," Davos says, respectfully nodding his head, before he turns as well to leave the room. It'll be nice to speak with Marya again, hold her close, speak with their children personally--Steffon must be talking by now, and he can't wait to hear the boy's babble and his wife's voice again. He's missed them.

He just hopes she won't be too angry, to hear that Stannis wrecked another ship again.

--

For the most part, the Space Bitch’s layout is still the same. The secluded places Theon memorized until he could get there with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back are still there, and it’s to one of them that he retreats now, and finally, finally takes out his mother’s letter from the envelope it’s been sealed in for twenty-one years.

Theon, it starts, in the elegant handwriting he’s almost forgotten, I know that these last few months have been hard for you. I wish, oh, how I wish, that I could make them easier for you somehow, but all I have now is a piece of paper, a pen, and my words. I’m so sorry, my boy--I wish I could have seen you grow up to be a good man, a great one. One day, I hope you will be. No, I know you will be.

I’ll be okay, wherever I’m going. You’ll be okay, wherever you go, though we will miss each other dearly. And know this, deep in your heart: I will always love you, with all my heart. You are the light of my life, my precious son, my little Star-Lord.

Love, Mom.

His vision blurs, for a moment, and he reaches up to wipe the tears away, before tucking the letter back into the envelope and setting it aside. Then, hesitantly, he unties the ribbon on his mother’s last gift, unwrapping it with great care.

Awesome Mix, Vol. 2, reads the elegant, looped letters on the casette tape.

He holds it close to his chest, pulling his knees up, and smiles through his tears.

--

Listen, baby: ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough, baby…

“That’s not a song I’ve heard before,” Robb says, walking up to Theon. He can see tears in Theon’s eyes, but he’s smiling all the same, as though he’s found something he thought he’d lost forever.

Theon nods. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Marvin Gaye,” he says. “It’s--my mom used to sing it, you know, when I was a kid. Always loved that song, just forgot how it went.”

“It’s a good song,” Robb says. “Your mother--I think I would’ve liked to meet her. She sounds a good woman.”

“She was,” Theon says, wiping away his tears. “She’d have liked to meet you too, and everyone else.”

Robb looks back at Jon, Arya and Sansa, as the song plays on, just call my name, I’ll be there in a hurry, you don’t have to worry. Jon’s regaling them with one of Old Nan’s tales, the one about the last hero of the Long Night, and Sansa’s bobbing her head to the beat of the song.

“There ain’t no mountain high enough,” Theon softly sings behind him, and Robb turns, letting himself sway a little to the beat, “ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you.”

Robb smiles, then reaches out to bury a hand in Theon’s hair and tug him close enough to rest his forehead against his, and they stay like that for a moment, letting the song play on: I told you, you could always count on me. From that day on, I made a vow, I’ll be there when you want me, some way, somehow--

“Always?” Robb asks.

“Close,” Theon says, resting his hand in Robb’s curls, his eyes soft. “Now and always?”

“Now,” Robb says, echoing a promise he made in the memories the Stone dumped in his head, “and always. No mountain high enough, right?”

“Yeah,” Theon says, and seals his lips over Robb’s, stealing his air for a few brief, electrifying moments, before breaking away. “So, uh--”

“What do we do next, after this?” Robb asks, his hand drifting down to the back of Theon’s neck. He’s warm, amazingly so, and Robb can’t find it in himself to regret making the decision to fall.

“Something good, or something bad,” Theon says, glancing back at the other three Guardians of the Galaxy. “Something that’s a bit of both. What do you say?”

“Well, Star-Lord,” Robb says, “what do you say? This was kind of your fault in the first place.”

“Bit of both!” Theon decides, and Robb can’t help but laugh against his lips when Theon kisses him again.

Yeah. Yeah, he can do a bit of both.

FIN.