bakerstreet | (no subject)

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GOODBYE MY FRIEND.

Goodbyes are inevitable. Maybe someone is moving away, maybe it's that final battle, maybe you can't stand to see this person any longer. They're leaving and this is your final chance to see them, final opportunity to say all those words you've been hiding away.

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TRIGGER WARNING: This meme may contain allusions to death, dying, abuse, etc. Please label threads appropriately if such instances occur.

GOODBYE

1. FALLING OUT ... You've had a fight. You can't stand to see one and other any more. Let it all out, all that hurt is finally coming to the surface.
2. FORCED SEPARATION ... You don't have much time left. Whether you like it or not, this person is being taken away from you - and you won't be seeing them again.
3. DEATH ... Whether immediate or impending, this person is going to die. Maybe it's the final battle, maybe it's a terminal illness. They're dying and this is your last chance.
4. MOVING ON ... You're graduating. Finished training. Got contracted somewhere far away. Whatever the reason may be, it's time to move on - and it's time to say goodbye.
5. WILDCARD ... Make up your own or combine a few! The choice is yours.

...

I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN

...But goodbyes aren't always forever. Be it fate or some stroke of luck, you're about to be reunited. Maybe it's just a short time later, maybe it's years later - somehow, someway, they're back.

REUNION

1. IN PASSING ... Who was that you just passed on the street? Didn't they look awfully familiar?
2. SURPRISE ... Someone has just shown up on your doorstep. How long has it been since you've seen that face?
3. IT'S A MIRACLE ... They lived. By some stroke of fate, they've lived. Or maybe you're meeting in the afterlife? Whatever the case may be here they are, waiting for you with open arms.
4. LOST & FOUND ... Everyone else thought it was impossible; they were dead, lost, gone. But you've never given up hope. Now that you see that face again, it's all worth it.
5. WILDCARD ... Make up your own or combine a few! The choice is yours.

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It had been weeks since she had heard from Jon. The bleak conversation they had shared before loomed ever closer in Margaery's mind, reminding her of his promise that Ghost would appear if anything had ever happened to him. As time stretched onwards, and Jon still not return to the cottage, Margaery watched the horizon for the red eyes of his direwolf, trying to resign herself to the possibility that her lover was dead.

But as the snow began to fall more steadily, even Ghost became impossible to hold out hope for. Even if he found his way, she would not be able to watch for him or brace herself for the news. It was too treacherous for even a beast to cross south of the Wall.

The days continued as they always had, but half heartedly. There was no joy in going to the market or practicing her cook, as Jon would not be there to enjoy it. Instead, all she could do was stare out into the storm and lose herself in her thoughts.

It was during the night that something sounded at the door, a large "THUMP" that made her blood turn to ice. Pulling herself from her bed and wrapping herself in a cloak, Margaery hastily grabbed an axe and pushed open the front door. There, deposited as if by chance, was Jon. The snow had nearly covered him and he was trembling from the cold. Hastily, Margaery pulled him inside, thinking of little else but the state of him.

"Jon!" She lead him to the fire, hurrying to heat some water for him and wrap another blanket around his shoulders. "Are you mad! You could have frozen to death outside!"

It was all he could do to stay enough on his feet to stumble towards the fire and not collapse on Margaery as she guided him. Jon felt hollow with hunger and fatigue, and as stiff as ice, too cold for pain to even begin to register. Before the door could swing itself closed behind him, Ghost entered behind his master, bedraggled and with fur matted with dirt and blood.

At last, with blanket around him and snow crystals melting into his furs and leathers, Jon was warm enough to begin shivering. The only still part of his body were his hands, locked around the hilt of Longclaw, its blade as intact as ever but darkened with what looked like scorch marks.

Jon's eyes turned up towards hers at last. "Had... had to be with you..."

She would reprimand him later, once she was certain he would not become sick or collapse from the cold. With the water heating, she took his hands between hers and began to rub them fiercely, trying to stir his blood back to life. He was colder than ice and shivering violently. She could feel her heart catch in her throat as panic bubbled beneath the surface.

The sight of Ghost was enough to prompt her mind to jump to the worst. "Are you injured?" She asked him, terrified that he would be in need of a maester and she had none to summon. She would have to go to Mole's Town.

"Gods, Jon." She couldn't say anything else, her fear was written plainly on her face.

The direwolf gave an uncharacteristically weary whine and dropped down onto the floor near the hearth. Ghost's movements, though, seemed to betray no signs of great pain or infirmity, at least.

As Margaery's hands pressed against his own, slowly her efforts returned the blood to them, and his fingers all but creaked open. Longclaw slipped from his grasp to clatter on the floor, only momentarily drawing Ghost's attention. Like water dripping from a leak, warmth seeped back into Jon's body with agonizing slowness. With that restoration, though, came his body's ability to feel pain.

"Not badly," Jon groaned. "It was-- It was the two days' walk through the storm that's mostly to blame."

Ghost at least didn't need attention, aside from cleaning his fur. It allowed her to focus on Jon and the treatment he might need.

It would be near impossible to reach a Maester in time, and even if she could, the man might recognize her and understand the nature of her relationship to Jon. It was too much of a risk, but could she really leave Jon in danger? How could she live with herself if something happened to him?

"I will need to remove your clothes." She said softly. "You will warm more quickly and it will let me look at your injuries." It was said with the same authority she had used as queen. "Gods, Jon. What happened?"

It was all slow-- the return of warmth and of feeling, the sensations of all else, and the very moving of his mind-- slow as molasses as the cold slowly retreated from him. Soon he had enough of his faculties to give Margaery a wan smile at her words.

"You're welcome to undress me, my love, but I fear I'm in no shape for a proper homecoming..."

He did what he could on creaking muscles and leaden bones, shifting and moving to give her space to work on undressing him. Everything he wore was soaked, frozen, and soaked again. As Margaery revealed him, she'd find a mottling of large and varying colored bruises, some scrapes and one shallow cut across his side, and nothing else. Certainly nothing mortal.

"Wildlings... ones who refused to join with Mance Rayder... ambushed a squad and drove us into the storm."

She let out a sigh of relief, grateful to see no fatal wounds, only those that could be easily cleaned and healed quickly. She laid out his clothes next to the fire, instead wrapping one of the furs around him. Quickly pouring water into the pot over the fireplace, she waited for it to heat as she began to tear bandages for him.

"What of your men? Did they return to the Wall?" With so few remaining in the Night's Watch, every man counted. Instead of finding his way back to the Wall, he came to her. It didn't bode well for those that had been with them. Reason stood that they were either dead or captured.

Gently, she cleaned his wounds, using the warm water to help stave off frostbite and infection. "You could have frozen to death out there." She chided him. Now that she was assured that he would live, she felt a rush of frustration at the danger he placed himself in.

He could more hear and feel Margaery bustling about the cottage than he could see her, as turning his head strained at aching muscles and lifting it was a near impossibility now that he was prone. But Jon knew she was rushing around trying to help him, and that knowledge warmed him as much as the fire.

Jon shook his head as best he could. "No idea. There were a dozen or so that walked away from the fight, but I lost track of them all in the storm."

As he felt the warm, wet cloth moving over his skin, reviving it, he managed a smile. "But I didn't. I came home."

Home. It meant so much for her to hear that, though she had known he believed the cottage to be theirs. Rather than he return to the Wall, he came to her. Even in her frustration and fear, she couldn't help but feel relieved to know that he would come to her. He would always come to her, even with the possibility of death hanging over his head.

She wrapped a bandage around him, tying the ends tightly to staunch the wound becoming worse.

"You will need to go to bed soon and wrap yourself in the furs. There is a heated stone in the sheets. It should be warm."

Jon gave a wince as she tightened the binding over his wound. He'd been hurt more than enough times to know that the pressure was necessary, though it did little to lessen the sensation. But after even these few minutes under the cottage's roof and beside the fire, he was already beginning to feel like a human being again.

Indeed, he even gave Margaery a suggestive glance. "Is that all I should expect to warm me under the sheets?" There perhaps would have been more charm in his suggestion if it were not followed by a groan of discomfort.

She gave him a stern look. "You could have died in the snow and you speak now of comfort between the sheets? My love, you must rest and warm yourself, not think of coupling." Her frustration was born of fear, her voice lacking any real harshness, but a great deal of worry and concern. "You are lucky to have survived."

She was lucky as well. She would have died alongside him.

"Let me help you to bed. Put your weight on me." She looped his arm about her shoulders.

"I have all the good fortune I need," he replied weakly, groaning as he moved to his feet, "I have you. Your love sustained me, Margaery. Brought me through the storm."

As much as he was reluctant to, Jon leaned heavily on her once he was upright, the blood draining too quickly from his face. He walked on trembling legs until he descended as gently as he could to the bed.

"Once I've settled," Jon pleaded, "come to bed. Not to make love. Just so I know you're here?"

She thought for a breathless moment that he would faint. He was heavy against her, but not yet limp. Slowly, she lead him to the bed and helped eased him down, uncertain where she found the strength.

With the covers wrapped around him, she let her fingers caress his cheek. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you." She would be lost herself, half dead and without the spark of life he gave her.

She nodded and climbed into bed after him, curling around him as she pressed her head to his chest. She could hear his heart beating, reminding her that he was here. "I longed for you, but I never thought you would return like this."

He shook his head at her pleading, nearly helpless tone, the sound of it making his heart ache even more than his body did. "You would never leave me," Jon swore, his intentions strong even if his voice was thin. "I would return from the other side to return to you."

And though his body still held pain, he gratefully welcomed Margaery to mould herself against his side and hold him. "I can promise you that I did not, either. But here I am. And here you are."

And really, that was all that mattered.

It was a beautiful sentiment, but one that she was aware he couldn't keep. Such things were impossible, dead was dead and loss was loss. Without Jon, life would be devoid of color and beauty. He was her heart.

"You won't be able to stay for long. They will send search parties for you for fear you have been loss." It was such a supreme risk for him to even be with her. What if they were discovered?

"Gods, I don't know how I can let you go?"

Again, Jon shook his head. "The storm was like to last for at least another day. Too dangerous to even try and send out men to find me. They're under orders not to waste their lives in the storms that have been kicking up lately."

Weather at the Wall had never been anything close to good, but as of late, it had grown even more unpredictable and harsh, perhaps as though the world itself were preparing for the coming conflict.

"You'll find the strength, love. You always do. So much stronger than I ever have been..."

"How long until a search part is sent?" How long did they have together before they were forced to part ways again? Seeing him injured, she couldn't imagine or stomach him leaving so soon.

Her fingers curled around his, simply holding him and reassuring herself that he was truly there. This was no dream and he was not in any danger.

"No, I only appear strong. I don't know how I am able to hide what I feel when you leave."

"We should have all of tomorrow," he ventured, doing his best to recall the strength of the storm and the speed of its movement. "If the storm clears by that night, I should be away from here before first light. Make sure that when they find me, it's nowhere near you."

Jon smiled and gave Margaery's hand a squeeze. It was close to amusing that in this moment, he the injured one was giving her comfort. "That is what strength is, my love. And you have more than you know."

"Will you be able to move?" His wounds hadn't been grievous, but it didn't remove her concern and fear for him. It wasn't uncommon for him to leave so soon after arriving, but this might be too much for him.

The irony wasn't lost on her, but she wasn't about to turn away from his gentleness. She needed it more than she was able to admit. "I learn from you. You have never wavered on what must be done for us to survive."

"Well enough," Jon replied. There was every chance that those words would prove to be a lie, but until the time came, there was also a chance they would be the truth, and so he kept his mind on that.

A smile came to his lips and he gazed back at Margaery with warmth that he could feel, even with his body still struggling to return to normal. "I have every reason, and the very best inspiration to be brave. I have you."

She could at least tend to him and see that would be true, as much s it pained her to know that she was helping him leave her side once more. Their partings were becoming more difficult to bear. It seemed that their time together was becoming shorter, the threat at the Wall seizing all of his attention.

Her hand ghosted over his cheek, searching his eyes to find that love that seemed to radiate from him. "How is it that a man so serious knows what to say to ease my mind?" She teased him lightly, her heart fluttering in her chest.

"I seem to have only a little time in my life for good, true things. And so those that I have-- you-- are that much more precious to me."

It wasn't the hearth in the Lord Commander's chambers that kept him warm at the Wall, after all. It was thoughts of Margaery. And even though that meant facing the truth that they would so often need to be separated, the knowledge that she lived and loved him sustained him.

"I suppose that is what makes them all the more precious." She murmured, leaning up to kiss him gently. They didn't have much time, so each moment had to be seared in their memories. Today proved it could be taken away easily.

"You are all I have now."

Jon returned the kiss with all the strength he could muster which was, for him, disappointingly little. Margaery's presence always kindled that fire within him, but even he could not deny that his body was in no shape to make good on it.

"For now," he told her. "So much of why I fight is to make sure there's a tomorrow when we can have everything we want, far away from the politics and strife. Will you hold on with me until then, my love?"

She nodded, brushing his hair from his face so that she could press her brow to his. Her heart beat for him alone. Beyond the politics and strife, there was only this sweet refuge that they had built together. Their home and sanctuary.

"I will, I swear it." She held tighter to him, summoning whatever courage was left to muster. "Rest, Jon. Sleep now. You're safe."

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swingthesword - 2017-04-25 22:28 (UTC) - Expand

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Margaery Tyrell | (For swingthesword)

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