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More alone now than she had ever felt before, Joanna stared into the carved eyes of the woman she now knew to be her mother. Her father- no, her uncle had always told her that the stone mason hadn’t been able to capture the liveliness of Lyanna Stark, and now more than ever, Joanna despaired with that knowledge.
All her life she’d been Joanna Snow, bastard daughter of Ned Stark. Robb, Bran, and Rickon had been her brothers, and Sansa and Arya had been her sisters.
And now she knew that to be a lie.
In her highly unusual life, it had always been that which grounded her. She was and always would be Ned Stark’s daughter. No one - not Lady Catelyn, not Ser Alliser, not even the cold hands of death - could take that from her.
Gods, even the near ten years she’d spent in the Night’s Watch, pretending to be a man to survive, couldn't take that. For there, she’d been Jon Snow, a carefully crafted lie protected first by Uncle Benjen, then Lord Commander Mormont, and finally Sam and Maester Aemon.
She’d died for that fact, murdered by the men she’d called brothers because she dared to be a woman, dared to befriend wildlings, dared to take a wildling lover. Dared to break her vows and save the sister she loved more than anything.
(It had been Sansa, not Arya, and part of her heart still beat bitter for that, that she'd died for Sansa, who had spat at the very ground she walked as a child, and who even now watched her with eyes guarded with suspicion and mistrust.
But she'd seen what Ramsay Bolton had done to her, and Sansa had been her sister - or so she thought - and none of that mattered more than protecting the innocent, protecting her family, and so she had.)
And through all that, she’d known that Lord Eddard Stark was her father, and that it did not matter that she didn’t have his name, because she had his blood.
Natural that she’d be betrayed yet again by men that she thought she could trust.
Her father - uncle, her uncle - she could understand his lie, no matter that it hurt her now to know. She would have told any lie to protect Robb’s child, or Sansa’s, or any of her cousins.
But Samwell…
She wanted to see it as he did, because she knew he was grieving. His father may have been a terrible man, terrible to Sam, but he was still Sam’s father. And Dickon had been a good man, hadn’t deserved to die, even if he was too stupid, too honorable to know that.
But she hated Sam now, because even with the threat of the White Walkers and the Night King looming over them, Joanna had felt that she’d finally - finally - found her place in the world, felt at peace.
Winterfell had been reclaimed, her surviving family reunited behind its walls, and she and Sansa had been working together toward uniting the North.
And in that process, she’d found Daeron.
And Sam had taken that from her.
So lost in her head, Joanna hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps until she felt the presence of another beside her.
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face Daeron for fear that he would see the truth in her eyes and would immediately reject her.
Who would want a bastard girl, she’d often wondered.
As a girl, she had entertained the idea of Robb marrying her - Robb was safe, Robb was someone she could trust. He loved her, she loved him. And unlike her sisters, she was made aware a long time ago of what happened to bastard and peasant girls. Robb loved her and Robb would never hurt her, never rape her.
Lady Catelyn had very quickly slapped that thought out of her head, made it quite clear what kind of a disgusting, conniving witch she was to think of that.
And now, one of the only men she’d ever loved, truly loved, would actually be taken from her because of that. Because of her disgusting bastard desires.
Ironic that, now, Robb would be a far more acceptable candidate in Lady Catelyn’s eyes. Joanna wasn't just a bastard anymore, she was a royal bastard.
Daeron pressed himself against her back, slipped an arm loosely around her waist. He kissed her temple, too, sweet and caring. How much longer would it last, once she told him the truth?
Targaryens had married brother to sister for centuries, of course, but would he want her? The child of the very union which had brought about the destruction of his house and family? He'd spent most of his life running from one danger or another, starved and mistreated because of that union.
Daeron had fallen in love with Joanna Snow, bastard child of Eddard Stark. Could he love Visenya Targaryen, bastard child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark?
“Who is that?” he asked, so softly she couldn’t help but remember all those days and nights they’d spent entwined on his bed, hours spent talking and laughing and crying - together. What she wouldn't give to return to that time, full of love and ignorance.
Joanna fought to compose herself as she answered. “Lyanna Stark.” She sounded so gruff and unwelcome, yet Daeron only pressed closer, as though sensing her unease.
She wanted to look at him, wanted to see what he felt seeing the woman a war had been started over. But she couldn’t.
“She is beautiful,” Daeron said, and then, turning to smile down at her, “she reminds me of you.”
It was a compliment, she knew, but she couldn’t take any comfort in it. Not with the truth hanging heavy in her heart.
He felt her discomfort, because his smile fell and he looked back at the statue of Lyanna Stark.
Daeron sighed, heavy and sad. “All I ever knew of my brother Rhaegar was that he was a noble, honorable man. That he was a good father and husband, a brave prince-”
And now Joanna had to look at him, could sense the same pain that haunted him whenever he spoke of his family.
He avoided her eyes now, but she allowed herself to drink in his appearance. The tightness around his mouth, the way his hands tightened their grip on her waist. His chest rose and fell just that more violently, and Joanna knew that if she pressed her ear against his chest, she would hear his heart pounding a little harder within his body.
Gods, but she loved him.
“I never knew the true extent of what he’d done. What he’d done to Elia and her children, and what he’d done to your family.” Daeron’s hand closed around hers; their eyes met and Joanna’s breath caught in her throat.
“I’m sorry, Joanna. That he took Lyanna and held her captive and- and, gods, raped her, probably. And that he didn’t do anything when my father murdered your uncle and grandfather.”
Her heart squeezed with the pain reflected in his eyes. He closed them tightly, leaned his head down to rest against hers, and Joanna, without thought, lifted her head high enough to meet him.
“If I could take it back, I would,” he whispered against her lips. “I know, better than anyone, what it is to lose your family. I would never wish that pain on anyone, especially not you, I-”
She waited, with baited breath, for his next words. Savored the feeling of his skin against hers, more, as the truth threatened to consume her.
“I would gladly accept my fate as the last Targaryen, if it meant I could erase all the pain my family has caused yours.” His voice began to waver, and she struggled to hear it over the rising beat of her heart. “Joanna, I-I love you, I would do anything for you.”
He'd never said the words aloud before. Neither of them had. She thought it, all the time it seemed, but she'd never had the courage to say them. The world stopped for just a moment, enough to allow those words to sink in.
Had Ygritte ever said those words to her? She was no longer sure. After his death, and Joanna's own death, and Daeron, her memories were no longer as clear as they were. All she knew for sure was that, if Ygritte said as much, it hadn't made her feel as the words coming from Daeron did.
Because Daeron loved her.
How much longer will it last? It was a sobering thought.
She couldn’t hide this truth from him, not when she knew the gaping wound in his chest that not even her love could truly repair. Fuck Sam, fuck Bran, and fuck whatever games they and the other lords wanted to play.
Joanna would do anything for him, and so she would risk her own heart so he could know that it was not all for nothing.
Because, if nothing else, at least they wouldn’t be alone. Because Maester Aemon had been right, and Daeron had been alone for too long.
So she turned in his arms, pressed the palm of her hand over his heart. Already it seemed to calm under her touch.
She traced his cheek with her other hand, let him press his face against the heat of it.
“Daeron,” she said, fervently, urgently. “You don’t have to be. You aren’t alone, you never were.”
A sad smile twisted his lips, and he tried to stop her. “Joanna-”
But he had to know, he had to. She’d struggled for so long to find herself, and she’d never be able to center herself without him. “No, Daeron, listen to me.”
She remembered the way Bran had thrown Viserion’s fate at them in the courtyard (as well as the way Daeron’s hand had shook in her own, how she’d had to wrap her arms around him in private and comfort him as he wept for his lost child - he was the Breaker of Chains, and yet he hadn’t been able to save his own dragon from the Night King’s dark slavery). What Sam had told her, what the two of them had figured out on their own.
“Bran has visions. I don’t know why or how, but he can see things. Things that have already happened and-and- Daeron- ”
She must have sounded like a madwoman, ranting and raving about strange magics. But as always Daeron trusted her, watched her with so much trust and love that she had to fight back tears, tried to smile even as it most likely looked like a grimace.
“He saw the truth of what happened in that tower. Why Rhaegar took Lyanna, what happened to her, why.” She sucked in a breath, her fingers practically clawing into his chest with her desperation. “The dragon must have three heads, he said. Three but there were only two and Elia couldn’t have any more children.”
Daeron stared down at her in horror - he’d had some vision in the House of the Undying, where Rhaegar had looked him in the eye and told him the same thing, that the dragon must have three heads, he'd told her - and Joanna couldn’t stop herself now, not even if the Night King himself walked into the crypts and killed them both, because Daeron had to know.
“He needed Visenya, and Lyanna needed to escape the fate she hadn’t chosen.
“They loved each other, at least at the beginning they did, and I don’t think he raped her or hurt her, but-” and she had to slow down, or else she would never be able to make him see the truth.
“Ned Stark found his sister in that tower, bleeding and bringing little Visenya into the world. They knew what Robert would do if he found another child of Rhaegar, Ned had seen what happened to Rhaenys and Aegon. So he promised his sister that he would protect her daughter.
“His sister died and he took her baby back to Winterfell. Lied to everyone, even Visenya, and…. and claimed her as his bastard daughter.”
Joanna held fast to him, held on in their final moments of blissful ignorance, and forced him to meet her eyes. “I am Visenya Targaryen. Lyanna Stark was my mother and Rhaegar Targaryen was my father. And Daeron, I love you. ”
(Please, let it be enough.)
He pulled back. The distance was like a slap to the face, and Joanna could no longer hold together.
She had always hated herself for crying, for showing that weakness, but now she cried openly, uncaring. She cowered in the face of his soon-to-be wrath, wrapped her arms around herself in comfort; never before had she feared him, but she was more afraid of what he would do to her already fractured heart.
For all his anger, Daeron was a good man. He helped people, and he only hurt those that hurt others first.
Through the tears pooling in her eyes, she saw him come closer. Preemptively she stared down at the ground, readying herself for the pain, the rejection, the certainty that no one could ever love her. A cursed bastard, with the blood of the realm on her hands.
And then-
Daeron fell to his knees before her, with tears in his eyes and grasping hands searching for hers. She let him take them, watched him hold them to his lips and press kisses against her numb hands.
“Joanna,” he said, over and over. “Joanna, Joanna, Joanna.”
And he stared up at her face, hope in his eyes like she'd never seen, and he said, “Marry me, Joanna.”
She froze, the answer caught in her throat, her heart beating a steady yes yes yes, and she opened her mouth to answer-
The horn sounded, its ominous tune played three times in succession.
The Dead were here.