Inspired by this one-shot by @poetdameron.
It doesn’t take long until he starts to see her.
Frankly, Jon always suspected - no, he knew - from the moment the cold steel of Longclaw sank into her tender flesh, it was over for him. He would pay for this, he realized, as he clutched her and wept while the lifeblood seeped out from her body.
He was silent when the others found him there, no longer weeping. No longer trembling. Just cradling her face in his lap and tracing her features. So beloved. So beautiful. I killed her, he thought as he threaded his fingers through her locks of silvery-pale-gold. I killed her, he thought as the others gathered around him, shaking him, tapping him, calling out to him. I killed them, he thought as he recalls her faintly swelling stomach, the way she clutched at her abdomen as he betrayed her. I killed them, he thought as he stands in front of her pyre, as her ashes float away with the wind.
I killed you, he thinks the first time she appears before him, late at night in the halls. She’s beautiful. Wavy, unbound hair of pale white-blonde, flawless skin accentuating full pink lips and breathtaking purple eyes, small frame clad in a flowing white gown. Her belly is swollen. With child. My child. I killed my child too.
“Dany,” he murmurs. “Dany.”
“Jon.” Her voice is naught more than a whisper, so silent that one might mistake it for the wind echoing faintly through the corridors. Even as he approaches her, he strains to make out her words. “You killed me.” A small hand settles on her belly. “You killed our child.”
He sinks to his knees before her. Forgive me, he wants to say, but he cannot say the words. He will not ask that of her, he does not deserve to plead for her forgiveness. I killed you.
“You are right,” he whispers. “I killed the woman I love.” His eyes drift to her stomach. “I killed my child.”
In a trance, he reaches for her. For the hem of her dress, because he does not dare lay his hands on her flesh. He does not have that right. This is the most he can hope for, kneeling at her feet, unsure of if he is worthy of dirtying her dress with his touch.
He is not. Of course, he is not. As his fingers make contact, she vanishes, slipping from his grasp like wisps of smoke. He is left there kneeling, staring. Hollow.
From then on, she is his companion when she desires. As he lays on his bed and stares up at the ceiling, she sometimes stands over him. Whispering. Beckoning. “One day, Jon,” she promises. “Live. Keep living. Suffer.”
And so he does. He lives, and breathes, and keeps himself alive, if only barely, and she rewards him from time to time with that satisfied little smirk that is the sole thing that brings him any semblance of happiness anymore. He cannot lose that smile. He will do anything, anything at all, to keep it.
“One day, when I am satisfied,” she assures him, “I will come for you. I am waiting, you know. Our child is waiting.”
“Please,” he begs her. “Dany, make that day soon.” She never deigns to reply to that request.
His other, more constant companion, is emptiness. He spends his days in his chamber, scarcely sleeping, scarcely eating. Some nights he ventures out in the forest, half-hoping he will stumble and fall down some ditch and break his neck in the process. But he mostly does it because she seems to have a fondness for the open night air, and will appear more often in the forest after all other men have retired to their beds.
He cannot hang on to any sort of repose, and food is now naught but tasteless lumps that travel down his intestine and into his stomach, to be shat out again. Most of his time is spent sitting on his bed, staring. Remembering. Wondering.
Why do I live? He asks himself one day. He does not know. He has no desires, no pleasures, no joy. Not even simple contentment. He is nothing, he has nothing, and inside him is nothing. There is no reason for his existence.
“Because”, she answers him, taking a seat on the bed some distance away from him, “I want it, Jon. Keep living. Keep breathing. Keep existing.” She smiles, gently and spitefully, and by the gods, she is beautiful. “Then I will come.” A whispery laugh. “I cannot wait, Jon. Our child,” her hands go to her swollen belly, lovingly. “Our child is excited, too.”
Jon cannot recall who died as he stands before the dead man’s funeral pyre, emerging from his rooms during daytime for this rare occasion. Locks of his hair, now more silver than dark, flap about his face and sting at his eyes. Flames lick and spark and travel over the wood until they are stoked into a roaring fire. Standing close to the pyre - too close, he hears the men whisper, for he always stands closer than any other - the heat is intense, and Jon does not care.
She hasn’t come for some time. It is driving Jon mad, the hollowness inside him yawning and gaping. Where is she? Has she abandoned him? If she had, he would sooner walk into the flames himself than continue living. But she wishes him to wait. She wants him to live, until she is satisfied.
So he will. Even if she does not return.
He gazes into the flames. How beautiful they look. How inviting. He envies the body lying peacefully amidst the fire, dissolving into ash and bone. He wished he could be that corpse, instead. Would that not be wonderful?
Don’t, he reminds himself. Dany is not satisfied yet.
His eyes widen. Is he hearing things? Has he finally gone mad in her absence? He gazes about frantically, but he cannot find her, cannot pinpoint where her voice came from. Where is she? Where is she?
His eyes fall on the funeral pyre, on the fire. And she is standing there, back to him but looking over her shoulder, amidst the roaring flames. Pale hair unbound and dress billowing, still as youthful and lovely as she was when he killed her. She looks poised to walk away, and Jon’s heart drops sickeningly; no - no, Dany, please, don’t leave me - but then she turns completely towards him and his chest swells. Cradled in her arms is a babe with tufts of silvery-gold hair, deep indigo eyes, plump and rosy cheeks.
It is his child. It is their child.
Jon can do nothing but stare. He’s unable to tell if the child is a girl or a boy, but he doesn’t care. Fuck, he does not care. It is the most wondrous thing he has ever beheld.
Dany beams gently at him, and his heart thumps. The babe looks at him curiously, sucking its thumb, and Jon could die from the swelling tide of love that swamps him as he gazes at the two of them.
“Jon,” Dany calls. Cradling their child in one arm tenderly against her chest, she opens her other arm to him. Jon can swear that his heart stops in that moment. She cannot mean…
“I am satisfied, Jon.” The words he can hardly believe. “And,” Dany adds, turning a loving gaze to the babe, “our child wants to meet you.”
Tears spill from Jon’s eyes. “Dany,” he whispers. “Dany.”
Her hand is still extended to him as she calls, “Come here.” The babe looks at its mother quizzically and then back at Jon. He realizes he is trembling.
“Come here, Jon,” Dany smiles.“Join us. We miss you.”
Jon is only too happy to comply.
For the first time, for the first time since countless years ago, he runs. He runs toward the pyre, ignoring the startled shouts and calls of “Lord Commander!” from the men at his back. His old and unused joints groan and creak, but pain has never felt so utterly trivial before.
Closer. Closer. Almost there. Almost…
Jon flings himself onto the pyre. He cannot see anything but shades of orange, red, dark yellow, and more importantly, Dany and their babe, standing amidst the flames, welcoming him. He cannot hear anything but crackling and snapping, and more importantly, Dany’s calls. “Join us, Jon,” she whispers. “Come here. We miss you.”
“Dany,” he hisses, frantic, desperate, fighting through the wood and smoke and fire to reach her and their child. His lungs burn and scream for air and his vision is fading and his skin is washed in a peculiar warm, prickling sensation, but he struggles and shoves and claws. “Dany,” he cries. “Dany!”
And then she is in front of him, cradling their child in her arms, and smiling at him. He stares at her.
He wants to say something, anything, but the sight of her and the babe has him struck dumb and mute, unable to utter a single word. And yet, even as he gapes like a halfwit, he feels the smile split his face, the tears clouding his vision. His head is pounding, and his body feels like it has been thrust into boiling water.
Dany grins. It is a carefree grin, girlish and enthusiastic and pleased. She bounces the child on her hip and reaches up, placing a pale, cool hand on his cheek. A shiver of euphoria grips Jon’s body, and he all but moans in bliss at her touch.
She goes to retract her hand, but Jon catches it and clutches it fiercely. He brings it to his mouth and kisses it; all over her palm, on the tip of each finger, on her knuckles. Dany laughs. “You’re quite eager, Jon Snow,” she comments slyly. Jon almost weeps to hear her voice so full of mirth.
“Dany,” he rasps, “You do not know…you do not know how much I have missed you.” His vision is fading, his body is numb, and his skin looks…queer, fleshy pink and bloody red and purple-grey. But it all means nothing as he stares at her, and at his child.
Dany’s gaze turns solemn. “I do,” she murmurs, looking down at the babe. “I know exactly how much. Our child and I…” She glances back up at him, and he hopes she is smiling. He prays to the gods that she is smiling, but he can no longer - no longer see her, he can no longer make her out. He feels weak, hazy, sapped of all his strength.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Jon.”
The men of the Night’s Watch shout and bellow for help, but there is nothing to be done. In the end, they are forced to watch as the pyre collapses and the flames consume it, their Lord Commander still somewhere in there.
When the fire dies at long last, the men of the Night’s Watch gather around the piles of cinder and dust, and find two piles of fragmented bones and two piles of ash.
Jon Snow was a mad man, they say.
I’m so fucking pissed at those leaks and the way Dany was handled. D&D’s writing is absolutely atrocious. Not only did they go for the sexist insanity angle, they portrayed it in the most hilariously idiotic way possible.
But. This is my headcanon now. Jon returns to the Night’s Watch and he goes mad. If all Targaryens are insane as Dumb&Dumber are trying desperately to convince us, then Jon is insane too. He’s been through enough traumatizing shit to break him mentally, and in my mind, killing Dany finally drove him over the edge. I refuse to accept the misogynistic idea of Jon remaining a tortured hero TM after he kills Daenerys because men are too strong to succumb to madness even in the midst of their man pain.
Anyway, as you can probably tell, I went for the angle made by @poetdameron that Jon begins to hallucinate the spirit of a pregnant Daenerys speaking to him. The pregnancy may or may not be a product of Jon’s delusion; I’ll leave that for the reader to decide.
Daenerys, though, is absolutely a hallucination on Jon’s part imo, not her actual ghost. It doesn’t fit ASOIAF’s mythos for Dany’s spirit to be able to communicate with Jon. And besides, Dany’s spirit wouldn’t hang around Jon like that after he killed her. She certainly wouldn’t be welcoming him to “join her” with open arms like she “did” in the fic. That’s all a product of Jon’s insanity.
