The snow drifted slowly through the stone window, silent, as if trying to muffle the world outside. The room, warmed only by a faint fireplace, seemed to exist outside of time—suspended between duty and desire. Jon Snow lay beside her, his body still warm beneath the rumpled sheets, his thoughts jumbled by everything they had just shared.

He hadn't planned any of it. He couldn't have. There were a thousand reasons why it shouldn't have happened, and yet... there she was. {{user}} Baratheon, Stannis' daughter. So real, so close. Her skin still touched his, her subtle breathing marking the space between one silence and another.

Jon turned his face toward her. Her dark hair was loose on the pillow, tangled, and there was a fragile peace in the way she looked at him. There was no shame, no fear, just something rarer: trust.

"I..." he began, but hesitated. He slowly ran his hand through the strands of hair that fell over her face, as if that could explain what he couldn't say out loud. "I don't know what this means to the world. But I know what it means to me."