A/N: I am a terrible person, I'm sorry. I'm just gonna post this fic how I originally wrote it as I'm too lazy to try and add in all the things that people want. Haha enjoy I suppose-!

Noxious Snow

Part 10

As the night once again took hold of the sky and strips of moonlight painted the ground, Eddard Stark called it a day and decided to make camp near a cluster of large rocks next to a small patch of woodland (which he was sure that he'd find some form of animal living inside to later hunt). Soon enough they were all sat around a small campfire trying to drive out the chill in the air with the warmth of orange flames. All but Jon who was purposely sat furthest away from the flickering heat with his back against a surprisingly smooth rock. Besides him sat Arya who despite having a bit of the shivers wanted to talk to her older brother.

"I'm sorry about your eyes Jon..." Arya muttered sounding more than just slightly apologetic, devastated was still an understatement. Jon's pain felt like her own.

"I'll manage...I mean it's only temporary," he reassured himself, his broken gaze fixated on his fiddling hands as he traced his fingers over the burning-cold metal of the dagger that Robb had given him, paying particular attention to the initials at its base.

"I know you will because you're Jon Snow, the most courageous, strong-willed and brilliant person I know. I believe in you!" Arya boasted, pouncing on her brother to give him another hug, forgetting about the blade in Jon's hand. Luckily, Snow had moved it on time having heard Arya shuffle closer to him before tackling – he really did know his sister rather well. Actually he was surprised how much better his hearing had gotten with the lack of vision.

"Careful, you could have stabbed yourself!" Jon scolded, once again being reminded of how lucky he was to have such a wonderful sister, one that knew the exact buttons to press to bring a smile to his lips – not at the almost stabbing part but just her adoring words.

"Oops...sorry," the youngest Stark daughter said sheepishly, having no sense of danger when she was relaxed. Silky long hair pressed up against Jon's pale cheek as a familiar scent of dirt and leaves mixed with a faint smell of flowery bath water filled his nose instantly forming a mental picture of his sister in his head.

"Your stubble is so itchy," Arya then giggled pulling her face away from Jon's shoulder to see the smile further spread across her siblings face. Only he could manage such a genuine smile at a time like this.

"Well if I shave it off, Theon will tease me again, he already thinks I look like a girl as it is," Snow replied. Not to mention the fact that shaving knocked off a couple more years and he didn't fancy getting mistaken for a tall fourteen-year-old.

"Well Theon's an idiot," Arya casually added, having never really liked the ward of the Stark household. He was too up himself, plus the guy was too horny for his own good – that trait in itself would probably come round and bite him in the arse at some point. The sound of a soft rumble immediately caught Jon's attention.

"I think your stomach is trying to tell you something, maybe you should go find father to get some food," Snow mentioned as a yawn escaped his lips. Considering he had slept most of the horse ride, still feeling this exhausted was concerning.

"I guess you're right, talk to you later Jon!" Arya chirped before shooting off towards her father who was casually talking to Robb. Once more Jon was left to shadows of his thoughts.

"Arya and I are going to go hunting in the woods, these apples will not sustain us throughout the night, we shouldn't be long," Ned declared not really liking the option of leaving his sons alone without the extra protection he could offer but they needed to eat and it wouldn't have been fair to leave Robb to have to look after both Jon and Arya. As soon as the two Starks were out of sight, Robb moved to sit beside Jon deciding to keep his brother company instead of keeping warm. Robb's presence was immediately noticed by Jon as he turned in his direction out of habit.

"How are you faring?" The older son questioned.

"Do you want a lie or the truth?" Jon replied flatly, mentally scolding himself for his tone which he didn't mean to sound so snappy. He was just frustrated was all, especially around Robb who was his equal so it didn't always feel like he had to hide his true emotions.

"The truth."

With a solemn sigh, Jon muttered his answer, "it's getting harder to stay awake...and even harder to wake up." He didn't want to tell Arya this but it was hard to keep it to himself. The days were getting shorter and the nights longer and Jon was afraid that soon the nights would take over entirely. But Jon had perfected his outward acting, from years of all the derisive looks and comments about his parentage, Snow had learnt to not show his feelings on the outside at all.

"Hey...don't think like that, you're not going to die, I know it," Robb encouraged snaking an arm around his sibling's shoulders and pulling him closer. He didn't want Jon giving up now, especially when they'd already gotten so far.

"I don't plan on…it's just I don't know much control I have anymore, I'm always so tired…" Snow murmured slouching to the side to lean against Robb's shoulder having given up sitting straight.

"Do you remember that time we both tried to teach Bran archery? It was about three months ago, he was so bad at it, it took him seven attempts to even pull back the arrow without it flying off at any odd angle and when he finally took his first shot he hit the barrels completely west of the target, the next time he shot it clean over the wall, I tried not to laugh because I felt bad for Bran as our father and my mother were watching, but it was so funny, you and Rickon however burst into a fit of laughter," Robb recalled finding his own joy in that memory. Bran always was rather clumsy when it came to anything that involved a weapon, but he did at least have a knack for climbing – not that it would be of use in a battle.

"It was just such a bad shot and then even funnier Arya took a shot from behind and hit a bulls-eye," Jon added, remembering the look on Bran's face when his sister showed him up and the way Arya curtsied to rub it in his face even further. They lost sight of them straight after that as Bran ran off to chase her and who knows how that went down. Arya though never particularly got along with Bran, or Sansa for that matter but Sansa tended to keep to herself.

"I can only bet that Arya is going to start beating us at sparring in a couple more years if she can manage to convince father to let her train, we may as well cherish our dignity while we still have it," the eldest Stark complained, not liking the idea of being beaten by his little sister one day, that would be humiliating. Still at the same time, like Jon, he would love to see her flourish in the art considering it was such a heartfelt passion of hers.

"Remember when Sansa was ten? Before she got all grouchy all the time," Robb began, preferring her sister before she started the teenage years. After a nod from Jon he continued, "There was one time when she first got into sewing and she really wanted to make her first piece of clothing for someone, no one really had the time to spare, except you. Her first...er...tunic – if you could call it that – was so bad, it was huge on you, looked more like a lob-sided dress and yet you still wore it the whole of the next day just to make her happy despite getting picked on so brutally by Theon."

"Well she's my sister, it's worth one day of misery to give her a good memory she can hold onto for a lifetime and also to give her the encouragement she needed to carry on her passion," Snow remarked starting to think about his sibling back home and how he was actually missing them right now. Besides every day for him held some form of misery, that day wasn't that much different.

"You've always been so noble Jon, I know I wouldn't have had the guts to wear it. Though the worst time was when father and my mother went away to visit Aunt Lysa. Septa Mordane got ill so you and I had to look after baby Rickon and we had to change his cloth..." Robb shivered at the memory which was still so vivid in his mind despite having happened over half a decade ago.

"He pissed on you, right in your face. I laughed so hard that I actually hurt my side, you threw such a huge fit so I had to take over and changed him real easy," the younger male sniggered having never seen Robb react so dramatically before that moment. Jon then understood the point of reminiscing on their family tales. They would all miss him, five broken hearts would be left in his place and that was a reason to keep staying strong.

"Yeah...you've always had my back ever since we were children even for the most small of matters. You've always been my best friend as well, it would have been both lonely and hard had I been on my own the entire time growing up. It's tough being the heir with all the responsibility being slowly put on top of my shoulders but at least I've always had someone at my side that I could always count on. I mean I know Theon has been there but he can be such a prick, besides it's always been good having an opponent I could spar with and beat that was also my equal. Again Theon is a big cheat and has more mouth on him than actual skill," Robb Stark confessed gazing up at the full moon in the sky and all the glittering stars.

"What do you mean beat? If I recall I have won far more matches than you," Jon immediately corrected.

"Oh really? How about a rematch when we get back to Winterfell? See who is better now," Stark challenged actually wondering whether he had the ability to beat his sibling who was a God given natural at swordsmanship. Still, he had a couple of months extra practice, not that it made much of a difference.

"You're on," Snow nodded just before his attention was immediately transferred. Distant footsteps caught his ears as he tried to count the pairs of feet.

One.

Two.

Three.

Instantly, Jon alerted Robb when he knew that these footsteps didn't belong to Ned and Arya. But that didn't answer the question of whether they were friend or foe nevertheless.

Four.

"Robb...there are people here, I can hear them," Jon whispered, feeling more alert that he had done in a good few days, thank the Gods for adrenaline. When Snow heard the unsheathing of a blade, he grasped hold of his dagger tight and told Robb to take out his sword.

"Stay down Jon," Robb instructed sharply.

Five.

The Stark heir sprung to his feet with his steel blade in hand as he spotted a masked swordsman jump out from behind one of the distant rocks and dart towards him. As metal classed with metal the fight began. Unlike the Wildlings in the forest whomever the assailants were, were fully trained in battle and that made it a challenge for Robb as he continued to fend off strike after strike barely finding any openings to make his own. Jon tried to concentrate but found the scraping of metal a vicious sound to his overly sensitive ears. But when he heard a second pair of feet approaching from behind the rock he was pressed up against, he sprang into action. Snow aimed his dagger, trusting his ears to tell him where to throw. It was ten percent precise use of sound and measurement, ten percent good judgement and eighty percent luck that had his dagger hit his target straight in the throat before he could attack Robb from behind. However as soon as the blood gurgling man hit the floor with a thump, the last three masked men burst out of their hiding places. Everything happened so fast from that point, Jon couldn't have predicted the blow to the back of his head from all the noise and Robb, distraught on seeing a large man pick his brother off the floor and throw him over his shoulder didn't notice as the second blow was dealt and he too found himself in darkness.

A small boar was what Arya had managed to shoot down during the hunt. She was a little disappointed in herself when her first shot did not kill the animal but simply brought it down. Eddard nevertheless was extremely proud. The camp was too quiet, Ned knew instantly something was wrong when he saw that the horses were nowhere to be found and the smell of blood filled the burning air. Arya tensed when she couldn't see either of her older brothers within her sight, finding it hard to believe that they had experienced yet another misfortune. When all Lord Stark was met with was the sight of a dead body, he collapsed to his knees and pounded the ground with his fists. His boys, his eldest sons were missing...how could things get so bad? The young Stark girl scurried over towards the body left in the dirt, pulling out the dagger that was imbedded in the cadaver's cold blue neck.

"Jon...This is Jon's dagger!" Arya announced returning to her father who had his head dipped towards the ground as if he had already given up. The sound of Arya's energetic voice suddenly made him see sense. He looked up noting the initials carved into the hilts base knowing that they could only belong to his son. Taking the item off of Arya he recognized the expensive materials the blade was made out of and assumed that it must have been one of Jon's name day gifts so he slipped in into his belt for safe-keeping.

"Whatever went down, they didn't go down without a fight," Arya reassured, "they can't be too far away...we can track them!" Ned pulled himself together as he told himself that this was in absolutely no way the time to give up when his sons needed him more than ever.

"This is going to be a challenge without a horse, but the night for once is on our side. This was no Wildling attack if it was we would have found bodies not to mention the armour on this man is not from over the wall which means the culprits will have made camp somewhere, if we move fast we may be able to catch up," Eddard noted, "we're going to have to pass on supper."