Chapter Text
The city of Winterfell is frosted with the shimmering buttercream of snow, holiday lights still sparkling like wrapped confections beneath glassy layers of ice. It is that lovely, picturesque scene that comes a day or two immediately after a snowstorm, that breathless moment before the snow turns gray beneath an indifferent, colorless sky. Today is for a sky almost garishly blue and snows so brilliantly bright that they are nearly blinding.
And yet somehow, his girlfriend is still cursing like a pirate at having to be outside.
“No coffee is worth this,” Elena mutters. She glares up at him, her eyes the only part of her face that he can see. A red wool scarf covers her nose and mouth and a matching knit cap is pulled low over her head, held in place by a pair of earmuffs. Despite her mittens and the fact that she is apparently attempting to melt into him from where their arms are linked, her hands are still jammed into the sleeves of her coat. “Who bloody decided to build cities in the north?”
“People who don’t flinch at the idea of being able to see their breath, I assume.”
“This weather should be illegal, Kieran. How are you not freezing?” Elena untangles one of her hands to gesture at his jacket and earmuffs. “You let Ghost stay home. We could still be at home. In bed.”
Kieran smiles at the way home has tumbled so easily from her lips. It has barely been over a week since Elena flew out to Winterfell to find a final answer to the puzzle that was their relationship, a mystery centuries and lifetimes in the making. But while they have created a relationship the unconventional way—unbridled lust turned to wary friendship turned to love, with several disastrous roadblocks along the way—the promise of a real future, a future that Jon and Daenerys never got to have, still sits within both of them like something he might dare call hope.
“Tell me you’re a southern girl without saying you’re a southern girl,” he jokes as they round a corner. “To be honest, I’m not sure how you’re not burning up in all those layers. I told you it was only going to be two blocks away.”
“Two blocks away trekking through the tundra,” grumbles Elena miserably. Kieran laughs and then slows in front of a shop door, swinging it open and gesturing for her to enter. Elena hurries inside to the warmth of the coffee shop and he hears her let out a relieved sigh as the scent of roasting coffee beans, burnt vanilla, and freshly baked cookies envelop them both. She gives him an askance look as she lowers her scarf. “This place can’t be as good as Henry’s.”
“Few places are,” Kieran agrees, ordering himself a cup of coffee and one of the still-warm giant chocolate chip cookies that he saw being wheeled from the walk-in oven. Elena orders a coffee, vowing to steal half of his cookie. And though they briefly argue over who will pay, Kieran wins simply because he doesn’t need to wrestle and juggle a pair of mittens.
As they pull away from the counter, he watches her face as she takes a cautious sip of her coffee…and then laughs at the look of shock that crosses it.
“This is Henry’s coffee.”
“Aye.”
“But—”
“This is his first shop. He opened it before he moved down to the capital to piss off a bunch of developers.” They find an empty bistro table in an alcove by the front windows and he tries—and fails—to bite back a laugh as Elena starts the long process of taking off her outerwear. He chides, with a laugh in his voice, “Your coffee is going to be cold by the time you’re done.”
“Oh, shut up,” comes the reply as she throws her hat at him. He falls silent, still smiling, as Elena rakes a hand through her winter-blond hair, the pale locks tumbling just past her shoulders. She gives him a cross look as she sits down in the seat across from him, wrapping her hands around the coffee cup. “It is not my fault that people who have no sense of self-preservation call this place home.”
“You almost sound like you’re falling in love with my hometown.”
“The wind hurts my face.”
“Barely a centimeter of your face was even exposed.” When Elena only makes a face at him, he adds, “So does this mean I should tell Mol that you’re not interested in learning how to snowboard?”
His younger cousin has been repeatedly texting him over the past week, simultaneously telling him how much he needs to grovel in front of Elena and apologize through an almost gratuitous amount of sex, before following up with questions regarding Elena’s prowess in winter sports. He has ignored most of her text messages. Hell, he has tried to pretend that the rest of his very annoying family also has decided not to blow up his phone with questions about Elena.
Elena snorts at his question before demurely sipping at her coffee. “Absolutely not. I can think of better ways to spend my time than strapping myself to a piece of wood and flying downhill at literal breakneck speeds.”
“Says the woman who used to ride dragons.”
“I think even Daenerys would draw the line at snowboarding.”
Speaking of the past doesn’t hurt as much as it once did. Though he knows those memories still hover in the back of both of their minds, there has been a strange sense of peace ever since they reunited. He knows that there is a part of him, no matter how minuscule, that will always be Jon Snow, just as a part of Elena will always be Daenerys Targaryen. But there is finally some grace to be had with that knowledge, some peace.
As Elena reaches across the table to break the cookie in half, a delighted expression crossing her face at the gooey mess she creates, Kieran feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He slips it out in case it might be Lee, updating him on the editing process of his book—and he sighs when he sees who the message is from. Elena catches the sigh and raises an eyebrow. “Who is it?”
“My mum. She says we’re having dinner with her tonight.” Kieran glances at the rest of the message, where his mum has point-blank said that she does not care how much sex he is having, she would like to be able to chat with him at some point this week with his girlfriend in tow. “I don’t think we have much of a choice. You know how she is.”
“Well, you’d better be glad I like your mum.” Elena bites into her half of the cookie, her eyes fluttering as she lets out a barely-contained moan that immediately reminds Kieran of other, more lascivious things. “Oh my god, Henry is a genius. This cookie alone might be worth almost dying of hypothermia.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Kieran warns, forgoing answering his mum for the moment. “He’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
“He’ll never let you hear the end of it if I freeze to death either.” She sucks a bit of melted chocolate off her thumb. “You owe me, Kieran.”
And from the way her tongue lingers just slightly on her skin, Kieran doesn’t have to guess for too long about what she has in mind. He throws a balled-up napkin at her, grinning.
“My family’s going to wonder where the hell I’ve been all week.” He watches as Elena’s smile takes on a mischievous air before she rises then and leans over the table to kiss him. Her lips taste of dark chocolate and brown butter and coffee.
“Let them wonder, Mr. Hemming. Let them wonder.”