"…by and large unharmed," Maester Cressen was saying. "He has pulled a muscle in his shoulder, probably from dragging Lord Loras up from the lava tunnels, but he has none of the same symptoms that have Lord Loras out cold. Mostly, he seems to be suffering from shock."
Jon breathed in deep, slowly blinked his eyes open. His head pounded, and he was still so exhausted he just wanted to go back to sleep, which told him, along with the words, that he could not have been out for very long. He let out a groan, felt Margaery give his hand a tight squeeze. He managed to get his gaze to focus somewhat. Met her eyes, which somehow managed to call him an idiot much more loudly than she could have if she had shouted. There was gratitude there as well, though, which brought him some hope. "Loras?" he croaked.
She huffed, but seemed more amused than anything. "In most other circumstances I would have been deeply offended that mine is not the name you choose to call when you wake up," she said. Then relented with that crooked, lopsided smile of hers. "He will be fine, according to Maester Cressen. Thanks to you." It was only thanks to him that Loras had been in danger to begin with, but Jon did not have the energy to argue right now. And even if he had, the sight of her free hand caressing the slight swell of her belly would have silenced him, striking him with awe the same way it always did.
He attempted to pull himself into a sitting position, only to realise that the arm not held fast by Margaery's grip on his hand was caught up in a sling and twinged with every movement he made. He groaned, tried to move up without using his arms at all. Then he relented and slumped back into the pillows with a huff that made Margaery snort out a small laugh and smooth his hair out of his face.
Uncle Arthur was there the next moment, gently pulling him up and arranging the pillows behind him. The look he was giving him made Jon more than aware that he would be paying for his own idiocy in the training yard, and he was on the verge of relenting at the sight, like he had his whole life. Then the overheard conversation, the confusion and disbelief and anger, all the reasons why he had run in the first place, came back to him, bolstered him. Fury all but strangled him, made him grit his teeth and clench his fists. For half a moment, he wanted to attack Arthur bodily, scream and rage and punch and bite. But that was the wrong impulse, was not even what he was feeling, not really. What he wanted was not to punish. It was to get answers, get some kind of explanation that would make those words make sense, make the world make sense again. He glanced across the room at Maester Cressen. "Does Loras need you right this moment?" he asked.
"No, My Lord," Maester Cressen replied. Seeming to catch up on Jon's unspoken request, he gave a quick nod. "I will be back to check up on him within the hour," he said. Then he bowed and left the sick chamber.
Jon turned his attention back to Unc-- or was he even that? To the man he had thought of as his uncle since he had been old enough to think anyone anything. "Why did Ser Oswell
Whent decide to gift me with something as priceless as Blackfyre, Ser Arthur?" he asked.
Arthur looked at him for long moments, seeming to hesitate for a moment. His serious violet eyes appeared to stare into Jon's very soul in that way they had, like they had not done for years. Then he sighed, and went to the door. He opened it long enough to check the outside before shutting and bolting it and walking over to sit in the chair next to Margaery's. "Because it is the ancestral sword of House Targaryen and should always belong to the King of the Seven Kingdoms," he said. "Whatever Aegon the Unworthy did and caused, it is time that holds true again."
Jon swallowed, let his eyes drop shut for a long moment. Then he opened them once more and stared up at the man who had been the sole true constant in his life, often as much a father to Jon as the man he had called by that title. "Tell me?" he asked. "Please?"
Margaery's hand tightened on his, and Arthur glanced at her for a beat. Jon wanted to as well, but he did not want to look away from Arthur, did not want to give him a chance to back away. Nor was he going to let Arthur drive her from the room. She was his Lady Wife. She carried his babe. He trusted her. Whatever he knew, she could know too.
Arthur's eyes went back to Jon, and yet more time passed, but this time Jon thought it had the quality of a man having to gather a great many painful strands of thought. Jon could give him that much, at least. "I was about the same age you are now when I first met Prince Rhaegar," he said after a long while. His gaze seemed far away, as though he was looking at a picture Jon could not see. "It was some tourney or other, but we became fast friends. He was a strange young man, in some ways. He was thoughtful, yet rash, and prone to melancholy. He hated fighting, but rarely have I met a better swordsman or horseback rider. I admired him from the start. I like to think it was mutual. A few years later, I was named for the Kingsguard. Rhaegar became my dearest friend. My sister was brought on to serve Elia Martell after the Royal wedding, and those were some of the best years of my life."
He paused, frowned, and a sadness Jon had sometimes seen in Arthur became visible again, except this time it was open, not hidden or restrained, and seeing it made something inside Jon clench up in pain. "On the one hand, he had so much potential," Arthur said. "He was a truly good man, gentle and compassionate and wise beyond his years. I worshipped him. I think a lot of people, even those closest to him, did. But even if it hit him differently, I do not think the Targaryen madness passed him over entirely. His parents were brother and sister, and theirs before them. As Jaehaerys the Second liked to say, whenever a Targaryen is born, the Gods toss a coin, and it lands either on true greatness or madness. Rhaegar, I think, is the only one I have ever known of whose coin might have landed on the edge and stayed there. He had both."
Jon swallowed, and part of him wanted to object to this seemingly nonsensical story about some long-dead prince, wanted to ask why it even mattered. But some part of him knew, he supposed. After everything that had already been said, and with four dragons probably making a sooty mess of his bedchamber... He knew, whether he wanted to or not.