What good would that have done anyone, with the Boltons holding Winterfell for the Lannisters? Might have been that I wouldn't have had the troops. No one else would have let the Free Folk past the wall; no one else would have gone to Hardhome. The Lord Commander that would have been wouldn't have paid enough heed to the White Walkers.

[When he thinks of causality and the sequence of events, what seems like it might have been personally gratifying to him for a few passing days begins to look more as if it would eventually have spelled the doom of everything and everyone he knows and has a care for.

Still, he brightens -- not much, but enough for it to be noticeable -- at what she says next.]

Aye, we have a choice.

[He's chosen this; he's chosen her.]