#fic: jon x sansa | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

orangeflavoryawp · 6 months ago

Text

Jonsa - "Nodology", Part 2

Just a reminder that I'm not stressing too much about this story making sense within the canon plot. Think of canon less like a straight line and more like one of those inkblot pictures in a Rorschach test.

Also, this is a very relationship-focused piece. Politics plays a hand, because how could it not? But I'm not trying to rewrite the whole set of books here and tackle larger issues than the immediate present. The heart of this is Jon and Sansa. Hopefully that answers some of your questions about the larger plotlines or political ramifications of the current setting. (On a side note, I fucking LOVE that you guys are so invested in this AU that you're asking such questions. It's incredibly humbling and encouraging all at once. I just don't have the energy to make it that deep right now, lol.)

Much love. Stay frosty, fam.

Nodology

Chapter Two: The Salt of It (And the Wound)

"The knot fastens ever tighter." - Jon and Sansa. After rescuing her from King's Landing and bringing her to Riverrun, the two try to navigate a love they never intended to start, especially with so many watching eyes.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2

* * *

"How's the shoulder?"

Jon turns from the practice dummy he'd been raging at all morning, his chest heaving, knuckles white where they grip his training sword. His tunic clings to his sweat-dampened skin, his hair pulled back in a knot at the base of his neck.

The Blackfish watches him from his lean against one of the courtyard's pillars, arms crossed loosely over his chest, awaiting an answer to his question.

Jon tries to steady his breathing, lowering the sword in his grip as he turns to the older man. He rolls his shoulder gingerly, a tender ache still lingering from his wound. "Not as much mobility as before, but it's getting there."

Brynden nods, pushing off from his lean and walking toward him. "I hear you wounded it on the road here. With Sansa."

Jon nods quietly, his sword now held limply in his hand, his breathing steadier. He doesn't know what the Blackfish wants to hear, so he says nothing.

Brynden glances at the roughed-up practice dummy beside him, frowning. "That supposed to be Joffrey Baratheon? Or Theon Greyjoy?"

Jon works his jaw, a heavy sigh leaving him. "Both, probably."

He hadn't a person in mind when he entered the training yard earlier that morning. Just a feeling. Just a rage.

The thought of Bran and Rickon's tiny bodies strung up in Winterfell's main courtyard, their flesh burned from them – or maybe flayed – hadn't left him all night. Nor had the thought of Sansa's scar-lined back, or her tremors as she choked out an apology. An apology! For keeping him from rescuing their brothers – keeping him too busy with her, as she said.

But he won't let her take on that kind of guilt. And he won't let himself, either. Because if he does...

If he puts that on his own soul, then there's no going back. There's no climbing out of that hole. And he's no good to anyone at that point. Not to the North, not to Robb. Not to Sansa.

And he can't afford to be useless.

So, he puts that sorrow and bitterness in a box, and sets it aside. Buries it deep. Packs the dirt around it tightly, so it can't crawl back out. He smothers it beneath the earth. And beneath duty.

And then he comes to the training yard every morning and swings and swings and swings until he's breathless. Until there is nothing left to bury. Until it is drained from him completely.

This is how he grieves his family.

Brynden Tully heaves a weighted sigh, eyes still fixed to the dummy. "With the young ones gone, Catelyn is..." He stops, a sound brewing in his throat. He turns back to Jon. "Well, she's a mess."

Jon keeps his silence, his eyes never leaving the Blackfish.

Brynden clears his throat, crossing his arms over his chest once more. "But she'd be truly inconsolable if both her daughters were lost to her, too. And they're not. Arya is somewhere in the Riverlands. And Sansa – Sansa is with her now, here in her family's home, because of you."

Jon's throat tightens, any words failing him. He simply watches Brynden, simply keeps his gaze.

The other man's face hardens somewhat, his jaw squaring. "She won't thank you," he says surely.

Jon feels the lance of it in his chest, his lungs aching at the words. It's not a truth he hadn't known before, but to hear it aloud – to know it so plainly, and from another's mouth –

It hurts more than he thought it would.

Brynden grumbles at Jon's silence, taking a step toward him, his hands falling from their cross over his chest. "You're her husband's bastard, you understand. The one stain upon their marriage. The biggest threat to her children's future and security."

Jon's gaze falls to the floor, fixed on the Blackfish's boots, his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth.

He knows this. Has always known this.

A moment of heavy silence passes between them, before the Blackfish plants a hand on Jon's shoulder, and he looks up to meet the warrior's gaze.

"But that is not your failing. It's Ned Stark's."

Jon blinks up at him, his teeth clenching at the words.

"And she is grateful, son. More grateful than you could ever understand. Though she may never be able to voice it, I know this in my bones. I know this better than anything."

Jon's lips part, a shallow breath stealing out between them.

"You saved her child, Jon Snow. She will never forget that. Nor will I." His hand slips from Jon's shoulder, a last, solitary look passing between them, before he's turning from him, walking back the way he came.

Jon is overcome suddenly, the words bubbling up inside him, until they make it to air. "Everything left that I care about in this world is here," he calls out to his back, stopping him.

Brynden turns to look at him over his shoulder.

Jon heaves a steadying breath, his grip tightening over his sword. He levels the Blackfish with a determined look. "I'm not going anywhere," he assures him, the words equally needful and confident.

The faint edge of a smile curls at the corner of Brynden's lip, before he offers a silent nod and turns back to leave.

Jon stands in the training yard for several long moments, just breathing.

No, he's not going anywhere.

* * *

When Sansa answers the knock on her chamber door, she doesn't expect it to be Robb. He gives her a stilted smile and a nod in greeting. "Sansa," he says.

She stands with her hand still on the door, blinking quietly at him. "Your Grace," she says finally.

Robb briefly frowns at the formality of the address, but then he sweeps his hand out toward the hallway. "Walk with me, please."

Sansa steps out of her chamber at the invitation, taking his arm obediently.

They make it all the way to the gardens before either of them speak, and Sansa's anxiety is practically thrumming beneath her skin.

Robb clears his throat.

The sound is jarring after so many minutes of silence and her attention swings sharply to him, her fingers clenching over his arm.

"We haven't... well, we haven't really spoken much since your return," he begins.

Sansa watches him quietly, content to let him find his way through the words.

(She remembers the warmth of his chest as he'd carried her back inside the keep the other day, after her grief had overtaken her on the riverbank.)

Robb stops their stroll, his eyes focused on some unnamable flower bush, his brow furrowed in thought.

Sansa sets her other hand along his arm now as well – tender and encouraging. "No, we haven't," she says softly.

He glances up at her. "It's my fault, isn't it?"

Sansa sighs, her gaze drifting away. "It's not about fault."

"Except it is." Robb turns to look at her more fully. "You won't say it, but it is."

Sansa presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, not meeting his eyes.

Robb wipes a hand down his mouth, a heavy breath leaving him. "You won't admit to the resentment my inaction has stirred in you."

Sansa meets his gaze again. "What do you want me to say, Robb?"

He frowns again, a quiver arching through his brow. "I don't know."

It's the truth, at least, it must be. This, she's sure of. Because she doesn't know what she wants to say either.

She's gone over it in her head a thousand times and yet, the words still never seem quite right.

She loves her brother. She needs her brother. She misses her brother.

But there's a bitterness now that sits sour in her gut, and she doesn't know how to calm it. She doesn't know how to not hurt when she looks at him.

"I think I... I never asked you," he begins again, the words tight in his throat, "because... I couldn't." Robb licks his lips, his eyes hesitant on hers. "I couldn't ask you what they'd done to you because then... then it meant I let it happen."

Sansa pulls a shallow breath through her teeth, the remembrance bright and sharp behind her eyes – the lash, and the gauntleted hand, and the terrible, terrible sound of her own cries.

(Her only companion, most days.)

Robb settles a hand over hers along his arm. "But I shouldn't have let that stop me. I should have – I should have come to you, and talked to you, and... and given you comfort."

Sansa feels wetness dotting her eyes.

"I didn't," he says tightly, his gaze falling to his feet. "And after leaving you to the Lannisters..." He chuckles darkly, his hand slipping from hers to press over his eyes. "I'm not surprised that you hate me, Sansa."

"I don't hate you," she says immediately, the words not even a question.

Robb glances back up at her, his hand falling from his face.

There's no doubt in her at the statement. There's bitterness, yes. There's the sting of abandonment. There's disappointment. The kind that leaves you gazing up at the ceiling most nights, sleepless and aching.

But not hate.

Never hate.

Not for him.

The tears are hot on her lids now, and she reaches up to brush at them. "Come," she urges him, leading them to a bench in the garden. "Sit with me, and I'll... I'll tell you. I'll tell you all that you couldn't ask."

And she does. She tells him of the beatings and the humiliation she suffered before the court. She tells him of her ripped dresses and her bruised body, and her silent, unanswered tears. She tells him of dinners spent at the receiving end of Cersei's constant insults and taunts. She tells him of the endless threats against his and their mother's lives if she didn't keep her place. She tells him of Joffrey's sinister laughter at every slap she received. She tells him of Tyrion's wandering eye and the way he'd touched her on their wedding night. She tells him of her captor husband's overtures dressed up in the guise of kindness. She tells him of the jeers and the scars and the ever-present threat of death hanging over her head. And she tells him of the loneliness.

The nauseating, bone-deep, lung-scraping loneliness.

(She tells him of how she thought once to fling herself from the terrace. To end it then and there.)

"And the one thought – the only thing that kept me breathing, was knowing my family would come for me," she gets out raggedly, the breath raking from her, the sob clenching behind her teeth. She blinks up at him through tears.

He's staring at their joined hands resting over her knee, his jaw clenched, his mouth a tight line.

She takes a shaky breath in, her voice breaking as she tells him, "But you didn't."

Robb looks up at her, pain etching across his face. "Sansa..." His voice catches, his throat flexing tightly.

"You didn't come for me, Robb," she cries out, the sob breaking free. She reaches a hand to her mouth, tries to stifle the wave of anguish clawing up her throat. She blinks back the hot tears, her lungs clenching in her chest. "And I needed you to. I needed you to come for me – just once." She squeezes her eyes closed, her hand pressed over her mouth, muffling the cries as she breathes deep. In and out. In and out.

"Every time – a thousand times – I'd come for you."

In the end, she hadn't been left to that hell. But it wasn't the brother she'd prayed for that rescued her.

She wanted Robb. But she had needed Jon. She understands this now.

Even when it hurts no less.

Robb releases her hands to reach up and cup her face. "I'm so sorry, Sansa. I'm so sorry you ever had to endure that."

She tries to rein in her breathing, her hand slipping from her mouth, her sniffles growing quieter as she watches him, the warmth of his palms cradling her cheeks.

"I'm sorry I left you there. That wasn't... that wasn't kingly of me." And then he stops, his brow furrowing, a look of regret passing over his features at the word choice. He hangs his head, his hands slipping from her face as he sighs heavily. "That wasn't... good of me," he corrects.

Sansa blinks at him, at the way his shoulders slump – at the terrible, unfathomable weight he carries across them.

It's unbearable to see him like this. To see her big brother so small, so crushed beneath duty, so at odds with love.

And it's unbearable to be the thing that weighs on him so.

Sansa pulls a trembling breath through her lungs, a hand going to wipe at her cheeks. She blinks back the salt-sting of tears. "Robb," she murmurs, reaching for his hands again.

"I've already begun the process of annulling your marriage," he tells her.

Sansa stills, her mouth tipping open, her hands trembling as they grip his.

Robb finally meets her gaze, his thumb arching over the taut skin of her knuckles. "Jon is right. You're not a Lannister bride. You're Sansa Stark of Winterfell. And after my unborn child, you're the heir to the North."

Her lip quakes, the breath tight in her chest. She thinks of Bran and Rickon. She thinks of their poor, mangled bodies. She thinks of never again smelling their hair or hearing their laughs or singing them to sleep.

And she knows he's thinking of them, too. She knows it's the loss of them that brings him to her door.

(No more scars, she'd promised herself once, and perhaps, it's the kind of promise Robb needs as well.)

He clutches her hands in his, his jaw tightening. "I won't forget it again," he tells her.

She wants to believe him.

She wants it dearly.

So, she believes.

* * *

"You spoke to Robb," Jon says quietly at her side, walking her to her chambers after she begged away from dinner with a headache, and Robb had asked him to escort her back, before returning to his conversation with Edmure.

Sansa keeps her arm linked with Jon's, orange light flickering over her face as they pass the torches in their sconces along the wall.

"Yes," she answers, not expanding further.

They each stay quiet past that, their steps echoing along the stone as they walk.

Jon looks at her beside him. "He was distressed about what you told him. About your time in King's Landing."

"I'm sure he was." There's a tenderness to her voice now, where once there was resentment.

Jon frowns at her, stopping them not far from her door. "Sansa, look at me."

She does, and it makes his chest ache.

He reaches up to cup her cheek. "What is it?" he asks her gently.

She pulls her lip between her teeth, a furrow to her brow. She glances down the hall to make sure no one is witness, and then she tugs him after her into her chambers, closing the door behind them. She turns to face him fully now, taking his hands in hers. "My marriage to Tyrion is to be annulled."

Jon lets out a short breath at the man's mention, a curl to his lip. "As it should be."

"Yes, but..."

Jon blinks at her. "You don't want to remain married to him." He meant it to come out as a question, considering her hesitance on the subject, but he knows her well enough now to know it shouldn't even be a question.

"Of course, I don't," she answers him on a sigh. "That's not what worries me."

Jon unlinks his hands to grasp at her arms instead, rubbing up and down slowly, comfortingly. "Then what is it?"

"I'll be... eligible again – to cement any other alliance through marriage."

Jon's eyes narrow on her, his nostrils flaring. "I won't let it happen."

Sansa purses her lips. "It doesn't work like that, Jon. You won't have a say."

"Robb won't let it happen," he tries to reassure her, his hands sliding down her arms to settle along her hips now, keeping her anchored to him. "Not after we lost Bran and Rickon." The words make his jaw ache, the names of their siblings lodging in his throat like tar. He clears his throat, shakes away the grief.

(Bury it deep. Put it away. Be useful, be present.)

"Not after... after everything you endured in King's Landing. He won't do that. I promise you."

Sansa's mouth presses into a thin line, her eyes shifting between his. "I hope you're right."

"I am," he assures her, leaning in to press a swift kiss along her lips. "You won't ever be a pawn in someone's game again, I swear." His fingers curl around her hips – steady and sure.

She blinks up at him, her eyes roving his face in quiet contemplation.

He opens his mouth to question her but then she links her arms around his neck, pressing her chest to his. "I don't think I could ever be anyone's again," she whispers at his mouth. "Anyone's but yours," she tells him.

Jon sucks a breath through his lips, his chest rising and falling steadily, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "Sansa," he begins, before he clears his throat, licking his lips. "I should go."

It isn't half as firm as he means it to sound.

Her nails scrape the nape of his neck, slinking into his hair, and it drags his attention back to her gaze. Her eyes are dark in the candlelight, a sheen of wetness over them. "Could you do it? Could you let another man take me to wife?" There's a thread of desperation in her voice that scares him.

Jon braces his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling in the scarce space between them. He slips a hand up her back, bracing against her spine as he holds her closer. "You know I can't," he murmurs at her mouth, the closeness of her making him light-headed.

She lets out a ragged breath against him, her eyes slipping shut, her arms tightening around his neck. "Could you let another man hold me like this? Touch me? Kiss me?" Her voice breaks, her chest heaving now, the threat of tears lining her words. "Could you – "

He doesn't let her finish the question, because his answer would be the same regardless.

Jon kisses her hard, almost angrily, pressing into her so forcefully that she arches back beneath his hands, bending to his need. He opens her mouth with a fervent tongue, tasting her sigh with his own answering groan, his hands bracing her to his chest, keeping her fixed to him, unrelenting.

Ever since that night in his chamber, when she'd approached him after the news of Bran and Rickon – ever since she offered that ridiculous apology, ever since he'd silenced her needless guilt with his desperate mouth –

His desire for her has grown nearly unmanageable.

She's all that occupies his thoughts. When he wakes and when he lays his head to sleep. When he meets with Robb's war council, and when he trains in the yard, and when he breaks his fast with his unwitting family.

When he takes himself in hand – urgently and nightly.

She's all he thinks about these days. Her fine-boned hands, and her perfect, pink mouth, and the sweep of her hair over her neck, and the dip of her collar bones, and the fine arch of her wrist, and her lingering stares, and the open neck of her dress, and her smiles and her touches and her breathy sighs, the shape of her waist beneath his hands, and her chest heaving against his, and the way she arches into him so sweetly, the way she curls her hands into his hair, the way she sucks on his tongue when he kisses her, and the scent of her, the taste, the taste, the taste –

He's nearly delirious in his want.

Jon breaks from her, panting, one hand still digging into her hip, the other braced between her shoulder blades, the material of her dress bunched in his fist as he holds her to him. "The thought alone," he growls out, nipping at her lips – that heady desire flooding him, sending him reeling. "The thought alone drives me mad," he finishes tightly, taking her mouth again, reveling in the low moan that carries up her throat.

Sansa sighs breathlessly against his mouth when they break apart, her hands tightening in his hair. "I'm scared," she murmurs at his lips, eyes still wet, surging forward to kiss him again.

Jon groans at her urgency, his hand sliding over her shoulder to brace at her neck, his thumb pressed to the underside of her jaw, his breath flooding her mouth as she whimpers beneath him.

"Sansa," he bites out when he gasps for air.

She grabs at his hand still fixed to her hip, drags it up to her chest, presses his palm over her breast, curling his fingers beneath hers in the collar of her dress.

Jon bucks against her instinctively, the breath raking from him, his pants hot against her mouth. He palms at her breast immediately, never even questioning the motion, his growing hardness digging into her thigh as he walks her back, until she hits the bed and falls over, taking him with her.

"Jon," she moans out, hands raking over his back, drawing him into her, before wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and dragging his mouth back to hers.

Jon braces his weight above her, his hips digging into hers, his hand gripping her breast almost painfully, his other dug into her hair, his elbow planted along the bed to steady him. He tugs at her dress, dragging the material over her breast impatiently, groaning into her mouth as he rolls his hips into hers, unable to stop himself, unable to contain the heat spreading through his gut.

Sansa drags a knee up along his side, her skirts pulling uncomfortably along her thigh.

Jon breaks from her, dragging his hand from her hair to bunch along the skirts at her thigh instead, rucking them up as he buries his face in the crook of her shoulder, his lips planting along her pale throat. "Gods, Sansa, you feel so good," he groans out, his growl lost in her hair.

Sansa grips at his head, fingers tangled in his curls. "I want it to be you," she gasps at his ear.

Jon stills, blinking away the haze of desire beneath a singular moment of clarity.

He closes his eyes at her words, his chest heaving against hers, his hand gripping at her thigh hard enough to leave bruises, but he won't go further, won't drag her skirts up higher, won't snake his hand up to her smallclothes and tear them away, won't sink his fingers into her wet, waiting cunt like he longs to, like he's aching to.

"Sansa," he warns her, his teeth at her throat, his other hand still firm at her breast, fingers still curved over the collar of her dress, dragged partially down her chest, her laces taut at the seams.

His knuckles are white beneath the force of his struggling willpower.

"I need it to be you," she whines at his ear.

Jon pulls back just enough to look at her, his face pained. "Sansa, I – I can't..." The realization of what he's only moments away from doing to her hits him like a gale of wind from atop the Wall.

And yet he doesn't pull his touch away, doesn't relinquish his hold of her.

She blinks the wetness back from her eyes, her fingers curling tighter along the back of his neck. "Jon, I won't go to anyone else. I can't. Not after – " She stops, swallows tightly. Her eyes shift back and forth between his. "I can't."

Jon drops his forehead to hers, a ragged sigh leaving him. He drags his hands from her breast and thigh, cradling her face instead, elbows keeping him braced above her on the bed. "I know," he murmurs in frustration, his eyes slipping closed at her pained sob.

It was easy, at the start. Easy to pretend that their secret kisses and hidden glances were a game. It was easy to pretend it could never end.

But it isn't easy anymore.

Not when he wants what he wants. Not when he knows there is no stopping it, even when he knows it's wrong.

He's not ever going to fall out of love with Sansa Stark, he knows this now.

And that's the rub. That's the salt of it.

He's just a bastard boy in love with his sister.

And such a tale never ended in anything but blood and heartache.

Jon brushes a thumb across her soft cheek, his mouth a trembling line. "Sansa, listen to me. What we're doing – "

A sharp knock sounds at the door.

Sansa's eyes go wide and Jon nearly throws himself from her, stumbling away from the bed on a sharp intake of breath.

Sansa rises to her elbows, mouth parted in surprise.

"Sansa, it's me," her mother says from the other side of the door.

The panic rises in Jon's throat, and he looks around the room quickly, bounding as quietly as he can behind her armoire, pressing his back up against the wood as Sansa pushes from the bed, smoothing down her skirts and her hair, clearing her throat.

"Just a moment, Mother," she calls out, voice wavering somewhat.

Jon curses beneath his breath, glancing around the armoire one last time to catch Sansa's identically frantic eyes, before he turns away, closing his eyes on a tight inhale, the breath halted in his chest.

He hears the door unlatch a moment later, but no footsteps carrying into the room.

"Yes, Mother?" Sansa asks, clearly keeping her from entering by staying in the threshold.

"I came to check on you. Has your headache worsened?"

Jon works his jaw, adjusting his breeches as gently and quietly as he can over his still-throbbing erection, wincing slightly at the discomfort.

"I'll be fine with rest, not to worry," Sansa placates her mother.

A moment of silence passes, before Catelyn's voice comes from the door again, a lance of worry threading through her words. "You're flushed, dear girl. Are you unwell? Should I call the maester?"

Jon bites his lip, eyes turned skyward, watching the flickering shadows from the candlelight cast about the ceiling. His heart hammers in his chest.

"No, no, don't trouble yourself, Mother." Sansa's voice is just a touch breathless, just enough to have Jon's stomach sinking.

"Sansa, you're clearly – "

"It's just a chill. Nothing a good night's rest won't fix, I promise," Sansa assures her, voice tight. "In fact, I should finish readying for bed. Goodnight, Mother."

The slight creak of the door sounds before it stops abruptly, and Jon imagines Lady Catelyn's hand on the door, halting it, that familiar frown gracing her features.

"You're certain?"

Jon's stomach twists at the concern in her tone, remembering that this is a woman who just lost her two youngest boys.

The grief is still ripe in her voice.

It makes the bile rise at the back of Jon's throat, knowing how he'd been dishonoring her sweet, highborn daughter only moments ago, and in her own childhood home, no less. How he'd been touching her like no brother had a right to touch their sister. How he craved the feel of her still, even now.

The guilt is dizzying, enough to calm any remaining desire in him.

Sansa's voice is softer this time, a gentleness to it that tells Jon she hears the grief in Lady Stark's voice just as loudly. "I'm certain. But thank you for checking on me, Mother."

"Alright, then," Catelyn answers reluctantly, a sigh at the end of her words.

Jon imagines the brush of her hand against her daughter's cheek – the same cheek he'd held in his own sinful touch.

Gods, if she only knew how he's already shamed her daughter, how near he'd been to shaming her further –

She'd kill him where he stood.

Jon bunches his hands into fists, his head braced back against the wood of the armoire, his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth in his taut silence.

"Come to me anytime you need."

"I will, Mother."

"Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight."

The door shuts with a hollow clang.

Jon breathes in the silence that follows, his chest rising and falling steadily. His hands flex, fists bunching and unbunching at his sides. His lungs ache.

"Jon?" The whisper is tentative as it leaves her.

Jon scrubs his hands over his face.

What are they doing? What are they doing?

"Jon."

He steps from around the armoire, a shadow falling over his face as he meets her gaze.

She stands in the middle of the room, her fingers worrying themselves. She opens her mouth, closes it. "I..."

Jon sighs, his jaw tightening.

That bile – it stains the back of his tongue.

Sansa looks to the floor.

His own shame keeps him rooted, his feet heavy where they stand.

"You should wait a while... before you go," she says tentatively. "To be sure."

Jon closes his eyes, a heavy breath leaving him. "Aye."

When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him again, but she keeps her distance – keeps this distance between them.

He stays planted where he stands. She stays with her hands wringing themselves before her.

He looks at her.

She looks at him.

No, there is no falling out of love with Sansa Stark.

And that's the salt of it.

(He is the wound.)

* * *

"Read it again," Catelyn demands in a tight voice.

Robb sighs as he drops the missive from the Freys to the tabletop between them. "Mother..."

"Read it again," she repeats, her voice shaking.

Sansa stands rigid beside her mother, her eyes fixed to the unfurled scroll atop the table. She can feel Jon's gaze upon her.

"Seven hells," Edmure curses, a hand wiping over his mouth as he stalks from the war table, and then stalks back. "Are you actually considering this?" His gaze shifts heatedly to Robb.

Brynden puts a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "Calm yourself, Edmure."

"And how am I supposed to calm myself? They demand a marriage between myself and a Frey girl as reparations for Robb's – " Edmure bites his tongue, a sharp glance sent around the table, before he meets the Blackfish's eyes once more. "His indiscretion," he finishes tightly.

Jeyne settles a hand low on her swollen stomach, her gaze flitting quietly to the floor.

"Edmure," Brynden censures in a low voice, squeezing his nephew's shoulder meaningfully.

"And their other demand?" Catelyn bites out, her chest rising with her indignation. "Are we going to simply ignore that?" she asks shrilly.

Sansa's mind goes blank, her breaths coming shallow and short. Everything is static in her mind, her eyes blinking furiously as she tries to process the contents of the letter. Her mouth parts, but no words follow. She closes her mouth tightly, her throat flexing. Her eyes water without her bidding.

Robb looks at her, leaning over to brace his hands along the table. "Sansa."

She blinks up at him.

"Tell them no," Jon says lowly from across the table, his words cutting through the fog in her mind.

Sansa sucks a sharp breath through her teeth.

In the spirit of common goals and renewing our alliance, His Grace, King Robb of House Stark, is asked to grant the marriages of Lord Edmure Tully of Riverrun to a Frey daughter of our choosing, and Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell to Lord Perwyn of House Frey.

Sansa starts to shake.

"How do they even know you've written to the High Septon of Sansa's annulment?" Catelyn asks sharply, her eyes shifting around the table to meet every person present.

"Tell them no," Jon growls again, his hands bunching into fists at his sides.

Sansa's chest feels tight.

"And if His Grace rejects another marriage alliance? What then?" Brynden asks gruffly, his hand slipping from Edmure's shoulder.

"No one told him to get a whelp on the girl!" Edmure cries.

"Uncle," Robb bites out, his anger flashing briefly across his eyes, his hand going to Jeyne's elbow at his side. "You will address my queen with the proper respect she deserves."

Catelyn purses her mouth, collecting herself with her hands smoothed over her skirts. "You're not helping, brother," she says tightly.

Edmure bites his tongue, inclining his head in quiet acquiescence, his anxious energy thrumming throughout his body.

Sansa feels sick.

"Why are we even discussing this?" Jon nearly bellows, drawing everyone's attention then. "Tell them no," he demands for the last time.

Robb squares his jaw. "It's not that simple."

Sansa's eyes flutter shut, her lip beginning to tremble.

"Robb, we just got her back," Catelyn begs.

"I know!" Robb huffs, a hand held to the bridge of his nose. "I don't want to send Sansa away either but – "

"Is no one concerned about my marriage?" Edmure interrupts, frazzled at the inattention to his situation, eyes glancing about the room.

"Edmure, please," Catelyn moans, turning a pained look his way.

He silences at his sister's distress, his mouth tipping into a frown.

Brynden crosses his arms as he considers the missive laying innocently atop the table. "Walder Frey is a sorry excuse for a man, and a scheming, self-serving mongrel, but you'll need his family's support if you want to meet the Lannisters south of the Neck, especially since you've sent forces back north to retake Winterfell."

A sound catches in Catelyn's throat at the reminder of the recent loss.

"Then we do it another way," Jon grits out.

"And if there is no other way?" Robb asks sharply, his gaze turned toward Jon. They stare each other down for several moments, before Jeyne rests her hand along Robb's arm and he turns from his half-brother, running a hand through his hair roughly.

Sansa blows a slow, shallow breath through her lips, eyes shifting back open to watch the room. Her gut twists painfully when her eyes fall on Robb.

Brynden shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "We can consider other options, Your Grace, but they'll want an answer soon."

"I'll need to speak with the other lords," Robb says on a defeated sigh.

"This is a family matter," Catelyn says, her voice less firm than she'd begun the meeting with.

"It is not," Robb says surely, a dark look sent her way. His shoulders sag, his frown pinching tight. "It is a Northern matter, and thus requires careful deliberation."

A wave of nausea overtakes Sansa.

Jon steps toward his brother. "Robb, you can't – "

"You're dismissed." He glances around the room, his gaze softening on Sansa when he makes his way to her. "All of you," he says quietly, turning away from her swiftly. Jeyne reaches for his hand then, looking up into his face with reassurance.

Sansa feels the bile rising instantly. She glances to Jon and finds him staring at her, his jaw locked in his ire, his whole bearing stiff and rigid. She can see the whites of his knuckles from across the table.

"Come," Catelyn says, ushering her gently from the room.

She follows her mother's direction mindlessly, her limbs numb.

Sansa finds herself standing in the courtyard after many minutes, her mother's hand on her arm as she speaks in quiet tones to her.

She doesn't recognize the words.

"I need..." Sansa begins, her voice a croak, and she licks her lips, glances over to meet her mother's gaze. "I need some air. Please excuse me." She gathers her skirts in her hands and walks away.

She finds herself at the edge of the riverbank many minutes later, past the gate and past the bridge and past the suffocating air that had lodged in her throat ever since Robb read Walder Frey's letter aloud.

She sucks deep gulps of air into her lungs, eyes raking over the river, blinking against the sun. Her hands bunch in her skirts. Her chin rises, her shoulders pulling taut.

And then she bends over and retches. It empties from her instantly – all the rage and despair and helplessness. Her sick hits the green riverbank and her knees buckle on reflex, her hand going out to a nearby branch to catch herself, a cough raking up her throat, the blood bursting red across her cheeks from the force of it. When she's finished, she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, eyes wet as she grips the tree beside her.

She steadies herself, breathes deep, wipes her hand along her skirt.

I want it to be you, she'd told him.

Tears bead at the corners of her eyes, her breath hitched on a sob.

It doesn't really seem to matter anymore.

* * *

"How can you even consider it? You know what she went through," Jon growls out, cornering Robb when his meeting with the lords is ended.

Robb stops short as he exits the chamber, eyeing Jon. "Have you been waiting here the whole time?"

"Of course," he bites out.

Robb frowns, before pushing past him toward his own chambers. Jon follows without thought.

"Jon, believe me, I'm the last person that wants to put Sansa through another traumatizing marriage," he huffs out, never slowing.

Jon keeps his pace, stalking the corridor alongside him. "Then you should be telling that to the Freys."

"And what would you have me tell the Northern lords, hmm?"

"That our sister is not a bargaining chip," he growls out.

Robb shoots a dark look his way. "Are you saying that's how I'm treating her?"

"Aren't you?"

Robb stops short, turning swiftly to Jon, his nostrils flaring. "I never said I'd agree to the Freys' terms." His voice is clipped, but there's a thunder beneath it that stops Jon in his tracks.

He stares at his brother, his king, trying to will his anger down, but his chest is heaving with it, his throat rife with it.

He is no help to Sansa like this – antagonizing their brother further.

Jon sets his jaw, his gaze flicking low in deference, not meeting Robb's eyes as he steadies his anxious breathing. "Then what are you saying, Your Grace?" he gets out roughly, swallowing back the ire, leaving only civility in his tone.

Robb sighs, taking a moment to consider, and then he rests a hand on Jon's shoulder.

It makes him look up at his brother again.

Robb offers him a shared look of frustration, his brows furrowed over his Tully blue eyes. "I understand your resistance to the idea. But you cannot ask me to refuse their terms if you won't even offer an alternative," he says dismally.

Jon nods, his throat tight. "You're right, of course," he says hoarsely.

It pains him to admit it.

His anger had been instant, thoughtless. His only concern had been Sansa – is Sansa. But this is not how she needs him – raging and demanding and reckless.

He clears his throat, lifting his head to meet Robb's gaze fully. "Have the lords any suggestions?"

Robb's face darkens, his hand dropping from Jon's shoulder. "Most of them don't see any reason not to agree."

"Robb," Jon growls.

"I know, I know," Robb answers swiftly, turning to walk back down the corridor.

Jon follows suit, quiet for many moments, before he asks him, "What do you plan to do?"

"I'll speak with Mother. She may have some ideas."

Jon remembers coming upon Lady Stark only moments before she'd attempted to free Jaime Lannister all those months ago. He remembers how his rescue of Sansa began in the first place.

No, Lady Stark would not give her daughter up for anything. She'd choose treason first.

(And almost did.)

He doesn't know whether to be relieved or not at Robb's going to her for advice. But at least, it means that Robb is searching for a way out.

It will have to be enough.

They stop at Robb's chambers. He gives him a nod of farewell, but Jon grabs for his elbow and stops him, his touch uneasy.

Robb glances down at the hand on his arm, and then back up into Jon's face. "What is it?"

"Why won't you tell Sansa that you're trying to find another way?"

Robb quiets a moment, his mouth tipping into a frown. He looks down the empty corridor, his throat flexing as he swallows. "I don't... I don't want to give her false hope." He looks back at Jon. "If there is no other way."

Jon releases Robb's elbow, a single tight breath filling his lungs. He shakes his head, his voice stricken in his throat. "Robb, we can't –"

"Sansa knows her duty," Robb says surely, his eyes betraying his apprehension. "When push comes to shove..." He clears his throat, blinks away the disquiet. "As the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn Stark, Sansa knows what may be asked of her."

Jon bites his cheek, that simmering rage curling in his gut again. "And a bastard wouldn't understand that, is that it?"

Robb huffs. "I never said that."

"Well, I'll tell you what I do know," Jon grinds out, the words a struggle as he steps toward him, his own distress bubbling up his throat. "I know the sound of her cries, brother, and I know the shape of her scars, and I know what nightmares she suffers from in the night because I was there, Robb. I was fucking there – when she asked if you were the one who sent me, if you were the one who came to her rescue. I was there when she finally broke down, when the weight of King's Landing finally fell from her shoulders and she was free, she was free, Robb, and still – still – more wounded than I'd ever seen her. Because she needed us. She needed her family. And we weren't there. So, I can't –" He stops, his chest heaving with it, his voice breaking as he corrects himself, tries to steady the throbbing between his ribs. "We can't abandon her again."

Robb stares at him, his brow furrowed sharply down, his mouth a thin, tight line. "Jon."

"She – she needs us to put her first this time." He pulls a heavy breath through his lungs.

Robb reaches out and plants both hands along Jon's shoulders. "You know, that as king, I could never simply put her first, Jon," he says painfully.

Jon drops his head, blinking away the wetness at the corners of his eyes. His skull aches from clenching his teeth.

"You know that," Robb murmurs, a squeeze to his shoulders.

"Aye," Jon croaks out, looking back up again.

(The salt of it.)

Helplessness tears at his gut.

"But I will do my best," Robb assures him, though it rings hollow now. "That's all I can promise."

Jon nods wordlessly, working his jaw.

Robb gives him one last squeeze along his shoulder, before turning from him and entering his chambers.

Jon is left to watch the closed door, the following silence blaring in the empty hall.

* * *

Many days pass, and Sansa prays. She eats, and she sleeps, and she takes turns in the garden. She sits and embroiders with her mother. She takes tea with Jeyne.

And she prays.

Robb hasn't spoken to her since the reading of Walder Frey's letter. She knows he is struggling to find an answer that may suit them all. But she's afraid there isn't one.

It's what brings her to the Sept this night, long after everyone is asleep, a robe hastily thrown over her shift in her restlessness. She lights a candle and watches the wax slip down the pillar, her hands folded before her.

And she prays.

But gods, she doesn't even know what for anymore.

"Sansa?"

His voice should be soothing but it's only a wretched reminder now.

Sansa plasters a faint smile along her lips when she turns to meet Jon's gaze over her shoulder.

He closes the door behind him, his face pained as he watches her where she kneels. He makes his way to her slowly.

"I couldn't sleep," she says in answer to his unvoiced question, rising and brushing the dirt from her knees.

"Neither could I," he tells her.

Their stolen kisses have ceased since the letter, and she doesn't precisely know why. Or maybe she does.

She can't seem to bring herself to be anything other than cordial to him these days.

(Anything more and she thinks she might break.)

But oh, how she misses him.

Her traitorous heart yearns for him even now, even when she is trying to teach herself to live without him.

(Even when she is failing.)

"I didn't mean to... to interrupt your prayers," he says finally, a hand going to the back of his neck and rubbing awkwardly.

Sansa looks up into the stone face of the Mother. "It's no matter." She sighs, glancing back down to him. "I don't think they were heard, anyway." She presses a nervous thumb into her opposite palm.

"Oh, Sansa." He steps toward her, his hands lighting upon her arms. "Why have you... why don't you talk to me about it?"

"And what is there to say?"

He swallows tightly, looking away a moment, before turning back. "I just want to – I don't know, to... to comfort you, somehow, but I just – I don't know how."

Sansa softens at his anguish, stepping into him to place her hands upon his chest. "I know."

"Tell me what you want,"

She shakes her head.

"Tell me and I'll do it."

"I know you will, but it's too late."

Jon frowns at her words, his hands tightening over her arms. "Please don't say that."

"I suppose the only thing to save me know is if the High Septon rejects my annulment." She chuckles darkly at the thought. "I can't be bartered for a marriage alliance if I'm still married, can I?"

"Don't say that," he grinds out, leaning toward her, closing the space between them with his lips pressed to her forehead.

That dark chuckle returns, though it's tinged with desperation now – a reckless sorrow. "It's true, though," she murmurs, closing her eyes on a sigh and leaning into him.

"We'll run away," he says against her temple.

She actually laughs this time, pulling back to look at him. "Run away?"

"Aye," he swears, eyes fervent on hers. He releases her arms to cup her face instead. "Just like you said we should, the morning before we made it to Riverrun. You knew it then. You told me then. That this would happen. And I – I didn't think – " He stops, swallowing thickly. He squares his jaw, his thumbs running tenderly over her cheeks. He sighs, and it seems to take all of him, as he hangs his head, words choked back. "Sansa, I didn't..."

Her lungs ache on the sob she's bottling up, her hands going around his wrists as he holds her. Tears prick the corners of her eyes.

She thinks back to their journey here – riding across green fields in his arms, the warmth of him beside her as they slept, splashing in the river as they fished. She thinks of peace and safety and joy. She thinks of things she only knows from songs. Things she used to dream of and hadn't even known how close they were.

But then she thinks of her mother's embrace, and Robb's tired shoulders, and Arya all alone in the wilderness.

She thinks of Edmure and Brynden and the home they've made for her here.

She thinks of Bran and Rickon.

She thinks of her lord father and how she doesn't even remember the last words she shared with him.

Sansa sucks a trembling breath through her lips, hands gripping his wrists needfully. "Do you regret it? Not running away then?" she manages through quaking breaths.

Jon lifts his head to look at her, the answer splashed across his face in ruin.

And oh, how it cuts.

"Aye," he croaks out, a sheen of wetness over his eyes. "I regret it." And then he bares his teeth, his brow furrowing, a wretched groan leaving him as the tears gather in his eyes, and he shakes his head, the remorse plain upon his face. "I truly, truly regret it now."

She smothers the sob along her tongue, releasing his wrists to cup his face now, pressing into him so that their chests are but a whisper apart. "Don't," she tells him, her breath painting his lips.

His eyes flick between hers, confused.

"You did the right thing, by bringing me back."

"Sansa – "

"I needed my family. And they needed me."

Jon's hands drift down to her neck, his chest rising and falling with his shallow breaths, the words lodged in his throat as he watches her.

"You should never regret bringing me back to them," she urges with a confidence that surprises her.

Yes, she would have run away with him. Yes, she would have been free to love him then. But it would be the only freedom she'd know in a life of chains. And she would grow to resent him for it. She would grow to resent herself.

There are no good choices. Only impossible ones.

"I'm sorry," he sobs at her lips.

Her eyes flutter closed, an exhaustion filling her that seems endless and endless and endless. "I'm so tired, Jon," she breathes into him, and then he's kissing her, and she wraps her arms around his neck, and thinks of the candle she lit. She thinks of the lone flame, and the slow burning. She thinks of the afterimage it leaves in the dark, when it's inevitably snuffed.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles against her lips, one hand dug into her hair, the other braced along her back.

She swallows up his sobs, and floods his mouth with her own, her hands grasping and needful and aimless.

Just the feel of him. Just the feel of him is enough in this moment.

Jon presses her back until she hits the wall with a low thud, the jostle breaking their mouths apart momentarily.

"I'm sorry," he pants into her mouth again.

Sansa digs her nails into the nape of his neck. "I know," she gasps along his tongue, trying not to break.

He fumbles for the tie on her robe and she helps him, tearing the material from her shoulders so only her shift remains. His hands are everywhere – rucking up her shift and dragging her mouth back to his by the back of her neck. His teeth sink into her bottom lip and she moans, her hands fisting in the thin material of his tunic, tugging at it impatiently as he grabs for one of her exposed thighs, hefting it up as he braces his hips to hers, the length of him hard and pressed to her center.

Sansa gasps, gripping his shoulders, tearing her mouth from his to press her head back against the stone wall, her lip caught between her teeth. "Jon," she whimpers, rolling her hips to meet his.

He pants into her neck, nipping slightly, laving his tongue over her pulse, his hand dragging her thigh higher up his hip, fingers digging into her flesh as he bucks into her, his breeches and her smallclothes the only thing separating them now.

"I'm sorry," he groans into her neck, over and over.

Sansa sobs at the words, lost to him. So lost she never hears the door as it creaks open.

So lost she doesn't even recognize the gaze she meets across the room when she opens her eyes.

Like looking into a mirror. That Tully blue.

Sansa stills at the sudden realization, eyes blown wide.

The heat of Jon's mouth is still at her throat when she finds her voice.

"Robb," she chokes out, a new anguish blanketing her tongue.

This is the salt of it.

(And they are the wound.)

#jonsa #jonsa fic #jon snow #sansa stark #nodology #my writing #jon x sansa #got fanfic

55 notes · View notes