#i'm allowed to go work on my kitxsunny story now rite?

[mon-blanchetts]

Thieves Among Us (3/5)

Let Jon have his armies and his devoted wildlings and the love of their people, she thinks. Let him have his dragon queen. She’s in possession of a secret, tragic as it may be, but at least it’s entirely her own. For Sansa, that’s more than enough. It has to be. Rated M; inspired by content from S7. Previous chapters can be found here.

Sansa’s eyes dawned with realization while she stared back at him, her face a kaleidoscope of surprise and panic that burst wide open before swallowing itself up again as she recovered from his unexpected appearance.  

“Hello, Jon,” she greeted evenly. Sansa may have had the sense to speak first, but her tone was distant—as distant as it had been when she’d spoken to him on the rampart. It was like she had thrown ice water over him, jolting him out of his dazed bewilderment. The fact that she sounded so casual, as if her presence wasn’t anything strange to ponder over whatsoever, only set him off the edge just a little further.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” He demanded, barely able to mask the frustration in his voice. His mind had been circling around her for most of the evening while he tried to keep his concerns at bay, but here she was, standing tall before him, her blue eyes as alert as ever. Candlelight spilled over her hair, transforming it into the colour of spun gold, but it was powerless in thawing the coldness in her stance. “Lady Brienne said that you weren’t feeling well,” he related, refusing to cower beneath her hard stare.

Theon’s voice cut through the silence that followed, just as her lips parted in preparation for a response. “Don’t be cross with her, please,” he pleaded.

Jon tore his eyes from Sansa’s to glare at the ironborn reclining in bed, his back against the oaken headboard. Despite his initial intentions, Jon had completely forgotten about Theon as soon as he caught sight of the woman who sat in the chair beside his bed. His face wavered a bit when he took in the ironborn’s damaged frame—shoulders and torso wrapped heavily in linen, with one side of his face well-battered and swollen, the other mottled with bruises, some of them ranging from a deep purple to a sickly yellow.

His grip on the door handle tightened. Jon was still trying to wrap his head around the scene laid out before him, despite the fact that there was nothing complicated to it—nothing at all. Was it because of the stark clarity behind it? He had spent far too much time mentally grappling with the nature of Sansa’s connection with Theon, this newfound affinity that they had unearthed so suddenly; now that there was a picture he could attach to it, something physical and tangible, Jon could only stand and stare.

“Please don’t be cross with Sansa,” Theon entreated again. “It’s my fault she’s here. I asked her to come,” he explained hurriedly.

“It is not your fault,” Sansa protested, shaking her head defiantly, red hair dancing around her face in conjunction with her movements. She rose to her feet in one swift movement—Jon couldn’t help but liken the act to a swan extending her majestic wings in preparation for a flight. “Lady Brienne was only following my orders,” she admitted, head held high. If she felt guilty in the least for lying to him, Sansa managed to conceal it wonderfully. So proficient was she in her ability to rein in her feelings that Jon had to start questioning his own. He was beginning to accept that his bitterness was in league with his jealousy, but what right did he have to be jealous?

“What are you doing here, Jon?” Sansa fired back, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. Strange to think that he had just associated her with a swan, when, at that moment, there was very little to differentiate between herself and a she-wolf protecting her cub. That Sansa eyed him as if he was ready to attack startled him just as powerfully as she’d done earlier, making him the outsider he had always felt like when they were younger. We aren’t supposed to be like this anymore, he wanted to shout at her desperately, Theon’s presence be damned. But Jon feared that his words would only get lost in the arabesque patterns of her gown, like smoke that floated upwards into the gray skies above; he remembered the way his words had fallen onto her deaf ears while they had spoken on the rampart. Had Sansa truly decided to cut herself off from everything sensible, or was there more to it that he didn’t quite understand?

“Well?”

Jon blinked at her. “I came to see Theon,” he answered, glancing back at the man in question again. He felt uneasy at the way the ironborn was observing the both of them, as if he was trying to decipher what hadn’t been said out loud. “I wanted to see if you were all right,” he added, speaking directly to him for the first time.

A smile ghosted across Theon’s mouth before vanishing completely, making his haunted gaze all the more unsettling. “I’m not dead, you see. I suppose that’s a decent start to anything.”

He nodded at him once before turning back towards Sansa. She remained standing with a defensive air still around her, but the expression on her face was faltering. Jon was torn between wanting to dismiss her outright and crumbling onto his hands and knees, desperate to find any gaps in the mountain that stood between them, if the minutest space existed so that he could crawl through. He had sensed their formation as far back as the morning when they had bidden their farewell to one another, stilted and hollow as it was. I will return, he had promised, but Sansa’s gaze remained fixed on the happenings in the main courtyard, her doubt rolling off of her in waves. Jon honestly thought he could’ve drowned. He couldn’t think there was a way to mend the bridges they’d burned in the wake of their passion, of their sin, not while a threat greater than any of them loomed dangerously beyond the Wall. His reticence was coming back to haunt him now, he realized, while his heart crawled its way up his throat.

“I was worried for you,” he admitted, because it felt like the only thing to say. “Does she know you’re here? Lady Brienne?”

Sansa turned her head to the side, eyes falling on Theon. “Nobody knows,” she confided, just before she broke into a smile. A sad one, Jon thought, but it was a knowing one, too.

Her profile was just as beautiful. Her patrician nose was still as sharp as a blade, while the silhouette of her lips made them even more prominent and enticing, especially after he had discovered just how sweet they were. Jon found it peculiar that he was always so fixated on the lips he had tasted, whether it had been here, at Winterfell, or sailing along Blackwater Bay from Dragonstone. He should never been given the privilege to indulge in such temptations, but he had. Now he was left in a mess of confusion and guilt, sinking under the weight of everything else that was happening around them. Jon was as much to Sansa as she was to him—in their current state, though, that didn’t even amount to anything. He would never be able to rationalize the trouble he had while trying to staunch the flare of jealousy threatening to burn through him as he watched the pair in front of him, a scene that looked as if he should never have been privy to.

“Sansa,” he pleaded. She didn’t acknowledge him, not immediately. When she finally faced him again, there was no denying the desolation and sadness that Jon knew she was desperate to hide. She was like a candle that burned with twice the intensity as those around her, only to burn out quicker than all the others—it wasn’t her choice, either, but what the greed of men had set upon her. The human condition was full of great and terrible follies, he lamented, but it pained him to think that Sansa—sweet, strong, beautiful Sansa—was subjected to it so harshly.

It frightened him just as much to think that he might have been part of the force that brought her down, let alone accept it.  

“Let me walk you back to your chambers,” he implored. Jon grimaced—even to his ears he sounded desperate, but he realized just how badly he wanted to talk to her. He needed to. Not the distant, formal way that they would converse when they were in the company of their advisors, but the way they used to when they existed behind closed doors, free of constraints and expectations and all the things that kept them shackled to a reality they wished they weren’t always obligated to. Jon remembered when he used to kiss the space between her breasts, remembered wishing that that should have been the only universe there was.

They had tried retaliating, the two of them, but they had only made things worse.

And you—you’ve only made it worse, whispered a foreign voice in the hollow crevices of his mind, something far off but all-encompassing at the same time, like the echoes of a mountainside.

“That won’t do,” she said, shaking her head adamantly as she approached him. He still stood in the doorway with his fingers still tightly wrapped around the door handle, like an obstacle she would have to face if she wanted out of this room. “I’ll find my own way back,” she declared, just as she made to pass him.

“Sansa–”

“No,” she bit out, snapping her head around to stare at him. The weariness in her eyes mine as well have been a sword through his shoulder blade.

“No,” she repeated, more gently this time, but it did little to soothe his wounds. “Not now, Jon.”

The intricate patterns on her grey dress left him almost disoriented as he tried to follow its trajectory over her shoulders, across her chest, down to her stomach. It was never like this with Dany’s clothes; his aunt favored dresses of solid colours, a clear symbol of her steadfastness and strength. The abstract designs on Sansa’s gown left him confused, out-of-touch, but Jon wondered if that was meant to be their intention.

As if she was trying to hide something.

Sansa passed him without another word. Even if he tried, Jon doubted that he would’ve been able to stop her. Sansa’s steps were quick and purposeful as she walked down the corridor, until, finally, the shadows engulfed her altogether. That was how it was for them: a series of trials where she walked away from him, all while their relations were still as fraught as they were since he came home.

Sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts, Jon nearly lost all knowledge of where he was. That perceptible feeling of being watched brought him back to his surroundings, reminding him that he wasn’t as alone as he felt.

Theon remained silent. Jon saw how he would clutch the furs strewn over his legs before loosening his hold, only to repeat the action over and over.

“If you’ve got something to say, then say it,” he ordered.

The ironborn didn’t respond immediately, but it was clear that he wanted to. Jon’s patience was wearing thin; he wasn’t going to wait forever.

“She’s a lot lonelier than you know,” Theon said at last, stumbling gently on his words, but his gaze never faltered.

His tone wasn’t critical in the least, but to Jon it still sounded like an accusation to him, a painful jab. “What do you know about Sansa?” He sniped, clenching his jaw stubbornly.

“Not as much as you, no doubt,” Theon confessed, staring off into the flames dancing in the hearth. “That doesn’t mean I’m blind to her sorrows and pain.”

When Theon looked back at him again, his face pensive, Jon saw a man so vastly different from the boy he’d grown up with. The ironborn had always been so full of confidence and banter, always eager to expound on all the ways he knew how to pleasure a woman, but that spirit had been completely snuffed out now. Sansa once told him about the man she’d found when she came back to Winterfell, a shell of a man who was so badly damaged that he mine as well have been a ghost. Jon knew from Tyrion Lannister that he’d been castrated, as memberless as the eunuchs that made up part of Dany’s immense host, but it wasn’t until he’d seen him face to face again that he was truly able to grasp the changes that had taken place. Now, with his battered face upon him, Jon couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay.

“What happened that night you were attacked?” He asked, unable to hold back his inquiry. Jon leaned against the doorway, arms crossed in front of his chest, unable to trust himself to go any closer to Theon, who he was still wont to throttle whenever he got near enough. It made him no less vile than the party that had assaulted him, a fact that Jon was in no way proud of, but barely able to contain.

Theon shrugged, unsurprised by the question. “You—you left so many of them here, all these soldiers, while you went away to the Gift. They’re armed and ready for battle, but there’s nothing to quench their bloodlust. Men in that state get restless, most of the time.”

“Why didn’t you fight back?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Maybe I understood where some of their anger came from. I know what people think of me, here in Winterfell. I know better than anyone. How can I blame them for their hatred?”

Jon didn’t know what compelled him. “Sansa doesn’t hate you,” he informed, even while it pained him to say it out loud. “She has absolutely every reason to be, but she doesn’t.”

Theon didn’t react. “Sansa has a gentle heart,” he said. “I’m grateful for someone like her.”

His face was as somber as ever, but his voice was flecked with affection and warmth as he spoke. Jon’s irritation began to simmer again, his mind reaching towards all the questions and possibilities that decided to make an appearance. He was still at odds with Theon and Sansa’s newly-formed connection, even while he had no right to pry.

“Has Sansa told you about the hearing?”

Theon nodded slowly. “She wanted your blessing, but she says that you won’t give it.”

“You understand why, don’t you?”

“Aye.”

Despite his agreement, Jon saw the way Theon’s face fell as he bowed his head to look down at his fingers again. “I’ve already told her that a hearing isn’t necessary. It would only make things worse, and I didn’t come back here to start trouble.”

It was a complete relief to hear that. “Did she take it well?” He inquired, opting to take a step further into the room, his relief momentarily trumping the animosity he harbored for the man reclining in the bed. Jon eyed the chair that Sansa had been sitting in when he first caught a glimpse of her, wondered what exactly the two had been discussing before he had interrupted.

“Well enough, Theon answered. “Sansa wasn’t pleased with my answer, it’s true, but she didn’t press any further when she realized that I wasn’t going to change my mind.”

“She was near willing to travel to all seven Hells and back for you,” Jon admitted, even while it vexed him to do so. The longer he remained in the ironborn’s presence, the more tempted he was to ask him what kind of relations he was having with Sansa. It was his pride—fear, as well, perhaps—that stopped him; he refused to let Theon, of all people, see him unravel. Something about this conversation, though, kept luring him in.

“What have you been telling Sansa these days?” Jon asked, before another idea struck him. “What has she been telling you?”

Theon shook his head slowly, as if any greater effort was too extraneous; judging by his appearance, it might well have been. “It’s not my place to tell you what she’s spoken about,” he stated.

“Because it was about me, wasn’t it?” His fingers curled into fists.

“Not just you,” Theon corrected. “She’s speaks curiously about others, too. About Daenerys Targaryen.”

As soon as her name came out of his mouth, Jon remembered all too well Sansa’s face, of the hurt that had bloomed on it. Is that what you call her in private?

The name had slipped out of him so naturally, without even so much as a second thought to it, but her question had thrown him off course, what with all the implications it conjured. Dany—that was what Jon did call her when they were alone. When they used to lie naked beside one another, questioning the trajectory of their lives, when she told him stories about Essos and the Free Cities—of a world full of colour and histories so different and yet so similar to the continent he’d spent his whole life on—while his bare shoulder bumped against hers.

Jon realized, at the same moment, that Sansa might just have been thinking the same thing.

“Do you love her?”

Theon’s question shattered his reverie, like a rock hurled against a glass-paneled window. Jon stood frozen on the spot, lost for words, despite his desire to hurl a storm of expletives over the ironborn for daring to bring something like that up. Where did Theon think he had the right to ask him a question like that? Why did Theon think he had the right to know, even?

Amidst the chaos that danced in his mind, something dawned on him: Jon didn’t know which woman Theon was referring to. His discovery only issued another wave of confusion and fear over him, threatening to dismantle even faster, like a thread pulled viciously away from the spindle it had been wrapped around endlessly.

“You don’t get to ask me something like that,” Jon bit out, narrowing his eyes at him. Now was as good of a time as ever to leave, he realized, before the ironborn doled out more questions he couldn’t find the words to answer. “I’ll send someone to attend you,” he informed bluntly, turning his back on him. Theon’s question still echoed through his mind relentlessly.

“We’re all broken in some way,” Theon said aloud, determination etched in his voice. “Even Sansa,” he opined.

Jon stopped in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder to glare at the ironborn.

“Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.”

Theon stared at him. “I know that Sansa’s heartbroken,” he confided, quietly. “She hides it well, but there’s only so much she’s able to cover up. She’s hurt. And she’s lonely. Can you swear to know as much, Jon?”

He didn’t answer.

His body, facedown in the dirt and broken leaves. A sacrifice to the Old Gods, but they were never known to accept them.

A sacrifice to Winterfell, then, for all she’s lost.

Sansa couldn’t help the wide smile that appeared on her face while she watched the child that was playing before her. She knew not whether Little Sam’s shrieks were uttered in delight or discontent, but they echoed throughout the cottage in a way that was as hopeful as sunshine in the dead of winter. Once she had always thought that only stories and the lyrics from her favorite songs could move her, but every wordless sound that Sam made was as endearing and moving as the last. He was the reason why she found herself visiting the Tarlys’ home whenever the chance allowed itself, regardless of the lengthy walk required to reach it, a remnant of the winter town located beyond the castle’s main gate house. No matter how low she felt, the sight of the Tarly infant never failed to lift her spirits.

“Why must you be such an awful delight whenever I come round?” She complained gently, wiggling one of his feet that poked out from the hem of his gown. With eyes perfectly shaped like almonds and a mop of hair that was the color of spun gold, Little Sam must have been the handsomest infant for leagues on end—it would take much to convince her otherwise. Even the twisted and terrible history he was born from did little to tarnish the beauty he was so full of. Sansa was well aware of the child’s parentage, but she’d stopped concerning herself about that a long while back.

“You always bring him gifts, see,” Gilly pointed out. They all sat atop a fur rug that was placed a safe distance apart from the hearth, with dozens of small learning blocks scattered around them. While Sansa had played with Little Sam, the former wildling distracted herself with the blocks, where the sides of each one was painted a different color to differentiate the letter that was etched into it. “I think he senses when you’re about to come by, because he’s always so much more happy and agreeable beforehand,” Gilly explained.

Sansa carded her fingers through the infant’s hair, reveling in its softness. “I can’t imagine Sam being anything but a joy,” she protested, allowing him to fist strands of her own hair that he’d managed to grab hold of. She loved that he was just as fascinated by her auburn locks as she was with his golden ones; one too many times Sam had gone and stuffed her hair in his mouth, only to stare up at her afterwards with disappointment. It never stopped him from trying again, though.

If she hadn’t run into Maester Tarly near the entrance of the crypts, today’s visit would never have occurred. The maester had invited her back to his cottage for a spot of dinner with his family, but she was hesitant to intrude on their privacy. Sam had insisted, nonetheless, while the promise of seeing his adopted son again was too tempting for her. Sansa would’ve been lying to herself if she said that she didn’t want to go, besides; while the reality of the situation at hand dawned on everyone more and more, her longing for family magnified tenfold. Memories would always crop up in her mind here and there while she went about her duties, passing through corners where she remembered playing in with her siblings, or springing up in the middle of a conversation with the master of kennels, who was still alive, even after Theon’s attack and the destruction wrought on by the Boltons. What would it be like, she wondered, to share a meal with all of her sisters and brothers again, all of them gathered around a blazing fire as they supped on childhood favourites? Even after everything that had happened between them, Sansa still included Jon in her fancies, too; he would sit the way he did while she had drank her soup, holding his cup of bitter ale in both hands and smiling at her softly when she turned to look at him, still unsure if she’d finally lost her mind, that he was a phantom in her mad imaginings. But Jon had been real—solid to the touch, even after he told her about Ser Allister’s mutiny and the Red Lady’s magic—and she didn’t think she could be happier. When she felt particularly lonely, Theon would be there, too, his smile a little broken, just as it was now, but with just the slightest glimmer of hope in his eyes. The ironborn was back in his little hovel attached to the Broken Tower, his wounds mostly healed, but he was nowhere fit to take up a sword. With the help of a carpenter she was able to get a plank fashioned, one that would fit nicely against the entrance and keep out the draft a bit better.

She couldn’t help but finger some of the learning blocks within her reach while keeping her eyes on Little Sam, fixated as he was on the gift she had brought for him. Curious, Sansa gathered a few of the blocks together before forming them in a row. “What word do I have here, Sam?” She challenged, tapping the last block in the row with a finger. He was on his feet now, staring at the blocks fixedly for a moment before kicking them away. Sansa shook her head with mild amusement.  

Gilly scolded her son for his behavior, but he paid no heed. “Cou—could I see that again, my lady?” She requested.

Sansa knew that Gilly could not read; the former wildling had told her how the late Princess Shireen tried to teach her, but the lessons had been sporadic and short. With all the responsibilities that were hefted on her shoulders, Sansa could offer nothing better, either, but she was more than happy to help when she could. The learning blocks weren’t exactly much, but they turned out to be a delight to both mother and son.

When she was finished forming the word again, the former wildling tilted her head to see. The way she was frowning spoke of her inner struggle to piece the syllables together, but the more she sounded them out, the closer she got. Sansa did not rush her. “Fam-ily,” Gilly pronounced, with a little stutter. “Family,” she said again, this time with more confidence.  

Sansa nodded at her, smiling warmly. “That’s right, Gilly. Family. You, and Samwell Tarly, and Little Sam. You’re a family.”

The words brought about a fresh wave of yearning that she hadn’t anticipated; Sansa ducked her head with the pretence of forming another word with the learning blocks. “What letter is this, Sam?” She inquired, offering a block to him. He took it gingerly from her before making a vain attempt to throw it, but it slipped from his fingers and landed back on the rug. Sansa giggled.

“Sam says that you were in the crypts today,” Gilly recounted. “Is that true, my lady?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And the crypts…that’s where you keep your dead, isn’t it?”

Sansa lifted her head. Gilly wore a mixed expression of fascination and fear, her mouth slightly agape in wonder. She realized that she had spotted a similar look on her son’s face before.

“They’re not my dead, exactly,” she explained gently, mindful of Gilly’s feelings. “The Starks are all buried in the crypts when they die, except for the women who marry into another family.”

“Do you go alone? Aren’t you afraid?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, with a little nod. “But then I remember that there’s really nothing to be afraid of, because just about everyone I love is down there. If there are spirits in the crypts, they’ll only haunt those who wish ill on the Starks, you see.”

Gilly looked unconvinced. “Sam says that Jon—His Grace, I mean—he says that His Grace does not like going to the crypts. He thinks he’s not allowed down there because he’s not a Stark.”

“Jon is a Stark,” she insisted. No matter what had unraveled between them, she still meant it. “Jon will always be a Stark,” she declared. “No matter what others say or think. After what he’s done for his family, he couldn’t be anything else.” How could he be, when he had help reclaim Winterfell for her and their remaining siblings? And what about later on—who else could Jon have been when he agreed to touch her the way she asked him to? She’d been so desperate to regain a piece of who they once were; Sansa had wanted him to wipe out all the memories that continued to scar her mind through the only means she thought possible. He’d gone and complied with that request as well, but, oh, what a mess that had led to. Perhaps there was something of a clairvoyant inside of her, a part of her that had known that Jon was bound to leave her one way or another. Maybe deep down she wanted to keep a piece of him when she knew that it was impossible, but it had turned out that all she’d done was lose what was left of her.

The fire crackled in the small hearth that was crudely built in the wall to her right, tempered with the occasional sharp snap as a log split. She often came to the Tarlys’ cottage to forget about the things that happened inside the walls of the castle, including Jon. Sansa sighed. It was inevitable, she supposed, that his presence would finally bleed through. “Jon must’ve forgotten that he used to play in the crypts when we were younger,” she suggested, rubbing one hand against her arm absently, eager to warm herself up, even while the cottage wasn’t cold in the slightest. “But why would we have been afraid of something we didn’t understand? Children don’t know what death entails. I don’t know if that makes them fortunate or not.” She smiled sadly at Sam, but he was completely oblivious to her now.

“The dead have been known to come alive again,” Gilly alleged with a fearful shake of her head. “The bodies in the crypts…couldn’t they come back as well?”

Sansa glanced at the former wildling, who was watching her quietly. “Some of them could, I suppose.” All the statues in the crypts had been accompanied with a sword as well, so as to keep the spirits at bay. Nobody ever accounted for the actual bodies themselves. The flesh had decayed, but what about the skeletons? Did the Night King’s magic extend to such a circumstance? She thought about Rickon, whose body had not quite become all dust and bones; her blood ran cold at the image of his corpse emerging from the tomb he lay in, his eyes completely lifeless and hollow. Little Sam was toying with the blocks about his feet now, but she was swallowed by the future that loomed ominously before him. Never, she thought defiantly, leaning forward to plant a kiss on the crown of his head. Despite the terrible history he’d been born from, Sansa didn’t know a child who was more loved than the one in front of her, with so many people desperate to protect him, sacrifice their life for him. Had her own mother felt just as strongly about her own progeny? She must’ve, Sansa thought, reaching for a few other blocks around her so that Sam could progress with the tower he was trying to build.    

“What do you do while you’re in the crypts, my lady?” Gilly asked, as their conversation lulled. “Is…is that where you pray?”

“I take care of the statues and the tombs, mostly. Rickon’s in particular. Sometimes, if I can find them, I put flowers before his tomb and think about the man he could’ve become if fate had been kinder to him.”

There was a pensive look on Gilly’s face. “People like Sam put flowers on their dead, too,” she informed. Sansa smiled back at her proudly.

“Yes, Gilly, you’re right. It’s a tradition from the Reach.” She hadn’t known about it, not until she had met Margery Tyrell and the ladies she had brought with her. Beauty was as valuable to them as chivalry and honor—it only made sense that their dead would be sent off in a fashion that reflected their values. Her expression near wavered when she thought of her friend, now deceased. No doubt Olenna Tyrell would have showered all the roses and blossoms of Highgarden onto her beloved granddaughter’s corpse, if only one had been found beneath the rubble and stone of the that once made up the Great Sept.  

The distant sound of knocking brought Sansa back to the present. It stopped briefly, only to resume a moment later, this time more with more persistence. Usually Maester Tarly’s young apprentice was available to answer the door, but it was soon obvious that he wasn’t around. As soon as another round started, Gilly rose from the floor to see who was calling, leaving Sansa alone to watch over her son. Little Sam had given up building a tower with the learning blocks and had turned his attentions back on the gift she had brought him. It was a rattle, one that was coarsely made by a creative blacksmith she had asked; the grains inside of it made a robust, crackly sound every time Sam shook it in his chubby fist enthusiastically. Sansa had to walk all the way back to the Main Keep in order to retrieve it, but the excitement that had bloomed on his face when she presented the toy to him had been well worth the journey.

Sansa let him be while she took notice of the learning blocks that lay about, their bright, almost garish colors a far juxtaposition to the hues that existed all around the cottage; pewter accessories on roughhewn wooden surfaces along with grey, unfinished stone walls were natural reminders of the real world she lived in, but the blocks were like a touch of whimsy that she realized had been sorely missing from her life—no, not just hers, she thought, but from everyone’s. The vibrant colors were so characteristic of the childhood that had been taken from her—a childhood where she had seen life through a window of stained glass, a kaleidoscope of colors that had been entirely false, though there was no denying its beauty.

It didn’t occur to her what she had been forming, not until her vision came into focus and she stared down at the line she had made with six of the blocks. The longer Sansa stared, the more she remembered; a smile crept along her lips while she traced each letter with her finger, as if they were a living, breathing entity in themselves. She could feel the areas where the paint had chipped off, evidence of time passed. Time was supposed to have healed her, she thought, but that hadn’t been true. Just how long would it haunt her? How long would the yearning last for?

A gust of white fur completely overwhelmed her vision, a shock that nearly chased the life out of her. Sansa gasped loudly as she stumbled back in surprise, until she discovered a moment later that it was Ghost. The direwolf had his wet nose against her arm as he continued to inspect her, his eyes as red as she always remembered them. Where had he even come from?  

“Gilly,” she began, looking up to ask about Ghost’s sudden appearance, but the figure she had assumed to be the former wildling turned out to be no such person.

Jon towered above her, those gray eyes of his wide with surprise. He was draped in furs that still had flecks of snow clinging all over it, while Longclaw’s ivory pommel peaked out from beneath the folds of his cloak, offering a break from the somber colours of his attire, like a lighthouse in the middle of a moonless night. Sansa was sure that the sight of him would have chilled her to the bone, as his appearance had done when he found her in Theon’s bedchamber more than a sennight ago, but Jon’s presence this time around turned out to have the opposite effect. Suddenly she was burning with indignation, scorching beneath dozens upon dozens of thick layers—as if the heat of the south was upon her. Sansa thought she might’ve been able to walk through fire like his Dragon Queen, convinced that she, too, would come out unscathed. Maybe he would’ve wanted her, she thought with bitter acridity, if only she possessed some of the gifts that his lover did. She wasn’t yet strong enough to delve into all the possibilities of what made Daenerys Targaryen attractive in Jon’s eyes, not after she had gotten more than what she could swallow when she had discussed it with Theon, but her curiosity didn’t wane, either. Sansa knew, for the sake of her pride and her sanity, that she should just gave it all up; and yet, there was something oddly addicting about the pain she suffered through that she just couldn’t let go.  

“Hello, Jon,” she greeted, regarding him with as much nonchalance as she could bear. Was he going to make another outburst like he’d gone and done that night? She wasn’t doing anything duplicitous this time around. Strange that it never dawned on her that she might run into him here, despite the cottage being where his closest friend currently dwelled; Jon was always tied up somewhere, in one war council or another, that it just seemed highly unlikely that he would ever step foot beyond the Main Keep.

Jon was twisting his gloves absently with his hands. “Hallo,” he responded softly, as if he was still wasn’t sure what to make of her. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

When his gaze turned downwards, Sansa realized with an all-consuming panic that he was looking at the row of blocks she was toying with, that he could read the name that she had formed on a whim. A name that he wasn’t privy to.

He must never know.

With a careless swipe of her hand she scattered the blocks away, praying to all the gods she knew of that he hadn’t seen anything.

Little Sam emitted another yelp of infant delight that penetrated the silence hovering almost painfully between them, a most welcome distraction from the dread that threatened to overwhelm her. When Sansa turned away from Jon to see what the child was up to, she found him playing with Ghost, who nuzzled the boy’s neck with animal affection. It was a heartwarming sight, even if she was feeling a little resentful towards the direwolf for stealing Sam’s attention away from her. The rattle she had brought for him was resting beside him, momentarily forgotten.

“Why are you here?” She asked over the raucous, her eyes still fixed on Sam’s and Ghost’s antics. As long as she had someone else to focus on, Sansa was convinced that she could hold herself together. She was bothered by the fact that her thoughts were constantly in disarray whenever Jon was close by, certain that she had already hurdled over such a shortcoming. Neither was she happy by the fact that they kept on running into each other, either. Wasn’t it in their best interests to stay away from one another?

Well, it was hers, at least.

“I wanted to speak with Sam,” he answered. “Gilly says I’ve just missed him, though.”

Gilly’s voice floated towards them. “But he will be back, Your Grace,” she insisted, reappearing beside Jon, her crooked smile full of easy assurance. “Sam said he would only be gone a moment, but Sam always says things like that, and one moment becomes another, and another, but he always comes back,” she babbled. “He hasn’t finished eating yet, see,” she added, gesturing to the table nearby; sure enough, the remains of his meal were still there, covered by his linen. The stew was cold now, the bread just as so. “Why not stay here and wait for him?” Gilly urged. “I’ll go find him for you.”

Sansa bristled at that, turning her face away from both of them to gather herself together and figure out how she might take her leave. She could handle Jon in a crowded room filled with nobles and advisors, but in a setting as private as this, she wouldn’t last long. After their encounter on the rampart she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be able to make it through a similar experience, even if Gilly and Little Sam were present.

“I ought to go,” she announced, while she got to her feet. Ghost left Sam to return to her, letting out a whine of protest before pressing his muzzle into the palm of her hand. It was the wrong thing for either of them to do; Sam looked around in confusion, his face screwing up in preparation for a wail.

Unable to ignore his sadness, Sansa bent down on her knees to pick the boy up. “Don’t cry, my little lamb,” she begged, bouncing him up and down in her arms in an effort to cheer him up. “Don’t you know that I’ll never tire of watching you?” she confessed, smoothing his hair away from his face with one free hand. “Will you still like me when I run out of things to give you, my sweet?”

It was uncertain whether Little Sam understood what she was saying; he broke into an open-mouth smile, nonetheless.

“Will you stay with me?”

Sansa darted a furtive glance in Jon’s direction, alarmed by his request. “Why would you want that?”

He gave his leather gloves another sharp twist. “I want to speak to with you, Sansa.”

“About what?”

Jon watched her with a clouded look. She could sense that he was trying to figure out what he could and could not say before Gilly—like most of those around them, she knew little about their fractured relations. United a front they appeared in public, but when the doors closed behind them and the curtains were drawn up, it became another matter altogether.

“It’s about Theon,” he confided.

That made her frown. “Theon,” she echoed flatly.

He nodded at her wordlessly. Sansa wondered, for just a brief moment, if she could trust him.

“You could watch over Little Sam while Gilly’s away,” he suggested off-handedly, when she still watched him with questioning eyes. As if on cue, the boy let out a shriek of delight, all while trying to reach out towards Ghost.

“Yes, you could,” Gilly agreed. “It’ll be faster that way, too, if I don’t have to strap him on my back.”

Sansa regarded both of them pensively. If she had Little Sam with her, maybe it wouldn’t go so bad, she reasoned. The child was too much of a joy to walk away from, so much so that he could even override her own hesitations. She wasn’t even sure if there was anything left to discuss between them where Theon was concerned—the ironborn had already turned down the idea of a hearing, anyway, meaning that it wasn’t necessary for Jon to campaign against her participation. Sansa glanced back at him to see if she could discern anything from his demeanor, but she found that she couldn’t look at him for very long, not anymore. It was such a sad turn of events, the pace at which things once so beautiful and charming could mutate into something ugly and unfortunate. She still remembered with clarity how she could barely keep her eyes off him while he stood naked before her, ready to learn and understand him in a way she knew she’d never done before with any man. I am a snake who has shed its skin once more, she had recited again and again, all while she basked in the feel of his bare skin against her palm, warm and safe and everything she could want in that moment. Their pasts had already been set in stone, but the first time he brought her towards her first peak, Sansa had believed that, perhaps, there were some things that could be regained. With paradise flashing behind her eyelids and Jon surrounding her, Sansa had never felt so innocent.

If only she had been smart enough to anticipate the fall. Surely it wouldn’t have turned out as painful as it did, if only she had prepared herself for the corrosion of dreams she should’ve have invested in, anyway. Little Sam was fisting locks of her hair again, pulling her face towards him; would she have felt as lonely as she did now, if those in her life had turned out differently?

Gilly was off as soon as Sansa agreed to watch over Little Sam in her absence, but not before she squeezed her son’s feet affectionately. Come back soon, she pleaded silently, lowering herself back onto the fur rug again with the boy in her arms. She wondered how merciful the gods would be this time around.  

After stowing away his cloak and sword, Sansa pretended not to notice when Jon pulled a low stool towards them that he promptly occupied, just along the edge of the rug that she rested on, together with Little Sam and Ghost. Gilly had offered her the same stool initially, until Sam’s charms had led her onto the floor completely. Through a curtain of her own hair she could make out his boots, but that turned out to be more than enough for her to bear. The silence around them was beginning to grow heavy again; it felt like an eternity later when Jon spoke at last.  

“Theon’s left his chamber in the Main Keep,” he informed.

“I know that.”

“Do you know where he’s gone?”

Sansa nodded. “I do. Now that he’s mostly recovered from his wounds, he didn’t want to take up the space that was needed.” She didn’t reveal where he’d gone, but that wasn’t any of Jon’s concern.

“I’m glad that he’s healing,” he admitted. “That’s good news to hear.”

She toyed with the hem of Sam’s gown, recalling the one she had completed a fortnight ago. “I hope something like that won’t happen again. Who knows if Theon will survive another beating as severe as the one he just went through?” The thought made her ill, but considering his reluctance to proceed without any public justice, Sansa knew that the possibility of another ambush was high. When she had spoken to the ironborn about his decision to forgo any hearing, she demanded to know if Jon had played any role in his decision. Theon had denied any coercion on his part. Was it possible that he was lying?

Of course it’s possible, she thought. Jon was leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, his fingers entwined. He was eyeing her with a strange mixture of tender weariness, but it was better than a look of disgust that she’d been anticipating.

“You know, I was wrong to expect that someone as broken as Theon would have been able to help me,” she confessed, keeping her voice as level as possible. Children were perceptible things; she knew that Sam may not understand the things she said out loud, but he could still tell when something was amiss when she used a certain tone around him. Sansa forced a smile on her face when the boy turned away from Ghost to look at her, his deep, blue eyes flecked with curiosity. She liked to think he was asking her if she was all right, if only he was able. “Theon did what he could, when he could. He said he would’ve taken me to the Wall if it meant his life. Who knows if he really meant it, but I believed him at the time. I have every right to hate him as much as everyone else does, but I can’t. I won’t,” she declared, before she drew a shaky breath. “Theon deserves whatever I can offer him.”

There was a light pause. “I should have known that nothing would’ve stopped you from being his champion—not even a whole legion of White Walkers. I was a fool to think I could sway a mind as determined as yours.”

Sansa couldn’t help but smirk at that. “I don’t have very much else, these days,” she murmured, while she still played with the ends of Sam’s gown. Of course the child wasn’t hers, but he was distraction enough from the things she had lost. “Poor Theon,” she breathed. “What’s to be done with him?”

When she lifted her head to look at Jon again, he was watching at her with a studious look on his solemn features. “Theon knows his way with a bow and arrow,” Jon pointed out, “better than he does with a sword, to be sure. I thought it would do him good to teach the fresher recruits how to use them. If we’re serious about using wildfire, we’ll need all the proficient archers we can train.”

She lifted a curious eyebrow. It wasn’t a terrible idea, really. Theon needed something to occupy him, other than ready the weapons he had yet to use. Since the attack, her concerns had been strictly on his recovery; Sansa had put little thought into what he could do afterwards. The fighting would happen soon enough, but until then, he could contribute in different ways. “Will the other men even listen to him?”

“They’ll have to, if they want to survive.”

Whether or not Jon came with the idea spontaneously, she didn’t know. While the idea was still too new, what with no tangible plans to execute it, Sansa found that she liked it, nonetheless. “Theon will agree to that, I hope,” she admitted. Her face didn’t feel as taut as it had been earlier, but the air was still fraught with all the things they left unspoken, of secrets and confessions never to be uncovered.

“Something still needs to be done about Lord Hornwood,” she pointed out, ignoring her pain. Lord Cerwyn, in a surprising turn of events, had come forward to confess his role in Theon’s attack, albeit in a drunken state, as he claimed. It was far easier to dole out punishment to those who admitted to the crime, rather than those who would not, she learned, hardening at the thought of Hornwood. The man had been undeterred by his peer’s confession, despite the testimonies of the lower-grade soldiers who had been involved. Without a proper hearing, there wasn’t much she could do without inciting the wrath of the other nobles.

Sansa didn’t miss the smirk that flashed on his face before it disappeared beneath his whiskers. “It’s to Lord Hornwood’s good fortune, then, that there’s a vacancy at Easwatch,” he explained.

“What?” She burst out, glaring at him with fury dancing in her eyes. Her features softened when she glanced down at Little Sam, who was watching her curiously againy after the noise she had made. “He nearly killed Theon, and now you’re offering him a keep?”

Jon nodded, undeterred by her anger. “I told him it was his—if he can hold it, that is. Hornwood’s under the impression that a wildling like Tormand isn’t competent enough to lead, that the castle’s going to pieces and the men running amuck. He’s got the opportunity to lord over the castle, provided that he can prove himself capable of doing so.”

“What about Tormund?”

“Doing what he knows. When Hornwood gets to Eastwatch, they’ll only be so many men who will be willing to follow him blindly, until they realize which is the stronger of the two. When it dawns on them, it won’t be long until Hornwood will submit. After that, Tormund can make use of him as he will.”

Sansa studied his figure. “Did you come up with that yourself?”

He shrugged. “Most of it. I remembered Sam’s own upbringing and the kind of man his father had wanted him to be. Maybe Hornwood will learn a thing or two while he’s at The Wall, so long as he doesn’t get himself killed.”

By whom? She thought, grasping at the fabric of her own gown. By Tormund and the wildlings who had followed him to Eastwatch, or by the White Walkers and the wights that the Night King had conjured amongst the dead?

Daylight poured through the only window in the cottage, highlighting the planes of Jon’s face. The faded scar that cut over his left eye was more visible than it usually was because of the light, a line so out of place because it ran in the opposite direction to the brief lines that were grew more evident across his temple. She hated to think about it, but the memory came unbidden, almost like winter itself: her lips following the length of his scar that started from his forehead, before she slowly made her way past his left eye towards his cheek, where it reappeared again, a soft red isle in an expansive ocean of flesh. Sansa had felt like a connoisseur, an aesthete, reveling in the beauty that had come from what was a mark of pain, of violence and destruction. She had learned of her lover’s scars as well as Jon had learned hers, but had he ever really viewed them as something beautiful, the way she did? Or was the evidence of her abuse just something to pity over?

Her mind full of unwanted images, Sansa turned away from him in the hope of focusing her attention elsewhere. Their conversation had lulled now, the silence as loud as it was uncomfortable; when she rediscovered the learning blocks she’d been playing with earlier, she grabbed at them eagerly, as thankful for their presence as a beggar was thankful for a roll of bread when he hadn’t eaten in days. There was a noise from beyond the cottage, a soft thump that wasn’t unlike the sound Longclaw made when Jon had set it down against the table. It occurred to Sansa that he likely hadn’t come alone; there must’ve been a few guards who had accompanied him out here, if only because precedence dictated it to be so. She pitied them for having to stand out in the cold, if that were truly the case. It made her curious as to what he came to see Sam about.

Sansa was stacking one block on top of another when Jon spoke up, his voice as rough as sandpaper against wood.

“Ser Davos told me that you were making a wedding cloak,” he confided; there was no ignoring the accusation laced in his tone. “And it’s supposed to be for me.”

Her tower of blocks came tumbling down noisily. Jon’s comment didn’t come as a surprise, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t affected by it.

“I am,” she confirmed, her voice as even as she could make it.

“Why?”

Sansa didn’t have the courage to say it. “It’s just a cloak,” she insisted, unsure whether it was for his benefit or whether it was actually for hers. “You know why,” she claimed, her eyes locked on the learning blocks while she spoke. She hated him in that moment, bitter and resentful that he wanted her to say the words out loud, just as she was bitter and resentful of herself. Jon’s wedding cloak was only partially done with the Stark sigil only half-way embroidered in, but if need be she was now willing to bring on a few extra hands to complete the design, women with double the experience and just as nimble with their fingers. She had thought that if she could complete the cloak herself she could prove her strength—with each stitch she darned, Sansa hoped to mend her own heart, split open and irreparable as it may be, to her dismay. Instead, with each stitch that she put in, the weight of her heartache only grew heavier and heavier, until she was left wondering when she would finally crumple under it all.

Jon jumped to his feet without so much as a warning, his stool scraping loudly against the floor from the impact of his movement. Sansa tilted her head up as far as it would go, her eyes meeting his own heated gaze.

“I am not marrying Daenerys Targaryen,” he proclaimed, with so much conviction in his voice that she was almost persuaded enough to believe him. At least this time he was wise enough to use Her Majesty’s full name rather than the informal one he had let slip the last time they’d spoken in private, and she was oddly grateful for it. But, really, what did it matter if he didn’t marry her, in the end? Sansa could’ve placated herself with the thought of a marriage that was purely political; she knew, just like everyone else did, that their relationship was so much more than that. She had wanted so badly to believe that everything she heard was just another of Littlefinger’s lies, except that he had been dead before Jon ever left for the south, had been no more than a rotting corpse when the stories reached her ears, tales of dragons long thought to have been the stuff of songs and poetry—of Cersei Lannister and her sellswords from Essos drawing a river of blood that flowed through the streets of King’s Landing, but she’d gone up in flames anyway, no matter how loud she roared. Sansa hadn’t shed any tears for those stories; no doubt some of them had been exaggerated for the sake of propaganda. But then came those about Jon and the Dragon Queen, of unbridled passion that had no doubt been consummated, many, many times over—it was those tales she could not hold back on, no matter how hard she tried. None of those stories had been Baelish’s fabrications. The realization only made the truth harder to swallow than ever.

Sansa was holding herself together desperately when she allowed herself to speak. “I don’t believe you,” she protested. “Nobody will believe you,” she added.

Hurt danced across his face. “I would never lie to you, Sansa.”

That doesn’t mean you won’t hide things from me, she thought resentfully. An image of The Dragon Queen’s rose up again in her mind, what with her pale limbs and violet eyes. How often had Jon gotten lost in those eyes? How many times had Jon entangled himself with her?

“You should’ve just married Her Grace in King’s Landing,” she said reproachfully. Sansa was oddly emboldened by his discomfort, even while each word she spoke was like a knife through her heart. She looked away again, turning her head to check on Sam’s whereabouts, but more words were already bubbling to the surface. “If only you did, then it wouldn’t be such a cause for concern now, when there’s already so much to deal with.”

She could sense the frustration rolling off his body like the undulating waves of the Blackwater, drawing closer after each tide, but never quite reaching her. How Sansa used to stand at the edge of the shore and watch the horizon for hours and hours on end, praying for a ship with a direwolf sigil against its sails, trying to ignore the discomfort that the healing scars and bruises affected. She had to remind herself that the blood of wolves coursed through her veins, that a couple of beatings could never break down her walls, no matter the lions that roared just outside its perimeters.

She was preparing herself for Jon’s verbal revolt, or, at the very worst, his declaration of what she already knew, of what she had accepted with a shattered heart. It never came.

“Do you remember when I came back from the South?” He asked, still towering above her.

“Not really,” she lied.

There was a brief pause until she heard Jon sigh quietly. When she caught his intertwined hands in the corner of her eye, she knew he’d returned to his seat.

“I do,” he confessed, his voice thick. “I’m sure I remember every moment of it.”

Sansa didn’t say anything. Little Sam was switching his attention between Ghost and herself; hoping to win him over, she offered him another colorful block, shaking it before his face, even while there was no rattling noise to accompany the action. The child was taken aback by the object, his green eyes wide with wonder, despite the fact that were blocks scattered all around him as well, his little fingers digging into hers as he pried the block from her. She studied the boy intently, as if all his movements and expressions were new to her. If Jon was affected by her ignorance, he made no mention of it.

“There was a messenger who approached me while we were riding past Castle Cerywn along the Kingsroad,” he recounted, reaching forward to retrieve the rattle that Little Sam had ungallantly thrown away. “He told me there was a party from Winterfell waiting to accompany us at the crossroad, but he never said who the group was made up of. The thing was, he didn’t have to—I already knew you were going to be one of them. That made me happier than I thought I could ever be, but when I think back on it now, it doesn’t seem so strange, after all.”  

“Why not?”

There was such a long pause that Sansa couldn’t help but turn back towards him. It was a grave mistake; she ended up staring straight into his gray eyes, familiar and full of intense yearning, just as he longed to remember them.

“I missed you so much,” he confessed, as soft and quiet as a hare roaming soundlessly in the snow. “All I ever wanted was to see you again, Sansa,” he insisted, clutching the rattle tightly in his hands. The words were meant for her ears only, she realized, where innocents like Little Sam nor familiars like Ghost were privy to that, even when they didn’t have the capacity to understand what Jon had spoken aloud.

Fear began to well up inside of her, drowning out all sensations and noise. Please don’t do this, she begged silently, clenching her own teeth to prevent herself from saying the words out loud. Jon had made his choice long before he’d taken his Dragon Queen to bed, long before he brought her back with him to Winterfell, the two of them riding together side-by-side, while Sansa watched across the field, eyes boring into the scene that played out before her as she realized with a sinking heart how true the stories might actually be.

“Sometimes I thought I’d forgotten the way you look because I’d been away from you for so long,” he pressed on, oblivious to the chaotic state her mind was in. “And then I reached King’s Landing for the first time, not knowing what to expect, other than the things you told me about. And everywhere I looked, I saw you.”

“Suppose I wasn’t worth a place in your memories before that,” she muttered, unable to hold her tongue any longer. It was the only way she knew how to protect herself from his words, angry that he was telling her all this now. What did he hope to gain from this? What game was Jon playing with her?

The air shifted. Even without looking she could feel him tensing up. “I never forgot you,” he said, the words enunciated like a hammer coming down, swung using the strength of his conviction. “Even when I wanted to, you were always on my mind.”

Sansa wanted to prove him wrong with every fibre of being, desperate to catch him in the middle of his lies he swore he would never tell her, a desire that pushed her towards the edge of confession. She knew that she was putting herself in a vulnerable position, a tapestry whose weaves were about to come apart, intricate pieces of thread frayed and destroyed. She didn’t want to care, anymore. Besides, when was victory ever achieved without a few sacrifices?

Her heart was racing painfully in her chest when she finally lifted her head, mindful of all the emotions that threatened to reveal themselves on her face. It turned out that she had miscalculated the distance between them, had not realized that he was within arm’s reach, but the fact did little to weaken her resolve.

“I was never on your mind while you were at Dragonstone, was I?”

Jon’s reaction wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned, but it was enough. There was no denying the guilt that blossomed on his face, the way his features melted just as he turned his head to the side to avoid the hurt and betrayal she knew shone bright in her blue eyes. Sansa didn’t even have to be explicit; they knew exactly what she meant.

“Theon was probably right,” she concluded. “Maybe…maybe it was all inevitable. There are some connections you just can’t deny, like forces that are meant to collide and meld.” She broke into a sad smile, despite herself. “Everyone must’ve known the moment they saw the both of you.”

But nobody knows about us, she thought. Nobody except Theon, perhaps, but she’d never confessed anything outright. There was Littlefinger; he had known. But he was dead, just before he had any opportunity to use what he knew against either of them. Was it wrong to wish he were still alive, in times like this? Baelish would’ve had something to say, at the least. It was easier to harden her heart to everything while he had still been alive.

“Sansa,” Jon pleaded, but she refused to face him again. She always found it strange nowadays when he said her name aloud, so seldom was it uttered. I am the Lady of Winterfell, she reminded herself, hoping that the title would act like a talisman that could magically forge the walls she needed garrisoned around her. Not just from Jon, though, but from everyone.  

“I need you to hear me,” Jon pressed, his voice taut with emotion that was barely bridled. “Listen to me, please. I never, ever wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt anyone. The things that happened…I won’t deny them. I won’t disrespect you by lying, Sansa. You deserve to know the truth, if that’s what you want.”

Her hands were shaking now. Sansa wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the truth, wasn’t sure if she had it in her to listen to him while he confessed the things she had already imagined behind her eyelids, anyway. It’s all irrelevant, besides, she persuaded herself, ready to cling to anything that might keep her heart and her sanity in tact. Yes, it was irrelevant, in the end. Love, she learned, was a privilege, never a right. She had been in the wrong when she let herself indulge in such a state, even if she had stumbled upon it by accident.

But it wasn’t enough. Over and over the question turned in her mind, as never-ending as a boulder rolling down a mountainous hill. Did you ever love me as much as I loved you?

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she protested. Sansa had just realized how exhausted she was, that their conversation was more trying than she could’ve imagined. She didn’t even think it would ever come to this, not while his mind was tied up with the war effort and his body belonging to his Dragon Queen, and yet here they were, two ships that had somehow reunited in the midst of a wild storm. “What’s done is done.”

“I shouldn’t have left you the way I did,” he admitted, eyes downcast. “If there had been any way, I wouldn’t have left you at all.”

With his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, it was a rare show of vulnerability and exhaustion that reminded her of the fact that, despite his resurrection at the hands of the Red Lady, he was still irrevocably human. Jon was just as mortal as everyone else was. He was at risk of making the same mistakes, subject to suffer through the same highs and lows. Jon was no different than she was.

Sansa sighed quietly to herself. “You went south because you had to,” she said with a tone of resignation. “And I’m glad you did, because it turned out to be the right thing to do, after all.”

He didn’t respond, but she saw a smile hovering against his mouth, much to her consternation and delight. It warmed her more than she liked, seeing him when he was anything less than somber, especially when there was so little to be happy about these days.

“What is it?”

“I think that’s the closest you’ve ever been to admitting you’re proud of me.”

Sansa frowned. “That isn’t true,” she said, scoffing indignantly, all while trying to recall any particular memory that she could use to prove him wrong. It was to her misfortune that she came up blank.

“All right, so I may not have said it in so many words,” she conceded, “but I’m sure I’ve told so, once or twice.”

Rather than retaliate, his smile grew wider. Lifting his head to look up at her again, Sansa caught the hint of mirth present in his eyes, that which indicated his amusement rather than any offense to her comment, and it took most of her will-power to keep her own face from wavering into a smile.

“You’re not the only one who’s guilty, though,” he pointed out. His smile wavered a bit. “I’ve never told you how proud I am of you, either.

She shrugged, but there was no ignoring the warmth that spread through her. “There were more important matters at hand.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he protested. “The North has you to thank for its independence, not me. If you hadn’t been so determined to take back Winterfell, who knows where any of us would be?”

“Where, indeed?” She questioned. Her head swam with all the duties and responsibilities associated with her title; everything was made heavier by the emotional turmoil she’d been suffering through for so long now. Jon’s smile—even the smallest one—was nearly enough to dismantle the sorrows he’d caused the moment she saw him riding alongside Daenerys Targaryen from across the field, their banners waving relentlessly behind them. Sansa never wanted anyone to leave her so unhinged, not even Jon, whom she had loved with such fervor that she was left breathless just thinking about it. There was no denying the spark of happiness she felt when he had told her how proud he was, but Sansa also couldn’t deny the feeling that, perhaps, his praise might have come too late. What use was there for it, when she was still alone?  

There was no anticipating what Jon did next, deep as she was in her thoughts—his movements, careful as they were, still contained a spontaneous air to it that took her by utter surprise. Sansa felt the pads of his callused fingers ghosting along the side of her cheek as he pushed strands of her hair away from her face, looping them over the shell of her ear tenderly, the act as familiar and intimate as he had once performed it while they had lain together, each as naked as the day they were born.  

“Don’t,” she ordered, as soon as she realized what he’d done. “Don’t ever do that again,” she warned, her voice only slightly above a whisper, because it was all she could manage under the circumstances.

Jon went as still as a statue. As soon as he appeared able, he drew back slowly, remorsefully, but she refused meet his gaze after that. How such a simple act could feel like a betrayal, she knew not, but it did. It did.

Both of them were startled by the sound of the door slamming shut, jolting them out of the world they had built around themselves. Sansa didn’t think she’d ever been as grateful to Maester Tarly as she was when he appeared before them, looking every bit as disheveled and endearing as ever, but a welcoming sight regardless.

Sam rose from the floor with Little Sam gathered protectively in her arms, never once looking at Jon.

AN: Yes, I know this chapter is ridiculously late, and I sincerely apologize for it. Does the length make it better? I don’t know. Am I grateful to people who read this? Yes!

All feedback is welcome. Thank you so much to everyone who’s been reading and leaving support. It’s you guys that motivate me to keep writing.