#jonsa hag prompts

[reginarubie]

For that lovely anon who asked the “Until I found you,” song, Jonsa story:

Here you have the canon one, know I mean to make the next installment of Jon and Sansa do end up together by Sansa POV with this song so you shall have the modern version too!

(I know you had sent me another ask, but I can’t find it for the life of me in my ask box, I have too many unanswered asks, but I did not forget about you!)

I was lost within the darkness until I found her [I found you]

To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. “Sweet lady,” he said, “no victory is half so beautiful as you” — Sansa II, AGOT

He wanted it. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. — Jon XIII, ASOS

Jon said, "Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa." — Jon IV, ADWD

Of sudden, he felt the warmth spreading from his chest to his limbs, up his neck, turning almost into a scorching heat burning him, and darkness inside of him from within.

Someone was chanting, chanting in some kind of ancient, malicious tongue that seemed to curl around his heart like an iron fist and squeeze until there was no longer life inside of him and no breath inside of his breast.

Someone was singing, the voice so far and so soft that Jon wondered if it could be his mother, singing to him from the recess of his mind.

Does she know about me?

The next time we see each other, we'll talk about your mother.

In his dreams his mother had always been beautiful, with kind eyes and a soft voice, noble born and she loved him. He wondered if that warmth spreading into his limbs and vanquishing the cold could be her love. Maybe, in death he'd known the embrace of a woman who loved him, that kind of love than could not die, that kind of love one could not deny, the kind of love for which duty and death were nothing but empty words with no power over him.

You know nothing, Jon Snow., Ygritte seemed to accuse him from somewhere in the recess of his mind and Jon could almost feel her probing hands on her, and wished once again Ghost was there, to stand between them.

Ghost, he remembered the blades and the cold.

Traitor.

Half a wildling, half a wolf, the blood of Winterfell. Somewhere deep in his being a wolf howled and it was as if he was suddenly shoved back inside his own body after having floated above it, around it, without anything binding him to the empty vessel he had left behind.

I loved another, echoed in his mind, the warm hand of the Red woman gripping at him, probing at him. The dead need no lovers, Jon Snow. But suddenly her heat was gone from his flesh and Jon felt the burn of the air feeling his lungs again — like the bite of the cold across his flesh — and he shivered as he roused with a sob.

The room was all wrong, he decided as his eyes adjusted to the dim light and the wooden canopy. Everything was wrong.

Davos' kind eyes, fatherly in some way he couldn't quite explain, were the first thing his glance could focus on.

———————————————————————————————————

“You swore an oath!” Edd tried to plead with him. I'm the sword in the darkness, I am the shield that guards the realms of men. He remembered his oath, but he also remembered the darkness and emptiness of death.

“My watch has ended,” he countered, his voice rough and dark and rasping. He doubted he'd ever talk quite right again, or feel quite warm enough from the chilling cold that the bite of death had left behind, claiming some part of him.

“Where will you go?” there was defeat in Edd's voice and Jon almost felt sorry for him. I cannot remain here, not after what happened. Jon knew all of his men by heart if not by name and that those very same men would plunge knives in his back…

“South,” he said on the spurn of a moment “get warm,” he added with a forced smile, that had nothing of the few genuine ones he had found himself dispensing to his men, to his brothers.

He could see in Edd's eyes. What about Winterfell?, Stannis had offered him Winterfell, but Stannis was dead. And Jon was just a bastard, besides, Winterfell belonged to Sansa. It was hers by law and by justice.

I know all about Lady Lannister and her claim, better Sansa and her new name than the bastard who had been killed by his own brothers. Even if she was forever lost, to death or to the coldness, then Winterfell would be lost with her.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

His fingers curled around the hilt of Long Claw. Honor made you leave, honor brought you back. Then the horn was sounded. Visitors.

Who would come?, who would reach the end of the world and not think of turning back and return where the sun shone and away from this land of death and coldness?

Hair as red as liquid copper, tangled into a semblance of a braid, framing a lovely if pale face and sparkling blue eyes, shining with barely concealed tears.

His heart skipped a beat.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Sansa was shivering, but she was real in his arms. Her cheek was ice cold, but as she nuzzled against his face it seemed to spread warmth into his chilled bones. Her arms were trembling and her back was racked by soft sobs.

You are alive, her breath seemed to say, to chant, you are home. And his heart beat at the beat of one single word. Home.

——————————————————————————————————

You fell, I caught you. I'll never let you go like I did.

She's somehow grown more lovely too. He couldn't tell how that was possible. Sansa had always been, at the edge of his mind, someone far lovelier than any maiden in a song. She had been born to be a princess, though he had hated that they had betrothed her to Joffrey.

Daintily she ate the broth Jon had, had brought to them. Beautiful. That's not the right word either, his mind supplied, the right word sitting at the tip of his tongue.

Radiant.

Sansa had always been radiant, but all the more when she was happy. She had looked radiant as she had walked beside Joffrey inside the great hall of Winterfell, so many years past, as Jon bristled in the corner.

Now, she looked even more radiant.

He couldn't feel cold anymore, he realized. It was as if by returning Sansa had also returned some chunk of his own being back to him.

Home.

“Where will you go?” her tone had been even, but Jon could feel the concealed dread and fear in her.

As if Jon could ever let her go, now that they had found one another again.

“Where will we go,” he corrected her watching her slowly realizing the implication of his words as a soft beam opened, timidly, on her rosebud lips — had her lips always looked so pink? — his eyes unable to tear away from the soft peak of her pink tongue as she spoke, “if I don't watch over you Father's ghost will come back and murder me,” he jested.

That was safe.

He was her brother, and Sansa had suffered enough — she had not said but Jon could see it in the depth of her blue eyes — he wanted to be her safe space, from now on.

He smiled to her.

“Where will we go?” she asked again, then, her voice ever softer, as if Jon was being caressed by a cloud of warmth. She had always had the easy smile of the Tullys — they all did — and yet her smile had always been far more enchanting that Robb's or even Arya's.

“I don't know,” he admitted, looking down to his lap, “can't stay here, not after what happened,” he added, looking back to the hearth.

But I will keep you safe, he wanted to say. He didn’t.

“There's only one place we can go,” Sansa murmured, her eyes never leaving his face, “home,”.

He should've been surprised. He wasn't. Sansa was every inch as stubborn as any other of his siblings. His lord father used to say that he knew better than to fight with a Tully.

Jon knew better than think he'd be able to refuse Sansa anything.

“Should we tell the Boltons to pack up and leave?,” he asked, hoping his voice sounded teasing but conveyed the fact that Jon would never bring her back to the Bolton's clutches.

“We'll take it back,”

And there is was. The Tully's head-strongness. Sansa had been perhaps softer than their siblings, but ever as forthright and singleminded as all of them.

“Winterfell is our home,” she said passionately — and when had she learned to talk like that?, who was he joking...Sansa had always had a way with words, a way to get exactly what she wanted — “it's ours,”

I am not a Stark, he almost said. He had made shield of that knowledge since he left home.

“I see what you are, Snow. Half a wolf and half a wildling, baseborn get of a traitor and a whore. You would deliver a highborn maid to the bed of some stinking savage. Did you sample her yourself first? If you mean to kill me, do it and be damned for a kinslayer. Stark and Karstark are one blood."

"My name is Snow.”

“It's ours,” she had said, and how could Jon deny her?, how could Jon ever deny her “and Bran's, and Rickon's and Arya's. Wherever they are, it belongs to our family, we must fight for it!”

As if Jon had not fought, and fought and fought and lost.

“I want you to help me,” she said stepping closer, as if she had not heard him tell her he had fought and lost and he didn't want to fight anymore “but I'll do it myself if I have to,”

Jon would bid her goodnight, hope the sleep would bring her better counsel, but he knew that look in her eye. He knew it like he knew the summer snows and the walls of Winterfell and the names of every Stark king buried in the crypts.

You do not belong here, boy.

Winterfell is ours.

——————————————————————————————————

“Jon doesn't have the Stark name,” Davos pointed out. He was a good man, Jon granted, and he was sure he was willing to help them in any way, because for some reason he had chosen to follow him after Stannis had died.

I am not a Stark.

Winterfell is ours.

“No,” Sansa agreed and Jon felt it like a punch in his gut “but I do,” she added in the same very breath.

She couldn't be suggesting what Jon was thinking, could she?, had she spent enough time with the Lannister to have taken to some of their queer customs?

“Jon is every bit Ned Stark's child as I am,” Sansa decreed, her voice dispelling his doubts “the North will fight for Ned Stark's son,” she said.

———————————————————————————————————

Would you bed your sister, Jon Snow?

A beacon. Jon could not define Sansa in any other way as she walked down the very same steps Jon had descended to met her halfway when she first had reached Castle Black, a bundle in her arms, clad in a dark blue dress and a his old furlined cloak.

“New dress?” he almost cringed at how hopeful his voice sounded as he looked at her. Sansa smiled, sincerely touched by the fact that he had noticed, as if Jon had not noticed every detail about her. Always.

“Yes,” she said looking down at herself, as she would do when they were children and she wanted to show them her newest design with the pride that only a girl so young could feel “do you like it?”

Jon knew nothing of dresses. Say something, he beseeched his mouth, his mind, anything, make her smile, she's beautiful when she smiles.

“I—I like the wolf bit,” he said, going even as far as make an half-aborted gesture to her chest, where the beautiful design of glass pearls composed a beautiful snarling direwolf.

Anything but that, he wanted to slap himself back to death and let the earth swallow him.

Make her smile, you fool, he berated himself, not make her awkward and uncomfortable.

Sansa's smile was timid, but genuine and the blush on her cheeks was well worth the embarrassment, he decided, looking at how lovely she looked in his cloak and with her cheeks flushed so.

“Good,” she said, giving herself composure and smiling openly and truly at him “because,” she opened the bundle of fabric and presented it to him, “I made this for you,” she stated, her eyes sparkling.

It was a cloak. She had made him a cloak. Jon could scarcely breath.

You may now cloak the bride and take her under your protection.

“I made it like the one Father used to wear,” Sansa stated, clearly in an attempt to fill the silence that had suddenly stretched between them “or as far as I can remember,” she added, downplaying all the effort she had surely taken to remember the design and bringing it back to life.

There was the Stark direwolf branded into the leather of its fastenings.

Jon doesn't have the Stark name.

No, but I do.

He looked up at her, “Thank you, Sansa” he said, hoping it could convey how grateful and proud he was that she would wrap him in Stark blazons and name him a Stark by action.

He didn't care for Edd half disgruntled, half disgusted look or for the sappy smile on his lips, the smile he had no intention to fight; he didn't even care if he look a sappy idiot, or a giddy greenboy, nor for the cold as he shed his old cloak and wrapped himself in the one Sansa had made for him.

For him.

———————————————————————————————————

They had taken back Winterfell.

You think that's obvious?

Oh, I think that is a bit obvious!

If Ramsay wins, I'm not going back there alive. Do you understand me?

I will never let him touch you again, I'll protect you. I promise.

“Jon,” her voice had never been so cold, he turned to look at her “where is he?”

He didn't ask, she didn't say. Jon knew better than to confront her about it, she had been far gentler than he'd be, after all. And she was far more beautiful that she had any business of being, but Jon knew well enough, by now, that that would not stop her from growing much more beautiful still.

“Jon,” her voice was unsure, but soft and it left him wanting. The need cutting much deeper than the hunger he had always felt for Winterfell.

I am having the Lord's chambers prepared, he had told her. He had expected Sansa to take them, no question asked. They both knew who deserved them, by virtue of her birth, and by her actions — the Knights of the Vale had won the battle and they had rode North for her — but, in hindsight, he should've expected her to offer them to him instead.

“I am sorry I didn't tell you about the knights of the Vale, but—”

And in that moment Jon knew he loved her. He loved her with the kind of love that went beyond duty and honor and the bindings those imposed on any man, much more a bastard who had wanted nothing more than prove his worth.

“We need to trust each other,” he told her.

Trust me, he wanted to beg her, I kept you safe, didn't I?, have faith in me.

———————————————————————————————————

“You are my sister, but I am king now,” Jon protested.

He knew she had concerns, but she should not have voiced them before the lords, before the lords she ought to have kept her tongue at bay and then broached the subject in private.

Publicly they were to be an united front.

“So what?,” Sansa demanded walking past him “I can't question your decisions any more?” she asked “Joffrey never let anyone question his decisions, do you think he was a good king?”

Jon stopped in his tracks, suddenly as if slapped. He knew of some of the things she had suffered at Joffrey's hands. Not all, he was sure, but some things she had shared with him.

They had wanted to beat any kind of defiance out of her, they had failed, but Sansa had, had to learn to hold her tongue and lie to survive.

I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey, she told him to have affirmed more often than not, never letting her guard down, my one, true love.

She had learned to keep her opinions close to her heart and guarded and to never speak her mind least she wished to see her head removed.

If Jon thought over it, now, her protesting in open court made him feel both like an idiot and preening with pride. Because, she had felt safe enough to do that, to do what she had learned not to do at the Lannister court. She trusted him enough to speak her mind freely, because she knew he would never turn against her.

“Do you think I am Joffrey?” he spat, and if he sounded more pathetically in search for her validation, Jon didn't care. He needed her to tell him, tell him she trusted him. That she knew he was not Joffrey.

That with him she could protest before all the lords of the Realm and beyond and he'd thank her for her consideration — which he hadn't, but he had been blinded by arrogance and misplaced hurt pride before.

“I think you are as far from Joffrey as anyone I have ever met,” Sansa said, rising to his need and delivering her faith in him.

Jon exhaled. Thank the Gods.

“You're good at this, you know?” she asked, and it seemed she was not done complimenting him either. Part of Jon preened at her consideration, part of him filled with dread, knowing he was latching onto her “At what?,” he asked and her smile in reply was genuine.

“At ruling,”

“No,” he teased, looking out. Hoping she would protest.

She did.

“You are,” she said, “you are,” and Jon looked back at her, “but—”

And that made him smile. So she had faith in him, but less in his abilities. He chuckled.

“What?”

“What did Father used to say?,” he asked her “anything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit”

“He never said that, to me”

And how should I be smarter?, by listening to you?

Would it be so terrible?

Didn't she know he did nothing but listen to her?, could she really not see it?

——————————————————————————————————

Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.

“You're abandoning your people!,” Sansa accused “you're abandoning your home!”

— you're abandoning me. She didn't say it and yet his treacherous heart skipped a beat as if she had.

And why, why did she have to look that beautiful?, he was sure it was some cruel joke of the Gods. The way for them to remind him he is nothing but a bastard, and bastards are born of lust and betrayal.

I am not a Targaryen, he chanted in his head, I am not a Targaryen. No matter the stirring deep in his soul for Sansa. The truth plain to see and yet hidden in the darkest of his mind and heart.

He was hers.

The North is a part of me, and I will never stop fighting for it. No matter the odds.

“I'm leaving both in good hands,” he assured her, watching as her beautiful eyes sparkled with barely concealed fear for him.

“Whose?!”

“Yours,” he was merely a murmur, but it echoed as if the hall had suddenly grown silent over the relentless chaos it had been before, and Jon wondered if the lords knew. They must've, because he could not tear his eyes off hers, “you are the only Stark in Winterfell,” he told her “until I return, the North is yours”

I am yours.

He nodded to her, and she gave him a so ever minute nod back.

———————————————————————————————————

It had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Falling in the dragon queen' bed. She was beautiful, if with a beauty so raw and dangerous that Jon felt suffocated.

You won't have to worry about the King in the North anymore, he had meant in jest, to cover how uncomfortable her purple gaze was making him feel, I've grown used to him.

She couldn't be as different from Sansa if she tried, and therein lied the crux of it all. Jon could never escape the truth about his unholy love for his sister, but he would never taint her soul with the stain of his sin.

The dragon queen could prove a distraction for however small, and she clearly was taken with him. He hated manipulating her that way, but he had felt like he had no choice.

When he had roused from his dreamless sleep, on her ship, Jon had not been alone. She had been there, perched onto the mattress and looking over him, as a dragon would lay over a hoard in the songs.

Am I your prisoner?, he had asked her, not yet. Her reply still echoed on his mind — she had taken his ships and had stripped him of his weapons, virtually he might have been a guest but he knew he was nothing short than an hostage — he had never been an hostage gambling with his life, the life of the woman he loved — for however unholy that was — and the life of his siblings.

But someone else had, and she had survived all of her abusers and found her way back home. To him.

The dragons had proved less mighty than Jon had hoped, but still they would've been useful. Daenerys had lost one — which meant that if they survived all of this, she had one less weapon to turn against the North — but she still had two, two who could be valuable assets if nothing, at the very least, to keep under control the numbers of weights that would fight against them.

It was a hard gamble, but one he had to make. No matter the odds.

I'm loyal to my beloved Joffrey, my one, true love.

“What about my queen?” he had seen how elated Daenerys had looked at that, and he had felt sorry for her, for the way he was using her, but he had soldiered on “I would— I would bend the knee, but—”

Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit. If he never publicly bent the knee, but showed his loyalty in other ways, Daenerys would never demand the proper rites were observed and Sansa could use it, once this war was over, to free the North of her.

Her hand was too little in his, and its hold was almost suffocating in his lungs. It did not surprise him when, later that week, after they had departed by ship for the North, she summoned him to her cabin.

He had known what she wanted from him, and he had given it to her.

There was no one single thing he would not do, to keep the North and Sansa safe.

——————————————————————————————————

It was good to be back home.

You're a man now, he had told Bran feeling his heart burst at the sight for his little brother. Almost, Jon had looked at Sansa, he had done nothing but look at her since breaking through the gates of Winterfell, and her aloof demeanor had softened as a genuine smile had graced her pink lips.

Gods, had he missed her.

It was the most natural, easiest thing he ever do, fall back into her open arms, feeling her curl around him and his whole being unfolding and collapsing into her.

Gods he loved her.

“Trust me,” he wanted to tell her, he hoped she would hear it anyway in her bones, as his blood sang for her.

“— I made sure we survived winter,” Sansa stated “but I did not account to feed two armies and two dragons,” she pointed out and Jon almost flinched.

Daenerys had indeed reached Winterfell without provisions and even her men had been clothed rightly for the cold only once they had reached White Harbor.

She had taken the gold from the Battle of the Golden Road, but she had burned the grain, instead of taking a whole year of harvest to feed her people come winter.

Leave it to Sansa to point that out. His clever girl.

“— what do dragons eat, anyway?”

Gods, had he missed her snarky comments. Though they could without her antagonizing the dragon queen with an ill temper and two dragons to her disposal.

Daenerys' reply had been as cold and chilling as when she had told him he was not yet her prisoner “Whatever they want,” she said, her cold, purple eyes fixing dangerously on his sister.

Sansa didn't give a single inch, facing her rival head-on, her Tully blue eyes shining with defiance.

Jon needed to put a stop to it. To diverge Daenerys' attention from Sansa, he knew his sister could wear down what little control Daenerys had on her own temper just by pointing out the clear mistakes in her policy and making of her the laughing stock of the lords of the Realm.

“I don't need her to be my friend,” Daenerys stated coldly, her eyes never wavering. She was giving him a warning. Jon had no doubt she felt as she was showing him consideration by issuing such a warning before acting whereas elsewise Sansa would've already been dealt with “but if she can't respect me—”

He did his best to school his expression and keep a close reign to his fury. He had beaten to a pulp the last person who had dared threaten Sansa, and had almost strangled the last man who had showed his misplaced lust for his sister.

Thankfully he was saved when her attention was caught by the news her dothraki guard reported about the dragons.

He hadn't known. Had he known he could ride one, he would've done with all of this farse, taken the dragon and left Daenerys to her miserable war for the Iron throne.

But he hadn't known.

Still, this meant that, if Daenerys ever asked more than the North could concede, and she turned her fury North, Jon could defend the North.

“He said he would stand behind Jon Snow,” she pointed out at his fury against lord Glover “the King in the North”

Didn't she understand he was doing all of this for them?, for her?

“I told you we needed allies!” he beseeched her, watching her dance like a dark flame and enticing him with her dance.

“I wasn't aware you were abandoning your crown!” she accused, because therein lay the problem.

“— I brought two armies home, two dragons!”

“and a Targaryen queen!” she accused turning around to face him again, and all of her beauty hit him again, like a wave against his lungs.

I will drown in those eyes, Jon sighed “She'll be a good queen,” he needed her to believe it “she's not her father,”

“No,” Sansa agreed, her voice lower than a whisper, a breath against his lips, making him almost lean in “she's much prettier,”

Jon smiled up at her and wondered if she could see his smile was poorly-manufactured. If she could see how hard this was for him.

“Did you bend the knee because she'll be a good queen, or because you love her?”

Apparently no. He felt himself flinch “Don't you have any faith in me at all?,” he asked, and Sansa deflated at that, the scale-looking fabric of her dress shining in the candle-lit chamber.

“You know I do,” no buts, this time. It was an absolute statement. She trusted him.

———————————————————————————————————

He leaned to the side and felt his stomach churn, as his lungs burned.

I'm talking about the Seven bloody Kingdoms!

He looked to the statue of Lyanna Stark, his mother, and suddenly another wave of nausea hit him.

He had slept with his aunt, he had slept with his aunt and he didn't eve love her.

He loved his— apparently he was a Targaryen, after all, because the love he bore Sansa whilst believing her his sister came back to haunt him tenfold — she's not his sister.

Not his sister.

She's his.

———————————————————————————————————

“Tell them—” he asked of Bran. His cousin looked taken aback for a moment in that distant, aloof way of his.

The battle had been terrible, the war council even worse.

You are the queen, what you command we will obey. He hated how smugly Daenerys had looked at Sansa.

The Seven Kingdoms will know peace, under their rightful queen.

Then, he told them. He half expected Arya to throw a fit, but her schooled expression betrayed nothing. Sansa, instead, was more of an open book.

I am not a Stark.

“Jon,” she was the first to speak, Jon looked at her, halfway hoping she would point out he was not her brother and look relieved by it, and halfway hoping she'd not press the issue “I am so sorry,”

He had not expected that.

And suddenly she was in his arms, and Jon felt her warmth engulfing him and filling him.

“I am so sorry,” she chanted into his ear “you're still a Stark, you're still ours,”

Jon hid his face against her red hair and the fur of her cloak — his cloak, he realized, the one he had given her at Castle Black — “and I stil love you,”

His heart skipped a beat at that. It had sounded so unnecessary and yet it had filled Jon with acceptance.

———————————————————————————————————

“Don't go there,” Sansa whispered, in the darkness of the hour of the wolf, “I don’t want you to go there,” she added.

Jon smiled softly at her, “Sansa,” he murmured “You know I must go,”

“Men in our family don’t do well in the South,” she protested and Jon pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I am not a Stark,” he reminded her gently. Sansa huffed out.

“You are to me,” she proclaimed “Jon, she won’t stand for it,” she told him “you’re the strongest threat to her rule,” she pointed out “just like Ramsay would have never risked Rickon living, I beg of you, see reason”

“She loves me,” he said, that Sansa didn’t appreciate.

“Well then,” she stated coldly, disentangling from his hold, “I suppose you want to go with her South,” she said briskly.

It made Jon chuckle “Don’t be jealous, now,” he teased her, because now his whole heart rejoiced at her blatant jealousy.

“You really think that low of me?,” Sansa protested “that I mean to keep you caged here because I am jealous?” she demanded “by all means, go with her,” she said “I am only concerned for your welfare”

“I know, sweet one,” he murmured softly “but I will not have her stay in Winterfell any longer,”

The glass gardens looked beautiful and Jon was sure there was supposed to be a batch of winter roses somewhere, but he also knew that Sansa had devoted all land she could to parley and potatoes and rice.

She huffed “I still don’t like you going South, they will fight over your every limb until they rip you apart, and I will be forced to avenge you,” she said.

Jon chuckled, their shoulders brushing as both sat on the stony bench “My avenging wolf,” he teased her, “I promised you I would protect you, let me”

Sansa had stayed silent at that “You’ll return,” she stated with a surety that had him almost smile. Almost.

“I will,”

They both knew only his bones would return North if he set foot beyond the Neck. But it was a sacrifice Jon was willing to make, if it meant Sansa got to live safe and protected. Yet Sansa let him embrace and Jon fell into her.

__________________________________________________________________________

“— they don’t get to choose” Daenerys stated, with a coldness that was eery. A beautiful, dark conqueror, clad in her victory and without mercy.

She’s everyone’s queen now.

Try telling Sansa.

Why do you think Sansa told me the truth about you?, she doesn’t want Dany to be queen.

She doesn’t get to choose.

No, but you do!

“—be with me,” and he had done it. After all what was a curse more upon his name, but that of kinslayer?

“You are my queen,” he stated as he leaned close, his free hand curling around the hilt of his dagger.

I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey, my one, true love.

“Now,” he promised as their lips touched “and always” and then, he plunged his knife in her heart.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“I wish there had been another way,” the tears in her eyes almost broke his heart, i the same way knowing she had done what she believed right to defend him, even if it had broken him instead.

“The North is free thanks to you,” he said knowing it true, but not less tragic because of it.

“But they lost their king,” she said and he could see she was indeed heartbroken over it.

I was lost within the darkness until I found her,

I found you

“Ned Stark’s daughter will speak for them,” he stated, knowing it deep in the marrow of his bones. All this time, he had been waiting for her.

Even after Ygritte, when he had thought duty had won over any kind of love. He had known.

Sometimes duty must be the death of love.

He had known he had loved again, perhaps, down in the darkest pit of his heart he had always known he had loved her. He hadn’t realized it but it had not been Lyanna Stark’s voice to bring him back.

It had been the memory of Sansa singing to herself as she brushed Lady’s coat.

“She’s the best they could ask for,”

She embraced him then, and Jon would’ve rather died than let her go, and almost didn’t let go of her.

But the Gods were just and no kinslayer could’ve hold something so good in his arms.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Tormund watched him, side-eyeing him for all his worth.

So who it is that you have to convince?, this dragon queen or the one who fucks her brother?

“What?” he demanded.

“You love her,” it was not a question, it was a statement. Jon’ eyes fell naturally on Sansa. She had come to Castle Black when her summon had been ignored.

He had needed time.

“Aye,” he didn’t hide it, not from Tormund, not from anyone else. He had told himself, he would never fall in love after Ygritte, but it had been a lie.

The dead need no lovers, Lord Snow.

No, Jon had thought and even though he had not known it consciously yet, he had not been waiting for Ygritte to raise again and haunt him if he ever betrayed her.

No. He had known he could never give himself to anyone but her. He would never fall in love again, unless it was her, until he could’ve had her.

The lady in the silk dress, to whom he could bring flowers. The lady he had wanted Ygritte to try and be. She had always been Sansa. And he always been waiting for her.

He had always known he would only fall into her, and he had not yet stopped falling. He doubted he ever would.

Suddenly Sansa was before him, her cheeks were flushed and her lips parted, her hand proffered toward him “Would you not dance with me?”

She had, had some to drink, but Jon had never seen her so giddy before.

He had accepted her hand before he could think better of it and had let her guide him —who was he joking to say he was the one guiding her?, she had always taken the lead in their relationship — and he had twirled her around as the wildling raised songs of the First Men around them, drumming their fingers on their instruments or clapping their hands.

He had been lost all his life, stumbling in the darkness. And then she had come like a dark flame, pulling him in and loving him, letting him love.

HOLD YA — I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO AGAIN,

She looked ever so beautiful and lovely and Jon really wanted to kiss her, steal her breath away and never let go.

He looked at her softly “What are you doing here?” he asked, as he spun her around and twirled her, her beautiful gown dancing like rays of liquid silver and snow around her.

“Don’t you know?” she asked, and in her eyes Jon could see her true question. Do you really not know?

“The Lords will never accept it,” Jon told her softly “I am a kinslayer”

“You are a hero,” she countered, “besides, the lords would simply be grateful I have stopped ditching their efforts to have me married and give them an heir,” she teased him.

The mead she had drunk though, must’ve caught up with her because she stumbled her next step, falling into his chest — or perhaps, by the mirth in her eyes — she had done it on purpose.

“I’ve caught you,” he said stupidly.

Sansa smiled “So you did,” she smiled “I want it to be you,” she told him boldly “I do not want to force you”

Jon almost swore. She was born to make his will crumble, but really, hadn’t Jon always known?

How could he ever deny her anything?

“I know you loved Ygritte,” she said “and the dragon queen… but I thought—”

Jon silenced her by pressing a kiss against her lips, chasing the beautiful flames dancing on her skin and painting her face in a golden halo, her hair brimming like liquid copper

“Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit,” he reminded her, “I found you,” he said “I’ve loved you,” he added “if you’ll want me,” he told her “If you’ll let me, I’ll love you more still, I’ll hold you more—” his voice broke off “why do you think I killed her?, she would’ve turned against you. And I could not let her” he told her “It had always been you, if you’ll want me”

This time she was the one pressing the kiss atop his lips “I want you”

Jon nodded “Then I’ll be yours,” he said “and you’ll be mine”

Sansa’ beam was something to be seen “Until the end of our days?”

heaven when i held you again,

how could we ever be friends?

i would rather die than let you go.

“Until the end of our days” he said.

[reginarubie]

Jon and Sansa do end up together, but— actually Jon's POV

Because I've heard by mistake a song and I was inspired, so fight me, this is how it went.

This also features a bit of everyone, a little snippet of Joffrey and Cersei as well... and well really, everyone. With a side dish of Arya being blunt as always, Jon and Robb friendship begging, the first time Jon and Sansa met and several other things.

Also... if you were wondering what that “something like that” Jon had said to Podrick last installment of the story... here you learn what that something has been.

Inspired by Surrender by Natalie Taylor, and also, can be found in my ao3 archive of prompts and ficlets (here).

Can we surrender? [Whenever you are ready]

Jon ~

He gazes at the roof, her warm body nestled against his, her head resting against his shoulder, her arms and legs wrapped around him, milky white and pale against the sheets. 

His hand drifts from her shoulder to her waist and up again. The caress so featherlike she doesn’t even wake. He’s grateful for it.

He knows she’s had trouble sleeping. 

The fact that her sleep is undisturbed when she lays beside him fills him with both pride and boundless love. 

He lays there, feeling her breath against his neck, and her lashes brush against his skin. Her hands are warm, they keep at bay the chilling cold of the night.

He remembers perfectly the first time he saw Sansa. 

Robb had always been the kid everyone wanted to be friends with, intelligent, of good family with a brilliant future ahead of him, with the right connection to pursue any dream he might ever have. Even at five Jon had been very aware of all the differences between them. 

He was the son of a single mother, no father to speak of — his mother would not even speak his name and frankly, after one night she had admitted to him that his father had basically groomed her when she was a teenager and that his father had already a wife and children — his mother had to work double hours to just ensure that Jon’s clothes were of good quality and that his homework did not slack due him feeling different. 

Even back then Jon had known Robb Stark was and would have everything Jon ever wanted. Still, he could not bear the boy any ill, he was older than him by half a year and he was just so… kind, when he wasn’t impersonating his own father and bossing people around. 

He was fun to be around too. 

In the beginning they had antagonized each other, but the Starks relentless kindness is something that wins them the heart of all those around them. 

Jon had been six and Robb had been six and half and Jon was a little shit, okay?, he disliked the way most kids in his school paraded around their daddy’s money and often they would bully him because he had no daddy. No dad to come to his soccer practice and to cheer him on when his mom was working.

Jon was alone.

He was an easy victim, not that he staid that way for long. He had started throwing punches long before his mother learned of it, halfway through the first year of school.

Still, it was october and the cold was so intense that it didn’t snow, it just frosted the snow that had fallen the week before when the temperature had been warmer.

A couple of kids had stolen his lunch money — which fine, he would scrape something at home — but then they had started their usual mantra of how he should go tell daddy, oh, no you don’t have a father.

Little shits.

Jon had thrown the first punch when they had called him bastard and his mother a whore. And the second. Maybe even the third before they had overpowered him, kicked him in the tummy and left out of the classroom in the icy wind.

Bastard, they had called him.

Now Jon is old enough to know they weren’t aware of half the words they were using, still it had stung.

Robb Stark had been the one to found him, he had lent him his jacket — warm and furlined — and shared with him his homemade meal. Jon had bitched about that too. Called him names, but Robb had just smiled and shared his lunch with him.

“Your name is Jon, nah?” he had asked. 

Jon had grunted some reply that Robb had miraculously understood and they had eaten together. 

Jon had called him stupid, told him that he didn’t want his pity. 

But, when Jon had finally manage to overpower the leader of the bullies in april of that year, and the others had ganged up on him, Robb had been there. One of his teeth had been knocked out and Jon still remembered Robb standing tall — taller than him — with his mouth bloody, grinning with a missing tooth and giving him the thumbs up.

He had become his brother in all but blood then.

Still, when Robb had brought him to Winterfell Manor Jon had been cautious. It had been lord Eddard Stark who had come to the principal that day when his mother had discovered of his problems at school and his punching tendencies. 

He had been quiet, and seemed the kind of man who never raised his voice, but the face of disappointment he had bestowed on them when he had been told they had been the ones to throw the first punch had almost made Jon shrink down a size.

Even when Ned and Lyanna had learned of the bullying they had been very displeased Jon and Robb had resorted to throw punches instead of involving the adults, though Jon had gained a pat on the shoulder and the head by Ned Stark.

“What do I tell you, always?,” Lyanna had been berating and Jon had been reciting her usual teachings “Walk a mile to avoid a fight—”

“My father used to say something very similar,” Ned Stark had interjected “though he used to say, do not fight—” he said “but if you have to fight, win.”

Lyanna had been exasperated at that “That’s not what I meant at all—”

“No, but the bullies would not have stopped unless he showed them they are weaker than him,” he said “I don’t approve of you throwing punches, boys, so next time avoid it” he had mussed Jon’s hair up and watching him and Robb walk away, Robb waving at him excitedly and Jon had never missed a father more in his life.

And whilst Ned Stark had proved amiable, still, the matriarch of the Stark family was without any doubt not very impressed with Jon having somehow managed to get her son involved in some punch fight. 

She had grounded Robb for five weeks, and coach had put them both on the bench for five matches. 

“Hello Mrs. Stark” 

The woman had been feeding a toddler who seemed to have no intention of ever eat, and kept spitting out everything the mother tried to get her to eat. 

“So, you’re Jon—” she had greeted him “my son tells me you’re a good sort, try not to involve him in another fistfight and we’ll be alright, understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am”

“You can call me Catelyn, darling— are you…ARYA!”

And Mrs Stark was growing increasingly more frustrated with her, the toddler had lusterless brown hair and the grey eyes of her father and a toothy grin that reminded Jon of Robb’s bloodied one.

At one point Mrs Stark got up from her seat to lean against the counter, Jon and Robb had been doing homework.

“Mommy have you seen my pink sweater—?” Jon had not paid much attention to the voice, though Mrs Stark had turned to her eldest daughter, all ready for ballet practice and had sighed. 

“Robb,” she had called “Help your sister lace up her shoes” she had commanded and Robb had mimicked her.

“What do we say?”

“Please, son of mine,” Catelyn Stark had sounded impressively annoyed by her son’s antics “help your sister lace up her shoes”

“I can do it alone, mommy!” said sister had chirped and Robb had shrugged as if to say to his mother see?, but Catelyn Stark’s glare was impressive — it still is — and Robb had jumped down the chair to collect his sisters shoes, whilst said sister sat, bouncing her legs on the chair Robb had just vacated. 

Toddler Arya had been playing with her food. 

Jon had stood up then, awkward to share the kitchen with a girl he barely knew. Sansa Stark, was her name, was Robb’s little sister, she had red hair held in a braided bun held by a dragonfly pin, she was wearing a stupidly frilly skirt and no shoes. 

Her eyes were big and blue.

Very blue.

They were impressively blue. 

To busy himself in any way possible he had found his way to toddler Arya, still playing with his food, and more out of boredom than any other reason he had taken up the spoon and tried to feed her. Imagine his surprise when Arya had eaten willingly and demanding more with her dirty, chubby hands.

“Wow,” little Sansa had commented “look at how well she behaves! You’re so good with her!” 

Jon had blushed at that, though he was too embarrassed to speak and had not looked at her, not as Robb helped her lace up her shoes, nor as she demanded he carried her backpack for her to the car.

Though he had watched her leave.

Toddler Arya had babbled incoherently and Jon had felt almost accused, though he did not know of what.

Jon had watched her go, and as she had skipped the way to the gates she had turned around and smiled at him, the greenery of the courtyard making her look like some kind of fairytale princess.

***

For years, after that, Sansa had been at the periphery of his life, but never truly a central character of it. They run in different circles and Jon was okay with that, what more, your best friend’s sister is virtually untouchable, so…better off this way.

Still, Jon was almost always at Winterfell Manor, and often times overnight, especially when they had found out Lyanna’s cancer. Ned Stark had pulled several strings and in the end Lyanna had been transferred to Harrenhal Hospital, one of the best for this kind of things, and Jon had moved permanently, until Lyanna had recovered that is, in the Stark home. 

Life was different with so many people around, Jon was used to it being just him and his mother, and all the chaos the Stark siblings brought around did not lessen her absence. 

At times he was severely overwhelmed by the Starklings running around like little wildlings in the courtyard and he would rather stay cooped up inside watching some TV. It had been that way that Jon had developed an interested for the naturalistic documentaries no one wanted to watch. 

That was until one day Sansa had left her alcove in her room — her very pink and white room — a book of some fantasy story in hand and had sat on the couch beside him. 

Jon had been an inch to try and made her scurry out of what had become his safe place, but he couldn’t literally haunt away from her own home Sansa, so he had sat tight hoping the documentary might bore her enough to send her back to her daydreaming in her pink room.

Ew pink, looking back at it made Jon shake his head, especially considering the woman he is holding is wearing a soft pink nightgown, thank you very much.

When, after half an hour it had been clear she would not move, Jon had started to relax. Her presence seemed to sooth a bit the ache of his mother’s absence and it didn’t overwhelm him like the others did upon time; plus the noise of her turning the pages and her soft breathes kind of relaxed him too.

They had come closer to loose Lyanna that year and Jon had spent his first Christmas without his mother — it had happened again, on occasion, but lately they both had worked out a way to spend it together since after he had returned from the Nights Watch operative squadron — he had been so downtrodden that not even Robb’s easy smile could help him feel better, nor the several gifts he received.

“This is for you,” he remembers an eleven year old Sansa tell him handing to him a badly wrapped gift. 

His wife is good at many things, but wrapping gifts is not her forte. 

He had been so surprised she had gotten him a gift — he had not gotten her any — but he had been especially touched when the gift had turned out to be an hand-knit scarf with his favorite colors. The knit wasn’t perfect, but for Jon, to this day, it’s the most beautiful scarf in the world.

Thus his childish crush on his best-friend’s sister was born, even if he would not realize it for years, yet. 

Though he made sure to always have ready a gift for Christmas and her birthday, a thoughtful gift, because she had the capacity of making him feel less alone.

By the time he had been seventeen and Sansa fifteen Jon had been completely aware of his terribly improper crush on her, though he was determined to wait it out and do nothing about it.

Na-ah he would not act on it, not even remotely even if her new boyfriend was terribly annoying — to his great frustration taller than both him and Robb despite being younger — and the perfect picture of the kind of prince from the stories Sansa so much loved.

No.

He would wait out the year, walk away, enlist for the Nights Watch and one day he’d return and his crush on her would have disappeared without him even noticing.

It had been a good plan — Jon sneers at the sheer idiocity of it now.

That was, until that night. Jon could still recall every single minute of it, from the moment he had been in his car with Alys Karstark trying not to let the idea of Sansa with Joffrey disturb him too much to the moment he had grabbed Sansa’s hand and gotten her out of that house.

It had been 9:27 PM, he remembers starkly and his phone had blared in his backpocket. Alys had been annoyed by him replying but seeing Sansa’ name flashing on the screen had put him on edge.

“Sansa?,” but no reply had come from the other side of the phone, only sobs. He still remembers the way Alys Karstark had redone the two upper buttons of her shirt and rolled her eyes.

When Sansa had not replied still he had added “Baby, speak to me, what it is?”

Alys had left in a huff then. But Sansa had not replied still, she had only said “Jon” and her voice had trembled the way it did when she contained the tears threatening to fall off her cheeks.

This is it, he remembers thinking, “Baby, I need you to tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you”

She had exhaled, Jon likes to think in relief then. She had not been able to tell him where she was, but his phone had pinged with her position. 

Jon had just convinced his mother to lend him the car, and he was about to crash it in the attempt to get her fast enough.

The Lannister Villa had been a two hours drive from there, he didn’t even know why the Lannister had a fucking villa in the North, nor why they had transferred there with Ned Stark’s bestfriend last year, but he didn’t care. All he had cared about had been Sansa.

He had made it in twenty minutes, probably breaking every speed limit of the state, he didn’t care.

The Villa had been alight with noise and lights as Sansa had been invited to a party, he remembered watching her parade around in that stupid lilac dress all ready with her hair straightened and her lips plump and pink. 

Fuck, and he had thought he had not paid attention to her.

Jon had parked the car with such a violence that the wheels had hissed against the cement, then he had hopped off it and slammed the door shut, some of the guests had noticed the broody teen, all black curls and stormy expression stride inside the backyard.

“Where is she?!” he had thundered to poor Myrcella, who to her credit is not as bad as the rest of her family. 

But she had been scared, that much he remembers. 

Her voice had been squeaky “Upstairs,” she had said “in my room, but Jon—” and Jon had not cared as to why she knew his name, the insipid girl had never spoke to him once “my mother is there with her, you don’t have to worry—”

That had been reason enough to worry.

Jon had taken the stairs two by two and in the end he had found Cersei Lannister trying to open the door to the bathroom directly connected to Myrcella’ room.

“Who are you?!” she had demanded “what are you doing in my home? Thief! I’ll have you arrested for this!”

Jon had shouldered past her and her yelling and had leaned against the door 

“Sans?” he had called, but Sansa had been letting the water run, possibly to drain out all the noises Cersei Lannister kept making.

When Cersei Lannister made to grab him Jon had, had enough and simply… broke down the door?

Jon had been doing boxe, he knew he was strong, still up to today he believes it had been adrenaline more than strength that helped him slam the door open.

Sansa had been sitting on the tub, the water running and her face tear-striken, but that had not been what had sent him spiraling, no what did it, had been her bruising cheek and eye, her busted lip.

Jon wanted to kiss those lips.

Joffrey had no business even being close to them and he abused them that way? Abused her that way?, the girl Jon wanted? The girl Jon loved?

He had knelt before her and had put his hand on her thigh, she had shivered.

“You’re ice cold, baby—” and yeah, after he would have realized he had called her baby several times that evening, thankfully she was too out of it to connect the dots, he had wrapped her in his jeans jacket and had helped her up.

Though the moment he had seen Joffrey sneering at them and demanding he unhanded his girlfriend Jon had snapped.

To this day Jon cannot say how many times he punched him, the first moment of lucidity he had was when Sansa had called out, breathy and trembling his name.

That had stilled him.

He had turned in rage to look at her, and seeing her narrow shoulders wrapped in his jacket all fury had evaporated as if made of nothing but thin air.

Fuck, I’m in love with her.

He had stood up then, leaving Joffrey bloody on the carpet, before the eyes of everyone, Robert Baratheon included. He had taken Sansa’s hand then.

“You wanted to file a compliant, Mrs Baratheon,” he commented darkly “please do, I’ll happily meet your scumbag of a son in court for assault once he has faced the charges we will file against him” all in all, he thought that Catelyn Stark would be pretty proud of his speech.

Sansa had not let go of his hand, not even to let him drive and Jon had not let her go either, not until they had been inside Winterfell Manor and Sansa had fallen into her mother’s worried embrace. 

Feel my white flag,

my love where are you—?

Jon had had another run in with Joffrey, at school. He and Robb had made sure he pressed no charges and that he knew that no one touched Sansa and walked away unscathed.

It had been the first time Sansa had tended to his bruised knuckles. It had not been the last.

He had toyed with the idea of asking her to be his date to prom, maybe that would put a smile to her beautiful face, but in the end he had chickened out of it. And in the end the time for his enlistment had come and Jon had been saying goodbye to the Starks and his mother.

“You’ll be careful?”

“Stop nagging him, Sans!” Robb complained “you’re worse than his mother is, no offense meant, Ms Snow!”

Jon had wanted to take her hand then. He had been too chicken to do that too. 

“I promise, Sansa” he had told her gently “and you’ll keep doing the therapy like you promised?”

“I said I would, and I will” Sansa had nodded to him and Jon had known he had to walk away at one point.

To turn his back to her.

Foolish idiot he had been.

And, in the rear mirror he had seen his mother and Sansa watching him go, they had been his focal point, though Arya and Bran and Rickon and Robb had been there as well.

Stupid boy.

***

Surprisingly Sansa kept in touch during his first years at Castle Black and even came around, once or twice. 

That was how she had met his comrade, Waymar Royce. The lucky bastard, who had the chance Jon had butchered in its crib when he had become Robb’ best friend, but at least Waymar treated her right.

For a time.

And Jon had found his own dimension with the brotherhood, and surprisingly with the wildlings as well.

Ygritte had been a lapse in judgment, he had known from the beginning that they wanted different things, that they looked at life differently, but then she had laughed so easy and then she had sung before the fire and Jon had been done for.

She had been a passionate lover, she is a passionate woman. Too harsh, and she made fun of every softness she ever saw in him.

I’d like to see you in a silk dress — no, she’d look more like Sansa despite not being half as beautiful.

The thought had comforted him in the beginning.

Like those frilly silk dresses you southerners wear?, no thank you. She had replied harshly, or you’d like too that I’d scream ‘Oh, a spider! Jon Snow, save me!’

Sansa was not afraid of spiders, and he disliked Ygritte generalization that all women who wore silks were somewhat fragiler than her. 

It had been Sansa who had found Ned after his motorcycle accident, she had been the one to call the ambulance and ride with him to the hospital and offer the first help she could, she had seen her father almost being decapitated by the motorcycle he had been riding, and had seen him almost loose a leg. 

There was nothing weak in Sansa.

So that I could tear if off ye, he had said, between gritted teeth, knowing he had imagined Sansa in her stupidly flawless dress at one of the many charities dinners and how she’d look if he tore it off her. 

But Ygritte had not understood. Or perhaps she had understood way too well. She had followed Jon to Castle Black with her cousin Gilly and his sworn brother Sam, and Sansa and Arya had been there. 

He had lost track of time during his stay beyond the Wall and when he had returned he had found out it was around Arya’s sixteenth birthday and with her new car she and Sansa had drove to Castle Black to surprise him.

Jon had been touched, Ygritte less so. Especially when she had noticed the wistful way Jon had looked at Sansa and Waymar. He had never considered Ygritte especially perceptive, but she had caught on, on his crush on Sansa pretty quick.

Their breakup had been explosive, she had even punched him in the face and had threatened him with Jon’s own service gun. Thankfully she didn’t fire, but Jon had no doubt that if lord Commander Mormont had not intervened when he did, she would have done something drastic for both of them. 

He had only been thankful that word of exactly why they had broke up never got to Waymar or worse, Sansa. She’d never forgive herself, she’d probably trek to Ygritte’s hut only to convince her that she was wrong.

Waymar had seemed blissfully ignorant and that meant Sansa was too. Now, Arya…that was all another story, it had gotten to the point that when they had went out to properly celebrate her birthday and the boy she had a crush on had come with his new girlfriend Arya had moped and found him at the bar.

“Is this how you feel when you see her with beautiful-hair?” she had asked sitting on the stool beside his and frowning at that Gendry-fella.

Jon had almost spat all the beer he had in his mouth “I beg your pardon?”

“Look, you can fool Robb,” Arya had told him, mighty unimpressed, “you can fool her and Gods be good, you can fool even yourself, but you cannot fool me”

Jon had found no words to deny it then “Aye,” he had replied at her original question then and Arya had sighed “It bloody sucks doesn’t it?”

Jon had shrugged.

Silence had ensued as Sansa, social butterfly that she was managed to politely flip Gendry and his new girlfriend the bird. 

“You know, I kinda hate her at times,” Arya had confided to him “but, not really. She’s annoying, like really annoying, but I kind of see where you come from”

It had been as close to a blessing he had gotten from the Starks about his crush on Sansa. 

“Does it ever stop?” Arya had asked after a long while, and Jon had been already halfway his next pint.

“Don’t know what to tell you,” he had replied “It hasn’t stopped yet, for me”

“How do you manage not to punch him in the gut?,” Arya had demanded, when Waymar had swept Sansa in for the kiss of the century “I’m not even half in love with Gendry as you are with her, and I still want to tear all of Ly-lah stupidly pretty hair from her skull”

“He makes her happy,” he had mumbled, as if explained everything, no matter the way his heart kept breaking.

It had begun with Waymar stumbling over his words to ask Sansa out to dinner.

It had ended with their breakup. 

Jon and Waymar had shared a silent pint over it, then Jon had walked away.

In a couple of years Jon had stepped down from his operative days and he had met Val. 

His whole relationship with Val still broke his heart a little to think of. Val had not deserved to be the second choice and honestly Jon had believed to have outgrown, outlasted his crush on Sansa. 

And on it had went, for almost a year and half. During one of his visits to Winter Town Sansa had basically dragged him away from the raucous Winterfell mason and had taken him with her to the elderly home she often visited. 

There had been Podrick, the one she had confided to him, she had, had a crush on almost three months prior. Not even Robb had, had anything against him, which made hives rise upon his arms.

But seeing her so enamored by him? Jon could hardly take it, but it wasn’t easy telling  Sansa Stark no. Usually his wife would anyway get her way and you’d end up feeling like shit because you had tried to deny her, her wish. It always backfires, in his experience. Never get her to use her puppy eyes on you, and never have her so much in a strife she’ll use that sharp tongue of hers to make so much sense you wonder why you are even trying to tell her no.

“Sansa I don’t know if that’s—”

“Hello everyone!,” her grip on his hand, had been like a tether, and Jon had followed it like he no choice and chance “Stop being so shy! — I hope you don’t mind, I brought a friend over!”

Jon had entered everyone’s field of vision then, and Podrick Payne had been there, in the first line, gazing at Sansa and then at their clasped hands. Jon had let got of her hand then, discreetly, even thought every fiber of his being had told him to hold on tight and face straight on this boy who thought he had any business trying to get his Sansa to fall in love with him.

“Stop manhandling me,” he had told her stiffly, but Sansa had just rolled her eyes.

“Then stop being so stubborn. Jon, this is my friend Podrick, the one I told you about. Pod this is Jon”

Jon had felt his whole world crumble to dust and re-settle itself as the boy, with a taurine neck and honest eyes suddenly looking quite uncertain, Jon had schooled his expression — conceal don’t feel — and had offered him his hand. Jon might never be Sansa’s other half, but he would vet anyone who thought of even coming close to her.

“Pleased to meet you,” he had said “I am sorry Sansa sprang me on you all” he had added politely looking pointedly at Brienne. 

He thinks of Val for a moment, wondering how she’d like this place, she laments that the elderly of the Free Folk are not supported enough by the Realm which has recluded them in the reserve of Beyond the Wall.

Sansa had urged him to join her and he had followed suit, and he had discovered some unadulterated sense of peace in joining her and speaking to the old ladies and gentlemen, speaking to them about his time with the Free Folk. 

“Oh,” a woman had asked “you’ve seen many wildlings?”

“I did ma’am, thought they prefer to be called Free Folk, they’re not so different from us, after all. They’re very loud” he had added thinking back on Ygritte. His face must’ve had shown his distress because Sansa’s hand had come atop his on his lap.

He had raised his gaze and smiled up at her, knowing she could read him so well at times it was a wonder she had never learned of his crush on her, but thankful nonetheless, and a beautiful shade of pink had colored her cheek making her look even more lovely as she beamed at him “Jon,” she had said “is considered a Free Folk friend,” she had told them “they trust him”

And for a moment Jon had felt the most special man in the wide world.

He had cornered Podrick some time after that, taking a brief breath from it all, and had confronted him about his crush on her, indirectly.

“I like her as well,” he had admitted and Jon had smiled at that.

“I know,” he had said twisting around and looking at her, smiling and listening to everyone, making them feel heard and understood, asking after their children and grandchildren. Remembering little nothings they must’ve told her another time as easy as she can recall the date of the War of Five Kings or declame the names of all princess and ladies and heroes and knights from the songs.

To everyone’ detriment.

“Dance with me!” it had not been the first time Sansa wrestled him in dancing with her, and despite being a terrible dancer Jon indulges her, though soon enough they’re just swaying at a tempo not that of the music and Jon had ended up hoisting her up his chest and twirling her around like he had done when she had been a girl with a frilly ballet skirt and lucid ballerinas at her feet. 

And Sansa had laughed and Jon had let her kiss his cheek. He had went to sleep smiling that night, after they had video called, because Sansa was a fan of video calling above texting or calling.

Then for months Sansa had been a near permanent fixture near him beyond the Wall as they helped the Free Folk making their voice heard across the country and to the Senate and the king. Still he had walked around blessedly ignorant of how much beneath the surface his love for her had been brimming.

It had taken Sansa and Val being abducted for his instincts to kick in once again and prove to him that he was most certainly not over her.

Can we, can we surrender?

Jon could not recall being so scared, not even when she had called to him that one time with Joff. Jon knew he could take on Joff.

He had not slept, not eaten, the anxiousness eating at him at the very idea of Sansa and Val both in peril, and when finally he had found them…Sansa had, had blood on her face — someone had cut her cheek and she had turned her head to look away from the sheer violence of the fight that ensued to save them — and his entire body had deflated.

Can we, can we surrender?

Jon had kissed Val, feeling relief flooding his senses, as Sansa finally blinked up at him.

“Jon..?”

“It’s alright baby,” he had murmured against her forehead as he kissed her head reverently. 

It had been his fault, Jon had been distracted by her presence again, by his duties and he had not seen the abduction coming “I’ve got you,” he had hoisted her up his chest and they had walked out of it.

They had, had a fight too, the day before they got abducted. Sansa had wanted to remain even as winter was starting to snow the wildling villages in, with the danger she’d have to spend the entirety of the season beyond the Wall. And Jon had been half an inch from bending her over the fucking table and kiss her silly until she just fucking stopped talking.

He had hovered like a dark shadow around her as the paramedic had looked over her injury and Sansa had been none too impressed with it. 

“Jon stop looking at me like your pet has died,” Sansa had muttered exasperated “I promise I am fine,” 

“If you just had listened to me nothing of this would’ve happened,” he had recriminated and Sansa had smiled sweetly at the paramedic who had finished with her and had started to try and look over his own excoriations.

“I can take it from here,” Sansa had dismissed the paramedic.

“But his—” the man had started to point out, but Sansa had gingerly took his cotton and disinfectant from his hands.

“I’ve got this, it’s not the first time I tend to his bruised knuckles, I promise”

“It’s not the first time I bruise them to protect you either,” Jon had quipped unhelpfully. Sansa’ glare had shut him up real quick.

“You’re so stupid,” Sansa had accused him “I know you were scared and now you’re taking that frustration out on me”

Maybe I should kiss you stupid, may it be that it’d make you listen to me for once.

“Sorry” but then the words had died on his tongue when Sansa had leaned close studying his eyes. There had been nothing sexual about it, and yet Jon had felt himself stir at her vicinity.

“Stu-pid!” she had said then, breaking the spell and leaning back, whacking him behind the head “you look like you haven’t slept in days, go to Val, and sleep”

And only at that point Jon had been reminded of his own girlfriend, and he had felt like the worst scum at the bottom of the earth. He had went to her, but he had been so ashamed, so fearful… that he had wanted to hide from the entirety of the world, the world that had always hung to a shrivel of his will to stay away from Sansa.

The same world that collapsed and imploded on himself with four simple words.

“YOU SAID HER NAME!” Val had only murmured it, but it had been as strong as if she had screamed. 

Sansa had been so close too, that his first instinct had been to turn to her, to see if she had noticed the commotion, but blessedly she had been busy with the interviewer to care. Beautiful, brave and lovely, she was shining so bright that for a moment he had been blind to anything but her.

How, how had he ever thought to be over her?

Val’s heart had broke at that, he knew, and to this day Jon knows that, that broken heart is his cross to bear. He caused that. 

His wife stirs gently beside him “Honey,” she mumbles half asleep “what time it is?”

Jon doesn’t let her twist in his hold “It’s early,” he tells her “get back to sleep”

His wife, bless her soul, has never liked being bossed around “Are you alright?” she asks, settling back against his chest and snuggling closer. 

“I am” he promises. 

When he and Val had broken up Jon had promised himself. Enough was enough, he either worked himself out of his love for Sansa or merely surrendered to the inevitable truth that he was forever meant to be in love with her. No matter the odds.

It had been during one of his visits to the local school of Mole Town that everything had changed. 

The motion for the independence of the North and the Freedom of the Free Folk was being spoken about in Senate, he and Sansa had videocalled the morning, before he had begun his speech to the first class, and she had prep-talked to him, made sure he felt confident. 

Then, out of the blue, Jon had turned as he had been explaining how the Free Folk claimed descent from the First Men and how they viewed and treated the land they considered their own, and she had been there, looking down and smiling at a little girl who had noticed her — the only one who had thus far — her red hair falling across her shoulders and framing her lovely face.

And Jon had known it.

Surrender it is.

“And you, miss Stark,” he had called, bringing his hands behind his back and smiling at her looking at him as if he were her math teacher hell-bent on calling her to the slate for a surprise exam “what can you tell us of the Free Folk?”

And all the children had turned and awed. Sansa, as all the Starks had been well known even back then, the natural heir to her lord father and as beautiful and elegant as Jenny of Oldstones must’ve been — or so, some claimed. He thought no matter how beautiful Jenny might’ve been, Sansa was bound to be twice as beautiful, though he supposed Duncan prince of Dragonflies would possibly debate against it.

He had smirked at her good-naturedly and Sansa had seemed to consider something, she cocked her head to the side and then she had spoken, weaving tale after tale of how strong and beautiful and spiritual the people Beyond the Wall were. 

The children had been enchanted by it. And Jon too to be honest, he had no doubt Sansa would gain whatever she wanted from the Senate if they only let her speak publicly about it.

By the time the doorbell rang for the lunch the children didn’t want to leave her behind “I’ll be right behind you,” she had told a girl who had been brave enough to take her hand and start to tug “I just have to ask mr Snow a thing” she had said pointing at him with a wave of hand. Her voice hiding mirth but outlined almost stiffly.

“Oh, mr Snow” the girl had exclaimed “you’re in trouble, you are!” before skipping out of class with her friend trailing behind her.

As soon as the door closed behind them Jon neared to her, suddenly preoccupied. Was there a reason why she had sought him out?, something with Ned? Or Aunt Catelyn?

“Everything okay, Sans?” he had asked, unable to help himself and Sansa had looked completely downtrodden, which had made him cage in one her, he had not even realized he had done it until she had grabbed him by his blue shirt, inclined her head and pressed her lips across his.

It had been nothing but the brush of her lips against his, but Jon had felt his entire world and being flare up as he had looked down on her surprise coloring his features.

“So,” Sansa had commented, walking around him — still gaping like an idiot, but his brain had not been working yet, thank you very much — and making her way almost to the door “for tonight at dinner, the Queensgate pub or—”

Only then had Jon’ brain started to compute again “Yes” he had breathed, almost stumbling around his suddenly very ungraceful limbs to reach her “Yes”

Amusement had sparked in Sansa’s eyes “Yes to what..? You’ll have to be more specific—”

Jon had cupped her cheeks then and fucking kissed her, okay? He had smooched her silly like he had wanted for the better part of the last at least fifteen years, pressed his lips against her and finally tasted the heaven inside her lips. 

Sansa had let him kiss her, but then she had wrapped her hands around his wrists and leaned back from his lips “I’m not joking,—” she had said “I’m deadly serious, which one do you..?—”

Jon had narrowed his eyes in fond annoyance then, pecking her lips “Baby,” he had drawled “I love you, I really do, but if you don’t shut up now I’ll really snog every coherent thought from this really pretty head of yours” and his hands had been across her waist and Sansa had arched a brow at him “until it’s all me and empty of all the rest”.

She had wrapped her arms around his shoulders, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck “You’re still talking? For sure you talk big for someone—”

Needless to say Jon had snogged her a good deal, also crumpling her beautiful skirt and shirt —oops, — before they had gone for lunch, and even then Jon had eaten more of her lunch than his, with all the kissing.

“You’re thinking something silly again” Sansa tells him, her eyes are closed, her smile distended and Jon kisses her lips.

“I am not”

“Yes, you are” she says, her voice sure “I know you.” she adds a for half a minute there's silence “Honey?”

“Yes, baby?”

“I know it’s difficult, since you’re silly,” she says “but your silliness is disrupting my beauty sleep”

“Oh,” Jon smirks as her hand starts to draw patterns across his lower abdomen “However will I make it up to you?”

Sansa’s beam is unrepentant then, and joyous, and what can Jon says? He loves this woman.

I surrender.

Fin

Here it is!, hope you enjoyed! As always sending all my love ~G.

[reginarubie]

So I saw you’re accepting prompts and I was wondering if you would write a small modern prompt for a rare pair I have- Brandon Stark/ Elia Martell?

I was thinking that they see each other at the Jonsa wedding and realize that they had an affair right around the time of her divorce or he was her first after the divorce! Or maybe he’s what gave her the courage to ask for a divorce? And they meet at Jon and Sansa wedding after all these years and the spark is still there? And maybe Elia accidentally catches the bouquet?

If you’re not gonna interested no worries! I just wanted to throw this out into the void and see. Thanks!

Hi!,

sorry for the long wait and that is actually an awesome prompt!, so I've tried my hand at it and hope you enjoy it as much as you hoped to when you sent out this ask!

So, I went with Elia and Brandon meet when Elia is still married to Rhaegar the douchebag, but in the end they get together after they meet again at the Jonsa wedding and the spark is still there.

And I’ve got no excuse [it’s a little crime]

Elia watches Lyanna’ son as he dances with his wife, the Stark girl. When she had discovered the extent of Rhaegar’ infidelity she had been devastated, utterly ruined. She had taken the kids and left Dragonstone — which had been their lovenest for as long as she could remember — and she had flew on the first flight back to Sunspear.

She had told neither Doran nor Oberyn the real reason behind her sudden visit, she had just told them she had missed home and had taken the kids to the Water Gardens, their summertime villa, where she had spent most of her childhood. 

Aegon had been six and Rhaenys had been nine. Her beloved children. She hadn’t learned of Jon’s birth long after it had happened, Lyanna had wrapped it all up secretly, not wishing her children to be ruined by the truth of their father’s incapacity to keep it in his pants. She had basically isolated herself and chose for her and her child a single-mom working double life all to avoid disrupting her children’s life. 

Lyanna, as far as Elia knew, had been unaware of Rhaegar’s family. She hadn’t known the truth until one day she happened upon an old newspaper that had shown them just after Rhaenys had been born when Rhaegar had tried to run for Prime Minister what felt like an age ago. By then Lyanna had already been pregnant with Jon, and she had started some digging — Rhaegar had yet known nothing about the boy — the internet was an amazing means to discover the past people would rather keep private. 

She had broken off with Rhaegar and flown back to her homeland, the North, where she had chosen a unimpressive life over the life she could’ve had if she went to the newspaper with the truth of Jon’s parentage; she could’ve created a scandal, lived off of it, and ensuring her son had a part into the not negligible sum Jon could — should — be part of as Rhaegar’s child. 

Which was why Elia could never be upset with Lyanna for the part she had played in destroying her marriage to Rhaegar. If anything she was thankful to the woman for the lengths she had gone to, to protect children not her own from the damage the truth could do them. 

Still, truth had a way to come to the surface, and years after Jon had been born Rhaegar had come across them during a visit North. Elia was still uncertain on how that actually happened and a big part of her suspected that Rhaegar had actually purposefully searched for Lyanna, possibly with the intention of rekindling their relationship now that his marriage to Elia was on rocky ground. Still, Rhaegar had discovered Jon and of course, Elia who was the one who managed most of the income of the business Rhaegar had created since abandoning his political dream had started to notice how a fund had suddenly be created separately. 

It had taken some digging — perhaps not all exactly legal — for to find that the accountholder of the fund had been a boy named Jon Snow, and that, until he came of age the only two people who could have access to the fund were Rhaegar and the boy’s mother, Lyanna. 

At that point, putting together one and one hadn’t been so difficult, and Elia had sent the kids to their grandmother Rhaella for an afternoon when finally she had decided to confront her husband. 

It had been nothing short of explosive and by the evening Rhaegar had left home slamming the door behind himself not to be heard of again — possibly hiding out at his best friend’s house or at some flame — Elia had known of his affairs for years, but they had never resulted in a child and he had never been caught dirty-handed so she had hoped she had grown simply paranoid. 

Instead now she discovered he had a child from another woman, born out of wedlock and whilst they had been (at the time) at the strongest in their relationship, short after the birth of their second child, Aegon.

So Elia had decided that a change of air was much needed and had packed up the children and left as she decided what she wanted to do with the information she had discovered and if leaving her husband definitely would damage her children more than remaining with him. 

She had not been ready to face Lyanna Snow, so she had run away, though she had soon learned that the woman knew nothing of the fund having been opened on her son’s behalf, so it stood to reason she had not been bought off to silence. 

And it had been during her two months stay in Sunspear that she had met him. 

Brandon Stark — surprisingly the uncle of the bride, small world — he was younger than her and full of life and promise. He was earnest and forthcoming and he clearly had a crush on her. 

Elia had been twenty-eight and he had been twenty-three in Sunspear exploring after he had abandoned his studies at college. He had been surfing when Elia had taken the children to the beach. 

He had actually met Aegon first, as her son had all but begged him to see his surfing board as Elia had been sunbathing with Rhaenys. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had been alerted of a stranger presence in her space only when he had — with his quite impressive mole — shadowed the sun from her and Elia had found herself face to face with her lanky tanned, violet-eyed and silver-haired son and his new friend, a quite muscular and handsome young man with long dark hair held back in a bun, sun-kissed skin and shining brown-grey eyes.

And… alright, he had been drenched, salt and water still sticking to his chest, droplets of seawater still running down his  chiseled abs. 

Hello there, he had greeted her, I have a feeling this rascal might be yours. 

Aegon had kept begging Elia to let him learn some surfing with the newcomer and Elia had not had the heart to deny her son something he had seemed so passionate about — and in retrospect she had done well as surfing was now her son’s life and full-time job. He had moved permanently to Dorne for that.

She and Brandon had circled around each other for weeks before he had asked her out to dinner. Elia had told him she was married and his reply had been A pity really, but he had not walked away, he had even invited the children to tag along and as her kids had been running wild on too much sweets and too many triggers with the rides around the seafront, they had found themselves talking and, for the first time since having discovered of Jon, Elia had confided in someone the truth. 

Brandon had been furious — had, had half a mind to just find Rhaegar out and start a good fistfight — and then he had cocooned the perfect way to take her out on a date. 

He had even enlisted the children’s help — Rhaenys mostly as she was the oldest and eerily aware of how broken things had become between her parents — and he had convinced her to accompany him to an exhibition of one of her favorite artists. 

When Elia had gone out with him, she had discovered the exhibition was not at eleven a.m. as he had anticipated, but that it was instead at three p.m., Brandon had grinned at her unrepentant and had started to take her around, he had even introduced her to some of his friends and brought to a meeting of ex-college activists. 

It had been sweet and when finally they had left the exhibition Brandon had been all giddy. Have I convinced you, yet?, Elia had rolled her eyes. 

It does not do wonders to my opinion of you, if you’ve cleverly brought me only where they would speak highly of you, she had teased, though you get points for cleverness, and, she had added, for the cravat. It must’ve been a nightmare for you, she had commented. 

A nightmare indeed.

Elia had been ready to return home by then, she was not a cheater, thank you very much, and she knew something was bound to happen if she entertained his silly crush — and hers — further.

She was flattered, really, but she had been not yet ready and especially she was still a married woman not yet decided on how to behave with her cheating husband, but that didn’t mean she had intention of stepping to his level by cheating back.

Yet, he had posed a fine argument, promising her the best gelato in all of Westeros and Elia had reminded him she was picky with her food and he had laughed, promising her it would be worth the hype. 

It had been. 

She had gone for simplicity. Mint and lemon and stracciatella. Nothing too elaborated and he had chosen instead pistacchio, nutella and cream — who knew he actually had such a sweet tooth? — they had sat on a bench seafront and ate in silence their gelato. 

Until he had asked — after she might have moaned a bit, though it was really that good — if she wanted a taste of his gelato. She had been so taken by the setting sun and her elation that she had accepted the offer. 

Brandon had fed her nutella gelato from his own spoon and Elia maybe was as guilty as he was of what happened next, because she could see it in her own mind happening before it did, and she still didn’t put a stop to it, when he leaned close and pressed his lips against hers to get a taste of his own gelato across her lips. 

Brandon kissed with the same passion with which he laughed. Fully, as if he put his whole being into the kiss. Elia had never been kissed that way, not even when she had been a young girl, so she may have leaned into the kiss herself. 

Yet, she had stopped it. 

It had been wrong. Brandon had understood, but it was also clear that he had been hurt over her rejection, even though he had kissed her temple and told her you are too good for this world, he doesn’t deserve you.

She had never seen Brandon again — though he and Aegon had kept in touch over the years and she knew Brandon had went to every single surfing contest Aegon had taken part in, to cheer him on — and the next week she had booked the flight back to Dragonstone and had decided to ask Rhaegar for a divorce. 

The divorce had been a nasty matter, but before anything else Elia had met with Lyanna over a tea. She had told her about the fund for Jon, and had told her she didn’t hold her — a teenager at the time — responsible for what had happened, since she had been unaware of Rhaegar’s family and then she had returned home, had sat her children down and had told them she and Rhaegar would part ways. 

It had taken them several courtroom meetings, and years after they finally reached an accord and signed the divorce papers. 

Elia had been thirty-three by the time she had become a divorced woman, with two teenagers solely to her custody. She had kept in touch with Lyanna, even though the other woman never touched a single penny from the fund Rhaegar had created for Jon, and finally Rhaenys and Aegon met their half-brother. 

When the time had come Jon had used it to further his instruction and then had given it for a series of charities.

Jon had been a sensible youth and Aegon had immediately hit off with him, as had Rhaenys. It never ceased to amaze her how easily her children had taken not only to the divorce but their brother as well, to the point Aegon was one of his best men and Rhaenys had asked Jon to be her best man beside Aegon at her own wedding. 

Elia couldn’t be prouder, and life had gone on. 

Lyanna had crooned on and on about Sansa Stark, the woman with whom Jon was in love. Elia had not made the connection until Brandon had walked in — still sunkissed, with short hair now, and crinkles at the corner of his sparkling grey eyes — during the rehearsal dinner and had swept his niece off her feet making her giggle. 

Brandon was no less handsome now that he had been at twenty-three, no less handsome in a surfing suit than he was in the formal suit he was wearing for his niece’s wedding. He might be now thirty-nine — and she forty-three going on forty-four — but his eyes still sparkled the same. 

Aegon had grinned at her, when Brandon had entered the restaurant, with that kind of grin that told her he had been aware all along that Brandon would be present. 

Whilst shortly after she had divorced Rhaegar both her children had been uneasy with the idea of her dating another man, they had been trying to push her to find someone with whom to spend her life. That her world didn’t need to end with Rhaegar Targaryen and her children. 

Still, despite knowing Brandon still met occasionally with Aegon, she had never entertained the idea of giving them a shot. He had been young and impressionable and he had a life full of adventure before himself, Elia had no intention neither of getting back in the game (so to speak) so fast after the divorce and she had not wish to chain him down to a life he might not want, so she had never reached out to him. 

Lyanna had taken care to have her sit with her and her new flame — Robert Baratheon, Call me Bobby B!,  — where she would be far enough from the family of the bride but still near enough the family of the groom.

You’re family, Lyanna had told her firmly. 

She could feel his gaze follow her whenever she went, she knew he was hyper aware of her — or perhaps she was the one hyper aware of him — still she had sternly refused to make eye-contact knowing she’d probably fall prey to his outstandingly shining eyes. 

Still, at one point, she had been left alone at the table — well not completely alone, Rhaenys had been there with her — and Brandon, who had circled around her table all night had moved for the kill. 

Stupidly handsome in his stupid suit. 

Rhaenys had easily made herself scarce then and Elia had played with the cake in her plate, suddenly without appetite. He was here, she was aware of nothing else, and he still was looking at her, yet Elia did not have the bravery to look at him, afraid she might not find him watching her with the same passion his eyes had held when he had kissed her, but merely with the fondness associated to an almost-lover. 

“Won’t you even look at me?,” he asked, his voice accusing and Elia’s eyes had snapped on him, when she did she suddenly realized he had been goading her because he smirked down at her and—

—no, the passion was most surely still there, behind his grey-brown orbs.

“And there she is,” he commented “the most beautiful woman in the world” he said sitting beside her and Elia had to bite her lip.

“I’d think the most beautiful woman in the world today ought to be your niece. The bride, you know?” 

Brandon had smiled “I’m sure my niece will understand,” he stated “afterall her husband has eyes only for her, I doubt she feels in any way unconfident right now” he shrugged “besides Sansa has never been one to not acknowledge the truth”

“You’re as flattering as you were back then,” she comments. 

“And twice as impertinent,” he nodded “I’m afraid age has done nothing to make me more sensible” Elia was almost about to ask him what he meant when he proffered a hand and tucked a strand of ink black hair from her face behind her ear, the ringlet had been framing her face for a while now “Besides, look who’s talking, you’re hardly less enticing than you were when we first met”

Elia couldn’t help herself, she broke out in a giggle “Well,” she commented “that is comforting, age has not beaten the enchantment out of me yet”

Apparently only then did Brandon understand his implication, he burst out laughing “See?,” he commented “I’m still as messy as before when trying to woo you”

Elia arched a brow “I seem to remember a quite proficient young man at wooying” 

Brandon cocked his head to the side “Is that why you never reached out to me? I was too good at wooing?, had I know I would've been terrible” he asked “after the divorce?” he specified.

“I—” she looked away from his enticing grey eyes “five years had passed, I assumed you might have forgotten me and… I didn’t want to—”

“Is that the salted caramel and pistacchio cake?,” Brandon interjected pointing to her untouched plate.

Elia frowned “Yes?”

One moment they were speaking about feelings and the next about which one of the two cakes Elia had ended up with. A whirlwind of a change of topic if she ever saw one. 

Brandon hummed took the fork from her hand and took a bite out of her slice of cake bringing it to her lips “Good,” he declared “a bit too much on the salty side for my tastes” he commented, Elia did not reply “you know what?” he asked as he took another bite off of it. 

“What?”

“I think I don’t care anymore about why you didn’t reach out to me,”  he stated and Elia almost felt like slapped, but then he smiled at her bright and unrepentant and asked “wanna a taste?” he asked, arching both his brows suggestively. 

Elia knew what he was asking now. 

She caught Lyanna’ gaze over Brandon’s shoulder and she almost laughed at her impression of having to fan herself because Brandon was hot before she gave her the thumbs up with such a bright smile. 

“Why not?,” she had replied, looking back into his eyes and he smiled, soft, tender wrinkles around the corner of his eyes that made him look even gentler than he actually was “after all I must hurry along, before my enchantment decreases with age” she teased him.

Brandon chuckled at that “Absolutely,” he said “you should absolutely hurry along and—”

This time it’s Elia who kisses him, in the middle of a wedding dinner, thankfully everyone is more involved in the bride and the groom than they are in the strange dornish woman in their midst kissing the one who was supposed to become lord but abdicated in favor of his younger sibling with the intention of exploring the world and never settle. 

Besides Aegon that was, who interrupted the kiss by grabbing Brandon’s shoulder and yanking playfully at it “Listen here, mister, who gave you the permission to kiss my mom that way hm?” 

Elia was halfway through a laugh when she saw Brandon pale in half a second before Aegon burst out laughing “Keep on,” he told them “but not where my eyes can see it, thank you and amen” he added, winking at her before addressing Brandon again “treat her right, or I will know” he added, his voice dangerously low. 

“Don’t take it the wrong way, love,” Brandon commented “but your children are terrifying,” he added as he caught Rhaenys’ gaze from the other side of the room as she stabbed pointedly her own cake beside her husband holding eye contact. 

Elia did burst out in a full laugh at that “You ought to be scared,” she said “they’ve learned that from me,” 

Brandon looked at her with stars shining in his eyes and Elia felt elated, as if she was on cloud nine “What?” she asked. 

“Nothing,” Brandon said “only hard to admit my old man was right. Good things take time, and patience”

Elia kissed him again then, sweetly this time. And it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, who knew which wonders were hiding just behind the first page, awaiting to be discovered? She was sure Brandon would gladly explore them together in the years to come.

And if she happened to accidentally — it fell into her hands alright? — catch the bouquet when Sansa threw it, in the meantime almost falling into Brandon's awaiting arms when she stumbled a couple of steps back after the throw... well, maybe it was just fate nudging her in the right direction, wasn't it?, especially when Brandon's arms encircled around her waist as he muttered in her ear “You have the same scent of summertime and joy on you still, I missed it”

Twenty years later, they’re still discovering… they’re still exploring. And they’re still terrorizing Aegon with their shenanigans when he comes to visit and they are too lovey-dovey.  

Fin 

Hope you enjoyed that! It's short and sweet and I had so much fun writing it!

Thank you for the prompt and feel free to send as many prompt as you'd like to read! As always sending all my love ~G.

Ps. I might expand on this if any of you is interested? Rare pairs of ASOIAF, in any setting you might like!, I could make a series out of it too.

[reginarubie]

Jon and Sansa do end up together, but— Another one of Sansa's exes.

I just realized although I put it on ao3, I never posted here the third installment of the Jon and Sansa do end up together, but— let's see them from their exes' POV. Or if I have, it has gotten lost in the posts and I can't find it anymore.

Sorry for the delay, in case I did not post it, so here you have it (can read it on ao3, here).

Anyway, here it is, the third part of the Jon and Sansa through their exes' eyes. This time it's again through one of Sansa's exes (or, maybe's) and I think it's very sweet altogether, so I hope you enjoy. 

This one features also Robb Stark (in his groomzilla and proud brother era), a quipping, sarcastic Arya Stark and a lovely Jeyne Poole.

It’s time to face the truth [I’ll never be with you]

Podrick~

The first time Pod sees Sansa Stark, it’s by chance. It wouldn’t even be correct to say he actually saw her, it was more like a glimpse. After having spent half of his life at Lannisport and the other half at Kings Landing Pod had yet become accustomed at how things were done in the north. 

The people here are less accommodating to strangers, southerner they call him, in a derogatory manner; everyone seems suspicious of him, yet when he had walked into a bar the other night and gotten excited over a rugby game the people of his neighborhood had warmed up to him — even though he keeps for an opposing team. 

But, where the people are less accommodating to strangers, the nobility is much more approachable than in the South. Lady Arya and lord Rickon Stark, for example, are both athletes and they usually hang out — or so the press seems to say — in bars and hostels with their own people, wearing ripped jeans and t-shirts, or sweats and sweatpants. Easygoing and approachable. 

Lord Stark and lady Stark are often seen together, just taking a stroll in the market, speaking with the people, letting them shoot photos, just listening to them. 

Lord Stark is the kind of man you’d have a pint with!, one of the men at the bar says often, to which an old half-homeless man will reply he actually did drink a pint with the lord of Winterfell one night, ten years ago. 

Lord Brandon is the most secluded of the Starks, possibly due his condition. Though he can often been seen during official outings, or with his mother during their meetings for charity. Though often the tabloids post about him and his two long-time friends, Meera Reed and Jojen Reed, both from the small nobility. 

Lord Robb, the heir to Winterfell, is instead known for his kind manner and good spirit. He is at college where he is working to get his degree in art and history, instead of business or economics, or law like everyone was expecting him as the heir to Winterfell.

Lord Robb drives every other weekend from college to be present to the matches of his brother’s rugby team. It is a family date, everyone will be present and then they would head to Hot Pie’s Place and they would offer a round to everyone present. 

Lady Sansa, the second oldest, looks every inch the lady, always prim and proper. She has just started her own degree in law and is often seen either alone or with her mother in charge of charities or visiting the ill or the homeless. She flies to the Riverlands every other month to visit with her old grandfather and meet a few friends. There had been a time the tabloids had been extremely interested in lady Sansa’s love life, like when she had a relationship with Joffrey Baratheon, or when there were rumors of a love story with her best-friend’s ex, Ramsay Bolton. But at some point the tabloids had stopped speaking of it altogether. 

“Sing a song lady Sansa!” someone had shouted and that had gotten his attention as he exited his train, he had followed the crowd to find Sansa Stark sat near an homeless man who was strumming on an old, overused guitar. She had been singing softly some song about Florian and Jonquil. 

Pod had been late so he had not lingered, but he remembers thinking she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life — and he had seen Cersei Lannister, who the tabloids had nicknamed the Light of the West for her beauty — because there was an elegance to her that sparkled through her clear eyes. 

He had truly met her a couple of years after that chance sighting. Pod had been working under doctor Brienne of Tarth for four months putting his degree to good use and helping under one of the best in his sector. 

He knew Brienne of Tarth had been appointed with the support of lady Catelyn Stark at the head of the association and since then Brienne had, had an in with the Starks which had meant publicity for their work, charities thrown in their name and all kind of supports the Starks could give them; so it didn’t surprise him when she told him that they would receive a noble visit later in the week. 

When the day came he had expected lady Stark or perhaps even lord Brandon — he had met both already a month before — instead when the doorbell rang and he urged the elderly to see who it was at the door he felt himself go blind as his eyes fell on the beaming smile of lady Sansa Stark. 

“Good morning,” she greets, her voice soft, the smile evident in her tone “I was wondering if you have space for two more today” she offers with that easygoing smile that she shares with all of her siblings. 

As she said so she steps to the side and exposes her older brother, lord Robb Stark. Both of them have the red hair and the blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun, and they seem to brim with happiness as the men and women start clapping and cheering them all. 

He realizes Lady Sansa was still waiting for his reply when he turns to her and she is smiling questioningly to him, he blushes to the roots of his dark hair, his neck burning as his ears as he stumbles over his words to let them inside, apologizing. Lord Robb gives him a pitying look and a pat on the shoulder as he passes him by “Don’t worry, my sister tends to have that effect,” he says to him chuckling as both turned to look at lady Sansa, already greeting each and every man and woman in the room as well as Brienne. 

He learned that day that lady Sansa is an habitué and that she will often bring along one of her siblings, but that today she has chosen her brother Robb — kind of wrestled me out of my wedding plans — as the activity of the day is finger painting and lord Robb has just graduated from college, his degree in art and history received with the best grades. So it kind of is his field. 

Lady Sansa sits with the elderly, listens to their stories, holds them as they are overcome with emotion, compliments their bravery and their art, comments on how well she found them since her last visit. Made them feel loved. Shares with them some of her experiences at college and makes fun of her brother, affirming in this equation he has become the groomzilla of the couple. 

Pod is in awe.

“So you are Podrick,” she corners him in a moment of pause as she gets herself some water as her brother helps an old woman with arthritis to finger paint “Brienne always speaks highly of you”

That Brienne would speak of him, let alone with nobility left him feeling suddenly embarrassed. Lady Sansa listens raptly as he replies to all her questions, where did he come from?, why did he took this career path when most people tend to focus on the young instead of the elderly. Pod feels like her entire focus was not him.

It makes him feel truly seen and appreciated.

“Thank you, Podrick,” she tells him, her voice coiling with warmth “Thank you for what you’re doing here” 

***

He meets lady Sansa several other times after that first time, and he would even consider them kind of friends. Lady Sansa has taken his e-mail and often sends him links to activities he might be interested in, or simply to check in on him and the bureau. 

He doesn’t dare hope more. Though his heart skips a beat or two every time she looks at him, or smiles his way. Lord Robb teases him mercilessly about it too, every time he comes with his sister. 

Lord Rickon and lady Arya — who he met briefly only once — just rolled their eyes and waggled their eyebrows in his direction. 

Lord Bran who comes around quite often with his sister teased him as well about it, though he seemed kinder about it. Like he found endearing his evident crush on his sister, a crush she didn’t seem to have noticed either. 

Sansa even invited him out, a friend-lunch-date, they spoke of his plans for the future, for his plans in taking a more important role at the bureau for the elderly under Brienne.

“Brienne says you’re ready,” she had commented sipping on her mineral water. 

“Brienne laments I’ve been ready since I’ve arrived, she has way too much faith in my abilities”

“Don’t try to be modest,” Sansa had chastised him “Brienne is not the type to offer empty compliments. If she says you’re ready to take on more, she truly thinks it”

It’s only one of the several time they meet, lady Sansa is always kind and supporting. A real friend, to the point Podrick is even afraid of trying and take a step more — like even only take her hand as they walk — as he doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. 

Things starts to change when lady Sansa invites him over to Winterfell for lord Robb’s nameday. Then Podrick starts to wonder if he really could have, beyond any fear, a chance with her. 

A true fairytale coming alive before his very eyes. And it could be his life. 

Lord Robb greets him in good humor with his fiancé, Jeyne Westerling, hanging at his side. Several other friends are present, the teammates of lord Rickon, as well as the guys and girls on lady Arya’s fencing team, some colleagues and college friends of lord Robb. Lord Brandon inseparable friends.

Lady Sansa best friend, Jeyne Poole, a girl kind with big brown eyes and a loving smile, is also present. Her eyes are sad, like she’s seen too much. It makes her smile all the more beautiful and heartbreaking for it. 

She is kind of quiet and in the midst of what is a social event in full swing — for however private it’s still the nameday of the heir to Winterfell — and lady Sansa — just call me Sansa by now, Pod — the social butterfly that she is, is basically helping her mother play hostess with grace and elegance. 

“So,” Jeyne asks him nursing her non-alcoholic drink “how long have you had this crush on Sans?” 

It is rude and unpolite, it makes Pod choke on his own drink “I beg your pardon?”

“Everyone with two functioning eyes would see it,” Jeyne says, not unkindly, just matter-of-factly shrugging “it is a wonder she’s so dense sometimes” 

“I—” he stumbles with his own words unable to get them out “we’re friends” 

“Yes, I can see that. She must care for you a great deal if she has invited you to a private party,” Jeyne admits “Sansa is just like that, generous and straightforward with her affection” 

Podrick can do nothing but agree “My fondness for her it’s— I don’t have any bad intentions” he assures her. Jeyne Poole burst out in a laugh.  

“I am sorry,” she tells him seeing his affronted expression “I promise I am not laughing at you,” she says “is just… it’s clear you’re a good man, Podrick Payne. Sansa has had her share of bad men,” she sighs “and I find it cute that you’d think we’d let you this close to Sansa if we thought you were intending to harm her”

“Everyone!” Sansa’s voice saves him from finding a reply to that “all lights out!” 

“Roger-roger that!” lord Rickon exclaims doing a poor imitation of a military salute to his sister as the room is plunged into darkness and a cloth hung from the ceiling.

Sansa fumbles around for a little bit and then a big grin blooms on her face “Jon!” there is static and all of sudden the projector comes alive and a man appears on the cloth’s surface.

“Say hello to everyone!” Sansa sing-songs, her voice ringing like bells. 

The man is covered from head to toe in the black furlined winter uniform of the Nights Watch with a wool cap over his head, some curls hanging low and framing his face, his beard well trimmed and his cheeks reddened either from the cold or because he kind of looked timid. 

“Hello everyone” he sounds almost like a dying whale, which is exactly what lady Arya Stark told him bluntly, provoking the general hilarity. 

“Robb, mate” this Jon says, instead of addressing the comment “I am sorry I couldn’t make it, but as you can see I’m still stuck in the Lands of Always Winter,” he tells them gesturing around himself “just to make this video call Sansa had to pull a couple of strings” 

There is wetness in lord Robb’s eyes as he twists  to look at his sister, who blows him a kiss. 

“Anyway, sorry I have to miss your nameday, mate, I’ll be there for the wedding, I promise” 

“Remember Snow, you better keep your promises or I will unleash Rickon on you” lord Robb threatens wetly. Podrick wonders if he will actually be overcome by emotions. 

“I’ll do my best, Stark” the other man replies, there is some more static “anyway, the line doesn’t hold very well or long so, here, mate— happy birthday” and he maneuvers the camera so that it looks at the sky and the northern lights shining into the darkness to everyone’s awe. 

Sansa is holding her hands to her heart as awe paints her face and a smile curls at her lips. 

Later, when everyone has been shown to a room where they could stay or went home Podrick is sitting on a swing with Arya Stark as she and her friends spoke loudly about sports, Pod finds himself fitting right in. 

He sees how touched lord Robb was at the video call and asks lady Arya if this Jon is a cousin or a relative. 

“Jon?” she asks “Jon’s family. He is Robb’s best friend, has been since they’ve been what like five? Sansa how old where you when Jon started to come around?”

Podrick hadn’t even noticed Sansa, who is currently being squeezed an inch from her life, by the eldest Stark. She rises her head from lord Robb’s chest and looks thoughtful for a moment “I think you were like one or two,” she comments “I was around four I believe” 

“So an age ago!” Arya Stark teases “no wonder you have those wonderful crows feet!”

“Oi! You’re only two years younger than me!” Sansa exclaims falling into an easy banter with her sister. 

***

It is months before Pod actually finds the courage to decide to ask Sansa out to a date, he wants everything to be perfect, from the very moment in which he would ask her which would’ve been during one of her visits — solo visit this time around, he checked — to the bureau for the elderly. 

When the doorbell rings Pod springs to his feet, for the general hilarity of the old people, to go and answer the door.

“Hello!” Sansa exclaims, her beam was somehow brighter than it usually is, she is holding her arm strangely behind herself, as if gripping something or someone “stop being shy!— I hope you don’t mind, I’ve brought a friend over” she says, the fondness evident in her tone as she tugs at the wrist just beyond Pod’s sight. 

When a grumbling Jon Snow enters in his line of sight Pod feels the world shift “Stop manhandling me,” he tells her, but without heat, just in fond annoyance.

“Then stop being so stubborn, everyone is going to love you to bits,” Sansa replies and for a moment they look completely lost in their own little bubble, then it is Sansa who burst the bubble “Jon this is my friend Podrick, the one I told to you about. Pod this is Jon”

My friend Podrick.

This is Jon, as if this Jon doesn’t need any other qualifications beyond being himself to be worthy to stand by her side. Like she doesn't need to specify with him.

It makes something ugly coil in Pod’s stomach. Something surprisingly similar to jealousy. Jon Snow holds out his hand to him, his face schooled in an expression of confidence, seriousness at his brow. 

“Pleased to meet you,” Jon Snow says as Pod shakes his hand. He has a good, firm handshake “I am sorry Sansa sprang me on you all”

“As if!” Brienne intervenes “Any friend of lady Sansa is a friend to us all!” she exclaims and the elderly echo her. Sansa’s smile is full of mirth as she goes around her usual business. 

Jon Snow is more reserved than Sansa is, quiet and timid, but there is fondness shining in his eyes as Sansa urges him to join her. He’s a good listener and the ladies are smitten with him. 

“Jon is very brave,” Sansa is telling one of them “he was a ranger of the Nights Watch,” she says warmly “but he has chosen to step down from the active missions to be a diplomatic liaison” she explains. 

“Oh you’ve seen many wildlings?” one of the women asks. 

“I did, ma’am, though they prefer to be called Free Folk” he replies politely “they are not so different from us, after all,” he states “they’re very loud” he says almost as an afterthought, as if something pains him. 

Sansa, emphath that she is, covers his hand on his lap and squeezes it gently but firmly. Jon Snow seems to draw comfort by it and looks up to her with a soft smile.

It’s that smile that makes Pod hit the brakes. The backlash almost breaking his heart.

Sansa blushes at that smile. He has never seen her blushing at him, though she did make him blush more than once. 

“Jon is considered a Free Folk-friend,” she tells them “they trust him,” she adds.

In her voice Jon Snow seems amazing. 

Pod wonders if Jon Snow knows that he is amazing in her eyes.

They move like an unit, Pod can’t help but notice, like they are so comfortable around each other that they don’t need to look at one another to know where the other is and move accordingly. It’s kind of astounding to watch. 

“Sansa speaks always highly of you,” Jon Snow tells him at one moment when he gets a little bit of respite from speaking. He seems like he might unravel any given moment “she seems to genuinely like you”

“I like her as well” he doesn’t know why it sounds so bitten out. Jon Snow doesn’t seem surprised by it. 

“I know,” is his surprising reply, he doesn’t say anything else and that spurns Pod to look up to his face. Try to read his expression, but he is unreadable. The only thing he can read as clear as a day on his face is his love for Sansa. 

He genuinely loves her.

Pod knows that expression is not reflected in his own eyes. He likes Sansa, but he does not look at her like she makes the world bloom around her, even though she does. 

He likes her, he suddenly realizes, like one is supposed to like a painting, or something beautiful but out of their grasp. What he sees reflected in Jon Snow’s eyes as he meets Sansa’s blue ones, that’s raw and that’s real.

He has no doubt Jon Snow could name every single little quirk Sansa has, every quality and every flaw, all shadowed by how powerfully he really loves her. As a person, not as the personality.

Later when the elderly ask for a song, Sansa indulges them and Pod can see Jon Snow drumming his fingers at the steady tempo Sansa’s humming at. And when they put on some music to dance whilst Sansa dances with him too, she persuades Jon Snow to dance as well.

“I am a terrible dancer” he reminds her.

“Don’t lie,” Sansa quips “I remember you took Arya to her dance lessons and that you fenced as well. Fencing requires the same grace and swiftness as dancing, just follow the sway”

And sway they do. It’s… breathtaking to watch as the first genuine smile tugs at the corners of Jon Snow’s lips as he decides to completely forego the music beat and hoists Sansa across his chest and swings her around making her giggle like a little girl. Full of mirth. 

A soft lady and her knight. That’s the way they look.

It’s tender the way that, when he relents his hold on her, Sansa kisses his cheek and thanks him as the elderly applaud. 

Ah young love, breathes out one of the elderly patients, one with dementia and Sansa blushes and shushes Jon when he tries to explain himself. 

Pod knows then. Even as Sansa hugs him tight that evening. Even if by any chance Sansa would say yes, even if he did end up going out with her.

He’ll never be with her. Not really. 

Jon is her endgame. Might be Sansa doesn’t even know herself, but she looks at Jon like he lit the stars up just for her, even when he only offers a comment to her. 

She’ll end up with him, in the end. He can already see it. 

He doesn't know what to do then.

Sansa shines brightly and she's so beautiful, and he'd like nothing more but have a chance with her.

But asking her feels like a fraud.

It's not like Sansa isn't complete and lovable and shining without Jon, but with Jon she's more at ease, she's more herself than he has ever seen her being. Even if she did say yes to him, he would never be for her what she needs him to be. Who she needs him to be. He cannot be him. He doesn't even want to, to be frank. So he never does ask her out, and in the end the time for it is passed.

***

Months later he meets Jeyne Poole by chance whilst doing grocery shopping. Jeyne smiles to him softly and quips on how he should really try to survive with more than just pre-cooked meals. 

It is entirely on a whim that Pod asks her if she’d like to have dinner together, maybe teach him how to cook a couple of dishes.

He doesn’t know why he does it. Maybe because she feels realer than anyone else at the moment.

In the end Pod falls into a routine with Jeyne and one day, next time Sansa visits actually, she brings Jeyne along and serves him with a long, appraising look before matching them for every game they play all day long. 

Might be Pod might have wanted to ask Sansa out, once. Might be she could’ve said yes. Might be they could’ve been a couple, for a time.

Still Pod seems unable to see past Sansa’s persona, and her friendly character. 

Instead he argues with Jeyne continuously because she can be stubborn and willful and outspoken even when she's soft and pliant, and won’t apologize for it.

And every time they argue Pod finds himself asking himself why he would bother and every time, when he sees her name on his phone screen he calls, because he misses her. 

They become friends, real friends, he and Sansa.

Like friends who speak on the phone and share ice-cream and childhood stories and plan surprises party for their common friend, Jeyne. It’s Sansa who actually prompts him to gather courage and ask Jeyne out on a date. 

She says no. 

Then she grabs him by the hem of his coat and kisses him, squarely on the lips. 

“I don’t do dates,” she says “I don’t do boyfriends either,” she adds “not after—” her voice breaks “but I want to make it work with you”

It’s unconventional, but in the end Pod manages to make her fall in love with him, for real and then it’s Jeyne who asks him to marry her, one day, three years later. Sansa teases him mercilessly for it. 

He learns all that Jeyne suffered, some of what Sansa suffered. Some at the hands of the same man. He learns that Jon Snow had been there, every time, to pick Sansa back together from the ground and hold her back together until she felt like she could breath again.

Jeyne tells him when she asks him to marry him, he did the same for her, albeit unwittingly. Supported her even when he didn't know against what. Or whom.

Pod honestly feel like he needs a pint, or two after he learns the truth of what Jeyne went through and when he asks lord Robb about it, about him the man tells him they have resolved the matter, that he cannot harm either Jeyne nor Sansa anymore. That Jon made sure he would never could.

Pod doesn't want to know what happened. He doesn't care. He holds Jeyne more tightly that night, even as she breaks. And he finds the beauty even in her broken pieces. Perhaps even more in them.

***

Sansa can be so petulant at times, he discovers. It’s like watching a parallel universe once he understands the difference between the Sansa Stark persona and Sansa Stark the woman. 

He has just started to steadily go out with Jeyne when Sansa brings Jon Snow at one of her visits again. This time their fingers are interlocked together as they walk inside.

There is tenderness as Jon kisses Sansa’s temple, there is love as he nudges her toward each row of elderly. 

A smile soft on his lips as he watches Sansa speak excitedly of the new developments in her tireless work to have the North separate from the South and give the Free Folk back their land. 

“So,” this time, it’s Pod who does the cornering “you finally got the guts to ask her out?” 

Jon smiles enigmatically at him “Something like that” he says. Pod gets the feeling things might have been much more amusing than he thought in the beginning. 

“Honey?,” Sansa calls from somewhere in the other room, Jon blushes a bit beneath his well trimmed dark beard; Sansa walks inside and smiles brightly “what, are you hiding from me, now?”

It’s astounding, after having known Jon before, and having seen him in different settings how easily he moves to accomodate Sansa in his guard — a soldier remains a soldier, even when he retires — letting her slip through and caressing the back of her head gently, cupping it softly before pressing a featherlike kiss on her lips.

“Of course not, baby” he assures her “I was just catching up with Pod, here” he justifies.

Sansa cranes her head to look at him “Pod, are you trying to steal my boyfriend from me?” she demands with a laugh, a bit petulantly perhaps, but it’s all in good humor “what would Jeyne think?”

Pod laughs at that. 

They are sweet, and she’s beautiful, even more beautiful than she was before because she feels loved. 

Because she is loved.

And when Jeyne walks down the aisle, arm in arm with her mother, and preceded by her maid of honor, Sansa, her smile beams in the same way. Because Jeyne knows she is loved. Because she feels she's loved.

She looks like an angel, his Jeyne.

He dances with Sansa too at the reception of his and Jeyne's wedding.

“You know,” he tells her at one point, as he spins her “I had the oddest crush on you at one point” he admits. 

Sansa giggles “I know,” she says “I noticed. I liked you too,” she tells him “if you had asked I would've said yes” 

Pod makes her twirl around herself “We're better off as friends” he says and there is no bitterness there, there's actually relief and Sansa nods “Yeah, we are” she says “and you are Jeyne were made for each other”

Pod actually blushes a bit at that “And there you are, blushing like a pretty maid” she teases him, and it's only seeing the mischievous light in her eyes that Pod realizes with a startle “You did it on purpose!, all along” he accuses.

Sansa shrug elegantly “It was cute, how affected you were. I liked it” she winks at Jon as Pod spins her and actually shines the moment he cuts in to have a dance for himself. Jon blushes too when Sansa tells him he looks very handsome.

And Pod smiles looking at them, and he kisses Jeyne.

Might be Pod had a crush on Sansa Stark once. Might be Sansa might have said yes if he ever asked her out.

He ends up with the love of his life instead, just as Sansa does. For not knowing what to do, Pod thinks, he's done pretty well. He kisses Jeyne as Jon whisks Sansa on the dance floor for another dance and spins her around making her giggle like a little girl and kisses her lips.

Right it's Sansa who's blushing, but she's smiling too.

They are the center of their little world. And Pod, Pod has his own enclosed in the palm of Jeyne's hand.

Fin

[reginarubie]

Second installment of ‘Jon and Sansa do end up together, but—’ this time from one of Jon's exes' eyes

Got inspired from an amazing prompt by an anon, this became a series of one-shots set in the same modern setting of Jon and Sansa seen through the eyes of their exes (good and bad) and through each other eyes (these two will be last ones, just saying).

First one: Waymar Royce, inspired by Happier, Ed Sheeran

Now let's hop onto the new one, this one from one of Jon's exes's POV.

Gonna keep it real with you, this one literally made me shed a tear as I've been in her shoes before, obviously not with so much trauma and violence, but you get my meaning.

Prompt: Jon and Sansa do end up together anyway, but Sansa has had, just as Jon, past experiences that were not abusive or tragic. Jon and Sansa seen through their exes' eyes. Tbh this might be very heartbreaking, but I hope also a bit healing.

So this one is from Val's POV, and inspired by Arcade, by D. Laurence

All I know [I got addicted to a loosing game]

Val ~

She catches Jon from the corner of her eye, all clad in his black clothes. It makes him stick out like a sore thumb, but a sore thumb that is lovely to look upon.

A smile curls on her lips, she had been cautious of Jon at first, he had had a… reputation for his skills and people were surprised when he stepped back from the field-duty and chose instead to become a diplomat. 

No one had expected that. From enforcer to ally. 

Val had been cautious because of that. 

Ygritte had, had her own to say about the man. The thing he could do with that mouth of his had spiked her interest at the very least, Ygritte spoke wonders of that, less of his… attachments. 

Ygritte was all fire, all violent freedom breaking the shackles of conventionality. 

Even the first time Val saw them together she knew they wouldn’t last. And they didn’t. What she hadn’t accounted for was…getting a fancy for the brooding man herself. 

Jon is…

He is what Val had never expected. His hands are capable of inflicting terrible pain, but they’re also capable of being tender. She got addicted to that tenderness, to the softness beneath the hard surface. 

She walks to him, to her boyfriend, a beam atop her lips; she is not wallflower herself, she had, had previous experiences perhaps even more than him, and with him it’s different. She has fallen fast and true. 

Jon’s lips curl into a fond smile but he’s still not seen her, she sees him offer out one of his gloved hands and only then her eyes zero on the woman at his side. For a moment the fiery beam of red makes her think of Ygritte, but this woman’s hair are much less red, the tone more auburn or some other color Val cannot name, but warmer, less fierce but not for that less enticing. She’s slender and lithe, and wears the winter bulkily clothes in shades of grey and white to the point that besides her red hair she could almost fade in the background. 

She’s looking at him too. 

And Val’s heart skips a beat when Jon brushes the tip of a gloved finger to her cheek brushing away some kind of dirt or snowflake, Val cannot see at this distance. It’s so tender it almost makes her breathless. 

The woman notices her first and nudges Jon “Is that her?” she asks, her blue eyes, — so blue — sparkle and Val has a terrible, lucid moment in which she thinks this woman looks exactly the part of the pretty woman she’d imagine hanging at Jon’s elbow, with him hanging to her every word. 

Jon’s eyes are soft when they fall on her and they remain soft — at least they don’t harden — though something akin to guilt flashes behind his grey eyes. 

“Aye,” they step closer, and only then does Val realize that her steps faltered and she’s standing stock still “Sansa,”  and surely Val might have imagined the way his voice dipped at that “this is Val,” he introduces her “the head of the movement for the Free Folk”

I am your girlfriend too, Jon. 

“My girlfriend,” he adds almost as if he has read her mind “Val, this is Sansa Stark. She’s at the head of several of the charity works you’ve benefitted from”

So this is lady Sansa. The title is mostly formal. This is the kind of woman one should expect to host tea parties between dignitaries and play hostess to foreign monarchy in the name of the king of the Seven Kingdoms. Not the kind of woman who should look all prim and proper and yet comfortable on the field, with cheeks and nose red raw from the cold, yet looking as at ease as at a ball.  

“Hello,” she greets her, with a beam that makes her distaste for the girl melt into liquid warmth “it’s so nice to finally meet you,” Val can detect no lie in her eyes “we were all very curious about the woman who has Jon wrapped around her little finger and so smitten”

Jon blushes. 

It settles something inside of Val, even as they start an easy banter between themselves. 

“Stop embarrassing me in front of my girlfriend”

“In front of who else should I embarrass you?,” she grins and Val finds herself half smitten at the woman herself “I have access to his baby pictures,” Sansa tells her conspiratorially “and his prom’s pictures!, teeny weeny Jon all suited up with that trademark brood to his face—” 

Jon clamps a hand over her mouth, his hold gentle.

“Stop it,” he warns her, his voice dipping with fond annoyance “stop being a nuisance and just do your— fuck, Sansa” 

Even Val has noticed the way Sansa Stark has stilled in his hold, the way she has flinched. She half expects Jon’s arms to fall from her neck and they do, but not to return to his sides, merely to hold more laxly around her shoulders. 

“Sorry,” he mouthes pressing his lips across her shoulder, then the rest of his sentence is lost to Val, but he can see color return to Sansa Stark pale cheeks. She shakes him off.

“It’s alright, Jon” but her tone suggests it’s anything but. They don’t look so mushy, though Jon broods endlessly, after that. Val doesn’t know why she feels guilty at how relieved that makes her fell.

And that is how Val had met Sansa Stark. 

The woman against whom she could never win. 

It isn’t like Jon cheated on her. Oh, he’s far too honorable to do that. He’d rather cut off his own hand than disrespect a woman. 

Still, her heart breaks at the same. 

It’s the small things. 

The details. 

She likes Sansa Stark. Truly. This would be easier if she didn’t. If she managed to hate the woman, but she— she can see the appeal.

She’s smart and soft-spoken and gentle and good with kids. She has a sharp wit and a gentle heart. 

She has seen the smile playing at Jon’s lips when he had seen her entertaining the children of Hardhome with songs and stories of chivalries from the Seven Kingdoms. They especially seem to like Jonquil and Florian. 

She’s beautiful and graceful.

Val knows she’s beautiful too, but in a different way. Or perhaps is the same way, but with a different character, which makes her appear different. She doesn’t know. 

Still, Sansa Stark is like a beacon and Val enjoys her company.

The bloody infuriating woman is easy to get along with. 

She only knows she has flinched when Jon commented on how, one day, she had sported her hair in the same braid Sansa did. 

The way he had noticed the weaving pattern was the same Sansa indulges in when her hair gets too unpredictable due the cold and wet weather Beyond the Wall.

“Sansa is lovely” she had told him, one night, tucked naked into his side after their passion had been spent, the furs tugged under her armprint. She knows she didn’t just imagine his hand stilling from drawing patterns on her bare arm. A shiver of cold had settled into her core at that.

“Aye,” had been his response “but what brought this on?”

She had shrugged “A couple of boys, even a couple of women, were thinking of—” Jon had never interrupted her so fast, or so fiercely before.

“Absolutely no” she still remembers the sheer will and violence of the way he had uttered those simple two words. She had flinched away from his touch as if burned. Turned her back to him and heave out dark breathes. 

“Fuck,” he had sworn “Val,” he had coaxed her to twist and look at him, her upper body exposed to the cold “I am sorry, it sounded wrong. Sansa… she has had some… suffice to say she’s had some bad experiences. I was the one to collected her, cheek and eye bruising and lip busted, from that scumbag’s home, young and afraid” he confides her. 

Val had felt guilty all of sudden of all the jealousy she had felt toward them. 

She had looked at Sansa differently after that. 

Still— the small things.

The way, when they were eating together Jon knew what foods Sansa liked and disliked enough to pour in his own plate the carrots she did not want — it’s called cannibalism, Sansa had joked when she had caught Val’s intent gaze on the interaction fingering at her braid, it had brought a reluctant, but genuine smile on her lips — and give her, instead, part of his smashed potatoes. 

Or the way, when they talked over the campaign to better the conditions of the Free Folk, Jon would pace around the small office, a time or two opening the nuts she always had on the ready for the children when they came in her office, to offer them to her. 

Or the way they almost never left the fire before Sansa had been shown safely to her room whilst she was with them. 

Things were better when she wasn’t around, despite her help being incredible. Val had managed well enough alone, well enough for her voice to reach the right ears; or perhaps that had been Jon too. He had an in with the Starks after all, he might have brought the matter to Sansa himself. 

But Sansa… Sansa had the voice and the authority to carry it on. People listened to her even outside her inner circle. Val herself listened to her. It was just…she gave off this vibe that she would take care of everything and you just needed to trust her, and most importantly she never, ever took decisions alone.

She always wanted it voted by the Elders, she wanted it to be their choice, she only offered to help channelize their voice, carried by Val, to be heard by all. She took no credit and asked none. 

Val almost would’ve wanted she did.

It would’ve been easier to dislike her if she did steal her place. But she never even tried.

She just…she genuinely wanted to help. And Val watched Jon escort her back to Castle Black every time with her heart in her throat, wondering if her boyfriend would return to her side, or if next time he’d been guilt-ridden and breaking things off with her.

But he never did. 

And she holds on. Maybe it’s only some kind of… deeper bond caused by the shared experiences and she’s putting in questions everything because of her jealousy.

But then, the dam breaks the moment she and Sansa get abducted. 

Well, abducted perhaps is not the best way to put it… they are taken hostage by a faction of dissidents and when Sansa wakes up, bound to her, and with a throbbing head Val can see in her eyes she’s scared. 

“Don’t worry,” Sansa had told her “I can speak us through this, and if I can’t, I can still buy time enough until Jon gets here”

They both know Jon will revert back to his on action days to come and save them, he would not trust the matter to anyone else. Still, her faith in him is…astounding. 

“I know,” she drawls. 

Then Sansa catches sight of her bruised cheekbone and exhales “Jon’s gonna have a field trip on this” she mutters “he’s going to go ballistic. I remember how ballistic he went when he found me bruised and shaking, when he finds you he’s just going to snap”

Val has never seen Jon even get mad at someone, she can’t imagine it. But somehow she trusts her judgment. Even if Jon showed little if none jealousy when Toregg tried to sweep her off her feet. 

“I am sure together we can find an accord, all we’ve been working for is—”

She even tries to speak it through with their abducters, though barely. Some of them seem moved by her speech, another slaps her on the cheek for it. Calls her kneeler whore and yells at her to shut up if she wants to keep her face pretty, he goes even as far as to slice at her cheekbone with a pocket knife. The wound isn’t too deep, but it spurns Val into action.  

Val is struggling beneath her bindings but she’s never learned any kind of martial art as Ygritte had, she isn’t trained. She barely manages to head-butt the man closer to her, but that too serves nothing. She’s vicious enough when needed, though and when the man comes close enough she bites at his earlobe, hard enough to tear. 

Still, the man who sliced Sansa’s cheek is the first one to fall on the ground, a bullet hinged in his kneecap. It’s a massacre and when Sansa hides her head against her shoulder Val realize she isn’t able to tear her gaze away from the sheer focus and violence of Jon’s each hit and motion. To the point that when he kneels before them she snaps completely out of it. The kiss Jon presses to her lips is so quick, too quick, almost perfunctory, so quick she almost doesn’t realize his lips have been there at all, then Jon is disentangling them and welcoming Sansa’s falling, boneless form in his open arms, kissing her hair like a fevered man. He cups her cheeks and drags his thumb over her wounded cheek, Sansa winces. 

She doesn’t hear what he says to her, but she gets enough to get the gists of it “You’re alright, baby, I got you” and he’s so frenzied that Val knows he means not to hurt her, though he does all the same. 

He’s on autopilot as he barely contains a snarl the moment Sansa weeps, it doesn’t surprise Val — though she should’ve seen it coming with how ferocious he looked barely five minutes ago — that as he carries her outside, nestled against his side, he still finds the space of mind to order his sworn brothers to not tend to the man’s wound beyond ensuring he survives the trip back to Castle Black, his voice vice and cruel and Val doesn’t miss the way Sansa sags against his side, her hand flexing into the fabric of the back of his bulletproof vest.

It is hours, hours he assuringly spent on the cleanup, though she knows he’s been by Sansa’s side — and that Sansa apparently talked him into tending to the men’s wounds as they voyage back to Castle Black — before Val finally manages to catch him alone, or well… he comes to her.

He is tired. Exhausted. 

She can see in his eyes that all he wishes to do is bury himself deep under and not resurface for hours. And he does. He disrobes quickly and cleans himself up, then he tucks the covers under his chin and he is dead to the world. Val barely manages to get a word edgewise with him, beyond assuring him she’s physically fine before he’s under and unreachable. 

She spends those hours sitting at the edge of the cot they have claimed as bed, their bed that feels almost as foreign as her own mind. 

She wonders if she’s reading way too much into what happened, Jon is known to be eternally protective of the Starks with whom he has grown up, vicious when they need protection. She knows, because he told her, of the way he dislodged the shoulder of the coach of the hockey team of his high school when the man had terrorized young Arya Stark and used his stick to make the girl double over in pain when he used it to manhandle her and hit her in the stomach to point out why women should not play hockey. 

Of the way he went ballistic when disabled Bran Stark ended up falling off the rocky tree house Theon Greyjoy had convinced him to climb even though his legs don’t work anymore after the accident. 

She knows how fiercely protective he is of them.

So maybe she’s letting her own insecurities work her mind into a frenzy. 

Maybe there is nothing to worry about, and after all Jon kissed her when he came to their rescue. Still—

He had kissed her on the lips, yet the kisses he had bestowed on the crown of Sansa Stark’s head had been fevered, reverent. Filled with panic and relief and fondness and love. 

The kiss he gave her had been almost…it had felt like duty, it had tasted like it too. 

“Sansa” 

One word. Two syllables. Five letters.

To make her world cave in.

To break her heart. 

She had always though she would hit him square in the face, maybe break his pretty nose if he ever uttered the other woman’s name in the throes of passion when they made love, but that had never happened beyond her fear.

Now she finds that his whine, so desperate, so wholesome as he is so far down into his own mind that he doesn’t even look able to open his eyes shatters her heart in a million pieces. 

It’s brutal the way pain guts her like a knife and suddenly she can’t be in this room anymore. 

She gets up and leaves. 

She avoids him for a long time and part of her is broken hearted over the fact that he is following her like a lost pup, unless Sansa Stark needs something that is, his big eyes following her every move as he tries to get her to speak with him. It comes all to an alt when suddenly Val cannot hold it anymore. 

“YOU CALLED HER NAME” she whispers-yell, because she has still pride and Sansa Stark is near them, busy with to organize some interview and telling the interviewer how brave Val was and how she had fought back, fearless. 

Jon’s face becomes blank all of sudden, pale and ashen and she can see in how tense he is that he is straining himself not to look at her, not to sell himself out. It makes for a bitter laugh to escape her lips. 

“And what’s worse—” her voice breaks “I know you haven’t even touched her” she feels the tears prickling at her eyes “still her pull on you is stronger than mine could ever be”

Jon wets his lip “Val—”

She shakes from his hold “No, you don’t get to do that,” she says “try to convince me otherwise, I’ve seen it” she hisses as she closes in on him “I deserve better than this” she snaps “so does she” she shoulders past him, and walks to Sansa Stark and the interviewer, pouring all of her anger into her intensity to speak with the masses, to let them know they deserve better than what they get in the reserve. 

It doesn’t escape her notice how Sansa Stark looks at Jon for a split of a second and yet seems to understand more in one look than Val did in almost a year they dated. 

It makes bitterness bloom on her tongue, especially when Jon leaves to escort Sansa back to Castle Black, unable to even look in her direction. 

She tries to tell herself she doesn’t wait for him. That she doesn’t spend her days wondering if she has done it, in the end, pushed him in her arms. 

“I want you to know,” Sansa Stark had told her as they had said goodbye to one another “I think you were very brave, and that whatever Jon has done to make you so upset, he possibly deserves it, but surely did not mean it. So… just be patient with him, alright?”

It makes her laugh brokenly. She doesn’t know what is more pathetic. That Jon would forever keep his distance from the woman he wishes he could love, or that that woman is completely unaware of the length at which his love for her runs. 

She tries to tell herself she doesn’t spend her day hoping to see him walk back to her, that she doesn’t dream that he’ll come to her, promise her she has misunderstood, that he loves her enough to stay.

That even if he loves Sansa Stark he doesn’t love her enough to leave Val for her, that he chooses her. And perhaps that would mean that Val would never be the number one in his heart, but she’ll be the one who’ll get it all the same. 

No, she shakes her head, I deserve better than this. I deserve to be loved the way he loves Sansa Stark, even if he’s a coward about it.

But that never happens. 

No. 

When he comes he’s walking as if he’s carrying the burden of the world on his shoulders. Val avoids him for four days. 

She doesn’t want for him to see her this way. 

Can’t bear to see how to him she’ll never be more than one of the many he took because he couldn’t have Sansa Stark. 

In the end he is the one who corners her, looking as heartbroken as Val feels. She refuses to feel sorry for him. 

She’s sorry for herself. Because she knows that if he was to tell her he’s choosing her, despite it all, despite knowing she’ll always be loved less, she’d accept. 

No. 

“You were right,” he tells her “I am sorry. I— I thought I had gotten over it,” he admits “truth is, I was lying to myself and to you” 

Val feels her throat constricting. 

She’s giving her dignity more worth than his love, like she should. No man should be ever worth your dignity, she tells herself.  

So why does it feel like a defeat still?

“How long?” she demands. Her voice is cruel, and Jon flinches. She forces herself not to care “how long have you loved her?”

Jon wets his lips. Says nothing.

“I deserve at least the truth” Val hisses and Jon squirms as if he has been pinched. Then he hangs his head. 

“I can’t choose a moment—” he begins.

“Try” Val interjects and Jon exhales audibly. 

“I feel like I loved her since the moment I met her, but that would be a lie. For the longest time she was just my best mate’s little sister, then somehow that gradually changed—” his voice breaks. 

“She was the little girl who Robb would have to get out of practice quickly to go collect from her ballet lessons. The same girl who hand-knit me a scarf the first Christmas I spent without my mother, because she wanted me to feel appreciated, even though I never paid her much attention”

“She was the one who’d sit with me and watch stupid naturalistic documentaries she didn’t care for whilst reading a book, but always managing to ask pertaining question to my matters” he admits “I— only an idiot would not love her, she’s so easy to love”

And on that Val has to agree. She’s lovable. In a way that make anger spark in her belly. 

“Love is different than being in love,” Val sniffs “and I saw a man in love, not a boy who loves a little girl” 

Jon inhales sharply “When she called me,” he admits at last “that’s the moment it hit that I was in love with her,” he tells her “she was crying… just breathing into her phone, unable to speak, yet I knew it was her. Had her send me her location and broke down the bathroom door behind which she was hiding.” he tells her.

“Her eye and cheekbone were bruising and her lip was busted. I don’t remember much after that, only that I had Joffrey pinned down after having punched him in the gut, and I would not have stopped. It was her voice… the way it trembled. That moment I realized it. Fuck, I am in love with her”

Val exhales “It’s been years since then,” she contest “why did you never—”

“It was never the right moment,” Jon interjected “Sansa needed time, then she met Waymar and I decided to move past. I knew I could never have her.”

“Why?”

Jon chuckles out, a dark, self-deprecating laugh “Have you seen her?” he asks “I am just me, Sansa descends from kings” he says “I will never be enough for her and I don’t want to hold her down”

“I moved on, or so I thought”

Ygritte, Val realizes with a startle. Ygritte had been him ‘moving on’. Another red-head, another girl with a beautiful singing voice and an easy smile. Yes, Ygritte was not as lovely as Sansa was, and twice as irrational, but now Val could see the appeal for Jon. 

“I want you to know Val,” Jon’s voice interrupts her musings “I genuinely didn’t mean to hurt you,” he tells her “I thought I had moved on, truly”

And Val feels the tears prickle at her eyes, burning. Her throat burns as well. 

“I wish it was different” Jon says “but when you got abducted… it was then that it hit me again”

Val breathes out, gingerly, trembling “When you discovered she had disappeared?”

“No, Val. Fuck— I was worried for both of you. I could scarcely sleep or eat, knowing that something could happen to the two of you, I… I care deeply for you” 

Val hisses, it is worse than a physical blow even though she is expecting it “I—” Jon’s voice dies out “it wasn’t until I saw her, so scared so— it was then that it hit me again full force. I knew I loved her, thought I had moved past being in love with her, in that moment I knew I had been lying to myself”

“Yet you came to my bed anyway” 

Jon looks sick at that “I… I was searching for comfort,” he admits “I knew you loved me and I acted instinctively coming to you. I was worried about you and I needed—”

“You needed to hide” Val seethes “from yourself or from her I don’t know. Point is, you can’t hide from me, Jon. I love you, it’s true, but this— this is not love, this isn’t even care. This is just cowardice and I never took you for a coward”

Now the tears stream down her cheek “I am not mad at her,” she informs him “bless her she’s so dense she hasn’t even realized,” she says “but you… you are not welcome in my life anymore” 

“Val, I—”

She twists around enraged, her lip curling rawly on her face “Do not” she hisses “don’t you dare”

He visibly deflates “I am sorry” he says.

Val flinches at that, is that how she’ll be dismissed? An half-hearted apology? No. I deserve better than this. 

“I didn’t deserve this, Jon. I deserve to be wanted, and loved and desired the way you are afraid of wanting, loving and desiring her. I won’t settle for anything less” she tells him. 

Jon winces at that and Val draws some kind of pleasure in knowing that hurt him at least half of how he hurt her. It’s nasty and terrible, and she’ll feel awful later, but right now she needs the rage to help carry herself out of this situation.

“You’re right, of course you are—”

“And you can’t give me that,” Val interjects and she can see the hurt in his gray eyes “but I can, and I will” she states “thank you, lord Snow, for the false glimmer of love and the half meant sentiment between us” she says.

Then she turns and walks away. 

The tears crystalize over her cheeks as she walks in the snow, the chilling cold not colder than she feels. 

It’s Dalla who finds her. 

She gathers her in her arms, brings her back inside, cleans her face and murmurs praises as Val breaks down. 

“You were the one, Val,” her sister whispers in her ear, kissing her head “you were the one who carried yourself out and back home. To say enough. I am so proud of you,” Dalla tells her “what you did. It takes courage and strength. You are the strong one, not him. He has no power over you”

“I’m always going to love him” she cries in her arms. 

“You’re always going to love yourself more. You’ll fall in love again, your heart’ll get broken again, but it’ll mend and in the end you’ll find your perfect match” 

Years later it still hurts, but the pain is dulled when finally they manage to get what they wanted, to get more rights, to get independence, as the North did. Val is proud, she feels strong and confident now, more than she did then. 

So when Sansa Stark, newly named Queen, invites her as the head of the Free Folk, Val accepts. Sansa Stark has aged nicely, perhaps it’s because she’s a nice person. Her smile is as lovely as it always was and her eyes are as sincere and true. 

They don’t speak about Jon. 

Val is glad of it. 

They don’t speak of him, because it was never about him. Not between them. Their acquaintance was not soured because of him, because it survived her relationship with him. 

Because both Val and Sansa know. 

It always was more important than a man. It was about their people getting what they wanted, what they deserved and they worked together tirelessly to get them that. And they had success. 

It hurts less after that. 

Val only catches a glimpse of Jon, he is rocking a newborn with a mop of red hair, in his arms and his smile is more genuine than it ever was with her. It pains her. But somehow when she walks away from him this time she’s smiling. 

As she looks back beyond her shoulder to Winterfell, Val doesn’t feel like she’s less, nor like she’s better.

She feels like she’s free. Like she's strong. Like the world is full of possibilities just in her reach.

“Race you to Mole Town” Toregg tells her, and her smile becomes a beam on her lips. 

“You’re on” she tells him, and then lets go of the brakes before he does. For some reason as they flash through the roads of the North, Val feels like she’s going to win this game. 

The smile remains with her. 

Fin

So, this was the first one from one of Jon's exes, next one will be from one of Sansa's exes, anyone wants to guess whom I've chosen for the task? I'll leave you with a clue: it's another nice one.

I hope you enjoyed it! We've seen another side of Jon and Sansa, a vulnerable Jon and a dense Sansa, Jon and Sansa through the eyes of Val. I had almost chosen to do Ygritte first, but I chose not to. I wanted to make Val first.

As always you can find it in my series of prompt on ao3: the Jonsa Hag prompts, chapter 5.

[reginarubie]

Jon and Sansa do end up together, but—, part III

Okay, so, time to be true with you, I had this ready since last month, but first I wanted to get the Val one out first, and then I got swamped over by work, my studies, and family matters and kind of lost all energy.

Anyway, here it is, the third part of the Jon and Sansa through their exes' eyes. This time it's again through one of Sansa's exes (or, maybe's) and I think it's very sweet altogether, so I hope you enjoy.

Part I: Waymar Royce

Part II: Val

Prompt: Sansa and Jon do end up together, but— featuring good and bad experiences for both of them, and the way they are seen through their exes, loved ones and each other's eyes.

This one is inspired by You're beautiful, by J. Blunt

It’s time to face the truth [I’ll never be with you]

Podrick~

The first time Pod sees Sansa Stark, it’s by chance. It wouldn’t even be correct to say he actually saw her, it was more like a glimpse. After having spent half of his life at Lannisport and the other half at Kings Landing Pod had yet become accustomed at how things were done in the north. 

The people here are less accommodating to strangers, southerner they call him, in a derogatory manner; everyone seems suspicious of him, yet when he had walked into a bar the other night and gotten excited over a rugby game the people of his neighborhood had warmed up to him — even though he keeps for an opposing team. 

But, where the people are less accommodating to strangers, the nobility is much more approachable than in the South. Lady Arya and lord Rickon Stark, for example, are both athletes and they usually hang out — or so the press seems to say — in bars and hostels with their own people, wearing ripped jeans and t-shirts, or sweats and sweatpants. Easygoing and approachable. 

Lord Stark and lady Stark are often seen together, just taking a stroll in the market, speaking with the people, letting them shoot photos, just listening to them. 

Lord Stark is the kind of man you’d have a pint with!, one of the men at the bar says often, to which an old half-homeless man will reply he actually did drink a pint with the lord of Winterfell one night, ten years ago. 

Lord Brandon is the most secluded of the Stark, possibly due his condition. Though he can often been seen during official outings, or with his mother during their meetings for charity. Though often the tabloids post about him and his two long-time friends, Meera Reed and Jojen Reed, both from the small nobility. 

Lord Robb, the heir to Winterfell, is instead known for his kind manner and good spirit. He is at college where he is working to get his degree in art and history, instead of business or economics, or law like everyone was expecting him as the heir to Winterfell.

Lord Robb drives every other weekend from college to be present to the matches of his brother’s rugby team. It is a family date, everyone will be present and then they would head to Hot Pie’s Place and they would offer a round to everyone present. 

Lady Sansa, the second oldest, looks every inch the lady, always prim and proper. She has just started her own degree in law and is often seen either alone or with her mother in charge of charities or visiting the ill or the homeless. She flies to the Riverlands every other month to visit with her old grandfather and meet a few friends. There had been a time the tabloids had been extremely interested in lady Sansa’s love life, like when she had a relationship with Joffrey Baratheon, or when there were rumors of a love story with her best-friend’s ex, Ramsay Bolton. But at some point the tabloids had stopped speaking of it altogether. 

“Sing a song lady Sansa!” someone had shouted and that had gotten his attention as he exited his train, he had followed the crowd to find Sansa Stark sat near an homeless man who was strumming on an old, overused guitar. She had been singing softly some song about Florian and Jonquil. 

Pod had been late so he had not lingered, but he remembers thinking she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life — and he had seen Cersei Lannister, who the tabloids had nicknamed the Light of the West for her beauty — because there was an elegance to her that sparkled through her blue eyes. 

He had truly met her a couple of years after that chance sighting. Pod had been working under doctor Brienne of Tarth for four months putting his degree to good use and helping under one of the best in his sector. 

He knew Brienne of Tarth had been appointed with the support of lady Catelyn Stark at the head of the association and since then Brienne had, had an in with the Starks which had meant publicity for their work, charities thrown in their name and all kind of supports the Starks could give them; so it didn’t surprise him when she told him that they would receive a noble visit later in the week. 

When the day came he had expected lady Stark or perhaps even lord Brandon — he had met both already a month before — instead when the doorbell rang and he urged the elderly to see who it was at the door he felt himself go blind as his eyes fell on the beaming smile of lady Sansa Stark. 

“Good morning,” she greets, her voice soft, the smile evident in her tone “I was wondering if you have space for two more today” she offers with that easygoing smile that she shares with all of her siblings. 

As she said so she steps to the side and exposes her older brother, lord Robb Stark. Both of them have the red hair and the blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun, and they seem to brim with happiness as the men and women start clapping and cheering them all. 

He realizes Lady Sansa was still waiting for his reply when he turns to her and she is smiling questioningly to him, he blushes to the roots of his dark hair, his neck burning as his ears as he stumbles over his words to let them inside, apologizing. Lord Robb gives him a pitying look and a pat on the shoulder as he passes him by “Don’t worry, my sister tends to have that effect,” he says to him chuckling as both turned to look at lady Sansa, already greeting each and every man and woman in the room as well as Brienne. 

He learned that day that lady Sansa is an habitué and that she will often bring along one of her siblings, but that today she has chosen her brother Robb — kind of wrestled me out of my wedding plans — as the activity of the day is finger painting and lord Robb has just graduated from college, his degree in art and history received with the best grades. So it kind of is his field. 

Lady Sansa sits with the elderly, listens to their stories, holds them as they are overcome with emotion, compliments their bravery and their art, comments on how well she found them since her last visit. Made them feel loved. Shares with them some of her experiences at college and makes fun of her brother, affirming in this equation he has become the groomzilla of the couple. 

Pod is in awe.

“So you are Podrick,” she corners him in a moment of pause as she gets herself some water as her brother helps an old woman with arthritis to finger paint “Brienne always speaks highly of you”

That Brienne would speak of him, let alone with nobility left him feeling suddenly embarrassed. Lady Sansa listens raptly as he replies to all her questions, where did he come from?, why did he took this career path when most people tend to focus on the young instead of the elderly. Pod feels like her entire focus was not him.

It makes him feel truly seen and appreciated.

“Thank you, Podrick,” she tells him, her voice coiling with warmth “Thank you for what you’re doing here” 

***

He meets lady Sansa several other times after that first time, and he would even consider them kind of friends. Lady Sansa has taken his e-mail and often sends him links to activities he might be interested in, or simply to check in on him and the bureau. 

He doesn’t dare hope more. Though his heart skips a beat or two every time she looks at him, or smiles his way. Lord Robb teases him mercilessly about it too, every time he comes with his sister. 

Lord Rickon and lady Arya — who he met briefly only once — just rolled their eyes and waggled their eyebrows in his direction. 

Lord Bran who comes around quite often with his sister teased him as well about it, though he seemed kinder about it. Like he found endearing his evident crush on his sister, a crush she didn’t seem to have noticed either. 

Sansa even invited him out, a friend-lunch-date, they spoke of his plans for the future, for his plans in taking a more important role at the bureau for the elderly under Brienne.

“Brienne says you’re ready,” she had commented sipping on her mineral water. 

“Brienne laments I’ve been ready since I’ve arrived, she has way too much faith in my abilities”

“Don’t try to be modest,” Sansa had chastised him “Brienne is not the type to offer empty compliments. If she says you’re ready to take on more, she truly thinks it”

It’s only one of the several time they meet, lady Sansa is always kind and supporting. A real friend, to the point Podrick is even afraid of trying and take a step more — like even only take her hand as they walk — as he doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. 

Things starts to change when lady Sansa invites him over to Winterfell for lord Robb’s nameday. Then Podrick starts to wonder if he really could have, beyond any fear, a chance with her. 

A true fairytale coming alive before his very eyes. And it could be his life. 

Lord Robb greets him in good humor with his fiancé, Jeyne Westerling, hanging at his side. Several other friends are present, the teammates of lord Rickon, as well as the guys and girls on lady Arya’s fencing team, some colleagues and college friends of lord Robb. Lord Brandon inseparable friends.

Lady Sansa best friend, Jeyne Poole, a girl kind with big brown eyes and a loving smile, is also present. Her eyes are sad, like she’s seen too much. It makes her smile all the more beautiful and heartbreaking for it. 

She is kind of quiet and in the midst of what is a social event in full swing — for however private it’s still the nameday of the heir to Winterfell — and lady Sansa — just call me Sansa by now, Pod — the social butterfly that she is, is basically helping her mother play hostess with grace and elegance. 

“So,” Jeyne asks him nursing her non-alcoholic drink “how long have you had this crush on Sans?” 

It is rude and unpolite, it makes Pod choke on his own drink “I beg your pardon?”

“Everyone with two functioning eyes would see it,” Jeyne says, not unkindly, just matter-of-factly shrugging “it is a wonder she’s so dense sometimes” 

“I—” he stumbles with his own words unable to get them out “we’re friends” 

“Yes, I can see that. She must care for you a great deal if she has invited you to a private party,” Jeyne admits “Sansa is just like that, generous and straightforward with her affection” 

Podrick can do nothing but agree “My fondness for her it’s— I don’t have any bad intentions” he assures her. Jeyne Poole burst out in a laugh.  

“I am sorry,” she tells him seeing his affronted expression “I promise I am not laughing at you,” she says “is just… it’s clear you’re a good man, Podrick Payne. Sansa has had her share of bad men,” she sighs “and I find it cute that you’d think we’d let you this close to Sansa if we thought you were intending to harm her”

“Everyone!” Sansa’s voice saves him from finding a reply to that “all lights out!” 

“Roger-roger that!” lord Rickon exclaims doing a poor imitation of a military salute to his sister as the room is plunged into darkness and a cloth hung from the ceiling.

Sansa fumbles around for a little bit and then a big grin blooms on her face “Jon!” there is static and all of sudden the projector comes alive and a man appears on the cloth’s surface.

“Say hello to everyone!” Sansa sing-songs, her voice ringing like bells. 

The man is covered from head to toe in the black furlined winter uniform of the Nights Watch with a wool cap over his head, some curls hanging low and framing his face, his beard well trimmed and his cheeks reddened either from the cold or because he kind of looked timid. 

“Hello everyone” he sounds almost like a dying whale, which is exactly what lady Arya Stark told him bluntly, provoking the general hilarity. 

“Robb, mate” this Jon says, instead of addressing the comment “I am sorry I couldn’t make it, but as you can see I’m still stuck in the Lands of Always Winter,” he tells them gesturing around himself “just to make this video call Sansa had to pull a couple of strings” 

There is wetness in lord Robb’s eyes as he twists  to look at his sister, who blows him a kiss. 

“Anyway, sorry I have to miss your nameday, mate, I’ll be there for the wedding, I promise” 

“Remember Snow, you better keep your promises or I will unleash Rickon on you” lord Robb threatens wetly. Podrick wonders if he will actually be overcome by emotions. 

“I’ll do my best, Stark” the other man replies, there is some more static “anyway, the line doesn’t hold very well or long so, here, mate— happy birthday” and he maneuvers the camera so that it looks at the sky and the northern lights shining into the darkness to everyone’s awe. 

Sansa is holding her hands to her heart as awe paints her face and a smile curls at her lips. 

Later, when everyone has been shown to a room where they could stay or went home Podrick is sitting on a swing with Arya Stark as she and her friends spoke loudly about sports, Pod finds himself fitting right in. 

He sees how touched lord Robb was at the video call and asks lady Arya if this Jon is a cousin or a relative. 

“Jon?” she asks “Jon’s family. He is Robb’s best friend, has been since they’ve been what like five? Sansa how old where you when Jon started to come around?”

Podrick hadn’t even noticed Sansa, who is currently being squeezed an inch from her life, by the eldest Stark. She rises her head from lord Robb’s chest and looks thoughtful for a moment “I think you were like one or two,” she comments “I was around four I believe” 

“So an age ago!” Arya Stark teases “no wonder you have those wonderful crows feet!”

“Oi! You’re only two years younger than me!” Sansa exclaims falling into an easy banter with her sister. 

***

It is months before Pod actually finds the courage to decide to ask Sansa out to a date, he wants everything to be perfect, from the very moment in which he would ask her which would’ve been during one of her visits — solo visit this time around, he checked — to the bureau for the elderly. 

When the doorbell rings Pod springs to his feet, for the general hilarity of the old people, to go and answer the door.

“Hello!” Sansa exclaims, her beam was somehow brighter than it usually is, she is holding her arm strangely behind herself, as if gripping something or someone “stop being shy!— I hope you don’t mind, I’ve brought a friend over” she says, the fondness evident in her tone as she tugs at the wrist just beyond Pod’s sight. 

When a grumbling Jon Snow enters in his line of sight Pod feels the world shift “Stop manhandling me,” he tells her, but without heat, just in fond annoyance.

“Then stop being so stubborn, everyone is going to love you to bits,” Sansa replies and for a moment they look completely lost in their own little bubble, then it is Sansa who burst the bubble “Jon this is my friend Podrick, the one I told to you about. Pod this is Jon”

My friend Podrick.

This is Jon, as if this Jon doesn’t need any other qualifications beyond being himself to be worthy to stand by her side. Like she doesn't need to specify with him.

It makes something ugly coil in Pod’s stomach. Something surprisingly similar to jealousy. Jon Snow holds out his hand to him, his face schooled in an expression of confidence, seriousness at his brow. 

“Pleased to meet you,” Jon Snow says as Pod shakes his hand. He has a good, firm handshake “I am sorry Sansa sprang me on you all”

“As if!” Brienne intervenes “Any friend of lady Sansa is a friend to us all!” she exclaims and the elderly echo her. Sansa’s smile is full of mirth as she goes around her usual business. 

Jon Snow is more reserved than Sansa is, quiet and timid, but there is fondness shining in his eyes as Sansa urges him to join her. He’s a good listener and the ladies are smitten with him. 

“Jon is very brave,” Sansa is telling one of them “he was a ranger of the Nights Watch,” she says warmly “but he has chosen to step down from the active missions to be a diplomatic liaison” she explains. 

“Oh you’ve seen many wildlings?” one of the women asks. 

“I did, ma’am, though they prefer to be called Free Folk” he replies politely “they are not so different from us, after all,” he states “they’re very loud” he says almost as an afterthought, as if something pains him. 

Sansa, emphath that she is, covers his hand on his lap and squeezes it gently but firmly. Jon Snow seems to draw comfort by it and looks up to her with a soft smile.

It’s that smile that makes Pod hit the brakes. The backlash almost breaking his heart.

Sansa blushes at that smile. He has never seen her blushing at him, though she did make him blush more than once. 

“Jon is considered a Free Folk-friend,” she tells them “they trust him,” she adds.

In her voice Jon Snow seems amazing. 

Pod wonders if Jon Snow knows that he is amazing in her eyes.

They move like an unit, Pod can’t help but notice, like they are so comfortable around each other that they don’t need to look at one another to know where the other is and move accordingly. It’s kind of astounding to watch. 

“Sansa speaks always highly of you,” Jon Snow tells him at one moment when he gets a little bit of respite from speaking. He seems like he might unravel any given moment “she seems to genuinely like you”

“I like her as well” he doesn’t know why it sounds so bitten out. Jon Snow doesn’t seem surprised by it. 

“I know,” is his surprising reply, he doesn’t say anything else and that spurns Pod to look up to his face. Try to read his expression, but he is unreadable. The only thing he can read as clear as a day on his face is his love for Sansa. 

He genuinely loves her.

Pod knows that expression is not reflected in his own eyes. He likes Sansa, but he does not look at her like she makes the world bloom around her, even though she does. 

He likes her, he suddenly realizes, like one is supposed to like a painting, or something beautiful but out of their grasp. What he sees reflected in Jon Snow’s eyes as he meets Sansa’s blue ones, that’s raw and that’s real.

He has no doubt Jon Snow could name every single little quirk Sansa has, every quality and every flaw, all shadowed by how powerfully he really loves her. As a person, not as the personality.

Later when the elderly ask for a song, Sansa indulges them and Pod can see Jon Snow drumming his fingers at the steady tempo Sansa’s humming at. And when they put on some music to dance whilst Sansa dances with him too, she persuades Jon Snow to dance as well.

“I am a terrible dancer” he reminds her.

“Don’t lie,” Sansa quips “I remember you took Arya to her dance lessons and that you fenced as well. Fencing requires the same grace and swiftness as dancing, just follow the sway”

And sway they do. It’s… breathtaking to watch as the first genuine smile tugs at the corners of Jon Snow’s lips as he decides to completely forego the music beat and hoists Sansa across his chest and swings her around making her giggle like a little girl. Full of mirth. 

A soft lady and her knight. That’s the way they look.

It’s tender the way that, when he relents his hold on her, Sansa kisses his cheek and thanks him as the elderly applaud. 

Ah young love, breathes out one of the elderly patients, one with dementia and Sansa blushes and shushes Jon when he tries to explain himself. 

Pod knows then. Even as Sansa hugs him tight that evening. Even if by any chance Sansa would say yes, even if he did end up going out with her.

He’ll never be with her. Not really. 

Jon is her endgame. Might be Sansa doesn’t even know herself, but she looks at Jon like he lit the stars up just for her, even when he only offers a comment to her. 

She’ll end up with him, in the end. He can already see it. 

He doesn't know what to do then.

Sansa shines brightly and she's so beautiful, and he'd like nothing more but have a chance with her.

But asking her feels like a fraud. It's not like Sansa isn't complete and lovable and shining without Jon, but with Jon she's more at ease, she's more herself than he has ever seen her being. Even if she did say yes, he would never be for her what she needs him to be. Who she needs him to be. He cannot be him. He doesn't even want to, to be frank. So he never does ask her out, and in the end the time for it is passed.

***

Months later he meets Jeyne Poole by chance whilst doing grocery shopping. Jeyne smiles to him softly and quips on how he should really try to survive with more than just pre-cooked meals. 

It is entirely on a whim that Pod asks her if she’d like to have dinner together, maybe teach him how to cook a couple of dishes.

He doesn’t know why he does it. Maybe because she feels realer than anyone else at the moment.

In the end Pod falls into a routine with Jeyne and one day, next time Sansa visits actually, she brings Jeyne along and serves him with a long, appraising look before matching them for every game they play all day long. 

Might be Pod might have wanted to ask Sansa out, once. Might be she could’ve said yes. Might be they could’ve been a couple, for a time.

Still Pod seems unable to see past Sansa’s persona, and her friendly character. 

Instead he argues with Jeyne continuously because she can be stubborn and willful and outspoken even when she's soft and pliant, and won’t apologize for it.

And every time they argue Pod finds himself asking himself why he would bother and every time, when he sees her name on his phone screen he calls, because he misses her. 

They become friends, real friends, he and Sansa.

Like friends who speak on the phone and share ice-cream and childhood stories and plan surprises party for their common friend, Jeyne. It’s Sansa who actually prompts him to gather courage and ask Jeyne out on a date. 

She says no. 

Then she grabs him by the hem of his coat and kisses him, squarely on the lips. 

“I don’t do dates,” she says “I don’t do boyfriends either,” she adds “not after—” her voice breaks “but I want to make it work with you”

It’s unconventional, but in the end Pod manages to make her fall in love with him, for real and then it’s Jeyne who asks him to marry her, one day, three years later. Sansa teases him mercilessly for it. 

He learns all that Jeyne suffered, some of what Sansa suffered. Some at the hands of the same man. He learns that Jon Snow had been there, every time, to pick Sansa back together from the ground and hold her back together until she felt like she could breath again.

Jeyne tells him when she asks him to marry him, he did the same for her, albeit unwittingly. Supported her even when he didn't not against what. Or whom.

Pod honestly feel like he needs a pint, or two after he learns the truth of what Jeyne went through and when he asks lord Robb about it, about him the man tells him they have resolved the matter, that he cannot harm either Jeyne nor Sansa anymore. That Jon made sure he would never could.

Pod doesn't want to know what happened. He doesn't care. He holds Jeyne more tightly that night, even as she breaks. And he finds the beauty even in her broken pieces.

***

Sansa can be so petulant at times, he discovers. It’s like watching a parallel universe once he understands the difference between the Sansa Stark persona and Sansa Stark the woman. 

He has just started to steadily go out with Jeyne when Sansa brings Jon Snow at one of her visits again. This time their fingers are interlocked together as they walk inside.

There is tenderness as Jon kisses Sansa’s temple, there is love as he nudges her toward each row of elderly. 

A smile soft on his lips as he watches Sansa speak excitedly of the new developments in her tireless work to have the North separate from the South and give the Free Folk back their land. 

“So,” this time, it’s Pod who does the cornering “you finally got the guts to ask her out?” 

Jon smiles enigmatically at him “Something like that” he says. Pod gets the feeling things might have been much more amusing than he thought in the beginning. 

“Honey?,” Sansa calls from somewhere in the other room, Jon blushes a bit beneath his well trimmed dark beard; Sansa walks inside and smiles brightly “what, are you hiding from me, now?”

It’s astounding, after having known Jon before, and having seen him in different settings how easily he moves to accomodate Sansa in his guard — a soldier remains a soldier, even when he retires — letting her slip through and caressing the back of her head gently, cupping it softly before pressing a featherlike kiss on her lips.

“Of course not, baby” he assures her “I was just catching up with Pod, here” he justifies.

Sansa cranes her head to look at him “Pod, are you trying to steal my boyfriend from me?” she demands with a laugh, a bit petulantly perhaps, but it’s all in good humor “what would Jeyne think?”

Pod laughs at that. 

They are sweet, and she’s beautiful, even more beautiful than she was before because she feels loved. 

Because she is loved.

And when Jeyne walks down the aisle, arm in arm with her mother, and preceded by her maid of honor, Sansa, her smile beams in the same way. Because Jeyne knows she is loved. Because she feels she's loved.

She looks like an angel, his Jeyne.

He dances with Sansa too at the reception of his and Jeyne's wedding.

“You know,” he tells her at one point, as he spins her “I had the oddest crush on you at one point” he admits. 

Sansa giggles “I know,” she says “I noticed. I liked you too,” she tells him “if you had asked I would've said yes” 

Pod makes her twirl around herself “We're better off as friends” he says and there is no bitterness there, there's actually relief and Sansa nods “Yeah, we are” she says “and you are Jeyne were made for each other”

Pod actually blushes a bit at that “And there you are, blushing like a pretty maid” she teases him, and it's only seeing the mischievous light in her eyes that Pod realizes with a startle “You did it on purpose!, all along” he accuses.

Sansa shrug elegantly “It was cute, how affected you were. I liked it” she winks at Jon as Pod spins her and actually shines the moment he cuts in to have a dance for himself. Jon blushes too when Sansa tells him he looks very handsome.

And Pod smiles looking at them, and he kisses Jeyne.

Might be Pod had a crush on Sansa Stark once. Might be Sansa might have said yes if he ever asked her out.

He ends up with the love of his life instead, just as Sansa does. For not knowing what to do, Pod thinks, he's done pretty well. He kisses Jeyne as Jon whisks Sansa on the dance floor for another dance and spins her around making her giggle like a little girl and kisses her lips.

Right now it's Sansa who's blushing, but she's smiling too.

They are the center of their little world. And Pod, Pod has his own enclosed in the palm of Jeyne's hand.

Fin

So, okay, this one turned to be more about Pod little crush than a real relationship between him and Sansa, but I think that Jon and Sansa shine through anyway so I hope you enjoyed!

As always you can find it in my collection of prompts on ao3: The Jonsa Hag's prompts, chapter 6.

Sending all my love ~G.

[reginarubie]

Hello! So while wait for updates on your lovely works, I've been sucked into reading a lot of jonsas where Jon has these epic or real romance with others like Val, Dany, Ygt, alys, etc. And although it doesn't last or end well Jon still had romance and normal love. While Sansa is always in the abusive or toxic relationships and I need some of your healing because my girl is hurting too much but they hurt her so good and apparently I'm a glutton for pain.

Like I'm fine with Jon having past relationship and Sansa too but dang can't she have a past relationship that was healthy and loving and ended for natural reasons like her first love didn't work because the guy want to commit too fast like get married and although she loved him she wasn't ready. The next was because they grew into different people and although the still care for each other it wasn't what it once was, the next being long distance and neither wanting to give up their dream so they ended in good terms, idk just need her to know love in different forms. ( I know there are works like this but they are too few and far between)

Also what fandom and stuff are you into/watched/read/etc. I wanna see if theirs any more mutual fandoms

Ps. So this turning into a little rant, I just didn't know how to convey the idea into a summery or like a word/sentence prompt. While leaving room for you to explore your creativity. In general I'd like a jonsa ending but like Sansa has at least one story book romance. But if you see this prompt going a different way feel free to do so, my thoughts are a mess 😅

Ciao anon!,

That was a lot and I hope I've gotten everything clear on the prompt you sent!, but before diving into the filling of the prompt let's speak a bit.

Thank you so much for having come to my writing for some much needed respite for that kind of fics. I hope to be able to fulfill the prompt and give you what your Sansa loving heart wishes for!

First things first. About the fact that Sansa seems to have always terrible past experience as opposed to Jon's is because mostly in canon Sansa's experiences are terrible (Joffrey, Tyrion, Dontos, Littlefinger, Hound even Harry is not looking very good right now) while Jon retains somewhat a bit of agency (which Sansa lacks) and even tho even with Jon we're talking of a sexual predator (Ygritte), a character whose not very much developed (save for when she wants to kill a child; Val), another that canonically tried to emotionally abuse and subside him (Daenerys) and Alys (sadly) as a stand-in for Sansa, (at least most of the stories featuring her I've read approached her that manner, but I'm up to read anything different!) at least show-wise (which plays, imo, a big part on the collective fandom inspiration for fan fiction) Jon is shown to have ‘epic’ romances (Ygritte and Daenerys —› in one the woman he ‘loves’ dies in his arms killed by someone else, in the other he is the one doing the killing to protect those he loves) even if tragic so it stands to reason they would give him so big, great past romance (even if I have to owe that they usually speak of Ygritte in a manner of ‘not fitting in’ together and her being too abrasive for him, sometimes borderline abusive) while Sansa is stuck with simply terrible experiences, save for Jon who, in the show (and sadly as far even in the book) is the only character of some magnitude that doesn't abuse her, manipulate her, etcetera.

Still, what is fan fiction for if not for giving us what we want and didn't get to see?

Secondly what stuff am I into? Lately I've not been able to watch as many series as I'd like, but I've loved Carnival Row (and if you haven't seen it you totally should, because even tho it didn't get a s2 I found it amazing and it kept me on my toes all the time, not much for the romance if for the crime and for the way it depicted society when faced with differences in within) and I've been watching on-and-off Shadow and Bone, (tho I've not read the books yet and my fav characters don't get as much screen-time as I'd like them to). But GoT/Asoiaf level? I have Chronicles of Narnia, (which I adore, more so the books than the movies, tho they were lovely as well) and ofc Lord of the Rings, as those have been, tbh, the big ones that got me it reading and theorizing when I was a teenager. I love Star Wars (even tho I'm most a fan of the movies) and Star Trek.

I am a big Harry Potter fan, tho I've found the new trilogy (even if I have still to watch the last one) too hyped up and whilst I loved Newt it didn't inspire me as much as Harry Potter did.

I loved very much Fallen Skies, tho I found the last two seasons, and especially the last completely rushed and thus ruined because of it; as well as Terranova, tho people didn't like it at all since it didn't get, as far as I know, s2.

Love the 100 tho having been a book-reader first and show watcher later tho I enjoyed some of the changes made I'll never forgive them for the end the gave my boy Bellamy Blake.

Sadly there are still many series I'd like to watch but haven't gotten around to watch because real life responsibility, tho I must admit that one of my secret pleasures in a way is asian drama. I watch a bunch of those, they are aesthetically pleasing and just sometimes so different that the media we usually consume that I am able to watch them even if only for ten minutes a day while I cook or tidy the house, because they intrigue me way too much (I totally suggest you watch some if you haven't already!).

What are the fandoms you're in?

Now, let's hop onto the fan fiction!

Prompt: Sansa and Jon do end up together anyway, but Sansa has had, just as Jon, past experiences that were not abusive or tragic.

So, this one has been inspired by Happier by Ed Sheeran, because... I don't know it just gave me the healing vibe I wanted to give this one and it's also from a POV I never explored too, hope you enjoy!

I guess you look happier [In another's arms]

He's just returned from beyond the Wall, his mission had lasted for the better portion of the last three years, the phone-call few and scarce in between. He had managed to see his brothers and his cousin but a couple of times during a couple of video-calls he managed to make. He's excited to go back home, to embrace his mother and feel his father's strong chest welcome him home, his brother's excited welcome shouts, his cousin soft, gentle smile...

... still, before he catches the next flight to the Eyrie Winged Knight Airport which will depart tomorrow morning from Tohrren's Square he has some time to kill.

He had spent the better part of his training at Castle Black, in the North, manning the Wall before his first missions beyond, going back and forth between his new home and his ex-girlfriend's home.

Red of hair and blue of eyes, with a smile so bright it could rival the sun and an heart so gentle and kind it could heal the whole of the world unrest with one touch. He sighs and enters the bar, sitting in a corner, safely away from the main crowd.

He could join a few of Nights Watch recruits he can see at another table, it's mostly new faces, but he recognizes the black clothes they wear and the way they boisterously laugh and joke with each other. That's the moment he sees him.

Jon Snow. Last time he had seen him, he had been a lanky boy, all knees and elbows, as if stretched thin, lean and swift with his movements during a spar. Intelligent. His grey eyes were always attentive and never loosing a move. He had privately thought he would made a fine watchman one day, though he could be a petty drunk and a mean, little shit when provoked. And he had a temper that could rival a wolf. He is the only one of the group of recruits he knows and he debates if making his presence known.

Ironically it had been Jon to introduce him to his now ex-girlfriend.

She had been his best-friend's sister and she had been involved in all a series of charities so when she and her sister had made the voyage to Castle Black they had stopped by to spend some time with Jon, it had been that way that he had met Sansa. That way he had met the girl he had hoped to marry.

Jon had been fiercely protective of her as well, when they had started going out he had sit him out and whilst he had never been intimidated by the boy, that time his presence had been enough to keep him still on his chair and listen quietly to the series of terrible pain Jon would inflict to him — helped by the girl's sister and siblings — if he ever broke her heart.

Sansa had, had some... displeasing experiences before. And Jon had not hidden his glee in telling him he had been the one to inflict on them the punishment for having harmed Sansa. He had been glad she had such fiercest defenders both in and out her family, for when he could not be with her.

He had never had any intention of breaking Sansa's heart. She had been his sweetheart and for a long time he had dreamed one day they could have the life. They could move back to the Vale, from where he hailed from, he would make her the mistress of his house and give her all the happiness she deserved in the world.

Fate had, had different plans. Life had, had different plans.

The age gap between them had not been insurmountable, but big enough that perhaps whilst wanting the same things idealistically, they were on different pages. Sansa had been barely eighteen and he was already twenty four. By the time of his first mission had rolled around he was feeling ready.

Sansa... not so much.

It is a testament, he guesses, to her capability of discernment that she knew when to draw back. He did not realize it until later, well after the sting of their break off had passed to realize the real fear that had filled his hopes had not been that she would say no — as she did — but that Sansa would say yes and embark on an experience that was beyond her grasp, and grew to resent him further down the line.

Instead Sansa, sensible, reasonable Sansa had not let the romance of it blind her to the real problem between the two of them. She had told him, time after time — the nearest his first mission grew — that she was scared of what the prolonged distance would do to them.

He had been much blinder. Convinced that their love would win in the end, he had failed to see that when the burn of the beginning burned out, only the embers remained and those were to be stoked often and the right way to remain alive, burning with their inner fire, instead of becoming beautiful jewels, yes, but only to sport when one felt down and in need of doing a trip down the memory-lane.

He had fought for them, the Gods knew he had.

And Sansa had too, but her past experiences had taught her something he had not been ready to face yet, below her cheerful, kind and soft character, was hidden a wounded woman, a woman who had been under the thumb of boys not even worth to kiss the ground she walked on; and that woman had learned that love is about more than being in love.

She had still told him no, and while he had not understood that at first, that had been her way to fight for them. She didn't want them to start something they were not ready to finish, something that they were not equipped to finish. He had been stubborn, and she, in her soft-spoken, gentle manner had been a bastion, impregnable and inexpugnable.

Jon had even stepped in, at one point. Told him they needed the break, explained some of the goriest details of her previous experiences that Sansa had held close to her heart because of shame.

I am not telling you because you need to fix it, she has it handled, Jon had told him sternly when he had tried to stand up and go to her, demand perhaps answers from her, demand to know why she didn't trust him enough to tell him, I'm telling you because you need to back off.

He had learned then, it had slipped past Jon's lips, that he had been the one to collect her from her ex's house when Sansa had had a panic attack during a sunday brunch and had hidden herself in her ex's sister room, barricading herself from them, the bruise on her cheek carefully covered with make-up. Jon had stormed in, punched the git in the gut — got a report for that — collected her and brought her home.

So, he had given her the break she had asked for, after all his first mission would not last longer than a few weeks and he had been confident that by the time he returned they would fix the problem between them and their love would finally take flight and soar.

It had been grounding.

They had not resolved the matter, not in the way he had hoped, but he had understood that Sansa needed more time. She was younger, he reasoned, he could be patient as long as their end goal was the same.

So he had departed for his second and third mission beyond the Wall with a girlfriend waiting him patiently back home, ready to welcome him back with a container of her own baked goods and a soft smile playing on her lips. His third mission had also been Jon's first and he had met the girl that would become his girlfriend. Ygritte.

He had been cautious of the brass woman, but she seemed to make Jon laugh, when she smiled that easy smile of her she almost reminded him of Sansa. She sported red hair, a different shade that Sansa's rich auburn, but not for that less enticing, and while she wasn't exactly beautiful her voice when she sang totally made up for it. Low and raw, intriguing. But he had doubted she and Jon would last.

Jon was much softer than Ygritte and he wanted soft in his life, he might be hard as stone on the outside, but inside he was made of molten snow. In fact they had not last past Jon's second mission, he had heard that the breakup had been explosive, that Ygritte had swore and yelled and hit. Some rumors said she had even bitten.

His and Jon's life had taken different paths then, they had not shared any more missions, though he had learned that he had found a new girlfriend, a stubborn blonde girl who lived beyond the Wall and advocated for the freedom of her people. This one, he had thought, could be a good match for Jon, she had enough of the softness he needed, but he had not thought much about it since his own relationship had started to fall apart between his hands.

I don't think we fit, Sansa had admitted at last, just before he left for the Vale — supposedly she would have to accompany him — and by then he had started to dread the same, I think we have drifted apart.

To be honest he had expected it, though he had dreaded it. Their interactions lacked the spark that had animated them in the beginning, he was starting to resent her the wait she was making him go through, fearing she might be stringing him on without any intention to actually commit. She had been growing distant and more distant each time they spoke over the phone or by video call.

Aye, he had replied feeling deflated, ignoring the way his heart was breaking in a million pieces watching the woman he had been with for four years taking a step back from them. He had caught himself more than once giving a girl an once over, had felt like a traitor even only for it, in the pit of his stomach and while he never cheated on her... he still felt like he was involved into a one-way relationship that had lost its initial spark. We've been good though, he had asked her, haven't we?

Sansa's smile in that moment was the last hit, shattering his heart in a million pieces. It was sad, resigned, but also relieved. Maybe she had been afraid he would force her to stay, and he couldn't really fault her, seen her past experiences. Still, she should've trusted him more, after all those years spent together.

Yes, she told him that smile dimmed and he had felt like he was suffocating in his own tears, she had tears in her eyes as well, you've been so good to me, it just... it didn't work out.

He had nodded, pathetically he had almost told her that if she had accepted, by the now they would be married and maybe they would've been happy.

He had refrained though.

I know you wanted more, Sansa had told him, seemingly able to read his mind.

I thought you wanted more too, had been his acid reply. Sansa's face had morphed then, she had become of marble and he had known he had pressed the wrong button.

I did, she said, I do.

Not with me, though.

She had been unable to reply to that. She hadn't need to. And he had let her go. Had walked away before he fell on his knees to plead her to give him the chance to give her the world.

Jon had sought him out after their breakup, in that moment he wouldn't even have cared if the boy would punch him. Not only he could take him, but he had the sore need to throw punches too. Instead Jon had offered him a pint.

I am sorry, he had told him, I know you are hurting now, but you weren't there and you didn't see how she hurt before she took this decision. Always defending her. No matter what. He had guessed back then, that it should be beautiful to have someone so openly, so fiercely in your corner.

I feel like she took this decision years ago, when she rejected my proposal.

Jon had not replied to that and they had lapsed into a long, stretching silence as they had consumed their pints. When they had parted ways he had almost told him, take care of her, for me, but he had realized with a start he needn't because Jon had already left and even though he followed him out, he saw him sneak inside a bakery. He needn't to ask what he was buying and for whom.

Somehow he just knew.

Being beyond the Wall for the next three years had helped. He had been able to look inside and admit that whilst he might have been ready, he hadn't been really ready. He mulls over the fact, observing Jon and his friends from above the rim of his pint. He had not spoken much with Jon since that day, save for a couple of times, and though they never broached the matter Jon would let him know, in little ways that Sansa was alright.

He wondered if now, more mature and less stubborn, if now Sansa would tell him yes. If she was alright still. He pondered if getting up and going to Jon, ask him after her.

In the end he does not have the guts to, he stands up and leaves. There is the faint scent of citrus hanging in the air that freezes him as the voice that has populated his dreams suddenly rings out “Sorry!, we're late!”

He doesn't turn. Not yet.

“You took your sweet time,” Jon comments and is his voice lighter?, is it indulgent?

“Stop being a smartmouth,” she jests “I have a surprise...ta-da!” and then there's a chorus and Arya Stark exclaims “SURPRISE!” before she chants Happy Birthday off tune, soon echoed by the others. Must be Jon's birthday, he realizes.

He turns and gets a glimpse of her after three and half long years. Her hair are still long, curling at the ends, auburn and glinting soft like copper in the bar's lights, she looks not much older than she did last time they saw each other, but there is a different manner, more mature, to the way she holds herself.

She's smiling that bright beam that opened the doors to paradise to him the first time he had stumbled into his words to ask her out to dinner.

And she's looking at Jon. He ducks out of the bar before he can linger on Jon's answering smile.

It's a few days before the stumbles into them together again. He's stationed at Castle Black, which means he has seen Jon more often than not. He has grown. He's no longer the lanky boy all knees and elbows, he has filled out while he is still lean instead of muscular, he has let his hair grow some more and he usually sports them bound in a bun and he has to wear glasses.

He's more confident too, he is almost proud, though he has had nothing to do with his maturation. Jon doesn't avoid eye-contact with him, not even when he discovers that apparently Jon and Val broke things off some two years ago and Jon has been steadily single since then...

...not even when he asks Jon about Sansa.

She's been fine. Has had a couple of brief relationships, though right now she's single and finishing her studies for her degree. His voice drips with pride when he tells him that Sansa has now launched her own charity work and often accompanies him beyond the Wall, she is a fierce advocate for the Free Folk freedom and she's been trying to get the government to listen to their shouts for independence.

They've been in those lands long before the Andals and while they recognize some northerners as kin, as most of them descend from First Men too, they wish only to live life how their own tradition demand.

There is this quality to his voice when he speaks about Sansa... He had ignored it, before, but he is pretty sure it was always there to begin with. Pride, fondness and fierceness...passion, all wrapped into one. He has always had that tone whilst speaking of her, even when he and Sansa had gone out together and he was only her brother's best friend looking out for her.

He observes Jon then. Quiet that he is, his whole demeanor scream when Sansa is concerned; and he discovers that Jon now has a pet too, it's an albino wolfhound that he has named Ghost and he has received him as a gift for his graduation by Sansa. And it's true, Sansa is often at Castle Black and accompanying Jon beyond the Wall as he has become from an active member of the squadron to a diplomatic emissary, and he can see it, in the way they smile at each other.

In the way Jon's touch linger on the small of her back, in the way Sansa burrows in Jon's embrace... he can see it in everything. In the way the easy banter between the two of them always spark that kind of look between the two of them. In the way Jon watches her go, in the way his breath dips and the shaky exhale he takes every time she's persuading him of something.

“So,” he confronts the thing one time, he has been assigned to accompany the diplomatic mission beyond the Wall and Sansa has just convinced Jon to stay the night over so that they can take part with the Free Folk of their rite during the peak of the midnight sun period “how long has this been going on?”

“I am sorry,” Jon tells him “I should've told you before” and if he had expected Jon to look bashful like the boy he remembers, he was sorely mistaken “I just didn't know the words to use”

He sighs “Maybe starting with, Waymar, mate I'm going out with your ex would be a good place to start” he says.

“Sansa's been my friend long before I was your mate,” Jon's reply is filled with sarcasm and sass “if anything it should've been, Waymar, mate, do you remember the girl I've loved for half of my life, you know the one you dated? Yeah, I'm dating her now. That would've been more appropriate” he says.

A long silence ensues.

“I'm sorry,” Jon comments “that was... rude of me” he says “I cannot demand you take responsibility for things you did not know” he adds.

“But I did know,” he admits “I—” Jon's face is a myriad of emotions all together “I mean... I suspected you might have a thing for her” he explains “still—” he sighs “why didn't you tell me, though?”

“When you asked her out she... was so happy,” he says “who was I to destroy that happiness?”

Waymar nods. He has noticed other things too, the way Sansa's smiles would shine brighter when they were toward Jon, the way before they had been reserved, whilst now they're unreserved. The way her eyes always filled with fondness when falling on him.

He doubts Sansa had been aware of the extent of her feelings for Jon, more probable than not she did not realize until later, she's too kindhearted of a woman to purposefully hurt someone knowing she loves another. He doesn't even think for her it was that kind of love before they parted ways.

He nods.

“You make her happy too,” he says and he knows that's the true, he would argue — to his own detriment — that Jon makes her happier than Waymar ever did. Jon just... gets her, in a way Waymar never managed despite their best efforts (hers to be understood, and his to understand her) “happy in a way I could not make her,” he admits.

Jon blinks and uncrosses his arms from his chest, surprised by the admission. Waymar would like to be petty, really, but the time to be petty has long passed. He is mature enough to know he and Sansa might not have worked out anyway... they should've met differently and Jon should not have been involved in the picture and perhaps they would have had a chance. Fate had different intentions, life had different intentions.

There are still million of possibilities before him. He can see that now.

“You know?,” he says “a part of me was always jealous of the way you seemed to just... get her, without any difficulty. I thought it was because you had grown together, turns out it's just because it's the two of you”

Jon doesn't say anything.

“And perhaps I could've made her happy too, or— perhaps we would have drifted apart anyway” he says “I think— I know I was in love with her, but I didn't love her...not beyond that initial moment of falling in love” he admits “but you—” he pats his shoulder “you loved her before you fell in love with her, I think that made the difference”

“Don't break her heart” he warns him.

Jon straightens his shoulders “I won't,” he promises.

They don't speak of it anymore, there is no need to. And when, later, Jon kisses Sansa on her lips and Sansa kisses him back Waymar knows for them it's over. It's endgame. They are each other's person.

Sansa's blue eyes meet his and Waymar nods to her. Her smile breaks his heart a bit more.

She still cares for him, still...not in the way he would've wanted and that's okay. And her gaze falls immediately again on Jon and the way the Free Folk children run around his legs and the way he picks them up and the picture they paint.

I never noticed, he considers, but we kind of look alike. Jon and I.

For some time he wonders if that's what has drawn Sansa to him in the first place, then he decides it's a waste of time to wonder and he just cherishes his memories with the first girl who made him fall in love.

It's years later, after he has returned home for good that he stumbles, by chance, on a paper that talk of them. Sansa has managed it. She has been the propelling force behind the new treaty signed between Kings Landing and the Free Folk and in that guise the North has also gotten independence from the rest of Westeros thanks to a referendum and Sansa has been elected to lead the North in their new independent life.

The photo shows them in Winterfell, Sansa's childhood home, with her family and Lyanna Snow — Jon's own mother — he knows they've married some odd three or four years ago, and now Sansa is holding a small child, not older than one year old, balanced on her hip as Jon is carrying on his shoulder the eldest a little girl with her mother's red hair and her father's grey eyes. The girl has Sansa's same grin.

“Is that your brother?” he turns around, startled and the girl warm and kind brown eyes fill with surprise “sorry, I didn't mean to intrude”

Waymar sets the journal aside “No,” he says “but we've served together,” he tells her.

“She looks very beautiful,” she says nodding toward Sansa “do you know her?”

“Aye,” he says “I know her,” he admits.

The girl nods “They look happy”

“They do” he concedes “he's always put her happiness before his own”

A short story of how the got together, a gossip-story really, is written beside the photo. Here, her majesty Sansa of House Stark is depicted with her husband Jon Snow. They've known each other all their lives and have been childhood friends for a long time, they fell in love whilst Sansa Stark led her charities beyond the Wall advocating for their freedom as Jon Snow served as diplomatic emissary. Waymar would like to tell them that Jon has been in love with her far longer, and he suspects Sansa too. He wants to tell them Jon punched her scumbag of an ex and collected Sansa when she was falling apart. He doesn't though. That's their own private story.

And they are happy.

The girl smiles at him “My name is Margaery,” she introduces herself. Waymar is taken aback by her smile. He smiles back.

“My name is Waymar” he replies “pleased to meet you, Margaery” so, he ends up asking her to join him at his table at the bar, when she orders he almost expects her to order lemon cakes... instead she orders a slice of apple-pie with cinnamon and Waymar breathes a little better.

A few decades later Waymar meets them again. He has been married to Margaery for almost twenty years and they've had three children in the meantime. Sansa has stepped down from politics a few years ago, and she has retired with her family in Winterfell. Her youngest, Catelyn, is into politics as well and later when she'll be elected in her mother's place no one is surprised. Jon and Sansa are still as much in love as they were that day.

In the end, Waymar considers as Sansa recounts their whole story to a gossip starved Margaery that they are happier for the way things turned out.

Fin

So, this is just a little snipped actually, because you have stoked my inspiration, so I'll be working on several others companion pieces (one for sure by Jon POV and one by Sansa's; a couple of others with previous exes of both), so stay tuned for those too!

Hope you enjoyed this even if it turned out more about Waymar and the way he felt about Sansa than about Sansa and Jon, still Sansa's got a good experience before Jon, even if that too ended thankfully not tragically and I actually think we got this subtle Jonsa that I love to write. Anyway, with the other companion pieces we'll get also more of Jon and Sansa seen by their exes perspectives, and each other's.

You can find this on ao3, in my collection of prompts (x).

As always thank you for the prompt! Hope you have a wonderful day and as always sending all my love ~G.

[reginarubie]

hi! Thanks for accepting my prompts! I actually assumed it'd be jonsa coz they stole my heart and soul but either way is fine! I've never sent a prompt before so I'm sorry if it was hard to understand. Idk how other schools played assassin but in my school we get a name and we have to film ourselves shooting them with a water gun or water balloons. Some form of water ammunition. My friend tried to water bomb her target by dumping water on him from the second floor. The games can get pretty intense with alliances and there's usually a grand prize along with bragging rights.

Ciao!,

don't worry, I figured you were up for anything, and I left everything neutral so it kind of fits Jonsa as well, also the soft stubbornness of the male character does remind me of Jon, how he would be in a modern setting, so I feel like it came out alright, hope you enjoyed!

And, since Jonsa stole your heart and soul this second prompt you sent I'm going to make it Jonsa.

[previous prompt being referred to: Dandelions in between the pages]

Now let's hop onto the other prompt.

Prompt: Literally Anything Involving The Game Assassins, of the various quotes you've sent I've chosen three to get into the text: «You have me as a target, DID YOU JUST JUMP OUT OF A MOVING VEHICLE, ARE YOU INSANE?»; «I think the guy who has me as a target is in the student union, hey random person, can you pretend to be my partner and then break up with me so he feels bad and won't tag me», «I have you as a target but stalking you has made me fall in love with you»

Fair warning, this time I got inspired by Out of the woods, by Taylor Swift, so yeah, if you want go ahead and read while listening to it. If some words or choices for the course of study sound strange it's because I don't know much of the US school system and I have gone by inspiration with the italian school and academic system of universities, so sorry if it sounds strange!

We were screaming in color, [the rest of the world was in black and white]

Sansa whirls around and her breath gets knocked out of her lungs as Jon gracefully — and that shouldn't really surprise her, she's seen him fencing since they've been kids hanging out in the backyard of Winterfell Manor in Winter town — fucking jump out of the stopping, but still moving... still moving, STILL MOVING car.

His friend, Satin, is in the driver seat and he looks half as horrified as Sansa feels, as Jon — years of falling off trees, stairs and during his mock-wrestling matches with Rickon (who has become a pro-wrestle by the way) — rolls onto his shoulder to avoid hitting his head and crunches on the hard concrete of the road his water-gun firmly in his hand and suddenly Sansa is hyperaware of the fact that, in the back of the car, his other friend, Pyp is busy filming the whole thing.

Jon smirks at her. Jon is usually sullen and brooding, it's one the things that make him so... attractive to some women, he looks calm and collected, clever and mild-tempered, not prone to bouts of anger or disrespect. But Sansa knows better and while Lyanna would have his hide if he ever disrespected a woman — and he's never done such in their whole life as far as Sansa is aware — he can be a smug little shit on times, his laugh crinkles at the corner of his eyes and his molten brown eyes become unbearably soft with fondness when he wants, but he is anything but mild-tempered, he has only learned how to control himself better — he had been a menace during their teen years, always coming to Winterfell with black eyes, bruises knuckles and cracked ribs because of the scuffles he would get in — and he can be a little shit on occasion.

[This is one of those occasions]

“Sorry” he tells her. He doesn't sound regretful at all.

Such a show-off.

Sansa barely has the time to wonder if her white top will become see-through when he fires his water gun at her, hitting her squarely.

If his video makes her the laughing stock of the college she will revoke his privileges and he can forget she ever shares her last lemon cake with him. Or any of her home cooked meal. He's going to have to return to eating in the college cafeteria. See how well he likes that.

“What's wrong with you?! You have me as a target,” she starts water dripping down her chin (j'accuse!) “did you just jump out of a moving vehicle?, ARE YOU INSANE?!”

TWO AND HALF MONTHS AGO

Sansa can't believe Arya has talked her into this. People doing crazy things for a game. But her little sister had turned on her, her full kicked puppy look and Sansa had just caved in.

They hadn't been really close as children though they had enjoyed playing together in the snow and when in school Arya had been the one to beat off the bullies who tried to have their way with her after she had knocked off two of Joffrey's teeth when he had tried to force himself on her, Sansa had even twisted her wrist because of it — she had never thrown a punch before in her life — anyway, Arya had beaten away the bullies and snarled at them.

Back off my sister, you little shits!

Robb had denounced Joffrey to the principal and to his father, Robert, Bran had hacked into Joffrey's phone and had used she didn't know what kind of information he had found there to blackmail him to stay put then, Joffrey had turned up to school with his face completely bruised and his arm broken. Sansa had wondered in horror if Robert had done it. But then she had seen the way Joff would avoid Robb and the way he would just scurry away without his usual sneer in place when he met Jon in the hallway, but what really gave it away were Jon's bruised knuckles and the way he would mutter and growl at the boy with the Baratheon keeping his mouth shut.

It had been the first time Sansa had tended to Jon's bruised knuckles. She had dragged him by the wrist to the infirmary and had charmed the staff there until they'd been left alone. She had whacked him behind the head for his trouble and kissed his cheek to thank him for his concern.

Then she had tended to his hand.

The next year Jon and Robb had graduated and the times Jon would come to her with bruised knuckles or a black eye grew more sparse and they kind of lost contact.

Still, when Sansa sees him, his reading glasses on his nose as he types away on this pc, sitting in a quiet corner of the dehor of a cafe, his hand-taken notes at his side and a pencil balanced in deep thought between his upper-lip and below his nose, she looks behind her shoulder to the guy who's been following her around the corner with his girlfriend filming apparently innocuous videos of the two of them — despite the very suspicious bulge barely hidden by the guy's jacket in the shape of a water gun — and makes a bolt for it.

Jon is clearly surprised to see her standing before his table, but Sansa just shrugs off her jeans-jacket and drapes it over the chair, slipping easily in the seat “Hi” she greets him with an easy smile “Sorry,” she says meekly as Jon's entire attention is on her “but, I think the guy who has me as a target is in the student union,” she nudges her head to the guy who's still hovering with his girlfriend around, his jaw tensed. Jon's eyes follow the line of vision and Sansa has to force herself not to twist and look at the guy. Restaurants, cafes and the library as well as classes are off limits for the game, thankfully.

Jon arches a brow “And what do you want me to do with this information, Sansa?”

The way he says her name, his voice dipping just so and dragging on the first syllable still gives her shivers. Damn him and his intense, soulful eyes. Sansa doesn't need the distraction now.

Sansa leans in, her best persuading expression in place, her bottom lip just stuck out a bit in a pout “Can you pretend to be my partner and then break up with me so he feels bad and won't tag me?”

It's stupid.

Jon chuckles, clearly surprised and fond. Well looks like he kind of likes her enough still to get along with it by the way he exhales almost shakily and sends her that smile reserved for when Sansa convinced him to help her rehearsal her ballet-moves in the backyard.

“I won't break your heart,” he says “not even for pretend” and Sansa blinks surprised as Jon draws from under his hand-taken notes what looks like a small water-gun and he fires it at the guys who's been hovering way too close for comfort, hitting him squarely in the face with a smirk in place.

“He was my target” he says in lieu of explanation to her astounded look.

The guy flails around and looks half-murderous drenched as he is as his girlfriend squeals and shrieks. Perhaps Sansa is an easy target, but it looks like they were a bit too confident of themselves.

They leave in a haste even as people around them chuckle and shake their head.

He turns around and winks to her, as he shifts to look at a guy with dark, curly hair and a soft smile and a phone in hand “Did you film that?” Jon asks.

The guy nods “Roger, roger” he says then rising his iced coffee glass in her direction as well “They way you were framed no one will know what you were speaking about” he assures her, guessing she might dislike the idea of being filmed without her consent.

Sansa nods appreciatively at him, then turns to Jon who is putting the water-gun back into his schoolbag. Then he turns to look at her and smiles “I know Arya is making her way up the ranks of the game,” he says “I didn't imagine she would get you involved in this as well”

Sansa shrugs “She asked nicely”

Jon rises an eyebrow “Arya,” he specifies “asked nicely?” Sansa makes a grimace.

“Well she did put on her best kicked puppy face,” she says “and you know I am a sucker for that” she adds.

“That I know” he chuckles “Haven't seen you in quite some time, Robb told me you had enrolled, still I never saw you around this semester” he comments.

“Yeah,” she says “Mom needed help,” she shrugs “after dad's incident... they needed me home, so I took the online courses for the first semester” she tells him.

“Oh,” he says “and how's uncle Ned now?”

Jon is the son of their neighbor, Lyanna Snow, and since Lyanna had been, for most of Jon's infancy, a single, working mother he had spent most of his off-time from school in Winterfell manor after having befriended Robb at soccer training — well, if tale was correct Jon had put Robb on his ass more than once, knocking her brother down a peg or two the first time they met, but they had hit off and had been as close as brothers since — and he had ended up calling her father Uncle Ned and her mother aunt Cat.

“Better,” Sansa replies “I know you've been in contact, but you know how he is, always downplaying his own sufferings” she adds. Jon nods.

“Anyway,” Sansa says “he's started physiotherapy and the leg seem to be getting better. He won't get back on the motorcycle anymore, though” she adds “Theon, Robb's friend, the one who's still playing soccer— he's gotten dad in contact with a good physiotherapist” she says “Robb is very happy, also Bran is trying to help dad adjust as much as he can and Rickon is bringing them both outside every other week he has the weekend off from the matches” she reports.

Jon nods “It's good to hear he's feeling better,” he says “what about you?”

And Sansa blinks surprised “What about me?” she echoes. Jon rolls his eyes.

“How have you been?” he specifies.

Sansa has kind of forgotten who has been the last person asking her that. Her mother knows her so well she doesn't usually need to ask, same with Arya...still, it's nice that someone does ask how she's been. Makes her feel cared for.

She smiles “I've been better,” she says “but seeing they're all on the mend...it helps” she adds. Jon nods.

“How are the classes coming?” he asks “Robb told me you chose law”

Sansa nods. It had come as a surprise for most of her family, Robb had been the one they had expected to take law and take over their father in the law firm, but instead, Robb had chosen history, he still could do law, but he seemed... disillusioned about it. He had confessed it felt wrong for him. Sansa did not begrudge him that.

Everyone had expected her to take on some artistic faculty and honestly Sansa almost had, but in the end law had felt... right. She had been involved with her father and her brother in the open-days they had at the firm where they would listen probono to the plights of the people who couldn't afford their services usually and counseled them or offered them names they could go to, since she has been eleven. She likes helping people and being able to make the difference. So she has chosen law.

“I did,” she says “just felt right”

Jon leans his elbows on the table and ignores the various notifications he gets, probably because the video has been visualized by how many she cannot even fathom.

“Tell me”

And she does.

A waiter comes around, twenty or so minutes into their conversation and without ever breaking the flow of it Jon orders of some lemon cakes and an iced-marocchino for her.

She's astounded he still remembers her favorites.

In the end she shares with him her lemon cakes. He should feel very honored — and he says he does with a chuckle when he accepts half of one. He knows how much she enjoys lemon cakes.

It feels like an age since she's had such a real, easily flowing conversation with anyone and Jon seems genuinely interested and listens raptly to her. It's nice.

---

In the following month Jon becomes sort of a permanent fixture in her life. They live near each other, they discover, and they usually have the same timetable even if with different classes and Jon doesn't really mind hanging around the library as Sansa has her classes while working on his thesis so she doesn't have to walk back alone.

Not that she was before he started showing up at her door. Still.

Margaery and Myrcella have taken to call him her seriously hot stalker. Though can he be considered a stalker if Sansa never asked him to back off and actually enjoys his presence? She likes talking to him about the expectations for her classes and asking him how his thesis is coming; she enjoys the way he always offers to carry her schoolbag for her, or the way he lights up when, after he commented on the cafeteria's food, she hands him a small lunchbox with an handmade meal. She likes finding daisies and wildflowers pressed in between the pages on her notes after she's lent them to him because he forgot his paper-pad at home.

[He forgets it way too often — Sansa has a collection of pressed flowers that testify to that]

So what if she's fallen back into him? It's her heart, she can do with it as she pleases.

NOW

“—ARE YOU INSANE?!” she's drenched from head-to-toe, and her bangs are matted to her forehead, she rises a hand to push them back, her blue eyes glaring daggers at the man still crunched on the street's concrete the water-gun still in hand.

Jon's eyes though are a bit... focused on her breasts and Sansa is pretty sure her white top as become see-through thanks to the shower she has just taken, offered by yours truly at six in the evening in may.

She doesn't know what frustrates her more, the way Jon keeps looking at her like she's some kind of treasure he wants to covet but still won't make a move or the fact that he has made a move, only not in the way Sansa had been anxiously expecting him to.

The little shit.

She's about to yell at him some more, when she realizes that there is blood soaking the short-sleeve of Jon's black t-shirt. The idiot has gone and injured himself. Sansa should let him cook in his own supper and see how he likes that, still Jon is hurt, and caring for Jon's hurts is a second nature to her by now so she walks to him and she forces herself to ignore the way Jon's eyes are glued to her.

She leans forward, he has stood up, and he is barely a couple of inches taller than her, still he is looking only at her, as if he can see only her. She leans forward and she can see, can feel the way his gaze shift from her eyes to her lips, and maybe — maybe — she purses them a bit more on purpose. Then she rises a hand and presses on his arm. Jon yelps and jumps out of his skin.

“Serves you good,” she tells him “what kind of antic was that? Jumping out of a moving vehicle, really?” she doesn't hold back “you could've gotten seriously injured. Idiot”

Jon looks sheepishly down and mutters something.

“Do not mumble,” Sansa is having entirely too much fun with this, she has to keep her dignity some way even if drenched in the middle of the campus road “it is not becoming”

He looks pained “I said I knew it would look cool”

Sansa presses again against his arm only because of that and he flinches “Idiot,” she snaps “You don't need this kind foolery to look cool” she adds almost as an afterthought.

Jon looks way too smug as Sansa wraps her hand around his wrist and, without looking back, starts dragging him to infirmary of the campus. She feigns indifference when he shifts their hold so that they are holding hands, their fingers intertwined.

She can't be the one tending to him this time, because the cut is worse than she could treat on her own. He needs ten stitches, so when the nurse makes to have her leave, Jon grabs her hand tighter.

“She can stay,” he says and the nurse shifts her gaze between the two of them and their intertwined hands, then shrugs.

“It's not a pretty sight” she says “your girlfriend might not—”

“It's not a problem,” Sansa hastens to say.

She had meant to protest. She's not Jon's girlfriend, yet that's not what came out.

“I've—” she starts before she looses herself in the memories. She had been the one to find her father on the side of the road, half pressed down beneath the motorcycle two years ago, bloody and senseless. Jon's warm hold on her hand, firm but soft, grounds her, especially when he starts to draw patterns into the back of her hand “I've seen worse” she says and something in the thickness of her voice convinces the nurse.

“If at any point this is too much,” the nurse says sternly “you can walk out at any moment, I'll knock him out if I have to” she offers, her smile kind.

Sansa reads her name-tag and smiles “Thank you, nurse Westerling” she nods. The girl, who must be barely older than her, offers her a smile in return.

“You're welcome, and you can call me Jeyne”

Ten stitches after that Jeyne has left to go retrieve some painkillers for Jon and they're alone; Jon is inspecting his bended arm and Sansa whacks him behind the head.

“You're an idiot” she tells him.

“As things happens,” Jon says, his grin in place “Nurse Jeyne thinks I'm your idiot” he states.

“Don't look so smug,” Sansa says, she has tied her drying red hair in a messy bun and the fabric of her top is getting all crinkled and rough because of getting wet and dry in the heat of may directly fitting on her “I'm still mad at you,” she says “how could you?”

Jon is still holding her hand and drawing patterns with his thumb “You need to be specific with me, Sansa,” he tells her “to what are you referring to?”

So Sansa goes with the easiest “You had me as a target and you thought it would okay to jump out of a moving vehicle to make it look cool?”

Jon has the decency to look sheepish “Well I wanted to surprise you,” he says “You're way too aware of your surroundings, it's not human, I had to get creative” he adds.

Sansa sighs “You're an idiot,” she states. Though they've both learned that Sansa does have this kind of almost inhuman hyper-awareness of her surroundings. She secretly thinks it's cool, even if she downplays it.

She inhales and exhales shakily “How long?”

“Huh?”

Sansa straightens her shoulders “How long have you had me as a target?” she asks and Jon's cheeks redden.

“A month and half,” he mutters, so low that Sansa almost doesn't hear him.

She exhales “So...” she starts “you've been hanging around because you were planning your attack?” she asks “that's a lot of dedication to a game”

Jon looks suddenly angry, his eyes have darken and he reminds her of the way he looked every time he was about to swing a punch when they were teens.

Though there is a softness in the edges of the pools of molten brown of his eyes that he usually lacked. Maybe he's not angry, he's just intense. For some reason.

“You're such a clever woman,” he says “sometimes a wonder how you can be so dense,” he adds “the game was only an...excuse” he comments.

Sansa frowns.

“I—” he looks twice as pained as when Sansa had pressed at his wound back in the street “Good lord, this is hard,” he says “I have had a crush on you last year of high school,” he admits “or maybe a little longer”

Sansa is way too enticed to stop him from blabbering, so he goes on.

“Anyway,” he says “when you came up as a target I sort of...” his voice dies and he grimaces, he takes a breath “I had you as a target and I kind of justified hanging around you with me needing to stalk you for game purposes, you know instead of my renewed fancy on you” he admits.

He looks away “I thought about telling you many times,” he admits “but you seemed so genuinely happy to have me there that— I didn't want to risk it”

“Risk what?”

“Telling you,” he says still not looking at her “and be rejected or worse have you laugh at my face and asking me to back off. Loosing you for good” he tells her “I— I can't do this without you, not now, not anymore. I don't even want to.”

His speech is a bit muddled, but Sansa understands him anyway. She always did understand him, even when he had been drugged because he had gone to the dentist to take out his wisdom teeth at nineteen and he talked all slurred and no one else seemed to understand what he had been saying.

Sansa is just that attuned to him, she just understands him.

“Tell me,” she demands softly.

Jon turns and looks at her, she smiles at him shyly and he inhales deeply, but instead of talking, Jon rises his free hand and curls it behind Sansa's head and brings her flush against him, he is still sitting on the bed of the infirmary so he opens his legs just enough to let her stand in between and presses his lips against her surprised ones. Sansa had not expected that.

His lips are heated and they mold perfectly against hers, soft and unrelenting, curling and devouring her own thin, but plump lips. Jon keeps it chaste, but not for that less intense, then he draws back and looks at her from beneath his entirely too-long-and-thus-wasted-on-a-man lashes.

Her lips tingle from his touch, and she misses the heat of his mouth against hers. It should be illegal. Now that he has kissed her, he should not stop doing it. Ever.

It isn't fair, he doesn't look half as affected as she feels.

“I have you as a target,” he tells her and his voice is thick and emotional, but even and confident and the heat pooling in his eyes?, makes her feel breathless “but stalking you has made me fall in love with you,” and Sansa's heart skip a beat “again,” he adds “and again and again. Irrevocably” he says.

Sansa feels simultaneously as if she can't breath and she is breathing for the first time since a life in apnea. Her entire being so attuned with him that Sansa feels as if she's completely being is filled with him, a synesthesia in which she cannot tell anymore where her sensory system ends and where his begins. His touch on the back of her head, at the nape of her hair and at her hand is a balm, soothing her fraying nerves.

“I love you too” she says.

He smiles. He's smug.

“I know, baby” he says. Still, Sansa doesn't feel the slightest sorry when she curls her free hand around the paper-glass of water she's asked for to nurse Jeyne before pouring it on his head, careful that his arm doesn't get wet.

She giggles at his surprises and offended look.

She turns around and looks at nurse Jeyne; she had felt a bit stupid, asking the woman that, but when she had asked for the glass of water she had explained to her what had happened and the nurse had agreed with an endearing grin to help her out and film the whole thing — even if that had turned out to be a whole declaration —; and smiles.

“Did you record that?” she asks.

The woman nods “I did,” she confirms “all of it, it was very sweet” she concedes.

And Sansa turns smiling at Jon “Sorry,” she says though she doesn't sound regretful at all, and she isn't “I had you as a target as well,” she says “though I did fall in love with you before you became a target”

The growls that tears at Jon's throat is almost obscene before he crashes their lips back together, this time devouring her. And the world is good.

FOUR YEARS FROM NOW

Robb helps Jeyne stands up and on the elevated stand. He's such a gentleman with her; Sansa is very happy Jon's small trip to the campus infirmary has spurned into action a channel of events that have brought Robb and Jeyne together, because they are quite clearly made for each other.

“I met Jon and Sansa,” Jeyne says “the day they finally got together,” there are some chuckles and Jon keeps nuzzling the side of her face. He is sitting with his chair as close as he can to her, on leg swung behind the back of her chair so that he is effectively wrapped around her “the story is kind of cute,” she tells their audience “Jon had jumped out of a moving vehicle to make his video of finally hitting his target, Sansa, cooler”

Robert Baratheon's laugh is boisterous back in the table in which they've put him, with her parents. He has divorced his nasty wife, Cersei two years ago, and Sansa could not fault her father's the presence of his best friend. Lyanna Snow sit next to him looks half endeared, half embarrassed by his display.

Sansa wonders when Lyanna will finally work out the guts to tell Jon about them. Jon will probably go ballistic. He is as overprotective over her as he is of his own mother, but Sansa likes to think that Robert really does love Lyanna. His eyes shine when he looks at her, in a way they never did when he looks at Cersei.

She'll speak to Jon when the times come. Make him reasonable about it.

“He needed ten stitches on the upper half of his arm because of that,” Jeyne continues “at least he has a scar to speak of his attempts to woo his wife”

This time the chuckle comes from near her ear.

“I have many more scars that testify to that,” Jon whispers in her ear “I've been wooing you since I was seventeen” he adds as Sansa caresses his knuckles, where she knows rest some small, almost undistinguishable scars of all the times he has punched someone for her.

She's discovered there were quite the number of times. Look like she was some kind of celebrity back in their high school days and Sansa had been spared the worst burnt of it because Jon had been taking care of the guys planning to make fun of her, or play with her feelings or simply talking distastefully of her, off screen all this time.

His voice, her husband's voice, low and raw sends a thrilled shiver down her spine.

“I'd like to tell you the tale of it, but—” Jeyne is saying “I can make you witness to that as well, as I've saved the recording of it for a long time now”

And Sansa had not expected that. Jeyne presses a button and suddenly they are on the screen.

Sansa slipping at Jon's table, recorded by Satin and asking Jon to pretending to be her partner and breaking up with her to make the guy targeting her feel bad and leave her alone, for him to then hit him as the guy had been his target.

Then — fast forward — with a series of pictures Jon and Sansa had taken, or that their friends had taken of them during the almost two months they had spent together before getting together for good, in may.

Suddenly the moving car comes into vision, or well, the moving recording of the entire scene from the inside of the car comes onto the screen with Jon jumping out of the slowing but still moving, still moving, still moving car. The startled look on Sansa's face as Jon fired on her, water dripping for her chin and drenching her white, see-through top; thank the Gods she had been wearing a white, bland bra, thus making it at least less embarrassing.

Sansa has to laugh with the audience when her twenty-years-old version pushes her wet bangs out of her eyes and stalks to Jon to make him jump out of his skin because she has probed at his wound.

“Such a meanie” Jon whispers, his nose nuzzling up and down the side of her face, his hand grabbing at her tight.

Seeing the way Jon's face was completely focused on her, a laser focus makes her feel almost as elated as when Jon has slipped her ring on her finger earlier.

Then fast-forward to Jon smooching her silly in the infirmary, which has Robert Baratheon laughing again and her mother softly smiling at them. Her father looks a little peeved out, she's still his little girl after all, but his eyes betray that he's happy she's happy.

Then to Sansa pouring her glass of water over Jon's head. Thankfully the video closes on that as twenty-two years old Jon brings her flush against him again to kiss her passionately, darkening before it becomes to damning.

Sansa is so touched by it, as after that a series of photos of them, of their voyages together, of their long nights pulled during his last months before graduations and her exams sessions pass in rapid succession.

And, exactly at the video they played before, the entire of the world was in tones of black and white, while she and Jon...they were screaming in color.

Jon kisses her softly “Are you happy, Mrs Snow?” he asks.

Sansa looks up at him and beams “I am, Mr Snow,” she tells him, she looks back at Jeyne as her pregnant sister-in-law rises her toast to the newlyweds.

Jon kisses her lips as the guests of their wedding clap, their friends whistle and clap “I think we really won,” he says. That year Arya won the championship, but Jon and Sansa won each other.

“Yes,” Sansa says caressing his face “we really did”

Fin

You can find both this and the first one on ao3 (x)

Hope you enjoyed, anon! And, as always, thank you so much for the prompt, I have incredible fun writing it!, hope to get many more. I wish you an amazing day!

[maddiethefashionista]

@reginarubie I need a part 2 pronto!!

So I saw you’re accepting prompts and I was wondering if you would write a small modern prompt for a rare pair I have- Brandon Stark/ Elia Martell?

I was thinking that they see each other at the Jonsa wedding and realize that they had an affair right around the time of her divorce or he was her first after the divorce! Or maybe he’s what gave her the courage to ask for a divorce? And they meet at Jon and Sansa wedding after all these years and the spark is still there? And maybe Elia accidentally catches the bouquet?

If you’re not gonna interested no worries! I just wanted to throw this out into the void and see. Thanks!

Hi!,

sorry for the long wait and that is actually an awesome prompt!, so I've tried my hand at it and hope you enjoy it as much as you hoped to when you sent out this ask!

So, I went with Elia and Brandon meet when Elia is still married to Rhaegar the douchebag, but in the end they get together after they meet again at the Jonsa wedding and the spark is still there.

And I’ve got no excuse [it’s a little crime]

Elia watches Lyanna’ son as he dances with his wife, the Stark girl. When she had discovered the extent of Rhaegar’ infidelity she had been devastated, utterly ruined. She had taken the kids and left Dragonstone — which had been their lovenest for as long as she could remember — and she had flew on the first flight back to Sunspear.

She had told neither Doran nor Oberyn the real reason behind her sudden visit, she had just told them she had missed home and had taken the kids to the Water Gardens, their summertime villa, where she had spent most of her childhood. 

Aegon had been six and Rhaenys had been nine. Her beloved children. She hadn’t learned of Jon’s birth long after it had happened, Lyanna had wrapped it all up secretly, not wishing her children to be ruined by the truth of their father’s incapacity to keep it in his pants. She had basically isolated herself and chose for her and her child a single-mom working double life all to avoid disrupting her children’s life. 

Lyanna, as far as Elia knew, had been unaware of Rhaegar’s family. She hadn’t known the truth until one day she happened upon an old newspaper that had shown them just after Rhaenys had been born when Rhaegar had tried to run for Prime Minister what felt like an age ago. By then Lyanna had already been pregnant with Jon, and she had started some digging — Rhaegar had yet known nothing about the boy — the internet was an amazing means to discover the past people would rather keep private. 

She had broken off with Rhaegar and flown back to her homeland, the North, where she had chosen a unimpressive life over the life she could’ve had if she went to the newspaper with the truth of Jon’s parentage; she could’ve created a scandal, lived off of it, and ensuring her son had a part into the not negligible sum Jon could — should — be part of as Rhaegar’s child. 

Which was why Elia could never be upset with Lyanna for the part she had played in destroying her marriage to Rhaegar. If anything she was thankful to the woman for the lengths she had gone to, to protect children not her own from the damage the truth could do them. 

Still, truth had a way to come to the surface, and years after Jon had been born Rhaegar had come across them during a visit North. Elia was still uncertain on how that actually happened and a big part of her suspected that Rhaegar had actually purposefully searched for Lyanna, possibly with the intention of rekindling their relationship now that his marriage to Elia was on rocky ground. Still, Rhaegar had discovered Jon and of course, Elia who was the one who managed most of the income of the business Rhaegar had created since abandoning his political dream had started to notice how a fund had suddenly be created separately. 

It had taken some digging — perhaps not all exactly legal — for to find that the accountholder of the fund had been a boy named Jon Snow, and that, until he came of age the only two people who could have access to the fund were Rhaegar and the boy’s mother, Lyanna. 

At that point, putting together one and one hadn’t been so difficult, and Elia had sent the kids to their grandmother Rhaella for an afternoon when finally she had decided to confront her husband. 

It had been nothing short of explosive and by the evening Rhaegar had left home slamming the door behind himself not to be heard of again — possibly hiding out at his best friend’s house or at some flame — Elia had known of his affairs for years, but they had never resulted in a child and he had never been caught dirty-handed so she had hoped she had grown simply paranoid. 

Instead now she discovered he had a child from another woman, born out of wedlock and whilst they had been (at the time) at the strongest in their relationship, short after the birth of their second child, Aegon.

So Elia had decided that a change of air was much needed and had packed up the children and left as she decided what she wanted to do with the information she had discovered and if leaving her husband definitely would damage her children more than remaining with him. 

She had not been ready to face Lyanna Snow, so she had run away, though she had soon learned that the woman knew nothing of the fund having been opened on her son’s behalf, so it stood to reason she had not been bought off to silence. 

And it had been during her two months stay in Sunspear that she had met him. 

Brandon Stark — surprisingly the uncle of the bride, small world — he was younger than her and full of life and promise. He was earnest and forthcoming and he clearly had a crush on her. 

Elia had been twenty-eight and he had been twenty-three in Sunspear exploring after he had abandoned his studies at college. He had been surfing when Elia had taken the children to the beach. 

He had actually met Aegon first, as her son had all but begged him to see his surfing board as Elia had been sunbathing with Rhaenys. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had been alerted of a stranger presence in her space only when he had — with his quite impressive mole — shadowed the sun from her and Elia had found herself face to face with her lanky tanned, violet-eyed and silver-haired son and his new friend, a quite muscular and handsome young man with long dark hair held back in a bun, sun-kissed skin and shining brown-grey eyes.

And… alright, he had been drenched, salt and water still sticking to his chest, droplets of seawater still running down his  chiseled abs. 

Hello there, he had greeted her, I have a feeling this rascal might be yours. 

Aegon had kept begging Elia to let him learn some surfing with the newcomer and Elia had not had the heart to deny her son something he had seemed so passionate about — and in retrospect she had done well as surfing was now her son’s life and full-time job. He had moved permanently to Dorne for that.

She and Brandon had circled around each other for weeks before he had asked her out to dinner. Elia had told him she was married and his reply had been A pity really, but he had not walked away, he had even invited the children to tag along and as her kids had been running wild on too much sweets and too many triggers with the rides around the seafront, they had found themselves talking and, for the first time since having discovered of Jon, Elia had confided in someone the truth. 

Brandon had been furious — had, had half a mind to just find Rhaegar out and start a good fistfight — and then he had cocooned the perfect way to take her out on a date. 

He had even enlisted the children’s help — Rhaenys mostly as she was the oldest and eerily aware of how broken things had become between her parents — and he had convinced her to accompany him to an exhibition of one of her favorite artists. 

When Elia had gone out with him, she had discovered the exhibition was not at eleven a.m. as he had anticipated, but that it was instead at three p.m., Brandon had grinned at her unrepentant and had started to take her around, he had even introduced her to some of his friends and brought to a meeting of ex-college activists. 

It had been sweet and when finally they had left the exhibition Brandon had been all giddy. Have I convinced you, yet?, Elia had rolled her eyes. 

It does not do wonders to my opinion of you, if you’ve cleverly brought me only where they would speak highly of you, she had teased, though you get points for cleverness, and, she had added, for the cravat. It must’ve been a nightmare for you, she had commented. 

A nightmare indeed.

Elia had been ready to return home by then, she was not a cheater, thank you very much, and she knew something was bound to happen if she entertained his silly crush — and hers — further.

She was flattered, really, but she had been not yet ready and especially she was still a married woman not yet decided on how to behave with her cheating husband, but that didn’t mean she had intention of stepping to his level by cheating back.

Yet, he had posed a fine argument, promising her the best gelato in all of Westeros and Elia had reminded him she was picky with her food and he had laughed, promising her it would be worth the hype. 

It had been. 

She had gone for simplicity. Mint and lemon and stracciatella. Nothing too elaborated and he had chosen instead pistacchio, nutella and cream — who knew he actually had such a sweet tooth? — they had sat on a bench seafront and ate in silence their gelato. 

Until he had asked — after she might have moaned a bit, though it was really that good — if she wanted a taste of his gelato. She had been so taken by the setting sun and her elation that she had accepted the offer. 

Brandon had fed her nutella gelato from his own spoon and Elia maybe was as guilty as he was of what happened next, because she could see it in her own mind happening before it did, and she still didn’t put a stop to it, when he leaned close and pressed his lips against hers to get a taste of his own gelato across her lips. 

Brandon kissed with the same passion with which he laughed. Fully, as if he put his whole being into the kiss. Elia had never been kissed that way, not even when she had been a young girl, so she may have leaned into the kiss herself. 

Yet, she had stopped it. 

It had been wrong. Brandon had understood, but it was also clear that he had been hurt over her rejection, even though he had kissed her temple and told her you are too good for this world, he doesn’t deserve you.

She had never seen Brandon again — though he and Aegon had kept in touch over the years and she knew Brandon had went to every single surfing contest Aegon had taken part in, to cheer him on — and the next week she had booked the flight back to Dragonstone and had decided to ask Rhaegar for a divorce. 

The divorce had been a nasty matter, but before anything else Elia had met with Lyanna over a tea. She had told her about the fund for Jon, and had told her she didn’t hold her — a teenager at the time — responsible for what had happened, since she had been unaware of Rhaegar’s family and then she had returned home, had sat her children down and had told them she and Rhaegar would part ways. 

It had taken them several courtroom meetings, and years after they finally reached an accord and signed the divorce papers. 

Elia had been thirty-three by the time she had become a divorced woman, with two teenagers solely to her custody. She had kept in touch with Lyanna, even though the other woman never touched a single penny from the fund Rhaegar had created for Jon, and finally Rhaenys and Aegon met their half-brother. 

When the time had come Jon had used it to further his instruction and then had given it for a series of charities.

Jon had been a sensible youth and Aegon had immediately hit off with him, as had Rhaenys. It never ceased to amaze her how easily her children had taken not only to the divorce but their brother as well, to the point Aegon was one of his best men and Rhaenys had asked Jon to be her best man beside Aegon at her own wedding. 

Elia couldn’t be prouder, and life had gone on. 

Lyanna had crooned on and on about Sansa Stark, the woman with whom Jon was in love. Elia had not made the connection until Brandon had walked in — still sunkissed, with short hair now, and crinkles at the corner of his sparkling grey eyes — during the rehearsal dinner and had swept his niece off her feet making her giggle. 

Brandon was no less handsome now that he had been at twenty-three, no less handsome in a surfing suit than he was in the formal suit he was wearing for his niece’s wedding. He might be now thirty-nine — and she forty-three going on forty-four — but his eyes still sparkled the same. 

Aegon had grinned at her, when Brandon had entered the restaurant, with that kind of grin that told her he had been aware all along that Brandon would be present. 

Whilst shortly after she had divorced Rhaegar both her children had been uneasy with the idea of her dating another man, they had been trying to push her to find someone with whom to spend her life. That her world didn’t need to end with Rhaegar Targaryen and her children. 

Still, despite knowing Brandon still met occasionally with Aegon, she had never entertained the idea of giving them a shot. He had been young and impressionable and he had a life full of adventure before himself, Elia had no intention neither of getting back in the game (so to speak) so fast after the divorce and she had not wish to chain him down to a life he might not want, so she had never reached out to him. 

Lyanna had taken care to have her sit with her and her new flame — Robert Baratheon, Call me Bobby B!,  — where she would be far enough from the family of the bride but still near enough the family of the groom.

You’re family, Lyanna had told her firmly. 

She could feel his gaze follow her whenever she went, she knew he was hyper aware of her — or perhaps she was the one hyper aware of him — still she had sternly refused to make eye-contact knowing she’d probably fall prey to his outstandingly shining eyes. 

Still, at one point, she had been left alone at the table — well not completely alone, Rhaenys had been there with her — and Brandon, who had circled around her table all night had moved for the kill. 

Stupidly handsome in his stupid suit. 

Rhaenys had easily made herself scarce then and Elia had played with the cake in her plate, suddenly without appetite. He was here, she was aware of nothing else, and he still was looking at her, yet Elia did not have the bravery to look at him, afraid she might not find him watching her with the same passion his eyes had held when he had kissed her, but merely with the fondness associated to an almost-lover. 

“Won’t you even look at me?,” he asked, his voice accusing and Elia’s eyes had snapped on him, when she did she suddenly realized he had been goading her because he smirked down at her and—

—no, the passion was most surely still there, behind his grey-brown orbs.

“And there she is,” he commented “the most beautiful woman in the world” he said sitting beside her and Elia had to bite her lip.

“I’d think the most beautiful woman in the world today ought to be your niece. The bride, you know?” 

Brandon had smiled “I’m sure my niece will understand,” he stated “afterall her husband has eyes only for her, I doubt she feels in any way unconfident right now” he shrugged “besides Sansa has never been one to not acknowledge the truth”

“You’re as flattering as you were back then,” she comments. 

“And twice as impertinent,” he nodded “I’m afraid age has done nothing to make me more sensible” Elia was almost about to ask him what he meant when he proffered a hand and tucked a strand of ink black hair from her face behind her ear, the ringlet had been framing her face for a while now “Besides, look who’s talking, you’re hardly less enticing than you were when we first met”

Elia couldn’t help herself, she broke out in a giggle “Well,” she commented “that is comforting, age has not beaten the enchantment out of me yet”

Apparently only then did Brandon understand his implication, he burst out laughing “See?,” he commented “I’m still as messy as before when trying to woo you”

Elia arched a brow “I seem to remember a quite proficient young man at wooying” 

Brandon cocked his head to the side “Is that why you never reached out to me? I was too good at wooing?, had I know I would've been terrible” he asked “after the divorce?” he specified.

“I—” she looked away from his enticing grey eyes “five years had passed, I assumed you might have forgotten me and… I didn’t want to—”

“Is that the salted caramel and pistacchio cake?,” Brandon interjected pointing to her untouched plate.

Elia frowned “Yes?”

One moment they were speaking about feelings and the next about which one of the two cakes Elia had ended up with. A whirlwind of a change of topic if she ever saw one. 

Brandon hummed took the fork from her hand and took a bite out of her slice of cake bringing it to her lips “Good,” he declared “a bit too much on the salty side for my tastes” he commented, Elia did not reply “you know what?” he asked as he took another bite off of it. 

“What?”

“I think I don’t care anymore about why you didn’t reach out to me,”  he stated and Elia almost felt like slapped, but then he smiled at her bright and unrepentant and asked “wanna a taste?” he asked, arching both his brows suggestively. 

Elia knew what he was asking now. 

She caught Lyanna’ gaze over Brandon’s shoulder and she almost laughed at her impression of having to fan herself because Brandon was hot before she gave her the thumbs up with such a bright smile. 

“Why not?,” she had replied, looking back into his eyes and he smiled, soft, tender wrinkles around the corner of his eyes that made him look even gentler than he actually was “after all I must hurry along, before my enchantment decreases with age” she teased him.

Brandon chuckled at that “Absolutely,” he said “you should absolutely hurry along and—”

This time it’s Elia who kisses him, in the middle of a wedding dinner, thankfully everyone is more involved in the bride and the groom than they are in the strange dornish woman in their midst kissing the one who was supposed to become lord but abdicated in favor of his younger sibling with the intention of exploring the world and never settle. 

Besides Aegon that was, who interrupted the kiss by grabbing Brandon’s shoulder and yanking playfully at it “Listen here, mister, who gave you the permission to kiss my mom that way hm?” 

Elia was halfway through a laugh when she saw Brandon pale in half a second before Aegon burst out laughing “Keep on,” he told them “but not where my eyes can see it, thank you and amen” he added, winking at her before addressing Brandon again “treat her right, or I will know” he added, his voice dangerously low. 

“Don’t take it the wrong way, love,” Brandon commented “but your children are terrifying,” he added as he caught Rhaenys’ gaze from the other side of the room as she stabbed pointedly her own cake beside her husband holding eye contact. 

Elia did burst out in a full laugh at that “You ought to be scared,” she said “they’ve learned that from me,” 

Brandon looked at her with stars shining in his eyes and Elia felt elated, as if she was on cloud nine “What?” she asked. 

“Nothing,” Brandon said “only hard to admit my old man was right. Good things take time, and patience”

Elia kissed him again then, sweetly this time. And it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, who knew which wonders were hiding just behind the first page, awaiting to be discovered? She was sure Brandon would gladly explore them together in the years to come.

And if she happened to accidentally — it fell into her hands alright? — catch the bouquet when Sansa threw it, in the meantime almost falling into Brandon's awaiting arms when she stumbled a couple of steps back after the throw... well, maybe it was just fate nudging her in the right direction, wasn't it?, especially when Brandon's arms encircled around her waist as he muttered in her ear “You have the same scent of summertime and joy on you still, I missed it”

Twenty years later, they’re still discovering… they’re still exploring. And they’re still terrorizing Aegon with their shenanigans when he comes to visit and they are too lovey-dovey.  

Fin 

Hope you enjoyed that! It's short and sweet and I had so much fun writing it!

Thank you for the prompt and feel free to send as many prompt as you'd like to read! As always sending all my love ~G.

Ps. I might expand on this if any of you is interested? Rare pairs of ASOIAF, in any setting you might like!, I could make a series out of it too.