#so please dont be surprised for many store elements to be changed to fit the narrative

[sailorshadzter]

i’m yours to keep, but yours to lose.

In the aftermath of a devastating loss, Sansa Stark and Jon Snow must navigate what it means to love and be loved. A modern day Jonsa story. 

title: so it goes by taylor swift 

When his phone rings, his heart sinks.

The last time his phone had rang with a Northern number, it had been because Robb was dead. This time when the unsaved number flashes across his screen, he already knows to expect the worst.

"Hello?" He greets on the last ring, picking up before his voicemail can. Something tells him he has to answer this call.

"Hello... Is this Jon Snow?"

It's an unfamiliar woman's voice on the other end. In the background he can hear snippets of other voices, the steady beeping of a machine. "...yes" he finally answers, rising up from where he sits on his couch to walk towards the front windows. "This is." He clarifies with more confidence and the woman lets out a thankful sounding sigh.

"I’m sorry to bother you like this, but my name is Alys, I'm calling from Wintertown Hospital." A pause, as if the woman is turning around, looking at someone. Despite the distance between them, despite being connected by just a single phone call, Jon knows this woman feels pity and sorrow as she makes this call. "I have a Sansa Stark here and you're-"

"Sansa?" Jon yelps, interrupting the woman before she can finish. "Is she okay? Why is she there?"

"There's been an incident..." The woman, Alys, explains. "She asked for us to call you..."

"I'll be there tomorrow." Is all he says before hanging up, his heart beating a steady pace within his chest. The last place he wants to go his back home, back North... But for Sansa... He would go anywhere.

When Jon arrives at Wintertown Hospital, he's running off six cups of coffee and zero sleep.

He had said he would be here today and he had meant it. And so he had stuffed a bag with clean clothes, his toothbrush, and after asking a neighbor to check in on Ghost, he climbed into his truck and sped away without a backwards glance. Stopping only for coffee, he drove straight from his little townhouse in King's Landing back North, back to the place he'd been born and raised, back to the place he once swore he would never again set foot in.

Rushing through the sliding glass doors, he impatiently waits behind a man checking in at the front desk, complaining of a persistent cough. "I'm here to see Sansa Stark!" He barks as soon as he's stepped up to the desk, a rush of emotions and caffeine sharpening his tone more than he intends. The nurse narrows her eyes, clearly unhappy with his tone- not that he can blame her. "Please, I got a call... From someone named Alys." He softens and at once, the nurse responds, giving a single nod before she's reaching for the phone.

"Alys will be down in a moment, if you'd like to wait over there." The nurse gestures towards the small waiting area, to which Jon gives his thanks and takes to the nearest chair, collapsing into it. A moment to himself leaves him lost in thought as a familiar flicker of sorrow twists in his heart, a reminder of the last time he'd been here in this hospital. Luckily he doesn't have long to wait, for it only takes a few minutes for him to notice a slim, well dressed woman approaching the check-in desk, only for the nurse behind it to point to where he sits now.

He's already on the edge of his seat when she approaches him instead. "Jon Snow?" She questions in the very same voice of the woman on the phone that had called him- so this was Alys. "Thank you for coming," she goes on when Jon nods, rising up to his feet as he stretches out a hand for her to shake. "I'm Alys, we spoke yesterday on the phone..."

"Please, tell me what's happened." Jon says and Alys gives a quick nod.

"Come with me." Is all she says, leading him past the desk and into a small room where a patient might first be seen, to have their vitals checked before being admitted into the hospital itself. "She's in a room, now, but first..." Alys trails off as they pass through this first room and into what must be the emergency room. "In here," she gestures for him to follow her into an empty room and she closes the door behind them.

"Is she okay?" Jon asks, impatient, unable to focus on anything beyond the state she's in.

To his relief, Alys smiles, though it is strained, uncertain. "She is unhurt, yes," she answers in a roundabout way, which douses the flicker of relief within him. "You are familiar with the Stark family, yes?" She asks, though the young Stark girl had explained to him that Jon was a childhood friend, more like a brother than anything else. Jon nods, but as he meets gazes with the woman, a cold sense of dread has already begun to fill him up. "Two nights ago... Ned, Catelyn, and their youngest sons were murdered."

For a moment, Jon cannot move, cannot think. Every single thought leaves his brain as he tries desperately to wrap his mind around what he's just been told. "They... They what?" He asks, feeling rather stupid when the words leave him. "Murdered?" He breathes, thinking of Bran, of Rickon, little boys he thought of more as brothers. He thinks of Ned Stark, a proud, noble man who had always treated him as one of his own. He thinks of Catelyn Stark, who had always ensured he had enough to eat. They had been his family when he'd not had one of his own. In the Stark's, he had brothers and sisters and parents- even if they weren't linked by blood or by name, they were family all the same. "I-I don't understand..."

"Neither do we, at least not yet." Alys admits, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder. "It seems politically motivated." Of course it would be, considering just who the Stark's were. The most major family in the North, Ned Stark ruled more like a king than governor, and his people would have had it that way, as it had once been thousands of years ago. But, despite it all, Ned never sought power beyond what he had, choosing to defer to the one true King of the Seven Kingdoms, once his friend Robert Baratheon, now his son, the spiteful and spoiled Joffrey. It would not surprise Jon whatsoever to hear that Joffrey's mother, Cersei Lannister, had her hands in this mess. There was no family in all of the Seven Kingdom's that would dirty their hands in such a way besides the Lannister's.

"But Sansa... And Arya!" He gasps, thinking not just of the young woman who's called him here, but of her dark haired little sister that once wrestled with her brother's in the mud of Winterfell's courtyard. "Is Arya....?"

"Away at school. She's safe and been sent for, you don't have to worry about her right now." Alys replies and once again, a rush of relief floods him, forcing him to close his eyes as emotions well up within him. "There's something else..." Jon raises his gaze back up and braces himself for whatever else is to come. "It was Sansa that found them."

True horror, true sorrow, rips through him at such a thought. He cannot imagine hearing the news that your family has been brutally murdered, let alone being the one who finds them in such a way. His heart twists, aching for Sansa and for Arya, too. "Can I see her...?" He hears himself whisper, knowing that suddenly the only thing he can do is see her, hold her, talk to her.

"Of course, come," Alys says and they step out of the room and back into the hall. It feels as if every pair of eyes in the area follows them as they walk the length of the corridor and around a corner. At both ends of the hall, Jon sees uniformed officers, surprising him. Alys must notice for she gives him an encouraging smile. "For her own protection," she explains, to which Jon nods, thankful that at least here Sansa would be safe. "In here," Alys continues, stopping at the second door on the left. She raises a hand and knocks twice before she twists the door knob and pushes the door open a few inches. "Sansa, honey, it's me... Can we come in?" She calls softly through the crack and Jon's heart skips a beat when he hears the muffled sound of her voice from within. "Go on," she urges him quietly, stepping back so Jon can instead step forwards.

With shaking hands, he pushes the door open the rest of the way, and steps over the threshold. She stands at the window, her back to him, her waterfall of red hair hanging down her back glimmers in the afternoon sunlight. For a single moment, he cannot move, cannot think, cannot even breathe- but then she's turning around to face him, her clear blue eyes dark and damp as they stare out across the room at him. He swallows, his mouth opens, but there are no words that come. No words but one... "Sansa..." Her name is a whisper from his lips, so quiet that from where she stands, she thinks she's only imagined him saying it at all. She takes a tentative step forward, as if she's as uncertain as he is, and so it is Jon that crosses the room in several strides, coming so close that if he only just reaches out a hand, he could trace the curve of her ivory cheek, could twist a lock of red hair around his finger. So close that he can hear the soft intake of breath she makes as the first tear streaks her cheek.

It takes only a moment longer for her to come rushing at him, propelling herself into his already open arms. The momentum of his embrace sweeps her off her feet and Jon closes his eyes as she buries her face into the warmth of his neck, her sweet scent as familiar to him as it had once been. As he holds her close to him, Jon can feel as she sinks into him and realizes that it is he alone who keeps her on her feet. "You came," she whispers, her breath warm against his neck.

He draws back, only slightly, just so he might look her in the eyes. Before he can stop himself, he's cupped her cheek into his palm, a reminder of a moment two years before when Robb had only just died. It had been the only time he's ever seen her cry. Back then, he was certain he'd never see someone so broken. He wishes he had been wrong. "Of course," is all he says before he pulls her back in, knowing without a doubt, there wasn't a single thing that could pull him away from her. Not again. Not ever.

And so he holds her, as he knows he always should have done.