Chapter Text
Alayne closed her eyes and she imagined the baby growing inside her. She’d imagined her child hundreds of times now, the image of him is clearer in her mind than any of her true memories. Father had left her all alone, maybe to tell mother, or to get Jon. Jon , she thought with a smile. The baby will look like Jon, with thick black hair and his gray eyes. The baby will have to look like a Stark and not a Tully, though she forgets why now. Her entire body ached, pulsing outward from her stomach. Alayne felt like she was about to split in two, like she was going to be broken by the one thing she wants more than anything.
Her breaths grew more and more shallow but the pain faded away the clearer the picture became in her mind.
She imagined a summer day in the clearing of the Godswood. The air was warm against her skin, and she and Jon are leaning back against the weirwood tree. There was a little girl with dark hair and grey eyes in her arms, and by the edge of the black pool a boy with auburn curls. She walked over to him, to see what he’s doing. The little boy droped the stick he was playing with and grabbed her wrist protectively, “it’s not safe,” he warns her, as though he isn’t a child.
“Sansa,” Jon calls, and Sansa looks back at the weirwood tree. Sansa walks to him and sits down in his lap with a little sigh.
Suddenly things became less fuzzy, and she realized it’s not Jon at all, but her father. Her true father, the one she gave up so she could survive in the Vale, the one who loved her and did his best to protect her. The father she’d watched die, the father she’d helped the Lannisters murder. Sansa was so happy to see him again, but she despite her joy she couldn’t stop the tears that began to fall.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Father asked
“It’s not fair,” Sansa said.
“Robb is older than you, and he knows how to swim,” Father said gently, patting her on the head, as though that was the end of it.
But Sansa couldn’t control her weeping, and she began to ache again. The pain in the here and now took her father’s embrace away. She remembered the first time she ached like this. She hurt from being beaten, but this was different. Back then she felt as though her womb was going to fall out, but instead she’d bled while she slept. Getting her moonsblood had been the curse that led to almost everything that’s happened since, but the queen acted like it was something to be celebrated.
There’s been a lot of pain since the first time she bled.
Another father came to her then, one she’d been trying to put behind her since she’d run from the Vale.
“My sweet girl,” he whispered, pulling her into his lap. She doesn’t have the strength to fight him, but she supposed it didn’t matter anyway. Alayne was used to being touched by men by now.
She was a pretty bastard girl and men groped her without any consequence as soon as she is out of her father’s sight. But her father’s touches are different. Alayne went slack in his arms, she closed her eyes as she undresses, acquiescing to whatever he wants.
He told her to do things, and she does them. Numbing herself and emptying her mind of thoughts never made it go by any faster, but it makes it easier to live with when she’d put her dress back on and was trying to sleep.
It hurt too, the first time Petyr pushed open her legs and sunk himself into her, just like it did now. Alayne ached for days after, the pain made even worse when she remembered what had happened.
This time when she pushes the thoughts from her mind, it works better than ever before. The pain is more than that, enough to numb her.
“Sweet girl,” she heard again, but this time she feels Jon’s weight on top of her. This wasn’t a dream, none of them are, they’re memories. She’s a newlywed and she’s just escaped the weight of Littlefinger. Jon is inside her and she’s close to whimpering out his name, but those words on his lips bring her back to the Eyrie and her stolen childhood.
“Don’t,” she shuddered out, “don’t call me that.”
Her body doesn’t remember the trauma, but her mind is reeling as she comes.
That time hurt worse than any of the rest. Jon was perfect, he was her saviour, he was the one bards wrote songs about. He had brought her home and made her a person again. He couldn’t be marred by the image of Littlefinger’s twisted grin. She retreated into herself, numbing herself so she wouldn’t remember it.
Jon’s arms enveloped her. “What should I call you then?”
Sansa , Alayne thought, but she can’t remember if she’d thought it then or if she’s thinking it now.
“Alayne,” she instructed him.
“What if I want a name just I can call you?” he asked. He was playing with her hair, curling it around his finger. His lips grazed her jaw. She was well aware that he was trying to comfort her, and she knew she should be grateful that she was lucky enough to have found such a wonderful husband, and yet she felt disgusted by his touch. She kept still, she didn’t want this to mar his high opinion of her.
“Calling me your lady wife should do, it does for everyone else,” Alayne replied, her voice stiff. She wanted all of the pain to roll off of her, but she’d been rebuilt for survival, not for sweetness.
His arms around her didn’t ease her mind nor save her from the phantom pain. She had lost so much and even winning the fairytale prince of her childhood dreams couldn’t fix her. He couldn’t know how broken she was. His love was the only thing keeping her tied down to this world...
“Alayne,” a voice called out.
“Alayne, wake up,” another voice called out, this one she recognizes as Jon’s.
The concern in his voice makes her feel warm. He hadn’t saved her in the end, it seemed that nobody could, but he wanted to and that meant something . The thought of him slashing Longclaw through her father’s chest made her want to cry in joy and anguish at the same time.
It wasn’t all bad. Petyr kept her safe, hadn’t he? He’d saved her from the Lannisters, he’d killed Joffrey, he promised her he’d bring her home, and here she was. Worse for wear, but alive within the walls of Winterfell.
“It’s too early,” she heard Jon nearly growl in a hushed tone. She heard screaming and it took a second, but she realized that it was her own.
“There’s no stopping it, not with this much blood.”
“It’s too early,” Jon pressed.
“You really should leave,” the other voice said, “it’s not proper for the father to see this, I have her handmaidens —”
“I’m not leaving her,” Jon said, his voice full of disgust, “not when she’s like this.”
Sansa feels her brother grab her hand, and she squeezed back as best she can. It’s okay , she wanted to say. She could manage this pain, but hearing him worry makes it impossible to bear.
“Alayne, you need to push,” came the other voice.
Pushing brings some relief from the pain. It’s natural, it’s what her body was made for. Screaming helps even more, as does gripping Jon’s hand tightly.
She remembered whispered prayers in the Godswood. She remembered thinking my brother will kill you all . She remembers how she’d almost stopped existing when she found out Robb had died.
“You must be Alayne all the time,” she heard her father whisper. And she has been. She’s been so good. She stayed alive, nobody found her in the mountains except for her brother. Not the brother she’d prayed for, but he was just as brave, and she’d grown to love him more than anyone.
“Push,” the voice came again, and she can imagine a maester there with Jon, even if she can’t see it. She pushed and pushed and suddenly the pain is gone and everything goes black.
She’s still tired when she comes to. The room was spinning around her. She lifted her head weakly, and looked around. Their marriage bed is soaked in blood, and the baby is gone. Her eyes flicked to the side and she looksed for Jon but she just finds the maester. She wants to scream, but her mouth is so dry she can’t make words come out.
“Fetch the King,” the maester called across the room when he notices she’s woken. She can’t recall his name, she just knows he’s not the one who should be there. She wondered what fate befell Maester Luwin, if he’d been burned along with Bran and Rickon. One of her handmaidens left the room to get Jon.
Tears ran down her cheeks but she was too tired to wipe them away. She knows what’s coming, she knows she’s done this to herself. Because she wasn’t Alayne, was she? She had known what she was doing, known that it was frowned upon by Gods and men, and still she’d pushed. She’d killed her baby.
The maester smiled sadly, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t face it. In her weakest moments she had prayed for the baby inside of her to die. Better a miscarriage or a still birth than having to look at a baby who grew up to look like Petyr. She had prayed in the godswood every day, hoping that it would be Jon’s son, that she could finally escape the Mountain. And she had prayed that if it was not, that the Gods would not make her endure motherhood. She had hoped in vain that it would be Jon’s, that they could make a family together, that they could be happy .
And then, to her great surprise, she heard a baby’s crying in the other room. “You have a son,” the maester said.
The other handmaiden came back into the room with a baby in her arms. He was swaddled in a woolen blanket. He had little hair, but what he had was as black as Jon’s. His eyes were Tully blue, and his screams were all Arya. He was small and frail, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him despite the wailing. Still the Maester’s face was tense.
Oh , Sansa realizes.It wasn’t her son who would pay the price for her transgressions, it was her.
Jon burst through the doors. He’d been crying, Sansa could tell from his puffy bloodshot eyes. But the King in the North couldn’t cry in front of his subjects, not even if his wife was bleeding out on the birthing bed.
“You’re awake,” Jon said, his face breaking out into the biggest smile Sansa had ever seen. He rushed to her side, but the maester holds up a hand in protest. “She’s alright, isn’t she?”
“She lost a lot of blood,” the maester said. “But she did wake up. She needs to eat and drink, and we need to watch to make sure she doesn’t bleed anymore. She can’t stand to lose any more blood. Childbirth is tricky, and anything could happen, but she’s made it through the worst.”
Jon leaned down and kisses her cheek. He grabbed her hand. Sansa can feel just how happy he is, how relieved. He loves me , she thought, and I’m going to be okay . It seemed there would be no consequences for her sins. She would be loved by her husband, have a healthy baby and live to see it. She could grow old here beside him, they could rebuild Winterfell. The maester brought her food and one of her handmaidens fed her. Jon stayed there all the while, not letting go of her hand. She drank spring water infused with herbs and eat the mutton stew a kitchen maid brought her and she thought of how easy it would all be, once she was better. When she fell asleep she sees how beautiful it could all be.
But when she woke she remembered that there was a price to pay.
Jon was still beside her. He knew, doesn’t he? She tried to forget what had happened in the Godswood, but he’d known for awhile. She could’t lie to him, not anymore. She didn’t deserve to have his love on top of everything else, not when she lied to get it.
“Leave us,” Sansa rasped out to the nurse and maester who sit surrounding her.
Sansa closed her eyes and breaths out.
“You were right, Jon. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying —”
Jon gripped her hand, “save your voice, you don’t have to tell me anything right now. Just rest. I can’t do any of this without you.”
The two of them were silent for a long time.
“Do you want to hold your son?” he asked.
Alayne nodded. Jon passed her the baby. He fit so perfectly in her arms. “Does he have a name?”
Jon shook his head. “I wanted you to wake first. You were out for a long time, my love. I wanted you to…”
“Ned,” Alayne said, “let’s name him after your father?”
“Not your father?” Jon asked.
Alayne looked down at the baby. Her son. He was so beautiful. He was all hers and Jon’s. He did not look anything like Petyr. The gods had answered her prayers.
“No. Let’s leave all that behind us.”