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It’d been a sunny day when Bran brought direwolves home.
It is- rather colder when he brings a baby.
…
Nobody knew. Or, rather, Bran knew, and Rickon knew, and Arya knew that Bran and Rickon knew something. But nobody else knew anything, and it remained that way right up until they arrived at Winterfell’s courtyard- until the entirety of the castle heard a shrill scream.
A shrill scream that came not from the actual horses or the general vicinity of everyone returning home- it came from the kennels, and when their mother looked inside, she saw dogs and straw and water plenty, along with a single red-faced baby.
Shaggydog and Summer had been the ones to carry the baby, Bran told them afterwards, for those three days they’d visited Castle Cerwyn and returned. They’d found her on an abandoned log, wailing wildly, and wrapped the baby in some fur; then, they’d brought it home.
Jon- he isn’t sure what their plan was.
Surely they knew they’d be found out? Winterfell’s not a small castle, but neither does it have a lack of population. People are always around. And children aren’t quiet, nor particularly easy to hide. Young ones like this? They need attention, need care, need-
“-love,” Aunt Catelyn hisses at them. Bran and Rickon stand together against the wall, twin heads bent and staring fixedly at the ground. “You are sixteen, Bran, and you, Rickon, are even younger, and neither of you are so much as ready for thinking on a babe- and yet you bring one home!“ Her voice gets louder, making Arya- behind her mother- and Robb- behind Arya- wince. “I expected better of you! At least of you, Rickon!”
Because Rickon, unlike Bran, doesn’t tend to lose his head over anything vaguely helpless or ridiculously innocent set in front of him. Robb snorts, all big-brother-smug, when he realizes; but flinches when his mother rounds him.
“I think Sansa wanted to talk to me,” he says, backing up with alacrity.
Arya hides her smirk easily enough, as he disappears into the castle- so do Bran and Rickon, and Ned, too, who’d been speaking with Jory about the winter stores in Castle Cerwyn- but the disbelief in their eyes more than erases whatever humor Jon might have been feeling.
Seven fucking hells.
As it is-
Sansa. Jon sighs. Then he turns aside, setting his sword against the wooden banister. Gods above.
“Well,” says Catelyn, turning back to Bran and Rickon. “There’s no way the two of you can keep a babe. The responsibility- it’s not like raising a direwolf. And now we have to find someone who’ll take her in, one who’s-”
“We saw her lying there,” Bran says. “Just- alone. She had only a single blanket, and she was crying, and I couldn’t just leave her.”
“Winter has come,” Uncle Ned comments. He still looks amused, though that’s fading now- replaced, instead, by something of his usual solemnity. “Bran: people freeze in the winter. If they’ve not enough food, nor enough cloth, they must choose- an able-bodied man or woman; or a child, likely to die anyhow.” He sighs, leans down, places a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “It is a painful choice.”
“So we should have just left an innocent child in the snow to die,” Rickon said heatedly.
“No,” Ned sighs, again. “But- perhaps it would have been better of you to find a family nearby. Or to tell Arya, or Jory, at the least. Certainly not to hide one in Shaggydog’s furs.”
“If she’d caught cold,” Catelyn snaps. “If anything had happened to her- what would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” Bran begins, but before he can continue, Rickon cuts him off.
“So what d’you want us to do now?”
“What?”
“What do you want us to do now?” Rickon repeats, with exaggerated impatience. “The baby is here, Mother. I’ll make sure that Bran doesn’t bring a baby home next time, sure-” he dodges the elbow Bran throws at him, “-but, you know, what do you want us to do now? When she’s here already?”
Catelyn lifts a brow. “There must be some family in Wintertown,” she says. “Someone who would be willing to take in a child for at least the worst of winter; after, we can see about-”
“It won’t work.”
Jon nearly swallows his tongue in surprise at the voice.
He turns- fully, sharp enough to leave a crick in his neck, to make sure that it really is her. But, yes, it is: Sansa, wearing a gown that flatters the long, lean lines of her waist; hair braided neatly; cheeks flushed from the chill.
They haven’t seen each other for- gods above- nearly a month now.
He last saw her as she slammed the door to their room after the bedding ceremony. Jon remembers the look in her eyes very well- there were tears there, he knew, but not so much tears of humiliation as tears of anger. Jon very well might have had sympathy had Sansa been anything resembling apologetic towards him, after that, for he can’t quite fathom how any of this is his fault, but Sansa’d only ever looked irritable, or even worse: disdainful.
Ned had good intentions when he insisted that Sansa not know her duty to the realm as a child. He did, Jon’s sure of it, but it doesn’t change the fact that Sansa’s spent the first dozen years of her life dreaming of marriage to a golden-haired prince in the south, not her almost-bastard-cousin in the North. It doesn’t change the disappointment in her voice when she was told the news. It doesn’t change her fury, or the outrage that came with having her wedding a spectacle that drew the attention of half the Seven Kingdoms.
But she’s out now, and there’s snowfall catching on her hair, shining as a poor-man’s-crown. Jon lets the bite of his nails ground him before he makes a fool of himself.
“It won’t work,” Sansa continues, folding her arms over her chest, into the silence growing around their family- “it won’t, Mother, there’s not anyone who’ll take another child in. Father’s been getting petitions about keeping a rotating schedule of children inside Winterfell, it’s getting that cold- nobody’s going to take another mouth in, not willingly.”
“So what do you suggest?” Arya asks.
“A- I’ve a friend,” Sansa says. “Do you remember when I went to White Harbor? Lord Manderly’s son, his second son- he’s married only recently, and that to a woman well past the age of childbirth. His nieces tell me that Lord Wendel wants a child. Desperately. But in winter…”
“You think they’ll want the child,” Catelyn says.
“Yes,” Sansa says. “But I’ll have to send a raven to make sure.”
Ned frowns. “Maester Luwin says there’s a storm coming- it should hit within a sennight. You should send the raven after.”
She bites her lip. “That’ll still take a couple of weeks, though. For the raven to reach, for them to respond, for us to go there- it’ll be at least a month. Maybe a little less, but likely a lot more. Someone will have to take the babe while- while this is going on.”
Jon’s fairly certain that he never told his mouth to move. He’s fairly certain that he’d never do such a thing while his brain is working, because- gods, he’s not an idiot, not-
But Bran and Rickon look crestfallen, look heartbroken, and Robb’s not around, and Sansa’s out of her rooms for the first time in a month, and- and she’s got ice crystals in her hair, as if they were seven and ten and playful in the godswood. Jon rubs the tip of his tongue against the flat of his first two teeth and steps forward.
He steps forwards, and faces Catelyn, and says it firmly: “I’ll take her.”
There’s another long silence, as everyone turns to face him, this time; Arya’s jaw drops, a little, when she registers what he said, and both his aunt and uncle look- completely startled. He can’t quite see the look on Bran or Rickon’s faces, not with their heads bent as they are, but Jon’s fairly certain they’re gleeful.
Sansa goes pale.
Then she nods at him, the first acknowledgement she’s given him since their wedding, and Jon takes that as permission to dive straight back into- into ruining his life, really.
“I mean- it’s just a couple weeks, right? I can do it.” He grins, weakly, at Catelyn. “It’ll make things easier than trying to find a family in Wintertown.”
“Your mother,” Catelyn starts to say, but Jon cuts her off quickly: “She’ll not have to do anything. This is on me.”
In the end, he’s not sure what makes his aunt decide- but she looks to his side, where Sansa stands, and her lips thin, almost disapprovingly, before she nods. There’s a flash of something, Jon’s certain of it, when she says, “I’ll have Rickon’s bassinet brought to your rooms tonight.”
Jon dredges up a smile, then, for her, but it does absolutely nothing to lessen the dread churning in his gut.
…
He is so infuriating-
Sansa lowers her lashes before her eyes can skip straight to Jon. She’s not certain what he might see in them, and it’s always better to be aware of such things. Particularly when dealing with a person who gets under your skin as so much stinging nettle.
Jeyne asks her something, under her breath, and Sansa lifts her head to answer- and then, there’s an explosion of sound from the far end of the table, and her eyes flick to it, inevitably- and Sansa sees him, sees Jon, juggling the child with the unease of a man who’s never truly held one before; managing, nevertheless.
The child is young enough that she’s still hairless, but her eyes are large and dark in her small face. She’s cradled in the crook of Jon’s elbow as he tries to eat; and, though Sansa knows it to be false, she can’t help but imagine her to be Jon’s babe in truth: she already has the same long face, and her body’s not plump as Sansa remembers Rickon used to be. The lean, rangy look of the Starks sits well on her.
“He’s good with her,” Jeyne murmurs, and Sansa’s agreement gets caught, high in her throat.
A good father.
Robb had been the one to tell her what was going on in the courtyard. Sansa had almost run, then- she’d just finished reading a raven from Wylla over her uncle’s distress; the presence of a babe in the middle of winter, when none had ever appeared before, was quite likely a sign from the gods themselves. Wendel will want her, Sansa’s certain of it.
She hadn’t considered that Jon might be the one to take her in.
Her thoughts hadn’t gone quite that far.
Fool, she berates herself, but can’t quite stop looking at the picture that Jon makes there. You are a fool, Sansa Stark, a fool thrice over.
It doesn’t take long for Robb to notice her fixation. It takes even less time for him to realize, and then he grins, shamelessly, because Robb does nothing better than teasing her. Sansa grips her fork tighter in her hand. She’s already wound tight enough to snap, for no reason other than the look in Jon’s eyes, and she can only hope that Robb doesn’t make it worse.
“Guess who’s finding you interesting,” Robb says, loudly, to Jon.
Sansa clenches her jaw instead of answering. She’s far enough away that she can pretend not to have heard him. And responding will only make Robb more- insistent. Best to pretend that nothing’s going on.
Of course, as soon as Sansa decides that, Arya- who’s sitting beside Robb- realizes what’s going on.
“For the first time in moons,” she says, eyes glinting at Sansa, absolutely unsubtly. “I wonder why.”
“As do I,” Robb says, and Sansa feels a flush spread over her cheeks, blotchy, ugly. “What’s changed today? That someone would take their supper with us, instead of-”
“You’d best learn subtlety, both of you,” Sansa interrupts sharply. “And I’d suggest you do it quickly, before things start to go missing.”
Jon looks up at her, eyes a fraction wider than usual, and Sansa sets her fork down with a deliberate clink. Robb doesn’t look cowed, though, and Arya even less- she grins back at Sansa.
“Things start to go missing?”
“Like your armor,” Sansa tells Robb- and then, to Arya: “Or your daggers. I hear Mother’s been threatening to take them from you.”
Her mother lifts a brow from where she sits beside their father; but she doesn’t say anything at all. Aunt Lyanna looks amused more than anything, so it’s their father who answers Sansa: he looks weary, Sansa decides, and impatient with all of them.
“Apologize,” he tells them, head resting against his fingers. But they continue to maintain their silence- Sansa’s too proud to speak, and it isn’t as if Robb or Arya are any better. Anyhow, how is it Sansa’s fault? She was just replying to their teasing-
“Apologize,” he repeats, voice shortening.
“Forget it,” Sansa says, eyes flicking to meet Arya’s gaze. “I find myself without an appetite,” she continues, before turning to her mother. “I believe I’ll head to my room, Mother. Father.”
As she leaves, she feels the prickle of someone watching her.
It’s Jon, she realizes, then, just as she leaves- it’s Jon who’s watching her, closer than he watched ever before, closer even than their wedding day. Arya’s sulking and Robb’s frowning; but Jon’s got his eyes trained on her.
Sansa hears Jeyne’s voice, clear in her ears: he’s good with her.
He’d make a good father, Sansa thinks again, and bites her lip.
Then she turns around, and instead of going to her rooms, she heads downstairs, to the kitchens.
…
Jon sighs as the baby continues crying, for likely the second hour in a row.
He thinks that, with a little help, he might have been able to handle the baby with ease. But he doesn’t have help, that’s the problem: he told Aunt Catelyn that he’d do everything himself, and the servants are all avoiding him because they tend to take their cues from her; his mother had just burst into loud laughter when he told her why he had a barely-half-year old babe in his arms, and Robb and the others all seem to find the whole thing even more hilarious.
Sansa, a voice in his head whispers. Jon’s almost certain he hates that voice. Sansa didn’t look amused. Or disgusted.
She’d looked- intrigued, he thinks, in that split-second before her expression shifted to rage at Robb. And intrigued is the most positive she’s ever looked at him for the last few months. Jon can work with intrigued.
But… that’s after he stops this baby from crying.
He sighs, shifting the baby a little, and the full-on wailing lessens to a manageable set of whimpers. The sudden drop in sound alerts him to the rapping at the door; Jon looks back at the baby- she’s looking better now or at the least a little sleepier- so he risks disturbing the equilibrium enough to get the door.
It’s Sansa.
Jon’s completely floored. As far as he remembers, Sansa hasn’t ever entered these rooms before. She’s not even sought him out, preferring to hide in her rooms instead of facing him.
“What’re you doing here?” Jon asks, and then winces, because he’s not sure he could have been brusquer.
Sansa lifts her brows. “I’m not sure how much you ate at dinner,” she tells him, “but I do know that you probably haven’t fed the baby.”
“I- no,” Jon says. “No, I’ve not- I think that might be it. She’s been crying. A lot. So-”
“I brought milk,” she says, holding up a bowl in her hand. “For her. The freshest in the kitchens, according to Old Nan.”
“You… brought milk.”
“Yes,” Sansa says, and steps forwards; Jon moves back hastily before she can stamp his toes, and before he knows it she’s in his rooms, placing the bowl on the desk and turning the chair to face him. She gestures impatiently when he remains standing at the door. “You’ll need some help, won’t you?”
“I suppose.” Jon approaches her slowly. “I- I can hold her. While you feed her. If that’s-”
“Then you should sit down,” she says.
He does so; Sansa leans against the desk and places a cloth in the milk, which she then places at the baby’s mouth, letting her suckle it. And it works, that’s the important part- the baby grows stiller in Jon’s arms, body stilling and melting even further; there aren’t anymore tears.
“It’s- thank you.”
Sansa blinks at him- she’s got one hand braced against his thigh, the other pressing the cloth against the baby’s lips, and she’s so fucking pretty like that, all dim firelight and shadows, big eyes that would look blue in other light, hair like a sunrise- Jon feels his mouth dry, his spine straighten half-instinctively, before Sansa looks away.
“You should probably feed her before you eat,” she tells him, lowly, before rising to her feet. Jon misses the warmth instantly. He misses the breathlessness of the moment, too; but Sansa doesn’t seem to notice it at all, tone brisk as if she’d not been willingly closer to him than she’d been for near a decade. “Next time, I mean. Tomorrow. And you should burp her now, that’s what Old Nan said.”
“I can handle it,” Jon says, pulling a hand down his face that jostles the baby enough to pull her out of her almost-slumber.
And maybe it’s the tacit rebuke in Sansa’s voice, or the lack of faith, or maybe, just a little, the way he feels colder with Sansa’s abrupt distance- but Jon’s voice is sharp, now, sharp and stinging, more even than when he stood at his door and demanded to know the reason for her presence.
The baby starts to cry, then, and the look on Sansa’s face- Jon feels just about ready to pitch a fit.
See? Her bloody perfect face says. You don’t know, Jon, and you cannot handle it, and you damn well better stop pretending soon.
“I only meant to help,” Sansa says, loud, over the baby’s cries. “I only meant to help, you-” her fists clench, which Jon notices only out of his peripheral vision because he’s focused on trying to keep the baby’s cries down, more than anything Sansa might be doing, “-if you thought you could handle it, you should’ve said before I entered. Then I could leave you to your- your room and your stupidity and your- pride, Jon, don’t think that would’ve been overmuch of a sacrifice for me!”
“I took on this burden,” Jon shouts back, head jerking up to look at her. “I did, Sansa! And I can do it, so-”
“Oh, shut up,” Sansa tells him, and turns, and walks out.
She slams the door behind her, too, which is- so petty, Jon thinks, but the sudden burst of sound makes the baby at least lower in volume. Even in a rage, she knows how to take care of the baby better than him, and that’s enough to make him grind his teeth down to powder.
Sansa’s spent a full month locked in her rooms from him because she couldn’t bear to accept him as her husband. Whatever’s happened between the two of them, there’s a history to it: tonight’s reaction isn’t just to what Sansa’s said tonight. But it’s still unfair, and Jon just-
Seven hells, he thinks, and groans, and reaches down to cradle the baby, her front against his shoulder, the way he’d seen Aunt Catelyn do with Rickon; by all the gods, why did I have to marry her?
The baby burps, after that, and Jon struggles not to feel irritated at Sansa’s advice.
By the time he sleeps, though, there’s no room for irritation in him: the baby sniffles every time he tries to put her in the bassinet, so he rocks her for hours- until the fire’s burned low and dark, and all that’s in him is exhaustion, and sleep.
…
The next morning, Sansa’s still irritated: with Jon for being such an insufferable ass, with herself for trying to care even a little, with the world for being so entirely unfair as to saddle her with him as her husband.
She skips breakfast, mostly to avoid looking at Jon, but by mid-morning her belly’s churning with hunger- little wonder, for she’d barely eaten supper the night before- so she heads to the kitchens. She still wants to hide, though, after she eats, so she leaves through the backgate for the godswood.
It’s on her way there that she sees Jon.
He’s carrying the baby, mumbling to her- and she’s wearing some old clothes: a fur-lined coat that Sansa vaguely recalls as Arya’s, a pair of boots that must have been Bran’s, because both Arya and Rickon always tended to wear holes in their shoes before outgrowing them.
Leave, she commands herself, leave, and don’t look back.
But Jon sees her before she can flee, and he doesn’t just bite his lip or look away awkwardly. No; he waves at her.
Actually- waves.
Shifts the baby to his other arm, turns to face her on the grass almost ten yards away, and waves.
Sansa inhales, exhales, and throws her shoulders back. She won’t avoid him. Not if he’s not avoiding her.
He’s never avoided you, a voice inside her points out- a voice that sounds eerily like Arya. It’s always been you, slamming doors or shouting, not Jon.
Which is true, but also rather unfair. As Arya usually is, so it’s not entirely a surprise; but still, Sansa’s spent most of her life- almost two-thirds- dreaming of a southron prince. To be forced into this marriage with Jon is a disappointment that she might not have handled gracefully, but handled nonetheless.
Maybe Jon’s also dreamt of another, the Arya in her head suggests wickedly, and Sansa shakes it in response, dislodging all such unwelcome thoughts.
“Jon,” she says, instead, coolly.
Jon’s mouth tips up when he looks at her. Upon closer inspection, the baby is cradled against his forearm, the furs tickling against her nose, and though she looks content where she is, there’re bags under Jon’s eyes and a shadow across his jaw which he hasn’t bothered to shave.
“Sansa,” he says, adjusting the baby almost self-consciously. His shoulders slump half a breath later, though, and the smile fades into a look that- had she not known him better- would have been apologetic. But Jon’s never apologized to her about anything in the world, not for stealing her dolls when they were little; not for stealing her future when they got married. She’s not really got her hopes up. “I wanted to tell you- last night- it was- I shouldn’t have said that.”
Well.
Perhaps there’s a first time for everything.
It’s not exactly an apology, but it has the makings of one. Of Jon acknowledging his mistakes. And, says Arya, clear in her ears, he doesn’t exactly owe you an apology for getting married to you.
He could’ve protested! Sansa thinks back, helplessly. I did. He could’ve done the same. Father always listened to Jon more than me anyways-
What happened to duty? To family, and honor, and duty, Sansa?
Arya fades away, then, so mockingly- and Sansa finds herself hating her sister even more in that moment, for all that she’s not interacted with the real Arya since last night’s dinner.
“I was tired,” Jon mumbles. “And- I got irritated. But, um, I-” Abruptly, he flushes. “If you were going somewhere, I didn’t mean to stop you.”
He’s good with her, Jeyne had said, and it looked like Jon was, like he was trying, at the least, and Sansa couldn’t help but feel- something.
“Just the godswood,” she says, and then, impulsively: “Would you like to join me?”
Jon blinks at her, before he nods, something so much like disbelief on his face that it makes her feel guilty. They move silently for a good few minutes before it grows too uncomfortable for her.
“You’re actually out of the keep,” Sansa comments. “I didn’t think you would be. Not for- not until the babe was gone.”
“I thought so, too,” he replies. “But Aunt Catelyn said I should. That fresh air was good for children of this age. And there’s already too little sunlight, staying indoors won’t help anything. So long as she’s wrapped up things should be fine.”
“Mmm. Have you thought of a name?”
Jon’s eyebrows shoot up. “I thought her- father- would. Or her new parents, I suppose. Wouldn’t it be- I don’t know- presumptuous? Or-”
“It’s not as if we can keep calling her the baby,” Sansa says. She realizes a moment too late that her voice is too sardonic, sharp enough to make Jon’s shoulders bunch and tighten defensively; she turns and reaches out, catching the arm that’s only bracing the one holding the baby. “Jon. It’ll be a fortnight before we can drop her off to White Harbor, at the least. Give her a name. We won’t tell the Manderlys, and we won’t talk to her about it- that might well be cruel, to get the child accustomed to a new name- but. We need something. And it should be your choice.”
He looks at her, and then away, and then back at her again. Sansa doesn’t let her impatience take a hold of her; she waits, instead, until she realizes that her hand is still on the edge of his furs, and she yanks it back quickly.
“Fine,” Jon says, finally, sighing. “Fine, yes, I’ll figure out a name.”
“Good.”
They arrive at the godswood- it’s empty. Quiet and peaceful, and scary in its peace, Sansa thinks; but then, she’s never really liked visiting this place all that much.
“Last night,” she tells Jon, “Bran came to me. He wants to start some- orphanages. Across the North.”
“Orphanages,” Jon says, dropping to sit against a tree. He cradles the baby against him; instinctively curling over her small body to keep her warm. “Why orphanages?”
“Not in so many words. But- he said- gods, you know how he does it. Sansa, I think we should have places where babies can grow up safe. Where things like this never happen again.” She rolls her eyes. “And I say, ‘Oh, alright, you mean orphanages, then,’ and Bran’s all- no, orphanages are too-” Sansa cuts herself off. “I don’t even know,” she tells Jon, who’s already half-laughing. “I do not understand Bran, he is- just too much. Too energetic. I wanted to sleep- I was so mad at you- but all he’s doing is talking about his orphanages which aren’t orphanages, and I am-” she stifles her groan into the fur of her knees, and Jon’s laughter rings out over the godswood.
“He’s a strange kid,” Jon agrees fondly. “Though you’re not too different, Sansa.”
She lifts an eyebrow at him.
“You went down to White Harbor to convince them to get some glass gardens,” Jon reminds her. “Bullied half the North into it, too, which no one had thought possible. Both of you get excited. Now Arya- she gets obsessed.”
Sansa thumps her head back against the tree. “You heard about the whole Wall thing, then?”
“That she’s been trying to convince your father to send her to the Wall?”
“Yes.” Sansa looks back at him. “It won’t work. Not ever. But she’ll keep trying, I suppose, and she’s got more patience for all of it than the rest of us.”
“I’d probably call it stubborn more than patient,” Jon says, and Sansa sighs.
They stay like that for quite some time. They don’t talk- or, at the least, they don’t talk much; Sansa tells him of the plants she wants to get once spring comes, all the crops she wants to start, and Jon tells her of the fortifications they’re building along the White Knife for when the winter snows melt; but mostly they just sit together, silently, and watch the snow drifts, enjoy the other’s company. It’s just past noon, as Sansa judges it, when Jon pushes himself upright, but instead of retreating back to the castle as she expects, he turns to her, and holds out a blue rose.
“An apology,” Jon says, and looks so unbearably awkward that Sansa cannot help but reach out and take it, running her thumb over the thorns that are still sharp. “For last night.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Sansa replies, and is surprised, truly surprised, to find that she honestly means those words.
…
That night, Jon’s jaw drops, and his spoon almost does as well, when Sansa enters: she’s still wearing the blue rose, in her hair, and the dress she’s changed into is a blue that brings out her eyes, and all of it’s enough to make him feel hotter than a dragon’s own fire.
And then she smiles, honest and bright and for him, and Jon’s quite certain that even dragonfire couldn’t match the heat of his blood.
…
The storm hits that night.
It’s loud and howling, white and pale flurries dancing against the windows, and Sansa can hear the baby’s cries even as far as two hallways away. She sighs, drawing a robe over her nightgown, and heads out of her rooms to Jon’s.
He might not have wanted her last night, but-
The crying’s too much to bear.
“Jon!” she shouts, over the storm, over the baby’s screams, “Jon, open the door!”
She reaches down and fiddles with the handle, because there’s almost no chance that he’ll be able to hear her before she shouts herself hoarse, and the door opens under her hand easily enough- the screams get louder, now, unmuffled by the thick wood, and she sees Jon place the cloth at the baby’s lips, sees her face get even redder, sees the moment that the baby’s arm flings out and smashes the bowl of milk to the floor.
“Jon,” Sansa says, sweeping into the room, catching his hand before it can thump down on the desk in sheer frustration- “Jon, it’s fine.”
He looks startled to see her, even more than when he saw her last night; caught between near four different emotions but grateful nevertheless.
“Get the door,” she tells him. “I’ll- I’ll handle this.”
He heads to the door, but instead of closing it he leaves- Sansa picks up the baby, does her best to wipe the milk off the front of her dress, and manages to get her into another dress entirely before he returns. The baby stops crying sometime after that, though she still sniffles when the storm howls against the window; then Sansa hears the door click shut, and when she turns, she sees Jon sag onto the bed.
“I couldn’t bear it,” he whispers tiredly. “I couldn’t, Sansa, I’m sorry-”
“I wouldn’t hold a few minutes’ silence a crime,” Sansa replies, and waves a hand at the bed; Jon frowns, before settling against the headboard. When he’s still, she approaches and tips the baby onto his chest. “Hold her there- she wants someone to touch her, I think she’s afraid of the storm.”
Jon’s warmth silences her for a period- but then there’s a particularly violent gust of wind, one that makes even Sansa shudder, and she can’t be calmed at all. Sansa ends up sitting on the bed as well, trying in vain to calm the baby, but she’s more stubborn than both Starks put together.
Too stubborn, that is, until Sansa starts to sing.
Song after song after song: flowing into one another, songs for the Seven with songs of the Targaryens with songs from the North, until her voice is hoarse, until she feels as if there’s nothing in all the world, just the three of them, just the storm keeping the world at bay.
I can’t move, Sansa thinks, when she finally stops.
The fire is almost out; the baby is definitely asleep; and even as Sansa shifts, she sees Jon’s head dip, rolling against his pillows, all sleep-heavy, and she can’t find resolve enough to get out of bed, to wake him, to disturb anything of this warm little cocoon they’ve built.
Her last memory is of settling against a side of the bed, her eyes drifting shut, and clearest of all: Jon’s hand, warm and large, reaching across the bed, tangling with her own.
…
Jon wakes slowly.
He’s still on his back, the baby settled against his ribs; the sunlight is what wakes him. It’s weak winter morning sunlight, but still brighter than usual the morning after a storm- and he sighs, lifting his shoulder to hitch the baby up. Then he turns around, and-
And-
Sansa’s there.
Sansa’s there, in his bed, wisps of hair escaping her thick braid, cheeks pressed against his pillows. Jon feels as if he might have stepped into a fever dream for his blatant shock. Last night had been horrible enough- the baby had screamed and screamed and screamed, face scrunched up; even Jon’s vaunted patience had run its course when Sansa entered.
She’d never looked lovelier than when she swept in with that blue rose still tucked behind her ear.
And then she sang, when the baby wouldn’t stay quiet, for so long that Jon slept off. He’d dreamt, the previous night: of a raging storm and a chill that crept straight into his bones, and then the soft hands and high song of a woman with hair the red of the fire that lit his room, that kept him warm. In the morning light, he feels a peculiar sort of guilt for that. Sansa won’t ever love him, not like that, and it’s more than foolish to hope.
Slowly, as he watches, Sansa’s eyes blink open. Sunlight slants across them, shading the light blue to something colorless and pale; it looks as floes of ice, shining under the sun bright enough to make men’s eyes bleed.
“Jon?”
“Yes,” he says, and flushes, because gods does her voice sound too rough to be anything other than sleepy, more intimate than he’s ever seen her- “Yes, I, um-”
“Oh, gods,” Sansa exclaims, then, forcing herself upright. “Oh, gods, I stayed- I wasn’t- it was just so late-”
“We are married,” Jon offers weakly. “It’s not… inappropriate?”
Sansa’s eyes flash, but she looks away too quickly for him to identify the emotion. “I have to go. We’ll- talk. After breakfast.”
She gestures, right-handed, to the baby, and to him, and to the door; then she goes to wring her hands, reaches up to fix her hair. Jon feels his heart freeze as he realizes- as they both realize, simultaneously- that their hands are touching.
Were touching.
“I have to go,” Sansa repeats, voice squeaking a note higher than regular.
She leaves, and Jon’s left in his room, a still-sleeping baby in his arms, Sansa’s warmth and Sansa’s voice and Sansa’s smell still caught in the air. He leans forwards, slowly, and catches the rose that’s fallen on the bed: blue, crushed under the weight of Sansa’s head, but still fragrant.
And then the baby wakes, and Jon turns his attention firmly away from whatever troublesome feelings he might be growing for his wife.
…
After breakfast, Sansa had told Jon, and she’d meant it, too, but time conspires against her. By the time breakfast’s done, she’s got letters that she needs to send to the Manderlys, which means visiting the Rookery; at the Rookery, Maester Luwin tells her of the blight that’s apparently struck the glass gardens, and Sansa spends half the morning getting as much information over the disease as she can; then she oversees the moving of all the unaffected crops away from the disease-stricken ones; after that, she goes to her chambers and drafts letters to all the Northern lords she’s persuaded into crafting glass gardens, both to warn them and to get any advice.
By the time she’s finished, it’s late afternoon, she’s missed lunch, and it’s time for her sewing circle.
Sansa debates on going to find Jon anyways, because she can miss the castle’s gossip for a few days; but there’s teacakes at the sewing circle, and it’s the promise of that and hot tea that decides her.
She almost forgets all about Jon by supper- but then she sees him, now placing the baby in a neatly-fashioned sling that settles against his chest, and it all comes rushing back, both the familiar irritation and unfamiliar guilt. And she can’t even tell him that she feels sorry, because this- whatever this is, between them- is far too new for her, far too fragile, for her to say it in front of their family, for her to risk letting anyone else know.
Apologize another way, then, the Arya in her head suggests, and Sansa- she’s not sure what it is about Jon that makes her mind sound like her sister, but it might have to do with the fact that Arya’s closest to Jon, closer even than Robb is to him, despite all the years separating them- but Sansa will take the advice, and she’ll make sure that Jon knows that she didn’t mean to avoid him.
So, that night, she takes the parchment she’s been scribbling on for the past few days and heads to Jon’s rooms, as is quick becoming her habit.
This time, there’s no screaming to be heard, but Jon still takes his time opening the door- long enough to make her wonder if he’ll open it at all. But he does, and when Sansa enters she sees that the baby’s asleep, or at least lying in her bassinet; the bowl of milk is three-quarters empty, and Jon looks half-undone, jerkin off, shirt rumpled as if yanked on in a hurry-
Sansa flushes, looking away, the image of Jon bare-chested leaving her chest all too tight, before steeling herself.
“I wanted to apologize,” she says. “The day- it was very- hectic. I couldn’t get away. I know I said-”
“I heard of the blight,” Jon says, brows lifting half-amusedly.
“Oh.”
“And the glass gardens are important to you.” He shrugs. “I assumed you were busy. Spent the day with Bran instead- Bran and Rickon. Did you see the sling? My arm was aching from carrying her everywhere, now we’ll both get some- rest.”
She smiles, just a little. “I did. I’m not sure how much help I’d be in rigging such a thing up- but you did say you’d do something else.”
“What?” Jon asks, looking almost wary.
Sansa’s smile widens. “To name her.”
“Sansa,” he sighs, immediately, but she waves the parchment in front of his face.
“She’s asleep,” Sansa tells him, ignoring his I want to be too with ease- “so it’s now or never. A name for us. You and me, if no one else, but a name to give her before Lord Wendel does. Sit down, Jon, I’m not going to leave.”
She might have, not even a week previous- turned her back and flounced out like the princess she wanted to be- but Jon deserves better than that, and Sansa’s no longer as willing to place the full blame on his shoulders, simply because they’re convenient.
So when he sits down, Sansa doesn’t crow at all- just smiles, smug and triumphant, and hides that, too, before he sees it.
“So. Northern name, correct?”
Jon nods almost immediately. “I’m not naming her Maegelle, or some such- can you just imagine, Sansa, how everyone’d look at me?”
Sansa can. Robb would likely choke, and spend the next two years teasing Jon for choosing something so utterly Targaryen in nature; everyone else would keep silent, and out of earshot, every last rumor of Aunt Lyanna’s affair with Rhaegar Targaryen would be dug up again.
“There’s Alys,” Sansa tells him.
“Like the Karstark?” He grimaces. “Robb kissed her last harvest. And she tried to kiss me, too, after that. I think she might’ve thought I was her betrothed- she was drunk enough for it, certainly- but. Please. No.”
It’s Sansa’s turn to lift her brows, though she refrains from commenting.
“There’s- Serena. Or Lysara. Or Jeyne, I suppose, if you wanted to be a little more...”
“Common?”
“-understated,” Sansa says firmly.
He grins, a flash of teeth that she could swear she’s never seen before- one that transforms his face into something handsomer than she could’ve thought.
“No,” says Jon, but he leans forwards, elbows bracing on his thighs, chin cupped on his hand; and he says, “But please, Sansa, continue.”
“Arsa,” she offers, and he chokes on the laugh, strangling it in his throat before it can erupt into being, before it can wake the baby.
“Arsa,” he manages, when Sansa rolls her eyes. “Arsa- Sansa, that’s the worst by far, have you been trying to think of the worst names in our family?” He pauses, then continues, laughing helplessly. “I mean. Arsa.”
“You’re a horrible man,” Sansa tells him, more exasperated than irritable. “What, because Arsa sounds like-”
“-arse, yes-”
“-gods, Jon!” Sansa buries her head in her hands. “I really do hate you. Insufferable lout- you ought to name her- Barthoga. It’d certainly serve you right!”
Jon snorts. “And be cruel to her, wouldn’t you say?”
“Raya.” Sansa frowns at him. “And that’s all I have, so you better choose it.”
His mouth quirks. “Raya,” Jon says, slowly, drawing out the syllables until it feels as if something in her throat is being stretched with it, thin and thready as taffy. “Uncommon name. I suppose it could work?”
A good father, Sansa thinks, but it’s swallowed whole by the thought that follows: a good husband.
“Yes,” she says, and when he reaches out to take the parchment, she doesn’t let her hand fall.
Jon’s eyes dart from the sheet to her face, rabbit-quick. His hand slides up, crosses the width of the parchment to catch her hand, to circle the wrist with such a loose grip that they’re not touching; all Sansa can feel is the heat of Jon’s fingers, the promise that he’s offering her.
“Sansa,” he says, lowly.
Heat blooms inside of her as so many flowers, in the first flush of spring- Sansa breathes in, slowly, and then she reaches forwards and places her other hand on his chest, and kisses him. Jon makes a sound so low that she doesn’t so much as hear it as feel it- through the hand on his chest- and it aches in her, soft and honest as a direwolf’s playful bite.
“You hate me,” Jon murmurs, hand slotting up to settle against her jaw; he says it like it’s an irrevocable truth, hands still warm and gentle on her skin, and Sansa feels the flare of shame deep in her belly, matching her arousal, then outstripping it by far.
“I don’t,” she says, but it’s weak in her own ears.
And Jon- he pauses, laying his forehead against hers, eyes drooping shut.
“What changed, then?” he asks.
The flare of shame becomes an avalanche, and then a tornado, howling in her as the storm a night previous. Sansa feels the prickle of tears against her nose, hot and drowning. She forces them back. Tears of self-pity won’t be useful, and Jon deserves better than that.
“I don’t know,” Sansa says, and smiles, as bright as she can when she feels so angry, and, one more time, because she owes a thousand apologies too heavy for her tongue, she says it: “I don’t know.”
She doesn’t look back when she leaves.
…
Sansa avoids Jon for a full week after that.
Jon wishes he could say that he was surprised. But he well knows how Sansa deals with problems: she pretends they don’t exist, shoves them away, and mostly they tend to disappear. And yet- Jon’s not a stained gown or a damaged book to be forgotten under her bed. He’s not going to fade from her mind. He’s her husband, married and sworn before the hearttree, and Sansa will understand that soon enough.
Hopefully.
It’ll take a push, though, for her to truly accept it- and, surprisingly enough, it’s the Manderlys that provide it.
Or, the Manderlys and Uncle Ned.
They respond to Sansa’s raven five days after she kisses Jon. Jon finds out only at lunch, where Uncle Ned brings it up.
“Maester Luwin tells me that a raven from White Harbor arrived today.”
“Yes,” Sansa answers, reluctantly. “Yes, that’s- true. Lord Wendel says that he’d be grateful to take her. And White Harbor is warmer than Winterfell, so even if he and his wife decide not to, they’ll- there’s a good number of people who’d be glad to take her in.” Her eyes cut to him, then away when she realizes that he’s watching her. “Someone will have to take her. To White Harbor.”
There’s silence, as everyone eats their food. It’s his mother that breaks it.
“It should be you,” Lyanna says.
Sansa blinks. “Pardon?”
“It should be you,” Lyanna repeats, calmly. “You and Jon, I think- the girl’s attached herself to Jon by now, so it’s best if both of you can go together.”
“Jon makes sense,” Arya points out. “But- why Sansa?”
“Because she’s the reason this whole thing is happening,” Aunt Catelyn says, sipping her wine. The same glint that had been in her eyes when Jon offered to take Raya is there now, and it almost worries him. “A few guards, I think, and the two of you. As few men as possible. With winter- it’s best to move as quickly as you can, not be bogged down by a large caravan.”
“I... suppose,” Sansa says, dubiously, before turning to Ned. “Father, you-”
“-agree, whole-heartedly, with your mother.”
It’s the smirk that his mother can’t quite hide that alerts Jon to the fact that this has been planned out. That there’s something going on, more than what is being said. When he turns to Aunt Catelyn, she, too, looks amused- she hides it better than Lyanna, but the smugness there is something that he’s seen on Sansa’s face too many times for him to miss it on her mother’s.
“Maybe it’d be best if we just sent a single rider,” Jon offers. “They’ll move faster than any caravan, however small it is.”
Another breath, and Arya’s frown- and Robb’s eyebrows- lift. They’ve realized something, which makes the unease burbling in Jon’s belly churn even more.
“No,” says Robb, slowly, delightedly, “you have to make sure she arrives! And don’t you want to make sure the man- this Wendel- is a good one? He’ll be the girl’s father, Jon, you should-”
“Wendel Manderly is a good man,” Sansa interrupts, looking irritable. “You can count on that, Robb.”
“Nobody would marry him for near four decades. Wonder why.”
Jon’s quite certain that he’s never seen anyone so unsubtle in his life. Even Arya’s better- at least she’s keeping her mouth shut. But Robb’s not, and he’s smirking like he knows something that Jon doesn’t, and everyone’s trying to get him to go to White Harbor-
And Sansa rolls her eyes. “Don’t start trying to make scandal where there’s actually none, not when you’ve got so many real ones to deal with.”
“Like what?” Robb asks, startled, and Sansa grins.
“Alys,” she says, and it shuts him up better than any blow Jon could have thrown.
He still winces, though, because, sooner or later, Robb’s going to figure out that it’s Jon that told Sansa. There’ll be hell to pay after that.
“Alys,” Catelyn says, slowly, eyes narrowing. “Which Alys? What happened with her?”
“Nothing,” Sansa says, still watching Robb, before turning to her mother. “Mother, I cannot just leave Winterfell. There’s blight in the glass gardens, and we need someone to coordinate-”
“-a good point,” Catelyn says. “You ought to go talk to White Harbor about their own glass gardens, don’t you think? See if they have blight as well. And what they do differently, if they don’t, for their gardens are bigger than ours. I’m sure Arya can do the coordinating if it truly becomes that urgent.” She ignores Arya’s wordless sound of protest. “Robb and Bran can help relocate the crops if necessary, as well.”
The silence that settles on the table is heavy with words unsaid, but everyone knows better than to talk back against a Catelyn who talks with that steel in her voice- all of them are looking down, into their plates or their cups, even Arya. It’s Lyanna who breaks the silence, again, this time with a definitive click of her mug against the table.
“Well, then,” she says, still smiling serenely, “it’s decided. You’ll leave on the morrow. Both of you.”
And, even though Sansa opens her mouth to protest, she closes it without saying another word. Jon feels defeat sink in his chest, though he’s not precisely certain what he lost; they’re going to White Harbor, he and Sansa and Raya, and it’s no longer a matter of whether they’re going, but who’s all accompanying them.
…
Their arrival at White Harbor is quiet.
Lord Wyman meets them inside the keep, and Sansa barely greets Wylla before Wendel enters. He’s a large man, taller than his own father though he’s not quite so heavy; his mustache holds more gray than gold, now, but he looks more content than he’d been back when Sansa was last in White Harbor.
“Lady Sansa!” he exclaims, loud enough to echo off the hall’s walls. “We’re glad to see you, my lady, glad indeed. My wife and I have awaited your arrival with great-”
“-impatience,” Wyman says, smiling indulgently.
“Father,” says Wendel.
“Truly,” Wyman tells her. “To think that they might have a child from Winterfell’s own walls- Erena has waited on the battlements for days, watching the Kingsroad.”
“Erena is your- wife, I presume,” Sansa says to Wendel. He nods, gesturing to a woman behind him- she’s tall, almost of a height with Wendel, with hair a rich, dark brown shot through with silver. They both have wrinkles, but age sits well on them. Sansa smiles, warm. “Congratulations, truly, my lord. Wylla has told me of your happiness.”
He grins back at her. “It took some time, my lady. Too much, some might say, but- but we are happy. Both of us.”
“That is all that matters,” she replies.
It’s then that Raya chooses to sniffle, and Erena turns to look. Jon blinks at the sudden attention, but he doesn’t move- not until Sansa frowns at him. He steps forwards slowly, then, almost hesitant, and slips Raya into Erena’s arms.
It’s awkward. As it’s been since Sansa fled his rooms, since she hasn’t spoken to him, not properly. The three guards who are supposed to be accompanying them look as uncomfortable as they’ve looked since leaving Winterfell, though Sansa’s not sure exactly what’s so strange- Jon’s avoided her as expertly as Sansa has done for him, and he’s been even quieter than usual.
“A foundling, you said?”
Sansa drags herself back to the present to nod at Erena. “Yes, my lady. Bran- my brother- saw her close to Castle Cerwyn. The orphanages in Winterfell are already strained with the winter, however, so we were looking for a family that might take her in- and I remembered you. I assure you: no family will come looking.”
Erena smiles, and she looks utterly lovely. It’s easy to see what Wendel saw in her, easy to see why he’s waited for near forty years to marry her. There ought to be songs written of you, Sansa thinks, reaching out to grip the lady’s wrist. Of a love spanning decades. Of the family you both created.
“I thank you,” Erena murmurs, rubbing her finger over the slope of Raya’s nose. It’s the only part of the girl that’s uncovered, worried as they all were of her falling ill; she looks like a bundle of wool more than a true baby, honestly, and it’s- adorable, Sansa’s thought, more than once. “We shall take good care of her, Lady Sansa. We both shall love her deeper than any parents have loved their children. That- that I can assure you.”
“That’s all I’d want,” Sansa replies, and turns to Jon, gesturing to him to approach as subtly as she could manage- “All we would want, I think, my lady. ‘Twas Jon who took care of her as we awaited your response. To know that she will be loved is all we can ask.” Her lips quirk. “And, anyhow, I know that Wylla will love her. A good set of cousins is a gift indeed.”
“You’ve not even spoken to her!” Erena cries. “Oh, apologies, my lady. I was so caught up in this-”
“I’m sure Wylla and I will have other opportunities,” Sansa assures Erena, who bends her head and turns to Wendel, holding up the baby. Sansa smiles at Wylla. “I thought- perhaps while we see the glass gardens? I’ve not seen it after you expanded.”
Wylla frowns, flipping her green braid out of her face. “I might’ve shown you today itself, but they say there’s a storm coming. And-”
“Have you named her?” Wendel interrupts.
Sansa feels her face freeze up into something that approaches guilt. She doesn’t dare to turn, to see whatever Jon’s face must look like- Sansa can imagine it well enough. He’s always loved too easily.
Unlike you? Arya asks, soft and cold. Then, quieter: Both of you are more similar than you’d think, Sansa.
“No,” she says.
Abruptly, she feels Jon’s hand come to rest on her elbow. When she looks at him, she can’t quite read his expression. It’s far too guarded.
“We have to leave,” he says, measured and low in her ear. It’s loud enough for Wylla to hear, though, and her face twists, confused; but Jon doesn’t move away.
“What, now?” Sansa asks, startled.
He bows his head. “Yes. Now.”
“We’ve only just got here!”
“And we’ve achieved what we needed to.” His lips thin. “I’ll tell Raymond to ready the horses.”
“Jon!”
But he doesn’t pause to hear her out. He doesn’t pause for anything at all, really, just scrubs his hand over his face and strides out as if he were going to war. As if he were furious. As if-
“I’m- sorry,” Sansa says, turning to Wylla. “I- he’s acting strange. Stranger. Than usual. I’ve no idea what’s gotten into him.” She feels her own anger tick a notch higher, glutinous in her throat.
But she’s Jon’s wife, before everything else, and the Manderlys cannot be made to think that their liegelord’s eldest daughter is in anything less than a perfect marriage. Sansa knows her mother’s opinion on private matters opposed to public: a lady does not throw fits in public, does not compromise on either her family’s or her husband’s reputation for the sake of her pride.
Even if said husband is acting more ridiculous than a prancing pigeon.
It’s the entire reason she doesn’t say anything, even as Jon returns to tell her that the horses are ready. It’s why she only smiles graciously at Wylla when she protests their decision to leave. It’s why she’s more courteous than any lady as she says her goodbyes.
On the road, Sansa tells herself, smiling, teeth-bared, over Wendel’s shoulder at Jon. Then you shall learn that you cannot simply act however you wish.
That I shall not simply keep silent.
…
“What were you thinking?”
Here we go.
It’s an unfair thought, though. Jon knows it. Fleeing as he did- he hadn’t offered any explanations, hadn’t said anything at all. It verged on rude, and it’s Sansa that’s going to bear the brunt of the Manderlys’ reaction.
But-
Still.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t act innocent,” Sansa bites out, hands tightening on the reins of her horse. “You insisted we leave, Jon, without rhyme nor reason. Why?”
The three other guards are behind them, distant enough to not to hear them if they keep their voices low. Not so much if they shout, but if there’s anyone who’s going to shout between the two of them, it’s Sansa. Ghost, walking besides his horse, comes a foot closer; the horse shies away.
“I didn’t want to stay,” Jon says. “Not there. Not in that castle.”
The castle where Raya’s going to be with someone else. Jon’s not sure he can explain precisely how difficult it was to hand her over to Wendel’s wife, the way his arms felt cold and empty, too light, too strange- but that hadn’t hurt, not half as much as it had to see Sansa look straight into Wendel Manderly’s eyes and tell him that the name they’d both chosen for a baby girl was nonexistent.
“Why?” Sansa demands. “You were so- so rude, Jon! And you didn’t even let me say anything, you just- walked out. Left the room, and saddled the horses, and you looked impatient enough while I said goodbyes, as if all of it were beneath you! How dare you!”
He feels it, then: a flash of warmth, hot beneath his collar. It’s easier on his chest than misery.
“D’you know how difficult it was?” Jon flings back. “To give Raya up. To look in their eyes and have to put her in their arms? I didn’t want to let her go, Sansa, but I did it. I did my duty. I always do my duty! But-”
“And you don’t think I’ve done my duty?”
“-but I didn’t have to stay under their roof, I didn’t have to stay there and swallow all of my anger up, and you don’t get to tell me that I have to! That’s how I dare.” Jon exhales, rage still seething inside of him. He remembers the look in Sansa’s eyes as she slammed the door on their wedding night. He remembers the cold silences, the abruptness- and Jon cannot find it in himself to stay silent, not any longer.
“And, no. If we’re being completely honest here. You’ve not done your duty. Not as a wife. Not to me. You’ve hated me and you’ve been cruel to me, and I don’t know what revelation occurred for you to talk to me after years of being a- a snot, always, endlessly.” He draws the reins up, hands clenching into fists. Life had been so easy back when she was ignoring him. “Please, please, tell me what I can do to make you go back to how you were. Silence would be better than this- this haranguing.”
“Haranguing!” Sansa exclaims, voice high and piercing. There’s hurt, clear in her voice, sharp across her face, for all of a heartbeat before it shifts into rage. Her horse skitters a few steps closer to him, as if she might want to strangle him. “I’ve not been the only one at fault in our marriage,” she tells him.
Jon snorts. “Pray tell how that is. I certainly remember how you-”
“I found out only a few years ago,” she hisses at him. “I spent so long dreaming of the south, and then Father took it all away.”
“Still haven’t heard something that makes it my fault.”
“You never wanted it!” Sansa shrills. “I asked you in the godswood, do you remember that? I asked you, a week after Father told me, and you told me that you’d rather wed a frog.”
He doesn’t remember that. Jon remembers how Robb had teased him for hours, when Sansa’s reaction to hearing of their marriage was to lock herself in her rooms. He remembers Arya’s sulking and Aunt Catelyn’s strained silences and his own mother’s dissaproval. He remembers escaping to the godswood, anger and hurt warring inside of him, and he remembers seeing Sansa there- he remembers the brilliance of her hair, shining like a lamp under the godswood’s leaves- but he doesn’t know what he said.
“A frog!” Sansa says, eyes large and wide and fixed on him. “I was twelve, Jon. And I never told anyone, all I did was go and tell Father that I’d rather marry anyone else, and you just stood there! Silently! As if you were fine with it!” She’s close enough, now, for Jon to see the tremble of her hands. “You weren’t, and I didn’t want to be married to someone who hated me, so I spoke up about it. But you felt it was more important for Father to like you than it was to tell him how you felt, so you’ll excuse me for being miserable!”
“You locked yourself away for a month-” Jon begins.
“And you never said a thing!” Sansa shouts. “Not a thing, you didn’t even look at me on the day of our wedding! You just- ignored me. Like you always do.” She sniffs, and somehow, in some curious manner, makes it sound wrathful. “If you ever wondered, that’s why I hated you.”
Jon snarls.
He thinks he does, at the least, rage frothing up his throat along with the hurt, along with the misery. He’s given up a girl whom he cared for as a father, he’s snapped at his wife for years longer than they’ve been married, he’s furious-
But it’s not Jon that snarls.
It’s Ghost.
And his horse bucks, terrified, but Jon’s experienced enough to handle it.
Sansa… isn’t.
Her horse rears up, and he hears her short, sharp exclamation; then the horse turns, and runs, straight into the forest, Sansa clinging onto its back like a red burr.
Fuck.
Jon turns to the guards behind him, who’re racing forwards. “Keep Ghost with you,” he orders, and digs his heels into his horse’s sides.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
…
Sansa can handle most anything.
She can, and she knows it. It’s because of her that the North even has any surplus of food, with her passionate defense and championing of glass gardens. The treaties struck with Dorne on importing glass were mostly her own handiwork; her father simply signed off on it at the end. Even convincing the lords that glass gardens were important in the first place- it was all her own idea, her own doing.
But she’s never managed well with Jon.
And she’s managed even less with physical discomfort.
And now- her horse, after taking off, only slowed down after splashing through a stream, after she fell off, straight into the nearly-freezing water. The stream itself was shallow, so it’s more that Sansa’s clothes got soaked than that she drowned, but she’s still left in a frozen wasteland, all alone, lost, shivering.
“I cannot,” she muffles, into her horse’s neck. “I cannot.”
Sansa’s not sure what it is she’s referring to. It could be her current situation, or the letters she’ll have to send Wylla once she gets home, apologizing for a man who’s clearly not apologetic in the least, or the insufferable man himself- or, likelier, a mixture of all three.
She finally pulls herself away from the horse and goes to find some sort of shelter. Sansa can’t remain out in the open forever- if nothing else, she’s certain that the guards can track her horse’s panicked flight- and so long as she remains close, they’ll be able to find her. But if they take their time, then she’ll need shelter; and after nightfall, shelter is difficult to find.
And the sky is rapidly turning dark.
Just as she finds what must be a godsend- a small, dry cave, with an outer chamber just large enough to fit her horse- she hears it: a patter of hooves. Sansa heads back out, watchful, and sees Jon canter into the clearing, head swinging from side to side with the same mechanical motion as a wind-up toy.
“Jon?” Sansa steps out, and his face shifts, cycling through emotions too quickly.
He finally settles on sliding from his horse’s saddle and gripping Sansa’s shoulders. “You’re alright,” Jon says, hoarsely, and drags her into an embrace.
“Yes,” she says, though it’s muffled into his shoulder. “I am. A little cold, but- I’ll be fine. Where are the others?”
For a moment, he looks almost- sheepish. It passes quickly enough. “Back on the road. Probably setting up camp by now. We should join them- it’s almost dark.”
Sansa nods, and they head out; but, soon enough, she realizes that it’s later than they’d thought. Jon seems to realize it too- when she speaks, he doesn’t even bother to disagree with her.
“We’re not even halfway yet,” Sansa says. She has to say it louder, too: there’s a wind, steadily picking up. “It’s dark- it’s getting cold. Jon.” He looks back, and she gestures behind them. “Let’s go back. There was a cave. It’ll be dry, for tonight if nothing else.”
Jon hesitates. Then he looks up at the sky, and his shoulders slump; he nods, and they wheel around.
They get back just in time. As Jon ties their horses together in the outer cave, the first snow starts to fall. Sansa digs through the saddlebags. There’s little enough as it is: just some old, wrinkled apples and dried jerky. The best thing she finds is a flintbox, which won’t be of any use without a fire- which they don’t have fuel for; but then she finds an old undershirt of Jon’s shoved into the bottom of one of the bags, and that can be ripped up for the fire. She feeds the apples to the horses and heads into the inner cave, where Jon’s fidgeting over two ragged blankets.
It’s a miserable dinner.
Made more miserable by the weather and the still-sopping cloak across her shoulders, and made most miserable by the man in front of her, who can’t be arsed to look her in the eye for all that he didn’t hesitate to ride after her fleeing horse.
But she’s cold, now, and her anger doesn’t feel anywhere near as important or as all-consuming as before. Sansa exhales, leaning forwards to feel the heat of the fire better. Her toes already feel numb in her boots.
“You told me that I hated you, and when I said I didn’t you asked me what had changed.” It feels strange to talk, as if her jaw is stiff. “I told you that I didn’t know, do you remember?”
“Yes,” Jon says, tightly. He doesn’t look away from the flame. The shadows thrown across his face are ugly, too dark and frightening.
Sansa exhales, slowly, carefully, and doesn’t think about monsters or anger or hatred. She keeps her eyes on Jon, and she smiles, though it’s likely hidden in the same dim light that colors him so gruesomely.
“I was wrong,” she says, gentle and quiet, almost too soft to be heard under the winds outside. “I was wrong,” Sansa says, then, louder, so Jon can’t pretend not to hear. “It was me. That was what changed.” When he doesn’t answer, she sighs and stands. “I thought- I thought that you should know.”
The shudder that ripples through her shoulders as she approaches the outer chamber isn’t one of tears. She feels a little too worn for that, Sansa thinks. It’s been too long of a day. Maybe in the morning-
But even when the sun rises, even when the storm ends, Sansa will have a husband who hates her. She’s bound to him for life. She no longer has any choice in this, and that’s a thought painful enough to make her shake.
“-nsa!”
Jon’s hand forces her to turn, and it startles her when she sees how close he is to her face.
“You’re- you’re far too cold,” he says. “Sansa, what in the name of- gods, what were you thinking, you absolutely-” He bites off the rest of the sentence, lips whitening with all the words he must be biting back, and then he drags her back. “Can you move?”
“Yes,” Sansa says. Her jaw still feels stiff. Her bones feel stiff, too, all of them- old and clicking as a grandmother’s, but she’s sure that she can move. “But. Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Jon says, flatly. “Now. Take off your clothes.” When she still stares at him, he softens- just a little, but enough to explain. “They’re wet, Sansa. You’ll get frostbite if you continue like you were. And we’re sharing blankets tonight. I thought- you know, one each- but- not any more. Come on.”
Sansa thinks about ignoring him, but her hands are frozen enough that Jon could probably do the same job she’s doing thrice as quickly, and she’d rather sleep beside Jon and stay warm than freeze to death. Her anger hasn’t quite gone that far.
“How did it even happen?” he asks, as she finishes stripping off her cloak.
“I slipped,” Sansa says shortly. “You must’ve seen the river. Stream. Whatever. I- fell into it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” Jon says.
“If we were going back I wouldn’t need to, would I? I had fresh clothes there.”
The temperature’s dropped noticeably, enough that her teeth chatter and limbs ache. Even after taking off her outer clothes, she feels too cold; the clothes have leached her body-heat too much, enough that it almost hurts.
“You should’ve said,” he grumbles, and Sansa chooses to ignore him in favor of frowning at her clothes. She should pin them up. That’s what she should do, if she wants the cloth to dry at all by morning, but her head is aching just enough for her to consider leaving it all in a pile on the floor.
She hears a sigh. Jon’s hand curves over her shoulder; Sansa feels the huff of breath against her neck as he presses her backwards. He’s warm, she realizes, suddenly: warmer than the fire, even, broad and large and hot like a sun-warmed stone.
“Come on,” Jon mumbles into her ear. They settle close to the fire, threadbare blankets wrapped as tightly as they can. But in the end it’s not the fire or the blankets that warm her.
It’s Jon, and as Sansa falls asleep in his arms, there’s only one thing she feels, for all her anger and her bitterness and her grief: safe.
…
Hated, Sansa had said.
Hated. Not hate. She’s changed, she’d said, after that. It’s Sansa’s that’s grown, to not hate Jon, to not hate their marriage. And Jon can only hope that it won’t change back to the month of long, cold silences.
When he sleeps, he dreams of a time that he’s almost forgotten.
It was- three years, perhaps, after Sansa’d been told of their upcoming marriage, when Jon fell ill. Arya had been the first to catch it, and also the first to recover; but both he and Sansa had contracted the fever before Arya was confined. They’d been placed in a room with food and water, and left alone once their full recovery was confirmed.
That night, Sansa had nightmares.
Jon remembers how he’d folded himself around her, wrapping themselves in as many blankets as he could drag from his own bed and all of Sansa’s; how the moon had shone against her pale skin; how she’d looked like a ghost and a queen and a little girl all at once, aching and lovelier than any sight he’s ever seen in all his life.
She’d smelled of roses then.
Jon jerks awake, heart hammering in his chest, and the scent-memory doesn’t fade, not even a little. He exhales and sees Sansa, resting with her head pressed against his sternum, and it’s a cold realization as much as it’s a good one: this is the closest they’ve been since that fevered night.
“Jon,” she sighs, tipping her head up to look at him. Her brows furrow when she sees his face. “Gods, what’s the matter? You look-”
“-terrible,” he finishes.
Sansa’s frown deepens. “I was going to say tired.”
“Just- dreams,” Jon murmurs. “Old ones.”
“Good ones?”
He hesitates. “Maybe.”
“Well, that’s no answer,” Sansa says, twisting to sit up and face him. The fire’s dimmed to only a few embers, throwing them both in shadows, so he can only tell where she is by the heat of her body- her elbow bumps into his knee; her shoulder knocks into his. “Jon.”
When she fed Raya, that first night, Jon had looked into her eyes and thought they’d be blue in any other light. When she kissed him, the night after the snowstorm, he’d thought that the lighting didn’t matter at all: they were blue always, forever, blue as winter roses, blue as ice floes, blue as the veins running under his skin.
He reaches forwards, now, blindly, and brushes his finger over the jut of her cheekbone, the hollow of her eye socket, and then, gentler than the first snowfall, Jon rubs over the curve of her eye.
“D’you remember the fever?” He’d sweated and sweated under all those blankets, but Sansa had only asked for more. “When we were together- the maesters wouldn’t let anyone else in the room. Not until both of our fevers broke.”
“When I was fifteen?” Sansa asks.
“Yes.”
It’s cold, and she’s still colder than he’d wish- but then Sansa rings his wrist with her own fingers, a mimic of what he’d done to her that day- and he can only hiss in a breath, can only hope to keep his mind.
“I remember,” she says softly. “You were very kind to me. Piling all those blankets on- you gave them from your own bed.”
“And I held you,” Jon says, hoarse as he’d been when he caught up to Sansa after her horse fled, heart pounding in his ears and relief catching on his fingertips. “Do you remember that? My fever broke that evening but yours held until morning- I held you, all night long. And when morning came your fever was gone.”
They’re both stripped as bare as they’d been that day, scarcely wearing smallclothes. But they’re older now, both of them: Jon has scars he didn’t have then, and Sansa has curves she’d barely had the beginnings of then, and they’re married, both of them, to each other, more importantly; most importantly.
“You were like a rose,” Jon whispers. “You still are like a rose. Beautiful, soft- and sharp. Thorned.” She must have heard such compliments a thousand times, though. Jon hasn’t got the silver tongue that helps Robb out of so many altercations; he hasn’t got Bran’s pitiable sniffles, or Rickon’s wild bravado- all he has is himself, and the sincerity behind his words, and he can only hope that it’s enough. “I think I spent so long being angry that I forgot to admire you for it.”
“I think we both have been far too angry,” Sansa tells him, shifting forwards. “Too angry, and for far too long, and for the wrong reasons entirely.” He can imagine the look on her face: fondness, mixed with the same barbed humor that had once made him aflush with anger. “Perhaps we should stop.”
Now his rise in pulse is for another reason altogether.
“I could never ignore you,” Jon says, graver than he’s been in all his life.
He kisses her, then, for the second time in their life- hard, imperfect, with clicking teeth and half-bruised noses; but they kiss, and after a moment’s pause she kisses Jon back with all the terrible wanting of a girl who’s never known a bit of loss in her life, a girl who’s never tasted desire quite this sharply.
His hand digs into her waist, and Sansa arches against it, molds herself to him as if she were a spray of water against a stone wall. The splay of her hair is smooth against his arms. It’s the roll of her hips that threatens to undo him, though: it’s indolent, instinctual, a movement that feels good enough that his own hips buck, straining forwards against the pressure. Jon stops before he can lose himself to the heat, panting against the jawline he’d like to pepper with kisses enough to bloom purple- he stops, drags himself back, and stills them both.
“Tell me you want this,” he whispers.
There’s a breath of silence, and then Sansa leans down and, somehow, unerringly, bites down on his lip.
“I do,” she says, breathes it against his mouth, and it’s all that matters before he slides his hands up from her hips to her breasts, cupping them through her smallclothes and thumbing the nipples until she bites off a moan; then Jon’s kissing her, swallowing her sounds, until he couldn’t be certain which is up and which is down, the entirety of his world lost in Sansa’s sweet, sweet warmth.
When she twitches again, Jon realizes that she needs more- and he’s not ready to stop, not at all, so he catches her hands and looks up, to where he thinks her face might be, and he says, “Trust me.”
Sansa stills, caution rising through her, hardening the bits of her that had been so pliant, so warm, just a moment before; Jon lets go of her hands and traces over her sides, light enough to tickle, before ending at the top of her smallclothes.
“Trust me,” he whispers, again, and when he reaches in and slips his fingers over the slick, hot wetness of her, she keeps silent, only the small, unconscious jerks of her hips telling him how truly desperate she is.
He’d never thought that touching- just touching, even now, and it’s far more what he’s done to her than what’s been done to him- would be enough for him to feel so bloody aroused. But then he feels it, truly, all the trust and love she’s offering him, all the evidence of her arousal, and Jon feels every last rational thought in his mind evaporate.
Sansa gasps, louder, when he brushes his hand right above the wetness. She keens when he circles it. Jon’s quite certain that he could get drunk off of those sounds alone, damn everything else in all the world- Sansa’s warmth, the slide of her body against his, the cool weight of her hair- he shudders, nose rubbing against the slope of her neck, and Sansa unravels under his hands.
It takes him scarce a breath to undo the knot of his own smallclothes. He’s so hard that he nearly jumps out of his skin when he circles the head of his cock; when Sansa’s hand comes to help him, he hisses, and it’s an embarrassingly short amount of time before he comes.
After, they curl up together.
They’re both still recovering from the pleasure. It’d been shocking, Jon thinks, carding through Sansa’s hair- the sheer amount of it, the aching blaze that still sits low in his belly. He’s not certain he’ll ever be able to forget.
“You like roses,” Sansa murmurs sleepily. “Like them a lot, don’t you?”
Jon swallows, hard. “Yes,” he says.
She snuggles closer to him. “Good. The Mother’s Festival is coming soon. I think- that’ll be a nice gift. Would you like it?”
“Like what?” Jon asks, strangled. He tries not to imagine it: Sansa, bedecked in blue roses alone, hair bright against his pillows-
Tries, and fails.
“A new gown.” Sansa hooks her arms over his neck, shifting so she’s level with his face. “Blue like winter roses.”
“Yes,” he replies, and ducks his head, and kisses her. “But only if you let me lace you out of it.”
“Jon!” she hisses, scandalized; Jon’s lips tip upwards, and he waits for her to kiss him again. When they pull apart, she runs her hands over the flat of his shoulders, nails scraping, before pulling away with a sigh. “I think- I think you should know. That I never hated you.”
Jon snorts, and she shoves at his shoulder- not angrily, not meanly- with only the ease of a woman resting in her husband’s arms. “Fine. Maybe I did. But you should know- you should know that I’ve always loved you. Even when I most hated you. Even at my angriest. And that will never change.”
I’ve always loved you.
It’s been complicated, their loves, their desires, their hate. Jon had once chosen silence over the truth, and Sansa had chosen anger over her duty, and they’ve spent a terribly long time hating each other for things that they’ve never truly had a choice over.
We were children. Jon sighs. We were children, and now we are not, and we cannot carry those burdens with us forever.
“Aye,” he says, and though he cannot see Sansa’s face, he knows every inch of it better than his own. “Aye,” Jon says, and means it with every last ounce of sincerity that he’s ever known. “I can say the same, Sansa.”
…
Winterfell hasn’t changed at all, when they return.
The snow is still piled high along the roads, and their family still awaits them when they enter the gate. Sansa might have thought they hadn’t moved at all, the image is so reminiscent of before- but this time, she’s returning with a smile on her face and a husband who loves her at her side. They dismount their horses and approach their family together, hands entwined.
“Welcome back,” her father says.
But before Sansa can answer, her mother lifts an eyebrow at Lyanna.
“It worked,” she says, smiling, self-satisfied and smug. “I told you it would. A nice, private trip off in the wilds-”
“-yes, and I’m certain the heartbreak of giving up the child played no part,” Lyanna drawls.
Sansa’s jaw drops. When she looks behind her, she sees Jon flush a painful red, and she whirls back to gape at her mother.
“You-” she sputters. “You planned this?”
“Both of you were so miserable,” Lyanna says loftily. “We couldn’t stand it. Especially when you were so absolutely determined to hate each other.” Her lips purse, but she’s not got a good enough blank face to hide the affection leavening her grey eyes. “I would’ve locked you in a tower together, but Cat insisted on being more… what did you say- indirect?” She shrugs. “Some southron thing, I’m sure.”
“Subtlety,” her mother bites out. “It’s helpful, Lyanna.”
“You knew,” Sansa accuses Robb, before her mother and Aunt Lyanna can get into another of their famed sniping matches. “You knew, what they were doing!”
“They’re not half so quiet as they think,” Robb answers, a smirk set firm across his face.
Sansa’s not sure if she’d like to strangle half her family or thank them for being so intrusive. On the one hand, she’s certain she could’ve figured it out eventually. On the other- who knows how long that might have taken?
“I hate all of you,” she says, before threading her fingers through Jon’s, tight and true. “And you can bid goodbye to your armor, Robb. I’m sure you won’t need it any time soon.”
He yelps. “I wasn’t the one behind it!”
“But I’m blaming you,” Sansa says, sweetly.
Jon’s free hand comes to rest on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he tells Robb, and he’s smiling, Sansa can hear it, clear in his voice, ringing like a clarion bell. “Doesn’t matter how much she hates you- she’ll always love you before it.”
“Doesn’t help much with stolen armor,” Bran points out.
“Tough,” Jon replies.
Sansa laughs, then, burying it in Jon’s chest as she turns into him. They’ve got things to change, she knows; things to grow into, things to grow out of, their family foremost among them. But she’s happy, now, and she loves him, and they can adapt to everything else as it comes.
I love you, she thinks, and reaches up, and kisses him, and ignores all of Robb’s retching and Arya’s groaning in favor of Jon’s warm, soft lips.