Chapter Text
By the way the waitress tucked her hair behind her ear as she talked to him, Sansa could see from where she stood at the door of the restaurant that Theon’s flirting game was on that day. She couldn’t help but laugh. That wink, that smile—a combination that was not without its appeal and to which she was not entirely immune.
Obviously, considering her current state.
As she approached the booth he was sitting in, Sansa slowed, asking herself for the millionth time whether this was a conversation she wanted to have. If she took the easy path, everything could continue as it was and no one would be the wiser. Theon Greyjoy would remain her carefree goofball friend and that night a pleasant memory they would occasionally laugh about. There were other reasons that night, that party, hadn’t been fun, but none of that was on Theon. It wasn’t on anyone really, just overheard whispers and a childhood crush Sansa had no business still nursing. Not then, and especially not now. Neither she nor anyone could have guessed how things would end up when Arya, noticing her sadness, offered a shot to up her mood that became several shots too many. Then Gendry and Theon joined them. Then somehow the foursome became two pairs because Theon’s flirting game had been on then too, and it wasn’t a night Sansa wanted to end alone.
The hangover and morning-after awkwardness should have been the worst of it, but no. Ten weeks later, here she was. A week since the test. A week of carrying a secret and going back and forth about what to do. She still hadn’t made up her mind when she walked into the restaurant, but Theon was her friend. She owed him at least the conversation. And anyway, she really didn’t want to make the decision all on her own and remain the only person in the world to know what she knew. That was kind of depressing.
“There she is!” he said, tilting his head and smiling when she spotted her. “The queen of my heart!”
Flirting game definitely on. “You say that to all the girls, Theon,” Sansa said with a smirk as she sat down across from him. It was true.
“I have big heart, Sansa,” he replied, not missing a beat. “Among other things. It’s a blessing and a curse.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
Sansa looked up to see the waitress, who was smiling a bit less dreamily than she had been a minute ago. “Coffee,” Sansa said automatically.
“And are you two ready to order or do you need—”
“Actually, no coffee,” Sansa blurted out. No caffeine. “Do you have orange juice?”
“We sure do. Large or small?”
“Large—no, small. Small.”
The waitress smiled and nodded. “Why don’t I go get that for you and be right back.”
Sansa looked at Theon again. He was smiling and winking at the waitress as she turned to go.
“If she doesn’t write her number on the receipt, I’ve officially lost my touch,” he said.
“You’re incorrigible,” Sansa said, amused.
“So to what do I owe the pleasure?” Theon asked. “Snow was throwing daggers at me with his eyes as I left the house this morning when I told him you were taking me out for breakfast.”
Sansa bit her lip to hold back a sigh. Jon Snow. The crush she had no business still nursing. The crush that outdated just about everything else in Sansa’s life except her family, a wish that was going to have to stay just that. Especially now. “How is he? Arya says he’s been working like crazy.”
Theon shrugged. “Moody as fuck, even for him. You should stop by and say hi. He always perks up when you’re around.”
“How can you tell?” she joked lamely, but feeling warmth come over her face as she thought about his sweet downward smile. A whole bunch of wishes.
Theon narrowed his eyes, as if considering carefully whether he should say what he seemed to want to say, which struck Sansa as funny because Theon was not someone who considered anything carefully. But the waitress returned just then and set Sansa’s glass in front of her.
Theon resumed his flirting, asking the waitress to repeat her spiel about the daily specials. Sansa felt her nerves come back and wrung her hands in her lap—the two people in front of her could have been miles away. Eventually, the waitress turned back to her, blushing again, and Sansa heard herself asking for scrambled eggs and wheat toast without bothering to open her menu. The waitress jotted down their orders and stepped away, leaving them alone again, which was when the thing that needed saying so someone else in the world would know it just fell out of Sansa’s mouth.
“I’m pregnant.”
Theon’s coffee cup had been halfway to his mouth. He started to laugh, thinking she was joking, but the sound never came out because one look at her expression and he could see that it was no jest. After a momentary pause, he took a small sip and set the cup back down. “Shit,” he said quietly. “Are you sure?”
Sansa nodded. “Saw the doctor yesterday."
“Who’s the guy?”
Sans sighed, annoyed. “Really? Why in the world would I tell you first?”
Realization came over him. “Me!?!”
“Yes, you! There hasn’t been anyone else all year. I said so that night. As you may recall, that was part of the reason it happened in the first place.”
Theon rubbed his face into his hands. “I know we didn’t have a condom,” he said, “but you said that wasn’t an issue.”
Sansa nodded. “I know. My IUD. Apparently, they can fall out. We got un-lucky.”
“Fuck,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes.
“Yep.”
Her quiet voice seemed to have shook him because he sat up quickly. “Shit, sorry. I’m doing this wrong. Are you all right?”
“Let’s see, I’m 23 years old, a year out of university, still living with my parents, and the first time I decide to have sex with someone who is not my boyfriend, I get knocked up. So, you know, doing great.”
Theon put his hand out, gesturing for her to take it, and squeezing her hand gently when she did. “Well, life does tend to disappoint after sex with me. You wouldn’t be the first to say so.”
Sansa let go his hand to pinch him. “Seriously?”
“Ow!”
Then, all of a sudden, they both laughed, and for a moment, Sansa felt slightly better. He was still the carefree goofball friend. He would probably always be that guy, and there was comfort in it. The dumb humor, the irrepressible flirt—it was comforting her right now.
“Are you thinking about getting an abortion?” Theon asked quietly. “I’m not saying you should or you have to or anything—just asking. I’ll support whatever you decide.”
“No.” She paused. “I don’t know. I suppose that would be the smart thing to do, given everything I just said about the current state of my life.”
“But you don’t want to?”
“I’m not against it or anything. I just . . . I’ve always wanted to be a mom. It’s the one thing I’ve always been sure of. I didn’t want it to be like this, but I still want it.”
“And you can still have it, Sansa. Now or later.”
Sansa smiled sadly. “I don’t even know why it should matter that much how it happens. I know the romantic girl I used to be was mostly an idiot, but I guess a part of me was still hanging on to that mom-dad-two-point-five-kids-perfect-house image in my head.”
“Again, at the risk of sounding like I’m trying to talk you into something, not now doesn’t mean not ever. You said it yourself. You’re young. I can list half a dozen guys and few women who would punch their mothers for a chance to buy you coffee.”
Sansa laughed in spite of herself. “Shut up.”
“The right person for you is out there. In fact . . . ” he trailed off.
“In fact, what?” Sansa asked, noticing that Theon seemed extra nervous all of a sudden.
“Shit. Marriage. That’s what you want! OK, uh, I guess I have to ask. Do you want to marry me?”
“What? Theon, no!” She rubbed her eyes, laughing again. “That’s the last thing, I want.”
Theon sat back, visibly relieved. “Thank the gods.”
“No offense,” Sansa offered with a smile. “Meant or taken.”
Theon smiled back. “Same. The world must see a bachelor of three score again. I know Benedick says that in Much Ado and then immediately proceeds to want to marry Beatrice, but it’s a solid notion.”
“You’re referencing Shakespeare—are you sure you’re not trying to woo me right now?”
Theon smiled, Sansa could see something serious behind his eyes. “Your grace is too costly to wear everyday.”
“I’m not too good for you, if that’s what you’re implying.”
He looked down for a moment and let out a long breath. “We’re goldilocks, you and me,” he said. “There’s such a thing as too much or too little. But this? Right here? Friends who occasionally break bread together and have inside jokes. This is just right.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand again. “It is. But, look, whatever happens, we need to be totally honest with each other. I don’t want to worry about our relationship status. We’re friends and, you’re right, that is the best. Let’s not mess with it."
“I hear you. Plus, I think we established that night that we’d drive each other crazy and what would our kid do if we were both institutionalized?”
“Is that your way of saying you want to keep it?” Sansa said with a laugh, surprised at how weirdly hopeful she sounded to herself.
Theon took Sansa’s hands in both of his. “I will go along with whatever you decide, and if you just want to hit the reset button, I’ll go be there for you.”
She nodded.
“But . . . I’m guessing if you were even considering that you’d have done it already.”
Sansa felt her eyes well up all of a sudden. “Theon—“
“So I guess we’re having a kid . . . Wow.”
Sansa tried to take a breath, but it came out as a sob.
“Hey, it’s going to be OK,” he said quietly. “We got this."
Sansa wiped at her cheeks, feeling foolish but also, oddly enough, relieved, happy, even a little excited. The hardest thing in front of her—the decision—was now behind her. Now came everything else, but for some reason, it didn't seem daunting. There might be reason for her to be sad, but none of it would outweigh the baby who would eventually always be the reason she was happy. Previous disappointments and disillusionments hadn’t gone away, but they were now part of the life that came before this moment and no matter how hard it might still be at times, all she would focus on from now on was what would come after. She took a couple of deep breaths, and the tears were gone.
“You’re really sure you’re going to be OK being a father?” she said finally.
“No,” Theon said with a shrug, “but it doesn’t really matter. With our killer combination of genes, this kid is going to be so super clever and awesome, they’ll probably come out of the womb mature enough to be my parent.”
“If that’s your way of saying you have the maturity of a baby, then I agree with that.”
Looking down for a moment, Theon said. “I’ll put in the effort, OK? I’ll do whatever you need. Assuming, of course, I recover from the inevitable pummeling that’s sure to come my way from any number of our relatives and friends.”
Sansa laughed. “I’ll tell Robb to go easy on you.”
“Oh, Sansa. Robb’s not the one I’m really worried about.”
An hour later, they walked out of the restaurant, not having discussed much else after the life-changing agreement they had come to. This decision behind them, Sansa felt like there were a million more to make, but she pushed them out of her mind for the moment, wanting to keep the memory of this meal a good and happy one. The inevitable stress could wait.
As they walked, Theon playfully waved the receipt on which the waitress had, indeed, written her number. “Your boy still got it!”
Sansa shook her head and laughed. “Are you going to call her?”
“Naturally! Theon Greyjoy keeps his promises, thank you very much. . . . unless—you don’t mind, do you?”
“No, but please insist on a condom this time. It’s going to be hard enough to get you to focus on one kid at a time. In fact, I will buy them for you.”
“Are you kidding? I’m scheduling a fucking vasectomy tomorrow.”
For a very short time—only three days, in fact—it was just their secret. Sansa had wanted to wait until she was past the the point doctors recommended waiting to tell people. Even if this hadn’t been a planned pregnancy, she was happy and still wanted to go through the motions the way she was supposed to. There was also the benefit of putting off telling her parents and friends. That all went out the window, however, when her sister barged into Sansa’s room after a night out and caught her looking at a website about early pregnancy. Arya’s shock registered loudly enough for their younger brothers to hear in the next room. There was no real point in trying to contain it after that.
Sansa talked with her parents that very night, and she regretted the mostly supportive conversation only in that the start of it felt like she was confessing some great sin. It was past midnight when she finally went to bed, exhausted, so she let herself sleep in the next day. By the time she woke up, it felt like just about everyone else in her life knew. Sansa’s friends were in the same small, tightly knit group that also included Robb’s friends and, increasingly over the last couple of years, Arya’s. They had all grown up together and any differences in age that might have meant a lot in high school—the three years between Robb and Sansa, for one—meant very little now that they were all back home after college. Any piece of gossip tended to spread like wildfire over their group texts and this was no exception.
The pregnancy making itself known meant, of course, that she had to smooth things over between Theon and Robb, which she did mostly by reiterating to her big brother what she had told her parents. Namely, that even if unexpected, this was a turn in her life that she could handle, that she wanted to be allowed to be happy about even, if the people in her life would just let her move past the surprise and not hold her previous young girl dreams of a perfect family against her. But her own satisfaction with the decision did little to help everyone else get used to it. That became a theme over the next few weeks as she neared the end of the first trimester. People’s instinctual response to her situation was pity, despite the fact that she was an adult with a stable PR job and fully capable of taking on motherhood now that she had chosen to do so. (Living with her parents for the sake of saving money, however, was an arrangement that now needed serious reconsideration.) It took every ounce of Sansa’s energy to talk everyone among her family and her close friends out of their shock, if not their disappointment, and assure them that, yes, she and Theon had put all romantic implications and complications behind them, as well as insist that, yes, she was sure this was what she wanted to do.
Noticing the extent to which this seemed to wear on Sansa in that time, Arya offered to throw her and Theon a party, choosing Jon’s house—where Theon and Robb also lived—not so much because Sansa’s baby’s father also lived there but because Jon’s house was where parties always happened.
(In fact, it had been where that night had also taken place.)
When Sansa showed up, it felt at first like the same party they always threw, with the same people—the Tyrells, Jeyne Poole, some Freys, some Karstarks, Gendry and Hot Pie, and a few others—scattered everywhere chatting about their jobs or school or the weather over beer and wine and either The Killers or Bruce Springsteen playing. Sansa was greeted by Theon’s sister, Yara, who immediately pointed to two huge banners she and Arya had printed out and hung in the living room.
“Put your helmets on, Theon has procreated” courtesy of Yara.
“You’re getting another Stark, world! #BLESSED” courtesy of Arya.
Sansa couldn’t help but laugh, at the competing signs, at the onesie with “Oops Baby” printed across the front that they had also tacked to the wall, and at the back-and-forth between the two young women over who would be the kid’s favorite aunt.
The banners inadvertently put a spotlight on the question of the baby’s last name, but knowing everyone would have questions, Sansa had prepared herself and Theon to be ready with answers:
They would co-parent, but she would have primary custody.
Arya would take the role of back-up birthing coach, in the moderately likely event that Theon would pass out mid-labor.
The baby would take Sansa’s last name and live with her—wherever that would be, ideally not her parents’ house.
After a while the overwhelming smells of alcohol and pizza—not to mention the never-ending fatigue—got to her, and Sansa escaped to the back deck for a minute of fresh air and a moment to herself. When she stepped outside, however, she found none other than Jon sitting by himself on the top of the stairs that led down to the house’s small yard. She watched him for a quiet minute. His back was to her, but he was turned such that she could see the start of his profile and enjoyed the view: his handsome jawline, the natural pout of his lips, his overall default look of concern that gave a clue to the thoughtful person he had grown up into. Of all the people near her age that she spent any sort of time with, Jon Snow was the only one who actually had the aura of a proper adult. He didn’t just have a job, he had a title: architect. And he owned the house outright, it having been left to him by a mostly absent father who had given him nothing else in life, so in a way it was also a reminder of the difficult and emotional childhood that he had overcome.
Sansa wasn’t sure how long she had been watching him when he turned his head slightly and saw her there.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied, offering a wave, which immediately made her feel stupid.
She realized then that not only had she not seen him in weeks, she hadn’t had a proper conversation alone with him even longer. “Where’s Dany tonight?”
Jon looked confused for a moment. “Oh, I guess you don’t know. She and I aren’t together anymore.”
“What?”
“It’s actually been a few weeks.”
“How did I miss that?
“It’s probably fair to say other things have been on your mind,” he said with a half smile. He gestured for her sit down on the step next to him.
Sansa blushed. “Still, that’s big. How many years was it?”
“Three.”
After rather pointlessly swiping at the step to clear it off, she sat facing him, back to the railing, mirroring his position, about a foot of space between them. “I was kind of under the impression she was the one,” she said.
Jon chuckled. “Not by a long shot.”
The finality of his words surprised her and she wondered how she could have misread things, misread him, so much.
But, of course, it wasn’t just Jon that she’d misread. Thinking back on it now, that night would be remembered for how she and Theon ended it, but at the start there was Dany, mixing drinks in celebration of Jon having passed his architectural licensing exam and whispering to one of her friends about how the next party she threw would be an engagement party. Sansa remembered always thinking how everything Dany ever said felt like a performance, a way of asserting herself and reminding people of her name and status, but for whatever reason—OK, jealousy—that one utterance, Sansa took at face value. Hearing it felt like a light dimmed. It changed her night, and now, three months later, she was the one who had ended up with the lifetime commitment. Only it was to a child. And Jon Snow was sitting next to her gorgeous and single.
“I met her the week before the start of the three busiest years of my life,” he said. “Between work and getting ready for my licensing exam, I was basically on auto-pilot the whole time for everything else in my life. When I was finally on the other side of it, I realized our frames of mind were very different. It got pretty ugly.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jon shrugged. “I was the asshole in the equation.”
Sansa shook her head. “Jon, that is the last thing you are.”
Looking away, Jon swirled the inch of beer at the bottom of the beer stein in his hand. Sansa recognized it as part of the set she had given him years ago, when he turned 21. “I wasn’t paying attention or considering anything other than getting through work. In retrospect, being in a relationship at the same time was a significant lapse in judgment.”
“Well, now that I can say it without offending you, I always thought she was definitely not worthy of you.”
He smiled. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
He looked at her with eyes that looked as if they would see right through her. “So . . . Theon, huh?”
Sansa bit her lip and looked away. “Speaking of lapses in judgment.”
“You know, as much shit as I give him, he’s a good guy. There are a lot more guys out there who are worse than Theon then there are better.”
“If you had told me years ago that I was going to end up pregnant with Theon’s baby, I’d have slapped you silly. Now . . . it seems funny to say it, but among the men that make up my sorry history, he’s actually at the top of the stack.”
“Scary thought.”
Sans laughed. “I know.”
Jon took a deep breath and looked out into the yard again, the light of the setting sun almost gone. “Well, maybe it’ll sound sarcastic, but I do mean it when I say this: congratulations.”
Sansa’s face blossomed into a bright smile. She was so thoroughly touched by his sincerity, in fact, that even as she was smiling, tears sprung from her eyes. Embarrassed, Sansa quickly looked away and started wiping at her face with both her hands.
Alarmed, Jon spoke up. “Hey, hey, hey.”
He slid over, in her space in a way that was rare for him, and put his hand on her back. She kept her face in her hands, leaning her elbows on her knees, not to cry so much as to enjoy the warmth of his touch.
“Sorry,” he said, quietly. “That was maybe the wrong thing to say?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, finally lowering her hands. She still didn’t want to turn toward him, but only because she was afraid of how close he would be if she did. “The opposite. Nobody has said that to me yet. It was nice to hear.”
“Really?”
“I mean . . . I get it. This is not exactly the way it’s supposed to happen.”
“If there’s a right way, it’s not how my parents did it either. My mom was 22 and my dad was married.” He laughed. “I was just about to say, ‘and look how well I turned out,’ but that’s probably still a bit of an open question at this point.”
Turning to him, she said. “You are amazing, Jon Snow. And, I hadn’t thought about it like that until just now, but I am officially reassured.”
He smiled and seeing his eyes crinkle like they did this close up almost made Sansa want to start crying again. In a different life, she might have lunged at his lips just then, finally taste him in a way she only ever fantasized about. But this was not that life. The impulses of a carefree girl were no longer ones she could act on.
He blushed slightly under the scrutiny of her stare and looked away. “This party is supposed to be celebratory, isn’t it? You should have a drink in your hand.”
Sansa’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Uh, did you forget I’m pregnant?”
“Definitely not,” he said with a sigh. “Hold on.”
He stood up and went inside, leaving Sansa to take some much needed deep breaths to calm herself. She stood up and walked up onto the porch proper again. Within a minute he was back with a bottle that looked suspiciously like champagne, but upon closer inspection was only bubbly apple cider.
“Mother, save me,” she said with a laugh. “Did you buy this?”
“Of course. As you just pointed out, you’re with child. Here.” He handed her a champagne flute and opened the bottle, shaking it up so that it sprayed out at little the way champagne would, making Sansa laugh.
“Wow!”
He poured it into the flute and looked at her expectantly.
“You need to have some too!” she said. “I can’t toast by myself!”
“All right,” he said with a sweet eye roll. He found the beer glass he’d been drinking from, dumped out what was left off the deck into the grass below and poured himself some of the bubbly cider.
“Cheers,” Sansa said when he was ready.
“Cheers,” Jon said, clinking his glass with hers. “To your good health—both of you.”
Sansa put her hand on her abdomen. “We both thank you,” she said before taking a drink. “Oh this is good!”
“Are you feeling properly celebratory now?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied with a smile. “If you could just solve my living situation. I’d be all set.”
“Your parents are kicking you out?”
“I’m kicking myself out. I love them, and it’s been nice not having to worry about rent, but I’m definitely going to need my own space for this.”
“Just you and the baby?” Jon asked.
Sansa shrugged. “I’m not going to live with a roommate I don’t know well. None of my friends are in a position to move, and living with a newborn would be a lot to ask anyway. I don’t want to be by myself, but living with Theon is out of the question because I would murder him.”
Jon laughed at that last comment. “I can relate.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Sansa said, sipping on her cider. "I love him, but he's like an untrainable puppy."
“Having another roommate helps. When a pair of us gets into it, there’s always someone to act as a buffer.”
“I’m going try to talk Arya into getting a place together.”
“You could move in here.”
Sansa laughed. “Very funny.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“Everything!”
Jon pushed off the deck railing where he’d been leaning and looked around as if appraising the situation. “Let’s see, a Victorian rowhouse, nice design, solid construction, a yard, good neighborhood and school district. What’s not to like?”
Sansa looked at him smiling, but with suspicion. “Yes, that all sounds wonderful, but are you forgetting the fact that people already live here? Are you planning to vacate?”
“Just move in with us.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have the room, for starters.”
“I’ll build you a room.”
“Jon . . . “
“Sansa . . . “
She bit her lip. He was clearly serious. “How would it even work?”
Taking her hand, he led her down the deck stairs into the yard and turned back to face the house. “See that there?” he asked pointing to the door underneath the stairs.
“Yes?”
“It’s a 500-square-foot unfinished basement or what an ambitious realtor would call a charming garden-level apartment. I’ll make it a walk-out, reconfigure the stairs inside to make it a split-level with the first floor, put a retractable divider in so you and the baby each have your own space when you want it, a sliding glass door facing out to the yard so you have good natural light, and a big window seat. I have a couple of contractors who owe me favors. It'll be done in six months.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that—and I certainly couldn’t pay you.”
“You’re not asking, I’m offering, and even if you could pay me, I’d just put it in a savings account with your baby’s name on it, which is what I will do with any rent you offer to pay.”
“You would really do all of that?”
He shrugged and looked down at the ground. “You shouldn’t go through this by yourself. This way Theon will be around and so will Robb and I. Baby by committee.”
“It sounds amazing.”
“It will be. I’m pretty good at my job.”
Without thinking, Sansa threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. She closed her eyes as she felt his hands tentatively press against her lower back.
“Is that a yes?” he asked quietly.
“I’m not pulling away just yet so you don’t see me cry again,” she said into his neck.
“That’s fair,” he replied, hugging her just a little bit tighter.
Hearing people coming onto the porch above them, they finally broke apart. Jon moved to come back up the stairs, but Sansa tugged at his arm.
“Are you really sure?” she whispered.
As Jon nodded, Robb appeared at the top of the stairs. “Here they are! Sorry, Snow, too late to make a move now. She’s already knocked up.”
Feeling way too full of just about every emotion to think too hard about what Robb had just said, or the glare Jon threw him in response, Sansa took a few deep breaths before following Jon back up to the deck.
“What were you guys doing out here?” Theon asked, refilling Sansa’s not-champagne for her.
“I was telling Sansa about how I’m going to redo the basement.”
“Yes! Finally!” Robb said, “We need a proper man-cave.”
“Actually, it’s going to be a nursery,” Jon said.
“Like, for plants?” Theon asked.
“A baby nursery, you idiot,” Jon said.
Robb looked back and forth between them, confused. “Wait, what?”
Jon turned to Sansa and raised his eyebrows in question.
She smiled and raised her drink. “Cheers, boys! I’m moving in.”