Chapter Text
Catelyn Tully Stark died the day her husband Ned died, only no one told her.
Theirs was a true love match, as anyone who’d ever seen the couple could attest.
Catelyn used to live for her family. Her children Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rick, and, of course, her husband. She was the ultimate stay-at-home mom, CEO of the Stark Household. Bake sales, homework, soccer games, skinned knees, dance recitals, science fairs, broken hearts, prom dresses, family vacations, holiday dinners, choosing colleges. Sansa’s off-campus apartment had touches of “mom” all over it, since Catelyn had helped her choose her furniture, bedding, and decorative accents.
It was sophomore year, first semester, when Sansa got the call that would change her life forever.
Dad’s gone.
Head on collision.
Icy road.
No one’s fault.
Come home.
It was Robb’s voice, but that was the first time Sansa realized how much he sounded like Dad. Only she’d never be able to test her theory because their dad was gone. Forever.
Robb was in senior year of college himself and was thrust into the role of caretaker – not just to their three younger siblings but to Mom, who was in catatonic shock.
Sansa remembered seeing her mother after the eight-hour drive from King’s Landing to home. It was no exaggeration to say she almost didn’t recognize the woman. Her once lustrous auburn hair – just a shade darker than Sansa’s – was dull. As were her once twinkling eyes – the same ocean blue as Sansa’s. Her skin looked papery, revealing wrinkles that must have been there for some time, but that Sansa had never noticed before. Sansa found her sitting numbly in Dad’s closet, and the sight would haunt her for the rest of her life. Her normally poised, proud, confident mother reduced to a pale, empty-eyed wraith sitting on the floor among dress shoes and trouser legs.
Sansa took the semester off to help Mom with the younger kids, insisting that Robb finish out school and earn his degree in Agricultural Sciences – his passion.
Catelyn was slightly more functional by the time Robb’s last semester was finished, so Sansa could return to college, only one semester off of her original path.
That was around the time Petyr Baelish, Catelyn’s childhood friend, started coming around. He was there to support Cat and the kids, or so he said. Robb and Sansa needed all the help they could get, so they weren’t initially opposed to his presence. Arya was the first to say he was ‘shady’, but Arya had always been wary of outsiders.
Halfway through Sansa’s junior year it became obvious that there was something of a romantic relationship between Petyr and Cat. Sansa didn’t take that well, nor did Robb, but it wasn’t their place to tell their mother not to seek comfort where she could. After all, she was still not far from that broken woman Sansa had found in Ned Stark’s closet.
Soon after, they were married in a quiet ceremony, but instead of Petyr’s love fixing their mom, it stole whatever was left of her from her kids. Rick began getting in fights at school and Sansa and Robb knew it was because he was angry about losing a dad and a mom and gaining a Petyr. Bran became even more of an introvert. Arya graduated high school and moved out to live in some type of commune up north.
Robb and Sansa met and decided that they needed to get Rick out of the house. He moved into Robb’s studio apartment, and Robb later hired an unorthodox but capable woman named Osha as a sort-of nanny to their wild, eleven-year-old brother. Mom and Petyr didn’t even put up a fight, acting as if it was all a ‘cultural experience’ for young Rick to live with his big brother (in what should have been a bachelor pad).
Sansa had taken another semester off at that point because Robb simply couldn’t work full-time and move Rick into his apartment and figure out the logistics of schooling and be there to take care of Rick in the time before they found Osha – a capable and affordable caregiver. ‘Affordable’ was something neither of them were accustomed to considering. Ned and Catelyn didn’t raise them to be spoiled or entitled, but the reality was they were an upper-middle-class family that didn’t want for anything. Help around the house, help with your siblings, and get good grades – if Robb and Sansa did all that, there wasn’t a whole lot their parents said ‘no’ to.
But Petyr said ‘no’ when Robb asked Catelyn for $300/month so he could move into a bigger apartment. Petyr said ‘hell no’ when Robb asked for $400/week to pay Osha. So Sansa, back at school in King’s Landing, got a job doing bookkeeping for a small CPA firm. Her major was finance, so it was easy work for her. She took home $500 per week after taxes and sent all but $75 of it to Robb to help pay Osha’s salary. She didn’t need much of the money herself since Mom and Petyr still paid for her education and living expenses, at least.
But that all changed when her last semester was finally approaching. Student Accounts hadn’t received her tuition payment, nor had her landlord received her rent check. She called her mom, but Petyr answered and explained that they would no longer support the “adult children”, but that Sansa was welcome to come live at home and finish her degree at the local college where Petyr apparently had connections and influence.
Not knowing what else to do, Sansa went home to sort things out, sure she could convince her mom to cover one final semester at KLU plus living expenses
Arya came home to visit.
Robb and Rick came over for dinner.
Robb, Arya, and Sansa got tanked after dinner because they were each battling their demons. The ghost of Ned Stark, the ghost of Catelyn Stark, and the all too alive and present Petyr Baelish.
It was after 1 AM when they all stumbled to their respective beds. Sansa’s head was spinning, but not so much as to make her nauseated as long as she kept her head propped up on two pillows and kept her eyes open, staring out her large window with her back to the door.
Which is why she was awake and aware when someone came into her room. She expected it to be Arya, Rick, or Bran. Maybe even Mom coming to sorrowfully apologize for not keeping her shit together after Dad’s death. When the person who entered laid behind her, almost close enough to be spooning, and rubbed a hand down her arm, she was sure it was Mom, and her eyes swelled with tears.
Then the hand moved down to her hip, which seemed odd. Then Sansa realized she was detecting a masculine smell – Old Spice deodorant, perhaps. And the hand, trying to be light as a feather, moved around to cup her ass. She sprung from the bed and screamed bloody murder.
Arya was the first one in, then Robb, then Mom, then Rick and Bran. Before she could stop to think about how she shouldn’t describe what happened in front of Rick, the words were spewing out of her, “He touched me! He came in here and stroked my hip and touched my butt!”
Robb, who’d been waiting for the opportunity to do so, jumped Petyr and began pummeling him. Arya kicked him in the ribs while Robb punched his face repeatedly.
Catelyn screamed for her kids to stop. Rick screamed for them to keep going. Bran came over to see if Sansa was alright.
Then Catelyn was slapping Sansa, calling her a liar. Saying they orchestrated this because they never liked Petyr and were trying to get Catelyn to divorce him.
Why can’t you let me be happy?!
You don’t know what it’s like to lose the love of your life!
I expect this from Arya or Rick, but not from YOU, Sansa!
Get out of my house!
You’re done.
Cut off.
Get out!
I’m calling the police!
And don’t you dare take my son. Rick is staying HERE where he belongs!
Sansa would never know what power overcame her, nor whether it was some force of good or evil, but she gripped her mother by her night gown, three years’ worth of anger spilling out, “Rick isn’t staying here. Nor is Bran. I’m not letting any of the kids live here with this pervert and YOU – a negligent mother too wrapped up in her own problems to take care of her kids. And if you try to stop me from taking them, if you call the police and try to pull some stunt, I’ll tell the entire world that you married a pervert who came into my room and groped me while he thought I was asleep. I’ll tell the entire world how you’re pissing away Ned Stark’s legacy by shacking up with a manipulative, money-grubbing asshole who doesn’t even deserve to be spoken about in the same sentence as our father. Try to stop me, try to get in the way of ANYTHING Robb and I choose to do to give Rick and Bran a normal life, and I will RUIN your life.”
Petyr had miraculously recovered enough from his ass-kicking to contribute to the discussion. “Let them go, Cat. We were already talking about sending Bran to junior college. Do you really want these lying, ungrateful children in our house when we could be enjoying each other?”
Sansa had snorted, “Junior college? You mean boarding school? You were going to send the last kid you haven’t disconnected with to boarding school?” Her eyes were welling with tears, “Dad would be ashamed of you. I know your heart is broken, Mom… but this?” She wiped at her eyes, the tears coming full force when she saw a flash of shame in Catelyn’s eyes, quickly replaced by a look of cold steel.
So Sansa let her own eyes turn to steel, “We will come for all of our things this week. Don’t try to stop us and we won’t give you any trouble.”
…
The next day, they planned out their future. Arya would leave the commune and move in with Robb, Rick, and Bran so that the money she earned from a part-time job could go toward a bigger apartment. By afternoon they realized what was spent on rent for a 3+ bedroom apartment was more than a mortgage on a decent-sized house would be.
They found an old house in need of a bit of TLC, but it had four bedrooms plus a large attic. Robb’s salary was enough to cover the mortgage payment, though Sansa had to co-sign since his credit history was minimal.
It took weeks for the closing on the house to go through, to get the place furnished with thrift store furniture and what little Robb had in his apartment, tote their belongings from their old house, and figure out Osha’s new schedule since Arya would be around to help out.
When things were settled, Sansa knew what she would do. She desperately wanted to finish her degree, which she was only fifteen credits short of. The salary she could earn with her B.A. was nearly double what she could make without it. But she had no money for tuition and doubted she’d qualify for loans when, on paper, it looked like 60% of her gross earnings were going toward a mortgage.
So she drove her ten-year-old Mazda back to King’s Landing, to go to the only man who may be able to help.