Chapter Text
SANSA
Sansa loved a good sunbeam and endeavored to sit in one whenever she ventured out into the wilds of King’s Landing and into her favorite haunt, The Wall, a bookshop that sold her copious amounts of coffee and allowed her to bring her dog inside. The sentimental girl that still skulked about inside her heart, despite being all of twenty-seven, always prompted her to buy a blue winter rose on her way to the coffee shop to sit on her table at The Wall. They were only grown in greenhouses here in King’s Landing, but they reminded her of home. She had not been home in such a long time. The sensible woman that she was, however, was able to silence that sentimental girl most of the time before she got into any real trouble.
Her phone buzzed… wretched thing. If it did not tether her to her livelihood, she would throw it into the harbor. Margaery was calling her, but she did not want to talk to her, and so she silenced her phone.
“Refill?” A familiar northern brogue asked her.
She looked up and smiled at the kind barista/bookshop keeper. It gave her no end of amusement that a northern themed coffee shop employed Jon Snow, who was the most northern specimen of a man to exist in King’s Landing. When he first appeared a few years ago, she had almost thought they had hired him for his aesthetic appeal but soon learned that he was a kind and dependable Ph.D. student, who was also the owner’s nephew. Jon seemed a relic of another time in which being from the North was more than just a stereotype, but she supposed that was sentimental too. People were people no matter where they were from, but Jon did remind her of home and for that she had been sure to befriend him.
“Yes, thank you,” She held out her ceramic coffee mug to him. She preferred drinking coffee out of hard cups, rather than those tragic paper to-go cups.
“Any of the three M’s joining you today?” He asked, making casual conversation as he refilled her cup. Sansa had 3 best friends, Myranda, Mya, and Margaery, all of whom she had known and loved since college where they swore to be best friends forever… a childish vow, she supposed, but it had served them fairly well until recently.
“Doubtful,” she replied to Jon, “Honestly, I may be in the market for new friends, do you know any?”
Jon snorted in amusement, “Surely they can’t be all bad?”
Sansa sighed, trying not to be dramatic, “No, they’re not really, I suppose,” She conceded, and it was mostly true. They were not bad, she loved them, even Margaery despite everything, but her heart was weary of this road she had been walking.
Another sigh and she looked up at Jon, who was still standing beside her table, “Are you seeing anyone Jon?”
Jon chuckled, “No, dissertation and work keeps me pretty busy.”
Sansa nodded, “Would you ever date the best friend of your ex-girlfriend?”
Jon looked very perplexed.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Sansa offered by way of clarification, thinking that might help.
“Probably not,” said Jon, “But I suppose it would depend on the circumstances.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“Dare I ask what prompted that question?” Jon asked with an amused smirk.
“Probably not,” said Sansa with a sigh. Jon surely did not want to hear the drama, or perhaps three act comedy, of her and Margaery and Harry. Jon was thirty-six and much too mature for such nonsense. She, herself, was not sure how she, the most sensible of women, had ended up in such a tangle. It was indeed the stuff of fiction, and she had half a mind to write a book about it, as she was on the lookout for new material.
“Thank you for the coffee,” she said and gave him a smile.
He smiled in return and walked away, and she watched him for a moment. From their various encounters since he had appeared in the shop, she had been pleased to learn that Jon had known her brother Robb at university and kept in touch with him some and had even met her family a few years back. She had not been home for Christmas that year, and much to her chagrin, she had not been home for many years. Having met Jon by chance, though, oddly felt like having a piece of home here, even though she did not really know anything about him, besides that he was finishing his Ph.D. in Archaeology and that he was definitely northern.
She sighed, patted her dog, Lady, on the head, and turned her attention back to her laptop where she was planning to write a bestseller so that she could quit her normal job, and live off her imagination. Her first book was somewhat of a flop, though her agent assured her that first books were rarely received well enough to provide a livable income. She would simply have to keep at the craft until she hit it big… or drowned, she thought rather dismally. In truth, she had genuinely hoped that she would be married with a family by now… and though it was probably the sentimental girl talking, she had wanted those things so badly. When she had been with Harry, she had thought he wanted those things too…
Nearly growling at her computer screen at the unbidden thought of Harry, Sansa had a mind to call it a day.
The bell above the shop door chimed, and Sansa looked up and sighed again. Mya Stone had just entered, quickly scanned the room, and found Sansa. It was not that she did not want to see Mya, or that she had any particular antipathy toward her… Sansa was just tired… so tired of feeling like she was living the same year over and over again.
Mya plopped herself gracelessly in the chair across from Sansa, “Morning, pal, thought I’d find you here.”
“I suppose I’m rather predictable,” Sansa said dryly.
Mya shrugged but did not argue the point.
Sansa felt the sentimental girl in her cry out in frustration.
“Are you alright?” Mya asked.
“Of course I am,” Sansa replied, not looking up from her computer, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Mya frowned at her, giving her a knowing look.
Sansa did not offer any other explanation.
“You don’t have to be alright, you know?” said Mya, “not if you don’t want to be, I think it would be normal if you weren’t.”
Was Sansa alright? Why wouldn’t she be? “Why wouldn’t I be alright?” Sansa asked.
Mya frowned hard at her.
Sansa was always alright, that is what the sensible woman inside her said.
“Harry and I have been over for a year,” Sansa replied simply.
“And all’s fair in love and war?” Mya quirked a disbelieving brow at Sansa.
Sansa shook her head, and sighed, “We’re hardly at war.”
“That’s not what that saying means, and you know it,” Mya continued to prod.
“I’m fine Mya,” Sansa continued to insist.
The bell chimed again, and Sansa’s temper was almost stoked… but it was not, because Sansa was much too sensible to lose her temper. Myranda walked in and headed toward the table, grabbing a chair from another table on the way.
Sansa noted that Jon was watching them from behind the counter.
“Thought I’d find the two of you here.”
Sansa sighed, “Am I to have any peace?”
“No, of course not,” said Myranda simply, “Not after that bombshell dropped last night.”
“I’m fine,” Sansa said firmly, though careful not to raise her voice and disturb other customers.
“It would be alright if you were not,” Mya repeated.
“Of course she’s not fine,” Myranda added, “She’s bearing up, just like she always does.”
“Would you please not psychoanalyze me when I’m sitting right in front of you,” Sansa implored.
“I can’t help it,” Myranda said with a smirk.
Sansa closed the top of her laptop, realizing she was not going to get any work done so long as these two were insisting on talking to her about last night.
“Harry is allowed to date whomever he wants to date,” Sansa said simply.
Myranda raised her brow, “Even if that person is Margaery?”
“Margaery dated him first anyway,” Sansa had been saying the same to herself all night trying to reconcile herself to the news. Margaery had dated Harry the first time when they had all been in college. They had broken up due to what they called “irreconcilable differences” and then had become friends.
“Technically, I dated him first,” Myranda laughed rather casually, “But high school flings never last, and good riddance to him."
“Yeah, but most recently he dated Sansa!” Mya snapped, obviously having her own set of feelings about this weird predicament.
“He ended things a year ago,” Sansa said simply, wishing her friends would stop trying to pick at this wound.
Mya’s eyes grew serious.
“I’m fine!” Sansa insisted, but the sentimental girl inside her was screaming that she was not, in fact, as fine as she wanted to be.
“I’m so angry I could scream, and I never dated him,” Mya growled, “Where do they get off sneaking around with each other for four months before telling anyone?”
Sansa sighed deeply. What did it matter? Harry had ended things a year ago, its not like he cheated on her… still, she recalled the way he and Margaery used to laugh and joke around with each other, but she had trusted them and still wanted to trust that nothing had happened while she and Harry had still been together.
“Do either of you ladies want coffee?” Jon interrupted them.
All three women looked up.
“I’ll not have any coffee from the likes of men,” Mya huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
Jon looked a little puzzled at that but did not press.
“Thanks, Jon, you’re a doll, I’ll take coffee from you any day,” Myranda said with a wink.
Jon laughed good-naturedly and went to get her some coffee.
“That is one beautiful man,” Myranda said with a wistful sigh.
“Myranda Royce, leave Jon alone,” Sansa said with a soft chuckle, “Don’t you have enough on your plate trying to sort out your two suitors?”
“Who calls one-night stands, suitors?” Myranda laughed, “And besides, I’m not interested in Jon, just appreciating the view.”
Sansa looked back at Jon, and he noticed her looking, and gave her a little lopsided smile.
“He seems like he’d be good in bed,” said Myranda rather logically.
“Myranda!” Sansa gasped in horror.
“No,” Mya countered, “Well, yes, he does, but what I mean to say is, Jon doesn’t strike me as a one-night stand kind of guy, seems more like the till death do us part type.”
“Then why isn’t he married?” Myranda asked.
“How do you know he isn’t?” Mya argued, “We don’t know Jon.”
“That’s right, we don’t know Jon,” Sansa tried not to sound frustrated, “So the two of you should have a little bit of decorum and leave the man alone. He’s like a real adult, for heaven’s sake.”
“Decorum?” Myranda snorted in amusement.
“Yes, decorum,” Sansa repeated emphatically.
Mya raised an indignant brow at Sansa, “I’m plenty decorous.”
Sansa sighed. Maybe she really did need new friends?