Chapter Text
“I can’t believe you would do this to me!”
Sansa Stark doesn’t just say it—she yells it, her voice sharp enough to cut through the quiet of their suburban street as she slams the door of Robb’s precious car with far more force than necessary.
The sound echoes. Robb winces from the driver’s seat. It’s brief, almost subtle, but she catches it. He doesn’t comment.
Good. She’s heard more than enough from him today.
“Even I think it’s a dick move,” Arya adds, climbing out on the other side and shutting her own door with considerably more restraint.
They’d both been crammed into the backseat the whole ride home. Neither of them willing to concede the front, and Robb too lazy and too cowardly to take a side, had decreed the same day he’d gotten the car that if both of them were riding with him, no one would get to sit shotgun. So back there they sat, shoulder to shoulder in tense silence, with Sansa simmering in anger and Arya watching everything unfold like it was some mildly entertaining show.
Arya isn’t the one betrayed, after all.
Sansa whirls toward her brother, gesturing wildly toward her sister. “See!” she exclaims, pointing in a way that would absolutely earn her a reprimand from their mother. Don’t point, Sansa. It’s rude. “If even Arya is on my side, you should truly reconsider the poor life decisions that have led you to this moment.”
Robb exhales deeply, his hands still resting on the steering wheel like he’s trying, unsuccessfully, to hold onto what little patience he has left. Sansa very graciously pretends not to notice.
Finally, he opens the car door and steps out.
“The drama…” he mutters under his breath, running a hand through his hair. Then, louder, “Honestly, Sansa, I don’t see what the big deal is.”
For a second, she just stares at him.
“You’re… you’re joking, right?”
She glances sideways at Arya, expecting at best indifference, but instead finds her sister wearing a look of pure, unfiltered annoyance directed at Robb. It is deeply, profoundly satisfying. Sansa and Arya are rarely on the same wavelength. But today? Today, Arya gets it.
“You’re as bad as each other,” Robb says, completely serious.
That more than anything makes something in Sansa’s chest twist. There’s a flicker of genuine concern beneath her anger now. She narrows her eyes at him. Has Daenerys put a spell on him? Robb has never exactly been brilliant, but this is a new low.
“That’s… preposterous!” she sputters, the word practically tripping over itself in her outrage.
“Stop pretending she’s some mean bully who’s out to get you when you’ve been terrorising each other back and forth since you were kids.”
Sansa freezes.
“We’re the same?” she repeats slowly, incredulously, a touch too loud to be considered talking, but not enough to become yelling yet. “You think we’re the same!?”
“Pretty much,” he shrugs.
Something inside her snaps.
“She lit my hair on fire once!” she shouts, her voice rising again, louder now, sharper. “And now you’re dating that monster?”
“That was an accident!”
Sansa lets out a disbelieving laugh. An accident. It happened during a sleepover in the sixth grade. They had agreed on a temporary, and very fragile, truce for the sake of a mutual friend’s birthday. For one single night, they’d agreed to be civil. And still—still!—Daenerys Targaryen had managed to accidentally set her hair on fire while proudly carrying a birthday cake she most certainly didn’t bake into the living room.
Sansa drops her gaze and aggressively digs through her tote bag, fingers fumbling past notebooks, lip gloss, crumpled receipts. Everything except the keys she needs. The fabric collapses in on itself like it’s working against her. Ugh. Why is everything so overstimulating all of a sudden?
“Were you there?” she demands, finally finding the keys and yanking them free. She throws her head back, fixing Robb with a glare as she unsuccessfully tries to jam the key into the front door lock.
“No. I wasn’t.” He rolls his eyes. “But that was years ago. Get over it.”
Her hand stills.
“Look who’s fucking talking,” she shoots back, turning to face him. “You’re still hung up on Jon Snow beating you at little hockey when you were, like, ten.”
Robb bristles immediately. “That story’s got more recent developments—” he starts, then cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Y’know what?”
Before she can react, he steps forward, plucks the keys right out of her hand, and nudges her aside.
“I’ll just get this door open myself or we’ll stay here all afternoon.”
The lock clicks open effortlessly under his hand.
Arya slips inside first, brushing past Sansa without a word. Robb follows close behind, clearly eager to escape the conversation and her. His footsteps are heavy as he heads straight for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Sansa lingers on the doorstep, the cool afternoon air brushing against her flushed skin, her hands now empty at her sides.
“Hey! This conversation isn’t over!” she yells after him.
Her voice echoes through the house, but the only response is the distant thud of a bedroom door slamming shut upstairs.
Sansa stands there a second longer, jaw tight, heart pounding.
Well, fine. If Robb thinks he can just date Daenerys Targaryen and walk away unscathed, then he clearly has no idea who he’s dealing with.
—
Dinner at the Stark house is loud.
That’s the most efficient way to describe it. Chairs are constantly scraping against the floor and cutlery is clinking against plates. Somewhere to Sansa’s left, Rickon is making a valiant attempt to turn mashed potatoes into some type of plated modern art as Mom loudly reprimands him for playing with his food.
At one head of the table, their father tries to impose some kind of structure.
“So,” he begins, clearing his throat as he sets his fork down, “how was school today?”
It’s a question he asks often, and that no one ever really answers. Well, Bran is the only one who actually does, usually.
“Fine,” Robb says automatically, not looking up from his plate.
“Mmh,” Arya grunts, which is somehow even less informative.
“It was fine. Thanks,” she replies almost without thinking, the words so often coming out of her mouth, as she focuses on cutting her food into neat, precise pieces.
Across the table, their mother is too busy dabbing at Rickon’s face with a napkin to intervene. “Hold still,” she murmurs, tilting his chin up as he squirms in protest. “You’ve got sauce everywhere.”
Bran is saying something about a project—something about partners he would have never chosen if the groups weren’t picked by the teacher, she thinks—but it gets lost halfway through when Rickon knocks his cup slightly, and their mother’s attention snaps fully to damage control.
“And your classes?” their father presses, glancing between his oldest children like he’s searching for something to latch onto. “Everything going well?”
“Yeah,” Robb replies.
Another dead end. The conversation would surely start dissolving again, until—
“Robb’s got a girlfriend,” Arya says. The words land in the middle of the table like a bomb deliberately thrown.
Sansa’s knife stills against her plate.
She looks at her sister, who is sporting a devilish smile on her face. It almost feels like she did this for Sansa.
“What?” their mother says immediately, turning away from Rickon, napkin still in hand.
“Thanks a lot, Arya,” Robb deadpans, finally looking up. “Yes, yes, I’ve got a girlfriend. Big news.”
Arya shrugs, entirely unapologetic. Then looks at Sansa, and winks.
“Well, who is it? Do we know her?” their mother asks, interest piqued now in a way it hadn’t been all evening.
Sansa lifts her gaze, her expression smoothing into something dangerously sweet. “Yes, Robb,” she says lightly. “Do we know her?”
For a moment, he hesitates. It’s subtle, but she sees it. The slight shift in his posture, the way his confidence dips just enough to notice. He expects them to have something against this relationship too. For good fucking reasons too.
“Yes… yes, you know her,” he admits slowly.
“Well?” their mother prompts, expectant.
Robb exhales, like he’s bracing himself. “It’s Daenerys…”
There’s a beat.
“Targaryen?” their father asks, brows lifting in mild surprise.
“Yes,” Robb confirms.
And just like that, the world doesn’t end.
No one drops their fork. No one gasps in horror. No one looks at Sansa.
Her parents exchange a glance, but it’s not alarmed, more just natural curiosity about who their eldest son is dating.
“Huh,” her father says after a second. “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
Sansa blinks. Hasn’t… he hasn’t heard that name in a while? She feels something hot and sharp rise in her chest. She talks about Daenerys all the time. Not obsessively—she refuses to give her that much importance—but enough. Enough that her parents should know. Enough that the name should mean something more than a casual past acquaintance of their daughter.
“Well, she always seemed like a… strong personality,” their mother says carefully, though there’s a hint of approval in her tone that Sansa can’t quite believe. “Is she in your grade?”
Robb nods, relaxing now that the reaction isn’t explosive. “Yeah. We’ve actually been—”
He keeps talking. He answers their questions about how long they have been together, and where they met and whether she’s coming over sometime.
They’re… supportive. Not in an overly enthusiastic way, Mom is the type of parent to have opinions about every part of their lives, but it’s not in a disapproving way as Sansa was expecting. They’re just… accepting of the whole thing. As if this is all normal! As if Daenerys Targaryen isn’t Sansa’s personal nightmare wrapped in perfect silver hair!
Sansa keeps her eyes on her plate. She cuts another piece of food, and moves it around her plate.
She could say something. She could remind them about the years of constant snide comments, the gossips she spread about Sansa, the fucking fire.
But what would be the point?
They wouldn’t really hear it. They haven’t heard it until now, have they? So she stays quiet.
Across the table, she feels Arya’s gaze on hers before she even sees it. Sansa looks up. There is no teasing and no smugness, just something softer. It looks dangerously close to pity.
Sansa’s jaw tightens.
She drops her gaze back to her plate, blinking a little faster than usual.
She doesn’t want pity. Not from Arya. Not from anyone.
—
Someone knocks on her bedroom door.
Sansa doesn’t move.
Her room is dim, the curtains are half-drawn against the late afternoon light, casting everything in that dull, grayish glow that makes it feel later than it is. She’s still in her school clothes, which is unusual for her, her hair is slightly tangled from where she’d buried her face into the pillow the second she got inside her bedroom after dinner.
“What,” she calls out, her voice muffled by fabric, barely intelligible.
There’s a pause.
Then, softer, “Can I come in?” Arya asks from behind the door.
Sansa closes her eyes for a second. She shouldn’t be surprised, honestly. Not after the events of the day. Not after the conversation in the car, not after dinner. Not after Arya, out of all people, was the one who decided to be on her side today.
The whole thing feels new, almost fragile. Like something that could snap if either of them pushes too hard in the wrong direction.
“Yeah,” she mumbles.
The handle clicks, the door creaks open, and Sansa immediately regrets her current position: face-down, hair everywhere, dignity nowhere to be found. She groans quietly and pushes herself up, smoothing her hair back with her fingers and sitting cross-legged on the bed just as Arya steps inside.
Arya doesn’t come far.
She leans against the wall near the door, shoulders slouched, hands shoved deep into the pocket of her hoodie. She looks like she always does, casual to the point of carelessness. She looks deliberately at Sansa, but doesn’t speak yet.
They stay like that for a moment too long. The silence stretches, awkward and unfamiliar in a way their usual bickering never is.
Sansa feels it crawling under her skin.
“Well?” she snaps, sharper than she means to. “What do you want?”
Arya tilts her head slightly, unimpressed.
“I was gonna say you look like you got hit by a truck,” she says flatly, “but I guess that’d be redundant.”
There it is. Sansa rolls her eyes, the tension easing just a fraction. This is easy, this she can do. Arya being mean and Sansa being mean right back, like the order of the universe just got reinstated.
To her utter dismay though, she finds that she’s too defeated by the events of the day to start arguing with her sister, and the fight immediately leaves her body.
“Can you not be insufferable for, like, five minutes?”
Arya doesn’t answer. Instead, like Sansa hadn’t said anything at all, she pushes herself off the wall and walks over, dropping onto the bed beside her without invitation. The mattress dips under her weight, their shoulders almost, but not quite yet, touching.
“Robb was a real asshole,” Arya says.
Just like that. There’s none of her usual sarcasm, no other snarky reply in their neverending fighting contest. This is harder. For a wild moment Sansa thinks she would rather hear her bitching about Sansa’s hair or the way her clothes are colour coded inside her closet or the boring sappy music she listens to, but sometimes a thing being harder just makes it all the more worthwhile, doesn’t it?
Sansa blinks, thrown off for half a second before she lets out a quiet, humorless huff.
Maybe, just maybe, they should try to be civil with one another. Arya made the first step, so now it’s up to her.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “That’s one way to put it.”
Arya picks at a loose thread on Sansa’s blanket. “Dating her,” she adds, like the word itself leaves a bad taste in her mouth. “What was he thinking?”
Sansa lets out a sharp breath. “I know right!?” she bursts out, suddenly inflamed. “Of all people.”
“Seriously,” Arya agrees. “He couldn’t have picked literally anyone else?”
“Anyone,” Sansa echoes, her voice tightening. “There are so many people in the world. Entire schools full of them, actually. I could pick like ten better girls for him to date just in my History class.”
“And instead he goes for Daenerys Targaryen,” Arya finishes.
“He goes for the bleach-blonde psychopath!” Sansa reiterates, and Arya laughs out loud.
It’s nice to be the one making her laugh. Her little sister, whom she’s got nothing in common with. She shouldn’t be surprised; she has heard many times that there’s nothing quite like the bond you create over someone you both dislike.
They fall into step more easily now, the shared annoyance smoothing out the earlier tension.
“He didn’t even tell you,” Arya says.
Sansa exhales sharply at the reminder. “I know! It’s been weeks, and I had to find out because she was practically sitting in his lap at lunch like…like some kind of—”
“Public menace?” Arya offers.
“I was thinking of a far worse word,” she admits, with a wince. “But, yes, exactly! Like two public menaces.”
“And the kissing,” Arya continues, gagging, “Do they have no shame?”
Sansa leans back slightly, bracing herself on her hands. “I know right! In front of everyone! Like he wasn’t actively betraying his own sister! His own flesh and blood!”
Arya nods, though there’s a small smile playing on her lips. Sansa’s always had a penchant for drama, Arya must know that.
“You don’t think I’m being irrational about this, do you?” she asks in a small voice.
“I don’t,” Arya says simply.
“You really think so?” she asks, far too vulnerable for her liking, especially in front of her sister.
But Arya doesn’t let her down.
She simply rolls her eyes. “Sansa, she lit your hair on fire.”
The reminder should just anger her further, but the knowledge that Arya sees it for what it actually is, and doesn’t downplay it like Robb, or straight up forgot it ever happened like her parents, settles warmly over Sansa’s body.
“Thank you.”
Arya nods. To her, it’s like saying, “You’re welcome,” when the words feel too hard to come out.
“She’s been making my life miserable for years,” Sansa continues, the words coming easier now. “And now he’s just…what? Ignoring all of that? Acting like it’s nothing?”
The hair was one thing. In her most forgiving moments, she can even accept that it might have actually been an accident. A catastrophic accident that Daenerys never properly apologised for. (Oh, she apologised, of course, to save face, but Sansa knew she was thrilled she had ruined the beautiful auburn hair Sansa loved and bragged about so much.)
But she’s being mature about that one. She puts it aside, and even then, she thinks: what about all the rest?
Like that time in middle school, when she secretly used the phone of the guy Sansa liked to text and flirt with her for days while pretending to be him. Sansa had been delighted, rereading his texts late at night while smiling into her pillow, imagining the way he would finally ask her out and daydreaming about her first kiss, only to be completely humiliated by Daenerys Targaeryen when she found out the truth. Sansa can still remember the moment she found out. The way her chest had dropped, the heat of embarrassment crawling up her neck as both of them, Daenerys and the boy, stood there, amused. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Daenerys proceeded to start dating him instead, even though before that she’d spent months saying how awful he was and how ghastly he looked.
Or, what about the time Sansa had thought, stupidly, in hindsight, that maybe things were different. That they weren’t friends, not really, but they were close enough to share a space, to talk about things that mattered in the careless, oversharing way girls sometimes do. It wasn’t just the two of them, which made it easier in some ways and harder in others. The group chat started getting filled with talks of crushes and boys and first experiences, or lack of them, in Sansa’s case. Sansa had let her guard down, sharing something vulnerable in what she thought was a safe space. Daenerys hadn’t looked at it that way: she took some screenshots and sent them around. Passed them to other people, other groups, laughing about Sansa’s naivety and inexperience behind her back like it was all just harmless fun.
(She is still embarrassed about that one—not even just about what she admitted, but about the fact that she ever thought it was safe to say it in the first place. That she had looked at Daenerys and seen something that resembled a friend. Yeah, that one still stings.)
And, the worst one, maybe, was when she spread a rumour that followed her around for almost a whole year. It had started small: she noticed the quiet whispers that followed her down the hallways and the glances, mostly at her body, that lingered just a little too long. Sansa hadn’t understood at first why people were looking at her like that, why conversations seemed to stop when she got too close. Until she eavesdropped a conversation from a group of girls. Pregnant. The word had hit her like something physical. She had been gaining a little weight at the time, that was true, but it was nothing drastic, it was just enough to look different and fuller after a period of being too thin and far too unhealthy. When she confronted Daenerys, because who else would have been to blame?, she had denied it immediately. She said she had only mentioned it to a friend because she was worried. That she thought Sansa might have been embarrassed about being the only girl who was still a virgin, and had slept with a boy on a whim just to change that. She said she thought Sansa might be going through something and didn’t know how to help.
Even the way she apologised reeked of condescension.
But everyone always believed her. That’s always been the worst part. Just how easily everyone else accepted everything she told them at face value. How Daenerys could always manipulate the truth, always twisting something cruel into something that looked almost kind, and no one ever questioned it. No one, except Sansa.
And, now, Arya too.
“He’s an idiot,” Arya says, confidently. “And she’s just awful. I’m the only person who’s allowed to make you miserable.”
Sansa glances at her, almost smiling despite herself. “And I’m the only one who’s allowed to make you miserable.”
She grins broadly. “You wish.”
Sansa laughs along, but her mind is moving elsewhere, turning something over and over, fitting pieces together. Because this whole thing isn’t just about Robb or Daenerys or the two of them horrifyingly being together. It’s about the way he dismissed her. The way her parents didn’t really hear her, like all of the stories she told over the years about her, just went into one ear and out the other. And if they didn’t listen about this specific thing, then what else do they have no idea about? She hates that everything just slides past everyone like her feelings don’t matter.
Something in her expression must shift, because her sister notices. Arya has always been good at reading people.
“You have a weird look on your face,” Arya says suddenly.
Sansa turns to her, brows knitting slightly. “What?”
Arya squints, studying her like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “Like you’re planning to do something.”
Sansa pauses. Then shrugs, deliberately casual, smoothing a hand over her blanket. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Arya doesn’t buy it. She narrows her eyes further, leaning in just a fraction. “No, you are. That’s your scheming face.”
Sansa draws back just enough not to have Arya’s face directly on hers. Not because she has anything to hide!—simply because she doesn’t enjoy this abrupt closeness.
“I do not have a scheming face.”
“You absolutely do,” Arya says without skipping a beat. “And I know it very well.”
Sansa huffs, looking away. “You’re imagining things.”
Arya nudges her shoulder lightly with her own. “You’re gonna do something stupid, aren’t you?”
That almost makes Sansa smile. Because maybe… maybe she will. And maybe, for the first time since this whole mess started, the tight knot in her chest loosens just a little at the thought of it.
“I said that I don’t know what you mean,” she repeats, a touch too sweet to be convincing.
Arya watches her for another second. Then she snorts quietly, shaking her head. “Right,” she says, not pushing exactly. “I’m just saying, if I were you, I too would be plotting something.”
“Yeah?” she asks, genuinely curious, “Like what?”
“Why? You want ideas?”
Sansa shrugs. “I’m just wondering.”
Arya studies her, eyes partially closed in a signal of distrust. Still, she must decide her motives don’t matter, because she starts talking anyway. “Well, you need something that lasts. Something that gets under his skin every single day, the same way seeing him with her every single day bothers you.”
Sansa hums under her breath as she takes the idea in.
“Interesting.”
Something, she said. But, what if it isn’t a thing? What if it’s a someone.
Arya leans back on her hands, mirroring Sansa’s posture now, their shoulders finally bumping together properly this time.
“Is it?”
Neither of them moves away.
“Yeah. It really is,” she replies, absorbed in the thought of her possible revenge.
Then, as abruptly as it started, she changes the topic. “Hey, wanna watch a movie?” she asks, hoping Arya will catch the bait and let this go.
Arya understands what she’s trying to do, and for one single time in her entire life, she actually does let it go.
“Sure,” her sister agrees with a small shrug, “but I get to pick.”
“Absolutely not,” she replies, with a perfectly annoyed roll of her eye, “My room, my rules, my pick of movies.”
“Okay, well, then let’s move into my room.”
“Too late. You’re already here. You’ve entered my kingdom, so now you follow my laws.”
Arya starts laughing hysterically, but she picks up the remote and makes herself more comfortable on Sansa’s queen sized bed, and that, somehow, is enough for now.
—
The next day at school, Sansa sits at one of the long wooden tables in the library near the windows, her books spread out in a neat, organized display that would suggest, at least at first glance, that she is being exceptionally productive. She really isn’t.
“Well, if we look more closely at the causes of the great migration—” Jeyne is saying, her voice low but focused, her pen not quite tracing a line on her textbook to mark her point on the page.
Sansa nods absently. She isn’t even sure if Jeyne is just repeating aloud, but still quiet enough not to be heard by the tables nearby, for the sake of it, or because she thinks Sansa asked her to explain something.
Still, Sansa makes some noncommittal “Mmm-hm” sounds every once in a while, to make it seem like she’s actively listening. She hasn’t actually processed a single word Jeyne has spoken in the last hour.
Her attention is entirely elsewhere, fixed on the glow of her phone screen, half-hidden behind her history book. Her thumb scrolls slowly, deliberately, eyes narrowing slightly as she studies.
Because what—or rather, who—she’s looking at is far more interesting than anything Professor Dustin managed to ramble about in History class that morning.
Jon Snow. His profile isn’t particularly curated. No carefully filtered selfies or overly posed pictures. Just… things. Unorganized things. Hockey games, and group photos. Some nature photos, sunsets and rocks and trees, possibly taken during a hike. A few candid shots that look like they were taken without him noticing. He doesn’t seem like he enjoys posing for pictures.
Sansa tilts her head slightly, squinting at one particular photo. It’s from some match, he’s still in his gear, dark hair damp and pushed back, arm thrown around another player, and expression caught mid-laugh at something happening off-camera.
She zooms in a little. Then immediately tells herself she’s being ridiculous and zooms back out. This is strategic. This is research.
This… boy isn’t even her type. He is all dark looks and sharp angles, he looks handsome enough, with brown hair and piercing dark eyes, but Sansa has always been attracted to guys with blond hair, easy going attitudes and perfect smiles with perfect teeth.
Of course, that never worked out well for her, but she can’t just change what she likes!
“What’s so interesting in your phone?”
Sansa nearly jumps out of her skin. Margaery slides into the seat beside her with effortless grace, already leaning in, eyes sharp and curious as she tries to catch a glimpse of the screen.
Sansa reacts on instinct.
“Nothing!” she blurts, slapping her phone face down against the table with a loud thwack before Margaery can see anything.
A couple of heads turn. Jeyne’s pen stops mid-sentence and glares at Sansa, because unlike Sansa and Margaery, Jeyne is actually here to study.
“Sorry,” Sansa mouths half-heartedly, though she is sure she doesn’t sound particularly sorry.
“Okay…” Margaery says slowly.
Sansa doesn’t need to look at her to know the exact expression she’s wearing—that slightly narrowed, knowing gaze, like she’s already halfway to figuring it all out and just waiting for confirmation.
Still, Sansa forces herself to remain calm.
She reaches into her bag, pulls out a notebook and, with far more focus than she’s shown all afternoon, which is saying something in itself, and starts rewriting the first paragraph of the history book page she’s currently got open. That’s not so weird, Sansa is the type of student who has to rewrite pages and pages of her textbooks in order to retain the information in her head. Margie knows that. She just hopes she’s got the book open on the right chapter.
“I was just checking something,” she adds, a touch too quickly.
Margaery hums, entirely unconvinced.
Sansa can feel her still watching.
Beside them, Jeyne pointedly clears her throat and taps the page in front of them. “We were talking about the arrival of the Andals in Westeros,” she says, just a hint of reproach in her tone.
“Right,” Sansa says, eyes dropping to the text. “Of course. I knew that.”
She presses her lips together, forcing her gaze to stay on the page, which she can now confirm, is thankfully the correct one. Margaery would have gotten even more suspicious if Sansa started to turn the pages of the book until she found the correct one, after she pretended that she was listening from the beginning. Oh, well, she’s probably not fooling her anyway.
In fact, across from her, Margaery finally looks away, but the faint curve of her lips suggests she hasn’t let it go. Sansa gets the uneasy feeling that this conversation isn’t over.
Jeyne starts talking again, but once again, her words blur together almost instantly in Sansa’s mind. Her mind is already drifting away again.
—
Lunch at school is almost as loud as lunch in the Stark household. Instead of her siblings, it’s the voices of students overlapping, instead of her mother’s silverware scraping against their plates, it’s the sound of trays clattering. The chairs scraping is a constant in both places, but in school there’s also the perpetual background of white noise and someone inevitably laughing too loudly and irritatingly two tables over.
Sansa sits at their usual table, half-turned away from the crowd, her tray mostly untouched.
And, once again, she is not paying attention to anything happening in real life. She feels like she is excused though, she is the first at the table and she is lonely.
Stalking—no, studying—Jon Snow’s life through his painfully unhelpful Instagram, at least makes her feel less lonely.
She’s also going much deeper into it than before. Because one of the many things she’s discovered is that Jon Snow, apparently, is useless at social media.
His page is devoid of real posts or helpful captions. Or any indication at all of where he spends his time, what he likes, who he talks to beyond the occasional tagged photo. It’s like he exists online just enough to be found, but not enough to be known.
Which means that she had to adapt. She’s moved on to his friends.
Sam Tarly was her first success, or at least, her first lead. From what she gathered, he’s Jon’s best friend: earnest-looking, constantly smiling, and posting far too many pictures of either his girlfriend or what appears to be some kind of tabletop game night.
Not very helpful, but he seemed nice enough, and he posts a lot of pictures of Jon scowling over the board of the game. He actually has an entire folder of highlighted stories of Jon making that exact face. Is it because he’s losing, or because he doesn’t like the game? And, most importantly, why does she care?
Then there’s Pyp, whose account is… confusing. A mix of artsy self-portraits, outdated memes, and the occasional video of him dramatically reenacting movie scenes to an audience that, judging by the comments, finds him far funnier than Sansa does.
Also not helpful.
None of them post anything useful. No locations, no routines, nothing that could give her even the smallest strategic advantage!
Which is why this Val Rayder feels like a breakthrough.
Sansa scrolls slowly through her profile, eyes sharp, focused. Val posts everything. Group pictures, outings, tagged locations, all things that actually feel like glimpses into a real life. And not like the pictures a child getting gifted their first camera on their birthday, focused on documenting every little mundane thing in their house, would take.
Finally, someone who understands the purpose of social media.
Sansa leans in slightly, studying a picture more closely. She sees Val, Sam, Pyp, some other people she hasn’t got a name for yet, and there he is—
“Who’s Val Rayder?”
Sansa gasps.
Her phone hits the table face down with a sharp slap before she even fully registers the movement. She probably needs to stop doing that, or she’ll break the screen in a tiny million pieces before the school year is over.
She didn’t even hear Margaery approach. Of course she didn’t, because apparently Margaery Tyrell moves like a ninja in high heels.
“It’s nothing,” Sansa says quickly, a little too quickly.
Margaery doesn’t even bother responding to that.
Instead, she calmly picks up the phone. Sansa’s stomach drops. Because Margaery knows her passcode. Of course she does. How could she forget!?
Before Sansa can even think of a way to stop her, the screen lights up, unlocked with effortless precision. Margaery scrolls.
Up. Down. Slow. Thorough.
Sansa watches, frozen. She could snatch it back. She should. But it’s too late, Margaery has already seen the girl’s name, and if Sansa takes it now, she’ll just look it up on her own phone within seconds.
Better to just contain the damage. Margaery’s expression doesn’t change much as she scrolls. No immediate reaction, no dramatic gasp, and for a second, Sansa thinks—hopes—that she might actually get away with this.
Until—
“Is that Jon Snow?”
Margaery turns the phone toward her.
The screen shows a group selfie. Val looks beautiful right in the center of the screen, Sam and his girlfriend Gilly are beside her, a few others crowded in, and, unmistakably, Jon Snow somewhere in the back.
Sansa squints at it. Like she hasn’t already memorized every pixel of that image.
“You know what?” she says, tilting her head slightly. “That name doesn’t really sound familiar.”
Margaery stares at her. Then she all but starts laughing.
“You’re a terrible liar, Stark.”
Sansa presses her lips together, trying to look mildly confused rather than deeply exposed.
“Jon Snow,” Margaery continues, grinning now. “Your brother’s self-proclaimed mortal enemy? Ringing any bells?”
“Ohhh,” Sansa says, dragging it out like a realization just dawned on her. “I suppose that might be him, yes. Winterfell isn’t that big.”
“Okay…” Margaery says, though there’s absolutely no belief behind it.
She lowers the phone slightly, studying Sansa with renewed interest.
“So,” she goes on, “what were you doing stalking his friend’s Instagram?”
Sansa blinks.
“Jon’s friend?” she repeats, a touch too brightly. “That’s Jon Snow’s friend? Wow.” She lets out a too loud laugh that comes out sounding hysterical. “The world is so small! Actually, I was looking at her profile because…”
She trails off into silence. Her brain, so quick and efficient five minutes ago, is now completely blank.
Margaery waits.
Sansa opens her mouth, then closes it. Nothing comes out.
After a painfully long pause, she exhales and drops the act, lifting her gaze to meet Margaery’s.
Margaery is staring at her with the most unimpressed, deadpan expression imaginable.
“Seriously?” she asks, almost offended. “You could not come up with one single reason why you might be stalking her?”
“You know I don’t perform well under pressure!” Sansa snaps, defensive.
Margaery snorts. Then her eyes narrow slightly, something shifting as she pieces it together.
“So,” she says slowly, “what’s up with Snow? Ohhhh.” Her grin widens. “You fancy him? Robb will be so mad—”
And then, it actually clicks in her brain. Sansa sees it happen in real time. Margaery’s expression sharpens, her grin turning positively wicked as she looks at her again.
“Oh, Sansa,” she says, almost delighted. “You little minx.”
Sansa says nothing, still foolishly hoping that Margaery arrived at the wrong conclusion.
“You’re doing this to get revenge on your brother?” Margaery continues, leaning in slightly. She doesn’t wait for a confirmation; she does not need one. “That’s brutal. I love it.”
Sansa exhales, all the tension leaving her at once as she lets her forehead drop onto the table with a soft thunk.
“I hate that you’re so smart,” she mutters into the table.
“Thanks,” Margaery replies brightly. “Right back at ya.”
Sansa lifts her head just enough to look at her. Margaery is practically glowing with excitement now.
“So,” she says, clasping her hands together lightly, “how’s this thing going to go down?”
Sansa hesitates.
“You… you won’t try to talk me out of it?”
Margaery leans back slightly, gesturing to herself with a dramatic flourish. “Hello?” she sing-songs. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
Sansa stares at her for a second.
Then, despite the chaos of the plan and the sheer absurdity of it all, she smiles, because if there’s anyone who won’t try and stop her, that someone is Margaery Tyrell.