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Sansa's world had narrowed down to Margaery's mouth on hers, Margaery's hands on her hips, Margaery's breasts pressed against hers.
Margaery pulled back with a gentle exhale; her laughing brown eyes were crinkled at the corners, and one side of her mouth was lifted in a questioning quirk. Sansa lifted her hand and twined her fingers in the soft brown curls falling around Margaery's shoulders. She slid her hand down Margaery's throat and stroked the soft skin behind her ear; Margaery's eyes fluttered towards closed as she leaned into the touch.
Sansa moved her hand to the back of Margaery's neck and tugged her closer. This time the kiss was bolder; Margaery caught Sansa's lower lip with her teeth, and Sansa opened her mouth for Margaery's tongue.
Sansa moved her other hand from Margaery's hip, up over her stomach and abdomen; she felt Margaery's muscles flutter beneath her fingertips as though the other girl was ticklish. She rested her hand just beneath Margaery's breast; she wasn't quite brave enough to go further.
Margaery stepped forward without breaking the kiss, forcing Sansa to walk backwards until she hit the countertop. Sansa reached back for something solid to grab hold of; her knees were trembling and threatening to give out.
"Ow!" Sansa wrenched her mouth from Margaery's and looked down at her bleeding palm; the counter they'd been kissing against was strewn with cut roses, mostly white and yellow, and Sansa had grabbed a thorny stem.
Sansa was having white and yellow roses at her wedding.
"Oh, Willas," she moaned. "How could we?"
"Hey, I know--" said Margaery gently, reaching out for Sansa's injured hand. "I love my brother."
"And I don't?" Sansa snapped. Margaery's only response was an archly raised eyebrow, and Sansa quickly slid sideways away from her. "I have to go."
Margaery's expression immediately softened. "Wait," she caught Sansa's wrist. "We can work this out."
Sansa tugged free. "I'm marrying your brother next week, Margaery, we can't work this out."
Sansa bolted from the back room, through the shop, and out onto the street; the bright spring sunshine seemed to be mocking her.
Five Weeks Before the Wedding
"Breakfast's ready," Willas called through from the kitchen.
Sansa rose, still in her pink plaid pyjamas, and found her fiancé loading up a tray with toast, butter, jam, and orange juice. Sansa picked up the tray while Willas braced himself on his crutch and followed her back to bed with a pot of coffee.
Sansa pushed aside the binders, notebooks, and wedding related aids to memory that littered their bed and set the tray down. Willas passed her the coffee and leveraged his bad leg onto the mattress.
"Robb wants to wear a kilt to the wedding," Sansa said, pouring coffee for them both. "I think he wants to show his knees off for the girls."
"He must have better knees than me."
"He does," Sansa said solemnly, "much better," and Willas bumped her affectionately with his shoulder.
"I'm meeting Oberyn later today to hear his plans for my stag night--" Willas buttered a slice of toast and offered it to Sansa "--and presumably rejecting them out of hand and telling him to take it down eighty or ninety notches. What about you?"
"Bridesmaid's fitting, then--" Sansa flipped through a diary close to bursting its bindings with all the post-its and scraps of paper shoved inside "--oh, the florist!"
"I'm sorry work means I can't come with you," said Willas. "I would have loved to introduce you to Margaery properly."
"I don't mind going by myself. Although, how come I'm not meeting your sister until nearly a month before the wedding?" Sansa had met Willas' parents, his two brothers, assorted cousins, and had even been appraised by his grandmother in the most terrifying Skype interview of her life. "Were you worried she was going to tell me embarrassing stories about you?"
Willas chuckled. "I'm certain she will. No, Margaery was at uni abroad when we started going out, and when our grandmother had to move somewhere with a better climate for the sake of her health Margaery moved again to be close to her. When Margaery did move home, opening up the shop took up almost all of her time, and by the time that quieted down we were both busy with work and hip deep in wedding preparations. I'm sure you'll love her, though."
Sansa smiled. "I'm sure I will, too."
*
Sansa sat with her mother outside the changing room.
"You know," Cat's voice was pitched low enough that Arya, changing on the other side of a curtain, wouldn't hear her, "if you really wanted your sister to wear a bridesmaid dress..."
Cat trailed off with a small smile, probably imagining the same thing as Sansa: Arya wearing something peach with ruffled sleeves.
If Sansa had gotten married only a few years earlier, if she'd married her first boyfriend Harry, then she probably would have forced Arya into something pastel and floofy, sulking and tantrums be damned.
But to the surprise of no one so much as themselves, the Stark sisters had become close once they'd both left home. Sansa partly credited Willas for their newfound friendship; Arya thought the world of Willas.
"It's fine, mum," Sansa said. "Brienne's wearing a suit too; they'll match, it'll be adorable."
"Ta da!" said Arya, yanking the curtain open, crossing one leg over the other and sticking her hands in her pockets all faux-casual. She was wearing a sharply tailored black suit, a white dress shirt with an open collar, and she had an untied bowtie draped around her neck.
Cat fussed around her, brushing imaginary lint from Arya's shoulders. "You'll have to learn to tie that bowtie before the wedding, young lady."
"I'll just get a clip-on."
Arya caught Sansa's eye and flashed a grin as their mother's voice rose. "Arya Stark, you will not be wearing a clip-on bowtie on your sister's big day!"
*
Highgarden Blooms was located on a quiet shopping street between a charity bookshop and a Dornish delicatessen. The shop-front was painted dark green but mostly obscured by buckets of flowers and chalked price lists.
The shop door opened with the tinkle of an old-fashioned bell, and Sansa nearly collided with a man with dark curly hair clutching a potted cactus like his life depended on it.
"Sorry," he apologised, and a female voice from inside the shop asked, "Are you alright?"
The inside of the shop was crowed with displays of ready-made bouquets, buckets of cut flowers, and a display of potted plants; the air was heavy with a heady floral scent. The woman looking expectantly at Sansa from behind the till had the same warm brown eyes as Willas, although hers were filled with mirth; her soft-looking brown curls fell about her shoulders, and her blouse was open one more button than Sansa would have been comfortable with.
"I--" Sansa looked back up to see the woman's mouth had curved into a hint of a smile. "You're Margaery, right? I'm Sansa Stark."
Margaery's smile vanished as she assessed Sansa from the toes of her sandshoes to the top of her head. "The bride-to-be." She walked past Sansa and flipped the sign on the door to closed.
"Um," Sansa began awkwardly. She'd always got along fine with Garlan and Loras, and she'd expected to get along with Willas' sister just as well. "If this is a bad time--?"
"It's fine," said Margaery. "I usually close the shop for a couple of hours for deliveries anyway. Come through to the back."
The back room was packed to bursting with flowers. Margaery cleared space on a worktop, found a notepad, took one of only two stools, and started talking about centrepieces, bridal bouquets, and flowers for the bridesmaids; the only time she looked more than professionally interested was when Sansa said that her bridesmaids would only be needing lapel flowers.
"Anyway, I've always imagined roses for my wedding--"
"Hmm," Margaery made a non-committal noise.
"White, and I was thinking, maybe, yellow?"
Margaery looked up from the notes she was making, her head cocked to one side. "Yellow roses represent friendship."
"Well," said Sansa, "Willas is my best friend."
"My best friend is a woman named Cersei Lannister, and I wouldn't be caught dead married to her. Although," Margaery conceded with a small smile, and Sansa couldn't help but notice that she smiled with only one side of her mouth, "Cersei and I are really more of a best frenemies thing."
Four Weeks Before the Wedding
Leonette had taken an Uber home earlier to relieve the babysitter and Renly had been nominated by Loras to do the washing up, so Sansa was sitting in the living room with the four Tyrell siblings and a coffee table strewn with empty wine glasses and coffee cups.
"You know, Margaery," began Garlan teasingly, nodding towards Sansa and Willas sitting together on the sofa, "after these two tie the knot you'll be the only one of us not married."
Sansa leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Do you have a boyfriend, Margaery?" She cringed inwardly at the forced cheer in her voice.
Margaery had been coolly polite to her since their first meeting in the florist, and Sansa had been hoping that this dinner party would be the first step in getting to know her better. It wasn't just that she was Willas' sister, or that Willas had made such an effort to get along with Sansa's family (he'd been a godsend after Bran's accident) it was... to be honest, Sansa wasn't entirely sure why she so badly wanted Margaery to like her.
Loras let out a hoot of laughter. "Margaery's the only lesbian I know who was upset when they legalised gay marriage, it meant she couldn't use it as a cover for her commitment phobia anymore."
Margaery sniffed. "I just haven't met the right girl yet. Bathroom?" she asked Willas, who pointed her in the right direction.
*
Later, after Loras and Renly had headed down to their car, a cheerfully tipsy Loras talking loudly about how lucky he was to have a tea-totaler for a husband, and after Garlan had decided to start walking home and pick up a taxi along the way, Willas was collecting empty wine bottles for Sansa to take down to the recycling.
"Did Margaery leave without saying goodbye?" Sansa asked, strangely hurt.
"I think she's up on the terrace," said Willas. "Actually, can you go up and ask if she wants to stay in the spare room tonight?"
Sansa and Willas' flat was on the top floor and came with a rooftop terrace, but climbing the stairs to it played hell with Willas' bad knee. So all that was up there was some rusting patio furniture, the fairy lights Sansa hadn't taken down from Christmas, and Margaery Tyrell gazing up at the stars.
"You should have a trellis over there--" Margaery said, pointing at the wall "--the ivy would take no time at all." She carried on, sketching a green paradise in the middle of the city.
"That sounds lovely," Sansa replied honestly, "but I have a black thumb and Willas is hardly ever up here - the stairs, you know."
The idea of having a garden idyll that Willas couldn't enjoy seemed unbearably cruel to Sansa.
Margaery peered at her. "You really do care for my brother, don't you?"
"Of course I do. I'm marrying him."
"Do you know why I never made much of an effort to meet you?" Sansa met Margaery's eyes, but said nothing. "I never thought that this wedding would actually happen. The night I told Willas that I wasn't interested in boys, he said neither was he, or girls, at least not physically."
"I know," said Sansa. She couldn't look at Margaery anymore, so she looked over her shoulder at the skyline.
Sansa and Willas had slept together two and a half times in their entire relationship: the first two times when they'd just started going out, and the half a year later after they'd drank too much at Oberyn's New Year's Eve party and both fallen asleep during the act.
It was really none of Margaery's concern that neither of them having much, er, interest in the physical side of things was one of the cornerstones of their relationship.
Sansa looked back at Margaery-- "I guess I'm not interested in boys either, at least not physically."
The strange half smile was back on Margaery's face. "It's probably best that I wasn't here when you and Willas started going out." Margaery stepped close to Sansa; she was a little shorter than her and had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. "You're so exactly my type that it would only have ended in tears."
Margaery disappeared back down into the flat, and Sansa exhaled long and slow.
By the time Sansa had gathered herself enough to head back downstairs Margaery had already declined Willas' offer to stay the night and headed home.
Three Weeks Before the Wedding
Sansa and Willas were sitting on opposite sofas, both with cups of tea at their sides and their feet up on the coffee table.
Willas was watching something on his laptop with headphones in, and Sansa was half-heartedly scrolling on her phone, mostly though she was watching Willas, waiting for him to smile.
It was kind of hard to tell through Willas' reddish-brown beard, but he didn't have the same enigmatic half smile as his sister; his smiles were easy and open and without secrets.
Willas plucked out his ear-buds and said, "By the way, I got you a date for Saturday."
"Huh?"
"You know how my boss is making me go to this dreadful work thing on Saturday night--?" on cue Sansa made hissing noises at the mention of Willas' boss. "Well, Margaery's going to accompany you to Brienne's birthday party in my stead."
"I, um--" Sansa began, and Willas frowned. "I don't think your sister likes me."
Willas laughed. "Funny you should say that, because she's been telling me how great she thinks you are all week."
Nervous butterflies tentatively fluttered their wings in Sansa's stomach. "Really?"
Willas nodded. "Plus, Margaery's not been home for all that long, and she's lost touch with a lot of her old friends, you'd be doing her a favour by introducing her to everyone."
*
"I don't know how much Willas told you about this party--?"
(Margaery had picked Sansa up on Saturday afternoon, wearing a dress and holding a small bouquet of daisies. "For the birthday girl," she'd said seeing Sansa's eyes widen at the flowers, "but I promise to bring you flowers next time.")
"Nothing at all."
"Well, first of all it's not really a party, there's probably only going to be about five of us. And the plan is to get a quick bite to eat and then play laser tag."
Margaery stopped in the middle of the path, causing the couple walking behind them to split around her, looked down at her dress and heels and said, "I'm not really dressed for laser tag."
A smile crept onto Sansa's face. "Not really, no."
"Willas set me up."
Sansa's smile turned into a full-blown grin. "A little bit, I think."
Margaery frowned, then burst out laughing. She took Sansa's arm, said, "Come on, then," and towed her down the path.
*
Just as they were approaching the restaurant where they were all meeting for food and gifts Margaery came to an abrupt stop. "Wait. I should say--" Margaery couldn't quite meet Sansa's eyes. "The night I came to dinner, I shouldn't have said what I did on the roof."
"I--" Sansa began, stopped, adopted a teasing tone and said, "You mean I'm not your type?"
Margaery realised that Sansa was teasing her; her lopsided smile was back on her face. "Not even a little bit," she said brightly. "I mean, who likes tall, gorgeous redheads anyway?" And she turned on her heel and pushed her way into the restaurant.
Sansa watched her go, grinning.
*
Brienne was one of Sansa's very favourite people, but she was also almost painfully shy; she had only agreed to be Sansa's best woman for the wedding when Sansa had promised that there would be no public speaking involved.
Sansa's guess that there would be around five people at the party turned out to be pretty accurate. In addition to Sansa and Margaery, there was Sansa's sister Arya, Podrick, and Jaime Lannister. For all of Brienne's shyness, when she did make friends she befriended all sorts of different people.
Brienne blushed and mumbled her thanks when Margaery presented her with the flowers. Sansa and Willas had, only partly as a joke, gotten Brienne a gift certificate for motorcycle lessons.
"Great," said Jaime, "you'll be able to chauffeur me about." Jaime hadn't been able to drive since he'd lost his hand.
"As if I'd want you sitting behind me while I was trying to drive, Lannister."
"If it would bother you that much you could get me a sidecar."
It turned out that Margaery knew Jaime's sister, and they had a brief bonding moment over that.
"Isn't she awful?"
"Totally awful, yeah."
Margaery slotted into the group like a missing jigsaw piece.
*
They split into teams of two for laser tag: Jaime with Brienne, and Arya with Pod; leaving Sansa and Margaery to take shelter behind a low wall in the darkened maze when they grew tired of being shot.
"We have six brothers between us and I'm a lesbian," said Margaery, pushing her skirt down to her knees. "How are we so bad at this?"
"Well," said Sansa. She thought that maybe Margaery's long pale legs made for an easy target, but that train of thought was derailed by Arya's undulating war cry. "It sounds like it will be over soon anyway."
Margaery settled back against the wall and tipped her head towards Sansa. "This reminds me of being in the back row at the cinema."
Sansa half-shrugged. Margaery had been playfully flirting with everyone all day; Brienne had blushed and Pod had boggled, and Jaime and Arya had both seemed to be in on the joke. And thinking of the back row of the cinema made Sansa think of Harry and his octopus hands more than Margaery Tyrell and her gentle flirting.
"I never really did that sort of thing."
Margaery nudged Sansa's pinkie finger with her own, and there was a heavy, building silence like she was about to say something; the silence was broken by the lights coming up and Arya taking a whooping victory lap waving her plastic gun over her head.
Margaery stood, brushed her dress down, and offered her hand to Sansa, and after a moment Sansa took it.
*
After the boys had bid their farewells, Brienne had hugged Sansa goodbye, and Arya had slugged her on the arm and said she see her at home tomorrow for Sunday lunch, Margaery turned to Sansa and said, "Do you want to get some ice-cream?"
Sansa looked around. "It's after dark."
"It is," Margaery agreed. "So?"
"Yeah, okay."
They found a Dornish cafe that sold ice-cream into the early hours; Sansa got two scoops of vanilla and Margaery went for coffee flavoured. They strolled, indirectly, in the direction of Sansa and Willas' flat.
Margaery told a funny, meandering story about a customer who'd sent a bunch of roses to the same girl every day until Margaery's sense of female solidarity had overcome her fondness for easy money and she'd had to sit the guy down and tell him: she's just not that into you.
"Thanks for bringing me along today," Margaery said, slowing to a dawdle as they approached the Highgarden Blooms delivery van parked around the corner from the flat. "I had a really good time."
"Thanks for coming. I had a really nice time too, even if you are a terrible laser tag partner."
Margaery chuckled and leaned against the side of the van. "Can I ask you something? You can tell me to shut up if you like, because I know it's none of my business."
Sansa nodded, feeling apprehensive all of a sudden. "Sure."
Margaery was looking intently at her. "Up on the roof, you said that you weren't interested in sleeping with guys. Is it only guys, or--?"
Sansa had been planning her wedding since she was in infant school and playing at weddings with Jeyne Poole. She'd half expected to marry Harry even as she made excuses to avoid his touch. Willas was wonderful; he was her best friend. Together they were going to have the life Sansa had always wanted.
"I, um-- I've never thought about it," Sansa lied.
"Oh, hey--" Margaery said softly, bringing her hand up to Sansa's face and using her thumb to wipe away the tear that was rolling down Sansa's cheek. "Don't cry."
Sansa squeezed her eyes closed and when she opened them Margaery was very, very close; she couldn't tear her eyes away from Margaery's cupid's bow, and she could almost taste the coffee ice-cream. Sansa wet her lips and leaned in...
Margaery jerked back, cursed, and dropped her van keys. "I'm sorry--" she apologised, scrambling to pick up the keys. "I keep blowing this."
"I need to go." Sansa turned and walked quickly towards the flat, only turning back once to see Margaery dejectedly holding her keys in a circle of neon street lighting.
Two Weeks Before the Wedding
Willas was standing in the kitchen, leaning lightly on his crutch, waiting for the coffee machine to finish percolating. Sansa walked up to him, placed her hands on his waist, tilted her face up, and kissed him.
Willas adjusted his weight on his crutch, placed his other hand at the small of Sansa's back and returned the kiss.
Sansa was happy with the absence of sex from their relationship, but sometimes she really, really missed kissing.
Willas was forever kissing Sansa on the cheek or the forehead, and sometimes they even kissed like this. But it was always Sansa who initiated it, and it wasn't hard to tell that Willas' heart wasn't in it. He kissed like he watched romantic comedies or ate sushi - he was doing it because he knew Sansa liked it, not because he actually wanted to.
Sansa pulled back; Willas' beard itched anyway.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"Nothing. Just--" the coffee machine made a gurgling, spitting sound. "Your coffee's ready."
*
Later, when Sansa and Willas were sorting through late RSVPs to the wedding she asked him, "Have you ever kissed a boy?"
"Of course," he answered, without looking up from his stack.
"Oh, of course," Sansa teased.
"I've been best friends Oberyn Martell since primary school," he said lightly, "it couldn't be avoided."
"Did it feel different?"
Willas looked up. "Different how?"
"Different from kissing me?"
"Well, I'm not marrying Oberyn," Willas joked. Sansa didn't look away and eventually Willas' expression turned serious and he said, "No. No, it didn't feel any different."
One Week Before the Wedding
Sansa squared her shoulders and pushed the shop door open; the light tinkling of the bell felt distinctly at odds with her determined mood.
There were no customers inside, and Margaery's mouth curved into an easy, asymmetrical smile at the sight of Sansa. "Hey, you."
Sansa's stomach swooped. She didn't say anything, she just flipped the sign on the door to closed, walked behind the till, grabbed Margaery's hand, and tugged her through to the back.
The back room was just as overfull of flowers as Sansa remembered; she wanted to pace but there wasn't enough clear space on the floor.
Margaery didn't say anything; she just looked at Sansa with a puzzled, patient expression.
"You almost kissed me."
Sansa waited for Margaery to explain; to say something, to say anything. "Yes."
"Willas doesn't kiss me. He doesn't like it. And that's fine, it was fine, because I didn't want to kiss anybody else. And then you--"
"Sansa..." Margaery's voice was apologetic.
"No!" Sansa didn't want an apology. "No, you came along, and you almost kissed me, and the very worst part of it is that I really wish you had..."
Margaery stepped forward, took Sansa's face in her hands, and closed the distance between them.
Sansa's world narrowed down to Margaery's mouth on hers, Margaery's hands on her hips, Margaery's breasts pressed against hers.
Margaery pulled back with a gentle exhale; her laughing brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and she lifted one side of her mouth in a questioning quirk...
*
Later, after Sansa had fled the florists in a fit of abject self-loathing, Willas asked her if anything was wrong, only he'd noticed that she was quiet and not eating.
Tell him, tell him, tell him, Sansa ordered herself.
Instead she offered him a wan smile and said, "Wedding jitters, I guess."
Sansa pushed away the plate of spaghetti she'd been toying with; she felt sick to her stomach.
*
Sansa called Margaery three times and hung up before she could answer; eventually she texted her a day and time to meet in this park.
She couldn't have blamed Margaery for not showing up, but the other girl was already sitting on a park bench when Sansa arrived; her chin was tucked into the collar of her jacket, and her phone was pressed to her ear.
Margaery hung up, and Sansa said, "I didn't mean to interrupt--"
Margaery shrugged carelessly. "I wasn't actually talking to anyone," she said, standing to face Sansa. "It was a self-inflicted punishment; I was listening to all the judgmental three in the morning voicemails Cersei's been leaving me about falling for my brother's fiancée."
Sansa's heart clenched at the words falling for. "I can't do this," she said, pleading with Margaery to understand. "I can't actually do this. I'm not--"
Margaery's eyebrow rose, and there was a cold edge in her voice when she said, "You're not what?"
"I care about Willas. We've built a life together. It's the life I've wanted since I was a little girl."
"You know what, Sansa? If you don't want me, that's fine, but if you're only marrying my brother so that you can have a husband without having to lie back and think of Winterfell--" that wasn't what Sansa was doing, but she still winced to hear it described in such unflinching terms "--then that's cruel."
"Margaery--" Sansa began helplessly, but Margaery had already shoved her hands deep in her pockets and was walking away.
The Big Day
Sansa had always loved her dad, but she'd probably never loved him quite as much as she did today.
When Sansa had frozen and been unable to get out of the limousine her dad had said he'd wait with her for as long as she needed, and when Sansa had asked him to bring Willas out to her Ned Stark hadn't asked questions, he'd just squeezed her hand and said, of course.
Now Sansa and Willas were sitting in the backseat of a limo outside a church full of all their friends and family. Willas looked very handsome in his morning suit, Sansa thought.
Sansa looked down at the long, lovely white skirt of her wedding dress, took a deep breath, and said, "I kissed Margaery."
"I know," said Willas, and Sansa's eyes snapped up to meet his. "She told me a few days ago."
"You didn't say anything."
"Neither did you." It didn't sound like an accusation; Willas just sounded unbearably sad. "I thought that perhaps you might not, and if you didn't it would mean you still wanted to marry me."
"Willas..." Sansa said sadly; she reached for his hand, then thought better of it.
"I thought I'd gotten so lucky to have met you; I thought we were wired the same." Sansa had thought that too. "I thought I could be someone's husband without having to, you know... I never meant to keep you from the sort of relationship you wanted."
"You weren't!" Sansa insisted. "I love you, Willas. I do. You deserve to have the sort of relationship you want, and for the longest time I wanted to be the one to have it with you, but--"
"But," said Willas, and there was a sad finality to it.
"You're my best friend," said Sansa; it was the truth, and it wasn't enough.
"You're mine, too." Willas leaned over and kissed Sansa on the temple. "But I think I'm going to need some space for a while."
"Do you want me to tell people?" Sansa dreaded the thought, but this was all her fault, and she had to offer.
"No, I'll tell them." Willas opened the limousine door. "Would you pass me my crutch, Sansa?"
*
Sansa was on the roof terrace; she was wearing a coat over her wedding dress and had her arms wrapped around her middle.
Willas was downstairs with Oberyn and Ellaria. Oberyn was furious; he and Willas had been friends since the playground, and though they were as different as night and day they were fiercely protective of one another. Ellaria had merely looked contemptuous.
Sansa had been sitting downstairs with them in awkward, angry silence as Willas packed; he was going on his and Sansa's honeymoon, with Oberyn.
"Don't worry, I'll be careful," Willas had said when he'd seen Sansa getting worried about what might happen on a two-week jaunt to Lys with Oberyn Martell.
That had been enough to send Sansa fleeing to the roof terrace before she burst into tears.
Sansa heard someone climbing the stairs behind her; even if Willas had decided to brave the stairs Sansa would have heard his crutch, and Oberyn would have nothing to say to her. Sansa half expected it to be Ellaria; a tiny part of her hoped for Margaery.
She turned and saw Arya gaining the last step; she was still wearing her wedding suit, and her bowtie was untied. "Willas let me in as he was leaving," she said.
Sansa huffed. "If you've come to yell me," she said, "can it wait till Sunday lunch? You can shout while Bran shoots me betrayed looks from the other side of the roast potatoes."
Arya wandered over with her hands in her pockets until she was standing next to Sansa, and they both looked out over the skyline. "So, you're a lesbian?"
"I--" Sansa swallowed, swallowed again, and said, "Yeah, I think so."
Arya looked at Sansa out of the corner of her eye and said, "The time to realise that would probably have been before the months of wedding preparations, huh?"
Sansa laughed darkly. "Probably."
"I'm keeping the suit," Arya said with a lightening quick grin. "Gendry likes it."
"Even the bowtie?" Sansa's answering smile felt watery and weak, but she loved Arya for trying.
"Especially the bowtie," said Arya. "My boyfriend's a weirdo."
It wasn't like she and Arya had ever made a habit of comparing notes on their boyfriends, but it struck Sansa that now they never would.
Arya's expression turned sharp and serious. "When are you going to see Margaery?"
"I don't think I am."
"What?" Arya demanded. "Why not?"
"I've behaved so badly through this whole thing."
"Well, yeah." Arya looked at Sansa like she was an idiot. "You and your girlfriend have both behaved like colossal dicks, but making everybody even more miserable than they already are isn't the answer."
*
Sansa left it a day before she went to see Margaery. It was too soon to be tasteful, but at least she wasn't in her wedding dress with mascara streaked down her face.
The bell rang as Sansa pushed the door to the florist open.
Margaery looked up, her face was carefully blank. "Hey."
"Hey," said Sansa. The sole customer in the shop decided that she'd prefer to buy her flowers from a supermarket forecourt, after all. "You didn't come to the wedding--?"
"Yeah, that seemed like it would have been a really bad idea. Loras and Renly promised that they'd look after your flowers."
"My flowers were lovely--" Sansa said honestly, not that it had mattered in the end. "I guess you've heard what happened?"
"Yeah, I've been getting angry messages since yesterday." Margaery shook her head. "I think Willas is the only one who isn't mad at me."
Sansa took a deep breath, raised her chin, and said, "I understand if you don't want me--" It was an echo of what Margaery had said to her in the park. "I'm still confused, and I don't know how much I want to..." Sansa trailed off, she had been celibate for years, and she didn't know how quickly she wanted that to change, but God, she wanted to kiss Margaery. "But I know I want you."
Margaery was still for a long drawn out moment - then she came out from behind the till, crossed the shop floor in three quick steps, seized Sansa around the waist and kissed her.
Sansa pulled back, her sense of relief escaping as a burst of giggles. Margaery's ridiculously endearing half smile was back, and she said, "You know, family Christmases are going to be really weird from now on."
Sansa thought that she was probably right, but for the moment all that she could do about it was close the distance and kiss Margaery again.