Chapter Text
“Uhm … do you want anything?” Sansa asked, biting her lip.
Jon was sitting at the Stark kitchen table, looking just as awkward as she was feeling as she leaned on the kitchen counter. Jon wasn’t his usual self - there was lots of nervous fidgeting. His black eye also, obviously, made him look different, rougher. Sansa found it a little distracting. But, to her embarrassment, not entirely unappealing.
“No, I’m fine”, he answered her question.
And then they were quiet.
“So … “ Sansa tried, when the silence became unbearable. “How’s school been?” God, she sounded like Uncle Edmure at a family gathering.
“Fine, thanks”, Jon replied politely. “I missed a couple of days last week …”
“Oh, right!” Sansa said, color rising on her cheeks. How could she have forgotten? “The suspension.”
“Yeah. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that …” Jon looked down at his hands on the table. Normally Sansa was the one most flustered during their conversations - strangely, she felt rather emboldened by his nervousness. “I am sorry if I made things worse … or weird, or awkward, it’s just that …”
He cut himself off, still not looking her in the eyes.
“It’s just that what?” Sansa urged, her heart pounding, as if it could sense something significant was about to happen.
“I - oh, I don’t know”, he went, frustrated, still not making eye contact, his hands nervously moving on the table. “I - Sansa, I should probably tell you that I - ”
“You what, Jon?”, Sansa said, unsure if she should be annoyed or amused.
“I -” And then finally, he looked up at her, meeting her gaze at last. “Sansa, I think I might be a little bit in love with you.”
…
…
… !?
“Wh- I - y-” Those are not words. Start over. “What are you -”
“I’m sorry”, he said for some reason. His eyes left hers and traveled back to his hands, his voice low as he continued. “I just wanted you to know. If, uhm, Joffrey has me assassinated or something.” He froze, seeming to realise what he just said.
“Shit”, he blurted out, “I shouldn’t joke like that, should I? I’m sorry, San. This is a mess, isn’t it?” He ran a hand through his hair, eyes darting towards the kitchen door as if he was debating whether or not to make a run for it.
“Since when?” Sansa finally managed to ask. “Since when are you a little … “ - she was blushing too much to even say the words, instead making a strange hand gesture that she immediately regretted - “with me?”
“I - I don’t know!” He made a vague gesture. “I didn’t … I mean … since we started studying together?”
“What? Jon, that’s like ten months ago!”
“Sorry! You were just so … I don’t know. You know never really used to talk before that, and then we did, and you were so funny, and smart, and really really bad at math …”
“Thanks.” She pressed her lips together to keep a goofy smile from spreading. He still wasn’t looking at her. Sansa wished he would now.
"Jon." Her voice quivered a little, but it was strange - she didn't feel nervous at all anymore. Carefully, slowly, almost shaking, like a newborn foal learning to walk, she took a tiny step forward. Towards the table.
Towards Jon.
Towards something else, something new, something that had her feeling strangely weightless.
He got up when she approached, nearly knocking over the chair, eyes still refusing to meet hers, and then she stepped forward and he did too and it was a little bit rushed and awkward but suddenly he was there, so close, could he hear her heart beating? -
- and then he looked at her.
Looked at her like no one had before.
* * *
Oh, so this was how it was supposed to feel.
***
A WEEK LATER
"Marg?" Sansa said. They were alone in the Stark kitchen again, having tea, the house quiet for once - Arya was at the movies with Gendry, Bran was at the Reeds', Rickon and their mom gone on a visit to their grandfather. Robb would be home any minute now, but Sansa had to tell Margaery now, had to, otherwise she would burst.
"What?" Margaery urged, and Sansa knew she could tell something was going on. She always could.
"Marg, I think I might be a little bit in love." She intentionally used the same phrase Jon had, when he'd sat in this very chair a week back and ...
(God, she was grinning, wasn't she?)
To Sansa's surprise, Margaery didn't seem at all startled at the statement, simply regarding Sansa with a smile tugging at her lips.
"I know", Marg finally said, laughing at the flabbergasted face Sansa was making. "With Jon, right?"
It took Sansa a few seconds to regain her ability to speak.
"How did you -" She cut herself off, Margaery looking just as frustrated as Sansa felt when they heard Robb's keys in the door, followed by a "hello?" that was way too loud.
He had a shitty sense of timing, her brother, sometimes.
"Don't tell Robb", was all Sansa had time to say before the man himself stepped into the kitchen.
"Don't tell Robb what?" her brother said, eyes wide, hair messy, a goofy half-smile playing on his lips like always when he looked at Margaery, then back at Sansa.
A grin was all the reply he got as Sansa walked past him out of the kitchen, turning in the doorway to exhaduratedly wink at Margaery.
"Don't tell Robb what?" Robb asked again, but Sansa was already halfway up the stairs, her grin lasting all the way to her room.
***
It had been two weeks and Sansa knew it was time to tell her siblings.
She made Margaery be there as she made the announcement, blushing the whole time, not daring to make eye contact. When she looked up, her siblings seemed just as unsurprised as Margaery had.
"You all already knew, didn't you?" Sansa said in a monotone voice. (God, was she the only one who had been surprised by this whole Jon and Sansa business?)
"Rickon saw you kissing him goodbye in the hallway last week", Robb said with an unreadable facial expression.
"And he's been coming over to see you like everyday, lately", Bran shot in. "We didn't really believe you were studying that much."
"Yeah, we knew you were bad at math, but not that bad", Arya said.
***
"Sansa", Jon said, pulling back from the kiss and moving his chair to put some distance between them. "We really, really should be doing math."
"Right. Math."
Sansa found she was ... a little bit unfocused on math at the moment.
She was a bit lightheaded. Jon seemed to be too.
They tried, though. With math. They really did. Sansa picked up her pen and Jon found the right page and it was all going very well until their hands accidentally brushed against eachother as Jon wanted to show her something on the page and the sensation was apparently enough to set her off and Jon made a content sound - some sort of sigh - that was a little bit too adorable for Sansa to ignore and -
Well.
They didn't get much math done.