Chapter Text
SANSA
“He killed my father,” Daenerys Targaryen proclaimed in an agitated state. It was the first time Sansa had really seen her break the calm composure she had been trying to keep before their eyes.
“That he did,” Arya replied, “it is the one thing he’s famous for,” she continued. “Isn’t it, kinslayer?”
Sansa’s eyes traveled to one of the men prostrated before their table. Even gagged and chained, Jamie Lannister maintained his usual haughtiness. She wondered then if he too used his smugness as a form of shield to hide his insecurities, like his twin sister often did.
“He killed a dragon, let him be judged by a dragon,” Daenerys turned her words towards Jon who had said very little since Edmure Tully had taken a knee before him and had turned his prisoners over.
Arya turned her eyes towards Sansa for a fraction before returning them towards the Targaryen queen. She and her sister hardly ever agreed on anything but neither felt at ease with Daenerys’ presence in Winterfell. Both feared, even if they would never admit it, that the young silver-haired woman meant to take from them something they were not willing to part with. For her younger sister, she knew that this something or rather someone was Jon and she wondered more than once if Arya would feel the same way about any woman who came into their brother’s life. Hadn’t she herself scoffed at the idea of Jon marrying? Hadn’t Lord Baelish warned her that this would happen sooner or later? It was childish, she knew, this hope of staying a family, the four of them, without letting any outsiders into their circle. Without letting the outside world tear them apart like it had done in the past.
“There are many people in this room,” Sansa heard Jon say, “who have legitimate grievances against Ser Jamie Lannister, including my own family. But I do not mean to see him executed this evening—”
“Your Grace!” Lord Glover protested.
Through the corner of her eye, Sansa saw Jon raised his hand. “Anyone with grievances against Ser Jamie will have a chance to speak them freely and he will in turn have his say. Then and only then, shall his fate be decided. But it is late in the hour and Lord Tully and his men deserved to rest and be fed. We’ll gather again soon.”
Daenerys, Sansa noticed, had the good sense to bite her tongue and refrain from confronting Jon in public but she was close enough to feel the tension emanating from her. Since her arrival, the king and queen’s interactions with each other, she observed, had been akin to a dance of tentativeness. Daenerys gauging her place in the power dynamic at Winterfell while Jon simply waited, for what, she did not know.
“What are you waiting for?” Sansa had asked him in private, annoyed at the stagnation of their little dance.
“To have a real conversation with her,” he answered. “There are things that haven’t been said. She’s obviously waiting for her people to get here. She must feel vulnerable. The sooner we know where everyone stands, the sooner we can prepare for what is to come.”
“I am glad you understand that she is not here simply out of her good heart,” she told her brother. She had meant to keep her tone neutral but judging from the momentary darkening of his pupils and Arya’s annoyed huff, she had failed.
“No one does anything without personal gain,” she said softly trying to smooth things over.
“I know that,” Jon retorted. “I know you think me naive but she’s here when she told me she would not be. She’s here while Cersei Lannister still sits the Iron Throne. She’s here while others are not. Ravens and messengers were sent everywhere and only your uncle and Daenerys made the journey. If we survive, I expect we will be indebted to everyone who came to help.”
“But it isn’t only our fight, you said so yourself” Arya spat.
“Aye but I’m afraid that people will only realize it when they see it with their own eyes. And by that time, it might too late.” Jon paused for what felt like forever to Sansa, frustration rolling off of him.
“We’ve done as much informing as we could, it is time to prepare with what we have. A raven came from Castle Black this morning,” Jon continued, “The winds are getting colder, Ed says, a mist is growing each day and there are no more animals beyond the wall. Even the birds have gone quiet.”
“What does that mean?” Sansa asked.
“The Others are getting close.”
“But there’s still the Wall to protect us,” Sansa said tentatively, more a hopeful question than a statement.
“The Wall has been breached by wildlings countless times,” Jon answered. “I’ve seen these dead things fall off cliffs and get up to fight. The Wall might delay them, but it will not stop them.”
“I did ask Bran if the Wall would fall,” Arya said looking at the dwindling fire in the King’s drawing room. When she looked away from the flames, her eyes fell on Sansa alone. “He looked at me and said ‘yes’ then his eyes turned white and he was gone and would say no more on the subject.”
Sansa shivered then. Not knowing if the sudden rush of fear was caused by the confirmation of what was to come or by the fact that her younger brother would know such things and still be of no particular use in preventing them. Even now, as the three of them huddled together as a family, Bran was lost in a world that he was reluctant to share with any of them. They had never said the words out loud but the three of them knew that the Bran who had returned to them was but a shadow of the sweet boy he had once been.
Arya shifted her eyes from Sansa to Jon then.
“Jon,” Arya started hesitantly, “have you thought about what are you prepared to give her in return for her help? Her troops are nearing Wintertown and if so, they’ll be here in two days’ time.”
“She will ask for nothing less than our pledge to her rule,” Sansa chimed in. “She already asked our King to bend the knee.”
“We know what she wants,” Arya retorted. “She asked what anyone in her position would ask for. And Jon has already refused. The negotiation begins at what the North is willing to offer.”
Sansa couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her lips. She had not meant to be derisive to her little sister but she often felt pressured to counterbalance the political naiveté exhibited by her siblings.
“She’s the one with the dragons and the large army,” Sansa reminded her.
Arya gave her a look then, like in the old days when she and Beth Cassel would recite old stories of chivalrous knights and her little sister would snort and roll her eyes at them. Somehow, for the briefest of moments, Sansa felt a child again.
“And we have Jon,” Arya countered as if somehow that balanced things in their favor.
It was rather funny, Sansa had to admit. The two of them having this conversation about their brother in front of him. Jon who said nothing but was visibly tense. But she did legitimately wonder where Arya was leading. Surely, she would not suggest . . . maybe she had misjudged her sister’s cunning.
“I will not ask her to marry me,” Jon said curtly, the color on his cheeks rising. Sansa wasn’t sure if the cause had been embarrassment or repressed anger.
Arya’s eyes turned to Jon. “Of course, you are not,” she told him, almost as if offended by the idea. “But they will likely ask, and they might even think it wise to pressure you in public. We can’t let that happen.”
Sansa thought about it and her sister wasn’t wrong. Marriages had been the basis of alliances for hundreds, even thousands of years. Daenerys had the dragons and the army, but she was still an outsider to most in Westeros. Marrying the King in the North, a man of House Stark, would provide her legitimacy. Jon was truly their leverage or their liability, Daenerys only need convince Jon, and in having him, she could have the North. Sansa shuddered at the idea. She trusted no one, yet at the same time, if there was one person who should be trusted to act with honor, she knew that to be her older brother. She needed to trust him.
“Littlefinger suggested it once,” Sansa admitted. “He said it was only logical to consider a marriage between them.”
“Jon is a king,” Arya said, “it is logical to consider marrying him off to any woman who would give the North a powerful alliance. All those people out there,” she motioned the door, “all those lords and ladies will expect each one of us to marry in benefit to the North. Even Bran.”
“I will not marry,” Sansa heard herself say forcefully. It was an instinct really, an instinct that outpaced even her mind. Of marriage, she could only remember the terror of her late husband’s predilections. The bruises were long gone but some of the markings on her skin remained and would remain until she drew her last breath. Even if they didn’t, Sansa suspected the traces of pain would never dissipate. She carried it inside, just like the bastard said she would. I am part of you, he said.
No, Sansa could never marry again.
“No one will force you,” Jon told her with a pointed look before moving his eyes towards Arya, “or you, or Bran to marry anyone while I’m king.”
Sansa smiled though she felt a pang of sadness for him, but it was her sister who spoke the words Jon would probably hate to hear.
“But they will force you,” Arya said softly.
“A king or a queen needs heirs to keep a crown,” Sansa tried to explain gently. “We have now known war, all of us, we know that it can all be taken away. I know you think of us as your heirs, but the lords and ladies will not be content with that. And even if they were, all of us will die sooner or later and the Stark line must continue. We’ve endured so much Jon, all of us, we fought hard to survive when the world outside was so intent on killing Starks.”
“I’m not—” Jon began to say.
“You are no longer a bastard,” Sansa interrupted, “even if you refuse to decree yourself a Stark, everyone else now sees you as one.”
“I’ve always seen you as one,” Arya declared but Sansa carried on, ignoring the remark which she suspected was meant to remind them who had been the better sister.
“Any children of yours will be Starks,” Sansa continued.
“It doesn’t have to be me,” Jon said. “Either of you could make me an uncle and I would make the child a Stark and my heir.”
“No,” Arya agreed. “It doesn’t have to be you. It shouldn’t have to be you, not if you don’t want to. But-”
“What are you trying to say?” Jon asked exasperated, interrupting her. “What are you asking me to do, exactly? Wed Daenerys? Wed someone else? Have a child in the middle of an endless winter?
“We are not asking you to do anything,” Sansa explained. “We want you to think ahead to what you will say, when Daenerys’ people, or Daenerys herself or even one of our banner men proposes a marriage pact.”
“We will soon be fighting a war that we may never survive. There is no time for such things, I will make sure our men, our allies understand—”
“Jon!” Sansa said forcefully, now it was her time to be exasperated. “Don’t you understand in what type of world we live in yet? You are expecting people to behave like you, to behave like father would’ve done. Father expected the same thing and they took his head for it. Don’t you see? At its worst, our world is full of Cerseis, Ramseys and Littlefingers. The rest are Tyrions and Oleannas. Everyone is always plotting, everything is always politics, a balancing act of personal interests and power. You know this, I know you know this. This is why you hate it so much.”
This is why they will come for you, she thought but kept that to herself. Jon’s grey eyes had turned a darker shade that bordered on plum, his face hardened, his right hand clenching and unclenching. She knew he was trying to remain calm. He looked at neither of them, he looked gone. Lost, not in thought but rather in a battle of emotions. Sansa had seen him annoyed before; in fact, she had been responsible for angering him on several occasions, but this was new to her. It frightened her a little, not for her sake but for his. There was an uncomfortable period of silence in which Sansa and Arya exchanged glances in hesitation. Quietly her little sister moved forward, her hand landing on Jon’s arm.
“Jon,” Arya said in a soothing voice, “you ought to know that I would kill . . .” she looked at Sansa for a moment catching her eyes before continuing, “we would kill anyone who deems you harm. And we know you would do the same for us. For me, there is only the four of us that truly matter but Sansa is right, this is a game. A game I despise as much as you do but a game we need to play for a little while. Someone will propose a marriage and unless you want to end up married to Daenerys and ruling whatever kingdoms are left in Westeros from a place far away from Winterfell, you need to be able to come to a different understanding.”
“I spent most of my life denying myself even the smallest thought of having a family of my own,” Jon said quietly. He didn’t look at either of them as he spoke the words and Sansa felt that perhaps there were intruding on his personal thoughts, voiced out loud not by design but out of frustration. She and her sister kept still and quiet, giving him an out but he kept going.
“I didn’t allow myself the idea, even when I held Ygrette in my arms. I surrendered to love because it was beyond my control, but I was a member of the Night’s Watch. I had no right to a family. Then I died and my Night’s Watch’s vows die with me but even then, I understood that I remained a bastard. When people knelt before me, I was a bastard still. That is all I’ve ever known, the shame of something for which I had no fault, yet a shame I could still pass on and curse any child of mine with. And now I am being asked to consider taking a wife and fathering children, not out of want but out of duty.”
Sansa stood there listening to her brother speak of shame. Shame is what she felt acutely at that precise moment. Shame of not ever having considered what being a bastard really meant to her brother. Shame of not really seeing him, shame of not loving him the way he deserved. And immense sadness that he would still consider denying himself a family out of displaced shame. She looked at him, his gaze focused on the dying embers of the fireplace and she had the certainty that if any of them should have children, it should be him. She could even feel a twinge of envy for the woman who might one day convinced him of his worth. One look at her sister, she knew she felt the same way.
Jon did not convene a trial for Jamie Lannister the next day.
“Lord Glover is incensed,” Sansa warned Jon. “And he’s not the only one. There are rumors you intend to pardon him and set him free like you did with Lady Karkstark and Lord Umber.”
“I never set a date for the trial,” he said dismissively. “For people who have been at war for so long, I am always surprised at how much they still long for blood.”
“The Kinslayer pushed Bran off the tower, he wounded father, he--”
“I know what he is Sansa,” he said. “A trial he will have where all his crimes will be listed. But a trial where there are only accusers and no semblance of defense, is no fair trial. Lannister will be tried once Lord Tyrion arrives.”
“What makes you think the imp will speak for him?” Arya asked. “He killed his own father. And I don’t think his queen will appreciate her hand speaking in favor of the man who killed her father.”
“Tyrion may not appreciate you putting him on this position,” Sansa agreed. “You might make it easier on him if you have all of this resolved before he sets foot on Winterfell.”
Jon shook his head. “How Lord Tyrion decides to handle the situation is up to him but if it were me, I would want a chance to speak for . . . to speak to my brother. Even if it is to say goodbye.”
“So you risk unrest among all those lords and ladies, including the dragon queen, out of courtesy to Tyrion?” Sansa asked.
“If I am easily moved by the whims of the lords and ladies pledged to follow my rule, I will lose all fortitude to do what is right. If I aim to please, I lead only in name.”
“That kind of thinking got you killed at the Wall,” Sansa reminded him, regretting her words almost immediately upon seeing Jon’s grimace. Then he offered her a sad smile.
“I don’t regret letting them past the Wall. It was the right thing to do. I would do it again.”
Sansa shook her head. “Just like father,” she sighed. “You are predictable Jon and that is a dangerous thing. You may hate him, but Lord Baelish is correct, there are only two sorts of people, the players and the pieces.”
Arya scoffed loudly but Sansa ignored her.
“We can’t afford to be pieces this time around or they will know to come for us again.”
“Starting with Littlefinger?” Arya asked spitefully.
Yes, Sansa thought but would be a fool to admit openly.
“Lord Baelish is an ally, he has openly sided with us despite the risks posed to him and the Eyre,” Sansa answered, trying her best to sound impartial. She was no longer so naïve as to not know that Littlefinger was ever only loyal to his interests. Yet she felt he was best kept around and his stay was solely dependent on her.
“Littlefinger needs to disappear,” Arya hissed the words with venom. Sansa looked up startled by her tone but was cut off by Jon before she could respond.
“We need the numbers from the Vale,” Jon countered.
“You have the numbers from the Vale,” Arya said. “Yohn Royce gave his word.”
“They are beholden to House Arryn,” Sansa reminded them.
“Yes,” Arya replied. “Beholden to Robyn Arryn, our kin. I highly doubt Lord Royce would shed a tear if Littlefinger were to disappear.”
“He is an untrustworthy man,” Sansa admitted, “but his cunning can be useful against our enemies.”
“Littlefinger’s design is clear,” Arya said while turning her eyes to Sansa, “and you know it. You may entertain him, keep him around and play coy—”
Sansa felt her face grow hot. Her sister had no right to speak of something she did not understand.
“How dare you?” she cut her off.
“I dare,” Arya kept on going without missing a beat, “because the man is a menace. Of course, he would suggest a marriage between our brother and Daenerys,” touching back on what Sansa had recounted in a prior conversation. “He wants to see you queen in the north and Jon stands in the way—”
“Lord Baelish cares not for the North, he wants the Iron Throne,” Sansa admitted, immediately regretting her inability to hold her tongue. Granted she had not said anything that Arya likely did not gather on her own.
“Which does he care for the most?” Arya asked mockingly. “The Iron Throne or you, sister? Or does he entertain the idea of both?”
“Arya . . .” Jon warned her.
“What?” Arya spat.
“The bickering, we don’t need it,” he told her softly.
“He hired men to put a knife through your gut,” she said bluntly.
The shocked silence that followed, an invitation for Arya to continued.
“It was Cersei really, but he knew and did her bidding. I heard him speak to the hired men, I heard him tell them about your arrival in Wintertown.” Arya then turned her eyes from Jon to Sansa. “Why do you think I left so abruptly that night?”
Sansa shrugged. “You do as you please, I didn’t think your behavior at all contrarian to your usual ways. I figured you were eager to see Jon,” she explained.
“I talked to Bran before I left,” Arya continued dismissively, her focus now on Jon. “He told me that you were safe and that you would not be in Wintertown but that I might save a different life if I went. A life I knew.”
“Whose?” Jon asked.
“The smith,” Sansa blurted instantly, even surprising herself. She had just remembered Arya’s arrival that day. She had sat on a wagon, next to a shivering young man who had been wounded. Her sister had seemed too friendly and Sansa didn’t think it proper behavior for a lady of Winterfell. Arya then explained that they knew each other; she had traveled with the smith while escaping Kingslanding.
“Gendry,” Arya confirmed. “He was wearing your furs,” she continued, and Jon nodded in understanding. “The town’s people thought him you and knelt before him, that is when the killers came for him. I was able to kill two of them before they got to him, but I was late on the third.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Jon asked and in that single question, Sansa sensed that he was asking a lot more. Perhaps, like her, he was perplexed about who their little sister had become away from them. Yet, he was somehow reluctant to really find out which was surprising, given how close they had always been.
“I meant to kill Littlefinger myself,” Arya admitted “but then I thought . . . ,” she hesitated, “I didn't want that to be the first thing I’d need to explain to you.” There was certain tension in Arya’s eyes as she looked at their brother. She’s nervous, Sansa thought but the moment was gone in a second as her sister continued.
“Then the Targaryen queen arrived, and he became less important. I’ve been watching him, and he’s been watching me. I think he knows I know. He won’t dare try to kill you now but—”
“No,” Sansa interrupted, surprising them both. “Lord Baelish is a man who values his life over anything else, even power. If he knew, if he suspected you knew about his treachery, he would have moved against you or left for the Vale already.”
“Maybe he thinks you would defend him. That you would side against me,” Arya said without a hint of irony or malice which hurt even more.
“Arya,” Jon interrupted on her behalf, clearly noticing her discomfort.
It took Arya a beat to understand Jon’s tone of voice but then she shrugged. “It’s happened before,” she said as a form of explanation. “I didn’t mean she would do it again, only that he would believe she would do it again.”
Sansa had lived her life in reproach since the day her father was put in chains. She did not need anyone reminding her how she had once fallen for the monster king and how she had inadvertently contributed to her father’s demise. She had paid dearly for her actions but in her own mind that was no atonement for her missteps. She thought of this every night with little exception. It was her little secret but something she will never admit to anyone, else they might uncover her weakness. No, she did not need Arya’s disguised rebuke.
“I am no longer 12,” Sansa directed an icy tone to her sister. “And I don’t intend to be defined by who I was or what I did when I was a child still. As I suppose, neither would you sister.”
Sansa saw how Arya’s eyes shot to Jon’s face for a fraction before returning to her, readying herself to respond but Sansa cut her off.
“Yet, as you suggest,” Sansa continued her detached tone, “my reputation could be use in our favor, if we play things right.”
The remainder of that night, the three of them huddled by the dying embers. By the first light, Arya had gone to speed up Tyrion’s arrival and Sansa broke her fast in the kitchens with only Lord Baelish as company.