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Arya slowly pushes the door. The bedroom is in mid-darkness, barely lighted thanks to a few candles and a dying flame in the fireplace. She hesitates before moving forward in the room : she’s not ready to see Jon’s ruined figure. Will he be as ruined as The Hound now ? She did not see how bad was his wound : when he came back from his meeting with Daenerys, blood pouring from his face, he collapsed in Sansa’s arms, before Ser Davos and some other men nearby at this moment carried him inside. Sansa had refused to leave his side, still holding his hand while Mestre Wolkan and Samwell Tarly were trying to stop the bleeding. She’s still with him, even though he was sedated enough to sleep a few days.
As her eyes get used to the weak lighting, she notices a shapeless mass on the bed, before recognizing the dark curls and the auburn hairs. It seems likes Sansa lays atop of Jon’s chest, as if she was weeping in his neck. The idea of Sansa crying for Jon would have seemed absurd to Arya a few weeks ago. That was before the rumours had started, not so long after Bran had told them the true about Jon’s parentage : she had tried to ignore the gossips the best she could, telling herself that Sansa was just trying to be kind to Jon in order to forgive their mother treatment, and that Jon was just trying to watch over Sansa the same way Robb or Father would have. She felt a little jealous at the idea that Jon and Sansa would spend more time together than growing up, but the idea that they would have been closer because they no longer were siblings but just cousins never crossed her mind - after all, apart from the Starks, Samwell Tarly and Gilly, no one knew that Jon Snow was not Ned Stark’s bastard.
But this morning, Jon had left with Daenerys, and came back bleeding, as the rumours turned out to be true : someone - Tyrion Lannister or Jorah Mormont probably, as they were blindly doing everything to please the Dragon bitch - had told that the King in the North had taken his half sister atop of the Broken Tower so he could lay with her thinking no one would notice. Jon had no other choice to tell the true to Daenerys : that he was Rhaegar’s son and so that Daenerys had no claim to the Iron Throne, that what he did with Sansa was not as sinful as what it seemed given that she was his cousin… and that he loved her. Surely, Daenerys’s ego would have been greatly offended. Arya wondered how long did they have until she would decide to burn Winterfell to the ground as a revenge.
Arya tries to shut down her dark thoughts, and to focus on the moment : she might be mad at them for what they did, but Jon and Sansa are still her family, and she has to take care of them. She certainly cannot do much more for Jon, but there is still Sansa. She shyly call her name. Nothing. She moves closer to the bed and call her sister again. Nothing. She notices how still is Sansa, laying on Jon’s body. Arya suddenly feels like her heart is dropping down inside her chest, and that someone is pouring freezing water on her back : what if Jon’s state was worse than what Sam told her ? She rushed to the bed, breaking the embrace in which Sansa was holding Jon, making her roll next to him. Jon is still breathing, his chest slowly moving up and down. He looks extremely pale ; his eye was covered with a bandage, and she is relieved to know that she won’t have to see the damages for the moment.
She reports her attention to her sister. “Sansa ?” she calls again, this time trying to soften her voice. She touches her face, trying to get a reaction from her ; she feels her warm breath on her fingers. She notices then that Sansa is still covered with Jon’s blood, dryed on her checks, on her neck, glued in her hairs, soaking her dress and probably even her smallclothes. Sansa finally speaks : “Mestre Wolkan said he will lose his eye. He is not sure he will live though… he lost so many blood. And it is my fault.” Arya doesn’t know what to say, or how to react at the blank tone Sansa used, as her face and her eyes still seem so liveless. The thoughts she was trying to push away are now rushing back. Breathing deeply, she takes each of Sansa’s hands inside hers. Sansa drops a painful cry as Arya reaches for her right hand. She notices then what seems like severe bruises on this hand (Jon might have squized her hand a little too strong while Sam and Mestre Wolkan were trying to save his life).
“We have to check at this hand. And clean you up a little.” Arya spoke the way a mother would have to calm a crying baby, and finally Sansa accepts to get up from the bed and obediently follows her. Arya takes her back to the Lord chamber, and ask for one of the maid to bring hot water for her sister. After having checked her hand, Sam says that nothing is broken, but that it could be painful for a few days. He lets some milk of poppy for her. When he leaves, Arya makes Sansa sits closer to the fire, and unlaces her dress. As she feared it, she finds blood on her shift and her corset, as well as on her chest and her arm. She decides it is certainly better to remove them as well so she can wash the blood away better.
Sansa doesn’t react during the process. Arya soakes a clean cloth in the warm water basin brought by the maid, and then starts to get her sister’s skin and hairs rid of the blood. Silent tears roll on Sansa’s checks. She seems so vulnerable in this moment, and Arya feels so useless ; she wishes she could leave that room rather than having to add her pain to see her like that to her concern for Jon, but the thin, white and pink scars on her sister’s body remind her their Father’s words : you need her, as she needs you . So Arya swallows back her anger, her concern, and stays to take care of Sansa, as she knows she would have done if their places were switched right now.