Chapter Text
It’s not until they’re walking back in to Winterfell that Arya truly understands how much Jon kept from her during the war.
It had been horrifying, grisly in a way she hadn’t experienced before. She fought beside Jon most nights, the smell of blood a constant companion, the horror of not being able to see your hand in front of your face because of the thick snow falling something she would not soon forget.
But Jon – he was affected in way that Arya was not. He had held himself together so well during the fighting that, really, Arya never suspected something was amiss, especially because she was never particularly tormented by what was happening herself. Terrified, of course, the glowing blue of a White Walkers eyes something she sees when she closes her eyes.
She’s sure the fear will never truly go away.
But Jon must have experienced something else entirely, because as soon as he steps into Winterfell, Sansa greeting them immediately, he falls into Sansa’s arms and starts to weep.
It bewilders Arya, honestly, because there isn’t much that could make her do that.
But Sansa just smooth’s back his hair and wipes his tears and says, “Just hold on for another minute, Jon, let me get you inside.”
He wipes his face and almost stops crying, following Sansa’a soft guidance, but he doesn’t let go of her. When Sansa tries to step away for just a moment, presumably to organize where the remaining men should go and what they can eat, he doesn’t let go of her hand and pulls her back.
“Jon,” she says gently, running her hand down his face, “I just need to take care of some things for a moment, alright?”
“No,” he whispers, his voice rasping unpleasantly, a feeling Arya knows all too well. “Don’t leave me.”
Sansa hesitates. Her eyes flick over to Arya, and Sansa must see something that Arya doesn’t feel, because her sister softens.
“Okay,” she sooths. Jon holds her arm tighter. “Come.”
They walk away together, and Arya looks after them. Sansa stops someone on her way inside, a woman about Sansa’s age who has been hurrying around the courtyard. They talk briefly, then Sansa turns back towards the front gate, from which Arya hasn’t moved.
“Arya,” she calls. “Are you coming?”
She’s not sure she wants to – doesn’t know if she wants to be privy to whatever they’re going to talk about, and doesn’t know what she can offer to make him feel better, considering she hadn’t even realized how tormented he truly was – but she takes a step forward.
They wait for her to join them, and then they walk together up to the Lord and Lady’s chambers. They have to stop once, because Jon falls up the stairs and can’t get back up because his legs are so heavy and sore, and it takes Arya and Sansa’s combined strength, as well as Sansa’s soft coaching, to get him up the stairs and to the chambers.
When they get inside, the fire raging, Sansa’s ledgers spread everywhere and a steaming bath in the corner, Jon bursts in sobs again.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry –“
Sansa gathers him in her arms, his own arms wrapped tightly around her waist and his head resting against her shoulder.
Arya has the distinct feeling she’s witnessing something that she shouldn’t.
“It’s alright, you’re okay. You’re home now.”
Jon takes Sansa’s face in his hands, and starts to press kisses to her face. “I’m sorry,” he says between each one. He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, and Arya swears he even presses a sweet kiss to her lips.
But that’s absurd, and even if it happened, Arya’s sure it was just a mistake – he’s crying, it’s emotional, he probably meant to kiss her . . . cheek, or something.
Arya stays in the room, but she doesn’t engage with them. She looks around while Jon cries and Sansa comforts. The fire warms her bones, and the view of the bustling courtyard makes her itch to be outside. No war could ever make her prefer being inside to being out.
Arya looks over the papers spread over Sansa’s table, grain stocks and war plans and lists and lists of people. Arya has no idea how Sansa puts any of this into something manageable, but Arya learnt after the Littlefinger scenario to trust her sister knows what she’s doing.
Her ears perk up at Sansa saying something other than, “It’s okay.”
“Let’s get you into the bath.”
Okay, maybe Sansa doesn’t always know what she’s doing.
“That’s not proper,” Arya says dumbly as Sansa undoes the laces of Jon’s doublet.
Sansa doesn’t answer, just continues to undress him. He holds still like they’ve done this before, turns when she pushes and lifts his arms when she pulls.
The sight of his naked and scarred chest pushes her to action. She’s seen a man in this state before; she pretended to be a boy for a long time, and she’s been to war. A naked man is not something she is unused to, but this – this deliberate undressing, seeing Sansa engage in something that is so intimate in such a setting, something that is entirely improper, makes Arya want to leave.
So she does. She slips out of the room to the sound of Jon lowering into the bath and Sansa talking him calmly through it.
Arya doesn’t really think about how odd that actually was for many moons.
Jon and Sansa do many peculiar things between then and when Arya realizes something is going on.
They’re hardly ever apart. When Arya seeks out one, the other is there. Arya knows they also share chambers in some capacity, because once she wakes to the scream of Sansa and rushes into her solar and through to the bedchambers, but Jon is already there. The two cry with each other, foreheads pressed together and Arya leaves before they’ve ever really noticed that she’s there.
Their chairs are close together at the high table, close enough that their legs touch underneath.
Jon even names her Queen Regnant, and Arya is too proud of the two of them to even think that that’s something that just isn’t done. Arya knows that ruling the North is grueling, and that with Daenerys and Cersei dead there isn’t anyone on the Iron Throne, meaning Jon and Sansa are taking on those responsibilities themselves. Arya thinks it’s only right that Sansa gets the title if she’s filling the role.
But then she overhears a conversation coming from the washing room, and she pauses her day to listen to two maids.
“What?” The startled shout makes Arya jump at first, but then she realizes someone is just surprised and so she goes to move on.
“Hush your voice, someone will hear!”
The promise of overhearing something secret makes Arya stop and hide in an alcove, a view in the door and the echo of their voices making them easy to hear.
“Why would you say that?” The first voice says angrily. She’s an older woman, but Arya doesn’t recognize her, though she knows most people who work in Winterfell. Arya figures she must be part of the newest wave of workers Sansa had recruited in an attempt to make sure everyone is working and fed and warm. “If word spread . . . have her sheets been soiled?”
Arya frowns. The happenings of men and women are not unusual, especially in this climate, when everyone is still recovering from war and winter rages on. Even the state of the higher up ladies would be no cause for such whispered tones. The only woman who would make it a scandal would be - are they talking about Sansa? It would explain the hushed voices, but soiled sheets? It can’t be Sansa, Arya reasons. She doesn’t think Sansa has had a man besides Jon and Bran in the Lady’s chambers ever.
The second person pauses. “No.”
“Her dresses?” the older woman demands. Arya’s not sure why bed sheets and dresses are in the same question; she assumes soiled sheets would come from the presence of a man, but dresses? It sounds thoroughly debauched.
“No.”
“Then you do not say such things of our King and Queen.”
The sentence takes Arya’s breath away. Queen and King? Sansa and Jon? Engaging in intimate – they’re brother and sister!
Cousins.
Whatever!
The thought makes Arya gag. That servants would dare whisper such vile things of their beloved monarchs makes Arya want to burst in there and take their heads.
Before she can, the second, younger girl, says, “Aleeshya said she heard moans from our Queens room.”
Arya pauses again. Moans. From Sansa’s chambers? The thought is absurd, that Sansa would engage in anything of the sort outside of marriage. That she would engage in anything, period; Arya doesn’t know as much about what happened to Sansa and she wishes she did, but she sees enough to know that the intimate touch of a man is not welcome.
But she’s seen Jon touch Sansa, without her flinching. Sansa still jerks when Arya accidentally sneaks up on her and puts a hand on her back or shoulder.
“Maybe someone else was in there with her.” But the first woman doesn’t seem so sure of that conviction, even pausing with her washing.
“With the amount of time the King spends in the Queens chambers, when does another man even have the chance?”
Arya doesn’t know what to think about that, and evidently neither does the first woman.
“I think it’s nice,” the second woman continues. Arya jerks back.
“Bree –“
“No, listen,” the woman, Bree, says. “Yes, they were brother and sister. They’re cousins. But . . . you’re new here. You don’t understand. I’ve been here for near ten years. I remember Lord Eddard. And when Queen Sansa was here, married to Ramsay . . . I’ve never seen so much blood on sheets, even from a woman who looses a babe. We would be able to wring it out, Katrin.”
The first woman, Katrin, flinches back, and the gruesome scene depicted even makes Arya wince.
But Bree isn’t finished. “Her screams would ring through the whole castle . . . the sound of her torture still gives even me nightmares. I can’t imagine what it still does to her. And if she can find someone to love, despite all of that, then I hope they get married and she gets her happy ending.”
Katrin has nothing to say to that. Bree turns back to her work, satisfied with having convinced the other woman that it isn’t such a bad thing, and as Arya walks away herself, she feels sick.
Jon and Sansa?
Absurd.
Except now it’s in her mind.
The suggestion is so strong Arya wonders if she’s just seeing things, or if the two actually act so brazenly.
When she see’s their hands linger on the other, all Arya can picture is Sansa’s hand on Jon’s naked shoulder that first night.
When they take dinner in their chambers together, alone, Arya wonders what they’re really doing and feels so repulsed she destroys training dummies.
When the four of them enjoy a night together, Arya on floor in front of the fire, Bran sitting in his wheeled chair and Jon and Sansa sharing a lounge, Sansa leaning against his chest and his arms resting lightly around her waist, Arya cannot even look in their direction for fear that she will spew out all the revolted thoughts she has on the matter.
She hears whispers from the walls, of inappropriate embraces, of intimate touches, of quick kisses.
Eventually, she decides that this constant state of wondering is torture.
She goes to ask Bran.
“They’re going to get married,” is the first thing Bran says.
Arya slams the door behind her. “Jon and Sansa?” she demands. “Are going to get married?”
“For political reasons.”
“Political reasons,” she scoffs. “Is that why they fuck all the time?”
Bran just looks at Arya and raises his brow. “Not sure why that matters to you.”
Arya sputters. “Because it’s – they’re – it’s Sansa and Jon.”
But Bran looks away, and doesn’t engage further. Arya huffs. “I can’t be the only one who finds this ridiculous.”
Arya dons another face and slips into the ever growing crowd at Winterfell. While many had taken refuge at the castle during the war, even more flee there now the war is done; their homes are destroyed, the fields are burnt and will not start to grow again until spring – which could still be years away – and there is no warmth to be found anywhere.
The castle is bursting, almost at capacity, and soon they will have to start denying access. Arya is glad that she need not worry herself more than a cursory wonder on where they will go, because she is neither Queen in the North nor Lady of Winterfell, and she is glad of it.
But people in such close quarters ensures one thing, and this is that gossip will spread quickly. A moon has passed since she first heard Bree and Katrin speaking of Jon and Sansa, and a hundred more people now reside in Winterfell.
At first, Arya, as Lya, slips in the washrooms where the gossip started, to join the ladies working there. She soon realizes that too many women work there now for a quiet moment to occur in which their sovereigns can be freely discussed.
Arya wonders if that is because they fear punishment from their King and Queen, or if it’s because they truly have nothing to say.
Still, Lya stays a sennight working in the washrooms. She stays close to the woman who handles the sheets from the bedchambers of Sansa, but the woman, who Arya recognizes as Bree, is discreet and quick when it comes to the Queens washing. Arya hopes it’s not because there is something to be found.
Arya decides that she is gaining nothing from working in the washrooms, so on the last day that she is working there, Lya quietly brings up the topic to the woman next to her.
“Why do you think the King and Queen let so many come to Winterfell?” Lya asks, her voice small and her shoulders hunched. She’s young and inexperienced, and doesn’t want too many people to look at her.
The woman beside her is older, and Arya recognizes her. She’s worked here for many moons. Ella, Arya thinks her name is.
Ella shrugs, a big sluggish movement and immediately Arya remembers Catelyn saying, “Ladies do not shrug, Arya, they never do something so indecisive.”
But she is not Arya, she is Lya, and so she pushes the memories away.
“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout why they’re lettin’ ‘em in,” Ella says, her gruff voice a match to her broad body. “An’ frankly I don’t care.”
Lya doesn’t say anything, unsure of how to talk to an abrasive woman.
The woman on her other side, several years older than Lya, says, “I’m glad of it. I’ve come from near Karhold, and the Karstarks ain’t lettin’ in any more than they need to keep up appearances.”
“Karhold almost burnt,” Lya says. “Maybe that’s why they’re not letting anyone in.”
Ella grunts in disapproval. “Deepwood Motte ain’t lettin’ anyone in either. The Glovers are a selfish lot. I’m glad of the King an’ Queen, too.”
The conversation appears to be over, but Arya has gathered no information she needs, other than that people appear to agree with letting others into Winterfell, and that the other houses aren’t letting in refugees like Jon and Sansa had ordered them to.
“I thought they were brother and sister,” Lya eventually says. “Why is she Queen?”
A hush falls over the group and Lya shrinks in to herself. She doesn’t want so many looking at her.
“Queen Sansa deserves it for all she’s done and endured,” someone says, though Lya isn’t sure whom.
“Her Majesty bled for the North,” another adds, “an’ anyone who thinks she shouldn’t be Queen isn’t welcome here.”
Lya steps back. “No, I didn’t mean – I was just - . . . I only meant the King bled, too. I thought that there could only be a King and Queen through marriage.”
“Aye, His Grace bled for the North,” another voice, kinder than the rest, says. Arya recognizes her as Katrin. “But there are rumours he’s Targaryen, you know. Now, I don’t care who his sire is, but the Lords probably do. I bet he made her Queen to hush them up.”
“You know that’s not why,” a voice says lightly, and Lya turns to see Bree.
Suddenly, everyone looks down at what they’re doing, not willing to be part of the conversation.
“Oh, please,” Bree says, rolling her eyes, “they’re only cousins. You all need to get over yourselves.”
Ah. Finally.
“What?” Lya asks. “Why does that matter?”
Bree laughs. “Oh, little one. You stay in Winterfell a moons turn, and you’ll see.”
“I fucked me brother once,” a middle aged woman says thoughtfully, and the whole room groans.
“You’ve fucked everyone,” Katrin snaps. “No-one wants to hear, Claryce.”
Claryce shrugs.
“Not even about how skilled he was with his tongue?” she grins wickedly.
There’s scattered laughter, but more groaning than amusement. Lya doesn’t know what fucking and a mans tongue have to do with one another, but she doesn’t want to find out.
Quietly, Arya slips from the room.
Arya does not stay as Lya every time she tries to get information. She doesn’t want people to recognize her and wonder why she is continuously enquiring about the reigning monarchs.
Most people don’t have an opinion, and if they do, it’s only positive. “Our King led us out of the Long Night,” they will murmur, “and our Queen has welcomed us into her home, kept us warm and fed.”
“And of their sinful relationship?” she will demand.
They shrug.
It occurs to Arya, at some point, that maybe she is just perpetuating gossip that otherwise wouldn’t have spread.
Still, she wants to scream at everyone’s indifference. They are brother and sister! The gods would curse us for this transgression.
The thought makes Arya pause. Have they not already been cursed, though? Have the Starks not already lost everything there is lose? They have it back only through the sweat and blood of Jon and Sansa’s tenacity. Arya is not ashamed to say she had nothing to do with it; she would not ever have returned to Winterfell if not for hearing it had been retaken.
That Jon and Sansa may only be taking the next step in recovering what had been taken from them makes Arya feel better. She decides, finally, that she will just ask.
She knows them deeply, understands them fundamentally. For them to not only fall in love, but to act on it, seems highly unlikely. Perhaps that’s why she has gone to such lengths to get evidence, Arya muses, because she never really believed it.
And that corroborates Bran’s assertion that it’s only political.
It’s late, but Arya has made the decision, now, and she wants desperately to go through with asking. So she heads up to the Lord and Lady’s chambers to ask Sansa, because she doesn’t know where Jon actually sleeps apart from with or near Sansa in whatever capacity.
She tries not to think about how odd it is that she doesn’t know where his chambers are.
When Arya reaches the chambers, she knocks on the door, but no-one answers. Brienne isn’t at the door either, and Arya is feeling the doubt creep in yet again. Why would no one be guarding the door? Why would Sansa not answer? It’s late, but not that late.
Arya presses her ear against the door. Silence. She tries the knob, and the door is unlocked. Arya scowls. Sansa should know better than to leave the door unlocked.
Maybe she’s expecting company. Somehow, it makes her feel slightly hopeful; if it were Jon that Sansa entertains then surely he would already be there. There would be no need for easy access.
Arya enters quietly into the solar, but no one’s in there. There are a couple candles burning, though they’re almost out now. Still, Arya hears nothing. She walks towards the door to Sansa’s bedchambers and knocks lightly.
“Jon?” she hears Sansa ask, muffled, through the door. “Come back to bed.”
Arya stills. No. No, no, no, no.
She has half a mind to burst into Sansa’s chambers and give her a dressing down. The bigger part of her, however, doesn’t want to see Sansa. She doesn’t want to see Jon. She doesn’t want anything to do with this, this – this abomination. She’s so angry that she bitterly thinks she would leave Winterfell before she accepts a romance between her sister and brother.
When she spins around to leave, Jon is standing in the door to the solar. She glares up at him, and bites her tongue so hard she tastes blood.
“Arya,” he says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
She looks down at the ground as she pushes past him and out into the hall.
“Arya!” Jon calls after her, obviously distressed.
She doesn’t turn around.
The next day, Arya’s cooled off quite a bit. She’s slept but an hour, her mind running too fast, and has spent most of the night either wandering the castle or the godswood.
She’s still not really come to a conclusion about how she feels, but she knows she was wrong, earlier, to think she’d rather leave than accept it. They’re her family, and she’s been so long without a family. Her thoughts have been long and twisted, but she always comes back to this.
Again, she knows she needs to talk to them. Not to confirm anymore, because even though she wishes it weren’t true, it seems now that it is more than likely.
She just wants to know why. She wants to know what it is about the other that has made them throw all sense of propriety – no, more than that, their morality – away. She wants to know what makes this worth it.
If she’s being particularly honest, she wants them to say that they’re wrong.
But then. But then.
She’s walking into the godswood, wandering back in after standing atop a parapet for an hour, when she see’s the two of them standing together.
She can see only their backs and part of Jon’s profile. At first, it’s like a punch to the gut, because they look like her mother and father. But her mother and father are just ghosts now, bones scattered somewhere that isn’t where they belong, and it only serves to remind Arya that she needs to learn to accept them for who they are. She has so little family left.
“Jon, my love,” Arya hears Sansa say quietly. She wouldn’t have heard without her training, and even then the voice is still quiet as it travels across the snow. “What’s wrong?”
Arya steps forward cautiously, eager to hear an interaction between them in this intimate space, this place where men cannot lie.
Jon sighs deeply. “We can discuss it later, sweet girl.”
“But something is wrong?” Sansa presses, turning to him.
Arya can see both their faces now, and she ducks behind a tree so that they can’t see her.
Jon cups her face in his hand tenderly, smiling gently at her. “Sweet girl, I promise to indulge you and share my deepest secrets, as you are wont to make me do despite the fact I have almost none left to share, but not here. Later. Tonight, perhaps?”
Sansa grins cheekily and steps closer to Jon, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. “Oh?” She says, smiling broadly at him. He rests his hands lightly at her waist, in such an intimate yet casual way that Arya know it can’t possibly be the first time. “And what makes you think I’ll invite you to my chambers this night, Your Grace?”
Jon smirks then leans in close to whisper in her ear. Arya can’t hear what he says, and by the way Sansa blushes and closes her eyes, she’s glad of it. Sansa’s grip tightens around Jon’s neck, her fingers fisting his hair, and she pulls him in for a searing kiss.
Arya turns away, her back pressed against the tree and her arms crossed. She doesn’t look back until they’ve started speaking again.
Jon runs his fingers up and down her side.
“It’s Arya,” he confesses. Sansa looks to him in concern. Arya purses her lips. “I think she knows.”
“I’m not surprised,” she admits. “Arya can sneak around better than anyone I’ve met.”
Jon pauses, looking contemplative. “She was in your solar when I got back, last night.”
At this, Sansa does look surprised.
“She knocked on your chamber door,” he relates. “I don’t know what happened, but she turned before she opened it, and I was standing there.”
Sansa looks guilty. “I thought it was you. I told you to come back to bed.” Sansa winces and Jon sighs.
“Maybe . . .” He sighs again and steps out of her embrace. Sansa furrows her brows, then wraps her arms around herself. “Maybe we should stop.”
“Jon –“ She stammers.
“We knew this day would come,” he says. He looks as though he’s trying to convince himself that this is the right thing, but his heartbreak is too evident for it to do much good.
Sansa laughs shakily through her tears. “You say that every time you try to end this.”
Arya bites her lip. This is new information. That they know it’s wrong, that they try to stop, makes Arya feel guilty. But this is what she wanted, isn’t it?
“This time is different.” He is crying now, too. “The people are whispering, Sansa. Arya knows. We swore we would stop if it looked like people knew.”
“I don’t care,” Sansa says stubbornly, stepping towards him again. He steps back. The pain that blossoms over Sansa’s face makes Arya’s own heart break. “I love you.”
“Sansa,” he says in exasperation. “We can’t afford such a tumult at this time. What would the people think of a Queen that beds her own brother?”
“Less than that of a King that fucks his sister, I’m sure.”
Jon’s lips pull down into a frown.
No, Arya wants to shout, they don’t care!
Her sudden change of heart is startling, honestly. That she had gone seeking to yell at them, to tell them to end it, but is now considering actively stopping such a thing is confusing.
“My sweet girl –“
“No,” Sansa says sharply. “No, you don’t get to call me that if you’re calling it off.”
“Sansa, please.”
“I’m not afraid of this, Jon. I’m not ashamed of us. If you would just let me –“
Jon looks to her sharply. “No, Sansa, we’ve talked of this. I will not allow you to put yourself in danger to –“
Sansa sighs in frustration and clenches her jaw. “I won’t be in danger, Jon, that’s ridiculous. It’s what I’m good at.”
“The Lords won’t be manipulated –“
Sansa scoffs. “It’s not manipulating. It’s . . . strong suggestions. Besides, they won’t know. I’m good at it, remember?”
Jon wipes a hand down his face and reaches for her. “Aye, I remember,” he says gruffly, pulling her to him by the hand. “Because here I am, ready to forget about it all just for another day with you.”
She grins wickedly. “Aye, and you’ll be grateful for it tonight, won’t you, my love?”
Arya grimaces at the implication, but under slight observation she realizes its not disgust at the prospect of their love, but of a general want to never know of the private life of two people.
They kiss again chastely, once, twice, then a third time, and Arya leans her head against the tree as she watches them.
She really didn’t understand before. Love had become such a foreign concept to her. She had forgotten what love looked like. Her only example had been her parents, and she had been so young when they had been taken from her that it was never the thing that she remembered about them. Really, Arya had forgotten what it felt like to be loved at all, but Jon and Sansa had found each other again moons before Arya had even considered coming back to Westeros.
Arya can’t find it in herself anymore to begrudge them that, even if she can’t really understand.
“I want to marry you,” Sansa says as she lays her head on his shoulder.
A large smile breaks out on Jon’s face and it takes Arya’s breath away; she doesn’t think she’s ever seen such an expression on him before.
“I’m fairly sure I’m the one that’s supposed to propose to you.”
“You would never muster the courage to ask, I’m sure,” she says, tapping her fingers against his chest.
He scoffs. “I killed the Night King and rode a dragon. I think I could manage asking for your hand.”
“Shall you bend down on one knee this moment, then, my King, like the valiant knights of my girlhood stories?”
Nervousness passes over his face so viscerally that Arya can make out the expression from where she stands, yards away.
Sansa laughs and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Perhaps another day, then.”
Jon covers her hand on his chest with his own and leans his head against hers. They sway slowly in the quiet of the godswood, the snow falling around them painting one of the most beautiful pictures Arya has ever seen.
When Arya first heard the whispers of Sansa and Jon being closer than appropriate for siblings, she was disgusted. But seeing it now, seeing the affection on their faces and the love in their eyes and the peace in their bodies, all she can think is that she wants that for herself.
Arya is so distracted by what she’s seen and what she thinks about it, that she bumps into someone walking back into the castle. She’s fairly miffed about it, because she’s not been that clumsy in years.
“Apologies, My Lady,” Arya hears the man say softly.
She looks up sharply at his voice and takes a step back to look over him.
“Gendry.”
He smiles at her softly, wistfully. “I apologize, My Lady. I should have been looking where I was going.”
Arya hasn’t spoken to Gendry properly in a long while. She remembers, when she was younger, having little sparks of a crush on him. More than that, she remembers feeling at home around him.
She hasn’t felt that in a long time.
“No,” Arya says, her voice wobbly from being unsure. She’s brushed him off for moons now, unwilling to mend the bridge that he broke. “No, it was my fault.”
His eyes narrow and then widen in surprise. He stutters briefly, and usually Arya would have left by now, but she stays in front of him, rolling onto the balls of her feet in discomfort.
Neither speak for several seconds, and Arya realizes that Gendry wants to speak with her, but has nothing to say.
“How have you been?” Arya winces at her question. It’s stupid but she just has no idea what to say to him to try and relight what she thinks of as her best friendship.
He flushes and Arya almost laughs, because he looks ridiculous, buffed as he is now, flushed and fidgeting like a little girl.
“Uh, good – um, yeah, good.” He rubs the back of his neck. “His Majesty made me master blacksmith, so. Yeah. Good.”
Arya taps her fingers against her thigh. She knew this already.
“No interest in going south and claiming the Iron Throne?”
One of Gendry’s eyes twitch, in surprise that she knows he’s a Baratheon, or at her nerve of suggesting he’d want to rule, she’s not sure.
She’d meant it in jest, truly, but obviously its fallen flat.
He clenches his jaw, then attempts to lightly say, “I think His and Her Majesties fill the role better than I could, don’t you?” It falls flat, too.
Speaking of, Arya hears the two of them enter the courtyard behind her. Arya turns slightly at their voices, unable to help her need to just watch them a little longer.
They’re arguing fairly loudly, though there’s no heat to it.
“Jon, no. I said two hundred pounds!”
“You did not!” he says indignantly, crossing his arms. “You very clearly said one hundred.”
Sansa stops and stares at him in disbelief.
“You must have been distracted when we were talking,” he says cheekily, pinching her side.
She jumps away from him, pushing his hand away as he laughs loudly.
It’s unprofessional and inappropriate and completely improper for them to be arguing and teasing each other so loudly in public (especially with the rumours). But as Arya looks around, she knows that their relationship is what makes them so charming as a team, why people were so accepting of Jon making Sansa Queen.
The fond looks being shot their way, Arya knows, is also why no one cares that maybe their relationship isn’t what it should be.
Sansa catches Arya’s eye from across the courtyard. The smile that spreads across Sansa’s face is so warm and welcoming, so happy, that Arya smiles back.
Arya can’t remember the last time she smiled.
Sansa beckons Arya over, the smile still on her face softly. Jon looks over as well. They don’t smile at each other – brooding suited the both of them well, thanks ever so – but something on his face makes her want to go over to them.
They’re so beautiful together.
Arya turns back to Gendry. “I have to go,” she says, sticking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of her brother and sister. “But we should talk soon. I’ll come find you.”
The wistful expression is back on his face. “I’d like that, Arya.”
She rocks on her feet again, torn between going to her family and staying with Gendry. She bites her lip, and makes the sudden decision to hug him.
She embraces him, her arms around his waist and her head on his chest. He’s surprised, his arms limply by his side. Just as she’s about to hurry off, embarrassed both at the display of affection and how public it was, Gendry wraps his arms around her back.
He lifts her up from the ground, holding her to him tightly.
“I missed you so much,” he whispers against her ear and he sets her back down.
“I missed you, too.”
When Arya gets over to Jon and Sansa, Jon is shooting suspicious looks to Gendry and Sansa is trying to hide a smile.
Arya glares at them. “What?” she snaps.
“How well do you know Gendry?” Jon asks, obviously attempting to be nonchalant.
Sansa shoves him.
“You’re not my father,” Arya grumbles, crossing her arms.
Jon looks miffed. “Well, no, but . . . you know I have to approve whomever you’re to marry.”
Sansa shoves him again.
Arya scoffs. “Is that supposed to scare me? You won’t even let yourself marry Sansa, so your threat to dictate my love life means nothing.”
Jon nor Sansa say anything for a long moment. Arya’s good mood is thoroughly spoiled.
“Come on,” she says gruffly, “we have a lot to talk about.”
Sansa must give some kind of signal to Jon, because he leaves before they reach Sansa’s chambers; Arya assumes it’s to collect Bran.
She’s unsure how to feel about this level of unspoken communication. Before she realized what was going on, she would have been envious, because Jon was only supposed to have a connection with her. Jon was hers, he’d always been her big brother and she’d been his favourite. No one else was supposed to have that bond with him, because it was special to them.
Now - . . . well, she really doesn’t want to type of connection that Sansa has with him, so if Sansa has to have a deeper understanding of Jon, then so be it.
Arya and Sansa are the first to arrive in the chambers.
“Tea?” Sansa asks quietly, keeping her back to Arya.
“No.”
Arya flops down on the lounge in front of the fire that Sansa perpetually has burning, and stares deeply into it. Her hands crossed over her stomach, she avoids looking at Sansa.
“Arya, I –“
Arya holds out a hand. “Let’s just . . . wait until our brothers are back.” Arya winces. “Cousin. The – fuck.”
Sansa doesn’t say anything else until Jon and Bran come through the door. The room is tense as they all sit down, Bran’s wheeled chair by the fire, Jon and Sansa next to each other and Arya on a chair opposite them.
“Are you alright?” Jon whispers quietly to Sansa, his fingers gently brushing over her elbow. They trail down her arm in what Arya figures is supposed to be an inconspicuous way, but she’s looking for it specifically. There is little they will be able to hide from her right now.
“Of course, my darling.”
Arya wonders if they think that she and Bran can’t hear.
Sansa turns her palm up, and takes Jon’s hand rather boldly, in Arya’s opinion.
Sansa turns to her brother and sister. “Jon saved me,” she says simply. “And I love him.”
Jon smiles, a little upturn of his lips, and he looks so besotted by the woman beside him that Arya thinks she’s never understood what love is until she saw them.
Bran says nothing, gives no indication that the news affects him; but Arya already knows that he is aware of what was happening. She’d sought vindication from him, after all. Neither Jon nor Sansa look surprised that he makes no move to validate her statement, though perhaps slightly disappointed.
Like them, Arya wishes he would show some emotion, if even negative. She misses her brother.
“To be clear,” Arya says warily, fisting her hand beside her, “you do mean in love, as in romantic and neither familiar nor platonic, and completely inappropriate if not entirely sinful, yes?”
Jon has the decency to look down at her words, though it doesn’t look to be shame, more embarrassment. Sansa tilts her head up in defiance.
“Yes, that is what I mean.”
Arya keeps her face impassive while she thinks it through.
It’s one thing to hear about it. It’s another thing to witness it. But to have it verbally confirmed? Arya wishes she had more solid feelings on the matter. She wishes she could condemn them, and she wishes she could just accept it.
It’s so obvious that they completely in love; completely devoted. She wishes she could demonize them for it, but can she really fault them for wanting to be happy?
To accept them, she knows she needs to not look at it so black and white. They are both cousins and in love and maybe they should be mutually exclusive but apparently they aren’t and it will take time to be okay with that, but in the meantime they are still her family.
Besides, she thinks, grasping for levity, it’s not even unusual. Even Starks marry their cousins.
Arya sighs as another thought occurs to her.
“Will you leave for King’s Landing? Because I do not want to be Wardenness of the North and gods know Bran can’t do it.”
Jon lets out a startled laugh, but Sansa just smiles at her.
“No. We will rule from here.”
Arya nods. “Good. Get married then, will you? Stop sneaking around.” Arya blanches and narrows her eyes. “But don’t think I mean you can kiss around me, because I might be okay with this, but I’m not that okay with it.”
Jon sighs and leans forward, his hand still entwined with Sansa’s. “It’s not that simple, Arya. Our people would not accept it; we were hard pressed to convince them of my integrity when they learned of my Targaryen heritage and I’ve lived here my entire life. Can you imagine what they would say if they learned - . . . and that’s to say nothing of the lords.”
Jon looks thoroughly frustrated, and Sansa leans forward as well. One her arms come up behind him to tangle in the hair at his neck and the other wraps around his arm as she leans in to press a kiss to his shoulder.
“I told you, I’ll take care of it,” she says gently.
Arya narrows her eyes at them, the greatest hits of the argument she’d overseen earlier in the day obviously coming back.
She doesn’t need to hear it again to understand they need a little bit of reassurance.
“If she can find someone to love, despite her past, then I hope they get married,” Arya quotes from her weeks investigating. “Her Majesty bled for the North and anyone who thinks she shouldn’t be Queen isn’t welcome here.”
Jon looks confused at her riddles, but Sansa watches her closely. Arya knows she understands.
“His Grace bled for the North, and there are rumours he’s Targaryen. I don’t care who his sire is.”
Sansa smiles. Jon seems to understand what she’s saying.
“Our King led us out of the Long Night and our Queen has welcomed us into her home, kept us warm and fed.”
“How long have you known?” Sansa asks carefully.
“Not as long as I should have. You’re not particularly good at hiding it.”
Jon laughs as he stands. He heads towards the jug of wine on the main table, but ruffles Arya’s hair as he walks past. “Good enough that we tricked you.”
As Jon fills three goblets – Bran never drinks – Sansa leans closer to Arya and Bran.
“Are you two okay with this?” she asks them quietly. “Jon is - . . . more delicate about the situation, but you must tell me now if you wish for us to not pursue this.”
Arya figures, in this situation, she need be entirely honest. She doesn’t want to deny them something that is so obviously the source of their happiness, but she really does need time to be okay with it.
Arya nods. “I am . . . trying to understand. It is difficult to think of it as anything other than sinful, but I will try.”
Sansa inspects her closely, but seems satisfied with the answer because she turns to Bran.
He looks at Sansa as closely as she looks at him, and then Bran’s gaze goes unfocused; Arya guesses he is in a vision.
When he comes to, he leans forward to grasp Sansa’s hand. It’s the most intent he’s shown in weeks.
“I have seen your past and I have seen your future,” he says quietly to her. “Your best years are yet to come.”
And then he smiles.
The joy of seeing such a beautiful expression on his face makes even Arya laugh in delight, and the afternoon only gets better from there.
Jon and Sansa attend only to their most important duties, and get others to do those jobs in which they aren’t absolutely needed. As the afternoon wears on they imbibe in more wine, and dinner is brought to them.
They laugh and talk and reminisce, and even Bran pretends to take pause in his duties to spend the evening with his family. Finally, as the night begins to wind down, Arya stands to take herself and Bran back to their chambers.
Jon and Sansa walk them to the door, Sansa’s arm through Jon’s.
Sansa kisses both Bran and Arya on their foreheads and Jon ruffles their hair, and it’s all very domestic and reminds Arya of her childhood; she turns away before they can see the tears in her eyes.
As the door closes behind them, Arya hears Jon say, “You saved me, too, Sansa.”
Arya is in the council room a year later when Lyanna Mormont proposes a political match between Jon and Sansa. Some nod immediately in agreement but most just look bored and like they have no opinion on the matter.
Lyanna gives many good reasons, and other Lords even offer their own – it will ensure the stability of the North, neither will have to leave and give up their royal position, there will be heirs and it will give them the credibility to formally be in control of Westeros – and Arya cannot believe, after everything she’s seen of the two of them, that they’re actually getting married for political reasons, like Bran said.
Jon looks thoroughly bewildered and Sansa looks apprehensive throughout the meeting. But then, as they all stand to leave at the end, Sansa shoots Jon a smug smile and he stifles his own grin by pressing his hand to mouth.
Arya narrows her eyes at them; of course Sansa masterminded the whole thing, has probably been working on them quietly for a year to make the Lords think it was their idea.
They marry beneath the Heart Tree only a moon later. Sansa delivers their first child within a year.
Arya cannot remember a time in which her family didn’t bring her joy.