Chapter Text
Sansa has been nothing but reserved for the last eight years and it made her sister absolutely unnerved to say the least. Arya used to be so annoyed about how unabashedly girly her older sister was, with her love for frilly dresses and her nonstop blabbing about boys. With her fiery red hair flowing down her back and lithe figure, Sansa represented everything she was not. It used to bother Arya to the core, hearing relatives gush about how pretty the elder Stark daughter has grown. They would turn to look at her with a small smile that almost looks like a grimace as if they were disappointed to see that the other daughter didn’t take after their mother Catelyn’s Tully good looks. Not that it really mattered to her, because she was proud to look more like a Stark than a Tully. It suited her more—her tough personality matches well with those big grey eyes of hers. Like how Sansa looking more a Tully suited her more—their beauty was apparent, something to be gazed at and loved, and Sansa wanted nothing more than to be loved and adored.
But that was the old Sansa.
After what happened, that Sansa—her bright, starry-eyed sister who would not stop having monologues who spoke of nothing but princes or knights in shining armour that would sweep her off her feet one day, has disappeared. Now the Sansa before her was just a shell of what she once was. Arya could have sworn seeing a tiny glimpse of the Sansa she used to know, but then it would vanish as soon as it had emerged. Her sister still smiled from time, and she still laughed, even. But, it looks as though she forced herself into reacting that way, to make everyone think she’s fine, that nothing’s wrong. Maybe it fools the rest of the family sometimes. Their parents and their brothers would sigh with relief when it seems as though Sansa was put together, but a sister cannot be fooled. Even if she was three years younger and even if it appeared as though they were polar opposites, Arya could always tell what her older sister was feeling. She can always see the vacant look in her eyes when she smiles, and she could hear the hollow sound that comes out of her mouth when she is feigning laughter. The Sansa before her is familiar yet unrecognizable at the same time.
“Arya, are you even listening? You’ve been weirdly staring at me the entire time I was talking!” Sansa snapped her fingers repeatedly in front of her sister’s face.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“I asked you whether or not you’ve already told Gendry about the wedding theme. I don’t want him wearing something awfully mismatched again,” she frowned, moving her hands to massage her temples. “Like that bloody green tie he wore at Robb and Margie’s wedding. It stood out like a sore thumb in the photos!”
“It was a yellow green tie! You said anything that’s yellow!” Arya defended. She remembered how the souvenir-shop tie (such an unlikely place to find a tie) was her boyfriend’s last resort after realizing that he left the tie back in their shared flat in London. Sansa had helped her pick it out a month before the wedding, so one could imagine how insulted she was with the fact that Gendry never got to use it.
“It was in more of a greenish hue.” Sansa huffed.
“Okay, fine.” Arya had no choice but to concede. “But it’s not totally Gendry’s fault,” she defended. “That was the closest thing we found to the yellow you were looking for and it--”
“Fine,” Sansa cut her off. “Just remind him to secure an arctic blue tie for this one, yeah? I don’t want to see anything turquoise, navy or even cerulean, got it?”
She shrugged in reply. “Arctic blue, okay.”
“Arya, I’m serious!” Her sister exclaimed, but her face expressed anything but.
She lifted both her hands up in surrender. “Okay, yeah, I got it, sis. Relax.”
“Let me know if you’re having trouble finding the exact color, okay?”
Before Arya could reply that yes, she will call if they can’t find a bloody blue tie, the waiter came with their orders.
“Finally!” she dove into her meal without taking a breath.
Sansa gave the waiter a grateful nod before taking a sip of her strawberry iced tea. She then turned to Arya. “I’m glad you could make time for lunch today.”
“I’ve submitted all my papers that are due before the break. And I asked for an early time off at the coffee shop.” She replied, her mouth slightly full. “I’m surprised you even invited me for lunch today. You’re always so busy with the millions of weddings you have to plan every single day.
“Actually,” Sansa began, taking a small bite of her sandwich. “I will be dedicating my entire schedule for Jon and Dany.”
“What?” Arya looked at her sister, wide-eyed, feigning over-reaction. “Sansa Stark, wedding planner extraordinaire, is about give everything she’s got just for one wedding?”
The older Stark girl chuckled. “With the business booming, I figured that I might do a poor job of planning their wedding if I have other weddings to think about.”
Sansa’s wedding planning business began as a small venture, the first of her customers being Robb and Margaery two years ago. Since then it has expanded, and she became the youngest, most in demand wedding planner in the city just at the age of twenty-three.
“I think that’s lovely. I remember you used to be so mean to Jon when we were younger because he took Robb’s attention away from you.” From what she had heard from family dinners and late night drinking sessions, in the first few weeks when their father Ned had taken Jon into their home, he and Robb became inseparable. And it displeased little Sansa so much because no one would play her knight anymore.
Her sister gave her an incredulous look. “You remember? You were too preoccupied with attempting to borrow the boys’ stuff to notice that.”
Arya realized she was walking on thin ice and might bring up something that might upset Sansa. After the cousins have become almost practically attached to the hip, Sansa would follow the boys around, waiting for them to notice her. But Jon wasn't her only competition for her big brother's attention. Before their cousin, it was Theon Greyjoy, Robb's best friend from school. Theon hung around their house a lot, and Arya knows this because he was nearly in every photograph from their childhood. Eventually, it seemed that Theon had decided to humor Sansa and began playing with her as the valiant knight who would later marry the princess. Soon after, Robb and Jon tagged along and portrayed the villians to her story. It was such a harmless little tale, but Arya would know to divert the conversation elsewhere.
“Okay, enough about the boys. What does Dany think about all this?” She asked, knowing that the wedding talk will steer her sister away from an unwanted memory.
“She’s excited. But I can tell she’s a little bit nervous.”
Arya nodded in understanding. Everyone in their family knew about Jon’s fiancée being in a toxic relationship prior to meeting Jon, which explained the bride-to-be's anxiousness about getting married. “I’m happy for her, and I'm proud of Jon, too. He probably can’t believe how good he has it. I bet there won’t a bachelor party, huh?” Her voice bordered on amused.
“Apparently Sam’s throwing him one. I’m pretty sure it won’t be a standard one though.” Samwell Tarly is Jon’s best man and close friend, who like him, is currently engaged.
She raised an eyebrow at her sister. “Do you mean a bachelor party with no strippers?”
“I don’t think Sam would be able to pull that off.” Sansa replied, trying to hold down laughter. “Plus, even with strippers within a small vicinity, I don’t think Jon Snow would ever look at any other woman. Not if he’s about to be married to his dream girl.”
"Speaking of the dream girl, any news about Dany's bachelorette party? Have you even heard from her maid of honor?"
"Arya, I have never heard you this interested in a wedding before. You couldn't even care less about the preparations for Margie's bachelorette party."
She gave her sister a shrug in reply as she took another bite out of her food. "I love Margaery, but she had a ton of fake arse socialite friends. Dany, on the other hand, for as long as we've known her, we've only ever met one of her friends. I'm curious, is all."
"Well," Sansa started. "So far I don't know much about Dany's maid of honor. All I heard is that she's flying in this weekend. Specifically tomorrow morning, I think. Haven't confirmed with Dany yet."
"Flying in? Isn't that fancy. Flying in from where?" Arya raised her eyebrows in interest.
"Um," Her sister began flipping through her day planner. "From Los Angeles."
"American?" She asked in surprise.
"By law."
Arya gave her sister a questioning look. "What do you mean?"
"She's Dany's oldest friend. From when she was at the orphanage."
"That's interesting. Is she bringing anyone?"
Sansa once again looked down at the open page of her day planner. "Yeah, she's got a plus one.
"Well, can't wait to hear about her adventures in America." Arya and Gendry had planned to go on a North-American roadtrip after they both graduate from university, but they have not hashed out the plan yet. She's decided that maybe she could ask for suggestions from Dany's friend.
"Oh, I just remembered," Sansa grabbed her smartphone from her bag, then handing it to Arya. "The wedding photographer just sent me Jon and Dany's pre-wedding photos."
Arya scrolled through the photos, each one showing Jon and Dany glowing with love. "Gods, they look like bloody celebrities." She lifted up the phone to show Sansa her favorite photo of the bunch—the one where Dany is in mid-laughter over something a smiling Jon had said. That was their natural state. Away from each other they were broody Jon and serious Daenerys, but together, they practically shone with joy. "I mean, look at them!"
“They look lovely together—absolutely perfect for each other.” Sansa agreed but Arya could see a little far-away look in her eyes.
Her sister would never admit it to her, but Arya knows where her mind went. It was always what she would appear to be thinking about whenever she was planning one of her client’s weddings.
It was Sansa’s own wedding—something that she has always secretly dreamed of the moment she first played pretend with her brother’s best friend.