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Sometimes there are so many things you want to say that you can't begin to say them at all. It would be like ripping open a wound that hadn't even begun to heal...the blood would run fresh and red til you dried up, withered away to nothing.
This flashes through Sansa's mind when her brother turns to her, asks what she thinks. "You know him better than any of us," he says in that rough Northern voice.
The voice suits him. She used to hate hearing it, his dark tones mixing with his dark looks as he hid away under her mother's scowl. Now when she listens to her brother she hears nothing but safety, nothing but home. It's her husband, ex husband, something, that he's asking her about. Her little Lord Lannister of a husband. What can she say about him, really? That for a brief bright moment with him she'd thought she would be happy?
It had been just a second, staring into Tyrion Lannister's eyes, talking about "sheep shift" of all things (and yes Sansa knows that isn't the right word now). He'd looked...kind. Fond of her.
I could maybe be happy, she'd thought, shocked by it. I might... I might even like him someday. Of course, that was right before she'd found out that her eldest brother and her beloved mother had been murdered at her uncle Edmure's wedding, had been ambushed and stabbed and slashed til their Stark blood drained out of them and their souls had gone wherever souls go, if anywhere, and taken her childhood with them.
Sansa doesn't know about souls or any of it, not anymore. She hopes, but then again she may just hope so she doesn't go mad. In any case she doesn't really pray anymore, doesn't talk to the Gods or the dead since she can't see as it's ever done any of them any good. Instead she talks to the living people she misses, Bran and Arya mostly. (And Rickon too, before...ah but that's a painful one.) She tells them to come back, to stay safe and strong and remember their way. She sends her whispered words out like lanterns in the night sky, in hopes that someday her wayward family might follow them home.
And if she's being honest, sometimes she spares a word for her small husband too, thanking him for keeping her as safe as he could. Telling him that she's glad he's still alive. She never says anything else, but then there isn't much to say.
(She does think of him sometimes, thinks of him smiling at her that day in the gardens. It was the last happy thing she'd felt, other than a grim relief when Joffrey died, until she hurled herself at Jon outside Castle Black, and knew she was finally as safe as she'd ever be when he swept her up in his embrace.)
There isn't much to say now, either, looking at Jon and Ser Davos, yet she finds that she strangely wants to say many things. Things like, small men can cast large shadows. Or that there are many kinds of protection. Or that sometimes you think something is beautiful and it turns out to be monstrous, but sometimes people call things ugly or twisted, and then those things glint like gold if you really look.
But Sansa Stark chooses her words carefully now, to show no weaknesses, so what she finally says is "Tyrion isn't like the other Lannisters. He was always kind to me," and changes the subject.
That night she whispers out to Arya and Bran in the soft black surrounding her bed, then rolls over to sleep. She finds she can't until she adds, lips barely moving in the dark, "I'm sorry I ran, Tyrion. Forgive me...forgive me...forgive me... "
Sometimes there are so many things you want to say, but you can't. If you did, it would be like pulling rocks out of an old stone wall in the sea. You'd grasp them, big old stones, water-smooth and cool, and pull them out, and at first there would just be little leaks, but eventually the waves would burst through and drown you, leave you lifeless and floating in an ocean of things that should have been left alone.
Tyrion Lannister thinks all of this in a second, and then does his best to shove it aside so he can ask after his wife, ex wife, whatever she is, as casually as he can. "I hear she's alive and well," he says, as if that news means nothing to him. As though he hadn't excused himself to his chambers and buried his scarred face in his hands, thanking Gods he has no right calling on, when he heard it.
"Does she miss me terribly?" he asks next, trying for that old mocking note of self deprecation. (He almost hits it.) He tells Jon that it was a sham marriage, though he assumes Sansa did that already.
He finds he wants to say other things, wants to talk about her bravery, how she was crazed with grief but still strong enough to stare steadily at the mockery of her brother's death played out in front of her, still strong enough to pick up that accursed goblet and put it in his hand. For no reason other than to be kind to him, him to whom she owed nothing. Not love, certainly, and not loyalty either.
He wants to say he doesn't blame her for running, that he's glad she saved herself, glad she was smart enough to do it. He doesn't want to know if the rumors he heard about her next marriage are true, but he does want to beg her forgiveness for not being stronger, for not being...more.
But he couldn't say any of this even if it were she that were here striding along with him, instead of her suddenly royal brother. So all he says is an understated "she's much smarter than she lets on."
"She's starting to let on," Jon says ruefully, and Tyrion feels a burst of gladness and pride that aches like a bruise under his breastbone. That's right, Sansa, he thinks. He likes Jon. He trusts Jon. But if Tyrion had his way he'd never see Sansa answer to her brother or any man again, really. He'd never see her answer to anything but that Stark mind of hers, sharp and fair, and the icy northern blood that runs through her.
His smile threatens to spread across his face and he yanks it ruthlessly in check, turns into a small twitch under his beard. "Good," is all he says, and changes the subject.
Later that night he thinks of her, and she thinks of him, and they dream of all the things they never said.