Work Text:
“I’ve made a huge mistake…”
When he’d pulled her from the water, she could only hope that it was a side-effect from the drugs in her system, that she was not hallucinating again. She feared what a resurgence of her illness would mean for the safety of her family and wondered if she had passed it on to her children. The truth is somehow worse. For a panicked moment, she’d thought, I’ve made a huge mistake .
“Is he here?” he asks.
The man who she never stopped mourning stands in her living room. He is whole and healthy and here. But he shouldn’t be.
“No. No, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay,” she says.
He looks at her pleadingly. “I just want to talk.” At Sansa’s hesitation, he adds, “Please.”
She should refuse. No matter how much he wants to stay, if she proves she’s not ready to hear him, she knows Jon will leave. Instead, she takes a deep breath, closes the door and gestures for him to sit.
He perches himself on the arm of the armchair, and she sits on the couch. So many times, they sat in these positions, arguing, figuring things out, discussing their deepest insecurities. The foundation of their relationship was built in this room. It’s where she learned to trust in his unshakeable loyalty to her. Their first kiss was on this floor, their first real date when she’d told him she’d told him she was pregnant, their first fight as a couple when they’d lost the baby. Maybe it’s only right that the end should happen here, too.
The last five years are condensed into a few sentences. She tells him how she found Rickon and brought him home. She leaves unsaid that she spent years believing she could do the same for Jon, and he details his years of captivity with the Night’s Watch. She’d never heard of it before today. These people take men with fighting skills like Jon and turn them into killers for their own ends, for the greater good, they say.
He says, “I never stopped fighting to come home to you.”
Her eyes pool with tears. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” he says on an exhale. “You look… happy with him. Are you?”
“Please don’t. Don’t make me look at you and tell you how happy I am with someone else. This is hard enough as it is.” She rubs her hands over her face, shaking her head.
He nods, “Okay. Okay. I know that this is hard for you. This situation is crazy, and I can tell -- I can tell he’s a good man. If you need time to process all of this, take all of the time you need. I just want you to know that I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, Sansa. I still love you. I’m not asking you to choose between us right now.”
“I already have.”
His eyes can’t meet hers. She’s glad for it. She has no desire to watch his heart break.
“No matter what I say, I betray someone that I love. The only thing I can do is not betray myself.” She clasps her hands tighter between her thighs. “The love of my life was attacked and taken from our home. I never stopped believing he was somewhere out there, alive. I refused to give up hope. But as the years passed, and he didn’t come back, something happened.” Blue eyes meet grey. “I changed.”
Jon nods. He wants to tell her that he knows he can’t walk back into his life like the last five years haven’t happened, like she can revert back to who she was with him when she’s built a life that doesn’t resemble the one they had together at all.
“Do you feel like I was holding you back?” Her eyes narrow in question. “There was… danger when we were together. I never wanted it to touch you, but you used to pull your gun out and walk into a fight with me. You always had my back. I guess I thought part of the appeal of being with me was the excitement and uncertainty. But, with me gone, you left that world, my world, behind. You work a 9-to-5 and married a man who doesn’t have to worry about getting shot at or a bomb being underneath his car. You picked a safe life. I want to know if I stopped you from doing that.”
“You never stopped me from being who I am, Jon. Losing you is what changed everything. I got shot. I’d get kidnapped, and you’d come and save me. Someone would die, and I’d be putting the puzzle together with you. You’d get shot. I’d be by your bedside willing you to live. We were in this together, always.” She stands up. “I believed that our love could overcome anything . Until the day that you disappeared, and I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t help you, and everyone told me you were dead. I knew you weren’t. I knew it, but there was nothing I could do about it! I had to stop believing in us, because what we had wasn’t going to save us this time, Jon. Nothing could.”
The sobs shake her body, and then he is there holding her to him, turning his face into the crook of her neck, alternately breathing her in and murmuring soft words that she can’t hear over the force of her grief. She clutches him back, tense, and then something shifts. Her fingers in his shirt soften. Her body melts against his. Her sobs quieten, and he never lets go of her, one hand at her waist, the other brushing her hair.
She pulls back and wipes a tear on her cheek, shaking her head, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to --”
“No, I can’t send you these mixed signals. I’m married. And it isn’t the life I’d planned with you, but it’s the life I have now with my husband and my beautiful children. I can’t just burn it all down. I can’t.” She says this like it means things are over between them, but she doesn’t step away from him. She doesn’t move out of reach. She doesn’t ask him to leave.
“I don’t want you to do anything that isn’t right for you or your kids. You know that?” She nods, sniffling. “I just want you to be happy whatever that means.”
“What do you want?” she whispers.
He brushes the back of his fingers gently on her cheeks, eyes grazing her lips. Her. He wants her. Her tongue runs along the corner of her mouth. “I don’t want you to worry about what he wants or what I want.” Her grip strengthens. “You said you made your choice, and I didn’t come here to pressure you or try to change your mind. If he’s who you need, and he’s good to you, then I can be okay with that.”
“But?”
But we’ve been through too much to give up now. But loving you did save me when I’d almost given myself over to the killing and programming even if I couldn’t break away until five damn years later. But you’ve never made a choice because you were scared before; you never used to play it safe. But it doesn’t feel like I’ve really made it home without you running into my arms. But I’ll always be hoping you change your mind.
He smiles. “But nothing.” He places a kiss on her cheek and takes a full step back. Her arms drop to her side. Her lips tremble, and he clears his throat.
Her eyes flutter, and her heart’s pace slows. He’s giving her what he thinks she needs, and all she wants him to do is fight for her, is tell her that a love like theirs can’t be beaten by lost time or anything else. Their love is bigger than this, bigger than them. Yet, if he said it, he wouldn’t be Jon. Jon will never make her feel guilty for not coming back to him. He’ll stand aside if he thinks it’s what she wants. He’ll never ask for more than she can give. It’s why she hates him. It’s why she loves him.
It’s why she has to let him know, “I never stopped loving you.”