Chapter Text
1) the south is nothing like the north
Firstly, storm season in King’s Landing hits its peak in September, when the rain and thunder travel North. Sansa’s porch is nowhere near the sea, but she can smell the salt meet the musk from the pelting rain on the roof.
The world is paused. For a second Sansa’s head is her own. She takes one swift inhale of breeze, cautious of Elric’s small feet thumping as he twirls, Margaery’s bright yellow tutu catching in the lamplight, and exhales against the storm, the mist hitting her face like the way the wind would bite up North.
It’s hard, sometimes, to miss Winterfell, all the way up in Alaska, when the South is brighter and fuller in some ways. Here she’s just Sansa. She’s no Margaery Malora Tyrell Baratheon with a winning smile, and two small precious children with bright green eyes and smooth dark hair. But she’s Sansa, a single mother, and here it’s so feminist , who needs a man when it’s just you, your very shy and awkward six year old son, and a whole package of trauma and baggage to come with it. King’s Landing, California, is so accepting; there’s yoga on the beach, little league, the best elementary school in the county and minimal traffic when you cross over Blackwater Bridge, over Blackwater Bay, and into the seaside town.
Sansa gets that gripping guilt sometimes, that these things feel too good to be true. Sometimes she runs a hand through Elric’s choppy curls and can’t help but feel it was all a mistake. But his skin is so sunkissed, his hair smells of salt, and his big green eyes are wider than the sea, a few shades lighter than the depths. When she drops by Robb to pick Elric up, its her brother who tells her California suits her, even in all her dark greys and blacks. Robb has Katie and Donny and the baby on the way, but he still makes time for his nephew.
It’s Elric’s call that prompts her to compose herself, make herself look less stressed before he’d come out onto the wooden porch. He stomps out onto the blue wood and takes a deep inhale, his small chest expanding with the salt and rain. One of his baby teeth is chipped, his hair is a bit too long, and the tutu rests around his hips.
“Maaaam,” he drawels, just short enough to tuck himself under her elbow, still taking deep and ragged breaths to hold as much air in as possible.
“Humm baby?”
“Are we going to Miss Margaery’s soon?”
“Why?”
“I wanna play with Winnie.” He pouts up at her. “And maybe Alysanne will be there.”
The little girl’s name sent a drop to her stomach. Daenerys’ eyes had been frighteningly bright that day at orientation, one hand wrapped around her daughter’s shoulders, the other inspecting the bruises blooming across her neck and collarbone. Alysanne looks little like her mother, with her big brown eyes, and lovely dark hair, straight as a rod down her back. Her brother Rhaego is three years older, almost wild, bouncing and filled to the brim with princely curls, the king of the playground, according to Elric.
But she still remembers all the parents’ eyes on her, how quickly her throat closed up. Elric’s watery eyes had found her’s, and Sansa couldn’t tell who was supposed to be protecting who. Apparently Elric had choked Khalakka Alysanne Targaryen, and that itself sent a shockwave of anger, and hurt, and fear, all hitting her at once. To imagine her son being violent, or causing harm, almost made her feel ill, made her skin crawl. Alysanne’s bruises haunted her for the next week.
(One long fingered hand curled around her neck, hot breath against her ear and another hand dropping lower and lower-)
“I don’t think Alysanne will be there with Winnie,” Sansa says, before her doubt and anxiety sneaks in that Margaery Tyrell and Daenerys Targaryen are actually best friends, and talking about her right this second-
Nope. Not thinking about that. She smiles at Elric instead, trying to drag one out of him. “But we can
see if Margaery and Winnie want to play tomorrow, when the weather’s better?”
Alysanne and Winnie were friends from the beginning, even if their mother’s were always at each other throats, in the most subtle and polite fashion. But they moved past that because their children were best friends, pulled into the compelling friendship of Kate Stark, Sansa’s eldest niece who had the whole class wrapped into her red curls. Elric loves being in a class with his cousins, but he never talks much about what the social dynamics are like. Sansa wants to think he just isn’t interested.
“I’m so booooored.”
It’s an awkward time in the evening; just after dinner but too early for bed, already washed this morning. Lazy sundays up North usually meant the house was full with life, people visiting, her parents’ friends, graduate students her parents’—both professors at Winterfell University—had taken a liking to, Sansa’s friends she’d had before she moved to Casterly Rock, Arya’s friends from her travels. The house was never dull or lifeless, and in the California rain, the world feels muted.
Makes her miss home.
“Hey,” She nudges him, brushing a loose curl out of his face. “Wanna facetime nanny? Or Auntie Arya?”
King’s Landing is caught between a breath of fresh air, and a steep descent into hell. Arya answers on the first call, letting Elric talk and talk and talk until he gets ready for bed.
“Daenerys Targaryen sounds like a right cunt, just ignore her.” Arya’s advice was baseless, because she hasn’t been getting dirty looks in the drop off area, and she’s not the one to kiss Elric’s head when he got sad no one wanted to be his friend. “I mean honestly, who names their child Alice-Anne. Just call her Alison for gods sake.”
It drags a laugh out of her, a surprise one that she didn’t expect. Arya is three years younger, closer in age to Bran than her, but she’s still the blunt and honest sister she left in Winterfell.
“I miss you guys.” Sansa says, while she unfolds the pull-out and turns her sitting room into her bedroom.
“We miss you too.” Arya says, and there’s worry on the surface of her words, her face, her eyes. Ever since Elric was born, it’s like everyone started looking at her as if she was made of glass. It only got worse when she moved down to California. “I know mam will probably say you should move out ASAP, but don’t give in, or let them win.”
Arya’s right, of course, and she goes to bed with that repeating around her head like a mantra.
Two days later, she’s in the teacher’s office, ready to claw Daenerys’ hair from her scalp. Her son isn’t violent, he doesn’t scream or shout, he doesn’t hurt other people and he certainly doesn’t kiss little girls without their consent.
2) there are good people here
Sansa meets Margaery Tyrell the morning of orientation, when she marches from her lovely, impeccable family car to a second hand Honda and chewed a group of teenage girls out for texting while driving,
“Megga Tyrell I swear to the gods, if I catch you reckless driving again, I’ll tell Grandmother and throw your phone out the window.”
Sansa hadn’t expected her to roll over her heel, sending her flying across the road.
“Are we gonna help her?” Elric asked, poking his head over the windshield. Her boy has always been so thoughtful, so sweet, always willing to help.
Sansa debated it, but five minutes later, she had Margaery and her two children in the back of her car, Blackwater Bay running past the windows, the grey sky falling into the grey water.
“Have you lived in the area before?” Her boy is Winnie, short for Tywin, the same age as Elric, with dirty blond curls and bright brown eyes. The little one, younger by three years, is Lena,
Sansa kept her eyes on the road, but she still spared a polite smile to Margaery. “No, but my brother and sister-in-law live here, I used to go to Casterly Rock University, and an old friend from there offered me a job here, so…”
“Oh? You’re a working mom?” Margaery never missed a bit of detail.
“Parttime, actually-”
“And your brother and his wife? I probably know them,” Her eyes had flashed with something keen, almost dangerous. “I’ve been here a long time.”
“Robb Stark and Jeyne Westerling Stark? Do you know them?”
Margaery put her hand on Sansa’s wrist, her smile wide and bright. “Me and Jeyne get coffee on Wednesdays when she’s not on first call.” She slumps against the chair, as if it was possible for someone to get more bubbly, as if it was possible for a thirty year old woman to squeal. “It’s just such a small world.”
She’d tucked her arm into Sansa’s as they walked into orientation, and proclaimed loudly that she knew they were gonna be good friends.
Margaery made everything easier in the beginning, Sansa thinks when she looks back. It was just the aftermath that got harder, but work was always welcome.
“I’m surprised you took the offer,” Tyrion had said on her third day of her third week in King’s Landing.
The office is small, with a constant hum of typing wafting in the background. It’s just her, Podrick, Bronn and Shae in the office, the manuscripts coming in acting as additional companions.
“Well, it was more Robb than anything else.” She’d said without looking up from the computer. “I also figured you’d hire an actual graduate.”
“Well, Casterly Rock lost a great mind when you left.” Tyrion quipped. “I know I missed your wit in my lectures. All of my graduates were dumbasses.”
In the worst parts of her final year on the Washington coastline, Tyrion Lannister accepted her essay extension request, two days after he saw her wandering around aimlessly at the Casterly Rock alumni party. He sent her an email saying she could turn it in ‘whenever she sees fit to hand it in’.
Sansa dropped out instead. Nine months later, she had Elric. Tyrion was even kind enough to write her an email to congratulate her.
Telling her family was harder than that. She’d cried, and so did her parents. Mom cried over everything, everyone growing through school, Arya winning a million scholarships and fencing and dancing trophies, Robb’s shotgun marriage, Bran’s physiotherapy. But these tears were different, half-sobs that she kept behind her hands. Parents were supposed to protect their children, and here she was when Sansa was going through so much--
“Children are never burdens.” Mom had said, when the dust had settled and Sansa knew where she was going. She dragged out all of Rickon’s baby stuff she’d been contemplating selling and Sansa lived with them for five years. No need to move out, really, when everything she needed in the whole world was right there.
In reality, Sansa feels like a glorified TA in Tyrion’s office. Bronn does nothing of significance, Shae is a live-in secret girlfriend Tyrion hides from his father, and Pod’s only there because he needs a second job to support his detective training. He never talks to her, never looks up from his desktop, only when he has to ask Tyrion a question about grammar.
“I think he’s gay.” Margaery had said when Sansa told her about the office. Tyrion was Marg’s uncle-in-law, a face she’d known for years in King’s Landing. “Tyrion was his foster father for a few months, until Sergeant Brienne adopted him. Just seems very… tragic outing? Kicked out of his home? Using Tyrion as a crutch? Something’s up.”
(Something’s up, Margaery’s favorite phrase.)
That had been a surprise, to find out that the broad and blonde Brienne Tarth had an adopted child. child. She would’ve been in her early thirties when she adopted Pod. Motherhood is hard when its unconventional, and Sansa will probably never meet Brienne Tarth but her heart goes out to her, like a kindred spirit.
They’re a bunch of misfits at the Rock Press, but university textbooks need to be made, and edited, and sent across the world. Sansa gets paid incredibly well to double check sources, cross reference, and tidy up some of Tyrion’s long, meandering sentences, and he doesn’t mind when she comes in late from her job, her hair still wet from the shower, or when she gets called out to the school for another meeting about Elric’s bullying.
(“We live in a world where little girls are already abused, and disrespected and hurt, why should I stand by and let it happen to Alysanne. She needs to stand up for herself.” Daenerys said, and Sansa stood up for herself, because her son was many things, sweet and gentle and kind, but he didn’t hurt little girls.)
She doesn’t really have friends, in King’s Landing, but she does have work, and Robb, and her niece and nephew and once a week her, Margaery and Jeyne Westerling get coffee, before she swings by the office and brings enough for everyone, even if Pod is too afraid to tell her she’s got his order wrong.
One time, Margaery comes by, Lena in tow, pressing a quick kiss to her uncle-in-law. Sansa’s heard so much about Joffrey Baratheon; how handsome he is, how lovely he is with his children, how devoted he is to his wife, how insanely crazy and freaky their sex is. She’s never met the man, but she can imagine what he looks like when she looks at Winnie and Tyrion together. She’d met his father, years ago. Robert Baratheon was her father’s college roommate, and from the two days she’d met him, she could tell he was still clinging to those old days. But Tyrion adores the children, and always makes Elric feel wanted, and included.
“I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things.” Tyrion had said, once offhandedly, when he was finishing up his research paper on a King’s advisor from the middle ages who was a dwarf. Then he’d smiled at Elric Stark—not Snow, Stark—and Elric had smiled back. Pod lets him play games on his computer and pick what songs they play on the radio. Shae brings sweets to tuck into his hands when she thinks Sansa isn’t looking, and Bronn takes him out to the carpark and kicks around a football with him, like the way Arya would.
And of course Robb and Jeyne are lovely, and their children Kate and Donny are only half a year older than Elric, and it had been nice, being pregnant, with someone who also didn’t particularly want to be pregnant, caught in the strange nuances that come with unplanned pregnancies. Jeyne and Robb got married, Jeyne and Robb put their whole life on hold for their babies, Jeyne and Robb moved to King’s Landing so Jeyne could start her OB/GYN residency. For Sansa, it was like her life was already on hold, and then Elric came along.
But despite all of the lovely, new people she’s met in King’s Landing, it doesn’t make the school visits any easier.
Daenerys Targaryen demands she takes Elric to a child psychologist to ‘see what’s really wrong with him’ and Sansa can’t help, really can’t help, the urge to smack her across the face.
“It’s not fair, that we’re fighting.” Daenerys had said, after orientation, Alysanne tucked away into her car and Rhaego showing their three dogs to his friends. “We’re the only single mothers here, the only ones that understand how challenging it is to raise your children alone. Do we really have to be pitted against each other?”
“It is unfair,” Sansa had agreed, but Daenerys was the head of the Dragonstone technological company, and a widow too, with a nanny called Missandei and a personal bodyguard called Grey. They were alone in this, but they weren’t the same. Out of nowhere, Sansa found this surreal strength and looked right into Daenerys’ purple eyes. “But my son didn’t choke your daughter.”
The battlelines had been drawn then.
3) it’ll get worse before it gets better
Elric has always known her. Always, even when they lived in Alaska and her parents liked to meddle and Jon, Arya, Bran and Rickon were at his beck and call to trample around the Godswood and come back with twigs in his hair and mud on his jeans. Elric has always been her’s,
Sansa worked in Winterfell University back up in Alaska, three full time days a week and the rest were time off to be with Elric, when she hadn’t pawned him off to any of her siblings. Winterfell was home, Alaska was home, and back home Elric didn’t ask about his father.
“The family tree? Don’t worry, children are with my brothers, I’ll be over once I run by Starbucks. Now, two questions; what’s your Starbucks order and do you have a hot glue gun?” Margaery said over the phone.
She brings an entire three boxes worth of craft accessories, heaving the glitter glue and card and colored paper onto Sansa’s small wooden table. Robb had already sent a picture of what Katie and Donny’s looked like, how the distinct Stark branch was full and winding up into the Tully’s, with great uncle Bryden’s face smiling, and Edmure and Roslin and their baby and granda Hoster. Lyanna and Brandon and Benjen smiling at the edge of the white card, Jon on the tree twice. Jeyne had a smaller family, just her parents, her siblings, her uncle Rolf, her sister’s girlfriend. There was no picture for her mother, but her father was there, and Sansa had sent back a few heart emojis as a way of saying thanks.
Elric has a single trunk, and even Margaery couldn’t make that look interesting, look exciting, look cool, when he’ll be the only one with no one on his dad’s side.
“What about my dad?” Elric probes, sticking down a picture of Jon and Ygritte, his little tongue sticking out.
Margaery meets her eyes across the table, unsure, and nervous, and maybe even embarrassed for her that she’s there to witness this.
Elric has asked maybe once about his father, and Sansa wasn’t even there for it. Instead her father had wrapped him into a hug and said everyone he needed was with him right now, so there was no point in thinking about fathers that weren’t there.
“What about your dad?” Sansa replies, choosing caution. Her throat already feels like it’s about to close up, but she can’t let Elric or Margaery know that.
“What about his family? His family needs to be on the tree too? And his name? What’s my dad’s name-”
“Elric, that’s not important-”
His green eyes are agitated, as he squirms and shifts in his seat, staring intently at her. “It is important! It’s in the instructions! We need both of the names like on Katie and Donny’s tree, they have Auntie Jeyne and Uncle Robb on it.”
“You don’t need it.” Margaery supplies, as gently as possible. “The instructions are just a starting point, we can go anywhere from there, and I think one tree looks less cluttered, more room to put the dogs in.” Her voice was inviting, and almost cajoling, like a siren song, but Elric pulls his hands down over his ears and tries to block them out.
“I don’t wanna be the only one with one tree, even Alysanne is gonna have two trees and her dad is dead , why don’t you know his name-”
Sansa feels it all push out, all of it come to the surface, after years of running around the Godswood with the dogs, only feeling safe with the dogs, pushing one night down for the last five years, and hears her voice waver and crack. “I just don’t know it! You know that, Elric.”
“Why!” Elric’s scream is so loud and so piercing, Sansa has to take a deep breath before she continues.
“I don’t like your tone!” She says, trying to channel Catelyn Stark, wrangling six children around her life. “Go to your room!”
She’s thankful, in that moment, that Elric doesn’t take after his Aunt Arya and Uncle Rickon, and goes up immediately, but not before he knocks his chair over.
Margaery looks guilty, looks uncomfortable, with a tight smile on her face. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry about that.” Sansa doesn’t know what she’s apologising for.
“It was gonna happen sometime.” Sansa says, and even believes it.
(“He had a wedding ring on, that’s all I remember, really.”
“So no name, either?”
“He said his name was… Martyn Hill, I think? Then I looked him up and found nothing.”
Margaery’s eyes flickered, probably pity, probably sadness, probably pain, pain for her new friend, but she said nothing.)
(But telling Margaery everything, even things her parents and Arya and Jon didn’t know, gives her a certain lightness, like a weight is lifted and the world is sharper now. Not as muted. Everything is shinier, and Elric’s eyes are green like grass, green like the leaves, green like the sea, not green like venom and poison, like those eyes that followed her all these years.)
And just when Sansa thought the issues in school had gone down, Alysanne turns seven years old, and invites everyone in the class except for Elric.
“Now this is just cruel.” Margaery huffs, swiping the pink invitation out of Winnie’s hand before he can start reading out loud. “We have a policy, a policy, on children giving invitations out during class times, but sure, Daenerys just has to bend that.”
“Maybe this’ll end this, feud, or whatever.” Sansa hums, trying to pull Elric to her car. It’s a hope she throws to the wind, imagining a world where Daenerys wouldn’t glare at her from her Tesla every morning, a world where maybe Alysanne and Elric could be friends. She’s publicly humiliated a six year old, but she’ll have won.
“Margaery is right,” Robb quips, single-handedly holding the twins’ school bags and keeping Grey Wind away from all the other school children. “I’ve already said to Jeyne that the kids have to get their hair washed that day.”
Margaery doesn’t even try to hide her cackle. “I’d rather willingly spend time with my mother-in-law than go to Daenerys Targaryen’s house.”
“Weren’t you at Alysanne’s birthday last year?” Robb points out, quirking his eyebrow.
Margaery stiffens, rolling her eyes at Sansa. “She had an open bar, even Joff went.”
“An open bar at a six year old’s birthday?”
“You’d need one if you sat through a live reenactment of Frozen. Did I forget to tell you it was entirely through Dothraki?”
King’s Landing is full of people she’d tried to cut herself off from when she was in Winterfell. Friends who ask her to come to yoga, friends she works with, friends to carpool with, friends to go see Disney on Ice with instead of sitting at home with her son, feeling sorry for them both because they’d been excluded from a seven year old’s birthday party. Margaery pulls out all the stops to take them up to Rosby Hall for the show, around four or five other children from the class with them too, all in a limo. The children would be running across the long car, if it wasn’t for the seatbelts, Katie leading the charge while her brother Donny is glued to his Nintendo Switch, Elric and Winnie’s laughs filling the space.
“Daenerys called me last night.” Jeyne confesses, just after she’s toasted her apple juice to Sansa’s champagne. “Asked why Katie wasn’t coming. Apparently,” Jeyne flushes, head dropping. “Everyone in the class listens to her, and if Katie wasn’t going then no one else wants to go.”
Sansa expects herself to feel satisfied, almost vindicated, that Daenerys finally cracked, but instead it makes her feel sad, thinking about Alysanne’s sad brown eyes, and how sweetly Elric praises her, that she’s a bit quiet but she loves her dogs and loves her small family.
“She asked for your number too.” Jeyne continues, face twitching, almost remorseful. “I didn’t want to give out your number in case she just wanted to start a row-”
“Thanks Jeyne,” Sansa cuts her off, trying to ease the bend in her brow. Jeyne’s always been a bit nervous, with everyone in her family who wasn’t Robb. Maybe she felt embarrassed, considering how she’d been Robb’s other woman when he was still seeing Roslin Frey, and then they got married and pregnant without telling anyone, not until Robb had to come back North when Sansa did, and they’d moved back down to King’s Landing so Robb could be a stay-at-home father and she could go to medical school. “That means a lot.”
Before Sansa came down, King’s Landing was always Robb and Jeyne’s little corner of the world, and she’s been there less than ten weeks but maybe, just maybe, it’s becoming her corner too.
Because here she doesn’t think about Martyn Hill, and here there’s no grabbing hands or hot breath or twisted wrists, there’s just the sea, her son, her friends, her work, and that’s enough to help push Daenerys fucking Taryargen out of her head.
Of course, Daenerys gets a petition started in the school to get Elric expelled, and this time she cries to Arya on the phone for an hour and she has to wonder if trying to find home is something the universe will let her do.
“A petition, really? He’s a six year old?!” She’s trying to keep calm, as she stalks down the corridor.
Sansa remembers watching Arya and Robb and Jon wrestle in the den, remembers when Arya started volleyball and dancing and fencing. Remembers when Arya would play soccer with bigger boys, bigger girls, getting into fights with boys twice her weight and height and size.
“Go for the balls, if it’s a guy.” Arya had snarked, and Sansa rolled her eyes. “But if it’s a girl, go for the face, everyone tries to protect their face.”
So Sansa does, and almost gouges her eye out.
4) the world is broader than just them
“What’s the difference between hot yoga and cold yoga?” Sansa asks, wringing her face out with the towel offered at the reception.
“Different poses, different temperature helps the joints.” Margaery rolls her shoulders, letting out a long sigh. “Helps with stress relief.”
“Stress relief?” Sansa probes. “What’s stressing you.”
Margaery sighs again. She wraps the towel around her shoulders, her brown curls sticking to her face. She smiles, suddenly, like flicking on a lightswitch. “The Parents evening, of course.”
Sansa smiles awry, her stomach sent into knots at the mention of the event.
“Why so sad?” Margaery asks, now focused on something else outside of her own thoughts. Her heavy Adidas sports jacket looks out of place with the rest of the class, but Margaery manages to make everything look flawless, effortless, even with sweat running down her brow. “C’mon, tell me. I wanna help.”
“I’m not gonna go.” Sansa breaths, wringing her hands. Before everything, when she still went to Casterly Rock, parties and society events and campus festivals were some of the best parts of college.
She wasn’t a party girl, back then, or reckless, or irresponsible. Sansa likes to think she was normal, that she tried her best to have fun, and follow it when it came to her.
“Sansa, you have to go!” Margaery gasps, looking genuinely shocked. “It’ll help you mingle in a bit with the rest of the folks here. Besides,” she grins again. “It’s themed .”
She groans, low from the back of her throat. “I don’t really like Halloween, or dressing up.” That was always Arya and Bran, who every year spent weeks pimping and prepping Bran’s spare chair to prepare for whatever costume they’d planned for that year. Sansa always got roped into it when they needed someone to sew. “I don’t really get,” She bends her fingers. “ Pop culture .”
“Everyone gets pop culture. Elric didn’t get himself into Star Wars.”
“I have five brothers, and Arya, of course.”
“Sansa,” Margaery says earnestly, grabbing her hand. Sansa stops, and the rest of the world fizzles out. “I want you to be there. You’re my friend… It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
It’s been a long time since Sansa felt so wanted like this. Been a long time since Sansa felt like she had a friend like Margaery, someone outside of her family, that cared enough to insert herself in, even when Sansa tried to push her away.
Sansa takes a quick breath, squeezing Margaery’s fingers. “I’ll think about it. I’ll have to get a costume-”
Margaery cuts her off, wrapping her arms around her neck. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” She squeals, rocking them side to side. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
“I’m holding you to that.” Sansa pulls away, but she’s laughing.
“You’re just going to die when you see what I’m wearing.” Margaery’s smile is downright thrilling. She links her arm through Sansa’s as they walk through the carpark.
“What are you going as?” She knows Robb and Jeyne have put excessive effort into their Robin Hood and Maid Marian outfits. The costume aspect of the party still makes her nervous.
“Ever watched the Temple of Doom? There’s a little Casino scene, Joffrey found a white suit jacket in his Uncle Renley’s and now he wants to be Indiana Jones,” Margaery rolls her eyes. “Honestly, I married a child. But on the bright side, I get to be Willie Scott in the casino.”
Sansa’s not used to taking her Friday mornings for herself. She bids goodbye to Margaery, and heads to work, feeling lighter, brighter, almost excited for what the end of the week could bring.
Podrick places a coffee cup on her desk, very gently, and smiles with his lips quirked.
“Guessed your order, just wanted to say thanks.” He sounds nervous, almost bumbling over his words.
Sansa finds herself smiling back, this strange, lilting feeling rising in her. He flushes, and it turns her red too, bright in her cheeks.
(“I don’t know,” Sansa said mildly, tracing the rim of her pink gin and tonic with a shy smile. “I’m not one for, I guess, dating and stuff, or seeing people, but now it’s like, I’m just noticing men, like the way I did before Elric.”
“Sansa Stark you shady lady.” Margaery whistled, just behind her wine glass. Even Jeyne, drinking a virgin margarita, one hand resting on her stomach, was laughing, looking thoroughly impressed by her sister in law.
“Anyone in mind?” Jeyne probed, and Sansa couldn't help but gape. She also couldn't help but wish Arya was here. Of everyone in the world that she wants to share her happiness with, it’s her sister that never gave up on her.
This is all new. And different. And Sansa’s face hurts from smiling.)
If only it was this easy all of the time.
Tyrion goes out for lunch break and takes Shae and Bronn with him, and Sansa and Pod share a weird and funny laugh when the hour break becomes two, and Tyrion has probably gone home with Shae and Bronn won’t come back. They have instead jokes now, and even if he isn’t interested in her like that, it’s nice to have a friend, it’s nice to have a crush.
But even with the radio up loud and the computers whirling, she still hears Daenerys stomp into the office, a new rage alight in her purple eyes. She’s in a pristine sky blue suit, with high shoulders and her hair twisted back into an elaborate bun. She’s on a warpath, Sansa thinks, just as she sucks in a breath to prepare for whatever mess she’s about to find herself in.
“Sansa Stark, I have tried, and tried desperately to be civil but I can’t just ignore the fact that your son is making my daughter feel unsafe in her own school.” Daenerys states, and settles into what Sansa can only assume is a power-stance, legs and shoulders pulled backward. They call her the Mother of Dragons across the internet, because she took the ruins of Dragonstone from her brothers and father and made it her own, but she’s ruthless, hoarding billions, and running her company with an iron fist. She takes what she wants. “If you don’t sort your child out, I will pursue-”
“But Elric isn’t bullying her!” She says, standing to her full height. She’s taller than Daenerys, but always feels so small.
After every incident, every time she was called to the school, after the choking and the kiss and the biting and the petition, she’d ask Elric did he do it, and everytime he’d say no. His green eyes would fill with tears, his voice dropping to a whisper, and Sansa would try and pry and plead from him who actually was hurting Alysanne.
Elric isn’t a bully, the child psychologist Jeyne had recommended said the same thing.
“If anything,” Davos Seaworth had a gruff, Irish accent, but he still sounded soft, almost fond of Elric, as he sat behind the glass and played in the waiting room. “I would say Elric is actually the one being bullied, poor lad.” He shook his head, and none of Sansa’s questions were ever answered.
“But Alysanne still says it’s Elric, and I have just as much of a right to-”
“I’m very sorry Miss but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Pod is standing behind Sansa, his voice surprisingly firm in the face of a seething mother.
(She’s a mother, like Sansa, who’d go through anything for her child. Sansa has always been able to see that fear in Daenerys’ eyes, that someone was hurting her child and there was nothing she could do about it.)
“Excuse me?” Daenerys reels, like she’s been slapped.
“I’m afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.” He repeats, and just to make a point, he walks around her to the office door, and opens it wider, his head tilted sideways. “Tyrion will be back any minute, and he’ll be less polite about asking you to leave.”
And for a split second, Sansa thinks Daenerys will start spitting fire at him, or scream or shout, but instead her face falls neutral, very calm, as she straightens her blazer. She doesn’t even glare when she leaves. “This isn’t over, Sansa Stark.”
Sansa doesn’t even know how to react, when the air leaves the room. Pod falls back into Bronn’s chair, the desk wheels creaking under him. He puffs his face out, shoulders hunched over.
“I can’t believe you did that.” Sansa finds herself laughing, if not out of shock, or awe. “She could’ve killed you.”
“I like Elric.” He says simply, and Sansa’s smile widens. “It’s not fair on him, that she’s making his life hell.” Pod pauses, swallowing thickly. “My father’s cousin was like that to me.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Sansa says, and means it, sincerely. She can’t imagine someone being harsh to Pod. He’s always been very sweet, very kind to her.
“But, uh, Sansa?” Pod asks, back to the man before Daenerys walked in. “I was actually wondering, if, well, only if you wanted to, if you wanted, to, I guess, get coffee? With me? Outside of the office?”
She really doesn’t know what possesses her to say it, but it comes out anyway. “Are you not… not interested in women?”
Poor Pod’s face falls.
Later, Sansa sends an email with about nine apologies, and tentatively asks if he’ll be her date to the parent’s fundraiser on Saturday. And another thank you for telling Daenerys’ Targaryen where she can put her petition.
“I can’t believe you actually said that.” Margaery says, rubbing her shoulder. Robb offered after their morning coffee to bring Elric home for her, and Margaery threw Winnie in with her.
“I can’t believe Daenerys’ keyed my car.” Sansa says, already wincing at the thin white mark running along the doors of her car.
Margaery shakes her head, waving it off. “I absolutely can. Also, Joff’s brother,” She stops herself, pulling a face. “Sorry, it’s his half-brother, Gendry, is a mechanic. I’m sure he can find some paint for it.”
“Joffrey has a half-brother?” Sansa asks, offhandedly.
“Yeah, he has a few.” Margaery shifts, suddenly distant, like she was sitting there once, but not anymore. “We’re only really close with Gendry.”
Sansa nods, just as Robb pushes the kids through the door. Elric runs towards Sansa, making sure to be faster than Winnie. Their blond hair is mussed and messy from the wind, their green eyes bright. He looks up from her waist, and Sansa can’t help but frown at his sad little face.
“Elric,” She rubs his cheek, brushes his eyebrow with her thumb. “What’s the matter.”
“We’re gonna go,” Margaery says quietly, while Robb waves goodbye, and the house is just them. “I’ll text you tomorrow?”
“Elric? What’s wrong?” Sansa slides to her knees, holding Elric’s elbows. She’s trying to look closer, try and unlock all of his fears and troubles and sadness with only her eyes. “Elric,” She tries again.
“I can’t say.”
“Why not.” Sansa whispers, heart caught in her throat. His big green eyes remind her of another little girl, with bruises blooming across her neck, brown eyes wide, as she points out Elric. “Is it Alysanne? Is Alysanne okay?”
Elric just shakes his head.
“Elric,” She pushes his blonde hair out of his face. Sansa bites the inside of her cheek, hoping that’ll keep the fear at bay. “Who is bullying Alysanne?”
“I can’t say.” He cries, his small frame shaking.
“Why not?” Sansa says again, softer, wiping tears from his cheeks.
Elric is a gentle boy, a good boy, a sweet boy, who’d never hurt anyone. “Alysanne said that if I told anyone, she might get killed dead.”
Sansa swallows, her heart breaking for that little girl. Even “Elric, is Alysanne your friend?”
He nods. “She’s the best. She likes Star Wars too.”
Her boy always manages to pull the smallest smiles, in the worst of times, from her. “Well, if you can’t say it.” She takes her phone out of her pocket, going to her pictures until she finds the class photo they took before orientation, and Elric already looks so much older here than he does in the picture. “You can point them out?”
His eyes flash with fear, ready to protest. Sansa shushes him, squeezing his hands in her’s. “Elric, Alysanne is has been a good friend to you, it’s time for you to be a good friend for her too.”
Elric points, and everything Sansa has known seems to spin and spiral and dip.
5) her son’s father
“I’m so sorry, Margaery, to tell you this.” Sansa says, and she means it, and wishes it just wasn’t true. It shouldn’t be true, but Sansa wanted to tell Margaery first before going to the school. She reaches up to rub Margaery’s shoulder. “They’re only kids, y’know, they bully sometimes, but they stop. They grow out of it too.” Sansa knows she was never the nicest sister to Arya, closed off to Jon, irritated by Bran, snappish at Robb, negligent of Rickon.
Margaery’s eyes are as hard as steel, and her face is tense and she looks far out into the sea, into the depths of Blackwater. “No,” Is all she says. She looks at Sansa, her eyes dark. “Sometimes they don’t.”
And then she leaves, and Sansa doesn’t see her until the fundraiser.
Pod comes to pick her up, adjusting his leather vest in the hall mirror. Pop Culture Night is the theme of the fundraiser, and Sansa’s wearing a long white dress, her hair pulled into two buns on the side of her head, and even if Elric says she looks beautiful, she still feels a little silly.
“Tyrion has instructed we have a drink for him.” Pod smiles, after stammering out how lovely she looks. Their car pulls up into the line for valets, and already she can see all the Marty McFly’s, the Captain Americas, the Marilyn Monroes, a few Jack and Rose’s, and even some devoted parents who painted themselves blue for the evening.
“I thought he was supposed to be coming?” Sansa says, peering up over the crowd to look for Robb, Jeyne and Margaery.
“He’s sent me instead.” Pod holds up the Lannister checkbook.
“Does this mean we have a free bar?” She grins, and the evening starts, with that dreadful impending wave of doom she’s been following her ever since she left the beach.
Pod’s into his second mohito when his eyes widen, tapping Sansa gently on the arm. “Holy fuck-”
Sansa whirls around, only to see Margaery in a glitzy, red and gold dress, her hair piled up onto her hair, her hands clasped in Daenerys’. As intrusive as it is to watch them, Margaery’s getting increasingly more frantic, until they break away and Margaery flies off.
“I’m really sorry, but I just gotta go check on her,” Sansa says, and even for good measure leans down and kisses Pod on the cheek, handing him her drink.
“I’ll tell Robb and Jeyne where you’ve gone.” He offers, raising his glass to her.
Makes her feel sweet, when her stomach flips, and he smiles that crooked grin.
Margaery has her head in her hands, heaving big, broken breaths in, overlooking the railing and stairs to the drop in below, where all of this started at orientation. Sansa can smell the sea. Sansa’s never been out here, as long as she’s been in King’s Landing, there’s been construction happening all over the stairs, with builders tape wrapped around the entrance at the top and bottom, and around the upturned pavement.
“Sansa,” Margaery breaths, and falls into her. There’s a brightness in her eyes, winking along her waterline, and Sansa doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone look so small. Margaery forces a smile, watery and scared. “Sansa, you should go back to the party, I just need to make a call to Loras, okay just go back-”
“Marg I’m not leaving you.” Sansa swears, holding her arms. “You’re upset Marg, what’s wrong?” She’s never felt so far away from someone.
“It’s nothing, okay it’s absolutely nothing okay, please don’t worry, please don’t-”
“Sansa?” A new voice, one she’d learned to dread, comes from behind them. Daenerys looks ashen in the moonlight. She’s got two dragon plush teddies wrapped around her shoulders, a long black leather cloak, and her hair in a knot of braids at the back of her head. The Mother of Dragons, here in the flesh. Her eyes widen when she sees Margaery. “Oh god, I’m sorry for interrupting.”
“You’re not, don’t worry.” Margaery says, not unkindly, just as Sansa’s about to open her mouth to ask Daenerys for some privacy.
Daenerys swallows, holding a third plushie in her hands, fingering the soft fur. This one is bigger, and darker. “Sansa, Margaery told me, that it wasn’t Elric, and,” She takes a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry for treating you, and your little boy so badly. I really, truly am.”
Daenerys’ remorse is clear in her eyes, in her shaking hands, in her heavy frown. Daenerys is a mother, like her, who’d bring vengeance on whoever tried to hurt them with fire and blood and tear cities down for them. Motherhood is feral like that, something primal, and Sansa feels that run through her veins.
“Thank you,” Sansa says, smiling at Dany. “Apology accepted.”
“The petition was inappropriate, and just so out of order.” Daenerys continues.
Sansa waves her off, her lips quirking. “Well, I did almost gauge your eye out.”
“It takes a really big person to apologise.” Margaery says, wiping at her eyes. “You’re a very big person, Dany.” The nickname is fond, from a time before Sansa and Elric ever came to King’s Landing. Margaery smiles, but draws back into herself, when the shadow of a man appears in the distance.
“Margaery.” The man has a haughty voice, high and firm and controlling, and Sansa feels her blood run cold. “Can I talk to you? Come back to the car with me.”
(She’s heard this one before.)
“No,” Margaery says, coming out shaky. “No I won’t.”
“Please, Margaery.” He comes closer, and Sansa can see blond hair, short and close to his scalp. He’s in a fine suit, white, with a red flower taped to the lapel.
“I think she just needs a minute.” Dany says, full of that ice-tone she used on orientation, when she saw Alysanne’s bruises. She has a tight, polite smile, but it’s the one she uses when she has little time for someone.
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m talking to my wife , not you.” The man snaps, his tone becoming more and more unhinged.
Dany turns to them, and it’s a look Sansa knows too well. On buses, on trains, in bars, in clubs. A warning, the notice of a red flag, genuine fear, in the face of a man who won’t say no.
“Please, Margaery, let’s just go back to the car and talk about it-”
(“Stop making so much noise!” He’d yelled, and Sansa felt her whole body collapse like a house of cards.)
Margaery looks at Sansa, then to Dany, than right at the man. “No! I’m not coming home with you!”
Finally, Sansa thinks, as the man emerges into the light, a face to put to the name of Joffrey Baratheon.
“Please, Margaery.” He says one last time.
Finally, Sansa realises, as his green eyes leer, a face to put to the name of Martyn Hill.
Joffrey looks at her, the flicker of recognition flashing in his eyes, and Sansa’s only felt fear like this once before.
She looks at Margaery, as her throat closes up, as her head spins, as every memory she’s repressed and forced and pushed down resurfaces. Dany stands in front of them, putting a block between them and him and there’s music playing, distantly in the background, lilting and swaying, as all the air in the world seems to be sucked away.
Dany doesn’t, but Sansa does, and somehow, just somehow, Margaery knows too.
Joffrey lunges at Margaery first, pushing past Dany. His head blocks the street light, and the slivers of brightness slip through his closed fist. Sansa pushes against him, just as she manages to catch Margaery and Joffrey turns to her and hits her hard across the lips, across the mouth and her blood kisses the cold night air. Without question and without warning, Dany jumps in front of Margaery, pushing Joffrey away. He grabs her right on the throat, pulling her away from Margaery, but Dany rises again, for Sansa to grab his back and kick and pull and scratch and bite, anything to get a hit on, anything to save Margaery.
It’s funny, in a way, how just yesterday Sansa and Dany had no care or love or value for one another, but here Sansa is, taking a kick in the stomach so she doesn’t get hurt.
Dany roars like a dragon, ignoring being defensive and starts being aggressive, until his blood is split across the pavement and her fingernails have dragged down his face. Sansa can hear the ocean in her ears, the relentless attack on the surf, on the sand, how harsh the crashing waves can be to one another, only to stand together, and roll over the sand. Sansa’s blood is rushing, and when she bites the hand that tries to gag her, she feels like a she-wolf.
And Margaery. Margaery who thought she was going to die tonight. Margaery gets up again, growing upwards and kicks and scratches and curses Joffrey, all to get to Sansa, to help Dany, to get an evil man away from them, even if it was at risk to herself.
But no one notices Jeyne running towards them. Then there’s Jeyne with them, gentle Jeyne, sweet Jeyne, Jeyne who’s due in less than four weeks but smiling through it.
And then they all watch, half in horror, mostly in relief, as she presses her hands into Joffrey’s back and pushes him over the stairs.
5.2) how dead bodies look in real life
(The coroner will write a very technical and clinical analysis of the body, but to Sansa, who’s the first to peer over the edge and look, Joffrey Baratheon has a metal pipe sticking out of his neck, a horrible twist in his leg, a pool of blood gathering under his head from where his skull met the pavement with a sudden crack Sansa doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the sound of, and blood is running out of his ears and nose and mouth.)
+1) when someone you love was depending on your lie, it was perfectly easy to keep it
It’s probably too cold to go to the beach, as mid December creeps in, but the sand is nice under her feet and the air smells like salt. Sansa can hear the crash of the waves, but also laughter of children, and she doesn’t think a day will pass when she’s not grateful for that sound.
Dany’s laughing too, watching Alysanne and Rhaego race across the sand, ignoring their mother’s call to stay away from the water creeping along the surf. They don’t listen, and giggle when the water rushes up to their ankles, to the edges of their rolled up jeans. Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion are three hulking, german shepherd crossed with a Dothraki mountain dog.
(Dany had been the first to pull them together, to look away from the body and shake Jeyne out of her numbness. She was also the first person there, when Sansa turned around and burst into floods of tears, her face clear and there when the rest of the world went blurry, and Sansa couldn’t tell if it was five years ago or the fundraiser.
“You’re here, Sansa, listen to me, you’re here.” Her voice was shaking, tripping over herself, but she grounded Sansa. Something was naturally composed in the woman, and she greeted the first responders and the officers and made sure someone was gentle with Jeyne.)
(“My brother was like him.” Dany had explained, her voice breaking. “And I just saw Alysanne being hurt and ignored and saw myself, and tried to be the adult I didn’t have when I was a child.”)
(We always try to grow up and be the heroes we needed as children.)
Next to her on the blanket, Jeyne has little Elinor wrapped up under a blanket, feeding her while Katie leads the troop across the dunes, Donny as her ever faithful, ever loyal, second-in-command.
(She’d just returned from the police station after handing in her statement, when Robb called, and said Jeyne was in the hospital and it was probably the stress of everything that brought the labour on. Elinor is a little miracle, and that’s all that matters.)
(Robb had said, in passing, that Jeyne had a hard childhood, that her mother wasn’t invited into his home, wasn’t allowed near his children, that she was a witch and a horrible mother who was cruel to a fifteen year old with nowhere to go. And Sansa knew better than to ask why.)
(“It’s why I don’t talk to my mother anymore.” Jeyne had breathed out, while the lights flashed and snapped and the people were evacuated, all the people but them. “I just saw him hurting you and I-”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Margaery whispered, her face close to the other woman, their foreheads touching, as gentle and as intimate as one would be, with the person who murdered your husband. “Thank you, thank you, thank you Jeyne. You saved my life.”)
Day by day, Margaery gets her brightness back. Winnie is still sullen and withdrawn and sad, and angry, not quite understanding life and death, but today, for the first time in a while, he smiles with his mouth open, and chatters to Elric about how lovely Dr Seaworth is, how cool the toys in his waiting room are, how cold the water is.
(They’re brothers, Sansa supposes, and she knows Margaery has no idea how to even begin wrapping her head around it. She’d pressed their foreheads together after the funeral, when this monster of a man had been laid in a crypt, the heavy marble the only thing that kept them safe, knowing that he could never crawl out and never return.)
Lena toddles around after the bigger kids, her blonde hair golden in the sunshine.
(“She’s going to grow up not knowing her father.” Margaery’s tone was choked and tense, tired, as everyone is just after grief. “They both will.”
Sansa and Dany were there, to reassure her that it’s not always the card you want to be dealt, but it's the one you’re given nonetheless.)
(How Margaery hid it, all for eight years, is beyond Sansa. She’d already bought an apartment closer to her brother and intended to stay there and hide with the children until she knew where she was going, until her therapist, an eccentric yet serious woman named Ellaria Sand, could help her find the right path.)
And then there’s Sansa’s boy, is standing in front of her, pulling her up and off the blanket, speeding down the beach. He’s faster than the rest of them, even narrowly running further than Rhaego, and he skids past and let’s out a happy laugh, that spills into the sea and becomes a part of the tide.
(Her whole family came down after. Even Jon, and Bran, even though he hates travelling with his chair, Rickon out of school, Arya missing a competition, her parents canceling their lectures. Before Elinor arrived into this world, they all came to find Sansa, still in her white dress, with her lip bleeding and bruises on her stomach.
The new reality had sunk in. She had a name to give them now.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”)
“Moooom, you have to chase me!” He calls, and it’s such a beautiful image, Sansa has to stop and press kisses into his forehead and his cheeks and his chin.
(“Hello, Elric,” Sansa said, the minute she was left alone with him for the first time. His eyes were open, and Sansa wanted to spend the rest of her life looking into them.)
But the sea rolls on, as the rest of them get up, Dany running after Rhaego and Alysanne, Margaery holding Lena’s hand and helping Winnie trace words into the sand with their toes, Jeyne gently settling the baby to sit between Katie and Donny.
(“Mr Baratheon had attacked you, Miss Stark, that seems like a substantial motive for manslaughter in the name of self-defense, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“He fell.” Sansa said. Dany said. Jeyne said. Margaery said. And even if self-defense could’ve been applied to it, with Sansa’s cut, Dany’s bruises, Margaery’s statement from Ellaria, they still pushed forward, so Jeyne wouldn’t have to bear it alone. “We all watched him fall.”
“He fell.” Brienne said, and even nodded, almost like she was agreeing with them.)
But for now the sand is cold under her, the wind is whistling around her scarf and running through her hair, the air smells like salt, and the children are happy, and safe, and that’s all they need.