Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The ink was slightly smudged, like water had fallen on the paper, written in stormy seas. Sansa had to squint but it was legible.

I accept the position. It would be an honour to keep you safe. Now that the war is over, and my tyrannical uncle is dead, my sister has given me permission to leave. I write this sailing north now, and will likely be arriving in two moons.

She touched the signature with a gentle finger.

Theon Greyjoy

 Her coronation was in a few hours. Although her stomach wanted to twist its way out of her body, she pushed it back, knowing she shouldn’t feel so nervous.

Perched on her bed, her handmaids readied the dress beside her but she couldn’t look at it. Sansa felt ill prepared, like a little girl playing at queen, like little Robb and Jon and Theon smacking wooden swords with Ser Rodrik, shouting out names of knights and heroes and kings of old.

Was she good enough? Being Lady of Winterfell was one thing — but a queen? Robb did it, Jon did, even the short time he’d had it. But Sansa Stark? Little Sansa, who was instructed to be seen and not heard by every captor she was passed around?

Slipping out before her handmaids could see, she escaped to the only place that could give her peace, settle her shaking hands.

The statues in the crypts had been standing in Winterfell for a thousand and more years, her father had told her. They hold every Stark on this earth, my girl. Little Sansa gasped in wonder. Even the ladies, father? The ones who married lords?

Father looked strange for a moment, as if a shadow had passed over his face. But he’d moved a warm hand onto her lap, engulfing both her small knees, and the other around her back. Yes, Sansa. If the house they were wed to permitted it.

She remembered feeling joyful after that, convinced she’d be lain to rest here even after her long and happy marriage to a southron lord. Stupid girl, she thought. The Lannisters would never have allowed it, and certainly not the Boltons. She shivered.

If she ever married again — and truly, it was an if — her husband would respect her wishes and bury her here, or she wouldn’t marry at all. She wanted to marry for love.

As she wandered there was a pitter-patter and the shifting of her dress. At the end of this long cavern stood the Kings of Winter, the first leaders of the North, the source of the old gods' prayers. It occurred to her that she was now one of them, the last in line after Jon, Robb, and Torrhen Stark. Would she have a stone statue of her direwolf Lady at her feet and a sword across her lap, like the kings did? Like Robb did?

Sansa stopped, feet scuffing on the stones. There was a figure a ways in front of her. Someone was at Robb’s grave.

At the sound, they whipped around. Tormented blue eyes stared back at her.

“Theon?” she said, though she was not truly surprised. She had seen him slip into the shadows and disappear down into the crypts often lately, more frequently the nearer it got to her coronation. On the day of, she’d not seen him until now. Had he been here the whole morning?

Theon did not reply, standing there looking like he’d been caught doing something bad, eyes guilty. It was an echo of Reek, she realised, who was punished for drawing attention to himself. He’s learnt to seep in and out of shadows and corners to survive.

“It’s alright,” she said reflexively. “Did you come to see Robb?”

It was obvious that he had, standing directly in front of his statue, but Sansa wanted him to talk to her.

“Yes.”

Theon did not speak often nowadays, but when he did, it was always to the point. He did not do games like he used to. Sansa rather liked that quality in him, vastly preferring silence to meaningless noise.

Although, her dislike of it was less about preference and more being terrified that she’d accidentally let something slip. It was a fear drummed into her at King’s Landing. Theon’s fear was the same type.

“Is it alright if I join you?” she asked. She always asked, trying to give him the freedom of choice he was never allowed with Ramsay.

After a moment’s consideration, he nodded. The shifting of her dress as she walked was the only sound between them, the noise echoing around the crypts. She wondered if all of the dead Starks could hear whatever went on down here.

Robb’s statue was big, intimidating, posed with an arrogant pride so unlike the brother she knew. With Grey Wind at his feet he looked cold, lifeless. As with Father’s, she’d wished his had been done by someone who knew his face. The eyes were wrong — Robb's were kind, where elder brothers usually were not.

How different he was to someone like Joffrey, who never cared and loved for his siblings as Robb did for them. He may have had the colouring of a brave and handsome prince from her childhood stories, but behind his sickly green eyes laid a twisted monster.

The eyes always gave people away, betrayed their true souls. The sculptor had made Robb's eyes round and hard, she supposed like they thought their king ought to be, but she and Theon knew the true gentleness in him.

“I envied him,“ Theon admitted suddenly. “I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be him… at least I can serve House Stark now, to pay for that envy. I should’ve done it a long time ago, with your brother.”

“Your brother,” she corrects, giving him a pointed stare.

Theon looks back, blinking. “Yes.”

They both turn again to Robb. If she closed her eyes, she could convince herself that his ghost stood between them, and it was only another day in their happy childhood. He would smile at her or lift her up onto his lap, or even sit down and read with her. That was rare; Robb often found storybooks tedious, but he'd always do it if she begged.

“How long did you feel that way?” she asked Theon, voice small.

“Only when I began to understand why I was at Winterfell. Father bid me—” he falters. “Ned bid me talk with him when I was old enough and explained that I was there to keep Balon in line. Until then, I had thought I was one of you.”

“You were,” she argued.

“Officially, I was your father’s prisoner, on account of the man who'd helped make me.”

She noticed he would not call Balon Greyjoy father.

“But we treated you—” she began hotly, feeling a tide of anger in her.

But he shook his head roughly, as if he were batting away memories, and her anger faded. “I know. Maester Luwin kept telling me that when I took Winterfell. I hated hearing it, resented completely the idea of being grateful to my captors. It took me far too long to realise he was right.”

He looks up suddenly, directly into Robb’s eyes of stone. She follows his gaze.

“I loved Robb,” he admitted, voice shaky now. "He was my best friend, my brother, and I stabbed him in the back. He could do no wrong in my eyes, where all I could be was a wayward son and a failure. I envied him, envied you all, for that effortless Stark nature you all had. I yearned for the images of the sea I made up in my head, thinking I would be accepted as a true Ironborn if I stayed loyal even in captivity.” He choked and had to pause. "I tried to prove myself to the Ironborn, and to Balon. I was lying to myself that he might love me if I killed enough Northmen, and it didn’t even work. I did not realise at the time there would never be enough dead Northmen in Westeros to make Balon love me.”

Robb's eyes seemed to stare down into Theon, like he could hear him speak of his betrayal. There was hurt there, she thought, even if they were made of stone.

“Drowned god, I will never be able to tell him I would give anything to go back. To undo it all. He died thinking I hated him, that I’d killed his brothers, and he hated me right back.” Theon made a strange moan then, a sound that struck deep in her chest.

“Theon—“ she starts, and stops. She has no idea what to say to comfort him. His sins were ones she had only little knowledge of, and she hadn’t lived them. Only Theon and those who suffered by them knew.

"Robb would have forgiven you, as I have,” she insisted. Robb’s eyes were kind, she still remembered that, despite the cold statue in front of her. The betrayal had hurt, but she knew her brother. “He loved you, Theon.”

"Don't, Sansa," he whimpers, "he hated me as he died and I deserve it all. I was arrogant, hateful—"

"—And desperate to be accepted,” she finished. "We all knew your father never cared about you, Theon. Not the way our father did. Not the way all of us did."

This seemed only to make him snivel harder. The soft sounds echo through the crypts, breaking the holy quiet of the place. Sansa finds she doesn't mind. If there was any sound to be had down here, grief would fit; and it was a kind of mourning in his cries, a bone-deep remorse for what he had done.

It occurs to her that this was the most she’d heard him talk in an age. The last time had been when she’d left Winterfell, the prideful set of his shoulders and the loudness of his voice intact.

Now, there was much crowding his conscience, and a suffering soul that held his lips shut against it all.

Gods, she thought. I know a thing or two about keeping quiet.

Against her better judgement, she dives to embrace him, wraps her arms around his back, presses her chin into his shoulder. It felt just as it had in the snow under a tree, or in Winterfell’s own walls. It was blissful, it was sinful, what she felt then and now. She screwed up her eyes against him.

He doesn't lean in immediately, but he places a hand on her back. She knows it is a silent thanks, even if he feels he can't entirely accept her comfort.

They stand there for a while, an eternity, swaying slightly like they were half-heartedly dancing to a festive tune.

Sansa forgot how much she missed him, between the battle of Winterfell and his decision to leave and help Yara hunt Euron. It was done, and he was back, but her memories would never let her forget.

I would've died to get you there, she remembered.

She could not let the man who'd said those words stay in pain by himself. No one, not anyone, had displayed that kind of loyalty to her in years.

Sansa thought she enjoyed thinking on that moment so much because it filled the hole in her heart that had been aching for so long. But since then she’d gained Jon, Bran and Arya, and still, she thought of it. She didn't entirely understand why, but it brought her immeasurable comfort to know he would've taken her all the way to the wall.

His cries subsided slowly, but still he clung to her. Somehow, in between the moment she’d reached out and now, he had taken her against him in full. It gave her satisfaction to realise he accepted the comfort she gave, the forgiveness embedded in the lines of her stroking hands.

Behind her, Robb stood still, hard and unwavering as stone, as he always did. Theon released her.

"Are you looking forward to your coronation?" he asked, his eyes pleading to move on from his regrets.

"Yes," she replied with cool courtesy, the armour that was hers, for she did not wear plate or chainmail.

Theon's eyes silently pierced into her, and within an instant, all of it disappeared.

"No,” she confessed quickly. Those eyes would not let her lie. “Truthfully... I'm scared."

Sansa thought about leaving her words there, but Theon had been to the bottom of existence and back. He knew what it was like, and she trusted him. “I’m scared I wont be a good ruler, like Robb. He and my mother died for The North… even father was executed for this kingdom in some way. Loyalty, honour… they’re not wise traits to have, especially in The South.”

“But it is in The North,” he pointed out softly. “You never have to go further than The Neck ever again, not if you don’t want to.”

In her head, she knew that, but the heart that remembered Ser Meryn’s beatings struggled with it.

“I’ve tried my best to be faithful, when I was away all those years…” she felt herself begin to shake again, like she had before in her room, staring at the dress that meant so much to her. “But I was forced to pledge to many others since I was taken from Winterfell. I hope… I hope Robb would understand that. I hope he’d be proud of me for setting us free again.”

Her voice was small, still a little girl after all she’d been through. Little Sansa, thirteen and trapped in King's Landing, desperate for her loving family.

Theon’s eyes were intense. "Of course he would be, Sansa,” he said forcefully, trying to convince her. “You've fulfilled everything he fought for."

She pushed back the budding tears, though she knew Theon would not mind if she cried. If she let herself fly away, her handmaids would later despair over her red eyes.

"Thank you, Theon. That means everything to me."

It really did. She suddenly pictured her brother's brown curls — they were not painted on the statue, of course, the carved ringlets remaining a dull grey. These statues were fitting memorials for the Starks of the past, but they were pale comparisons to the living, breathing people that inspired them.

Sansa would never stop the tradition, but she hated it, just a little. It was like looking through murky water, a thick veil over the true being that caught your eye underneath. To look but not really see, a cruel trick or jest, just like the dwarves Joffrey hired at his wedding. One of them claimed to be her brother, brandishing a stuffed direwolf head and crying King in The North, but just like the statue, it was not him. No sordid imitation could compare.

Where Jon was Arya’s, Robb was hers. He was the eldest son, expected to fulfill his role as lord, leader, to continue the family legacy, just as she, as the eldest girl, was expected to marry well and bring fortune with the match. Though it did not feel like a burden at the time, on some level she always understood why Robb sometimes felt crushed by the weight of expectations.

She was always staunchly scorned by her father for playing favourites with her siblings, but Sansa thought it was only human to enjoy some company more than others. Though she would readily admit that she was cruel about it as a girl, shunning Arya and Jon in the wake of being well-mannered. Robb always told her eldest siblings should stick together, Sansa. Then he would gently stroke a hand across her head and down the length of her hair, a gesture so like their father, before running off to chase Theon all around Winterfell.

In front of her, Theon now looked haunted by the same memories. He did not need to speak; Robb was mirrored from her own eyes in his, Robb and the rest of their family grinning, sitting down to supper everyday for years, greeting King Robert with an eagerness, being torn apart. It was all reflected back at her in him and she was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge that he was the only one in Winterfell who knew what she had suffered, what they all had suffered, how happy they were before the Lannisters came knocking.

Her arms reached out to embrace him once again of their own accord, and this time he sunk in eagerly.

"Stay with me," she breathed, and it shocked her to realise just how lonely she’d been until he returned. A cavern opened in her chest. "Jon and Bran and Arya, they left me here alone. Don't go."

"I wouldn't," he promised quickly, squeezing her tighter. "I would never." She heard their family in his voice, stuck in his mouth and infecting the sound, direwolves clawing at his throat.

“You’re certain you wish to stay here?” she asked tentatively.

Winterfell had become the place of his torture after all, and she would understand if he could not bare living between the same walls Ramsay ripped at his skin. He had called the Iron Islands home, once, with snowflakes in his hair.

“It’s the least I could do, to serve you. To be your sworn shield.”

It should not be only for duty, Sansa thought. She did not know where that wish came from.

“It’s for life,” she warned him.

There was no hesitation in his reply, “I know.”

“You’re the only one who knows...” she choked. “What we went through… you’re the only one left.”

“You’re still here.” He gives her a gentle shake. “You’re still alive. If I were not here, you would still be surviving.”

She held him tighter. He said the same thing before he left her with Brienne. It was true, she knew that now, but she couldn’t bare the thought of being so alone.

Once, she recited their father’s words to Arya. When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. 

There were meant to be many Starks crowding the halls of Winterfell. The wars had ravaged them all, plucked them out of these warm walls and scattered them across the neverending cesspit of Westeros.

Now there were only two. Two Starks who were entirely broken regardless, ravaged by the wars in a different kind of way.

The dress was soft. Softer than she thought it would be. It slid over her like silk, and more than before, she felt ready to stand in front of a room of strangers and look regal. One handmaiden with black hair gave her a smile as she helped her put it on, and the gesture reminded her so much of Shae she felt tears come to the edge of her eyes. 

Both of Sansa’s weddings had everyone staring at her, ghost hands pushing and pulling at the silly Stark girl. The same happened at every summon Joffrey extended, the crowd’s eyes upon her hard and hateful; Robb had won another battle, ripped apart another army with his direwolf teeth, and she was the only one around to pay for each of them. 

Now, everyone would be looking at her, but it would be for no one but herself, no man to be given to or beating to bear. As frightening as the idea of being the focus of the room was, that thought gave her relief.

The walk from her chambers to the great hall was quiet, her shallow breathing the only sound. The rest of the castle was deserted. A boy was waiting by the door, shaggy haired with a sweet face. Upon seeing her turn the corner, he jumped and straightened his back. He reached for the door knocker but she put her hand up.

“Wait,” she told him, and his hand stilled, eyes wide. “What’s your name?”

“L— Lionel,” the boy stammered. His blue eyes reminded her a little of Gendry, Winterfell’s smith during the war with the dead.

“Forgive me for not learning your name before. I don’t want to start off on a bad foot with the person who runs my audience chambers.”

He didn’t, but he had the power to let anyone in or out. That was quite an advantage to have.

The boy blushed. “There’s nothing to forgive, your grace.”

She smiled at him, but it waned a little as she looked at the door. Behind there stood all of her lords, lined and waiting. 

The boy seemed to notice her trepidation. “It’ll be alright, your grace,” he said softly, genuinely, and she was glad she’d asked him his name. 

“Thank you, Lionel. You can open it now.” 

With a smile he did, and she stepped through. 

She began to march slowly, as graceful as she could under her thick clothing. The lords in her vision had hard, curious eyes; raking over her and assessing just how worthwhile the eldest Stark girl was. Did they judge her less than Robb, less than Jon?

She kept her head high. 

To her immense relief, she met a pair of blue eyes that were not demanding and merciless like the Northern lords; Theon stood tall, the first she’d seen in a very long time. His face was relaxed, fixed to her as she walked, a pride so fierce shining out of his eyes she had to stop herself from breaking out into an answering grin. 

The throne was beautiful, but she only loved the direwolves carved into either side of the back. They pointed upward, howling into the air, so emblematic of the pain and suffering her House had bore. But she survived, to be here in this moment for Robb, mother and father, Rickon; Bran, Arya, Jon. For all of them. 

She sat with a shuffle of her dress, and suddenly felt warm. The rest of her family were not present, but they were here, even if they were just ghosts, whispers on the edge of Sansa’s vision. 

The crown was brought out, a shimmering silver symbol of the North she had been fighting tooth and nail for, the kingdom she’d bled and been beaten for. 

Sansa felt like she was on top of Winterfell's parapets again, peeking over the vast drop down. There were dividing lines of fate flickering in front of her, two diverging roads. She would either live and rule a queen of winter, or drown and die beneath the snow, body broken and bleeding. 

The crown felt soft on her head, the weight of a kingdom lighter than she’d imagined it would be. She wondered if Robb ever felt like this with his crown, the mix of fear and elation making her gut churn. 

On her forehead, two direwolves met in the middle. They were not alone. She looked to her right, to Theon. Neither was she. 

“As queen, I will name my sworn protector, a member of my queensguard,” she declared. “I name Lord Theon Greyjoy.” 

Every single head in the room swivelled to him. None of the lords said a word, but there was a tense silence following her words. Theon looked only to her. 

“Will you accept?” she asked. 

“I will,” he answered quickly.

Breaking from the line, he came to her. He knelt in front of her, in front of the direwolf throne. There was a simple poetry in that, Sansa thought. 

His head was bent to the floor, and she gazed at his hair, the soft curls only inches from her. If she wanted to, she could reach out and run a hand through it. 

Having a kingsguard was a southron tradition, and Sansa hated the thought of imitating the order so fully, vows and all, so her Northern guard would only take the same vows any sworn shield would speak. But she’d added her own Northern touch to them. 

Theon starts his oath reverently, “I vow I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be.”

“And I vow,” she begins, “that you shall always have a place at my hearth, and meat and mead at my table, and I pledge to ask no service of you that would bring you dishonour.”

Theon raised his head and met her eyes. The intensity in them almost stole her breath away. 

“By the old gods, by hardship and snow, by the Kings of Winter, you are queensguard,” she said.

“By the old gods,” he repeated. “By hardship and snow, by the Kings of Winter. I swear to protect and serve the Queen in the North whose name is Stark. From this day, until my last day.”

As he rose, she saw sea water drowning his face, a fierceness in his eyes. What is dead may never die; but rises again, harder and stronger. 

He moved back into the crowd of lords that lined the hall. There was a heavy moment of silence before Theon pulled his sword from the scabbard. The same hand that had trembled when she gripped it was now steady.

Posed like that, with his sword and chin in the air, he looked like the Starks in the crypts, the powerful stone statues of the Kings of Winter. There was something powerful, prideful, more than human on his face.

“The Queen in the North!” he bellowed. The sound echoed around the hall. 

The lords around him released their swords in tandem. All together with their arms extended, it looked like an odd dance, the kind of dances fairies of the night did in Old Nan’s stories.

“The Queen in the North! The Queen in the North!”

Their unified shouting was deafening, rumbling the stone around them. 

“THE QUEEN IN THE NORTH!”

 The feast was bare. All of the excess emergency supply they’d already used up — whether it was from the wars, the cold, or feeding more people than she’d planned in the last few months — meant they had little to spare. Sansa put on a feast as best she could, but she did not go all out; she still remembered being chased into an alley and dragged along the cold stone floor, men ripping at her skirts. The people of The North would never want for bread as long as she was alive. 

Maybe one day, when food was in excess and spring melted snow, she would put on a grand event. 

Theon was nowhere to be seen; he had disappeared after her coronation, the pride on his face mingling with something so terribly sad. And guilt, always guilt. 

She sat on her throne as the Northern lords and their sons presented her with gifts — jewellery, fine silks, one even brought her ten horses; well-bred, if he was to be believed. Their sons preened at her, eyes hungry and fingers twitching. 

She knew what they wanted; just what Littlefinger wanted, what Ramsay wanted, what Joffrey and a hundred thousand nobles and the men of King’s Landing wanted. She knew. They would not receive it, but she certainly made it looked like they might; she smiled, she flicked her hair, she leaned in. All the things she’d done as a girl, when she meant them. 

The part of Westeros a man was born in did not entirely determine their disposition. After all, Ramsay had been of The North, and still he was cruel. There was no telling what these men and their boys were like behind closed doors.

It was only when Theon approached that the sick churning in her stomach abated. He would not look at her like he wanted to devour her, like those lords and their sons did.

“Your grace,” he said, kneeling in that way he did before, compliant and sincere, putting his entire body into it. “I bring my gift.”

Something was glinting in the candlelight, sitting on his palm. She reached out and met his hand halfway. 

“ Oh ,” she sighed, bringing it up to her. The bracelet was, under normal circumstances, less fine than all the others she had received tonight. But it was special. 

“It belonged to—” 

“Robb,” she finished, amazed. “I remember.” 

Running a hand around the edge, she thought of the silly face her brother always made when mother scolded him, before she began to carefully inspect the decoration.

The wolves were the same as the ones on her sigil, repeated in a ring, silver and shimmering in the low light. Robb had only worn it on special occasions, a formality and sign of pride when guests visited. He had most certainly had it on when King Robert Baratheon entered their lives. Pressing her thumb into one of the wolves’ metal fur, she concluded resolutely that she had received many gifts today, but this beat them all. 

“You kept it?” she asked Theon, looking up into his eyes, where he’d been watching her inspection. Unwittingly, she felt herself soften under his gaze.

“I did. It was in my room, on Pyke,” he admitted.

Sansa hated the thought of Robb’s bracelet falling into Ramsay’s clutches, like all of her family’s belongings that were left behind before they captured Winterfell. She was glad Theon kept it. 

“When I returned, after… it was still there.” He struggled with his words, now. “Some part of me decided to keep it, even when I was… betraying him. I kept it.” He stood up, back straight, readily admitting to his sins. “It is yours now, as it should be.” 

“Thank you.” 

His eyes were soft. “It belongs to a Stark.”

She kept his eye, and for the first time in many years, he kept it back. 

“Come sit with me, Lord Greyjoy,” she asked, gesturing to the chair beside her. “You are my queensguard now, after all.”

He regarded the chair nervously, like it might come alive and bite him. It was odd, she conceded, that he was now to stay in Winterfell with her for the foreseeable future. The struggle with his identity was his own fight, but it struck her a certain kind of ironic that a Greyjoy was to guard her. Would her father be proud , she wondered, for continuing the peace between their kingdoms? 

While Theon made his way around the table, she let the music echoing around the hall fill her head. Ramsay would only hold feasts on rare occasions, but Joffrey had many, providing Sansa opportunity to shut the world out, listen to the instruments, and pretend none of it was happening to her. The small escapes she managed to wrestle from her captors kept her alive; sweet foods, music, staring into the sea or snow. That, and the thought of Jon and Arya, still alive somewhere in the world, and the thought of surviving to get back to them. Now, just Theon remained. 

“I never imagined I would be here again,” he said softly, settling into the chair. 

No one in the hall was paying attention to the queen and her guard, so she decided it was safe for the formalities to slip.

“Neither did I, not for a long time,” she told him. “I would dream of Winterfell but I never believed I might be back one day.”

That seemed to strike him on old wounds, and his eyes began to dart across the wooden table in front of him, a habit she was familiar with. “The head of the table is not for me, your grace.”

“It is now,” she pointed out plainly. “And I won’t see any argument. You are my sworn shield, Theon, you can’t sit anywhere else.”

He nodded stiffly and choked out, “Yes.”  

During the time between her coronation and the feast, Sansa had taken to thinking about the vow Theon made. She bit her lip, but gathered her courage.

“Your vows,” she began. “I do not mean for you to take the word serve to heart.” 

“What?” he said, giving her an incredulous stare.

“I thought you might have some trouble with that word. To serve with blind obedience… I would not want that for you again.”

There was a long silence where he looked away, thoughtful, and back again. “It’s not the same when it’s with you,” he said finally.

“Still, I would not want you to feel like you could never question me, or my decisions.”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“Promise me,” she urged. 

“I promise, Sansa. I am alright.” He looked seconds away from patting her hand, like she was Old Nan fussing over him. 

With the way he consistently looked like a scared animal, it was hard to resist. 

“And if you wanted to leave…” her throat began to close up. “You would be free to.”

This time, he turned his body to face her, like it would aid in convincing her. “I would not,” he maintained. “I sailed northeast of my own free will, and I kneeled in front of you of my own free will. I am here of my own free will.”

She could not find a reply to that, choosing instead to reach underneath the table and take his hand. It was a bold move, one that he could easily deny and hurt her in the process, though she was confused as to why she felt it so important that he did not.

During those torturous years apart from her home, she wanted to be held by the people she loved so badly she thought might die one day from the sheer aching for it. Of course, it never came, not for many long years.

Theon’s embrace under the overhang of a frozen tree was the first time her begging was answered by the gods. It was so odd, she didn’t know how to react; the warm, safe feeling so bone-deep familiar but far away she could not breach the gap for many moons after. She still struggled with it. Looking to Theon beside her, hunched ever so slightly — only she could tell Reek was hovering above him tonight — but with a renewed light in his eyes, she realised it was the same contrast for him. 

He did not jump at her hand like she expected. Instead, he gently intertwined their fingers. She was so focused on the warmth the gesture gave her she did not hear someone approaching the table until they cleared their throat, impatient and assuming. 

“Lord Glover,” she greeted evenly.

It had been a while since he’d been in the great hall. The last time was when Jon had told all the Northern lords he was bound for Dragonstone. The grey hairs on his head and face had gotten greyer, the lines around his eyes deeper. 

He bowed, quickly, like he was rushing to get it over with. “Your grace.”

“I’m glad you accepted my invitation. I believe we have a matter of allegiance to discuss.”

Glover licked his lips, looking at her and then away. “Indeed, your grace.”

“You did not send men, nor come yourself to fight in the battle of Winterfell, despite my brother, who was king at the time, asking you to do so.”

“I swore to the King in the North, not a Targaryen Queen,” he defended himself, his Northern accent hard and gruff.

Sansa leaned a hand on her nose; she could not fault that publicly, even though it irritated personally. Many lords agreed with him. Bannermen would normally be required to swear loyalty to whatever ruler their great house pledged to, and Jon pledged to Daenerys. But it was understandable, on a principal level, why he distrusted a Targaryen. The North had suffered greatly from rulers with silver hair and purple eyes, and all of these lords had lived longer than Sansa, long enough to remember a mad king with green wildfire.

“Alright,” she allowed. “Will you swear fealty to me, the eldest Stark heir?”

“Without question, your grace,” he said, and for a moment, she heard sincerity in his low voice. No matter how long he’d been gone, the memory of the type of warden her father had been; fair, just, honourable, still blew in the cold wind of The North, and no lord forgot.

Sansa nodded. “That’s settled, then. Thank you, Lord Glover.”

He gave her an apprehensive look, assessing, and that was the look she’d been on the receiving end of a lot today. It did not make her cower. Still, he bowed again and returned to the feasting, to the side of his sons. 

Another man stepped up where Lord Glover left. 

He was tall, with a bald head and crow's eyes; Sansa thought he blended in with all the other Northern lords, featureless and plain. The thick black cloak he wore added to his height, but he hunched like he was shy. 

"My lord,” she greeted. “Thank you for coming tonight. I hope you have enjoyed yourself?"

"I have, your grace," he said, with a voice higher than Glover’s. "I have come to discuss a potential proposition with you, if you would do me the honour?"

"Assuredly, my lord. I understand many of the most Northern bannermen are struggling with the transition to an independent kingdom. Forging a stronger relationship with them, as strong as my father had with the great houses of The North is my priority."

This was true. It worried her that some lords and smaller houses did not take well to her rule, when they would've happily followed Jon and Robb before her. 

He looked surprised, like he expected her to be a blubbering fool or a squealing child. "That is indeed the reason I came to speak with you."

"Very good. What is your proposal?"

He hesitated, but said, "I ask for your hand."

Sansa blinked. 

Theon, who'd been in his own head, turned to stare at the lord. Underneath the table, Sansa's hands on his started to burn.

"I see," she spoke slowly. “Would you elaborate?"

He nodded, not seeming to realise her discomfort, which means she was hiding it well.

"My wife died many moons past, your grace, but together we sired no children. Our house is sorely in need of heirs, and a strong supply of food, repairs, and attention. You see, we were raided by the white walkers on their path south. There is precious little men left to rebuild the house and no materials to do it."

"I understand, but forgive me, how does a marriage solve anything but potential heirs?"

"Well, I presume that if someone held in such high esteem as yourself, your grace, was associated with our name, it would bring much needed attention to us."

Her brow furrowed. "I would assist with your problems regardless of my marital status, my lord. I am the queen of these lands, I will do whatever I can to help you. There is no need to force attentions when I would give it freely, if only asked for, as you have."

"Of course, your grace." His voice got noticeably higher and she narrowed her eyes. 

"Are you alright, my lord?"

He took too long to answer. "Aye. I think I'll be going now, your gra—"

"Please wait," she told him sharply. "Which house did you say you were from, again?"

She knew very well he didn't. She waited.

"Tallhart."

Beside her, Theon cleared his throat. "There's n—"

Sansa quickly squeezed his hands, using slightly more pressure than the usual amount. Let me play the game. 

"Yes, I remember reading about you," she said, faking a smile. "Leobald, is it?"

The man visibly relaxed, letting out a breath. "Aye, your grace."

She didn’t have to look to know Theon bristled. Beneath hers, his hand started to worry the arm of his chair. Theon had been there, he knew as well as her that this man was lying.

"Lord Tallhart," she announced loudly, hoping to gain the hall's attention. “Perhaps you could explain to me how you came back to life after perishing to the Boltons when they took Winterfell?"

As she hoped, everyone paused in their feasting to stare at him. The man turned ghost white and began looking around, turning behind him, as if looking for an exit.

"My lord?" she continued. "Do you know the secret to immortality? Would you care to share it with us?” She folded her hands. Some of the feasters laughed, the low chuckles echoing around the hall. Theon lifted his hand from the arm of his chair to clutch the hilt of his sword, a little paranoid in her opinion, but she did not begrudge him his duty.

“F—Forgive me, I have lied to you,” the man implored, swallowing hard. 

“I should say so,” she replied cuttingly. “And why is that? Who are you, and why shouldn’t I have my sworn sword cut you down for lying to the crown?” 

“No!” he stormed, holding up a hand. “Please, I was — I was forced to come. I am from House Forrester truly. I was pressed into asking for your hand by my men, your grace.” 

“Any men in particular?” Theon interrogated, voice hard. 

The lord look startled, like he hadn’t noticed Theon was there. “Not especially, my lord.”

"Why do such a thing on behalf of your men?" she asked, puzzled. 

“They convinced me it would help repair the house, repair the castle and the town around it.”

She regarded him suspiciously. “That part wasn’t a tale? The white walkers destroyed Ironwrath?” 

“Aye, your grace. There really is little of it left.”

It made more sense than his previous story. There were many settlements further north that she had just begun to make stock of. It was possible one of them had slipped through her fingers. She did not entirely trust him, but on the off chance she was wrong, she would be sending one of her subjects home to starve. 

“Give me details on what exactly you and your land need, and I’ll have it done.”

 As was his duty now, Theon walked her to her chambers. The feast was over, the night casting an eerie cloud over Winterfell. They stopped at her door, halting and awkward, the first time either of them had done this. With Brienne, she was so stalwart to her southron values that she never stepped close, as a friend would, even though Sansa resolutely considered her one. Theon was unpracticed, stopping the same distance away as he normally would. Sansa found she did not mind.

“Send Lord Glover away,” he said suddenly.

Sansa blinked, but it was not at his words; it was the way Theon spoke up, airing his concerns, something he had not done without being asked to since she was a girl. “I’m sorry?”

“He was not pleased at the way you insisted he should’ve been loyal to Jon,” he explained, eyes beseeching her.

“Well, he should’ve,” she said with annoyance. 

“I know, but he doesn’t see it that way. Did you see the look in his eye? It was dislike, and as your guard, I can’t allow anyone who might betray The North into your inner circle.”

“That’s admirable, and fine strategy,” she allowed, trying to show him she appreciated his input. “But I’m not going to go around exiling or executing every lord that looks at me funny. I assure you, I will be keeping a studious eye on Lord Glover and his sons both.” 

One of them had been one of many heirs crowding at her skirts, smirking and fluttering their eyelashes as they presented their new queen with gifts.

Theon’s lips twisted but he stayed silent. With a bow, he began walking the hall, his own chambers only a few doors away. Her eyes followed him.

“Why did you ask Lord Forrester which men it was?” she blurted. Then winced, as he stopped in his tracks.

It was a fair question, but he had asked it oddly, his voice tinged with something other than cool interest. It almost sounded like — 

“If there’s a particular minor house looking for social mobility, I felt we should be aware of it,” he told her. 

Of course, silly Sansa. He only meant politics.

"You think it a trick?" she asked.

Theon then frowned, and walked back to her. He had a way of walking that made him seem perpetually in a hurry. His steps weren't long but they were rapid, like someone was constantly on his heels. 

He spoke low, aware just as she was that the walls had ears. "You're still key to The North, even more so now that it holds its own independence. Whoever married you would be a king. If any usurpers wanted the crown, you are an attractive target for gaining it.”

"But House Forrester has been loyal since the Northern houses begun."

"That may be, but who knows who might be hiding away in their ruined castle? What they've offered them in exchange for tricking you into marriage?" 

He stayed silent then, leaving the rest unsaid, eyes shifting away from her. She knew who he was thinking of, because she was thinking of the same cold-blue eyes. 

"So... the answer is to deny all proposals that come my way?" she asked, almost holding her breath, but she did not know why.

It was a common look for him, but the usual sadness on his face became more pronounced. "I didn't say that. If you truly wanted to be with one of them, you should do it. You deserve to be happy."

There was something he wasn't saying, she was sure of it, the way he kept her eye a little too long, the softness in it. You are not Cersei, Sansa. People may keep their secrets.

"Thank you,” she said instead. “I appreciate your advice. I… I should've realised how complicated being queen would be.” 

“You’re doing well.” He paused, debating his words, and a flash of light flickered in his eyes, an old light, one that had her pulse speeding up. “Robb reacted far worse.”

A wistful smile prodded at her lips. “Really?“

“He hated being king. All the complicated politics, manners, airs and alliances drove him mad. He often insisted to me that his one proficiency was swinging a sword to draw blood and nothing else. At the time... I just laughed and clinked tankards with him.”

Oh, did that sound like Robb. She gripped her doorknob, suddenly hit with a wave of longing for her eldest brother. “You believe him still?”

“No,” Theon was quick to reply. “Robb was too kind to truly enjoy killing. He was doing all of it to free his family.”

The wave increased tenfold, her mind suddenly drowning in wave after wave of grief. Robb smiling, laughing, twisting his sword this way and that. He was never as good as Jon, and she remembered many a brooding — almost as good as Jon in that, though — about it. He had even come to her one day while she was dutifully sewing. In his mind, she would join him in making fun of Jon. 

Surprisingly, she didn’t, perhaps the only time she passed up the opportunity to snub her then so-called half brother. He is a very talented swordsman, Robb. I don't think you have to be the best to be good. After all, there are so many knights. How can they all hope to be the greatest at once? Yet they’re still heroes worthy of their songs. Robb blinked. And when did you inherit such wisdom, little sister? 

She wished he could see her now. 

“Yes, that was Robb,” she said faintly. 

Theon did not reply, eyes blank with memories.

“After the battle with the dead, I meant to give you something,” she told him, shaking herself out of her sullen reverie. “But you recovered and I was still handling the aftermath, and then you left to help your sister…” She reached into her pocket, to the token she’d put there before the feast. “I kept it.”

His breath hitched, eyes glued to the pin she produced. She ran a gentle finger over the silver wolf sigil before handing it over. 

There was a long moment where neither of them spoke. He stared long and hard at the pin, a thousand emotions running across his face at once. It made Sansa’s head hurt, and she dreaded to think how overwhelming it felt for him. 

Then, like he’d been snapped out of a daydream, he was staring a hole into her instead. “Thank you. This means… more to me than you could imagine.”

She watched the way he swallowed and tucked it ever so gently into his shirt. 

“We both are adorned with wolves tonight,” she said, gesturing to her crown and then his pin. There was a power in that idea. 

“Yes,” he replied distantly, staring at the two wolves on her head for a long moment. “I should retire.”

“Of course. Goodnight, Theon.”

“Goodnight, your grace.”

“Sansa. When we are alone, you must call me Sansa.”

His lips twitched sadly. Had her brother said the same once?  

“As you wish. Then goodnight, Lady Sansa.”

The words sounded different in Theon’s voice compared to Joffrey’s. They did not sting. “Very amusing,” she played along.

He was still looking at her as before; he did not smile much, anymore. Something in her craved to reach out and touch him, the slack face or his sandy curls. Instead, she curled her fingers inward. 

“Til tomorrow,” she said, clearing her throat.

He bowed. Then, he reached his hand forward and grasped hers, the one that was holding the doorknob. He looked at her for a moment, like he was checking if he’d scared her, and bent forward to press a kiss on her knuckles, the soft skin above. Unbidden, a shiver of delight shook through her and she stepped forward to mask it. 

Ever the learned lady, she knew how long a hand kiss must be held for, but either Theon did not, ever the rambunctious boy, or he didn’t care; she watched, wide-eyed, as he closed his eyes against the gesture. A tenderness so deep ran through her, the feeling coming upon her suddenly and intensely, and she fought to not grab him back, anywhere and everywhere she could reach. She would pull him against her, breathe in the smell of saltwater, run a hand against his neck...

As quick as he’d grabbed her hand he let go of it, and she had to brace it against the door lest she sent herself careening sideways. 

With a final look he left, and she could not help but watch him go. Her hand tingled. 

It was impossible to imagine how she ever thought Joffrey could be that gentle. His fake niceties had charmed her, the expensive necklace and the glittering golden hair. What did she know of love, then? What did she know of true gentleness?

The chamber she slept in was not mother and father’s room, like Jon had gifted her, like the Lady of Winterfell should possess. 

It wasn’t that she hated the room itself, it was the horrors that had taken place within it. She could hardly bear the sight of the door; the wood she’d stared at for days, dreading and almost wanting Ramsay to enter, so he could end the horrible waiting . There was no telling what it would be like if she stepped inside. In that chamber, she’d been taken every way a woman could be, again and again until she might die from the agony. The bed alone would send her into catatonia. 

The room she stayed in was hers as a girl. Sansa called for a maid to help her remove the coronation dress, but once it was done she shooed her off with thanks.

She had a letter to write before sleep. 

King Brandon,

Sansa hesitated. The ink was still wet. If she wanted to, she could reach out and blur the words. They still did not feel right. 

Bran, her little brother, called by the same title as Aerys, Robert, Joffrey. She held him as a newborn babe. Kissed his chubby face, watched him run around — ever the climber, even if he could only crawl. 

When Rickon was born, he had sobbed into her chest. Momma won’t love me anymore, he cried. She’d brushed the wet hair stuck to his face behind his ears. That’s not true, Bran. Mother loves us all. You will have a little brother to play with, doesn’t that sound good? He sniffled, his blue eyes wide. Can he climb with me? 

Beside her, Robb had laughed. When he’s old enough, he will be following you around so often you’ll be begging to be rid of him. Bran frowned. No, I won’t. I’ll like him. 

Kings did not live long, in her experience. If Aerys, Robert, Joffrey and countless kings before them could be murdered, so could he. It would be as easy as smudging the words in front of her. Another Stark who went to the south and died. The very thought made her want to weep.  

Even though her brother was not really all her brother, anymore.

I hope this letter finds you well.

It felt wrong. To speak to her brother this way, politely, tentatively, as if he were an acquaintance. She sighed. 

I write to you not as a queen, but as your sister. As your powers suggest, you most likely already know this, but Theon suffered greatly at the hands of Ramsay. He struggles to eat, sleep, and ride. The latter is what I am writing to you about. When you fell from that tower, you were distraught because you believed you could never ride again. You told me one day, under the godswood, that Tyrion Lannister developed a modified saddle and gave the blueprints to you. I ask if you could send this diagram to me, so I might fashion one for Theon. I realise you may hate the very idea. After all, he hurt you far more than he did me. But I hope, with your gift of sight, you might see the benefits in it. If not, then I ask as your sister, who still cares greatly for the man who was raised beside us. He is one of our pack. 

With love

Sansa Stark

She stared at the words until the tears blurred them. 

 After her coronation, she had taken to sharing her morning food with Theon. She persuaded him to join her by telling him he might protect her better if they spent more time together.

Though she thought he might suspect the truth, which was that she was so startlingly lonely in Winterfell she was beginning to go mad. She does not know how Theon survived under Ramsay’s thumb for so long — the isolation itself would drive her to ruin within a few moons. Sansa had always thrived on human contact, even as a girl. 

It had been weeks since he agreed to eat with her, during which she began to crave the companionship he brought her. He did not speak at first, but through the weeks he had grown comfortable saying more. 

Today, she was going to ask him something that would be best done in private. 

She noticed the morning after her coronation that Theon wore the wolf pin she’d given him. When she’d first seen it, her stomach gave a flip. He’d pinned it to the left side of his chest. Over his heart. He wore it always now. 

They ate in peaceful silence for a while, before she put her spoon down. 

“I’d like to go on a trip,” she said bluntly. 

Theon looked up from his food, puzzled. “Why?”

 "I want to see how people really are, when their queen is not around."

Still, he was confused. “What good would that do?”

“Lord Forrester reminded me that there are so many things that still need fixing in The North. I’d like to see it, evaluate it myself. Then, when we come back to Winterfell, we’ll know exactly who needs what.” 

"But you don't have to go, your gr— Sansa,” he corrected, shifting a little. “Me and a few men could travel around, listen to rumors, talk in taverns—"

"No, I want to go myself." She did not add that she couldn't bear him leaving her side again. "I want to witness what ails my people."

Theon looked torn between wonder and annoyance, and pointed out, "You could get hurt."

"I could just as well be assassinated here in my chambers in Winterfell, Theon,” she said dismissively. 

Swallowing, he tried again. "You can't leave the castle so soon after your coronation."

“It’s been nearly three moons,” she argued. “I’ve spoken with the maester, and he’s perfectly capable and willing to look after Winterfell while we’re away.” 

Now he frowned. “It’s nothing you would want to see. Just miles and miles of snow and land.” 

She made an impatient sound. "I'm going. I want you to come with me." 

“That’s the voice you used on Robb and I,” he pointed out gently, “when we were teasing you and you ordered us to stop in your best southron queen voice.” He paused for a moment, and a flicker of a smile flashed across his face. “You’ve gotten significantly better at it.” 

“Don’t try to distract me from the point,” she told him, returning the smile a little. 

“I don’t like the idea.” He sighed. “But I’ll be damned to the drowned god if I leave you alone out there, as your sworn sword or as your friend. I’ll accompany you.” 

She patted his arm, a victorious smirk on her face. “Thank you.” It warmed her, suddenly, that he thought her a friend. They had never been close in their childhood; in fact, these weeks she has spent dining with him were the most she’s ever talked to him since she knew him.

He gave her a withering look and shoved bread in his mouth. 

"Where would you want to go first?” he asked her, food in his mouth, no thought to manners. Just as he had as a boy. For some strange reason, the movement of his mouth was hypnotic to her. 

“I didn’t have anywhere specific in mind,” she replied, watching him. She racks her brain. “Torrhen's Square. Father always liked it when he visited."

Theon froze. "He did."

"Forgive me," she said quickly.  "I had forgotten." 

Father had taken Theon with him on one of his visits, she faintly recalled. Torrhen’s Square was also one of the places the Ironborn attacked on their way to Winterfell. 

"It's alright,” he replies, giving her a glance to tell her it really was alright. After all, he could speak untruths as well as her now. “It was a nice place. Friendly."

She studied him for a moment. “Shall I think of somewhere else?”

“No,” he assured. “Torrhen’s Square is a perfect place to start. And then where?” 

 They were ready only a few days later. She’d told the maester they were checking on the bannermen, and this was the official answer to questions of her whereabouts. 

As he told her he would do, Theon knocked on her door when it was time.

“The cart is ready,” he said, when she swung it open. There was a little pause, and he just stared awkwardly.

“What? Is there something on my face?” She self-consciously felt her skin, ran a hand through her hair. It was long and loose, the first time it would be in public. Theon watched the movement. 

“Forgive me, no, I — do you have everything you need?”

 “Yes, but before we go, might we discuss our cover story?”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Right. I’d forgotten about that.” 

“I will be Alayne Stone,” she told him, already prepared. 

He nodded approvingly. “And I will be —“ he stopped. 

“Arthur,” she cut in, seeing the sudden distress on his face, “Snow.“

He nodded again, but it was a completely different gesture, hurried and manic. She watched as he recited the words in his head, not Reek, not Reek, not Reek. 

“Arthur is fine,” he struggled.

“Good,” she replied, relieved. She thought about asking if he was alright, but he would only wave her off. “There is… another part I wanted to add. Only because it might be necessary.”

“What is it?” he asked, picking up on her apprehension. 

She played with her hands. “Alayne and Arthur, I thought they might be... husband and wife.” Before he could reply, she rushed on. “It’s rather improper and unexplainable for a woman to be travelling with a man she’s not married to,” she reasoned. “And we do not look alike enough to be siblings.”

Briefly, she wondered why her mind skipped over the possibility of them being siblings anyway. It’s not like the people they met were likely to care. There was a difference, somehow, in how she saw him; Robb and Jon were brothers through blood, but Theon was not, though he still felt like family. 

He didn’t say anything at first, giving her a long, thoughtful look; but then his hand darted out to clutch at her door frame and she stepped forward, as if she were going to catch him. It was instinct, even though they would most likely tumble to the ground if she tried.

“Theon?” she asked, concerned.

“I’m alright,” he replied, giving a weak smile. “My knees hurt, that’s all. If you think it’s best, that's our story.”

But he averted his gaze, which meant it wasn’t just his knees, Sansa knew.

“If you’re not comfortable with it…” she began, giving him an imploring look.

“No, it’s not that,” he quickly assured. Before she could speak to ask him what it was, he gestured at her head. “Your hair—”

“No,” she stopped him. Instinctively, she put a protective hand on it. “I — I’d like to keep it.”

She had told him of the original black-haired Alayne, chained away in The Eyrie, a sitting duck for Littlefinger’s advances. She hoped he remembered. 

Eyes soft, he pressed his lips together. “Alright. We’ll find some kind of cover.”

Now she pointed at his chest. “The pin.” 

He still wore the wolf pin she gave him. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he pulled it out of his shirt. “Come, your grace.”

He held his gloved hand out. If she didn’t know, she wouldn’t be able to tell he was missing a fourth finger. 

Beneath the gloves, she felt the warmth of his hand. “Sansa,” she corrected. 

A while later, they were both bundled onto a creaky wooden cart, led by two of the horses she’d gotten as a gift at her coronation. Without decorations, they looked like two regular mares.

Theon clapped the reigns, and they were off. As they descended into open sky, Sansa felt herself unwind, for the first time in what felt like a decade.

“We could go anywhere,” she breathed, “even Essos.”

She never had this kind of freedom, always shut away in one castle or another. The stars twinkled where she ogled them. 

Theon blew out a breath; it would’ve been a laugh, years ago. “I think the Northern lords would protest if they found out their queen would be disappearing for a few years.”

Her chest tightened. For a brief moment, she’d forgotten that the entire kingdom was dependent on her now, and that acute disappointment made her turn away from him, to look at the sky from the side.

“I would follow you there, Lady Sansa, if you wanted to go,” he spoke suddenly, like he sensed what she felt.

Staring at the clouds above, a warmth spread through her. At least she had Theon. “We better not,” she said lightly. “Then our cover really would be true, the kingdom would think we eloped.”

He did not reply, but she felt his eyes on the side of her face.

“What if I wanted to go west of Westeros?” she asked. To Arya.

There was a moment of silence. "She's happy, Sansa."

"I know,” she allowed, surprised yet again that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “That does not make it hurt any less."

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed softly. “I’ve always wondered what's west. Perhaps she’ll come back and tell us.”

Sansa did not think so. Arya’s goodbye had felt final. At least, she did not intend to come back. That hurt all the more. 

“Essos, then,” she said, swallowing. “We shall sail east and forget everything.”

“As you wish,” he affirmed, and the seriousness in his voice sent her head spinning. His sister was here, his homes, everything he’d known. Yet he’d follow her across the narrow sea… for what? Because she wanted it?

Maybe , she thought, he wanted to get away. Everything he’d suffered had been here, too. 

They were both just dreaming, but it was nice to dream anyway. 

Chapter Text

First, they rode to the first settlement further south from Wintertown. Being closest to Winterfell, it was obvious that anyone would recognise her on sight there, but they would not here.

The streets were not densely populated, like a certain sunny city she knew, but that suited Sansa fine. Without having to say, Theon pointed out the merchant stalls first as they rode through. Even though she was grown, she still loved dresses and trinkets and other things merchants from all over the world sold. It seemed he remembered that, which warmed her as he helped her down off the cart.

“Shall we see if the inn has any rooms?” she asked.

“There might not be an inn,” he replied, covering their bags under a sheet. There was nothing particularly expensive in their things, but it would be unwise to leave it in plain sight. “It’s a small scattering of houses and stalls. A lot of these settlements have no use for an inn.”

“Would you be happy with sleeping on the cart?” she asked him, sensing that they might be doing that frequently if that was the case.

Theon didn’t take long to think. He moved over to the horses.

"I've slept rougher," he shrugged, and began tying both horse's reins to the post.

Yes, in the kennels with Ramsay's dogs, she thought sadly, cringing in sympathy. But she knew he hated it when she told him how sorry she was, when she pitied him, so she kept quiet. Though she’d forgiven him, he still believed he deserved everything he got.

While Theon was finishing with the cart he told her she didn’t have to wait for him, so she began to look around the market. It was mid afternoon, the sun — such as it was in The North — illuminating the many barrels of fruit, playful children, and keen shoppers crowding the street. The noise of it all was almost deafening, shouts and chatter and the clack-clack of passing carts clouding her ears.

Sansa spotted a fabric stall and beelined straight for it. Thank the gods, she thought, I’ll have something to do in the evenings besides watch Theon be sad or look at the sky.

As she approached, the merchant was handling coins that clinked in his palm to a customer. She thought she might be able to browse without him breathing down her neck, but she had no such luck, as his eyes lit up when he spotted her.

“What a beautiful young lady! What are you looking for today?” he chirped, as cheerfully as he could, but it rang false, like the sweet songs each bruise made her sing in the hall with that damned iron throne.

Giving a perfunctory smile, she began to peruse through his stock, the piles and piles of rolled and neatly stacked fabric, so alike the selection Septa Mordane asked her to pick from before every sewing class. She missed her. Like she missed all of them.

“Nothing specific, just looking... thank you,” she told the merchant, ever conscious of her manners, even if she wasn’t a lady or a queen here.

Seeing that she was no insipid girl, easy to sell to, the smile on his face flickered for a moment. “Of course,” he said politely, a little strained.

Then, as another customer approached, he went immediately to them, on the other side of his stall. She felt a sudden presence press into her side, and turned to see a wide-eyed Theon.

“You’re here,” he said breathlessly, eyes running over her too quickly to be casual.

“I’m here,” she agreed lightly, looking him over. “Are you well?”

“Yes, I just…” he swallowed. “Thought I had lost you for a moment.”

She turned to glance at the merchant. He was still on the other side, now haggling with the same customer.

Sansa leaned in to Theon. “I will not disappear if you lose sight of me,” she told him softly. “I would not go anywhere without my sworn shield at my back.”

This seemed to relax him. He nodded just as the merchant came back over to her.

Appraising Theon eagerly, the merchant threaded his thick fingers.  “Can I help you?”

“No, I’m...” he stammered, awkwardly angling himself towards her.

“My husband,” she finished for him. Theon’s face turned a little red at the words, and if she wasn’t so practiced at her mask of indifference, she would have, too. It was the first time she had to say the word out loud in front of someone, and it felt real, now, because this merchant thought they were truly married.

Among the fabrics, there was a flash of dark grey and she buried her hand to catch it. The roll she uncovered was big and thick, plenty of material to work with.

“Grey,” the merchant described, “for House Stark.”

A small smile grew on her lips. “Just so.” She unfolded the fabric between her fingers and tested it, pulling this way and that. Beside her, Theon paid attention to her examination.

The merchant must’ve caught on to his interest too, because he asked, eagerly, “Are you looking for a cloak, perhaps some gloves?”

Theon spared him a flickering glance. “No, thank you.”

The merchant looked bewildered that he’d be at all interested in materials and sewing for the sake of it; Theon was staring at what she was doing quite intently. Sansa thought it was just the Stark colour that captured his interest.

“Yes, this is quality material. I’ll take three rolls, please,” she said, passing the sample back.

He looked to Theon.

There was a moment of silence as she and Theon exchanged a glance.

“I’m sorry, I sometimes speak quietly. I’d like three rolls,” she repeated.

Again, the merchant looked at Theon.

Her not-husband finally cleared his throat. “Why are you looking at me?”

Now the merchant looked confused. Gods, Sansa thought. This is what I reap for wanting to shop where my subjects did.

“Will you be buying the three rolls, sir?” the merchant asked him.

“Me?” Theon said, still confused.

Sansa felt an irritation boiling up to the surface, and managed to bite out, “He’s asking you for permission for me to buy the fabric, dear.”

Theon’s face turned from confused to bewildered. “By the drowned god, why would you need my permission?”

Now, the merchant turned a funny shade of red. “It’s custom when shopping— at least, in these parts, for a husband to decide what to purchase, and—“

Sansa had heard enough. “Yes, very well. He says it’s fine, don’t you, husband?”

Theon just stood there, blinking owlishly, and she would have laughed at the look on his face if she wasn’t so disgruntled. Like a madness came over her, she gave in to her childish impulse and stepped on his foot.

“Gods! Sansa!” he cried indignantly, sounding exactly like he did as a boy when she used to step on him.

The merchant’s eyes widened on her and she realised Theon’s mistake.

“Sansa?” The merchant repeated. Dread squeezed her chest. He squinted at her hood and she could only watch as he recognised the Tully red around her ears.

Then he turned to Theon, looking him up and down. He didn’t look anything like the royal queensguard at the moment, but he might’ve been recognisable, she surmised. He was her only member.

“Dear sir—“ she started quickly, putting a hand out in panic.

“Queen Sansa?” The merchant cried. “Y— your grace!” He hurried to bend the knee behind his stall. “Forgive me, it was a foolish error.”

“Of course!” she said hurriedly, gesturing for him to rise. The other merchants had started to look over at the fuss.

She took his hands, leaned in, and whispered, “I am travelling incognito, you see. I do not want anyone to recognise me.” She squeezed his hands. “I ask you not to make a show of my presence. You can indeed keep a secret for your queen, dear sir?”

The man looked like he was going to explode, face beet red. “O-of course! Anything for your grace.”

Smiling her best queenly smile, she patted his hands. “Thank you.”

She released her grip and reached into her bag, producing a gold coin.

Upon spotting it, the merchant shook his head vigorously, pushing her hand back. “No payment!”

“Please,” she insisted, “for me.” She raised the gold again.

He was sweating a little, eyes darting between her and the gold, like she was playing a grand trick on him. “... Aye, then.”

She smiled exaggeratedly and passed him the coins. Sansa turned back to Theon, who was watching them with wide eyes, and had the decency to look sheepish when she looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

She thought back to the owlish look on his face and laughed. “Not to worry. Sorry for kicking you.” They walked away from the stall, Sansa bundling three Stark grey rolls of fabric into her pack. “Should I have done that?“

He stayed silent for a moment, shrugging off her apology. Then a flicker of his old, boyish smile graced his face. “If he does open his mouth, no one will believe him. Though you handled it well,” he teased.

She rolled her eyes, but it was a playful gesture; she liked seeing remnants of the Theon from their childhood. "Bribing me with praise will only get you so far, Greyjoy."

"Got me into the queensguard, didn't it?

She startled. How long had it been since he’d made a joke?

Suddenly, she was laughing again, and was rewarded with Theon’s equally joyful smile.

The town’s tavern was bustling. Men of all shapes and sizes crowded the round wooden tables that spread across the floor, and the sound of guffaws, the clank of metal tankards, the low hum of voices filled her eyes and ears. Of course she’d been in taverns before, but never with the explicit purpose of observing. Sansa surveyed the chattering men, the spilt drink, the stink of it and piss mixed into the air, and concluded that taverns were best left to those who enjoyed them.

One table was crowded with men, cards spread out across the top and occasional cheers and boos erupting from the onlookers and players alike. She thought to go over and watch, but she noticed the server finish their talk with Theon and disappear behind a door. Sansa took a sip of her ale. It was fine, better than the brew at Castle Black, but most anything was.

Theon left the bar and walked toward their table. She noticed he was limping a little; the cold made his joints ache and freeze up, impairing his ability to walk full stride. It had been worse, long ago, when he shuffled along Winterfell’s halls.

“Do they have rooms?” she asked, hopefully, as he approached.

“They do, but none for us,” he sighed, sitting and gripping his ale.

“So we’re sleeping on the cart again tonight.”

“Yes.” He winced, bringing the tankard down from his lips. “I’m s—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” She pointed a finger. “Don’t say it.” It was a habit she was trying to break him out of. Not everything in Westeros could be the fault of one man.

It pleased her that he looked a little annoyed at her insistence. They didn’t speak for a while, both enjoying the warmth ale gave them as it went down their throats.

Suddenly the men around them began to get rowdier, their rising shouts and jeering hurting her ears. They were all looking behind her, at the corner of the room. Sansa turned in her seat and was greeted with the sight of three naked women, illuminated by yellow candlelight and preening from the attentions of the tavern goers.

Two were black-haired like ravens, long locks extenuating their breasts and their curves. The other was brunette, a shorter, collarbone cut. All three were smiling like pleased cats.

“Hey sweetheart!” a man yelled. Other jeers joined him, the whole tavern flooding with the sound of whistles and catcalls.

One of the women laughed, another winked, appearing happy at the attention. They fanned out, each taking sections of the tavern floor, touching and leaning over men’s tables, their eyes eager for the pretty women in their sights.

Sansa turned back to her drink. She didn’t know what her face looked like, but when she looked at Theon, he waved her off.

“I can deal with it,” he said, setting his shoulders straight. “I can.”

She really did not know who he was trying to convince, her or himself, but she didn’t think he entirely succeeded either way. His eyes tried to follow all three of them at once, making them dart around like a madman.

Despite her trepidation, Sansa huffed a laugh. “They’re not going to bite, they’re only women.”

“I know,” he replied indignantly, eyes stuck on each of them, like they were sirens come to drag him back to the sea he’d been borne from.

It was interesting to her that while Theon was well accustomed to the sight, she’d been sheltered for the first half of her life. Being a highborn girl doesn’t allow for many opportunities to see whores flashing their goods. It was almost amusing how the tables had turned between them, Theon now the uncomfortable one and Sansa approaching relaxed.

On the table next to her, a man with a long beard and stocky figure watched the whores eagerly. He caught her looking at him, and she darted her gaze away, down to her drink.

In her periphery, she saw him raise his arm out, the tip of his fingers almost brushing her shoulder.

Sansa reached for the needle that was tied onto the belt chain underneath her cloak. Regularly wearing it in Winterfell, she’d thought it would be useful in the open, and she was right. She clutched it in her hand so hard it started to hurt. Come then, she thought. Touch me with your paw.

But he only called for one of the whores.

The brunette sauntered toward him and perched herself in his lap. “You got a name?” she purred.

“Jerrard,” he replied gruffly. “You got any redheads?”

Sansa felt herself blush and scoff at the same time, and she averted her eyes, looking at the bar, Theon, anything but the scene beside her. But it was like she was drawn to it.

“Nah,” the woman breathed, giving him a pouty smile. “What, you don’t like brunettes?”

“I like any pair of tits,” he told her lightly. He belly laughed and gripped her back, pulling her inches away from him.

Even though Sansa was staring straight forward, she watched from the corner of her eye as the two of them dived for each other’s mouths, messy and slapping. Jerrard reached down a rough hand and cracked it against her ass.

Sansa’s limbs seemed to seize at the sound. Theon looked close to catatonia, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. They probably looked quite a pair, freezing up at the common slap of a hand on a whore's backside. No one else in the tavern had been prisoners in their own home, none of them had been beaten and flayed and raped within an inch of their life, every part of their body free for the slapping.

Thankfully Jerrard and his whore did little after that but kiss, until he moved his mouth to her throat and began to suck.

There was a light tug on her hair. Sansa looked, and the woman had cupped the end of her hair and was stroking it. Jerrard paid no attention to what she was doing.

“What a fine colour,” she commented. Her eyes were dark and lined with coal as she peered down at her. In a different world, those dark eyes might’ve been Shae’s, but this woman was brown-haired.

It sounded sincere, so Sansa managed a small smile. “Thank you.”

“You could probably make a killing here, sweetheart,” the woman said, still fingering her hair.

“Ah, no thank you,” she replied hastily. Sansa chanced a glance at Theon, but he was watching the woman’s fingers in her hair with fascination. He’d done that before, she remembered, as they’d left Winterfell. It was an odd look, more than his present discomfort, more than nervousness, and for a mad moment she wondered if Theon agreed with the woman.

“There’s plenty of coin to be made in a woman with hair as red as the queen’s nowadays,” the woman continued. “Every man in Westeros wants to fuck her silly.”

Like he’d been woken from a dream, Theon’s eyes turned to steel and locked onto her. “That’s our queen you’re speaking of.”

“Aye, and she can do so all she likes if she does it with that tongue,” Jerrard interrupted, raising his head.

Where their knees grazed under the table she felt Theon tense, harder than he’d done when the whores walked in, and she sunk down just enough to press hers against his in an attempt to placate him. Don’t start a fight in here.

“You don’t know what she’s suffered, what she’s sacrificed to rule,” Theon bit out anyway, ignoring her warning, and she winced. Honour didn’t matter here in this tavern where the wind pounded against the door, the only barrier to a relentless cold, but somehow, to Theon, it did.

“We’ve all suffered,” Jerrard replied nonchalantly. “And you would know, would you, little boy? What our queen has suffered? The foreign men she’s had between her legs?”

Theon bolted upright, his stool crashing to the floor. But Jerrard reacted little at all, like he regularly ruffled feathers in stingy taverns, continuing to eat the woman’s face without a glance in his direction. After a moment, he looked over, and saw Theon still standing, glaring at him.

“Why are you so upset about the queen’s honour, boy?” he laughed, leaning away from the woman sucking at his mouth. “You in love with her?”

Theon turned as red as an apple.

“No,” he choked out. “I have respect for our ruler. As you should.”

Sansa was watched him more intently than she’d ever watched anything in her life, and it seemed like he knew she was, for he kept his face as still as a statue. Like her, his ability to don a mask of steel was so masterful it almost annoyed her, and it did, at this moment, because she was desperate to know what he was thinking. When had Theon ever blushed?

Jerrard only gave an incredulous guffaw as a reply, and turned back to his ministrations.

Despite her deep discomfort with this entire situation, a part of her felt very warm at Theon’s lightning fast defence. It’d been a long time since anyone cared enough to come to her aid like that.

Begrudgingly, Theon forced himself to relax his breathing, and Sansa watched with a swallowed laugh as he reclaimed the stool he’d thrown and sat back down across from her, like a boy finished with his tantrum. She noticed he could barely look at her.

The woman’s hand was suddenly at her hair again, and once more she looked at her quizzically, asking if she wouldn’t reconsider a career in whoring.

When Sansa gave a disagreeing shake of her head, the woman watched her for a moment before untangling her fingers, Jerrard’s mouth now biting at her breast. She brought the same hand to curl into his hair, and shrugged at Sansa. “Suit yourself,” she said, and leaned in to lick Jerrard’s neck.

“We should go,” she told Theon quickly.

He opened his mouth to reply, and by the look of him it was a word of agreement, but the woman spoke first, lifting her head from Jerrard.

“Not yet,” she whined. “I haven’t had a taste of you.”

Sansa looked at her in panic, but she was pouting at Theon.

“I… I’m not… I don’t…” he stammered, but the woman only moved to sit in his lap, giving Jerrard a playful little push. He mumbled something about little boys playing at men and went back to his drink.

She began to play with Theon’s hair, the same sandy curls Sansa had imagined pushing her fingers through. They were not hers to touch, but this woman touched them.

“I don’t have a room,” Theon told her, voice throaty. His eyes were everywhere, going to anywhere that wasn’t her breasts. She was trying her best to get them in his sights, though, so it meant the two of them looked like they were playing an odd game.

“I do,” she purred back. “And I get to pick the lucky man.”

Sansa flattened her lips into a line. They were a sight; pressed up together, the low tavern light creating shadows across their faces, the way one of his hands was cradling her waist, the way she writhed in his lap. She knew he’d been with whores aplenty when they were young, but this was the first time the thought sent fire up her chest. It was humiliating, degrading, painful to watch; but she didn’t know why. Theon was free as she was free.

Unless he needed her help, in case he wanted this woman off of him, where she would gladly wrench her from his thighs.

The woman grabbed at his face, needled his neck with her smooth hands. “Come with me,” she said, draping a tantalizing finger down his arm and gripping his hand.

Theon gave Sansa a panicked look, and her legs tensed, rising partly from her chair.

But he continued to look at her, an almost hungry look, his eyes darker than she’d ever seen as Reek or Theon, and she realised with a wave of shock that he was asking for permission.

There was a bile climbing up the back of her throat. She nodded anyway, and Theon was half dragged to the tavern steps. Sansa watched them go, the woman giggling and touching his chest as she climbed.

Go, then, she thought. Be with your whore.

It was not fair to the Northern woman and she knew it. She was only working to feed herself, perhaps to feed a child or two. It was not fair, but Sansa felt sick anyway. There was little explanation she could find for why it bothered her so.

Littlefinger had run a brothel, in King’s Landing. She only knew of it when she was wise enough to know what he wanted from her. Was this what he saw, what he orchestrated, day in and day out? Breasts and thighs and breathy moans and gruff grins. Ramsay’s sick, gleeful eyes.

Sansa felt her breathing quicken. She ran her eyes over the tavern floor, desperately searching for a distraction. Though she could not leave without Theon, would not, that didn’t mean she couldn't find something to do that didn’t let her mind think of too cold blue eyes.

Vacating her chair, she ordered another ale from the barkeep and continued to survey the tavern. The men playing cards were still there. It didn’t take her long to notice the most obvious thing about them — the thing that made a certain kind of warmth bloom in her chest, a predictable, irremovable warmth.

They wore Stark armour, the wolf crest on each of their plates muddy and unpolished. It made the usual white of her father’s wolf, her family’s wolf a flecked grey, but she did not mind. It was still a wolf, white or grey. Even red. It was a comforting sight.

She ambled up to them. “You mind if I watch?” she asked tentatively. Perhaps it would do better than to be brash and straightforward, as was her usual manner.

Slowly, almost comically, they all peered up at her in tandem like she was a phantom. All of their beards were the same, making them look like five identical siblings. They exchanged looks with each other.

“Sure,” one said, voice gravelly.

With a grateful, lady-like smile she occupied one of the chairs an onlooker vacated. She was on the side, the five of them spread between both long sides of the table. It almost looked like she was at the head of the table, the queen, but here she was not.

“You know how to shuffle?” a grey-eyed man asked, holding out a deck of cards.

When she was young enough to be persuaded, Robb and Jon and Theon once taught her how to shuffle for their games. It had been a joke, a snickering little inside jest to have perfect little Sansa unknowingly learn such a crude skill. Mother clipped all their ears when she found out.

“Yes,” she answered. “Pass them here.”

“Good,” the same man replied, handing them over. “Gerald always cheats if he shuffles.”

“I do not!” came a protest from the other side of the table. Gerald presumably, she thought. The two men shared an annoyed glare.

Sansa began to shuffle the cards the way she remembered. It had been a long, long time, but the movement was muscle memory. As she flicked the cards between her hands, the men became Robb, Jon and Theon, grinning and smirking as she did so. Only for a moment, but it always felt like an age when her mind served up memories of her long gone family.

“I’m Alayne,” she told them, giving each a second of eye contact. A second to be recognised as an individual person, probably more than their respective lords had ever given them.

The one who’d answered her request to watch spoke up. “I’m Willard. Me and Gerald here are from Hornwood, Randall and Frederick are from Cerwyn,” he pointed at himself, the man who apparently cheated, and the two black-haired men next to him. “That’s Devon, on the end next to Gerald, from Forrester.”

“Forrester?” she said, interest piqued. “How is Ironrath fairing?”     

“Not well,” Devon replied. He had a soft-spoken manner, and a distinctive scar across his face, not unlike Tyrion’s. “I live on the outskirts so I don't get involved in the lord’s affairs too much, but I know some townsfolk and they say life’s hard for all of them.”

“They received some relief from the queen recently, didn’t they?” she asked, as casually as she dared.

“Aye, but it won't last through winter,” Devon said, a defeated tilt to his voice.

“No,” she agreed sadly. “Nothing ever does.”

Sansa observed them all for a moment; though they were here to enjoy themselves for the night, the atmosphere was strained, tired, and she didn’t blame them for it. How many wars had they fought in? How many brothers had they seen die, like her? These were her men, after all, and she's led them all over Westeros to save a brother who didn’t want to be saved.

Silently, she began to doll out the cards, going in a circle from her right, from Willard to Gerald. The cards made a thwack as she placed them in front of each man.

Though they were all somberly watching her movements, only Willard spoke to break the silence.

“You play many card games?” he asked her, sounding genuinely curious, but she would bet it was to relieve the atmosphere.

“Not especially, si—” she stifled the last letter on her tongue. The memories of Robb, Jon and Theon had dulled her instincts.

Willard caught it anyway.

“I ain't never been called a sir,” he jested, raising an eyebrow. “You got plenty of manners.”

“My father was highborn,” she licked her lips. The cards cut into her hands. “I’m a bastard.”

Black-haired Randall made a noise. “Snow, Waters, Stone, what?”

“Stone.”

“Who’s your father?” Randall continued.

“Was my father,” she corrected, casting a cutting look to the man who’d asked. But she knew it would not be enough. “I’m now an orphan.”

“Ah,” Willard grunted. “Lots of those running about nowadays.”

Frederick, beside Randall and Willard, raised his voice. “Who was it? We ain’t got this close to a highborn all our lives.”

Shame, that they thought that was something to resent.

“It was Petyr Baelish,” she said reluctantly.

The man with the scar snorted. Devon from Forrester, she remembered. “You’re kidding,” Devon laughed.

“I’m not,” she said, and suddenly she was chuckling too. “If there was a gamble on which highborn father I'd get, I certainly lost.”

All of them laughed. She finished doling out the cards and sat back. “So why are you men here tonight?”

“We’ve been dismissed from service from our lords, for now,” Willard supplied. “We’re probably going to be called back soon to help repairs, or stock supplies for the rest of winter.”

Randall from Cerwyn flipped a card and jeered, prompting a long pause in the conversation.

“The queen executed your father, didn’t she?” Gerald asked, bold as anything.

The other men gave him a reprimanding looks but said nothing.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“But you’re… here, in the North,” he continued.

She gripped her cloak tighter. “I’m no threat to her. I barely knew him.”

Suddenly she felt like she was in Bravos, enduring the training Arya told her about. Would they crack her knuckles if they didn’t believe her lies?

All of the men played a round without speaking, only the occasional belch and slurp of ale, the frequent guffaw or hiss. She relaxed again.

“So,” Gerald started brazenly, “I think we should make a bet on how long our new queen will last. I put my coins on her lasting longer than Robb Stark and Jon Snow put together.”

Sansa felt her cheeks flame, and if any of them they noticed, they said nothing.

“Gerald, you’re a cunt, you know that?” Willard accused, half in annoyance, half in fondness.

Gerald laughed and waved a clumsy hand. “Her gain is also my gain. Where’s the loss in that?” He slapped down another card.

Surprisingly, knowing he thought she was competent did not warm her like it might’ve usually; perhaps it was the mention of her brothers, but she allowed that she’d heard far worse and taken more beatings on her back than that.

“At least she knows what she’s doing, unlike Snow,” Randall added.

“The round’s over,” she interrupted. “Why are you still playing your cards?” Don't talk about Jon like that.

“Not in this version of the game,” Willard answered. “We make the rounds longer so we can play into the night. It’s helpful, especially on the eve of battle.”

Sansa blinked. “Oh. Good to know,” she said, and it really was.

The rest of an hour passed like that, with her shuffling cards and learning and listening.

Just as the men started their second game, there was a thump-thump on the tavern stairs. All of them turned to look, eager to laugh at the rowdy drunk. Sansa followed their eye.

But down came Theon, staggering on each step and a deep pain on his face.

“Arthur!” she called out, heart thumping in her throat.

“That's your companion, aye? I saw you with him earlier,” Willard said. “If he was with Faye, he’s too drunk to piss straight.”

It took Theon a moment to reach the bottom, staring down at the step beneath his feet like it was a direwolf, jaws open and waiting.

Sansa got out of her chair quickly and scampered to him, coming to put a hand on his arm.

“Theon,” she whispered to him, the low buzz of the tavern masking her voice. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“Nothing,” he slurred. As if of its own accord, his body leaned over until he hit the wall, but he looked completely unaware that he was doing it.

Sansa observed him for a moment, and the confusion played out in her voice. “You’ve been gone for an hour. You just sat there?”

“Exactly,” he tried to affirm lightly, but there was a dark undertone to him. “We kissed for a while, then I pleased her, and then… nothing happened.”

“What does that mean?” she urged, stepping closer. If she’d hurt him…

“Means I couldn’t, Sansa,” he bit out, and then his eyes went wide, like he’d heard his own voice. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't be… I need to sit down.”

Beginning to lead him to their table, she raised an unimpressed, but concerned eyebrow. “Yes, I should say so.” She took in the sway of his walk, the distant eyes. “You’re drunk,” she accused.

“Guilty,” he replied cheerfully, setting his face down on the table.

He closed his eyes and began to doze. Sansa stared at him incredulously, then turned to look at the stairs he’d come from.

Faye wasn’t there, but Sansa did not expect her to be. She’d probably moved onto the next willing man, coins jingling in his pocket before Theon had even left the room. It was her job, and Sansa knew a thing or two about getting on with it.

Looking back to Theon, he seemed troubled, even unconscious.

She thought about the look on his face as he slurred, the growl in his voice, the way he’d staggered down those steps. It was so unlike the Theon she’d come to know.

Drink did funny things to people. Sansa remembered only glimpses of King Robert Baratheon, but she saw enough to know how much ale could ruin a man. When he was sober he wasn’t exactly interesting company, but when he wasn’t he was far worse; bitter, rough and quick to anger. The man who’d bellowed before and during the joust was a far cry from the young and charming Robert of her father’s stories. A decade and more of drink had done that to him.

The man asleep in front of her now was not her Theon, not her queensguard or her sworn shield, not the man who’d jump from Winterfell’s parapets with her, or the one who’d eaten stew before the dead came to claim them back. Drunk Theon had echoes of old Theon; insecure, arrogant, mean.

She reached out a tentative hand and poked his nose. He instinctively scrunched it up.

“He’s alright, miss,” a man said, and she looked up to see one of the men from the card game. The Forrester one. “All he’ll need is a good sleep and some cold water.”

Devon’s voice was even softer than it had been during the game, and she wondered when her face had given so much away.

“Thank you,” she answered. There was not much she knew about raucous taverns and drinking.

The other men came over as if to hurry him along, and Devon went with a polite nod to her. Then, while frequently checking Theon was safe at the table, she went to buy some water from the barkeep.

It was a while before he began to show signs of life. She’d begun to contemplate trying to drag him to their cart herself before he snorted suddenly, snapping his head up and blinking blearily.

“What happened?” he groaned.

“You passed out for a while,” she told him nonchalantly. She took another swig of her ale.

“Oh.” He looked around like he’d forgotten where he was. “Where’s Faye?”

“Upstairs. Drink,” she instructed, pushing the cup of water she’d brought across the table.

“Upstairs? Think she’ll go for round two?” he laughed, but it was a self-deprecating and bitter sound.

She just watched him, a small grimace poking at her lips. It was a poor attempt at wit, yes, but the image of Faye descending upon him again bothered her most of all. Would he look at her the way he’d done to Sansa before the dead arrived, staring with soft eyes over the brim of his stew bowl?

Without her permission her grimace deepened, and she wished desperately for that Theon once again, the one that came back and kissed her hand and kept Robb’s bracelet all those years.

“What?” he asked loudly, looking at her frown. “I’m not allowed to joke about it?”

“Yes, but...” she faltered, feeling rather young, like she was deep in waters she had no knowledge of. “It’s not like you to do so.”

“It was,” he snapped, and chugged the water.

Feeling that knot of dread grow in her chest, she watched him still. “I don’t like this version of you.”

“Too bad, because this is Theon,” he told her hotly, putting down the cup with a thunk. “I’m not him anymore. Not R…” He waved a clenched fist like it would aid him in getting the word out.  “Not Reek.”

If she could, she’d begin to weep for him. In hindsight it was obvious what the real issue was, why Faye bothered him so much, but it always passed her by as the least of Ramsay’s horrors. Evidently, Theon did not feel the same of it.

“Reek died a long time ago,” she reminded him softly.

“He didn’t,” he agonised, and it was a sound of both anger and pain, shaking his head furiously. “He didn’t. Not if I can’t…”

Taking a deep breath, he seemed to finally see her, the first time since he’d almost fallen down those stairs. She hoped he saw Sansa, the woman who’d suffered some of the same horrors he had, and not Sansa, his queen.

“She was goading me, upstairs,” he admitted, voice sad, and she knew he saw her. “She’d felt that I had… nothing down there. Told me to take off my pants, show her what a real man was.” He sobbed a little. “I pleased her, and all she could fucking go on about was the absence in my trousers.”

“Oh, Theon,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

Out of her own control, her hands move to his, to his face, to anything and everything to comfort him. But as they went, he flinched. Small — almost imperceptibly to anyone else — but she drew back immediately. She tried not to take it personally; she knew as well as he did that touch could be both the best and worst thing in the world, though it hurt her to withdraw her hands anyway. Did Ramsay move his hands like that, snake-like and slithering, to cup Theon’s face like a twisted lover would?

Then, almost like it was replacing the sadness, a quick anger rose in her. How dare that woman mock him like that? How dare Ramsay do that to him in the first place? She’d almost convinced herself to go up there and shout at Faye when Theon spoke again, words that struck her twice-over.

“I’m not a real man, and even less a person,” he said bitterly.

“Having a cock doesn’t make you a man!” she insisted quickly, heatedly, smacking her tankard down. A few of the tavern goers looked over curiously. “It’s surviving, it’s fighting, despite rough seas and bitter winter winds.”

Perhaps that made her a man too, she thought.

Theon blinked rapidly, like he was having trouble making her out. “Gods, you almost sound like my sister.”

“Then she’s a clever woman,” Sansa huffed. Knowing she would never convince him herself, she pinched her nose. “Oh, how did this all get so complicated?”

But she knew in her heart it had always been this complicated, she just hadn’t known it. Too long she’d been a girl, blissfully ignorant and happy for all the world. Then, the swaying man in front of her had been a hedonistic boy. There would be no going back, despite her desperate wish to, to see her family beaming and whole again, but there just might be a way forward, if only she could find it.

“I’m going to sleep. Do you want to come?” she asked him, defeated for the night. Somehow, despite her tiredness, her tone was queenly, even without the expensive clothes and her crown. It was a habit of constant courtesy, a continuous barrier she kept up to stop enemies sensing weakness. It came in handy still, even though she didn’t need it with him.

Reading into her voice, now he just looked sad, like the drink did nothing but make the pain hum harder in his ears. “Yes,” he murmured, surrendering easily.

The sun was bright, but not hot, as it usually was. Today was a welcome respite.

She had the blood of a wolf, and ever since she learned what southern hospitality was like, she’d begun to itch under the scorching heat that she had dreamt of only years ago.

The window ledge of her chamber, her prison of choice in the wide open caverns of The Red Keep, was tolerable today. The breeze kept her cool, brushing through her hair. The grapes in her lap were sweet. Lord Tyrion had left her in peace. Shae would be coming soon, and Sansa would tell her about the wonderful breeze.

There was a sudden shout, an echoing bellow against the castle’s stone walls, and Sansa tensed. The shouts multiplied until it was a symphony of them. Footsteps pounded by her chamber door, and the people in her sight down below began to rush back into their homes. Fruits, abandoned carts and merchant stalls littered the streets. Was it dragonfire? she wondered.

Rushing to bury herself under her bed, she put her hands up to shield her ears from the shouts that were beginning to turn to screams.

The screaming pierced her ears, her hands doing nothing at all to block them out, but it was only men; and close, a great pound pound pound that shook the keep.

She cowered under her bed for a long time, frantically trying to think of an escape plan.

But then the clanging came closer, the rustle of plate armour, almost up to her door, and true panic gripped her. Whoever the intruder was, they’d won. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Sansa!” bellowed a voice.

A voice she would know anywhere.

“Robb,” she breathed. She raced quicker than she’d ever run in her life to the door, wrenching it open, and was thrown into the hallway by the impact.

There he stood, with his brown curls and square face and big blue eyes staring at her, wild, like his wolf. His jaw dropped and disbelief coloured his features as he took her in; he was heaving, deep, heavy breaths, like he’d traversed the whole castle to find her. There was blood dripping from his sword and splattered across his armour, but he was still the most beautiful sight she had seen in years.

“I’ve come to save you,” he said, voice shaky, as if he couldn’t believe he’d actually done it.

The sun glinted off his armour. He was every inch the gallant knight she’d wished for, locked away in a den of lions.

“You are here for me, at last,” she wept. Her voice was very young, like she was still wearing braids and Lady was by her heels.

He nodded voraciously. “And mother is in the throne room waiting for you.”

Sansa felt herself exhale the biggest breath of her life, held for moons and moons, since Father’s head rolled across the stage and Arya disappeared into thin air. The sound was half a sob. Robb’s heavy breaths matched hers, and suddenly a wide grin broke out on his face.

“You are safe,” he told her fervently, and his low, accented cadence was just as she remembered it. “We’re going home, Sansa.”

Her hands reached out to hug him, to mash his brown curls into her shoulder, to be lifted up in a brotherly embrace once more; and—

A cry rang in her ears. The stars looked down on her, almost mocking. Robb was gone.

Curse the gods. Why give her such a good dream, a loving, kind, glittering dream and wake her before it ended?

She would’ve welcomed it on any other night, when shadows of other men invaded her mind. I was not dreaming of monsters, she told them bitterly. I was dreaming of home.

The cry sounded again, across the length of the cart she laid on, and she suddenly realised where it had come from.

Theon was twisting and turning under his furs, slowly but surely, eyes squeezed against whatever he was seeing. His slow twitches were odd movements; they were not quick enough to alert anyone who would do him harm, in another time or place, but they were enough to wake her.

Bizarrely, her first thought was to give him privacy, to wait until morning and never mention what she’d heard. That would be a kind of kindness, especially to a man who believed all of it was owed to him for what he’d done. But that was not her, not Sansa, not the woman her mother had raised her to be. If nothing else, he’d keep waking her with his cries anyway.

Slowly she sat up and scooted across the cart, until she was almost pressed up against his horizontal form. They’d hung a lantern on the upper left side of the cart, just in case they were attacked and needed to see.

“Theon,” she called softly, dipping down. When he did not reply she called again, closer to his ear. It was not that she was afraid to touch him, but it might frighten him into thinking she was somebody else; a shadow, a long-dead ghost that followed both of them around.

Still he did not stir. He cried out again, a louder sound that pierced her ears, her heart. If Jon was in Winterfell when she had nightmares, if he heard her choked cries, he’d come in and hug her until she remembered that her second husband was dead by his own hounds. Sansa had to extend that kindness.

“Theon,” she persisted, voice at a louder volume. Ever so lightly she placed a tentative hand on his chest. It surprised her that it was hard, underneath the many clothing layers. Clearly he’d been working back his muscle since they escaped Winterfell.

He woke abruptly at her touch, making a choked noise half between a groan and a shout.

“It’s just me! It’s Sansa,” she said quickly, withdrawing her hand.

“Sansa?” he repeated groggily, like he was still dreaming. Then, as he looked into her face and managed to make her out in the black, he relaxed, face slack and shoulders drooping. “Lady Sansa. I’m s—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, but he persisted.

“No, this is truly my fault, this time.” A great remorse came upon his face, and he shimmied til he was sitting up as well, the two of them only a hand length apart.

“I’m sorry, for tonight,” he murmured. 

“It’s alright.”  It was, and it wasn’t. Everyone had their troubles, and Theon had more than most. It was never going to be easy after Ramsay had cut them both open.

“It was silly and irresponsible to go with her. I thought if I could…” He hesitated. There was the pain of a hundred mistakes he’d made on his face. “It doesn’t matter now. I left you alone.”

The implication was there, but she knew he wouldn’t say it. These days, just the silence of possibility was enough to scare them both.

She sighed low. “Well, yes. But it turned out well, I found some of my men and we played a card game.”

He blinked, a little blearily. “Really? I shouldn’t be so surprised,” he admitted. “You could make allies and friends of anyone.”

Lions, roses, hounds, falcons and bears and krakens, she thought. To everyone else, she was always the gentlest of the pack, the most trusting, like her direwolf Lady. People came to her if they wanted to settle with the wolves.

The wind whistled between them, flapping her cloak and rustling his hair.

“You were having a nightmare,” she told him. It came out as kindly as she’d meant it.

He looked lost, and she reached out to touch him again. Just for a moment he froze, and she pulled back. Here, her hand was clad in darkness, and there was no judgement from her in his fear of it.

“You have them often?” she continued, wanting to know more, even if it wasn’t proper. That lost look on his face made something inside her pang.

He hesitated. “Yes.”

Had the drink made them worse, she wondered?

"I'm sorry for bringing you out here,” she said with remorse. He looked confused, so she continued. “Outside of Winterfell. It’s only brought us pain and nightmares.”

"I wanted to come,” he insisted, waving her off. “I thought it might help, being in the open air. But..." He drew in a deep breath. "It's only made it worse."

What Theon meant by it could be a thousand things, and she let them all lie there in the cold.

She nodded sadly. "It's alright. We'll go back."

That seemed to hurt him more than the nightmare. “But you wanted to see the whole North. I should take you, show you what's out there—“

"I don't have to,” she insisted, and she hoped he could see the sincerity on her face in the darkness. “In some ways, I know what’s out there. As you said, my lords might think I've run off if we stayed away too long."

He shook his head feverently. “That doesn’t matter. I can’t trap you in Winterfell for the rest of your life.”

But what her lords thought did matter, in ways he’d never understood, even as a child. When she was still very young, Maester Luwin taught Robb, Jon and Theon geography, how to run lands and tend to its people. In these lessons, Theon never had any interest for the personal politics. It was always war and blood and swords with him, the supposed honour and glory of it all.

When he played in the yard, his favourite part was saving the maiden, being bestowed with her dewy and grateful kiss, the cheers of a people who loved him. It was awfully sad to her, how that childish dream had been so thoroughly stomped to dust in front of him.

She leaned in closer, but still not enough to touch. She wondered if he thought about the times he and her brothers would save her from the invisible monsters.

“You’re not trapping me,” she urged. “I don’t so much mind staying at Winterfell.” Again, she did not say that it was because of his company. “What did you dream of? If you don’t mind me asking. I… dreamt of Robb coming to save me, when I was in King’s Landing.”

A lance of pain jutted across his face. But this time, it turned into something like grief, the kind any mourner would feel. For once it was free of guilt. It might’ve been the aftereffects of the ale, but Sansa didn’t think so.

“He overran the Lannister army, just like I’d prayed for. Then, he came for me, lit up from the inside like a big candle. He was radiant. He was beautiful.”

“That sounds wonderful,” he whispered, a sweet kind of undercurrent in his voice, like he could picture it, as if Robb were standing in front of him.

“It was,” she admitted quietly. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I wish I dreamed of Robb like that. Instead…” Theon looked away, into the pitch black night. “I dream of Robert Baratheon’s welcome feast, at Winterfell. It starts the same… the ale, the laughter, faces bright and a merry tune playing below it all. But then… we’re… invaded. I can’t see who it is— it could be the Lannisters, the Boltons… the Ironborn, but it doesn’t matter because they butcher us all the same. They kill… everyone around me.”

Theon’s voice starts to get thick. “They make me watch, leave me til last. Father dies first, and the rest of you follow quicker than I can scream out. Robb… they stab him, like they said they did. The life drains from his eyes and I watch the only man I’d called brother die before me. But what…” his voice falters. “But what makes it worse? Is it that I have to watch, or that it happened at all? That I wake and know it was real?”

A silence engulfed them, no reply in the world able to make it better. Is this what Tyrion and Shae and Podrick had seen, when she refused to eat and sat, weeping, day and night? Theon was not weeping, but he was close, voice shaky and eyes shining in the lantern-light.

As she often did, she thought of Robb’s statue in the crypts, how hurt his stone eyes had been when Theon talked to him. None of his pain had passed her by, the way he’d cried in her arms before her coronation, but perhaps she did not realise that Theon loved her brother too, in exactly the same way she did. That perhaps like her he’d sat, unable to eat, red-eyed and aching, dreaming of snow and brown curls and her mother’s smile. The only man I’d called brother.

Her dreams of Robb were of sunlight and red-splattered swords, a sigh of relief and a reunion. His dreams of Robb were candlelight and red-splattered tunics, groans of pain and a parting. Perhaps the duality immortalised both his life and death, and in their own minds, he was the Robb they knew. Theon had known far more of his war from north to south before his murder, after all, while she remembered only the snowflakes in his hair and his hearty laugh.

It was odd to her, though, that Theon was not dreaming of his torturer, like she’d initially expected him to.

“Do you dream of…” she trailed off, sick at the thought of saying his name aloud. It was a silly question, really, but she’d been haunted by a ghost no one else could see. Theon had been gone when she fought for Winterfell, when Jon was crowned. As much as Jon tried, he could not truly know what being Ramsay’s prisoner was like.

“Of course I do,” he almost scoffed, but the pain in his voice masked any true irritation with the inquiry. “But what he did to me all those years never hurt so much as betraying my family. I conjure my own punishment for that.”

She thinks suddenly of Jon again, doing the same a thousand miles away beyond the wall. Theon tried to profess great distance in honourable nature between himself and the Starks, but he was more like them than he realised.

“Everytime I open my eyes I learn the lack of them all over again,” he confesses, voice small. “I forget, sometimes, when I’m sleeping, but mostly not even then. I’m hardly allowed to forget what I’ve done, and when I do, it feels all the worse to remember.”

“I’m sorry,” she tried quietly.

“Don’t be. I don’t want to be forgiven.”

He had said that before. It was two years ago, but she remembered every detail. There was a long silence between them, the whistling wind the only sound. She watched him, saw the pain and regret play on his face.

“Sometimes I dream of Bran, too,” he whispered eventually into the cold air, like she was an altar to confess his sins to. “He was there when I entered with the Ironborn in tow. Rickon was too young, he hardly knew what was happening. But Bran did. He rubbed his eyes and called me Theon. Not Lord or Prince, but Theon, as if I were his brother.”

“To him, you were.”

“I know.” Now, a tear rolled down his cheek. “He asked me, did you hate us the whole time? His voice was small, and he was so young. I hurt him. It was more than taking Winterfell, more than chasing both of my brothers away. I hurt him. I saw it in his eyes.” He roughly wiped away the wetness on his face. “I won’t allow myself absolve for any of it. So I dream of him, of Robb, of all of you. I owe a debt, and it is life-long. And so I swore my sword to the rightful Queen in The North.”

There was a silent end to that sentence that she thought he held back from, which was and that is why I am here. She felt that pinch in her heart again. Was it disappointment? What was she expecting? He was loyal to her family and that included her, but it was not for her, and she wondered why she wanted it to be.

Theon silently laid back down, taking care to curl into himself as much as possible. Sansa had heard what he’d done in passing, through rumours, even Theon himself briefly before she left for Castle Black, but hearing the pain and regret and suffering in his voice was something else.

She thought to move, to return to her furs, but a part of her hated to leave him there after he’d bared his deepest hurts. So she sat, knees curled up and cloak fluttering at her ankles.

After a while, Theon moved his head to meet her eyes. He didn’t comment nor tell her to leave. There was only the usual deference, an easy acceptance of whatever happened to him.

Sansa followed everything they asked of her. All of them. Sit down, eat up, sing for us, look at that. Don’t weep, stand up straight, marry him, kneel, beg, pray. She followed it to the letter, knowing she would be eaten alive otherwise.

For Theon, speaking up meant another finger.

She felt herself swallow of her own accord. “We escaped,” she reminded him roughly. “I know it’s hard to remember, but try, for me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know. In my mind, I know it, but sometimes the rest of me forgets.”

As much as Ramsay had been one of her monsters, he had been Theon’s far longer. That knowledge gave her the patience to wait him out, to speak softly, to ask for his permission.

But more than anything, she wanted him to reclaim more of himself from the claws of a dead man.

“You should stick up for what you want,” she suggested. “Say if you don’t like something, or if you do. Go after what you want.”

“I used to do that. Used to take whatever I wanted, no thought to who I was hurting,” he replied, disgusted.

Sansa’s mind suddenly went to memories of Ned Stark’s ward being sighted making frequent trips to Wintertown, sleeping his way through every Northern woman in the kingdom. Theon could not do that anyway, not even if he wanted.

Like in that tavern tonight, he was stripped of the one symbol of manliness, the thing that he believed made Theon Theon, and so Reek had prospered after it was taken.

Sansa could only surmise that he’d been rebuilding himself in the rubble of that ever since, recategorizing what it meant to be Theon the person, instead of Theon the seducer.

It was not easy in a world where sex and swords went hand in hand.

“It doesn’t have to be that,” she pointed out. “Start small. Pick your favourite colours and wear them, or deny food you hate, say no to someone you trust. Learning to say no again was the hardest for me.”

Her first no was with Jon, encouraging him to take back Winterfell. She trusted Jon, knew his kind soul, and was comfortable enough in this knowledge to argue with him, as opposed to falling over her feet to kiss the trail his boots left behind. There had been too much boot kissing in her life.

“I will try,” he answered groggily. His eyelashes were fluttering against his cheek, falling further into sleep.

Before, she hadn’t known he suffered like this, but hearing his muffled cries had changed things. Once they returned to Winterfell, how could she go back to being so far away from him, knowing he was suffering?

Her dreams and nightmares both were not the same as his, but they were the same breed of burdens.

Before she could stop herself, she gently ran a hand through his hair, fingers gliding past his ear. She watched him carefully for any signs of discomfort, but he was still. Had Faye done this again when they were alone? she wondered, and then pushed the image away.

“Sleep,” she told him. His hair felt soft. “Sleep, and dream of spring.”

Theon insisted they at least make it to Torrhen’s Square, and since it was the first time he’d asked for much of anything in probably years, she agreed. A few nights later, they arrived at the village outside of the castle. This one had stalls, like all the others, but few people to buy things from them.

Thankfully this village had an inn, according to a helpful passerby, and soon enough they were riding to inquire about a room. Sansa had little mind for where she slept, but she hoped the soft bed would goad Theon into sleeping peacefully, for his nightmares plagued him nearly every night while they travelled. As she had before, she woke him up with a soft touch to the shoulder.

They arrived at the inn, a rather shody, small, wooden excuse for an inn; but a roof over her head was nothing to be scoffed at. As they approached, there was a short woman with simply braided brown-hair sweeping the doorstep. The movement of her hands on the broom was almost absentminded, and Sansa had to awkwardly clear her throat to break her out of her trance.

“Excuse me,” she started politely, and the woman met her eyes. She narrowed her brown eyes at Sansa, but the movement was not cruel. “This is the inn?”

“It is,” she agreed. “You want a room?”

“Yes,” Sansa replied. The woman did not move.

Theon filled the awkward pause. “We’re passing through to go further north. I’m Arthur, and this is my wife, Alayne.”

Sansa gave him a quizzical glance; the woman had not inquired as to their relation. Yet, she added, and reasoned that perhaps he was saving them time later.

The woman did not smile, but she didn’t frown. “I’m Gale. What could you two be doing going further north? Nothing up there but ice and starvation.”

Now Theon said nothing, silently letting her lead the ruse.

“We heard there was work at Ironrath,” she said. “The lords there are struggling to rebuild after the white walker attack, are they not?”

“That’s true,” Gale allows. "Though I never believed it. The dead, walking? Never heard such a ridiculous tale in my life. Probably some excuse made up by the lords to buy themselves more time before the food riots start.”

Theon let out a little puff of breath, almost a laugh, and Sansa found herself swallowing a smirk. “Indeed,” she agreed, amused. “Forgive me for saying, but there is hardly anyone here in the village. Are they in the castle? Is Torrhen's Square facing some trouble?”

Gale stared at her like she was mad. “It’s all the wars, ain’t it? No one left.”

Sansa felt her stomach drop. Undoubtedly she’d known the wars had ravaged The North, in theory, but to see it…

“We’ll take the room,” Theon said, filling her silence.

Gale looked between them for a moment. “Either of you hungry?”

 The pair sat in comfortable silence as Gale prepared and served dinner. Beef broth with a few tufts of bread. It was, at least, better than the food at Castle Black. She remembered Edd apologising for it that first night. The image of him laid still on one of the pyres, frozen and lifeless, flashed in her mind. For him, she would enjoy all food for the rest of her life, no matter the quality.

She quickly checked on Theon, finding him making a similar resigned face. For him too, it was much better than what he had previously survived on for years. He met her eye before she could look away. Blue, always blue, she thought. But Theon's eyes were so different to Joffrey's eyes, to Ramsay's. The blue that shone out at her was not ice cold. It was the colour of the sea: haunted with memory, a knowledge and depth precious little could hope to match. It was then that she realised their legs were touching beneath the table.

Gale cleared her throat loudly, and Sansa almost cracked her neck at the speed she turned back to her food, feeling her ears heat up. Stop it, Sansa. You're not a little girl anymore, dreaming of knights and sunlit castles.

Theon sat still for a few seconds. He was still looking at her. She held her breath, their thighs brushing. Slowly, she felt him pick up his spoon.

Gale was studying them intensely. “How long you two been married?”

“Three years,” Sansa answered calmly. She had prepared for this. She also learnt that it was easier to lie when it was based off a truth, and they had been reunited since childhood for three years now.

Gale tipped her head, surprised. “That’s a long time for younguns like you.”

“Yes,” Sansa chuckled, a little nervously, “I suppose it is.”

“You must’ve fell in love quite young then.”

Sansa went to nod, but she stilled, asking, “How can you tell it was for love?”

It was more common than snow for marriages to be about land, money, labour or power than love, here in The North or anywhere in Westeros.

Gale gave her an incredulous look. “Because I’m not blind?”

Sansa shifted in her chair, and she dared a glance at Theon, who had paused in his eating, spoon hovering midway to his mouth.

For a moment, Theon looked like he might vomit. Then he grabbed the tankard beside him and began chugging. Sansa noticed he always drank ale faster than the devil, like someone was going to snatch it away if he took too long.

“You’re observant,” Sansa told Gale. Then she begged every god imaginable that she would not continue this line of questioning.

Blessedly, like the gods really did answer, there was a booming crack at the inn door. It wrenched open, a blur of movement darting inside. Stopping herself from jumping up, Sansa realised with surprise that it was a little girl.

"Momma!" A bundle of woolen fabric raced towards Gale, flying into her waiting arms.

An older woman trotted into the inn far behind her, chest heaving, slamming the door against the cold.

"Hello, my sweetling. You're just in time for dinner," Gale beamed. She pushed wild hair from her daughter's face, cradling one side of it with her palm.

Sansa looked down. There would be no point in her adulthood where she would not miss her mother, to wish she would brush and braid her hair one more time.

Gale looked up from the child to the older woman. "Thank you for looking after her, Orla. Your gold is forthcoming."

Orla, big chested and motherly, rolled her eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you, daft woman? I don't want your gold."

The two women seemed to have a silent conversation with their eyes, obviously old friends. Orla then noticed her and Theon.

"Gale, you’re dining with your customers? Did you finally make some friends?" she guffawed, belly shaking.

The little girl began to giggle, and Gale teasingly pushed her away, snorting. "They're travelling by. They looked cold and hungry, and quite an interesting pair."

"Yes, we were," Sansa joined in, "she kindly picked up two strays."

Orla smiled. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Orla."

There was an earnestness to every interaction she had with smallfolk that made Sansa sorely resent not observing her people earlier. It was a breath of fresh air from the usual falsities and disguises she had to don, surrounded by vipers and lions.

"Likewise. I'm Alayne." She looked over at Theon, who was watching Gale's daughter quietly as she sat down to play. "This is my husband, Arthur."

Orla tried to hide it, but Sansa was too experienced to miss the way she looked both of them up and down. It was an understandable precaution.

Gale cleared her throat. She liked doing that, Sansa noticed with amusement. "This is my daughter, Elizabeth."

The girl was scrawny, with dirty blonde locks that looked like a bird's nest. She was only wearing a simple dress, but it was stained with mud all the way up to her neck. She looked so much like Arya as a child, back from a day spent gods knows where in Winterfell’s grounds. Mother would whisk her away before anyone else saw the state of her, quietly admonishing as she dragged her youngest daughter into her chambers.

Sansa struggled to swallow the mouthful of broth she'd taken. Begrudgingly, she looked away from Elizabeth, back to Gale and Orla. "She's lovely."

Theon, who hadn't spoken since Gale invited them into the house, made a noise of agreement. "A real Northerner,” he rasped.

Sansa choked on her food. She never thought he particularly cared for children, certainly not as a child himself, but they'd been apart for years. The way he watched the girl play with a soft expression told her his thoughts had changed.

Gale raised her chin and grinned. "Aye."

Sansa wondered who the father was that she would have hair that light. It was awful of think of it, but one of the many southron soldiers may have given it to her. She prayed Gale had wanted it, but the smile on her face told Sansa she loved her daughter regardless.

"I better go, Gale, the husband will want feeding." Orla put a hand on her shoulder. "Nice meeting you folks."

Sansa found she could happily smile back. Theon acknowledged her with a glance and went back to his food. He was always nervous around people, but that instinct to shy away increased when meeting strangers.

When Orla was gone, Elizabeth curiously peeked up at the two outsiders at her mother's table.

"Isn't Arthur a knights name?" she asked them, voice chirpy.

Theon met the girl's eyes and he fidgeted. "I don't know."

"Yes," Sansa aided him. "There was Ser Arthur Dayne, who served in the Kingsguard under Aerys Targaryen." She quirked an eyebrow. "Do you like knights?"

"Oh, yes!" she burst out. "Momma says they're brave and handsome so that's why she likes them, but I like their long and pointy swords best."

Gale spluttered, but Sansa laughed loudly for the second time since her father was still alive. "Dayne's was called Dawn."

Elizabeth nodded furiously. "It's made from a fallen star! Its white, and whoever has it is called..." Her small face scrunched up. "Sword of the Morning!"

"You're very clever," Sansa praised. “Even I could not remember that when I was your age."

Her father had told her precious little about his life before settling at Winterfell with mother, but he had told her about Arthur Dayne. Only because she'd begged to hear about the man everyone called the most honorable knight in the Seven Kingdoms. Pointedly, he did not tell her that he was the one to kill him. Joffrey had seized that particular pleasure, ripping another piece of her innocence away.

Elizabeth's face lit up. She scrambled to her feet, forgetting her toys, and hurried over to Sansa at the table. Gale groaned.

"You've done it now. She's not going to stop all night," she complained.

Sansa cupped her hands together and sat back in her chair, failing to suppress a smile. "It's alright. I don't mind."

Elizabeth grabbed the spare chair on the other side of her mother and began dragging it loudly behind her, all the way around till it came inches away from Sansa.

Gale rolled her eyes, a small smile on her lips. "Speak for yourself." She got up, took Theon and Sansa's empty bowls for washing, and left.  Theon had eaten his whole meal, she noticed, the first since they'd been travelling together.

Suddenly, he piped up. "I'd like to hear about these knights too,” he told Elizabeth, a teasing lilt to his voice.

This time, Sansa could not help but shake with laughter. Theon looked at her, a glint in his eyes, and like he had planned it, mimicked her laugh, his own subdued version.

"What other knights do you know?" Elizabeth asked, settling down into her seat. Sansa tore her gaze away from Theon.

Her face was open and bright, eyes wide. She was so young, Sansa thought. Not in age, but in spirit. She desperately wished she could help her stay this way forever.

"Well," Sansa started eagerly, "I know most of them, but I have my favourites."

"Me too." Suddenly she gasped, like she remembered something important. "Do you know about Ser Brienne?"

Sansa's body jerked, a million memories assaulting her at once. She'd forgotten, just for a second, that she was Sansa Stark.

"Yes, I do," she replied, too hesitant for her liking.

Elizabeth did not seem to notice. "Do you like her?" she pressed eagerly.

She'd started shaking again. The same feeling she had before her coronation overcame her, the fear of never being able to move past the years of pain she had lived.

"I like her very much," Theon jumped to her rescue. Sansa swallowed and listened to him speak, the sound of his voice bringing her back from the edge. "She's tall and big, like most knights are. And that sword!"

Elizabeth squealed, "Yes! I know it, I know it's name! Oathkeeper!"

Sansa slowly came back to reality, remembering when Brienne told her how she named her sword. She had never thought much of Jaime Lannister — he'd done nothing but hurt the ones she loved —  but Brienne had an earnestness no one could deny. If she promised what she told Sansa was true, it was true. Her legs felt solid again. The chair she was sitting on would hold. Theon was warm, his shoulder pressed up against her own.

"She's very honourable," Sansa finally found her voice, "The most honourable knight living, I've heard some say."

Theon gave her a concerned look. "She is."

"And truthful. Kind, too." She knew he could hear the longing in her voice. Of course, he had been there when Brienne pledged to serve her.

Elizabeth looked between them rapidly. "I want to be a knight like her."

"Really?" Sansa raised her eyebrows, putting on a show for her. In truth, she was not scandalized in the slightest. Arya had wanted the same, and she had learnt long ago that all tradition does is harm. "Well, I don't see why not. People have worked their way up to higher than a knight. I think it's very possible. Don't you agree, dear?"

Theon blinked at the endearment. Sansa winced, watching the way he seemed to panic a little.

"Uh, yes," he tried, still fumbling for words, and Elizabeth looked down.

Sansa elbowed him as subtly as she could since the girl was watching them.

"Yes!" he quickly reassured, far more enthusiastically. "You'd be strong, but fair, wouldn't you?"

The girl perked back up. "Yes! I can be both of those things. What are some of your favourite knights?" she asked Theon.

Sansa almost laughed for what felt like the hundredth time that night at the look on his face. He was lost, eyes darting to her for help. She smirked at him. You're on your own.

"I..." he stammered.

"You see, Elizabeth," she whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, "my husband is a bit of a bore. He doesn't know any tales or songs like we do."

Theon made an indignant noise. "Yes I do!"

"Oh, really?" she challenged. "Name one knight."

She watched in amusement as he thought hard, arms crossed, one elbow pressed into her lower arm.

Sansa shared a knowing look with Elizabeth and the girl giggled at him.

"Arthur Dayne?"

"You overheard that just now!" she cried.

Elizabeth broke out into a fit of loud giggles. From the other room, Gale shouted, "Lizzie! Don't torture our guests!"

"I'm not, mother!"

"No, but I am!" Sansa supplied.

Gale replied with a throaty laugh. She looked at Theon, mightily pleased with herself, and he rolled his eyes at her antics. Her jaw nearly hit the floor. She has not seen him roll his eyes in years.

Elizabeth babbled something back while snickering but she did not hear it, distracted by the once familiar lightness in Theon's demeanor. Her heart started doing so many flips she thought it might burst right out of her chest.

Elizabeth tapped her knee with a warm hand to get Sansa's attention again. "Do you know the story of Ser Jorah Mormont?"

This time, Sansa was prepared. "I do. I like that one."

"Me too!" she exclaimed. "I like it because he became a knight and did bad things but now he's good and everyone loves him!"

"I don't know that tale," Theon admitted, getting Sansa's attention.

"Do you not? Truly?" She was surprised. Theon was there at the Battle of Winterfell, and he'd known Daenerys before that, but perhaps no one had ever told him the full story of the exiled Lord of Bear Island.

He swallowed and shook his head.

She thought for a moment. "Would you like to?"

In front of her, Elizabeth squealed. "Say yes, Arthur!"

"It's a good one," Sansa told him softly. "He gets the redemption he'd been searching for in the end."

A shadow passed over his face, and she knew he was thinking of two farm boys swinging from Winterfell's rafters, Ser Rodrick, Bran and Rickon, even Robb.

"Aye, then." Theon leaned in, giving her his full attention.

Gale’s furs were scratchy.

Sansa curled around them anyway, hoping to chase away the chill. Theon slept inches from her, on his back and soundly, the whimpering that had been killing her all but gone. That pleased her. It’d taken a fight to get him onto the bed instead of the floor, but there was no way in seven hells she was letting him rest the same way he had as a prisoner.

Having him this close did not bother her in the slightest. Usually. Tonight, she was plagued with thoughts of Faye, of what he might’ve said to her, what she might’ve said to him, what they might’ve done. He was too convinced she was a virtuous lady to tell her, but Sansa could guess, but her guesses were worse. The images were unkind, lips wet and smacking, his mouth biting at her breast like Jerrard did. Had Theon slapped her ass, like Jerrard, like Ramsay had done to her?

No, she thought firmly, he wouldn’t. He was just as afraid of the sound as she was, the wet slap of skin on skin. It meant more pain, more torture, more sweet cruel words.

Sansa screwed her eyes up and banished thoughts of Faye and Theon and that tavern. Instead, she thought of the Innkeeper and her daughter.

It had been a very long time since she’d thought of knights and castles and beaming sunlight. Elizabeth brought it all back tonight, reminded her that Sansa had once been just as hopeful, desperate to witness the southron spectacle with her own eyes.

Sansa brought the covers up to shield her face. She would rather face execution than admit it to Theon, but she had thought about what his alias would be for days before bringing it to him.

Ser Arthur Dayne was one of her many knightly heroes as a child. Somehow, throughout everything Theon used to be and everything he was now, she saw him like that too. It seemed silly, even childish, to think of someone like that, even after everything that she’d survived, but still she did. She named him Arthur to give him a piece of the honour he vehemently denied himself. He would probably hate it if he knew.

Or did he already? She felt her chest tighten and looked to him beside her, but he was still fast asleep. Theon knew very well her fascination with tales of lovers and knights as a girl, and he plainly heard their conversation with Elizabeth. The furs wrapped around her felt like chains. Too tight. Too heavy. She threw them off as gently as she could. Had he suspected anything?

No, that's mad. He cannot read minds.

Gods, but did it feel like he could. He had a slightly scary ability to look at her and see far more than just a face. He always knew when to help, when to leave, what to say, if he wanted to say anything at all — sometimes sitting beside her did more than words.

She was suddenly very conscious of the fact that he was on the other side on this bed, inches away, arm almost brushing against hers. Sansa laid like that for a long time, not tense but not quite relaxed, visions of Faye and Elizabeth both crowding her head for space.

Eventually, her eyes drifted closed.

Sunlight reflected off a knight’s armour. In the day, it gleamed like gold.

The knight came riding into Winterfell’s walls, the Stark banner angled beside them. At first she thought it was her father, then her brothers, or even uncle Benjen. All the knights she knew of flitted through her mind: Loras, Arthur, Jorah, Brienne, a hundred from the stories of old.

But the figure moved to take off his helmet and the entire castle froze. There was a deafening silence, even the birds above quiet. Only the gods had this sort of power. All she could do was watch him, utterly enraptured. The sun gleamed off the side of the metal as he twisted his helm; it blinded her as he pulled. She threw a hand to her face to cover her eyes but it did no good. The piercing, angelic light shone through her fingers and the palm of her hand, until all she could see was blinding white.

“Who are you, knight?” she called into the light. There was no answer.

She awoke peacefully, dawn crackling at the edges of her vision.

“Theon, could you pick up two sacks of grain, please?”

Their cart was on its last supplies, but she had just enough gold to get them home again before it became a problem.

Giving her a questioning, curious look, he obeyed. In the light of day, he looked pale, but he always did. He would not have to wait long for his answer. “Follow me,” she told him.

Gale was scrubbing a pan as she walked in. A few feet away, Elizabeth was playing with a small wooden horse, and Sansa made a note to have a wolf toy made for her when she got back.

Gale looked up as she got closer, calling, “Alayne?” while wiping off her fingers and throwing the soiled rag away.

“Gale,” she greeted. “I’m afraid I have to confess something to you. I am not, in fact, Alayne Stone.”

Behind her, she felt Theon shift, his eyes on her back, half concerned and half curious. 

Gale looked confused, gaze shifting from her to Theon. “You’re not?”

Sansa felt rather guilty under Gale’s innocent eye. There were no royal airs in this woman’s aura, and Sansa felt like it had been wrong to deceive her, even if it was for her own good. “I am Sansa Stark.”

“Stark... “ Gale froze, then gawked, mouth popping open. “The queen?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, a little sheepishly. That awkward claim was never going to feel completely right. It always felt like she was putting on Robb’s bigger, ill-fitting boots when she said it.

There was a tense silence as it sunk in. Sansa watched Gale’s eyes widen, and she began to shift, like she had been asked to sing a song with nothing prepared.

“Your grace… it is an honour to have housed you here. These lodgings aren’t up to royal standards…” she struggled.

“Please, they were perfectly fine,” Sansa assured, giving a small smile. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I tell you who I truly am because I wanted to ask you to come to Winterfell. When I return in a while’s time, we can discuss potential solutions to the lack of patrons at your inn.”

“You... ask.”

Not sure what she was getting at, Sansa slowly replied, “Yes, I want to help you, and your daughter.”

At this, Elizabeth looked up. She was paying attention now.

“It’s just, I didn’t imagine royalty ever asking for something instead of simply taking it,” Gale said, but there was no bite in it.

Sansa thought it best not to reply to that, though she agreed. The first boy she ever thought she’d loved had seen to that shattering of her illusions. “I have taken the liberty of providing you with some grain to keep you through the last throes of winter. I hope this is enough.” Sansa looked behind her. “Theon?”

He took that as his cue, moving forward and dumping the two sacks onto the floor.

“Your grace?” she questioned, looking up from the sacks to her face.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Are they in an inconvenient place? We can move them.”

“No,” Gale spoke slowly, “forgive me, your grace, I’m just slightly... shocked.”

Sansa nodded. “I understand. I meant to depart as we had, but when you told me about your food shortage and the lasting effects of the long winter, I couldn’t just leave.” She purses her lips. “Hopefully this will keep you till the spring fully spreads. If not, you’re more than welcome to come to Winterfell just for the food. I’d gladly take you in.”

At this point, Gale’s eyes were bugging out of her head. Sansa bit back a gentle laugh.

Elizabeth tugged on her dress, and she looked down at the girl, eyes wide and face open, but there was a savviness there that Sansa admired.

“We can come to your home?” she asked, voice hopeful.

“Yes, Elizabeth. But only if your mother says you can.”

At this, Elizabeth frowned, in only the way a child denied fun would. “Can I learn to be a knight there?”

Gale choked, “Lizzie!”

“It’s quite alright,” Sansa waved a hand, unable to keep the amusement from her voice. “I could arrange some sword lessons, if you like.”

Elizabeth’s face lit up. “Yes please!”

She started to turn away, satisfied, but Sansa suddenly gasped.

“Ah! I almost forgot,” she said, reaching into her cloak. She brandished a small box and handed it down to the girl.

Sansa watched as she opened it and squealed in delight. “Lemon cakes!”

The merchants of each town were well stocked with the delicacy, capitalising on the popularity of their queen’s favourite food. She had been saving them as a treat for herself, but she could always get more where Elizabeth could not.

She turned to Theon behind her and was astonished to see budding tears in his eyes. Was kindness so rare to him now that it affected him so?

“Prepare the cart?” she asked gently.

Even with his eyes on her, he still knew to keep under his role in public. “Your grace,” he said in lieu of a goodbye, and to anyone else it would’ve sounded neutral. But she could hear the affection in it.

Sansa turned back to the women to hide the flush of heat that went across her face, and tried to contain her surprise; she never thought she’d blush again. She’d seen and experienced far too much to ever be maidenly and embarrassed, but here she was, soft at Theon’s praise. There was something that was home about him, something from half-remembered dreams, snow and warm smiles, that always knocked her off kilter.

“Your grace,” Gale started, eyes flicking from Elizabeth stuffing her mouth back to Sansa, “I don’t think I can ever thank you enough.”

Sansa smiled, the rare, genuine one, that she’d previously only felt safe enough to express around Theon, Jon, her remaining family. The queen slid off her back like a worn cloak. “Just Sansa, please.”

“Forgive me… I might struggle with that.”

“I understand,” Sansa reassured. “Though if you do come to Winterfell, it’s best to keep the airs. Sansa only for when we are alone. I'd appreciate it if no one else knew about my visit."

At this, Gale went unusually still. "Aye."

Sansa let it go  — the aftereffects of learning who she was. "Thank you."

They talked some more, but it was mostly answering Gale’s numerous questions. It was odd to her that Sansa would forego the privileges royalty offered, but it was hard to explain how stifling they could be without being monumentality insensitive. The man who glared at her during the bread riot always stuck in her mind. Your horses eat better than his children. She never forgot Shae’s words.

A while later, Theon was again clapping the reins and the cart was clambering forward, on into the murky Northern sunrise. The rolls of grey fabric she bought were still in her pack, she’d checked, jutting out of the corner flap. She liked being able to see her house colours so obviously put to fabric, one of many signs of devotion from the people of The North to her family.

They did not speak for a long while, a comfortable peace befitting early morning settling between them. Instead she enjoyed the view. Every other time she was travelling it was always with dread or worse, fear, and she never got the chance to appreciate how beautiful her family’s land really was. The snow was light, nothing like the heavy fall of her childhood, but still a blanket covered the fields.

Ever since Sansa had been told of Kings Landings’ horrific destruction, sometimes she mistook the rows of never-ending white for ash, but she blinked and it was snow once again. Though not all of her associations were awful, rooted in days in fear and misery. Her entire childhood was littered with memories of her family, each of them with snowflakes in their hair. It was common to see all of them with white-dusted shoulders, breath visible around the cold, but their hands on her were always warm.

As they often did, the memories made her heart ache. Sansa wondered if she would ever be able to think of them without the bone-deep grief. It had been years, but still it felt like yesterday that she screamed her father’s name, or sat upon her prison windowsill with sore eyes, or wept in Winterfell with Jon after burying Rickon, stew uneaten in their bowls.

Sansa swallowed and turned to watch Theon. He was not a natural distraction; neither loud nor visually ostentatious anymore, he aimed to turn heads the other way rather than at him.

But she always observed those who blended well, knowing them the most dangerous of all, if they wanted to be. Sansa had not survived by keeping her eyes on the most obvious of things.

Theon looked peaceful, at least as much as he could be. She was glad to see sleeping at the inn had worked as she planned; it’d given him a good night’s sleep.

“Did you like Elizabeth?” she asked, hoping for pleasant small-talk.

He turned his head and gave her a mischievous look. "She reminds me of you when you tried to dye your hair golden.”

"Oh gods, I’d forgotten that!” she chuckled.

It had been a desperate attempt to mimic the Lannisters. Surely a southern lord will want me then, if my hair is as fine as gold. Mother had choked. Absolutely not! Your hair is beautiful, Sansa. You have the red of my family. She had begged incessantly for weeks after that, until Arya had enough and threw a fit. Seven hells! Let her dye it the colour of ugly straw. I'm sick of hearing her whine about it!

By that point, both she and Arya were in hysterics, perhaps the only time they were in agreement as children. As the only daughters, they were forced to spend more time together than their other siblings — at dinner, in Septa Mordane’s classes, socializing with guests. It was always Sansa and Arya who were invited, the latter usually begrudgingly by whoever offered. Stuck together in a room, many bickerings were had, most often about whatever nonsense was bothering one or the other that day. For weeks straight, Arya heard about nothing but her hair; Oh Arya, it’s so ugly, Queen Cersei’s hair is long and bright as gold and always styled in the latest fashion. Everyone always says so. Have you heard how much time she spends nursing it?

No wonder her sister had snapped.

To appease her incessant daughters, mother snuck the dye in behind father's back through one of the handmaidens. Once Sansa had emerged from her chambers, grinning and running her thin fingers through the wet locks, Theon came sauntering down the hallway. He stopped, eyes wide for a moment before bursting into laughter. Sansa pulled her hair into sight and a sullen green glared back at her. Before she could scream, Theon ran away laughing himself silly. Mother! She’d shrieked. The entire castle came running, alarmed by the cries of the Stark daughter. Theon came bouncing back with a bewildered Robb in tow. Look what your sister’s done!

It had taken weeks for the dye to wear out. Her father had been mightily annoyed and exasperated all at once. Sansa cringed. "In hindsight, it was a silly thing to do."

"In hindsight?" he snickered. "It was just as silly at the time!"

She joined his laughter. At least it was not black, she consoled herself. She would much rather think of Theon laughing at her green hair than Petyr Baelish ogling Alayne’s.

“I admit it, it was,” she conceded. She regarded the smile on his face as it waned, his laughing dying down. But it pleased her to see it was still persistent on his lips.

“I never understood why you did that,” he admitted.

She sighed. “I wanted to look like Cersei Lannister.”

“Why?” He scrunched up his nose in distaste.

“At the time, everyone always talked of the great golden lioness, with tresses that reached her backside. She was the queen, mother to the future king, everything I wanted to be.”

He thought for a moment. “You were only a girl. You couldn’t know.”

“But you did, didn’t you?” she pointed out. “You hated them all on sight.”

“That wasn’t because I was smart, Sansa. I hated everybody.”

She would have laughed if it didn’t make her so sad. “I’m sorry you felt that way.”

He shook his head. “Don’t,” he said quickly. “I was an arrogant little shit.” Before she could argue, he spoke again. “Your hair has always been beautiful, but I gather you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“No, but you’re the first in a very long time to say so without an underlying agenda,” she said sadly. Even Faye at the tavern, as genuine as she’d been, had only seen sex and coin tangled in her Tully hair.

There was a pause as his face tightened. Through the weeks after her coronation, she had told him of all the men who haunted her nightmares. “Then let me say it again, if it pleases you, Lady Sansa.” He swallowed. “Your hair is beautiful.”

As she told him, the words were not new. But they sounded so different coming from his lips.

Sansa looked out at the miles of field around her. Now the same colour as her cheeks — and she subtly pressed her fingers to them to check that, yes, she was doing it again — her hair curtained around her face, hiding a blush.

Chapter Text

Her father was always dignified, even when on his knees. Ned looked behind him, at her; into the crowd, searching for her sister, and then down at the floor. It would be his last sight.

The guard’s fingers gripped at her waist so hard they would leave bruises; but the pain meant nothing compared to the all-consuming panic that set every bit of her on fire. She screamed so loud her throat set aflame. Cersei did not care, her eyes on the floor. Joffrey reveled in it. She screamed louder.

Ser Ilyn Payne clomped across the floor, unsheathing her father’s beloved blade, the one she’d seen him caring for himself, contrary to the usual practices; Ice was his, and her father always took pride in things that were his, that he’d made.

He looked at her again, a final time, and there was shock and dread and fear in her father’s eyes, something she had never seen before. He was her hero. How could heroes be afraid, she thought distantly, as she screamed, her inner voice sounding not at all like herself.

Get up, father, she begged, get up and fight them off and save yourself.

But her father only bent his head, defeated, the dull brown hair of her family parting onto his shoulders as he did. It left his neck exposed.

She screamed. She screamed. The sword swung.

Dirt filled her mouth. Candles lit the dark crypts, the huge open cavern swallowing her whole, the rasping and screeching of the dead filling her ears.

There was a great thump thump thump behind her, the scratch of stone, and she whipped around to look. A skeleton arose, chipped and encrusted with mud. It stood to full height, one bony hand reaching for her neck. It was headless.

She awoke with a jolt, choking on her own tears. Hurriedly, she rolled over and coughed violently into the wood.

“Sansa?”

“I’m sorry,” she wept. “I’m sorry.” To Theon, who had to witness this, or to her father, she did not know.

She felt a hand move to her head, holding her hair; another running down her back. There was still dirt in the back of her throat, she was sure of it. The smell of his head on that pike, of the hundreds of heads on that wall, filled her nose till she almost wretched.

There was a long, slow movement up and down her back, continuous, endless. She leaned into it.

“Theon,” she blurted, half mad, “If I die, would you make sure they bury me in the crypts at Winterfell? I don’t want to— I can’t—“ she couldn’t get it out.

Arya told her that they stitched Grey Wind’s head on Robb’s body, to mock him after slaughtering him — and his wife, his unborn child, and their mother. All their remains were in a ditch somewhere near The Twins, carelessly thrown away by Bolton men.

His hand stills momentarily. “You’re not going to die.” I will not let you, she hears what he silently adds.

“Answer me, Theon,” she pleads. Arya’s shaky words rang in her head. Here comes the King in The North, his headless body tied to a wooden pole. And my Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father.

“If I’m still here, I’ll kill the man that tries to take you anywhere else,” he vowed forcefully, loudly, so she could hear it over the crashing waves.

She already knew this, somewhere inside her, but hearing it felt like euphoria. A relieved sob clawed its way out her throat. She turned until she was facing him; there was no judgement in his eyes, like she’d feared.

“If we had been wed, Joffrey would never let me rest in the crypts. He’d say he claimed me as a Baratheon. I don’t want to think about being without mother, father, Robb or Rickon for eternity.”

Theon was watching her carefully as she rambled, concern etched into every line of his face. “You’ll see them all again,” he promised.

She is only one and twenty, yet her soul feels like it is dragging around a sack of rocks the size of boulders. The losses seem to pile higher every time she takes a breath.

Theon removed his hands from her. She felt the loss instantly, and stifled the cry that threatened to erupt. Cold once again, she shifted until she was laid how she was before, back to him.

Eyes squeezed shut, she tries to let sleep come again. Leave Theon be, Sansa. He has enough pain to deal with on his own, let alone yours.

Petyr’s eyes bore into hers. A picture of me, on the iron throne, with you by my side. He would’ve fucked her happily with the knowledge he had been her father’s undoing, the rest of her family following soon after, and then, when he was done, he’d clutch at her hair and see her mother’s face. 

The words break out unbidden, pushed out by fierce revulsion. “Would you… put your arms around me?” she breathed. “Just for tonight. I need… that is, if you don't mind.” She has no doubt Ramsay played similar tricks with Theon before, begging kindness and mercy, love and touch, before snatching it away.

There was a long, painful silence. She held her breath, feeling the cold night air around them. The wind was whistling; whispering names of the dead into her ear.

Slowly, he tentatively wrapped one arm around her waist, laying his hand on her stomach, and she exhaled.

“Everyone who ever hurt you… they are dead and rotting,” he reassured, quiet, like he wasn’t confident in comforting her, but he tried his best.

Like Arya with her list of soon-to-be-dead men, she too has a list of already dead men; from his words, Theon had one too.

She knows he said it partly for himself, but she understands. They are the only two people in the world who could understand; they shared a demon, after all.

Without having to ask, he puts his arms around her every night on the journey back. It is just until we get home, she told herself, but she already knew it was a lie.

 They make it back to Winterfell in good time. Their routine began again, but there was a new intimacy between them; it was not planned, but sharing their nightmares had made them vulnerable. There was no placing their deepest fears and sorrows back inside.

Every night after a full day of managing Winterfell and it’s visitors, he would walk her to her chambers. After evening food, they started to enjoy games before bedtime. He still remembered how to play cards, and many other frivolous pursuits, though it had been so long since he’d done any games for fun.

At her request he taught her many of them, all of the ones Septa Mordane told her it was unladylike to play, and in return she taught him Cyvasse, a board game played almost exclusively in The South and Volantis. Sansa had learnt when she was a prisoner; it helped to have something to pass the time. Tyrion even played a few games with her and though he was a master with years of experience, he praised that she took to the game quickly.

Theon began to request Cyvasse often, which pleased her. It seemed he took her advice to start small in wanting things again, as he wore clothes he picked out, requested foods, and, always, donned her wolf pin. With ale and a roaring fire, they sat down to play or talk almost every night. Sansa took not just to Cyvasse, beating Theon more often than not in most of the games. He insisted he did not mind.

It struck her how such a simple thing could say so much; he would get enraged as a boy, when Robb and Jon beat him in the yard or in games. This Theon, the man of three and twenty, who sacrificed his childhood dream of princehood for a sister who deserved the crown more, was a continent away from boy Theon, who wanted to take what Robb Stark had. It saddened her a little.

Their relationship was simple as children. He avoided her, much preferring her older brother to goad into his antics. She was no fun for his rambunctious personality with her needles and stories of romance and marriage. In turn, she avoided him; her mother’s dislike was partly responsible, but the rest was just him. However being with Robb meant being with Theon, because they stuck together, so Sansa learnt to live with him.

But just like her, he’d changed. Their evenings were the most she enjoyed existence for years. She survived for so long and had forgotten what it felt like to live, and she realised living was feeling warm even when the weather was not. Theon made a good companion, asking as many questions as he answered.

But she knew all too well that she and Theon both distracted themselves till they collapsed so they didn’t have to think about what they lost, the traumas that held them tight, the shadows in every corner. They were their own final defence, the last ones standing, the two of them against the flow of all their grief and pain and anger.

It was not just the evenings they began to spend together. One night, three weeks after their trip, she laid in her bed, tossing and turning for what felt like hours before she huffed raggedly.

Time waits for no man, and soon enough she would be called upon to guide her people for another day. Whether she slept or not was of no concern to the Northmen, nor their wives or children, and she would have it stay that way.

Laying there, silent amongst the furs, Sansa still felt hollow. Like she rattled, as if a shake could dispel everything she was into dust. The only thing that told her she was alive was the pulse at her wrist, the thump of her heart in her ears, a sound that was especially grating in the dense silence of Winterfell.

She suddenly thought again of being trapped somewhere underground, dirt in her mouth and all alone. Forever. If she ever married again, her husband would respect her wishes and bury her here. Dread started to claw its way up her throat. What if he wouldn’t? Who would be there to stop the house she married throwing her bones into an open pit, like Robb and mother and her good-sister?

Her guard would. Theon would.

He was in his room, most likely asleep. She bit her lip.

The furs slid off her easily as she rose, her long nightdress fanning out past her knees. Sansa thought to look in her stained mirror as she went by, the one that mother used to use, but thought better of it. Even around the unpolished metal, she did not need a reflection to tell her she looked in disarray.

If the Sansa of years ago could see her, she would scream at the thought of being spotted by someone while she was dressed in her underclothes. As it was, she tip-toed down the dark hallway, made only visible by a few candles. The shadows did not scare her like they should, like they usually would, not when Theon was so close.

Three doors down, she remembered. She reached his door and stopped. Curling one hand into a fist, she hovered it above the wood, heart thumping in her chest. Would she be crossing a line? It was one thing to comfort each other underneath the pitch black of open sky, but entirely another to do so in his bed.

She knocked anyway.

It took a while before she heard a thump, then a pad-pad. In the moments it took for him to rise, she considered running away and leaving him to stare into nothing but the cold air.

But she was still there when he opened it. He peeled back the door like a bandage over a wound and their eyes met, locking, and the world seemed to narrow until Theon was all she could see. It was an odd feeling, looking into Theon’s eyes by candlelight, where only a glimpse of the usual bright blue shadowed across his eyes. He wasn’t frightening, she thought, he could never be to her, but almost salacious, like the secret rendezvous by night the lovers did in their sweet songs. But he was not hers, even though...

His sandy hair was tousled, eyes bleary. “Sansa?”

“Hello,” she replied softly. Her courage seemed to flee now that he was before her. “Could I sleep here?” she asks him in a rush, before she can stop. “I… I’m cold.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth.

Theon took a deep breath and searched her with his eyes. There was a knowing in them, like he saw straight through the excuse, like he was as desperate to be held as she was. His lips parted slightly, and she began to worry she’d spooked him, for he scared easily and frequently, now.

Sansa began to run a nervous hand down her arm, though the fingers were not the ones she wanted.

Before she could speak again, to tell him it was silly and she was sorry, he widened the door to let her in.

His room was as sparse as hers. A few candles, a chair, a chest. A four poster bed. All the same grey and dark tones. Her eyes moved to Theon as he padded inside and she almost jumped. She hadn’t noticed before, but he was shirtless.

As fast as she could she spun around. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” she winced. The scars littered his back, a maiming so deep it went further than simple cuts. His skin had been peeled and re-healed, patches of it growing back over more whippings. All of it left a monstrous tapestry of Ramsay’s tortures.

Sansa closed her eyes and swallowed the lump that grew in her throat. Ramsay had cut her, beat her, raped her, but her back did not look like that. That was years of suffering.

She heard him stutter behind her. “No, it’s… I’ll… I have a shirt.”

“Don’t feel ashamed,” she pleaded, wishing for a half mad flash of second that she could drain away all of his hurts with her hands and lips. “Don’t. It’s not your fault.”

A pit began to open in her stomach, widening until it was as cavernous as Wintefell’s crypts. “I knocked on your door. I disturbed your privacy. You don’t have to cover up… not for me.”

She heard his breathing speed up, in response, as it always was, to hers doing the same. “I was wearing it anyway. It must've come off while I slept… I don’t… I cant sleep without clothes on.”

Was it another leftover from Ramsay? Sansa knew he’d slept in the kennels for far longer than she was here, and wearing as many layers as possible to smother the piercing cold would just be common sense. Perhaps it had become a habit.

But her heart knew the truth, the shame and humiliation that propelled him to hide his physical scars in the hope it might do the same for his mental ones.

“Are you certain?” she urged.

There was a rustling. “Yes,” he croaked. “You can… turn around.”

She did, but he wasn’t looking at her, choosing instead to observe the bed they were both to occupy. Even sleepy and disheveled and pained, he was beautiful; and the realisation punched her straight in the gut. He had not been that way to her before, when they were young, but now, waiting for her to lead the way, he was.

Sansa began to shuffle to bed like a ghost, so many thoughts swirling in her head she thought it might explode. He was not a prince, but he kissed her hand; he was not a knight, but she called him Arthur; he was not hers, but here he was.

But as quick as Theon entered her mind he left, and her descent to the bed sparked another, entirely different, set of memories.

Why are you still a virgin?

Her steps started to wobble.

You’re not lying to me? Lying to your husband on his wedding night… that would be a bad way to start a marriage.

Sansa reached the bed but began to stare into nothing. Ramsay’s eyes were full of glee, excited at the idea of having his way with a maid. The room began to feel small. She could feel Ramsay’s worm-like and wet lips on her cheeks.

“Sansa,” Theon whispered. With a flinch she looked up.

His eyes were full of concern. “Are you sure?” he asked softly, like she had done to him.

Slowly, she began to breathe easy again. Ramsay would never ask. “Yes.”

Theon continued to watch her as she laid down, eyes on her back as she turned. After she settled, he sat down, dipping the bed. Breathe, Sansa. Breathe.

They lay silently, only inches apart. It was not awkward, but not entirely comfortable. It was different, being in his bed, and they both knew it. They spoke no words.

Sansa felt her eyes droop anyway. The cold seemed unable to reach her here, the heat from him warming her.

The next night he walked her to her door like he always did. Sansa put her hand on her doorknob, and ever so slowly, raised her eyes to him. The look was searching, her chest rising and falling a little uneven, and for a moment he returned the stare.

“Sansa,” he said, and then stopped. His voice wasn’t pleading, it was warning. Are you sure you want me in your bed? It said. She kept her eyes to him, and he entered.

The next night she did the same. He said, “Sansa,” and entered again.

The fourth night he said nothing at all, moving as she opened it.

A week later she didn’t have to look.

A moon after he began to open her door himself.

Now they both expected it, and she glided into her quarters from the hall in one swift motion with Theon on her heels.

Likewise, he never said aloud that he’d begun to enjoy it, but he did not have to. Sometimes she would feel him lean his face into her hair, ever so lightly as to not disturb her, but enough that she felt the spot warm on her head.

It was no secret to her that he suffered of a nighttime too, and it would do little to try to conceal it. She hoped he found the same comfort in someone else being present with him at night as she did with him, guarding her even if he was unconscious.

Sansa always told her handmaidens to come to her room two hours later, telling them she liked to sleep. Truthfully it was to give Theon time to leave her room every morning. No one could know how broken their Queen in the North was underneath her armour of courtesy, but only Theon knew it of Sansa Stark.

One night at dinner, Theon asks an odd question. They were both bowed over their bowls, candlelight illuminating what little daylight left would not.

"Do you want children?"

“What?” she blurted, head snapping up. Her cutlery fumbled in her grip.

“It’s only...” he hesitated. “I remember you wanted them so badly when you were little. Do you still feel that way?”

She took a bite of her food to give herself time to consider her answer.

Her primary focus was to rebuild House Stark, to unite her father's principal houses and bannermen in her service and ensure prosperity for centuries to come. She had told Cersei the second part long ago and received a disgusted noise in reply. You can try, little dove. Cersei liked saying that.

But she never thought at length about children being an important part of it. To rebuild a dynasty, there must be heirs to take after you.

"I don't really know anymore. I suppose there must be, to continue the Stark name. I could name them after our family. A fair son named Robb...” she drifted off. She could picture it as clear as day: the same curls, gentle face, Stark or Tully eyes. Oh, how she wanted to be surrounded by love. “I would not mind that.”

Theon nodded like she’d told him something he already knew, mouth downturning.

“Why are you asking, Theon? Are you thinking about it?”

She tried to ignore the bone deep dread at the thought of him leaving to marry someone, and also quickly ignored that one of those things bothered her more than the other. Theon was free as she was free.

"I used to think about having children,” he confessed to her. “Eddard was the only role model I had. I thought that maybe I could try and be like him, if I ever had them. Now I'll never know." He sounded incredibly sad, eyes shifting back down to his plate.

"There's always adoption," she countered.

Startled, he looked at her. "Aye,” he said slowly. “I'd — I’d forgotten."

It only looked like it’d marginally helped, and he went back to staring at his food.

"But you want them? Your own?" he asked again.

"I'm not certain, Theon. I'd have to think on it." Brow furrowing, she put her cutlery down. "Is something about this bothering you?"

"No." Too quick. His reply was too quick.

"Theon,” she urged.

"It's alright,” he shifted in his seat, pushed the eggs on his plate around. “Forget I spoke."

Begrudgingly, she goes back to her food, casting him occasionally concerned glances. He was quiet the rest of the meal, and the walk back to her chambers was silent.

“Not tonight,” he asked her when they reached her room. He struggled to meet her eye.

“Of course,” she answered quickly. Their arrangement was never a demand.

She's tempted to badger him until he tells her what's wrong, for through all this time together he’s become a close friend, and she hated when her friends were sad. But as she promised, as she vowed, she would never force him to do anything he didn’t want to. Still, she was allowed to feel in the privacy of her own mind, and it was easy to admit that she was disappointed he wouldn’t be joining her.

He goes to his own chambers almost shuffling down the hall. Something in her pinched at watching it; she’d seen it many times before, when Ramsay had injured his legs and left him to hobble. Though she tried to make him see that Reek died the day Ramsay did, it was only through his own belief could he truly start to heal, and he would not let himself have the relief of it.

There was an illness going around the castle.

Multiple cooks, her handmaids, half the servants, even the maester had fallen to it. Only a few had died, mostly sickly elderly, but it was more than none at all, and that was too much. She wished she could help. There was little she could do but wait the fever out. Sansa had managed to avoid it for a week, but one morning she found her limbs heavier than horses.

It was useless to try and tell what was day and night, if she was awake at all. The world span so fast and the ground came up to meet her what felt like a hundred thousand times. She was always falling, even when she wasn’t.

Winterfell was as she remembered. Steam rose into the cold air from the forge, men marched and voices littered the courtyard. It was any day in her childhood, but she looked up at the balcony and her parents weren’t there.

There was a clanging coming from the training yard. She followed the sound and came upon an armour clad soldier, or perhaps a knight, swinging in silver plate armour. Standing tall, she suddenly thought it was Robb, father, Jon; any Stark warrior, even Arya, but she wasn’t tall enough.

The knight removed their helm in one deft sweep and her breath stopped. It was her.

It had Sansa’s face and body, but the look in her eye was wrong, the colour so dark it was almost black. She grinned wolfishly and flung the helm into the mud.

In her hand she held the sword, twisting it with practiced fluidity. There was a training doll in front of her, a ratty, rag dressed straw thing; but she was suddenly startled to notice there was skin behind the head.

Not-Sansa swung. Strike in the gut. There was a great moan.

The straw began to bleed, a curved line across its throat, and then the straw was red, and it was her mother, dead-eyed and still.

“My, you’re brave!” A child’s voice cried. Sansa looked around, but no one else was here. “My father couldn’t even do that.”

The not-Sansa’s lips turned down. “Mine could do much more.”

The vision changed. The knight, the one she had seen before appeared again. With the piercing white that made the veins in her palms glow. She tried to shield her eyes. There was the smell of burning, of dragonfire, and then everything went black.

Now, someone was screaming. Stop! Someone stop him!

A woman. No… a girl. She knew that scream. It was her, the choked cries she had made when her father was forced to his knees.

There was a flurry of activity at her feet, but she could not see it in focus. Her legs were spread apart and chained. A hot fire burned through her body. She would die. Another scream, the same one as before. Stop! Another wail joined it, piercing her ears.

“A Lannister babe, your grace,” a faceless woman cooed.

“A Bolton,” another chimed.

Sansa thrashed. Kill it, she sobbed. It will be a killer. My sons will be killers.

None of them listened. She was left alone upon a hard bed, pale and bleeding and all of her burning. They got what they wanted, and now I am useless. Inside, she was screaming, but her voice would not work. She tried, but the thing ripped from her without a sound, her body shaking and face contorted.

Oh, but she was tired. She slipped under the black again.

“You are a wolf,” a voice in her ear croned. “The wolf queen.”

Was it her father’s voice, or Cersei’s? Was it said with love, or disgust?

Hot, burning sun, grapes in her lap; snow, bitter chill, howling winds and hard bread; her mother’s eyes, crinkly at the edges. Septa Mordane’s proud smile when she got the stitch just right, the feel of Rickon’s thick hair on her palm and between her fingers. It all looked very real but not real at the same time, like she could stretch out her hand and feel each of their faces.

Somewhere inside her, she knew they were all dead, but then why did they stand beside her like that?

In each of them, there was another voice; persistent, like it was determined to break through all the other ones in her head. It would say, stay with me, I am here, you are not alone, but the voice never identified itself. Call to me, Sansa, it said.

Sometimes, when she couldn’t help but whimper, the slick ch-lunk of her father’s head as it was sliced and rolled across the stage drumming in her eyes and ears, she felt a pair of hands caress her face, her neck, her shoulders. They never went lower, even though she was expecting them to. Dreading them to. Ramsay’s always did.

I’m sorry, the voice would say.

There was a nose buried in her neck.

Oh, gods, she wept. Was it his, or was it Arya’s?

You’re a stuck-up little brat, her sister shouted. Jon’s our brother, as Robb is. What she would give to tell him that she loved him as she loved Robb.

There was someone else here with her. Small Arya, when she was still pudgy and crawled into Sansa’s bed when she could not sleep. She would hold her, pressing her flat, round features like fathers into her chest. It will be alright, little sister. Come morn the birds will sing.

Now her sister was staring at her, face scrunched and red. She was young, small with brown pigtails, as she was before Sansa lost her. Well? She stomped her foot. I’ll tell father you did something bad. Of the two of them, Arya had always been father’s favourite. That cut deeper than any blade.

The mirage flickered, Arya’s older, stony face staring out at her. Then he’ll know he threw away his honour for a daughter who betrayed him.

I didn’t, she tried to cry. Cersei made me. Varys made me. Littlefinger...

What do you have to say for yourself? Her father boomed. He was only this angry when one of them hurt themselves or another sibling. Even when he was shouting, she missed him. She wanted him to look at her, even with his grey eyes ablaze. But he wasn’t there.

Do not punish her, father. Robb. Sweet Robb. She was only doing what she could to survive.

And so she lost her honour, threw away everything we stand for, her father boomed back.

I died for honour, Robb said. It was not worth the arrows in my chest, nor the knife in my gut.

There was a brief moment of relief, when a hand touched her forehead. It felt like his, like her eldest brother. Was he here? Had he finally come to rescue her from the lion’s den?

The bitter winter chill blew past her face, her forehead. She sobbed. None of it was real. Ramsay’s hounds were here, snapping at her heels as she dreamt in the ice and snow. She was a long way from home.

I want my mother, she pleaded. Or was it aloud?

The voice came to her ear again. I’m sorry. I wish I could summon her for you. I wish I could stop all of this.

There was a burning all over her, blood ablaze within her, squirming to be let out.

The dreams went on. In and out, the ceiling of her bed or the gaping hole in The Eyrie’s floor, she could not tell them apart.

And there was fear. Always fear. Whether it was a slow roasting, prolonged fear; as long as it please your grace, or the wild, immediate panic of imminent death; she’ll never love you, or his hounds will find us, Sansa could never let go of fear. It was old, knowledgeable, a spectre who knew her intimately, even in rest.

There was a long, sinking blackness, and nothing.

The first thing she felt was her own body. The tips of her fingers, then her legs. But she could not move. She tried to open her eyes, but it felt like there were heavy stones pressing on her eyelids.

There was a thump, then a clack.

“My lord,” came a withered voice. She was once more in her bed; the sheets felt the same, tucked into her neck.

There was a shift beside her. Theon, she realised with a start. She recognised the way his body curved against hers, as it had been every night since she gathered the courage to knock on his door.

Whoever entered had seen them laid together.

“Maester,” Theon replied groggily, but there was no panic in his voice. He sounded like he did not care to be caught in the slightest.

“You’ll have to move, my lord, so I can reapply the salve.”

With a grunt he rose, slowly, almost begrudgingly. She could feel her limbs, but not move them. How many faces of the dead had she seen?

There was a creak; Theon moving to a chair, she guessed.

Whatever the maester has been using on her was odourless, but she could hear the clink of the pot as he opened it.

The old man’s hand was gentle on her chest, but still she had to resist the impulse to buck it off. Instead, her eyes opened to make sure it was the maester.

Crow’s feet. Pale blue eyes, a wrinkly face. Yes, it was him, she thought, relieved.

“Your grace,” the maester greeted. His hand stalled a little.

“Sansa?” Theon’s voice followed quickly. She used all of her energy to move her head a little to the right. Such a simple motion felt like it took an eternity.

He was pale, face sunken. Not at all like she’d left him, but his eyes were half frantic, drinking her in.

“Thank the gods,” he breathed. His voice was cracked from misuse. Sansa stared. He was real, she reaffirmed. Not a ghost.

“You look unwell,” she rasped. The sudden desire for water burned in the back of her throat and she tried to get a glance at the side table.

Intuitively, he seemed to know what she wanted. He reached out a hand and brought a cup into sight. The maester took it and Theon lifted her, fluid and practiced. They have done this before, she surmised.

The water felt blissful on her tongue and she began to gulp it down.

“I look unwell?” Theon said incredulously, while she was occupied. She finished the cup and the maester moved it away.

“How long have I...?” she tried groggily.

“A week,” the maester answered, but she was looking at Theon instead.

He was blinking ever so softly, eyes worrying over her face. “Your fever broke last night.”

The maester looked a little affronted at Theon for stealing his thunder, glancing at him and pursing his lips. “Yes. I was worried for a moment, if the delirium continued…”

Theon turned up and met his eyes, and a knowing look passed between them. What had gone on while I was asleep?

The maester cleared his throat. “You will recover quickly now. But I have something else to say. My lord,” he addressed Theon. “You have to leave.”

Her heart sank.

“I told you before, I’m not going,” he protested. She watched as he frowned. Apparently this was a tired argument.

“But her grace is much improved. There is no need to worry over her. You’ve gone above and beyond your call of duty.” The maester put a palm on Theon’s shoulder. “My lord, you’ll catch the illness—“

“Get your hand off me,” he bit out.

There was a long moment of tense silence.

“I’m sorry,” he amended quickly. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just… I’m staying here.”

The maester sighed, long and irritated.

“Theon,” she croaked. “The maester is right, you have to leave.”

In all her fantasies of being watched by someone at her bedside, the reality of passing along a deathly illness had never occurred to her. Little Sansa had no concept of that horror.

“You wanted me to stick up for myself,” he reminded her. “Say no to someone I trust.”

Using her own words against her should’ve annoyed her; if it had been her brothers, or Arya, she would huff. But she only found herself swallowing. “By getting sick?”

He averted his eyes. “By being true to what I want. And what I want is to stay here with you.”

That was the voice that had been calling to her. She tried to speak, to argue with him, but there was a lump in her throat.

He seemed to relax, assuming her silence for surrender. How could she possibly put into words how grateful she was, how warmed she was by the image of him curled up against her side, as he had been when she woke up.

“Besides,” he continued. “I am your queensguard. I was meant to sit vigil by your side.”

Perhaps not in her bed, though, she added silently. I do not know any kingsguard who did that. But she did not say it. It was harmless brotherly affection, and she knew that. Just like the way they clung to one another through the night, ever since their return, to ward off nightmares.

The maester huffed but did not argue further. “Very well, my lord. I shall leave you in peace. Your grace?” He looked at her.

She weakly nodded a dismissal.

Shuffling, he made his way to the door. The wood creaked when he opened it and shut with a thud.

“That was silly,” she told him plainly.

“Maybe,” Theon allowed. “But I’m not going to leave you to your nightmares.”

There was a stretch of comfortable silence, and she studied him. It was not that he was nervous, fearful, but he would not look her entirely in the eye, like he’d heard something he should not have.

“Have you been here the whole time?” she asked softly. Just then, it felt like the most important question in the world.

“Yes. I… there were moments…” He hesitated. “I was terrified you were going to die.” He blew out a shaky, half-relieved breath. “And if you did, then you would not be alone.”

She ached to reach out and touch him, so she did. His hand was steady where it gripped hers. Something swelled in her chest, and despite the fog clouding around her, she finds herself smiling, a secret smile only for him.

“It was nothing,” he shrugged. “But I did… have trouble, sometimes, watching you in pain.” Clearing his throat, he broke himself out of the reverie that had come over him, memories playing in his mind that she could not access. “What… did you see, when you were under? You were...”

“All of it,” she murmured. There was no recounting the flurry of memories and conjured nightmares that had plagued her all at once.

“I tried to wake you, to comfort you, but you could not hear me,” he struggled.

“I did,” she breathed in a rush. “I heard you.”

Something nearing embarrassment took over his face and he began to lean away. She would not have that. Slowly, she managed to bring his hand to her lips, as he had done a while ago.

Even wide eyed and red-cheeked, he still looked haunted. “Sansa…” he started, a wondrous sort of knot in his brow, watching her gently return his kiss.

She did not reply, choosing instead to press his palm into her cheek. Her guard was down, still half trapped in swirling nausea, and his hand against her flushed skin felt better than anything. There was a brief moment where he pressed his fingers into her cheek, only the slightest fraction, before letting them go slack again.

When Theon had flinched away from her in that tavern, she had thought of how touch could be both the best and worst thing in the world. How wonderful it was to feel him touch her now, and how awful to know it could not last.

After a while, her eyes felt heavy, and she closed them against his hand. Neither of them moved, seemingly frozen in place by forces far beyond her knowing. The only sound was their quiet, subdued breathing; if she did not make a noise, perhaps he would not move away. 

Suddenly, she felt his palm start to shake against her.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled quickly, guilt piercing her. “I know you dislike touch.” She let go, and his hand slid like he was no longer in control of it.

“No,” he choked, like a hundred things were clamoring to get out of his throat at once. “Not yours.”

He said something else, but she fell into the black pit before she could understand it.

This time she woke up able to open her eyes. The aching was there, but the burning had abated.

It took her less time to identify Theon behind her once again, as he had been for weeks. Even during this current sickness. She felt him wiggle, a small movement borne of restlessness.

“The maester said I shouldn't worry, but I can’t help it,” he murmured.

He was still talking to her, trying to break through any fever-fuelled hallucinations.

Sansa felt her limbs tingle. The warm spot on the back of her neck where he breathed  got warmer, somehow. Theon, she thought, a softness she could hardly express squeezing her heart. How dear you are to me.

She listened closely, hanging on to every sound he made.

“I am here,” he whispered softly into her hair. “And I’m not leaving for as long as you’ll have me.”

 Without permission, a little gasp left her lips. Theon shot up, and inhaled a stuttering breath.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice high. She turned to gape at him, and he darted his eyes at everything but at her.

The softness squeezed her heart again, thinking only that she wanted to reassure him he had not crossed a line.

It was not him that sinned in this instance, for only she wanted him to say those words a thousand times more, to press his fingers into her skin once again. “Yes,” she murmured slowly. “I am glad you’re here.”

He relaxed a little, shoulders dropping. Suddenly exhausted, she squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a long, seemingly forever moment of silence between them. Sansa tried to ground herself against the spinning.

Then, he spoke, close to her face: “How can I help you? Tell me what I can do.”

There was a fierce loyalty in his voice, a realisation that frightened her as much as it delighted. He came back to fight for you, for your home, she reminded herself.

“Talk to me,” she answered simply.

So he did. He told her of the castle, which much to her relief had not fallen apart in her absence. He told her of his life the past week and a day, eating, sitting vigil, assisting the maester. He had been busy helping all the sick in Winterfell. Though she got the feeling he left out a lot of his time by her side, out of humility or embarrassment she could not tell.

“You were saying something, on the third day,” he continued. “You kept saying kill it. I tried to coax you out of it, but you were inconsolable. Tell me, if it helps.”

A wave of dread went through her. Theon’s eyes were soft, but she knew they would not be for much longer.

“I think it was all that talk of children,” she spoke low. “In that one, I was forced to birth a babe. It was a Lannister and Bolton both. I hated it. I cried for them to…”

Understanding passed through his face. His eyes widened.

“I tried to tell them it was a monster, but they wouldn’t hear me,” she whispered. “It ripped me open, and I laid there bleeding. Alone.” She was shaking now. “I died in agony.”

Before she could take a shaky breath he dove for her, scooping her up into his arms. Those were the hands, the arms that had held her in the thick of the pitch black. It seemed so obvious now, she realised.

His head was jammed into her shoulder. “I would never let that happen.”

But what could he do, she thought? No one can beat nature itself. It ripped me apart like Tyrion had done his mother.

“It was a babe, and I wanted it dead.”

Nothing could console her from that realisation, and she could tell Theon knew it. He continued to hold her to him. That was forgiveness, she thought, relishing his warmth. Even if it was only for a sin of her own conjuration.

At her prolonged silence, he gently set her back down onto her bed. “No man will ever touch you again, not unless you want them to.”

She could still feel the pain, the burning, twisting fire in her gut and lower body. The stench of blood, slick on her thighs and on the sheets.

There was a wetness on her cheeks.

“Sansa,” he pleaded. “Please look at me.”

She did, and wondered when he had begun to call her by her name only. There was a fierceness shining from his eyes.

“If you have them, your children will be kind, as you are. They will love you. And best of all, they will be Starks. They could never be monsters,” he told her, and there was nothing but honesty in his voice. He believed it, believed that all the wolves were good, that they deserved better than what became of them all, and that stalwart belief in goodness made the wetness cloud her eyes again.

The image faded. The smell of blood faded. The thought of Rickon doing that to their mother, still a babe when she left, was preposterous.

But Theon was not done. “You would not die having them. I would march up to the drowned god himself, the old gods, the new, any and all, and demand they give you straight back.”

Some part of her, the girl mistreated and abused by monsters, wanted to laugh. 

But the other half that ached for her family and still believed there was some good in the world, in Theon and Jon and Arya and whatever was left of her brother Bran, felt stars twinkle beneath her eyelids.

Someone cared. Someone would at least try to protect her, even if they could not succeed. That meant more to her than the act itself.

“Thank you,” she said shakily, and tried to continue, but he shook his head.

“You don’t have to thank me, like I’m doing any of this as a passing favour. I swore I would protect you, and I will.” There was a pause. “Sleep,” he told her gently. He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be here, I’ll watch over you. Sleep.”

If she was able to smile, she would’ve. “And dream of spring?” she whispered, an echo of what she told him while they were travelling.

A weak smile flickered on his lips. “Yes, dream of spring.”

And she did.

Chapter Text

Once she had recovered, there were many duties to catch up on.

A few minor lords had been fighting over an uninhabited castle, wrecked and abandoned by the undead. She granted the estate to the lord who had sent the most men to fight the battle of Winterfell. It was not entirely fair — the other two houses were smaller, unable to prove the same numbers — but the decisions she had to make were not often clear cut.

Throughout the meeting with the three disputing lords, Theon kept looking her way, as if he were to remove his eyes from her she might disappear. Since she’d been allowed to leave her bed, he’d been hovering over her like a mother. He never said a word, never nagged her to rest or eat like her mother used to do when she ill, but he did not have to. It was spelt out in his eyes.

I have survived worse, she wanted to tell him. To reassure him.

But so had he, and still he worried.

“The next audience will be in a while, your grace,” Lionel told her. The three lords left slightly disgruntled, but that was the price they paid for compromise. 

“Very good. Thank you, Lionel,” she answered.

Lionel exited the room just behind the last lord, a skip in his step, like he did every time she said his name.

As soon as the door shut, Theon turned to her. “You look tired.”

She watched him with a blank stare. Apparently he could stoop to acting like her mother.  “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Alright,” he huffed, giving up quickly. There was something close to amusement in his face. “But you do.”

Sansa rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I have to get through these complaints.”

“But not for a while. You have time,” he insisted.

It was not like he had not seen her at her weakest, sobbing and remembering the thump of her father’s rolling head.

There were no courtesies in the world that could erase the things he’d heard during her fevered ravings. And even before that, in the weeks they’d spent talking over an evening fire.

“Fine,” she conceded and rose from the direwolf throne.

Like they were a pair of magnets, the rough stones Arya showed her before she sailed away, he moved as she did. The shift had not been quick, but over the weeks since her coronation, they’d gained an ease with each other. Sansa could predict most everything he would do or say now, and the way he’d say it, and it was fun to see if she was right. She wondered if he did the same to her.

Theon offered a kind of loyalty, a kind of passionate devotion to her house and to her that sometimes she believed she was dreaming. How many times throughout being a prisoner in the South had she dreamed for such a loyal guard, a man loyal to her father or to Robb that could take her away and bring her back home?

Without thinking, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Theon’s cheek. There was an audible smack, but the movement was soft, and she felt him shiver. His eyes fluttered and then screwed up, like he was savoring the feeling; as she watched him, the only words she knew were how dear you are to me.

“What was that for?” he asked, voice small as he stared at her.

“For being here,” she answered softly. “For being loyal.”

It was a sore point for Theon, she knew, but most everything was. His mouth screwed up like he wanted to argue but he did not speak. It took her a moment too long to realise she was still pressed up against him, and his shallow breath tickled her face.

She stepped back and pointed a playful finger at him. “Only a short rest,” she warned, trying to shake the spell off. “I better be woken up for the next visitor.”

He smiled wistfully. “Yes, your grace.”

Eyes on him — and if she was honest, they always were, inevitably as if it was orchestrated by the gods themselves — she walked to the door nearest the head of the table, the one that lead closer to their chambers. As she approached, he opened the door and allowed her to step through first.

It was a practiced routine, but this time, she felt her head tilt a little. Smacking her hand on the wall to hold herself up, her feet scuffed, trying to find purchase. The nausea had not left her completely, coming back intermittently.

“Sansa!” Theon burst out. His armour clinked as he rushed around her to pore over her face.

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” she hurried, running the other free palm across her aching forehead.

“You’re not,” he stressed, face frightened, feeling the same spot. “You’re burning.”

You make me burn, she wanted to reply, but the words would not leave her lips.

She could not blame him for hovering, having seen many horrors befall her family too, but he looked like she might turn to ash in front of him.

“Stop worrying,” she chided softly. “I’ll be fine again in a moment. Just let me…” she faltered, out of breath. There was hot all over.

He began to run his hands down her arms, and she wondered if he knew he was doing it. She lowered the arm that was leaning on the wall, and with ease he caught her. Sansa began to think it was the delirium returning; surely it must be, if the way he was touching her was setting her aflame.

“I have to lay down, just for a moment,” she said wearily.

He nodded hurriedly and began to examine their environment. There were no servants around, so he offered, voice hushed, “I could carry you.”

Sansa resisted the urge to kiss his cheek a second time. His skin would be cool, and she wanted to be cool again. “They can’t know I’m still weak.”

“Take my arm, then,” he instructed, eyes beseeching. “That way, if anyone sees us, I’m just being well-mannered.”

So he half led, half carried her to her chamber. Sansa fell onto the bed with little grace.

“Wake me up, Theon,” she murmured, curling up til her knees hit her elbows.

“I will,” he promised. Just before her eyelids shut, she saw him watching her with his worried blue eyes, and indulged, just for a moment, that she might dream about them.

She was asleep almost instantly, and awoken later by a soft hand on her arm.

A week after she was truly healthy again. It was coincidental timing that Gale and her daughter finally visited Winterfell as she was well enough to enjoy full days.

When she was holding an audience, Theon insisted on standing, unless his joints bothered him too much. Today was one of those days.

He always looked uncomfortable sitting at the head of the room in full view, a more potent batch of memories than usual colouring his face, but he never questioned the fact that she always put his chair beside hers, in the seat of honour. She was glad for it.

Gale arrived in the evening, interrupting their supper, but Sansa didn’t mind. However, she did mind what she had to say.

Lizzie was stood with her mother’s hands on her shoulders, eyes darting around the hall in fascination.

“A… group of men came to my tavern, and they paid me a bag of gold to tell no one that they’d stayed,” Gale confessed.

“Who? Who paid you?” Sansa replied, puzzled as to why Gale thought it urgent business to tell her this.

“The Boltons, your grace,” Gale said, with all the horrified awareness of what she was saying.

Sansa sat back in her chair, concealing the tremor of terror that ran through her. Beside her, Theon stiffened. If the gods had any sense of timing, a clap of thunder would shake Winterfell’s halls.

“I thought they were eradicated,” Sansa retorted, wishing and praying and begging it to be true internally. It came out harsher than she’d intended.

Gale shook her head. “No, your grace. There are a few living rebels who chant the house name in the dark.”

Despite her terror, there was a current of hurt that ran through her. “And you were one of them?”

Gale bowed her head. “No, your grace, I swear on the old gods. I was only paid to house them at my inn,” she insisted. “I was desperate, and I swear I never believed in any of the twit they were hatching.” She gripped her daughter’s shoulders tighter. “But, your grace, I ask only mercy for my daughter. She had nothing to do with it.”

Sansa nodded briskly. “That, at least, is a believable assertion.”

Gale visibly sighed in relief.

“Was it just the once that they came to your inn?” Sansa asked.

“It was.”

Sansa swallowed her pride. There were many routes Gale could’ve gone down with this information, but she was at least glad she came to her before getting herself in trouble she couldn’t come back from.

“I’ll give you a room and some food for the night.” And guards to watch your every move. Sansa looked at Lizzie, whose eyes were now fixed on her queen with a little bit of fear. As much as she hated the Boltons, she hated that fear in her gaze. “They’ll be a fire to keep away the cold,” she amended, forcing her voice to soften. “Is that agreeable?”

“More than agreeable, your grace.” Gale leant forward and bent on one knee. Copying her mother’s movement, Lizzie bent as well. “That is generous of you.”

“One of my servants will escort you to your quarters.” She gestured to Lionel and gave him a sharp look, the one she taught him meant make sure she’s watched. “It is late and I’m sure you would like to rest from your travels. I’ll discuss your Bolton patrons over breakfast.”

Suddenly, Theon made a noise. He’d been silent this whole time, but she was no fool enough to think that meant the discussion of the Boltons hadn’t shaken him. “Traitor,” he said hotly.

Sansa whipped her head to gawk at him.

“My lord—“ Gale spluttered, just as taken aback as Sansa was.

“How could you betray our queen like that, when she treated you as one of her own? When you broke bread with her?” he continued harshly.

“I—“

“Stand down, Lord Greyjoy.” Sansa’s voice echoed around the room.

“Your grace—“ he tried, his shadowed eyes now on her.

“I understand your concern. We will discuss this outside of the courtroom.” Her tone left no room for argument, but inside she was surprised at the vehemence in his voice.

Instead of arguing, Theon turned to silently watch the mother and daughter leave the room.

“Very good,” Sansa dismissed. “We are done for today.”

As always, Theon stepped up and began to walk to the door to their chambers. But this time it was more like a hobble, his joints paining him particularly, and Sansa scampered to catch up to him.

“Take my arm,” she told him quietly, as he had done to her. Wordlessly he took it, like he knew she was going to pester him otherwise. They both led each other out into the hall. She could feel his tense muscles through his thick shirt, though she knew she was just as coiled.

“You shouldn’t question me in court like that,” Sansa tentatively began. “You know I don’t mind, even welcome it, in private. But I can’t be seen having my authority undermined like that, more than once, in the public eye.”

Theon squeezed her arm with his hand. “I understand. I lost my temper, it won’t happen again.”

A long time ago, losing his temper would’ve meant shouting and blades being drawn, but this was not that Theon anymore.

Though she was relieved he agreed, she knew he was not done with the subject. If there was anything he loved to argue with her about, the list of which was not extensive, it was her safety.

“Sansa—” he spun around once they reached her room, just like she predicted. “How could you forgive her like that? And to give her a room…” His eyes were wide, worried. “She could decide to slit your throat tonight.”

“But she wouldn’t succeed,” she reassured, giving him a little smile. “The guards will be watching her. Besides, I have my sworn shield at my side.”

That seemed to pain him. “I cannot protect you from everything. You’re inviting her to take the chance, if she wasn’t planning to already.”

Sansa did not believe that; she could spot a liar from a mile away, and there was genuine regret on her face when she confessed in the hall.

Opening her door, she heard him follow her in a huff. She began to remove her outer dress. He looked away, to the wall. Always away, and she wondered when that had begun to bother her.

“Do you not believe her then, Theon? That she came to confess because she admired me?”

“No, that part I can believe. Just as I believe she shouldn’t be forgiven for betraying you. She knew who they were, and she did it anyway.”

In the silence after he’d finished, she heard what he actually wanted to say.

Her fingers stilled their ministrations. “I forgave you.”

"Sansa." He looked wounded again.

She sighed. Nothing would make her give up trying to convince him he had earned his second chance at her side. Slowly, she approached him, and as she did he turned his head from the wall to meet her gaze. If she wasn’t careful, she could sink into those eyes of his. She would’ve, many years ago.

Sansa observed him for a moment, the way he looked at her like he was grateful for her forgiveness, even if he rejected it. Without thinking, she reached out to touch his face.

"Theon," she whispered, hand on his cheek, “everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. She made a mistake. Her inn was dying. She’s confessed to it. What is left but to forgive it?”

The fire crackles between them, putting his face in shadow. He closed his eyes, leaned into her palm. “She will not deserve it.”

“She does,” she insisted. “You do.”

He said nothing, eyes still closed.

Watching him for a moment, her hand starts to warm where it touched his face. It was not the fire, the warmth was his own, and yet she finds she cannot stop. You make me burn, she’d thought, half mad, but she was now perfectly sound, and still, she knew it to be true.

If he tied strings to her limbs and tugged at them to make her dance, she would, gladly, even though he would never do such a thing.

But that was the crux of it there, wasn’t it? He was the only man with different blood in his veins that would not make her dance to his tune, never make her spin to his schemes, never play into his palms.

"You scared Elizabeth with all your accusations, you know,” she told him, swallowing that realisation, even though it threatened to erupt every moment before he replied.

His shoulders sunk. "I didn't mean to."

Sansa runs the hand that had cupped his cheek across one of them, secretly savouring the shape of him beneath her. “You can tell her that tomorrow.”

He nodded sadly, and she lowered her hand to his and began to lead them to the bed. They had been doing it for long enough it was no longer awkward.

As he always did, he waited until she was settled before placing his arms around her. Tonight, they were facing each other, where normally they would hold from behind; Sansa could tell he had more to say.

“Elizabeth should have sword lessons, if she still wants to be a knight,” he suggested. There was something affectionate in his voice, and it lit Sansa up inside.

“Make no mistake, she does,” she replied. As a child, Arya gave up her dream for nothing and no one. If he’d tried, King Robert himself wouldn’t have been able to persuade her. “And yes, she’ll get lessons.” Sansa reached out to brush an unruly curl behind his ear. “You care for her, don’t you?”

“Is it wrong to?”

“No, not at all.” In fact, Sansa found it unbearably sweet.

Eyes blinking wearily, his normal sea-blue looked almost black in the candlelight. There was something that had gone unsaid, both of them almost too afraid to say it, to make it real. Looking into his dark eyes, it was clear Theon was going to try.

“What are we going to do about the B…” he hesitated, the word strangling him. “The Boltons?”

“We’ll figure it out.” Sansa hated the fear in his eyes. “I won’t let them harm you, Theon.”

She is sure he is crying a little, scrunching up his face just a tad in a way that reminds her of Robb when he skinned his knees.

“Nor I you,” he whispered back, and though she tried to push the dread and fear downwards before now, nothing had succeeded but for hearing those words.

Theon stayed silent then, thinking, brow creased and mind plagued, and as subtle as she could, she watched him. Though it took no more than a few minutes for him to fall asleep.

She had a knot in her stomach, looking at his peaceful face, and she didn’t know why, even though a small, secret part of her did know. Her eyes drifted over every detail of his features, taking in the soft skin; ending on his lips. They did not look rough or demanding, as other lips she’d known. She thought to reach out, to trace a finger along them, they looked soft, but stomped on the impulse before she gave in.

Rolling over as gently as she could, she admonished herself. Stop it. Don’t look.

It did not help that no man had done what Theon was doing; holding her, warming her bed, without any expectation or reward. No one else would, or could, understand why she needed it.

The castle had begun to whisper about marriage. She overheard a few conversations between servants since her return, speculating who might catch the queen’s eye. Thankfully, they loved her too much to ask her directly, but she knew it was only a matter of time all the same.

None of them knew how much her last marriage had hurt, ripped her into pieces until her very name was scattered to the wind. The idea of taking one of her lord’s sons to wed made her breathing halt; panic rising faster than the tide. They would not love her. They would rip at the fabric on her back, bend her over the bed.

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t think of it, don’t think of it, think of anything else.

Instead, she chose to focus on Theon’s warmth behind her. He would not claw at her back like an animal. At this very moment, he was curled around it protectively, almost consciously combating her memories of Ramsay with his own body.

Theon never snored, never made a sound in sleep excluding his nightmares. Sansa could only speculate that the instinct to rest silently had been beaten into him. Without the loud noises Ramsay had made in his slumber, she could begin to differentiate between the two of them in her bed.

Sleep came to her, but slowly, winding, only partly restful.

“I don’t know where they hide, your grace. They made sure to keep details to themselves.”

Sansa’s breakfast was practically untouched. She glanced at Theon’s plate and his was much the same. There was something in hearing the name Bolton, after all this time, the knowledge that they’d been plotting and planning behind her back, behind Jon’s back, that made the porridge in front of her too much to bear.

“What did you hear, then?” Sansa asked Gale. Across from them, Theon was speaking to Lizzie softly, an apology on his lips and in the downturn of his mouth. Gale’s dirty-blonde daughter was listening to whatever he was saying with a hand leaning on her cheek.

“Something about taking Winterfell while it was weakened from the wars,” Gale answered.

“Did they say how?”

“Not clearly. But I… didn’t get the impression they intended to do it by force.”

Where he’d been talking to Lizzie, Theon looked over. Their eyes met and she felt a sinking in her gut. He’d been right, the night of her coronation. Whoever married you would be a king.

“There are several ways to capture a castle, a kingdom, and force is not the only way to do it,” Sansa told Gale. “I know who might have more information.”

Theon flattened his lips. Reluctantly he turned back to Lizzie, who was showing him her porridge with a deep fascination.

“I couldn’t say it yesterday, but I’m glad you chose to come to me,” Sansa said.

Gale ate a spoonful of porridge and swallowed.  “All justice flows from the queen. If anyone was to know what to do with what I’d heard, it was you, your grace. It was the least I could do.”

Then she began to look nervous, on the border of frightened.

“Are you well?” Sansa asked.

“Yes, your grace, I only… I worry what will become of us now.”

Sansa followed her eye, to Lizzie, and then back at her. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I… housed traitors to the crown.”

“That’s true,” she allowed. It had hurt. “But they would’ve killed you for your silence if you hadn’t taken the gold.”

Sansa was well aware of the games, the reckless cruelty the Boltons displayed. Gale had gotten out of their target by the skin of her teeth, and only because her inn was useful to them.

Gale seemed speechless at that.

“Did you think I’d—” Sansa leaned in close, conscious of Lizzie — and the girl had become Lizzie, in her eyes, despite Sansa’s attempts at creating distance, “—execute you?”

Gale expression changed to something sheepish, embarrassed. “Yes, your grace.”

“You were coerced, through gold and a phantom blade at your throat,” she insisted hotly. It surprised her how much the assumption that she could kill recklessly bothered her. “I am no Joffrey.”

Gale gave her a prolonged look, a thankful, half amazed look. “No, your grace, you are not.”

The rest of the day is spent holding an audience with everyone that came to their queen for help. She knew there would be no time for the smaller calls for help once Lord Forrester arrived, so she spent endless hours settling as many as she could.

Winter was in its last death throes, but still it lingered. Her people needed food, shelter, cattle, crops, everything and anything she could give them. So she did, keeping an eye on Winterfell’s dwindling stock. Reams of struggling farmers and common folk poured in and out of Winterfell’s walls, each asking for a crumb or two to spare them from the ever-hovering spectre of cold, starvation, plague. Gale’s struggling inn was just one of many around the kingdom, and Sansa tried as best she could to help them all.

There would be just enough food to last until spring released them.

She prayed in the godswood routinely for it, for if spring did not come, her kingdom would be in danger of collapse before it had hardly begun.

 Halfway through her audiences, Theon begged off accompanying her. He told her he would like to use the library, and she’d nearly fainted at the idea of Theon voluntarily picking up a book.

As a boy, books were better used for fire fodder than avenues of information or entertainment. But he’d told her, in the oddest voice, that he wanted to hear more knightly tales, like the one she told him and Lizzie. That was surprising, but not shocking, for Sansa remembered a time when Theon dreamed of being a renowned warrior.

When she is finally free for the day, she goes to seek her constant companion. She entered the library as quietly as she could, and spotted him sat with a big book spread across his lap, engrossed as anything in the colourful pictures it was weaving in his mind.

For a moment she just watched, hating to break the peace on his face as he read. Instead she began to peruse the dusty bookshelves herself, the high towers stretching all the way to the roof.

Mother had taken her in here nearly everyday of her childhood. Sansa’s little laugh was always a tinkle, as she mimed sword fights, fair maidens in distress, as she mimicked the clunk-clunk noises a knight’s armour made as they walked with her mouth, trying her damndest to entertain her eldest daughter.

Sansa even remembered the look in her blue eyes as they widened, hands raised in the air, and swoosh! The villain was slain, stumbling to the ground with one last cry of death spilling from his lips. The knight rode back to the castle as fast as he could, horse galloping, and kissed his maiden’s hand in greeting, in victory, once he reached her.

Then, with a knowing, amused look, she would describe the chaste kiss between the two, before shutting the book and placing it back on the shelf.

What might her mother say if Sansa told her that Theon kissed her hand like a knight of all those stories?

Though Sansa loved her needling classes, story time with her mother was always her favourite time of day. There were no all-good knights and all-fair maidens now, she knew, and felt the familiar ache of innocence lost. What she would not give to see her mother again, to see her own Tully hair on the woman who had given it to her, to ask her for advice, to hear her sing Sansa to sleep once more.

There was a rustling of pages, the sound drawing her out of her thoughts. “Hello, your grace,” Theon greeted evenly, but she could hear the teasing in it. Outside of Ramsay’s clutches, he was blooming, slowly but surely, if only anyone else thought to look.

Sansa gave him an unimpressed look. “You’re just doing it to annoy me now.”

Her confirmation was in the way he tried to swallow his smile.

“I sent the raven,” she told him. “Lord Forrester and I are to be wed as soon as he arrives.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or so he thinks.”

Theon tapped his finger against a page, an impatient tick and, she thought, with a hint of worry. “Hopefully, he won’t delay.”

Sansa very much agreed. The word Bolton still felt like a dirty word, a monster of horror stories Old Nan or Maester Luwin used to tell her. The faster they were dealt with, the better. With a sigh, she moved to sit beside Theon, who set the book he’d been holding on the table as she approached.

“You never liked reading as a child,” she commented, nodding to the tome. “What changed?”

Theon averted his gaze, staring at the floor, like it might open up and let him fall through. “Ramsay never… he never let me read. Books, letters, none of it. I was allowed no escape.”

Sansa was sure that if she wasn’t already sitting, she’d’ve stumbled into the nearest chair. It shouldn't surprise her, the depth and complexity of Ramsay’s cruelty, but still it did.

Where his hands rested on the table, he began to clench them into fists, an excess energy borne of anger and agony and frustration all the same. “I feared I’d forgotten how… I struggled to read again at first, when I went back to Pyke. Thankfully I was old enough for the learning to stick. It seems almost a privilege now, to read. I enjoy it.”

To encourage him to look at her, she dipped her head and waited until he did. When he relented, the knot between his eyebrows seemed to relax just a fraction. Intending to comfort, her hand extended and she touched his face, skimming her fingers along his jawline.

His eyelashes fluttered at her touch.

“What were you reading?” she asked him, genuinely curious. She did not recognise the cover, and it was a good distraction as any.

“The tale of Ser Jorah Mormont.”

“He has a book written on him?” she asked, a little surprised; it seemed he’d been sneaking new books into the castle while she wasn’t watching. Start with wanting something small, she had told him, and he listened.

“Only recently,” he said, showing her the front. She leaned in to look, taking away her hand at his face, and shimmied her chair closer to his, pretending it was to see the book better when, really, she wanted Theon close to her always.

The cover was embroidered green and black, cut tree logs framing the edges. In the middle, House Mormont’s sigil; a black bear upon a green wood, vivid trees contrasting against the dark of the bear’s fur. She ran a hand over it. “It’s beautiful.”

Flicking through the pages, she caught glimpses of the tale she’d told Theon and Lizzie, with more detail: Jorah’s participation in Robert’s Rebellion and The Siege of Pyke, receiving his knighthood, his long exilement. Then, like the sun peeking through the clouds, his loyal service to Daenerys, his long journey with her to die at her side.

Jon’s name caught her attention a few times — he was mentioned as the wielder of Longclaw, then a subject of the former Queen Daenerys. Sansa let out a breath. Some days, it did not feel so crushing to remember what came next.

“Why did you choose to read this one?” she asked.

While she’d been perusing, Theon had sat back and closed his eyes. “I enjoyed his story when you told it to me.” His nose scrunched up. “To be honest, I liked your version better.”

She laughed, high like a bell. “Why?”

“You bring out the emotions,” he confessed softly. He opened his eyes to gaze at her. “The fear, the guilt, the inner strength. The loyalty and love.”

She looked away, back to the book, feeling heat go across her face. “Only because I was told so many as a child,” she deflected. Something on the inside cover caught her eye. “Wait.” She opened it again. “By Samwell Tarly?”

Theon made a noise of confirmation, then flattened his lips in distaste. It was exactly the one he’d make as a child when Jon came into the room. “He’s good, but he does prattle on.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “he was always… prolific with words.”

She could not make serious fun of Sam for anything in the world. He was Jon’s best friend, and he was immeasurably kind to her in King’s Landing, when she’d been frantic at the thought of Jon being executed. He’s already escaped death once, Lady Sansa. I’m sure he’ll be able to do it again. He had put an awkward, but warm, hand on her shoulder. He always comes back.

Suddenly, her eyes were burning, and she ran a finger over Sam’s name. “Jon would be proud of him. He’d like this,” she said, unable to stop the quiver in her voice.

She thought of Jon somewhere beyond the wall, happy and free. She’d get a copy of this book and any others Sam wrote as a present for him, if he ever returned.

“Jon is happy too,” he told her, picking up on her distress, as he always did, like a god or magic or, if she indulged, fate.

“He is too honourable. Happy he may be, but a part of him is punishing himself. He’s too much like father.”

She could see him as clear in her mind as if he was standing in front of her. Jon, with his unruly black mass of hair, the small scars littered across his face; a hardened warrior one moment, and her soft-eyed brother the next. He was a tangle of contradictions, just like herself, and she found she missed him more than she could have ever dreamed of doing so as a child. Until she grew too much, she had played with Jon just as readily as with Robb, both with comforting voices and guiding hands.

Once, she lauded him a hero, before Septa Mordane and her mother unknowingly — cruelly — ripped it away from her. Though Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they were almost black, they were always warm, like their father's. Warm, when he looked at his sisters, at her. Even when she insulted him.

Like Theon passing the crown to Yara, Jon did the same. Now, Jon has trusted her with The North, trusted her instincts and her loyalties. After years of being branded a traitor and a schemer, that still moved her the most, that he might see an honourable Stark in the girl who had survived a lion’s den thrice over.

He was nowhere near her now, like Robb, like all of them. But, he was partly happy. Like Arya, sailing away. Like Sansa was trying to be.

“I’m trying,” she whispered under her breath, as if he could hear her halfway across Westeros.

Once, Bran had told her and Arya who Jon’s mother was. Promise me, Ned, he said she begged. Bran’s voice was devoid of the feeling in it, Sansa was sure, stripping a young girl’s cries from the agony in them. Promise me.

Her heart ached for an aunt she never knew. Father never spoke of her, but he didn’t need to. It was all in his eyes. The love for her, the longing, the regret.

Sansa could not have understood what it all meant then, but she definitely saw it. She hoped Lyanna, wherever she was, might be proud of her, even fond of her, if she’d seen what she did to help Jon since they were reunited.

Theon interrupted her thoughts. “You know, you were right, about what you said before I agreed to hear Jorah’s story.” He ran a hand over his bookmarked page.

“What did I say?”

“He did get his redemption in the end. Jorah died protecting his queen,” he told her, a certain admiration in his voice.

“It was a noble sacrifice, he fought to the end,” she agreed. “Is that why you like his story?”

“Yes.” Theon swallowed. “I would do the same for you.”

There was a moment where she thought she’d misheard him, or her fever had come back, or anything else to explain the devotion in his voice away. The blood in her veins began to pump harder.

“It doesn't count as honourable if you intend to be killed,” she said after a long moment, but it did not come out as teasing as she meant it to.

She tried to say something else, even a polite but hasty thank you would’ve done, but she felt sick at the thought. Sansa felt his hands on her again, the ones that cradled her during the height of her delirium. He would not be scared away by anything, even sickness, even death. That scared her.

He did not reply, instead continuing to look at her. There were a million things he was saying with those eyes, and Sansa could do nothing but stare into them. The silver Stark sigil pinned over his heart seemed to glint.

“I must take my leave,” she said quickly, rising from the chair and heading for the door.

It was easier to pretend she had letters to write, than to tell him the truth — that the admiration in his eyes frightened her. All she could picture was bloodied Theon with a sword through his gut. All for her.

Naturally, he was her sworn shield, and in her head she knew that. But the thought of him actually shielding her — physically or by proxy, it did not matter — left her nauseous. He had tried it once, before, with hounds barking at her heels, Bolton men sneering atop their horses. If Brienne had not appeared, she dreaded to think what would’ve happened to him as a result of his sacrifice.

The memory of the hounds snapping their teeth followed her for the rest of the day, into the night, even with Theon’s arms around her.

Lord Forrester stood more confident than their first meeting, feet spread wide and arms open. “I thank you for accepting my proposal,” he began.

Sansa clucked her tongue. “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you greatly, my lord. I accepted your proposal to get you here without issue.”

He blinked, and said roughly, “I’m afraid I find that offensive, your grace,” with a confused knot in his brow.

“You have every right to,” she said cooly. “Tell me who persuaded you to ask for my hand.”

Lord Forrester’s eyes widened. He looked to her left, to Gale, who was glowering at him.

“Don’t look at me like I’m your co-conspirator,” she almost spat. “Confess to the queen.”

“My lord, there are many ways to get you to talk. I’m starting with asking.”

He spluttered. “You cannot execute me—“

“Yes, I can, and I will,” she calmly informed him. In truth, she did not intend for it to go that far, but a little fear would persuade him. “It's in your best interest to give your friends up.”

Finally, he began to crack, wringing his hands. “They’re not my friends. They’re men who still fly the Bolton flag, calling themselves the Bastard’s Boys.”

Gale made a noise of agreement. “I heard ‘em say that once.”

Sansa felt a chill go through her. “There are no lords left. How could there be a rebellion?”

“They have elected a stand-in lord,” Forrester said.

“Does he have a name?”

“Wolfe, your grace. He’s not highborn, but he leads the rest of the men.”

“How many men?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“Three thousand strong, your grace.”

Many times her father had said over dinner or in hushed tones to Robb or Jon when he thought she could not hear, if you’re going to do it, rip them out root and stem.

Clearly, the root had remained.

“Where?”

“The Dreadfort,” Forrester relied reluctantly.

Of course. “Is that where you were staying?”

“No,” he answered hurriedly. “I was home. They only… sent me instructions. They knew I was struggling.”

Sansa regarded him for a moment. Before she could reply, Lord Forrester spoke again, voice frightened, like he took her silence for displeasure.

“Your grace, I speak the truth. If I were at the Dreadfort, it would’ve taken more time to reach Winterfell.”

That was true but it was not what worried her. If one struggling lord trying to rebuild his lands had been blackmailed, how many other lords of her kingdom had succumbed?

“What did they offer you that I could not?”

“It wasn’t what they offered, your grace, but what they threatened. They have men enough to rape and pillage my lands, and… forgive me, your grace, but you have no army left.”

It was not Sansa’s fault that wars had ravaged the land for nigh on ten years, but somehow she felt like it was. Every lonely Northerner with grief in their heart felt like it was her responsibility, like she’d swung the blades herself.

“Sadly true,” she agreed. “Though I hope you realise I won’t forgive this easily.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said, and there was both a fear and resignation in his voice. “Do with me what you will, your grace. I’ve betrayed your brother’s memory by aligning with the Boltons.”

Loyalty was hard to come by nowadays, and there was a genuine regret in his voice.

She pursed her lips. "We will most likely have to fight them. Are you willing to fight for our side in this?"

After a moment where he looked mightily confused, Lord Forrester tilted his chin up, a pride in his face that only Northerners possessed. “My lands aren’t plentiful or never-ending. I eat as well as my people do. Before this winter, with the dead and the dragon queen, I fought loyally for Robb Stark. If I lost a fight, it wasn’t for lack of trying. And it wasn’t for lack of courage. I didn’t have much, but I had that.”

“Very well,” she nodded. “You’ll fight, and we’ll see what can be done after the Boltons are dead.”

“Thank you, your grace.” He bowed once again, and she gestured for Lionel to follow him as he left the hall. As he went, he’d pick up a guard to replace him, as Sansa had asked.

She was no fool. Forrester didn’t know it, but she put a man on duty to watch his door at all hours. Every raven was kept locked away since his arrival. She knew a thing or two about secret meetings and letters in the night.

Sansa exhaled, a little shaky. She turned to Theon, who had been watching and listening to them all intensely.

“I don’t want another war,” she said, feeling the weight of the last eight years on her back.

“Neither do I,” he replied grimly. “But they’ll only fester like a bad wound if you let them.”

“I don’t know where we’re going to get an army to combat their three thousand from.”

“What about your brother, King of the Six Kingdoms?” Gale interrupted, and Sansa startled. She’d forgotten she was there.

“He doesn’t have any men,” Sansa replied, turning to her. “King’s Landing was a massacre. The Lannister army are no more, and most of my Northmen were killed before that, outside and in these very walls.” Sansa thought for a moment. “We will have to branch out for allies, for the forces of other kingdoms.”

She just prayed the other kingdoms would want to help.

Once, after much curious nagging, her lady mother had sat little Sansa down and explained how political marriages worked.

Sansa barely heard most of it — she was too stuck on the possible lords of these houses being handsome — but she did hear the part about sending many at once. This was, mother said, to ensure you got the best match possible, the most out of the deal.

I was betrothed to Brandon, your father’s brother. Her mother had then hedged when she asked what happened to her uncle, eventually coming back to her point. I love your father, but I did not when I was betrothed. You will most likely feel the same when the time comes for you.

Oberyn Martell had been kind, eyes sympathetic, when he talked to her during Joffrey’s wedding. Knowing what she knows now, she wondered if he might’ve seen shades of his sister in her — trapped in King’s Landing and married off to a corrupt family, only a short while away from being raped and murdered.

Sansa did not so much hate the idea of marrying the Prince of Dorne, like she hated the sons of her Northern lords.

The new Prince had been charming when she met him in the capital at Tyrion’s trial, a touch of the arrogance and pride that had gotten Oberyn killed in his eyes. But it was, like his uncle, not an arrogance that bore cruelty, like Joffrey. Sighing, she began to write.

Prince,

We have met once before, during the council at King’s Landing. I hope this letter sees you well and Dorne prospering, for I have always heard good things about your kingdom. I personally met and liked your uncle, the former Prince Oberyn. If you’ll excuse me for saying so, I hope the rest of your kingdom is as kind as your uncle, for he was good to me when I was trapped in a Lannister marriage.

The feather stiled. She debated elaborating on her dislike of the Lannisters —  it would either work, if the prince hated lions as much as his uncle did — or it would fail miserably, if he held no conviction for them either way. She bit her lip.

If you are concerned that this may be a trick, let me assure you my disgust at the Lannisters runs as deep as your uncle’s did, for they murdered my family and scattered what was left.

I write to you to ask for an alliance. To make a complicated matter brief, the Boltons have returned and are vying for my crown. They too had a hand in the slaughter of my eldest brother, mother, and later the youngest; they slayed an unborn babe in its mother’s belly. Your uncle once said to me that they do not harm little girls in Dorne, as I was still a girl at the time, and he felt pity for me. There is no end to House Bolton’s cruelty, and I pray your disgust for it extends past the borders of The South.

I realise you might be wondering what I plan to offer you. The Boltons are far in The North — no true threat to you on your sandy shores. So I offer, in exchange for men to fight these monsters, my hand in marriage.

You would gain another army at your disposal, as well as the entire kingdom of The North.

Sansa stopped. The guilt became nearly unbearable in just writing the words. Her family had died to free The North, and here she was, giving it over. Was she prepared to follow through, if he accepted? Was she this desperate for men?

She sat still in her chambers for a long time. The walls of Winterfell were always home — even under Ramsay’s watchful eye, they were still the walls she had learnt to walk, talk, sing and sew under; the walls her family had held her and laughed in. Would she be giving it all up?

But father had always told her survival is far more important than possessions. He would have wanted her to live, even if that meant giving up her home, if the alternative was being slaughtered by House Bolton, like her brother and mother before her. This was true for all the unprotected towns and villages in The North, the smallfolk counting on her to shield them. After all, had she not already married twice to survive? She could always find another home, whereas her life was not as flexible.

Sansa wrote the rest of the letter with her heart in her throat.

“He said what?” Theon choked.

Sansa sighed heavily and passed him the letter across her desk. He sat beside her, on her bed, while she was perched upon the chair that went with the table.

His hands worried at the edges of the paper, and Sansa found she had to tear her eyes away from the movement.

Robin Arryn of the Eyrie had written back, still petulant and entitled. He demanded to know why he should send the Knights of the Vale to fight some Northern house he couldn’t care less about. It’s not like they’re going to come marching down here, are they? No one can attack The Eyrie.

Then, worst of all, he penned that if he were to send some of his men, he should be rewarded. Sansa knew what it was before she even got there: he demanded her hand.

She tried not to spit up at the image of having to kiss the boy who sucked at his mother’s breast until he was far past grown. Giving the title king to the boy she’d slapped for destroying her snow Winterfell. She felt sick to her very soul at the thought.

The more Theon read, the worse his frown got. Sansa would have laughed if she was not just as upset herself.

Finally, he threw the page to the table.

“What a snotty little shit,” he mumbled.

“Theon!”

She had not heard him use that kind of language since he insulted Joffrey behind his back at Robert’s Feast. To which she, of course, told him to shut up because her prince was perfect.

He said nothing, turning to look out of the window. There was a suppressed anger in him; his jaw was tense, working it thoroughly.

Though she thought Robin was indeed a snotty little shit, she couldn’t go writing that to him.

“I don’t know where to even start in replying,” she sighed.

“You’re not seriously considering it? Are you?” he said softly, brows pulling together.

She had been almost convinced into doing so by Littlefinger, though his jealousy gripped him too tightly in the end to go through with it. She really didn’t know what the problem was; the boy could barely speak two words that weren’t either moon or door, let alone lust after his older cousin. She’s just like her mother, Lysa had screamed. She’ll never love you.

Sansa concentrated on Theon in front of her to drive the surfacing memories away. He was watching her still, concern written across his face, deepening the longer she did not reply.

“I’m not going to leave, especially not to The Eyrie,” she told him. “Besides, Robin is still horrifically spoiled.”

The thought of telling him that she offered her hand to the Prince of Dorne makes her inexplicably uncomfortable. You make me burn, she remembered, and wondered if Dorne’s hot sands would do to her what Theon could with just a look.

Theon opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He nodded again, and turned back to the window.

As they oft did, her family came to her. We need to trust each other, Jon had said. As obtuse and staunchly honourable as her brother was, he was clever in some things. She wrung her hands.

“Theon...” she tried, voice small. Sansa, you’re a grown woman. You’ve said far worse things to the faces of your worst tormentors. “I’ve something you need to know. When I wrote to the Prince of Dorne to ask for his army… I knew I had nothing of value in return.” Unless he wanted barrels of snow. “So… I offered my hand.”

Instead of reacting like she expected him to, the way all men did, which was anger, pride, indignation, he just sat, silently, eyes thoughtful. Then, she felt a pang of guilt; Theon knew better, was better than that, and she’d already known he was.

“Are you sure you even want to wed anyone?” he asked finally. “After…”

He did not have to say his name.

“Truthfully? No, I don’t. If I could, I’d take myself off the playing board entirely.” She bit her lip. “But I have to consider it, for the good of my people. What’s one marriage compared to the prosperity of The North?”

“It means plenty,” he argued back, the thoughtfulness replaced by certainty, “since you’ll be the one suffering if he’s vile.”

“It's my duty.”

He swallowed, a protective frown poking at his lips. “Sansa,” he said, and her heart rattled against her ribcage. He sounded so much like their father when he argued with his stubborn children.

“We need the men,” she reasoned.

“Not like this we don’t.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” she demanded. “Sit and wait until the Boltons are at the castle gates?”

There was an unspoken and do what they did to Robb? between them.

Theon jumped up suddenly like he’d been spooked. There was a long, awkward silence, and she watched him clench and unclench his fists nervously.

There was something more to his skittishness than the ghosts that seemed to follow him, but she could not scratch beneath the surface. Her friend was usually an open book to her, but his face was tight, eyes hooded. Jon silently suffered like this often, as Robb and father before him. Theon had been raised with them, after all.

“Take me with you,” he blurted finally. “If he accepts.”

“I wouldn’t stay there.” She hoped that proved true, if she had to wed. “Not forever.”

“I’m bound to serve you, Sansa, not The North. As much as I loved my childhood here, this place means nothing without...” He looked at the floor. “Without a Stark in Winterfell.”

Sansa noticed that he avoided mother and father’s room as much as she did. The halls felt cold without the rest of her family here, and she briefly wondered if it felt like that for him after he’d chased Bran and Rickon away.

“All these princes and lords…” Theon struggled. “They’re clamouring over you like a prized horse. It says little for their character.”

Sansa also remembered Theon the callow youth as much as he did. He never did anything untoward in front of her, for mother would’ve killed him, but the whispers reached her ears all the same.

She sat up. “Let me remind you that I asked the Prince of Dorne.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be heartbroken when he has to accept,” he scoffed lightly.

“He won’t be a bad husband,” she argued, “and would it be so awful, to have Dorne’s army at our disposal in the future?”

“Sansa,” he urged. He leant one hand on her desk. “Promise me you’ll take me with you.”

“Why are you so adamant about this?”

“Because—“ he hesitated, eyes imploring. “What if he doesn’t love you?”

When did it become about love? she thought. When was it ever about love?

“I do not think you need love to make a marriage work,” she said, a little sadly.

An anguished look overcame him. “You deserve more than that. You deserve someone who would worship the ground you walk on.”

All of a sudden, she remembered her father's words. Gentle, brave, strong. She wanted love. That realisation seemed to strike her. “Maybe. But this is the best we’ve got.”

“If I was there,” he attempted again, “and he tried to… I would kill him. This time, I would kill him.”

The puzzle pieces fitted into place. They rarely, if ever, spoke about that night, and every night after that, but it was embedded into his psyche as much as it was hers.

“Theon,” she said softly. “You can't protect me from everything. You said it yourself.”

“I would die trying to,” he vowed. “I’m not going to stand by and watch you wed another monster.”

There was an affection in his face that seemed faintly familiar, like it was from another lifetime. He had told her once, smirking like a pleased cat, that he thought her father would wed her to him, when she was old enough. She went wailing to father at the very thought.

He was not smirking anymore, but he had a similar look in his eyes, one marred by pain. It did not scare her like it used to, and somehow the lack of fear scared her for another reason entirely.

“Theon,” she breathed. “The Prince is not a monster.”

Though she knew well enough that appearances deceived, and Theon knew it too, his face still tight with worry. Unconvinced, he took her hand gently and folded it into his own.

“Promise me,” he said again. She stared down at their hands. Losing herself for a moment, she remembered the feel of that palm on her cheek. She was not taken by a fever, but she wanted to put it up to her face all the same. What would her closest friend and trusted guard think of her then?

“If I marry him, I will take you will me,” she relented quietly.

He seemed to finally relax, squeezing her hand for a moment and letting it drop. He returned to his seat on her bed.

But it finally occurred to her what that meant. If she married, she would once again be hung by a thin rope, held together only by I will put a son in you.

How many times had she heard a variation of that sentence, spat or sneered or whispered in her ear, by Joffrey and Ramsay and silently, by the droves of other people complicit in passing her around like a used whore.

“I suppose we’ll have to have children,” she tried, but it came out broken. She winced.

The same panic of her dream erupted in her chest. She was not a broodmare. My sons will be killers.

Theon was watching her, and she tried to stifle the expression on her face, like she’d done a hundred thousand times before in her life.

But she had already told him of her fear. The only one in the world she’s spoken the words aloud to. It was not the first time she’d dreamt of it, either. Since King’s Landing it haunted her, switching climates each time, but the painful death was always the same.

Theon’s eyes were free of damnation as he resolutely told her, “If it comes to that, you will not be alone. I would be there, to make sure the gods would not take you. I would be there, if you wanted me, holding your hand.”

Sansa was oddly reminded of Cersei’s words, on the first day she’d bled. He smiled, and asked which one of them proposed to keep him out.

She blew out a shaky breath and nodded. The vision of her thighs slick with blood, chained to the bed began to dissipate.

Grateful, she gave him a prolonged look, and he smiled weakly and looked away, out the window.

It was bizarre to think of it now, but there was a period in her life where she thought Theon ugly. It was when she was young, with braids in her hair and an easy smile on her face. 

Now the idea seemed preposterous; the lines of Theon’s face were sharp, not shapely and circular like the southron paintings, but there was a humble and wisened manner about him that now fit the hollows on his cheeks, the rounded eyes. It was wrong to like it, she scolded herself, considering the suffering he’d endured to gain it. Yet she did. 

Sansa shook her head of him and stared again at Robin’s letter. She pursed her lips. There would have to be a reply sooner rather than later, though she had little idea how to decline her cousin without starting another war.

“Wait,” she spoke aloud, gripping the letter. “I sent the raven to Lord Royce, acting Lord of The Eyrie, Defender of The Vale and Warden of the East. Why is Robin replying?”

Theon turned back to her, silent.

“He’s sent this without permission,” she breathed, feeling the weight on her shoulders lift just a little. It was enough. “He must have. Royce is teaching him how to govern The Vale, but he has many years to go before he will ever be allowed to rule. After he killed my Aunt Lysa, Littlefinger did the same when I was there, I saw it. Every correspondence in and out must go through Royce.”

“Couldn’t this have been approved by him?” Theon asked.

She scoffs. “I doubt it. He would never allow such a rude letter through. They must be signed by him.” She taps the end of the paper. “Does this look like it’s signed by Lord Royce?”

Theon shook his head, and if she was not dreaming, he looked impressed at her find.

“Look, Robin’s even signed himself as all three tiles,” she added, gazing down at the furious scrawl. She rolled her eyes. I should’ve slapped him more than once.

“So what do we do?” he said, sitting up.

“Send a reply politely, but firmly, asking for the true Warden of the East to respond to my request for Knights of the Vale and House Arryn’s bannermen.”

Something in that made him chuckle. “Politely but firmly?”

“What? I can do it. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

“No, I wasn’t doubting that,” he said. “I think it sums you up nicely.” His blue eyes softened. “The Red Wolf. A beautiful exterior, but with bite just as wolfish as her forefathers.”

She finds she has no well-bred reply to that, the admiration in his voice rooting her to her chair. Flushing, she meets his eyes. “I like that title.”

When she was in King’s Landing, some of the lords and ladies liked to whisper as she passed them. Everytime, she would hear some variation of the traitor Robb Stark has won this or that battle, always traitor, usurper, enemy to the crown. But in her mind, where not even Ser Meryn’s blunt hand could reach, he was always brother; The Young Wolf. She did not feel that she’d earned a similar name yet, but she loved it all the same.

“Aye, I’ve heard it said around Winterfell. Soon everyone in Westeros will be starting their letters to you with it,” he commented.

Sansa finds she enjoys that idea.

“What will they call you, I wonder,” she teased. “The Young Kraken?”

He thought for a moment. “The Red Wolf’s Shield,” he said finally. “I think I would prefer that.”

“You don’t even wish to be known as the former Prince of Pyke?”

“I do not wish to be Prince anything. Not anymore,” he said sadly, softly. Always sadly.

“I remember you desperately wanting to rule the iron islands as a child,” she said distantly, the image of his tall shoulders and salacious grin blurred like a half-remembered dream.

Theon went about everywhere insisting they all call him Prince, once, before Ned caught wind of it. Sansa did not know what her father said to him, but she imagines the way he might’ve scolded him, a hand on Theon’s back, like father had done to her so many times.

“That was a very long time ago,” Theon replied, voice just as distant as hers. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, to regret.” He swallowed, and there was a long pause as he stared at nothing, a habit he never had as a boy. “The Ironborn are cruel. They rape and pillage wherever they go. I wanted to be like them, once, wanted to prove I could be one of them. I didn’t succeed, managing instead to make everyone hate me, and I hated what I did to get there anyway. Balon had no interest in landlocked castles, and even less in me. One of my men convinced me to... behead Ser Rodrick, told me to show strength. What kind of trueborn family would make me murder the man who’d taught me to load a bow?”

Horrible, evil men, she thought, but did not say aloud. It was the Ironborn way. Theon could criticise them all he liked, but it would play differently if it came from her lips.

“My sister has tamed them, but I’m not the same,” he continued. He huffed out a sad, pathetic little laugh. “I’ll never be the same. I can’t go back. She’s the only one I miss, anyway. She’s the only one of them that cared about me.”

Sansa had always wanted to meet this fabled sister, the one he told her came for him during Ramsay’s capture when no one else would. With their uncle dead, she was Queen of the Iron Islands.

Sansa’s brow creased, a sudden thought paining her. “If she ever decides to raid the North again... you’d be honour bound to attack.”

“She wouldn’t,” he assured. “She knows how I feel about the North.”

“Good,” she said, relieved. “I would not want to fight her. Not after our father did so much to ensure peace between our two kingdoms.”

Theon said nothing, agreeing instead with a nod of his head. The sun crept in from the corners of the window and hit his face. Sansa thought his hair looked almost golden like a lion’s in the yellow light, but the image did not scare her like she expected it to.

Sansa cleared her throat. “The Red Wolf's Shield is a good title. Strong, brave.”

But gentle, she mused.

“It is not about me,” he insisted. The sun made him look ethereal. “I would have Westeros know that the Northern queen has a protector, one who would not hesitate to cut down traitors.”

Among the light, saying those words, he almost looked like a god, a knight, a shimmering king from the stories. Just for a moment, before the light moved, she deeply pitied the fools who tried to harm her with a golden kraken by her side.

A week later, Sansa found herself where she’d been many times before; on the battlements, observing Winterfell from up high like mother and father used to do. The winters are hard, but the Starks will endure. We always have.

Lord Royce had written back, and as she correctly guessed, Robin had sent the letter without letting him look it over. Though The Vale now recognised Bran as their king, it was no impediment to assisting The North in its battles. Lord Royce was a good man; he saw it as his duty to House Stark and her father to help her assure the safety of her home. He had also, he added personally, held regret in his heart for letting Littlefinger take her from The Eyrie and marry her to Ramsay, even if he was tricked just as well as she. Though he had advised her until the Battle of Winterfell, he had never told her that. She appreciated it greatly.

There was a clunk clunk of boots on wood, and she knew who it was just from his steps. He never quite walked the same as he did before, his knees broken and never healed properly.

“Yara’s men have arrived. I’ve settled them in,” he reported, coming up to her side, staring down over Winterfell with her.

“Thank you,” she replied pointedly.

He gave her a look, but she gave one right back. It was important for her to thank him, to put caverns between herself and their shared monster.

“I received a reply from Dorne,” she said, as noncommittally as she could.

He tensed anyway, eyes searching across her face, trying to gauge her expression. She wished she could see what he was thinking, what treacherous, sinful thoughts he had in this moment, the images that flashed in his mind. In his vision, did she love the Prince? Did she kneel happily, grinning, as he gave her away once more?

Was it that thought that made the fear on his face understandable, or even more confusing?

“What does it say?” he said finally, quietly, like he didn’t want to know what it said at all.

“He will not marry me.”

There was, even though the Prince was polite and the letter well written, no love lost between them at this rejection.

Theon let out a deep exhale. He tried to turn in time to hide it, but Sansa was too quick. Relief bloomed across his face.

“You are glad, then?” she prodded him.

“I’ll admit it, I am,” he said. He met her eyes briefly, then away again, as he always did. “I — I did not think I could stand it if I had to be apart from you again.”

Sansa felt herself shift. She could withstand humiliation, insults and beatings with nary a blink, but this was a different kind of speak. The far more dangerous kind.

“I did promise I would take you with me, as you asked,” she reminded him.

“You did,” he agreed. He did not move to elaborate.

“I suppose it is of no matter now,” she continued quickly. “The vital part of the Prince’s letter was not the refusal of my proposal, though. He offered men, but only on the condition I aid him in some way later.”

When the time comes, remember Dorne helped you.

Cersei always loved to monologue with a goblet in her hand, telling Sansa she would eventually turn bitter, cold, dishonourable and dishonest, like she. It was always with a kernel of joy, to see her little dove cower and cry at the images she wrought; spurred on by her own pain of Robert Baratheon, she later realised.

But pain had not turned Sansa cold. Instead, she made it a point to oppose all of it. If that was Cersei’s vision of the future for her, she was ignorant. She was a Stark, a wolf, and she would rule as her late family did, with love, honour, and loyalty. As the prince had asked, she would not forget his assistance.

“I suppose that was inevitable, if he rejected the proposal,” Theon sighed. “Did he want anything else?”

“Unless him writing of how famed my beauty is will help us in this fight, no,” she jested lightly.

His eyes flickered to her then back out into Winterfell’s grounds. Quick, but she caught it.

Another pair of footsteps clunked along the rafters.

The two of them stood waiting awkwardly. Theon had not replied to her remark, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to. Long ago, Theon and her brothers always teased when a boy was interested in her, but now he looked deadly serious.

You make me burn, she recited, and, just for a moment, wondered if maybe he burned for her too.

“The saddle you requested, your grace,” came a voice, and she spun around to face it.

The tanner was hard-faced, and his arms were outstretched, showing her the contraption. She would always remember the cryptic reply she’d received from Bran alongside the diagram.

In time, the halls of Winterfell will be home once more.

It was still odd, to know her brother could see everything. Had he seen her silent tears when no one was looking, yearning for a family that was long dead? Even if his method was strange, she appreciated his effort in trying to comfort her. That was the brother she’d known before, and again, a pang went through her.

“Thank you, this is fine work,” she praised gratefully. She gestured for the tanner to hand the saddle to Theon.

“This is yours,” she told him as it was passed along.

The tanner bowed, a prideful smile nowhere in sight. The sullen look on his face reminded her of Jon, and she felt a pang in her heart.

“Your grace,” he said. She nodded, and he took his leave. Turning back to Theon, he was staring at the saddle in his arms like it was a dragon.

“I can’t ride,” he said sadly.

“This is a modified saddle. See these straps?” She ran a finger along the buckles. “They will hold you in.”

He nodded quickly, a little manic. “I remember. This is Bran’s… he wore it everyday. Before…” he faltered.

“It’s from the same diagram,” she corrected. “I wrote and asked him for it.”

Theon blinked up at her. “Why?”

“Well, how do you expect to lead my army if you’re not on horseback?”

Something painful ghosted across his face then, hands gripping the saddle tight.

“Every queen needs a general, do they not?” she continued. The smile on her face started to waver.

“Yes,” he spluttered. “But I am your sworn shield. I cannot leave your side to lead them.”

“I’ve thought on that. I would release you from being my sworn shield, but as a formality, you would still be my queensguard. Only you now have an extra duty.” She gestured to the saddle in his arms. “If you... like the sound of that at all?”

“No, I do…” he told her slowly. “Only it's hard to believe what you’re offering me.”

“What’s that? A saddle and some men?” she jested.

“Your trust,” he whispered, light as a feather. All notions of teasing him fell away. “A ruler and the commander of their armies must have complete faith in one another, if they are to be a good team.” He paused. “I wasn’t his commander, but Robb had a similar kind of faith in me, once.”

Sansa watched him for a moment. “I do as well. I trust you completely.”

All of a sudden, he looked very young. It was easy to forget that behind the haunted eyes and aged face, he had only a few years on her.

“Your grace,” he said in a rushed breath. She opened her mouth to correct him, but he beat her there.

“Please, let me say it when no one is watching. Just this once.” He took in a deep breath. “Your grace. I would not betray you for all the world,” he vowed, a wild, fevered devotion in his face and voice. “My Queen in the North.”

Chapter Text

The weeks they waited as their allies arrived were spent as they had previously been. Breakfast, letter writing, supply checks, settling squabbles, delegation, on and on the duties went, until dinner, when reprieve came at last. Then, it was time spent with Theon, more often than not in the library, ever since she learned he enjoyed reading.

Lord Royce and the Knights of the Vale arrived with little fanfare, as was usual for The North. Ever though they were part of The Riverlands, they had less liking for fanfare and spectacles than the deep South. Her cousin’s bannerman dismounted with little grace, but Sansa found she didn’t care. It was good to see a friendly face.

He looked older than he did at The Eyrie, older than even when he’d been at Winterfell with her, like the war had caught up to him. Turning, he strode up to her and bowed diligently.

She greeted him with a smile. “My lord.”

“Your grace,” he replied, voice high and mighty as ever. There was a budding smile on his lips. “If I may say so, it’s a joy to see you rise so high. Your father would be very proud.”

Her smile grew wider, replying, “Thank you sincerely, Lord Royce.”

Lord Royce cooly ignored Theon, meeting his eye in a polite bow and nothing else.

An awkward silence between the three of them followed. She quickly showed Royce into the castle, hustling him out of sight of a guilty-eyed Theon. There would be no forgiveness from Royce, she knew.

Later in the day, the horn blasted through the castle grounds again. This time, a parade of colour entered Winterfell’s gates. Dornish men in yellow cloth and silver armour rode on the most majestic, beautiful horses Sansa had ever seen. The banner of House Martell was big and all-consuming as they rode in; no one could miss it if they tried, and that was rather the point of it all, to have them witness Dorne’s might. If she wasn’t under inspection by everyone in attendance, she would roll her eyes.

On and on they went, crowding Wintefell’s courtyard, horses neighing and fanfare blaring. In all of this, The Prince’s brother was nowhere to be seen.

She felt Theon lean into her, as subtle as he could. “Gods, I'll need a shave before he gets here.”

A laugh burst out of her before she could stop it. A few of her men turned to look, and she quickly stamped it down.

“I see you still have your terrible sense of humour,” she replied lightly.

Sounding mightily pleased with himself, he hummed and leaned away. The castle gates looked dwarfish compared to the grandiosity of Dorne’s spectacle.

Suddenly the reams of colourful steeds slowed their pace. Sansa spotted a lone rider between the waves, a flash of even greater elegance between the rows of his men.

He was a vision of grace. The first thing she noticed was his hair; night-black and shimmering, cut at his shoulders. It was so much like the fair and handsome princes of her childhood.

Then his olive skin and dark eyes, then the yellow engulfing him, peeking out beneath his plate armour. It seemed suddenly so like her dream, with the knight who shone so bright he blotted out her vision. Was it him, somehow, that she had been dreaming of?

But when the knight of her dreams rode, it was the Stark banner behind him, not a spear through a yellow sun.

The horns stopped as the man dismounted his white horse. He did it so easily it looked like gliding.

Turning her way, he gave a polite smile. She gestured for one of her servants to take his horse, and the rest of the Dornish men began to dismount after their lord did, and all of her men got to work assimilating their supplies and setting up camps.

“Your grace,” the lord greeted as he came over to her, his accent thick and fluid. His bow was as impeccable as his outfit.

“Lord Lewyn, it is a pleasure to meet you. I greatly appreciate your help in protecting my kingdom.”

“Thank you, your grace. It gives me pleasure to assist.”

“This is my commander,” she told him, gesturing a hand out. “Lord Theon Greyjoy.”

“My lord,” Lewyn bowed again. Theon wordlessly returned the gesture.

There was a pause of silence. She watched as Lewyn evaluated him, dark eyes roaming over his face, the knowledge of Theon’s capture of Winterfell spreading even to Dorne.

“Welcome, my lord,” Theon greeted tentatively. He raised his chin slightly against Lewyn‘s eye.

Lewyn seemed to judge him well; he smiled a little before turning to Sansa again.

“The Prince of Dorne sends his regrets that he could not be here to lead our men.”

She nodded dutifully. “I understand. This is not your war, but I am thankful for the assistance regardless.” She thought for a moment. “Though I am curious. In writing back, he said I should offer the same assistance when the time comes. Did he have anything particular in mind?”

A tired look came across his face, lips flat and eyes droopy. “No, he doesn’t, not at the present moment. Forgive me for being blunt, but he just enjoys stringing ladies along. My brother is an incorrigible flirt.” He stifled a sigh. “I apologise on his behalf if he’s offended you.”

“No, I am not that easily offended anymore,” she assured. Sansa held the laugh that wanted to erupt at the sight of his long-suffering grimace. Had Robb ever looked like that, when his siblings tired him so? “I will give assistance when Dorne needs help, as he and you have given me.”

“That is honourable of you, your grace.” He bowed his head once again.

“I presume you and your men would like to rest now?”

She looked out into the courtyard, to the legions unpacking their horses inside and the army that was no doubt waiting outside.

“Yes, your grace,” Lewyn replied, a grateful smile coming his tired face.

“Very good. One of my servants will show you to your chambers, and we will be leaving soon. The Boltons must be eradicated.”

The closer she got to The Dreadfort, the worse her nightmares got. Theon was suffering at the hands of his own memories too, becoming more steadily hunched over as each mile between them and the Boltons closed. Ramsay was dead, but still he lingered.

My father gutted your brother. Did you know that? I hoped you wouldn't. I wanted to tell you myself.

The night he gleefully told her that, after he was finished in every entrance she had, she dreamed of killing him. Her hands clutched upon his neck with something fierce, wolfish, like a wave pulling her under, but his body turned to dust beneath her before he could die.

He said that the last thing Robb Stark ever did was call for his mother. He was on his knees, and he called for his mother, like a little boy. Of course, that was before they cut her throat. Now isn’t that just pathetic?

As she rode, she repeated the words she’d bit out at him. Your words will disappear. Your house will disappear. It had not just been fact, it had been a promise, and a Stark always kept their promise. Even if she had to fight a war to do it, she would wipe the name Bolton from the very fabric of history.

The siege started simply. As with any capture, they block all trade going in and out of the fort; food, animals, fabrics, coin. Merchants were turned around and sent straight back to where they came. Her allied armies spread across the open field around the fort, a forceful and threatening squeeze.

This went on for a week. She does not sleep easy, plagued by visions. In her dreams, her direwolf Lady was warm, soft, running carefree through the snow. In her dream of spring, Lady loved biting tree branches and playing in fallen leaves.

But the bad ones were worse. In those, her wolf ran into a lion, curled up and snoring in the snow. The yellow, rough-skinned creature awoke and spotted her, standing up on its hind legs, like the sigil that maimed her, and roared until her eardrums rattled. They always ended with Lady howling and sniffling, betrayed by the family she was made to love.

Sansa awoke every morning with a great pain in her chest, vestiges of it all lodged deep inside of her gut. It was the first time she had dreamt regularly of her wolf since King’s Landing.

In some, Ghost joined Lady, the last living direwolf of her siblings, although they had never found Nymeria. Sometimes his eyes were red, sometimes they were Stark grey, sometimes they were dark, like Jon’s; or blue, like her mother and Robb. Though the sound of his whimpering was always the same.

When she told Theon of these dreams, he seemed to seize up. Then, he told her that he had nightmares of direwolves, long ago, when he slept on mother and father’s bed. They did not come often now, he said, but come they did. In his, the wolves always had Robb’s eyes. Even when they sprang for his throat.

They still managed to hold each other of a nighttime, though they dressed before sunrise to keep up appearances. If any of her men had suspicions as to why their commander was always the first to her tent every morning, they kept it to themselves.

This particular morning, she called Lewyn and Royce to a meeting. The siege was going well, but she knew there would most likely be a battle, and she needed their agreement on it.

Theon was waiting in full armour as Lewyn arrived, trying to look like for all the world he hadn’t shortly been in her bed. But he was a bad liar, and though she adored that, right now it made nervous pangs pull in her chest.

Lewyn strode in with his usual full confidence, and immediately gave Theon a once over, a look she could only describe as curious. “You are always here impeccably early. Why is that?”

Theon shrugged. “I like to watch the sunrise.”

Lewyn pursed his lips. “Very well.” He turned to her. “Good morning, your grace.”

“The same to you, Lord Lewyn.”

Lewyn continued to study Theon. “I thought you were a Greyjoy, commander Greyjoy?”

Sansa sent a puzzled glance at Theon, who sent one back.

“I’m sorry?” Theon said.

“The pin on your chest,” Lewyn clarified, gesturing to the silver wolf.

“Oh.” Theon hesitated, reaching a finger up to graze it. “I am both.”

Lewyn raised his eyebrows and made a sympathetic sound, a cluck at the top of his mouth. “That cannot be easy.”

“It wasn’t. It is now.”

Yet Lewyn was still studying him. “Why’s that?”

“I… renounced my princehood.”

“But your name is still Greyjoy?”

“Yes.” Theon looked uncomfortable now.

“So doesn't that mean—“

“Lord Lewyn, my commander has not had an easy life,” she interrupted. “He and I would appreciate it if you resisted picking him apart with questions.” She raised one eyebrow.

“Of course. I apologise,” he said to Theon. “I have only heard briefly of the goings on here in The North. Dornish manner is rather brash.”

“It’s quite alright,” Theon allowed, though he still averted his gaze.

“You may go, Commander Greyjoy,” she told him. There was a relief in his eyes as he turned to look at her. Dutifully he bowed, passing Lewyn and walking into the sea of camps and bed rolls.

She watched as he went, his armour clanging and glinting in the light.

“He’ll be coming back. Do not trouble yourself, your grace,” Lord Lewyn piped up, a teasing lilt to it.

She turned to him. “Pardon?”

Now he looked surprised. His eyes flickered from her to Theon’s retreating form.

“My lord?” she asked again.

“Forgive me,” he said, confused and a little sheepish. “I assumed…”

There was an awkward silence. Her brow creased.

Lewyn began to fidget. “I assumed you and the commander were a pair.”

She stilled. For a moment, she thought she had blacked out. “How? Why?”

“We have all been travelling together for some time. When it is not my turn to speak, I observe.”

“T— Lord Greyjoy does not feel that way,” she stammered, and winced internally at the weakness in her voice.

Her cheeks flamed at her slip up. She did not say she didn’t.

Lewyn seemed to give her mercy and ignored the implication. “On the contrary, it’s obvious he adores you,” he said plainly. “I am surprised you do not know.”

“I— he is my commander.” As if that was the only objection he could make. 

“In Dorne, titles do not matter. You cannot control your heart so easily.”

Lewyn was right, but he could not be. She was a sister to him. A fellow victim of the same demon.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything— but Lord Royce charged into her tent before she could.

“Your grace,” he huffed. His white armour curved along his wide chest, and looking brighter in the light of the sunrise.

“My lord,” she answered quickly, though her eyes went back to Lewyn. The lord of Dorne said nothing, looking slightly amused, a small smile at his lips, and she frowned in response at how knowing the twitch seemed.

“You wanted to see me, your grace?” Royce inquired.

“Yes,” she replied, turning back to him, shaking her head of those thoughts. “Both of you. If it comes to it, are you agreeable to fight, my lords?”

“Unquestionably, your grace,” Lord Royce answered immediately.

Lord Lewyn took a moment to think, dark eyes now serious. “We would crush them. Their forces are nil, compared to all of us combined. Yes, your grace, I agree.”

“Excellent,” she answered, and dismissed them both.

Sansa was now alone, and she collapsed on a chair. Suddenly her tent was being opened again, as fast as it had closed, and she dreaded to look what fresh hell was being brought to her.

“A message from Lord Forrester, your grac—” The gruff voice broke off. She looked over, and the messenger was blinking at her.

Wait, she thought. I know that face. The scar across his face was the same. It was Devon, from the tavern.

“F—Forgive me, your grace, I thought I…” he struggled, squinting at her. He looked different than he had in the tavern, less disheartened, the light in his face brighter.

She pursed her lips, a little sheepishly. “You might recognise me as Alayne Stone, daughter of Petyr Baelish?”

He huffed a little, half in amusement and in disbelief. “I — did not want to disrespect your grace.”

“It’s alright,” she chuckled a little. “It was me, I promise you’re not going mad. I wanted to see what The North was like, what the common folk thought of it all. Forgive me for the deception.”

“Without question, your grace,” he said, and held out the small scroll in his hand. “From Lord Forrester.”

“Thank you,” she said as she took it from him. “It is good to see you.”

“And you, your grace.” He fidgeted, like he wanted to say more but was holding back.

“Please, speak.”

“Well, your grace, I… don't know how I survived at The Twins, but I did. Our best men were killed but I wasn’t. Robb Stark used to do that… before every battle he went around and shook the hands of his men, tried to learn our names.” He regarded her kindly. “It was good of you, your grace, to care enough to listen to us.”

“Thank you, Devon. I’m trying my best,” she replied, and fondly remembered how he had tempered her concern for Theon when he was sleeping upon that tavern table. He had a kind soul, a rare thing. “Did… Robb speak to you at length?”

“He did, your grace. He liked talking of our ironwood. We were going to lead the charge when we took Casterly Rock.”

She pictured Robb’s statue in the crypts, Grey Wind at his feet and sword across his lap, and then of her true brother, and wondered which side he had shown this man of Forrester.

“Sit with me, if you would,” she asked, gesturing to the empty chair across from her. “Tell me of yourself and my brother.”

It took less than a fortnight for the Boltons to cave.

Carrying a small slip of paper, a raven came mid-afternoon. The men of Bolton invite you into the castle for a parley. Sansa had scoffed and crushed the note in her fist. Like she would ever trust them to be honourable, to not slaughter all them like Robb, mother and most of the Stark bannerlords.

She wrote the reply with a furious scrawl, as opposed to her usual clean, curled calligraphy. If Arya were there, she might’ve smiled at the sight of her perfect sister foregoing her manners. Send your leader out and we will not harm him. You can trust the word of a Stark.

Apparently they agreed, because a while later the castle’s door opened slowly with a great creaking and rumbling. All of her allies were lined along the gates, sterned faced and still. Beside her was Theon, who was trying desperately to stop himself from shifting on the spot.

She knew what it was. She understood. All along being here had bothered him, for even if he wasn’t tortured at this castle, the man who did it hailed from here. Trying to give some of her strength to him, she turned her head just a fraction to catch his thousand-yard stare. He did, and if she looked hard enough, she just might find herself on the other end of blue eyes and brown hair, a brutishly square face and growling hounds.

Breathing deep, she tried to speak to him. I know, she mimed, but he is dead. He can’t hurt you now, and what’s more, I would not let him.

Reek, Reek, he said back, barely restrained panic flickering in his eyes. It rhymes with —

"Lady Sansa,” came a gravelly voice, and she turned to it. A figure strolled from the fortress, sword strapped to his hip and tunic a dull red. A group of men followed him a few paces behind, their chests the same red, a blood red, the kind of blood that Robb and mother had spilled as their late lords pillaged The North.

The leader of them all grinned; an arrogant, slimy thing, and Sansa found herself swallowing back vomit.

"You are Wolfe, the elected leader?” she asked him, voice steel.

“Indeed,” he answered, suddenly serious as he took in her hard appearance. He took a moment to glance at the men surrounding the castle’s exit, before coming back to land on her.

She narrowed her eyes, and bit out, “You will not call me your grace?"

The words were meant to get under his skin, irritate him, for an angry man was a reckless man, and reckless men made mistakes.

It seemed to roll off his back. "As far as we're concerned, you’re no one's queen save for the bones of dead Stark men. The Young Wolf knew."

“I was pronounced a queen by Brandon Stark, King of the Six Kingdoms,” she informed him, swallowing at the mention of Robb. Without fail, her heart ached every time she thought of him.

“A cripple king,” Wolfie replied roughly. “Hopeless to stop us, as are you. Perhaps if you popped out a bastard or two from your whore cunt, there might be someone less futile to challenge our rightful rebellion.”

Beside her, Lewyn only raised his eyebrows, but on her other side, Theon became a dark cloud. Reek seemed to crack at his edges, the jagged lines growing until he shattered.

Though, she dismissed the insult easily; even Joffrey’s petulant, seething tone would not have made her flinch at such a barb. Every day he would taunt her with the thought of the lions she would bear him, golden children with claws and sharp teeth. They will learn to despise you, Sansa, he had mocked, an unrestrained mirth in his dark eyes. They will know you for the traitor you are.

That had hurt her most, and he knew it did; slowly, he’d learned her weak spots, the places he could poke and prod and wound her most. The only salvation, the only hope that kept her alive in the place where the sun pounded down upon her was the thought of bearing Stark children who would remind her of home.

“Why do you continue with this treason?” she asked calmly, shaking all thoughts of the golden king from her. “There are no lords of Bolton left, sir.”

“No, but you cannot begrudge us loyalty to our house. Isn’t that what you Starks love to prattle about?”

Was this really the best he had? She looked him up and down.

“When marrying me didn’t work, what would you have done then?”

He gestured around him. “I’m doing it right now.”

She pursed her lips. “Do you think you’ll be king? Is that what you’d like? To be King in the North?”

“In summary, yes.”

She almost laughed. “Do you truly believe The North would be loyal to you? That they would ever obey while I and my siblings still live? I do believe I pity your naivety.”

“Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall all the time.” He shrugged. “I’ll make my own if I have to.”

“Because you couldn’t get mine,” she mocked. “Some lord you are.”

Wolfe dove for his sword hilt, and she felt Theon push himself in front of her. All of a sudden the sneer drained from his face, and his hand stilled at his side.

“Draw then, coward,” Theon taunted, noticing his hesitation. There was a steel in Theon’s voice she had not heard before. “I’ve won against better men than you. Or should I reach for my bow, and this will be over before you can take a step?”

If she was a regular highborn lady, unbroken by the ravages of men and grief and time, she would be scared of Theon, of the bloodlust and fury in his voice. But that time had passed long ago, and now she only found pride in how he’d gotten at least this back from Ramsay’s firm grip.

“I don’t play games,” the man spat. Releasing his grip on his sword, he began to study Theon. “You have a penchant for switching sides.” Sansa froze. “You can switch sides again, you know. We’d welcome you back,” he mocked, a little satisfied smirk on his face.

She didn’t need to see the full of Theon’s face to know that those words hurt him. Just from the sliver of his profile she saw him swallow and tilt his head down, just a little, almost imperceptible.

But then he lifted it again, high like he had during her coronation, like Robb or father or a King of Winter. Like an Ironborn. “If you think I would ever betray my family again, you are a fool. I am loyal to the Starks until I perish.” 

Sansa wished desperately that the rest of her family could be here to witness his words, the devoted tilt of his chin, the fire raging in his eyes. Maybe then they would understand why she forgave a boy for his mistakes, when he stood in front of her now, willing to draw his sword on an army for all of them.

“Loyalty is a trait of honourable men,” Lewyn added dryly, speaking to Wolfe. “Perhaps you should try to be one before you die.”

“Loyalty is a trait of dead men,” Wolfe replied cuttingly. “And I don’t intend to die.”

“You’re still loyal to that old dead lord though, aren't you?” Lewyn continued lightly, almost amused. “The shitheel?”

Sansa choked down a laugh. In the short stunned silence that followed Lewyn’s words, the wind whistled and she adjusted her cloak, covering her smirk. She was beginning to like this lord of Dorne.

“He wasn’t honourable, nor loyal, and still he died at the hands of his own hounds. Come, friend,” he told Theon. “Cut this man down and we can all go home.”

The leader’s eyes darted between Lewyn and Theon, like he didn’t believe either of them. “Someone’ll take my place by tomorrow morning.”

Sansa sighed, knowing he was right. The threat would never be erased unless they wiped them out.

Lewyn said nothing, pressing his lips together in annoyance.

Still, Theon did not move. Slowly, she reached out a subtle, tentative hand and placed it on his back. No one from the outside could see; they were practically pressed up together anyway.

With a huff, he stepped back into the line at her side.

“You cannot win,” she informed Wolfe cooly. “You know that, do you not?”

“All’s fair on the battlefield,” he answered simply. He tilted his head. “I didn’t come out here to negotiate terms of surrender. I came to tell you I will not bend the knee.”

“Perhaps your men will.”

The man studied the row of men around her, and the armies they brought lining the Dreadfort in a circle, their tents stretching back for miles.

He drew in a breath.  “When our lord Ramsay took your maidenhead, did you scream?" he sneered. “You'll be screaming because of a Bolton again tomorrow morning.”

"You'll stop speaking if you know what's good for you, boy,” Lord Royce thundered from her right.

“No, let him prattle,” she seethed. "As you can see, I am not quaking in my boots at your words. I’m no longer a child. Let me remind you, Ramsay is dead, and I was the one to kill him. Just like the rest of your rotting house killed my family.”

Sansa felt her lips curl up in a snarl. Leave one wolf alive...

“But you never killed all of us, did you? I stand here as proof of your failure." She took a breath, shaky with anger. “You won't surrender peacefully? Fine. You’re going to die, and I’m going to watch. If you think you can scare me away with weak threats, you surely do not know what a Stark is."

Smarting, Wolfe licked his lips. “Then a battle it is.”

Sansa stood solemnly with her three allies.

“And you are both prepared?” she asked them.

“Yes, your grace,” answered Lord Royce.

Lord Lewyn followed suit. He looked a little afraid of her. He had been looking at her like that since she’d finished the parlay. She doesn't blame him for being scared; she even scared herself most of the time, the violence of her thoughts, the drowning and screaming and the feeling of hot red blood that feels so real, as if she were to venture her hand down she would find a gaping maw where her chest should be.

Instead, she nodded and gestured to the tent flap. “Til tomorrow, then, my lords.”

They left with a bow, but her commander stayed behind.

“The Northmen and the Ironborn?”

“Ready,” Theon said. “A few of them gave me dirty looks, but they follow my orders. That’s more important.”

That struck her. Boy Theon would whine incessantly if someone gave him the attitude he gave to everyone else. This Theon was strong enough to take sneers, insults, even hits without crumbling. From porcelain to ivory to steel she was made, and it seemed like Theon was too.

She looked around for a moment and blew out a breath. Now all that was left was to wait.

“You want a drink?” she asked.

“Gods, yes,” he breathed. He almost collapsed in one her chairs.

With a soft laugh she grabbed the pitcher that’d been set down and brought it to the table, along with two tankards in her other hand. The two of them looked rather pathetic in the creaky wooden chairs, waiting for sunrise and slaughter to start.

Theon poured himself a healthy half and took a swig. “That man,” he said throatily, swallowing the ale. “The one they elected to speak for them…” He wiped his mouth, setting it down. “He’s handsome.”

She gawked at him. “Oh, yes, you’re right. I suppose I should’ve fainted,” she deadpanned.

“His arrogance will get him killed,” he explained. His hands fiddled with the handle of the tankard. “The fall from grace will be monumental.”

She heard what he could not speak. Just like mine was.

“It’ll get him killed tomorrow,” Sansa agreed. “I will make sure of it.”

At that, the knowledge that either of them could die tomorrow stood heavy in the air between them, and they were silent.

Theon glanced up at her briefly, like he was considering something, and she made sure her face was as open as it could be. He was her dearest friend, after all, and she wanted him to feel like he could tell her anything. A fact she thought might’ve sent her wailing to her parents many years ago.

“What is it?” he asked her, catching the smirk she didn’t know had grown on her face.

“I was only thinking that if the girl of my childhood could see that you were my greatest friend, she might scream,” she said.

She thought to make him laugh, but it only seemed to make his sadness deeper, tightening his face. Mentioning their past did that, but only sometimes, now. But Theon had wanted to say something before, so she let him say it.

“After I took Winterfell,” he began, and she braced herself to feel the age old ache for a better time. It was the eve of battle, and all of their sins stood larger as death loomed. “I sat and listened to the horn blare. Maester Luwin told me to take the black, to repay what I’d done. I remember all of it too well, in more detail than I want, but Luwin tried to reason with me more than once. He gave me more chances than I deserved. He said, you’re not the man you’re pretending to be.” He paused, then, thinking. “Ramsay liked games, too. He was that man, the one I’d been pretending to be. I hate him for what he did to me, but also for being what I might’ve turned into. He said… he told me that he was punishing me for what I did.  Sometimes… I feel like he should have finished the task.”

Then, in an expression that made her chest tighten, his face scrunched up, desperately holding back a sob.

“Theon,” she choked out, and clutched a hand at his arm. At her touch he seemed to calm, swallowing the growing boulders climbing up his throat. They sat like that for a long time, her hand on his arm, until he looked like himself again. If he wanted, she would stay there all night, into the day, damn the battle. You make me burn, but she would not let him go up in flames.

Sansa already knew that he had been punishing himself, but she was not aware that it was this profound. He was spiralling, down and down and down until Ramsay was no longer needed to inflict pain. Like he’d told her of his dreams, I conjure my own punishment for that.

She’d tried, many times, in their evenings together to talk him out of the constant guilt he heaped upon himself, but he never heard her completely. Somehow, as sick as it was, it endeared him to her more that he regretted his actions so wholly. Maybe it was because apart from her family, every other man she’d known had felt little remorse for the pain they caused others.

After they finished the pitcher between them, she began to feel her eyes droop. While she drifted in and out, enjoying the peace of the rising night, she felt Theon’s eyes on her, and tried to focus on her breathing instead of what he might be thinking.

During one evening he had told her, quiet and suddenly, I should be on a cross.

If that were true, she’d replied, I would bring you down.

There was a warm hand upon her arm, a touch that was missing one finger, and she opened her eyes to watch Theon gesture to her bed with his head.

“Even tonight?” he asked, soft and quiet, like he didn’t want to disturb her peace.

“Especially tonight,” she replied assuredly, and rose to make her way to the bed. Following diligently, he seemed to run out of patience halfway through, for he engulfed her in his arms before she reached it.

Easily she conceded, trusting no one else’s arms in the world around her, and he sat her on the edge of her makeshift bed. Then he knelt down, till he was looking up at her. Working of their own accord, her hands reached out and cupped his face. There was a poignant moment of silence, as the night outside assured the only light between them was low candlelight.

Sitting there, cradling his head in her hands in the near dark, Sansa suddenly realised she wanted to do nothing more than kiss him.

Shock started to race through her veins, the sound of her heart began to thump in her head. Lewyn had said it, hadn’t he? You cannot control your heart so easily.

She loved Theon. Oh, gods— she’d loved him all this time.

Like the rest of her life, it was the worst time to realise such a thing; on the eve of battle, where the man she loved might turn up dead by tomorrow afternoon.

Theon shifts beneath her palm, and though she tried to close her face off, he had learnt to read her too well in their time together. “Are you well?”

Her first thought was absurd: what would mother think?

She guesses she would not approve; mother had never liked the way Theon perpetually smirked. She wanted the chance to explain that he was different now. That he was a tender, loving soul. Open, vulnerable, but with a will of iron — from his drowned god — that kept Theon alive in his heart when Reek was all he knew.

“Sansa?” he asked again, but she could find no words.

How could she have never realised? Perhaps her blindness to the realities of life, the fantasies that had led her to follow Joffrey, had not disappeared despite all the pain she’d endured.

Theon was never a traditional folktale hero, golden and spotless, but he didn’t need to be. He’d saved her, clutching her hand and jumping Winterfell’s walls with her, despite barely being able to look her in the face. He came back to fight the dead when no one asked him to, and received no glory for it. He was the stuff of her knightly songs, if she only looked closer.

A warm hand brushed her hair, down to her chin; a lover’s touch, in another realm. If only it was.

She closed her eyes against his hand. There was only one man in all the world who understood her past, who even shared in that suffering. Who was here, now, with no reward for doing so, to hold her and keep her nightmares at bay.

“Sansa, come back,” he urged, a tint of worry in his voice.

The temptation to lean just a few inches forward was burning her alive. She opened her eyes to only blue.

“Theon,” she breathed.

He touched her face again. “What were thinking of? You seemed... very far away.”

“Home,” she told him. “Of our family.” It was not a lie.

He swallowed. “I think of home often too.”

They had been playing a dangerous game, she realised, cradling each other so close at night and spending their days together. Dancing around the kernel on her insides, the one she knew Theon did not have.

By pulling him closer all these moons, she had only set herself up for heartbreak. They were together, but not; closer than family, a devoted guard, a trusted friend and confidante, a constant companion in Winterfell’s lonely halls. All this, but unable to touch as lovers. Was it her own fear that had been holding her back?

Theon shifted on his knees, the fingertips on her cheek feeling completely different now. She had crossed the stream that parted the two, the one she had skirted around for years, and now there was no coming back.

“I want you to promise me something, Sansa,” he started softly, and she hoped he would never stop saying her name. “If the tide of this battle turns, you have to flee. Return to Winterfell, regroup, and seek out aid elsewhere.”

Forced out of her reverie, she blinked, startled. “Are you mad? Leave my men mid battle?”

“Plenty leaders have done it,” he pointed out, and there was an urgency in it she tried not to think about. “It is not a show of cowardice, it’s survival.”

She shook her head against his palm. “I will not leave you, as you will not leave me.” The words did not mean the same thing that Theon heard, she was sure.

“Please, Sansa,” he begged her now, but his voice was forceful, following her as she tried to look away. He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. “You must live. You’re the only Stark left. If you died…” he swallowed thickly, like the thought sickened him. “Everything you have been fighting for will be lost.”

He did not have to say it, but the lingering and everything Robb, mother and father died for will be lost hung in the air.

Before she could say anything, something overcame his face and he leaned in. For a bizarre, blissful moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but he only put his lips to her head. A brotherly gesture, the way Jon had. Her heart gave a little lurch anyway, and though he did not know it, she wished desperately for him to move his lips downward.

Though as brotherly as he intended it, he spent a moment too long hovering with his nose brushing against her forehead. Letting out a little sigh, she admitted that if she had to escape the Boltons, she would, though she pushed the connecting thought that it would mean Theon had died from her mind.

“I’ll leave,” she concedes. “Only if you promise to come back home.”

He seemed to freeze, just for a second, and then he got up, slowly, until he was standing, and began to step a little ways away.

“You remember what I said about Ser Jorah’s story?” she asked him, dread building in her chest. He had even said it himself, in not as many words, but the sentiment was always there. Sometimes I feel like he should have finished the task.

After a moment's reflection, he replied, “He earned his redemption by dying for his queen.”

That was what she was afraid he took from it.

“No, I told you it doesn’t count if you intend to die.”

He did not reply to that, and that was all the answer she needed. “But you do, don’t you? Intend it?” she accused. “You’re just waiting to go out there and get a sword through your chest.”

Scoffing, he turned away, staring a hole into the tent. Now, she stood up, matching his height. She tried not to get angry, to raise her voice, but she couldn’t help it.

“Listen to me, Theon — doing this will not make Robb love you. If you get yourself killed, I’ll bury you, and that will be it. One more person for me to mourn.” 

He started to shake, his shoulders hunching. In a moment of pure madness, she rushed forward and spun him around. His anguished blue eyes pierced into her, and gods, even now, you make me burn. Surging forward, she kissed him, melding their mouths together just for a moment.

Before he could even react, she leant back. “Please. Please don’t die,” she pleaded, holding him.

His eyes filled with tears, but he did not look disgusted at all, like she had feared, only more anguished than before.

“But I want to,” he whispered, faint as a mouse. “I need to. Everything I’ve done... who’s going to pay for it, if not me?“

“You’ve suffered enough to pay them all back a thousand times,” she snapped, shaking him furiously, willing him to see. “I command you not to die!”

“You... command me? I’m not a slave,” he said roughly, voice shaky. He moved out of her grasp and her heart broke.

“Never,” she frantically agreed. “Not ever. I don’t want a slave, I don't want Reek, I want Theon with me. But I want him forever, not just tonight.” Now she was crying openly, the words stuttered. “Theon — I couldn’t bear it if you died. I lov—”

“Stop!” He covered his ears, shaking his head manically. “I can’t. I don't deserve it. Butchered by the Freys. Where was I? Can’t you hear it, Sansa? The farmer’s wife is crying so loud…” He looked very far away, and fear gripped her chest. “I have to— I have to leave. I should have died with him. I…”

“Theon,” she called to him, desperately, urgently. “Come back to me.”

He jerked like she’d hit him, biting out, “Leave me, Sansa.”

This time she could not call him back. The flap of the tent closing as it folded around the absence of his form was somehow the most damning sight she could’ve received.

We told you he would leave you, many voices harmonised; Joffrey, Petyr, Ramsay, all at once, so loud it made her teeth rattle. In unison they laughed. All alone with us again, Sansa.

The morning was dim, the sun barely risen from its slumber. It felt like the hardest thing in the world — to make herself rise — when all she wanted to do was lay there.

It was quiet as she exited to mount her horse. Unnaturally so. The only sound was the occasional neigh, the flapping of tents. The wind whistling by.

All of her men stood in perfect formation, in neatly spaced clusters. They wore grey, white and yellow, and the mismatch of colours stood out among the soft snowfall, the white a canvas that her armies painted themselves across.

Sansa had only seen one battle with her own eyes, and though it was a personal one, it was enough war and bloodshed for one lifetime. But here she was, and here her armies were.

There was no grand speech, no army roaring in unison, no honourable and powerful charge. These men were not warriors, they were men. Like Devon, or the men she’d met in the tavern with him.

Before the Battle of the Bastards, she never considered Jon a good leader. She’d hardly known what was happening to him when she was in King’s Landing, and he appeared to hate being called Lord Commander when she was at Castle Black. That night, before the battle with Ramsay, he was sullen, as always. But that night, it was more for his men that were going to perish in this fool’s game all of Westeros played. He was a good leader, then, she knew. To care. He wanted them to die no more than she did now.

But she was here. There was no going back. I can be brave, like Robb, she told herself. Her brother had lead a hundred armies to a hundred battles, all the way across The North and into The South.

Riding across the field, she traded nods with Lord Royce and Lewyn. Left til last, she let her eyes finally land on him.

Theon looked like a commander. Armour on, atop a horse, a straight back. He’d never screamed strong to her before, when he was another man that hid in corners, but he did so now. Sansa felt a wave of dread collapse her gut as she observed him. Would she be carving a statue of him soon, one with a sword and bow in his arms and his chin high? Would he be joining Robb in the crypts, in the afterlife?

His armour shone in the dull light, the elaborate silver wolves on his shoulders reminding her so starkly of Robb, of Jon, of her father in their house’s armour. Sansa swallowed a choked breath. That armour almost gave the impression he was a wolf himself, ready to battle followed by the ghosts of the house he’d once betrayed.

He looked intimidating, but he had the sad glint to his eye, the slack face of the Theon she knew.

She rode up to him, stopping so their horses were side by side. While hers was white and his grey, they were the same height, and so the two steeds looked the perfect pair. The gods must hate me so.

“I wish you luck in this battle,” she said into the air, cool as she could.

He stayed looking forward, toward the castle.

“Thank you, your grace,” he replied roughly. There was an edge to his voice.

Her traitorous eyes lowered to where his wolf pin usually sat. It was gone. She didn’t think it could, but the cut on her heart bled deeper.

Theon followed her eye.

“It’s underneath,” he told her. “Pinned to my undershirt.” He took a long breath, gaze now on the back of his horse’s head. “I did not want it to end up buried under a battlefield, lost to me for eternity.”

Somehow, she found it in herself to feel warm. “Good.” This time, her words were sincere. “Thank you.”

But she thought much more, things that did not pass her lips; do you wear it and think of me, Theon? Do you wear me under your armour, under the shield to protect yourself from the world, atop your true flesh, the porcelain skin I burn to run my hands across?

But she only readied herself to turn.

“Sansa,” he called quickly. Finally looking him full in the face, she noticed his blue eyes were now on her instead of his horse, face so tightened with pain it might snap. Would that she could reach out and wipe it all away with her fingers, as she might’ve done before last night.

“I’m sorry,” he told her roughly. He swallowed, like he was forcing words back down his throat. “You brought Theon back. You reminded me that he was there, even when he wasn’t. He — I — can die honourably here today because of you.”

She closed her expression off before the resentment could show. As if she wanted Theon to die. As if she ever could.

He seemed to sense her feelings because he continued.

"I've done so much wrong…” he whispered, the eyes of a thousand pains staring at her, a lifetime of mistakes, pleading her to understand. “Allow me to do one last thing right."

Sansa felt her breath hitch. She hated it. She hated it more than anything. But she could not begrudge him this.

“So be it,” she consoled. That was all she dare say, afraid she might jump atop his horse and plead him to stay if her lips moved any longer, like a waterfall that kept on flowing.

Raising her hands to clap the reigns, Sansa turned away before he could see the wetness building at the back of her eyes.

But then she thought of her family, all of whom she was half a world away from as they died. Her hands stilled.

She thought of her aunt Lyanna, dying as her brother watched, unable to tell the prince she’d ran away with a final goodbye. Sansa had a chance now, one she never got with any of them. Theon was right here.

“I love you,” she told him simply, unable to watch his reaction. “Goodbye.”

It was the truth. A painful, destructive, godly truth, but one she would not regret as her last words to the man she’d grown up with.

With a certain finality, she kicked her horse to turn, and it trotted back down the battlefield to-be. Though she felt his eyes follow her, she resisted turning back with all her might. If she did, she truly would cling to him, and then where would she be?

Trying to wrap herself in a mask of indifference, she felt him pleading in her ears, voice clogged and broken, even though he said not a word as she rode.

Look back at me, Sansa. Please look back at me. But she could not.

Chapter Text

The charge was a loud harmony of shouts, galloping, clanging of swords. Waves of men were disappearing over the sides of the castle, ladders being knocked and burned and re-aligned. Arrows flew in every direction, no way to tell friend from foe.

Even from miles away, where she was camped with a few of her men to protect her, the sounds were harrowing; as queen, she had no place being close to the line of fire, but still she wanted to help them, as useless in battle as she might be. Instead, Sansa watched it all, as father told her to.

Absentmindedly, she picked up a bowl and filled it with soup, gripping the ladle too tight. The liquid was steaming and she felt her stomach instinctively rumble at the sight. Long ago, she’d done the same thing, with a Theon who had come back to fight for his home.

Now, he was convinced that dying would redeem everything he’d done, as if throwing himself on a sword could turn back time. She wanted to scream, to rage, throw her bowl at the sky and damn the seven, the old gods, the new, every god imaginable. As if you haven’t taken enough from me, you take him, too?

But all she did was clutch her cloak so hard it could rip. There was no way of telling what had happened to him until it was over. The sounds of clashing and screams seemed louder than ever, rattling her teeth and setting her ears aflame. If she closed her eyes, it was the Battle of Winterfell all over again.

“Do you know what some of the men call him, your grace?”

She spun around. One of her men was perched upon a rock, sipping his morning food. His eyes were on her, accentuated with a brown beard that brought out the same brown in his eyes.

“Who?” she asked.

“The commander, the Greyjoy boy.”

“He’s not a boy.” Not for a long time.

“True enough, though there are men in your army thrice his age, your grace.”

She rather liked his bluntness. It reminded her of father. Spotting a similar rock across from him, she walked over. “May I?”

“Of course, your grace.”

They sat in silence for a long while, the distant battle the only noise. Sansa tried to eat her broth but it tasted like ash. Maybe it was the thought of Theon miles away, in the middle of a battle he did not intend to come back from, but the sky seemed somber. She put the bowl down with a harsh plunk.

“So what do they call him, my commander?” she asked.

“Theon Turncloak,” he answered after a moment.

She pressed her lips together, stopping the sudden rage that threatened to burst. “They don’t know what he suffered. They wouldn’t call him that if they knew.”

Reek, Reek, he murmured, while she silently wept upon her prison bed, it rhymes with freak.

The guard watched her carefully. “What did Ramsay Bolton do to him, your grace? There are whispers, but… “ He paused. “Perhaps it would help if you made it common knowledge.”

Immediately, she shook her head.

There were no words to describe the inhuman shell she found at Winterfell. Ramsay held a few guests while he was playing at being lord, and they always had something to say about the filthy shadow in the corner. You would have done better to slit his throat, one said. A dog who turns against his master is fit for naught but skinning.

Her men could never truly know, not unless they had seen.

But she must try to explain, for Theon, for herself, for continued peace in the North, to make them understand how worthy he was to be at her side. And perhaps, a little selfishly, it would be good to tell someone of the horrors that haunted her.

“It was… awful. The bastard had stripped him down until there was hardly anything left. His body was broken and left to heal all wrong. He was barely fed, and Ramsay flayed bits of skin whenever he liked. That’s not even considering his mental state, which was less like a man’s and more a rabid animal.” Her breath got shaky, and she paused to correct it. It would do no good to cry like a child in front of her guard. “Ramsay had convinced him he was someone else, the name of his old man-servant, Reek. He tortured him until he wanted nothing but to serve and please his master.”

“Seven hells, that poor boy,” the guard cringed sympathetically. He brought a hand up and rubbed it along his face.

She huffed. It helped abate the burning at the back of her eyelids. “Yes. The rest… the details… they’re not mine to tell.” She averts her eyes for a moment. “We don’t even know if he’ll live. Then all of this won't matter anyway.”

Sansa pictured his tear-filled eyes, knowing she would never forget them, even if she lost him. I should have died with him.  He did not have to specify who he was, she already knew. Butchered by the Freys. For a brief moment, she was inexplicably angry at Robb for driving Theon to this. And then, Ramsay with her hands on his neck. Even from the grave, the memory of Robb had surely wrecked him just as Ramsay did; one with hate, one with love.

“I saw him walk by before dead arrived, when we were lined up and waiting for the attack,” the guard said. “Even as one man, he had a part in saving my girl. If nothing else, I know the Boltons are monsters, and if he’s fighting against that, then I trust him. I… think I am an oddity in that, though. Most of those men fighting over there only remember him pillaging his way from the shore to Winterfell.”

“The North remembers,” she recited. “I didn’t know it’s memory was selective.”

Breathlessly, like he was surprised, the guard let out a rough little laugh.

Sansa watched the battle going on miles away, picturing her men inside turning cloak on Theon. Abandoning him to die as he wanted to so badly. She collapsed in on herself, linking her hands on her knees, but from the outside it looked like she was just cold.

“They’d still follow him even if I’m not there, wouldn’t they?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from sounding small.

“Oh aye,” he assured. “But I doubt they’re happy about it.” He followed her stare, observing the castle in the distance. Most of the men were over the walls now, or dashing through the rammed gates.

“Well,” she deadpanned, “I’m not exactly concerned with how much they’re enjoying this bloody and horrific battle. I don’t think anyone could be happy with it.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, you’ll want to be careful about that, your grace. Keeping your men happy is half the secret to winning a war.”

There was a second of silence between them as she considered that. The screams in the distance raged on.

She bit the inside of her cheek until it nearly bled. A long time ago, she was stuck in the crypts listening to the same kind of screams, yet she could see it all now. She didn’t know which scenario was worse.

“Well said,” she told the guard, turning to look him full in the face. The distraction of conversation was as good as any. “I never trained in becoming a general, that was more my brother’s game. Mine was politics. My father always told me that being a general will eat you alive, in time. I hope to do better than the men before me, but I realise I have a lot to learn.”

The guard blinked, like she’d surprised him again.

“Was it wise of me to tell you I have no idea what I’m doing?” she asked.

He chuckled roughly. “I reckon every king and queen has no idea what they’re doing, making it up as they go. Just like the rest of us.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “from what I’ve seen, most are either incompetent or cruel. Fine leaders they’ve all made.”

Sansa looked away again, the other way, into the endless grey sky.

If she had to choose which leader she would be, she would much rather be the former, but she would prefer being neither at all. Being called a queen seemed right, but it still felt like she was wearing her eldest brother’s bigger boots, clunking around and delighting her family with her antics. That was when she was young enough to think it all a fun game.

For the millionth time she wished Robb were alive, this time to ask him how he’d done it. How he’d sent men to die all to regain honour for their house, as if it wasn’t a vague concept to begin with. To regain his lost sisters, all while wearing a wolf crown in the South, where wolves perished.

The flames at the Dreadfort seemed to rise higher.

“You’re doing a fine job of it, your grace,” the guard interrupted her thoughts. “As well as your brother before you.”

Sansa studied him. He was far more perceptive than he let on, looking at her with sympathetic eyes.

Wringing her hands, she faked a smile. “Thank you.”

He frowned. “We’re all willing to die for you, your grace. If that doesn’t tell you that you’re a good queen, I’m not sure what would.”

“But I hate it,” she blurted. Sansa swallowed, like the action could snatch the words back from the air. “I hate war.”

“Who doesn’t?” he replied simply.

“But those men are dying for a name. For loyalty to a title, just because their queen says it. How is that fair?”

“Your grace…” He scratched his beard. “We don’t fight wars solely for lofty titles. If we did, every man in Westeros would be a king. We fight because the enemies threaten our home, our families. Aye, it’s for loyalty too, as it is for any worthwhile Northman, but the more powerful motivator is love.”

Sansa watched, enraptured, as he shifted on his rock.

“I don't get up in the morning because of my honour,” he explained. “My little girl is waiting for me at home, and if the Boltons overrun us, they’ll flay her and make me watch. Or kill me first.” He grimaced. “I don’t know which order they’ll do it in, your grace, but they will. I’m here with you now to stop that from happening.”

Sansa felt tears burn at the back of her eyes. The Boltons would very well flay every child under her banners and more, spreading like a disease until they were stopped.

“Do most of the men feel the way you do?”

“All of them, your grace. I’d bet even the ones from the South and the Iron Islands have sweetlings waiting by the fire. We’re only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love.”

She knew it was her imagination, but there was a wolf howl in the distance, and the sound made Sansa’s heart ache. I would do the same for you. The howl harmonised with the distant battle cries, and she knew then that the gods would never show her any mercy, cursing her with love, again and again, and taking it away.

“So you don’t… only fight for whichever Lord or Lady got lucky enough to order you about?”

The guard blinked at her, puzzled.

“I sound like a child, I know.” She wrung her hands tighter. “Ever since I was made Lady of Winterfell, since my brother left, I’ve had to command Winterfell and the Stark banners. Being Queen in the North is a different— heavier — responsibility. I have thousands of men who would go to die wherever I pointed. I pointed there.” She glared at the Dreadfort. “Sometimes I wonder how my brother survived under the weight of it all for so long.”

The guard was deep in thought, taking several mouthfuls of his broth before replying.

“I think the difference lies in who is leading. The pointing, the dying, that’s true for other houses, like the Lannisters. Bloody rotten lot they are. They didn’t care about their men, nor the land they sat upon.” He paused. “But that’s never been our way. The North’s leaders have always cared about the men that died for it. Robb Stark cared, all of us know he did, as his father before him and Snow after him. You care, your grace. That makes all the difference.”

It was like a wave had been covering her all this time, and the tide had just turned, allowing her to see everything below she’d been drowning in before. She even thought it herself, riding across the field before the carnage started. Jon cared, before he’d raced with his pitiful wildling army at three times the men Ramsay had in his possession. She was sure Robb cared, enough to shake the hands of his men and talk to them, as Devon had told her about.

Maybe the worry and dread that sickened her made her a good leader, as this guard said. That was not all that was required, she knew, but it was a trait many a leader lacked. That Joffrey lacked, a thousand kings of fire and blood before him lacked. Maybe even some of the Kings of Winter lacked.

Breathing in the cold air, she realised her mouth was open in shock. She licked her lips and shut it.

Like Robb and Jon and father and all of her family, her heart and soul was of the North. At her coronation, she’d thought about how much blood and tears she’d shed for this land, the crown of two wolves placed on her red hair.

This land was hers, and she loved it. If they wanted, didn’t everyone else deserve to bleed for it too?

Sansa leaned forward, reaching out to grip the guard’s rough hand. It was a gesture of gratefulness. “We’ve been talking all this time, and I don't even know your name.”

“Phillip, your grace,” he answered.

“Thank you for the wise words, Phillip, and for listening.”

He gave her a strained smile. “Now we wait.”

With a heave of fear and dread and nausea in her gut, Sansa wondered if she would have to make good on her promise to escape if the Boltons won, even though Theon had not agreed to keep his end.

There was a sudden thumping of footsteps. On instinct she jumped up, and the hitched horses started to stir, huffing and brushing their feet. Phillip got up slowly, one hand on his sword, another held up to guard her.

A figure appeared from behind the horses, coming to stand a ways in front of her, and Sansa blinked. “Lord Forrester?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice thick with remorse. “I wanted to warn you. I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?” she asks, heart pounding.

Before he could answer, a group of armoured men followed him out from behind the horses, eagerly drawing swords and tossing sheaths aside. With barely restrained glee in their eyes they flooded upon her and the Stark men around her, Forrester desperately trying to push them back. As panic rose the closer they got, she finally realised he’d led them to her camp. Eyes wide, she watched the battle commence with pounding in her ears.

“Protect the queen!” Phillip bellowed, pushing her behind him. She tripped, barely managing to grip onto his shoulder before she fell over.

Knocking it over as she went, her bowl of broth went skidding across the field. Men began to scatter, and soon enough Sansa could not tell who was who; four men with wolves on their shoulders tried to surround her, but the Boltons came over them like a wave.

There were too many. Her breaths were stuttered, heavy, and gods, I don’t want to die. For the first time since my mother last braided my hair, no part of me wants to die.

Phillip was struggling. As he fought back, his swinging sword barley missed her, the metal so close to her she felt the wind as it went. The last time she’d been this close to a sword was Joffrey’s, as she laid a maidenly kiss upon it, but this sword would only carve. Sansa frantically stumbled backwards, out of the way of any more slashings.

A pair of hands seized her faster than she could blink, wrenching her backward until she staggered into their chest. She twisted desperately, trying to find purchase against the ramrod arms holding her, and captured the hand at her mouth with her teeth. She bit down hard, harder than she’d ever thought she could, until she felt wet and metal in her mouth.

The man gave an inhuman bellow. Pushing away, she twisted until she faced him and looked into his dark eyes. They were wide, and they looked down at the sword at his belt before she reached for the needle at her waist. She’d kept it on her always, even surrounded by allies, and she was overwhelmingly glad she did.

The man snatched at her hair, trying to yank her again with one hand and pulling his sword out with the other. I am of the North, she thought. Time seemed to slow before her. I would bleed and kill for this land.

She plunged the needle into his gut. The answering squelch was sickly, wet, and the man’s stuttered groan accompanied it. For a moment he blinked at her, like he couldn’t believe she’d won over him.

His fingers released their painful grasp, hands drifting down her arms trying to find purchase until they missed her completely. Collapsing to the ground, he began to gasp, the same gurgling Littlefinger had made. What was he trying to say?

But she could not make it out, staring at him twitching beneath her feet. In a panicked rush she pushed herself away from him, from his body.

War was messy and dirty and hard. She knew that, she’d seen it, but not up close. The needle began to cut into her hand and she let go with a gasp.

Her black skirts were stained. She was bizarrely reminded of the first day she’d bled, feverishly cutting a hole into the sheets. Was this what first moonblood meant for men? It was her first, after all, and a Bolton nonetheless.

Gods forgive me, she pleaded, unable to look away from his blank-eyed stare. He was reaching for my hair. My mother’s hair. I could not let him.

He was staring into nothing. She wondered what had beckoned him from beyond, which gods he prayed to.

A hand tugged at her arm. She could not look away. The hand pulled her up and turned her away from the body, and she faintly recognised the guard she’d been speaking to before, Phillip.

She gagged at the blood in her mouth, rolling down her chin, and for a moment mistook herself for a direwolf. Sansa finally looked around, and there were Bolton and Stark bodies littering the camp they’d made.

She recognised Lord Forrester lying a ways away and her heart bled again. Even if he was the one who lead them to her, he had tried to hold them back when he regretted it. I fought loyally for Robb Stark, she remembered, and hoped her brother was greeting him in the afterlife.

In the light of day, Bolton blood looked darker than the rest. There was blood from different men staining the snow they’d fallen in, but her hands were covered in the blood of just one.

A cold hand touched her shoulder. “Your grace.”

She jolted upright. Though she only sat down for a while, waiting for her armies, for Royce and Lewyn, and, she could admit with the tendrils of fear still clutching at her, for Theon, it felt like an age.

Her hands were still sticky. There was no water around to wash them off, and even if there were, she’d sooner use it for treating wounds than cleaning the blood of an enemy from her hands.

The first scattering of men began to reach their camp, smaller than it was before. They were tired, stumbling, dirty and haggard, but alive, and her heart began to relax, the air less piercing, her lungs expanding with ease.

Lord Lewyn approached, his sword and armour splattered with red, and for a split second he was Robb in her dream, coming to free her. “We slaughtered them like cows,” he said, but there was no glee in his face and voice, like she’d expected, like Joffrey or Ramsay or Robin Arryn. He took no joy in war and death, and Sansa found herself with a rare liking for a lord, for Lewyn. “You were smart to request our help.”

“Thank you,” she said, a little distant, “I am glad you are unharmed.”

Other men began to arrive, the flow constant. Her eyes were searching through them. Heart thrumming in her chest, she tried to appear strong, queenly. But there was one man she was desperate to see.

“There were little losses,” Lewyn said.

“Very good,” she sighed, nodding, still searching the crowd. “Regroup with your men and report back. We won’t be staying long.”

Inclining his head, he bowed, but he hesitated, just for a moment.

“My lord?” Now she looked at him, meeting his dark eyes with curiosity.

“He fought well,” he said. More than when the Bolton man had squeezed her neck, she felt her breath halt. They only said that about dead men.

Choking, she uttered, “W—”

“And he’s alive,” Lewyn continued hurriedly, catching onto her distress, and like it was fate, her commander came riding into view behind him.

There were tears in his eyes, tears running down his face, his skin a patchwork of tears and blood. Seeing her, he dismounted his horse, almost falling off the saddle as he unlatched it. In her dreams of Robb, of mother and father and all of her siblings, the moment they reached out to hold her they were gone.

Touch me, she begged as he hobbled to her. Please please please touch me, tell me you are real, please please—

He took one look at her blood stained dress and crumpled. Diving into her arms, she set them both down on the ground. Despite the panic rising in her at the way his knees buckled, she held him for a moment in silence.

“You’re real,” she breathed, and it was forgiveness spilling out. Right then, nothing they’d said the night before mattered, and unable to resist, she set her cheek against his until a sigh left her.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, breath warm against the shell of her ear. “I’m so sorry.” He began to fade, mumbling, desperate to tell her something, before he went completely limp in her arms.

“Commander?” She raised her head to shake him.

Silence.

She shook him again, harder. The world funnelled until she could only see his face. “Theon,” she whispered, leaning in.

He looked so peaceful. Even when he was slick with blood. Hands clutching his ears, I should have died with him…

“Your grace?”

She looked up. Phillip knelt down and laid a light hand on Theon in her arms, inspecting him.

“Is he—“ she tried. The words would not come. She loved him. She loved him. She knew that now.

She did not love him as children, nor a growing young girl, but she had begun to feel it bloom in her since her hands gripped at his neck, both perpetual prisoners. Not Theon, Reek! But it was Theon, under her hands, his eyes so haunted. It was him, as he took her hand, it was him, as he swore to serve her. It was him, collapsed in her arms.

“No,” Philip said gruffly. “Hurt, but not fatally.”

A choked breath of relief ripped its way from her throat, and she had to fight desperately to swallow everything else fighting to be let out.

“Stay with him,” she told Phillip. He nodded solemnly and took her place by his side. She rose and turned to the oncoming flood of men. Lewyn was already gone to tend to his own survivors, though she did not know how long he might’ve watched her hold Theon, but the thought didn’t worry her. He was trustworthy.

Riding with his head held high and his white armour dashed with red — an alarming contrast — Lord Royce rode to her with a few of his knights.

“Your grace,” he drawled, a little breathless. “We successfully captured the leader, Wolfe.“

She followed the trail of rope behind his horse with her eyes until it revealed a beaten and bloody Wolfe, hands tied and covered in dirt.

“Excellent work, men. Lord Royce,” she praised, giving Wolfe a prolonged look, meant to be smug when she could not smirk, to which he only glared back.

Lord Royce then turned back to the fort, and she followed his eye. Rows of exhausted Bolton men were filing out, making their way to her by foot.

“Once we overran the fort, men started to defect and surrender,” Royce told her. “They put down their swords and came with us willingly.”

Sansa stifled down another smirk. Perhaps your men will.

“I’ll gladly accept them into my army, provided they agree I am the rightful leader of The North.” She nodded to Royce, and saw Wolfe’s nostrils flair. “Ride and tell them to salvage any horses or supplies for the journey back.”

“Of course, your grace,” he replied. He passed the rope which captured Wolfe to one of his knights, horse neighing as it clomped back to the fort.

Sansa turned back to the scattered remains of all her allies’ armies.

“Prepared the wounded for travel,” she commanded, projecting her voice as loud as she could. “Lets get them all back to Winterfell.”

They arrived in better shape than she could have ever hoped.

The sheer numbers she managed to procure with her alliances had ensured relatively light losses on her Northmen. Not that there were many left after all of the wars anyway, but she did not see any horrific, gaping wounds like she had in the aftermath of the Battle of Winterfell.

If she wasn’t helping her men or drafting letters, she was by Theon’s side. It struck her that he’d done much the same thing when she was abed with fever. Though it only lasted a day, poring over his closed eyes and shuttered face for any amount of time just worried her. The maester told her he’d suffered no internal bleeding, only exhaustion and light cuts.

Most, if not all, of the blood that covered him when he’d fallen into her arms was Bolton blood, like the blood that covered her dress. She’d thrown it away as soon as she arrived home.

The memory of the man’s beating, spurting blood against the needle in her hand was, somehow, not as stuck in her mind as any of the other horrors she’d suffered. Perhaps because she did not know the man, and he was a Bolton. She thought about Littlefinger’s blood sticking into the fine grooves of the stone floor of her hall often. All evidence that she’d killed that nameless Bolton man had disappeared the instant she’d bathed, whereas Littlefinger’s gargling corpse appeared in the hall, in the corner of her eye, every now and then, a flickering shadow.

Currently, Sansa was perched on a chair next to Theon’s bedside, staring out of the window like it might hold all the world’s secrets. She was clutching his hand, and it took all of her restraint to not press so hard she might leave half-moons on his palm. She told herself it was only to comfort him, but she knew in truth it was also to reassure her he was warm at all.

After a while he began to shift, and she watched as he slowly opened his eyes. They were sea-blue, and she let out a breath. Somehow she’d worried that, like Jon before him, he’d died and been resurrected when she wasn’t watching. It was a silly fear, she knew, but she was still relieved to see sea-blue staring out at her instead of brown or green, or worse, white walker blue.

Without speaking, the first thing he did was hold her hand back, then moved it forward, pressing his lips to it, gripping her fingers firmly. His eyes were squeezed shut, tight like if he were to open them she would disappear. There was such adoration in the gesture that her breath caught.

“You’re delirious,” she said, more to convince herself than him.

He lifted his head, eyes suddenly seeing more than her own.

“I am not,” he insisted. “You are unharmed.”

She swallowed. “Yes. We won.”

He still held her hand, gently brushing his thumb across it.

The movement seemed to make something inside her cave. A queen should not cry, she thought. But Theon would understand.

“So no more heroics,” she pleaded, quiet and small, and she felt quite sure that she was once again a girl. “Don’t make me be without you.”

“I swear it,” he breathed, and she believed him. This was not the Theon who had betrayed his vows to her brother.

“You don’t have to die for redemption, Theon,” she managed to choke out, shaking their joined hands. “Don’t you see that?”

“I do. Gods, I do.”

Wordlessly, he pulled her to him, and she eagerly leaned into him, meeting his chest.

“Fool,” she choked against him.

“Aye,” he agreed softly.

They laid there for a long time, until Sansa’s back started to ache. Eventually, he began to shift his chin from on top of her head.

“I…”

There was an energetic knock on the door. Sansa sat up, looking to him to finish, but he shyly looked away.

“Come in,” she called, stinging from disappointment. It should not matter so much, what he was going to say, but it did. She told him she loved him, and then he had run off to get himself killed.

A bouncing ball of energy sprang into the room, warm arms hitting her first. “Lizzie,” Sansa greeted. “How are you?”

“Good!” She moves eagerly to Theon, landing on him. He grunted but showed no sign of suppressed pain, hugging her back.

“The maester said you were both here,” Gale said, following behind her daughter. She looked between them, both disheveled and somber. “Is this a bad time?”

Theon stayed silent, blue eyes on her now.

“No, of course not,” Sansa answered. Her voice was croaky, but strong.

“We wanted to say goodbye,” Gale said. “It’s time we get back to tend to the inn. It’s been a long time.”

“I might have a solution for that,” Sansa said.

She’d had time to think, sitting next to an unconscious Theon. She’d thought of Gendry, now Lord Baratheon of Storm’s End, her sister’s paramour. He adapted to running a castle fine, with the help of Davos and his other advisors.

It was not unheard of, and it pleased Sansa immensely.

“I’m giving you the Dreadfort,” she told her. “It might take some rebuilding, but in time… it could be a suitable home, for you and Lizzie both.”

Gale was blank faced, uncomprehending. Then she startled, eyes widening. “Your grace, what?”

“Most of the Northern houses were wiped out during the wars. If they weren’t, they’re struggling. Having a new bannerwoman wouldn’t hurt,” she said, smiling now. 

“But I’m… an innkeeper,” Gale protested, as if it were a dirty word.

“And I’m a queen,” she rebutted, a lightness in her voice. “What I say goes, and I say you’re allowed to take residence there.”

The girl of her childhood would have screamed the place down if she could see what she was doing now, ignoring class and right of birth rules.

However, she hoped Arya would be proud of her.

“Take it,” Sansa insisted. “Create a house that will be, and stay, loyal to the Starks.”

Gale nodded furiously. “Aye, always. You’ll always have my loyalty, as a woman and as… a lady, I suppose.”

“It takes getting used to,” she admits, but the smile was still on her face. “You’ll adjust fine. I’ll send men to help, food, supplies, everything you may need to rebuild the place.” She looked to Lizzie. “And then your daughter can become the knight she wishes to be.”

Where she’d been watching Sansa before, now Lizzie dived for another embrace and it was readily returned.

“Stay for a while, until I can spare the men to help you make the fort a home,” she told Gale. "One more thing before you leave, Lizzie.”

Once again, Sansa reached into her cloak and brought out a small box. Lizzie knew what they were on sight and began squealing.

"Lemon cakes! Yes! Yes! Thank you!” she shrieked, reaching out for the box eagerly.

“And this is also yours,” Sansa continued, producing a small wooden wolf, the toy she had promised to get made for her when they first met. “I’ve been carrying it around since I returned. I want you to have this. When you play with it, and later, when you are older and it sits in your home on a shelf, I want you to look at it and remember that good can still win. Do you promise me you will?”

Watching her with wide eyes, Lizzie nodded furiously, like her mother had. “I promise, your grace,” her small voice breathed, and Sansa couldn’t help the smile that grew at the sound. “Thank you.”

Sansa laughed softly and handed the toy over. "You're welcome." The children of the North would never know what it was to suffer, never know the horrors she had seen and felt, and she would spend the rest of her life fulfilling that unspoken oath.

The mother and daughter left, closing the door with a soft thunk, leaving her alone with Theon once again. Sansa stilled for a moment in the silence, thinking on the hole Lord Forrester had left at Ironrath. She knew one man who was kind and loyal and a Forrester, one who played cards and had shaken Robb’s hand.

When next she got the chance to write, Devon would be receiving a similar offer of lordship, and Phillip, the guard who had protected her, would be knighted and implemented as her master at arms, if both of them wanted it. If she was to build a dynasty to last, her allies must be ones she could trust, and they had proved themselves more worthy of the titles than procedures of inheritance.

Turning back around, her heart jolted a little as she met Theon’s gaze. How long had he been watching her intently?

“What?” she asked lightly, amusement in her voice. “You don’t approve?”

He took a moment to reply. “I do,” he said, voice thick, and there was something under the surface of those words that she couldn’t dig up. No part of him moved, body trapped in invisible ice. It was more than pride playing across his face, more than respect, more than anything a man could feel on this land. Her heart shuddered, though she tried to bat it down.

Though she knew she’d never loved someone like she did him, true and gentle and knowing, she was Sansa, his beloved brother’s sister, and she remembered the way he had reacted little at all to her kiss, as if it never happened. Reading into his face would not change that.

He takes a breath to speak, but she grasps his hand, unable to hear it. Let the rejection come later, when I have had time to harden my heart.

“Wolfe’s trial is soon,” she said, and winced as he swallowed his words. “Do you feel strong enough?”

Still, he kept her gaze, an ironborn strength in his sea blue eyes. “I do.”

“You don’t have to kill me,” Wolfe appealed, voice shaky.

He stood in the middle of the room, all of his courage fled as his men had. Though he looked nothing like Ramsay, all beard and scruffy Northern dress, still he quaked just like him when he awoke tied to a chair.

A long time ago, Sansa looked for revenge, and Theon looked for redemption. Sometimes, she thought, just sometimes, they are found in the same thing.

“I do,” she replied.

Lord Lewyn and Royce stood to one side. The other lords that survived lined the other, a picture reflecting Littlefinger’s execution. Sansa sat with a blank face, staring out at the man they’d captured.

“S—Send me to the night’s watch,” he tried, shifting his tied hands, shuffling his bound feet.

The thought of sending him anywhere near Jon made a tingle of fear run down her spine. He was still a Stark, her brother, her family, not to mention the Stark who’d fought Ramsay on the battlefield. He would never be safe as long as the leader of the Bastard’s Boys was alive, and that was unacceptable to her. As much as Jon said he would protect her, she would kill to do the same for him.

“You’re loyal to the Boltons, who no longer exist. That’s not going to change even if the fur cloak on your shoulder does.”

Just like his name, a wolf is a wolf no matter the colour, red or grey or white, even black.

Wolfe stuttered some more, but she ignored it and read out his sentence. She raised a hand to gesture for Lord Royce to step forward, but she stilled for a moment. Lord Royce could do it, or the one who’d been tortured mercilessly under the same flayed flag. Her eyes fixed to him.

“Lord Greyjoy,” she said. “You have the honours.”

Theon’s face went slack, mouth falling open. “W—“

“You don’t have to,” she added quickly. “But… you never got to kill Ramsay. He is your enemy as he is mine.”

He took a long breath, eyes wide. They moved to fixate on Wolfe.

Sansa had heard enough in their many moons together to know what this meant for him. With the death of the last vestiges of his eternal tormenter, he might be able to find some kind of peace.

The leader began to shift and twitch as Theon came closer, just like Littlefinger as Arya stalked toward him. Just like Ramsay when his hounds sniffed his face. Men knew when death was closing in on them.

One of her men kicked him to his knees; another spit on him. All of them began to get rowdy.

“Enough,” she ordered them. The memory of the crowd at the Great Sept of Baelor clouded her vision. A beheading was not something to cheer for.

The sword made a loud shing as Theon unsheathed it from his side.

He had told her of Ser Rodrick Cassel. How his men convinced him to execute him, goaded the insecure boy into an act he would forever regret. How he had butchered Rodrick’s head and neck, stomping with an unbridled anger till hot blood spurted across Theon’s face. The image sent a horrified shiver through her.

This time, Theon looked calm and serious, like she imagined their father did at every execution he’d led. Father had taken no joy in the act, but no anger either. It was just something a leader had to do.

“Do you have any last words?” Sansa asked Wolfe, looking him right in the eye.

There was a short flicker of something young in his face. “I did all I could for you,” he said, but it wasn’t for her.

Theon gave her a lingering look. There was a sliver of Reek in his eyes. It was not just the leader on his knees; in that moment, Reek and Ramsay both knelt below him too, waiting to take their final breaths.

“Don’t look away,” Sansa warned him. “Father will know.”

He rose the sword.

They kept their eyes on him until his head thumped to the floor. A clean, practiced cut.

His head made the same sound as Shaggydog’s, thrown to the grass in front of her. The same as her father’s, rolling across the wooden stage, the sound she heard in her nightmares. It was some kind of justice.

Chapter Text

After Gale, Lizzie and a group of Winterfell’s men left to rebuild the Dreadfort, Sansa turned to rebuilding her own castle. There had been no physical damage, but she had to sort and manage the bannermen, send condolences, and a hundred other things in the aftermath of battle.

Having Royce and Lewyn present for dinner each night before the battle made the castle feel less lonely. It was pleasant while it lasted, but with Wolfe’s execution, it was time for them to return to their kingdoms.

The ironborn left with little to no goodbye, but she thanked them all the same, promising that their dead would be sent to Pyke shortly. Theon was still resting abed when she said farewell to Lord Royce, and she thought it a small mercy, considering Royce’s disgust for him.

“If you ever need the Vale’s assistance again,” Royce told her, “you may always count on us. I’m confident Robin will shape up as he grows.” Royce rode and took the knights with him, disappearing in flashes of white and blue, flags flapping in the wind like the wings of the falcon they donned.

Sansa thought to check on Theon then, but Lewyn strode toward her with his horse reins in hand. There was a smugness about him, subtler than his brother, but one that, for some strange reason, all highborn Dornishmmen had about them. On Lewyn, it appeared to Sansa more like self-confidence than arrogance, but it made her want to sigh all the same.

“I heard a few of your ladies tittering last night,” he told her, baiting her good-naturedly, watching for her reaction with his dark eyes.

“And what were they saying?” she played along begrudgingly. For all he seemed to live to tease her, she had seen his true colours, and they were not cruel.

“They were talking of some lord’s sons, I don't remember the names. One of them was certain you would be taking a husband now that the battle is over. She wished the Lord of Winterfell would be handsome, and the other laughed and said she wanted to have more children in the castle. That one was older, I think.”

Looking away for a moment into the bustling courtyard, Sansa felt her hands give a tremble, dread building in her chest. “They’re all practically frothing at the mouth for a wedding ceremony.”

Lewyn’s brow creased. “It wasn’t meant cruelly,” he clarified. “At least, it didn’t sound that way to me. From what I’ve heard, in Winterfell and during the siege, your people admire you. Those servant women weren’t the first I’d overheard talking of you, and believe me, your grace, they won’t be the last. My brother can attest to that.” He paused, taking a moment to study her, and sighed at whatever he found there. “But it is not gossip borne of contempt. Everything I have heard tells me that you have suffered a hard life, and your people believe you have suffered enough. They want you to find love.”

Sansa breathed a sharp laugh, thinking of devouring hands and long-sleeved dresses that covered bruises. “Men want insipid little wives,” she said with loathing. “Dolls that they can parade about for their titles and play with in private.”

“That’s cynical of you, your grace.”

“But no less true. I have half a mind to think love does not exist.”

Lewyn abruptly guffawed, a rumble that brightened his face. “You truly believe that?”

Sansa kept his eye for a long moment, glowering at the knowing look he was giving her.

“I think you already know I don’t, not entirely,” she accused lightly.

Lewyn’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “I think you should tell your commander that, see what he thinks.”

Sansa stifled an eye roll. “Are you aware that you Dornish are awful at keeping personal affairs personal?”

“It’s the only true fun we get,” he admitted playfully. “I’m afraid I take after my brother in that.”

Sansa reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder, a gesture meant to cross the barrier of political pleasantries and lies.

“I think I may owe you thanks for something I never asked you to do.” She took a deep breath, and thought of the way Lewyn had told her that he fought well, as if he were watching over him during the battle. “Thank you for keeping my commander alive.” Even when he longed to die.

“I didn’t,” he replied, puzzled. “He needed no assistance. He fought like a man possessed.”

Sansa studied Lewyn’s face, but he looked truthfully confused, studying her right back. Then, he blinked, and something came over his face that she didn’t understand.

“Clearly there was something he desperately wanted to live for,” he told her pointedly, as softly as he had ever spoken, and this time the almost sad knowing in his eyes made her look away. Something swelled in her, fierce and hot and full of hope, but she pushed it right back down. Theon had not even let her get the words out, the words that had burned and rattled and haunted her every waking moment since she cupped his face in her tent.

“I see,” she said slowly, taking another deep breath. “Then — thank you for everything, Lord Lewyn. Tell the Prince I’m grateful.”

“I will,” he assured. There was a kindness in his eyes, an almost pity, and Sansa hated it as much as she appreciated it. “I think the North and Dorne will have good relations in the future.”

Sansa smiled and patted his shoulder. “As do I.”

A boy came racing up to them. It took her only a moment to recognise him as the one who managed her audience hall, letting visitors in and out. His hair was askew from the running.

“Your grace,” he said, winded. He took a moment to inhale. “Lord Glover’s son wants an audience with you.”

“Thank you, Lionel.” The boy gave her a small smile, like he did every time she used his name. She didn’t know where he’d been before Winterfell, but clearly the lord had not appreciated him.

Sansa remembered the sons of her lords clambering at her feet and niceties slipping from their lips. Her coronation feast was crowded with them, all hoping to glimpse their new queen, inspect how easy she would be to capture.

She always knew they would not hold off forever.

 Once Lewyn rode off, taking his army of yellow suns with him, she made her way through the winding halls, towards the audience chamber.

There was a glint of sandy hair that caught her eye as she passed the kitchens. He was standing among the vegetables and meats that lined the tables and hooks above him. The sound of soft munching met her ears, his cheeks puffed with what looked like cake.

“Theon?”

He jumped and dropped what was left with a thud.

Sansa tried to swallow her laugh but it came out anyway. His eyes were wide, like he’d been caught doing something naughty. They darted between the half eaten cake he abandoned on the table and her face.

“Are you eating that without the cook’s permission?” she teased.

“No,” he garbled, mouth full. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, sending crumbs everywhere.

Sansa felt her lips tremble again, threatening to break into a grin. Her lady mother had complained incessantly that Theon broke into the kitchens again, Ned. Say something to him.

“I don’t think they’ll mind,” she told him. “You're far more than the lord’s ward now.”

He shifted awkwardly. “I suppose so.”

It would not happen instantly, she knew, but it was good to see some of his carefree boyhood returning to him. In her eyes, he could steal all the cake in Westeros if it meant he could be at peace with the years of torture he endured.

“One of Lord Glover’s sons has requested an audience. Come with me?”

So they both ambled through Winterfell side by side. With the knowledge that The Dreadfort was no longer occupied by the Boltons, she felt like a weight had been lifted. Their dispersed forces were either dead or now loyal to her, and though she never trusted that completely, it was far better than allowing the possibility of another planned uprising in their name.

Sansa glanced at Theon and noticed crumbs on his shirt, strewn about his neck and upper chest. Before she could think about it, she reached over and brushed them off with a secret smirk. He felt steady under her hand, like she had dreamed he might, like she burned to do before everything fell apart and drained between her fingers. There was always risk in love, and Sansa had lost.

Suddenly he gave her a little nudge with his body, breaking her out of her melancholy, and she belly laughed. It was almost a girlish squeal — and if it was, well, she would not admit it.

“Theon!” she chided.

“What?” he chuckled. “I didn’t do anything.”

They shared a look and his eyes were lit with a mirthful glow. She turned away before he could see her smile, shy at the idea that he knew what was behind that smile on her face, now. Even if it pained her to know he did not feel the same way, she was grateful to have him at her side; he was still her dearest friend, and she would not chase him away with unwanted affections.

Shortly, they reached the hall. They only had to wait a moment for Lionel to come running in.

“Howard, of House Glover,” he announced.

The man that entered was only just a man, on the cusp of boyhood, tall and gangly and brown-haired. She greeted him and he returned it, bowing with an arrogant smile.

“It was brave, how you dealt with the usurpers,” he began.

She bowed her head. “Thank you, Howard.”

“I think you are very brave, and beautiful, too.” He looked up at her from under his eyelashes, watching her reaction.

He wanted her to swoon, she realised. Waiting for her to flush red or giggle. Instead, she barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

“Thank you again. Did you come for another matter? Resolve a dispute, ask for aid, raise a complaint? Or just to praise me?”

He cleared his throat, shifted his shoulders. Not the unabashed adoration he was expecting, she thought smugly.

“I did indeed, your grace. After everything I have witnessed, all the deeds my father has told me of, from freeing Winterfell to the kingdom of The North, you are quite the queen. And if I may say so, quite the woman.”

Her hand came up of its own accord to pinch at her nose. She already knew what was coming.

“I must ask, for it will torment me to my grave if I do not,” he drawled on, and she sighed. “Would you do me the pleasure of becoming my betrothed?”

There were a few seconds of silence after he’d finished his practiced speech that she considered just getting up and walking away. As fun as it was to imagine, it was not how a leader should handle matters. She glanced at Theon, who had his hands behind his back and spine straight, though his face looked as weary as she felt.

“Thank you for the kind words,” she started, feeling the false words slip out of her mouth so easily it was like second nature. “I appreciate the loyalty, and the admiration you hold for me. But I must decline your proposal, as greatly as it grieves me to do so.”

Howard blinked. “Pardon?”

“I must decline,” she repeated. Sansa’s mind began to wander to the smell and taste of lemon cakes, how much better they tasted when fresh, licking her fingers…

“I cannot accept your refusal, your grace,” Howard said. Sansa blinked. Beside her, Theon crossed his arms over his chest.

“You will have to,” she insisted. “Was there anything else?”

Howard’s nostrils began to flair. “I am the son of Lord Glover. He has always been loyal to Starks, your grace. There’s no reason—”

“He wasn’t always loyal,” she pointed out. “But that is not the matter of concern here.”

“Your g—”

“Our queen said no,” Theon interrupted. His voice was a growl. Sansa’s brows lifted; it was a rare thing for Theon to speak unprompted.

Howard’s eyes pinched. She noticed the boy examine Theon’s wolf pin. It was once again adorning his chest, unmissable with the way it shined against his grey tunic.

“I’m persuading the queen to reconsider,” Howard informed him hotly.

Sansa opened her mouth to speak, but again Theon beat her there.

“She already told you her answer,” he bit out. “You can’t have her.”

Howard looked between the two of them, then back at Theon. There was a sadistic look in his eye, and the air around her seemed to thin. “Neither can you.”

Immediately, the room went dead silent. Sansa watched Theon shift his feet, face flitting between anger and agony. Suddenly, she wanted nothing so much as to have him look at her. Look at me, Theon. Please look at me. Is it true?

Sansa felt her cheeks burn, her pleading setting her aflame from the inside. “In the name of the gods, what are you implying?”

Look at me, look at me with those blue eyes that would fade to get me to the wall. But he didn’t, and Howard continued his onslaught.

“Forgive me, your grace, but I think you know well enough. The whole castle has been talking. Word spreads outside these walls.” His hands gestured wide.

Forcing herself to keep breathing, she tried to keep her voice even, hard. “Tell me, what are they saying?”

“That you and your queensguard,” he sneers, casting a glare at Theon, “traitor that he is, seduces their righteous queen to steal her crown.”

Once, before Robb stopped him, Theon told a story one night over dinner about a queen of old. Like Nymeria, but she wasn’t an explorer, he’d said, as if to appeal to Arya. She fell in love with her knight, a man who’d been sent to protect her by her late father. The problem was, though the knight loved her back, her people would never accept a low-born as a king. And so the two danced around each other for decades, ever longing, only the briefest of glances and touches. Though, the queen was not bereft of suitors, and she even bedded one of two of them in her reign. See, one had a ginormous — and then Robb had smacked him on the shoulder, pointing emphatically at his two little sisters, who were leaning forward and listening eagerly. Theon laughed long and loud and went back to his food, like he’d played a grand trick on the Stark girls that only he could understand.

He didn’t get to finish the story, but she liked to imagine as she was far away from home that the queen and her knight were eventually able to be together, even if her people couldn’t accept him.

Up until this point, life had never been like the sweet stories or songs, but at this moment, she found herself desperate to know who the queen was, to see how her story ended.

Swallowing the storm inside her, she managed a worried glance at her guard, but he was still glaring at Howard, his jaw clenched so tight it might pop.

“You’re never seen without the other,” Howard continued, loading arrow after arrow into his bow and firing straight into her gut. Theon’s fists were curled and trembling.

“He is my guard. It is his job to be by my side,” she scoffed.

“Even when you were sick with fever?” Howard accused. “The servants didn’t stop talking for moons of how he never left your chambers. That’s rather improper, wouldn’t you say, my queen?”

“He is my brother, too,” she scowled. “It is entirely proper.” Sansa hesitated, knowing the words could open up the floor and swallow her or open the cage, the prison that rattled and burned. “And even if it were true, it would be none of your concern.”

“Your grace,” Theon tried, face scrunched, and she found she couldn’t tell which direction the words had fallen.

“No, no,” she waved a sharp hand. “If he wishes to coerce entirely reasonable and personal affairs out of his Queen, then so be it.” Sansa’s eyes narrow. “Are these whispers truly real, or is that what you believe? Where did you hear this talk from? Who, exactly?”

Howard shrugged. “What does it matter?”

“So you fabricated all of these wild accusations,” she surmised. “I suggest you think long and hard about casting aspersions on your queen and her trusted guard after being denied something like a petulant child. Leave my council chamber, or you will be escorted out. Lord Glover will be hearing of his son’s poor graces.”

Finally, his spoiled manner began to dissipate. His eyes widened like a scared animal. “My father will not respond well. Your grace, pl—“

“You should’ve thought about that. At least your father has respect for the daughter of Lord Ned and Lady Catelyn Stark. Once again,” she gestured to the wooden door. “Leave.”

Howard hurried out like Ramsay’s hounds were on his heels, door slamming behind him.

Lionel came rushing in, eyes concerned. “Are you alright, your grace?”

Sansa looked to Theon, but he avoided her eye. Look at me, please look at me, Theon, but he did not.

It had been a while since Sansa visited the godswood.

The snowfall was light, only a thin blanket around the weirwood tree. She approached and roamed under the branches and its red leaves for a while, before sitting on her cloak and staring into the eyes of the old gods. The red sap contrasted against the white of the snow around her, and it’s eyes struck into her as they’d done since she was old enough to understand what she was looking at.

Sansa sat beneath the weirwood tree and sent a short prayer for all of her family. If you have them, look after mother, father, Robb and Rickon for me. Keep Arya and Bran safe. Let Jon find peace. Make sure he doesn’t stay sullen all the time. And Theon…

Howard Glover’s words rang in her ears. Neither can you.

Keep him safe, and let him be happy, she finished. That was all she wanted for him.

Sansa exhaled shakily and she watched her breath rise into the cold air, twisting and winding like it was dancing to a lively tune.

Her room was not as cold as the godswood. She shook off her cloak and smoothed down her dark blue dress, fashioned with small fabric flowers along a scoop neckline. As with most of her current wardrobe, Sansa made it herself. It was the only thing she’d worn beside plain fabrics since her days wearing extravagant southron colours and styles in King’s Landing.

She begins to draft notes of thanks to Lord Royce, Lewyn and Queen Yara, using the stationary her father had, stowed beneath his desk. Somehow, it hadn’t been moved in all those years.

You can’t have her. Neither can you.

Gods, and that was the rub, wasn’t it? How sad and pathetic she was for wanting it to be true, yearning for it.

She shook her head and continued writing. After a while, there was a soft knock at her door.

“You’re awake,” she sighed as Theon slipped in, still able to move silently throughout the castle, oddly alike her sister. “Do you feel better?”

He sat on the edge of her bed next to her desk smoothly, like he belonged there. “Perfectly fine.”

Finishing off her last letter, she tipped the sealing wax onto the page and pressed her sigil into it. The grey light from the window made the silver sparkle.

“Nice dress,” Theon commented, casually, genuinely, and she snapped her head to him, eyes widening. There was a flash in his eye she’d been begging for days to see, but now that it was there, she tried with all her might to ignore it. He’d looked at her like that before Faye dragged him off, when she was playing with Sansa’s hair.

“I didn’t think you paid any attention to clothes,” she marvelled.

“I do,” he defended himself, sniffing a little.

Chuckling, she rolled up the paper in her hands, sealing it with another wax wolf sigil. “I’m having the bodies of the ironmen identified and shipped back to your sister, so she can send them off properly.”

“She’ll appreciate that,” he said. “Yara won't say it, but she will.”

Sansa regarded him carefully. “Would you want that? To be sent to the sea?”

There was a short silence as he thought. “I was born as iron, and to the drowned god I must return,” he said. “But…” He hesitated. “I want to be with my brother. With Robb.”

“You can have both. I’ll put up a statue, and your sister can do the Greyjoy part.”

He smiled wistfully. “I don't think I deserve a statue.”

“That’s what you think,” she teased. “I’m queen. If I want a statue of Theon Greyjoy in the Stark crypts, they’ll be a statue of you in the crypts.”

Even he couldn’t help but laugh, a small, tentative sound.

“Speaking of being both,” she started. “I made something for you. I almost finished it before we had to leave the castle...”

Rising off her chair, she dove around in her chest of drawers. Gripping the soft fur, she brought it out and unfolded it. She’d been working on it since she and Theon got back from Gale’s inn.

It was a cloak, lined with fur as every other cloak was, but it was the pattern on the fabric that stuck out. Side by side along the edges, she’d stitched a repeating kraken and wolf, the two sigils of Theon’s houses.

Squinting, he took a moment to recognise the detail as she placed it in his arms. He drew in a sharp breath. Biting her lip, Sansa watched nervously as he traced the pattern with one finger.

“I thought you could use one,” she said. “Every Stark needs a warm cloak. And winter is coming. Years from now, but it will.”

Breathing shakily, he tore his eyes from it to her. “Sansa… it’s wonderful,” he said in a hushed breath. “Thank you.”

She felt her ears warm, glad he liked it; she’d been worried, for a moment. “You’re very welcome.”

“This is... from the material you bought at that merchant’s stall?” He eyed the gray parts of the cloak.

“You are observant,” she said. “Yes, partly. The furs were from Winterfell’s supply. I noticed you were watching and decided to make one for you.”

“Well, I just liked watching you,” he admitted. He continued in a hurry, seeming to realise what he’d said. “You were always excellent at needlework.”

“One of the few things I can do,” she tried with false cheerfulness.

“That’s not true, Sansa. You can do a great many things. For one, lead, and excel at it.”

Sitting down next to him on the bed, she gave a weak smile. “Thank you.”

Theon’s hands fiddled with the cloak in his arms. He touched one of the golden krakens, then a white wolf. Face open, he looked vulnerable. Young.

“When Ned arrived in Pyke to take me to Winterfell, I was devastated to leave Balon, Yara, and my mother,” he told her. “On the way, I thrashed and kicked, screaming that I would starve myself if he did not take me back. Ned told me a story about one of the first men. A fisherman, who happened to be the last of his small tribe.” He looked up at Sansa. “Did he ever tell it to you?”

She shakes her head, gazing into his eyes, only a little ways away. “No.”

The cloak sits heavy in his lap, and it looked like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.

“When I calmed down,” Theon continued, “he touched my chin to make me look at him. More gently than anything I’d felt in my life. Balon had never touched me like that. He looked down at me and said, once, there was a man who lived alone, as north as he could get. Most of his tribe had fallen to disease, or the beasts that ran about the Northern wild. His wife had died in childbirth. He was the only one left. He could have struck out on his own to find a new land, new people. But he stayed. He spent every day catching fish in a little boat, every night watching the stars. Why do you think that is?”

Theon paused. “I cried myself so silly I could barely speak. But I tried. The man gave up, I guessed. Ned sighed in disappointment and clutched my shoulder. His hand engulfed the whole thing.”

Sansa looked away, feeling her eyes burn. Father had always done the same to her, able to completely cover his large palm over her knees or face.

“No, he told me. The man was brave, because he went on living. He lost everyone, but he still got up every morning. He made a life, even if it was alone. That is the world we live in, Theon. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes—and it's gone forever. The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That's as close to beating the world as anyone gets. Think about that before you choose to give up.” Theon swallowed. “Then he took his hand from my shoulder, and turned back to the reins. I didn’t scream again for the rest of the journey.”

Sansa wiped the tears from her cheeks. She could picture it, the words exactly as Father might have said them.

Theon pursed his lips in sympathy, watching her. “I thought about that tale the night before the battle, the fisherman who had carried on despite all this pain and loss. I had forgotten…” He shook his head. “It was like Ned came to me as I slept, to remind me who raised me. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I started regretting what I’d said in your tent. Then, with Bolton men swinging at me like hellspawn, I realised I wanted nothing so much as to live, as welcoming death felt like giving up. I didn’t want to give up.”

Sansa couldn’t speak for a long time; she just watched as Theon studied his new cloak.

“That’s the most you’ve ever spoken to me at once,” she whispered finally. The lightness she’d intended did not come through her voice.

“That’s the most I’ve spoken to anyone,” he corrected her. “I never feel safe. To talk. Not unless…” He hesitated. “I’m sorry for what I said in your tent.”

“Don’t be, there’s nothing to forgive.” When he put it like that, she couldn’t help but forgive him. Most likely, she would forgive him of anything and everything, if only he asked it of her.

“Forgive me,” he insisted, voice broken.

“As long as you forgive me,” she bartered. “I never meant to…” kiss you, she wanted to say, but the words would not come.

“Of course I do,” he breathed. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Both of them could go all day, she knew, back and forth into every sin they’d done or thought was laid bare.

Tired, she quietly sighed, “We’re a silly pair, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” he agreed with a sad laugh.

Sansa took a moment to consider her words. “I understand what you meant now. In my tent. You don’t have to say it. It would be too much to bear another burden among all of our others. I don't blame you for not wanting another.” Or me. She felt like a little girl for thinking it, but the thought was irrepressible.

For a moment, she wondered if this is how her sister had felt, when all of the servant’s boys of Winterfell liked Sansa instead of little Arya horseface.

His head snapped up. “What do you mean, not wanting another?”

“Well… I’ve always been a sister to you.” The words felt taboo, like a weight that had been pressing down on her for a hundred thousand days, something unsaid and all-consuming and true, and if she were to speak them, it would ruin everything she had desperately tried to keep. Though it felt like bile coming up her throat, she forced them out. “The kiss.” The words hung in the air, thick and damp. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“As if you ever — you don’t understand,” he choked, getting up. He set the cloak down on her bed. “It’s not— I always needed time. But I hoped… one day, I hoped I’d be ready. And I am. I’ve been ready for a while now, since… since we returned. For... that. For love.”

Suddenly clutched by the sticky, hot fingers of dread, the thought came to her that he’d made a match somewhere in Westeros, and soon enough he’d be riding off to wed a pretty southern lady who was not so damaged.

Try as she might to keep him here, he had every freedom to walk out. She wouldn’t have it any other way, despite the air around her turning cold at the image.

Sansa twisted her fingers, hoping a distant hope that if she broke one of them she might delay this conversation. “Do you... have somewhere in mind?”

His eyebrows pinched together. “I’m leaving, now?”

“There are plenty of unwed maids in the Seven Kingdoms,” she pointed out in a rush. “You could…” she faltered, unable to finish the thought. It sickened her. It killed her.

Faye had pushed and pulled at his sandy hair, run her hands across his chest, felt him above and beneath her. She wanted that more than she wanted anything in the world, and as treacherous as it felt to think it, she’d pass the crown over to anyone else if it meant she could have him. Maybe she was more like foolhardy Robb and Jon than she knew, stupidly and blindly in love, willing to give away her home and kingdom, willing to fall to her knees with arrows in her gut for the love of another.

Had her aunt Lyanna felt like this before she abandoned her duty, her betrothal to Robert Baratheon, for a glowing prince?

After everything, Sansa thought she was smarter than the mistakes her family had made, but the wolf blood flowed through her veins too, and wolves mated for life. She should have known that love would be the thing to truly kill her. No matter the knowledge she gained, love had always been her weakness, since it was all she dreamt of, since she read stories of knights and maidens, since she longed to return to her family when she was far away, since they scattered themselves across Westeros. It was fact, as sturdy and irrefutable as Winterfell’s stone walls. Theon would leave, and she would spend the rest of her life aching for him.

Tilting his head, Theon stared at her.  “Uh… I don’t want an unwed maid. Why would I? I’d like to stay here, at Winterfell.”

“This is your home, Theon. It is yours for as long as you want it,” she forced out. The thought of him setting those blue eyes on anyone else made her want to scream.

He laughed in an exhale, a sharp noise that was a little incredulous. “I see where we’ve confused each other.”

Before she could say anything, he knelt in front of her, looking her full in the face. He reached out a hand and ran his thumb down her eye, to her chin, and her skin set aflame where he grazed it.

“No unwed maid could compare,” he said wistfully, sharp longing in his gaze. She suddenly got the feeling he’d been holding it back, all this time, and the gates had just now swung open. It was indescribable, it was everything she wanted, everything she felt, everytime he maddenly touched her, everytime he followed at her heels.

His eyes screamed you make me burn, and she felt her heart stop.

“I don’t…” she searched his face desperately. He couldn’t mean it like that. The way Howard meant it. Neither can you.

“I'm glad for your loyalty to your queen,” she said, with all the nonchalance she could muster. It was not much; his eyes seemed to look straight through her.

“No...” he trembled, and fumbled for her neck, her face, anything he could reach. “I love you. I’d do anything for you. I love you.” He sounded pained, but the hands on her were soft, caressing.

Oh. Oh. Shock raced through her veins. She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. “Theon,” she tried, words choking her.

A strangled noise ripped from his throat, and he clung to her with pleading eyes. “Say it again, please, Sansa,” he half wept. “Say it again. Tell me it wasn’t a dream. Tell me I wasn’t dreaming.”

Tell me you are real, she remembered, catching him in her arms. And then she realised that all this time, he had been hoping she was real too.

“Please,” he said again, desperate, his breath stuttering at her silence.

It took her a moment to realise what he wanted from her. But there was only one phrase that she had not seen his reaction to, and only one that would tell him she would go down in a ring of fire for him too.

“I love you,” she said, an echo, and right then she would have said it as many times as he liked— for forever, if he wanted. Leaning in, just like she’d done on that night, the roof seemed to crack open above her, a winter hurricane blowing her away until there was little of her senses left.

This time, he responded in eagerness, winding his arms around her. And those curls, those sandy curls, the ones she’d dreamt about were within her grasp. There was a sob climbing up her throat and though she tried to swallow the jagged jerk at her chest, it came up against his lips. But he only held her tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured against her, like he knew how much she’d wanted him since he came home to her, and this time she did not reprimand him. The words wormed their way inside her, and oh, if she did not utterly understand why her family had thrown away their lives for love.

With her in his arms, Theon tried to stand up from where he was still kneeling, but he only managed to stumble and hit the bed, staggering both of them. She laughed against his mouth. They broke apart.

“Sit on the bed,” she told him, the sound husky and clogged and unlike anything she’d heard her voice do before.

Sansa found herself staring at Theon’s slack face, taking in all of him; the red, puckered lips; soft eyes, the light that glowed from within him.

Following her advice, he sat, but he would not leave her touch, reaching for one of her hands. Without having to think about it she conceded, threading their fingers, and then he was pressing her hand against his lips, breathing her in, and then his forehead, eyes screwed shut, squeezing so hard it almost hurt.

Somehow she found her voice. “But I still don’t entirely understand. You said…”

Leave me, Sansa.

“I know,” he panted, releasing a great breath, a flicker of a grin threatening to erupt as he lowered their joined hands. Gently, as only Theon could, he ran his free hand through her hair, intertwining his fingers in it. “I’m sorry. Again. I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly. That kiss… I’ve thought of nothing else. I needed time to think on it. On everything. If I was even worthy to… touch you like that.”

“You are,” she promised. “You are. I want you to.”

He choked again. "I've loved you for... a very long time. I went back for you, even though Yara might've made use for me. I wanted to fight for Winterfell, for Bran, for all my family. But more than that, it was for you, Sansa. I asked Jon... when I went to Dragonstone, I asked him if you were alright, if you were safe, and knowing that was a better comfort than anything had been in years.”

He leaned forward and easily she surrendered, closing her eyes as their foreheads pressed together. There had been an invisible string tying them together, pulling them closer day by day, and this was as close as she had ever been.

“You are an incredible leader, and I will serve my Stark queen until my dying day,” he vowed, voice low and thick, leaning back to speak. “But it is you I love, Sansa. You gave me Theon back, you shared so much of your suffering with me, as I have with you. You’re so beautiful and kind and good in a world that’s decidedly not, and sometimes I felt like I was standing too close and that I might drag you down with me. For how could I be near you, when I’ve done all I’ve done?”

“Th—“ but her throat choked on the words.

“But I don’t want to leave this realm anymore,” he assured, giving her a passionate little shake. “Ramsay doesn’t deserve to win, and he loses each day I’m able to be by your side.”

Breathing erratically, she tried desperately to hold back her tears, but it was endless and cathartic and freeing. Theon softly wiped at them as they slid down her face, and her knees started to feel weak, like in all the stories she’d read as a girl when the knights presented their fair maidens with a flower.

There had been little hope in her heart she would ever find that kind of love story, after years and years of cruel reality telling her she never would. And she had already questioned if she even wanted to find it anymore, and the answer had been no. There are no all-good knights, the ones her mother had impersonated from storybooks. Sansa was no silly little girl, and to want for that was silly.

But here, now? She knew she’d never stopped. Not truly.

Had any man shown her this kind of affection? She could not recall, her past a frantic blur of running and crying and beatings and misery. Here, underneath Theon’s palms, it all felt far away.

“I don’t know how long I’ve loved you, Theon,” she managed to say, voice stammering and halting, but Theon didn’t seem to care, hanging onto her every word. “Perhaps when you came back to defend Winterfell…”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Even then?”

I’ve come to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa. If you’ll have me. She will never forget it.

“Before then, even,” she continued. It could’ve been anytime and anywhere, she had no precise idea of when she started dreaming of the sea. “I thought about you every day that you were gone. I would’ve had you in this way, too, if the horns had not sounded.”

Looking mightily overwhelmed, he darted for her lips again. Kissing Theon felt better than anything she’d ever felt; she finally understood why so many people started wars and died for love. An eternity could pass around them and she would not notice.

“My lady,” he whispered feverishly. “Sansa.”

There were more tears building at the back of her eyes, hearing the worship in his voice. Joffrey had never said my lady like that. Petyr and Ramsay never sounded like that. There was only one man that could make her burn with just his voice.

“Sansa, Sansa, Sansa,” he mumbled against her mouth, tripping over the word, like he couldn’t get enough of her. She eagerly wrapped herself around him, body pressed into his.

“Gods,” she said breathlessly, in awe as he kissed her throat, her neck. He was relentless, breath hot against her skin, as if he were a starving man, deprived of what he needed for longer than any human was capable of surviving. She would not allow him to stop for all the world.

She was well aware that he had done things like this before, but his movements were clumsy, desperate, raw, like he’d forgotten every move he ever learned.

It was the first time since before she could remember that he had gone after something he wanted with as much determination. Ramsay had almost taken the desire to want for things from him, but he had not succeeded; clearly, Theon wanted her for as long as she’s wanted him, and now it seemed almost silly how long they’d spent apart. Had they always been in love?

All those evenings by the fire with games, how many times had he thought of leaning over and capturing her then, like she had, or running his hands through her hair, like she had for his beloved tresses?

Focusing on her senses, his hands were cradling her like he had found gold, nestled between the cracks of suffering and time. The wetness on her face was matched with his, a trail left where he kissed, their skin smeared with offerings for the drowned god.

Bliss. Bliss. She could only move with him, lips now behind the curve of her ear.

For once, she vehemently wished, it would be nice to be loved as a woman, not for a claim or title. Not as a victim and her turncloak, or a queen and her commander.

Hands wading through his hair, she gestured for him to meet her eyes, tilting upwards. Unquestioning, he did so, like he trusted her with him, trusted her to protect the shattered being beneath her palms. Their eyes locked and he swallowed, eyes hooded, before he softly kissed her mouth again.

“Be with me as Theon, and I Sansa,” she asked between kisses. Like she had thought of their evenings together, they were the last line of defence, the only soldiers on the field against the entire realm. “The two of us.”

“Yes,” he vowed, breathless. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

Chapter Text

Like so long ago on the day of her coronation, Theon was standing at Robb’s statue.

He died hating me and I deserve it all. I should have died with him.

He no longer felt that way, she knew, not after nearly dying at the Dreadfort. There were always good causes to die for, but even better was living for one. The story he told her of the fisherman, the man who had carried on despite pain and loss stayed with her, and not only because her father had told it to Theon as a boy.

What better way to honour those who were gone but to live, to carry their memories in their hearts and think on them? To build statues, chisel words into stone, to wear their colours and protect their ancestral seat?

And besides, even if Theon never entirely believed it, she knew Robb would have wanted him to live, to do better, to be happy. Just as she did.

Her brother’s statue was, as always, aloof. Cold to the pain and suffering that had happened around it, the battles she and Theon fought in their heads when they looked into its eyes.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Sansa teased, walking faster to get to him.

“My lady,” he replied affectionately. He enfolded her in his arms, and she buried her head in the fur of the cloak she’d made for him. She enjoyed when he called her my lady. It was an echo of his manners, but more important was the devoted way it slipped from his lips, so different compared to every other mouth that had said the words to her.

“We should have one made for Rickon,” Theon continued, eyes again on Robb’s statue.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And now that we aren’t under the constant threat of war, we have the resources for it.”

“What was he like? Before…”

Once, when Rickon had only just learned to walk, he’d fallen over trying to waddle after Bran. Fat tears had rolled down his pudgy face, his anguished wailing filling the castle as his brother disappeared into Winterfell’s maze of halls. With no prompting, Jon silently picked him up, and raced after Bran himself, Rickon screeching with delight in his arms. Jon had chased Bran all around Winterfell that day, delighting both of their little brothers.

Sansa did not care at the time, but she knew he had not stopped even for dinner; Ser Rodrick had to haul them into supper by their necks. Her mother had remarked upon their tardiness to father with a strained tone. Upon reflection, it was clear that father did not exchange a reply because he knew that she and the rest of her siblings were listening in, and he wanted Jon to be a brother to them all as much as Robb was. Despite his refusal to scold them, her lady mother had given Jon a look so fierce as he went to take his seat that it might have melted stone.

All too well, Sansa remembered Jon bringing Rickon’s body into Winterfell. With those sad grey eyes, he laid their brother in front of her. They both stood beside him. Even if Rickon couldn’t know it, they were together again, though it was a pitiful compensation for not saving him when it mattered. Jon silently wept. He’s grown so much, she’d whispered, and we weren’t there.

Sansa buried herself into Theon’s chest. “He looked half a man, like we’d been apart for years. It sounds odd, I know, but somehow I expected all my siblings to look the same as the day I left.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It's alright. It doesn’t hurt like it used to.”

That was true of every loss. The more she was able to live, free and content and ruler of the North, the more the choking, aching grip of her losses weakened. 

Leaning back to watch Theon, it was obvious the guilt was crushing; she could see it, caving his face in. He felt hot to the touch, like the regret was burning him alive from the inside out.

“If I hadn’t...”

“Ramsay was sick,” she stopped him. If she let him, he’d lament for years, over every misstep and its consequences. “If you hadn’t, he still would have captured Rickon, only much sooner. My little brother was dead no matter what we did.”

It killed her to say aloud, but it was true. The Boltons would have still stopped at nothing to get control of the North and unlike Theon, would’ve murdered her two little brothers without any remorse.

Sansa shook her head of those thoughts. Sometimes she wanted to remember, but not now. Her happiness these last few weeks had infected the castle; everyone was relieved the Boltons were never coming back, but no one else knew she was happy for another reason besides their victory.

They held each other silently for a time, before their lips dipped down. Sansa had never thought she’d be pining after the lips of Theon, as a child or when Littlefinger first brought her to Winterfell.  She felt sick at the thought of touching him years ago, and now she wanted him to do nothing but.

It was not easy to remember that he’d sacked her home, but before their evenings together where they talked of anything and everything, she had never realised that Theon felt like a hostage here, even if he was treated well. Because he was, more or less, the threat of her father’s sword over his head for his entire boyhood with them all. Though as she had grown older she realised that her father would’ve given up many things for honour and duty, least of all beheading a child for the sins of his father. She was determined to follow the legacy her parents had left for her, but not in that.

“What do you think our family would’ve thought of our union?” she asked him lightly, as they broke apart.

Theon glanced up at Robb’s statue. Unlike before her coronation, her brother’s returning gaze was no longer agonised, the stone only stone, now. “I don’t think he’d be elated that I was kissing his sister in front of him.”

“I agree,” she laughed happily. “Though I can’t say I want to stop.”

The two of them kissed in every empty hall and abandoned room around Winterfell. They had even been caught by a passing guard once, but he gruffly laughed them off and tutted young lovers under his breath.

It was easy to forget that they were young, even if the hard years had aged them both unfairly.

“I think they would be… skeptical,” he said thoughtfully. “Even bewildered.”

She soaked him in for a moment. “And if they wanted to break us apart?”

“I wouldn’t let them,” he answered immediately. “I would ask you to run away with me.”

It was a little silly, and it would never happen now, but the thought made her smile anyway. Perhaps they might be the subject of songs, the highborn Stark daughter in love with her father’s ward, spiriting off together into the night. Even now, their tale would make a rather romantic story for Northern and Southern children alike; falling in love with a man who once proclaimed himself her enemy. Perhaps they would have tales written of them, like Florian and Jonquil, or Prince Duncan Targaryen and Jenny of Oldstones. After all, she would give up the throne to have him.

Even though they had only been lovers for a few weeks, they’d been together for what felt like a lifetime. And it was, if you counted their childhood. He’d been a constant by her side in Winterfell for a year now, and a trusted friend during the wars before that. If she was truthful with herself, she’d always desired him, since he held out his hand and they leapt off one of these walls. If there were to be songs of them, she hoped they sang of redemption and hope and love. Westeros needed more of that.

Theon leaned down to capture her lips again, but she spoke before he could.

“Marry me,” she breathed.

She heard his breath hitch, nose brushing against her cheek. “Sansa…”

“Marry me,” she said again, more insistent. It felt like the world rested on this, her heart thumping against his.

“I won’t be king, I can’t,” he told her softly. “It’s yours. It would be wrong to take what you have earned, what belongs to your family. Not again.”

“You’re my family,” she argued.

He closed his eyes. “I can’t. For my own conscience.”

Racking her brain, she tried to think of ways to convince him, certain that this was what she wanted, desperate when it was so close. She understood his reasons, of course she did, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t work around them.

It was not like she wanted nothing more in the world than to be married, as she had as a girl. That implied that it could’ve been any man, when the opposite was true; there was only one man she trusted to wed, trusted him behind closed doors, trusted him every moment of every day.

And it would silence the proposals she got from eligible lords, in person and in letter. There would be no more Howard Glovers to come into her home and pretend she was theirs.

“You do not have to be king…” she started, feeling her mind race. “I still need my commander. You could be my consort, a marriage without inheriting titles.”

There had been plenty of monarchs who did it successfully, queens in love with their knights and smallfolk and men their fathers forbade, even enemies, men on the other side, like her aunt Lyanna and Prince Rhaegar. They would not end up like them, though, she would make sure of it.

Theon looked like he was thinking, hard, brows pressed together. She felt her heart thump in her ears. “I — would not want to be Lord of Winterfell, either,” he insisted, but his voice was softer, like he was already convinced.

“Then my commander and queensguard you shall remain,” she promised. “That is, if you wanted to wed me…”

There was a sudden light in his eyes, a soft smile on his lips. “More than anything.” The smile grew. “Yes, then. Gods, yes,” he laughed, diving for her mouth.

The sounds of laughter that came out of her were almost not her own, the noises so unfamiliar after years of no joy at all. The kiss was messy, both unable to contain their excitement.

Sansa wondered what her father would think, if he knew she was to marry his ward. He had said, a very long time ago, that he would find her someone gentle, brave, strong. There was a magical irony in the idea that he had, at that point, already found and brought home her future love.

But the arrogant boy she knew had crumbled beneath the realities of life, just as she had done the same a thousand miles away.

Theon began to kiss her in earnest, gentle and loving, entangling one hand in her hair. She easily went along, never tiring of the way he held her.

Unlike in her nightmares, the crypts were comforting; generations of her blood watching over them, a peace and stillness calming her unrivalled by any other place in Westeros. The other Starks around her made an idea form in her mind.

She leaned back from Theon to look into his eyes; now, they were a bright blue, tingling and joyful, the sea in them alive.

“Now I do not have to call you Lord Greyjoy in public,” she teased.

“What would I be, then? Husband?” he said, like the word amazed him.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Or Theon Greyjoy Stark.”

He went silent. Suddenly she felt nervous, but he did not untangle himself from her.

As a girl, she could never quite pin down what Theon was. Her confusion made sense in hindsight; even he did not know what he was. Winterfell had suffered for it. But Jon had told her what he told Theon. He’s a Greyjoy and a Stark. He doesn’t have to choose.

But she always wondered if he wanted to be one more than the other.

“Sansa… is that possible?”

“It should be. If not, well, I am queen. No one will begrudge me using my power selfishly just this once.”

He looked doubtful. “But your people…”

“Will adjust. They respected that you protected Bran when the dead came. Now you’re a hero to them for leading the charge at the Dreadfort.”

The North remembers, she recited. The North remembers, and Theon was one of their own.

“You can still be of the sea,” she told him. “Only your name would change.” That was surely true. His blue eyes would never lose the waves that dashed her heart against the rocks, over and over, every time she looked into them.

“I’ve never… said it aloud.” he struggled. “But… I’ve wished I was a true born Stark since I was a boy. Since I saw how loved Robb and Bran and Rickon were, even Jon, by Arya and father.” He breathed a sad little sigh. “Balon was never my family, not really, not in the way it mattered.”

“Your sister…”

He leaned forward and bumped her nose with his own. “She won’t care. I’ll always be a Greyjoy. If I wanted this… and I do…” he had a dreamy look in his eye. “She’ll accept it. Besides, Yara is a fine Queen of the Iron Islands without me. All my presence does there is flower treasonous whispers.”

Sansa leans forward and kisses him, just a little. The sound is soft, and his hand moves to stroke her neck.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

Sansa leaned back. “About turning you into a Stark? Even if you weren’t to wed me, you’re already a Stark, in all but name. You always were.”

In quiet amazement he gently pulled her to him, pressing his lips against her cheek, her nose, both eyelids, then her forehead; everywhere he could reach.

She sighed unsteadily as he made his way back down to her lips. Gods, what did she know of love, thirteen and preening at a boy with golden hair?

Theon’s kisses were slow, full of feeling. This was love. This was love.

When she was young, there was always talk about Theon’s frequent visits to Wintertown. She had overheard Theon himself bragging to Robb of his earthly delights more than once, but she never comprehended it past the principle.

He always described how he took them before they even had a chance to kiss him, dismissing the meeting of mouths as a weak, feminine want. Love, he had mocked, mouth full, was best left to women.

He broke the kiss and ran his nose over her cheek, breathing in her scent. “I love you, Sansa,” he murmured. She had to stop herself from smirking.

Even now, weeks after their confessions, still a thrill runs through her at the words. She hopes it never dulls.

“I love you,” she tells him back. She will always say it back. Her family might not have been able to — separated by land and time and even death, but here, with him in her arms, she will always be able to say it back.

As she had so long ago, she felt the gaze of the stone statue, like when it was hurt over Theon’s betrayal. But it was not a hurt gaze pinned to the side of her face, now. It was something sweeter, lighter, something that filled her heart and more. Robb is happy for us, she thought.

I want to marry for love, she had said, walking in the crypts. She did not expect it would be Theon at the time, the same man she’d come across seconds after thinking about it.

Darkness had taken over Winterfell, her walk quiet save a few howls and chirps.

They’d lit a few candles. The moonlight did the rest.

In the godswood, lit half in shadow, Theon’s form was dark and intimate ahead of her. She remembered long ago on a chilly winter night she’d knocked on Theon’s door. Like then, he was illuminated in outline by candlelight, an intimacy to the yellow and shadows playing across his body. And, as it had then, it felt like a secret rendezvous the lovers had in their sweet songs, but this time, calling him that did not feel forbidden.

As she neared him, he turned, and a soft, sweet smile graced his face. He'd combed his hair, giving it a healthy shine instead of the dull clumps of a different man.

This meeting at the godswood was for love, not for a kingdom or a title. It was not a spectacle, a sight for public consumption. It was for him and her only, two people vowing before the old gods that they’d protect one another with all their might. Surprisingly, she was not haunted with memories of her previous wedding here, her mind calm and focused, excited as she walked to meet the man at the tree they'd grown up under.

“Who comes before the groom?” Theon began as she reached his side.

“Sansa Stark,” she replied, the night air burning as she inhaled. None of it mattered but for the man in front of her. “Who comes before the bride?”

“Theon Greyjoy Stark.” There was a smile on his face and in his voice at saying the words, and she watched with joy as it spread up to his eyes. “And who gives her away?”

“Sansa Stark,” she said again, and this time, she began to smile with him.

“Do you take this man?”

“I take this man.”

She took his hand and threaded their fingers. It mattered not that one was missing, and she saw the air swirl where his breath stuttered as she gently ran one of her fingers over its stump. 

Kneeling before the weirwood tree, Sansa looked up into the sky, just for a moment. The moon was large before her, and the night air fresh. It was wonderful.

Where Theon knelt beside her he squeezed her hand, and she bowed her head. It was a sign for the old gods, to tell them of their submission. Sansa could kneel here in the peace all night if they wanted. It was not that she particularly believed in the old gods over the seven; in her childhood she'd favoured her mother's gods, and Theon cared not for which traditions they performed. But it was for her family, to have them know their daughter and sister had found love underneath and through the rubble of wars and countless bodies.

Before long they rose, the quiet crunch of the snow beneath their feet the only sound between them. 

The Stark cloak she’d hung over her shoulders did not move. She felt her eyes burn, but the feeling was welcomed. There would be no passing her around tonight.

But this wedding would not be like her previous ones. Robb’s bride had been from Volantis, her good-sister she never got to meet, and both she and Theon were sure they must’ve skipped a Northern ceremony in favour of whichever gods she prayed to, for Robb was nothing but a pushover in matters of the heart. And, as much as she was charigined to admit, she was always a romantic at heart. Theon's one request was that they might speak the vows he would've, if only to honour him in this small way.

They began to speak in unison, soft voices that did not seem to carry from underneath the tree. It kept this moment between them, able to be tucked into her heart and saved there for eternity.

“I am his, and he is mine,” she whispered. The words felt right on her tongue.

“I am hers, and she is mine,” he parroted.

Their voices harmonised until it was a sweet song in her ears.

“From this day, until the end of my days.”

Though she wasn’t cruel. She knew her people had been wanting a feast, a celebration, a wedding, and so she gave it to them. The servants would have their ceremony, half for marriage and half for the implosion of the Boltons, once and for all.

Sansa invited everyone she could get her hands on; everyone from King’s Landing, Gale and Lizzie, even Lord Lewyn and the Prince. And of course, their available siblings, Bran and Yara.

She was finally able to meet the Queen of the Iron Islands. Yara had entered with ten Ironborn in tow and with a confident strut, and went first to embrace her brother. Then she’d turned to awaiting Sansa. So this is the wolf my brother deserted me for. Theon spluttered, but Sansa smiled. Yes, it’s me, she’d agreed back, an easy steel in her voice. Yara looked her up and down, long and studious, a little leery, and smirked. Now I can see why he was so obsessed with the Starks.

Now, Sansa walked down the godswood as she’d done before, but this time the sides were lined with people. They’d said the same words as before and the Stark cloak did not budge. They were not lit by intimate candlelight, but piercing sunlight and snow, and when they kissed, there was a raucous cheer.

The feast was as grand as she promised. After food was had, Sansa went to find her friends and allies in the overwhelming crowd of smallfolk, lords and southerners.

Davos looked older, like the wars aged him unfairly, like they aged everyone. But he greeted her with an almost fatherly smile, the movement twisting the grey hairs on his chin.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Davos?” she greeted him warmly.

“Yes, my lad— your grace,” he stumbled, turning to her. “Forgive me, in my head you’ve always been Jon’s little sister.”

She smiled wistfully. “I understand.”

Davos kept her eye, a knowing sadness in them. “He’ll come back.”

“He will,” she agreed.

After Davos moved on, Brienne and Podrick came to give their congratulations, ever the well-mannered southerners. But unlike the monsters Sansa had seen and lived with, they were true embodiments of southron values. 

“I am glad for you, your grace,” Brienne told her, a genuine smile lighting her eyes.

Sansa had forgotten how much she missed her old sworn shield. She was the first protector before Jon, before Theon, who tried with all her might to get to her, to keep the vow she’d made her mother.

“Thank you, Ser Brienne. It is a great pleasure to see you again.” She looked to Podrick, watching the exchange with his familiar warm eyes. “And you, Ser Podrick.”

“Thank you, m’l—“ he stopped. “Your grace.”

He looked singularly embarrassed, but Sansa only laughed. “Has it really been that long since we’ve seen each other?”

“I think so, your grace,” he said sheepishly, and it was good to see the boy she’d known was still there under his new title and tall stature.

“I have a proposition for the both of you,” she told them. “I know a girl who would love to be trained by two bonafide knights.”

Blushes ran across both their faces, splattering in just the same way.

“Whenever you wish for a break from the heat, or, I hope, want to talk with me again, I’d welcome you in as friends. But perhaps also as temporary masters at arms?”

The two of them shared a look, a conversation with just their eyes.

“I’d be my pleasure, your grace,” Brienne answered, turning back to her.

Pod nodded hurriedly. “Mine too, your grace.”

“The girl I speak of is over there,” she pointed to the dirty blonde cat’s nest. “And she would be ecstatic to meet you.”

Both of them strode off with goodbyes and smiles, and soon enough Sansa spotted Tyrion leaning on the stone wall across the hall. His hair was still the same mass of dirty blonde curls, but the beard he’d grown made him look slightly haggard, even old.

It was not like Tyrion to be on his own at a gathering, slumped in the corner and brooding, but she supposed a lot has changed since he was tipsy and giggling at their wedding. Getting up from her chair, she made her way to him. As she approached he didn’t notice, but his face changed to something a little wistful.

“Gods be good,” Sansa said, coming up to his side. “What has you looking so soft?”

“Nothing you can leverage over me,” he jested back. He took his eyes from the festivities to look at her dryly.

There was a certain seriousness in his eyes, a contrast to his usual unshakable mirth. There was no blame there, but he knew as well as she did that in telling him Jon’s true parentage, she’d spun the wheel of fate, played the game like a true master. The events that followed felt inevitable either way, but there was never a way to know definite. If there was blame to pass around, the two of them held some of it, as did they all.

“Theon Greyjoy?” he commented wryly. “Not my first choice, but he’ll do.”

Sansa huffed a laugh. “And who would’ve been first?”

“A silly southron knight,” he said, half jesting, half serious. “With a head full of sweet songs and a better world.”

In a better world, she thought, none of my family would be dead. But he knew that.

“I’ve lost my taste for silly southron knights,” she said back.

“Sad,” he replied, pouting. “But entirely wise. They’re all gold and no good brains.”

“And we both know your penchant for good brains.”

He gave a little smirk. “When you phrase it like that, it’s almost sounds like staggering narcissism.”

“Almost?” she disputed, and then smiled earnestly. “Thank you being here.”

“Truthfully, your grace, I enjoyed it. It was nice to see you happy, to watch you marry for love,” he admitted. The scar on his face seemed to glint in the candlelight. “I’d hoped it would happen for you and it did.”

Tyrion then cleared his throat, like his feelings disgusted him. “I’m saying these things because I feel like I haven’t had a drink in years. Seven hells, where’s the wine?” 

“Over there,” she pointed at the table of ale barrels.

“At least you northerners know how to hold a feast,” he said appreciatively, pushing himself off the wall.

“It’s not as fine as your southern wine, my lord,” she called after him.

He waved her off, already walking away. “As long as it gives me a pleasant buzz, I’d drink poison.”

Sansa stifled an inappropriate laugh. Try not to choke on it.

There was one person she was dreading and excited to talk to both, and he was sitting in his wheelchair by the fire. He knew she was coming before she made herself known.

“Sansa,” Bran greeted cooly. He did not move his eyes from the fire, and it reflected in his almost black eyes. She noticed with warmth that his hair was longer, falling over his ears, the way it had been before she left Winterfell with father and Arya.

“Bran. It is good to see you, little brother.”

He blinked, and that seemed all the acknowledgement she was going to get.

“How do you think my rule fairs?” she asked. She knew he had knowledge of everything, so there was no point in recounting what the last year had been like for her, but she wanted his opinion.

There was a long silence, but his brow began to crease. “Father would be pleased,” he eventually said. Not Ned Stark, she realised with a jolt, but father.

Somewhere along the way Sansa had begun to believe Bran’s distance, buying into his constant insistence that he was only the three eyed raven, separating him from the pudgy baby in her mind's eye.

But since the long night he’d been less a god and more a boy. That Bran, that one that had called their father father, the one that loved to climb along high walls and was quick to laugh was sitting in front of her.

It only lasted a split second, no more than a passing moment compared to the longevity of time, but it was there.

Sansa decided to play a little game and see if she could draw it out again.

“Have you heard from Jon or Arya?”

He said nothing. The fire crackled.

“Can you see them?”

Again, nothing.

Sansa bit her lip, putting genuine fear into her expression. “Sometimes... I worry I’ll never see either of them again.”

Bran turned his head to look at her, long and hard, almost assessing. Then, again, the flash; a kindness in his eyes.

“They’re alive and well,” he said in montone. But then, a warmth, more than she could have ever hoped for. “The Starks will endure.” We always have. Father’s words. Bran remembered them too; he was not all god. 

Sansa smiled. Suddenly, she had all three siblings back. Just for a fleeting moment, but it was enough.

Across the room, Theon was talking with his sister. She was smacking him on the arm, and when she shook him he rattled like a doll against her strength. Looking away, he met Sansa’s eye, and ended the conversation. With a smile beginning to break on his face, he stepped forward to walk to her, but stopped as he noticed Bran.

Sansa motioned at her brother with her eyes. Come over here. He won’t bite.

Or, she didn’t think he would. They were sons and daughters of wolves, after all.

After a moment of mental back and forth Theon apparently decided it was better to face the wrath of Bran than face Sansa’s, as he resumed his pace toward them.

“Bran,” Theon said in a rush, coming to stand by her side. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he drawled, and paused. “You’ve changed your name.”

There was no point in questioning how he knew that.

“Yes,” Theon said. “I… hope that doesn't bother you.”

Bran blinked, and the warm brown eyes of the brother she knew shone out. “It doesn’t. I’m... happy for you.”

Theon looked to her, as if to ask is it really him?

When she nodded, Theon swallowed and moved closer to Bran. Giving him a tearful little smile, he reached out a tentative hand to touch Bran’s arm. The gesture was outlined by the fire, warm and brotherly and full of everything he struggled to say aloud.

For a moment Bran looked utterly surprised, widening his eyes just a fraction at the touch. No matter what Bran saw, he could not know their dreams, and Theon dreamed of Bran often.

Her brother did not pull away.

When she was introduced a second time to the Prince of Dorne through Lord Lewyn, they did not have much time to talk before the ceremony, and it seemed he was keen to make up for that. He was all dark eyes and dark curls, like his brother, but more defined, sculpted and regal instead of the shoulder-length locks Lewyn had. 

“Sansa Stark, the blood of Winterfell and Queen in the North. Your grace,” he bowed, slowly, an enthusiastic smile that told her everything she needed to know on his face. “It is truly an honour.”

“As it is to see you again, my prince,” she replied, and though his haughty tone would usually annoy her, it was almost endearing, the way he looked so very excited to see her.

“My prince,” Theon greeted politely, and nothing more to him, and Sansa narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “Lord Lewyn.”

“All of the stories pale in comparison to the reality,” the Prince continued, running his eyes over Sansa.

Well versed in catching his brother’s misbehaviour, Lewyn sighed. “Have some respect, brother.”

“I am,” he complained back, almost petulantly, and Sansa could easily see the two men as squabbling boys, like Theon and Jon or herself and Arya. “Since when is telling a monarch they are more wondrous that any of Dorne’s flowers an insult?”

Theon’s face flattened just a touch, nothing at all like the jealous rages men flew into that she’d known, but it was there nonetheless. There was no way he would ever act on it, but the very fact he felt it all forced her to bite back a smile.

Amused at his ridiculousness, she looked at Lewyn, who like her was watching Theon stare at the Prince before catching her knowing eye. The same train of thought ran through both of their heads, and suddenly the dornish lord was turning away to hide a laugh into his hand.

They talked and dined and spoke of Dorne, of Sunspear and Arthur Dayne and Jon Snow, and the North, of Winterfell and the dead and direwolves. It was almost surprising how fast friends they all became, but Sansa gladly relished in the ability to enjoy good company in her home again.

Later in the night, one of the clueless southron men began to chant for the bedding to begin. He was quickly brought up to speed by the men next to him, and Sansa had to stifle a laugh at the incredulous look on his face at however they’d put it.

There was no one mocking her, no one whispering of when he puts a son in her…

It was bliss.

Soon enough, everyone was so down in their cups they could not see straight. Sansa didn’t drink like that, but she was glad everyone else did, for when Theon approached her after he’d had his fill of merriment, she knew they’d have an uncontested chance of escape.

He held his hand out in an exaggerated flurry, dipping his head like a knight of old. Since he had told him she waited to hear of the songs and tales her people would write of them once their betrothal was public, he took every opportunity to reference the very things she had dreamed of having as a girl. It was teasing, she knew, a remnant of his boyhood that had somehow remained, but it was romantic, too, an effort to give her something she deserved. Even if he would never truly believe he deserved to be the one doing it.

Under the moon in their first ceremony, he had whispered in her ear that he was crowning her the queen of love and beauty. Here, he offered his hand like one of her legends. All men were fools, but only he was her knight.

“Shall we go, wife?” he asked, smiling.

“We shall, husband,” she replied playfully, taking his hand.

Like every evening they spent it together, and as darkness fell, they retired to her chambers.

The night they’d been married under the moon, they ended it with falling asleep together, and the next closed as always, with cards and games and talk.

Theon looked nervous every evening, like he was expecting her to ask for something he could not give. Sansa hadn’t wanted to pressure him, and if she was honest about it, a little scared herself, so she said nothing at all of the usual things husbands and wives did on their wedding nights and every night after.

Tonight, she could see he felt differently. Like he’d been working himself up, gathering his courage, the evidence of which was plain in the way he was pacing a little, up and down the length of the bed she languished on. There was nothing to be done but be patient.

He did that for a while, until she sighed and sat up. “I’m going to waste away to bones while you worry over every detail,” she teased.

Giving a choked little laugh, he stopped his torture of the floorboards and faced her. “I know that you’re aware of what I cannot do,” he said, swallowing.

“I am, and I married you anyway because I don’t care,” she assured, reaching out for his hand.

Years ago, she would be ecstatic to be married off to a man like Theon instead of Tyrion or Ramsay, physically unable to hurt her. But now she’d done so because she loved him, not for what he did or didn’t have, and whether or not it could hurt her.

With the man she trusted, she felt herself willing and able to open up, to explore the heat that plagued her since she was young. It climbed up her body, set her cheeks aflame, sparked a wetness she’d never understood, not until now, when there was no fear clawing at her insides as she laid relaxed upon her marriage bed.

“Could we even…?” she asked him, curious.

“Not the… traditional way,” he replied slowly, carefully. Still, even now, after everything he’d seen done to her, she was a lady to him, still better than crude words and crude hands, and she bit back a charmed smile. “But there are many others.”

“Could you show me?” Sansa intended to spend tonight exploring even inch of him, learning what he liked and what he didn’t, how to pleasure him without a man’s handle.

An odd look came across his face, and it took a moment to recognise that it was hunger, both quick and slow, spreading like flames licking across straw.

Abruptly, it struck her that it was a look she had seen before, during their night in the tavern with the whores. But that was not the thing that made her heart flutter. Theon had not been looking at Faye like that before he was escorted away by her, even when she was clawing at his chest. Before he’d left, and then from all the way across the room and upstairs, he had been looking at her.

Oh, what fools they had been, to touch and hold and kiss and then deny they were touching at all. Night after night for moons they slept beside one another, and the knowledge that if she’d just reached out, he would’ve welcomed her sent a wistful laugh through her. But he wasn’t ready then, not for living and not for thinking he deserved to be loved. Now he was.

All of a sudden, she wanted to see that face closer.

“Yes, I could,” he answered, voice low and halting, consumed by fire.

Wordlessly, she began to pull at the laces around her hands, keeping his dark gaze, but another night came to her then, with hungry hands and cold air.

In her heart she knew it wasn’t him in front of her, she knew that, but her mind told her Ramsay was waiting for her to turn around, waiting to rip the back of her dress open.

“Sansa,” Theon called as her fingers stilled.

Beginning to get ferocious, angry, desperate to banish him from her, she ripped at her sleeves. Not this, she seethed, you will not ruin this.

“Sansa,” a voice said, louder, and it was Theon again, now gripping her trembling hand. “Stop. We don’t have to do this. We never have to do anything at all. I would never make you.”

It was easy for her to forget he’d been there too, that night, forced to watch and weep. Her own pain clouded that memory. He did not watch every night after, though; that pain was hers alone.

“I know,” she said. Her voice was throaty. “But I want you.”

Where he held hers, his hand startled a little. It shouldn't be a surprise; she’s told him she loves and wants him a hundred times, but to Theon it always was. This was her chance to show him she trusted him with this, the most sensitive of her wounds, trusted him with the trauma that she carried around, the heaviest weight of them all.

He gave a little choked huff. “If you wanted it, I’d hold you clothed for the rest of our lives.”

“And I you,” she replied quickly, remembering the scars on his back, how hastily he’d moved to cover them. “But I want to feel you against me.”

She’d only dreamed of being able to wrap all of herself around him, to feel his skin against hers. It was different than every other night they slept together, but only because she was allowed to do this now, to pull at the laces of her bodice and wish his hands on her.

Resuming movement, she released the clasps on her sleeves, and he watched again with a softer kind of hunger, breaths getting shorter and shorter.

After a moment, he came to the edge of the bed, and in another time, he’d be towering over her, frightening and imposing, but there was only a vulnerability in Theon’s stature.

“Touch me,” she told him huskily, reaching out and gripping his palms, moving them onto her.

They pulled the other’s shirts apart at the same time, releasing the cream skin of their shoulders and downwards. Her dress rolled at her waist but she threw Theon’s undershirt to the ground. Slowly, he joined her on the bed, disposing of all his clothes. Hers followed, and soon enough they were sitting bare as the day they were born, taking each other in.

Though she’d felt his chest beneath her palm many times before now, it was different to be allowed to see it, rather than taking glimpses and flashes where she could salvage them. He was scarred, as she’d already seen, long and short and wide and thin strips and cuts and wounds. If he were a different man, they would all be battle scars, and he’d come into her chamber and smirk and command her to kiss his sword. But he did none of those things. He only gaped, face slack and mouth open and eyes running over her, like she was doing to him.

When he looked back up, he caught her eye and swallowed. But he must trust her, knowing that she would never make fun of him, at least not for what Ramsay had done to him, for he eagerly leaned into her kiss.

Though she wanted to lay down with him, she’d forgotten her hair, the intricate styling digging into her scalp. Reaching one hand up, she pulled a pin out of her nest but Theon’s voice stilled it.

“Wait,” he murmured, breaking the kiss. “Let me.”

Easily she surrendered, and moved her hands to her sides. Slowly he brought his hand up and began to release the pins that held her braids together, collecting them in his palm.

Once he was done, he set them aside on the table by their bed. Now Sansa’s scarlet hair was loose, free of clips or braids, free of the influences she’s had over the years. It was long and free, like the North, like her.

Theon ran both of his hands through it. He gave a soft little moan, like it was the greatest pleasure in Westeros.

“I love you,” he said, a hushed breath of a sound. “I want to please you.”

Unlike any of the dirty little things men and monsters alike said in her ear, this one made her toes curl. As Reek, she’d heard him tell Ramsay that, calling him master at the end, quiet and trembling and terrified. But now the words were his own, real and soft and devoted. It was Theon’s voice that spoke them.

“Lie back,” he continued, and he held her all the way down, until she was horizontal on the bed. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop. Sansa?”

“Alright,” she answered.

Pecking his way down, from her neck to her shoulders to her breasts, she let the wave take over, her hands smoothing over his body as he slid. She was finally able to grip those sandy curls, soft and pliant to her ministrations.

There was a minuscule root of fear in her chest, staring at the canopy, a sight she’d become accustomed to long ago. But it never bloomed. It was Theon’s hands on her. She repeated that to herself over and over, until the words blurred and his name was all she knew.

You make me burn, she thought. Make me burn. Theon. Theon.

Then, again and again, she swelled underneath him, tongue and fingers eager, and later, he guided her hand to please him.

Moons after, they were intertwined in their bed. When Theon exhaled, his breath stirred the hair against her ear as she laid over him. Every night she got to fall asleep with him in her arms, and every night was bliss.

Sansa was drawing nonsense symbols and letters across his back, the mound of old scars that had just near scared her the first time she entered his room. It had been hard, at first, for him to undress in front of her. When they’d slept together so many moons ago, it was always clothed, the tension between them mounting whenever skin had brushed skin.

It had been a struggle to strip down every night, some days worse than others, where the memories would clog their minds. As he had on their second wedding night, he always insisted he’d hold her clothed for the rest of her life, if she wanted. She replied the same, remembering the way he’d trembled when she accidentally glimpsed the mess of lashings on his back.

Feeling her skin against the back of his body now, there was no alternative to her; the loneliness always ebbed away until it was no more. She no longer believed it was Ramsay in her bed.

Theon never asked her about children. He was well aware of her formerly recurring nightmare, the one where the seed of an enemy house tore her up inside. She loved him, she did, for never mounting pressure on her, kissing her without a son in her belly, as her captors would not. Theon always held her like she was all he needed.

They had been married for many moons before she even begun to broach the subject in her mind. Staring at the candle on her nightstand and feeling his back beneath her fingertips, she remembered thinking about having a son named Robb, with his Tully blue eyes. Oh, how I want to be surrounded by love.

A jolt ran through her. That did not require birthing children herself, even if Theon were able. There were plenty of orphaned babes across the North, whether their parents were taken by the Boltons, Starks or White Walkers, it did not matter — she could build a family out of any and all of them.

And best of all, they would be Starks. Theon was right, that day after her fever broke. They could never be monsters. Not the screeching ghouls of Joffrey’s seed, nor the cruel-eyed gremlins of Ramsay’s.

Sansa ran a hand down his back. It didn’t hurt him anymore, though the mass of scars and raised skin looked perpetually sore. Looking at them, she leaned down and laid a soft kiss on it. The movement reminded her of kissing Joffrey’s sword Hearteater before the battle of Blackwater, although there was no sneering you’ll kiss it again when I return following it.

She heard Theon sigh in response and felt the rumble in his chest.

"I want children,” she murmured into the air. 

Theon starts under her hand. He quickly turns over, eyes searching her.

"You asked me if I wanted them, long ago. I know my answer."

His lips started to tremble. "I thought you would."

"Wait..." she stopped. "Do you think I mean with some other man?"

"Don't you?"

"Gods be good, no! I want them with you."

His brow furrowed. "But — I’m not a r—“

“If you are going to say a real man, I will scream. I’ve had my fill of real men. They are never what they seem.”

Green eyes, blue eyes. A pleased smirk. A stinging cheek. Cold air on her back, dress ripped. How long do I have to look? Wet lips at her cheek, snow melting on her nose. How many heads on a pike had she seen?

Would the Bolton men have made her look at Theon’s too?

She felt his hands reach up and rub along her arms; he did that when she got lost in the memories.

As always, she reminded herself that they were rotting and she was here.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” he told her softly. “I know who I am, and what I am not. But without a… I can’t give you children, though I desperately wish I were able to,” his voice shook a little. “You have wanted them all your life, Sansa. I want you to be happy, to have everything you want.”

He was a very long way away from the man who’d staggered down the steps of that tavern, telling her he couldn’t, believing he was not a man and even less a person.

I am happy with you, she wanted to reply, but he knew her better than she knew herself. Winterfell felt cold without chirpy laughter echoing in its walls, and Theon knew how lonely she had been for so many years.

She reached her hands up and intertwined them with his. “I love you,” she said. “In some ways, you’re still the boy who fell off his first ride with a horse because you didn’t attach the saddle properly.”

He scrunched his nose up. “That’s not what happened.”

“Yes it was,” she chuckled. “Robb told all of us in a fit of laughter and you tried to deny it into oblivion.”

Theon almost pouted. She leaned forward to kiss him quickly.

“What I’m trying to say is that you’re forgetful, husband.”

“Oh?” He pecked her back. “How’s that?”

“When you asked me long ago of children, I told you that people take in orphans all the time. There are hundreds of orphaned children across the kingdom right now. They could use food, a bed, someone to love them… why don't we give some of them a good life?"

She knew men did not like raising a babe that was not theirs, except when they brought their bastards home to raise — then their wives were expected to care for them. For all of her childhood, Jon had been a cruel reminder to her mother that honourable Ned Stark had not been faithful in marriage.

She wondered what her mother might say if she knew the truth before she died. Sansa hoped she might’ve learnt to look past the labels, to love Jon, as she did.

“Aye, Sansa, that’s a lovely idea,” Theon agreed.

Relieved, she released a breath. This was Theon, not some strange man. He always understood.

“But we’d be raising bastards,” he continued sadly. “The family name— someone to look after Winterfell when we’re gone—“ 

"I'm queen.” She’d already considered this. “I can legitimize any Snows in the North. I'll make them trueborn Starks."

One night after they had taken back Winterfell and he was king, she and Jon had been seated at dinner. In the smallest voice she had ever heard him speak, he told her, all my life, I’ve wanted to be Jon Stark. He sounded so heart-achingly sad, so mistreated and lonely. All he’d ever known was being called baseborn, sinful and beastly by every highborn in the North, and then they placed a crown on his head.

Though she loved her father, no man is perfect, and he failed Jon in that.

None of her children would ever feel like her brother did, she would make sure of it.

A slow, sleepy smile broke out on Theon’s face. "And I'll draw a sword on anyone who questions it."

They giggled like a pair of children. She leant up on her arm to gaze at him, still chuckling.

“I want many,” she told him. “Is that agreeable?”

She watched as he made a startlingly familiar face, the one she’d been making everyday since she left Winterfell at thirteen.

That look was lonely, yearning for belonging and people to love, people who loved her. For Theon had seen these walls cold and lonely as well, a prison of his own making and then later at the making of another. It felt wonderful to know someone else felt that way too.

“I would like that,” he whispered, voice soft, full of hope. She wondered if he pictured Robb’s shiny brown curls like she did.

“That’s settled, then,” she smiled, broad and happy, reaching out to touch his eager look with her fingertips. The future was warm and full of love. “We shall be surrounded by Starks once again.”

Chapter Text

She wakes as she has often done for the past decade and more: to a warm pat on the face. A soft giggle pierces the early morning air, as high as the whistling wind, and it warms Sansa’s heart. 

“Momma...” a voice whispers. The small puff on air on her face tells her that her youngest child is inches away, practically pressed up nose to nose where she is standing beside her bed.

“Yes, sweetling?” she mumbled. She cannot bring herself to open her eyes. Sleep is only a short moment away.

“I’m cold. Can I join you?”

Sansa sighs affectionately, lifting up her furs. It does not pass her by that her daughter uses the same excuse as she did to Theon so very long ago. 

With a little noise of glee, she jumps in, burying herself under the covers, wiggling this way and that in an effort to get comfortable. 

As soon as Sansa felt herself drifting off, a small palm tapped her cheek.

Stifling a good-natured groan, she says, “Cat. If you wanted to come into bed with me, its under one condition — we sleep.”

Silence. Then, the pat came again, more forceful this time. She opened her eyes.

“Are you hurt?” Checking her daughter over, she could not find any glaring problems. Her hair still stuck out like a bird’s nest, but that was usual for Cat. Her wide blue eyes were looking straight into her, and though it was never frightening, it was also uncanny how her youngest daughter had the ability to see into her soul with nary a word. 

Sansa was sure that if she tried, Cat could transfer all of her memories into her own mind, and be able to repeat them word for word like the unsettling power Bran had. 

“No,” her soft voice chimed. “Father is coming back today, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.”

Cat’s little brow creased, making her usual dainty, bird-like features squeezed. “Are you sure, Momma? He’s been gone for ages.” 

“Yes, dear.”

“ Double sure? ”

Sansa sighed. “I promise, Cat. He will be back by tonight. He sent the raven a moon ago, and I... am never... wrong.” She kissed her nose in between words.

Cat giggled, warm hands patting Sansa’s arms. “Alright, Momma. We sleep now.”

Sansa happily buried into her daughter.

Later, when Sansa was dressed and awake, she had more anxiety about Theon’s return than she did this morning with Cat. 

The armies of the other kingdoms would have dispersed long ago, back to their homes, by the time Theon’s northmen had reached the Neck. They were always the last army to report back, just by virtue of usually being the furthest away from base. 

It was the waiting that killed Sansa, sitting, thinking, worrying, just like she had done trapped in King’s Landing, dreaming of Robb and mother sacking the keep to save her. It never fails to bother when she cannot know exactly what is going on, leaving her imagination to do the rest. Theon with a sword in his gut, imprinted this time in the sand instead of snow.

It had never been her intention to let Theon go alone — but like the Boltons, there were matters she had to put before her own suffering, responsibility for herself and her kingdom as queen. She remembered the huge row over who would go to Dorne to lead the Northern reinforcements, the atmosphere tense and miserable in Winterfell for an entire week over it. Theon had argued his case, telling her he felt it his duty as her commander to fight every war she had personally. It was his duty, he’d said, to Robb and father and all of them, the family he had wronged. 

Though truly the deciding factor had been their children. Both she and Theon were terrified of leaving them alone, convinced history would repeat itself if both adults of Winterfell left them as open targets. 

Begrudgingly, she agreed to stay, and sent him off with her silver wolf pin over his heart, the one that looked as shiny as the day he’d been given it. He loved to polish it himself. Wear it and think of me , Theon, she’d told him, brushing a hand over it. There was an awful kind of goodbye in his eyes, one she had seen too many times in her life, and his words came out strangled, strained. I always have.

He would come back to her. He had to. There was nothing else to be done of it, and no other way. 

Sansa had been thinking of Ashara Dayne of late, the sister to the man her father had killed, the rumoured mother of Jon Snow, until Lord Stark stopped those rumours faster than a skilled bowman could pierce through an enemy's heart. 

Sansa had always felt sorry for Ashara, who threw herself from one of the towers of Starfall into the glittering blue sea. The legend had puzzled all of Westeros, and still did, highborn and common folk alike uniting in talks of what could have caused a lady like that to fling herself to her death. But the Sansa that she was now, older and wisened by grief and pain, understood. It may have been for her brother, or for her stillborn daughter, or her rape at Harrenhall. Maybe she had been in love with her father, as rumours suggested, and the pain at her beloved murdering her brother was too much to bear. It may have been for all of those reasons, or none at all. 

When she was trapped in King’s Landing, Sansa thought of Ashara often, contemplating that she might do the same. Relieve herself before the worst came, before Joffrey was allowed to snake his hands over her body, before Tyrion had enough and took her anyway. She thought of flinging herself into the sea, too, the endless waves that she stared into with Shae and Margaery and any manner of lord who wanted to bother her. 

It had been a long while since she thought of Ashara, a long, peaceful time, where all thoughts of abandoning the life her parents had given her were far away. 

But Sansa had been thinking of her now, knowing that Theon may not be coming home to her and their children. She would never leave them to fend for themselves, like her parents had forced her to do. But somewhere, in her heart of hearts, if Theon did not return, she would understand the kind of overwhelming grief Ashara might’ve felt before she fell. When she received the news, her Northmen returning defeated and no silver pin in sight, would she feel the drop in her stomach, the way Ashara might’ve with the wind whipping in her hair on the way down?

But there was hope yet, she reminded herself. His raven had only been sent a moon ago. Unless they were raided on the way back across Westeros, he would return unscathed.

There was a knock at her chamber door, and Sansa swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Come in.”

Many of the servants in Winterfell were old; though not as old to have set their eyes on Ned and Catelyn Stark, Lord and Lady of Winterfell. Ramsay had butchered the lot of them when he took over the castle. But the ones who served her now had lived to see Sansa coronated, then her children grow from babes. The loyalty did not go unnoticed by her. 

“A raven for you, your grace. From Tyrion Lannister.”

She saved rolling her eyes until the servant left. Whatever this letter was, she was sure it would contain many of Tyrion’s witticisms. Now that she was old and sharp enough to trade barbs with him, he thought it was funny to send her ravens personally informing her of whatever petty politics happened in the South. 

Truth be told, she rather enjoyed them, getting occasional incredulous laughs over some of it. Though, the older he got, the more vulnerable his letters became. Sansa knew it was because he felt like he was at the end of his life, when that wasn’t really true. She still remembered laughing herself silly as she tried to read one of his letters aloud to Theon. It had just been talk of politics, of course, as Tyrion's ravens always were; but there was an odd scratchings on the other side. 

Hair has officially turned grey. I don’t know what to do without my golden hair, it’s ruined my whole look. I’m starting to get insecure about my appearance. Please send assistance immediately. The North’s army would be nice, and make sure the Greyjoy boy is commanding them. I'm rather lonely here in the capital with no one to make jokes about, and Bran is no fun to tease. 

Theon had tickled her when she chuckled at the thought of Tyrion trying to follow him around and forcibly make him listen to his jokes. Even though it had been more than a decade since Theon Greyjoy became Theon Greyjoy Stark, Tyrion never gave up the nickname. 

Writing back, she’d had to rewrite multiple times from all the suppressed laughter. In some ways, she missed King’s Landing — not the buildings nor the memories, but because Bran, Tyrion, Brienne and Podrick were there. Though the latter pair visited Winterfell when they could — getting roped most every time into training her children with Oathkeeper, much to all of their squealing delights. 

Now, the letter she held in hand was thicker than usual. Her chest clenched. That was never a good sign — another war, a death, something to make her sink and scramble for air.

Quickly, she ripped the seal and unfolded the paper. It was three pages thick, but her chest unwound when she read the first line.

Queen Sansa,

I have included Catelyn and Rickard’s legitimacy papers. Sorry Dorne’s pesky war delayed the matter. King Bran wishes you and the new additions well. If they ever travel into the kingdom I write this in, they’ll still be Starks. Though for your sake, I hope none of them ever yearn to leave like you did.

She breathed a long, relieved sigh. Legitimising her children in the North was easy, but Bran and Tyrion had to fight the southron lords every time she asked. It's not that she needed the South’s permission to bring a child into her family — they were, when given over, her family in all but official title — but she and Theon thought it best to double seal the protection the Stark name offered. They might visit their uncle Bran, or Brienne, Podrick, even Tyrion. Robb especially liked hearing of the dwarf who had been kind to her, and she knew he held out hope of meeting him one day. Whenever any of them inevitably left her to explore, she had made sure by all the gods they were protected. It had taken a while, as she was a slow learner, but she learned. 

Setting the papers aside to show Theon later, she felt herself smile. She’d purposefully worked harder than usual this past week to rush through court hours, which was typically a daily activity, in order to clear her schedule. She could spend the day with her children, watching them play, even joining in when they begged her. It brought endless joy to Sansa’s heart to watch them shout names of heroes and legends, as Robb and Jon and Theon had done. To watch them be happy and young. Sansa envied children in the past, for their innocence and ignorance and tittering laughter. But she did not feel that black shadow for her own, joining in whenever they wanted her. Joy had been in short supply for many years of her own life, but it was not in theirs. All of them had been awaiting her husband’s return, their victory in Dorne already won, and the past week had seen them more high spirited than usual. 

The courtyard was mild, the distinct cold of her childhood all but gone. Sansa walked along the beaten path to the training yard. Many other children of Winterfell used it to play beside hers, her favourite of them being Lizzie, the innkeeper’s daughter she’d met as a newly-crowned Queen. Now the daughter of the Lady of the Dreadfort, she was well suited to a life as a knight — and she had never stopped wanting to be one, like Ser Arthur Dayne, Brienne or Jorah Mormont. Currently, she was back with her mother, but she’d be in Winterfell again soon enough. She loved training with Brienne and Podrick when they visited, and Sansa’s children when they didn’t. 

People stopped to greet her — they usually did — and she hurried through the pleasantries as fast as she could. Steam from the forge rose into the air and up into the sky. She spotted Ser Phillip, the guard who had knocked some sense into her so long ago, now her master at arms. As she always did, she waved. A smile on his face, he waved back, and returned to ordering the smith around. As she got close to the training ground, she began to hear furious thwacking, the occasional yelp. 

“I don’t want to play anymore,” a voice whined. “You always win.”

“Please, Ned! I’ll owe you a favour.” 

A gap of silence. “Fine. But you owe me a big favour.”

There was a loud huff, and Sansa smiled. That was Robb indeed. “Yes, yes. Pick up the sword again.”

“I think Ned will win this time!” Cat shouted. 

Sansa turned the corner just in time to see Ned ruffle his sister’s hair. “Thank you, Cat,” he said affectionately, smiling down indulgently at her. 

All of her children were here: Cat and Rickard sat together in the middle, eagerly watching their elder brothers; Alannys and Lyanna were in the corner exchanging Winterfell’s newest gossip; and Robb was standing in the middle of the yard, waiting for a bending Ned to get his sword from the mud.

They may all be different in personality, but they enjoyed spending time together, which she counted as a victory over the bickering she’d done with her siblings in their youth. 

Years ago, little Sansa would’ve sneered at sitting on a dirty barrel. Today, she plopped down on it happily. Robb turned to look at her, and his black curls bounced, reminding her of Jon.

“Are you going to watch us, mother?” he asked, voice hopeful. 

“Yes, darling.”

Robb’s chest puffed up a little. Sansa had to bite her lip to keep herself from laughing. It was sweet, really, the way he tried to look strong and responsible in front of her; so much like his namesake, even if he didn’t know it. As boys, Robb, Theon and Jon would train incessantly, and Robb had always pleaded with her to sit and watch. Look at how good I’m getting. Don’t you think I’m good, Sansa? Better than Jon?  To which Jon had looked more sullen than usual.

Rickard, still only little, came to sit by her. She lifted him onto her lap and leaned her head on his shoulder lightly, burying her nose in his brown hair, watching Robb and Ned sword fight with wooden blades. Both of them were trying very hard, brows knitted in concentration, and they fought surprisingly well. Ned was nothing if not digilent, and Robb had a natural talent for it.

Ned takes the offensive, feigning an overhead stab, and when Robb falls for it he instead ducks low and wacks his thigh. Robb cries out, but it is in frustration, not pain. 

He gives a little breathless laugh and smiles at his brother, a sweet, lopsided thing and bounces on the balls of his feet. “Again!”

“You’re enjoying beating me far too much,” Ned remarked, on the border of a whine. “You let me think I’m going to win and then you kick my feet out from under me.” 

Robb only laughed. “Again, little brother!”

For a moment, Ned’s grey eyes flash, and he leaps forward, brown hair sticking to his face. Then, he takes two steps back and drops his guard. 

Perplexed, Robb twirls the wooden sword in his hand and follows him, before Ned raises his sword as he charges.

The sword hits Robb’s chest with an audible oompf , and Sansa stops herself from launching at her eldest son. “Robb?” she calls, quick and biting.

“I’m alright, mother,” he wheezed, and laughs again, gripping the fake blade of Ned’s sword. “That was very clever, Ned. To make me believe you were giving up, only to have a plan all along? Not at all like you.”

“It is like me,” he argued. “You just don’t know I have a plan. That’s the whole point.”

In her childhood, her father had never been like that, instead rather tactless and bound to honesty, though she loved him for being perhaps the only lord who held those values close to his heart. Little Ned had learned from Sansa, from sitting in on tactical meetings and audiences. Out of all his siblings, he was the one who most enjoyed watching her rule.

Looking like he might protest, Robb sighed and released his brother’s blade, skidding around with bouncing enthusiasm to go back to his beginning position.

Both stood still for a moment, blades poised to spar again, eyes only for each other. The grey in both of them shone out at her. A message from her family. We are still with you, in them.

Grey, naturally, was not an eye colour born exclusively of Starks. There were grey-eyed babes everywhere, but in hers she saw Father, Jon and Arya staring back at her, like she always wanted. As Theon promised, as she was half taken by that deadly fever, her children were kind. They were wolves.

At the time, there was no question of what they would name their first. The Little Lord of Winterfell, the rest of Westeros called him, but to her and Theon he was always Robb. When he got to three, he began to complain of being lonely, and his parents agreed. Little Robb asked for a sister — and so came Lyanna. For her aunt — and Jon, wherever he was — but also for Arya, two similar women who were lost to Sansa. For little Mormont, too. She hoped that Lyanna would take after her namesake and her wild sister, but she was more like herself as a girl, a lover of knights and honour. Alannys came next, after Theon’s late mother, a babe that shrieked nonstop until she was old enough to run about with her siblings. The man who had handed the infant over had a cruel smirk and cold hands, so she was especially glad to take Alannys into her own care.

Her fourth child was Eddard, much older than a babe when they took him in. When first he came to Winterfell, he had wanted nothing to do with Theon and herself, instead resigning himself to watching his siblings play in dark corners. When asked, the volunteer at the orphanage had said he saw his mother flayed by Bolton men and it had always stuck with him, dampening what would’ve been a bright little boy. But throughout the years, he had grown into his family, now joining in on the fun and games with only a little prompting.

Sansa had never called Ned his name as a girl; he was always father to her, so the word did not feel so haunted on her lips. She was worried that Theon would have that problem instead, but he insisted she keep it, because it reminded him of who he had been and who he was trying to be. If he occasionally saw too much of Ned Stark in his son’s eyes — enough to bother him with guilt — he would tell her and she would comfort him. But they kept that pain from their son, as they did with all their children. 

They were determined to keep them safe, happy and oblivious until they were old enough to learn what happened to the rest of their family. For now, they would receive the long childhood neither of their parents got. 

Rickard and Catelyn were her newest additions, twins - the mother died birthing them, according to the southern man who wrote to her. He had heard that she and Theon adopted parentless children. Sansa had asked if he wanted to keep them, as she couldn’t bear the idea of taking children from someone — hers had all been orphaned. But he furiously denied it, saying he was sailing to Braavos to start anew. Clearly the memory of his wife meant more to him than his children by blood, because he made good on his word shortly after they welcomed the twins into Winterfell. 

Rickard was effortless — he slept through the night since infancy and barely complained about much of anything, but he loved to draw. Sansa had a whole chest of drawers dedicated to the pictures he’d done for her and Theon, messy under his youthful pen as they were.

Cat, unlike Lyanna and Alannys, was shaping up to be far more like Arya than Sansa bargained for. A sweet terror, Theon called her. She never respected her lady mother more for raising Arya than when she found herself frantically chasing Cat around the halls, brush in hand. The irony of her namesake was not lost on her, much to her embarrassment and Theon’s teasing. 

However, as much as Sansa admonished little Cat, feeling her small body pressed up against her own while she snored made all of that chasing worth it. It did not happen every night, but often enough she started to get used to it. The bed especially felt cold these past few moons without Theon beside her, and Cat was a balm to the ache of his absence. 

Rickard leaned back in her embrace and tucked his head under her chin. Sansa tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it, smacking a wet kiss into her son’s hair. Ever her soft boy, he did not complain or whine, only laying limp and relaxed in her arms.

Robb gave a roar and swung for Ned’s shoulder.

“Don’t rip his cloak!” she cried. Too late. The material split just a little as one of the splintered ends caught on it. Sansa sighed. “... I spent days on those.”

She had made a winter cloak for each of her children. The Stark sigil adorned the shoulders and hem, each stitch by her hand. They loved them so much she had trouble getting them off when it was too hot, which was more often than not nowadays. 

Especially Robb and Lyanna, the two eldest — who, like Sansa and Robb a lifetime ago, felt their House’s history more than their siblings. They protested with a singular volume and consistency if she tried to move the cloak from their shoulders. 

Sansa did try to tell them she would not pressure them to grow up too fast, but like all children, telling them not to do something often made the opposite ever more appealing. 

“Sorry, mother!” Robb heaved, out of breath.

“Not to worry. I’ll repair it. There is little to do, anyway, at least until your father comes home.”

“Will that be soon?” Lyanna piped up from across the yard, daintily perched upon a barrel. Sansa noticed that it was cleaner than the others; Robb or Ned had most likely wiped off the mud for her when they arrived, ever her gallant heroes.

“Yes, my girl,” Sansa answered. “What were the two of you discussing?”

Quickly, like she was ashamed of their topic of conversation, Lyanna turned to Alannys and gave her a stern look. Which her sister completely ignored.

“We were wondering when next Ser Brienne and Ser Podrick might be visiting,” Alannys said, almost pointedly, a small smirk on her face.

Lyanna scrunched her lips up, and Sansa studied the two of them for a moment. “Not for a while. Dorne’s war is only just ended, and the South will need time to repair and rest from the disarray.”

If she wasn’t imagining it, Lyanna seemed to slouch a little at this. 

“What a shame,” Alannys answered exaggeratedly, looking only to her sister.

“Yes, a shame,” Lyanna repeated, voice high and green eyes bright. Her hair was black, like Robb’s, but she took far more attention to it; there had been a fight over it this morning, but Sansa had done it up in a southron style as her daughter wanted. “You must write to them, mother, and invite them to Winterfell again.”

“I might,” she answered, catching on with a jolt of both shock and amusement. Ser Podrick was known widely around Westeros now, for his famous devoted service as Brienne’s squire, and then for many faithful years in Bran’s Kingsguard. If there was any knight Lyanna might take a girlhood liking to, it was better him than other knights, for Sansa knew Pod was true, and that he would never take advantage of a little girl’s admiration for him. As Cersei and Joffrey and countless others had in Sansa’s youth.

Clearing her throat, Lyanna sat straighter, ever trying to perfect her manners and courtesies. “This time, Robb, you must be Rhaegar Targaryen, and Ned must be Robert Baratheon,” Lyanna said to her brothers, who had finished up another match. 

“At the Battle of the Trident?” Robb asked, suddenly overcome with excitement, while at the same time Ned protested, “I want to be Rhaegar!” 

“It is already decided,” Lyanna said, matter of fact, like it was written in stone. Sansa hid a laugh in Rickard’s hair. When she was older, she could command armies with that voice.

“And will you be our great aunt, then, your own namesake, Lyanna?” Robb asked.

She shifted on her barrell, considering the mud that covered her brother’s cloaks and boots with a distasted sniff. “I had not thought to join.”

“You must,” Robb insisted. “Then I may spirit you away.”

Sansa watched patiently, indulgently, feeling a little pang in her heart for the story her children recited easily, as if it were not a central pain in their lives. Jon’s heritage was now well known, and the story and songs of Robert’s Rebellion were much changed from the time she was a girl. Her aunt’s statue still stood in the crypts, and her children had seen it as often as they had seen the ones of her immediate family. They knew, but suffered nothing at all for it. As Sansa had promised of all the North’s children. 

Lyanna’s green eyes lit up at the thought of being fought over, and clever Robb for knowing just how to entice his sister. “Alright, then.” She rose from next to Alannys. “Where would you have me stand, my prince?”

Sansa watched as Robb instructed her, pointing and gesturing emphatically as to her role in this reenactment. Across the yard, Alannys met her gaze and gave an eye roll at her eldest siblings’ antics. Sansa was about to laugh, or chastise her — she couldn’t decide — but she didn’t get the chance.

A loud horn blew above them. Sansa jerked and clutched Rickard to her. Even after all this time, she still associated that sound with death — King Robert arriving to carve up her family, Ramsay fighting Stannis, the dead approaching. But this time, it meant Theon was home. 

Rickard jumped from her arms and began following Cat, who was already racing away. Everyone else stopped what they were doing and joined her, the seven of them rushing to the courtyard.

It took only a moment to spot Theon among her returning northmen, on the back of a horse, courtesy Bran’s adjusted saddle design. Adorned in his wolf armour, head high and face keen, he rode through the gates, into the courtyard, stopping his horse’s stride as men piled in around him.

“The hero of Winterfell returns!” came a gruff shout, somewhere among the lined servants. The waiting crowd, smallfolk and the castle’s inhabitants, began to join in, filling the courtyard with whoops, jeers and claps. Ducking his head, Theon tried to hide a small smile, but the joy in his eyes betrayed him.

For a wonderful moment, Sansa realised his childhood dreams had come true, the ones where he fought with honour and was beloved by his people. The ones where he got a maiden’s kiss, the ones Robb and Jon used to tease him for. And all of a sudden, she finds she cannot stop smiling. A problem she used to have as a girl, but has come back in recent years.

Watching Theon ride in, the Stark banner perfectly framed beside him, she believed the gallant knights in her childhood songs paled in comparison to the man she loved. None of the southron bards could write a worthy song about him even if she bashed their heads together; they never cared to know Theon deeper, to see the gentleness, the worthiness that radiated from him. 

It was always about valour and honour in the South, right up until it wasn’t. She didn’t know how Bran could stand it there. But here, back in the North where he belonged, he shone. Brighter than any oft sung, golden-haired hero.

Sansa swallowed a gasp. It was him, in her dreams, the knight who rode with the wolf behind him. All these years, and it had always been him. 

Noticing his family waiting for him, Theon studied them all intently, eyes running wild over each of their forms. He had a wondrous look on his face, like he couldn’t believe they were real. Like they were still here.

Their children got to him first, crowding around him like he’d won a tourney. With a big grin breaking out on his face, he hurriedly began to release the latches on his saddle. Moving forward, Sansa worried for the poor man who kindly came to help Theon, the children cheering and scrabbling around them both like cats. 

“Children! Give your father some space!” 

Above her, Theon guffawed. “You can’t chide them, Sansa, not when you’re practically on top of me yourself!”

She couldn’t help but laugh as well. He was right, her feet hovering just behind their children’s. 

“Well hurry up and I won’t have to bother, will I?” she teased him, but her heart was in her throat. It gave a pitter-patter , like the sound of her children’s footsteps, as she drank in the sight of him smiling down at her. It had been too long without him.

Little Robb and Alannys began to bicker.

“I’m hugging him first because I’m the eldest!” he cried, stomping his feet.

“Well I’m a girl!” she fired back, completely unimpressed with her brother’s display.

Beside them, Lyanna rolled her eyes. “So am I, what’s the difference? Robb should be first, you know that.”

Alannys turned to frown at her sister. “Why?”

“Because he’s a boy, the future Lord of Winterfell and King in the North, and boys come first.”

“That’s not true,” Sansa jumped in quickly. “Girls are just as important as boys.”

“Yay!” Cat cheered. 

Rickard, ever her shadow, copied her. “Yay!”

“You’re all as important as one another, and we love you all the same, gender aside.”

Sansa had effectively ended the argument, as the three of them now looked equally annoyed. As a queen knew well, that was the sign of a good compromise. 

Eddard stayed silent to the rest of his siblings’ squabbling, grey eyes trained on his father.

Still grinning, Theon released the last latch. The children again began to yell over each other as he was helped down by the servant, arguing like cats and dogs over the love of their father, but Sansa knew it was only because they’d all missed him so.

Before Sansa could even get a chance, they all ran him over at once, clutching at his chest and back, squabbles at who was first forgotten. The sight of them curled up against Theon brought tears to her eyes, as it always did. She hoped Ramsay was rolling in one of the many proclaimed hells, tortured by whichever devils lost out and had to take him. Theon’s eyes were shut tight, arms spread as wide as he could to engulf them all. 

“I’ve missed you all,” he told them, voice thick.

There was a chorus of muffled replies as they continued to bury themselves into Theon. 

Sansa gave them as long as she could stand to wait; she was desperate to hold him. “Can I get a turn, please?”

Theon chuckled against Robb’s hair; Robb was the only one tall enough to reach his chin. He began to kiss each of them, long, strong caresses to the crowns of their heads, and Sansa knew he would be doing the same later, over and over again until they all cried for mercy. “Alright my wolflings, let your mother through,” he instructed, huffing a shaky laugh.

In tandem they all ran off — except for Eddard, who stood fidgeting like he was caught doing something naughty. That look was taken directly from his father. 

Ned was the only one of their children that didn’t completely accept the saccharine worldview they tried to impart, having seen many a thing a babe should not. It was almost as if he had inherited her father’s serious spirit somehow.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright, Ned?” 

As he looked from her to Theon, his wide eyes filled with tears.

“I thought you were going to die!” he wailed.

Theon reacted immediately, swiping him from the ground in a crushing hug. 

“I didn’t, little Ned,” he breathed fiercely into his son’s hair. “I would never leave you.” 

If Sansa had her way, he’d only perish when he was old and gray, herself and their children surrounding him. She’d warned the Prince of Dorne as much, threatening that if he didn’t make sure Theon lived she would be coming over there and having it out with all of them. The Prince, in his usual fashion, had thought this very amusing. At his brother’s prompting — Lord Lewyn Martell, who helped her fight the last of the Boltons — he did, however, write back to assure her he would. 

Though she found the Prince too smarmy for his own good at times, there was a respect between them that had grown steadily over the years since their first alliance, borne with her plea to eradicate the Boltons. With Theon standing in front of her — holding their son — she decided to thank him in a letter later, perhaps sending a gift with it. 

Ned calmed until he was sniffling. “Would you tell me about Dorne? Mother says it’s hot. Did your legs hurt there?”

Heart flipping in her chest, she realised Ned was talking about Theon’s joint pain. It would flare up occasionally, especially on cold days, forcing Theon abed when he would much rather be outside playing with his children. 

“My legs didn’t hurt as much, aye.” He ran a gentle hand down Ned’s face. “But I feel far better here with you than in any sweaty sand kingdom.”

Ned snickered wetly. “Was it very sandy?”

Theon stuck his tongue out, scrunched his nose up, and sing-songed, “Uh—huh. It got everywhere. Even in—”

He quickly reached one hand up and began to tickle Ned. Shrieking and laughing, he thrashed to get out of his father’s grip. 

While Sansa was laughing, Ned battled to earn his freedom. Theon let him down, where Ned huffed and patted his hair down, pretending he didn’t enjoy the surprise tickling at all. “May I go?”

Sansa was close to erupting again and had to look away from Theon’s teasing eye. 

Seeing her inability to speak, Theon turned to Ned himself, putting an affectionate hand on his head. “Yes,” he said, grinning, and ruffled Ned’s brown hair.

With an unimpressed frown, Ned took off in the direction of his siblings.

Their eyes met again and as it often did, the world narrowed until it was only made of them. 

In his age, his previously gaunt cheeks had filled out a little, partly because of the full meals he’d been eating for more than a decade now. He looked healthy, even just after fighting a war. He looked beautiful. 

“Sansa,” he choked, and she was very young again, gripping his hand as they leapt from the castle wall. 

A cry ripped from her throat and she met him halfway, diving into his arms. Bliss.

He made a little squeak as she gripped him to her as hard as possible, but she could not stop for all her life. He was finally here, pressed up against her, like he’d never left. 

And he never had, not really, not in her mind nor in her heart. She was a wolf, and wolves mated for life. 

“Theon, Theon, Theon,” she whispered fiercely. “You came back to me.” 

This was the longest he had been gone in five and ten years at her side, for any wars the North had to fight were usually over quickly. She agreed to help Dorne as she promised she would, but privately she prayed to the old gods and the new that they could have anything but her family. Not again, she’d begged. Not Theon. 

“I will always come back to you,” he promised. He sunk into her neck, arms holding her back just as tightly. “Every day away felt like an eternity. Sansa…” he said again. The word felt like a prayer when it came from his lips.

He felt just the same, his long curls brushing against her face. Tears burned at the back of her eyes. 

She was always so afraid when he left, afraid that she would hear he’d been butchered like Robb or her mother. She’d been able to keep it together in front of the children, but here in his arms, the desperation bloomed. 

“Theon,” she whispered brokenly into his shoulder. That was all he needed, picking her up with a startling ease, her head still bent into the curve of his throat. She did not care where was taking her. Nobody in Winterfell would say a word toward their lady’s weakness, she knew; it took a long time for it to sink in, but her people loved her.

All the way to their room he took her, gently placing her on their bed. With all the fervour he’d held onto since childhood he knelt by her side, ran his hands down her arms and clutched her palms, bringing them up to his lips.

“I am here, I am safe,” he began his mantra, voice low. He knew her nightmares as well as she did his. “Feel me in your arms.”

She leaned forward and pressed him against her, enjoying the blissful feeling of his skin on hers again. 

“I am here, and I love you,” he finished. 

She felt the panic slowly subside. His bones would not be sent to her. His head was intact. He was not full of arrows, sporting a stab wound, or suffering a long slash across the neck. 

“Thank you,” she murmured into his chest.

“Stop. You know you don’t have to thank me, Sansa. You’re my wife.” He shifted his chin, until she felt his breath in her hair. “Even if you weren’t, I’d do anything for you.” 

She choked out a laugh. “Even keep me as your mistress?”

“Oh, without question,” he affirmed lightly. 

Laughing again, they devolved into holding one another in companionable silence.

“You look handsome,” she remarked eventually, casually, the sensation of drowning completely gone now. 

“It’s all the sun,” he deflected. He never liked talking of his looks anymore. Not since Ramsay had ripped them to pieces.

“Yes,” she stroked his face, “but it’s just you, as well.”

He squeezed her tighter. It was his way of thanking her when he could not speak, still shy and silent in his own way. 

“Did you see any pretty Dornish women?” she teased, her poking never serious. She trusted him wholly.

“I have but one heart,” he replied, serious as anything. “And it is yours.” 

She grinned and cupped his face, a flood of joy and affection beating against her heart in waves, threatening to crack open her ribcage and bleed into him. She planted soft kisses along his jaw, buried her nose in the crevices of his face, in the cavern between his nose and eyes.

As he had learnt to these past years, he eagerly leaned into her touch, and soon enough they were kissing, the affection in her growing, until it was great, all-encompassing, until it filled her up, until it soothed every ache she’d ever had. Theon was with her once again; her dearest friend, her oldest ally, her constant companion. 

He never flinched from her touch, now; with a pride, she knew he’d left behind the bastard son of house Bolton in most respects. 

After a time, he remarked, with wonder, “The children have grown so much. I told them not to before I went, but they haven’t listened.”

She hummed. “Robb’s even begun to badger me about kingly duties.”

“Oh gods, how do we stop him?” he jested, voice light, but she knew he was serious. 

She hummed again, and moved to embrace him. 

They enjoyed a comfortable silence. She was very glad to have him back; while she loved her children, peace and quiet was not in their vocabulary. 

Sansa did not think of Cersei often now, but still she did. This time, she thought about the first time she’d bled, when Cersei taunted her.

Joffrey will show you no such devotion . Even though she hated him by then, it saddened her that the prince she had once idolised held nothing in his heart for her. That night, she’d wept in despair, convinced she would spend the rest of her life beloved by no one but ghosts.

Theon ran a gentle, loving hand down her back and all thoughts of cruel Cersei left her. Someone would show her devotion , Sansa realised, suppressing a smirk. 

As her eyes often did when in her room, they drifted to the huge tapestry on the wall. It faced the bed and it was hand-woven by Sansa; slowly, over the years, she had learnt to enjoy the hobbies she loved in her youth. 

A large green landscape covered the work; forest trees and logs, woven with block colour in varying shades of brown and green. In the middle stood two wolves; one red and the other the colour of sand. Sandy, because Theon’s wolf was a mix of his Stark grey and kraken golden. 

They were mid-stride, fur blown from the passing wind. Behind them ran their cubs, six in all. She and Theon named it the pack survives , after father’s words, after their hardships, after the joy that now filled their halls. 

Theon leaned back to look her in the eye. “I have something grand to tell you,” he said, and excitement lit up his blue eyes. “When I was away, I heard word that Arya has returned to Westeros.”

Sansa felt the world turn upside down. It felt like a lifetime since anyone had said her name. “Arya?”

Theon began to grin. “More accurately, the fabled Northern princess Arya, the explorer. That’s what the Dornish soldier called her.” 

She let out a sob, abrupt and quick. “She’s back?”

Wild Arya, her sister, with the hatred of chivalry and sun-tinted heroes, herself a legend of stories and songs?

“Tell me it’s true,” she begged, clinging to him. 

“It is, I swear it,” he promised. “Many of the soldiers agreed they heard she landed in Dorne not many moons past. They believe she’s somewhere in Westeros, concealed in one of her faces.”

Sansa still fondly remembered the day Arya found out about Princess Nymeria. Like Sansa with her hair, it was all Arya talked about for a week through. Though she hated Sansa’s favourites like Florian and Jonquil, among others, she loved the romance of far away lands. 

She wanted to tease her sister for becoming a story for babes, like Nymeria was for her. All of Sansa’s children already knew of their brave aunt, but they knew a version where she was real. 

Because she was real. And she was back . “Where?”

“That’s the complicated part. No one knows.”

Disappointment bloomed. “Especially if she’s using her other, more interesting skills,” she added wryly. 

“Precisely.” He sighed. “But we’ll find her.”

Sansa felt a small, tentative smile creep onto her lips. “We will.”

Chapter Text

Later, when Theon’s belongings were brought up, Sansa helped him unpack. With a smile on his face, he unfurled his cloak of krakens and wolves from where she lovingly folded it while he was away, knowing he would have no need of such a thing in Dorne’s climate. Tying it around him again, he gave a little sigh, like it was a relief to don his true self again.

Fetching it off of his discarded clothes, Sansa gently pinned her silver wolf in between the straps of his Northern jerkin herself, to which they shared a wistful, nostalgic look.

For a brief moment, he was walking her back from her coronation feast. There was a newly forged crown of two wolves on her head, and she would gift him the pin, and then he would kiss her hand with a gentleness that had never wavered in him then or since.

After everyone is settled, belongings returned to their original places and men back to their homes, Theon takes her hand.

“Walk with me?”

She gladly threads her fingers through his, letting him lead her wherever he wanted. She remembers, long ago, taking his hand for the first time in much the same way.

Theon takes her to the parapets, lined all around the castle. He knows they are her favourite place to talk — she could keep an eye on the daily running of Winterfell, and enjoy the company of her family at the same time.

“Where is Ser Phillip?” he asked, noticing that Robb was swinging his practice sword alone.

“Spending time with his wife and daughter,” she replied. “I gave him the week to celebrate.” She paused, continuing to walk alongside him. “You should write to Yara, now that you’re back. She would want to see the children again.”

“Aye, this war’s been long,” he agreed.

“Longer than we expected.” She sighed and stopped just above Robb. Theon stopped by her side.

“Robb’s gotten very good, but I suspect he’ll tell you that himself,” she remarked, and it came out in a prideful gush.

He huffed a laugh. “He takes after his namesake more everyday.”

“Yes,” she agreed happily. “He’s even been hounding me about getting his own Grey Wind to match. I think he saw Robb’s statue in the crypts and made it his goal to be just as stubborn.”

“Clearly that did not work on Cat,” Theon joked, as they watched her waddle to join her brother in the yard. Sansa observed her for a moment, and thought of her own namesake, of the mother that had raised her and loved her and brushed her hair into increasingly ridiculous styles at her high-pitched request. Her daughter may have the disposition of her unruly sister, but she was in part her Tully mother, too, in the way she adored her siblings and more. Arya had been raised by Lady Catelyn too.

Theon turned to Sansa, his eyes just as blue as they were when he left. She never got weary of the sight.

“That Prince of Dorne is charming.”

She rolled her eyes. “He is.”

“He had a lot of questions about you,” he continued with annoyance, a frown poking at his lips. “He kept asking me how the North’s Red Wolf was faring.”

She looked at him sharply. “Please do not tell me you told him any of your embarrassing stories about me. I’ll never hear the end of it in his letters.”

He pressed his lips together, failing to suppress a smile. “Not at all. Especially not my favourite, the one about you trying to dye your hair golden at nine.”

“Theon!” she chided, mouth popping open. “And I’m sure you told him nothing but good things about yourself. Should I write and tell him how you’d gotten madly jealous at the thought of me marrying him?”

“Sansa, that was years ago!”

“And I’m never going to let it go,” she relished with glee. “It amuses me too much.”

He shook his head, though it was obvious he actually found it endearing. “I’ve also returned with so many crates of lemons it’s a wonder Dorne has any left.”

She drew in a quick breath. “Really?”

“I was on my way to buy some at Sunspear’s market, when the Prince stopped me,” he said, catching her excitement and giving her a small smile. “I begrudgingly told him where I was off to and he insisted I take some of his own stock with me free of charge, a gift to the Red Wolf. Apparently the word ‘some’ means something different in Dorne.”

“That was kind of him,” she pointed out.

“Aye, but he stole my gift idea. Thinking about petitioning you to start a war just for that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll authorise it, but you can be the one to tell him why you’re invading his shores.”

He blew a long breath out of his nose. “Perhaps not, then,” he played along. “I don’t think I could take anymore of his cockiness.”

Below, Cat got up and trundled to Robb, tired of just watching him.

“Can I play?” she pleaded up at him.

“You’re too young, Cat,” he replied solemnly, but he bent down to her level and looked her in the eye, like she was as grown up as him. “The sword is too heavy for you.”

She made a face. Sansa’s heart lurched, as it always did, when her daughter made the same face as Arya when denied anything: like she was going to do it anyway when no one was looking.

“You will not have to wait long, I promise.” He ruffled her already messy hair. “For now, you could be my pretend squire. Would you like that?”

A toothy grin told him she did.

Robb rose and put his hands on his hips. “Right then, squire,” he put on a silly voice, “I want you to sit there and tell me which moves work best.” He pointed to the barrel she’d been sitting on before.

This time, Cat happily raced back and jumped onto her seat. “I’m ready!”

Robb grinned and turned up to Sansa and Theon. He waved. “Would you come train me, father? I’ve gotten better while you were away.”

Theon smiled and gave Sansa a knowing glance. “I'm sure you have. I’ll be down soon, let me spend a little more time with your mother.”

To emphasize his point, Sansa leaned over and kissed him. She was struck, oddly, by the thought that her parents had done much the same thing, time and time again, when they played in the yard as children. How history repeats itself.

Robb merely went back to swiping into the air unbothered. Unlike Cat, who made yet another face, scrunching her nose up.

Sansa felt herself chuckle against Theon’s mouth, and his laugh quickly followed hers. There was nothing so amusing as making her children cringe.

Breaking the kiss, she looked back into his gentle eyes.

“I had something made,” he said. “In Dorne. They have the finest painters there...” He reached into his cloak with his free hand.

The framed square was small, shorter and thinner than the palm of Theon’s hand, but she recognised the image all the same.

She gasped, a sharp nostalgia piercing her heart.

It was a portrait — a grey dress, blue eyes, a direwolf crown, hair as red as blood. It was regal, strong and beautiful. It was her.

“I wanted something to look at…” he explained, fiddling with it, like he was slightly chagrined to be showing her something so intimate. “To remember who I was doing it all for. The artist asked me to describe you as best I could and… that was the first memory I thought of. It’s how I’ve always seen you.”

“You remember what I — I looked like?” she floundered, shocked. It was incredibly accurate and detailed, all the way down to the position of her hair.

She remembered Tormund called her kissed by fire, yet she was queen of snow; but in this picture, this square, palm-sized construction, what Theon saw, she looked mythical, like the stories of old. Like the stories they both had heard their entire childhoods. In all their years together, she knew he loved her, but not like this; not spelt out so simply, undeniable proof of the vision she was in his eyes.

“I will never forget,” he said simply, and she thought that she, too, would never forget the look of fierce pride on his face as he knelt before her, as he pointed his sword into the air, as he shouted Queen in the North.

Suddenly overcome with a fierce wave of adoration, the same one that came upon her in their chambers, she felt herself stumble on her feet a little, like she might lurch over. But Theon would be there, if she fell. He always would.

“It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “It truly is.”

“You still are,” he said, half teasing, as if he knew how romantic he was being, like all of her childhood dreams.

She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes, feeling tears in her eyes. “Theon,” she said, and there was much history behind that sound. It was a thank you and I love you and I wish I could’ve saved you sooner and come with me.

He gazed back, and it was I would follow you anywhere; across the narrow sea, past the island of sands and into the dark, anywhere your hand led me.

“I remember when I went back to the Iron Islands, after the war ended,” he started, catching her face in his hands. “When you first asked me to be your sworn shield. A queen needs a guard, you wrote to me. I swore two things to myself that day, as I wrote back: I would keep you safe, as I’d failed to do with Robb, and I would never have you know I’d been in love with you since I was Reek.” There was no longer a hitch, a pause when he said that word, not for a long time.

“Your coronation was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. To see you, proud and strong and every bit a Stark, sitting in the throne our father sat in, even when it wasn’t a true throne… I had almost— I had to stop myself from screaming out.” He chuckled, a soft, warm sound, and his face curved into it naturally, like it had gotten used to the movement over the years.  “I knelt down in front of you, and if the sea had taken me then and there, I would’ve been blissfully happy.”

With a second thought, Sansa dived for his mouth, and he hurriedly stowed the portrait away and grabbed her back.

A while later, they were still on the balcony, and Robb was still swinging, sweat now glistening across his forehead, his little grunts filling the tepid air. Cat had grown more than bored in the meantime and scampered off, probably to find Rickard and almost start another war in the castle over who stole whose toys. Cat’s shriek could shake up all seven hells if she tried hard enough.

Where she was pressed up against him, she felt it the moment Theon stiffened, as if he remembered something awful. Leaning back, she noticed he was gripping the bannister tightly with one of his hands, the other around her. He tried to keep a neutral face for his son below, but she could see he was struggling.

“Theon,” she spoke low, putting her hand atop his. “Turn to me. Robb won’t see.”

He did, and a pained look struck across his features; like he surrendered to whatever he’d been holding back. That was a face he only let her see, the only person who would know what it meant.

Even five and ten years later, she was still transported back into Ramsay’s grasp when she saw that familiar look of pain on his face. “I saw the vision of King Robert’s feast again last night,” he rasped.

The same one he’d first told her of at three and twenty, laying under the stars on their way to Torrhen’s Square. His nightmare was always the same, no matter how hard he tried: all of them as children with swords in their stomachs, their father headless, arrows and a knife in Robb’s gut and mother’s throat slashed, as the Boltons boasted they’d done at the Red Wedding.

Throughout the years, his subconscious added his children to the slaughter. Sansa shivered. Just the thought of it stirred a bone-deep panic within her. She could not imagine how it was for him, to have a vivid picture painted for you, every gruesome detail immaculate.

“I woke up reaching for you, as I normally do.”

Her eyes widened. “But I wasn’t there.”

She always reassured him when he had that nightmare. First, she held him till he believed she was real, and then she led his hand to their children’s chambers, showing him all six, fast asleep and safe.

“No,” he agreed. He blew out a shaky breath. “I was only a few hours ride away. So close but too far to warn, to help… I could barely keep myself together in front of our men. I’ve never ridden that fast in my life.”

“I am here, as they are here,” she reminded him softly, repeating his words from earlier.

He leaned his forehead on hers. “I would lose my mind if I lost any of you.”

“I know. You won’t.”

“Sansa…” he whispered against her, and her heart sped up a little. He ran a hand down her back, the other cupping her neck.

When he did that, she never failed to feel like she was nine and ten again, folding him into her arms as he pledged himself to fight the dead at Winterfell.

“I love you,” she told him. The embrace coaxed it out of her, but it was never far from her lips anyway. “I’ve missed you dearly.”

With a soft moan, he pressed her into him, repeating her words back to her and more, a thousand times until the words lost all meaning.

 The next morning she laid with Theon beside her, the first in many mornings.

“Momma…” came the whisper, consistent as the sun rising and setting.

Wordlessly, Sansa lifted up her furs. Cat climbed in eagerly, pushing her cold little legs between her own.

Sansa hears a low groan behind her. “What—”

“It’s alright, dear,” she murmured. “It’s just Cat.”

Theon groaned again and settled back down.

“Good morning father!” their daughter shrieks into the air.

Usually, he would groan again. But today, after the long moons he’d spent away from all of them, he chuckled.

“Good morning, my sweet terror.”

The first time Theon called her that in front of her, Sansa almost scolded him. But Cat had grinned wide, ear to ear. She loved the nickname.

Apart from a few moments Cat spent climbing over Sansa to get between her parents, the three of them slept the early morning away.

Sansa awoke peacefully, to the joyous feeling of soft kisses being pressed into her arm. There were two pairs of lips, one significantly smaller than the other. The last one landed with a muffled smack, a small puff of air from a small nose following it before it departed.

She cracked an eye open and there was a quiet snicker.

“Do you think she’s awake now?” Theon whispered to his daughter, low and conspiratorially.

“Yes,” Cat whispered back.

Sansa tried to stifle the smile that threatened to break out. With a grunt, Theon lifted himself into one arm.

“I’m not sure,” he said lightly, pouting a little. “I think we should try another method.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sansa warned. She knew exactly what it was.

Cat was already bursting with excitement. “Do it!” She gave a little giggle.

“Too late, my love,” he sighed dramatically, reaching over.

Sansa braced herself, but like every time, it was never enough to prepare her.

The tickling was brutal, and soon enough her choked laughter joined her daughter’s. After it was over and Cat appeased, he began to hold her close to him, putting his nose against her hair, like he’d done ever since they slept together to ward off nightmares. As it always did, the sensation made her feel warm even in the North’s vague cold, and she rolled over to kiss him.

Cat made a disgusted noise and eagerly vacated the bed for Sansa’s desk, burying her head in all of the miscellaneous things Sansa had stored there over the years.

It was a while before Theon could rouse himself from her side, but he did, and reached into his chest for his outer clothes.

As she watched Theon dress, Sansa began to plan the day ahead. There would be a  celebratory feast tonight. She always thought it was best to give her men one night to reunite with their families before the drinking began. Hopefully, as usual when her armies returned, there would be no lords calling for her council for a few days. They were, like her, too elated to be with their family.

Theon began to brush his hair, pushing the comb through his tangled locks. Her husband was not traditionally handsome anymore, not after Ramsay, but that was not what drew her to him. He kept his hair shorter than it had been as another man, a snivelling, shaking deer of a manservant. It was still long enough to run a hand through, so she was appeased.

When he sat back on the bed he reached for his trousers. With an ease borne only through years of practice, she reached a hand out and brushed his sandy mop back against his head, relishing in the soft sensation. His eyelids fluttered at the motion.

“I just combed that.”

“I know,” she replied, smiling.

He sighed good-naturedly. “It’s been a long war in Dorne. I forgot how much you love to do that.”

“Then I’ll do it again,” she said cheekily, and did it again.

This time he jolted his head up and caught her palm in a kiss, wrapping it in his own hand. “I have to go. Robb asked me to teach him how to better shoot a bow today. Now Rickard wants to watch too.”

“That sounds fun,” she replied. “I’ll check in on the girls after I reply to my letters.  They’re with the Septa at the moment, they’ve been working on their cross stitch for a while.”

Across the room, Cat made yet another disgusted noise. Sansa had not told her yet, but she was not planning to force stitching classes on her youngest daughter.  She didn’t want her to feel like Arya; isolated from her mother and sister, finding little solace in anything a lady was required to do.

Her heart gave a little jolt as she remembered that her sister, the one she had lost and found and lost again, was somewhere in Westeros. A grown woman, like her. When Sansa found her, would she still look like their father?

Theon nodded. “Will you be joining us later? Robb wanted you to play the princess yesterday.”

She raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh, Robb wanted, did he?”

Theon tried to blink innocently. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Say it,” she teased. “You want to slay the bad men and save me from the castle. I know for a fact that hasn’t changed since you were a boy.”

“That’s because he’s good at it, Momma,” Cat played along, turning back from Sansa’s desk, errant coins crushed in her tiny fist. There was almost a knowing glint in her daughter’s eye.

She couldn’t know, but there was a time in which he did save her from a castle.

Theon’s eyes darted from her to Cat. “You wont get it out of me,” he declared suddenly.

With a long laugh, Sansa watched as he scampered to the door like the room was on fire.

“Yes, then!” she shouted after him into the hallway. “But my heroes better kiss me when they’re finished!”

Once again her letters were brought up, the same time as always. The servant knocked softly.

“Come in.”

“Your grace.”  This time, she passed a scroll silently, but then she produced a bigger, thicker package. It was shaped like a box.

“A raven brought that?” Sansa asked, a little incredulous.

“No, your grace, it was a man. Came from a ways away, he said, commanded to be delivered in great haste.”

Sansa’s brow furrowed and held her hand out. “Alright. Pass it here, please.”

The servant did so and left with light footsteps.

As she opened it, a bundle of clanging metal tumbled from the package into her lap. Sansa picked one up.

Silver direwolves arranged in a small circle, just like Robb’s on her own wrist, or Theon’s pin. A burst of breath left her. In her other hand, the scroll. She hurriedly unfurled it.

Sorry they’re late. I only recently received word of how many you have.

The pack survives.

Desperate for more, she twisted the page around. A full letter was penned on the other side. Her fingers trembled.

Queen Stark,

I have returned to Castle Black for the time being. I will not be there long, but I hope for a word of reply. I would take even a cursory greeting — I deserve it, for not writing all these years. Even if ravens were able to fly in this wind and snow, the wildlings are not fond of southern traditions. I hear you have six children — and wed to Theon? I’m told he refuses to be king, which reassures me it was for love. I can’t deny I don’t enjoy the thought, but I am glad you seem to have found happiness after

There was a smudge where he had hesitated too long and the ink splattered.

After everything. I miss you and Arya and Bran. I have been free these past years, but the ache of grief has not drifted from me. It still wakes me up at night, gives me nightmares. Even good dreams, where we are playing in the training yard as spritely children, are worse to wake from than visions of ash and death.

Sansa agreed. Her dreams of Robb coming to save her never stopped throughout the years, even five and ten later.

But I will never forget how you came to my rescue, even when I pushed you away. It is not my place to pass evaluations, but the Stark name lives on because of you. That thought keeps me going when I remember who we have lost. Father would be so proud of you, and Robb too. Even Lady Catelyn, as much as she hated me, she adored you. Even for as little as it means, I am proud of you. It seems you have done a fine job of ruling your kingdom.

Write to me of how you and Bran are, how Winterfell fares, how your children are growing. I have heard only the briefest knowledge of the North’s queen, and I wish to know her better, as I did once before.

I must confess that I am writing this letter with a blade at my throat, but not one that should make you worry. Quite the opposite. The blade is thin, small, and at the other end stands a scant thing, despite her many years. Arya has returned to Westeros. Until she showed up at the gates of Castle Black to threaten me into contacting you, she was keeping company with Gendry Baratheon of Storm’s End, though she will not tell me why.

Arya has told me what little she knows of your escapades as queen — which is, if her sad eyes when she speaks of you are anything to go by, regrettable to her. She will never say, but she misses you deeply, Sansa, as do I. If you permit us, we will both ride to Winterfell within a moon.

Please send a reply, as I may go mad without one, or Arya will gut me for upsetting you. Though she loves me, I am quite afraid that she will follow through on her word. I am an old man now, nearly as old as father was, and no match for our spitfire little sister.

With love and loyalty

Jon Snow

Sansa tried to maintain a regal composure, but she began to cry recklessly, like a girl of thirteen all over again, leaving home for a far off place with golden lions. She was grateful none of her people were here to see their queen like this.

There had been no word from Jon for a decade and more, not even a confirmation that he was alive. She hoped, though. Always hoped he was happy, free from the laws of honour and war that had strangled him. But he’d forgiven her for telling Tyrion of his heritage, he had missed her, he wanted to hear from her. Sweet Jon, with his kind grey eyes and tortured brow.

When she’d first seen him at Castle Black atop the stairs, she thought he was father. His face and his eyes and the way he stood, the thick tunic on his chest, his long hair and serious brow made her halt, for a moment and then more, thinking father was here, or a ghost of him, with his head sewed back on and Ice at his hip. She thought he would come to her and wrap her in his arms and whisper that it was all a dream, a horrible, terrible dream, and he’d come back from the dead for her, to right all the wrongs and slay the evil men.

It wasn’t him, but Jon had come back from the dead. The red woman’s god could have returned her brother to this realm for any number of reasons, but Sansa chose to believe it was because they knew that Jon would protect his home. That he would protect her, protect all of them, like she ruled the North for all of them now. He wasn’t father, but his hands held the same warmth as Winterfell, his grey eyes were the eyes of home, and the same gruff voice spoke in his northern cadence.

Despite everything, her brother was still a believer in home and family. His own brothers had murdered him, and yet he said he would protect her. Sansa knew that was folly — no one can protect anyone — but deep down she hoped he never stopped believing it. It appeared he never lost faith, or at least found it again.

She was suddenly very glad she was already sitting, because she was sure she would’ve collapsed otherwise.

Gods, he was just as melodramatic as Tyrion at growing older. Jon was barely past three and eight and he was lamenting as if he were on death’s door. The amusing thought made her cry harder, but it was not fuelled by sadness. She pressed her hands to her eyes and let out a high squeak, an overwhelmed laugh. He had not changed in more than a decade.

And Arya, too, holding needle to his throat, urging him to send her this letter? That was the sister she remembered. Both of her lost siblings had been planted straight into her lap, like the gods themselves had intervened. Bran had told her, a very long time ago at her second wedding with Theon, that the Starks would endure. Had he been hinting at this?

But she would write back. Oh yes, she would, to tell Jon of how happy she was to receive his letter and how angry she was at him for waiting so long. For having to be pushed by Arya to reach out to her. Too much like father, she reminded herself.

As she correctly surmised, he was in part punishing himself by cutting her off. That was stupid, and she’d write to him of how stupid that was, after she told him how much she loved and missed him. After telling him of Theon and their pack. After inviting him and Arya to Winterfell gladly, joyously, barely able to write the words around her shaking hands.

After all that, then he would know she was furious.

Sansa never ran. It was not dignified or queenly to run, even to chase her children. To do that, she would describe her movement as a fast walk.

But with Jon’s letter and his six bracelets in her arms, she ran. She raced all the way  across the castle, not caring one bit that she was startling her servants. They were likely thinking that if their queen was running, the one who was nothing but composed and strategical, there was probably a dragon coming to smite all of Winterfell. She cared not, just then, too busy thinking of black curls and a downturned mouth.

“Theon!” she cried. He was fiddling with the training bows as she rushed to him, and he turned around startled. There were light snowflakes of spring in his hair.

“Wh—“ he tried, but she crashed into him before he could finish.

“Jon! Jon’s written—look!—Jon!”

She waved the paper in her hands, jangled the bracelets in the other.

A mix of worry and shock went over his face then, eyes wide, and he reached for the paper she was shoving in his hands. She watched him eagerly, before realising there were still tears on her face and quickly swatting at them.

Theon turned over the page in a rush, beginning to read the letter on the other side.

Beside her, she felt a warm body press into hers. “Who is it?” Robb asked, voice high and curious. She looked down at him, and his forehead creased upon seeing her red eyes. It was not often that his mother charged across the castle. “What’s wrong, mother?”

“Nothing at all, Robb,” she beamed, giving him a reassuring caress. “Your uncle Jon has written us. You remember Jon? The stories I told you all?”

He blinked slowly for a long moment, thinking hard. “He rode a dragon, to kill the undead,” he recited.

“Yes! Yes, that’s the one,” she praised, wiping her eyes again.

“I thought you told us he was beyond the wall?”

“He was. Now he’s at Castle Black, the central keep for defending the wall. And your aunt Arya is with him.”

Her son scrunched up his nose. “Oh. Are they coming here?”

“They will, if I have anything to say about it,” she guaranteed.

Rickard made himself known from atop a barrel, where he’d been lifted there by Robb or Theon. “Yay!” he shouted, a perfect copy of his twin sister’s pronunciation.

All three of them watched Theon read, her with elation, her sons with curiosity.

The letter crinkled noisily as he lowered it. He met her eyes.

Speechless, he silently reached for one of the bracelets around her fingers. Studying it, turning it this way and that, admiring the way the light glints off the silver. The wolves on it howled sunlight.

“One for each of them,” she points out softly.

Amongst the wolves, Theon looks startlingly young. There are memories in his eyes, Sansa thinks, a pain as deep as hers in them.

“They’re beautiful,” he marvelled. He blinked suddenly, like he only just remembered where he was. “This was kind of him.”

“It was much like Jon to send these,” she remarked. “He must have learned to smelt.”

She can just imagine Jon pounding over a forge, the sullen, concentrated knit in his brow unremoved even in daily life, sweat trickling in between the cracks of his skin. Had it been another kind of punishment?

“Very well, too,” Theon agreed. He kept the bracelet, cupping it in his palm. There was a flash of grief, of longing, that was echoed from him through her. “He remembered what Robb’s looked like.”

At this, her son perked up and began to pay more attention. If he were a full wolf, his ears would sit straight up.

Theon gestured at her wrist, where the wolf bracelet permanently sat since the day he had given it to her.

Sansa nodded in agreement. “Jon was there the day Robb got it.”

In retrospect, his intense stare at the new charm on her eldest brother’s wrist was less about Jon’s impeccable brooding ability, as she had once thought, and more a sad longing at what he could not have.

Sansa knew these bracelets meant he’d made peace with the envy of his childhood, all of what he could not say aloud. But all of what needed to be said was embedded in the fine silver lines of her children's gifts.

“We should give these to them before the feast, so they may wear it in the company of the entire castle.”

“Aye,” Theon agreed. As always, he heard the unspoken suffering in her voice, the feeling that made her barely resist the impulse to adorn Winterfell with images of wolves on every wall. She had been denied to take pride in her house and her heritage for so long that she began to overflow with it once she queen. Now, the Stark sigil howled loud and clear to all of Westeros.

“They’re for us?” Robb asked beside her.

“Yes,” she and Theon said in unison.

There was a pause as he considered that. “That was nice of him,” he echoed his father’s manners, and though Sansa knew it was only her imagination, she saw something of her eldest brother’s love for Jon in her son’s eyes. “I look forward to meeting him. And aunt Arya.”

She kissed his head. “I’m glad. Jon and Arya loved Robb, my brother. They loved all of us.” Pointedly, she gave Theon a long stare. “They will love you and all your siblings.” That she knew for certain.

Theon glanced down again at the letter in his hand. “Jon doesn’t sound too impressed about us.”

She rolled her eyes. “Really, Theon, you grew up with him. Truly, he is happy for us. You know what he’s like — nothing short of the gods coming down to greet us would rouse Jon from his surly slumber.”

At that, Theon laughed, and the slouch of his shoulders that had lowered as he read Jon’s letter straightened a tad. “Always sulking in the corner while we played.”

“Exactly.” She ruffled Robb’s hair again. “I must write a reply and send it straight away. Now that he has released himself from his exile, I’m going to invite him and Arya to Winterfell. Is that agreeable?”

“Of course it is,” Theon replied quickly, a little defensive, giving her a wistful smile. “This is their home.”

There was always the unspoken regret in his tone. It is yours, he loved to remind her. Winterfell should never belong to anyone else.

Just this once, she did not argue with him. He was right, after all.

“I’ll join you later,” she told them both. Theon handed over the letter and the bracelet, but spoke before she could leave.

“I…” he hesitated. “Could I join you? I’d like to put a few lines in from me.”

Sansa blinked. Normally, he would leave the queenly duties to her, consciously creating boundaries between himself and the power she had to rule. That was, unless she specifically asked for assistance. But this was a personal matter, and she was pleased that he had the courage to face his brother head on, even in this small way. Arya had never spoken of Theon to her, but she would imagine that she was no more pleased at his actions than Jon had been.

“Certainly. I bet they will be happy to hear from you.”

A soft, knowing look passed between them. She couldn't say what she wanted to say in front of Robb and Rickard, which was Jon has forgiven you, as he’s forgiven me, but she was sure he heard it anyway. Theon began to choke up under her gaze.

Robb cleared his throat, caring little for the dramatics his parents were silently weaving. “Then can we play?”

She ruffled his hair a final time, savouring the feeling of his thick tufts between her fingers. Rickon’s hair had felt like this, and Bran’s, before he got too big and learned to run away from her wandering hand. “Yes,” she promised. “Then play.”

After Jon’s letter was written and sent, she and Theon were back out in the training yard, where all of their children were now congregating. Alannys and Lyanna were back from their lessons with the Septa, and Sansa guessed that Cat had already dragged Rickard away from their theirs long ago. It should’ve concerned her, but frankly, Sansa was not interested in harshly policing her children and pushing them away in the process.

Ned was reading a book, far too big for his lap, so he was clinging to the edges with his small hands in an effort to balance it against his knees. Where he could find the space, he absentmindedly swung his legs in and out on the barrell he sat on.

She and Theon stood in front of Robb, who was twirling his wooden sword round and round like a skilled court jester. Theon was doing it as well, a more subdued flipping, the two of them looking like they were trying to one-up the other with fancy tricks. Both of them loved to impress the rest of the family whenever they could.

Sansa asked her son, “What shall we play then, Robb?”

“I’d like to finish the Battle of the Trident, with Lyanna and Ned,” he declared, bouncing on his heels.

Lyanna looked delighted, sitting up straighter, but Ned did not look up from his book.

“Let us leave your brother to read for the moment,” Theon said gently, mirroring just what she was going to say. “When your mother and I have had our fill, then you may go politely ask Ned to join in.”

Robb looked like he was struggling not to pout, battling between his childish instinct and his desire to act grown up. “Yes, father.”

Cat spoke up. “I want father to fight evil men and save mother,” she told them, likely thinking of Sansa’s jape that morning. Alannys agreed, and Lyanna after her.

Robb looked skeptical, but Theon was already smiling.

“Yes, let’s reenact one of your mother’s knightly tales,” he decided, and although his tone was teasing, she would bet gold that the idea secretly excited him. “Which one would you like to do, Sansa?”

Crossing her arms, but unable to keep the answering smile away, she offered, “How about Florian and Jonquil?” but Robb made a face.

“There are no battles in those songs,” he complained.

“Fine, then,” she huffed, but Theon interrupted before she could continue.

“Suppose we fabricate one ourselves?” He paused, a thoughtful hand on his chin. “Perhaps another knight challenges for Jonquil’s hand, a wretched beast of a creature, and Florian must defend his love.”

Robb thought on it, slowing down the restless twisting of the sword in his hands. “Who would the other knight be?”

“Anyone, I suppose. Pick your favourite.”

Robb thought again, but it was Rickard who answered with a yelp. “Jorah!”

Sansa was not at all surprised. Rickard loved to be read Samwell Tarly’s tale of the exiled knight, over and over again until she thought she might know his life better than her own.

The book was worn and half the pages were falling out, a far cry from its state when Theon first brought it into Winterfell, but she wouldn’t replace it for the world. There were precious memories of that book she held in her heart, memories of it in Theon’s hands as she was a newly crowned queen, and later in their children’s beds as they took turns reading it to them.

“You do realise that Jorah will be a villain, if this is the tale of Florian and Jonquil, Rickard?” Theon gently informed him.

Rickard looked perplexed at that. “Oh.”

“Not Jorah, then,” Sansa sighed. “Perhaps they may not be a knight, only one of our enemies.”

“Like a Targaryen?” Robb asked.

“No,” she and Theon stressed instantly. They shared a brief look, one full of the past and their brother, before turning back to Robb. Considering that the North was at peace with all of the other kingdoms, there were not many enemies to choose from.

But Robb had been diligent in his history lessons, and managed to think of one. “A Bolton?”

Sansa managed to stop herself from giving a physical reaction, but Theon was not so lucky. He inhaled quickly, but he tried to cover it in a sigh. “A white walker?” he proposed instead.

“But they will not care for the hand of a fair maiden,” Robb protested, voice frustrated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It must be a human. It has to be a wicked man of Bolton.”

Sansa was about to speak up for Theon, to tell Robb to think of another or he wouldn’t see his beloved wooden swords for a week, but her husband got there first.

“Fine,” he conceded, shifting his feet, but he shot her a look to let her know he was alright. “Who will play who?”

“Father must be Florian,” Lyanna chirped, and Cat made a shout of agreement.

“So I will be his Jonquil,” Sansa added, and Theon gave her a small smile.

“And I the Bolton,” Robb agreed, nodding hastily.

It was not that she wanted them to learn of the Boltons, but she knew it was better for them to learn of the past than to repeat it. So they did, but they were only ghosts to her children, their flaying evils confined to the history books. That was a victory in Sansa’s eyes.

She knew just where to stand for this game, having done many different tales and plays before. Grabbing a barrel, she placed the thing in the middle of the yard and jumped up on it, bending back to languish upon it like it was a bed of silk and roses. To the side, Theon stood with Robb, waiting for his son’s cues.

Strutting to the barrell, Robb put his hands on his hips, his carved sword in one hand. “Lovely Jonquil, I am a respectable man of house Bolton, and I have brought you with me to this castle to ask for your hand,” he informed her, speaking loud and clear so all of his siblings could hear.

“Dear ser, I cannot. I am sworn to another!” she lamented.

“Another?” Robb parroted.

“My knight, Florian.”

Robb paused for a moment, thinking hard of what to say next.

‘Florian the fool?” he settled on, darkening his tone. “He is but a peasant.”

“A peasant he may be, but there is honour even in smallfolk. He is the greatest fool that ever lived, and as great a knight as well. No one may match my beloved.”

“Nonsense,” Robb growled, trying to be frightening, but his high voice only sounded sweet to Sansa. “You will be my wife, or I’ll starve you til you agree!”

“Gods be good!” she wept, throwing a hand over her forehead. “I pray for my knight to come save me from my wicked kidnapper!”

At this, Robb looked at his father, and, well-versed in these games, took the cue with no additional prompting. Holding the wood at his hip, he walked around the yard, faking obliviousness.

“What was that?” Robb said, twisting around. “I heard something. Once I come back, you will be mine, Jonquil,” he told her, before pretending to exit the castle tower. She shouted again, and Theon turned around, as if he was searching for her.

“Is there anyone to rescue me?” she bemoaned, sending a sly smile over to where Lyanna, Alannys and Cat watched eagerly, eyes wide and leaning in.

It was, oddly enough, not far off from the kind of prayers Sansa had made in King’s Landing, dreaming of a Stark loyalist who might rescue her from the Red Keep. If not Robb or her mother, a knight would do.

“Up there!” Rickard shrieked at his father, pointing furiously at Sansa on the barrell.

“Fear not!” Theon cried, charging to the middle of the yard, breathing hard. “I have climbed a thousand steps to reach you. I am here, sweet Jonquil!”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Lyanna smile wider than her sisters, broad and dreamy, and affection squeezed her insides. I will give you the world, my darling girl.

“My Florian,” she swooned, reaching out to place her hands on his chest. Then, Robb barrelled into Theon from behind, almost sending him careening headfirst into her lap.

“Fool! You dare take what is mine?” Robb cursed.

“Villain!” Theon retorted, jumping into a fighting stance, sword pointed at his son. “You take a fair maiden from her home and call her yours?”

“Fight me, then, Florian the Fool,” Robb replied, an eager grin poking out from underneath his thin veneer of anger.

“I will duel you for her hand, though it is not what you deserve,” Theon argued, waggling his eyebrows. “For I am an honorable knight.”

Robb said nothing, instead jabbing at Theon’s wrist. Easily he countered it, but not with his full strength, lest he send his son flying across the yard.

Rickard began to cheer, a mindless sort of babble that made warmth spread in her chest, and upon hearing her brother make noise, as she always did, Cat began to copy him. Soon enough, Alannys and Lyanna joined in, and the entire yard was filled with shouts and laughter.

Robb was sorely losing, and somewhere along the way Ned must have started paying attention, because he began to shout advice to his brother.

“Don’t take him head on!” Ned cried, and Sansa watched as his face twisted in frustration. “Up! Left!”

Theon went right, and their swords clashed. “You are a worthy adversary, man of Bolton,” he told Robb, no hint of that well-beaten fear Sansa knew intimately.

Robb tried not to grin at the praise but he failed, his little face lighting up, and began to nip at his father with renewed vigor.

Sansa watched as Ned lowered the book entirely. “Do you want to get killed, Robb?” he called out. “Slash at the side!”

Robb followed the shout, and managed to whack Theon at his waist.

“Thank you, Ned!” Robb hollered, breathless and red. With a long-suffering sigh, Ned rolled his eyes and went back to his book, raising it so the pages covered his face from her view.

A long beaten row of memories struck her, then, ones of Theon and Jon sparring in the yard as boys. They had never gotten on, but when they fought it was worst of all, both of them manifesting their competition for Robb’s love and affections into their duels. Even if they would rather hang themselves than admit it.

She and Theon made sure Ned knew he was loved for who he was, even if he did not want to swing a sword with as much fervour as his elder brother. There was always a place for quiet girls and boys who had seen too much in her home.

Finally, Robb landed another strike to Theon’s waist, but Theon dipped his sword under and pushed until the tip pressed into Robb’s chest.

“Ah!” Robb cried, flailing dramatically, before landing in the mud with a wet squelch. Sansa winced. That would take days for her and the servant girls to wash out of his clothes.

“My knight saves me!” Sansa beamed anyway, opening her arms wide as Theon approached.

Cat and Rickard giggled from the sidelines, while Lyanna and Alannys were clapping for their heroic father. Even Ned had lowered the book again to watch his father’s victory.

“Kiss me, my dear Florian,” she cooed, and with a delighted grin he did, pulling her closer with his free arm.

After their children had finished celebrating and Robb arisen, curls and tunic now stained, Theon released her.

“I think that perhaps we are giving inadequate weight to Jonquil’s role in this story,” Theon suggested, loud enough for all of them to hear. “Perhaps she might try to defy the Bolton herself?”

“What a fantastic thought, father,” Lyanna agreed excitedly.

“The maidens are worthy of their own stories too,” Sansa concurred, thinking of the legends of old and the heroic women she knew, all with intricate tales of their own, of Arya and Brienne and Daenerys, and then Margaery, Shae, her mother, Lady Catelyn. There were a hundred thousand to choose from, and likely more that Sansa did not know of.

“Girls can’t fight,” Rickard said, but not unkindly, only with confusion screwing up his pudgy face. Cat give her twin a dirty glare, one Sansa had been on the receiving end of from Arya far too many times to count.

“They can,” Alannys said. “Aunt Yara does. Ser Brienne does.”

“Aunt Arya did,” Ned added, having completely abandoned his book in favour of joining in.

Sansa felt her heart ache at the sound of her sister’s name on her son’s lips. “Yes, she did, and better than most men.”

It could only be a matter of weeks until she saw her sister again, and the thought made her feel close to bursting with joy.

Sansa had told her, before they parted, that she would always be welcome here at Winterfell. She hoped her sister remembered that, remembered her words and the love that ached between them.

Sansa missed her face. Father’s face, as well as solely her own. Arya’s eyes were Jon’s eyes, their father’s eyes. Most of all, she missed pulling her against her, squeezing her small form until she might meld with Sansa’s own.

She blinked away the blur that had formed behind her eyelids. “You will see your aunt soon, and I’m sure she will be more than happy to show you some of her techniques.”

Robb and Cat’s eyes widened and in tandem they gasped, but the rest of her children only looked mildly interested in being taught how to be a deadly assassin.

“You said that she was staying with Gendry Baratheon before meeting uncle Jon at the wall, didn’t you, mother?” Lyanna asked, far more interested in that then fighting.

“I did.”

“How romantic,” she sighed, and turned away to whisper something to Alannys.

Sansa decided it would be most wise to keep her mouth shut, and resolved to talk to Lyanna about what she’d heard of her sister’s love life before bed.

Theon looked lost in his own thoughts of Yara and Arya and warrior women, until Robb tapped his arm and peered up at him.

So, the three of them played again, Sansa in the middle of the yard, wailing in despair before the tiny Bolton arrived.

“You belong to me,” Robb sneered, stomping his foot.

“Never!” Sansa retorted this time, shaking her head furiously at her son. “I will poison your cup! I will flee in the night!”

Again, Theon approached and after their storybook taunts they dueled, and Robb gave him a fair bit of exercise, his small stature allowing him quicker steps and slashes. In comparison, Theon was like a tumbling giant to his son, and if he didn’t have many more years of practice, Robb might just have had a fighting chance.

“You can win, Florian, my love!” she called out, watching as the words made Theon grin. “I believe in you!”

When the wood pointed at Robb’s throat, he flopped into the mud again, suppressing gleeful laughter.

Sansa embraced Theon, and their children clapped again. Even Ned joined in, a smile on his face, a flash in his grey eyes, a sparkling that told her he was beginning to believe that life could be like the songs, if only he looked in the right places.

Breaking the kiss, Theon gave her a wistful look before speaking. “I liked that version better. It’s closer to the truth.”

“What truth?” Robb asked from the ground, close enough to hear, but that was a complicated question indeed.

“It was Florian who saved her from the Bolton,” Sansa reminded Theon. “Who defied him even if he didn’t take up arms.”

“Ah, but she saved him before that, did she not?” He paused, and his familiar sea-blue eyes struck into her. “By reminding him of who he was.”

Sansa tried to huff, but with the way her heart skipped a beat, it came out as a broken exhale.

“What?” Robb asked again, deeply confused.

“Nothing,” Theon answered, but his knowing gaze was only for her. With a soft smile, she reached out and buried her hands on either side of his face, tangled in his hair and over his ears.

Robb must have put it down to his parents being their usual selves again, because he rolled his eyes as he rose. “Now can I be Florian?” he complained, bordering on a whine, and she and Theon laughed.

“Of course you may,” she chuckled. Gently, she pulled Theon’s head down until his forehead pressed into hers, their noses brushing. “A maiden need not have only one saviour,” she finished, and kissed him.

It would be a very long while until their children knew of Ramsay Bolton and what he’d done to their parents, if at all. Until then, the knowledge of it was only shared between the two of them, as was the experience itself.

But like their games with Robb, the ending to that story was a happy one, an ending where she and her fool Florian were free and together and surrounded by love.

The feast to celebrate the return of her army was an overwhelming evening affair.

Sansa had gone all out, much to her children’s delight. They hadn’t gotten to feast for a long while, and she felt like it was high time to spoil them silly. Spring had been here for years, so food was in abundance.

They ate together a table away, the surface crammed with every dish and drink imaginable. Except for wine. Of which she strictly instructed Robb to oversee that his youngest siblings did not get more than a few sips, and his shoulders straightened like it was an honour to be trusted with such a task. She had learned a few tricks from having elder brothers as a girl.

As she always insisted at special events, she wore her crown. Perched on her head, she wanted everyone to see her in it, a reminder of who every lord of the North owed their loyalty to. It was that, but in wearing it, she felt closer to her family than usual, their ghosts smiling along with the festivities.

She wasn’t ashamed to admit that she thoroughly enjoyed when her family cheered as it was placed on. They weren’t strictly allowed to do that, the rules of decorum requiring children to be quiet and respectful at celebrations, but neither she nor Theon wanted to stop them.

Her husband began the night by greeting all his children, talking and playing with them until hunger would call him to his plate at Sansa’s side.

They all wore their silver wolf bracelets, rolling up their sleeves to show them off. Her chest swelled with pride at the sight. Before the feast, she’d even caught them all gossiping of what the man that had gifted them would be like, their uncle Jon, if he would look like all the stories described. If he would bring Ghost with him.

“Father,” Alannys called, and Theon went as she bid him to the end where she was seated. “Did you bring us back presents from Dorne?”

“Alannys!” Lyanna scolded across from her, mouth open in shock.

“Why are you taking offence? I’m not asking you.”

“Girls,” Theon warned. He was trying very hard not to laugh. “Don’t squabble. Be nice to each other.” To Alannys, he shot a secretive wink. “I’ll show you after dinner.”

Alannys gave an excited cry and eagerly went back to her food. Lyanna’s brow creased at that, and she leaned forward to capture some of her father’s attentions too.

“May I sing you a song later, father?” she asked. “I learned some new ones while you were away.”

“I would love to hear them all, Lyanna, every one,” he told her, the words soft and his smile indulgent, obliging. If she truly knew how much Theon would let her run riot over him, their daughter would command Sansa’s armies instead of her husband.

Pleased, Lyanna smiled back at him and turned back to her food like Alannys had done. Theon put a hand each on the top of their heads and ran them down their hair, the silky black locks yielding to his combing. She noticed he had picked up a penchant for doing that from Sansa’s father, who was his own parent — despite blood.

The gesture was painfully familiar to Sansa, and a lump always formed in her throat if she thought too hard about the fact that her children knew the same loving, fatherly caress that permeated the memories of her own childhood.

Theon oft hovered over all them as they played, ate, or learned. Far more than she did, and she did so a stifling amount. Ned had questioned it once, and she had answered that his father just felt protective of them. She would never tell them that he sometimes followed his formerly-orphaned children around in the worst of his episodes — muscles coiled, waiting for threats — because he vividly remembered stringing up two burned orphans as a would-be Lord of Winterfell.

If I could do it, somebody else could, he’d told her once, when they had taken in Robb. She would never forget it, because he wept in her arms that first night, Robb happily tucked into his new crib.

We have to protect him, Sansa.

We will, she’d promised, holding him close.

A variation of the same episode happened with every new child they’d opened their doors to. He loved them all dearly, and they loved him back. Never was his remorse sharper than when he had learned to feel and understand the kind of parental love the farmer and his wife had for their two boys.

It’s not as if she could ever reprimand him for it; like him, she was frequently tormented by her past. The first time he had ever seen her after a nightmare was when they were very young, begging him to make sure she was buried at Winterfell. Her recurring nightmare was not a feast, but a beheading, the sh-lunk of her father’s head rolling across the wooden stage. As needless as it was, Sansa did not like it when her children jested with each other about beheading and slitting throats if they were upset.

Theon always returned the care she’d shown for him at the worst of his nightmares, leading her into the children’s rooms, telling her about the deaths of Joffrey, Petyr, and Ramsay over and over until his voice was spent; cradling her face until she believed she was not still trapped in King’s Landing.

His favourite balm was stories of Robb; he’d collectively told her so many over the years that she felt like she had lived Theon’s entire childhood with her eldest sibling.

As if he’d heard her thinking about him, Theon took his seat at her side. She silently watched him clutch at the lapels of his cloak, worrying the open stitches. Their children continued feasting, oblivious to their father’s nerves. Sansa shoved a whole section of lemon cake in her mouth, something she would’ve scolded as a girl.

“We should get them direwolves,” he said suddenly.

Swallowing, she looked at him. “I’m amicable to that idea. But how do you suppose to find direwolves this far south in spring?”

He blinked.

She tries desperately not to laugh at him, but she’s found it harder and harder throughout the years to hide her emotions. She doesn’t hate it. In fact, she liked it — she got happier every year that she spent far away from the South, where she first learnt to hide and lie.

Theon took well to her ribbing, as he always did. “Alright, I didn’t think of that,” he allowed.

“Perhaps Jon will know where to get some beyond the wall.” She patted his arm.

He rubbed a hand roughly over his face. “I just want them to be safe.”

“And they are.” She gestured to them, eating and playing jokes. “Look at them, Theon. They’re happy.”

He took a long moment to stare out at the decorated hall around them, and a small smile crept over his lips.

“Was this the kind of feast you imagine in your dreams?” she asked him pointedly.

He shook his head. “It is far better than anything I could conceive.” The smile was earnest, now. “My nightmare knows none of the light, nor the smiles upon their faces.”

She knew better than to say then it could never happen. But it was a far away likelihood.

“We have the knowledge to avoid what happened to us,” she reminded him. “We have to be smarter, and we are.” A smirk slowly spread across her lips. “Well, I am. I’m not so sure about you. What do you do here, again?” she teased.

He rolled his eyes, so very much like he did as a boy. “Don’t look at me. I just go where you point me.”

Laughing loudly, she put a gentle hand to his cheek. “Our children won't listen to me anymore. I’ve been just itching for someone to order around. Thank the gods you’ve come home.”

He smiled, a small flicker, filled with wonder — the one that was hers and hers only. You make me burn, she thought, as she had thought a million times. He would keep making her burn, on and on and on until she fizzled out with him at her side.

“Kiss me, would you?”

“Anything for you, Sansa,” he breathed, and leaned over to meet her lips in the way he always did; soft, tender, saying far more than he could with words.

Theon was not golden haired or godly like the songs, but he was every bit flesh and blood, a kindred soul, and perhaps that was what father really meant when he spoke of her perfect match.

Her family was not flawless; their children’s parents were haunted by things they could not see, despite their best efforts to battle them. But it had gotten better over time, these long years in relative safety. It would continue to get better.

The worries that had plagued her before and after her coronation — visions of an empty Winterfell, a lonely life, starvation and freezing — had all proved false. Just like Bran had promised long ago in his letter sent along with the saddle diagram, the halls of Winterfell were home once again, filled with warm laughter and small bodies, shouts and games and life.

She hoped Father, Mother, Robb, Rickon and her three living siblings were proud of her for rebuilding the devastating hole that the Iron Throne had rammed into the family of her childhood.

Wine goblet in hand, she began to plan a reunion with her siblings. First, she would invite Bran to Winterfell in anticipation of Jon and Arya’s arrival, though she suspected her all-seeing brother already knew they’d reached out. When Jon received her letter and they both made their way here, all of them would be together again. At least for a while, but Sansa would extend the visit for as long as she possibly could.

She couldn’t wait to show Jon and Arya how good Robb was at his sword, or how skilled Rickard was at drawing, or the way Ned was as reserved as Jon and their father. Bran could shower Lyanna and Alannys with tales of every knight in existence, and then they would braid his long hair, now allegedly down to his shoulders.

Sansa would plan a special introduction for Cat, telling her stories of Arya’s muddy misdeeds before her aunt arrived to steal her away into Winterfell’s corners and crevices.

There was a restlessness in her, an excited energy that made her bounce her leg like her life dependent on it. Sansa did not think she had felt this light since before the southron king of stags rode north.

A grin spread across Sansa’s face, one she both feared and delighted in it never disappearing. It gave her much joy to imagine all of her tormentors seething at the sight of her happiness, and the grin turned a little smug. Her dream of spring had come true.

Sansa looked at Theon, face and body relaxed and eating his food whole — something the Reek of decades past would gawk at. Theon — always Theon, the name she whispered in her dreams — watched their children eat with soft eyes.

Beneath the table, Sansa reached over and squeezed his free hand, pressing a finger over a stump. With a resolute caress across her palm with his thumb, he returned her grip, a silent and awed I know.

Just beneath the two of them, their children were laughing, faces young and bright and open. Together again, the Starks would endure.