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She’s always been smarter, always been more advanced than any of her peers.
It’s brought her nothing but complications.
She walked at eight months, and talked at nine, to the astonishment of her parents who only had Robb’s development to refer back to. As she grew and her intelligence became more and more prominent, they took pride in enrolling her into programs specifically tailored to her advanced skills. She begged them to keep it quiet, but they never listened.
She can’t begrudge them their pride.
Perhaps they should have been more delicate about it, not boasted half as much as they did, but it isn’t as if it was to the detriment of their other children. Robb is particularly talented at lacrosse, and so when Sansa was at her lessons, learning how to conjugate this verb or that years before she was supposed to, Robb was practising lacrosse, coming home with bruises and scratches whilst Sansa returned with knowledge. She never understood the appeal of lacrosse, still doesn’t, and so when her parents dragged her along to watch Robb during his weekend matches, she always remembered to snag a book before leaving, spending most of the match with her head buried in it instead of cheering for her brother. When Arya, Bran and Rickon arrive in turn, her parents make sure to cater to their skills – Arya takes fencing lessons, Bran has joined a rock-climbing club and Rickon likes nothing more than to read stories, tales of man and beast together in the wilderness.
She is the smartest in her class, and whilst the fact delights her, it often leaves her sitting idle while her classmates struggle over work that takes her mere moments to complete. She has resigned herself to years of this torture, for she couldn’t skip another grade without drawing more attention to herself. All she really wants is to blend in, get invited to parties, perhaps draw the eye of Joffrey Baratheon, lacrosse captain and most popular boy in school. She just wants to live the normal teenage life her mother likes to remember fondly after a few too many wines.
But the normal teenage life bores her after only a few weeks, and she returns to her studies in secret, pouring over medieval texts and wondering just when it will be acceptable to be beautiful and intelligent, in the shallow town that is Beacon Hills.
She’s managed to draw Joffrey’s attention, but she finds being the arm candy of the most popular boy at Beacon Hills is not as pleasing as she thought it would be. Joffrey’s moods often rapidly change and his affection varies from day to day. But her new-found social status pleases her parents, so she maintains the facade. Her mother delights in sharing with her all of her teenage exploits and her father grins as she takes an interest in lacrosse, attending more and more matches – only because if Joffrey’s girlfriend isn’t present at the match and cheering for him, won’t that displease him and cause misery for her. Joffrey is the son of her father’s best-friend, so the fact that they are dating delights him even more – even if she thinks Joffrey looks nothing like his father, not at all. She wonders why that could be, mentally referring back to her readings on genetics and DNA before shaking her head and returning to mindlessly cheering for Joffrey’s latest goal.
She thinks of it all as an exercise in acting, in faking happiness, and chalks it up as another learning experience for her to go along with the classical Latin she can so easily speak,. It never occurs to her thtat she is trying desperately hard to find some sort of reason to continue along the path of social status and popularity she has carved out for herself.
That is, until Willas Tyrell and Oberyn Martell come barging into her life, dragging their supernatural problems into her life of fake smiles and secret AP classes.
Because, honestly, she’s never been happier.
---
When Oberyn shares with him the bite mark on his lower abdomen, he wants to burst out in laughter and pinch himself, for surely this must all be a dream. Werewolves, here, in Beacon Hills? Ridiculous. The scariest thing in this crappy town is the way the kids at school bend over backwards to cater to Joffrey and his posse, for surely that isn’t healthy.
Alright, maybe he’s a little jealous of Joffrey – not just because he’s popular and the star member of the lacrosse team whilst Willas has never even played a freaking match. Joffrey has the affection and adoration of one Sansa Stark, and he doesn’t see how lucky he is to have her! For one, when Joffrey seemingly feels in the right frame of mind to be affectionate, he compliments Sansa on her red hair – when, honestly, it’s obviously auburn. Not that he delays collecting his lunch to wait and hear what sweet-nothings Joffrey has decided to whisper in Sansa’s ear.
Sansa aside, when he sees Oberyn look at him, mouth set seriously, he swallows his laughter and accepts the bite as truth. Will he turn completely into a werewolf, all hair and claws, all snarls and growls, or will he remain human for the majority of the moon and suffer the signs of lycanthropy only at the full moon or whenever else he decides to shift? There is no solid fact to go on, no textbook to flick through, only half-hashed theories on the internet that provide nothing but more and more questions.
He’s always been intelligent, even if his report cards don’t provide evidence to the fact. His teachers all sigh and tell his dad that ‘Willas could do better if he just focused’. Nonetheless, he is honestly struggling to comprehend the whole Oberyn-is-now-a-werewolf notion. His best friend has always been more handsome, more suave than he (which really isn’t saying much), and now it seems he’ll have freaking supernatural powers just to cap it all off. It’s mind-boggling, and it’s after the seventh night of little sleep he tells Oberyn they need some help. The Lannisters, especially the one that bit Oberyn, aren’t particularly helpful in any regard and spend most of their time brooding.
Not that Oberyn cares very much, for his newfound werewolf status has provided him with the ability to actually play on the lacrosse team instead of warming the bench alongside Willas. Along with this comes attention from the new girl, Lyanna. She’d been looking at Oberyn before he found his new-found prowess so Willas cannot dislike her, nor deny his friend happiness. Oberyn has listened to him moan constantly about Sansa, so now it seems it is his turn to do the same.
As he watches both Lyanna and Sansa take a seat on the stands, Sansa’s gaze not directed at him, never directed at him, he merely sighs and can only hope things are about to change.
---
Okay, so maybe things didn’t have to change quite this much. He could have done without the late nights spent researching supernatural occurrences, could have done without the whole spiritual possession thing, and definitely could have gone without this injury.
Two years ago, if anyone had told him he’d be lying in a hospital bed, with a severe injury as the result of yet another supernatural occurrence in seemingly normal and mundane Beacon Hills, Willas would have laughed in their face. Add to that the fact that his best-friend was a freaking werewolf, and a true alpha at that, and the girl he’d been in love with since third grade had turned out to be a death-predicting, high-pitched screaming banshee, and Willas would have had his dad arrest them for lunacy.
Two years ago, all he worried about was making the lacrosse team, not fighting off mysterious supernatural enemies that should exist only in books and films.
He never would have thought something like a deadpool existed, nonetheless contain the names of people he knows. He’d been left off the list, thankful for once for his lack of supernatural powers, but Oberyn and Sansa had both been listed – Sansa seemingly worth $20 million out of the money stolen from the Lannisters.
He scoffs to himself, running a hand through his curls once more. The tube currently stuck in his arm is doing quite well at relieving the pain in his right leg, but the swirl of thoughts in his head are something that cannot be taken away by medication. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been injured so badly before this, what with his tendency to race in as backup for Oberyn with only a baseball bat in his hands. Sansa has often told him that just because he had a supernatural best friend, he is still a freaking human and thus more than able to be hurt – and now it looks like her words are ringing true.
He wonders where Sansa is now. All he remembers before blacking out and then waking up to his father’s face hovering over him, is Sansa screaming, screaming, screaming, so loudly the sound still rings in his ears. He huffs as he shifts slightly in the uncomfortable hospital bed, and rubs his brow with the heel of his palms. Two years ago, all he’d wanted was for Sansa to notice him, to actually return his greeting in the hall instead of ignoring it and breezing right on by despite his frantic waving. He’d just wanted to graduate high school, go to college and make something of himself, make his dad proud. He’ll never begrudge Oberyn for what happened to him, never not run to his side when he needed help, but god it would be nice to have a day off once in a while. Only to pretend that his life is still normal, that he spends his nights on the internet watching funny videos and is more often than not transfixed by Sansa Stark as she walks down the hall.
But this whole supernatural business has given him the opportunity to actually speak to Sansa, to separate her from Joffrey and learn just how complex she is, so he can’t really complain too much about it – even if he can hear the doctor talking to his dad in the hall, can hear them discussing the fact that there’s an 80% chance his leg is completely useless.
He swallows his sob, and thinks purely of Sansa, hoping she is alright and not lying prone in a bed similar to his.
He’s injured because he tried to save her, after all. He can only hope he was successful.
---
Sansa’s always been smart. Highly smart and highly intuitive, a fact that couldn’t be properly explained until she was bitten and her banshee powers appeared. She’d always known what people expected of her, what her boyfriends wanted her to say or do, what her parents liked to her present to the public, without them having to say a word.
That’s why this comes as such a shock to her, the girl who has always been two or three steps ahead in front of everyone and constantly prepared for any type of situation. She’d spent the months after Joffrey moved to London to better ‘find himself’ trying to forget all about the other boy who had bought her a flat-screen television, piles of jewellery and numerous other gifts, all for her birthday. He was going to return them all, he’d said, sitting on his bed and nervously looking up at her. Nonetheless the fact that he, someone she’d never dated, never considered a special part of her life at all, had gone to all the effort of selecting numerous gifts for her, had made her cheeks flush and forced her to look away for a moment.
After Joffrey there’s been numerous flings with several men – she can’t remember their names even if she wanted to, but she doesn’t mind – and then finally one with Harry, something that started out as purely physical but could have grown into something that resembled love but was never given the chance.
Only Willas remains, and he still looks at her as if she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
She should have seen this coming, but she didn’t, and the thought scares her.
She sighs, wondering just when between trying to figure out her powers and helping everyone with their academic problems she’d fallen in love with Willas Tyrell.
---
Sansa does not come to see him before he is released from the hospital. Oberyn does, a hand full of comics and a grin on his face. He murmurs something about his offer always being open, particularly now, but Willas merely shakes his head. Even with a thick cast on his leg and a pair of crutches under his arms, along with the possibility that the limb will be highly useless for the rest of his life, he doesn’t want the bite. It’d be nice to have healing powers, nice to be able to leap and run faster than before (nice to actually play lacrosse instead of warming the bench), but he likes the fact that he is still a human, and doesn’t mind the ache in his leg if it means he is still alive.
The pain in his heart at the fact Sansa hasn’t bothered to see him hurts him more, if he’s completely honest.
Even if he knows she will never love him back, he’d begun to thought that they were growing sort of close, becoming friends. They spent numerous nights together, both intently researching to try and contribute in some way to the group. But that was before Sansa had truly realised the extent of her powers, and before Lyanna died. He remembers her screaming and collapsing into him as the realisation of Lyanna’s death hit her, and her grief is still evident to all, dark circles under her eyes and the shine lost from her auburn hair. She manages to hide it particularly well from the rest of the school, but he knows her, knows that when her lips form a pout she wants something and when furrows appear on her forehead she is frustrated with something, or someone.
He knows that if she just visits him, he’ll be able to comfort her in a minute, be able to dissuade her fears about everything and convince her that it is all going to be okay.
But she doesn’t, and he returns home without so much as a text message from her, his dad fussing over him with a look in his eyes he hasn’t seen since his mom was diagnosed. His leg might be quite useless, but he isn’t dead, and he wants to tell his dad this but swallows the urge. Saying nothing is better, at least for now.
Despite all parties involved believing it would be best for him to stay at home and rest, on Monday morning he hauls himself out of bed, stumbling slightly before he finds his crutches, and by seven-thirty sharp is dressed and seated downstairs, spooning cereal into his mouth. His dad walks into the kitchen, sharply inhales, shakes his head, but says nothing. Willas does however, have to accept a lift from his dad, seeing the foot most necessary to drive is currently hidden by layers of plaster and will probably never function again.
It is only after lunch, seated in algebra, that he lays eyes upon Sansa in the first time in weeks. Her auburn hair pulled tight back into a ponytail and her lips free of any colour, she looks relatively fine.
He knows better.
She does not look behind her for the entirety of the lesson, does not shift her gaze from the board and the equations upon it. He finds himself distracted by the mere sight of her. It has been so long since he saw her last that he forgot the curve of her neck, forgot the way she taps her finger three times against her pen before settling down to solve a problem. He watches her, but despite knowing he is behind her, despite knowing that he’s returned to school, Sansa does not look back, not once.
She’s out of the classroom before he even has a chance to register her departure. He can hear the click-clack of her heels as she walks down the hallway to her next class. Shaking his head he stuffs his notes into his bag, slings it over his shoulder and hobbles to his next class. Despite their annoying weight and the way the skin under his arms is beginning to chafe, having crutches has become useful. People part for him, they duck and weave around him as he moves slowly down the hall. Oberyn waves at him in the doorway of his science class, before quickly ducking inside just as the bell shrilly rings and the door slams shut, Mr. Baratheon shaking his head in annoyance.
He’s going to be late, again, but finds he doesn’t care, stopping in the middle of the now empty hallway. Classes and lessons, teachers and assignments, they really don’t matter, not any more. Not after everything they’ve all been through – Lyanna’s death, the deadpool, the pack of murderous alphas. All he wants is a chance to be normal again, a chance to be that naive Willas who thought werewolves were fictional.
It isn’t as if everything has gotten better. Sansa is still ignoring him, just like she did two years ago, for a reason he’ll probably never be aware of. Nothing has changed, even if he wants it to.
He inhales sharply and begins to move forward once more with quiet resignation.
---
She knows she’s acting like a bitch, knows Lyanna would berate her for her behaviour if she was still here, but she just can’t help it. Even spotting the top of Willas’ head as she hurried into class today made her heart pound faster, something Oberyn would have surely noticed had he not switched classes. It is better for them all if she simply concentrates on the problems in front of her, not on the boy behind her and the way he makes her feel. She’s been in love once already, close to it a second time, and in both insistences everything has been destroyed and she’s been left sobbing into her pillow.
No matter how much lipstick she places on her lips, no matter how many pairs of heels she wears just for the sound of the dominant click-clack as she struts down the hallway, falling in love is just going to hurt her again, and she’s experienced enough pain in her life already, thank you very much.
But her new-found realisation continues to haunt her, at school, in the library, during her dreams. She loves Willas, has loved him probably for a solid six months or so, and the feeling will not go away no matter how hard she tries to shake it. She hadn’t even noticed the change in herself, had been too swept up in everything supernatural to realise she no longer scoffed at Willas’ witty remarks but had to stifle a laugh at them.
Her entire life has been based around hiding her intelligence, hiding her true self and pretending to be someone vainer, giggler and dumber just to be popular and have an influential boyfriend. Well, she thinks, hasn’t that plan gone to shit? Not only is Joffrey living it up in London and the whole school aware just how intelligent she actually is, her best friend, the one person who had actually looked at her and saw who she really was, has not just fled Beacon Hills, but is gone – permanently. All she has now is Oberyn and Willas, and she doesn’t want to ruin everything by declaring her feelings, especially when things have soured so quickly for her in the past.
She tries to avoid both Oberyn and Willas, tries to avoid the awkward questions over her absence and the new friendships they’ve formed with Elia and Dany. How can they laugh and joke when Lyanna is dead and will never laugh again? She misses her best friend terribly, and often spends her nights neglecting her homework despite her promise to concentrate on her studies more this semester (please, like she needs a full week to complete a three-page essay) to flick through her photos of Lyanna and haunt her Facebook page – her last status update something simple about dinner with her dad, a mere four words that make Sansa stifle a sob and shut her laptop quickly.
But her avoidance cannot last forever. Willas manages to corner her at lunch, her fork idly stabbing pieces of carrots but letting them drop back into the container once more, uneaten. She supposes she should have heard him coming, should have heard the thump that accompanied his crutches, but as he slips into the seat next to her, she notes the absence of his wooden crutches, his right hand gripping what looks like a cane instead. She arches an eyebrow at his appearance, drops her fork back into the container, and waits for him to berate her.
It doesn’t come. Willas, leaning closer to her, merely murmurs, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She nearly blushes at his words, at how close his lips are to her ears after weeks of self-imposed distance. She is Sansa Stark, she’s had numerous boyfriends and a handful of sexual partners, she should not feel this unnerved by a mere whisper!
She furrows her brow. “I haven’t,” she informs him, stabbing yet another piece of carrot but not eating it. One for Joffrey, one for Harry, one for Lyanna… one for every person in her life who has become close to her but has then left her. She thinks Willas shall soon follow suit.
“You have,” he retorts, obviously irritated by her refusal to acknowledge her behaviour. She shrugs his comment away; she’s been hiding her true feelings for so many years now, how can another day hurt? Willas huffs, exasperated at her shrug, and expels a puff of air that somehow expresses just how frustrated he is with her. She refuses to respond.
“Sansa,” he pleads, turning to her. She does not meet him halfway, stays facing the other members of the cafeteria, inhaling deeply. She can see his brown curls out of the corner of her eyes, the freckles that she’s dreamt about, but she does not look at him. Not even when he places his hand over the one she has resting on the table, her nails painted a light shade of purple to compliment her pastel dress – she might be conflicted about seemingly everything in her life right now, but god-dammit she is still going to dress well and present a perfect, pretty picture to the outside world. Habits are hard to break.
“Sansa,” he repeats, and something in his voice causes her facade to crack. She turns to him, tears pooling in her eyes. It takes clenching her free fist tightly to ensure she does not start weeping. That wouldn’t be seemly, and she isn’t sure if her mascara is waterproof.
Willas smiles as she looks at him, a smile that obviously desires to reassure her. It does the opposite – because how can he still be so happy, when Lyanna is dead, and his leg is ruined? He’ll never walk properly again, and it’s all her fault. She has to swallow a tired laugh at the thought. She’d been on the deadpool, listed quite prominently on the deadpool, because of her ‘supernatural’ status. It was stupid really, when all she does is scream and scream and scream, tries desperately to stay one step ahead of her senses but fails time and time again. Someone had wanted her dead because of that. She doesn’t have claws or glowing eyes like Oberyn, Joffrey and the Lannisters do, doesn’t have the ability to protect herself, but she’d come so very close to dying nonetheless.
It had been Willas’ intervention that saved her life – yet again. Even though he’d never mentioned it, she knows deep down it had been his figure that raced towards her that night after the dance, Cersei crouched over her and growling, ready to turn her. Despite Willas’ intervention, she had still been bitten, had still spent days stumbling around in the forest, and she knows he blames himself for dragging her into the supernatural mess their lives now all were comprised of. This time, an axe had been so close to lopping her head off – her hair beautifully styled, so at least that had been a comfort - and would have succeeded too, if Willas had not jumped in front of her, the axe landing solidly in his kneecap.
She’d screamed so loudly she feared her voice-box would shatter.
She chokes back another sob at the memory, Willas looking at her with concern. She points a finger to his leg, still contained in a plaster cast that she knows will do nothing to fix it. “That’s my fault,” she murmurs, fingers wiping away tears that have fallen from her eyes without her realising. “If you hadn’t tried to protect me, you wouldn’t be hurt. I told you to find something better than a baseball bat.”
Willas shakes his head at her. “If I hadn’t protected you, you’d be dead. That would hurt me more than a ruined leg ever could.”
She inhales sharply, and then says something she never thought would leave her lips.
“I love you,” she blurts out.
The silence that settles over them both is unsettling, and she thinks about grabbing her bag and running. She’s always waited for boyfriends to tell her they love her first, has always smiled and whispered the same phrase back, even if she didn’t mean it. She’s never been the first to say it, and she’s horrified it slipped out of her mouth – even if she knows Willas has loved her for an age, has wanted her to feel the same way for years. Still, despite this knowledge and the fact that she’s seen people change into werewolves in front of her, amongst other creatures that should never have been real, the way Willas’ mouth drops open as if to speak but no words come out is probably the most unnerving and scary thing she has ever experienced. But she forces herself to remain seated, because if her mind has decided now is the best time to tell Willas she loves him, then surely there must be a reason.
Willas closes his mouth, closes his eyes, and sharply inhales, his hand still resting on hers, a warm weight on top of her skin. She takes comfort in that, takes it as a sign he is not repulsed by her declaration. She’s seen how close he’s become to Dany lately, and she’d thought that perhaps he’d finally given up on her after waiting for so long.
When his eyes open once more, he is grinning, so widely she fears his lips will tear. He pulls his hand away from hers, and the loss of contact is devastating for a few heartbeats, until he places that hand gently on her waist and pulls her closer to him. Sitting so close together she can see every freckle on his nose, he whispers, “I’ve waited so long for you to say that.”
She arches an eyebrow smugly, looping her hands around his neck and grinning up at him.
Even though they are currently seated in a cafeteria crammed with people, and she’s never been quite comfortable with public displays of affection, she looks at Willas, pouts her lips, and tells him, in quite a demanding tone, “Shut up and kiss me already.”