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Chapter Text

Saying goodbye to it all was painful, and relief. He could not hold onto the past without breathing in every bit of suffering he wanted so desperately to forget. Not wanted, he had to forget. The whiteness of beyond the Wall was blinding, and he wanted it. He wanted it all seared from his mind.

Dany, Ygritte, his mother, did he bring anything but death to the women who loved him?

She had lived, only because she had not loved him.

He would not think of her. He must not, and yet, he could not stop. Everything reminded him of her. A song at the campfire, a raven, black like her dress, the sky on the clearest day, sometimes the flash of red in the corner of his eye, and he’d turn and find Tormund looking at him with a peculiar expression. He tried so hard to forget and his efforts were flailing in depthless water, sinking him ever deeper into his madness.

Time would be his salvation.

But it wasn’t.

He stayed with the Free Folk, knowing no one would question his prolonged absence, and thinking that it must, at some point, it would fade. The blood of the fallen would fade, the scent of the burned would fade, his failures and loss would fade, her face would fade. It would all fade away.

It nearly did until it didn’t.

Ghost hadn’t warned him, and he came into the camp unawares, ignoring the red that always flitted just out of his eyeline, but this time it wasn’t Tormund, or rather, not Tormund alone.

She was there, standing before him.

He was incapable of movement, of speech, he could not even blink. Tears were in her eyes, her arms were around him, and everything was red and warm, and he was confused and afraid—

Disuse made his voice gruff, “Why are you here?” He did not intend to sound so cold, for accusations to roll out with each syllable, but she flinched. She heard them, as aware of his feelings as she always was, whether he said them or not, whether he recognized them or not.

Her fingers released their grip, her arms fell to her sides, she stepped away. “The North wishes to maintain good relations with the Free Folk. I am here to speak with Tormund.”

Jon nodded, regretted the way he had spoken, regretted that she pulled herself away, regretted too many things to allow himself to list them. He nodded again, unsure of what to say, and so, he began to drift away.

Ghost had no such intention, he moved closer to Sansa, brushed against her cloak, pressed his nose into her skirts until she smiled, crouched, and placed her hands on either side of his great head.

“You’re looking worse for wear” she said, and Jon wondered if she spoke to the animal or him. Ghost, that traitor, huffed, leaned into her hands heavily as Sansa’s gloved fingers dug into the fur on his throat and then behind his ears. The direwolf seemingly forgetting his master altogether as Sansa pet him.

Jon cleared his throat, “You’ll spoil ‘im.”

“A little attention never hurt anything.”

Tormund had been quiet, but finally determined it was time for him to play host. “There’s a tent for you and furs.”

“Furs?” Sansa glanced from Tormund to Jon who was too busy eyeing the Wildling to notice.

“Aye, and you’ll wear ‘em. Can’t wear long skirts in the snows without freezing.”

Jon opened his mouth to object to Tormund’s plan of dressing Sansa as a Wildling. He objected to him thinking about what she was wearing. He objected to how Tormund had glanced over what she was wearing, in fact, he objected—

But Sansa paid him no attention. She smiled, held out her hand to the big oaf, and after he had carelessly jerked her to her feet, took his arm as if they were to about to stroll through the glass gardens in Winterfell, rather than trudge over the packed, slippery snow in the camp.

Tormund’s arm waved in this direction and that, pointing to nothing and everything, always pleased to have an audience. Jon didn’t know if he was more annoyed that Tormund had no difficulty speaking to Sansa, that her laughter indicated she found him charming, or that she wasn’t discomfited by her new surroundings. Tormund was tall enough he had to incline his head to listen to Sansa’s comments, and that was certainly not the cause of Jon’s agitation. But, something was building within Jon, more than mere annoyance, less than anger, and his fingers clenched compulsively.

Ghost, who had waited patiently with him as the two red heads walked away, whined, leapt to his feet, and chased after Sansa, which seemed about right to Jon. Of course, even Ghost couldn’t abide him.

Sansa had several guards with her, not enough for a queen, but life was calm here, and between Tormund, himself, and Ghost, Jon accepted that decision although it made him anxious. Having her here was upsetting on its own. It was too much to think he might put the past behind him, only to have the past come find him.

He told himself that he was angry, that he had every right to be, that he should have been allowed to walk away, but Sansa was here before she came. She would be here after she left. And how could he be angry that she came to him, when all he wanted was to draw near to her?

But still, he was angry. She seemed happy, and how could she be happy?

And then, what was worse than Ghost preferring Sansa, and worse than Tormund deciding to enjoy every one of the smiles he could summon from her, was Sansa stepping from her tent. Worse than whatever frustration at being found, was the sight of Sansa in Wildling furs. How she seemed as at home in them as she had in her dark dresses, how she still looked regal, how she appeared slender while he and the others trudged around in varying degrees of bulkiness, sweatiness, greasy hair, and red noses.

He hated how much he loved the sight.

He hated how his eyes followed her against his will.

He hated how she laughed so easily with the women and men she spoke with.

He hated that he did not join them.

He hated that he could. That the only reason he didn’t was because the only thing left to him was his resentment. That letting go of that would leave him untethered. He hated that she had cut every rope holding her to the nightmares of her past, that she could be free, and he was yet to disentangle himself.

He was angry that Bran felt no burden for the lives he knew would be lost, that Tyrion stood by the dragon queen as she burned her way across continents and yet he was free. The man who empowered a tyrant drank wine, issued commands, and ruled a kingdom without the burden of wearing the crown.

He was angry that Arya shrugged it all off, and walked away, free of responsibility. Free, just free. How he wanted it. But to be free, free meant letting go, and he never had. He was a bastard still, no matter what was written in an old diary.

He was Ned Stark’s son, pulling every death he’d caused upon himself, until the crushing weight of it was as real as the moment he had fallen during the Battle of the Bastards. He could not let who he was slide through his fingers, and who he was, was the boy raised by Eddard Stark, and with it came burdens.

He could not let that go.

It was the dead, shaming him from beyond the grave. He was the usurper Lady Stark had always feared he was. He could not forgive himself for that. He was the wretch that betrayed his countrymen, betrayed the memory of his brother, Robb, by failing, by fearing, by being incapable of saving them all. He’d betrayed her, the tears in her eyes as she asked him why he had knelt never fell to her cheeks, no matter how often he relived that moment. It was all for nothing.

Her suspicions, the distrust of his people, Lyanna Mormont’s eyes as she looked at him, “I'm not sure what you are now.” The girl who named him king, her body as it burned. All the people who still burned in his nightmares.

It was all for nothing. He thought he could stop it, but he hadn’t.

And yet Sansa smiled. She laughed. How could she be free? How could she bear it?

He turned away; he always turned away.

*****

“You’re not angry with me, Jon.”

He started, hadn’t heard her joining him at his fire. Ghost was by her side, as he had been all day, and now lay down between them as she settled on the other end of the log.

“How do you know that?” His voice was gravelly, as it was often, since he found little use for it.

“I’m sure you think you are. Maybe in some way you are, but it’s so small you can’t even find it. You are too honest to hold me responsible for what you know I tried to prevent.”

“Do you ever get tired of telling me ‘I told you so’?”

“When have I ever said that?”

“You thought it.”

“I was too relieved that you returned to me alive to think it in Winterfell.”

“Not too relieved to question my loyalty.”

Sansa stroked Ghost’s fur, took his good ear in her fingers and scratched him until he sighed, and fell against her legs. Jon thought in that moment, he might be angry with Ghost too, just a little.

“If I fell into bed with Littlefinger, I think you would have wondered if I had summoned him to save the North or if I had given the North to him.”

Jon cringed, knowing that he had questioned, feared, that Sansa would be used by Littlefinger, and she had not given him a reason beyond not speaking to him of her plan. She hadn’t disappeared for weeks without word. She hadn’t pledged their men to retake a throne that was only used for their oppression. She hadn’t bedded their enemy.

Her words held some terrible power over him, and he became her hapless prey, even though she never knew he was within her grasp. And then, instead of a blow, she delivered a caress. He always found her unexpected kindness more devastating than any insult. You’re good at this you know.

“Littlefinger would have seen you dead.”

He returned to the present with a start. She didn’t look at him, preoccupied with winning Ghost’s devotion, and he was not sure what he should say to that. Perhaps he needn’t say anything. But then, her eyes were on him, burning with the ferocity that he feared as much as loved.

“I never spoke a word to protect you.”

His breath caught as she continued with a vehemence she rarely exhibited.

“I let him think what he wanted to think, right up until the day he was on his knees, begging me for his life. And then I had Arya slit his throat.” She looked away from him, through the flames, into the darkness beyond.

“We do what we must to survive.”

She knew. How could she know? He had turned to her on the docks and wanted to speak, wanted to explain it, wanted to beg her forgiveness, wanted—but it would have been cruel, wrong, pointless. Still, somehow, she knew.

Once more her eyes met his. “We do what we must to make sure we survive.”

He opened his mouth to explain, but explaining meant letting go, and he could feel it already, the fury raging, wanting to come out, and with it gone, what could he do, what would he be?

“I wrote to Bran to tell him I pardoned you. He said he knew.”

There was an unnatural stillness beyond the Wall. It had not thawed enough for life to fill the air, but an owl could be heard somewhere in the trees, the low murmur of the ocean hummed below the sharp cries of his fire, and Jon thought he almost could speak, that the words would come of their own accord, and he opened his mouth to let them pour out—

She began to softly sing, running her fingers through Ghost’s fur, and the sound, it pulled him back to years and years ago. She was Sansa, not a queen, and he was Jon, not a kinslayer, and neither knew true suffering. Neither had longed for death.

She was a girl brushing Lady’s coat; he was a boy, watching.

He slid from the log to the dirt, he could not endure. He wished for his brothers, his father, even Lady Stark. He wished that they lived, and yet, as he watched Sansa, for all he would wish them back, he would never wish to call her sister.

He did not speak, but he could not pull his eyes away.

***** 

No matter where he went in camp, no matter where he looked, he saw her. A child’s mitten bore an embroidered flower, a hunter hummed a tune she had been singing, a woman’s braid was twice as ornate as the others. He could almost see Sansa’s pale fingers delving into her hair.

She sang with the children, she sewed with the women, and in turn they taught her to hold a bow, they took her to an inlet to fish, they gathered what nuts they could, searched the small bits of green emerging from the ground for herbs and told her of their uses.

They smelled of smoke, their hands were rough, their voices sharp, louder than he had ever heard hers, and yet she walked among them, worked with them, as if she was as accustomed to this as she was to feasting in the Great Hall.

He was ashamed that it surprised him, ashamed that he had underestimated her in yet another way, even after it all. He was ashamed that she came so far for him, and even now he failed her.

He was surrounded, and it felt like drowning, and he wanted to drink it in, and he wanted it to end. He wanted to walk away, to run, to be lost.

But Sansa was there, always there, refusing to let him let go, always finding him.

He was always—and never—angry with Sansa. She was the voice of the worst and best of him.

He was angry; he loved her anyway.

Chapter Text

There was dancing, and he didn’t ask, and she didn’t ask him.

There was drinking, and he drank, too much, and she watched, but she didn’t tell him to stop.

There was singing, and even when the songs were bawdy, she merely laughed and ignored Tormund’s waggling eyebrows.

Tormund reached for her, pulled her into the dance with his great hands, and she laughed, and stomped her feet, and threw her arms in the air, and her hair fell from her braids and around her face and she was young and happy—

He walked away. This he could not see. Sansa as she could have been, should have been, and what he took from her, what she thinks he took from her.

*****

Tormund paid no attention to the fact that Jon wanted to be alone. After most of the revelers had gone to bed, and Jon brooded by a fire near Sansa’s tent, his friend joined him, asking questions as if Jon ever welcomed that.

“Is she a good Queen?” Tormund asked, his beard damp from the sour goat’s milk he splashed into his mouth.

“The best they could ask for.”

“Doesn’t seem to mind mingling with those who live with dirt beneath their nails and knots in their hair.”

Jon rubbed the scar over his eye that no longer ached, but always called to him when uneasy. “She cares more for the smallfolk than any Lord or Lady I’ve known. She saved as many as she could and has been resettling and rebuilding now that the wars are over. No queen could do more for them.”

“You know an awful lot of what goes on South of the Wall.”

“They are my people. Were my people” he corrected.

“And you know your pretty sister.” Tormund continued as if he hadn’t heard Jon.

Jon looked at the man, “Yes, I know my cousin.”

“What kind of men does she like?”

Jon had not expected that. “She’s Queen in the North. I don’t think—she wouldn’t—”

“She wants good relations with the Free Folk.” Tormund shrugged as if the solution was obvious.

Jon could only give a forced smile, irrationally wishing his friend’s foot that rested near the fire would catch flame, just a little.

“She’s a tall woman. She’d like a tall man.”

Jon thought that a burnt toe was insufficient. The entire foot might need to go.

“She’s lonely. She’s not the type to be happy living alone in a castle. She doesn’t want to be bowed and knelt to, held in awe. She wants to be held in warm arms.”

The leg then. Tormund’s infernally long leg, and the other if his inebriated friend didn’t close his mouth.

“She wants you to go home.”

Jon sighed.

“Hair kissed by fire is beautiful.”

“She is.” Jon regretted it. As soon as he realized what he had said, he cursed himself for speaking.

Tormund laughed. “Little Crow!” He clapped him on the back. “You can’t help yourself when it comes to a woman with flaming hair.”

Jon stiffened beneath his hand. No, he mustn’t forget, could not let go.

He’s supposed to be angry, he’s—he had told her to trust him. He had kept the North safe. He kept her safe, but Sansa had meddled. Yet, he knew, he knew she had done it because she wanted to save him, to save them all.

She had. He had. And they hadn’t.

The South burned, even though the North was spared, thousands upon thousands still paid the price. Women and children turned to ash or worse, not still living, just crying and screaming and screaming and screaming—

No, he was not angry with Sansa, it was himself, for failing, always failing.

He was angry that life had seen fit to mock him at every opportunity, never—why couldn’t it ever let him be? It wasn’t Sansa, never Sansa. He was angry with the gods who had twisted him, made him come back from the dead malformed. He was angry that everything he touched was tainted while she lived untouched—no. He suffered, she had too.

They were the last, their family dead or gone. Arya had left. Bran was no longer Bran. They had survived the winter, they were all that remained, whatever it was that was left of them.

Why must they suffer more?

He had always tried to do what was right, and the gods punished him, every time. If they were going to punish him anyway, what did it matter what he did?

He took Tormund’s horn and drank as the man told him of yet another conquest Jon believed but desperately wished he didn’t. Ghost emerged from the trees, walking past Jon without pausing and nosed his way beneath the flap into her tent.

No, he told himself again, eyes looking for movement. He was Ned Stark’s son. He always did the right thing.

No. Tainted by dragon blood, never to be the man he was born to be. He was not a Stark. Son of a prince, son of a lady, heir to the Iron Throne, and a bastard once again. Still. Always.

He put his back to the tent, facing the fire once more, vaguely aware that Tormund had finally accepted his disinterest and wandered away, leaving Jon to himself, to every version of himself that he had been and was: bastard, oathbreaker, kinslayer.

He always did the right thing, but he was damned by his nature, damned by his birth, his every decision leading to a fall.

In the tent, Ghost was huffing in exasperation and his startled sneeze followed by muffled laughter made Jon smile, then grimace. The animal was probably trying to sleep with his great head resting on Sansa, crushing her beneath his weight.

Jon’s hand fell to his own chest, where betrayal had carved itself. He clutched at the scrars. No, he told himself, no. He closed his eyes and waited for the darkness to take him, for the cold to bite him, burden after burden silently pressing into him. But Sansa was demanding Ghost move, laughing still, and the darkness could not silence it, the drink could not distract him, the cold was not enough to numb him. He could feel her laughter, sliding around him, slipping into him, warm, soft, free.

*****

“Why did you come?” He had followed her to the shore, where she was collecting rocks with children who had scattered, some inspecting driftwood, some admiring the ship that brought Sansa and would take her away. She kept inspecting rocks, tossing the undesired ones away. He tried again, “What did you think you’d be getting from me?”

“I didn’t come for anything.”

“Didn’t come all this way to talk to Tormund. Someone else could have come.”

“But Tormund is leader of the Free Folk now, almost a king, and I was told once that a queen needs to see a king to negotiate.” She threw a rock into the waves and looked at him, unbothered by reminiscing on the before. “Jon, I’m teasing.”

He huffed, felt like smiling, but didn’t.

She sighed. “The Free Folk may not be my people, but they fought with us to take back the North and to protect it. I’ll never forget that. The North Remembers.” She kicked at the sand. “I came to convince Tormund to take some supplies, just enough to see them through the last of the winter. They lost too many adults to be able to rely on hunting, not when game is still so scarce.”

“Sansa—"

“The North has enough. I would never jeopardize our people, but I was once a girl among starving men and women. If I had bread, I would have given it to them. Now I am a woman, and I can.”

“They have nothing to give you, Sansa.”

Although the scars of war were fading from his face, Sansa could still see the dark circles rimming his eyes. They both had their wounds, they both had their ghosts, they both had their nightmares. But while she was summoned by darkness, pursued by silence, Jon was still lost to it. Choices not made, those he had made, they still sat before him as if he could return one to select another. He did not visit the past, he was still caught, trapped in it in every moment. He was not haunted; he lived it.

Sansa sat down and began removing her boots. “I didn’t ask for anything.” She wandered to the water and shivered as it lapped at her toes. As if listening to a song only she could hear, she closed her eyes, and swayed, ever so slightly, as the water reached up the beach to touch her, before falling away.

“I have nothing to give you.” Not sure why he had to say it, but Jon did, cursing himself for only ever being able to say the wrong thing to her. 

She had no reaction, he thought she hadn’t heard, and for some reason, instead of walking away, he pulled off his boots and joined Sansa, cringing at the feel of the water, and yet, still wondering how he had never thought to do such a thing before.

Sansa had not opened her eyes, and he looked at her in silence. Her toes were red from the cold, her fingers coated in sand, strands of her hair were loosed from her braid and clung to her throat, her cheeks were chapped by the wind, and she was painful, painful to want, painful to miss, painful to love.

He wanted to turn away, he wanted to leave her, he wanted to not want her. He reminded himself of his anger, his suffering, his—and even while he listed it all to himself, his fingers stretched out and brushed against hers.

They were cold, and the grit of the sand wasn’t pleasant. He thought she’d clasp his hand in hers or pull away.

She didn’t.

He had been a man of the Night’s Watch, Lord Commander, King in the North, and yet when it came to Sansa, he was a boy, a bastard, a fool, every action and desire damning him before he took it, tormenting him after.

He pulled his hand back.

“Nothing. You have nothing left to give.” She said, for she had heard him after all.

He was ashamed to even look at her now; she saw him too clearly. He forced himself to look at her face, and in it he saw what he always did, trust and anguish.

“Someday—” She stopped herself, as if knowing there was only suffering in speaking, only torment to be found in hoping.

It was not ocean water that clung to her eyelashes. He did not think it was the settling mist that dampened his.

She stepped back into her boots and joined the children. They laughed at something she said and demanded she admire their collections of rocks. Her red hair was caught, lifted by the breeze, and he thought he could almost join them. He could just walk across the beach and—it was a wish, just a wish that he could. How he wished—what did it matter what he wished?

He couldn’t sit with his brothers. He couldn’t eat with them during the feast. He couldn’t be anything but a bastard. He could never be a Stark. It doesn’t matter he had told himself as a boy.

The Northern Lords had given him a crown, knelt to him, accepted him, and he gave it away. It doesn’t matter he had told his people.

What does it matter what he wished?

It doesn’t matter his queen had told him as she dug her nails into his skin and stripped away his title, the trust of his people, her faith in him.

It doesn’t matter his queen said as she reached for his family.

What you want doesn’t matter.

It never had, not to the world, not to the Watch, not to the women he slept with. It hadn’t mattered to anyone else.

He hadn’t even let it matter to him.

But Sansa was the ocean of wanting, and wishing, of mattering, because he mattered to her, and that was the cost of being near her. He couldn’t stop the wishing. He couldn’t stop wanting. Like the waves rolling over the sand, she poured over him, and he was pulled back to his childhood, rushed forward to his adulthood. Rolled between her fingers like the stones she collected from the shore, as the tide swept over the beach, taking and giving, moving and replacing.

She found him and knew him and changed him each time she touched him. He was loosed from the place he had clung to, the version of himself he accepted gently altered until he was formed anew.

What do you want?

It doesn’t matter, he told himself as his eyes followed Sansa walking toward the trees, children clinging to her hands.

Chapter Text

Tormund thankfully stayed behind in the village, Ghost had disappeared over the next rise, and Sansa stood before him, looking out of the peaks and valleys covered in snow. “It’s like the sea, when you’ve left all land behind what’s before you goes on and on, as if no matter how far you traveled, you’d never—it seems unending. Not that you can’t see it, but as if there is no shore, not anymore.”

“None of us ‘as gone North enough to know if there is an end.”

“It’s frightening, and beautiful,” She pulled her hood down around her ears, “but I don’t know how you feel anything other than lost here.” Her lips were chapped, clouds of white rushed from her mouth with her words, and she shivered enough that he took a step closer, as if he would put an arm around her to share warmth, but it was a thought, just a thought, no. He stood firm.

The wind declared victory over her composure. She stomped her feet to warm herself, rubbed her arms, “I always thought we lived in the North, but I can’t imagine any of the lords enjoying this. I might send any who get too obnoxious up here as diplomatic envoys.”

“Do they trouble you?”

“No, no more than when you were gone.”

“They were not easily managed?”

“It was nothing.” She started to make her way down the hill, stepping carefully.

“They did not trust me,” he surmised from her unwillingness to speak of it.

“Their king did not belong in the South.”

“Did they—"

“Yes.” She stopped, anger trickling out with each word, “You left, and they wanted—yes.”

“You could have taken it. It would have been understandable—”

“Would I have even considered it? Would I ever take what was yours?”

He felt accusation in her voice. Of course she hadn’t, but she must think he had. “Everything I did was to protect the North.”

She moved down the hill quickly, recklessly, and he had to scramble faster than was safe to catch up to her. He tried to stop when she suddenly turned on him and found himself sliding instead. She grabbed his arm, and both staggered, barely managing to stay upright. She seemed to not notice, too intent on him, on his words, her face devoid of relief, just pale fierceness. “I know. I didn’t at first, at first I thought—"

“I know what you thought.” He couldn’t help the hint of bitterness, that after warring together, after ruling together, she had questioned him, but as soon as he spoke he remembered what she said of Littlefinger. You would have wondered if I had summoned him to save the North or if I had given the North to him. He had questioned her for not speaking to him, even though she had given nothing but herself in the bargain.

“Jon—”

They were standing together, her hand still grasped his arm, her hair shockingly bright against the pale sky. Everything else became nothing. All he could see was her, the anger fading from her face, replaced with that expression he had seen so often before.

You’re a Stark to me.

It doesn’t matter.

You’re good at this you know.

It doesn’t matter.

You know I do.

It doesn’t matter.

He wished she would tell him the things he thought were true, release him to banishment, allow him to be well and truly alone at last, but she refused. She always refused. He opened his mouth to say something about the cold or Ghost, but the sadness in her face made it impossible for him to do anything more than be. He should step away, he should stop her, they mustn’t speak of this.

She sighed, “The North runs as freely in my veins as my blood, my wolf’s blood, the same as yours. We serve the North. Neither of us could betray it. It would be a betrayal of ourselves.”

She turned back, retracing their steps to the village.

He trembled under the burden of her trust, that even now, she offered it, insisted he take it.

It doesn’t matter.

He hesitated.

Go on. I believe in you.

He followed her.

*****

The next morning he stumbled from his tent to see Sansa tending her fire, frying fish that she no doubt caught, her fingers smudged, her nose red from the cold, face happy even without a smile.

How could she bear it all? Prisoner in King’s Landing, beaten as a girl for a war her brother waged, married off to their enemy, touched and used by Littlefinger, raped and tortured by Ramsay. Everything she had lived for, fought for, given away by him.

“How?” He asks without thinking fast enough to stop himself from saying the word.

“What?” She didn’t look up from feeding the fire just a little more wood, cursing under her breath as her fingers came too close to the flame.

“How are you not angry?”

“Why would I be angry?”

He turned away, always turning away, and went into his tent. The flap lifted, and Sansa was in the small area with him, taking up entirely too much space, standing before the entrance. There would be no turning away, no escaping now.

“Why are you angry, Jon?”

“I told you to trust me. I asked you to have faith in me.”

“I did. Although you gave away my freedom, I did.”

“It was necessary! She was our only hope!”

“Oh Jon, still? Even now?”

She moved to place her hands on his cheeks, and he flinched, remembering when another woman had done so, remembering how he feared her. Sansa pulled her hands away, settling them on his shoulders, not dissuaded from speaking, gently holding him to make sure he heard her, “You were our only chance. You knew, so you saved the Wildlings. You knew, so you forgave the Northerners for refusing the call. You knew, so you turned our enemy into our ally. You knew, so you sought out the greatest army Westeros has ever seen to defend the realm. Every man and woman that lives in Westeros, every child that plays in the snow, or feels sun on their cheeks, they owe it to you. You are the reason they breathe.”

“And then I stood by while thousands burned.”

“That wasn’t—”

“I asked you to have faith in me, and you shouldn’t have. You were right not to. I told you to trust me, although I didn’t entrust my fears to you. Not trusting me was wise.”

“I did trust you. I did have faith in you. I believed you. I still do. Telling your secret had nothing to do with trusting you. I did not trust her.”

“It might have been different. If I’d listened to you, if I’d told you, it might have been different.”

“It might have been worse. We don’t know what would have happened. Perhaps there would have been unrest before the war, perhaps I would have spoken too much and angered her, she may have burned Winterfell. We will never know what could have been. All we know is what we did. We all made our choices, Jon. I have accepted yours. I do not regret mine.”

He did not know that he regretted his either, that in looking back, he had found a better way. Yet, to accept it, to move on, to let it go. He did not know that he could accept this way forward.

“I’m leaving. I’ve been away too long already. I just wanted to—” She searched his face for something and offered a smile that disappeared as quickly as it came to her. Her hands fell to her sides and Jon missed them. He missed how she pulled him to the present, how she pulled him to her. But she was leaving the tent and taking whatever momentary clarity with her, leaving only her words, “You were our only hope, and you saved us.”

And then she turned away, as he had done so many times, and Jon discovered that being left was a far different thing than leaving.

*****

Willing or no, it slipped through his fingers. The anger, the pain, the guilt, he intended to live within them, and just as he decided to cling to them, they withered and died in his hands.  

If Sansa had stayed, if she had argued, he would have been able to build up the fire of his anger, to warm himself by its heat, but Sansa had refused to feed his wrath, had denied him his shame, and if she wouldn’t blame him, how could he? He had held his anger to himself, it was dear to him, but how much dearer still was it to be loved.

He waited for the voice to tell him no, she did not, could not love him, but he thought of her eyes, her smile. She had not asked him to come home only because she had seen that he couldn’t. He thought of her dancing in the snow. He had taken, but he had given, and it was not for him to decide how she balanced it. She did not weigh the burden of what he had done, only accepted the gift.

He thought of saving his brothers of the Night’s Watch, saving the Free Folk, saving the North, and yes, he had saved the South too. Many burned after, but without him, they would have all died before. He had died. He was clearly meant to die again, but Sansa hadn’t permitted them to take his life. He was supposed to die. He was supposed to die during the Battle of the Bastards, and yet, she had saved him then too. How could he accept it?

He thought of Bran, who did not want to be king, but accepted the duty. Bran, a boy who had not been allowed to become a man, but something else. A god who bore witness to all, and yet must not touch humans indiscriminately, must allow some evil to strike, for even a god cannot control men, could not stop a dragon. Bran had died and yet he lived, he found a way to bear it.

He thought of Tyrion who had loved his queen, but loved his brother more, even loved his sister, and yet his queen had killed them. Tyrion had tried to stop her, reason with her, warn her, and nothing. Now he lived within the charred remains of the city he had hoped to save.

None of them had been able to stop her, Tyrion, Bran, Sansa, himself. Try as they each had in their own way, they had all failed, and yet, they lived on. They lived on in the midst of their ruins, fixing what was broken, instead of running, instead of hiding, instead of being lost.

No distance or length of time would mend it all, but to return, to continue to live, to carry the past while walking toward the future, there was hope in that. There was love in that.

Escaping was not the same as being free. Sansa could dance when he could not. She laughed when he was unable too. She smiled when he had forgotten how. Abandoned by her family, caring for their people, in the home where she had been tortured, where she had been threatened by his queen. He was sickened by what he had permitted in the hopes of directing the fire elsewhere.

Sansa was the strongest of them all, even when they failed her, she had never failed them.

She would not let him fall.

*****

When she left he thought it might be years before he saw her, that perhaps this goodbye was the last, but each breath was too heavy, each task too pointless, each day too long, each night unending.

The Free Folk moved on from their camp near the sea, pressing deeper into the North, and each step was more distance, and each step should have been relief, and each step should have been freedom.

But Sansa had gone South for him.

It doesn’t matter.

But Sansa had come North for him.

It doesn’t matter.

But Sansa would not let him fall.

It doesn’t matter.

It mattered to him.

*****

It was only a few weeks before he headed home.

*****

He told himself he’d buy a horse once he was beyond the Wall, so he said goodbye to Tormund, who laughed at him, and left with only Ghost running before him, Longclaw on his hip, and a pack on his back.

He and Ghost took their time, skirting one hill only to have to climb the next, barely finding a safe route down one for the next to be a gentle slope. Tormund had said before that the air in the South was unbreathable, but step after step, Jon thought the sun was brighter, the air sweeter, and while he didn’t know where he was, each step felt right.

He walked along rivers, laid down in patches of grass to watch the sky that was growing bluer every day. He climbed a tree just because the thought occurred to him, and when he decided to jump to the ground, he twisted his ankle, not enough for real damage, just enough to hurt. He cursed himself for his fool notion for days, but when he saw another tree fit for climbing, he threw down his pack and pulled himself higher and higher, branch by branch, thinking of Bran as he did, wondering how far he flew.

Sometimes there was no supper, not until Ghost grew annoyed and returned with a scrawny hare, and Jon guiltily took his share while his companion eyed him with a hint of disdain.

Some days were so warm Jon removed his furs. Some nights were so cold he pulled Ghost closer than even he wanted to be. He ran his fingers through his fur, catching in knots, and he thought of Arya, and wondered if she had seen new lands in her travels, if she looked up at night to unknown stars, if she had found what she was looking for.

Some days Jon didn’t walk. Sometimes, he couldn’t take a step forward, and he couldn’t take a step back, so he sat, and waited, listening to voices from the past. Sometimes it was himself, only his own voice that he heard, recounting it all to him, how he had wronged her, how he had hurt her, how this was his worst mistake yet, that Sansa hadn’t asked him to return because she didn’t want him home after all.

Sometimes he thought he would lose his courage and turn back.

He didn’t.

*****

He came to the Wall, but he had promised himself he would never walk through Castle Black’s gate again. Instead, he wandered in the trees until he came to the section the Night King had destroyed. It was night when he found it, but the moon was low and bright, so he crossed anyway.

The path between the fallen ice was treacherous, but he’d climbed the Wall itself once, struggling through its broken pieces wasn’t impossible. He laughed as Ghost padded along, somehow sure of foot even amidst the ruin, while Jon fell several times, sliding along until snowdrifts between the pieces of ice caught him, but finally, finally, he had crossed the worst of it, and could safely pick his way through.

It was hours later, with Ghost on one side and a fire on the other that Jon thought of climbing the Wall with Ygritte, of venturing past it for Dany, of reuniting with Sansa. They had found each other in its shadow, left it together, and had been side by side until he left her, and left her, and left her again.

He thought of her walking away from him, and few things had cut him so deeply. Not being left, the realization of what that must have meant to her. How she must have felt each time he had walked away. And somehow, no matter how many times he’d left their conversations, walked away from her advice, distanced himself from her, left her to journey South and then North, she was always warm, still caring, and he knew she loved him.

The scar over his eye throbbed. She loved him.

His eyes burned no matter how furiously he blinked. She loved him.

Tears blurred the stars above into the darkness, the flames were nothing but a bright mass, and sobs intermingled with shuddering breaths escaped him. She loved him.

She lived because he loved her, and in spite of loving him, she lived.

He shouldn’t want it, he shouldn’t accept it, but he would take it all the same.

Chapter Text

By turns Sansa had missed him, cursed him, longed for him, raged at him, wept for him. He had fought for Winterfell with the Free Folk, with a giant, with his fists. He had won the Lords’ respect, he had earned her trust. Then, he had traded it all, and his crown, for the chance to fight for them again.

He came home with Dothraki and Unsullied and dragons. He fought. He won. And she could not help herself; she was awed by him. He laughed and drank with her, with their people, as if he were any man, as if he belonged with her, not the figure who would give birth to songs and legends. She thought of her accusations, their arguments, but she could not stop herself from loving him. He sat so near her she could touch him, but she could not have him. He left her again to complete the bargain, and the people died, and the Dragon Queen died, and she could not save him.

The stories didn’t matter, the songs didn’t matter, what everyone knew didn’t matter, because she knew the truth of it: Jon had killed his queen, his lover, his aunt for her. After sacrificing so much Jon gave all he had left for the chance to save her, one last time. She had her song. It was terrible, and it was everything. She was a girl in love; he was a hero.

When she finally saw him with the Free Folk, she felt no closer to him than when they were on different sides of the Wall. Killing had become his life, and yet, he could not walk away from it as she had. She had used Littlefinger to protect their family, and then she killed him. Jon had done the same, but he suffered for it. Everything she wanted to say, to insist, to demand, it was impossible to speak when she saw him, when she saw what had become of him. Her unspoken words were forgotten on the journey home as she shed her tears, a heartbroken girl, but when she stepped ashore, she had only smiles for her people. For she was more than a girl; she was a queen.

And yet, no matter how many times the moon bloomed large before it faded away, piece by piece every night, only to rise again and repeat its performance, she found herself returning to where they had once stood side by side, struggling to find a way to understand, a way to be. They bled into each other, too different to make it easy, too intermingled to be able to find the seam where they were joined. She told herself to stop thinking of him, to find meaning in her work, comfort in caring for her people, but it wasn’t enough. Each night as the moon disappeared, she hoped it would take that part of her that wanted, but it failed her. She remained herself, full of love, of longing. The devotion of her people, and hers for them, was not enough. For Sansa Stark was more than a queen; she was a woman.

She thought of the before and the after. Before they retook Winterfell, after he became king. Before he left for Dragonstone, after he returned. She thought of King’s Landing, of the Free Folk village, but no matter Jon’s anger, his fear, his sacrifices, his suffering, he looked at her the same way. The threads that bound them could not be severed. Dragons in Winterfell had not revealed them. Fire did not destroy them. The death of his aunt could not sunder them.

She wished him peace, but on days when she was hounded by Lords demanding what she would not give, she had thought Jon fortunate to have escaped this frustration. Those passing thoughts never shamed her more than when she had finally seen him again. When she thought saying goodbye to him at King’s Landing was heartbreak she had been naïve. Seeing him exiled from his family, but not from what he’d seen, not from what he’d done, that was heartbreak. He was condemned by the past and to it. He walked it, breathed it, ran his fingers down the scars telling him of the betrayals and death of it.

She shook herself, breathing in the air that smelled of a storm. He must save himself, and she must be patient. It would take time. It may never be. Her eyes closed as she drank in the cold air. It would snow soon. There were orphans living in Winter Town who would need wood, she would send blankets, food from her own kitchen. The cook would complain to her face, and then praise her behind her back at such demands no matter how often Sansa suggested she reverse that.

She longed for the coming Spring, for life to emerge as if nothing could hold it back, for the traces of war to fade and disappear, making way for what it had saved. She opened her eyes, looking out across fields that were no longer blackened with the fires of war, but had yet to be greened by Spring. Soon, she thought. Soon. Even in the darkness she knew the dips and ridges of the fields, and even in the darkness, she saw a rider emerge from the trees. She could not see him well enough to know, yet she knew. The dark figure on horseback could be no other, and then a streak of white when Ghost ran past him towards Winterfell, telling her with certainty it was him.

She had walked away, so he had come to her.

Before she knew it, she was standing in the courtyard, the gates were opening, and he was there. Jon stepped off his horse, but stood where he was, as if he was uncertain of his welcome. It was his first time in Winterfell since he had arrived with dragons, armies, and a new queen, and he stood by his horse, unsure of himself as if he did not know his place.

She did not reach for him as she had before beyond the Wall, or as she had in King’s Landing. She did not leap into his arms as she had at Castle Black. She knew she could not speak without weeping, so she walked with him from the courtyard to the stables with as much ease as if the Queen in the North often visited them in the dead of night. Ghost nosed at her hand as they walked, so she cooed to the direwolf while Jon walked silently beside her. She accepted that it might take time, that perhaps he wouldn’t stay, that he had come for a final goodbye before leaving for the North forever. Hope was so unfamiliar she did not need to kill it, for it did not spring to life within her.

Sansa waved away the weary stable hand who had stumbled to his feet, and now happily disappeared, and Jon tended his horse himself. She still could not speak and was therefore grateful that he didn’t either. Jon was Jon, and wrestling with himself, being lost to the rest of the world was his way, and she was thankful for that for the first time. Soon his horse’s nickering was joined by the sound of Jon’s low rumblings as he removed the saddle and wiped the beast down with a handful of straw.

Ghost panted next to her so Sansa knelt, pulling burs from his fur, scolding him for his ragged appearance, all the while thinking that while she had never ventured to the stables much as a child, never as a woman, she hadn’t experienced such peace since she was a girl.

Eventually she realized the noise behind her had ceased, and she looked over her shoulder to find him watching her. She opened her mouth to speak, but in two steps Jon had reached her and pulled her into his arms. The smell was foul, and his clothes were filthy, and his beard scratched her cheek, but she was enveloped in him, and maybe this was what she had gone beyond the Wall for. More than being in Winterfell, this felt of home. 

He clung to her as desperately as she had once held onto him. “Sansa,” he said, and then again, “Sansa.”

And she thought at last they had stumbled upon where they were joined. It wasn’t pieces of a shared childhood, flashes of each other in the periphery, it was what knitted them together while taking back the North, defeat, struggle, barely savored victory.

Like an open wound that hadn’t the opportunity to heal, every argument settling on another, fear cutting into the rawest part of each other, until she was convinced they could never overcome it, that each slice would be the last, but it never was, for nothing could end this. Named and nameless fears always pulled them apart, but this drove them together. It was love. A brutal love that pulled her into his arms, and him into hers.

Her hands were lost in the fur of his cloak, his settled on the back of her head, and she thought it would fall away, everything from before, all the times they had failed each other, they had paid their penance, that now, they might finally have found a way to begin.

Jon was trembling, she thought from cold, and when he pulled away, she saw tears. “Why? Why can’t you let me be?”

He did not mean why had she come to him beyond the Wall. She had thought the same, felt the same. He was with her, always, as she was with him. In his absence she saw him everywhere. In hers, he heard her voice on every wind. The ache of him leaving her was reciprocated by his agony in leaving.

She had lived it; he had endured it. Now, they must speak of it.

Inability to speak had been their downfall. If they were to truly have a beginning, it could only be in one way. “Because I love you.” Sansa’s eyes were clear, her voice steady, there was no fear, for whether it was to be or not, they must have this. They must speak the truth at last. “I have loved you since you knelt over Ramsay’s body covered in his blood. I loved you when you left. I loved you when you returned.” And then it was hard to speak the rest, but she continued, “I think—I know you love me, Jon, even if you do not want to.”

Jon blinked, nodded once, the same look upon his face as when he had agreed to go to war for her. Or maybe it was his face when he asked her to care for the North in his absence. Some part of him frightened, some part of him resolute, some larger part trusting. She wanted to speak, more than that, she wanted him to speak, but he had given so many times before, she would not compel him to do or say anything now.

They had given everything for this love; it was time it gave to them.

“Come” she placed her hand on his arm, his eyes fell to it, and then his rough hand descended on hers, covered in grime from his travels, coated in horse hairs, and yet, she had never been so happy to be touched before. She remembered feeling this way as a girl when she received a rose at a tourney in King’s Landing, and she blushed that after everything, after each time she had told herself she wasn’t, she was still that girl, even now. His eyes traced the color spreading across her cheeks, and she thought they must surely match her hair now, and then his fingers followed its path as softly as if it were a thought more than a touch.

“Sansa.”

She looked at him, and he opened his mouth to speak, swallowed as if wishing to catch the words before they escaped him. They were close, but he moved closer. She wondered if he would—no, she could not allow it. They could be seen, and she was a queen, not a girl, but he was with her, near her, all around her, and—

“I want you” he said, as if it had not been a journey of miles but years, not years but a lifetime, not one, but a life and a death and yet another life. “I want to love you,” he said, his voice hoarse as if the pain of wanting but not having had worn away at his throat as he traveled, as if his unspoken wishes rioted within him, more desperate for escape with each step towards home. “I love you,” he said, breathing as if three words had emptied his lungs.

She had never seen him this way before, but this was Winterfell, and while he had been king and hero here, nothing could change that he had also been deemed a traitor here, raised a bastard. That had buried itself far deeper than the rest.

This was his battle: to return, to speak, to offer himself, now that everything else was gone, yet still there.

Jon had come for Sansa, and what a fight it was for him to say it.

“Since the first time I held you in this life, I’ve been yours. Everything—it was all—I only wanted to—”

“I know. I know.” She placed a hand on his cheek, guiding him to her. “It’s alright, it is all alright.”

There would be time, time to explain, to understand, but hers were not idle reassurances. This love, their love, it was all of their suffering, their history, but also, their future. More than their shared pain, their love could be sweet. It could be soft like their first kiss, gentle, like their second, and like their third, which was rather less soft and gentle, but Sansa liked that too.

Later, when she had recollected herself, later, when she remembered that she was a queen, later, when she realized that no one had been told of Jon’s return, that all anyone knew was that she had led a man in desperate need of a bath to the stables, and—they really mustn’t linger alone any longer. “Jon,” breathlessly, “We mustn’t, no more.”

“Aye.” He sighed, his lips still brushing hers, his fingers trailing down her unraveled braid, “No more.”

Sansa’s were still curled into his hair, grit and grease beneath her fingertips, “One more” she said, and smiled at his huff of annoyance that she had indeed meant only one.

As they left the stables, she slipped her hand into his, and laughed that it was that that made him blush. “Did you come all this way without even once thinking that I’d never let you go again?”

His embarrassed half smile appeared just as the promised snow began to fall, settling in his dark curls, in the furs on his shoulders. Sansa thought that this time their shame would be abandoned, their fears forgotten. Perhaps their story would now be marked by joy rather than sorrow, in words rather than silence, that this time—

But Jon had stopped, pulling her to him again as he murmured one last confession into her hair, “I hoped.”