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I. - Future
Sansa and Jon will laugh about this.
II. - Present
Sansa has no idea how or when this happened.
This is Jon Snow being super hot and the subject of all the fantasies that she tells absolutely no one about but that she suspects her friend Margaery knows about anyway because, honestly, she knows everything. See also, her sister Arya.
This is Jon Snow becoming her best friend.
This is Sansa realizing she is in love with Jon Snow.
Ok, so maybe THIS is actually three things, but it’s all related and it all hit her all at once.
Winter formal is coming. All she wants is to go with Jon, a fact driving her so crazy that Arya has noticed and finds the whole thing hilarious. Maybe for her own amusement or maybe because Arya cares about her family more than she cares about anything else, no matter what she says, she has decided she is going to help Sansa.
Arya has a plan.
Sansa is laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to her Cranberries-Alanis-Fiona only mix tape, hoping maybe the world will forget she exists (an unusual feeling for the otherwise appropriately confident Sansa), when Arya bursts into her room with the proclamation that her plan has a name.
“We’re going to call it Operation Precipitation!”
“What?” Sansa asks, sitting up.
Arya starts pacing back and forth in front of the bed, fully convinced that this covert matchmaking will serve her well in her future life as an international spy.
“We have to be sneaky,” Arya replies. “We can’t just call it, ‘Operation God knows why but Sansa wants to get into Jon’s pants.’”
Sansa covers her face with her hands, embarrassed but she doesn’t deny it. “But . . . precipitation?”
“Because his last name is Snow and snow is precipitation—get it?”
“Of course, I get it, Arya. I’m not an idiot.”
Arya laughs.
“Please don’t laugh.”
“Are you kidding? This is the funniest shit ever. Jon is coming over and I’ve literally never seen you so . . . so . . . .”
“So what?”
“Here’s a word, twitterpated. And mom says I need PSAT prep. Please!”
“OK, what’s the plan then.”
Arya grins.
III. - Future
Arya will ace her PSATs.
IV. Past
THIS started a year and a half ago. The first day of sophomore year.
Well, maybe it started whenever Robb started playing peewee hockey and he met Jon. They decided they were best friends immediately, and Jon has been around ever since. But that is really only true for all the other Starks. They all loved Jon from the beginning.
For Sansa, it was different. For Sansa, it was sophomore year.
Sophomore year was when her advisor suggested she take both geometry and algebra 2, so that she could take trigonometry as a junior and calculus as a senior.
(Sansa was a math nerd, plain and simple. She wasn’t naturally good at math. In fact, it was something of a puzzle to her. Sansa was good at everything except math, but she is also the kind of person who, when told she need not worry about not being good at something, does exactly that. She wanted to be good a math too and the only people who care about being good at math are math nerds. Anyway.)
Geometry meant she’d miss lunch with her friends, and algebra 2 meant she was in a class with Jon Snow.
It also meant she had lunch with him because he had the late lunch period too.
And then, there was cross-country practice. The hockey coach told Jon to join the team because it would help him with his endurance.
Algebra, lunch, cross-country. These things come in threes, apparently.
On the first day of sophomore year (Sansa’s, Jon was a junior like Robb), he sat in front of her in algebra, giving her a great look at his hair, which he’d failed to cut over the summer and now reached his shirt collar. After sitting down, as she was pulling out a pencil from her bag to take notes, she noticed him looking back at her and when they made eye contact, he winked. Except Jon can’t wink. When he does so, both of his eyes close and never before that very moment had Sansa ever considered that adorable, but here she was.
“Hey, Sansa. Good summer?”
Sansa couldn’t form a word before the teacher started calling roll and Jon turned back around.
On the first day of sophomore year, when lunch came around, Sansa sat on the last picnic table available outside the school snack bar, where Robb, Theon and Jon, promptly joined her without asking. She was annoyed at first, having sat there alone hoping for peace and quiet, but then Jon sat down next to her and quietly asked how her day was going as Robb and Theon argued about some game or other across from them. Had Jon’s voice always had that sexy timber to it? Possibly. But how would she have known having never actually carried on a real conversation with him. It was the first of many. So many.
On the first day of sophomore year, Jon showed up at cross-country and had he always looked so good in gym shorts? Were his legs always so lean? Was his back side always so . . . so. Halfway into their run on the trails behind school, the boys in the varsity group all took their shirts off and when they crossed paths with the girls’ varsity group—Sansa included—she caught sight of him and literally tripped and skinned her knee. The humiliation was compounded by the fact that Coach Brienne made her go to the nurse to get checked out and who else but Jon volunteered to go with her.
He put his shirt back on, at least.
So yeah, it all started the first day of sophomore year.
The year she spent half of every day with Jon Snow, who started sitting next to her in algebra instead of in front of her and became her regular study friend, who suggested they start eating lunch at the benches by the school library to avoid Robb and Theon’s daily fights over “their dumb bullshit” in his words so they could study in peace, who would save her a seat next to him on the van to away cross-country meets and would also save her the least freckled banana from coach’s snack bin because Sansa hates overly ripe bananas.
Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was fate. Whatever the reason, Jon Snow became essential to Sansa Stark.
She never said this to him, but she was sure he knew. Wasn’t it written all over her face all the time? That was what it felt like to Sansa.
When the school year ended, she realized she had never been so excited about summer . . . until he told her that he’d be away for most of it, at his otherwise usually absent father’s house in Dragonstone and then hockey camp. She might have cried when he said as much except that he swept her up in a hug and talked into her hair about how much he was going to miss her and she felt so warm with possibility that she didn’t. She decided she could wait.
V. - Future
When Sansa purchases her first cellular phone, she will consider how much easier it would have made getting through that summer.
VI. Present
Three months is a long time.
Also, Jon didn’t wait.
To be fair, Jon didn’t know he wasn’t being waited for.
Jon was the perfect mixture of clueless and unassuming.
(Sansa found this adorable until . . . well, just wait.)
Clueless and unassuming meant (1) that he did not, in fact, see what Sansa felt was written all over her face and (2) that he would never ever assume that a beautiful, smart, everything-to-everyone girl like Sansa would give him the time of day in any way except as a nice considerate friend.
Jon loved being Sansa’s friend.
He was also kind of in love with her, but he knew that he never really had a shot (and Robb would have opinions about it). So just getting to be in her vicinity was enough. His junior year the gods must have decided that his first 16 years had provided enough misery and here came not just a reprieve but a tsunami of more luck than he could have imagined, and they became not just friends, but good friends—best friends.
VII. - Past
Three months is a really, really long time.
Sansa was pretty sure that three months had never gone by so slowly.
She was definitely sure that she had never wanted for the school year to start this badly.
She thought about asking Robb for Jon’s address at his dad’s house in Dragonstone to write him a letter but knew he would ask why she needed to do that. Her response would have been that she didn’t need to, she just wanted to, which would open up a whole line of questioning she wasn’t ready for.
Her brother, a kind, protective goofball she loves dearly, is a perfect mix of clueless and self-involved and Sansa assumed he probably hadn’t noticed anything changing between Jon and Sansa in the past year. She was right.
Her low point came in late July when Jon called to wish Arya a happy birthday, and Sansa happened to be out of the house. Arya mentioned it casually when Sansa got home, and Sansa nodded, tight-lipped, then practically slammed the door to her room when she made it up there and threw herself on the bed like something legitimately tragic had happened.
She went through three journals.
She read every Jane Austen book.
She felt like she was living in one.
She has modern amenities but still could only pine from afar. (Very, very afar.)
Margaery noticed, of course, but she couldn’t guess who it was Sansa was pining after.
The only good thing about this summer is that eventually it ended.
VIII. - Past
Then, because the universe hates her, apparently, Jon got a girlfriend.
And, because the universe really hates her, she watched it happen in real time.
IX. - Past
The Tyrell’s annual (and infamous) back-to-school party happens a week before school starts and this year it was the very same day Jon flew back from his dad’s.
He was already there when Robb and Sansa arrived.
Robb found Theon and the two disappeared into the crowd almost immediately. Sansa walked around to the patio where she saw Jon sitting on a lawn chair. He was tanned and buff and looked so good, she wanted to cry. His hair was shorter than it had been when she saw him last, but still long. Sansa was sure it was unintentional on his part, but it almost looked styled, still going every which way, but so perfectly . . . so.
10 things? Move over Heath Ledger because right then Sansa could have listed 100 things she hated about Jon Snow.
He was wringing his hands, slightly, like he was nervous. He usually didn’t like parties like this and Sansa knew it and loved him all the more for it. She was not in his line of sight and just when she was about to step forward and wave, someone blocked him from her view. It was a girl. She had red hair too. She sat down next to him—practically on top of him actually—such that he moved over slightly when she did so. He still looked nervous and unsure. The girl—Sansa didn’t recognize her now that she could see her face—kept talking. Jon laughed at something she said. After a minute, he turned away as if to look around, and again Sansa was about to step forward when the girl grabbed his chin and turned his face back toward her to kiss him.
Sansa wasn’t sure what happened next because she turned around and made to go find Robb to beg him to take her home. Instead Margaery found her. She was holding two open bottles of wine. Sansa took one and immediately drank directly from the bottle.
X. - Past
At some point, she kissed Harry Hardyng out of spite, but the whole night was a blur.
Margaery stopped her (and also stopped Harry), thank the gods
XI. - Past
The next day, despite the massive headache, she agreed when Marge said they were all meeting for breakfast.
“All" included Ygritte.
That was her name.
Ygritte.
There was a dozen or so of them there, crammed into three tables pushed together.
The universe gave her a reprieve and Jon and Ygritte sat on her side of the table on the other end, so she didn’t have to look at them.
Sansa stared into her pancakes the entire time. Everyone was hungover so nobody asked her what was wrong.
As they were leaving, Theon made a joke about “Snow’s girlfriend” and “his thing for red hair,” and Jeyne Westerling, who had missed the party and just about everything else, turned to Sansa and asked, “Really? Aw! Finally!”
Sansa widened her eyes and shook her head in a panic.
“But I thought—“
Sansa kept shaking her head even more urgently. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up,” she said as quietly as she could while still getting her point across.
But it was too late.
Jon was standing behind her. She could feel it, just as surely as she could feel his voice in her bones when she heard it for the first time in three months.
“You thought what, Jeyne?”
“I though Sansa was your . . .”
Sansa watched Jeyne’s smile tighten. Ygritte had just appeared and possessively put her arm around him, and suddenly it was clear. “You thought Sansa was Jon’s what?” Ygritte asked
“Nothing. Sansa and I just need to go to the girls room. Never mind.”
Jeyne put her arm around Sansa and pushed through him and the rest of the group back inside. Sansa had never been more grateful for her brother’s girlfriend than in that moment. She cried in the bathroom for approximately four minutes and spent another five—at the insistence of Jeyne, who hadn’t stopped apologizing—throwing cold water on her face so her eyes were not so puffy when they went back outside.
Eventually, they went back outside.
Everyone was hungover so nobody asked her what was wrong.
If they had she might have said everything.
XII. - Past
Junior year featured no classes, free periods or lunch periods with Jon Snow. He quit cross-country too.
Suddenly, the world was back to what it used to be.
Jon and Sansa were acquaintances who smiled tightly at each other in passing, but nothing more.
In early October, Sansa went to homecoming with Loras Tyrell. Along with their friend Renly Baratheon, they spent the night on the gym bleachers critiquing everyone’s dancing and outfits. Eventually, they moved on to rank the hottest guys in school—present company excluded, of course—and Sansa blushed slightly when Jon was mentioned.
(He was her No. 1, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud.)
“Where is he anyway?” Renley asked at one point. “I haven’t seen him tonight."
“I don’t think he came,” Loras said.
“Then why is his girlfriend here.”
“They’re not a thing anymore.”
The conversation continued, but Sansa didn’t hear any of it. For several minutes, she stared off into space trying to get a handle on her feelings, about how she felt about it, having suppressed all Jon Snow feelings since that horrible breakfast like the good, sensible wannabe Austen heroine she still felt like she was. She didn’t come out of it until she felt Loras and Renly both put their arms around her waist. She knew they were just holding hands behind her back so nobody would notice two boys were holding hands. The act made her feel warm, like love really could win against all odds.
The obstacles to it that Renly and Loras were facing were real, painfully so. Hers were just in her head. What was case of bad timing in the face of legitimately oppressive societal norms?
Leaning back to put her arms around them both, she said, “You guys are such dorks.”
XIII. - Future
Even though it seemed impossible when they were teenagers, Loras and Renly will get married.
Sansa will share the story of them secretly holding hands in a toast she gives at their wedding reception.
XIV. - Past
After homecoming, Jon and Sansa still didn’t talk like they used to.
They were still just acquaintances that smiled at each other in passing, but the smiles stopped being strained.
They were nice. Hopeful even.
The first day of November, he called.
Sansa was not sure which of the seven she should have thanked for being the one who picked up the phone, so she thanked them all.
She and Jon made small talk for a minute and then she finally said, “Robb’s not here.”
“I know. He told me he was going to Jeyne’s today.”
“Oh, um, I’m not sure where Arya is, hang on—“
“Sansa?”
“What?”
“I called to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
“If you want to. It’s just been a while, you know?”
Sigh. “Yeah.”
They talked about nothing, and about a half-hour later, they were friends again.
One might even say best friends.
Like the last few months never happened.
Like things were right before the last school year ended.
Perfect.
Well, almost perfect.
Because Sansa is in love with her best friend and in spite of it all, isn’t sure how she got here or what to do about it.
XV. - Present
"So what does it entail?” Sansa asks Arya.
“What does what entail?”
“Your plan.”
Arya crosses her arms and purses her lips.
“Arya don’t make me say it.”
“I’m afraid you must.”
“Ugh, fine. Tell me about ‘Operation Precipitation.’”
Arya rubs her hands together in glee. “I just went through all of mom’s pictures from last year and I have it all figured out.”
It really isn’t much of a plan.
So far as Arya is concerned they just need to be forced to confront their feelings. Watching Jon with Ygritte did that for Sansa, but Jon needs a similar kick in the pants. Sansa doesn’t want to try to make him jealous and Arya says she doesn’t need to. When she tells Sansa her actual idea, Sansa says she expected something much more complicated.
“You think this is going to be easy? If it were easy, you two would be married with children by now! Pulling his teeth out would be easier than getting Jon to talk about his feelings, and for some reason, you were in everyone’s face about how much you liked Joffrey in middle school but now that you feel something that’s more than a crush on someone you can’t bring yourself to say it even to yourself!”
“OK, that’s not true!”
“So you’ve said it to yourself. Congratulations! Have you told anyone including, oh, I don’t know, Jon Snow.”
Sansa rolls her eyes. “Well . . . no.”
“As much as you tell yourself you’re OK just letting things be there way they are now that he doesn’t have a girlfriend, you’re not OK, San. And you definitely can’t expect him to just figure it out.” Arya sits down and puts her arm around her sister. “Listen, it’s quite possible that he’ll come over tonight, trip over himself and accidentally land on your lips, and that would be that, but that’s not going to be satisfying.”
“Kissing would be very satisfying.”
Arya laughs. “I know you want to kiss him, but what I mean is for this to be the Austen novel you want your life to be, it’s not enough for you two to just magically get together. He has to know just how long you’ve been pining. This will do it.”
Sansa stares at her sister. “You’re being weirdly wise right now for a virgin who can’t drive. I’m not sure what to think.”
“First of all, waaaay harsh, Thai. But you can thank Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The monsters are just metaphors for teenage hormones. My emotional IQ has gone way up.”
“I think Dawson’s Creek is actually having the opposite effect on me.”
“You can always come over to the dark side.”
“There’s no Pacey on Buffy.”
“Dark-haired best friend of the golden boy—you do have a type.”
Sansa grabs her pillow and throws it at Arya. “So the plan?”
XVI. - Future
Sansa will be happy when Joey chooses Pacey.
XVII. - Present
Jon is coming over with Theon to watch a Die Hard movie marathon with Robb and Arya. On Arya’s insistence, Sansa makes herself scarce.
Arya notices that Jon notices that Sansa is not there but doesn’t say anything right away. Between Die Hard and Die Hard 2, Arya goes up to the kitchen to pop more popcorn and drags Jon with her. In the kitchen, Jon notices a photo on the counter that hadn’t been there when he got there. It’s of him and Sansa the previous year at the last cross-country meet of the season. They are both sweaty and flushed and smiling. He’s looking at the camera, slightly embarrassed but clearly happy. Happy in a way that seems to have stayed unique to last year.
Sansa isn’t looking at the camera. She’s looking at Jon, in a way he’s never seen her look at him before. A look of such genuine fondness—love—it feels like he’s seeing something in Sansa that is entirely new.
“Where’s Sansa?” he asks, his voice cracking.
“Who knows,” Arya responds in a tone that under normal circumstances Jon would have immediately pegged as disingenuous.
The popcorn has stopped popping and without waiting for Arya to respond, Jon says, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
He runs up to Sansa’s room, the photo still in his hand. He knocks slightly and opens the door. Under normal circumstances, Jon would never go in, but he feels urgency right now so he does, and finds another photo of them taped to the center of her vanity mirror.
This time it’s from spring break. The Starks went camping and invited him along and in the drive back they stopped at a scenic overlook to take pictures. He and Sansa are standing on opposite ends of the group with Robb, Bran, Rickon and Arya all between them. He has a similar picture in his room, but in this outtake, Robb’s is leaning back laughing, Arya has her eyes closed and Sansa is leaning forward looking at Jon and smiling as he looks at the camera.
He looks all around the room and there is one more picture taped to the back of Sansa’s door. It’s from the last day of school last year. He and his mom and several other family friends had been invited to the Starks’ house for dinner. The picture is of all the kids sitting on the grass. Everyone is smiling or making a funny face at the camera. Everyone except Sansa who is looking at Jon.
All three photos in hand, he runs back downstairs. He’s about to go find Arya to ask her again where Sansa is when he notices a light outside and sees her there sitting on the back porch.
She turns toward him when he opens the door. “Hi.”
“Can I ask you something?” He asks.
Sansa’s cheeks burn when she sees what he’s holding as he sits next to her. “Um, sure.”
“Do you remember the Tyrells’ party at the beginning of the year?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see Ygritte kiss me?”
Sansa swallows a lump on her throat. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know she was going to do that.”
“OK.”
“Shit like that doesn’t happen to me.”
“Like what?”
“Girls just randomly kissing me. Girls liking me at all. It was so . . . surprising, I didn’t really know what to do about it. It never occurred to me that anyone would like me that way. Especially you.”
“Why is it occurring to you now?”
Jon’s lips turn down slightly, which Sansa knows is the way he smiles sometimes. He hands over the pictures.
Sansa looks at the pictures in her hands. She's almost embarrassed how obvious it is. “I’m just looking at you.”
“You’re seeing me.”
Sansa smiles so big it hurts. “Are you seeing me?”
Jon smiles so big it hurts. “One could say we’re seeing each other.”
XVIII. - Present
“Where the hell did Jon go?” Robb asks.
“Operation Precipitation is in effect,” Arya replies.
“Is that your weird way of saying it’s snowing?”
Theon walks back into the room after having gone for a bathroom break. “Snow is making out with your sister outside. Just start the movie.”
XIX. - Future
Jon and Sansa will go to winter formal together.
Jeyne Westerling will have had too much of whatever Robb put in his flask and will grab them while they’re dancing and say, “This is what I was talking about!”
XX. - Future
Sansa will say good bye to the 1990s dancing to Prince and kissing Jon Snow.
She will never doubt her sister’s plans—or plan names—ever again.