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“What happened back there?”
“Apparently, we weren’t the only ones with the munchies tonight,” he deadpans. Leave it to Jon to be so casual over running into a nest of Walkers during their supply run.
“You froze up. You never freeze up.”
When faced with the zombies that inhabit their concrete jungle these days, Sansa’s kind of 40-40-20 when it comes to flight, fight or freak out. But Jon…well, it might take a week to draw him into a conversation sometimes but he never balks when it comes to action.
His back’s to her but she can see the way he tenses. “Check Ghost for me.”
Sansa rolls her eyes but tends to the dog, methodically inspecting him for any signs of a bite. She’s smiling before long as a big white tail keeps thumping against her side and she gets a wet snout stuck in her face more than once for a kiss.
“You’re a good boy,” she murmurs, grateful that Jon had found the dog and convinced Robb that they should keep him. His keen hearing and sense of smell has warned their group of danger more than once. “I’ll share my dinner with you.”
Ghost licks him chomps and she can hear Jon chuckling. He’s been checking over their weapons in silence. That’s his job every night, among several.
Sansa has a few jobs but not as many as the others. Mostly, they tell her that her job is to stay alive. And sing. Jon had once casually mentioned he likes it when she sings if they’re feeling relatively safe, says it's nice to remember the way things were now and then.
“We’ll stay here tonight.”
“Robb will worry.”
“He will but I told him we might have to shelter in place if we ran into any of them while looking for food. It’ll be safer out there when it’s light again and he’ll forgive us when we bring all this back with us.”
“Okay.” Sansa pulls out a can of the tuna they’d found at the abandoned grocery mart earlier, the one that had turned out to not be completely abandoned. “Think these packets of mayo are alright?” she asks next, rummaging through her rucksack.
Jon opens one and gives a sniff. “Yeah, they’re fine.”
“Tuna salad for dinner then.”
“Delicious.”
“Disgusting. I hate tuna salad.”
“Too bad you didn’t pick up something more to your liking then,” he says when she passes over the box of stale crackers to go with the mixture of tuna and mayo. “At least you got those twinkies for us to share.”
“Who says I’m sharing my prize catch with you, Snow?” she sniffs, enjoying his rumbling laughter in reply.
He leans into her as he eases his way down onto the cot they’ve set up in tonight’s hideout. “You’re sharing because you love me, Stark.”
She does. She’d never expected to love Jon Snow, not this way, but she does. It makes her stomach flip and her toes curl up.
It’s been two hundred and seventeen days since the world went haywire and there’s been a lot of adaptions to make in a short amount of time. Walkers are the worst this new world has to offer.
And Jon coming back from Castle Black has been the best and most unexpected.
Straight out of school, he’d joined up and Sansa had been too busy with her studies and social life to care.
But when everything went to shit, Jon returned and their little pack of survivors, twenty-three including Ghost, were much better off because of it. Robb’s the nominal leader by agreement but Jon’s training and knowledge makes him invaluable.
Sansa’s never seen him falter in the face of danger…until earlier at the grocery mart when the Walkers had started coming down the aisle towards them.
She’s not much of a shot. She doesn’t like using guns to be honest. Getting picked to come along with Jon on this supply run hadn’t frightened her though because she was with Jon and she always believed he’d keep her safe. Tonight though, she’d been the one to clear a path and get them moving with Ghost’s help.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly as they drink their tepid bottled water after the tuna salad, crackers and twinkies have been eaten. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Don’t be sorry but…what happened back there?”
“The red head. I froze when I saw her.”
Sansa tries not to look at them, tries not to think about how they were once people like her. It makes it easier.
“Did you know her…before?” she asks, suddenly recalling that his first girlfriend back in school had been a redhead. Ygritte.
She’d stumbled upon them kissing once in her parents’ basement, ages ago when she’d been a kid and didn’t think twice about Jon Snow. She thinks more than twice about Jon Snow now. She thinks about him all the time. She doesn’t want to think about him mourning a lost love when he’ll be holding her close on this cot tonight. Her tuna and twinkies aren’t settling so well.
“No. I just saw the red hair and…” He swallows hard and she’s convinced he’s remembering Ygritte until he takes her hand and says, “I thought of you. I thought how I couldn’t stand to…if something happened to you and…”
Her heart gives a flutter and a smile is twitching to be seen. They’ve touched each other, slept side by side several nights now, offered comfort in the form of hugs and even kisses when that seemed to be needed but never really addressed this thing between them. With everything else going on, it seemed like too much to acknowledge that they were becoming a couple.
“You don’t have to worry. No bites, see?” she says lightly, holding out her arms and then pivoting to pull her hair up so he can see all of her neck. “You’re still stuck with me.”
He puts his hands on her waist, his dark grey eyes sincere when he tells her he wouldn’t have it any other way.
That flutter keeps doing its thing.
He kisses the nape of her neck and says he’ll take first watch.
“No watch tonight. Just rest. Lay with me.”
Jon’s stubborn at first but she wins this battle. Dawn’s not too far off and they can return to the others. Ghost is snoring but Sansa knows he’ll warn them of any danger. For tonight, they’re alone except for one sleeping dog and…
“Did I tell you what else I found at that store before we were so rudely interrupted?” she asks him.
He’s been slowly caressing her tummy and her sides, his breath evening out as he holds her. “No, what?”
She twists to face him and likes the way his eyes flash when she answers, “Condoms.”