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Dating Reverend Jon Snow was truly a unique experience. It was nothing like she ever expected it to be and yet better than she could have ever imagined. Sansa often found herself feeling like she was in some kind of dreamland that she never wanted to wake up from.
Granted the last time she’d “dated” anyone, she was a teenager and within a matter of months was engaged before running away to nursing courses to escape said engagement. She’d watched in the paper as Joffrey’s family slandered her and her family then as he courted and quickly married a girl from a wealthy Southern family. Her relationship with her family fell apart from there and it had taken years for any sort of recovery to happen.
Now Sansa could truly say she was happy and she looked forward to it even when Jon Snow just walked with her from Maegor House to the community center for clinic on blustery spring days in Poplar.
She could very easily say she was quickly falling in love with Jon Snow. This week she was going west to Margaery’s wedding and she was desperately going to miss him. He had too many preparations to do for the upcoming Easter services to accompany her and it was much too short notice for him to find lodging nearby Highgarden, the Tyrell family estate.
“Sansa, I just simply can not deal with the melancholy set of your features right now. I’m getting married this week! I insist on there only being joy this weekend, even if we all know just how desperately you’re going to be missing your beau,” Margaery scolds from where she sits across from her friend with a glass of wine in hand.
Sansa lets out another heavy sigh and tears her eyes from the quickly fleeting London scenery. She usually loved a train ride from industrial London to the quaint countryside, but today it was taking her further from Jon Snow. She’d grown quite accustomed to his company and was loath to be without it for even an evening, let alone a whole weekend.
“Sorry. You’re right. You’re getting married. This week should be all joy. I promise I’ll adjust my melancholy features,” she concedes. “I can’t believe you’re getting married and leaving us. What am I going to do without you? Whoever replaces you at Maegor House just won’t be as great.”
Margaery laughs softly, “Well of course not. I am quite unique, but I’m sure she will be great. If not I’m sure you will whip her into shape, Sans. Who would have thought you’d happily be elbows deep in afterbirth when we first met in nursing courses. I thought you would drop out and run back off to the North for sure. Now you’re one of the best midwives Maegor House has. You will be fine without me, but maybe I can convince Theon to move to Poplar and I can come work with you again. If I’m honest, I can’t imagine going too long without the excitement of a complicated birth or the simple joy of a new baby…”
Sansa hums and taps her gloved fingers against her knee, “I’m sure you’ll be far too busy as the new Lady Greyjoy to be worried about what we’re doing back in Poplar. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to you joining us again even as a boring married lady.”
“Careful there Sansa Stark. I bet before long you’ll be joining me in the ranks of boring married ladies,” Margaery teases her, nudging her ankle with the toe of her shoe.
Her cheeks flush and she brushes off her friend. They begin to reminisce about different births they’ve attended or stories from Maegor House and dissolve into giggles for the rest of the journey to their destination. They both collapse into the same bed for the last time and are exhausted and nervous for their own reasons. The two friends stay up late talking about the past and the possibilities for their futures.
The two days before the wedding pass in a flurry of activities. Margaery’s bridal brunch and shower. Final fittings for both their dresses. Checking details like the cake and the flowers. Then the rehearsal for the wedding and the dinner. It all leaves Sansa exhausted and leaves little time for her to miss Jon Snow too terribly. She does consider calling him for a very brief moment before realizing that it was highly impractical this far from the city. She goes to sleep each night with grey eyes haunting her dreams in the best of ways.
The wedding is beautiful and Margaery is radiant. Theon is kind (something Sansa remembers from childhood) and handsome. Everything Margaery deserves in a man after her own botched previous engagement. Sansa roams the party sipping champagne and thinking about how this could be her soon.
She always knew that dating someone who was a reverend, a clergyman, was bound to be more serious than any other man she might date. However that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought that she might have more time to focus on her career as a nurse and midwife before that happened. Perhaps she’d had enough time already? Three years was an awfully long time for a woman her age to be dedicated to her career and uncommitted in any serious way. Would Jon make her quit?
Surely not, she tells herself. He admired her devotion to her chosen profession. He’d told her as much several times before. She glances down at her left hand where an engagement ring could potentially be sitting. Had he spoken to Margaery? Is that why she said that? Was he planning something soon? They hadn’t been together very long. Only six months at best. Certainly that wasn’t long enough to propose.
She shakes off her spinning thoughts and lets herself enjoy the party. She dances with several groomsmen and Margaery’s brother before she retires for the night.
The next day finds Sansa bundled off on a train not long after she’d bid Margaery and Theon goodbye on an earlier train heading for Bath for their honeymoon. This ride into the city she was by herself just like the one she'd taken after Robb's funeral. It is similar, but also different. Instead of being lost in grief, this time she spends much of it worrying at a loose thread on her gloves and pondering her future. She’s in knots and aching for a busy night of midwifery to distract from her racing thoughts when the train pulls into the station in London. She gets off the train and thanks the porter for helping her down the stairs. Her stomach is still in knots and she feels like she could vomit any moment from worry.
When she looks up from fixing her gloves and her eyes meet grey, all that worry and knotted feeling in her stomach slides away. She smiles brightly and makes her way slowly across the platform towards the handsome clergyman waiting for her. She lowers her eyes for a moment, feeling the intensity of his gaze too acutely to stay locked with him. She reaches him and smiles back at him. His smile widens a bit and he steps forward, closing the space between them to an almost indecent measurement.
“Hi…” she whispers softly, her eyes searching his. Searching for any sign that what Margaery implied was true, searching for that look of adoration she’d become so familiar with over the last several months.
“Hello, sweet girl,” he murmurs; it was an affection he’d only taken to calling her recently and when they were absolutely alone.
“I wasn’t expecting you here…” her hands smooth over the travel mussed strands of auburn. Her cheeks flush lightly, “I...I’ve missed you. I hope you had a pleasant weekend…”
He hums, “I thought I might surprise you. I’ve missed you as well. The weekend was pleasant enough. Would have been better if I had been able to glance into the pews Sunday and see your gorgeous face looking back at me. Did you enjoy the wedding?” he asks, taking her hand.
She nods, “I did. It was a beautiful wedding. Margaery was stunning and Theon is....nice, handsome. Everything Margaery deserves.”
They speak quietly about the wedding as they wait for the porter to unload her small suitcase. When he does, Jon picks it up without being asked and begins to walk her out of the station with one hand in hers and the other around the handle of her suitcase.
They get into a cab and once they’re settled in with their destination given to the cabbie, Jon speaks again, “Are you looking forward to getting back onto the roster for Maegor House?”
She watches his face for several moments like she can hardly believe he’s asked that question.
She brushes off her surprise and nods primly, “I am. I’ve missed our patients and...frankly I’ve missed the simple joy that comes with the arrival of a new baby.”
Jon hums in understanding, “I can imagine you have. It’s always been clear you are passionate about what you do. Several of the parish members have expressed that they hoped their babies would stay put until you got back. They say no one is quite like you. They all admire you very much.“
“That’s too kind of them…” she says, “I’m back on the roster tomorrow evening after the antepartum clinic.”
“Would you like an escort in the morning? I don’t have any parish visits until later in the afternoon.”
She smiles over at him and presses an impulsive kiss to his cheek, leaving a smudge of light pink in her wake, “I’d like that very much, Reverend Snow.”
“As you wish, Nurse Stark.”
His hand squeezes in hers and they make the rest of the ride in relative silence. Suddenly Sansa realizes that she wouldn’t mind spending the rest of her life like this. To be cared for and adored by Jon Snow would be an awfully wonderful way to live. It was this moment in a quiet cab ride from the train station with her fingers tangled in Jon Snow’s that she decided maybe being the reverend’s wife wouldn’t be so bad if it happened to be this reverend in particular. This reverend who seemed acutely aware of how much her chosen profession meant to her. This reverend who was kind and brave and smart and handsome. Maybe Sansa Stark would someday soon be Sansa Snow. Nurse Snow had a nice enough ring to it after all...