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“Sansa, what are you doing?”
He understands very well what she is doing. What Jon means to ask is why, but that won’t curb her irritation now, although her voice remains even when she replies, her hands never stopping their fumbling with the laces at her back.
“Undressing. When you’re done asking stupid questions, I could use your help, you know.”
“Why are you–” He cuts himself off before he can finish that sentence, stammering instead. “You don’t have to– to undress.”
“I just need to get my gown off,” she says, still focused on her task. “I’ll wear my shift if you’d prefer.”
Jon moves closer to her to still her movements before she can drag her arms out of her sleeves. He can already peek at her collarbones as things stand.
“Sansa,” he tries again with a stronger voice. “We don’t have to do anything tonight. Let’s sleep.”
“Are you truly so naive? I’ve already had one marriage annulled on the grounds it was unconsummated. I won’t give anyone a reason to doubt this union.”
She is looking back at him in complete puzzlement. He is bewildered too — they never spoke about this when marriage was first brought up, nor since, but standing alone in her bedchamber now, one expectation facing them after performing all the steps an audience required, it seems rather short-sighted of them both when it is apparent their ideas on the matter never converged.
Has a woman ever had to reason with her husband in favor of bedding her on their wedding night? It pains him to think that Sansa might have experience with the opposite situation. At no point has he heard her say this is what she desires. What she speaks of is duty, and fear still somehow when that is the very thing he meant to spare her from ever again by making her his wife. It would be so easy to give in, to divest her of her clothing and consummate their wedding. But Jon swore to protect her when they reunited, back when they still thought themselves siblings, the same vow he repeated earlier in the godswood as he fastened a cloak over her shoulders in sights of gods and men. He doesn’t want to be another man who hurts her.
“How would anyone even know what happened or didn’t happen tonight? Let others believe what they want.”
“No! We’re not doing this halfway. If you’re to be my husband, which you are now, then I will act as your wife. I’m not asking you to love me, Jon, I’m only asking that you let me keep my promises too. Why did we go through with this wedding otherwise?”
Does she mean to irritate him into compliance? They are no strangers to disagreements, but this isn’t one he ever thought to have with her, married or not. What does that even say of their marriage, he wonders, that they’re arguing already only hours into it. Perhaps the whole thing was short-sighted. All he’s done is try to be sensitive of her feelings, but can she truly feel no reluctance whatsoever at what she suggests they do? Jon knows where he stands. It’s not her he’s annoyed with, not really, but he means to shake off this mask of false bravado she put on, and shock suits that purpose well, so he fixes her in the eyes and says, “And who am I bedding, will you remind me? My sister?”
Her reaction is immediate, cheeks flushing red, though not entirely from embarrassment it seems. “Do you not listen to me? Regardless, you’re free to picture somebody else.” Then, she’s tugging at her sleeves, her head turned away from him.
“Sansa.” His wife makes him repeat her name, reach for her hands again and not let go before she finally raises her gaze on him. “I don’t want to picture anyone else. Do you?”
“I am done living inside my head.”
There’s a steady resolve on her face, and those are steadier words that fell from her lips. Here they’ve found themselves somehow, on the strangest of wedding nights, inside a castle that was meant for neither of them. This was her mother’s room, Jon suddenly recalls, the warmest in the keep for a lady unaccustomed to winters in the North. Sansa was shaped by the South in ways that are still jarring to him at times, and if once he might have called her a familiar stranger, the distance between them that justified the pronouncement then was bridged before today. His face might bear the telltale evidence of his mother’s house, there in front of him stands a Stark with the spine to prove it. A spine more unyielding than the coldest winters in the lands beyond the Wall. This lady carries the North in her.
Carefully, Jon steps behind her, promptly starting to secure the dress on her again, asking himself if what he’s now resolved to do is no less foolish than the alternative he is decidedly turning down. Sansa seems to think so already.
“Am I meant to sleep with my corset on?” she deadpans, eyes ahead while Jon’s fingers work at her back.
He huffs. “I’m not sending you to bed.”
“How kind.”
Facing her again when he’s done, he says, “Get your cloak” — and before she can protest — “Just trust me, all right?”
The few guards on duty on this night of celebration look at them funny when Jon and Sansa walk past them. They don’t run into anyone in the courtyard, but there’ll be talk on the morrow of the king and queen strolling through Winterfell when they should have been abed. So much for avoiding rumors.
“What are we doing, Jon?” she asks as they enter the godswood. He only points ahead with his chin.
Inside the lanterns that illuminated her path to the heart tree earlier, the candles are still burning. Only a distant spot of light at first, their glow grows more intense with each step they take in the same direction the flames lead to. Someone should have put them out. It’s not a good idea to leave fire burning in a forest, no matter how contained the flames might appear to be. This is where Sansa’s thoughts have wandered when Jon finally speaks.
“Do you remember when you came to the Wall?”
“Of course.” There’s a little chill in the air, not enough that their breaths condense before them, but it is working to cool her down if that was Jon’s intention, which she might as well allow. Being cross with him isn’t how she envisioned tonight either.
“I’ve broken every vow I’ve taken. I said I’d protect you, but you’re the one who protected me. You still are.” They stand in the same spot where Jon brought her under his protection as his wife mere hours ago. It’s a different time in a different setting he references, though.
“Don’t make more promises, Jon,” she warns, voice wary, “if that is your intention. I don’t want them.” She has never lost track of the reason for their marriage. A means to join their separate claims to Winterfell, to give legitimacy to the man who was revealed not to be Ned Stark’s son after all and to the trueborn daughter who is decidedly a woman — and more else besides. Jon means well, when doesn’t he, but vows leave her unmoved when she’s met so many people with little regard for the words they swore. Care, Jon does plenty, and try his best always. However misguided she might consider his actions to be at times such as this one, Sansa knows this and relies on it more than any promise made to her. Jon is a good, though deeply frustrating, sort of man. The best one in her acquaintance by far.
“Father used to say it’s impossible to lie in front of a heart tree.” She watches him look up to the savage embroidery of branches and leaves above their heads, inhaling once before he lowers his gaze back on her again. “I should have told you before. It was cowardly of me not to. In my defense, I was merely hoping to spare you any discomfort,” he tells her cryptically.
“Discomfort?”
Jon stands before her looking like he’s fighting hard not to feel the very sensation he mentioned and losing in his attempt, while she waits, curious now, for an explanation. His words are no great help in giving her one, however, when what he hesitantly settles on is, “Of living with the knowledge… Of turning me down.” Sansa still has no clue as to his meaning until he gathers his courage and speaks again, leaving no room for confusion this time. “I love you, Sansa, more than as a brother or once brother. I have for some time.”
Whatever she could have imagined he might say, it isn’t this, and all she can do in answer is utter a very stupid sounding oh to relay her surprise.
“Yeah,” Jon agrees with a puff.
“Well,” Sansa tries for a better suited reply, “I can think of worse confessions from a husband to his wife. No discomfort felt.” Her lame attempt at humor, however, does not succeed in lifting the awkward mood that has promptly settled between them, nor in convincing Jon of the veracity of her claims.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her, mouth twisting.
“What for?”
“I should have told you before the ceremony,” he repeats. “When the proposal was made. So you may have reached a decision with full knowledge of your options. It was selfish of me not to say anything.”
“Jon, I don’t mean this unkindly, but I thought of myself and my needs before I ever considered yours when consenting to our marriage. We might both brand ourselves selfish creatures for it but human too.”
“You’re not angry, then, or” — he swallows — “repulsed?”
Should it repulse her? For some time, he said, that’s how long he’s loved her. It could mean since the moment they knew themselves cousins or before that. Does it matter now which it is?
“If it cannot be the motivation for it, love ought to be where a marriage leads, don’t you think? Ideally.” She offers him a small smile. “Seems we’re halfway there. I suppose I haven’t given up all of my childish notions yet. Perhaps silly should complete tonight’s description of my character.”
“Mine too, then, since I’ve been wishing for the same thing.” Jon takes a step closer, his face tilting down towards hers ever so slightly so that for half a second she thinks he means to kiss her, but all he does is hold her hand in one of his. “We can make this work.”
The hope in his voice, the sweetness of his words… They have the opposite effect than he intended them to, she can tell, stirring the first spark of panic inside her tonight, and she finds herself admitting, “I don’t know that I can.”
“What do you mean?” It’s Jon's turn to look at her with confusion.
“I haven’t a clue how to make a marriage work,” she clarifies. “All I knew in taking you as my husband is that I would be ruling alongside someone competent, and that I wouldn’t have to live in fear of your moods or your touch.”
“I don’t want you to fear me.” An emphatic, earnest headshake follows the statement. “I don’t want to scare you, ever.”
“And you don’t,” she answers plainly.
“So let’s keep it that way. Sansa,” he sighs. “I can’t be another man who forced his way into your bed.”
“Have I not invited you repeatedly?”
Jon meets her gaze hesitantly. He still wears his heart on his sleeve, tonight has been proof enough. She need not search for the location of hers; it is walled off, sealed away inside her ribcage. The years have forced it that way, turning her prudent and calculating. Armor or weapon, whatever name she gives her tricks, it’s more than she ever wanted for herself, but she can also count a victory in that the heart remains. Any idealistic notion she once held has undoubtedly been killed and buried, but as for the rest, she need only press her hand over her chest to feel its stubborn beating. She’s not been made a cynic yet. It makes her feel very silly and frustrated with herself whenever she has to confront that fact, so at odds with the cold pragmatic lens she aims to filter her life through now. Her stance on how tonight should be spent hasn’t changed, but scavenging for some hope of her own, Sansa determines her heart just like her body will be safe next to Jon’s. And he seems eager to accept them both. Some things are meant to be shared, she thinks, looking down at their clasped hands. Jon has already coaxed some careful optimism out of her, so it should be no surprise that he persuades her to indulge in more.
“We can figure out the rest as we go,” she vows to herself.