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In hindsight, it probably wasn’t Jon’s best idea to splash around in the freezing rain. It definitely wasn’t Jon’s best idea to drag the heir of Winterfell around with him, resulting in one very unamused Lady Catelyn, two very sick boys, and approximately three scoldings by Maester Luwin and Old Nan.
So Jon is lying in his bed, nose stuffy and throat aching, staring up at the ceiling of his bedchambers with the most intense feeling of regret an eight year old has ever experienced.
Rain patters against the window sill. Robb and he had been separated into different bedchambers as part punishment and part Maester Luwin’s orders, and so Jon has nothing to occupy his time with besides books and staring at the ceiling.
Jon shifts under the covers, rubbing a hand over his face. Gods, everything feels so… syrupy. Like everything’s slipping by him.
It’s because of that that Jon doesn’t realize his door had swung open and shut until he hears quiet feet on cold stone.
He blinks hard in the dark, trying to see who it is.
“Whosit?” Jon asks, and winces when it comes out as a croak.
There’s no response. Jon is half convinced that he hallucinated whatever that was and pulls the blankets up to his chin, shutting his eyes.
“I had a nightmare.”
Jon blinks. He peeks out of the furs to just barely see her in the moonlight.
“Sansa?”
Tiny feet move closer to the bed until he can see her teary face. Jon sits up.
She sniffs and rubs her eyes.
“Robb was asleep,” she mumbles.
Jon stares at her for a second. She meets his gaze with big blue eyes, copper hair mussed from sleep.
He knows well enough that this is a common occurrence. He’d woken Robb the countless times she snuck into their room, and Robb would let his sister stay under his covers until she stopped crying. Jon had always tried his best not to interfere.
He sighs and then moves over.
“You’re going to get sick, you know.”
She doesn’t seem to mind, and with a tiny huff she clambers onto the bed. Taking the furs, she sits down next to Jon with the blankets pulled up to her chin.
Jon stares ahead, wide awake. He’d slept through the entire day, and now he’s never going to be able to go outside because of his bloody cold and inability to sleep normally and damnit he just wants to be outside again.
But then there’s a wet snuffle next to him, and the irritation flees in an instant. He looks over at Sansa with a frown.
“Sansa?”
She’s curled herself up into a tight ball, head buried in her arms. Jon feels wildly out of his depth.
“Sansa?” he asks again, more urgent than the first time. He shakes her shoulder lightly, trying to get her to look at him. “Sansa, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”
“I’m scared,” she whispers from behind her arms.
“It was just a dream, Sansa,” Jon says, quite uselessly. “You don’t have to be afraid of dreams.”
“But I’m scared,” she whimpers, and when a small sob shakes her body, Jon’s on the verge of a panic.
“No, no, don’t cry,” he pleads. “Please, please don’t cry, Sansa.”
And then she’s crying harder, and by the old gods and the new how has he managed to make it worse?
“Sansa, please,” Jon tries again. When she doesn’t stop crying, he shifts closer to her and wraps an arm around her hunched shoulders, his right wrapping around her to form an awkward hug.
“There, there,” he says (once again uselessly). He pats her back in jilted movements, unused to having to comfort little girls from nightmares.
Oh, he is going to kill Robb for sleeping through this.
After a minute, Jon moves to pull away when Sansa clings to his left arm, keeping him halfway wrapped around her. Jon frowns despite the relief that seeps into him.
“You really are going to get sick, Sansa.”
Sansa clutches harder. How is she so strong? “I don’t care.”
She’s warm, and the illness has frozen him to the bone despite its mildness. Jon leans against the wall, letting her use him like a pillow.
Once he’s sure Sansa’s calmed down, Jon asks hesitantly, “Do you wanna talk ‘bout it?”
His sister’s quiet for a long moment. “No.”
Jon nods.
“Do you — do you want me to walk you back to your room?”
“No.”
“Alright,” he says uneasily. “So you just want to —”
“I wanna stay here.” On the last word, her voice cracks. Jon lets her scooch closer.
“Alright,” he says again.
They sit side by side in the spare room, one of them kept awake by dreams and the other by sickness. Jon isn’t quite sure what to say. Robb had always handled these situations — after all, Lady Catelyn had been very clear that brother is not the same as half-brother. Jon tries not to let it bother him. His siblings don’t seem to care much, and Lord Stark doesn’t either.
There’s another snuffle, and he looks at his sister with worry creasing his forehead.
“Do you — do you need anything?” he asks, fidgeting with the furs. “Do you want me to get Lady Catelyn?”
Sansa shakes her head slowly. Then, considering, she asks, “Can you tell me a story?”
“I don’t know any stories,” Jon says slowly. Sansa clutches his arm in a vice-like grip.
“I want a story.”
“Okay,” Jon says quickly. Brat.
It’s annoyingly fonder than he meant it.
He shifts on the bed, trying to come up with a story.
“Once upon a time,” he starts, “there was a princess. And this princess was very pretty, and very smart, and — and one day she met a knight. She liked him a lot, and so —”
“What’s her name?”
Jon blinks. Then, at the top of his head, he says, “Sansa.”
Sansa sighs next to him.
“Alright,” Jon says, “then…”
He tries to think of another name. The room is half illuminated by the light of the moon, casting a soft white glow on the wall across from them, the windows to their backs and up near the ceiling. The wall is a slate of grey stone, aged and weathered, only interrupted by a large oak door.
“Door,” he blurts.
There’s a pause. Jon shuts his eyes. You’re an idiot.
Flatly, Sansa echoes, “Door.”
Might as well stick with it. Jon takes a deep breath. “Aye. Door.”
Another long pause.
“I changed my mind. Don’t tell me a story.”
“It wasn’t that bad!” Jon protests.
“Her name was Door.”
He grumbles half-heartedly. Sansa raises a pale hand to brush her messy hair out of her face. Jon tries to tamp down a cough.
“You’re sick,” she says.
“Aye,” Jon says, sneezing into his elbow away from her. He shivers despite the warmth of the blankets.
Sansa reaches for the extra furs at the end of the bed and tugs them up to cover them. The tears have long since dried on her cheeks, but her eyes are still puffy and face splotched with pink. Jon reaches around her to grab an extra pillow, putting it behind her so she’s not against the hard stone wall.
“I’m sleepy.” Sansa curls further into his side, wrapping her arms around his waist.
Jon moves so her legs aren’t jabbing his hip. “Then go to sleep."
She doesn’t respond.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
When there’s still no response, he looks down at the head tucked against his chest. “Sansa?”
Maybe she’s already asleep. Lady Catelyn will be furious if she finds them, but at least Sansa’s not crying anymore.
Jon doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at the white-washed wall on the opposite side of the room. He sits there long enough for his arm to go numb, and long enough that his throat is actually starting to not feel like raw sand is trying to drown him.
But then Sansa takes a deep breath. Jon isn’t sure if she’d woken up, or if she just stayed still enough he thought she was sleeping, but either way when she speaks into the fabric of his shirt it’s weighted in a way sleep can never imitate.
“Mother and Father and Robb and Bran and Rickon and Arya were gone,” Sansa mumbles. It’s so detached he thinks his blood has turned to ice in his veins. “And you were far, far away, and I was all alone.”
Jon’s still.
“I’m scared,” she says again, a whisper.
He lets his arms circle around her in a tight hug.
“It was just a dream,” Jon promises. There’s a strange feeling in his chest — like he’s lying.
“Go to sleep, Sansa,” he says. “It’ll be alright.”
She’s boneless in his arms, like the entirety of what makes her Sansa has fled. Jon tucks the blankets around her from where they tangled and brushes the hair out of her face with his free hand. He adjusts his grip. Rests his chin on the top of her head.
He’s never seen her so upset before. Doesn’t know how to fix it.
But she won’t remember this in a week, he tells himself, trying to ease the worry churning in his head. There’s no need to be concerned.
After all, it’s just a dream.