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Riding into Castle Black’s courtyard, he doesn’t spy her right away as he’d hoped. There are men and horses here belonging to the queen’s escort but no Queen in the North. He feels oddly disappointed. He’d hoped she’d be waiting for him like the last time they met after time apart. Hope should be a foreign word to him by now.
It’s been a few years. Lean, hungry and busy years of rebuilding for the people of the North. He’s grown leaner himself but no less lethal.
What of her? How has she changed? How is she the same?
In his mind’s eye, he has tried to picture her at times… more than he might wish to admit during cold nights by the fire. The images of the former half-sister who once sought his protection in this place blend with other thoughts and feelings, ones he should push away for the sake of his sanity.
A guard approaches to say the queen is waiting to see him in the King’s Tower. Ah. He’s to wait upon her, of course. Young Sansa would’ve insisted upon such protocols, wouldn’t she?
“You want to bathe first, Jon Snow?”
He chuckles at Tormund’s teasing though he’s not wrong. He could certainly use a bath. “I won’t keep Her Grace waiting that long,” he replies, striding off to where she waits with a racing heart.
Two guards stand outside her door, both eyeing him warily. He supposes they have cause to mistrust him with their queen but she has nothing to fear from him. They let him pass with no comment and he raises his hand to knock. A faint voice from within calls, “Enter.”
After the blinding whiteness of outdoors, it takes his eyes time to adjust. A figure sits at the hearth with her back to him, slim and straight-backed having shed her cloak. Her long auburn hair glimmers, reminding him more of copper kettles and the taste of fresh-picked apples than fire.
“Sansa…” She does not turn right away and something bitter twists inside him. Perhaps the years have changed things. “I mean, Your Grace.”
His eyes have only fully adjusted to the interior gloom when she turns and it’s like the sun’s radiance has been directed straight at him. Her smile, her evident pleasure in seeing him chases away that bitter pang from a moment ago.
“Hello, Jon,” she says with every drop of warmth he’s silently craved in his chilly wasteland.
He can feel the corners of his mouth turning upwards in reply to her smile but then his mouth falls open instead. On her lap, chubby and cheerful, sits a babe of six moons or so. A child. She has a child.
The child makes a gurgling noise and Sansa’s attention turns towards it, cooing and smiling, her hands gently soothing. When her eyes raise to meet his again, the babe is happily chewing on some sturdy ring the queen had plucked from her skirts and he’s managed to tack on a smile. He should be happy for her.
But inside, he’s drowning. He’s suffocating. He’s consumed.
By what?
Envy.
Longing.
It’s not just the envy of knowing he will never hold a child of his own in his arms and the longing is something better left unsaid.
But, who’s child is this? What man has she-
“Your Grace, I do apologize,” a woman’s voice cries as the door opens behind him. Jon spins to find a lady dressed in Stark grey hurrying towards and then past him to the queen. “I hope he was no trouble.”
“None at all. You know I enjoy him, Sara,” Sansa says as she gives the babe’s head a wistful sniff and little kiss before surrendering him.
The lady bobs her head, cradles the child close to her chest as she gives Jon a sweeping glance. “I apologize for interrupting. My lord.”
It’s obvious she feels awkward not knowing how to address him and he realizes he recognizes her, Lord Cerwyn’s wife. The women exchange a look Jon doesn’t know how to interpret, almost like a silent debate is being held. Then, Lady Cerwyn starts to move past him. Jon doesn’t miss the way her nose crinkles up. Maybe he should’ve taken Tormund’s advice about bathing.
“What’s his name, my lady?” he asks before she can leave, his throat strangely tight and voice gruffer than usual.
“Robb,” the lady replies with a somber expression. “I had told the queen the babe would either be named after her or for one of our past kings.”
Robb. The name makes his chest ache.
“I’m glad it was a boy,” Sansa teases, lightening the mood.
Lady Cerwyn chuckles and leaves with her child. They are left alone. He’s not sure what to say. “I thought…”
“You thought the babe was mine,” Sansa finishes for him, laughing. “I suppose I can see why. It has been a long while since we last met.”
A long and lonely while. Melancholy rises up. The years have made him pine for things that cannot be. It doesn’t change how things are. His life will be lived at the Wall. This visit from Sansa will be but a brief spell to fuel his fevered imaginings in the coming years.
Except…
“Actually, Jon, Robb is part of the reason I decided to make the journey here.”
He shakes himself from his inner turmoil to listen not sure why her cheeks are suddenly turning scarlet or why she’s twisting her hands together nervously in his presence.
“I’ll need an heir, you see, but it must be by someone I know I can trust…”
