Chapter Text
She has no make-up on, she can’t find her key card in the chaos that is currently her handbag, she’s forty minutes late to work (and counting) because of the absolute nightmare that is downtown traffic during morning rush hour—Sansa can’t remember the last time she’s started a day so badly.
Okay, that isn’t entirely true—she started the day well enough, actually, waking up to the smell of fresh coffee in a soft warm bed. It was perfectly lovely, until she caught sight of the unfamiliar navy blue walls and the clothing flung all about the room and registered the unmistakable sound of someone taking a shower in the next room, the realization of exactly whose bed she was in slamming her awake. The resulting scramble to gather up her things and leave unnoticed was not the proudest moment of her life.
She shouldn’t have just snuck out like that, she knows, but she doesn’t think she could have faced the absolute awkwardness of facing him either. They’d both been lonely and a little bit more than tipsy, running into each other at the bar last night—her after seeing Joff and Marg together, him still bitter over his last break-up—and Sansa won’t fool herself into thinking that it’s anything more than that, no matter how wonderful the evening was. She’ll call him later to clear things up, after she’s finished up with all the small tasks and errands that seem to pile up over the weekend.
If she ever even makes it to the office. She still can’t find the elevator key card in the mess of things she tossed into her bag in her mad dash earlier. Sansa’s ten seconds away from dumping the contents of her bag on the floor just to find the damn thing, when a hand snakes past her to insert his own card into the slot. The doors ding open.
“Thank you,” she says, turning to beam at her savior, before stopping dead. For someone who barely got any sleep, Jon Snow looks amazingly well-rested (although he got a proper shower at least, she thinks with some resentment).
“No problem,” he says, gestures for her to go in ahead. “What floor?”
“Twenty-ninth,” she says, and he slides in his key card again, tapping the buttons for 29 and 31.
The doors slide close. Sansa resists the urge to flee to the opposite end of the elevator car. She can feel his presence beside her, his fingers beating a tattoo onto his jeans, his eyes resolutely fixed to the slowly climbing numbers of the display.
It would be easier to stay silent, to get off at her floor and pretend they never ran into each other an hour and a half after she snuck out of his apartment after a one-night stand. But Robb’s birthday is coming up, which means the usual weekend ski trip where they’ll have no choice but to interact normally, so Sansa decides that they need to establish the rules of their relationship post-hookup (i.e., act as if they were still more-than-acquaintances but not-quite-friends).
“Busy day today?”
He shrugs, eyes still glued to the display. “Couple of meetings. Sam’s doing most of the work, really.”
She soldiers on. They only have to make awkward small talk for ten more floors. “How is Sam?”
“He and Gilly just got engaged.”
“That’s lovely—"
The elevator shudders to a halt. Sansa stumbles, and Jon grabs her waist to steady her, swearing under his breath. She steps forward, away from his hand, to jab at the alarm button on the control panel.
He sits on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out. “I’d make myself comfortable if I were you. Last week I was stuck in here for an hour.”
She stares at him in horror before sinking to the floor on the opposite side of the car. “Shit.“