Chapter Text
"You do look like Prince Rhaegar."
He looks at her across the table; the candlelight gives her a long, haunted look, shadows dancing across the dips in her faces and the swoop of her neck. It makes her look older, and sadder. She has been sad for so long.
"There was a portrait of the royal family," she continues, "In the storage rooms of Winterfell. Father had it taken down after the Sack, but I found it when Bran and I were rebuilding. Princess Elia was so beautiful." She sighs wistfully and continues sipping at her wine. "I idolized her, you know. It was my dream to be married to the prince, to have sweet babes. Father told me of their wedding. She was the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms."
"I knew what happened to her, of course. I just chose not to care. Being the wife of a queen seemed to wipe away everything. Arya cared, though." Sansa let that comment hang. "She said I was foolish."
He doesn't quite know what to say, thinks of Arya, beautiful, strong-willed Arya. I could have given her everything, but she thought it all foolish. Lady Lyanna had been beautiful, and the realm had bled for it. Arya knew it. They both did. "You have her smile, though." Sansa's looking at him again, her eyes bloodshot from the wine. "She had a pretty smile." A pause. Neither of them move.
"In the end, I just wanted to go home. I realized Arya was right - not in all parts, Seven, we were children. But she knew King's Landing was not all it was held up to be, and in the end I just wanted my mother back. And I couldn't even have that, and when I saw Jon again..."
"Lady Sansa, you're drunk." His voice cracks. It is all he can say.
She makes no motion to leave the table, instead shrinking further in her seat. It is a sad picture, the pretty girl illuminated by candles. She is younger than me, and has seen more besides.
"You know what Jon said when we saw each other again?" Sansa says, and her voice is higher, thinner. "You look so much like Lady Catelyn. It stung; my lady mother, bless her, did not treat him too well. I suppose it was justified, her treatment, but it weighed heavily on him.
"I loved him," she continues bitterly. "He was everything I wanted - Winterfell. The North. My father. My brothers. I wanted him to stay, especially after Bran left again. I told him I did not want to rule Winterfell by myself while Rickon grew up, not even until he did. I could not do it; I was five-and-ten! I needed someone like him with me - someone strong, dependable, trustworthy - " hiccup - "He didn't love me back, of course. I treated him cruelly as a child; I think I looked too much like my mother for him to really forgive me." Her face is somber, longer, angry (maybe at herself, maybe at Jon), and for a second he sees Arya.
"I told him we could be Father and Mother again, rule the North together - " A pause. "It was foolish of me. He told me I passed up Winterfell for you, Sansa. All I wanted was someone by my side, and he left me for Arya. They love each other, they always did - when we were younger it was always the two of them, and me and Robb. I loved Robb, I did, the four of us made a pretty picture, they were Stark-colored while Robb and I were Tullys but - I did not love him to that extent." She says it as if she's still trying to believe it. "In the end, I suppose everyone had always loved her best."
He wants to interject, tell her how much he wanted Arya to love him, too. Arya was beautiful and feisty and strong, as he had thought he himself was. He'd thought it was a way to subvert history's expectations, that perhaps loving her was a way to tie himself to his father. But she'd up and loved his brother instead.
But he can't tell Sansa any of that, so he just tells her, "Let me escort you to your chambers." She doesn't protest when he takes her arm, and they walk in companionable silence to her chambers, letting the ghosts of their loved ones crawl over them.
"Thank you," is all she says before she shuts the door.